Twilight reached over to her notebook and took a quill into her magical grip. Making a routine of writing with the periodic interruption to look through her telescope. Stargazing was one of her growing hobby, and was also one of the more unappreciated pastimes in Equestria.
She once didn't care for it either, but the thought of the ever expanding universe and the fact that the small planet she called home was only a tiny slice of the unknown universe. It never failed to send shivers through her spine and sparked curiosity in her like nothing else ever could.
That, and Celestia said it would make Luna feel better.
So here she was, taking her notes of the many constellations and cross referencing them with the few books she had on the stars. They were particular beautiful on that night, Luna must have been showing off. But soon enough, dawn would break, wake the world and hide away the wonderful stars from sight. Unlike most other ponies, she was wide awake already. Just before she was about to start her day off, she took one last look at the fading night sky.
And a shooting star caught her eye. She rushed back to the telescope and trailed after it. Then it stopped, like it hit against a brick wall and vanished. Before she could react another star shot across the sky, ending a lot like the first but in the other direction. A third appeared, then another, then another, then another.
Soon the sky was ablaze with stars firing across the night sky. Too many to follow with her telescope, but she had long forgotten to use that device. She could see the display perfectly fine without it. Was this some new trick Luna was trying out to incite ponies to view her sky? Or some natural phenomenon that nopony had ever seen before? Whatever the cause was, it stirred a emotion that Twilight forgot she had. A emotion that only surfaced when she faced the villains of Equestria, a deep emotion that was rarely felt by ponies...
Fear...
Despite the beauty and wonder of the natural fireworks display. She couldn't stop her hooves from shaking and her heart racing like if she just ran a marathon.
As if the grand final of the event. The stars stopped for a few moments. Then a much bigger orb of light shoot across at such speed she could could hardly see it, it hit the point that all the other stars impacted before and exploded with such devastating force it appeared to rip the sky apart. Despite being hundreds, if not thousands of miles away, a quite boom could still be heard.
She had no idea how long she had been standing there, staring up at the sky with wide eyes and a wider jaw. Seconds turned to minutes before her body began to respond to her commands. “S-Spike... Spike!” she called out, spinning around and running back into her castle in search for her assistant.
She soon found him, in his claws was a rolled up piece of parchment. “Twilight, it's from Princess Luna!” he proclaimed, she took the scroll and unrolled it. Her eyes shrunk to pinpricks at reading the slightly smudged ink, presumingly just from the Princess not waiting for the ink to properly dry before sending it.
“So... What does it say?” Spike snatched back the letter from the stunned Princesses, reading over it with a raised eyebrow.
Dear Princess Twilight.
Do you have any idea what in Tartarus' name that was?
“She doesn't know... She doesn't know!” Twilight panicked. If the Princess of the night didn't know what that was, then who did? Or more importantly, what did it mean?
“Didn't know what?” Spike asked as he pursued Twilight around the castle in a mad surge of panic. Her panic led her to one of the castle's windows, facing the direction of the light show. Before Spike could repeat his question, he spotted what Twilight was watching.
It could only be described as a falling star, though the sun was already rising and lighting up the planet, hiding all the other stars from sight. The falling object impacted closer to the castle than Twilight would of liked, in one of the woodland areas around Ponyville. Far enough so no-pony would stumble on it on the way to work, but not far enough to stop any curious hooves from investigating for themselves.
While Twilight had no idea what that object was, Spike had his own theory. Something that only lurked in the fantasy of his comic books and the more outrageous book that Twilight wasn't very fond off.
Aliens, it was the only logical explanation. Beings for another world coming to Equestria, it was truly inevitable after all. If other life existed, it was only a matter of time until they would meet.
“Spike, take a letter, I'll inform the Princess and go to see this, thing in person.” Spike nodded and rushed off to get his quill and paper. Once he retrieved the required stationary, he waited for the words that needed to be written.
“Dear Princess Celestia and Princess Luna...”
