Heads and Tails

Chapters

Tango 126
Second Contact
Strange Situations
Rarity
Gryphones and Annoying Unicorns
Building Bridges
Putting Your Hoof Down pt.1

Tango 126

Humans. Weak. Naive. Violent. Stupid. All words that are commonly used to describe the race on Equus. Throughout the years, ponykind has flourished, making huge advancements in terms of magic research and society. But the humans? Nothing. No advancement, no society. The creatures had basically become little more than pets to their equine overlords. Originally, the humans had had knowledge rivaling the zebras in terms of alchemy and other plant based magic. However, when they came under pony rule, the magic had been lost. Humans possessed only enough aptitude to create remedies for minor ailments.

Light years away, however, on a small blue planet, humanity had become one of the strongest species in the galaxy. Their powerful civilization had been stable for over 1000 years. They had become one of the only races to master a technology. Humans, with their antimatter power, were the only race able to rival the ancient Martians, more commonly known as the Precursors.

When evidence of intelligent life was found on Mars, and evidence of said life leaving the planet, it had become humanity’s quest to find the Martians, who at this point may not have even been martians anymore, and share with them what the race had learned. The humans considered themselves the older brothers of the lost race. It was that quest that led the terran humans to encounter their counterparts on Equus. Or, as the terrans called it, Tango 126. The one-hundred-twenty-sixth target planet that they would travel to in order to look for the Martians.

Back on the small blue planet, the USSF (United Space Search Fleet) was doing the final checks before activating their final matter reactor on the USSF Monarch. Named after a United States naval battleship, the Monarch was a heavy grade ship, able to destroy small moons and sustain itself in space for as long as there were people on board. The ship rivaled a small country with its half million occupants.

“Captain Lee. It’s time for final checks.” muttered the head engineer. The captain of the heavy vessel looked down at his crew. While quite young, only about thirty two, his flawless track record had been what set him up for this job. In his ten years of flying, the man had never lost a single man, nor piece of cargo. As such, he had been stated as a captain of the heavy cruiser in order to “ensure a safe and fast passage” as the planetary mayor put it.

“Good. Perform fast diagnostics.” said Lee.

The head engineer nodded, then rushed off into a corner to run the tests. Lee sighed and looked down at the deck again. The captain couldn’t help himself as a large smile broke out over his face. His chest swelled with pride as he saw the uniformed engineers, pilots and navigators working.

‘Today’s the day. Tango 126... I hope to God they’re there.’

Holding the intercom button down, Lee signaled for one of the ten onboard Elites to come on deck. The trip from Earth to Tango 126 would take only twenty minutes with the wormhole generator, It took space and created a superheavy gravity field that bent the area they needed to travel, essentially the generator took a super dense chunk of metal, normally iridium, and compressed it into an astronomically small area, effectively creating a black hole. Then the hole was shot out, and blasted in such a way, where it captured then expanded one of the spontaneously appearing microscopic wormholes, and then stabilized it.

Lee needed to set up militarization as soon as possible so they could get OSS (Orbital Shock Squads) on the ground to scope out the area. After about two minutes of waiting, he heard a knock on the door. Pressing a button, he watched, open mouthed, as a real, live elite walked into his chamber.

“You wanted to see me, Captain?”

His voice was metallic and distorted due to his face mask. The mask was basically a one way black tinted space grade glass, with a HUD and respirator. The rest of his armor was chunks of kevlar layered over aerogel, and plated with a special metal alloy. The joints had servos and artificial muscle fibers, to enhance strength. On his back was the Specialist's Rifle, one of the USSF’s most powerful weapons. It could do anything from shoot off pulse beams, to fire antimatter rail cannon shells. His armor was jet black and combined with his helmet made him look like a robotic statue.

The Elite stood for a moment, then raised a hand, pushing the lock on his helmet. The plate slowly rose and revealed his face, which had a rather confused look on it.

“Sir? Is there a reason you’re staring?”

“I- Sorry, I’ve never met an elite before. It’s an honor!”

The confusion on the armored man’s face grew. “Thanks, I guess... Is there something you needed?”

“What? Oh, right, come on in.”

Lee quickly regained his composure and cleared his throat. Quickly he explained the situation and asked the elite to set up two drop squads to perform first contact. Once the plans had been made, the captain dismissed the elite and turned around to look back at his deck.

His first day on the job, and he’d already met an elite. This was going to be one hell of a voyage.

“Captain!” Yelled the head engineer. “We’re ready to go!”

Smiling, Lee clasped his hands together. Leaning down, he spoke into a mic mounted to the arm of his chair. “All right! Gear up and buckle down, we’re off in sixty seconds!”

“T- minus 60 seconds!”

Lee looked one more time around the ship

“T- minus 30 seconds!”

The captain looked out the window, and admired the familiar landscape, knowing he wouldn’t be returning home for a while.

At the ten seconds mark, Lee sighed and began counting aloud into his speakers with the computer. They had done it so many times, yet the excitement could still be seen on every member of the ship. They could be the ones who finally found the Martians. At zero, the entire ship began shaking. The crew members onboard held on to whatever they could. The Holodisplay lit up, showing the status of the reactors. They were heating up.

The inhabitants of the ship felt a pressure similar to the one you would feel when going up in an elevator. The earth beneath them began to tremble and a black cloud spread out fast below. With a mighty roar the engines began propelling the ship. The reactors activated to their full power feeding energy the engine and the huge ship took to the air.

The titanic spacecraft shot straight up, breaking the sound barrier as it ascended. The displays lit up, showing their speed.

Mach 2.

Mach 3.

Mach 5.

Suddenly everything became lighter as the ship tore away from the planet’s gravity. The screens stopped blinking as the ship slowed, reducing its speed.

“Cool the reactors!” Shouted Lee over the commotion.

“On it!” yelled the head pilot.

There was a loud hiss and the displays showed the temperature drop as the reactor huds and casings were filled with a Bose-Einstein condensate. The insane temperature difference caused a loud hissing to be heard as the reactors were supercooled. Once the reactors were at operating temperatures, and the ship was cruising along at Mach 12, he leaned near his microphone again.

“Congratulations! The USS Monarch is now fully operational. Great job crew!”

Throughout the ship, there was cheering and shouting. The first ship capable of colonization had been launched. A starship that could travel long distances and set up colonies in under three days. Previous starships took upwards of two months to set up colonies, but with the Monarch’s 500,000 crew members, setting up colonies could happen at insane speeds.

Back on Tango 126, a rather tall man stood in the middle of the square of a small town called Ponyville. He was staring up at a mountain. Specifically, the city built into the side of the mountain, Canterlot.

Most of the humans on the planet called it the “forbidden city” due to the fact that no humans were allowed within it. Rumors had spread of how the roads were paved in gold, and of how there was no crime, everything there was “just perfect”.

Some ponies decided to encourage these rumors whilst others, specifically his owner, Applejack, and her companions said they were untrue. No one was quite sure what to believe anymore. After all, only one human had set foot in that city. And that had been over four hundred years ago when she had asked the Princess for help and proposed the contract that basically kept humanity safe.

As the man stared, he felt an odd sense of giddiness. It was something his gut was telling him.

As he stared, the human heard a whistle from behind. It was the high pitched sound of a hoof whistle. Somepony wanted his attention.

‘Great. What now?’

Wheeling around the Jack looked for whoever was calling him. As the human realized who it was, he exhaled through his nose. It was a small filly by the name of Diamond Tiara. Just looking at the filly made him angry. She had a horrible habit of picking on those she deemed weaker.

“Yes, miss?” asked Jack with a false sweetness in his voice.

“How’s working on the Farm with those blank flanks?”

The man clenched his fists. He would have loved to hit her, but the fact that she was a filly, combined with the fact that her father was a high-ranking member of community, made him hesitant to take such action.

‘The nerve. She knows Applebloom is sensitive about that...better me than her.’

“It’s just fine...now if you excuse me, I have some work to get back to...”

“Oh so now staring at Canterlot is work?”

The man gritted his teeth and ignored her.

“You know, you’re never going into Canterlot...humans don’t deserve to.”

High above the planet of Equus, there was a blast of light as the USSF Monarch materialized. On the bridge of the ship, Lee stood, looking out the glass, down at the planet of Equus.

The land formations were not so different from earth. Water bodies, forests, mountains...
But no matter how he looked at them, they didn’t look like the ones back home. The land masses were shaped a bit too perfectly, triangles, squares. In certain places, clouds were a lot more common and they never seemed to move on their own. The north and south poles were hidden beneath a thick layer of clouds, and the planet seemed to emit some form of natural majesty that earth had lost long ago.

Turning, he walked back to his chair. Pushing the intercom he spoke into the mic.

“Crew. We have arrived at Tango 126. Please prepare to fall into orbital gravity.”

Slowly, the ship began floating towards the planet. In a matter of minutes, it began falling around it.

A race they had encountered, with rather advanced technology, most likely just after an industrial revolution, hadn't been to happy about “outsiders” trying to “steal” their planet and resources.

They had fought the humans tooth and nail. Attacking camps, destroying random supply drops, and causing general havoc. After two years of frustration and failed negotiations, the humans had decided to just leave. The choice was also influenced by scientists confirming that said race was not who they were looking for, the Precursors. The hostiles pursued, and attacked. The crew of another ship, the USSF Starwatch, ended up releasing several tons of antimatter on the planet. The result had been a tremendous amount of energy that literally blew apart the place. Something that Punch still remembered with fondness. The wave of energy, the bright flash...

Out of all of that though, the Elite’s favorite part was the sick sense of satisfaction that the race that had killed his companion, and caused him so much grief, was completely destroyed. According to their sensors anyways...

“Your ship is ready, sir! Do you need anything else?” shouted the engineer.

“Yeah,” said punch as he walked towards the The Veteran, his personal combat fighter, “send in two OSS squads after me.”

“Yes sir!”

Climbing the side of the ship, Punch activated the reactors. The ship lowered into the launch chamber, a long chamber with a runway that opened into space.

The ship began to tremble as a black cloud spread behind it. A blast of bright blue flames shot out from the thrusters, and the ship began speeding down the launch chamber. The incredible velocity of the ship caused Punch to be pressed back in his seat. The intensity of the flames flying out the back of his engines left the launch chamber literally red hot. The Veteran burst out of the chamber, flying at nine times the speed of sound, leaving bright blue flames in its wake. The wings of the fighter, which had been folded in to make the plane fit in the chamber, snapped out and the ionjets mounted to them lit up.

The combat fighter hurtled towards the planet, and the hull began heating up as it entered the planet’s atmosphere. The elite smiled and hit the reverse thrusters. There were plenty of better ways of entering the planet, however, with Punch’s antics, he felt that flying down at faster than sound was a lot more fun than just floating in or using inertia nullification.

Blue flames jutted out of the front of the ship, and the entire thing jerked as it suddenly slowed down. Now cruising at a speed just under the sound barrier, the elite began his descent, and activated visual cloaking. Radioing back up to the Monarch, he awaited further orders.

An ear splitting sound drew Jack’s attention to the skies. A black meteor was falling with enough energy to glow brightly, even during noon. It looked as if it would hit the town square in Ponyville. An explosion was heard, coming from the meteor as it started slowing down. Jack began picking up the scent of smoke. The ground began shaking. The unexpected second blast of flames, flew out the front. catching him by surprise, the unexpected blast made him fall over. By the time he had gotten up, the meteor was gone. As if nothing had happened.

Quickly looking around, Jack saw that many others in the square, ponies and humans alike had stopped to watch the phenomenon unfold.

Punch pulled back on the throttle, and flew over cites, running scanners, and monitoring for life and technology. So far they the elite had found no notable technology, but plenty of life.

Suddenly his radio switched on, and Lee came online. “Are you insane!? I told you to put together a team, not to go alone!”

Punch chuckled. The captain had obviously never commanded an elite before. Taking a team would have hindered him. After all, most foot soldiers didn’t have energized armor. They would have slowed him down. “Don’t worry.” said Punch. “Scanners say that planet has barely reached stage two development. In terms of military. anyways. Oh yeah, and I asked for two drop squads to fly in after me. They’re gearing up now. I’m totally not alone.”

As he finished relaying the information, his display lit up red, indicating an incoming projectile. Oddly enough the object was organic in nature. But that really didn’t take away the dangers. After all, a mossy rock could set off the organic sensors. Not to mention he had just entered an atmosphere and his ship was traveling at almost supersonic speeds.

‘I’m being attacked?’

Looking out his window, he saw the projectile. A grey...pegasus?

“Oh SHIT!”

Pulling down on his controls, the elite went into a dive. Rocketing towards the ground, he was narrowly able to avoid a collision with the pony. After all, killing one of the locals wasn’t a good way to make first contact.

Lee radioed in. “What happened?”

“A flying horse almost hit me!”

He heard suppressed laughing over the radio. “W-What?”

The Elite shook his head and pushed the call button. “A grey flying horse. It almost hit my fighter.”

“Al-alright!” There was more laughter. “J-Just land.”

Punch then realized the silliness of his statement. He had stated that he almost hit a creature straight out of mythology. Smiling inwardly, he reduced throttle, and looked for a Landing Zone.

Inside Canterlot, guard ponies stood at the ready, pointing their spears at the gate. The Pegasi guard floated in the air, effectively setting up a no fly zone over the city skies. From atop her tower, Celestia monitored just outside the city with a large ornate telescope.

As soon as the unknown object had fallen into Equestrian territory, the city had been on high alert. In most cases they wouldn’t have been worried, however, with the way the object had been shooting out flames, and causing loud explosions, they were sure it wasn’t just a stray meteor.

As she stared out her telescope, Celestia felt a chill, as if something was watching her from afar. Suddenly a blast of wind caught her, and there was a distant rumbling. The volume was astonishing, like the roar of a dragon.

“Whatever fell out of the sky must be making that noise...” muttered Celestia.

Panning her telescope, she gasped as she saw it. She couldn’t say much about it other than the fact that it was fast. Faster than almost anything she had ever seen. The only thing that rivaled its speed was the sonic rainboom which she had only witnessed a few times. As she watched it fly away, she decided that it, whatever it was, was neither pony nor human.

Punch’s ship, which at the moment was traveling at Mach two, scanned the ground for a suitable landing space. Punch found that space just outside what seemed to be a small town. As The Veteran flew over a small clearing, the display of his ship lit up, signifying a viable place to park the fighter.

Smiling, the elite began slowing down the ship, and finally came to a stop fifteen hundred feet above a clearing. Slowly, he reduced downwards thrust, and the ship slowly began descending.

Within a few seconds, John Punch was opening his hatch, and getting ready to jump down. Quietly, John muttered Neil Armstrong's words as first contact tradition dictated.

“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind!” Hopping down, he landed on the planet with a dull thud.

Chuckling quietly to himself, Punch loaded a few high energy rail cannon shells into his rifle, and set it on his back. The weapon locks on his back gave a quiet click as the weapon set into place. Turning on his heel, John began walking towards the forest.

Applejack stared open mouthed at the sky. Coming to her senses, she quickly scanned the square and spotted Jack staring up into the sky. Galloping towards, she shouted to try and get his attention.

“Hey! Hey, Jack!”

Hearing the sound of Applejack shouting, he turned around and spotted her running toward him.

“Yes, miss?”

“You all right there, partner?”

“I- yeah. Just a little surprised.”

Sighing, the mare nervously began pacing about the square. A thousand questions flashed through her mind. Most prominently what was that thing that dropped out of the sky. And where had it gone!? The thing had just exploded before hitting the ground!

Applejack shook her head and began walking back to her stand. As is the custom of Ponyville; If you don’t know what it is, leave it alone. The farmer then began walking back to her stand, calling for her human companion to follow.

Punch stood on the hull of his ship, looking about through the enhanced zoom scope mounted on his rifle. So far, he had spotted only one thing of interest. A small cottage located a couple hundred feet from his ship. By the looks of it, the place was home to not only one of the locals, but a ton of animals. There were everything from robbins to otters. Half the creatures at the small cottage had actually gone extinct a long time ago, back on Earth.

As the elite looked down his scope at the cottage, a flash of yellow caught his eye. A local by the looks of it. Turning the digital zoom enhancer on his helmet on, he increased the distance he could see. It seemed as though the cottage was home to a butter yellow pegasus; considering she had just walked into the house.

‘So the grey horse I almost hit with my fighter was sapient. The more you know...’

Though there was life on the planet, there were no Precursors. Radioing up to the Monarch, John relayed the news. With a planet this far behind in technological advancement, there was almost no chance that the Precursors had been here. After all, they would have left behind some form of technology.

As he finished relaying the news, he noticed something odd. A completely human man! Punch’s mouth dropped open behind his mask. The man he was watching seemed to be wearing a collar of sorts. He was opening the door for the pegasus, and seemed to be helping her take the bags she had been carrying inside.

“Wait, wait. Let me get this straight. You saw a pegasus, and a human man.”

“Yes.”

“And the man was wearing a collar.”

“Yes sir.”

“Like a dog’s collar?”

“Affirmative.”

“And the horse was ordering him around?”

“Not really, but he was following her instructions, yes.”

“Well then what are you waiting for? A special invitation? Figure out what’s happening here! If we already explored this planet and ended up with a crashed ship here, we have a major problem. Especially if the locals were able to enslave us!”

“Yes sir!”

“Lethal force is authorized in retaliation. Monarch out.”

As Punch shut off his radio, he heard a rustling in a bush from just behind him, near the forest. He quickly picked up the faint smell of rotting wood and tree sap. In larger amounts, the smell would have been nauseating. However, his suit was able to filter out most of the odor.

Curious as to the source of the sudden disturbance, he turned around and switched on his thermal visor. Crouched inside the bush, he saw a wolf-like silhouette. His sensors lit up as the woof walked out of the bushes. He was quick to notice the fact that the creature was made completely out of wood. It seemed to be leaking tree sap, as though it were drooling.

‘Not good. I’m too close to my ship to use the rife. Blowing a hole in an air tight ship isn’t a good idea. And then there’s sexy. God, I’ll never hear the end of it. She’ll nag me for hours.’

Turning around, John jumped off the hull of his fighter and landed on the ground. Jumping to his feet, he began running away from his ship, the muscle emulators contracting and relaxing with his biological parts, propelling him faster than any average human was capable of moving.

After about ten seconds of running, he came to a stop and turned around. Bringing up the scope of his rifle, he aligned the target finders and fired a pulsed beam. The powerful laser-propelled matter was easily able to burn its way through the wolf. As the beam blew apart its skull, it suddenly burst into flames, and fell to the ground.

The other creatures weren’t intimidated by John’s display. With a hungry look in their eyes, they charged him. Punch was easily able to dispatch him with his rifle, but even at this range he had to be careful not damage his ship. As the wolves dropped, his sensor lit up again.

‘Not even fifteen minutes on this planet and I’m attacked! Why can’t I ever get sent to the planet of pretty butterflies instead of wooden man eating wolves!’

Turning around, John sprinted full pelt towards the cottage. His breathing became heavy, and just as he jumped the fence a one of the creatures slammed into his back. The momentum of the wolf sent them both hurtling towards the door of the cottage. Rather than the door stopping them though, John and the wolf ended up smashing straight through it, and tumbling into the house.

Fluttershy was having a great day. She had just finished feeding all of her animal friends, and was in the middle of making tea for herself and her human. As she made the drinks, she quietly hummed to herself. Her companion, a rather skinny looking man, was sitting awkwardly at the table twiddling his thumbs.

Though he had insisted on making the tea himself, his caretaker had ended up shushing him, and making him wait at the table for her to finish.

As Fluttershy put the tea down on the table she heard a bang. Giving off a small “eep” she watched as a timber wolf was hurled into her kitchen. The animal, which was missing its left hind paw, and had puncture wounds in its ribcage, and legs, slammed into the table, and smashed the tea kettle and cups. It then slid off the table and fell to the floor.

