Home Is Where Your Heart Is

0600 hours

PLANET: earth(pony planet)

POV: twilight sparkle

"Today is the day", I thought to myself,"Today is the first day of the rest of my life."

Of course, I think that phrase would actually mean something if I hadn't said it for 31 days straight every morning. it's been a month since I officially became the princess of friendship, over time I learned to use my wings thanks to rainbow dash, though I may still be a little rusty I got the hang of it. At first, I was hesitant at the fact of being deemed a princess by Princess Celestia herself and maybe a little scared. But really in the past month not a lot a really changed. Well, because im princess now ponys would bow to pay respect which I got used to relatively fast. No matter how many times I proceeded to tell them it's not necessary they always insist that they do. No matter how many times I tried to get them to stop they wouldn't stop so I stopped trying to make them stop. which is weird because I just became princess not that long ago. But the fact of the matter in the current predicament in which I am in is that I am bored out of my bucking mind. this past couple of weeks have been unconventionally monotonous so far, despite the weekly flight practices with rainbow dash. Other than that all I can really do is sit around and wait. Celestia said she would have me prepared and ready to partake in a princesses daily duties, at first I was nervous but now I don't think I would mind all that much if she'd make the waiting time a little shorter. I would read a book but everything in the library I read over like 1000 times and there's nothing here on 'how to be a pony princess'. listen to me, this whole ordeal has discouraged me from reading books, I think I'm going crazy!

starting my daily morning routine I walked to the restroom brushed my teeth took a quick shower and trailed myself down to the kitchen for breakfast. With a quick sniff, to my pleasure I immediately knew Spike was cooking. Spike would always cook for me breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Mainly because if I ever tried I would burn down the library. I made my way to the entrance of the kitchen to be greeted by my number one assistant on a step ladder with an apron tied around his waist. With a spoon, he was stirring a pot of oatmeal above the stove.

"Good morning twilight" Spike said with a smile,"you're just in time for breakfast."

"Morning spike, I see you're up early once again."

It was true. Ever since I became princess Spike has been waking up earlier than usual to make me breakfast. Though kind of weird I never really minded that much because I didn't have to wake him anymore, and he can get his chores done sooner than later.

"Of course, I would never miss a chance to make breakfast for princess twilight sparkle," he said with a grin.

I frowned, that part I did not like."Spike, I thought I told you to stop calling me that."

"I'm only joking twilight." he said with a sheepish smile rubbing the back of his head,"But the name does kind of grow on you ya know."

Snorting I sat down at the table, "Its just really weird, I don't even want my friends calling me that, and you're practically my brother, it just doesn't feel right."

Spike walked up to the tablewith a bowl of oatmeal placed the food in front of me.

"Ok twilight," he said"I promise I'll stop."

"Thanks, Spike," I said. a grin started to spread across my face. "You better, or I'm gonna to start calling you my butler."

I saw a horrified expression on Spike's face.

"Hey, I'm nopony's butler!" he said staring at me with an angry glare.

I giggled, "I'm only joking spike." I said with a smile, doing a mock expression of Spike's voice.

He sighed with a grumble and walked over to get the orange juice. I looked down to the white bowl of oatmeal. I got a whiff of brown sugar and butter, and there were blueberries scattered on the top. It looked delicious.

"I know you like apples on your oatmeal better." he said, walking over to me with some orange juice and a glass cup, "but we ran out so I just went with blueberries, I hope you don't mind." He said while pouring the last of the orange juice into the glass cup.

"And orange juice," he said

He walked over to the cabinet, opening it he pulled out the last two pieces of bread. Taking a deep breath he blew out a steady stream of fire over the two pieces of bread steadily toasting them with precision. He then grabbed a white plate, placing two pieces of toast on said plate he then placed it in front of me.

"and bread."

He then placed what remained of the jar of strawberry preserves on the table with a butter knife.

"And jam"

Giggling a little bit I looked over at Spike, "Its perfect Spike, thank you." Smiling happily he then walked over and sat on his side of the table eating the breakfast he made for himself. looking up I looked over at the calendar on the wall and realized today is Sunday,today is grocery day'.

"Today is grocery day anyway when I'm done eating I'll go out to the market okay." I sad.

Seeing Spike nod in approval, We both dug into our breakfast.

"Spike I'm leaving!"

I called out, hearing spikes reply of okay I grabbed my bag of bits and left my tree home. Walking down the dirt path today was a quiet day in ponyville. that's one of the reasons I made grocery day Sunday, I wouldn't have to wait in line. Not that it would matter anyway for ponies dropped everything they were doing to move out of the way for me anyway. The sky is blue and there were no clouds to block the sun, today is a lovely day. Walking down the path I heard of a rolling of cartwheels over dirt, coming into view was a dark orange mare with a glowing blond mane shimmering in the sunlight from a distance. Happy to see a friend I waved and trotted over to her.

