Equestria Besieged

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Attempted Regicide
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Attempted Regicide

Princess Celesta's Private Chambers
1900 Hours November 17
Five years after Luna's Redemption

It had been a long day at court, with only the patience of an immortal could possess could Celesta have sat through Elder Scroll's two hour long proposal to rewrite property tax on multiple different regions. She had lowered the sun moments earlier to allow her sister to raise the moon and begin her night court. She was about to step into a long and well disserved bubble bath, even an immortal needed a childish delight every so often, when one of Twilight Sparkle's friendship reports flamed into existence.

Smiling, she pick it up with her magic intending to read it while soaking in the bubbly warmth of her bath. After stepping in the soothing water so unfurled the scroll and began reading. She was half way through reading about how friendships were tested by Pinkie experimenting with liquid dragon fire as a hot sauce, which had a rather unfortunate side effect of the imbibers randomly belching fire for three days straight. Thankfully, nothing other than some singed fur and a few burned dresses came of it.

After the bath she used her magic to dry herself before sitting down to purview the foreign relations reports one of her more secretive agents had sent.

I'm glad to report that your concerns over the unusual magic echoes coming from the Griffin Empire have yet to be validated. All leads I've pursued thus far have yet to turn anything usual. My sources within the imperial council shows our relations with the empire are as strong as ever, even behind closed doors.

However, as I mentioned earlier I have not investigated every lead, and some of the one's I have were done more tactfully than normal in the interest of foreign relations if I was caught. I will continue my objective and report back at the scheduled time next month.

Faithfully

SS~

Celesta allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief. "I hope he finds nothing. I may have to correspond with the Emperor himself to make him aware of my concerns if Silver does find something. But for now, I have nothing more than a suspicion." Glad to hear relations with her northern neighbor were as strong as well, Celesta read through several more reports before finally turning in for the night.

Sol Naval Ship Remorah's Oath in low orbit over Barossa Three
Passageway nine B
1100 Hours shipboard time
November 17
2630 C.E.

Commander Daria Barrane was walking side by side with Cie Zhèng. Daria was a sphinx, a being who had feline hindquarters starting just forward of her navel, and that of a human woman for her forward half. Her forelegs resembled human arms just above the elbow, yet below that she had dark blonde fur and paws. Upon her back sprouted large off-white wings which had blue lines crossing the white feathers that strongly resembled arcing lightning. Her neck was slightly longer than a typical human's but not over much, yet it did give her more range of movement. Her ears were longer and had a wisp of fur along the leading edges, but were otherwise humanish. Atop her head sat vibrant blue hair in a pony tail that reached just below her shoulders.

She wore the standard uniform shirt of a Sol tactical officer which was mostly black, with crimson trim. Due to the fur covering their rear half, the vast majority of sphinxes abstained from anything that could be considered pants. Most found clothing covered fur to be rather uncomfortable and largely unnecessary outside of extreme environments. Strapped around her torso was a lightweight flexmetal harness that had a silver finish denoting her mid ranged officer status. The harness had most of its weight centered along her spine and forward flanks, and was designed to not interfere with flight. Upon her head rested a thick computerized circlet.

Cie Zhèng was a human male of average build in a naval blue science officer's uniform with a bronze trim denoting his lower station. He had a holographic projector attached to a pocket that was projecting a semitransparent file in front of him. "As you can see commander, the subject's itineris system is abnormally extensive. She may need to be given an inhibitor until she learns proper control."

Daria did not need to physically look at the hologram, because sphinxes possessed strong physic abilities that were mostly only able to affect technology. An ability they aptly termed: TechNotelePathy. In this instance, Daria was using her TNP to scan the same document that was in her circlet with her mind's eye.

"She'd have to be given one anyway; the sensory overload might end up causing an aneurism, not to mention some serious damage to the ship. Shouldn't you already know this?" She added sternly while gesturing at his uniform.

Cie inwardly cringed at the seemingly insulted glare Daria was giving him. "M-my apologies Sir. But I graduated the academy only last week. I haven't had time to become fully familiar with the process yet."

Her scowl suddenly brightened with a smirk. "Just messing with you kid." A solid hologram of a human styled robotic arm materialized on Daria's side and reached up to slap the scientist on the back before disappearing again. "Honestly, you looked as if you were two seconds from soiling yourself. And don't call me sir, too formal. Barrane is fine."

Cie gave a shuddering breath of expelling stress. He had already been briefed on the commander's near inability to be serious outside of combat or formal events. "Yes Commander Barrane." It was still difficult to address a war heroine in such an informal method. "But to answer your earlier question, the subject will be ready for you at a minimum of oh seven hundred tomorrow, but the chief wants you to wait until eleven hundred until a full physical can be given."

"That can be done planet side. When will she leave the tube though?"

He consulted his other files. "In eight hours."

"I'd like to be there. Its…important that she see another sphinx soon after waking."

Royal Sister's Watchtower
0200 hours

Luna's night court did not occur in one solid block of time like her sister's. Instead, it was broken in two halves; one in the evening and one in the early morning that ended when she was to lower the moon. At the moment, Luna was rather enjoying her duty of guarding ponykind during her nightly vigil. Unlike those despair filled years leading up to her corruption into Nightmare Moon, the night princess found there were far more stargazers and more professional astronomers in modern Equestria. To her immense gratitude, one such active telescope belonged to the element of magic. I owe Twilight Sparkle and her friends much, the least I can do is keep watch over them while they sleep. She reconsidered Twilight's nocturnal actives. If she sleeps at all this night. She added with a quiet chuckle.

Sight alone was not the sole method the night alicorn used to keep watch. Her wards around the side of the mountain to which Canterlot rested upon tingled her magical senses that several presences that was not a pony nor an animal was spying on the city, or more correctly, the castle. Keeping her telescope going along the land, she would occasionally sweep the mountain, but never lingered on the spot her wards had been tripped. The wards go silent when my vision nears that ledge. There is something definitely watching me.

Acting as if she was merely going to the restroom Luna left her perch. Once fully obscured by the tower's walls, her horn lit up and stardust started to gather in a small ball in front of her. The ball grew in size and started to take the shape of its creator. Within two minutes Luna finished creating a doppelganger of herself. When it finished forming she addressed it. "Wait four minutes, then assume my place at the telescope. Act as if everything is normal."

The clone was unable to speak, so it simply bowed its head and wait for the time to elapse. Meanwhile the real Luna cast a spell to dampen her magical presence and raced down the tower to the ground floor where eight of her night guards stood watch, half of them were inside the tower itself. Those four saw their princess descend the stairs and stood at attention. "Attend me brave ones. There is a matter that requires investigation."

The four saluted and spoke as one. "Yes, your majesty."

Sol Naval Ship The Remorah's Oath
Medical Lab Seven
1840 Hours Ship Time

Daria stood on the observation platform watching the nameless subject in a clear glass pod. The liquid within was heavily oxygenated so the sphinx within did not need a breathing mask. For the benefit of the being within, the glass was currently opaque, save for the face. Even so, Daria knew the subject would be furless and her wings lacking feathers, the mental image was not a welcome sight yet her subconscious decided to push it to the forefront to spite her.

"Nerve stimulation sequence beginning now." The shipboard AI announced.

To Daria's side, stood the graying human, Captain Erickson. "The brain gang, says her transformation was a complete success. As if it could actually fail." He added with a grunt.

Despite her willingness to be the future mentor to the sphinx in the tube, Daria was in a sour mood. "I still can't believe Sol Gov, passed this initiative, we can rebuild our numbers just fine without having to resort to transforming humans into sphinxes."

Erickson lowered his head contemplatively. "I'm sure you can, but the Clarions were quite persistent about wiping your race from existence. I am not scared to admit that I was afraid that they would have succeeded if the war had lasted another two years. We've practically shared a symbiotic relationship since the twenty second century. I would rather not see a future where you sphinxes were extinct."

The last comment got a smirk out of her. "This may seem a little bias, but I'd rather not see that future either."

Secret entrance into Canterlot Castle
0235 Hours

Luna stood just inside the secret door, which could only be opened by either alicorn. Taking wing, she silently guided her retinue towards the ledge that her wards still informed her that had a possibly hostile presence. Flying along the opposite side of the mountain Luna and her entourage came up behind the ledge and found two bulky minotaurs and two sleeping manticore mounts. Both minotaurs had telescopes directed at the castle and taking down notes every so often.

Luna didn't want to risk detection just yet and continued to watch them. Must be studying patrol patterns and possible weaknesses. If they were here for just sightseeing, they would need to be so secretive about it. She pulling one of her guards in close. "Wake my sister, and tell her we have minotaur spies upon the mountain."

The guard weighted between doing as commanded, or to insist that he be allowed to stand by her side in the altercation that he was sure was about to unfold. "At once princess." When the guard was clear and away Luna returned her attention to the spies.

Even though she had been in the modern world for five years, Luna had not yet become up-to-date with current magical methods, otherwise she would have been able to detect the cloaked arcane beacon centered on the ledge. Feeling that confronting the spies without rousing the manticores would be the best approach. While relations with Cervidas, the Manticore nation, was cool, it was not yet to the point where open hostilities had begun. With that in mind, Luna thought it best to give the spies a chance to explain themselves. Using a spell to keep the ruffle of feathers silent, she and her guards jumped through the air and landed a few meters away from the spies. "Explain yourselves for spying on my city."

To their credit, both minotaurs turned around slowly, the larger of the two spoke with the trademark loud and somewhat harsh sounding manner. "Princess Luna. It is indeed an honor for you to grant us this chance to eliminate you so easily."

Luna's night guards took an aggressive stance, with one of them facing the manticores incase they awoke. Luna's hoof dug at the ground as her wings flared. "As much as your honesty in the matter is refreshing, you should know that you are no match for me, let alone with three of my elite guards at my side." While they did not show it, the guards took fierce pride in their princess's praise, and doubly resolved themselves to not fail her. All three of them tapped one of their forelegs on their chest plates at a time so that the short daggers could magically attach to their hooves. "I will give you this one chance to surrender yourselves. What say you?"

The older Minotaur let out a bellowing laugh before yelling. "I say, do it now!" The two manticores exploded in a blast of color revealing two disguised unicorns with their horns aglow. Before Luna could react the beacon lit up into a massive magical array that encompassed the entire ledge.

Her eyes widened at the realization. "That’s a mass teleport-" As quickly as it appeared, the array was gone, along with everyone else on the ledge.

Abandoned Hamlet fifty miles from Stalliongrad
0235 Hours

Calgradni paced in front of the summoning altar that stood on what used to be a bakery, and was studying it intently searching for any flaws. Calgradni was a pegasus with an ice blue coat and a silver mane. His cutie mark consisted of two interlinked rings of green and purple. But over top of it were a white and black X mark over top of it. Around his neck he wore three necklaces with five dull clear crystal orbs on each one. The dozen ponies surrounding the altar currently chanting the words of coalition. All bore the same X over their marks as well. He stopped pacing and stared at the currently dormant teleportation array sitting in front of the summoning alter. Good, the array and the altar are flawless. He looked at a timepiece on his hoof. No doubt the bait will be taken shortly.

As if on cue, the array began to activate and started glowing with an eerie green. "Excellent, they'll be arriving soon." He turned his attention to the chanters. "The time comes, open the way for the Maledict."

He opened his wings to be horizontal to the ground and spoke three mantras in an ancient tongue. “You are protected, for they are deflected.” A series of runes appeared in the air in front of him then they were pulled from the air and filled five of the orbs. “By gravity’s might, you will not take flight.” Again the runes were pulled into five orbs. “Censored, silenced, rebuked, denied.” The last five were filled.

By the time he was done the mix of the three pony tribes at the altar went from a low murmuring chant to shouting it. The energy that had been building in the air now surged to ripple time and space above it. Calgradni was about to lend his own voice to the choir when the array when from green to purple. Damn, those idiotic cows signaled the activation too early. The window to keeping a Maledict stable in this world is too narrow for such a foul up. It has to feed on the soul of an immortal within three minutes or else it will return to the abyss.

