Beyond Achlys

Chapters

Prologue
Extraequestrial visitor
Abduction
Incursion
Escalation
Interloper
Rebirth
Insanity
Epilogue

Prologue

Ten days.

That was how long Helena stood there, observing the thick clouds of the dark nebula flow past the main screen. It completely covered her field of vision, even if visual contact wasn’t strictly necessary for the search. She wouldn’t usually spend such a length of time awake and outside of cryostasis, but the dangers hidden amongst the clouds weren’t something she would ignore.

The high-density nebula in this sector of space had been a mystery for almost a hundred thousand years, and though there was a multitude of inhabited worlds nearby, its secrets remained uncovered. Ships and probes attempting to explore it were eventually lost, and the gas itself moved in such a chaotic fashion that mapping the safe parts had been deemed impossible, so the people who lived nearby eventually gave up and declared it forbidden space.

The local government, a small empire consisting of a few dozen worlds, had begrudgingly given Helena permission to enter—not that they could have stopped her if they refused. Their technology level was significantly lower than hers, though they could still construct smaller habitats in space and field fleets to keep the sector safe from pirates and smugglers. The gap also meant that they especially coveted the knowledge she carried within her ship, but at least were wise enough to realize how foolish it would be to try and take it by force. Even the most backwater world knew not to anger those who lived in the annals of deep time.

Helena herself was one of the oldest living members of the galaxy, having been born in a time when humanity was confined to a single star system. She was the daughter of a powerful noble house, and at an early age given her own starship to play with. When interstellar travel finally became feasible, due to the perfection of the cryostasis, she had immediately outfitted her vessel and embarked on the thousand year journey to the nearest colonizable star system.

She, however, was never one to settle down. Instead, she continued to another world, then another, and another. Fast forwarding through time while humanity entered a golden age of expansion. One of her primary goals in life had always been to find other intelligent lifeforms out there, but as humankind continued its exponential expansion, it became evident to all that the galaxy was, in fact, a very desolate place.

It took Helena three hundred thousand years to travel across the Milky Way, a journey that to her often only lasted seconds. Her ship searched countless worlds for any hint of intelligent life, but in the end, she couldn't even find evidence that a prior galactic civilization had ever existed. The galaxy was a barren wasteland until humanity came and filled it with life, terraforming dead worlds into green wonders.

But human empires and federations almost invariably seemed to collapse and disappear within a few millennia. The limits of sub-lightspeed travel made it too difficult to hold interstellar civilizations together, and since her old objective was no longer achievable, she had taken it upon herself to travel between the stars, helping the worlds she came across.

Helena did so mainly by sharing technology lost in time, in an effort to better the lives of those who needed it. It was a profession that allowed her to outfit herself, and her ship, through the ages with the various peaks of human ingenuity, and it had eventually made her into a force of nature few could oppose.

Her motive wasn't always altruistic, as another passion was to unravel secrets. The dark nebula she now explored was a mystery she had encountered once before when someone much like herself had gone to an extreme effort to hide something in the depths of space.

That time it had been a hidden moon, which was excavated into a massive treasure vault of sorts. She never plundered it, but simply took a recording of its contents, and left a polite message to whoever owned the place. Among her peers, it was often best not to make any enemies, as their revenge scheme might be something that hits you half a million years later.

Helena blinked.

The cloud density was thinning despite her traveling in the thickest parts of the nebula. It wouldn't be long now; indeed, seconds later she was moving through open space and felt time slow to a halt.

The ship had detected a danger and injected her with a time-dilating stimulant, allowing her mind to work at such speed that time appeared frozen. The screens around her flickered, due to her mind being synced with the ship itself, and displayed the reason she was placed under alert.

She had entered a hollowed out area, large enough to fit a small star system containing a yellow sun with a single inhabited planet accompanied by a moon.

More importantly, she was under attack by tens of thousands of weapon platforms strewn about the system. The ship brought up images of missiles that were already well on their way to impact, and it seemed like she had underestimated the resources of her opposition.

The quality of the weapons nearly matched her own, and it was quite clear that she wouldn't come out of this fight unscathed. The screens were replaced with battle plans that outlined different scenarios for her to choose from, and she spent two hours in dilated time considering which option to pick.

Her ship always recommended her to pick the safest option, to destroy the platforms and remain in space until her vessel could self-repair, but Helena felt extra bold today. Scans of the planet's surface revealed a pre-industrial civilization, and it had been a long time since last she visited such a place. What she decided upon next would likely cause widespread panic, but there wasn't much she could do to prevent that now.

She selected the option that would set her on a collision course with the planet, then removed the time-dilution serum from her system. Less than a second of real time had passed, but now everything happened at once. Hundreds of gunports opened from hidden locations beneath the hull of her ship and returned fire. Counter-batteries and missiles fired relentlessly in every direction, but she only frowned at the explosions filling the screen and turned to walk away towards her living quarters.

The massive ship shook and trembled under the assault, as entire sections were ripped apart by blasts strong enough to pulverize most other vessels; a fact that didn't bother her in the slightest. She had already predicted the outcome of the battle, and any superficial damage could be fixed in due time. The only thing that interested her was why someone had gone through such an effort to keep a single world hidden away.

It took ten minutes to reach her quarters, and she didn't bother with slowing down time when deciding on what to wear. It was always best to dress simple when visiting primitive worlds, something that would allow her to blend in with the local populace. She grinned and chose an elaborate white dress that swept the floor with dramatic, elegant long sleeves, pearl accents, an empire waist, and a beautiful artistic pattern.

Another direct hit violently shook the ship, but she pointedly ignored the twisting and groaning of metal and instead made practice swirls in her new garments. The look she was going for would likely pass her off as a young noblewoman, and the chaos and confusion would make it easy for her to infiltrate whatever government ruled the small planet. It was reasonable to believe that whoever created the world still resided on the planet, or more likely was awoken from cryostasis due to her involvement, but she was confident that she could handle herself.

The dress she wore brought back long lost memories of when she last visited a medieval world, one where she could dance and sing all night in taverns like a young fool without any worries in life.

She barely took note as she whistled a tune from an age long gone, or how much added spring there was in her steps as she danced down to the hangar bay.

This was what she lived for.

“Don't touch that,” Keeper snapped, once again cursing his choice of successor. The brown and black unicorn stallion in front of him was middle-aged, yet still as clumsy as a colt fresh out of the stable.

“Sorry, Keeper,” the stallion said while using his magic to levitate the pendulum back to its original position.

“Don't touch that with your magic,” Keeper growled, then interrupted the stallion's concentration by flinging a hoof at his horn. “It could be dangerous to interact with ancient relics using magic. Have you learned nothing in school?”

The stallion only snorted in response, and Keeper now knew it was time to find another apprentice. Sadly, the stallion had been far from the first pony to be negligent about the job as Royal Caretaker of Ancient Artifacts. It was as if the job description only catered to those who wanted a position where they could slouch in an office chair, or hide in the corner and read magazines about the latest celebrity scandal.

Keeper mostly liked it for the ominous black robes with silver lining.

“It's just old junk,” the stallion mumbled, using his hoof to return the pendulum to its glass container on the shelf. There were a few more to inspect before their round was complete, and it was considered by most to be dreary work, measuring the magic level of each artifact to make sure whatever enchantments they once possessed wouldn't activate again.

Keeper was one of the few who enjoyed the routine and didn't mind the fact that they were over a dozen stories beneath Canterlot Mountain. The smooth stone walls and the dull red carpets lining the cold floor took a few decades to get used to, but once you did, you didn't feel quite at home without the musty air and burning torches.

“Can't you show me the third level instead? This place is so dull,” the stallion continued while inspecting a small pyramid in the next glass container. The readings on his portable magic analyzer showed that the magic contained within was unchanged since their last inspection. “Why did anyone even bother enchanting a cheap pyramid tourist prop anyway?”

“Who knows? It was Daring Do who bought it from a street vendor, near the statue of Somnambula I believe. The clerk claimed it helped with fertility if you placed it on your nightstand.”

“Does it work?” the stallion asked, now inspecting the thing more curiously.

“Doubtful,” Keeper replied, then urged the stallion to hurry up by flickering him with his tail. “Half of the artifacts here claim to do something similar.”

“What about visiting the third layer?” the stallion insisted and motioned further down the row of shelves. At the very end was an ornate door that shimmered with the full spectrum of various magical barriers, behind which the most ancient of artifacts were stored. Nobody alive knew what their actual purpose was, only that the magic within was foreign to ponies, and that the artifacts themselves were ageless.

“I suppose it's time you saw it,” Keeper said, and made his way toward the door with his assistance in tow. “But if you touch anything you'll be fired on the spot, are we clear?”

“Crystal.”

“Good,” Keeper said, haughtily. In truth, he hoped the stallion would do something inappropriate so he could fire him with a good conscience.

They stopped side by side next to the door, and Keeper loosened the key around his neck chain. There wasn't anything improper about him showing his apprentice the third level, but Celestia might question his decision in their next briefing.

He turned the golden key hard to one side, then unceremoniously pushed the door open with his forehooves. Magically fueled torches responded to the movement and burst alive, illuminating the oval room with six different display cases in each of the corners.

“It's a lot smaller than I expected,” the stallion said, and took a careful step into the center of the room. It was impossible to see what each contained, as they were all covered by a thick, dark blanket.

“There were only six of these items ever found,” Keeper mused, and moved to remove one of the covers. It contained a black helmet decorated with strange symbols that obviously wasn’t meant to fit on a pony. “These were considered ancient long before Equestria's founding, yet they remain in perfect condition without a single trace of rust.”

“Has anypony ever figured out their purpose, or who made them?” the stallion asked, then turned away from Keeper.

“Not yet,” Keeper said, and continued his lecture. “Magic behaves wildly in their presence, and even great wizards like Star Swirl the Bearded had no clue what to make of them. But they’ve been dormant for as long as ponykin-”

It was then Keeper noticed the red pulse coming from behind him. He suddenly felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, and turned slowly on shaking legs to find his apprentice stand in front of a display case, a blanket in his hoof.

He was facing a floating white orb the size of a buckball. It seemed to be observing his apprentice through unseen eyes, while radiating red lights across the room every five seconds or so.

“Get away from it,” Keeper snapped, with a throat so dry he could barely get the words out. But the stallion was too paralyzed to move.

Suddenly, a small hole opened at the front of the orb, and it sent visible blue wavelengths all over his apprentice's body. Keeper could only gape as the magic the artifact projected made the stallion’s skin translucent.

“Subject scan complete,” the orb said, in perfect Equestrian, then turned its attention to Keeper. “Warning, hostile vessel detected near outer rim. Defense systems insufficient. Catastrophic failure imminent. Full access required.”

Keeper didn’t know what the orb was talking about, and he needed to alert the guards.

“What vessel?” he asked while slowly inching his way towards the exit.

The orb continued its focus on Keeper and flew past the petrified apprentice to hover right in front of his muzzle.

“Unknown configuration,” the orb said and rotated once in the air. “Scans indicate unknown weaponry beyond the defense perimeters ability to counter. Planetary evacuation is advised.”

“What weapons?” Keeper tried to back away from the orb, but the thing followed him closely. He needed to send word about this to Celestia, but the sphere distorted the air around it, and he knew how dangerous it was to use magic in its presence. Still, he took a gamble and activated his horn.

He sent his magic forward until it latched onto his apprentice, who remained stunned, and tossed him across the room. He had meant to move the stallion towards the exit while the orb was pre-occupied with him, but the orb's presence interfered with Keeper's control, and his apprentice was launched head first into a wall. The stallion was unconscious before he even hit the ground.

The orb ignored the crash and instead addressed Keeper.

“Current location unknown,” it said, then spun around, with what Keeper figured to be its front, towards the exit. “Authorized personnel required.”

Keeper still didn’t know what it was talking about, but an idea came to mind.

“I can take you to our highest authority.”

The orb, which had been about to leave, swung around again. Being stared at by a featureless white ball was profoundly unnerving.

“Proceed.”

Celestia drew the covers up to her neck and shuffled around until she found that perfect sweet spot in her bed. She had been afraid that her sleeping habits would change after Starlight Glimmer temporarily swapped her cutie mark with her sister's, but nothing so far was out of the ordinary.

She adjusted her nightcap to hang behind her face and was about to pull her sleeping mask over her eyes when the doors to her bedchamber barged open.

“Princess!” a guard shouted, and ran all the way up to the edge of her bed. “We have a situation.”

Celestia, never the mare for the dramatic, lazily turned and extended both wings until the bed covers slid off her, then moved her nightcap over to the nightstand.

“What ails the nation, my little pony?” she asked, calmly.

“One of the six ancient artifacts just activated,” he said between quick breaths. “It followed Keeper from the archives, and he urgently asks everyone of importance to meet him in the main hall. He said there might be an invasion coming from the Celestial Sea.”

An invasion from the sea? It wouldn’t have been the first, and she doubted it was connected with one of those dusty old trinkets in the archive. Star Swirl believed them to be harmless, but nonetheless insisted that they be kept safe and under watch.

She moved out of bed and draped one wing across his back.

“Tell me everything as we walk.”

Keeper moved restlessly back and forth in the royal meeting room. He had told the orb to wait here, but the artifact responded by floating over to the round table and drifting above its center. The new captain of the guard, Stonewielder, was the first to arrive. The pegasus only needed to take a quick glance at the orb and Keeper to get a sense of the situation.

Next to arrive was Prince Blueblood, who mostly grumbled about being dragged from bed. The unicorn was the only one to take a seat at the table and didn’t seem to even register the orb's presence. When Blueblood finally did so, he instinctively activated his horn.

“My Prince!” Keeper barked, nearly scaring the unicorn out of his seat. “I would advise that you refrain from using magic in its presence. The results can be problematic.”

Blueblood raised an eyebrow at Keeper, shrugged, then sat studying the orb with a bored expression.

“What is the situation?” Celestia asked, coming through the main door with Luna by her side. They both stopped a few yards from the table when they saw the orb. “Oh, I remember this one.”

“It came alive half an hour ago, Your Majesty,” Keeper said and bowed deeply. “I believe my foolish apprentice somehow switched it on.”

“And where is your apprentice now?” Luna asked, then frowned. “Would you remove your hood first so we can see you more clearly?”

Keeper mumbled to himself, but eventually pulled back the hood. He felt more at ease when his pale coat and white mane remained hidden. “Unfortunately, my apprentice is in the medical ward recovering from a mild concussion.”

“Concussion?”

“It was an accident,” Keeper continued when everyone in the room looked questionably at him. “I tried to levitate him to safety, but the orb warped my magic, and he hit a wall.”

“We will question him when has recovered,” Luna said and walked around the table while studying the orb from different angles. “It hovers but doesn’t seem active. You mention that it’s capable of speech?”

“Uh, yes. I told it to wait here until everyone was assembled.” Keeper had tried to start a conversation with the orb during their walk to the meeting room, but the artifact had remained silent despite his coaxing. “So, shall we begin?”

This time everyone turned to stare at the white orb.

“I hope you didn’t wake us all up because some ancient unicorn toy, most likely meant to entertain foals, told you that the world was ending,” Blueblood said, and was about to leave his chair.

“We’re still missing Fancy Pants,” Stonewielder said, joining the conversation.

“I don’t think we have time to wait for him,” Keeper replied, and took a gamble. He cleared his throat, then addressed the orb directly. “I brought the figures of authority you asked for; you may proceed.”

The orb instantly came to life and opened several small slots around its smooth, white surface. It emitted the same blue waves from before, and this time they enveloped the entire room. Keeper looked down at his hooves and saw his bones through the now transparent flesh. The thought of this artifact somehow being related to the Crystal Heart crossed his mind.

“Limited access granted,” the orb said, and closed the holes, canceling the strange magic. “Situation update: unknown vessel breached the outer perimeter thirty-five minutes ago. Eighty-nine percent of defense platforms destroyed. Complete failure estimated within fifteen minutes. Warning: significant debris ring in high orbit. Recommend planetary evacuation.”

The room fell silent, and everyone in the room waited for it to elaborate.

“Could you be more specific?” Celestia asked, carefully.

“Is this some Alien Alicorns versus Space Pirates reenactment?” Blueblood looked around like he expected everyone to start laughing.

The orb responded by opening a lid at its top, and a transparent hologram appeared high in the air. It was more detailed than what a unicorn could produce, but Keeper still didn’t understand what it was suppose to be. Yes, it was a long metal ship of sorts, but unlike any design he had ever seen before, and more importantly, lacking sails or a balloon. It was hard to get a sense of the scale without any comparisons, but he doubted it could be larger than an Equestrian galleon with so much metal padding.

A light flashed from the ship, and the hologram disappeared.

”Planetary evacuation recommended,” the orb repeated, and closed its top.

”How do you even evacuate a planet?” Luna asked, then frowned. ”What do you make of this, sister?”

”I have no idea,” Celestia replied. ”I understand its words, but not the meaning.”

”Majesty,” Stonewielder said sternly and pointed up at the ceiling. ”Look up, is it supposed to be this bright outside?”

Keeper followed the Captain's hoof to the skylight. It should be nighttime, and yet the sky was a strange blend of red and dark gray. The window was tiny compared to the ones in the great hall, but even so, Keeper saw a comet soar past.

”Wait, what just flew by?” Blueblood asked, and rose from the chair so fast it fell backward to the ground.

Keeper’s ears flickered, something was going on outside the room. It was inaudible at first, but the more he strained his hearing the clearer it became.

Ponies were screaming.

Celestia and Luna were the first to act, both slamming through the main door so fast that Keeper barely had time to react. The guards at the entrance were surprised to see their rulers run past them with such haste.

Keeper ran after them and silently cursed whenever his dark robe threatened to trip him over. He couldn’t keep up with them for long, and was soon alone in one of the hallways, back against the wall and panting heavily. Outside it sounded like the entire city was in an uproar.

Curious about the sudden brightness in the hallway, he stood up on his hindlegs and jumped to look out one of the windows, then instantly wished he hadn’t. The night sky was an inferno, and there were meteor trails everywhere he looked: thousands of them.

”Is this what the orb warned about?” he asked, to no one in particular.

The ship wasn’t coming from the sea, but from outer space!

”Keeper,” Stonewielder said, appearing at the end of the hallway. ”The Princesses need us. Follow me!”

It was fortunate that the Captain’s strict tone was so effective, else Keeper would’ve continued staring blankly out the window. Instead, he quickly broke into a full gallop despite his fatigue and followed wherever the Captain leads him.

They scurried through the palace side-by-side, ignoring the terrified staff. Some guards had even abandoned their posts, leaving their spears behind on the ground.

The Captain wasn’t happy when he saw that.

They found both Princesses on the plateau behind the throne room, and Celestia acknowledged their presence with a nod.

”Captain Stonewielder,” she said. ”We have a situation on our hooves. I want word sent to every enlisted unicorn in the country. I want protective domes around every town and city within the hour. Understand?”

“Yes, your Majesty,” he said, and saluted before taking to the air.

“Keeper,” she continued and noticed how hard he was panting. “When you’ve caught your breath, I want you to return to the meeting room and get as much information you can from the artifact. We need to know more.”

Keeper simply nodded and sat down on the cold stone.

Celestia turned away from him and returned to her sister's side. It was hard for Keeper to see from where he was, but the Princess of the Night had her horn active, and she appeared to be crying.

“They are all gone,” Luna said, her voice broken. She was looking up into the sky with lifeless eyes. “I can’t sense a single one.”

Keeper didn’t understand and turned in wonder at the burning sky. Everywhere he looked he could see the fiery tails of slow-moving meteors, their blazing bodies strong enough to illuminate the entire night sky.

He stood up and was about ready to return to his assignment when the ground suddenly began pounding. It was barely noticeable at first, and it grew more violent until Keeper had to strain himself to be able to remain standing. Luckily, the earthquake lasted only for a short while.

But Keeper no longer dared to move, and could only listen to the cacophony of the panicked city, until it was eventually drowned out by the ringing of alarm bells.

Helena scratched the side of her chin. The small stealth pod she was in wasn’t the most stable vessel she owned, and the way it violently hurtled towards the surface lacked much of the grace she often desired in her spacecraft, but the velocity and design made it untraceable by even the most advanced tracking system.

The situation outside her pod was worse than she had initially estimated. It no doubt looked like armageddon to the inhabitants below, but she had made sure that her ship’s weapons blew the defense platforms into small enough pieces that they would, mostly, burn up in the atmosphere.

The only real danger was her main ship, which she ordered to make a crash landing on an isolated mountain ridge. The people on the ground would no doubt feel the tremors across the entire continent when it impacts the surface, but she was confident it wouldn’t cause any devastating earthquakes.

Still, looking out the window of her small pod, it might be best if she stayed low for a few days and let things calm down on the surface. Having stayed awake for weeks at a time presented no real difficulties for her, but she might as well take this opportunity to recover.

Then the fun would begin.

Extraequestrial visitor

Two royal guards were injured while exploring the bottom sections of the alien ship. The squad had just completed its sweep of the lower levels and were about to return home to report their findings. On the return journey, they came in contact with one of the repair golems. The sudden encounter at an intersecting corridor made Private Contrail panic, and the pegasus took to the air despite orders not to fly inside the wreckage.

Private Contrail reportedly lost control and crashed violently into his squad mate, Private Pumpkin. The injuries were a sprained wing, several bruises, and a dislocated hip. Doctors decided they were to be airlifted by a chariot and admitted to Canterlot Hospital.

Twilight Sparkle tossed the latest report over the command table, causing Rarity and Starlight Glimmer to turn their heads.

“That bad, huh?” Starlight said and pushed away her stack of parchments.

“Two injuries,” Twilight murmured, then turned around until she faced the large whiteboard. It displayed the in-progress blueprints of the alien spacecraft.

“They found more stored-away material and machinery, but still no signs of any aliens,” she continued, and levitated over a red pen, crossing over the section the squad had explored. “I can’t believe we haven't found anyone yet. A ship this massive should be able to house thousands.”

“Yet still no signs of our extraequestrial visitors,” Starlight noted, and placed her head on the table. “I'm starting to believe the ship was crewless to begin with. Maybe one of the golems was the pilot?”

“We can't be certain of that.” Twilight rolled the pen in the air while trying to decide where to send the next expedition. “The front is buried deep in the mountain, and there might be injured ponies inside.”

“I doubt they are ponies,” Rarity chimed in. She tipped her black and white sun hat while reading today's newspaper. “Ponies don't like their ceiling so high up, and those dull hallways desperately need a mare’s touch.”

Twilight's tail swished, she desperately wanted to meet with the alien leader. “Ponies or not, they may need our help, and it's vital we make a good first impression.”

Starlight frowned at the piece of paper in front of her. “At this rate, we will run out of royal guards fit enough to search the wreckage, and those metal golems have been patching up our entry holes. We have less than a week until the whole thing becomes inaccessible.”

