My Little Xeno

Luna landed in front of Moonlight, Blackwing and Stormy’s house in Ponyville to follow an invitation for dinner. Antonius had been there the whole day, his Land Speeder on the road a visible sign of his presence in the nice little cottage.

She just wanted to knock as Antonius’ helmet came dashing around the corner of the house. Luna raised an eyebrow in surprise. The helmet was not only running on four grey legs, it was also giggling.
She started grinning. Stormy.

“Will you get back here, you little helmet swiper!” Antonius called as he came around the corner in pursuit of Stormy.

Luna immediately realized that he was playing with her, he was deliberately slow so that she could keep some distance between them. Her grin widened. Seeing her friend be so playful was really nice.

Stormy noticed her and made a beeline for her.

“Luna, help!” she laughed.

Luna didn’t need to be told twice. She lit her horn and hovered Stormy onto her back. Then, she spread her wings and took off.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Antonius exclaimed and jumped.

He managed to grab her hind hooves and pulled her back onto the ground.

“Oh, woe is me!” Luna wailed dramatically,
“I have been too slow to escape!”

“Woe is us!” Stormy joined in.

Antonius picked them both up and said:

“Indeed. Now, for your punishment: You will spend an evening in a cell, on bread and water!”

“Ha! There are no cells here!” Stormy giggled,
“and mom and dad already cooked a tasty meal!”

“Hmm… okay…” Antonius admitted,
“then, you will spend an evening in this beautiful house, eating whatever delicious meal is served to you!”

“Oh, what a punishment!” Luna laughed.

“Gotta be flexible, you know,” Antonius winked.

“Ah, there you are,” Moonlight smiled, peeking out of the front door,
“come on in, dinner is almost ready!”

When it was time to return to Canterlot, Luna and Antonius said goodbye to their friends and got into the Land Speeder. On their way to the capital, Luna suddenly turned to Antonius:

“You know, Tony, we still have some time before I have to raise the moon… how about teaching me how to drive your Land Speeder?”

“Seriously?” Antonius answered in surprise,
“you, the magic Princess of the Night, capable of flight and teleportation, want to learn how to handle this human means of transportation?”

“Yes, because I enjoy traveling with it.”

“Commendable,” Antonius grinned and stopped.

Luna was all smiles. Of course, she had expected him to accommodate her wish; they were close friends, after all.

After solving the problems that came with taking each other’s seat, Antonius told her how to operate the Land Speeder. While Luna had watched him closely, she was glad about the explanation and did her best to figure out a way to get along with the controls despite her lack of hands.
She worked out a mix of hooves and magic and gently accelerated the Speeder.

Antonius was giving her advice (quite a lot of it) and Luna started to get familiar with the vehicle.
She increased the speed.
Truly, being a passenger had been great, but being the driver was fantastic!

A Land Speeder was a technical marvel made by mankind. Designed as a light recon vehicle, it was armored well enough to withstand a firefight and equipped with a powerful engine that was capable of getting it into or out of said fight in a minimum of time, while the anti-grav system reliably kept the ground at bay. This particular one was an old Mk 1, which lacked the usual armament as well as the color pattern of a chapter. Still, it was fully functional and an incredibly useful asset to Antonius on this planet.
Now Luna was driving it like a madmare.

They left a cloud of dust and colorful exhaust fumes behind them as they traveled at maximum vertical velocity.

“This is fantastic!” Luna screamed.

“Yeah, but please try not to get carried away,” Antonius tried to rein her in, with somewhat limited success.

Suddenly, she made a hard turn to the left and they were flying along the shoreline of a lake.

“Sorry,” Luna shouted,
“I almost overlooked that lake! I rally did not want to cause an accident!”

Antonius looked out across the water surface, then he turned to his enthusiastic pilot:

“There’s nothing on that lake we could have crashed into. What accident are you talking about?”

“Huh? Is it not called a LAND Speeder because it only works on solid ground?”

