The Coming Tide

Daring Do slowly awoke with an agonizing groan. Twitching her body experimentally, she felt an intense, searing pain tearing through her in waves as she regained consciousness. Every muscle in her body felt as if were ablaze, and her brain was a jumbled morass of half-completed thoughts and feverish delirium. Gritting her teeth as she struggled to move, the pegasus attempted to discover the status of her group, to make sure they weren't deceased...or worse.

Vision was a confusing haze; Daring was unable to properly perceive her surroundings. Her other senses however, seemed unaffected. Daring Do could hear voices, and her ears perked up to listen in on them.

"Do we possess a report from the Armada?" one voice inquired with a shrill hiss.

It must be the Sharqoui commander of the vessel, the one I heard the shrieking Kantus alien refer to as a "Theron". Daring mused.

A more baritone voice snarled out a reply. "Checking..."

"Received!" Another gravelly voice added a second later, this one with a hint of triumph.

Had to be those "Drones". Daring figured. Their verbal pitch is still not low enough to belong to those big hulking dumbasses with the oversized knuckle spikes: the Drinol.

"Explain." The Theron instructed.

"Our war with the Great Enemy, continues across the star ocean." a Drone snarled nearby. "GARM reports Planet Sera experiment, failure! Seran warriors activated a countermeasure, they killed the Seran Horde, and the Luminous Brethren!"

Why don't you freaks just call it outer space, like you ought to be?

"Inferiors!" The Drone's nearest comrade growled.

"Noooo..." the Theron lamented. Daring Do heard a pounding of fists on metal, while the Drones roared in outrage. Clearly, this news from their unseen comrades in high orbit was unsettling them all.

Daring meanwhile, was bracing herself, trying with all her might to ignore pain while she flicked her tail about. She was building up physical momentum, and tentatively flexed her wings and legs. The pegasus had something else in mind to "startle " the Sharqoui with.

If I manage to get my hooves on one of them, and need to do so, I swear I'll make them pay, dearly. Daring paused to keep her temper in check. She only needed to get herself and the others together. Fortunately, her vision was already coming back into focus. With a few blinks of her eyelashes, came new found clarity. Good, now where am I?

A brief scan of the room told Daring Do she had to be back in the bridge of the aliens' starship. To her relief, her fellow explorers and archaeologists were all alive, but still unconscious. A few rolled around, moaning irritably. Other than omnipresent muscular pain, they seemed unharmed and normal, save for a faint but noticeable bio-luminescent yellow glow emanating from their bodies. They almost resembled some strange species of equine jellyfish.

That was when the Imulsion materialized into her mind, and Daring Do shuddered violently. That alien slime that had entered our bodies, not only had a lambent glow – it was alive! Daring shook her head with disbelief. "N...no! This is just my imagination! Simply a hallucination caused by the Kantus' shriek attack. Nothing more!" she concluded, with a frantic whisper.

The Sharqoui, active and very much unthawed, stood all around her on the bridge. They were positioned at their holographic consoles, sitting in the massive chairs, and making frequent rounds back and forth between various stations. Sidearms, equipment belts, and glowing armor straps jangled with their strides and heavy footfalls.

Daring Do was flabbergasted to notice that the aliens were paying no attention to her or the other ponies at all. The few that did, only threw apathetic grunts Daring's way, stepping over her and the others as if they were nothing more than nondescript stones that had spontaneously appeared on the floor. A few Sharqoui not watching the report were brushing off the thick dust that was settled in places, and throwing the misplaced Equestrian excavation equipment around and out of the way in annoyance.

One Drone curiously picked up an archaeologist's flashlight to examine it, then carried it over to his station. "Shiny! Mine!" he declared with approval, before turning his attention to what his fellows were so worked up about.

A single large display sat in the middle of the bridge, with most of the command crew facing its front, and the forward bow observation windows and helmsmen's stations at its back. Daring hadn't remembered it being there before, it must have been a holographic projection. She looked up from her inactive comrades to see what exactly was provoking such bitter gall from the aliens.

The Theron and his underlings were watching the image of an alien planet on screen. It looked quite like what Daring imagined Equis to be, but the landmasses were completely different. Cross referencing what the aliens were saying with what everyone was looking at, Daring gathered that the world in the video must be the same one the Drone had referred to as "Sera".

