Coming to Terms
Thunder Hoof had seen bizarre things in his time as Captain of the Solar Wing Guard. He had seen the night last for three days during the return of Nightmare Moon. He had seen chocolate rain down and buildings randomly float upwards during the first release of Discord. He had even been ambushed and taken prisoner by Changelings during the Royal Wedding. He thought he had seen it all. That he would be ready for whatever may lie ahead of him and his stallions.
And wow, was he wrong.
Before him stood the expanse of Ponyville, what used to be a quaint little town out in the nicest of places (minus the gates of Tartarus and the Everfree Forest), now burning and crumbling underneath the wreckage of an entire armada of Griffon warships.
Not only could he not see a single Pony, or Griffon,, but, he now saw an unknown species, walking amongst the small town, carrying bodies of Griffons out of the streets and buildings. Popping sounds could be heard every now and then, but from what he was seeing, there were no Pony survivors at all. Either the Griffons wiped them out, and these creatures came for the Griffons, or they had played some sick game and annihilated both sides.
He turned from his cloud cover to go and send a message to the Princesses by use of Unicorn Messenger, unaware of the mass of colors now flooding into the streets that were cleared of death.
\\\\\\//////
Joshua watched as the Ponies began to be filed out from the safe-zones and into the streets. He stood atop his Atlas as they were crowded away from the destroyed sections of their town, small children either crying as they walked, or asleep from exhaustion. The Ponies that were awake had mixed feelings about their alien saviors. Some saw fit to praise them for saving their loved ones, while others threw insults at the troops, saying that his men were to blame. As Militia, it was common to hear mostly insults, but never had Joshua heard this much praise from any colony they managed to save from IMC forces. There wasn't even a hostile action towards his men so far, which was already speaking wonders about this species.
As Joshua was about to dismount, a flare at the edge of the sky caught his attention. At first it was just a single spec of light, but as the seconds passed by, it became apparent that there was easily more than one dot. And that they were getting closer.
He rose from his perch and called out to his men.
"Men, weapons at the ready! Unknown contacts! Do not engage unless attacked!"
Joshua jumped down from the Atlas and activated its Guard-Mode in a dark alley by the market, covered enough for a surprise attack. He turned his back to the alley and watched the skies for the approaching armada.
As the blips approached, their features became more defined. They were all in formation, and wore golden armor of some kind. The majority of them were flying under the power of their own wings, but there were multiple shapes carrying what looked like dropships behind them. The Militia troops were taking cover behind walls and next to buildings while some of them began to escort the civilians into alleyways, away from the incoming army.
After another minute, Joshua made out more features, and saw what kind of army was approaching.
"Men, stand down!" he called over the radio.
The army of Pegasi began to swoop down into the streets in front of his men, all pointing spears and swords at them. More rained down from above as they began to shout at the Militia troops. Some even tried to stab at his men, but were met with a raised rifle.
"Stand down!" Joshua called to his men, once more.
After a solid thirty seconds of golden armored Ponies landing in the streets, a blinding light came up in front of Joshua, causing the Pilot to raise his weapon in pure instinct. When the light cleared, there stood a white Alicorn, like Twilight, except much larger, about as tall as him, and flowing hair that resembled a rainbow. Around her were twenty more gold-plated soldiers, except with only horns. They aimed their spears at Joshua while he reached for the Titan controls on his wrist.
"Put your weapons down." Joshua stated.
The large white one stepped up and spoke.
"Would you lower yours first?"
Joshua slowly lowered his Auto-Pistol, but kept his hand on the controls for the Titan. The tall white Pony looked back at her troops and nodded. They all lowered their weapons and stood at attention.
"Guards," she called, "stand down."
Surely enough, all of the guards that dropped from the sky began to sheathe their weapons. Once they were all down, Joshua called to his men over the radio.
"Men, release the civilians."
With that, the streets began to flood once more with color as the Ponies all ran from their houses to the other side of the stale-mate, behind the golden armored guards. Finally, as the last of them filed through the streets, towards the dropships (or chariots, as they appeared to be), a group of six particular Ponies came up to Joshua.
"Celestia!" Twilight called as she ran up to the large white.
The two shared a hug as the rest of the Ponies crowded around them. When they broke, the large one approached Joshua with a mixed look on her face.
"I want to say thank you for saving my Ponies."
Joshua shifted awkwardly in place as he holstered his weapon.
"No problem, really. We couldn't let an innocent town be destroyed for no good reason. I've seen enough of that."
"I just want to know something, though."
"Yes?"
"Why fight for them? Really?"
Joshua paused for a moment and sighed. He walked over to the white Pony and whispered.
"We didn't only make contact with your race. I met the Griffons once before this. I saw that they were planning to attack here, and did what was right."
He backed away and saw her breath deeply.
"Thank you, still, but why were you ready for war?"
"We just so happened to have left one. We came to this world to look for some fuel for our ship, and some food for the crew. We didn't exactly expect an entire alien war to be going on when we were looking around for something to help us."
