Phantoms Of The Past

Chapters

Chapter 1: Unto the Breach (Revised)
Chapter 2: Recovery (Revised)
Chapter 3: Recognition (Revised)
Chapter 4: Portrayal
Chapter 5: Introductions
Chapter 6: Progress
Chapter 7: Thin ice (Part 1)
Authors note

Chapter 1: Unto the Breach (Revised)

Phantoms Of The Past

By: AceTriggerhappy

*Hunter sighed* “This day just couldn’t get any worse could it?” Every alarm and warning light that could go off was; and explosions could be felt through the entire ship.

“Athena, I need a damage report!” Hunter shouted to the AI.

”Sensors are reporting fires on all decks, hull breaches detected in sector A and F, reactor containment is reporting major failure all exhaust plasma is venting into engineering, and life support if failing throughout the ship.” Athena chimed in.

Suddenly he could feel a reverberation through the floor as everything that wasn’t secured began to float around the room.

“Hunter, Sensors are showing that artificial gravity is now offline.”

“Ya think?” He said sarcastically.

Hunter drifted over to the main view ports at the front of the bridge. “Well something must have worked right on this damned ship if I’m seeing a planet instead of a fleet. Athena, can you get any kind of reading on that planet or our location, and set a navpoint on my HUD for the nearest lifeboat.”

“All external sensors are offline; and right before we jumped, the station’s AI was able to gain brief access to some of the systems… all life boats were jettisoned” Hunter drifted. *no life boats means no getting off this ship before it crashes and burns need to think of an alternative!* He thought. “Athena! Are there…” all orbital insertion pods were also jettisoned right before the jump.” She commented cutting him off.

“Fuck… well then, anything else on this ship that can survive reentry or are we stuck on this metal scrapheap plummeting to the surface of a planet? Hunter asked the AI.

“No, but inventory shows two Falcon class gunship’s and one Nighthawk class dropship in the hangar bay if it makes you feel any better.”

“Not really, and how can the UES can drop trillions of fucking credits into this ship but they can’t bother putting in a Phoenix class dropship…” He was cut short in his rant by an explosion nearby, the shrapnel pinged harmlessly off his armor.

“Hunter I’ve set a nav point leading to the ships CNC, schematics show it’s a citadel set up; double reinforced blast doors and honeycombed bulkheads. I calculate your chances of surviving the crash if you secure yourself down in there at 24%.” Athena offered.

“Well, it’s a lot higher than what you’ve given me and the team on our ops.” Hunter replied.

Before departing the ships bridge hunter floated over to a console and set all probes and satellites that were set up in their tubes to be launched, after he confirmed they had started to launch he made his way to the command and control room located at the center of the ship.

“Athena, do you have any estimate till we hit the ground?” Hunter asked. “about four minutes and thirty-nine seconds, would you like a timer?” Athena asked. “Yes.” He remarked.

Hunter made his way into the CNC and hit the door switch watching the two blast doors close and seal with a hiss, he didn’t bother locking them as if he did survive the crash he didn’t want to have to experience again getting locked blastdoors opened with no power especially if they were damaged. He drifted his way to one of the seats on the far wall to notice the seats were too small for him to fit in with his armor on. He checked the time on his HUD while pulling out two small cables from his utility belt, the timer read *3:12* and was counting down fast. He hooked both cables to points on his armor then placed the other ends to the wall behind him and set off the thermite charge adhering them to the wall. *2:32*

“Hunter?”

“Yes, Athena?”

“I’m sorry about the others.” She said with synthesized sorrow in her voice.

“It’s not your fault, Razor decided that I was to be the one to survive while he and the others would hold their ground…. poor bastards.” he commented as the ship began to lurch and groan as it punched its way through the atmosphere. *0:21*

“It’s been an honor serving with you and the team, Hunter.” Athena said in simple tone.

“Likewise.” Hunter remarked as the ship made first contact with the ground the initial jolt snapped the cables that tethered him to the wall throwing him across the room he felt a sharp pain explode through his side before blacking out.

____________________________________________________________________________________

It looked like any other night that Luna kept a watch over but tonight was special it was the last night the comet would glow in the night sky.

“You know legend says that special events happen on the comets final passing day.” Celestia spoke out, making Luna’s ears perk up. Luna turned her head to see her sister walking out hovering a tray of tea in front of her.

“I know Tia I’ve read those dusty old tomes but I’ve yet to see anything interesting nor have I read about anything major since the last three recordings of its passing.” Luna commented. Celestia set the tray of tea down before speaking again and sitting next to her younger sister.”

“And yet … I’ve seen a few old legends come to pass the last few hundred years” Celestia spoke with a smile but it quickly faded when she watched Luna turn her head away with a hurt expression on her face

“Like mine?” Luna said with mournful tone.

“Luna, I never meant anything by that and I still regret the hasty decision I made back then, your my sister and no pony should ever have to do something like that…. One day never went by without me mourning for you.” Celestia ended her comment by offering Luna a cup of tea.

Luna accepted it and took a sip and with a smile, “You still haven’t gotten any better at making tea while I was away”

Celestia gave a small chuckle “ I guess I haven’t.”

Luna leaned her head against her older sister enjoying the warmth she gave off on this cold night. Both of them felt a sudden change to the air and looked up to see a beautiful aurora light up in a small part of the sky.

