Author's Note

So the last couple chapters were pretty "human heavy" So I'm feeling this one to be almost exclusively pony. Enjoy.

Playing Detective

Two days after anomaly appeared in space.

Twilight paced the halls of the castle nervously. She had been assigned an important task from the Princesses. A team of highly skilled unicorns along with the celestial sisters themselves were going to aid her in the retrieval of the house on the rock in space. She then had to study it, figure out where it might have come from, who built it, why did they abandon it and any other important information she could pry from within its walls. This was all merely minutes away, before the sphere of ground it was on drifted close enough for the Princesses to affect it with their magic.

"Twi, you need to relax. You're literally wearing a path in the carpet." Spike said, trying to ease her fraying nerves.

She looked down and saw the path of smashed thread in the small oval she had been trotting in for the last hour and smiled sheepishly.

"You're right spike, I need to keep my mind clear." she said with a sigh, releasing most of her tension. "I mean it's not every day we get to examine extra-equine structures. If I lose my focus now, I won't be nearly as effective as the Princesses need me to be."

A door at the end of the hallway clicked open, causing the pair to turn their heads.

"Princess, the Princesses request your presence in the observatory. It is almost time." a light grey solar guard said as he held the door for her entry.

"C'mon Spike, let's go." She said, lifting Spike onto her back and trotting toward the door.

The moment they stepped into the observatory, they gasped in awe. The roof had split open and collapsed down, the telescope had retracted into a concealed spot under the floor in the center, leaving the entire dome open and empty. The two regal sisters stood atop a raised dais where they would preform the long range telekinesis to pull the drifting space debris down to Equestria.

"Come Twilight." Celestia beckoned with a tilt of her head. "We will need your strength as well."

"B-b-but Princess... I know nothing of long range spells... I." She began, but Celestia cut her off.

"I will teach you a trick twilight, something that I believe you will be able to pick up quickly on. The trick to long range spells is not to try to stretch from here to there as if you were trying to reach across all of space, but to project yourself into space, and manipulate it short distances."

"I... I still am confused Princess."

"Unfortunately it will have to wait for a more in depth lesson on another day, the time to act is now. When Luna and I pull it within range, we will need the strength of all of you to keep it from crashing to the ground."

A dead focus fell over the hundred or so unicorns that Twilight was now aware were here. The two sisters horns flared, but nothing happened. Minutes seemed to drag by, as still nothing happened, but the Princesses were intensely focused on the task at hand. Just as Twilight was about to ask the dreaded question of how much longer, there was a gasp heard and an order called out to the ready.

Spike and twilight looked up as the massive piece of soil was being guided through the atmosphere. Suddenly everypony's horn flared, so Twilight took the cue and joined in, as they all pushed against the falling piece of land together.

It was much larger than she had assumed from the view of her telescope. It almost didn't seem like it would fit inside the observatory. Every bit of experience and control was being mustered by every unicorn, including the three alicorns present to keep it from smashing into the opened dome and killing them all.

One exhausting few minutes later, the group of unicorns collapsed to their haunches in cheers and cries of exuberance. They had managed to lower an object from space, to the surface of the planet with absolutely zero casualties and minimal damage. Twilight was just ecstatic, in a matter of moments she would be one of the first ponies to set foot on foreign soil, and not one from a different kingdom or country, but quite possibly from another planet.

The Princesses flared their horns once more and the two halves of the observatory's dome slid closed and flooded the floor in illumination. The house stood a stark contrast of color to the greenish brown grass that had wilted due to lack of essential gasses used to produce nutrients from time spent in a vacuum, its blue paint peeling and faded from years of sun and weather exposure.

Several holes of varying sizes pockmarked the exterior of the house and could only leave Twilight guessing as to their cause. Perhaps it was impacted with a small meteor shower or debris from space on the way in. Only a closer inspection would reveal the secrets that these walls waited to tell. She was so excited she let out a slight *squee*-ing noise as she smiled and prepared herself for the first examination.

"Spike, Pre-check checklist please." she instructed. Spike produced a short piece of parchment and quill.

"Investigation checklist" she began counting off the supplies.

"Check" Spike checked it off as he placed the items into her saddlebags.

"Spare parchment for notes."

"Check."

"Decontamination socks."

"Check." Spike handed these to her, as well as putting on his own as she slipped them on over her hooves with magic.

"That should be everything, lets get started." Twilight said as she teleported herself and spike onto the sphere of ground that had settled into place, followed by a small clutch of observing unicorns waiting for her orders.

