Destination

  Snowlet looked down at the open gates from the top, sitting down and watching both humans and aliens dragging in their alien allies, both injured and passed on. She then looked out into the city, watching their drop ships hovering around, looking for their new enemy hiding within the buildings and alleys.

  She carefully got herself down and started walking down the staircase. As she got down and casually got down from the wall. She looked around her surroundings and decided to do what she was here for. She got down to the ground on one knee with her pack open and took out the spherical camera. She looked around as she stood up and waved over a Peace Keeper. He got up to her and saluted at attention, “Yes, ma’am?” he said.

  She showed him the ball, “Can you toss this up thirty feet?” she asked. He nodded and tossed the ball into the sky and came back down. He showed the device to her, “Thank you. You may go back to work.” She said as he nodded and went off.

  She put it back into her pack beside the plushy, closed it with a ‘Click!’ and puts it back on and looked at the castle, up and down, admiring the architecture. She reached up to her helmet, “Captain. How many Crawlers have you brought down?” she asked hopefully.

  “Plenty. Stand by.” He answered as a ship stopped in the distance and glided over the courtyard, where Snowlet was standing. Its hatch opened up and lowered down ten feet above ground. As it did, ten dog like machines jumped out with different colored stripping covering their heads and bodies and started going out to their respective leaders. Last one jumped out and quickly went up to her, covered in cyan blue stripes. She petted it with a smile and started walking in the castle with her personal Crawler close behind.

  The castle halls, as her Crawler measured, were thirty feet high with columns supporting the rounded roofs above and each window she passed were ten feet high and five feet wide. She was at awe of how beautiful the designs were etched into the white stones on the walls, floor and columns. The large, long, red carpets were either stitched expertly to another to connect them, or the whole thing it one huge carpet in itself.

  Sadly, everything she saw weren’t in perfect condition. The stone halls were filled with gash and scorch marks, and a few crumbled pieces of wall laid around. She could only imagine what it might have looked like when every, single inch of this world be intact.

  “Mm… maybe someday…” she said with a small smile and stopped. She looked down at her Crawler. “Cyan.” She said as it straightened out its stance and stared blankly ahead. “Map out the current floor and return when finished.” She spoke clearly.

  The Crawler’s back opened up a small circular hatch and a crystal ball like object started flashing red at near impossible speeds. With that, it started galloping ahead without looking back. With a nod and a smile, Snowlet took out a small pen-like device from her pack and a ring of green light lighted up on the back end. She walked over to the wall to her left and pressed the sharp point, digging in to the hard wall a small bit with some difficulty. A tiny screen flared up in her helmet, spelling out the word, ‘Granit’. She pressed the pen on the floor, the columns, windows and everything else she saw, gaining different answers within her helmet.

  As she passed by a slightly open door, the whining and yelps of creatures caught her attention. She looked at the door in interest and gently opened it a little more to peek inside. Her eyes widen at the sight of small, fluffy puppies crawling about, either play flight with each other or just snoozing away with others in a smile pile.

  One of them spots her at her doorway and started stumbling towards her. It started yelping at her as it reached her and sniffed her feet. Snowlet opened the door a little more; crouched down and started petting the puppy with a giddy smile. “Oh, you’re so Adorable and Cute!” she baby talked, sat down on the floor, picked up the fluff ball up to her face. It started licking her cracked visor greedily as it rested its paws on it as well.

  She giggled, rested the pup down onto her crossed legs and gently started caressing it. As she did, other pups noticed their new visitor and started going to her in curiosity. Snowlet noticed nearly all the puppies going towards her as she stopped petting the one in her laps. “Oh dear.” She looked around a little more to see if someone else was hear, but all she saw were open, wooden pens and a few large female dogs feeding their pups in them.

  Then right ahead, she saw a large, brown and white dog come into view and stared at her with the pups sniffing, licking and pawing at her with little whines, barks and yelps to gain her attention. The dog started going towards her and slowed down as it got closer. Snowlet leaned her head back in fear as she hugged the puppy against her chest, fearing the worst from the large dog. It started sniffing her helmet, but a bark stopped it and looked back at a laying dog. It started looking through and piling pups and looked at the one pressed against her chest. It started pawing at her arm with a whine. Snowlet quickly, but gently put the pup down as it gently picked it up by the scruff by the back of its neck and started prancing back over to its fellow dog.

  “Strange… Aren’t we on an alien planet?” A female voice said through her helmet’s com.

  “W-what?” Snowlet said, now getting back to reality as she was being swarmed by fluffy and whining puppies.

  “The dogs, why are there dog like creatures on this planet?” she said again.

  “I-I don’t know.” Snowlet replied and started petting the whining puppies to calm them down.