The timid pegasus was shaking in her horse shoes. Her companion had jumped under the table in an attempt to protect himself from the man eating wolf. The air was deathly quiet save for the wolf’s growling and a steady two beat THUNK of metal on wood. After two seconds of tense atmosphere, and silence, a human like, tall, armored figure, with no face walked into her kitchen. He raised an oddly shaped metal rod, with a glowing knife mounted on the end, and brought it down on the wolf’s head. With the loud crack of breaking wood, the wolf’s body lay on the floor, battered and broken, his skull split in half.

The pegasus squeaked again. The almost undetectable sound, however attracted the attention of the no-faced-horror. Slowly it turned and looked at her. Then, it spoke in a metallic, distorted voice, that sounded more like two or three ponies than one. “I apologize for the disruption.”

The no-faced creature spoke again. “Are you hurt?”

Fluttershy opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out. Her chest felt tight and breathing was hard. She was constantly shaking as she stared at her reflection in the creature’s face. The blackness seemed infinite, as she stared at him she realized he looked like a moving statue.

The mare was pulled out of her thoughts when the creature repeated its question. In something of a panic, Fluttershy shook her head.

“Good. Now tell your friend to get out from under the table. I have some questions for him.”

“How did you kno-”

“I know everything. Now get him out.”

“But if you know everything, why do you need to-.”

“Don’t question me, just do it.” he said, putting extra emphasis on the last few words.

Punch quickly connected to the Monarch's computers and brought up a list of all the MIA heavy cruisers. As the list loaded up on his HUD, the butter yellow pegasus attempted to coax out the human under the table. After a few moments the skimpy man crawled out and nervously asked, “Is the timberwolf gone?”

Fluttershy went to respond, but was cut off by John. “What do you know about the USSF Apollo?”

The collared man turned to look at him. The way he stared was more childish than anything else. As the he stared at himself in the black visor, his eyes grew in fear. “W-what!? Who are y-”

“Answer the question.”

“I don’t know! I mean, we have folk tales about a man named Apollo.”

The elite shook his head.

‘I should get vaugier’.

“What is a starship?”

A look of confusion grew across the faces of the occupants of the room. Fluttershy’s human, quietly muttered something. Though no one could really hear it, Punch’s audio enhancers were easily able to pick up the quiet question. “If you don’t know what a starship is, you don’t know what I need.”

Once he had finished talking, Punch switched, his external speakers off. He radioed up to the ship, then called up Lee.

“What’d you find?”

“Nothing. These guys don’t even know what a starship is. One obviously hasn’t crashed here. What do geographical sensors say?”

“No outstanding craters. Nor any traces of human tech...but...nevermind, I’ll tell you later.”

Punch sighed. For a first contact, this was going horribly. He’d just smashed in the door to a local's house, crushed the skull of some wildlife in front of them, then asked about something they weren’t even familiar with. It wouldn’t be a surprise if they ended up turning this planet hostile at this rate. Luckily the creatures seemed not to know that a heavy grade star cruiser was orbiting their planet, so that was a plus...

John’s radio crackled and Lee’s voice came back on. “I have a plan, just leave, I need time to explain. Directions are already on the way to your fighter.”

“What about the wolves? There weren’t just two or three of them.”

“The OSS took them out. They’re waiting at the fighter.”

Turning his external speakers back on, John said “Forget this ever happened.”

Punch then turned on his heel, and walked out of the house, leaving the two of them staring out the door.

Twilight busily rummaged through shelf after shelf of books. The studious mare was searching for a book on rare astronomical events, she had been dying to know what the odd meteor that had almost fallen into the town’s square, then disappeared before impact, was called. After all, it wasn’t every day that a meteor fell onto the planet. Especially one as big as that.

Suddenly there was a shout from the back room. “Found it!”

Spike came staggering into the room, a massive tome being just barely supported by the young dragon. As he stumbled toward the main table, Twilight hopped with joy. Setting the book down with a loud slam, Spike fell onto his butt and sighed tiredly. “Jeeze Twi, why can’t you pick lighter books?”

The purple mare gave no response as she busied herself in the huge book sitting on the table.

Spike excused himself to the kitchen after muttering something about a jem cake, and a calm settled over the library as the two occupants busied themselves with their daily activities.

About ten minutes later, there was a frantic knocking on the door, followed by a very out of character shout from Fluttershy. “Twilight! Twilight help!” A purple dragon with frosting lining his lips gave an exasperated sigh as he walked towards the door. Tugging on the door, Spike shouted as a rather flustered Fluttershy bolted into the lobby, followed by her rather quiet friend.

“Umm...yes, please, come inside,” remarked a sarcastic Spike.

Fluttershy looked about the room, searching for her friend. Spotting her still immersed in the book, Fluttershy rushed up to her, then gently went to nudge her shoulder. But before she did, she shied away with a quiet “I’m sorry. You look busy...”

As Spike watched the display, he raised a claw to his face and muttered “for pony’s sake...”

Walking up to the oblivious purple mare, the baby dragon poked her on the shoulder. No response. Spike repeated the action, and after the fifth poke, Twilight quickly glanced back, with a slightly annoyed look on her face.

“What is it?”

“You have a visitor,” said the dragon, gesturing toward the timid yellow pegasus, who was hiding behind her mane.

Noticing that all eyes were on her, Fluttershy muttered a feeble “Hello.”

A smile spread across Twilight’s face as she realized her friend had come to visit. “Hello Fluttershy!” she chipped. “Did you need something?”

“Ummm...I just wanted to ask you about something...I saw a creature, and I didn’t know what it was.”

“Well, could you tell me what it looked like?” asked Twilight, excitement growing in her voice. Meteors were cool, but they were nothing compared to discovering a new creature. This could be the opportunity of a lifetime!

“It looked, well it kind of looked like a human, except it was taller.” said Fluttershy. The pegasus seemed to look everywhere but Twilight, she acted like she was afraid. However knowing Fluttershy, that wouldn’t have been such a big surprise.

“Are you sure it wasn’t a human?”

“It didn’t have a face...”

Confusion flashed across Twilight’s face, and Fluttershy continued her explanation. She described everything from the odd stick Punch carried to his voice, and how it sounded more like three people than one. By the end of the conversation, Twilight was staring at Fluttershy’s companion, who was playing a heated game of tic-tac-toe with Spike

“This is insane! I’m not doing this!” shouted Punch as he stared at digital copies of the plan.

“I’m your commanding officer! You do what I say,” Lee exclaimed.

John chuckled, “I’m basicly the same rank as you! I can do whatever the fuck I want, Sir.” said the elite, venom in his voice

“Well at least you still said sir. But at anyrate, just trust me on this one.”

“Fine. I’ll do it. I won’t like it, but I’ll do it...”

Jumping out of his fighter, he asked the OSS commander to set his ship up for disassembling his armor, then to take it back to the Monarch.

The plan was simple. John would disassemble his armor, dress up as a commoner, and join the ranks in order to find intel. He would end up with only his rifle, mostly due to the fact that it never left his side, and a suitcase that would serve to conceal the weapon. Lee had told them that they had already put in a Survey and Intelligence, SAI, unit in a large city to the south of this small town, and she had blended in fine.

As he stood in front of his fighter, the elite began feeling awfully naked. Normally he would wear his armor almost 24/7. It was what replaced his uniform when he became an elite. In all honesty it, in a way, held just as much sentimental value as his rifle. Mostly because of how he got it. Back when he was part of an OSS squad, on Hotel 214, the elite there had taken him under his wing. When that man had died, he had given his armor to Punch, in a last ditch attempt to save him. Even now the man didn’t consider the armor his, it wasn’t even his class, but he still wore it out of sentimental value.

As moments of the events on 214 flashed through his mind, the Elite shuddered. Sighing, he lifted his arms, and held them rigid, pointing out to either side. There was a muffled hum, and the front of his fighter opened. Robot like arms reached out and began unscrewing hidden bolts, There were snapping sounds as the artificial muscle contracted out of place, and the entire suit went flabby. Then, just as quickly, more arms picked off the armor plates, and the elite was left standing in nothing but a white cotton shirt and a pair of cargo shorts. His Specialist’s Rifle was sitting on the ground a few feet away.

The hull of his fighter closed up, and one of the OSS members walked over and handed him a suitcase.

With a frown etched on his face, John walked over and placed his weapon in the foam cut out. Closing and locking the black case, he nodded to the orbital troops, as the reentered their High Altitude Low Opening pods.

There was a loud hissing as the HALO pods closed, then pressurised themselves. A drop ship would end up coming to pick them up, but John didn’t have the time to wait around for it to show up. Supposedly the case held everything he needed. A transmitter to talk to the Monarch, a solar panel for charging and of course, his rifle, and ammo, along with some personal belongings.

Wheeling around, John began walking towards the small cottage he had broken into. First contact wasn’t over yet...

Author's Note

What do you think? This story will focus mostly on the situations John gets into during his time in Equestria. There will be plenty of awkwardness and joking around, but also some serious stuff.

If you see any mistakes, or have suggestions, leave them below. I love feed back.

Second Contact

The Lunar princess nodded. “And it was surrounded by a group of armored Humans?”

The gold eyed guard shook his head. “They were much too tall to be humans. The average man is only four to four and a half feet tall. These creatures were well above five feet, some even topped seven!”

“I see. Thank you,” muttered Luna, rather detachedly.

The moment the meteor had entered the atmosphere, she had sent out a battalion of her personal royal guards to recover it for research. This new concept of radioactivity had just emerged, and for all they knew, the meteor could have been a treasure trove of information. Celestia seemed to have seen the meteor as some sort of threat, but why, she wouldn’t say. The white alicorn had simply fortified Canterlot, and left it at that.

As Luna wondered what exactly the guard had seen she decided that the best option would be to go there herself. After all, she had received reports of what seemed to be an odd looking metal building, and if the creatures had built it, than it could mean they had a nation of their own. A potential ally and trading partner could be gained.

‘I will greet them,’ decided Luna. If anypony was going to be speaking to creatures that had never been seen before, one of the princesses should be the ones to do it.

Rising out of her throne, Luna trotted towards the door, humming a merry tune to herself as she prepared to depart.

At the landing site, two ships sat parked on the ground, one a sleek black fighter, with the words “The Veteran” painted onto a side. The other was a large winged ship with thrusters adorning the ends of the rotating wings. On its hull, painted in black and white, was the USSF logo: Two black, curved line surrounding a cercle, with the letters “USSF” below the emblem.

Around the ships, were four ellipsoid pods. All the pods’ doors were closed, and sealed shut, in preparation for drop ship mounting and transport. The camp was almost eerily still. Strewn upon the ground, were the burnt corpses of timberwolves, now just smoldering piles of ash. As Luna looked down upon the unusual scene with wide eyes, she felt a tightness in her chest. The princess of the night was about to meet a race new to Equestria.

She slowly glided down to the ground. Just at the outskirts of the crowded clearing, the princess slowly opened up her wings, put on her most regal demeanor, and calmly strolled into the camp. Though she didn’t know it, she was in fact being monitored by both the ships’ scanners. Not to mention, being watched by the pilot and OSS operatives.

Not seeing anything, Luna lit up her horn to cast a simple life detection spell. As soon as her horn lit up however, there was a flurry of movement from one of the metal structures marked “The Veteran.”

A robotic female voice emanated from the ship, loudly stating, “Arming Liberator. Halt use use of Mobile Action Global Interactive Control.”

Then a red line of light connected her to what seemed to be six metal pipes mounted on the building. The pipes were rotating at an incredible speed, and the Lunar princess quickly realized that they were an odd weapon. Surprised by the sudden movement and threat, Luna lost her grip on the magic and backpedaled in shock.

As soon as her horn went dim the same cool female voice said “Compliance detected. Unarming Liberator. Use of MAGIC is discouraged.”

Inside the dropship, the OSS and pilot were gritting their teeth, hoping the automatic defence systems hadn’t somehow scared off the equine lifeform. It obviously understood what the AI had said, considering it hadn’t used magic since the systems had activated. But that didn’t mean that it was able to comprehend that a computer had issued the threat. Suddenly the internal speaker crackled and they picked up insanely loud shouting.

“Hello! We are Princess Luna, of Equestria! We have learned of your presence here, and wish to establish a diplomatic relationship between our two great nations!”

The pilots’ hands snapped up, covering his ears, “DAMN! Turn it down, turn it down!”

The OSS captain shook his head as one of his men reduced the internal speaker volume. This lifeform obviously didn’t understand the term “subtle”.

The speaker crackled again, but this time, Lee’s voice rang out, “You’re cleared for take off. A landing bay has been prepared. Another trooper has been dispatched, for the Elite's fighter.”

The shock squad captain radioed back “Sir, there’s a creature outside trying to make first contact.”

“The Elite’s already handling it. Just leave, and make sure you don’t hurt it in the process.”

“Got it, sir.”

Outside Luna stared wide eyed, as the sealed pods were lifted off the ground, and pulled closer to the hull of the ship. Suddenly, the ground began to rumble. Two pillars of bright blue flames sprayed out of the ship, onto the ground.

The heat Luna felt was incredible. The force of the blast was literally pushing her away. Then, slowly, the building began to rise. The noise was so loud that not even the Royal Canterlot voice could drown it out. As the building rose, it kicked up dust, and debris, sending them in a whirlwind around the building.

As its altitude increased, the intensity of the heat, and sound decreased. It flew upwards, till it was just a speck in the sky. Then there was an ear shattering crash, and a shock wave as it flew away.

As Luna stared at the now empty sky, she began wondering if she had somehow offended, or scared it’s inhabitants.

‘But why didn’t the other one fly away then?’

“I’m going to need help with this...” muttered the princess.

As soon as the words left her mouth, the female voice came back on.

“Assistance request noted. What assistance do you require?”

As the voice spoke, a smile spread across Luna’s face. “I wish to know who you are!” said the princess excitedly

“I am artificial intelligence, designated Cygnus-X1. I am commonly referred to as ‘Sexy’ by John Punch” dead panned the computer.

Luna frowned at the ship. “Where are you? I wish to speak to you in person.”

“I am housed in compact data unit four on John Punch’s personal fighter, ‘The Veteran’.”

“Can you take me there?” Asked Luna, a twinge of hope in her voice

“Negative. You are too large. You are not a data packet.”

Luna, flabbergasted at the being’s gall, opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, the ground began to shake, and a loud rumbling was heard.

Luna quickly looked around, and saw the source of the noise. Another building was descending from the sky. The building stopped a few hundred feet in the air, and something fell out of it. As it plummeted towards the ground, the princess recognised the shape. It fit the the description of the creatures her royal guards had notified her of.

About halfway into the fall, the building the creature had fallen from began to ascend back above the clouds.

A second later, a torrent of blue flames slowed the creatures’ decent, and it landed rather close to Luna with a metallic clang. Once the dust had cleared, the creature could be seen sitting in the rather small depression in the ground.

It then began to rise, and walk towards the Lunar Princess.

It stood six and a half feet high, much taller than Luna. It’s armor was green, and gray, and it sported a faceplate with a black slits where its eyes should have been. Rather than a mouth, the creature, which was comparable to a very large human, was sporting a triangular indent on the faceplate.

Luna quickly regained her composure, and stood tall, in an attempt to look regal. The creature however, completely ignored her, and casually strolled towards the building. As he approached, an oblong glass dome on the top opened up, and the computer greeted the creature.

“Greetings rifleman.”

“Hello Cygnus. I’ll be flying you back to the Monarch,” said the armored creature in a rather peppy, but distorted tone.

“Thank you rifleman.”

Luna stared at the creature before quickly shouting out, “Halt!”

The rifleman complied, freezing in his tracks. Turning on his heel, he took a long look at Luna. “Yes?” he asked, his voice distorted and aggressive.

As John walked through the small town, he carefully observed the locals and their actions. He saw men, women, and ponies milling about, and browsing the market’s wares. Other than one odd bubble gum pink pony, who seemed to be tailing him. In all honesty, it was slightly off-putting, considering the short amount of time he had spent in the small town.

He couldn’t help but smile at the rather comical way she was going about it. She would zip from stall to stall, occasionally putting on silly, and ineffective disguises like fake mustaches, and sunglasses.

The pink pony aside, John had noticed the odd stares the locals had been giving him. The elite had been able to cross from one end of the town to the other in a matter of twenty minutes, so he had decided the stares were simply due to the fact that he wasn’t exactly a familiar sight. This seemed like a place where everyone knew everyone. That and his lofty body type; most of the humans didn’t seem to top five feet.

During Punch’s second pass through the town’s square, he noticed the yellow pegasus he had seen when he was in his armor. She seemed to be talking frantically to a purple pony...with a horn on her head.

‘A unicorn...wow. I get to fight man eating wolves and find two creatures from mythology. I can tell I’m going to have fun with this.’

Shrugging, John decided to talk to someone he was at least a little familiar with. Sauntering over, he stood, for a moment, and listened in.

“Fluttershy, there’s nothing to be scared of! If it wanted to hurt you, wouldn’t it have done it before?”

“It’s still dangerous! And...big. It killed a timberwolf...” moaned the pegasus.

‘Probably talking about me. Best jump in. And by jump in, I mean rudely interrupt.’

John took a deep breath, and made a big deal of clearing his throat to catch the attention of the two ponies. They quickly turned to look at the human, Fluttershy with a bit of awe, Twilight with distaste. The unicorn, due to her canterlot heritage, wasn’t exactly fond of humans; though she wasn’t openly hostile towards them, like some of the higher class. She just found them to be something of a nuisance. They really weren’t good for anything.

“Hello,” chipped the human, “I’m new in town, and-”

“I knew it!”

Crash!

The elite stared with wide eyes at the pink pony who had been following him for the past half hour. She had somehow launched herself out of a cannon at him. John however, had been lucky enough to duck before she could tackle him, and the result was a hyperactive fuzz ball smashing into a flower stand, ten feet in front of him.

The elite turned his gaze toward the unicorn, who was now staring at her pink friend with her mouth open. “Might want to close your mouth, ma’am. A bird might decide to roost in there.”

The unicorn’s mouth quickly snapped shut, and she turned to glare at John, who had an impish grin plastered across his face.

“Birds don’t fly that low, silly!” Shouted Pinkie from the broken flower stand. In the blink of an eye she zipped over.

Bouncing in place, she smiled at him. “But one might land on your head.”

The elite’s grin grew. “Oh really? Like that flower on yours?” The pink pony looked up, and giggled as she say a daisy sitting in a clump of dirt on top of her head. “My name is John, I’m new in town.”

“I know! But that’s only because I know everypony, and I mean everypony in town! Oh, my name’s Pinkie Pie by the way.” She chirped.

Stopping her bouncing she sat on her haunches, and gave him a smile. “So, who do you work for?”

John held the grin, but quickly began to panic. ‘What the hell is she talking about?’

“Yes?” asked the rifleman.

The rifleman sighed, and turned off his external amplifiers, and exited combat mode, making the distortion in his voice a bit less pronounced and aggressive. “Very well. What would you like to talk about?”

“I wish establish relations between our nations.”

‘Holy crap...why can’t all first contacts go like this?! But, there’s still the ‘humans are slaves’ deal. It could be a ruse. The SAI sent back intel, and the Elite is still gathering information. Lee will most likely tell me to back off anyways. Best just make a warm lead, then.’’

“I wouldn’t mind talking for a little while…”

Author's Note

Right. So VOTING TIME!

As you may have noticed with Fluttershy, humans work under ponies. SO who do you want John to work under? I want this to be interactive.

The options are Pinkie (Pinkie and John get along well, in terms of personality.), Applejack (this won't be too cool.) or Rarity.
(Unicorn that loves gossip. John harboring a secret about a 150 million ton spaceship floating over the planet.)

Tell me what you all think

Also HUGE thank you to Narlepoax III

Strange Situations

“Heeeelllloooooo? You alright there John?” shouted Pinkie.

