Martians In Equestria

Chapter 6

Bad News

On the outskirts of Ponyville, two very strange looking figures sneaked their way across fields, heading towards the nearby town. Not surprisingly for those who have been reading correctly, these were Abaztard and Torno, the two Martian spies. With it being almost pitch black, they had a lack of vision in front of them, why they never thought about bring night-vision goggles of some sort to help them out is anyone's guess, but really, let's not get too deep into that.

As they edge ever closer to the just barely visible town up ahead, they only just noticed what seem like a crowd of ponies with lit lanterns heading towards them.

"Shit! They're on to us!" Abaztard hissed over to Torno as he dragged him over to hide in a nearby set of bushes. Exactly how two ten foot tall aliens in such a ridiculous fashion could hide in a typical way, then again that's not the point.

After somehow squeezing into the bushes, they could just see who the strange ponies were, thanks to the lanterns. They were dressed in dark armour, must've of been troops of some sort to them, carrying a collection of weapons and what seem like a catapult being dragged by those in the back. (Hang on, did I write a section of there being a catapult? Really, who cares…?)

It was the first time that the two Martians had a better view of these strange ponies. "Ok, I don't remember in my Earth studies of horses being able to do stuff like this!" Torno said over Abaztard.

"That's because we aren't on Earth," Abaztard corrected, still staring at the strange convey of ponies. "But if the year is 1898, how the hell did we end up on an alternative Earth?"

They continued watching them until the marching band of ponies were out of sight, only suddenly dawning on the two spies of where the troops were heading.

"They're heading to the crash site!" Torno said to his fellow spy in alarm.

Abaztard shook his head in disappointment, already their plans for a secret invasion was falling to pieces, not to mention they were on the wrong planet. "The word of something new gets around fast these days," he thought to himself.

"Alright, I'll give Wacko and his bunch a call," the leader spy replied as he brought out of his black cape a radio device to contact the others. He snorted in disgust when he looked at the battery level. "Those cheap bastards giving us those terrible Europa made batteries, they know they are shit, then why give us them?"

"Never mind that," Torno retorted, "get on with it, I think dawn is coming pretty soon."

And he was right. On the horizon, they could just make a tiny glow of orange appearing. Now they could begin to realise how long they were up from earlier in the day. After giving the radio a quick bash on a nearby tree trunk to bring it to life, Abaztard made the call to Wacko.

"Wacko, come in, it's us," Abaztard said into the radio piece.

A bit of static followed until the captain's familiar voice came through. "Hey up guys, what's the news?"

"Just a heads up," Abaztard instructed. "You won't believe what me and Torno just saw here…listen carefully to this…a bunch a stallions in armour with many weapons are marching their way to the craft."

A small amount of silence followed. "…Come again?" Wacko replied confused, sounding quite fuzzy on the radio device.

"I'm not shitting you, there are ponies here in armour; about thirty I think, with weapons heading to your location! Those sneaky four legged bastards." The spy repeated.

"Oh hell, already they're getting ready?" Wacko sighed irritated.

"Though it's not all bad news, captain." Torno piped in, grabbing the device. "Their weapons are just swords, axes and a giant catapult…shouldn't be a problem really."

Wacko could be heard breathing a sigh of ease on the radio. "Well, at least that is one consolation…but still, it ain't a good thing that these, ponies, know of our intentions already."

"It's never easy you have to admit after all these years," Abaztard added, taking back the radio device.

From what the two spies could hear was that Wacko was about to say something, though what happened next threw them off guard completely.

Two loud sonic booms could be heard, making the ground the shake. "What the hell now?" Torno growled angrily through his teeth looking around wondering where the sound came from.

"Did you guys hear that?" Wacko's voice coming through, sounding all the more shocked like the spies.

"No shit, Captain," Torno replied sarcastically.

"Look up!" Abaztard cried, pointing a tentacle to the sky. What they saw was two Martian spacecrafts, like their own one, hurtling through the sky with the front on fire from entering the atmosphere but with a long trail of green mist following in their wakes. They could only watch as the two crafts roared over the nearby town, heading far away towards the mountain area that seemed to be twenty miles away from were they spies where.

"Oh shit not now!" Wacko's voice cried, sounding all the more fuzzy. "King Abanazer has sent two ships here; we haven't even started yet on our part!"