Antonius laughed and answered:

“Luna, it is called a LAND Speeder because its STC was rediscovered by a magos of the Mechanicum named Arkhan LAND. It has nothing to do with its area of application.”

“Oh… if that is the case…”

Luna made another hard turn, this time to the right and onto the lake, replacing the dust in their wake with mist.

“We are really not sinking!” she cheered and left the water again towards Canterlot.

As they approached the mountain, Antonius shouted:

“You should stop now so that I can get us into the hangar.”

“Hey, I can do that, too!” Luna grinned.

“I meant in one piece. So please stop now.”

“Aww, you are no fun,” Luna pouted and stopped the Land Speeder.

When Antonius had brought them back into the hangar, they went to one of Canterlot’s highest towers and stepped onto a balcony where Luna raised the moon.

“Well, this duty of mine is done,” she said with a smile,
“I am really happy that I can do that again. Those thousand years on the moon were… not to my liking.”

“Why are you thinking about that now?” Antonius inquired.

“The Summer Sun Celebration will be the day after tomorrow. As you know, it celebrates my sister’s victory over Nightmare Moon… and it was on a Summer Sun Celebration that Twilight and her friends freed me from that daemon.”

“Hmm… I truly am thankful for that,” Antonius grinned, which earned him a hug.

They left the balcony and headed for Luna’s quarters as the princess said:

“I wonder if somepony will think of Nightmare Moon tonight… well, I will have to be watchful while I am on my patrol.”

Luna was a little glum. The Summer Sun Celebration had stirred some unpleasant memories and emotions. Perhaps Antonius could help her by taking some of her duties off her.

“I could take over the patrol,” he offered,
“that way, you could focus on the ponies’ dreams.”

“That would be nice,” Luna smiled.

After putting the two batponies assigned to this night’s patrol into the Land Speeder, they left Canterlot and headed for White Tail Woods. The patrol itself was was pretty uneventful, but the animals that lived in the forest were unusually nervous and very easily startled.
Wondering what could be the cause of this behavior, Antonius and his companions tried to investigate the matter, but did not find any clues.

It was past dawn as they returned to the Land Speeder - or, to be exact, it should have been past dawn. When they left White Tail Woods, however, a strange sight met their eyes:
sun and moon were in the sky together, bathing Equestria in a strange twilight that defied the laws of physics.

“Is this a part of the Summer Sun Celebration?” Antonius asked.

“No, this is just weird,” the batponies told him.

“Get ready to return to Canterlot. I’ll call the princesses and ask them what’s going on.”

Neither Luna nor Celestia answered, but fortunately, there was a third princess in Canterlot, so Antonius called Twilight. It took a few seconds, but she finally appeared on the PDA. She looked sleepy, but at least she was willing - or able - to answer him.

“Twilight, what’s going on?” Antonius asked.

“Huh?” Twilight asked drowsily,
“what do you mean?”

“Have you looked out of the window?”

“What? No, why should… SWEET CELESTIA!”

“Yeah, that’s what I was talking about,” Antonius deadpanned.

“What’s going on?” Twilight inquired.

“I asked first… so, you don’t know, either?”

“No! But I will find out!”

“I’ll return to Canterlot as fast as I can.”

“Good. Please make haste. SPIKE!”

Twilight cut the connection and Antonius jumped into the Speeder. The batponies were ready by now and they set off for Canterlot.

On their way there, Antonius received a message from Twilight:

“Antonius, change of plans: Come to Ponyville immediately.”

“Mind telling me why?” Antonius wanted to know, but already adjusted his course.

“Luna and Celestia have gone missing and the Everfree is invading Ponyville!”

A forest invading a town? Antonius wondered how that was supposed to look like. But the fact that the princesses had gone missing… well, that was really bad news… and Antonius again felt a strange uneasiness he could not really describe.

“I don’t think that is a coincidence,” he grumbled.

“Whatever it is, I’m going to Ponyville, too, to get our friends and the Elements of Harmony!”

“With you in a minute.”