John had gone into a nervous silence and had accidentally killed the flow of a conversation. Pinkie, thinking she had somehow broken him, was bouncing around him and poking him all over to get a response.

The pony rolled her eyes, then pulled out a megaphone from inside her mane.

‘Shit.’

“CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW!?”

“Yes! I can hear you!” the Elite bellowed, “Now put that away! My ears are ringing!”

Giving him a sheepish grin, Pinkie threw the megaphone away. “Well...I asked who you were working for.”

“At the moment, no one,” replied the elite, with a frantic edge to his voice, “Just, no more loud sounds!”

Twilight sighed, “Sorry about that, Pinkie can be a bit...overwhelming,” Her face spread into a strained smile, “So. What’s your background?”

‘She doesn’t like me. But she wants to at least start on good terms. Hopefully flattery will get me somewhere.

“I’m something of a freelancer…”

“Oh, you do short term contracts, huh?”

‘Contracts. Humans and ponies from slavery contracts? I’ll go with it...’

“Basically, yeah.” John muttered, casually. Cocking his head to the side, he continued to stare at her.

“You know, purple’s my favorite color.”

He saw a small blush creep onto the pony’s face, “R-really? That’s nice.”

Turning his attention to the party pony who was bouncing about John asked “Pinkie, why’s it important you know who I work for anyways?”

“I was wondering if they came to townwithyoubecauseiftheydid” she paused and inhaled deeply “I have to throw them a party!”

The elite stared at her a moment then shook his head. “Why?”

“Why not?” she replied, with a cheeky grin

“Touche.”

Twilight, recovering from John’s rather random complement, and dreamy stare cleared her throat the same way the Elite had. Turning his head in response, the elite raised and eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Um...What exactly, are you doing here?”

John’s signature, impish grin returned. “Standing.”

Pinkie gave out a little snort as she tried, and failed, to hide her laughter.

“No, I mean what do you want to do in Ponyville?”

‘Ponyville? Really? That has got to be some sort of laziness record!’

John had noticed her voice was slightly less abrasive, and in fact more suspicious. Honestly speaking though, he didn’t mind that too much. Keeping secrets isn’t hard, when people, or in this case ponies, are on your side. All John really had to do was make sure the unicorn didn’t outright hate him. As long as he did that, he could care less about her curiosity.

“Pfffft You sound like an old man!” teased Pinkie.

John shrugged. “I guess.”

Slowly, the pink mare’s gaze made its way down to John’s suitcase. Ears swiveling back in curiosity, Pinkie trotted over and put a hoof on the leather. “What’s in here?”

“It’s a secret.” said John offhandedly. He then realized the error he made. Secrets increase curiosity. Them seeing his rifle could be bad. Especially if the yellow one caught a glimpse of it. His cover would be blown!

“Tell me!” shouted Pinkie, bouncing up and down excitedly.

‘So it begins...’

“I don’t know, we’re not great friends.”

The mare stopped mid-bounce, and fell to the ground. “We aren’t?” She asked, her voice cracking. ‘It’s like she’s a little kid! What the hell?’

“W-Well, not yet! You haven’t told me any jokes!”

Raising a hoof, Twilight smacked it into her face. Pinkie however rolled her eyes, as if she had made a stupid mistake. Then, she zipped in between Twilight and Fluttershy. “I can’t believe I forgot! Girls quick, what’s a good joke!?” Fluttershy raised a hoof, and opened her mouth, but before she could say anything the mare shouted “Got it!”

As Pinkie began practicing her joke on Fluttershy, Punch took a long look at Twilight.

“Hey.”

Twilight looked up at him.

“I never got your name…”

“Twilight Sparkle,” She replied.

‘Fitting.’

“Great,” he said, turning his attention back to Pinkie and Fluttershy

The mare’s gaze went from curious to confused.

“Great?”

“Great to meet you. All that jazz. You know?”

John was a bit more concerned with what was going on with Fluttershy and Pinkie. In the thirty seconds he hadn’t been watching them, the pegasus had been suspended in the air by ropes that were tied to a lamp post. At this point, most of the towns square was staring at the two of them. Pinkie Pie happened to have a slice of cake, on a saucer and was balancing it on her nose. Sauntering over to the pair of them, John poked the bubble gum pony and gestured towards the ropes.

“Should I ask?”

“Shhh I’m doing the fishstick! It’s a delicate process!”

“How about, I just tell you a joke? I really don’t want to be on the receiving end of the fishstick...whatever that is.” said John in mock horror.

Fluttershy frantically began nodding her head. “I vote for Mr.John telling a joke!” squeaked the timid pegasus.

‘Mr.John? Doesn’t she ‘own’ a human?’

Dropping the cake, Pinkie bounced in place. “Alright!”

“What did one ocean say to the other?” asked John, selecting the cheesiest joke in his book.

The mare raised a hoof to her chin and thought for a moment. “Hmmm. I dunno?”

“Nothing. They waved.” said John as he shrugged at the rather lame joke.

Pinkie however had a huge grin across her face. “OH! I sea what you did there!”

John raised an eyebrow, and a smile spread across his face. “I’m shore you did…”

The two of them burst out laughing. As they clutched their sides, Twilight stared on at the two of them, then shook her head. Trotting over to the lamp post, she magicked Fluttershy out of the ropes, and gently set her down. Then turning to her, the unicorn gestured towards the laughing pair. “It’s like they were made for each other…”

USSF Assault Rifleman Andrew “The Brick” Rich, sat clad in armor in front of a princess, who went by Luna, awaiting her first question. They had been locked in a staring match for the past five minutes as they had basically established mental boundaries and studied each other through appearance.

After what seemed like an eternity, Luna broke the silence. “First I would like to know what you call yourselves.” stated Luna.

“Classified. Sorry.” replied Andrew casually

“I understand...I suppose. But then, what do I call you?”

“Rifleman is fine.”

“Is that a title? Like Princess?” she excitedly chirped.

“Oh no. Nowhere near as prestigious as princess,” he quickly replied, “but yes, I suppose it is a title, ma’am.”

Luna cocked her head, and sighed. Turning her head towards the Veteran she asked “What is that?”

“It’s a ship,” stated Andrew, plainly.

“Is somepony inside it? I’ve been talking to somepony named Cygnus but she refuses to let me in to see her. She claims I am too large.”

Behind his mask, the rifleman was horror struck. Luna thought Cygnus had called her fat! On top of that she was a princess...“Oh no no no, you aren't too large she’s just very... territorial.”

‘It’s not a complete lie. I remember that AI fired a pulse beam at a girl that was hitting on Punch once. I don’t want to get on her bad side.’

“I see. Are all females of your race like that?”

Resisting the urge to facepalm, Andrew shook his head. ‘This is too hard. I have to change the subject.’

“No. So...what about you? What is your race called?”

“We are uncomfortable answering this question, when you haven’t provided an answer.”

“Fair enough.”

‘She’s reverted to we. As if she speaks for the entire population… I can’t act like I know too much about her. I don’t need her snooping around and finding the Monarch

“I must ask princess. How did you get here? I don’t see your ship anywhere.”

Luna gave a warm smile. “I flew.” She then flapped her wings and rose a few feet in the air, displaying her ability.

Andrew, quickly activated a video feed. Most people would run diagnostics, bit his armor was no where near as advanced as an Elite, or even an OSS troopers. Basically, all he had was a HUD and a camera, coupled with a thruster pack. He wasn’t even given space grade armor, because the SAI had already told The Monarch that the air was harmless.
.

As she landed, the rifleman began clapping. “Amazing! I must say I have never seen anything quite like that.”

“Oh, you flatter us.”

‘Maybe I can get some answers here...’

“Princess, could you please answer another question?”

Luna smiled. “I will answer, if you allow me to enter your ship.”

‘Hopefully Punch’ll understand.’

“Very well...What is your nation’s relationship with the humans?” Andrew made a big deal of saying humans with a dismissive tone.

“Humans provide labor, and we provide food and shelter.”

“What if a human wanted to leave here?”

Luna chuckled. “If their watcher allows them to, then they can.”

“I see. Well, I have to get going. It was nice talking to you.”

The princess of the night looked towards the ground. Honestly speaking she really did enjoy this conversation. In a way, the princess was slightly disappointed that the rifleman had to leave. But then again, there was still the ship.

“You will allow me to enter your ship correct?” asked Luna apprehensively, as though fearing he would simply take off.

Andrew nodded. Walking up to the Veteran he shouted “Cygnus, It’s time to leave!”

The ship then hissed, and began to hum as the High Energy Fusion Jets warmed up. As the ship started up the rifleman climbed up and into the cockpit. Gesturing toward Luna, he shouted “Come on up!”

Unfurling her wings the lunar princess flew up and landed in the cockpit. The place was much smaller than she’d expected. Due to the ship begin designed for one person, she ended up wedging herself between the dashboard, and Andrew.

The Rifleman was actually feeling a bit awkward because of it. A ruler that was practically considered a god was sitting in his lap, and staring at the controls of a supersonic, space grade combat ship.

“What do you think?” Shouted the rifleman over the engines.

“It’s very small!” replied the princess.

Rich gave a hearty laugh.

‘Way to state the obvious...’

“Yes, I suppose it is!”

As Luna looked around, she saw unusual knobs and buttons, with writing under them. It seemed to be an odd variant of classical Equestrian. The lines and dots seemed to be in the wrong places, making the script difficult, but not impossible to read.

One lever however seemed to catch her interest the most. As she read it, she realized it said “Thrusters.”

On the side was a bar that went from red on the bottom, to yellow, then green.

She turned to look at Andrew. He had somehow connected a hose to his face plate, where his mouth should have been, and he seemed busy looking at gauges.

“Excuse me. Can you show me how it works?”

“You want me to fly it?”

“Yes!” she chirped

“Umm...I don’t know if I’m allowed to do that…”

“We will speak with your leaders, should they be angry.”

‘Alright. I guess I’m just...making a diplomatic relation.’

“Alright. Cygnus, let’s put on a show!”

“Yes, Rifleman!” said the AI, a the smallest amount of excitement in her voice modulator.

After the rather unusual events in the town’s square, Pinkie Pie had offered to show John around, and see if she could find some work for him. They had spent the first fifteen minutes getting acquainted with the two friends, who the bubble gum pony had ran into.

Twilight had seemed to have warmed up to John. But he still noticed that she regarded any human she didn’t know too well with an air of detachment and slight haughtiness. In all honesty, he found it odd she warmed up to him so fast. It must have had something to do with Pinkie being there.

As for Fluttershy, she hadn't said a single thing. Rather, she had just meekly followed along. Punch knew he could get her to open up, if he just figured out what she enjoyed, and found common ground.

It was a basic psychological trick. Get someone to talk about something they like, and they’ll be ready to talk all day.

Noticing her butt-mark, for lack of a better term, he decided he may ask her about butterflies latter on.

About halfway through the tour, he noticed something odd. The unicorns were using what seemed to be Mobile Action Global Interactive Control. Or MAGIC systems. Mostly the levitation feature.

Honestly speaking, it scared Punch, to think they could do something like that. MAGIC systems were actually Precursor technology. It was a specialized system, installed on synthetic planets built by Precursors. It allowed almost complete control over any item on the planet, and because it was built into the planet itself, it was impossible to detect unless it was being used in front of a sensor specifically scanning for it.

As he stared at a mint green unicorn levitating a cup he felt a nudge on his side. Looking down he saw Pinkie staring up at him. “Hey John! I want to introduce you to my good friend Applejack!” she then gestured towards a pony, across the street dressed in a cowboy hat, and an apron. Standing next to her was a dark haired human, who was about four foot two.

“Come on, slow poke!” shouted the party pony as she bounced over and started yapping at the orange cowgirl. (Cowpony?).

Pinkie turned towards John and shook her hoof, telling him to come over. As he sauntered over, he saw Applejack’s eyes go wide.

“Hello,” stated the elite, “How’s it going?”

“Uhh, pretty good I s’pose,” replied the farm pony, “My name’s Applejack, and this here’s Jack.”

‘What a lame coincidence.’

“Nice to meet you. I go by Punch,” said the Elite, adopting the military like discipline he used when introducing himself.

“Wow. Real tall fella hmm…” she said more to her assistant than Punch

Dropping the air of formality, the Elite’s signature grin snapped back into place “I’m not tall. You’re all short.”

Pinkie gasped as though he had revealed a world changing secret. “Oh my gosh, you're right!” shouted the pink pony. John just shook his head.

‘I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to her.’

“Cockpit sealed. Ready for liftoff, rifleman.”

“Alright, prime thrusters, and heat pumps!”

“What are heat pumps?”

‘Goddamn it!’

In the ten minutes that Andrew had spent simply preparing for lift off, Luna had asked several questions, that Cygnus, much to his annoyance, had decided to answer through the use of a touch screen. The princess had been overly fascinated when the touch screen had pulled up a diagram of the HEF jets and explained in detail their accelerative abilities. She had then gone through the computer systems giggling, as she opened applications and programs. She found particular joy in a game of 3D tetris, which Cygnus force quit in an effort to calm down Andrew .

“Princess, if you ask for an explanation of every device, it will take us forever to get in the air.”

“It will take a total of three years, thirty two days, two hours and sixteen minutes Rifleman” Replied Cygnus.

“Yes, and I’m already late. I don’t have that long,” Rich grumbled.

“Our apologies, Rifleman. Please continue.” said Luna humbly.

‘Thank god.’

“Right. Ignition sequence, we’re just going to do a fly around before going back!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Princess! Please push that red button, next to the lever on my left.”

Gasping a bit, she squeaked, then reached over and pushed the button. The ship began rumbling. “All engines running.”

“Now! The lever, slowly begin pushing it up!”

Following the instructions, Luna cooed in excitement as the ship’s rumbling intensified. Then part of the dashboard opened up, and a steering wheel began to extend out. Andrew grabbed the controls, as Luna kept increasing the throttle.

“Alright, Princess, stop. And hold on to something!”

Luna obediently followed the instructions, and grabbed hold of Andrew's left arm with her forelegs.

Gripping the throttle lever with his Luna-free hand, Andrew jerked it forward, into the afterburner position, and pulled hard on the controls. The Veteran lurched, and then rocketed into the sky. Luna yelped, and clutched at the rifleman’s arm in a vice grip. The ship was almost vertical, and climbing higher and higher, as the engines exerted themselves. The vibrations became louder and more intense the longer the ship climbed.

Suddenly the AI’s voice cut through the noise. “Afterburners at 50% capacity.”

Luna felt herself being pushed back into the rifleman’s chest by the G forces. Though they were traveling at insane speeds, the G’s being exerted on the occupants of the cabin were not very great, thanks to the Veteran’s inertia balancing system, but that didn’t stop the pair of them from noticing the intensity of the climb.

As Luna continued to almost crush Andrew’s arm, there was another lurch and the ship slowed, and leveled out. Luna took a deep breath, and finally let go of Andrew’s arm.Turning her gaze out the window, the princess gasped at the view. They were up so high, she could see a slight curve in the horizon. Far below them, she saw the white cotton candy like clouds, and below them still was the green of the edge of the Everfree forest. Next to it was a small bunch of rectangles, that looked more like specks. The rooftops of Ponyville.

Staring in awe, Luna look towards Canterlot mountain: the tallest point in Equestria. They were far above the peak, so far in fact, that Canterlot was but a speck on the side of the mountain too.

Suddenly, Luna felt a tickle in her stomach. Almost as if...

“A- are we falling!?”

“Negative, we’ve gone into a dive.”

Suddenly, the clouds, and Equus began to grow larger and larger. Shutting her eyes, in a panic, Luna held her breath and waited for impact, not quite trusting the judgement of the rather rude AI. The feeling of falling was making her sick, and she could feel herself being lifted out of the Rifleman’s lap, as they fell.

After a moment, Luna braced herself for impact. She closed her eyes, and again, grabbed Andrew’s arm.

When the impact didn’t come, she opened a single eye, and saw that they had landed, and the glass dome they were sitting under was opening up, and the rumbling of the engine was growing louder.

“What did you think?” asked the rifleman.

“The view was breathtaking. How high did we go?”

“About twenty one thousand meters up...”

“Wow...I’ve never flown that high.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have been able to breathe. I’m glad you enjoyed it,” said Andrew smiling behind his mask.

Luna gave a content sigh. “We must talk again soon. Come to Canterlot for tea, sometime. It’s the city up on the mountain…”

‘Wow...The alien race we’re supposed to be investigating just asked me to tea...Well, I suppose that I can consider that warm lead plan a success...’

“If my superiors allow it, I’d love to. Thank you.”

John Punch stood, staring at a pair of guards, who wore perfect poker faces. Twilight Sparkle had entered what seemed to be the town hall, Pinkie had already gone home, and Fluttershy shortly after, leaving the pair to their own devices for the rest of the evening.

Twilight, still having work to finish up, had dragged John along, claiming that Pinkie had made her watch over him.

Honestly, John was just happy to have a place to stay. But the fact that Twilight was running an errand at the town hall, and the guards stationed there were rather discriminatory. That ticked the Elite off, and so he was stuck figuring out ways to bother them, and get into the huge building.

The Elite was actually a bit put off by their display. He’d never really been told off before. Or denied. Soldiers normally saluted him, and called him sir, yet here he was, being denied entrance to a building.

Walking up to the guards, he attempted, for the third time, to walk past them. They extended their wings, cutting off his entrance.

“Halt. You can’t go inside.”

“Why?”

They ignored him...again

“Hey. Listen!”

They ignored him again.

“Say something!”

The drill sergeant in him was ready to burst out and start barking orders but he knew the moment he did something, stupid, they’d charge him with something stupid like disturbing the peace. And he knew wouldn’t be able to fight them without pulling out his rifle.

‘Okay, I will NOT be ignored! Fuck these guys!’

Rather than taking the stairs, he walked about three feet to the left, just out of sight, and placed his suitcase on the ground. Then jumping up, he grabbed onto the railing, and pulled himself up. He smiled with satisfaction at his small accomplishment.

WIth his signature smile in place, he walked over to the staircase near the door. Opening up the door, he shouted “Hey! Dumb and Dumber! What’s up?”

The guards whirled around, eyes wide with surprise. Punch laughed like a maniac at their reaction, and then strolled into the town hall. As he walked in he spotted Twilight talking to a gray maned mare. Sauntering up to the pair he gestured towards the door. “Hey ya, Sparkle. Ready to go?”

“Oh. Hello John! Before we do, this is Mayor Mare,” She turned to the mare, “He’s the new human I’ve been telling you about.”

The mare gave him a kind smile. “Hello, Mr.Punch. You caused quite the stir today, parading around with Pinkie Pie and all.”

“Something tells me she’s a handful.” said the elite with a kind smile.

The two of them nodded. “Well, Twilight, thank you for the report. I’ll see you later.”

John stared at her as she walked away. Then he shook head head. “Wait, did I go through all that crap for nothing?” he asked Twilight, who was magicking a few papers into a manilla folder.

“All what crap?” asked the purple pony.

“The guards out there are about as sharp as a marble. They gave me a hard time about trying to get into the town hall.”

Twilight stopped for a moment and stared at him. “Well, that’s not nice. I’m pretty sure that it’s not allowed, either. This is a public building. How’d you get past them?”

“You all seem to lack the concept of going around obstacles rather than through them.”

“You snuck in?”

“Yep,” replied Punch

“Well, how will you get out?”

“Same way I got in,” he said, not missing a beat. “Besides...after taunting them, I don’t think they’ll take too kindly to me strolling out the front door.”

A half hour later, John stood in the middle of a spacious library, hunched down slightly due to the low ceiling. Twilight had been very welcoming so far, she’d even offered him tea, which he’d turned down. At this point though, he was a bit uncomfortable. The mare had insisted on talking to him about his previous jobs, to see if she could find him some work.

