Princess Twilight smiled looking at the starship port that was now on the edge of her city, Ponyville had grown so much in the past three years that it was astounding to think it had once been a small quiet down, no longer however, now it was by all rights a small city. And more importantly, the main hub of shipping for starships to land and unload their cargo from Equestria's recently completed Lunar Colony. Her Crystal Tree had actually become the main control center for starship traffic over Equis, there was another in Canterlot, as well as another in Manehattan, but the Ponyville one was the main command and control center for starship orbital information and tracking, sharing all its data via wired terminals that had taken a month to connect due to the large distances, thankfully that was a few months ago and since then everything had been synced up.

The command center was put into one of the larger rooms in the basement of the Crystal Tree, while several radar towers and satellite dishes were affixed to one 'branch' of the Crystal Tree that had been her home for quite some time now. At the moment she was going over her Emails on her personal terminal, the background a picture of her friends. One stood out from the others, as it had Celestia's cutiemark before the message, so naturally she clicked that one first with a tap of the large pad made for hooves connected to the terminal. The email opened and read 'Dear Princess Twilight, later today an Akun Shuttlecraft is scheduled to land at Ponyville's recently constructed airport, and in my excitement to see my friend after so long, I had forgotten to even mention to you, Akun are from a planet called Vanov, they are an alien species that has been merged into the Crystal Empire, below you will see a picture of one of them, be polite, do not overwhelm the poor thing with questions.'

Princess Twilight's eyes were wide, and sparkling with a glint that hadn't been seen since she first came to Ponyville, Spike happened to notice this as he brought in Twilight's lunch and asked. "Uhh...you alright Twi? Your lookin a liiiittle nutty there."

That caused Twilight to glare at him briefly. "Yes Spike, I am perfectly fine, I have just received news that an actual member of an ALIEN SPECIES, will be visiting! Imagine the possibilities of this! We have a chance to be some of the first Equestrians to speak to a member of a species who evolved on a completely different planet, for an unknown length of time." She sounded like a small filly in a bookstore being told 'go bonkers' in regards to any books she could pick out to take home forever.

This time, it was Spike's eyes to widen. "An actual alien? That's kinda cool I guess, I remember from a few older comics that the classic alien looked like a short green pony with huge black eyes and weird antenna on their heads, what do these aliens look like?"

In response, Twilight pointed to the picture that was sent with the email, which showed a weird lizard like creature, hunched forward somewhat unlike a teenage drake, weirdly small eyes in what looked like turrets that vaguely reminded Spike of something he had seen at a Zoo once. ".....It looks weird."

Twilight tutted. "Now Spike, it may look weird to you, but I have no doubt WE look weird to it, he...her? Either way, we're going to be meeting them at Ponyville airport, they have one of their 'shuttlecraft' landing there to drop one of themselves off for a day or so, well not we're, I am, your going to prepare some food for our guest, from the rest of the information I was just sent, they love salty foods, and hate cold foods or liquids." Without giving Spike the chance to reply, her horn blazed with purple before she was gone in a flash of light, leaving an irritated drake behind. With a huff, Spike did as he was told.

With a small pop and a flash, as well as nearly giving the poor airport employee a heart attack from the sudden teleportation, Twilight stood near one of the private VIP runways set aside for important visitors to land and take off at. And not five minutes later the sound of a large spacecraft filled her ears, as a strangely shaped and built shuttle began to lower itself towards the runway, but rather than land like an airship or plane, jets of blue flame spat from beneath it in several sections, causing it to land like an old style airship could with no wind to hinder it, landing gear extending fully just before it touched onto the ground. It looked sleek, agile, and fast, compared to Equestrian shuttles anyways.

After about two minutes of the shuttle just being there, the side of the craft opened with a hiss as part of the hull cracked in half, one half lifting up while the other lowered itself, transforming into a staircase. She watched in fascination as an 'Akun' as their species was called, skittered out, the moment its scaled feet hit the pavement the door closed itself to reseal the craft, which rolled to a nearby hangar meant to store aircraft so other VIP's could use the runway. It's weird eyes kept looking in different directions independent of one another, much like a chameleon she remembered reading about, could this species change colors too? She wouldn't have to wait long to find out as he skittered up to her after looking at something on a datapad. "You are the one known as 'Princess Twilight Sparkle'?" It's Equish was good.

Twilight nodded. "Yes, you however may call me Twilight, I hope you're accustomed to teleportation." Before giving the Akun male a moment to react, her horn lit up with its bright purple magic before with yet another flash, they were standing within her Crystal Tree, while Unaks would have vomited if his species was capable of such a feat, he settled for letting out an angry hiss as his snout began to turn cherry red.