He turned to face the array just as Luna, her three guards, and his four mercenaries arrived. Luna scanned her surroundings and saw her back was to a dilapidated house with the minotaurs on one side and the two hostile unicorns to the other. In front of her was a large summoning altar with the air above already heaving as the magics around it fought to rip a hole into it. Luna briefly regretted sending the extra guard away. “Take down the unicorns, I’ll handle the minotaurs. Then stop that summoning.”

Nodding their compliance, two of the night guard took to the air with the third charging along the ground. Luna tried to rush the altar but the Minotaurs intercepted her path. With a smirk of contempt, she gave a strong flap of her wings to fly over them. Their reach just was not long enough to grab her as she cleared over their horns.

“Gravity!” Calgradni shouted, one of the orbs dimmed.

Luna let off a yelp of surprise as she suddenly found herself harshly shoved to the ground. The force of it dazed her momentarily, but it was long enough for the smaller and faster minotaur to grab her by the tail and unceremoniously swung her like a weighted rope, up and over his head and back down on the ground behind him. Or at least, that was the plan. Instead, Luna preformed a hasty teleport, blinking her out of the monster’s grip and back on all hoofs a foot away from him. She charged her horn and fired off a kinetic blast that shoved the smaller minotaur off his hoofs and several feet away. The second minotaur moved in to hammer both fists into the princess.

Just as she charged her spelled, Calgradni spoke again. “Rebuked.” Luna’s spell fizzled instantly, only her own fast reflexes allowed her to recognize her spell failed and that she had to physically dodge the attack. In that, she was only partially successful and the hit grazed her ribcage just hard enough to recoil from the impact.

Luna bounced back a bit to zero in on the source of the words that scratched at the back of her head. She made eye contact with Calgradni for but a moment before her younger assailant pressed in to attack. Luna gave a strong flap to dodge a left hook. “Gravity!” And found herself back on the ground with an inch deep indentation. Summoning a quickly push spell Luna's horn flashed too quickly for Calgradni to counter it. Had the spell come from a typical unicorn, the hulking bull would not have even felt it, however that was not the case and the minotaur staggered to a knee.

The larger minotaur moved to flank her, but Luna's guard sergeant came from above and sliced the man-bull's right arm down its length with a hoof dagger. Howling in pain, the injured minotaur used his rage to stomp the guard while its younger counterpart faced off against Luna. The guard easily dodged the clumsy strike and ducked under his opponent's guard to stab his midsection. "Deflect!" A violet barrier formed around the minotaur's body, causing the attack to bounce off. The shield persisted for three seconds before disappearing. But in those three seconds, the enraged bull smashed an uppercut into the guard's chest and sent him flying. "Gravity!" The dazed guard slammed into the ground.

Luna saw her sergeant was in trouble and attempted to buck her opponent. "Deflect!" Her hoofs struck her target as if Newton's third law didn't apply to him. He tried to grab onto her flowing tail, but she opted to just run forward a few meters to get clear enough to cast a spell at the minotaur bearing down on her stunned guard. Before she even finished pointing her horn- "Rebuked!" She half expected her spell to be countered so she sprinted the very short distance and tackled the injured bull away from the sergeant who was just now picking himself out of the depression in the ground. The bull used his good arm to sweep the princess off him and climbed to his feet to find the other two guards had finished dispatching the last unicorn and all three were now ready to keep the minotaurs busy.

This left Calgradni alone to contend with Luna. She did not bother with talk because the portal was nearing complete. She only knew that whatever they were trying to bring into the world, had to be stopped, one way or another. With the guards leading the bulls away from the princess, she had a clear line of attack and charged while readying a spell. "Gravity, Rebuked!"

Her spell evaporated as her face was ground into the cobblestone street. She looked up at the Pegasus who had a sneer plastered over his face. "It’s a shame really. I had hoped you would have made this more interesting, your highness." She spoke the last two words with such revulsion that it stung her a little to hear such hate in one of her subjects.

"Whatever foul deeds you attempt here tonight, you will not succeed." She ran full tilt at him, but he did not attempt to dodge. She saw the trap almost too late. "Deflect!" She bounded over the shielded pegasus and instead ran right for the summoners. "Gravity!"

Luna had expected it as soon as she was half way through the air and had surrounded herself with a counterspell. Calgradni cursed her name. "Rebuked!" erased her wards. "Deflect!" Was shouted just in time to keep the lead chanter from receiving a face full of hooves. Calgradni was not a close range fighter and knew trying to go hoof to hoof with the princess was a death warrant. The portal was on the verge of completion, only the destination remained to be set. Luna saw the shift in the chanters from the earth pony with a grass green mane to the unicorn with a butter yellow coat. She made her move to attack the earth pony. "Deflect!" But it was a feint and she bucked the unicorn cross the side of the neck. The choir came to an almost deafening silence. With the portal's spherical shape seeming to stabilize the summoners thought their work was complete, and bid a hasty withdraw from the alicorn who was busy studying the portal.

It's not perfectly formed yet, I can't close it, but I can redirect it. Luna pointed her horn at the portal and worked to disrupt it.

Calgradni was thrilled by the perfect set up, his followers backed away from the portal as it was about to disgorge the Maledict right on top of the princess. When her horn started glowing his exuberance dimmed. I'll not give you the chance to break it. "Reb-"

The sergeant swooped down from above and planted both fore hooves on Calgradni's head, cutting off his spellwork. "Hoof To Face!" The wordmancer was dazed by the attack. His minions threw themselves at the sergeant who was driven back by sheer weight of numbers. He was having a difficult time of it even when he was no longer using non-lethal force and was forced to retreat away from his target. Luna's face reflected the monumental effort it was taking to redirect the portal. Moments later it solidified and ripped away at what the other side was able to latch onto.

Sol Naval Ship The Remorah's Oath
Medical Lab Seven
1920 Hours Ship Time

The as of yet nameless sphinx was minutes away from leaving the pod. Daria stood several feet away with the captain at her side. "So tell me why you went and changed into full combat gear again?"

Daria looked up at the three spherical drones that rotated around her, each one less than half a foot in diameter. Each one pulsed in every color in every shade of the spectrum as they orbited her in standby mode. She looked up at them and spoke with childish delight. "I like pretty colors."

The graying shipmaster groaned as he pressed two fingers on the bridge of his nose. I swear, once they hit maturity sphinxes age as fast as frozen molasses going uphill. In her that’s doubly true. "I mean, why greet the new girl like that?"

She stopped admiring the lights and refocused on the pod as escaping gasses signaled the moment was almost upon them. "I've already cleared it with orbital control and chief medical. I'm taking the next shuttle to the surface, and she's coming with me. As for while I didn't just pack my routers, it's because every time I let luggage claim handle them, I always need to spend hours recalibrating them. I mean honestly, their meant to handle the toughest grittiest combat possible just fine, but those buffoons handling luggage always manage to throw them off." Her mildly lighthearted rant almost produced a chuckle from the old man. "At any rate, it'd be better if she could get used to her new senses without a limiter on, and that can't happen on this massive tub of tech." She said while pawing the floor to indicate the ship itself. "Planet side has some wide open rural areas for that."

Erickson gave her a flat look with a raised eyebrow. "I can't picture you, or any sphinx for that matter, enjoying time away from any advanced tech."

She huffed at him before facing the pod that was lowering into place. "We'll be fine. Sides, it'll be a good chance to stretch my wings for a while." She added with thinly veiled apprehension. Daria was not looking forward to being on an agricultural world for the next year, but her assignment would make it worth it.

The pod was laid horizontal on the deck and the liquid was rapidly drained. A nozzle moved in from the top of the pod and help remove the liquid from the subject's lungs. The process brought the sphinx to a rude awakening. She started coughing and the nozzle removed itself to allow her to start breathing on her own.

"Subject 777-012A, please remain calm." The ship's AI requested over the pod's speakers. The pod opened and she was grabbed by a hard hologram that picked her up gently and proceeded to wrap a formfitting white fabric completely around her, sparing her feet and face. The material would keep her temperature regulated and protect from abrasions. One of the robotic arms applying the finishing touches to the clothing started moving erratically, causing the subject to panic, which inadvertently caused more of the arms to start going haywire. She started yelling. "Its all whispering, make it stop. Make it stop!"

Daria noticed what was happening and flew over to the figurative newborn and extended her technotelepathy over the robotic appendages and they fell limp. The whispers in the subject's head quieted down and she looked at the commander. "You're alright, nothing is going to hurt you here." Daria pushed as much tranquility through her empathy as possible.

The subject was receptive and slumped back down on the hologram. Daria wordlessly signaled the AI to continue and it slipped a limiter circlet over the subject's head. Suddenly all of the machines and computers in the area were quiet again, and the subject fell asleep. "Man alive, I have never seen a sphinx, natural born or otherwise display that kind of TNP so quickly." The AI lowered the hologram to a hovering stretcher. Daria remained at her side. Moments after she was on the stretcher the air around her started to ripple and squirm.

Yellow warning lights sprung to life. "Alert. Gravimetric and tachyon distortion detected in Medical Lab Seven. Recommend immediate evacuation." The staff exited quickly with the captain waiting at the entrance.

He saw Daria trying to push the stretcher to the exit, but it was as if time was slowing to a crawl for her. "Commander, get out of there!" He attempted to help, but the distortion crackled with energy and hit him square in the chest, pushing back against the wall. His last waking memory was seeing Commander Barrane slow to a stop and then both she and the subject were compressed to a infinitesimal point and were gone.

Settling In

Abandoned Hamlet fifty miles from Stalliongrad
0310 Hours

Calgradni arose for a blunt trauma induced nap to find not the glorious sight of a Maledict, but what looked like two mostly featherless griffins lying comatose near where the portal used to be. He was currently surrounded by his acolytes who they themselves were surrounded by three very angry night guardponies and an ebony princess who radiated cold fury. "Its time we left." He grabbed a single brightly glowing teal orb from a small satchel. "Displaced." He and his group vanished in a blaze of green fire.

Luna's magical senses told her the teleport's destination was far to the northeast. However, as much as she wanted to investigate further she was mostly unfamiliar with the newer style of spellwork and the remnants of it were dwindling rapidly. I know that language that pegasus was using, but I have never seen it used for actual spellwork. No doubt someone like my sister or Twilight Sparkle could trace this better than I, but all evidence would likely be gone before they arrived.

The sergeant hazarded an interruption. "Your highness-” He said as she opened her eyes from her concentration. "Begging you pardon, but the area is secure. I'm sorry to report that none of our assailants survived. They were determined to not be taken alive."

She sighed at the news, but did not express sadness from it. "I feared as much. Do not trouble yourself sergeant, not only did they attempt to assassinate me, their leader also attempted to summon a demon of Tartaurus." All three guards balked at the revelation. "They earned their fate." She added sternly.

She turned to see the still forms of the two mysterious creatures. "Which brings us to the matter, of what they did manage to summon. She and her three guardponies trotted over to find one sort of half ape half griffin lying on some kind of very low table or platform, and the other hybrid was curled in a ball with its paws over its head in a look of frozen agony. The altar behind them had completely disintegrated because of a failsafe in the portal's spellwork. "Stand back and be ready, I don't know how they'll react to my magic."

Before beginning her magical probe, her study of their attire gave the princess some insight. The one in white garb is fur and featherless, while this other one has both. Its possible she's a patient, any sores or lesions could be concealed by the odd clothing. She turned her attention to the ape-griffin who was curled in frozen pain. Luna immediately identified it as a uniform. "What is that strange armor on its…looks more like a female actually. On her back?"

The princess decided to probe the armor first. She barely managed to begin study it when three small spheres broke away from the armor and started buzz around the hybrid in a highly defensive manner. "Caday! Yen gyut kakar!"