“Do we have enough volunteers for another search party today?” Twilight asked, hoping for some good news. Their little camp at the base of the crash site supported nearly a hundred ponies, but so many had to return to Canterlot for medical care. She had asked Celestia for replacements, but the royal guard was already stretched thin. Most of the unicorns were on duty keeping the barriers active above each town since meteors could still be seen to this day, while the pegasi and earth ponies searched the ground and air for anyone who fled into the woods during the first night.

Twilight couldn’t believe that it had already been three days since it all started. That night, she woke up to the sound of screaming. At first, she believed it was all a dream. Only when she stood outside, alongside most of the town, did she realize what was happening. She had teleported up to her telescope, and it dawned on her that the world might be ending, that it would be impossible for anything to survive the massive meteor shower heading for the surface. Despite the hopeless situation, she had erected a protective barrier around Ponyville.

Luckily, she was fooled by her sense of scale. There were no large asteroids among the firestorm, and, as far as she knew, all the meteors were vaporized before reaching the surface. It was determined that the following quake was caused by the crashed alien spacecraft, though she still couldn’t fathom how anything survived such an impact.

“Twilight, darling,” Rarity said, coughing politely to get their attention. “I’m going to visit the medical tent and see if Dash and Applejack are better. You might want to read what's on page twelve.”

Rarity levitated the newspaper over to Twilight’s side of the table, and a curious Starlight Glimmer joined her.

“What does it say?” Starlight asked.

Twilight only needed to skim through the first paragraph and glance at the picture of an abandoned house to know what it was about. The combination of potential aliens on the loose and ponies leaving their homes were causing a fair amount of headlines. What worried her was the rhetoric was getting worse by the day, and how openly some now criticised the princesses’ decisions.

Twilight highlighted her frustration with a deep groan. “Just another article spreading panic by claiming that aliens are abducting ponies."

“I’m sure Princess Celestia will manage,” Starlight replied, and quickly changed the subject. “As for the next expedition, we’re short one unicorn, so I would like to volunteer.”

“Starlight,” Twilight whined, not wanting to have this discussion again. “I need you here by my side. You know that having strong innate magic makes it more dangerous to move inside the ship. Earth ponies can’t control their strength, pegasi can’t fly straight, and who knows what would happen if a unicorn of your caliber has a magical mishap.”

“Alright, alright,” Starlight mumbled and levitated over a parchment. “If I switch with Private Ironhoof in the perimeter patrols, we will have enough.”

“Which patrol?”

“The one lead by Soarin heading south. But I’d have to move out within the hour.”

Twilight just nodded, then pulled her apprentice close with a wing hug. “Oh! Be safe out there, Starlight!”

“Yes, yes, it’s just a walk in the woods,” Starlight replied, pushing herself until she was out of hugging distance. “You should follow Rarity to the infirmary if you’re feeling so affectionate.”

“I have too much to do!” Twilight complained. “I need to make sure Keeper doesn’t burn down another tent, check in on the guards, make sure Spike hasn’t pillaged the larder, and we're running terribly short on toilet pap—”

“Yes, I get it,” Starlight interrupted. “You fix things here, and I’ll go inform the troops.”

Twilight watched Starlight leave the tent, then took a few deep breaths. She hadn’t lied about having a lot on her plate at the moment, but in truth, it was the waiting that bothered her the most. They could be making history at a moment's notice, and it was on her shoulders that everything went smoothly.

Twilight, this is no time to dilly-dally.

She levitated over the latest expedition’s report and went over their findings. The guards managed to search a total of twenty-eight rooms before the squad leader decided it was time to report back. Nearly all were massive cargo storages, stacked with the same metal as the hull of the ship.

They had already confirmed that the golems used the metals to patch up the damage to the ship. The only golems yet encountered were shorter than a pony, and typically moved about on wheeled legs connecting to an otherwise cylindrical body. They could fly, run up walls, extend metal limbs for welding, and carry materials that should be too heavy for such a thin frame.

They’d been unable to communicate with the golems, and Twilight had quickly forbidden any meddling with their repairs. There had been several incidents with royals guards encountering them during their searches, but the golems had so far not shown any signs of hostility.

Twilight shuffled through the paperwork, signing requisition forms for whatever supplies were needed to run the camp, but her mind wandered and made it challenging to organize properly. Her breathing exercises helped in these situations, allowing her to focus on the most crucial issue of the moment.

Right, we’re almost out of toilet paper.

Helena liked to take her time when exploring a new world, but from her vantage point, sitting on a branch in a tall tree, she had to admit that this one was surprisingly dull. The trees and animals were so far only of Earth origin, something nearly all colonists preferred to use when seeding a new world.

There was only one oddity she couldn’t quite place. A sort of invisible ripple in the air and ground around her, almost as if the world reacted to her in some strange manner. It would be easy to uncover the phenomenon with the aid of her ship, but her original plan had been to infiltrate one of the major cities, and so she had chosen to land away from the crash site.

Helena decided on a half-measure: she had a perfect mental visualization of the layout of the land, and it was possible to both move closer to the ship and a settlement if she traveled through the hills and forests.

The only thing she wouldn’t risk was being traced by directly communicating with her vessel. The locals and whoever made this world were likely already at the crash site, and she could divert their attention by allowing them to poke around the ship.

She made her way down the hill, walking at a modest pace through the sparse pine forest. The clothes she wore and her skin repelled the light rain and muddy ground, and if any local woodsman saw her, they would no doubt take note of her attire’s pristine condition in such weather. It was possible to deactivate the repelling qualities of her dress, but since it was the only one she brought, she decided to keep it active.

Since being inconspicuous was no longer an option, she increased her walking speed up to a jog, then a full run, lastly reaching a speed beyond the capacity of most humans. She quickly zoomed through the forest, sometimes even jumping the distance between hills and over rivers.

Helena continued for about an hour until she was alerted to a potential situation. It was considered a low threat since the automatic time-dilation only slowed down reality to a tenth of normal. She turned in slow motion to the direction she had been warned about and was surprised that the trigger was a bear.

A black bear stuck halfway up a tree to be precise. By her estimates, it was a young adult whose mother never taught it how to climb down properly. The loose beehive at the base of the tree told the rest of the story.

Without pausing her momentum, Helena changed direction and leaped.

She caught the bear in mid-air by wrapping both arms around its stomach, and held on tight as the bear desperately flailed its limbs on the way down. Once they landed, she let it go and watched as the bear sat down slowly on its rump. The unfortunate thing tilted its head in confusion, and Helena found the gesture to be surprisingly human-like, but decided not to investigate further and leave the bear to its honey.

With the situation resolved and time resuming to normal, she took off towards her original destination.

“Pinkie, absolutely not,” Twilight said, firmly.

“Aww, why not?” Pinkie replied while bouncing along next to Twilight. They were in the shadow of the giant engine sticking far up into the sky, and the ponies in the camp were slowly getting used to it looming over them.

“Do you know what kind of incident it might cause if we marked every golem with a balloon shaped stamp?” Twilight could see it now. Her sitting in front of a tribunal and having to explain to an interstellar counsel why one of her friends thought it was a good idea to smother their holy constructs in pink balloon marks. “Besides, what will you do if there are hundreds of them?”

Pinkie stroke her chin with a hoof and somehow managed to continue bouncing on three legs. “I could make a bigger balloon stamp that represented the value of ten balloons.”

“Pinke, if you want to keep track of the golems, you’ll need to find another way.”

“But placing party hats on their heads didn’t work either!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“You did what?!”

“Nothing!” Pinkie said and bounced out of sight behind one of the tents before Twilight could confront her.

Breathe in, breathe out.

She was at the southern edge of the campsite, or outpost fifty-one like Rainbow loved to call it, about to visit Keeper, who claimed to have something important to show her. She would love nothing more than to have the crazy stallion booted out of her camp, but he had special permission from Celestia to study a select few contraptions extracted from the alien ship.

His tent was in a secluded section of the camp, mostly because his neighbors were smart enough to relocate after the first fire. Twilight frowned at the sign with a crossed out unicorn horn at the entrance and opened the flap with her hoof. Keeper stood in front of what she recognized as a kitchen table, and he was, as always, wearing his dumb black robe with the hood down.

“What’s that smell?” Twilight asked, sniffing the air as she tried to place the odor.

“Princess Twilight,” Keeper said, not looking away from an apparatus shaped like a metal rectangle with a little hopper at the top. ”Come closer. I want to show you something.”

Twilight had to admit she found the work he did intriguing, and if she weren’t responsible for so much of the administration around here, she would have loved to experiment with alien technology. Maybe Celestia had predicted as much, and that was one of the reasons she had asked Twilight to lead the expedition.

Keeper moved aside so she could get a closer look at the box, but she was more surprised to find several wooden bowls with mounds of various powders on the table.

“What does it do?” she asked and switched her focus to a stack of notes.

“Take some of the red powder in your hoof,” Keeper instructed, and waited while she hesitated. “It’s just copper.”

Twilight did as she was told, but stopped when she recognized the initial smell.

“This powder over here.” She gave one with tiny white pebbles a quick sniff. “Were you the one that stole the bathing powder from the mares’ bathhouse?”

“I needed to test more substances,” he said, neutrally.

Twilight couldn’t see his expression beneath the hood, but she was positive he said it with a straight face. “Of course you did, and I supposed it didn’t occur to you to ask nicely if you could have some?”

“I didn’t have enough time to ask. Much more time efficient to just go in and take it.”

“I’m honestly more surprised you left the tent during the day.”

“Actually, I procured it during the night. Far fewer ponies around to interrupt my work.”

Twilight shook her head, not having the energy to continue down that line again with him. Instead, she took some of the copper powder in her hoof and didn’t need any further instructions. It was apparent she was supposed to put it down the hopper.

“Good, good,” Keeper murmured, then tapped twice on the side of the box. “There is a way to activate it on the side. Slide your hoof over the surface until you feel a barely noticeable bulge, then press down with moderate force.”

Twilight did so, and as soon as she pressed down at the correct spot, the machine came to life. It startled her at first with a quick rumbling from the inside, and what surprised her the most was how the white front lit up like a hologram that displayed a list in the aliens’ written language.

“It’s a machine that analyzes different materials!” Twilight exclaimed, and felt the scientist within her threatening to take over.

“I knew you would catch on quick,” Keeper said and nodded in approval. “It has analyzed everything I’ve tried putting in it so far, and if with cross-reference the data we might—”

“Start deciphering the language,” Twilight finished. “We need to send this to Canterlot right away.”

“May as well,” Keeper said, before gesturing with an outstretched hoof that was barely visible beneath the cloak. It pointed at two more strange machines. “I have plenty more to occupy my mind with.”

“Great work, Keeper,” Twilight said, and forced herself away from the alien device. “I’ll send someone to take it off your hoofs later.” She looked around the room one final time, before turning to the exit. “Was there anything else?”

“Actually, there is one more thing I should mention.”

“Oh?” Twilight asked, hoping it would be brief so she could return to her duties.

“The artifacts from the vaults. The ancient ones now guarded by my apprentice.”

Twilight had read about them. “Yes?”

“I now believe they were created by the same aliens who made the spacecraft. The strange magical distortion, some comparable markings if you look close enough, and the size of the tools all match up.”

“If that’s true, then the aliens have been here longer than ponies,” Twilight said, but couldn’t quite believe it. “How come we haven’t seen any sign of them until now?”

“Maybe they left and abandoned this one ship in space, and it was kept in shape for millennia by the golems. When the meteor storm hit Equus, it could have impacted the vessel and sent it out of orbit.”

Twilight admitted that it was a possibility, but it still left them with a mystery.

How did the stars disappear?

Starlight Glimmer was bored, tired, and dirty.

For three hours she’d been waltzing through the forest, in the cold rain, with a squad of guards at her side. There weren’t many hours of daylight left, and who knew what she was missing back at camp.

“You think we will see the stars tonight?” one guard asked.

Starlight frowned and swirled one ear to listen in on what the pair of earth pony guards were having a conversation about.

“I hope so,” another replied. “The night sky has become so eerie.”

“I heard rumors that the aliens placed a forcefield over Equestria. That’s why we can’t see them anymore.”

“That’s dumb. We can still see the sun and moon.”

“Got a better explanation?”

“Hey, keep it quiet down there,” Soarin said, after swooping in from above. “No more of that kind of talk until we’re back at camp.”

The two stallions saluted and remained silent, yet Starlight knew that what they said was already on everyone's mind. She had more insight into the situation than most, but no more answers. All she knew was that the stars vanished the same night as the alien ship appeared with the meteor storm, and Princess Luna confirmed that she could no longer sense their presence.

Twilight informed her that Princess Luna had fallen into a depression, and now spent most of her time locked away in her bedchamber. The stars had been one of the few things she remembered from her exile, and rearranging their formations at night was to her like greeting an old friend. Starlight highly doubted that Luna’s magic could reach so far out, but Twilight had a theory that Luna simply manipulated the light they emitted.

“Something is moving over here.”

Starlight turned to the sound of the voice. It was their lead scout, a brown earth pony mare with a gray mane, and she was twenty yards ahead, laying with her stomach pressed to the grass and peeking over a small slope.

Soarin was the first to react and quickly gained altitude with a powerful flap of his wings.

Starlight and the two stallions exchanged glances, then eventually made their way over to the mare. When all four of them were side by side, the reason why she had called them became apparent.

In the middle of a grassy field devoid of trees, stood what had to be an alien, watching them in turn. It resembled some sort of fairy out of myth: tall and slender with perfectly smooth skin and an immaculate white dress and long blond mane blowing in the wind. It was hard to make out any more details at this distance, but there was something unnatural with the air around it, almost like it radiated heat in pulses.

Speaking of pulse, Starlight could feel her heartbeat pumping.

Sweet Celestia, I’m in charge of the first alien contact ever.

She had to force herself away from the alien until she came in eye contact with Soarin in the sky. All the patrols had anticipated that this might happen, and it was protocol that the fastest pegasus in the group would immediately head back to camp and report the news.

Soarin nodded, effectively giving her the go-ahead to initiate first contact. The Wonderbolt headed straight up to clear the trees when things went terribly wrong.

“By Celestia’s…”

Starlight didn’t know who said it, but she quickly switched her gaze to where the alien had been only moments ago, only to find it closer and running at a speed that no biped should be able to achieve. The four of them instinctively backed away, but the alien would be upon them within seconds. Just before it reached the slope, however, it leaped incredibly high up, and Starlight lost sight of where it went.

Why did it? Oh no.

Turning around, she found the alien already back on the ground while holding an unconscious Soarin in its arms.

How did it? I need to send word to Twilight. Are we too far away for a signal flare? Long range teleportation?

The alien gently placed the Wonderbolt down on the grass, then turned to face the rest of the squad.

Starlight gulped before finding her voice.

“We come in peace?” she said, lamely.

”She should have been back by now,” Twilight said while pacing back and forth in her command tent.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Fluttershy said and turned to the rest of her friends eating supper at the table. “Isn’t that right, girls?”

Rainbow and Applejack still had gauze covering parts of their bodies, yet both seemed to be in good spirits after being released from the infirmary.

“She’ll be just fine, sugarcube,” Applejack said. “Did we miss anything else today?”

“Keeper found a way to help us decipher their language,” Twilight said and took a seat at the table. “And he believes the spaceship is an abandoned vessel that was forced down by the meteors.”

“No aliens?” Rainbow asked, and extended her bandaged wings without thinking. It didn’t make her cry out in pain, but the grimace she made was telling. “Did you really believe that story?”

“No, but it does explain why we haven’t found a trace of them yet.”

Rarity returned her teacup on the plate and politely cleared her throat. “I read something lately, and I believe you might find it interesting.”

Twilight took a sloppy bite of her toast and motioned for her to continue.

“It was about the first major incident with ballooned airships, the great Hindburg disaster. I’m sure you're all familiar with its history?”

Fluttershy and Rainbow both nodded, while Applejack, Spike, and Pinkie shook their heads.

“I am, but not sure I see the relevance,” Twilight said.

“To make a long story short,” Rarity continued. “The airship caught fire shortly after takeoff, and the only reason the crew made it out alive was because the pegasi on board carried the rest to safety.”

“You believe the crew jumped out of the ship before it crashed?” Twilight knew that had been a possibility from the start, though they judged it as highly unlikely. “It’s been three days.”

“Well, if I was the alien I would make sure to study the inhabitants from a safe distance,” Rarity said, while rotating her spoon in the teacup. “I would make sure I knew what dresses and what music they preferred, and how their high society functioned.”

“And then what?” Rainbow asked.

“The answer is obvious of course, my dear Dashie,” Rarity replied, and switched to her theater voice. “I would swoop in and charm them all until they could do nothing but my bidding.”

She made a theatrical bow and clanked twice with her spoon for emphasis. It had the desired effect, and they all broke down in giggles.

They were interrupted by the tent flap opening, followed by one of the royal guards with his helmet tucked beneath his front leg.

“Princess Twilight, I have urgent news,” he said and didn’t wait for a reply. “One of our patrols failed to report back in time, so we sent out all our pegasi along the patrol route to search for them. The ones we sent out have all returned without finding a trace of the lost patrol, and we await your orders on what to do next.”

Everyone in the tent turned to regard Twilight.

Starlight.

Abduction

Helena climbed the last cliffside, doing so by leaping upwards as soon as she got a foothold on a crevice. She was close to her destination and would need to make a decision: head for her ship and investigate the strange ripples around herself, or change direction and infiltrate a nearby town. The stealthy approach would be challenging if the locals were unaffected by the phenomenon surrounding Helena, and the wildlife she’d encountered so far appeared normal.

The ascending path across the hills leveled out, and she made her way through grassy fields on the outskirts of a dense forest. It was out in the open when she felt it again. Time slowed to a crawl, and she instantly turned in the direction of the potential threat.

She had to enhance her vision to precisely see what it was, but at the edge of the forest, on a small slope, she saw two brown ears and silver hair sticking out of the bushes. It was clear she was being observed by something more intelligent than a mere beast.

Whatever it was, Helena managed to startle it with her quick reactions, and it moved away from its hiding place by reflex—revealing the face of a brown coated mare.

The mare was quick-witted enough to dive behind the brush again, but Helena had seen enough. It wasn’t the first time she’d encountered strange life forms in the galaxy, but each one she’d met had proven to be a disappointment.

It was an undisputed fact that there existed no other intelligent life in the galaxy besides humans. Each time she had encountered anything resembling intelligent life, she had found out that it had been nothing but a facade, humans biologically engineered to resemble another species or attempts to uplift primitive animals into a higher state of being. But no matter how advanced the mimicry, they could never truly abandon their human origin. To call such creatures sapient aliens was disingenuous.

Was this the real reason this world had been hidden away? Were the inhabitants simply colonists who wanted nothing else but to live their lives as small horses separate from the rest of the galaxy?

The mare neighed something incomprehensible, and four more ponies joined her. The first was a pegasus hovering in the air, followed by two ponies equipped with golden armor and spears, and lastly a unicorn. By their gawking, Helena assumed they’d never seen a human before.

The unicorn and pegasus came to a silent agreement, and the latter made ready to fly away, but Helena wasn't prepared for her presence to be revealed to the world just yet. Before any of the ponies could react, she accelerated towards the group of equines. It didn’t take long for her to close the distance, and right before she reached the slope, she made a powerful leap upwards in the direction of the retreating pegasus.

She soared through the tree branches and caught up with him above the treetops. Bright green eyes widened when the stallion realized what was happening, but it was too late for him to change direction. She caught him mid-air by placing her left arm around his barrel, effectively pressing his body against her chest in such a way that it avoided potential harm to his wings. The other hand she placed softly against his neck, and time slowed to a complete stop.

Helena studied the pegasus in their frozen, aerial embrace, but there was little to learn from observing what was on the surface. Time dilated to such a state made it impossible to move her eyes, but there were other things she could do. She sent a small electric current from her fingers into the stallion's system. The process was lightning-fast and allowed her a detailed reading of his biology.

What the results showed, however, was astonishing.

There wasn’t a single trace of human influence or interference within the pony. She sent another to confirm, and the results were the same. There was something unknown hidden within him, concentrated near the wings and the marks on his flank, but Helena didn’t register it as human in origin.

For three million years, she’d waited for this moment. Memories of countless worlds, along with the disappointments she’d experienced, flooded her mind all at once. So much wasted time and effort. The ponies had somehow developed sapience without human interference, even though this entire solar system must have been created by human hand.

She needed to find who was responsible.

Time resumed to normal, and gravity took hold of them. Helena sent a final electric spike from her fingers into the center point of the stallion’s brain, making his eyes roll back as he lost consciousness. The ponies below were still staring over the grassy field when she landed, but quickly turned and gasped at seeing their comrade passed out in her arms.

She needed answers.

Helena placed the pegasus gently down on the ground, then looked up at the rest of the ponies, standing just a few yards away. Their ears laid flat, and their eyes darted between her and the pegasus. The two wearing armor pointed spears unsteadily in her direction, while the unicorn said something unintelligible. She responded with a fluid motion towards the leftmost guard, dilating time to a tenth of normal in the process.

The guard desperately tried to keep her at bay with his spear, but it was a futile gesture. All it took was for her to extend an index finger to nudge the spear aside, allowing her to step in and put the other hand on the unarmored parts of his neck. There was no need to verify further what she already knew, so she sent him to sleep without pausing her step.

The remaining guard and the brown mare backed away to stand, side by side, in front of the unicorn. The silver-haired mare lacked any visible weaponry, but the way she crouched and held her head low made it evident she was ready to pounce.

Time automatically slowed further for Helena, and it took her a while to comprehend why. Something triggered her emergency responses, though it couldn’t possibly be the ponies armed with primitive weapons. Eventually, she found the source to be the unicorn, or more specifically, the unicorn's horn.

The unicorn was attacking her with a bright, teal beam, though the energy had only traveled from the horn by a few inches when Helena suspended time. The trajectory of the beam indicated that it was aimed at her left shoulder, and a quick turn would be enough to avoid it.

Fascinated by the ponies’ abilities, Helena chose not to.

She intercepted the strange beam with her right hand, fully aware that it might be strong enough to pierce her palm. Instead, the teal glow latched itself onto her skin, then quickly spread up the sleeves of her dress. There was a strange, hidden weight behind it, almost as if the glow were designed to hold her in place.

What trickery is this?

Before she could apply a countermeasure, the glow became erratic. There was an almost invisible line of light connecting her arm and the unicorn horn, and it began to twist and turn until it completely dispersed. Whatever happened, the unicorn was struck by some kind of feedback loop, and her head swirled in the air as if she’d been punched.

The two normal ponies turned their heads around to see what happened, and before they could realize their mistake, Helena moved in between them, putting a hand on each of their necks. She walked past them as they collapsed behind her.

Only the unicorn remained standing, and the mare was too occupied with massaging her forehead to even register Helena's approach.

“Is Her Majesty displeased with the carrot soup?” the steward asked, eyeing the half-full bowl on Celestia’s table. “I can have the chef prepare something else.”

