Equestria: Transformation

Chapters

First Contact: Decepticon
Starscream's Gambit
Humiliation
Aftershock
Awakening
First Contact: Autobot
Discovery

First Contact: Decepticon

The rain patted lightly against the balcony doors, thunder rumbling in the gray cloud cover that blanketed the city of Canterlot. All of it provided the perfect symphony of relaxation to Princess Celestia as she laid on her large bed, her horn glowing as she levitated a small cup of steaming hot chocolate, a smile of contentment on her face as she took a sip from the hot drink. Stormy days were rare in Canterlot, but Celestia always kept a close lookout for when those days were scheduled to appear, so that she could properly schedule her one-day breaks from court. It was the perfect situation, as the day-to-day affairs of managing court were far slower when the stormy weather came to Canterlot so Celestia wasn't halting any important affairs with managing the kingdom, and with Luna now fully back in her strides as one of its co-rulers she could handle any serious issue that came up, allowing Celestia to finally take full advantage of enjoying the rain, the thunder, and the almost therapeutic effect the weather would have on her.

A magical, glimmering mist phased through the glass of the balcony doors, forming into a shimmering scroll of parchment before the Solar Alicorn, the royal Crystal seal emblazoned on it. Taking it in her magic with a raised eyebrow, Celestia broke the seal and unfurled it, her look of curiousity replaced with a smile as she immediately recognized the hoofwriting.

Dear Princess Celestia,
Hello Tia! I hope I'm not bothering you on your day off, Mother said you wouldn't mind if it was me, but how often does this weather pass by Canterlot? I'm doing well, by the way, thank you SO MUCH for my birthday present, I love it as much as the other gifts I got, which is really saying something! My studies are also going quite well, I really impressed Miss Watercolour with my art work, I think I'm getting really good. Maybe you'll see it next time you visit?

Celestia giggled lightly, I would absolutely love to see your artwork little Flurry, you're such a talented little filly when it comes to drawing and painting, I might have to set some time aside just to see it on my next visit to the Empire. She continued reading.

Anyways, I've been told a lot that I'm the first Pony to be born as an Alicorn and that my Mother, Auntie, and you and Lulu all became Alicorns later on. My Mother told me all about how she was a Pegasus when she was born, and I know all about how Auntie became an Alicorn (I think Father's getting a little tired of telling that story to me).

Celestia could picture the young filly's mischievous grin as she read that last line. She could already see where this was going and would more then happy to oblige if her prediction was correct.

The reason I write to you now is, well, how did you and Lulu become Alicorns? I asked Mother and Father, but they don't know, and I was about to write to Auntie and ask but then I figured I might as well write to you instead. So, if it's not too much trouble, could you please tell me how you got to be an Alicorn?

Hugs and Smiles, Flurry Heart.

Carefully setting aside the letter, Celestia pulled out an inked quill and a sheet of parchment from a nearby pile, hit with the memory of a young Twilight Sparkle hesitantly asking her a similar question. She immediately began writing her reply.

My Dear Flurry,
Your Mother is right in that your writing to me is not a bother, I eagerly enjoy hearing from you no matter the time of day. I am very happy to hear that your art skill is improving and would absolutely love to see your latest work on my next visit. As for how my sister and I became Alicorns, it is of course no trouble telling you. However, I feel my sister Luna should be the one to tell you how she became an Alicorn herself, I'll have her write to you. Now, as for myself, well, long ago, before Equestria was even formed, my sister and I were simple Unicorns from a simple life.

She tried to picture that long ago time from her earliest memories, but curiously found herself only drawing a blank. Odd, usually her nostalgic feelings would paint an almost perfect picture from her memories. Shaking her head, she continued writing.

This coincided with earning my Cutie Mark at the age of seventeen (My, how young I was then!) She giggled to herself at the remark. Luna, like you, was nine at the time and we were wandering alone in a wide grassy field on our way to a small village known as Everfree Village (sound familiar?). We had stopped to take a break, but the Sun was high in the sky, and there was no shade as far as we could see. We were sweltering in the heat, thirsty and exhausted. Luna had asked me if I could cast some sort of spell to cool them off or magically create water, but I hadn't used magic since I was a filly at the time, so I couldn't help us in that regard. Still, we had been without supplies for some time, and I began to fear for Luna's health as we sat in the unbearable heat. It was then that Luna had an idea that sounded unbelievably insane at the time.

"What if you just move the Sun down?" She asked me. I stared-no, gawked- at her, she continued like it was simple idea. "That way, it'll be night and we won't be so hot."

For a second, I was shocked at her idea, before I burst out laughing. "One does not just move the Sun, sister." I replied after regaining some of my composure."

She tilted her head and looked at me with the most adorably confused look. "Why not? We're Unicorns, we move stuff all the time! Well, I've never seen you use magic but you gotta be able to, right?"

I shook my head at her. "Nopony can move the Sun, Luna, it's impossible."

She stared at me in shock, like I had just revealed some earth-shattering secret to her. "B-b-but you're Celestia! You're big sis! You can do anything!" She stood up and stared at me in determination. "No! You gotta do it! Come on, you can make the Sun set, it's too hot out here!"

I stared at her sadly, but decided that the very least I could do was try her idea and show her that not everything's possible. It was a hard lesson that needed to be learned... or so I thought at the time. I stood up and Luna immediately quieted down, looking at me with big, hopeful eyes. I took a deep breath as I prepared to use my magic, something I hadn't done since I was a little over Luna's age. For a brief moment, as my horn glowed for the first time in years, a terrible fear swept over me, my heart pounded and adrenaline pumped through me as sweat beaded down my head, and it wasn't from the heat.

The scratching from her quill stopped as a puzzled look came across the Alicorn's face. Why was she so afraid then? What had she to fear? Failure? That couldn't be it, she hadn't been expecting to be successful at moving the Sun. Letting her sister down and possibly breaking her heart? Again, something she was fully expecting though certainly not looking forward to. She tried to think and remember what the source of that fear was but, like before, nothing popped into her head. For that matter, she realized, why had she not used her magic for all those years as a filly? It seemed like she was actively avoiding using it. In fact, and this one hit her like a ton of bricks, she was 17 when she earned her Cutie Mark!? That was absolutely ridiculous, everypony earned their Cutie Marks at some point in their early lives, sure some were fortunate to find them sooner then others, but she had never heard of a Pony being older then 12 and not having a Cutie Mark... except for herself, it seemed. She shook her head and continued with the writing.

I pushed through it, however, and with all my might, I attempted to use the basic levitation spell on the Sun itself. For a few seconds, nothing happened, but I kept trying, my horn glowing brighter and humming louder as I put more effort into it. Despite nothing happening then, I continued pouring more of my magical energy into the spell, straining it to the point that I was exerting myself far more then what was necessary for something as preposterous as moving the Sun. Yet, for some odd reason, I kept trying. Perhaps, because of all those years of my not using my magic at all, I had essentially unleashed all this pent up force and needed to unleash it at an impossible task. I kept pushing myself further, to the point where I should exhausted myself, but something strange was happening, though I didn't realize it at the time. I felt as if a powerful source of energy was rising from the ground, entering me from my hooves and passing through me up into my horn, feeding yet more magical power into the spell. At that point, I glowed so bright that I might as well have been another Sun, I imagine Luna had to have shielded her eyes at that point, but I didn't know. In fact, even she faded into the back of my mind as I became almost single-minded in my task of moving the Sun, forgetting all about how it was an impossible task. Still, more power then what was natural of me poured into the spell. Then, with a final grunt of exertion, that was when It happened.

It was if the Sun was firmly grasped in my hold, I had lifted several feet into the ground as a radiance filled the field, without fully realizing what I had accomplished, I moved the Sun on a downward path below the horizon, far sooner then what was supposed to happen. As it rapidly retreated, the sky darkened and the stars appeared, only the moon did not show, for obvious reasons. That when a change within myself hit me, I felt as if my had become light, yet stronger, I felt a clearer connection of the magical energy moving throughout my body and beyond, I felt strange new feelings from my newly-formed wings as they unfurled themselves for the first time. When I slowly descended and my hooves touched the ground, I could suddenly feel the magical force of the land itself swirl and pulse deep beneath me like vines or roots, a large amount had pooled to the very spot where I stood. As it all hit me what I had accomplished and the sudden transformation that had occurred, I was shocked, to say the least. But, standing in front of me, her eyes wider then I've ever seen them, before or since, was Luna.

"Best. Sister. Ever." She said, completely heedless of my own confusion and speechlessness.

So there you have it, Flurry Heart, that was how I had moved the Sun for the first time, earning my Cutie Mark, and becoming an Alicorn. I hope this answers your questions, and I'll be sure to have Luna tell you her story as well. And just know, little Flurry, that with time, I'm sure you'll find the reason for why you were born an Alicorn.

Look forward to hearing from you again, Celestia.

With that, Celestia placed her quill down, furled up the scroll, stamped it with her royal seal, and magically sent it off to the Crystal Empire. Yet, the smile was not on her face as she pondered with concern. She tried to think about why she was so afraid to use her magic, why it had been so late in her young life for her to even attempt at earning a Cutie Mark. And, what was she and Luna doing all by themselves in that field, out of supplies, wandering for years and years as she raised the tiny Luna. What happened to them to cause this situation? She frowned as her mind filled with questions about her own life, and yet no answers came. Though it had been literally centuries since she had last tried to think about those days before she and Luna had earned their Cutie Marks, it was odd that there were such glaring gaps in her early years. Not just vague memories fading with time, but absolute blanks. And the most frustrating part was, she felt like it was something she couldn't just forget.

There must be an explanation, she thought to herself. Maybe Luna might know something. With that idea, she stood up from her bed, and made her way out of her chambers to seek her sister out.

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Far, far above the kingdom, in the black void of space, the silent probe sped towards the planet, before a thruster activated, slowing it down to a near stop. Not far behind it, several jet fighters flew in close formation.

"It looks like the probe is slowing down by that planet." Skywarp reported.

"And not a moment too soon!" Thundercraker commented. The Decepticons had used what little Energon remained following the device, they were starved, and most of the weapons were on the verge of powering down. As Starscream had kept a generous portion to himself, he was in far better shape then his subordinates, but even he was still dangerously low on his internal reserves.

"We're well outside of explored territory." Nacelle said. "If there isn't any Energon here we won't be able to leave the planet's atmosphere, let alone get to our hideout."

"There had better be Energon on this planet," Ramjet said angrily. "For our commander's sake."

"Mind your words, Ramjet!" Starscream shouted, though Slipstream could sense the growing fear in her leader's voice. The initial enthusiasm that they had when they began following had rusted away with the deca-cycles. "You're speaking to your commander and the soon-to-be-leader of the Decepticons!"

"Here we go again..." Slipstream muttered as she rode on the fuselage of the Decepticon commander for the entire journey, mostly because her small form couldn't hold a tenth of the Energon her larger peers could so she had to save as much as she could. A perk to her size though, is that not only did she seem to use Energon at a far slower degree, but it was surprisingly easy stealing small amounts of it without any of the Seekers noticing, and they had originally suspected she'd be the first to power down for good from starvation, the thought caused her to mentally grin.

"Oh wow," Skywarp deadpanned. "I haven't heard that phrase from you before, you're plan for taking control must be absolutely foolproof."

Before Starscream could retort, Slipstream noticed the probe opening up. "The probe is activating!" She called out. "If it detects us, the Autobots will surely know where we are and what we're up to!"

With a shout of anger, Starscream's engines went into full burn, racing ahead of the Seekers toward the probe. One of his cannons beneath the wing glowed a bright purple, before a beam of energy lashed out, piercing the probe and disintegrating it within a second. Special anti-grav thrusters activated, slowing the Decepticon as they approached the planet the loomed before them.

"It looks a lot like Terra." Slipstream commented.

"Another organic planet." Starscream replied in disgust. "No matter. Slipstream, scout ahead and determine where the Energon is, if there are any sentient lifeforms down there and what their technological capabilities are. We will wait in orbit for your signal."

Without another word, Slipstream detached from her Commander's fuselage, and immediately descended toward the planet's surface. As her vehicle mode heated up from the re-entry, her thoughts fell back to the War and excitement came to her. Another organic world, perhaps if there were sentient creatures on this world, they'd be like the Humans in terms of size, a thought that quickly turned into a hope. As the War on Terra had escalated and the Humans turned to merging their technology with Cybertronian tech, they became a far more substantial threat far more quickly then many of the Decepticons had been expecting. Yet, many of them had such a pride that they refused to treat the tiny, filthy organics seriously. Near the War's end, however, it became clear the Decepticons needed something to fight them on equal footing, hence why Slipstream, at Starscream's suggestion, was upgraded from a simple experiment in Shockwave's lab to a warrior. She fondly remembered her first engagements with the Humans, how she had effortlessly cut them down with her energy blade, despite the advanced armour they wore. Anytime the Humans had faced her, she had easily wiped them out, her own Null Ray, a weapon that Starscream normally reserved for him and him alone, allowing her to destroy even the heaviest vehicles in the Human arsenal. There was only one Human that was able to stand up to her, however brief their duel was. Slipstream quickly corrected herself, the Human she had faced wasn't really a Human, and she had certainly perished in the War when the Humans started to drop their nukes... allowing her to remain unchallenged.

Of course, her speed and size still made her a force to be reckoned with even among the Autobots. Though no kills were credited to her, she had briefly fought against some of the highest ranking and famous Autobots, including Ironhide, Ratchet, Arcee, and even Prime himself. The fact that she was able to get the drop on the Autobot leader himself was a major point of pride for the Decepticon, despite the fact that he had survived with little damage.

A loud sonic boom from her breaking into the atmosphere broke her out of her memories and she quickly set about to scanning the geography below. Her sensors scanned for Energon, and was immediately overwhelmed by the numerous and large signals of the energy source. By the Allspark! I've never seen a planet with this much Energon before, Terra doesn't even come close!

However, there was something off about the Energon she was reading, there was a lot of interference on the Energon specifically, perhaps it was the massive amount of organic life smothering the signals in addition to the moisture of the planet, which always muddied up Cybertronian sensors. Still, this was a find of historical proportions, and so she ultimately kept her doubts to herself as she activated her comm system, instantly connecting to Starscream's comm.

"You can tell the Seekers that they have nothing to fear, this planet is indeed teeming with Energon. More so then Terra!"

"Excellent!" Starscream said, relief clear in his tone. "Now scout out the inhabitants, I want to know if there are any sentients we have to deal with."

At the lower fuselage of the Drone-jet, a 180 degree camera appeared as she fed the footage to her Commander, before dipping below the cloud cover and having a physical glimpse of the continent below, she could easily make out the various settlements below. "Looks like we have sentient organics on this world." The camera zoomed in on a busy metropolis on an island, several bridge connecting to the mainland, it oddly reminded her of another Human city set on an island, New York was it? She paused when she zoomed close enough to examine the inhabitants.

"Uhh..." She muttered, unsure what to think seeing two brightly coloured equines speaking happily to one another. She briefly thought they were simple beasts, but they were communicating far too frequently to be simple grunts, and they were far too expressive, the final confirmation however, was when she another group of the creatures repair a painfully primitive wagon.

"A-are those horses?" Starscream asked.

"No," Slipstream answered slowly, as she continued examining the inhabitants of the other cities and finding more of them. "Judging by the size comparison with Terran fauna, I think they're more in line with Ponies then Horses. From the looks of things, they're the dominant race on this Energon-rich continent, but their technology is so primitive it's laughable. I doubt these creatures will be able to give us any trouble should they try to resist."

She checked her Energon sensors and noticed something surprising. "Wait! Most of their cities have an electrical system, but its powered by Energon! How can these creatures have mastered Energon refining? Even the Humans haven't figured that out."

"It doesn't matter!" Starscream said, triumph in his voice. "It only means that we have refined Energon ready for the taking! Scan for any Ponies that could be there leader so we can 'negotiate'."

Quickly skimming through the various settlements on the continent, it was on the palace-like city on the mountainside, which happened to have a particularly large concentration of Energon, that she spotted a winged and horned dark blue Pony in a gardened area, she was larger then most, wearing a dark crown and other forms of regalia, her mane and tail waving slowly like it was in a soft drift. She had already believed she had found her target when she saw two golden-armoured Ponies bow as she calmly passed by them, that confirmed it for the Decepticon.

"Pony leader sighted." She reported, freezing the image of the Pony and showing her location in what she suspected was the Capital city of these creatures, showing the data from her Energon readings.

"Good!" Starscream's voice practically dripped with anticipation as he examined all the data that the tiny Decepticon had gathered.

"Now we strike!" He shouted to the surrounding Seekers.

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The thunder continued booming over Canterlot, and could be heard as a distant rumbling to the floating Wonderbolt Academy. The Wonderbolt recruits paid it no heed as they performed various maneuvers in tight-knit formation. Rainbow Dash watched them all with critical eyes, barking orders and compliments where necessary.

"Keep it up, Team 3! You're doing great! Wind Song, you're lagging behind, don't let Team 2 leave you in the dust!" She turned as she saw another group performing several loop-de-loops over the runway, nodding with approval. "Not bad, Team 1, now do that another 3 times and let's see how you all do. Remember, stay in formation!"

"How's the new recruits training going?" A familiar voice said behind her, Dash turned and saw Spitfire calmly walk up, eyeing the various squads as they flew past. Immediately, Dash gripped the whistle wrapped around her her neck and blew hard, a shrill screech pierced the sky around them, causing all the potential Wonderbolts to stop mid-flight.

"ATEEEEEN-TION!" Dash barked, performing a brisk salute with her wing, within seconds, the recruits landed in single file behind her, save for one who landed face first into the clouds, his tail sticking into the air, he quickly recovered himself and mimicked the salute, as did his comrades, heedless of the tuft of cloud stuck on his muzzle.

"It's going." Dash answered, a knowing smirk on her face as she glanced back at them.

Spitfire nodded and saluted all the Ponies before. "Carry on, cadets!"

"Ma'am!" They called out, before immediately taking back into the air.

Spitfire watched as they quickly reformed into their previously assigned teams, and continued with the flight maneuvers. "You sure are pushing them hard, think they're ready for all this?"

"A few of them need work, but they've definitely got the skill." Rainbow replied. "I'm just seeing if they've got the drive."

The Wonderbolt Captain chuckled at that. "Just don't break them, okay? That's my job."

"Will do, Captain!" The cyan Pegasus replied with a salute of her wing, which Spitfire promptly returned.

"Carry on, Sergeant!"

And so the training progressed, with Rainbow making mental notes on each cadet's progress and what needed to be improved on. Finally, with a blow of her whistle, the Wonderbolt Hopefuls stopped their maneuvers, all of the breathing heavily. "Alright, cadets, that's enough for today! You all did a great job improving yourselves, now hit the showers and rest up, you'll need all the energy you can get when the Captain takes over your training tomorrow."

The cadets nodded, and each attempted a final salute to their trainer, most were only half successful, but Rainbow let it slide. She had worked them hard, the least she could do was cut them some slack now that training was over. The recruits landed single-file and made their way slowly to the barracks. Dash nodded approvingly to them as they left, when her ears perked at several loud booms that reverberated through the air.

"What the hay was that?" She asked to nopony in particular as she turned her head in the general direction of the sounds.

Wind Song, last in line, stopped and shrugged. "Just thunder from Canterlot, that's all."

But Dash knew what thunder sounded like, and that was nothing like thunder should sound like, plus, Canterlot was too far off for the thunder to have an impact as that. Something didn't feel right to Rainbow, her wings twitched and her tail swished in agitation. I've got a bad feeling about this...

With training over and her wings itching to fly, the cyan Pegasus took off from the academy, flying towards Canterlot. Maybe something had gone wrong with the thunderstorm over the capital, if that's the case, she would be a very big help. It may have been years since she was Weather Pony, but she had never lost her touch, and the things she learned over her many years in the profession isn't something one easily forgets. Somehow, though, Rainbow had the feeling something else was wrong.

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The six Decepticon Seekers streaked boldly into the atmosphere, not bothering with a quiet and stealthy approach, they had gone into full-burn on reentry, creating loud sonic booms that could be heart throughout half of Equestria.

"Decepticons!" Starscream cried out. "Seize the small town by the castle mountain and await my signal! We'll hold the populace hostage!"

With that, the five Seekers immediately broke formation from the Air Commander, making for the small town not far from them mountainside palace while Starscream maintained his course

"Slipstream!" Starscream said into the comm. "Meet me at their capital, your expertise will likely be required there."

"I thought you'd never ask." Slipstream replied wickedly.

Although he had seen the data Slipstream had scanned, the Decepticon ran a scan with his own sensors and, when he saw for himself the sheer amount of Energon hidden on the planet, he felt for the first time in a long time that he could almost grasp the power that had so often alluded him. And this time, he wasn't going to lose it, especially to any filthy organics. With the city fast approaching, his determination skyrocketed, that Energon was his, this planet would be his, and soon, a newly-reformed Decepticon Empire would be his and nothing would stop him. Nothing.

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As the thunderstorm had finally started to ease off, a few Ponies left their homes to quickly take care of a few chores. However, the loud sonic booms, louder then anything that happened that day, that practically shook the city caused many to wonder if the storm was about to pick up. However, the rain did not pick up again, nor were the continued rumblings of thunder. Many simply shrugged and continued on, after in one of the busier parts of the city, a mare cried out in shock, frantically pointing in the air.