"Look at this spike, amazing isn't it?" She asked as she slowly walked the perimeter of the yard with Spike on her back.

"Hey Twilight?" Spike said, pointing his claw at something in the grass. "What's that?"

"Prepare for notes spike, record everything I observe." Twilight said, approaching the offending object. "Unknown object A-1. Composition, appears to be some form of alloy, metallic in origin. It doesn't appear to be any alloy discovered on Equis. The makeup is similar to equestrian steel, but much more durable, but fractions of the weight."

She continued to amble in a slow orbit as she continued her observations and spike scribbled furiously on the parchment. "It has many small mechanical parts within it. Whoever made this must be an extremely skilled craftspony, this rivals if not completely outdoes even Time Turner's Clocks.

"Twilight?" Spike asked. "If it's like a clock, why is it so big. I mean, it looks like Big Mac and Applejack together couldn't move this thing.

"It does look like it would be too big to even move into the house. It seems like there are two key pieces to this machine. This box here, where all of these smaller pieces, comprised of linked brass cylinders, appear to be pulled into this opening here." She said pointing her hoof at the gap. "And this curved part right here. It's surrounded by this piece of metal, like it needs to be protected from being bumped. It might be sensitive, but I believe that is what controls this machine."

"Good observations Twilight." Luna commented, approaching the device. "Should we test to see what it does?"

"I don't think that would be wise. We don't know the purpose of this machine. We should move it somewhere safe for future testing, but for now we should leave it here. It may have to do with why this house was abandoned."

The trio continued up the stairs onto a wooden deck on the back of the house. The height of the stairs weren't completely unmanageable but they were a bit higher than Equine stairs, but judging from the size of the doors the beings that inhabited this house were twice as tall as any pony.

"Twilight look." Spike pointed at several other objects, lying on the planks of the deck. "They look kinda like smaller versions of that thing in the grass."

Spike was right, it was much smaller, so much so that spike could pick it up, with a bit of a grunt. Some of them looked the same as the others, while there were a few oddballs. Some longer, some shorter, and of different shape.

"It sure is heavy." spike said, twirling the object in his claws to look at all its intricate nooks and crannies.

"If these things are more common they must not be that important, but why is this one so small?" Twilight pondered as she gently took it from spikes grip. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to see what it does. Stand back spike."

They took a few steps back as twilight levitated the object and focused her magic on the curved piece of metal. She slowly began to apply pressure to it and the curved piece began to slide back towards the edge of the opening. Suddenly a bright flash erupted from the end of the device followed immediately by an earsplitting crack. The surprise broke twilights concentration and her magic faltered as the device bucked from her grip and flew off the deck to the ground below.

Celestia popped into existence next to the pair with a concerned look on her face.

"Is everything ok? What happened?" Celestia half shouted.

"Everything is fine, We were experimenting with these machines. I used it, but I'm not sure what it did. There was a loud bang and a bright flash and it pushed so hard against my magic I wasn't prepared to hold it." She said pointing at the offending machine lying harmlessly in the grass below.

"Just be careful Twilight. We know nothing of the beings that once lived here. I trust in your ability to reason things out and will leave you to your work." Celestia said with a nod then was gone in another flash.

"Hey look Twi. This fell out of the thing you just used, it looks like that big one, only smaller and it doesn't have an end on it." Spike said, holding a hollow brass tube almost a hoof and a half long in his claws.

"Maybe that's what caused the bang. We will research this later. You there." she said pointing a hoof to one of the unicorns.

"Gather all of these, and put them in piles organized by size and shape next to that big one in the yard. Oh and careful not to apply pressure to those curved pieces."

The unicorn nodded and got to work as the group approached the entrance to the house. Twilight grasped the door with magic and attempted to pull it open but it didn't budge. Observing the glass door she noticed it was on metal tracks set into the wall above and below the door, so she pulled it sideways this time and it slid open.

The inside of the house was in disarray. After all it had been floating in space, so anything that may have once been neatly put away was strewn about. A large metal box lay on the ground partly blocking their path. Two unicorns used their magic to lift it into the spot that it looked like it once sat. Upon righting it they noticed that it had a door, and closely resembled a ponymade icebox.
Twilight pulled on the handle of the door and it swung open and a number of items tumbled off the broken and displaced shelves. The containers were strange but she recognized quite a few of the contents. Milk, Eggs, what appeared to be an already prepared meal, left overs and even a head of lettuce. Among the food waiting to be prepared she saw a few slices of what she knew to be meat steaks.