The feed was playing on a loop: orbiting satellites were firing some kind of laser, burning Sera's continents below to flickering ash, then a spectacular blue light is shown to be sweeping across the now battle-scarred planet's surface from a small equatorial archipelago. It spread out in timed pulses to cover every corner of the globe. From what she saw, Daring was quite certain the shining blue light was what truly had the aliens blowing their own tops, like whistling tea kettles on a burner.

Interesting as the whole event was, whatever the significance of Sera and the light must have been to the Sharqoui, was completely inconsequential to Daring Do. For now, she had to build up her energy. "Just give it some time." she whispered with a wince, flexing her right wing with a bit more energy than last time.

It was at the precise moment she spoke those words, that the Theron rose from his chair with a flourish, facing his crew. His sudden movement caused the tails of his robe-like armor to flutter in the air, while he crossed his arms over his massive chest.

"The Horde of the Seran Hollows." It could have been Daring's imagination, but the Sharqoui leader seemed to have pronounced the words with disgust. "Inferior half breeds, to be bested by the Sapiens. This is why we have moved here, Equis." The Theron gestured to the archaeologists.

"Equinoids?" a Drone proclaimed, seeming to finally notice Daring Do and the others for the first time. The Theron's underlings grumbled out sounds that sent mixed messages of both agreement and uncertainty. He continued.

"Yesss. The Equis experiment, continue it as planned!" A couple of Drones looked at him curiously, waiting to hear more. "I have already scanned the Equines' anatomy." The Theron casually waved a talon in Daring's direction again, causing her to involuntarily tense. "GARM will surely approve of our ultimate living weapon to come. Now, provide Equis reports. First section, the extricated Brethren Moons Marker. Determine status of the recombinant bacteria, designated Necromorph."

Daring Do watch as several of the Drones turned their beady reptilian eyes to their monitors. "Scanning." They replied in unison, with a tone she considered all too enthusiastic to take as a good sign. Daring was getting anxious.

The pegasus' overriding focus was, and is, to get her and everyone else under her charge off the alien ship alive. That would be via force if necessary; a monumental task. Then, they had to warn the Kingdom and the rest of the planet of the imminent danger. That's assuming it wasn't already too late.

In Ponyville, the day continued on into noon; a noon seemingly as idyllic and pleasant as any other. Except for the Moon strangely maintaining the same unorthodox orbital position over the horizon, everything seemed to be in normal order.

In the town's local hayburger restaurant, Twilight, Spike, Applejack and Fluttershy were sitting down to a causal lunch. Rarity had arrived minutes ago with Rainbow and Pinkie Pie in tow, and all seven were now clustered around one of the larger circular tables, eating and trading bits of conversation with one another. It was the peak of the lunch rush in town, so the restaurant was bustling and full of murmuring customers.

Sunlight filtered through the front windows, glistening on the shiny checkered floor and well cleaned tabletops. Dishes and utensils dinged and clattered, and telekinesis spells softly hummed in the background.

At their table, Rainbow Dash was devouring her hay fries at a speed much faster than was socially acceptable, while AJ and Rarity gave her funny looks. Fluttershy was placidly fiddling with a bowl of salad, and Twilight set about attacking her two hayburgers with a fervor that rivaled Rainbow's own, causing Pinkie Pie to giggle uncontrollably at the both of them and neglect her extra-sugary fruit smoothie (Pinkie's own personal request). Spike was beside Twilight, with their purchases for the day in Twilight's saddlebags on the checkerboard pattern floor at his feet.

"Whoa, whoa, slow down there Twilight!" Rainbow Dash said suddenly, looking up from her empty pile of hay fry bags with a toothy grin. "I know us weather ponies have a reason to cram and eat like parasprites, erm, because of our required cal count for cloud control and all, but what's got you so hungry?"

Slowly, awkwardly, Twilight looked up wide-eyed from her food at the others. Ketchup was running down her muzzle, and a bit more of it was splattered on her cheeks and the table top. An awkward few moments of quiet followed, then Twilight smiled sheepishly. "I just like hayburgers; I really like them. Nothing wrong with that, right?"

The giggling from Pinkie Pie increased in intensity, causing her to snort a few times. She nearly fell out of her chair as she clutched at her belly. Both Rarity and Fluttershy beamed at Twilight, and Applejack chuckled. "You shoulda' seen the look on your face a second ago, Twi!"

"Yeah, your eyes were like purple dinner plates." Rainbow Dash jeered. "If they'd gotten any bigger, the busboy might have accidentally put you on his cart with all the dishes."

