SGA meets the poniesby Colonel JChaptersPlans aren't always flawless.A seemingly hopeless situation.Its not over yet.Old friends return.Well... This is different (REVISED)Plans aren't always flawless."Are you sure you can do that?" Twilight asked skeptically, "I mean you can't just walk right into their ship, can you?" Twilight was now sitting on the edge of her bed. "Sure, we've done it before...we can do it again." Sheppard told her giving a vote of confidence. "Ok, what's the plan then?" McKay asked worried about upcoming events. Sheppard thought for a moment then had an idea. "Okay here's what we'll do. McKay and I will go back to Atlantis, we'll get a puddle jumper and be back here as soon as possible. Ronan, Tayla, stay here and help around the town where you can. When we get back we'll pick you up and head for the hive ship." As Sheppard finished he began to walk towards the door but was stopped by Twilight. "Wait! I want to go with you!" Twilight demanded. Sheppard turned around and tried to say lightly, "Look I know they're your friends but, I think it's just best if we handle this. Besides aren't you still hurt?" "I'll be fine." she said getting up off the bed and standing. She cringed at the pain that followed. "See you can hardly stand. Just get some rest." as Sheppard finished his statement him and McKay left the library. They walked through the streets of Ponyville which had ponies trying to assist and comfort each other. "Uh, Sheppard. Can I ask you something?" McKay asked while they were crossing the field back to the Everfree forest. "What's that Rodney." Sheppard responded. "Why were you so eager to help these uh, creatures.?" McKay asked. "Well I wouldn't say eager. But lets just say I have a good feeling that these...ponies, may turn out to be a good ally for us." Sheppard responded. They had reached the forest now and were making their way to the stargate. "Really? Do you mean for those elements that purple one kept talking about." McKay asked out of curiosity. "Her name's Twilight McKay, and maybe, we don't know what they have to offer us. And if we save their friends then we'll be on a good standing with them, right?" Sheppard was proving his point. "I guess so." McKay responded as they reached the gate and McKay began to dial Atlantis, but before he hit the second symbol he stopped and turned around to Sheppard. "Twilight, really?...That was a terrible book and the movie wasn't much better." Sheppard gave an annoyed look, "Just dial the damn gate Rodney." McKay turned back around and began to finish the address while Sheppard took one last brief look around the cartoon looking forest. Just as McKay hit the sixth symbol a low rumbling growl was heard behind them along with the tall grass moving as well. McKay whispered. "Sheppard." "I know, I heard it." Sheppard responded while looking in the direction that he thought he heard the growl come from. The tall grass all around them began to shift and move as the growling continued to pick up...They were surrounded. "McKay finish-" before Sheppard could finish his sentence. A creature jumped out of the grass and into the small clearing they were in. It had the body of a wolf but was made from wood such as branches and limbs. It was a timber wolf. "What the hell is that?" McKay asked turning around and hitting the last symbol. Before anything else could happen Sheppard began to fire on the creature letting his P-90 unload all of its ammo towards it, this caused McKay to duck since it caught him off guard. The creature however just stood there and looked down at the holes that had been made in its wooden body. "Ok, not good." Sheppard said looking at the creature with a sense of hopelessness and shock. The Timber wolf pounced at Sheppard but he was able to avoid it and had pushed McKay down to make sure he wouldn't get hit. The creature landed in front of the still inactive gate and Sheppard immediately knew what to do. Sheppard reached up and slammed the activation button on the DHD causing the stargate to open up sending out the initial release of energy as it always does. The Timber wolf was swallowed up immediately in the discharge causing most of its body to be vaporized. "That was close." McKay said feeling happy to be alive. "We're not out of the woods yet." Sheppard responded not trying to mean it in a joking way. As Sheppard and Rodney stood up multiple Timberwolves came stalking slowly out of the surrounding tree line. "RUN!!!" Sheppard yelled pushing McKay towards the open stargate and grabbing the remote out of his vest, he began mashing his clearance code into the device with Timberwolves following them. Back on Atlantis the stargate was active and the shield was ready to keep out any intruders. "I've got a code coming through...It's Colonel Sheppard." someone said towards Dr. Weir. "Lower the shield." She ordered. As the shield left the stargate Sheppard and McKay came running through with McKay tripping and landing on his face. "RAISE THE SHIELD!" Sheppard yelled towards the control room. Just as ordered the shield came back up immediately over the event horizon on the gate...There was a slight pause in the room as everyone looked back at the stargate. McKay was picking himself up but was also staring intensely at the portal. Six or so hits were heard on the shield and after the last hit the stargate shut down causing Sheppard and McKay to let out a sigh of relief. "What happened? Where's Ronan and Tayla?" Weir asked walking down the stairs from the control room. "It's a long story." Sheppard said looking at Weir. "I don't want to do that again." McKay said standing completely up now, and in almost disbelief that he was alive. "Hey we're back to normal!" he continued feeling his chest and looking at his hands. Sheppard also began to look himself over. "Conference room, now." Weir ordered starting towards the conference room, her mind wandering what all had happened to them. Back in Ponyville Ronan and Tayla had already assisted a couple ponies, either by moving something heavy for them or assuring them that they were there to help. Twilight was also up and helped where she could. She used her magic to clear large amounts of debris and rubble from some of the roads and had met Ronan and Tayla back at her library. "I'm sorry that this has happened to your people." Tayla was trying to comfort Twilight. Twilight gave her a sorrowful look, "We just weren't prepared I guess." "No one can ever be truly be prepared for a Wraith attack." Tayla responded to her. "I guess." Twilight wasn't feeling any better about the situation. "You are alive and well, that should count for something. And it looks like a large amount of your people are still here." Tayla told her trying her best to cheer Twilight up. Suddenly Twilight realized something after Tayla had mentioned it. It came as a shocking thought that she believed had to be wrong but had to be sure. She got up and left the library immediately leaving Ronan and Tayla behind. Twilight looked all around Ponyville taking account every pony who was still there. To her surprise every single pony who was there before the attack was still there, injured maybe, but still there except... her friends. With this new knowledge she ran back to the library finding Ronan checking his gun and Tayla looking at some of the books that Twilight had. "I don't think it's a coincidence that my friends were taken." Twilight said as she tried to make sense of the situation. "I don't understand." Tayla replied to her "My friends are the only ponies missing, everypony else is still here." Twilight said levitating a few books over to her and looking for any amount of information that would help her try and understand what this could have meant. "Was there any difference between your friends and the other people around here." Tayla said trying to help her get an answer. "No..." Twilight responded scratching her chin with her hoof. " Other than the elements they were wearing." "That might of been it." Ronan cut in. "They could have detected them from orbit. Which also explains why you weren't taken with them... You said your element must have gotten knocked off you, right? It all started to make sense now to Twilight. Her friends were wearing the elements so the Wraith took them to get their elements and hers got knocked off of her so they just found it on the ground, grabbed it, and went on. "But if they came here just for the elements why did they attack our town." Twilight asked confused on this now. "That's how Wraith are, they don't care who gets hurt. They just want what they came for." Ronan informed her. With that statement Twilight had a full realization of how evil the really Wraith were. The Wraith ship that had attacked Equestria was still in orbit around the planet. Strangely the ship was a cartoon like the planet was, and everyone and everything inside it as well. The friends who had been taken were put into holding pods leaving only their heads free while their bodies were restrained. They had tried to escape but it was a lost cause as they just weren't strong enough to break the pods hold. Footsteps could be heard coming down the hallway and what had turned the corner was a Wraith accompanied by two wraith soldiers, it was time for the ponies to be interrogated. "Let us go!" Rainbow Dash yelled out at the ugly creature. "Uhh how disgusting, a make over couldn't even come close to fixing what's wrong with you." Rarity said looking towards the wraith. Pinkie Pie immediately cut off the Wraith as it tried to say something. "Wow you're a really ugly creature. Hey I didn't realize we were going to have visitors today, I tried to give your friends cupcakes but they-" Pinkie was cut off by the Wraith yelling in annoyance. "ENOUGH!" The Wraith yelled standing in front of Pinkie. "What are you vial creatures?" "Wouldn't you like to know!" Dash yelled back in response. "We're ponies!" Pinkie said in a joyful voice. "Pinkie keep quiet. Don't tell this monster anything!" Dash yelled towards Pinkie. The Wraith walked down towards Dashes pod and stared her in the face, he then looked at one of the soldiers and it handed him her element of harmony. "You will tell me everything there is to know about this." he said holding it up to her. "Sorry, never seen that thing before in my life." Dash replied trying to look away from him. The Wraith let out a hiss, "We found this one on you, do not try and play games with us." he said in a more serious tone. Rainbow Dash looked him square in the eyes and spit right in his face. The Wraith was extremely angry now getting a rag and cleaning his face off. He then looked back at her with a sly smile. "Last chance, tell me. what. this. is." he said slowly as he held the element back up to her. "You won't get anything out of me." she said returning his stare. "Very well then..." he said in a more interested tone. He then held his hand up so that Dash could see the disgusting opening on it. "I've never fed on a pony before." Dashes confidence immediately fell to zero, "FED! What does that mean!?" she yelled struggling in her pod still not being able to get free. "What's gonna happen!" Dashes anxiety was building immensely. "Let's find out, shall we?" The Wraith said as he moved in to feed on his prey... a defenseless Rainbow Dash. A seemingly hopeless situation.As the Wraith inched closer to Dashes face she started to panic more and more, but she refused to tell the monster what he wanted to know. The Wraith looked down towards the pod and used and incredibly sharp tool that was attached to his finger to tear a hole in the pod that exposed Dashes body. Dash could feel the cold air of the ship now and realized how warm the pod really was. She thought she had a chance to breakout since her body wasn't restricted, but her hooves were still attached in the pod. This restricted her movement still and she had no choice but to watch what was about to happen. It felt weird in the first few seconds, like it was just a hand touching her and nothing more. This was because the Wraith wasn't feeding yet, he was merely getting ready. What happened next was something that Dash would never be able to forget for the rest of her life...which was looking like mere seconds at this point. The Wraith began to feed and an overwhelming feeling of pain over took Dash as her very life was being sucked out of her. "AHHH!..Nrrgh!...Stop it!" Dash yelled out in pain and at this point she didn't have the energy to struggle anymore. "Tell me what those things are and this could all be over!" The Wraith demanded as he slowed down his feeding process. "Nnn...NO!" Dash was barley able to get her response out as the pain increased. "How many more years do I need to take from you before you'll give me an answer!" The Wraith yelled enjoying himself watching Dash suffer. Rainbow Dash didn't respond and was in so much pain she was almost in tears. "Very well then...We're done here." the Wraith said as he sped up his feeding. Dash struggled to stay conscious and her body began to age rapidly. Within seconds she looked older than Granny Smith. Finally Dashes screams of pain faded and all that could be heard was light breathing...That too subsided. Dash was now a shriveled up corpse in the pod. With the Wraith finished he looked at his hand which had a small amount of cartoon blood on it. "Not as filling as a human...but it was. Refreshing," The Wraith said looking towards the other ponies. He then hit a button on the wall which released Dashes body from the pod. At this point Fluttershy had burst into tears seeing her friend on the floor now dead. Pinkie Pie looked in horror towards what had just happened and Rarity was about to pass out. Applejack on the other hand was watching the Wraith intensely, her cheeks were red with anger. She was ready to tear that Wraiths head off! "Now." the Wraith began. "Since you all know what the consequences are for disobeying...one more than others..." he said looking back at Dashes body. "I expect full cooperation." "What's the point in that!" Applejack yelled towards the Wraith. "Why should we tell you anything if yer just fixin to kill us anyways." "You will see... Now tell me what these things are." The wraith pointed towards a table which had all the elements laid out on it. Applejack thought about it for a minute, "It can't hurt to give em the name." she thought and looking more towards her friends and seeing what kind of shape they were in, "Maybe it'll at least buy them some more time." "The elements of harmony..." Applejack answered his question disappointed in herself. "Elements..." he said slowly to himself, "hmmm, interesting..." he continued, "What is the purpose of these...elements?" Applejack hesitated as the wraith got closer, "T-they're...NO! I just can't say!" The Wraith began to enter her mind and forced her to answer as he asked slowly. "Tell...me...what...they...do." "U-u-uh...T-they're...used for....defense..." Applejack tried as hard as she could not to answer but was forced to and couldn't stop it. "I see..." the Wraith said now leaning closer. "So they're a weapon." Applejack was sweating and tried her best not to respond her body betrayed her. "Y-y-e-s." "Interesting." The Wraith left her mind and started to walk towards Dashes body and leaned down to it. Applejack was trying to catch her breath and was breathing hard as she watched what the Wraith was doing. After Rainbow Dash was fed on by the wraith and was considered dead, all time seemed to have stopped for her. All she could see was darkness, she could tell that she was herself but it was like she couldn't move, her body refused to respond, and all she could do was think. "Am I dead? I can't feel anything...I must be dead...but I can't remember how I died...If I died...Who am I again?...darn it why can't I remember who...I'm Rainbow Dash, yea that's it, my name's Rainbow Dash and uhhh...shoot I can't remember again." Memories started flashing in and out of her mind. She thought of home, her parents, her friends, then...Scootaloo. "Who is that?...She seems so...familiar...Scootaloo!" Dash became overwhelmed with emotion, she wanted to cry thinking she would never see her again but couldn't, to her it was the strangest and worst feeling... The Wraith put his hand back on Rainbow Dash and began to restore her life. Her body began to age backwards, slow at first but then it sped up and she started to regain color. Dash took the biggest breath she had ever taken as a huge rush of emotions and feelings came crashing into her. She felt angry, sad, and happy all at the same time while also feeling pain, pleasure, remorse, and had a horrible jumpy feeling, like she drank too many energy drinks and continue to drink them anyways. This was the result of the adrenalin rush she was having. "ahh..w-w-wha..." Dash could barely form words as she laid trembling uncontrollably on the cold floor of the ship, she couldn't even form a proper thought. The Wraith stood back up and looking back towards Applejack, "You see what happens when you give me what I want. I give you... a little something in return." Applejack was happy to have her friend back but sad that they were still captured. The rest of the ponies had calmed down as well. The Wraith walked over to the two soldiers, "Take them to a holding cell." he then turned around and while looking at all the ponies, "We will continue this at a later time." then walked away. Three more guards came around the corner and began releasing the ponies. Fluttershy had to be carried as she couldn't move out of pure fear. Rainbow Dash was drug along the floor still trembling and trying to regain her thoughts. The rest walked, knowing they didn't stand a chance at getting away. Back at Atlantis, Rodney and Sheppard had just finished their story about the other world to Dr. Weir. "So their ponies and each one is a different color?" Weir asked finding it hard to believe. "Yep, strange isn't it." Sheppard said with a smile. "Yes it certainly is. And you believe they could be a good ally to us?" Weir continued to asked. "Yes...didn't