All the chairs in the royal dining room were empty, except for the one Celestia occupied at the very center. Every one of her advisors who usually joined her for supper were out trying to keep order in the cities and countryside. The palace was running on a skeleton crew, with most of the guards and servants relocated to keep Twilight’s campsite functioning. Celestia wished she could be out there with them, actively working to solve the crisis, but the country needed assurances that their rulers were safe and in control at the center of the nation.

“Your Majesty?”

“Oh, I apologize,” Celestia said, and flinched away from the parchment next to her plate. “The soup is fine. I’ll finish it later.”

The steward grimaced at the parchment on the table but refrained from scolding her for bringing work to the dining room. If she’d done something similar a week prior, the staff would have been more vocal in their protests.

“What about Princess Luna?” the steward asked, and glanced over at Luna’s empty chair. “Should I send it to her bedchambers again?”

Celestia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “If Luna isn’t here in fifteen minutes, you may send it to her room.”

“Understood, Your Majesty,” he said, accompanied by a short bow.

She watched the stallion leave through the servant’s entrance, then returned her attention to the parchment on the table. It’d been sent from Twilight via dragon fire a few hours ago and highlighted the need for more royal guards to aid in the exploration of the crashed alien ship. Celestia would have to deny the request; there were simply no more guards to send. She trusted her former apprentice would make due with the resources she’d been given.

Ignoring the rest of her soup, Celestia leaned back in her chair until her head touched the backrest. Today, reports had finally come in from her ambassadors in distant lands, and they’d only confirmed her worst fears. No matter how far away the nation, they’d all experienced the same cataclysmic meteors and were now entirely occupied with maintaining their law and order. The news that aliens crashed landed in Equestria had only exasperated the situation abroad.

Most foreboding of all was the disappearance of Discord. The draconequus had left her a note, stuck to a wall in her bedchambers, telling her in frantic writing that he was going into hiding. She had attempted to contact him several times, but even the summoning spell failed to locate his presence.

The only ally she could count on was the Crystal Empire, and Prince Shining Armor had promised to personally lead a company of crystal guards to help ease the pressure.

“Good evening, Sister,” Luna said, in a mild tone as she walked through the main entrance.

Celestia slowly returned to her original position in the chair and took careful note of her sister’s appearance. Luna wore more makeup than usual, and would likely pass as a model on her way to an audition. It didn’t fool Celestia. She knew what hid behind the wall of cosmetics.

“Good evening, Luna,” Celestia said, and motioned to the seat next to her. “I’m glad to see you’re looking better tonight.”

“Thank you,” Luna replied, neutrally, and took her seat at the table without meeting her sister’s eyes. “I intend to resume my duties.”

“Our ponies will rest easier knowing you watch over them.” Celestia knew a systematic and business-like approach was the best way to help Luna recover from her depression, and that she should gradually open up to her over the coming days. “Fancy Pants reports that the area around Vanhoover could use some extra soothing.”

“I will see to it,” Luna said and looked around the room for the steward.

Celestia realized that Luna must have forgotten to ask the guard outside to notify the kitchen. To avoid an awkward pause, she instead took the initiative to buy some time for the steward to come in and check up on them.

“Keeper is sending us a device that will help us—”

She was interrupted by a swirl of green smoke above her head, signaling that Twilight was sending her another letter. The scroll materialized in the air and landed dangerously close to the soup bowl. This wasn’t the time for their scheduled reports, meaning something significant must have happened.

Luna understood as much and moved closer to Celestia so that they could both read. The letter was brief. A patrol had vanished without a trace, along with Starlight Glimmer.

“Does there exist anything in those wood that could have done this?” Luna asked.

Celestia knew that the wildlife in the area was sparse, and no animals there could even remotely threaten an entire squad. “None.”

“Aliens, then?”

“We do not know that yet,” Celestia said, and opened the main door with her magic, causing the two guards posted outside to peer in. “Summon Stonewielder to the dining hall, then inform the kitchen that we will need more servings of carrot soup.”

The guard on the left saluted and went to it.

“It is not yet time to raise the moon,” Celestia noted. “But I believe you’re needed in the dream realm.”

Luna studied the empty wine glass on her table, before opening her eyes fully for the first time since entering the room.

“If Starlight Glimmer is out there, asleep, I will find her.”

The cave on the edge of the cliff was a suitable location for what Helena had in mind. It was large enough for her to stand upright, and numerous holes in the ceiling provided adequate lighting.

The five ponies she’d encountered laid unconscious in a row, with their armor and spears stacked neatly at the entrance. Carrying them here in a timely fashion had been a challenge, and she’d several times cursed her decision of wearing a dress to a potentially hostile world.

She moved to the start of the line and looked down at the brown mare with silver hair. It was the pony that had spotted her in the field; starting with her would be good enough. Helena gently picked up and moved the sleeping pony to a stone outline that functioned as an acceptable bench. Sitting down, she placed the mare so that her barrel laid on Helena's lap, while the head rested upon her left arm.

With her right hand, she stroked its neck in a slow, tender motion. Fingers danced from spot to spot, administering small shocks to the pony’s system. Stressed muscles in the mare's body began to relax, while her internal organs were stimulated to function at peak efficiency. The mare began to breathe more steadily, and let out a content murmur.

“Wake up, little one,” Helena said, softly into her ear.

The mare opened her eyes halfway and neighed quietly in response.

“What is your name?” Helena asked, before sending another small current to specific parts of the mare's brain.

The pony’s eyes fell until they were almost closed, and the mare replied with a short sentence in her native tongue. Helena continued to ask generic questions and made sure to keep the mare under hypnosis, while taking careful note of each response.

She continued the process for almost half an hour until a pained expression appeared on the mare’s face. Not wanting to cause the pony any discomfort, Helena sent a final shock from her finger and returned the mare to a deep slumber.

Helena returned the snoring pony to the row, decided on who to take next, then returned to her makeshift bench with the pegasus stallion in her arms.

“Hello, handsome,” she said, jokingly to herself.

The sleeping stallion cooed in response to her fingers stroking the fur on his neck. Helena initiated the second phase of her plan, and felt her throat shift and churn as it audibly changed its form to mimic that of the equines. Her mind kept a perfect record of how the mare had responded to specific tones of voice, then repeated aloud a few select phrases of their language with her altered vocal cords.

The half-sleeping stallion responded differently depending on what she asked, and each word he uttered was another piece of the puzzle for her mind to arrange into a functioning language. It didn’t take long for her to have enough information to start an almost coherent conversation. Both ponies she questioned were employed in a military organization of sorts, and it wasn’t hard to glean information about their basic roles.

“Home?” she asked, in what she believed was the correct equine term.

“Cloudsdale,” the stallion answered, with his eyes closed. The pegasus had begun to shift uncomfortably in her embrace and reflexively tried to extend his wings despite her efforts to keep him calm. She decided that the pony had had enough for now, and sent him to a deeper sleep, then replaced him with one of the two stallions who had worn the golden armor.

“What’s your name?” she asked, in the neighs of their language. The pony seemed to enjoy her contact.

“Pebble,” the pony murmured and took the opportunity to snuggle deeper into her embrace.

She continued questioning him by alternating the words she’d already learned. The process was swift, but not fast enough for her to able to ask the question that truly mattered. She needed to know if humans were living here, undisguised or not.

“Where do your gods reside?” she finally asked, again uncertain if the words she used were correct.

She had encountered similar situations before when failed colonies diminished into primitive feudal societies. There were those who traveled between the stars and took advantage by shaping such worlds into their own private fiefdoms. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d brought down a spacefarer pretending to be an immortal god.

“Celestia,” the stallion said, still squirming around in Helena's lap. She’d heard that name before during her interrogation.

“Where does she live?”

The stallion nuzzled Helena's hand before answering. “Canterlot.”

Helena didn’t know the location of Canterlot, or how to ask for directions just yet, but she now knew where to hunt for the final piece. She continued with learning the ponies' language from both of the guard stallions until they also showed signs of distress. The remaining pony, and most interesting by far, was the unicorn with a purple and teal mane.

Her ability to project a dense beam of particles from her horn was odd, even by Helena’s standards, though she had her theories on what it might be. But her long travels had taught her not to draw any conclusions when encountering strange phenomena. The ponies referred to it as magic, which would serve as an acceptable word until she could accurately identify it.

She studied the shape of the horn in particular. The ponies all shared the strange magic, though it seemed different depending on what unique features the pony possessed. There was one exception to this rule: the amount of magic in the marked area around their flank was, so far, always equal.

“Now, what secrets do you hide?” Helena tried to say it in her native tongue, but the vocal cords she was currently using were ill-fitted for human language, and her words came out as a garbled mess.

Luna traveled in her incorporeal form through the dream realm, searching for the door that led to Starlight Glimmer’s subconsciousness. It was fortunate that she visited Starlight’s dream a month prior when she had that silly dispute with her sister, as it wasn’t clear at first if Starlight was asleep or not.

At this hour there were only a few doors present in the hallway of dreams. But even before Luna reached Starlight’s, she sensed that her door differed from the rest. There were several ways for a pony to fall asleep, and yet Starlight’s slumber was neither caused by fatigue, trauma, or magic.

When Luna faced the door, she found nothing visually wrong and pushed it open without hesitation. She was instantly transported to the inside of someone’s living room and found Starlight Glimmer sitting next to the wizard, Sunburst. They were sharing a large blanket, and both were engrossed in a book on a short, round table. There was also a lit hearth, and from the windows, heavy snowflakes blocked her view of the outside.

It wasn't the kind of dream she expected from someone potentially kidnapped by aliens. The bright smile Starlight gave Sunburst, as she leaned her head against his, would typically be heartwarming, but Luna was hardly in the mood to admire the fancies of young love.

She instead turned away from the pair and found the door leading out of the house. There were ominous trails of thick smoke emanating from between the cracks, and Luna recognized it as recent memories that Starlight’s pleasant dream was suppressing. She checked the window next to the door first but saw only a distant, white landscape. The door creaked when she pushed it open, and suddenly she was standing on a green field amidst a wet forest.

Next to her were three ponies of the royal guard, and the ones armed with spears held them lowered against something behind her. She turned to where the threat was coming from, and barely had time to register a creature dressed in white. The guards near Luna stepped forward to intercept, but the thing moved like a viper, dancing effortlessly between them until it appeared in front of her, bending its upper torso to look Luna straight in the eyes. Its deep blue eyes peered right through her soul, and in her panic, she tried to trap the creature in her magic.

Luna opened her eyes and stared up at a ceiling, not knowing why she was on the floor of the dream house. She slowly rose up and took a minute to calm her breath. What she’d witnessed hadn’t been real, but a reflection of the reality Starlight must have faced. The aliens were here, and she needed to inform her sister immediately.

“Sunburst?” a voice called.

Luna turned to find Starlight Glimmer sitting alone at the table. There was barely any light coming from the hearth, and a blanket on the floor now occupied the spot where Sunburst had been. Starlight was frenetically turning the pages of the book, but Luna could see all the pages were blank.

“You must listen to me,” Luna said, quickly galloping to Starlight’s side. “Something is manipulating you to—”

“No, where are you?” Starlight interrupted, while her eyes darted around in panic. All the windows then burst open, and chilly air and snow soared through.

Something was affecting the dream state, and Luna knew she had little time left.

“Starlight, I can make you wake up in a perfectly lucid state. Focus on Twilight’s campsite in your mind and do a long range teleportation as soon as possible. Can you do this?”

Starlight's ears laid flat against her head, and she barely seemed aware of what was happening around her, but eventually nodded.

Luna charged her horn, and the dream ended.

Starlight let out a gasp, and instantly realized the danger she was in. Laying right next to her was the guard mare from the patrol, and they’d been taken to the inside of a cave. The hair at the back of her neck stood on end as she realized the alien was somewhere nearby, and it knew she was awake. She quickly closed her eyes and focused on her bed at the campsite, then gave her horn everything she got.

The world flashed around her.

Starlight was suddenly hanging up in the air, looking down at the Twilight’s camp several yards below. She let out a high-pitched shriek, which lasted until she crashed into one of the tents, smashing right through the canvas and landing with a loud thud atop of a bed.

”Ouch,” she said, her voice muffled by the cushion planted against her face.

Helena stood with her hand outstretched towards where the unicorn had vanished. She had been about to leave the cave and was convinced the ponies would stay asleep for at least half a local cycle. Then something happened that placed her under full alert.

She had witnessed the entire process in slow motion: the magic had dematerialized the whole unicorn in a heartbeat, and she had followed the stream of particles as they traveled through the rocky ceiling at an incredible speed.

Teleportation was something she’d witnessed many times before, but the level of technology required was a rarity in the galaxy, and even those with the necessary knowledge only used it sparingly. The risk in the teleportation act was mostly negligible to the user, but the process was dangerous because it could be easily tampered with by outside influences.

Helena had never endangered her life in such a way, and only those who lived short lives would risk losing themselves for such a temporary gain. It mattered not in the end. She knew the location of her quarry and doubted Celestia would attempt to flee in such a manner.

“Starlight!” Twilight yelled as she galloped into the medical tent. It was the largest pavilion they possessed and served as a field hospital, but despite its size, it was crowded with the multitude of royal guards recovering from the minor injuries they’d received when exploring the crashed spaceship.

She found Starlight next to one of the doctors, who examined her chest with a stethoscope. Every personnel and patient in the room had turned their heads at her loud entrance, but she ignored them and ran straight to Starlight’s bed.

“I’m alright, Twilight,” Starlight said and waved her hoof dismissively, but the doctor who was checking her snorted skeptically.

“Heart rate is normal, and she appears fine, but I want to keep her here on a twenty-four-hour observation.” The doctor was an older stallion who Twilight knew brokered no argument when it came to patient care.

“Of course,” Twilight said, and took Starlight’s hoof in her own. “What happened out there?”

“Well, we found the alien,” Starlight said while struggling to retrieve her limb. “It attacked and held us captive in some cave.”

“They exist,” Twilight exclaimed, barely taking note at how everyone in the tent instantly stopped what they’d been doing. “And they attacked you?”

Royal guards and hospital personnel moved in closer to listen to the conversation, crowding the area around the two. A few of the nurses held hooves against their mouths, while most of the guards wore a somber expression.

“Luna saved me,” Starlight said, and tried to jump off the bed, but the doctor firmly placed a hoof on her shoulder. “We need to alert the princesses.”

“Yes, of course, they need to know about this,” Twilight said, excitedly, and only now noticed the circle of ponies around her. “But first, you need to tell me everything.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Starlight had to take a few deep breaths before she continued. “You must listen to me, that thing placed me in some sort of dream state and interrogated me. It was all hazy, but I can remember how it kept asking me the same questions over and over.”

“What was it?” Twilight asked.

“It wanted to know about Celestia, and I remember telling it the direction to Canterlot.”

Celestia stood outside on the plateau behind the throne room, her horn lit and reaching for the sun. When her magic finally connected, she suggested the sun alter its position. The sun accepted and began its descent towards the horizon.

Luna wasn’t with her this time and instead raised the moon from her bedchamber balcony. Celestia had only nodded when Luna informed her of what she saw in the dream world, and she’d had read the scroll from Twilight, warning that the alien was likely coming for her.

Celestia looked up at the shield surrounding Canterlot. Without the aid of Shining Armor's talent, it needed four unicorns on rotation to keep it active. Stonewielder would likely give her some strongly worded protests for what she did next, as she extended her wings to their fullest and took off into the air.

It didn’t take long for her to reach the top of the barrier, and a quick spell opened a hole large enough for her to fly through. The ascent continued until she was near the peak of the mountain, and at that moment, the sun passed the horizon. She looked up at the night sky, but all that greeted her were meteors lazily drifting in front of a dark void.

Celestia turned her attention toward the ground and saw the blue shield engulfing Ponyville. She hadn’t dared to have any of the barriers lowered, at least not until the meteor sightings had finally ceased.

She continued to soar higher until the wind and cold air became unpleasant, but it was a sufficient altitude for what she had in mind. The cloudless night that allowed her to see far into the distance, and from her elevated position, she could see the Smokey Mountains where the alien ship had crash-landed.

There was a prosperous mining town called Copperhill at the southern base of the mountain range. Most of the nation's copper and zinc came from its rich mines, and the wealth it created prompted many of the leading aristocrats to build lavish estates in the region. The town would be in the alien's path if they were coming for her, and she was relieved to see a tiny blue speck in the distance; thankfully, the shield around it was still active.

Stonewielder had ordered flyers to be sent and warn the town of potential danger, but it would take many hours for even a wonderbolt to reach it. Twilight’s camp was much closer to Copperhill, but all of the pegasi there were out searching for the missing patrol.

Celestia hovered in the air for a few more minutes and was about to return to the palace when something caught her attention. The shield around the mining town was changing its colors, from blue to black, as if corruption was quickly spreading over its surface.

Before long, the shield flickered out in a flash of light.

The muscles in her wings ached; in the back of her mind, she prepared a variety of spells. But instead of unleashing them, she allowed herself to breathe at a more steady pace and began her descent towards the palace. Celestia knew hasty action would only lead to disaster, and they needed to think things through as they had done with the Tirek incident.

It wasn’t the first time she’d been the target of some foreign power, but this was more unsettling than ever before. She had always been quick to identify each foe’s weakness: insanity, greed, or overconfidence. Now, something genuinely unknown was coming for her. If Keeper’s hypothesis was correct, it was a highly advanced species that had existed far longer than ponykind.

She landed back on the plateau and walked calmly into the backdoor leading to the throne room.

In truth, Celestia felt much like a mouse living inside the walls of a house, cowering in the nooks and crannies from the mythical giants living on the other side.

Incursion

“Wait, what?” Twilight asked while staring at the words Lieutenant-General etched into the royal guard helmet.

“My plan is simple. The aliens will likely make a full assault on Copperhill.” A hoof pointed at the mining town on a map depicting mainland Equestria, and where two red plastic unicorn figures faced off against a green arthropod with antennas for ears. “The unicorn aristocrats will fortify its walls with spells and provide long-range bombardment via magically enhanced cannons.”

“We don’t have any—” Twilight began, but was interrupted.

“The Las Pegasus garrison and the 5th Air Division will swoop in with a pincer movement from the southwest and force the aliens eastwards towards Ponyville.” A croupier stick pushed three plastic pegasi to Copperhill. “With earth pony shock troops on one side and magic and air superiority on the other, we will smash the aliens between the hammer and the anvil.”

“Pinkie,” Twilight said, and took control of the stick with her magic. “I wasn’t going to give you the job as Lieutenant-General of Equestria’s armed forces, or whatever you called it.”

“Oh, you weren’t?” Pinkie asked, and removed her helmet. “But why did you tell me to bring a battle map?”

“I never asked that.” The emergency meeting in Twilight’s command tent wasn’t going so well. “And that’s not even a real map.”

“What are those for?” Rainbow asked, pointing at a stack of cards.

“Those are called reinforcement cards,” Pinkie explained and held one up for all seven of them to see. It depicted a pegasus stallion wielding a saber. “You get one whenever you take over the first territory on your turn, and when you collect three, you can exchange them for more armies.”

“Pinkie,” Twilight said, in an intentionally slow manner. “I wanted you to keep everyone in camp happy while I headed for Copperhill.”

“Oh, that makes more sense,” Pinkie said and rested her head on top of the helmet. “Good thing this board game serves both purposes.”

Twilight rolled her eyes, catching a glimpse of the setting sun in her peripheral vision. Starlight had told her all she knew about the alien, but the question remained where the rest of the missing patrol was being kept, and which direction the alien was heading for next.

“Is it really wise to leave at this hour?” Rarity asked and turned to the others for support. “It’s almost nighttime, and the alien could be lurking outside the camp as we speak.”

“Or it could be heading for Copperhill,” Twilight countered. “We need to split up and make sure at least one of us is present at both locations.”

Rainbow raised a hoof in the air. ”I liked Pinkie’s plan better.”

“How are you supposed to get to Copperhill?” Applejack asked. “The chariots won’t be back until sunrise.”

“I’ll fly there with Fluttershy,” Twilight said, confidently. They all turned to Fluttershy, except for Spike, who licked a claw before flipping to the next page in his comic book. “Rarity will be in charge while we're away.”

“Uhm, how can I help?” Fluttershy asked, and shrank deeper into her chair. “Also, flying over a mountain at night will be really cold and scary.”

“Don’t worry. I have a few spells to keep the cold away and make the flight easier.” Twilight glanced at a sulking Rainbow Dash, her bandaged wings twitching. “I want you with me because of your ability to communicate with animals.”

Fluttershy gulped at first but eventually nodded.

The girls helped them ready for the cold flight. Rarity supplied them with a few homemade ear muffs with their cutie marks on each side, while Pinkie Pie scrounged around in their travel chest looking for some warm sweaters. They were almost ready to set off when Spike coughed out a letter with Celestia’s seal.

Twilight caught it in her magic and quickly broke the red insignia. It was brief and to the point. The shield around Copperhill had been shattered only minutes ago by unknown means. There were no orders or suggestions for Twilight to follow, meaning that Celestia trusted her to make her own decisions.

“I must leave for Copperhill immediately,” Twilight said, trotting out of the tent and leaving her surprised friends behind. The guard outside was in the process of lighting the night lamps, but still saluted when she passed.

“Twilight, what happened?” Rarity asked.

“The alien is already at Copperhill.” Twilight looked back at her friends crowding near the tent flaps. “Flying will take too long. The only way to get there in time is for me to teleport.”

Rarity opened her mouth to object, but stopped halfway.

“Be safe, Twilight.”

Twilight gave them all a strained smile and took off into the air. Flying straight upwards was a demanding task for even seasoned flyers, but she couldn’t afford the luxury of going easy. Copperhill was an unfamiliar town, and a blind teleport could quickly end up costing her valuable time and effort. Instead, she’d have to rely on continuous jumps over the mountains to the south.

She flew past the tip of the spaceship’s massive engines and continued the ascent until she had a more unobstructed view of the furthest mountain. It was dark outside, but the snow-covered peaks reflected the moonlight well enough for her to get a reasonable approximation of the distance.

Twilight activated the magic within her horn and teleported. The sudden change of altitude and strong, cold wind immediately sent her tumbling to the cliff below. She tried to stabilize her wings, but the momentum of her spin was too strong for her muscles to overcome by force. Thinking quickly, she encased herself in a magical bubble, creating a more tranquil environment in her immediate area.

She leveled out her flight well before reaching the ground, but the effort of halting her fall stretched her wings to their utmost limit. There wasn’t enough time for her to pace herself, so while gazing out at the next mountain peak, she initiated the next teleport, this time with a protective spell at the ready. It took six jumps to reach the area above Copperhill, and the rigorous spellcasting was enough to leave her struggling for breath.

The town lay a thousand yards below her, situated on a broad plateau with only a single road in and out of the city. Surrounding it was a steep up-slope that formed a natural barrier against anything incapable of flight, and from her viewpoint, she had a reasonable approximation of its layout.

Still fatigued from her previous efforts, Twilight was thankful that she only needed to glide to reach the surface. The further down she went, the more apparent it became how wealthy the town truly was. The houses in the residential area alone made the ones in Ponyville look like slums in comparison. Ponies were running beneath the streets lights below, though they were still small as ants to her. That’s when she realized the distant ringing she’d vaguely registered since her last teleport, and the reason why she was here became evident.