Crinkling her muzzle in annoyance, Twilight suddenly got an idea. She turned to Spike while she wiped her face clean and the others shared a laugh at her expense. Spike was eating his burger in a far more polite fashion than her; the little dragon would never dream of eating in the way Twilight had, in front of Rarity, that is. He noticed her gaze and perked up, setting his food down. "Yeah? What do you need, Twilight?"

"Spike, fetch my copy of The Traveler's Encyclopedia of Mundane Magics, please."

Spike nodded. "Okey dokey."

"Lokey!" Pinkie Pie chirped. Spike shot her a blank look, then started rifling through the bags. He soon produced the tome in his hand. It was a small and weathered travel book, faded red and about the width of a horseshoe.

Twilight smiled conspiratorially as she levitated the encyclopedia over, and began leafing through its pages. "Ah, thank you Spike." The dragon nodded slowly, suspicious as to what she was up to. Twilight hummed to herself as she read. The others exchanged wary glances.

"Just what are you doing, dear?" Rarity wondered.

"Aha!" Twilight pointed at something on a specific page and grinned savagely, ignoring Rarity's question. "I found the proper transmutation spell!"

Rainbow Dash shrugged and muttered, "Eggheads." More bags of hay fries then inexplicably appeared in front of her with some ketchup. Rainbow grinned in shocked delight, and she began obliterating them without further ado. Twilight watched her put a ketchup-dipped fry in her mouth, and grinned. Dash gave her a double take and mimicked Twilight's own reaction just moments before, then her face turned beet red.

"Hot! Hot-hot-hot-hot, HOT!" It apparently wasn't ketchup. Her rainbow blur zoomed off and away towards the nearest pitcher of water.

Fire was practically coming out of Dash's mouth like a dragon's. It was now Twilight's turn to laugh. The rest of the girls started to guffaw once they had enough time to realize what had happened. They were still laughing a bit, even as all seven of them finished up there food and got ready to go.

As everyone was exiting the restaurant, something loud caught their combined attention.

Groups of ponies were murmuring, gasping, and causing a general ruckus over something neither Twilight or the others could yet see. The crowd quickly shifted around, as whatever they were looking at apparently drew closer to Twilight's position.

After a moment of craning their necks to see what the hub-bub was about, Rainbow Dash rose up and pointed her hoof. "Hey, I think those four ponies might be in trouble over there! Someone might be hurt."

Fluttershy was the first one to snap to attention. Her body tensed up and her ears flattened. "What? Where, show me!"

"Simmer down there, Fluttershy! Let's see what's going on first before we rush in and try to do anything bout' it!" Apple Jack cautioned.

"Where are they?" Twilight asked, now as equally alert as Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash pointed again, and everyone followed her worried gaze. What they saw chilled their blood, and a few of them felt their fur stand on end.

Three Royal Guards appeared from the crowd. It was a pair of unicorn stallions and a bat pony mare, accompanied by a fourth: a pegasi courier. The group slowly approached the girls. The confused crowd swiftly parted to grant them room for passage.

One of the stallions was walking normally but warily, while the mare–one of Luna's Nightguards, judging by her short silvery mane, tail and coat, fangs, leathery wings, and dark violet armor–was carefully hauling the other stallion on her back. The Royal Courier pegasi was next to the bat pony, her blue uniform in tatters and a mud-slicked saddlebag dangling at her side.

All four of them were haggard and dirty, with their fur matted and stained with sweat and blood. Dust and grime covered their legs up to the joints. Twilight could not see any open wounds on them at first, strangely enough. However, a second glanced yielded sight of an unusual injury on the leg of the unicorn the Nightguard was carrying.

Twilight and the others rushed up to meet the mystifying newcomers. Fluttershy and Applejack gently helped the bat pony lift the unicorn off her back and onto the soft grass in the shade, without being asked. Like the other two who seemed uninjured, the Nightguard seemed to have a burning fire of desperation in her amber eyes as she met everyone's stares, as if she had recently seen something disturbing. Something so unnatural, that no thinking creature should ever have to bear witness to. Nevertheless, she seemed collected and calm enough.

Twilight had a million questions running rampant in her mind as she bent down to examine the soldier pony's injury. He groaned deeply, his eyes flittering open, then shutting every few seconds. "These, look like teeth marks. From a small mammal." Twilight said slowly. A couple red flags were starting to fly free in her mind.

