Luna looked up at the rain clouds gathered in the sky over Ponyville. Apparently the pegasi had been putting off this storm for some time so that the nightmare night festival could be set up, and had not expected her to show up. In fact, she doubted that they even knew she would be coming again this year. Luna was hoping to get to Sugarcube Corner before the rain started, as that was where she had heard her two recently returned from stone shadowbolts had gone. As she reached the square that Sugarcube Corner was located in Rainbow Dash zipped down through the cloud cover and landed next to her, “Hey princess!” She shouted, with quite a bit more energy than Luna had. “Where are you headed to? I thought you wwent back to Canterlot!”

“I would be, but the wings of bat-ponies stick to water, and I doubt leaving them here would be a good idea.” Princess Luna replied, still a bit tired from last nights festivities.

“Ha!” Rainbow scoffed “If your guards were like me you could have been to Canterlot and back like twenty times by now!”

“Maybe so,” Princess Luna replied “But I doubt you would match them in anything but in your speed,” as she said this the pair entered Sugarcube corner where two giant bat ponies sat at a table. Both were wearing giant pieces of plate-mail armor, certain pieces of which seemed to shimmer blueish purple on their own. Each also had two wingblades that looked like they could slice anypony clean through in seconds. The pair was also equipped with two giant claw gauntlets with retractable blades on the wrist section, the claws themselves mimicked griffins or dragons hands where their hooves were. This was not the most surprising part of the scene because even as imposing and threatening the guards looked, Pinkie Pie was still sitting there, with multiple sweets talking the pairs ears off. As Luna and Rainbow Dash walked up they could hear Pinkie continuing on with what seemed like an endless stream of nonsense,

“...andthenlunawasalllikeRAWRandwewerealllikeAHHHandshewasalllikeohnotheydontlikemeandthenTwilightwalkedupandwasalllikeohnoesnobodylikeslunaMAGICandthenBAMeverbodylovedherandwehadagreatnightandtherewascandyandpranksandcoolcostumesand-”

“Hey, uh, Pinkie?” Rainbow Dash said, “What are you doing?”

“Sorry Dash!, I was just telling the princesses friends what happened last night after they left!” Pinkie explained and smiled. She was about to continue when Luna cut her off,

“Sargent Frostwing, report!” she commanded. The larger of the pair looked up at her slowly and with a pained expression in his face,

“Ma’am,” he paused, “Hangovers suck,” at this his compatriot closed his eyes and slowly rested his head on the table, wincing at the noise the armor made as he shifted his body.

“At least we made the first night back a memorable one,” he said.

“Like I was saying early princess,” Rainbow glanced over at the two shadowbolts, “I think that I or some other pegasus would be way better than these two,” Rainbow Dash boasted, puffing her chest out a bit and completely ignoring the fact that the two hungover bat ponies could hear her.

“I highly you doubt you could win against either one of them,” Luna replied, “Seargent Frostwing and lieutenant Hawk protected me before Nightmare Moon, and while they did not help me during my rebellion they requested to be turned to stone to await my return when I was banished. With this being their first night officially off-duty it would be odd of them to have not enjoyed the night.”

“So that makes them old, useless in the rain, and slow now?” Rainbow Dash asked, oblivious to Hawk, being the less hungover of the pair, approaching her from behind and planning on at least getting Rainbow Dash to shut up. “Besides,” Rainbow continued, “I’d bet that bat ponies are awful for fun stuff, like pranks!” as soon as she finished her sentence she noticed the smirk on Luna's face and looked back to see one of Pinkies freshly made cakes flying at her from across the room at top speed. The cake hit her with an audible splat! and she took a second to recover from the speed of the cake before cleaning her face off and noticing Hawk across the room nearly dying from laughter at her embarrassed expression, she then realized that Pinkie Pie was also laughing, saying,

“So much for not being able to do fun things!” she then bounced up to Rainbow Dash, “We should throw a giant party for them! I'm sure they could use one after being locked up for like forever!!”