we just go over this?" Sheppard asked kind of annoyed. "Yes, I'm just finding it all hard to believe." Weir responded leaning back in her chair. "Oh believe me, being turned into a cartoon was not on my list of things to do." Sheppard said getting a smile from Dr. Weir. "Ok, I'm going with you on this John. Take what you need and be careful." Weir said as Sheppard and McKay got up and left the room. Weir continued to sit in her chair and think, "Talking colored ponies...What were the ancients doing?"she couldn't help but to ask herself that question. Meanwhile Rodney went to grab some extra gear and Sheppard prepared the jumper to go. "You sure you don't want me to go with you sir?" Major Loren asked as Sheppard loaded some more ammo into the jumper. "Yea, a small team will be able to pull this off easier than a big attack force." Sheppard informed him. "You're the boss." Loren replied as he began to walk away, then turned around to ask a question, "Did you really get turned into a cartoon?" Sheppard stopped what he was doing and looked up. "Would you call me crazy If I said I did?" "Yes sir." Loren responded "Then no, I didn't." Sheppard responded continuing to pack more supplies. Loren laughed understanding that he really did get turned into a cartoon and walked away. Rodney came into the jumper bay as Loren left and walked up to Sheppard. "Ready?" McKay asked nervously. "As I'll ever be." Sheppard responded moving towards the pilots seat of the jumper and as he sat down he radioed the control room. "Flight, this is jumper one, are we clear to go?" A voice came over the radio, "jumper one, you're in the clear. Dial when ready." "Alright, here we go." Sheppard said as he began to punch in the address through the jumpers DHD. The stargate activated in the room below them and after the release of energy had been pulled back into the stargate, the ceiling of the departure room opened up letting the jumper in. The jumper flew through the open gate and after mere seconds shot out into the world of cartoon ponies. Sheppard looked at McKay, "You know, I expected us to be turned into cartoons again, but this is still just weird." "Yea tell me about it." McKay responded looking over the now cartoon control panel. They were nearing Ponyville now, "Alright activating cloak." Sheppard said as the jumper immediately became invisible and went in for a landing outside of the small village. "Hey I'm getting some strange readings here." Rodney said bringing up the display which showed the hive ship in orbit. "What is it?" Sheppard asked watching the display. "I'm not sure, I'm picking up a strange signal coming from within the ship." McKay responded "Ok...you stay here and work on it, I'll go get Ronan and Tayla." Sheppard said getting up and walking out of the jumper. Sheppard made his way through Ponyville towards Twilights' library. Everything looked better now, the smoke had cleared and the roads were more freed up as well. The ponies who were attacked so aggressively, were now beginning to rebuild their small town. Sheppard entered the Library and found Ronan and Tayla talking with Twilight. "Colonel, did you bring the jumper?" Tayla asked. "Yea, parked it outside of the town." Sheppard informed, "Rodney stayed behind, he said he was picking up some weird readings coming from the hive in orbit." "Must be the elements." Ronan informed looking towards Twilight who decided to take over the explanation. "I believe that only my friends were taken, no others ponies are missing around here except for them." Twilight began to inform Sheppard. "We think the Wraith detected them from their ship and were only interested in the elements." Sheppard started to get a look of concern on his face, "Ok, now I have to ask. Just how powerful are these elements?" "Well legend has it that they were responsible for creating our home. And so far every enemy we've used them on didn't stand a chance against them." Twilight began as she got an old book from the shelf behind her. "This book has old legends in it if you want to know more." "Uh no thanks. We need to hurry." Sheppard said starting back for the door. Twilight stopped him, "Why?" "We can't let the Wraith have a weapon like that." Sheppard told her. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. The elements are useless without me and my friends being there to use them." Twilight said as if she had solved his problem. "This is sounding more and more like the ancients as we go into it." Sheppard said looking at Twilight. "Who are the ancients?" Twilight asked "Long story, I'll tell you about them later." Sheppard said then turned his attention to Ronan and Tayla. "Lets go." then started out the door. "Wait!" Twilight said following them, "Let me go with you." Sheppard continued to walk down the street which led to the jumper. "Look I don't want to put you in any danger." he said. "I can look after myself." Twilight said then teleported in front of them causing them to stop. "Ok, that was cool..." Sheppard said giving Twilight an approving look. "But-" Sheppard got cut off by Twilight, "I won't take no for an answer. I'm assuming this jumper thing is this way." she said as she turned and starting walking down the road which led to the field outside of Ponyville. Sheppard let out a sigh and continued down the road with Ronan and Tayla following him. When they reached the jumper Sheppard pulled out a small remote from his vest and dropped the jumpers cloak with it. "Wow...W-what is this thing?" Twilight asked while putting a hoof on the side of the metal ship. "It's called a puddle jumper." Sheppard responded now walking to the back and opening the door to the inside of the jumper. Twilight was amazed at what she saw inside, and was more shocked when she saw the crystal like control panels. "This is amazing! This is far more advanced than what we have here in Equestria." "We're bringing her with us?" McKay asked "Yep. And that signal your picking up might be their elements." Sheppard informed while sitting down in the pilots seat. As Sheppard messed with the control panel the display came up and he reactivated the cloak while closing the door to the jumper. "Wow, is this magic?" Twilight asked. "Oh boy..." McKay said at the question. "No, it's just very advanced technology." he continued in an annoyed voice. "Oh." Twilight said giving a slight smile. "Ok everyone, buckle up, and please remain seated at all times." Sheppard informed as if he was an airplane pilot then made the jumper take off for the ship in orbit. Back on the Wraith ship the captive ponies were moved into a holding cell and the bars looked like spider webs crossing each other. The guards had left them and they were now alone. "Can you believe they just left us. How stupid are they?" Applejack said sarcastically as she walked up to the bars and positioned herself as if she was going to buck an apple tree. "I haven't been buckin apples all my life for nothin." Applejack gave the hardest buck she'd even given and she assumed that she at least rattled the bars, but what actually happened was she rattled herself from the force of the kick. Her back legs went numb and she immediately dropped to the floor trying figure out what had just happened. "Uh, guess those bars are stronger than a tree." she said trying to regain her standing position but couldn't so she sat instead. Fluttershy broke in with her small voice and asked, "We're not getting out of here are we?" "Now...don't say stuff like that." Applejack said, she could also see Dash out of the corner of her but couldn't tell what she was doing. Upon further examination, Rainbow Dash had went into the corner of the cell and was resting her head on the wall, looking away from her friends. "Rainbow? You ok." Applejack asked towards her but Dash continued to sit there and didn't respond. Rainbow Dash was going through a lot at this point. Her emotions had settled down and her system was starting to go back to normal. But now she could remember how the Wraith fed on her and how it felt. She tried to push it out of her mind with happier thoughts, like Scootaloo hugging her leg and smiling up at her. But this only made her want to cry so she preferred not to look at her friends. Applejack let out a sigh and looked down towards the floor as her hope and determination began to wear thinner with each minute. Even Pinkie Pie could sense the sadness coming from her friends, but all of her party stuff was back at Sugarcube Corner so she continued to stay quiet. Its not over yet."That's it." Rodney said blatantly as the hive ship came into view with the atmosphere of the planet disappearing. "No kidding." Sheppard was being sarcastic but even he got a little worried when he had to go into a hive ship full of wraith. "It's huge!" Twilight stood with her mouth open at the site of the massive ship. "How is that possible?" "A lot of science is involved." Rodney told her in the most annoyed tone he could give. Twilight returned this statement with a stare of aggravation, "Look, I can understand you treating us ponies as if we were underdeveloped primitives the first time we met. But I can assure you that many of us are extremely smart and we don't pride ourselves in technological achievement, so I would appreciate it if you would stop treating me this way." Twilight continued to stare at Rodney with aggravated eyes. Sheppard had a look of you just got told, and it was by a purple cartoon pony on his face and gave a sly smile while trying to focus on the jumper controls. "Oh, well, I, um, uhm...well." Rodney was caught off guard by what she had said and began to rub his thumb on his finger in pure embarrassment. "Ok McKay, how are we getting in this thing?" Sheppard asked as the jumper was now much closer to the hive. McKay pulled up the display in the jumper, "There." he pointed towards a dart bay. "I've already written a sub routine that I should be able to upload wirelessly to the ships directives. It'll open the bay doors for a few seconds allowing you to fly right into the hive." "Won't they detect it?" Sheppard asked "Not a chance, and it'll delete itself as soon as the jobs done. At the most the wraith should see it as a minor glitch." Rodney couldn't help but be proud of his small program. "Should." Sheppard replied "Should, probably, will. Look what more do you want from me?" Rodney asked as if he was being talked down to. "I'd like more of a solid plan." Sheppard said "Oh ok, right, I make up this plan, which I think is great by the way, and you want to shoot it down." McKay was now acting like a child not getting what he wanted while Twilights' eyes followed the conversation back and forth. Sheppard was more aggravated in his reply this time. "I'm not saying its bad, it just needs some work." "Work?!, I came up with this in like thirty minutes. I didn't have a lot of time." Rodney was only growing more childish. Twilight cut in with a short remark to the both of them, "I think you two need a lesson in friendship more than I do." Both Sheppard and McKay turned around and gave a strange look towards Twilight, looked at each other then turned their attention back to the hive ship. Ronan on the other hand sat in the back of jumper and laughed slightly to himself. "Are we close enough?" Sheppard asked "Almost..." McKay was ready with the code as Sheppard closed in on the dart bay doors. "Alright, transmitting the code." Sheppard paused briefly then said to McKay in almost a whisper, "I'd call it more of a virus. But we can name it later." McKay ignored him and watched his tablet. After a couple seconds of waiting the bay doors opened and Sheppard took the jumper in, "Nice work Rodney." he added. Meanwhile on the hive ships bridge. "Commander, one of the dart bay doors opened on its own." A wraith said working the controls. The lead wraith, who was the one who interrogated the ponies, walked over to his station, "What happened?" "I'm not sure, they just...opened. I closed then back." The wraith commander had several possible thoughts of what it might have been, "Keep me informed of anything else that is out of the ordinary." The commander then walked off leaving the other to his work. Sheppard had parked the jumper on a small landing pad keeping the cloak on, then opened the back of the jumper. The team grabbed their weapons and began to step out, looking for any signs of wraith. Sheppard looked at his life signs detector, "Where's all the wraith?" he asked in disbelief. Twilight had stepped out of the jumper by now, "Why does it seem so...dark here?" "That's just how the wraith are, and honestly you'll probably never get used to it." Sheppard responded. "Ok, I've got five life signs. their not human, and their not wraith. That has to be your friends." Sheppard was working the life signs detector while Rodney opened the door that lead into the ship. As the team walked through the never ending maze of the ships hallways they realized that there was hardly any guards moving around. "I thought you said there was a lot of wraith that attacked your village?" Sheppard asked "Well, we couldn't exactly defend ourselves, so it might have just seemed like their was a lot." Twilight explained following the group. "Sheppard, I've got the location of the elements." Rodney had figured out how to narrow the signal down to a small location on the ship. "Alright this is a good start, Ronan go with Rodney. Twilight you better go with them to make sure that they actually are the elements." Sheppard continued to explain his plan. "Meanwhile Tayla and I will go get your friends." Everyone agreed to their task and the two groups split up. Rodney was at the door of the lab where the elements were being studied. When he opened the door two unsuspecting wraith scientists pulled out their stunners. "Look out!" Ronan shouted as he pulled out his gun and blasted the two wraith and walked into the lab. "Ok we're clear." Twilight now had more questions running through her head as she saw Ronan's weapon in action but determined that she would ask later. "Ok, now where are they-" Rodney stopped as he found a dismantled golden crown along with 5 necklaces. "Are...these the elements?" he asked "Oh no, what happened to them...They broke them, now what do we have to defend ourselves with!" Twilight was horrified to see the elements broken apart on a lab table. Rodney started picking pieces of them up and examining them. "I wouldn't call them broken, more like dismantled. I think I can fix them but it'll take some time." "We don't have time for that." Ronan said heading for the door. "Right." Rodney replied while putting the elements into a backpack he had brought. "Alright lets go meet up with Sheppard." Ronan said as he lead the way with Rodney and Twilight following. "Up ahead, just around the corner." Sheppard said to Tayla as he watched the device in his hand. Sheppard and Tayla rounded the corner and found a wraith holding cell with the 5 ponies inside. "Are you five, friends of Twilight?" Sheppard asked Immediately the group of ponies perked up, even Rainbow Dash turned towards them. Applejack spoke up, "Ya know Twilight?" she asked. "Yea, you could say we're friends." Sheppard said as he leaned down to the bottom part of the cell and placed a small charge of C4. "This'll be kind of loud, but if you all just stay at the back of the cell everything will be fine." Sheppard and Tayla then went around the corner while the ponies hugged the back wall. "Fire in the hole." Sheppard said towards Tayla as he flipped the switch on the detonator causeing the C4 to make a small exit hole in the cell bars which fit the ponies perfectly. "Alright lets get out of here." The Wraith commander had returned to the bridge and the one he had talked too earlier had important news. "Commander, The scientists in the lab have been killed and the elements are gone." "What about the prisoners?" The commander asked. "I had guards check on them and their gone as well." The wraith commander was extremely aggravated towards this news, "The dart bay, they will try to escape through the dart bay. I want every guard we have on this ship to head to the dart bay which had the door open." "Yes, commander." Just as Sheppard and Tayla turned the corner with the ponies following them they ran into Ronan and McKay. Twilight saw her friends and ran up to give them a big hug and told them a little bit about the strange creatures she was with. Twilight noticed some blood on Dashes on chest, "Rainbow Dash, what happened?" she asked pointing a hoof at the blood. Dash refused to think back on it, "I don't want to talk about it." she said while holding her eyes shut, trying not to remember what the wraith had done. "Did you get the elements?" Sheppard asked towards Rodney. "Yea but they took them apart." "Well you can fix them, right?" Sheppard asked "Look I don't know, I'll have to look them over and-" Rodney was cut off by a wraith stun shot flying past his head. "Never mind! Everyone to the jumper!" Sheppard yelled while returning fire with Ronan then running with the group. After turning a few corners they had found the dart bay along with the jumper. When Sheppard uncloaked it the five ponies were in awe of how it looked but Twilight pushed them inside. While Sheppard and McKay took their seats at the front of the jumper. "Damn it, McKay I just thought of something." Sheppard said looking at Rodney "What's that?" McKay asked almost frantic. "What's to stop the wraith from heading back down to the planet after we leave." "I don't know." McKay began to respond but stopped as they heard stunner shots hitting the jumper. Sheppard made the jumper take off and used the drones to blast a hole in the dart bay door. "We'll have to figure something out later." he said as he looked at the display which showed multiple darts following them. "Oh crap." "That's too many darts! We'll never make it." McKay began pointing out the obvious. "Calm down Rodney and-" Sheppard was cut off by the darts following them being destroyed. "What the hell..." "I've got another contact!" Rodney yelled. Suddenly