Friendly Skiesby Liquidfirest0rmChaptersChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 1Alan let out a long drawn out sigh as he stood up, closing the door on his locker, before relocking it and giving a little tug to make sure the lock was secure. He zipped up his flight suit the rest of the way, then turned towards the bench he had just been sitting on and picked up his helmet. He always hated these kinds of training missions. Today they would be practicing rough terrain emergency landings and going over what to do in the event you are shot down in enemy territory. He idly looked his helmet over before heading for the door to the locker room. He opened the door and started out into the brightly lit hallway. His co-pilot was leaning against the wall opposite the door, their helmet pinned between their arm and hip. “I was beginning to wonder if I would need to send in a search and rescue team.” She said with a smirk. “Ha. Ha. You’re just too funny Alex.” His voice dripping sarcasm. She burst out laughing knowing he hated when she would come up with these little jokes of hers. “What am I going to do with you?” He asked her, his mouth forming its own little smirk. “Well I can think of quite a few things,” She said coyly, flashing him her best bedroom eyes, “But nothing we can do here.” Flashing him a smile, she laughed at him and started walking towards the end of the hall. She always loved getting him riled up, especially since she knew how to get past his defenses. Alan shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. How he let himself walk into embarrassing moments like that he had yet to figure out. He mentally chalked it up to being just one of the many things he loved about her. They had been flying together for the last couple of years on many different missions, both dangerous and routine. About a year after they had know each other, he finally managed to work up the nerve to ask her out for dinner one night after they had returned from another successful mission. Later on he had found out that she had liked him for several months prior to him asking her out, and was working up the nerve to ask him out. A voice calling out broke him out of his reverie. “Hey! You coming or are you just planning on staring at your helmet all day?” She called out, looking back around the corner at the end of the hallway. Looking up at her he realized that he had spaced out while unconsciously staring at the visor of his helmet. “Yeah, be right there.” He called back and started walking down the hall. She was waiting for him at the door as he rounded the corner. “You were thinking pretty hard back there.” She said as he approached. “Something on your mind?” “Yeah.” He said in a low tone, almost whispering. She leaned towards him a little bit so she could hear him better. “You.” He said before quickly leaning in the rest of the way and giving her a peck on the cheek before bolting out the door. She laughed and followed him outside. The oppressive heat hit them both once they cleared the doorway, bringing them both quickly back to reality. “Ugh… It should be illegal for it to be this hot so early in the morning.” He groaned, voicing his exasperation at the heat and grumbled under his breath, “I can’t wait until we can finally leave this damned country.” “It’s ten o’clock! Morning was a while ago.” She said to him with a chuckle. “But I totally agree, it’s WAY too hot already.” She glanced at the thermometer that was bolted to the outside wall of the building. It read one hundred three degrees. She cringed, and it felt like knowing the actual temperature made it somehow seem even hotter. “Well standing here isn’t making it any cooler.” She said as she started walking towards the group waiting around the nearby aircraft. “Might as well get this over with.” The next two hours were taken up by classes covering different topics that would help them out if they ever found themselves downed in hostile territory. Everything from finding camouflage, edible plants (not like it would help them much in this environment), and ways to cover your trail and keep from being followed. They also decided the order they would be going in for the next part of the class before breaking for lunch. They were told to meet back in the classroom in an hour, to wait for their turn to go. The exercise was going to be simple. They were going to take off from the base, fly for about thirty minutes to a designated strip of land that had been cleared by the engineers, and land their aircraft. Then they would take off again from their improvised runway and return to base. While they would probably never have a need for this training, it was designed to give the pilots some hands on experience incase they somehow got hit by small arms fire and were unable to make it back to base. “Shepherd. Cross. You’re up next.” Called the gruff voice of their commander, letting them know they needed to get their stuff together and be outside in five minutes. Alex put her phone away and looked over at Alan, who was laying on the desk sound asleep. “C’mon Alan, its our turn.” She said to him, gently nudging his shoulder. “Mhghm. Fi.. Min…” He mumbled as he turned his head to face the other direction. “Oh get up already!” She said as she unceremoniously upended the chair he was sitting in, causing him to tumble to the floor. She giggled at his hilarious reaction. “Woah!” He exclaimed as he tried futilely to get a grip on the desk as he fell. Hearing her giggle at him, he looked up at her with a smirk on his face. “Oh you think that’s funny?” He said as her giggle turning into outright laughter. “Well two can play at this game!” He said as he wrapped his foot around one of her chair legs and giving a sharp tug, sending her to the floor. Now it was his turn to laugh at her comical decent to the floor, trying to catch herself on the table just like he had, with the same amount of success. He stood up and righted his chair and extended his hand towards her. “Alright, how about we get going?” He said as she took hold of his hand and he pulled her up off the floor. They both picked up their helmets and started walking towards the door. She playfully shoved him against the table as she walked past him. They made their way outside to see the ground crews performing their final checks on the F-15 Eagle that they would be using for the test. Alan felt a giddy feeling well up inside of him as he looked at the aircraft. He had always loved the idea of flying. Even as a little kid he had always been into airplanes. When he was old enough, he had immediately signed up at the local Air Force recruiter, with his parent’s consent of course. He never knew that five years later it would land him in the middle of Kuwait. One of the hottest, most barren places he’d never want to see again. The only thing that made the whole ordeal even remotely tolerable was getting to share the time with the love of his life. Thirty minutes later they were strapped in and sitting at the end of the runway waiting on clearance from the tower before beginning their speedy takeoff. “Flight 114 you are go for takeoff.” The voice came through the headset that was built into their helmets. “Roger that tower.” Alan responded, before going through the motions that were almost second nature to him now. Feeling the engines rumble as the aircraft started moving forward. Once he reached the proper airspeed he pulled back on the stick and felt the tale tell signs of defying gravity. He also felt the adrenaline rushing through his system, another one of the things he loved about flying. “You alright back there?” He asked Alex through the headset. “You better believe it! That never gets old!” She exclaimed happily. They both had been turned into adrenaline junkies and they indulged whenever they could. Many times they had gone to different theme parks for the sole purpose of riding all of the most extreme roller coasters they could find. The steeper and taller the better had become their unspoken motto. But nothing compared to the rush they got during takeoff. “They really need to find a way to make an amusement park ride feel like that.” She said back, laughing at the thought. “Ha Ha! That would be awesome!” He laughed back, hitting the switch to bring up the landing gear, feeling the thump as they fully retracted. The short flight was almost over and he started lining up with the improvised runway and began their descent. It was weird not seeing all the usual markings of a regular runway. The only markings they had were the four humvee’s that were parked at either side of the start and end of the cleared area. He hit the switch to lower the landing gear and waited for the thump of them locking into place. Once the light came on signaling that the landing gear was locked he brought them in for a very bumpy landing. After getting their aircraft turned around, and being told that they had passed the landing, they were once again airborne and on their way back to base. About twenty minutes into the return flight, Alex spoke up suddenly. “Hey, you see that? Out at two o’clock up above us.” She said, a hint of nervousness in her voice. Alan looked around for what she was looking at. He finally spotted it. It looked like a tiny thunderstorm cloud. It was weird because there were usually no clouds this time of year, nothing that could make a thunderstorm anyway. “What the…” was Alan’s response. “I’m going to take us a little closer and take a look.” He told Alex, veering them in the direction of the tiny storm. As they approached it became clear that the whole cloud was probably no bigger than a small table. “Well that has got to be the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.” He stated flatly. “Gotta agree with you there.” Alex replied. “We should probably radio this back to base.” Watching the cloud travel the horizon as Alan turned back in the direction of the base. Suddenly there was a noise that sounded like a huge thunderclap, and the small storm cloud suddenly expanded into a huge storm cloud. It engulfed their airplane and kept expanding rapidly. Before either of them could say anything a lightning bolt struck the fuselage. Warning buzzers went off as several systems were shorted out by the massive voltage that had been forced through them. Two of those systems, unfortunately, were the I.F.F. transponder that identified them as a friendly to their own anti-air systems on the ground; the other was their radio transmitter. Suddenly a new alarm started blaring, louder than the rest: one of the SAM sites on the ground had locked onto them and fired. “Oh Shit, Oh Shit, OH SHIT!” Alan panicked as he saw the screen light up with 4 icons of the incoming missiles. “Hang on!” He yelled over the headset before pulling the plane into a high angle ascent. Looking back at the screen he watched as the missiles drew closer. He slammed the chaff button, launching the flares designed to throw the missiles off course. He banked left and headed in the opposite direction of the base. Boom. Boom. Boom. Three of the missiles had detonated on the flares but the fourth changed course and proceeded to close the distance to them. He hit the chaff button again and a warning alarm went off, signaling that the launch mechanism was inoperative. “OH GREAT! Just what I needed!” He yelled exasperatedly. “What’s wrong?” Alex yelled back. “The firing mechanism on the second set of chaffs isn’t working.” “Try it again!” “I have tried it again!” He yelled, pounding on the button several times, as if to emphasize his point. The close proximity alarm chose this exact moment to go off, signally the missile was less than one hundred meters from them. “Alright, that’s it!” He growled, grabbing the throttle and increasing their speed, trying to buy them some extra time. He watched as their airspeed approached seven hundred MPH. “Hang on!” He told Alex. He fired the afterburners and they went supersonic. The missile was still closing in, at a much slower rate now, but they were also heading back into the storm. He hit the chaff button again, a slim hope that it would somehow work if he hit it hard enough. On his third hit the warning alarm shut off as the firing mechanism kicked in and deployed the flares. They were blinded a sudden flash, and a dull explosion sent vibrations through the airplane. Chapter 2Twilight Sparkle stood on the outskirts of town, her coat completely soaked from the storm that was slowly moving towards Ponyville. The high speed winds making the raindrops sting, and causing debris to be cast about, making it even more dangerous. She had already been saved twice now by the cyan Pegasus who stood dutifully at her side, keeping a constant vigil for any more deadly objects being hurled by the wind. While weather over the Everfree Forest was unusual in the fact that it controlled itself for the most part, this particular storm had come across some ancient magic somewhere in the forest while forming. The magic causing the storm to intensify, producing severe rain and almost tornado scale wind. The storm had started to slowly drift in the direction of Ponyville, and while the Pegasai of the weather team would usually have no problems dissipating the storm before it could cause any damage, the magic within the storm would continuously thwart all of their attempts at breaking up the clouds. For the third time, Twilight closed her eyes and reached out with her magic. Visualizing the storm, she started casting a magic dispelling field and a cloud evaporation spell simultaneously over the area that the storm covered. The rain started to slow, and there was an almost imperceptible shrinking effect on the edges of the storm. Gradually the storm became visibly smaller, when suddenly Twilight’s eyes shot open, a look of fear upon her face. “Something is happening!” She shouted over the wind. “The magic inside of the storm is reacting with-” She was suddenly cut off by what sounded like a massive explosion. Without warning the storm suddenly shrank in on itself and disappeared in a blinding light. The howling wind was replaced by an ear piercing noise that they had never heard before. Covering their ears, they looked up where the storm had just been, and they both saw something streaking away over the Everfree. They barely got a look at it before it was out of their sights, some sort of large, grey, flat object. Both of them felt a chill run down their spines that wasn’t caused by being soaked the bone. “We need to tell the Princess about this.” Twilight said, both of them still staring out over the forest in the direction the object had gone, the same look of fear on both of their faces. “Yeah. I’ve never seen anything move that bucking fast before. Except me of course.” Rainbow Dash said, the cockiness that was meant to be there was lost in the feeling of fear that was running through her. “Let’s get back and get dried off before we both get sick.” Twilight said and turned around as they both started heading back towards the library so she could send her letter to Princess Celestia about what they had seen. ‘Great, now we’re dead. Wait is this what dead feels like? It feels like I’m still moving.’ He thought to himself. As his hearing slowly started to return, it brought with it the sounds of the aircraft he was used to hearing. ‘Guess I can check dead off the checklist.’ As his vision slowly returned, he blinked several times. Rubbing his eyes and blinking again he had a hard time believing what his eyes were seeing. Below him, in every direction, was a sea of green. Instead of the barren desert that had been under him moments ago, there was now a vast forest of green trees. “Alex, are you seeing what I’m seeing?” He asked over the headset. “I’m seeing it, but I’m not believing it.” “Was there even any place nearby that could have this many trees?” “Not within flight distance.” He slowed the aircraft down to subsonic speeds as Alex tried to raise the base on the radio. “Radio’s busted.” She said in an annoyed tone. Alan looked at the fuel gage, noting that they were at half. Looking around in every direction, he noticed no signs of civilization. He banked left and started back the way that they had come from. After another five minutes heading this direction, he noticed the edge of the forest slowly coming into view, along with a welcoming sight on the horizon. “Hey, check it out, ten o’clock low.” He told Alex. “Finally! I was beginning to wonder if we would ever find signs of life.” She replied, her voice gaining a bit of pep. He looked back at the edge of the forest and noticed that there was a road running parallel to the forest. “I’m going to set us down.” He said as he started slowing for the descent. Lining up with the road he continued to slow down, hitting the switch to lower the landing gear. After the indicator showing the landing gear was locked lit up, he finished the descent. This landing however was his least graceful by far. The rough dirt road was much more uneven than the area they had practiced on. More than once he had gone off the road to either side. They finally came to a rest sitting at an angle across the road. Both of them just sat there for a few minutes, catching their breath and realizing how close they had come to no longer being with the living. “Let’s never do that again.” Alex said, the fear evident in her voice. “Agreed.” Alan replied, just as shaken as she was. “Alright, enough talk. Let me out of this death trap.” “Right there with ya.” He said, flipping the switch to open the canopy. Relief flowed over him as he watched it slowly slide rearward. Once the canopy was all the way back, he turned everything off and undid his harness before climbing out onto the wing. He was quickly joined by Alex who started removing the pistol holster from her leg. “What are you doing?” He asked, raising an eyebrow at her quizzically. “Getting out of this flight suit and heading to the nearest tree.” She said in a hurried tone as she unzipped the flight suit and extracted her limbs from it before tossing it back into the cockpit. She picked up her holster and proceeded to climb down before running to the tree line. Alan just shook his head and laughed. “When you gotta go, you gotta go.” He chuckled to himself as he tossed his own flight suit into the cockpit before closing the canopy. He reached down and reattached his own holster to his thigh, making sure that it wasn’t too tight. After he climbed down, he took a few minutes stretching out his muscles. He was just about to start looking the airplane over for any damages that may have been inflicted, when he heard two gunshots ring out in the quiet air from the direction Alex had gone. He un-holstered his pistol and took off into the woods in search of Alex. Chapter 3Alex buttoned her pants and refastened her belt, relieved that she had forgotten to throw away the napkins she had shoved into her pocket during lunch. In her haste to relieve herself, she had forgotten to take any toiletries, only having realized her mistake after she had done her business. As she was reattaching her holster to her leg, she glanced up and saw something yellow standing out amongst the greens and browns of the forest. Her interest piqued, she slowly made her way over to try and get a better look at what the object could be. As she neared the yellow object, she took cover behind the trunk of a rather large tree. Peeking around the side of the tree, her jaw dropped as she took in the sight before her. About twenty yards in front of her was a yellow horse. She immediately corrected herself and changed her assumption to pony, given its diminutive size. The most outstanding feature, however, was the long mane that hung from the creature’s head. The long flowing mane was absurdly enough, pink. The first thoughts that ran through her mind were that this pony belonged to a child, and the parents had dyed the coat and mane. It didn't really explain the length of the mane and tail, but it was the best she could come up with. It’s head was held low to the ground, and it was making weird noises towards what looked to be a squirrel. Before she could take in anymore of the strange scene playing out before her, a subtle movement in the darkness of the tree line on the opposite side of the pony caught her attention. Her eyes flicked to where she had seen the movement. Squinting, she tried to make out the details in the darkness of the forest. She saw movement again, and what appeared to be the head of a lion. She immediately put two and two together and her hand moved to her pistol, quietly undoing the snaps on the holster that held it in place. If this pony did belong to some little girl, then saving it would go a long way towards gaining the trust of the locals. Especially since they had no idea where on Earth they were. She quietly crept closer to where the pony was standing, trying her best to not make any noise that would startle the animal. About halfway there, her boot caught on a piece of undergrowth, causing it to rustle. Cursing under her breath, she looked back towards the pony, just in time to see the pony’s head snap up, facing her general direction. Her unwitting distraction of the pony gave the big cat the opportunity it needed and it lunged out of its hiding spot towards the helpless pony, letting loose a frightening roar as it charged. The pony’s head snapped back towards the charging predator, but instead of fleeing, it simply lay down on the ground. “NO!!” Alex screamed, raising her pistol and firing two shots at the big carnivore. To her surprise the creature hit the ground and rolled, stopping about ten feet from the cowering pony, which promptly bolted off into the forest. For a split second, she could have sworn that she had seen wings attached to the sides of the pony, but immediately dismissed the thought as just an optical illusion. She started to turn back towards the creature she had just shot, when she heard the sound of something rushing through the undergrowth behind her. She quickly spun around, her pistol raised to face the new threat. “Alex!!” She heard Alan yelling. “Alan! Over here!” She yelled back, letting out a sigh of relief and returning her pistol to her holster. Alan emerged from the trees a few moments later, and she waved to let him know where she was. “Are you alright?” He asked her with a frantic look in his eyes as he approached, putting his own pistol back in its holster. “Yeah I’m fine, but you aren't going to believe what just happened,“ She said, motioning towards the downed creature with the thumb of her left hand. “Literally.” She turned around and slowly started making her way over towards it. When she got close enough to make out details, she gasped, covering her mouth with her hand as she stared at the still un-moving body. While for the most part, the creature did in fact look like a lion, there were clearly some differences that ended there. The first was the large pair of wings that were sticking out of its back, looking something like giant bat wings. The second being the giant scorpion tail that replaced the normal cat tail that one would expect to see in its place. “What the fuck is going on around here?” Alan breathed, almost a whisper, as he took in the sight of the strange creature. Ignoring his question, Alex’s view moved to the creature’s head, where she noticed why she had been able to down the creature so easily. Her first shot had simply ricocheted off of it’s thick skull, but the second shot had hit it’s left eye, presumably going straight through to its brain; she had scored a kill shot. Alan knelt down next to the creature, taking hold of one of its wings and extending it out to get a better look at it. He was just about to move down to the tail, when he heard something that sounded like a low growl. “Did you hear that?” He asked. “Hear what?” Before he could answer her, another of the creatures appeared behind her. It’s mouth clamped down on her right shoulder and it took off, running deeper into the woods. “Alex!!” He screamed as he took off in the same direction the creature had run, it’s large size making it easy to follow as it tore through the undergrowth. While he was nowhere near as fast as the creature, he still pushed on, hoping he could catch up to the creature before anything else happened to Alex. Sweat was already dripping from his chin and her screams were fueling his adrenaline as he chased the creature down. The thick trees quickly dissipated into a small clearing. In the middle of the clearing, were three of the creatures surrounding Alex, who had her pistol out in her left hand. She was pointing it at the creatures as they circled around her, attempting to dissuade them from their goal of making her their next meal. Alan took the opportunity while the creatures were focused on her, and opened fire on the nearest one. He shot seven rounds in quick succession, all of them hitting it in the side before it could react, dropping it instantly. The other two immediately turned to face the new threat, their meal temporarily forgotten as they charged Alan. He raised his pistol and fired the five remaining rounds in his magazine at the two charging creatures. Two of the rounds caught one of them in the wing and a third catching the other in the leg, causing it to stumble. He pressed the magazine release and let the spent magazine fall to the ground. At the same time he reached down and pulled his spare magazine out of his holster. He looked up just in time to see the first creature leap into the air at him. He dove to the ground, narrowly avoiding the beast. The act causing him to accidentally drop his magazine, where it promptly disappeared into the undergrowth of the forest. He cursed his luck under his breath, and heard several more shots ring out from Alex’s direction. He looked back and saw the creature he had hit in the leg slump to the ground just a few short feet behind him. He looked over at Alex, only to see her fall over sideways, her pistol falling from her hand. “Alex!!” He shouted, receiving no response. He looked behind him and saw that the creature that he had dodged was already getting back up on it’s feet. Pushing himself up off the ground, he sprinted over to where Alex lay and picked up her pistol. He turned around just in time to see the creature flying through the air at him. It tackled him as he fired off the rest of the magazine into it’s massive chest. It’s claws dug into him as they hit the ground, the creature dead on top of him. After a couple of minutes, he managed to slide out from under the creature, and went over to check on Alex. She was still breathing, but her breaths were shallow and ragged. She had lost a lot of blood and needed medical attention soon. He put her pistol back into her holster, and picked her up before taking a look around. Noticing a slightly brighter patch of forest, he started making his way off in that direction. The forest gradually continued to brighten as he pushed on, and he finally came out of the forest. The sight that greeted him was a veritable forest of apple trees, stretching on as far as he could see. There was a low, white, wooden fence that ran off in either direction, and he could just see the top of a red building sticking up over the tree tops. His arms were burning from the exertion he had been through, along with carrying the unconscious Alex, and he decided to put her down here and go for help. He gently set her down and leaned her against one of the wooden fence posts, making sure she wouldn't fall over, the action causing her to stir back to consciousness. “Don’t try to move. There’s a house over this way, I’m going to go get help.” He told her, motioning off in the direction he had seen the building. She simply nodded and drifted back into unconsciousness. He was about to turn and head towards the unknown building when he heard the sound of something approaching, and what faintly sounded like some sort of conversation. He turned around expecting to see local workers or perhaps the farmer who owned this orchard, but nothing prepared him for what he saw as he turned around. Standing near the next tree, were three small ponies. Fillies or colts they were called if he remembered right from the time he had spent on his grandpa’s farm. The thing that really threw him for a loop, was their colors. One was yellow with a red mane and tail, it even had a huge pink bow tied in its mane! To it’s left was an orange one with purple hair, and he could swear it looked like it had wings. To the right was a white one with a blend of purple and pink in its mane, and it definitely had a horn sticking straight out from it’s head. He watched in silence as the orange one looked at the yellow one and made some strange noises. To his surprise the yellow one looked back and seemed to answer, making more of the weird noises. Were they… communicating? He watched as the two continued their ‘conversation’, their volume increasing almost as if they were having an argument. He stood up and started walking towards them. They had apparently not noticed him until he moved, as all three of them turned and looked directly at him. What could only be described as looks of fear were painted on all three of their faces. The orange and white ones turned and ran off in the direction of the building he had seen earlier. The yellow one hesitated for a few seconds, before turning and running head first into the tree it had been standing beside, knocking itself out cold. He winced at the sound of the impact and went over to make sure it was OK. He picked it up, finding it surprisingly light and examined its head. A nasty bump was already forming, and a little bit of blood was showing where the skin had been broken. Figuring it to be a pet given the weird coloring and the huge bow, he started off in the direction of what he assumed would be a farmhouse. About a few minutes later, he came out of the trees about fifty yards away from a large, red barn. He stopped in his tracks at what he saw. Next to the barn were the other two fillies who had run off earlier, and next to them was a larger pony with an orange mane and what looked to be a cowboy had on it’s head. ‘Man, whoever owns these ponies is weird.’ he thought to himself. The two fillies were standing in front of the older one, making all kinds of noise, the white one turned to look in his direction and immediately got louder. It’s gaze was soon shared by the other filly and the older pony. The older one suddenly adopted an aggressive stance and started pawing the ground. Looking down at the unconscious filly in his hands, realization kicked in, and he immediately realized how bad this situation must look from the pony’s perspective. As he looked back up to the now charging pony, the larger one he figured must be the mother, and he was now holding one of its young, which wasn't moving. “Aww… crap.” He said. Hurriedly setting down the unconscious filly, he turned and bolted back in the direction he had come from, hoping that the enraged mother would stop to check on her offspring instead of chasing him. Turning his head back briefly, he saw that his plan had actually worked as she was now standing protectively over the filly, nuzzling it gently. His celebration was short lived, however, as he heard the telltale sound of a horse at full gallop. He turned his head to see a wall of red coming at him, the warning had come all too late as the horse slammed into his side. He was sent flying about twenty feet, before slamming into one of the apple trees, knocking him out cold. Chapter 4Twilight Sparkle watched as Spike breathed fire over the rolled up parchment, transforming it into a puff of smoke that made it’s way out a nearby window. Hearing the bathroom door open, she turned to see Rainbow Dash coming down the stairs with a towel draped over her back. “That shower felt amazing!” Rainbow said as she reached the bottom of the stairs. She shook out her mane, throwing loose droplets everywhere, much to the unicorn’s displeasure. Twilight opened her mouth to scold the Pegasus, but was abruptly cut off as the library door burst open. A familiar yellow Pegasus stood in the doorway, panting heavily. They both turned to face her, Twilight speaking up first. “Fluttershy! What-” “Twilight!... In… The woods!… Monster!” Fluttershy said, her sentence punctuated by gasps. The look of fear on her face adding emphasis to her words. Twilight and Rainbow rushed to her side. Trying to calm her down so that she could tell them what had happened. Ten minutes and two cups of tea later, she was finally calm enough to recount her story. “Well, I w-was out in the f-f-forest after the storm had cleared,” She paused, taking another sip of tea from her cup. “I w-was checking o-on the little c-critters, making s-sure they were OK.” She pause again to take another drink. “I heard a noise and w-when I looked up, I s-saw a creature I’ve n-never seen before. It stood on two legs and it kind of looked like a monkey, but without the fur all over.” “Woah. Do you think it was an alien?” Rainbow cut in. “Um… I don’t really know. As soon as I turned to look at it, a Manticore jumped out from the forest behind me!” “Oh my gosh! Are you alright? How did you manage to get away?” Twilight asked worriedly. “Um… I’m not sure. I was so afraid of the Manticore, that I just froze up. Then I heard the creature scream, and two really loud noises came from where it had been standing. It sounded like thunder, only it was much, much louder. Then the Manticore fell to the ground, and I took off running and made my way here.” Fluttershy said, finishing off her tea and setting the cup on the table. “Was it some kind of magic?” Twilight asked. “I don’t think so, there was just the noise.” “It’s got to be an alien!” Rainbow exclaimed, a look of worry quickly coming across her face. “What if it followed you here?” “Stop it Rainbow, aliens don’t exist.” Scolded Twilight. “If it is some new kind of creature that we haven’t seen before, it could have some kind of magic or special defenses that we haven’t heard of before either. Whatever it is, we should go check it out.” She said, a spark of excitement flashing in her eyes at the prospect of a new discovery. “I dunno Twi, what if it’s dangerous like ‘Shy said?” “Let’s grab Applejack just incase it’s hostile and we have to detain it. Spike! We’re heading out! Watch the library while I’m gone!” She called out to her assistant. They were already on there way without waiting for a response, not wanting to delay their discovery any longer than necessary. Sweet Apple Acres - Earlier Applejack finished putting the last cart of apples away in the barn. Wiping the sweat off her brow, she walked back outside, feeling accomplished with her hard day’s work. She got about three feet outside the barn when Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle came charging at her from out of the orchard. “Applejack! Applejack!” They both yelled as they closed the distance. “Now what ‘n th’ hay has gotten inta’ y’all?” She asked in a condescending tone. “There was a monster!” Scootaloo cried. “Two of them!” Sweetie Belle corrected. “And one of them was covered in blood!” “And the other tried to get us!” “But we left it in the dust! Didn’t we Applebloom?” Scootaloo asked, but received no reply. “Applebloom?” Sweetie Belle asked, looking back. Not seeing her friend, she looked back towards the way they had come from. To her horror she saw that the monster had followed them and was now standing at the edge of the orchard, staring at them. “There it is!” She cried, pointing a hoof in it’s direction, causing Scootaloo and Applejack to follow her gaze. “And it’s got Applebloom!” Hearing that the monster had her sister, Applejack turned towards the creature and started pawing at the ground, getting ready to charge. She could see Applebloom in its arms, but she wasn’t moving. Her blood boiled at the thought of harm coming to her little sister. She took off towards it, and the creature’s face suddenly turned to a look of surprise. It put Applebloom on the ground before turning and running back into the orchard. She saw Big Macintosh running full speed right towards the creature and knew he would have no trouble catching it, so she stopped once she reached her sister to see if she was OK. Leaning down, she gave her an affectionate nuzzle but got no response. Her chest rose and fell, so she was still breathing, but she was out cold. A nasty bump could be seen forming on top of her head as well as a little bit of blood, now matted in her fur. She put Applebloom on her back and made her way back to the farmhouse, telling Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo to head inside as well. As she turned back towards the house, she saw her friends running up the path that led to the road. “Applejack!” Twilight called out when she got closer. “We need… your help… creature…” Not being the most athletic mare, she was severely winded from the run. Her gasping for much needed air was preventing her from forming complete sentences. Applejack raised an eyebrow, and Rainbow Dash took the opportunity to fill her in properly. “Shy saw some strange hairless monkey thing in the forest, and Twi here wants you to help us catch it.” She said, a little bit of her excitement making it’s way through her cool exterior. Just then they heard the sound of something hitting a tree… hard. “Well, ah jus’ chased a critter off that sounds like what yer talkin’ ‘bout. It came outta th’ orchard carryin’ Applebloom. Sounds like Big Mac jus’ caught it.” Applejack said, turning towards the direction the sound had come from. She went inside and put Applebloom on the couch, telling Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle to look after her before heading back outside. Once she returned, the four of them quickly made their way through the orchard, eager to see if this was the same creature that Fluttershy had seen in the forest earlier. As they approached, they saw Big Mac sitting on his haunches in front of the creature that was now slumped against one of the apple trees. It was definitely an odd looking creature. As Fluttershy had said, it had no fur, save for a brown patch on top of its head and above its eyes. Its muzzle was short, barely making a bump on the front of its face. It’s front arms ended in hands that looked similar to spike’s, but the talons weren’t as sharp looking. It also wore some kind of strange clothing, that was grayish with blue splotches all over. If Rarity could see it, she would declare it a crime against fashion. Twilight cautiously walked over to the creature, her horn lighting up as she cast a spell to check on the creature’s condition. A look of surprise came across her face as the extent of the damages were revealed. “Wow Big Mac! You really did a number on it! It’s got several cracked ribs, a concussion, and a dislocated shoulder.” She stated, looking back at the large workhorse. “Ah didn’t think ah hit ‘em that hard.” He said, looking upset that he had unwittingly hurt the creature so seriously. “Well, it will live, but we need to get it to the clinic as soon as possible.” “You sure about that Twi? If it hurt Applebloom I don’t think we should be helping it.” Rainbow Dash spoke up. “Even so, we still need to study it, and some things can’t be studied if it’s dead.” Twilight said, her horn lighting up again and her magic gently lifting the creature off the ground. “Wow, it’s heavier than it looks!” She exclaimed. Rainbow’s ears suddenly perked up, and she looked off deeper into the orchard. “Did you guys hear that?” She asked. They all listened intently, all of them scarcely breathing. A few seconds later they heard what sounded like a faint cough coming from the direction Dash was looking in. “I knew I heard something!” she exclaimed, taking to the air and heading off in the direction of the sound. “Rainbow! Wait for us!” Twilight yelled fruitlessly as they all gave chase. She took care to make sure she didn’t run the creature she was levitating into anything as they went to investigate. A short walk brought them to the fence that marked the boundaries of Sweet Apple Acres. “Hey guys! Over here! I found another one and it looks like its been hurt pretty bad!” Dash called out as she saw her friends emerge. She looked back down at the creature before her. It looked similar to the one they had found but was a bit smaller and the fur on its head was a blonde instead of brown. It wore the same clothing, and blood covered the clothing on its right shoulder and part of it’s chest. It’s breathing was very labored and it looked a lot more pale in comparison to the other one. “Oh my, is it still alive?” Fluttershy asked when she saw the blood. “It’s still breathing.” Dash answered. “Twi, are you gonna be able to carry both of these things?” She asked. “No, they are a lot heavier than they look. Big Mac, could you carry this one?” She said, motioning towards the one in her telekinetic grip. “I don’t want to risk making the other one’s condition worse by having it bounce around.” He nodded and she lay the first one down along his back. She then gently picked up the other one with her magic. “Alright we really need to get to the clinic in a hurry, this one has lost a lot of blood. Rainbow, fly ahead and tell them that we‘ll be there shortly.” Her friends all nodded their agreement and they turned and hurried off towards the clinic. Applejack broke off from the group and went to the farmhouse to tend to Applebloom. The other three made their way down the road to Ponyville as fast as they could manage without causing anymore injury to the two creatures. Chapter 5As they made their way through town, the group got a lot of stares. Most of the stares could be assumed to be towards the two strange creatures being carried by Twilight and Big Mac. Twilight saw that several ponies began to huddle into groups, murmuring amongst each other. She knew they would most likely have questions and decided that something would need to be done to ensure that everyone’s questions could be answered. She pushed these thoughts to the back of her mind as she saw the clinic drawing closer. A few minutes later, they burst through the doors of the clinic. Nurse Redheart was standing there with Rainbow Dash, patiently awaiting their arrival. She had already brought out two gurneys and had informed the doctors of the incoming patients. Her eyes went wide as the creatures came into view, taking special note of the one that the blood covering most of its chest. She assisted Twilight and Big Mac in getting them onto the gurneys, and called for another nurse to assist her in pushing them to the OR. Upon their arrival, the doctors immediately got to work on the one that was covered in blood. They started with a simple medical scan to find the extent of the injuries, and to make sure that there wouldn’t be any adverse reactions to the healing spells. Once they were sure there wouldn’t be any issues, they began by carefully removing the clothing that covered the upper body of the creature, taking care not to open the wounds any further. Once they had finished that, they cleaned up the wound, as well as the area around it. They finished by stitching the wounds closed and casting a healing spell on them to promote healing. While magic couldn’t up and cure injuries in the blink of an eye, it could drastically cut down on the amount of recovery time needed by speeding up the body’s natural healing abilities. Thus, allowing a broken bone to be fully healed in only a week’s time; lesser injuries taking less time. When they finished their