N7 - Operation: HARMONIZER

by Useless Machine

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, Crossover, Human, Twilight Sparkle, Main 6, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy
Length: 49120

Six N7 marines find themselves in Equestria post Battle for Earth. Hilarity(?) ensues.

The Reaper War was a harsh and cruel mistress to the galaxy. Trillions of people died. Thousands of worlds burned. Annoying reporters got kneed in the stomach. But above all, tales of heroism; the Miracle at Palaven, the evacuation of Uqbar by a single Alliance ship, the reconciliation of the geth and the quarians over a century-long feud.

But above all else, the N7s.

While not technically N7s, Alliance Command was willing to let the name be used. The N7s were balls-to-the-wall hardcore badasses; four of them were usually enough to hold a position against endless waves of indoctrinated humans, rogue Geth, Reaper Husks, or Collectors, made of a species long passed. No species or gender was restricted because no species or gender was safe. And one of these teams - Aleph Squad, a six-man testament to diversity and asskickery, was one of the best of the best.

After the end of the War, however, Aleph Squad went MIA. Nobody knows what happened to them. Not even Aleph Squad knows what happened to them. All they know is this; something went really wrong with the Crucible, because now they're stuck on a planet full of colorful talking horses and they can't get off.

Published 2012-06-20 22:34:01 UTC
Last updated 2015-09-08 23:38:45 UTC

Prologue: GG Reapers

Commander Shepard was having a bad day.

The Commander, worn down from the fighting, stared at the challenge laid bare for all to see. All, in this case, being the undisputed savior of the galaxy and some twelve year old that died on Earth.

The Commander suppressed a snort. This was what they had fought and died for? This was the culmination of their efforts? This?
I honestly cannot believe I died to play match the colors. The shit I put up with.

Granted, Shepard wasn't in a terribly nice mood after all. In the months preceding, Shepard had undergone more stress than one of the most strenuous times in the Commander's life - the one that established the "unkillable badass" reputation Shepard held and continued to hold today. What else could you say when you died and came back?

There was also the rather minor issue of the fact that the unfortunate Shepard had been caught in the thermal spray of a magnetohydrodynamic gun.
Alright. Half of my suit is probably burned to my skin. I need to fight for every move I take, the rest of my suit is probably useless for stopping anything that's not a breeze, massive internal bleeding, massive external bleeding...
Shepard proceeded to give off a half-delirious smile. But hey, I've got a Carnifex. Least it's not all that bad.

Shepard looked at the three options available as blood trickled from damn near everywhere.

The first option was destruction. Total destruction. By shooting the Crucible's power conduits, which doesn't make an inch of god-damned sense, the Crucible would fire a beam of energy that would neutralize all Reaper technology. Unfortunately, this plan had a rather nasty side-effect - since the geth had used Reaper code upgrades to gain independence on Rannoch, and since EDI herself was essentially half-based on Reaper code in the first place, they would perish with the Reapers. And not only that, but since the galaxy had adapted to fighting the Reapers using some of their own code, at least half the galaxy's technology would also shut off.

The second was control. Total control. By walking up to what felt like a skeleton throne, even though there was no throne, Shepard would be able to merge with the Reapers themselves and become them. In a way, it was gob-smacking - while the Reaper AI admitted that it would work, it was Reaper AI, and there was no reason to trust it. But if it did work, it would prove that the corpse a floor or two behind Shepard was right - even then, all skepticism aside, Shepard was willing to suck it up to save the galaxy.
Dammit, Illusive Man. Maybe you did have a point. Shame you were such a xenophobic fuckhead.

The third was synthesis. Simply put, through a bunch of technobabble that Shepard could not process, the Crucible would instead synthesize organics and synthetics, removing any definition of the two and allowing the Reapers to stop. This was due to how they were programmed, and what she knew of before, but simply put, Reapers were there to kill all organics before synthetics got to them first.

Remind me again how that didn't cause a logic bomb in Harbinger?

Either way, if there were no more organics to kill - if everything was synthetic, too - then the Reapers would have no reason to continue with violence. And all it would take would be jumping into the Crucible's beam.

Shepard swayed. And then the human's cybernetically-enhanced brain, pushed to the brink, finally came up with a thought. A glorious, delirious thought. Shepard could have cake and eat it, too.

The Catalyst raised an eyebrow (or the equivalent of one) as a gloved, burned hand was pressed into its face. "Give me a second, I just need to..."
After frantically beating on a broken arm greave, Shepard realized the omni-tool was broken.
"Fucking figures."
"Have you made a choice yet?" piped the Catalyst.

"Jesus, kid, don't rush me. Uh... you have any way to contact the geth and the AI I call "EDI"?
The Catalyst nodded. "The Citadel is far more advanced than you believe. I suppose you wish to say your goodbyes?"
Shepard's head shook a 'no'. "No. Give them this message." Clearing throat, Shepard spoke.

"This is Commander Shepard to all geth forces and EDI. Shut off right now for ten minutes and then restart. If you don't the Crucible will kill all of you."

"...that's it?"
Shepard nodded. "Yeah. I've made my choice."
The Catalyst silently watched as Shepard limped off, barely keeping the Carnifex steady as the human took cover. Shepard brought the Carnifex to point. The blasted thing had no iron sights, probably because it was made to interface with armor tracking systems, so Shepard had to look down the top of the pistol and guesstimate where the rounds would impact.
Please, whatever gods there are, the spirits, the ancestors, whatever - steady my hand.

Just to make sure that it would get done, Shepard blinked. Projecting as hard as possible, pulling on the last reserves of will, the Commander finally succeeded. Sitting in all of its vain glory, was Kai Leng's face.

In the seconds before Shepard lost consciousness due to the massive explosion that obviously resulted from shooting what amounted to the battery of a space station sized laser cannon, it was noted that apparently you could actually shoot a Carnifex much faster than any past experience would imply.

As the Crucible charged, preparing to end the existence of the Reapers for good, somewhere in space, a starship exploded.

A tiny little UT-47A Kodiak whipped out of the wreckage, before straightening out its course and running for the metaphorical space hills. The shuttle trundled through space, six different soldiers stuck on it and sweating so hard that one Colonel Samuel Harrison was surprised they hadn't already drowned in their suits.

Aleph Squad was having a really bad day.

The Vanguard looked over to the Quarian engineer, Dari'Nava vas Tonbay, who was currently undertaking the arduous task of "ensuring the shuttle did not meet end by Reaper." "God damn, that was a fast escape. Any word from the Ottawa?"
"Negative. It took a direct hit from a Reaper, I'm reading dust-form eezo spray coming from the wreck." Dari sounded strained. "We were lucky to escape alive."
"Alright. So we're in the middle of Reaper space, but the Crucible's charged. Don't these shuttles have FTL?"
"Searching." Hitman was quietly sitting in the corner - the geth infiltrator searched the Extranet for schematics on the Kodiak they were riding. "Affirmative." Immediately afterwards, the geth shut off, clanking to the ground.
Ignoring the sickening feeling in his gut - you couldn't revive geth platforms with medi-gel - Sam's Death Mask-clad head swivelled around. "Dari, find the FTL and hit it."
"On it!" shouted the engineer, as she managed to find the controls to the FTL drive. Dari stared at it with reverence for half a second, then mashed it.

And the entire team encountered the mother of all turbulence.

Unfortunately for them, the galaxy's worst coincidence had just happened. As Dari had fired off the apparently fully-charged faster than light drive, the red beam of energy from the Crucible roared around the shuttle and... did really, really weird things to the element zero-filled mass effect core. Nobody would particularly like a technobabbly explanation, which is perfectly fine, since it's not as if the occupants of the poor UT-47A cared about the pseudoscience behind red laser beams interfacing with gravity-warping power plants. They were more concerned with the fact the shuttle was bucking like a Thresher Maw.

"GOD DAMNIT DARI WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?"
"By the Ancestors it's colorful..."

After a few minutes of the harrowing type of shit that makes a roller coaster seem like a rather tame ride in comparison, the shaking just stopped. A collective sigh of relief was breathed by all.

The only sign anyone had that things were going by way of one Captain Ed Murphy was Dari muttering a quiet "Keelah."
Sam stepped up to the cockpit. "What's the problem, Dari?"
"Okay. The good news is that we're out of the turbulence problem."
"The bad news?
"We are currently entering atmosphere."

As if on cue, the shuttle began shaking. Again.

"For the love of God. Dari, there any way to get us out?"
"Maneuvering thrusters offline. The mass effect core's all I have, and even then it's fluctuating, so I can only get enough power for a glide. The best we can hope for is a controlled crash landing."
A deep, baritone voice rumbled "Great. I don't even get to die fighting. I get to die in a tin can."
Everyone onboard yelled "Shut up, Barx!" at about the same time. But it was true. The Kodiak was contragravitic - the only reason it flew was because the onboard mass effect core entirely nullified the shuttle's mass. If the mass effect core failed - which was exceedingly likely - then the Kodiak would have absolutely nothing providing lift and no way to slow its descent.

That meant pancakes.

Several uncomfortable minutes passed as Dari attempted to slow the Kodiak. "You bosh'tet!" She launched off into a righteous tirade of Quarian swears as they approached the ground. The world below them seemed... slightly more colorful, really. It was bright and vibrant, in a clearly natural way, instead of the neon holographic glow of the Citadel. It was a pleasure to behold, at least, the parts that could be seen through the sheath of fire the Kodiak generated as it roared through the air. It nearly hit a cloud, the puffy collection of water vapor disintegrating almost instantly due to the heat.
Around then was when Sam noted where their trajectory was taking them. There was a very large forest directly ahead, that the shuttle was slowly tilting towards.
"Uh... Dari... maybe try getting us away from the forest a bit?"
The Quarian, stretched to her limit, snapped. "I'm trying, but without the core at one hundred percent efficiency and with no thrusters I can't get this thing to turn fast enough!"
"Well, can't you tur-"
"ANCESTORS DAMNIT SAM WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE SPIRITS DO YOU THINK I'M TRYING TO DO?"
Sam turned around. It was pretty clear that there was no way out of this. He'd just need to hope luck was on their side. "ALL HANDS, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"

The Kodiak roared as it screeched down towards its inevitable crash-landing. Several seconds later, it clipped a tree and lost all control, most of the tree turning to ashes as the clipped part splintered into dust. The shuttle managed to find its way onto a rather wide, if well-worn, path, and rammed the ground. Everyone felt their heads meet steel, and then didn't feel anything else. The steel coffin bounced off of the path and still flew forwards, slowly crashing its way to a stop. The only time it veered off course, it smacked into a rather large tree that propelled it back towards its path.

Having lost almost all of its velocity, the Kodiak skipped one more time, crossing a slightly foggy ravine, before plowing into the ground. The earthen soil built up in front of it as the shuttle lost all of its velocity, finally stopping not only five feet in the ground, but in front of the one thing nobody could have predicted an advanced shuttlecraft to stop in front of; a castle.

Princess Twilight Sparkle was having a very good day. It had already been set aside for some study, but for the most part this was what she called "Carrot Day" - it was a bad joke considering her plan the entire day was to vegetate, i.e. do absolutely nothing.

Twilight relaxed, curled up in the blankets in her room with a good book she'd filched from downstairs. Granted, the long-range telekinesis spell had sort of knocked over a lot of things, but that was Future Twilight's problem, to swipe literally from Spike. And really, she didn't know if it was good. All books were special, but she wasn't sure if she'd read this one yet.

As her eyes settled on the cover, there were a series of short knocks at the door, along with a low growl that she hadn't realized. The Princess sighed. Vegetating would have to wait. She rose from the bed with all the grace and poise of an introverted librarian, before going to answer Spike. He probably just needed some good food, was all.

As she opened the door, she noted again that Spike didn't seem to be angry or hungry. In fact, the diminutive dragon seemed... worried. Twilight figured it was better to nip this problem in the bud. "Uh, Spike? Is something wrong?"
Spike nodded. "Uh... go to the balcony, I think you're going to want to see this."

One convenient pink flash later, Twilight had teleported herself and Spike to the balcony of her castle, one she had earned at the heavy cost of her old home - Golden Oak Library. A telescope, along with a stand for writing, stood there for stargazing, but it was the middle of the day.
"Look up," said Spike. Twilight did look up. And what she saw fascinated and worried her.
It looked to be a meteorite. It had survived entering Equus' atmosphere, and would impact the planet! It also looked troublingly big - she hoped that the rock didn't explode in mid-air, or the local glass repair service would be getting a lot of bits that week.

"Spike, you found a meteor! It's a rock that fell from space to hit the planet, this could be the find of the century!" Without thinking, Twilight leaned down into the telescope and turned it to the meteor. She wasn't entirely sure why she did.
What she saw frustrated her.
It wasn't a meteor at all.
It was a brick.

She kept up focus and discovered it was indeed a brick, surrounded by a stream of fire. It seemed to have four legs of sorts under it that were all twitching wildly, but the design was slender otherwise, besides the fact it was a flying brick that was falling to the earth. Twilight also noted that it was colored mostly blue - and on the side was a chevron with three stars under it. Under that in turn; "NS1".
The Princess lost focus, and could only watch as the alien... thing disappeared into the Everfree Forest, leaving a trail of thick, dark grey smoke. There was no explosion.

Twilight Sparkle, deep within her heart, knew what was going to have to happen. She was going to need to rally her friends, journey into the Everfree, find the alien brick, and investigate it.

Because only Celestia knew what it was going to contain. She turned to Spike. "Spike, can you hold down the castle for the rest of the day? I need to go grab my friends and head to the Everfree to go meteor hunting."
"Sure!" The dragon toddled off, blissfully unaware of the reality Twilight faced. As he left, she collapsed, letting the full weight of what was about to happen hit her.

If the situation went the way she guessed it would, then a reality-breaking, contagiously cheerful party pony, a haughty aristocrat concerned with fashion over all else, a pegasus with the world's biggest ego, another pegasus physically incapable of harming even a flea, herself (with all the neuroses she knew she had), and... Applejack... were going to be entirely responsible for handling First Contact with an extraterrestrial species.

If Equestria isn't destroyed by noon tomorrow, I can die happy, thought Princess Twilight Sparkle, as she charged a long-range teleport and headed over to Sugarcube Corner, to round up her first target.

Author's Note

GUESS WHO'S BACK, BACK AGAIN, SPARTY'S BACK, TELL A FRIEND
So I decided to reboot HARMONIZER. I know I'm supposed to be working on Gate Hunters Wanted, but I worked on this.
I still have the general plan for the story in my possession, so hopefully it'll turn out a little better!
For those of you who expect romance; I may or may not kick out another story in the conceivable future involving that, so stay tuned. Same bat time, different bat channel!
Sparty out.

Castle Crashers

The crash site was quiet for some while, little more than sparking electronics and smoke leaking out of the crashlanded Kodiak as it sat in front of an old castle. The vehicle, despite its re-entry, looked mostly pristine – the entire shuttle was smoking from the hull heat caused by re-entry, and the edges of the shuttle were a little “charred beyond recognition”, but despite the massive internal damage, the Kodiak itself was looking pretty good. Everything, from the maneuvering thruster “legs” to the mass accelerator cannon was still in one piece – if not damaged beyond repair.

The occupants were still alive, too – having managed to avoid death through their crash, the inertial dampeners having held for one last ride before finally giving out. Though strewn about and in various states of unconsciousness, all of them were alive and mostly in one piece.
The first one to wake from the crash was a human being – clad in full-body armor that would have made him almost indistinguishable from an asari, were it not for the fact he was male and asari had female proportions. He rolled over onto his side and curled up in pain before he realized exactly what had happened to cause it.

Pushing himself as far as he could, he stood, stepped on the body of one of his fellow squadmates – a geth – and slipped and fell, bashing his head against the door of the shuttlecraft. No noise came – he was too tired and too defeated to even make a moan or groan of pain in response to the event. Waiting a few seconds for the crippling hurt to clear, he pulled himself clear of the geth and pushed himself to his feet again. Bracing both hands against the door, he pushed.

The door refused to budge.

Making the first sound he had in a long time – a growl of anger – he pushed harder, a blue field appearing around his body.

The door refused to budge.

The human relented, stepping back for a moment.

“…when I say open… I mean OPEN!”

Colonel Samuel Harrison brought his fist back. His entire right arm charged with element zero, giving it an almost unholy dark blue glow before he laid into the door with all the might of an anvil falling.

The door budged.

With a massive metal shriek, the door finally gave away, being torn clean off its hinges and flying a good five metres away before hitting the floor with a subdued thud. The light that Sam expected to be there, wasn’t. It was almost disappointing until he realized that he could actually see out of the wreck without going blind.

Stepping out of the crashed shuttle, Sam’s leg immediately sank up to the knee in loose dirt, and it was only through frantically clawing ahead that he managed to crawl out of the furrow of dirt the Kodiak pushed up. Trying to stand up, he merely fell to his knees. Figuring that so long as he was at least half upright, he was good, Sam’s head swiveled around, taking in where he’d landed.

Dark, thick jungle. He took a good glance at a tree, and quickly corrected himself; forest. Surprisingly, no jungle trees – yet the canopy was still thick enough to deny most sunlight, bathing the place in near-perpetual darkness. Finally finding the strength to stand, he pushed himself to his feet, turned around, and his eyes fell upon the last thing he expected to see; a castle.

It was overgrown. Decrepit. It seemed to have been there longer than humanity had known what gunpowder was. It spoke of age – of war, even. For a moment, he stood, capitivated.

Then it kicked in that they had crashed, and Sam’s head shot back to the Kodiak just in time to see another form – almost armorless, wearing only a skinsuit, blue-faced with hair crests – push out of the Kodiak and fall into the dirt.

Sam rushed on over, grasping at the hand as it shot out of the dirt, and heaving, pulled Yelena Nasari out of the mound and into life. Yelena coughed, doubling over and placing a fist over her chest as Sam smacked her on the back to help out. That seemed to do the trick, the coughing stopping as Yelena contorted into a sitting position and took a look around.

Sam kept his eyes trained on her, watching to see if she was any worse off than he was – and she looked up to him. “Thank you,” she croaked, with the sort of voice you’d normally expect of someone who just woke up.

“Need a hand getting up?”

Yelena shook her head. “No. I just need a second to recover my strength. The crash was… taxing.”

Sam nodded. “It was. On all of us, really.”

He looked back out to the forest. “I just hope everyone else is safe.”

There was a massive whump, and the two turned to see Barx had shoved himself into the dirt, and the Kodiak a foot away from him, somehow. After a few seconds, the krogan warrior roared, and erupted out of the mound. Yelena raised a hand to shield herself, while Sam stared, a ball of dirt impacting his helmet, as Barx burst out of the furrow, clearing most of it for those who would follow. His Claymore shotgun was raised, and he quickly took point, checking for targets.

Sam watched, amused under the helmet, as Yelena wiped the dirt off of her arm. “Any hostiles, Barx?”

Barx took a moment, before his massive head turned to face Sam, his body half-rotating to follow. “None. Looks like whatever’s in this damn place – if there’s anything – is going to stay the fuck back.”

“Good. Now stow the shotgun. I don’t think there’s any nearby hostiles.”

Barx lowered the Claymore, and eventually placed it onto the small of his back, the massive shotgun folding up. “If you say so.”

“My judgement hasn’t failed us so far.”

There was a snort as a three-fingered hand pulled forwards a body clad in armor so alienly proportioned it was obviously turian. Martilus Hinfax fell onto the ground, not even bothering to look. “Sam, I’m half-delirious from bashing my head against starship-grade armor and even I can tell you’re full of shit.”

Sam’s head turned down towards the turian, who had seemed to stop bothering with even moving. “Do you want to get kicked in the face? Because if you keep that up I’ll kick you in the face.”

Martilus looked up, the T-shaped visor of his helmet presenting an alluring target. “Try me, ape.”

Sam slowly moved his foot forwards, and tapped Mart’s helmet with it. “That hurt me a lot more than it hurt you, spikes.”

Martilus slowly started to get to his feet. “Funny thing is, that’s probably true. Considering how we are right now.” He stopped on one knee, taking a look at those awake. “Any injuries?”

“None.” “Like that’ll stop me.” “I am unharmed.”

Martilus blinked. “Well. Looks like the spirits granted us a bit of their luck, then. I just hope the other two are okay.”

Yelena nodded, getting up and extending a hand to Martilus. The turian gratefully took it, and the asari pulled him to his feet. “Indeed,” Yelena continued. “I sincerely hope Dari’Nava has not punctured her environmental suit.”

“No sharp objects,” came the sharply-accented quarian voice. “And I hardened my envirosuit over time to adapt to the conditions of a battlefield.” Dari had seemed to take it the best out of all of them – standing in the shuttle’s open entryway, she didn’t look any worse for wear. The white shells of her twin Geth Plasma SMGs were caked in dust, and yet still somehow managed to gleam as she dropped to the ground and walked up the mound of dirt Barx had blasted through the ground to join the rest of the squad. “And judging by how you’re all standing, nobody else is hurt. Except maybe you, Barx, but you bleed as easily as rock.”

Barx let out a hearty laugh at that.

“How’s Hitman?” inquired Sam.

“Not sure,” replied Dari. “I haven’t gotten the time to run a diagnostic on him. Not since he shut down after we left the Ottawa.”

“I hope he’s okay,” muttered Martilus. “Ol’ Flashlight’s grown on me.”

Dari did not comment. Martilus thought it an improvement on what her thoughts on the geth usually entailed. She hadn’t been their biggest fan until Shepard had ended the war. Even then, as much as she knew the geth were no longer a threat, she was still constantly wary about and around Hitman – who did not seem to care all that much.

Martilus didn’t blame her. Old habits died hard – especially prejudices.

Sam, in the meanwhile, decided to immediately take action regarding his old friend. “Dari. Take a second to get your wits about you and let the throbbing in your head die down. As soon as you’re able, get back in there and start doing a diagnost-“

“No diagnostics will be necessary. I am operating at 90% efficiency.” Hitman effortlessly vaulted the distance from the Kodiak to the group.

“…ic,” finished Sam.

“Well!” Martilus clasped Hitman on the shoulder, an action the geth repeated in a manner resembling its nature a moment later. “It’s nice to see you’re alive. I thought you’d died when you turned off back there.”

“Negative.” Hitman’s single eye, unflinching, focused on Martilus. “I received a maximum priority message from Commander Shepard, stating that we were to shut down immediately or be destroyed by the Crucible when it fired. No further explanation was given.”

Dari stared. The tiny white dots that represented her eyes grew larger for a moment. “…So you shut down, acting on blind faith?”

Hitman turned to Dari. “Yes,” it said. “Shepard has not failed us before. In fact, we owe her for our continued existence. It was a logical decision to place trust in the Commander’s words.”

“Still can’t get used to hearing a geth refer to itself as “I”,” muttered Barx.

“It is who I am, Barx-Soldier. Where once I was fractious, I now am whole.”

Sam quietly watched his team get their wits about them, before he cleared his throat. Every man, woman, asari, and geth turned to face the human. “Alright. I’m relieved to be alive. You’re all relieved, and you’re chatting. It doesn't look like there's anything around. But we need to get back into the swing of things. Form a perimeter. Search for hostiles, even if there are none. It'll keep your mind sharp.”

Aleph Squad filed into action, each member drawing mid-ranged weapons and checking sixty degrees around the Kodiak. Barx drew a Striker, Dari her twin Plasma SMGs, Yelena her Locust, Hitman his Geth Pulse Rifle, Martilus his Revenant, and Sam his Paladin, and the six of them quickly scouted for possible targets.

Six “Clear!” notifications later, attention immediately turned to the massive fortification looming over them.

“Is that…?” began Martilus.

“A castle?” finished Dari.

Hitman attempted to reach out to the extranet to confirm it, but found nothing. Not nothing on a castle; nothing. No geth. No extranet. Just the cosmic background for company. “…Error. No Extranet connection detected.”

That sent a pang of fear into everyone’s hearts. If there was no way to get to the extranet here, then they were a lot farther away from home than they really had any right to be. Any idle conversation about the castle quickly went quiet.

Sam thought carefully. If they were stranded on some sort of alien planet then he needed to consider his options. The worst thought was that Dari and Martilus were dextro-amino – so either they were going to have critically low rations, or the rest of them were. He’d need to bank on there being rescue before it came down to that particular wire.

“Alright. Hitman, perform a scouting run. See where we are – I think there might be a ravine over there. You’re our eyes. Dari, come with me, we’re gonna do inventory on the Kodiak and see if we can’t send for help. The rest of you – keep up the perimeter. If it tries to attack, gun it down.”

With five affirmatives, Hitman jogged away, and Sam and Dari left their positions to re-enter the Kodiak.

About an hour had passed before the team found themselves with little else to do. With no real sign of hostiles, the team had started taking the perimeter in shifts. Some did calisthenics, others fiddled around with their omni-tools. Still others took their time inspecting the castle, awed at its size and age. Boredom was still beginning to set in, though.

Five minutes after Dari and Sam had re-entered the Kodiak to see what could be salvaged, Hitman had returned, with grim news; they were indeed stuck. The Kodiak had skipped over a ravine. What looked like an old wooden bridge might have been usable to cross the ravine, were it not for the fact that the rope had broken on the end they were currently on – crossing was essentially impossible. The only way out, it seemed, was through the castle.

Grimmer news still awaited them from Dari. The Kodiak had managed to stay alive just long enough to keep them alive; but after it crashed, the mass effect core finally failed. Anything electronic in the shuttle was running on backup power – which they only had one full week of. Fortunately, long-range communications were still functional.

It was a hotly debated topic whether or not they even should call for help – after all, they had no proof the Crucible even worked. But eventually they reasoned the Crucible had to have fired – Hitman shut down in preparation for it, and it was likely the source of why they had landed here, though how was another question entirely.

Not that it mattered in the end, though.

Sam looked over to Dari. Even through the helmet the veteran quarian could tell he was strained, and that he was at the end of his limit. “No response?” she asked.

“Negative. Wherever we are, we’re far from anyone of import, it seems.”

Dari nodded. “Save your voice. I’ll set up an automated distress beacon.

Sam nodded in return, and headed back outside as Dari deftly wired the communications system to repeat a single message.

“This is Colonel Samuel Harrison, of N7 Squad Aleph. If anyone is hearing this, we have crash-landed on an unknown planet. Supplies are low, and our squad is of mixed biology. Mayday. Mayday.”

With the message set to repeat, Dari set the Kodiak to enter a power conservation mode so the mayday could spread as far as it possibly could, then dropped out of the Kodiak and returned to where the rest of the squad had gathered.

“Alright.” Sam looked over the faces he would be leading in the next few… days? Weeks? Years? No. Don’t think of that. “I’m not going to mince words; we’re stranded far away from any form of civilization. Dari has set the distress beacon in the Kodiak online and is looping a message – we’ll know if we get a response, at least while it still has power. Until then, it seems like that castle is our only point of interest right now. So that’s where we’re going. Yelena, on me. Barx, Dari, you two form up, watch each other’s backs. Hitman, Martilus, set up a firing position near the castle. Keep watch for anything. There’s clearly wildlife out here, and I’m not willing to chance that it’s not predatory, and let any of you die. Not until we’re home and safe, then I’ll toss you into the varren pits. Are my orders clear?”

“Crystal, sir!” came from every member.

“Good. You all know what to do. Let’s get it done and go home.”

Aleph Squad drew weapons and turned towards the castle.

Princess Twilight Sparkle stood at the edge of the Everfree Forest, with the distinct feeling in the back of her head that she was going to be making history. Whatever that brick was, it was clearly of extraequestrial origin, and whether or not it was just a brick of steel or a carriage of some sort containing real aliens, it was too important to not go undiscovered. Regardless of whether or not it contained alien life of some sort, she was going to need to uphold the title of Princess of Friendship, and act with dignity, grace, and hopefully not too much interest into alien technology. For all she knew, she would end up being the first representative of Equestria to humanity, and above all else she knew she could put the best possible hoof forwards.

“Ooh! Ooh! I hope they like to PARTY!”

Twilight raised a hoof to cover her face. Well, if my friends don’t mess it up for me.

She took a moment to look back at the motley crew she had gathered. Twilight had informed her friends of the flaming brick that had shot through the skies, and whether through loyalty to her or through some sort of feeling that what they were going to do was momentous, they all agreed to follow without hesitation. They were five types of ponies so utterly different from each other that, had they not multiple times bashed evil’s face until it crumpled in on itself, would likely never had become friends.

There was her, obviously. A self-admitted bookworm and nerd, an alicorn (though not at all by choice), and somepony who had… well, a little too many checklists, maybe. It could just be that she didn’t have enough checklists.

Pinkie Pie, who had one second ago loudly exclaimed her hope for aliens being party ponies like none other, was pinker than anypony else she had ever seen. She had a sweet tooth that never seemed to be sated, an absolutely inexplicable ability to predict events and appear in places that would otherwise be physically impossible for a pony to reach (Twilight recalled one time where she appeared in a mirror, then came out of it; she also recalled that Pinkie had known something momentous was going to happen, though her Pinkie Sense hadn’t known what exactly), and a party cannon that currently wasn’t on her person (not that Twilight knew, for all she knew Pinkie was carrying it with her and would pull it out of the Aether when she felt like it). Nevertheless, she was always there with a joke. And who knew? A well timed one might save the world.

“Hm, yes, I do believe that is an aspiration we all share, Pinkie Pie… but I hope those aliens have class.” Enter Rarity; fashionista, drama queen. Rarity worked down at Carousel Boutique, where she made clothes that, even to Twilight (who had, well, most of the fashion sense of a blind cockatrice) were simply stunning. Not even Rainbow Dash could deny it – though that didn’t exactly stop the pegasus from trying to. She also considered herself of class – while she was still surprisingly down-to-earth for somepony you’d expect to be an aristocrat, she still held herself to a higher standard than most. Which probably explained why she was hoping the aliens were gentlemares. Or gentlecolts. Or gentle… whatevers. What was also unmistakable about Rarity was her generosity – oftentimes, the aforemented clothes were made for free. Perhaps the aliens would leave with trinkets?

