He came from Space

Foreword: my beta-reader once told me a story about how people drive tanks off cliffs in Battlefield and crush three people on the process, it was a fascinating tale.

And recently I've run around in Halo: Reach(which I fucking hate, by the way. God you have no idea how much I hate that game) with one of my friends and drive off cliffs when he's in the Warthog just to be a douche.

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Chapter Six

Filling the Voids

January 5th, 2129

Equestrian star system (unlisted)

Town of Ponyville

Citizen Marcus(Mark) James Calaway

Mark Calaway awoke in the morning to find the baby dragon, Spike, hovering over him. It seemed that he had been watching the human sleep.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Marcus asked, the dragon stepped away with an embarrassed blush on his face.

"Ehh, sorry" Spike apologized. Mark stood from the couch and gathered his things, aiming to pay a visit to Gilda.

"Where are you going?" Twilight Sparkle asked when she saw the human heading for the door, Mark turned to look at her briefly.

"Out" Calaway answered, with that he exited the library.

"What's with him, anyway?" Spike asked. "He's so distant and dismissive." The dragon scratched his face.

"I don't know, I think he has a sketchy past. I still haven't figured out what that L-shaped device that makes a loud bang is used for" Twilight said, staring out the window in wonder as Marcus took to the skies with his jetpack.

Calaway reached the tree that was Gilda's home, landing in the entryway that was perched high above the murky waters of the swamp.

"Gilda, are you here?" Mark called out, there was no response. Intrigued, Marcus decided to have a bit of a look around, having never properly toured Gilda's home.

There wasn't much to see; a couch, a bed, several pictures of her and Rainbow Dash, and a couple hunting knives.

Wait…Gilda knows Dash? I wonder why neither one of them never mentioned that to me Calaway thought.

The human shook his head exited the home, heading back up to his ship which was still floating above the local forest.

It had been a while since he visited his ship; as a result he had much work to do regarding the ponies.

Marcus made his way to the bridge and logged what he knew about the ponies so far, which wasn't much unfortunately.

Sighing, Mark looked out the viewport up at the bright blue sky, wondering where Dick Malone was and what he was doing.

Did you ever find Codename: Evil? Did you even survive? I could really use your help right now, Dick Calaway thought.

Turning back to his console he prepared to type a message to The Great Crusader, inviting him to Equestria.

Dick,

I find myself in a quite implausible location, having found a planet populated entirely by intelligent talking ponies.

I fear I may be losing my mind. If you are not busy with Codename: Evil I request you come visit me on this planet, I'm sending coordinates with this message.

Please tell no other person about this message or where you're going if you decide to come.

-Mark Calaway.

He attached the coordinates and sent the message, hoping that his life-long friend would believe him.

With nothing left to do on the Freedom he exited the ship and returned to Ponyville.

While on the way he decided to pay a visit to Rainbow Dash, the Pegasus pony he knew the least about.

First impressions had been bad; Dash had struck the human as arrogant and cocky and she seemed to think of herself as the coolest thing on the planet.

She made the human want to throw her through a window, just to put her in her place.

His anger subsided and Mark continued on his way to the Pegasus's cloud home, shouting her name as he stood beneath it.

Sometime later the rainbow mane and cyan head poked out from the edge of the cloud layer, magenta eyes peering down at him as if she was deciding if he was worthy of her attention.

The Pegasus fluttered down to the ground, rubbing at her eyes; it seemed that Marcus had interrupted her sleeping.

He could only care less.

"What do you want?" Rainbow wearily asked, still shaking the effects of sleep off.

"Do you always sleep during the day?" Calaway inquired, he wasn't sure why if she did; as far as he had seen the Pegasus never did anything.

"I spend a lot of time practicing my flying tricks" Dash answered as she finally came around.

"Flying tricks? What do you need those for?" Mark asked. As if those had been the magic words Rainbow shot up into the air with a flap of her wings, Marcus braced himself for a barrage of irritating boasting.

"I need them for the Wonderbolts! They're the greatest most bravest fliers in all of Equestria and I'm gonna join them some day!" Dash exclaimed.

"OK" Calaway replied.