Rarity, Spike, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, meanwhile stood to the side, looking dismayed and distraught. Like much of the crowd, they were unsure of how to help.

"Heavens! Quick, somepony get to Ponyville General Hospital! Tell Nurse Redheart to have a room ready and some medics out here as soon as possible!" Fluttershy instructed. "I need somepony to help me look after him until then." She started inspecting him for further injuries while Twilight stood up again.

"Rainbow, Pinkie Pie, you two are the fastest, could you–"

Rainbow held up her hoof. "Say no more Twilight! We'll head over to the hospital, pronto!" she assured her. Pinkie Pie nodded eagerly in agreement, then the two sped off to get help. The crowd parted for them, while a few even offered their assistance to Fluttershy and Applejack, should they be needed.

Twilight and Rarity decided to get some answers in the mean time. "What happened to you guys? What's going on in Canterlot?" Twilight asked.

"Is there actually a riot going on, in Canterlot? Surely its not possible!" Rarity added, flabbergasted.

The pegasus stepped up, shaking her head. "I don't want to believe it either, but Canterlot has become a waking nightmare! Everyone in the Royal Castle has sealed themselves off from the rest of the city. We've heard nothing of what's going on inside, other than the fact that Celestia, Discord, Luna, and all their soldiers were fighting and exterminating something within its halls. But in the streets..."

"A riot wouldn't even come close to this. Perfectly normal citizens just started turning on each other. It was a bloodbath when we fled." The bat pony stated grimly. She saw the look on Twilight and Rarity's faces, and hastily continued. "Our entire garrison was overrun, first by rampaging citizens..."

The pegasus cringed and covered her ears as the Nightguard continued, lowering her voice to a whisper so the crowd would not her what she had to say next. "Then these undead creatures. Twisted, gory abominations. Sharpened bone, unnatural limbs, teeth, tendrils, all tangles of rotting flesh."

"Dead things...like zombies, but far worse! Not even ponies anymore...!" the Royal Courier whimpered.

"Our officers gave the order to retreat from the capital once those creatures started showing up." the Nightguard explained, looking forlorn. "A few of us thought they were some new type of Changelings at first. But Changelings don't tear fully grown guardsponies in half, like it were nothing...they just don't!"

Twilight felt every hair stand on end, and the field of red flags in her mind was now as big as the entirety of Sweet Apple Acres. She remembered one of the alien findings having been sent to Canterlot. It hadn't been one of the alien powder canisters, but some kind of dark stone carving. However, the two could somehow be connected all the same, along with her nightmare. Twilight's eyes narrowed, and her pupils became dilated with adrenaline.

"Cr...creatures you say? What else happened, can you truly be certain that the Princesses are alright?" Rarity urgently asked.

Spike folded his arms and took a deep breath, managing to remain calm. "I'm sure they're fine, Rarity! The Royal Guards would never let anything happen to either of them, plus they have Discord on their side! They could stop anything!" he assured her.

"The Princesses are indeed alive, fighting those things." The Nightguard flashed the ghost of a smile at Spike. "You're right about Discord, little dragon. There's no way in Tartarus anything except Chrysalis or Sombra themselves could best Mistress Luna, her sister, and the Draconequus' combined might."

"About the crisis: as far as I can tell, everything began in the Royal Conservatory, then spread outward from there as the night panned out." the unicorn guard interjected. "There were large numbers of civilian fatalities and rampaging lunatics, but there wasn't a whole lot of those creatures, later on." The unicorn paused, shaking his head as he recollected what he had seen.

"What else can you tell us? " Twilight inquired.

The bat pony took over again. "A lot of the monsters seemed to explode or disintegrate whenever one of the others tried to make a new creature out of a deceased pony, especially if the reanimated host was a former unicorn. Besides that, the officers mentioned the military was mobilizing, and that they had lost contact with the expedition in the Badlands. Meanwhile, a bunch of lights in the night sky have started popping up. Weird ones, and a lot of them, too."

"The entire military?" Applejack questioned, looking up from the wounded guard's bite wound with shock. "Why, the last time that happened was when muh Granny Smith was still my age!" Fluttershy was working to keep the bite clean, until the medics arrived. She didn't look up, but she had an ear cocked, listening carefully.