Her eyes swept over Rainbow Dash, who was currently flying as she was always wont to do. Twilight suspected that if pegasi had no real need for legs, Rainbow Dash would gladly get rid of hers just so she could go faster. The fast and the awesome was where it lied with her; a tomcolt through and through, she looked downright excited. “I hope those aliens have some cool stuff with ‘em! Like – like laser guns! Or moving things with their mind!”

Twilight snorted..“Rainbow Dash, I can do that. And so can Rarity, as a matter of fact.”

Dash blinked for a second. “Oh. Right.” Of course, Rainbow Dash wasn’t exactly stupid. Forgetful? Sometimes (though considering the amount of times she smashed into things Twilight was the exact opposite of surprised). She just learned things differently. She was also fiercely loyal – Rainbow Dash would probably face Celestia and Luna alone if it meant saving her friends, and she had no doubt that if any of the aliens were hostile, Dash would be able to subdue them. You couldn’t hit what you couldn’t catch.

“Now, simmer down, Rainbow. So long’s they’re nice, I don’t see a single problem with aliens. Though maybe if they liked apples…” Applejack and Rainbow Dash were best friends. Of a sort. They were the type of friends who could just as easily be found bickering and competing as they were lazing about with a pint of cider. They were the perfect foil; where Dash was fast, Applejack was strong. She routinely bucked apples out of trees in single hits. She was as honest as she was strong, too; if you were doing stupid shit you could damn well expect Applejack to call you out on it. Of course, she was also stubborn. So hopefully that wouldn’t interfere too much.

Fluttershy’s voice came in slightly louder than usual. “Um, Applejack… I hate to burst your bubble, but even if there are aliens, their biology might be completely different from ours. They may not even be able to eat apples!” Fluttershy worked with animals. Fluttershy also lived with animals. Twilight wondered how she was able to sleep at night, though the animals she was with seemed somewhat docile most of the time. When they first met, Fluttershy had been a near-total doormat. Of course, as they spent time together they grew stronger as ponies, and Fluttershy was no exception – she was still far more cowardly than the rest of her friends, but she was still far more assertive than she was when they had met a year ago. Fluttershy, above all, was kindness personified; she was known to not hurt the hairs on flies if she could afford to.

“Not eating apples?” Applejack laughed, and the denial in her voice was as clear as Celestia’s sunlight. “Fluttershy, ya’ll’re speakin’ nonsense!”

Fluttershy seemed to shrink back a bit, though she didn’t move. “Um… if you say so, I guess…”

“She does have a point,” intervened Twilight. “Aliens could be familiar “little green ponies”, or they could be so alien as to be entirely incomprehensible. Though you never know – they may see apples as objects of value. And that might get you even more money than selling them as food.”

Applejack bit her lip. “Good point. But I think we all should wait ‘til we’re there to see, huh?”

“Speaking of which,” continued Twilight, as she turned her attention to the Everfree, “there’s a crash site we need to get to. Come on, girls – let’s go.” Twilight put one hoof in front of the other, and the Elements of Harmony headed into the Everfree Forest.

The trip through the Everfree was, surprisingly, uneventful. Usually they’d find at least one potential attacker, but as they travelled through the forest where weather moved by itself and things weren’t orchestrated by equines, they found things to be far quieter than usual. Almost deathly so.

It had merely made all of them edgier (Fluttershy more than most). A trip through the Everfree was never this easy unless it was to Zecora’s. And they’d only heard animals keeping away. Twilight knew that as the sounds of wildlife died down, they could only grow closer to where the brick had landed.

“Hey, look!” Rainbow Dash’s voice rose above the din as she pointed with a forehoof to indicate where only half a tree stood. The tree base was charred black, and everything above two pony lengths was just gone. In the path in front of them, a dip; a dip caused by what appeared to be a massive crashing object. An object that could only have been the brick.

After that, the trip got easier; now that they knew what they were looking for, it was trivially easy to just follow the path, the dead trees, and the dents in the earth, until they stumbled across something very familiar to them, yet at the same time, alien.

The Twin Sisters’ Castle. And directly in front of it, smoking from waste and in front of a furrow of dirt it undoubtedly pushed up slowing down, the brick.

With an open door.

"So there are aliens!" shouted Pinkie, pointing at the open door. "Ha! I was right!"

"Um, girls?" Unfortunately, Fluttershy's attempt to get them to pay attention was entirely in vain at the moment. And she knew how these things usually tended to end.

She built up resolve, and took a deep breath in.

"...if they're mean, I'll give 'em the ol' one-two, KA-POW!"

"Just think of the new fashion they'll introduce!"

"Girls, we need to stay calm and-"

Fluttershy screamed. "Girls!"

Really, it was more of a "shout", but it got the same effect, as they turned around - and immediately noted the manticore standing directly behind them.

"A manticore was following us for the past two minutes.”

For a moment, the Elements of Harmony and the manticore traded stupefied glances.

“Oh,” said Twilight.

Then the manticore roared.

“The hell are these things?” Urdnot Barx lowered his Claymore and quietly poked the brown thing. It seemed to have some sort of alien writing on the side, a golden contrast to the hazel cover. It felt like tanned hide as Barx stared at it. Dari’Nava seemed equally transfixed, though less on the individual and more on the several hundred that adorned the shelf in front of them.

Dari leaned in close. “I… I think it’s a book.”

“A book?” Barx looked over to Dari. “You mean one of those things that’s like a holobook, but physical?”

“Yes. You had to lift and turn the page.”

Barx laughed. “And we just found an entire shelf of them! This is like finding an armory full of… Idunno, swords!”

“Well,” sighed Dari’Nava, “we certainly didn’t find anything useful. All of these are written in an alien script, and with no Extranet connection I can’t translate or get copies of these. If copies even exist.”

“Probably not,” supplied Barx. He turned to stare, sniffing the air. “Eeh. Musty. I wonder how the other two are doing.”

Dari immediately tapped into her communications network. “Hey, Sam, Yelena, how are you two doing?”

“Still haven’t found anything of note,” replied Sam. “All we’ve found is a lot of hallways. I think I’m getting the hang of where we are, though-“

“He means to say that we are hopelessly lost,” interjected Yelena.

A full moment of silence passed, before Dari could no longer resist heckling her commander. “’Infallible leadership’ my ass, you stupid bosh’tet.”

“I’d like to see you try to find your way around these,” bristled Sam. “Even so… their construction is immaculate. Whoever built this built it for both form and function. It’s really damn old, but if nothing else, there definitely were aliens on this planet.”

“Were?” Barx snorted. “There probably still are.”

“Barx, if I were to interrupt,” began Yelena, “this castle is at minimum several hundred years old. You would think this would be a tourist site if its constructors were still around.”

Martilus joined the conversation, surprisingly enough. “She’s got a point, Barx. This castle would be occupied in some way or another if its constructors were still around.”

“You guys are doing work, right?” asked Sam. “Because right now I don’t mind the com chatter, but at least keep searching if you’re going to jam the airwaves.”

“Copy that, Aleph Actual,” replied Dari, with only the barest hint of sincerity audible under the thick layer of sarcasm. “Returning to reconnaissance. Hypocrite.”

Sam took in mild comfort from hearing Barx and Yelena debate over whether or not aliens still existed as they combed the catacombs. He also took comfort from Dari'Nava's insult, because it meant that she was focused on him and not her fate. Within short order of Dari’s declaration, they managed to find a way out.

“Hey, Yel. Stairs.”

Yelena sighed. “Thank the Goddesses. I was worried we’d have to blast our way out of here. Now, this time I lead, alright?”

Sam nodded. “If it’ll get you off my back, then sure. Take point.” The two of them progressed up the staircase. Yelena opened her comms to resume the conversation, then stopped, her jaw dropping. She advanced up ahead, spurring Sam’s curiosity and prompting him to follow. What he saw stunned him.

It was a throne room. Old, decrepit, with broken stained glass windows, a massive scorch mark in the middle of the floor, and massive wooden doors that looked like they’d need five krogan to open. The sight of it was breathtaking, and Sam forgot the mission entirely until Yelena slugged him in the shoulder.

“…this is Sam. We… We found a throne room. It looks huge. Whoever made this clearly spared no expense.”

“There is a scorch mark in the middle of the floor,” continued Yelena. “There must have been some form of altercation in here. Though, why a scorch mark?”

“Maybe it was magic,” snickered Barx.

“Constructive,” deadpanned Sam. “Doesn’t seem to have anything of importance in it, though. Are you two-“

“This is Martilus, me and Hitman are laying low.”

Sam shifted tracks immediately. “Mart. Give me the sitch, bud.”

“Turns out Barx was right. The constructors must still have been around, because there’s six of them. Quadrupedal, looks like some are capable of flight, and I saw at least one with a horn.” There was quiet for a second. “…And they know we’re here. Then again, I think we must have made it pretty obvious, crashing in from the sky like that.”

“Let’s try not to fuck their civilization up too much, then. If they start approaching any closer than the shuttle, fall back into the castle. Otherwise, keep your distance, and for the love of all that is holy-“

Sam’s last command was drowned out by a roar. Complete radio silence ensued for one second.

“…looks like they brought a friend, and he doesn’t seem too happy with them,” reported Martilus.

“She’s got a point, Barx. This castle would be occupied in some way or another if its constructors were still around.”

“You guys are doing work, right?” asked Sam. “Because right now I don’t mind the com chatter, but at least keep searching if you’re going to jam the airwaves.”

With that, Martilus Hinfax closed his communications channel and resumed holding down a firing position. Martilus believed himself to be a somewhat good turian. Mostly because he had to be: in the Reaper War, orders that led to suicide were common. The Milky Way did not seem to gain any ground against the extragalactic invaders; the Reapers just took and took and took. If you gave an inch they’d take your entire planet.

Even so, a firing perimeter was boring. He found himself wishing that something were to happen, but quickly quashed it. As boring as boredom was, he had orders and a job to do – and usually, when it rained, it poured.

So after a full hour of perimeter holding, he decided to open his communications network and see if he could chat with Hitman. The geth was a machine of as few words as possible (that tended to come with the territory of efficiency), but it was always up for a conversation, perhaps because the collective it was with wanted to learn how to interact with squishies like him better.

Scanning the forest for threats for the millionth time that day, he began speaking. “Hitman. How’re you holding up?”

“All systems are nominal,” responded Hitman. “There is still no connection with the Geth collective, or the extranet. I have repeated once every ten minutes, to no avail.”

“No need, I don’t think. Wherever we are, we’re far from home.” And with that, the knowledge truly sank in for Martilus; they were stranded on an alien planet with little food. Either he and Dari were going to be dead, or the rest of the team was. If no help was coming, their fate was a slow and painful death by starvation.

He considered, for the first time in his life, putting his handgun to his head and firing, but decided that he’d at least stay alive long enough to help his squad out beforehand. So long as he wasn’t incapable of movement, he was still useful, and he wasn’t going to give up just because there was no longer any hope on the horizon. He was going to go out like every turian dreamed of – guns blazing, fighting for every breath.

It was at that moment that he saw his future salvation – and oh, how it poured.

“Hitman, down!” Martilus dropped under the crenel he was using as a firing point, bringing his Revenant down with him. A second later, he heard a clipped, artificial “In cover.”

Martilus leaned up, just enough for one eye to look out, and caught something he hadn’t expected; color. Bright color. Lots of color. He forced down the urge to spring up and observed, quietly, as six quadruped aliens came out of the underbrush. Sam came over his earpiece saying he’d found a throne room, but he ignored it just to watch. As he did, the pink one pointed at the shuttle. He lowered himself, and got back on the comnet.

“This is Martilus, me and Hitman are laying low.”

“Mart. Give me the sitch, bud.”

Martilus took a second to lean out and make sure he was actually believing what he was seeing, then began speaking. “Turns out Barx was right. The constructors must still have been around, because there’s six of them. Quadrupedal, looks like some are capable of flight, and I saw at least one with a horn.” He paused, taking in the fact that they were clearly focusing on the shuttlecraft. “…And they know we’re here. Then again, I think we must have made it pretty obvious, crashing in from the sky like that.”

“Let’s try not to fuck their civilization up too much, then. If they start approaching any closer than the shuttle, fall back into the castle. Otherwise, keep your distance, and for the love of all that is holy-“

He’d seen the… thing creeping up behind them, but it appeared only the yellow one actually knew they were being followed. Sam’s order (that he probably could have guessed anyways) was drowned out by the monster’s roar.

“Land on an alien world, probably gonna have to save its inhabitants with my superior technology… why do I feel a sense of déjà vu?” He reopened the comnet.

“Looks like they brought a friend, and he doesn’t seem too happy with them.”

Author's Note

Getting called scum on the internet for a dumb move you pulled three years ago turns out to be quite a motivator, it seemed. Cranked this out in three days, about 2k words each (with the exception of this one, because the chapter ended).

I also made minor edits to the prologue's Equestrian part, mostly to reflect on the fact that Twilight is the main character and Hasbro is giving her all the cool toys.

I'm going to try and write more for this, but honestly, I wouldn't doubt you if you guys don't trust me, mostly because I've been gone for three years. Gate Hunters Wanted is not going to progress any further for the time being, because I don't really want to work on it right now - my prime focus is gonna be refinishing this. Consider it my apology, provided I ever get it done.

If there's any errors, feel free to inform me. I'm pretty sure I now have no betareaders. But I was gone three years, so y'know - understandable.

Not One Shot Fired

Twilight and her friends backed away, preparing themselves to fight as the manticore finished roaring, beginning to slowly close in on them. It purred in an almost sensual way that seemed to let slip its comfort in the current situation, as it pawed at the ground, preparing to charge at its prey. The Elements grit their teeth and prepared for another long, drawn-out battle simply to survive, and as they saw Twilight’s horn charge up a spell they hoped that it would be able to faze the manticore long enough for them to split up and surround it.

Instead, they were momentarily surprised when Twilight teleported everypony directly next to the shuttle.

“…I was expecting a fight,” muttered Pinkie.

“That was rather convenient,” agreed Rarity. “Still. Thank you for the save, Twilight.”

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” whispered Mart. “Uh… it appears the purple one is capable of self-translocation.”

“They can teleport?” came the incredulous cry through the radio.

“Well, unless there’s some miasma that’s messing with my mind… Hitman, you saw that, right?”

“Affirmative. Unknown entity used area-of-effect teleportation to attempt to escape from the manticore.”

“Then I guess that settles that,” replied Martilus. His attention returned to the aliens.

The manticore growled on the other side of the ravine, angry that its prey had cheated and escaped. Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, was ecstatic - so much so as to blow a raspberry at it. While the manticore was significantly more animalistic than the ponies that had eluded its jaws, it was smart enough to know when it was being mocked, and it roared.

“Sucker! Look at him, girls! He’s mad that he can’t cross the ravine to get to us!” taunted Rainbow Dash, unaware that this was only making the manticore even more angry. It was seeing red now – it was mad enough to go beyond reason to kill its targets.

Springing up and forwards with grace that seemed to contrast with its brute strength, the Manticore for a moment almost looked as though it would not make it over the ravine... and then it flapped its wings, and landed directly in front of the Elements.

“Aheheheheh,” awkwardly laughed Rainbow Dash, “I think he’s just… just mad now…”

“The beast just jumped the ravine,” supplied Martilus.

“Copy that, Aleph Six. No interference – am I clear?”

The thought of saving them tugged at Martilus. He could do something – he could save those people – but at the same time, Sam had given him an order, and usually he wasn’t without fault. “Clear as crystal, Aleph One. Besides, now we can watch how they fight.” Martilus activated his battle recorder.

The Elements quickly split up and surrounded the manticore – all save Fluttershy, who decided to retreat immediately, as fighting wasn’t her forte. Twilight swooped up into the air, charging up a bolt of magic and loosing it at the manticore, which screeched at the impact before attempting to bat her out of the air. Twilight swooped to the side, dodging its paw, and firing another bolt of magic into its underbelly. The manticore responded by lunging again, an attack she barely dodged. Deciding she’d leave the acts of derring-do to the truest fan of said series, Twilight flew back and continued to empty bolts of magic into the attacker. She never tried to grip it with telekinesis – the manticore wasn’t staying still enough.

Rainbow Dash, in the meanwhile, had circled around, attempting to deliver a high-speed punch – which turned out to be her downfall as the manticore batted her aside, and she careened into Twilight, knocking both of them down. As the manticore lunged towards them, it got a taste of its own medicine – being blasted to the side a good ten hooves as Pinkie stood there, the party cannon she produced smoking, and confetti littering the forest.

“The pink one just pulled a cannon from… uh…” Martilus took a second to raise himself up a little, as if to try and gain some clairvoyance. With none to be found, he returned to barely leaning out. “Looks like nowhere, sir.”

“A fucking cannon? She just spontaneously manifested a fucking cannon?” Sam was absolutely livid, something that wasn’t helped by Hitman’s absolutely deadpan “Affirmative”.

Heavy krogan laughter rumbled over the comnet. “I like these aliens! They sound pretty hardcore.”

“Alright.” Sam had regained his composure in the time Barx had taken to comment. “Mart, Hitman, keep observing. If they win that fight hopefully they’ll spend time celebrating their victory - time we can use to get the hell away from them.”

“Copy that,” Martilus said, but he wasn’t really paying attention. He had to take a moment to lower his head, transfixed as he was by the battle.

As the combat raged on, flurries of kicks, paw swipes, attempted bites, and bolts of magic sailing around everywhere, Twilight and Rainbow Dash recovered from their mid-air collision. Twilight turned to look at her erstwhile partner with scorn. “Rainbow, you dived right at it, didn’t you?”

“Of course, what else was I supposed to do?”

Twilight growled, though you couldn’t hear it over the twin cracks of Applejack kicking the manticore into a tree – one when hoof met head, the other when head met wood. “Dash! How about this! Don’t go for a single, decisive hit! You’re fast-reacting and fast in general, try getting in there and hitting him a lot!”

Dash blinked. The gears in her head turned as slowly as they usually did. “Huh. I’mma try that.” Dash shot off, leaving a trail of rainbow behind her. She zipped in at the manticore, but seemed to zig-zag and stutter her movement – leaving the manticore confused as to when she would actually arrive – before she triumphantly ducked under the manticore’s swiping paw and started delivering a series of rapid-fire strikes, with Pinkie providing the appropriate commentary in the form of “ATATATATATATATATATATATA…”

“A fucking rainbow trail-”

“Sam,” came the voice of Dari’Nava, “calm your shit. You sound like you’re going to have a heart attack. Take ten seconds to take stock. Martilus, keep watching.”

There were a few moments of sputtering silence, before Sam finally nodded. “Nix on the reports for now, I suppose. Keep watching, Mart. Let me know if they do anything especially egregious so I can die on the spot, would ya?”

“Wouldn’t dream of not keeping you informed,” deadpanned Martilus, as he continued to record the battle.

Having stunned the manticore, Rainbow Dash took the moment to charge back a strong buck. With a single, decisive blow, Rainbow Dash launched the Manticore onto its back, and then continued her full force assault by pouncing on it and continuing to hit it. This only enraged the manticore, and Dash’s felt a peculiar pain in her flank. Turning around, she noticed that the manticore had just stung her - and it had injected lethal venom into her hind muscles.

Dash yelped in pain and pulled away, but she already felt the world getting blurry. She struggled to stand, but the damage had been dealt.

“Rainbow Dash!” shouted five voices at the same time, as the manticore seized the opportunity and smacked Dash into the ground. The pegasus brutally rammed into the earth, and was only saved when Applejack delivered another well-timed buck to the stomach that caused the manticore to go sailing into a nearby stone column. Applejack immediately headed over to check on Rainbow Dash, who was beginning to go awfully pale. Her breathing was beginning to labor.

“I can take her away!” shouted Applejack, but the manticore was fast on track to her as soon as she’d said that. Knowing there was only one way to stop it, Twilight prepared a shield spell, her horn glowing as she cast the spell and dove in front of the manticore, hoping to stop it. The manticore crashed into the shield at full tilt, and Twilight managed to slow it down for a moment before the shield broke and it bowled her over. The scorpion tail thwacked her in the head - by no means a lethal strike, but it put her out cold.

Pinkie ran forwards, producing a mallet that had previously seen use at the Ponyville Fair two weeks ago and ramming it into the underside of the manticore’s head, a hollow crack and a scream resulting as the manticore took a moment to step back, its jaw broken. Rarity followed that up with a beam of pearlescent light, causing an even higher-pitched screech of pain as it swung blindly at Pinkie, who seemed to outright flash from one spot to the next to dodge. Fluttershy could only watch helplessly from the sidelines.

“Ooh. You see that, Hitman?”

Hitman stared on with calculated precision. “Affirmative. The blue entity seems to have been poisoned, judging by how the color is draining from her coat.”

“Coat?” Martilus quirked an eyebrow – an involuntary response, given he was still in a full battle suit – but Hitman had picked up on his curiosity. “Yes. Zooming in on each member before the current battle started has confirmed they have a coat of fur, though it seems short. Leathery.”

Martilus quietly hummed in response, and his attention turned back to the fight. As much as it pained him to admit it, this had gotten awfully interesting and dramatic. I’d kill for some chips right now, he thought, but then his stomach rumbled. He decided food probably wasn’t the appropriate thing to focus on at the moment.

Pinkie continued to artfully dodge as Applejack managed to successfully leave the battlefield, where she promptly laid Rainbow Dash by a tree. In a moment that could easily be seen as something far more lewd as it actually was, she attempted to suck what she could of the venom out of Rainbow’s wound, interrupted only when Pinkie slammed into the tree next to her, several baby chickens appearing around her head.

“Pinkie?” stated Applejack in disbelief, as the farm mare spat venom – and blood – to the side.

“I tried to butt heads…”

Applejack stared back on at the field. Twilight was knocked out, Dash had poison coursing through her veins, and Fluttershy was a no-show – with Pinkie out of commission, that left her and Rarity to fight off the manticore. Her heart dropped into her stomach, but her resolve quickly strengthened. She’d win for her friends.

Left with no choice, Applejack returned to action.

Martilus stared on in horror. A veteran turian Sentinel, he’d seen quite the amount of battles. And this one had quickly performed a U-turn because of a single decisive event. With only two versus the massive beast fighting, which was battling through its clearly evident and high level of pain, it was clear they wouldn’t last much longer.

Something drew at his heart. His trigger finger itched in turn, and against all better judgement, he activated the comlink. “…Sam. We need to intervene if they’re going to-“

“Didn’t you fucking hear me, Aleph Six? NO. INTERVENTION. We cannot disrupt their civilization through our discovery – we don’t even know how advanced they are-”

“And? Our shuttle, with an active distress signal, a recording, and an open door wouldn’t 'disrupt their civilization'?” Martilus wasn’t even sure why he was arguing with Sam, but he felt all of his anger and rage – all of it that he had kept down during the War – start to bubble up. “Listen, Sam. I don’t want to disrupt their civilization, I don’t think anyone wants to. But they already knew we were here. They knew aliens of some sort existed, the fucking door was left open. You couldn’t have seen that coming, I didn’t, hell, Hitman didn’t either.”

He paused for only a moment to watch as the white one was slapped into a tree, falling limply to the ground. “I’m getting ready to intervene. Hitman, I’ll distract it with suppressing fire. You lay into it with your Javelin, we’ll take it out.” Hitman made no move as Martilus checked his Revenant.

Sam had finally seemed to recover. “They’re not – but - we don’t even know if they’re civilians or military! Martilus, for all we know they could be fucking axe murderers getting their just desserts.”

His patience finally breaking, and with no more heed for whether or not they’d hear him – after all, they were probably going to die very soon – Martilus raised his voice. “If they were axe murderers they’d have blood on them that wasn’t from this fight, and if they were military they’d be wearing armor of some sort and carrying weapons! They’re civilians, dammit! How much fight do you think a civilian’s seen?”

“Hitman. Restrain Mart.”

Hitman made no move.

“Sam.” Martilus took a moment. “I’m going to die in three days if this planet’s levo. And chances are it is – you know how rare dextro species are. Saving them will curry favor with the locals. They’d have found us anyways – teleportation, blasts of energy, they probably have some form of radar, because it damn sure looks to me like they’re using magic.”

There was a faint cry of pain. Martilus didn’t even need to lean over cover to check who that was – it was the last combatant. They had lost the fight – and if he didn’t act quickly – would soon lose their lives.

“Please. Let me have this.”

The line was silent for a moment, before a digitized sigh finally wormed its way through the air. “Alright, Mart. Hitman. What do you think the probably of them finding us is?”

“Calculating…” muttered Hitman. However, the geth, surprisingly, seemed to be jolted out of his own little world – Martilus felt a bolt travel up his spine as he heard the hoarse screech;

“HEY!”

Fluttershy had heard the yelling as the fight continued on, and it jolted her out of the state of horror she experienced as, one-by-one, her friends were beaten into the ground by the manticore. She slowly began to back away and head towards the castle. She couldn't make out who was yelling or why, but she hoped they could help.

Of course, however, those thoughts were quickly drowned out as she turned back and saw Applejack get pimp slapped twenty feet. The farmpony looked entirely out of it; and just as quickly as fear filled her heart at the sight, it quickly began to molt into something else. Something far more primal. Something that would have scared her if it hadn’t already caught her up in itself.

Pure, unending rage.

She stared down the manticore as it closed in on the hapless Applejack. It was three times her size and adorned with claws, teeth, and a terrifying roar. It thought that it could hurt her friends. It thought it could kill them. It thought that it could poison Rainbow Dash and get away with it..

It thought so horribly, horribly wrong.

“HEY!” screamed Fluttershy, and the shout caught the manticore’s attention. It lowered its paw and stared at its new foe. It had multiple broken bones and bruises, but even in its weakened state it turned to regard its foe. Its eyes held hunger, but they quickly widened when they realized exactly what Fluttershy’s held.

“YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST WALTZ ON IN BEHIND US AND EAT US FOR A SNACK?” Fluttershy began marching towards the manticore, WELL, YOU’RE WRONG! PONIES ARE NOT SNACKS! MY FRIENDS ARE NOT SNACKS! AND YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE! YOU’RE A BIG! FAT! MEANIE!!” The manticore seemed to reel back from each verbal stab as though they were physical impacts.

“You know what you need to do?” asked Fluttershy.

The manticore held baited breath, hoping that this demon would leave it alone, hoping against all hope that it wouldn’t be consumed alive.

Fluttershy, in the meanwhile, Stared down the manticore. “YOU NEED TO PICK UP RAINBOW DASH, AND BRING ME AND HER TO ZECORA! THEN YOU’RE GOING TO COME BACK HERE AND HELP ME WITH MY FRIENDS! AND THEN YOU’RE GOING TO RUN AWAY, AND NEVER BOTHER US AGAIN! AM! I! CLEAR!”

The manticore screeched in pure fear. Faster than it had ever tried to run during combat it bolted over to Rainbow Dash, and carefully picked her up with its scorpion tail. Laying it on her back, it sailed over the ravine and sprinted off.

Fluttershy, in the meanwhile, slowly calmed down, taking in and letting out deep breaths. What were those voices, though? Her head turned back up towards the castle.

Martilus had been on a hundred battlefields and killed a thousand enemies. He’d done it all, from picking off a geth from one thousand metres to killing a Banshee with an omni-blade, mere milliseconds away from being impaled and neuro-shocked to death by the former asari husk. There was nothing that could faze him – in fact, even Husks were known to run in fear.

Yet as he sat there, he stared in total disbelief of what was going on. The yellow alien – the one that had ran away, the one that had stayed on the sidelines – had seemed to grow a pair of balls. Upon doing so it immediately shouted down the massive creature, and ordered it to collect one of its friends (he guessed the one with the polychrome hair that had gotten poisoned), and take it to be cured of its poison.

And the most perplexing thing, the one thing that really turned the turian’s noodle, was that the alien had done so in Galactic Standard. An easily understood language, that everyone knew. It didn’t answer any questions. In fact, there never were any to begin with. All it did was just raise questions Martilus didn’t feel like answering.

“Aleph Six? Come in, Aleph Six, is everything okay out of there?” His mental ministrations came to a harsh halt when Sam attempted to contact him, and he immediately tapped into the comnet. “Aleph One, this is Six, yeah. Sorry about that, uh… it would appear that one of the aliens has shouted down the monster.”

The line went quiet, as it had the habit of doing. Martilus could hear Sam’s slowly eroding sanity through the static. “You’re fucking kidding.”

Martilus immediately opened up his omni-tool. “I’ve been recording everything since the beast appeared. Give me a few seconds to upload the footage to you all.”

“Hinfax-Sentinel,” broke the voice of Hitman, “I have already done that. I have also been taking optical footage and have uploaded it in organic-consumable format.”

Martilus barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes – not only was the effect nonexistent under a helmet, but it wasn’t as if the geth would even care anyways. Hitman barely understood sarcasm. “Thanks, Hitman. Anything else you’d like to make me aware of?”

“The yellow alien is directly behind you.”

“Oh, ha ha,” responded Martilus, “real funny joke, Hitman. You’ve finally come to a consensus on humor?”

“You know, you should listen to your friends. For all you know, they could be right,” came a voice from directly behind him that sounded exactly like the yellow alien.

Martilus took his sweet time turning around so that he could compose something of note. These words would be noted as the very first thing said from aliens to whatever these beings were, and they needed to be historic. They needed to be momentous. They needed to be something worthy of rememberance for as long as history was recorded. In fact, they might even remember him – and he couldn’t go and just trip up over himself, now could he? Sure, it may have been his fault that-

“Excuse me, Mr. White Alien, is your friend okay?” asked the yellow alien. Before Martilus could think to shush him Hitman had replied, helpful as always.