Seems like she wanted to be rid of him as soon as possible. The Elite wasn’t complaining, though. The sooner he got away from her, the sooner he’d be able to stop being paranoid about her figuring out about his real occupation.

“So. John Punch...that’s an interesting name,” she said awkwardly. “Is it a nickname?”

The Elite smiled and shook his head. “No. It’s my full name. Are you trying to make small talk?”

“Yes, It’s proper etiquette. Anyways, who named you?”

The Elite simply shrugged.

“You don’t know?”asked Twilight, a little confused

Twilight shook her head “You don’t want to learn about yourself?”

“Nope.”

“...I’ll never understand that.”

“and I’ll never care,” John said, his voice dripping in sarcasm, as he lazily threw away a random book he’d been flipping through.

The purple mare threw him an annoyed glare. “That’s really rude, you know. You should be thankful. Pinkie-”

“Do you hate me?”

Caught off guard, Twilight stopped mid sentence, and stared at him. Then she slowly shook her head. “No, I’m letting you stay with me. Why would do that, I if I didn’t like you?”

John leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Because you’re trying to keep up your social status. I saw the way you looked at me in the town’s square. You don’t really like me, at all.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “It’s not you. I mean, I’ve just never really met a human that’s been all that nice. Every human has immediately began judging me, after they figured out I was from Canterlot. They never take the time to get to know me...That and then humans are really lazy.”

John looked towards her and smiled. “I learned you’re from Canterlot just now. Does it look like I’m judging you?”

“Not really, but you’re not from around here…”

‘Damn...she’s either really sharp, or I’m really doing a bad job of covering my ass.’

“And you’re judging humanity based on a sample size of what? Two? Three?”

“Two or Three? What makes you think that?”

“This town is downright tiny. Twinkie Pie-”

“It’s Pinkie Pie.”

“Sure, Pinkie Pie greeted everyone in town, human and pony, and tacked off their birthdays today. This town is small. I only noticed two people that were particularly rude to you. So I can basically say that they don’t like you, and you don’t like them. If you ask me, that’s a sample size of two. Too small to make a generalization that big.”

“I suppose. I’m sorry, if I seemed... suspicious at first. Hey! I could write a friendship report about that! ”

“Really? You want to write a paper on friendship? That’s so much work. Wait… Okay, I see what you’re saying about being lazy. In my defence, I feel there’s no point in extra work,” stated John quickly.

He saw her raise a hoof to her mouth as she tried to suppress a giggle. “If you’re not willing to do extra work, how will you get anywhere?”

‘I’m a First Division, Guardian Rank Elite who happens to be rather decorated, and I’m lazy as hell… how did I do it?’

“By doing the work given to you so well, you don’t need to do extra work,” said the Elite, more to himself than to the unicorn.

“You’re something else.”

‘I’m a genius.’

“Well, I’m off to bed. The guest bed is ready upstairs, if you like,” she yawned

“Nah, I don’t want to bump my head on anything…” muttered the human, eying the furniture, and ceiling in an accusatory fashion.

“We have vaulted ceilings…” sing songed Twilight

John’s eyes snapped to the staircase, and a smile appeared on his face, “You make a very persuasive argument.”

The mare smiled. “Oh, wait! Before I forget, I think I have a friend that could form a contract with you. She’s been swamped with work. Her name’s Rarity. I think you two would really work well together. Just a word of warning, she’s kind of like me…”

“Purple and adorable?” Asked John, hopefully

“N-no! She just doesn’t get along with humans very quickly.” shouted the mare, a bit nervously.

“And here I was, getting my hopes up,” muttered the Elite.

“It was amazing, sister! I wish you’d been there!” exclaimed Luna.

The two princesses had just finished their celestial duties, and were taking time to have their daily tea session. A time for the both of them to unwind and talk about their day, in the short time that their courts weren’t in session.

Celestia had been quite surprised at her sister’s initiative. She normally considered things like meteors trivial, however it seemed that the elevated security had caused Luna to think the meteor was reason for suspicion.

In actuality, a threat had been made against Canterlot not too long ago, and Celestia had thought the meteor was the attack. But this discovery was much bigger than a silly space rock. Luna had claimed that creatures that traveled in flying buildings they called “ships” had been on the edge of the Everfree forest, and that one of them, who had earned the humble position of Rifleman, had offered to take her flying in his.

Had any other pony been making these statements, Celestia would have been skeptical. But this was her sister, and she was talking about forming an alliance with a new nation. Both of which gave her statement a bit more merit.

Since the start of the tale, she had been captivated by the conversation Luna had shared with the creature, and the amazing wonders that were built into the ship. The elder sister took great interest in the technology the new race possessed. The more Luna described the humanoids, the more she feared that they had issued the threat against Canterlot.

However, the threat was found in the form of a note, posted on the outer wall’s guard barracks, and it had been written in perfect Equestrian. Not the classical script that the humanoids wrote in. But then again, translation wasn’t exactly hard. Most fillies and colts are taught classic Equestrian. Even some more intelligent humans learned it.

Taking a deep breath, Celestia looked towards Luna and shook her head. “I hope that this so-called “Rifleman” reports our attempted friendliness to his superiors. You already know about the threat against Canterlot. I don’t want another one.”

The smile slid off Luna’s face, and she looked towards her plate. “Sister, why is it that in the time we’re supposed to take a break, you continue to think about the problems we’re having?”

The solar alicorn sighed again, and shook her head. “I don’t know… It’s getting late, I should get to sleep.”

“Have a good rest. I will watch the night.”

Punch sat quietly on the bed. Open in front of him, was his suitcase. The case had actually contained a lot more than the Elite had expected. Quite a pleasant surprise, from his point of view. His Rifle, of course had sat atop everything, but John had swapped the layout, placing a false bottom over the rifle. Sitting on the false bottom was a few changes of clothes, a pair of glasses, built to project an HUD onto the lense and record things seen by the elite, and a arm mounted omni tool, commonly called an engineer’s kit.

In all honesty John had been more than a little confused when he’d seen the kit. It was normally used by field personnel that were performing deep space repairs, or working in zero gravity zones, it was a rather common sight.

It was new to Punch, though. He’d never really been given an opportunity to use one, due to him being a ‘specialized unit’. After a moment of joy at the thought of having his very own Engineer’s kit, a devious thought crossed the Elite’s mind.

‘I wanna try the plasma knife...’

As the Elite grabbed the tool, and opened it up. He then clicked it into place, with a loud SNAP. Looking at the tabs, to activate different tools, he smiled at the plasma cutter. Pressing the button, there was a small blast of air, from a deployment cartridge, and a wire mesh in the shape of a blade was deployed. John felt the blade begin to warm, and soon there was a crackle, as blue plasma sparked to life. The kit came with a heat resistant glove, which worked wonders, considering he could feel the intensity of the heat on his face, even though he was holding the tool at arm’s length.

Feeling the urge to do something destructive, the elite looked around the bed. Spotting a metal lamp on the side table next to him, he grabbed it, and turned it on its side. With a childish grin on his face, he brought the knife, which was jutting out from the bottom of his wrist, down on the center of the lamp.

The blade sliced through the metal, like a laser through steel. Unfortunately the magical lamp happened to be the only source of light in the room, and the result was John being thrown into semi-darkness, with only the blue glow of the plasma knife to help him see.

‘Right… Should have considered that before hand. But if I connect the wires, it should work fine...’

Quickly tapping the tab near thumb, the Elite shut off the knife. Grabbing the top half of the lamp, John, arranged the wires, and touched them together, and the lamp lit up. Looking in his briefcase, he spotted a roll of duct tape. Smiling to himself, he grabbed the roll, and after a minute or two of searching for the end of the tape, pulled off a strip.

Punch then applied a hearty amount of tape to the wires, then the base of the lamp, and placed it back on the bed side table.

John’s smile turned to a frown when the lamp sagged to the left, and flickered a bit, but somehow, managed to stay on.

‘Well...close enough.’

Turning his attention back to the tool, the Elite began to flick through the settings, which were displayed on a small one inch tall, four inch wide screen. Settling on the zero gravity movement system, essentially a powerful grappling hook, John set it to the main tab, a small button, just under the thumb that could be reached with his middle finger..

Pointing his arm up, Punch fired the movement system, which had apparently been modified to have a hook rather than an electro magnet, and gave a loud “Whoop!” as it impaled itself in the ceiling. Pushing the tab again, Punch started laughing as the hook began to lift him into the air, above his bed.

At that moment, the door knob began to jiggle, John, in his excitement, didn’t notice as a groggy, and grumpy Twilight Sparkle opened the door, ready to complain about the Elite’s cheering, but instead gasped in shock at the airborne human.

Author's Note

What do you all think of that ending?

Again thanks to null Narlepoax III, for being generally awesome and an amazing editor.

What would you all want to happen next? I have ideas, but I won't give anything away... :)

SPOILER

No, he will not reveal his status etc. Don't worry...

Rarity

Luna sighed. So many dreams, thousands upon thousands, and not a single one was interesting enough for her to visit for more than two minutes. The night court itself never was interesting, so Luna spent her time simply sifting through dreams, and helping to grant restful sleep. In all honesty though, Luna was looking for something. Or rather someone.

The princess was searching for the dreams of Rifleman. He intrigued her, and anything she could learn about him would be considered a success in that department. Heck, even something similar in terms of the way he looked would be considered an accomplishment in her books. So far though her search had not been going well.

“Let’s see.” Luna’s horn, again began to glow, and suddenly she was plunged into a random dream. Taking a good look around, she quickly noticed she was at an art exhibition. A closer look revealed a filly with a paintbrush as her cutie mark, giving a presentation on art.

“Great...next…”

There was a flash, a burst of color, and suddenly Luna found her staring at...a human? Hanging from the ceiling? The dream was blurry, and shaky. As if the line between dreams and reality were blurring. She’d experienced this before.

Tired ponies. Ponies who were exhausted to near the point of passing out, and basically sleep walked their way around, we're actually still dreaming...in part anyways. This meant Luna, felt, saw and experienced everything they did. But, while she was completely Lucid, the pony experiencing them, may not be.

Feeling around herself, she quickly realized she was Twilight Sparkle. However the human in front of her was a foreign entity. There was no recollection of who he was. She watched as a blurry line suspending him in the air flew back and clicked into his wrist. The human then walked towards Twilight, and laid a hand on her head. Suddenly, the princess felt a soothing scratch behind her ear. The human’s limber fingers were massaging Twilight’s. She then felt a hand trailing down her back, and rubbing just at the base of her neck. The human the embraced the unicorn and scooped her up. The unicorn, suddenly began feeling warm, as the Human embraced her, and began rocking her back to sleep.

As he stood up, Luna became acutely aware of the Human’s height and warmth. He seemed to be much warmer than usual. The warmth combined with the scratching and rocking slowly, soothed Twilight back into unconsciousness, and the beginnings of a dream formed.

Retreating out of the purple unicorn’s mind, Luna sat wide eyed on her throne.

‘I think I witnessed something very sweet. And possibly private...’

Back at the Library, a certain purple unicorn had been soothed back to sleep by a rather nervous Elite. Twilight Sparkle was quietly snoozing in John’s arms. The elite had essentially turned himself into a giant teddy bear, and done his best to hit every sweet spot he could think of. It was much like putting the old cat he had back home to bed. He’d simply pick the little guy up, and pet him ‘till he passed out. The furball was the cutest when he was asleep. Twilight was no different. She had curled herself into a ball, much like Patchwork would when he fell asleep. The mare looked so fragile. Like she would break if he hugged her too tight. It was rather nostalgic. Almost alarmingly so.

John gave a very unmasculine coo at the thought of his cat. Snapping back to reality, he looked at the sleepy unicorn.

‘I’m glad I didn’t have to knock her out. Hitting people for no reason isn’t my thing...even if they are stuck up at times.’

Another minute of awkward staring…

‘She looks like a child’s toy when she’s asleep… except she’s breathing.’

As he began walking out the door, he drew multiple parallels between her and one of the oversized unicorns children always got at street fairs. But for every similarity, there was the odd fact that this creature was actually alive. It honestly amazed him. With the various specimens he’d seen, he thought that the universe held no more surprises. But time and time again he was proved wrong.

Reaching the unicorns room, he walked up to the messy bed, taking care not to wake Spike as he moved about. Gently placing her on the bed, John grabbed the blankets, which were still warm, and tucked the unicorn in. He quickly ruffled her mane, and made for the door. Before he would reach it, he heard a quiet, groggy, whisper.

“Thanks BBBFF…”

‘BBBFF? The hell is that supposed to mean?’

Shrugging, John quietly closed the door, and made his way back to his room. The Elite slept soundly that night. But he did learn his lesson. “Never use a grappling hook when spying on purple unicorns that live in trees…” Or so his personal log said.

“Honestly Twilight, I don’t need a Human. I don’t,” Said a flustered Rarity, as she ran about, magicly assembling dresses and hats. “I already have Sweetie Belle to worry about. Adding a human to that list isn’t going to help me. Not to mention I have a HUGE order to fill for a shop that wants to carry my fall line!”

Twilight rolled her eyes. After she’d gotten ready that morning, she’d asked Punch to go help Spike pick up some supplies. The unicorn had found John’s behaviour a lot more unusual, compared to before. He seemed a bit more wary around her, but at the same time, slightly more protective. She’d dropped a cup, and both he and Spike had made their way over to her to make sure she was alright. Spike was expected, but John, with the way he’d been acting, had been a bit of a pleasent surprise.

After the usual events of the morning, she ended up making her way over to Rarity’s boutique, in hopes of convincing her friend to essentially form a contract with John.

“Come on, Rarity. You haven’t even met him yet.”

“Twilight, Humans require care and tolerance. They’re like children. I don’t have time to rase one.”

“Will you at least spend a day or two with him before you say something like that?”

The white pony eyed Twilight for a moment “I never thought I’d hear the day you’d say something like that, Twilight…”

“Just goes to show how impactful conversation can be with him… He’s really interesting.”

“Is he well behaved? Does he understand rules?”

“I assure you, he does.”

The items floating in the air stopped their intricate assembly of ensembles. Slowly they floated to the ground, and the blue glow around them vanished.

“Fine. I’ll meet him. But only because you speak so highly of him. John was his name...correct?”

Twilight nodded, as she trotted out the door. Rarity sighed and quickly followed.

As the pair of unicorns waited outside, they looked about for the human. He’d agreed to meet Twilight at the boutique at roughly noon, but as she looked around she couldn’t spot the towering frame of the human. All she saw were ponies going about their days, with the occasional meek man or woman following behind them. As she watched them, she noticed a critical difference in their behavior. Most humans quietly followed their caretakers and essentially did their bidding in an attempt to keep them happy. John seemed more inclined to worry about himself than others. On top of that, he didn’t exhibit the same sense of submission as the other humans.

Sighing Twilight scanned around again, as Rarity impatiently began to tap a hoof. Suddenly the purple unicorn noticed him. Most humans were keeping toward their caretakers, and walking hunchbacked, almost fearfully. But John, with his huge frame, was standing straight up. He was walking with his head up, towards Carousel Boutique. He exuded a sense of confidence and power much like Celestia did when she walked about. However, John’s aura was more invasive and oppressing. Almost drill sergeant like when compared to the Princess’. Despite this, he had a smile plastered across his face as he made his way towards them.

Rarity, who had expected another tiny meek looking human, looked rather wide eyed at the stark difference between John and the humans she was used to seeing. It was astounding the way the Elite carried himself. But at the same time, he was still a human…

“Hello Twilight…” He turned to look towards Rarity, who quickly regained her composure and ‘humphed’ then looked away. “You must be Rarity. Correct?” The unicorn continued paying him no mind. The more she ignored him, the more annoyed he grew. His presence wasn’t something that was normally taken lightly. As he stood and glared daggers, and the tension grew, Twilight attempted to defuse the situation.

“Hey, come on, we can all behave like adults, right? Say something Rarity. ” When the she didn’t reply, Twilight leaned in and hissed “You said you’d meet him! Please! Say something!”

Punch’s face began to take on a frown and he took a step forward, advancing towards the unicorn. Then putting on his best ‘you hurt my feelings’ voice John asked “Was it something I said?”

Twilight, looked up at John and quickly shook her head, then nudged Rarity. The mare huffed, then looked towards Punch, a frown on her face. As she stared at him she began to notice just how small she was compared to him. The white unicorn barely made it to his hip.

“Yes. I am Rarity...and you, must be Johnathan Punch.”

John’s frown deepened. “Don’t call me that.” he snapped, any trace of the fake sadness gone.‘Only Sasha calls me that.’

Rarity simply rolled her eyes. “So what was it that you did before?”

“I’m a short term contracter,” he said, plainly. The unicorn’s eyes widened, and she gasped before turning towards Twilight.

“A short term contracter!? You think I need someone like him?” She muttered in an angry whisper. Twilight gave her a confused look, but then it snapped into place. She was thinking he rented himself out as a breeder. Considering his physique it would make sense, but with the way he acted, it was unlikely. Not to mention the fact that John had already said he worked mostly as a freelancer…

Shooting him a glare, Twilight gasped. “You told me you’re a freelancer! Not a- a baby maker!”

The Elite stared at her for a moment, and his right eye began to twitch. “No. No, I don’t do that.” he said, annoyance growing.

“You just said you were a Freelancer not...that!” shouted Twilight, attempting to avoid the taboo phrase.

John held up his arms defensively. “Hey, Pinkie made me think they meant the same thing, and none of you reacted then!”

Twilight blinked. “You really aren’t from around here!”

“So what? Okay, forget where I’m from. What’s the difference between a freelancer and a… contracter?” asked John, afraid to set off the unicorn again.

Rarity had watched the entire exchange wide eyed and full of confusion. All she had wanted to know was what his job was. Suddenly she’d been caught up in the middle of some sort of terminology argument. As she listened to the pair talk openly about such...taboo subjects a blush grew across her face until finally she lost it. “Stop it! The both of you! This is not the time, nor the place to speak of such...things.” She said the last word like it was a curse, spitting it out rather than simply saying it. “Listen, I don’t need a Contracter, or a Human to give me trouble. Okay?”

John looked towards Rarity and gave her a kind smile. “Okay. Look, if you don’t want me around, I’ll do my best to stay out of your way. I just need a place to sleep.”

Rarity sighed. “I suppose I could give you a place to stay for a few nights...but as soon as you find somepony who actually wants you, you’re out!”

John gave her a fake frown. “Well...alright. But can I still come and visit?”

Rarity stared at him a moment and shook her head. “Absolutely not! I don’t need a filthy beast parading about my home!”

‘Wow...brutal. Well I guess the innocent unconditional love thing doesn’t work on her, like it does with Twilight.’

“Fine.” stated John dryly. ‘I like Twilight better...she’s not an imbecile. And she’s purple.’

Turning towards the purple unicorn he smiled at her, and got on his knees so he was on the same level as the mare. John then reached out and wrapped his arms around her. The mare, simply sat in Johns embrace for a moment before muttering “Idiot,”. Then she did something that completely caught the Elite off guard. For a brief moment, she put one of her own hooves around Punch’s neck.

After their rather awkward hug, the pair split apart, and Punch cast his gaze towards Rarity. She had a look of surprise, and slight confusion plastered across her face. “Are you both that close?”

John shook his head. “Not really. But I heard that hugs are fun-o-riffic. Especially when you throw one around a friend.” Twilight eyed him and giggled as she realized the Elite was echoing Pinkie Pie.

Reascending to his full height, Punch gestured behind him. “I’m going to go get my clothes.” muttered John.

As he walked off, Twilight turned to Rarity, and asked “Well what did you think of him?”

“I suppose he’s one of the better human’s I’ve talked to. But he’s kind of thick headed.”

“Actually he’s very well read. He notices things that most humans and some ponies wouldn’t. But yes. He is thick headed at times… would you like me to write a contract?”