The bat pony nodded at her. "Oh yeah. The Royal Army, the Guard, the Battlemage's Corps; I even saw a half-dozen air ships with the Air Force insignia, speeding in from Cloudsdale and Vanhoover while we were going down the mountain. They had pegasi sky chariots and a few infantry squadrons escorting them; a fully armed air fleet!"

"Once we received our orders, and saw those fly boys coming in, we got out of there as fast as we could to the rendezvous point out by Saddle lake. Then on the road in the early morning, these...these things, they ambushed us! One of em' bit our guy over there." The uninjured unicorn guard interjected, his voice trembling. "He's been odd like this ever since."

"These 'things', are they the same unidentified organisms you encountered in Canterlot? If Daring Do's people have gone silent in the Badlands crash site, that means this problem extends well beyond Canterlot itself. I need to know everything, now!" Twilight demanded.

The guard held up his forelegs defensively. "Believe us, those creatures were definitely undead! But these things on the road...they were something else. They looked like mammals...small woodland creatures, but something was wrong with em'. Their blood was kind of green and viscous, and they had these creepy growths all over their bodies. Sick with something, probably. Only Celestia knows what." He pointed at his bat pony comrade. "Me and Sable here had to slay the darn things after Blitz got bit."

By now, Fluttershy had risen up from tending to the unicorn named Blitz. His mithril armor, its golden finish covered in rivulets of blood but still able to reflect the Sun's light, was off and laying in the grass beside him. A group of medics had appeared with Rainbow and Pinkie Pie in tow, and the crowd was already parting to make room. Most of them had already dispersed, having seen their fill of the morbid sight a thousand times over.

Fluttershy shook her head slowly as she stared at Sable, the other unicorn, and their Royal Courier companion. "Umm, your friend will survive, I don't see any sign of an infection at the moment. But...Canterlot...the monsters you described...Those animals...oh!" Her eyes started to mist over, and her lip quivered. Rarity quickly stepped in and put a foreleg around her shoulder, looking at Twilight worriedly, while the medics took over.

They were rapidly firing out questions and working Blitz onto a stretcher. Applejack sighed and bowed her head in bewilderment, ears flattened, as Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash came up asking her for details.

In the meantime, Sable instructed the pegasi courier to fetch something from her bag, and she eventually produced a Royal Guard's helmet. Sable took it and held it out for Twilight to see. "About the Canterlot creatures. I think they're dying off quickly, and won't be a problem soon, thanks to the Sisters. But we believe this, is how they created more of themselves." she declared, before tossing the helmet to Twilight. Sable and the others were then lead away towards the hospital for evaluation. Twilight's eyes widened in horror as she analyzed the helmet itself.

It was stained heavily with dried, congealed blood. At the top of the helmet, near the Corinthian plume, was a jagged hole, punched straight through the metal with violent force. A proboscis type limb, likely from one of the undead beasts themselves, fell from the helmet when she tipped it to the side. Upon inspection, Twilight discovered it, unsurprisingly, to be an exact match for the puncture hole.

Twilight shook her head slowly as she gave the helm a final cursory glance, then gathered up Spike and headed back home. Fluttershy and the others did the same, while Twilight planned to go about analyzing the mysterious monster's limb, and see if she could track down the escaped mole, Digger. She was hoping with all her might, that the other creatures the Guard described had nothing to do with her powder experiments, or Spike's pet escaping to who knows where.

In fact, Twilight was already convinced that whatever had bitten the guard named Blitz, was nothing more than a rabid animal. Or, at the worst, one of the Canterlot abominations his healthy comrades had so vividly described.

A Drone shifted in annoyance at his station, as he felt the Theron breathing down his neck. The much taller Sharqoui was looking at the data on his console screen. The Theron was silent for a moment, as he took in the reports on the creatures they called Necromorphs. With a deep rasping hiss, he finally spoke.

"Already, in the Equine's capital city?" He and the Drones shared a sinister laugh, one that could only come from cold-hearted beings whom Daring Do guessed must enjoy crushing pretty flowers underfoot as a past time.

"Anomaly!" One Drone snarled. "Something's preventing reanimation in hosts. Marker spreads waves of madness. But, few Necromorphs!"

Nearby, Daring Do winced as she heard fists pound against a hard surface for the second time that day. "Worthless, empty husks!" the Theron hissed with annoyance. He paused and fumed for several seconds, then said, "Minor inconvenience. Section two! The Xenomorph parasite. Status!"

With their ever present sneers, the Drones replied, "Scanning!"

