My little pony : Mirror Spell

Chapters

Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 6
Chapter ONE
Chapter 5
Chapter 7

Chapter 2

Ship of the Creeps and rising Red Mind

"Here we are. Your old-new home." said fox man who just opened the steel sliding door with some complex number on them. His human companion didn't say a thing until he saw the small sculpture of a young thenory girl sitting on the nightstand right next to the bed.

"Hey, you still have her. I thought Scarfix has noticed you having it and stolen it for his twisted collection." said the human with a slight gleam of joy in his voice. Thenory man just smiled over his enthusiasm and said "Unpack your things and meet me at the deck sixty. We can hang out a bit and then do the star analyses. Is that cool?".

Before human could say anything, his shoulder was grabbed by a tight, cold grip.

"I saw you already helped yourself with our hospitality." then the newcomer turned to thenory, "May I borrow your friend for a while?"

"Sure." replied the fox. Human wondered what happened. Last time he had met Scarfix, he was cruel and cold-blood. What made him change so much?

When the human and robot crossed the central area of the ship, Scarfix finally spoke up.

"You wonder what made me change, huh?"

Human was taken by surprise by this sudden question, so he could only smile uncomfortably and whisper something with no sense under his breath.

"We are connected, you know. The Accandon System this ship's running on is linked to all A-tools in the whole empire. And since you have one of these devices on you, I can easily tell what you're thinking about." smirked Scarfix when he saw the expression on the human's face, then he quickly added, "But don't you worry about your secrets, I am no stalker, nor mind creeper. I might have used to be one, but not anymore. Love can do miracles, you know."

Now, the human had to shook his head in disbelieve. Scarfix is in love? Is that even possible?

"Love?" he asked, decided to not let go off the topic, until he got the straight and honest answer.

Scarfix smirked again, the pale blue skin stretching under the metal mask, forming the scary, awkward smile. "Yes, my dear follower. That's the reason we're going to Equus. She's living there."

So, this whole trip through the half of the galaxy is only by reason of meeting some weird alien, Scarfix has fallen for. Usual stuff the adult man has to deal with every day, nothing out of charts and norms.

Scarfix seemed to decide to not notice the light blush on the face of his almost-friend. He just did what he had to.

"Anyway, I am not here to mumble about my personal crush. I am here to give you something you've inherited from your father. I've been looking for it for almost two years now, because it's unique piece, maybe the only one left in the whole galaxy. And it belongs to you. "

Now that particularly long sentence caught the human's attention. Well, it wasn't as hard as it may sound. Every time someone mentions his long lost father, he is practically staring into your soul so he can learn something new about his origin. Scarfix seems to not care about glare the human is giving him right now, if it's caused by his synthetic brain or something, who cares anyway.

"Come with me." said the android, leading human deeper into the ship.

"We've been collecting pieces and putting it back together for way too long. It's a masterpiece Thenory Hardware made and if it's in working state, a lot of people would like to have it for themselves." said robot and then clapped his hands together, making scratching sounds when two steel gloves met. The lights flickered and revealed something massive hanging from the ceiling.

IT WAS AN ARMOR.

But not some ordinary marine armor, this was the historical power armor used by soldiers from Tubular special units. There were legends about the only one left, about the one only that survived the explosion of nuclear device back on a planet these suits were called after - The Tubular.

The young man would never even think or believe these suits existed; more less that one belongs to his father. But the legend was proved to be the truth by this, didn't it?

"Climb in, the suit itself responds to only its owner or the person with similar DNA sequence and since you are directly related to person who had worn this beauty before, I think we should be fine."

Human didn't protest, why he should say a word against the order. This armor belongs to him now. He slowly approached the hanging massive and touched the monitor to lower the suit down so he could easily climb in as the android told him before.

The gloves of the armor, forged from an unknown mix of alien metals embraced his hands tight, like they were meant for him personally. The same thing happened with the rest of the armor; every piece just adjusted itself before locking its location. In a while, human's whole body, except for his head, was covered in a thick layer of steel-like material.

"Reconfiguration in progress." said the cold voice, probably belonging to a suits AI. Human blacked out, when the massive wave of energy hit his neural system.

IS THIS THE END?

"I am asking you a simple question and I am also expecting a simple answer?" said the purple unicorn mare walking beside the smaller blue unicorn, the mare as well.

Who is paying a good attention already knows I am talking about Twilight Sparkle and Trixie Lulamoon. You may ask why I call them by their full names. Well, I just like how they sound, that's it.

Anyway...

"Are you sure we are going the right way? Cause I remember this tree, it has these bluish flowers on it."

Trixie hesitated, taking noisy, deep breaths before answering, not entirely in the clear way, upsetting Twilight even more. "Maybe?"

"Ugh. We will never find Fluttershy this way. Oh, come on Trixie, stop being dumb and think."

It was a long ago Twilight actually insulted someone, but this time it was almost necessary, or she thought it was.

"I am truly sorry, Twilight, but these woods just looks all the same, besides, I don't remember the place that clearly." said the smaller mare, with an apologetic smile on her face.

Twilight's anger disappeared immediately after she saw that smile, she didn't know why and she didn't even care. It happened twice already, but she didn't have the energy to start some scientific research on the topic. So, she just smiled back and stated:" Well, we can always try the reversal spell."

Twilight's horn flashed with bright light, covering Trixie's in white, energetic cover. The spell worked on the first try, of course. Twilight Sparkle was the master of magic and every unicorn in the Equestria was jealous of her skills, including Trixie herself. That was one of the reasons why Trixie decided to do and learn magic under her guidance, not like before when she was learning this powerful art alone.

"Well, I can't say the reverse spell helped me too much, your magic casting's total chaos, I am able to understand only a half of it, but I think I know what we did need to know. Follow me." Twilight said.

It didn't take way too long to Trixie to break the silence again.

"Why we haven't done this before? It would be much easier, don't you think Twilight?"

Twilight let out loud sigh." Well, you are right, it would be much easier this way, but I wanted you to figure out we needed to use the reverse spell. You didn't pass the test, Trixie, so that means no more Void spells for some while. We need to sharpen your skills in basics before we try them out again, I don't want any more disasters like this one, are we clear?"

Trixie sighed as well, do she has a choice? Would she even stand a chance against Twilight in argument? She didn't want to ruin their friendship so she rather stayed quiet and accepted her fate. Transmutation spells are not that bad, besides, she's already mastered them, so it won't take long before she gets back to a Void spells again.

Both mares have left again, accompanied by one another and enjoying their magic related talk once again. It might not look like it, but they were both happy, enjoying their life in their own way.

But the happiness was not supposed to last forever. Not when something like the alien invasion was coming, at a really fast pace. Was there any way to safe their happiness?

Do you really ask this kind of question? It's a fairy tale; everything will end up in good way eventually. Just wait and see...

Just wait...

Be Patient!

Chapter 3

Uncomfortable revelations

"Wake up, man!" loud voice interrupted the slumber the human was forced to have earlier. He didn't know how long he was out, but it seemed it was a long time, because he actually felt dizzy like he just woke up from a deep night's rest.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself still hanging in place where he blacked out earlier. His chest was hurting a bit, like it was pierced by hot, molten piece of iron. Well, he all felt like his body parts were now part of the suit he was now wearing.

"How do you feel? We need to document everything..." That voice, he knows the person who talks like this.

Scarfix, the android himself was standing right beside him, with a notepad in his metallic hands, ready to take notes at once.

"I am fine, even though I don't feel well. My whole body aches." replied human, feeling really tired. Android wasn't surprised, though.

"So, what happened?" asked human, when robot didn't seem to have any comments on his current state.

"I would ask you to sit down, but I think I will leave you like this and tell you everything." said android, with his eyes closed, then not so suddenly he added: "Well, maybe I should put you down."

The platform on which was human standing at the moment started lowering down slowly. Human felt pain in a chest again when the metal structure hit the ground lightly. He had never been one for whining about things and pains so he didn't make a sound.

"So," began Scarfix, standing before a rather massive holographic picture of the armor, "You have been integrated into the suit. That, by the way, means you can't take it off any time soon and never ever again in the rest of your life. The armor itself seems to be generating a strange field of energy, which prevents the ultimate destruction of your body."

"I don't get it." said human, his face clearly saying that what he said is pure truth.

Android sighed and rather loudly to be said. "The armor is now part of you, the second skin. While you were sleeping, some...things were installed in your body, like one extra skeleton copying the current one, lungs extension, muscle upgrades, carbon bone reinforcements and stuff. Even I don't know how much damage had been done." time master took a breath in and out before continuing, "So, I recommend you to wait, before we figure out, how much of the suit can be taken off without damaging your body. Okay, are we clear?"

The human had to ask himself, why he would ever want to take off this suit. He felt great to be honest, now with the pain gone, he really felt like the metal covering his body was now the part of him, somehow.

Scarfix was dancing around the machinery for a small amount of time, then he said 'Okay…' and turned to hanging man.

"It looks like the suit has two layers, the armor one and cloth one. The shell on the outside can be unscrewed without problem, the second one though, has to remain untouched, but…" another peek at the machinery and screen before it, "The structure of the cloth is nano-based and it's also formed out of your own skin, so you don't have to worry about taking a shower while dressed in it, I can assure you nothing will short-circuit. Actually, I am impressed, didn't know Thenory Hardware has or had this level of technology. You know better yourself how our famous empire looked when you, I mean GPI, made a first contact those years ago."

The human had to chuckle, yeah, the expert is right on this one.

The thieves, the rotting community of rich people, high level of criminality.

Now look at them…Ever since creating Thenory Hardware, the Science and Engineering alliance of GPI and Thenory Empire, they actually made some real progress and marked themselves as the gifted species of the galaxy and further.

And his mother is the freaking thenory as well, not that he minds though. It's kind of cool if you think about it, hell, even he was dating one of these aliens few years ago.

Yeah, the humanity has a weird taste, but if you like your girlfriend or wife furry, with animal ears and tail included, why not...

Author's note: You may start to wonder why I am calling the obvious main character by his species. Well, you can be glad, cause I got fed up with it and will be calling him Lukas from now.

"You know, I think it's time to get out and join your friend. I expect a report of your study tomorrow 12 PM. Dismissed. " said android, touching one of the many levers. Lukas got catapulted out of machinery and landed hard on the steel floor.

"Thank you, sir." hissed human over the shoulder, before entering the hallway and walking away.

"So, what Scarfix wanted of you? And what the heck are you wearing?" laid fox-man a question as soon as Lukas entered their personal quarters. Human replied with his hand raised, formed into vulgar gesture and words, "He put me into some scary machine, integrated me into the ancient armor, which damaged my body permanently then kicked me out and gave me a homework."

"Ooh, I know how you feel, bro. So, cocktails and stargazing?"

"Yeah, I guess that can improve my mood a bit. Nothing alcoholic, please, though. I don't feel like drinking tonight."

Thenory shook his head in agreement and both of them went to spend their evening off.

Landing zone one point three

"All stations are secured." someone said in the front of the shuttle, probably replying to one of Scarfix's questions about the status of the vessel.

Human and Thenory sit together on the other side and were talking ever since the shuttle launched from the mothership.

"I am telling you, this whole mission is a crap. We are not here for any good reason. " said Lukas in a very angry tone, because he had to paperwork earlier. Foxy just chuckled.

" Man, you have to cheer up. Look at me, take this opportunity as an exotic vacation. "

" I hate vacations. "

Shuttle crossed some high mountain and started to descent. Scarfix opened the door between pilot's cabin and the rest of the ship and said in cheering voice, which was even more terrifying than his usual screaming.

"Gentlemen, welcome to Equestria."

*Smash* Legs of the ship met something solid and android lost his balance for a second, much to Lukas' and Foxy's amusement. The pressurized door hissed and opened to reveal a green wall of forest which they were landing in.

Lukas, already standing with a rifle in his hand on the edge of the platform looked up and saw a rather large hole the shuttle penetrated through the forest rooftop.

