Halo: Contact Equis

The Castle of Friendship

Princess Twilight Sparkle was sitting in the map room of her castle, grading some papers from her students at the school. She smiles and takes a sip from her tea as Spike, her #1 assistant, brings her a sandwich.

“Here, Twilight.” said Spike. “I thought you might be hungry. You have been sitting here awhile."

“Thank you, Spike. It has been a long day.” Twilight thanked the young dragon before using her magic to lift the sandwich and take a bite. “Where are the others?”

“Currently, they are taking care of a few things at the School of Friendship,” Spike answered.

“That’s good,” said Twilight with contentment. “Today is the start of a week-long break for our students.”

Spike only chuckled at the mention of the school break. After Cozy Glow tried to steal all the magic from Equestria, Princess Twilight and her friends agreed to give their students, especially Silverstream, Gallus, Smolder, Sandbar, Yona, and Ocellus, a week off from school to destress themselves. After all, they’ve done plenty to earn this time off.

“What are you going to do for the time off?” Spike asked, breaking a minute-long silence.

“We are just going to relax ‘till school picks back up next week,” said Twilight.

“Yeah. It’s not like two disasters will happen back-to-back, right?” Spike joked.

After Spike and Twilight chuckled a bit and things quieted down, a low soft rumbling could be heard. The tea in Twilight’s cup began to ripple, and the light shining through the windows began to darken.

“Spike!?” Twilight spoke with a small amount of fear.

“I know!” Spike shouted while putting his hand to his face in embarrasment. “Me and my big mouth!”

Twilight Sparkle rushes to her balcony and flings the doors open. She looks outside, and a huge shadow begins to cover Ponyville as if Princess Luna was raising the moon too early. Twilight looked up and was completely shocked by what she saw. A huge metallic vessel that appeared to be heavily damaged was flying overhead. Two words were painted on the side that read ‘AD MELIORA.’

However, it wasn’t alone. Next to the flying vessel was another flying contraption, but was colored a deep purple and around three times larger than the first one. Out of nowhere, a giant beam fires out from the side of the purple ship, and strikes the gray ship. A huge explosion comes from the ship, causing Twilight’s castle to shake from the shockwave. Debris began to fall, as running ponies below scramble to get out of the way. Princess Twilight quickly flies up using her wings, and uses her magic to grab ahold of the larger pieces of burning metal. The debris she couldn’t catch, ended up crashing down below, destroying houses and severely damaging the courthouse.

The metallic contraption, with the name Ad Meliora, began to dip, and was approaching closer to the ground. The purple one then pulls away, and begins to pull upward and fly back into the air. The Ad Meliora was flying towards the Everfree forest, before crashing hard into the ground, the impact feeling like an earthquake. Looking back up, the Purple ship was now high into the sky, and hovered above ominously.

Twilight couldn't believe what she saw as many of the residents in Ponyville were now scrambling all over in a panic. Twilight lands back on her balcony where Spike had stayed, his eyes wide as dinner plates and his jaw practically to the floor.

“What…in Celestia’s name…was that!?” Spike yelled, clearly shaking from the scenario.

“I have no idea!” Twilight exclaimed. “But somepony could have gotten seriously hurt from all that debris! We need to see for ourselves! Come on, Spike!”

With that out of the way, Princess Twilight and Spike fly towards the now ruined Courthouse; it was impressive how it was still standing. They land where the front doors used to be and walk inside.

There were many ponies running about, but Princess Twilight was looking for the Mayor. She steps further inside and finds Mayor Mare sitting at a chair talking to Nurse Redheart. Mayor Mare was holding her head as some blood seeped out around her hoof.

“Mayor Mare!” Twilight exclaimed as she approached her. “Are you alright!?”

“Princess Twilight.” said the Mayor as she turned to face the Alicorn. “I’m okay. Nothing too serious.”

“Is everypony else okay?” Twilight asked, looking over to see if she could help.

“I don’t know, honestly.” said the Mayor. “Huge chunks of metal crashed through my office. I was lucky to only be hit in the head by a smaller piece. Most of it was a blur.”

The Lavender Alicorn could understand her. The whole thing happened so fast.

Turning to her #1 assistant, Twilight said “You stay here, Spike. I’m going to search here and the town for anypony else who may be injured.”

Spike nodded before Twilight turned and galloped out.

Twilight stepped out of the courthouse to find a very sporadic and agitated Rainbow Dash.

“Twilight!” the rainbow-maned Pegasus said with relief before darting to her friend. “What in the hay just happened!?”

“Didn’t you see that giant hunk of metal flying over Ponyville!?" Twilight asked.

“Yeah,” said Rainbow, quickly nodding. “And the purple one!”

The pair of ponies looked up at the purple vessel, which was still hovering in the sky.

“Well, I witnessed the purple one shoot out a big blue beam at the other one, causing debris to fall all over Ponyville!” Twilight said. “I managed to stop some of it, but many houses are still destroyed.”

Rainbow Dash paid close attention to her friend before asking, “What exactly are those things? Where did they come from? And what are they doing here, damaging Ponyville?”

“I don’t know, but we shouldn’t be worried about it yet.” Twilight said with urgency. “Right now, we need to rally some ponies to find survivors.”

“You got it, Twi!” the Pegasus replied with a salute. Eventually, the pair flew into Ponyville together.