  As she looked ahead, she saw one of the aliens round a corner saying something quietly and gently with a soothing voice, but when it spotted all the puppies piling on Snowlet, it “Eeep!” and hid itself within one of the empty pens.

  Snowlet just stared as she petted the puppies. The dog quickly went over and stared within the pen the alien was hiding behind. It barked and whined a few times, the alien spoke back, but then the dog went in and started pulling on its clothing, bidding it to come out, lightly growling.

  “Um… hello!?” she spoke out.

  The dog stopped pulling as the alien started slowly peeking out, its hands resting on the edge as it stared at her with wide, teal eyes.

  “Um… uh…” Snowlet started looking around, looked down at the puppies, picked one up and held it out to the alien with a smile.

  Just as the shy alien started slowly coming out of hiding, metal click-clacking on the stone floor stopped it and with a yelp, hid itself back in. Snowlet looked over her shoulders to see the lens of her Crawler looking back at her, its crystal ball like object going back in its little compartment in its body. The machine then looked down at the little creatures and started scanning the little pups with its little red scanner from its chest.

  A loud screech echoed into the room and through the hall. Snowlet looked back to see a tall white alien with a horn and a fashionable clothing covering its body as it back away from her and her Crawler. Its hands rose up to its chest height and started glowing a blue aura. Snowlet’s radiation warning started flashing within her helmet. Her eyes widen and started slowly crawling behind the other closed door, but when she was fully hidden, the door was swung open, surprising her with a short scream and started shacking in fear.

  “C-Commander K-Kelly…” she said to her radio with a shaky voice.

  “Yes?” she heard.

  “I… I’m…” she tried to say, but quickly started sending her camera feed instead.

  “Keep calm, I’m coming.” Kelly assured her.

  The alien shouted at her and took a step forward; its hands started glowing a little brighter. She whimpered and stumbled back as the little pups started scrambling away from her with little whimpers and yelps. Her Crawler blocked the alien’s firing range from her and its shield activated.

  Just when she thought the alien was going to fire, a gunshot rang out and the stone floor near the alien’s hooves exploded. It jumped in surprise with a short scream of its own. A few more gunshots rang out as the bullets made the alien dance and back away with yelps. Snowlet’s guardian came into view as she brought out her hand for her. Snowlet took the hand as Kelly helped her up to her feet, but kept her magnum pointed at the alien.

  Snowlet quickly hid herself behind her protector and both started backing away from the open doors and the white alien. As they backed away, a group of alien guards blocked there way and pointed their spears and glowing hands at them.

  “Crawler.” Kelly spoke up, causing the machine to stances from being defensive to just sitting down and projected out a video from Snowlet’s point of view. It showed when she peeked into the room, petting the puppies, trying to greet the shy alien and when the white one screamed and raised its glowing hands at her.

  I and Celestia quickly went through the halls when we heard the devices shoot out, followed by the voice of Rarity’s short yelps. When we arrived we saw the Royal Guards pointing their spears and hands at ready at the two visitors. I looked up to see Celestia lightly frowning in a questioning expression.

  Suddenly our visitor’s companions burst through the windows and pointed their devices at our guards and us. The rest got through the halls and blocked our exits. She started pulling through the guards, much to my concern.

  “What is the meaning of this?” she questioned, then nearly all of their lazar sights pointed at her.

  The different dog like machine went up to her and projected out a video from the shorter one’s point of view. As it finished, I was pretty certain Rarity almost crushed our trust between our species. Just when Celestia was about to speak, a few stick figures showed up on the screen, one tall and white, while the other two short and one green while the other black. When the tall one raised a sword at the green figure, the black one raised a firearm at the attacker and the green one quickly hid itself behind it. The figures disappeared and replaced by a globe of a world and a small ship beside it. Two figures came out of the two objects and one from the planet multiplied into countless figures, while the other only managed to make a small bundle, being dwarfed by the other.

  The monarch started ordering out commands to its guards as they hesitantly lowered their arms.

  “Lower your guns.” SKelly spoke up and everyone of her fellow human did as commanded.

  “Another close call.” Their Captain said to her com.

  “Agreed.” Kelly replied and looked at Snowlet behind her, “Keep close. Our ships are going to sweep the city one more time before we get ready to go.” She said and Snowlet nodded.

  When every human and alien calmed down, they all went back to what they were doing. When they were out, her Captain’s voice called out through her com, “Okay, time to get ready. Kelly, you know what to do” he said.

  “Single row! Now!” she shouted and waited. All of her Peace Keepers ran into a single row and stood at attention, their firearm lowered. Kelly walked over to the far left, looked at the person and down the row, “Count Down!” she ordered and started walking along the row as they shouted out their respective number when she reached them.

  When she reached the very end, she noticed the orange alien was having trouble keeping its large dog at bay as it barked and snarled at her last Keeper, but the only thing she noticed was he didn’t shout his number. She looked at him with a slight glare, “Count Down!” she ordered once more. As she waited for her team to reach the very end, the dog continued to bark at the silent man and she continued to glare at his polarized visor.

