Bon Bon, also known Bonnie, also not-so-known secret agent Sweetie Drops stood among the detachment of thestrals and thought about options. She saw the situation far from being the best. The stranger introduced himself as a general from the world - it was not for nothing that his flying machine had a sign of belonging to some faction! But even if we forget about this "small" problem for a while, what other tricks can this so-called Grievous throw out? What if he doesn't think of going outside - how can you even storm a solitary room with thin wooden walls?

Bon Bon was used to dealing with monsters over a wide area - hooligans in closed rooms were usually dealt with by the same Manehattan patrols who had experience in pulling ponies out of establishments that had sorted out cider and began to row. And here, in general, the house of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, that and look, will fall apart, burying foals under a mountain of planks! And although the monster's lair seemed extremely unreliable, one should not forget that the alien had strengthened it with numerous traps, which the guardponies diligently paid no attention to. Besides, it was only five miles from Froggy Bottom, where the sulfur miasma had blossomed even more since last night, and the wild magic field had done something incredible with scientific instruments and sensors. What else could Grievous bring from there?

“Can't wait to hang the new trophy on the wall, huh?” a thoughtful voice was heard nearby.

Sweetie squinted her eyes to the left. The batpony, whom Princess Luna had entrusted with the care of the "civilian specialist", grinned sadly to her side. Among other thestrals, who returned to the service just a year and a half ago, she had never heard of any secret "agent Drops", and therefore reacted to the earthly pony with a certain degree of skepticism. However, she could be useful if things turned out badly, so she was in no hurry to verbally bicker and spoil her relationship with the night pony in advance. After all, the servants of Her Darkness were also more secretive...

“Hmm,” Sweety muttered vaguely to herself.

“What?” did not understand a colleague of the thestral, a stallion with a coal-black tail and red eyes with a vertical pupil, looking at the guard in bewilderment.

“Nah, nothing...” she narrowed her eyes, glancing at the silenced headquarters of the Crusaders. “It's just that our fearless huntress-spy believes that military action is indispensable, although this stranger did nothing but avoiding a fight.”

“Maybe he is powdering our brains with his speeches, while he is preparing an escape right now?” the guardpony suggested uncertainly.

"Don't even hope," Bon Bon warned quietly. “Now this metamorph is not so easy to escape, and he knows it. And the monster, which has nowhere to retreat, only becomes more dangerous.”

“Um,” the stallion scratched his free chin. “And what is our plan, then? What if he doesn't want to go out at all?”

“You heard it yourself - the old one,” the thestral sighed, checking the combat hoppers. “The sunflowers will take care of his traps and control of the territory, while we surround and pull out the civilians.”

Sweetie Drops narrowed her eyes as the sun brightened the landscape, breaking through the ring of rain clouds, playing on the dewdrops in the grass. Some five minutes ago in the apple orchard there was a haze, so beloved by night ponies, and the downpour gushed as if not into himself. But now the summer sun was sending out its rays in all directions, and the main barrier became clearly distinguishable. Then Grievous caught Her Darkness - he demonstrated that he was not such a monster, that honor for him was not an empty phrase... reminded Princess Luna that what everyone was doing five minutes ago was contrary to the principles of the proud warrior, which she was... In the new millennium, the word of honor of a respectable pony was appreciated, but then, during the just approaching Harmony and before it, during the period of unrest and turmoil, it weighed even more.

Bon Bon shivered under the armor with the guardian eye. She was not accustomed to wearing a cuirass, much less a night pony, and Sweetie was still moving cautiously in her armor. But she admitted that they could be useful to her even more than the usual leather armor of a hunter. The mentor told her: if you are in the minority and a fight cannot be avoided, you need to hit first to reduce losses, no matter how much you want it - that means if Grievous lies about his honor and other things, he will attack first. It was necessary to be ready not only to avoid blows, as Sweetie usually did, but to withstand his blow, for the alien was downright obscenely fast for a creature on foot.

“If you don't have a chance to avoid a fight with him, aim for the lower limbs. This will reduce his mobility,” she reminded the thestrals up close. “As a last resort in the neck. I assume that you need to decapitate this metamorph in order to inflict minimum damage on him and at the same time incapacitate him.”

The night ponies looked at her in amazement.

“I've never heard of anyone needing to be decapitated,” the thestral muttered, “to minimize his damage.”

“Don't worry, Drops. It won't come to extreme measures,” the night mare pushed Bon Bon in a patronizing manner with her elbow in the side. “We're not idols like the sunlowers, we even know how to use our hooves! There are many of us, but he is one – we’ll take him easy...”

“Krhm,” the pegasus from Her Grace's guard boomed discontentedly, hovering in the air nearby. “I would ask.”

“Oh, come on, Skip!” the thestral bared her fangs with an innocent expression on her face. “But seriously, the alien agreed to negotiate, didn't he? Hey,” she looked seriously at Bon Bon, “you will see, the children will be free in a dozen minutes. I give you my word.”

Maybe you're right, Sweetie Drops thought not so optimistically. Maybe we really won't need this collision and everything will be fine.

“What will come of it, we all dragged ourselves here in vain?” grumbled the batpony, flexing his shoulders and neck, stepping over the hoops with dagger-like claws. “Don’t think I’m all for it if the foals are easy to free, but we have the most boring airline in Equestria! There is no observation deck, not a single pretty stewardess, no refreshments en route. The cap, which poses interesting fables on the road, and then sailed to the north on public affairs!”

“Stop you talkers!” Lieutenant Noctus shouted at them. “Gathered! There he comes out.”

Even in the morning Bon Bon, if she was worried about the neighborhood with a stranger, was quite a bit - not least because after that commotion at dawn she managed to float her friend outside the "danger zone". It seems that Sweety chose the arguments correctly, so silly Lyra really suspected that they wanted to surprise her in the form of getting to know human, and therefore Bon Bon should be given time to prepare and "suspecting nothing" to live in a suburban motel.

As for everything else... Of course, the alien left behind in Ponyville, gave work to painters and glaziers, and also stirred the minds of the population. Sweety had heard a lot: that the human had stolen a carrot from Golden's garden (as it turned out, they were gophers that had lost their girdle during Fluttershy's absence), and that the aliens on their black rotary-winged ponies would soon begin to kidnap ponies in order to put them on terrible tests like a tickling test, and that half of the inhabitants of Ponyville have long been replaced by invaders in the manner of changelings... Mrs. Delicious generally claimed that a man had stolen her pet, a cheetah named Blaze, but no one in Ponyville probably believed this at all. Rather, the poor fellow fled on his own, taking advantage of the turmoil to take a break from the old lady's overprotectiveness. Much more Bonnie was not worried about the complaints of talkative and overly impressionable mares and their favorite gossip, but what invaded the world of ponies - because it began to take over their world!

In the swamps, inexplicable, chaotic phenomena still took place. For lack of a better substance, which grew in Froggy Bottom, was dubbed "Red lichen": it really was something like a symbiotic organism with tissue separation, the same veins were present in its structure for transporting fluids and minerals. She seemed to cover everything around with wax, bite into the soil and go under the water - while she was exactly that alive, breathed, according to Princess Celestia, producing millions of "carriers" that play the role of accumulators and transmitters of solar energy. The substance seemed harmless: it didn’t eat trees, climbing over them, didn’t touch living creatures. All I did was suck nutrients from the soil and drain sulfur from the swamp. But how long will such a lull last?

Not only one Bon Bon was disturbed by the discovery that the actions of an outsider are aimed, so to speak, at "rooting" in Equestria. Her Serene Highness had deigned to introduce Agent Drops to her crowned sister a day ago - and she clearly did not share Celestia's positive attitude.

“Tia, he attacked another living creature!” said Princess Luna, looking with indignation at the elder sister. “Don't you think that the newcomer, with your connivance, became convinced of his own permissiveness? If we allow him to continue to gain strength, human can cause us trouble,” the alicorn categorically summed up, “and serious!”

“If I understand his way of thinking well, then no,” Princess Celestia, neatly stacking the Canterlot mail, allowed herself a smile. “He went into the mines only because he knows the world around him, Luna, and not for the purpose of insulting. Maybe human does not know us well, but he must understand that all our moves are only security measures, and not an offensive against him. And the person understands that if he dared to commit really a serious offense against the inhabitants of Equestria, then neither I nor you would be so patient, my dear sister.”

“It's not about me or you,” Luna grumbled. “I am not speaking from the standpoint of humanal relationship to human, not that he is a threat, but what he can become. You promised that you would give me and my soldiers freedom of action if he opposed us. What if standby Doing this will not even be useless, but harmful for our subjects?”

“Lulu, we’ve already said that it’s pointless,” Celestia winced, signing another paper. “If human was going to somehow oppose us, then he would not limit himself to petty dirty tricks. He is a reasonable and cautious creature, a military officer, not some narcissistic sorceress or our mutual acquaintance, for whom logic is the last thing that worries him in the world. The only way for human to surpass the diarchy is to find a way to ruin our lives forever. And this search, even taking into account the secrets of his native dimension, may take him years, if not decades, which he does not have. To make contact with us is the only reasonable conclusion that he will follow, and very soon,” Her Grace blinked sleepily and with difficulty suppressed a yawn, almost planting a luxurious blot on the parchment. “I’m surprised why you continue to follow your point of view, when there are no prerequisites for this at all,” she concluded, beckoning the guardpony, handing him the parcel and, with appropriate instructions, ordering him to transfer it to the Ponyville school.

Her Grace's calculation, she told her sister and Bon Bon, was based on her great experience in recognizing magical disturbances. She believed that the Marks would be one of those things that would most interest a stranger in the new world - the human himself did not wear the insignia, but he had some kind of similar mechanism, even though it could not be called Harmony even with a stretch. Firstly, a newcomer from a world where war could still happen, would rather turn to the mare as a weaker and more affectionate creature, a less bright dominant. In kind-heartedness, most of the Equestrians of the stronger sex were not inferior to their passions, but a stranger could not know this! Since there were fewer stallions, this factor did not reduce the list of "potential contactees" as much as desired.

The second factor consisted in the following: a strong, but for some reason extremely cautious alien would rather prefer a calm, balanced person for the first contact, moreover, possessing the necessary knowledge. If Twilight Sparkle hadn't went away, leaving her owl to look over the library, maybe a stranger would have wanted to talk to her... If only somehow he hadn't found out that she is a student of Celestia, of course. The second factor cut off a much larger number of "candidates", because according to the not modest opinion of Bon Bon, born Canterlot, the same inhabitants of the capital were not callous in comparison with the Ponyvilleans, but they were certainly more restrained in manifesting their feelings. Hyperactivity and throwing on the neck with open arms to the alien, according to Her Grace, would definitely not like it. And then everything is simple. Adults have a label - younger ones don't. So, from the point of view of a stranger, growing up must somehow be involved here... including learning, gaining knowledge.

The night passed quietly for Bon Bon. After a short patrol, not finding anything suspicious, she nodded on the cornice of one of the houses covered with soft hay, even in a dream, just in case, waving her ears, catching unusual sounds. But Her Grace did not sleep, worked all night; as it turned out, she was recreating the spell of searching for a stranger in his tracks - "carriers". When Bon Bon looked into the town hall late in the morning, hoping to get some instructions, Princess Celestia almost fell asleep on the go, feeding herself exclusively with vigor spells and strong tea - as it turned out, over the past three days, the alicorn slept less than six hours.

Princess Luna has returned: she had a chance with a detachment of thestrals to visit the central column of the "lichen". Alicorn was full of enthusiasm, although she could not find any traces of human. As it turned out, she decided to check her sister's words that the stranger would learn a new world, and then took the crystal from the collar from one of the dogs. It turned out that the magic of crystals, which was currently supposed to attend to the far north of the Guardian, unlike many other spells, had an effect on the sprouts of alien life! Small charges "lichen" happily ignored, but when a certain power of the spell was reached, it seemed to shrink, covering itself with a protective shell and going into hibernation mode, like stone cacti under the scorching daytime sun.

The joy of Princess Luna from the realization that she had discovered the alien's weakness was not overshadowed by even more alarming news: the chaos in the swamps did not subside overnight, when the red cloud was not engaged in absorbing energy, but gained strength. Where light electrical discharges were hitting the ground yesterday, sheaves of lightning burst out the next morning, albeit safe for Pegasus, but quite capable of throwing the same unicorn into shock. The heat spots turned into real torches of fire and pools of boiling water, and the frozen soil was piled high with columns of ice. Forest living creatures, until recently, felt at ease in the swamps, fled from there even faster than migrated to a zone full of free magic. It was still not enough to the beliefs in the manner of discord magic were reborn into some kind of monsters from a parallel world, which is all saturated with this fog!

Princess Celestia, with a puzzled shake of her head, thanked her sister for the discovery and in turn said that she had just finished displaying the search matrix. Luna, seeing her, changed her face and dragged the yawning sister into the hall, where they began to fiercely (in the case of Her Grace, sleepily) arguing behind closed doors, ordering no one to bother them, unless something happened.

Naturally, such was not long in coming. Sweety, never having received specific instructions from Her Grace, took on the burden of a lone agent, which she did more than once or twice, and went on a patrol that was invisible to the prying eye. As soon as she heard Rainbowshine on the street excitedly tells the guardpony that the Marksmen were following an adult pony without a mark in the direction of the farm, looking so indifferent as if they were not interested in anything in the world, Bon Bon rushed back. The mare got to the town hall faster than the guards, for she had her own secret paths all over Ponyville... but she was late anyway.

Princess Celestia was asleep, happily sniffing the roulades, dropping her muzzle into a plate on which there were only shortbread crumbs. And all would be fine - well, think, Her Grace got tired, composing a matrix of search for a very complex and unknown type half-alive from the point of view of a pony's organism, decided to snore for another hour or two on the third day. But according to the assurance of Luna, this dream was artificially induced. Even the talents of the princess did not help - Her Darkness jumped out of her older sister's dream, without spending a couple of minutes there, her forehead was covered with sweat. Alicorn just muttered to herself: "So much... so many", and refused to expand on this topic categorically.

The culprit of this misunderstanding was found quickly: Celestia's favorite drink. As far as Bon Bon knew, it was almost impossible to poison an alicorn, because, being a powerful magical creature, Her Grace could identify all the "unfriendly" components at a time. Putting to sleep is also not easy due to the peculiarities of metabolism, but a small dose of sleeping pills will at least be recognized as something harmless, the same sedative. The fact is that something else was mixed into the tea - a similar composition was used at a wedding in Canterlot by changelings to keep their victims unconscious. It was something different and at the same time similar - the soporific enzyme of werewolf saliva, together with a magic-suppressing cocoon, introduced the victim into a trance, allowing the love essence to be slowly sucked out. And here, using the matrix that Princess Celestia, by a lucky chance, managed to reveal to Luna, Her Darkness found out that the composition literally glowed from the presence of a stranger!

“We have a problem,” Luna raised her voice in front of the officers as the guards who came running confirmed Sweetie's story. “A huge problem, and my sister will stay in the world of dreams for some time,” at these words, Luna shuddered, shrugging her shoulders chilly. “All this can be a trap, for the stranger clearly does not compete with us two. But with one... Well, this impudent upstart will regret that he chose the wrong princess as his target!” Luna threw up her wings menacingly, to which the Thestrals responded with an approving grunt.

Sweetie Drops thought that the "sleeping pill" could have been intended for Luna as well, as human more decisive and quicker for reprisals where Her Serene Highness would not rush to conclusions, but, naturally, the cups turned out to be confused. Or maybe the composition was supposed to put both princesses to sleep, but Luna refused the cup carefully offered by her sister, being heated by an argument... Be that as it may, the alien, according to Rainbowshine, was not very different from the Equestrian changelings, and even dared use as cover for foals! Luna, who sincerely loved the children of her subjects, was not going to put up with this.

“My sister is a good pony,” the Princess of the Night exclaimed sternly, “if not the best I have ever known. Although not a warrior, the ruler always came out of it excellently. But we cannot wait until she wakes up and begins to act with pomp, unleashing the diplomatic fetters. The children of the local nice ponies need help. Lieutenant,” she turned directly to the commander of the Solar Guard, “will you begin to follow my orders, as if my sister had given them?”

“Yes, Your Darkness,” he agreed without batting an eye, saluting.

“Excellent,” Luna nodded with dignity. “Where can a stranger be found now?”

“It's hard to say for sure, Your Darkness,” Bon Bon said. “But if there were fillies with him, then it is worth checking the farm and its surroundings. I thought that he had an underground lair and passages somewhere, however, apparently, he moves on foot.”

“In that case, Lieutenant, take four-fifths of the composition, and get ready to attack,” Luna snorted, barely holding back her anger at the alien. “Send scouts and notify the owners of Sweet Apple. Noctus,” then she turned to the commander of thestral, pointing her hoof at Bon Bon, “give this pony a suitable armor and attach her to the vanguard. Sweetie Drops was once a loyal servant of the Crown and personally saw the monster, has experience in clashes like him. Let everyone listen to her opinion, if necessary!”

It took Sweety a split second to decide. Let the earth pony walk under the orders of the guards and specifically Luna of the earth was a novelty, to refuse, of course, was beyond her strength. Now Bon Bon understood that Her Grace had missed a little: the stranger was targeting not the teachers, but their students... and far from the most peaceful purposes. Foals. More risk, more windy, but more trusting. And if that - they can be easily used as hostages, subjugating the mind... Sweetie herself was horrified at her thoughts. Heaven, how infinitely far from the highest degrees of humanity was man! Lyra would have been bitterly disappointed. It's so good that she left... Bon Bon gritted her teeth, heading with the guards to leave the town hall. They'll figure it out. Neither Luna, nor the Guard, nor Sweetie Drops herself would allow harm to the little subjects of the diarchy - this more than fell under the definition of "intolerable manner," in which case Her Serene Highness promised to give Princess Luna "full carte blanche".

While the unicorns were preparing a massive teleportation to encircle the enemy, Sweety donned armor and admonished the thestrals, to whose squad Brave Noctus had assigned her.