"Wow, how old are these woods?"

"More than a thousand years. I've been here once and I am missing the fur on my back since then. Some nasty nature, they have here I say." replied Foxy, with a smirk on his lips, which grew even bigger when he saw the expression on his friend's face. Scarfix made his way through the body of the ship and turned around to face the crew again.

"This, ladies, is called the Everfree forest. It's the only place on the planet we can work in without being spotted by locals. When I say locals, I mean Equestrians. Never let them get close to you or you risk your health. Period. " Android waited a second for ship to settle on the ground and then shouted, "You two, Out! Go, go, go!"

As soon as Lukas and Foxy had jumped out of cargo hold, the shuttle ascended up rapidly and flew out of the hole in the rooftop of the forest.

"Now, what are we supposed to do?" asked human, when his companion didn't say a thing for about a minute while they were walking through the woods.

"We were asked to find someone. Let me pull out my trusty notebook...here" replies Foxy, activating the holographic interface of his suite and flipping through some less important notes. He points two fingers at the hovering screen to catch human's attention, which haven't been needed because his friend has been watching him for a while already.

On screen was visible a yellow pegasus with three pink butterflies as a tattoo on her thigh and long, pink mane as well as the same colored tail of the same length as her mane. Human looked up and saw the picture is labeled as Fluttershy, Equus.

"So, that's Fluttershy, right? Scarfix was talking about her. He told me, she was lost." said Lukas, moving closer to Foxy. Fox man turned off the screen and added, "Yeah, and she's probably in these woods. You know what's strange, on the one hand, that android says to be aware of locals and on the other one he gives us a mission including one of them. I am so confused. "

"You and me both." replied Lukas and both of the mercenaries went to explore the depths of forest before them.

"I tell you Trixie, you are a genius. So smart idea to think about the Everfree forest while teleporting somepony." Twilight was angry, again. They spent for about two hours looking for their pegasus friend, but with no luck so far.

"I know I am sorry. Can we keep going? This place is giving me the chills." said Trixie, totally forgetting about her normal way of speaking. Twilight shook her head and disappeared behind a rather large bush. Trixie decided to follow her.

"But Twilight, the way..."

"Shush, I hear something."

"Man, didn't you hear that? Sounded like someone's steps."

"Yeah, I guess so. More like hooves, actually."

They both listened, hidden behind various types of cover the forest could offer. The steps, or more like the sound of clopping hooves could be heard again after a while, but much weaker than before.

"Weapons ready, it knows we are here." said Foxy, reading his heavy pistol to firing position, laying one of his shoulders against the tree. The bush shook violently.

"3, 2, 1..." counted thenory down and sent a warning shot in the air along with a shout, "Show yourself, now."

Nothing happened, so Lukas pointed the heavy rifle on a green wall and turned on the infrared vision. The scan revealed two horse-like silhouettes.

"Foxy, wait. I think we encountered the locals. Switch your scanner to infrared." whispered Lukas over the distance between their covers to thenory man.

Both of the mares were stunned and on top of that Trixie was starting to panic. "They are armed, they're gonna kill us."

" No, they are hiding and waiting just like us. I think the shot before was just a warning. I am gonna show myself to them and explain the situation. "

Before alicorn jumped out of their hiding place, Trixie grabbed her by the hoof and pulled back. "Are you nuts? Have you seen the size of those two monsters. They will hurt you."

" They will not and they are not monsters. I am absolutely sure, one of them is human. These are not that bad."

Before Twilight did anything reasonable, they heard the voice calling out at them, "Hey, both of you. Show yourself!"

Trixie didn't like it, so she was dragged out of the bush by her friend.

" Hey, both of you. Show yourself!" shouted Foxy, with the pistol still aimed at the wall of leaves the strangers were hiding behind.

They did show themselves this time...

The larger, purple mare with wings and horn showed herself first and it was already certain that this one is some kind of leader. A bit smaller, blue unicorn was hiding behind her, afraid to even move.

"Identify yourself, ladies." rumbled Foxy out, with his gun still ready to shoot if it was necessary. "And fast."

The purple one took a step towards them and said, "My name is Twilight Sparkle and this is Trixie Lulamoon. What do you want from us?"

Foxy was still frowning, but Lukas had enough. He walked over to him and pushed his weapon aside. "This whole drama is not necessary, they are the locals and can actually help us with our task. Besides, if they wanted to hurt us, they would attack us already and I also believe they know it here better than us. Right?"

Foxy didn't change his expression, but lowered and hid the weapon, "OK, I will let them slip this time, but that doesn't mean I trust them."

Lukas then walked to the horses and asked them, "You two are alright? Sorry about my friend, he's not the one, who trusts others easily."

"Yeah, I guess we noticed. " Replied Twilight and added a question, "So, what are we supposed to help you with then?"

Foxy got caught in the discussion and opened the visual interface to show them their goal. "We are looking for this one. She's supposed to be in these woods."

"Fluttershy? Why are you two looking for her?" said the smaller unicorn this time. Lukas tried to explain, but Foxy was quicker. "Our boss asked us to do so. Do you two know her?"

Twilight didn't smile or did anything at all, she was just staring at them blankly.

"Yes, she's our friend and by the looks of it, we have the same task. So, let's look for her together, yeah, sounds good." said Twilight, started grinning, God knows why. Trixie was oblivious to her behavior as well and both men were thinking their own thoughts about her too. Purple unicorn's expression changed, when she saw no one was actually sharing her enthusiasm, to rather serious, or annoyed even, and added short, "Let's get going then."

Shuttle's engines roared loudly and hot air blew old leaves away of marble pavement. Scarfix, hanging from the cargo hold by one hand , hopped down even before the ship reached save height and went to meet up with their hostess.

Princess Celestia, standing proudly on her post with her eyes following the newcomer. A little smirk on her lips grew up to smile when she recognized the person who just landed in the center of her hometown - Canterlot.

"Alsi..." she whispered, but was interrupted by the owner of the spoken name. "You know better, Celly, I am not called Alsius anymore."

Celestia closed her eyes and said with added volume this time, "I know, Scarfix, I just couldn't help myself. How are you?"

"Good, I guess. You know how busy I am. Can we go inside, I could use some privacy." told android and after quick hug he shared with Celly they both departed in the direction of the castle. In the meantime, the shuttle had landed down and a small squad of Viper class units unloaded their equipment, making normally clear square almost uncrossable.

"Foxyyyyyyy!" shouted human from the front of their group, "What are your scans showing up?" Foxy, with the holographic screen before him, rolled his eyes and replied, "You don't have to shout, man, I am right behind you."

"So, what do you see?" asked human again, much quieter this time.

"Well, I got the heat signature few meters norther from us, I just hope it will not be another bunny or something."

They walked a few more steps, but then suddenly Foxy's scanner picked up something, "Wait, everyone stop. I got something here." In the time of a few nanoseconds, human was standing behind him, "More heat signatures. Five or more, no, ten, no, twenty. Everybody get ready!"

In one while, both men were touching with their backs, their weapons ready. From the forest jumped something with green, vicious eyes and attacked Twilight. Fortunately, she managed to teleport away, before it hit her. The creature roared and came to light, revealing its terrifying form to everyone.

"Timber wolf!" screamed Trixie at the top of her lungs.

"And it's not alone." added Twilight, when another dozen of wooden wolfs came from the bushes around them, sealing them in tough circle.

"FOXY! Get girls to safety, I'll take care of them." shouted Lukas, readying his heavy rifle to firing position.

"Roger!" replied thenory, grabbing Trixie and putting her on his back. He then sprinted away as fast as he could, knocking two wolves down in the process. Twilight didn't follow him, though.

"Twilight? Run! Save yourself." shouted Lukas, while blasting one of the wolves to pieces with a rifle.

"I am staying! I never leave my friends hanging." said purple unicorn, slicing another beast with energy beam which fired from her horn.

Did she just call me her friend? Thought human, but wooden attacker didn't give him time to think. Both of them, Lukas and Twilight were covering each other and combining their attacks to protect themselves from sharp fangs of timber wolves.

Suddenly, when the majority of beasts was already lying on the ground lifeless, something yellow flew through the air and landed before Twilight.

"Fluttershy?"

The last wolf backed away and disappeared in the forest, growling and moaning angrily. Twilight helped her friend on her hooves and asked her again, "Fluttershy. Are you alright? We were looking for you."

Shy pegasus didn't reply, maybe because she lost her consciousness. Twi wanted to lift up and carry her on the back, but human grabbed the yellow pony first. "You are exhausted, I'll carry her." he explained. Both of them, then left. Twilight led the way, because she said she knew the shortest way out of the forest.

"I hope Trixie and your friend are safe. You can easily get lost in these woods."

"I would not worry about Foxy, he's a smart one. Besides, he has a digital map of this place, they should be fine." said human, to calm purple pony down. As they had reached the border of the forest, they learned Foxy was already waiting for them and putting in and out the battery in his pistols out of boredom. Trixie was sitting near him and was rather annoyed by the sounds he was making, but she stayed silent.

"I see you have found our winged horse, great job." he greeted them when he had seen Fluttershy is human's arms. Human himself could stay quiet and keep all the honor for himself, but he was born honest, so instead of grinning pridefully he said, "Actually, she found herself all alone. When we were fighting those wooden beasts she showed up and then fainted without a word. We are going to take her to the hospital, are you coming with us?"

Fox man looked at Trixie and back, then replied, "Sure, I can't stand Miss Scared horse here anyway."

Trixie felt rather offended by being called 'scared horse' by the way, "Hey, I am brave when I need to be. Besides, we are ponies, not horses."

" Yeah, yeah, keep talking, everybody believes you. " Replied Foxy with sarcasm to her anger and joined Lukas with Twilight on their journey to the hospital.

"So, Scarfix, how have you been?"

"Again with this, Celly... I've been busy to be said, being a Time master and all. You don't have much time for yourself, but I like it. The power, the independence..."

"But you regret something, right? You wouldn't keep coming back here if your life was so perfect."

"Yeah, I guess so, It has to do something with a white, beautiful princess before me..." Before Celestia could reply, they were both starlet by loud shouts and certain midnight alicorn burst through the door of Celly's bedroom.

"Who is responsible for a mess at the town square?" then little pause, because she was surprised to see two persons in the room where it's used to be only one most of the time, "Alsius...? 'Tia?"

She almost felt anger against the boyfriend of her sister when she finally recognized him. It didn't have an effect of lowering the amount of the anger she was feeling, though.

Scarfix adjusted himself in the armchair and said sarcastically, "It's nice to see you too, Luna."

"It's Princess Luna for you, Voider. I presume you two declared martial law behind my back and changed the whole city in the military fortress again."

Celestia stopped smiling and said, "Calm down, dear sister of mine. Everything's fine. They are not going to stay here for a long time," she then turned to Scarfix, "Two days, you were saying, am I correct?"

Android nodded and added, "We are here because some military organization known as Redmean Corp. infiltrated this sector. They are still quite far from the planet, but better be safe than sorry. We know what they are capable of."

Midnight princess relaxed a bit after she had heard the caused chaos had a good reason to be happening, but the sentence android said after didn't make her happy, more specifically, it shifted her back to her original mood.

"I need someone for spying on my two mercenaries in Ponyville. Luna, would you be so kind and give them this letter personally. Using subspace communication could be dangerous right now."

"I bucking hate you." snapped Luna at him and flew outside, shattering the window in the process. Celestia smirked, small chuckle escaped her lips. Android went to watch Luna, whom was rapidly getting smaller and less visible while her dark wings were beating the air furiously as the distance between her and the castle were shrinking.

"Yeah, that's pretty much like I remember her." stated Scarfix when he looked at his lightly burned right glove, "I am surprised she didn't tear the envelope in half with the force she had used."

