Pathfinder 5

Chapter 17: News getting around

The train to Ponyville ran a few times a day, once in the morning and again in the afternoon. It carried many individuals from various places, either just passing through or visitors from the big cities. One such pony was an Earth Pony with dark green fur and black mane, he wore a vest with a few pockets with a camera around his neck. To top it all off he had a light brown hat with a Press Card showing on the side.

He was News Flash and his editor told him to come to Ponyville because of some strange rumors going around Canterlot. For the past few days there were stories about a strange ship and an actual alien in Ponyville. Now normally this wasn’t the kind of stuff that the Canterlot Times went for, but there was something strange about the stories.

They were all just too similar, they all came from people who had been either from or just visiting Ponyville. News Flash had been investigating a popular store that was rumored to have been using fake sugar in their cakes to cut costs when he overheard the story. At first he didn’t think much about it, but then he heard more and more rumors of the same story. It was just too much of a coincidence for him, and then he made a mistake. He had joked to his editor about the rumors and his editor decided to send him to Ponyville to check it out.

So here he was wasting a whole day on this so called story.

As he stared out the window as the scenery passed him by he was trying to think of what else he would write about? Maybe about small town life or something? He had heard how Ponyville also usually something going on but would it be something that Canterlot would want to read about? If he knew anything about fashion maybe he could have interviewed Rarity, her clothing from what he heard about was all the rage.

Maybe an interview with all the Elements of Harmony? That held possibilities, they were getting pretty famous with their heroics and adventures after all and Twilight Sparkle was the student of Celestia. He swayed his head side to side thinking that over, it might work. Honestly he wasn’t sure why others hadn’t tried it before.

“Next stop, Ponyville!” a voice called out.

News Flash stretched out as he waited for the train to stop, he wasn’t in any hurry to he let most of the passengers off before he got up from his spot. Walking out of the train onto the platform he looked around. It seemed like a nice quiet place looking around, so he started walking. First thing he needed to do was to find the busiest spot and start asking questions.

He sighed knowing he was going to get a lot of strange looks asking about ‘aliens’ but maybe he could just ask if anyone saw anything strange?

Looking around the town he found a large central area with stalls set up for the day, perfect a market was just the place he was looking for. Plus he wouldn’t mind to see if they had anything to snack on. He wondered around looking at the stalls. They had something for everyone it seemed, now he just needed a place to start.

He only just started walking when a commotion from behind got his attention.

“Look out!” A young voice cried out as he and several others jumped out of the way.

News Flash had to blink at the sight of it, it looked like some kind of homemade bobsled made of wood but on wheels instead. It held three young ponies in it as they came to a halt not that far away. He had seen some strange sights but this was starting to get up there on his list. His curiosity led him to take a closer look at the three. They seemed to be a young Earth Pony, Pegasus and Unicorn.

“That was totally awesome!” the Pegasus yelled out as she jumped out of the contraption along with her friends.

“I feel sick,” the unicorn said looking a little green.

“Ah’m just thankful we didn’t hit no pony.” The last one commented as the sled shook and fell apart. “Well at least it lasted long enough for us.”

“You think it worked?” Again the Pegasus asked as they all checked their flanks but then looked disappointed.

News Flash had to know just what would possess young fillies to try something like that or why no one else seemed shocked by it.

“Excuse me girls, can you tell me what you were doing?” News asked them.

“We were trying to get our bobsledding cutie marks,” the Unicorn told him looking a bit better.

“It’s spring,” News said more as a statement of fact.

“Yeah that’s why we put wheels on it, we didn’t want to wait until winter showed up to try.” The Pegasus filly said as though it was the most logical thing in the world.

“Hey mister are y’all new around here,” the one with the accent asked him. “Ah don’t remember ya bein’ here before.”

“Well you’d be right,” he nodded to her. “My name is News Flash, I’m a reporter for the Canterlot Times.”

“Oh my sister reads that all the time,” the white one told him.

“Well then she has good taste then,” he grinned and then looked at them. “I’m actually here on a story.”

“What story?” All three asked at once.