The town below was in absolute turmoil, and the ringing she heard was the faint echoes of the city’s alarm bells—informing the citizens to seek immediate shelter.

Helena tilted her head. The blue dome in front of her surrounded the entire town, and while she had initially intended to avoid any of the pony settlements on her way to confront Celestia, this world’s oddities and distractions continued to pique her interest.

The unicorn mare with the ability to teleport had given her additional insights into the secrets of magic, and the shield itself would be ideal to test her thesis.

She began the experiment by pushing a single finger against the blue dome. The moment her digit made contact the area started to shudder and quake. Helena could see the shield beginning to unravel, but chose to deactivate the defenses around her hand, effectively isolating it from the rest of her body.

The shield immediately returned to its initial, stable shape, and pressing against it further no longer showed any adverse effects. Instead, she sensed tiny particles of magic enter through the skin of her hand, and though she had little control of the process, her augmentations knew her intentions and carried out her will.

It was a delicate balance to maintain, the ratio between organic and machine in one's own body. Those who relied too heavily on technology were equally exposed to its weaknesses, and magic appeared to work similarly in that aspect.

The magic within her hand began to bend to her will, and at her command was sent outwards with the express order to convert and disrupt the shield. The process was slow at first, as it spread from a dark circle emerging from the tip of her finger before it suddenly began a rapid expansion towards the center top of the dome.

The shield darkened and twisted as if fighting to overcome a disease. When it finally was unable to retain its shape, it dispersed into tiny particles, and she was allowed a better view of the town. She’d approached it well away from the main road, and from her position, she had less than fifty yards to the nearest house. There were roughly five hundred houses in total, mostly two storey, beige bricked villas with black tiled roofs lining the streets.

There was only one purpose as to why she would even enter a town populated by the equines. She required a book. It didn’t need to be anything of substantial knowledge; even a fictitious story would suffice.

She began to walk at a steady pace under cover of night. The sudden change between day and night had left Helena baffled at first, and the only explanation she could think of was that the sun and moon were propelled by massive engines, which at specific intervals pushed the solar system into balance. Regardless, the darkness might allow her to fulfill her objective without rousing the populace.

There were no ponies around as she came to the back of a long row of houses. She moved through a walkway of sorts, filled with flowers, gardens, and benches. There was light coming from inside all the homes she passed, and she could hear conversations from some of the open windows. Her equine language skills were still incomplete, but it was safe to assume that the citizens weren’t yet aware of the disappearance of the shield.

It would only be a matter of time before she was spotted walking around the neighborhood, but she refused to skulk around like a common criminal in an attempt to avoid detection. Instead, she took confident steps with a self-assured expression. It would give any spectator the impression that her being here was a perfectly normal occurrence.

She needed to be done with her business swiftly, though she disregarded the notion of simply barging into someone’s home. Ideally, she would come across an abandoned house or a closed office. But when she reached the end of the row of houses, she had to take a turn, and her senses informed her that she was not alone.

Around the corner and in front of some hedges were two adolescent ponies, one male pegasus and one female unicorn, sitting side by side on a bench beneath the street lamp. Helena assumed they were a young couple that had snuck out of their parents' houses for some privacy. The male pony worriedly gestured toward the now open sky, and both seemed oblivious of her coming down the road.

Helena could have remained hidden if she chose to, but opted to continue forward until she walked past them. The pair noticed her simultaneously and gaped at her in astonishment. She knew what impression she must have made on them. Parts of the dress she wore were caught up in the wind and flowed mesmerizingly behind her, along with her hair that stretched all the way down her back. Before passing them completely, she turned her head around and briefly met their eyes. They both expressed wonder and fear at her appearance, and she replied by giving them a playful wink.

The road lead her deeper into the town, and soon, a market square was visible in the distance. She no longer sensed the presence of the young couple, but her time here was running short. Two guard ponies galloped hurriedly across the plaza, and judging by their unnerved demeanor; they likely suspected that something was very wrong.

Helena stayed in the shadows between two lampposts and surveyed the surrounding structures. On her side of the street were apartment complexes with lit windows, and her senses told that numerous ponies moved inside. On the opposite side were commercial buildings, easily identified by their signposts. The buildings were two storeys high, and the tops likely served as housing for whoever owned the stores below.

There was one store in particular that caught her interest. Its signpost depicted a lump of coal and a wand with sparkly stars around it. More importantly, she sensed no life inside. She moved along the road at a measured pace, and took a step up the small stairway leading to the front entrance of what she assumed to be an alchemy vendor. A large padlock locked the door.

Forcing her way inside would be an easy feat, though she preferred not cause too much trouble for whoever lived there. Instead, she took a step backward and leaped upward until she could grab the edge of the second-floor window, then heaved herself up with one arm. It allowed her to peer inside an empty bedchamber, and in an adjacent room, she spotted a desk with a bookshelf above it.

Helena was interrupted when she sensed a nearby presence, and before long, a royal guard unicorn came trotting down the street. She pushed the window straight up with her free hand with such force that the bolt keeping the lock in place was torn from its hinges. The noise alerted the guard on the street, and as she pulled her way inside the house, she heard the stallion raise a cry of alarm.

The pony outside didn’t interest her. Whoever lived in the apartment must have left a few days ago, and by the state of the abandoned dinner plates on the dining room table, they’d all left in a hurry. She stared a moment at a deserted children’s room and knew what event was liable for causing the family to flee their home.

Helena turned and stepped into the room where she’d first seen the books. On the desk below the shelf was a picture of a unicorn couple with two foals sitting in between them. It appeared that the stallion of the family was a miner, judging by the red metal hat with a lamp on top, while the mare must be the alchemist who ran the shop. There were six books on the shelf, and they all seemed to have chemistry in common, though the subject mattered little to her.

She quickly turned the pages of the first in the row. The words made little sense to her at first, but when she reached the halfway point, they began to change shape in her mind. Letters, as she viewed them, began to form into understandable terms, and she returned to the first page. Time dilated as she read the book from beginning to end, allowing her to finish them all at a measured pace without having to worry about interruptions from the outside.

From what she gathered, the ponies' understanding of science varied greatly. They were remarkably successful in some areas while awful in others. No doubt a heavy reliance on magic was the cause of their unbalanced development, but most importantly, Helena found no signs that any outside influence was feeding them technologies beyond their understanding.

The book offered little value besides furthering her understanding of their language until she found a curious detail. The book briefly mentioned the theoretical substances that made the stars, and Helena had no answer to how the ponies could even know such things existed. This world was situated inside a dark nebula made out of interstellar clouds that were dense enough to obscure light. The night sky had been nothing but darkness since she arrived, so how did they know about stars? Did Celestia describe what they were?

Helena’s thoughts were interrupted by an alarm bell going off in the distance. The ponies must have been busy in the ten minutes of normal time that had passed since she entered the house. Additional bells rang from every direction, and it signaled that it was time for her to leave and continue with her original plan. She finished the final book, then walked to the window from where she’d entered. Her senses told her that ponies were now buzzing all about in the city, with some gathering at the far side of the road.

Despite this, Helena’s attention switched to the window she’d broken on her way in. The bolt that kept the hook in place laid on the floor. It was clear she had ripped it straight out of its hinges, and returning it to its original place would no longer be possible. Thinking for a moment, she took the brass hook and bent it with her fingers, allowing the spring to work much closer than the original. Next, she took the small bolt and pressed it into the wood next to the old hole, and continued to push and turn until it was entirely inside the bottom of the window frame, allowing the shortened hook to work as intended again.

Satisfied with her makeshift repairs, she opened the window, leaped out, and landed on the cobbled street.

Twilight touched down on the central plaza with an ungraceful landing on her rump. The feathers in her wings were ruffled and cold, and the magical strain had left her too woozy to think straight. Fortunately, none of the dozens of ponies that were running around in confusion had bothered to comment on her clumsy entrance.

It took a screaming baby in a stroller to clear her mind and make her realize the seriousness of the situation. At that moment, a guardsmare galloped past down one of the side roads. Twilight stood up straight and ran after her, nearly colliding with a bewildered stallion in the process. She didn't need to follow the guardsmare far, as Twilight found herself in the back row of a line of guards facing a narrow street.

“Excuse me,” Twilight said, and struggled to see what was further down the road.

“Princess Twilight!” The voice came from one of the guards. She didn't recognize the old unicorn trotting toward her, but the lieutenant's emblem on his helmet likely meant he was in charge. “We have a serious situation on our hooves.”

”Is it the aliens?” Twilight asked.

Her words caused a fair bit of murmuring among the row of guards, and some turned to salute her.

The lieutenant nodded solemnly. He appeared to be a fatherly type with gray, bushy brows and a white coat. Twilight would have pictured him in a rocking chair in front of the hearth, with a book in one hoof and a drink in the other, if he hadn’t been wearing a full set of heavy armor. Was the royal guard so short-hoofed that they needed to call in retires?

”Look over there!” a guard yelled, followed by loud gasps and the shuffling of metal.

“Clear the way,” the lieutenant said and pressed through two burly guards.

Twilight saw her chance and trotted forward before the gap could close. She never did like to show off her authority, but when the guards were hesitant to let her through, she flared her wings. The display was more than enough insurance against anyone believing a princess needed to be protected far from the front lines.

All thoughts of proper princess decorum vanished when she saw what was before her. Down on one knee and ten yards ahead of her was the alien. The creature itself didn’t seem threatening, but the surrounding ripples that twisted the dormant magic in the air were enough to make Twilight’s horn itch. Whatever it was, it broke the very laws of magic.

She instinctively knew that alien was already aware of their presence, despite the fact it hadn’t physically acknowledged them yet.

”Your orders, Princess Twilight?” the lieutenant asked. The old stallion’s pose revealed that he was ready to charge at her command, but despite his brave front, Twilight found both sweat and small shivers on his wizened face. “There might be ponies in the building.”

”Stand down,” Twilight ordered, and took a hesitant step forward as the alien reached its full height, nearly twice as tall as a full grown pony. It was difficult for her to get a clear view of its face, but the extraequestrial didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave. If she were going to initiate friendly relations, now would be the time. ”My name is Princess Twilight Sparkle.”

The alien showed no visible response to her introduction, and Twilight inched slowly forward. Most of the alien’s features were hidden in the dark, and the dim shine from the street lamps only revealed the blond mane that went down its back to the waist, and the white dress was something Twilight might have expected to see at the Grand Galloping Gala.

She was almost within hoof's reach when the alien completely turned away from her. The movement was so unexpected and fluid that Twilight almost erected a barrier between the two, despite its intentions to peacefully leave.

”Wait!” Twilight shouted with enough strength to surprise even her. “I wish to talk.”

The alien spun enough for Twilight to get a better view. Its appearance and expression was familiar, and yet different all the same. Perfect was the word she instinctively used in her mind to describe its slender limbs and smooth skin, and she understood now why Starlight had compared it to the fairies from the old myths.

“Please,” Twilight continued. “Would you hear me out?”

It didn’t answer at first. Twilight suspected the delayed response was due to a language barrier, as Starlight had told her how the alien had focused on learning words during the interrogation. The alien's first response, however, was to arch one eyebrow at her.

“I don’t have time,” the alien eventually said, in perfect Equestrian.

The superb way it articulated the sentence caused Twilight to take a step backward. Had it only pretended not to know their language? There was also something eerie about the way the alien said it as if it had just told her some grand joke, and Twilight swore that it was laughing on the inside. She hesitated too long on what to say next, and the alien lost interest and began to walk away in the opposite direction. Mind racing, she desperately searched for something that’d make it stay and talk to her.

“What happened to the stars?” Twilight blurted, instantly regretting her choice of words.

The question halted the alien’s movement for a brief moment, and the way it immediately recovered was uncanny.

“I destroyed them,” the alien said, nonchalantly, without pausing its step.

Twilight slowly processed the implications of the alien's words. Flashbacks of countless meteors and the terror of the ponies she held dearest were at the forefront, and the alien dared to be dismissive. She sensed her heartbeat increase and her senses heighten as adrenaline flowed through her system, washing away her prior fatigue.

“Stop,” Twilight said, firmly, then galloped after the alien. She ignored the surprised gasps from the guards. The only thing she cared about was giving the alien a few choice words. She prepared a barrier to block its path, but before her magic had begun to form, everything happened at once.

One moment, the alien's back was turned, and the next it stood facing her, with blue eyes that registered her every movement and were poised to attack. Twilight immediately screeched to a halt. It was as if its hostile posture ignited her primal instincts to flee from an overwhelming foe. Blood turned to ice in her veins, and it was as if every fiber in her body contracted so that the predator wouldn’t notice her presence. She felt like a rabbit pressing itself deeper into the brush, and if she moved a muscle the wolf's jaw would snap down on her neck.

“Princess Twilight?” a male voice asked.

Twilight gasped for air. Sweat poured down her body as she tried to make sense of what had just happened. The alien was gone. Her eyes darted from side to side, but it had just vanished from sight.

“What? Where did it go?” she asked, in between breaths. Twilight realized that the lieutenant supported her from collapsing onto the cobbled street.

“The alien left, and I’ve sent guards to search the house,” the stallion said and removed the supporting hoof from her shoulders when she’d regained her balance. “You ran towards it and stopped, then the alien left in a hurry. It must have jumped down the slope. I sent two of my best fliers after it, but I’m not certain they’ll be able to trace it in the dark.”

The lieutenant's mustache twitched when she didn’t reply. “Princess Twilight?”

“Send another one and warn them that the alien can jump high enough to catch a pegasus in the air.” Twilight wanted nothing more than to sit down and gather her thoughts, but the urgency of the loud alarm bells and the cacophony of a city struck by panic helped her regain focus. “I will need a chariot that can take me swiftly to Canterlot.”

Helena dashed down the steep slope. The purple mare claiming to be a princess had given her much to think about. In her first encounter with the defense platforms, she’d noted their peculiar shape, but hadn’t thought much of it. Vessel design could greatly vary, and often any added features were solely cosmetic. With the evidence in hand, however, things became more evident.

Whoever shaped this world wanted the inhabitants to someday reach for the stars. She couldn’t think of any other possible reason why else the defense platforms were designed to simulate the night sky of other worlds. In all likelihood, the orbital weapons would never fire on a spaceship leaving the surface.

It was welcome news. There was always the danger that automated factories were hidden among asteroids, and were now at work replacing the destroyed defenses. If so, they might fire on her ship from orbit, though if they operated at such a low level to be undetectable by her ship, then she couldn’t imagine that they’d be able to replenish weapons faster than her ship could self-repair.

Helena reached the bottom of the slope and continued her run into a ghostly forest. Two fliers followed her from far above, but they were a minor nuisance. At the height they flew, it was unlikely they’d be able to follow her through a forest at night, and if they decided to have a closer look, she might choose to visit them up in the sky. Regardless, before the end of this world’s night cycle, she’d meet with this ‘Celestia’ and attain the answers she sought, one way or another.

Twilight sat back against one of the walls of the open chariot and hugged her tail for comfort. It was hard for her to rest when all four guards soared through the air at full speed. She’d even convinced them to go against regulation and remove their weapons and armor to hasten the flight, but the speed now made it difficult for Twilight to think straight.

She needed to consult with Celestia and Luna. The risk that the aliens couldn’t be reasoned with was now a real possibility, and they’d need to have a contingency plan if further attempts at friendship failed. She decided to let go of those plans for now, and instead focus on the peculiar sense of déjà vu she’d felt in the alien’s presence.

The encounter had been brief, but it had still left Twilight rattled. Something about the alien irked the subconscious parts of her mind. She, because Twilight now was certain it was a female of its kind, was deeply familiar. Twilight shifted in frustration over having such an important clue stored away, but was unable to place it in the grand scheme of things. Twilight could only hope that it would come to her before the situation escalated beyond their control.

Escalation

Celestia watched her former apprentice collapse into the guest sofa, lying facedown on a pillow, with legs and wings spread haphazardly out of the furniture’s boundaries. It didn’t take long before muffled snores were audible. Her old student had yet again overextended herself. Luckily, the energy of youth was easily replenished, and if fortune would allow it, they’d still have a few hours to rest. The pegasi guards following the alien had lost sight of it near the Everfree Forest and reported that it was undoubtedly heading for Canterlot.

She moved over to the window and looked down on her city. Torches moved between homes in the dark streets and alleys, as guards and volunteers informed the citizenry of the curfew now in effect. The process was going smoothly, but even Celestia didn’t know what would happen once the news spread of aliens roaming unchecked through their cities. If the situation were to escalate any further, the city bells would signal the beginning of the complete evacuation of Canterlot.

Celestia moved away from the window and took hold of her bedsheets, then pulled them over the sleeping Twilight. They had retired to her bedchambers after the emergency briefing, and now all they could do was wait.

What happened at the meeting worried her. Not what was revealed about the alien exactly, but her sister’s response to the revelation. Twilight had informed them of the alien’s claim that it was the one responsible for the destruction of the stars. Stormwielder and Blueblood had responded with disbelief and skepticism. The stars are too far apart to be simultaneously destroyed, they’d argued, and held on to the belief that there was an illusion spell blanketing the sky.

Celestia and Luna knew better. They’d not told anyone yet, but Luna had confirmed that the stars no longer existed. Her magic could reach their position, but even the location of the constellations was now nothing more than empty space. When Twilight told them the alien had caused it, she’d immediately tried to gauge her sister’s reaction. What she found, however, was the worst possible scenario. Her sister’s expression was an unreadable, vacant stare, and Celestia feared what laid hidden beneath it. They’d talked privately after the meeting, and Luna had coldly dismissed her worries before excusing herself.

Twilight let out a loud, unladylike snore.

Celestia giggled to herself, then with a wing moved Twilight’s mane so it wouldn’t get messy during her nap. No matter what happened tonight, so long as Twilight remained safe and happy, she would be content.

With little else to do, Celestia turned to the paperwork on her desk. The letters which needed signing were unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but if she lifted the spirit of a few of her subjects, then it was a task worth doing.

She retrieved her reading glasses and took hold of the one at the top of the stack. It was from a trade union, asking if the current crisis would allow for a higher percentage of food to be exported to neighboring countries. Celestia thought about it for a moment. The next harvest would be a bad one when so many farmers had abandoned their field to seek shelter in the shielded cities and towns, but Equestria’s food reserves were still the largest of any nation.

Celestia accepted the increase, but added an annex to the document, stating that prices needed to be fixed at last year's rate to prevent price gouging. Content with the answer, she let out a yawn before continuing with the next case.

The doors to her private chambers suddenly swung open, followed by a guard peeking in.

“Your Majesty,” the stallion whispered when he saw the sleeping Twilight, “the beacons on the gate are lit.”

Celestia dropped her quill, leaving an ink stain on the paper. It was too soon. How could the alien have traveled so quickly through rough terrain?

“Are our preparations complete?”

The guard nodded. “Nearly the entire city has been informed. West Gate and East Gate are prepared if an evacuation proves necessary. The mayors of nearby towns are expecting to receive evacuees.”

“Let us hope it won’t prove necessary.”

Helena walked along the packed dirt road leading to the city gate. Ponies were patrolling the battlements, but the torches they carried would only serve to ruin their night vision. Not that there would be any need for her to take the stealthy approach, as there was a significant gap in the shield and the gates were wide open. Stuck to pillars on either side were white flags dangling in the wind. A single pegasus held the entranceway, armed with what appeared to be a stone sword holstered to his back. The stallion hadn’t seen her yet and quietly stood there with a resolved pose.

When she appeared from out of the darkness, he unwittingly took a step backward and seemed to curse the fact that she startled him so. Though, he remained and waited patiently for Helena to approach him.

“Princess Celestia has granted you an audience,” he said when Helena finally stood in front of him. “If you follow me, I will lead you to the palace.”

Helena looked past him. There were only a few guards along the roadside leading to the central parts of the city, and all the houses were dark and quiet.

“Very well,” Helena said, amused. “Lead the way.”

The stallion simply turned and began to walk up the road at a measured pace, and Helena followed closely by.

“I’m surprised Celestia agreed to a peaceful meeting,” Helena said, mostly to start a conversation. “Unless you’re leading me to a trap?”

The middle-aged stallion mumbled to himself as they continued on the road. The pony guards all shied away when she came close, and from the houses, she saw curious heads with erect ears peer out from the unlit windows.

“Were you ordered not to converse with me?” she asked.

“No.”

“I noticed a statue matching the description of Celestia at the entrance, and also a dark one with similar features.”

“Princess Luna,” the stallion said and appeared ready to draw his sword. Helena sensed the stone weapon was more than it seemed, and wouldn't be surprised if she found that magic had enhanced it. ”Now answer one of my questions.”

Helena let out a chuckle and tried to move closer to the stallion's side. His response was to use his wings to propel himself sideways and assume a fighting stance with his weapon half drawn.

“I will, if you would walk with me,” Helena said, gesturing to her side.

“What happened to the guards you took captive?” he asked instead.

Helena turned to the castle and continued without him. “They are asleep in a cave nine miles southeast of my ship. Even if you don’t find it, they will have regained consciousness at sunrise.”

The stallion reluctantly hilted his sword and galloped up to her side.

”Why did you attack them?”

The stallion’s head barely reached her waist, so she had to bend down to face him.

”It’s my turn to ask a question. What’s your name?”

The irrelevant question caught him by surprise. ”Captain Stonewielder,” he said, and met her gaze without flinching. ”What’s your name?”

”Good, you learn quickly,” Helena said and returned to her original position. ”My name is Helena.”

Every armored pony they passed on the road left their post and followed them at a distance, and it didn’t take long until there was a small column of ponies marching in step behind them.

”Will you answer my question now?” Stonewielder asked.

Helena thought about it as they reached an open area with a central fountain. ”There was not enough time.”

Stormwielder frowned skeptically at the vague answer.

Helena let her hand slide against the water as they walked around the fountain. She didn’t detect any dangers directed at her from anywhere in the city, though strangely enough, it reminded her of a time long ago when she’d been overconfident in her newly developed abilities to manipulate time.

At that time, a nearby world which she had helped in the past invited her down to meet with the local government, and they’d arranged a grand parade from the ship to the meeting area. Unfortunately, there was one among their leaders who greedily sought the ancient information hidden within her ship’s data vaults, and decided to take it by force against the wishes of his peers.

Helena detected the projectile, fired from miles away by a sniper, only when it was far too late.

She’d spent almost a day in diluted time, watching the bullet inch closer to her. In the end, the only solution she found was to abandon parts of her mind and relocate the stored information temporarily in the other half. In retrospect, she’d found the recording of the event to be quite amusing. The expression on the spectators' faces, when she ran back to her ship with half her head missing, was very entertaining.

It had taken a week for her to make a full recovery in the safety of her ship, and she woke up to find an entire world fearing retribution. Luckily for them, she’d only tracked down the assassin and his contractor and made sure they’d repented their violent ways and would act more cordially to the next visitor.

