"Aether, you just came out of a near-death situation!"
"And your point is Princess?" I asked, heading out of the room while Celestia's jaw dropped a bit. Guess she's not used to a pony being rude to her.
"M-my point? Aether, how could you treat something like that as some kind of game?"
Stopping to turn around, I sat on my rear as I gave Celestia a serious look. "Well, let's see then, Princess. I’ve been to over a hundred worlds where most of them I ended up struggling to survive. I had to live on the streets of interdimensional cities when I was young, which wasn't pleasant. I survived being hunted, angry natives wanting to cook me alive, a swarm of baby insects that wanted to eat me, freak weather conditions, catching alien diseases where I was lucky to survive since I ended up in a bubble to be studied, not cured, studied. If I paused each time I faced a life or death scenario, I would have died already. So excuse me for learning how to brush something off so quickly that already happened so many buckin times, Princess. And shut it everypony!" I said, finishing off with a yell to keep all the ponies looking at me from gasping at my rude language towards the princess. "What's with everypony, is there some law that prevents ponies from being rude to the princess?"
"Well... umm... just that she's Princess Celestia..." Silver tried to say as his eyes darted around.
"So?"
"She's a princess..."
"Your point being?" I countered, leaving him speechless until Celestia let out a small laugh, causing everypony to turn their attention to her.
"Oh my, it's actually refreshing to have a pony treat me like that," Celestia said in an amused tone. "Very well Aether, if you believe that it is best to check the containers now, I will defer to your judgement."
Cocking an eyebrow, I simply shrugged as I headed to the next room, with Celestia following suit as the rest of the ponies tried to regain their composure before following as well. Like the last room, we proceeded with the same safety precautions, except this time Celestia brought the sheet of metal along, which caused me to ask, "Hey, why didn’t you summon this thing in the first place, Celestia?"
"It was part of the debris from the portal. I theorized that since it wasn't naturally formed, it may have some use against anything from the other dimensions that could be dangerous as well. Though while on that topic, what was that thing that came out of the container?"
"Long story short, it's another machine similar to the one that attacked Ponyville. I'll explain the details later, let's just get this container open already," I answered, grabbing the lid with my magic as I braced myself for another possible hostile entity. Once again the lids opened without too much effort while I backed away, waiting for something to jump out only for nothing to occur. Inching closer, I cautiously took a peak, only for my jaw to drop at the sight of the container's contents.
"Aether? Are you alright?" Celestia finally asked after a few minutes passed, which snapped me back to reality. Well, maybe partly brought me back, for I instantly engulfed something that I actually recognized inside the container, hugging it like it was some precious family heirloom.
"Oh... I always wanted something like you. Pap—err... mama is going to take good care of you," I said to myself as I hugged a gun. Specifically, a four foot long rifle that shot plasma bolts from its plasma battery core at either a semi-automatic rate or a concentrated shot for some real damage. I was stroking the gun with my hoof for a while when I finally heard some pony saying my name over and over, causing me to look at the glass wall to see everypony giving me a weird look. That's when I realized that I was hugging some unknown object to the uninformed... with probably a feral grin plastered on my face.
"What... hasn’t anypony seen another pony hugging something that they wanted to get their hooves on for a long time?" I said in my defense, though I could feel my cheeks heating up.
"And what per say, is that thing you wanted for so long?" Silver asked, tilting his head while a smirk on his face.
"I for one can't believe that aliens would have a container full of foalish toys," Golden said, as the rest of my recruits began to mutter to each other at the scene I just made.
"Hey, it's not a toy! It's a dangerous weapon! Wait... nevermind!" I yelled before I realized my mistake.
"A weapon!" several ponies exclaimed as a golden aura engulfed the rifle, tugging it away from me.
"Hey, that's mine!" I shrieked, before I realized that I sounded like a whiny foal.
"Aether, I don't know why you would want a weapon, even less why you would hug such a thing," Celestia said.
"Simple, it's a... very good weapon, and when you're on a hostile world, you would want to have a very good weapon with you."
"I still find that to be an abhorrent reason for such a desire, though I have to say I never seen any weapon like this before," Celestia said as she turned the rifle around while inspecting it, until its barrel was pointed at her.
"Don't point that end at anypony!" I shrieked, causing Celestia's eyes to widen a bit before jerking that end towards the ceiling. "How about... you give the gun back to me, before anypony gets hurt by accident?" Nodding, Celestia carefully floated the gun towards me, till I grabbed it with my forehooves and held the rifle pointing up still.
"Considering your... reactions, I assume that it is safe to enter the room then?" Celestia asked as she eyed the rifle with worry.
"Yeah, as long as nopony touches this weapon or the other ones in the container," I idly replied while inspecting my new gun.