“As long as there’s no more alcohol,” Frostwing moaned from his table, while pinkie pie was explaining to Frostwing and Hawk how parties had changed over the years Princess Luna pulled Rainbow Dash to the side and said, “Do not insult my guards again, while they may take your insults and antics in good fun I do not. Regardless of their own behavior you should remember your place when speaking of other ponies.” at that she then smiled and continued “another bit of advice that you would be best to follow, flying cakes are usually best avoided,” at this Luna chuckled to herself, while she did not like taking authority around ponies she considered her friends, she was most definitely not a fan of Rainbow's pride. Rainbow sat there awkwardly, realizing that she had just been hit with a cake AND told off by a princess in under two minutes, she then stood up and, trying to forget the incident joined Pinkie Pie in her conversation.

While all of this was going on Twilight Sparkle was frantically running around her library, gathering notes and equations from the night before. While she had enjoyed the Nightmare Night celebration she had retired early due to an entirely new constellation in the sky. She had not been able to find princess Luna and as such had ended up studying it all night, until the pegasi had blocked her view with their storm, after that had happened she had decided based on her notes that the new constellation was in fact not a constellation, but a cluster of meteors or asteroids that had been caught in the gravitational pull of the planet.

“Spike! Where are my waterproof saddlebags! I can't let all of this paper get wet!" She yelled across the library.

"Over here Twilight!" Spike shouted, rounding a corner and almost bumping right into her.

"Thanks Spike," Twilight said. "I have to get these notes to Princess Luna," she then turned and looked at the giant mess of papers and realized that none of them were even remotely organized.

"Oh no!" Twilight said, "which notes should I take her!?"

"Just take all of them Twilight," Spike said, "there's no time to sit here and organize them all!" At that he grabbed them all up in his arms and started stuffing them into Twilight's bags, as soon as he was done she said,

"Look after the Library while I'm gone, hopefully Princess Luna will be able to stop the meteors," at that she burst out the door towards Ponyville's small inn that Luna had stayed at last night.

A few minutes after Pinkie Pie brought up the idea of a party to Hawk and Frostwing a soaking wet red pegasus mare with a green mane busted into the room and walked up to Rainbow Dash and spoke, “The storm is dying down and we could use your help clearing the rest of it up, there are a lot of extra clouds from the two storms we missed during preparation for Nightmare Night and the weather team may have trouble getting rid of them all in time,” as soon as Rainbow was about to reply Twilight ran in and saw Luna,

"Princess Luna! Equestria is in danger!" Shouts Twilight as she bursts in, after she stopped to catch her breath from running she continued, "there are several meteors headed towards Equestria, at first I thought it was a new constellation, but when I looked closer through my telescope and did some math, I realized I was wrong! I got here as soon as I was sure of it, I even brought my notes in case you needed their help to stop the meteors!"

"Twilight, one does not simply stop a meteor," said Luna, "the only thing I can do is attempt to alter the course of one or two of them away from populated areas, after that the most we could do is try to get ponies out of harms way,"

"But you raise the moon every day!"Twilight protested.

"Twilight, the moon is different" Luna explained "I have direct control over it, but that doesn't mean that I have power over everything in space,”

"Guys stop debating!" Pinkie shouted, "what we need to do is start panicking!" At that she ran out the door screaming crazy gibberish about meteors to anypony she saw as they were coming out of their houses after the rain.

"Pinkie is great at getting news around," Rainbow Dash said, "but I doubt she'll get to everypony,"

"Our weather team is still in the air!" The other Pegasus said. At that Rainbow Dash's eyes widened and she bolted out the door, nearly blowing it off its hinges, the red pegasus in tow.

"We'll stick with Luna and keep ponies away from her while she tries to slow some of the meteors down," Frostwing said, quickly taking control of himself and looking at Hawk, hoping the news would be just as sobering for his compatriot.

"I'll get spike to send a letter to Celestia and get the rest of the girls in case we need their help!" Twilight said. At that she ran off, Luna and the two shadowbolts running off through town towards the spot that Twilight had predicted the meteors would fall.