As the Land Speeder approached Ponyville, it became pretty obvious what Twilight had meant with the Everfree ‘invading’ Ponyville: Thick, black, thorny vines were literally everywhere, coiling through the town at speeds very unusual for normal plants - they seemed to be almost animal-like.
As if that wasn’t already bad enough, dark, spiky clouds were littering the sky.

“What the heck?” one of the batponies mumbled.

Antonius evaded the vines and stopped in front of the Golden Oak Library.

“Evacuate the citizens,” he commanded while they all disembarked,
“I’ll join the Element Bearers to stop this threat.”

Just at that moment, Twilight and her friends came out of the library.

“Antonius!” Twilight greeted,
“am I glad to see you!”

“Likewise,” Antonius answered,
“I see you already have the Elements. That’s good. What or who do we have to aim them at?”

“We think Discord is behind all of this. This situation has his hoofprints all over it!”

“I won’t even ask how often I’ve told you that this creature can’t be trusted, no matter what he really is… anyway, let’s blast him!”

A few ponies screamed in the distance, and Twilight took a worried look in that direction. Then she turned to the Space Marine again:

“Antonius, we’ll be able to deal with Discord on our own… wouldn’t be the first time, after all. I would rather like you to help the citizens of Ponyville. See to it that they can escape those briars.”

“Well, I think defeating Discord and rescuing the princesses has priority, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, but we’re already at it. Please help the ponies, I promise Celestia and Luna will be alright.”

“Acknowledged,” Antonius answered after a second and dashed off towards the spot where the scream had supposedly come from.

Yeah, instead of making sure that Discord got blasted and rescuing the irreplaceable princesses, he complied with Twilight’s request to help the ponies of Ponyville instead.
This place really had left a mark on him.

Finding the source of the screams proved to be quite simple and thankfully, cutting the vines that had grabbed the ponies with the chainsword was just as easy.

“Are you okay?” Antonius asked.

“Yes,” a mare he had just rescued told him,
“we are not hurt… just terrified.”

Really, none of the ponies was wounded, despite the vines that had grabbed them being covered with thorns.
Was this just a lucky coincidence? Or was it purpose? Did those vines just ‘want’ to cause a commotion without hurting anypony?
Well, that would fit Discord’s usual MO, if the stories he had heard were correct.

Antonius wondered how the Element Bearer’s fight with Discord was going - there was a serious lack of giant, magical rainbows in the sky, after all - when another scream forced him to focus on his rescuing business again.

For some time, he kept dashing through Ponyville, cutting vines and helping ponies. Then he started to get worried. There still was no sign that the Elements had been used, and that was a bad omen.

So Antonius started looking for Twilight and her friends. He soon found Twilight; he saw her running out of Ponyville and into the Everfree Forest accompanied by Spike. Just Spike, no other ponies.

Antonius immediately started following her, but before he had passed the borders of the town, he encountered Discord.

“You should not chase after mares like that,” Discord grinned,
“if she loves you, she will return to you.”

Ignoring the attempt to anger him - he already was annoyed enough - Antonius responded:

“Where is Twilight going?”

“Into the Everfree, of course.”

“Where are the other Element Bearers?”

“They preceded her.”

“Don’t tell me they split up!”

“Okay, I won’t tell you.”

Being fed up with this conversation, Antonius just wanted to get going again as Discord teleported in front of him.

“Oh no, I don’t think they’ll need your help,” he said and blocked his way.

Already more that fed up with Discord, Antonius punched him in the face, which now seemed to have been swallowed by the rest of his head.

“Ow!” Discord said with a muffled voice,
“okay, just go on…”

Not caring for Discord’s permission, Antonius now dashed past him and followed Twilight as fast as he could. He neither saw Discord grumpily pull his face out of his head nor did he hear him mutter

“Impolite.”

Instead, he managed to catch up to Twilight and Spike - thankfully, the ponies had left clear trails.

“Twilight! Spike!” he shouted.

“Antonius!” Twilight replied,
“are the citizens of Ponyville okay?”

“They are not hurt, those vines are not really harmful, just seriously annoying. But they cause quite some property damage. We have to find out what’s behind all of this, or else the attempt to save Ponyville will be in vain.”