****
“Ah... Shit.” Jade muttered under her breath. Her disorganised 'landing' didn't go as she planned. “One day, I'll get a landing that doesn't involve crashing into the ground at high speeds.” she said, taking the time to lazily pivot her head around the interior of the escape pod. She noticed some major damage to the hull of the craft despite the veil of darkness.
As she attempted to stand on her own two legs, she quickly realised what way gravity was pulling her. Finding herself wedge in the corner of the once bottle shaped pod, she looked around for anything she could use to pull herself up.
She took notice to the fact that the seats she was once sitting on where on the roof now. Meaning that the pod had 'landed' upside down, now she had to find out where the door was, silently hoping that the door wasn't face down in the dirt, she braved to look around again.
The darkness that was currently engulfing her wasn't helping her vision. The lights must of cut out at some point or broken, the pod couldn't be out of power, the oxygen filters were still functioning...
Jade starting taking very shallow breaths, the oxygen filters weren't designed for long term use and who knew how long she'd be stuck in the pod. Though the risk to her survival convinced her that lounging around wasn't going to get her anywhere.
Reaching up, her hand managed to get a grasp on the armrest of the seat above her. With some strength she was able to pull herself out of the corner.
The damaged wreck wasn't going to let her leave without a fight. With the added weight plus the severe damage, the armrest ripped itself from the wall and sent Jade falling back down again with a metal armrest impacting her chest at high speed. Her armour protected her, but only marginally.
“Crap...” she grumbled, discarding the metal pole that once was an armrest. She looked around for another thing to grab, when something caught her attention.
A small, beam of sunlight was raining down on her. From where the armrest parted with the hull of the pod, a small hole was made. At first, Jade panicked. Covering her mouth and nose with her hands in a futile attempt to conserve oxygen, until she realised, nothing was happening. If there was no oxygen outside, the pressure would no doubt rip her and the pod apart.
“So I didn't die and landed on a planet with a good atmosphere? Sweet.”
After a good few minutes struggling, she managed to get on her legs. But for every advantage the universe gave, it took something as payment. In return for getting a good planet, she had busted up her leg pretty badly in the crash.
Crawling up the pod to the top, hopping between the seats and loss wiring. She reached the door, but the pod didn't have enough power to open it. “Gotta do this the hard way ey?” she began looking around for anything that could be used to pry it open.
Of course, what kind of escape pod wouldn't have a manual release to the only door? A big red lever was her answer, after a little resistance the locks holding the door in place were unlocked one by one. The door still wasn't open though, gravity was still working against her and was content on leaving the door in place despite the disengaged locks.
With a good, strong push she moved the door up and to the side. It slid down the exterior hull and landed with a splash. The pod had landed in water, or something vaguely similar to water.
Pulling herself up, she finally escaped the escape pod. Sitting herself on the hull with her legs dangling inside still, her eyes adjusted to the light around her.
She was in a forest, with trees like the ones on Earth and the pod was soaking in a small, still pond of some kind. Jade spotted little fishes swimming around the body of water, apparently they had already adjusted to the giant metallic capsule that had invaded their small pond.
She could hear the singing of birds in the distance, a good sign. “Ok Jade, basic survival time. We've got water, still need food and proper shelter.” she quickly ran through her mental checklist, getting the essentials was priority if she wanted to survive. She could worry about getting in contact with home later.
Deciding that no progress could be made by sitting on the crashed escape pod. She braved the open space by hopping down. Forgetting about her leg injury she landed on her two feet and imminently regretted it as pain surged up her side.
In response to the pain, she tumbled to the side and began rolling around like a big baby. Holding her leg as if that would help, groaning at all times, not a good first impression to the predators on the planet.
Giving herself a few minutes to recover from the sudden leg trauma, she continued to toss and turn in the dirt until she was ready to get back up. Her injured leg to take a little weight, but not much. She wasn't running any time soon.
Remembering that she had pockets in between the plates of her carapace armour. The reason that she was on this planet came to mine and she instantly began to scavenge through her pockets until she found it.
She was relieved to see it in open piece. A glowing blue disk the side of her palm, the admiral called it a 'holodisk' when he entrusted it to her. She had no real idea what was on it, but it looked pretty important.