Drake woke up to a klaxon ringing through his ship and the hull shuddering. He disconnected his suit from the ship. Unlike most capsuleers Drake's suit plugged into the ship and acted as his capsule in flight. He walked over to the console on the bridge of his ship and removed his helmet and set it on an empty spot on the giant console. He was a middle-aged capsuleer with somewhat grown out black hair and a goatee. He was lucky that the bridge was relatively untouched by the fire and many hull breaches in the right side hull of his ship. He turned to a central looking monitor on the console and barked,

"Aura! Ship status and weapons check!"

***Status report for AI construct 'AURA'***
- AI OFFLINE, BACKING UP TO BASIC SHIP COMPUTER

Drake promptly retyped his request to the machine and waited for its response, not enjoying the extra time that the computer was taking, if Aura had been online things would have been much simpler.

***Status report for ship ''Dragonstar***
- LOCATION, UNKNOWN
- OUT OF RANGE OF CLONE

REANIMATION UNIT,

EXTREME CAUTION IS

ADVISED
- ENGINES, OFFLINE
- VARIOUS HULL BREACHES

IN RIGHT-SIDE DECKS
- SHIELD GENERATOR OFFLINE
- DROP BAY MODULE - OFFLINE

"Well shit," Drake muttered, he sat there for a second or two and though over his options and then typed

extra information on SGU

***SHIELD GENERATOR***
MANUAL REBOOT REQUIRED
MODULE CHAMBER HULL IS
COMPROMISED AND VENTING
INTO SPACE, SELF SERVICING
THE MODULE IS UNADVISED

Drake sat for a moment and considered his options, without a place to equip his armor repair module his ships main defense was quite literally, trash. When the computer blipped out the words

***20 Minutes to impact***

"WHAT!?!?"Drake shouted, and checked a monitor to the side of the main one. On it was a displayed crash course into a planet, one that slowly spun into view as his ship continued to slowly spin through space. Through the narrow opening Drake could see mountains, clouds, rivers and very little ocean. Near the ship were several parts of the Iteron, which had neatly snapped at its various compartmentalized sections, a few of them smashed open, spewing precious cargo, the loot from Drake's past few months of work. Looking back at the monitors he continued typing

information on planetary conditions

***DISPLAYING PLANETARY CONDITIONS***
ATMOSPHERE - BREATHABLE
HABITATION - UNKNOWN, HOWEVER THERE
ARE SEVERAL DETECTED SPECIES ON THE
SURFACE.
SUGGESTION - ATMOSPHERE CONTAINS
OXYGEN AND WILL REACT HAZARDOUSLY
WITH CERTAIN COMPONENTS OF THE
HULL, SHIELDS ARE A REQUIREMENT FOR
SURVIVAL

"Well I guess I know where I'm headed," Drake said to himself as he donned his helmet and headed for the equipment deck.

Cinder 'sat' in her capsule, not wanting to exit it as the small stealth bomber had a very small cockpit, most of which was taken up by a small supply chest, her capsule, and the one small console for the door and the one main pilots console, she doubted she could sit comfortably anywhere in the ship even if she wanted to. Besides, she could control everything in the ship from her capsule with ease.

“With current velocity and angles the remaining fleet ships will impact with the planet below us in 20 minutes,” said Aura, the basic AI included in all capsuleer ships, “All systems except for our cloaking module and nanite repair paste dispensers are working at 100% and our current system is unknown. I cannot detect any clone reanimation units within range, please proceed with extreme caution,” as Aura said this Cinder received data from the ships sensors, the planet below had a temperate climate, and was suitable for capsuleers to breathe. She then performed a scan for her fleet members. A few moments later Aura reported, “The Iteron belonging to capsuleer 'Flint' appears to be in exactly two hundred and thirty seven pieces, six of which are quite large and may still hold something of value, there is a thirty percent chance that crew member 'Jack' lived and a two percent chance that any of the ships pilots body remains. The AI unit on fleet ship 'Dragonstar' is not responding, would you like me to hail its captain over a com system?”

“Yes,” Cinder replied considering the options she had if she really was the only one who had survived, a few seconds later the AI responded, having processed her request.

“Attempting to hail capsuleer 'Drake',” Aura replied in her mechanical voice. A few moments later Drake's voice was transmitted to Cinder's auditory cortex by her capsule.

