Kelly now adorned an exo-skeleton over her suit, armored with dark and light gray advance armor, protecting her chest, back, shoulder, thighs, shins and her toes and heels. On the face of the chest piece, a small piece protrudes out to partly cover her neck; had her rank emblem stamped on with a silver star with three bars at the bottom. But her left arm was bare of protective, metal covering, just minor, standard steel plating. Why waste good armor plating when there’s a good chance that same arm might get blown off? Well… she had a feeling.
She shakes and moves around her body in the locker room to see if any parts were loose or restricting her movements. With a smirk of approval, she walks over to a wall, a clear space between the lockers and it. She presses her right hand onto it, creating glowing spots on the surface where her fingertips were placed.
The whole, twenty-foot-long wall suddenly jerks inward and swiftly slides up, revealing many, different set of equipment and weapons. First, she walks over to the far right to grab one of ten, armor plated packs. She unhooks it from its resting place, swings it over her shoulder and attaches itself onto her back with a few audible ‘clicks!’ onto her shoulders and under her arms. She steps to her left, grabs two, large swiss army knives in her small holsters and clicks them both on her lower back. She then grabs four grenades and set two on each, magnified indentations on the front of her thighs. She moves a little further down, looking at all the firearms, searching for the right ones, and stops with a smile.
What she learned about the firearms that the ship authorizes to use in dire situations, is that she loved them. Sure, the small Tasers were effective on their own, as well as the dart rifles, but they lack any real kick to them, no power to be felt. Nowadays, not a single firearm uses combustion- gun powder -to fire bullets anymore, they use magnets. Not a measly refrigerator magnets, no, but magnets that fire a metal slug twenty percent faster than the normal means. Of course, each type of gun has their limits to how much power they can give out, but she does know she prefers the weaponized, cluster of magnets on a stick than the pea shooters.
“Thought I never get to see you, ever again.” She reaches out and unhinges the assault rifle from the wall and inspected the weapon like every good warrior should. She grunts in approval, swings the weapon over her back and attaches itself onto the side of the pack. She grabs five magazines of ammo for the rifle and stows them away in a compartment on the side of her backpack. She grabs two Magnum pistols with both living and mechanical hands, and put them in their rightful holsters onto her thighs, grabbing a couple magazines for it as well. She steps back to let the wall close itself and turns back to her locker a few paces away from her. She reaches up into her locker and looks at her reflection on the large fishbowl like visor, tinted gray with a couple grooves etched into the visor.
She smiles, crams the helmet in the crook of her left arm and starts walking out, the lights turning themselves out in her wake.
Once she reaches the correct Docking Bay, she hops off the transporter and floats across and stops herself on a railing. She scans the large hanger while planting her feet on the floor with a light thump; the area was filled with different kinds of ships, in rows upon rows of either sides of the walls. She spots her captain and a young woman standing beside him, wearing her own ex-skeleton; painted white, light plating for minor armoring, and overall looked more delicate. With a quick hop, she travels across the bay over to him, stops dead in her tracks as she steps down a few paces away from them with a little help of small thrusters located through her body and magnifying her soles. She gives her captain a swift salute.
He smiles at her, “Ah! Good timing, Commander. Let me introduce you to Miss Snowlet. She will be accompanying you down on the planet. Your job is to protect her and keep an eye out for any danger or object of interest.” He says.
The white-suited woman steps forward carefully and awkwardly, trying to find gravity that wasn’t there, and brings out her hand with a small smile. She was few inches shorter than Kelly, her hair blond and bright in the light and her skin brighter than the Captain himself. Her baby blue eyes staring at her in kind and innocence.
Kelly firmly shakes her hand for a brief moment. The woman smiles a little wider, “Nice to meet you, Commander.” She speaks with a soft voice. Kelly nods in reply and looks back at their captain.
“Okay you two. You will land on the southern part of the alien city and move up north towards the castle. We would be your eyes from above, but it looks like some cloud cover will be down there in a few moments, but we will keep radio contact and the cameras on your helmets will be our eyes.” he steps aside and gestures to the hatch of the small ship opening down, making a short ramp for them to step in. “Stay safe you two.” He says to them both. Kelly places her helmet on, Snowlet doing the same with a more delicate looking one and both nod to him.
