Welcome to Equestria, Please do not Wrangle the local Wildlife

A hoof gently knocked on the door of Twilight's castle, the door was opened by Spike who had a very nervous look on his face, "Y-yeah? What do you need?" He looked out to see a white pegasus with a pink mane and a white coat standing on the doorstep. Her cutie mark was of a sun that was giving a cheery smile.

"Hello Spike, may I come in?"

His eyes widened, he would recognize Princess Celestia's motherly voice anywhere. "OH! yeah, sure your highness." He opened the door further to let her in and she trotted inside. She was met with the sight of The Bearers all standing looking at an odd creature who was obviously the alien that had been in the letter that Twilight had sent her. Upon reading it she had immediately donned her magical disguise which she used for going out in public incognito, then set off for Ponyville at high speeds.

Once Spike shut the door she dropped her disguise and watched as all off the ponies present did a double take while the alien looked on in minor amusement.

"Oh my gosh Celestia if I had known you would come right away I would have had a better welcome planned!"

"We didn't know you would come as soon as we sent the letter."

"We have to throw a party!"

"How is Philomena doing?"

"How did you manage that disguise?"

"It is such an honor to see you again."

She chuckled inwardly and politely waved them off, "It's very good to see you girls but right now I am here to speak with our visitor." She turned her attention to Lonestar who had been patiently smoking his cigar. "So, a mercenary from another world has come to Equestria. May I ask what your intent in coming here was?" Her tone was calm but Lonestar could tell that she was extremely serious, he guessed that he was not the best person to be making first contact with an underdeveloped world. particularly one inhabited by ponies. Polite words and diplomacy were not his strong suit.

"It was just an accident ma'am, we don't even have this planet on our charts, I just want to find the rest of my team before somethin' bad happens. Two of 'em are geniuses and can probably build us a new ship to get outta your hair... er, mane."

Celestia looked puzzled, "Since you are already here, why are you in such a hurry to leave? I understand you are worried about your friends but why not relax and stay for a while? I am sure our two species could learn much from each other."

Lonestar was not convinced, "If you ponies have never been in contact with off-world life, we ain't the best people ya'll are gonna want as your introduction to space." As he spoke he voice raised until it was bordering on yelling, "Some of the team can behave themselves but most of 'em can barely fit into our society let alone yours. You don't even have guns for Chrissakes!"

Celestia just smiled gently, "Well then this would be the perfect time for them to learn how to act outside of war, we haven't had any large scale conflicts in over a thousand years, only small scuffles with neighboring species. Maybe you can find out you can live without having to fight all the time."

Lonestar was skeptical but it did make sense to him, several of the crew members, including him, could do with a little learning up on behavior that did not involve blowing up everything in sight for fun and profit. "Okay  we can discuss this later but the main issue we got here is that we have no idea where the rest of the team is."

Rainbow Dash spoke up, "Well we can't exactly just put up missing posters now can we? It would cause a panic! we should try to get together a few ponies who we can trust that can help us find the rest of them. Then, once we have them all we can make some kind of announcement officially and then we can find them places to fit in until they leave!"

The other ponies including the princesses seemed to like the idea but Lonestar just muttered to himself, "Like our lives weren't already like a Holo-show from the 2180s"

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The next day the new recruits were brought to the castle to be told what they would be doing. Pinkie Pie had brought her cousin Vinyl Scratch, her performances giving her an excuse to move throughout the land on a whim. Rainbow had surprisingly brought Derpy Doo, her reasoning being that if she accidentally let something slip no one would pay it any mind. Applejack had brought Big Mac, his apple cart would be able to provide a much more practical method of covert transport than a dragon costume. Finally Twilight had brought Zecora, her knowledge of the Everfree would be invaluable in case any of the crew had ended up in there. Rarity and Fluttershy had not brought anypony new, as Fluttershy would be enlisting the help of any animals they came across and Rarity was planning on using her own business to search for information.