"Look! Up in the sky!"

Many Ponies turned their heads and gaped at the sight. What was originally a tiny, glowing purple speck, grew into a bright red and silver aircraft of a design and speed they had never seen before.

"What is that?"

"Is that some kind of bird?"

"It's as fast as a Wonderbolt! No, faster!"

The strange alien craft continued its fast approach, when suddenly, several small objects leaped from the vehicle, scattering as the arrow-shaped rockets randomly targeted buildings and streets, smashing into them and creating loud and terrifying explosions that shattered the cobblestone streets and towers. Immediately the many Ponies looks of shock and wonder were replaced by sheer terror, the terrified Ponies in the market broke and fled as the craft flew directly overhead, strafing them with blasts of purple energy.

"PATHETIC FOOLS!" Came a shrill voice from the craft.

Princess Luna, who had been relaxing in the Royal Gardens, immediately stood up in shock as she heard the explosions. "What in the name of Equestria!?"

Immediately taking to the air, flanked by two Royal Pegasi Guards, Luna scanned the surroundings and watched in horror as a strange flying craft with screaming engines fired alien weapons at her screaming citizens. Quickly turning into rage, Luna's horn charged up with magical energy as she shouted in the Royal Canterlot Voice. "WHO DARES ATTACK THE CITY OF CANTERLOT AND THREATEN MY SUBJECTS!!?"

The Royal Canterlot voice was heard throughout the city, and immediately the alien craft turned and sped towards the Dark Alicorn with a speed that even the Wonderbolts would have difficulty matching. Bracing herself, Luna fired a stasis spell at the foreign attacker, but the craft effortlessly evaded and flew past her, making an almost 180 degree turn over the gardens, when the Princess saw something that stunned her.

The metallic craft shifted and changed, with a metallic alien sound that resonated through, causing her heart to quicken even further. Within a second, the craft had transformed into a two-story tall bipedal machine that grinned evilly at the Alicorn. Suddenly, a much smaller craft flew around a tower, zooming up to the robotic being, and quickly circled him a couple of times, before it too transformed into a pony-sized robotic creature, landing on the monstrous being's shoulder, a matching grin on its face.

"You must be the leader of this land." The tall being said in a shrill, yet malevolent voice. "I am Starscream! Air Commander of the Decepticon Battle Fleet and leader of the Decepticon Seekers! I will accept your surrender now."

Luna gritted her teeth in determination as the alien, Starscream, seemed heedless of the dozens of Royal Guards rapidly surrounding him, the smaller being however, eyed them with an almost eager look in its purple eyes.

"And, for the sake of your pathetic little species," Starscream said. "You would be wise to do so."

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Meanwhile, nearly the whole population of Ponyville found themselves herded into the center of the town, surrounded by five, terrible giants of similar design, each of them stared down with amused contempt as the Ponies looked up at them with fear. One was admiring the cannon on his left forearm, almost expecting to use it on them shortly.

Starscream's Gambit

Twilight awoke with a start as a jolt seemed to pass through her. Feeling an all-too familiar sensation on her flanks, a glance to her flashing Cutie Mark confirmed her suspicions. Rushing out of her bed to the Map in the castle throne room, she saw two familiar marks hovering near its center. Over the projection of Canterlot, she saw Rainbow Dash's Mark circle it, but it was in Ponyville where her mark hovered.

Concern rose in the Alicorn as she watched the marks over it. It had been nearly three years since the map had called on any of the Bearers to remedy a friendship problem, and it was incredibly rare for it to call on more then one problem at the same time. Not to mention that it never called for any of them on a problem in Ponyville or Canterlot. The sound of the main doors being tossed open caused her to immediately turn, where she saw a panting Spike lean on of them with a claw. The young Dragon had grown significantly over the years, now nearly as tall as Twilight herself.

"Twi-light!" He said between panting breaths, he had clearly rushed here all the way from town.

"Spike! What's going on? Has something happened in town?" The Alicorn asked.

"Giant... Robots!" He breathed, earning a look of confusion and a tilted head from the mare.

"What?"

"Giant robots!" He repeated as he slowly regained his composure. "They've attacked Ponyville and are holding the town hostage! I've also seen smoke rising from Canterlot!"

This is way more then just a friendship problem, Twilight realized, her face changing to one of seriousness. "Has anypony been hurt?"

Spike shook his head. "I don't think so, but they gathered many of the town's citizens to the center, right by the Main Hall. I also saw one of them fly towards Sweet Apple Acres!"

"They can fly? How big are they?"

"As big as a house, Twilight! And they've got a pair of cannons on their arms, they look like they could do some serious damage to the town."

Twilight nodded. "Then we better move fast! I'll go see what they want and keep the town safe, while you send a letter to Princess Celest-" She stopped and mentally cursed. "You said you saw smoke from Canterlot?"

Spike nodded. "I don't think Princess Celestia can send us any help. You think these guys attacked Canterlot too? What if it's an invasion!?" His eyes widened at the thought.

"We'll worry about that later," Twilight replied, cutting his, and her, fears off. "Right now, we have to focus on the well-being of the Ponies in town. I'll try to negotiate with these beings and see why they're acting so aggressively, you can stay here and catch your br-"

Spike huffed, his chest puffed out slightly. "I'm not such a little Dragon anymore, Twilight! I'll come and help too, this is my home after all and no giant robots are going to harm my friends while I'm around!"

Twilight smiled in an effort to hide her worry and nodded. "Alright, but hopefully we can avoid a fight, maybe we can help them out and they won't bother us or anyone else." However, something told the Alicorn Princess that wasn't going to be likely. "Let's go!" Her wings flaring open, she cantered out of the throne room, with Spike easily keeping pace with her.

As she rushed through the halls to the exit, several concerns arose in her mind. Giant, armed robots have come seemingly out of nowhere and taken the town hostage, and likely attacked Canterlot as well. She worried for the Princesses in the Capital, as well as Rainbow Dash, since the Map had shown she was needed in the city. With the Wonderbolt Academy currently not that far from Canterlot, she knew it would be no trouble for the brash Pegasus to notice trouble and rush to help. Well aware of her hot-headed nature, she hoped she wouldn't get into too much trouble, but every problem the Map has always called on the Pony perfect to solve it, if the Map showed that Rainbow was needed there, she could handle it. Still, the nagging fear remained. Approaching the main doors, she levitated them open and immediately flight, finally causing Spike to fall behind, still, the young Dragon continued running at full speed toward the town.

Immediately, Twilight saw four tall beings stick out among the surrounding buildings and the crowd of Ponies in the town square, with a fifth returning from the direction of the Apple Family Orchard. Her fear for Applejack and her family was one more concern added to the list.

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"You attack our capital city, harm our subjects without an explanation, and then you have the audacity to demand our surrender!?" Luna shouted at the robotic Starscream, who seemed only amused at the raising of spears and charging of horns from the many Royal Guardsponies that surrounded him and the comparatively tiny creature that stood on his shoulder. "I am one of the rulers of Equestria! I will not stand by while you attack us without warning or reason nor will I surrender myself or my kingdom to the likes of you!"

Starscream snickered, crossing his arms as he shook his head. "You puny organics really are the epitome of arrogance, aren't you? Thinking the entire universe was built to your specifications, ruling tiny lands like you ruled the stars themselves. How I truly enjoy showing how tiny and insignificant you all are against a being of True power!"

"Enough!" Luna shouted, her horn glowing and her wings extended in a threatening expression. "What do you want, aggressor!?"

Starscream sneered. "Rest assured, I do not want your pathetic little kingdom, your 'majesty'!"

"How dare you mock the Princess!" One of the Pegasi Guards shouted, making to lunge into the air and strike the robot's head, only for a purple energy blast to strike the ground inches from his hooves, the cement glowing and smoking from the impact.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you." Slipstream warned with an evil smirk, her Null Ray cannon smoking slightly as it remained pointing at the Royal Guard. "This is one of the most powerful and feared warriors of our kind, and the almighty and all-knowing, perfect leader of the Decepti-" She stopped when she suddenly burst out laughing, causing Starscream to glare at her in outrage.

"Nope!" Slipstream said with a shake of her head. "Couldn't say that with a straight face."

"Be quiet, you insolent defect!" Starscream shouted, grabbing the tiny Decepticon before she could react and slamming her into the hard floor with a loud crash, the cement shattering on impact, a shout of pain emanated from the briefly dazed robot.

"Ignore my scout." He said to the shocked lunar princess. "She is merely the result of a failed experiment and hardly the mightiest warrior I command."

"Tch!" Slipstream grumbled as she recovered herself, shooting warning glares at two nearby Guards as they pondered seizing her, she then turned her angry optics up at the taller Decepticon. "I'll enjoy seeing this backfire on you, Commander!" She all but spat the rank out as she transformed and flew off, her single purple jet screaming past two Pegasi, who found themselves nearly cleaved by her wings as they dived out of the way.

"Foolish brat." Starscream muttered as he watched her flee. "I'll deal with you later..."

It seems he does not have the respect of his troops Luna realized as her eyes followed the flying machine take to the skies. Knowing that she was far too fast for the armoured Guards to pursue and literally having bigger issues to deal with, she turned her gaze back at Starscream. "What do you want with us? And where are the rest of your soldiers?"

"As I said," the Decepticon answered, his hands raised in a non-threatening impression, yet his smirk belied the gesture. "I do not care for this insignificant planet for myself, my ambitions are far greater. But there is a resource you have that I want. My attack was but a sample of what I alone am capable of, while my warriors have seized the small town near this city."

Luna's eyes widened. Ponyville was being held hostage by the invaders! And she knew for a fact that not all of the Bearers of Harmony were in the town, and while Twilight's Alicorn magic was among the most impressive she had ever seen, she knew the mare was no fighter. Starscream continued, his right hand extending outward toward her.

"Hand over all the Energon your land possesses and my warriors and I shall leave you and the town in peace! Refuse, and the town will be incinerated." He clenched his hand to signify his might and his threat.

Princess Luna stared in shock as her fear grew. Ponyville and its citizens were likely helpless and at the invaders mercy, and their leader was making a demand for something she had never heard of. "What is this Energon you speak of? We have no such thing!"

Starscream frowned. "Don't try to fool me, organic! I know there is Energon on this world and it will be mine! I transmit one word to my warriors, and your town will be destroyed in an instant, so think very carefully on your next words!"

The Dark Alicorn seethed. This Starscream was convinced a resource she had never, in all her life or her time in catching up from her thousand year banishment, was under the kingdom's possession. And she had the feeling that he somehow had the ability to instantly communicate with his warriors and that his threat wasn't a mere bluff. His brief attack alone had done considerable damage to the city, who knows how many Ponies he had injured or killed? Yet, despite his bravado and arrogant dismissing of her and her guards, she could tell that he was ready for any sort of attack she would attempt. Even if he wasn't, she doubted any of their weapons and all but the most powerful offensive spells would have any effect on the alien. And she couldn't risk the citizens of Ponyville and her friends there. Sister, where are you?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Looks like you were right, Skywarp." Nacelle said as he hovered toward the Seekers, his white and silver body gleaming in the sunlight. In his hands were three struggling Ponies. "There were more organics by that farm."

With an amused snicker, he lightly tossed them among the other encircled Ponies. Lightly, by his standards, the three Ponies were all but slammed into the ground. However, the three Earth Ponies quickly recovered themselves, with hardly a scratch on them.

"Hey! What's the big idea!?" Apple Bloom called out, her red main grown significantly and tied into two pigtails, her tail had lost its fluffy look over the years and became simple and straight. A light brown vest covered her chest as she stared up in defiance at the amused Decepticon.

"Y'all think ya can just nab us and treat us like some old tools?" Applejack, though more reserved then her younger sister, showed her distaste clearly in her expression.

Nacelle shook his head, wondering how such organics expected to be treated with dignity, even when they literally stared at a superior being in the face. It would be funny if it wasn't so disgustingly pathetic.

"Any word from our Commander?" Nacelle asked the others, ignoring the angry Apples at his feet.

"Hey! We're talking to ya!" Apple Bloom shouted.

Thundercracker shook his head, paying no heed to the organic's whining, his arms crossed in impatience. "No, probably too busy demolishing the city." His hand moved in an almost lazy fashion, an extended thumb pointing to a smoking Canterlot. "Any excuse to let loose some missiles, huh?"

Several Ponies murmured to one another in fear as they too saw the smoke and heard the explosions. The three Apples turned and briefly forgot about their anger at the giant robots as their eyes widened at the sight.

"Sweet Celestia," Apple Bloom muttered, before she caught sight of two familiar faces. Making one quick glance at her siblings to make sure they were okay, she quietly made her way to them.

"Hmph," Skywarp grunted. "And to think all those stellar cycles ago, he told us to abandon our munitions in order to make escaping the Autobots easier."

"Should we really be surprised at this point?" Nova Storm asked, leaning on the town hall. "We've been under his command how long? A hundred Solar Cycles, at least. Sure, when everything goes according to plan, he can be a decent leader, but the moment things go wrong, he'd shoot our engines out and leave us to drift in space if it meant saving his own chassis."

"I can't believe I once had respect for the Con..." Ramjet commented, shaking his head.

While the five Seekers were grumbling to one another, Apple Bloom approached the two familiar mares.

"Pst! Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo." She whispered, immediately causing the other two Crusaders to face their longtime friend.

"Thank goodness you're okay." Sweetie Belle whispered, relief clear on the mare's face. Whereas Apple Bloom had long since stopped taking special care with her mane and tail, Sweetie Belle had taken the idea seriously, making sure to groom and care for her mane and tail every morning. Dressed in a stylish black coat, which was slightly ruffled from the Decepticons arrival. Pinned to the front of the coat was a teardrop-shaped crystal. Behind her were two small trembling fillies, her singing students.

"What the hay's going on?" Apple Bloom asked. "Who-what are those things?"

"Hay if I know." Scootaloo answered, her eyes constantly darting to the giant machines holding them hostage, ready to jump into action on a moment's notice. Of the three Crusaders, Scootaloo was the one who changed the least in her appearance, her purple mane having only grown slightly and still maintaining its ruffled, almost messy look. Her wings had grown beautifully over the years, but her condition still prevented her from properly flying. Despite this, the Pegasus kept up a vigorous exercising routine, causing her athletic look to be more pronounced as her body grew. "They just showed up and forcefully gathered us all at the town center, one of them smashed Silver's house as a threat. These guys look like they mean business."

"But why?" Apple Bloom asked. "What do they want?"

Neither of the Crusaders had an answer, Sweetie simply stared at her friend with a helpless look, while Scootaloo glared at the intruders. The two fillies clutched the hem of their teacher's coat, causing Sweetie to glance back at them with concern. "This could get very bad at any moment." She whispered. "We have to get the fillies and colts out of here."

"How?" Apple Bloom whispered back, with a nervous glance at the Decepticons. "If the kids are spotted tryin' to escape, they may get hurt or worse!"

"They don't seem too focused on us." Scootaloo said, her gaze shifting from one Seeker to the other.

Sweetie nodded in agreement, her head tilting towards a nearby alleyway. "And if we guide them to the alleyways, they'll be harder to spot and can make their way out of the town to Twilight's castle where they'll be safe."

Apple Bloom frowned. It was risky, if any of the invaders spotted them, the children would be in peril. But, if it worked, that would be one major fear of the populace removed, perhaps then she and the other Crusaders could rally the town to fight back. There was no way she was going to stand by and be threatened like this in her hometown and not do anything about it. First, though, they had to get the children out of harm's way and though the robotic giants were not paying close attention to the townsfolk, she wasn't confident that it was enough.

"Alright." She said, nodding. "But we need a distraction, something to get all of their attention."

Scootaloo immediately stopped looking at the robots and grinned at her friend, immediately giving the Earth Pony the impression that she already had a bold idea bordering on the suicidal. Before Scootaloo could voice her idea and Apple Bloom could protest it, several Ponies began shouting.

"Look! It's Princess Twilight!"

"Princess Twilight!"

"She'll know what to do!"

The three Crusaders, and the Decepticons, turned their attention towards the nearby Castle, where they saw a purple Alicorn flying towards them. Apple Bloom felt some relief, but not enough to ease her nervousness at the situation.

"Nova Storm!" Skywarp shouted upon the seeing the Pony fly in their direction. "I thought you said there were no lifeforms in that crystalline structure!"

Nova Storm quickly looked between the Seeker Lieutenant, and the new arrival, a panicked expression on his face. "I swear, my scanners didn't detect any organics in it!"

With a growl of disgust, Skywarp stepped ahead of the group, his cannons warming up just in case. Behind him, Thundercracker aimed his weapons at the Pony, with the rest watching her with close scrutiny. The Seekers had long since prided themselves on their aerial superiority, and any threats to their domination of the skies made them nervous.

"Don't fire just yet, Thundercracker." Skywarp warned. "We need to wait for Starscream's orders."

The proud warrior merely gave an incoherent mutter as an answer, long since lost his patience at playing sentry to a bunch of organics. His arm-mounted cannons remained trained on the Alicorn that approached, her wings flaring open as she stopped in the aid before them.

"I am Princess Twilight Sparkle, co-ruler of Equestria and the Princess of Magic and Friendship." The Alicorn introduced herself in a regal and neutral tone, her horn glowing as she glanced at them, noticing how similar they all looked, save for their colours on their metal forms. "Why have you attacked this town and taken its citizens hostage?"

Skywarp's optics narrowed as he examined the tiny organic. "So, this species has multiple leaders, huh? I'm Lieutenant Skywarp! Second-in-Command of the Decepticon Seekers!"

He raised his right hand, gesturing to the other warriors behind him. "We have seized this town by order of Air Commander Starscream, who is currently at your capital negotiating with your other leader. If he gets what he asks for, no harm will come to the town's inhabitants."

Twilight frowned, having already been told by Spike about the rising smoke and seeing it for herself. "Is this how you usually negotiate where you're from? Why act with such hostility towards us? We've done nothing to you."

Thundercracker scoffed. "The fact that you organics assume we are on equal terms is an insult to our pride as Decepticons! We take what we want because we are superior to you in every way while you are little more then diseased vermin! You should be thankful we're even tolerating your disgusting sight."

Twilight's horn brightened as she effortlessly fed more energy into it in preparation for a more powerful spell. "So it's the law of might with your kind, is it? Don't think I will allow this to continue any longer, release the town's inhabitants immediately!"

Skywarp chuckled and shook his head. "What can YOU do? You're unarmed, unarmoured, and we can, and will, annihilate these organics if you make so much as a move towards them."

Twilight gritted her teeth as she tried to think of a solution to this predicament. She was ready to use an assortment of spells in her mental arsenal, but the only one that she could instantly use on all of them was her stasis spell, but she couldn't do anything else besides holding them until her stamina gave out, she wasn't confident that she could hold all five of them long enough for the townsfolk to make their escape, especially if they tried to resist. Her assault spell may damage and incapacitate one of them, but that was little better since it left the other four to immediately attack the helpless Ponies, and she rarely practiced the spell, leaving her aim something to be desired. Even if the town wasn't in jeopardy, she was not at all sure she could win a battle against even two of them, nevermind five, but that was the least of her worries, all things considered.

Apple Bloom, seeing that things were about to heat up and that all of the Decepticons attention was fully focused on Twilight, gestured to her two friends and at the alleyway. They both nodded, with Sweetie silently guiding her two students towards it, while Scootaloo made silent gestures to their old teacher, Mrs. Cheerilee, who had most of the other colts and fillies around her. The farm Pony went to her older sister and brother, glancing around for something, anything, that could help them fight against them. Upon seeing supply crates that were tightly held together by long strings of rope, her heart leaped. It may not be much, but if there was one thing everypony in Equestria knew, it was that you don't mess with an Apple with a rope.

"What is it that you want?" Twilight asked, hoping to keep them talking while she tried to figure a way to solve this.

"Simple," Skywarp replied. "We want your planet's Energon. We've detected your cities using it as a power source, if your leaders give us the Energon, then no harm will come to you."

Twilight blinked in confusion. Energon? What in Equestria was that? "Our cities are powered by a combination of Unicorn, Pegasi, and Solar magic, which is unique to each individual city. Whatever this Energon is, we don't have it."

"You're not the first organics to try and fool us with that nonsense!" Thundercracker snapped, his cannons humming dangerously. "Our scanners have read the Energon surging in this landmass, it's here and in abundance."

As the tension rose between the Princess and the Decepticons, Sweetie Belle nervously kept glancing at the Seekers, praying that none of them looked even slightly in her direction as she herded her two students between the two houses. Just as they got in, Sweetie breathed a mental sigh of relief as she saw the Seekers were still far too focused on Twilight to notice, even as Mrs. Cheerilee guided the rest of the students towards her, with the nervous parents doing their best to act as a visual shield. She'd guide them to Twilight's Castle, where'd they hopefully be safe until the situation was resolved. However, no sooner had her hopes raised were they dashed when she heard a far too alien sound, like a series of clicks and clanks ringing at a fast pace, came above her. Immediately grabbing the two fillies with her magic and pulling them behind her, just as a metallic being nearly as tall as her slammed into the spot where the fillies stood, immediately the fillies screamed in shock and fear as this new arrival recovered, purple eyes and a smirk facing the Unicorn.

Although this alien was far sleeker then the bulky armoured giants beyond, the robot had the same purple insignia on her wing tips.