They both salute at him, “Sir! Yes, sir!” they both say in unison and turns to the ship. The short woman takes a step but loses her footing and starts floating up with a squeak. Kelly grabs her foot, pulls her down and gently pushes her towards the opening of the craft. With a quick ‘thank you’ the woman goes and quickly sat down on the co-pilots’ seat. Kelly follows soon after with a hop, the hatch closing behind her and sat herself down. They strap themselves onto their seats and both felt a sudden jolt of motion, the small ship being lifted up in the air by a large, mechanical arm protruding out from the ceiling of the hanger. They both see the captain walking away from them as the arm turns them around and places them in a short, launch tunnel with a transparent, plasma field at the end, stopping the vacuum of space. Kelly powers up and the ship to get the engines started, while Snowlet sits in place, trying to prepare herself of finally going out of the ship but fails as her body shakes a little with anxiety, gripping her armrests tightly.
The captain turns around and waves at the ship right before they were launched right into space. Kelly grabs the wheel and the jets to the sides and two at the back of the ship erupts to life, making the ship swerve to the left and slowing it down. She stabilizes the ship and waits for her co-pilot to calm down for a few moments.
Kelly looks at her passenger with a straight face, “Ready?” she asks flatly. Snowlet nods, holding a hand on her chest as she tries to slow her heart and breathing. With her approval, Kelly looks ahead and lets the ship move forward, towards the planet.
They were awed, seeing the planet not through a screen, but a window. Snowlet does her best not to shed a tear, knowing that she wore a helmet, while Kelly was in trance, staring the planet with hope, but quickly changes to determination; determined to fight and help her species to settle down on the planet.
A target lights up on the screen, showing a series of rings to show Kelly where to fly through space and land. After a few moments, the ships begins shaking and deafening noise rattles their minds. Snowlet clenches the armrests once more, closing her eyes shut, praying for both their lives.
Kelly ignores the violent shaking, years of practice doing their work as she descends down and past the layers of clouds, her ship burning up in the atmosphere but she still follows the path of red rings carefully with small adjustments of her wheel. As they broke through the last clouds, she quickly activates the cloaking of the ship. Slowing disappearing from head to back, becoming part of the sky, the only thing showing were four, blue after-burners of the engines. The violent shaking dies down and Snowlet sighs in relief with a small chuckle.
“Everyone, doing okay?” they both hear their captain in their ear pieces.
“Yes, sir. Entry a little shaky but everything’s still working.” Kelly answers, checking the ships’ systems for a moment before looking back at the path of rings. “Landing in T-minus thirty seconds.” She says once more.
She guides the ship closer to the ground to try and hide the after-burners from view of the city, just in case. She then guides the ship under the city itself and slows down to a stop behind a small waterfall. She slowly lands it down and kills the engines as the landing gear was set firmly on the wet, gravel ground. They both unstrap themselves from their seats and Kelly was first at the door.
As the hatch begins lowering itself down, she grabs onto her rifle from the side of her pack and points it out. She looks at her charge, “Stay until I say so.” She orders her, and Snowlet nods in quick agreement.
Kelly looks back out and slowly does down the steps, pointing her gun in every direction, trying to search for anything suspicious. To her, every single thing she sees was alien to her. The rocks, wet gravel, the wall and ceiling of rock and even the stunning waterfall. Living her whole life in a ship and the strict restrictions alienated her mind on what was normal and what was alien, and at the moment, the whole planet was one, huge, strange ball of dirt. She felt a little heavier, she felt the air itself pushing a little against her movements, but nothing too taxing with her augmented body. Even just being able to see for miles, confused and dazed her in awe, but still true to her training, she continues to search the area for any danger. After a minute or two, she finally calls out.
“Clear!”
The woman steps out and her eyes bulges out in awe and shock. She stays at the entrance for a few more moments, just staring at her surroundings until she sees her bodyguard standing around, searching the area with her gun lowered and her visor cleared to show her face. She quickly goes down the steps and plants her feet on gravel ground. She stops and looks down at the wet ground in awe and grins. She walks around for a few moments giddily until Kelly clears her throat, she looks up at her with a happy smile.
