“A Spartan?” Twilight asked quizzically. She skimmed the letter the princesses had sent her. One of her ears was cocked at an off angle, as if to punctuate her confusion. “What’s a Spartan?” She put the letter down.

“Guess we’ll find out, huh?” Spike laughed, almost a snobbish laugh, like a noise a pug would make.

“What’s got you so chipper?” She asked, running a hoof along his spikes as she walked to the door. He reached up feeling atop his head to rub the spot she’d upset.

“Half the time when something like this comes along you freak out. I have a running bet, so I’m just waiting for when you do.” He sighed, now lightly annoyed with his spikes. His attitude changed when he asked, “When’s it coming?”

“The princess says he boarded the train nearly an hour ago, by the time I get to the station he’ll probably be here.” Twilight stated, stepping out the door.

“Can I come?” Spike shouted after her. She paused.

“I thought you were cooking?” Twilight raised an eyebrow. Spike paused, and slowly twiddled his thumbs together for a moment. He tried to hide the panic on his face.

“Oh yeah. Heheheh.” He giggled awkwardly, sprinting to the kitchen. A waft of grey smoke billowed from the doorway. She shook her head and walked out the door as the sounds of a fire extinguisher filled the library. Twilight walked onto the busy streets of ponyville, waving at a few residents as she made her way along the dirt walkways. She trotted happily along, passing the downtown market on her way to the station.

“Well Hi, Twilight!” Twilight stopped to face the voice, Her orange friend was walking towards her.

“Hey Applejack! How’s the apple stand?” She asked.

“Same old, same old, I just got off my shift.” She replied. The two looked to Applejack’s brother, standing behind the countertop of the wooden booth. “What are you up to today?”

“The princesses have found something that needs help.” Twilight replied.

“Whadd’ya mean?” Applejack asked, cocking her head.

“Some kind of creature called a Spartan, poor thing needs to find it’s way home... They’re sending it to me from Canterlot, they think I can help it get back where it came from.” Twilight replied.

“That’s just fantastic!” Applejack replied with a hearty grin, she threw an arm around her friend, “You’d be the perfect pony here to help em’. Could I come?”

“Sure! I dont see why not!” Twilight smiled. “Cmon, he’ll be arriving at the train station any minute.”

“Hot dog! I like meetin’ new folks!” The orange pony claimed, a broad smile plastered on her face. They headed down, off Cobble Street. They could see the black column of smoke coming over the flatlands, a shrill whistle pierced the air with two long blows.

“That’s odd.” Applejack commented.

“What’s wrong?” Twilight asked as they continued down the dirt path.

“The engine from Canterlot usually only hauls six cars Ah thought.” Applejack shook her head.

“We can’t even see the train yet.” Twilight commented, in deadpanned annoyance.

“Can’t ya hear it? It sounds different than usual.” The orange mare looked to her friend. “Ah, when you’ve lived in Ponyville as long as I have, sounds like that seem to stick.”

Riley quietly played Galaga inside his helmet, quickly darting his small ship around, firing at the alien sprites. He quickly closed the game as he heard the pitch of the locomotive’s smokestack change. A loud, high pitched steam whistle ripped the air apart. The chugging sound of the twin pistons slowed considerably.

“YOU WERE FIFTEEN POINTS FROM THE RECORD!” Jessica exclaimed.

“We’re stopping.” Riley explained.

“FIFTEEN MILLION, NINE HUNDRED AND NINETY-“ Jessica began, exasperated.

“I mean that we’re here Jessica. I get the feeling we’ll have time to kill later.”

“How did you even get that ancient arcade game to run on your VISR program?!”

“I have been around a long time, Jessica. You learn how to make some customizations. If Mum found out she’d kill me. Or maybe she’d be impressed I managed to change her software at all.” Riley replied. He wondered where Doctor Halsey had gone since his deployment. He hoped she’d be safe. She was the closest thing he had to a mother anymore.

“How do you plan to find this Twilight character?” Jessica asked.

“Look for the sparkly one.” Riley quipped. The train was slowly chugging up to the platform, Riley jumped from the slow moving vehicle, surfing the gravel aside the track. The spartan exited the slide with two large steps, setting his hands on the wood planks of the station. He came to a stop at the end of the platform, beside the flatbed car. Every pony at the platform stared at him in wide-eyed anticipation. He looked over the small crowd.

“I don’t see any sparkly ones.” Jessica commented.

“I’m looking for Twilight Sparkle.” The spartan announced.

A purple unicorn slowly shrunk back before walking towards his lumbering form.

“A-are you the S-Spartan?” She made out, quivering.