He paused not sure what to say but they were just kids they would believe anything he said even the strange truth of it all. With a mental shrug he decided to go with what his editor sent him here to get. “I’m actually here because there were rumors of an alien in the town.” He joked.

“Oh you mean [David],” the Pegasus told him.

News Flash stood there not sure if they were joking with him or not. “Excuse me what did you say miss…”

“Oh I’ Scootaloo, this is Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle,” Scootaloo introduced herself and her friends to him. “And yeah we know exactly who you mean.”

“You do.” He said flatly.

“Yeah his ship is in that direction,” Sweetie told him pointing him in a certain direction.

He really wasn’t sure what to make of all of this, either they were having him on or, no. He refused to believe that aliens were here and no one outside of this town knew about it. Yet looking at the kids they seemed to be totally honest about it.

“We can show ya if ya want,” Apple Bloom offered him.

“Uh, okay then.” It wasn’t like he had any real leads and if it was a joke when then no harm done. They started to lead him through the town so he decided to get some information while they walked.

“So what can you tell me about this alien?” He asked them.

“Well he’s pretty tall,” Sweetie said first.

“Yeah he was staring Princess Celestia in the eye I think,” Scootaloo commented.

“Wait, are you telling me the Princess was here?” He asked to make sure he heard that right.

“Both of them were,” Apple Bloom corrected him. “We had this big old party and they were here the entire time.”

News Flash suddenly was starting to think this whole thing over, if both of the Royal Sisters were here and they knew and didn’t tell anyone. Well that was a huge scoop, but maybe the facts were wrong. Maybe it wasn’t an actual alien but some kind of new race? To a child it might seem like an alien and maybe that’s how the rumor got started? Still something inside of him told him he was on to something big.

They soon left the town as he listened in on the girls telling him about his green ray gun and how he saved them from timberwolves. Well he was only half listening really, honesty it sounded like their childish minds running away with them. It was why you could never really trust the source of children they tended to blow up a story.

They started to climb a small hill that the girls said dipped down and they would be able to see the ship then. He wasn’t sure what he was going to see but he could see the top now.

As they got to the top of the small hill he froze in place as he could now see that there really was something there. It was very large about the length of the train he had been on, minus a few of the cars. It was much wider with wings and very obviously metal from how it gleamed in the sunlight.

He had never seen anything like it before and he was seriously starting to rethink that story about aliens. He no longer felt hungry as his mouth was dry as he slowly went closer.

“See, this is his space ship,” Scootaloo said to him. “It makes this really loud sound when it flies too.”

He supposed that it could fly made sense to him after all how else did it get here? The kids led him closer to the ship as he could see more clearly that it was definitely not of this world. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before. The metal was so smooth and well made he wasn’t sure what it was made out of. It didn’t look like steel exactly but then he wasn’t a metallurgist, he was a reporter and every reporter instinct inside of him was screaming at him to start taking pictures.

He quickly took the camera from around his neck and took a few photos of the ship, if only so others back at work would believe him. Heck he was here and he still wasn’t totally believing what he was seeing.

“So this alien, any chance I could meet him?” He asked the kids.

-Sparrow I-

David was seated in the command chair going over some data as he tried to explain what he was doing with apparently his new ‘co-pilot’ Twilight. She had pulled over the chair by the table to sit next to him. He had to admit he usually only had to say something once before she got it, a few times he had to repeat things and she was making notes. Which was why he wasn’t telling her anything like how to start the engines or how to fly, he didn’t want to run the risk of her wanting to try her skills out.

He also was also doing this because he had been asking Twilight to help him understand this…magic thing. He really needed to come up with a better term for it than that.

“Okay so this is for power,” He told her in English. It was simpler for him and she wanted to improve her English as well.

“Power, got it. Make more or less?” She asked with a bit of an accent but she was doing well.

“Yep,” He nodded as he had an idea. “Hey, want to have some fun?”

“Fun?” she parroted.

“Yep this,” He pulled up a new window as he started a few commands. “Want to take a drone for a spin?”

“What is drone?” Twilight asked him not sure on the word.