They all met in the library and Twilight gave them the plan. "Okay everypony, as you have ben told by the ponies who brought you here, Equestria is the landing site of several escape pods of an alien craft. They are not here to harm us but are unaccustomed to our peaceful way of life. So it is going to be our job to try and find any news of strange goings-on in any part of Equestria or neighboring countries to see if we can find them all before they are discovered by the general populace and panic ensues."

Vinyl raised a hoof, "It would be helpful if we knew where we should start looking, if Celestia wants this all kept under the rug until we've found 'em all, how are we going to find info on them?"

Rarity answered her question, "I am sure we all will have our own sources of information but I for one will be able to listen to the gossip of my customers about any kind of strange events."

Vinyl nodded, "Alright makes sense, I guess the ponies at the clubs I play at might hear things.

"I can ask anypony if anything weird is happening on my deliveries!" Derpy proudly proclaimed.

Zecora then stepped forward with a grave expression, "I fear the forest has given me a warning, a rush of creatures this very morning. A creature lurks in the trees, snapping branches and burning leaves. Everywhere it brings death, roaring madly with every breath."

Everypony looked at her with a worried expression, except for Lonestar, "The hell are you rhyming for? This ain't a preschool this is serious."

She glared at him, "It is a proud tradition of my race, to make sure we rhyme in every place." She composed herself, "What could these warnings mean? You who searches for your team?"

He scratched his beard, "Damn, I never was too great at riddles. In any case I would say we should just head towards whatever it is and see what happens. If its some monster rampaging around then I can sure as hell put it down for ya'll." He turned to Twilight, "I guess you're the leader of this posse, what do we do?"

She gulped and though to herself, "Okay Twilight, you can do this, just leading a group of alien hunting ponies. You could potentially cause an international panic, but that won't happen!" Okay everypony, I have a plan! Lonestar, you, Zecora, Rainbow, and Fluttershy head into the forest. Find whatever this is and if it is one of your teammates bring them back here, Big Mac will be ready to smuggle you back into town in his cart." She looked to Lonestar, "Exactly how many of your friends are their? We need to find somewhere to keep them all hidden, this is a public library and  I can't juts permanently shut it down."

"Hmm, Well there are 22 of us now, we have been picking up some new recruits lately, some of them will need a good amount of space though."

"Alright then, Applejack, Pinkie, and Rarity, you three see if you can find somewhere that will be big enough to hold them all that is out of sight."

Pinkie saluted eagerly, "Yes sir princess ma'am!" She flew out the door in a pink blur, Applejack and Rarity running after her.

She then looked to the two remaining ponies, Vinyl and Derpy. "Okay you two, start searching for any kind of news about meteors, asteroids, or weird monsters that you can find. If you hear anything, tell me immediately."

As they all went out and began their searches, Twilight wrote a letter to Celestia, who was handling the press and other matters of state. She finished her report and had Spike send it off.

"I don't know Twilight." he said with a worried look, "This seems like a bad idea to me, somepony is gonna find out and we aren't gonna be able to stop them from telling everypony."

"It will be fine Spike, I trust them not to let a secret like this get out."

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Deep in the Everfree, the group of searchers continued their journey to where all the creatures of the forest had been running from. The further in they went, the more signs of destruction they found; dead animals, trees that had branches ripped off of them, and several piles of ash in a clearing that appeared to be the remains of Timberwolves. Fluttershy was practically having a nervous breakdown.

"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh! What could have possibly done something like this? All these dead animals, and it didn't even eat them! It just killed them and left them to sit in the open!" She began to hyperventilate as more carcasses appeared.

Lonestar bent down and touched one, the blood from a wound was still freshly bleeding. "Well whatever it is its close now, this bear only died a few minutes ago." A rumbling growl ripped through the quiet forest and the group quickly backed into a circle. Lonestar pulled out his blaster and generated a few sticks of dynamite, his arm poised to throw.