"You didn't tell her who your mercenaries are." said Celestia, unexpectedly with a straight face. Instead of her signature polite smile she was sharpening over a thousand years, she used more serious expression, something between a frown and malicious smirk.

"Oops, I think she's on her own, then." responded android and both humanoid and pony started to laugh so hard the whole tower was shaking. If somepony was outside in the moment, he or she would think their Sun princess had gone completely nuts. Why they laughed at all stayed hidden, only the two of them knew.

"So how's the patient, doctor?" asked Foxy.

Tall, yellow pony in white, cloth coat with red cross on the shoulder was first startled by thenory's straight 'attack' but when he managed to calm himself a bit, he said, more like choked out of himself, "Stable, for now." Next one with questions was Twilight, "Do you know what happened to her?"

"She doesn't have any injuries, Miss Sparkle. She probably just exhausted herself by all the running and the telekinetic jump, she went through earlier didn't help as well. Tell your blue friend to try her magic on something better than ponies."

"Don't worry doctor, I already have taken care of her. It will not happen again." Yellow pony just nodded his head when he received Twilight's answer and wanted to leave, but suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks and bowed deeply, so his chin was touching soft floor the hospitals used to have. Other ponies in the room did the same. Well, maybe the rest of them were not so radical like him and didn't break their jaw while bowing.

Both of the men turned around and watched how dark figure approached them. "I suppose you two are Scarfix' mercenaries." said tall, dark mare, while holding an envelope in her telekinesis. "Yeah, that's us. Can we help you?" replied Foxy and Lukas at once.

Twilight was tapping on the human's back for a while already. When he finally gave her a look, ready to ask her to stop, she whispered, "You are in the presence of royalty. This is Princess Luna, one of the co-rulers of Equestria."

Small pause... Luna didn't mind not being bowed to by human and alien.

"I was asked to supervise you two and to give you this." continued dark blue princess, efficiently overlooking their behavior, as well as anyone in the room except for Twilight, "Oh, Twilight. I almost forgot due to recent events. You left this book in my sister's room, so I brought it to you. That crown you are wearing really suits you by the way." The last sentence she almost whispered into smaller pony's ear. Twilight blushed a little and to cover her embarrassment she tried to hid her face behind the heavy, dusty book Luna had handed her. Then she read aloud the title, "Void spells for dummies, take one. Oh... " then a small shadow crossed over her face before she said her next thought, "I need to apologize to Trixie, I had never sent her the book I promised her in the first place. No wonder she failed that jump spell earlier." Twilight sighed and like she utterly forgot about everything what happened before she asked the two mercenaries, "How did you two know about all of this anyway? I am curious..."

Before anyone could form any solid answer, Luna unexpectedly stepped into the conversation, "I think I can answer this one. Twilight, their boss, Scarfix, as he call himself anyway, he's the Time master. So, I believe you already can picture his interest in the topic when he wants to impress my sister. And saving the life of one of the Element bearers counts a lot." More explanation is needed, though, Twilight is not following what's Luna saying. "He already knew what would happen before it had happened. It's like when you were traveling in time to warn yourself. Do I make any sense to you?"

Twilight, taking notes, flipped through the stack of paper and nodded.

"Okay then." said Luna, turning back to the soldiers, "I also need to know where you two will be staying for a night, so I can easily find you if it's necessary."

Human's lips formed into uncomfortable smile and with the nudge of his elbow, he woke up Foxy, who was staring at something on the other side of the room, "Man, snap out of nothingness, we have to set up a camp somewhere, the nightfall is near." Foxy's reply was not as nice as expected, "Well, good idea, but you have the tent, so it's kind of your problem."

"I don't have any tent on me, I thought you would pack it."

"I am from light class, we don't have any of this in our basic equipment. You are from the heavy, you should have necessary things."

"Wait, what? Goddammit."

"You didn't pack any survival equipment, did you?"

Before they could start arguing, Twilight stepped into the conversation and said, "Guys, calm down. You can stay at my place as long as is necessary, no need to worry yourselves."

Luna was patiently watching the whole drama which was happening before her at the moment and she was finding it funny, even though her light chuckles couldn't be heard through the noise the other three persons were making. Suddenly she got up and left them alone with the words, "I see you all are settled, no need for me to be here anymore." Then she left the building and Ponyville completely, disappearing into the darkness of her night.

Chapter 4

Pony folk and parties

"I smell something. It smells familiar." said Pinkie Pie while making her breakfast which contained an awful amount of sugar. Mrs. Cake raised an eyebrow and shot a glance to her husband who was occupied by setting more traditional meal for himself and her. Nothing looked off, but when she turned her glance back, pink mare was already gone.

"She does that every time." sighed the co-owner of Sugarcube Corner and went back to her unfinished recipe for the new kind of muffin.

"Well, thank you, Spike. You are a really good cook." said human, when taking a first bite of fresh and still warm slice of bread.

Spike blushed a bit when he heard that and replied, "You are, heh, welcome, Mr. Lukas. It was nothing."

Foxy, sipping his coffee, didn't say anything since they had woken up and his companion was starting to worry. "Are you alright, man? You are awfully quiet."

"Yeah, I just have one of those feelings that something's going to happen soo..." He didn't even have the chance to say the whole sentence before he was hit and knocked down by something pink.

"Hugs for everyone, wheeeeee... " said the pink creature and Foxy screamed, trying to reach for his pistol, which mysteriously fell out of the holster, making him seemingly defenseless. "GET OFF ME, DEMON, OR..." Red spark appeared in his eyes for a split of the second, before the space between him and the pink one started to glow. The colorful detonation which followed after split them from each other, sending each one backwards. Like a real professional, Foxy landed on his feet after quick back flip, with his body still covered in glowing patterns and lines, which didn't fade away after using of battle skill.

Giggling pink mare was lying on her back, kicking the air above her, "Yay, that was fun, let's do it again." she said when she had raised her head.

"Pinkie Pie, how did you get here?" gasped Twilight, because she presumed her good friend could be hurt in some way. Pink mare looked fine, though, more than fine, like the energy of the explosion had given her a boost or something...

"Through the door, silly. My Pinkie sense has told me there's a new pony in town, so I've come here."

Human leaned to Twilight, "What the heck is Pinkie sense?" Twilight looked at Foxy, whom was still ready to defend himself before pink pony's tries to hug and choke him to death, and she decided the situation could use some valid explanation. "Pinkie here has some kind of paranormal power, which allows her to predict future. She's also crazy...whoaaa, Pinkie, don't do this."

"By crazy, she means SUPER DUPER PARTY PONY PINKIE PIE." the last few words she screamed so hard the birds in the distance of hundreds of meters from library woke up and started flying in a rather chaotic way, completely destroying the morning atmosphere of Ponyville.

"Hi Luna, how have you been?" asked the Sun horse her smaller sister, whom looked rather tired to be said, "Is everything okay?"

"No, it's not. I am tired, dirty and angry, not to mention my slightly burned mane. Farewell, sister. I will be in the royal bathroom if you need me." with these words, smaller one left. Later on Scarfix came to the dining room, whistling some unknown melody. "Hi, Celly. Did you sleep well?" he said cheerfully, taking a seat at the table.

"Yes, dear, I did. How about you?" replied Celestia, smiling. Android made a creepy grimace and then said, "I thought you had known I don't need to sleep, I was stargazing and bothering your little sister with a flare gun. You should have seen that, quite satisfying activity."

"You were shooting at her? What the hay have you been thinking? You could have killed her."

"Calm down, Celestia, for the Old Spirit's sake." raised android his voice a little, to make clear who's the boss here. Celestia, normally dominant ruler, stopped complaining and actually looked scared a bit by Scarf's words. She knows he has some real big-ass power. She didn't want to risk lives of the castle residents, because of her whining. 'First he threatened Twilight, then my sister... What he is capable of? Where is the bottom of his cruelty?' she thought. Yes, she likes him more than anyone, but she also knows he has his whiles, when he can be really dangerous and heartless.

"I am going to Ponyville, need to check on my resources there. Could you tell Luna to clear a housing space for my special units here in Canterlot? If she refuses, make her do it, you are her big sister after all." with this, he left the room. Celestia, left alone once again sighed deeply, "Good day to you as well, dear."

"... PARTY!" For almost a full half of a hour, the pink mare was speaking her mind off and pretty much everyone was already tired of her speech. I wouldn't be surprised if any of them were sleeping, because Pinkie was talking about her love to party, then about baked sweets over and over again. But suddenly, she screamed already mentioned word 'Party' and ran away. Only small cloud of flour remained, leaving mark for everyone who wouldn't believe they were visited by Pinkie Pie, not a hallucination of some sort.

"What was that?" asked Foxy, sitting on the ground because the pink mare had knocked him down for a several times during her speech, so he gave up standing up. "That was Pinkie Pie. Don't you ever try to understand her or your brain will explode, personal experience." replied Twilight.

Knock on the door interrupted their conversation. "SPI... oh, I forgot he's at Rarity's right now. I got that." With this she had trotted away, going to answer the door and greet anyone who could be waiting at them. Her cry for help disturbed once again the silence the library was currently in. She sprinted through the main room, entered the living room, where the two mercenaries were currently sitting and hid behind sofa.

Foxy took out his pistol, guarding the entrance and human started with calming terrified unicorn mare down. "Twilight, what's wrong?"

"Someone... at the door..help..." she was so scared she was shaking like some fur less dog.

"It's okay, you are save. We will protect you." said human and hugged her with one hand and pulled out his weapon as well.

What was shocking, the monster that had scared Twilight was Scarfix. He entered the living room, mumbling something about local hospitality and greeted every one with cheerful voice. He seemed to be ok, but his glowing eyes were saying that he had something on his mind, which wasn't pretty.

Twilight pressed herself even more into human's arms, burying her head in his armored chest.

"Hi guys, How are you?" said android, malicious grin on his face. Foxy didn't say a thing. He would probably stand up for his commander, but by his look, the trust he had for him vanished like steam above the pot.

"Scarf," growled Lukas, hugging Twilight back, trying to cover her with the steel arm pads, "What have you done to her?"

Android gave him an angry look and replied, "A years ago, I took her on my ship, then did some experiments on her. That's all."

Twilight whispered something, but no one heard her, except for Foxy, "Girl, speak up. We want to hear what's on your mind." he said.

Twilight turned her glance towards android and told, "He was torturing me for six hours, then tried to cut my horn off. I was saved by Princess Luna, who happened to found me in time and teleport me away."

" That BITCH made a colander of my ship's hull with her freaking laser... ups, did I say too much?" screamed android on the top of his lungs and covered his mouth with hand, like he didn't want to say anything in the first place, but the glance he gave Twilight after, was telling pretty much everything about his opinion on her and Luna as well.

"I am not surprised Luna doesn't like him much, then." stated thenory quietly, "If I had seen him treating one of my subjects the way he did, I would probably kill him."

"Anyway," continued Scarfix like he wasn't interrupted at all and nothing actually happened, "Redmean secondary fleets just breached the perimeter and they are starting to enter the orbit. Main force is hiding somewhere, probably on the dark side of the Moon. I wanted to ask Luna to move it, but with her disobedient standing against my every order, she is not the option. So, Foxy, you and Lukas will take the shuttle and scout for me the blank spots behind the Moon and Equus." Both mercenaries started to pack their things already when android added, "And take your pony friend with you. I want her out of my way."

The train ride to Canterlot took almost half a day and well, it did a thing to Foxy's mood. All the way from The Railway station to the Castle, where Scarfix established temporary airport, he was swearing like a old man with bad back. When they finally found their ship and loaded necessary cargo and equipment, Princess Luna came from castle and asked them where they were going.

"To the Moon." replied thenory and hopped in to the cargo area, to check if the crates are properly set in their places.

"Moon? I hope you two are not going to blow it up."

"Nope. We were tasked to verify some theories our commander has." said human, while he was trying to fit Twilight in the seat, so she wouldn't fly around the cockpit when they would be leaving, "Twilight, would you be so kind and please fold your wings. It will make my job easier."