work, they had the nurse start an I.V. to start getting fluids back into the creature after having lost so much blood. They moved on to the less injured one next. Finding that most of its injuries were broken bones and bruising, they cast a spell to aid in bone mending. They wrapped up the injuries and did another scan of both to ensure that nothing had been missed. When they were sure that their work had been completed successfully, they told the nurses that they could be moved to start their recovery. Ponyville Clinic Lobby Twilight and her friends had decided to remain at the clinic and wait to hear word that the creatures were going to be OK. They now sat spread around the lobby, waiting patiently for one of the doctors or nurses to come back out and give them the news. They had been there going on two hours now and their conversations had gone from discussing the creatures, to basic small talk, to the comfortable silence they had settled into now. A light snoring could be heard coming from Rainbow Dash, who had settled in beside Twilight and was now sleeping peacefully with a wing draped over the lavender mare. Twilight contented herself with reading the magazines that had been left on a small table nearby, enjoying the warmth of her marefriend, her wing like a soft cozy blanket. Fluttershy sat a few seats down, reading a magazine. Occasionally, she would peer over the top of the magazine to glance at the red stallion sitting opposite of Rainbow and Twilight. From the look he wore, he was still distraught about the injuries he had unwittingly inflicted on the creature he had tackled. She desperately wanted to go comfort him, but her nerves would never allow her to do that. The door they had taken the creatures through opened, drawing everypony’s attention. Nurse Redheart stepped through the door, saw the group and trotted over, Twilight nudging Dash awake so she could hear what she had to say. Redheart stopped a few paces away, waiting for Rainbow to fully awaken before starting. “Both of the creatures are stable and look to make a full recovery.” She started with a smile. “They will be unconscious for the next five or six days while they recover.” A collective look of relief washed over all of the ponies before her. “Now I’m going to have to ask you all to leave, it’s getting late and we will inform you if anything changes.” They all got up and started heading towards the door, Twilight turning back towards her for a moment. “I’ll be sending a letter to the princess to tell her about the creatures, maybe she can shed some light on them.” Receiving a nod from Redheart, she turned back to catch up with the rest. Outside the clinic the four friends said their goodbyes as they each went their separate directions. Fluttershy watched Rainbow and Twilight as they headed towards the library, before looking the other direction to see Big Mac slowly making his way back towards Sweet Apple Acres. His hung held low and it was obvious that he was still upset with himself. She caught up to him and for a few minutes simply walked beside him. She mulled over different ideas of what she could say to the stallion to make him feel better, but everything she kept coming up with sounded half-hearted. Several times she caught him looking her direction and thought he was going to say something, but each time he simply put his head back down and continued on. She noticed that they were getting close to the intersection, where she would have to part ways so that she could get to her house, and decided that she had to say something, even if it wasn’t perfect. “U-um Big M-Macintosh?” The stallion slowed and turned to face her. “I know that… um… you feel bad about hu-hurting that poor creature, but… um…” She instinctively pulled back behind her mane but she fought to keep her voice audible. “I know you w-wouldn’t have hit it as hard if you knew that it could be hurt so easily. It was j-just an accident.” She mustered up her confidence and gave him a small smile, which he returned. “Thank ya kindly, Miss Fluttershy.” She felt a blush creep onto her face, and they continued on in silence until they reached the intersection that led to their respective homes and they had to part ways. Author's Note Sorry about the delays on chapter releases. New promotion at work left me with very little time to do anything at all. Chapter 6 Sweet Apple Acres - Earlier As Applejack walked into the farmhouse, the two fillies that had been waiting inside immediately rushed over to her from their places at Applebloom’s side. “Is Applebloom going to be OK?” Sweetie Belle asked with a worried look on her face. “That monster didn’t hurt her did it?” Scootaloo chimed in with the same look of worry on her face that Sweetie Belle had. “Ah don’t rightly know yet.” Applejack answered with a worried tone in her voice as she looked at her sister. “She took a nasty hit to th’ head, but we won’t know more ‘till she wakes up.” She picked her up from the couch, turned and headed up the stairs to Applebloom’s room. Opening the door, she gently set the filly down on her bed and pulled the covers over her. She then left and came back a few minutes later with an ice pack and a towel, both of which she placed over the bump on her sister’s head to try and reduce the swelling. Giving her sister one last nuzzle, she turned and headed back downstairs to where she had left Applebloom’s friends. “She’s restin’ now.” Applejack started before the two fillies could bombard her with questions she didn’t have the answers to. “Big Mac put a real hurtin’ on th’ critter that had been carryin‘ ‘er. Twilight an’ th’ rest of ‘em took it and th’ other one that was already hurt down t’ th’ clinic. Hopefully she can find out more about them when they come ‘round. Now y’all best be getting’ on home now, Applebloom needs her rest.” Both fillies nodded silently and made their way towards the door. After Sweetie Belle had gone outside, Scootaloo turned back to Applejack. “Um… Could… Could I stay here? I-I mean just until she wakes up? I’ll be quiet, I promise!” She said with a pleading look in her eyes. Applejack sighed and reluctantly agreed, the filly giving her a hug before heading over to the couch in the living room and getting comfortable. Applejack’s gaze lingered on the filly for a moment, wondering why she wouldn’t want to head back to her family, if nothing else than to tell them about the strange creature she had seen. She shrugged off the thoughts and headed back upstairs to check on her sister again. Ponyville Library - Current time Spike was sitting at the table in the middle of the library reading a book, wishing Twilight would come back so that he could get back to napping. He heard the faint hum of magic and turned to see the library door glowing with a lavender hue right before it opened, revealing Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash. “So do you think those creatures had anything to do with that strange thing we saw after the storm?” Dash asked Twilight. “I never thought about it, but it’s quite possible. The timing is awfully convenient for there not to be some connection.” Twilight got a thoughtful look in her eye. “Speaking of connections, did you see Big Mac and Fluttershy as we were leaving the clinic?” “Yeah. I wonder if those two will ever actually get together. Fluttershy is too… well… shy to ask him out, and Big Mac doesn’t talk enough.” Dash stated flatly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Yeah you’re right, they probably just need the right moment. I know another couple of ponies who didn’t take the hints right away…” Her voice trailed off and a smirk grew on her face as she shoved Dash playfully. “Why, whoever could you mean, dearest Twilight?” Dash replied in one of those snobby accents that she knew got under Twilight’s skin. She stuck her tongue out at her, the same playful smirk spreading over her own face. “Oh come here you.” Twilight said as she pulled the Pegasus into a deep kiss. She felt the Pegasus push back into the kiss. Her heart sped up and she could feel the flood of emotions well up inside of her. The moment was short lived, however, as they heard someone clear their throat behind them. They broke the kiss, both of them blushing furiously, awkward smiles on their faces. “Really guys?” Spike said, closing his book and heading for the kitchen, presumably to start dinner. “Well I should probably get to writing that letter to the Princess.” Twilight said and started walking over to her writing desk. “But don’t even think I’m finished with you yet.” She teased, flicking Dash with the end of her tail as she walked away. She sat down in front of her desk and used her magic to pull out a blank sheet of parchment and a quill. Dipping the quill in the inkwell she began her letter: Dear Princess Celestia, I am writing this letter to inform you that we have made a new discovery that may be related to the events I described in my previous letter. One of my friends, Fluttershy, was in the Everfree Forest today, when she spotted a strange creature that walked on two legs and looked like a monkey, only without fur or a tail. Soon after we went to Sweet Apple Acres, only to find that Applejack and her brother had subdued a creature that seemed to fit Fluttershy’s description of the creature she had seen in the forest. We found a second creature nearby that had been severely wounded. Both creatures are now being taking care of at the Ponyville Clinic. I respectfully request that you pay a visit to the clinic and see if you are able to shed any light on what these mysterious creatures may be. Your Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle Halfway through the letter, she had felt the breath of somepony on her neck, and knew that Dash had been reading over her shoulder as she wrote. “What do you think?” She asked Dash. “Sounds good to me.” Twilight rolled up the letter and tied a ribbon around it, and sealing it before standing up and walking towards the kitchen. The smells of whatever spike had started for dinner reminded her of just how hungry she was. Her stomach decided that it needed to voice its opinion on the matter and let loose a hearty growl, which earned a chuckle from Rainbow. Her laughter was short lived, however, as her own stomach gave a growl of its own in reply. Smiling sheepishly she got up and followed Twilight into the kitchen. “That smells amazing Spike! What’s cooking?” Rainbow said upon entering the kitchen. “Grilled daisy sandwiches and tomato soup with a dash of rose petals.” Spike said, beaming proudly at the compliment to his culinary skills. Dash heard the hum of magic and looked over to see Twilight levitating plates, bowls, and glasses out of a nearby cabinet and setting them neatly on the table. Dash opened the drawer where she knew the silverware was kept and brought out three spoons, setting them down beside the plates. Twilight’s horn flashed once more and the spoons aligned themselves perfectly with the plates. Dash gave her a deadpan look, as if to say ‘Really?’. Twilight just stuck her tongue out at the cyan Pegasus and took her seat. “Oh, Spike, I have a letter that I need you to send. It can wait till after dinner though, no hurry.” Twilight said. Spike just nodded in response, paying more attention to his cooking than to the conversation. Taking a sip from the spoon that he had been stirring with, he declared the meal ready to eat and brought the pot over and set it on the table, before heading back and grabbing the plate of sandwiches. He ladled out the soup and they all started digging in. “So what are these strange creatures you guys were talking about earlier?” Spike spoke up after swallowing a bite of his sandwich. Twilight finished chewing and swallowed before answering. “Nopony knows what they are. They might have something to do with the strange object that Dash and I saw after that storm. I’m asking the Princess to come and see them to see if she can shed any light as to what they are or where they came from. That’s what is in the letter I need you to send.” “I still say they’re aliens!” Dash said, earning a glare from Twilight. The rest of the meal was spent in silence. Once they finished, there was a unanimous agreement that the meal had been excellent. Twilight helped spike clear the dishes from the table and Dash went to retrieve the letter from Twilight’s desk. After depositing it on the kitchen table, she made her way to the bathroom for a nice hot shower. Twilight helped Spike finish up the dishes and had him send the letter off before making her way up to the bathroom, only to find it still occupied by the blue Pegasus. “You better not use up all the hot water again!” Twilight yelled through the door. She heard a mumbled response from the other side, but couldn’t make out what was said. Letting out a huff, she turned around and went back to the main room of the library. She levitated a book off of a nearby shelf and set it on her desk. She opened it to where the bookmark was and continued reading where she had left off while she waited for Dash to finish showering. Spike told her goodnight as he walked passed on the way to his room. They had cleared out one of the storage rooms, and refurnished it into a bedroom for the dragon after Rainbow Dash had moved in, to prevent any kind of… awkward incidents from happening. Twilight told him goodnight as well and went back to her reading. About fifteen minutes later she heard the bathroom door open. Tucking her bookmark back into the book, she returned it to its place on the shelf. She started down the hallway, meeting Rainbow halfway to the bathroom, her mane still wrapped up in a towel. “Don’t worry, I didn’t use up all the hot water.” Dash told her. Twilight gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, you heading to bed?” “Nah, not yet. I think I’m going to read a bit more of that new Daring Do book first.” Dash said before returning the kiss and heading off into the library. Twilight took her shower and came back out to find Dash asleep on the couch, sprawled out on her back, her book face down on the floor where it had fallen. Her hind leg twitched in her sleep and Twilight shook her head, a small smile on her mouth. “What am I going to do with you Dash?” She asked the sleeping Pegasus. Using her magic, she set the book on a nearby table and levitated the sleeping Pegasus up to their bed. Tucking her in, she gently climbed in beside her and wrapped her hooves around the sleeping mare, taking care not to wake her. The worries of the day melted away and Twilight was asleep almost instantly.