Affixing both eyeturrets on Twilight Unak glared. "With all due respect, if you do that again I am going to bite you. It's unpleasant, and makes my eyes hurt immensely while it happens, how would you enjoy having a floodlight shoved into your face, unable to look away or blink?"

Twilight's face took on an apologetic look as her ears flopped down. "Ehehe....sorry, I'm just very excited to meet with you, I won't teleport us again without advanced warning, now, sit sit, I have many questions for you! First on the list, what is your name, and how long does your species have a recorded history?" Twilight sat down and pulled out a holotape recorder, pressing the 'on' button, it was connected to a terminal by a thin wire which would translate all speech into text.

Unak let his mouth fall open in a laugh, this supposed person of high power was acting like a mere hatchling who had gone datacrazy, trying to absorb every piece of information on the Global Akun Information Network, a futile task doomed to fail. "You Eponites have a year that is twice as long as our own, so I will be using your years so as to not confuse you, what I remember from history classes as a hatchling, our known history dates back about one million twenty five thousand seven hundred twenty two of your years, about half of that number in Akun years."

The sound of shattering glass was heard as Twilight's eyes turned to pinpricks, a small squeak breaking free from her throat, before she fell onto the floor out cold, this caused Unak no small amount of alarm as he hissed in surprise and shock, getting up off the, rather uncomfortable to begin with, chair and rushing over to his temporary superior, however before he was able to try and administer medical aid as all Shuttlecraft pilots were trained to do in event of an emergency, a small bipedal creature with scales not unlike that of an Akun if it weren't for the ugly green and purple colors flew into the room on thick leathery wings. "Twilight!? Oh for goodness sake!" Spike grabbed a glass of water and splashed her on the face with it, before delivering a slap that left quite the handprint, that caused Unak to affix both eyeturrets on Spike in shock that a lesser would dare to strike their superior, surely this creatures punishment would be immense and merciless.

However, Twilight's eyes snapped open and narrowed on Spike a moment later, before she rubbed her forehead with a hoof and groaned. "let me guess." Spike said. "You tried to process too much information at once?" He got a quiet nod from Twilight, which caused him to sigh. "Damn it Twi, you need to relax sometimes, take a few of these." He produced a small bottle of pain medication and gave Twilight three of the pills as well as another glass of water to wash them down, to help with what no doubt was a horrible migraine. "Now, take it slowly this time Twi, If you pass out like that again I'm calling the doctor, your fear of needles be damned!" After.....whatever that was, for Unak couldn't even begin to describe the confusion he felt, the questioning went on.

-------------------------Zetan Capital World, Zeshan, Two weeks after return of scout craft crew---------------

Mimic groaned as she regurgitated yet another fusion core sized lump of electronics, with Dito keeping lookout, however unlikely it was that they'd be found since they retained their disguises. Within two minutes all of the objects had been deposited onto the concrete. "I fucking hate doing that. But for the good of the hive and Empire we do what we shall." She started to stick the small objects to the structural supports of the Plasma Refinery station, hiding them by changing the color of the resign to match that of the metal it was placed on, effectively hiding the objects, they did this at various spots around the plant, the others where doing the same at key points all around the massive capital city. The process wasn't a fun one, but it was necessary of the plan was to work. She hoped it wouldn't need to come to that, the city did look nice, but her loyalty was to the Queen, and to the King of the Hive first and foremost.

Dito looked over as Mimic finished setting up the last device. "I have received word over the Hivemind that Mirage has managed to replace a high ranking fleet commander within this species Starship Command Structure, as well as that the other devices are in place, and that the information from their Information network is being relayed back to the Empire with a storage crystal, let's hope this species isn't stupid enough to fight against a unified Hive. Alright, let's get back to HQ, remember, don't get caught." She transformed into a weird native flying creature, not unlike a pigeon, before taking flight, no one would suspect a bird of all things to be an enemy, so Mimic decided to take the same action and flew off, leaving behind the devices, awaiting the command that only King Lorenzo himself could send out to activate.

Author's Note

Hey everyone! I have a Ko-fi now, cuz why not? check it out or whatever. https://ko-fi.com/shadowflameking

Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Been feelin lazy lately, so not much writing to get done when I don't feel like it, remember as always, comment, share the story, join the discord for the story! Updates and notifications for the story's progress as it happens, updates in real time, and fellow readers to speak with. If you don't have a discord, get out of the 1950's ya Boomer an join the modern age! XD

Here is the akun shuttlecraft, ignore the writing/markings.