When Luna heard the name of her good friend, she frowned even deeper, "Stop right there. Where are you taking Twilight Sparkle?", her horn glowing and sending little blue sparks in every direction as the anger boiled inside her. Foxy and Lukas were left both in awe by the power of her voice.

The whole situation was solved by Twilight, "Princess Luna, don't be harsh on them. They are both really nice people, not like their tyrannical leader."

Luna was thinking about the possible options she had, then said, "Okay, I will trust you on this one, Twilight. I hope you know what you are doing. I have a small request, though." then she turned to both men "If you two want to get the permission for taking off, I have to go with you and keep an eye on her, do we have a deal?"

After a quick talk, full of whispering, mercenaries agreed on sealing the deal with night princess. She smiled and stated they would get along just fine, as long as they didn't try to hurt anything she cared for.

"Wow!" said Twilight, when they reached the point of their second flyover above Equestria, which looked so small when compared to the rest of the universe they were currently in, "These stars look so nice."

"You have never been to space before?" asked Lukas, sitting behind the navigation console. Twilight shook her head and adored the blinking dots behind the windows further.

When they started the final slowdown, so they didn't hit the Moon in the face and rather became its temporary satellite, Twilight noticed the Night Princess was looking kind of sad. "Princess Luna, what's wrong?" asked purple pony with sudden fear for Luna's mental health.

"The Moon, it's been so long... " replied dark mare and single tear rolled down her cheek. Twilight tried to snuggle under her wing, but Luna didn't move. Instead of showing any feels, she was just sitting here, letting Twilight to hug her. It might looked like she didn't care, but the affection that the purple unicorn was showing her did help a little. She didn't feel so alone...

'Was she like this when she turned into Nightmare Moon?' thought Twilight, but her mind process was so strong that she said the mentioned sentence aloud.

"Yes, I was." said midnight princess, completely startling her smaller colleague, "I was so jealous of my sister and so alone, because no one cared about my feelings. So, I hope you understand this place is evoking bad memories in me." Then she made a quick pause and added, "Thank you, for being here, I mean. I needed that."

Beep of ship's internal communication interrupted the sappy moment, "Girls, go back to your seats and secure the seat belts. Lukas, I need you in the cockpit."

Dark side of the Moon(butt)

"What do you think Redmeans are doing here?"

"I don't know, Foxy. They could be just hiding, but I think, since Princess Luna has some dark past with the Moon and everything in this place has some sort of energy, I don't know, it could be some artifact and you know yourself how good Redmean is with the usage of this kind of things."

The shuttle disappeared in the shadow cast by Equus' moon and Foxy lowered the thrust of the main engine. Before them were groups of small, white lights, almost invisible against the total blackness of space.

"What are they doing?" whispered Foxy, his reddish fur reflecting the blue light of the floating, transparent rudder in the front of him. "It's dark, man. I can barely see my own nose. Which sector is that? We might ask Luna, she should be able to help us." replied human and added his own suggestion on the top. Foxy nodded and wanted to call her, but was stopped in the process. "Don't use wireless. Enemy's listening. I will go for her in person." With this, Lukas had stood up and went for the Night princess back in ship's part for passengers.

Not so surprisingly, he came back with Luna and Twilight as well. Poor, purple pony didn't want to be alone in this kind of environment after her bad, previous set of experiences.

"So, Luna. If I point on a position on the Moon's surface, will you able to tell me if it is important or strange in some way?" said Foxy, bringing up the holographic screen with the model of the moon. Lunar princess just nodded and stated she was stuck there for almost a millennium, so she should be well aware of every aspect of her signature space solid. Foxy then found their position while his human colleague was doing necessary scanning procedures.

"So, we have it on screen." said Lukas, pointing on transparent photography of the surface, "RTG scanner is not able to uncover much, but it gives us the exact surface structure map. Luna, when I show you this photo and the Moon, what can you tell me? Luna...?"

Mare of the night was already standing there like a stone statue for a while, "Oh no... " she had whispered like more to herself, but completely aloud came something else, "It can't be, my old castle."

"Your castle?" asked three voices at once, surprising each other with so much sudden activity and curiosity on the topic. "Well, I shouldn't say my castle, since It was Nightmare Moon who built it. More important is, what's inside of these walls." said Luna, taken back a little by their unusual attention, "But these relics are over 1000 years old, they have no value."

"They have to, because Redmeans are collecting them and building something." objected Foxy and pointed outside on the group of lights, "You see those ships? They are constructors. If they are not interested in relics, then they are taking apart the castle. I've never seen the moon made of valuable metals, this one have to be first, though. Tell me more, please."

Luna didn't look well, drops of cold sweat appeared on her forehead, "When I was freed from my curse by the Elements of Harmony, some parts of my dark side went back to haunt the halls of the castle here on the Moon. The ones you call Redmean had to break the seal holding the dark magic within the structure and let it out."

When she said that, Twilight let out a small gasp and asked, "You mean, the Nightmare Moon could possibly return? To possess you again?"

"She should not be able to since I am not jealous of my sister anymore. Hopefully, I am right." replied former Nightmare Moon and gulped, which only signified she wasn't sure about her previous statement at all.

"SCARFIX! WHERE IS MY SISTER?"

That was the first time in this time period when Princess Celestia, kind and wise leader of Equestria, used her Royal voice, which sounded more like loud-ass high pitched scream, if you ask me. Yeah, she came out of practice after all these calm decades...

"Calm the heck down, you hot head." replied her, in almost equivalent volume her boyfriend, "Your dear sister is on the Moon." It was meant as a half joke and half statement in one, but the sun princess, blinded overlooked the meaning.

You can imagine the rage that came. White princess knocked the android down and started hitting him with her front hooves. It didn't have the wanted effect, though. Instead of punishing the time lord, Celly punished herself. When she laid a first hit, she was thrown back by the massive force field that was emitted from Scarf's body armor and hit the wall, smashing and breaking few expensive decorations she had been collecting and keeping an eye on carefully for hundreds of years.

Scarfix stood up and left the room without any word, leaving Celestia behind. Hurt, bleeding and heartbroken, there was laying the fallen monarch of Equestria, crying her eyes out without anyone to comfort her.

Suddenly, Celestia didn't know how long...

"Sister..."

Celestia didn't has the energy to answer. Maybe she even didn't hear the voice which was calling her, begging for her attention.

"Big sis... " said the voice tearfully, "Tia! Celestia, wake up!"

White princess gathered all her strength and sighed lightly, "Lulu..."

Princess Luna, standing above her bigger sibling, was crying and silver drops were wetting her cheeks. Next to her was Twilight, hugging and nuzzling her former mentor's neck.

"Out of my way, everybody. Here comes help." were shouting the tall soldier with the white suitcase, led by Lukas and Foxy, whom were carrying another important equipment, with red and blue cape waving behind them.

It took some time to patch up the wounded princess, but when she was finally in her bed, sleeping, the team that assisted with her stabilization could just lay back, take a coffee and congratulate each other for a job well done.

"Like we are not having other problems to worry about." said Luna, pacing nervously from one side of her room to another, "My Moon is under siege, then someone attacks my sister. Could this get any worse?"

"Don't ask this type of questions again aloud, " woke up Foxy from his recent apathy, "There's still a lot of things that are able to screw up and do us bad. We have to forget about them for now. Luna, I know you feel bad right now, but we have to think. What do we know about Redmean colonization tactics? Now it's your time, Lukas..."

Human nodded and started his explaining, "As we know, their forces usually don't target planets with sentient life and when they do, they always try to make some kind of deal with locals. When they colonise, it depends which kind of colony are they making. If it's mining colony, they send nuclear bombs to destroy everything on the surface, so work wouldn't be hold back by nature. If they seek colony for humans and living, they establish one or two save cities and leave them be for few months before they start sending any population."

"That doesn't sound so bad. The only threat here is your commander right now then. " said Twilight, sitting next to the human, brushing with her side against his. "Yeah, that's what I am kind of afraid of. Redmeans are kind people until your behavior enrage them. The problem is, if Scarf's flag ship attacks their fleet, we are pretty much doomed." stated human and Foxy took a word next, "Vss Genocide is a beast, when it comes to fire power. She even holds a record in destruction and no ship in her class can even get near her. I have no doubt Scarfix would like to test the cannons on something, but we all know how that would end up."

Luna stopped her endless walking and with a dull sound landed on her bed, face down. Her mane lost its normal motion and instead of the unreal, slow flow, her hair got somehow split to single strands of dark blue. "This is hopeless." she said, "I don't know what to do. I was way too long on the moon, already forgot how to rule a kingdom properly." was she mumbling, her words almost disappearing in the pillow she was burying her nose into. Then suddenly she raised her head and looked at Twilight, "Twilight, If I taught you one spell, would you be so kind and send a message for me? We need to inform Princess Cadence."

She didn't have to say that twice, because when purple unicorn heard the word 'spell' and 'teach', she was standing like a disciplined soldier, waiting for the lesson to begin.

It would be a waste of time to explain in detail how was Luna explaining the theory behind telepathic communication and sending letters via magic portals. I will cut it short and skip to passage when Twilight asks, why Luna doesn't send the letter herself, cause the spell seems to be easy enough for her.

"Twilight, you have to understand one thing. My main energy source is the void, in which is my Moon floating, which also means I can't touch any source for Light magic, which is what most ponies are using everyday for their spells, includes my sister."

Twilight, with her trusty notepad, was taking notes furiously. Luna smiled and continued her lesson. It took another five minutes to complete and sharpen every possible aspect of the spell and the formulation of the letter for Crystal empire took a few minutes as well. Both mercenaries were staying in the room and listening carefully, because something like a real magic in the real life is something so rare you just have to stop and stare, breathless, even if someone was shooting right next to you. Finally, it was done and the paper, transformed into a pure energy and flew out of window. Princess Luna looked kind of satisfied. Maybe it was because she had made Twilight happy, or that she had done a good thing once. I don't know, nobody ever told me...

Anyway, back to the story...

"Now, I should probably wait for an answer. You two, " Luna pointed at both men, "I am leaving for a night court. Take care of Twilight, while I am gone."

"Yes, ma'am." sounded the answer, followed with a pair of light, formal salutes.

"Good. Farewell until morning, my friends. May the moonlight guide your steps." With these words, she disappeared. Foxy shook his head and stretched deeply backwards, so his bones started doing weird noises, "What should we do next? I am tired." and he made his words believable by yawning loudly, covering his mouth with a hand.

"It's too late for us to head to Ponyville, man. Shuttles are under Scarfix's command and last train is leaving in twenty minutes, but we don't have money to pay the tickets." said human and disappointed look could be seen on his face. Foxy didn't look happy either, until their purple companion told them this, "I can give you some bits for a ticket, but I am afraid I have only as much for one of you."

Foxy aggressively grabbed the bag of bits from Twilight's magical grasp, before anyone could react. "I am taking the train. One orange cowgirl invited me over for a dinner, after I chased off the bully who had been bothering her. I declined, but it looks like I have changed my mind over time. See ya." He didn't even close the door behind him. Twilight chuckled lightly and said, "Yes, Applejack will be certainly surprised."

Human had quite a problem to follow, so he asked, "Who is Applejack?" And to his surprise, Twilight chuckled again, "That one orange cowgirl, catchy nickname to be honest. I have to say, you two are the most unique creatures I've ever met."

Great yawn escaped her lips as she told they should get some shut eye, before tomorrow. She then asked human to follow her and this small order just couldn't exist without the following question.

"Where are we going?"

"To my old room, it's in another tower. I will show you something when we will be there." With this they both departed towards Twilight's old home.

