Destination

  As the armored aliens run about to defend the castle, Kelly slowly got up with the help of her human companion and reached up to her cracked helmet with her own remaining intact arm.

  “Captain, we might need backup on this.” She looked around, seeing some technicolor creatures limping away from the wall with bandaged limbs and bodies, some being carried away entirely. She looked up at the wall itself and saw some of them running around, shooting out arrows, spears and even bolts of colored energy coming out of their hands. There were also green balls of light streaking over head, either hitting the castle or flying into the clouds with a burst. “Their numbers are declining, and by the looks of it, sir, they won’t last too long.”

  “Back up will arrive in a few minutes, Kelly. Just h-hold out a little longer.” His voice cracked.

  Kelly looked at her charge beside her, and then looked around for the purple alien they met. When she spotted it talking to the blue winged alien, and also a heavily armored orange one, she walked to them with Snowlet right behind her. As she walked, she noticed the purple one had a pair of wings as well, neatly tucked away behind its hair.

  “Hey!” it jumped in surprised and looked back at them both, a surprised expression written on its face. Kelly gently brought Snowlet up front; pointed a finger at it and to Snowlet. Kelly gently pushed the woman towards it; brought up a thumb to herself and pointed back towards the wall. She reached down and brought out one of her Magnums.

  Twilight and Rainbow Dash stared at their visitor in awe and shock. One moment ago, they saw it being blasted away and losing its left arm in the process, but now its standing right in front of them, with its smaller device drawn out with its remaining arm.

  Twilight pointed at its torn, sparking arm, “Aren’t you in pain?” she asked. It looked at its arm for a brief moment, and then simply shook its head ‘no’. This confused her even more, but mentally shook her head and looked at Rainbow Dash to her right, “Rainbow, can you bring it up to the wall with the others? I think it wants to help.” She said.

  Dash felt a little uneasy, but stepped forward and glared at the alien visitor, “Do any funny business, I’m dropping you.” She spoke to it sternly, but all it did was turned around, and waited. She growled, but lifted up the somewhat heavy creature and flew off.

  “What… in tarnation… are those thin’s?” Applejack spoke up. Twilight turned around and looked down at the shorter visitor, only managing to reach the height of her shoulders.

  “They came from the thing in the sky, right over there.” She point.

  AJ looked up and her eyes shot open, “What in the hay!? When did that thing show up!?” she adjust her hat.

  “Just today, Applejack. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think our visitor wanted to keep an eye this one. I’ll be with Princess Celestia if you need me.” She finished and gently started nudging the alien towards the castle.

  Kelly dropped down onto the roof of the wall and her carrier started informing the others and pointing at her. She moved over to the edge and saw what creature caused her to lose part of her arm.

  The horrid creatures varied from the four winged fliers with thin, stick like bodies, the ones with horns were a little more taller than the fliers, they also had wings, but didn’t seem to use them for flight, more like a cape and lastly the ground troopers. They were a head taller than their brethren, about the same size as her armored, alien companions and looked more robust. And every single one she saw had one thing in common; all their left forearms looked like little canons, shooting at their enemies. But the canons varied as well, the fliers had more thin, long and sleek looking ones, the horned bugs looked a little plain and normal, but the big ones canons, like their bodies, looked robust with small holes covering near the tip with a sharp, axe like blade at the bottom. All in all, to her, they were huge bugs with weapons of their own.

  She looked back towards the castle and saw her charge was being led to the castle doors, and the orange one going towards the gates with a shield and a sword on hand. It went out the gates and started shouting out orders with the blue winged alien as the gates closed behind them.

  A green bolt suddenly flew right over her head, causing her to duck in surprise. She calmed herself and her helmet spoke to her while she turned towards the city, “Activating Shields.” Her whole body glowed from head to toe for a moment, revealing plates of small hexagons all over her body, and some on her left shoulder and arm, but faded as it got close to the torn forearm. She looked back down the wall and saw her new allies battling it out, both sides going an all out war, but the bugs seemed to be winning by sheer numbers.

  “T-minus, ninety seconds till arrival, Commander.” A feminine voice said to her through her earpiece.

  “Better hurry up.” She said, drew up her arm and started shooting the fliers right out of the air, off the walls and roofs of the building.