a familiar voice came over the radio, "Colonel Sheppard, this is Colonel Caldwell, Daedalus is ready to assist you." "Daedalus? What the hell are you guys doing out here?" Sheppard asked surprised at the help. "Doctor Weir was worried that you might need some assistance, by the way why are we cartoons now?" Caldwell responded. "Yea we're still trying to figure that out, but look that ships gotta go. Could you show our unwanted guests the door?" Sheppard asked sarcastically. "With pleasure." Caldwell turned to Major Marks who was working the weapons. "Marks, all forward asgard beam weapons on that ship, I don't want anything left over there." "Yes sir." The Daedalus began firing shot after shot with the asgard weapons and made quick work of the intruding hive ship. Only debris remained where the ship once was. "Thanks Daedalus, we owe you one." Sheppard said over the radio. "No problem, we'll stay in orbit just in case anymore wraith show up." Caldwell replied. Sheppard landed the jumper closer to Ponyville this time and opened the back door. The ponies thought they would never see home again and were happier then ever to be back in Ponyville. "So what will you do now?" Twilight asked looking up at Sheppard. "Well this is the part where we go home." he responded. "Oh, will we ever see you again?" Twilights' friends had gathered behind her as she was talking with Sheppard and his team. "Yea, you will. We still need to figure out what the ancients were doing here and-" Sheppard was cut off by a chariot being pulled by two pegasi guards landing beside them and a tall white alicorn stepping off of it. "Princess Celestia." Twilight said as she saw her teacher. "Hello Twilight, Are these the people who helped you get your friends back?" Celestia had walked up to Sheppard who was at an even height with her. "Yes they are Princess. These are very good people." Twilight responded while moving in closer. "I see, well thank you for helping them." Celestia responded "No, problem ma'am. And you don't need to worry about them coming back from that ship in orbit, we took care of that." "Ship?" Celestia was a bit confused on this. "It's a long story Princess." Twilight told her. "Oh Rodney, could you show the Princess the elements." "Oh sure." Rodney took off the backpack and emptied the mess of elements on the ground. Celestia looked the elements over carefully. "I should be able to put them back together." she said smiling. "Thank goodness. I thought we had lost them for sure." Twilight replied. Celestia smiled, "No need to worry, I also had a meal prepared at Sugarcube Corner if you're hungry. And you can tell me all about your adventure there." "I'm starved." Applejack said while heading for the food with the others following her. "Would you like to stay and join us?" Twilight asked "You're more than welcome." Celestia added "Oh, actually I could go for something to eat right about now." McKay responded looking at Sheppard. "Sorry, but we have a busy schedule. But we'll back, hopefully sooner than later." Sheppard said giving a nod goodbye to the both of them and then started towards the gate with his team. Old friends return.Two years had passed since the event with the Wraith. Equestria was prepared for war more so than what they had been for over a thousand years. Support was occasionally delivered by the Atlantis expedition with Ronon and Tayla returning at intervals to help with military strategies and evacuation plans. Two pegasi in light camouflage painted armor watched the stargate closely. As usual the only noises were the bugs or occasional Timberwolves stuck in Earth pony traps. This changed when the stargate shrieked and the dots lit up as someone dialing in. One guard stood his ground as the others readied themselves to take to the sky and raise an alarm till two less-than-threatening beings walked through, shocked at the welcome. “Ronon must have really laid the training on thick since we left,” Dr. McKay said with shock as he became his usual indignant self. “Clearly forgetting to mention we're not here to suck the life out of you?” he asked towards the ponies. The unflinching pegasus confirmed. "So you come in peace?" and before McKay could launch into an indignant rant, he was silenced with a firm hand on his shoulder. “Colonel John Sheppard, We came through last time and helped your people out. Had to rescue the uh...” He hated trying to recall the names of things here. It was bad enough that one of them was called... ”Twilight Sparkle was one of their names...” “The Elements of Harmony." Rodney started, "We helped out with the wraith being here. Surely you people haven't forgotten about that?" he said looking around nervously. "Oh. That's right. So you must be with the Atlantis guys." This signal pony knew what was worth making exceptions for. "We got friendly troops!” Suddenly three more camouflaged ponies and a timberwolf on a magic leash emerged around the clearing. "Please, follow me." The signal pony began talking while slowly flying toward Ponyville over a dirt road between the trees. "Since you took care of those 'Wraith',” Sheppard couldn't stop smiling at the use of hooves for quotation marks. “the stargate only activates when you and your team use it." The last words expressed immense relief. "Well that's good." Sheppard replied earnestly. "That's weird." Rodney corrected, trying not to stare at the timberwolf. "That's not like the Wraith." "Lone faction? Find a new source of food and start their own planet-wide pony ranch." Sheppard replied with a joke. "Maybe." Walking for several minutes as they learned about the nation's preparations against another Wraith incursion, Ponyville and Twilights' library were soon in view. They lost their escort at the weather station that now doubled as a guard post, suits of barding sitting on a rack on the back of it beside a basket of spears. Surprisingly it was one of very few changes to the town as eveyone seemed dedicated to being the bright cheerful cartoon characters they were before including Twilight as she shelved books in her library. Colonel Sheppard spoke first. "Now it's Princess Twilight Sparkle? Boy have we got a lot to catch up on." Turning at the sound of Sheppard and McKay Twilight almost dropped the books she was arranging in mid-air. "Colonel! Rodney! It's been too long...” She spread her wings in joy, only to haltingly retract them as the books were piled before the shelves. “Where's Ronon and Tayla?" Her eyes were downcast. “I know Tayla and Princess Luna had an argument over ponies going through the stargate, and Rainbow Dash still thinks Ronon cheated by booby trapping The Running of the Leaves, though nopony told him it was just a fun race.” "Well," Sheppard began suppressing a smile at the funny terms used in Equestria, "Ronon and Tayla are busy on a different planet and we decided we might come by and say hi, since it has been so long." Sheppard said as he relaxed in the chair Twilight summoned while instructing her assistant to make tea. "I'm glad I finally get to see you too. Ronon was all about training ponies to fight the wraith and was always making excuses to get out of Pinkie Pie's parties. Tayla left after..." she looked disappointed. "What's been keeping you two from coming by for a visit?” Johns' face was shaded by exhaustion. "We ran into a mishap with a people called the Replicaters, had to move the city to a different planet, made a deal with a faction of Wraith, travelled to another reality..." Stopping himself, he began to realize how much they had survived. Twilight, who'd levitated her tea back to the table was looking more and more shocked with each exploit. "Sounds...fun?" "Yeah... well Rodney, didn't you have something you wanted to give her?" Sheppard asked while glancing meaningfully over at McKay, interrupting him digging into a plate of cookies. "Hm? Oh,” He swallowed. “Yes. Here you are." Rodney handed Twilight a tablet from his duffle bag similar to his. "I increased the sensitivity on the screen so it should work just fine with your, um, hooves." Twilight looked at the tablet computer in awe as the screen was bright with information and pictures. Rodney had simplified the display so Twilight could better understand how it worked. "It has pictures of not only Atlantis but Earth,” his speech started picking up speed. ”and in the information section I put some of the Ancient's history salvaged from their database along with Earth history and culture. Along with all of that, since I can tell you're a scientist,”smiling smugly at himself he added ”I can always tell.” before returning to the enchanted Twilight. “I included our understanding of math and science in here as well. Oh and if you're bored I included some video games." Despite Rodney's pace Twilight was a fast learner and kept up. "This is amazing. You can fit all this information in this...this, what did you call it?" Twilight asked. "Tablet." "Yeah, tablet...This would take months to put into books, not to mention the space it would take up in the library." Sheppard smiled and spread his arms out, "Technology, am I right?" Twilight, eyes dilated, simply nodded as she continued to go through the endless wonders of her new toy. After Rodney's lesson on elementary wormhole physics Sheppard decided it was time to tell her the real reason they were there. "Twilight." Sheppard cleared his throat which tore her away from a game she found to be called Solitaire. "We know the Ancients were here ten thousand years ago, but we still need to know why." "Hmm." Twilight sat the tablet on her desk and began to pull out a couple books. "Lets see...I still can't find anything about the ancients in any of my books and almost nothing goes further back than Princess Luna and Celestia..." Twilight was re-checking four books at once before she had an idea. "Hold on! I've read almost every history book in Equestria, yet one of our oldest cities has an even bigger collection." Sheppard shared a glance with McKay before shifting forward in his chair, "Oldest city? How old are we talking?" Twilight levitated a book over to Sheppard which she had received as a gift from Celestia and began triumphantly explaining as he tried to read. "The Crystal Empire! It's so old that nopony knows how old it really is and all physical records of when it was constructed were destroyed when an evil king named Sombra subverted the Empire and stole the Crystal Heart that powered and protected it." Sheppard closed the book in disbelief. "An ancient empire that used crystals for power?" McKay stuttered out “Like a ZPM?” causing Twilight to mentally note that their alphabet was pronounced differently when he said it. Twilight continued, "Well if it's important you can look around the Crystal Palace for some answers." "You mean no one investigated a place powered by crystals?" Sheppard asked, annoyed at missing such an obvious lead when he put the book down. "Colonel,” Twilight looked offended. ”We've been very busy building Equestria up for another attack under the advice of someone you recommended. Only recently has Princess Celestia said she believes that we're ready.” Her expression slid into fearful dejection. “Still, I'm not convinced. These Wraith," Twilight closed her eyes and slumped her wings. "They use...technology. Technology that we have a hard time understanding short of saying it's magic." Sheppard started walking towards the bookshelf to put away the Crystal Empire book. "Believe me, we know what you mean. Between the Wraith's organic tech, the Asgard energy manipulations and stolen technology of the Goa'uld, even we still have a hard time keeping up with two galaxies trying to kill us.” Turning back he looked earnestly at the dejected princess. “However we have friends who help us understand these things." The newly crowned princess suddenly looked at her guests, one who was wolfing down biscuits that Spike kept supplying, murmuring about the different styles, and blinked as if she hadn't seen them before. “So we're using some kind of 'magic' to get there, I take it?” Rodney asked as Spike noted he hadn't touched the lemon tarts he brought. "If we hurry we should be able to make today's last train for the Empire." Smirking with Sheppard she soon packed a saddle bag for herself before leaving Spike to watch the library as Sheppard and McKay muttered behind her. "We couldn't just take a jumper?” “Aw come on, Rodney, we use those things all the time." "We'd make better time if we used a jumper." "We're exploring strange new worlds. What if the train has clues?" "My mother always told me that public transport was dangerous." "That explains a lot." "Oh, ha ha." They reached the station and Twilight bought three tickets right away and not five minutes had passed before the three were on the express route to the Crystal Empire. Sheppard and McKay had a hard time sitting as the seats felt like they were made for children. "Well," Sheppard started. "This is fun." "Unlike a jumper." "Shut up Rodney." Sheppard muttered then looked at Twilight. "So, how long until we get there?" "It should take about an hour." Sheppard shifted in his seat. "Wonder how an hour works here." "Ronon said time wasn't as important as results, yet he never did say how your people move the sun.” she responded. Rodney rolled his eyes. "Move the sun? You mean track the sun's movement." Twilight held a confused look on her face, "Princess Celestia moves the sun and Princess Luna moves the moon." Rodney almost began to laugh. "No, okay, look I know you said before that you all are very intelligent but the sun cannot be moved, or at least it takes a lot to move it. And when I say a lot I mean more energy than what we could come close to making,” He looked both guilty and proud as he continued. ”except for what happened on Doranda and that took out almost the entire solar system." Sheppard nodded while Rodney finished. "I mean no offense here, but your people seem like you've barely discovered electricity." "You don't think Celestia moves the sun?" Twilight asked. "No I don't, the planet rotates on it's axis causing an illusion of the sun and moon moving across the sky. You just can't will the sun to move." "Well she uses magic to do it." "Oh yes, right. Magic. Everybody's answer for everything instead of 42." "Rodney." Sheppard sharply interrupted. "Anymore arguing and I'll turn this train around." McKay sighed, "Look, that tablet I gave you? It has the whole process along with the math to back it up." Sighing Rodney muttered. “I saw that your assistant put the book about this place that we're going to in your bag. Can we read it before we get there?” An hour passed with everyone reading as much as they could till their arrival at the Crystal Empire. When they got off the train, after gratefully stretching, Sheppard and McKay stood in awe at the sight before them. "Rodney." "Yeah." "Tell me this doesn't look familiar." "Very." Twilight looked confused till Rodney explained. "This is very similar to the design of Atlantis and a second city we found buried. This could be something similar to that however." "This time the whole city's crystal." Sheppard stated. "Though less structures. Possibly an advanced outpost. We need to see more to know." Twilight smiled showing them a map of the palace. "Come on I'll show you around the palace and you can meet my brother and Princess Cadence." Making their way to the palace, Rodney noted that the streets held a snowflake pattern as Twilight told him about them glowing when they held back the surrounding snow. Sheppard noticed the weird stares they were getting till they got to the palace. The spinning Crystal Heart was waiting as Rodney scanned it. “It's a regulator, an overload fail-safe. There's a lot of energy in this place, yet this just allows it to be drawn into this structure. Like a giant safety switch.” “So that evil king trys to tap into the power of a whole empire...” “More like the other way around.” Twilight offered to the surprise of her travel companions. “The Crystal Empire is powered by love and a sense of achievement. When Sombra enslaved it he hid the crystal heart. His magic was the strongest around till Luna and Celestia banished him, yet he took the empire with him. It only emerged recently after being lost for one thousand years and everypony forgetting it existed.” As John and Twilight discussed the story of the Crystal Empire and Cadence returning to the throne they moved into the Crystal Castle's hallways and flights of stairs toward it's throne room. McKay scanned everything they passed and stopped to analyze a light fixture on the wall. "Rodney?" Sheppard began, glancing at his readings. "I thought the light was reflected from outside. It's not. This is a powered light source." "Okay, can you be more specific." "Hold on..." Rodney began moving along the wall until he reached the door to the throne room only to fall over as that door magically opened to reveal royal guards and Princess Cadence. As she gestured for one of the guards to help Rodney up she greeted Twilight starting with a mutual dance and song. "Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake! Clap your hooves and do a little shake! Twilight! It's so good to see you again. So these are two humans from the stargate?" "Allow me to introduce Colonel Sheppard,” "It's a pleasure to meet you." Sheppard knelt, extending his hand before realizing it wasn't a typical greeting for a quadrupedal species. "I'm Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, though I prefer Princess Cadence. My husband Shining Armor is out working with the guards, I'm not sure how long he'll be today." "I've got something!" Rodney exclaimed, pointing across the room as he'd been scanning the room while waiting for everyone else to finish. Twilight facehoofed. “Also, this is Doctor Rodney McKay. He's... not used to dealing with ponies.” Cadence knew better than to get between a researcher and their work so she simply executed a polite nod. "He's trying to figure out how your lights and power work without conventional wiring.” The Colonel rolled