Luna backed away as the guards rushed to her side. "Wait, I want to see what they do." They backed down, and took formation behind the princess, ready to jump at a moment's notice.

The prismatic spheres changed colors to green, pink, and electric yellow for each one, and swooped down low to their comatose master. Luna watched as several scanning beams and various other sensors passed over the hybrid. The yellow orb moved next to its master's ear. "Beyah." No response. "Beyah!" It repeated louder. "BEYAH!" Still nothing. Finally it rose a foot in the air and then dropped down hard on the hybrid's head with a comical "clunk". Luna could not help but snicker at the odd little orbs, while the guards were too perplexed by the strange behavior to see the humor.

For the longest time, Daria only saw darkness and silence. It was a nice place, plenty of time to sleep, and contemplate how she was going to spend her year away from the service in a sort of paid vacation. Then a voice intruded in on the nice black landscape. "Wakeup." She ignored it, as she did the next two times it repeated itself. The voice was not alone in its efforts and she felt a heavy weight bonk her over the head, shattering the darkness and the waking world rushed back to her along with a huge amount of pain. The demon would have traversed the portal that compressed the traveler into a single point before transporting it to the other side with no ill effects. A mortal however was another story and hot pain lanced throughout her body.

The ponies could not understand the language, but it was quite clear in the tone and inflection, that the uniformed hybrid was spouting profanity at such a prestigious rate it would have put even the saltiest of sailors to shame. Two minutes later, the profanity finally stopped. The vulgar creature shook off the last of the pain and took stock of its surroundings. In an effort to not sound like she was sneaking up on the hybrid Luna cleared her throat loudly to grab her attention. The creature spun to face her, and the three spheres moved with her and assumed a triangular formation behind her.

Daria didn’t know what to make of the odd horse like creatures in front of her. She had never seen one in person, but a lieutenant she had been dating a few years back had been huge on old twentieth century westerns of Earth. But she could tell from the expressive eyes of the four mini-horses that they were highly intelligent. A casual probing with TNP told her the armor they were wearing were silent, and thus were technologically inferior, or simply basic attire. Just my luck, they don’t have any software I can sniff out a language from. Assuming the reason she was not tied up in some sort of cell, or even near a dissecting lab, was that her presence was an accident. I should have paid more attention to the first contact rules. “Greetings. Is there any chance you speak English?”

The largest of the horse things responded in a regal tone. “Darnee. Greth ryton vut?”

Daria sighed. The universal translator won’t work if I don’t have the vocabulary. Thankfully, there’s never a solution technology won’t solve. She thought with a grin. Under her command, the three router spheres orbited her head while scanning and recording the method in which the spoken and written word was stored in her brain. She made sure to show the curious mini horses that it was a painless procedure. A minute later the three flew over to stop in front of the tallest one, but stopped short a foot from her head.

Luna took an unconscious step back from the approaching spheres causing the guards to tense, but she held them back with a wing. “Hold. I think she wants me to repeat the gesture, it could be some ritual of greeting.”

The sergeant was not ready to let the possibly dangerous machines from harming his princess. “Princess, I must insist that it is possible these creatures could be even more dangerous then the traitors. Allow me to return the gesture. If it’s genuine, then no harm should come of it.”

Luna studied the curious yet patient hybrid and then back the guard. “If it is harmless, than the half griffin shouldn't mind who exactly returns it.” She stepped away from the spheres and the sergeant took her place. Daria got the message and lowered them to be head level with the guardpony. She slowly ordered the spheres to encircle the sergeant’s head then scanned his brain for the necessary information. The process took a few weary minutes as the spheres tried to decipher how the pony’s mind worked and then copied the linguistic information. With that done, it compared how Daria’s brain functioned with that of the sergeant, and rewrote all of the data into a format that her brain could work with. When it was done reformatting the sergeant’s language, the spheres flew back over and deposited it all in Daria’s memory. The ponies watched on with curiosity, as they could only see the pale aura of light coming off the routers. Luna was especially interested as she could sense absolutely no magic coming from either the ape-cat-bird thing, or the strange machines.

After what seemed like half an hour the spheres were finished and Daria turned to address the small horses. “Finally. I hate language barriers don’t you?”

The ponies were shocked to say the least. Not only had the hybrid spoken perfect equestrian, but with the same manehattenite accent the sergeant had. All three of them immediately identified it as memory theft magic of some sort; a very illegal act. Luna leveraged her years of experience and recovered fastest. She decided to ignore the legal complications for now in the interest of keeping the dialogue cordial. “They do tend to complicate matters yes.”

Daria’s expression brightened. “Ah good it worked.” She looked over to the unnamed sphinx still asleep on the stretcher and had her routers scan her. That’s a relief, she’s still weak from the pod, but otherwise is unharmed. I think being asleep during, whatever that was, saved her from the pain. She turned back to address the ponies. “I’m Commander Daria Barrane. And depending on your involvement on how we got here, you can either call me Barrane, or commander.” Then she spoke with a veiled threat. “You don’t want to have to call me commander.”

The guards bristled but a gesture from Luna held them at bay. “My name is Princess Luna. I’m afraid I am actually partially responsible for your presence here.” Luna went into an abridged version of the past hour of events; including the forced teleport, the brief fight with the minotaurs, the wordmancer, and finally her altering the portal.

Daria sat on her haunches to digest the information. To the surprise of the ponies, an arm materialized to Daria’s left and she scratched her chin in contemplation. “So you’re saying you have no way of sending me back?”

Luna shook her head sadly. “This method of portal creation is tightly controlled knowledge that our government does not possess, and even if I could reproduce it; I have no way of knowing where exactly you originated from. But I’m sure a look on the world map might give us an idea of your homeland.”

Daria gave her a sly look as the holographic arm disappeared. “I doubt they have my homeworld on that map. Regardless, I can create a way to contact my people, but that will take time to get working.” She looked back at the snoozing subject. If their armor is anything to go by, these natives probably has a very low technology level, this would be a good a place as any to let her learn some control over her TNP without needing a limiter. Assuming of course that the natives can be trusted.

Luna was intrigued by the statement. Did she say homeworld? The prospect of talking to a being who lived among her stars was highly appealing. Not to mention questioning the alien on a civilization built without magic, as if such a thing was possible. “If you give your word to never harm my subjects, I can grant you quarters at Canterlot Castle.”

Daria gave Luna a cold look. “Never? Never is a very long time, princess. I won’t go out of my way to harm anyone, but I will not make such a promise that forces me to avoid acting in self-defense.” The smell of blood tinged the air, and Daria glanced over to see the bodies of the four mercenaries. “And by the looks of it, such a promise would be rather hypocritical.”

To her credit, Luna made no outward showing of her embarrassment of being called on such a logical fallacy on her part. “I concede the point. Instead, if you promise to learn the basics of our laws and customs, and agree to abide by them, then I can grant you honorary citizenship along with residence at the castle.” Mostly so I can prod you with questions. The alicorn had to fight to keep her giddiness in check.

Daria did not have to think for long. Marooned on a new world with no money was not a good situation to be in. However, being granted a place inside the ruler’s castle of all places would allow her to focus on helping the subject literally get on her feet. “I can agree to that. And so will my friend there when she wakes up.”

Luna put on her best smile. "I'm glad we have an accord. I'll let my sister know where we are, so she can send over transportation."

Daria inclined her head. "Thank you, while we wait, I'd like to get my friend here up to speed."

Luna wanted to inquire what the other being's illness was, but she wanted to let her sister know she was alright and about the attackers. She leaned in to whisper to her sergeant. "Keep one eye on the perimeter, and one on our guests. I know not if her word can be trusted, but I want to give her the benefit of the doubt so keep it subtle."

"Yes your highness." He replied before relying the orders his two underlings.

Daria walked over to the subject who was on her side and groggily trying to remove the limiter on her head, but was still trying to get it off as if she still had thumbs. The commander had a pair of holographic arms manifest and helped the subject to lie on her belly. "Hold on now. You'll be just fine. Let me help you that." She pulled the limiter off the subject's head, while keeping her own TNP locked on her equipment so the other sphinx would not pick up on them. "There is that better?"

The subject looked at her with vacant eyes for a moment before focusing on her, with the limiter gone, the vice on her mind lifted. "Yes, th-thank you." She replied timidly.

"Don't mention it, I hate the things myself." She put the limiter on the other end of the stretcher. "I'd offer you some food and water-" Looking around she noted the town was in serious disrepair, and was already sparse to begin with. The princess over there didn’t exactly get a chance to pack for an extended trip either. "But it looks like we're on our own for now. Are you strong enough to stand?"

"I-I think so." She started to get up on two legs.

Daria saw it coming and caught the subject as she lost her balance. "Whoa now, remember you have four legs now, not two."

The subject looked down at her forelegs. "Oh. Of course I do." She said with mild confusion.

Daria had her holographic hand snap its fingers to bring the subject's attention back to her. "Focus now. I know it may be hard, but can you remember what your name is? You didn't have one on your file."

The confused sphinx wracked her muddled brain for a minute before answering. "I had an old name, but I erased it. I wanted a new one for when my…my transformation was finished."

Not exactly a rare case, but the reason fits. "Did you pick a new name then?"

The subject tried sitting down to wrap her paws over her head to help think, but only managed to fall on her side. Daria pulled her back up and helped her keep her balance. The subject's wings were only stable in their resting position because she had yet to think about moving them. "It… it was Ashni."

"Ashley?" The commander asked quizzically to make sure she heard correctly.

The subject thought about it for a moment then shook her head. "No, it was definitely Ashni. I can't remember a surname though. Why can't I remember my old life?"

Daria was saddened by the pitiful look on Ashni's face. "Mostly because of the way the transformation rewires your brain to our racial standard, so to speak. You obviously don't remember being told that before you underwent the process. Personal memories are chief among that which is lost. But at least you didn't forget your education so that’s a plus. But do you at least remember why you wanted to volunteer?" That bit of info will be crucial if she's going to not start regretting her choice to become a sphinx.

A pained look of contemplation passed over Ashni's features before speaking. "All I remember is being excited that I was selected. Nothing more than that."

Daria gave a slight sigh of relief. "Well if you remember that much about it, I'm sure the rest will come to you later. For now, I want you to learn how to stand and walk again. You're strong enough to do it, but you just don’t know how to move your body anymore."

Luna finished reading the letter her sister had sent back. As expected, Celesta was grateful that Luna came out of the whole affair unscathed. Tia said she's launch a quiet investigation in the matter, but I don't think it will be enough. For someone to pull off an attempt like this is either a single rouge organization, or more likely a nation state level operation. Sending out single operatives isn't going to work against this. I'll have to do something about improving our intelligence agencies.

Luna scanned the area, seeing nothing but her night guards keeping a perimeter while the commander was trying to get her companion to stand on shaky feet. Deciding to investigate she trotted over. "Commander Barrane, does your companion have an illness. I would be remiss to allow an alien plague to reach my people."

Ashni lost her balance at hearing the alien language, and tried to crawl behind Daria for protection. "Don't worry Ashni, she’s a friend." Ashni nodded but cowered in closer while Daria addressed the princess. "No, Ashni here is perfectly healthy; she's just a little new at this."

Luna gave an inquisitive look at the frightened alien. Reminds me of the element of kindness. "New? At what?"

"The details are unimportant." She replied avoiding the question. "But again I assure you it is no affliction, all she needs is time to recover. She is of no risk to anyone."

"I see." Luna replied flatly. "While we wait for transportation to arrive, do you mind if I ask you some questions."

"Only if you don't mind me helping Ashni get walking again at the same time."

Luna was intrigued by the opportunity to study the pair's interaction with each other while asking her questions. It was a chance to glimpse into their culture and mindset. "Of course. I would not want to hinder her progress."

Barrane nodded. "Thanks." She helped Ashni back on her feet. "Now remember, just forget about your wings for the time being, they keep you center of gravity normalized while in a resting position. It's your tail that will help you stay balanced while standing and walking."