”My species are called human. Have you seen or heard of one before?”

”Of course not,” Stormwielder replied. ”Are there more aliens out there?”

”In the galaxy? Many.” They reached a large flight of stairs, and she raised the sides of her dress upwards as they ascended. ”But no, I came here by myself.”

When they reached the top, the entrance to the castle became visible. The guard ponies that had initially followed them veered off into the city one by one, scattering into much smaller groups. Helena could only guess as to why, but she sensed that they presented no danger to her.

It was Helena’s turn to ask a question. ”How old is Celestia?”

”I don’t know,” Stonewielder admitted. ”At least a thousand years.”

”Must be strange to be ruled by someone so ageless.”

Stonewielder scowled as they reached the castle gate. ”And who are you to judge her? She is the wisest and oldest ruler that ever was.”

Helena couldn’t contain her mirth as the gate opened up before them. ”I’m sorry, but there exists so much beyond your comprehension. I am about six times older.”

”Then what?” he asked, unimpressed. ”Celestia?”

”No,” she mused. ”Your world.”

Twilight awoke in a groggy state, her body feeling slow and overworked. She remembered a voice calling out to her. Telling her softly that it was time to wake up.

“Just five more minutes, mom,” she said, eyes closed and snuggling deeper into the pillow. It took a few more moments, but eventually, her mind pieced together where she was, and she leaped off the sofa with a loud yelp.

“It's been years since last time you called me your mother by accident,” Celestia said, chuckling to herself near the dressing area. She was in the process of combing and making sure her regalia was in its proper place.

“Sorry,” Twilight said, followed by a loud yawn.

“No need to apologize. It’s a mistake even the most grizzled of veterans will make on occasion. I quite enjoy it.”

There was a loud knocking on the door, followed by one of the guards. “Your Majesties,” he began, walking inside, “Captain Stonewielder is on his way here with the alien. They’ll be here in ten minutes.”

Twilight prepared as best she could with the precious few minutes available. Her crown was still back at the camp, but fortunately, the maids had been informed beforehand to find her a proper necklace and dress to wear. Celestia herself wore simple white silk along with her usual regalia.

“Where is Luna?” Twilight asked once they were both out in the corridors.

“Luna will not be attending,” Celestia said, and pushed open the door to the throne room. “I asked her to sit this one out until she feels better.”

The remark made Twilight fold one ear in confusion, but Celestia’s expression betrayed nothing when Twilight gazed up at her questioningly. Instead, Celestia appeared resigned rather than resolved. Not knowing what else to think of this, Twilight followed her to the throne room.

There were guards stationed between every major pillar, and they all saluted with stone-faced expressions when they passed. Some held spears, while others used large golden shields that towered over the burly earth ponies that carried them.

The guard presence had been a highly debated topic in the meeting. Celestia wanted every available guard to remain outside, helping keep the city safe and calm, and if things turned to the worse, they’d need all the help they could get to evacuate Canterlot safely. Shining Armor and the crystal ponies he leads would arrive in the morning, though Twilight doubted her brother would be enough to tip the scale in their favor.

Twilight took her place at the side of Celestia's throne. The alien would be inside the castle by now, and there was little to do but wait.

The tension in the room was palpable, and the only thing that echoed through the room was the occasional shuffling of armor or loud yawn that Twilight was unable to hold in.

Eventually, the main doors were opened by a guard.

”Ahem,” he said. ”Let me present to her Majesties, the visitor from outer space, Helena the Human.”

The announcement was enough to wash away all of Twilight’s prior fatigue. They now knew its name and species! She ignored everything and began a frantic search for something to use to take notes. That’s when she remembered the secretary desk near the back corner of the throne. It was currently unoccupied, and the top was cleaned out, but there had to be some office supplies in one of the drawers.

Twilight could see Stonewielder, followed by the human, approach the entrance. If she was fast enough, she could still procure some pen and paper. Weighing the pros and cons of doing so on a scale, she judged that this wasn’t the time to be tip-hoofing around in the background.

It was the first time she had a perfect view of the human. She still wore the same dress as when they’d met in Copper Hill, and somehow it was still in a pristine condition. Twilight made a mental note to ask about the spell it used later, assuming the meeting didn’t spiral out of control.

Helena is her name, Twilight reminded herself.

”Greetings,” Helena said when the alien reached the halfway point to the throne. ”I must commend your efforts.”

Stonewielder trotted ahead to stand at attention near the base of the throne. The room was silent for a few moments.

”What do you mean?” Celestia asked.

”You’ve crafted a beautiful world,” Helena said, stopping only when Stonewielder blocked her path. ”But I’m not overly fond of the weapons in orbit. How many spacefarers have fallen victim to them through the ages?”

Twilight turned to observe Celestia’s reaction to the absurd claim. Not surprisingly, Celestia appeared as taken aback as Twilight.

”I’m sorry,” Celestia said. ”But I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Helena folded her thin arms in a cross and smirked up at Celestia. ”Playing ignorant won’t work on me. Only those with the knowledge to travel between the stars know of the secrets of agelessness.”

Twilight ears perked. Travel between the stars. How did they accomplish such a feat? Maybe a continuous accelero spell on those large engines at the back? She wanted to know.

”I’m an alicorn,” Celestia explained. ”Those born as such have always been blessed with longevity. But I have no idea how or why you would put a weapon up in space.”

Celestia motioned her head to Twilight.

”Oh!” Twilight said, and gulped audibly when the alien raised an eyebrow in her direction. ”Hi! We’ve met before. Sorry that I tried to stop you with that spell of mine.”

There was a long pause in the room, and Twilight waited for Helena to give her an apology in turn. There was none.

”Ahem,” Twilight continued, sheepishly. ”How about we start the meeting by getting to know each other better? We also have some really comfy bedchambers prepared if you want to continue with the discussion tomorrow.”

“No,” Helena said and advanced on Celestia.

Stonewielder drew his sword and pointed it in the human's path, while the guards from the sideline rushed over. The ones carrying tall shields formed a barrier on the carpet leading up to the throne.

The human's response was lightning fast. Before Twilight could react, the blade of Stonewielder’s magically imbued sword was snagged from him by two of Helena’s fingers, and thrown away with such force that it lodged itself in one of the marble pillars. The stallion tried to rear and kick instead, but the human was quickly beside him. With a fluid motion, she shoved him hard on his armored side with her palm, sending him tumbling several yards along the polished floor.

”Stop!” Celestia said, and held out her hoof. The guards, moments from lounging out with their spears, halted midstep. ”How can I prove to you that I’m telling the truth?”

Helena paused momentarily. ”Allow me to place my hand on you, and I will know if you speak the truth or not.”

The guards shifted nervously at those words. The earth ponies with shields tightening their formation.

”Very well,” Celestia eventually said. ”I will allow you to approach and—”

”No!” Stonewielder interrupted, addressing Helena while also trying to regain his balance. The stallion was clearly disoriented but seemed otherwise unharmed, at least from what Twilight could see. ”Tell us the truth, alien.”

Helena turned to him briefly.

”Can your touch take her life?” Stonewielder asked.

”Yes, it can,” Helena replied without pause.

The carefree way she said was enough for Twilight to activate her horn, though she had no idea if they were any spells that would be effective. The few unicorns among the dozen guards had similar notions, as their horns began to crackle with arcane energy, without any plan on how to unleash it.

Helena knew her exterior radiated a calm and imposing presence. Her interior, however, was the complete opposite. Inside, she felt a rush unlike any she’d experienced in her lifetime. The culmination of her long search was finally within her grasp.

”I command you all to put down your weapons,” the false goddess said, in response to her soldiers inching closer to Helena. They reluctantly withdrew.

“Princess, you must not!” Stonewielder cried out.

Celestia turned to Helena and gave her a genuine smile. ”I trust our visitor from beyond the mist of space will do no such vile deeds.”

The act of playing deity was convincing, though Helena believed that the oversized white wings and horn were overselling it. She continued forward and pushed away the shield-bearing ponies with ease. Celestia regarded her with that same motherly smile, and nobody else tried to stop her reaching out.

Nobody except for the smaller, purple alicorn at her side. The younger mare had her ears splayed backward, and seemed ready to jump in and bite Helena’s arm off if the opportunity presented itself.

Helena ignored her and gently touched the white coat of Princess Celestia, and felt time come to a complete halt. Pulses were sent through her fingers into every part of Celestia’s body, searching for possible signs of human tampering. The information was thoroughly processed by her mind, and was so unexpected; she had to repeat the search. The princess had spoken the truth; it seemed, but not the whole truth. Celestia was indeed as much of a pony as any of the others.

With one notable exception.

The magic within the alicorn was continually renewing its body, giving it a perfect regeneration of cells without any sign of decay. The process behaved differently than the malleable magic she’d encountered so far, and it couldn’t possibly have been a coincidence. There were no doubts left. A human was responsible for engineering the process of Celestia’s agelessness, and she deduced it happened fifteen hundred years ago.

Whoever made this world was still active.

Helena removed her hand from the neck. To her, an hour had gone by deciphering data, while the ponies experienced less than a second of real time.

Celestia blinked in surprise. “That’s it?”

Helena stepped back. ”It seems you speak the truth.”

The ears of the purple mare perked up again.

”Does that mean we can be friends now?” Twilight asked, and took a step closer. “We could maybe help you find the missing person?”

“Do you know who made this world?” Helena said, switching her focus to Twilight. There was a bit of edge in her question, enough for Celestia to shield Twilight with a wing.

“We have no idea who you’re talking about,” Celestia said.

Helena considered her next move. Attaining sufficient information from the ponies would be a time-consuming process, and she’d revealed her presence to the world. Giving her opponent time enough to escape or plan a counter-move against her.

“I assume this castle has a library?” Helena asked Celestia.

The purple mare seemed to burst out of the protective wing she was under and was bold enough to trot up close to Helena’s side.

“Oh yes!” she said and pointed a hoof at the throne room entrance. “The castle library has the most expansive collections of history and spells in all Equestria.”

“Would you show me?”

The purple mare sat down on her haunches and beamed up at Helena. “Of course!”

“Lead the way, little one,” Helena said and turned her back against Celestia. The pony guards around them scattered to make way for her and Twilight.

“I’ll also have to introduce you to the emissaries,” Twilight continued, and proceeded to lead Helena away from the throne. “The only one currently in the castle is the gryphon ambassador, but I’m sure he’d love to meet you.”

“Gryphon?” Helena looked quizzically down at Twilight.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Twilight said, and waved a dismissive hoof in the air. “The gryphons can be rough around the edges, but they’re usually nice and fuzzy beneath all those feathers, once you get to know them better that is.”

Helena felt her time dilate. Was the mare insinuating that there was more than one intelligent species living on the planet? Finding one was news of galactic proportions, but here there were several?

“Where are they?” Helena suddenly demanded. The speed at which she’d swirled her head and the coldness in her voice was enough to make the pony increase the distance between them.

It did not matter. Helena scoured her memory of the castle and easily deduced which section would be used to house foreign diplomats. Ignoring the ponies, she hastily made for the exit with such determination that the two guards at the door bolted when she approached.

Twilight watched the human leave through the main doors and disappear out into the hallway. She still had no idea on how to bond with something so foreign as Helena. Even when Twilight believed she found something they could connect over, the human’s personality would turn on a dime.

But Twilight wasn’t a mare to quit so quickly and prepared to follow the human. She didn’t believe that Helena meant the gryphon ambassador any harm, and someone needed to be there to make sure the human didn’t cause too much havoc to their foreign relations.

“Twilight,” Celestia said, softly from behind her. “Come here; we need to speak.”

Twilight turned to Celestia and noted the relieved look on all the guards in the room. Stonewielder slowly limped his way back to his guards, who all sat slumped as if they’d just finished a mile’s march in heavy armor.

“Yes, Princess?” Twilight said, trotting back to the throne.

Celestia sat rigidly on her seat with a somber expression. “I realize now what the human truly is.”

Twilight tilted her head. The irksome sense of familiarity she felt in the human's presence had remained a mystery to her.

Celestia lowered herself until she was level with Twilight, and whispered into her ear.

“We’re yet again faced with a mad god.”

Helena left the throne room and hurried through the numerous hallways, sending maids and guards alike shuffling out of her way, sometimes overturning the tables or statues that they hid behind. When she neared her destination, she sensed a clear danger waiting for her at the next junction. She stopped and took in the potted flowers of lavender on each of the pillars along the wall. The hostile presence was invisible to the naked eye.

“Show yourself,” Helena said, focusing on a dark area at the very end.

A dark blue alicorn emerged from the shadows, with black cloth of magic swirling around her before dissipating entirely. Helena recognized Luna from the statue at the gate.

“You are very perceptive,” the alicorn said, slowly closing the distance between them. “I am Princess Luna.”

“Helena,” she said and walked to meet her at the center.

The princess must have been through a rough time, as her eyes were as dull as a doll’s, and her lids were weary by restless nights.

“Are you responsible for the stars?” Luna asked.

Helena didn’t pause her step. “Yes.”

There was cold steel in the ponies words. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“They attacked me first,” Helena said.

“Lies!” Luna reared up on her hind legs, then smashed down on the ground, sending cracks all along the polished floor.

The magic in the air seemed to vibrate all at once, and the ripples around Helena grew in size and frequency. Suddenly, one of the marble pillars smashed down in front of her, spreading dust and pieces of rubble in every direction.

The show of force didn’t faze Helena, who casually stepped through the dust and over the fallen pillar. Time was dilated to such an extent that very little could surprise her, and it was clear the pillar was only a display meant for intimidation.

“If you do not relent on the path you’re taking, I will be forced to restrain you,” Luna said when they were only a few paces from one another.

Helena responded with a burst of speed, and the alicorn's eyes widened in disbelief. Arm outstretched, Helena’s palm reached out for Luna’s neck.

There was a burst of light, and Helena moved straight through the area previously occupied by the princess.

Luna had teleport behind her to the entrance of the hallway and was already preparing another spell. Helena spun around and didn’t give the alicorn any pause, as she’d predicted the position of the teleport as soon as the magic activated.

Helena watched in slow motion as a slab of solid stone, roughly half her size, was dislodged from the castle wall, and sent whizzing against her at high speed. This was no warning shot, as the projectile was aimed straight at her center. Helena could easily evade it in time, but decided upon a different approach.

The stone slab was surrounded by a blue aura, connected to the alicorn through a thin line of magic, an easily exploitable weakness. A quick sidestep changed Helena's direction enough to avoid the majority of the stone, and she stretched out her hand to make contact with its surface.

She once more abandoned the defenses in her hand, causing the ripples around it to vanish and magic to soar into the limb. Helena only needed to touch the stone for an instant to disrupt the blue magic propelling the rock forward, and send a feedback loop strong enough to incapacitate the princess.

The slab hurtling towards her was only inches away when the unexpected happened. The magic surrounding it suddenly lost its bluish coloring, and when she touched the stone, it was as if all the ambient magic had gone dormant. She sensed it would be possible to activate it again, but there would no longer be enough time for the magic to redirect the stone’s trajectory.

Instead, she watched in slow motion as the impact tore the white sleeves of her dress asunder and smashed into the rest of her arm, crushing it and shattering the stone in the process. Despite her best efforts to limit the damage, her arm ended up hanging limply at her side.

Dismissing the pain was an easy feat. The arm was still usable to a certain extent, though the less she used it, the quicker it would mend. She’d need the assistance of her ship to bring it back to peak efficiency.

“You are injured,” Luna said while keeping her distance. “Yield, and we will offer medical assis—”

Helena answered with another dash to close the last distance to the pony, who quickly responded with another teleport. This time, Helena observed each millisecond as the pony dematerialized and traveled in particle form to a place far behind her.

Minutes of careful calculations allowed Helena to know precisely where Luna teleported, and then she increased time to a tenth of normal. She swirled around and used all her momentum to hurl a hidden stone in her left hand, a splintered piece of the one that broke her arm, down the hall.

Luna, barely finished with the teleportation and unaware of the situation, was struck right on the cheek with enough force to send her crashing down on her side. Before the alicorn had enough time to recover, Helena was at her side, placing a hand on her neck.

What followed revealed that Luna was indeed a pony, who'd been given the same agelessness as Celestia by an unknown actor. Not wanting any further conflict, Helena sent an electric spike into the center point of Luna's brain and watched as the alicorn's eyes drifted back into her head. The pony would stay asleep for at least one local cycle, but from her experience in the cave, she knew not to trust that estimate.

She guided Luna gently down to the ground and observed how the swelling increased on the side of her face. There was no perfect way to heal the damage, but a quick shock to stimulate the pony’s organs would help shorten the recovery time. Helena’s arm was in an equally poor state, though with the help of some of her augmentations, it was possible to at least hide the damage, except for the ruined sleeve.

After confirming that the alicorn hadn’t suffered any permanent injuries, she stood up and surveyed the damage to the hallway. The cold night air came gushing in through the hole in the wall, clouds of dust and fragments of stone and marble littered the hall, cracks visible all along the floor, and most of the lavender flowers hung haphazardly over their pots. There was a brief moment of tranquility, then one of the ornate chandeliers fell from the ceiling and shattered on the floor.

Helena sighed as she knew the fight had attracted a lot of attention, and she sensed armored ponies already on their way. She expected they’d be less than pleased by the fact that she’d beaten up one of their goddesses and decided it was best to keep moving. There was, after all, a new species for her to discover.

Author's Note

A bit of violence in this chapter, but it won't be quite so bad in the future.

Interloper

Keeper followed the guards through dark corridors as the expeditionary team made their way into the belly of the ship. Despite a lack of functioning lighting in the area, this part was safer to traverse, as the ship’s tilt wasn’t as bad. Still, a primal fear took hold of him whenever he momentarily lost sight of the guards or heard the faint echoes of golems in the distance.

The lamps fitted on his withers were barely enough to illuminate his surrounding, and every unlit patch gnawed at his psyche as he fought a constant urge to use his own magic as an additional light source. His long experience with ancient artifacts, however, made him wary to use his horn in their presence, and he was currently inside one far larger than a Manehattan skyscraper.

The reason for the late-night expedition was shrouded in mystery. It had valid approval from the acting commander, Lady Rarity, but neither Keeper nor the guards were informed of the mission’s true intent, only that it was important enough that they’d risk going in after midnight. If his memory served, the target area had already been searched and nothing of worth found. Keeper’s presence was equally strange. Princess Twilight had always been adamant that he focus on his work as far away from the ship as possible.

“Where did they go?” one of the two guards asked. They were at an intersection and flashed their lights down the branching corridors.

Keeper studied the two stallions, whose names he’d already forgotten. They were likely brothers, given the identical white wings and coats, and the easiest way to identify them was the blue or red mane.

“What happened?” Keeper asked, catching up to them.

Both stallions jerked away in surprise. It was a common occurrence whenever Keeper addressed someone who wasn’t paying attention. It was an unfortunate side-effect with how his black robe blended in perfectly with the dark—a small sacrifice, or bonus, depending on who you asked.

“Keeper, sir,” the blue pegasus said, pointing a hoof down the side corridor. The path hadn’t yet been marked on any of their maps. “We were distracted by some noise, and when we turned, they were both missing.”

“Wait, what was that?” the red maned pegasus said in alarm.

It was if all the ambient sounds of the ship vanished at once, and the three ponies strained their ears to their fullest until a faint, rhythmic thumping could be heard on the level above them. It was heading in their direction and didn’t sound like any of the worker golems they’d encountered.

The blue-maned guard backed away to the corridor they’d come from. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Keeper echoed the statement in his head. There had always been the possibility that they’d activated some kind of defense mechanism, or that the alien crew were all pony-eating abominations. Running away, however, was not an option. The dull, red floor of the alien ship was deceptive and treacherous to tread on, and one could lose control of one's hooves at a moment's notice if they weren't mindful of each movement.

The sound gradually came closer, then after a brief pause, Keeper heard a large metal object drop to the floor on the level above them, followed by something crawling its way through the ventilation at an unnatural speed.

“It’s in the walls!” the red guard said, while aiming with his lamp at the wall from where the noise emanated. The reflecting metal made it difficult to see it at first, and to their horror, there was a duct large enough to fit a pony at the very bottom.

Keeper steeled himself, approaching the duct until his own lamp allowed him see what lay hidden behind the bars. At first, there was nothing but darkness; his heart nearly stopped when the light reflected off a gray face with blue eyes and a wicked smile.

“Found ya!” it said and pushed through the duct with burst of speed, flinging dust all over the hallway.

The gray pony shape screeched to a halt in between Keeper and the guards, and before anyone could react, it shook like a dog caught out in the rain, spreading even more dust into their surrounding.

There was collective sigh as they identified the pony as Miss Pinkie Pie behind the layer of dust. Keeper wanted to chastise her for leaving the group, but he was never able to comprehend how high the mare ranked in state affairs. The information he’d gathered indicated she was anywhere from the lowest rung to the highest apex of the hierarchical ladder.

A door suddenly burst open behind them, and Keeper turned to find a grinning Rainbow Dash, who held a hoof against what had to be the control panel on the her side of the wall.

“Oh, heya,” Rainbow said, and removed the hoof. “I told you I would find a way to open it, Pinkie. ”

“My way was faster!” Pinkie countered.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Yeah, way faster.”

“Where did the two of you go?” Keeper asked. The lighting was also off inside the newly opened room, yet he could see the dark outlines of furniture in the distance.

“To the reason why we're here, of course!” Pinkie said, bouncing into the room and leaving the three stallions gaping. If Keeper had done little more than treading carefully forward, he’d have fallen flat on his muzzle.

“Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash began with an eyebrow raised, “you’ll hurt yourself if you’re not careful!”

Pinkie Pie ignored her friend’s complaint and bounced into the dark room until there was no trace of her.

“Hey, Keeper,” Rainbow Dash continued. “Do your thing and help me get the lights on.”

Keeper shared a quick glance with the two guards, and all three came to a non-verbal agreement. If searching this area was their objective, then going inside a room was much safer than standing in an open corridor. They entered together, and Keeper only needed a quick glance at the panel to grasp what the symbols meant.

There were eight knobs and buttons on the square panel beneath the alien’s language. Like most alien interfaces, the different knobs and buttons were fitted so closely together that operating them by hoof was unnecessarily difficult.

“The top left one opens the door, then there's some sort of timer before it closes again,” Rainbow Dash said. “It’s how we got seperated to begin with.”

Keeper questioned why she fiddled with the controls in the first place, then pressed the button. The thick metal door closed almost instantly with little noise. At least it was comforting knowing that golems could no longer sneak up on them. Recognizing the symbol for increasing and decreasing the lights, he turned the knob until the room was lit enough that they could all turn off their lamps.

They were in some kind of wall-less room divided into four areas, and though the proportions and designs were slightly foreign to a pony, it was easy to deduce the function of each square: kitchen, living room, bedroom, and exercise area.

“Hey, check this out,” Rainbow said, having found an oversized orange ball with a hoof. In the exercise area there was a horizontal, circular metal hoop supporting a net, attached to a board with a red outline fitted high up on the wall.