  The second last sounded out, “Fifty!” with a feminine voice.

  Kelly’s glare hardened, “What is the meaning of this, privet!?” she barked. He knocked on his helmet and shrugged.

  “Um… Commander?” She looked at Snowlet a few paces away from her, her Crawler projecting out a small screen in front of her, “The Captain only sent out fifty Keepers.” She said with a nervous tone.

  She looked back at the short man, “Captain… is she correct?” she narrowed her eyes at the man.

  “Ye-” before he could answered properly, she launched her right fist skyward, the Keeper’s body following along and landed down in a heap. His body started flickering with static and flicked off completely to reveal a flier, bleeding out its green blood from its broken mouth. As it started getting up on its hands and knees and flutter its four wings, Kelly sprinted and kicked it from the side of its head, once again, sending it down on the dry ground a few feet away.

  Kelly cracked her knuckled and turned away from the unconscious bug, “That’s new.” She muttered to herself as the dog stopped barking and started wagging her tail at her, its tongue hanging out happily, “Captain, send down heavy duty container. We got ourselves a specimen.” She said stood back in front of her fellow humans.

  “Noted.” He replied.

  “Four Rows!” she shouted out as the drop ships started hovering back over to the courtyard.

  Twilight was lost for words. She thought Winona was just acting up on their visitors, but just out of nowhere, their leader threw a punch at one of the changelings impersonating one of them. She guessed their leader suspected something was out of place. When she saw their flying ships getting closer and their leader shouting out orders, she feared they were getting ready to go back to their space ship.

  “Pri… Celestia, what are we going to do?” she asked fearfully and looked up at her former teacher.

  Celestia clears her throat, gaining the visitor’s attention. It then looked at a ship landing down and the first row started going into the open hatch. It reached up to its helmet and spoke. A moment later, all ten mechanical dogs lined up in a single row. A cyan striped machine went beside Celestia and projected out a blank screen in front of them. One by one, little red lights turned on the machines’ backs and produced a live feed on the once blank screen.

  The armored visitor snaps her fingers and gave out order to the machines. After it spoke, two on the sides split to the sides and rest started galloping out the gates. As they did, they all noticed their bodies started disappearing, turning invisible right before their eyes.

  When all of their visitors went into their four ships and flew off, that remained two. The short alien and her protector. Celestia and Twilight were a little confused to why they were left behind, but the sound of erupting engines right above them caught their attention. As they looked up, they saw a cloaked, smaller ship slowly descending down. With a gust of wind, they covered their eyes from the wall of dust. They looked up once the air around them calmed down, and looked in awe at the small ship opening up a little stairway for their visitors and the whole object became visible. They looked at the windshield, expecting a visitor to be driving the small ship, but no one could see the alien pilot, just an empty cockpit.

  Celestia looked at their mechanical armed visitor as it strolled over to the still unconscious changeling, grabbed its hind leg and started dragging it closer to its ship and its charge. It dropped its leg as they all heard erupting engines above.

  As another ship started its slow descend, Celestia started walking over to the couple, Twilight scurried up in her tow. The short one looked up at her and tapped her guardian on the shoulder. It looked back at its charge, then up at Celesita and Twilight. Celestia drew out her hand with a gentle smile.

  Kelly looked at the alien’s hand for a second before she shook it, her hand nearly engulfed by the other, as it spoke to her kindly.

  When the ramp touched down with a locking sound, Kelly turned away from the monarch and walked over to unconscious bug, grabbed its arm and started dragging it over to ship as a heavy looking, metal crate opened up, two Keepers standing by its side within the ship. She tossed the body in the crate with a thud and nodded to her Privets. They both saluted as the crate closed itself up and locked, a small green light lighting up with a ‘Beep!’.

  She walked back out and reached up to her helmet, staring at the ship as it closed up. “Package is secure. Taker ‘er home.”

  The engines erupted once more; the aliens around the area covered their faces as a wall of dust was thrown up by the rising ship.

  Kelly walked back over to the small drop ship and nodded at her charge. Snowlet nodded back and quickly walked in and took her place at the co-pilot’s seat. Kelly looked at the monarch and the purple alien; nodded once and walked herself in the ship. When she seated herself, the small hatch closed itself with an audible hiss.

  She held of the joysticks and slowly rose the ship into the air, circled the alien city once, spotting the aliens waving away before she rocketed into the sky. “Entering orbit, Child of Earth. ETA five minutes.” She spoke as the whole ship rattled and gravity working against her and her charge.

  “Acknowledged. We’ll see you home, Commander.” A feminine voice spoke back.