Ashni's stance was more stable this time, as she tried to flick her unfamiliar tail to counter her own wobbliness. Luna took the pause to speak. "So what may I call your kind?"

Daria answered without looked away from her student. "We're sphinxes. One of the founding members of Sol Force. The military arm of the Solar Empire."

Luna felt slightly troubled by that. "Sphinxes…” I swear that sounds familiar for some reason. Daria was too preoccupied to notice the pause. “Our kind are called ponies.”

Daria looked at her with an appraising expression. “Fits.”

“What does thou means by that?” Luna flustered slightly while slipping partially into old speaking habits.

“Nothing really. Just a side effect of the language transfer.” She replied matter-of-factly. “I made sure to grab only the syntax and vocab, but I haven’t actually gone through your dictionary to hunt every meaning down yet.”

Luna recovered her composure. “Interesting.” A pause lingered. "You said your civilization is an empire. Are you a militarist people?"

Daria was glad Ashni was showing rapid improvement in her stance, but walking would be a much bigger hurdle. "Watch me and try to emulate my walking gait. Don’t try to recreate it perfectly, just the best way that works for you." While walking slowly in straight lines with Ashni watching closely she replied to Luna's question. "Very." She said flatly. "Its rather par for the course when you run across other hostile space faring civilizations who think the stars only belong to them. But the whole Empire thing is a misnomer, the founders had a flare for the dramatic, and we never actually conquered anything when they decided to call it an empire." She stopped pacing. "What sort of government do you have princess?"

"We have a diarchy. I share leadership with my sister Princess Celesta."

Daria paused her instruction. The rulers go by the title princess? Meh, different culture, different rules.

The questioning when back and forth for the next few hours until it was time for Luna to lower the moon. Both sphinxes were too busy with each other to notice the event however. By the time the chariots arrived, Ashni was able to take a few steps at a time without losing her balance. One might think going from two legs to four would be accomplished easily, but that is not the case when your limbs' muscles work very different than how they used to. Not to mention the use of a tail for balance and keeping the two large, albeit currently featherless wings, from pulling her off her feet. The neural stimulation she received before leaving the pod trained some basic muscle memory, but it was more of a struggle for her to start trusting it rather than trying to consciously move about.

The trip over the mountains was, unfortunately for Luna, largely uneventful. In the interest of speed, Celesta had sent over only small chariots, so the sphinxes were alone in their chariot, while Luna and the sergeant sat in another. He eyed the aliens who seemed to be rather enjoying themselves the way only an aerial being could. What bothered him was how, carefree the commander seemed to be. Ashni aside, the behavior was not something he expected from someone who supposedly was a military officer. He would have expected lesser amount of it from an officer who was off duty, but not someone who was lost on a different planet and acting as a diplomat. “Princess.” He started just loud enough to be heard clearly, but that it would not carry in the wind. “Do you think they can be trusted? The blue maned one doesn’t seem to have proper military bearing.”

Luna peered down at her loyal guardpony with a critical eye. “I understand your concerns. And I must say I share some of them. However, Commander Barrane is from a different civilization entirely separated from our own. So long as neither of them gives reason to question the worth of their word, then we should trust them to do as they promise.” He voice softened. “But if it puts your mind at ease, know that know that they are on an unfamiliar world, and we are their current best bet at surviving.”

Luna could tell he was still not totally satisfied. “As you say princess. However, that magic they used is…frightening. She ripped our language from my head with ease. I’ll grant she was ignorant at the time, but mind reading magic is highly illegal. What’s to say she didn’t take more?”

Luna’s face grew morose. "The letter of the law is that the victim must be unwilling to be subjected to the mind magic for it to be illegal. In this case it was an issue of ignorance on both parties. Even so I understand how violated you must feel, but there was no way to know that was her intent. I asked her about it, and informed her of the legality issue. The commander claims quite adamantly that what she did was not magic, straight and simple technology.” She paused at the sergeant’s incredulous expression. “Well, straight and extremely advanced technology. But I know what she said is true. I detected no magic at work from her equipment, but she possesses a very odd aura. Ashni does as well, but to a lesser extent and extremely chaotic compared to Barrane’s." She hesitated, wanting to gauge his demeanor. "Regardless, do you wish to pursue charges?"

Any other time the sergeant would not hesitate to answer yes. Yet he recognized it was a special case and the removal of the language barrier was critical to communication. "She was ignorant of the law, and did it without malicious intent. So I will not, this time."

Luna assumed he would answer as much and replied warmly. "Glad to hear it."

With the issue of the mind magic resolved, the comment his princess made about the aliens' auras worried him. As a pegasus guard, the sergeant knew little of abstract magical theory and even less about auras. But chaotic often times meant trouble. “Is the ill one going to be dangerous?”

“I don’t know.” Luna replied glancing backwards briefly at the sphinxes who were talking to themselves. “The commander implied to the negative, but seemed determined to not give me a straight answer.”

Canterlot Airspace
0945 Hours

It was well past dawn when the mountain capital came into view. The majestic city was a welcome sight to the tired ponies. It had been a trying night and all of them wished to sleep as soon as possible, but all of them knew that would have to wait a while yet. The sphinxes were not so much impressed by the comparatively low tech city, but by the artistry and that it was hanging off the side of a mountain. It was a feat their own civilization could easily accomplish, but the fact that the ponies did it without such technology is what grabbed their attention.

Right before the sphinxes' chariot landed, Daria commanded the stretcher to deactivate its adhesion field and it dropped out from under the chariot and fell into a hover a few inches off the ground behind the vehicle. Ashni gave it a dejected look before facing Daria. “I want to walk from here.”

Barrane shook her head. “Sorry, but the princess here wants us to meet with her sister, and it’s likely to be bad manners in any culture to make the leader wait on you. You’ll have plenty of time to get used to your paws after that.” Ashni couldn’t help but watch herself flex a forepaw already missing her lost thumbs.

“Yes ma’am.” She said defeatedly, she was not looking forward to being paraded around a castle on a stretcher.

Luna finished talking with the castle guards into relieving her night guard so they could get some very much needed sleep. She walked up to the sphinxes. “My sister is in the throne room, she wishes to see you now.”

Daria inclined her head. “Lead the way.” While the ponies did just that, she mentally commanded the stretcher to follow her.

The night princess led the group in a somewhat scenic route under the pretense of avoiding the rooms and corridors where petitioners and nobleponies would be milling about, mostly arguing and complaining about the very unusual secession of court; even if it was only temporary. The group entered the throne room from a secret trap door behind the throne and found Celesta waiting for them at the entrance. Not wanting to be on the stretcher for any longer than absolutely necessary, Ashni climbed off as soon as it came to a stop feeling much more confident on her feet.

A glance at her sister told Celesta what she needed to know in how to talk with the aliens. "I welcome you to my city Commander Barrane, Miss Ashni."

Daria had the forethought to ask Luna what protocol would be required of her, so she bowed her head respectfully with Ashni quickly following suit. "Thank you your highness. I appreciate your hospitability."

The alabaster alicorn was pleased to see an adherence to manners, it bode well for avoiding any complications later. She gave a warm smile in return. "Think nothing of it. Because of the unfortunate nature of your arrival, the least we can offer is a place to stay. As I'm sure my sister has already informed you, that comes with adhering to our laws and customs."

Daria resumed a normal standing posture. "It would behoove me to be respectful to the ruler of the land. However I do not expect to stay long. After I contact my people they will undoubtedly send a retrieval vessel. I will make sure my government rewards you properly."

Celesta shook her head slightly. "Reward is not necessary. It is just the right thing to do."

Daria was unsure if the statement was honest, or if the alicorn was playing the politician's game. Either way, she decided it was best to take her at face value until either princess gave reason to think otherwise. She nodded in thanks. "Then I shall endeavor to make sure such generosity is deserved."

"Glad to hear it." She looked back towards a unicorn several steps behind her and gestured him to approach. "My guard captain Shining Armor will show you to your quarters, I must ask you to return to the throne room tomorrow at the beginning of court to introduce you to my ponies. I would not want to cause a panic among them by seeing unannounced visitors."

Daria studied the proud stallion briefly before returning her attention to the princess. "I understand. We'll be there."

"Wonderful, not if you'll excuse me, I must resume court. Captain."

Armor stepped towards the trap door. "This way please."

The passage branched off in various directions, but the path Shining lead them down opened into the second floor of the guest tower. He had been concerned about the slow progress of the group thanks to Ashni being stubborn about walking on her own. Yet Daria insisted that she be allowed to do it. Once back into the normal grand hallways Shining broached a question. "Until your people arrive to retrieve you, what will you be doing until then?"

"A fair question." Daria replied lightly. "I'll be repurposing the circuitry in that stretcher into a subspace transceiver. I'll need to manufacture some parts the stretcher won't have, so I'll have to ask for some materials if your people can spare them. Other than that, I'll be helping Ashni get steady on her feet." She looked back at her still clumsy pupil while speaking in English. "Sure you don't want some help? The stairs haven't been kind to you thus far."

Ashni fell on her face after slipping on the smooth marble. She spoke while climbing back to her paws. "Thank you, but no. I won't get better riding on that stretcher."

Switching back to equestrian she asked Shining a question. "How far up did you say our quarters were?"

Armor had not been privy to the exchange between the two sphinxes, but was able to decipher the purpose behind the inquiry. "The princesses have offered the foreign dignitary quarters at the top of the tower. Princess Luna felt it was more fitting."

Daria remembered seeing how many towers the castle had from the outside. She faced her stubborn companion. "Sorry Ashni, but I'm going to have to insist on this one. We're going straight to the top."

An errant wing decided to pull her to the ground again. Ashni realized that she would end up with bruises all over her if she kept it up. She slumped on the ground. "Fine." She side out of irritation over her uncooperative limbs.

When the group was almost at the door Shining Armor voiced a concern that had been bothering him. Due to the sphinx's similarities with griffins he assumed the aliens were not herbivores. "Lunch will be serving soon, I can have the staff bring you something. What sort of things do you tend to eat?"

Daria thought nothing of the question and answered evenly. "Meat mostly, grains are fine too, but we can't live off it for very long."

Armor suspected it and was not overly bothered. "So I take it fruits or vegetables are inedible."

Daria gave him a questioning look before realization dawned on her. "We derive very little useable nutrients from them, but we can eat them."

"Would fish be acceptable?" He asked hopefully. Pegasi partook in seafood as part of their standard diet and he hoped the visitors could do the same as Canterlot would have nothing else for them to eat.

Her face brightened considerably at the mention of seafood. "If its anything like the ones back home that would be perfect."

He let go of a small breath he had been holding. "Good to hear. I'll have the chefs make multiple dishes to see which ones will be most agreeable to you." He pushed open the single door in the small receiving area which opened up into the large suite that was almost a perfect replica of Twilight's old tower, minus the scattered book, scrolls, and empty inkwells. After a brief tour, Armor bid his farewell at the door. "If you need anything, just inform the guards one floor below."

Barrane expressed her gratitude. "I will thanks." She shut the door and turned to see a tripod telescope sitting on the balcony on the far side of the room. It might actually be a good idea to use that and compare the star charts to see where I am before building a transceiver. But that will have to wait for nightfall.

Subtly

Frost Feather Inn
Gryphus, capital of the Griffin Empire
0150 Hours

Silver Specter was a pegasus of many talents, not all of which would be a topic of high regard in polite society. Nevertheless his skill set was a necessary evil among those under the princess's rule. Until now he had not used his more unpleasant abilities, but an informant told him a rumor about a visiting Minotaur dignitary that required that tonight could get rather unpleasant. He was currently writing a letter to the princess incase he did not return.

My apologies for sending you a letter so quickly after the previous one, but I have received word of a possible clue to your warning. It deals with the minotaur diplomat Remos Arcfur and a talk of some sort of treaty. As you know, the minotaur nation of Cervidas lies far to the south of Equestria with the Empire north of our nation. Considering both species are already at peace, have warm relations, and have open trade agreements already in place this had garnered my attention.