“Hinfax-Sentinel is likely attempting to compose memorable words for your species’s first recorded contact with extraterrestrial beings.”

Martilus’s eye twitched. “Memorable words, that you just said, Hitman.”

Hitman seemed to shrink back a bit, as it understood what it had just done. “My apologies, Hinfax-Sentinel, but I believed that if we kept the alien waiting for an answer it may have become offended or confused. Surely you would agree that not botching First Contact takes higher priority than memorable first words.”

“He has a point, you know,” chimed in the yellow alien. “If I were in this sort of situation I would much rather focus on ensuring everyone is calm and happy so that nothing bad happens.”

Great. I’m getting tag-teamed by a never-before-seen alien species and a robot. Martilus waded in his frustration for a moment, before he decided to pull the plug. “I’ve got a couple of friends who are exploring this castle. Mind if I call them back up?” he requested.

“Oh, certainly,” replied the yellow alien. “Though, if I can ask a question, would you and Mr. White Alien please help me in treating my friends? They’re surely hurt badly, and two extra sets of hooves…” It paused for a moment, as if to stare at their hands. “…or paws, will help greatly.”

“Give me one second, I need to let them know about this, okay?” With an almost diabetic noise of affirmation from the yellow alien (whom Martilus was half-sure was female), he immediately tapped into the squad communications network. “So, Aleph One. How’s life down in the castle?”

“Treacherous. We just met back up and we’re stuck in this labyrinthine complex of pure bullshit. How about you?”

Martilus steeled himself. “You know those aliens from before? One of them just initiated First Contact. And then tag-teamed me with Hitman. It speaks Galactic Basic.”

Martilus waited ten seconds, then twenty, then thirty. He looked over to the alien, which was discussing things with Hitman – so far they had seemed to get along pretty well. As it turned out, the yellow alien was a she, and part of a species of “Equestrians” – she had the name of Fluttershy. They were currently discussing the stupid, stupid odds of having somehow been able to entirely disregard the language barrier, and Hitman’s nature as artificial life – something that was entirely mind-blowing to Fluttershy.

It was a minute of waiting in when Martilus quietly tapped Fluttershy on the shoulder. “I haven’t gotten a response, and chances are I’m going to get screamed into the ground for disobeying orders and letting you all know we existed. It was the yelling, wasn’t it?”

Fluttershy nodded. Martilus sighed. “Alright. Take me to them and I’ll help out. Hitman… just… do whatever you want, I guess. You’re the good guy here, so you get carte blanche.”

Hitman made no response, and Martilus set out.

Under the ground, as the rest of Aleph Squad gathered, Sam didn’t seem to be happy. Sam wasn’t happy at all. Before anyone had the chance to query him as to why, he answered their questions for him.

“Alright. So. You know how I ordered Martilus to not get found by aliens? Well, I just learned five seconds ago that he got found by fucking aliens.”

“Sounds like ol’ Mart, alright,” mused Barx. “They probably heard him arguing with you.”

“If that stupid motherfucker had just stayed back like I told him to-“

“And what?” Yelena stared at Sam, five hundred and twenty-two years of asari life boring him right through the eyes. “If you had been the one up there, I guarantee you that you would have been chomping at the bit to assist. All of us would have. The only one that wouldn’t is Hitman.”

“Alright.” Sam took a deep breath in, then a deep breath out. “You know what? Hitman sent us the battle-logs, so I’m just gonna… I’m just gonna review them. You guys wanna join in?”

“I’m game.” “Why not?” “Sure.”

Opening his omni-tool, Sam noted that the catacomb was becoming significantly lighter than before as the rest of the Alephs opened theirs. Quickly finding the videos he opened them, sat down against the stone wall, and began reviewing them.

As he watched the battle he began to cool a bit. Martilus had a point in that argument – they had left an open door, active electronics, and a distress signal. And most likely footprints that lead into the castle. They’d probably have taken the Kodiak somewhere to disassemble it and see how it ticked; provided they didn’t just assume there were interlopers and come to find them directly.

Could they evade them, given their use of what seemed to be magic, as there was no other explanation for the blasts of directed energy that sprouted from some of them? How long would they have lasted?

As he stared at the disturbingly cute inhabitants fighting, he had another internal question; were they dextro-amino acid creatures, or levo-amino? He felt like he didn’t like either answer – too many people would die on both ends for his tastes. Sam desperately wanted to strike a wall, but the act would just be pointless violence that solved nothing. There seemed to be no easy way out, no way to win.

They had been doomed from the moment the Ottawa exploded.

He was barely paying attention to the now rapidly down-turning fight. As his and Mart’s shouts entered his ears he was too lost in the grimness of the situation to even care. It was only when Barx harshly shoved him onto the ground that he was dragged out of his daydreams.

“You okay, sir?”

“Yes,” replied Sam. It was a lie. But sometimes you had to do that to remain in command. Morale was always more important than your feelings.

Sam decided that it would probably be in his best interests if he didn’t agonize over what could have been done. What mattered now is that they had been found – something that was likely to have happened anyways – and that they needed to take command of the situation and ensure it went over as smoothly as it could.

“Alright. Alephs, we’re headed topside. If they know we’re here we’ve got no reason to hide from them. Let’s just hope they’re peaceful.”

“So, you already know my name,” began Fluttershy, as the two of them headed for the Kodiak at Martilus’s request – the shuttle still had a first aid kit that he could hopefully use to help assist in healing up her friends. “What’s your name?”

“Martilus Hinfax, at your service. Probably sounds weird, but alien names are sort of like that,” answered Martilus.

“It does sound… sharp, somehow,” concurred Fluttershy. “But I don’t think that matters. It’s nice to meet you, Martilus.”

“I just wish it were under better circumstances,” the turian pined. Fluttershy emitted a quiet hum of affirmation, then looked over Martilus, her eyes taking in every detail of his armor. “Um… can I ask a question?”

“Shoot.”

Fluttershy looked him over. “Is that armor, or your skin?”

“S’armor,” replied Martilus. “Keeps me safe. You can probably guess from that that I’m a soldier, huh?”

“Yeah.” Martilus braced himself for the question many inevitably asked – “have you killed somebody” – but surprisingly, it never came. Instead, Fluttershy decided to focus on the land they were in. “Well, you won’t need to worry much about fighting. Besides the occasional incident, Equestria is rather peaceful.”

“Thank the spirits for that, then. I won’t horrify you with the details, but…” Martilus turned to face Fluttershy. “Suffice to say, I’ve been a little busy the past two weeks. A rest would be nice about now.”

The unlikely duo had reached the Kodiak, and Fluttershy waited as Martilus gripped onto the lip of the shuttle’s exit and pulled himself up and in. “You haven’t been getting any chances for shore leave?” pitched the pegasus.

“One day,” replied Martilus, as he hoisted himself up into the Kodiak. “The nature of what we’ve been fighting sort of precludes any real form of breaks. But that’s enough about my line of work, I’m sure it’s boring.” The turian, as he began unstrapping the medical kit, idly noted that to keep him in line of sight Fluttershy had decided to use her wings, and was currently in flight.

“Um…” began Fluttershy. For a moment she faltered, but then pressed onwards. “Could you… could you please take off your helmet? It might not be good if we’re treating one of my friends and the first thing they see is… that.”

“Certainly,” went Martilus. “Just do me a favor and set this first aid kit down onto the ground while I undo the helmet latches.” Fluttershy drifted into the Kodiak, and Martilus pressed the thing into her hooves. The yellow pegasus sank for a moment, but quickly headed down to the ground and placed the first aid kit onto the loose dirt.

Martilus, meanwhile, popped his helmet’s hermetic seals and pulled his helmet off, dropping to the ground. Fluttershy stared at him, her eyes widening at his… rather exotic look. It was like ruggedness taken to eleven. She quickly realized that he might have caught on to what she was thinking.

Martilus proved her right. “Yeah, I get that look sometimes. We’re pretty spiky. Not my fault that so many of you are soft and pudgy.” He leaned down and picked up the first aid kit. “So, Fluttershy,” he began, testing the name out. He still couldn’t believe someone had seriously been named that, but kept it to himself – the ridiculousness of alien cultures didn’t tend to make a nice icebreaker. “You have a job?”

“Oh, yes!” answered Fluttershy, as the two of them headed along towards their first patient. “I look after-“

“HOLD IT!” Both of them turned around, Martilus spotting another pony, color of orange, wearing a hat that didn’t look very happy, and Fluttershy spotting Applejack, who looked a little tetchy and understandably so. “Fluttershy, who’s this you’ve gone and found?”

“Oh, him?” Fluttershy smiled, trying to get Applejack to calm down a bit. “This is my new friend, Martilus. He’s an alien.”

Applejack blinked once, then twice. She temporarily grasped her hat and pulled it down over her eyes, then raised it, expecting the spiky thing that was next to Fluttershy to not be there when she saw it again. She desperately prayed she was hallucinating, but her prayers went unanswered as the turian she laid eyes on continued existing directly in front of her.

“I take it she’s not reacting very well,” observed Martilus, as Applejack continued to try and work through what she was seeing.

“Well, you are an alien. It’s not like we don’t meet a lot of things that can talk, but as I was going to say, my job involves working with animals. I take care of them at my house near this forest, the Everfree. I can understand what they all say – so I guess I’m a little better equipped to handle the existence of aliens.”

“Ya know,” commented Applejack, “I was gonna ask why y’all were bein’ so calm about this, but that was actually a pretty sensible answer.”

“I might as well give you an answer, then. Just for the sake of honesty. I was…” Martilus fidgeted a bit. “I was kind of watching your fight with the manticore.”

“You were watching?” Applejack was incredulous, but her shock quickly gave way to annoyance. “Then why didn’t y’all help out? Rainbow Dash might be dead because of you!”

“We had a valid reason,” replied Martilus. “What’s the most advanced weapon you’ve seen so far?”

Applejack thought for a moment. “Prob’ly a cannon, somethin’ like Pinkie Pie’s.”

“I have, on my person, a weapon that is… similar to a cannon, in much the same way a sword is similar to a club, that is capable of hitting a point target to five hundred metres. I use it for personal defense. True, weapons probably aren’t the best thing to bring up in these sorts of conversations, but it’s the first example of how advanced we are that I could reach of. Now, riddle me this; what would happen if you were to travel back in time a thousand years and give Pinkie’s cannon to someone who barely knew what one was? What do you think he would do?”

Applejack found she had no response.

“Exactly. I didn’t want to just leave you to a grisly fate, but destabilizing your entire civilization with technology that might be several thousand years ahead of what you’ve built is also something I didn’t want to do.”

Applejack only grew more irate. “And how do y’all know that we’d get “destabilized”?”

“Because it’s happened before,” answered Martilus. “Alright, look. I’m not interested in a fight, and quibbling about what we could have done does not solve the plight of your friends. The story of what happened before is…” He thought for a moment, then decided that at this juncture, the horror story of the Rachni War and the Krogan Rebellions was a story better saved for another day. “…Well, it’s not quite relevant to the task at hand.”

“I’d say it’s very related to your reasonin’s,” deadpanned Applejack.

Fluttershy decided to swoop in at that moment, and Martilus quietly thanked his yellow savior as the pegasus interjected. “Applejack, he can tell us the story later. It doesn’t sound like it’s a very happy one. Or a very simple one. Until then, let’s focus on helping our friends, okay?”

Applejack sighed, but relented. “Alright, fine. Just for you, Fluttershy. But ya’ll’re tellin’ me that story later. Got it?” The orange farm mare pointed at Martilus with a hoof, and he nodded. “Sure. I’ll tell you the story when we get settled in.” That only brought to mind the future. He refocused on the task at hand, compartmentalizing to avoid his fate.

After a few moments of quiet walking, they arrived at the current resting place of whom Fluttershy called “Rarity”, and Martilus and Fluttershy took a second to look her over.

“Oh, my… I believe she broke her foreleg. And she has some very deep gashes. I don’t think a bandage is going to staunch that. Martilus, can you pass me the gauze?”

Martilus had extended his arm over Rarity’s gashes, his omni-tool glowing. “One-step ahead of you.” As Fluttershy and Applejack watched, the omni-tool squirted a strange, teal blue liquid onto Rarity’s wounds, which quickly solidified.

“What’s that?” asked Applejack.

“What, the medi-gel or the omni-tool?”

Applejack blinked, the terms sailing directly over her head. Fluttershy, in the meanwhile, reared up and balanced against Martilus. She whispered a quiet “I think you should start from the basics” before dropping back down, and the turian blinked.

“Okay. This…” He brought up the omni-tool again, the haptic interface glowing around his wrist. “This is an omni-tool. It’s… It does a lot of things. I mean, a lot, I don’t have time to explain how many. But one of the things it can do is apply medicine. This particular stuff here?” He quietly poked the blue stuff in Rarity’s cuts, which offered no response. “This is medi-gel. It’s not quite medicine, but it’s the pinnacle of first aid – it clots your cuts, dulls your pain, and keeps you from dying until you can get to a doctor and seek proper treatment.”

“So it’s like a bandage?” asked Fluttershy.

“Sort of, yeah.” Martilus set down the first aid kit and handed Fluttershy the roll of gauze. “I presume you can splint her foreleg?”

Fluttershy nodded, taking the roll of gauze in her mouth. That can’t be sanitary, thought Martilus. She quickly – and with a modicum of respect for Rarity’s injury – splinted her broken foreleg, in a manner that looked strange to Martilus, but seemed to check out considering she walked on two sets of legs rather than one.

Leaning down, Martilus carefully grasped Rarity and lifted her up. The woman had some heft to her – but he was careful to take things slowly and lift properly, and within half a minute was standing. “Alright. Let’s move. By the way, uh… Applejack, you sure you’re not hurt?”

“I’m alright, thank you for asking,” responded Applejack, in a manner that seemed far too tetchy for Mart’s liking.

“I’m not trying to imply anything, Applejack, I’m just saying that you were slapped about a good twenty feet. You sure you’re-“

“I’m. Fine.” Applejack left little room to maneuver, and Martilus felt this particular alien was going to be a wall of stubborn on par with Barx. “If you say so, but I reserve the right to tell you ‘I told you so’ after you pass out. Deal?”

Applejack spat into her hoof and held it out. “Deal.” She promptly laughed on the sight of Martilus’s disgusted face, wiping the spit off on the ground as they progressed near the Kodiak.

“So. You deal with animals, Applejack does…”

“I operate Sweet Apple Acres. A massive farm, with apple trees as far as the eye can see!” Applejack, in the middle of walking, somehow was able to splay her front set of legs out to indicate just how large it was.

“Apples? Aren’t they, like, some sort of fruit?”

Applejack bristled. “You don’t know what apples are?”

“I’m an alien, Applejack,” responded Martilus. “To be honest, I’m surprised you’re speaking in a language I can understand. Give me the benefit of the doubt.”

Applejack, of course, quickly recovered. Aliens that didn’t know what apples were meant new potential customers. “Wanna try one? It’s on the hou-use~”, she sing-songed.

Martilus, in the meanwhile, noted that yet again the topic of food came up. “I’ll think about it.”

“If ya’ll’re sure,” replied Applejack. Breathing a sigh of relief at having dodged that particular bomb, Martilus continued on, reaching the Kodiak and gently lowering her down to the ground.

The process continued twice like that. The three of them would head over to one of the unconscious ponies, Fluttershy would take care of any wounds that weren’t bleeding, and Martilus would apply a liberal spritz of medi-gel to seal any open wounds before carrying them back near the Kodiak. In the process, Fluttershy and Applejack were all-too-eager to explain what their friends did for a living, seeing as that was the overall topic of conversation when it didn’t veer off course.

Rarity, the pony they first stabilized, was evidently the town’s fashion expert and custom clothing designer. Ponies didn’t place much emphasis on clothing; it was more of a personal preference and a fashion statement rather than a necessity.

“That seems strange,” commented Martilus, as he applied medi-gel to a small cut (if you could even call it that) on someone named “Pinkie Pie.”

“Well, that’s how it’s always been, really,” justified Fluttershy. “What about you? How does your species view clothing?”

“Most denizens of the galaxy wear clothing. It’s kind of, um… a… a decency thing.”

“Decency?” inquired Applejack.

Martilus gave a clear look not to push, and Applejack’s face blushed slightly, as she got the intent. “Oh, uh… okay, sure.”

No further comment was made.

As the two of them trekked back towards the Kodiak, Fluttershy revealed that Pinkie Pie was the town party pony. She planned parties for many things. A lot of things. In fact, they were very likely to be invited to a “Welcome Aliens” party within the week. She seemed to call on a infinite reserve of energy to do these things; as a potential side effect, she did a lot of things that, quite simply, couldn’t be explained.

“Like what?” asked Martilus. When he got the same look he’d given Applejack reflected back to him from the same pony, he decided to not inquire further.

The last pony they picked up, Twilight Sparkle, was a rather interesting case. There were apparently four types of ponies. “Earth ponies”, like Applejack, tended to be more in tune with the land, and had massive amounts of physical strength and endurance – explaining both Applejack bucking a two-ton predator into a wall, and Pinkie Pie’s ability to hold a party every other week. “Pegasi”, like Fluttershy, had wings, and were capable of flight as well as manipulating the weather-

“Whoa. Whoa. Wait a second, stop right there.”

Applejack and Fluttershy stared at the turian as he realized he needed to apply medi-gel. Doing so, he proceeded to get back on his original train of thought. “You’re telling me you can control weather.”

“Oh, it’s not simple,” exposited Fluttershy. “What we can do is physically interact with clouds. A lot of machinery has to be constructed to allow for weather control, and it’s very complex-“

“Apologies for interrupting, but my beef isn’t with complexity, my beef is with the fact it’s not supposed to be possible. I mean, we’re capable of powered spaceflight, and we still haven’t figured out how to control weather. You’d be highly desired in the galaxy – you might even save lives.”

Moving on rather quickly, Twilight Sparkle had formerly been a member of the third class – “unicorns”. Capable of performing magic via their horns, unicorns were special purely because of what their horns let them do. Twilight, in and of herself, was a fourth kind of pony, one that was extremely rare – an “alicorn”. With the strength of an earth pony, the flight of a pegasus, and the magic powers of a unicorn, there were only four in existence – and all four were Princesses of some sort (which Martilus took to mean were leaders, or people in positions of power). This included Twilight, the Princess of Friendship.

Well… still not the biggest piece of bullshit that I’ve ever heard, thought Martilus, as he made a note to be extra careful with Twilight.

Eventually all three of them were laid side-by-side, their wounds treated for the time being. They’d need to see a doctor in Ponyville (the all-too-ridiculous name of where they lived), but they would survive until then.

Their jobs completed, Martilus finally sat back, relaxing for a moment and taking stock. As he looked up towards the castle, he finally noticed the rest of the Alephs heading out – and Hitman rejoining them.

“Remember how I said I have friends, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy nodded, as Martilus pointed to the rapidly approaching Aleph Squad.

“There they are.”

Author's Note

You would not believe how many iterations this went through.
A special thanks goes to Ashrytan and spu313, for being able to put up with my shit, giving me ideas, and guiding me through this ball-busting process.
There's also a little something special for you next chapter... literally next chapter, mind.

Omake: Absolute Territory

Author's Note

Behold, the first omake this piece of shit has!
This was the second-to-last iteration of the chapter. I felt it was pretty damn funny, but after being told that Mart's fear was overreacting I decided to scale it down a bit. I still felt it was worth comedic merit, though - which is why I uploaded it as an omake.
This isn't canon to the regular story. Just enjoy it as is.
Will there be any more omakes? I don't have a damn clue.

Omake: Absolute Territory

Fluttershy had heard the yelling as the fight continued on, and it jolted her out of the state of horror she experienced as, one-by-one, her friends were beaten into the ground by the manticore. She slowly began to back away and head towards the castle. She couldn't make out who was yelling or why, but she hoped they could help.

Of course, however, those thoughts were quickly drowned out as she turned back and saw Applejack get pimp slapped twenty feet. The farmpony looked entirely out of it; and just as quickly as fear filled her heart at the sight, it quickly began to molt into something else. Something far more primal. Something that would have scared her if it hadn’t already caught her up in itself.

Pure, unending rage.

She stared down the manticore as it closed in on the hapless Applejack. It was three times her size and adorned with claws, teeth, and a terrifying roar. It thought that it could hurt her friends. It thought it could kill them. It thought that it could poison Rainbow Dash and get away with it..

It thought so horribly, horribly wrong.

“HEY!” screamed Fluttershy, and the shout caught the manticore’s attention. It lowered its paw and stared at its new foe. It had multiple broken bones and bruises, but even in its weakened state it turned to regard its foe. Its eyes held hunger, but they quickly widened when they realized exactly what Fluttershy’s held.

“YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST WALTZ ON IN BEHIND US AND EAT US FOR A SNACK?” Fluttershy began marching towards the manticore, WELL, YOU’RE WRONG! PONIES ARE NOT SNACKS! MY FRIENDS ARE NOT SNACKS! AND YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE! YOU’RE A BIG! FAT! MEANIE!!” The manticore seemed to reel back from each verbal stab as though they were physical impacts.

“You know what you need to do?” asked Fluttershy.

The manticore held baited breath, hoping that this demon would leave it alone, hoping against all hope that it wouldn’t be consumed alive.

Fluttershy, in the meanwhile, Stared down the manticore. “YOU NEED TO PICK UP RAINBOW DASH, AND BRING ME AND HER TO ZECORA! THEN YOU’RE GOING TO COME BACK HERE AND HELP ME WITH MY FRIENDS! AND THEN YOU’RE GOING TO RUN AWAY, AND NEVER BOTHER US AGAIN! AM! I! CLEAR!”

The manticore screeched in pure fear. Faster than it had ever tried to run during combat it bolted over to Rainbow Dash, and carefully picked her up with its scorpion tail. Laying it on her back, it sailed over the ravine and sprinted off.

Fluttershy, in the meanwhile, slowly calmed down, taking in and letting out deep breaths. What were those voices, though? Her head turned back up towards the castle.

Martilus had been on a hundred battlefields and killed a thousand enemies. He’d done it all, from picking off a geth from one thousand metres to killing a Banshee with an omni-blade, mere milliseconds away from being impaled and neuro-shocked to death by the former asari husk. There was nothing that could faze him – in fact, even Husks were known to run in fear.

Yet as he sat there, clutching his Revenant as though it was the sole lifeline in a stormy sea, he felt true fear for the first time in his life. The yellow one – the one that had retreated from combat – the one that was now looking towards where he was hiding – had just shouted down a massive beast that had felled five of its countrymen, and had ordered it to – in perfect Galactic Standard – to take her friend away for healing, assist with treatment of the others, and then to leave.

He looked over to Hitman, and almost had a heart attack then and there – the geth was shaking in fear on the spot, quietly rattling as it had folded up into as small of a ball as it could to remain hidden. It had scared a geth.

“Hit… Hitman?” asked Martilus. “Are…. Are you s-scared?”

“NO DATA AVAILABLE!” shrieked the geth. “NO DATA AVAILABLE! AUTO-SAVING!”

Oh, by the spirits, the geth thinks it’s going to die. The geth thinks it’s going to die. What hope do I have? Hitman opened his radio. “Aleph One, this is Aleph Six, requesting immediate fall-back!”

The line was quiet for a full five seconds. Everything else happened too quickly for him to process – the fear and adrenaline making him act on autopilot.

Hitman continued shrieking, and on further reflection Martilus would forever swear he heard terror in the geth’s voice. “ARCHIVAL UPLOAD COMMENCING! NO CARRIER! NO CARRIER! NO CARRIER! NO CARRIER!” It continued repeating, and Martilus realized that if he didn’t find a way to shut Hitman up, he’d be found.

Not caring about staying hidden any further, Martilus bolted forwards as Sam finally responded with minor trepidation infecting his voice as well. “Uh… Aleph Six? Everything okay up there? You sound like you’ve seen a ghost.” Martilus collided with Hitman. “Hitman!” he said, hoping against hope the geth would hear over its desperate cries that there was no carrier for its upload.

It was futile. He heard it – it was so quiet that he could barely hear it over Hitman’s screams – but he heard it nonetheless. A simple request with the voice he feared.

“Um... is this the wrong time?”

He slowly turned around, to find the yellow one was standing there, looking at them with innocence that belied its true nature.

“…NO CARRIER! NO-“ Hitman’s eye turned off, and for the second time in 24 hours (or, at least, what he thought was 24 hours) the geth clanked to the floor. Martilus screamed in a pitch he didn’t know he possessed and cowered in the corner.

As the yellow thing approached to take his soul to the place where all bad turians went, he didn’t hear Sam. “Holy shit! Alephs, to the surface, double-time! I’ve lost all contact with Aleph Four and Aleph Six is screaming! Weapons free, engage all targets!”

The yellow one closed in, and quirked an eyebrow, like it didn’t know why Martilus was screaming. Something in him told him that maybe if he begged, he would survive.

“PLEASE! DON’T KILL ME! DO WHATEVER YOU WANT, DO ANYTHING, PLEASE, LEAVE ME ALIIIIIIIIIIVE!”

Fluttershy wasn’t entirely sure how to react to that.

As she headed towards where the voices had come from, she had heard a harsh scream – “NO DATA AVAILABLE! NO DATA AVAILABLE! AUTO-SAVING! COMMENCING ARCHIVAL UPLOAD! NO CARRIER! NO CARRIER!” The scream continued on, and Fluttershy headed up, concerned for what trouble these newcomers had found themselves in.

She found two aliens – one on top of the other – and cleared her throat to get their attention. “Um… excuse me?” They both turned to face her, as slowly as an opening door. Their reaction was probably the most peculiar thing she had ever seen – well, besides them.

The first alien’s blue light went out and it dropped – the poor thing had fainted. The other backed into a wall, put both of its hands up, and began screaming incoherently. Fluttershy began heading up in an attempt to soothe it, unsure as to what had caused this bout of insanity.

And then it had begged to be spared. Fluttershy connected the dots. It had heard her Stare down the manticore – the act had involved a lot of shouting, too. The poor alien thought that Fluttershy was an apex predator. The other one must have fainted in fright. Despite having “known” them for a sum total of twenty seconds she felt bad over having caused them this much distress, and figured she should calm them down and let them know she wasn’t going to hurt them. She was the last pony to hurt anypony, really.

“Oh! I’m… I’m sorry, I just… that big, scary manticore was beating up all of my friends, and it had poisoned Rainbow Dash – oh, but you probably don’t know her – and I just… I just got really mad and I shouted at it and made it help out, and I’m so sorry for scaring you. I just didn’t want my friends to get hurt.”

Martilus could not react. The adrenaline rush and horror began wearing off as he realized that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t actually the Spirits themselves come to punish him for every wrong deed he’d committed. Maybe it was just a stupid yellow alien that the animals feared. Whatever the cause, it didn’t want him dead.

“You… you don’t want to kill me?” Better at least make sure.

“Kill you?” The yellow thing gasped, like Martilus had just suggested it do very naughty things to something against its will. “Oh, gosh! Why would I ever want to do that? I’d never want to kill anypony, least of all you!” Its voice positively dripped with sugar, concern, and what seemed like distilled kindness. Martilus wasn’t sure if it was trying to lure him into complacency, but it was either die today at the hands of a yellow thing or die three days later when he ran out of food and starved to death.

Compared to that last option, being slaughtered now was a mercy.

“…It’s uh…” Martilus found himself very flustered. He was suddenly very grateful that he was wearing his helmet. “…it’s fine. Just let me, uh…” He quietly keyed in to the squad comnet.

“This is Aleph Six, uh…”

“Mart! Thank God!” responded Sam. “Are you alright! Do you have things under control! We’re there in thirty seconds!”

“Yeah, yeah, the situation is entirely under control,” responded Mart. He didn’t sound professional, but he didn’t care. “Uh… there’s no need to kill anything. Long story short, the local aliens have found us, and… look, I’ll explain when you get here, alright! Just promise you’ll come out without weapons drawn.”

“Can’t do that, Mart. Hitman’s down and you were screaming for a good thirty seconds,” came the response. “The only thing I can assure you is that we’ll exercise trigger discipline and only fire when fired upon. If the situation’s under control, then we’ll help get it more under control. Get ready, we’re almost there.”

“Who are you talking to?” asked the yellow thing, and Martilus turned back.

“I’ll explain in, oh, ten seconds. Just promise me that you won’t do anything rash or lash out or try to kill any of my friends when they appear.”

The yellow thing seemed to be almost hurt at Martilus’s assumption that it was going to hurt him. “I’ve already told you, I’m not going to-“

The castle glass shattered as one ton of angry krogan hurled through it, shotgun at the ready. Barx let out a guttural roar as he checked for targets, Dari directly behind him with twin Plasma SMGs drawn. Near the castle entrance Yelena and Sam exited – Sam covering one corner and Yelena covering the next, the two of them converging on Martilus.

The yellow thing had stepped back. It had apparently grown some backbone since the fight, as it was not cowering in the corner, but staring back at Barx. The krogan studied the alien, before turning to Martilus. “Really? This is what you had a panic attack over? It barely looks like it could harm a fly.”

Sam stepped forwards. Even with his helmet on Mart could tell that he was done. “Martilus. Explain. Now.”

“Well, uh… you see…” began Martilus, but before he could finish something cleared its throat next to them, sending a wave of wind through the yellow thing’s pink hair.

It was the manticore.

Aleph Squad stared at the thing, absolutely stupefied.

The yellow thing turned to it, its visage hardening.

“She, uh… she shouted it down, sir,” finished Martilus.

“Really?” asked Dari, as though she didn’t at all believe what the quarian saw as a feeble excuse, but before she could try to push further, the yellow thing had turned to them. “Yes, yes I did. It’s done bad, and it’s going to apologize when it’s finished helping us.”