"Who said you could leave, organics?" Came a feminine voice from the Decepticon, her right arm raised to her chest, and a bright purple scythe-like blade of pure energy erupted from her forearm.

"Keep away from them!" Sweetie Belle shouted, no longer bothering with stealth as her horn charged.

"Oh?" In response, the Decepticon lunged forward, the energy blade sweeping in wide arc. With a yelp, Sweetie Belle jumped back, the tip of the blade barely missing its mark, before striking the wall next to her, passing through the brick wall like it wasn't even there, leaving a burning trail behind it. Pulling the two fillies with her, Sweetie Belle backed away into the open square once again, with the smiling Seeker readying for another taunting strike. "Please try, I've been hoping for a decent challenge-"

Suddenly, an orange form pounced her from above, forehooves slamming into her face, sending her stumbling back into the corner of a house.

"You've got one, freak!" Scootaloo shouted.

Twilight's horn glowed brighter in response to Skywarp's reply. "I'm telling you, we don't have any of this-huh?" She stopped when she heard the shouts of scared fillies, glancing at the surrounded Ponies, she instantly recognized Sweetie Belle backing away from a Pony-sized robot, a purple blade glowing menacingly on its arm. Then, she saw an orange blur dart around the side, pouncing the robot with a shout and a loud crash as she slammed into one of the walls. This also caught the attention of the Seekers, most of which turned to the commotion.

"What is-?" Skywarp asked as he turned, but was interrupted when Thundercracker opened fire on the Alicorn, green bursts of plasma energy zooming out towards the Princess who, with a shocked gasp, immediately casted a forcefield spell around her. There was flash of light as the plasma struck her shield, dissipating most of lethal energy, but the power of the attack was far stronger then she expected, shattering the shield and sending the Princess smashing into the ground.

"That's enough negotiating!" Thundercracker shouted. "Kill the hostages!"

Nacelle immediately raised his cannons at the Ponies, many of whom screamed as they saw their death approaching. The cannons activated with a threatening hum, before suddenly the sound seemed to slow and fade. Nacelle's optics widened. "Uh-oh."

Ramjet and Nova Storm were met with similar results while Skywarp ran a diagnostic, only to find his worst fear confirmed. "We're too low on energy, our cannons are useless!"

"Well," Applejack said amongst the murmurs from the townsfolk as they realized their captors were not as dangerous as they thought, tossing the end of the length of rope to her brother. "Ain't that something." With a nod to Big Mac, the two cantered at full speed toward Nacelle, moving towards him as he watched in puzzlement, raising his arms as he tried to get a shot at crushing them with his bare hands.

The two Apple siblings, however, moved with impressive speed as they quickly wrapped the long rope around, before pulling with all their strength.

"You really think you can bring me down with mere-wha-AAAAHH!" With a surprised cry, Nacelle found his legs bound against his will, losing his balance and falling face first into the ground.

"C'MON PONYVILLE!" Applejack shouted. "LET'S GET 'EM!"

And from there, all Tartarus broke loose.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the moment Celestia heard the unnatural rumblings outside and the screams that followed, she quickened her pace to a near-canter through the corridor. As she turned around a bend, she noticed a distinct lack of Royal Guards, a further sign that the city had come under attack, a pair of servants, an Earth Pony and a Unicorn rushed through one of the doors and the Princess immediately approached them. The two quickly stopped and bowed.

"Princess! The city-"

"Who's attacking us?" Celestia cut them off.

The two glanced at one another, Celestia could see the fear in their eyes. "We don't know, your majesty!" The Earth Pony said.

"Some kind of monstrous machine!" The Unicorn added.

Celestia blinked. "A machine?"

"It was huge!" The Unicorn continued. "As big as a house! It was made entirely of metal, but it moved and acted like a living thing! It's out in the garden, surrounded by the guards and Princess Luna, but it doesn't seem scared at all."

Deep down, something about their description of the attacker unsettled Celestia in a way she had never experienced before. Like some looming terror was just barely grasping at her heart, and yet her chest felt unnaturally hollow, her breathing picked up ever so slightly... She pushed the thoughts aside. "Make your way to safety, I will deal with the invader."

The servants bowed and continued fleeing, while Celestia made her way up a flight of nearby stairs, the Gardens were not far, and if the invader was already surrounded, a view from one of the towers would provide her with all the information she needed, as well as a quick avenue of attack should things turn for the worse. Again, the raw primal fear returned, a fear that caused her to tremble slightly as she made her way up the steps. What was going on with her? She had felt fear before, and terror, but this was different, it made her almost feel like... like she was a little filly... Finally, she made her way to the top, flinging aside the balcony doors with her magic, she felt a cool breeze and was hit with the smell of smoke from the damage done from the attack. The anger that rose in her from seeing the results of the attack eased the strange fear that was rising in her, and she turned her attention to the garden below here, where she could see her sister and the dozens of golden-armoured Ponies surrounding the invader. True to the servants' description, it was indeed alien, yet not completely unfamiliar. Then, she saw the mark on its wingtips, a mark that bore an all too striking resemblance to a face, a face she had forgotten and still could not remember, yet she knew she had seen it before.

Suddenly, she was no longer a Princess, she was no longer an Alicorn that had seen over a thousand years and had control over the very sun that gave light to the world. No, she was a terrified filly, shaking and staring at the face of malice incarnate as reality and forgotten memories merged together. The smell of the smoke was now overpowering, she could hear the flames burning right next to her, the sky had turned dark and red. And there, standing before the invader, was her tiny little sister. Now, her fear was for Luna's safety.

Not her, not her too. She began madly thinking. You can't take her too, she's all I have left!

Her horn began glowing brightly as she applied power into it, her teeth gritting together in determination. I won't let you take her! I won't I won't I won't! With a flair of her wings and a blinding orb of light shining from her heart, she unleashed her Solar Fury.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"How do you know that we even possess this 'Energon'?" Luna asked.

"The scans from my scout and I clearly showed that this planet, in particular this landmass, has a large supply of Energon. Combined with the fact that many of your cities are using Energon as a power source shows that you somehow have learned to refine it in a usable state. You will relinquish all the Energon, refined and otherwise, to us and any Decepticons that will arrive here."

Luna blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I intend to use this landmass as a base of operations while I gather all the Decepticons to form a New Empire to conquer the stars, with me as the new leader!" Starscream shouted, his optics shining brighter. It was clear this a longtime goal of his.

"You said you had no interest in our land!" Luna exclaimed.

"I don't." Starscream simply replied with a sneer. "That doesn't I don't have need for it. I will make use of this planet and its Energon and you will not intervene, for the sake of your species! Are we clear?"

Luna growled. "If you think that I will just let you threaten my subjects, then you clearly have no idea who you're threatening! My sister and I shall-"

She was interrupted by a blinding beam of golden light that pierced through the Decepticon, who gave a blood-chilling scream of agony. Luna, and all the Royal Guards, shielded their eyes from the blinding light and stepped back from the intense heat. A second later, the heat and light died down, and Luna lowered her wing from her eyes to see Starscream still there, a hole in his torso, jagged and melted pieces of metal surrounding the damage. The ground around him glowed a bright orange, the nearby plants were gone, only black soot remained. Slowly, Starscream raised a trembling hand over the wound. "W-who-" He stuttered. His answer came in the form of white Alicorn, who smashed into the glowing ground in front of Luna, sending a shock wave that sent all the Guards stumbling back, some falling over the force of the landing. And when she opened her eyes, they briefly glowed white, before revealing eyes that showed pure rage and fear swirling for control.

"S-Sister!?" Luna stuttered out, but she seemed not hear her.

"BEGONE, CREATURE!" Roared the Solar Alicorn, her horn charging up once again. Luna could feel the sheer power she was drawing in, feel her channeling the very energy from the sun to boost her attack.

"Sister, no!" She cried out. "You'll destroy the city!"

Again, though, she did not seem to hear her.

Gone was Starscream's victorious grin and demeaning attitude, now he showed open terror at the unknown attack. Desperately, he raised his left arm, firing his Null Ray at the Alicorn, the purple ray lunging at her, only to dissipate from a golden shield that surrounded her. "N-no! Get Away!" Stumbling back, he felt his feet teetering on the edge. In a panic, and with a final yelp, he jumped off, transforming to his Jet Mode. This time the sound of servos changing and internal mechanism rearranging themselves sounded disjointed and crackled. There were several additional clangs and a few pieces of him fell from his exposed wound. With a scream of pain, Starscream ignited his engines and fled, flying a full speed away from the city, and away from the thing that mercilessly attacked him.

Upon seeing him flee, Celestia's horn quieted down, her spell harmlessly dissipating. Causing Luna to breath a sigh of relief before she quickly remembered the alien's threat. Turning toward the shocked Guards, she pointed to a lIeutenant. "Gather a detachment and make for the town of Ponyville, post-haste! Do everything you can to aid Princess Twilight Sparkle against the invaders!"

Despite all that had happened, the Guard saluted and quickly ran off, followed by a substantial number of the Guards around. Luna turned to the others. "Move out to establish order in the city, we need to calm the populace and assess the damage as quickly as possible!"

"Yes, your highness!" One of the Guards said as they regained their composure and quickly moved to the exits, leaving the two Princesses alone.

Luna slowly turned towards her sister, and found her sitting. And shaking. "Sister?"

Walking around, careful not to step on any hot spots from the rapidly cooling ground, and saw tears trailing down her face, eyes wide and staring at nothing. Hesitantly, Luna raised a hoof, lightly touching her heaving chest. "Sister, what's wrong?"

At her touch and voice, Celestia seemed to at least partially awaken to the world, slowly turning to look at Luna. She blinked a few times, as if having trouble believing she was there. "L-Luna?"

"What's wrong?" The lunar princess repeated, her own fear growing.

Celestia simply shook her head, the tears still falling from her wide eyes. "I-I... I couldn't-I can't-I-" From there, she began repeating herself as she shut herself from the world around her, leaving Luna confused and frightened for her sister. Never before had she seen the mare who had been an integral part of her life this vulnerable, this... Broken. Her big sister, who had practically raised her in the place of the parents she had never known all those centuries ago, stood beside her against Sombra, Discord, and many other threats, who had waited patiently for her to return from her banishment to the Moon. Now, here she sat, trembling, broken. And Luna had no idea what to do, save for one thing. Wrapping a wing around her, Luna carefully guided her sister inside. Thankfully, Celestia did not resist and almost mindlessly followed her into the palace.

"I can't I can't I can't-" She repeated over and over.

"Shhh" Luna said in her most soothing voice. "It's alright, sister, I'm here."

Canterlot was attacked, Ponyville was held hostage, and Starscream was on the loose, but none of that seemed as important, as terrifying to Luna, as her sister's strange ailment. I can only hope Twilight and the Guard reinforcements are able to save the town.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The intense pain was slowing Starscream considerably, blue glowing liquid leaked out in droplets from his exposed wound, as what little Energon remained was fed into the engines. Almost as intense as the pain was his anger. How could a simple, unarmoured organic do such damage to me!? What kind of creatures are they to be capable of such an attack? he silently seethed. With Megatron gone, I'm supposed to be the greatest Decepticon! How can I bested by organics twice! First that Techno-Organic freak, now that Equine!? What's next!?

That was when a rainbow blur smashed into his exposed circuitry, causing searing agony to spread throughout the Decepticon. With a cry of pain, Starscream spun out of control towards the ground, quickly transforming (only adding more to the agony) and landing hard onto the dirt ground. "WHO DARES ATTACK THE MIGHTY STARSCREAM!?" He shouted, using his pain to fuel his indignant rage.

Landing not too far ahead of him in a cloud of dust, was a cyan Pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail, glaring at him unafraid, much to his annoyance. "Only a pissed off Wonderbolt about to turn you into scrap metal!"

Humiliation

Thundercracker spun around, seeing as he was the only one capable of firing his weapons, to eliminate the upstart organics, only to find himself frozen as he was encased in a purple aura. "Wha-!? I can't move!"

"Now Spike!" Twilight called out as she pulled herself from the ground, her horn glowing brightly as she maintained her stasis spell on the Decepticon.

Dashing from a large bush, the dragon ran at full speed, breathing a ball of green flame into his claws, and keeping it barely contained as he ran around the frozen robot. Thundercracker struggled with all his might, but couldn't move an inch as he saw a strange new species of organic come into his field of vision, and toss a swirling ball of flame right into his face, unable to do anything but watch as the flame overtook his entire vision. Smashing straight into his eyes in cloud of smoke, the Seeker screamed. "GIAAAHHH! MY OPTICS!"

For a brief second, Skywarp was stunned at the sudden turn of events, without their energy weapons and having long since abandoned their missile weaponry (save for their commander), the Seekers now had no choice but to resort to attempting to crush the resisting organics with their bare hands and feet, a task that was far harder then it sounded. Especially when several immediately took to the air and zoomed around Ramjet and Nova Storm, providing distracting flyby's and annoying, if harmless, physical attacks. Then, just as the aura constricting Thundercracker vanished, causing him to stumble back and clutch his face in pain, Skywarp felt a searing pain as a beam of intense purple energy smashed into his back, propelling him into one of the empty houses.

"That's what you get for messing with my town!" Spike shouted as he saw Twilight dispatch the two of them, before taking to the air, her horn glowing in preparation for another strike.

"Aw yeah!" Scootaloo cheered, having forgotten about the robot she had just struck upon seeing Spike's entrance. "Go Spi-WOAH!" She stumbled back as a purple blade swung at her, barely missing her neck.

"You just made a big mistake, fool!" Slipstream growled, pieces of brick falling from her and the wall she had been knocked into.

"Yeah?" The orange Pegasus asked, smirking fearlessly, her wings outstretched in a threatening manner, and a hoof pawing the ground. "Well, bring it!"

Slipstream accepted the challenge with a wordless lunge, her energy blade zooming in a purple blur. On the corner of her vision, however, she saw a yellow Earth Pony leaping into the air, perfectly timed to tackle her in the middle of her attack. Twisting around, Slipstream brought her Null Ray to bear on her new opponent, sneering as she saw the organic's eyes widened as it came into view. Her moment of triumph vanished as a clay pot thrown from Sweetie Belle smashed into her shoulder, knocking her weapon away and leaving her defenseless as the Pony smashed into her torso, causing the two to roll briefly on the ground as they struggled to pin each other down. Slipstream gained an edge when she managed to grasp the Pony's chest with her left hand, and when her feet connected to the ground, heaved with her strength and their momentum, flinging the organic into a nearby flower stall, smashing it into over a dozen wooden pieces and broken flowers and pots. Recovering from the tumble almost instantly, the Decepticon brought her cannon to bear to finish the organic off, only to notice and barely dodge a second charge from the Pegasus.

A part of Slipstream grew increasingly frustrated with the constant interruptions when she was just getting the upper hand, but most of her reveled in the excitement, oh how she had missed the combat. And against multiple organics! She hadn't had this much fun since the War on Terra. The Pegasus recovered from the miss, landing neatly on the ground and skidding around to face her opponent, while the Earth Pony pulled herself from the wooden rubble, looking scuffled but more annoyed then damaged.

They're sturdier then they look, Slipstream noted as her gaze rapidly shifted between her two opponents, knowing that a human would have had at least a few broken bones from the scuffle and been knocked out of the fight.

Sweetie Belle's horn glowed as she saw the altercation between Apple Bloom and the alien that had threatened her and her students, sweat beaded down her forehead as she saw her friends standoff against the robotic being. Hoping that they could handle it from there, she turned her attention to Spike, who tossed another ball of flame towards another Decepticon who was being pushed back by several combined energy blasts from Unicorns and aerial strikes from Pegasi.

"Spike!" She called out. "We need to get the children out of here!"

"You read my mind!" The Dragon replied, looking and quickly spotting Mrs. Cheerilee and several protective parents surrounding the terrified colts and filles as they did their best to stay away from the fighting. "Mrs. Cheerilee!" He called out to them, gesturing towards the Castle. "This way!"

Nodding in response, the dark purple mare quickly led her students and their parents out of the town square and the Decepticons, save for Thundercracker. Twilight caught Spike's gestures and turned her full attention on the alien, teleporting not far from the warrior's covered face. Upon slowly removing his hands, he briefly saw a flash of purple before a beam of energy smashed into eyes.

"AGH, AGAIN!?" He cried out, one hand back to covering his abused eyes, while another wildly flailed out in a desperate attempt to swat the Alicorn down. Twilight effortlessly avoided the blind attack, before flying around and smashing her hooves into the side of his head, causing him to stumble away from the path, clearing it for the fleeing children.

"Hurry!" Twilight called out to them. "Get to the Castle!"

"Blasted, filthy creatures!!" Ramjet shouted as he stomped a foot hard into the ground, the Ponies scattering from the attack. Before he could continue to press the advantage, the sky around him darkened.

"Huh?" He muttered as he looked up and saw a large dark cloud right above his head, with several of the winged organics holding it in place. "What in the Allspark?"

"Now!" Thunderlane called out, and three pairs of hooves crashed into the cloud, causing it roar with thunder and lightning to strike out at the hapless Decepticon, who screamed as his circuitry seized with pain, followed by another bolt, and another as the Pegasi above repeatedly smashed the cloud. Ramjet was no stranger to the perils of lightning, and had braved many storms, but it was never this directed, controlled. Trembling, almost paralyzed, Ramjet attempted to move from under the cloud, only to find his legs all too sluggishly move, when he saw of the winged organics fly in a head-on collision with him, helpless as their front hooves crashed against him and they pushed with all their might, sending him falling onto his back.

Scootaloo ducked as Slipstream swung her blade, only to be kicked square in the jaw by a metal foot, the Pegasus flipping in the air and landing on her side with a pained groan.

"Scoot!" Apple Bloom cried out as she attempted to tackle the alien once again, only to be nimbly avoided the attack with a side step, the alien bringing her weapon to bear. With a victorious sneer, Slipstream fired her Null Ray, a beam of violet energy shot out and splashed against the Earth Pony's back. With a cry of pain, the Pony fell to the ground, her limbs seizing up as what felt like a painful paralyzing venom spread through her in addition to the searing burning pain from the blast, she tried to push herself up but found her strength sapped.

Slipstream's victory was briefly interrupted when she saw a silver furred Pegasus with a dark gray mane dive down towards her with a cry.

"No Rumble!" Scootaloo shouted. "Don't!"

Too late! Slipstream thought as she brought up her cannon to bear against the foolish organic. With a single shot, the Pegasus was struck dead center in the chest, sending him flying back. With a shout of anger and a burst of adrenaline, Scootaloo leaped from the ground and made to knock the Decepticon down. Just as with Apple Bloom, Slipstream evaded the blow with a side step and ignited her blade and striking the upstart Pegasus' side, the blade's pure energy and Scootaloo's momentum allowing for a clean slice just under her wing. Reflexively moving away from the blade, the screaming Scootaloo crashed into the ground, rolling several feet before landing on her damaged side, shuddering from the pain. And you're done. Slipstream sneered at her downed opponent. Her victory was once again interrupted when a grey blur smashed into her, sending them both crashing against a wall.

"Damn it all!" Slipstream cursed as yet another Pegasus grappled her, this one with a blond mane and tail and slightly off center eyes glaring down at her. "You winged equines are so damn annoying!"

Lifting her feet up, the Decepticon kicked the Pegasus off her, before quickly bringing her Null Ray to bear and firing, the Pegasus spinning head over hooves before landing on the ground some distance from her, completely still. "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CHALLENGE A DECEPTICON!" Slipstream cried out, causing several heads to turn her way. She charged up her Null Ray, growling in frustration. What are the others doing!? They're supposed to keep the organics attention focused of them! I can't fight everyone by myself!

A loud crash caught her attention as she saw Ramjet collapse, a dark cloud hovering above him. Then she saw Nova Storm in a similar circumstance as several of the horned equines blasted him in a concentrated barrage, while Nacelle was bound just two of the organics. Skywarp was struggling to remove the rubble from a house he had been smashed into, and Thundercracker was clutching his face, ironically the furthest from the battle. Her jaw dropped at what she was seeing. How in the Allspark are we losing this battle!!?

With a shout of frustration, the Decepticon transformed into her vehicle mode, the drone-jet speeding towards the cloud over the downed Ramjet, her weapon targeting the lead Pegasus.

"Huh?" was all Thunderlane had time to say before a blast a violet energy smashed into him, causing him to fall off the cloud, crashing onto the roof of one of houses, before landing on the ground below. The other Pegasi scattered as Slipstream streaked past a split second later, before pulling a sharp turn towards Nacelle, where the two Apples had just finished binding him.

"Phew!" Applejack said after tying the last knot. "Yer tougher then ya look, but ain't nothing a little extra rope couldn't handle, right Big M-"

She was interrupted when the large, suddenly wide-eyed stallion roughly pushed her aside, before being struck by a violet beam of energy, sending him flying off of the bound Nacelle.

"MAC!" Applejack cried out, before angrily turning to see their attacker, only to be met by a silver metal fist to her face, Slipstream's momentum carrying much of the force of the blow, breaking the mare's nose and sending her off the larger Seeker and into the ground.

"Nacelle!" Slipstream called out, her blade igniting and slicing several of the knots, the rope bursting into flame upon contact. "Get up, you big buffoon! We need to turn the tables and regain the offensive!" Her head turned to one of the nearby houses when an idea hit her and she pointed at it. "Grab one of those structures and toss it at the organics! That should scatter the organics and allow the others to recover and counter-attack!"