This could still prove fruitless, so I have set the message to only be sent if I do not return within ten hours. Hopefully you will not receive this message at all, and my concerns are misplaced.

Faithfully

SS~

Silver rolled the letter and removed a loosened floorboard in the corner of his bedroom and placed it in a box that had a small bottle of dragon's fire in it. He set the box's mechanism to the appropriate time and replaced the board and pushed the dresser over it. Then he gathered his black infiltration suit along with a small saddlebag and quietly departed the building through the window into the darkened streets. It was well after curfew and the only people walking the streets were law enforcement and less savory individuals. He had already spent many nights observing the typical patrol routes; who was more vigilant, and who was little more than a warm body. There were far more of the former than the ladder as he neared the high cliffs of the imperial palace. So much so that going in by air or ground was an impossibility.

Fortunately for the shadowy pony, the griffins were an entirely aerial species, and paid little attention to the ground, and even less to the sewers. Specter was a smaller than average stallion, even by pegasus standards, and was able to navigate the water system to emerge in the showers of the honor guard barracks. The wall mounted drainage grate was easily bypassed with a few well struck points with a hammer and chisel. The nature of his employment had warranted a silencing enchantment on the hammer and the banging went unnoticed in the empty showers. Crawling through the improvised opening and replaced the grate he snuck out along the wooden hallway. The griffins prided themselves on vigilant, but even they believed their own barracks was safe, even more so that of the honor guard. Silver crept his way to the entry hall that connected the barracks to the primary vertical passageway that allowed access to every floor in the palace, save the royal chambers. The guards at the door however, were too well lit and alert to move past, but that would not be a problem for long. Specter rolled up a sleeve to check his watch just as it clicked over to three AM.

Right on cue two honor guards walked out of their dormitories and proceeded at a stiff manner to relieve the current guards who were on the grand chamber's side of the doors. The pegasus slipped in behind the unwavering griffins, his cloth shoed hooves keeping his steps quiet. The pair of guards he was walking behind gave him the perfect cover to avoid the eyes of the griffins on the other side of the passage way as the new pair opened the doors and exchanged formal rites of transferring duties of the watch with the tired pair on the other side.

Specter barely avoided detection by the second pair of troops coming to relieve the pair that were stations on the barracks' side of the doors. The chamber itself had decent lighting, but there were still plenty of shadows for Silver to slide into. Knowing the minotaur diplomat was residing in the wingless half of the visitor's quarters, Silver bypassed several patrols along the ground while taking a very short flying jump to reach the third floor of his destination. Luckily, the griffins had opted for more patrols, rather than stationary door guards, so it was only a matter of choosing a griffin and shadowing him until reaching Arcfur's quarters.

Using the superior agility of his heritage, the pegasus pilfered the key ring off his mobile feathered cover and used the master key to slip into the minotaur's quarters just when the patrols would be facing the other way. At this point most other spies would not bother checking for trap of neither the magical, nor of mundane nature. Griffins would not weave such wards in a dignitary's quarters out of respect, and minotaur's magic tended to be highly combat oriented, not subtle. Never the less, Specter was a very paranoid pony while on the job and reached into his small saddle bags for a pair of imbued lenses. It offered non unicorns the magical sight equal to that of the crafter. In this case, that of the sun princess herself; such was the trust she had in him.

Dawning the lenses, Silver saw nothing out of the ordinary. The well furnished room had oversized furniture fit for the sole occupant. The pony made sure he checked his movements as he slinked his way to the bedroom and found the bull was asleep, the smell of alcohol laced breath permeated the chamber. Silver scanned the bedroom and found the writing desk and quietly started searching for any clues. Most of it was typical items, invitations to political functions, a journal that a quick skimming revealed nothing of interest that he did not already know. He was about to look elsewhere when the lenses revealed an extremely faint signature underneath the desk and attached to the underside. Specter silently moved the chair out of the way to gain clear line of sight on the signature to discover it was an envelope. With a clear line of sight the lenses revealed that the signature he was seeing was a red aura around the envelope of an alarm ward. He knew that whatever was in the envelope was not being warded by minotaur magic, although he could not tell if it was of griffin origin or not. He did not want to dispel the trap entirely, so he used a rather complex alchemical concoction known as Interferon that would disable it for several minutes.

Checking once more to make sure the bull was asleep Silver pulled the vial of Interferon from his bags and poured some of the dust onto his hoof and gently blew it at the envelope. He made sure the lenses were not touched by the dust and soon the red aura started flickering wildly. Without removing the envelope from the desk, he opened it to read the letter that was inside.

Present this letter at the Sav Sca next Saturday at the appointed time. Do try stay sober this time.

Silver memorized the letter and replaced both it and the chair. He knew now was not the time to try and decipher the letter's meaning and bid a quiet retreat. The path to leaving the palace was much easier than entering it, having only two close calls before he finally managed to return to his quarters. After closing the window and drawing the curtains he checked his domicile for any signs of tampering or intrusion. It was a small hotel room so the inspection was brief. Only after checking the hallway outside of his door for anyone lying in wait did he finally return to his chambers and breathe his relief at a job properly executed. Checking his clock he saw there was still five hours left on the timer for his previous letter.

"Plenty of time to update it." He whispered to himself. He stripped out of his covert equipment and hid them in several false bottoms he had installed in the dresser. After that he wrote down the letter he had found and placed it in the dragon fire box and pushed the timer back to late in the evening. The letter said to arrive in nine days time. I have half that to find out where this Sav Sca is and what might be happening there. For now I need sleep if I'm going to make an appearance at the coliseum.

Canterlot Dignitary Tower
1500 hours
November 18

To say Daria was not one for formal affairs would be an understatement of titanic proportions. Currently, she was slumped on the bed trying to rub the migraine that had been building since nine thirty in the morning. She groaned at the memory of the entirety of the day's sun court had been dominated by incessant questions by the nobility and other petitions ranging from the obvious to the inane and back again. The princesses only told the public that the sphinxes were from a different world, but downplayed the fact of their advanced technology and lack of magic for fear they might be constantly pestered by scientists and magi alike.

On a lighter note Ashni was able to walk throughout the day with only seven tumbles. Unfortunately, as she walked up the spiral stairs to reach the loft where Daria was resting and she smacked her jaw on the top of stairs making it an even eight. Daria witnessed it and forced a laugh down. Had it not been for her pupil's fierce determination to be fully adjust to her altered body, Barrane would have had pity instead of what she suspected was pride.

Ashni spoke while climbing back to her feet. "Given your face, I'm going to have to thank you for not giving me the native's language yet. You look absolutely miserable."

The commander grinned at that. "You should know that I never once attended any sort of ceremony if I had some way to weasel out of it. Humans never got the message that all that pomp and flare is a waste of time. And apparently neither do the natives." She added with a grumble.

"Do you think it's because sphi-, that we just don't have the same priorities? What unimportant to us, could be very much so to them."

Daria sat up and gave her pupil a pleased look. "I'm glad you understand that, which is why I sat through the whole thing. Today was a good lesson for us both, never forget the importance of diplomacy. Of both the pen and the sword." She jumped down to pull her kin in close with a holographic arm. "Let's try to stick to the pen for as long as possible eh?"

Ashni reflected on her still not fully sturdy control over her limbs. "I fully agree."

Daria released her and commanded her routers to come to life. "Now on to more immediate issues, let my friends here scan you for any complications whiles while I check the data from last night to see where this planet is. This is a good time to start practicing control over your technotelepathy. The routers will be outside of my range so I want you to just listen to them, but don't influence. Let them conduct the scan, if you start slipping they'll retreat out of your range and return later to try again. Got it?"

Ashni nodded vigorously, it would be her first trial at control, and she wanted to improve with her new telepathy as fast as possible. "Do you have any pointers?"

Daria thought about it for a moment before answering in a studious tone as she unconsciously spoke in her own instructor's manner of speech. "Know that your technotelepathy is more than just a sixth sense, as most humans tend to think of it. Your TNP is integral to your consciousness. For us, machines and computers sing a soothing litany when no one is controlling them." She purposely left out some higher level practices to focus on the very basics. "For now, I want you to just listen to the song of my routers while they scan you."

"Yes instructor." The excited pupil replied as the three spheres detached from Daria's harness and started circling her.

"Ugh, don't call me that. It's just Daria to you, alright?"

"I understand-" The commander tapped a foreleg expectantly. "-Daria." She said hesitantly.

"Good, this won't take long."

As Barrane left, Ashni sat on the floor watching the routers orbit her slowly as their sensors methodically checked her vitals and for other medical data. Soon after Daria left the bedroom the spheres started playing what Ashni thought sounded like a peaceful electronic serenade. She remembered very little of her old life, but for some reason, she knew it was the most indescribably wonderful song she had ever heard. To her, it sounded like three separate musicians singing three separate tunes which blended into a fourth one that was leaving her in a trance like state of bliss. She barely felt the passage of time until the silencing of the melody heralded Daria's return.

"I see you were too wrapped up in the siren song to do any damage." She said mirthfully as she recalled the routers.

Instead of feeling saddened by the tune's absence, she felt happier and stronger than before. "That was amazing. I could have listened to it for days."

Daria nodded slightly in understanding. "That’s were learning control comes in. The litany of technology is not in of itself addictive. But if we aren’t careful and don’t learn proper control we can end up dying from exposure or dehydration listening to it; whichever comes first." The routers stopped their orbiting as Daria previewed the results. "Looks like you're in excellent health with no complications, the transformation was a complete success." Seems her overly large itineris organ system is oddly stable. I was worried it might cause heart problems, but all the data says she's beyond healthy. She had a look of deep contemplation that was starting to worry Ashni. Maybe it has something to do with her original human genealogy, or an effect of transforming a human into a sphinx-

"Um, Daria?" Ashni muttered nervously. "Is everything okay?"

The commander snapped back to the present. "Yes, everything checks out." No need to frighten her with that bit of data, if anything it’s a boon. "So, I can go ahead and have the routers accelerate your fur and feather growth. You have been eating heavily since we arrived correct?"

The thought of having to eat four complete meals that the ponies at brought up and four more at breakfast was an unwelcome reminder of the overly bloated feeling and an excessive number of trips to the restroom. "I'd rather not think about food right now." She suppressed a sense of nausea.

Daria smirked at her discomfort. "Ah you gotta admit that cheesecake last night was pretty boss." Ashni's only response was to feel a second wave of nausea. "Either way let's get it started. Lift up a foreleg." The routers formed a tight orbit around her limb and accelerated the growth of her reddish fur and traveled up to just above the elbow within a minute and quickly repeated it with the other foreleg. "There, that looks much better. Now stand up so I can get the rest of you, I'll hold you steady so you can left your wings out of the way." Within a few minutes, Ashni's fur coat was complete, while her vibrant flame orange hair stopped growing just past her shoulders.

"Now the hard part. I want you to extend your wings as far as you can and hold it. If you do it right, your center of gravity will remain the same." The routers began orbiting both wings in a figure eight pattern when there was a knock on the door. Daria remained focused on the task at hand but shouted for the intruder to enter.

Princess Celesta walked in and saw the two aliens up on the loft and flew up to meet them. "Greetings Commander Barrane, I trust your time at court was entertaining."

Daria was glad to notice the joking nature in the alicorn's tone. "Paint drying would have been more enjoyable."

They shared a polite laugh with Ashni playing the silent witness. Celesta kept a regal tone as she spoke. "Did you find out where our planet is in regards to your empire?"

Daria's face fell. "I did actually. We're on the far fringe of the frontier between Sol and the Clarions; another space faring race that absolutely hates my kind. The war depopulated the whole sector and neither side has yet to try recolonizing the area. So as it is, we're too close to the Clarions for me to fabricate a normal subspace transceiver as that has an equal chance to bring the them here as it does my own people." Her face flashed with hate before returning to being morose. "I'd rather not inflect that hell on your people."