his eyes. “What did you find?" He asked Rodney, already studying a wall. "This wall. It doesn't make sense." "Rodney." "Look. life signs detector shows a room on the other side. But if I scan it with my tablet I just get a wall made of Crystal." "And this means... ?" "Well, I'm not sure. The tablet should have more scanning power but I'm getting conflicting results." Absorbed in his readings he didn't notice his hosts looking at both him and the wall. Cadence ventured. “This castle is over a millennia old and the people who lived below it spent their last generation being afraid of what was inside. There could be anything here... yet that wall seems solid to me.” "If you abuse ancient tech' you get this Sombra guy. Wouldn't be the first despot to rule people based on some functioning ancient relics he figured out. Now Rodney, this wall could be a secret lab like the one in Atlantis? Hit the right series of tones and you can walk through a wall?" "I thought of that but as you can see," Rodney gestured around. "there's no harmonic resonators." "I'd rather not blast it seeing as this is someone's home. C4 tends to leave a remodeling bill." "No, you don't understand. The structure of the crystal is beyond anything I've seen or read about. I wouldn't be surprised if-" Rodney about to knock on the wall had his hand pass right through it. "Whoa. Did you see that?!" Fascinated at the mystery Twilight put her hoof on the wall yet unlike Rodneys hand, it found solid matter. "How'd you do that?" she asked. Rodney kept a confused look, "I don't know." McKay put his hand on the wall but it passed right through again. Sheppard tried the same thing and just like Rodney his hand went through the wall, but instead of pulling his back out he continued to walk right on through. "John! JOHN! Can you hear me!" Suddenly Sheppard's head popped out of the wall, "Looks like a gene lock Rodney. You'll want to see this." he then disappeared back into the wall with Rodney following him. On the other side was an Atlantis-replica control room, the light's and controls coming on as Sheppard and McKay walked further in. The biggest difference was the solid walls of crystal where the windows should be and the bare area for a stargate. Rodney was taking this in, mumbling to himself, "Oh, this is interesting." Ignoring whatever witty remarks his military back-up had, he went straight for the ancient computer records. "I'll be back Rodney, you just keep doing what you're doing." Sheppard then stepped through the wall finding Twilight and Cadence with half the royal guard behind them and the rest watching the door to the throne room. "John would you care to explain what's going on?" Twilight asked. "Well-" Sheppard shifted his standing position. "I'm not entirely sure, but if we give Rodney like five minutes, he'll have an explanation." Perplexed Twilight put her hoof against the wall, yet it was still solid. Sheppard walked towards the closest window and examined how big the Empire really was, yet before he could ask, Rodney re-emerged to an eager audience. "Rodney! What'd you find out?" "Well the Ancients built this place. It's relatively similar to the Tok'ras technique of making crystal tunnels. More to the point, that wall is amazing." Rodney walked over to the wall and wiped his hand through it. "Instant solid to liquid state upon recognition of the ATA gene." Rodney then looked over to Cadence. "Excuse me, uh... Cadence right? Have any changes ever been made to this place at anytime?" "As far as I know nothing's changed except the furniture for the last thousand years." she replied. Rodney smiled smugly. "Exactly what I thought. Now here's what you didn't expect: The Ancients didn't want ponies using their technology because they wanted them advancing at their own rate like humans were on Earth." Princess Cadence looked confused. “So we were a giant experiment? Like Sombra holding a whole planet captive?” “No!” Rodney waved his hands like he was wiping away dirt from a tiny windshield. “You guys were protected. You were the control group compared to the rest of humanity who turned out to be the caged animals you poked, prodded and injected with serum 5-9b that gave them super hearing which drove them insane...” Rodney trailed off to the horrified stares from some of the ponies in the room. “We only did it once and we figured out how not to do it again.” Sheppard rolled his eyes and brought them back on task. "So why aren't they more advanced then?" Rodney threw his hands up. "Well, I don't know.” He said with exasperation. “Government mishaps, cultural disputes, natural disasters, general disinterest in technology?” Twilight looked like she was going to object when Rodney cut her off. “Without studying thousands of years of culture and history in depth I can't know all the answers." Princess Cadence asked "They studied us here, yet had the stargate so far away?" "They moved it. They weren't against you using the stargate but..." Rodney trailed off. "But what?" Twilight asked. "Well, They broke it." "Broke it?" Everyone said in shock or fear at varying volumes. "Well yes... kind of... no?" Rodney met the stares that demanded more explanation. "Okay, they, uh, removed and reworked a lot of the control crystals in the gate taking away its ability to connect with other stargates except for the one on Atlantis." "So kind of like when my parents gave me vouchers for a book store instead of bits." Twilight asked with a bright cheery tone. “If I wanted anything more I had to go through them.” "Huh, you too? Anyway, you don't have to guard the stargate. No one can come through but us." "Alright, Now the walls, you said they were really incredible?” "Oh yeah. I'd say this crystal structure is almost a hundred times stronger than the metals used for Atlantis." "A hundred times?" Sheppard asked skeptically. "Roughly speaking. Something keeps bothering me though." "What's that?" Cadence asked, fascinated with the back and forth. "I can't figure out where this castle is getting its power. Of course I haven't finished looking through all of the data base either." Sheppard thought for a minute. "Can you get me a layout of this place?" Rodney held out his life signs detector. "I'll trade you. I already got a map of the palace and the surrounding area from the data base." "Good job Rodney." Sheppard said with a smile. "Keep going through the database and keep me updated over the radio. Princess Cadence, Twilight will go with me to check out some of these hidden places." His smile was infectious. Twilight looked giddy with excitement as Cadence asked, "What should we do to help?" Sheppard turned around quickly and gave a smile, "If Rodney finds anything important in the database he'll need to coordinate with you and radio us. In the meantime I'll need your sister-in-law to help me out. Think you can handle all of that?” Cadence nodded as Twilight stomped her hooves rapidly like an eager girl clapping her hands. “Oh, and Rodney gets hungry fast so plenty of finger food. Come on Twilight!” As the two departed Cadence made a note to ask what a “finger” was and how to feed it. Well... This is different (REVISED)Another normal day was beginning in the ancients city of Atlantis. John Sheppard had made plans to show Ronan more points on how to hit a golf ball correctly instead of with one hand. Tayla was talking to Dr. Weir in her office about how her visit with her people went on the main land. And McKay was being his usual self and messing with every computer that he came too, hoping to find something that he could improve in the systems. That is until he went through the dialing computer and found an address marked with the word EXPERIMENT as the title. "Huh, that's strange." McKay said finding himself then thinking of the possibilities of finding something like a ZPM, he then radioed his team and Weir for a meeting in the conference room. "Ok, sorry about getting everyone here so quickly but I found something that you all might find interesting." informed McKay. "Please, don't keep us waiting." Sheppard said sarcastically. "Right." McKay respond putting an image of the address on the big screen monitor they had in the room. "That's it, a stargate address?" Sheppard asked "we see those all the time." Ronan said with annoyance "Yes, but there's something different about this one." McKay replied. There was a moment's pause. "Are you going to tell us what it is?" Weir asked "Yes." said McKay pointing at the ancient text on the screen. "This says experiment, just think of what we could find there." "a ZPM?" asked Sheppard "Maybe." replied McKay while everyone stared at Weir for the green light. "Ok, but be careful, we don't want to get into something dangerous. Remember other experiments done by the ancients? They didn't end well, did they? informed Weir "Right, I'll make sure to take extra precautions this time." McKay said as he left the conference room to prepare a MALP for recon. The team went and got ready to go as usual, checking weapons and grabbing C4 in case of emergency. Once ready they met in the gate room and McKay began to give the general rundown of the planet. "Receiving telemetry." McKay said as one of the monitors went from static to a picture that resembled something like a cartooned forest. "Are you sure were receiving live feed?" Weir asked as McKay checked the readings. "Yea, that's it, but it can't be...that doesn't make sense." responded McKay "It looks like a cartoon, Rodney. Are you sure were getting a direct feed, remember the mission report from SG1 about how the MALP feed was replaced by a fake projection?" Sheppard said still trying to make sense of it. "I'm serious, I've checked three times now. This is the real thing." McKay said. "Maybe this was what the ancients experiment was, to create a world similar to this, cartoon." Tayla suggested struggling to understand what a cartoon was. "I wouldn't put it past them." Weir said now looking at McKay. "Is it safe?" "Let's see. Viable atmosphere, decent temperature, no measurable toxins, and...huh, barely any UV rays reaching the planet's surface, like less than one percent." McKay said with amazement. "So it's safe?" Weir asked. "Well yea, it's almost your perfect environment." McKay said with a shocked tone. "Ok, let's get going." Sheppard said as he started towards the gate. The rest followed and once through the shimmering portal they each had a resemblance to the style of the forest. "Ok, this is weird...McKay are we cartoons?" Sheppard asked while looking at the design of the trees. "huh, I guess so." McKay replied taking several readings of the surrounding area. "But how's that possible?" Sheppard asked "Well it's possible that the ancients figured out a way to transform the environment this way as well as anything that came here. But why would they do that?" McKay started to mumble to himself "Hey, there's smoke coming from that direction." Ronan said as he pointed at a dark smoke cloud lingering in the sky. "Alright let's go check it out." Sheppard said as he put on his sunglasses and began to walk. As the team exited the forest they found a small town in ruins and with some of the buildings on fire. "Wraith attack, I'm picking up lot's of traces of wraith weapons fire. They most likely did it from a hive ship in orbit." McKay said as he continued to scan the area. "Alright let's see if there were any survivors." Sheppard said as he moved towards the village The team found a sign outside of the small village that read, Ponyville but was burned and on the ground. "perhaps their main trade was horses." Tayla said walking past the sign "I don't know, but it looks like these people won't be doing much more trading." Sheppard said and at the end of his sentence something started to stir under the rubble next to them, each of them raising their weapon to meet it, but what stood up was a badly injured purple unicorn. "McKay, what am I looking at?" Sheppard asked but before he got an answer he was interrupted by the purple pony. "Please, don't hurt us anymore...we don't even know what we did to upset you so much." she said struggling to keep standing. "And what did you do with my friends..." just as she finished her sentence she passed out on the ground. Tayla and Sheppard went to the pony quickly and started to inspect the wounds. "It's a horse!, A cartoon talking horse." Sheppard said starting to put bandages on the ponies wounds. "And this doesn't bother you at all!" McKay said still hold his gun ready for anything. "Rodney it's hurt and I think we're the only ones around who can help. And put your gun away, I don't think it's gonna bite you." Sheppard said turning back to the injured pony. "Hey! You guys stay away from her!" A small dragon called out running up and trying to hit them with fire, causing Ronan to pull out his gun and point it at the baby dragon. "Whoa, we're the good guys, we aren't going to hurt anyone" Sheppard said, "Right Ronan." he continued as he looked at Ronan now holstering his gun. "Really? Thank goodness, quick help me get Twilight into the library." the dragon said starting to pick her up, but not being able to carry her. Tayla gave him assistance moving Twilight and once inside the partly burned library, continued to patch up the unconscious pony. "So you're a dragon?" Sheppard asked the little purple and green dragon. "Yea, my name's Spike." he replied, then asked, "who are you? and why are you here?" "I'm Colonel Sheppard, that's Rodney McKay, Ronan Dex, and Taylas the one helping your friend. We're here on an exploration mission." Sheppard informed. "Her names Twilight and you're a lot nicer than the last kind of guys who came through here, they had different skin though and long white hair." Spike said "Yes, well we know who they are." McKay began. "They're called the Wraith and they're life sucking aliens." "What, life sucking?" replied spike with a look of fear. "Rodney, you really need to learn how to give a better explanation." Sheppard said looking at McKay "Sorry I said the truth." McKay replied "Colonel the pony is beginning to wake." Tayla said coming in from the next room. "Twilight!" Spike called out as he ran into the next room with the others following him. "mmm, my head." Twilight said sitting up in bed then looking over at her new visitors. "Twilight it's ok, they said that they're friends." Spike informed her then told her there names. "Yea, can you kind of give us an idea of what happened." Sheppard asked Twilight shook her head, "I was on my way to Canterlot to meet with the princess about a matter that couldn't wait, my friends were-" Suddenly a quick flashback of what happened to her friends rushed into her mind. "One thing at a time." She told herself then continued with her story. "When I got there the princess told me that a threat was on its way, then gave me the box that held the elements of harmony and told me to return to Ponyville at once and prepare for the worst. Spike left the room then came back with a glass of water and gave it to Twilight and after a quick drink she continued. "When I got back to ponyville I gave the elements to my friends and we did our best to prepare, but we had no idea what was coming. When it did happen, these things, that I'm assuming were flying ships, came out of the sky and began to take ponies and destroy all of ponyville. They were even attacking Canterlot and I don't know if the Crystal Empire was attacked." Twilight began to grow frantic but Spike calmed her down. "The first to go was Rainbow Dash, she was trying to stop the ships but one of them took her in a beam of light. Poor Fluttershy was trying to help the animals get away when they took her. Rarity did everything she could to try to help the other ponies escape, but then she was taken as well. Pinkie Pie wasn't easy to take but they hit her with kind of some blast which put her down easy. And Applejack was probably the worst for them, they had to hit her and Big Mac several times before they went down." Twilight finished her story, which left a feeling of remorse, even in Sheppard and his team. "How did you survive?" Ronan asked Twilight looked confused towards the question, then realized what must have happened. "I got knocked out by something hitting me in the head. They must have thought I was dead." Twilight replied "That explains why we found you under that pile of rubble. I believe it was more likely that they couldn't find you." Tayla implied "I guess." Twilight replied while feeling her head. "Where's my element?, It looks like a crown. Have any of you seen it?" "No and it wasn't near where we found you." Sheppard replied "Great, it must have gotten knocked off me and those creatures must have taken it." Twilight said with disappointment. "What are these... elements you keep talking about?" asked Sheppard "They're the most powerful weapon that Equestria has." Twilight informed Sheppard turned quickly to McKay, "what do you think Rodney, could it be useful?" he asked "Well... I don't know, I'd have to see it before I could make any assumptions." McKay responded Twilight spoke up immediately, "We only have one set of elements, I'm sorry but you can't have them." "Well we could reverse engineer these elements, well that is if they're more powerful than what we have available through Atlantis." McKay informed "Alright, now on to more important details. You said that your friends were taken by the wraith correct." Sheppard asked looking towards Twilight. "Yes." she responded "Do you have any idea where they are now?" Tayla asked Before Twilight could answer Ronan cut in. "Where else could they have taken them? They're in the hive ship that came here. How long has it been since the attack?" "I'm not sure, maybe an hour." Twilight replied "Assuming we tell time the same." Sheppard said Ronan continued, "They'd still be in orbit, the Wraith always attack more than once." he informed "He's right, I'm picking up a hive ship in orbit around the planet." McKay said messing with his computer. "I too can sense them." Tayla backed up their claims "That settles it then...We're going after your friends." Sheppard said with a serious look of determination.