"Why should I listen to you, defect!?" Nacelle shouted as he removed the cut rope that had him bound.

"Because," Slipstream growled. "If you don't, we'll lose to organics again! And these ones don't even have heavy weapons or vehicles!"

Nacelle growled, but knew that the tiny Seeker had a point, and he'd be damned if he was going to be bested by organics again. Picking himself off the ground, the larger Decepticon wrapped his arms around the house, easily ripping it from its foundations.

"Hurry!" Slipstream said, gesturing to the majority of Ponies who had stopped their attacks having noticed the Seeker and his improvised weapon.

Skywarp grunted in pain as a surrounding purple aura flung him into the ground just as he had pulled himself from the rubble, with Twilight glaring at him. "Take your 'Decepticons' and leave us be! You are not welcome here!" She shouted.

Damn it! The Seeker Lieutenant thought. How can this be happening!? How can we lose to these beings!? They're even less advanced then the Humans! Agh, if only we had just a little bit more Energon in our systems, we'd have demolished this town and these upstarts in a matter of seconds! Perhaps we should- His thoughts stopped when he saw Nacelle now up on his feet, holding one of the structures in his hands and a mere second away from tossing it and literally crushing this revolt. He sneered.

Twilight saw the sneer and turned, gasping as she saw what the Seeker fling the house with a grunt of exertion as several of the Ponies and screamed and many began to run out of the way. Skywarp made to lunge and grab the distracted Alicorn with his hands, only for her to vanish in a purple flash, his hands grasping only air. While Twilight instantaneously teleported directly in the house's path, her horn glowing brightly as she caught it in levitation spell, instantly stopping its fatal speed, several crashes were heard from inside as furniture was smashed about. The Alicorn gritted her teeth as she held the massive object in the air, struggling to keep it that way.

Nacelle, Slipstream and Skywarp stood, completely stunned at what they had just witnessed. "That's impossible," the Seeker Lieutenant whispered.

"How is she...?" Nacelle muttered, dumbstruck

"The Princess needs help!" Diamond Tiara called out, looking around at the Unicorns standing there. "What are you doing? Help her out!"

At Diamond's call, most of the Unicorns fell in line under their hovering Princess, their horns glowing as they also began to help levitate the house. Slipstream's look of shock turned to frustration as she saw the Ponies rally even more together.

"No, NO!" She called out as she raised her Null Ray cannon at the purple Alicorn, firing several blasts at her target, only to be harmlessly deflected as several Unicorns stopped their levitation spells and cast shield spells over the Princess. With a grunt of exertion, Twilight flung the house back at Nacelle, who only just then realized realized what she was-

CRRR-AAASH

Watching her last hope of victory smash against the Decepticon, shattering into thousands of tiny wood and brick pieces, Slipstream became all too aware of dozens of angry gazes turned towards her.

"GET THE INVADER!!" Diamond Tiara cried out as the Ponies charged.

"Oh slag this, I'm out!" Slipstream shouted, quickly transforming and zooming straight into the sky, before turning in the general direction of Canterlot, far too fast for any of them to catch. Agh! I hate it when quantity beats quality! Gotta warn Starscream before- She was cut when a powerful rainbow-coloured shock wave blasted her out of the air, sending the screaming Slipstream crashing into the forest beneath her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Starscream stared in absolute shock at what he was seeing, a single blue organic with a rainbow mane and tail glaring at him fearlessly. He clutched his open, burning wound as he was filled with anger at this new insult to his pride.

"What makes you think you can challenge me!?" He shouted. "You are nothing more then a simple organic! An organic who foolishly stands against the leader of the Decepticons! I'll crush you in an instant, you pathetic, insignificant-"

"Wow, you talk a lot." Rainbow cut in, looking completely bored, before grinning. "And what makes you think I came alone?" Her eyes darted to just behind Starscream, causing the Decepticon to whirl around, expecting to find more organics facing him, only to be looking at empty ground and sky. "Wha-AGH!"

A sharp impact to the back of his head caused him to stumble forward, only worsening the burning pain from his injury. Rainbow, having struck the robotic being's head, flew over and faced the shocked Starscream, laughing. "I can't believe you actually fell for that!"

The Seeker gritted his teeth in anger and pain. "Impudent little-"

He lunged out with his hand, attempting to grab the upstart Pegasus, who easily evaded the clumsy attack and struck him on his armoured forehead, her hooves clanging loudly against the against the metal. Although this did absolutely nothing, it only infuriated the Decepticon even further.

"That's it!" He said as Rainbow quickly backed off, shaking a hoof to ease the already subsiding pain, trying to see a more effective way of combating the armoured, giant robot, her eyes lighting up when she saw the grisly-looking hole on his chest. "I am going to kill y-"

"TAG!" She shouted, leaving a rainbow contrail as she dived to her target, the speed of which completely caught Starscream off-guard, allowing her a clear shot to the more vulnerable, and comparatively softer, circuitry through the armour. A loud crack was heard as her two front hooves smashed into them, feeling several pieces snap from the impact, causing Starscream to take several steps back and scream from the sheer agony the blow caused. Zooming away from his hand that clutched his wound, the Decepticon fell to knee, trying to fight the pain, briefly forgetting about the Pegasus...

Until she landed on his head.

"You know," She said, her tone showing clear disappointment. "I was expecting a lot more of a challenge fighting a giant, evil robot, especially after seeing the damage you did to Canterlot. Or was that somepony else who did that?"

With a shout of both fury and pain, Starscream flung his head forward, briefly catching Rainbow off guard and throwing her off. Her wings sprung open to quickly right herself, leaving her gliding awkwardly in the air, providing Starscream his opportunity. Using his free arm, he aimed its attached Null Ray cannon and fired a violet bolt of its energy, hoping to vaporize the Pegasus then and there, only for her narrowly evade the attack with a midair twirl. Immediately, she flipped around and zoomed towards the Seeker, who attempted to swat her out of the air. Dash once again evaded and flew around Starscream in several circles. "Catch me if you can!" She taunted.

With a grunt of frustration, Starscream's hand swung through the air at the rainbow contrails in a desperate attempt to strike her down and salvage the remains of his pride. That was when he noticed a pattern in her flight patterns around him. Always at eye level, before diving under an arm, switching with each fly by, adjusting her flight path depending on the position of his attacking arm, yet every 3 rounds, she would briefly slow just enough to give a glimpse of her mocking face. The old, pre-war scientist in him analyzed and calculated her flight path when he attempted to grab her after giving him a mocking gaze, predicting that she would speed up again. True enough, when he reached his hand out just as she passed him, she picked up her speed just a little extra. Thus, when she flew around him again, he was in a perfect position to swing his arm out, the back of his hand smashing into her side. With a pained cry, Rainbow smashed into the ground, skidding several feet, the dirt and grass flying out and a small trench marking her crash.

Laughing victoriously, Starscream raised his free arm and fired a Null Ray blast at the downed Pegasus, the violet beam lancing out towards her. A split second before it landed, her eyes and wings popped open, taking off in a cloud of dust as the beam smashed into the ground, leaving a small crater behind. Landing just ahead of the falling dust and dirt, Rainbow Dash glared at the shocked Starscream, dirt clinging to her fur, hair muddied up and feathers ruffled, but far from injured.

Spitting out a small amount of blood, Rainbow snorted. "Alright. Now it's on."

How is she still moving!? Starscream thought. "That blow should've killed you!"

Rainbow made no reply as she took to the air, flying in a wide circle around Starscream, moving at higher and higher speeds, the wind picking up around him as she quickly reached a speed of hundreds of miles per hour. Starscream raised a Null Ray cannon in preparation of striking a spot she would fly over, when she suddenly found his feet lifting off of the ground. "What in the-"

Suddenly, he too late realized the tornado she was somehow creating, his scanners picking up an odd energy emanating from the Pegasus influenced the air around them. The tornado increased in strength as Rainbow put more speed into it, with Starscream flailing about helplessly. He briefly considered transforming into his jet mode and attempting to escape its grasp, but his injury, the low about of Energon in his body, and general idea of flying inside a tornado made him decide against him. All he could was wait and hope that the damage would not be too bad.

When Rainbow stopped in mid flight, the tornado immediately vanished, the wind calming almost instantly like nothing had happened, sending Starscream flying towards the ground. Now, the Seeker transformed in a desperate effort to save himself from the crash, only for him to smash into the ground at a jet instead, flipping several times before settling in a cloud of dirt. When it cleared, he was back in his robotic form, lying on the ground and moving slowly, groaning. Rainbow made a dive for his exposed wound, but stopped when Starscream raised his hand, not to cover the injury or attack her, but as a stopping gesture, a pleading look on his face.

"Wait, wait! Please, have mercy!" He cried out.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow at this, before grinning slightly. "Giving up already, huh?"

"Please," He repeated, trembling. "No more!"

"Well, it's only what you deserve after that attack!" Rainbow said, her wings holding her in the air as hovered above the defeated Decepticon, before grinning again. "That was mistake number one. Mistake number two was thinking that I couldn't take you on!"

"Indeed." Starscream admitted, coughing as he slowly righting himself, careful not to provoke the Pegasus again. "I had no idea your species was capable of such feats. Or is that just you?"

Rainbow's grin widened. "You're looking at the single best flyer in Equestria! And you're not the first threat to it I've fought against!"

"A bold claim, one that you've clearly proven to me." Starscream said as he analyzed the unique energy signature she was emitting. "How did I think I could ever stand against one as skilled as you?"

Rainbow chuckled, completely unaware as Starscream's sensors locked onto her signature as internal mechanisms clicked the safeties off all the remaining missiles he possessed. "Best part is, I didn't throw everything I had to beat you, that's how awesome I am! You lost this fight before you even knew it and-wait." She blinked when she saw something click on Starscream's chest. "What's that?"

Starscream sneered, the undamaged shoulder opening up, revealing several gleaming silver arrows. "DIE!!!"

With that, the missiles sped out in a beeline for the cyan Pegasus, who, with a yelp, took off into the sky, the many missiles relentlessly pursuing their target. Starscream slowly stood onto his feet and laughed as he watched Rainbow fruitlessly attempt to shake them off with various corkscrews, tight turns, and other maneuvers, all of which failed as the missiles stayed on her tail, her speed barely keeping them from reaching her.

It doesn't matter what move you pull, organic. Starscream thought, his optics tracing her. They may look human-designed, but these are Cybertronian missiles! Nothing can shake them off their target! You're already dead, organic. I win.

Rainbow pulled another tight turn, gaining her a few precious inches before disappearing into a blanket of clouds high above, the missiles following suit. Starscream stood watching for several moments, listening for the inevitable explosions marking her gruesome and deserved death and frowning when nothing happened. How long can she expect to keep this up? She's lost, she has to know that!

Thrusters in his feet activated, propelling him into the air as he made his way towards the clouds to see what was going on. Suddenly, bursting through the cloud cover was the Pegasus, diving straight at him. With a surprised sound, Starscream halted his ascent and maneuvered his body and arm to a get a aim at the Pegasus, his Null Ray charging up to full power. He smiled when she stayed charging suicidally at him. Let's finish this!

That was when his sensors saw the speed she was going at, far too fast for an organic to physically be able to pull off, and she was only getting faster. A visible cone appeared around her as she pushed herself even further, his systems reading it out. Mach One, Mach Two, Mach Three, Mach Four, Mach Four-Point-Five, Mach F-

Suddenly, a deafening boom erupted as a cascade of light blew in a wave throughout the sky, Starscream's jaw dropping in disbelieve at the sight, when the speeding Pegasus smashed into his unprotected injury, blasting all the way through and bursting out of his back like he wasn't even there. Instead of an agonizing, crippling pain, a deathly hollowness spread through him as he stared at nothing, so in utter shock he was, before the appearance of his own missiles streaking towards him rendered him enough out of his awe to realize his folly.

"Oh." Was all he could manage to say before the missiles heedlessly slammed into him, a series of dazzling explosions instantly enveloping the hapless Decepticon in a bright fireball of pain and humiliation.

Rainbow Dash landed hard on the ground, a shockwave blasting out in all directions from her impact, panting heavily as the various pieces of giant robot landed around her. With a victorious shout, the Pegasus raised a hoof into the air. "Aw yeah! Was that not the greatest stunt pulled off in the history of ever!?" She managed to say.

Almost as if in answer, Starscream's head landed right in front of her, his face frozen in a look of agony, his left eye broken and smoking. Rainbow grinned. "Too bad it was only you who saw that. Oh well, have fun being in a thousand pieces."

The cyan Pegasus took to the air, where she noticed several carriages and Ponies in golden armour, all heading away from the smoking Canterlot and towards Ponyville, causing a worried frown to show on her face. "Oh, that can't be good."

With that, Rainbow immediately raced towards her home, hoping that there was still a home to race back to.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All was quiet aboard the Hand of Primus as it drifted ever closer to its destination. Prowl sat in the command chair tinkering with his blaster while Perceptor diligently monitored the communications console. The military bot occasionally glanced up at the main viewscreen, where the system's star was a small, but growing gold orb. A series of flashes appeared on Perceptor's screen, causing the bot's optics to widen.

"Oh no, Commander!" He called out. Immediately, Prowl leaped off the chair was next to him.

"What's wrong?"

"The Probe's signal's been cut off just after it set up," Perceptor answered, pointing at the screen. "You need to see what it managed to catch."

Looking down, Prowl frowned at the white screen when it suddenly showed blackness and stars and, his mouth opened in shock when he spotted Human F-14 jets flying in formation towards it, when suddenly the lead jet, with what looked like a drone-jet attached, flew ahead fired at the camera, a split-second later showing a dull white screen again.

"SON OF A-"

Aftershock

Author's Note

Well, I am terribly sorry it took so long for me to finish this next chapter, life decided to throw a bunch of stuff at me, including two moves. Anyways, I'm back again! Hope you enjoy the newest chapter!

Aftershock

As Skywarp saw Nacelle crumble from the thrown house, debris exploding in all directions from the impact, and seeing Slipstream flee into the sky, there was only one conclusion to come to; They had lost the battle. Struggling to pull himself up, he gritted his teeth in preparation for the order he had grown to hate giving.

"DECEPTICONS!" He cried out. "RETREAT!"

With the sound of mechanical servos rapidly reorganizing and shifting themselves, the Seeker switched to his jet mode and blasted away, not caring about which direction he was going as long as it was away from the town and its inhabitants. Hearing the call, Nova Storm and Ramjet wasted no time in doing the same, flying off in a separate direction from Skywarp.

"Damn. Kaon damn you all!" Thundercracker shouted, slowly removing his hand from his damaged eyes as he too reluctantly shifted to his jet form and flew straight towards the sky.

Twilight watched them flee, her horn continuing to hum, ready to cast another spell on demand. Yet, as the scattering aliens continued to flee, a strange silence settled over the entire town as everypony processed what had just happened. Then, a great cheer erupted from the townsfolk as Twilight blew a sigh of relief, her horn calmly dissipating the stored up magic. The town had did it., they had won and fought off the aliens.

"Uhh... Your majesty?" A young Unicorn mare said among the cheers, her tone somewhat hesitant. Twilight turned and saw Diamond Tiara approaching, the mare avoiding looking her in the eyes. "I uhh..."

"You were quite brave out there, Diamond Tiara." Twilight said, a small smile forming. "Thanks for motivating the townsfolk."

"Oh! Um, thank you, Princess." Diamond said, her eyes widening in surprise at the compliment. "But, uhh.... Well..." She raised a foreleg, scratching the back of her head sheepishly. "It's just that, uhm... Not to sound ungrateful or anything, but..."

She turned at the unconscious alien robot, buried underneath the rubble. "...that was my house you threw at him."

Twilight blinked, before her eyes widened in shock. Oh ponyfeathers!

"I'm terribly sorry Diamond, I-"

Diamond's hoof quickly raised in hasty objection. "No, it's fine, I don't blame you! I mean, the alien did throw it at us and all, and my family is ludicrously rich, they'll-"

Twilight shook her head. "No no, don't worry about it, the Equestrian Crown will compensate you for the damages..."

Diamond nodded, before slowly turning her head to the house that one of the aliens had smashed into during the fighting. "I'm pretty sure the house that's missing a wall is Dinky's and Derpy's..."

"I, uh..." Twilight muttered, biting her lower lip as she processed the extent of the damage. This... isn't gonna be cheap to replace.

"Don't worry." Twilight said, more to herself then to Diamond. She glanced back to the Unicorn, a nervous smile on her face. "We'll, uh, sort this all out and make sure everypony affected will be covered-"

A cry of shock and panic startled her and the entire town. "MOM!" Dinky cried out as she ran to the downed and unconscious Derpy.

Immediately, the sense of victory among the townsponies vanished as more cries were revealed from Ponies seeing their friends and loved ones injured and unconscious, many surrounding them as they moved to help them.

"Thunderlane! Are you okay!?"

"Rumble! Say something!"

"Girls!!" Sweetie Belle shouted as she ran to her two closest friends, with Apple Bloom trembling as she stubbornly made another attempt to stand up.

"Don't..." The Earth Pony said through grit teeth. "...worry 'bout me, ah'm fine. Check on Scoot."

The young Unicorn hesitated, before turning her attention to Scootaloo, a light groan sounding from the downed Pegasus. Rushing over next to her friend, Sweetie's horn lit up as she looked the injured Pegasus over. Tentatively lifting a wing, Scoot hissed as her wound was exposed to the air. Sweetie gasped at the sight, he eyes widening as she panicked, desperately looking around for a doctor. She quickly spotted Doctor Caramel, but saw that he was already busy looking over the unconscious Derpy, while her daughter stood to the side, looking over her with worry.

"Somepony!" Sweetie cried out. "My friend needs a doctor!"

Suddenly, a loud whistle caught the townsfolk's attention, their gazes immediately turning toward Princess Twilight Sparkle, a firm expression on her face.

"Everypony!" She called out, her voice calm yet commanding. "If we are to help our injured friends, we must remain calm! Those of you who are uninjured, escort the injured to the hospital. Once they have been moved there I-" A loud blast and an explosion of rainbow light that spread across the sky cut her off, her head turning towards the source of the Rainboom. While Ponies muttered among each other as to what it could've meant, Twilight frowned at the sight, remembering the map showing Rainbow's Cutie Mark floating above Canterlot. Which was still smoking in the distance. Rainbow... Please be okay.

She turned her attention back to the immediate situation before her, continuing with her statement as if the Rainboom hadn't occurred. "Those who have any medical backgrounds I strongly recommend you aid our Doctors Caramel and Redheart as they treat our friends."

The various Ponies nodded as they carefully lifted their friends, already organizing into neat groups as the Ponyville doctors coordinated things from there.

"Twilight," Spike said as he approached the Alicorn. "What about Canterlot?"

Twilight frowned as she turned to look up at the distant mountain city, smoke continuing to rise from it. She couldn't hear any signs of a battle going on, were the Princesses still negotiating with the alien leader? Then, a glimpse in the sky caught her attention, as several carriages bearing multiple golden armoured Ponies fast approached.

"Is that-?" Spike asked, but stopped the moment Twilight took to the air.

The lead guard, a gray Pegasus dressed in the silver and gold customized armour signifying his rank, raised a hoof in signal to halt the line of carriages, before flying ahead to meet the Alicorn part way, flanked by two spear wielding Pegasi guards.

"Princess Twilight!" He greeted with a salute as they met. "Lieutenant Gray Skies of the Canterlot Royal Guard. Princess Luna sent us to aid the town of Ponyville against the hostile..." He paused as he tried to think of an adequate term, before settling on the most basic one he could think of. "...Aliens. Are you and the townsfolk alright?"

"We're fine, we've managed to drive them off." Twilight replied, pointing down to the large number of townsponies below. "But we've got injured and a lot of the others are pretty shaken up. Any medics you have with you send them to the hospital to treat the injured, the rest should head down and aid in clearing the debris and aiding the populace."

The Lieutenant nodded at the sequence of orders. "Understood, your majesty."

With that, he turned and whistled to the other guards behind him. "Listen up! We're on damage control for the town! Medics, to the hospital! The rest of you, aid in clearing the rubble!"

As the carriages flew on and descended past them, Gray Skies turned back to the Princess. "Anything else, your majesty?"

"Yes, what can you tell me about the damage to Canterlot? And what of the Alien leader?"

The Lieutenant frowned, somewhat nervously. "I'm not too sure on the extent of the damage, but the majority of the Guard is tending to that. And Princess Celestia... Drove the alien leader away, but he flew so fast, we were unable to catch him. He could be anywhere at this point."

Twilight nodded, sighing in relief that her mentor hadn't capitulated to the alien's demands and that the situation in the capital seemed to be under control. "Good, we can worry about where the aliens have retreated to later, right now, we need to assess the damage they've done."

The Guard nodded, following Twilight as they descended back to the ground, where the guards were already working with the townsfolk in clearing the debris. Several of them, however, loosely surrounded the unconscious Decepticon that lay amongst the crumbled remains of a home, their spears raised and horns (where appropriate) glowed as they watched the alien body warily.

"I-is it dead?" The Lieutenant asked as he and the Princess approached it, with Twilight studying it with a firm expression.

"I don't know." She answered honestly. "I'm not even sure we can qualify it as 'alive' to begin with. It appears to be entirely mechanical."