The Ad Meliora crash site…

Sirens continued to blare throughout the Ad Meliora after the crash landing. Captain McCormick

“Reagan.” McCormick said to the A.I as he appeared on the nearby pedestal. “Damage report.”

“All primary engines are currently offline, captain.” said Reagan as he gave a look of worry. “The defenses are heavily damaged, but still intact.”

“Alright.” the Captain replied before adding, “What about casualties?”

“Minimal, to say the least, sir.” Reagan replied, which was enough to assure McCormick.

“Good.” he said before readjusting his hat. “Now, have our engineers begin repairing the ship, ASAP. Also, have our Marines set up some tents around the crash site. I want all wounded to be patched up.”

“Including civies?” Reagan asked, earning a hardened nod from the Captain. “Er… Yes, sir.”

After that, Reagan disappeared on the pedestal to carry out his orders. Later, the bridge crew resumed. McCormick then turned to his right, to look at a rather large soldier in armor, a Spartan.

“Is there something you want me to do, sir?” Spartan Maverick asked.

"Good to see you son, In fact I do." Said the captain as he placed his arms behind his back again.

1 hour later…

Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash managed to calm down a few panicking ponies and form a search squad, looking for ponies still trapped in the destroyed houses. They were able to rescue a few ponies still trapped inside their houses, and thankfully, no pony had been killed, but many were injured pretty badly.

After rescuing many ponies and noticing no immediate danger, Twilight sits down on the steps of the Courthouse. She takes a deep breath as if she had been working hard to help save ponies from various wreckages. Rainbow Dash flies up to her and lands.

“I think we rescued everypony in Ponyville.” said Rainbow Dash.

"That’s good.” Twilight sighed with relief before asking, “Have you seen the others?”

“Yeah.” the rainbow-maned Pegasus said. “Thankfully, Rarity’s house was only slightly damaged. I told them to meet us here at the Courthouse when we were done."

“Good. Thanks for your help, Rainbow.” said Twilight, her gratitude clear in her tone. Within no time, the other Element bearers began to show up to meet with Rainbow Dash and Twilight. All of them seem deeply concerned about what just happened.

“Twilight! Rainbow!” Applejack shouted. "Thank Celestia, ye’re both okay.”

“We’re fine.” Twilight nodded. “Whatever those things were, they didn’t get anywhere near my castle. Though I wish I could say the same for everypony else here. Are you girls okay?”

Fluttershy was shaking pretty bad. She was at her cottage and got to experience the large flying ship land in the forest not to far away from her home.

“Yeah. My brother and I were harvesting apples when I saw the whole spectacle!" Applejack said.

With that out of the way, the Princess of Friendship looks up to the sky, and so does rest. Way up high in the sky, the purple aircraft could still be visible, but it had to be miles in the sky.

“What exactly is that thing?” Applejack asked as she removed her hat to prevent it from falling off her head as she looked upwards. “Ah’ve never seen anythin’ like it.”

“I have no idea,” said Twilight. “but judging by that destructive laser it shot, there is no way it came in peace.”

“How on Equis can something that big, and made of metal, fly that high?” Asked Rarity. “What about the other flying…uh… thing?”

“It crashed-landed in the Everfree Forest.” Spike answered.

“Oh my!” Fluttershy gasped in worry. “The animals must be so scared!”

Everypony was now looking towards the direction of the Everfree Forest. They looked at each other. They all knew what they had to do.

“Are you girls thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Twilight.

“We should go into the Everfree Forest and find that crazy floaty thingy and see if any pony is in there, and then throw them a welcome-to-Ponyville party!?” Pinkie excitedly asked.

“Yes!” said Twilight. “Well, no… I mean… yes and no! We need to check out whatever that thing was and see if anypony is alright… if they are friendly.”

“W-what if we tell Princess Celestia about this, and she goes to look into it?” Fluttershy asked, nervous about checking out a mysterious flying object.

“Well, I’m a Princess myself, and since I am the closest, I am obligated to investigate what has happened. I will send a letter to Celestia informing her what has happened and then update her on what I have found.”

“If ya say so, Twilight.” said Applejack. “We’ll join you in investigatin’ that flyin’ metal Whatchamacallit.”

Twilight gave the Earth Pony a nod before turning to face her #1 assistant. “Spike, I need you to write a letter to Celestia.”

“Of course, Twilight.” said Spike pulling out a quill and paper as Twilight clears her throat.

“Dear Princess Celestia,” She began as Spike begins writing. “You are not going to believe what just happened! I was at my Castle when a loud rumbling noise haphazardly came. When I stepped outside, I witnessed these two metal contraptions flying directly over Ponyville. They were massive! Just one of them could possibly fit the entire population of Manehatten inside.”

“To make a long story short, one of them fired a bright blue beam into the other, damaging it significantly to crash somewhere into the Everfree Forest. Falling debris caused some moderate damage to Ponyville, but thankfully, no pony was killed. As the Princess of Friendship, me and my friends will head out to investigate what exactly it was that crash-landed. I hope to hear from you soon.”

Twilight finished with, “Your former student, Princess Twilight Sparkle.”

Upon finishing, spike ignited the scroll in flames, sending it to Celestia.

“No time to waste girls, let’s go check this object out.” Twilight announced, her friends stepping close to her. “Spike, I would like for you to remain here in case anypony else needs help.”

“You got it Twilight!” Spike Saluted as the ponies ran off towards the forest.