“We’re going to have to send the ship in the clouds, Miss Snowlet. Please step back from the vehicle.” She says as she walks past her and goes up near the opened hatch. A display lights up in front of her and she starts typing out a few things with her left hand, and when she was finished she quickly steps back as the engines starts up and the hatch, with the ramp, closes itself. When it hovers in the air, its clocking activates itself and rockets towards the sky and into the clouds after bursting through the falls, leaving a small rainbow for a brief moment.
Kelly looks back at her charge, “If we get into trouble, it’ll go right to you, and if I’m gone or passed on, go right in and it’ll take you back on the Child of Earth. Understood?” she says in a commanding tone, and the short woman nods, in both fear and understanding. “Good, now get to work. We only have so much daylight to spend.” She turns away from her, “I’ll be searching the area.” She says before walking off to see if there was an easier way to get into the city, quite literally, right above them.
Twilight stands beside her old teacher at the gates of the castle, looking out towards their crumbled city of Canterlot. A cyan Pegasus mare with rainbow hair and tail lands right in front of them with a thud, small bits of dust flying off. Her body was covered in light armor, but the chainmail was left out and the armor plating itself was thinner to make it light, and looked smooth and elegant to make her look aerodynamic. She had two, short holsters strapped to her sides where her two short swords rested, enchanted to be able to stab through heavy armor like knives through warm butter, but took more effort to slice across.
The Pegasus smiles at the lavender friend, “Ready to go, Twi?” she asks and plants her hands onto her hips.
Twilight nods with a small smile of her own, “Yes, Rainbow. You?” she replies earning a quirt nod.
A gentle hand rests on Twilights’ shoulder, Twilight looks up at Celestia, “Stay safe you two. I’ll be at the balcony shortly to keep an eye you both.” She assures them.
“Don’t worry, Princess. I got her back.” Rainbow Dash gestures to herself, “Whatever that came out of the clouds won’t hurt my best friend.” She pulls Twilight in for a bear hug, causing the poor mare to wheeze as she drops her helmet.
Celestia giggles at the display, “Still, travel the Canterlot grounds with caution. We don’t know if the thing is dangerous or not.” She warns.
“Of course, Celestia.” Twilight answered with a smile as she frees herself from her friends’ iron grip and picks up her helmet, putting it on with a strap.
Celestia smiles at them, “I’ll see you both soon and stay safe.” She says to them both before they ran off. Twilight turns around, lifts both arms up to her sides and closes the gates with her magical grip. She takes her breath as Rainbow pats her back.
“Where should we start first?” she asks.
Twilight straightens out as she turns to look at the once, lively, bustling city, “We start here and head south as we go. Just to make sure nothing ‘ell jump us.”
Kelly walks in, in what looks like some kind of store. She inspects the surroundings with her charge at her tow. As she walks ahead, Snowlet looking at a piece of item on top of a high counter and walks towards it in interest. She slowly reaches up and grabs a plushy looking dull from its resting place. It was fluffy and plush to touch, colored a dull green and one of its left black button eye was missing. The dolls’ shape itself was a little strange; almost like a teddy bear with stubby limbs, but it had heart-shaped markings on its thighs and its muzzle a little longer. It had blue stringy tail and hair and that was about it.
She looks around a little more and sees similar items scattered around the shop. She looks closer and the whole place was littered with layers of dust. When she sees her guardian walk out of a room, she smiles at her and waves the plushy to her.
“I guess we’re in a toy store, Commander.” She says and quickly walks over to her, showing her the plush doll. Kelly grabs it with her left hand, briefly inspecting from all sides before showing it back to her charge. Snowlet accepts it and looks around the shop once more, “Captain, are we allowed to take samples?”
“Of course, Miss Snowlet. Carry on.” they both hear their captain.
She takes off her backpack and kneels down. She opens it up, dusts the doll first, stuffs the plushy in carefully and closes it back up.
“Come on,” Kelly says as she walks back in the room she was just in before, “there’s a hole to the other building in here.” She finishes and waits for her at a doors’ threshold. Snowlet quickly follows her in and both jumps across an alley to get to the other building. After they search the empty building, they go back into the streets and walks into a cross section. Snowlet taps Kelly on the shoulder and shows her a ball full of small glass eyes.