A familiar weight was also against her hip, a trusty pistol was by her side. She hadn't fired it yet so she just assumed that it still had full ammo. The rest of her pockets was just a assortment of junk and useless tech.
Casting one final glance at the escape pod. Which was indeed upside down with the landing gear pointed skywards like an turned over tortoise. She picked a random direction and begun to limp her way along, after a few short steps she stopped herself.
A purple head with overly large eyes and hair a darker shade of purple was watching her from the bushes. When it knew it was spotted, the purple creature emerged from the bushes. Walking on four legs and having a pristine pair of feathery wings and a blunt looking horn, it timidly walked forward.
Pivoting her body to have one arm outstretched to beckon the creature closer and the other getting a firm grasp on her pistol, carefully hidden from the creature's sight by her body. Kneeling down, the creature was almost her height when she was crouched. It didn't look dangerous, but that horn could be nasty if the creature decided to charge.
The closer the creature shuffled towards her, the closer she came to having a theory on what it was. Spotting the tribal marking on the flank was the final piece of evidence to her little theory. Obliviously it was a pet of some kind, the colours were too outrageous to be natural and the well kept fur and feathers were a sign of civilised care for the creature's appearance.
The whole time it was walking, it made peculiar sounds and animal like calls. Almost as if it was trying to talk to her, hopefully she'd have better luck understanding the creature's owners when she met them.
When the creature stood in front of her, Jade patted it on the head gentle. Rustling the creature's hair and scratching behind its ears (Getting the creature to twitch its back leg, a sure sign of enjoyment) she noticed how tame and calm it was, another sigh that it was some sort of pet.
Securing her pistol back in the hoister, she wrapped one arm around the creature's torso and the other supporting the creature so it didn't fall or run. With little resistance from the creature, Jade stood back up and carried the creature with her, still with no clear direction to follow. At first the creature looked panicked, but soon calmed down after it knew no harm was coming. It kind of looked equine, or as close as she was going to get, being so far from Earth. Most likely a pony, remembering the beasts from the books she once read about Earth's animals, though she missed the part of them being this small or this colourful.
Walking the way the creature came, she hoped to return the creature back to its owner and make a good impression on them. If she was going to be here for a while, it'll be good to make some friends...
****
To say Twilight was panicking was a understatement. She just watched this alien break out from some sort of metal cocoon and fall over in pain. When it spotted her it didn't act hostile, but wanted for her to come closer. She followed the alien's request, all the time doing a 'Welcome to Equestria speech' that the alien ignored completely. When she got close enough, the alien started using its fingers and appendages to examine her. Strangely, it felt nice when the creature when behind her ears.
She thought the first encounter was going well, until the alien grabbed her and began carrying her away. Of course she could teleport out of its grasp, but she was curious what the alien was doing or where it was going. The alien's leg was hurt and caused it to hobbled slowly, travelling roughly in the direction of Ponyville. It didn't look dangerous, but its body was covered in tough armour and carried a intimidating weapon of some sort by its hip.
“Where are you going?” Twilight asked the alien. It looked down at her but didn't try to respond. Realisation flooded her mind, it made sense. The alien didn't speak her language. This made things difficult, she had spells for translation and diplomacy, but didn't know them by memory. They were back in the castle and needed to be casted on the alien face to face.
Casting the spell was easy, the hard part was getting the alien to go to the castle without it attacking anything or panicking on the way.
Using the only thing she could think of, she tapped her hoof against the hard alloy of the alien's armour and pointed her hoof in the direction of the castle. For a moment the alien didn't respond, but soon followed her directions once it realised what she was asking it to do. Hopefully she'd be able to lead the alien to her castle without taking it through the centre of town...
****
Jade was doing what she always did, followed orders. Sometimes theses orders were from nobles or officers, but these men and women earned the right to give her commands. The orders she was currently getting were from a pastel purple pony...
She was having mixed feelings about her new commander.
On one hand she needed to gain trust, she was the intruder to the people of this planet and needed to make friends so she could get off this rock. But on the other, it was a pastel coloured pony...