“Most likely a fight is inevitable,” she told the night ponies. “If we can't free the girls outright, Princess Luna will most likely try to make contact with him and find out what the alien wants, but be prepared for the situation to quickly escalate. This creature is cunning and mostly unpredictable.

“I'm not sure I know who you are, Drops,” the senior guard said in a low but no less melodious voice. “What kind of experience do you have in subduing monsters? Ours saw you at Her Darkness with Celestia, but they never heard of you.”

The thestral radiated self-confidence - and that was why. Under the armor, a muscular chest covered with well-groomed fur was guessed, a toned body and trained wings gave out a wonderful flyer in it. Batpony's yellow eyes sparkled with anticipation of the coming battle.

“Now I am a civilian specialist. Once upon a time hunted monsters,” Bon Bon sighed. “That's all you need to know.”

“Hm, okay,” the mare held out, looking appraisingly at Bon Bon. She checked her accumulated blades and gently smoothed her purple hair as she pulled on her helmet. “I hope we are gonna get along just fine. My name is...” she briefly expressed herself in her northern dialect, which, when combined with the prefix “middle," should have meant, as far as Sweetie knew, “Witching Hour.” “But if anything, on the battlefield you can just call me Night,” said the night pony Bon Bon in a rather condescending tone.

Sweety bit her lip inadvertently. In any newly formed collective, friction arises, but now there was no time to settle them! She would not at all want the Thestrals to treat her words as the utterances of some dilettante, picked up by the princesses from the street. From this, in the end, the health and even, scary to think, the lives of girls could depend!

“I need to say a few words about your weapon,” meanwhile the thestral continued busily. “We have standard sets of potions and blades, and unicorns have added chains driven into the crystal if this "person" has to be immobilized. Are you sure you don't want to take something from our arsenal? Because a pie with jam, well, let's say...” she chuckled harmlessly, showing sharp fangs, “a weapon with a great stopping effect, if you load it in the face of an ordinary pony, but now...”

“This is exactly the quality that I appreciate when capturing monsters,” Bonnie replied as calmly as possible, checking how comfortably the throwing horseshoe slides off her hoof. “Usually I could impose close combat on the enemy, while remaining more maneuverable. But now I'm not going to, and I don't advise you either. This... creature...” Sweetie Drops hesitated for a second, “is extremely nasty in terms of abilities. It does not breathe, does not glow in a magical background, and practically does not get tired. He cannot be forced by pain to lay down his arms. And he’s really fast... so don’t meddle with him unless you’re absolutely necessary."

“Seriously?” Night raised her eyebrows. “As for me, it must be nonsense. The morning before last, he did just that in Ponyville he had sketched paint bombs.”

“In the swamp, these paintings caused fountains of flame, have you forgotten?” asked Sweetie, in turn wondering why such effects did not manifest themselves in Ponyville. Could it be that human still managed to learn how to control elemental magic?

“Well, I can't disagree here,” thinking, the batpony shrugged her shoulders, but the seriousness in her voice was gone, unfortunately.

“Maybe this alien is some secret development of the Council at all? - asked her co-worker ets at Bon Bon, flexing his wings. “This bunch of old grumblers is always doing strange magical things, and Princess Celestia, may Her Grace forgive me, loves to exile everything objectionable to Ponyville...”

“Well, it’s unlikely that Her Grace would have been lost in conjecture in that case,” the Batpony giggled. "Okay, Drops," Night smirked self-confidently. “Just give us a good moment when we can get close to this bogeyman,” she shook her head in the direction of the Apple farm, “and we will do the rest.”

“Teleportation expected in seven minutes!” announced the commander of the thestrals. “Everyone take their places, be ready to move out as soon as we disembark!”

The scouts, covered by the clouds, returned unopposed. According to their report, nothing particularly suspicious happened in the vicinity of the farm: the children played outside their tree house (there were five foals in total, not three), and the stranger lived somewhere under the crown or in the very headquarters of the Marks Seekers, so make out him it was impossible. Her Darkness immediately sent the pegasus under their own power to whip up the clouds of the Everfree. And when the guardponies with the camouflage charms thrown over them, with the noise-suppressing and water-repelling spells, found themselves among the humany apple trees, they were already greeted by a heavy downpour with thunder and lightning.

“Detachments, move,” came from the commander of the thestrals. “Don't forget to keep an eye on the territory.”

The unicorns put up a shield and aura against teleportation so that human would not try to use any other trick of the changelings and escape, and the night ponies, along with the rest, were already moving deeper into the apple acres. They walked dispersed so as not to be attacked all at once, but at the same time not to lose neighbors from the field of visual detection. The attention of the princess, who could be seen not far from Bon Bon, was riveted to the house in front - she left the environment on the pony.

We have a spy in the tree here, warned Luna over the mental communication of officers, sergeants and Agent Drops. Disguises itself as a mote. Do not touch those like him yet, he is still blind because of rain.

Her Darkness used exactly the spell that her sister had calculated to identify the red "carriers" of human, tracking their activity everywhere. No sooner had the ponies approached the clearing than Luna had already reported a lot of small objects underground - in her thoughts, only four were felt very clearly, the rest were blurry to the extreme.

Get ready. Magicians, distribute them among yourself - I will take over the person.

“How many, you say, he can have parts?” asked the thestral.

“Don’t know,” Bon Bon answered gloomily. “Maybe one, maybe four or five. I do not think that parts of a human lie directly under the ground. Rather, what he brought to Froggy Bottom.”

“Detachment, get together,” hurried their sergeant, a large Batpony of gray color. “We leave on the clearing. Take the flanks, closer to Her Darkness.”

I see a couple of underground channels underground here and here. Prepare the most powerful shields for them.

I don't like this, thought Bon Bon. Aloud she said:

“Do not go between them. And in general, it is better not to approach. Let the magicians take care of it.”

The pathfinders reported that in one place they stumbled upon a relatively recently dug up earth, covered with turf, but under it Luna did not find anything - only one hole contained the same clot of alien matter.

Most likely, the person did it to distract attention, reasonably suggested Luna. By the trees in the south, be prepared. An ambush is possible.

The human did not prepare himself badly, and the ponies walked straight through the traps they had prepared, for the time being ignoring them. Bon Bon was not a green recruit to panic about this. But it seemed to her that all this could have been done somehow... differently. Perhaps less aggressive, more targeted methods. The advantage in the number of fighters could have affected favorably, this is so, but maybe it was worth for a start just trying to take the girls away with small forces, while they, being hypnotized, pretend to be a normal game on the street, and not drive them inside with rain?

However, the answer was found almost immediately. Her Darkness was absolutely right about the situation! Princess Celestia managed to finish the spell, but did not calibrate it for the radius of sensitivity - just getting even closer, Luna confirmed in anger: the girls were not just under hypnosis. At least one of the little ponies had traces of "carriers". Very little compared to the concentration of the crimson fog, but there were traces!

“What a vile creature!” cursed the night pony, having heard this from the sergeant.

“Don't slow down, Night. Human should not have time to make everything only worse,” the commander brought her to her senses. “On position, everyone should be ready!”

Bon Bon, along with the others obediently formed a cordon on the flank, preparing to rush to the children, while Princess Luna with another detachment was about to attack head-on. Nobody was going to show any politeness and patience towards human! until Grievous spoke up...

And now the ponies stood and waited patiently for the creature to finish its preparations. Princess Luna decided to give him five minutes to see what the stranger would do... If, despite all the precautions, he smelled a pony, an immediate storm should not have set the weather. Their position was still advantageous in that Her Darkness recognized all of the intruder's traps, and the ponies could now easily avoid them, although they did not show it, but Sweetie did not think to relax. Bon Bon's muzzle slumped in the concentrated mine. The upcoming battle - she believed that there would be no way to do without hoof-blowing here - should have become something special for her quiet life in retirement. Maybe a return to basics?

The thestrals around Sweetie froze in fighting stances, the claws on their wings raised to swing. While the human in the house was wrapping himself in cloth, in the minds of Princess Luna, hiding her weapon from the view of an outsider, agent Drops quickly and accurately checked her equipment and emergency supplies in the bag on her back.

Will one be enough..? the earth pony thought briefly. Should be enough!

Well, something, but Pinkie's culinary abilities were hard not to take into account. It would be very nice if Bon Bon could perform her favorite trick - to shove a watch into the throat of a monster, which, when switched to eleven and pressed an inconspicuous button, literally sent the victim to the crib with a charge of sleeping gas, but alas... The simplest interactions, as she argued Her Grace, between the alien and Equus's universe, were possible, for the same electrons could somehow become replaced by the corresponding elementary particle. So the atoms of Grievous were able to form alchemical bonds with the atoms of the ponies.

But that was not a complex alchemy based on genitals like that used by microbes and living cells! And even if the master-transfigurator succeeded in deriving a formula for sleeping saliva that works on the alicorn as well, then the opposite was not at all necessary. In the manner of alchemy, other problems could arise... Well, if the person was not disguised, but was a real invisibility, because the light of the Equestrian sun, reflected from his body, was not perceived by the eyes of a pony, it would be very difficult. And so - the person could be seen.

And of course, you could kick him in the jaw. Bon Bon was going to do everything in her power and independence to stop this monstrous parody of Lyra's invention.

As soon as the earth pony decided so, the floorboards in the Crusaders' house creaked, and the human appeared on the veranda. The stranger walked on his long legs like a heron, measuredly, with dignity, but at the same time hunched over, as if trying with all his might to appear smaller - and even so, he was a couple of feet taller than Bon Bon and much wider at the shoulders. Leaving, he occupied the whole door reception, blocked the interior decoration of the house with its poufs, a table with a simple tea set and bright posters on the walls. The gray cloth wrapped around the human figure curled between the different shapes, making it difficult to tell if the alien's body was tense for the throw or relaxed.

“He's kind of a predator, so how does he estimate the distance to the target?” the whisper of the night pony came to Sweetie's ears. “I see only one eye...”

“By the spies in the trees, most likely,” Bon Bon hissed out of the corner of her mouth, watching the headquarters left by Grievous with all her eyes.

The human, who had already begun to descend the steps, suddenly froze in place. Without thinking twice, he turned around, in a couple of steps returned to the doorway and stepped inside, extending his claws forward. With a creak of wood, Grievous lifted the door, which had been torn from its hinges by the voice of Luna, with one hand, and somehow put it back in place, closing it behind him. Then, accompanied by the deathly silence of all the ponies in the area, he clumsily jumped down - like a retired Wonderbolt, who has not performed for a long time and looks slow and slow, although in fact he retained excellent movement skills in the air and muscle tone. A withered-looking skull-muzzle with very little skin covering the cheekbones only enhanced the resemblance to an old flyer, by the same Wind Ryder.

He's heading towards us. I don't feel any fighting spells with him, but keep your ears open, the Princess of the Night reminded of herself. A weak charge of Poisonous Joke is felt in the area of his belt.

Despite her readiness to use force and readiness to fight in general, Bon Bon still hoped that at least some decency would be observed, which in such a situation would be reduced to a conversation... albeit invariably leading to a fight, for, judging by the manner hold on, the human was very confident in himself. Without delaying himself in any way, without hesitation and hesitation, he moved towards Luna and the guards near her.

The human stopped, prudently not trying to get close to the delegation. This was not followed by a bow - the stranger looked directly into the princess's eyes, as if not paying attention to the other ponies. Finally, he broke the silence that had reigned.

“Glorious Luna of Equestria,” grunted Grievous from under the mask, “what do I owe this honor?”

His jaw-stretched skull and deep-set eye gave him an arrogant look, but the alien's voice was calm, there was no hint of hidden strength and ambition in it. This was in stark contrast to the way Grievous roared five minutes earlier. On the one hand, this was encouraging: the creature was not alien to self-restraint, unlike all kinds of monsters there. On the other hand, changing his mood so easily (to the point that Brave pretended to be Noctus), he could rely on cunning and easily hide a lie, so that any word of Grievous would be taken with skepticism by Sweety. Princess Luna understood this as well as she did, so, measuring the stranger with a hard look, she repeated in a Canterlot voice:

”With whom do we have the honor to speak, who came from another world?”

The general shivered under the sound of the princess's trumpet voice, pulling his head deeper into his shoulders, but he did not look away and the timbre of his speech did not change.

"What I am in your world... kha, Grievous, the supreme commander of the army of servants... that is, drones," he introduced himself again, clearing his throat damp.

Strange wording, thought Sweetie. Instead of "My name is Grievous" or any other idea that would pass for the etiquette of the Canterlot court, the general preferred the most widespread and general wording. At the same time, he fell silent, as if waiting for the reaction of the princess, continuing to drill her with a gaze from under the heavy browbone. In the thoughts of Luna, some of which she broadcast to the officers and at the same time to Bon Bon, surprise slipped. Almost immediately, however, Luna eagerly demanded details:

”If you are really a military general, from whose name do you speak?”

“I speak on behalf of the organization...” Sweetie thought that after these words the human made an inappropriate pause, “the name of which can be translated into your language as "Confederation".

Confederation. An old word, dating back to the time of the unification of tribes, which meant a commonwealth, which is not an indivisible territorial and legal unit, which Equestria was now. Sweetie Drops was pretty sure this could be true - given that Princess Celestia, in her boundless wisdom, suggested that the alien world might be torn apart by conflict. And if the ponies, without knowing it, get involved in one of these conflicts, and not on the side, whose representative can so easily use self-transfiguration in battle... Sweetie Drops seemed to be burned. She again dreamed of the terrible, jarring face with peeling skin, which the stranger addressed to the guards at the crash site.

Princess Luna, if she thought of something similar, did not show it. Obviously, already on the second question, she was tired of the fact that from human you have to pull answers almost with ticks, and he says practically the same thing that was already known from his monologue in the rain. Frowning angrily, she asked:

”How did you decide that you have the right to challenge us and demand a face-to-face meeting? After all, your title is nothing in Equestria, the title is haphazard for us.”

“Not to demand, just to make a claim,” the human did not raise an eyebrow at her emphatically hostile tone. “I, as the highest officer of the largest and most efficient army...” he made a tiny pause again, glaring at the face of Luna with his tenacious, attentive eye, “of the planet Earth, I wanted the accusations to be thrown in my face, and not being... meanly bound under the cover of bad weather. If you still have any complaints against me, of course.”

An unspoken threat? A clear enough hint that others will come for Grievous? Sweety did not know if the aliens could use Twilight's experiment as a master key to get into the pony world after their leader. However, there was no hint that Grievous doubted even for a split second that he was the master of the situation. If he left the hostages so easily, then he could afford it.

Or was it all a delusion? What if the alien really didn't capture the children, but just made friends with them? Sweetie would very much like this monster in the guise of a rational, albeit formidable, to turn out to be a decent creature by nature and only curious, as Her Grace claimed. On the other hand, to imagine a military general hunched over in the Marker's house and drinking tea with them from a toy service... It was something beyond the bounds of absurdity, even for Pinkie Pie. On the face of the princess, this was exactly what was read - "If you decided to appear innocent, then you should not pretend to be a high-ranking military man." Luna expressed herself aloud, however, differently:

”Human calling himself General Grievous,” the Princess of the Night furrowed her brows sternly, ”no matter how big your armada at home, it does not compete with the defenders of Equus. You will have nothing to please us and will not intimidate us so that the diarchy changes its requirements. Unleash the captured ponies immediately, or no negotiations will shine for you!”

The paw of Grievous, which until then squeezed the edge of his homemade apparel, spread her claws menacingly and sank down.

“I apologize?” for the first time since the beginning of the conversation, dissatisfaction clanked like metal in his voice. “I thought we cleared up this...”

”You heard,” Luna interrupted him. ”Woe to you, if you confused the ability of our people to show compassion, sympathy and friendly feelings with the weakness of pacifism,” the diarch impatiently shook her head, stirring up her wonderful starry mane. ”We will do everything in the power of the Crown to protect our little subjects if you decide to threaten them. Any use of your...” here Luna stumbled on level ground, and a shadow of slight disgust flashed on her face, “abilities will be suppressed.”

Bon Bon could not help but admire the unyielding endurance of the Princess of the Night, who was cold and dazzling in her regal anger, like silver, which was a symbolic regalia of the younger sister-alicorn. But on Grievous, the speech of Luna, it seems, did not make a special impression, because he only squeezed out of himself that the short "krhm-m". Then the alien brought his palm to the bottom of his mask:

“Kha-khe-kha-a-ha-ha-a…” he choked, desperately trying to mask the laugh that made Agent Drops stand on end on the back of his neck. The human made a short gesture with his paw, clenching and unclenching his articulated palm, and his serious speech suddenly changed its tone, sounded outright irony:

“Yes, yes, I already understood that you are in charge here. I, you know, do not ignore the need to speak with you, Your Darkness.”

Was this a mockery of the princess's entourage, which Grievous apparently ignored, without considering it as a serious threat? Or was he hurrying her in such a contemptuous manner, reassuring her of his interest in negotiations? Bon Bon did not know what to think, but she did not see any point in interfering, as did the guards following orders. In a much more relaxed tone than he should have in such a tense environment, Grievous explained:

“I meant, would you be so kind as to lower the timbre of your voice? I understand tradition and the need to crush the opposing side with an aura of superiority. But I went to meet you, gave you the opportunity to save face and forget about this little misunderstanding between us, and you...” the human shook his head on his unexpectedly straightened neck, tilting it to the side. Slapping the side of his helmet, as if getting rid of water in his ears, Grievous impressively wiggled a pair of bone spikes growing behind his temples, and concluded:

“My advanced audio sensors are not cheap, and in the materials of your world I am limited.”

“I don’t advise you to test my patience, General,” Luna hissed in her usual pony voice, screwing up her eyes badly, “for the five minutes allotted to you have expired a long time ago.”

“I wasn’t going to, Your Darkness. Great,” Grievous agreed unexpectedly easily, “let's say I let them go.”