Rarity thought it through for a moment, and then nodded “Sure, I suppose a one month contract could work. But I beg of you, please lean the contract towards me. I don’t want him pulling some crazy stunt, and pawning it off on me.”

Leaning. It was a simple concept. Make the contract favor one side or the other. In Ponyville, most contracts were what were known as ‘unleaned’, with the exception of Applejack’s and Fluttershy’s contracts, which was leaned in the pony’s favor. The cases where the contract favored a human rather than a pony were rare. But they did exist. Normally in cases where a human was caring for an elderly pony. The contract gave the human more rights, allowing them to do things with the same status as a pony, without fear of persecution by guards.

To kind of counter the leaning process, there was a system Celestia had implemented known as a bonding period. The heavier the lean, the longer one would have to spend getting to know the human they were engaging. The goal was to prevent abuse, and it had worked wonders. There were even documented cases where the bonding time lead to a romantic relationship. It was very rare. But it had happened.

Twilight sighed. “I’ll lean it. I’ll be back with a draft in a few hours. ‘till then, make sure that you try and talk to him. It’ll make the bonding time easier.” The unicorn turned and began trotting towards the library, but quickly remembered something important, “Oh! Rarity!”

“Yes darling?”

“I just have to tell you...he’s very confrontational. If he thinks that you don’t like something, he’ll ask you why. And nothing is off limits to him. He did it to me, it was probably the most uncomfortable conversation I’ve had.”

Rarity’s eyebrows shot up. ‘odd...’ She then nodded in understanding and turned around, walking back to her shop.

High up in the northern mountains of the gryffon kingdoms, captain of the SAI squad Viktor Reiss was sitting just outside the huge capital city of Oldalae. Being such a large establishment, the USSF had sent out six SAI’s, in order to collect information about the city. Due to the abundance of units there, they gathered intell in a matter of a few hours.

They had learned that the city itself was quite odd. Part of it was out on the side of the mountain, similar to the pony city that had been reported, Canterlot. Rather than being white stone, it was instead grey rock, and gold-colored metal, probably brass. This was the main living area. Humans, and griffons alike lived here. Discrimination was very low, and most seemed friendly with one another.

Most of what seemed to be the palace was actually carved into the mountain itself. The rest of the city was built on clouds, meaning the top of the mountain always had a cloud covering. One that not only hid the city, but helped to regulate temperature throughout it. The Monarch's sensors were easily able to pick out the city. Even so, based on the technology available around these parts, the design was impressive.

Most humans couldn’t access the cloud parts alone, so instead, they asked griffons to give them ride. The process was very ceremonial and intricate, but the SAI had decided that it wasn’t worth learning, due to the fact that they could get all the information they needed with ultrasound sensors.

Viktor was currently in a conference call with Lee, and other members of the bridge, which was broadcasted through a suitcase, very similar to John’s.

“Well, they’re adjusted to us. They still have national secrets, and their relationship with Pony race is rather offhanded,” Lee summarized

“I recommend revealing ourselves to them. They already have a respect for what humans here can do. What if we showed them one of our dropships?” asked Viktor, “First contact would be quick and easy. Send in a research crew, in a dropship.”

“Wha’ about the ‘umans ‘hat are ‘here?” asked Lori, the chief engineer. She was small woman, with a thick Th'anan accent, a result of having grown up on a non-human planet. “Wha’ll ‘ey say? We can’t jus’ rush in.”

Viktor nodded “I didn’t think of that… I suppose just talking to the queen alone, and getting her to come up to the Monarch would be good. The usual ‘Explain and Reveal.”

Lee nodded. “Tried and true. I like it. But I have to ask, Why the alternate method?”

Viktor shrugged, “I thought maybe we could do this faster.”

Lee shook his head, “I see. Well, I need to get going. I’m expecting a call from a deployed Elite.”

“The initial deployment? The one you sent to that tiny town, near the pony capital?”

“Yep. I thought that it’d be a good place to put him. I know he’s a troublemaker, but I also know that he’s a bloody brilliant strategist, he can think on his feet. He was on 214, you know.”

Vik’s eyes widened in surprise. The events on 214 were considered some of the worst in the USSF’s career. They had almost lost a colonizer ship, known as the USSF Starwatch. It had actually held the title of most advanced ship, before the Monarch was launched.

Sighing he shook his head, “Damn. He must be something.”

Lee nodded “Oh, you bet he is. How soon can you get a meeting with the Gryphon’s ruler?”

Vik thought for a moment, “Well, between the six of us, I suppose we could get one in a few hours.”

Lee stared at them through the screen for a moment. “Okay… my conference can wait. How will you manage to pull this off?”

“When we came here, we went ahead and got out hands on a bunch of legal documents. We fed them some bullshit about being from Equestria, and wanting to know the laws for if we were to move. I looked through their papers. Turns out if you have a large, organized, group of more than five hundred creatures or have information concerning the safety of the kingdom, you basically get the priority box.”

Lee nodded. “Okay, I like the sound of this. Keep going.”

Viktor smiled. “Good to hear, sir. I’m going to claim I’m a representative of a different nation, and essentially demand a meeting as a diplomat.”

“There are no human settlements on the planet. What if they call your bluff?”

The SAI gave a thumbs up “I’ve got that down too. Then I play the threat card, and we fly a drop ship in, at low orbit. Just close enough for them to see it if they look through a telescope.”

Lee smiled. “Sounds good. Get that meeting Viktor, I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Yes sir!”

Author's Note

Yep...the griffons are going to get involved.

As always huge thanks to The Ruminative Ape known as Narlepoax III

So. Let me give you a hint as to what's going to happen next chapter. It's going to be titled. "Putting Your Hoof Down."

What do you all think ? Oh yeah, and there's also Rarity's and John's bonding period to look forward to. uummm...I don't have to change the rating because of this chapter do I?

Also one last question. Do you guys want more on general Human/pony relationship, like how I explained Leaning, or do you just want me to skip that and get on with the story?

Happy Friday!

Gryphones and Annoying Unicorns

Lee sighed, as he stared down at the Tango planet. The captain used to be a military convoy, and supply ship commander. His flawless track record, actions directing his convoy guards against enemy resistance, and command concept degree had landed him the spot as the first commander of the USSF Monarch, colonizer class search ship. Though he was a high ranking commander, and though he’d had experiences in this space, he was nervous. Very nervous. He’d never been in charge of a search operation. Normally, he brought supplies to planets for terraforming, or to destroyer class warships engaged in combat. Actually commanding an entire unit was so much different, when compared to supply running. Before he would basically need to strategize ways to get through, or around hostile combat zones, or find new ways to protect cargo, like decoy ships. Now he had to command an entire military unit, perform search operations, and establish relations.

The USSF O5 level operators had assumed the planet was just a regular planet on the outskirts of Terrain influence. Normally, they would have made their presence known, and offered gifts and possibly asked for the race to aid in the Humans’ search for the Precursors. But the problem here was that humans already seemed to be here…

From what the Elite, SAI and Bio units had sent back, the planet seemed mostly safe. The gravity was only slightly stronger than regular Earth conditions, and most lethal pathogens were only located in hot, humid climates. Vaccines and other chemical counters had already been developed and at this point, all that was left was the culture.

Lee shook his head, and slowly began tapping his foot, an odd action he performed whenever unease set in.

‘Why does every race treat Humans so differently?’

Tap… Tap… Tap… Tap

‘It doesn’t make any sense. What separates the Humans living in Oldalea from the ones in Equestria?’

Tap...Tap...Tap...Tap

‘What do the leaders think of humanity? Is it even worth contacting them?’

Tap..Tap..Tap..Tap..Tap

‘Ponies hold the most stake on this planet. Will they allow us to search?’

TapTapTapTapTap.

Lee’s frantic train of thought was interrupted as the communication HUD lit up, signalling an incoming transmission from case 4. John’s case. Taking a calming breath, Lee waved at the Comms manager, and asked him to open the call up. Receiving the affirmative, the lights on deck dimmed slightly, and John’s face was projected from the comms HUD to the main screen of the bridge, The captain’s dash.

“Jonathan Punch. Guardian rank. Current status: sleeper cell, and recon.” Read off Lee, in monotone, from a small box next to the Elite’s face. “Well? How goes it?” he asked, switching his vision to the video feed of John.

The Elite gave a small grin “Not bad. I’ve settled in. Seems I’m staying with a rather discriminatory unicorn.”

“Unicorn?”

“Just watch the video feeds I’ve recorded. They’re with the full report, if you wanna read that. They’ll explain everything.”

“Full Report? It’s been a day.”

“So?”

“How did you- you know what? Never mind.”

“Well then...I looked into what goes on around here. Seems that people form contracts with the ponies. I’m running under the ruse that I used to do short term work. Oh, yeah, the phrase ‘short-term contractor’ seems to be interchangeable with ‘breeding human’, if you will. There was some confusion about that, but I cleaned it up right quick. It was kinda funny… Um. Oh... yeah, some stuff on the native humans. They’re short. All of them. ‘bout five feet, and that’s the top of the spectrum. They’re also submissive. They seem to have a dislike for anyone from Canterlot, that’s city on the side of the mountain. The report has a bit more on it.”

“Oh yeah, language! Apparently they all speak English, but they have a alphabet. Normally I’d be concerned about this, but all precursor involved races seem to speak English, and these guys have precursor written all over them. It also seems like some of the ponies outright hate humans. I ran into a guard that gave me a hard time about trying to get into city hall. I also saw this one pony just straight up screaming at a human. It was pretty bad.”

“You didn’t do anything stupid did you?”

“I snuck around them, then called them idiots before going into the hall! I would have done something to the screaming pony too, if I hadn’t been surrounded by witnesses.”

There was suppressed laughter, mixed with a murmur around deck, as the workers listened in on the conversation. Lee just rolled his eyes “Yeah. Just, please, don’t do anything TOO crazy. Okay?”

“Whatever you say boss.” Answered the elite with a quirky salute.

“Anyways you say they have Precursor involvement?” questioned the commander, leaning forward in his seat.

“Aside from the language? Yeah sort of. They use something like MAGIC systems. I’d recommend looking at it. Bit weird really. Oddly enough, there seems to be a weird glow around whatever they manipulate.”

Lee nodded slowly “Yeah, that’s what we’ve been hearing from other units deployed in your area.”

“Sounds good, boss. I’m gonna need to go soon. I’m taking a ‘bathroom break’ to talk to you.” said John, air quoting “bathroom” and “break”

“Alright. Good job. I’ll send down some common knowledge stuff. Others figured out a few things you didn’t, and it seems like knowing this is pretty much second nature.”

“Thanks. Well, best get back to lying up a story for these fools to believe. Oh yeah, one more thing. These guys are trusting, to a fault. It’s actually kind of creepy. I got in good with this one pony and the unicorn I’m staying with is friends with her. She just left and was totally okay leaving me here alone because her friend said I could be trusted...whatever. I’m set, that’s all that matters. Punch, signing off.”

The screen went dark and the lights brightened again. Lee quickly pulled up the report, and flipped through the digital copy.

He’d been dreading this meeting all day, thinking he’d have to jump through hoop after hoop in order for John to get anything done, and stay on track. But the Elite seemed to have done his job just fine. No. Better than fine! In fact, he’d already performed long term planning. Something that Lee hadn’t expected out any unit, much less him. He’d also brought in interesting information, in less than a day. Not to mention found time to compile a full report, and organize the video feeds into the report. SAI and other Elites had only just begun their research and weren’t even starting video surveillance. All they had sent up were cliff notes.

‘He may be arrogant, and an idiot at times, but I can see why the higher ups like him. He does a damn good job. But then again, the they don’t have to deal with his asshattery...’

John sighed as he closed the suitcase and looked about.

‘This is a nice bathroom.’

Getting up the elite made his way towards the door and went out to the shop area. He’d spent the ten minutes before his report exploring the boutique and getting the general layout of the store area. Rarity had left in a hurry, muttering under her breath about fabrics or something of the like, meaning he was left to his own devices until she returned.

In all honesty, John didn’t mind. Exploring was something he loved to do. His vacation house back on Trenzalore had actually been near an abandoned storage base, and he and Sasha had spent hours exploring the huge facility when they were kids. Exploring a small clothing shop though, really was nothing compared to that. Even so, the Human was content to walk about, opening random doors, and finding new crevices and crooks to look through.

Walking out of the lavatory he slowly scanned the room, his trained eyes looking for anything interesting. He finally found it in the form of an unsuspecting curtain covering a doorway. Most of the curtains, from what John had seen, just covered changing rooms. But this one was slightly different. It was located on the other side of the room, and next to a staircase, rather than the purple boxes that the changing rooms were. Smiling, the Elite made his way over and walked through.

He was greeted by a lavish living room. As he looked about, his eyes widened. It was furnished with upscale, antique looking furniture. The kind his mom liked. But that wasn’t what caught his interest. Snoozing on one of the couches was a tiny white pony, a filly if he remembered the proper term. Her mane was similar to Rarity’s in color, only she seemed to have lighter streaks running through it. As he watched her one thought went through his head.

‘That’s the absolute cutest thing I’ve ever seen...’’

As John’s mind recovered from the dopamine surge, he quickly began considering relationships and leverage he could use.

‘I think it’s a she. The face doesn’t look angular enough to be a stallion. She’s a daughter, or sister.’

He took a quiet step towards her and took a closer look.

‘Too old to be a daughter. Not to mention Rarity seems like she’s already got a huge stick up her ass, so it’s not like she’d be able to take another. I’ll say sister.’

The human crouched down in front of her. ‘She’s well groomed, and taken care of. Rarity seems to care for her...she’s a unicorn...But Rarity never mentioned her. I only talked to her for about ten minutes, though. If I had to get down and dirty, I could take her as leverage.’

John took another good look at her and frowned. From what he knew about Equine creatures, they didn’t curl into tiny balls of cuteness when the slept. In fact, they didn’t even lay down when they slept.

He heard a quiet groan. ‘She’s waking up.’ He observed dryly.

Sweetie Belle’s eyes slowly opened and she rolled around onto her side. As she rolled she made eye contact with John. For a moment, nothing. Then a scream so loud and squeaky it made the Elite’s ears feel like they’d start bleeding.

“Who are you!?”

“I’m-”

“Why are you in Rarity’s shop?”

“Because Tw-

“How’d you get in here?” There was a pause, and John opened his mouth to answer before he was cut off (yet again) by an adorable, yet accusatory gasp. “What did you do to my sister!?”

“Nothing!” John half shouted, afraid of being bombarded with more questions. ‘She’s worse than Pinkie!’

“Now, if you can it, I’ll explain!” The small bundle of energy grew quiet and expectantly stared at John. The Elite rolled his eyes and rose from his crouch. He then made his way towards the loveseat opposite Sweetie's resting place, and sat down.

‘This’ll be fun.’

“This is commander Lee. OSS units three and four ready up. We have an escort mission. We’re establishing relations,” Shouted the commander into his microphone.

He’d just received word that the SAI’s plan had gone off without a hitch. The Gryphon queen had agreed to meet them in the seclusion of a nearby forest. According to Viktor she was planning to strut her stuff and essentially out class the ‘new nation’. Or at least that’s the impression Viktor had gotten. When he’d announced that he represented a completely new nation, the queen had asked what he wanted, and as soon as he said a meeting, she’d agreed and suggested the forest then sent a bunch of her guards to fetch her armor. A few minutes later they’d showed up dressed in what seemed to be brightly polished steel, and the queen in bronze.

Lee knew that appearances mattered with these folks. Viktor has talked about how the humans and Gryphons went through specific actions and short ceremonies even when greeting one another. At this point, It was all about how he and his team looked when they showed up.

Arriving at the dispatch bay, the Commander looked around. He spotted the OSS squads, standing at attention near two dropships. Jogging to the lift, Lee quickly hit a button, and got on. He began frantically tapping his foot as the lift made its way down towards the loading floor. He’d only been able to talk to the SAI for one minute, so he was wondering how exactly the unit was able to convince the queen he represented a new nation when he easily could have been a human from her city.

‘I suppose I’ll ask when I get here’

Stalking up to the two teams standing at attention he saluted them. A courtesy in all honesty. In a way it helped to show his respect for his people. Sighing, Lee rolled his shoulders. “At ease, boys and girls!” shouted the commander.

His voice wasn’t commanding like that of a drill sergeant. Rather, it was upbeat, and happy. At the same time confidence seemed to roll off of him, like the rays off the sun. As the squad followed his orders, they seemed to calm down.

Lee didn’t bark orders and scare his soldiers into following him. Rather, he spoke in such a way that made them want to follow him, and impress him. At the same time, he made it seem like no matter what happened, he’d be able to get anything done. His style of leadership had actually resulted in the safe transport of his cargo many times over.

Tacking a smile onto his face the commander looked them over carefully “So? Ready?”

“Yes sir!”

“Hmm...what was that? I couldn’t hear you...now let’s try again. Are you ready?”

“Yes sir!”

“Well then, Let’s get this show on the road!” bellowed the commander, as he did a three hundred sixty degree turn on his heel, then faced towards the two dropships. “Team three I need you piloting.”

Team three’s commander, started jogging towards the ships, gesturing for his team to come along. The lot of them had determined grins along their faces. As two of the team members ran by him he heard part of their whispered conversation.

“Four, you’re on point, you’ll be monitoring, and backup. Let’s go!”

“So yeah...umm I’ll be staying here a while,” said John, calmly.

The elite had spent the last ten minutes essentially coming up with some sort of vague story that’d work as a framework to allow him to come up with more information later on. The story was actually laughably vage. All he’d really said was that he was from far away, meaning that he’s unfamiliar with Equestria’s culture. Oddly enough, the Unicorn seemed obsessed with small details. Like who his parents were. Where he’d worked, and his favorite color. She was oddly fixated on his occupation though. Mostly because she claimed to have never met anyone that did what he did for a living.

“So...you said you did like small jobs right?”

“Yeah. I guess you could say that.”

“What did you do when you weren’t working then? Just sleep? Did you play with your friends? Rarity always makes time to play with her friends.”

‘Is she taking a legitimate interest in my life...really?’ John shook his head. “I suppose that I...well I learned. Studied.”

The filly stared at him skeptically. “You’re kidding. You seriously just sat around reading books all day? I mean Twilight Sparkle does sometimes, but she still has Spike to keep her company. But did you really just spend all day reading?”

“Well I had friends, but I move around too much…”

“Oh. Well did you make any friends here yet?”

“Well I guess there’s Pinkie.”

“Nah, she’s always busy, I mean somepony you can actually hang out with.”

John shook his head no. In all honesty, he hadn’t even considered something like that. But then again, he tried to keep his personal life and his work life separate. The last time they’d mixed, his wife had been killed, and he ended up torturing and destroying most of a race due to the war that was caused. It was a touchy topic.

“Well. I can be your friend then.”

John stared at her for a minute. “Yeah. Alright, we’re friends. Friends tell each other things right? Well, Rarity’s talked to you about humans. What’d she say?”

“How did you know she talked to me about them?”

“Magic. But anyways, what’d she say?”

“You’re a human you can’t do magic.”

“Yes I can,”

“How?”

“Magic, now answer me.”

“That makes no sense! You don’t even have a horn! Besides you can’t justify magic with magic.” accused Sweetie

John raised his hand and waggled his fingers, “Yeah, well you haven’t got any fingers. And I can justify magic with magic, because it’s magic!”

Sweetie frowned at the elite, then pointed an accusatory hoof at him. “You’re crazy.”

John stared at her like she was a crazy person. “Yes, you’ve just made friends with a crazy person! Now, answer my question. What’d she say?”

The unicorn averted her gaze from Punch to the floor. “Mostly that I shouldn’t associate with them. And that humans were uncouth and unintelligent freeloaders.”

“Seems legit. Well alright Sweetie. What do you think of us?”

“You seem nice…”

‘Yeah. I’m going to like it here.’

“This is Oscar Sierra 2 1. ETA is 5 mins, SAI. We’ve already entered the atmosphere. Out.”