Abaztard and Torno looked to each other, trying to make out why this was happening too soon. "He's really conked it this time," Abaztard sighed disappointingly, shaking his head. "He's going too fast with this invasion."

Just then Wacko's voice came again sounding quite fanatic. "Sorry guys gotta cut off now, we can see those guys now! We'll get in touch later, over and out!"

And with that, the radio went silent. The spies turned to look up at the two trails of green mists and then towards the town. Now both of the most trustee supporters of Abanazer were not so sure now.

"Ok then, let's get into the town." Abaztard reminding Torno as they sneaked their way into the strange looking town ahead.

XXX

About five minutes after the two sonic booms had scared the living daylights out of all the residents in Ponyville, everypony by now had woken up and could see bright flashes of orange and yellow coming from the crash site. Many ponies now feared that the worse could be happening to the troops that were making their way there. From looking up, Ponies could see that the cylinders had caused the sky to turn a neon shade of green, almost like summer lightning, though by now was starting to dissipate.

From their bedroom, Twilight and Spike stayed wide-awake. Both too scared to even glance outside their window. "…T-Twilight," Spike asked stuttering a bit.

"Yes Spike?" The unicorn asked, lying back on her bed looking up at the ceiling.

The little dragon remained quiet, just after another flash of orange entered the room, and he could even swore he heard faint screaming. "I did say that, well, those things wouldn't get this far…now I'm not too sure…"

"I don't know too," Twilight exhaled worriedly. Even after looking through all her books on creatures of the world, she couldn't find anything related to the large tentacle monsters in that cylinder, not to mention they could speak in their language, though with foul language, something almost alien to most ponies in Equstria, no obvious pun intended of course.

However, somewhere in the back of her mind, there had been one idea of what they could be, an idea that would no doubt be laughed into oblivion.

Aliens.

Of course, there was no chance in hell a pony would believe that, but her evidence to the non-believers lay there in that pit, or even in those other cylinders…

Little did the two knew that they would have a late night visitor...

XXX

On the edge of Ponyville, two very none-like ponies sat and watched the blaze that was coming from the forest. The only thing that was missing was a sofa and some snacks, of course they knew they couldn't stick around for long as they turned round and headed off into the town, they had a mission to do.

The sun was starting to creep up ever further over the horizon and Abaztard and Torno knew they had to keep out any prying eyes on them. Despite this, they couldn't help but look around at the buildings, thanks to the sun brighten up the surroundings.

"I know we're not on Earth, but there is something very similar here," Abaztard said to his fellow spy. "These buildings look like those out of 17th century human history don't you think?"

Torno nodded. "Yeah, but it can't be right, how could Ponies build, well, buildings? I thought it would've been a shit tip."

Abaztard was about to say something when suddenly an idea popped into his head. "Holy hell, I've just thought of something!"

Torno looked over at him. "Hmm?"

"You know those stupid B-movies back home which talk about other dimensions and shit?" Abaztard explained.

The other spy rubbed the back of his head in thought. "Erm, I guess, though I'll still never forgot that stupid one with the tentacle-held camera…"

Abaztard looked around again before continuing. "Well, call me an idiot, but I think we're on an alternative dimension of Earth when ponies are the dominant species on this planet!"

"What on Mars are you talking about?" Torno scoffed. Then he started thinking about it again. True, they had gone through a portal to get here, it was untested thanks to a certain king and there was nothing in any of their studies that said anything about bright colourful ponies that had strange pictures of things on their flanks, and on top of that…talk!

Torno rolled his eyes. He was about to say something else when their radio device sounded. Abaztard answered it quickly.

"What's the news?" Abaztard asked.

"We got 'em, all of them are fucked over," came Wacko's voice, speaking rather happily at their obvious win of the small battle before. "But how's it in the town?"

"There is something similar to it that reflects buildings on Earth," Abaztard explained.

"Really?" Came Wacko's voice again. "Like you mean ponies actually built them?"

Torno grabbed the device. "Well we can't see a human here, so I guess you're correct."

Wacko could be heard letting out a long sigh. "…Bloody hell, this whole thing just keeps getting stranger and stranger, eh?" His voice suddenly went back to his usual commander style. "Well have you guys captured on of those ponies yet?"

"Their probably all scared shit of us, no poor bastard out here," Abaztard replied coolly.

"Or their still in their beds, num-nuts," Torno corrected sarcastically.

"Better be quick, the sun will give off your location, find a hiding spot if I were you, we are gonna be delayed at bit." Wacko said.