While the guards closest to Luna exhaled mentally, happy that they could now concentrate on their task, and not on trying not to fly away from the princess's voice, she tried to figure out what Grievous was trying to get from her with another pause. As a result, the princess refused to play silent and answered an unspoken question:

“For this occasion, my sister and I will regard this as a circumstance that will mitigate the severity of your criminal actions. However, until the Crown clarifies everything that worries me and my sister, you will go to the dungeons of Canterlot. Depending on the goals that you pursued, whether your intention was malicious initially or naïve,” an angry mine on the face of Luna clearly demonstrated that she definitely does not consider the act of a stranger to be "unintentional", “your punishment will also be assigned. We, by the grace of sisters, so be it, close our eyes to the vanity that was organized by you in Ponyville. You will only be responsible for making the lives of our subjects the guarantor of your freedom.”

“How interesting,” the human said thoughtfully, as if thinking deeply. “I will repeat myself - interesting. I'm afraid that won't suit me,” he waved his paw vaguely in the air, snapping his claws. “Softly steal, Luna of Equestria, but hard I will have on your bed.”

In the slender ranks of the guards, someone gasped, unable to keep their feelings to themselves. The cheeks of a pair of mare and stallions in the neighborhood of Bon Bon, who outwardly retained their composure, flushed, either from embarrassment or from anger at the liberty released in the direction of the princess herself. Judging by the echo of thoughts that came from the direction of Luna, it took all her composure to keep her expression unperturbed.

“We're sorry, what?,” the alicorn inquired icily.

“Hm. Apparently, I did not take into account the context, and my algorithm for adapting dialectisms is not as perfect as I expected,” Grievous muttered without batting an eye. “You know, I still have difficulties with your language... Well, well, let's leave that,” he waved his paw so lightly, as if he had not just rejected human of royal blood in a particularly personal form. “If I let go of the whole friendly company gathered in the house behind my back, then I become about the owner of the luxurious prospect of knocking off a couple of years of imprisonment and will continue to be considered a threat to Equestria's security. After this, I think, there will be no talk of any of my research on free topics. But if I don't let them go...”

Luna, quite rightly suspecting that the mockery was allowed by Grievous deliberately and so conveniently covered by an imperfect knowledge of the pony's language, silently looked at him. Then her long graceful horn lit up - the thestrals tensed, ready to throw - and, tilting her head threateningly, she summed up:

“Then my guards and my sister will crush you, General. We will only have to intervene if we decide that you are not worthy of royal grace and your life should be taken immediately. If we decide so, then you will not escape alive from under the dome,” Luna slowly, which made the gesture seem even more threatening, twirled a uniquely author's spell on the horn, so that small crystals grew at its base. “And the children will be free - one way or another.”

The earth-droning guards and unicorns froze in their places, ready to block the movement of human in any direction. The wings of the pegasus trembled in fighting stances, the thestrals quickly turned their eyes from the Princess of the Moon to the object of royal anger and back, as if asking permission from the Night Mother to launch an attack. Grievous did not look at any of them. But Sweetie saw the sparks of dark amusement flicker in his gaze for a moment - the threat of Luna amused the human, no more. Well, or he skillfully did such a casual look... The human took a step forward, clawing at the edge of his homemade robe and wrapping himself in it even more diligently.

"Khe... khah... Are you really counting on this, or are such statements just another part of the ceremony?" the general asked with interest. When Luna indignantly was about to parry, he raised his paw, warning the dispute:

“It never occurred to me to question your concern for Equestria’s safety and your commitment to duty to your little ponies, Princess Luna,” the human doubled over as another coughing fit twisted him. “Kha. But you know much better than me that the last time Equestria fought unknown how many years ago, and that this lull... in a certain way affected the ability of your country to conduct military operations,” the princess already wanted to interrupt him, but Grievous inexorably continued, taking the heavier but calm and balanced tone:

“You know very little about me... so I would not be so categorical in the issue of open confrontation. I’ll ask you one last question, Princess of the Night,” the alien said in his ingratiating voice, “and I recommend that you think carefully before giving an answer. What if the ponies behind me refuse to leave this place? Want to stay here with me?”

There were no whispers among the ranks of the guards, none of the ponies moved. A few seconds passed, and Luna spoke up, looking at the stranger as if he were an insignificant disgusting slug, which is disgusting to crush:

“What were you thinking about?” she asked in disgust. “What were you thinking, General, since you did this? Why do we even have to call an officer's rank the one who hides behind children?” the wings of the angry princess were no longer spread out to the sides, but raised behind the back, as before a swing. “We were pleased to answer your challenge, even though you had the right and were not to demand it... It was not you who gave us the opportunity to save face, but exactly the opposite is true! We allowed your chaotic abomination to settle in the swamps and carry out dark deeds, while you do not meddle in the affairs of a pony, and did not begin to convince sister to burn her out with all the power of the Sun!” words shape like arrowheads. “My poor all-forgiving sister patiently waited for you to condescend to talk with us, stop hiding in the corners like the last coward - and what about her now? Do you think you can hide from our anger by capturing the minds of the foals and threatening their lives? Run without paying for it? Do you think we'll let you?!”

Bon Bon squeaked in a muffled voice. On Nightmare Night last year, Her Highness was simply unhappy with the pony's reaction, and therefore angry and upset. Since then, Agent Drops has not seen her, although Lyra caught a glimpse of the night princess at the wedding, which she enthusiastically told her friend about. During this couple of days, the "retired specialist" talked quite closely with the Princess of the Night, being represented by Her Grace, and personally made sure that Luna is a proud warrior, merciless to enemies in the past millennium, but kind-hearted and caring when it seemed to allies. Her Darkness was definitely worried that the alien might be a hostile creature threatening their subjects - but in recent years Bon Bon had never seen Luna so belligerent, so magnificent. Her heart begins to beat harder. She has devoted many years to the service established by Princess Celestia, and she cannot and what to complain about - but now Sweetie, with a bit of remorse, admitted that in her vision the princess of the Night possessed those character traits that the throne and the almost perfect Celestia were just a little lacking, well, just a little! Sweetheart Drops would have been happy to return to the ranks of Luna, although a peaceful life as a Ponyville pastry chef had its own charm. Suddenly, the alien decided that it was worth cutting off all the solemnity of the moment:

“So what if they don’t want to?” the cat's eye blinked sleepily, giving the impression that the alien did not care at all about the answer. “Come on, Princess Luna, tell me what's next?”

“The things of your abuse of nature will be destroyed,” Sweetie thought she heard Princess Luna grit her teeth at these words, but decided that it seemed to her, “everything that you brought into our world and poisons it with just your presence... Girls will be freed from harmful influences, be it chaos or disease. As for you...” Luna measured the person with a truly destructive gaze, “a couple of hundred years in the form of a statue is the minimum you can count on.”

Grievous made a sound that sounded like a mixture of chuckle and cough.

“Princess Luna,” he addressed his opponent's name again and seemed to shake his head regretfully. “Princess Luna, why do you still think that they are hostages, and not reasonable ones, who showed sympathy for the old general and deserved a bit of his sympathy?

“That's why you went about naked, General, but before meeting with us, you took your robes!” Luna pointed directly to the unfriendly action. Sweetie held her breath, unable to imagine how human would react to an outright provocation. How will he answer? Maybe he immediately attacks, realizing that the weapon under his homemade cloak is open? However, Grievous only shrugged his pointed shoulders wrapped in cloth in a pretentious manner.

“Oh, well, everything is just here. My culture obliges the military caste to carry this uniform, this piece of clothing in the presence of the upper aristocracy... usually the Confederation, but I'm afraid here you are the only worthy candidate for such treatment.”

Obvious deception, but you can't check! thought Bon Bon. In the culture of creatures building natural combat rotorcraft and fighting with stinger weapons, such overshoots can be - it is incomprehensible to the mind! Sweety was once again amazed at how skillfully the stranger had mastered his voice. He changed states at gunpoint of fifty horns even easier than Sweetie Drops expected from an opponent similar in nature to changelings! He was indifferent - now exponentially relaxed. Not a single inflection in tonality, not a single reason to doubt his words based on the sound, the very drop of flattery through the recognition of Her Darkness as equal or even higher...

“Really?” Luna asked coldly. “To create a defensive platform out of apple acres before the visit of the same aristocracy - is it also a tribute to the traditions of your people? To appeal not to sisters who hold power, but to the most defenseless creatures among the ponies - is that another glorious custom of yours?”

“We are not defenseless!” someone's indignant exclamation came from the side of the house, but it broke off instantly. Then the muffled sounds of a struggle followed, and everything was quiet.

When Bon Bon returned her attention from the Crusaders headquarters back to the person, she was sucked in the stomach. The pose of creation again indicated maximum concentration, the eye with the vertical pupil sparkled with anger, no more patronizing notes flickered in the tone - on the contrary, he was very angry.

“This is starting to tire me, Your Darkness,” Grievous rasped. The bony ears quivered, pushing back at an angle of anger and low-key threat, but almost immediately returned to neutral. “You are throwing accusations that are offensive to my people. Children are our greatest creation, and even the most notorious villain in the space of the Confederation will not dare raise a hand against an individual who has not reached the age of synthesis! If you were my tribe, we would already be dancing in the circle of blades for the insult you inflicted!”

The human Sweetie's voice heard the growl of a huge, angry beast, but Grievous backed down almost immediately: “But I have not the slightest desire to spoil relations with the newly discovered alien race. I just want to know...

Whom did he call an alien? And if it comes to that, could it be that he feared the pony as much as the ponies feared Grievous? Sweety didn't know. In her memory, not a single monster, especially such a strong one, has run from a pony! And even more so, he did not go into legal intricacies when meeting with them, did not require satisfaction...

“...on what basis these disgusting accusations were made,” Grievous stood sideways to the princess, stretching his neck with a mask in her direction, gazing sullenly at Luna. “So can an officer, even if from another world, count on a fair tribunal? Will they represent at least any evidence of guilt, or will you immediately put me in stone fetters?”

For the first time, Bon Bon felt in Luna's thoughts that the princess was hesitating. The earth pony, too, could not figure out where Grievous was leading - after all, an examination of the Crusaders in itself would be sufficient evidence. The impression was that either Grievous was able to make his intervention completely unnoticed... Well, this is hardly possible, from the Princess of the Night, a mentalist of the highest category with thousands of years of experience, nothing can be hidden in the mind of a pony! Either in fact, Grievous considers himself innocent, and the princess's speeches are slander, just an excuse to capture him. But there was also the state of Her Grace, his natural-born saboteur, how was he going to explain? If the royal sisters take seriously the energy-distorting substance that has been added to the tea, they can find everything they need, all the evidence of Grievous's involvement! Bon Bon didn’t understand anything, so she stood quietly, trying not to draw attention to herself and figuring out how best to combine her skills with the thestrals if things went wrong. Princess Luna gathered her thoughts and pounced on the general again.

“Why are you playing these annoying games, Grievous?” snorted the diarch. “In addition to the condition of the girls, whom you hold by force, we have other evidence. Witness, I'll tell you straight. It was she who informed our warriors that the young Sweetie Belle and her companion were going towards the Sweet Apple against their will.”

“As I understand it, you just took the witness from random ponies from the street. They adore you so much that they will tell any fable for "thank you," regularity and balanced solidity disappeared from Grievous's speech, as if he now just wanted to speak to Luna, not giving her time to grasp the meaning of what was said. “I’m wondering how your witness determined that Sweetie Belle’s mind was enslaved by me? Our technologies above the most basic alchemy are incompatible! What prevents you from saying that the non-universal "magic", which cannot be detected, is to blame for everything, and end there? My word is against yours - in your world, in your country, among the crowd of your soldiers. How convenient, though!” Grievous said with undisguised sarcasm. Then he pointed with his paw to the Crusaders' house.

“I really expected guests this morning. However, they came here by invitation, of their own free will!”

Princess Luna squinted at Sweetie, so agent Drops imperceptibly (she hoped) swallowed. The pony acted with the best of intentions, and incapacitating Her Grace only confirmed that conversation with the guard, so even if Grievous was not here in business, Bon Bon did not distinguish herself in anything for which she could be reprimanded. Luna, of course, could be harsh and soon for reprisal - she almost forbade Nightmare Night for ever and ever! - but since the pony of modern times I have tried to be soft now, and is unlikely to rush to punish all those involved. Grievous, meanwhile, continued to pose as some kind of eerie parody of Discord:

“Come on, Your Darkness, what else are you going to show me?” he inquired sarcastically. “Almost hit the pony with the falling rotorcraft? I'm afraid it was a circumstance of irresistibal... irresistible force, it is better to ask a certain Twilight Sparkle. Kicked off your guardponies? It's a great crime for me too,” Grievous coughed with gloomy laughter. “Kha, as far as I know from the tales of the girls, this is what everyone is not too lazy to do. Had a conflict with the underground savages? Does it even touch you? Stole... um, steal? There was a case, I admit, but the fact that it was a matter of life and death justifies me. And I will immediately compensate for any damage done to the city as soon as I have the resources of the Confederation at my disposal!”

Sweety heard Night hissing quietly through her teeth in the neighborhood, and she could almost catch the thought of their patron instructing the Sister of the Night to remain calm. Over the past couple of years, the Guards have indeed faced forces that surpass their own capabilities, and have suffered defeat - but that was not their competence, for the royal sisters personally confronted the threats of all Equestria from time immemorial. The ponies were grateful to the guards already for the fact that they did not retreat in the face of great danger, a hopeless battle in advance, they won time for the Diarchy and the Guardians - and this ignorant "man" found only a reason for ridicule for this!

“...so you shouldn't blame me for the misunderstanding and possible breakdown of diplomatic relations!” Grievous croaked grumpily. “You and your sister should have thought of something better than downloading adaptation... adapted materials to a local school teacher and hoping that I would fall into an obvious trap!”

"General... weren't you at the Ponyville Town Hall this morning?" Luna asked evenly without specifically mentioning Princess Celestia.

The human looked at her strangely. Another second, and he again put on a mask of cold concentration, at once got rid of the stinging notes in his voice.

“I can be in two places at the same time. Yesterday I sent part of me is keeping an eye on the ponies in the hopes of getting to know you better. In the same manner, I made contact with the trio known as the Crusaders. However, during the night and this morning, I kept all my... components nearby, because there was no need for espionage anymore,” Grievous replied calmly. “Just admit that you have jumped to a conclusion based solely on unverified evidence, Princess Luna, and we will all go home peacefully. You lost your nerves, and you began to commit rash actions. That's all.”

Your Darkness, I think he's probing you, Bon Bon thought with all her might. Human juggles the style of conversation as he wants, comes from different sides!

I see, agent Drops, Luna responded, looking displeased at the general and clearly in doubt. Or chaos corrupted his mind even more than Discord's.

As if grasping that the person on whom the fate of human depended was not at all delighted with his manner of communication jumping back and forth, Grievous swept his hand wide, pulling aside the fold of his mantle:

“Be that as it may, I think we all came to the conclusion that there is no longer an opportunity to pull. The two worlds need to agree on something,” the human tilted his head, as if emphasizing the veracity of this statement. “I was just about to send my... new friend to invite you to talk to your sister. On my territory, of course. I do not see anything shameful in equalizing the chances a little with a bit of control, just as you decided to control,” Grievous first paid his attention to the battle formations, glancing at the guardponies, but a moment later again fixed his gaze on the princess, “Your Darkness, you have long were pleased to convince me that I was keeping the ponies by force as a guarantor of my safety. So why don't you ask them yourself and make sure that this, to put it mildly, does not correspond to reality?”

There was the sound of a falling foal's body, and a red-haired pegasus rolled out of the rickety door head over heels. Her friends with a squeak disappeared into the doorway, hiding behind the wooden walls of the headquarters. The mare, with the help of which the Crusaders more than once or twice shook the measured Ponyville life, gasped and rubbed a fresh bump on its head, formed from a collision with the railing. Then it dawned on Scootaloo that with her spectacular appearance, she managed to attract everyone's attention:

“Um... hello Luna!” Scootaloo bowed awkwardly, as far as possible with her hooves up. “Sorry, Ale... I mean, Grievous!” the young pegasus stumbled over his name, looking at the human with a sly expression on her face. “I didn't want to get in, it's all a stupid door! I just walked past it, and it opened itself”.

“It was necessary to shut the latch, you fool!” came a monstrously loud whisper from the house.

“Or look through the curtains”

“How do you still not get the marks of a slyboots, if you get in everywhere like that?!” came the fourth voice to Bon Bon's hearing, in which surprise bordering on discontent.

“What are you making up, stupid? How can such a mark look like?!”

“Like a hoof and a lot of pies!” the filly chuckled mockingly. “And if pies are with apples - then Apple Bloom is all the more suitable!”

“O-o-oh, what a mischief!” Scootaloo boomed under her breath, rolling her eyes to the sky.

“You know, I tell you..!”

“Tiara, be quiet!” pleaded the fifth filly. “It's like a serious conversation, like Ale... Grievous swears with the princess!”

“Swears, here's another!” the earthpony mimicked her. “As you know, Spoon, I don’t intend to sit here with these... with these three! I went! All the same, Princess Luna said that we should be released.”

“So, it seems, no one was holding us?”

“Yah you!”

The young lady mentioned by her friend, holding her nose high, with a proud expression on her face, appeared at the door - but then Tiara saw that in the air and among the trees there was nowhere for an apple to fall from the guards ready to attack. On such a meeting, the earthbound obviously did not count, since her eyes widened, and her mouth opened in silent questioning. She managed to squeeze out a frightened "Ay!"

Oh-no-no-no-no...

Sweetie Drops stretched her whole body convulsively towards the Crusaders headquarters, holding back with all her might so as not to go into a gallop. She knew perfectly well this gentle, musical golden aura, which had already grabbed Scootaloo by the front legs, preparing to drag her inside. But then the human described a circle with one eye, at the same time hiding his paw under the humantle:

“Girls, I tried my best to ignore your peeping, but it's just beyond my strength,” he indignantly moved the plates on the sides of the skull-helmet. “Apple Bloom, others, get out already! Well, you, homebrew fan, get out too...”