"From what I've seen of their leader," Gray Skies commented. "They sure acted alive."

"They did..." Twilight agreed as the other guards let her pass.

She stopped at the Decepticon's feet, cautiously laying a hoof on the metal. It was cold to the touch, and the metal rang as if hollow when her hoof tapped it. Despite having an entire house thrown onto him, his metal form only seemed slightly dented. It was then that it really hit her what it was that lay before her. A robot. An alien robot. Science fiction was now becoming fact, an alien race had made First Contact with Equestria. And the aliens had devastated both Ponyville and Canterlot. She frowned as she pondered the implications this held. Were these 'Decepticons' as they called themselves simply rogues? Bandits? Or were they part of a larger organization?

Would more come? If so, how aggressive would they be? Could Equestria stand against an entire army of these machines? Could she and her friends?

"Twilight?" Spike asked her as he cautiously approached.

Twilight turned to face him, seeing the eyes of her assistant, the guards and some of the townsfolk on her.

"What do we do with him?" He asked, and Twilight could see that they were all silently asking her the same question. She was silent for a moment as she tried to figure what to do next. History had thrown them all a curve ball, and there was no way to predict what was in store for her home and nation. She turned back towards the unconscious alien giant that lay amongst the rubble of a home he had attempted to use as a weapon, and her face shifted to a determined and firm expression.

Horn glowing brightly, a series of ethereal bindings formed above the Decepticon. Guided by Twilight's spell weaving, the magical bindings descended, wrapping around the mechanical beings torso and pinning the legs together. After a moment, the Alicorn's horn ceased glowing, and she sighed, turning to the other guards.

"This Binding Spell should keep the alien contained should he regain consciousness." She told them. "If he tries to escape, simply have the Unicorns charge their magic into the spell to strengthen it."

Most of the guards saluted in response, though one younger looking guard, possibly a recruit, seemed unsure. "W-will the spell hold if he tries to break free?"

Princess Twilight was again silent for a moment. This was the strongest version of the spell she could cast, capable of holding down a fully adult dragon if Starswirl's accounts are to be believed, and Twilight had no reason to doubt it. This was an advanced alien, however, there was no way to know if she truly could contain it. "We can only hope." She answered truthfully.

"Twilight!" A voice called out from above, causing the Alicorns ears to perk and several eyes to look up, only to see a blue, rainbow-maned Pegasus streak down and land firmly on the ground in the town square. Twilight couldn't help but sigh in relief as she saw Rainbow canter toward her, looking scuffled, but otherwise unharmed.

"Rainbow!" She called back as she too cantered toward the cyan Pegasus, grappling her in a tight hug, which Rainbow returned as well, with the young dragon catching up, smiling.

"Are you okay?" Twilight asked as she pulled away.

"Pfft, you kidding?" Rainbow replied with a dismissive wave of her hoof. "This is Me you're talking to, remember?"

"Glad to see you're alright, Dash." Spike said.

The Pegasus grinned at him, before quickly dropping into a more serious, and slightly concerned, tone, looking back at Twilight. "What about you? And Ponyville?"

"I'm fine." Twilight answered, before glancing behind her. "The town... Took some damage, and we've got injured. But all in all, I think we'll be alright. Did you see how bad the damage was in Canterlot?"

Rainbow glanced up at the distant capital city, seeing the now much thinner smoke from the town. "Not as bad as it looks from here. Honestly, I'd say Ponyville took a bigger hit. Besides, I'm sure Princess Celestia and Luna have the whole thing there under con-"

She was cut off when a familiar sound, a belch and a rush of flame, caused her ears to perk, . Both mares turned to Spike, who caught in his claws a dark blue scroll. He blinked. "It must be from Princess Luna!" He said as he relinquished the scroll to Twilight's magical grip, who quickly unfurled it, her eyes furiously reading through the hastily written message.

Twilight Sparkle,
If you are able, please make for Canterlot with all haste, there is much we have to discuss regarding this treacherous attack.

Luna.
P.S. If Ponyville requires any aid in reconstruction or supplies, let me know and I shall see to it at once.

Twilight read through the letter again. And again. Each time her frowned deepened. Why was Luna writing to her? Her eyes widened, had something happened to Celestia? Swiftly rolling up the scroll, she turned to Spike and Rainbow.

"Spike, can you make sure that things continue to go smoothly here in town?" She asked, levitating the scroll to the young dragon. "I'm needed in Canterlot."

Spike nodded as he grasped the scroll. "Don't worry Twilight, I can hold the fort down while you're gone!"

Rainbow nodded, her wings opening up in preparation. "No time to lose, then!"

Twilight shook her head. "I need you to stay here Rainbow, to help keep the town safe. The aliens may have fled, but that doesn't mean they won't come back."

Rainbow blinked, before looking at her with a stubborn expression. "And what if you're attacked by them on the way there? I can't just let you go alone!"

Twilight opened her mouth, but was interrupted when she heard a young voice call out.

"Rainbow!" Both mares turned to see Sweetie Belle rush to them.

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm glad you're okay, Sweetie Belle, are your students alright?"

"They're fine, Twilight." The young Unicorn mare replied. "Took shelter with the other children in the castle."

She smiled gratefully, before dropping it when she turned her attention to Rainbow. "Rainbow..."

"What is it?" The cyan Pegasus asked, a curious look on her face.

"It-it's Scootaloo." The Unicorn answered, seeming on the verge of tears.

Rainbow stared for a second, before her eyes slowly widened. "Is she...?"

"She took a bad hit, probably the worst of anypony so far." Sweetie answered. "She's in the hospital, the docs said she needed to be treated immediately."

Rainbow looked between her and Twilight, conflict in her eyes. "I... Ponyfeathers!"

Twilight calmly raised a hoof. "Rainbow, you're friends here need you. Check on the Apples as well, make sure they're alright."

"I..." Rainbow said, wanting to argue more, but concern for her adopted sister and her other friends won out and she sighed in defeat, nodding grimly. "Don't do anything stupid, Twi."

With that, the Pegasus took off, racing toward the Ponyville hospital.

Sweetie, after watching Rainbow for a moment, turned to the Alicorn. "Princess, what is going on?"

Twilight frowned. "I don't know, Sweetie, but I'm going to Canterlot to find out."

Her wings flared open, and she too took to the air. "Spike will be in charge until I get back!" And so, Twilight took to the air, although nowhere near as fast as Rainbow was, she still pushed herself to make for the Capital city, hoping that there would indeed be answers as to what really was going on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The main court in the Canterlot palace was packed nearly to the brim from the nobles and various citizens of the Capital and journalists from across the kingdom, each of their voices crashing against each other in an effort to have their questions heard, heedless that the other questions other Ponies were asking were nearly the same, demanding to know who or what attacked them and why. A number of the Royal Guard were dispersed to the edges of the crowd in an effort to keep them from being too disorderly and maintain some effort of order, although with most of them split between aiding both the city outside and Ponyville, there numbers were stretched dangerously thin. To compensate, Princess Luna had called in her Night Guard reserves to ease the garrison in the palace itself. However, the Dark Alicorn began to think that that only made the crowd before her more uneasy. She stayed silent as she sat in the throne, giving the crowd a final chance to quiet themselves.

After a moment, she raised her hoof and many of them ceased the constant questioning. Not all, but enough that they could hear her speak.

"Let me say this again, we do not who it was exactly that struck the city, but we are doing everything in our power to ensure that these rogue beings will not harm anypony in Equestria again."

"Princess Luna!" A journalist, a gray Earth Pony with a darker gray mane and a distinct Manehatten accent called out. "What measures is the crown taking to prevent further attacks?"

"For the time being, our efforts are focused on repairing the damage done to Canterlot and the nearby village of Ponyville." Luna answered. "But we will be putting the city guards on alert and patrolling the skies around to provide us with advanced warning in case of another attack."

"Princess!" A highly accented Unicorn of the Capital spoke. "Is it true that the the creature that attacked the city severely injured Princess Celestia?"

Luna blinked in surprise as many other Ponies began to speak up.

"Yes, where is Celestia?"

"Is she okay?"

"Why isn't she here?"

Again, Luna raised her hoof to silence the crowd before they got too loud again. "My sister was in no way injured by the metal creature."

At least, not physically or intentionally she thought to herself, but it wouldn't do to mention her sister's breakdown to them. "She was, however, exhausted in her efforts to drive the creature off and is currently resting in her chambers. When she has recovered, which will be shortly, I'm sure she will answer any questions you have regarding her experience with the creature."

"Princess," the Manehatten journalist spoke up again. "Is it true that Princess Celestia nearly destroyed the Capital in an effort to drive off the alien?"

The crowd was deathly silent as Luna stared at the journalist, forcefully shoving aside the image of her sister's terrifying attack. Heavens above, these modern journalists are little more then an inquisition against the crown! Nevertheless, she had to give some sort of answer to them.

"I am afraid that the exact capabilities of my sister's power are known only to her, yet I cannot believe she would put in jeopardy the entire city. Celestia has ruled for over 1000 years, she is not one to make rash moves like that." Luna frowned and glared at the Manehatten Pony. "The fact that you would even ask such a question is an insult to all her rule as a leader of this fair nation, fair in large part because of her just rule."

At this point, the journalist began to wilt under her gaze, and the glares of a growing number of Ponies. "I-uh... R-right, of course, I meant no disrespect, your highness." He stuttered, before clearing his throat. "I-I have no more questions at this time, your majesty."

"Then if there are no more questions from anypony else?" Luna asked, looking around expectantly. After a few moments of silence, the Dark Alicorn stood up from the throne. "In that case, court is now adjourned. I would like to reiterate to all that the situation is well under control, and we will do everything in our power to ensure that these creatures, be they 'aliens' or not, will be dealt with swiftly should they attempt another attack."

With that, the crowd of Ponies slowly made their way to the now opened doors out of the main court, carefully funneled by the guards. The idle and quiet chatter among them slowly filtered out as the large hall turned from being nearly full to empty. As soon as the last civilian Pony had left, and the large doors closed shut with a loud clang, a crushing silence came over the court room and Princess Luna allowed herself this moment to sigh in a mixture of relief and exhaustion. "I am most certainly not cut out for this kind of bustle during the daytime courts."

There was a swift motion of black, silver, and blue as a Batpony Night Guard swiftly landed next to Luna.

"Your majesty," The guard said, bowing as she did so. "Princess Twilight has been spotted flying into the city, heading straight for the palace."

Luna smiled at that news. So she is alright, after all. "Perfect timing," she said with an approving nod. "See to it that she is escorted to me with haste. I shall be by my sister's chambers."

"As you wish, your majesty." The guard replied with another bow, rising up and vanishing in a puff of black shadow that dissipated in mere seconds, yet by the time it did, she was long gone.

Most Ponies found such movements from the almost exclusively Batpony Night Guards quite unsettling, but Luna merely saw it as efficient. Let the Royal Guards be the visible face of authority in the Capital city of Canterlot, her Night Guards would be shadows, silently watching and alert for any misdeeds and treachery that could occur when the overbearing light of the sun set.

As the Princess began making her way out of the throne room and to her sister's chambers, a worried frown came to her. Even when things were dire, when all of Equestria was at stake, Celestia had always had a calmness about her that had never broke. The only time Luna had seen it crack was when she... was Nightmare Moon. But even then Celestia had still held firm. Never had she seen her older sister with such fear, such terror, like that of a child facing the most terrifying monster they could imagine. How was it that the alien, the so called 'Starscream' could bring that kind of fear to her sister?

Her thoughts were briefly set aside when she turned a corner and saw Twilight Sparkle, flanked by two of Luna's Night Guard, outside of Celestia's chambers with a concerned look on her face.

"Princess Luna?" The lavender Alicorn said, unsure why she was brought outside Celestia's room.

"Twilight Sparkle, I am glad to see you are unharmed." Luna greeted, smiling as she subtly signaled her guards to leave.

The Night Guards bowed, before turning in the opposite direction, vanishing from the hall shortly after.

"What's going on?" Twilight asked. "Is Princess Celestia okay?"

"I..." Luna began, but found herself unable to continue, looking towards the door to her sister's room. She couldn't lie to Twilight, especially when she held equal rank to her. "I don't know."

The sound of a quill scratching on parchment filled the bed chambers of Princess Celestia, dark save for only a few burning candles, as she laid on the floor, surrounded by various empty scrolls of parchment. A few tomes laid open, cast aside, while before the Princess were several hastily drawn images of the crest that the alien wore, the crest that bore far too much likeness to the terror that now plagued the Solar Alicorn. She could vaguely hear voices outside of her room, but she paid little attention to them as she focused on the images she had drawn. Some of them were rough copies from what she could picture of the robotic creature, others had many jagged teeth added to them, they weren't additions Celestia recalled drawing them on. As she finished up yet another rough image of the symbol, she opened up a third tome, flipping through it with her magic, before sighing.

Two hesitant knocks caused her ears to perk, and she laid the tome down.

"Yes?" She called out.

"Sister?" Luna's voice, muffled as it was through the door, was still easily tangible. "May we come in?"

"Oh, Luna, please come in."

A light blue aura formed around the door handle, clicking as it unlocked the door, allowing it to easily open. Both Luna and Twilight blinked as their eyes tried to adjust to the unexpected darkness in Celestia's room.

"Princess?" Twilight asked.

Celestia blinked in surprise, as she suddenly felt shame. No doubt she had heard about her breakdown. Nevertheless, she smiled in relief as she came to nuzzle her Faithful Student as Luna moved past them, more interested in the tomes and parchment that were scattered around where she had laid. "Twilight, I'm so glad you're okay."

"I'm fine, Princess." Twilight replied, returning the nuzzle. "But what about you? Luna told me and I had heard rumours, but-"

She stopped when Celestia shook her head. "I'm sorry you have to see like this, Twilight."

Twilight nooded, slowly. "That alien really shook you, didn't he?"

Before Celestia could answer, Luna spoke up. "I would say it wasn't so much the alien itself, but rather the mark he carried."

She turned, showing two of the images that Celestia had scribbled, one a rough copy, the other showing jagged teeth.

"I..." Celestia began, but found herself unable to continue.

Twilight looked at the images, studying them intently. "The others in the town, they had the same mark. A clan crest, maybe? A factional insignia?"

"Quite likely." Luna answered, before turning to Celestia. "Something about that mark has deeply unsettled you, sister. But why?"

Celestia blinked. She couldn't tell Twilight the horror she had experienced, but she had thought maybe Luna would recognize it. But then again, Luna hadn't broken down like she had. "Luna... Do... Do you remember our parents?"

Now Luna blinked in surprise, that was not a response she had expected, far from it. "I-what?" She stuttered. "W-where did this come from? You never talked about our parents, you always made me drop the subject. Besides, that was far before Equestria was even founded! How in Starswirl's Beard could it possibly relate to... this?" She asked, holding up the roughly drawn symbol.

Celestia looked away. "Forget I asked, Luna. What's the state of Canterlot?"

"I-" Luna was flabbergasted. What has gotten into you, sister? She cleared her throat, before focusing on her more reasonable question. "I've managed to keep everypony from panicking. The damage is thankfully minimal and only a few Ponies were injured. However, it's only a matter of time before the entire Kingdom hears about this and who knows how the rest of Equestria will take this."

Celestia nodded and all three Alicorns stood in silence as they pondered the implications this held, before Twilight hesitantly spoke up.

"Um... Princess?"

Celestia looked down at her student. "Yes, Twilight?"

"Do you know what 'Energon' is?"

Celestia blinked at that. "I'm sorry, what? I've never heard that term before, Twilight."

Luna frowned. "Apparently, the aliens thought we had this 'Energon' in ample supply, their leader didn't believe me when I said we did not."

Celestia stared in confusion at her sister. "That's the reason they attacked us? For something we have never heard before?"

Twilight hummed in thought. "Well, the aliens were machines. Judging from the name, this 'Energon' sounds like a type of energy, maybe a power source?"

Luna nodded. "Their leader did mention something about us using it to power our cities."

Celestia shook her head. "That doesn't make sense, most of the cities use solar energy or other forms unique to them. An entirely new source of energy? I would've known."

Twilight hummed again. "Perhaps I should look into how some of the major cities power themselves. I doubt a highly advanced race would make a blunder that big."

"Are you sure, Twilight?" Luna asked. "For all we know, the aliens could have been lying to us about their motivations."

"Maybe," Twilight replied. "But it's worth looking into."

Celestia nodded. "Alright, but where are the aliens now?"

"Most of them scattered when they fled." Twilight answered, before she remembered. "But we do have one captured and... Unconscious, I think?"

"Unconscious?" Luna asked. "Isn't, um... A different word used for a machine?"

"Offline?" Twilight asked, before shrugging. "I know, but, I'm not sure. Even though they're machines, I feel like that term doesn't quite fit with them."

"We can worry about proper terms for them later." Celestia said, causing both to turn to her. "We still have several of them out there, and they could wreak havoc across the realm, we need to find them before they cause any more damage. Luna, can I trust you to handle that?"

Luna nodded. "Do not worry, sister, my Night Guard will search all of Equestria for them."

Twilight also nodded. "I need to gather my friends, we may need to use our powers if they try to attack again."

"Good. As for the captured one..." Celestia said, furrowing her brow in thought. "I'll need to make some preparations. Until then we must keep a close watch on him, and see if we can't get any straight answers from him when he regains consciousness."

The other Alicorns nodded in response, both of them glad Celestia was coming back to her senses.

"There are issues," the Solar Alicorn admitted. "But we must focus on the safety and defense of Equestria, first and foremost. Once those are taken care of..." She glanced down at the scribbled alien symbols at her hooves. "...We'll worry about those."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As the Hand of Primus drifted closer to the alien star system, the Autobot Prowl walked back and forth on the ship's bridge, fuming. Perceptor watched him go with a disinterested expression.

"...Are you done?" The scientist asked.

"Why...?" Prowl said, continuing his movements, Perceptor simply shook his head.

"Of course not."

"Why is it that every time we find a potential source of Energon, every time, the Cons somehow manage to beat us to it? Why!?"

Perceptor sighed, his patience long since waned. "Commander Prowl, please! As I have said before they are likely just scavengers who saw us moving to the system and they simply jumped to conclusions."

Prowl stopped, turning his full attention on the other Autobot. "You don't understand, Perceptor! Those aren't just any Con scavengers, those were the Seekers we saw in the footage. Do you have any idea of the havoc they could wreak? How much Energon they could destroy before we get to them?"

Perceptor blinked in disbelief. "Are you saying they'd destroy the Energon on an entire planet just to keep us from getting it?"

"Why not?" Prowl responded with a shrug. "This is war, after all."

"Commander, with all due respect..." Perceptor said as he approached his fellow bot and friend, laying a hand on his shoulder. "...The war's over."

Prowl frowned, looking at the hand on his shoulder before facing his friend. "Perceptor, I know you're not a soldier, but even you have to know that as long as a single Decepticon is alive, the war will never be over."

Perceptor opened his mouth to protest, but found no argument sound from his voice box. Instead he lowered his hand, glancing at the viewscreen, where the system's local star shone, where a tiny orb was just barely visible, almost certainly their destination.

"But... To destroy all that Energon."

Prowl shrugged again. "I wouldn't put it past them. Either way, though, the Seekers are never without backup, more Cons will be coming to this planet, mark my words."

Perceptor was silent for a moment, before sighing. "What are your orders, Commander?"

Prowl looked at the viewscreen for a moment, before nodding. "Teletraan Six! Activate all shipboard systems, put power to the engines and awaken everyone from stasis!"

"Commander," the robotic voice across the ship began with a hint of warning. "Our Energon stores are limited, we will need to restock within only a few Solar Cycles to maintain such demands on power."

"Do it." Prowl said, a small series of clicks from his right arm, as his blaster emerged from hidden panels in his arm, his fingers tightly grasping the weapon, a determined frown on his face. "I want everyone ready by the time we're in orbit."

Awakening

For the first time since it's long voyage through space began, the Hand of Primus ignited its three oversized engines, pushing it to greater speeds as it approached the alien planet and star in the distance. As it did so, the once dark ship lit up, several lines that crisscrossed its orange hull flashed in a golden light, a growing hum sounded within and without the ship as power coursed through its circuitry. The once dark halls now lit up as power surged into the various stasis pods, with most of the occupants stirring as the energon trickled into their systems.

"Systems reactivating." Teletraan Six reported. "Awakening expedition crew from stasis."

With that, the energon was poured into the pods, jump-starting the occupants systems, many jolting awake from the surge and flexing their hands as power flowed through their circuitry. One of the pods hissed open, and out stepped a large red and white mechanical being, even more bulky and armoured then Prowl was, yet he too seemed to have no trouble moving. His head unit was also armoured like a combat helmet, and his optics, like Prowl's, were a single visor. Emblazoned boldly on both of his shoulders was the Mark of Primus, the symbol of the Autobots.

"Welcome back online, Scattershot." Teletraan Six greeted the bot.

"Good to be back." Scattershot replied, grinning as he flexed his hands.

"Commander Prowl and Perceptor are waiting in the bridge, and shall debrief you when all are assembled."

Scattershot nodded. "Understood."

And so, the large Autobot transformed into a heavily armoured personnel carrier, based off of a human design he had taken during his time on Terra, and drove off down the now-lit hall way. A mere second after he departed, another pod opened up, and a silver and cyan blue Bot sped out. Unlike Scattershot and Prowl, this one was sleek and lightly armoured. The Mark of Primus adorned his chest in its usual red colour, contrasting somewhat with his other colours. His head was coned back, and a single metallic fin adorned the top, running back along with this head as his two optics quickly darted left and right.