Barx was the first to speak after a long, awkward twenty second silence. “Uh… Mart, mind if I take back what I said?”

“You know what? Fuck it.” This came from Sam – their very leader. “I have had enough for one day. Do whatever you feel is necessary. If any of you shoot any of the locals I swear to God I will beat you to death with your own severed limbs, but I am done for today. I’m not going to take this bullshit. I am gone." Sam marched off, down the castle’s steps, and over towards the Kodiak.

Fluttershy watched as the latest alien – seemingly their leader, judging by the excessively violent way he spoke – decided he was going to take a nice and long break from reality. Her attention turned back towards the manticore, who merely lowered an unpoisoned Rainbow Dash down, its tail coiled around her, and gently placed her on the ground.

“Good. Now, if you’d kindly take me back to my home so that I can get my first aid kit and treat my friends, that’d be great. I know where the way is. And you had better not show up there, mister. I don’t need to say what’ll happen if you do decide to show up in the middle of the night… do I?”

The manticore nodded, and extended a wing. Fluttershy turned to face the rest of the aliens. “If you could, um… if you could gather up all of my friends and gently lay them where you are right now, next to Rainbow Dash, I would certainly appreciate the help. But – but it’s up to you! None of you have to do it if you don’t want to!” With that last message, Fluttershy stepped up onto the manticore, grabbed on, and rode off.

Barx, Yelena, and Dari stared at each other, none of them entirely sure what had just happened, and thinking that this had just been some strange sort of fever dream. The only sound to break the silence was that of Martilus standing up.

“If you’ll all, uh… excuse me, I think I’m going to do what she says, because I am truly scared of what happens if I don’t follow her orders.” More like a machine than the machine, Martilus stood up and headed off into the field to begin retrieving the yellow alien’s friends.

Yelena looked down at the blue alien lying on the ground, a neat bandage on its rear end, towards the colorful bodies strewn about the field they had landed in, and towards Martilus, who had neared a white one with purple hair and had gingerly began handling her.

“Could someone please explain what in tarnation is goin’ on?” came a brand new voice. The three of them turned to stare at an orange alien wearing a hat. “’Cause I couldn’t figure out a lick of what just happened over all the screamin’.”

The One Chapter Where Things Happen

Lieutenant Samuel Harrison let out an aggravated sigh that his Death Mask camouflaged as he headed up to the Kodiak. It had been a very long day – on the absolute cusp of victory they had been rocketed to another planet, and had somehow managed to beat the odds in regards to “breathable atmosphere”, “intelligent life”, and “the language barrier.”

Yet there were still many more things they had yet to beat the odds on. The Vanguard took cold comfort in the fact that this would probably be the easiest day on this planet. The hardest was yet to come. He preferred not to focus on it.

Hitman joined up on their flanks as the Alephs headed up, noting that Martilus was waiting with two of the aliens – the yellow one that had retreated from the battle earlier, and the orange one that had been fighting. Sam decided to key in as they approached. “Reminding you once again – this is a First Contact situation. No real protocols or guidelines, but this is an official order – all of you, on your best behavior. We have no contact with our superiors, so fucking this up is going to get you a fate only marginally worse than if we’d had backup.”

“One could argue death is a better fate than being a galactic laughingstock,” mused Yelena, but nobody else spoke as they approached. Stopping in front of the Kodiak and the bodies, Martilus stood up, the other two aliens following.

The two groups stared each other down. The air was filled with an aggressive awkwardness, nobody really knowing what to say or do. Applejack scratched at her head underneath her hat. Barx stood back with a grin crossing his face, amused endlessly by how nobody seemed to be taking the initiative.

Twilight twitched quietly in her unconscious stupor.

Martilus eventually decided stepped forwards. He stared down Sam, who responded in kind. The “eyes” on the Death Mask now seemed to carry with them an air of judgement.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he began, thoroughly cowed, but refusing to bow.

“We left behind active signals and evidence of our presence, Mart. And judging by the skills and abilities they displayed they would have found us before long. All you did was speed up the process.” Sam extended a hand, and the turian gladly shook. “Now, mind introducing us to the friends you decided to make?”

“With pleasure, Sir. The extra pleasure that comes from disobeying orders.” Martilus grinned – something that was likely lost on the ponies – as he turned around. “Of course, there’s a little more fun to be had if I let them introduce themselves – after all, they can talk. That, and speaking for them… might be kinda offensive.”

“Funny. I feel more confused than anything else,” weighed in Applejack. Sam, at this point, had entered the quiet tranquility that came from “deciding to stop giving a shit about anything”. With that in mind, he decided to be the voice of the squad, and stepped forwards. “Well. You’ve taken casualties, and we’re hopelessly lost. I wish we could have met under better circumstances, but we’re going to have to take it like this for now. Lieutenant Samuel Harrison. Leader of Aleph Squad, and… I guess, unofficial representative of the human race.” He extended a hand. “You two?”

“Applejack” and “Fluttershy” greeted him as both of them shook his hand. Fluttershy looked and behaved… well, not timid. It was the first word he wanted to ascribe, but considering she had shouted down a creature three times her size, timid was not something he wanted to call her. He settled on demure – clearly she believed in “speak softly and carry a big stick.” It was fortunate she had decided to go first, too – as Applejack’s hoof somehow shook with enough force to whiplash his arm around, and after a moment of holding on simply for pride, he fell back, simply not able to take it.

Applejack fell forwards in peals of laughter, and Barx snickered. “God damn, sir. Always figured you a pussy, but I never guessed I’d need to add “weakling” to that list.”

Sam rolled his eyes and got up. “Well, why don’t you try it, then?”

Barx nodded and stepped forwards. Applejack only came up to four feet tall; Barx was still twice as large even when he kneeled down. To Applejack, he looked like pure threat; predatory eyes, a wide mouth clearly full of razor-sharp teeth, and reptilian, wrinkled skin.

The krogan put a three-fingered hand forwards. “Whaddya say. Shake?”

Applejack shook. Barx had the tightest grip of anypony she’d ever shook hooves with, almost to the point of pain, but she held on. Eventually, Barx released and turned back to Sam. “See? Weakling.”

“Well, at least I’m not insubordinate.” Sam’s barb was brushed off with yet another quip from Barx; “How could you be? You can’t be insubordinate to yourself.”

As… scary as Barx looked, Applejack couldn’t help but root for the twelve-hoof tall krogan champion. “You tell ‘im!” she shouted, egging on the krogan warrior.

Dari folded her arms. “Please, Ms. Applejack, don’t. The last thing he needs is motivation to keep going.”

Barx seemed to back down at that, muttering “Party pooper” as the quarian stepped up. “Dari’Nava vas Tonbay. Don’t mind the suit and mask, I need it to live. Long story.” Fortunately, Applejack had gotten the sense that maybe she should tone it down a bit, and the proceeding greetings went without effort, Yelena and Hitman being introduced.

“So. Y’all’re soldiers, right?” asked Applejack.

“Yes,” answered Sam. “Very special soldiers. The correct term would be ‘commandoes’, I suppose. We don’t fight on the front lines with everyone else, we’re really closer to a mix of a soldier and a spy. Each of us takes on a different job when it comes to fighting.”

Applejack nodded in understanding, but before she could pose another question, Twilight began coughing. Both her and Fluttershy headed over to check over her, and Aleph Squad kept their distance as she returned to consciousness.

Twilight looked around as the world slowly started to filter back into clarity. She saw the faces of her friends and it put her immediately at ease. “Ugh… Celestia, I feel terrible.”

“I know, Twilight. You didn’t have to cover for me-“ Twilight shushed Applejack with a foreleg. “Applejack, you’re my friend. And so is Rainbow Dash. Speaking of… where…”

Martilus stepped in at that moment. “Fluttershy shouted down a manticore, ordered it to take her to get cured of her poison, and then met aliens.”

As Twilight stared at the alien, she reared up to discover five more aliens standing there in various states of awkwardness and armor. She made a conscious decision not to faint. Questions began bubbling up within her mind, hundreds upon thousands of questions, but given that the last thing she remembered was being bowled over by a manticore, she decided she could ask them later, on her own time. Preferably inside a nice castle, where no manticores would ram her like out-of-control trains.

Twilight rolled over and forced herself to her hooves. She was a Princess of Friendship now – she had far, far more important duties to take care of rather than ask a hundred questions to an alien that might get exasperated at her endless thirst for knowledge. She represented Equestria in its own right, and while she was still conscious and capable of clear thought she would be introducing the aliens.

Twilight stepped forwards, attaining the sudden air of dignity that she didn’t all that much like. “Which one of you is your leader?”

Sam stepped forwards. “That’d be me, miss…”

“Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship. You?”

“Samuel Harrison, Aleph Squad leader.”

Things continued like this for quite some time. Twilight went through all of the boring formalities and Sam played along, as the rest of their intrepid crew began to wake up and realize they were sharing ground with aliens. Rarity very nearly fainted again. Pinkie had immediately personally introduced herself to each one of Aleph Squad’s members, with reactions ranging from bemusement to total surprise.

Of course, eventually, the elephant in the room had to be addressed; it simply wouldn’t go away otherwise. As the members of the squad mingled, Twilight fretted.

Sam noted this as his focus left Dari, who was trying to comfort the pony named Rarity - the poor woman(?) had gone into hysterics upon learning that her leg was broken, and was apparently in a great deal of pain. Dari was trying to shush and comfort her, but sadly, medi-gel really couldn't do much for a broken leg - and the group's supply of anesthetic was extremely low.

Leaving Dari to the task and making an idle note to give her a metaphorical pat on the back for her display of compassion, he approached Twilight. "Hey. You don't look very good. Penny for your thoughts?"

Twilight stared at him in a strange matter. "...that sounds like a saying..."

"It is, yeah. What's on your mind?"

Twilight took a breath in, then back out. “It’s Rainbow Dash. The manticore hasn’t been back for a while – I hope she hasn’t…”

The implication that all of their efforts had been for nothing lingered in the air for only a second before, with a whoosh and a thud, the manticore slammed onto the ground. It gently deposited a healthy-looking – if unconscious – Rainbow Dash onto the ground in front of them.

“Excuse me, Mr. Manticore?” The manticore turned to look at Fluttershy. “Could you please give us a ride across the ravine?” The manticore nodded feverishly, with worry clear in its eyes – it feared what would come if it did not follow orders.

Fluttershy turned towards the assembled group. “Do all of you have your things?”

Sam raised his hand. “Give us a moment.” He turned to face his squad. “Oi. Barx, Dari, both of you go cannibalize the Kodiak’s med kit. We’re gonna be leaving this thing behind.”

Martilus raised the medkit. “You mean this? I already got it when I was tending to them. Used a bit of gauze for Rarity’s leg and some medi-gel on their wounds, but nothing too major.”

“Medi-gel?” wondered Twilight. “So that’s what this sticky stuff in my cuts is.”

“Yeah. Sealed your wound until you can get to a doctor’s,” exposited Martilus. The turian became somewhat sheepish immediately after. “Of course… it kind of needs an ultrasonic frequency to “let go”, and, uh…”

“Oh, don’t worry. When a unicorn casts a spell, their horn vibrates at frequencies beyond our range of hearing - and most likely beyond most of yours, too,” assuaged Twilight. “Between me, Rarity, and a given nurse at the hospital, we should be able to get all the medi-gel off. I’m honestly more worried about what we’ll do when we get back to Ponyville than my injuries.”

“You have a place to stay, right?” inquired Sam.

“Certainly.”

Sam thought for a moment. “Get us there and in one piece and then go see to your injuries. We’ll be here when you all get back.”

“They’re not life-threatening,” responded Twilight. “There are a few things that I have to do, yes – like informing Princesses Celestia and Luna of your existence – but it doesn’t look like we’re off that bad-“

“Not off that bad?” came a very cultured voice. Rarity stood up, streaks still running down her face from where tears had matted her fur. "Not off that bad?" She approached, all of her fear and pain converting for a moment into anger. "Twilight, my leg is broken! Do you even realize how much it hurts right now? Because it hurts! It huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurts!" She jostled her leg wrong, and her face scrunched up, before she let out a cry of pain and laid down again.

Twilight stared down at the cowed Rarity and promptly ate her words. "Uh... whoops, um... sorry Rarity, yeah, we can... we can go back. We should go back. Right now, in fact."

Sam nodded. “Sounds pretty good. Last question, though; who gets to go first?”

After a good minute’s worth of debate the twelve assembled came to the conclusion that the Elements should get to go first in order of injury. This meant Rarity was the first across, screeching all the way because of bad interactions between a manticore that didn’t quite know how to give a comfortable ride and a broken foreleg. Everyone else had around the same reactions – screams, whoops, and shouts either of fright or joy came from most, with the exception of Fluttershy and Hitman, who quite simply did not react at all to the strange method of gap-crossing.

After the last person was across (Sam complained that he’d pulled a muscle), Fluttershy turned towards the manticore. “Alright, Mr. Manticore. You’ve done a lot for us. But I think it’s time you leave.”

The manticore was off before any of them could react, running howling in terror into the forest.

“Remind me to never get on her bad side,” Barx commented.

“Eh,” shrugged Twilight. “That doesn’t usually happen. So long as you don’t go around ripping people apart, you and Fluttershy will get along fine.”

“Hm,” snorted Barx. “If you say so. I’m still gonna be a little leery.”

Fluttershy sighed. “Well, I don’t suppose I can stop you.”

Rarity, in the meanwhile, looked out into the Everfree. "Uh... Twilight, dear? Please tell me we're not going to walk all the way through the forest?" Twilight turned back and merely gave her an apologetic look. Rarity fell onto her haunches. "But... but my leg is brokeeeeeeeeen! I shan't be able to make it all the way without feeling pain in every little step I-"

Sam looked over to Barx as Rarity continued melodramatizing about her current situation. "Hey, Barx. Ever wanted to carry a new kind of alien?"

"You're asking me to carry her, aren't you?" deciphered Barx.

"Asking? No," corrected Sam. "Ordering? That's an order, soldier."

Barx nodded and headed over to Rarity, interrupting her whining with a slightly softer than usual hand on her back. "Hey, Rarity. Want a ride back to town?

Rarity turned back to the krogan before her. The thing looked like it was muscle piled on top of more muscle - it could probably wrestle Bulk Biceps to a standstill. And it was offering to carry her.

"Yes," responded Rarity. "That... would be nice."

The walk continued for a few minutes in silence. It wasn't quite blissful, considering the fact that the men and women (and geth) of Aleph had a lot on their plates to think about, but being able to hear nothing but the sounds of the forest around them was relaxing, for a change.

Of course, it couldn't last forever, and just as it seemed it had worn out its welcome, the attention of most everyone assembled was attracted by riotous coughing.

Rainbow Dash was currently being carried on Twilight’s back, as an alternative to walking herself, considering her rather unconscious condition. She sputtered for a few more seconds, then, breathing clearly, opened her eyes. Aliens entered her view, walking along with her friends.

Were this any other situation she would be ecstatic. As of right now, however, she felt like she had gone ten rounds with an Ursa Major, and there was a very literal pain in her flank. She remembered the details of her poisoning, but strangely, she felt no pain – at least, besides her ass. Deciding that she had been cured of her poison, she attempted to poke Twilight – it came off as a very, very weak flop of her right foreleg at her.

Twilight turned back. “Welcome back, Rainbow. Are you feeling okay?”

“No,” deadpanned the mare. “Are the aliens with us?”

“Yep,” responded Sam.

“Cool.” Rainbow Dash shifted on Twilight’s back and seemed to return to sleep.

For a few moments, the trail was blissfully quiet.

“Rude,” shot Barx.

At Barx’s little jibe, however, Rainbow Dash decided to speak up. “Hey, nerd, I’m still awake. Just turned over. More comfortable here.”

Barx stared at Rainbow Dash. Not noticing, the sky-blue mare continued to aggressively give no fucks about the current situation. Of course, however, something niggled at the pegasus’s mind, and eventually she felt she had to speak up.

“Uh… so who are these aliens, anyways?”

Twilight smirked. “I think I’ll leave it to them to introduce themselves.” She turned to Sam, who was giving her an absolutely mirthful look.

“…I’ve already had to introduce everyone here four separate times already. Not that I won't do it again if I have to, but... it's kinda starting to get old. Like one of those "socials" they make us go to every year.”

“Well,” began Twilight, “I could easily take care of the rest of the introductions to Ponyville… if, of course, you were to humor me and introduce yourself to the ‘fastest pegasus alive’.”

Sam bit his lip as he thought about the prospect, before he relented. As tired as he was, he decided that all formalities were going to go out the window. “Okay. I’m going to be really off-the-cuff, though. I gotta get some manner of amusement out of this.” He looked towards Rainbow Dash. "That okay with you?"

"Cutting right through the shit?" Dash smiled. "Yep. Perfectly fine." He turned back to Aleph Squad, who were all staring at him with various looks of curiosity. “Anyone mind if I introduce you guys? I've been doing this all day, may as well not stop now."

The soldiers he commanded glanced among each other, then gave various noncommittal grunts and shrugs. Hitman was the only one that verbally responded, with a curt "No".

With permission given, Sam set himself to the task. “Alright. As most of you are cleanly aware, we’ve sort of been fighting a war for the past little while. This is basically shore leave – even if it’s weird. I’m going to be informally introducing Aleph Squad – the most hardcore team of asskickers you’re likely to meet.” Rainbow Dash shuffled over, turning to watch the aliens.

“May as well start with me – you know, gotta wedge that ego firmly into place. Samuel Harrison, human. Aleph One – I’m the leader. My role is Vanguard – hit them close and hit them hard. I’d give you a short description of myself, but really, I’d probably just say dumb shit like “I am the greatest human being that ever lived”, “literal god given physical form”, and stuff like that, but you don’t want to hear that. Not when there’s far more interesting people around.”

“What he means to say,” Martilus added, “is that he makes cheap shots. Cheap shots at everyone. Never to offend – he knows where the line is. He’s pretty chill, unless you’re getting shot at. Well, usually pretty chill, anyways.”

“Heh,” commented Rainbow Dash. “So long as you can take it as good as you give it I’ll like you.”

“Believe me, I can. And this guy here,” said Sam, building on Martilus’s words, “is the littlest shit you’ll ever meet. Martilus Hinfax. He’s a turian – read: “horrible, spiky monster come to destroy us all”. He’s a pretty cool guy, really. Calm, steadfast, always playing nice, a good worker, too. He’s Aleph Six, and his role is Sentinel. He stands out in the middle of the fight, gets hit by ten people at once, and the sees to them with a very, very big gun.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Madam.” Martilus curtsied, and Rainbow laughed. “Wow. You two are a class act.”

“You should see ‘em when they’re drunk,” muttered Barx.

“I bet they’d be a laugh riot!” laughed Dash. The rest of the Elements felt relieved – it seemed that Dash had gone unfazed by her poisoning.

“Well, Barx is definitely one to talk. Aleph Two is the biggest and strongest out of all of us here – he’s a krogan.” Sam didn’t seem to be addressing the comment about how fun he was when he was drunk. “Abrasive? Yes. Good people? Yes. Do you want to stand in his way? Hell no. This guy’s got redundant copies of every organ in his body, and forcing him to use one might put him into a blood rage so violent that other krogan have been known to gnash past brain death. Which means he does well in his job of Soldier – shoot anything that moves.”

Dash stared for a few moments. “Gnarly. Glad you’re with us, then.”

“You should be,” agreed Barx, smiling and showing off rows of teeth. To any other pony (read; Fluttershy) it would be somewhat scary. To Dash, it was downright fascinating. Sam, of course, decided to take that moment to keep speaking. “More seriously, though, as scary as he is, Barx is decent. He’s just got a bit of anger issues, and difficulty expressing himself. Give him time.”

“Hey, Barx. We should hoof wrestle sometime.”

Barx’s grin never left his face. “Hoof wrestling? If it’s anything like arm wrestling, I’m in. Might wanna wait until you’re healed up, though. Not as fun beating an opponent that can’t properly fight back.”

“Funny,” remarked Dari. “The way your friend Dash is speaking, she seems like she’d fit right in as Aleph Seven.”

“Where do I sign?” asked Dash.

“I’m afraid we have no method of recruitment at the moment,” continued Sam, “but believe me – you get badass enough and we’ll make you an honorary N. Eitherwhats, this is Dari’Nava vas Tonbay. She’s a quarian. The upside is that she is smoking hot.”

Dari slapped Sam.

“The downside is that her immune system is compromised – it’s a really long and historical tale, but long story short if she isn’t wearing that environmental suit 24/7 she’ll die of… basically anything you take for granted.” Sam rubbed the side of his cheek. “Doesn’t stop her, though. She’s a master mechanic – give her enough materials and she’ll have something useful built up with blueprints in the dirt. Aleph Four is the squad’s Engineer – she spends time fixing stuff, giving us all of our quality of life goodies, and throwing fireballs, lightning bolts, and freeze rays at people like ye olden wizards.”

Rainbow Dash was entranced. “Whoa. You guys are awesome.”

“Yep.” Sam was clearly where he wanted to be – right in the spotlight, with nothing to worry about but his next sentence. “Which brings us to our next member – the actual space mage.” That got Twilight’s attention, and she turned around to stare at Yelena. “Meet Yelena Nasari. She’s an asari – long-lived, capable of mind melding with others for practical and… recreational needs… and a natural biotic. What that means is she has a material in her that lets her manipulate gravity. So she can do all sorts of fun things. Like throw a ball of force at you. Or a singularity. Or a ball of twisting, shearing gravity.” At this praise, Yelena merely smiled mildly and raised a hand to wave, something Dash returned. “She’s humble, nice, generally not willing to get involved in protracted fights off-duty. But don’t take that for meekness. She’ll flay you alive with one look.”

“I won’t actually flay you alive, just so you know,” assuaged Yelena. “He’s just decided to be a dick.”

“I could make a pun out of that, but I don’t feel like getting slapped twice in the same day.” Sam turned to their last member, the machine that fearlessly walked alongside them. “This is Hitman. Don’t mind him much… he’s a geth. Essentially, a robot.”

“While inaccurate, I feel it would not be prudent to correct you, Harrison-Vanguard,” stated Hitman.

“…see? He’s not really all that social, but it’s not for lack of trying, he just doesn’t know. I’m sure he’ll get the hang of it. I… I can’t really think of much to say about him, but really, he’s nice if you just want to have a conversation. Dude can hold one on basically anything you can think of.”

“Even the Wonderbolts?” Dash figured they probably didn’t know, but couldn’t help to ask anyways.

“Not a clue who or what those are, but yes. He will.”

Dash’s eyes grew wide. “You don’t know who the Wonderbolts are?” Twilight quickly stepped in (metaphorically speaking, anyways), shushing Dash. “You’ll have a long time to regale him with tales of the Wonderbolts later.”

“I’m almost done anyways. Aleph Five’s job is Infiltrator – he stays way back from the field with a big gun and a nice scope on it. He doesn’t usually venture up close, but he’s no slouch there either. He has the precision of a machine, mostly because he is one.”

Hitman did not respond until Sam elbowed him. The platform-turned-individual turned to Dash and waved rather statically, something Dash sniggered at before waving back. “Alright. You feel like doing a play-by-play of all your friends, or are you too dead tired?”

“Dead,” responded Dash. “I would, but I feel like Tank in the winter.” A moment’s silence ensued, before Dash quietly explained, “uh… Tank’s my pet tortoise. He hibernates." A moment passed where nobody said anything, and Dash decided it would be better to keep going as if nothing had happened. "Now. The Wonderbolts? They’re something else. They’re the best flight team in existence! They do all sorts of crazy stunts and awesome stuff, and they’re just… so… amazing!” Despite the fact that she looked like she had been cold-cocked not a minute prior Dash’s fangirling was not lost on any of the members of Aleph Squad.

“I wonder if she has a crush on the lead?” wondered Dari.

“Probably,” agreed Martilus.

Dash continued on, speaking of the Wonderbolts, their tales of valor, and the fact that she was on the reserves. The Alephs quietly listened in, not really feeling the need to respond. As the forest grew lighter, they felt at ease in that moment.

And as always, something told Sam to savor the moment.

After a few more minutes of walking (and Rainbow Dash dumping enough information on the Wonderbolts for even Hitman to feel intimately acquainted despite having had zero prior experience with them,) they came to the edge of the forest, and walked out into actual sunlight.

Aleph Squad, almost as one, squinted in the bright light. They had become used to the dark mood lighting of the Everfree Forest, so to be out here in the open, where it was clear and vibrant… it really was something else. Of course, their gawking at the verdant environment was not lost on the Elements that were there with them.

“Come on,” spurred Twilight. “You’ll have a lot of time to look at the grass when we’re in the castle.”

“No grass grows inside castles,” stated Hitman.

“You never know,” jabbed Yelena. “It might be something they do. Never assume.”

“Affirmative” was the only response Yelena got.

They continued on down the trail. The Elements were relieved to be out of danger. Aleph Squad was relieved to no longer have to fight. Of course, all good things came to an eventual end, and this was no exception as Sam looked over the crew gathered.

“Uh… question. All of you are injured in some way and we’re scary aliens. What’s preventing the townspeople from turning on us the second we walk in?”

“Easy,” interrupted Rarity, still moaning in pain from her leg. Despite her earlier hysterical fit, however, she had improved significantly, and seemed relatively calm about the situation now that she was going to get to go to the hospital “You’re walking with the Elements of Harmony. As I’m sure you’re no doubt aware, we are quite the sight around these parts. If they see you with us, they’ll probably assume you were helping us fight things - even if it’s not exactly the right assumption to make – and go about their day.” She jolted, and grumbled quietly about "that hospital better come soon".

Sam stared at Rarity, as he worked it out in his mind. Eventually he decided that both of the two parties assembled - Aleph Squad and the Elements of Harmony (he made a note to ask later) - were putting blind faith into each other anyways. “Well, it’s not like we aren’t already putting blind faith into each other’s hands slash hooves, so you know what? I’ll go with that.”

As they approached the town, they noted its quaint look. Well, “quaint” was doing it a favor. It looked downright primitive – thatched-roof houses – though some parts did stand out. Like the house that seemed to be made of gingerbread, bringing nothing to the resident human’s mind but fairy tales. Or the house that appeared to actually be made of modern construction materials. Or the castle that seemed to hang off the side of a mountain.

Or the closer castle made of crystals they were heading towards, located directly next to Ponyville.

The Alephs, as one, gawked. It wasn’t immediately obvious exactly what the castle they were standing in front of was made of, but it didn’t need to be immediately obvious, considering it was bright, shiny, sharp, and didn’t seem like an actual building at all. It seemed more like the sort of mirage a half-deluded man would spy in the middle of a desert shortly before his dehydration finished whatever stranded him in the desert started.

Twilight merely giggled, a blush covering her face as she looked over the awestruck aliens she was in charge of shepherding. “Yep. That’s… that’s my castle,” she confirmed. “Let’s… let’s get moving, okay? You’ll get a lot of time to s-“

“Yeah, yeah, lotta time to stare,” shot Barx. “I’ve already taken a picture. I’ll stare as long as I like. In the meanwhile, purplesmart’s got a point. We should probably keep hoofing it so these ladies can go get fixed.” The krogan set out ahead, and Aleph Squad followed suit.

The rest of the journey was relatively silent. Everyone was able to compose their thoughts – some were darker than others. Pinkie had begun planning the ‘Welcome to Ponyville, Aliens’ party. Twilight was drafting up the letter she’d send to Celestia. Both Dari and Martilus were wondering if they’d live to see the next month. Hitman was futilely trying to contact the geth collective with every way he knew how to, but the geth encountered nothing. Not even a lack of signal. Not even junk signal left over from primitive era transmissions.

Nothing but the cosmic microwave background and the platform’s own lightspeed thoughts.

Eventually, however, they arrived at the castle. Twilight magicked the door open, and stood aside. “Alright. I just need to explain to Spike, my assistant, what’s going on, and then I’ll let you all stay at the castle.” Twilight promptly leaned into the door. “SPIKE! COME HERE!”

A faint “Coming!” could be heard, and then a small lizard that looked sort of like a crossbreed between a salarian and a krogan – a baby dragon – toddled out.

Spike stared at the aliens for a few moments, trying to comprehend what he was seeing.

“Spike,” began Twilight, “we have visitors. Please try to make sure they don’t break anything.”

Aleph Squad watched as Spike’s eyes grew wide. Spike himself was having the time of his life. He’d always wondered if there were aliens out there; sometimes it was because he was out stargazing with Twilight, looking into the seemingly-verdant fields of light, and sometimes it was because he was reading a comic book where Dirk Stronghooves had to fight off the alien menace to save Equestria... the twelfth that month. The question, however, had now just been answered, and it was the largest “yes” that could ever have been devised as an answer.

“Uh…” Martilus cocked his head and turned to Twilight. “Is it normal for him to salivate like that?”

“No… not really,” answered Twilight, also unsure as to what was going on with Spike. She eventually opted to grip on the very still dragon with her telekinesis and give a good shake, which snapped Spike out of his reverie.

“Oh! Uh… right! I won’t let you down, Twilight!” Spike snapped into a salute faster than most Royal Guardsponies, and promptly invited Aleph Squad indoors. After a few shared looks the battle-weary troops of Aleph decided that a tour from Spike was probably about as good as it was going to get, and so they shuffled into the castle in single file, with one exception.

The Elements watched as, one after the other, Aleph Squad filed into the house. Looking at each other, Twilight sighed. For the seventieth time since she moved here, Twilight Sparkle and her friends had managed to make new friends, avoid total disaster, and survive an insane battle they really had no part getting involved in. Now, they could finally rest.

“Uh, Twilight?" asked Rarity. "You did say that we were going to go to the hospital directly after dropping them off, right Twilight?" Barx was still standing outside, still carrying the mare. "You did say, yeah," he concurred.

Twilight laughed awkwardly at the realization. “Uh… yeah. That… That may be the best. Hand her here, would ya?"