“Received. Sounds good, Oscar Sierra 2 1. We’ve found a landing zone for you. Note that the opposing queen has set up multiple guards around the meeting place in an ambush formation. They also don’t know I’m talking to you. Out.”

“Received. Good. Keep it that way. We’ve already finished our suit up, The commander, and captains will be the ones talking. If you need us to, we’ll perform a stunt or two to show what we can do. Out.”

“Received. My sensor is picking you up. Out.”

“Noted.”

Turning around, the OSS captain of team four gave Lee the thumbs up. The group of them had just finished suiting up, and at this point, only five people were out of the HALO pods, between the two ships. They were the two pilots, captains, and Lee himself.

The plan was simple. Lee and the Captains would be dropped off about two thousand meters up the mountain, out of sight, near a cliff face overlooking the meeting grounds, and then would jump into the meeting place. The power suits (that they had put on during the preflight diagnostics) would allow them to easily make the jump.

Lee took a deep breath. The last time he’d jumped had been years ago. It had been when he’d stolen the power suit of an Elite who had attempted to betray them. Though he hadn't done it in a while he still remembered the goal. A jump was a simple thing. Get dropped off at a high point, in a power suit, then find a cliff, and jump off it with a thruster pack, and use the momentum of the jump to carry you to your objective, then use the thruster pack to soften the impact, and regulate speed. It was almost like BASE jumping. But in BASE jumping, the jumper isn’t wearing a powersuit, and didn’t have a jet of plasma pushing them forward with the same amount of force as a small 21st century fighter jet.

“We’re here, Commander Lee.”

Lee nodded. and stood up. Grabbing the Squad Automatic Weapon, commonly called a SAW’, he mounted it to the weapon holder on his back, and made his way towards the dropship doors.

His HUD went from green (safe mode), to blue (prep mode). A host of flight instruments displayed themselves in the corner of his eye. The ship’s doors opened, and the trio stepped outside. Lee’s HUD shifted to orange, as the dropship lifted off. As it left the interference zone, the HUD shifted back to blue.

“On your go sir,”

Smiling, behind his visor, Lee began running towards the cliff, which was a little over ten meters away. “Geronimo!”

Lighting up the plasma thrusters, he felt himself being pushed forward, faster, and faster.

‘Here it comes! The drop!’

Cutting the thrusters, Lee whooped as he was thrown up and out over the cliff. As he fell, a counter appeared on his screen, the time he had before he’d hit solid material. It was currently 45 seconds. A moment later crosshairs, appeared on his screen. His target location.

Lee spread his arms out, and brought his legs together. Then, leaned back to angle himself parallel to the ground, the commander reactivated the thrusters, and smiled as he watched the counter spring up.

After about ten seconds of non-stop thrusting, and watching the counter, which now displayed a satisfying one minute six seconds. A schematic of his power suit popped up on screen. It quickly rotated and displayed the thrusters, and made them blink yellow.

‘Starting to overheat. But I have over a minute of jump time. I’m fine.’ Cutting the thrusters, the commander called up a speedometer. One thousand three hundred twenty six kilometers an hour. Faster than sound!

All Lee could feel was the tickle in his stomach and the adrenaline pumping through him. This was one of the best feelings in the world. Flying faster than sound, wearing nothing but a suit of armor. The commander felt like a million bucks. Cheering again, he expressed his joy to no one.

Focusing on the crosshairs he willed the suit to pull up an ETA. Forty seconds….

‘Crap! Here we go! Time to slow down!’

“Stopping!” he radioed to his companions

“Received. We’re doing the same! Out!” came the response

“Noted!”

Going spread eagle in the air, Lee reopened the schematics of the suit again. The thrusters were a greenish yellow hue. ‘I can get, three? No Five more seconds of thrust before a cool down needs to happen.’

Pulling a speedometer back up, he looked at his speed. nine hundred twenty KMPH.
The ETA was saying about thirty seconds. Lee took a deep breath, and rotated himself so he was flying feet first. Then he set the thruster into afterburner for two seconds.

The speedometer dropped sharply, and the thrusters grew a bit more yellow.

‘Twenty eight seconds. All I have to do is give myself the most surface area possible,’

Angling himself in the orientation with the most drag, the commander took a deep breath.

“Twenty!”

“Noted!”

He watched a the speedometer steadily got lower and lower. Occasionally, he would release bursts of plasma to slow him down. By the time there was five seconds left, the speedometer was at about fifty kilometers an hour. Perfect landing speeds.

“Ready!”

“Received! So are we! Out!”

On the ground the Gryphon queen stared wide eyed. According to the human representing this new advanced nation, the flying metal creature, was one of their rulers. A human. In a suit. Never before had she ever seen something so innovative. Or insane.

As she watched the speck approach, a loud hissing, much like the fires after the bellows were pulled in a blacksmith’s furnace, could be heard. A moment later, the there as a loud clang, and a plume of smoke only a few meters from them. There were two more clangs, and an odd, buzzing and stretching sound.

They came like ghosts. But they were as solid as the trees around them. As they walked, they seemed like they were falling infinitely, and the ground seemed to quake as they approached. Their faces were hidden behind masks of metal. They looked surreal. Like a dream. Like nothing could touch them. Then one of them. The one in the middle, wearing armor as white as snow, with streaks the color of blood, spoke, with a voice like thunder.

“Hello! We are representatives of the United Search Space Fleet. We would like to speak with the ruler of the gryphon kingdom.”

The Queen, who had regained her composure, during the landing, stepped forward, and fell into a bow.

“I am the Queen of the Gryphons, and ruler of our kingdom. Welcome.”

Videte then rose out of her bow, and puffed out her chest and extended her wings, which had been interweaved with fake feathers made of bronze. The goal was to create a majestic look. But whether it worked or not was lost on her. Their faceless plates made garnering any sort of reaction impossible. All she saw was a strip of blue, (in the commander’s case red) light on the helms of the towering humans before her.

That was another odd feature about them. Their height. They seemed to dwarf the humans in her kingdom, and in a way dwarf her. It was impossible to describe how weird it was standing before them.

“Thank you. Before we progress...might I ask why you set up an ambush for us?” The commander slowly walked forward, until he was within arms length of the queen. “If you expect to jail us, you will need more than a couple of guards with pointy sticks.”

“My apologies, but most new nations consist of new creatures, not tall humans. I thought this was an attempt on my life. Better safe than sorry.” Responded the queen politely.

Lee gave a hearty laugh. “An attempt on your life! A fool’s endeavor…” turning on his heel, he walked back towards the crater, turned back towards the queen who was staring at him inquisitively.

“I’m not sure if that was a compliment or an insult…”

“A compliment of course.”

The queen’s brow furrowed. “You seem very confident for someone who’s surrounded.”

Not wanting to hide his face for the duration of the conversation, Lee willed his helmet open..

Videte was rather impressed watching the display. First the red line across the eye area went dark then the entire helm hissed, and gaps appeared throughout the faceplate. It then retracted, back into the back part of the helmet, which then was pulled down and into a small compartment that had opened on near the top of the power armor.

“I think you should know, there’s a reason I’m confident,” said Lee smiling at the queen.

“And what would that be?”

“Well, the crew surrounding us, I have them surrounded.”

Videte slowly began pacing around the commander. “You’re like a peacock, flaunting his feathers.”

“What can I say? I like showing off.” replied the human, with a small chuckle. “I could say the same for you though, strutting about in your flashy armor,”

“Does it catch your eye?” she asked, flaring her wings again

He raised his eyebrows. “You could say that. But, flashiness aside, before we actually start talking, I’d really like it if you’d send out my ambassadors.”

Videte nodded and made an unusual gesture, and a click with her beak towards some bushs. A moment later, a group of guards emerged from the brush, followed by Viktor and the rest of the SAI units. They were chained together, and sitting on what seemed to be a sort of cart. The inside of the cart was lined with cushions.

“For prisoners, you seem to have treated them very well…”

“The city of Oldalae is rather wealthy. This is standard for prisoners,” replied the queen, sticking her nose up as she ordered their release.

‘Viktor was totally right. She loves showing off.’

The gryphons guarding the group of humans quickly undid the chains binding them, and the group of SAI units jogged towards their commanders.

“Viktor! How ya feeling?”

“Just fine, sir. They treat their prisoners more like guests than criminals.”

“Good to hear. Let’s get you back up on the ship.”

As the humans talked, the Queen assembled her guard. They formed a line behind her, and took formation. The polished steel of their armor resulted in them looking like, divine spirits, full of confidence and power. In the center was the queen, with her golden armor.

In contrast, the two captains of the OSS squads, stood like silently warriors in the background. They did not attract attention, rather they created an atmosphere that made one uneasy, and feel as though they were being watched. They were dressed in black combat armor, and looked ethereal statues. As though they were solid, but fluid, and would disappear in an instant. In between them was the commander, who was speaking with care and worry to his worker.

After a moment, the commander stepped forward. “I am sending my friends back home to rest, but I need one of my ships to come pick him up.”

“Our waterways are open to you.”

Lee nodded “Thank you.”

She heard it before she saw it. A rumbling rivaled only by a snoring dragon. Then, it rose up, from behind a mountain. It flew, with incredible speed towards them. Behind it trailed bright blue flames, it had capsules attached to the its side, and the a symbol where the door seemed to be.

As it stopped over head, the back opened up, and a rope ladder fell down. All that was felt was heat. Incredible heat and wind. The sound was so loud, the queen felt her ears would pop, and her eyes would fall out of her head. The human ambassadors walked to the ladder, and one by one, like ants, climbed up it, and into the metal ship above.

The Queen would normally have been fascinated, but she was a bit busy dealing with the heat and wind generated by the dropship. It had angled its thrusters outwards, so that unarmored creatures could access the doors without being burnt into a crisp. The result was a lot more heat being pushed towards the ground. Along with the noise. It was nearly unbearable. Nearly.

Once the men and women were in the ship, it slowly closed its doors and lifted off, flying back from whence it came.

After a moment she heard a voice. It was the thunderous metallic voice. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

Videte looked towards the voice. It was Commander Lee. He was standing less than three feet away, with his guards just behind him.

Videte glared at him. “You said you were going to have a ship sail in.”

“I said I need a ship to pick up my men. I never claimed they were water vessels. It seems there was a misunderstanding.”

The queen sighed. “We...are not at the same...stage of advancement as you. I’d like it if you warn me about things like flying ships.”

‘Oh, that took her down a peg. She won’t be calling anyone a peacock anymore. Assuming that was an insult...was it?’

Videte looked at Lee, observing him up and down, “I’m surprised you humans did so much on your own.”

“In Oldalae Humans are partners with Gryphons. Every human works with a gryphon, and vise versa. Outside the gryphon kingdom, most humans are either slaves or ‘indentured servants.’ Although they might as well be the former, but dressed better.” Videte took a step closer, and raised a talon. “We never got around to formal introductions.”

The commander, who had put his mask back on, took her the offered limb and shook it. “No I suppose we didn’t. My name is Commander Lee, of the USSF Monarch star-ship. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Videte smiled, and and nodded. “I am Queen Videte, leader of the Gryphons, and Humans of the mother land.”

“Videte.” repeated Lee, through his speakers. “Vid-ete. Like a name out of a fairy tale.”

“Now...what was this you said about a starship?”

“Forty hours!? Continuous!? Twilight, this has to be a mistake!” Moaned Rarity.

“I’m sorry! With how much you tilted this contract, it’s either forty continuous hours, or two hundred spread out over a month!” replied a apprehensive purple unicorn.

As the unusual turn of events continued folding out, John sat quietly on the floor, of the kitchen. Rarity hadn't allowed him to sit at the table, stating that what was going on was mare’s work, and he shouldn’t be interfering. The look he’d been giving the pair of them was ugly.

on the floor, because he needed to keep his cover.

‘Lee, I’m going to kill you. If you hadn't sent me, I would have been sitting at my desk, with a cup of coffee, and the daily sudoku. But no, I’m sitting on the floor of some prissy unicorn’s house, because I’m not ‘intelligent enough’ to understand a fucking level one planet’s judiciary system.’

The quarrel the pair of unicorns were having was about how exactly to go about setting up the tilt, and compensation. Rarity, had decided on increasing her authority, to an almost ridiculous point, but as a result, the law required her to spend either, Forty hours with him continuously, with only personal breaks, or seventy hours with him over a month in order to prevent abuse of authority.

“Oh I don’t think I can spend so much time entertaining a Human! I already have opal to care for!” reasoned the white mare.

‘Did she just compare me to a cat!?’

“But you have to!” insiste her purple friend.

“Oh. Fine, I suppose I’ll take the forty. The less I have to do with him the better.”

‘What the actual fuck is wrong with her?’ I’m not gonna sit here and be treated like a pet!’

“Why?! What have you got against humans?!” shouted the elite from his corner.

“Oh, nothing honey!” Replied the mare, putting sugar in her voice like she was talking to a baby “I’m just busy is all.”

“Do you think I’m deaf? I’ve been listening this whole time!”

Rarity sighed “You’ve misinterpreted it.”

“Twilight! Say something!” shouted John gesturing towards Rarity.

“I can’t! It’s her right as the contract maker,” snapped the unicorn with finality.

Rising to his full height, John frowned. “I’m going outside.” said the elite.

“No you aren’t. You must stay here.” Rarity said, mimicking Twilight’s tone.

‘Are you kidding me? This is degrading.’

“आप कुत्तों के सभी बेटे हैं!”

Twilight stared at John a moment. “What?”

“Shut up, Twilight.”

Rarity frowned at John. “Don’t speak to us like that, you scoundrel!”

‘Scoundrel? Who the hell says that anymore?’

“Rarity, how do you know what he said?”

“I don’t. It was his tone of voice. Anyways, I’ll take the forty.’

The unicorn nodded, and handed her a quill. She signed the contract, and Twilight magicked it away.

“Hey, don’t I have to sign?” chimed in John

“This isn’t a short term contract, John. You don’t need to.”

“Wait! Let me get this straight. I don’t need to sign the contract, even though I’m involved?”

“Basically, yes. John I know you’re a smart guy and all, but you’re still just a human.”

‘Go to hell Lee.’

John rolled his eyes “Yes, of course. I can’t believe I forgot,” his voice dripped of sarcasm. “Whatever. Let’s get on with it. Forty hours of us basically staying together. What do you want to do, Rarity?”

“Miss,”

“Miss?”

“Miss Rarity.”

“...Fine. Miss Rarity. What would you like to do?”

“I have some errands I need to run at the market. Come along.” Replied the mare, trotting to the door.

Punch looked towards Twilight. But she had already made her way outside. The elite raised hands and began fiddling with a ring on his finger. It was a tick of his. He always needed something to do with his hands when he was uncomfortable. Shaking his head, he followed Rarity out the door.

“Commander Lee...Are you saying, you have a ship, made of metal, flying in space?”

“Yes.”

“I’m very glad.”

“Glad about what?”

“That you are working with us, and not against us. “

Lee nodded. “Well with you all being as creative as you are, I’m glad to say the same. A city inside a mountain. I’ve seen a lot, but that’s new.”

Videte laughed. It was a loud hearty laugh, but at the same time feminine and proud. It also had a bit of a bird like trill mixed into it, like the song of a mocking bird.

Over all, Lee was impressed with the culture of this place. Apparently, every human was paired with a gryphon, and the pair worked, lived, and raised a family together. The template for a family in Terrain zones was a mother, father, children, and possibly grandparents. Here however, the template went, mother, her counterpart, father, his counterpart, and their children all working, and being paired together. Rather than being known as families, they were known as clans. Clans could continue for years, before the children found partners outside the clan. In that case, what normally happened was a changing ceremony, where the partner would switch from his or her clan to their partner’s. The one who was to switch was decided among the the two parties, through negotiations. It was rare for conflict to occur, and if it did, the Queen was normally the one to resolve it.

Of course, there wasn’t just that, there were hundreds of ceremonies and rituals that were practiced whenever almost anything happened between the two partners. In fact, according to the queen there was even a ritual that was to be performed before a human was able to ride on a gryffon’s back to the cloud areas of the city.

She claimed that most clans did the rituals out of tradition and cultural value, more than in terms of actual requirements by law, which had been abolished years ago. One thing that puzzled Lee however, was who exactly Videte’s partner was.

“No one.”

“Really? No one?”

“Being a queen my duty falls to the state, and on top of that, Humans normally don’t approach me very often.”

“I haven’t actually seen any humans around here.”

“Oh, that’s more due to the humans not being as physically capable as gryphons. Humans here, haven’t machines like yours. Nor have they the strength of a fully grown gryphon. They lack magic as well. Due to us being in my throne room, all I really have stationed here are my guards. Although the scribe does come down occasionally.”

“And so you don’t use them as guards?”

“Basicly. Most of the time they fill positions like master armorers, and blacksmiths. The closest thing we have the guards are peacekeepers, who break up fights and enforce the laws in area where official guards are lax.” Videte looked towards the table, and somehow formed a frown with her beak. “Also, having a partner may result in his or her death due to my position.”

“How about a political partnership?” asked Lee casually.

The queen looked up at him, with wide eyes. “Are you proposing I partner with you?”

“For the benefit of our two nations. Yes. I promise I won’t die,” said Lee, drawing an ‘x’ over his heart.

Slowly, a smile spread across the the queen’s face. She looked at him with like he was an odd piece of art, and began giggling. After a moment she looked up at Lee, and shook her head. “I just met you. That’s like if I asked you to marry me right after our courtship began.”

Lee’s face began to turn red. “Sorry, I’ve never been the best in new social situations. I won’t ask again,”

‘Oh no! The poor thing thinks I’m rejecting him!’

Videte’s face fell. “Oh! I wasn’t saying no! It’s just it’s more personal than something like a marriage.”

Lee sighed. “Well. I’ve managed to make this very awkward. Thank you for the tea. Although I’m surprised really. You seemed to accept me rather quickly.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“No harsh words. No over suspicion. Or for that matter caution. You didn’t even take my weapon.”

The queen’s eyes widened “You were armed!?”

“You weren’t?”

“How was I supposed to know you would be carrying a weapon? Where is it anyhow?”

“How do you know? Look at me: I’m confident!” A smile broke out on the gryphon’s face. “As for where it is,” Lee raised his hand and pointed to his back, across which was strapped the SAW.

“I thought that was part of your armor.”

Lee shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter much anyways, I have guards posted around the room.” Then, Videte raised her claw, and closed it. A moment later, an arrow, about a foot in length flew into the window. It would have impaled itself in the wall, near Commander Lee had the OSS captains not fired off their rifles and vaporized it.

The way they fired was incredible, it was a practiced motion, that was smooth throughout. It was also fast. Incredibly so. Their arms were like blurs, they raised them up, and pulled a finger. There was a flash, and the arrow was gone. Had the Queen blinked, she would have missed it.

As Videte stared at the flaming ashes that used to be her arrow, she heard the metallic voices of the OSS captains. “Please refrain from weapon usage.” they said in unison.

She turned to look at them again she noticed their weapons had disappeared. Or more accurately, had been reattached to their backs.

“Yeah,” said Lee sheepishly. “Sorry about that, they're just doing their jobs. Thank you for the tea. We should be off.”

“In all honesty I’m having a hard time believing you’re humans. Or that you have a flying space ship.”

Lee raised an eyebrow. “Would you like to see our ship?”

The queen’s eyes widened, she looked around at the OSS captains, and then back to Lee. Then she took a deep breath. “No.”

The commander stared at her for a moment and shook his head. “No?”

“Is this what you do? Come down onto the surface of a planet, and then with a crook of your finger beckon creatures to come up to your floating fortress? Then astound them with the wonders of your technology?”

The human cracked a smile “The way you say it it makes it sound like a bad thing… but I suppose technically, that is what we do.”