"Welcome ba-" The ship's computer began, but was halted when the smaller blue Bot very quickly shook his head.

"NotimetotalkImustreporttoCybertronIntelligence!!" He spoke at such a speed, his words seemed jumbled together, before quickly shifting into a small, two-wheeled bike that sped down the hall, leaving a bright light blue contrail as he went, nearly crashing into Scattershot as he passed by.

"Welp, Blurr's awake." He simply said, unphased as the blue speedster drove by.

Soon after, a red and silver Bot stumbled from his pod, dizzy from the stasis awakening. "Ugh... T-Teletraan Six?" He spoke hesitantly. Unlike his compatriots, he was far more soft spoken, and his face was covered by the protective visor and mouth guard he constantly wore.

"Please make for the bridge when you have recovered from stasis, First Aid. Commander Prowl and Perceptor will debrief you."

Nodding, the somewhat shaky Bot stood up, before transforming into an ambulance of Human design, the Mark of Primus next to the large red cross on his vehicle mode's sides. After taking another moment to recover, he soon drove down the hall.

Then, two pods opened up at once, where two small (by Cybertronian standards) Bots emerged. The only civilians aboard, they had no armour of their own to speak of. One, with a somewhat blocky body, had a light green head and torso and white arms. The other, with a far sleeker body, was blue on her chest and the sides and back of her head, her limbs being a shiny white, like her Spark-brother. Both wore the Marks of Primus on their chests and when both looked at each other, their blue optics shone brightly and the young siblings flashed each other wide smiles.

"Welcome back online Scope." Teletraan Six greeted, the green Bot looking up. "Distance," the blue Bot nodded. "Please head to the bridge."

Nodding, the two Bots, their alternate modes not being moving vehicles, ran down the hall in their main forms, their metal feet clacking on the metallic floor. Only two pods remained, and inside one of them, a comparatively tiny form slowly began to awaken as a minuscule amount of energon entered her systems and bloodstream. Blue circles at the palms of her metallic, golden hands began to glow brightly as she regained consciousness. Pixels of blue light shined in seemingly random places over the black visor that covered her robotic eyes, before coming together to form shaped orbs of blue eyes, which blinked a few times as the gigantic pod opened up, allowing her to step out, stretching her arms into the air and yawning as she did so, the sound carrying a slightly robotic inflection as it was voiced.

Her form was golden and yellow, an armoured helmet around her head and mouth guard covering her face, save for the black visor over her eyes. Her torso and shoulders was covered in a set of sleek, golden metallic armour, while a slightly lighter golden covering flowed like fabric, despite being metal in nature, down to just below her waist. Her robotic arms and legs were unarmoured, save for the heavy boots that covered her feet. Finally, the symbol of the Autobots adorned her shoulders, proudly on display.

"Welcome back, Miss Sumdac." Teletraan Six greeted. "How do you feel?"

"Like waking up from a long nap." Sari Sumdac replied, yawning again as her pixelated eyes closed partially to show her tired state, before opening up again. "So, what's going on, Six? We find an Energon source?"

"Commander Prowl and Perceptor will explain on the bridge." The ship's computer answered.

Nodding, Sari looked down the hallway. "Long way to the bridge..." She muttered, before turning as the final pod opened up.

The Bot that slowly stepped out was a dark grey, the paint chipped in several places and, while they may have once been white, a dull, dull gray. Looking a mix between the bulky and sleekness of his other compatriots, the Mark of Primus adorned the center of his chest.

"And of course the old Bot is the last to wake." Sari said, her right hand resting on her hip while her left waved up at the Bot that towered over her.

"Good day, Kup." Teletraan Six said, Kup merely grumbled in response. "Commander Prowl has ordered that all personnel be-"

"Yeah, yeah, I figured that." Kup interjected, before looking down at the tiny being at his feet. "What're you looking at?"

"You're tired old face." Sari said with a smile, her pixelated eyes closing up a little to show it.

"Hmph," was all Kup responded to, looking away from Sari.

"Aw, don't be like that, ya big grump!" Sari said cheerfully, rapping her hand on Kup's shin, which was level with her head, the sound clanging across the hall. "Cheer up! We're all awake and we may have found a new source of Energon, that should brighten even you up."

"Yeah, well, it's hard to be cheerful about anything when waking from stasis." Kup grumbled, before raising a hand. "And before you brag about how well you handled it, let me remind you, Sari, that you're young! Try going to stasis when you're a few eons older and see how well you do then!"

"Sorry Kup, sheesh." The teenager turned away with a shrug, before crossing her arms. "Old Bot's grumpy when he wakes up, seems some traits are the same across species."

Kup sighed, shaking his head but allowing himself a small smile while Sari's back was turned. The young Techno-organic's antics always did cheer up him, but he'd be damned if he'd let her find out she'd grown on that old spark of his (she'd never let him hear the end of it). His smile immediately dropped as she turned to face him again.

"So, uh, heh." She chuckled, rubbing the back of her armoured head. "Bit of an awkward question, but, uh, they wouldn't let me bring my jet pack to the stasis pod, mind if I hitch a ride with you to the bridge?"

Sighing greatly, Kup shifted into his vehicle form, even the mechanical sounds of his transformation sounded somewhat slow and sluggish. Nevertheless, in only a few seconds, a worn, old gray green pickup truck lay where Kup stood, Sari flipping over to the back.

"Ah, thanks Old Bot!" She said, sitting across the back of the truck, before pointing dramatically forward. "Roll out!"

"Yeah, yeah..." Kup replied dismissively, though truthfully he was always happy to help his friend from Terra. Engines revving, wheels rolling, the Old Bot and Techno-organic being drove through the halls of the now awakened ship.

"Power at 100%." Teletraan Six reported. "All ship systems are now online."

"All of them?" Kup asked. "What's Prowl doing? We don't have the Energon to keep the ship going like this for long."

"Unless we found a new source of Energon." Sari countered.

"Oh please," Kup replied. "Like there would actually be Energon all the way out here. This whole expedition is a waste of time and energy."

Sari blinked, and looked at the hood of the vehicle questioningly. "So, if you hate stasis trips and think this whole thing is a waste, why did you volunteer for it?"

"Because Cybertron's too noisy and is no place for an Old Bot like me." Kup answered grumpily. "What about you? Why'd you volunteer for this?"

"Oh come on!" Sari exclaimed. "Exploring the final frontier, seeing new planets and star systems? It's a girl's dream come true!"

She blinked, "well, my dream, anyways... I've always been a bit of an odd one back on Terra, and that was before realizing I was half robot-alien."

"Uh-huh..." Kup simply replied as they reached the bridge, where all the Autobots aboard stood. Most of them were lined up before Prowl and Perceptor, with the exception of Blurr, who was zooming to different consoles across the bridge, typing furiously as the various keys.

The Autobot commander looked at the two approaching Bots and smiled, nodding approvingly. "Good, everyone's here."

As soon as Kup stopped next to the others, Sari jumped off, flipping several times into the air, before landing on her feet.

"Hmph, show off." Kup said as he transformed back to his main robotic form.

Sari grinned, giving Kup a thumb's up, before turning her attention to Prowl. "Sup, Prowl?"

Prowl smiled, nodding. "Glad to see stasis wasn't difficult for you, Sari."

"Indeed." Perceptor acknowledged. "Despite being mostly Cybertronian, I was unsure if your unique biology would be fully compatible with the stasis pods. Some Bots, even experienced users, have trouble adapting to stasis and back again."

"Like I said before, guys," Sari replied confidently. "No sweat! So, how long have we been in stasis?"

"Twenty Stellar Cycles." Perceptor answered, causing Sari's pixelated eyes to widened.

"Woah! That's like, about twenty Human years right?" Sari exclaimed, doing the math in her head as she compared the two time keeping methods of Cybertron and Terra.

Perceptor nodded. "A little over twenty Human years, yes."

"Woah..." The teenager exclaimed again, her mind spinning. "Yikes, so much time has passed. I wonder what things on Cybertron are like now?"

Prowl shrugged. "For us, that's hardly any time, Sari. I doubt much has changed on Cybertron, repairs on the planet have likely progressed and Command is probably still hunting down the Decepticon remnants."

"True," Perceptor said. "But relations for the Humans could have changed, they've always been a wild card since the war ended."

First Aid nodded. "If things continued the way they have when we left, then they may have barred all Energon shipments from Terra to Cybertron."

"Or things could have improved there." Scattershot countered. "Their remaining governments have always been so erratic, what with the constant elections for new leaders." He shook his head. "I never understood why they don't just elect one leader and keep that one for life. It would make things more stable and simpler for them, as well as for us."

Sari groaned. "Ugh, why are we talking about Terra? Why should we even care about it unless the Cons are causing trouble there?"

Prowl frowned, the dismissive attitude that Sari had for her home planet not sitting well with him. "Because Terra's supply of Energon is the only lifeline Cybertron has. If the Humans cut off our supply lines there, as they have threatened to do before, we would be unable to maintain Cybertron's repairs and defenses, leaving it vulnerable to Decepticon attack, and that's the best case scenario."

"What about the Energon Farms on other nearby planets?" Sari asked, but Perceptor shook his head.

"The output of the Farms are too low, they'd prevent us from starving outright if we lose our lifeline on Terra, but only barely." The Autobot scientist then smiled. "Fortunately, we may have found a new source that would make us far less dependent on Terra, perhaps nullify our reliance on the Human planet entirely."

Sari blinked, and the others looked up at that. "Oh?"

Prowl shook his head. "Don't get your hopes up quite yet, there is a complication to that."

"Cons?" Scattershot immediately asked and Prowl nodded, turning to Perceptor.

"Show them the footage."

Perceptor turned, making for the main console at the head of the bridge and tapping several keys. The main viewscreen blinked, before showing the short amount of footage the probe had recorded up to its destruction, the recording freezing at the oncoming fighter jets. The Autobots stared at the image with grim expressions, Distance and Scope, having never encountered Decepticons but hearing of their brutal tales, held each other out of fear. Even Blurr stopped his manic typing and moving from console to console, pausing to look at the image, though only briefly.

"The Decepticon Seekers?" Sari blinked. "Were they following us the whole time?"

Perceptor shook his head. "I highly doubt that, not only would they be at risk of detection, but they simply wouldn't have the Energon to make such a trip."

"Regardless of how they got there before us," Commander Prowl said, stepping forward. "The Seekers are there, probably already in a fortified position, on a world holding an as-of-yet undetermined amount of Energon. The Seekers are never without some kind of support, and whoever they're in allegiance with now likely already knows about this planet, which means more and more Cons will be coming to the planet to secure the Energon."

"So, we should probably contact Cybertron and inform them the situation." Kup said, to which Prowl nodded, before turning to Blurr.

"Speaking of which, Blurr, what's taking so long?"

Blurr continued to tap furiously at the keys, his own robotic fingers unseen, despite this he forcefully slowed his own speech in order to be more comprehensible to his compatriots. "Communications Array has accumulated too much debris and dust over the course of the journey, it will need to be cleared if we are to establish contact with Cybertron."

Prowl sighed. "Alright, Perceptor, I'm gonna need you-"

"Noneed!" Blurr said, turning around and saluting. "I'malreadyonit!"

Prowl opened his mouth to protest, but already Blurr had zoomed off from the bridge, so instead he groaned and turned to face the other Autobots. "Alright, while Blurr's off to fix our communication problems, we're going to need to figure out a plan of attack."

"Easy," Scattershot said, grinning. "We go down there, find the Seekers and take them out!"

Sari shook her head. "If the Seekers have access to Energon, they're gonna be at full strength, and they won't hesitate to throw everything they've got at us. If we're not careful, and they get the drop on us..."

Kup frowned. "Hate to say it, but the kid's right. The Seekers are masters of ambushes, we charge down there in the open, we'll be giving them all the advantages."

Prowl nodded. "True, but at the same time, they've never handled well in defensive situations..."

"Well, if you ask me," Sari said. "We need to be the ones to surprise 'em!"

The teenager then pointed a thumb to herself. "I can scout down on the planet and see if I can spot them."

"You?" Kup said incredulously. "What makes you think the Seekers won't blast you out of the sky?"

Sari looked up at the Old Bot. "Because I've sneaked past the Cons before?"

Scattershot nodded, chuckling. "That's true, even got the drop on Starscream, heheh."

Sari chuckled at the memory herself. "Besides, it's not like I'll be alone or doing the searching, I'll be the backup to the one who will actually find the Seekers."

The Autobots looked down at Sari with confused expressions. "Who?"

Sari blinked, before raising her arms in exasperation. "Are you kidding me?"

Sighing, the young Techno-organic girl turned around, before whistling loudly, clapping her hands on her knees. "Beakie! Come here, boy!"

Kup blinked, before shaking his head vehemently. "Ohh no! No no no! Not him!"

Suddenly, a loud screech filled the bridge of the ship as black and red bird-like robotic being flew in from a hidden compartment above the bridge, metal wings flapping enthusiastically toward the golden girl, who opened her arms to greet her friend. The other Autobots were less cordial, either jumping away in surprise, or stepping into a combat stance.

"Oh Primus!" Scattershot cursed, clenching his fists as Laserbeak flew past. "That thing came with us!? Why wasn't it left on Cybertron!?"

"It was supposed to have." Prowl said through grit teeth, his focus entirely on the robotic bird, ready to draw out his blasters and blow the bird to pieces on a moments notice. Laserbeak paid them no heed, instead squawking happily as it landed in front of Sari, who eager wrapped her arms around its beak in a tight hug.

"There's my Laserbeak!" She happily greeted, giggling as the bird gently pressed back to her in greeting. "Oh, who's a good boy? You're a good boy! Yes you are!"

Kup groaned in disgust. "For crying out loud Sari! That thing is a Decepticon, stop being so.... Cuddly with it!"

"Was a Decepticon!" Sari corrected with a glare at Kup, before pointing to the robot bird's sides, where the shape of the Decepticon symbol was, having been all but surgically removed. "But not anymore! Not since I rescued this poor, abandoned bird. Now, he's an Autobot like us."

Indeed, the back of Laserbeak held the Mark of Primus, painted on only because of Sari's constant protests.

"My dead chassis, he is, mark or no!" Kup exclaimed. "Do you have any idea how many operations that blasted piece of scrap has sabotaged or revealed to the Cons throughout the war!?"

"Of course I do!" Sari said. "He's a really good spy! Hell, he snuck aboard this ship and stayed hidden for over twenty years without any of you knowing, not even Six knew or she'd have reported it! He's perfect for this mission!"

Laserbeak gave a soft squawk, whether in agreement or appreciation to Sari, none of the nervous Bots could tell.

"I-You-" Kup stuttered, turning to a grim Prowl. "Commander! Help me out here!"

Prowl was silent for a moment as he stared at the former Decepticon spy, the spy who had born witness to so many of the most secret and seemingly secure Autobot meetings, reporting to its master, Soundwave, who would then in turn report to Megatron. He sighed greatly. "I hate to admit it, Kup. But she's right."

Kup stared in disbelief, before turning with a 'harrumph!' "Fine then! I'm going back to the stasis pod!"

Sari shook her head as she watched Kup stomp off, before turning to Prowl. "Thanks for giving him a chance, Commander."

"It's just a smart move, tactically speaking." Prowl said. "If he's genuine about this. Make sure he behaves."

Sari saluted enthusiastically. "Will do, Commander!"

Laserbeak lowered himself, allowing the teenager to hop on top of his back.

"Teletraan Six!" Prowl said as Laserbeak took off, flying away from the bridge, Sari's cheers echoing down the halls. "Have the shuttle ready to go in case our scouts need backup."

Perceptor looked at his Commander. "Prowl, are you sure this is a good idea?"

Prowl sighed. "Sari's vouched for that blasted bird for a long time now, and he's had plenty of opportunities to sabotage the ship while we were in stasis."

The Autobot scientist nodded. "True, but if Sari wasn't on board..."

"He'd probably be on Cybertron where he was supposed to be." Prowl countered, before shaking his head. "Honestly, I think that bird couldn't care less about the Autobots or Cybertron. But ever since Soundwave kicked the bucket, Sari was the only one who showed it kindness, so it's bonded with her now."

Perceptor looked at the main viewscreen, which now showed the approaching planet. "So, you don't trust Laserbeak..."

"I don't." Prowl acknowledged. "But I trust Sari with my life."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Being a Techno-organic had its fair share of advantages and disadvantages. Sari still needed to breath oxygen, unlike her Autobot counterparts, but in her more robotic form, she was capable of temporarily forgoing the breathing of oxygen. Essentially, in space or underwater, or practically anywhere that didn't have air, Sari was capable of 'holding her breath' for hours at a time. More then enough for the time it took for Laserbeak to fly from the Hand to the planet ahead of them. As Laserbeak began to make the careful descent to the planet's atmosphere, Sari could see the number of clouds and oceans, as well as green from the planet's surface. She reached up, clicking a single key on the side of her helmet.

"Hey Prowl," She said. "It's Sari, do you read me?"

"We read you loud and clear, Sari." Prowl's reply came. "Perceptor's already scanning for Energon as well as Decepticon signals, so far though he hasn't found either."

"I am getting some very weird readings, however." Perceptor added, his voice coming through clearly.

"What kind of weird?" Sari asked as the edges of Laserbeaks wings began to glow as their descent quickened.

"Like nothing I've ever seen." Perceptor answered, almost giddy as his mind began to work on the puzzle before him. "It's almost as if there's some kind of link between this planet, the planet's single moon, and the local star."

"Ohh-kay then..." Sari said, not sure what to make of it. "Well, I can already tell this planet has life on it. Organic plant life from the looks of it. I'll know more when I break atmo."

Laserbeak was an expert at silently slipping into a planet's atmosphere, the fact that he was also carrying Sari hardly changed his procedure as he broke through the atmosphere without any harm to either him or his passenger.

"Nicely done, Laserbeak!" Sari commented as they descended into the layer of clouds, earning a happy squawk in response. She then went to work analyzing the planet's atmosphere as Laserbeak worked to smoothly break through the cloud cover. She nodded when her readings came in.

"Okay, guys." She said into her comm. "It looks like we've got a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere, with gravity practically the same as that on Terra. Lots of water in the air here."

"Meaning...?" Prowl asked expectantly.

"Meaning it's got all the basic building blocks to support organic life." Sari answered. "Alright Laserbeak, let's see what we're looking at with this planet."

With an acknowledging squawk, the former Decepticon scout/spy took a brief dive, breaking through the layer of clouds and allowing Sari to see the planet's surface. She nodded as she took in the various sights.

"Yep. Oceans, rivers, forests, grass covered hills and..." She paused and blinked at what she saw. "...and cities."

"Cities?" Prowl asked.

Sari nodded as her robotic eyes narrowed, zooming in closely at the modern-looking buildings. "Yep, cities. This one I'm seeing here looks a lot like New York. It's kinda creepy, actually."

"T-that means that there's sentient organic life on this planet!" Perceptor said excitedly.

Prowl, however, was far less excited. "Great, that's going to complicate things."

"Sari, can you see any of the locals?" Perceptor asked, heedless of Prowl's grim tone.

"Not yet." Sari answered, looking down at Laserbeak. "Hey, Beakie, can you get us to an angle where we can see the locals?"

Laserbeak nodded, tilting upwards and boosting slightly closer to the metropolis ahead.

"Well, maybe we can at least assume the local vehicle forms and search the Cons in disguise." Perceptor suggested.

"Right, caused that turned out fantastically for Terra." Prowl deadpanned.

"But this time," Sari countered. "There's no big war being fought, we're only hunting for scavengers and rouges, not an army."

Soon, Laserbeak was above the city itself, and Sari looked down at the streets below. "Okay... getting a look at the sentients below and... They're..."

She paused as her zoomed-in vision followed a pair of Ponies, only cream coloured, the only a light pink, chatting happily with each other. Sari looked to another group, this one buying a hat from a hat stand, the merchant being another Pony. Then she saw a number of taxi-coloured carriages with Ponies paying with some kind of fare before getting on the vehicle. "...Uhh..."

"Sari?" Prowl asked.

"Horses." The teenager finally answered.

"What?" Prowl and Perceptor both asked.

"The sentients." Sari explained, not quite believing what she was seeing. "They're horses. Pastel coloured horses."

"Are... Are you sure you're not just looking at some of the local creatures, like those on Terra?" Perceptor asked, but Sari shook her head.

"Laserbeak, connect to the Hand's viewscreen, show them what we're seeing."

Laserbeak nodded, before his sharp golden eyes flashed as he connected to the Autobot ship's systems. There was a few seconds of silence before Perceptor commented with a "huh."

"Yeah..." Sari agreed as she pondered her options, before settling for the idea that had the most risk, but also the most rewards. "So, uh, I'm gonna say hi to them!"

"Wait, what!?" Prowl exclaimed.

"They may know where the Cons went." The young woman explained. "I'm about the same size as them and they seem friendly enough, I'm sure if I ask nicely, then even if they don't know about the Cons, we'll at least make a good first impression with them."

"Sari," Prowl warned. "This entirely goes against standard protocol regarding sentients that are unaware of us!"