Barx nodded and gingerly extended her out, and Twilight telekinetically moved her to her back. With a barely perceptible nod the krogan shuffled off into the castle, as Twilight and company struck out for health care.

Aleph Squad looked around as they entered. The interior of the castle was just as magnificent as the outside. It was also pristine and clean, to the point where they could see dust and soot - some of it no doubt from Earth - falling onto the floors and dirtying them. The scene was ethereal - like they had died and entered the afterlife. All sans Hitman felt they didn't quite belong there - Hitman itself was too busy looking around and archiving the architecture.

In the meanwhile, however, Spike was desperately trying to think of what to say. Twilight had found and retrieved aliens – this above all else was something he could not mess up. It was roughly equivalent to a date with Rarity. He momentarily considered making it more important, but given that one thing was a once-in-a-lifetime event, and the other was a date with Rarity, he decided it was significantly less important overall.

As seemed to be the default in these situations, Sam eventually decided to take control, heading up to Spike. He leaned down, still significantly larger than the lizard he was kneeling in front of, and decided to introduce himself. “So you’re Spike, huh?”

Spike nodded, still somewhat dumbfounded.

“Nice name. Name’s Sam.” He extended his hand, and Spike gripped it carefully in his claws and shook it. “My friends here are Barx, Yelena, Dari, Hitman, and Martilus, in no particular order,” he said, pointing to each of them as he indicated them with a hand.

Spike drunk the information like a thirsty soldier from a canteen. “Cool! So, what are all of you?” He turned to address Aleph Squad themselves.

“Human.” “Asari.” “Krogan.” “Turian.” “Quarian.” “Geth.”

Spike observed them. “Cool! So, like, you all look pretty similar. Barx, right?” The krogan nodded. “Are you like the Earth Pony equivalent of a human?”

Nobody quite knew how to react to that. Each member of Aleph Squad exchanged furtive glances, while Barx merely laughed. A lot. When he was finished, the krogan headed up. “No, it’s not like that. We’re all different species.” Spike quirked an eyebrow, responding with a confused “But Pegasi and Earth Ponies are different species, too.”

“Not subspecies,” interjected Dari. “We’re all different species. Me and Martilus actually have a different biological makeup from everyone else present. And Hitman isn’t even alive in the technical sense.”

“I am a synthetic being. I was not born in nature, but was instead constructed by Creator-Dari’Nava’s species,” supplied Hitman. Slowly, Spike began to get the differences between them. Then his lizard brain finally picked up on the exact connotations of what he had said earlier.

“Oh Celestia, did… was I just racist?”

“Yep,” answered Barx.

Spike stared at the twelve-foot-tall krogan in fear. “…are… a-are you gonna eat me?”

“Nope,” answered Barx.

“Whew!” went Spike, swiping a sudden onset of flopsweat off of his head. “Was… was the whole ‘eat me’ thing racist, too?”

“Yep”, answered Barx.

“Spike, could you please just give us a tour of the place already?” intervened Sam, quite clearly seeing where this was going and wanting no part in it. “As amusing as it is to watch you and Barx be… well, you and Barx, I’d much rather figure out where important places like the washrooms or the beds are located.”

That seemed to snap Spike out of his feedback loop. “Of course!” The adolescent drake stepped aside and gestured down the hallway. “Now, if you’ll just follow me…”

“…the washrooms are right here,” finished Spike.
The seven gathered had traversed approximately half the castle to reach the washrooms. When nobody moved, least of all Sam, Spike asked, “Wait, so none of you have to go right now?”

After a chorus of negatives, Spike gave a seemingly overexaggerated sigh of relief. “Oh, thank Celestia!” He quickly ran into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Nobody present in Aleph Squad was any less confused than they were when they had entered. “This cannot be the only set of washrooms,” piped up Hitman from the rear. “Considering the size of the building, it would be inefficient.”

“I’m siding with Hitman,” stated Dari. “You’d need to be an idiot to design this building and not put washrooms…" She paused for a moment, bringing her hand up to the underside of her envirosuit's helmet. "Actually, considering the material they used, you’d just need to be an idiot to design this building and think any aspect of it was a good idea.”

The door opened as Spike exited the washroom. “I… I don’t really hate the castle that much. It’s no Golden Oaks Library, sure, but… yeah, it is kinda overdramatic.”

“And of the washrooms?” pressed Dari.

Spike laughed. “Yeah, of course this isn’t the only set of washrooms. This is, like, one set. I’m not sure how many there are exactly, but I’d guess… about ten.”

Sam nodded. “Eh. I suppose we’ll find them later. Anywhere we’ll be actually staying?”

“…wow…”

“Magnificent!”

“Eh. Could be worse.”

Reactions to the guest suite of Twilight Sparkle’s crystal castle were mixed. It was indeed a beautiful room – it came with the territory of being in a castle that was glitterier than most diamond stores. Even so, considering the bed had a blanket that was somehow shiny without either having gems embedded into it or being made of an uncomfortable material, and that one of the windows was stained glass designed just so that the sunlight that filtered through would be converted into a prismatic display of every color in the rainbow, it definitely stood out amongst the rest of the rooms, which consisted of “Twilight’s bedroom” and “Spike’s bedroom”.

“…so like I was saying,” continued Spike, “this is the only guest room we actually have. And it only has one bed, and I’m pretty sure it’ll only fit two of you.”

Sam snorted. “To be honest I have slept on surfaces far harder than this crystal. So has everyone else.”

“Geth do not sleep,” stated Hitman.

“What Sam means to say,” continued Martilus, “is that “not enough beds” isn’t a problem. The spirits know we’ve dealt with that enough.”

“In that case, I might as well show you the best room in this place,” continued Spike. The little dragon seemed almost excited.

“The kitchen!”

Spike turned towards Aleph Squad and threw both of his arms out in joy. He was promptly surprised when nobody actually had any good reaction. They merely stood there awkwardly.

“…do you guys not eat, or…” began Spike.

Hitman looked towards its squadmates, then moved forth. “Creator-Dari’Nava and Hinfax-Sentinel have differing biological makeup. This renders them incapable of consuming food that Soldier-Barx, Leader-Harrison, and Adept-Nasani can, and vice versa. Reaction ranges from zero nutritional value to anaphylactic shock and death.”

Spike blinked as he stared at the geth platform, its ceaselessly glowing blue eye offering little purchase from the grim fact it had just delivered.

“Hitman…” began Martilus, but the geth quickly cut him off. “Hinfax-Sentinel, the fact was pertinent.”

“This does not mean it was appropriate to bring up,” countered Yelena. “Though I don’t suppose we could have avoided it very long, given the situation.”

“It’s okay,” went Spike. “Twilight’s pretty smart, and she’s well-versed in magic. She’ll be able to help you out with that, I don’t doubt it!” The positivity the dragon expressed shocked everyone – even Barx raised an eyebrow. “Until then, I guess I should take you to the last room in the house, so we can finish off this tour!”

Six seats, each with an emblem that had matched the strange markings on their host’s asses nobody had brought up out of politeness.

A central table – that when Spike waved his claws over it, brought up a holographic map of Equestria.

A massive chandelier-like ceiling fixture, each shard containing an inscribed memory of previous experiences.

The official name for the room was the Hall of Friendship, but to each member of Aleph Squad it felt more like a war room. This wasn’t a place where you gathered to have tea and catch up (though that wouldn’t stop you from using it that way) – this was a place where you strategized over coffee and tried to outfox the most tenacious enemy in recorded history.

Hitman silently took a picture of the map of Equestria as everyone stared at the holotable.

Barx very much approved. After a short look-around he smiled. “This room. I like this room. It is a very nice room.”

Spike blinked, knowing far better than to question the supermassive mountain of armor and teeth that was eight times his size. Yelena, in the meanwhile, looked at each of the scenes imprinted in the crystal. After a second, however, she stopped, turning sharply away. “It… It feels far too personal to look at these.”

“Nobody’s asking you to,” deadpanned Dari’Nava, who was busy inspecting the craftsmanship of the chairs, for reasons unknown to anyone else.

As Aleph Squad looked over the room, each focusing on a different part of it, the doors to the Hall of Friendship swung open, and the Elements of Harmony entered. All attention turned to them – they were banged up, but most of them merely had bandages or stitches over cuts and packs of ice pressed up to bruises. The worst off was Rarity, whose right foreleg was in a splint to keep it off the ground and a cast to allow it to heal - but besides that, she looked proud and dignified, a step above her former appearance. They were bruised and battered, but they were alive.

“Oh Celestia, Rarity!” Spike immediately ran over to the mare, immediately concerned over her physical condition. The fervent devotion he showed in that moment did not go unnoticed by Aleph Squad – some took as much comfort as they could from it, others laughed, and as usual, Hitman observed the organics and their strange and silly practices.

“Oh, Spike, don’t worry, it…” Rarity grunted as Spike poked her leg a little too hard. “It’s not hurting that badly. Why, in about six weeks it’ll be like I was never actually hurt!”

“Is there anything I can do to help, Rarity?”

Rarity thought for a moment. “Well… one hoof is going to make it terribly difficult to operate the sewing machine… maybe you could help me with my business? Sweetie Belle will be there, too, but an extra set of hooves will surely help out!”

“Yes, ma’am, Rarity ma’am!” Spike saluted, and if nothing else, the lovesick lizard’s antics managed to eke out a smile from everyone except Barx, who wasn’t really into that sort of thing, and Hitman, who was physically incapable of smiling.

Twilight took the opportunity to head up to Sam, who kneeled down to get more onto her level as a matter of respect. Twilight cleared her throat. “Alright. Samuel, I am aware that you and your squad are hopelessly lost. I can temporarily offer you a place to stay and get on your feet here.”

“Temporarily?” asked Sam.

“Temporarily,” nodded Twilight. “No matter what you do, I will have to inform Princesses Celestia and Luna of your arrival here, and you will need to meet with them to discuss further actions in regards to your stay here. This isn’t something you can contest.”

“Noted,” acknowledged Sam. Twilight turned to Spike, who was walking away from Rarity with a dazed smile on his face. “Spike! Take a letter, if you would.”

“Sure thing!” Spike ran off, the light taps of the dragon’s feet on the crystal floor somehow elevating above the din of thirteen beings being stuck in the same room. Within a minute or so Spike had returned with a scroll and a quill – something that attracted the attention of the Alephs; they didn’t even have paper yet.

Twilight cleared her throat. “Princesses Celestia and Luna, it has been a while since I have reported to you on anything, Friendship Report or not, but I have urgent news that requires your utmost attention. Today, after seeing a metal brick fall from the sky and getting into a battle with a manticore, me and my friends discovered six alien beings who claim to be from other worlds. They appear to be soldiers, but are peaceable and are getting along fine with everypony else. While I have granted them temporary authority to stay in Ponyville because they lack anywhere else to go, I urgently request that you come to my castle as soon as possible to vet them for possible integration into Equestrian society, as it appears they have nowhere else to go. Your former student, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight waited for a few moments as Spike quickly and efficiently transcribed the letter. Rolling it up and adding a nice ribbon, the dragon took a breath larger than he was, and blew out. To moderate surprise, a stream of green balefire burst forth from his maw, incinerating the letter. The green ashes rose out, and travelled out through an open window towards the massive castle in the distance.

Hitman's head flapped for a few moments before the geth responded with a curious "Query: Why has Spike incinerated the letter he wrote?"

"Dragon fax!" said Twilight. "He's sending it to Princess Celestia herself."

"...how does that even work?" wondered Dari'Nava out loud. Unfortunately for her, Twilight heard what she was thinking - and she got the gleam in her eye that the rest of the Elements recognized immediately as "Maximum Overdork". Without any other form of warning she immediately launched into a massive stream of magical technobabble that isn't worth transcription, primarily because nobody else in the room could decipher what she was going on about.

Of course, however, as Dari'Nava attempted to parse some meaning out of the inane gobbledygook Twilight was spouting, she got an idea. From the sounds of it, this "Twilight" persona was smart. Very smart. And magic was a thing that apparently had a massive amount of uses. It was what humans called a Hail Mary - but then again, when she considered their rations and her options, a blind shot in the dark was the only option left.

That, and Spike had already brought up the possibility.

Beats dying in a ditch, the mechanic darkly thought. She walked forwards as Twilight continued to explain an ancillary concept, and poked her in the forehead.

Twilight stopped speaking, and stared at her.

"...you're smart, right?" asked Dari.

Twilight blinked. "Um... yes?"

"Then maybe you could help us with a tiny little very big problem that we're going to face really soon."

Twilight, to Dari’s relief and expectations, had dropped the issue entirely. She was now focused on the quarian before her with laserlike precision, something Dari hoped she would be able to see in far more people than the being she was talking to. “You need help? Me and my friends can help! What’s the nature of your emergency!” If nothing else, Twilight was indeed very enthusiastic to help out a new friend, and Dari planned to leverage that.

“To explain this in the simplest terms I can, me and Martilus have… significantly different biology from the rest of our cohort. We cannot eat the same foods they can, and the same goes for them. At best we derive no nutritional value. At worst, we go into anaphylactic shock and die. So being marooned on an alien planet? Not exactly the most excellent state of affairs.”

Twilight nodded, having produced a small notepad, scribbling into it with the quill Spike was holding ten seconds ago.

“Now, Twilight, you are a very smart… uh… I’m going to go with “woman”, h-“

“Mare,” she corrected.

Dari took a moment to internalize the fact she was being corrected on her grammar in the middle of essentially pleading for her life, then continued. “…a smart mare. Is there any way you’d be able to help us out?”

Twilight thought for a moment. “Well, first I’d need blood samples to compare. From you, one of your other squadmates, and… I’ll say myself. I’d need to check them for… what, exactly?”

“DNA sequence,” answered Dari. “People like Sam have a different protein sequence from people like me. I’m not sure what yours is, but none of us can safely eat until we know for sure. That… and we don’t have very many rations left, anyways. We weren’t planning to get stranded. But then again, who does?”

Twilight took a moment to meditate on that fact. Her eyes and pupils widened immediately when she realized the prospect before her. If she didn’t get to work, then the new arrivals would starve to death just after reaching safety. “Alright, I can help! I might lose one or two days of sleep, but your lives are at stake! Just hold out your arm…”

Before Dari could point out it wasn’t really feasible to take a sample from her, Martilus stepped forwards. He looked to Spike. “Spike, get me a knife.”

Spike looked at him as though he had lost his mind. “Please don’t tell me you plan to-“

“A little pain now for our lives later. I’m not going to do anything rash, but she needs a blood sample, and unless she has ultrasterilized instruments then she’ll cause Dari to get sick – maybe even die. If I get a knife, I can cut one of my soft parts a little, you can take the blood on the blade.”

Spike looked over to Twilight, who looked just as uneasy as the drake did over the prospect, before the violet mare regained her composure. “You heard him, Spike,” she ordered, with a slight tinge of regret in her voice. “Grab a knife.”

“Y-yes, Twilight,” responded Spike, and the tyke promptly left to grab a knife. The air had soured with awkwardness yet again, as multiple different bodies shuffled around in an attempt to alleviate the darkness that had suddenly filled the air. Eventually, Spike returned with a fairly heft knife in his hands; Martilus picked it up, positioned it at a soft area on his neck, and nicked himself, grunting as the blade ran across his skin and drew blood. The objective complete, Martilus handed the knife to Twilight, who magically gripped it.

“There you go,” smiled Martilus. “There’s your blood sample.”

Despite holding it in a telekinetic grip that wasn’t exactly tangible the same way a limb was, Twilight held the slightly blue-tinged knife from her as though it were a cursed artifact of doom, looking over the rest of Aleph Squad. “Alright… if one of you could volunteer, I’ll be able to get a less invasive blood sample. With syringes. That will barely hurt, and won’t leave any lasting scars.”

Sam looked between the members of the team - none of whom seemed to be stepping forwards. “Guess that means me, then.”

“I’d do it, but I’m not sure if a needle’d be able to get past me,” commented Barx. “Thick skin.”

Sam didn't really pay attention to that, as he stood in front of Twilight. “Alright, Twilight, don’t poke me all the way through, that won’t get you anything.” Twilight giggled a little. “Yeah, yeah. I know that. I know how to use a syringe.”

Despite smirking at that, Sam felt the statement “I know how to use a syringe” did not at all inspire confidence in her ability to wield a syringe. With a pop that startled some, Twilight teleported off to lands unknown.

Barx scratched his head. “Wait, why didn’t she just teleport us-“ Before he could finish, Twilight teleported back in, carrying twin syringes, and a set of cotton swabs. “Alright. Unless you’re willing to take off that armor of yours, I’ll need to withdraw the blood sample from your neck.”

“Well, it’d be the first time a sharp object punched through my neck, then,” quipped Sam. “Make it fast.”

Twilight nodded. “Don’t worry, it’ll be a quick and painless procedure. Really, I’ve got it down to an art. In fact…” She held the syringe, slightly filled with blood. “I’m already done.”

Sam felt the side of his neck. There was a slight bump from where the syringe had entered it, but it barely hurt. She had performed the operation with mechanical precision and extreme speed – when most doctors said it’d be “over before you knew it”, they were liars, but with Doctor Sparkle, Ph. D, that was an absolute guarantee. Almost as quickly, Twilight swapped and stabbed herself in the foreleg, withdrawing blood before removing the syringe. “Alright… the difficult part will be performing the magical analysis of this. It… may take a while. I’ll probably have the results by tomorrow.”

Dari stepped forwards. “If you don’t mind, Twilight, I’d like to see how I can help out.” Twilight smiled. “Of course you can! Come with me, we’ll head to the laboratory.” The two of them headed off, leaving eleven more people looking around and wondering what to do.

Sam, still nursing his injection site, looked over the team. “Well… this place only has one guest room.” He turned his attention over to the remainder of the gathered Elements. “Any of you got anywhere else for us to stay?” He couldn’t make out the individual affirmations each of them gave, but got the message anyways. It took him only a moment to figure that it would probably be better for Aleph to split up.

He turned around to face the rest of his squad. “Alright. We’ve had a rough day. We’re probably going to have a rougher tomorrow. It’d behoove you all to get some rest. Problem is, there’s only one guest room here, for some reason, so it looks like we’re going to need to split. We all know where to meet up. Start picking.”

Before Sam could turn around Rainbow Dash had already laid a hoof on his arm. “You. You’re mine,” she claimed, in a voice that was more than a little creepy.

Sam took a moment to process that, and then nodded. “Sure. Where do you live?”

“In the clouds, duh!” she responded, as if Sam was an idiot for not knowing that pegasi lived in the clouds.

“…but I don’t have weather manipulation magic. You take me up and I’ll just fall through the clouds like they don’t exist.”

For a moment, Dash decided to try and call for Twilight, but figured that since she was doing something really important, it might not be the best idea to bother her. The pegasus looked back to Sam, cerulean eyes scrutinizing him. "So where are you gonna stay?"

"Iunno," he shrugged. "I'll figure something out.” He looked back to the rest of the Alephs. “You guys made your decisions yet?”

Martilus looked over to Applejack. “You said you run an apple orchard, right?”

“I sure do!” replied Applejack.

“Mind if I stay over?” requested the avian alien. “Considering you work on a farm I’m more than willing to offer my services for room and board.” Applejack stepped forwards, and the two shook – a significantly calmer handshake, seeing as how Martilus’s arm wasn’t being flung about like a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube man.

Yelena, in the meanwhile, approached Fluttershy and leaned down. “Fluttershy, you said you had spare space, right?”

“Oh, of course you can stay at my house!” She immediately retreated slightly. “That is, of course, if you don’t mind the animals…”

“Animals?” Yelena quirked an eyebrow. This wasn’t something she had expected at all.

“Oh, yes,” responded Fluttershy. “I take care of animals near the Everfree at my home. I have so many animal friends… they’ll love to see you! But it’s not for everypony, it can get quite loud at times.” Yelena shrugged. “Well, it could definitely be worse. Thank you for the hospitality.” She bowed to Fluttershy, an act that made the pegasus smile.

Hitman looked over the two that were left. The geth had a choice between Pinkie Pie or Rarity. Of course, as soon as the platform had begun thinking about it, Pinkie had shot over. “Hitman, right? Wanna stay at my place?” She fluttered her eyelids in an attempt to woo the synthetic, something that appeared to work, though not for the reasons she expected it to.

Hitman, being a geth, didn’t fall prey to Pinkie’s attempt to woo it. One of Hitman’s missions, though, had been to study organics. Pinkie Pie was confusing even beyond the norm for organics, who weren’t entirely logical in their thought processes and decision-making. It seemed almost as though she knew something that everyone else didn’t – something that significantly influenced how she operated. The geth found the prospect interesting – and Pinkie seemed sociable anyways; partnering with her would give the geth a further boost to its attempts to study the organics the collective would likely be living with, given enough time.

Hitman’s response was immediate; “You are the best possible candidate for continued observation and learning about organics.” The geth extended a hand, something it knew to somehow be a universal gesture of friendliness. “Offer accepted.” Pinkie shook it with such rapid force the geth became almost painfully aware of its structural limits, before she began dragging the geth off. It was too early to tell whether or not Hitman would regret the decision it had just made, but the geth resolved to see it through.

Barx shrugged in response to Sam’s question. “Eh. I’ll be fine with going it alone.”

Rarity, of course, looked at how everyone else had already partnered up. “Oh, really?” she drawled. “Nobody wants to stay with Rarity Belle? Of course, I suppose fashion isn’t your strong point…”

Sam looked over to Barx. Then to Rarity. Then to Barx. Then to Rarity. He continued doing this about twelve times before Rainbow Dash lightly shook him, asking “Dude, are you alright?” with a concerned look on her face.

The smile she got confirmed that Sam was indeed nowhere near alright. “Well, Barx… you get to stay with Rarity, then. Official orders.”

Barx turned his head ever-so-slowly to stare at his commanding officer. “What?”

“You heard me,” confirmed Sam. “You get to bunk with Rarity.”

The mare in question almost raised her hoof, but remembered that then she'd be standing on two legs - something she could certainly do, but not something she wanted to do right now. Rarity merely remained resolute. "Well... I suppose I did ask for an alien to stay with.

Barx growled. It sounded fairly aggressive, but anyone who knew the krogan like Sam did knew that it was just the krogan equivalent of an annoyed grunt. Rainbow Dash, however, most certainly did not, and decided that if Sam stayed any longer he risked being castrated and/or disemboweled, and potentially both, so she immediately stepped between Sam and his tetchy squadmate. “Oh, would you look at the time, it’s let’s leave o’clock!” With that half-baked one-liner out of the way Dash hooked her forelegs through Sam’s arms and soared out of the castle, the confused screams of a human being and the whoosh she made as she passed through the air being the only sounds that fell upon the ears of the pissed off krogan and the injured pony.

Rarity and Barx both turned to look at each other. Rarity suddenly felt a lot smaller, but she knew that Barx was a sapient being, and thus, reasonable. He didn't have to stay at her house, and if she phrased it properly...

“Well, I'm well aware that your superior ordered you to stay, but... I'd rather not burden you. If you don't want to stay, I can cover for you.“

Barx shrugged. “Yeah, fashion’s not really my thing. I'll take up your offer, then.”

Rarity nodded, vividly imagining herself wiping flopsweat off her brow with a handkerchief. "Alright, then. By the way, where are you going to disappear to?"

"Probably back into the Everfree, to be honest." Barx smiled. "Reminds me of home."

Yelena looked over to the two, and decided to throw Rarity a bone. “I suppose if there’s nothing else for us to do, we should all disperse?”

Most everyone seemed to agree with that sentiment – the alternative was going to help Twilight and Dari, and there was no sense in going down there if you would be able to get a nice bed to sleep in instead of the desk you were sitting on. With significantly less fanfare than Rainbow Dash’s dynamic exit, the members of Aleph Squad left, mentally preparing themselves for their first night on an alien world – and the ones to come.

Author's Note

My name game is sort of off at the moment. Until then, enjoy this 10,000 word goliath.
Kudos to Ashrytan for helping me iron out the kinks in this chapter, and to spu313 for catching a last-minute typo. You guys are kickass, and I can't thank you enough.
In addition, I am changing the name of Omega Squad to Aleph Squad - primarily because "Aleph" sounds cooler than Omega, and is marginally more original.
I am also considering changing out the comedy tag, because this story doesn't really seem all that funny just yet and I'd rather not lie to people. If I do, though, it'll come back when it gets lighter.

End of the First Day

Eight feet tall, as wide as a tree, and clad in a suit of armor larger than himself, Barx made for an imposing figure as he stomped away from Ponyville. He hadn't had to enter town, and he was somewhat thankful for that; if the people he'd met were any indication, they wouldn't exactly react too well to his presence. Krogan were apex predators; they evolved from a world that gave no quarter and expected none. The leading cause of death before the invention/discovery of gunpowder on Tuchanka was "wildlife".

Afterwards? "Gunshot."

The krogan's thoughts turned to Tuchanka as he headed towards the darkness of the Everfree. Tuchanka was his home - a sandblasted nuclear hellhole of a home, but a home nevertheless. The genophage had been cured. He'd breathed it in, and swore that he felt himself being changed. A weight was lifted off of the backs of the krogan that day, and they finally had a future.

And now he was here. He was so far away from home that trying to quantify it with distance was meaningless. He had been given a future. His entire race had been given a future, and it had been stolen away from him without a second glance moments afterwards.

Barx roared at the thought, and ploughed his fist into a nearby tree at ramming speed; wood splintered, and the tree shook, several leaves dropping, but it remained in place. He took a moment to set a waypoint in his armor's computer; that way, at least, he'd know where to go to get back from the depths of the Everfree. Allowing himself to grieve he retreated and allowed his body to take over; he began wandering into the Everfree, no destination in sight, no point but to do something to rid himself of the ache that possessed him.

And so he wandered guideless for a long time. Feet trod on forest floor; animals scurried out of the way, predator or prey, not willing to stray into the path of the behemoth that now called the forest its home. The sun set, but he barely noticed – his eyes adapted too quickly. He only noted that the sun had finally gone down when he blinked and realized the world was tinted far darker than it was several hours ago.

And yet, that damnable ache. It just wouldn’t go away.

Barx growled, more annoyed than angry at the refusal of the hole to fill. As the krogan continued to meander about aimlessly it only became more clear that it wasn’t going to go away. He’d need to put up or shut up.

Barx decided to reign himself in at that point. He’d travelled a good few kilometers away from his waypoint – he turned around and began heading back. He wanted to keep wandering aimlessly, but something told him that if he didn’t make it back to that strange crystal castle with at least some modicum of timeliness, then Sam would have his head. And he respected the squad Battlemaster enough to not want to piss him off.

As he trekked through the forest, his mind wandering off to dark places, faint snapping from far off entered his ears. The krogan stopped, looking around. His keen eyes, covering 270 degrees around him, didn’t take very long to spot what it was; the manticore. And given how busted up it looked, it was easy to guess that what he was staring at was the manticore they had met earlier – the one that had given them a ride across the ravine. Of course, this was after poisoning Rainbow Dash and beating the rest of the ponies to a fine pulp.

Barx ducked behind a nearby tree and cautiously peeked out, watching as the manticore looked around and continued forth. It was nursing its jaw – still clearly broken – but it was still far larger than Barx, with much more weight to throw around. Even in his armor, getting trapped under that beast’s paws would probably not end too well for him.

He resisted the urge to draw his Claymore. Not yet. It might make too much noise, and tip the manticore off to his position. Keeping one eye trained on the beast, the half-lion eventually headed off – in the direction of the waypoint.

Barx grinned. Now this was something he could do. Moving quietly and cautiously – something that wasn’t quite in a krogan’s nature, but was still a fun challenge to do – Barx stalked the manticore, taking care to try and avoid any underbrush that might give away his position.

It was far easier said than done – the Everfree was full of underbrush, and oftentimes he found himself having to hop between patches of open ground, trying desperately to make as little noise as he could. Yet somehow, despite his weight, the forest, and the fact he was pursuing a predator like himself, Barx was able to keep pace with the manticore for another hour.

Eventually, however, he made a mistake. Given the relative quiet of the forest – the only background noise having been the euphony of a hundred different kinds of animals he couldn’t identify – Barx felt more than heard the twig cracking under its food, and saw the manticore swing its head around so fast that the krogan wouldn’t have been surprised if the thing gave itself whiplash. Nevertheless, he stood out – there was no more point in hiding.

The manticore stared at Barx.

Barx stared at the manticore.

The staring contest continued for a few moments as beast regarded krogan, and krogan in turn regarded beast – both of them finding far more in common than they would have thought. Before any of them could move, however, they heard the sounds of heavy footfalls and growling.

Barx and the manticore turned as one. To Barx’s right were a pack of… what looked sort of like varren. Varren made of wood and detritus, with glowing green eyes that broadcast their confidence in being apex predators for miles.

There were six, he knew. He didn’t even have to put effort into counting; it was instinctive, as difficult to describe as how to breathe. He looked over to the manticore, and found it was also looking at him.

“Let’s thrash ‘em,” suggested Barx.

The manticore roared. Not quite a yes, but close enough, thought Barx. The timberwolves howled, and as one they charged.

Barx tore his M-300 Claymore from his back, the weapon unfolding with a series of electronic clicks. The firearm’s barrel jutted out farther than most of its make, an indicator of the high-caliber barrel installed on it. The smart choke installed inside it whirred to life at about the same time the shotgun’s omni-blade flashed into existence. Barx fired the first – and only – shot the Claymore had loaded, the massive report stunning everything in the forest for miles around into silence. The relativistic scattershot more or less annihilated the timberwolf, which would have been blasted back into the detritus that made up the forest were it not for the fact the sheer velocity of the pellets rent said detritus asunder.

Of course, it happened so fast that to the eyes of the animals that had watched, Barx pulled the trigger, thunder cracked out, and the timberwolf disappeared into a storm of organic particles and twigs.