Scootaloo, breaking free from the telekinesis field, jumped off the veranda and sank to the wet ground, fluttering her wings. Pegasus ran up to Grievous, looking first at him, then at Princess Luna with sincere curiosity. Then the floorboards creaked, and in the doorway they looked like faces the rest of the foals.

Whatever happens, do not let them near you, until we allow the opposite, warned everyone Luna. If this stranger wanted to harm us with their help... We are obliged to save the children.

It seems that the Crusaders were seriously preparing to repulse the intruders who threaten their "new acquaintance." Sweetie Belle was clutching a cricket hammer that was too big for her. Apple Bloom did appear in the light of Celestine with a saucepan that had come from out of nowhere in their house on her head, so that only her nose was sticking out. Having knocked on the doorframe and oyknuv in surprise, the mare decided to leave her makeshift helmet - and the unicorn followed her example. Whispering among themselves, the foals went down the stairs. Diamond Tiara and Silver, looking somehow unusually disheveled, looked around with confused expressions on their faces, the little namesake Bon Bon - somewhat frightened, but moved towards Grievous and her friend without hesitation. The Apples dog followed the foals down, tail wagging uncertainly. An adult pony was at the rear of the procession...

“I tried my best to keep them under the table, but I only have front legs and telekinesis, and there are already five of these poor mare!” Lyra Heartstrings obeyed, prancing out of the room and at the same time building the saddest expression on her face, with which she loved to demoralize Bon Bon. “I'm sorry! It just happened.”

“Nothing terrible happened, Fuzzy,” Grievous answered her from below with a grin. “For now.”

“Good day to you, Princess Luna!” Lyra chirped cheerfully, going down the stairs. “Her Highness promised to call me if she succeeds in establishing contact with human, but it so happened that I myself had to call you today!”

The lingering hope that it was some other unicorn with a similar magical aura flared up and melted in Bon Bon's soul. While the thestrals around her winked in bewilderment, embarrassed by the sight of completely healthy and cheerful children next to a huge alien, Sweetie, unable to cope with the feelings overwhelming her, blurted out:

“Lyra?!”

“Eh..?” the mint unicorn froze with a hoof raised above the step. “Bon Bon?!” she gasped with no less amazement. “Bonnie, what are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?!” she was indignant. Bon Bon could only thank the Goddess for not knowing about Lyra's presence in the Crusaders' house, which was under siege, even earlier! Well, how would fear for a best friend join the fight with a sense of duty and manage to gain the upper hand, leading to the failure of the entire operation? Try to sit still, when Lyra is there, maybe right now an unknown monster from another world is devouring both cheeks! Her Darkness raised an eyebrow at the mare who once served her regal sister:

"Agent Drops, do you... know her? Oh yeah, that's what Lyra Heartstrings was talking about...”

“Lyra, stand still, don't come!” exclaimed the earth pony, seeing that Lyra turned and galloped towards her. “Your Darkness, Lyra has nothing to do with it! She didn't know anything, really!”

“Bonnie, what does it all mean?” braking with all four, the unicorn squeaked in discouragement. "Why are you wearing the Night Guard armor?"

“I'll explain everything to you later!” Sweetie hissed, goggling desperately and hoping that Heartstrings would not suddenly find a burr in her tail, so that in her eternal cheerful manner she would rush to her friend's neck with congratulations - "Happy joining the Guard!" “Wait with questions, better tell me how you got here! What has this alien done to you?! Did he threaten you?”

“No, you wait,” Lyra suddenly frowned. “You left for the whole night, you said that you wanted to test some theory about an alien that you were one of the first to see... Then I saw you jumping on the roof of the town hall... Then, when the smoke bombs began to burst, you dragged me to the station, saying that it would be nice to temporarily leave the city, and ran away, leaving me with a suitcase... Hearth Warming tree, Bon Bon, did you really think that I would voluntarily go to the cottage village while you are here yourself catching a real human?!”

“Oh, Lyra, my aunties live there!” Scootaloo interjected immediately. “Do you want me to introduce you?”

“You really should have moved out and lived there for a couple of days!” Sweety cried out in annoyance. “I told you why, remember! Now everything was in jeopardy!”

“... and now you are standing here among the guards, in armor with the guards' insignia, and answering the name "Agent Drops"!” Lira poked indignantly in her direction with her hoof. “We have been best friends for so many years, shared the table and shelter together, trusted each other, shared the most intimate secrets, and all this time you were hiding... what? What else do I not know about you, Bon Bon?!”

Sooner or later, a secret will overtake you, and forever at the most inopportune moment, thought sourly the agent in retirement, which was so easily revealed. How could she know that Lyra would be here, to whom, due to their long and warm feelings for each other, excellent awareness of each other excuses like "I ended up here by chance!" Sweety has worked well in the Intelligence and Containment department and has never had such a blunder during her service. And her fault was that the bugbear smashed a couple of streets of Canterlot, it was nothing at all! Well, think about it, the unlucky trainee stole from the locker, which was not closed because of her forgetfulness, branded candy-jokers! Then, for the sake of laughter, he fed the next freshly caught monster on overexposure, and he took it and rush after the intern through the portal from Tartarus... Sweety occasionally dreamed of a nightmare in which the last day of the service was repeated over and over again - the beast clearly remembered her participation in all this chaos.

Yes, that day, despite an impeccable track record, was Sweetie's last as a huntress agent. The princess, due to the steadily decreasing number of really dangerous monsters at large, has long been looking for an excuse to disband the department and transfer the rest of their duties to the guard, but she felt sorry for so easy to dismiss the mare, who faithfully served the monarchy at that time. Celestia happily took the occasion and took advantage of it, ordering to immediately destroy all the information and keep the incident secret, as if jokingly signing a second non-disclosure agreement - only after that all the employees were issued excellent pensions. Sweetie Drops wondered why all this secrecy was. The result of the dissolution of the agency was a harmless act - having released the budget, Her Serene Highness simply sent it to some other area of the Equestrian state apparatus! Sweety hoped, by virtue of professional pride, that they were not exchanged for a secret increase in the number of bakers at court...

“Bon Bon is actually my operational call sign,” she said, shaking off the fleeting memories and sighing heavily. “My name... my real name is Sweetie Drops, and I did work for the royal court in the department dedicated to monsters and their neutralization. But that was when it was! And I...”

“But why are you participating in all this now?!” interrupted Heartstrings.

“If you had listened to me, none of this would have happened! Why did you crawl to the human? He is essentially a monster, albeit in the form of your fables! You acted very imprudently, Lyra, I shouldn't have told you about him at all!” angrily looked at her friend Sweety. “Because of you, Her Grace will have to divulge classified information!”

Bon Bon stopped when she saw a tear rolling down Lyra's cheek, leaving a wet path on her fur.

“I thought you were the most ordinary cute pony that you would not lure into all these creepy dangerous adventures that the Guardians are engaged in!” Lyra sniffed. “Bonnie, why is that? You have told me more than once that you are looking for a quiet life outside of Canterlot, that you are studying at the culinary to become a pastry chef...”

“So it was,” the earth pony looked down guiltily. “It's just not my only occupation... it was. Lyra, but this does not negate all the years of our friendship! I just... '' noticing Lyra's lower lip start to tremble, Sweetie Drops finally gave up.

“Forgive me… please?” she piteously drawled, feeling by no means at ease, for it was a novelty for Sweetie to play such a scene in front of a bunch of guardponies and the princess herself. “Lyra, I'm really, really very, very sorry! If I could, I told you everything, I swear!”

The mint unicorn threw herself into the soft grass and clasped her head with her hooves.

“Goddess...” she whispered.

“Lyra, please don't be upset!” Sweetie Belle ran up to her, hugging the unicorn with a running. “I'm sure Bon Bon is not out of malice, she wanted the best!”

“Yes, exactly, exactly!” the rest of the girls came to console her, even Diamond Tiara hesitantly stroked Lyra on the shoulder, as if she could not decide whether this act was worthy of a pony from high society. The unicorn sat in prostration, ignoring the dog, which licked her fluffy cheek with a desire to cheer up the pony, but then Grievous approached. Snapping bones and joints, he hunched over even more and lowered his head flush with Lyra’s, looking at her with an unreadable expression on his face.

“I thought you knew your friend was Celestia's informant in Ponyville,” the general said, puzzled. “If I knew in advance about your friendship, and this could be another reason why I would react to your appearance... with a certain amount of skepticism.”

“When we were still studying, all those trips of her to sweets festivals, when there was no trace of them in any corner of Equestria...”, as if not listening to him, muttered Heartstrings. “I feel like a stupid pony. Very stupid. And very offended. Just think! My best friend is actually a Canterlot secret agent...”

Lyra digested this statement for a while. Then, tearing the hoof off the head, she carefully added:

“My best friend is a secret agent of Canterlot. Who, on a tip from Her Grace, spies on aliens and tames monsters...”

A wide smile blossomed on the face of the unicorn - and then, without hesitation, she rushed towards her friend.

“Aweso-o-ome!!! I couldn't think that you are so cool, Bonnie!” she blurted out, literally hanging Bon Bon on her neck and hugging him tightly. “I mean, Sweet Drups, or whatever! I knew that you too would like to take part in all this!”

"Bubblehe-e-ead..." Sweetie croaked, desperately trying to draw a breath of air. “You will strangle me-e-e…”

The Crusaders squealed with delight and joy for instantly reconciled friends - but the thestrals blew whoever, avoiding contact with a potential hostage. Princess Luna, who was definitely confused by all this, did not even have time to telekinesis to drag Sweetie aside. However, she cut off the stream of thoughts addressed to other ponies almost instantly from Lyra:

“Agent Drops,” Luna said uncertainly, “we're sorry, but now... now you’ll stay with the girls and Lyra Heartstrings for the time being.”

“I... I understand, Your Darkness,” Bon Bon surrendered, in turn embracing Lyra and furtively blotting the tear that had come in her mane. “I feel myself in perfect order, if that!”

She really felt great - not only because Sweetie's soul had lost a decent weight of responsibility and a secret that she had pledged to keep even from Lyra. Bon Bon just felt nothing but happiness (and suffocation) when the unicorn rushed to hug her! Nothing that would hint that the stranger did something bad to Lyra, turned her into a weapon against other ponies. The amulet in the cuirass of the night ponies did not howl, signaling a threat, Lyra herself was still the same affectionate fluffy handsome man who cannot be seriously angry with... It seems that everything was all right with her, like with the girls. Only it seems! There was nothing to be sure about when it came to the otherworldly semblance of a changeling warrior!

“Krhm. So,” the "changeling" raised his paw to his head, but then, hesitating, lowered it, as if he stopped in mid-sentence, “I understand that we are all a little excited here, but let's not be distracted from the topic.”

“Let's not!” Apple Bloom concluded cheerfully. “I still do not understand why we should stomp from here! This is our headquarters, am I right, girls?” she clarified, glancing first at her friends, then at the dark alicorn.

“It's simple, Apple Bloom,” the human replied calmly. “For some reason, the princess thinks that I can keep you here by force.”

“Nobody can keep me here, I will stay myself!” said Scootaloo, but then became thoughtful: “At least until my aunts miss me,” the pegasus said, “or until Dash comes back. I have to help her with her training! She's really cool!” Scootaloo tugged at the stranger's homemade "robe", attracting his attention. “I will definitely introduce you to her, you won't regret it!”

“In that case, I'm afraid a stone dungeon awaits me for the next couple of hundred years,” Grievous complained, coughing. “Khe. You yourself heard what Her Darkness threatened.”

“How? This cannot be!” unexpectedly gave her sonorous voice Silver Spoon. “Princess... Your Darkness, how did he deserve such treatment? Al... Grievous hasn't done anything bad to us, really!”

“We will not leave him!” confirmed Sweetie Belle, hugging a thin armored leg sticking out from under the fabric and fearfully glancing at the slender ranks of the guards.

“But the princess wants you to leave this place... the area,” the human repeated patiently. “Shouldn't you, a trifle, obey and honor your crowned alicorn sisters?

“What does the money have to do with it?” Silver Spoon and Tiara were surprised in unison.

“Hmm, really. I chose the wrong word...”

Scootaloo, properly straining her foal's legs and fluttering her wings, jumped onto the human's shoulders.

“See? How do I leave you?” giggling, she said to Grievous in an almost absent ear. “You need at least one interpreter to talk to Princess Luna on equal terms!”

“Alas, given my financial situation, I cannot afford his services,” with a chuckle, the human raised his clawed paw above his head and gently patted Scootaloo behind the ear with the very tips of his claws.

“Lets deal, two...” the pegasus suggested busily, screwing up her eyes with pleasure, “so be it, one session of scratching, and we have an agreement?”

“Hey, and me, and me-e-e?!” voiced Heartstrings, temporarily unstuck from her adored girlfriend.

“You should get in line, Lyra! He still owes me,” Diamond Tiara reminded gloomily, after which she looked condescendingly at the pegasus:

“And you’re doing everything wrong!”

“What?” did not understand Scootaloo.

“Bargaining, of course! He has not yet had time to name his price, and you are already slowing down! Boggles the mind!”

“I'm next in line!” Sweetie Belle squealed.

Bon Bon, with a slightly dazed look, looked first at the foals, then at Lyra, then at Grievous. He looked extremely collected, unshakable in the face of the threat of being trampled by the crowd - but at the same time the stranger stood next to the ponies, who did not at all object to his society, who sincerely considered the stranger to be something as harmless and friendly as possible! Their behavior contrasted so sharply with the formidable appearance of a man, as if a rock towering on the guardponies that Sweetie Drops could almost hear the creak of the gears in her head, trying to unscrew the catch from this absurd picture... and did not find it. Grievous looked at Scootaloo sternly.

“Surely you don't want to leave?”

“Nope,” she answered carelessly, “I want to see how it all ends!”

“And the rest?”

“And we are your support group!” Apple Bloom chuckled, and the rest of the girls cheered her enthusiastically.

“Well,” Grievous shrugged philosophically, “in the face of such unanimous enthusiasm, I give up. You see, princess,” he looked at Luna searchingly, “these little... including not so little,” he corrected, squinting at Lyra, “tero-rizz want to stay in the thick of things completely voluntarily. What else do you need in order for you to be convinced of this?”

Princess Luna extinguished the horn, so that the crystals that grew on it melted into the air.

"Lyra Heartstrings..." she said slowly, looking probingly at the unicorn. “My little pony, do you really consider this... this creature as your friend?”

“Well, Grievous,” Lyra looked at him maliciously, “the weirdo is nowhere stranger, but in general, yes! I only know him for half a day or so, but I think that you can trust him, he will not say a bad word. He's cool, although he can be really a bore!” the mint unicorn, standing up on its hind hooves, rubbed its cheek against Grievous' elbow plate. “And he is kind, although with all his might pretends that it is not so. He's also masterfully cares for the manes!”

“The last one - just a fiction and a provocation,” Grievous calmly disowned, but his eye shot to the sides so quickly and nervously, as if he was really afraid that some completely indecent number of ponies might form right here.

“No way! You yourself are still a fiction-teller!” As if offended, Lyra stuck out her tongue at him, but then she laughed merrily. “Everything is as I said, princess, do not even hesitate! If anyone is trustworthy a pony, it is... Grievous. Yes, that's the name of the human, can you imagine? No, seriously,” she raised a perplexed look at the human, “what the tartarus are you thinking? Who, in their right mind, would call their foal... eh, a baby Grievous?!”

The alien fixed his vertical-pupil eye at Bon Bon. Coughing, he asked:

“Is she always like this?”

“Welcome to my world,” Sweety muttered, glancing suspiciously at the human.

“Hmpf,” Grievous chuckled. “Okay, jokes in different directions... em, aside, the human straightened up, becoming one and a half times higher and by this involuntarily attracting the attention of his listeners. “When we finish talking, you mares will go to the princess, and she will tell you what to do next. And if she sends you to Ponyville, you won't go looking for a way back under the dome. Yes, Lyra, it concerns you too. And you, Scootaloo!” he looked expressively at his little assistant, sprawled on the human's shoulders with the most innocent look her little face was capable of. “Do you understand, girls?”

“Eh, oka-a-ay,” the Crusaders sighed together with Lyra.

“Okay,” Diamond Tiara snorted as if doing a favor. “I don’t need your negotiations, conversations... Dad, too, always speaks to those who wish, and then he signs contracts with completely different ponies! I bet nothing interesting will come of it.” She beckoned her friend to follow her. “Spoon, we're leaving. When you, Gru... Gri...”

Tiara twisted her face, as if from a toothache, and then finished: “When you intend to pay off both bills, you can find me in our estate. Speak to any pony and he will be happy to point out where the Rich family lives.”

“I'll keep an eye on them...” Sweetie Drops muttered, still looking at the human in disbelief and slowly pushing Lyra aside, “so that there are no complications.”

Human for a dozen or two seconds silently studied the Diamond Tiara, like an outlandish insect, and the mare, with all her cunning appearance, showed that they really were connected by some secret agreements. Then, turning his muzzle to Bon Bon, he briefly shook his head on his long neck, expressing agreement, and the earth pony mentally exhaled. The girls and Lyra did not show any detachment in behavior characteristic of the same mind control spell from Chrysalis, no obsessions... Well, if you do not count Lyra's hobby for such, but that was when it started! Agent Drops herself did not notice how she began to think about Grievous in a more loyal way - probably, similar thoughts visited the Luna, reassured by the sight of foals, who looked whole and head over heels happy that they had a chance to meet with a stranger even before the diarchy. Already much more calmly, the Princess of the Night turned to Grievous:

“Before you let them go...”

“This is their decision - not mine. It seemed to me that we had already passed this stage,” interrupting her, the human reminded her in a neutral tone.

“So be it,” Luna agreed, looking inquisitively at him. “But first, you will answer a few questions, which remained unclear.”

“Ask, and I will answer.”

“We need to know what represents the "Confederation" in your world, and what kind of place it occupies in it,” the first thing the alicorn asked. “You said that you sent the largest army on the planet, but there were others.”