  Celestia silently walked through the halls of her once, scratch free castle. Accompanying her was a small, mechanical dog; each step it took made metallic clicks on the stone floor. She looked down at her little companion, bringing a sly smile to her face as it reminded her of little Twilight when she was young; always clingy.

  She came up to a pair of double doors, painted in black, purple, blue and navy blue in decorative patterns to indicate her sisters beautiful night. She smiled and just when she was about to run her hand across the surface, her little friend’s head lighted up with lazars, quickly followed by a flash of light.

  She looked at her little friend and saw it looking at the double doors with interest. She lightly giggled and waited for it to finish.

  A moment later, she opened the door and walked in the dim room and walked over to the circular bed that held a resting mare. Celestia slowly sat down beside the body, “How are you feeling, sister?” she asked.

  “Are thou serious, dear sister?” Luna brought up a hand and covered her forehead with a light groan.

  “Mm… I see…” she said, as the sound of clicking entered the room.

  Luna opened her eyes in surprise and stated looking around, only to find her empty room, “Show yourself!” she called out.

  “Luna, calmed down.” Celestia gently pushed her back down with a motherly voice. “It’s nothing to be afraid of… we had visitors today.” She smiled at her sister’s confused look.

  “Are these ‘visitors’ the cause of the explosion?” Luna said as she continued to look around her room. “Where is it?”

  “Yes, Luna. They caused the explosion, savings us from the Changelings that were quite ready to invade the castle.” Celestia looked back down at the floor and saw her friend just looking at her, “They all went back to their home, but they left these little dog like machines to keep an eye on the city.” She scooted out of the way and gestured to it with a small smile.

  Luna pulled herself closer to the edge and froze as she looked at the eyeglass of the machine. Its lenses adjusted itself and leaned its head closer to her. After a moment of intense staring, the machine looked away from her and started exploring her room, looking at all the items with great interest.

  “These little machines they created were used to communicate between our ponies and the visitors. The visitors are fairly short, but their technological skills on making machines is phenomenal, to say the least. And… I think… they’re looking for a new home to live in, judging by their vast spaceship that’s floating in the sky at the moment.”

  “Really!? Is it there now!?” Luna asked excitedly with a big smile.

  “Yes, but-” Celestia answered with a hint of concern.

  “No ‘but’, dear sister. I like to see it.” Luna pulled off her blanket to reveal her whole body wrapped in bandages, only revealing small patches of fur that stuck out and no clothing to cover her body with.

  “Luna, please. You’re in no condition to be moving right now.” Celestia pleaded.

  “Tia, please, just single look. Single look and we will never ask, thou again.” She squeezed her hand with begging eyes.

  Celestia looked down at her lap for a few moments before she slowly nodded, “Okay, b-but please, slowly.” She got up to her hooves and hold onto Luna’s hand for support. Luna smiled gratefully at her and slowly inched over to the edge of her bed. She drew out her hooves and gently set them down onto her floor for the first time in months. She slowly unfurled her wings as well, but her flight feathers were nothing more then burnt little stubs. What remained of her tail was wrapped in bandages as she sat on her bed.

  With the help of Celestia’s magic, she slowly rose on her own two hooves with a small whimper and a wince. As she stood, her smile alone was endangering to split her head in half.

  “We… I…” Luna’s eyes developed little drops of tears with a single sniffle.

  Celestia leaned in and nuzzled her nose lovingly, “You’re getting there, sister. Now, slowly, let’s go over to your balcony.” Celestia took a step back, while Luna took a slow step forward with a happy chuckle. As they continued, Celestia noticed her little friend was following them from right behind Luna.

  When they reached the closed, glass doors, Celestia slowly opened them up with a nudge of her wings, a light breeze starting to come in. Luna basked in the cool air, her aches and pains slowly melting away from her. As they got out, they saw the sun was halfway submerged in the horizon.

  “Where is it, sister?” Luna asked as she started looking at the sky with searching eyes.

  Celestia pointed, “Right there, Luna. Right above the clouds.” She answered with a raised arm.

  The Captain watched in amusement at the alien monarch and its darker, bandaged counterpart in his office. The smile and look of awe on the bandaged alien was enough to bring a smile on his aged face. It was strange how everything on that world was similar to their own world; animals, the architectures, and etcetera. That’s something they’re going to try and find out if the alien’s leader was okay with his kind living here as well.

  When he looked back at the monitor, he jumped in surprise to see the bandaged alien’s face took up to whole screen, staring at the camera curiously. He sighed with a chuckle. “I hope I can convince them to let us stay.” He said to himself and leaned back on his chair, continuing to watch the alien’s, adorable curiosity of their Crawler. He then looked down at Kelly’s broken helmet and ran a thumb across the cracked visor with a sigh, “Stay safe, my little angel…” he whispered and looked back at the screen to witness the two aliens hugging one another.