Drake's Proteus was precariously balanced near the bottom of Ghastly Gorge, his shields at two percent and barely holding the ship a few meters off of three points in the canyons walls. If the shields failed his ship would most likely plummet farther into the canyon and would undoubtedly end up in pieces far from salvageable. A few moments later Drake was revived by what was left of the once extensive chemical stockpile in his suits medical system. Upon opening his eyes he found that the crash had thrown him and his suit backwards in the elevator blast door, severing several connection units and support arms to the main control matrix of the ship meaning that any flying it did in the future would have to be manual. He tried to stand up but found himself unable to move more than his arm due to the heavily damaged control suit, it appeared to have taken most of the damage but parts of it were now uselessly warped, stuck in the position he had locked them in. Seeing this he pressed the release button on the suit, causing the air from the suit to vent out and the magnetic clamps to shut off. He stood up, the pieces of broken armor falling off around him, and took a look at the real damage to the ship out of the bridge window. The left side of the ship appeared to have been damaged most during the crash and appeared to be missing the bottom two decks, the right had seen better days and was full of holes were sections of hull had given way to fires that were dying down due to lack of air inside the shield. The bridge was in the middle of the ship and had no windows in the back so he had no idea what damage the engines had received. He limped over to the steel locker in the side of the bridge where he kept his medical supplies for his leg. Upon opening the locker a mix of several liquids spilled out onto the floor, the medicine had all broken and mixed into a thick murky mixture, which the nanite bandages were soaking in effectively ruined. "Well shit," Drake muttered to himself, realizing that this meant his leg would take even longer to heal. As he limped back over to the control panel to see if he could do anything about the lack of power he noticed that the door out into the hallway had been opened, and the faint sound of one of the ships many lift systems working. As he stepped out into the hall he saw that all of the doors were closed except one, this repeated down each hall until he got to one of the maintenance lifts which had remained closed. As Drake walked up to the lift the doors shuddered open to reveal his personalized set of Medium Combat Armor, fully loaded into a small fitting module along with the weapons he had bought on his last trip to known space. Examining the module he saw that it had been hastily patched into the elevator system by a maintenance drone, who had probably left for a storage bay as soon as its work was done. Realizing what his AI had done in the final minutes of their descent he made a mental note to thank her if the ships computer was ever started back up. As Drake stepped into the fitting machine he realized that the Dragonstar had probably scraped along the sides of the gorge for quite a ways down, and that he would most likely have to climb, an option that was not available to him with the condition of his leg. As he pondered this situation the armors systems booted up and a warning message flashed on the loading HUD, the same message his ship had given him when they entered this system. 'all clone reanimation units out of range, extreme caution is advised' "Glad to see nothings changed then," Drake said, Grabbing his customized Rail Rifle along with a knife, pistol, and magazines for both guns. At this the lift began to move up, and Drake counted three decks before the doors opened again and he saw the familiar sight of an open door. After a bit of walking and some settings changes to provide more power to his injured leg Drake came to the ships drone bay. The outer doors were sealed, and there was no other way to continue. As he pondered this Drake noticed a low humming noise the background, turning around he saw that two Hobgoblin II's had been prepped for a combat launch, but were now sitting, connected to their own personal generators. As he approached one a panel in its side slid open, revealing a miasma of archaic writing and Combat AI feedback on the screen, As this happened his suit gave him a notification that his new software was now fully loaded into the armor. Drake did not remember adding anything to the coding inside his armor, but as he walked over to a nearby crate to sit down he noticed that the drones turned to him, and followed a few feet, their precision engines now modified for in-atmosphere engagements, Aura must have changed their control systems to follow his armor. While this shortened their range by 25 kilometers it did make sure that they were still useful, especially if he ran into anything slightly bigger than himself. At that he gave the mental command for the drones to open fire on the door, effectively tearing a giant hole in the weakened structure for him to exit the ship through. He left the ship, the two drones following, and quickly spotted a place where the ship and the ground were mostly level. Checking to see if his coms had switched over to his other armor yet he began the long walk along the hull of the ship.

Rainbow Dash stared out of the window of Sugarcube Corner, watching a large plume of smoke rise from the the grasslands out away from Ponyville, in the same direction as Ghastly Gorge. She sat there in silence, deep in thought about the green object, and not being allowed to chase it by Princess Luna and her Shadowbolts. She would've given anything to chase after something from outside of Equestria, but so far she had no excuse for leaving, and Twilight was making sure she stayed inside like Luna had said. Suddenly there were several blue flashes in the smoke, meaning that something had happened on the ground. Suddenly Rainbow had an idea, and a reason to go find out what was going on. She turned to Twilight and slyly said,

"Hey Twi, shouldn't somebody check on those fires?"