"ROAAAAARRRRR!!" A massive black monster burst out of the trees and charged towards the circle of terrified ponies. It was huge, bigger than a manticore. It had the hunched over look of a gorilla but was much more primal, its feet resembled those of a lion with long claws adorning each finger. Its gaping maw was lined with dozens of razor sharp fangs and saliva flew from its maw as it pounded its way towards its next victims. Or so it thought, as the ponies scattered the odd creature in the center of the group threw something at its face. KA-BOOM! An explosion ripped through the air, so bright that the monster was temporarily blinded by the light. as it reeled from the blast it felt a series of white hot bolts slam into its exposed underbelly, searing with pain. It shook its head to clear the burning light from its eyes, just in time to see the biped point at it and whistle sharply. A giant bull made of blue energy materialized in front of it and charged towards the monster, ramming it up against a tree, further confusing it.

Lonestar felt his dynamite generator buzz, signaling it was ready for another round. He grabbed it from his belt and lit the fuses off of his cigar, he prepared to throw it into the monster's gaping maw but it swung out with its hind leg, catching him in his gut. he flew backwards, the blow hitting him so hard that when he collided with a tree its trunk was cracked. He felt the air rush from his lungs and looked up to see the beast barreling towards him, he reached for his blaster but he had dropped it after the kick. His bull and dynamite were on cool-down and his boots wouldn't lift him of fast enough to save him. Suddenly a rainbow colored blur streaked across his vision, taking the monster with it and into a boulder.

Rainbow Dash had initially fled like the other two equestrians but upon looking back and seeing Lonestar about to get ripped to shreds she steeled herself to intervene. She accelerated towards the monster hoof-first and rammed it as hard as she could. They collided with a boulder and she rebounded off of the creature but as she lifted off it grabbed her tail. "AHHHHH! LET GO OF ME!" She screamed and thrashed as it began to bring her towards its mouth.

Lonestar got up and saw what was happening. He looked wildly for his blast but saw nothing. He desperately began to run towards the beast in hopes of distracting it but before he could a little girl's voice called out.

"Hey! I wanna play too!" An ball of red light with a small trail behind it slammed into the monster's side and it roared in pain and threw Rainbow away. It looked towards the source of the ball and promptly got a five pound padlock on a chain swung into its face with great force, shattering most of its teeth. The barrage of blows kept on coming, battering the beast more and more. Lonestar watched the spectacle, already knowing who was assaulting the monster. He once again grabbed his dynamite and threw it into the monster, which swallowed, gagged, and then exploded into a stream of black smoke.

"HA You don't look so good pardner!" he picked up his blaster and holstered it. He looked over at Rainbow Dash, who was standing with her mouth agape, stuttering

"Th-th-th-th"

"Th- what?" Lonestar asked, worried the mare might have gone into shock.

"THAT WAS AWESOME! YOU KICKED ITS BUTT! Where did you pull those explosives from?" She excitedly began to hover.

"Hey! what about me? I was cool too ?" the girl's voice said angrily.

Dash then looked over to the third member of the fight who had saved her life. It was another alien obviously, she was bipedal with green skin and a third eye in the middle of her forehead. "Who exactly are you?"

The girl grinned and began to skip towards Lonestar, "I'm Ayla! Where are we Mister Lonestar? I like it here!"

Lonestar looked around, not seeing the other two members of the search party, "Come on missy, I'll explain when we get back to the town but we gotta find a zebra, and a pony for now."

"Yay! hide and seek!" She skipped off ahead of them, her chain jingling as she did so.

Rainbow looked over to Lonestar, "Umm, why is she wearing that?"

"Oh, she wont let us take it off, its from when she was in a maximum security prison's psyche ward. She likes to use it as a jump rope."

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They found Fluttershy and Zecora in Zecora's hut, barricading the doors and windows. Rainbow knocked on the door, "Hey guys, we got rid of the monster, lets head back to town." They peeked through a hole in the boards, and then came outside.

Once they were near the town the saw Big Mac standing on the outskirts, trying to act casual. Fluttershy went over and told him they were ready, and he brought his cart to the edge of the forest. The 'nauts climbed in and the ride to whatever housing Pinkie, Rarity, and Applejack had found began.