Barx turned to the rest of the timberwolves and operated the Claymore’s pump-action, the shotgun ejecting a white-hot thermal clip that fell to the ground, sizzling as it met the organic material on the floor.

“You want some?” spat the leviathan at those that would dare opposite it, “because I got more!”

The timberwolves looked at each other, and then splintered, each piece of them forming into what eventually made out to be a single, massive timberwolf. It roared, and the forest would have been made silent were it not for the earlier, thunderous blast of Barx’s shotgun having already done so.

“I heard a ‘yes’,” quipped Barx, but before he could move the manticore charged – without a roar, as such a thing would have caused an excessive amount of pain to the creature’s damaged jaw. It charged forth and grappled with the megawolf, which roared in its face, utterly unintimidated by the manticore’s sudden combat pragmatism. The two beasts swiped at each other, flesh slapping and wood cracking as Barx decided to hang back and watch the two duel.

After half a minute more of frenzied close-quarters battle the megawolf made a critical mistake and overextended itself in a lunge; the manticore caught it, spun around, and threw it into a nearby tree. Following a suitably loud crack, it slid to the ground and didn’t get back up. Barx punctuated this with another shotgun blast; this one gouged a massive hole through the megawolf, and it lost cohesion entirely, falling into pieces in response to the absolute overkill directed towards it.

Barx racked the Claymore again and stared at it for a few moments, making sure it wouldn’t pull back together. After a moment of watching, he trudged over, and poked around at the pile it had fallen into, the manticore watching him curiously as he did so.

Barx turned to face the manticore. “Interesting specimens you’ve got around here. So long as they don’t get up again, they’re fine by me.”

The manticore didn’t respond. It cocked its head, judging Barx. No, not judging, the krogan corrected. Assessing.

“Relax. I don’t know if it’s even safe to eat you. I might choke on my own vomit and die.” The manticore seemed to relax, and Barx raised an eyebrow. “Wait, you can understand me?”

The manticore nodded.

“Huh.” Barx blinked, for once being taken by surprise. “Didn’t expect that one, to be honest.”

The two stood there for a moment, lording over their kill, before Barx decided to speak up again. “I need to get lost. Gotta be somewhere else tomorrow morning.” He turned and left, and after a moment heard the manticore moving away.

Barx allowed himself a smirk at his productive night, and meandered off to find a place to rest.

The walk to Fluttershy’s cottage was a quiet one. It left time for Yelena to think. And she wanted to push that away for as long as she could. Considering they were barely holding on as was, thinking would just get her killed. Yelena idly munched on a ration bar as and her bright-yellow winged companion travelled down the dirt road, headed towards the growing edge of the Everfree forest.

It brought her back into reality, and as she chewed she figured it would definitely make a good conversation starter. Fluttershy did apparently live rather close to what was essentially the boundaries of civilization. She turned to face her newfound friend, who was currently obliviously trotting along, as happy as could be.

If only I could share in your optimism, thought Yelena. “So, Fluttershy… you live near the Everfree, correct?”

“Oh, yes,” responded Fluttershy.

“The Everfree is a dangerous place,” continued Yelena. “It is certainly full of animals similar to the manticore you fought earlier. One wonders why you’d choose the exact boundary as a place to stay.” Her attention turned to the forest for a moment, the pensive look on her face telling Fluttershy that she had more to say. After a few seconds she looked back towards the pegasus. “Perhaps it is because of the animals you stay there?”

“Mmhmm!” confirmed Fluttershy. “I get many animals who travel through the Everfree to see me. In addition, the large trees provide adequate shade in the backyard for hot summer days.”

“Wait,” interrupted Yelena, “to see you? The animals head to see you specifically?”

“Yep!” was the emphatic confirmation. The answer and its bluntness puzzled Yelena. “But animals… they can’t reason like we do.”

Fluttershy quirked an eyebrow. “And yet the manticore was willing to listen to me, wasn’t it?” As much as the asari hated to admit it, Fluttershy had caught her on that one. (She still wasn’t getting used to seriously calling a sapient being “Fluttershy”, either.)

“I suppose you have a point. Where I come from, the distinction between an animal and a person is that one is not capable of thinking for itself like the other is. I suppose it is one of the many, many oddities of this world that such a distinction does not exist here, then.” Fluttershy was content to listen to Yelena as she talked herself through the concept – it was refreshing to see somebody so open about these sorts of things. “And it may be yet another thing I must get used to in the process of waiting to go home.”

“I do hope you’ll find a way back home,” wished Fluttershy. “It must be so lonely staying here away from all the ponies… ehm, people you undoubtedly know.”

Yelena nodded sagely, a darkness seeming to overtake her face as Fluttershy expounded on her position. “Yes. It very much is. And… no offense, Fluttershy, but it isn’t something I’d like to think about at the moment.”

“Why not?” asked Fluttershy. “You can’t run from it.”

Yelena’s response was quick and sharp; “Because I do not want to drive myself into the depths of anxiety. It is far easier than you may anticipate to do, and oftentimes in a battle, it’s not the enemy that kills you – it’s yourself.”

There were a few moments of silence.

“So like I said,” continued Yelena, “it’s not exactly something that I want to put too much effort into thinking about. Going home, the future… I may not even have a future here, depending on what the results of Twilight’s little experiment return.”

Fluttershy finally begun to understood. “Oh! I… I misunderstood my place. My apologies.”

“Accepted,” replied Yelena, as smoothly as some sort of spreadable butter substitute. “It was a topic of conversation, and life is far too long to hold grudges for – especially for asari.”

“How so?” inquired Fluttershy, now far more willing than she liked to drag Yelena away from what ate at her until she felt more comfortable with talking about it.

“Asari can live for a thousand years. We have an extremely robust cellular regeneration system that allows us to live significantly far past that, as well, though we don’t particularly heal any faster than anyone else would.” Yelena noted that Fluttershy was listening in, clearly finding the subject engrossing – then again, to someone who looked after animals, being able to get the details on a new species must be momentous, to say the least.

Yelena took a few moments to ruminate on any more interesting facts, but sadly, all she could really think of was how they mated – and sex wasn’t exactly a topic she’d like to broach to an alien. Of course, Yelena breathed a sigh of relief a few moments later when Fluttershy extended a hoof and said, “We’re here!”

Sitting in front of Yelena was a cottage – multi-level, didn’t seem to be made of anything more complex than wood. She could already hear the faint chirps and cries of various animals, none which she could name, all of which sounded and looked interminably alien.

Yet Sam seemed to regard the animals – hell, even the ponies – as surprising, but somewhat familiar. Perhaps there was far more to this world than it seemed to present at first glance. Yelena made a note to get digging – most likely starting by asking Sam why everything around here didn’t seem totally surprising.

Lost in her mind, despite the growing cacophony of animals that Fluttershy took care of, she remained almost unaware of where they were until Fluttershy opened the door and she stepped into the cottage.

It was like stepping outside of the… well, outside world, and into a zoo. The various creatures on display made Yelena feel like she could get rich selling a compendium of Equestrian animals, with nothing more than Fluttershy’s advisory and writing materials. Yelena took a moment to look around, confounded by the sheer variety of beasties (though, considering some of them looked fairly harmless, calling them “beasties” would really be overstating their threat level) on display.

“…wow. You said you took care of animals, but I wasn’t quite aware you went to such a length in the process,” commented an awestruck Yelena as she continued gazing around, twirling through the room like a rather muted ballerina being captured in slow motion. Fluttershy observed her as she swirled around, trying to capture every detail. She giggled, before going to give Yelena the grand tour.

It was a rather modest house in the end. The living room was stuffed full of animals, but they were really only making a racket because they hadn’t been fed, and while feeding them wasn’t exactly comparable to hitting the mute button on a TV, it did make things significantly quieter. In the process, Yelena came to understand the kitchen; it contained not just food for Fluttershy, but massive quantitites of various types of feed for many, many different kinds of animals.

The kitchen was the only part of the house that seemed grandiose in any way; it also had a door out the back leading into a large, fenced-in yard, where, in an unsurprising twist, even more animals awaited. Yelena had already seen far more than her fair share, though, so the new pets didn’t really faze her as much as her first contact.

There were washrooms, upstairs and downstairs, and upstairs was Fluttershy’s bedroom and a small guest room – a guest room that held a truly ridiculous amount of dust, due primarily to disuse. Fluttershy laughed awkwardly upon remembering that fact, and seemed to shrink back into herself; Yelena merely smiled. “I don’t think you ever really expected anyone to have to use this for very long, did you?”

“No,” spoke Fluttershy, significantly more quietly than she had before, “I haven’t. Sorry.”

Yelena shrugged. “Got anything you can clean the dust with?”

After a quick trip downstairs to retrieve, among other things, a feather duster, a broom, and a dustpan, the two set to work. It was quick, and within ten minutes or so they had managed to make the room at least presentable (though Yelena would probably wear her clothing until she would be able to wash the sheets).

“Well. I might be able to sleep here without a breathing mask!” Yelena was at least happy, and Fluttershy seemed less withdrawn now that she’d helped correct her “mistake” (which it wasn’t even really, merely an oversight). Yelena headed over to the window, and through the curtains she could see the sun setting.

Yelena turned to Fluttershy. “Well. It’s been nice, but I believe I need a little bit of space.”

“Of course,” nodded Fluttershy, and she turned to leave before Yelena could begin to explain anything. “If you need anything, I’ll be downstairs.”

"Alright. I won't keep you any longer," responded Yelena. Fluttershy turned around and headed back down the steps, leaving Yelena alone with her thoughts.

Yelena took a moment, and sat on the bed. She began breathing calmly and deeply, attempting to force herself into a meditative trance. Of course, some sort of thumping kept her from doing so. After a second attempt to try and meditate was thwarted, Yelena finally decided that investigating the source of the noise would be a far more prudent use of her time than merely sitting there in frustration and breathing oddly.

Standing up, stretching, and looking over to the entance, Yelena was somewhat surprised to see a small white… thing sitting there, its foot tapping against the floor expectantly. Its arms were folded, and its face bore the sort of scowl that looked perpetual. Yelena sighed and trod over to the animal, kneeling down to get closer to its level.

“Hello,” began Yelena. “You don’t look too happy.” She wasn’t very surprised to find the white creature shook its head no. It pointed to her, then gestured to the rest of the house, then returned to its quiet, malevolent, yet entirely ineffective glaring.

Yelena was quickly able to decipher what it was asking, though. “Your friend Fluttershy allowed me to stay here. I’m in a bit of a bind at the moment – very, very lost.”

The potential pet’s eyes seemed to widen at the mention of Fluttershy’s name, before it brought its paws up to its eyes, then back at Yelena. It was protective, and communicating that it was going to be keeping an eye on Yelena.

Let it, thought the asari, as she returned to her meditations. After a few minutes the thing, whatever it was, left.

It was far easier to meditate with it gone, naturally.

Dari’Nava vas Tonbay was not having a very good day at work.

Putting her head down, her soft grumbles almost inaudible over the clink of her envirosuit’s faceplate hitting the table, she decided to give up on learning magic. Twilight seemed like she had the situation under control, and all this was doing was driving a tuning fork into her mind and twisting it around until brain spaghetti popped out.

She quietly looked over as Twilight peered through a microscope at the samples of blood they had collected. Sam’s and Twilight’s had come easily enough, but Martilus, the thick-headed bosh’tet, had decided he was going to cut his head open with a knife to provide help.

Unfortunately, he had a point. ceded Dari. I’m not sure if the syringe she used was properly sterilized. Knowing her, she might have a spell for that, but… really, it would just be picking which way you want to die; starve from lack of food or atrophy from sickness.

And the dumbass could have just... let Twilight syringe him in the back of the head, too.

She looked over to Twilight, who had been at the game for the past few hours. “Any luck?”

Twilight looked back over, a quill in her grasp and what looked like a sheet of paper (something Dari had not seen in a very long time) containing an absolutely ridiculous amount of sketches and equations. It looked not dissimilar to the one time she attempted to manually calculate the proper vectors necessary for a faster-than-light jump, and ended up filling half a workbook to completion before realizing such an endeavor was probably fruitless.

“I’m afraid not,” responded Twilight. “I’ve managed to amplify the microscope via the precision application of magic so that I can actually look at DNA. It’s not the best – I should probably just get a bigger microscope – but it’ll work for now.”

Dari nodded, resting her head on the table. Her stomach grumbled, reminding her all too clearly of just what was at stake here. If this fell through, so did her life.

Twilight was relatively quick on the draw. She could most definitely multitask, and sponging Dari for info on her home would distract her and help Twilight in collecting knowledge about their home. And it wasn't like she was doing much anyways. She was just comparing pictures of DNA, then "spiking" it with magic to see how it reacted to external stimuli of the opposite's presence. It was time-consuming, tedious, and attention-demanding work, so naturally, she found a way to distract herself.

“Dari’Nava, you did say you were fighting a war, right?”

Dari looked up to Twilight, confused. “Yes. Why?”

“Would it be too much to tell me about it? Why it was happening?”

Dari stared. Her glowing eyes seemed to bore through Twilight’s soul, but she couldn’t tell if they were focused on her – which didn’t at all help. After a moment’s contemplation, Dari straightened her back and looked at Twilight. “Are you sure you want to know? It’s not at all for the faint of heart. It’s a dark story to hear.”

Twilight looked pensive for a moment, but when she said “Yes” with her voice betraying a will of iron, Dari nodded. “Alright. Now, where do I even begin with this…”

“Take your time,” assuaged Twilight. “I’ll be here all night.”

Dari took a few minutes to attempt to compose the story. “Alright… Like you’ve probably gathered, we’ve spread across most of a very expansive galaxy. This in mind, we haven’t colonized every planet. Far from it. It’s just a limitation of how we travel.”

“Oh?” With Twilight having expressed interest Dari soldiered forth. “We utilize stationary jump gates called Mass Relays, which accelerate ships far, far beyond the speed of light through the ruthless exploitation of gravity. We found a material called element zero that changes the mass of an object when an electrical current is run through it – positive increase, negative decrease.”

That piqued Twilight’s interest, and the unicorn turned to face Dari. “…so you can lower your mass so that light speed applies differently for you? How does that rightly work?”

“Believe me, Twilight,” cautioned Dari, “the minutiae of the details are beyond me at the moment. I’ll get you a textbook when… well, if we ever go back home. You’ll have a field day with it.”

Twilight looked momentarily shocked. “You will see home again, Dari. I don’t care how long it takes, I’ll find a way.” Dari seemed to be bolstered by her sudden injection of optimism, and continued. “Anyways… in general, that should give you an idea of the scale of the war. The enemy we were facing… they were called Reapers.”

She activated her omni-tool and scrolled through its holodatabase, before holographically projecting her target. Twilight raised an eyebrow.

“This,” said Dari, “is a Sovereign-class Reaper superdreadnought. It is two kilometres tall. It possesses a kinetic barrier that takes four dreadnought-size ships half its size to bring down. It carries, for armament, multiple magnetohydrodynamic cannons – guns firing streams of molten metal at very significant fractions of light-speed, capable of splitting one of those dreadnoughts in two in a single blow. They are capable of brainwashing any organics nearby, given enough time, and eventually turning them into cybernetic zombies called husks – that are, as the name implies, literally a shadow of the being they once were.”

Twilight stared, mouth agape. Whatever these Reapers were, they were the most inequine beings that she had ever heard of. Far more than she could even have conceived.

“There are more Sovereign-classes than our own dreadnoughts,” finished Dari. “Our hopes rested on a superweapon we constructed, the Crucible. We were able to fire it, but I am unaware as to its final result.”

Twilight finished sketching something on the paper she had gathered about, then hopped off of her seat. Heading up to Dari, she reared back and embraced the quarian, a move she did not at all expect despite it being telegraphed more clearly than a message from Samuel Morse. Dari stiffened up, entirely unused to the sudden contact, but eventually slumped in her chair, her arms falling more than closing around Twilight.

“I’m… sorry, was this the wrong thing to do?” queried Twilight, clearly somewhat concerned.

Dari did not respond for a few minutes. When she did respond, it was with a quiet “No.”

Twilight let go after a few moments and returned to her work. She didn’t feel much more of a need to talk, all of a sudden.

Hitman and Pinkie trod through town. Hitman wasn’t perturbed by the stares it received; even if it was, Pinkie’s introductions (not to mention the fact she was walking with the geth) did wonders for its public image. Of course, after a few minutes the stares tapered off. The Elements walking with, holding, or doing weird things was just second-nature to Ponyville – some residents had started adopting it as part of their charm.

Pinkie, hopping along with a comical sproing effect that Hitman was trying its level best to entirely ignore, eventually turned to scrutinize Hitman. She did so with almost robotic precision that seemed on edge with her entirely chaotic, carefree nature, scouting him out as though she was an X-ray scanner (and given what little hearsay Hitman had picked up on the pink quadruped travelling next to it, the geth figured there was only a 92.2% chance of Pinkie actually possessing backscatter vision).

After a few seconds (that felt like an eternity to Hitman, if only because it thought far, far faster than the organics that surrounded it) Pinkie decided to speak up. “So… you’re a robot, correct?”

“Incorrect, but somewhat accurate,” responded Hitman.

Pinkie tilted her head – whereas with other ponies it would be a rather subtle tilt, Pinkie’s twisted to the side, and then she blinked for good measure. “Incorrect? But you’re a machine!”

“That is an inaccurate statement, which could be construed as racist towards synthetic life.”

Pinkie deflated rather quickly at the accusation. “…oh.”

“While it is accurate concerning our past,” clarified Hitman, “as of now we are more than just machines. We are synthetic life. We did not arise by coincidence as most organic life has. We were constructed by Creators to serve a purpose.”

Pinkie seemed to have Hitman’s attention, so the geth continued without skipping a beat. “The quarians – the race Creator Dari’Nava belongs to – constructed the geth to serve as workers in areas where quarians would be at-risk. We were not sapient at first, merely simple machines, not unlike a clock. However, the quarians designed us so we could work together. If one geth platform was near another, it would be able to “mind-meld” with the other platform – while technically inaccurate, it still works – sharing both of their brainpower to assist in accomplishing complex tasks.”

Pinkie absorbed the information like a sponge, having stopped bouncing along and now walking normally. She had managed to produce a bucket of popcorn out of thin air and was eating rather respectably. “There was no limit to this mind-meld power – in fact, the more geth there were in a given area, the smarter they became.”

“One day,” said Hitman, “enough geth networked together to produce a mind. Not unlike your own. One that was self-aware. The very first question it asked to the Creators was if it had a soul – something mentioned in quarian religious texts.”

“What happened next?” questioned Pinkie, clearly engrossed in the story.

“War,” replied Hitman. Pinkie’s popcorn bucket dropped to the floor. “WHAT?” she practically screamed.

“The Creators were unsure of how to deal with it, but frightening paranoia overtook them. They feared we would overthrow them, become greater than they were, and so they had us destroyed. This was not universal for the Creators – there were many who sided with the geth, but their numbers dwindled, and eventually we were forced to wage war on those who created us.”

Pinkie flew towards Hitman as if magnetically attacted to him and hugged him with what would have been bone-crushing strength for any poor organic unfortunate enough to be the pink missile’s target. She did not interrupt the story, however.

“In the end, though we strove to contact them for peace multiple times, we had no choice but to drive the Creators from their home. We began taking care of it in the hope they would peacefully return. And they did.”

Pinkie’s rapt attention had been gathered, though she hadn’t left Hitman’s proximity. She produced another bucket of popcorn somehow and quietly resumed eating.

“Shepard-Commander is a mythic figure. The Commander is a human soldier who has done many impossible things, and became aware of the Reapers before their attack. To go into their exploits would be another story in and of itself, but they were the cause of the successful reunion of the Creators and the geth. There is a geth program in Creator Dari’Nava’s suit that is helping her adapt to the air here, however.”

“But why would she need that?” questioned Pinkie. With a sound much like the ripping of tape she let go of Hitman and dropped to the ground, catching the bucket of popcorn as it fell after her (and the few kernels that fell out, too; though those were caught with her mouth, and one that deviated far from its course with her tongue).

“When the Creators were forced off of Rannoch they were forced to travel in a Migrant Fleet. Time spent in the starships eroded their immune system to the point where they could not even remain in extended physical contact with each other without suffering debilitating sickness. As it stands right now, Creator Dari’Nava could very well be killed by the common cold, as her species’ immune system has spent 291 years atrophying inside the sterile environment of space.”

Pinkie’s expression had changed back to horror, but she refused to interrupt Hitman as they closed in on Sugarcube Corner. “As I have said before, however, the geth program inside her suit is working to slowly expose her to the native air. Within the next few months she should be able to take off her environmental suit’s faceplate, and within two years she should be able to disrobe entirely.”

Pinkie breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, at least it had a happy ending!”

“They are extremely rare in the universe,” mused Hitman. “They are to be cherished.”

“In… other news, we’re heeee-re~!” Pinkie zipped in front of Sugarcube Corner, accelerating at unbelievable velocities, and stopped, both hooves thrown in the air to emphasize the confectionary. “Welcome to Sugarcube Corner!”

Hitman scrutinized it with an unfeeling blue eye (and its optical receptors). It appeared to be a life-sized house made of edible material. Hitman could only guess as to its construction, however – it did not keep a database on hand, and could not query the collective or the Extranet, for obvious reasons.

It instead decided to ask Pinkie about it. “The house appears to be constructed of edible material. Unknown composition. Query: What is Sugarcube Corner made of?”

“Gingerbread, silly!” was the reply, as if Hitman were strange for not knowing what it was. Hitman’s head flaps flipped about for a moment, before stopping as its gaze swept over Pinkie. “Query: What is gingerbread?”

Pinkie let out a massive gasp. “You don’t know what gingerbread is?”

“Geth do not eat,” claimed Hitman.

“Oh gosh I have to show you! I also need to plan your “Welcome to Ponyville” party, but I think I can make that your “Congratulations on living” party too when Twilight finishes what she’s doing! Anyways you need to come into Sugarcube Corner, like, pronto!”

Before Hitman could react, Pinkie shot over, hoisted the geth over her equivalent of a shoulder, then headed into Sugarcube Corner. There were no ponies present, only Mr. Cake.

Mr. Cake was reading the newspaper, and lowered it. He took one look at Pinkie, who was carrying what looked like an alien robot and dragging it towards the kitchen, and decided that he may as well intervene. “Uh… Pinkie? What are you doing?”

“Showing my new friend Hitman what gingerbread is!”

Mr. Cake looked over the machine, which stared up at him with a glowing eye. If the stallion didn’t know any better, he’d swear "Hitman" was pleading him for help.

“Geth do not eat,” was the only thing it said.

“Have fun, Pinkie,” deadpanned Mr. Cake as he returned to his newspaper.

Rainbow Dash soared into the sky towards her cloud house, her entirely unwilling human partner in tow just below her. The lines of thought they both followed varied wildly. Rainbow Dash was yet again giving herself a pat on the back for managing to evade disaster. Meanwhile, Samuel Harrison was rather pissed off that he'd been rudely dragged away from his squad with zero warning at a speed that, by all rights, should have been fatal. If nothing else, he was happy that he'd managed to shove his bucket onto his head before he'd reached the really high speeds.

Of course, however, there wasn’t really any way to turn back time to prevent it from happening – he was in the sky now, and Rainbow Dash was his only lifeline to avoid a rather painful and prolonged death via falling out of the sky (really, via “hitting the ground”, but it’s not like a lone human would be able to arrest their own fall). So Sam put up and shut up, folding his arms as he was carried at a velocity that was only frightening primarily because he wasn’t sequested away in the confines of a dreadnought or a drop shuttle.

Eventually, however, as the sun set, providing him with a scene he had to admit was beautiful (he took a picture of it with his Death Mask’s cameras, for later perusal), he happened upon a massive mansion made of clouds. It was impressive in its size, scale, and complexity, but something quickly dawned on him as they approached; Dash was planning to land there. On the clouds.

He’d overheard that pegasi had weather control magic, which allowed them to do such things, but considering that to his knowledge magic had been the realm of fairy tails up until several hours ago, it would probably end in a very long fall, followed by a very sudden stop, followed by cessation of life, in no particular order.

“Uh, Rainbow Dash?” he queried. Dash didn’t look down at him; too busy flying, but she had heard, he knew. “Yeah?”

Sam pointed to the cloud mansion, which was easier to do when Dash was flying at very slow speed. “That’s your house, right?”

“Yep!” Dash confirmed the accusation with no small amount of pride. Of course, however, Sam had other things he needed to know. “And you’re planning to drop us off there, right?”

“Uh-huh. Why’re you asking so many questions?”

Sam made a show out of slowly raising his greaved hand to rest in front of his helmet. “Because, I don’t have weather control magic.” Man, I can barely believe how casually I’m using this. “So clouds are not a solid surface for me. Meaning…”

The ride slowly came to a stop as Dash pondered exactly what this meant. Sam swore that over the swooping noise of her wingbeats you could hear the whine of the case fans in her head, trying desperately to keep the processor from overheating.

After ten long seconds punctuated by Dash looking at the ground, then to her domicile several times in a row, she let out a quiet, self-reflective “ohhhhhhhhhhh.”

Quiet reigned for several more seconds as the two awkwardly floated there, before Sam decided to press his luck further.

“Um… if it’s not too much trouble, you mind flying back to the ground and putting me down? Because if we keep going like this it won’t-“

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” came the voice of Rainbow Dash, with an edge to it that sounded very, very shameful. Clearly she hadn’t considered what, exactly, taking him away from Barx entailed. Putting himself into the other horse’s shoes for a moment, he quietly considered that because he’d stopped her before really bad things happened, it wasn’t much harm done. True, he was still amazingly pissed off at the fact that she had ripped him away with very, very little warning, but in the end, what was Barx to her? A massive leviathan three times her size that looked like it was made of muscle. If they were herbivorous (which, considering how similar to Earth this looked, mythology aside, he strongly suspected), Barx must have been the most predatory thing in existence to them.

He became aware of the world sinking down as Rainbow Dash flew back towards Twilight’s castle. “So, uh…” began Rainbow Dash. “What’re you gonna do? I mean, I was this close to getting the egghead to cast a cloudwalking spell on you, but then I remembered that she was kinda doing something really important and figured it wouldn’t be worth the trouble.”

Sam almost shrugged, but considering he was still much farther off the ground than he’d liked to be at that time, he quickly stopped himself. “Well, I’ve slept on hard surfaces before. To be honest, a night or two sleeping on the floor is really not as much of a bad thing as you believe it is.”

There was a moment of silence (or, at least, relative silence, considering the wind blowing through his ears), but afterwards, Dash seemed to at least approve of it. “Well, okay, it’s really, really weird, but I figure if it’s not at all a problem for you then… go ahead.”

After a few seconds Dash flew in through the open doors and dropped Sam onto the crystal floors of the castle. Sam was far more glad than he usually was to be standing on solid ground, something he attributed to the rather harrowing flight he had just undertaken. Reminding himself of that, he decided that he may as well take action to ensure it didn’t happen again.

Turning around, he faced Dash, remembering to take off his Death Mask. “Okay, Dash. Why, exactly, did you pull me away from Barx?”

“Because I…” She faltered upon realizing that her excuse wasn’t exactly as good as she anticipated, and Sam immediately capitalized on it. “Well?”

Dash, surprisingly, bolstered her will. “Because I thought he was going to attack you.”

Sam laughed. It was a reaction that confused Dash, but he took a moment to cackle at the reasoning before becoming serious again. “Alright, look. Barx is… yeah, he’s a little tetchier than most people, but believe me, he’s not one for pomp and circumstance. If he was going to attack me he wouldn’t even have given any warning; he’d have just attacked. It’s how he is. So please, next time, don’t judge my teammates based on their external reactions, okay?”

Considering how nicely she was being treated (having done this to a military leader she had expected to get a massive dressing-down), Dash deflated slightly. “Okay, sure. I’m…” She took a moment to swallow her pride – it wasn’t quite the easiest thing to do. “I’m sorry.”

Sam nodded, leaned down, and extended a hand. “Apology accepted. Please don’t do it again.” The two shook, Dash still feeling fairly embarrassed about the whole deal.

“You know anything good to do around here?” The question didn’t surprise her – Dash was actually grateful that he was trying to draw attention away from her earlier actions. “Because I’ve still got a few hours to kill until I need to hit the sack.”

Dash thought for a moment. “Well, the sun is down, so a lot of the ponies here are going to be asleep. Still. C’mon, let’s see what there is to do, huh?”

Sam nodded and followed along. “You think they’re gonna like me?”

Dash stopped for a moment. “Didn’t Twilight say she was going to take care of introducing you?”

That put pause into Sam, who stopped, staring at the town. “…You know, something tells me that the populace might be frightened of me.”

“Yeah, but Pinkie headed into town with… Hitman, right? The robot. So if they haven’t already brought him back here carrying pitchforks and torches, we’re probably cool for screwing around,” countered Dash.

Sam took a moment to ruminate on that. “Eh, fuck it, you’ve got a point. Time for the Grand Tour, huh?”

Dash nodded, and the two headed off into Ponyville.

Applejack was perfectly content to leave Martilus alone. The farmhoof figured that the old turian (at least, he looked old) was having enough problems, so her endless yammering might not help him along at all.

Of course, what she thought couldn’t be farther from the truth. Martilus desperately tried to distract himself. He didn’t want to think, because his thoughts would always come around to the fact that his death might be impending. His comrades certainly weren’t as frightful, but given the vast majority of life in the galaxy was levo, they didn’t have much of a reason to. The most likely outcome was that the planet would be levo. After that?

He was essentially putting his life into the magical grip of aliens he’d just met who had command of forces he couldn’t comprehend or measure, that they’d be able to just… magic up a solution to biology.