"Howdy twi." Applejack greeted, "How are ya this fine mornin'." She greeted with a smile.

"Morning Applejack" I replied, "Doing just fine. Just some Sunday grocery shopping."

"Well ahm' just trying to sell these here apples," she said, "but as you can see there ain't that many.......ponys out an about, I hate trying to work on Sundays." She said using her hoof to motion at everywhere. "I was just about to head back to the farm."

"Sorry Applejack, I don't think you're ever going to have much luck on this time of the week." I said, "Everypony always does there grocery shopping on Fridays or Saturdays"

"Ya ah know, ah dont know why I even come out. Guess its just habbit n' schedule." She said with a slight grumble, "Now I have all these apples and nothing to do with them."

I smiled "funny you should say that because apples are exactly what I need."

Applejack flicked an ear and perked up at this, "really?" she asked happily.

"Yup, just ran out actually. I was just going to buy some more amongst other things."

"Well shoot twilight, thank ya kindly," she said happily walking to the side of the cart. "How many will ya be buyin'."

humming for a second, I said "Six of your biggest finest apples please," Using a playful tone.

"Sure thing twi."

Hoofing me six apples I levitated them each into my bag.

"Thatel' be 3 bits please" I heard her say.

levitating my bag of bits in front of me I pulled out three bits and started levitating them over to Applejack, that's when I heard a loud crashing sound. The startling noise made me lose my concentration causing the bits to scatter to the ground.

"What in Celestia was that!" I said in a panicked voice.

It sounded like it came from the library,did spike blow something up.

I saw Applejack, intending on finding out what the Ruckus was as fast as she could look towards the direction of for Library.

"Come on Twi, we best check out whatever that was an see if anyones hurt"

With that I nodded and both ran to the source of the sound.

I hope Spike is ok.

POV Spike

"What the hay was that!" I said to no one in particular.it sounded like it came from the backyard. whatever it was, it was big, loud and the sound of screeching metal was utterly unsatisfying to my ears, and if my time in ponyville has taught me anything its to stay away from big loud and scary things, that's usually twilight's deal. But twilight's not here, she's off to the market getting groceries. And as much as I would like to leave this in twilight's hooves, there's no one here to check out what it was but me so,

investigator spike is on the case.

Going out the front door of the library, I made my way around my tree home to the backyard of my house. What I saw left me speechless. There was what seemed to be a metal structure. It looked kinda cool, like one of the alien spaceships I would see in one of my comics. It was buried in the ground and there was a long and large dirt trail behind it signifying that the large metal ship slid a few meters before stopping.

"wow" I said walking up to the strange metal contraption.

Is this.....an alien ship

The first thing that came to mind was that. It sure did look like it, it looked like something I would read in a comic, but that's all they were, si-fi comics. I'm sure if twilight were here she would know what it is if it isn't alien. If being an egg head indicates anything its that you know a lot about things, and Twilight has to be the biggest egg head in the world, and now she's a princess, If it was something of Equestria she would know about it.

Twilight would know what to do.

I was just about to turn around when a sudden realization came to me.

If this really is a ship then where is its pilot?

That's when I heard a 2nd large explosion cutting my train of thought, that was so loud it left my ears ringing and I felt the earth shaking around me.

POV Twilight

Seeing my tree home come into view I didn't see anything out of the ordinary, running up to the entrance I swung the doer open. Running inside I called out Spike's name.

"Spike...Spike!" I called out, "Are you o.k, I heard a loud bang and it sounded like it came fro-

I then heard another loud explosion that cut me of before I could finish my sentence. As I heard the loud explosion I felt the ground around me shake. After the sound dialled down and the miniature earthquake came to a stop, looking at Applejack we both ran outside to see what it was. Running outside I looked around to see what the commotion was, then Applejack said look while pointing up to the sky. I looked up to see a trail of smoke coming from the sky leading down to the earth.

"A meteor?," I said out loud, "Why would princess Luna plan a meteor to this time of day"

"Ah don't know Twi, but look," she said now using her hoof to point in the detection where the meteor landed, "It looks like it landed right outside of ponyville."

Looking closer to were applejack was pointing, looking closely at the trail of smoke it left behind I saw that the meteor was close enough did land just on the border of ponyville that separated us from the Everfree forest. Before I could go and investigate I saw Spike running around from the back of the tree house home also trying to see what the commotion was.

"Spike!," I called out running up to my number one assistant "What happened, are you okay!" I said my facial expression and voice in concern.

"I'm fine twilight," he said, "B-but there's this ....thing at the back of the library, I don't know what is."

"A thing?" I said, "You don't know what is?"