“We are fighters for independence… and opposed to the dominance of technology,” Grievous said immediately. “Our control system does not fail. Doesn't know because we treat wildlife with respect and remember all lessons of history. We were going to leave the Earth, to make it a flourishing reserve for our biosphere and a monument to the culture of mankind. Dedicate ourselves to space, where we could travel between the stars and find the resources we need...”

Bon Bon did not understand at all why someone might need to fly into space and what resources could be collected there. Well... maybe that was true for a human world devoid of magic. Princess Luna flapped her long eyelashes in bewilderment.

“This sounds unlikely for Equestria, but... let's say. But what have you forgotten on Equus?” she asked. “How did you get here - and why was it you?”

Grievous allowed himself a mournful grin.

“You asked what place the Confederation occupied in my world, Your Darkness? Dominant. We won in a long and bloody war,” the general's paw clenched into a fist, “with the adherents of technologies. They themselves proved that their method of movement... flying in space can split our universe in half - but continued once to use it over and over both for a quick offensive and as a weapon on the surface of the sacred Earth,” the human's voice trembled with genuine anger, but almost immediately his tone evened out. “The Confederation was slower in this war, but we live for a very long time, and like no one we know how to wait. Years of traveling through our native system did not become an obstacle. We methodically squeezed out the enemy from wherever Roy could reach. We pressed them... until they imposed a general battle on us, bringing all their forces to the surface of the Earth with the next jump.”

“That is... you want to say that those magical indignations, which my sister's student noticed...”

“Every time you recorded energy emissions, there was another page of the war, tearing my home planet apart,” muffled from under the mask. “The enemy splashed out of the Rift in space-time, bringing death and destruction. Someone's lives were cut short and the onset of peace was postponed for another year or two or three, multiplying suffering. And this time, the Rift found itself right in my central headquarters. I don't know who was responsible for the leak... for the information leak. But I am sure that even without me, my closest associates obliged the enemy to pay a dear price for this attack.”

It... it sounded really awful, couldn't help but recognize Bon Bon. In contrast to her thoughts, Lyra rolled with laughter, with all her might plugged her mouth with her hooves, so as not to laugh out loud. Judging by this (and the way the foals puffed up their eyes in amazement), the human told them a completely different story. Grievous did not pay attention to the reaction of his "friends", did not make any attempts to somehow suppress it... What if exactly the opposite is true? Sweetie thought. He could have lied to the girls, but now tell the truth! Surely the foals got some kind of more cheerful version, and not a terrible tale about how the history of magic in another world was cut short by the war of Grievous, as soon as the history of magic in Equestria came to an end because of Tirek. Princess Luna, looking closely at the human, said:

“General... The surge that helped Twilight Sparkle move you here was the last in the history of your world, closest to us.”

“Is this true?” Grievous leaned forward, narrowing his eyes predatory. He waited for a nod from the princess and froze, anxiously moving the bone plates. Finally, the human breathed out with visible relief:

“So we won. It was not in vain...” for the first time a sincere smile was heard in the alien's voice, and not a grin or sarcasm. “Our enemies were defeated, and Space Leap technology was banned.”

“And what do you... What do you intend to do now? What will happen when humanity is victorious?”

“Humans after so many years will be able to forget about the war. They will fly to other worlds, begin to explore space, and not just our solar system,” Grievous raised his head to the sky, closed by a dome and around the edges of thunderclouds under it, as if his thoughts were striving for the unknown. “And I... I, apparently, were somewhat ahead of the events and have already found one such new world. Even if not on my own, but I can say that this discovery was good for me,” the human circled the foals standing next to him and Lyra with his paw, which made them whisper with chuckles. Sweetie Drops rolled her eyes. Hay, this fidget will never grow up!

Bon Bon still could not understand why people should fly into space - and how there could be found not one, but several inhabited worlds. Who knows if human said all this only then, in order to once again hint that other people are early or late to infiltrate Equestria? Did Grievous even manage to find out from Lyra about the transfer mechanism, or do people have some unfamiliar pony resources that allow, among other things, to move into another universe, and not be summoned there? Her Highness Luna was interested in something else:

“We understand that in the Confederation that is widely used... let's call it, say, "biomancy", opposed to technology and mechanisms in general.”

“We are not against technology, but against their thoughtless use. And for the over-success bordering on the destruction of the pony, which is attributed to injectable... invasive species, you can not worry... if you are about this,” as if guessing what they want to ask him about, Grievous calmly answered. “My copying options are limited. And not only the speed of mass production, but also my personal information bandwidth. The swamp hive is just my stationary life support complex. At home I carried its compact version in myself,” the stranger patted his chest with his palm.

“Okay, let's say I believe you,” the princess finally concluded, taking time to think. “We have one last question for you, General. What do you know about chaos and its manifestations?”

Grievous nodded understandingly.

“I know what you're driving at, Princess Luna,” the stranger said measuredly. “I can assure you that until the last couple of days I knew nothing about these matters... that is, the state of matter. There is no magic in my world in the form you are accustomed to, and I know about it only what I observed myself and what my assistants told.”

“Don't the effects of your technologies indicate the presence of chaos in its most basic form, freely saturated with magic?”

“Our technology does not contain even a grain of what is meant by your word "chaos". On the contrary, they are built on ordering everything and everyone,” the stranger raised his paw in a gesture of denial to his chest, palm away from himself. “The way my creation began to influence your world was not my business. I don't know... yet don't know how to explain this set of effects.”

Princess Luna stepped forward, alone, without an escort, who froze in their seats, watching the stranger intently.

“Good,” Her Darkness said succinctly that the answers were at least satisfactory. “Let all of them come to us in turn, and for this our conversation will be over, General... for the time being.”

While Lyra got involved in the argument between the Crusaders and Tiara and Spoon, who should go first to the princess, the human raised his hand and pulled her around her neck. Grasping Scootaloo with long knuckle fingers under the belly, which caused the pegasus to burst out laughing, hammering his hooves through the air, he put her on the ground and nodded his head towards the princess:

“Go. Angry and overly suspicious aunty Luna still seems to think that I keep you with me as a “human shield,” there was a sneer in Grievous's voice, but there was no trace of the poison of the beginning of negotiations. “Let's show that this is not at all the case.”

“Nonsense, Luna is good and not angry at all! Unless it can get a little bit if she doesn't get the Nightmare Night sweets,” Scootaloo giggled, stretching her legs. Of course, she was not in the least afraid of the patroness of the night, dreams and foals, but she was in no hurry to leave Grievous. He frowned with a single eyebrow.

“Go anyway. And you too!” he waved at the rest of the ponies. “Apple Bloom is over there, probably, grandmother and brother have already missed, and they may be looking for the rest.”

“Okay, girls, I'm going!”

“Where are you going without us?!”

“Wait for your turn, Luna asked!”

One by one the mare came up to the princess. She held them for a minute or two, performing her magic, which was inaccessible to most unicorns, and then directed them to the guards. The human, probably, understood that it would not cost Luna anything to teleport the foals away from him and strike with her trademark series of spells. With each pony disappearing from his surroundings, Grievous should have become more and more defenseless - but he did not show any changes in his behavior, did not show weakness.

What if he deliberately sends the foals away? suddenly thought Bon Bon when the princess finished with Lyra and she galloped merrily to the girls, looking over her shoulder. Sparing them by letting them go so they don't see what happens next? Fear almost knocked the legs of the earth pony, but when she approached Luna, the voice of Her Darkness rang out in her head again:

It's okay, my little pony. He is not at all who he claims to be.

Is that good, Your Darkness? Bon Bon was surprised. Sweetie was even more surprised when Luna surveyed her very briefly, as if solely to clear her conscience.

Yes, Agent Drops. Exactly. Stay with the foals and Leeroy Heartstrings for now, answered her thoughts that were filled with relief. Luna said aloud:

“At ease, my warriors, lower your shields! It seems to us that this creature is not an enemy to the pony people. We saw confirmation that these our subjects were indeed free to leave at any time.”

However, remain vigilant until the alien and I agree, added the princess in a voice Grievous could not hear. According to the foals' thoughts, his other paw lives somewhere here.

“Luna, and even if he would not let us go, why are all the guards here - yours and Her Graces?” Sweetie Belle asked delicately from among the soldiers. “You could have just asked!”

“We...” Her Darkness's voice faltered, then she replied in an unusually low voice:

“I couldn't help it, Sweetie Belle. We attacked your friend, because the situation around him demanded preventive actions on my part...”

“Preventive actions,” the human said thoughtfully. “I really like your language, Princess Luna. Even the phrase "kick the lying person" sounds so beautiful and graceful on it.”

“You won't be able to shift the blame onto my sister and me,"Grievous," snorted the princess, looking at the human with disapproval. However, she immediately replied in a softened tone:

“But I admit that our responsibilities included not only taking care of the safety of our little ponies, but also finding a more suitable way to show a creature completely different from our people that we are a nation of peace and do not wish you harm. Magicians!” Luna turned to the battle unicorns. “Remove the main dome, it is no longer needed.”

Bon Bon's heart beat so that it seemed to be heard by everyone around. Oh-oh-oh! she whined in her mind, looking at the protective sphere that was dissolving under the joint spells. A bad feeling gripped the earth pony. A scene flashed before my eyes: Princess Luna sends the foals away, and immediately Grievous opens his mantle, grows overgrown with a bunch of unplanned limbs with blades and crashes into the ranks of the guards! They already considered him a friend, they do not have time to figure out anything... For some time Bon Bon stood motionless, absorbed by the terrible figment of her imagination. Then the princess's voice came to her:

“Sergeant, send a couple of your warriors to get these youngsters and Lyra Heartstrings to the farm. Agent Drops, I need you here for now.”

Try to calm down, a modest pastry chef pulled herself up three days ago. Now she could no longer do anything - everything was in the hooves of Luna, and she knew her craft. Sweetie Drops hoped that the princess's words about "impersonating someone else" would really turn things around for the good of all the ponies. The newcomer will leave with the princesses to sort out issues of interracial diplomacy, Ponyville will return to a state of late summer bliss, and he and Lyra will forget these difficult half an hour at the Crusaders' house as a bad dream. Bon Bon several times deeply and silently inhaled and exhaled to calm the excitement.

“I'm going, Bonnie!” Lyra shouted joyfully. “Come back soon, we have something to discuss!”

Just a few minutes and it'll be over, Sweety thought hastily. She heard the chirping of the girls moving away, past the ranks of the guards, and then from the other side came the completely muffled exclamations of the owners of the farm, who were still not allowed to get under the dome. Probably, in the near future, the foals will be very busy inventing excuses for how they ended up in the epicenter of a military operation...

“I need to know, General,,” Luna spoke the last word with a distinct irony in her voice, “who you fought with before we can give you shelter. You have not named the name of the enemy, whom you managed to defeat in the future... only by your assumption. Ponies of Equestria are not going to be drawn into the war of another universe.”

Although Grievous' face was only a few of the muscles and skin centered around the eye, Sweetie Drops saw with fear that she was twisted with hatred.

“You are making me not have the best memories, princess. These nightmares in the flesh, perverted creatures of technology have poisoned our world for too long,” he hissed, turning his anger, as Sweetie now saw, not at Luna. “But I, so be it, will answer. We fought against those who in your language can be called "clone". Huge armies of clones, artificial warriors created by tech moguls, clinging to the past with all their might.”

“And...” from such a turn of events Her Darkness almost sat down on the ground with a croup. Using magic clones in the war - how was that even possible?! “And whose clones were they?”

“A terrible mockery of culture, of our history,” Grievous replied grimly. “Clones of President Lincoln, reprogrammed for submission and slavery.”

For a while, everyone was silent in confusion. Then Luna raised her well-groomed eyebrow as gracefully as only a junior diarch could.

“Was it a… joke?”

“Princess Luna must mean,” Sweetie Drops said hesitantly, “how can a student representative on the school council fight someone? Or are you wrong in the word?”

Grievous just waved his paw.

“You, princess, very badly know how to distinguish a lie from the truth,” not hiding his disappointment, he drawled, “and completely unable to read my thoughts. I had doubts about this, but now they have completely disappeared.”

Deathly silence served as his answer. Completely confused, but trying not to show it, the princess made another attempt:

“So this statement was supposed to be... a joke? If I knew what you were thinking?”

“Perhaps,” Grievous shrugged. “In fact, at first I thought to use the riddle about the sparrow to resolve the oppressive situation...”

“What other riddle about the sparrow?” unable to resist, squeaked Sweetie Drops.

“Very simple, little pony. What is a thirty-pound sparrow doing on a branch?”(1) asked Grievous, examining the claws on his paw with exaggerated attention - and immediately, without giving a second to think, something like a Canterlot voice, except that not blowing away from his place, shouted:

”CAKES! I WANT MORE CAKE! CAKES EVERY DAY! I LOVE CAKES VERY MUCH! NEED MORE CAKES!”

Some of the ponies did not understand what was being said, and fell into a stupor simply from a random (and very loud) set of words. Most of the barbs recognized and froze in shock. Princess Luna's face changed from one vague expression to another, and the shade of her cheeks ranged from crimson to deathly pale. One way or another, everyone present turned into living statues, except for Grievous, and stood there until Her Darkness laughed.

Alicorn no longer held herself back for the sake of her subjects - her laughter was like an earthquake. Luna laughed for a long time, until tears appeared in the corners of her eyes, and then Bon Bon giggled barely audibly, she was ashamed of it, and the thestrals frankly laughed with her - even the ponies from the Solar Guard lost their former equanimity, blushing from the strain, from all forces disguising laughter bursting out under the fits of coughing. It seemed that the light of the Sun became brighter, dispelled all the negativity of the last thirty minutes, and all the ponies were flooded with joy, as if Harmony itself had put a hoof on it.

Grievous watched the epidemic of laughter sweeping through his former foes with his trademark equanimity. Maybe he was thinking about the speed with which the emotions are changing, it is worth bringing in some kind of external stimulus, and how it can be used for your own purposes. Bon Bon mentally thanked Celestia for the fact that the course of guards training, through which, among other things, the monster hunters passed, included training in hiding their real emotions. It would be very uncomfortable if human attacked right now and took them all warm, simply making them laugh!

Grievous, it seems, had no intention of attacking at all. Crimson banners ran over his mask, forming mimic muscles, bony "ears" melted into the skull, and they were replaced by the missing lower jaw - and now the human already had the muzzle that Bon Bon saw at the crash site. Only this time she was not the focus of fear, confusion and panic haste. A polite smile froze on the human's face, the corners of his lips quivered with laughter, and his deep-set eyes no longer hinted at his kinship with the people of feline cunning.

“You are... pha-ha-ha-ah... ” Luna broke off due to another fit of laughter, which was generated by her rich imagination of a mentalist, “... you are not general, right?”

“No,” the human grinned much more clearly now, “although I had to command a couple of detachments of soldiers.”(2)

“Did I understand correctly,” the princess wiped away her tears with telekinesis, making a great effort to hold back another cheerful sob, “that the version that you told the foals is true?”

“Exactly,” the human nodded, unraveling the hem of his robe, allowing it to hang freely. A skeletal body became noticeable - and a stinger weapon peeking out from behind him. “Your misunderstanding of this was evidenced by the fact that you called General Grievous a man. I suppose you would avoid juggling terms if you got into my head and found out what Grievous is,” the alien glanced at Luna from under his brows, without changing his mocking, but in his own way, friendly expression on his face. “I hope you will forgive me for this little test of your peacefulness... as I already forgive your mistrust in me.”

Goddess, mentally gasped Sweetie Drops. She had just realized how seriously she was mistaken in understanding Grievous's thoughts - even at the moment when she believed that he could combine the thoughts and aspirations of a reasonable one with the danger of a wild monster. No, he is something completely different! Did he really play a whole performance, put himself out as someone completely different just because he was afraid of princesses and ponies in general?! Who would ever think of being afraid of a pony?

“No hard feelings,” Luna returned the grin. “If not for my duty to the state and your common fears, we would not have delivered these unpleasant moments to each other. I propose to start all over again... as far as possible,” the alicorn allowed herself a short, cheerful laugh. “I'm not sure if I can even now understand which of your words are true. Maybe what you said was the theater of the absurd, but the actor from you really turns out to be a provost similar.”

The human ruffled his short mane, showing either confusion or awkwardness.

“It was not always so... and not in everything.”

“Did you really invent a whole life during so less time?”

“No, of course not,” Grievous disagreed. “This is one of the millions of stories that the inventors of my people have inhabited imaginary worlds. After being heavily modified, it seemed to me perfectly suited to the entourage.”

“But why did you have to present yourself as someone you are not anyway?,” Luna asked, puzzled.

The human raised his dark eyebrows.

“Honestly? I was not delighted with the idea of meeting creatures with whom I objectively could not do anything, and who do not know what their thoughts are about me. I didn't know what to expect from you with Her Grace. To pretend to be someone else, acting from the position of b about more opportunities and power than me, in theory, should have protected me from grabbing and scrutinizing, regardless of my desires. In addition, this image helped create personal ideas about the diarchy before we speak now,” with a sly cunning in his eyes the human looked at her, “so that I almost immediately saw that I could reveal my true cards, and not stubbornly bend the line with general. In my home you rarely see such a sincere, unseen... not indicative experience for children on the part of higher officials. And of course, my goal was to find out if you can immerse yourself in my subconscious the way you sleepwalk among the pony people,”

The human tapped his temple with a claw that contrasted so sharply with his face, now covered with soft, smooth skin.

“The first two of my statements fully corresponded to the image, but then more and more discrepancies followed... to which you did not react. In the end, of course, I would have been exposed anyway. And the girls, again, did not help, but by that time I was already confident in you. A more detailed version of Lyra's check, if you like... which I think you are already aware of,” he waved his hand in the direction of the farm, where the foals and Bon Bon's friend were taken away.

“Oh, believe me, you succeeded in that test perfectly,” sighed the princess. “It would have been so simple that I could determine from a distance what my opponent really had in mind... So you didn't have an army at your disposal?” Luna asked with a thin smile. “Just a handful of soldiers? Lyra was more inclined to think that you are a scientist than a warrior...”