“Five bits say you won’t make the shot,” Pinkie said, bouncing into view.

“Oh yeah?”

Keeper could only shake his head as a fierce competition began between the two mares. Their carefree game was a stark comparison to the two Royal Guards, who had both collapsed in the living room sofa and seemed to struggle against having a nervous breakdown.

“Hey, watch this,” Rainbow said as she reared up to buck one of the balls. The ball missed its mark by a fair margin, followed by a loud grunt as Rainbow Dash landed poorly on her hind leg.

“Rainbow! You okay?” Pinkie said.

“I’m fine, Pinkie,” she mumbled. “Stupid floor threw me off balance and ruined my kick, and I just got out of the infirmary!”

“Aww, don’t blame Ms. Shippy,” Pinkie said, and bucked one of the orange balls right into the hoop. “She’s just grumpy when you focus on your hooves too much.”

“She?” Rainbow asked while massaging her hind leg. “I thought all ships were named after a stallion for good luck.”

”Miss Pie,” Keeper said, interrupting the two. ”What do you mean by ’putting less focus on your hooves?’”

”Like this!” she said, and began jumping up and down on the polished maple floor.

It was hard to see the variance between each bounce, as the mare made her way to the kitchen area. It then dawned on him that she was actually manipulating her innate magic to an extraordinary degree. Whenever her hooves were about to touch the ship’s surface, her magic temporarily transferred away, in effect minimizing the often violent interaction between magic and alien material. It was an interesting discovery, though Keeper doubted that there were many with such a finely tuned control of their innate magic.

”Hey, look what I found!” Pinkie said with her head inside one of the drawers. It was an unopened bean can, judging by the picture on the front, which she dangled in their direction.

Keeper exchanged a glance with Rainbow Dash, who shrugged with her wings.

”You think it’s still edible?” Rainbow asked.

”I don’t know,” Pinkie replied, and hoofed it over to Keeper. ”What do you think?”

Keeper accepted it with a hint of skepticism. He could translate a few words of the alien language with a fair margin of error, though reading the table of contents was above his abilities.

Expiration date: 2136/01/01

The words and numbers were completely unintelligible to him. “If you’re going to sample alien food you should wait until we’re back at camp.”

“But I want to taste it now,” Pinkie whined. “How else am I supposed to plan a Welcome Aliens to Equestria Party?” She mumbled to herself some more, then continued to ransack the kitchen. “I need to figure out what they like, or this whole trip would have gone to waste!”

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at that. “Is that why we’re here?”

“Duh, why else would we be?” Pinkie replied.

“We were never told the reason, only that it was marked as highest priority,” Keeper said. “Are you certain Lady Rarity approved of this expedition?”

“Of course she did,” Pinkie answered, and stuck her head out from the container beneath the sink, long enough to hoof him a document from within her mane. “Read the letter, silly.”

Keeper held it beneath the lamps on his withers. “This is a grocery list.”

“Of course it is. Read further down.”

Keeper continued down the list, and when he reached the bottom, he noticed how the font became noticeably smaller. He had to strain his vision to see what was written right above Rarity’s signature. It took a moment to decipher, but the final words were indeed a request to gather important cultural and cuisine research from the spaceship, in the interest of public moral and Equestria’s bright future no less.

“Was Rarity wearing her reading glasses when she approved of this document?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“And how much paperwork had she signed before this one?”

“A whole bunch!”

Keeper sighed as the mystery was solved. To think they made it all this way to find a cookbook. He didn’t mind the fact that he’d been bamboozled to come here, as it was a rare opportunity to bring back a few unsanctioned artifacts for his research. He greedily eyed one present on the kitchen bench, a glass pot below a funnel, with a separate glass chamber on the side attached to a control panel. He had to rear up on his hind legs to fully reach up to the tall bench, when a vibration in the floor caught his attention.

“Hey, Pinkie,” Rainbow said. “How did you even know this place was here?”

The vibrations in the floor kept steadily increasing. Keeper pulled back his dark hood to better hear the distant rumblings of machines coming to life. The two guards on the sofa noticed it as well and were both frantically searching for the source of the noise.

“I read the reports of course,” Pinkie replied, seemingly unaware of what was happening around her. “One of the guards reported that they peeked inside and thought they saw a sofa, but the patrol was heading home so they didn’t have time to investigate.”

“What’s happening?” the red-maned guard asked, as the vibrations reached the point where it became difficult to stand upright.

There was an almost deafening roar from every direction, followed by a brief silence, then a sudden jerk as they were forcefully pressed against the floor. It lasted only a few second as gravity equalized.

The ship is moving.

Stumbling for the control panel on the door, he pressed the mechanism controlling the door.

It didn't work.

Keeper was about to say something when a terrible odor invaded his nostrils. He turned to find Ms. Pinkie Pie with a can opener in one hoof and an opened can in the other.

”Bleh,” she said. ”Space beans are disgusting.”

Luna awoke with a start and gasped for air. She jerked forward, followed by a surge of pain on her left cheek, then fell backwards again on the half-raised bed.

”How are you feeling?” Celestia asked from somewhere nearby.

Luna’s vision was too blurry to make out the shape sitting next to her, yet there was no mistaking the worried tone of her sister.

”Like I’ve spent the night flying through a blizzard,” she replied, and let out a long sigh. The throbbing faded as she lay still. ”What happened?”

Luna’s vision quickly returned, and she was faced with her sister’s neutral expression.

”We found you unconscious on the floor with the hallway in ruins.”

Luna wanted to laugh, but all that came out was a weak chuckle. Talking was going to be an annoying process. ”How fares the city?”

”The city is calm for now. I wanted to know what happened in the hallway before we decide on what to do next,” Celestia said, and placed a hoof on the sheets. ”It’s not been long since we found you unconscious. I believe the human placed you under some kind of sleeping spell that took time to circumvent.”

”I can’t entirely remember what happened,” Luna admitted. The emotional turmoil that led her to confront the alien had now been replaced with weariness. ”I used a spell and saw how the human treated you in the throne room and decided to intervene.”

Celestia waited patiently for her to continue.

”My plan was to teleport to a safe distance and lob objects at the human until it submitted.” Luna gave her a weak smile. ”I think it worked at first, then I woke with my head spinning. Where is the alien now?”

”Currently in the library under Twilight’s close watch,” Celestia said, and sighed audibly. ”It seems Helena decided to scare our dear ambassador so much he lost some of his facial feathers, then waltzed off to the library with Twilight in tow.”

Luna looked up at the ceiling and considered the problem. ”We can’t just allow the human to keep bullying us like this. The fear and chaos she spreads in her wake will cause nothing but harm to our ponies, even if she only does so indirectly.”

Celestia nodded. ”I know, but for now it’s safest if we allow Helena to roam freely until we can better learn her motives. Hopefully, ponies no longer hold any interest to her.”

”I apologize for taking action without consulting anyone,” Luna said.

Celestia only chuckled. “We rule as equals. There is nothing to forgive.”

Twilight watched the growing stack of books at the center table. The latest hour had been hectic to say the least, as she chased the rampaging human through the castle. They were alone in the library and things had finally calmed down, though guards were ready to barge inside at a moments notice. Twilight believed at first that the library setting was the perfect time to establish an understanding between their two species. She had been dead wrong.

”When are you going apologize to the gryphon ambassador and Princess Luna?” Twilight asked, while peering over the surface of the round table at the human with its back turned. ”What you did to them was really mean.”

The human continued to ignore her, and blazed through the pages of the book she held in her slim hand. Twilight was unconvinced about its claims to be able to memorize entire books in minutes.

”Are you even listening to me?” For the first time since being a foal, Twilight felt like using books as projectile weapons. The human seemed entirely incapable of holding a conversation that lasted longer than a few sentences.

”I am,” Helena said, and closed the book in her right hand. It was a small detail, the way the human barely ever used its left arm. The arm itself appeared undamaged despite the torn sleeve, but having it limp at her side couldn’t possibly be its natural state.

”Well, are you going to apologize to them?” Twilight pressed.

”I don’t have time,” Helena said, nonchalantly. ”It’s in your best interest if I don’t linger here.”

”You’re right about that,” Twilight mumbled, then cleared her throat. She was about ask Helena another question about her species, a topic the human kept deflecting, until she saw which book the human threw on the pile. It was Starswirl's Compendium of Magic, which Twilight had read more than a dozen times.

”What did you think of Starswirl’s theory of how magic shapes the universe?” she asked, hoping the off-topic question would be enough to pique the human’s interest. It would also serve to test some of its claims.

Helena seemed not to register the question at first, instead searching the next row containing the history of strange creatures. Twilight was about to try something else when the human finally responded.

”The stallion was brilliant enough that I believed he might be the one I am searching for,” Helena said, while taking out another book with her right hand. It was Legendary Creatures by Clover the Clever. ”But his theories were fundamentally flawed. I dismissed him as a potential suspect when it became evident he didn’t known the truth about the origins of magic.”

Twilight maintained a deadpan stare at the human, wondering if she actually had any idea what she was talking about. Even foals learned at an early age that magic was the center point of every living being.

”And what is the so called truth?” Twilight asked.

”That magic is just a fool’s tool,” Helena said, seemingly unaware of the impact her words had on Twilight. ”I can’t comprehend why it was implemented. Its inherent instability allows for dangerous manipulation by anyone with the necessary means.”

Twilight counted three deep breaths and allowed the insults to her world view to wash over her. ”Unstable how?”

But the human had already dropped the subject. Twilight was forced to take a different approach.

“What are those strange ripples around you?” Twilight continued, and picked up a pen with her mouth. She hadn’t practiced her manual penmanship in years, and the sight seemed to amuse the human. It was at least enough to catch her interest.

“You mean this?” Helena said, and the ripples that radiated like heat waves began to diminish in intensity. “My body is protecting me against foreign interference, such as what you call ‘magic’.”

The phenomenon surrounding Helena suddenly shrunk until it was barely visible to the naked eye, and Twilight wondered if the human did so for her benefit. She certainly appeared less threatening without it. Twilight was about to ask, when the human suddenly continued.

”This ’Tartarus’ sounds interesting,” Helena said, and added the book to the pile. The library was usually closed at night and the librarian would be less than pleased to find everything out of order. Twilight would have returned the books herself, if she didn’t need to conserve her remaining strength. ”It might be the place I’ve been searching for.”

If Twilight had been drinking water at the time, she’d have sprayed it all over the table.

”Oh no, no, no,” Twilight began, jumping off the stool and trotting up to the human, who stopped her search to looked down at Twilight. ”If you break the seals into Tartarus, who knows what horrors might escape? Do you even realize how many would suffer if that happens?”

Helena didn’t even seem to consider Twilight’s words, as she instantly turned away and continued searching through the bookshelf.

”Well?” Twilight asked, as her patience dealing with the human wore thin.

”The one I am searching for wouldn’t allow themselves to be captured.”

Twilight let out a sigh. ”Why are you even in such a hurry?”

”I have revealed my presence to a hostile foe. Time is of the essence. ”

“What foe? There has never been another human here in recorded history.”

Helena eyes darted between the books, and again she seemed to be laughing on the inside. “I know they are hiding from me.”

”Just like you knew that Celestia was a human?” Twilight countered, cheekily.

The comment only seemed to further amuse the human, who for once returned the book to its proper place on the shelf. Twilight’s hope that the human was opening up to her was short lived, as her expression and tone became deadly serious.

“I believe my opponent won’t hesitate in destroying this entire city just to get rid of me.” Helena turned and bent forward until their eyes were level. “Tell me then, if I should still waste time on courtesies and apologies?”

Twilight didn’t back down and met the human’s gaze with a stare of her own. “Maybe if you explained yourself when we first met, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

The human frowned and returned to her full height. Twilight believed she might have overplayed her hoof, and wondered if she might have accidentally triggered some kind of alien space-honor-duel between the two. She really needed to stop reading Spike’s sci-fi comics in secret.

“Besides, Canterlot is protected by a shield maintained by an entire squad of unicorns.”

The human responded by resuming shuffling through the pages and seemed to have lost all interest in the conversation. However, Twilight believed the dialogue was a sign of progress—lasting nearly twice as long as any prior attempts.

“Your shield will matter little,” Helena continued, suddenly, “I’ve made arrangements to assure your city’s safety.”

Twilight wasn’t sure she like the sound of that. “How? You’ve been doing nothing but reading since we got here!”

Helena lifted the arm with the torn sleeve and pointed a finger out the window. There was still an hour left until sunrise, and Twilight had to open the window and stretch out her neck to see what the human was referring to.

It was difficult to see beyond the mostly transparent shield. The only oddity she found was blinking lights over the mountains to the west, and Twilight thought for a moment that Cloudsdale had relocated without her knowledge. Then it dawned on her what the object cruising along the horizon was.

“Oh, horseapples,” she swore.

Rarity woke with a start and blindly searched for the source of the shouting ponies, before she remembered she was still wearing her sleep mask.

”Lady Rarity,” a guard said while barging through the tent flaps, ”the ship! It's coming to life!”

Rarity tore away her blinds. ”What!?”

”It just happened,” the guard continued. ”We think it’s trying to leave!”

”Whaaaat!” Rarity’s mind raced. What would Twilight do? Oh, that’s right! ”Evacuate the camp!”

”Yes, Lady Rarity,” the stallion replied, saluting. ”Should we bring our supplies with us?”

Rarity scrambled out of bed as quickly as she could. ”Leave everything! Make certain everyone in the infirmary has enough help to make it safely to the other side of the lake.”

The camp was situated right below the ship, and its departure might be enough to make the entire mountainside collapse. Their makeshift palisade wouldn’t nearly be enough to stop an avalanche.

The stallion ran out of the tent, and soon Rarity heard the cries of alarm as guards and servants alike were dragged out of their beds. It didn’t take long, however, before the roar of the ship's engines drowned out all other background noise.

Rarity knew time was of the essence. At least there weren't any search parties inside the ship, and if they made it to the hill on the other side of the lake they’d surely be out of harm’s way. She hastily magiced over her bare necessities—a set of cosmetics, tissues, hoof sanitizer, and breath mints—into her traveling bags, placed them on her back and strode out into the center of the camp.

Outside, she was met with disorganised ponies with unkempt manes rushing for the exit. A wagon had already been loaded with those too injured to walk, and six harnessed guards hurriedly galloped out of the main gate with the wagon in tow. In the background, the back-end of the ship flared to life with red and white lights, and for a brief moment, Rarity believed that its engines would activate and try to push the ship right through the mountain.

She didn’t have time to see what was about to happen, as Fluttershy, Applejack, Spike, and Starlight Glimmer trotted up to her.

”What the hay is going on?” Applejack asked.

”No time,” Rarity said, and pointed at the lake. ”Fluttershy, take Spike and fly over the lake to safety. The rest of us will have to get there by hoof.”

Fluttershy looked around. ”Where are Pinkie and Rainbow?”

Rarity motioned them to move toward the gate as they talked. ”I haven't seen them, but they know where the evacuation site is and can take of themselves.”

The evacuation went smoothly once the injured were taken care of, and an airborne pegasus kept her updated as they joined the line of ponies stampeding in close proximity along the lake. The amount of fleeing ponies, in combination with the rains from yesterday, proved to be utterly disastrous. No matter how hard Rarity tried to avoid it, mud and muck was splattered all over her mane and coat.

When they reached the safety of the forested hill, another pegasus informed her that the camp was completely evacuated.

Everything seemed to be in order, and the ship remained stationary. She was about to organize a makeshift gathering among the tall trees, when a another pegasus landed next to her.

”Lady Rarity.” She loved it when they called her that. ”We made a headcount of everyone and found five missing.”

”What! Who?”

”The papers show that a mission was sent inside the ship two hours past midnight and never reported back. We believe they are still inside.”

Rarity began to nervously trot back and forth. ”But I never sanctioned any such mission!”

The pegasus shrugged. ”The lieutenant said it had your approval signature, and the pony leading the expedition claimed that it was of the highest priority.”

Rarity didn't need to ask who was responsible. She remembered how a certain Pinkamena Diane Pie had hounded her to sign a supply request just before bedtime. Twilight had warned her to always tread carefully when the party pony wanted something, and she’d managed to mess it up anyway. No doubt Pinkie Pie brought along Rainbow Dash. Those two together were always trouble.

A sudden quaking and loud mechanical roar brought her back to the situation at hoof. The ship, with its front halfway buried inside the mountain, began to lift itself backwards. Despite being tilted forward at an odd angle, it was somehow able to dislodge itself. Every guard, servant, and medic on the hill stopped what they were doing to watch as the ship drifted upwards.

The process was precise, and surprisingly, the mountain side remained mostly intact as only a few large rocks came tumbling down the slope. It was hard to make out details in the dark, but as more of the front of the ship came into view, it became evident that its damage had been far worse than they originally suspected. Its front frame had likely been silvery and slender but was now scorched and riddled with gaping holes, almost as if someone had split a long abandoned skyscraper in half with its lights still on in each apartment. Rarity wasn’t the only pony in the crowd that expected it to fall out of the sky at a moment's notice.

The ship eventually freed itself completely and remained stationary in the air with the aid of several round, blue, glowing discs on the underside. Rarity was fearful at first that the ship would leave for outer space with her friends still it on, but luckily it never resumed its ascent and instead veered westward. Its back engines began a slow burn and accelerated forwards, seemingly taking extra precautions to prevent debris from falling onto the camp below.

The way the pilot steered the ship away from ponies made Rarity believe, for a brief but terrifying moment, that Pinkie Pie had somehow found the ship's control room. The gathered ponies began to chatter among themselves as the ship cleared the mountain tops and sailed out of view. It dawned on her then that the ship was on a direct course for Canterlot.

”Spike!” she yelled, and searched the crowd for the young dragon. She found him perched on Fluttershy’s back, using her added height to see above the crowd. It was clear that he was completely starstruck by the sight of the moving spaceship. ”Spike! I need to send a letter.”

Rebirth

Prince Shining Armor awoke, well rested, with the rising sun. Sleeping on a shaking train had never been an issue for him. Weeks of survival training in the thick forests and mountains hardened a stallion, even when one's life later became soft with the amenities of royalty.

The train wagon he was in was one such perk. Its lavish decorations and soft pillows rivaled the most luxurious of hotels, while those under his command slept next to each other in tight bunks. Doubtless, many of his troops had stayed awake during their nightly journey, and Shining couldn’t blame them. The tabloids in the Crystal Empire were less intrusive and sensationalistic than their Canterlot counterparts, yet even they had written endlessly about the turmoil outside of their borders.

The crystal ponies themselves had remained nearly unaffected by the disaster. They already lived beneath the safety of a magical shield, and the loss of the stars wasn't even noticeable beneath their artificial dome. When the train left home, many crystal guards stuck their heads out of the windows to gape openly at the pitch-black sky, as their eyes trailed the drifting comets above.

Shining only had time to stretch and pour himself a glass of water from a pitcher, when a frantic knocking on his door ruined his morning ritual.

”Come in,” he called.

His first lieutenant peeked in.

”Sire,” the stallion began, visibly shaken.

”What is it?” Shining asked. ”Have we reached Canterlot already?”

”Y-yes, Sire. I mean, no, Sire.”

Shining had never seen the pegasus this rattled before. ”What's wrong?”

”Sire, we passed the mountain, and Canterlot just came into view, but you’ll need to see this to believe it.”

Shining nodded and motioned the stallion to take point into the next wagon, which was buzzing with activity. The crystal guards inside were either frantically talking about ’aliens’ or scurrying around the windows on the south side.

Shining’s lieutenant pushed past them, yelling. “Make way for the Prince!”

Some obeyed the commander while others were too caught up in the moment. Shining didn’t know what to think and nudged away a guard from the nearest window to see for himself.

It was a massive spaceship, floating a mile above one of the great lakes adjacent to Canterlot. It appeared stationary for the moment, but large objects could be seen dropping from the ship into the water below.

“What are your orders?” the lieutenant said and gulped audibly.

Shining Armor didn’t know what to say. There were no scenarios in any of the military textbooks to guide him in this situation. He opened his mouth to reply but closed it again when he saw an incoming train on the opposite tracks heading north. Its rapid speed made it evident that they were moving as fast as the engine could handle.

The incoming train blocked his vision of the spaceship, and though its speed made it difficult to see, he noticed that the passengers were the young and elderly.

Oh, sweet Celestia. They’re evacuating the city.

The train passed, and his vision of the city returned. Shining squinted to see what the objects falling from the ship and into the water were, and he realized that the ship’s damage was so severe that loose parts of it were falling off.

”Sire?”

Another train could be seen speeding out of the city walls, while some of the pegasus inhabitants simply flew through gaps in the city’s shield and over its walls.

“Tell the train driver; full speed ahead,” Shining said and was about to turn away to address his guards when something moved in his peripheral vision. Some of the pegasus civilians above the city decided to fly towards the alien spaceship instead of fleeing. The fools were getting themselves into grave danger.

“Belay that order,” Shining bellowed loud enough to silence all other talks in the wagon. “I want every single pegasus to debark and rescue those ponies. Get them away from the spaceship by any means necessary!”

Angels, demons, and erratic gods: the planet was brimming with an abundant diversity of intelligent life, far beyond what Helena believed possible. The full picture of this world was unraveling in her mind. Magic: it was the machination binding it all together. It shaped the creatures of this world to a higher state of being, naturally and without any human direction.

The powers it imparted to each creature were limited to the wielder’s mental capacity, though the ability to bend massive amounts of magic to your will didn’t necessarily correlate with a high intellect. Magic was a physical entity, unlike what the ponies believed, and wielding it depended on the limitations of the flesh.

Helena had none of those restrictions, and yet she was hesitant to allow such a dangerous entity fully into her system. If proven necessary, however, the limits of her control would likely be endless. It was one of the many reasons you'd never find such a system outside of this isolated world.

There was another piece of the puzzle: the ponies. They played their part in someone else's grand scheme without realizing it, a balancing force to maintain the world’s stability and prevent any one race from achieving dominance over the others. The mastermind behind this world must have seen their potential as peacekeepers and uplifted several of them into the species they called alicorns.

”How? You’ve been doing nothing but reading since we entered the library!” Twilight complained.

Helena returned to normal time. She had to admit she’d taken a liking to the young princess that followed and challenged her every move. It was useful sometimes to have assistance; even if it was an unknowing and unwilling one.

To answer Twilight’s question, Helena pointed out the window, and the mare raised an eyebrow before trotting off to take a look outside. Helena’s ship should be visible in the distance, and it wouldn’t take long until it reached the city.

It had been a gamble for Helena to establish an open connection with her ship. If her opponent hadn’t known Helena’s location beforehand, they certainly did now. Still, she trusted her ship would provide sufficient protection against further attacks. The drones had done an excellent job these last few days in getting the ship's weapon systems and propulsion to adequate efficiency.