Chapter 1Alan let out a long drawn out sigh as he stood up, closing the door on his locker, before relocking it and giving a little tug to make sure the lock was secure. He zipped up his flight suit the rest of the way, then turned towards the bench he had just been sitting on and picked up his helmet. He always hated these kinds of training missions. Today they would be practicing rough terrain emergency landings and going over what to do in the event you are shot down in enemy territory. He idly looked his helmet over before heading for the door to the locker room. He opened the door and started out into the brightly lit hallway. His co-pilot was leaning against the wall opposite the door, their helmet pinned between their arm and hip. “I was beginning to wonder if I would need to send in a search and rescue team.” She said with a smirk. “Ha. Ha. You’re just too funny Alex.” His voice dripping sarcasm. She burst out laughing knowing he hated when she would come up with these little jokes of hers. “What am I going to do with you?” He asked her, his mouth forming its own little smirk. “Well I can think of quite a few things,” She said coyly, flashing him her best bedroom eyes, “But nothing we can do here.” Flashing him a smile, she laughed at him and started walking towards the end of the hall. She always loved getting him riled up, especially since she knew how to get past his defenses. Alan shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. How he let himself walk into embarrassing moments like that he had yet to figure out. He mentally chalked it up to being just one of the many things he loved about her. They had been flying together for the last couple of years on many different missions, both dangerous and routine. About a year after they had know each other, he finally managed to work up the nerve to ask her out for dinner one night after they had returned from another successful mission. Later on he had found out that she had liked him for several months prior to him asking her out, and was working up the nerve to ask him out. A voice calling out broke him out of his reverie. “Hey! You coming or are you just planning on staring at your helmet all day?” She called out, looking back around the corner at the end of the hallway. Looking up at her he realized that he had spaced out while unconsciously staring at the visor of his helmet. “Yeah, be right there.” He called back and started walking down the hall. She was waiting for him at the door as he rounded the corner. “You were thinking pretty hard back there.” She said as he approached. “Something on your mind?” “Yeah.” He said in a low tone, almost whispering. She leaned towards him a little bit so she could hear him better. “You.” He said before quickly leaning in the rest of the way and giving her a peck on the cheek before bolting out the door. She laughed and followed him outside. The oppressive heat hit them both once they cleared the doorway, bringing them both quickly back to reality. “Ugh… It should be illegal for it to be this hot so early in the morning.” He groaned, voicing his exasperation at the heat and grumbled under his breath, “I can’t wait until we can finally leave this damned country.” “It’s ten o’clock! Morning was a while ago.” She said to him with a chuckle. “But I totally agree, it’s WAY too hot already.” She glanced at the thermometer that was bolted to the outside wall of the building. It read one hundred three degrees. She cringed, and it felt like knowing the actual temperature made it somehow seem even hotter. “Well standing here isn’t making it any cooler.” She said as she started walking towards the group waiting around the nearby aircraft. “Might as well get this over with.” The next two hours were taken up by classes covering different topics that would help them out if they ever found themselves downed in hostile territory. Everything from finding camouflage, edible plants (not like it would help them much in this environment), and ways to cover your trail and keep from being followed. They also decided the order they would be going in for the next part of the class before breaking for lunch. They were told to meet back in the classroom in an hour, to wait for their turn to go. The exercise was going to be simple. They were going to take off from the base, fly for about thirty minutes to a designated strip of land that had been cleared by the engineers, and land their aircraft. Then they would take off again from their improvised runway and return to base. While they would probably never have a need for this training, it was designed to give the pilots some hands on experience incase they somehow got hit by small arms fire and were unable to make it back to base. “Shepherd. Cross. You’re up next.” Called the gruff voice of their commander, letting them know they needed to get their stuff together and be outside in five minutes. Alex put her phone away and looked over at Alan, who was laying on the desk sound asleep. “C’mon Alan, its our turn.” She said to him, gently nudging his shoulder. “Mhghm. Fi.. Min…” He mumbled as he turned his head to face the other direction. “Oh get up already!” She said as she unceremoniously upended the chair he was sitting in, causing him to tumble to the floor. She giggled at his hilarious reaction. “Woah!” He exclaimed as he tried futilely to get a grip on the desk as he fell. Hearing her giggle at him, he looked up at her with a smirk on his face. “Oh you think that’s funny?” He said as her giggle turning into outright laughter. “Well two can play at this game!” He said as he wrapped his foot around one of her chair legs and giving a sharp tug, sending her to the floor. Now it was his turn to laugh at her comical decent to the floor, trying to catch herself on the table just like he had, with the same amount of success. He stood up and righted his chair and extended his hand towards her. “Alright, how about we get going?” He said as she took hold of his hand and he pulled her up off the floor. They both picked up their helmets and started walking towards the door. She playfully shoved him against the table as she walked past him. They made their way outside to see the ground crews performing their final checks on the F-15 Eagle that they would be using for the test. Alan felt a giddy feeling well up inside of him as he looked at the aircraft. He had always loved the idea of flying. Even as a little kid he had always been into airplanes. When he was old enough, he had immediately signed up at the local Air Force recruiter, with his parent’s consent of course. He never knew that five years later it would land him in the middle of Kuwait. One of the hottest, most barren places he’d never want to see again. The only thing that made the whole ordeal even remotely tolerable was getting to share the time with the love of his life. Thirty minutes later they were strapped in and sitting at the end of the runway waiting on clearance from the tower before beginning their speedy takeoff. “Flight 114 you are go for takeoff.” The voice came through the headset that was built into their helmets. “Roger that tower.” Alan responded, before going through the motions that were almost second nature to him now. Feeling the engines rumble as the aircraft started moving forward. Once he reached the proper airspeed he pulled back on the stick and felt the tale tell signs of defying gravity. He also felt the adrenaline rushing through his system, another one of the things he loved about flying. “You alright back there?” He asked Alex through the headset. “You better believe it! That never gets old!” She exclaimed happily. They both had been turned into adrenaline junkies and they indulged whenever they could. Many times they had gone to different theme parks for the sole purpose of riding all of the most extreme roller coasters they could find. The steeper and taller the better had become their unspoken motto. But nothing compared to the rush they got during takeoff. “They really need to find a way to make an amusement park ride feel like that.” She said back, laughing at the thought. “Ha Ha! That would be awesome!” He laughed back, hitting the switch to bring up the landing gear, feeling the thump as they fully retracted. The short flight was almost over and he started lining up with the improvised runway and began their descent. It was weird not seeing all the usual markings of a regular runway. The only markings they had were the four humvee’s that were parked at either side of the start and end of the cleared area. He hit the switch to lower the landing gear and waited for the thump of them locking into place. Once the light came on signaling that the landing gear was locked he brought them in for a very bumpy landing. After getting their aircraft turned around, and being told that they had passed the landing, they were once again airborne and on their way back to base. About twenty minutes into the return flight, Alex spoke up suddenly. “Hey, you see that? Out at two o’clock up above us.” She said, a hint of nervousness in her voice. Alan looked around for what she was looking at. He finally spotted it. It looked like a tiny thunderstorm cloud. It was weird because there were usually no clouds this time of year, nothing that could make a thunderstorm anyway. “What the…” was Alan’s response. “I’m going to take us a little closer and take a look.” He told Alex, veering them in the direction of the tiny storm. As they approached it became clear that the whole cloud was probably no bigger than a small table. “Well that has got to be the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.” He stated flatly. “Gotta agree with you there.” Alex replied. “We should probably radio this back to base.” Watching the cloud travel the horizon as Alan turned back in the direction of the base. Suddenly there was a noise that sounded like a huge thunderclap, and the small storm cloud suddenly expanded into a huge storm cloud. It engulfed their airplane and kept expanding rapidly. Before either of them could say anything a lightning bolt struck the fuselage. Warning buzzers went off as several systems were shorted out by the massive voltage that had been forced through them. Two of those systems, unfortunately, were the I.F.F. transponder that identified them as a friendly to their own anti-air systems on the ground; the other was their radio transmitter. Suddenly a new alarm started blaring, louder than the rest: one of the SAM sites on the ground had locked onto them and fired. “Oh Shit, Oh Shit, OH SHIT!” Alan panicked as he saw the screen light up with 4 icons of the incoming missiles. “Hang on!” He yelled over the headset before pulling the plane into a high angle ascent. Looking back at the screen he watched as the missiles drew closer. He slammed the chaff button, launching the flares designed to throw the missiles off course. He banked left and headed in the opposite direction of the base. Boom. Boom. Boom. Three of the missiles had detonated on the flares but the fourth changed course and proceeded to close the distance to them. He hit the chaff button again and a warning alarm went off, signaling that the launch mechanism was inoperative. “OH GREAT! Just what I needed!” He yelled exasperatedly. “What’s wrong?” Alex yelled back. “The firing mechanism on the second set of chaffs isn’t working.” “Try it again!” “I have tried it again!” He yelled, pounding on the button several times, as if to emphasize his point. The close proximity alarm chose this exact moment to go off, signally the missile was less than one hundred meters from them. “Alright, that’s it!” He growled, grabbing the throttle and increasing their speed, trying to buy them some extra time. He watched as their airspeed approached seven hundred MPH. “Hang on!” He told Alex. He fired the afterburners and they went supersonic. The missile was still closing in, at a much slower rate now, but they were also heading back into the storm. He hit the chaff button again, a slim hope that it would somehow work if he hit it hard enough. On his third hit the warning alarm shut off as the firing mechanism kicked in and deployed the flares. They were blinded a sudden flash, and a dull explosion sent vibrations through the airplane.
Chapter 2Twilight Sparkle stood on the outskirts of town, her coat completely soaked from the storm that was slowly moving towards Ponyville. The high speed winds making the raindrops sting, and causing debris to be cast about, making it even more dangerous. She had already been saved twice now by the cyan Pegasus who stood dutifully at her side, keeping a constant vigil for any more deadly objects being hurled by the wind. While weather over the Everfree Forest was unusual in the fact that it controlled itself for the most part, this particular storm had come across some ancient magic somewhere in the forest while forming. The magic causing the storm to intensify, producing severe rain and almost tornado scale wind. The storm had started to slowly drift in the direction of Ponyville, and while the Pegasai of the weather team would usually have no problems dissipating the storm before it could cause any damage, the magic within the storm would continuously thwart all of their attempts at breaking up the clouds. For the third time, Twilight closed her eyes and reached out with her magic. Visualizing the storm, she started casting a magic dispelling field and a cloud evaporation spell simultaneously over the area that the storm covered. The rain started to slow, and there was an almost imperceptible shrinking effect on the edges of the storm. Gradually the storm became visibly smaller, when suddenly Twilight’s eyes shot open, a look of fear upon her face. “Something is happening!” She shouted over the wind. “The magic inside of the storm is reacting with-” She was suddenly cut off by what sounded like a massive explosion. Without warning the storm suddenly shrank in on itself and disappeared in a blinding light. The howling wind was replaced by an ear piercing noise that they had never heard before. Covering their ears, they looked up where the storm had just been, and they both saw something streaking away over the Everfree. They barely got a look at it before it was out of their sights, some sort of large, grey, flat object. Both of them felt a chill run down their spines that wasn’t caused by being soaked the bone. “We need to tell the Princess about this.” Twilight said, both of them still staring out over the forest in the direction the object had gone, the same look of fear on both of their faces. “Yeah. I’ve never seen anything move that bucking fast before. Except me of course.” Rainbow Dash said, the cockiness that was meant to be there was lost in the feeling of fear that was running through her. “Let’s get back and get dried off before we both get sick.” Twilight said and turned around as they both started heading back towards the library so she could send her letter to Princess Celestia about what they had seen. ‘Great, now we’re dead. Wait is this what dead feels like? It feels like I’m still moving.’ He thought to himself. As his hearing slowly started to return, it brought with it the sounds of the aircraft he was used to hearing. ‘Guess I can check dead off the checklist.’ As his vision slowly returned, he blinked several times. Rubbing his eyes and blinking again he had a hard time believing what his eyes were seeing. Below him, in every direction, was a sea of green. Instead of the barren desert that had been under him moments ago, there was now a vast forest of green trees. “Alex, are you seeing what I’m seeing?” He asked over the headset. “I’m seeing it, but I’m not believing it.” “Was there even any place nearby that could have this many trees?” “Not within flight distance.” He slowed the aircraft down to subsonic speeds as Alex tried to raise the base on the radio. “Radio’s busted.” She said in an annoyed tone. Alan looked at the fuel gage, noting that they were at half. Looking around in every direction, he noticed no signs of civilization. He banked left and started back the way that they had come from. After another five minutes heading this direction, he noticed the edge of the forest slowly coming into view, along with a welcoming sight on the horizon. “Hey, check it out, ten o’clock low.” He told Alex. “Finally! I was beginning to wonder if we would ever find signs of life.” She replied, her voice gaining a bit of pep. He looked back at the edge of the forest and noticed that there was a road running parallel to the forest. “I’m going to set us down.” He said as he started slowing for the descent. Lining up with the road he continued to slow down, hitting the switch to lower the landing gear. After the indicator showing the landing gear was locked lit up, he finished the descent. This landing however was his least graceful by far. The rough dirt road was much more uneven than the area they had practiced on. More than once he had gone off the road to either side. They finally came to a rest sitting at an angle across the road. Both of them just sat there for a few minutes, catching their breath and realizing how close they had come to no longer being with the living. “Let’s never do that again.” Alex said, the fear evident in her voice. “Agreed.” Alan replied, just as shaken as she was. “Alright, enough talk. Let me out of this death trap.” “Right there with ya.” He said, flipping the switch to open the canopy. Relief flowed over him as he watched it slowly slide rearward. Once the canopy was all the way back, he turned everything off and undid his harness before climbing out onto the wing. He was quickly joined by Alex who started removing the pistol holster from her leg. “What are you doing?” He asked, raising an eyebrow at her quizzically. “Getting out of this flight suit and heading to the nearest tree.” She said in a hurried tone as she unzipped the flight suit and extracted her limbs from it before tossing it back into the cockpit. She picked up her holster and proceeded to climb down before running to the tree line. Alan just shook his head and laughed. “When you gotta go, you gotta go.” He chuckled to himself as he tossed his own flight suit into the cockpit before closing the canopy. He reached down and reattached his own holster to his thigh, making sure that it wasn’t too tight. After he climbed down, he took a few minutes stretching out his muscles. He was just about to start looking the airplane over for any damages that may have been inflicted, when he heard two gunshots ring out in the quiet air from the direction Alex had gone. He un-holstered his pistol and took off into the woods in search of Alex.
Chapter 3Alex buttoned her pants and refastened her belt, relieved that she had forgotten to throw away the napkins she had shoved into her pocket during lunch. In her haste to relieve herself, she had forgotten to take any toiletries, only having realized her mistake after she had done her business. As she was reattaching her holster to her leg, she glanced up and saw something yellow standing out amongst the greens and browns of the forest. Her interest piqued, she slowly made her way over to try and get a better look at what the object could be. As she neared the yellow object, she took cover behind the trunk of a rather large tree. Peeking around the side of the tree, her jaw dropped as she took in the sight before her. About twenty yards in front of her was a yellow horse. She immediately corrected herself and changed her assumption to pony, given its diminutive size. The most outstanding feature, however, was the long mane that hung from the creature’s head. The long flowing mane was absurdly enough, pink. The first thoughts that ran through her mind were that this pony belonged to a child, and the parents had dyed the coat and mane. It didn't really explain the length of the mane and tail, but it was the best she could come up with. It’s head was held low to the ground, and it was making weird noises towards what looked to be a squirrel. Before she could take in anymore of the strange scene playing out before her, a subtle movement in the darkness of the tree line on the opposite side of the pony caught her attention. Her eyes flicked to where she had seen the movement. Squinting, she tried to make out the details in the darkness of the forest. She saw movement again, and what appeared to be the head of a lion. She immediately put two and two together and her hand moved to her pistol, quietly undoing the snaps on the holster that held it in place. If this pony did belong to some little girl, then saving it would go a long way towards gaining the trust of the locals. Especially since they had no idea where on Earth they were. She quietly crept closer to where the pony was standing, trying her best to not make any noise that would startle the animal. About halfway there, her boot caught on a piece of undergrowth, causing it to rustle. Cursing under her breath, she looked back towards the pony, just in time to see the pony’s head snap up, facing her general direction. Her unwitting distraction of the pony gave the big cat the opportunity it needed and it lunged out of its hiding spot towards the helpless pony, letting loose a frightening roar as it charged. The pony’s head snapped back towards the charging predator, but instead of fleeing, it simply lay down on the ground. “NO!!” Alex screamed, raising her pistol and firing two shots at the big carnivore. To her surprise the creature hit the ground and rolled, stopping about ten feet from the cowering pony, which promptly bolted off into the forest. For a split second, she could have sworn that she had seen wings attached to the sides of the pony, but immediately dismissed the thought as just an optical illusion. She started to turn back towards the creature she had just shot, when she heard the sound of something rushing through the undergrowth behind her. She quickly spun around, her pistol raised to face the new threat. “Alex!!” She heard Alan yelling. “Alan! Over here!” She yelled back, letting out a sigh of relief and returning her pistol to her holster. Alan emerged from the trees a few moments later, and she waved to let him know where she was. “Are you alright?” He asked her with a frantic look in his eyes as he approached, putting his own pistol back in its holster. “Yeah I’m fine, but you aren't going to believe what just happened,“ She said, motioning towards the downed creature with the thumb of her left hand. “Literally.” She turned around and slowly started making her way over towards it. When she got close enough to make out details, she gasped, covering her mouth with her hand as she stared at the still un-moving body. While for the most part, the creature did in fact look like a lion, there were clearly some differences that ended there. The first was the large pair of wings that were sticking out of its back, looking something like giant bat wings. The second being the giant scorpion tail that replaced the normal cat tail that one would expect to see in its place. “What the fuck is going on around here?” Alan breathed, almost a whisper, as he took in the sight of the strange creature. Ignoring his question, Alex’s view moved to the creature’s head, where she noticed why she had been able to down the creature so easily. Her first shot had simply ricocheted off of it’s thick skull, but the second shot had hit it’s left eye, presumably going straight through to its brain; she had scored a kill shot. Alan knelt down next to the creature, taking hold of one of its wings and extending it out to get a better look at it. He was just about to move down to the tail, when he heard something that sounded like a low growl. “Did you hear that?” He asked. “Hear what?” Before he could answer her, another of the creatures appeared behind her. It’s mouth clamped down on her right shoulder and it took off, running deeper into the woods. “Alex!!” He screamed as he took off in the same direction the creature had run, it’s large size making it easy to follow as it tore through the undergrowth. While he was nowhere near as fast as the creature, he still pushed on, hoping he could catch up to the creature before anything else happened to Alex. Sweat was already dripping from his chin and her screams were fueling his adrenaline as he chased the creature down. The thick trees quickly dissipated into a small clearing. In the middle of the clearing, were three of the creatures surrounding Alex, who had her pistol out in her left hand. She was pointing it at the creatures as they circled around her, attempting to dissuade them from their goal of making her their next meal. Alan took the opportunity while the creatures were focused on her, and opened fire on the nearest one. He shot seven rounds in quick succession, all of them hitting it in the side before it could react, dropping it instantly. The other two immediately turned to face the new threat, their meal temporarily forgotten as they charged Alan. He raised his pistol and fired the five remaining rounds in his magazine at the two charging creatures. Two of the rounds caught one of them in the wing and a third catching the other in the leg, causing it to stumble. He pressed the magazine release and let the spent magazine fall to the ground. At the same time he reached down and pulled his spare magazine out of his holster. He looked up just in time to see the first creature leap into the air at him. He dove to the ground, narrowly avoiding the beast. The act causing him to accidentally drop his magazine, where it promptly disappeared into the undergrowth of the forest. He cursed his luck under his breath, and heard several more shots ring out from Alex’s direction. He looked back and saw the creature he had hit in the leg slump to the ground just a few short feet behind him. He looked over at Alex, only to see her fall over sideways, her pistol falling from her hand. “Alex!!” He shouted, receiving no response. He looked behind him and saw that the creature that he had dodged was already getting back up on it’s feet. Pushing himself up off the ground, he sprinted over to where Alex lay and picked up her pistol. He turned around just in time to see the creature flying through the air at him. It tackled him as he fired off the rest of the magazine into it’s massive chest. It’s claws dug into him as they hit the ground, the creature dead on top of him. After a couple of minutes, he managed to slide out from under the creature, and went over to check on Alex. She was still breathing, but her breaths were shallow and ragged. She had lost a lot of blood and needed medical attention soon. He put her pistol back into her holster, and picked her up before taking a look around. Noticing a slightly brighter patch of forest, he started making his way off in that direction. The forest gradually continued to brighten as he pushed on, and he finally came out of the forest. The sight that greeted him was a veritable forest of apple trees, stretching on as far as he could see. There was a low, white, wooden fence that ran off in either direction, and he could just see the top of a red building sticking up over the tree tops. His arms were burning from the exertion he had been through, along with carrying the unconscious Alex, and he decided to put her down here and go for help. He gently set her down and leaned her against one of the wooden fence posts, making sure she wouldn't fall over, the action causing her to stir back to consciousness. “Don’t try to move. There’s a house over this way, I’m going to go get help.” He told her, motioning off in the direction he had seen the building. She simply nodded and drifted back into unconsciousness. He was about to turn and head towards the unknown building when he heard the sound of something approaching, and what faintly sounded like some sort of conversation. He turned around expecting to see local workers or perhaps the farmer who owned this orchard, but nothing prepared him for what he saw as he turned around. Standing near the next tree, were three small ponies. Fillies or colts they were called if he remembered right from the time he had spent on his grandpa’s farm. The thing that really threw him for a loop, was their colors. One was yellow with a red mane and tail, it even had a huge pink bow tied in its mane! To it’s left was an orange one with purple hair, and he could swear it looked like it had wings. To the right was a white one with a blend of purple and pink in its mane, and it definitely had a horn sticking straight out from it’s head. He watched in silence as the orange one looked at the yellow one and made some strange noises. To his surprise the yellow one looked back and seemed to answer, making more of the weird noises. Were they… communicating? He watched as the two continued their ‘conversation’, their volume increasing almost as if they were having an argument. He stood up and started walking towards them. They had apparently not noticed him until he moved, as all three of them turned and looked directly at him. What could only be described as looks of fear were painted on all three of their faces. The orange and white ones turned and ran off in the direction of the building he had seen earlier. The yellow one hesitated for a few seconds, before turning and running head first into the tree it had been standing beside, knocking itself out cold. He winced at the sound of the impact and went over to make sure it was OK. He picked it up, finding it surprisingly light and examined its head. A nasty bump was already forming, and a little bit of blood was showing where the skin had been broken. Figuring it to be a pet given the weird coloring and the huge bow, he started off in the direction of what he assumed would be a farmhouse. About a few minutes later, he came out of the trees about fifty yards away from a large, red barn. He stopped in his tracks at what he saw. Next to the barn were the other two fillies who had run off earlier, and next to them was a larger pony with an orange mane and what looked to be a cowboy had on it’s head. ‘Man, whoever owns these ponies is weird.’ he thought to himself. The two fillies were standing in front of the older one, making all kinds of noise, the white one turned to look in his direction and immediately got louder. It’s gaze was soon shared by the other filly and the older pony. The older one suddenly adopted an aggressive stance and started pawing the ground. Looking down at the unconscious filly in his hands, realization kicked in, and he immediately realized how bad this situation must look from the pony’s perspective. As he looked back up to the now charging pony, the larger one he figured must be the mother, and he was now holding one of its young, which wasn't moving. “Aww… crap.” He said. Hurriedly setting down the unconscious filly, he turned and bolted back in the direction he had come from, hoping that the enraged mother would stop to check on her offspring instead of chasing him. Turning his head back briefly, he saw that his plan had actually worked as she was now standing protectively over the filly, nuzzling it gently. His celebration was short lived, however, as he heard the telltale sound of a horse at full gallop. He turned his head to see a wall of red coming at him, the warning had come all too late as the horse slammed into his side. He was sent flying about twenty feet, before slamming into one of the apple trees, knocking him out cold.
Chapter 4Twilight Sparkle watched as Spike breathed fire over the rolled up parchment, transforming it into a puff of smoke that made it’s way out a nearby window. Hearing the bathroom door open, she turned to see Rainbow Dash coming down the stairs with a towel draped over her back. “That shower felt amazing!” Rainbow said as she reached the bottom of the stairs. She shook out her mane, throwing loose droplets everywhere, much to the unicorn’s displeasure. Twilight opened her mouth to scold the Pegasus, but was abruptly cut off as the library door burst open. A familiar yellow Pegasus stood in the doorway, panting heavily. They both turned to face her, Twilight speaking up first. “Fluttershy! What-” “Twilight!... In… The woods!… Monster!” Fluttershy said, her sentence punctuated by gasps. The look of fear on her face adding emphasis to her words. Twilight and Rainbow rushed to her side. Trying to calm her down so that she could tell them what had happened. Ten minutes and two cups of tea later, she was finally calm enough to recount her story. “Well, I w-was out in the f-f-forest after the storm had cleared,” She paused, taking another sip of tea from her cup. “I w-was checking o-on the little c-critters, making s-sure they were OK.” She pause again to take another drink. “I heard a noise and w-when I looked up, I s-saw a creature I’ve n-never seen before. It stood on two legs and it kind of looked like a monkey, but without the fur all over.” “Woah. Do you think it was an alien?” Rainbow cut in. “Um… I don’t really know. As soon as I turned to look at it, a Manticore jumped out from the forest behind me!” “Oh my gosh! Are you alright? How did you manage to get away?” Twilight asked worriedly. “Um… I’m not sure. I was so afraid of the Manticore, that I just froze up. Then I heard the creature scream, and two really loud noises came from where it had been standing. It sounded like thunder, only it was much, much louder. Then the Manticore fell to the ground, and I took off running and made my way here.” Fluttershy said, finishing off her tea and setting the cup on the table. “Was it some kind of magic?” Twilight asked. “I don’t think so, there was just the noise.” “It’s got to be an alien!” Rainbow exclaimed, a look of worry quickly coming across her face. “What if it followed you here?” “Stop it Rainbow, aliens don’t exist.” Scolded Twilight. “If it is some new kind of creature that we haven’t seen before, it could have some kind of magic or special defenses that we haven’t heard of before either. Whatever it is, we should go check it out.” She said, a spark of excitement flashing in her eyes at the prospect of a new discovery. “I dunno Twi, what if it’s dangerous like ‘Shy said?” “Let’s grab Applejack just incase it’s hostile and we have to detain it. Spike! We’re heading out! Watch the library while I’m gone!” She called out to her assistant. They were already on there way without waiting for a response, not wanting to delay their discovery any longer than necessary. Sweet Apple Acres - Earlier Applejack finished putting the last cart of apples away in the barn. Wiping the sweat off her brow, she walked back outside, feeling accomplished with her hard day’s work. She got about three feet outside the barn when Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle came charging at her from out of the orchard. “Applejack! Applejack!” They both yelled as they closed the distance. “Now what ‘n th’ hay has gotten inta’ y’all?” She asked in a condescending tone. “There was a monster!” Scootaloo cried. “Two of them!” Sweetie Belle corrected. “And one of them was covered in blood!” “And the other tried to get us!” “But we left it in the dust! Didn’t we Applebloom?” Scootaloo asked, but received no reply. “Applebloom?” Sweetie Belle asked, looking back. Not seeing her friend, she looked back towards the way they had come from. To her horror she saw that the monster had followed them and was now standing at the edge of the orchard, staring at them. “There it is!” She cried, pointing a hoof in it’s direction, causing Scootaloo and Applejack to follow her gaze. “And it’s got Applebloom!” Hearing that the monster had her sister, Applejack turned towards the creature and started pawing at the ground, getting ready to charge. She could see Applebloom in its arms, but she wasn’t moving. Her blood boiled at the thought of harm coming to her little sister. She took off towards it, and the creature’s face suddenly turned to a look of surprise. It put Applebloom on the ground before turning and running back into the orchard. She saw Big Macintosh running full speed right towards the creature and knew he would have no trouble catching it, so she stopped once she reached her sister to see if she was OK. Leaning down, she gave her an affectionate nuzzle but got no response. Her chest rose and fell, so she was still breathing, but she was out cold. A nasty bump could be seen forming on top of her head as well as a little bit of blood, now matted in her fur. She put Applebloom on her back and made her way back to the farmhouse, telling Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo to head inside as well. As she turned back towards the house, she saw her friends running up the path that led to the road. “Applejack!” Twilight called out when she got closer. “We need… your help… creature…” Not being the most athletic mare, she was severely winded from the run. Her gasping for much needed air was preventing her from forming complete sentences. Applejack raised an eyebrow, and Rainbow Dash took the opportunity to fill her in properly. “Shy saw some strange hairless monkey thing in the forest, and Twi here wants you to help us catch it.” She said, a little bit of her excitement making it’s way through her cool exterior. Just then they heard the sound of something hitting a tree… hard. “Well, ah jus’ chased a critter off that sounds like what yer talkin’ ‘bout. It came outta th’ orchard carryin’ Applebloom. Sounds like Big Mac jus’ caught it.” Applejack said, turning towards the direction the sound had come from. She went inside and put Applebloom on the couch, telling Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle to look after her before heading back outside. Once she returned, the four of them quickly made their way through the orchard, eager to see if this was the same creature that Fluttershy had seen in the forest earlier. As they approached, they saw Big Mac sitting on his haunches in front of the creature that was now slumped against one of the apple trees. It was definitely an odd looking creature. As Fluttershy had said, it had no fur, save for a brown patch on top of its head and above its eyes. Its muzzle was short, barely making a bump on the front of its face. It’s front arms ended in hands that looked similar to spike’s, but the talons weren’t as sharp looking. It also wore some kind of strange clothing, that was grayish with blue splotches all over. If Rarity could see it, she would declare it a crime against fashion. Twilight cautiously walked over to the creature, her horn lighting up as she cast a spell to check on the creature’s condition. A look of surprise came across her face as the extent of the damages were revealed. “Wow Big Mac! You really did a number on it! It’s got several cracked ribs, a concussion, and a dislocated shoulder.” She stated, looking back at the large workhorse. “Ah didn’t think ah hit ‘em that hard.” He said, looking upset that he had unwittingly hurt the creature so seriously. “Well, it will live, but we need to get it to the clinic as soon as possible.” “You sure about that Twi? If it hurt Applebloom I don’t think we should be helping it.” Rainbow Dash spoke up. “Even so, we still need to study it, and some things can’t be studied if it’s dead.” Twilight said, her horn lighting up again and her magic gently lifting the creature off the ground. “Wow, it’s heavier than it looks!” She exclaimed. Rainbow’s ears suddenly perked up, and she looked off deeper into the orchard. “Did you guys hear that?” She asked. They all listened intently, all of them scarcely breathing. A few seconds later they heard what sounded like a faint cough coming from the direction Dash was looking in. “I knew I heard something!” she exclaimed, taking to the air and heading off in the direction of the sound. “Rainbow! Wait for us!” Twilight yelled fruitlessly as they all gave chase. She took care to make sure she didn’t run the creature she was levitating into anything as they went to investigate. A short walk brought them to the fence that marked the boundaries of Sweet Apple Acres. “Hey guys! Over here! I found another one and it looks like its been hurt pretty bad!” Dash called out as she saw her friends emerge. She looked back down at the creature before her. It looked similar to the one they had found but was a bit smaller and the fur on its head was a blonde instead of brown. It wore the same clothing, and blood covered the clothing on its right shoulder and part of it’s chest. It’s breathing was very labored and it looked a lot more pale in comparison to the other one. “Oh my, is it still alive?” Fluttershy asked when she saw the blood. “It’s still breathing.” Dash answered. “Twi, are you gonna be able to carry both of these things?” She asked. “No, they are a lot heavier than they look. Big Mac, could you carry this one?” She said, motioning towards the one in her telekinetic grip. “I don’t want to risk making the other one’s condition worse by having it bounce around.” He nodded and she lay the first one down along his back. She then gently picked up the other one with her magic. “Alright we really need to get to the clinic in a hurry, this one has lost a lot of blood. Rainbow, fly ahead and tell them that we‘ll be there shortly.” Her friends all nodded their agreement and they turned and hurried off towards the clinic. Applejack broke off from the group and went to the farmhouse to tend to Applebloom. The other three made their way down the road to Ponyville as fast as they could manage without causing anymore injury to the two creatures.