Celesta had heard of many races across the planet having blood feuds and was interested in the history of this one. "May I ask why they hate your kind so?" The alabaster alicorn took silent appraisement of the spheres that were accelerating feather growth. She had heard about their non magical nature and was glad she did not have to ask for a demonstration.

The routers were approaching the elbows of Ashni's wings, the feathers were growing in a brilliant golden color. Daria let off a dismissive snort at the question. "Because the Clarions are a bunch of religious fanatics that’s why. Some prophet of theirs a few centuries back warned of winged felines that would bring catastrophic doom upon their kind or something like that. So when Sol Force went to make first contact and one of us was on the diplomatic team, you can imagine how that turned out."

Celesta wrestled between sadness and morbid curiosity. "Was it a self fulfilling prophecy?"

Daria gave her a predatory smile. "Damn right it was. The Clarions had us outgunned and slightly out teched, but they constantly overextended themselves to kill us, they often times ignored human forces who would promptly take full advantage of the constant follies. Together, we reduced them to a handful of systems before they finally sued for peace. Unfortunately though, one of those systems is in near this sector so I can't contact my government without creating a Class seven F subspace communicator, which I don’t have the schematics for. Best I can do is create a passive distress beacon that only Sol Force would be able to detect, but that could take months or years."

"I'm sorry for your situation commander. You're more than welcome to stay in the castle for as long as you desire."

Daria waved it away with a paw while making sure Ashni's primary feathers grew in correctly. "It was an accident done while Luna was doing the best for your people. Apologies are unnecessary."

Celesta had experience dealing with almost every single sentient species in Equestria and could tell the commander was being sincere, the last thing she wanted was to make enemies. "I will relay your words to my sister, she will be glad to hear them. Should you need anything for your beacon, my guard captain will be able to acquire it for you."

She turned away from her work now that it was complete. "I will, thank you your highness."

Celesta dipped her head. With her more unusual guests tended to and after receiving confirmation that there was no harbored ill will, the princess felt it was time to turn her attention on more pressing matters. "If you'll excuse me, I must return to my duties. Farewell."

With the princess gone Ashni felt it was time to express her displeasure at being a wallflower. "Daria, is there any chance I can get the native's language too? Its starting to get rather uncomfortable not being part of the conversations around here."

Barrane cocked her head towards her companion while rechecking the medical data. "Well, all signs say you should be able to handle it, so I don't see why not. Just so you know, data dumping can be quite unnerving the first time."

Daria took it slow and the language transfer was finished in half an hour. Ashni tested it out by speaking in equestrian. "So if we're going to be stuck here for possibly years, what are we going to do in the mean time? I'd rather not just sit around and live off someone else's free hospitality, it just doesn't feel right."

Barrane gave a sidelong grin at the comment. "My thoughts exactly. But we can't do any of that until you’re a stable flier. The rest is best learned on the fly anyway. So if you want to earn this free room and board, you better hope you take to the air as easily as natural borne sphinx or that will be a while yet."

Friction

Wub Club
2217 hours

Ashni was curled up in a ball; in an effort to shield her head from falling debris as she fell off the second story bar to the floor. Yet after a half a minute of no pain or crushing weight she flicked her eyes open to witness a sheen of light completely covered by rubble. An electronic voice sounded in her head. "Warning. Holographic generators at fifteen percent and falling. Failure imminent. Recommend withdrawal from hazardous area."

Ashni looked around to see what was hopefully a stable opening and crawled over to it as the rubble fell behind her as the shield moved with her. The collapse brought down a little more debris but not enough to cause a second disaster. With nothing threatening her, the harness spoke in her mind again. "Emitters recharging. Standing by on combat alert yellow, recreational use suspended until further notice."

Looking around at the ruined club and dozens of injured or dead patrons she wasn't in the mood for recreation anytime soon. She saw a similar sheen of light over by the dance floor. There had been several unicorn guards present at the club during off duty hours and they had reacted quickly by projecting shields around themselves and a few other ponies who were lucky to be near enough. The same luck could not be extended to the pegasi who were unable to escape the falling roof, and most were badly injured or worse. Seeing the wounded around her, Ashni’s mind started to lock up. The smell of blood and fear coupled with the moans and shouting were making it worse and she was reduced to a near comatose state.

Centuries of studying the common mental state of those in sensory overload prompted the sphinx’s harness to send a few precise electrical jolts along her nervous system that broke her out of it. It was not however able to help her cope with it any further than that. “What do I do? How do I help? I don't know the first thing about first aid. What if I do it wrong? How would I even help a species that I have no idea how to fix them? What if someone dies and I didn't same them cause I didn't know how?”

Her ramblings continued as Daria flew into a hover above her and the routers began scanner her for injuries. After finding none Ashni felt several holographic tendrils latch onto her harness and hoisted her into air and carried her out into the street. Barrane dropped to the ground to check on her mental state. "Your vitals are fine, but are you okay?"

"I-I I'm fine I think. I just survived an explosion, no big deal right?" A crazed grin plastered on her face searching her mentor for the big joke.

"It's good for you. A nice explosion every now and then keeps the mind sharp." She deadpanned while landing. Ashni was so ambivalent on how to react to the comment that she was rendered speechless, which was the desired effect. "As much as I want to keep an eye on, I need to get back in there and see what I do until the medics arrive." Daria looked down the street. If the natives even have something like paramedics. "Just stay here and wait for me to get back."

There were already several ponies bringing out those that could walk or they felt safe in moving. Barrane had no idea about pony anatomy outside of the obvious, but she was at least able to use the holograms to lift rubble off trapped victims. It took ten minutes for several ambulances to arrive along with several guards and Princess Luna. Together, all of them worked to save who they could, and remove the dead.

At the end of it all Luna watched the ambulances cart away the last of the victims while several investigators arrives to ascertain the details of what happened. The midnight princess approached the alien after the investigation started. "You have my thanks Commander Barrane, and my sincerest apologies. To think somepony would be callous enough to bomb innocents like this. Were it not for your own swift response, many more would have died."

"It was the least I could do. But I have to ask, is this a common occurrence?" Daria asked with concern.

Luna was appalled at the comment, but then reminded herself that the visitor would indeed not know. "I will not deny that Equestria has had dark moments, but we haven't suffered this sort of attack in over a decade."

Barrane hummed contemplatively. "Well I'm sure you'll be more than capable of finding the perpetrators."

Luna was glad the visitor shared her faith in the city's law enforcement. She also noticed Ashni was having a borderline nervous breakdown. "It has been a trying night for us all. I would feel better knowing you returned to the castle for the time being. I know my sister will want to speak with you in the morning."

"Far be it for me to deny a direct request from the ruler of the land."

"My chariot will not be needed for a while yet, please take it back to the castle." The sphinx nodded and left with her companion shortly after, allowing Luna to focus on the remains of the club. In the desistance she saw the off-white unicorn yelling at a policepony for allowing her club to be destroyed. Luna was glad the famous DJ was unharmed and knew it was only a passing anger and let the policepony do his job so she could perform a thorough investigation.

It was a mostly flight back. Ashni was successfully trying to calm herself down while Daria pondered about the night's troubles. The natives seem peaceable enough. Aside from some haughty nobles the whole place seems idealist. I haven't seen anything that points towards dissent against the government. Maybe it's just a veneer that covers up a darker aspect. The pegasi guards were stoic as they flew on. She leaned over the edge of the chariot to speak to them. "Do you know if this sort thing happens in other nations?"

The pony on the left answered in an emotionless tone. "I know the minotaur nation of Cervidas suffers this sort of violence on a almost regular basis, but there are other nations that weather them as well."

Daria made a note to herself to gather information on Equestria's neighbors. "Would there be any national rivals that might benefit from this attack?"

"All I know is hearsay ma'am. I would rather not give you unsubstantiated rumors to pass as fact."

The commander scowled at that, but had to admire the pegasi's willingness to not spread rumors. "What about you then?" She said to the other guardpony.

The pegasus suspected she would not back down until she got some kind of answer. "Like my partner I only know of rumors on who would and could do this; but I know Cervidas and Ib'Xian have never been on very good terms with us."

"Interesting, thanks for the info." The guards nodded before facing front to make their landing. Daria had to pull Ashni a bit to get her moving off the chariot so it could fly back to Luna.

The commander was deep in thought as she slowly marched back to their quarters. Ashni had finally shaken off the last of the bewilderment. She hesitated as she worked up the courage to ask a question a few minutes before reaching their quarters. "Do you think the attack was aimed at us?"

Daria slowed momentarily so they could walk side by side. "I doubt it."

"How can you be sure?"

Barrane gave her pupil a calming smile. "It is within the realm of possibilities true. But if someone was after us specifically, they're doing it wrong. No I think the guilty party achieved exactly what they were aiming to do."

The pupil had a quizzical expression as she opened the door into their quarters. "What was it?"

Daria sighed tiredly. "Just a hunch." Both aliens retreated to their beds.

Castle passageways
1020 hours

The next morning saw the sphinxes being summoned by Celesta in the middle of breakfast. Daria was not one to abandon food and had both of their plates hovering beside her so both of them could eat on the go. Barrane noticed her pupil was extremely nervous. "You can return to the tower. The letter said only I need come."

Ashni shook her head. While trying to maintain her fork's integrity. "I can't just sit there like last night. I feel like I have to do something, anything to help these people."

Daria was not afraid to admit a touch of pride, but kept it subdued. "I appreciate the sentiment, and I'm sure the princesses would too. But you're barely used to your new skin. I would be derelict of my duty if I let you do anything more than just watch."

"But that’s what us techno magi do isn't it?"

Daria came to a dead stop and looked at her with an annoyed expression. "By us, are you referring to our species?"

Ashni cowered slightly under the withering gaze. "Y-yes."

Only a human would ever call us that. The commander moved her face in close to express her distain for the misnomer. "Let's get some facts straight. First off, do we possess magic?"

The negative tone in her voice gave Ashni her answer. "No."

"I don't know why people keep mistaking our psionics for magic. And because we don't have magic, we are not techno magi." She paused a bit to make sure her pupil understood before moving on.

Ashni was rather crestfallen about it. "Is it really that bad of a term? I mean, sure it’s a little misleading and all, but if you ignore the literal definition it fits better than most."

Daria had to give her credit for that. As far as slag went, techno magi was by far the best among them. She didn't like the connection to magic because it was misleading, that didn't stop her from using it during the war with the Clarions. Remembering that fact gave her an idea. Hmm, I haven't exactly told the locals how we control our tech, not that anyone outside of Princess Luna has thought to ask. Perhaps using the misnomer would be a good idea after all.

Ashni became despondent at her instructor's brooding. "Sorry I brought it up."

Barrane turned to face her. "Do you really like that term that much?" She asked genuinely.

Ashni perked up at the question. "I remember a few snippets of news reports calling our kind the heroine techno magi, and bits and pieces of my childhood using the term synonymously with sphinxes." She finished with a sheepish grin. "I thought the nickname gave them-us a sort of mystique quality."

Daria could help but snicker at the childlike starry-eyed expression her student had at the memories. "Alright fine. If they ask, you can tell the locals we're techno magi."

Ashni preformed a jumping flap of her wings almost knocking her plate of food out of Daria's grip while crying out for joy. Several guardponies gave the prancing feline a moment's glance before returning to their typical stoic vigil. "Does that mean I'm your apprentice?"

Daria inwardly groaned. You already are ya nitwit. "You can call yourself that if you want, but I have two conditions."

The overly exuberant sphinx stopped hopping around with a anxious expression. "I'll do anything."

Barrane raised a mischievous eyebrow before thinking better about pulling a prank on her right now. "First off, you have to remember we have psionics. And second, outside of the princesses, if anyone asks, we use magic not advanced tech or psychic abilities. No need to tell the locals we're any different than them, got it?"

Ashni gave the conditions barely a moment's thought. "Yes ma'am!"

"So, apprentice." Barrane still didn't like using mystic terms of address between them, but it was all the better to hide the true nature of their abilities. "What have you learned with your recent studies."