"No, come on I'll show it to you." he then waved his claw and proceeded to lead us to the designated location. Me and Applejack followed Spike to the back of the library. Then what came to site left both me and Applejack speechless. It kind of looks like a giant metal bird, though I have no idea how it would be able to fly. It was a dark grayish cooler, and there were what looked like two wings extending out from the sides, and the very front was made out of glass. Walking over to the side I saw a painting right next to where the glass window is. The painting is what seemed like to be a bird with its wings extended with a small shield in front of it, and through the shield was a strange acronym that had the letters U.N.S.C. Walking to the side of me, Applejack was the first one to speak up.

"U.N.S.C ?," questioned applejack "What does that mean ?"

"I don't know Applejack," I replied back still observing the strange contraption.

"What do you think it is twilight ?" Spike asked.

"Again I don't know, I've never seen anything like it before." I replied, "Whatever it is its not from Equestria."

"Well, what do we do ?" Applejack now asked looking over the strange contraption.

"I don't know," I said for the final time, "Spike, send a letter to Princess Celestia regarding the situation, I'm sure she would know what it is and what to do with it."

"I think its an alien Spaceship!" Spike shouted out enthusiastically with a smirk on his face.

Both me and Applejack looked at him with the 'are you serious' look.

"don't be ridiculous spike," I said almost in a laughing tone "There's no way that that would be an alien ship for 'aliens' wouldn't ever be able to come to earth."

"I don't think that there are any species that is capable of traveling through space, the technology is simply impossible," I said, shutting down Spikes idea.

"Besides, if this really was 'alien' ship then where's the alien."

Spike was about to reply when we heard movement coming from the pile of dirt that was directly in front of the strange structure. Everypony went quiet as a bipedal figure slowly rises up from the pile of dirt, it was large and it was really tall, it was almost a whopping ten feet tall and its body looked like it was made up of a group of large worm-snake like things. It had thick armor surrounding its soft insides with large spikes protruding from its back. On its arms is what looked like to be a large shield in his left hoof and on the right hoof was something I could not identify but it looked like a metal stub with three claws on the said stub with tubes of what looked like to be green liquid on the metal arm. I may not know what it is but I have enough common sense to know that that's probably a weapon. We all stood there in terror as the creature turned toward us and just stood there looking at us. It looked puzzled and confused as it just stood there, looking at us, it tilted its head. I don't think it knows what we are.

"Me and my big mouth.

Using its hesitation to my advantage, I glanced at Spike and slightly broke the silence.

"Spike......letter.......Celestia........now." I whispered to spike through my teeth.

Spike glanced at me breaking him out of his trance, before giving an 'oh' and slowly backing away for a few seconds. He then turned around and made a quick jog into the library to send a letter leaving us with the large bipedal creature, and we just stood there in silence. I just kept gawking at the creature.

This was an alien, it was an actual alien, It obviously wasn't anything from this world. I have never seen anything like it.

This brought a lot of questions to mind, what species is it, where did it come from, how did he get here and why was he here.

Is it friendly?

Looking over to Applejack I could tell she was lost in thought probably thinking the same thing. After what seemed like an eternity of silence, I took the liberty to finally speak up. Walking a foot closer to it, I took a deep breath in and spoke to the creature.

"Ummm........ hello?"

Kind of figuring that obviously, it could not speak equestrian I just said it to see how he would react. Waiting for some kind of reply, I stood there while nothing happened. After a moment of still awkward silence, I saw the creature move, It greeted me by raising its right hoof. Looking at it confused, I stood there for a moment. Then hearing a 'vrrr' from its right hoof, all the blood drained from my face when I saw a green ball of energy forming in its claw.

POV Asem

"ASEM!"

slowly coming too, I heard a small voice but paid it no mind. I just laid there Motionless, trying to regain all my senses.

ah, my everything hurts

I've heard stories of Master Chief falling into atmosphere with nothing but only his armor, it sounded pretty cool but it's not something I actually wanted to try first-hand. I have a massive headache, my face hurts my body hurts, all of my limbs hurt, pretty much every morsel of my body is aching. But I lived to tell the tale. I'm a Spartan and every injury to me is considered a minor injury. Now all I need to do is get moving so I can tell that tale.

"ASEM!"

"ASEM WAKE UP"

"I'm here alley," slowly opening my eyes, I see my HUD flicker to life, finally able to move my body I got up in a sitting position trying to rub away my massive headache.

"What happened?" I asked. The last things I remember, I went into the slip space portal and ended up in outer space without my pelican. I saw a planet and felt myself go into armor lock. Am I back on earth, why am I not in my pelican? where is my pelican?

"This new type of slip space portal is only a prototype experimental, It can only take so much mass of organic organism at once, so when you rammed the hunter with you it was too much for your body to bear causing you to pass out, your argumentation saved you, any other human would have been killed. It caused a malfunction sending you to a spot far off from our designated location. In this case right on the border of the planet's atmosphere."