“I really hope you have something useful to say, because I’m kind of busy right now,” Drake said, there was an audible mechanical noise in the background which Cinder realized would have to be quite loud to get through his helmet.

“The matter you are busy with is irrelevant. Your ship is on a collision course with the planet below, if you do not change your heading you will die,” Cinder replied over the speaker, her voice almost as monotone as her AI's.

“I appreciate the concern,” Drake replied with a chuckle, quite used to the black and white emotionless mentality that she used when in danger or a combat situation, “but I am aware of the situation, my engines are dead and my shield generator is down, I am currently en route to the shield generation unit to bring the shield back online. A lot of the hull down here was compromised by the explosion and a lot of the atmosphere has been vented. This armor isn’t the best thing to try to make slow movements in, I’ve almost flown out in to space twice now, and this debris isn’t helping,”

“You should be attempting to restore power to your engines, not your shields,” Cinder replied, coldy calculating the situation, becoming more mechanical as she did during situations like this, “I doubt your shields will save your ship from the impact with the planet,”

“The amount of repairs required to the engines is too much to consider with my limited time, all I have to do to get the shields back up is replace a few cables and fix some plating,” Drake explained, “Besides, half my ships armor is gone and half of the metals in my hull is explosive when in contact with oxygen, without the armor or shields to keep them away from that I doubt I would live long even if I could land,”

“Noted, what do you propose we do about Jack and Teyreon?” Cinder asked,

“I doubt they lived,” Said Drake, and if they did I doubt they'll survive an impact with the planet,” there was a hint of sadness in his voice, but they both knew that the two would wake up in fresh clones later. A second later he continued on, “at this point we should attempt to save ourselves, what is your ships status?”

“My ship is functioning at full capacity not accounting for the cloaking device and nanopaste application modules,” Cinder replied “I was out of range of all the explosions except for the last one.” Drake did not reply, but when she focused her cameras on his ship she saw a blue shimmering outline begin to grow around it, slowly getting brighter. Knowing that Drake's suit could not broadcast through shields she waited for him to re-attach his armors neural interface units to the ships bridge. A few moments later his voice came back over the coms,

“My shields are back up, attempt to land your Manticore as close as possible to the crash site of my ship, I’m going to power everything unneeded off and send power to shields and the few maneuvering thrusters on the bottom and sides of my ship to attempt to save myself and maybe some parts of the ship, Drake out,”

“Copy,” was the only thing Cinder said.

With that said his voice was gone and she could see the shields flash brightly as they received extra power as the lights along the side of his ship went out and the hybrid guns folded themselves up, the only remaining light coming from the running lights on the nose, tail, and bridge of his ship. All she had left to do was sit, and wait for her ship to reach the atmosphere as she followed the flung cloud of wreckage and ship parts on its path towards the planet.

Applejack, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Spike all sat in a semicircle behind princess Luna, Her shadowbolts standing on either side of her. Fluttershy hid behind Rainbow Dash, and kept taking furtive glances at the two large bat-ponies. The group had only recently arrived, as Rainbow Dash had gathered up her whole weather team and cleared the sky by herself, which had taken some time. The group tried its best to remain quiet so that Princess Luna could more easily focus her magic on the meteors. The plan was to simply move them away from Ponyville and the surrounding populated area, there was nothing else that could be done due to the asteroids size, Luna had said that if they had been any bigger that even if she had moved them away horrible things would have happened. After they had been sitting for about two minutes Applejack spoke up,

"Ah don't get it," she said in her southern drawl, "Twilights always lookin' up at the sky, how come she only noticed 'em last night?"