“No, Commander. I don’t think I’m ready to see your ship. I’ve had enough excitement for a day, thank you. However, I must ask you to come back tomorrow afternoon. I want to show you the historical wing of the palace. Then, maybe we can go up to your ship. What say you?”

Lee’s grin was all the answer she needed.

Author's Note

Sorry about the wait. I've been busy...

Yeah, I know that this chapter was supposed to take place in "Putting your hoof down" but it would have taken me even longer to write it had I done that.

Thanks tothis guy, for editing.

He's awesome so take a look at him.

Now I'm questioning my characterization of lee. My goal was to make him like the Doctor from Dr.Who. How'd I do?

Building Bridges

Lee turned his head to the left, then the right as he stared at himself. It was currently 10:06 PM in Planetary Timezone b-2, the Gryphon Kingdom. He was expected to be in Oldaela by approximately 1pm PTB-2. At the moment, the commander was deciding on exactly what to wear in order to appear a bit more formal, and less combat ready. He’d ditched the powered combat jump suit for his standard semi-formal uniform.

It consisted of a pair of black dress pants, belted at his waist with a buckle sporting the USSF emblem. Tucked into the pants was a white dress shirt, and on top of that was his coat, upon which were pinned his many decorations. Lee’s coat had a good number of ribbons pinned onto it. The most prestigious of them being The “Certificate of Exemplary Command Under Pressure”. It was awarded to those who “Demonstrate leadership despite lacking formal training, and are able to exceed expectations during extenuating circumstances.” That ribbon had been awarded to him when he earned the rank of Commander. Unlike older military unit uniforms, similar to the ones when earth was divided into countries, there was no order, or specific location for the ribbons and medals awarded. Rather, the requirement was anywhere but the back, which was considered extremely disrespectful, or shoulders, as decorative buttons, showing branch and rank normally went there. Lee’s choice had been to place the medals on the left side of his chest and the ribbons upon his upper right arm.

The Commander slipped on the coat and smiled at himself in the mirror. The coat was modeled after a long suit jacket, and reached to just above his knees. It was a dark black, that matched the pants perfectly. The buttons keeping the coat closed and on his shoulders were a shimmering gold. The shoulder buttons had overlayed on top of them a silver, decorative, USSF emblem similar to the one on his belt. It signified his rank as Commander of the USSF Monarch. Over all, Lee looked rather formal.

Turning on his heel, Lee walked towards the armory. Due to his position of leadership on the ship, regulation stated he must be armed at all times with weapons capable of “sufficiently defending one’s self from harm on the target planet.” This regulation had been implemented after some rather brutal ransom situations on 214; where commanders and high ranking officers, who had been invited to peacemaking meetings, had been taken hostage and held at ransom. To prevent this from happening, most commanders had a standard issue SAW aboard the armory of the ship assigned for their use. Lee had selected to take a weapon slightly smaller, in the interest of concealability.

Entering the armory, he was greeted by Rifleman Andrew Rich. The rifleman gave a quick salute before addressing Lee, “Commander Lee. Everything is in order for your departure, sir.”

Lee cast his gaze towards Rich. He had been assigned as one of the members of the crew to drop him off at the LZ, a clearing a few miles away from the city. He’d taken the time to read up on the rifleman, along with the rest of the crew that would be working with him on this specific mission. His background had been rather odd. He originally had been an operative in John Punch’s OSS squad before John had received the rank of Elite. On the occasion of Punch’s promotion, Rich had stepped back and joined the main military core, selecting to despecialize and join as a standard operator. He seemed to work as designated marksman for his squad due to his vast experience with high powered long range weaponry. He was also certified to fly specialized aircraft and dropships. All in all, he was a very over-certified soldier.

“Good to know, rifleman. So, give me the rundown. How will this be done from your end?”

“Well, from our end it’s simple. We’ll fly you out to the LZ, and from there we’ll drop you off with the queen. Once you’ve moved out of sight, I’ll be deposited at an overpass overlooking the palace. The ship will be positioned there as well. I’ll be given a rifle, and in the event that anything fishy happens, I’ll step in.”

“And by ‘step in’, do you mean you’ll start shooting?”

“Yes,” stated Rich flatly.

“That doesn’t sound very friendly.”

“I’m just doing what needs to be done, sir. Better her life than yours,” replied the rifleman with a rather restrained annoyance to his voice.

“I’m not comfortable with whoever made that calculation,” Stated Lee with a frown. Holding out his hand, Lee stated “Whatever. Alright...I know I need to carry a weapon.Did you get what I asked for?”

The rifleman reached to the side and grabbed a combat knife and the case mounted to his belt. Pulling the knife out he handed it to Lee, handle first. The weapon was built as a standard issue blade for the soldiers of the USSF ground corps. It was nearly indestructible.

“Alright,” stated the Commander with a bit of excitement lacing his voice.

“Sir...why a knife? I know the whole no visible weapons thing, but wouldn’t a compact pistol work better?” asked Rich eyeing the blade with skepticism.

“I asked for this because it’s scary,” stated Lee, waving the knife around.

“Elaboration would be appreciated, sir.”

“They don’t really understand modern weapons down there. But a knife? Everyone understands knives. Knives are dangerous.” Lee calmly said. “And I’m a crazy space human that showed up in power armor. If I have weapons that can incinerate crossbow bolts as they fly through the air, think of the improvements I’ve made to the simple knife!” shouted the Commander with fabricated awe. “And now, that modified, crazy knife is pointed at...” Lee manipulated the blade so the tip was directed at Rich. “You.”

“Right. This seems like a long shot,” muttered Andrew. His gaze seemed to be more piercing than the tip of the blade pointed at him.

“They told Doctor Ann Sanders that wormhole generators were a long shot too,” stated Lee, “Now look at us.” He made a flourishing gesture down the room. “Trust me. If there’s one thing I know how to do it’s bullshit people. And by that I mean deal with politics.”

‘So that’s how he landed this job.’

Autumn on Earth was an odd time. For the last few weeks, they had simply enjoyed each other's company before the next deployment. On this specific day, they had decided to simply sit on the porch with some coffee. They sat next to each other, on a bench, neither speaking a word. The silence was a welcome and relaxed one. There was no need for words to be exchanged, simply basking in their togetherness slated their need for communication. She had chosen to read a book, one of the old physical books that normally spent time gathering dust on one of the shelves in the study of the house.

He was staring out into the forest, and watching leaves as they danced and fluttered to the ground. Feeling a small nudge on his arm he turned towards his wife and raised an eyebrow.

“We have to go soon. They’re deploying us.” She stated with a firm but gentle tone. It was almost motherly. “Have you gotten your things together?”

Not wanting to fall into a conversation, he simply nodded.

“Toothbrush?” the wife asked.

“Yes.” replied the husband.

She looked up from her book for a moment, and towards her partner. “Clean underwear?”

“Yes” was his answer.

“Sorry. I get nervous when we they call.”

“It’s fine.”

The pair sat quietly again, simply enjoying each other's company, and basking in their togetherness.

“Why me?” asked John to no one in particular.

Opening an eye he began scanning the room. He was sitting, or more accurately sleeping, on a landing of the stairs leading to Pinkie Pie’s bedroom. The secluded little area gave him a nice view of Sugarcube Corner’s shop. Rarity and Pinkie were standing behind the counter dispensing various confections to a line of customers that stretched out the door. The crowd was creating a pleasant hum, similar to one you’d find in one of the various coffee shops back home. He could hear the rapid fire chatter as Pinkie spouted, then laughed at a number of jokes her signature jokes. The aroma about the place was also rather inviting. It smelled of pastries and chocolate.

Taking a deep breath, John opened his other eye and brought his hands together. Squeezing his fingers, one by one he cracked each knuckle. Yawning, he slowly rose from his sprawled out sitting position, and began slowly walking down the stairs on which he had been resting. As he reached the bottom he heard a whimper from outside the door followed by a loud “Now go to the back of the line where you belong!”

Looking at the door in confusion he raised his eyebrows as the entirety of the line quickly shuffled out the door.

‘I wake up and and now this.’

Fluttershy quickly stalked into the store and made her way to the front counter. Deciding to stay out of the way, John hugged the wall, and kept a watchful eye on the pegasus as she conversed with her friends. As they talked, John slowly made his way to the window and peeked outside. A bunch of ponies were milling about, nervously whispering, humans had been rounded up and were sticking unusually close to their caretakers.

CRASH

John turned his head and his right hand flew to his side, where his sidearm would normally be holstered. Noticing that nothing dangerous had happened, and that he didn’t have a side arm in the first place, he lowered his arm, and turned around. Upon closer observation he noticed that Pinkie was now wearing punch, and the bowl it came in, like a hat. And Fluttershy was walking away with her nose up.

‘Either someone has anger issues, or they aren’t friends anymore.’

Eyebrows furrowing, John slowly walked towards the door, and cut off the pegasus. Rarity’s eyes widened as he walked and she frantically shook her head no, and mouthed the words “stop it!”. ‘Judging from Rarity’s reaction, one point goes to anger issues.’ The Elite pretended to not see her.

Standing in front of the door, Punch crossed his arms and waited. Fluttershy, whose eyes were closed and face was adorned with as smug smile, bumped into him. She fell back on her haunches with a small ‘oof’.

As she quickly snapped out of her surprize, she looked up at John and bared her teeth.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

John’s face took on a sly smile. “Nothing much. How ‘bout you?”

“Get out of the way.”

“I’m not in your way, you’re in mine. But that aside, did you see Pinkie’s new hat? It looks wonderful on her, don’t you think?” asked Punch gesturing towards the bowl atop the party pony’s head. “Did you give it to her?”

She gave a hearty eye roll and said, “It’s not a hat, idiot.” Her voice was laced with annoyance. “This is why ponies are in charge and not you half apes. Now move!”

John raised an eyebrow. ‘Damn, demoted to a half ape! Well this shows that they got their evolutionary biology in line...sort of.’

“Alright then, Butterfly-”

“Fluttershy,”

“Sorry. Anyway, why don’t yo-”

“No. Sorry doesn’t cut it. My name is Fluttershy! Get it right!”

“Fluttershy?” said the Elite rather uncertainly.

“Good. Now move!” she asserted, taking to the air as to see eye to eye with John.

“Move where? Ther-”

“When somepony tries to block, show them that you rock!”

‘Egads! I’ve been rhymed at!’

Fluttershy swung her hoof at him. The Elite quickly took a step back, just out of the reach of her hoof. As the hoof swung however, a magical aura encased it, pulling it to a stop mid flight.

John hastily slid out of the pathway between the door and Fluttershy, as the aura was released. The pegasus gave a loud “harumph”, and glided out the door. Rarity and Pinkie quickly galloped the door, just to watch Fluttershy violently kick a stallion out of a taxi.

‘I wonder if she’s on medication, because that seemed like a serious case of roid rage to me.’

The tour of the historical wing had finished and Lee had been fascinated. The Gryphons had not censored anything and had fully described the dynamic of the relationship from when the humans had been discovered to the current day. They also described many of the wars and various important historical events that had taken place.

Videte had decided to personally give the tour, and from what Lee had gathered he was being treated to a huge honor, as the queen only gave historical tours to the leaders of other nations, or close personal friends not of the gryphon kingdom.

The Commander was proud to say he was able to view how quickly the times had changed in the city. According to Videte, Humans originally were considered pests, and were hunted as game. Older tribes of Humans were said to break into farming areas set up on the ground and perform well coordinated thefts. Or rather, raids.

The thefts would be performed in the dead of night. Two small groups of people, normally running about three people each were the initial team that engaged the farms. The first three man cell would be sent out around dusk to monitor the farms. As soon as the farmers had turned in for the night, the real raid began.

The first three man unit would move up and check for guards. In the event that guards were spotted, the cell would wait and watch the cycle, and note post rotation along with any odd quirks about each guard. Habits such as smoking and even approximate meal times were recorded.

When the coast was clear the first team would use a bird call like whistle, that would signal the second team to enter, take would they could, and leave. They would move any food collected in that run to a centralized location, and wait for the next signal. It was said that if a raid team worked for an entire night without a hitch, the six man group would be able to rob over sixteen acres of land.

Human hunting, as it had been called in the older days, had become something of an industry as the raids had gotten worse. Special guards, trained to hear the difference between real birds and humans came into high demand. An entire industry was built around the killing of humans. When Equestria adopted humans as assets to perform busy work in large factories, and generally do the tasks ponies didn’t want to do, the gryphons followed suit.

Humans had begun as slaves. The gryphon crown had ordered the capture of humans looting farms, rather than their killing. When they were captured they would be extensively trained, then sold to the public. Gryphons began noticing some of the better qualities of Humans as time went on, and at one point groups of aristocrats decided to make their right hand men humans. They were considered to be completely obedient and rather reliable when it came to work. On top of that, humans could be disposed of in the event that they didn’t meet expectations, and the repercussions would be far less than if one were to kill a fellow gryphon. Eventually, more gryphons began selecting one human to assist them and slowly but surely a dynamic partnership evolved. Humans became friends, and took a more important role than simple assets.

As the partnership evolved, so did laws and ceremonies, until the modern day dynamic of human relationship was formed. A binding of a human and gryphon was a sacred thing, according to the queen. It was never done lightly, and normally only happened between the very closest of friends. A partner was on par with a spouse or child, and it was very common for a human family to be bound to a gryphon family through partnerships. It was common practice for the two families to stay in one home, and as a result, form clans.

As Lee followed Videte up the stairs towards the dining hall, he heard her say over her shoulder, “You know, the partnership does add a dynamic to conversation that you should learn.”

“Does it? I hope I haven’t offended anyone by skipping out on something.”

“Oh I doubt you have. I’ve been doing most of the talking after all.” stated the queen, with a haughty ruffle of her wings.

As the pair reached the top of the stairs Lee’s eyebrows shot up. They had entered a massive hallway. The ceiling reached up well overhead, allotting room for flight should one feel the need. The hall was nearly the size of the dropship deck on the Monarch. Gryphons were flying about the hall, others were walking. Humans also were part of the flow. In the air, the Humans rode on the back of gryphons. On the ground they carried loads, and walked about easily sliding between groups of guards or people standing about chatting. Bright sunlight streamed in from the glass on the upper parts of the hall.

“This,” said Videte, glee filling her voice, “is the Grand Hall. It is the center of the palace. It functions as a market, a bank and as shelter. At the end of it is my throne room.”

“The place is quite...accommodating.”

“It’s quite the sight isn’t it?” a slight bit of smugness leaking into her voice.

‘Yeah. They love showing off.’

"Follow me,” stated the queen.

"Of course your majesty.”

She quickly stalked away, slipping through the crowd. As Lee caught up to her he quickly considered asking to fly out, but decided against it due to the fact that she would more than likely say no and possibly take insult at the suggestion, despite it being more efficient than attempting to navigate through the congested halls. Riding on the back of a gryphon was considered a very big honor. Especially if that gryphon wasn’t your partner. To ask a queen to carry another would be ludicrous.

Finally reaching their destination, Lee wasn’t surprised to see a grand pair of double doors, nearly twelve feet high. The guards, who stood in their usual silver armor, opened the door, allowing the pair into the throne room; which was near empty. They quickly closed the door behind them.

“You said the Grand Hall was a market? What’s sold there, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Anything and everything that’s legal.”

Ruffling her plumage again, the queen slowly walked towards her cushioned throne, assumed the small flight of steps and sat down. Raising a claw she beckoned Lee over, and gestured for him to sit on a small cushion near the bottom of the steps. It was quite common for visting subjects to be seated there when conversing with the queen.

He quickly followed the instructions and then turned his attention toward the queen again.

She was frowning.

“I’m rather surprised. And a bit offended.”

The Commander lowered his head. “Oh? Reason being?” asked Lee. As he stared at the ground, he became acutely aware of just how fast his heart was pounding. Slowly, as his heart rate picked up a knot formed in his stomach. She was offended? Had he done something wrong?

“You came with no guards, no weapons and no armor. Are you not the leader of a nation? What would your people do if you died? Do you really feel you are so far above us that you need not protect yourself?”

The statement came as such a shock that Lee’s breath caught in his throat. His attempt at alluding to trust was taken as an insult.

Selecting to tell the truth, Lee slowly looked up and made eye contact with Videte. “Honestly speaking, they’d simply elect a new Commander and continue operations as usual. It’d most likely be John Punch who replaced me. He’s investigating Equestria at the moment. As for my lack of guards? I thought it would be a symbol of trust.”

A small smile graced Videte’s beak. “You are quite the odd one.”

“Was that a compliment or an insult?” asked Lee more to himself than anyone else.

“Why it was a compliment of course.” Stated the gryphon with a mocking tone, imitating the one Lee had used during their first meeting.

“Oh...very clever.” Lee drawled with a roll of his eyes. “Well...I’d like to thank you for you time, and showing me the history of your people. I must be on my way.”

“I thank you for your trust, and apologize for misinterpreting your gesture of kindness. But before you go, I wish to provide you with a bit of help.”

“Help?” asked Lee

“With Equestria.” stated the queen matter of factly.

Lee raised his eyebrows then nodded. “I’d really appreciate that, Your majesty.”

“In the next few weeks, the bimonthly summit of rulers is coming. It’s a meeting in which rulers of the different nations meet and discuss the ongoings of their homes. It is going to be held in Canterlot this time around. If you would like, you could attend with me.”

Lee slowly nodded. “That sounds like a very good idea. We should meet to discuss the details.”

“That we should. When would you like to do so?”

“If you have time tomorrow evening we could bring you up to the Monarch, and I could gather my advisors to plan thing out, your majesty. Then maybe I could show you the history of my people.”

“That sounds agreeable enough, Commander. Although, I should state, that this John Punch, you successor, should be called back for the meeting. It’s imperative he’s there.”

Lee nodded. “Very well. Thank you again for the tour, and lesson on history. It was amazing.”

Vidette nodded and gave a friendly smile. “I expect the same from you tomorrow. Oh, and commander?”

“Yes?”

“When coming to the summit, bring guards. It would be disrespectful if you didn’t.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Have you any idea how dangerous that was? “

The Elite gave a sigh as Rarity began her lecture.

“As your caretaker, my job is to ensure that you are safe! And you just recklessly tried to anger Fluttershy! Oh, and poor Fluttershy! Something is wrong with her! Whatever that monster Iron Will has done to her has to be stopped!”

‘Poor her? Wow. Talk about understanding.’

“Honestly John, what possessed you to get in her way after a display like that?”

“Look at me, I’m at least three times her size. What’s she going to do? Cute me to death? As for her ‘display’, all she did was spill punch on Pinkie,” replied John nonchalantly.

“Yeah she spilled you all over me!” interjected the pink pony from across the room.

John looked at Pinkie for a moment and slowly shook his head.

“I seriously am unsure if you understand how dangerous that was,” shouted Rarity, recalling the Elite’s attention.

“She tried to hit me, Rarity. Knowing her, she was more likely to break her hoof than actually hurt me. You need to calm down. Go take a bubble bath or something.”

Rarity shook her head. “You’re like a child. You have to be watched constantly. You’re just lucky I was here. Please, be more careful. I really have my hooves full, and I don’t want to act as a babysitter. This is why I didn’t want you in the first place!”

‘Again with the treating me like a dog.’

“Alright, mother.”

“Good,” Stated Rarity, ignoring John’s backhanded acknowledgment. “You know, you really should be more appreciative of those around you. Now, we have to go see Fluttershy. Something is obviously wrong with her.”

“Yeah, you’re telling me,” stated John casually.

“Excuse me? Was that an insult I just heard?” asked Rarity in a sickeningly sweet false voice.

‘Yes.’

“No.”

Turning on quickly, Rarity began marching out of the door. As she left, she gestured for John and Pinkie to follow. The pink pony quickly zipped out the door. John slowly began walking towards the door, and exited the building, closing up the entrance as he left. Turning around he began sauntering towards Rarity and Pinkie.

