My little pony : Mirror Spell

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.