"I've read up on the different styles of router control." Ashni exclaimed proudly.

Routers are combat equipment, not for civilian use. Barrane hid her annoyance and decided test her on it. "Oh? Then you should be able to name the defensive styles, and no cheating by using your circlet's external memory."

The pair passed through a towering hallway with large decorative windows on either side. The guardponies either ignored their passage, or gave cut nods. Ashni felt Daria's technotelepathy grip onto her circlet cutting her off from it. She felt it was an unnecessary precaution as she was determined to pass the quiz honestly. "Barrier, Deception, and Restoration."

Her mentor nodded sagely. "Good. What are the major subsets of Deception."

Ashni listed the terms easily. "Mirage, Disinformation and Subtlety."

Daria was pleased that her pupil was bound and determined to learn quickly. Even if it was not the field of study she wanted her to learn. "What's the differences and synergy between Mirage and Subtlety?"

Ashni rattled off the facts after giving serious thought to her phrasing. "The difference is that mirage is typically done through the use of holograms or sensor diffraction to make the enemy think we are somewhere else or that there are so many signal returns that they would be forced to guess which one is real. Subtlety can be used with holograms, but is typically used to hide ourselves or our actions, such as cloaking or sleight of hand.-paw? When combined by advanced practitioners, the mage in question would be neigh undetectable or impossible to pin down."

Barrane saw the doors leading into the conference room where Celesta was no doubt waiting for them. "Since you’re here, you can join me in the meeting, but I want you to think of ways to use that in civilian life." The guards opened the large doors for them and they marched in.

Ashni was rather miffed at the last directive. I know I freaked out last night, but I don't want the life of a civilian. She tried to keep her face passive to hide her growing exasperation at both herself and Daria constant pressure to be a civilian.

Celesta was present along with one of each tribe of pony. The sun princess's conversation with the white coated and black spotted earth pony was interrupted with the visitors' arrival. "Welcome commander, Ashni." The alabaster alicorn nodded to each respectively, who in turn returned the gesture. "I was just reviewing the eye witness reports with my lead detective, Sergeant Snoopy."

"Charmed. These are my associates Eagle Eye and Lenses" Snoopy said smoothly as his cohorts gave their own greetings. "From what we gathered, several survivors credit you for saving them."

"I neither desire, nor require praise for doing what was necessary. Anyone with my ability should do the same without hesitation." Celesta thought the serious tone sounded like it was coming from a different person. She had seen it all too often in her long years possessed by serviceponies. Equestria was not always the peaceful place recent history would have one believe. "Did the eye witnesses say anything useable?"

Snoopy flipped through his notes on the large table. "Yes. At ten twelve PM, several witnesses remember seeing several griffins leaving in quick succession. This information came mostly from those who were outside waiting to get in and the bouncers."

He flipped the page over to continue. "Roughly four minutes after the first one leaves, a group of five griffins were seen fleeing the premises. Less than a minute after that, the bombs detonated."

Celesta had every respect for the investigators' objectivity, but doubt many others would. "Before we try to find blame, what can you tell me about the bombs themselves and their placement."

Lenses levitated a large scroll and unfurled it onto the table. It was a sketch of the club before it was destroyed. He grabbed a pointer baton to indicate several points. "All the explosives were of different strength only had the exact amount of explosive force to cripple the part of the supports they were placed at. There was absolutely no wasted effort behind this." All present felt a chill at the implications. As if to press the point home, Lenses stated what everyone was thinking. "We are dealing with a very professional group. I have little doubt this is the handy work of a nation state."

The alicorn maintained a calm exterior as Lenses carried on with his theory, but she was already going through a list of possible enemies. Equestria was a large nation and had only in the last four hundred years had it become more peaceable. She knew of a handful of other long lived old enemies who held long standing grudges.

Finally came Eagle Eye, the pegasus mare bore the team's current theories as to who was behind the attack. "The most obvious assumption would be that the griffins are involved. As we all know, griffins are highly intelligent and cunning and have used physiological warfare in the past. I would not put it past a group of malcontents from our northern neighbors to make it so obvious that it was a griffin run operation that we are to think that it would foalish to suspect them at all. Or, they want us to make the obvious connection so they can incite more official conflict between our two governments."

While the investigators outlined their findings to the Princess, Ashni barely paid attention to any of it. She was still angry about Daria shooting down her attempts to help directly. She had broached the topic several times since finding out about how they ended up in Equestria in the first place. Yet Barrane sternly denied her first because it was a pony issue, and not for them to interfere; but then this morning she was denied again on the grounds that she was not prepared physically nor mentally for any of it. Daria's going to end up helping them some way other than with this meeting, I just know it. If there's anything I remember about sphinxes is that they…we can't just sit there any let this sort of thing happen. I don't exactly remember why though.

After all the evidence and theories were laid bare the group of ponies finally turned to the silent aliens. Barrane strictly believed in not interfering with local issues unless directly asked to do so. So she wait for the enviable question. It was as expected, Princess Celesta who broached the request. "Do you have any insight into the matter Commander?"

Ashni halted her brooding to listen as Daria spoke. "I do." The three spherical routers detached from her harness and floated up to space themselves out above the table. They projected a holographic recreation of the club complete with dots representing the patrons. "You said earlier that the Wub Hub was a common hang out spot for the off duty guard, especially for pegasi because of the added room to accommodate more fliers so the ground could be entirely allotted to unicorns and earth ponies."

Barrane's hologram had several explosions and the roof fell on the occupants. "As both the simulation and the causality report verifies, most of the dead or critically wounded were pegasi guards." The hologram disappeared and the routers returned to their mistress. "Whoever did this could be trying to hide the objective to weaken your standing army by striking a civilian locals. Possibly with a focus on your pegasi."

Celesta had to give the commander credit where it's due. It was not an angle she had thought of and it was a sound theory. The assassination attempt on my sister and this bombing might be linked. If that’s the case, then someone's declared war on Equestria. The big question is who. "The possibility of similar attacks in the future is practically guaranteed. I will deal with the matter appropriately. I thank you all for your time."

The others returned weary farewells and departed. The aliens were half way back to their quarters when Ashni was tired of waiting to ask a seemingly unnecessary question. "Why didn't you offer our assistance?"

"Its not our place, and you're hardly in any shape to give such assistance. The locals have survived this long without our help, and they will continue to do so." She turned around and pointed a holographic finger into Ashni's forehead. "In case you forgot, we are not in Sol Force. We do not have legal authority to go vigilante. Nor do we have diplomatic immunity if something went wrong. We follow the law of the land and it strictly states foreigners do not conduct any sort of military operation without express permission from the princesses. So unless they come right out and ask, we are to do nothing. Got it?"

The sheer force of command in Daria's voice resoundingly drove the point home to her apprentice. Ashni reluctantly acquiesced. "Yes ma'am."

Barrane knew short-lived acceptance when she saw it. She hoped Ashni would act the way she suspected she would. "Now, lunch is three hours away so until then, you're on flight training." Ashni returned a downcast acknowledgement. Barrane couldn't help but feel the same way her pupil did. Sphinxes in general were a protective bunch. Anyone they deemed an ally would be hard pressed to find a more loyal comrade. It was one of the reasons humanity was bound and determined to keep them from going extinct as humans had developed the same mindset towards them. Currently Barrane was concerned that Ashni was letting her instincts get the better of her. She's like some moody teenager who doesn't know how to deal with hormones. Course, this wouldn't have been a problem if we were still back on Barossa Three.

Froggy Bottom Bogg
Midnight

Meanwhile at the Legion of Doom several ponies of ill character gathered around a U shaped table within a mobile dome shaped headquarters as it broke the surface of the murky brown water. The malicious band of malcontents conversed about diabolical plans until one unicorn took to the podium at the outer bend in the table and hammered a gavel to grab their attention. The atmosphere of those gathered was filled with anticipation and satisfaction. "This meeting of the Legion of Doom will now come to order. As you know, the second action against the diseased city of Canterlot was a complete success. But now is not the time to get complacent. We have to make sure the investigation moves in the direction we want it to."

Sands surveyed the chamber and saw Calgradni brooding in his chair. So the failure actually returned. The cost of that summoning alter alone set us back months. He scanned the table and found the earth mare he was looking for. "Harlequin, with the plan in motion, I want you to make use of your special talent in the aristocracy, while the rest of you continue your own operations. I want this success to become the standard-" He stared at Calgradni and put as much condescension in his voice as possible. "-not the exception." The meeting went on for hours, all dedicated to schemes to unleash an unspeakable evil.

Sands retired some time later when he saw Calgradni made his exit. Sands knew the ice blue pegasus would only go far enough that their conversation would not be interrupted. "So." Sands began with contempt. "Instead of a Maledict you manage to summon two skinned griffins. An impressive feat to be sure."

Calgradni glowered at the cult leader. "Perhaps if you had paid for better mercenaries who were capable of doing as they were told, Luna would be host to the Maledict."

"Do not try to pass failure to others." Sands growled. "I supplied the funds, you were the one who picked useless mercs. Thanks to you we have to set our timetable back months."

"I can still deal with the princess-"

"No, you will not." Sands interrupted. "I have something else for her. You however will go to Concordia and join the action there."

"As you command." His voice dripped with loathing.

Wub Hub

Streets of Canterlot
2000 Hours

The two sphinxes had just landed in a somewhat busy thoroughfare looking for a dinner. Several ponies took notice of the extraterrestrials and most gave them a wild berth. Even though they had been announced as welcome visitors the odd monkey aspects of their forward half put most of the natives on edge. A fact Ashni took notice of, although she felt more attention had been drawn to her, because her landing was more akin to a spectacular crash that Rainbow Dash would have even cringed at.

Daria materialized a hand and pulled her kin to her feet. "Well, your gliding is progressing well enough, but your take off and landing still needs some work."

Ashni was glad the commander had insisted on a heavy green shirt that blended the grass stains rather well, but did little to protect the friction rash she knew she's develop soon enough. "I think I might have to walk back to the tower."

The arm disappeared again. "Nonsense, you've been learning to fly all week and you need a little RnR. Since you're not military I'm not putting you through the standard training regiment. Now, were can we find a place to get some grub."

While Ashni tried in vain to brush away some of the smeared grass on her shirt, but had some success with getting it off her fur. Meanwhile Daria scanned the area for a café and her eyes fell upon a giant sign that read 'The Chrome Fish.' "Ha bingo. That looks like a good place." She said pointing at the restaurant.

Ashni could not deny her hunger after they abandoned the Gala they had been invited too by Prince Blueblood. The Royal Sisters knew full well the Gala would be far outside the commander's interests and did not bother with an invitation of their own. Celesta was surprised to see them arrive, but was not when they left not more than ten minutes later. "I still say we could have given that soirée the noblemen invited us to could have been better than you made it out to be." She said evenly as she was led over to the seafood joint.

"Trust me, I've seen parties like that, not that they deserve the term. The business conglomerates host them all the time and invite military officers like me." She turn back to face Ashni. "The only bonus this place has over those back home is that you don't have paparazzi taking pictures through the window screens."

Ashni wanted to inquire further but stopped herself when they were standing in the café. A nervous looking earth mare with a green coat and purple mane walked over to them. "You must be the sphinxes we've heard so much about. W-would you like an indoor or patio seat?"

Daria was not offended by the demeanor of the mare and took it in stride. "Patio is fine." The more these ponies see us, the less nervous they'll be. I hope.

Soon enough they were seated and ordered two large meals at the expense of the royal treasury. Daria manifested a holographic knife and fork so it looked as if she was eating in a similar manner to a unicorn with real silverware. Ashni however, was struggling to keep the holographic utensils stable, and they fizzed out constantly. Barrane was already through half her meal when she noticed her companion had only managed a few bites. "I know you wish to learn control ASAP, but do you at least want some help in cutting it so you only have to focus on a fork?"