Plans aren't always flawless."Are you sure you can do that?" Twilight asked skeptically, "I mean you can't just walk right into their ship, can you?" Twilight was now sitting on the edge of her bed. "Sure, we've done it before...we can do it again." Sheppard told her giving a vote of confidence. "Ok, what's the plan then?" McKay asked worried about upcoming events. Sheppard thought for a moment then had an idea. "Okay here's what we'll do. McKay and I will go back to Atlantis, we'll get a puddle jumper and be back here as soon as possible. Ronan, Tayla, stay here and help around the town where you can. When we get back we'll pick you up and head for the hive ship." As Sheppard finished he began to walk towards the door but was stopped by Twilight. "Wait! I want to go with you!" Twilight demanded. Sheppard turned around and tried to say lightly, "Look I know they're your friends but, I think it's just best if we handle this. Besides aren't you still hurt?" "I'll be fine." she said getting up off the bed and standing. She cringed at the pain that followed. "See you can hardly stand. Just get some rest." as Sheppard finished his statement him and McKay left the library. They walked through the streets of Ponyville which had ponies trying to assist and comfort each other. "Uh, Sheppard. Can I ask you something?" McKay asked while they were crossing the field back to the Everfree forest. "What's that Rodney." Sheppard responded. "Why were you so eager to help these uh, creatures.?" McKay asked. "Well I wouldn't say eager. But lets just say I have a good feeling that these...ponies, may turn out to be a good ally for us." Sheppard responded. They had reached the forest now and were making their way to the stargate. "Really? Do you mean for those elements that purple one kept talking about." McKay asked out of curiosity. "Her name's Twilight McKay, and maybe, we don't know what they have to offer us. And if we save their friends then we'll be on a good standing with them, right?" Sheppard was proving his point. "I guess so." McKay responded as they reached the gate and McKay began to dial Atlantis, but before he hit the second symbol he stopped and turned around to Sheppard. "Twilight, really?...That was a terrible book and the movie wasn't much better." Sheppard gave an annoyed look, "Just dial the damn gate Rodney." McKay turned back around and began to finish the address while Sheppard took one last brief look around the cartoon looking forest. Just as McKay hit the sixth symbol a low rumbling growl was heard behind them along with the tall grass moving as well. McKay whispered. "Sheppard." "I know, I heard it." Sheppard responded while looking in the direction that he thought he heard the growl come from. The tall grass all around them began to shift and move as the growling continued to pick up...They were surrounded. "McKay finish-" before Sheppard could finish his sentence. A creature jumped out of the grass and into the small clearing they were in. It had the body of a wolf but was made from wood such as branches and limbs. It was a timber wolf. "What the hell is that?" McKay asked turning around and hitting the last symbol. Before anything else could happen Sheppard began to fire on the creature letting his P-90 unload all of its ammo towards it, this caused McKay to duck since it caught him off guard. The creature however just stood there and looked down at the holes that had been made in its wooden body. "Ok, not good." Sheppard said looking at the creature with a sense of hopelessness and shock. The Timber wolf pounced at Sheppard but he was able to avoid it and had pushed McKay down to make sure he wouldn't get hit. The creature landed in front of the still inactive gate and Sheppard immediately knew what to do. Sheppard reached up and slammed the activation button on the DHD causing the stargate to open up sending out the initial release of energy as it always does. The Timber wolf was swallowed up immediately in the discharge causing most of its body to be vaporized. "That was close." McKay said feeling happy to be alive. "We're not out of the woods yet." Sheppard responded not trying to mean it in a joking way. As Sheppard and Rodney stood up multiple Timberwolves came stalking slowly out of the surrounding tree line. "RUN!!!" Sheppard yelled pushing McKay towards the open stargate and grabbing the remote out of his vest, he began mashing his clearance code into the device with Timberwolves following them. Back on Atlantis the stargate was active and the shield was ready to keep out any intruders. "I've got a code coming through...It's Colonel Sheppard." someone said towards Dr. Weir. "Lower the shield." She ordered. As the shield left the stargate Sheppard and McKay came running through with McKay tripping and landing on his face. "RAISE THE SHIELD!" Sheppard yelled towards the control room. Just as ordered the shield came back up immediately over the event horizon on the gate...There was a slight pause in the room as everyone looked back at the stargate. McKay was picking himself up but was also staring intensely at the portal. Six or so hits were heard on the shield and after the last hit the stargate shut down causing Sheppard and McKay to let out a sigh of relief. "What happened? Where's Ronan and Tayla?" Weir asked walking down the stairs from the control room. "It's a long story." Sheppard said looking at Weir. "I don't want to do that again." McKay said standing completely up now, and in almost disbelief that he was alive. "Hey we're back to normal!" he continued feeling his chest and looking at his hands. Sheppard also began to look himself over. "Conference room, now." Weir ordered starting towards the conference room, her mind wandering what all had happened to them. Back in Ponyville Ronan and Tayla had already assisted a couple ponies, either by moving something heavy for them or assuring them that they were there to help. Twilight was also up and helped where she could. She used her magic to clear large amounts of debris and rubble from some of the roads and had met Ronan and Tayla back at her library. "I'm sorry that this has happened to your people." Tayla was trying to comfort Twilight. Twilight gave her a sorrowful look, "We just weren't prepared I guess." "No one can ever be truly be prepared for a Wraith attack." Tayla responded to her. "I guess." Twilight wasn't feeling any better about the situation. "You are alive and well, that should count for something. And it looks like a large amount of your people are still here." Tayla told her trying her best to cheer Twilight up. Suddenly Twilight realized something after Tayla had mentioned it. It came as a shocking thought that she believed had to be wrong but had to be sure. She got up and left the library immediately leaving Ronan and Tayla behind. Twilight looked all around Ponyville taking account every pony who was still there. To her surprise every single pony who was there before the attack was still there, injured maybe, but still there except... her friends. With this new knowledge she ran back to the library finding Ronan checking his gun and Tayla looking at some of the books that Twilight had. "I don't think it's a coincidence that my friends were taken." Twilight said as she tried to make sense of the situation. "I don't understand." Tayla replied to her "My friends are the only ponies missing, everypony else is still here." Twilight said levitating a few books over to her and looking for any amount of information that would help her try and understand what this could have meant. "Was there any difference between your friends and the other people around here." Tayla said trying to help her get an answer. "No..." Twilight responded scratching her chin with her hoof. " Other than the elements they were wearing." "That might of been it." Ronan cut in. "They could have detected them from orbit. Which also explains why you weren't taken with them... You said your element must have gotten knocked off you, right? It all started to make sense now to Twilight. Her friends were wearing the elements so the Wraith took them to get their elements and hers got knocked off of her so they just found it on the ground, grabbed it, and went on. "But if they came here just for the elements why did they attack our town." Twilight asked confused on this now. "That's how Wraith are, they don't care who gets hurt. They just want what they came for." Ronan informed her. With that statement Twilight had a full realization of how evil the really Wraith were. The Wraith ship that had attacked Equestria was still in orbit around the planet. Strangely the ship was a cartoon like the planet was, and everyone and everything inside it as well. The friends who had been taken were put into holding pods leaving only their heads free while their bodies were restrained. They had tried to escape but it was a lost cause as they just weren't strong enough to break the pods hold. Footsteps could be heard coming down the hallway and what had turned the corner was a Wraith accompanied by two wraith soldiers, it was time for the ponies to be interrogated. "Let us go!" Rainbow Dash yelled out at the ugly creature. "Uhh how disgusting, a make over couldn't even come close to fixing what's wrong with you." Rarity said looking towards the wraith. Pinkie Pie immediately cut off the Wraith as it tried to say something. "Wow you're a really ugly creature. Hey I didn't realize we were going to have visitors today, I tried to give your friends cupcakes but they-" Pinkie was cut off by the Wraith yelling in annoyance. "ENOUGH!" The Wraith yelled standing in front of Pinkie. "What are you vial creatures?" "Wouldn't you like to know!" Dash yelled back in response. "We're ponies!" Pinkie said in a joyful voice. "Pinkie keep quiet. Don't tell this monster anything!" Dash yelled towards Pinkie. The Wraith walked down towards Dashes pod and stared her in the face, he then looked at one of the soldiers and it handed him her element of harmony. "You will tell me everything there is to know about this." he said holding it up to her. "Sorry, never seen that thing before in my life." Dash replied trying to look away from him. The Wraith let out a hiss, "We found this one on you, do not try and play games with us." he said in a more serious tone. Rainbow Dash looked him square in the eyes and spit right in his face. The Wraith was extremely angry now getting a rag and cleaning his face off. He then looked back at her with a sly smile. "Last chance, tell me. what. this. is." he said slowly as he held the element back up to her. "You won't get anything out of me." she said returning his stare. "Very well then..." he said in a more interested tone. He then held his hand up so that Dash could see the disgusting opening on it. "I've never fed on a pony before." Dashes confidence immediately fell to zero, "FED! What does that mean!?" she yelled struggling in her pod still not being able to get free. "What's gonna happen!" Dashes anxiety was building immensely. "Let's find out, shall we?" The Wraith said as he moved in to feed on his prey... a defenseless Rainbow Dash.
A seemingly hopeless situation.As the Wraith inched closer to Dashes face she started to panic more and more, but she refused to tell the monster what he wanted to know. The Wraith looked down towards the pod and used and incredibly sharp tool that was attached to his finger to tear a hole in the pod that exposed Dashes body. Dash could feel the cold air of the ship now and realized how warm the pod really was. She thought she had a chance to breakout since her body wasn't restricted, but her hooves were still attached in the pod. This restricted her movement still and she had no choice but to watch what was about to happen. It felt weird in the first few seconds, like it was just a hand touching her and nothing more. This was because the Wraith wasn't feeding yet, he was merely getting ready. What happened next was something that Dash would never be able to forget for the rest of her life...which was looking like mere seconds at this point. The Wraith began to feed and an overwhelming feeling of pain over took Dash as her very life was being sucked out of her. "AHHH!..Nrrgh!...Stop it!" Dash yelled out in pain and at this point she didn't have the energy to struggle anymore. "Tell me what those things are and this could all be over!" The Wraith demanded as he slowed down his feeding process. "Nnn...NO!" Dash was barley able to get her response out as the pain increased. "How many more years do I need to take from you before you'll give me an answer!" The Wraith yelled enjoying himself watching Dash suffer. Rainbow Dash didn't respond and was in so much pain she was almost in tears. "Very well then...We're done here." the Wraith said as he sped up his feeding. Dash struggled to stay conscious and her body began to age rapidly. Within seconds she looked older than Granny Smith. Finally Dashes screams of pain faded and all that could be heard was light breathing...That too subsided. Dash was now a shriveled up corpse in the pod. With the Wraith finished he looked at his hand which had a small amount of cartoon blood on it. "Not as filling as a human...but it was. Refreshing," The Wraith said looking towards the other ponies. He then hit a button on the wall which released Dashes body from the pod. At this point Fluttershy had burst into tears seeing her friend on the floor now dead. Pinkie Pie looked in horror towards what had just happened and Rarity was about to pass out. Applejack on the other hand was watching the Wraith intensely, her cheeks were red with anger. She was ready to tear that Wraiths head off! "Now." the Wraith began. "Since you all know what the consequences are for disobeying...one more than others..." he said looking back at Dashes body. "I expect full cooperation." "What's the point in that!" Applejack yelled towards the Wraith. "Why should we tell you anything if yer just fixin to kill us anyways." "You will see... Now tell me what these things are." The wraith pointed towards a table which had all the elements laid out on it. Applejack thought about it for a minute, "It can't hurt to give em the name." she thought and looking more towards her friends and seeing what kind of shape they were in, "Maybe it'll at least buy them some more time." "The elements of harmony..." Applejack answered his question disappointed in herself. "Elements..." he said slowly to himself, "hmmm, interesting..." he continued, "What is the purpose of these...elements?" Applejack hesitated as the wraith got closer, "T-they're...NO! I just can't say!" The Wraith began to enter her mind and forced her to answer as he asked slowly. "Tell...me...what...they...do." "U-u-uh...T-they're...used for....defense..." Applejack tried as hard as she could not to answer but was forced to and couldn't stop it. "I see..." the Wraith said now leaning closer. "So they're a weapon." Applejack was sweating and tried her best not to respond her body betrayed her. "Y-y-e-s." "Interesting." The Wraith left her mind and started to walk towards Dashes body and leaned down to it. Applejack was trying to catch her breath and was breathing hard as she watched what the Wraith was doing. After Rainbow Dash was fed on by the wraith and was considered dead, all time seemed to have stopped for her. All she could see was darkness, she could tell that she was herself but it was like she couldn't move, her body refused to respond, and all she could do was think. "Am I dead? I can't feel anything...I must be dead...but I can't remember how I died...If I died...Who am I again?...darn it why can't I remember who...I'm Rainbow Dash, yea that's it, my name's Rainbow Dash and uhhh...shoot I can't remember again." Memories started flashing in and out of her mind. She thought of home, her parents, her friends, then...Scootaloo. "Who is that?...She seems so...familiar...Scootaloo!" Dash became overwhelmed with emotion, she wanted to cry thinking she would never see her again but couldn't, to her it was the strangest and worst feeling... The Wraith put his hand back on Rainbow Dash and began to restore her life. Her body began to age backwards, slow at first but then it sped up and she started to regain color. Dash took the biggest breath she had ever taken as a huge rush of emotions and feelings came crashing into her. She felt angry, sad, and happy all at the same time while also feeling pain, pleasure, remorse, and had a horrible jumpy feeling, like she drank too many energy drinks and continue to drink them anyways. This was the result of the adrenalin rush she was having. "ahh..w-w-wha..." Dash could barely form words as she laid trembling uncontrollably on the cold floor of the ship, she couldn't even form a proper thought. The Wraith stood back up and looking back towards Applejack, "You see what happens when you give me what I want. I give you... a little something in return." Applejack was happy to have her friend back but sad that they were still captured. The rest of the ponies had calmed down as well. The Wraith walked over to the two soldiers, "Take them to a holding cell." he then turned around and while looking at all the ponies, "We will continue this at a later time." then walked away. Three more guards came around the corner and began releasing the ponies. Fluttershy had to be carried as she couldn't move out of pure fear. Rainbow Dash was drug along the floor still trembling and trying to regain her thoughts. The rest walked, knowing they didn't stand a chance at getting away. Back at Atlantis, Rodney and Sheppard had just finished their story about the other world to Dr. Weir. "So their ponies and each one is a different color?" Weir asked finding it hard to believe. "Yep, strange isn't it." Sheppard said with a smile. "Yes it certainly is. And you believe they could be a good ally to us?" Weir continued to asked. "Yes...didn't we just go over this?" Sheppard asked kind of annoyed. "Yes, I'm just finding it