“And I thought you said nothing interesting was going to happen tonight” Celestia said while nuzzling her sisters neck”

“ I said I had yet to see…. What’s that?” Celestia looked up at the sky to where Luna was pointing.

“I … I ... It looks like a meteor, perhaps a piece of the comet broke off?” Celestia said to her sister.

“Oooo, I hope it doesn’t burn up! Imagine finding an intact piece!” Luna said, quivering with excitement.

Celestia started to get a sinking feeling in her stomach as the fireball grew bigger and bigger “I take back what I said” Luna remarked to herself in a nervous tone. They both watched the massive fireball streak across the sky before disappearing over the horizon to the north seconds later a flash could be seen followed not too long after by a low rumble. Celestia got up quickly and addressed her sister: “Luna, find Commander Redoubt and have him send out scouts to see if the Crystal Empire was affected by the impact and to attempt to locate whatever crashed to the ground, I must make preparations for the morning to address any fears that may arise.” As her sister hurried back into the castle Luna took flight looking for the commander of the royal guards.

Chapter 2: Recovery (Revised)

Luna was nervous, she couldn’t get the thought out of her head that whatever had crashed could have hit the Crystal Empire or landed close enough to cause significant damage. The Empire had only come back recently and she would be horrified if it disappeared just as quickly.

That’s why she insisted to her sister that she come and investigate personally even though Celestia disproved of this reckless act and had the commander escort her personally for her well being. Though on the upside, her being here means she could help relay a message back to Canterlot faster than what it normally would take and if everything turned out to be fine, she could get to study whatever object had crash landed somewhere within the Crystal Mountains, of course, if that’s where it landed.

“Calm yourself, Princess. I’m sure if anything had happened to the Empire we would have gotten a message before we had even gotten half way here.” Princess Luna turned her head to look at the royal guard commander sitting next to her in the chariot.

He was the new replacement for Shining Armor when he left to stand by Cadence’s side in the Crystal Empire, and whose looks told her he had a lot of experience, the very rugged looking unicorn stallion had a dark grey coat and a black mane with white streaks in it but the main features that caught every ponies eyes was that half his horn was missing, being lost to a new weapon the Griffons had developed in the last war with Equestria almost three decades ago. Luna couldn’t for the life of her remember what it was called. There was also distracting fact of a deep scar that ran down from the left side of his brow and across his left eye which was hidden at the moment by an eye patch. Luna yet had to hear the story on how he had come across that.

“ Commander Redoubt with all respect, it is hard to stay calm with so much uncertainty in the air at this time.” She replied to the commander .

“Princess, like I said, if something were to happen we would have heard of something by now, and the scouts should be back with a report any moment.” Not too long after the commander had spoken one of the escorting Pegasus nearby shouted over to the commander.

“Commander, one of the scouts are on their way back!” Sure enough ,a light green Pegasus up a head of the escort started to bank and maneuver his way next to the chariot that held the Princess and the commander.

“Sir, reporting on the Crystal Empire, the object from the sky missed the royal city and landed within the mountains to the north west about 85 kilometers away, but the Empire’s own scouts report that it doesn’t look anything like a rock, instead resembling something artificially made.” Luna breathed a sigh of relief that the Crystal Empire was unscathed but she was now puzzled at what the object could be, if it wasn’t a meteor or part of the comet.

“Thank you for the report, Soldier. Head out towards the crash site and tell the ground teams there to expect us within 45 minutes”, the commander told the Scout, and with that, the scout flew off ahead to the crash site to have them prepare for their arrival.

Hunter awoke but was groggy, looking out of his visor everything was a blurred mess he could hardly concentrate on any single object without feeling light headed, as he tried to move a massive hot spike of pain shot up his side causing him to black out again.

They were nearing the crash site, now coming in behind it following the massive furrows it left in the ground stretching for almost three kilometers. When they had first met up with a scout to show them to the crash site she had lead them through a gap in the peaks. Once they reached the other side Luna had noticed below them were massive chunks of rocks that looked freshly broken off due to the lack of snow accumulating around them. She realized that whatever had come crashing down had plowed straight through the peaks causing a massive land-slide. Whatever caused this must have been massive. As they neared, she could see smoke rising and started to spot numerous pieces of debris strewn about everywhere. Luna was fixated on the damage below her that she never to bother to look ahead until the commander had gasped: “ By harmony, its massive!”

Luna looked forward to see them approaching a massive object that was at least 300 meters long and about 60 meters high, but it was too difficult to tell from the odd shape of it how wide it was.

Once they landed an indigo pony approached them and made a quick bow towards Luna. “Greetings, Princess Luna and Commander Redoubt. I am Lieutenant Gallant of the Crystal guards.“

“Greetings Lieutenant, is there anything you can tell us of this uh…?”

The lieutenant finished her sentence. “ By what we have gathered it seems to be a airship, but were not sure who or what made it but we have found that towards what seems to be the bow,” He said, circling his hoof toward the front of the ship. “There seems to be runes and they look to be the same ones we use and it almost sounds like a name for the ship.” Grabbing a piece of parchment off the table, Lieutenant Gallant read the translated name: “ The name, or whatever it is painted on the bow reads: “UESS Unto The Breach”.

The lieutenant finished and handed the parchment to Luna. After Luna was done looking at it she placed it back on the table and asked the lieutenant.

“Have you or any pony found a way into this… ship?”. She mimicked the motion the lieutenant had done early when pointing at the name of the object.