David smiled as he powered on the one he called Grumpy as he went through the usual procedures. Once the drone was ready he launched it as he got it flying. Twilight watched as the image in front of her moved, she could see the outside of the ship as the view slowly changed. Then she saw a view of the cockpit from the outside and she looked up to see the bug like device from before.

“Ohhhh, so that drone,” Twilight nodded her head. So he could see what it saw and controlled it from here with the glowing controls.

The drone was sent flying over Ponyville taking images and video for later references. It flew up to the clouds as a few Pegasi were given a scare.

One such Pegasus was Cloud Chaser, she was just out for a simply fly going to meet up with her twin sister later when the strangest sound caught her attention. Looking around she wanted to see where it was coming from. She turned her head and what looked to be coming at her was some kind of scary looking giant bug monster.

Now she liked to think she was a bit braver than her younger sister (by five minutes) but even she had her limits. Her irises shrank down as she screamed and flew off.

“Oh my gosh, what is that thing!?” She yelled out flying through a cloud only to run into another pony sleeping there.

One moment Rainbow Dash had been off taking a nice nap the next she was violently woken up and soon found herself tangled up with another pony and falling.

“W-what? Hey what’s going on!?” Dash demanded.

“It’s some kind of monster!” Chaser yelled out as the two mares managed to untangle themselves and pulled up before a painful crash into the ground.

“Monster?” Dash asked her.

Cloud Chaser looked around and pointed, “There!”

Rainbow looked and saw some kind of metallic looking…thing just flying around. “I go this!”

Rainbow flew off quickly leaving Cloud Chaser behind, which was just fine with her. The mare quickly left for the home she shared with her sister. She planned to go inside, get her sister, lock the doors and just wait it out. That usually was the best plan for when crazy things happened here but giant metal bugs?

“That crazy old gipsy pony was right!” She cried out flying as fast as she could.

Dash wasn’t sure what that thing was, she had an idea that maybe it belonged to [David] but she had to be sure. It did sure look like some kind of bug, she wondered how fast it could go? She managed to get in front of it and hovered there.

“Alright hold it, what’s the big idea huh?” Dash asked eyeing the thing.

The drone stopped as it hovered in front of her for a moment, there was a bit of a tensed silence between the two until suddenly the drone dove down quickly.

“Hey, get back here!” Dash yelled out as she gave chase.

The drone zoomed over the village taking odd turns around buildings trying to break Rainbow’s line of sight. Although she was fast, she soon found that she had to be careful, taking a corner at too fast a speed would slam her right into a building. She kept up though, despite its maneuvers yet still couldn’t quite get close enough to grab it. She had no plan on what to do with it if she did catch it but all she was thinking about was just catching it.

The drone went lower and dived between two buildings as Rainbow took the corner but stopped. It wasn’t there. She landed and looked around, she didn’t hear it and she wasn’t that far behind it to lose sight, at least she didn’t think so. She slowly moved ahead until her head was poking out the other side and looked around.

“Hey, anypony seen some big metal looking bug thing fly by?” She asked, she only got strange looks.

Before she said anything more the sound of the ‘bug’ was heard behind her as she quickly looked back.

The drone had latched itself to the wall high up in the hopes that Rainbow would have flown below it, the gamble paid off and now it was on its way back to the skies after taking a turn to break Rainbow’s line of sight again.

“Oh it is on now!” Rainbow snorted as she flew straight up this time, she wasn’t going to play its game anymore. This time she was changing the game in her favor as she now had an eagle eye view of all of Ponyville. Scanning the area she quickly found her target flying towards Rarity’s place. She quickly dove at it increasing speed as she tried to angle her approach to get it from behind where it couldn’t see her.

What Rainbow didn’t know was that the drones were equipped with multiple cameras, including one behind for when it had to back up in tight spots. This camera picked up on Rainbow and just when she was about to reach it, it suddenly went straight up.

Rainbow’s eyes widened at the move but it was already too late, she was going too fast to stop as she flew right through one of Rarity’s windows. There was a crash as she went through the window and into Rarity’s shop floor. She slammed into a mannequin as the dress on it got tangled up in her legs as it and her went into a tumbling roll along the ground.