Chapter 5As they made their way through town, the group got a lot of stares. Most of the stares could be assumed to be towards the two strange creatures being carried by Twilight and Big Mac. Twilight saw that several ponies began to huddle into groups, murmuring amongst each other. She knew they would most likely have questions and decided that something would need to be done to ensure that everyone’s questions could be answered. She pushed these thoughts to the back of her mind as she saw the clinic drawing closer. A few minutes later, they burst through the doors of the clinic. Nurse Redheart was standing there with Rainbow Dash, patiently awaiting their arrival. She had already brought out two gurneys and had informed the doctors of the incoming patients. Her eyes went wide as the creatures came into view, taking special note of the one that the blood covering most of its chest. She assisted Twilight and Big Mac in getting them onto the gurneys, and called for another nurse to assist her in pushing them to the OR. Upon their arrival, the doctors immediately got to work on the one that was covered in blood. They started with a simple medical scan to find the extent of the injuries, and to make sure that there wouldn’t be any adverse reactions to the healing spells. Once they were sure there wouldn’t be any issues, they began by carefully removing the clothing that covered the upper body of the creature, taking care not to open the wounds any further. Once they had finished that, they cleaned up the wound, as well as the area around it. They finished by stitching the wounds closed and casting a healing spell on them to promote healing. While magic couldn’t up and cure injuries in the blink of an eye, it could drastically cut down on the amount of recovery time needed by speeding up the body’s natural healing abilities. Thus, allowing a broken bone to be fully healed in only a week’s time; lesser injuries taking less time. When they finished their work, they had the nurse start an I.V. to start getting fluids back into the creature after having lost so much blood. They moved on to the less injured one next. Finding that most of its injuries were broken bones and bruising, they cast a spell to aid in bone mending. They wrapped up the injuries and did another scan of both to ensure that nothing had been missed. When they were sure that their work had been completed successfully, they told the nurses that they could be moved to start their recovery. Ponyville Clinic Lobby Twilight and her friends had decided to remain at the clinic and wait to hear word that the creatures were going to be OK. They now sat spread around the lobby, waiting patiently for one of the doctors or nurses to come back out and give them the news. They had been there going on two hours now and their conversations had gone from discussing the creatures, to basic small talk, to the comfortable silence they had settled into now. A light snoring could be heard coming from Rainbow Dash, who had settled in beside Twilight and was now sleeping peacefully with a wing draped over the lavender mare. Twilight contented herself with reading the magazines that had been left on a small table nearby, enjoying the warmth of her marefriend, her wing like a soft cozy blanket. Fluttershy sat a few seats down, reading a magazine. Occasionally, she would peer over the top of the magazine to glance at the red stallion sitting opposite of Rainbow and Twilight. From the look he wore, he was still distraught about the injuries he had unwittingly inflicted on the creature he had tackled. She desperately wanted to go comfort him, but her nerves would never allow her to do that. The door they had taken the creatures through opened, drawing everypony’s attention. Nurse Redheart stepped through the door, saw the group and trotted over, Twilight nudging Dash awake so she could hear what she had to say. Redheart stopped a few paces away, waiting for Rainbow to fully awaken before starting. “Both of the creatures are stable and look to make a full recovery.” She started with a smile. “They will be unconscious for the next five or six days while they recover.” A collective look of relief washed over all of the ponies before her. “Now I’m going to have to ask you all to leave, it’s getting late and we will inform you if anything changes.” They all got up and started heading towards the door, Twilight turning back towards her for a moment. “I’ll be sending a letter to the princess to tell her about the creatures, maybe she can shed some light on them.” Receiving a nod from Redheart, she turned back to catch up with the rest. Outside the clinic the four friends said their goodbyes as they each went their separate directions. Fluttershy watched Rainbow and Twilight as they headed towards the library, before looking the other direction to see Big Mac slowly making his way back towards Sweet Apple Acres. His hung held low and it was obvious that he was still upset with himself. She caught up to him and for a few minutes simply walked beside him. She mulled over different ideas of what she could say to the stallion to make him feel better, but everything she kept coming up with sounded half-hearted. Several times she caught him looking her direction and thought he was going to say something, but each time he simply put his head back down and continued on. She noticed that they were getting close to the intersection, where she would have to part ways so that she could get to her house, and decided that she had to say something, even if it wasn’t perfect. “U-um Big M-Macintosh?” The stallion slowed and turned to face her. “I know that… um… you feel bad about hu-hurting that poor creature, but… um…” She instinctively pulled back behind her mane but she fought to keep her voice audible. “I know you w-wouldn’t have hit it as hard if you knew that it could be hurt so easily. It was j-just an accident.” She mustered up her confidence and gave him a small smile, which he returned. “Thank ya kindly, Miss Fluttershy.” She felt a blush creep onto her face, and they continued on in silence until they reached the intersection that led to their respective homes and they had to part ways. Author's Note Sorry about the delays on chapter releases. New promotion at work left me with very little time to do anything at all.
Chapter 6 Sweet Apple Acres - Earlier As Applejack walked into the farmhouse, the two fillies that had been waiting inside immediately rushed over to her from their places at Applebloom’s side. “Is Applebloom going to be OK?” Sweetie Belle asked with a worried look on her face. “That monster didn’t hurt her did it?” Scootaloo chimed in with the same look of worry on her face that Sweetie Belle had. “Ah don’t rightly know yet.” Applejack answered with a worried tone in her voice as she looked at her sister. “She took a nasty hit to th’ head, but we won’t know more ‘till she wakes up.” She picked her up from the couch, turned and headed up the stairs to Applebloom’s room. Opening the door, she gently set the filly down on her bed and pulled the covers over her. She then left and came back a few minutes later with an ice pack and a towel, both of which she placed over the bump on her sister’s head to try and reduce the swelling. Giving her sister one last nuzzle, she turned and headed back downstairs to where she had left Applebloom’s friends. “She’s restin’ now.” Applejack started before the two fillies could bombard her with questions she didn’t have the answers to. “Big Mac put a real hurtin’ on th’ critter that had been carryin‘ ‘er. Twilight an’ th’ rest of ‘em took it and th’ other one that was already hurt down t’ th’ clinic. Hopefully she can find out more about them when they come ‘round. Now y’all best be getting’ on home now, Applebloom needs her rest.” Both fillies nodded silently and made their way towards the door. After Sweetie Belle had gone outside, Scootaloo turned back to Applejack. “Um… Could… Could I stay here? I-I mean just until she wakes up? I’ll be quiet, I promise!” She said with a pleading look in her eyes. Applejack sighed and reluctantly agreed, the filly giving her a hug before heading over to the couch in the living room and getting comfortable. Applejack’s gaze lingered on the filly for a moment, wondering why she wouldn’t want to head back to her family, if nothing else than to tell them about the strange creature she had seen. She shrugged off the thoughts and headed back upstairs to check on her sister again. Ponyville Library - Current time Spike was sitting at the table in the middle of the library reading a book, wishing Twilight would come back so that he could get back to napping. He heard the faint hum of magic and turned to see the library door glowing with a lavender hue right before it opened, revealing Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash. “So do you think those creatures had anything to do with that strange thing we saw after the storm?” Dash asked Twilight. “I never thought about it, but it’s quite possible. The timing is awfully convenient for there not to be some connection.” Twilight got a thoughtful look in her eye. “Speaking of connections, did you see Big Mac and Fluttershy as we were leaving the clinic?” “Yeah. I wonder if those two will ever actually get together. Fluttershy is too… well… shy to ask him out, and Big Mac doesn’t talk enough.” Dash stated flatly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Yeah you’re right, they probably just need the right moment. I know another couple of ponies who didn’t take the hints right away…” Her voice trailed off and a smirk grew on her face as she shoved Dash playfully. “Why, whoever could you mean, dearest Twilight?” Dash replied in one of those snobby accents that she knew got under Twilight’s skin. She stuck her tongue out at her, the same playful smirk spreading over her own face. “Oh come here you.” Twilight said as she pulled the Pegasus into a deep kiss. She felt the Pegasus push back into the kiss. Her heart sped up and she could feel the flood of emotions well up inside of her. The moment was short lived, however, as they heard someone clear their throat behind them. They broke the kiss, both of them blushing furiously, awkward smiles on their faces. “Really guys?” Spike said, closing his book and heading for the kitchen, presumably to start dinner. “Well I should probably get to writing that letter to the Princess.” Twilight said and started walking over to her writing desk. “But don’t even think I’m finished with you yet.” She teased, flicking Dash with the end of her tail as she walked away. She sat down in front of her desk and used her magic to pull out a blank sheet of parchment and a quill. Dipping the quill in the inkwell she began her letter: Dear Princess Celestia, I am writing this letter to inform you that we have made a new discovery that may be related to the events I described in my previous letter. One of my friends, Fluttershy, was in the Everfree Forest today, when she spotted a strange creature that walked on two legs and looked like a monkey, only without fur or a tail. Soon after we went to Sweet Apple Acres, only to find that Applejack and her brother had subdued a creature that seemed to fit Fluttershy’s description of the creature she had seen in the forest. We found a second creature nearby that had been severely wounded. Both creatures are now being taking care of at the Ponyville Clinic. I respectfully request that you pay a visit to the clinic and see if you are able to shed any light on what these mysterious creatures may be. Your Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle Halfway through the letter, she had felt the breath of somepony on her neck, and knew that Dash had been reading over her shoulder as she wrote. “What do you think?” She asked Dash. “Sounds good to me.” Twilight rolled up the letter and tied a ribbon around it, and sealing it before standing up and walking towards the kitchen. The smells of whatever spike had started for dinner reminded her of just how hungry she was. Her stomach decided that it needed to voice its opinion on the matter and let loose a hearty growl, which earned a chuckle from Rainbow. Her laughter was short lived, however, as her own stomach gave a growl of its own in reply. Smiling sheepishly she got up and followed Twilight into the kitchen. “That smells amazing Spike! What’s cooking?” Rainbow said upon entering the kitchen. “Grilled daisy sandwiches and tomato soup with a dash of rose petals.” Spike said, beaming proudly at the compliment to his culinary skills. Dash heard the hum of magic and looked over to see Twilight levitating plates, bowls, and glasses out of a nearby cabinet and setting them neatly on the table. Dash opened the drawer where she knew the silverware was kept and brought out three spoons, setting them down beside the plates. Twilight’s horn flashed once more and the spoons aligned themselves perfectly with the plates. Dash gave her a deadpan look, as if to say ‘Really?’. Twilight just stuck her tongue out at the cyan Pegasus and took her seat. “Oh, Spike, I have a letter that I need you to send. It can wait till after dinner though, no hurry.” Twilight said. Spike just nodded in response, paying more attention to his cooking than to the conversation. Taking a sip from the spoon that he had been stirring with, he declared the meal ready to eat and brought the pot over and set it on the table, before heading back and grabbing the plate of sandwiches. He ladled out the soup and they all started digging in. “So what are these strange creatures you guys were talking about earlier?” Spike spoke up after swallowing a bite of his sandwich. Twilight finished chewing and swallowed before answering. “Nopony knows what they are. They might have something to do with the strange object that Dash and I saw after that storm. I’m asking the Princess to come and see them to see if she can shed any light as to what they are or where they came from. That’s what is in the letter I need you to send.” “I still say they’re aliens!” Dash said, earning a glare from Twilight. The rest of the meal was spent in silence. Once they finished, there was a unanimous agreement that the meal had been excellent. Twilight helped spike clear the dishes from the table and Dash went to retrieve the letter from Twilight’s desk. After depositing it on the kitchen table, she made her way to the bathroom for a nice hot shower. Twilight helped Spike finish up the dishes and had him send the letter off before making her way up to the bathroom, only to find it still occupied by the blue Pegasus. “You better not use up all the hot water again!” Twilight yelled through the door. She heard a mumbled response from the other side, but couldn’t make out what was said. Letting out a huff, she turned around and went back to the main room of the library. She levitated a book off of a nearby shelf and set it on her desk. She opened it to where the bookmark was and continued reading where she had left off while she waited for Dash to finish showering. Spike told her goodnight as he walked passed on the way to his room. They had cleared out one of the storage rooms, and refurnished it into a bedroom for the dragon after Rainbow Dash had moved in, to prevent any kind of… awkward incidents from happening. Twilight told him goodnight as well and went back to her reading. About fifteen minutes later she heard the bathroom door open. Tucking her bookmark back into the book, she returned it to its place on the shelf. She started down the hallway, meeting Rainbow halfway to the bathroom, her mane still wrapped up in a towel. “Don’t worry, I didn’t use up all the hot water.” Dash told her. Twilight gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, you heading to bed?” “Nah, not yet. I think I’m going to read a bit more of that new Daring Do book first.” Dash said before returning the kiss and heading off into the library. Twilight took her shower and came back out to find Dash asleep on the couch, sprawled out on her back, her book face down on the floor where it had fallen. Her hind leg twitched in her sleep and Twilight shook her head, a small smile on her mouth. “What am I going to do with you Dash?” She asked the sleeping Pegasus. Using her magic, she set the book on a nearby table and levitated the sleeping Pegasus up to their bed. Tucking her in, she gently climbed in beside her and wrapped her hooves around the sleeping mare, taking care not to wake her. The worries of the day melted away and Twilight was asleep almost instantly.