"Well, that fucking sucked," I said, almost in a grumble.

"I'll say," She agreed her voice saddening in tone, "I was worried, I thought you were never going to wake up."

I was a little surprised, I never heard her sound this worried before, even through all the life-threatening situations we've been in. But then again I've never passed out while becoming a human meteor before.

"how long was I out for?" I asked, still rubbing my armored head.

"About 10 minutes." She replied.

My eyes went wide and a grin spread across my face. "Ten minutes? You were practically screaming in my ears. Aw, did you really miss me that much." I said jokingly trying to cheer her up.

"No, its just that I kinda don't have any legs so you're my ride, and I can't really get anywhere with you in a permanent coma now can I?" She said flatly.

Chuckling at that, I slowly got up on my legs and shook the pain out of my muscles. After finishing a few scratches, I finally stopped to look around and observe the environment around me. That's when everything hit me at once. I was obviously in a giant crater, but that wasn't what really shocked me.

"Holy shit!" I said still looking around at the environment. "Alley, are you seeing what I'm seeing?" I asked, hoping she had an explanation for this. I lifted it my armored hands in front of me, rotating them from left to right. Everything ............looked weird, I mean everything looked to be in place but my hands had thick outlines surrounding them and everything for that matter, and everything looked bubbly. Everything looked cartoony, like I was inside an animated TV show.

"I am," she said, "And no I don't," she replied predicting my next question to my disapproval. "I've never seen nor heard anything like this before, my theory is that the only thing that could ever be most likely to cause a phenomenon like this would be the sun's light shining through the ozone layer causing an illusion of eyesight, but even in a case scenarios like that it would still be scientifically impossible. I'm sorry to say that this is beyond my knowledge." Alley explained.

Taking her comment into consideration for a bit, I dropped it, for now, there were more important situations at hand. We needed to move. We needed to get to the nearest ONI facility and inform headquarters of our successful mission.

"Alley can you get in contact with HQ"

"Alright," she replied "hold on gimme a second."

I nodded my head approving and with nothing else to do I started to walk forward and out of the crater. While walking I started to hear Alley humming for a couple of seconds before her voice came to a sudden stop.

"That's weird." I heard her say.

Coming to a stop I acknowledged her. "What is it?" I asked.

"I tried to communicate through the comms, but all I got was static. And giving the area a scan for how far the armor's systems will let me reach, I couldn't detect any kind of communication technology for a 2,680-mile radius."

What, but that's like the size of two countries.

"Could it be that the armors comms are down?" I asked.

" No, I just scanned the suit for any malfunctions everything is up and functional, it should be impossible for us to not at least get one radio signal, it's almost like we're not on........"

I heard her pause for a few seconds

"uh oh," I heard her say.

"Alley, what is it," I asked her with concern in my voice. after a moment she finally answers.

"Asem, I don't think we were transported to-

BOOM

Catching both of us off guard Alley was interrupted by a large explosion, it didn't sound that far away but relatively close. My mood quickly turned to serious mode, I asked,"Alley, where did that come from.'

"Turn around, to the north of you, look at the smoke."

Turning around I see a thick stream of black smoke flowing up into the air from afar. Tracing the smoke back down it leads to an origin point of what seems to be a small old school style village from a distance. Sighing, I'm relieved to know that we were near civilization, but a whole lot of questions came to mind. why was this part of civilization building houses comparable to the Renaissance period? And why didn't they at least have a form of communication? Voicing my concerns to Allie I wait for her reply.

"I was about to tell you before explosion cut me off that the slip space drive didn't send you to another part of the Earth but it sent you to a whole new planet entirely. The planet that you must have been randomly sent to must be a human Colony planet."

But why buildings that look like they were made in the 1300s

shaking my head and pushing that question to the side, for now, these people look like they are in need of help and seeing as there the only trace of civilization for miles, that's where I'm headed either way.

"It's not that far about 500 meters," Alley commented.

Nodding my head I start into a fast jog towards the village.

Halfway into the jog, I see the Village getting closer and closer. Getting a closer view of the village I realize that the village is bigger than I expected it to be and from a faraway perspective it seemed very small. Getting closer and closer to the town I hear Alley speak up.

"Asem, I'm getting rapid heat signatures that are way beyond Kelvin temperature and I keep on detecting them in Rapid form."

uh-oh

These days that can only mean one thing, my theory is proven correct as I approach closer to the Village. Closing distance I hear sounds that are all too familiar, sounds that I will never forget and will stick with me for days to come. Faint screaming and plasma cannons. I now know that this Village wasn't just in need of help but in dire need of help. At this time I can only say one thing that comes to mind.

"Covenant!"

"Affirmative," Alley acknowledges.

"you're almost there; 150 meters."

Acknowledging what Alley said I pull my rifle from my back and now run into a full sprint.