With a few well placed bullets to certain skulls, she could probably become some sort of demi-god to these creatures, assuming that nothing had already done this before.
On a much smaller scale, the creature she was currently carrying would make for a good lunch...
Shaking that thought from her mind, she continued to follow the pony's directions, though the thought continued to linger in the back of her mind. After a short internal battle between her brain and her stomach. Her brain argued that eating the first thing she met on this planet wouldn't end well in the long run.
Besides, she was curious on where the pony was taking her. It had led her out of the forest but back into another one, she felt like they were going in circles and the pony was too embarrassed to admit it.
That thought was also banished from her mind when she spotted some houses in the distance. Smoke was rising from some of the chimneys and the houses looked like normal rural housing from the olden Earth days. With wooden walls and straw celling, they looked civilized at least.
Wooden housing wasn't a good sign for her. Despite her curiosity, wooden houses didn't imply space age technology. Meaning it was unlikely that they would have a long distance communicators or space worthy craft, by each passing second she felt her chances of escape slowly fading.
Guessing that was where the creature lived, she changed her course to move towards the buildings. As she approached the creature suddenly panicked, telling her to go in the other direction. Why would the creature not want to go home? Did she run away in the first place? Jade wondered and debated if following the creature's instructions was a good idea or if she should just walk the creature into town anyway.
Before she could decide a flock of similarly wings creature came down from the sky. Some looked scared of her, others looked almost angry at her, well, as angry as a brightly coloured pony could look. A particular rainbow haired pony looked pretty unhappy about Jade holding the purple pony, doing gestures that almost looked like threats with its hooves.
All the creatures exchanged random shouts and calls between each others. Most of them directed at the purple pony in her arms but some directed at Jade herself. While she couldn't understand the words or meanings of the calls where, but she could make out the emotions behind them.
Judging from the array of distress and annoyance directed at her. She guessed that all the winged creatures were unhappy about the way the purple pony was being held. She noticed that only the purple one had a horn, maybe a sign of leadership or dominance.
Jade complied with the winged creatures, lowing the purple pony to the floor slowly to not startle them.
It occurred to her that she just lost her only bargaining chip. Holding onto the purple pony might have been the only thing stopping those angry calls and gestures from the rainbow coloured pony turning to actual attacks.
Doing the only thing she could think of to calm the hot headed pony. She reached out and began scratching behind the rainbow haired ones ears. All of the other ponies froze, eyes wide in shock as Jade continued to pet the rainbow pony.
All the ponies broke out in massive fits of giggles. It turned out that the rainbow pony hadn't realised her back leg was kicking in response to the ear itching and quickly suppressed the twitching leg with her hooves whist simultaneously attempting to cover her reddening cheeks.
In terms of first impressions, it could of gone worse...
****
Twilight had finally managed to get the alien from point A to point B, though there was more commotion that she wanted. The weather team spotted the alien carry her and they thought that she was in danger. She argued that she wasn't in danger and that carrying could have been part of the alien's traditions, but Rainbow Dash wasn't having any of it.
Rainbow jumped to conclusions and thought that Twilight was being taken hostage! A sure sign that she'd been reading too much Daring Doo. She even went so far as to threaten the alien to put her down. The alien did as it was told and put Twilight down, and then proceeded to scratch behind Rainbow's ears as some sort of peace offering.
Whist most members of the weather team saw it as a harmless gesture, Rainbow saw it as a universal weakness to ponies that the alien was using against them. Trying to gain their trust so it could do evil deeds by surprise...
'That mare... she had a good imagination at least...' Twilight thought.
Once Twilight got the alien behind the castle's doors, she felt a lot more confident about everything. The alien looks at clueless as ever, blindly following her as if it was all it knew. She was going to offer the alien a seat at the kitchen table, but the alien was too big to even sit in one of the chairs. Quickly making a plan B she gathered lots of cushions and pillows for the alien to rest on.
Trying her best to tell the alien to say put at the table was difficult. The alien understood her physical instructions quite well, understanding that point meant go and fanatical pointing between the alien's chest to the floor meant stay.