Zooming through the cloud banks over Northwestern Equestria, Lightning Dust was in a bad way.

Not only had she barely survived an attack by some unknown creature back in Ponyville, it had done something to weaken her. Sweat beaded on her fur, only to have it turn to tiny ice crystals, which fluttered off into the air.

Lightning's muscles and abdomen burned fiercely, as if she had been standing up against a piece of half-molten metal. Was it a poison perhaps? Lightning Dust presumed so, but all she could do to deal with her present situation, was bury it under a tirade of profanity, curses, and bitter mumbling at everything around her. The legitimacy of the parentage of several clouds' moms had been brought into question, some had been compared to quite vulgar things, and many more clouds had been accused by Lightning of being Rainbow Dash's "spies", who had come to mock at her misfortune.

To make matters worse, a small fleet of aerial warships had slowed her down with reporting back to her post at Cloudsdale. They said they were inbound towards Canterlot, and nobody from that direction was allowed towards Cloudsdale airspace without official business. They had told her to divert to a Courier depot at the nearby Rainbow Falls, high in the Smokey Mountains after she made her delivery in Cloudsdale, where she was not allowed to remain for too long. They never stated why, although Daring guessed Twilight's alien might have something to do with it.

Since they were clearly Air Force, Lightning Dust had begrudgingly obliged. She delivered the remaining powdery-snow canister thingies (which she called, for lack of a better term) to Cloudsdale, and was now en route to the lofty hamlet.

When she touched down in the town's square, Lightning started to feel something strange stir inside her rib cage. It felt almost as if she had eaten an oversized meal. A few of the locals noticed her sickly complexion, but didn't think much of it. Nobody there had yet heard of the incident in Canterlot, but everyone was aware of the sudden military mobilization. The entire town was buzzing about it, a few assumed that a foreign power from overseas had begun to invade.

Nobody could have expected that a completely different type of invasion was under foot. No sooner had Lightning Dust entered the depot for her next mail run, it had begun.

The young Xenomorph Queen that exploded out of the pegasus' chest was already of impressive size. Unfurling her black armored body, and standing at her true stature, it had been a miracle of biology that her host had been strong enough to carry her this far. Ponies screamed in terror as she shook blood off of herself like a wet dog, regaining her bearings and analyzing her surroundings.

Underneath her massive, elongated dragon-like head, the Queen experimentally flexed her two pairs of segmented arms. Next, four powerful hoofed legs stamped at the ground, causing Dust's now limp form to jolt about, while a long barbed tail bobbed back and forth behind the Queen. Lastly, with a flourish, the Xenomorph opened up her pair of wings: as black as night and rimmed with acid-tipped spikes. Raising her head, she emitted an ear piercing shriek that echoed loudly down the mountainside, before setting about destroying and attacking everything and everyone around her vicinity.

In the alien environment of Equis, Rainbow Falls would be the epicenter for this Queen's new hive. And in time, her armies.

Back on the crashed Sharqoui vessel, their comrades up in the Armada were relaying them orbital images and recordings of scenes from both Canterlot, various stretches of wilderness, and Rainbow Falls. In Canterlot, the remains of failed Necromorph hosts twitched and flailed about on the ground, convulsing. Citizens, still very much alive, were ranting and raving as they attacked both the Necromorphs and each other with a myriad of weapons, and some with even their own bare hooves.

Only one slowly moving image from Rainbow Falls was produced. The Theron recognized it instantly as a variant of a Xenomorph Queen, almost fully matured. Daring Do could see the Queen from her position, and could not identify her, but she could easily tell what her victims were.

The Queen was in the crushed remains of a structure, and she had her head reared, her inner jaws punching through the skull of a Royal Guard she was grappling, who's glittering blade was falling limply from his teeth. Blood gushed everywhere. Another one, a courier, was hanging lifelessly from a spike in the alien's right wing. A third pony was dangling, unconscious, in one of the Queen's free arms.

Taking the image in, Daring could almost swear it must have been symbolic for something. Whatever that might be, the implications for Equestria were surely not positive. Her rage grew as The Theron continued to laugh. A faint yellow glow popped up all around her circulatory system.

"Xenomorphs are like kin. They are not those mindless husks, built only to infect." the commanding Sharqoui proclaimed. "They are cunning. Warlike. Majestic." He moved away from the Drone's station and proceeded back to his throne-like chair. Sitting now, he clasped his talons together in contemplation. "Perhaps they will be the source of the living weapon, we sought for centuries."