"You know, it's kind of nice I have you out of all the mercenaries your commander has here." she stated when they finally arrived to place before the tower. It was maybe the second highest part of the whole castle and here and there could be seen golden decoration, adoring pure white marble the tower was made of. The structure itself seemed to be glowing even in complete darkness that was surrounding it. "I can't imagine being alone with your fox-friend. He's... I don't know. He's just so much different from you. You are kind, loyal, fun to be around. I value those things a lot. I am kind of starting to like you, that's also why I asked Luna to set something for us to enjoy tonight. Look at the sky." added purple unicorn princess, half whispering the nice words, but still with enough used breath, so it could be heard through a light breeze, that was blowing gently around them.

Above their heads, there wasn't a regular night sky, with lots of white blinking lights. Well, yes, there were stars, but something seemed to be off a bit. "Wow." was everything human could say.

"It's pretty, isn't it? I asked Luna to filter some light smog, so we could see better through the atmosphere. We call this red gas cloud the Great Void field, because no stars can be actually seen nearby the cloud. What do think? It's a stupid name, I know." and she smiled, like she was actually responsible for a name of the space object in some way and she should be ashamed for it. Lukas chuckled a little and stated, "No, it's good one. We call it Red Dust System and I have to kind of disagree with you, because there's one star, not in the cloud itself, but a bit further behind it. Its light is blocked by the dust, that's we can't see it." Unicorn herself was happy that she can discuss things of her interest with someone, who at least seemed to be smart enough to follow her mind process. They spent a great amount of time, talking about space. Lukas told her about the Empire, about thenory colonies behind Red Dust system and he even mentioned his hopes for her staying out of the conflict and not getting hurt. On the other hand, Twilight told him about her studies of the stars and also mentioned she met someone from his organization before.

"His name was Reaper Watchark."

Well, past can either haunt you or give you some surprise. This time, human was himself took aback that Scarfix didn't lie to him. "Is it true he died by the hand of his own crew member?" asked Lukas, suddenly growing sad. Twilight nodded, her smile fading away as well. They both shared a quiet moment, which was interrupted by unicorn princess after a minute or less, "We should go up to the tower, I still want to give you a tour around my personal library. Shall we go?"

They both left and only stars above them could tell, how important this meeting was, because they were both oblivious to the tickling feeling in their tummy.

Princess Luna had already finished her duties in the throne room and she went to the 'stalking' tower, how it was called in all over Canterlot and beyond, to get some fresh air. When she had seen the human and her purple, alicorn friend sitting together and enjoying each other's company, she had to smile and wish them good luck in their future relationship, even though they couldn't probably hear her words anyway.

As both of them, Lukas and Twilight, reached the top of the tower they had entered, the purple one looked from one side of her formal home to another and stated quietly, "I left everything as it was when I left for Ponyville, such a mess." she then laid her glance on a reading stand, where was still some book opened. After a blowing off some of the collected dust, she could clearly see it was the book, that helped her to learn about Nightmare Moon. "This one's still here, good."

As she was going through her things, human did pretty much same thing and was actually adoring all the literature Twilight's private collection could offer for a while already.

"I am mighty tired." said unicorn, when yawning for a third time, "Lets go get some sleep." She wanted to lay down and forget about anything in the world, but human was just standing here and looking at her. She then realized there was only one bed.

Don't ask me if it was on purpose or caused by her fatigue, but she actually suggested, "You can sleep next to me if you want. There's plenty of room for both of us."

When life gives you lemons, you can make lemon aid. Sometimes you have to accept a thing and live with it. Not that Lukas minded though, he actually looked totally fine, when he took a place next to the winged unicorn and shifted into dreamless slumber, effectively avoiding Luna's spying attempts in the process as he had wrapped himself up in the purple feathers of Twilight's wings.

"You love him, but he doesn't love you, Tia. That's the whole problem here." shouted out the Princess of the Night, while she was visiting her sister, whom just had woken up. "Again with the screaming. Watch the volume, little sis. My head still hurts." Celestia rubbed her cheek with a hoof and actually tried to style up and give some life to her mane, which although looked like heavy soaked piece of fabric right now, even that it was dry and almost colorless. "Yeah, I am no longer what I used to be, those grey hair are only the proof. What do you think, Luna? Am I getting old?" Princess Luna did not chuckled as her older sister had expected. She rather looked away, then glanced upon Celestia's broken form and stated, "If I have to be honest, I don't want to answer. Yes, you are getting a bit grayish, but you are still pretty young for an alicorn. Compared to you I am a foal, though, that's the matter of fact."

Celestia closed her magenta eyes, which suddenly didn't even looked so big like normal. Without all the makeup and other women stuff, she looked pretty normal actually in the overall look.

"Heh, it's funny though. I am not even born alicorn, more like a half breed of pony and changeling, but even when I don't have sufficient amount of magic like you do, Luna, I still remain immortal whatever happens. I'd like to sign myself for some proper research, but with Chrysalis gone, nopony knows if we could even understand the problem, left alone solve it. Changeling magic is hard to analyse."

Luna smirked a bit, like she knew something, but her big sister had fallen asleep again, so she didn't say anything and left the hospital wing completely, walking towards her room on the other side of the castle. "If you had an idea who's gonna visit soon, you wouldn't say Chrysalis was gone."

Luna didn't expect the visitors from Crystal Empire would be that fast and arrive to Canterlot the same night she had sent them a letter. So, you can imagine how surprised she was when one of her night soldiers had told her the Crystal Empire's carriage is waiting in the landing area for her.

It wasn't as much of the surprise when she saw two alicorn princesses before her later. One of her was pink, with crystal heart for a cutie mark, the other one was grey, with dark blue mane and swirling green flames on her flank, the changeling using an illusion spell.

"Greetings Princess MI Amore Cadenza, Ambassador Chrysalis. I thought you would use the train as usual. We are not in such a hurry."

Cadence laughed cheerfully, "You know I would do anything to get away from a paparazzi, auntie Luna. Besides, Chrysalis here couldn't wait to see you again. We both missed the Canterlot." and then both mares hugged, more specifically, Cadence gave Luna a bear hug, while the night princess just casually put a hoof around her shoulder.

Chrysalis remained silent, her glance shifting from one side to another like she expected some kind of trap. But when all the greeting didn't end even after two minutes, she objected, "Princess, maybe we should get our things and get settled. It's almost over midnight."

Cadence broke the hug and looked toward her adviser, "Then go, I will join you later." Chrysalis didn't need any more words and in a second she was gone. Now it was time for Luna to laugh, "I didn't know changeling queen could be trained to act in this manner."

"She doesn't have to, " said Cadence, "She simply wishes to be like this when other ponies are around. She acts pretty normally when we are alone. Let me tell you how we were once in the bathroom together, it's hilarious..." and the voice of the pink alicorn disappeared when she left the throne room with her dark blue sister-in-law, both of them giggling at the told story.

"Wakey-wakey, Twilight. It's time to get up."

Twilight's dream was interrupted by a sweet voice of someone she didn't see for a long time. "Hmr, five more minutes, Cadence." she mumbled into her pillow, but then the realization hit her, "Cadence?"

The pink alicorn and Twilight's former foalsitter was smiling widely, grinning from ear to ear, happy to see her little friend.

Before Twilight could rush out of bed and do their usual greeting dance, Cadence stopped her and pointed at something in the bed. Then Twilight realized she didn't go to bed alone yesterday and the human was still next to her, snoring lightly.

"Shhh, you don't want to wake up your friend, do you?" whispered Cadence, "Let him sleep and come with me. Chrysalis is already waiting for us on the way to dining room."

"Chryssie is here?" Twilight asked this question when they were on their way to the palace already, "I thought she wanted to leave and join the rest of her kind in the wastelands."

"I refused to let her go and die. If there is anypony to blame, it's the guard who let that lunatic inside." said Cadence, "She still blames herself for Reaper's dead, though. I tried to reason with her many times, tell her the truth, but you know how stubborn she can be. And when Shining died a year ago, I realized she was hiding a secret feelings for him, ever since the wedding. The tragedy brought us together and I honestly think she's happy now."

Twilight's mood didn't get better. Heavy thoughts were occupying her mind and refused to leave. "We did bad, Caddy. Chrysalis loves more deeply than we can imagine. If we let her marry my brother, nothing bad would happen." said purple one, probably because her head started to hurt and she just had to say something aloud.

"I don't think so, Princess. My former evil self, was so greedy it would destroy you and even myself later. There was no choice back then." objected a voice, which sounded like broken guitar. Only one pony, or more specifically changeling had such a voice.

"Chryssie!" Twilight launched herself and hugged Chrysalis around the neck. Former changeling queen rolled her eyes.

Yes, It's quite noticeable who was foalsitting this pony, she thought and gave Cadence an angry look. Cadence replied with a wink of the eye and said, "We should probably get going. I still want to have a word with Luna before she falls asleep on the top of her plate."

After a five minute long walk, they arrived in the dinning room. Princess Celestia, how else than enjoying her tea, while Luna was snoring next to her, face down on table.

"Hello auntie Celly, slept well?" greeted Cadence, who just entered the room alongside with Chrysalis and Twilight, "I heard you were in the hospital. You sure you're allowed to be out so early?"

Celestia just chuckled at her niece's interest in her health, "Oh Cadence. I know it might looked bad at first, but my injuries happened not to be so serious as they looked to others." said Celestia, taking another sip of her tea, leaning back towards the wall behind her, "I still can't believe my own coltfriend willingly hurt me. I thought I knew Scarfix. It looks like I was just making a fool of myself though, dancing by his notes and overlooking the great amount of hate he was holding against Luna and Element bearers."

"But he has to be right in something. I came to Canterlot on the Luna's call she sent me yesterday. She told me the Equestria is in danger of an alien invasion." said the pink alicorn, taking a seat next to Luna, while her followers occupied the places on the other side of table.

"Yes, " stated the sun princess, "There happens to be an alien fleet, Redmean fleet, floating above the planet and Scarfix believes they want to exterminate pony kind for good and set a colony here." Celestia would continue her speech, but it was Chrysalis who interrupted her this time, "If I may interfere a bit, Princess. Redmean flag do not attack sentient alien life forms. They might try to set a colony here, but before that, you can expect they will send in scouts or diplomats. I know that from Reaper's database, he had given to me."

"That Scarf's mercenary told us exactly the same thing. Think we are safe." mumbled Luna under her breath, but still loud enough for Celestia to hear.

Celestia replied with a smile. At least something is not that bad. Next one who took a word was Twilight, " But, what if that android does something stupid? Are our visitors capable of objective opinion on a thing?"

"If I remember correctly, Redmean was a quite huge problem on the home planet of humanity, they didn't fight with everyone though, alliances were made. I don't know much, but I hope they will not blow us all up." explained Chrysalis again.

Sudden arrival of rather upset human into the dining room interrupted their small pre-council discussion. "Why didn't anybody wake me up? Twilight, explain yourself."

"I believe that's my fault, I've told Twilight to let you sleep in, while we would be thinking about the possible solution." explained Cadence.

"And who are you?" said Lukas, scratching behind his ear, because it got itchy after a all night long lying on it.

"Oh, I forget you two don't know each other. Lukas, please meet Princess Mi Amore Cadenza." grabbed Twilight an opportunity to arrange a meeting of her two friends. When she said pink alicorn's full name, though, mentioned pony jumped in and corrected her, "Just Cadence, if you please. It's nice to meet you."

As they shook hoof and hand, human walked straight over to the table and took a seat next to Twilight. Then came up another question, "Did anyone send a message to Ponyville? We will need Foxy at the council, if any diplomatic solution will be made, of course."

It took a while, but maybe the delay was cause by the fact Luna was already asleep, Twilight was eating and Cadence or Chrysalis didn't even know what he's talking about. At least Celestia was there to save a day, "Yes, I passed the note for your friend to a mail mare this morning. She should be back with reply any second."

Just as she said that, crossed-eyed grey pegasus with blonde mane crashed trough window in dining room and landed before white alicorn.