“I think I know what’s going on. The Tree of Harmony is probably in danger.”

“There’s a TREE of Harmony? Nice that somepony finally told me.”

“I just got to know that, too. We have to save it!”

“I save things that are called ‘… of Harmony’ by default. So let’s get going!”

While Twilight briefed Antonius on everything she had gotten to know about the tree, they journeyed deeper into the out-of-control forest, until Spike asked:

“Are we there yet?”

“I don’t know where we are,” Twilight admitted,
“we’re lost. I never should have left my friends.”

“Then I wouldn’t have had a chance to join you,” Antonius added for consideration,
“but why did you leave them in the first place?”

“They told me that as a princess I was too important to risk my life.”

“Hmm… according to that, all six of you should have stayed somewhere safe and I should have gone on this mission on my own.”

“Huh? You are just as important as any of us!” Twilight stated.

“In the end, I’m not, Twilight. I can’t use the Elements. You can. So, I’m expendable, but that is what enables me to do my duty no matter what I have to face and no matter the cost.”

“That’s… weird. And we still don’t know where to go.”

Now Antonius fetched his auspex.

“To reunite with your friends, we have to go this way,” he said and pointed in the corresponding direction - and at a strange, black plant that was worming towards them.

“What is that?” Spike gasped.

“Looks like an amalgamation of those vines, a venus flytrap and a tyranid ripper,” Antonius grumbled,
“so it looks like wanting to be killed. Twilight, surveil our suroundings. Ranged combat. Keep any of them that show up at bay. I’ll attack them in melee.”

Antonius had expected more of those things to show up, and he wasn’t proven wrong: As he closed in on the first one, more of them came crawling out of the forest.
An ambush, but if they weren’t decisively more resilient than the ‘normal’ vines, this should not prove to be a problem.

He was almost in melee range when the thing spat a dust cloud at him. Antonius quickly sealed his helmet, switched to internal life support and brought his chainsword down on the plant.
It was not more resilient than the vines.

Behind him, he could hear Twilight fire her magic blasts, so he turned around and engaged the next monstrosity.

He had just cut down the second one as Spike shouted:

“Twilight! Watch out!”

Antonius took a look and saw another plant-thing engulf Twilight in a cloud of this strange dust. She coughed and collapsed to the ground.

“Damnit,” Antonius grumbled, dashed over to her and killed her attacker with a swing of his sword.

“Spike,” he shouted as he focused on their enemies again,
“take care of her!”

The things had crept closer by now, and a jump was enough to get into melee range again and cut them down.
When the area was cleared of hostiles, Antonius turned back to Twilight and Spike. The alicorn was looking a bit groggy, but she did not seem to be too badly off.

“Are you okay?” he inquired.

“I think so,” Twilight replied and got up,
“this strange dust just knocked me out for a second… seems to be some kind of sleeping dust… But now let’s go and find our friends!”

They followed the directions given by the auspex and soon stood at the ledge of a cliff. In the valley at the bottom there were more vines, and they all seemed to come out of a cave.
Just in front of that cave, Twilight friends were standing.

“There they are,” Antonius said,
“now we just have to find a way down.”

“We could take these stairs!” Spike suggested and pointed out his discovery.

“Oh… that is an expedient idea.”

So they took the stairs. While they were doing so, their friends spotted them and they met down in the valley.

“Twilight! Antonius!” Applejack shouted,
“I sure am glad you came looking for us!”

“Not as glad as I am that we found you,” Twilight answered.

“The truth of it is, Twilight,” Rarity smiled,
“we’re simply lost without you.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash agreed,
“Equestria may need its princess…”

“… but we need our friend.” Fluttershy finished.

As they celebrated their reunification with the inevitable group hug, Antonius remarked:

“Could we maybe save the displays of affection until after this crisis is over?”

“No,” Pinkie Pie told him bluntly and pulled him into the hug.