"Well we may need to-" Twilight began, but was cut off.

"I volunteer!" Rainbow shouted, taking off out the door like a bolt of lightning, shooting out the door and up into the sky, ignoring the shouting coming at her from Twilight, who was probably telling her to come back. As she sped along, enjoying being outside with the wind again, she looked for Luna and the thing they had been following, sure that it had been near the smoke and caused the weird flashes. As she shot through the air she noticed an odd figure who was sprinting along the edge of the forest.As Rainbow watched she decided to see who was running through the Everfree and see if they needed help. As she got closer the pony realized that it was being followed and quickly darted into the forest away from her.

"Hey you!" She called, "Wait up!" at this she sped up and began to chase the pony faster. The chase continued on for a good two minutes before Rainbow got close enough to realized that she wasn't chasing a pony. The 'thing' appeared to be made of silver or some type of metal, and ran on two legs with enough speed to give her a run for her bits. Upon realizing that it was not a pony she decided to slow down, but being lost in her thoughts of what she should do had not noticed the figure stop when it ran into another like it. As she slammed to a stop she realized that she was now right above them, the silver one staring up at her, while the other one sat on a fallen tree. His armor was blue and grey, and somehow made her think of a black knight she had seen on the cover of one of Twilight's books. As she hovered there, staring, she failed to notice a low humming from behind her. Suddenly the creatures stopped talking and the grey one stood up and made an odd hand motion towards her. As soon as he did that she heard something behind her and turned just in time to see an odd object flying right at her before it slammed into her, knocking her to the ground, unconscious.

Drake stared down at the odd creature they had caught, it was similar to creatures that apparently lived on Matar called 'horses' but he did not think they came in the odd colors this one was in. Jack claimed that the dogs here could talk, and there had been debate between the two on what to do about the horse. Jack claimed it had also yelled at him, but Drake was pretty sure he had never heard of them talking and had said with a laugh that Jack probably just hit his head. They had eventually reached the conclusion that if the thing was sentient they would attempt to communicate with it, but if it wasn't, then they would cook it, and enjoy a fairly large meal since neither had much in the way of food rations. The two had set up a camp not far from Drake's ship after meeting up, carrying the creature with them to an area that had clear ground, but was covered by a canopy of leaves from nearby trees overhead. Not knowing if anything had come looking for the creature. The only light in the camp came from their armor and the undersides of the two Drones who were constantly scanning the forest, going in a slow circular pattern along the edge of the trees, looking for any other living creatures that would attempt to make their owners day more problematic. Jack was cleaning his guns, and attempting to get blood off the outside of his armor from when he had killed the strange dogs earlier that day, and did not talk while he worked, leaving Drake with his thoughts and the tangled and ruined mess of com interference to work through as the area they were in seemed to naturally warp and distort any kind of signal near it. Suddenly the strange blue horse shot up, or at least attempted to before realizing it was tied down.

"C'mon what gives!" it shouted, Drake cursing at the prospect of not being able to cook it anymore, "Lemme out!" it continued yelling.

"If you want to keep your head you'll stop thrashing around and listen to me," Jack said as he got up, the blood still only half cleaned from his armor.

"What!" Rainbow cried, thrashing about some more, "You can't kill me! I never did anything to you!" at that Drake saw Jack's pistol light up, as the distinct noise of a gun being cocked was heard.

"I can do whatever i fucking please!" he shouted, and was about to continue before Drake spoke.

"Jack that's enough," he said, slowly standing up, favoring his other leg, "I hired you to kill sleepers for me not negotiate with, whatever this is." Rainbow was still quiet after Jacks outburst but Drake had the drones turn on their running lights, bright enough to light up the clearing, but not bright enough to be seen from anywhere outside. Suddenly, Dash spoke up.

"Creature? Who are you calling a creature? Your the one that walks on two legs!" Dash said.

"Yea that's great kid," Jack said, "But right now, there are two of us and one of you, that makes you the odd one,"

"Am i safe to assume that your a horse?" Drake asked, oblivious of how insulting the word was to ponies.

"I'm a pegasus," Dash said through grit teeth, "and if you ever call me that again i'll,-"

"You'll do what?" Jack asked in a dangerously low voice, suddenly behind the pegasus.

"Jack, your not going to hurt it or threaten it unless it attempts to do the same," Drake said in a now commanding tone.

"I'm pretty sure it just did," Jack said, twirling his knife.

"He insulted me!" Rainbow said, "Nobody calls Rainbow Dash a horse!" at that Drake and Jack both started laughing, Drake falling back onto his log and Jack simply falling on his side, "Hey!' Rainbow continued to yell "Whats so funny!" she got no response from the two capsuleers, as they were too busy laughing to respond.