"I am sorry your majesty, I am so sorry." trembled poor pony in fear, her front hooves behind her head like she was expecting a direct kick in her neck or something.

"Calm down, my little pony. Tell me what happened." said Celestia in rather calm tone, even though the mare she was talking to just broke one of the windows in her own castle. Grey one dried her tears and choked off, "I met someone, he was tall and scary. He told me he knows the owner of the letter and that I should give the message to him. I refused obviously, no one is allowed to read some pony's else letters. He didn't take it well. I was lucky and managed to escape from under his weapon in time before he could hit me."

Silence was the answer. All of the people at the table were staring at the grey mail pony, except for Luna. She's still asleep.

"I knew he would try something sneaky, but killing his own resources or innocent locals? Yeah, that definitely smells like Scarfix." said Lukas, without even really trying to at least make a surprised expression. He knew Scarf too well.

Another one to comment was Cadence, "Internal problems?" and Celestia just nodded with a words, "Pretty much. It seems my ex-coltfriend stays true to his nature after all. I was just stupid to see it in time." then she turned to human, "Lukas, we have to find your friend. If it's true what you predicted a second ago, there's more than one person in danger at the moment. I'll let you borrow one of my fastest chariot. You are going to Ponyville."

As the chariot pulled by a pair of strong pegasus soldiers in a golden armor flew above Ponyville, Lukas could hear a few shared words between the ponies.

"Something is not right here. Ponyville didn't use to be that quiet."

"Gives me a chills, yeah. Lets unload the cargo and get out here before anything happens."

Suddenly, someone shouted out, "HEY, DOWN HERE." It definitely sounded like a voice of a female with southern accent. Lukas was almost certain that he heard someone speak like this before, back on Earth.

"Miss Applejack, How can we...?" started a guard, landing with a chariot on a ground. AJ didn't let him finish, though.

"Ya have ta help me. Somethin' scary is tryin' to kill mah friend. C'mon."

She galloped fast and human had a serious problem to keep up with her, but their synchronized race ended as soon as it started the Sweet Apple Acres appeared on horizon. First, it looked like nothing was actually happening, but then sharp sound of gunshot filled the air and one of the barn's windows lit up with a green light.

Lukas pulled out his attack rifle a with a shout, "Stay here." he left Applejack where she was standing. He was more curious about what Foxy had done to Scarfix, that he was trying to kill him.

"We are both thenories, our power is equal." could be heard Foxy, "There's no sense in fighting further." Scarfix just chuckled, "Do you really think you can survive a fight with the time lord, little one. Well then, bring it on."

"Stop right there, both of you." stepped Lukas in, because he couldn't look at the situating and its unavoidable result any further. Scarfix looked surprised, but at least he lowered the weapon down. "Human? What the heck are you doing here?"

"You've gone too far this time. I would forgive you for all the taken opportunities to hurt me, but no one ever hurt my friends. Be gone before I use some of these powers thenories are so afraid of." stated Lukas, his voice filled with confidence and true anger. To the human's dismay, Scarfix chuckled again, malicious grin shinning through his fangs. "Determination will not work on me, mate. Thanks to Thenory Hardware I am half human, remember?"

Human groaned. Scarf was right, but that didn't mean he would not try anything. But it was not supposed to come to that.

"Celestia, forgive me for this..." someone from behind Scarf said, well, more like whispered because he wasn't heard by any of the two.

Three bright flashes lit up the barn and time lord fell down to his knees. He looked surprised again, "Nev-never thought you w-would turn on me. Heh, you people are all the same." With this, Scarfix vanished into the thin air like he wasn't here at all.

Lukas wasn't the one shooting, though. The one who pulled the trigger was Foxy. "I've had enough of his tries to hurt people. No one gets past Foxy, baby." he explained and blew the smoke out of his pistol's muzzle.

"I highly doubt we've seen him for the last time. Better start building up defense. And I would like to know how you got pass Scarf's power shields. Nobody ever managed to do that." said human, still filled with a joy they won a battle against someone like Scarfix. When he saw Foxy's expression though, he shortened his sentence, "We just have to be patient and see what he's up to next."

"Yeah, I just hope he will not destroy Canterlot in return." said and agreed Foxy.

One sided war

Scarfix was pacing nervously and angrily at the same time around the circular room of Vss Genocide's bridge. His large, metallic boots were producing a loud steps each time he had stepped on something without a rug on it.

"I should have known they would try betray me in the end. Now what?" he asked himself, throwing his arms up in an angry gesture. Suddenly the realization hit him and he, grinning maliciously, ran his metallic hand through the non existent hair.

"Someone's have to pay for their unfaithfulness! Great plan, Scarfix, what a evil mind you have." He said, looking at the reflection of himself in the large window he was standing in the front of.

"I've never known Luna could paint her moon orange. It's pretty, though. " said Celestia after looking out of the window in the evening the same day. No one would question her statement if Luna wasn't in the same room as her.

"I can't turn Moon orange, sister. Go to bed, you are tired." she said, but then realized her sister was serious. When Celestia did a expression 'What's that then?', Luna's face lost some of its normal dark blue color as she sprinted towards the window.

"W-What h-happened t-to it? " Luna could not get past the shock, when she did see the surface of the moon was of course orange and looked like it's going to melt away any second. Luna was on the edge and sobbing into her sisters coat, being comforted by her at the same time.

"Coward. He can't fight us, so he hurts our friends, pathetic weakling. " could be heard Foxy, which just entered the room with Lukas walking behind him. Human nodded slightly , still more interested in the floating screen in the front of him than his friend. Foxy did not notice, though, so he kept talking.

The rest of the thought was not told anyway, because Foxy started commenting on the current Moon's appearance, forgetting to swear and spit more on Scarf's name completely, "What did he do? That must have been a hell of the bomb he used."

"Something like Genocide's main weapon, you mean?" said human calmly, only to startle his friend, because he did not expect him to join the conversation. Finally, Foxy agreed, "Yeah, could be possible."

"Stop, you two. You're making my sister cry." shouted Celestia, interrupting any possible further argument on the topic, "We have to solve this situation. Right now, go find Cadence and Chrysalis, mobilize the force, everything you have. We have to prepare Canterlot for siege." Her orders were clean and strict and both of the mercenaries did not say a word against them. They were soldiers and used to the rules after all.

As the main defence fleet of Redmean force was torn apart, Scarfix went further and attacked the other smaller ships. Poor Redmeans did not even know what hit them. Attack was fast and before they could do anything, Vss Genocide passed their defences and attacked their base on the moon. From the tip of the ship erupted a massive beam of energy and sliced through the green power field and penetrated the hull of the building, alongside with the moon itself. From the hit place erupted a stream of burning lava and stone and the moon lost its round shape for a while till the dust settled down again.

After the attack, you could fit a ordinary fleet inside of the hole the beam did and the surface in the near radius was melting and sliding slowly down to the new giant crater.

The rest of the Red fleet turned on the lights, but they failed to find their attacker. Vss Genocide vanished.

"Our commander has gone rogue. He left us all here and went to do his will. " said one of the pilots from the squad that Scarfix dragged in and used as his temporal military crew in Canterlot. Lukas frowned, because how it looked so far, Scarf just packed his things without even bothering to pick up his mercenaries back. He was really wrong about the time lord being reformed. Scarf wasn't doing anything that could prove Lukas was wrong.

That old history with Twilight and Luna, hurting Celestia and bringing Equestria on the threshold of complete disaster and destruction. Good one, Scarfix the asshole, you are getting better and better...

It was later that day when the radar picked up some flying objects, which were identified as Redmean attack force. Fortunately, Foxy decided, much to his friend's dismay, to wait for a visual contact.

The Redmean ships were damaged, like really damaged. Whole pieces of them were missing and their hull was torn apart and burnt. They requested a permission for landing and when both sides stopped arguing about their trustworthiness, Canterlot crew let them land without firing a single bullet at them.

"Thank you for letting us in." said man that climbed out of one the less damaged ships, "We were jumped by something when we were doing research on the local moon. Nobody have told us this planet is a GPI colony, we have been just following orders."

Understandable, thought Lukas. Commanding officers of Redmean were never too informative when giving orders. Lot of their soldiers and employees were doing their jobs without even knowing for who or why and didn't care as long as they got paid for the effort. But why attack scientists? Scarfix must really want them dead, that's for sure.

"It wasn't us who attacked you. There's something, or someone who's far more dangerous than GPI." said Foxy, coming from behind of Lukas. Redmean was surprised.

"A Thenory? This is not a human colony?" he said.

"Nope," that was Foxy again, "It is not a colony at all. You see these buildings, they were built by the locals. We are only foreigners here. It's two of us and the smaller human/thenory crew, which act like a defense force." After these words, Redmean seemed to be interested, "When you have mentioned you have been attacked by something, lets say we know exactly what it was."

"It was a rogue time lord. He calls himself Scarfix." Foxy was afraid that Lukas was going to spit out the whole truth, but calmed down when human did not mention Scarfix was their commander. Who knows what could happen if he did.

"We are in no shape for another fight. And rogue time lord is also not good." said the Redmean and wiped cold sweat from his forehead. His words were easy to clarify as true in every aspect, because the ships were damaged and were not from the military class, but civilian class, which on the other hand meant they were not equipped with any anti-ship weaponry. The only weapons they had were personal firearms and small laser cannons, used mainly for mining, heating up and collecting the space ores for research, and so.

You could say the Redmeans were lucky to be alive.

"The way back is sealed for us anyway." complained Redmean again, " As long as there's the possibility of running into our common enemy, I am staying here. "

" I think that's what he's hoping for, for us being stupid and try to escape by spaceship I mean. He knows better we can't escape him even in subspace during nano jump." added Foxy, frowning and looking at Lukas and Twilight that had joined their exchange of thoughts not so long ago.

" I suggest we wait till he tries anything suspicious. " said Lukas, ending the conversation.

As the last thing that happened and could be mentioned was Redmean noticing Twilight and doing a funny sound, "A real life winged unicorn." which earned him an annoyed 'Oh my God' from his new colleagues, including Twilight.

Chapter 6

The Paradox

They were both running at their top speed. The halls were so quiet and dark, Twilight could not see even a tip of her nose. They sprinted around some shattered sculpture and entered the archives. In the room behind the massive door was full of book shelves with dusty books and spell scrolls. There was also a sand clock in the middle.

"So, where's the spell?" asked Foxy.

Twilight thought about the question for a bit and then pulled one of the scrolls out from the shelf, "Here, I remember it by the rune stone. Now, what's the plan?"

There was a sound of exploding flash bang grenade and in that moment, Foxy pulled down a small explosive from his belt and said, " When you hear this signal, throw the thing at the nearest fading shadow. Now, Go!"

Twilight casted the spell. The explosive was gently levitating next to her in her telekinetic grip.

The known feeling of being dragged, shattered to atoms and reconstructed somewhere else wasn't something Twilight would want to do every day, but if it was something that would save Equestria, she would go all out to succeed.

Like Foxy said, she appeared on the other side, before the actual last defense point. She hid herself behind a sculpture and was waiting for the moment. She knew well that the spell could wear out before she got a chance to use the explosive, but she hoped she would male it.

She hoped...

She hoped so intensively it was visible...

Suddenly, the air blurred and for a split of second a shadow without a body appeared.

Few gunshots were heard. The sculpture above Twilight's head was hit and destroyed, covering the whole hall with a pieces of sandstone. Then the flashbang exploded and Twilight, blind and not being able to hear anything, activated the trigger of her explosive and threw it away.

The explosion that followed felt like her whole body was burned and cut at many place at the same time. Mare, broken and still blind, bleeding horribly was fighting herself to not loose consciousness.

And then, the time traveling spell wore off and her body was consumed by thick darkness.

Wake up, my dear...

There was a soft voice that was attacking Twilight's senses. She slowly opened her eyes to find that she's in some kind of space, full of white lights and swirls of colors from white to light green mixed with blue.