Sari sighed. "Prowl, with all due respect, but the Cons never had much use for our rules regarding organics and keeping them out of the fight, otherwise half of Terra wouldn't have gotten nuked!" Her eyes narrowed and her fists clenched briefly as she forcibly shut away the memories, taking a deep breath as she did so. "Besides, I don't think the whole 'robots in disguise' shtick is going to work on this planet, unless you all want to turn into different coloured carriages."

Prowl and Perceptor were silent for a moment at that. "She... does have a point, sir." The Autobot scientist eventually said.

Prowl sighed. "Fine. Just... Be careful, Sari, and try not to freak them out too much."

Sari smiled. "Hey, come on, I'm half organic, after all!" She tapped on Laserbeak's side, causing him to tilt down and begin the sharp descent toward the ground, squawking somewhat nervously.

"Well, technically," Perceptor commented. "You're only fifteen percent organic."

"Details, details." Sari replied with a dismissive wave of her hand, holding on tightly as Laserbeak descended past the taller buildings.

"Alright, beakie... Wish me luck!" Sari said, before jumping off of Laserbeak's back, flipping in mid air a few times before diving to the street below...

First Contact: Autobot

"I'm telling you, Gray, they're Changeling super weapons!" The silver Earth Pony exclaimed as they walked down the Manehatten street. His brother, Gray, shook his head. "No no, you got it all wrong Clear. It's not Changelings, nor aliens, it's Griffin radicals."

"What makes you say that?" Clear asked with a skeptical look, his brother sighed, stopping to look at the silver Earth Pony.

"Because Changelings are too stupid to even think of building robots, and aliens from outer space is just too ridiculous. Really, only Griffins have the love of battle and are crazy enough to build giant robots and then send them to attack Canterlot."

"Yeah, but they were said to change forms! Changelings change, the robots changed! Er-go, Changelings!"

Gray stared with an open mouth, before shaking his head. "Clear, that's a stupid reason to think that the Changelings built the robots!"

"Stupider then Griffin radicals?" Clear retorted, huffing as he glared at his brother.

Before Gray could huff back, he was interrupted by the sound of metal feet clanging loudly against the concrete of the street. The two brother's turned, blinking at the strange golden form that kneeled in the middle of the street. Ponies on the other side of the street stopped and looked in shock while several taxi-carriage drivers skidded to a halt to avoid crashing into the robotic being, causing their passengers to look out in confusion and/or annoyance. In a matter of seconds, a large crowd of onlookers had formed, many Ponies murmuring to each other in wonder and concern. Suddenly, the golden robotic being stood up, raising her hand in the air.

"WOO! Nailed it!" Sari cheered, her robotic voice startling the crowd around her. Her pixelated eyes opened up, looking at the many colourful Ponies around her. "Well, hello native Horse-creatures!"

The Ponies simply stared at her in shock as she made a casual wave to them. Sari paid the reaction no mind, since she herself would probably be just as surprised if she were in their place. So, she instead smiled, her pixel eyes closing up to show her friendly expression. "My name is Sari Sumdac, and I am-"

"It's one of the robot aliens!!" A stallion in the crowd called out, causing Sari to stop her introduction and blink.

"Wait what?"

"It's here to attack the city!" A mare screeched, causing some Ponies in the crowd to turn and flee in a panic. "Just like they attacked the Capital!"

Sari looked around, raising her hands in confusion. "What?"

One of the taxi Ponies looked to his compatriots. "Boys! Get yer bats out!!"

The other taxi Ponies moved quickly, reaching into their carriages and pulling out sturdy, wooden bats, holding them in their forelegs. The lead taxi Pony looked to the other citizens. "Come on, fellas! Are we just gonna let these aliens bully us around!? Or are we gonna stand for Manehatten!?"

"H-how are you guys even holding those?" Sari asked, taking a nervous step back from the crowd, which was swiftly turning from borderline panic to outright hostile. The teenage girl blinked at the sense of déjà vu she was getting at the Ponies that were rallying around the taxi-carriage drivers, reminding her of a stereotypical image of New York.

Huh, they even sound like New Yorkers. She thought. Wait a minute... They had New York accents, the taxi drivers were aggressive and armed with bats, there was a statue in the large river that ran through the city, and the city was called Manehatten... Her eyes widened. Oh dear god, they are New Yorkers! Angry New Yorkers!!

Sari took several steps back from the slowly advancing crowd, her hands raised in an attempt to show peacefulness. "H-hold on guys, I think you've got me confused with something else!"

The crowd did not seem to listen.

"We ain't afraid of you!" A Pony called out.

"Look!" Another pointed. "On it's shoulders, the robot face symbol the news story mentioned! It is one of the aliens that attacked the Capital!"

"Huh!?" Sari looked at the side of one of her shoulders, seeing the Autobot sigil painted on, before looking back and waving her arms in a desperate bid to get the crowd to listen. "Wait! You've got it all wrong! This symbol means I'm a friend! It's a good guy symbol! I'm one of the good guys!"

"GET IT!!" And like that, the crowd of Ponies stampeded towards her.

"Oh scrap!" Sari cursed as her eyes widened.

"Sari!" Prowl shouted through the comm. "Get out of there!!"

As the crowd charged at her, Sari willed her armoured boots to change, mechanical servos swiftly shifting inside as panels at the soles and heels of the boots opened up, revealing special boosters as her boots transformed from their default armoured forms to specialized jump boots in less then a second. Immediately after, Sari then jumped, the opened panels of the boots glowing a bright blue as power was applied to them, causing Sari's leap to propel herself into the air and away from the surprised crowd. With a robotic caw, Laserbeak dived and opened his claws, swiftly coming into range of Sari's outstretched arms. Upon grabbing her, the robotic bird then pulled sharply away, ion jets opening on his back, causing him to speed away from the city and the Ponies below. Once the city was far in the background and they deeper into the mainland, Laserbeak deactivated his jets, folding them back into his main body, his claws also retracted, allowing Sari to flip over and crawl on top of her robotic friend, kneeling as she worked to steady the pounding from her bio-mechanical heart.

"T-thanks Laserbeak..." She breathed out, earning a small caw from the bird.

Far above, on the Hand of Primus, Perceptor and Prowl watched the whole series of events unfold on the main viewscreen.

"Well, that certainly backfired." Perceptor commented with a somewhat perplexed tone.

"Spectacularly." Prowl deadpanned with a groan and facepalm.

"But why, though?" Perceptor asked, looking to his friend and superior.

"How should I know?" Prowl replied, looking back up at the viewscreen, seeing all that Laserbeak saw. "It's like our relations with the Humans all over again, except this time we're skipping straight to the part where they hate us for some reason!"

"Hmm, do you think the Decepticons have something to do with their reactions?" Perceptor asked, watching the viewscreen with obvious interest. "They were mentioning something about 'alien robots' and an attack on a capital. Perhaps the headquarters of this species was the Seekers target?"

Prowl hummed in response to that. "That would make sense, wipe out the political leadership to destabilize the whole nation-state and make organized resistance against them all but impossible."

"And a species who doesn't know the difference between a Decepticon and an Autobot could easily confuse both as being the same." The two turned to the source of the new voice, seeing a frowning Kup walk towards them.

"I thought you were going back into stasis?" Prowl asked.

"Hmph!" Kup grumpily responded as he passed them and looked at the viewscreen, arms crossed. "I realized that it was better to deal with you crazy Bots then have to undergo the whole stasis awakening process all over again."

"Hey, uh, guys?" Sari's voice echoed clearly through the intercom on the bridge. "Am I the only one who's freaking out over the fact that there is a copy of New friggin' York City on an alien planet populated by intelligent, colourful Horses that sounded and acted like New Yorkers!?"

Prowl looked at Perceptor, who simply shrugged.

"To be honest, Sari," the Commander responded. "All these organic cities, Human or otherwise, look alike to us so we don't see what the big deal is."

Sari sighed, hanging her head a little at that, before raising it again. "Well, since First Contact was a total bust, what do we do now?"

"Find the Seekers." Prowl answered firmly. "And neutralize them before they can do any more damage. We'll figure out how to deal with this species later. For now, Sari, it may be best to avoid being spotted by these organics to avoid causing a panic or, you know, accidentally starting a war with them."

Sari nodded. "No argument here. Have the ship's scanners picked up any Energon on this planet?"

Perceptor hummed in thought as he tapped a few keys on his console, he frowned as he read the scan's results. "Unfortunately, the amount of moisture on this planet is as bad as Terra's, our sensors are having trouble getting any clear readings."

The Autobot scientist was silent for a moment before he got an idea. "Sari, your internal sensors are functional, correct?"

Sari raised an eyebrow inside her helmet, causing her pixel eyes outside to partially close the opposite eye in a perplexed expression. "Uhh, yeah, but they're pathetic. The range is only a few feet long, I'd practically have to be standing right next to something to detect them with my sensors."

"Not if we connected the ship's systems to your scanners and use them as a relay." Perceptor pointed out with a smile. "That would boost your scanning range and give us far more clear and precise readings."

Sari blinked at that, before grinning. "Hey, good thinking, Perceptor! What do I need to do?"

"Just focus on scanning your surroundings." The Autobot scientist explained. "I'll work on connecting to your sensors..."

Sari did as she was told, activating the sensors within her mostly robotic form. Of course, as she had told Perceptor, with the range being so limited, she got nothing except Laserbeak's own energy signature, nevertheless she kept her sensors active. As she waited, she began to muse on how easy it was for her to activate and control them. There was a time, not too long ago (barring her time in stasis) that the idea of using any of her features unique to her Techno-organic nature was a daunting one, at best. Indeed, for the first half of her life, her robotic side was completely dormant, leading her to believe that she was, in fact, completely Human like her father. It wasn't until she had first spied upon the Autobots that she had began to feel drawn to them, perhaps that was when her robotic, Cybertronian side began to awaken. Still, she had no idea who she truly was, until she was caught between a skirmish between her Autobot friends and a small group of Decepticons, her arm being damaged in the process. It was only a minor injury, all things considered, but it was enough to reveal the Cybertronian circuitry that lay beneath her skin. Even Optimus Prime, who was usually hard to read, was openly surprised by this revelation. From there, several different Autobots tutored her on how to make use of her Cybertronian side, somewhat difficult since, for them, it was practically instinctual, almost like teaching someone how to breath, or see, or hear.

Her musings were interrupted when she felt a jolt through her systems, not exactly painful, but it certainly felt strange.

"Woah!" Sari exclaimed as her sensor range exploded outward, briefly overwhelming her senses from the readings of... everything. She shook her head as her systems adjusted to this sudden change.

"Are you alright, Sari?" Perceptor asked with some trepidation.

"Y-yeah." Sari answered as she began to see everything clearly again. "T-that was just a little intense for a bit, that's all. I guess it worked."

"It has, indeed!" Perceptor replied. "And we're getting far more clear readings, try to narrow your search for Energon sources. If we're lucky, they'll be concentrations of it away from any inhabited locations."

"We can only hope." Prowl commented.

Sari nodded, and quickly willed her sensors to focus on finding Energon, rather then just anything and everything. As she looked down at the ground, her sensors showed the Energon in her vision as appearing in dark blue specks sprinkled across the ground, before bright blue circles of light, appeared across the ground, showing concentrated portions of unrefined Energon. Before Sari could cheer at the findings, her eyes were blinded when the cities around her became as bright as miniature, blue suns.

"Gah!" Sari gasped as she shielded her eyes. "What in the-!?"

"B-by the Allspark!" Perceptor exclaimed.

"T-that can't be right..." Prowl said, awe in his voice. "There's no way an organic planet has That much Energon."

"Guys?" Sari said, keeping her eyes closed. "What's going on? How much Energon are we talking about here?"

"Too much to be possible..." Kup answered, his own voice showing awe. "So much that it makes Terra's supply of Energon look like a puddle compared to this veritable ocean!"

"You're kidding!" Sari replied, opening her eyes slowly and only slightly, trying to get a glimpse at the ground around her. All she was Energon, mostly tiny amounts sprinkled across the ground, but more then a few deposits of concentrated amounts. However, it was the now shining cities that caught her attention. "W-why are the local cities glowing with Energon?"

"They-" Perceptor began, but stopped as he tried to process what Sari was seeing. "They shouldn't be, unless... But, that wouldn't make any sense..."

Prowl spoke up next. "You don't think that... These Horses are using Energon to power their cities, do you?"

"That doesn't make any sense." Perceptor said, shaking his head.

"Wait a minute!" Sari said. "Isn't refined Energon incredibly dangerous for organics to interact with? Like, one touch and they melt and/or explode dangerous?"

"Yeah." Kup answered. "Only we Cybertronians can safely contact refined Energon, and that's the only type you can use to power anything."

"True," Perceptor replied. "But with such an abundance on this planet, perhaps this species was able to figure out how to refine it and safely make use of it."

"That can't be." Sari said with a shake of her head. "I mean, Humanity is way more advanced and they didn't even know of the existence of Energon until you guys showed up and, last I heard, they still haven't fully figured out how to safely refine it. Besides, if this species uses Energon as their main source of power, why don't they have spaceships, satellites, or hovercars? Or, hell, just regular cars rather then freaking carriages that they have to manually pull!?"

"The kid's right." Kup said in agreement. "It doesn't make any sense."

"This whole planet doesn't make any sense!" Sari shouted. "It couldn't make any less sense if it tried!"

"Normally, I'd agree with you both." Perceptor replied thoughtfully. "But we know so little about organics in general. I mean, this is only the second intelligent organic species we have discovered."

"We can worry about how this planet and species works later!" Prowl interjected. "We need to stay focused on finding the Cons, that should be our top priority!"

Sari nodded as she tried to look past the overwhelming Energon sources, before she got an unexpected reading deeper into the mainland. "I think I've got something!"

Cutting out all other signals, allowing her to see openly, she narrowed her scanners on the source and blinked in surprise. "A Cybertronian signal. It's quite faint."

"An open signal?" Prowl asked, perplexed. "Can we identify it?"

Perceptor moved to tap on his console. "Sari, keep focusing on that signal, I'm checking to see if it matches any particular Cybertronian."

"Narrow the search to the Seekers, Perceptor." Prowl ordered.

With a nod, the Autobot scientist imputed the commands into the console. Sure enough, a match appeared, the Decepticon insignia appearing on the screen, as well as a profile of the Decepticon in question. "It's one of the Seekers alright. Nacelle, a Con who has seen surprisingly little action giving how long he has been associated with them."

Prowl nodded. "Sari, are there any other signals you detect?"

"None." Came the teenager's answer. "Isn't it a little strange we get an open Cybertronian signal from a Decepticon?"

Perceptor hummed for a moment. "It's possible he's in such a weakened state, that he's unable to hide his signature."

Kup, however, was not satisfied with that answer. "Or he could be bait to draw us out into a trap."

Prowl sighed. "We can't know without a careful investigation. Sari, proceed to Nacelle's signal, but do so with extreme caution, and keep your optics open for any signs of a Decepticon ambush."

"Roger that." Sari replied firmly. "Alright, Laserbeak. You know what to do."

With an acknowledging caw, Laserbeak tilted slightly, changing his direction towards the source of the signal. Sari's hands twitched, before she steeled her nerves, ready for any sort of treachery the Decepticons might throw at her. Back on the large Autobot vessel, Prowl hummed in thought for a moment, before coming to a decision.

"Perceptor," he said to his comrade and friend. "You have the bridge. Teletraan Six, ready Shuttle One for launch. Kup, Scattershot, with me. We're going to the surface!"

With that, Prowl turned away, with Perceptor giving a confused look to his friend. "S-sir?"

Kup and Scattershot, though equally confused, stepped in line behind their superior while Prowl stopped, his hands flexing as panels in his arms opened up, revealing two of his Photon Blasters, each grasped by his hands. "I don't want to take any chances. Though Sari and Laserbeak are skilled at recon and espionage, if the Seekers get the drop on them, they'll need our help fast."

Scattershot grinned, raising his fist in anticipation. "If we're going up against Cons, I'll need my good ol' Scatter-Blaster to give them a proper Autobot greeting!"

Prowl frowned in thought for a moment. "Alright, just be careful in regards to collateral damage, Scattershot."

The Autobot soldier laughed. "Come on, Commander, I'm not Warpath here."

Prowl nodded, turning away, with the two Autobots behind him. "Alright then.... Autobots, transform and roll out!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Things had calmed down significantly in Ponyville since the Decepticons attack on the town yesterday. However, though he was surrounded by over a dozen Royal Guards, many Ponies were still uneasy in the presence of the unconscious alien robot, Twilight's magical restraints still shimmering around him. Applejack, who had a bandage around her still recovering nose, examined the giant robot with a skeptical look.

"Ah still find it hard to believe that you took out one of these things all by yerself." She said, the bandage causing her to sound quite nasally, much to Rainbow Dash's amusement.

The Pegasus grinned. "Come on, AJ, the whole town took a group of these guys out. I also heard that you and Mac hogtied this guy up as well."

"Yeah, we did." The Apple Farmer admitted. "But it took all of mine and Mac's strength just to keep him down, and many of us had to work together against them. Hay, even Applebloom and the Crusaders had to gang up on the small one! And they lost!"

She wrinkled her nose at the thought, the memory of the force of the robot's punch to her nose still clear to her, before she turned to look at Dash with a concerned expression. "How's Scoot, by the way?"

Dash's grin dropped immediately, and she sighed. "Docs say she'll be fine. A few weeks, maybe a month, before she'll fully recover."

"I'll be sure to plan her the biggest, bestest, 'Get-Well-Soon' Party!!" Pinkie Pie shouted, suddenly right between her two friends.

"Giah! Pinkie!!" Rainbow cried out, wings flaring open as she jumped away in surprise. AJ herself was more composed, though her widened eyes showed that she too was caught off guard.

"When did you get back?" The Farmer asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Duh!" Pinkie replied, grinning widely. "I took the train back as soon as I got Spike's letter! Maud and the others were sad that I had to cut my family visit short, but it's not everyday you get to throw a 'Welcome to Equestria' Party for transforming, robot aliens!"

"Uh, Pinkie..." Rainbow said as Ponyville's Party Pony bounced past her. "These guys aren't exactly friendly, robot aliens."

Pinkie simply giggled as she jumped on top of the unconscious Decepticon, two nearby guards blinking in surprise.

"Uhh, ma'am?" One guard said. "It's not safe up there, please-"

"It's okay, guard." Princess Celestia's regal voice caused all heads to turn upwards, seeing the Solar Alicorn gracefully land not far behind Rainbow and Applejack, who gracefully bowed as Twilight and Luna landed only a moment later. Celestia smiled at the two Bearers of Harmony, before signalling with a hoof for them to rise.

"Princess," Rainbow greeted as she proudly stood up. "Glad to see you're okay, the news that something may have happened to you from the alien attack had us all worried."

"Then I hope my presence has alleviated your worry, Miss Dash." Celestia replied, to which Rainbow responded with a grin and a confident salute.

"Twilight!" Pinkie shouted, suddenly right in front of the young Alicorn and embracing her in a tight hug.

"H-hey Pinkie." Twilight greeted back, her voice somewhat strained due to how tightly her friend was hugging her.

Princess Celestia merely laughed lightly at the sight. "Twilight." She said as soon as Pinkie had released her.

"Yes Princess?" Her former student asked expectantly.

"See if the rest of your friends have arrived in Ponyville. Should this one reawaken and attempt to escape while we transport him, we may need the power of Harmony to properly subdue him."

Twilight nodded. "Right away, Celestia! Come on, girls!"

With that, the four Bearers galloped off into town in search of Rarity and Fluttershy, while Luna eyed the unconscious robot warily.

"Are you sure about this, sister?" She asked. "We do not know what this alien is fully capable of. What if Tartarus isn't enough to contain him?"

Celestia's expression turned serious at her younger sister's question. "To be honest Luna, I'm not sure. Tartarus is, however, the most secure prison we have at the moment. We just have to hope that it is enough."

Her wings opened up, and Celestia took flight, hovering over the Decepticon, eyeing the symbol on his crumpled wings.

"I suppose you are right, sister." Luna replied, as she followed her sister up, watching her nervously. "Are you okay?"

Celestia was silent for a moment as she felt her heart quickening as she stared at the mark the robot had, feeling her chest grow hollow as the fear seeped in. Fortunately, she had prepared herself for this before she had left for Ponyville, and was able to control her fear far more adequately then the first time she had witnessed the symbol. After taking a deep breath, she nodded. "I am."

Luna nodded, believing her sister, before looking back down at the machine. "It's a long way to Tartarus from here, how do you intend to move this thing?"

"Simple." Celestia responded. "We teleport it."

Luna looked back at her sister with a raised eyebrow. "Don't you hate teleporting?"

"I do." Celestia answered, looking back at the Dark Alicorn. "But I can stomach it once for something as serious as this."

Luna nodded, humming in thought. "It might be dangerous teleporting something this large straight to Tartarus."

Celestia nodded in agreement. "It might. Twilight's the most experienced with the spell out of all of us, we'll ask for her expertise on the matter."

She blinked when Luna suddenly started to chuckle.

"What?"

"Nothing," Luna replied, shaking her head. "It's just... You have been her mentor since she was a filly, and now here we are with her as an Alicorn, looking to her for advice."

Celestia laughed at that. "Like I said before, Luna, when I saw her and her Cutie Mark, I knew she was destined for great things. Perhaps even greater then either of us. Same for Cadance."