“I’m a warrior, but only as a hostage to circumstances,” the human replied shortly. “You don't have to worry about intrusion. I do not represent any faction of the Earth. On the contrary, I alone... more precisely, with the help of a few people, I opposed one of the factions of my home planet. And just as my allies could not come to Equestria, so my enemies are not able to follow me - here you can be at peace. Our technologies...”

The human winced, then finished: “We have no magic, Princess Luna. We are just learning it, we have found ourselves in the last couple of decades at the beginning of the ABC book. We are approaching the control of the most elementary particles by building a complex, cumbersome and energy-consuming machine...(3)

“You claim to be a loner. However, it was your machine, which was a rotorcraft, that bore heraldry on its armor, signs of belonging,” Luna remarked, looking expectantly at non-Grievous.

He shrugged his shoulders as if the princess had asked something for granted: “Because I took it away from my enemies, of course.”

“Does this mean that everything told to me was fiction?” the tone of the princess finally changed to a peaceful one. It seems that what the foals told her about was confirmed in this personal meeting. Bon Bon thought that a way of false Grievous to deflect suspicion from himself and set the dialogue in a positive way with humor would be much more suitable for communicating with Princess Celestia, famous for her gentle disposition. However, in the case of Her Darkness, the stranger somehow managed to change the harness for a gallop... The stranger sighed, closing his eyes briefly.

“Not all,” he said as if the words were hard for him. “The words that the discovery of your world was good for me were not part of the invention. And not only in the sense that the ponies accepted me as a friend, for which I am sincerely grateful to them,” the human smiled again, encouraged by his recent communication with the girls.

“The point is, I had to die there, Princess Luna. The fact that my transport was brought here by forces capable of becoming weapons is also true. The explosion was supposed to send me into the wasteland of dumbness and oblivion, but it was as if I found myself among a green oasis, where trees are bursting with juicy fruits, the water is clear as a mountain stream, and the birds themselves sit in your arms.”

“Still a weapon? Class B spells?” clarified the Luna. “This, of course, is unpleasant, but it does not pull on some destructive Rift, about which you spoke.”

“In my world, all its power is not directed at metamorphosis or other harmless focus, but at the transformation of the latent energy of the mother and into thermal energy. And I assure you - for people it is monstrous,” the human seriously looked at Luna, so it was clear - this is no joke.

“Unlike your world, we cannot somehow repulse this "spell", surround with shields, direct its energy in a different direction. You can escape from it only by being out of range, or by hiding deeper into the ground. Or not let him activate,” the alien has already directed his hand towards the city, implying the place where his car fell. “It so happened that I found myself in the very center of such a man-made natural disaster. An incandescent hurricane that dries up rivers, melts mountains, and can turn a city five times your Manehattan's size to ashes.”

The Princess of the Night was silent, realizing what the guest from another world had said.

The human chuckled mirthlessly: “I know what you’re thinking,” he told to Luna. “But I hope that you will understand: we, people, are not able to wait, like you and your sister, until the problems themselves fade into the background. Conditions on our planet have changed too quickly, and not only because of the bet on technology and the constant race of scientific and technological progress. Here I lied - we don't live long. The human age is quite short in comparison with the pony, and even if we compare it with the alicorn...”

“I didn't think that biomancers can live a little,” Luna was sincerely surprised.

“I am different from other people, Your Darkness,” as if the human reminded her, and Princess Luna nodded, confirming what was said. “For better or worse - this is a question to which I find it difficult to give an unambiguous answer. Be that as it may,” the human rubbed his chin with his palm, wincing tiredly, “I have familiarized myself with your story a little. The ponies also suffered and fought to create a better world... it's just that this process has not completely stopped here,” then he turned half-turned to the princess, looking somewhere to the side.

“In my time, we live better than ever, and most people do not care that this achievement should be attributed to the fear of starting a war in which there will be no winners. This may sound unethical and unfair to you, but I ask you to be lenient, princess. It was so necessary for our planet, for my people,” human looked at her firmly. “One man's… hm, food is another man's poison. This flame was given freedom only twice... that is, already three times. All the other cases you have documented were only trials during the period of peace, not counting minor conflicts. On Earth, there was a big war about fifty of your cycles ago... well, if you count from the time when I happened to be transferred to your world,” the alien specified.

“And that was already enough for a generation to change, for people to forget about the horrors of war and society began to resemble a very distant likeness of Equestria. Although the shortcomings of our society are much more noticeable, and evil is often irreparable, I have the courage to declare that the humans and ponies are both children of the peace.”

“And you, Xander?” Luna asked him bluntly.

“I’m not...” the human began, but then he shook his head.

“Oh, this Lyra. And I, kind of, the first in the previously unknown path of the superman, described in a number of theoretical works, but not in practice,” said the false-Grievous in such a dismissive tone, as if talking about something completely insignificant. “At home, all that I did well after the changes that made me this is to resist that very hostile faction and eliminate the consequences of their lust for power. There was no need to talk about peace,” the named Xander, throwing his hand behind his back, emphatically slapped the handle of his stinging weapon.

“It was both a gift,” he continued, “given to me according to the merits of my past life, and the curse of the inability to surrender when you are no longer weak and limited, when you no longer have excuses for failure. Maybe someone would dare to say that individuals would be better off when I lay down my arms. But I'm sure the world would have much worse if my enemies gained the upper hand and at least one country of the Earth received an even more powerful weapon capable of breaking this established balance. I comfort myself with the thought that after what I did, people decided to sheathe this double-edged sword, but alas... I can only talk about what happened to me, but not after.”

“Why was this weapon activated the last time?” Luna asked quietly. “How did you manage to fall under his influence?”

“I think you know from Lyra’s memory. The faction with which I fought cleaned up the traces of their crimes. I had no choice but to deal with everyone who stood in the way and take the weapon away from the city, into the bay,” the human muttered. “Better me than my sister and everyone else.”

Sweetie Drops listened, afraid to twitch her ear. This story was not similar to any of those fictions that she had read, and was seen, though no less fantastic than the one told by "General Grievous"... it seemed more... mundane, perhaps? From this point of view, human seemed to be an ordinary rational person who was driven into soap by neo ordinary circumstances. Due to this down-to-earthness, the history of man now felt more reliable, it was much more difficult to doubt it. And just empathy for the person was enough! Bon Bon thought that this version, as if drawn from a novel about a lonely heroine-knight, seemed to her much more pleasant and interesting than about some general who was waging an endless war of destruction. Xander should have been telling the truth from the start! And based on what Sweety knew about the princess, this should have been the right approach - after all, Luna once personally participated in battles, and the story of a simple warrior could cause her, if not respect, then reluctance to continue to suspect human!

“I didn’t lie about chaos either, Your Darkness,” the human added quietly, not seeing a clear reaction from the direction of Luna. “I have studied your world and the manifestations of its magic for many hours, but I have not learned anything that would help explain the phenomena at the swamp hive. On our... my planet, nothing like this is found, and even if we take into account the functioning of the hives there - they simply take the energy of the sun and minerals from the soil, absorb primitive organic matter, which is inedible here,” suddenly the gloomy voice of Xander recovered, and his gaze warmed:

“I would have wandered in the dark, literally and figuratively, but I met the foals. They did not question the suspicious biped about what happened in his world and what he was doing here. They just... wanted to befriend him and, if possible, help. So I learned about the kindness of your people and their morals,” the tone of the human was not ingratiating, although now his fate could be decided again; he simply stated a fact. “That the children of your subjects are perhaps the sweetest creatures in the universe. That friendly relations and peaceful coexistence are possible with you.”

“Ahem. So, that's why you peacefully planted this clearing with your devices,” a smile suddenly blossomed on the face of Luna, and a harmless sarcasm appeared in the tone. The human, grinning in response, raised his hand to the sky in a comic gesture:

“Your Darkness, please do not blame the lonely one, strapped for funds, that he is used to attack from the back, distract attention and take with sudden attacks. I am a tactician, not a suicider. By your behavior - when flying carts with soldiers suddenly began to fall from the sky, I mean - it was also impossible to assume that you were a peaceful race. The contact at the crash site took you by surprise, but following my soul... um, going for my head, you clearly prepared for unfavorable options, right?”

“But you were the first to demonstrate that you are not capable of getting along with a pony,” Luna retorted in an unctuous voice. “Instead of at least some attempts to establish contact with intelligent beings, you twice ran away from them, hiding, as if you had something to hide.”

“At least I didn’t try to escape now, although I was not just pursued by a creature that contradicted everything I knew about living nature, but was crushed by a psychic attack,” the human grinned. “I don’t know anything about the fashion of noble ponies and I can’t decide if red will suit you,” Xander squinted at the impressive wings of Luna, “but the cry “Off with his head” would have been heard from your lips like a glove.”(4)

“That was... another joke, which we cannot comprehend?” Luna asked thoughtfully.

“Hmm-hmm.”

A shadow suddenly ran across Luna's face, her lips pursed in displeasure. The Princess of the Night's eyes flashed with angry sparks. Sweetie Drops would have collapsed to the ground, hooves over her ears, but remained standing, true to her orders. Had a man somehow managed to offend Her Darkness, reminded her of some custom from antiquity? They've already made it up, it seems, and Xander just returned her playful tone!

“To challenge the Canterlot voice is an insult to us, human,” she said coldly. “You will speak to the Crown with due respect, otherwise you will not speak at all.”

Xander twitched perceptibly, rippling the hem of his makeshift robes. The joints on his long claw fingers clenched reflexively.

“I, um...” the human hesitated for a second. “Your Darkness, I did not even think... I have not yet understood very well the principles of the local socioethical matrix...”

“Hah, bought it!” the princess laughed cheerfully. “Didn't you think that I would forget about the accusation of insulting the dignity of “Combat General Grievous" and all your provocations, Xander?”

“Kha,” now the human was coughing and masking the exhale he allowed himself to make out of relief. “Looks like you caught me here, Your Darkness.”

“You really should have turned to us, and not run through the weeds of the Everfree,” Luna concluded, coming even closer to the alien. “Perhaps I will not tell Celestia about your... original way of restarting diplomatic relations, so that you could start from scratch with my sister, just like you did with me.”

“Hm. In this case, I am doing what was supposed to be done long ago - I apologize,” Xander made a gesture that consisted of a wave in front of you with a paw in combination with a slight bow. “But I have to insist that my actions were justified. I’m afraid I had no more reasons to be confident in your peacefulness before meeting the girls than you did in mine.”

“Even considering that we did not commit any frankly crafty actions against you?” Luna raised her eyebrows. "We just send a guard for the safety of our little ponies."

The human shrugged, returning a restrained smile to his face.

“Let's call it the influence of extensive negative experience.”

“If so, we will be able to talk about this later. Frankly speaking, me...” then Luna remembered that she is not the sole ruler in Equestria, “my sister and I were much more concerned about your abilities in biomancy than the problems of the world from which you came,” with these words, the Princess of the Night took another step forward and raised her right front hoof.

“Be our guest, Xander!” she said rather solemnly. “Although our meeting took place late, we are glad to welcome you to Equestria.”

“You are elevated in intelligence and captivating in speech, princess,” the human nodded ceremoniously, in turn taking a step forward and lowering his head to the level of Luna, “therefore, it will be my joy to become your guest.

Bon Bon once heard that the mare of the Canterlot aristocracy love with their ears, but Luna did not even take an ear to the compliment: she probably considered it a human attempt to create some kind of ceremony. She stretched her hoof forward with all visible dignity - not for the hoofer's kiss, as Sweetie Drops suddenly realized. After all, some two-legged ones had a custom to shake their paws, just as the tradition of bumping horseshoes against each other came from earth ponies!

It was again one of those tense moments: physical contact of the princess herself with a once-considered dangerous monster by a stranger. It is not surprising that the guardponies tensed again - the thestrals were not gnawing at their helmets at all from the desire to rush into the battle for the Night Mother. But Sweety knew that not one of them would budge, for the princess had forbidden the initiative, and she herself could easily stand up for herself. Nothing should have spoiled the moment of acquaintance with a representative of another world civilization!

“Alexander Mercer,” now without any piety, the human introduced himself as benevolently as possible, gently grasping Luna's hoof and shaking it up and down.

“Alegz-ande?” the alicorn was surprised.

“Alexander, for friends Alex,” the human opened his grip and lowered his paw down, unbending again, becoming noticeably higher. “Not Xander or Sandy,” he clarified in a grumpy tone, for some reason looking straight at Bon Bon nearby. “There were wandering around here... all sorts of lovers of literary translations.”

Bon Bon breathed out barely audibly (like other mare from among the Guardponies), still not believing that everything had ended well. Rainbow Dash would have been furious if she had stayed in Ponyville. Such a mess! So many preparations, so much painful tension, and as a result, not a single cuff was handed out! Agent Drops was more than pleased, feeling incredible relief. The stranger was frightening, shocking with his behavior, unlike any of the most diverse monsters she had to face - but now that they shook their paws... well, hoof and paw, it all ceased to matter. He can definitely become a friend for all ponies. Maybe the old guard golems with woodworms are similar, but they act in completely different ways... So Xander, although he has a number of changing features, in fact is not such - he is inclined to dialogue, he will not bite the hoof that strokes him, does not go against the ponies who were kind to him! His friendly relations with Lyra and the foals were the best confirmation of this.

“Well, Alekzander,” Luna smiled, walking past him to the guardponies, “in that case, I suggest you meet with my sister in Ponyville. In the town hall we will be able to talk at least about everything in the world...” exaggeratedly cautiously looking around, she lowered her voice:

“And I think you can already take off this fashion designer’s nightmare if you don’t want half of the city to be closed in their homes,” the princess added with a grin. “Agent Drops, you come with us. I think my dear sister will find your testimony extremely valuable on occasion.”

“Easily. I will do so,” the human, slowly striking a step with his narrow legs, moved after Luna. His hand reached out to the neck of his homemade robes. “Princess Luna, let me know something... You, putting pressure on me, never mentioned among the threats that you are porting... de-teleporting... will send me away from Equestria to my homeworld. For this, the first question that I have to ask you right here and now is...”

Speaking of Her Grace, to whom we are heading, Sweetie Drops thought as she watched the pegasus lead the storm clouds away from the meeting place. If both worlds are alchemically compatible only at the most basic level, as Mercer said... alicorns individually, who?

There was a whistle, and Alexander staggered when a powerful ramming spell of a poisonous green flew into his back. He almost fell face down, but reacted instantly - the human spread out in the air like a giant bat, fluttering the hem of his robe. Having made a mad somersault over his head, he landed on the veranda of the Crusaders' house, breaking planks and clinging to the massive branches of the apple tree with his claws.

Changeling did it, Bon Bon realized with horror. And not alien, but the most common.

“What happened?!” shouted the thestral, with whom she had spoken shortly before.

“Some of ours started it!” her commander responded, looking nervously at Mercer, frozen in a tree like a huge harpy in a nest.

There was a storm of emotions on the person's face - fear, confusion, pain, disgust. As if in disbelief, he again and again felt the plate of armor on his chest, on which a cobweb of cracks sprawled out - the spell pierced through Alex's chest, even though it came to its front part rather weakened. But it was clearly visible how a green park rose from behind the human's back, enveloping his figure in a shimmering halo, and a trickle of light liquid flowing down his leg, bubbling. With a mental call to the Goddess, Sweety removed the rope thrower from her belt. The fur on the back of her neck stood on end, and her intuition in panic squealed that everything that had happened was not good at all.

”Who dared?!” - Luna roared, casting an angry glance at the guards who were about to leave their positions. ”Who is this fool who dared to violate our order?!”

The answer, meanwhile, was right in front of the princess of the Night: the earth-monkey guards twisted one of the magicians, threw him to the ground, holding a shocker spear to his horn. He did not even think to resist. On the contrary, the unicorn lay calmly on the ground - and a grin of gloating and triumph spread on his face, with which he looked directly at Luna. The princess, giving the changeling a scornful look, turned worriedly to Mercer:

“Alexander, are you okay? Can you go? You will be given...”

He's not okay in a single place, froze with fear, Sweety thought, noticing how all emotions disappear from the person's face - only silent malice splashed in his eyes. He is in complete, all-consuming fury.

Princess Luna wanted to say something else, but suddenly Mercer stirred - slowly and jerkily like a broken toy, then straightening more vigorously and half-turning into what could be dubbed a fighting stance. The humantle, engaged in a green flame, slid from his shoulders, and for the first time the figure of a man became clearly visible. Plates of armor bulged, covering his entire torso with bandages and petals, a sting weapon, fixed on his back and somehow miraculously avoided being hit, gleamed in the light. Smoke billowed from a burnt hole in the neighborhood, and emerald flames erupted from there. Bon Bon could not believe her own eyes: not a single living creature could move after such a wound, especially with such steadfastness. The human's paw, grinding, reached behind his back, and his claws closed on the handle of the weapon.

“No,” the princess widened her eyes, immediately understanding everything. “Alexander, don't. It was not...”

The human gave her a cold look. Then he dropped his eyes; Alexander seemed to lose his resolve for a moment. In the blink of an eye, the human tore off this pile of metal and plastic from his back, turning the pipes towards the pony with a black mouth. Wasting no time in conversation, Luna struck with a force beam, knocking the weapon out of his paw. But instead of throwing the heavy device away, the spell smashed it to some formless pieces! Moreover, at the end of the day, the headquarters of the Crusaders managed to set fire to it, so that the door from its rightful place was again taken out inside, and the windows shattered to smithereens.

And then the spells flew around the ponies - that's what Sweetie Drops thought at first. It rumbled, rattled from the side of the apple plantations, and the air was filled with the whistle of many small clots of energy flying at a breakneck speed. The caster beat with a wide fan, forcing the earth ponies to collapse to the ground, covering their heads with their hooves, and the pegasus to rapidly gain height. A nearby night guard was struck in the side by one such projectile, striking a spark from his armor, and the second pierced his hind leg, blurring on the fur in a crimson spot and making him scream in pain, fall on his front hooves.