all hard to believe." Weir responded leaning back in her chair. "Oh believe me, being turned into a cartoon was not on my list of things to do." Sheppard said getting a smile from Dr. Weir. "Ok, I'm going with you on this John. Take what you need and be careful." Weir said as Sheppard and McKay got up and left the room. Weir continued to sit in her chair and think, "Talking colored ponies...What were the ancients doing?"she couldn't help but to ask herself that question. Meanwhile Rodney went to grab some extra gear and Sheppard prepared the jumper to go. "You sure you don't want me to go with you sir?" Major Loren asked as Sheppard loaded some more ammo into the jumper. "Yea, a small team will be able to pull this off easier than a big attack force." Sheppard informed him. "You're the boss." Loren replied as he began to walk away, then turned around to ask a question, "Did you really get turned into a cartoon?" Sheppard stopped what he was doing and looked up. "Would you call me crazy If I said I did?" "Yes sir." Loren responded "Then no, I didn't." Sheppard responded continuing to pack more supplies. Loren laughed understanding that he really did get turned into a cartoon and walked away. Rodney came into the jumper bay as Loren left and walked up to Sheppard. "Ready?" McKay asked nervously. "As I'll ever be." Sheppard responded moving towards the pilots seat of the jumper and as he sat down he radioed the control room. "Flight, this is jumper one, are we clear to go?" A voice came over the radio, "jumper one, you're in the clear. Dial when ready." "Alright, here we go." Sheppard said as he began to punch in the address through the jumpers DHD. The stargate activated in the room below them and after the release of energy had been pulled back into the stargate, the ceiling of the departure room opened up letting the jumper in. The jumper flew through the open gate and after mere seconds shot out into the world of cartoon ponies. Sheppard looked at McKay, "You know, I expected us to be turned into cartoons again, but this is still just weird." "Yea tell me about it." McKay responded looking over the now cartoon control panel. They were nearing Ponyville now, "Alright activating cloak." Sheppard said as the jumper immediately became invisible and went in for a landing outside of the small village. "Hey I'm getting some strange readings here." Rodney said bringing up the display which showed the hive ship in orbit. "What is it?" Sheppard asked watching the display. "I'm not sure, I'm picking up a strange signal coming from within the ship." McKay responded "Ok...you stay here and work on it, I'll go get Ronan and Tayla." Sheppard said getting up and walking out of the jumper. Sheppard made his way through Ponyville towards Twilights' library. Everything looked better now, the smoke had cleared and the roads were more freed up as well. The ponies who were attacked so aggressively, were now beginning to rebuild their small town. Sheppard entered the Library and found Ronan and Tayla talking with Twilight. "Colonel, did you bring the jumper?" Tayla asked. "Yea, parked it outside of the town." Sheppard informed, "Rodney stayed behind, he said he was picking up some weird readings coming from the hive in orbit." "Must be the elements." Ronan informed looking towards Twilight who decided to take over the explanation. "I believe that only my friends were taken, no others ponies are missing around here except for them." Twilight began to inform Sheppard. "We think the Wraith detected them from their ship and were only interested in the elements." Sheppard started to get a look of concern on his face, "Ok, now I have to ask. Just how powerful are these elements?" "Well legend has it that they were responsible for creating our home. And so far every enemy we've used them on didn't stand a chance against them." Twilight began as she got an old book from the shelf behind her. "This book has old legends in it if you want to know more." "Uh no thanks. We need to hurry." Sheppard said starting back for the door. Twilight stopped him, "Why?" "We can't let the Wraith have a weapon like that." Sheppard told her. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. The elements are useless without me and my friends being there to use them." Twilight said as if she had solved his problem. "This is sounding more and more like the ancients as we go into it." Sheppard said looking at Twilight. "Who are the ancients?" Twilight asked "Long story, I'll tell you about them later." Sheppard said then turned his attention to Ronan and Tayla. "Lets go." then started out the door. "Wait!" Twilight said following them, "Let me go with you." Sheppard continued to walk down the street which led to the jumper. "Look I don't want to put you in any danger." he said. "I can look after myself." Twilight said then teleported in front of them causing them to stop. "Ok, that was cool..." Sheppard said giving Twilight an approving look. "But-" Sheppard got cut off by Twilight, "I won't take no for an answer. I'm assuming this jumper thing is this way." she said as she turned and starting walking down the road which led to the field outside of Ponyville. Sheppard let out a sigh and continued down the road with Ronan and Tayla following him. When they reached the jumper Sheppard pulled out a small remote from his vest and dropped the jumpers cloak with it. "Wow...W-what is this thing?" Twilight asked while putting a hoof on the side of the metal ship. "It's called a puddle jumper." Sheppard responded now walking to the back and opening the door to the inside of the jumper. Twilight was amazed at what she saw inside, and was more shocked when she saw the crystal like control panels. "This is amazing! This is far more advanced than what we have here in Equestria." "We're bringing her with us?" McKay asked "Yep. And that signal your picking up might be their elements." Sheppard informed while sitting down in the pilots seat. As Sheppard messed with the control panel the display came up and he reactivated the cloak while closing the door to the jumper. "Wow, is this magic?" Twilight asked. "Oh boy..." McKay said at the question. "No, it's just very advanced technology." he continued in an annoyed voice. "Oh." Twilight said giving a slight smile. "Ok everyone, buckle up, and please remain seated at all times." Sheppard informed as if he was an airplane pilot then made the jumper take off for the ship in orbit. Back on the Wraith ship the captive ponies were moved into a holding cell and the bars looked like spider webs crossing each other. The guards had left them and they were now alone. "Can you believe they just left us. How stupid are they?" Applejack said sarcastically as she walked up to the bars and positioned herself as if she was going to buck an apple tree. "I haven't been buckin apples all my life for nothin." Applejack gave the hardest buck she'd even given and she assumed that she at least rattled the bars, but what actually happened was she rattled herself from the force of the kick. Her back legs went numb and she immediately dropped to the floor trying figure out what had just happened. "Uh, guess those bars are stronger than a tree." she said trying to regain her standing position but couldn't so she sat instead. Fluttershy broke in with her small voice and asked, "We're not getting out of here are we?" "Now...don't say stuff like that." Applejack said, she could also see Dash out of the corner of her but couldn't tell what she was doing. Upon further examination, Rainbow Dash had went into the corner of the cell and was resting her head on the wall, looking away from her friends. "Rainbow? You ok." Applejack asked towards her but Dash continued to sit there and didn't respond. Rainbow Dash was going through a lot at this point. Her emotions had settled down and her system was starting to go back to normal. But now she could remember how the Wraith fed on her and how it felt. She tried to push it out of her mind with happier thoughts, like Scootaloo hugging her leg and smiling up at her. But this only made her want to cry so she preferred not to look at her friends. Applejack let out a sigh and looked down towards the floor as her hope and determination began to wear thinner with each minute. Even Pinkie Pie could sense the sadness coming from her friends, but all of her party stuff was back at Sugarcube Corner so she continued to stay quiet.
Its not over yet."That's it." Rodney said blatantly as the hive ship came into view with the atmosphere of the planet disappearing. "No kidding." Sheppard was being sarcastic but even he got a little worried when he had to go into a hive ship full of wraith. "It's huge!" Twilight stood with her mouth open at the site of the massive ship. "How is that possible?" "A lot of science is involved." Rodney told her in the most annoyed tone he could give. Twilight returned this statement with a stare of aggravation, "Look, I can understand you treating us ponies as if we were underdeveloped primitives the first time we met. But I can assure you that many of us are extremely smart and we don't pride ourselves in technological achievement, so I would appreciate it if you would stop treating me this way." Twilight continued to stare at Rodney with aggravated eyes. Sheppard had a look of you just got told, and it was by a purple cartoon pony on his face and gave a sly smile while trying to focus on the jumper controls. "Oh, well, I, um, uhm...well." Rodney was caught off guard by what she had said and began to rub his thumb on his finger in pure embarrassment. "Ok McKay, how are we getting in this thing?" Sheppard asked as the jumper was now much closer to the hive. McKay pulled up the display in the jumper, "There." he pointed towards a dart bay. "I've already written a sub routine that I should be able to upload wirelessly to the ships directives. It'll open the bay doors for a few seconds allowing you to fly right into the hive." "Won't they detect it?" Sheppard asked "Not a chance, and it'll delete itself as soon as the jobs done. At the most the wraith should see it as a minor glitch." Rodney couldn't help but be proud of his small program. "Should." Sheppard replied "Should, probably, will. Look what more do you want from me?" Rodney asked as if he was being talked down to. "I'd like more of a solid plan." Sheppard said "Oh ok, right, I make up this plan, which I think is great by the way, and you want to shoot it down." McKay was now acting like a child not getting what he wanted while Twilights' eyes followed the conversation back and forth. Sheppard was more aggravated in his reply this time. "I'm not saying its bad, it just needs some work." "Work?!, I came up with this in like thirty minutes. I didn't have a lot of time." Rodney was only growing more childish. Twilight cut in with a short remark to the both of them, "I think you two need a lesson in friendship more than I do." Both Sheppard and McKay turned around and gave a strange look towards Twilight, looked at each other then turned their attention back to the hive ship. Ronan on the other hand sat in the back of jumper and laughed slightly to himself. "Are we close enough?" Sheppard asked "Almost..." McKay was ready with the code as Sheppard closed in on the dart bay doors. "Alright, transmitting the code." Sheppard paused briefly then said to McKay in almost a whisper, "I'd call it more of a virus. But we can name it later." McKay ignored him and watched his tablet. After a couple seconds of waiting the bay doors opened and Sheppard took the jumper in, "Nice work Rodney." he added. Meanwhile on the hive ships bridge. "Commander, one of the dart bay doors opened on its own." A wraith said working the controls. The lead wraith, who was the one who interrogated the ponies, walked over to his station, "What happened?" "I'm not sure, they just...opened. I closed then back." The wraith commander had several possible thoughts of what it might have been, "Keep me informed of anything else that is out of the ordinary." The commander then walked off leaving the other to his work. Sheppard had parked the jumper on a small landing pad keeping the cloak on, then opened the back of the jumper. The team grabbed their weapons and began to step out, looking for any signs of wraith. Sheppard looked at his life signs detector, "Where's all the wraith?" he asked in disbelief. Twilight had stepped out of the jumper by now, "Why does it seem so...dark here?" "That's just how the wraith are, and honestly you'll probably never get used to it." Sheppard responded. "Ok, I've got five life signs. their not human, and their not wraith. That has to be your friends." Sheppard was working the life signs detector while Rodney opened the door that lead into the ship. As the team walked through the never ending maze of the ships hallways they realized that there was hardly any guards moving around. "I thought you said there was a lot of wraith that attacked your village?" Sheppard asked "Well, we couldn't exactly defend ourselves, so it might have just seemed like their was a lot." Twilight explained following the group. "Sheppard, I've got the location of the elements." Rodney had figured out how to narrow the signal down to a small location on the ship. "Alright this is a good start, Ronan go with Rodney. Twilight you better go with them to make sure that they actually are the elements." Sheppard continued to explain his plan. "Meanwhile Tayla and I will go get your friends." Everyone agreed to their task and the two groups split up. Rodney was at the door of the lab where the elements were being studied. When he opened the door two unsuspecting wraith scientists pulled out their stunners. "Look out!" Ronan shouted as he pulled out his gun and blasted the two wraith and walked into the lab. "Ok we're clear." Twilight now had more questions running through her head as she saw Ronan's weapon in action but determined that she would ask later. "Ok, now where are they-" Rodney stopped as he found a dismantled golden crown along with 5 necklaces. "Are...these the elements?" he asked "Oh no, what happened to them...They broke them, now what do we have to defend ourselves with!" Twilight was horrified to see the elements broken apart on a lab table. Rodney started picking pieces of them up and examining them. "I wouldn't call them broken, more like dismantled. I think I can fix them but it'll take some time." "We don't have time for that." Ronan said heading for the door. "Right." Rodney replied while putting the elements into a backpack he had brought. "Alright lets go meet up with Sheppard." Ronan said as he lead the way with Rodney and Twilight following. "Up ahead, just around the corner." Sheppard said to Tayla as he watched the device in his hand. Sheppard and Tayla rounded the corner and found a wraith holding cell with the 5 ponies inside. "Are you five, friends of Twilight?" Sheppard asked Immediately the group of ponies perked up, even Rainbow Dash turned towards them. Applejack spoke up, "Ya know Twilight?" she asked. "Yea, you could say we're friends." Sheppard said as he leaned down to the bottom part of the cell and placed a small charge of C4. "This'll be kind of loud, but if you all just stay at the back of the cell everything will be fine." Sheppard and Tayla then went around the corner while the ponies hugged the back wall. "Fire in the hole." Sheppard said towards Tayla as he flipped the switch on the detonator causeing the C4 to make a small exit hole in the cell bars which fit the ponies perfectly. "Alright lets get out of here." The Wraith commander had returned to the bridge and the one he had talked too earlier had important news. "Commander, The scientists in the lab have been killed and the elements are gone." "What about the prisoners?" The commander asked. "I had guards check on them and their gone as well." The wraith commander was extremely aggravated towards this news, "The dart bay, they will try to escape through the dart bay. I want every guard we have on this ship to head to the dart bay which had the door open." "Yes, commander." Just as Sheppard and Tayla turned the corner with the ponies following them they ran into Ronan and McKay. Twilight saw her friends and ran up to give them a big hug and told them a little bit about the strange creatures she was with. Twilight noticed some blood on Dashes on chest, "Rainbow Dash, what happened?" she asked pointing a hoof at the blood. Dash refused to think back on it, "I don't want to talk about it." she said while holding her eyes shut, trying not to remember what the wraith had done. "Did you get the elements?" Sheppard asked towards Rodney. "Yea but they took them apart." "Well you can fix them, right?" Sheppard asked "Look I don't know, I'll have to look them over and-" Rodney was cut off by a wraith stun shot flying past his head. "Never mind! Everyone to the jumper!" Sheppard yelled while returning fire with Ronan then running with the group. After turning a few corners they had found the dart bay along with the jumper. When Sheppard uncloaked it the five ponies were in awe of how it looked but Twilight pushed them inside. While Sheppard and McKay took their seats at the front of the jumper. "Damn it, McKay I just thought of something." Sheppard said looking at Rodney "What's that?" McKay asked almost frantic. "What's to stop the wraith from heading back down to the planet after we leave." "I don't know." McKay began to respond but stopped as they heard stunner shots hitting the jumper. Sheppard made the jumper take off and used the drones to blast a hole in the dart bay door. "We'll have to figure something out later." he said as he looked at the display which showed multiple darts following them. "Oh crap." "That's too many darts! We'll never make it." McKay began pointing out the obvious. "Calm down Rodney and-" Sheppard was cut off by the darts following them being destroyed. "What the hell..." "I've got another contact!" Rodney yelled. Suddenly a familiar voice came over the radio, "Colonel Sheppard, this is Colonel Caldwell, Daedalus