The search through the library had confirmed some of her fears. In pony history, they often mentioned how stars would disappear for brief periods of time. The ponies believed it to be a cosmic phenomenon of sorts, blocking the light they emanated, but Helena more than suspected that there was another reason. Machines deployed in deep space required frequent maintenance, and the weaponized platforms were no exception. They’d undoubtedly need to be replaced on occasion, and this was evidence that there were automated factories, likely hidden within clusters of asteroids, capable of replicating them.

If the situation escalated into a surface-to-space battle, she’d have to make sure that the ship’s counter-batteries responded before anything reached the exosphere. Helena didn’t know if her opponent would allow the weapons to devastate the surface, but she didn’t intend to take any chances.

“Oh, horseapples,” Twilight said, and turned away from the window to pace back and forth on the library floor. “No, no, no.”

Helena observed the alicorn trot around in circles. Twilight’s mane and tail were in a rough state, and it was apparent she suffered from fatigue. Helena pondered whether it wouldn’t be best if she put the pony to sleep for a few hours. Then she realized what might be worrying the mare so.

“The ponies camped outside my ship were unharmed,” Helena said, as she searched for the next book. She had narrowed the list of suspects to a select few individuals, and it wouldn’t be long until she had sufficient information to resume the hunt.

Twilight stopped in her tracks, ears fully perked and aimed in Helena’s direction.

“How can you possibly know that?” Twilight asked.

Helena allowed herself a minute to answer questions. “My ship informed me of the situation.”

The explanation seemed to calm Twilight, who appeared incapable of deciding if she should continue the conversation or gallop out the door.

“There is one issue,” Helena said. “Five of your ponies were inside the ship at launch.”

“What!” Twilight said, hastily trotting all the way up to Helena’s side. “Who? Are they okay?”

Helena hesitated. The next book on her list might be the one to solve the mystery finally, and the pony’s questions were unimportant in the grand scheme of things. However, the presence of her ship allowed her some leeway.

“Two pegasi guards, a pale unicorn in dark robes—”

”Keeper!” Twilight interrupted. ”What is he doing in there?”

”Stealing my kitchenware,” Helena answered, amused by the camera feed she received from the ship. ”Together with a pink earth pony and a rainbow colored pegasus.”

”Those are my friends,” Twilight said and placed a hoof on Helena’s leg. ”Please, they didn’t mean to trespass. We were only searching for any injured inside.”

“I don’t mind,” Helena replied. “My ship decided it was safer to lock them inside my old recreation area, and they’ll have to stay there until my work here is complete.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Are they safe? What will they eat? What if they hurt themselves?”

Helena allowed herself a final moment of distraction. “I will allocate a drone to see to their needs. They’re not my first guests.”

Twilight asked a few more questions, which Helena pointedly ignored. She would waste away the entire day if she indulged in the mare’s endless questions, and the next book, A Brief Encounter with The Changeling Hive, showed promise. There were other ways to maintain the balance in the world besides pretending to be an immortal saint. One could also be a significant threat, preferably strong enough to keep the races united against a common adversary.

Queen Chrysalis could be the one Helena sought. The ability to shapeshift and drain love sounded absurd and worthy of further investigation. The author of the book claimed it was not uncommon for changelings to temporarily replace ponies to spy and attain the love that they fed on, then alter the memories of their captive to make it seem as if nothing had happened.

These attributes were unlike any other, so much so that they almost acted as a beacon to attract her attention. The location of the hive was yet unknown, and there were only speculations that it existed beneath the surface of an area called The Badlands.

Helena doubted a changeling’s disguise would be able to fool her senses, and if she met a sufficient amount of ponies, she might stumble upon one by accident. It would be easy then, to have it share its secret.

Helena blinked. Why was she considering stalking ponies? She had access to her ship and could easily comb the desert with its scanners. A quick request later revealed two settlements: one large, situated around a spiral structure, and a lesser one below ground.

“What were you thinking?”

Helena resumed time. Twilight, with her teeth firmly clenched, glared up at Helena.

“Do you even realize what’s happening out there?” Twilight said, and pointed a hoof toward the window.

Helena didn’t need to move. Her ship had reached its destination and taken a position above a lake. There had been a brief moment of danger, when she detected two powerful magical signals transferred from the castle to the sun and moon. Helena’s ship responded by training its main batteries on the castle, though she quickly dismissed it as just another foolish quirk of this world. The claim that the princesses could move planetary objects was unfounded. In all likelihood, they merely maintained a strong enough signal to activate the mechanism that allowed the system to remain in stable orbit.

She’d encountered many types of stellar engineering during her travels, and in her ship’s data vaults, there likely existed designs to build different varieties of megastructures. Most of these stellar constructs served little to no purpose, as no civilization needed the enormous energy from a Dyson Sphere to function. Instead, their use was relegated to containing dying stars, in an attempt to keep the eventual supernovae explosion from ruining the atmosphere of nearby inhabited worlds.

The visual feed from her ship displayed images of pegasi flying away from Canterlot, though some were brave enough to take a closer inspection of the ship. The latter soon became a problem. There were still many significant gaps in her ship that a flying pony might be able to enter through, and she didn’t need the distraction of any more stowaways. A gray mare with a blond mane even landed atop of one of the missile bays and bumped its camera with her nose.

She considered firing a warning shot to discourage further interlopers, but it proved unnecessary. Pegasus guards, wearing both silver and golden armor, were rounding up those who ventured too close to the ship. Most complied and obediently returned to the city, while others had to be caught and forcefully removed.

There was an equal amount of chaos in the city. The feed showed streets packed with ponies, most pointing to the sky while others stood in lines to board over-packed trains set to leave the city.

“It seems you are evacuating,” Helena began. “An unnecessary process. This city is now the world’s safest place.”

”How can you say such things without seeing it for yourself?” Twilight stomped a hoof in frustration. “How am I supposed to manage this mess... And who gave the order to carry out the evacuation?”

Helena, about done with the library, walked passed Twilight, who, surprisingly, tried to stop her by biting down on the edge of the dress.

“Stop that,” Helena said, looking backward.

”No,” Twilight said, through clenched teeth, ”not until you tell us your plans!”

Helena chose to ignore the alicorn and continued forward, dragging the pony behind her despite its efforts to brake with all four hooves.

There was a fair distance from here to the hive, and though she still possessed a few undamaged shuttles in the hangar bays, the downside of those vehicles was that they were easily traceable. Another route would be to leave the ponies behind, have the main ship remain stationary near Canterlot, and make her way on foot.

She decided on the latter plan. It was a bold and unpredictable move.

The pony continued losing the tug-of-war; luckily, the dress wasn't made out of regular material. Helena made it to the entrance of the library when the doors opened to reveal Princess Celestia, with an eyebrow raised at the struggling Twilight.

“Am I interrupting?” Celestia asked.

”My work here is done,” Helena said and retook control of her dress with a quick jerk as Twilight slackened her grip at the sight of the taller princess. ”I am leaving.”

The statement didn’t seem to faze Celestia. ”Where are you going?”

“It is none of your concern,” Helena said, politely but firmly.

Helena was about to walk past Celestia when she said something unexpected.

“I know how to help you find the one you seek.”

That caught Helena’s attention. “Explain.”

“If you would walk with me, I will show you,” Princess Celestia said, and changed her focus to Twilight. The young mare smiled guiltily in return. “It’s time for you to take a break and go rest, Twilight.”

“Celestia, I’m not that tired,” Twilight said, with one eye twitching lightly. “I can still help.”

“Very well,” Celestia said, frowning. “But don’t think I won’t order the guards to tuck you in if necessary.”

“It won’t come to that,” Twilight replied, and trotted in between Helena and Celestia with fake vigor. “Was it really necessary to evacuate?”

“I didn’t give the order,” Celestia said.

“Then who did?”

“No one. A guard panicked and sounded the alarm, and now it’s irrevocable,” Celestia explained and turned her head up to Helena. “I trust the pilot of your spaceship will behave around my subjects?”

“Wait, Stonewielder said you came here alone,” Twilight noted, and rubbed a hoof beneath her chin. “Then who is piloting the ship?”

Helena stayed at their side as the two conversed. Guards were lining the corridors, though she didn’t see Captain Stonewielder among them. The shove she gave him wasn’t nearly enough to hospitalize him, so the likely explanation was that he commanded the pegasi that were in the process of erecting an aerial blockade around her ship.

“The ship only responds to attacks it deems dangerous,” Helena said as they walked along the hall. “You claimed earlier not to know who created this world?”

There was a short growl from Twilight. The mare really did not like being ignored.

“I do not,” Celestia said, and set the pace arbitrarily slow. It was an obvious ploy to increase the length of the conversation. “But some of the ancient artifacts we found might. I only ask in return that you promise not to harm anyone during your stay here.”

“I have often had to choose to harm a few to save many,” Helena replied, and gave Twilight a stern glare. The mare had been about to open her mouth and ask another one of her endless questions, but the intimidation worked as the mare snapped her mouth shut. “I can only promise you that I would never needlessly put them in harm's way.”

Celestia let out a sigh. “That will do for now,” she said. “If you explained to us why you need to find this ‘creator,’ we might be better able to help you.”

Twilight had asked Helena that question more than once, and the purple mare's ears went fully erect. Helena had never given the whole truth to why she was here. Still, she knew that any answers given would only serve to raise more questions.

“You only need to know that they are responsible for heinous crimes,” Helena said. It wasn't a lie. Installing automatic weapons in space to ambush travelers was a severe crime by every human standard, regardless of the era and civilization.

“Crimes?” Celestia asked as they turned a corner into a different hallway. “You mentioned something about ‘weapons in orbit,’ but I don’t understand how a spear floating around in space could hurt anyone.”

“Maybe it wasn’t spears, but plasma cannons,” Twilight said, mainly to herself.

The two ageless beings at her side looked down at her in disbelief. Judging by the blush spreading across her face, Twilight must not have meant to say it out loud.

“Plasma is only used to cut through industrial metals and asteroids,” Helena said as the group stopped at a nearby door. Celestia motioned Helena to go in first.

Helena entered a meeting room, with a large round table at the center where a white orb floated motionlessly above the surface. Its exterior was smooth and featureless, making it difficult to estimate what function the machine served.

Both princesses stopped near the door and followed Helena with interest. The orb, however, appeared oblivious to their presence.

“The artifact spoke to us on the day of the great disaster,” Celestia said. “But we haven't been able to communicate with it since.”

Helena frowned and approached it with confident steps. The orb remained idle until she placed a hand on it.

Time stopped entirely the moment Helena’s skin made contact with the machine. The defenses within Helena’s body lashed out and attacked the orb's systems all at once, seeking to take full control of it. The sphere registered the attack and tried to counter the intrusion with its own defenses. Helena could do little but analyze the ensuing battle as it was waged within a few milliseconds of real time.

The machine quickly realized that it was outmatched and, with the knowledge of its inevitable defeat, began to cleanse its databanks to deny Helena the information she sought. When Helena finally breached its central computer to change its ownership to hers, most of the information was already gone.

What little remained was nothing more than scrambled data from the far past. Helena's mind had to reassemble it back into functioning pieces until the images were clear enough for her to see, but most were of little importance. Then she found what she sought.

Helena saw through the lens of the machine an event a hundred thousand years in the past. The sphere hovered at the back end of the deck of a spaceship, and in front of the window display stood a lone man, peering out at the space outside: the architect of this world.

Hundreds of automated construction ships were working at clearing away the nebulae to make enough room for the solar system. The man, tall and slim, wore an elaborate white uniform with red markings on the belt and shoulder. His hair was black, and he sported a trimmed goatee.

The image flickered, and now they were inside the same ship at a different time. Space outside had been hollowed out to a much higher degree, and there was a barren world orbiting a star. The same human was there, staring at the outside with a hand pressing against the window.

Helena was unable to recreate any more recordings, and it seemed like another dead end. Then, she stumbled upon a name; a name used both in the human and pony language, which was mentioned several times throughout pony history. The connection couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. If the stories were real, her prey was close, very close.

She returned to normal time and removed her hand from the orb. The orb, now ordered to fly up to her ship and remain idle in one of its cargo bays, floated toward the exit and in-between the two princesses, who stared at it in astonishment.

“Wait, what just happened?” Twilight asked. “Was that thing yours all along?”

Helena ignored the alicorns' questioning looks and turned toward another exit leading in the direction of the royal garden. With a burst of speed, she pushed through the double doors with enough force that they tore from their hinges. Not missing a step, Helena rushed past a group of stunned guards on the other side, jumping over one that blocked her path, then continued through a hallway until arriving at a two-way intersection. Instead of turning, she jumped again out of a central window and into the open air.

Helena landed several feet below on well-maintained grass, followed by the third jump over a hedge. The garden area was large and contained several statues and small lakes stretching along the inner walls of the castle. Helena stopped when she reached the area described in the books, a round patch of grass surrounding a lone pedestal.

The statue she searched for, however, was missing. Only the marble and mismatched parts of a reptile and equine foot remained. The escape must have been recent, as the latest information in the library had only been a few years old.

Helena stared down at the broken pieces. Her opponent had once more eluded her, and a signal from her vessel notified Helena that the ship was priming its weapons systems. Hostile platforms were activating near the outer rim of the system, and the ship deemed that a counter-offensive against her position could be imminent.

Pegasus guards landed one by one at the edge of the clearing, followed by the two princesses. The surprise they both expressed at finding Helena in this particular clearing was telling.

”Where is he?” Helena asked.

Luna lay restless in bed. Logic dictated that she used this time to regain her strength, and with her skills, it would be an easy feat to fall asleep. But something gnawed at the back of her mind. It was still early in the morning, yet who knew what chaos the alien was spreading among her subjects.

She threw away the bedsheets and shuffled over to the balcony.

The sun shone brightly up in the sky, and Celestia would likely chide her later for lowering the moon in her condition. Despite having promised not to strain herself, Luna felt a compulsion to reach outwards. She didn’t fully understand what compelled her to do so, almost as if her unconscious mind knew something that her conscious parts did not.

Luna sat on her hind legs and peered through the morning light, searching for the source of the strange sensation. The dim view of a comet was the sole oddity in the sky, but that only reminded her of the loss she had felt on that accursed day. No, something else called to her, far beyond the veil. Magic flowed into her horn, and she channeled it into the depths of space.

Emptiness greeted her. A once vibrant gathering of constellations reduced to nothingness, and yet her instincts screamed at her to keep searching. Power surged through her horn, reaching an amount that would be considered perilous by most unicorns.

And then she found it. A faint, far away echo welcomed her. It was like embracing a lost friend you never expected to see again, and as her magic approached the source, two more greeted her presence.

Luna felt tears flow uncontrollably down her face, and despite the swelling in her cheek, she smiled broadly at the miracle she witnessed.

The stars, they’re returning.

Insanity

The door to the meeting room closed behind Twilight Sparkle, and she watched as the human approached the floating orb. She didn’t know what Celestia planned by bringing Helena here, and could only assume it was a gamble to attain answers. The artifact from Keeper’s vault hadn’t said a word since it emerged at the beginning of the great disaster, but maybe the alien knew how to converse with the strange golem.

Still, something was off. Twilight had been told of the orb’s warnings about a potential invasion, and the only appearance since then was Helena and her ship.

Twilight held her breath as Helena paused at the edge of the table, casually placing one of her slender hands at the top of the orb’s surface. There was no telling what might happen next, and sweat formed on Twilight’s temple in anticipation.

The orb said nothing, nor did Helena. Twilight inched forward and strained her ears, but the first sign of activity from the artifact was when it hovered away from Helena without a word uttered between the two.

Twilight turned to watch as the orb floated past her and Celestia.

”Wait? That’s it?”

Twilight quickly realized something else was happening. Helena’s posture shifted, and her otherwise unreadable expression morphed into a maniacal grin. She then made a pirouette that swung her dress high up in the air, before eventually stopping to stare at one of the exits.

Sweet Celestia, she’s lost it.

The thought was instinctive, but even Twilight’s weary mind couldn’t misinterpret the signs. A loud bang returned her to the present, finding the human was missing and the doors were lying broken on the floor, followed by loud yells from the hallway outside.

”Twilight, follow me,” Celestia said, before galloping after Helena.

Twilight cursed her slow reaction and inability to act in time, then followed on shaky legs through the broken doors and into chaos. The hallway was littered with broken wood, various pieces of decorations, and Royal Guards clutching the walls for safety.

Twilight saw Celestia take to the air at the narrow end. Twilight, together with some of the more quick-witted guards, followed close by.

A momentary glance at the royal garden was all Twilight needed, and she landed haphazardly next to Celestia along with the pegasus guards. The human stood tall in the clearing, dress and mane blowing in the wind, and looked down at the remnants of a broken statue.

Is she searching for Discord?

The mere thought was borderline delusional. The draconequus couldn’t organize or build a house of cards straight, much less be the creator of all living things. Still, as much stress as Discord caused Twilight on a weekly basis, he was her friend.

”Where is he?” Helena said.

Twilight and Celestia exchanged a quick glance, long enough to communicate who would take the lead.

”Discord is not here,” Celestia began. ”We might be able to arrange a meeting if you promise not to resort to violence.”

Twilight straightened her back and leveled her head in anticipation of whatever action Celestia’s words might provoke. The human wasn’t mentally well, and when Helena’s wild expression remained, the lack of any other responses made each second of silence feel like an eternity. The suspense, mixed in with an unhealthy amount of fatigue, was enough to make the hair on her neck stand on end, and all her instinct screamed that something was about to go wrong.

A magical surge then burst from Helena, surrounding and probing every fiber of Twilight's being, as if the ambient magic had attained a consciousness of its own and sought to peer into her soul. There was little Twilight could do but hold still and keep breathing, and by Celestia’s and the guards' look of surprise, they were equally affected.

Helena did not move, and her dull eyes stared out into nothingness.

As suddenly as it began, the spell disappeared, and Twilight turned to Celestia for guidance. But Celestia only watched with wide eyes as Helena slowly raised the arm she favored, stretched it out in front of her, then opened her hand as if she was about to grab something invisible out of the air.

Then Helena vanished in a flash of light.

“...if you promise not to resort to violence.”

Helena stopped time at the end of the sentence. The princesses might be able to aid her in finding Discord, but the search needed to end soon. Her ship was ready for battle and would fire its weapons if it detected any incoming attack, and the machines activating near the outer rim of the solar system likely wouldn’t wait for her to attempt the diplomatic approach.

In the pony library, there had been numerous descriptions and speculations on the origin of the Chaos Realm, and most agreed that it was located within a pocket dimension only a select few could enter. Helena knew there existed no such things as travel between dimensions, and concluded there must be a hidden area somewhere within the planet. Since her ship couldn’t find it with sensors, it was likely a similar design to the covert construction facilities hiding in the depths of space.

Given enough time, finding and extracting the base with conventional methods was a feasible and practical solution, but the library hinted at another way to gain entrance.

Magic.

Helena dropped all barriers repelling the ambient magic, allowing it to surge through her limbs and into her mind’s innermost sanctum. It was the first time in countless years she permitted something completely foreign to gain a modicum of control over her consciousness.

The process was terrifying to witness, as every method of self-preservation she possessed warned her to stop before it was too late. But she sensed no hostility from the magic itself, only complete, neutral willingness to form itself according to Helena's will. When she established the final connection, the surrounding magic felt to her like an extra transparent layer of skin.

The magic she controlled became much like a mycelial network that grew exponentially in size, and when her sphere of influence reached twenty feet, it entirely enveloped a royal guard stallion frozen above her while in the motion of flapping its wings.

She sensed every aspect of him, from the subtle way he manipulated the magic in the air for extra lift, to the magic flowing within his bloodstream. The guard was a healthy male at twenty-eight years of age, and by his pulse, he was both thrilled and genuinely concerned. The information and conclusions she could extract from his life were unprecedented. His worries were related to his family and their future, suggesting he was a recent father, and yet exhilarated by the dramatic, world-changing events unfolding before him. The pony no doubt sensed her intrusion, and even with time diluted to such an extent, she knew that her presence was not welcome.

The amount of raw information Helena attained from one pony alone would undoubtedly overwhelm any unenhanced mind. She, however, continued expanding her influence until the magic under her control reached into the streets of the city. Helena sensed the lives of its inhabitants at the train station, the fish in the ponds, the heartbeat of a unicorn commander leading scores of silver armored guards trotting towards the palace, and even the worms crawling deep in the earth.

The sheer amount of information Helena received began to strain even her capabilities, though she knew a way to circumvent the issue. Helena established a direct connection with her ship and used its vast capacity to process information, even going so far as to purge old data banks containing knowledge from the earliest age of humanity to make available space for what she intended.

With the aid of her ship, the reach of her magic exploded. Within seconds, the rate of conversion neared the speed of light, stretching beyond the edge of Equestria’s borders and eventually enveloping the entire world. From a Zebra foal playing on the savannah to the great dragons sleeping in the mountains. For a brief moment, they all felt her presence.

But there were still no signs of Discord, and there was no way a human would be able to hide from the scrutiny she imposed on the world. The magic under her control was then given a single command, to expand the search downward into the planet's crust.

She found Discord’s lair below the ocean at the edge of the mantle, a realm of chaos as it was described in the books. Magic was continually twisting and bending the laws of physics, and within this hollowed out realm, she sensed a small house with a human inside.

Faced with an uncontrollable urge, Helena made another decision she never believed she would make. She reached out with her uninjured arm into the air and opened her palm, then teleported.

The method was even more terrifying than merely admitting magic into herself, as the magic began to dematerialize and reconstruct her physical body. All of her defenses believed her to be dying, and there was a strong sense of loss as her mind slipped away.

Then she appeared inside the house, her outstretched hand clutching down hard around a lizard’s neck.

”Do-” Discord began.

But Helena had already frozen time. Much like with her encounter with the orb, her defenses clashed with his in a struggle for dominance. Discord’s capabilities nearly matched hers in technology, but his defense was disorganized and twisted, almost as if the pretentious mantle of 'chaos god' extended to his human contraptions.

It did not take long for her to overwhelm her foe and gain access, though what she found was difficult to piece together. It was never an exact science, trying to use machine intelligence to extract memories from a living person, and Discord’s mind was nothing if not a jumbled mess.

For those who lived long lives, it inevitably becomes a necessity to store your earliest memories elsewhere with the aid of technology, splitting the mind between the new and the old.

Discord’s mind was a mismatch between the two, fusing his memories into a warped maelstrom that barely functioned as intended. His memories were mixed and blended, but the deeper Helena delved, the more the secrets of this world were laid out to her, and one thing became clear:

Discord no longer knew who he had once been.

The old memories were still there, but they were so fragmented that they would never make any sense to him, like a person from a medieval society with strange dreams of traveling between the stars. His mind rejected his old self but was never able to forget it. Helena centered in on those thoughts.

Helena’s mind simulated standing on a lush jungle world with three moons, and next to her stood Discord’s former self, sporting the same goatee as before. In front of them was a massive space vessel designed for interstellar construction on a planetary scale; Helena could date the design to roughly one million years ago.