  She then noticed a horned bug starting to levitate a piece of concrete boulder the size of her head in shock and tossed it out when it spun around with a yell. Before she could recover and react, the boulder shattered on impact, square on her chest, shattering part of her shield and causing her to stumble back. She shook her head, dazed from the attack and slowly got back up to her feet.

  “Shield recharging.” Her helmet spoke to her again and started repairing the hexagons on her chest, one piece at a time.

  “T-minus, sixty seconds.” The voice said once more. Kelly looked ahead and saw four, tiny drop ships coming out of the clouds in the distance.

  Suddenly a loud, thunderous roar sounded out right in front of her. She looked down the wall and saw a large, armored, hulk’ish creature rising out of the concrete ground. The orange alien shouted out and its teammates scattered out to try and get away from the large creature. To her, it looked more like a giant crab with a small head and a large cannon attached to its right arm instead, while its left looked like a cross between a large claw and a shield.

  As it started ramming the gates, her alien allies started firing at with everything they got. Kelly quickly jogged over so she could be right over the gates and pushed aside her teammates.

  The two aliens glared at her, but then looked intrigued as she grabbed one of her grenades, pulled out the pin and dropped it down.

  “T-minus, twenty sec-”

  BOOM!!!

  The explosion cause the large creature to fall back as it cried out in pain, its stubby legs blown off and part of its lower section splattered all over the gates, walls and ground. She smirked, grabbed another grenade and tossed it over to a platoon of dark creatures. A few seconds later, they flew in the air, crying out in pain as well, some loosing limbs, and a few blowing up entirely, limbs scattering all around.

  The drop ships flew over head and hovered over the courtyard of the castle. The back hatches flew open as her team ran out and jumped down all of thirty feet and onto the yard with their guns drawn out, a few leaped from their ship and landed down onto the wall beside her.

  At least fifty Peace Keepers were now at ground zero with her and started assisting their alien allies with the current threat. The ships themselves drew out their Pulse Canons from the bottom part of the head of the ships and started firing at the bugs with large, invisible fists down at them, causing them to be either knocked down or fly off like a ragdoll.

  With the extra firepower, Kelly’s human companions and their new alien allies, they started driving the screeching bugs back. But the things were content of taking over the castle, making it hard for them to keep them at bay.

  A fellow human ran up to Kelly and brought out a new arm to her, “You might need this, Commander.” He said.

  Kelly grabbed the base of her left arm; twisted it with a ‘Click!’ and pulled it out. She handed it to the Medic and grabbed the new one. She jammed it in her shoulder as it powered up and moved it around to make sure it was fully functional. She smiled and thanked the man. He saluted at her, put the damaged arm under his arms and went off to do his duty.

  “Commander Kelly?” her earpiece said.

  “Speak.” She said, drew out her DMR and aimed it at the distant creatures, firing three burst rounds.

  “Um… I think the leader wants to speak with you.” Snowlet spoke.

  Kelly stopped her shooting and looked back at the castle entrance to see her charge, the purple alien and a taller, white one right behind her she saw in her scope back in the streets. “Everyone, keep the bugs at bay. I won’t be long.” She said, earning a collective ‘Yes, Commander!’ through her earpiece. She swung her gun back onto the side of her pack, hopped down from the ledge and landed with a roll to lessen the impact. She ran up to the trio, and stopped, looking up at the tall monarch. It spoke to her with a soothing voice and held onto, what looked like a gentle smile. Kelly looked at Snowlet, but she just shrugged in response. She rested up to her helmet and looked to her side, “Captain, did you send in a Crawler as well?” she asked.

  “Green light?” he questioned.

  “Green light.” She answered.

  One of the four drop ships then flew over to them, opening up its back hatch, spun around and a dog like, mechanical robot hopped out. As it landed down, it started rolling like a wheel going towards them, swerving around the legs of alien and humans alike, but the tall creatures jumped away in surprise as it passed by. Suddenly, the mechanical dog started galloping on its four legs and halted right in front of them, sitting down like a dog, dead still.

  Its head basically looked like a large camera with one, big eye right at the front and the whole body itself looked like a metallic skeleton with a few markings to address where things were.