“That’s me. Ms. Sparkle?” He asked, in presumption.

“P-please, follow me.” She cleared her throat, standing upright.

“I was told you might have the data I need to get home.” The Spartan replied, walking around the side of the building as to not crush the platform’s thin wooden planking. He met the unicorn around the front of the platform. “I need a detailed map of the stars as far as your kind has known, I’m hoping it can help me find my way back.”

“And if you don’t know any of them?”

“Then I’m stuck here.” Riley replied.

“Wow, you sure are big! ...Are you from outer space?” Twilight’s orange companion asked eagerly, if hesitently.

“No. Nobody’s from space, I’m from a planet like everybody else.” Riley quipped as they continued through the dirt streets. The same paths that had been bustling with life were now completely devoid of all populace. Except one stand, an apple cart. A large red stallion sat behind it. The spartan nodded at the stallion, the stallion nodded back. A mutual respect.

“But you’re uh.. An Alien?” The orange one rephrased.

“No more alien than you are to me.” Riley replied. Twilight entered a building inset into a large tree. Riley ducked under the low doorway, nearly crawling into the building.

“I believe, I have a few of my star maps up here...” He heard Twilight say as she crossed the room. She walked up a flight of stairs set into the wall. On the second floor, she darted through a doorway, out of earshot.

A small purple and green lizard slowly entered from a side room. The creature barely came up to his knee.

“Woahhh....” The creature spoke. “Duude, what are you? Are you the Spartan?”

“I am. What are you?” Riley asked the reptile.

“I’m a dragon! Well, a baby dragon...” He crossed his arms. Riley had always had a soft spot in his heart for children, even if they were dragons. He knelt down, bringing himself closer to the dragon’s height.

“What’s your name, bud?” Riley asked.

“My name’s Spike! What’s yours?”

“Hey Spike! You can call me Riley.” The spartan smiled. He held out a balled fist, Spike met it with a fist bump. “You’re a pretty cool dude.”

“Thanks!” Spike giggled.

“I found my maps and- Oh! Spike! Have you met the Spartan?” Twilight stood on the landing atop the stairs, looking down at the pair. Riley slowly stood back to his feet, standing just below the edge of the landing. He held out a hand, Twilight levitated the maps to him. Riley slowly opened each map, laying them all out in the middle or the floor. Maps of constellations, as well as hundreds of other stars and estimated distances to each star were imprinted on the paper. He looked to each map, slowly.

“I’ve got a model assembled, I can’t really show you without a holotable, but it’s fascinating.” Jessica said, a hint of disbelief in her voice. “I can’t make out anything resembling any known StarNav maps... This star system here appears to have an artificial planet!”

She pinged a marker on his hud, the map in question.

“And how the hell can you tell that?” Riley sighed, calling bullshit on the A.I. “There’s no way you can tell that from standing here, looking at that.”

“I could detect them when we were aboard the Avalon, I was assisting in navigation at the time... I didn’t see much of this system in the few seconds the bridge still had power, but its gravitational properties and electromagnetic shielding closely matches that of a large station, rather than a planet!”

“You were assisting... From inside a briefcase. What kind of tech are you?” Riley asked, hesitating.

“Some real smart, sexy, new kind of fabulous tech. Duh.” Jessica commented. Jared sighed at the antics of the entity.

“Cool, there’s a fake planet 62 Lightyears away, no known Colonies, and no way to hail the UNSC.” Riley threw his arms out to his side. “I can’t even try to rig something together, the SlipSpace drive was in the other half of the ship.”

“I’ll keep refining this map but... Keep your hopes up, Riley... Hope is always worth fighting for, and this is going to be a long fight...”

“Uhh... Are you okay, Spartan?” Twilight asked. Applejack looked quizzically at him.

“Huh? Oh, Jessica, get out here.”

A small yellow holograph of a woman, about a foot tall, appeared beside him for a moment. She had straight, blonde hair that sat on her shoulders. She was dressed in a black UNSC dress uniform.

“Really? This is Jessica. She...” He tried to think of an affiliation. “She’s my A.I. Helps me to be more efficient.”

“Ohhhhh.” The two ponies droned in unison.

“Ah... What’s the A stand for?” Applejack asked.

Author's Note

I apologize for any grammatical or formatting issues, I’m operating off of mobile right now but I will correct them as soon as I can! Thank you for reading!

Edit: I think I fixed the formatting issue, if the chapter is still clumped into one brick of text it's because of your reader formatting settings, if you click the 'formatting' button in the top right of the reading window, and click for paragraphs to be both spaced and indented, it shows up properly.