The two spies looked at each other again then back to the device, "what'd you mean 'delayed?' captain?" Asked Abaztard.

"Well remember those engines that make our machines walk faster?" Wacko said. "Well it turns out they are making the machines top heavy to work on a planet with stronger gravity, we'll have to go back to the site and get rid of them, even if our machines will be working at half the speed."

"Oh shit on us," Torno groaned, tentacle-palming. "It's never easy isn't it?"

"I'll contact you guys later when we're ready, find a hiding place for the time being," Came Wacko's voice again. "Over and out." And the device stopped working again. The two spies could only curse at their luck. They had no choice but to hide. Cleary, things weren't looking too good for the Martians already in the early parts of the mission.

XXX

Not far away at Twilight's home, outside staggering towards it was an unusual figure, who wasn't a Martian, but a pony. From below a window, Twilight and Spike hid underneath, thinking that the sounds outside were one of the brown monsters. During all this, both of them tried to pluck up the courage to look out the window, but the thought of seeing one the creatures made them lose their confidence just at the very thought of them. However at this point Twilight plucked up the most courage to look out the window.

Slowly raising her head over, she was stunned to see that it was one of the stallions, an Earth Pony, from the platoon that went by earlier, though he was a fair distance away and couldn't quite make out what he looked like due to it still being quite dark outside.

"Anypony? Hello?" The stallion called, looking around for help, and still holding his sword.

"Over here!" Twilight called over to him, waving her forearms to him. Thankfully this did catch the stallion's attention as he quickly rushed over to her home. She looked down at Spike, who looked confused at what was going on. "Spike, it's one of the troops, let him in quickly!"

Without being asked twice, Spike rushed off downstairs to open the door for the solider, Twilight following closely behind. To Twilight, she saw this as a great opportunity to know what had been going on at that site, though the thought of there being only one survivor out of the many troops that came earlier did make think twice of how the stallion was feeling.

As Spike opened the door, the solider staggered in without his helmet, dropping his sword, clearly looking exhausted, weary but fear being written all over his face. The Stallion was a chestnut coloured pony, with a short blond mane and large bushy tail. His eyes were that of a dull blue and all over his face, there were streaks of blood and dirt all over. His armour looked burnt in some places, which did make Twilight and Spike wonder what had caused that.

But what surprised Twilight mostly was that the stallion looked not much older than she did, though of course this of no importance as such, if you really want to get into any more details.

Not long after he had gotten through the door, Twilight and Spike helped him over to chair lying nearby (thank goodness for plot convenience!) "Get him a drink of water Spike," Twilight ordered the little dragon, which he nodded quickly and raced off to find any water, well he would if he was ordered by Twilight, when wouldn't here? No really, when wouldn't he? And what the hell has this got to do with the story? I couldn't care less myself to be honest…

"T-Thank you," the stallion, still quite shell-shocked looking, thanked Twilight by shaking her hoof with both of his own.

Questions were burning like mad in her head, all wanting to ask him what had happened and where the rest of his platoon where. Though strangely, the first thing she said to him was, "What's your name?"

The stallion suddenly clapped his hoof on his head. "S-Sorry, I forgot to say my name." He gave Twilight a little nod as he introduced himself, "the name's Private Storm Speed, ma'am. But you can call me Storm simply."

Twilight was about to introduce herself when Storm interrupted her. "I believe you are Miss Twilight Sparkle?"

The purple unicorn looked at him surprised. "How'd you know who I 'am? Did Celestria tell you about me?"

Storm rubbed the back of his head looking strangely awkward. "Well…I did hear from my fellow troops…" He suddenly had his head in one hoof, sobbing softly. Twilight rubbed his back soothingly trying to comfort him. But before she could say anything, Spike came back into the room holding a mug of water.

"Here sir," Spike said to Storm, handing him the mug of water. The solider slowly looked up at the little dragon with his eyes all glassy eyed.

"T-Thanks," Storm replied stuttering, grabbing the mug before drinking half of it down in three gulps. He then let out a sigh before clutching the bridge of his nose, seemly deep in thought.

A ten second silence followed until Twilight finally broke the silence. "Storm…what's happened and where is the rest of your platoon?"

The stallion didn't say anything as he slowly turned his head to her; he almost looked too scared to say it. Breathing in a shaky sigh, he began telling them of his expeirece. "…They…they wiped us out…nearly all the platoon are dead, maybe all of them!"