  Kelly looked back at the tall monarch as it and the purple one, looked at the crawler in awe. The moment she nodded her head, four tiny projectors flared to life on its head, making a holography screen in the air beside Kelly’s head. The two aliens; and a few others around them, took a step back in shock and awe. Just then, a little blue, human stick figure showed up on the monitor, waving at them with a smiley face. The monarch’s smile grew and waved back in kind.

  “That’s better.” Kelly muttered.

  Just as she was about to ‘communicate’ a little more, a pained yelled caught her attention. She quickly looked back and saw one of her men fall off the ledge and landed down with a loud grunt. She quickly ran over and dragged him away from the wall. The medic quickly went over to her and lifted off his pack from his back and kneeled down beside the injured Keeper. They removed his hand from his left shoulder and saw a nasty burn mark and a part of his armor blown off, its ragged edges red from heat.

  The medic opened up his pack and took out a gun like device and popped in a small glass of yellow liquid. He then pressed the tip onto his fellow man’s shoulder and the liquid quickly drains into him with a ‘kssss!’. He then took a round, white patch with a red ring outlining the edges and sealed up the Keeper’s suite. “You’ll be okay for now, but take it easy with the shoulder. You’ll also go to have to be checked in the Medical Ward for any alien virus or dieses.” The medic said to him. The injured man nodded, got up with a grunt and grabbed his gun from the ground.

  “Will do, Doc. Thanks.” He replied and started going back up the wall with the others, his shielding coming back to life.

  Kelly then felt light tapping on her shoulder. She turned around and saw the tall monarch with the purple one beside her, and Snowlet beside the purple one. The Monarch then pointed at the Medic with his equipment and pointed at an injured alien nearby, being cared for by one of its kind. The tall alien’s face took on a hopeful expression.

  Kelly lightly shook her head ‘No’ as the robotic canine quickly sat down beside her and projected out its display.

    Twilight was beyond thankful the visitors had this dog-like machine with them, and that they practically saved their very lives from those monsters behind the wall. The devices they use to kill and drive the Changelings away were a little loud, but bearable, but the balls they threw shook the ground with a tiny tremors and near deafening when closer.

  As she watched the display make two figures, one was short and other taller one, one of her own kind she guessed. The device thing, she guessed their Field Medic used popped up in between the two and injected it to their visitor. They zoomed in and a cut was healed with a flashing green lights. But when it injected into one of her kind, it started flashing red.

  She looked up at Celestia, “I think they’re trying to tell us, their medicine won’t work with us.” She said and Celestia nodded with a sad sigh.

  Celestia looked down at the short, armored creature and nodded in acknowledgement. With that, it drew out its weapon from its back and quickly started running back up the wall to help fight back.

  Suddenly, the little dog-thing’s single eye started flashing red and projected out, to her, an aerial view of Canterlot, the fighting happening in the map, happening around them in perfect time. The map then zoomed out, and in it showed a hoard of Changelings going towards Canterlot from the north of the barren Waist Land. Both Princesses eyes got wide in horror.

  “Invasion…” Twilight whispered, covering her mouth in terror.

  Their visitor then quickly came back, and the shorter one started frantically speaking to the other. The armored visitor looked up at Celestia for a moment then turned away and pressed a finger on its cracked helmet. After a moment, it turned back to them and drew out her hand, causing the whole map to be from being vertical, and flipped down to horizontal. Then a short rod like object, with a large head showed up, floating over the map, split into three, pointed towards the hoard and hit the map, pixels exploding out as it did. It then looked up at Celestia and a button materialized in front of her, resting right on the map with a big red button flashing on and off.

  A royal guard then went up to them, “Princess Celestia! A hoard of Changelings from the north is coming this way!” he spoke frantically, the fear in his tone clear as day.

  Celestia took a moment to look at the two visitors, a frightened Twilight and at the Guard. She then looked down at the map once more to see the hoard slowly getting closer. She closed her eyes and looked at the armored visitor, “You do it.” She point at it and then down at the holographic, flashing button. It shook its head firmly, pointed at her and down at the ground. Then gestured to itself and its alien companion, and pointed up towards the sky.

  “Celestia, it’s saying this is your world, not theirs.” Twilight spoke up, now clearly shaking.