The holo-emitters on Ashni's recently made harness gave several warning messages to the commander when Ashni's poor control started to create short circuits. She tried one last time to cut the tough fish, but much to her exasperation, the knife flickered before dissolving into formless light again. The trainee let out a gasp of tired exertion. "Please. If it's not too much trouble."

Daria was only happy to help and even reversed the utensils to make it look like it was still Ashni controlling the knife and fork. "Granted you’re my first convert to teach, but I'd say you're making fast progress. At this rate, you'll have all the basics within a month."

Ashni felt her mood improve at the praise. "If we were still back in the Empire, would we still take the whole year?"

Daria finished and let Ashni take back over with just a fork. "I'd say so. Even with the basics down, you'd still need the whole year to refine your flight and your telepathy. Remember, your physically about twenty years old and you have two decades worth of experience to make up for. But enough about that, the next step is finding some night life."

"We could always go back to the Gala." Ashni suggested hopefully.

Barrane suppressed a groan. "I said night life. No, I've seen these ponies have better technology than their military equipment would have us believe. I'm convinced we can find something crazy down here."

Still having little of her previous life's memories to go on Ashni was somewhat dubious. "What makes you say that?"

Daria smirked as she tapped her nose with a fork. "All the posh and class of a city like this can't hide the fact that there's a lower class that holds the nobles up. It's the middle and lower class who always throws the best parties or if we're lucky, I can sniff out a dance club."

Ashni looked down at her plate. "If it's all the same to you, I’d rather go practice back in our quarters."

"Who says you can't mix work with pleasure. You can walk and run well enough, but now you gotta learn how to dance. Men love a female who can dance. Who knows, you might even catch the eye of a local...stallions I think they call the males."

Her kin's face turned bright red at the idea. "I-I haven't really had time or desire to think of that right now."

"Which is why you're coming with me, life is not all just work. If for nothing else than to gain better control by dancing." With their meal done, Daria pulled out a bag of bits and paid for the meal when the waiter came over with the bill. "Say, stud. Where can I find some entertainment around here?"

The unicorn did not acknowledge the flirt. "If it pleases you madam, the Royal Canterlot Symphony is playing at the Upper Crust Concert hall later tonight in roughly half an hour."

The words symphony and upper crust turned her off from that idea. "What about a place with more-" She tried thinking of a word that would translate well. "Spirit."

The posh stallion eyed Barrane for a moment and ascertained her meaning by looking at her uniform. "Ah, a soldier. While I would never go there myself, one of the more popular venues for the…younger generation seems to be a place called Wub Hub or some such."

The name and demographic intrigued her greatly. "Can you point us in the general direction?" The unicorn did just that and sometime thereafter the pair found themselves outside a converted warehouse with a throng of ponies and several griffins lined up trying to gain entry. Through the open door the aliens could hear a gut wrenching bass and flickering multicolored lights. "Now this is the place to be."

Ashni sat on her haunches to cover her ears. "I don't think I was a party person in my previous life, and I don't think I am in this one either. This is way too loud."

Daria was scanning the crowd looking for a way to circumvent the line. She turned back around to see the poor state her pupil was in. As if I'd let my hearing get damaged by this. She activated a subroutine and a transparent holographic film covered her ears and brought the noise down to a much more enjoyable level and commanded Ashni's harness to do the same, then locked it so it would require no further input to maintain the sound levelers which would keep louder noises down, but would not affect softer sounds. "That better?"

The student slowly uncupped her ears upon realizing the noise was lower and stood back up. "Much, thanks."

Daria looked her companion over and then at herself in a reflective window across from her and noticed something was missing. "We can't go in yet."

Ashni cocked her head. "Why not? You're the one who brought us here."

"Hold on I'm trying to find it." Barrane replied as she flipped through her circlet's archives. "Ha! Got it, and one for you." Activating her harness's holographic emitters, Daria made it look like her uniform was replaced by a bare midriff sleeveless shirt with the emblem of the Sol Force navy on both top and bottom. Along her wings, flanks, and tail were lines of light that pulsed back and forth in the full spectrum. Her blue hair and the blue lines in her wings were made to look as if they were luminescent. She completed the ensemble with a pair of red lensed black framed goggles. She paced between the reflective window and her pupil a few times to take stock. "Perfect as always." She fixed the hologram on repeat so she did not have to think of it again, but she did cut the lights off to save them for the dance floor. A few passing ponies noticed the whole thing and ran over.

"Wow, I've never seen magic like that before." A black pegasus stallion exclaimed.

"You have to teach me how to do that!" A unicorn mare pleaded.

"I'll pay you a hundred bits for that outfit." A purple earth mare gushed.

"Hey you're those uhh…aliens. Did you bring a bunch of spaceships?" Asked a tan pegasus with three basketballs for a cutie mark.

"Don't you know anything featherbrain?" A dark chocolate pegasus with a dumbbell on his flank remarked after hoofing tan over the head. "They got sucked here by a portal."

Daria was glad that some of the ponies were starting to warm up to them, even if not all of them were the sharpest knives in the drawer. "I can't sell it, sorry. But we were just on our way to join in on the Wub Hub."

"Good luck with that one. The unicorn proclaimed. I doubt even Blueblood could get in, even if he did flash a few hundred bits."

Ashni balked at that. "Is it that expensive?"

The earth pony shook her head. "Naw. It's just so crammed with ponies that the bouncers couldn't let him in even if they wanted to. Management wouldn't allow it."

Daria looked a little crestfallen at that. The black stallion had been rubbing his chin and spoke when he finally remembered what he was searching for. "I bet they'd still let you in though since fliers can dance above the floor, it's part of the reason the warehouse is so tall, so more unicorns and earth ponies can get in.

Daria leaned over to Ashni and spoke in English. “See? Mixing work with pleasure can always happen.”

Ashni looked dubiously at her wings. Now if only I could manage more than just gliding.

The unicorn jumped up and down a couple of times in ecstatic glee. “There’s no way they wouldn’t let us in if we walked in with you. Please please please help us in.”

Ashni was at a loss, so Daria stepped in. “If they let us in right off, I see no problem with it.”

The ponies started hooting and cheering at their new heroines of the hour. Ashni looked at the ponies and noticed all none of them wore clothes per say, but all of them had some kind of cosmetics like glow rods, funky hats, and the unicorn had several enchanted gems that oscillated colors back and forth. Looking at her stained green shirt, she would be rather out of place. “Could you make me an outfit like that?” She asked in English. “Only…a little more subdued?”

The commander chuckled while nodding in understanding. “No problem, I think I have something.” Much to the amazement of a growing crowd of ponies a more reserved, yet still festive for the occasion, outfit of a full shirt with a few dim glow lines arced around her contours. “There, now come on the night's not getting any younger.”

As predicted, the high status afforded by being close to the princesses and the rather outlandish outfits made the bouncers allow them in without question. Ashni was glad the noise suppression kept the ambient noise to an enjoyable sixty decibels, but one look at the commander told her the officer kept it much higher. As per the ponies’ warnings, the actual dance floor was a mosh pit so packed in tight that she feared some of them would be trapped in there. In the center of it all, was a circler DJ tower surrounded by speakers with an alabaster unicorn with a mane strikingly similar to Daria’s hair in coloration. The four story open area above the tower was filled mostly with pegasi and numerous griffins.

The ponies they walked in with thanked them for the entry before running off. Given that even standing in the entryway was clogging the area, both sphinxes jumped to hover several feet in the air. Even with such a simple thing Ashni was still having trouble keeping herself in a stable hover and was bouncing up and down erratically.

Now that they were inside and saw the writhing mass moving to the gut wrenching bass, Ashni was feeling extremely self-conscious about her inexperience. I highly doubt I would have been subjected to a dance club eight days out of the tube if we were still back in the Empire. Daria had flown off, but remained close enough that she could keep an eye on her pupil while, said pupil, decided there was nothing for it and tried to stabilize her hovering a little better and followed the leg movements of the griffins and pegasi.

She started to see the merit in the exercise after a few minutes. Maybe if I try to think of my wings as little as possible, I can start hovering on nothing more than instinct or muscle memory. And that would free the rest of my attention to actual dancing, a sort of multitasking without actually thinking about each task. Just how direct memory access works with computers. The last thought almost made her stop her somewhat feeble dancing. When did I start thinking about computers like that? She shook it off and resumed her enjoyment.

Daria on the other hand made her way through the throng towards the DJ tower, flying level with the unicorn mare behind the turntables. While both the pony’s and the sphinx’s faces were concealed by glasses or goggles, they still managed to make eye contact. Barrane tapped into the turntable to better predict what sounds and music was going to play. With her TNP fully encompassing the soundboard came compete, yet temporary, understanding of what each knob, dial, and lever did.

With that done, she had the three routers follow her own program that would follow her lead and keep all three cameras fixed on the DJ so she would know what was coming. The result was Jedi like reflexes every single note. Barrane was not satisfied going with the flow of the music, but to be the one with it. The routers dances and twisted in the air to the beats that were too fast for her to physically move to. It did not take long before ponies started to take notice.

The DJ took notice of this and accepted the unspoken challenge. The music increased it tempo at first, just to see how this alien interloper in her club would respond. Those are some wicked new moves. But there’s a reason this is my club. She stepped up her game bringing both the music and the crowd into a fevered pitch. Every warble and scratch was matched move fore move by either the sphinx herself, or by the routers. This continued on until the mare built up for the bass drop. Much to her surprise, a moment before she was about to do it, Daria started to move into a dive. The alabaster DJ was not so competitive against a dancer and apparent fan as to ruin the music for the sake of a victory and dropped the bass. As soon as it hit, the routers created several hard holograms to which Barrane was able to land on instead of hitting the crowd. She used them as platform to continue before using an interlude to fly back to her original altitude.

Ashni was enjoying the show along with over half the crowd rather than actual dancing to music she only tolerated. She assumed it was an acquired taste and flew over to a wall where a bar that catered to the fliers and was glad that it had actual stools rather than just clouds. The aliens found that whatever natural magic the natives had that allowed them to stand on clouds did not extend to them.

The pegasi bartender gave the tired looking alien a wary eye but kept his tone friendly. "What'll it be stranger?" He was able to keep his voice low because of a sound damping spell over the bar's seats.

"Do you have anything with electrolytes?" She asked with ragged breath.

The stallion gave a puzzled look. "Electra what?"

"Electrolytes." She repeated louder.

What he heard was Electric Lights, a powerful alcoholic drink. "That'll be five bits." She handed over the coins and the tender got to work.

Not everyone at the club was there for entertainment. A group of twin unicorn mares, a pegasus and an earth pony lounged at table and watched a pegasus fly to each of the griffins to speak. Each one of them showed a variety of expressions, but the result was that all of them quickly left the premises. As soon as the last one left the group of four ponies walked into the back storeroom at the admittance of an employee. The lone earth stallion spoke once they were out of sight from the crowd. "Were you able to plant the stones?"

The pegasus produced a mana stone from a small saddle bag and tossed it at one of the unicorn mares. "As if there should have been any doubt. Everypony is too busy relishing in that filth to notice me."

The other twin gazed at the employee who was watching for service staff and shooing away anypony that got near on the grounds of a big clean up. She walked over and produced a curved blade from a satchel and impaled him on it. The death was quick and clean. Before the body even fell to the floor her sister cast an illusion spell that concealed them all into griffins. "Set the timer for thirty seconds starting now."

With the disguised earth pony taking the lead they muscled through the dense crowd making as much of a commotion as possible before bursting out into the street and sprinting away to get out of sight of the grumbling crowd and bouncers. Daria noticed the commotion and flew over to land near the entryway. She helped up a dazed earth pony. "What was that about?"

"I don't know, but it looked like they were in a-" His sentence was cut off by several explosions throughout the club, shattering its structural supports and collapsing the whole building down on top of the occupants. Everypony on the outside ran for safety as soon as the club because to crumble. The only thing that remained of the Wub Hub was a mound of debris.