“We need to take images, so can you throw this up?” she asks.
Kelly rests her gun on her pack and accepts the ball from her, “How high?” she asks, handling the ball with her right hand.
“Ten feet first, then forty, if possible.” Snowlet answers.
Kelly nods and tosses the ball at the said height, with a small flash, it drops back down and Kelly catches it. She swings her arm around and tosses the ball even higher in the air. She catches the ball once more and shows it to her charge. Snowlet smiles and takes the ball back and puts it back into her pack. “Thank you.”
As Snowlet begins looking around, Kelly turns towards the castles’ tower and sees something that interests her. She points her gun at it and looks through the camera scope. To her surprise, she sees something looking back at her with a larger scope of its own. It stands up straighter and it looks like it had polished armor on. Even from this far, Kelly knew the alien was rather tall.
“Captain?” she asks as she continues to look through her scope and activating her visor to polarize it.
“I see we finally found them. Advance to the castle with caution.” He orders her.
She lowers her gun and turns back at her charge near a building entrance, “Hurry up! We’re heading to the castle!” She yells, and right after she says that, a fast and swift shadow goes across the street and lands on top of the building Snowlet was inspecting, hitting the roof with a loud thud. Kelly quickly sprints over to her charge and points her gun in the air, “Inside! Now!” she whispers.
They both quickly went in, Kelly shut the large door with a slam and when she sees a tall shelf to the side she quickly goes around it and tips it over, covering the doorway. She looks up and spots a large hole on the ceiling to her left and ushers Snowlet to go a little further in. When they reach a corner wall, they hear something moving around the roof and a glimpse of something in the street.
Suddenly, a mass of armor and feathers fall down from the ceiling and drew out its swords from its sides, the edges of its blades lightly glowing bright greens, pointing them both at them. The door and shelf breaks open to show another intruder wearing a set of armor as well, its hands raised to them, emitting a faint purple glow like smoke. Snowlet whimpers and starts shaking at the hostile aliens. Kelly activates a lazar pointer on the gun and aims it at the head of the winged creature when it takes step forward, daring it to take another step. The thing crosses its eyes to look at the small dot on its forehead. As it tries to take another step towards them, Kelly swiftly aims just to the side of its head and pulls the trigger. With a bang, the creatures and her charge jump in surprise as the bullet shatters a small pot and creates a hole in the wall.
The aliens step back from them, alarmed at what she could do. With the warning shot well understood, Kelly turns on her comm.
“Captain, what should we do?” she whispers, still aiming the gun at the sword, wielding alien, its eyes now glaring at her.
In a long moment of silence, she notices the purple one looking at her charge, in what looks like interest and concern. The thing looks at its partner and speaks in gibberish to the other. The blue one seems conflicted and speaks back to the other. The purple one replies and points at her shaking charge. The purple one seems to convince the blue one, as it growls and takes away its swords. Kelly looks at the purple one as it tries to calm her down. The only person that needs calming down was her charge and she felt her flinch behind her when the purple one takes a few too many steps. She quickly aims the gun at it, causing her partner to rest its hands on its sword handles till the purple one hisses at her to back off.
“I advise you to lower your gun, Kelly. The purple one seems concerned with Ms. Snowlet. And remember, we’re here to make a new home.” Her captain says to her.
Kelly didn’t respond, just turns off the lazar and threw her gun over her back and onto her pack, causing both aliens to jump in surprise at her sudden movement and her visor depolarized to show her poker face, never leaving her gaze at them. Though, she kept her hands close to her pestles just in case.
Twilight was most intrigued about the two visitors; they were a tad shorter then her and Rainbow Dash, but the left arm of the first one looks mechanical in nature, but moves around like a real arm as if it were biological. She has questions, but at the moment that doesn’t seem she’ll get any answers.
“Can… you both understand me?” she asks hopefully with a little smile, but only receiving blank stares in return. She pouts and slumps her shoulders a little in disappointment.
“Did you think they would understand you, right off the bat?” Rainbow comments with a short chuckle.
“Shush, you! Your brash actions nearly caused us to make another enemy! We’re doing bad as it is, but do you really think we would survive if we made another!?” she replies with a light glare. Rainbow lowers her gaze down to the ground.