“He shoots from a stinging weapon!” screamed Knight, rushing to help her colleague.

“We are attacked from the north!” came the voice of the commander of the Solar Guard. “Put up shields!”

The human was not in the least embarrassed by the loss of his ranged weapon - unlike Luna. The armor on his elbow split into two plates, revealing the muscles stretched beneath it, the blood vessels, and the forked bone that served as the base. He did not budge, clearly hoping to carry out his plans before the ponies wake up from the shelling, they themselves will be able to suppress him and force him to obey. Xander applied breaking The limb tucked along the axis to the belt, like a ballet dancer, and his armor lit up with crimson flashes. He froze, and then abruptly threw his hand up with such a speed that Bon Bon did not even understand what had happened. Simply, the three pegasus, descending for a spear attack on the aggressor, seemed to stumble in flight...

Agile and fast flyers have never been particularly afraid of the maces of earth ponies and their swords. Therefore, since the time of the Unification, unicorns, when enchanting the Pegasus's armor, have relied on protection from point penetrating actions - the same arrows and fast burning spells. But what crashed into the pegasus clearly did not fall into this category. In the next moment, red stripes bloomed on the armor with a rumbling, and the flyers were naturally swaddled. Pulsating skeins of flesh bound their movements no worse than steel cables; the poor guys could only collapse to the ground and then flutter somehow, scattering feathers, straining all their forces, but not capable of breaking the creepy-looking fetters.

“We have a wounded pony! Doctor her, now!!!” the thestral was straining, right under heavy fire assisting the wounded comrade, biting the bandage with sharp teeth and pouring a healing potion from its reserves between the jaws clenching from the pain. However, the field orderly did not appear in any way - the number of victims began to grow at such a rate that even the princess did not have time to keep track of everyone.

“Magicians, attention!” the commander was straining. “Concentrate shields towards the north! Suppress with spells everything that moves and does not respond to callsigns!”

“And if... if he does not move and does not respond?!”

To me, too, the clever guy looked for, thought Bon Bon in prostration, while, together with the night guard, she dragged the languidly resisting thestral under the shields - he could fly himself, but with a loosened piece of metal bone, even the best flyer would not easy. Do you think he will sit and wait, without moving his paws, while we feed him? A man's chest burned, but at least henna!

In support of her thoughts, the stranger was frightened off by Princess Luna, who, in a flash of teleportation, reached the pegasus and helped them free themselves, freezing the bonds to the fragility of ice. Alexander darted from his place, avoiding the spells that were flying at him with mechanical precision in his movements. His face was focused, and his gaze was fixed on Luna, which, turning her attention to him, smeared on Alex's armor with telekinesis. Without straining a single superfluous muscle, Mercer easily ran through the telekinetic cage that was forming around him, leaving behind him a barely noticeable scarlet train, punctuated by greenish smoke. The invisible shooter immediately switched fire to Luna, but did not gain much success, since it was so for the princess's shield, seeds. Therefore, he again began to conduct in short bursts of suppression, preventing the ponies from sticking out their noses from behind the unicorn shields. Around him should have been falling apple trees, mown with retaliatory spells, dropping ripe fruits and upturning the ground with roots, but the unknown man's ally did not think to stop firing for more than a dozen seconds. Alex vanished into a dance of shadows and light, spells and clouds of dust. Sweetie Drops, who saw him disappear only a dozen yards from her, heard a voice behind her:

“Mother of the Night! Did you see it?” stared with horror at the Bon Bon thestral. “What kind of monster is he, Tartarus take him?! The land-crawler cannot move that fast!”

”Where is he?” through the roar of gunfire came the princess's voice of Canterlot. ”Where did he go?!”

“Dome!” the commander of the day guard came to his senses. “Now! Or he will run away!”

Don't, thought the earth pony indifferently. Please. She didn't want to be trapped here again, along with an alien from another world, when he openly entered the battle and managed to demonstrate that the numerical advantage of the guard was nothing for him. She had seen the guards' memories of a short scuffle at the rotorcraft... Now that was a completely different matter. Earlier, Alex warned with a roar of an attack, gave an opportunity to retreat, ran away, trying not to be seen by a pony. Now... it was some kind of silent vengeful entity cast in bone armor. The line crashed against the shield in front of Sweetie, so that the barrier became turquoise streaks.

He really wants to kill us! Where did I go? Would remain a humble pastry chef, sobbed Bon Bon, trying her best not to panic. Not my league at all! This creature telekinesis the princess herself ignores!

For the hunter and the monster is running. Mercer came into view as soon as Sweetie Drops thought of her own failure when confronted with him. The unicorns were just beginning to cast the spell for setting the main sphere, but then a man flew over them in a flash of scarlet light, throwing out from his belt shiny, elongated glass, covered with slime - like a heavy flyer from the conflict with Cloudsdale, carrying incendiary bombs. Princess Luna managed to conjure the purification of the Poisonous Joke even before the bottles burst with a noise , scattering its cloudy contents in all directions. But even such a violation of his plans did not stop the human. Alex landed, dug his claws into the ground, stared at Her Darkness and whispered a word that Bon Bon heard perfectly.

“Rise up.”

“My mother of Night! They climb out of the ground!” shouted another thestral as the wet soil under their hooves shook. “We need reinforcements!!!”

“The enemy is from the left flank, underground!”

“Horseapples, where has he gone again?”

“Mages, where is the discord shield?!” another flyer was indignant, descending to help the wounded.

“What do you think we are doing right now?!” the gray unicorn barked, continuing to cast a joint spell. “He distracts us all the time!”

The earth swelled - just in those places where "nothing was buried" to distract attention. Sweetie Drops saw Luna's face contort and the same horror flashed in her eyes as the rest of the ponies. Formless figures, smeared with earth, emerged from the ground, one after another, crowned with bald heads that resembled a human skull-helmet. The monsters furiously began to shake off the sticky mud after the recent shower; their formlessness thickened and took shape - and now among the ponies, getting up, ready to straighten their legs in a stringy jump, stood four large timberwolves. Only their heads were a jumble of flesh with nightmarish massive jaws and eyes hidden in the shadow of their sockets. The oak claws of the monsters gleamed with the same crimson light...

“Timberwolves!” in panic, one of the pegasus from above voiced the already obvious truth. “He subdued them!”

So that's why the magical vision was empty! Most of the ponies were not in the know, but the guards and the structures adjacent to them knew perfectly well that the security magic of the Castle of the Sisters was created to quietly chase and overtake intruders. As time passed after Princess Celestia left the castle, its magical defenses went wild and went to the Everfree, by virtue of an old habit of creating golems, growing thorns and pursuing anyone who wandered into her territory. No one began to deal with this, for those who knew the secrets of the castle left it after Her Grace and eventually died of old age, and the rest simply did not care. Even the most notorious adventurers did not think that there was something so valuable in the Everfled that it would be worth butting with a whole population of golemhounds for which. From their prototypes, the deer have inherited the ability to quickly recover and excellent resistance to any magic except fire. It was much easier for an ordinary pony to run away from them than to win in an open battle... But here there was no particular place to run.

“He took them under control!” the lieutenant of thestral was horrified. “Do not approach, let the magicians figure it out!”

“Claws!” Bon Bon shouted, regaining consciousness and somehow getting rid of her panic moods. “Beware of the claws, I don't like the way they look!”

The timberwolves darted among the ponies, growling dully and coughing like a dog. Ordinarily, they would not have approached such a large cluster of ponies, especially outside the Eternal One, and would have preferred to run away themselves, but here the golems seemed to be blind. Bon Bon tore off an explosive horseshoe from her belt, tossed it from a side position, and the tree dog howled, scraping his skin-covered face and charred chest with his paws, and then rushed away, not making out the road. He knocked down an earth-monkey guard, who did not have time to get out of the way of the inhabitant of the Everfree, and then bumped his head into the ground and tumbled over himself, flying into the unicorns occupied by the shield. A tangled tangle of bodies, united in a struggle, rolled over the grass.

“A battle has been imposed on us!” shouted from the direction of the apple trees. “The ponies are out of order!”

Princess Luna with a well-aimed shot smashed the monster to small pieces, but then was forced to come to the aid of her subjects, on which Alex was inhabited. He landed literally surrounded by a small detachment and, taking advantage of the fact that part of the forces of the guard was distracted by the fire of stinging weapons and woodpeckers, he began to methodically wean the annoying ponies to deal with him. Mercer rewarded a blow to everyone who approached, with a weapon or bare hooves - it didn't matter, and if his opponent could not dodge, then he was knocked out. The human made turns and beat with his feet, then with his only hand, firmly and accurately, finding vulnerabilities in the enemy's defense with amazing ease. He would have thrashed the guardponies in the tail and in the humane, if the massive earth pony had not pushed through his own defenses, hitting the square with gravikinesis so that Alexander's armor cracked, and he himself was thrown back. The human landed on all three limbs like a giant tattered cat, head bent to the ground and grimly examining the enemy.

“Poorly repeat with me, deadhead?!” the guardpony barked with angry bravado, taking acceleration.

Mercer retreated in front of a threatening week or two of bed rest, made a side jump. He froze for a moment, and then threw up a paw that was illuminated with red at once - it suddenly swelled three times, which made his fingers zeros in a pile of dark stone-like mass. Swinging properly, Alex struck the ground with all his might with the changed limb - now the restless guardpony had been carried away, and the ground around the place of the fight heaved. Several apple trees tumbled backward, the apples clattering like hail, as if a lost turtlesnap had stepped into the orchard. The human folded into a ball, throwing himself up and to the side, using a weighted paw as a counterweight, and the beam of Luna passed through the place where he had just been.

“We must leave...” Bon Bon looked around, but just at that moment the shield flickered around the battlefield again. “Damn it! Teleport us out of here, we must give the princess Luna space! He works for the guards!”

“We cannot, the spell against the teleport was still standing when it all began!” the unicorn suddenly changed in its face and collapsed to the ground, screaming at the top of its voice:

”Lie down!!!”

The tree uprooted whistled in the air, only slowing down a little because of the telekinesis of those present, knocking those who did not have time to get out of its trajectory, and immediately screams of pain were heard.

“Leg, my leg-ah!!!” screamed in pain a young mare in golden armor, staring in disbelief at his hoof, punctured by sharp splinters and twisted at an unnatural angle.

“Watch out!”

“Pony, back it up! Spells do nothing to him!”

Sweetie Drops was panting, leaning against an apple tree that had crashed into the ground, as if in an impromptu trench, and wondered how things could have turned out this way. Her heart skipped a beat in her chest - the human slipped out of the dust-agitated air like a huge dexterous lizard. Wherever his chosen target moved, Mercer followed her like a shadow, spinning nearby and waiting for the moment to strike. No, friendship magic won't work here, Bon Bon thought sadly. The ponies have pissed him off too much... or rather, don't ponies, but he thinks so. It was simply impossible to do anything worse. None of the guardponies fled in panic, but the battle formations were mixed. Derevolkos ran, stings whistled, the human himself did not give a second of respite to Luna, constantly distracted by the new victims, to any of the detachments... Complete chaos.

But the whistle just stopped for some reason. From time to time, the ceasing rumble of the gun suddenly broke off, ceasing to spit out metal pieces, but a ball of fire flew in from the thicket to replace them! Something resembling a large fireworks display spiraled and exploded into a reddish curtain. Bon Bon tried to figure out what that was supposed to mean, but once again Mercer caught her attention. Through a red fog filled with a suspension of "carriers", she noticed how the person stopped in place, made an incomprehensible movement. Agent Drops bit her lip as she watched a swirl of scarlet particles swirl around his elongated figure. As his paw returned to its original state, removing the stone, revealing burning wounds and sores on the skin, a fan of tiny lightning seemed to run along the ground. Sweety heard the crackle of electrical discharges even through the hubbub and screams of the ponies trying to deal with the indefatigable golems. It was too a big coincidence not to be like what the so-called "swamp hive" was doing!

Princess, thought Bon Bon desperately, hoping for a still functioning mental connection, He's so recharged by the sun! I beg you, burn this suspension!

Praise the Goddess, Her Darkness heard her subject, or simply had similar thoughts. It was only at the same moment when the pegasus, on her orders, threw incendiary mist around the perimeter, and the princess herself summoned a powerful stream of wind and dispelled the crimson fog - probably still fearing for the life of their guest, fooled by the changeling in the event of using fire, - Mercer immediately added a new factor on the battlefield.

While Luna was busy, something slipped out of the ground with a roar, dark gray, small and swift. It hung for a moment in the air, dragging a pigtail of reddish tentacles behind it, spinning around its axis with incredible speed for a living creature, scattering lumps of earth to the sides.

Bon Bon froze when another smoky spot bloomed with a crash in the clearing in the apple orchard - this time blue-violet. It appeared right next to the House of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, where a detachment of earth ponies occupied a position under the cover of flyers. And then a new gap enveloped the former Grievous, causing him to burst into a terrible cough and disappear. And then another one at the border of the dome. More, and more, and more...

Bon Bon knew what it was - but in the confusion of battle, definition eluded her. The attack was not serious, especially for the Ponyville people, who had long been accustomed to the periodic incursions of the Everfree into their calm rural life, and was "cured" by prolonged evaporation of spores from the skin in hot water. But right here and now, in a combat situation... The substance seemed to Sweetie predatory, dense and evoking a cold realization of what Mercer could do with her helpless pony efforts. So this is what the stranger concluded in his podza many surprises! He left them at the end, placed them at all in the wrong places where the earth had been dug up by tree-walkers, out of order!

“Poison joke!” shouted one of the earthlings and, dropping the spear, with his teeth pulled his less agile comrade away from the creeping cloud. Those who found themselves directly in the emission zone were less fortunate. Before the eyes of the frightened ponies, what was happening that only the Joke was capable of: the limbs of the ponies became soft, like plasticine, the horns turned into screwdrivers or spectacular mustaches hanging right over the eyes, the wings of pegasus turned into paper, then grew to completely indecent sizes, then they were plucked. One pony managed to become invisible at all, so that all that was left of him was the armor flying in the air. With an enviable calmness for Bon Bon, Princess Luna tried to help several ponies at once, making the work of the orderlies easier and giving the guard a respite in general, and Mercer disappeared again.

“Drops, do something!” Night pleaded, waving her ears warily, trying to determine where the trouble will come from this time. “Use your monster hunting skills or something!”

“This is not how the monster hunt works!” screamed Bon Bon, “I don't know what to do!”

“Come on, ponies!” there was a shout from the commander of the thestrals. “We need to stop him, or he will beat everyone up! We must beat everything that we have!”

“Lethal?!” the unicorn was horrified, knowing perfectly well that health is fixable, but not life.

“Hit him yourself with something more serious!” snapped the solar pegasus, trying to block the spread of the poisonous fog by air gusts. “Try to aim the one at whom the spells need to be directed exclusively by the experienced! And if we go into close combat with our hobbyists, we won't last long!”

“Aim for his paws!”

The beaters just followed this advice, only in relation to the timberwolves, trying not to get under their blow. They managed to stop another golem by entangling their paws with a chain emerging from a special crystal and interrupting them. The monster managed to get one of the guards, but bit him so absurdly and weakly that the guard escaped with only a small lacerated wound on the skin. Moreover, the bite damaged the jaws of the monster itself, distorted its bony mouth with fangs closing like teeth on two gears! Then an earth pony landed on the back of the tree pony, sending a powerful impulse of gravikinesis, and the golem scattered into numerous branches and scraps of vegetation. The power of the timberwolves was in their ability to absorb spells below a certain limit; no one but the largest individuals could boast of a strong body, as well as the ability to survive the shot of Luna. The bald, earless head, crumpled and torn, which at once ceased to be formidable, fell apart in the same rags as the sting tool in Mercer's hands. The scarlet claws slipped from the tree in blobs of an incomprehensible liquid and went out.

They were... the most ordinary timberwolves? Bon Bon suddenly understood. Who rushed about exactly like blind, because they were wearing some kind of stupid mask with a lousy view!

“This is all deception, as with Grievous! He did not subdue them!” Sweetie yelled, cupping her hooves like a megaphone. “It's a bluff! Forget about the Timberwolves!!!”

“If he bluffs, then he is weaker than he seems!” the thestral mare jumped up. “We must attack immediately!”

“Save your strength! If it breaks through to us, it will not be stopped!” the unicorn snapped.

Bon Bon fired a cable, moving in a group of thestrals, to which Luna had sent her, and found herself on the veranda of the already defeated headquarters of the Marksmen. Glancing around the battlefield, the pony saw not Mercer, but another gray, faded, swift entity. She ran out from the side of the apple grove - as if a giant centipede were streaming from the shadows of the trees. Bon Bon clenched another horseshoe in her hoof, feeling a trembling all over her body. Did Mercer really detach a part of himself and send him off to fight so easily?! Because what was in a hurry to the battlefield, well, very much resembled his hand. Only instead of fingers she had something that looked like the mandibles of an insect. The creature rushed, carefully avoiding the guardponies, connecting and separating the bristles of the armor and throwing out its articulated claws in vague movements. Sweetie Drops' eyes widened as she saw a huge spiral tentacle on her elbow, wrapped around a base, with a spiked ridge curved backward. The ominous creature was dragging a stinging weapon with it, an exact copy of the one that was on Alexander's back - well, or it was rather the very original. Bon Bon, waking up, threw her favorite weapon of pacification, but the grotesque-looking limb rushed in jumps, her claw-like paws barely touching the wet grass. Bon Bon tried to calm herself down, to bring her to her senses, but it was too late - a quiet squeak of horror escaped her.

If this was what the stranger was capable of with one paw, what will happen when he has the second comes back?!

“Tartarus' abyss! How many parts of it have dug in here?” the night pony was horrified. “Let everyone who stayed in Ponyville come here!” she shouted to the unicorn gu remaining below.

“We can’t! We can’t, i said!”

“Don't let him reunite!” squeaked Sweetie Drops, doomedly watching as the limb jumped over the earth pony, with all his might hit him on the helmet with the handle-stop of the weapon. “Don't let..!”