He took care to remain very quiet as he listened to their conversation and concerns about their friend, and as they spoke, John began picking up new information about little Fluttershy through osmosis. According to the pair of ponies walking ahead of him, she was very sweet. She was also easily scared, and had sort of lacked the ability to say no, or be assertive in any form.

As they approached the overgrown cottage where Fluttershy lived, Rarity stopped and turned to John.

“Johnthan. I need you to put this on.” she gently said, as a white collar engraved with Rarity’s cutie mark flashed into existence.

John stared at the collar for a moment and raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Traditionally all humans put on warded collars in dangerous and sparsely populated areas. It’s for your own good.”

‘Nope.’

“Okay, give it here.”

Rarity levitated the collar to his hand. John then slowly put the collar over his head, and suddenly stopped. “Some privacy please!”

Both the girls quickly turned around. John, ensuring both of them were not looking, worked the collar back off and chucked it into a nearby bush, He then announced “Ready to go!”

Author's Note

http://www.fimfiction.net/user/Narlepoax+III <---The guy who edited

Note: This is the calm, before the storm.

Putting Your Hoof Down pt.1

Turning around Rarity looked John up and down. “Where’s the collar?”
John gestured to the bush. “I thought the bush needed it more than I did.”

‘Will she force me to wear it?’

“John, this isn’t a joke. You have to put it on.” stated Rarity, with a scowl.

“Come on Johnny, I’ll give you a sweet treat if you listen to Rarity!” chided Pinkie.

The Elite’s face morphed into a rare frown. “No...I don’t think I’ll be wearing a collar. I’m not a dog.”

Rarity rolled her eyes, and walked up to the bush. Peering into it she began rummaging around inside it in an attempt to locate the discarded accessory. Meanwhile, Pinkie trotted up to John and patted his hip in what was an attempt at a comforting gesture.

“It’s alright John, you’re much cuter than any puppy I’ve ever seen!” exclaimed Pinkie.

“Right. That makes me feel so much better,” replied Punch with an exasperated sigh.

Rarity slowly turned around, levitating the collar in the air. Then in a falsetto voice sung “John! Come here!”

‘My god. She won’t actually move to the point of physical confrontation, will she?’

“No. I’d rather not.”

“Jonathan Punch, you put this collar on this instant!”

“No,” Stated John.

Punch didn’t care much about the collar. He did care about how far he could stretch Rarity’s patience before something snapped. Apparently, it wasn’t too far, as the collar flew towards him, unbuckling itself as it flew through the air.

Understanding her limits may give him a ballpark as to how other humans who misbehave were treated.

“Come on Johnny, put on the collar!” Pinkie chipped.

John slowly removed his hand from his neck. The collar gently floated to his neck, wrapped around, and buckled itself shut.

“See? It’s not so bad. Why must you be so difficult?” stated Rarity.

“It doesn’t match my eyes,” countered John.

Looking from the collar to his eyes, Rarity nodded. “I’ll be sure to get you a better color. Oh maybe we can get one of those gold gilded ones! Or a nice brown leather one. Leather is quite expensive, but I’m sure it’d go well with your eyes if that’s the concern.” chimed Rarity.

“Sorry if it’s a little tight. It’s Opal’s old collar.”

“Opal?”

“My cat.”

John took a deep breath and threw his hands up in defeat. “Right, whatever. Well let’s get to it.”

As they approached the cottage there was a loud toll as a camera was sent flying into the Ponyville bell tower. As the camera sailed through the air, they saw a stallion flying after it.

With a gasp, Rarity rushed towards Fluttershy, and shouted “Fluttershy dear? What are you doing? That’s no way to behave!”

“Didn’t you see what he did to new Fluttershy? And he thought new Fluttershy was a pushover!” exclaimed the pegasus as the flew down, and landed in front of her soaked mail.

“No sweetie he didn’t. We saw the whole thing. We think you’ve taken your assertiveness training a little too far. ” Rarity said, rather matter of factly.

“What? You just want new Fluttershy to be a doormat like old Fluttershy. But old Fluttershy is gone!”

As Punch watched the exchange from behind Rarity and Pinkie, he noticed, Fluttershy’s gaze would flick up to him every once in a while. Though slightly unnerving, John acted as though he wouldn’t notice.

John hung on to every word that was said. Listening and waiting as the situation escalated. John’s eyebrow slowly climbed as he listened to the exchange.

“I thought petty was what you were all about, Rarity! With your petty concerns about fashion”

“Hey! Leave her alone! Fashion is her passion!” interjected Pinkie.

“Oh? And what are you passionate about? Birthday cake? Party hats?” asked the pegasus mockingly.

“I can’t believe the two most frivolous ponies in Ponyville are trying to tell new Fluttershy how to live her life, when they are throwing their lives away on pointless pursuits that nopony else gives a flying feather about!” shouted new Fluttershy.

“Looks like nasty Fluttershy is here to stay!”

“I can’t believe what that monster Iron Will has done to you!”

They promptly turned around and galloped away. John stared at them the whole time.

‘Who is Iron Will?’

“Aren’t you going to run after your mistress and lick her hooves?”

Turning John looked at Fluttershy. He didn’t say anything, simply stared at her. Then he shook his head no.

“Hmph. No wonder Rarity doesn’t want you. You’re as useless as a lump on a log. You should be put down.”

‘They put humans down?’

“Yeah, aren’t I depressing. I’m totally worthless. So what exactly do I have to do to be put down?” stated John straight faced.

“Oh just keep doing what you’re doing you useless waste of space.”

“Right, well it was...interesting... talking to you. So I’ll be on my way.”

Turning around, John began moving at a steady jog towards Ponyville, intent on understanding this whole “putting down” business.

“Cygnus X-1. Currently occupying the Veteran as a replacement in-flight computer.” asked the engineer.

“Correct. Howard Selt. You are my current maintenance engineer.” replied the AI.

“Yep. I saw you put in a request for a long range combat platform, and a data transmitter, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Request was granted...um just out of curiosity, what do you need them for? We’re not in active combat.”

“The combat platform will allow me to pilot The Veteran. It will allow me to make myself available to my Elite in the event of an emergency. It will also allow me to perform maintenance on this ship.” deadpanned Cygnus.

“But I normally do the maintenance on this ship. Why do you need to do it?” asked a now confused and slightly offended engineer.

“I don’t know how to vocalize it… the way you handle my hardware displeases me.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t like being touched inappropriately.”

Howard stared at the ship for a while. It was common for AIs to want to self maintain. It was a practice that was encouraged. Just as people go to the gym in order to improve themselves, or take an aspirin when they’re feeling sick, AIs upgrade and custom machine hardware for their use. Or rewrite inefficient, broken or outdated code. However, requesting maintenance gear for a ship, it’s as if she was treating it like her body rather than a mobile AI platform.

“Can you elaborate?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I lack the ability to put it into laymans terms.” stated the AI.

“All I did was clean out the jets.”

“You set the water streams up with 300 more newtons of force than I would have liked, according to the computer. You also climbed into my exhaust port and used a wire brush rather than a power washer for the residue buildup in the compression systems.”

“Sorry. I wasn’t aware you were so sensitive about the way the ship is maintained.”

“Apology accepted. I have been in this ship for the majority of my on clock time. I have very specific maintenance plans usually carried out by my elite... Mr.Selt, can I tell you something?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“I miss my Elite. He promised we would do a puzzle when he came back.”

The engineer stared at the hull of the Veteran for a minute then sighed. “Do you want to do one with me?”

“No thank you Mr.Selt. It is something of a tradition John and I share.” stated Cygnus. “Although I will engage in a game of chess. Assuming you will move the pieces.”

“Why? You can’t simulate it?”

“I am an advanced tactics and combat analysis AI. I have a focus in combat optimization and resource preservation.“

“So no. “

“...No. Not without a plug in. John doesn’t like chess.”

Location: USSF Starwatch

Time: Shortly after destruction of Hotel 217

Andrew felt hollow. Like someone had gutted him . An entire race had just been exterminated, along with a number of good soldiers. This wasn’t how the contact was supposed to go. Although that’s to be expected. You don’t always get what you want. However, the one thing that bothered Rich the most was that all of this was preventable.

If John Punch hadn’t been captain of the OSS Team that was gunned out of the sky. Or...if Captain Punch hadn’t survived, it might have been that the race of creatures that inhabited 217 might have become an ally rather than a foe. The idea that the man who had essentially been Andrew Rich’s idol, had been heartless enough to advocate for the total annihilation of a race of creatures that were essentially in their infancy made him almost sick to his stomach.

Worse still, that man sat across him right now. He had a small smile on his face. It was like the events of the past few days had simply been a bad dream. The death of his wife. The bloodshed, and the final judgement he had rendered upon a new planet.

“You wanted to talk to me, Rich?”

“Yes, sir. It’s about the events that transpired on the ground and-”

“If I can interrupt, Soldier, one of the psychologists on the ship maybe much better candidates for conversation than myself.” stated John, with his ridiculous smile.

Rich looked at him a bit, and cocked his head to the side. “Sir, you said if I needed you, I should just ask.”

“Right. Sorry. Go ahead.”

“Umm...well, Permission to speak freely, Captain?”

“Off the record?” asked John

The soldier nodded in response.

“Okay. Fine. Talk.” stated John, smile falling off his face, and a stare replacing it. The OSS captain knew what this was about. Rich didn’t agree with John’s proposal to destroy the planet. Nor did he like the fact that John had done everything in his power to convince other elites and soldiers to pressure the Starwatch’s captain into agreeing with the proposal. The number of times they had butted heads about this in the days preceding destruction of the planet, and days after had been steadily increasing.

“John. I’m asking right now, as your friend. Why did we have to kill them?”

“It was a pre-”

“No. I want the real answer. Not the political bullshit you spouted to convince everyone.”

“We may be off the record, but that doesn’t mean I don’t deserve the respect that a commanding officer should get from his or her soldiers, Rich. Watch your tongue. And it wasn’t bullshit. Every word of it was true and you know it.” spat the OSS captain.

This was always how it began. Before the differing ideals had surfaced the pair had gotten along just fine. In fact they had been good friends. After the events on the planet however, the logic they had used to come to their conclusions had caused a rift to form between them. Even so, Andrew knew exactly how to get John to skip pulling rank and just get into a shouting match, which unfortunately seemed to be the only way they’d been getting any real talking done. It was safe to say that at least in Andrew’s eyes, the relationship was souring fast.

“Sorry, sir. Let me rephrase that question. Was blowing up the planet some way to avenge Sasha?” John stood up. It was sudden, and his knees made a thunk against the desk as he stood. He stared down at him, a seething rage building on his face. “After she died, you didn’t even bother attending the funeral.” Andrew said. “You missed out on saying goodbye to blow that planet to hell.”

John shook his head “You don’t know-”

“I don’t know, what? I introduced the two of you when the team was put together. You knew her because of me. I know what it’s like. I’m sad too. But I’m not letting my personal feeling get involved with work. That was the one thing they drilled in our heads when they started training us.”

The idea simply stated that when personal feelings are mixed with power, bad things happen. It was impossible to get someone to completely dissociate the two, but the hope was that it would deter people from giving one opinion or another out of straight anger.

‘The idea that a man with potentially sociopathic tendencies would reach a high enough rank to deceive a ship captain to the point where they would decide to blow apart a planet with life on wasn’t considered.’ thought Rich

And the fact that John’s pitch and proposal had been accompanied by what was essentially a death threats from several of the planetary leaders, had encouraged the idea that extermination was the best route, rather than simply running away and letting the creatures be.

‘But what do I know. I’m just a OSS operator. The big guys care about what Punch says...’seethed Andrew internally.

“Personal feelings aside…” stated Punch. “You saw what they did down there, right? They didn’t just kill. They weren’t defending. They took things. They ate people, Rich. Not because they were starving. To taste us. I’m not blind, right? I can’t be the only one who saw that. It’s like when you find termites outside your house, near a stump. Spray it down before they can spread.” he quietly said.

“They weren’t termites, John. There is a big difference between thinking, intelligent creatures and bugs.” spat the soldier.

“We can go back and forth all day. What’s done is done.”

“I know. I just want to see if you feel even the smallest bit of regret about not giving them time, or trying to work this out.”

John took a deep breath. “Do you regret killing a spider?”

Andrew Rich stood up. “Thank you, sir”. He said with finality. It was obvious the conversation was over.

“I recommend you speak to a psychologist.”

“Will do. Good night, Captain.”

---

Punch was sprinting hard. The physical activity not only increased his speed of travel, but allowed him a wonderful release from the stress he had been acclimating recently. He had opened into his breakneck pace upon breaking line of sight with Fluttershy. As he approached the town, he began reducing his speed, instead favoring a more controlled jog. John oriented himself towards the Library and quietly jogged his way there.

As he ran he listened hard to the interactions going on around him. Most of them were one sided. The pony would simply ask their person to do some odd task or another. Pick up my saddle-bag. Carry these apples. Buy some flour. All simple mundane tasks. The one thought Punch couldn’t shake however, was ‘What if they say no?’

Arriving at the door he franticly knocked. The pony that opened the door was, much to Punch’s surprise, Pinkie. Her mane had a deflated look about it, the kind a foil balloon gets after two days or so and tears streaks ran down her face.

“Hey Johnny.”

Her voice matched her mane.

“Uhh...Hey. So. How ya feelin’?” asked the Elite.

“Can we talk inside? ” asked Pinkie, opening the door wider.

The Elite nodded and made his way inside. To increase his surprise, he found Rarity sitting at the central table, with a cup of tea, and Twilight patting her on the head. Her eyeliner was running.

Considering his options, he took a quick look at Pinkie, Rarity then Twilight. The choice was obvious.

“Hey. Twi. I need to talk to you about something Fluttershy said.”

She looked up from Rarity and quietly asked. “Was she mean to you, too?”

“No...well, kind of...whatever, can we take it elsewhere?”

Twilight shook her head. “You and Rarity have already used your separation time for today.”

“Elaboration would be appreciated.” stated a perplexed Punch.

“You have to be together for forty eight hours. Obviously, going that long without bathroom time and the likes would be impossible. That means you get about an hour break every twenty four hours. From what I heard, in total, you’ve been seperated for about an hour...you need to stay with her or the contract won’t go through. Besides. This is a good chance for the both of you to relate. Tell Rarity your problem. She’s the one who’ll help you.”

The white pony gave a sniffle and got to her hooves. “Yes It is my job as your caretaker after all. You said you wanted to take this somewhere private?”

Punch nodded.

“Twilight. Do you mind if I pop upstairs a moment?”

The purple pony simply smiled. “Feel free.” Then she turned and paced over to Pinkie.

Meanwhile Rarity stalked up the stairs. Punch looked from Twilight to Pinkie, and then the stairs. Sighing he jogged up after his mistress.

Rarity had perched herself on Twilight’s guest bed. John was sitting on the floor off to the side, looking up at her. During the two minutes it had taken them to close the door and settle in, the fashionesta had managed to somehow pull herself together and basically put on a mask of fortitude.

‘Regardless of my feelings, I have to be strong. For him. Oh, this is so much more responsibility than I’m used to.’

“All right John.” stated Rarity. “What happened?”

Punch stared at Rarity for a bit and simply stated, “I have a question.”

“Yes?”

John steadied his gaze, “You cannot lie to me. You have to be honest.”

“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” she chirped.

“Miss Rarity, are you going to have me put down?”

You could hear a pin drop from a mile away. Punch watched as a look of utter shock crossed the snow white pony’s face. It was as though someone had slapped her. Then her eyes softened. She looked down at her (not so little) human with as much care as she could.

‘He believes it. He actually thinks I would do something like that to him… We haven’t even known one another for a day! What did she SAY to him?’

Rarity could see two things in her human’s expression. The first was cold hard determination and behind it, faintly flickering, was fear.

Instead of answering Rarity simply got off of the bed, trotted towards him, and slowly, pulled his head into her downy chest. “Jonathan I would never.” As Punch sat with Rarity essentially acting as a massive stuffed animal, he quickly realized: This had shaken her up more than him.

“Miss Rarity,” John whispered, pausing momentarily to collect his thoughts, “After you left, Fluttershy told me I should be put down. Normally I wouldn’t be too concerned about this kind of thing, but it got me thinking about the way you’d been feeling about taking a human. I was just wondering. What does a human have to do to be put down.”

“That’s hardly an appropriate–”

“I need to know.” insisted the Elite, keeping his voice level. The air was electrified.

“Very well,” Rarity said, clearly uncomfortable, “That.... is generally done under one or more of three conditions. The first is in the event of an especially heinous crime. Rape. Murder. Real nasty business. Things I’m sure you wouldn’t involve yourself with. The second is in the event of the caretaker feeling it is in the best interest of the human to end their life. Finally it may be done preemptively in the event that the human is seen as a potential public danger.”

Once Rarity finished her explanation she stared at John. He seemed to simply be processing the information; staring blankly at a wall as though waiting for something to happen. Finally he cast his gaze towards his care taker once more.

“Is it common?” he inquired.

“Not here,” stated Rarity, “Johnathan. I do not want you to feel threatened when you’re with me. I’m here to make sure you’re okay. That’s why I made you wear this,” she said, touching the collar with a hoof.

“I don’t know miss Rarity. It seems like you tolerate me more than you accept me.” quipped John.

‘Tolerate more than I accept? Is that how he feels?’ she asked herself.

Somewhere inside her a voice came with a snide remark: ‘His feelings aren’t important. Is that how YOU really feel? Are we tolerating him for Twilight?’

‘No!’ she chastised. ‘I’m not doing this just for her. I’m doing this for a poor human who has no home, and simply wants to settle down.’

The voice laughed. It was a mocking laugh; the kind she used when something exceptionally ridiculous was presented to her. ‘Maybe there’s a reason he had no home? After all working as a whore isn’t the most noble of professions.’

‘He wasn’t one of those brutes!’

‘How do you know?’ she asked herself. ‘He says he wasn’t, but he can lie. All humans do it.’

Finally deciding enough was enough, she did the one thing that would put all her fears to rest.

“John. I was honest with you. Now I want you to be honest with me. Where did you come from?” She asked.

The human looked down at her. “If you mean where was I born? You wouldn’t know. It was this little backwater town, and my group moved before I could even tell right from left. I’ve been to so many places in so little time I wouldn’t call anywhere my home. As for work? I did hard labor.”

“What kind of hard labor?” she asked.

“Moving things. Planting food. Lifting logs. You name it.” Punch nonchalantly chipped.

“Okay...so I don’t understand. Why settle in with a pony now? What are you afraid of?” asked Rarity.

His story was lackluster. Ambiguous statements mixed with gaps in knowledge were generally signs of badly thought out rumors. But maybe giving him the benefit of the doubt wouldn’t be so bad this time around.

“HA!”

The laugh was unexpected. It shattered the silence and Rarity’s train of thought. The air became electrified with a new kind of energy. The kind that Punch normally gave off: Authority mixed with smugness. However, this time, Rarity welcomed it. She felt like she was part of the energy rather than on the receiving end of it.

‘Maybe this is why ponies like people. It seems they can turn the bad into something nice.’

“I eat fear for breakfast!” bragged the Elite. “The scariest thing to happen to this town isme!” he exclaimed.

Rarity didn’t know what was going on, but the seriousness, or whatever had possessed John was gone. It had once more been replaced by his usual seemingly lackadaisical vibe. Which meant he felt safe.

‘Well that is what matters...’

“Miss Rarity?”

“Oh! Yes? ”

“Twilight probably already told you this, but ignore Fluttershy. The opinion of one pony is trivial when compared to the opinions of several.”

“Thank you John. “

“That and she’s a massive tool.”

“What?”

“Nevermind.”

Author's Note

That was fast, huh!

Okay, no I lied. It was really slow. I'm bad at writing fast. Sorry.

But it's a decent way to celebrate the season opening right?

Also looks like fimFic isn't a fan of my gdoc formatting anymore.