"Okay that was funny, but really, whats your name," Drake said a few minutes later, after he and Jack had recovered.

"I was being serious," Rainbow said, slightly annoyed that they had been laughing at her name.

"I feel bad for you kid" Jack said, "What kind of person names their kid 'Rainbow'," he continued with a small chuckle.

"Yea that's great," Rainbow said, bored with the whole situation, "Do you think you could untie me now?"

"On one condition," Drake began, "I can untie everything but your wings,"

"and that condition is?" Rainbow asked, desperately wanting to scratch the itch that had began to develop on her nose.

" That you realize my two drones here can fly at 80 meters per second down here and that this time if you run, they will shoot you," Drake said as he pointed at the two drones providing light.

"Shoot me?" Rainbow asked sounding confused, "Like, with a bow?"

"No, with a gun," Drake said, "If you've never seen one then let me assure you that its not something you'll live through," Rainbow believed him, the tone in his voice said that he'd seen it all happen first hand, and that he was most definitely not joking.

"Um," Rainbow paused for a second, "Alright?" she didn't seem sure that any of this was a good idea. At that Jack stalked back over, working on the wire that tied her legs together, and the few that were attached to the ground.

"Just a show of good faith among friends," Jack said with a chuckle.

"Friends?" Rainbow said, obviously upset, "This is not friendship, you two are keeping me against my will," she continued oblivious to the fact that this was as close to friendship as Jack got, the only reason he listened to Drake was because he payed him, when that ended the rest of what he did was up to the amount of money he got out of it.

"Are there any more of you?" Drake asked.

"You do know we're in Equestria right?" Dash replied with an exasperated sigh.

"I have no idea what that is," Drake truthfully responded. Rainbow was surprised He had never heard of it.

"Look, i don't really feel like explaining where my friends are to somebody who tried to kill me!" Rainbow replied, upset that Drake simple expected her to talk.

"I never threatened anything, Jack might have, but I never said I was going to kill you," Drake said, trying to diffused the angry pony.

"You said you would shoot me if I ran!" Rainbow yelled at him, "And then you guaranteed that it would kill me!"

"I said that they would kill you," Drake said, "I don't plan on hurting you, at least not until you try to attack me or my corpmates,"

"You did say you were going to eat her," Jack commented from the other side of the clearing, continuing to sharpen his knife, negotiation bored him.

"What!" Rainbow Dash yelled, eyes going wide as she stared at Drake.

"We didn't know if you were actually sentient," Drake explained "and i may have kinda brought up the topic of food. It's just natural, its kinda one of the few things I actually eat when I'm unplugged,"

"But that doesn't mean you can just eat me!" Rainbow protested.

"I didn't," Drake said, "We waited for you to wake up,"

"You could've just gone and bought some apples from town or something!" Rainbow replied. The noise from Jack's knife suddenly stopped.

"You know?" Drake began, "I think i might just do that,"

"You'll scare off everypony!" Dash said.

"Well i need somebody to answer my questions," Drake responded, "and so far you've been far from useful,"

"Please don't hurt my friends," Rainbow asked in a quiet voice.

"Relax Rainbow," Drake said "Your still not getting it, none of us want to hurt you, I just want answers."

"Besides," Jack said as he put away his knife, "I doubt they'd want to get in my way,"

"Jack you are to refrain from threatening, killing, or otherwise injuring ponies, they were here first and i doubt that making enemies with the only known living alien race right away is a good idea," Drake said. Rainbow Dash didn't trust Jack, and she wasn't too keen on Drake either but she figured that even if things went wrong Princess Luna and Princess Celestia would be able to stop them, besides, what other pegasus had bragging rights for being the first pony to talk to aliens?

Luna, Hawk, and Frostwing were all going as fast as they could after the green egg-like object, hoping to stop it and question it or whatever it was being controlled by. They were close enough that it was obvious that it was not a meteor and was most definitely not being carried by magic. Luna didn't want to fire magic at it for fear of causing harm to it or whatever was inside as the object itself had not attacked anypony or done any real damage. The problem with the chase is that the thing seemed to go just as fast as Luna and the Shadowbolts did at top speed, and did not show any sign of stopping, it had originally been performing evasive maneuvers but as soon as they had been able to see it clearly it had stopped and gone in a straight line away from Ponyville and Canterlot. Inside the pod a hysterical Flint was sharing a good laugh with Cinder. The mood had gone from happy at finding each other alive, to distressed when flint was chased by three unknown signatures, and then to hysteria when they had seen that he was being chased by horses. Flying horses. They both knew what they were, Flint being a Minmatar knew them from culture, and Cinder being an Ammar knew that nobles and richer families owned them to ride and for show. The problem however was that Cinder had overshot Flint's Pod during their laughing fit, and they were now faced with the problem that flint could not slow down or he would be caught, and he could not turn or they would gain on him to the point where he injured them with the expelled radiation from the pod's engine, which they both agreed would be a generally bad idea considering this was the first living Alien race to be encountered by Humans or Capsuleers. As of now Cinder was trying to catch up while remaining cloaked and the ponies were slowly starting to gain on Flint. Suddenly, an idea came to Cinder,