is ready to assist you." "Daedalus? What the hell are you guys doing out here?" Sheppard asked surprised at the help. "Doctor Weir was worried that you might need some assistance, by the way why are we cartoons now?" Caldwell responded. "Yea we're still trying to figure that out, but look that ships gotta go. Could you show our unwanted guests the door?" Sheppard asked sarcastically. "With pleasure." Caldwell turned to Major Marks who was working the weapons. "Marks, all forward asgard beam weapons on that ship, I don't want anything left over there." "Yes sir." The Daedalus began firing shot after shot with the asgard weapons and made quick work of the intruding hive ship. Only debris remained where the ship once was. "Thanks Daedalus, we owe you one." Sheppard said over the radio. "No problem, we'll stay in orbit just in case anymore wraith show up." Caldwell replied. Sheppard landed the jumper closer to Ponyville this time and opened the back door. The ponies thought they would never see home again and were happier then ever to be back in Ponyville. "So what will you do now?" Twilight asked looking up at Sheppard. "Well this is the part where we go home." he responded. "Oh, will we ever see you again?" Twilights' friends had gathered behind her as she was talking with Sheppard and his team. "Yea, you will. We still need to figure out what the ancients were doing here and-" Sheppard was cut off by a chariot being pulled by two pegasi guards landing beside them and a tall white alicorn stepping off of it. "Princess Celestia." Twilight said as she saw her teacher. "Hello Twilight, Are these the people who helped you get your friends back?" Celestia had walked up to Sheppard who was at an even height with her. "Yes they are Princess. These are very good people." Twilight responded while moving in closer. "I see, well thank you for helping them." Celestia responded "No, problem ma'am. And you don't need to worry about them coming back from that ship in orbit, we took care of that." "Ship?" Celestia was a bit confused on this. "It's a long story Princess." Twilight told her. "Oh Rodney, could you show the Princess the elements." "Oh sure." Rodney took off the backpack and emptied the mess of elements on the ground. Celestia looked the elements over carefully. "I should be able to put them back together." she said smiling. "Thank goodness. I thought we had lost them for sure." Twilight replied. Celestia smiled, "No need to worry, I also had a meal prepared at Sugarcube Corner if you're hungry. And you can tell me all about your adventure there." "I'm starved." Applejack said while heading for the food with the others following her. "Would you like to stay and join us?" Twilight asked "You're more than welcome." Celestia added "Oh, actually I could go for something to eat right about now." McKay responded looking at Sheppard. "Sorry, but we have a busy schedule. But we'll back, hopefully sooner than later." Sheppard said giving a nod goodbye to the both of them and then started towards the gate with his team.
Old friends return.Two years had passed since the event with the Wraith. Equestria was prepared for war more so than what they had been for over a thousand years. Support was occasionally delivered by the Atlantis expedition with Ronon and Tayla returning at intervals to help with military strategies and evacuation plans. Two pegasi in light camouflage painted armor watched the stargate closely. As usual the only noises were the bugs or occasional Timberwolves stuck in Earth pony traps. This changed when the stargate shrieked and the dots lit up as someone dialing in. One guard stood his ground as the others readied themselves to take to the sky and raise an alarm till two less-than-threatening beings walked through, shocked at the welcome. “Ronon must have really laid the training on thick since we left,” Dr. McKay said with shock as he became his usual indignant self. “Clearly forgetting to mention we're not here to suck the life out of you?” he asked towards the ponies. The unflinching pegasus confirmed. "So you come in peace?" and before McKay could launch into an indignant rant, he was silenced with a firm hand on his shoulder. “Colonel John Sheppard, We came through last time and helped your people out. Had to rescue the uh...” He hated trying to recall the names of things here. It was bad enough that one of them was called... ”Twilight Sparkle was one of their names...” “The Elements of Harmony." Rodney started, "We helped out with the wraith being here. Surely you people haven't forgotten about that?" he said looking around nervously. "Oh. That's right. So you must be with the Atlantis guys." This signal pony knew what was worth making exceptions for. "We got friendly troops!” Suddenly three more camouflaged ponies and a timberwolf on a magic leash emerged around the clearing. "Please, follow me." The signal pony began talking while slowly flying toward Ponyville over a dirt road between the trees. "Since you took care of those 'Wraith',” Sheppard couldn't stop smiling at the use of hooves for quotation marks. “the stargate only activates when you and your team use it." The last words expressed immense relief. "Well that's good." Sheppard replied earnestly. "That's weird." Rodney corrected, trying not to stare at the timberwolf. "That's not like the Wraith." "Lone faction? Find a new source of food and start their own planet-wide pony ranch." Sheppard replied with a joke. "Maybe." Walking for several minutes as they learned about the nation's preparations against another Wraith incursion, Ponyville and Twilights' library were soon in view. They lost their escort at the weather station that now doubled as a guard post, suits of barding sitting on a rack on the back of it beside a basket of spears. Surprisingly it was one of very few changes to the town as eveyone seemed dedicated to being the bright cheerful cartoon characters they were before including Twilight as she shelved books in her library. Colonel Sheppard spoke first. "Now it's Princess Twilight Sparkle? Boy have we got a lot to catch up on." Turning at the sound of Sheppard and McKay Twilight almost dropped the books she was arranging in mid-air. "Colonel! Rodney! It's been too long...” She spread her wings in joy, only to haltingly retract them as the books were piled before the shelves. “Where's Ronon and Tayla?" Her eyes were downcast. “I know Tayla and Princess Luna had an argument over ponies going through the stargate, and Rainbow Dash still thinks Ronon cheated by booby trapping The Running of the Leaves, though nopony told him it was just a fun race.” "Well," Sheppard began suppressing a smile at the funny terms used in Equestria, "Ronon and Tayla are busy on a different planet and we decided we might come by and say hi, since it has been so long." Sheppard said as he relaxed in the chair Twilight summoned while instructing her assistant to make tea. "I'm glad I finally get to see you too. Ronon was all about training ponies to fight the wraith and was always making excuses to get out of Pinkie Pie's parties. Tayla left after..." she looked disappointed. "What's been keeping you two from coming by for a visit?” Johns' face was shaded by exhaustion. "We ran into a mishap with a people called the Replicaters, had to move the city to a different planet, made a deal with a faction of Wraith, travelled to another reality..." Stopping himself, he began to realize how much they had survived. Twilight, who'd levitated her tea back to the table was looking more and more shocked with each exploit. "Sounds...fun?" "Yeah... well Rodney, didn't you have something you wanted to give her?" Sheppard asked while glancing meaningfully over at McKay, interrupting him digging into a plate of cookies. "Hm? Oh,” He swallowed. “Yes. Here you are." Rodney handed Twilight a tablet from his duffle bag similar to his. "I increased the sensitivity on the screen so it should work just fine with your, um, hooves." Twilight looked at the tablet computer in awe as the screen was bright with information and pictures. Rodney had simplified the display so Twilight could better understand how it worked. "It has pictures of not only Atlantis but Earth,” his speech started picking up speed. ”and in the information section I put some of the Ancient's history salvaged from their database along with Earth history and culture. Along with all of that, since I can tell you're a scientist,”smiling smugly at himself he added ”I can always tell.” before returning to the enchanted Twilight. “I included our understanding of math and science in here as well. Oh and if you're bored I included some video games." Despite Rodney's pace Twilight was a fast learner and kept up. "This is amazing. You can fit all this information in this...this, what did you call it?" Twilight asked. "Tablet." "Yeah, tablet...This would take months to put into books, not to mention the space it would take up in the library." Sheppard smiled and spread his arms out, "Technology, am I right?" Twilight, eyes dilated, simply nodded as she continued to go through the endless wonders of her new toy. After Rodney's lesson on elementary wormhole physics Sheppard decided it was time to tell her the real reason they were there. "Twilight." Sheppard cleared his throat which tore her away from a game she found to be called Solitaire. "We know the Ancients were here ten thousand years ago, but we still need to know why." "Hmm." Twilight sat the tablet on her desk and began to pull out a couple books. "Lets see...I still can't find anything about the ancients in any of my books and almost nothing goes further back than Princess Luna and Celestia..." Twilight was re-checking four books at once before she had an idea. "Hold on! I've read almost every history book in Equestria, yet one of our oldest cities has an even bigger collection." Sheppard shared a glance with McKay before shifting forward in his chair, "Oldest city? How old are we talking?" Twilight levitated a book over to Sheppard which she had received as a gift from Celestia and began triumphantly explaining as he tried to read. "The Crystal Empire! It's so old that nopony knows how old it really is and all physical records of when it was constructed were destroyed when an evil king named Sombra subverted the Empire and stole the Crystal Heart that powered and protected it." Sheppard closed the book in disbelief. "An ancient empire that used crystals for power?" McKay stuttered out “Like a ZPM?” causing Twilight to mentally note that their alphabet was pronounced differently when he said it. Twilight continued, "Well if it's important you can look around the Crystal Palace for some answers." "You mean no one investigated a place powered by crystals?" Sheppard asked, annoyed at missing such an obvious lead when he put the book down. "Colonel,” Twilight looked offended. ”We've been very busy building Equestria up for another attack under the advice of someone you recommended. Only recently has Princess Celestia said she believes that we're ready.” Her expression slid into fearful dejection. “Still, I'm not convinced. These Wraith," Twilight closed her eyes and slumped her wings. "They use...technology. Technology that we have a hard time understanding short of saying it's magic." Sheppard started walking towards the bookshelf to put away the Crystal Empire book. "Believe me, we know what you mean. Between the Wraith's organic tech, the Asgard energy manipulations and stolen technology of the Goa'uld, even we still have a hard time keeping up with two galaxies trying to kill us.” Turning back he looked earnestly at the dejected princess. “However we have friends who help us understand these things." The newly crowned princess suddenly looked at her guests, one who was wolfing down biscuits that Spike kept supplying, murmuring about the different styles, and blinked as if she hadn't seen them before. “So we're using some kind of 'magic' to get there, I take it?” Rodney asked as Spike noted he hadn't touched the lemon tarts he brought. "If we hurry we should be able to make today's last train for the Empire." Smirking with Sheppard she soon packed a saddle bag for herself before leaving Spike to watch the library as Sheppard and McKay muttered behind her. "We couldn't just take a jumper?” “Aw come on, Rodney, we use those things all the time." "We'd make better time if we used a jumper." "We're exploring strange new worlds. What if the train has clues?" "My mother always told me that public transport was dangerous." "That explains a lot." "Oh, ha ha." They reached the station and Twilight bought three tickets right away and not five minutes had passed before the three were on the express route to the Crystal Empire. Sheppard and McKay had a hard time sitting as the seats felt like they were made for children. "Well," Sheppard started. "This is fun." "Unlike a jumper." "Shut up Rodney." Sheppard muttered then looked at Twilight. "So, how long until we get there?" "It should take about an hour." Sheppard shifted in his seat. "Wonder how an hour works here." "Ronon said time wasn't as important as results, yet he never did say how your people move the sun.” she responded. Rodney rolled his eyes. "Move the sun? You mean track the sun's movement." Twilight held a confused look on her face, "Princess Celestia moves the sun and Princess Luna moves the moon." Rodney almost began to laugh. "No, okay, look I know you said before that you all are very intelligent but the sun cannot be moved, or at least it takes a lot to move it. And when I say a lot I mean more energy than what we could come close to making,” He looked both guilty and proud as he continued. ”except for what happened on Doranda and that took out almost the entire solar system." Sheppard nodded while Rodney finished. "I mean no offense here, but your people seem like you've barely discovered electricity." "You don't think Celestia moves the sun?" Twilight asked. "No I don't, the planet rotates on it's axis causing an illusion of the sun and moon moving across the sky. You just can't will the sun to move." "Well she uses magic to do it." "Oh yes, right. Magic. Everybody's answer for everything instead of 42." "Rodney." Sheppard sharply interrupted. "Anymore arguing and I'll turn this train around." McKay sighed, "Look, that tablet I gave you? It has the whole process along with the math to back it up." Sighing Rodney muttered. “I saw that your assistant put the book about this place that we're going to in your bag. Can we read it before we get there?” An hour passed with everyone reading as much as they could till their arrival at the Crystal Empire. When they got off the train, after gratefully stretching, Sheppard and McKay stood in awe at the sight before them. "Rodney." "Yeah." "Tell me this doesn't look familiar." "Very." Twilight looked confused till Rodney explained. "This is very similar to the design of Atlantis and a second city we found buried. This could be something similar to that however." "This time the whole city's crystal." Sheppard stated. "Though less structures. Possibly an advanced outpost. We need to see more to know." Twilight smiled showing them a map of the palace. "Come on I'll show you around the palace and you can meet my brother and Princess Cadence." Making their way to the palace, Rodney noted that the streets held a snowflake pattern as Twilight told him about them glowing when they held back the surrounding snow. Sheppard noticed the weird stares they were getting till they got to the palace. The spinning Crystal Heart was waiting as Rodney scanned it. “It's a regulator, an overload fail-safe. There's a lot of energy in this place, yet this just allows it to be drawn into this structure. Like a giant safety switch.” “So that evil king trys to tap into the power of a whole empire...” “More like the other way around.” Twilight offered to the surprise of her travel companions. “The Crystal Empire is powered by love and a sense of achievement. When Sombra enslaved it he hid the crystal heart. His magic was the strongest around till Luna and Celestia banished him, yet he took the empire with him. It only emerged recently after being lost for one thousand years and everypony forgetting it existed.” As John and Twilight discussed the story of the Crystal Empire and Cadence returning to the throne they moved into the Crystal Castle's hallways and flights of stairs toward it's throne room. McKay scanned everything they passed and stopped to analyze a light fixture on the wall. "Rodney?" Sheppard began, glancing at his readings. "I thought the light was reflected from outside. It's not. This is a powered light source." "Okay, can you be more specific." "Hold on..." Rodney began moving along the wall until he reached the door to the throne room only to fall over as that door magically opened to reveal royal guards and Princess Cadence. As she gestured for one of the guards to help Rodney up she greeted Twilight starting with a mutual dance and song. "Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake! Clap your hooves and do a little shake! Twilight! It's so good to see you again. So these are two humans from the stargate?" "Allow me to introduce Colonel Sheppard,” "It's a pleasure to meet you." Sheppard knelt, extending his hand before realizing it wasn't a typical greeting for a quadrupedal species. "I'm Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, though I prefer Princess Cadence. My husband Shining Armor is out working with the guards, I'm not sure how long he'll be today." "I've got something!" Rodney exclaimed, pointing across the room as he'd been scanning the room while waiting for everyone else to finish. Twilight facehoofed. “Also, this is Doctor Rodney McKay. He's... not used to dealing with ponies.” Cadence knew better than to get between a researcher and their work so she simply executed a polite nod. "He's trying to figure out how your lights and power work without conventional wiring.” The Colonel rolled his eyes. “What did you find?" He asked Rodney, already studying a wall. "This