Twilight and Spike looked at him shuddering at what they had heard. "Wiped out?" Spike asked, wondering how those seemly large bulky creatures that didn't seem to work well when he saw them, unless they had gotten use to the environment quite quickly.

"Wiped out indeed," Storm replied, still feeling pretty scared at remembering the events. "There were these massive one hundred foot three legged machines that fired these…beams of orange that turned everything on fire when they touched something."

A cold chill went up Twilight and Spike's backs, now that was something they could both be sure that they didn't remember seeing something like that.

"...Machines?" Twilight asked looking now worried at what those monsters were capable of doing.

"Fighting Machines," Storm corrected. "Just crushing us like we were like a bunch of ants, completely in control of the whole thing, knew exactly what they were doing."

Spike rubbed his chin about an idea that had appeared in his head. "Wait…did you guys last night see what had caused those sonic booms?"

The young solider drank down another gulp of water before answering Spike's question. "Yeah…it was these two large tube things with a green mist behind them, heading to the north of here, about twenty miles I'd say."

Their worst fears had been realised. More of those things were coming to Equestria!

"This isn't good at all," Spike said, covering his mouth with his hands in shock. Who knows what they were planning to do with all ponies in the land.

"But I'm glad I found you Miss Sparkle," Storm said looking at the unicorn with some hope now. "I hear you send reports to Princess Celestia, right?"

"Of course," Twilight replied. "But what has that got to do with this whole thing?"

"I need to write in a report to her to tell her about our situation and those…whatever they are." Storm explained to her, pausing towards the end of his sentence on trying to think of what the creatures were.

Twilight thought about it for a moment, surely from what had happened Celestia must've had an idea of what to do here. She then looked towards Spike. "C'mon, get him some paper and a quill."

Seemly getting the idea himself, Spike hurried off upstairs to get what Twilight was asking from him. Of course with countless bits of paper lying around, it didn't take him long to get a bit of paper and the quill sitting in its ink bottle as always. No chance for any tense story moment there.

With the asked pieces in his arms, he hurried downstairs to join Twilight and Storm waiting for him. Without any asking for them, Storm grabbed the paper and quill and started writing out his report to Celestia. Spike and Twilight could see that his hoof was shaking, still showing he was still feeling scared from his experience.

It took Storm about a minute to write out whatever he was writing. Twilight looked over at what Storm had written in the little report. She could only bite her bottom lip as she read it.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I regret to say that the operation to hold off the unknown creatures has failed, eliminating nearly the entire 2nd Ponyville platoon in the process. We failed to see the mentioned creatures that you described us; we came up against five monstrous tripod machines, unless the creatures mentioned created and are controlling them.

I do fear that the safety of Ponyville and possibly even all of Equestria is no longer guaranteed. As possibly one of, if not the only, surviving members from the platoon, I request that this operation of protecting Equestria and its citizens must be done at the highest scale.

Yours,

Private Storm Speed

The Stallion looked at both at Twilight and Spike wondering how to send his message. "What'd I do now to send it?"

"Let me do it," Spike replied taking the report and rolling it up. He drew in a breath of air before emitting his green flames from his mouth around the rolled up paper.

Storm Speed jumped back in surprise, startled at what the dragon had done with his precious report. "What'd you doing?" He cried out half shock and half angry.

"Don't worry Storm," Twilight assured him. "This is how I send my reports to Celestia; Spike can send it straight to Celestia with his fire breath."

The solider stallion looked on with a poker face at this new piece of information that the mare was telling him. Why hadn't in any of his training tell him he would meet dragons that would send reports with their fire breath? Then again where did it say he would encounter giant three legged machines that emitted lines of fire?

Suddenly the stallion stood up and walked over to pick up his sword that was lying on the floor, finally somehow finding his confidence again. "Miss Sparkle, we must call up an evacuation of Ponyville, I fear the machines will come here next."

The two friends looked at each other, eyes wide, before looking back at him, "an evacuation?" Twilight gasped in disbelieve.

"The only way I know this town will be safe from the enemy," Storm replied, opening the door to head outside. "Unless a miracle happens, there is no other choice but to leave."

After one last look at their home, Twilight and Spike followed the Solider, not knowing what they and maybe all of Ponyville were getting themselves into. Little did any of them knew that for Twilight and Spike, that it would be the last time they would see their home for the many strange days that followed.