The indigo pony replied: “We have found several breaches large enough to squeeze through to get into the structure itself. They were caused from the hard landing it took, but we haven’t been able to make great progress as the insides are strewn with debris and it seems most of the lower floors are collapsed or crushed from the landing.”

Luna eyed the ship. It had taken a lot of damage on landing, most of the bottom she could see was crushed and mangled but otherwise seemed fairly intact considering the outer hull was still on and not ripped off from the impact from the peaks. However, the sides farther up were a different story. Cracks and rends were everywhere some almost looked like some great beast tried to rip it apart.

“If you two follow me I believe some of the groups have made headway on the starboard side where one of the wings have been ripped off and we might be able to get in from there”

Luna and the Commander followed the indigo pony to the right side of the ship, where she could finally start to see the inside of the ship.

“It seems it hit the peaks on this side ripping the wing off and tearing off chunks of its hull, and I can’t even fathom what kind of punishment this thing was truly designed for, it has a double hull with many reinforcement struts that look to be designed to crumple, and the hull plating itself is about one and one half meters thick for the outer hull and about one meter thick on the inner hull.

“You seem very versed in ship design, Lieutenant.” Luna remarked.

“ My family owned a small sail-boat that we would take up and down the Eastern coast. I had helped my father build it. He loved that boat, loved how we smiled when we were on it with him, until Sombra rose to power. His heart sank with that ship… but enough about my gloomy past, we have a ship of alien design sitting here that needs to be secured on the inside.”

Leading them forward the lieutenant motioned for a cerise unicorn pony to come over. “This is Star Whistle, she’s been leading the research team. If you’ll excuse me, I have other duties I need to attend to, so I’ll turn you over to her”

Once the lieutenant started to walk away Star Whistle gave a quick bow. “An honor to meet you, Princess and you, Commander”

Luna gave a nod of her head before talking. “Have you anything noteworthy to offer on this ship?” Luna asked the cerise unicorn.

“Well to start, it’s definitely not pony-made nor does it seem to be anything from any other Empire and even for griffons it’s just way too advanced, but so far, all the words we’ve come across we can understand fine. You’d think if it were truly an alien vessel we would not be able to understand it. Also, something this large should house hundreds of living things if not thousands, yet we’ve found no trace of anything living coming out and what parts we have explored inside show nothing either, nor have we seen any kind of corpse, and a crash like this should have produced some kind of casualty. Luna didn’t like the sound of there possibly being thousands of aliens, especially if they didn’t know if they were friendly or not.

“Perhaps, if there are survivors, they could possibly be in a part of the ship that would be more resistant to the crash?” the Princess asked.

“It’s plausible that they could be in the center or perhaps the upper floors they seem to have taken little to no damage out here, if you’re not busy I could show you the inside?” Star Whistle offered. Before Luna could reply the commander finally spoke up after standing idly listening to the conversations.

“Princess, with respect I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to blindly move around an alien ship when we hardly know anything about it, for all we know anything that survived could attack out of panic or just instinct if there a hostile race”

Luna turned towards the commander standing behind her: “Commander I respect your concern for my wellbeing, but I can handle myself, and since I’m representing the kingdom of Equestria while my sister is dealing with any back-lash from the sighting of this thing, it’s in our best interest to pursue diplomacy, If we can understand their writing, there’s a good chance they can understand what we’re saying and the last thing we want is to become enemies with beings that can build an airship, that can travel through space, and who can tell what other advanced technologies they can wield. If it makes you feel any better, stay to the front of me and bring some of the escort with us.” Luna stood her ground.

“I’m guessing I’m never going to win this argument, but I’ll go along with your plan but only if I’m at the front.” The Commander said while motioning to the escort a bit behind them, having several of them move up. Once the entourage was formed they began to head toward a break into the ship that would allow them access once they were inside lanterns were given out to provide light so they could see in the dark corridors.

Hunter awoke again this time a lot less groggy but still having a hard time making out shapes. The pain in his side was powerful and felt like someone was stabbing him with several hot pokers, trying not to move his body too much he reached over and felt his side it was slick. Bringing his hand closer to his visor and turning on a flashlight on his helmet he saw it was crimson, reaching over again to try and feel the extent of the wound only to find resistance. It dawned on him he was impaled on something, which was troubling, the force it would take for him to get impaled on something that could punch through the thin but overlapping titanium plates and also get through the ballistic Nano layer, the Nano layer itself was built to withstand upwards to several fifty caliber armor piercing rounds before it began to fail.

“Fuck, this day does get better doesn’t it, Athena, you still with me?” He asked aloud in a cracking voice but received no response from the AI “Athena?” Hunter asked again, but again silence. “Damn crash must have knocked everything offline.”

He thought aloud “Gonna have to either pull this damn thing out or pull myself off of it before I bleed out any more”.

Speaking aloud to himself again Hunter pulled on the thing he was impaled on but it showed no sign of budging

“Lovely, looks I get to have all the fun today” Hunter reached out to find something firm to gain leverage on, once he found it he prepared to pull himself off the piece of metal he was impaled on. With the added strength from the artificial muscle the Nano layer gave Hunter he wrenched himself off the impromptu spike before letting out a howl of pain.

“Did you hear that?” Luna asked to no particular pony.

“Sounds like something survived and it sounds like it’s in a lot of pain.” Star Whistle answered.

“All the reason not to find it, last thing we want to do is corner a wounded beast.” The commander responded.