"Where am I?" asked Twilight, without expecting a real answer, but surprisingly, the answer did come.

In the mirror world.

The soft voice again. Twilight definitely wanted to know more.

"Where is place called Mirror world?"

Come, the light and your hooves will guide you through the dark. Come, little one.

Twilight decided to follow, because it looked like the voice wanted to explain something.

The mirror world is a place where the magic is stored. But not the magic you know, it's deeper kind of magic, the energy every pony is born with. When pony is born, this world goes brighter and new star will appear in the sky. However, if pony dies, the energy returns to its origin and this world becomes darker.

Twilight never wanted to have her notepad and quill so badly like right now.

And there's you, Twilight, the one who is the Princess of Friendship and prophet of Harmony in all of Equestria. But, you want to know what happened with the one the Princess of the night calles the Voider.

Now, it's getting more interesting, thought Twilight.

Sadly for him, the small explosion of warp magic combined with a little bit of engineering worked and he was shattered around the galaxy. Yes, dear, while he was jumping through the worm hole, the detonation disturbed the transfer and suddenly, two absolutely same copies were at the same time at two places. This caused paradox and the reforming of time continuum has shattered his own existence and pieces of his soul now will be haunting every existing place in galaxy he has visited in his life.

But, you little one, you still have too much to life for and I have already wasted a lot of your time.

No, you did not, wanted to say Twilight, but it was too late.

WAKE UP, SPARKLE!

Chapter ONE

To stand against enemy you are not able to beat with agility is wasting of your time.

– Rainbow Dash

Prologue

Note: Calendar of Head unity;

Date and time - 01032148; around 0600

Place - Deep space

Deep Space scout fleet, Redmean military operation

______________________________________

The eternal blackness of the universe shivered and couple of small shuttles escaped the subspace void with loud 'bang' sound.

The commanding officer of the leading ship called SRS Black beetle was occupied by sipping his coffee and going through some of the news feeds from Earth. Nothing could disturb him right now...

"We need you at the Bridge, captain."

Or he thought nobody would call him. Well, duty calls. Captain took red beret and placed it on the top of his hairless old head. He's getting too old for this kind of drill; he should have retired a few years ago.

"Why did you call me? " He yelped at responsible officer when he arrived to the bridge, the heart of the ship.

"I am sorry; sir, but we have discovered some kind of alien activity in the front of us. Just give me a Sec..." the image changed when officer touched it, "There, it looks like something big. Scouts think it's a planet, more particular, the one GPI group discovered a few years ago."

Captain lowered his head to the screen so he could see the holographic image in better detail.

"By our scans, the surface is suitable for colonization, but sir, the planet is situated deep in the enemy territory, if we try to make a colony here, we could be risking open war with GPI. I would not risk it, sir, with all due respect." added the officer.

Captain thought about it for a while, but then not so suddenly made his mind.

"We will establish new colony here, today, for the glory of every human living under Redmean flag."

And so it started...

_______________________________________________________

My little pony: Mirror spell

Written by LukasDeAudi

Note: Crystal Calendar

Date and time: 29022148; 2315

Place: Ponyville, Golden Oaks Library

___________________________________

Alicorn...

Princess...

The representative of the magic of friendship...

She wasn't prepared for anything like this.

Spike was snoring loudly, but certain purple pony was not able to sleep at all. Too much stuff happened recently and she was still nervous about this whole princess thing, even though her coronation had been a few days ago already.

Twilight knew exactly how her discovery affected Equestria and more specifically, herself.

Spike shivered and wrapped tighter into his blanket. He didn't stop being cute in his own way, even though he had changed so much after these years of her studies here in Ponyville.

Twilight smiled a little and snuggled into her soft bed, trying to get some rest as well.

It didn't take long and Twilight was snoring too, maybe even louder than Spike.

A few hours earlier:

"Don't worry, Fluttershy. You'll be okay." stated the Great and Powerful Trixie, whom was sharpening her skills in the telekinetic magic.

"Look, it's completely safe." said the magician and teleported certain white rabbit few feet forward and back. Fluttershy, terrified enough already, gulped.

"Trixie will be careful, she gives you her word. Just stand still for a while, please."

That last sentence wasn't even needed, because poor Fluttershy was so scared that maybe even a pair of strong work ponies wouldn't be able to move her form right now.

Trixie's horn flashed with great magical light and timid pegasus vanished. Angel Bunny kicked blue unicorn in the leg, because there was no one around to punish him.

"She should be back any second." said Trixie nervously, "Any second."

But, when Fluttershy didn't reappear even after two long minutes, all the hope simply vanished like the yellow mare a while ago.

Fluttershy has been lost...

_______________________________________________________ Somewhere else, much earlier....

"Fluttershy has been lost..." stated someone and one of the shadows changed into eight feet tall android. The one who he was talking to, had been a young man, eighteen or nineteen years old.

"Hey, do you even listen? " Raised android his voice and the man finally looked at him.

"What do you want, Scarfix?" He sounded angry, because the last week was really playing on his temper.

"Have you ever heard about Fluttershy?" asked the robot, his eyes glowing with light blue color, but from the look his friend gave him, he guessed the name Fluttershy was unknown to human.

"Well, I thought your friend Reaper had informed you. You know..."

"WHAT? YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT REAPER?" shouted human, grabbing android by his shoulders. Scarfix shook him of himself and with words 'Calm down, man' he activated holographic interface of his Accandon tool.

Then stated: "Your friend was on an expedition and they found a planet with sentient living forms on its surface. He was shot by his crazy companion, that's the reason why he's never come back home."

"And who's Fluttershy then?"

"I will show you, just hold on a Sec." The interface projector flashed and in front of them appeared a floating transparent image of Earth-like planet. "This planet is called Equus, it's situated in a cluster behind Great red dust rift." said android, "Your friend met with Fluttershy here, when he was trying to understand the culture of the locals."

"And what's up with her anyway? You wouldn't be bothering me for no reason."

Android was not happy, this conversation was not going well. He had to change his attitude.

The problem was solved by him yelling really loud.

"Look man, I am not asking for a favor. You will help me even if you don't want to." he lowered his voice a bit, "Grab your gear and meet me at the airport. You got 10 minutes."

With these words, he disappeared again. The human he left behind just sighed. Yeah, just another regular day.

The thenory pilot was glad that they had taken a break at Earth of all places, because this planet was the jewel of the human empire. He just finished his shopping when Scarfix, the captain of their ship, stormed around him and yelped that they are taking off.

"What happened, captain? I thought we were going to stay here for another week." said fox-humanoid.

"Sudden change of plans, just pack your things and wait for my call." Android disappeared inside of the shuttle. Pilot himself shook his head in disbelieve. What possibly could have pissed him off so much? Well, there was one thing...

"Hey, man! It's me, Lukas." shouted someone from not-that-far-away place.

"Hey, dude...Yeah, didn't I know it was him again, but I would be more pleased to have him as a captain, though." whispered thenory to himself and hive-fived the human, "Do you know where are we going? Captain was pretty secretive about it."

It didn't take human even few seconds to formulate his reply.

"Yeah, man. I've got the exact idea. Have you heard about Equus before? That's where are we going."

"Oh boy..." said the pilot, shadow creeping into his face and color rapidly fading from his cheeks, "This one of all places. Well, you have to know something before we hit the Red Dust system. Never ever take your helmet off. This planet is highly dangerous for every human being. If you lose your oxygen mask, you are dead."

Human again, didn't hesitate to ask further, caught in the conversation topic.

"Scarfix said that there is some sort of sentient creatures living on the surface."

"Yeah, they are called Equustrians; it is wide society of mythical creatures containing griffins, dragons, pegasi, unicorns and changelings. There are lots of stuff you need to be aware of, first of all the atmosphere. It may be breathable, but un-filtered will make you go crazy in less than a few hours. So, be careful. I will tell you the rest on the board. Scarfix is going to be mad with us, if we won't show up soon."

Thenory and human both nodded and disappeared inside the shuttle. After a while, the door on the side of vessel shut close and the ship accelerated up, heading towards the Mother-ship on the orbit of the blue planet.

_____________________________________________________________

"I can't believe you did that WITHOUT ME KNOWING. Are you even aware of the amount of damage you could have caused her? She could end up anywhere on the planet or even further."

Twilight Sparkle was furious, she thought Trixie was responsible mare, but it looked like she made a mistake with trusting her so early.

"I am sorry, Twilight. I didn't know it would have such an overcharge. I tried the spell on the rocks and animals, I thought I could do it right." replied light blue unicorn, hiding her face behind the triangular wizard hat, her eyes full of silver tears.

Well, at least she is able to confess she did a bad thing, thought Twilight, it leaves a good feeling in my chest, but emotions are not going to help us find Fluttershy in any way. Oh, wait a minute, I know what I have to do.

Twilight stopped in her pace so quickly as same as unexpectedly that Trixie bumped into her rear end. Both mares blushed deeply at the awkward situation. First of them realizing what's going on was Twilight of course.

"Hey, look out with that horn of yours. I don't want it in my butthole."

Shouted purple unicorn over the shoulder. The blue one retreated a bit from her, just for calming herself down and to make sure she wouldn't violate his friend's personal space more.

"Sorry. I wasn't paying attention."

"That's your whole problem here, something minor distracts you and you mess things up." continued Twilight with her outburst. She wasn't angry or mad with Trixie. She was sure her less skilled friend didn't do it on purpose. "What were you thinking about when you cast the spell?"

Trixie thought for about a minute, trying to remember all the details correctly. "Well, one particular moment, the picture of the Everfree forest crossed my mind, but it didn't last long."

One of the Twilight's eyes twitched a bit at the amateurishness of Trixie. Did she even read the book on the topic, I sent her a week ago? Then all the tension just vanished. Twilight sighed and said almost calmly:

"Ok, we at least know where to look. You lead, Trixie, because you know what to look for. Now, move!"

Am I shouting again?

Chapter 5

Unexpected alliance

The thing with alliance with Redmean was weird enough to cause a headache to both of our heroes. Lukas returned to Ponyville with Twilight under an excuse of keeping eye on her while Foxy remained with Applejack, one of Twilight's friends.

It was a few days already when something happened.

Dear Twilight and Lukas,

"She speaks about us like we are a couple." stated Twilight and Lukas in unison.

I hope you are both alright. My sister is being plagued by strange nightmares and can't perform her duties well. She says things about the return of her dark form, Nightmare Moon, and that she's gained a physical body. I don't know that would be possible, but after what I have learned so much from your studies, I learned to not judge things without thinking about them first. So, I ask you, Twilight, do me a favor a help my sister from the situation she's currently in. Come at once.

Your former mentor and friend,

Celestia

Spike was not happy he would have to stay with Trixie in the library all alone again. The blue mare was not happy either, but because she was sad Twilight was leaving and had to cancel their evening magic lesson. They all said their goodbyes as the human and purple princess had left the building.

Their journey to the train station was interrupted by a sound of jet engine and then, their ears were hit a loud shout.

"Hey, you two, look out."

Black Panther's thrusters roared above them and Foxy, hanging on one hand from the cargo hold, was shouting at the top of his lungs, "Celestia have sent a shuttle for us, so we don't have to take a train. Get in."

When they were properly on board, Foxy turned to them, knocked three times on the wall and shuttle started moving fast in the direction of Canterlot.

"Well, she did not send it for just you two. There's the emergency going on and she wants both of you in Castle as soon as possible."

"What emergency? " asked human and unicorn at the same time. Foxy frowned even deeper,

"Ponyville is in danger. Celestia will explain everything you need to know."

The cargo door opened again and Foxy had to once again shout so he could be heard over a screaming of vessel's thrusters, "Get going. I need to go back and pick up few more people. See ya."

They didn't even have time to say goodbye, because as soon as they hopped out of the transporter, Panther blasted away. Only a small cloud of burned fuel remained.