Twilight gagged a bit at the smell of the bloody meat but she knew that this was always a possibility. The previous owners of this house were omnivores.

"Spike, another note please." She said as spike readied the quill. "Previous inhabitants of this structure were omnivorous. Indicated by the presence of stored meat, located in their icebox."

Twilight replaced the items and shut the door to keep the cold air from escaping and they continued their investigation. As they walked she noticed that quite a few of the holes that pockmarked the outside were actually punctures, straight through to the inside. They moved to the next room, to find a thin black rectangle, laying on the ground. Upon standing it on the base that appeared to be on the side of it, they revealed a soft plastic like coating, that was cracked in so many places it looked like it couldn't be fixed, not to mention it had a couple of the holes in it.

This room appeared to have quite a bit more furniture, but most of it appeared to be overturned from floating in space. Once everything was righted, twilight climbed upon the couch and sighed in comfort. Davenport, owner of Quills and Sofas, sure would love to see how these were made. They were extremely comfortable.

After a brief rest, they continued on the investigation of, aside from the holes in the walls nothing seemed really out of place, what appeared to be just an ordinary place of residence. Although far more advanced when it came to small things like the machinery. As they approached the top of the stairs to the second floor, a beeping noise sounded from the room on her left. She was unsure weather to get someone or check it out herself.

Casting a sidelong glance at Spike, she chose to be brave and investigate the noise. Nosing open the door that was partially ajar she found herself in what she could only assume belonged to a male. The whole room felt masculine some how, dark colors, very cut and dry. A sizable bead to sleep on. The thing that caught her attention the most was the posters that dotted the walls. Depictions of some type of creatures that stood on two legs, and had a very strange taste in clothing.

Twilight scrutinized the posters as spike looked around the room, taking everything in. She gasped in shock when she realized, the text on the posters, she could read it. Call of duty Seventeen. Super Advanced Futuristic warfare. The Creature on the poster was dressed in some type of camouflage and depicted holding something that resembled what she had tested outside on the deck. It appeared to be casting some type of yellow magic from its outstretched claw while its eyes burned an unholy yellow.

So the machines outside were somehow related to warfare for these creatures, and judging by the way it was held, they used their dexterous claws to manipulate the intricate mechanisms. She instructed one of the unicorns to go out and warn the ones handling the devices to be even more careful, that the devices were possibly some type of weapon. Then it hit her like a ton of bricks.

The one device laying in the yard, the one ten times as long as her own body. Was one massive one of those things. She had a hard time imagining one of the creatures large enough to lift such a big thing, but what other explanation was there. She trotted to the double doors in the room and exited onto the balcony, and as she glanced over the yard she gasped. From this vantage point she could see the indentations in the ground. Not just divots in the soil, but massive oddly shaped hoofprints smashed into the soil shaped like nothing she'd ever seen before.

She shuddered at the thought of something big enough to leave a print like that.

______________________________________________________________________________

The scrapes of approaching hoofsteps met Willows ears once more. He was unceremoniously pulled to his hooves once more, and the hood ripped from his head. The blue faced demon had returned.

"Beast." it uttered just that one word. He stared at it in silent defiance for a moment, until it continued. "I know you know what I say to you. You know I know. You think my men wouldn't be loyal to me? I knew that he came in here to talk to you last night. I'm glad he didn't decide to let you go, I would have had to kill you both."

Willow cringed at these words but continued to spit as much venom into his defiant posture as he could, holding his head high and proud. His wings ached from being tied to his sides, not to mention he was growing weak from lack of food and water. Only another day and he would die of dehydration.

"You will die here in this cave, alone, and unknown to your friends back home, if you do not give me what I want, creature."

The monster sat back, leaning against the side of the cave, letting the information sink in and destroy Willow's resolve. It was working.

"You win this time Demon." Willow coughed, his voice weak from disuse.

A large smile spread across Shawn's face behind his visor.
______________________________________________________________________________

"Princess Luna, please come with me." The head of the Shadow Guard requested.

"What is it Darkest Night?" She asked, as he lead her into the hall outside the observatory where the examination of the anomaly continued.

"Word from your recon unit my Princess. Your reinforcements had made it, only to find them incapacitated. Lt. Commander Willow and Commander Starlight are both Missing in Action."

Her face grew grim at these words.