She smiled at him and waved her hoof out to her side.
"Well, look no further. If you need help to find food or resources, then I would be glad to repay you and your men for what you've done."
Joshua nodded.
"Thanks." he extended a hand out to her. "Name's Joshua. Captain of the Horizon, of the Militia Fleet. Human."
She extended a hoof out to meet his hand. "Princess Celestia. Co-ruler of Equestria. Pony."
Joshua gripped her hoof tightly and shook it. Once the gesture was done, both participants lowered their appendages and looked around. Celestia then turned back to Joshua and spoke.
"One more thing. Do you know if the Griffons are planning to attack anywhere else soon?"
Joshua thought back to the table, having a photographic memory thanks to his Pilot training. There were dates and plans, but they didn't have another one laid down for at least another month.
"About a month or so. Up North." he responded.
She got a look that said that she was pondering and then continued to speak.
"Alright. We'll need to prepare for the worst, now. I can't thank you enough for helping us. Really."
Joshua raised a hand in front of him.
"It's fine. Really."
He felt a tap on his shoulder, and turned to see a Comms Officer standing behind him.
"Sir." the Grunt saluted. "We've got an emergency message from the Horizon. They're running on fumes and need to land, ASAP."
Joshua turned to the Officer and then back to Celestia. Before he could even ask, she was already answering.
"We would be more than happy to assist you. Tell them to land in the fields between here and that large mountain." she said, pointing to a distant jagged formation.
Joshua nodded to her and turned his attention to the radio.
"Horizon, come in, over."
"This is Horizon, we read you loud and clear, over." Ramirez responded.
"Touch down between the small town we're in now, and the mountain due North-West of us."
"Copy that."
He turned to meet the gaze of the Princess as she smiled at him.
"Now," she began, "I believe we need to talk about a few things. Leader to leader."
"Right. Leader to leader."
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New chapter!
YEAH DIPLOMACY!
Too fast, way too fast, they discussed this and came to a conclusion way too quickly, also Joshua's reasoning for assisting the ponies is becoming more and more corny
That being said, you certainly write great action scenes, but I reckon you should devote a little more time to the rest of the story
4399243
Yeah, I kinda rushed this one to work on the Dead Space story for today, sorry.
Equestria needs them too badly to refuse them anything, but Celestia would be furious about this, even if she's not going to show it in public. It makes me wonder if the next chapter, "leader to leader", is her being furious in private...
4399320
It is.
And he explains why he kept it hidden and how he plans to make up for it.
And their talk is interrupted by the Horizon jumping in!
4399327 Glad to hear that.
Was worried that you might not have realised what you did there. I apologise for casting aspersions, but some other writers wouldn't have noticed, giving the readers the impression that Celestia dropped her brain in Canterlot.
short but i liked it
4401417
Thank you and I shall.
4401951
maaaaaybeee~
Nice new chapter. I feel bad for the Griffons, because it's going to take A LOT to scratch that Atlas. It's shields can withstand a bit, that's for sure. Didn't notice any mistakes that caught my eye this time. It's nice to see Joshua using the Hemlock BF-3 (Ooh, I haven't used it or looked at it so that may not be exact) considering it's an underrated weapon compared to the R-101C that the grunts and all of the other players use. The R-45 is also very nice. I've taken down well over thirty Titans alone with the autopistol, and many more auto-Titans. So it's much fun. :D
Keep up the good work though!
4402276
Will do~!
OOOOOOO MAD TIA SENTS SUN DOWN ON YOU LIKE FAT PLUMBER SHE HATED!! anyway you may want griffons to ally with other races like Dragons and changelings
4402496
NO! NOT CHANGELINGS!!!! THEY ARE NOT EVIL AND IF YOU THINK THAT THEN GET OFF THIS STORY PLEASE. (Please don't though).
They will be allying in the future, yes.
The only thing wrong with this chapter is that it is not a Photographic Memory. It's called a Eidetic memory. Photographic memory is a more easily remembered term though.
It's space. Why are their engines on at all?
5216497 life support?
5493894 that, and the need to constantly be adjusting their flight path with the engines so that the gravity of the planet doesn't pull them out of orbit.
Sure, Celestia shows up with her guards ready to attack the humans. Well, everyone else in this story seems to have abandoned all coherency during this fight, so why not her as well?
I read that the explanation is given to her next chapter, and I'm already dreading it. Considering how stupid his reason for waiting was (and then him not being ready even for the time he did wait), I can't see the story doing a good job of justifying what he did. But I'm sure he'll look clean as all get out.
4399504 that would be hilarious!
... That's not how space works. Yes, you CAN run out of fuel in space, but it doesn't mean anything if it has an orbit. If they didn't then that was a stupid move on the militia's side. Also, who in their right mind doesn't put a god damn Hydroponics bay in a fucking spaceship that meant to be going for several years at a time?
6349595 they needed to keep some of there more important systems that needs to be attended