"Well she was really busy with her costume," Spike said, not taking his eyes off the sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the giant rocks that Twilight had predicted would fall near Ponyville, and in several other places. "Its not like she just sits there and-" Spike was cut off by a dull *boom* as the supposed meteors broke through the atmosphere. As soon as this happened Luna stood up, and looked towards the meteors, her guards taking a few steps back in what could be interpreted as either respect, or fear. A few seconds later the wind picked up around Luna, even her astral mane being moved slightly by the conjured winds. She closed her eyes and slowly started to rise up above the ground. Suddenly her eyes shot open, glowing a brilliant white and magic flew from the tips of her outstretched wings. She turned her head up towards the falling objects, her face expressionless and her whole body enveloped in blue. The power she was commanding was immense, tapping off of reserves of magical energy saved for millennium. Suddenly, one of the meteors changed its direction of travel, slowing and heading for the Everfree forest as it started to crumble from magic and atmospheric resistance, slightly shimmering in Luna's magic. If meteors were living things, Twilight sparkle pitied them.

Drake's eyes were essentially, blind. The only things he could see out of his half opened eyes was the slit of a window on the bridge which was located on left side of the ship. His mind however could see many things, a topographical map of the land below, shields, speed, etc. He had found a relatively deep canyon, he figured that he could use the shields on the Proteus to scrape down the sides of the canyon and slow his fall, instead of just hitting the ground head-on and breaking the shields and the ship in half. So far the descent was going well, or at least as well as a crash landing could go. He had one thousand two hundred and twenty kilometers between him and the planet surface, and his ship was going almost thirteen and a half kilometers a second, terrifying speeds even for a capsuleer. He sat there, using almost more than his brain had to handle the ship and avoid the larger chunks of broken hauler and battleship, attempting to use winds and turbulence to slow him down a little, Cinder was still far behind him according to his scanners, taking the descent slowly, but still faster than normal speeds were for her smaller ship. Suddenly his ship started being pushed east, and his scanners were informing him that his shield was experiencing an odd form of radiation, but because so many of the scanners that had been working were shut off he could not detect any more than that. He made some minor course corrections and ignored the strange readings. Hopefully there would be time to find what it was later. Hopefully.

Luna had moved on to the fourth meteor she had detected with her magic and started the same basic set of spells that she had performed on three others. However, this meteor was different, when she attempted to push it away it almost immediately returned to where it had been, maintaining its course no matter how far or how hard she pushed it, after repeating this pattern a few times to see if it may have been the wind she decided to just focus her magic on the other meteors and bits of rock. By the time she was done she had depleted many of her huge magic reserves. Moving objects as large as they had been would have been impossible for any normal pony and she had very little magic left to use before she began to harm herself. She paused for a second and tried to decide the best she could do with the little magic she had left. She was about to start her spells up again when both of the shadowbolts shifted nervously and she noticed that a somewhat large stray bit of meteor had not been moved, and was headed straight for the group. Luna immediately began attempting to push the stray bit of rock away, but it was going too fast for her to do anything with her limited magic. Realizing what was going on both shadowbolts armor began to glow a dull blue as magic was visibly drawn from the crystals embedded in certain parts of the armor. Both shadowbolts then shot off, blue cones of light begining to form around them almost like when Rainbow Dash would perform a Sonic Rainboom. Noticing this Luna began to feed magic to the shadowbolt armor, and continued focusing just enough magic on the meteor to let the shadowbolts reach their top speed before reaching it, hoping that the last two sets of her special units armor would work, and that Frostwing and Hawk would be okay. Suddenly the familiar noise of the sound barrier being broken was heard, and a few seconds later the asteroid exploded as the two shadowbolts punched through it, shattering the left half of the oddly shaped rock, but only doing minor damage to the other. As the asteroid grew nearer the shadowbolts landed and the group saw the strange blue-green sheen that the smaller falling object had to it. As they watched the whole thing split into several pieces and a small green object burst out and shot off towards Ponyville, away from where the asteroids were supposed to impact in the open plains and fields. As this happened the realization that these "meteors" could be something completely different. Just then the larger meteors began to impact the ground in the distance, letting off multiple large explosions as the ground began to shake. Everypony took cover at this, and hoped that Luna had done enough, and that nopony else got hurt.

Author's Note

No turning back now, pre-readers still needed.

ReWrite: Combined chapters here as they were much to short for my liking after the rewrite, i know that this part of the rewrite is minor but the next chapter should have a considerable amount of new content and story, hopefully there will be no more rewrites after this.