"What, that's it? OK?" Rainbow asked. "These are the Wonderbolts! And I'm going to BE one of them some day."

"I don't really care, nor do I know the Wonderbolts enough to say anything else" Mark responded.

"How can you not know the Wonderbolts? They're the greatest fliers in Equestria!" Dash declared.

At least she wasn't boasting about herself.

"I'm from a different planet, remember?" the human reminded the Pegasus.

"Well yeah, but…the last human that was here said that when he went back he'd spread the word about them and me" Rainbow said, her ego began to shatter.

"He said that?" Marcus laughed. "There's more to life than being cool and spreading word of your feats."

"Didn't you ever boast about your accomplishments?" Dash inquired, it seemed she couldn't imagine any other life than being 'awesome.'

"In my line of work boasting leads to overconfidence, overconfidence leads to death" Calaway answered.

"What was your last job?" the Pegasus pressed, earning a pained sigh from the human.

"Maybe I'll tell you some other time" Mark replied, turning to return to the library.

"Oooh, mysterious. What, are you scared? See something that made you cry? Wimp" the Pegasus mocked.

In a flash Calaway turned and snatched Rainbow Dash by the throat, shoving her against the wall of a nearby house.

"I've seen things that would break you instantly. Things that you'd never understand. Things that would make you sit in padded room wearing a straight-jacket rocking back and forth mumbling 'mommy.' So how 'bout you knock off that playing 'cool' shit and get real. Being 'cool' doesn't mean shit in the real world" the human growled, staring directly into Dash's eyes.

All the Pegasus could see was a burning hatred of her, and that last sentence made her ego crumble.

At that point she became utterly terrified of Marcus.

Calaway released Rainbow Dash who immediately floated up into the air to get away from the human.

"You think you're the hottest thing in the planet? You think you're the greatest creature that ever lived? You don't mean shit to anyone, anywhere, for any reason" Mark finished, activating his jetpack and soaring off to his ship.

Leaving Rainbow Dash alone with her shattered ego.

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Satisfied that he had brought the Pegasus down to earth, figuratively, Marcus Calaway entered his ship and turned it towards Canterlot. He was eager to investigate a different town for a change and Canterlot was the only other settlement he knew of.

He hoped the ponies there weren't as arrogant as Ponyvillians were.

Mark directed his ship over the royal city and hovered down to the streets with his jetpack, landing amongst a crowd of ponies who had formed a crowd when the shadow fell over their city.

As the human landed with an audible thud the ponies began to back away, if they were afraid the only sign they gave was them backing away.

Paying them no mind Mark made his way through the city in search of Princess Celestia's castle, it wasn't hard to find as it towered over most of the city.

As he approached the front gate he was stopped the guards standing outside of it. "Halt! What is your business here?" one of the guards asked, his tone was forceful and stern.

"I am here to see the Princess" Mark answered.

"Which one?" the other guard inquired.

"Both."

Before any more questions could be asked a bright flash filled the human's vision that soon turned into Princess Celestia.

"Greetings, human. Welcome to Canterlot" Celestia declared. "I take it you're here to see me?" she said, more of a statement than a question.

Marcus nodded.

"Come with me" Celestia said, her horn started to glow and the two of them disappeared in a bright flash.

Mark Calaway reappeared in what appeared to be a bedroom, stumbling forward as he exited from the teleportation.

"You did better than most others who experience the teleportation for the first time, I've seen individuals fall over or start retching from the effects" Celestia lamented.

The two chatted idly for a while before they got down to business, discussing the introduction of humanity into the pony world and vice versa.

"The way I thought about it was to bring in 250 humans on a colony ship; all would be civilians and excellent contributors to society, and all would be friendly and unarmed" Mark said.

"How would you ensure they're unarmed?" Celestia asked, sipping on a cup of tea.

"Humanity has excellent security measures; we would scan all colonists before they boarded the ship" Calaway answered. "A military vessel would accompany them, however. It's standard human policy to not let colony ships go un-escorted by at the very least a Malone-class cruiser."

"A 'Malone-class' cruiser? Tell me about it" Celestia requested.