“Ow…that hurt,” Rainbow moaned as she shook her head. As crashes went, well she had worse, any crash you could walk away from was good in her opinion.

“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity’s very angry voice called out snapping the rainbow maned mare’s attention.

She looked over to see a very irate unicorn looking at her with a seething glare.

“Oh…uh…hi?” Dash waved weakly.

“There had better be a good explanation for why you ruined one of my windows and one of my dresses.”

Rainbow looked to see what she was tangled up in, “Oops, sorry I was cashing this, well thing and it pulled a fast one on me.”

Rarity gave her a level glare.

“Seriously I was!” Rainbow untangled her hooves from the remains of the dress. “It’s most likely still outside but it could be getting away!”

“And what am I going to do with all of this?” Rarity asked her looking at the mess. Bits of glass were all over her floor.

“Uh…I’ll…pay for it.” Rainbow winced inside although she wasn’t hurting for bits it wasn’t like she was rolling in money being the head of the town’s weather patrol. The only reason she had such a huge three story home was because cloud buildings were cheap to make. Most of the money went into just for the cloud construction Pegasi to build it. Heck all the stuff she put into her home was most likely worth more collectively than her home.

But still, the window and a dress, that was going to hurt her wallet.

Rarity sighed but then she got an idea, “Very well I’ll allow you to pay for the window.”

“Good got to go,” Dash said quickly as she suddenly felt her tail being pulled on. She looked to see a blue glow engulfing it.

“And what about this mess?” Rarity asked.

“Oh come on it’s getting away and you can clean this up a lot faster than I could with your magic.” Dash implored her.

“Be that as it may, you still made a mess.”

“Look if you let me go I’ll owe you a favor.”

That got Rarity’s attention as an idea was forming. “Any favor?”

“Yeah, yeah, just let me go and I’ll do anything!”

Rarity released her friend with a smirk on her face, “Very well have fun with, whatever you were doing.”

“Great, thanks!” Rainbow said quickly before shooting off through the broken window.

Rarity sighed looking at the mess and started to levitate all the pieces together. Thankfully Ponyville had a top notch repair team, given how much damage this town took in a year it was a booming business. She would have to talk to them about this but the idea of her favor with Rainbow Dash did lighten the mood.

Looking at one of her dresses she had to muse, “Now I wonder what would be the best fabric to use with my new model.” She grinned. She knew Rainbow hated to model for dress making let alone wearing them. So Rarity was going to make sure that tomboy Pegasus will have to sit still for a whole new dress soon.

Rainbow Dash flew into the sky and quickly looked around, it couldn’t have gotten too far could it? It didn’t seem faster than her but it was still kind of fast. Narrowing her eyes she thought she caught sight of something and looking at it more closely she saw it. She flew at it with enough force to make a large gust of wind follow after her.

Rainbow saw that it was heading to Sweet Apple Acres for some reason but now that it was on open territory she could catch up. It seemed to see her as it started making a bee line for one of the barns on the property. Rainbow wasn’t sure what it planned to do but she was going to catch it before it could do it.

The drone made a quick dive as he went for the opened door on the top floor, it was large enough for it to fit through and as soon as it did it stopped and again went straight up. Only this time the drone nearly hit the ceiling and a few of the support beams. It wobbled a little as it tried to straighten out as a rainbow streak flew in and then into the hay stacks that were stored in the building.

Rainbow’s head came out of the stack looking like a demented scarecrow with hay coming out of her fur and mane in several places. She spat out the few in her mouth as the drone tried to get away but not this time. She rushed it and managed to latch onto its back, the device wobbled from the sudden extra weight as the motors tried to kick in more power.

“Alright I got you now,” Rainbow smiled but then she frowned. She caught it but what was she going to do with it.

She tapped it with her front hoof, “Hey anypony home or what?”

“Or what.” Came a voice from the ‘bug’ that startled her.

“You can talk?”

“Heavy, can’t fly, will crash,” Came the halted voice from it.