  She took a few deep breaths to calm herself and then looked down at the button. A second later, she pressed down right through it, but then a red warning sign lighted up on the map’s face and zoomed out. They then noticed three small arrows rocketing towards their city, but three large target signs lighted up on the ever closing hoard of bugs. When the arrows got close to their city, they all looked up at the sky and three rockets zooming over head and past the castle with blue afterburners. They looked back down at the map, and the moment they did, the ground shook three times as the arrows hit their target, companied by deafening explosions and the air pushing them.

  Then they waited. The map showed a large dust cloud covering the area, obscuring their sight from their enemy.

  Celestia quickly unfurled her large wings, jumped up and with a massive wing beat, started flying up to her watchtower.

  “Celestia!” Twilight cried out for her former teacher as she flew up to her tower, her own wings started to spread, but didn’t seemed too confident on using them. She looked at the castle entrance started running in to go to their Princess.

  Celestia landed down with a thud; ran around the ring of ledge with guardrails. She stopped as she saw the dust cloud, just half a kilometer away from her city. The Changelings had… It then clicked. She quickly looked to her city and saw all the Changelings that were attacking stopped. Everything was quiet for the longest of time, the wind and the engines of hovering ships the only sound entering her ears. Then the monstrous creatures started moving, not towards her, but away. She quickly looked back at the dust cloud, as it started clearing from the east wind. A moment later, tiny, black bodies of countless changelings covered the Waist Land, with three large craters, forming a triangular shape.

  “Prince-” Twilight suddenly stopped as she saw the craters. She slowly walked over and stood beside her as she looked at the craters and laying bodies in shock. “How… wha…” she tried to speak.

  “For such short creatures… they have powerful weapons…” Celestia quietly said.

  Kelly and Snowlet walked up the steps of the wall and looked out into the battle-damaged city. As one of her Lieutenants informed, the bugs were retreating and long gone.

  “D-did we win?” Snowlet asked.

  “It seems like it…” the lieutenants said, raised up his Assault Rifle and looked through the scope. “Can’t… see… any of them…” he said, than lowered his gun.

  “Still. Stand guard. Never know if they come back by surprise.” Kelly reached up to her helmet and looked at hovering ships with their canons ready, “Pilots, make a sweep of the city. Try to find any of those things lingering around.” She said and the ships started slowly floating around the city.

  “What if we find them, Commander?” a pilot spoke to her.

  “Fire warning shots, drive them away from here. If they stay put and fire back… well, you’re the boot.” Kelly answered, earning four ‘Yes, Commander!’.

  Celestia and Twilight watch as one of their flying ships started shooting around a pack of Changelings, driving them out into the street. They continued shooting around them, but the black creatures started shooting at the ship with screeching battle cries. Celestia squint her eyes to see the device under the head of the ship changing from wide to a narrow barrel. It then started shooting them with deadly accuracy, splitting the shells of the creature’s chest and shredding them apart. She winced at the sight and then looked down at the ground with Twilight.

  “So… what do we do with them?” Twilight asked nervously, as she looked down at the courtyard, gripping the rail tightly.

  “We establish a Peace Treaty.” Celestia answered, looking down as well.

  “What!?” Twilight stepped back from her in shock, “You saw what they can do! The shooting, the explosions, and their ships!” she gestured to the patrolling ships hovering around their city.

  Celestia looked at her, “They had no other choice, Twilight. You need to be a little more observant, they were trying to drive them away the city, shooting at the ground around them with their invisible force canons, but the Changelings stayed.” She then pointed at the large craters, “As you said, I’m in charge of this kingdom. They could have done this by themselves, but they turned to me for the order to launch their fast, explosive rods.” She looked back down at the courtyard and at the mechanical armed visitor, calling out orders and pointing out to its own kind, “They came here for a reason, Twilight Sparkle. They haven’t come all this way to fight. Traveling between the distances of the stars takes years.” She looked at her former student, “Before you were even born, I witnessed a tiny, barely noticeable moving star connect with another brighter one. Ever since then, the once bright star was out a few days before Nightmare Moon returned.”

  “So… you think they came from that star?” Twilight asked, now feeling a little sorry for their visitors and her outburst.

  “We will find out soon once we establish a trust between our species.” She answered, turned away from her capital and started going down the spiraling stairs with Twilight at her tow. She would be lying if she didn’t feel a little threatened by their new friends.