"Other weapons!" everypony exclaimed, looking at each other in shock as Celestia decided to be the first one into the room. When her head was able to view the remaining contents of the container, her pupils literally shrunken to the size of dots. Inside the container was a small armory's worth of guns, and not the cheap kind either. Pistols, railguns, fully automatic weapons, heavy one-pony artillery guns; there was enough to make a small group a rather large nuisance to any mid-tier corporation.
"By the sun and stars," was all Celestia said as she stared at the contents, other ponies slowly coming in and expressing the same level of shock when they saw all the weapons.
"I know, a lot of weapons. If only I had all this in my former life, would have made my job a lot more safer for me," I commented.
"Why would anypony even have this many weapons?" Silver asked.
"Hmmm... good question. My guess, either this was part of some shipment for some... organization, or some... bad ponies where breaking the law while transporting this."
"Breaking the law? You mean something illegal? Perhaps smuggling?"
"Maybe, can't be sure since I don't know those two words, but you may be correct about them. Makes me wonder what's in the third container though."
"Well... we can attend to that matter after you return that... weapon Aether," Celestia finally spoke up as she eyed the rifle in my forelegs.
"What? No I'm keeping this one. There's two others like it in the container, go study those two. Though I recommend that you do it in some place away from... innocent ponies and behind much more protective barriers than a glass wall."
"Aether, have you forgotten about the potential effects that can be caused on the weapons from the magic of our world? Remember the probes?" Celestia said in a stern tone.
This caused me to pause for a brief moment as I remembered that rather loud explosion near Ponyville over a month ago. "Fine... but please try to keep this one safe, I still want it. Also, on another note, I doubt that the technology of Equus will be able to reproduce something like these weapons. It would take decades, if not centuries, to get near... this level of these weapons." Levitating the rifle with my magic, I was about to put it back into the container when I realized something. "One more thing, see this part here?" I said as I pointed a hoof at the trigger, "This is what... makes the weapon fire its... well it's how to make it hurt ponies."
"Duly noted, though I suspect that you want to investigate the final container now?"
"Yeah, hopefully it's another box of weapons, but for all we know it could have some horrible monster that wants to tear my face off," I replied, jumping down from the platform as we went to the last room. Following the same set-up for the third time, I pried the lid open, hoping for another weapon stash instead of something nasty. What I saw instead was... well...
"Aether, is something wrong?" Celestia asked, her concern evident in her voice.
"I... can't say for sure cause... I don't know what is in the container," I answered, looking at a bunch of six foot long rods, their coloration a mixture of blues while somehow having an texture that looked crystalline yet metallic in nature. Whatever these things are, they must be durable since they weren't secured like the weapons were, just literally stuffed into this box. "I don't know if what I'm looking at is dangerous or not, so I guess we need a volunteer to come in a get a look themselves before we close the lid."
This led to a short discussion among the scientists till one volunteer came into the room to make his own observations. I even let him try to hold one of the rods up with his magic, which thankfully didn't cause it to blow up in our faces and test the strength of Celestia's shield. Eventually we closed up the container, deciding that it was best for it to be sent to another isolated location for study.
As we left the facility to let the scientist ponies do their work, Celestia asked, "Do you have any suspicions on what those rods are for?"
"Maybe, but nothing for certain. Could be some sort of fuel for a power source or components for a large weapon. It could also be rare valuable material for some decorations, or just something weird. All I can say for sure was that it's something of worth, if the last last two containers were anything to judge by."
"I see, hopefully they're not any danger to this world or its inhabitants," Celestia replied as she looked over the recruits that were following us. "Hmm... I believe there were more ponies that volunteered for your team than this. What happened to them?"
"Oh, they didn't like my training methods, so they left," I nonchalantly answered.
"Aether..."
"Hey, I gave them serious training situations and if they couldn’t handle it, then they won't be able last on the field either. Why are so many ponies giving me grief over this? I'm giving them the closest things to a dangerous scenario without literally putting them in it!"
"Calm down Aether, I didn't mean to offend you. I understand that you're only doing what you think is best for your recruits. While some ponies may object to your training style, I suppose that you are the only pony in this world that would be able to come up with the proper training regiment."
Eyeing Celestia, I let out a huff of frustration as I simply gave her a nod. "Well, with that container issue out of the way, I guess my recruits and I can head back to Ponyvi—"
"There you are Aunty! I was looking all over for you. There are some importa—Aunty, why is this rabble even near you?" Looking to the direction of the origin of the voice, I saw a white coated unicorn stallion with a golden mane coming over. Instantly, I narrowed my eyes as I thought, Rabble? I don't know what that means, but I'm fairly sure that's an insult.