"Flint, land the pod," she said,

"Uh how about no?" Flint replied. "If you've got a plan lass then I think I would like to know it before ye go putting me life on the line,"

"Judging by the fact that they don't even have guns i doubt that they've seen anything close to a spaceship before, I'm just close enough to you to be able to get right behind you by the time that you've landed, I should be able to scare them off using the outer coms speakers. Then we can go find Drake," Cinder explained. There was a short silence while Flint thought,

"I don't like it," he said. But a few seconds later Cinder saw him begin to descend slowly towards the ground.

"Why is it stopping?" asked Frostwing, finding it strange that the thing that they had chased for the past two hours was suddenly giving up without a fight.

"Maybe it realized that we would catch it eventually anyways," Hawk said. "That, or we tired it out,"

"It doesn't matter," Luna said "It has stopped and that's all that matters," At she began to walk towards it, the two Shadowbolts following her. But there was something off and Frostwing felt, uneasy. They had chased the thing for two hours and it had simply given up, Frostwing couldn't help but feel nervous as they approached. As they got close Luna stopped and raised her hoof at the object, preparing to speak when she was forced to brace herself as a large blast of air hit the three, nearly knocking them over and a large object suddenly appeared above the green egg. It was a grey-blue color with orange paint on some parts and was overall very angular and looked very purposeful even if none of them could determine what it was for. Suddenly six square extrusions on the thing opened up, and three strange pointed objects emerged from within. it was then that a voice spoke.

"Step away from the capsule!" Cinder spoke through the Manticore's outer speaker. Both Hawk and Frostwing stepped back a bit at the large voice, and Luna simply stepped forward, used to the 'Royal Canterlot Voice'

"This 'capsule' as you have put it is to be arrested under Equestrian Law, you will leave and allow us to continue or you will also be taken for questioning!" Luna yelled back at the object.

"The Ammar Empire and its allies The Caldari have claim to this capsule, and refuse to acknowledge this 'Equestria' you speak of as a country or threat, you will step back or you will be fired upon! Cinder replied, her patience with the small horses fading. What she had said confused Luna, she could not recall an 'Amarr Empire' nor any state, country, or group referred to as the 'Caldari'. As she thought this over the pod began to start up and rise off the ground again, at this Luna quickly grabbed it in a tight hold with her magic, effectively decimating Flint's shields, the only thing that had been keeping magic out in the first place. Cinder also saw this and began to lock target on the blue alicorn, preparing one last warning.

"You will cease harming my comrade and let him go or you and your men will be reduced to ash." Cinder stated with a cold finality, the math all done to fire one torpedo and hit the ground in a way that would kill the ponies, but only harm Flint's pod slightly. Luna sensed that she had no more room to argue, and began preparing for a teleportation spell, but right as she was about to move Hawk, Frostwing, and the pod with her she heard a shouting.

"Princess! Wait!" Rainbow dash called out across the field, being followed closely by Drake and farther back was Jack, not to keen on going out in the open with torpedoes as a main line of defense. Rainbow looked back at Drake and said, "Thats Luna, she's the one i was telling you about, she's totally cool and- what is THAT!" she shouted upon seeing the Manticore which she had somehow missed upon seeing Luna.

"Thats one of our friends," Drake responded, He and Rainbow Dash had began idly talking when Drake had mentioned flying and it had built up a small amount of trust between them. He then noticed something terribly wrong, Flint's pod was on the ground and the warheads on Cinder's torpedoes were primed, which was never a good thing for anyone on the receiving end, which in this case appeared to be the Princess.

"Cinder! Stand down!" he shouted over coms, and began sprinting towards the group, hoping that nothing had gone too terribly wrong yet. Drake began sprinting towards the group, followed by a speeding Rainbow Dash and Jack, who had already had his gun out. 'There is no way this will go well,' he thought to himself.

Author's Note

I would just like to mention that sleeper drones use superheated plasma as ammo, this means that any injuries would be pretty bad and take a long time to heal on their own, so Drakes injury may be with him for a while. Also, Drake and Jack are Caldari and Gallente respectively and neither really know what a pony is which is kind of why they don't freak out when Rainbow Dash can talk. Also, Flint has a slight Scottish accent.