“Sorry, Twilight.” Her friend apologizes in shame.
Twilight nods at her and looks back at the two visitors, “Um… home?” she asks, yet again, receiving blank stares. She looks around for a moment, and when she finds a piece of paper, she levitates it over, earning surprised looks from them both. She carefully starts ripping it apart, and when she was done she shows the house shaped, torn paper to the two visitors and taps it a couple times and points at them.
After a moment, the front creature points out the door and into the street of Canterlot. Twilight looks at the two and right back at the streets. She points outside and turns to the armored alien, “Outside?” she asks. She didn’t know if it understood her or not, but it nods its head nonetheless. She looks at Rainbow and gestures to the smashed entrance, “Maybe they’re trying to show us outside?” her friend shrugs and both walk right out. Twilight notices something off, so she looks back at the two to see them both just standing there, briefly talking to one another before they look at her, so she waves them over.
When they were all out, the shorter one shakily points a digit at the new object in the clearing sky. “Whoa! Is it saying, they came from that thing, in the sky!?” Rainbow says in awe and gestures to the ship before shielding her eyes to see more clearly at the object.
Twilight glances at the two, their advanced clothing or suits and equipment seem to say they did. Then a thought came and she looks at the armored alien in nervousness. She points at the device it pointed at her and Rainbow moments ago and gestures to herself and her friend in fear. “A-are… are yo-you here to… invade…?” she asks shakily, quickly gaining the attention of her friend, her own eyes now just widening in realization of her error.
The alien reaches back and inspects the strange device closely, looks at its own companion and shakes their heads at them both, while putting the thing back on its backpack-like-thing, sticking onto it like a magnet. Both mares inwardly sigh in relief, Maybe they came in peace after all. Twilight thinks to herself then turns her gaze at the distant castle. She then looks at her friend, “You think Celestia and Luna would want to see them?”
Rainbow looks at her as if she just grew another head, “Twilight… this isn’t one of those times where we can do this on our own.” She replies, making her friend blush a little in embarrassment, chuckling lamely to herself while twiddling with her fingers.
Briefly composing herself, Twilight turns back at the two visitors, points towards the castle and waves for them to follow her with a gentle smile.
“Captain, we might need a Crawler to communicate with them. Holographic images might do much better than simple gestures.” Kelly speaks as she follows their purple, alien tour guide.
“We were thinking the same thing. We will send down a few if you give us the green light.” Their captain replies.
As they close in on the great walls and gates, the grounds, roads and buildings look even worse than any other they saw earlier. Even the wall itself; scorch marks, crumbled potholes and even a few green and red splatter marks painted onto the wall and a few buildings around them.
Her charge stops and slowly walks over to a green splatter on the road nearby to the left of the road. She crouches down to it and takes off her pack to take a quick sample. Just as she opens up her pack, a loud, ear piercing screech sounds out in one of the buildings. Kellys' augmented senses swiftly turns her gaze towards the building, seeing a dark, bug-like creature jumping out of its hiding place and blasting out a glowing green projectile towards her charge from its arm.
Just as Snowlet starts to turn her head towards the building, Kelly leaps towards her, reaching out to block her charge with her left arm. Just when the green, flaring ball was about to hit her, a blinding, green, flash of light hit them both and their ears begins ringing.
By the time she recovers, she finds herself staring at the somewhat cloudy sky and being dragged along the ground by her right arm, a scraping sound obviously being made by her armor. After a closer inspection, she sees part of her helmet was cracked, webbing out like a spiders’ web. Then she sees she was dragged past the gate and everything darkened a little by its looming shadow.
When she stops, she groans and something starts speaking to each other frantically, a hint of fear and confusion sounding out between them. Many more starts shouting and sounds of running, fighting and battle cries filling the air.
She rolls her head to her left and sees her charge crawling towards her, part of her own helmet cracked and dark ash covering parts of her helmet and chest. She lifts her left arm to assure her charge, but to her surprise, half of it was missing; sparks arching out as she moves it around and thin wires stiffly wobbling about.
She sits herself up with the help of her fellow human and looks at her, “We stumbled ourselves into a war.” She whispers to both her ear piece and Snowlet.