wall. It doesn't make sense." "Rodney." "Look. life signs detector shows a room on the other side. But if I scan it with my tablet I just get a wall made of Crystal." "And this means... ?" "Well, I'm not sure. The tablet should have more scanning power but I'm getting conflicting results." Absorbed in his readings he didn't notice his hosts looking at both him and the wall. Cadence ventured. “This castle is over a millennia old and the people who lived below it spent their last generation being afraid of what was inside. There could be anything here... yet that wall seems solid to me.” "If you abuse ancient tech' you get this Sombra guy. Wouldn't be the first despot to rule people based on some functioning ancient relics he figured out. Now Rodney, this wall could be a secret lab like the one in Atlantis? Hit the right series of tones and you can walk through a wall?" "I thought of that but as you can see," Rodney gestured around. "there's no harmonic resonators." "I'd rather not blast it seeing as this is someone's home. C4 tends to leave a remodeling bill." "No, you don't understand. The structure of the crystal is beyond anything I've seen or read about. I wouldn't be surprised if-" Rodney about to knock on the wall had his hand pass right through it. "Whoa. Did you see that?!" Fascinated at the mystery Twilight put her hoof on the wall yet unlike Rodneys hand, it found solid matter. "How'd you do that?" she asked. Rodney kept a confused look, "I don't know." McKay put his hand on the wall but it passed right through again. Sheppard tried the same thing and just like Rodney his hand went through the wall, but instead of pulling his back out he continued to walk right on through. "John! JOHN! Can you hear me!" Suddenly Sheppard's head popped out of the wall, "Looks like a gene lock Rodney. You'll want to see this." he then disappeared back into the wall with Rodney following him. On the other side was an Atlantis-replica control room, the light's and controls coming on as Sheppard and McKay walked further in. The biggest difference was the solid walls of crystal where the windows should be and the bare area for a stargate. Rodney was taking this in, mumbling to himself, "Oh, this is interesting." Ignoring whatever witty remarks his military back-up had, he went straight for the ancient computer records. "I'll be back Rodney, you just keep doing what you're doing." Sheppard then stepped through the wall finding Twilight and Cadence with half the royal guard behind them and the rest watching the door to the throne room. "John would you care to explain what's going on?" Twilight asked. "Well-" Sheppard shifted his standing position. "I'm not entirely sure, but if we give Rodney like five minutes, he'll have an explanation." Perplexed Twilight put her hoof against the wall, yet it was still solid. Sheppard walked towards the closest window and examined how big the Empire really was, yet before he could ask, Rodney re-emerged to an eager audience. "Rodney! What'd you find out?" "Well the Ancients built this place. It's relatively similar to the Tok'ras technique of making crystal tunnels. More to the point, that wall is amazing." Rodney walked over to the wall and wiped his hand through it. "Instant solid to liquid state upon recognition of the ATA gene." Rodney then looked over to Cadence. "Excuse me, uh... Cadence right? Have any changes ever been made to this place at anytime?" "As far as I know nothing's changed except the furniture for the last thousand years." she replied. Rodney smiled smugly. "Exactly what I thought. Now here's what you didn't expect: The Ancients didn't want ponies using their technology because they wanted them advancing at their own rate like humans were on Earth." Princess Cadence looked confused. “So we were a giant experiment? Like Sombra holding a whole planet captive?” “No!” Rodney waved his hands like he was wiping away dirt from a tiny windshield. “You guys were protected. You were the control group compared to the rest of humanity who turned out to be the caged animals you poked, prodded and injected with serum 5-9b that gave them super hearing which drove them insane...” Rodney trailed off to the horrified stares from some of the ponies in the room. “We only did it once and we figured out how not to do it again.” Sheppard rolled his eyes and brought them back on task. "So why aren't they more advanced then?" Rodney threw his hands up. "Well, I don't know.” He said with exasperation. “Government mishaps, cultural disputes, natural disasters, general disinterest in technology?” Twilight looked like she was going to object when Rodney cut her off. “Without studying thousands of years of culture and history in depth I can't know all the answers." Princess Cadence asked "They studied us here, yet had the stargate so far away?" "They moved it. They weren't against you using the stargate but..." Rodney trailed off. "But what?" Twilight asked. "Well, They broke it." "Broke it?" Everyone said in shock or fear at varying volumes. "Well yes... kind of... no?" Rodney met the stares that demanded more explanation. "Okay, they, uh, removed and reworked a lot of the control crystals in the gate taking away its ability to connect with other stargates except for the one on Atlantis." "So kind of like when my parents gave me vouchers for a book store instead of bits." Twilight asked with a bright cheery tone. “If I wanted anything more I had to go through them.” "Huh, you too? Anyway, you don't have to guard the stargate. No one can come through but us." "Alright, Now the walls, you said they were really incredible?” "Oh yeah. I'd say this crystal structure is almost a hundred times stronger than the metals used for Atlantis." "A hundred times?" Sheppard asked skeptically. "Roughly speaking. Something keeps bothering me though." "What's that?" Cadence asked, fascinated with the back and forth. "I can't figure out where this castle is getting its power. Of course I haven't finished looking through all of the data base either." Sheppard thought for a minute. "Can you get me a layout of this place?" Rodney held out his life signs detector. "I'll trade you. I already got a map of the palace and the surrounding area from the data base." "Good job Rodney." Sheppard said with a smile. "Keep going through the database and keep me updated over the radio. Princess Cadence, Twilight will go with me to check out some of these hidden places." His smile was infectious. Twilight looked giddy with excitement as Cadence asked, "What should we do to help?" Sheppard turned around quickly and gave a smile, "If Rodney finds anything important in the database he'll need to coordinate with you and radio us. In the meantime I'll need your sister-in-law to help me out. Think you can handle all of that?” Cadence nodded as Twilight stomped her hooves rapidly like an eager girl clapping her hands. “Oh, and Rodney gets hungry fast so plenty of finger food. Come on Twilight!” As the two departed Cadence made a note to ask what a “finger” was and how to feed it.
Well... This is different (REVISED)Another normal day was beginning in the ancients city of Atlantis. John Sheppard had made plans to show Ronan more points on how to hit a golf ball correctly instead of with one hand. Tayla was talking to Dr. Weir in her office about how her visit with her people went on the main land. And McKay was being his usual self and messing with every computer that he came too, hoping to find something that he could improve in the systems. That is until he went through the dialing computer and found an address marked with the word EXPERIMENT as the title. "Huh, that's strange." McKay said finding himself then thinking of the possibilities of finding something like a ZPM, he then radioed his team and Weir for a meeting in the conference room. "Ok, sorry about getting everyone here so quickly but I found something that you all might find interesting." informed McKay. "Please, don't keep us waiting." Sheppard said sarcastically. "Right." McKay respond putting an image of the address on the big screen monitor they had in the room. "That's it, a stargate address?" Sheppard asked "we see those all the time." Ronan said with annoyance "Yes, but there's something different about this one." McKay replied. There was a moment's pause. "Are you going to tell us what it is?" Weir asked "Yes." said McKay pointing at the ancient text on the screen. "This says experiment, just think of what we could find there." "a ZPM?" asked Sheppard "Maybe." replied McKay while everyone stared at Weir for the green light. "Ok, but be careful, we don't want to get into something dangerous. Remember other experiments done by the ancients? They didn't end well, did they? informed Weir "Right, I'll make sure to take extra precautions this time." McKay said as he left the conference room to prepare a MALP for recon. The team went and got ready to go as usual, checking weapons and grabbing C4 in case of emergency. Once ready they met in the gate room and McKay began to give the general rundown of the planet. "Receiving telemetry." McKay said as one of the monitors went from static to a picture that resembled something like a cartooned forest. "Are you sure were receiving live feed?" Weir asked as McKay checked the readings. "Yea, that's it, but it can't be...that doesn't make sense." responded McKay "It looks like a cartoon, Rodney. Are you sure were getting a direct feed, remember the mission report from SG1 about how the MALP feed was replaced by a fake projection?" Sheppard said still trying to make sense of it. "I'm serious, I've checked three times now. This is the real thing." McKay said. "Maybe this was what the ancients experiment was, to create a world similar to this, cartoon." Tayla suggested struggling to understand what a cartoon was. "I wouldn't put it past them." Weir said now looking at McKay. "Is it safe?" "Let's see. Viable atmosphere, decent temperature, no measurable toxins, and...huh, barely any UV rays reaching the planet's surface, like less than one percent." McKay said with amazement. "So it's safe?" Weir asked. "Well yea, it's almost your perfect environment." McKay said with a shocked tone. "Ok, let's get going." Sheppard said as he started towards the gate. The rest followed and once through the shimmering portal they each had a resemblance to the style of the forest. "Ok, this is weird...McKay are we cartoons?" Sheppard asked while looking at the design of the trees. "huh, I guess so." McKay replied taking several readings of the surrounding area. "But how's that possible?" Sheppard asked "Well it's possible that the ancients figured out a way to transform the environment this way as well as anything that came here. But why would they do that?" McKay started to mumble to himself "Hey, there's smoke coming from that direction." Ronan said as he pointed at a dark smoke cloud lingering in the sky. "Alright let's go check it out." Sheppard said as he put on his sunglasses and began to walk. As the team exited the forest they found a small town in ruins and with some of the buildings on fire. "Wraith attack, I'm picking up lot's of traces of wraith weapons fire. They most likely did it from a hive ship in orbit." McKay said as he continued to scan the area. "Alright let's see if there were any survivors." Sheppard said as he moved towards the village The team found a sign outside of the small village that read, Ponyville but was burned and on the ground. "perhaps their main trade was horses." Tayla said walking past the sign "I don't know, but it looks like these people won't be doing much more trading." Sheppard said and at the end of his sentence something started to stir under the rubble next to them, each of them raising their weapon to meet it, but what stood up was a badly injured purple unicorn. "McKay, what am I looking at?" Sheppard asked but before he got an answer he was interrupted by the purple pony. "Please, don't hurt us anymore...we don't even know what we did to upset you so much." she said struggling to keep standing. "And what did you do with my friends..." just as she finished her sentence she passed out on the ground. Tayla and Sheppard went to the pony quickly and started to inspect the wounds. "It's a horse!, A cartoon talking horse." Sheppard said starting to put bandages on the ponies wounds. "And this doesn't bother you at all!" McKay said still hold his gun ready for anything. "Rodney it's hurt and I think we're the only ones around who can help. And put your gun away, I don't think it's gonna bite you." Sheppard said turning back to the injured pony. "Hey! You guys stay away from her!" A small dragon called out running up and trying to hit them with fire, causing Ronan to pull out his gun and point it at the baby dragon. "Whoa, we're the good guys, we aren't going to hurt anyone" Sheppard said, "Right Ronan." he continued as he looked at Ronan now holstering his gun. "Really? Thank goodness, quick help me get Twilight into the library." the dragon said starting to pick her up, but not being able to carry her. Tayla gave him assistance moving Twilight and once inside the partly burned library, continued to patch up the unconscious pony. "So you're a dragon?" Sheppard asked the little purple and green dragon. "Yea, my name's Spike." he replied, then asked, "who are you? and why are you here?" "I'm Colonel Sheppard, that's Rodney McKay, Ronan Dex, and Taylas the one helping your friend. We're here on an exploration mission." Sheppard informed. "Her names Twilight and you're a lot nicer than the last kind of guys who came through here, they had different skin though and long white hair." Spike said "Yes, well we know who they are." McKay began. "They're called the Wraith and they're life sucking aliens." "What, life sucking?" replied spike with a look of fear. "Rodney, you really need to learn how to give a better explanation." Sheppard said looking at McKay "Sorry I said the truth." McKay replied "Colonel the pony is beginning to wake." Tayla said coming in from the next room. "Twilight!" Spike called out as he ran into the next room with the others following him. "mmm, my head." Twilight said sitting up in bed then looking over at her new visitors. "Twilight it's ok, they said that they're friends." Spike informed her then told her there names. "Yea, can you kind of give us an idea of what happened." Sheppard asked Twilight shook her head, "I was on my way to Canterlot to meet with the princess about a matter that couldn't wait, my friends were-" Suddenly a quick flashback of what happened to her friends rushed into her mind. "One thing at a time." She told herself then continued with her story. "When I got there the princess told me that a threat was on its way, then gave me the box that held the elements of harmony and told me to return to Ponyville at once and prepare for the worst. Spike left the room then came back with a glass of water and gave it to Twilight and after a quick drink she continued. "When I got back to ponyville I gave the elements to my friends and we did our best to prepare, but we had no idea what was coming. When it did happen, these things, that I'm assuming were flying ships, came out of the sky and began to take ponies and destroy all of ponyville. They were even attacking Canterlot and I don't know if the Crystal Empire was attacked." Twilight began to grow frantic but Spike calmed her down. "The first to go was Rainbow Dash, she was trying to stop the ships but one of them took her in a beam of light. Poor Fluttershy was trying to help the animals get away when they took her. Rarity did everything she could to try to help the other ponies escape, but then she was taken as well. Pinkie Pie wasn't easy to take but they hit her with kind of some blast which put her down easy. And Applejack was probably the worst for them, they had to hit her and Big Mac several times before they went down." Twilight finished her story, which left a feeling of remorse, even in Sheppard and his team. "How did you survive?" Ronan asked Twilight looked confused towards the question, then realized what must have happened. "I got knocked out by something hitting me in the head. They must have thought I was dead." Twilight replied "That explains why we found you under that pile of rubble. I believe it was more likely that they couldn't find you." Tayla implied "I guess." Twilight replied while feeling her head. "Where's my element?, It looks like a crown. Have any of you seen it?" "No and it wasn't near where we found you." Sheppard replied "Great, it must have gotten knocked off me and those creatures must have taken it." Twilight said with disappointment. "What are these... elements you keep talking about?" asked Sheppard "They're the most powerful weapon that Equestria has." Twilight informed Sheppard turned quickly to McKay, "what do you think Rodney, could it be useful?" he asked "Well... I don't know, I'd have to see it before I could make any assumptions." McKay responded Twilight spoke up immediately, "We only have one set of elements, I'm sorry but you can't have them." "Well we could reverse engineer these elements, well that is if they're more powerful than what we have available through Atlantis." McKay informed "Alright, now on to more important details. You said that your friends were taken by the wraith correct." Sheppard asked looking towards Twilight. "Yes." she responded "Do you have any idea where they are now?" Tayla asked Before Twilight could answer Ronan cut in. "Where else could they have taken them? They're in the hive ship that came here. How long has it been since the attack?" "I'm not sure, maybe an hour." Twilight replied "Assuming we tell time the same." Sheppard said Ronan continued, "They'd still be in orbit, the Wraith always attack more than once." he informed "He's right, I'm picking up a hive ship in orbit around the planet." McKay said messing with his computer. "I too can sense them." Tayla backed up their claims "That settles it then...We're going after your friends." Sheppard said with a serious look of determination.