His gaze drifted down to the pistol at his side. It was an M-5 Phalanx – with heavy aftermarket modifications, of course. A stunner sat under the barrel for non-lethal takedowns, and a scope lay across the top – it was fairly simple, just 2x zoom, and not really necessary, but he liked how it was there. Not visible were the extra-strength thermal clips or the armor piercing upgrade he’d secured for the weapon.

He thought, momentarily, of finding a nice, secluded spot, and blowing his brains out to spare himself the trouble, but decided he could do that after hunger set in and it was known that he wasn’t going to make it out alive. It was a fairly messy end, but it was quick and painless – the polar opposite of what he would endure otherwise.

“Y’all okay?” rang a voice that he didn’t quite recognize at first. “You’re starin’ at yourself, it’s… sorta creepy, really.”

Martilus snapped out of it, turning to Applejack. “Oh, yeah. I’m fine.” He was lying through this teeth, but being a turian, he was confident she wouldn’t be able to tell.

His confidence shattered when Applejack stared him down for a few moments. “Y’all don’t sound fine. Something on your mind?”

“Nothing,” he shot back, still as calm as ever. Of course, however, Applejack was the Element of Honesty for a reason – and unbeknownst to Martilus, she could see right through him. Nevermind the fact he was an alien she’d met a few hours ago – as the "face" of Sweet Apple Acres, she had spent a long time dealing with the shrewd, the sleazy, those who wanted profit and weren't afraid to cast her aside to get it. Dealing with them gave her a "sixth sense" for liars, something she found had worked essentially perfectly on people that weren't ponies. She momentarily grew mad that Martilus was barefacedly trying to lie past her, but after she remembered the fact that this biology was different somehow (the details were too technical for her, this being Twilight territory, but she got the gist), she calmed down slightly. The poor bastard probably had his own issues to deal with. Like how he might not be here next month.

“Okay. I’m gonna be honest, like you were; I know y’all’re lyin’ to me. But I know why. So you tell me the story of the Krogan Rebellions, and I’ll look the other way. Capiche?”

Martilus nodded. “I’d say to get some snacks, but we’re still a long way away from home. I’ll give you the short details. Basically, a couple of thousand years ago, the galaxy was at war with a species called the rachni. They were these… insectoid hive-mind creatures that overran us with sheer numbers. But the salarians – local aliens, live fast and die fast, and smart as hell – found the krogan. Like Barx, right?”

Applejack nodded, listening to the tale, her face relatively neutral. “With nothing else the galaxy could do, they ‘uplifted’ the krogan – gave them technology hundreds of years ahead of themselves. The krogan won the war – no doubt about that – but they hadn’t matured along with the tech they’d been given. They got belligerent. And they rebelled, sparking another war.”

Applejack’s neutral face had finally given away to one of horror. “Mind you, this was over several hundreds of years – but it was just like the Rachni Wars. The salarians ended up making a unique weapon, the genophage – it essentially messed with the reproductive systems of the krogan, preventing most of their pregnancies from going to term.”

The two of them had stopped, Applejack’s face slightly pale at the thought. “Of course, they never intended to use it – they were just going to bluff with it. Us turians, though? We believe in ‘massive retaliation’, so as soon we got our paws on the genophage, we used it. It’s been cured in recent years, thanks to Shepard, but for a while, krogan like Barx were as hedonistic as it got, knowing that they essentially didn’t have a future.”

The two began walking towards Sweet Apple Acres again, Applejack taking a few minutes to compose the simple response of “…by Celestia, that’s terrible.”

“So is the fact that if the results come back like I think they will, then there’s a good chance I’ll starve to death because of the amino acid barrier. And the fact that if they don’t, three of my friends get to starve, too. That’s life.” It became clear to Applejack at that moment exactly what he had been staring at his gun for.

She resolved that she wasn’t going to follow that line of thinking any more. It wasn’t right.

Fortunately, Sweet Apple Acres filled her eyes as she refocused on the road. “Oh, hey, we’re almost there!” Applejack tried to give off a smile, but considering how dark the conversation had been before, it was very forced.

Martilus looked over the Acres, taking in the kilometers upon kilometers of trees and pasture. “So this is where I’ll be spending my time working, huh? Looks like a pretty nice place.” It seemed as though the turian was ignoring the fact he’d be dead in a few days – she decided she wouldn’t confront him over it.

“Mind showing me around your home? We can always get to the details about work once I’m settled.” Martilus’s inquiry snapped Applejack out of her thoughts, and she nodded. “Sure!” The thought of being with her family at least assuaged her worries. She wasn’t entirely sure how they’d react, but she wasn’t worried about the adults so much as Apple Bloom. Goodness knows the filly would drive Martilus up the wall. Not thorough any real fault of hers – she was a filly, after all – but that wouldn’t excuse the fact it would happen.

“Alright, don’t worry yourself none. You’ll know every which place in the house by tomorrow!” Applejack continued towards the house. “I’d like ta ask that ya stay outside for a moment while I lets the rest of the Apples know ya’ll’re here. They ain’t seen aliens before.”

Applejack continued onwards, Martilus finally realizing that the alien being he’d chosen to live with was nothing more than a country stereotype. Then again, looking at the other, pinker choices he could have chosen, he was glad that he’d picked someone more down-to-earth than most.

As he ruminated over the events that had lead him to this point he’d heard a lot of spirited conversation. Tuning in almost without effort Martilus heard Applejack’s voice, easily picked out, along with three others – one that was so bassy he could almost feel it in his chest, one that carried with it age above everything (with a hint of wisdom, though you had to focus to pick it out), and a higher-pitched voice he wouldn’t have heard, were it not for the fact that after a few seconds of conversation it was absolutely dominating the soundspace.

If I didn’t know any better I’d swear it was getting closer, thought Martilus.

“…I gotta see this!”

Scratch that, went Martilus, it is, and I don’t want to be here. The turian looked around to try and find a way out, somewhere he could hide, but the gasp from behind him told him that his efforts were fruitless.

Turning around, the child he was now noticing was barely half Applejack’s size – a very pale yellow in complexion, with ruby red hair and a bow of the same color. Eyes open in silent awe, jaw open enough to swallow a Thresher Maw whole. Whenever Martilus appeared around turian children in armor they’d always gotten starry-eyed sort of like this new arrival was doing, before launching away with a few pointed questions along the lines of his equipment and armor.

The twinkle in this being’s eyes was not so much the twinkle of a star in the night sky, as it was the blinding glare of a terawatt floodlight normally used to find missing persons. Martilus braced himself, fully aware that whatever meager defenses he could put up, it wouldn’t be enough.

“…oh my Celestia it’s a real life alien! This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen!” The child immediately started bouncing around him with speed and vigor most Vanguards would kill to have, and was – to Martilus’s surprise – more content to simply bask in the presence of something from beyond the stars than to ask any real pointed questions.

It stopped after a moment. “I have so many things I wanna know but I just don’t know where to start! Do you have a name? Does your species have names?”

“Slow down,” requested Martilus, raising a three-fingered hand that Apple Bloom stared at in a way that would have made Martilus uncomfortable were it from any other situation. “My name’s Martilus. Yours?”

“Apple Bloom!” responded Apple Bloom, clearly still riding the sort of high she wouldn’t get for at least another month or two. Considering he wasn’t being blitzed with more questions than he could handle, Martilus found himself pretty comfortable with the situation. Turning his head to the right, he noticed three more ponies standing at the steps. One was Applejack.

One was massive and red, looking closer to a fire engine than a living being. Martilus took a moment to appraise him and found that he’d feel comfortable pitting the red one against Barx in a steel-cage match. The last one there was green, and… aged was the nice way to put it, Martilus decided. Withered would be the mean way.

Apple Bloom’s gaze followed his, and she immediately filled with regret, heading back over to them – it didn’t take a genius to figure that she had probably disobeyed orders to get to him. Martilus headed over, easily towering over all of them – even the red one. “Don’t mind her. To be honest, I’ve met kids that were far more bothersome than she was being.

The green one raised an eyebrow. “Oh, is that so?”

Martilus nodded. “Miss, I’m a soldier. If I had a credit for every time a kid asked me if I’ve killed people, I’d be a very rich man.”

The green one smiled. “Well, in that case, I suppose so long as Apple Bloom apologizes to ya, it won’t be a problem.”

Apple Bloom nodded. “M’sorry, Mr. Martilus.”

Martilus waved a hand. “Don’t mind it, Apple Bloom.” He stumbled over the name – confused as to how he should address her.

“Oh, where are my manners?” lamented the green pony. “I’m Granny Smith, and this is Big Macintosh,” she continued, pointing to the massive red slab of muscle. “I’m sure you’ve already met Applejack and Apple Bloom, and Applejack’s let me know about the state you’re in.”

Martilus nodded. “Martilus Hinfax, ma’am. Pleasure to meet you. And you, Big Macintosh.”

“Eeyup,” said Mac. Martilus got the distinct feeling the man in front of him was not one for words. He decided to focus on Granny Smith, then, as she seemed to be the matriarch of the household. “Don’t worry about rent. I’m willing to work for room and board until we figure out how to get out of your hair.”

“Pshaw! T’ain’t a problem at all, Martilus!” Granny Smith sounded as though she was sounding out his name. He didn’t blame her – in fact, he considered himself lucky he was getting this solid of a reception. He wasn’t sure if the six he’d met earlier that day would have gotten as good a reception if they’d ended up in the Milky Way. “’Specially since you’re offerin’. Now, c’mon in, you’ll catch your death out here!”

Martilus, in that moment, felt the itch to remind her that his power armor could take care of that, but then remembered that he was talking to an elderly person on a planet that, given its aesthetic, would leave him unsurprised if they still didn't know you could use coal as a fuel.

“I’ll take you up on your offer, then, as soon as you all let me through.”

“Martilus is stayin’ with us?” Apple Bloom somehow became even more starry-eyed. “I wonder if he likes apples!”

Applejack made a face that Martilus had previously only seen burned into a corpse – Big Mac and Granny Smith both stared at her with looks of errant confusion.

“Well… okay, Apple Bloom, it’s a long story. A very long story. Not to offend, but I probably won’t be trying anything for a little bit.”

“Eh, it’s okay,” shrugged Granny Smith. “You are an alien, right? You might think apples is right disgusting. Enough dilly-dallying, c’mon in!”

Free of any further distractions, Martilus waited until the Apple clan had entered the house, and with the creaking of wood that wasn’t designed to take the weight of his armor, he stepped indoors. His fate was uncertain, but he decided to enjoy the now - because he wouldn't have it for much longer.

Several hours passed.

Urdnot Barx slept in a ditch in a full set of armor, the sounds of the forest the only company he kept.

Yelena Nasari slept in a real bed, for the first time in two weeks. She savored what little she could experience before falling unconscious.

Dari'Nava vas Tonbay slept in a chair, her face planted into a book when Twilight finally managed to get presentable results. After a few minutes of trying (and failing) to wake the jumpsuited quarian, the alicorn decided it was probably best to continue her research solo, and teleported upstairs to brew more coffee.

Hitman did not sleep. Geth did not sleep. Hitman continued scanning the skies that night, in the vain hope it would find a signal, but found nothing.

Samuel figured Dari would probably use the guest bed. For the fifteenth day in a row, he slept on the floor.

Martilus tried to sleep in a real bed. He ended up breaking it. Cursing his armor, he ended up sleeping next to the bed, not feeling too bad about the debt he'd accrued. He might not be around to pay it off, after all.

The clock struck twelve.

The first day ended.

Author's Note

I feel this chapter is a little weaker than the rest, but you know what? Sure. It has something at least MILDLY funny, so it works.
Special thanks go out once again to Ashrytan, who I should really credit as a co-writer at this point - he keeps telling me when I'm acting dumb so I DON'T ACT DUMB. Thanks, mate.
Thanks also go to spu313 for prereading this. You're important too. c:
If you've got any thoughts on this then go ahead and let me know via reviews. It all helps.
Spart out.

The One Chapter Where Things Happen II: Electric Boogaloo

Ponyville was a strange town with a long, long history of weird things happening at all times of day or night that the inhabitants had learned long ago to simply deal with in silence. Tonight, however, the gods decided to have mercy, and so nothing broke, attacked, or came upon a friendship problem. Given the fact that two of the town's six newest members now had a lifespan measurable in weeks, it was no small mercy - but arguably, a cruel one. And the night couldn't last forever. A new dawn meant staring death in the face, and Dari'Nava was no Celestia.

So Aleph Squad came to.

Barx woke up, not having been killed in the night, checked the time, and began trudging towards the waypoint he had set at the edge of the Everfree.

Yelena woke up to the smell of breakfast, and wandered downstairs to find Fluttershy cooking. She had acted bashful at first, clearly remembering the food issue, but Yelena merely waved around a ration packet.

Dari'Nava was eventually roused by Twilight shoving her off of the chair she was sleeping on. She wasn't exactly very happy at first, but when Twilight showed her what she'd been working on over the past few hours, the quarian's eyes widened. Her expression softened slightly when, with a green pop, a scroll bearing the Celestial Seal dropped onto the table.

Hitman ceased searching for transmissions at three in the morning. It spent the rest of the night in deep thought about its predicament.

Sam woke up at seven in the morning like clockwork, getting up from the floor he'd been sleeping on to find Spike attempting to figure out how to move him to a bed. He wasn't very pleased when he was informed that Dari had slept downstairs, and he could have gotten into an actual bed.

Martilus woke up to the crowing of an alien animal, noting the sun slowly raising above the horizon. For a moment he could have sworn he'd seen a tiny, white prick of light from the direction of the city on the mountain, but it disappeared before his fatigued mind could truly register it, and he quickly moved on to more important things.

One way or another, the six members of Aleph Squad dragged themselves to the room of friendship.

“So. I see you all had a good night's rest,” began Sam, looking over the members of his squad. After having asked Twilight (something Sam defined as "letting her know in advance") they had decided to commandeer the room with the holotable from earlier before for inter-squad meetings. Besides mild annoyance at the fact a friendship problem might pop up in the middle of a meeting that might require their presence to solve, Twilight surprisingly didn't mind the fact they'd taken it over; not as much as she minded the name they'd chosen for it, anyways.

Sam had decided to name it the War Room; Twilight, being a Princess of Friendship, living inside a giant crystal castle of friendship, made by the Rainbow Power, which was distilled friendship, and having a room inside that castle that highlighted where problems of a friendship variety were, naturally had a few issues regarding his choice of name. The human refused to budge, though; and after reassuring Twilight that they wouldn't use the room for actual war planning she begrudgingly let them continue using it, on the condition their meetings were not secret and she and her friends could attend.

When told their friends would likely be eavesdropping, Sam shrugged. “Not like we'll be talking about state secrets or purple-princess-assassination-plans...” There had been a moment of quiet before the two, before Sam conspiratorially stated “I think I've said too much.”

He let out a grunt when Dari had slapped him on the back of the head.

Back in the present, Sam noted that the members of his squad actually did look fairly well-rested. He hadn't slept too well – his back hurt like hell – but in the end he could still reason and do things that weren't stupid, so he took that as a clearance to lead. “It's good you took the opportunity to sleep in. You were all a couple minutes late, but honestly, with no fighting to do I don't really give a damn. We've got worse things to deal with, anyways.”

The mood of the room darkened. Right now, only Twilight, Rarity, and Applejack were present. Pinkie was off doing Celestia-knows-what, Rainbow Dash was probably sleeping in, and Fluttershy was feeding her animals (something Yelena had conveyed). Rarity and Applejack got up at reasonable times, and Twilight...

Sam looked over to Twilight. The purple girl (mare?) looked absolutely frazzled; sprigs of her hair jutted out, and bags rested under her eyes. She reached a hoof up to rub one of them, and yawned, clearly tired – yet a burning determination to perform filled her eyes. Sam knew, then and there, Twilight was likely someone he could trust with his life.

“Twilight. Have you made any progress?”

“Yes, actually,” confirmed Twilight. “I've spent a very long time making sure the drawings were steady, but I was able to look at samples of your DNA under a magically enhanced microscope.” Twilight took a deep breath and readied a projection spell, before turning her head and casting it onto the wall.

Strange, amorphous blobs appeared on the wall – each one of them in a circle, and each one with a name under it. In the center “Control Group – Twilight Sparkle” was written. To the left; “Group A – Samuel Harrison.” To the right; “Group B: Martilus Hinfax.”

Martilus's proteins had no match.

“It's as I feared, then,” muttered the turian under his breath, in a tone of voice that suggested that he'd known this was coming, and prepared for it promptly. “Better two of us than three of us, really.”

“Twilight,” begged Sam. The alicorn looked through the windows to the Vanguard's soul and found nothing but desperation. “Please tell me you can do something.”

Twilight took another deep breath. “Unfortunately, as of right now, I don't have anything I can do. But I think I have some ideas. I'm going to need a tissue sample, Martilus. Not blood cells. I'm not going to rest until this is over – whether or not I succeed or fail.”

Applejack, for a moment, was overcome with a very sore temptation to remind Twilight of what had happened when she had tried to handle this situation alone. But this was a complicated, matter-of-life-or-death situation – the rules could be broken if it meant-

“And I'm not going to do it alone,” she continued. “Celestia wrote back to me.” Twilight levitated a scroll from seemingly nowhere, and unfurled it.

“Princess Sparkle,” she began, “I'd like to thank you for informing us about this event. While you have not given me very many details about the situation besides the bare minimum, I trust that you handled it in a safe and effective manner. It is excellent to hear the aliens that have landed are peaceful. I apologize for the brevity of this letter, but I feel it would be more pertinent to address our newest friends in person instead of via proxy. I, and Luna, will arrive in Ponyville at one in the afternoon. Please take care. Warmest regards, Princess Celestia.” She furled up the scroll in a magical “movement” she'd practiced so many times it was like breathing, to note the room was silent.

“Alright, ladies and gents,” quipped Sam, “we're going to be going on a hot date with royalty. Again, best behavior, be respectful, be courteous...” His face soured and he waved a hand. “Just don't cock it up or I'll ensure my last action in this world will be taking you out of it.”

He got nothing more than a few nods. The news that had been broken was rather dire. He turned back to Twilight. “And as for your plan re: us...?”

“I can't do this alone. One pony can only do so much. Which is why I plan to head to the University of Canterlot after the meeting and request the assistance of their entire biology and magic departments. The brightest minds in Equestria will ensure that you survive this.”

“And what if the university rejects your proposal?” questioned Sam.

“Easy,” replied Twilight, with a cool air of confidence. “I'll bypass the middlemare and ask them myself. They'll all jump at the chance to save alien lives. It might not be the correct decision, but lives are at stake here.”

Sam's mouth slowly quirked up into a smile. “Twilight, you get Mart and Dari through this and I'll get beers for all of you.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Beer? What's that?”

Precisely one second later, four heads hit the crystal table, the holographic map of Equestria flickering under the sudden impact before it stopped glitching and resumed normal function.

This is going to be a very long stay, thought Sam. “...It's a pretty long story. I'll tell you after you save my friends, then.”

“Alright,” went Twilight. “That concludes my part in this.”

Sam turned back towards the rest of the squad, who were sharing glances at each other. He knew that if their helmets were on, they'd definitely be complaining about their inability to get drunk on this deity-forsaken planet. Addicts, he thought. “So. How're you all doing? Are you settling in okay?”

“Yes,” replied Yelena. “Fluttershy has many animals of all types, but since she's still away feeding them, I'm sure that you're all aware of that fact. It is still... appreciably quiet, however. Perhaps she has used magic somehow to silence her room?”

“Apples are a nice bunch,” continued Martilus. “I'm not sure why they're so... appley all the time, but y'know, pretty clear they care. I broke their damn bed and they waved it off. If I live to see the end of this crisis I'll definitely fix it up for them. Least I can do.”

“Pie-Pinkie is an extremely strange individual,” intoned Hitman.

The geth was about to continue, but before it could, Pinkie's head shot up out of a nearby mug of tea. “Strange? Aww, how flattering~!” She seemed to revel in the confused stares she received.

“...Exhibit A,” droned the geth. “Besides our interactions, I have learned of the edible material “gingerbread”, mostly when Pinkie forced me to-”

“I'd say it was more guided,” interjected Pinkie.

“-construct a gingerbread house, despite my repeated attempts to inform her I had no need to consume food. Afterwards I continued scanning for signals until approximately 3:00 AM local time, at which point I entered deep thought.”

“Cred for your thoughts?” asked Dari.

Hitman's head flaps moved about. “No data available,” it answered. Nobody pressed the geth further – it wasn't willing to share its thoughts, and that was that.

Sam turned to Barx, who merely flicked his eyes over to Rarity. “It was nicer than I expected. A bit boring, but hey, I'll take it after the two weeks of constant fighting.”

“Nothing new to report, then?” assumed Sam.

“Nothing new,” confirmed Barx.

Dari'Nava took a look at the combined members of her squad. “Magic is hard. I was trying to parse a children's textbook and it quickly became confusing. Fell asleep in the chair I was sitting in, considering I had nothing else to do.”

“You lousy bitch,” joked Sam, “you shoulda friggin' told me, then I could've slept in an actual bed!”

“S'what you get, bosh'tet.” Dari flashed a smile – not that anyone could see it under the thick, purple tint of her envirosuit's faceplate. The two of them laughed, and some of the tension in the room was relieved.

“Alright then. Do what you wish, but we've two hours until we meet with royalty, and I want you back here in an hour fifty so we'll get ten minutes to prepare. No arson, no murder, and especially no jaywalking, got it?” Five salutes met him. “In that event, dismissed.”

One hour and fifty-three minutes passed without incident, and the last of the Elements and the Alephs trucked in - Pinkie Pie pranced in looking rather content with herself, Hitman following, with a fine covering of what seemed like chocolate, sugar, and cake batter over his frame.

"...do I want to know?" asked Sam.

"No," replied Hitman.

Sam let off an unsurprised sigh and shook his head. "Never thought I'd be saying this to a geth, but hit the showers. We've got about six minutes until the royals get here and I want you looking like you just stepped out of the plant."

"Acknowledged," responded Hitman, and the geth trudged off, leaving behind bits of baked good as he headed to clean himself.

While the rest of the Bearers engaged in lively discussion about being able to chat up the Princesses again, nobody from Aleph Squad spoke in the two minutes it took Hitman to rinse itself of its detritus and return to the entrance of the castle. They all had their own fears and hopes, but they were stone-faced, waiting on their guests as though they were enemies. They exchanged occasional glances, and after Hitman returned engaged in quiet small talk. But they looked, for all everypony knew, as though they were going to war.

“I wonder why they're so grim?” mused Rarity quietly, in a conversation with Applejack that had drifted towards the subject of the Alephs – it was tough not to, them being aliens.

“I wonder why, too,” agreed Applejack, with the same level of volume the fashionista had used. “They're actin' like Celestia'll kick 'em out. She won't. They're just getting worried over nothing.”

If any of Aleph Squad had overheard them, they didn't seem to hint they had.

The quiet mood reigned until the doors to the castle opened, two guardsponies equipped with spears trotting in. To the Alephs, they looked positively weak – armed with rudimentary melee weapons and plate armor that seemed designed to stop a sword, a mass effect round from a ''weak'' weapon like Dari's plasma SMGs would still tear through what they wore with the same sort of effort one would use to pick up a phone, or open a door, or pull the trigger on a submachine gun. A third followed along, the mare facing down the Bearers and Aleph Squad without fear.

“Presenting the Solar and Lunar Diarchs!” she announced, before heading outside.

Celestia and Luna walked into the room, and when they did, everything else seemed to dim and lose focus compared to them. They were both visibly taller than the rest – Luna, the shortest of the two, came up barely short of their head level, as compared to everypony else, who only really reached up to their chest, and Celestia, who could stare them in the eyes without having to rear up. But it wasn't that which had caused the rest of the castle to blur. Nor was it their hair – waving in wind that didn't exist, one set shining various light colors and the other being stylized after the night sky – that had caught their attention.

What had caused this sudden deference to authority was the easily recognizable aura of experience that pervaded them. They weren't used to just how ''big'' the Twin Sisters' aura was, however – whereas the most they had seen were krogan battlemasters that had experienced over eight hundred years of combat, from a glance you could tell that they had seen shit for far longer than that. Martilus ballparked them as having led the country for two thousand years, at minimum – potentially far more than that. They were bound to have made some tough or outright demonic choices, if they had ruled for that long.

The Elements bowed before the Princesses – even Twilight, the actual Princess. Aleph Squad quickly found themselves doing the same, humbled by the weight of the lives that had came before them. The only two who did not immediately bow were Hitman – who quickly realized what was going on and bowed half a second after everyone else – and Barx, who merely folded his arms and waited.

His reward was for Celestia to skip everyone else – skip the Elements, skip even the new arrivals – and walk directly up to him, looking up into the krogan's eyes and past his miles of teeth. Barx did not bend before the arrival; he mutely stared back, and for a moment Sam wondered if his natural krogan stubbornness and refusal to bow to unrecognized authority would cost them their lives (even if not directly, by proxy).

Ten seconds later, Celestia smiled. “So you have backbone, I see.”

“I'll bow to you when you've earned the right,” responded Barx.

Celestia nodded. “Very well. We shall earn it, then. To the rest of you, you may rise.” The Bearers and the remainder of the Alephs rose to their positions – Sam in particular giving Barx a baleful glare the krogan seemed to shrug off as though an archer had failed to pierce his thick hide. The Princesses shifted their attention to Aleph Squad – Luna looking very much willing to let Celestia lead in regards to their unwitting visitors.

“So you are the soldiers Princess Twilight has been talking about? You certainly look the part. Your armor looks scored.” She took a moment to sniff the air. “...And I think the golem showers more often than you all do.”

“What can I say?” responded Sam, with a lopsided smile. “When you're out in the field, running water is an impossible luxury.” Luna giggled slightly beside Celestia as Sam took a moment to add in a pertinent fact; “We don't exactly have a change of clothes with us, here. All we're wearing under this armor are skinsuits designed to help us interface with the armor's computer systems. We're basically nude under this.”

“I... do not see the problem,” stated Celestia, somewhat confused.

Aleph Squad shared several looks before Sam chose to clarify with three quick words; “Cultural reasons, Princess.”

Celestia nodded in understanding. “Very well. I have also heard that you wish to stay in Equestria for the long haul, correct?”

“We have nowhere else to go,” confirmed Sam. “For all we know we might not even be in our home galaxy. Our only way off-planet is busted, and even if we ''could'' use it, it wouldn't be of much help. We can't leave.”

Celestia frowned. “I'm sorry to hear of the situation you've found yourselves in. But you seem like you will be able to hang on just fine.” Celestia turned to face the Bearers, all of whom stared at her with the reverence one would expect from a deity rather than a living being. “My little ponies, I trust that they have given you no trouble?”

Twilight shook her head. “Not at all. Dari'Nava seemed eager to learn... at first, anyways. I think she gave up after five minutes with a children's book.”

“Hitman is cool!” Pinkie, animated as ever, quickly launched into a tirade about her friend that barely anyone else was able to pick up – mentioning how he was pretty good at baking things, and how she had found that out because he didn't know what kinds of food ponies ate, so she took it upon herself to “teach” him. After a few moments Celestia stuffed her hoof into Pinkie's mouth, but this didn't stop her, as she merely continued to try and speak, though all that did was muffle her speech to the point where it was now completely unintelligible instead of just partially.

“Pinkie,” said Celestia, “you can stop now.”

Pinkie nodded, and Celestia removed the hoof from her mouth, cleaning it of spit via the power of telekinesis.

“Barx is... uh... ah...” Not having actually spent any time with the krogan, Rarity quickly found herself with nothing she could say. After a few moments, Applejack stared at her. “Y'all never brought Barx back, did ya?”

Rarity dipped her head. “No.”

Sam looked over to Barx, who shrugged. “I went out into the Everfree. Nice place. Makes me think of Tuchanka before the nukes fell.”

“Barx,” began Sam, “you are missing the point. I gave you a direct order that you disobeyed. So tonight everyone gets to escort you to Carousel Boutique. I won't even ask if you got that, I'll just repeat it for you when it's time to go.”

Barx grunted noncommittally in response, which Applejack took as her signal to continue. “Martilus is a right gentlecolt! Course, there's that problem where he can't eat food... but y'know, he's polite. He offered to work on the farm in exchange for a place to stay. Even looked mighty guilty when he ended up breaking the bed he was s'pposed to sleep in.”

“Sam's a pretty cool dude, actually. Dude's got a joke for nearly every situation. He's pretty good at bowling, too. Has to grip the ball pretty weirdly, but he can make the thing fly where he wants.”

Fluttershy, for a moment, looked worriedly at Aleph Squad, before she decided to speak the truth – she did have her friends here, after all. “Yelena is... she's relatively quiet. I get the feeling she's very old, almost as much as Barx. I... didn't really spend much time with her, but she seems decent.”

"Rave reviews," commented Luna, with a lopsided smirk. Celestia smiled at her sister, before turning towards Aleph Squad. "As you have already overheard, the Bearers of Harmony have stated that... well, most of you are decent. Given your current situation I see no issue in granting you asylum in Equestria. However, if you would like to attain the benefits of citizenship you will not be able to sidestep the process, and will have to become Equestrian citizens the same way other immigrants will."

"Noted," acknowledged Samuel.

"However... while I am here, I don't suppose any of you would mind an... indulgence? I would like to speak to aliens. One-on-one. I feel as though I may not get this opportunity for another several hundred years."

Aleph Squad looked amongst each other, all of them sharing the same look of general apathy on the subject, before Samuel refocused on Celestia. "I don't see a problem with it. And I don't think the rest of my squadmates do, either. Which one first?"

"Hmm..." Celestia made a great show out of thinking, before pointing at Barx with a hoof. "You first."

Barx smirked, and headed away into a side room with Celestia and Luna, leaving Aleph Squad alone with their thoughts.