Curiosity getting the better of her, after she left the alien alone Twilight watched the creature from afar for a bit. For a little while the alien just sat there, admiring the crystal like room around it but quickly got bored and pulled out that weird weapon again. After pulling back the top and ejecting some sort of container from the handle, it began to disassemble the cartridge. Laying out ten shells onto the table it began to examine each one individually.
Guessing the alien would be doing that for a while, Twilight decided to stop being nosey and get the diplomacy spell books. When she became a princess Celestia gifted her the books, saying they are useful for negotiating with the other races like the gryphons, mostly because high gryphic was too complex for most ponies to get their tongues around.
She only hoped the spell was powerful enough to work on beings from other worlds. She guessed that Starswirl didn't account for aliens when he wrote the spell.
Walking back into the kitchen she found the alien to still be fussing over the weapon, but quickly finished up and put the weapon back to her hip. It looked amazed by her ability to levitate the books, stopping everything she was doing to watch as the books fell onto the table.
Twilight flicked through the pages of the books until she found the one she was looking for. A universal translation spell, though she had her doubts on the 'universal' bit.
Taking a glance at the spell, then to the alien. Who was looking rather concerned for most reason. Twilight to a deep breath and moved forward to preform the spell.
****
Jade had no idea on what was going on. The creature took her into her home, which was much large and more unique than the other building in the town. (Further implying that the purple pony was some sort of ruler or authoritative figure) The creature then wandered off and watched her for a while, must of thought it was being sneaky and she couldn't see it. The creature's cautious behaviour was understandable, after all Jade was a possible threat to its people.
The creature stopped watching and left for a while. When it returned it held books in some sort of psychic grip. It dropped them on the table and began to flick through them. At least the creature had intelligence, as she was led through the town she noticed the residence were all ponies...
Banishing her chances of making a good impression on returning a lost pet, instead she made a bad impression by apparently kidnapping one of the more important members of their strange pony culture.
From what she could work out the ponies lived in peace, no soldiers or weapon forges. In fact, there wasn't much of anything. Only houses and commercial buildings from what she could work out, much like their language, they had a completely different way of writing. Meaning that she couldn't read the signs scattered around the town nor the books the purple pony was browsing over in the books.
Eventually the pony had stopped her searching, apparently finding what it was looking for. After quickly skimming her eyes over the wall of text the book had, it closed the book and moved it away.
Standing on the table, the creature made it eye level with Jade. Muttering something in its strange speech, it lowered it horn towards her face and slowly moved forward. Jade began leaning back away from the approaching horn as the creature didn't seem like it was going to stop moving it forward.
Jade began to scurry back from the creature as it stepped off the table and seized back the cushions as it relentlessly pushed forward towards her face. She hit the wall and let out a little cry under her breath. What caused the once nice pony to suddenly want to impale her own its horn was beyond her. Maybe it was some sort of ritual or sacrifice, such things weren't uncommon amongst tribes. But she wasn't particularly keen on having her blood spilled for some weird pony cult leader.
Drawing out her pistol from its holster she aim it towards the purple pony. At seeing her drawn weapon the pony suddenly back away, fear in its eyes. What was stopping the creature from just snatching the weapon from her with its powers?
Giving the pony the benefit of the doubt, Jade lowered the pistol but kept in drawn just in case. The creature gave a breath of relief and began approaching her again but much slower this time.
It gave her a happy grin, and lowered its horn again. Jade pointed the weapon at the pony torso and only needed to pull the trigger if it tried anything. The horn was pressed to her forehead and the dull tusk lit up like it did when the creature levitated things.
A warm wave of heat ran from head to toe. Getting a giggle out of Jade as it felt like someone was tickling her. The creature that still was standing atop of her, took a deep breath and opened its mouth.
“Hello.” It said with a sweet, feminine voice. Jade's eyebrows shot up high and her eyes were pried opened as far as they could.
“I don't even...what?” she mumbled, her hands raising up to smother her face. It was going to be a long day...