“Or we could try and help it to show it we mean no harm. Like I said, it might understand us, every word we have seen in this ship we can understand what’s not to think it won’t understand us?” The princess remarked to the commander.

“Nothing good will come out of chasing down an injured creature, but if we do find it and it shows any aggression you're leaving even if the rest of the guards have to drag you out” Redoubt snorted before leading the group on again.

Hunter was clasping his side trying to find the medical station any normal person would have bled out by now but unlike a normal soldier who only had a basic neural implant Hunter and the rest of his team had several augmentations, with most useful being billions of nanite robots swimming through his bloodstreams supplying almost seventy times more oxygen than a normal blood cell would hold, plus they boosted him immune system by assisting his normal immune system attacking foreign objects and the best part, which was helping him stay alive was they also assisted in greatly speeding up tissue repair. As Hunter rounded a corner he was briefly blinded by a light overloading his visors LLE (low light enhancement). Hunter threw his arms in front of his visor to block most of the light.

They had heard heavy thumps coming closer but before they could tell where it was coming from a massive bipedal figure came around the corner standing easily over two meters tall encased in a black metallic suit. Once it lowered its forelegs from in front of its face, Luna saw what seemed to be a massive blue eye set within the upper part of what almost looked like some kind of helmet that also had what seemed to be a white skull painted on the front of its helmet that made her freeze in place terrified, until something else caught her eye on its left side. It seemed to be leaking some reddish liquid, and it dawned on her it was bleeding and by the amount of blood everywhere it was a very serious wound.

Hunter was baffled when his visor adjusted to the light he saw at least a dozen what looked to be horses in several shapes and colors but what was truly was crazy was that there were lanterns hovering in front of them. Once the initial shock was gone Hunter took off in a hobbled jog trying to get away from…whatever he saw “ I gotta be hallucinating from all this blood loss no way in hell would a dozen horses be roaming around a ship with armor and lanterns in front of them hovering” he said to himself. Hunter managed to find one of the medical wings before collapsing to a knee he could feel the blackness of unconsciousness creeping up on him, he fought with all his willpower to push it back he crawled to a medical cabinet and ripped the doors of the hinge’s trying to find the medical salve to stop the bleeding but his will power ran out as he had grasped the container and collapse to the floor.

The group had followed the trail of blood to what looked like a medical wing where they heard a crashing noise, Luna managed to nudge her way to the front of the group before Redoubt could complain and pull her back Luna had squeezed by and entered the room to find the alien face down in pile of what seemed to be medical supplies that had fallen out of cabinet that now hung loosely from the wall Luna walk up to it slowly and nudged it foreleg it didn’t respond but she could hear what sounded like sporadic breathing she quickly turned to the group now pouring into the room.

“If we don’t help it now it’s going to die, help me clear away the mess and somepony find something that can be used as a bandage!” she looked back at the poor creature bleeding out in front of her “If we do save this thing what are we going to do princess when it wakes up?” the commander asked Luna in a concerned tone, but Luna wasn’t paying attention to what the commander had asked her, she was fixated on what the creature had in its hoof wait no claw? Or is it a paw? Luna decided against trying to figure out what it was and more on what it decided to grab before passing out she picked it up with her magic and looked at it, it read *Class A Medical Salve High strength, fast acting –Critical wounds only.* She knew that it had to have grabbed this for its wound opening the top of it she was hit by a very powerful smell that she couldn’t place, putting a hoof in front of her nose to block the smell she poured the contents onto the wound and used her magic to spread it evenly, quickly she noticed that that wound stopped bleeding and the gel started to harden into a protective cast moments later his breathing seemed to become normal.

One of the guards managed to find bandages and placed them in front of her. “help me roll him over so we can get these bandaged on him secured” she told the ponies standing around her. Several of the guards made their way over to the creatures good side and started to push. Luna helped with her magic and realized that the creature in all of this armor weighs a good quarter ton. After getting its wounds dressed and getting several unicorns inside to help move the creature outside.

Once it was outside and on level ground the lieutenant came running up: “I can’t believe it you managed to find one alive?! Were there any others?” the lieutenant stammered.

“This is the only one we’ve seen so far.” Somepony responded.

“Why does it have a skull painted on its face? What would possess a creature to put something so horrid onto itself?” Star Whistle asked.

“Who knows, probably a warning of some kind to scare off predators or anything that was being hostile to it or it could just be, y’know, a way to demoralize an enemy, throw him off with such a ghastly display.” The commander offered his insight.

Luna spoke: “Either way we need to get him to Canterlot so it can get medical attention and hopefully and peacefully get some answers from it.”

“Why not the Crystal Empire? It’s a lot closer than Canterlot or any place in Equestria at the moment.” The lieutenant pointed out.

Luna responded: “Because the Crystal Empire is still piecing itself together after being gone for a thousand years! I don’t want to risk upsetting all the work Cadence and Shining have done because of this creature. Also, on the way back to Canterlot, I can send a letter to my sister and have everything prepared in time for arrival.”

“Point taken, Princess. I’ll have word sent to bring some more reinforcements to secure the wreck and hopefully contain any situation if we find another one of the creatures.”

After Luna wrote a quick letter to her sister, she help the others get the creature secured in the chariot. Several more pegasi had to be brought up to be able to move the massive creature, leaving several of the guards stranded, as there weren’t enough now to pull the other chariot’s and to the commander’s distaste, he was forced to ride another one as there wasn’t enough room on Luna’s with the creature on it.