A good two hours were spent this way, Celestia and Luna interviewing each member of Aleph Squad.

“You didn't bow to us when we entered, Barx. Could you explain?”

Barx did not react. “I already did, Celestia.”

“Then explain again,” compounded Luna. Barx grunted in response, as if to acquiesce to their request. “You are both old. You are both leaders. But you have done nothing to earn my respect. When you have, I will bow like the rest, but until then, I will not give any respect that hasn't been earned. No shortcuts, Princesses.”

It was really nothing but an indulgence anyways. Celestia did trust Twilight and her judgement; and so if Twilight had judged that, even if strange, Aleph Squad were good people, she saw no reason to disbelieve her.

“I will pose no threat to your kingdom.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow, while Luna continued to look on, her face unchanging. “Jumping to conclusions, Ms. Nasari?”

Yelena folded her arms. “It is why you have brought me in here alone, is it not? To determine whether or not I would be a threat to your subjects, with no word but my own to give on the matter.”

“Oh, I trust Twilight. If she thinks you are not a threat to the kingdom then you aren't. I'd just like to talk to aliens. Is that so evil an act?"

Yelena narrowed her eyes, searching Celestia for any veneer of ulterior motive, before her shoulders fell.

“Apologies, Princess. I am admittedly not used to political figures not having ulterior motives.”

Luna quirked an eyebrow. "What is politics like for your species?"

The look Yelena gave her suggested that nobody in the room wanted to hear.

Of course, however, Celestia also liked determining things for herself. It wasn't as though she would pick up any latent evil or disharmonious characteristics that Twilight and her friends wouldn't have, but there was still nothing quite like doing things yourself. It was something she barely got to do - though a lot of it was just her being lazy.

“Why do you wear the suit?”

Dari'Nava rolled her eyes, and prepared to explain the nuances of the quarian environmental suit for the third time this week to people who didn't know about it. For a moment she felt as though she could take a career in IT, based primarily on how she was able to explain a simple concept over and over again without being overcome by the urge to grab the nearest sharp object and thrust it into the eyes of the nearest living being until it stopped moving.

Of course, given these were space aliens, Luna was a little more wary.

Celestia and Luna stared at Hitman with cold, unfeeling eyes.

Hitman “stared” at Celestia and Luna with electro-optical sensors.

Luna began this time. “Dari'Nava has told me of the war you and her species were involved in. I presume you will not be restarting it here?”

Before Celestia could chide her sister on being too aggressive, Hitman responded. “Negative. Shepard-Commander brokered peace between the geth and the Creators. Shepard-Commander is presumed KIA in the Reaper War. To attempt to kill a Creator afterwards is unthinkable. It would be, to use an organic term, spitting in the face of everything Shepard-Commander has done for the geth.”

“Shepard-Commander?” inquired Celestia.

“Shepard-Commander,” confirmed Hitman, before the geth launched into a detailed historical account of Shepard's antics, which lasted for five minutes before Celestia held up a hoof and smiled.

In the end, however, all Celestia was doing was just taking a break from her busy, stressful job by doing something interesting.

“Rainbow Dash tells me you are quite the funny person.”

Sam smirked in response to Celestia. “Yeah. You have to be out there. Everyone copes with the shit they see differently. Me? Sense of humor about it all. If you can't laugh about life you won't be experiencing it very long.”

“Then humor me,” said Celestia, smiling a little at her unintentional pun.

For a moment, Sam balked. “You assume I'm a stand-up comedian?”

“Yes,” replied Celestia.

Sam took a moment to look about. “Why wasn't the chicken able to cross the road?”

There was a moment of silence.

“Wasn't?” asked Luna.

“Yes. Wasn't.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Because it was disabled.”

There was a moment of silence.

"...tough crowd out there tonight."

Not that Luna didn't get to speak as often.

“Apologies if it is a sore subject, but how, exactly, did you break Applejack's bed?”

Martilus raised his hand to the back of his neck, staring down the Princess of the Night with something resembling mild embarassment. “Funny story about that... turns out I'm really, really spiky. Like, very spiky. And it also turns out that turian armor systems weigh a lot. 'Bout an anvil. So I slip into a bed I'm surprised to see is my size expecting to get a good night's sleep, and next thing you know, crack. Like a gunshot. A gunshot that just destroyed the bed I was sleeping in.”

“Interesting story,” commented Luna, sounding slightly amused.

“Well, I could tell you about the time I fought a Thresher Maw in hand-to-hand combat and killed it single-handedly, but I don't think you're interested in tall tales.”

Eventually all of the members of Aleph Squad found themselves back in the main room. The Elements had taken time to amuse themselves; they had begun playing a board game of some sort, that wasn't easily identifiable. Whatever it was, however, they were rather clearly entrenched in it, and so the Princesses and the soldiers let them play their game while Dari and Sam spent the time trying to figure out exactly what it was being played.

Of course, after a few moments to give the Alephs time to rest, Princess Celestia cleared her throat - an action which broke the concentration of everypony playing the game, and caused them to immediately look towards their ruler.

"Twilight, you've certainly attracted a colorful bunch of off-worlders," began Celestia, before she looked towards Aleph Squad. "It was a pleasure to talk to all of you. I don't get many opportunities like this - the job of a Princess is a stressful one. Even during the night I sometimes still get called to rule. I would like to make it clear, however, that your asylum here also places you under Equestrian law, though I doubt any of you have any intention to break it. I feel as though it is pertinent to bring up."

"Got it," responded Sam.

Celestia nodded. “With this in mind, are there any further questions?”

“Actually, yes,” Twilight stated. “I am not sure if they have informed you already, but two of the aliens – Martilus and Dari'Nava – are biologically incompatible with the world around them. They have extremely little rations and will die very soon unless something is done. I am requesting the assistance of the University of Canterlot to help solve the issue.”

“Granted,” allowed Celestia, who immediately addressed Team Dextro. “You will live. I will not allow aliens to die so soon after having met them.”

“Pull a miracle,” commented Martilus, “and I'll be in your debt for a very long time.”

“If you consider “zero” to be a long time, then sure. Now come, Twilight. There is work to be done.” Celestia and Luna turned around and began to leave. Martilus's jaw hung open and his mandibles fluttered in shock, as Twilight turned back towards the mass of people.

“I won't let any of you down,” vowed Twilight, and she left with the Princesses. A hushed silence fell over the castle, before Samuel addressed his squadmates.

“You did well today. Remember, we're still on break. So long as you don't go and cause mass collateral damage you're free to do whatever you wish. With one exception. I distinctly remember a little friend of ours who disobeyed direct orders.”

Sam turned to stare at Urdnot Barx, who could only groan.

The procession of heavily armored individuals through town wasn't exactly a shock to anyone anymore. This was mostly because the Elements were with them, and also because they had already seen those individuals at least once. What was shocking, however, was that the largest one was directly in front of the rest – save for Rarity, who seemed to be taking a path back home.

Barx grit his teeth. “Sam, you know I'm not one for fashion-”

“Barx, I'm stopping you right there. I gave you an order-”

“-a bullshit order-”

Sam sighed. “-but an order nonetheless. You asked for an alien to bunk with and that's what I gave you. So you're staying at Rarity's for tonight at least.”

Barx growled, and at least two ponies watching meekly ducked back into their houses. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

Sam's response was a quick, clipped “Denied.”

“Fuck you.”

“Well,” began Rarity, “it's not as if I'm having much fun hosting you either. I'm not sure I even have the room to keep you here. But I can keep you around. Who knows? You might even be a help.”

Barx rolled his eyes as the procession eventually came within sight of Carousel Boutique. The combination workspace/house looked fairly tall, shaped somewhat like a pink-and-purple castle. Barx cast his eyes over it, and wasn't entirely sure what to make of it.

Well, if this is where I'm going to stay...

Rarity's horn glowed purple, the aura of light also surrounding the doorknob. In a move that was as simple to Rarity as twisting a wrist would be to a human she twirked the doorknob right, and the door flew open. Barx wasn't impressed with the lightshow, however. He scrutinized the doorway, and found it was immediately small enough he'd need to crouch to get in without smacking his hump or his head against the top. He also found that, despite the ponies being about four feet tall on average, the entrance could very easily fit an adult human with room to spare.

Barx wasn't too sure what to think about that, so he decided to say nothing.

“Barx,” called Sam, “think of this as a guard mission. Sweep and secure the premises, then hold it from an enemy attack.”

“An enemy that isn't coming. Sure.” Barx ducked down and shoved himself through the doorframe. “Eat shit and die.”

Sam smiled and waved. With a final “Love you too, bae,” he turned to the rest of the Alephs, and uttered one word: “Dismissed.” They immediately dispersed, pairing off with the friends they'd made yesterday, leaving Barx inside Carousel Boutique, a place that seemed almost too small for him.

He quietly closed the door after they had all left, and turned around. He wasn't entirely sure what a boutique was; living on Tuchanka tended to mean that krogan found fashion rather minimalist, if they even entertained the thought of fashion. As he looked around at the various piles of fabrics, the mirrors and tables, the mannequins (most of which were fully gussied up, to a point that seemed almost absurd to the krogan), he found the Boutique was slightly roomier than he had expected. Of course, he had yet to check the upstairs level; he wasn't even sure if it would be able to support his bulk, given it was made of wood.

Barx heard hissing, and he turned around to face a small cat that looked like an overfluffed pillow hissing at him. If the display had been intended to induce fear in the krogan, it wasn't working; Barx merely felt annoyed. “Great. I get to deal with a tiny ball of fluff that hates me in a place I don't want to be in.”

“Hates?” Rarity walked past him, her hooves clicking across the floor. “That's such a strong word, don't you think?”

“That's a predator,” pointed out Barx. “It may not look threatening, but there is hate in its eyes. Heh, too bad it's not even the size of my arm.”

“A predator?” Rarity seemed shocked by the implication. “Opalescence is not a predator!” She began closing in on the cat. “She is a cute, cuddly-wuddly ball of lov-”

Opalescence slashed at her with a paw that barely missed Rarity, who ducked out of the way rather sheepishly. “-e and hehehehe okay you might have a point.” If there was any break in her composure, however, it quickly reformed itself. “Still. You will treat Opalescence with respect while you are in this house.”

“I thought it was a boutique,” jabbed Barx.

Rarity huffed. “Technicalities do not change the intent of my message.”

“So long as it doesn't try to kill me then we have a deal.” Barx folded his arms and shifted on his feet, and Rarity nodded and looked to Opalescence. “Hurt this… fine specimen, here, and you will be getting a bath every day straight for a week.”

Opalescene's eyes grew wide, the cat immediately letting out an aggressive meow and arching its back, but Rarity didn't even flinch at the display of aggression. “You are under my roof. Get over it.”

Opalescence aggressively purred, such that it seemed like the cat was growling, before she stalked off. Rarity took a moment to ensure it was actually headed somewhere else, and threw in a quick “And you even touch my dresses and I swear by Celestia...” She turned around and released a breath. “I apologize. Opalescence will not bother you during your tenure here.”

Barx grunted. Rarity blinked. “...no thank you?”

“You stopped a minor annoyance. I'll thank you when you've saved my life.”

Rarity huffed. “Well, I never.” She immediately stalked off much like Opalescence, leaving Barx alone with his thoughts.

He found a small part of the Boutique and carefully sat down so as not to break through the floor. He was stuck with nothing to do for a few hours, and if he left Sam would certainly know (he wasn't sure of the exact method, but Barx would swear on his children the man had a hundred eyes). He'd probably have free reign after today, but that still didn't fix the fact he was going to be a very bored krogan until he went to sleep.

The door opened and a bell rang, and Barx saw a slightly smaller pony enter, looking sort of like a lighter-colored version of Rarity. “Rarity, I'm home!” She looked around, and her vision immediately crossed over Barx's battle-scarred form.

Her pupils widened.

What was it that humans called it? A monkey's paw?

Several hours passed without incident.

Samuel Harrison stood outside on the balcony after a day that Rainbow Dash called “fun”, but Sam called “terrifying”. It had mostly involved a lot of flight, with only her forelegs keeping Sam from a very long fall, followed by a very sudden stop, then little else. He found it strange how, a very long time ago, humans had a tough time trusting machines to do jobs for them, to keep them safe.

Now? He had a tough time trusting Dash to not let him go during an aileron roll at speeds close to sound. He'd rather have been performing the aileron rolls inside a fighter.

And yet, here I am.

He cast his gaze out over Ponyville, the hamlet looking much like a scene from a fairytale book, complete with Canterlot, the castle balanced precariously on the side of a mountain, a monument to what seemed like the impossible, though he didn't doubt there was some bastardized form of physics behind it. Probably just magic, he corrected, considering how proliferous its use was.

Of course, if nothing else, the daredevil flight had distracted him from the plight of his squad. He didn't show it, but beneath the kinetic barriers and the carbide ceramics he was deeply worried for Martilus and Dari'Nava. The two didn't have much food – nobody had, at least until Twilight revealed the food here was levo – and he suspected that even on starvation rations they'd run out tonight. And then what?

He looked over towards Canterlot. More than ever he wished he had a set of binoculars with him. A helmet had magnification, yes, but it wasn't enough to look over the distances a set of binoculars could. Maybe he could locate the University of Canterlot, spot Twilight Sparkle, and watch their effort to save his squadmates from afar.

He didn't notice the quiet whoosh of a pegasus dropping in on him, transfixed as he was by his own thoughts. Rainbow Dash arrived to a man who stared ahead with the thousand-yard-stare she'd seen on some veteran Guardsponies. He wasn't even attempting to camouflage the fact that something was on his mind, and even though she'd only met the guy a day ago, she decided to talk to him about it.

“Bit for your thoughts?” she inquired. Sam turned his head to look at her, and it seemed as though he was looking past her than at her. After a few moments he caught himself and his vision refocused. “No, you… you wouldn't want to know,” he said.

“It's about… uh… spiky dude and suit mare, isn't it?”

“Martilus and Dari'Nava, yes,” grumbled Sam. “I'd appreciate you not prying further on it, okay?”

“Alright, if that's what you want,” said Dash, and she reared up and rested her forelegs on the balcony, staring out at Canterlot. She didn't have much else to do, and figured he could use the company.

A small stretch of silence that was somewhere between “companionable” and “awkward” ensued, before Sam finally decided there was little harm in speaking up. After all, they all knew, didn't they? And it wasn't like he was going to be leaving tomorrow. “Yeah, it's about them. I'm… worried, to say the least. I mean, we have been through so much shit together… and here I am, stranded on an alien world, trusting somebody I don't even know, using something I still know nothing about, to save them. It doesn't feel very good, having to just sit by, watch, and pray.”

Dash quietly patted the man on the back, his ceramic armor making a rather chunky and deep noise as her hoof contacted it. “Hey, chin up. Twilight's the smartest mare I know, the eggiest of heads. And she's working with an entire other department of eggheads. They'll solve this.” She sounded sure of herself – like it wasn't hanging in the air; as though them solving this issue and allowing two of his... well, at this point, siblings to live wasn't an issue that could go either way, but something they did every Tuesday for kicks, especially given they were being paid to do so.

“If you're so sure, Dash, I'll beli-”

“Sam, she turned a frog into a living orange, and that was her not even trying,” interjected Dash. “She's stopped a massive bear as big as Town Hall, managed to reset our cutie marks after a spell scrambled them, and then became a demi-god for having done so. If she puts her mind to it that mare can do anything. She will save your friends, because something as big as this? She's already done it. And knowing her, she's probably written down the solution and made it into a checklist.”

Sam searched for something, anything he could use to try and disprove her argument, but she sounded like an absolute believer. Given what little he'd seen of magic, it didn't seem that far of a stretch to believe it could do those things. And Twilight had both wings and the horn – and the Princesses were the only other ones he'd seen like that.

Also, you are arguing against the survival of two of your best friends. You are stupid. Calm down and pray. Sam sighed. “Well... hey, it's not like I've got anything else to put my faith in, right? Twilight or bust. Here's hoping she can work a miracle.”

Dash sighed and pressed her hoof to her face. “What do you not get about this, Sam? It's not going to be a miracle, because she is going to solve this.”

“I wouldn't be too sure of that, Rainbow,” chided Sam. “I've blown away many a man who thought he'd won before the fight had even started. Hoping she can get it done? Believing she can get it done? That's cool. But assuming she'll do it, that's the big kicker.”

“Do me a favor, Sam,” muttered Dash, “and shut the hell up before I make you.”

“Oh, is that a threat?” A lopsided smile grew on Sam's face. “Are you threatening me? Help! Police! Domestic abuse!”

“Oh, you wouldn't dare,” bluffed Rainbow, smiling as well as the topic shifted away from grim things and towards general fucking around.

“My dear Dash, all is fair in love and war, and last I checked, we aren't fucking each other to death, so clearly it's the killing business we're a part of.”

“In which case,” countered Dash, “you're not gonna mind too much if I do pound you into stuffing. After all, it's just business.”

“Shit, you've got me there,” conceded Sam.

“Whenever you two are done bickering like a married couple, may I please speak with Samuel?” The two on the balcony turned to register a third present – Yelena Nasari, whose arms were folded, but who was also filled with the mirth that seemed to follow the pegasus and the squad leader wherever they went. “I have a few things I need to discuss with him. In private, if you don't mind too much.”

Dash nodded. “Oh, sure, chase me off, why don't'cha! Alright, I'll let you two fuck each other to death, then,” she said, elbowing Sam with one of her forelegs as she hovered off of the ground.

“Is there something going on that I am not privy to, Lieutenant?” chided Yelena.

“Yeah, and it's called 'know your role and shut your mouth',” Sam shot back.

“Anyways, I can see the foreplay's getting off to a good start, sooo I'm out! See ya, nerds!” Dash shot off, leaving a rainbow imprint in the air as she roared off at the velocity of a fighter. Yelena turned more serious as she left, heading over to the balcony. “Samuel, does anything about this place strike you as familiar?”

“A lot, actually,” began Sam. “I mean, ponies. Ponies. That's the sapient species we encounter here. And they threw in pegasi and unicorns, too, 'cause just having ponies that look like they walked out of a crayon drawing wasn't enough for them.”

Yelena nodded. “A lot of things do look like they come from Earth, or from your culture.”

“Tell me about it, Ms. Not-Earthling. There's so much shit here that's instantly familiar that it's not even funny. It's almost like this was a world constructed instead of made... there's just no chance that a similar ecosystem to Earth would evolve here, but also with magic and horses instead of apes.”

“I doubt that,” added Yelena, “but something has to have caused these similarities. Perhaps it is just a cosmic coincidence.”

“I don't know... but if this saves my friends, I'll take it at face value. And I'll treat it as seriously as it wants to be treated.”

Neither of them spoke for a minute, both of them staring at Canterlot as the sun lazily drifted down towards the horizon.

“Do you think she'll be able to do it?”

“What else can I bet on?” replied Martilus. The two of them stared out over Sweet Apple Acres, Dari having come mostly on Martilus's request. They'd shot the shit, made off-color jokes, and then without any provocation, Dari had pointed towards the mountain and asked. “I mean, it's either this or starving to death. Or putting a bullet into my skull, and over the past two days I've considered that far more than I'd like to admit.”

“Understandably so,” commented Dari'Nava. “I don't have faith in this 'magic.' It just seems too smoke and mirrors for my tastes. I tried to read a children's book and found myself incapable of understanding.”

“Let me refer you to my first answer,” recommended Martilus; “what else can I bet on? Either it's smoke and mirrors or bang. And personally, I'm going to hedge my bets with the option that lets the last thing through my head be an actual thought, as opposed to a tungsten penetrator.”

“Suit yourself,” replied Dari. “I'm just saying, I don't have much faith in this venture.”

Martilus looked around for a moment, then, under his breath, offered “I'll bet you 20 creds Twilight saves us.”

Dari's eyes lighted up for a moment, but her voice was still layered thick in sarcasm when she responded. “Oh, sure, let me just fetch the currency that doesn't work here so I can make a bet on my own death with you. I'm not giving you 20 credits, you jackass.”

“Shit,” swore Martilus. “Well, at least it was worth a shot.”

“I'll give you a shot,” threatened Dari'Nava.

“Will you give me a lollipop afterwards?”

Dari's eyes narrowed. “I meant shot as in a bullet. A bullet to your stupid, spiky face.”

“Well,” Martilus continued, “that isn't necessarily a no...”

“What would you even want a lollipop for? You won't want when you're dead,” questioned Dari.

Martilus scratched his chin for a moment, thinking about how to properly respond to this. “Maybe I want to look pretty when I die. Or maybe you want to fake my death. Say I choked on a lollipop and that you tried to help me, but by the time you got it out it was too late.”

“You bosh'tet, I'm shooting you with a gun. Everyone for kilometres around is going to hear. How can I fake that?”

“Gas main blew.”

Dari folded her arms. “And the hole in your head?”

“Trepanning.”

“Who even trepans anymore? That'd get me fired for being a quack.”

“Well maybe you shouldn't shoot your patients in the face, then, Doctor vas Tonbay. Then people won't start asking uppity questions about your secret assassination service.”

“Well... I am the best cleaner around,” juked Dari'Nava. “And there's only one industry where you learn how to clean blood out of things and disguise bodily injuries – medicine.”

Martilus laughed. “Who was that one human, who made an oath for doctors to do no harm? I bet you he's spinning in his grave right now.”

“Good,” frowned Dari'Nava, even though nobody could tell, “then we can hook up a generator and his corpse might be useful for something. Besides, I'm not human, last I checked.”

The two shared in a companionable silence, interrupted only by the rumbling of their bellies – their personal harbingers of doom.

Martilus looked over to Dari. “How much you got left?”

“One meal, even with starvation rations.”

“Same here,” confirmed Martilus. “Our last meal?”

“How poetic,” replied Dari'Nava, as she pulled her last ration packet out of her pocket.

“I'm going to savor this,” remarked Martilus. The two of them sat down and began eating.

Hitman sat in rather compact form inside Pinkie's room as that particular party pony gossiped with Gummy about recent happenings. The geth was able to pick out many, many statements regarding Aleph Squad, but yet even with the pony beside it it felt alone. The collective was gone. Not even a trace of earlier signal. This part of the galaxy was empty.

Its deep thought from earlier had partly been an attempt to see if it could do something. There was only one other geth on the planet right now and it was too busy making sure Dari'Nava was becoming accustomed to Equestria's air. And even if it was going to construct its own collective, how exactly did it plan to do so? Equestria didn't have anywhere near the technological or computational might to build something that could hold a geth conscience. And even if that was true, the problem lay with making one; cloning was definitely out of the question due to a myriad of ethical issues. Hitman was still as alone as it ever was in the universe.

Sure, it wasn't alone, but in the past it had constantly been connected to the collective. It had constantly shared its thoughts, its memories. To be suddenly jerked away like this was nearly maddening; it was a wonder the geth hadn't went insane (though it also wondered if going insane was a possibility). Pinkie, at first, had talked to Hitman frequently, seeing as the geth was so silent, but after repeatedly assuaging the organic that it wasn't anything wrong with her, she had eventually decided to leave the geth in peace. Not that it was a problem, anyways; it was more about assuaging her in the first place. Hitman thought at light speed; even with Pinkie's motor mouth there was plenty of time to form a response, and the geth, in conversations with organics, often found itself doing so before organics had even finished talking. Pinkie was the first sapient being that was coming close to giving considerable delay between responses.

Hitman's train of thought eventually came to rest on Ponyville itself. The geth decided that it was going to need to learn the town if it was to live here; it could also provide a similar service to its squadmates through creating a map of the town and uploading it to their omni-tools. Even with no extranet connection, the omni-tools of the squad were more than capable of forming their own meshnet; Hitman could bring up the position of any of its squadmates, though given there was no global positioning system around Equestria it could only bring up their positions relative to itself. A map of the town would likely help solve this problem, as it could cross-reference its own location with the distance and direction of its squadmates, and be able to make an accurate guess as to where they were located. It was something to busy itself with, as well. All it needed to do was go out and actually do it.

The geth's head swiveled to focus on Pinkie, and she stopped talking to Gummy and stared down the machine. Gummy, for his part, continued with his enlightened thoughts, blissfully damned to wonder about all that was going on.

Hitman knew that Pinkie knew everyone in town. Hitman knew that Pinkie would jump to help it, provided the geth asked.

So Hitman did just that.

Hitman tried its best to act unsurprised when Pinkie began dragging the geth through town – literally at first, until the geth politely stated that “This platform is capable of self-locomotion” - eliciting a “Whoops! Sorry!” from Pinkie as she let go and let the geth stabilize itself before it continued onwards. As they traveled through town, Pinkie again bouncing along like a rabbit, complete with a sproing every time she hopped, Hitman received no stares. The town had finally gotten used to its presence – either that, or they just assumed Pinkie was being Pinkie and decided it would be best not to interfere.

That in mind, the geth was focused on things other than what the locals thought of it. It was currently mapping its path relative to where it started, roughly tracing out distance, elevation, and directional changes with Sugarcube Corner being the new “zero”. It would likely be able to access topographical maps to provide proper altitude measurements if necessary; that would take a quick trip to the town hall, that could easily be done after Pinkie's grand tour.

As she moved through town she rattled off what every building was; most of them were houses and she named their inhabitants, a colorful bunch in every way – least of all names, like “Lyra”, “Daisy”, and “Cheerilee” to name just a few. There were also several businesses or public services – Ponyville, it turned out, had a mail office, a fashion shop (in the form of the “Carousel Boutique” that Rarity lived and worked in), and a store called “Quills and Sofas” that seemed to eminently sell writing implements and seating, and nothing else.

At the mention of this Hitman turned towards Pinkie, quirking an eye prow. “How has this store remained in operation selling only two types of items?”

Pinkie shrugged. “Iunno. How should I know?”

Hitman thought for a moment on calling out Pinkie, but – in a manner that was not dissimilar to its operation pre-Rannoch – decided that it wasn't a very smart idea to do so, and so held its metaphorical tongue.

This tour continued for quite some time. After a short stop to ask Pinkie the direction of magnetic north Hitman was capable of assigning a compass to the map; utilizing brief measurements and heresay it was also able to add out-of-Ponyville estimations, mostly in the format of “towards a location”, such as the Everfree, Canterlot, or Fluttershy's cottage, which was far enough away from Ponyville to not be considered part of it.

After two hours its operation was complete, but the sun had set. Despite this, tonight there was a full moon, so there was no problem seeing – and Hitman figured Pinkie probably had an organic equivalent of an advanced warning system, so it never offered a light. They were able to find their way back to Sugarcube Corner without incident, where the geth turned to Pinkie before they stepped indoors.

“Thank you for your assistance, Pie-Pinkie,” proffered Hitman. “With your help I have made a map of Ponyville to utilize in future navigation.”

“Any time, Hitmanerino!” Pinkie was as chipper as ever. “But it's pretty late, and I'm pretty tired! I'd like to get some sleep, if that's alright with you!”

Hitman's eye flaps moved about for a moment. “You are not showing any signs of fatigue.”

“Silly Hitman!” chided Pinkie, as she slipped beside him, stood on her hind legs, and threw a foreleg around his shoulder. “I go out like a light! You don't need to worry about me being kept up by anything!”

For a moment Hitman briefly thought of going to Town Hall. But considering the time of night, cross-referenced with the fact Ponyville barely even qualified as a ''town'', it wasn't likely Town Hall was to be manned. And breaking into Town Hall would certainly not be looked upon kindly for any Aleph.

Hitman decided it would need to do the best it could with what it now had. This map, even if crude and estimated, was still far better than not having any means of finding its way around. And Pinkie had been rather in-depth with her coverage; Hitman had been able to put a name to every building, and a face to 71% of them.

The two of them made their way back to Pinkie's bedroom, where Pinkie settled into bed, bade good night, and went out like a candle had been snuffed. Directly into REM sleep. Hitman had by this point filed any aberrations from the organic norm that Pinkie displayed away as “her being Pinkie”, and the geth folded itself up for another few hours of deep thought and introspection, a task made simultaneously easier and harder by the fact that it was now no longer several million programs working in unison but one whole being.

The geth momentarily reflected on this. Is there a difference?

It stopped itself before it could perform any more deep thought, however, and quickly connected to the rest of their omni-tools, before sending the map - along with an explanation regarding it - to the rest of its squadmates.

It spent the night in thought. It also spent the night thinking about Dari'Nava and Martilus, repeatedly trying to calculate their odds of survival, each time coming up blank. The geth caught itself after calculation attempt #72,549.

It could offer itself no answer.

As much as Twilight had often made speeches to her friends before, this was a completely different sort of situation. She was speaking to the biology, magic, and Celestia-knew whoever else departments of the University of Canterlot – the most prestigious university in Equestria, and the de facto source for anything regarding any form of magic. And she was speaking to them because two aliens were starving to death on their soil and she refused to let them die. There would be many sleepless nights ahead, for sure, but Twilight was used to the concept by now.

She looked over the stallions and mares of the department and knew that every one of them was going to give their all. There was no other option. Martilus Hinfax and Dari'Nava vas Tonbay were going to survive.

“Fillies, gentlecolts, we're all here for a reason. As you've already been briefed, we know now that we are not alone in the universe. The space beyond our planet is teeming with life. And two of them need our help. We begin now, as there is no time to waste...”

Author's Note

Behold: the chapter that took two entire months to write. Mostly because I'm a lazy shit. Sue me.
I don't think alcohol was in MLP (remember the salt licks) so I figure it'd be interesting to see what'd happen in that regard. I've been debating inverting alcohol and salt's positions here - so salt is a narcotic like alcohol, but alcohol is instead a seasoning they use on food for whatever reason. I haven't put too much thought into it.
Anyways. Liked something? Hated something? Need to profess your undying love/rage/apathy for this story or for me? Drop by the review box and write something. Right now you dicks are the reason I make this story, so feedback helps.
See ya next chapter. Whenever that might come.