“Not another crash,” she moaned as she took a moment to think it over before letting go. Instead of flying off it seemed to fall to the ground. Well not ‘fall’ as so much and float onto it. It landed on its legs as it seemed to slump down.

Rainbow wasn’t sure what was going on so she landed in front of it. “Hey, you okay?”

“Damage.”

“Damage, where?” Rainbow looked at it but it didn’t look damaged. She was actually afraid there that she might have done something to it.

“Everything…going…dark.” The voice was getting weaker as it started to get quiet.

“Wait what!? No! Not dark, everything is not going dark!” Rainbow said looking frantically at it trying to see if there was anything wrong with it or what she could do.

“There is a light…”

“No, don’t go into the light damn it!” Rainbow was nearing her wits end as she tried to think of who could help her.

“Will I dream?” it asked her than started singing in some kind of language. [Daisy…Daisy give me your heart to do…]

“W-what, wait I don’t understand,”

There was silent for a moment until a burst of laughter could be heard.

“Rainbow it’s okay,” Now it was Twilight’s voice coming out of the machine. “Apparently [David] thought he was being funny.”

“Was too funny,” the voice said as now Rainbow realized it was his voice.

“So what this was all a prank?” Dash asked looking as it started to get back up again.

“Yes, was just making fun, oh, having fun.” He corrected himself.

Dash was silent for a moment before grinning, “Okay I’m big enough to admit when I got pranked, but you do realize that I will get you back for this.”

There was some noise coming from the device as Twilight’s voice was heard again. “Sorry, we have to cut this short, somepony is at the ship. He said it this device will come back on its own.”

“Right well good luck with that but could you tell him if he’s going to be flying these things around try not to scare any more ponies? I think he gave Cloud Chaser a heart attack.”

“I will, honestly I told him not to do it.” Twilight responded before the drone went to autopilot back to the ship.

Back on the small scout vessel David had been notified that there was someone at the door. He got up after making the drone come back on autopilot thankful for a little fun. Twilight was good company don’t get him wrong but she really needed to let loose a bit more. She was a little too uptight some times. He also got a lot of great flight data from Rainbow Dash apparently, she was a lot faster than she looked and he got the feeling she could only go faster.

Maybe if he asked her real nice he could get her to perform for him? She did seem to like being the center of attention from what he been seeing the past few days he had moved into town. Still he got the feeling he was going to have to be on watch for her retaliation at some point.

Opening the door he could see the three familiar faces looking up at him with smiles on their faces but they were with someone he didn’t know. Although from the way he was semi-dressed and the camera he had a feeling he knew. He saw the card sticking out of his hat, although reading was harder than talking to them at the moment, the simple word he was able to translate.

Although he had to admit, the look on his face, how his eyes bulged out and irises shrank down. It was very comical and the open mouth just hanging open even more so.

“Hello,” he said simply as Twilight walked up beside him in their language.

“Uh…hello?” He replied back.

Twilight came walking up next to him and looked out, “What’s going on?”

“Oh uh, I’m News Flash from the Canterlot Times and…well I was wondering…could I get an interview?” He asked hesitantly. He felt like a green reporter all over again, he had interviewed starts and celebrities, hell he had once did a piece on Princess Celestia herself at a charity event but here he was tripping over his own tongue again.

The first reporter to hopefully get an interview with the first actual alien and he felt like such a fool.

The alien seemed to mull it over and he bent down to share a hushed conversation with who he noticed was Twilight Sparkle herself. He had seen her at the royal wedding of her brother and Princess Cadence when he had covered the event. Too bad that piece had gotten bumped to the Changeling invasion story instead.

“Okay,” David told him and he pointed to Twilight, “Need her though, still learning much.”

“That is if it’s okay.” Twilight asked him.

“Oh of course, please do!” He said happily, he was so going to get an award for this piece.

Next up Chapter 18: The News Flash Report

Author's Note

Well I was able to finish this off before I left on my flight, excuse any errors I tried to quickly look it over as I was a bit rushed. Also I fixed some of the errors in the previous chapter.