When they were done, they entered the cave the vines came out of.
Inside there was a tree made of crystal, spotting a large star in its center and sockets on five branches - the Tree of Harmony. Antonius did not need any confirmation to be sure of this.

Unfortunately - but not at all surprisingly - it really was in danger; the dark vines were coiling themselves around it, and Antonius noticed two heaps of them to either side of the tree.
A short glance at his auspex validated his suspicion.

“Good news: we’ve found the princesses,” he stated,
“bad news: they’re temporarily unavailable. More good news: That can be changed”.

He cut a vine with his chainsword, but another one immediately took its place.

“Huh?” he wondered,
“they seem to be much more determined now.”

Twilight slowly flew forward and took a closer look at the tree. A vine attacked her at once and coiled itself around her hoof. While she struggled to retreat, Antonius jumped and cut the vine, freeing Twilight. They both returned to the rest of the Element Bearers, and the vines intensified their grip on the Tree of Harmony.

“Now we have a problem,” Antonius stated,
“while those vines are easily cut, there are a lot of them, and I’m not sure I can deal with them fast enough to prevent them from strangling the tree or the imprisoned princesses. Perhaps you could use your Elements and blast them?”

“That would only be a temporary solution,” Twilight said,
“the vines would return and we’d be in trouble all over again… but I know how we can save the tree. We have to give it the Elements of Harmony.”

She wanted to give such powerful artifacts to a tree? Well, they had come from that tree, so it kind of made sense…

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, heh,” Rainbow Dash objected,
“how are we supposed to protect Equestria?”

Or help mankind?

“How are we meant to rein Discord in if we can’t use the Elements to turn him back to stone?” Rarity added.

Or keep the promise to help mankind?

“Twilight,” Applejack said,
“the Elements of Harmony… They’re what keep us connected no matter what.”

“You’re right about one thing, Applejack,” Twilight answered,
“the Elements of Harmony did bring us together. But it isn’t the Elements that will keep us connected. It’s our friendship. And it’s more important and more powerful than any magic. My new role in Equestria may mean I have to take on new responsibilities, and our friendships may be tested, but it will never, ever be broken. There’s no time to lose. Everypony ready?”

“Ready,” Twilight’s friends answered.

“Antonius?” Twilight asked a little worried.

Of course she knew what her plan meant.
Now Antonius had to decide if he should trust her or insist on looking for a different plan. After a second of hesitation - and consideration - he answered:

“The vines will probably attack you again, but I will take care of them. You focus on your task.”

He stepped between Twilight and the tree, the chainsword in his hand. With the sound of Twilight’s wing beat above and behind him, he waited for the inevitable attack.
It came promptly.

A whole series of vines shot towards her, but Antonius managed to cut them down before they could reach their target.
More of them were quickly advancing, seemingly from just about every direction at once. With his superior reflexes he still managed to keep Twilight safe, but he also noticed that those vines were not just some plants that moved because of simple reflexes. An intelligence was working against him, trying to predict his moves and luring him into opening a window in his defense they could attack Twilight through.

While he was fighting, Twilight hovered the Elements towards the Tree of Harmony. As each of them was placed into a free socket, the tree closed around them, making them parts of the branch.

Antonius just cut a vine that had managed to coil itself around Twilight’s leg as she finished her task by putting the last Element - Magic - into the central socket.

Now all of the Elements started glowing and a moment later, the whole tree followed. With an explosion of multicolored light, it disintegrated the vines completely - freeing the princesses in the process.

Twilight dashed towards them and hugged them.
Antonius was tempted to do the same - especially since this strange uneasiness was gone again now - but he restrained himself and just sighed in relief.

“We know how difficult it must have been for you to give up the Elements,” Celestia said,
“it took great courage to relinquish them.”
Then she turned to Antonius:
“This applies to you, too. I thought you would try to prevent this from happening.”

“You know,” Antonius replied, scratching his helmet,
“I guess they are not stuck in that tree forever. They came from the tree, they returned to the tree for now. I consider them just being in their charge station… only that they seem to charge the tree… which does not really make sense, since they seem to be some kind of ‘fruit’ of the tree… but that isn’t the first time something related to magic does not really make sense to me, so I decided to just trust Twilight.”