Chapter 3: Recognition (Revised)

Celestia rubbed the side of her head, for she had just finished up with the last group of ponies looking for insight on what had transpired last night and a headache had set in not too long ago and, to make matters worse, she was also anxious to hear back from her sister. It was late in the morning when she had gotten the first report stating that the Crystal Empire was unscathed by the crash and that her sister and the escort with her had made it with no trouble> However, the crash site had turned up something interesting and her sister was examining it with one of the small science teams sent from the Empire.

*”I wish I could have sent Spike and Twilight with you, so I could at least get detailed reports back in real time instead of waiting for some vague one to be relayed across the country”* Celestia thought to herself. One of her royal guards walked in and bowed, seeking the princess’s attention.

“Your highness, a message with the royal seal has just arrived.” Celestia thanked the guard as she took the message and broke the seal, looking upon the parchment in her sisters script she read:

*Dearest Sister,

I hope you have read in the report sent upon my arrival. Do not worry, the Crystal Empire is well and the object's landing has left no serious impact on the surrounding area. It has, however, greatly complicated matters for us. As much as I would like to divulge into the matter at hand, I must digress and have you send the guards to the Castle’s hospital. It must be secured and emptied of all except the medical staff, and both guards and staff must prepare for the arrival of a high-status casualty.

–Luna*

Celestia was concerned. The only reason for Luna to be so vague, is if the information was too sensitive to fall into the wrong hoofs. What could have happened at that crash site? Also, what of the so called “high-status casualty”? If anypony was hurt, the closest place for medical attention would be the Crystal Empire, not Canterlot. Unless ... something was found at the crash site that was too risky to be brought to the Empire. Was it possibly a creature from the crash that was still alive? Could it be some sort of alien thing?

Celestia looked up at the royal guard, who was waiting to be dismissed: “Sergeant, if you please, head down to the hospital in the castle’s west wing, and have everypony but the medical staff led out. Tell the doctors to prepare for a high-status casualty, and secure the perimeter around it with double the amount of guards. I also want the connected courtyard cleared out and all guard training in the courtyard is hereby canceled until further notice.”

The guard saluted the Princess before taking off to the hospital. Celestia sighed, after spending the day calming everyponies fear, she’d have to answer some tough questions tomorrow regarding the castle’s shut-down West Wing.

Luna looked at the sun, and judged by where it was at they should make it back to the capital right after sundown. That meant she would have to raise the moon on the way there. The good news was that the cover of night would help them get the creature into the castle without too many prying eyes. Luna looked at the creature secured next to her, and she watched its chest slowly rise and fall. She was relieved to know it was still alive. Without the commander berating her on how she was being reckless in her decision on having the creature secured on her chariot instead of his, she was calm. He did make a valid point she was being pretty careless about her safety but she wanted to be able to closely study the creature on her way back to Canterlot without the commander being in the way.

As she studied the creature she took in the detail of his armor. The craftsmanship was beyond what any blacksmith in Equestria, if not the entire word would ever hope to achieve, and it also has seen a lot of punishment scratches, gouges, dents, even small chunks were missing from all over the armor. It also wore a bandolier that connect to its belt, everywhere on it and the belt where small pouches holding endless possibility of small items and tools the creature needed, to its left hip connected to the belt looked like a kind of hard sheath that held an L shaped object in place and behind it looked to be throwing knifes. On its right hip, secured in a leather sheath, sat a fairly large knife. She used her magic to slowly remove it to give it a closer look, it looked very old and by all the tarnishes along the blade it had seen a lot of use. Luna carefully placed it back in its sheath she continued to look and noticed several more knife handles, a couple of them secured to its greaves almost hidden into the armor itself, another handle jutted from behind its back secured at the waist, and the final handle, she saw, was secured into the back of its armor with the handle set to be easily pulled over its left shoulder. By the size of the handle it looked to possibly be more of a sword than a knife. The amount of weapons the creature had on it unsettled her, what kind of life did this creature have to live to be at the point it carried a small arsenal around with it?

Celestia had just made it outside to see Luna and her escort touch down. She quickly trotted up to her sister to see what required all the secrecy. “Luna what is it you have found that required me to block off almost a third of the castle?” she asked her sister. Luna had concerned look on her face and pointed to the back of the chariot she stood next to.

Celestia looked over the side of the chariot, her eyes widened. “By the Elements..” Luna quickly brought her sister’s attention back to her.

“We need to get him inside quickly and see if we can heal its wounds before it is lost to us.” Celestia ordered the guards to form a circle and had several of the unicorns with them to lift the creature out of the chariot and onto a gurney. By their facial expressions the creature was either incredibly heavy, or largely resistant to magic.

Once they had gotten it inside the hospital, the nurses got to work trying to figure out how to remove its armor. It took several minutes to locate all of the clasps that held the armor plates together and undo them with magic. Every piece that was taken off was put onto the table on the far side of the room.

While in the middle of lifting the chest piece off the nurse that was levitating it let out a yelp as the piece came crashing to the floor shattering the tile underneath. “It was a lot heavier than it looked” the nurse said with an apologetic tone. The final piece they had left to take off was it’s helmet, and it was the most difficult, for after undoing the clasps they had to turn two different rings two different directions. They heard a click and then a hiss as the seal that held the helmet to the black suit it wore under the armor released. Everypony in the room let out a small gasp as the helmet came off, under it was a creature that nopony has ever seen. It had little to no fur on its lightly tanned colored face its black mane was cropped extremely close to the head almost shaved completely off and there were scars and large pockmarks everywhere on its face and head, the most visible being a sickly white scar that extended from the top of its right ear and going down its cheek to end in the middle of its chin.