Luna nodded, looking down to examine the binding spell Twilight had cast upon the alien earlier, allowing Celestia to briefly frown as a nagging thought came to her once again. But did I do the right thing?

She shook the thought aside, forcing her smile to return as Luna looked up again. "Well, perhaps we should-"

"Your Majesties!" A voice called out, as a dark armoured bat-pony suddenly appeared before the Princesses, bowing as she hovered where she was. "We have spotted two aliens en route to the town!"

The Princesses immediately turned serious at the news. "Where from?" Luna asked.

"They are flying from the direction of Manehatten, Highness." The Night Guard answered. "They are smaller then the larger bipedal ones, but clearly robotic. A small, Pony-sized golden one, and a slightly larger black falcon. They had apparently raided Manehatten, but is appeared that the civilians there quickly drove them off before they could do any damage. Now they are en route to the town."

Luna gritted her teeth as she turned in the direction where Manehatten was, before her eyes narrowed at a dark speck in the sky. "There!" She called out, pointing at the speck. "They are almost here!"

Celestia frowned. "So more have come... They must be looking for the one we captured. Luna, we cannot let them reach Ponyville."

Luna nodded. "Leave that to me, sister. My guards and I shall ground these new arrivals and keep them busy while you gather the Element Bearers."

"Be careful, Luna." Celestia said as Luna propelled herself further up to the sky, flanked by several of her Night Guard.

"My Loyal servants!" The Dark Alicorn called. "Our land is under threat from an unknown hostile force! They have attacked our cities, threatened our subjects, and have shown no respect towards us!"

Meanwhile, further ahead, Sari blinked as she saw a dark blue speck ahead of her and Laserbeak. "What in the-?" Her eyes narrowed, her vision zooming towards the speck, before showing a sight she could not believe was real. A dark blue horse, with wings and horn and a wavy mane and tail, and several dark grey horses that seemingly materialized out of shadow, with slitted eyes and bat-like wings, each wearing armour and helmets that covered their faces. The dark blue horse was speaking loudly, likely to the flanking forms, before pointing directly at her.

"Oh scrap!" Sari cursed, her eyes widening. "Prowl! We've got a serious problem!"

"Now, my faithful!!" Luna shouted as she pointed at the fast approaching aliens. "Show them the error of their ways! FOR EQUESTRIA!!!"

With that battle cry given, the Bat Ponies charged forward, flying in a loose formation as they charged toward Sari and Laserbeak.

Discovery

When the Spark of Harmony is ignited, the Tree shines the pure light through its very roots, feeding life and strength to the land itself, singing its Silent Song across the void.

Such were the final words of the The Pure Tree. Twilight Sparkle placed the book down, trying, and failing, to suppress a sigh. The sheer elation she felt when Princess Celestia had brought her the only book that had the Tree of Harmony as its primary subject was nowhere to be found now that she had finished it. 200 pages, half the day spent carefully reading through every passage, studying each illustration, comparing notes, and after all that, all she had were theories and its physical properties, which she had already gathered on her own studies of the Tree. She had searched all throughout the Canterlot and Crystal Empire libraries to find anything regarding the Tree of Harmony. Celestia had even put out inquiries to all her personal contacts specializing in ancient, Pre-Equestrian locations and anomalies. Despite all of that, it had taken nearly Two years before one of Celestia's former students presented The Pure Tree to her, who in turn presented it to a then ecstatic Twilight, and what did the only book of its kind contain? Nothing that Twilight hadn't already deduced or hypothesized. Two years, all of Celestia's efforts and it ultimately led to nothing new being learned.

"UGH!" The bottled up frustration exploded suddenly in a loud groan from the Alicorn that echoed slightly around the castle library. She glared at the final page of the book, empty save for the one sentence, written almost like the beginning to a poem. Just one more puzzle added to the list, she thought angrily.

Her ears suddenly perked up as she heard the familiar sound of wing flaps, followed by the quiet clops of hooves touching the floor. "Heya Twi!" Rainbow Dash called out with a grin as she entered the castle library. "How's the studying going?"

"Ehhh," was her only response as she closed the book.

"That bad, huh?" The Pegasus' tone was casual as she walked up to the Princess' desk, but her grin dropped.

"Guessing it didn't have any answers about the Tree?" She asked as she eyed the snow white cover of the book.

"Oh, it did," Twilight replied. "But only the answers I had already figured out from my own studies." Her horn glowed as she levitated the book up along with the various notes she had made from her own frequent studies of the Tree of Harmony, the book opening to different parts of the Tree held next to the matching notes, quickly moving from section to section and note to note. "Physical properties of the Tree? One of the first things I learned about. Magical influence on the surrounding land? Already knew that. Semi-intelligent capabilities? First-hoof experience even before I started studying the Tree. But the things that I haven't been able to figure out myself, like its origins, not even the book knows."

Rainbow did her best to follow the tidal wave of information Twilight held in front of here, but most of what was contained on the papers flew past her and those that she managed to read quickly vanished from her mind to make room for what she was saying, which was far easier for her to grasp. She blinked at Twilight's last statement. "Really? But isn't that book ancient? Like, Pre-Equestrian? Shouldn't it at least have something about where the Tree came from?"

Twilight shook her head, the notes and the book being placed back on her desk in a tidy, well organized pile. "The book only had a few theories, and those were vague at best. It seems even that far back, the Tree of Harmony was a mystery to the Ponies who first discovered it. Which means the Tree of Harmony is the single oldest magical phenomenon in Equestria. Which means, unless we find an even older book or scroll that has any, for lack of a better term, new information, I doubt we'll ever find out about the Tree's origins."

Twilight sighed again, her ears drooping as the disappointment hit her again.

Rainbow frowned and put a hoof on the Alicorn's shoulder. "You've really been tearing yourself up these last few years over that Tree. This past week especially. Hay, you've barely left the library for the past three days reading that one book!"

"Not just the book," Twilight muttered. "I've been comparing the notes I've made with my studies, and checking limited passages from other books and scrolls on the sub-"

"Ah-buh-buh-buh!" Rainbow interrupted with a shake of her head, her other fore hoof placed on Twilight's lips, her wings extended to maintain her balance. "My point is, you've been spending Way too much time cooped up in here trying to figure the Tree of Harmony out. You're also needlessly stressing yourself out again and, if this keeps up, you'll be worrying the others too. You need to take a break from this. A big, long break."

Rainbow lowered her hoof and Twilight nodded with a smile. "You're probably right, Dash." Still, a nagging thought lingered, and she felt her gaze draw back to the snow white book that sat on her desk. "Still..."

A blue hoof touched her cheek, and tilted her head back to face the rainbow-maned Pegasus. "Look, I'm not saying you should abandon this completely or anything, just don't go stressing out over not knowing about where the Tree came from for now. You're one of the smartest mares I know, you'll figure this out, but only after you've spent a lot of time clearing your head from this, okay?"

"Okay, you're right." Twilight relented, moving to nuzzle Rainbow. "I'll shelve this for the time being. Don't want to turn back into a shut-in now do I?"

"Nah, you're way too important for that." Rainbow replied, nuzzling the Alicorn back.

"Yeah, Equestria still needs their Princess of Friendship."

"Wasn't talking about Equestria and you know it."

Twilight giggled at that, giving the Pegasus a quick kiss on the cheek. "So, since I've finished my studying on the Tree, have any ideas on what to do? Maybe a quick flight outside? I think some fresh air would do me some good." Twilight moved to leave the room, expecting Rainbow to be right next to her, if not already dashing out for the entrance. Instead, she was stopped by an extended wing.

"As much as I would love to do that..." Rainbow said, giving a critical, and very unimpressed, eye on Twilight's wings.

Oh no, she thought as Rainbow shook her head. "You're wings are an absolute mess, you didn't do any kind of cleaning on them these past few days, did you?"

"I preened them last week!" Twilight said defensively, earning a sigh from the Pegasus.

"You're supposed to do them every two days, three at the most!" She carefully took Twilight's left wing in her hooves and unfurled it, and looked as if she was having difficulty keeping her eyes on it. "This is just disgraceful, Twi."

"Okay, I get it!" The Alicorn responded, snapping her wing closed and trying to hide the blush on her face, this sort of thing had happened all to often before. "You're gonna spend the next hour cleaning them, aren't you?"

"Somepony has to." Rainbow replied, gesturing with her head toward the doorway. "Come on, a library is no place to do something like this in."

Twilight groaned in exasperation, knowing full well that Rainbow wasn't going to let this go for a while, as she had always done in the past. Even after nine years, I still forget to clean these wings from time to time... I didn't even think anything was wrong with them. She smiled and shook her head as she followed Rainbow Dash out of the library. Rainbow, what would I do without you?

As she left, she levitated the doors closed, leaving the notes on her desk, and the snow white book, its cover almost glowing in the darkness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Deep in the vacuum of space, the ship Hand of Primus flew in complete silence, propelled by the thrust of its engines over twenty years ago. The engines had long since cooled down and remained offline, as did many of the ship's systems. In the long, pitch black corridors of the ship, several large pods sat, dark and silent. Until one of the pods lit up, a myriad of lights emanated from several ports, and a growing hum sounded as energy was poured into the pod, causing it to glow as power coursed through its circuitry and its occupant. With a jolt and a gasp, the tall, mechanical being pushed the pod's casing away, stumbling out with heavy, metallic clangs echoing as his feet landed on the metal floor.

Although humanoid in appearance, the being's metallic 'skin' was a dull gray. His torso, fore arms and legs were covered in a bulky looking white armour plating. On of the sides of his armoured arms, boldly inscribed on large, black letters was RCMP. His head unit was also armoured with a white shell, with a bright red prong bolted to the front. On the center of his chest was the Mark of Primus, the symbol that proudly showed his loyalty to Cybertron and the Autobots.

"Stasis awakening complete." A robotic voice echoed from seemingly nowhere as the newly-awakened machine groaned, rubbing at his blue visor. "Welcome back online, Commander Prowl." The voice greeted.

Wish I could say the same thing, Prowl wanted to grumble out loud, but instead spoke with a tired professionalism. "Teletraan Six, report."

"It has been roughly twenty Stellar Cycles since the Hand of Primus departed from Cybertron," the computer reported. "We are over one-hundred and fifty Light Years from the Space Bridge Network."

Long way from home. And backup. Prowl shook his head, waiting for the rest of his systems to come back into being fully online, but his servos felt so... stiff. I hate waking up from stasis. "Have we come across any significant sources of Energon?"

"Negative." Teletraan Six answered.

"Of course we haven't." Prowl grumbled. "Because that would solve too many of our problems."

"However," Six continued. "Perceptor has been manually monitoring communications and sensors on the bridge, he has requested that you be awakened from stasis."

"Oh has he?" The military commander responded. "Well, considering no alarms are blaring and that nothing's on fire, I doubt it's cause we're under attack."

"If we were under attack from hostile forces, I would've immediately woken all units from stasis and dispensed with the pleasantries, Commander Prowl."

"Heh, of course." Prowl chuckled.

"In any case, Perceptor has kindly requested you see him on the bridge."

"Never would've guessed." Prowl deadpanned. "Alright, better not keep him waiting."

His systems were still rebooting, but Prowl was never one to wait unless it was for an ambush. "Transform and Roll Out!" With the techno sounds of servos and parts quickly rearranging themselves, armour and circuitry moving in a fluid motion, the giant, humanoid machine was a sturdy police vehicle from the human world of Terra in a matter of seconds. The car lightly rumbling as its engine purred to life, perfectly disguised for a split second until Prowl howled in pain.

"AAAAAAAIIIIEEEEGGGH!!! SWEET PRIMUS THAT...That..." He paused as he evaluated his systems status. "That actually feels good. Huh. Guess all my systems needed was a bit of a jump-start. Gotta remember that the next time they decide to shove me into one of these pods."

With that, Prowl's engine roared as the tires screamed against the metal floor, the police vehicle racing down the corridor. It wasn't long before he reached the bridge of the ship, thanks to the speed he was going and that it was a simple straight line. The large doors parted quickly as he sped past, screeching to a halt before transforming back into his robot mode, this transformation far smoother than his previous one.

"Yikes," he commented as his optics adjusted to the almost pitch blackness on the bridge. The only source of light was from a single console at the very front of the bridge, which was blocked by another robotic form. "And I thought the stasis corridor was dark."

The other form turned, and Prowl could make out the smile on his face. Unlike Prowl, Perceptor was far less armoured, yet seemed bulkier from the rectangular shapes of his dark red torso and limbs, the Mark of Primus inscribed on his shoulder plates. His optics were separated into two separate units, allowing for easier expression, unlike Prowl's own single visor. "Ahh, Commander Prowl, how was your stasis sleep?"

Prowl shrugged, an expression he had learned from his time with the Humans back in the War. "Well, considering I was woken up from a rather nice dream involving two femme-bots with twin-sparks, an oil bath and, uh..." He stopped himself when Perceptor tilted his head slightly. "Long-story-short, this had better be good, Perceptor."

"Of course, of course." The bot replied. "I've been tracking the beacon signal that we detected back on Cybertron."

Now Prowl was tilting his head in confusion. "Huh? I was told that the signal was too far away to be effectively tracked, hence why the Hand was sent out here."

"It was," Perceptor replied, turning toward the console and tapping at a key, where the screen showed multiple symbols and shapes. "But I've recently been receiving more and more pulses from the beacon, these seem far more recent than the ones Cybertron received."

"What do you mean?"

"As Teletraan Six likely informed you, we are over one-hundred and fifty light years from the nearest Space Bridge, and over four-hundred light years from Cybertron itself, judging by the sheer distance from the beacon's location and the time it took for the original signal to reach Cybertron, the signal was likely originally sent more then one thousand stellar cycles ago. However, not only have I detected several more signal pulses from the beacon, but these are many times stronger then what Cybertron has received."

"So... we're getting closer?"

"Indeed, and I've been able to get far clearer readings from each pulse, which seemed to have increased to frequency. Which means not only can we more effectively pinpoint where the beacon is located, but it also shows that its power source is beyond many conventional means of energy."

Prowl stared, and felt his Spark shake slightly in anticipation. "You don't mean...?"

"That the world the beacon is on is likely teeming with Energon." Perceptor said with a smile. "We won't know for sure until we get there, but it data I gathered from the signal's strength is definitely promising."

"Well, I'll be..." Prowl grinned as he turned to the vidscreen, which showed the deep blackness of space, a few stars hung in the background. "Good news after all. I was starting to think this little expedition was going to be a waste. Things might finally be looking up for us."

Perceptor nodded and tapped another key on the console, which showed multiple displays and data bits that only the scientist could understand. "I've already set course for the system the beacon is located, we should arrive in about 4 deca-cycles. In the meantime, I've launched a probe that should reach the system shortly before waking you up, so we'll have a good idea of what we're looking at by the time we reach the system's edge."

Prowl turned his attention back on the scientist and nodded in approval. "Good thinking Perceptor, I'd hate for some nasty surprises to get the drop on us. Hopefully, though, there won't be any Decepticons waiting for us when we get there."

"Even if there were Decepticons there, all intel reports indicated that they haven't been able to front a unified effort since Megatron and Optimus Prime vanished all those stellar cycles ago." Perceptor replied. "So if there are any, they'd likely just be raiders or scavengers, something we can easily handle."

Prowl, however, shook his head. "Unified or not, the Decepticons are never easy to handle."

"Even so, Commander Prowl, there's been no indication that the Decepticons have ever ventured this far out, this expedition alone is the furthest a Cybertronian vessel has ever traveled."

"Yeah well, given how many of Megatron's surviving lieutenants have managed to evade us for this long without detection, who's to say they haven't already and we just don't know about it?" Prowl replied with a grim frown. "Besides, if there's Energon, they'll eventually travel this far for it. I just hope we'll be the ones to beat them to it for a change, and that when they do show up, we'll be ready for them."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Far ahead of the Autobot ship, the comparatively tiny probe zipped through space, speeding ahead to reach its destination. Not even slowing down as it came up to a drifting cluster of asteroids. On one of the small shards of stone a slim, sleek, human-sized machine stood still and silent. Her metallic purple and silver form gleamed against the light from the distant stars, long steel wings stretched out from her back, the Mark of Kaon imprinted at the center of each wing, showing her allegiance to the glory of Cybertron and the Decepticons. A large purple cannon was attached to her left arm, which was crossed with her right arm over her chest as she stood in the vastness of space, completely bored. Her dark purple eyes stared at the nothingness before and all around her, a frown etched on her silver face. At least until she saw the small probe zoom past her.

"Hm?" Her eyes following it as a puzzled expression came on her face, before a light grin appeared. Finally, a chance for us to get off this dust ball!

Back-flipping off of the rock, she briefly tumbled through the vacuum before seamlessly transforming into a small single drone-jet, based off the appearance of the drone-jets the humans had used near the end of the War, the cannon shifted to just under the nose, a single engine flared with a purple flame as the tiny craft propelled itself toward the largest asteroid. Flying through a large tunnel entrance, the small Decepticon quickly came upon a large open space, where several other Cybertronians that towered over her sat, save for one, who was facing a deactivated console.

The tiny jet zoomed loudly into the center of the space, before tilting up and flipping around, transforming in less then a second, she hovered in the air briefly before falling to the steel floor, landing on her feet with a loud clang that echoed around the chamber.

"Commander Starscream!" She called out, regaining her posture.

"This had better be important, Slipstream." The mechanical being answered, turning from the console and looking down at the tiny form. Starscream's form, which was visually identical to the rest of the Decepticon Seekers, was designed to make him stand out, his torso was a bright red, save for the golden rounded cylinder that housed his spark and acted as the cockpit in his jet form. Attached to each of his silver arms were a pair of sleek cannons, which housed his powerful Null Rays, his signature and most feared weapon. His silver wings, while not as long and thin as Slipstream's own, still had the Mark of Kaon imprinted on them. His armoured head was a dark, dark grey, causing his red eyes to stand out even more.

"Sir!" Slipstream placed left arm over her chest and quickly bowed her head in salute. "A probe just passed by us, it was Cybertronian in design."

Several of the Seekers sat up from their previously bored positions, while Starscream's optics widened. "Autobots?"

"Who else?" Slipstream replied, grinning as she saw the fear in her leader's optics. Even though she knew that if the Autobots detected them, they were likely all done for, she always took a certain amount of pleasure at seeing Starscream afraid, no matter the circumstances. "Fortunately, it didn't even slow down as it passed by us, I think it's heading to one of the nearby star systems."

Many of the Decepticon Seekers relaxed at that, including Starscream himself. He placed a hand on his chin as he thought. "What are the Autobots doing all the way out here? We're light years away from the nearest Space Bridge."

"Probably a hunting party to find renegade Decepticons like us." A somewhat dulled voice called out from behind Slipstream, she turned and saw the Seeker Thundercracker stand up. "Why else come this far out?"

Slipstream shook her head. "I doubt it. The Bots aren't known to come looking for a fight when nothing's at stake for them. We're beaten, scattered, and leaderless, that's good enough for them." She turned back to Starscream. "There is, however, one good reason that would draw them this far out from the Space Bridge Network."

Starscream thought for a moment, before a wicked grin appeared on his face. "Energon! The Autobots have found a new Energon source!"

"Exactly!" Slipstream replied with her own grin.

The expressions on the others, however, was one of hope. "Energon!?" Skywarp said in awe. "We haven't had Energon in Stellar Cycles!"

Thundercracker nodded. "My weapon systems have been at 5% for far too long, if I had even a little bit of Energon, I'd be a true warrior again!"

"We'd all be true warriors again!" Nova Storm corrected.

"And we'd finally have some action as well!" Slipstream added.

"Yesss..." Starscream muttered. "We follow the probe to the Energon, take it and secure it, strengthening ourselves so we can repel the Autobots when they get there, and then..." His grin widened. "I'd have a new source of Energon under my direct control! The other Decepticons would have no choice but to accept me as their New Leader at last!!"

Slipstream rolled her optics in exasperation, the other Seekers however nodded in excitement.

"Once unified," Thundercracker said, raising his hand to the air and clenching his fist. "We can finally resume the War and beat the Autobots from Cybertron, destroying them once and for all!"

"Then we can take the fight to the Human filth who allied with the Autobots!" Nacelle said. "We'll wipe out the other half of their pathetic little world for daring to stand against us!"

The Decepticon Seekers cried out in agreement, they had all been humiliated by the Humans on Terra during the War and were eager to exact revenge, Slipstream herself didn't mind the idea, it was what Starscream created her for, after all.

"Yes!" The Decepticon Commander shouted. "And I shall lead you all and the Decepticon forces through these glorious battlefields until we are the sole rulers of the galaxy!"

The Seekers cheered, raising their fists to the air as they cried out several things. "Glory to the Decepticon cause!" "Glory for Cybertron!" "All hail Starscream!" "Death to the Humans!" "Death to the Autobots!"

Starscream spread his arms open in a majestic way. "Today is the start a new era, my fellow Decepticons! We will follow that probe to our destiny! Transform and Rise Up!"

With, the Decepticon Seekers each shifted to their jet forms, Slipstream quickly moving and attaching herself to the top of Starscream's Jet. "Well done, Slipstream." The Seeker leader commented as they all flew out of the asteroid in close formation, their ion engines screaming as they followed in the direction of the probe from the data Slipstream had quickly gathered. Slipstream herself was just glad they'd be having some action shortly.