One of the pegasus really hit the self-propelled paw with a spear, drove it right into the joint of the plates on the joint, so that the armor was licked by electrical discharges. But nothing happened - the dexterous creature did not slow down, did not make a sound, only trickles of gray-pink-whitish blood poured out, and Sweetie, who did not even want to think about what it looked like, decided to swaddle the stranger with a cable with a spell of continuity useless - his limbs will simply separate, escaping from the fetters, and reassemble.

From the subsequent action of the agent Drops instantly broke through then. Appearing like a clown from a box, Alex was right there, and the limb fired tentacles right at his shoulder, digging and biting into the exposed plates of armor. With muscular effort, the body pulled up the missing part, moving together, coming together. Turning around its axis, the paw shuddered with a chomping sound - and now it was almost indistinguishable from its companion, working as if it had never left the place predetermined by nature. Any creature of flesh and blood, having received an amputation wound, could not easily attach what was lost back to itself. Bon Bon knew it was impossible. Even the installation of the prosthesis is done under the spell of sleep by a skillful unicorn, which connects all nerves and magical channels to the appropriate receivers, and nothing else! A living creature could not possess the properties of a golem! Mercer was alive by all indications, wasn't he?

“It heals faster than we damage it!” the thestral commander grunted in frustration. “We have to let the Mother of Night hit for sure!”

But nevertheless, despite all the "impossible" Bon Bon, Alexander flatly refused to disappear from the picture of the world. His body was racing forward, his head with eyes burning with restrained hatred looked straight ahead. When the princess blocked his path with many barriers at once, the human braked and stood on an earthen dump. He lifted the stinger, which he still held in his left hand; hit the lid, throwing it up, pulled out the remnants of the tape from the box melted by the spell, tore out the box with its claws and threw it away, inserted the edge segment of the tape back into the device, slamming it.

”Stop!” Luna exclaimed, flapping her elegant wings into the air. ”Why are you doing this?”

The human stared at the mistress of the Night towering over him. I pulled the lever on the stinging knife.

“Alexander, why are you silent?” made another attempt Luna, this time quieter, even with some kind of pleading intonations in her voice. “Say something!”

The human spat out his strange whitish blood and suddenly broke through a section of the barrier with one blow, immediately shot forward with his left hand, stretching out a tentacle with mandibles at the end, digging into the ground. Mercer, like a member of a lasso rodeo, flew out of the cage formed by the shields before it was restored by Luna. He let him go, breaking the distance, on the run firing behind his back, on Luna rushing after him.

Bon Bon dawned on just another burst of poisonous "fireworks" buried underground.

“Not this way!” she shouted to Noctus. “It is Her Darkness that should let us strike! He only lets ordinary ponies come to him!”

Princess, can you do something to delay him? You said that crystal magic should seriously injure him?

If it is necessary, I will do it, my little pony. I wanted to avoid this, but I really don't see any other way out.

“Pony, spells only scratch his armor!” set off to explain to the detachment of thestrals Bon Bon, jumping from the half-destroyed veranda and at full speed following the stranger. “But I need you to distract the alien so that I can get close to him!”

“Yes, he distracts us, be healthy!” the old friend Bon Bon was indignant.

“Exactly... A-ay!” one of the thestrals barely dodged a hefty devil dog, which rushed past with a crash, sweeping away everything in its path. Their commander bared his teeth in a dashing manner:

“Come on, pony! Don't you want to be the one to stop this over-the-top under-engineering?” he growled. “We have not yet encountered such a thing, but sooner or later we would have to! You knew what you were doing, so let's go and make the Night Mother be proud of us! Spread out!”

“Roger that!” the night ponies were now flying low above the ground, their clawed wings spreading menacingly.

“Use chains!” Sweetie Drops shouted, barely keeping up with the thestrals, drawing the attention of the other ponies as well. “He will undoubtedly split up to avoid being captured, but that will give me a few seconds!”

Not far ahead in the garden there was a battle, purple flashes flaring up. The detachment, ready to support Bon Bon, moved forward without hesitation: all explosive "surprises" on this They had already worked their way, and it was necessary not to be so careful. A devastated stinging gun flew past the guardponies, another pegasus suddenly fell from the sky, entwined with living fetters, like a vine... Leaving the regular unicorn with difficulty to cut them and provide assistance to the victim, the ponies finally reached the place of the fight.

Mercer nervously jumped from tree to tree, hiding in the crown and behind thick trunks, sometimes leaning out to prescribe a cuff for another victim, but Princess Luna steadily pressed him. From the magic spilling over the air, cold waves ran over the guardponies. Her Darkness used a good half of her "safe" arsenal to shield the ponies from Mercer, who found himself next to them. The earth around the trees stirred, turning into a viscous slurry and absorbing the supports on which the person moved. The air currents crossed and changed their relative position, threatening to blow off Mercer. Icicles grew directly on the trees, forming a cover no worse than a shield spell. At the end, Luna, taking advantage of Mercer's confusion and the fact that only a couple of earth ponies were next to him, increased the gravity on the square seven times, which made the guards hiss displeased through their teeth, and the human, as if in panic, curled up into a ball and immediately rushed out of the spell's area, fueling its speed with a crimson flash. As he rose again to his full height, Alex's attention was diverted by a pegasus, with a battle cry, appeared from behind the crowns of trees directly above him. Mercer hurriedly fired and struck, and then sparkling blue lightning struck him with great force. The human swayed, trying to cover himself with a kind of shield that had grown directly from his hand, but Luna continued to hold the spell, and he fell to his knees.

“This is our chance!” Bon Bon quickly put the thrower into the hoof, prepared for a shot. “Go-o-o!”

“Forgive me, Alexander,” the princess said with regret, landing and walking with a brisk step towards the defeated man. Its horn, from where the crystallizing charge escaped, emanated steam, as if from overheating, “but this is necessary for your own good.”

The alien looked, frankly, not very good. The skin on his face darkened, his eyes swam with blood and stared convulsively in different directions, the humane burned out, the edges of the armor plates and cheekbones were covered with small transparent crystals that had grown inside. The small box on his belt, unlike the other false device, was in no hurry to dissolve - and it went into hysterical crackling.

Then the human, shaking his head shallowly, as if from shock, made a giant leap from his place and was next to the knocked down pegasus. Guardpony, trying to help him, the human threw back with a miserly blow of the hand, so that the flyer flew away and, with a short cry, crashed into a tree.

“Veal,” - muttered Mercer, not addressing anyone in particular, “ha... zet voz-ndd sach ea cheor nau woz-itt? (5) Ha.”

Despite the fact that the lightning warped his armor, made his movements more abrupt and incorrect, compared to a pony, human still seemed to live in a different stream of time. He was exactly that guest in this dimension, much more awkward and slower than his own. The only ones who could compete with humans were Luna and all the same Pegasus, but any of their attempts to descend for direct contact ended sadly. Bon Bon held her breath as the human flung out his hand with an imperceptible movement and closed the claws on the neck of the flyer, who was convulsively hammered in his grip.

“Kha... ha...” Alexander coughed, smiling unhealthily with chapped lips. “Ha-ha-ha-ah...”

“You... You... Why didn't it stop you?!” Luna blurted out resentfully, trying to gain time, starting to cast a spell of teleportation of an object of living nature with magic.

“What can I say...” Alex answered in a rattling voice, shrugging his shoulders in an exaggerated artistic gesture, “I am full of surprises sometimes even for myself.”

”Don't you dare touch...”

“Your Darkness?!” heard the ever-increasing stomp of combat hobbyists and the whistle of wings.

Another detachment reached them, the ponies in which were not in their backbone busy with helping the wounded and poisoned. As soon as he saw reinforcements, Mercer exploded in a red cloud, in addition activating the Joke around the edges of the free space. A pegasus ran out of the fog, getting rid of the rumbling luminous fetters on its legs, but not on the wings, which fluttered, pressed by tentacles to its sides.

“Above! He's on top, beware!” the flyer shouted, looking around in panic, rushing to run away.

Sweety suspected something was wrong and shouted to the thestrals to follow her even before the scarlet "carriers" and the joke were dispersed, and with a cough, both pegasuses emerged from the oddly mixing fog, even before they saw green sparks among the entangled wings.

“Those ropes of his explode in thirty seconds or something!” shouted the pony, that not long ago he crashed into a tree, hobbling, but stubbornly dragging his comrade away. There was a deep black hole in the guard's armor. “I barely managed to take it off! And even then not all...”

He doesn't know ponies at all, thought Sweetie, swinging on the line and rushing into the attack with the phastrals. The human may have won a few moments by embarrassing the merciful Moon with the sight of the victim and forcing the unicorns to target the treetops, but Agent Drops was such a pathetic trick not to circle the hoof. Would that pegasus have run away if he had freed his legs while his friend was lying unconscious by the tree? Wouldn't dare to come to his aid?!

Chains struck the big fake pegasus from crystals from all sides, wrapping around the first obstacle on the way, and he fell to the ground. Bon Bon saw that no less than two-thirds of the magical projectiles directed by the experienced hit the target - the stranger could not afford to run faster than an ordinary pony. One of the thestrals screamed in horror as the creature jerked wildly in its bonds, ripping off its bloody mask, flapping its fake wings from side to side.

Mercer got up, staggering, and even took a few steps, claws out of his hooves. And if earlier, despite his massive body in comparison with an ordinary mare and a o higher density, Alex moved with such speed, as if among his ancestors were purebred families of runners, and the force of gravity does not as for another creature of the same size, now... It really was a striking contrast. The creature stifledly wheezed - every step seemed to be torture for him and was given with difficulty, and the remnants of the pony's skin boiled, exposing bones.

But then the bundles of muscles bulged, and Mercer somehow stretched out his right paw. The links on one of the two chains blocking it cracked with a crystal clink... tiny tongues of green flame peeking out through the hole in his back shot up higher as if the bellows of his lung were fanning them.

“Keep it!”

It seemed that Mercer was twisting from the chains, inexorably preparing to break into a gallop. Terrified, Bon Bon jumped forward, mentally adjusting her legs. The thestrals, with their last strength, clung to the conjured bonds with their claws and teeth, using the trunks of the nearest apple trees as levers, twisting the human's paws.

“My loyal subjects, I am already here!” exclaimed Princess Luna, having time to fly faster than the guards to their faithful servants and began to recreate the gravitational barrier, building up massive crystals on the brushes.

Mercer opened his burnt mouth and outward, rolling down his neck in a stringy wave like a harpoon flew his tongue.

A long and mobile muscle, jumping from a twisted mouth, stretched out into a string and swept over the familiar Bon Bon, which was the closest. She screamed and tried to escape, but Mercer pulled sharply, so Princess Luna was forced to interrupt the spell for fear of hitting the guard. Alexander threw his head forward and hit the batpony on the fly with the failure of his nose, breaking the muzzle. Night screamed. From the blow she was thrown back, and the Thestrala fell to the ground on her back, her hooves pinching her nose and awkwardly flapping her wings. Mercer collapsed next to her, breaking the chains on his right leg. His eyes, already replaced by those of a cat, burned with madness.

“Midnight!!!” yelled one of the solar pegasus. He tried to grab the thestral from under the blow, but Mercer, with some contemptuous ease, grabbed him by the head and easily held the pegasus, clutching the claws on the helmet, with a metal groan of bark piece of armor. Then the human lunged with triple force, so that a pair of Batponies flew screaming into the trees before they could let go of the chains. Almost freed, shattering the crystals on his limbs, Mercer without a swing kicked the thestral trying to get up in the stomach, protected only by a magical aura, and the night guard wheezed in terrible pain, huddled in three deaths on the ground. Luna gasped in disbelief at such outright cruelty, and the pegasus cried out in a high, rattling voice, with all his might nailing a man with all his hooves. The hideous claws fluttered on the helmet. It seemed that they were about to close completely, crushing him along with the head of the unfortunate, like a jar of peaches under pressure... but instead, the human unexpectedly threw the guard away with all his might. He knocked another night guard down with a throw - he grabbed the hoof, pulled him over, turning it over in the air and hitting it on the ground like a sack of work clothes. Xander was about to roll to the side, but then Sweetie Drops did get to him, the rope whipping around his neck. She hit the human with an impulse in the hip joint, as hard as she could - so that he was distracted and, possibly, fell to the ground, while she herself jerked up his bony back.

Bon Bon was rightfully proud of her gravikinesis skills. And even though she was far from such talents as Pinkie Pie and the same Apple family, Sweety, by virtue of her first craft, was still a dexterous acrobat, capable of pushing monsters with no less monstrous strength. She thought that she would have the accuracy and ability to send an impulse to the stranger's face in order to gouge out his eyes, but not damage what he should have been in place of the brain. Bon Bon by no means she wanted to be cruel, and this method was disgusting to her, but in the fever of battle, the pony decided that it was better to injure a man than to watch him further maim the guards. Besides, with his talents for metamorphosis, Alexander will surely grow everything anew! The loss of his eyes should have knocked him out of the saddle, slowed down, and Princess Luna would be able to capture him. Otherwise, all this will not end in any way!

But first, a preliminary remedy. The world is so arranged that a mare, all other things being equal, is physically always weaker than a stallion, even if she is a strong earthly pony. With a boogeyman like Mercer, who is faster and more agile, Bon Bon does not compete at all. So for a successful strike, her attack had to turn out not only crippling, but also unexpected, discouraging. Sweetie had a fresh baked apple jam pie from a bag in her belt. Grasping one hoof on Mercer's armored shoulder, with the other Sweety lifted the improvised projectile over her head and swung it so that the already tired muscles responded with pain. She would have used a much more convenient jar of jam, but Pinky's advice not to follow exactly was fraught with danger. Regardless of what effect he was supposed to have on Alex, in the opinion of the cheerful Guardian, the person will at least be blinded, close his eyes, having received a test in his eyes.

“Open your mouth, human!” hissed the pony, smashing the pie right into the Mercer's face.

And in vain, what a second later I was convinced. Before Sweety had time to make a precisely measured gravitational blow, Mercer's facial bones... fell inward along with her hoof. The pungent smell of sulfur, indistinguishable from a distance, shied away. The human's face literally fell apart, so that light blood spurted out, and the edges of the monstrous wound pulled together the strings of something that looked like saliva. Sweetie Drops, struggling with a fit of lightheadedness, saw in the depths of the opened head a hemisphere of a light pink brain, which appeared from behind Mercer's high forehead, which, like a lid, had moved up...

Then the edges of the facial bones bared with a thousand needle teeth, and they closed on Bon Bon's hoof, digging into the flesh.

Sweety shook with pain and fear, jerked her leg back, but where there! During her work as an agent, monsters have repeatedly bit and scratched her, and if it were not for the capital's healers and some modified potions, the earth pony could boast an extensive collection of scars. But this... it was too crazy, too abnormal! Blood poured from many small wounds, the jaw-face pressed against her hoof more and more, so that Sweetie twitched in a death grip. Now she was not at all up to the original plan - especially since the person now had no trace of eyes.

Then Mercer's skull, which opened like a predatory flower at the seams of his bones, began to chew on the limb that had fallen into his trap.

A white flash blinded Bon Bon, and in a split second it was flooded with an ocean of pain, forcing the body to arch and beat in agony. She could feel the sharp teeth, except perhaps cutting through the flesh between her hoof and elbow, like a rusty, blunt hacksaw, tearing at muscles and tendons. Blood from the torn artery gushed out in a wide stream. With a disgusting crunching, the human bit through the bone, and Bon Bon fell to the ground.

Her back hit the wet grass. Bon Bon tried to rise up, clamp the wound, but, exhausted, collapsed back. The soaked stump of a leg flooded the green carpet with blood. As if from the side she heard her screams and sobs. The screams of the guardponies and the stomp flew to the ponies - the guards reacted to the human who had escaped from the encirclement. He took Bon Bon's hoof with him in his jaws, like a terrible trophy, without trying to do anything with the incapacitated pony. With a wrong movement, Sweetie Drops rolled over onto her stomach, released her surviving leg, trembling with pain, towards the farm. The pony stared at the dust curtain and the tears of the joke with dull eyes.

Nice idea, Pinkie. But this won't work with him a second time, she thought distantly. Lyra... I'm sorry. We focused on a new enemy... but completely forgot about the one we had just defeated. We've ruined everything. I'm so... I'm so sorry...

Strong hooves caught her and carried her somewhere. The grossly amputated leg seemed to be plunged into icy insensibility. However, in the next instant, the painful shock took its toll, and Bon Bon lost consciousness.

Author's Note

Hello, however.

Someone might think that I am spreading this chapter, since I am tired of waiting for my esteemed editors to finish working on the already laid out part of the text. No, it’s not like that. I initially understood that this process is complex and slow - plus, the editors themselves have their own affairs and daily concerns. So this chapter (and its second part, which will be published in another day) - for those people who nevertheless became interested in the work despite the clumsy translation, and whom I, such a bad one, left in suspense - how will the prevailing fanfiction be resolved situation. We'll find out tomorrow ... after which there will be no continuation again for some time, since the next "big" chapter is not written in Russian either.

All good and thank you for your patience (both in terms of time and pushing through the jambs of auto-translation with my allowances)

Explanations for chapter

(1) The original answer to the riddle is “PHYLL-IIIIIIP!!!" performed by Celentano. It was in the classic Italian comedy "Madly in Love", so his character turned the conversation from the negative rails of discussing the nuclear conflict to the positive.

(2) According to Prototype canon and duel fanon, Mercer, disguised as an officer, personally leads the soldiers to storm Times Square and commands the defenses there. What can you do for the BBPE!

(3) Mercer means the LHC, the largest particle accelerator on Earth. At the time of the events, the game was already functioning, but through one place. And yes, this donut eats up energy in a year as much as a million-plus city.

(4) Reference towards the Queen of Hearts from the same "Alice in Wonderland". Math Tales are fun!

(5) "Well, it wasn't that hard, was it?" - summary of the first major case of the original Ghostbusters. Particle streams and broken surroundings were included.