Once the initial shock was over the nurses began the vain attempt at removing its suit but all attempts failed at locating any kind of seam and they even tried to cut into it but only resulted in breaking the scissors and knives they used.

Giving up over the frustrating attempt at getting the creature’s suit, off the nurses settled in to removing the hard cast that had formed over the wound. Luna had slightly dressed it using the creatures own medical supplies, but were shocked to find most of the wound already healed compared to how Luna found it. After only slight resistance a nurse managed to heal the rest of its wounds with magic. Another nurse managed to find its pulse in its neck and though seeming quite weak, it was steady and with nothing else to do but let the medical team study, Celestia and Luna left the room.

Celestia asked one of the nurses. “I would like you to have the creature secured to the bed in case it wakes. I’m sure it will be scared and confused upon awakening” and with that the sisters left the room.

“Luna, you need to go and rest. You’ve had an extremely adventurous day and I will need your help tomorrow sorting everything out.” Before Luna could protest her sister replied again

“I’ll take your watch tonight and I will personally wake you if there is a development, now go little sister. All will be fine.” Luna, physically drained from today’s events, heeded her sister’s advice and left for her tower.

Hunter started to dream. At first, his dreams wandered everywhere from magical talking horses to his days at basic training, but then his dreams started to settle on one particular moment in time that happened not too long ago.

2 Hours before the crash-landing.

“Razor, nothing feels right about this mission... Why the hell is the council sending us all the way out here to Epsilon Reticuli on security detail when they have the 16th carrier group and 39th support fleet surrounding Aegis 2 station! Hell, they even got the 189th brigade sitting here with their thumbs up there ass.” The soldier said with a scowl under his helmet.

“Relax, Raptor. I’m not too trusting about this mission either. If our little informant is right then the council is up to no good, then you should be thanking me for talking you into wearing a heavy combat set, and besides, if you get scared you can hide behind Fatal” Razor said while the gun nut Fatal gave a hearty chuckle behind them.

Seconds later another voice came over the radio “Ghost to Razor”.

“I copy, Ghost. Whaddya got for me?” .

“Hunter and I have gotten our gear stowed onboard the ship, your little AI was right. It’s one of the new Breacher class frigates, now let’s just hope she’s wrong about the councils plans… Ghost out.”

“Razor what exactly is our fallback plan if shit hits the fan like Athena is saying?” The massive demolition and engineering expert Voodoo asked.

“If she’s right, and …. let’s hope to hell she’s not, just remember your training and make anyone that gets in the way of us and that ship pay.

Hunter turned to the sounds of heavy boots hitting the stations floor. He began to reach for his rifle when the friend or foe indicator on his HUD listed them as the rest of his teammates. They rounded the corner and moved to the spot near hunter before dropping some of the gear they were carrying.

“About time you guys showed up, Ghost and I were starting to wonder if you didn’t want to come on this little family trip.” Hunter remarked to the group in the most sarcastic way possible.

“Any way, Raptor, check your map. Ghost is already set up and has located a nice spot for you to set up for over watch.” Raptor nodded as he unslung his sniper rifle and started scaling the scaffolding to get up into to the spot that Ghost had figured might make a good sniping point to cover the team if things got out of hand.

“Fatal, Voodoo got some of your favorite toys sitting in the crates back there” Hunter gestured to massive crates behind him. Both moved over to the crates and started to rummage through.

“Good work Hunter , you spot anything to confirm Athens Intel?” Razor asked his second in command clasping him on the shoulder.

“Well, several battleships and cruisers have moved into position to set up a blockade around the ship and I haven’t seen the 189th yet.” All of the sudden the heavy weapon expert behind them let out something sounding like a squeal.

“Aw Hunter I knew you would remember, and you even got the right color!” Hunter and Razor both turned to look at their gun nut hefting a massive chain gun while there demo man shook his head.

But, everyone tensed as a voice came over everyones headset. “ This is Admiral Pozharsky of the United Earthen Systems, special task group Omega you are to stand down and surrender your weapons, you are all under arrest for attempting to hijack a UES ship and attempted treason, this is your only warning.”

“Guess Athena was right after all.” Razor said to his team mates standing around him before replying to the admiral.

“This is team leader, call sign Razor, seems we have a little misunderstanding admiral, seems like you got the wrong guys were just a simple special forces team tasked by the council to make sure nobody touches there boat here, and besides isn’t STG Omega supposed to be nothing but stories of phantoms hiding in the shadows.” Razor replied with malice in his voice.

“Raptor to team, ground forces are moving into our position supported by heavy combat walkers!” Massive thuds could be felt as the 189th moved in on the team. “Razor to team weapons are free ,I repeat, weapons free.” Moments later the gates of hell broke loose against Hunter and the rest of his team.

It was morning and Luna had met up with her sister to check on the doctors and nurses to see if they had any new information regarding the creature. As they walked in they were greeted by a harvest brown unicorn in a white lab coat.

“Greetings Princess Celestia, and Princess Luna. I am Dr. Sparks” giving each a quick bow.