"The design is named after my best friend; after he saved Earth from being glassed by our nemesis Codename: Evil human expansionism took off and humanity came up with the Malone-class cruiser, which is currently the largest warship class in existence at 28 miles long and the most heavily armed sporting four MAGs and well over a thousand missile pods" Marcus explained.

The two talked for a moment longer before Princess Luna barged into the room, a look of urgency on her face.

"Lulu, what's wrong?" Celestia inquired, standing to meet her sister half way.

Luna eyed the human for a moment before refocusing her attention on the older Princess Celestia.

"Something has happened, Celestia. A Griffon hotel in Manehattan was bombed. Pony radicals have been blamed" Princess Luna explained.

Celestia winced and began pacing in the room. "We were so close to easing the tension; why did this have to happen?" the sun Goddess wondered.

"I can't even believe my subjects would do something like this. Do they really hate the Griffons that much?" Celestia asked no one in particular.

"Tia you don't actually believe ponies did this, do you?" Luna inquired, the elder sister turned to face the younger.

"I don't want to but what else is there? It's not like Griffons go around bombing their own people!" Celestia exclaimed.

"Oh the Griffon leader is not going to like this! What if he declares war? We are a peaceful people; we're in no condition to fight a war" the sun Goddess stated.

While Celestia fretted over the possible consequences Luna eyed the human as he sat on the floor, an air of nonchalance waved around him.

"Princess, if it comes to war I would like you to know that I will help where I can" Marcus suddenly said, snapping Celestia out of her dilemma.

"No, if a human helps fight then the Griffons would become hostile with them. What if they declare war on your species?" the white-coated Princess asked.

"How would they fight us? The Griffons have no means to travel in space; therefore they couldn't come after us. And besides I'm the only human that knows of Equestria" Calaway explained, he had forgotten about the human Twilight mentioned a while ago.

"Actually there was one other before you. He disappeared mysteriously sometime after arriving" Celestia told him.

"Care to explain?" Mark said, the Princess was about to when the doors opened and in stepped two of her guards.

"Your majesty, we have received a message from the Griffon leader" one of the guards declared, handing over a rolled up parchment.

"Thank you" Celestia replied, she took the letter and the two guards retreated from her chambers, closing the door behind them.

Princess Celestia opened the letter and began to read aloud.

"Princess Celestia of Equestria,"

"It has come to my attention that a Griffon hotel in a pony city was bombed by ponies, an act of anti-Griffon prejudice. This action has displayed clear hostility toward the Griffons by the ponies and is being treated as an act of terrorism and will not go unpunished."

"Diplomatic relations have ended; for your sake I suggest you prepare your country for open warfare."

"Good day."

Celestia finished reading the message and lowered it onto a table, rubbing her head with a hoof. "Luna, alert the Equestrian military and the Elements of Harmony" Celestia commanded, Princess Luna turned and exited the bed chambers.

"You're gonna need my help" Mark stated, Princess Celestia shook her head.

"No, I don't want war to befall your species. Griffons are tenacious fighters" the sun Goddess protested.

"I have a spaceship" Calaway reminded her.

For a moment it seemed the Princess would consider his offer; the spaceship would be of great help but for the sake of humanity she just couldn't allow it.

"No, we will do this ourselves. I recommend you leave our planet immediately" Celestia stated.

"But—" Marcus began to protest but he was cut off by the sun Princess.

"Enough! Leave my planet immediately. We don't need your help" Celestia shouted, putting the full fury of the sun in her tone.

"That's the way you want to play it, fine. I'm going" the human stepped out onto the balcony outside the Princess's room and prepared to return to his ship.

"Goodbye, Princess Celestia of Equestria. And good luck" Marcus Calaway declared, he activated his jetpack and flew up to the Freedom, guiding the ship away from Canterlot before rocketing back up into the sky.

Celestia watched until the ship could be seen no more before reentering her bed chambers; she had a lot of work to do in the coming days.

For the first time in over a thousand years her country was about to go to war.

She could only pray to the spirit of her mother that they'd survive.

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I would like to thank Michael Blackburn for beta-reading this chapter.

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Legal Note: Marcus(Mark) James Calaway, Dick Malone, and all related characters belong to me. Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia, and all related characters belong to Hasbro. My Little Pony belongs to Hasbro.