That was when Daring Do snorted out air, building up aggression in her mind. It made a loud enough sound to bring attention to herself.

At last, the Theron slowly turned his sneer and piercing eyes onto Daring Do for the first time. Her aggression and anger did not abate, but her blood still chilled when she looked him in the eyes, beady slits full of wild savagery. Daring felt like an idiot, having originally mistaken the Sharqoui's stares for curiosity. In reality, their stares conveyed a cruel, almost condescending delight in the suffering of what they deemed as "lesser" sapient creatures.

"Equine..." he hissed, addressing her. "I am aware you have taken some of the Precursor powder off our vessel for study."

Daring Do glowered at him as she stood up on all fours. "What's the matter, you mad we stole some more of your precious 'weapons'?"

"Nooo, pleased. You have served section three of our experiment well, equine. However, your task remains incomplete for three, as well as section four."

Immediately, she knew what the alien meant. "We're not moving the rest of the powder off your ship and onto our native soil. I don't know what in Tartarus that stuff is for, or what it does, but if it's causing the carnage in Canterlot, you can kiss my uncooperative–"

"You have no choice." The Theron hissed with an ever higher pitch, rising from his seat. He sounded like wind, whipping through a desert.

"What's going on?" A pony suddenly asked. All the other archaeologists were now either alert, or beginning to wake up. Like Daring, their blood vessels and arteries were beginning to subtly glow. "Daring Do, did these extraterrestrials capture us?" The pony who asked the question tensed up, sensing Daring Do's body language to be a sign to prepare for a fight. "Those barbarians..."

All Drones noticed the rising aggression in the bridge. Two of them rose to subdue the pegasus before she could try anything. The second one closed in, just as the Imulsion inside Daring Do's arteries flared to life. She let out a bloodcurdling roar, then spun in a wide arc. Her hind legs met the chest of the advancing Drone. The Sharqoui let out a gurgling groan as he went flying backwards into a console, smashing it to pieces. The Drone was dead, every bone in its body having been completely shattered by Daring's impact.

For a few seconds, the Sharqoui stared around in dismay, unsure of what was happening and confused. The Equestrians seized the advantage. "Overrun the crew, take their weapons!" Daring shouted, flaring her wings. At once, the two species began springing at each other in confusing, jumbled melee. Two more Drones were smashed to death in a similar manner as the first, and the third was about to be killed by his own shock baton a unicorn was levitating, before a loud burst of energy tore through the room.

The unicorn screamed as his body disintegrated into an ash pile. Daring and everyone else froze, then looked up. It was the Theron. He held an energy pistol of some design in his talons, its barrel still burning white hot.

"There is beauty in struggle." The Theron declared. "Strife breeds the mightiest of a species, rooting out their weakness. You, Daring Do, are you the mightiest of your race?" The Theron stowed his sidearm away at his hip, then waited patiently for her response. His poor pronunciation of her name with his shrill, raspy voice would have been comical, under different circumstances.

"Just what nonsense are you getting at now?" Daring Do demanded. Drones had drawn their own pistols, and few were aiming bulky rifles with wicked bayonets affixed to them.

"What the Kantus revealed to you. Imulsion. Section four." Daring noticed a jagged sword on the other side of the Theron's belt that she hadn't seen before. Without warning, the Sharqoui drew the blade. It's metal ringed in the air, then made contact with the softer hide of his palm. It slid across, carving a small gash from which a lambent yellow ichor flowed out freely.

Then, in the span of a heartbeat, the Theron seized Daring's foreleg, and slashed a similar cut. The pegasi treasure hunter's pulse quickened as she let out a yelp. Daring Do waited for the crimson rush that would surely pour out. To her amazement, it was shown instead to be like the alien's, yellow and bio-luminescent like that of a deep sea creature. The wound soon closed itself, further suspending her disbelief. Clearly, the Imulsion had not been merely her imagination. "What's happening? What does this mean, alien?"

"We are one in the same now, Equestrian Daring Do. You will fulfill sections three and four, and disperse the rest of the powder around this world. Your land will bear witness to the rise of what Sapiens and other inferiors would know only as, the 'Flood'. Our Kantus is already seeing to the rest." The Theron pointed to the armed Drones. "Get them to the cargo hold, ensure every canister is accounted for. Our entire payload must be deployed to the ground, along with the Primordial, before we can rejoin the Armada!"