“Have you any updates on the creature, Dr. Sparks?” Celestia asked him.

“Well with the suit that is on it we aren’t able to determine much other than it is artificial to an extent.” Luna gave the Doctor a puzzled look. “To an extent?”

The doctor motioned them to come over to the side of the creature were it was wounded and pointing to the hole in the side. “It’s slowly been getting smaller like its healing itself, but yet it’s not an exoskeleton.” He lifted open the hole and motioning them to look closer.

“You can see that there is a cloth layer, with wires and tubes, that separates the suit from the creatures skin.” Celestia backed away and asked the doctor.

“Well, besides the intriguing characteristics of its suit have you found out anything else like its gender, diet or possibly something like a cutie mark identifying it?”

The doctor looked back at the creature before turning to the two princesses. “Well it appears to be omnivorous, so it should eat anything it deems edible and hopefully not eye us as a potential meal.”

The doctor ended with a small chuckle to notice both princess’s found nothing amusing, he recomposed himself and cleared his throat. “As for a gender, we can’t really tell with the suit it has on but there is a good chance that it is a male do to the ruggedness and its broad shape. As for any kind of identification the only markings we have found are on it’s armor, the skull painted onto its helmet and another symbol painted onto its pauldrons that seems to show a resemblance to the bow and arrow that griffons favor for attacking at range.”

Celestia turned to look at the pile of armor at the far room and asked the doctor: “Speaking of a bow and arrow, after seeing it last night and what Luna has told me this morning, it seems to have weapons still secured to its armor. Have you or any pony find anything out of the ordinary about them?”

The doctor motioned to have them follow him to far side of the room while answering the princess’s question. “We have found a few interesting things about them if you would like to see.”

30 minutes before the crash landing.

“Ghost to team, there bringing a tank up from the rear… SHIT!!! Its aiming at you Raptor get out of there now!”

“positive mov….”

A thunderous boom could be heard as the ceiling above them exploded. Hunter watched as Raptors life sign faded off his hud and the com system was washed out by white noise.

“Ghost fall back now!” Razor shouted into the radio. Everything was falling apart now. They had held the ground for a good part of an hour before things started to go. First Voodoo got hit by a piece of shrapnel from one of the heavy walkers missiles, tearing open his abdomen. He now sat behind them in a pool of blood trying to keep his insides from spilling out while firing his pistol at the approaching attackers but his life signs were starting to get sporadic. Hunter figured he would only last a few more minutes but they couldn’t let up there fire to give him medical attention. The next thing to go was Fatal’s ammunition. His chaingun was the only thing that kept the enemy suppressed but it ran dry almost 20 minutes ago. They sat within a sea of brass, most of it from the chaingun. Then, they finally lost Raptor and with Ghost. Coming back to help hold their position they had no way to counter the enemy snipers.

“Hunter! Get into the ship and jump it out of here!” Razor shouted over the gunfire.

“Negative sir I’m not abandoning any one.” Hunter said while returning fire.

“Dammit, Hunter that’s an order!” Razor started to move were Hunter was taking cover.

“Sir then you’re going to have to have me court-martialed” Hunter retorted before Razor had made his way to him and grabbed his collar and shoving him against the ships airlock door and ripping his helmet off and glared into Hunters visor with cold grey eyes.

“You’re getting out alive this is a lost cause now, Hunter, and your’re only the only bastard I trust to haunt these fuckers to their grave.

“Pulling out a data core stored within collar of his armor he placed it into Hunters gauntlet. And in a relaxed tone

“Take Athena and go, she has all the Intel needed to start a revolution and free the people of this government’s tyranny, as long as you or both of you survive the council will be paranoid of their own shadows waiting for you to strike out. You’re the bloody grim reaper now, Hunter, and I expect you to have their souls when you meet us on the other side.”

Razor hit the door command to open it and tossed Hunter inside before destroying the door panel locking him inside. Without any quick way back off the ship to so he could die with his comrades, Hunter angrily made his way to the bridge plugging the data core into a nearby terminal. Hunter made his way to the helmsman controls at the bridge, he instinctively hit the controls to bring the ships engine online and released the docking arms before throwing the thrust control forward bending it slightly in his anger. Hunter turned to Athena who had appeared on the holographic table.

“Athena set a random jump coordinate I don’t care where as long as it isn’t here and target the nearest ship and fire all weapons at it!”

“I have fixed a random coordinate but an AI on the station is trying to gain control of the ship, I cannot sacrifice any processing power without risk losing the ship.”

Hunter swore and imputed the code Athena had given him and started the jump drives, as they began to charge up a couple of thumps could be felt as part of the ship depressurized.

“Hunter hull breaches detected near the drive core, they seem to be targeting the engines.” Hunter knew if they got another shot off his teams sacrifice would be for nothing.

The jump cores showed they were at 93%. Hunter decided that it was the best he was going to get and punched the command button dumping the power into the main drive core before the enemy ships could fire again. He watched as the light, the other ships, and everything began to bend in front of him as the UESS Unto The Breach jumped into FTL for the first time in her life using a prototype drive core.

Razor leaned back against the crate and dropped his empty rifle, him and Ghost were the only ones left alive as the enemy retreated from the part of the station they were in. Watching as the enemy ships began to turn toward the station.

“Well, Ghost seems like it’s the two of us who get to watch the show.”

