Stardust

Zecora jumped behind the craft hoping the mysterious pony had not seen her, but her hopes were quickly dispersed as the glow of magic lifted the ship and set it down behind the newcomer. “You know” said the pony sarcastically “I’m not blind”.

The voice sounded male to Zecora and she got a closer look at the mysterious pony.

He was very large and was clad in a suit of battle armor. She looked closer and discovered a horn and wings.

“But you’re a… a…”

“Alicorn?” the pony said in that mocking voice, once again dripping with sarcasm “yes we do exist you know”. The Alicorn moved closer and a light was emitted from his helmet to examine her closer. “You seem to be equine in origin and yet you have no wings or horn” he seemed to be talking to himself and she shifted uncomfortably “you have markings similar to mine yet not the same color”. He came very close now and she was stunned by his immense size.

He was at least 25 hands tall and would probably dwarf Celestia herself. She noticed a strange device attached to his flank that looked like a tube or a pipe with a curved end and a smaller tube on top. As he came within 20 feet of her she began to back away still unsure of the alien in front of her.

“Who are you?” she asked interrupting his mutterings about size and gender “where did you come from and why are you so tall?”

“OH!” he exclaimed “pardon my rudeness miss, I am General Moonlight of Utopia city on the planet Alicron” he spoke with extreme sharpness “and this is only my battle form let me reform to what I normally look like.” And with that he began to transform. His helmet transformed into a beautiful silvery mane, his heavy metal battle armor melted away into a white jumpsuit with blue lines running up and down his body and he shrank until he was no bigger that her.

“There” he said smirking at her stunned expression “is that better?”

“Unidentified meteor has just made impact!” a pony said to the princesses. Earlier, Luna had noticed that there was a meteor she could not control heading for the planet and ran to her sister for advice. The sun princess ran with her to the security room where they had monitored the UFO.

There in the control room they watched as the ship made impact. “Captain” she said to a waiting soldier “take a team of pegasus to investigate the crash site, kill all hostiles. We will be accompanying you” the pegasus flew off to rouse his troops and the princesses left to ready their armor.” Little did they know they would not need it.

The alicorn general left with Zecora to go back to her hut. He carried an armored packsaddle and his strange device. She glanced at him sideways and once again thought how strange this pony was. He acted casually enough but she could tell he could react to an attack in a split second. His cutie mark (if he had one) was still obscured and the suit covered his body but his head, wings, and tail were visible.

His head was black with silver markings crossing his face. The mane was a simple affair and showed signs of not being washed (or trimmed) in a while and like the markings on his face it was a beautiful silver color. On his wings he wore armor on the leading edges that looked like it could slice her in half and she didn’t want to encourage him to do so. His tail was the same color as his mane but was also long and unkempt. She continued to glance at him the entire way to her house and tried to take in that she was with an alien pony.

They arrived at the hut not having spoken a word along the way. She pushed open the door and cringed as she saw the mess she had left when she ran to the ship crash site. “I am so sorry for the mess” she said ashamed “it is quite a wreck in here”.

“I've seen much worse than this” he said sadly “But that’s another story” he said brightening up suddenly “lets clean up this mess”. In a minute the bottles were off the floor and the shelves were arranged with each label facing the front of their designated ledge. Zecora watched enviously as his horn went to work at cleaning the floor with a nearby broom and wished again that she had been born a unicorn.

When he was done he looked around at his work proudly. Zecora was astonished at the alicorns’ thoroughness “my house hasn’t been this clean in years!” she said aloud.

“Really?” Moonlight said amused “then you need to hire an alicorn to clean your house every once in a while”

They both laughed and Zecora said “yeah he he I should get one of the princesses to do it every month” she fell on the floor laughing and rolling around on her back. When she saw that Moonlight had stopped laughing she cocked her head at him and asked him “what, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing is the matter, I am just making a mental note to learn about your government system later” he said with a thoughtful look on his face “you said princess so I would only assume that your government is based on a monarchy or a dictatorship”.

Zecora looked at him puzzled and thought about their government. “I don’t really know what it is but the princesses have control over the moon and the sun and they are the most powerful ponies in all of Equestria” she said getting up off the floor “now that I think about it, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but the princesses are alicorns just like you!”

Now this really seemed to agitate Moonlight and he began to pace the floor anxiously while muttering something that she could not understand. She looked out the window and saw the first rays of sunshine begin to rise.

The team of pegasi was nearing the crash site with the princesses in tow. They neared the huge crater and began to descend into it toward the center where ship rested. They landed and the team immediately was in defense mode circling around their rulers as they touched down.

“Captain, search the ship we can take care of ourselves” Celestia said impatiently. The captain nodded and the team immediately moved toward the ship and searched the outside of the spacecraft. They discovered the already open door quickly and five stormed aboard. They came back out after about fifteen minutes reporting that the vessel was empty

.

“Sir” the captain said quickly “we found some writing on the outside of the ship and it is in equestrian”. He led the two princesses around to the front where the inscription was. Celestia looked at what the writing said and fainted.

UCAF Stardust