Surprisingly, the Tree of Harmony wasn’t done yet. It channeled multicolored light from the Elements and directed it into one of its roots, where a bud sprouted.
This bud quickly grew into a flower, and as it opened, it revealed a hexagonal chest.

The three princesses and Antonius approached this new item.

“What’s inside it?” Twilight wondered,
“how am i supposed to open it?”

“Six locks, six keys,” Luna commented.

“I do not know where they are,” Celestia admitted,
“but I do know that it is a mystery you will not be solving alone.”

“Six Elements, six Element Bearers, six keys,” Antonius added, then he took a scrutinizing look at the Tree of Harmony.

Now that the vines were gone, it shone in new splendor, and there were more symbols on it than just the star in its center:
A sun and a moon; Tia’s and Luna’s cutie marks… perhaps the star was not just a star, but Twilight’s cutie mark?
That hinted at a connection - a connection that had been made long before Twilight had even been born - the tree was at least a thousand years old, after all. Did that mean that he had stumbled into a plan that was probably more that a millennium old? With a tree as the centerpiece?
Who had ever heard of such an important tree?

Actually, he had.
It was a legend about a tree of unimaginable power: The Tree of Life.
The Primarch of the Space Wolves, Leman Russ, had allegedly disappeared while looking for it. He had wanted to use its seeds to…
heal the Emperor.

Antonius stared at the Tree of Harmony.
Could it be?
The seeds… the Elements…

Following an impulse, he reached out and gently put his hand on the tree.

Despite being made out of crystal, the tree did not feel as cold as one should have expected. It radiated a nice and cozy warmth, and as Antonius removed his hand a few seconds later, he felt exactly that way.
Maybe the Elements of Harmony would prove to be even more valuable than he had already thought.

When they all had left the cave, Celestia turned to Twilight and her friends:

“You deserve some rest now, my little ponies. Return to Ponyville. Luna and I will teleport to Canterlot and finish the preparations for The Summer Sun Celebration. We’ll see you again this evening for the start of the festivities.”

“I’ll go to Ponyville, too,” Antonius said,
“I’ve got to get the Speeder.”

“What about teleporting to the Speeder?” Luna suggested.

“If you don’t need me anymore,” Antonius said, turned to Twilight and her friends.

“Not really, thank you,” Twilight answered,
“we don’t mind you joining Celestia and Luna.”

So Celestia teleported to Canterlot and Luna and Antonius teleported to Ponyville.

As they jumped into the Land Speeder, Antonius grinned:

“I just realized that instead of an unhurried walk through the forest, we basically volunteered for more preparation work.”

“Well, we cannot let my sister carry this burden alone, can we?” Luna smiled back.

“Would be worth a try,” Antonius laughed and started the engines.

Back in Canterlot, Antonius and Luna helped Celestia preparing the Celebration. In the evening, Twilight and her friends arrived and joined them and the festivities started. They took the whole night and reached their climax when it was time for sunrise.

Luna lowered the moon, Celestia raised the sun, and Twilight magic-ed a giant star into the sky, accompanied by a lot of cheering from the assembled ponies.

Later, when the Summer Sun Celebration was over, Celestia, Luna and Antonius met in the throne room.

“Antonius,” Celestia said,
“just to dispel any possible doubts or worries: We promised to help mankind, and even with the Elements of Harmony temporarily unavailable, we will keep this promise.”

“I’m sure of that,” Antonius replied,
“I’m just curious how long the Elements will have to stay in the Tree of Harmony until they can be removed again.”

“That’s hard to say… but I’m sure the Tree will let us use them once we need them.”

“Let us just hope that we do not need them too soon,” Luna remarked.

At that moment, the door was pushed open and a guard came running in.

“Princesses!” he shouted,
“the beacons! The western beacons are lit!”

Antonius, Luna and Celestia looked at each other.

“Of course,” Antonius commented flatly.