Lukas didn't know when it happened, but in the next second they were escorted by two armed pegasus ponies to the throne room, which was surprisingly empty. On the way there, they were walking by a groups of ponies, some of them looked familiar and Lukas kind of figured out that these were the evacuated residents of Ponyville. Twilight even spotted Applejack's hat somewhere in the crowd and Rarity's whining could be heard over several rooms. Twilight felt much better when she learned her friends are mostly save from whatever that was about to happen.

"There you are." A familiar tall and majestic white princess stood up from her current sitting spot and put a hoof around Twilight, hugging her lightly, "I was worried about you two."

"Accepted, now what about some information. We have been kind of thrown in without a clue what's going on." said Lukas, when the hugging didn't end even after a long minute.

"Oh, my apologies. My intentions have not been malicious in any way. Come with me, I'll explain everything on the way. " said Celestia when remembering true purpose of their meeting.

The halls of Canterlot castle were empty as well. The lack of maids and servants was strange, but reasonable. Someone had to attend to the 'guests' at the courtyard.

" As I have mentioned in my letter, my sister is in danger, but this time it seems Nightmare Moon wants something else. It looks like she's helping us. "

Small pause for examining Twilight's currently confused expression, "My sister was yesterday attending to the guests of Night court, but in the middle of some meeting she excused herself and then collapsed on the ground in next few seconds. Her soldiers brought her to her room, because they were suspecting she was just tired. Later that night however, Luna had woken up and visited me in my bedroom."

Another pause, the storytelling got intense. The tension was almost touchable.

"I was reading my favorite book when she burst through the door, her eyes completely black. It was a terrifying sight. More creepy was what she said after, though.

Queen of the Night's returns. City of harmony's on the list. Act before it's too late. Don't make the same mistake.

Her voice was like there were two ponies talking at the same time, kind of like Chrysalis' voice, but more disturbed. After she finished, her pupils flashed red and she collapsed down again. I called her guards to carry her in to her room and went to wake up Chrysalis. I knew somehow she would be able to help me.

When I explained the thing that happened, she stated we are bucked and told me about the satellites that were set above planet by humans few years ago. We then have figured out my ex coltfriend is about to use them against us and the City of Harmony is Ponyville. I sent an order to wake up pegasus guards and human pilots. Ever since then, the fleet of ships is in and evacuating the whole village. "

Celestia paused again, "Go find Chrysalis. I have been awake all night and simply can't think straight right now. Chrysalis will help you out. Watch Luna, wake me up if necessary. Time is the essence. Don't disappoint me." With these words, Celestia disappeared in her bedroom, they strangely arrived to while walking through the castle.

"I wondered why were the hover crafts disturbing my sleep today." stated Twilight and along with the human she departed to meet the changeling queen.

Yet again, they didn't meet a single person on their way to the Command Centre. It felt like the whole castle was hit by a strange disease and all its residents moved out.

"It feels like we are the last survivors of a bloody battle." said Lukas.

Thanks, man. I just said that.

Their expectations weren't met because Chrysalis was alone, talking to a floating orb glowing with blue light and scrubbing something on a piece of parchment.

"Good morning, Chrysalis. Slept well?" said human, but the expected effect never happened. It was meant sarcastic, but Chrysalis just frowned and took a long sip from coffee mug.

"Where's Cadence?" asked Twilight. Even though the former Queen looked annoyed, she responded in rather calm voice, "Still sleeping. I haven't had a heart to wake her up."

Twilight smiled a bit, like she remembered something from her childhood, but then laid another question, " Celestia asked us to see you. Something about the coming invasion."

"I doubt it's going to be frontal attack. If I remember correctly what Reaper has told me, Scarfix is a coward. Besides, his main force is here and he can't show up here openly, because many of them is not on his side anymore. He would be risking his skin."

Great, more taking. Do all these people like to talk so much, thought Lukas, "What should we expect then? And what the hell happened to Luna?"

"The city of harmony is on the list, " said Chrysalis, " I believe it's obvious. He's going to nuke it. And believe me or not, it's also connected to a thing that's happening to Luna."

"Nightmare Moon, the artifacts on the Moon and the Elements of Harmony." interrupted Twilight.

Chrysalis smiled, "Good thinking, my purple friend. Yes, as cruel as it may seems, he is trying to get rid of the Element bearers. Although, I thought Nightmare would be on his side, not on our own. She's even trying to help us out by sending creepy, but helpful warning. It only proves the villain can change."

Suddenly, the dark mare emerged from the hallway and told, "Implying something, Chrysalis." Two cyan eyes with rhombus pupils flashed and Nightmare Moon in full armor walked in to the room.

Twilight gasped, Lukas put a hand on the holstered pistol and Chrysalis simply lit up her horn, readying a battle spell. Nightmare Moon laughted.

"Do you all seriously think I am here to attack you?"

"I wouldn't doubt that." growled out Twilight through her teeth.

"Hah, Element of Magic, right? Always having a problem of accepting the truth different from your version of it." Then the black mare turned to Lukas and Chrysalis, "Fallen changeling queen. You are too young to be even in charge by your laws, if I am correct."

"Laws of dead are meaningless, Nightmare Moon." replied changeling, half whispering, half growling in same way as Twilight. The Mare of Night smirked even deeply.

"And this one. You sure are a rarity, a human himself. If ponies remembered, you would be worshiped like Celestia's big a..."

" That's enough, What do you want?" ended Lukas her monolog. His dead glare and cold voice seemed funny to the Nightmare, but finally, she stopped speaking randomly and her attention shifted somewhere else.

"Nothing too exciting. I just want you all out of my way, until the situation is solved. I might be a psychotic maniac, but Equestria is still my home and no one except me is allowed to touch it."

With those words, she teleported away.

The rest remained silent. Their recent encounter with the Mare in the Moon was shocking enough to leave them mentally paralyzed.

"Well, what shall we do? " Human, of course, was first to regain the concentration and the changeling queen simply replied, "No eternal night is about to hit and she seems nice. I am for trusting her and seeing what she's up to."

Not even Twilight, but probably out of the complete confusion, was able to raise an argument against the statement like this.

It did not take too long for the staff, whom came back to the castle when Celestia sent a word everything was alright, to realise there's new alicorn mare in the castle. Royal guards were mostly annoyed, because Nightmare Moon was commanding them and requesting pieces of armor, weapons and other things. Humans, now living in the castle, were seeing the newcomer as potencial advantage against Scarfix, but Nightmare Moon did not pay any attention to them. She was more interested in Princess Luna's BlackOps. Since it was a daytime, they were mostly out of barracks and Nightmare was frustrated she could not find anyone.

Still, even though Nightmare Moon was once an enemy of Equestria, there was no signs of trying to betray the kingdom's interests. It only proved the threat was real.

The prepares for the war or invasion lasted till the evening. But when nothing happened, ponies started to suggest that the threat was over and was safe to return to their homes.

It was good that Celestia, fearing the worst, was stalling the transports. In a certain moment when the was lowered and the whole kingdom disappeared in the dark, there was a sudden alien sound and the Half of Equestria was illuminated be the green light.

Few seconds after, there were reports from like nine places that they have been attacked by unknown, green light and that they have casualties, requesting immediate help.

"Like I would not say that Scarfix will attack in a moment when we drop our guard. Oh my Celestia, look at the numbers." stated Twilight, when the batch of military reports were delivered to Canterlot, "It good, though that we listened to you, Foxy, and installed those power shields in Ponyville and Canterlot. We would be dead right now."

"Well, now I see what we are dealing with and to be honest I am impressed. That's much better and more high tech weapon that we have." added Nightmare Moon, looking out of window at the fading green fog on the horizon.

"That ship of his is not called Genocide for nothing, is it?" said Celestia, that just walked in to the room, appearing calm, but it was visible that she's more than scared for her life than any time before. Nightmare smirked again. God knows what was so funny about the situation that she had to giggle and smile. Twilight did shot her a frown, but the black mare did not look at her, or she was not simply paying any attention to the bookworm.

"So, what we should do next?" asked Chrysalis, standing next to Cadence. The Princess of Love was hardly trying to hide her tears and Chrysalis was slightly annoyed, because the tears of her pink companion were wetting her perfect styled green mane.

"By the latest reports...", started Twilight, flipping through few papers with data, "Scarf has been seen in Ponyville for the last time few minutes ago. The connection was lost after the report was received, we at least have something."

"I suppose he's looking for the Element bearers, because it's the only form of protection we have and he knows about. I suggest we should go through our fortification force list and plan the defense from point to point." suggested Celestia and by a gesture she invited Chrysalis and Nightmare Moon to the circular table with quick model of the future battlefield.

It was around midnight when the stations in other Equestrian cities started going dark. The communication was cut off and no one was responding to the calles or wireless messaging.

It took another hour and half for something to happen. It started with a message:

He's HERE.

"The buck?" was all Chrysalis could say, before the sound wave hit and all the grand windows in the briefing room shattered into the million pieces. There was another streak of chaotic messages like:

Oh Celestia, I am hit...

He's througt our barriers...

Station six, what's your status...

I don't wanna die...

And then just static. All the defense points from six to four went dark like the cities before.

Nightmare Moon's smiled did not faded away even after it was clear that they just lost their primary and even secondary fortification points.

"Where's Lukas and Foxy?" asked Twilight.

"In the throne room, by their choice. There's few more elite units, mostly from Luna's royal battalion. The whole hallway before them is full of land and jumping mines. There's no way he can pass that." said Chrysalis, but her statement was rewarded by a smirk from Celestia, that was first that evening actually, "Don't underestimate my formal coltfriend. He can be a really dangerous, forgive me for the launguage, fucker."

There was a few of nervous chuckles of the ponies in the room, because it wasn't so common to see the polite and majestic princess, like Celestia, swear like an old salty dog. Guess, it really released some of the gathered tension and increased the morale of the present people.

It was good while it lasted. A minute or two after that, Foxy suddenly appeared and told them he's an idea how to beat Scarfix for good and that he needs help.

"The only way how to stop his madness is by a time paradox. The reason why we can't hit him is because he's using a short warp-time jumps, so he's able to dodge our bullets. Twilight, one of the guards told me you know a spell for Time traveling."

"Yes, I used it once. The actual spell scroll is in the archives. Here at castle." replied and agreed at the same time the purple mare.

"Then come with me. I'll explain everything on the road." said Foxy, before running out from the room with Twilight following him.

Chapter 7

Epilogue

Twilight Sparkle's POV

So, here we are again. I am aware of fact that this was one of the better endings we could get. The evil Lord was defeated and we were lucky enough to be alive and see the light of the next day. Although, for me it was after another week. The entity I have encountered in my hallucination was something that was caused by the warp bomb earlier and the explosion itself knocked me out and put me into the deep sleep. I did the research about mirror spell but I couldn't find anything at all. I even asked Nightmare Moon, about it and she told me it was a secret magic and even she did not know how it works. About Luna and Nightmare Moon...

... it looks like they can't exist at the same time, so it looks like, when princess Luna will be about to wake up Nightmare Moon will disappear. She says its because the new form of Nightmare Moon works as the clone, but doesn't have its own soul.

Chrysalis is returning to the Crystal Empire with Cadence and most of the humans are fixing their shuttles as well. Equestria will feel good again when all of this chaos will be over.

Speaking about humans and aliens, Lukas and Foxy are staying. Lukas has told me he do not has any family to go back and Foxy is simply angry with the whole thing and mercenary duty.

Few transporters Black Panther, or at least I think they are called like this, are left behind and will be serving Equestria as a fleet of, well, transporters. Foxy can't wait to pilot one of those airships...

I am more and more developing my relationship with Lukas. Also reading more romantic novels, need to be more educated...

If the love is possible, don't stand in its way... I am just being silly... Better leave it at this.

So, next time and I'll see you tomorrow if I will be able to get up after the big party Pinkie has planned put for today's evening.

Hehe, take care.

Your friend,

Twilight Sparkle