"Yes leader!"

As the Sharqoui marched their prisoners out of the bridge deck, the Theron kept Daring Do around for one final moment. He gave his sword and its sheath to her. She blinked at it, uncomprehending. "What in the world are you doing?"

"Consider this blade, a token of my admiration for your fierce tenacity."

"What's to stop me from burying it in your gut right now, you towering reptilian freak?"

He chortled, and merely continued as he pointed to his sidearm. "However futile, that tenacity may have been. If any of your species survives the Equis experiment, you will likely be visited by our Great Enemy, with time. If that time so dawns, then you will have your chance for vengeance, equine."

The Drones started to lead Daring Do away to join the others. As they did so, the Theron said his final words. "You, all of you who blundered into here this day, you are section four, our control variable. The Imulsion will render you immune to all other sections of the experiment. An experiment, that will show our true might as a master species, capable of harnessing the multiverse's most deadliest species. Remember this, equine. Through our evolution, we have become as timeless and powerful as any of the beings you may fear and worship."

Daring laughed bitterly as she exited the bridge. "Then you must not know of the magic the inhabitants of this world wield, and what types of entities that magical energy attracts. It's something your arrogant alien ass will never be able grasp!" The Drones marching her out chuckled, misinterpreting her words as some kind of taunt, given their own complete indifference to both the Equinoid alien and her people's languages.

Engrossed as he was with the data from his leader GARM, the Theron had not heard any portion of her warning.

After several minutes, everyone was lead off the crashed ship, with the remaining powder cylinders in hoof. Daring Do rushed back to her command tent, where many of the other heads of the xenoarchaeological project had been sitting paranoid for quite some time.

"Where in Celestia's name were all of you? We've heard nothing from the outside world, I think something's jamming our wireless!" One of the scientists stated frantically.

Another was standing near the entrance flap, pointing out at the bright afternoon sky above. "The Moon is still out of whack, and I think I see things moving up there. Some kind of unnatural lights, a whole swarm of em'!"

Others bombarded her similar questions or observations. Daring Do, however, remained quiet as she stared at some of the powder cylinders. Suddenly, a massive shaking of the earth around them silenced everyone. The tent rattled, and great cloud of dust kicked up in the camp outside. They all rushed out to see what was happening. It was the Sharqoui spacecraft.

The ship was rising from its crash site, levitating in the air and orienting itself at new altitudes. Finally, with a massive firing of its thrusters, the cylindrical starship sped off into the atmosphere, disappearing behind a large blanket of black clouds one of the volcanic vents in the distance had belched forth a few hours ago. The sound barrier ruptured in the vessel's backwash.

With it gone, Daring got to work explaining everything she now knew, to the entire camp. Just the ship taking off without warning, and her slightly glowing body alone, were ample proof for them all. After that, other things had to be done, urgently.

Before the entire ship had vanished, a smaller light had appeared from its hull, likely some kind of pod carrying cargo. Tracing its trajectory back in her command tent, and cross referencing it with her map of the Kingdom, Daring estimated that the object would make impact somewhere in the Whitetail Woods, the great forest bordering Ponyville's western extremes.

Whatever it was, she only knew that it had something to do with what the Sharqoui had called section three, of their genocidal experiment. Something involving a race, or entity, known only as the Flood. Whatever their origins, the canisters not only contained a desiccated alien powder, but also the secrets behind the mysterious and potentially deadly Flood, and perhaps what was happening in Canterlot.

"Miss Do, the radios are working again. I'm hearing nothing from Canterlot or Princess Celestia, but Cloudsdale and Stalliongrad are urgently requesting a status report from us; the army is on high alert, possibly over the aliens. They won't confirm that, though." A pony wearing a comm headset explained, hesitating. "What should we tell them?"

Daring had to regain contact with Twilight Sparkle as soon as possible, they both had to warn the entire planet, before time ran out. She gave a quick glance at the alien's sword she had brought back, which was laying on the tabletop next to her. Seeing it caused Daring's many veins to glow subtly with Imulsion under her fur, which startled a few of the ponies nearest her.

Parting her lips to speak, she gave her order firmly, her voice slightly different from normal. "Tell them to prepare, and to try and get Twilight Sparkle on the horn ASAP. The 'Flood', whatever it may be, will soon be upon us all." Daring then looked at the alien cylinders nearby.

"Screw the Flood's secrets. Toss every one of these damn things into the magma."