The jagged edges of the cave where hardly inviting but it was situated between the pod crash site and the Canine Tribe allowing her to transport anything she could salvage from the crash site and be within a few hours run of the surprisingly advanced locals.
Walking into the cave she found her nightvision wanting, she could barely see past the entrance, the shear lack of light deeper inside would make it imposable to fully explore the cave. Considering her situation she thought quickly for a solution to the problem and came up with a suitable, if rather flashy, way of combating the dark. The thinner parts of her bio armour split open with a wet sounding crack as a clear fluid started to drip from the neat lines, in seconds the fluid filled in the broken cartilage with a darker shade that covered the flexible portions of her armour on her arms and legs.
The dark lines then, rather slowly, began to glow in a blue bioluminescent light that allowed her eyes to adjust to the murky blackness enough to see. Walking forward she carefully examined the floor and walls looking for any sign of inhabitation, she was not sure if she intended to fight for the cave and that would mostly depend on what she found.
The walls of the cavern had a blotchy orange hue broken up by grey stone, oddly enough at irregular intervals crystals stabbed out of the rock like a twisted mockery of flowers, blooming in red, green, blue and purple mostly but some had a more exotic hue. The clear crystalline structure was a rather odd sight this close to the surface of the planet. Breaking the tip from a red crystal she ran a claw over the sharp point feeling it and frowning, they were sharp and strong and if they were this common why did the Canines from before use Iron tips to there spears?
Exploring deeper into the cave she found herself in a wide open space with a multitude of mushrooms and crystals the former glowing brightly enough to provide light to see. In the middle of the cavern was a chest deep pool with a smooth edge worn from time where pale eyeless crustaceans swam in schools each no bigger than the tip of a finger eating brightly coloured lichen that grew along the walls of the pool.
Standing up she walked around the room looking at the mineral rich walls and rather even flat floor. This place had room in abundance for her needs, she would have to clear the ground and find a fuel source for fire and, much later, power but for now this cave was more than suitable.
The cavern was a large space with a long tunnel to reach it, she took note of the driest and most level part of the chamber and decided that it would become her sleeping spot and the far side was where she would pile the mud and soil that the glowing mushrooms were growing in while she worked out if her body could adapt to the toxins then no doubt produced. Nodding happily to herself she turned and stalked out of the cave intent on going back to the crash site to recover a few useful things.
Sargent Windy Winter sat on his haunches chewing on a candy cane, his niece liked to make them and send them off to the rest of the family, given that her cutie mark was a candy cane it followed that they were rather good.
“Well, am I right in assuming that this is not what you expected?” The Scout Sergeant looked over at the young unicorn to his right, the mare was an accomplished mage, as she often reminded the ponies around her. Windy was not impressed with that kind of thing to be honest, it often meant that rather than one usefull spell and two rubbish ones that most unicorns knew mages knew three useful spells and a hundred useless ones.
“No, this is not at all what I expected, look at this hollow, how strange” The blue Robed mare was trotting around the thing looking at this and that with wide, impressed eyes.
“Huh, you say this came from the sky right?” Windy looked at the massive oval and picked up one of the shards off the floor with a hoof, it smelt odd and he had a sneaking suspicion that he had smelt something like it before.
“Yes, from space, It might have formed tens of thousands of years ago in the outer reaches of our solar system, a thin layer of compressed rock with... some kind of water on the inside that, after a long time, was pulled into our gravitational well.” The mare looked at the farrow it had dug into the slow when it crashed.
“Yeah, I am not so sure blue, I mean, don’t it look a bit like, an egg?” Swift dropped the shard and looked the thing over, one end was buried in the snow but the smooth grey shards around him just screamed eggshell.
“Don’t be ridiculous, what could possibly be big enough to need an egg this size?” The mare did however take a step back to look the thing over in a new light.
“What indeed” Swift mused as he bit down on his candy cane with a satisfying crunch.
She watched from a hill close-by as two short equines examined her pod. One of them, a grey coated equine with wings sat chewing something as the other, a pale equine with a horn and a thick blue robe climbed all over the pod.
Getting to her feet in a crouched stance she snuck forward almost dancing over the banks of snow as she approached the pair careful not to make a sound. They were clearly talking, it was a slow back and forth that was impossible for her to decipher. She moved to the edge of the farrow leading to the cracked open pod and watched them closely unsure of how to approach the situation, she needed to break open the rear compartment of the pod and recover a few components but she doubted that the equines would stay out of her way.
A crunch behind her caused her head to whip around and her body to twist catching another equine, this one without wings or a horn trying to sneak up on her, how she had missed him before eluded her. She noted in the half a second it took for her to align herself to the newcomer that he had a short spear in his hooves, but rather then brace the weapon on something or hold it in a firm grip it had it carefully in its hooves pointed at her like.
Her eyes widened as she took in the equines stance, its forehooves where holding the spear steady as it lined it up with a single eye pointed right at her chest as if it was holding a missile weapon.
With an almighty boom and a blinding flash light the spear discharged somehow and hit her with the force of a speeding train sending her flying back head over heels into the snow her ribs cracked and broken and the equine pawing blindly at a pouch on its belt.
Pushing herself to her feet without pause she could feel her ribs popping back into place as the biogel in her body repaired the damage rapidly. She darted forward ripping the spear from the equines hooves and flinging it away from them before introducing it to the heel of her armored foot sending it reeling and clutching at its broken muzzle one of its teeth falling to the red stained snow below.
A second loud boom sent up a torrent of snow into her body staggering her and she remembered the two other equines, it did make sense that they would all be equipped with the strange weapons. Rushing through the cloud of snow she saw the winged equine pressing a glowing crystal into the shaft of its spear and a black and smoking on at its hooves before it lined the weapon back up to fire at her again.
A third boom coincided with her attempt to throw off its aim by driving to the side. It worked for the most part, she could feel the air displace around whatever force was being fired in her direction sending her sprawling to the ground but she was spared any real damage. She pushed herself back up into a run as the equine expertly tapped the spear letting the spent crystal drop to the snow and pulling a new one from a rather full looking pouch at its side.
She did not intend to let him fire another shot however and threw herself forward barrelling into the equine with unnatural speed and pushing an elbow into its middle before rolling off of it with the spear in her hands as it gasped for air. The Equine that had attacked her first had recovered its spear and was pushing a new crystal into its shaft while the horned equine had just seemed to recover enough from the shock of the sudden skirmish to do something.
That something seemed to involve pointing its horn at her menacingly as it began to glow. With an underarm throw she sent the spear flying into the face of the horned equine and cleared the gap as the equine shouted out clutching its face. Pulling it into a headlock she pressed the claws of her hand into its neck and looked at its fellows to see there reactions.
Eyes wide the pair stopped, the one with wings had a nasty looking knife in its mouth and the one without wings or a horn kept its spear lifted in her direction but did not fire, It was a stalemate.