She learned that Discord had attained vast wealth through his long life, much like Helena after her journey’s start. They shared many similarities, especially with their grand goal in life, though their methods varied. While she wanted to find intelligent beings that had blossomed on their own, Discord aimed to create them with his ingenuity.

Discord believed there was a way. Magic, an all-encompassing cloud of self-replicating nanites, with a particular set of commands, was his answer.

He had attempted this experiment on his homeworld. Though most human worlds often remained peaceful for long periods of time, it soon became apparent that his research was impossible due to time constraints. The machines needed hundreds of generations and tens of thousands of years to guide animals into the required evolutionary path, and with the constant flux of empires and technology present in the galaxy, his research would inevitably be interrupted before it could finish.

Discord's only choice had been to find a secluded space among the stars. He had found the dark nebula after traveling for a long time. The nearby planets were still uninhabited, and it would take millennia before they were suitable for colonization, so he had plenty of time to set himself up in secrecy.

Through great lengths of time, there wasn’t much for Helena to see. Discord had relied solely on automated machines to do his bidding and spent most of the time during the early stages in cryostasis, only waking up once every ten thousand years to check in on the progress. With the hidden solar system completed and suitable for his needs, Discord seeded a barren world with fauna and flora, then added his cloud of machines to aid in its progress.

Discord then returned to check in every hundred years and was pleased with the results. Life flourished on the world he named Equus, evolving at a steady pace, with the animals presenting a more profound understanding of their surroundings. Nearly all creatures used magic with or without realizing it, while others attained new limbs to help mold it into what they now called spells.

When the experiment had proven successful, Discord made an insane move.

Helena found herself in the beginning stages of Equus's development, next to Discord on a green hill at night. High up in the atmosphere, his construction ship hovered, and then it exploded in a massive ball of fire that lit up the sky.

Purposefully stranding himself on the planet, Discord forced himself to take a more active role in its development. The self-sustaining weapons in orbit were no longer under his control, and without access to the cryostasis, he could no longer skip ahead through time.

It was all for a single purpose: to make sure he remained and guided the world. There would inevitably be a conflict between the many newly born species, and his presence would guarantee that there was peace long enough for all of them to prosper.

But Discord soon learned that he had made a grave miscalculation about the current rate of evolution. The animals originating from Earth and other worlds did show the early signs of possessing a higher cognition, but Discord’s plan to walk among his creations had been carried out too early.

It would take hundreds of years before the animal developed a language of their own. Immortal, trapped, and alone, Discord wandered aimlessly through the thriving nature of his creation, resulting in the slow degradation of his sanity.

When the first ponies began to formulate a language of their own, Discord wasn’t the same man as he once had been. His draconequus shape was a result of countless years of tampering with magic, first and foremost his heavy reliance on teleportation. To more speedily see the results of his plan, he’d teleported himself all over the world, and the excessive use of teleportation was dangerous. You could easily start losing parts of yourself without realizing it, and Discord had done millions of teleportations.

Helena returned to the present.

”-n’t hurt me,” Discord said, squirming in Helena’s grip. He tried to wrestle control of the ambient magic from her by snapping his fingers, and when that accomplished nothing, he snapped them again and again.

”Why won’t it work?”

Helena stared blankly at Discord's mismatched face.

”W-why are you doing this to me?” he demanded to know.

There was no longer any point in chasing him; she released the grip around his throat. The draconequus, surprised at having been let go, shuffled away to huddle in one of the corners.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” he continued when a minute passed.

In truth, Helena was in a state of shock. Not because she had learned the true origins of this world, or how such intelligence was able to evolve for the first time in the galaxies’ history since humanity took their first steps.

There was another reason.

The similarities between Discord and herself were uncanny. In witnessing Discord’s descent into madness, Helena saw her inevitable demise, a path she’d unwittingly walked for a very long time.

Was this how she would end? As a deranged god stuck on some backwater world: a danger to everyone around her?

Helena glimpsed back at her past. The interactions she had had with the worlds she claimed to help. The people who always treated her with reverence and would thank her for the knowledge she had donated to help better their societies.

But was that the truth? The polite smiles and bows she received, were they the signs of gratitude, or of fear that she might unleash the fury of an unstable god upon their worlds?

Helena delved backward into her old memories to try and find where it all went wrong. And eventually, she noticed something, an event nearly half her lifetime ago.

The time-dilating serum.

The serum had been given to her as a gift, courtesy of one of the most advanced human empires to ever rise to dominance, an event nearly one and a half million years ago. Like all civilizations, the empire eventually faded away in the whirlpool of time, their technological achievements nothing but faint echoes carried by those who lived within the annals of deep time.

There was no doubt that this augmentation began her unknowing and slow descent into madness. The usefulness of the time-serum eliminated any need for interactions with others, as every conversation became redundant when she could effortlessly predict its outcome.

Helena blinked and looked around at Discord’s house. A volcano hung upside down from the ceiling, and in the kitchen area dishes and plates were washing themselves dirtier.

Helena closed her eyes and teleported.

Fresh morning air and strong winds greeted her as the teleport brought her to the top of one of Canterlot’s many spirals. The roof above the palace gave her enough room to sit and observe the pony city. The trains were still evacuating the inhabitants, and she saw her ship in the distance through the mostly transparent shield around the city.

Helena watched for a few minutes, then laid down on her back against the tiled roof.

With eyes closed, she thought about what needed to be done.

While probing Discord’s mind, she learned that the defense platforms above were programmed never to fire on the planet or anything leaving its surface, and gained a few clues on where to find the hidden construction bases. In effect, the crisis was averted and the mysteries solved, and there was only one thing remaining.

She needed to go away.

Helena herself was the only remaining threat to this world. She could no longer trust her sanity and needed a long time to contemplate who she was.

Then she decided to do something she should have done a long time ago. She reached in and focused on her mind with the aid of magic, using it to not only deactivate her time-dilation serum but also destroy it beyond repair.

Helena opened her eyes and let out a long breath. Without the serum, she felt incredibly vulnerable, and yet also surprisingly free as the world became exciting and unpredictable again.

She waited atop the spiral until a pegasus guard wearing silver armor flew by. Letting out a loud whistle, she got his attention. The pegasus stallion at first seemed ready to bolt when he saw who made the noise, but she managed to coax him closer with a welcoming wave of her hand.

“Tell your leaders I wish to meet with them in the throne room in one hour,” Helena said as soon as the pegasus came within earshot. The stallion didn’t need any further motivation and quickly flew away towards the palace.

Celestia paced back and forth in front of the throne, desperately trying to understand the events that transpired. The human wanted to meet with them again, and Discord still refused to answer her summons.

At least some things were going their way. There was a marked improvement in her sister’s depression, as Luna showed a slight smirk at watching Celestia prance about like a fish out of water.

The only other noise besides the echoes of her hooves was Princess Twilight’s loud snores. Her apprentice had taken a seat at the secretary's desk, planning to use its supplies to take notes of the meeting, then briskly fallen asleep with her head on the counter while drooling all over the paper.

“Is there something wrong with Twily?” Shining Armor asked while looking down at his slumped sister.

“It’s been a long day,” Celestia explained.

Shining Armor shrugged and joined the other princesses.

“The human is late,” Luna complained.

Celestia stopped to address her sister, standing on the side of the long carpet leading to the throne. “Are you sure you’re well enough for this, Luna?” The bulge on the left side of Luna’s face did appear less swollen.

“Hmpf, I’ll be fine.” Luna stretched her head to the right and left, and the loudly creaking bones seemed contrary to her earlier statement. “I heard Lady Rarity found our missing patrol.”

“Yes, Spike informed me that they showed up at Twilight’s campsite after sunrise.” Celestia resumed her pacing. “Soarin was reportedly in good spirits with a healthy appetite, but I ordered him and his team admitted to the infirmary anyway.”

”I seem to have missed a lot,” Shining Armor noted.

“And what are going to do about that hulking ship outside?” Luna motioned her head in the direction of the plateau behind the throne. “It either terrifies our ponies or draws them in like a foal to a Hearth's Warming present.”

“What can we do?” Celestia asked, increasing the speed of her pacing.

“We could begin with asking the alien to park it somewhere out of sight,” Luna said. “So long as it remains airborne, I doubt we can convince the citizenry to return to Canterlot.”

One of Celestia’s eyes twitched. “Luna, this is no time to be making jokes.”

Luna frowned theatrically.

The doors then opened, and a Royal Guard's head peeked in. Celestia and Luna both stiffened, but nodded at the guard to allow Helena inside.

The human was like a completely different person when she entered through the doors. The strange and ominous ripples around her were gone completely, and to Celestia, she appeared less threatening, though she couldn’t pinpoint precisely why.

The change was at least a welcome one. Maybe Celestia could yet solve this debacle without any more incidents. Then she remembered what happened the last time Luna and Helena met.

Helena stopped a few feet from Luna, who stood defiantly to the side of the carpet. They shared a long glance at each other, and Celestia feared that they were about to start a rematch right then and there.

But the two appeared to come to an unspoken agreement, and Helena walked past Luna without saying a word, though Celestia noted a brief smirk on both their faces.

“May I introduce, Prince Shining Armor of the Crystal Empire,” Celestia said, motioning with a hoof at Shining Armor.

“Charmed,” Helena said, briskly before focusing on Celestia. “I am leaving your world.”

“I see,” Celestia wasn’t entirely surprised. “But why tell us?”

“I wish to make a deal.”

There was a loud snort from Luna. “Why would we make any dealings with you after all the hardship you’ve brought on our ponies?”

“Luna!” Celestia nearly lost her composure. Whether it was the truth or not, this wasn’t the time for needless provocation. “What my sister means is that in any deals there needs to be trust between both parties."

Helena seemed more amused than offended. “Don’t worry; you can decide if you wish to keep your end of the bargain when the time comes.”

“Tell us about this deal,” Shining Armor said.

“I promise to take my ship and leave, and not interfere with your world in any meaningful way,” Helena began and paused to look at each pony in turn. “In return, when the time comes for the residents of this planet to travel among the stars, you will allow me to serve as their guide. I will help introduce them to my kind.”

Celestia didn’t know what to make of this. If the human promised to go away, it would be much easier to restore order, but Celestia couldn't understand the implications of her part of the bargain. Space travel only existed in a foal’s bedtime story, and though they now knew it was feasible, how many thousands of years would it take them to construct a working prototype?

Since there was little to no drawback, Celestia was tempted to say yes automatically, but with her long life, she’d learned to take the long approach. “I cannot agree without more insight.”

“You don’t have to,” Helena replied. “You or your successors can choose to accept my deal or not when the time comes.”

“That’s not much of a deal,” Shining Armor noted. The stallion turned to Celestia. ”Uh, shouldn’t we wake up Twily for this?”

“You said yourselves that deals needed trust,” Helena interrupted. “This is my way to foster it, and I can guarantee that my kind leaves your world alone until you’re ready.”

Celestia turned to Luna, who nodded as confirmation. “Very well, we accept.”

Helena seemed satisfied. “Good, then I will take my leave.”

“I have a question,” Celestia said. “What is your connection with Discord?”

“There is none. I simply wished to meet with him.”

Celestia wasn’t convinced. “Did you?”

“Yes.” Helena must have seen Celestia’s worried expression. “Do not worry; I only startled him briefly.”

Celestia didn’t quite believe that either, though chose not to press any further.

Helena turned to leave.

“Wait,” Celestia said before the human reached the doors. “What’s it like out there, and will my ponies be safe among your kind?”

“Most of humankind lives long, fulfilling, and peaceful lives.” Helena gave Celestia a knowing smile. “I am certain they will accept ponies quicker than you might think.”

The throne room entrance closed behind the human, and the silence that followed was broken by a snort from Twilight waking up from her nap.

She groaned audibly and tried to see through bleary eyes. “Did I miss anything?”

Helena ordered one of her unmanned shuttles to come to pick her up in the palace garden. Guards followed her all the way to the landing area, and she noted how the ones wearing silver were friendlier than their golden cousins. She supposed it showcased the importance of a good first impression.

There was an unexpected issue with the city shield. The unmanned shuttle was stuck outside of its boundaries, and Helena needed to use magic to open a wide enough entrance for the smaller ship to enter the city.

The group of Royal Guards stayed far away when it landed, and she unceremoniously entered the craft through the cargo door. Once inside the cockpit, she thought about what more needed to be done.

First and foremost, she needed to take control of Discord’s defense platforms and disarm their weapons. There would need to be another way to keep others from discovering this world, and she possessed methods in her ship beyond the technology that Discord had used.

Discord had relied on beacons to secretly steer the ships that blindly traversed the nebula into an ambush, and Helena believed it possible to reverse the effect to make ships veer clear instead. It likely wouldn’t fool vessels of her caliber, but those were a rarity in the galaxy. If all else failed, she’d step in and convince them to leave.

Helena’s shuttle flew in the direction of her ship and landed in its hangar bay, and that’s when she realized something.

The ship was a complete mess.

Almost every corridor Helena walked through on the way to her quarters was falling apart in one way or another. Doors hung loose, and sometimes there were gaping holes straight through the roof and down several floors below. The lights around her kept flickering, and likely large swaths of the ship would depressurize once they left the atmosphere.

She vaguely remembered ordering the ship to focus its repairs on the propulsion, weapons, and exterior hull before escaping in the stealth pod. In hindsight, she should have made sure it was airtight at least.

Opening the doors to her living quarters, she realized it wouldn’t have done much good. The room where she’d stored most of her personal belongings was not there anymore. Instead, she felt fresh winds blow her hair as she gazed out at the Equestrian countryside through a long tunnel. A missile must have buried itself deep and taken out a fair portion when it exploded.

Helena let out a short sigh. She’d grown tired of the white dress. It was a stark reminder of how she nearly lost her sanity and would’ve preferred to wear a sensible uniform like most spacefarers fancied. Fortunately, there were other rooms dedicated to social matters, and most were outfitted with clothes from at least a hundred different worlds.

She could have asked the ship to bring one to her, though she decided to keep limiting her interactions unless it was of vital importance. Her lounging area was nearby and probably had something that would fit.

On her way, Helena noticed the signs of ponies for the first time. There were visible hoof prints all along a dusty corridor, and an abandoned helmet lay on the floor next to a wall. She was about to pick it up and examine the armor more closely when she heard one of her drones in the distance. It drove straight past her, carrying a tray with several empty glasses. Strangely, its cylindrical body was marked with three balloons and a paper party hat on its top. Helena shook her head and hoped it wasn’t her mind playing tricks.

The door to her recreation center appeared undamaged, and when she pressed the button, a giant orange ball flew towards her at high velocity. Without the ability to manipulate time, her reflexes were insufficient to avoid the impact, and the projectile struck her face dead-center.

The force was enough to send Helena tumbling backward, and her back hit the floor with a loud thud. A few moments went by as she laid staring up at the roof, listening to the ball rolling away and feeling a light streak of blood flow from a broken nose.

“Uh, hello?” a raspy voice said in Equestrian from the newly opened room. The voice then turned away. “I think we found the alien. You guys think Twilight will be mad that we accidentally knocked it unconscious?”

“I thought you said you could catch it!” another mare shouted from further into the room. “Is the alien alright?”

“Uh, maybe?” the raspy voice called back, followed by the sound of hooves approaching.

Helena remained where she laid, and eventually, her view of the roof was blocked by a blue mare with a rainbow-haired mane.

“It looks... alright?” The rainbow mare squinted closer. “Its eyes are open, and it’s making a weird smile. Sweet Celestia.”

The last word was a reaction to Helena deciding to sit up straight, causing the rainbow mare to pull away in surprise. In front of Helena stood a pink earth pony mare, waving with a guilty expression. Next to her was a stallion dressed in black, whose saddlebags and robe bulged with various kitchen appliances, and finally, there were two armored earth pony Royal Guards, jaws hanging open as if they'd just witnessed the beginnings of an interstellar war.

“Can’t you talk to it, Keeper?” the pink one said. “I think it might have hit its head hard.”

The pink mare began to mouth words slowly before the one named Keeper could respond.

“I… am… sorry… that… Dashie… can’t… catch… a… ball…”

“Hey, you threw the ball far to the side on purpose,” the blue mare objected.

Helena's response to the situation was unexpected, even to her. Falling on her back again, she began to laugh. It wasn’t the chuckles of finding something new and exciting, but pure, unadulterated joy at experiencing something so dumb and thoroughly bizarre. Her old self would never have been caught so unaware, and yet it felt like the best thing to happen to her in a long time.

“I think we might have caused some loose screws to fall out,” the blue mare said.

“I wouldn’t advise talking to it with such disrespect,” the robed stallion said. By the rustling coming from his direction inside the room, he was hurriedly trying to return the stolen kitchenware.

“Why?” the rainbow mare replied. “It’s not like the crazy alien can understand what we’re saying.”

Helena decided that was the cue to return to business. She slowly rose up to stand at full height, dwarfing the ponies that stepped back at seeing her broken nose and bruised face.

The rainbow maned mare gulped and the ponies seemingly by instinct huddled together into a tight group.

Helena gave them her most sincere expression and said:

“I believe it’s time you all return to your homes.”

Epilogue

The month since Helena and her ship was last seen had gone by so fast that Twilight could hardly believe it unless she checked her calendar. The sheer amount of work it took helping restore and reassure the nation certainly made time fly.

”Twilight,” Starlight Glimmer called from inside the castle. “The girls are here, and Spike made pancakes for dinner, you coming?”

“I’m coming,” she replied as she folded the telescope back into its container. She was about to go inside when she got distracted by the landscape around her.

The shields encircling the cities and towns had all been removed with the final comet sighting, and thankfully there never were any reported cases of meteor impacts anywhere in Equestria. Regardless, it took the combined effort of all four princesses to convince the general public that it was safe to return to the countryside. Luckily, Twilight had good friends to help her out, and little by little, life resumed as if nothing had happened.

The only remnants of alien presence were the bits and pieces that had fallen out of the spaceship, and the dozen or so artifacts retrieved from the ship. Most of the debris lay scattered around the mountains and deep lakes outside of Canterlot, and it would likely take years to recover it all. The study of the metals and pieces of scrap led to a newly found cooperation between the nations, as scientists from every land came to share their thoughts and ideas. Celestia hadn’t wasted any time in capitalizing on this newly found source of friendship. She sponsored seminars and encouraged research agreements across borders, creating an unprecedented unity between the nations.

Not everything was better, though. Cults and charlatans had been quick to play on ponies' fears to further their selfish gains, and some groups even needed to be forcefully disbanded by the Royal Guard. The action was necessary to protect ponies, but military intervention added more fuel to those who saw conspiracy around every corner.

In the end, Twilight never found out why Helena came to Equestria, why she skulked around at an abandoned house in Copperhill, why she claimed to have destroyed the stars when they returned only days later, or what her connection with Discord was. She'd tried asking the draconequus, but the chaos god had deftly avoided any conversations relating to Helena.

There were many unanswered questions; what mystified Twilight the most was the spell Helena used in the palace garden. At first, she’d believed that it only affected those nearby, but no matter who Twilight asked, be it a local gryphon or a trader who were hundreds of leagues away when it happened, they had all felt a strange presence for a brief moment.

In the newspapers, ponies described their experiences with the phenomena, and what they speculated to be the root cause. Only the princesses and a hoofful of guards knew the truth, and they had quickly decided it was for the best that it remained a secret.

What Twilight knew for certain was that the sheer scope of the spell should have been impossible. She distinctly remembered Helena claiming in the library that ponies misunderstood the fundamental truth about magic. Whether that was the case or not, Twilight had searched for evidence regarding the human’s claims and could sense that she was close to a breakthrough in magical learning, one she felt might contain a truth so monumental that it might be too terrifying to comprehend.

“Twilight!” Pinkie Pie yelled from somewhere inside. “Pancakes!”

Twilight looked up at the stars above.

Only a few years ago, she’d have dedicated her entire life to solving the mystery. Now, she knew that there were more important things in life than trying to understand something beyond your control.

“I’m coming,” she called to her friends before trotting inside.

Keeper walked the dimly lit and cobbled stone floor of his workplace, only stopping to admire his outfit in one of the hallway mirrors. His new dark robe with golden sleeves and intrinsic patterns on the neck and flank was glorious enough that he was obligated to strike a stoic pose.

In the two-year time since the great disaster, his collection of artifacts had nearly doubled, along with his titles and salary. There was only one issue for him: the complete lack of a successor. His previous apprentice ran away after Keeper threw him headfirst into a wall, and he fired any other applicants within weeks for being bumbling buffoons. One, in particular, he needed to personally throw out for spouting that ‘the Copperhill incident was an inside job.’

He stopped admiring himself in the mirror and locked the vault door behind him. Keeper’s office and those of his minions were close by, and he opened its thick and creaking doors to find an unwanted visitor sitting in front of his desk. She was a slender beige earth pony with a bright blonde mane, and though Keeper rarely noticed things like a mare’s natural beauty, he imagined that she would look positively dazzling in a dark robe.

His office seemed otherwise undisturbed as he walked up to his desk. The skull of a mountain yeti was still in its display case, the thick red carpet unblemished, and the piece of artifact on his front desk untampered.

“Why are you in my office?” Keeper’s question was blunt, but without hostility, as he sat down behind his desk. He ignored her at first and pretended to read a laundry receipt as if it were highly relevant.

The mare’s voice was mature and direct. “I’m here for the job.”

Keeper pushed away the paper to inspect her closer. She appeared to be in her early thirties, and her determined expression showed promise. Her cutie mark, a cluster of lights surrounded by lesser lights spiraling around its center, wasn’t an astronomical symbol familiar to him, and he couldn’t fathom its meaning.

In truth, she was the complete opposite of the ill-kept and often dimwitted unicorns seeking underground employment.

“And what makes you believe that you’re qualified enough to handle such an important task?” He leaned back in his chair. “My order only accepts the brightest minds with a finely tuned sense of magic.”

The mare raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t seen anyone else down here, and I can assure you my control of magic is beyond reproach.”

A few years before, Keeper would have sent her away without a second thought. This was before he’d witnessed the capabilities of a rural baker.

“Prove it,” he said, with little to no expectations.

“Gladly,” the mare replied and reached for the artifact on the desk.

Keeper stared intensely as she deftly pushed in a combination on the row of buttons on the artifact’s side. Its purpose was a mystery, and he'd been at a loss on how to start it, but now the front of the pitch black cube lit up with alien numerals.

”How did you?” he began.

”I read a few of your articles on their language,” she explained. ”I’ve always been good at deciphering the unknown. It’s how I got my cutie mark.”

Keeper didn’t know what to say. Instead, he used his horn to open a compartment to the side, and levitated out a neatly folded acolyte robe. The mare let out a chuckle when he deposited it in front of her.

”When can you start?”

”Tomorrow,” she replied while moving away from the chair to put on the robe. Once she’d dragged it over herself she made a graceful whirl on her hind legs.

Keeper's heart skipped a beat at the sight.

”Until then,” the mare said before moving to the door.

”W-wait,” Keeper said, fumbling with words for the first time since he’d been an adolescent. ”What’s your name?”

The mare smiled back at him with the door half-open, then left.