Ghost sat down next to Razor and with a shaky hand pulled his helmet off and let it roll out of his hand onto the floor. “It’s been an honor serving with you these last 15 years sir….see you on the other side” Razor nodded and looked out the stations windows were Hunter had jumped with the ship and gave a salute.

“Godspeed mate” Razor leaned back and closed his eyes as the entire fleet fired their main battery’s at the station that held what was left of Omega team.

Hunter began regain consciousness and he heard people talking, but froze hoping that no one saw him stir and to think he was still asleep he listed in on the conversation that was across the room.

“Well, the only things that truly stands out is this sword and whatever this thing is. Its sword seems to be made out of the same type of metal that most of his armor is made out of except the chest plate it’s made of something far more dense than iron and steel, also inside the edge of the blade is another type of metal but other than that. This other thing is the only thing leaving us puzzled nopony is willing to study it right now in fear of what it could do.”

Hunter coulda sworn that the person talking said nopony instead of nobody.

“Well, let’s check on it and see if its showing any sign of awakening it looked to be dreaming only moments ago.”

Hunter tensed his muscle ready to strike out, when his right eye was opened and a light was shined into it he lashed out snapping the restraints and grabbing the neck of whoever had shined the light into his eyes throwing them across the room, he heard them crash into a row of cabinets and let out a painful moan. Next he was out of the bed, a split second later the restraints on his legs failed as he rose up, his hands balled into fists ready to strike out at the next target.

His brain finally registered everything in the room. He was surrounded by horses and the one that had crashed through the cabinets was wearing a lab coat. He saw dozens of them most looking like nurses the others were guards, and they had just started readying their spears. The ones he saw in the ship must have be real, Hunter had somehow landed on an alien world of sentient horses. As the guards were almost done readying their weapons, Hunter saw as a larger purple one with a mane that reminded him for the dark void of space, it also had wings and a horn that started to glow with a purple tint. He felt himself thrown against the wall by an invisible force, he tried to resist it but he was too weak to attempt to fight it.

Chapter 4: Portrayal

Luna instinctively used her magic to pin the creature against the wall to keep it from harming any other pony in the room, but she was taken aback by the amount of fight the creature had left in it after sustaining the kind of injuries it did in the crash. She watched in shock as it broke the leather restraints that held it secure in the bed before grabbing the doctor by the neck and hurling him across the room, and she was starting to struggle keeping it subdued between the sheer amount of iron will it had and the fact that it was partially resistant to her magic.... It was almost like trying to grasp a ball that was covered in oil, for her magic kept sliding off the creature requiring her to concentrate harder and harder, until her sister used her Royal Voice to regain control of the situation. That made her lose focus, causing her spell to fail.

“Enough!!!” Celestia ordered in a voice that left every ones ears ringing, before switching to a more modest tone. “Enough. We don’t need to result to any violence. We were just checking up on you, you had sustained some serious wounds when your vessel crash landed on our world.”

Celestia watched as the creature regained its posture after being forced against the wall by Luna’s magic. Even though it was about eye level with her, it was still was unsettling to her. Throughout her entire life she had seen other massive bipedal creatures like Minotaurs, but something else about this creature left her unnerved. It just stood there with a stoic expression on its face, and its sapphire blue eyes had a calculated look as it scanned the room. Celestia wondered if it could understand her, by the report her sister gave, the words on the ship were in their own language, but maybe the creature spoke another?

Celestia gave a step forward and asked. “Can you understand me?”

Hunter’s ears were still ringing after the white alien horse thing raised its voice to an unimaginable level to call off its guards, and he turned to look at it when it seemed to directed a question at him, and by how feminine its voice sounded he could easily guess its gender.

Hunter stared at the alien noticing it too had a horn and wings and a semi transparent rainbow mane that seemed to flow. It stood about eye level with him, unlike the other creatures standing about the room with spears and swords half raised. They all either had a horn, wings or none at all, well, all but the midnight blue one. That one had the same features, but it was slightly shorter than its counterpart.

“Hello? Can you understand anything I’m saying.” Celestia asked the creature again, but slower this time.

“Perhaps you’ve made it deaf, Sister.” Luna said with a slight grin on her face.

Hunter noticed the blue one called the white one sister, he figured it made some sense if both of them had the same features but no one else in the room did.

“Yes I can understand you and no I’m not deaf, but my ears are still ringing thanks to whatever you did.” Hunter stated, finally replying to the alien that stood before him.

“That would be the royal Canterlot voice.” The blue one piped up.

“The what?” Hunter asked, while cocking an eyebrow. “

Never mind my sister, and I do believe we can finally start peaceful introductions as we now know we can understand each other. I am Princess Celestia and this is my sister Princess Luna, we are the co-rulers of the Kingdom of Equestria, and even though we were off to a rough start, and this isn’t the most formal of places to greet a new visitor... we do welcome you!

“Well then, uh thank you for Hospitality, I guess, and if you would be so inclined as to have your guards sheath their weapons I would be willing you give you my name.”

Celestia motioned for the guards to put their weapons away and back off a little to give the creature some more breathing room before turning her focus back on it and asking. “And if it’s not rude for me to ask you, could you perhaps enlightened us on what your species call themselves?”

Hunter gave a small sigh he still had a hard time believing what he was seeing let alone being the one to make first contact with a sentient alien race, but he pressed on, perhaps he could gain allies out of all this?

“Thank you, for a name, I’m called Hunter, and as for my species we call ourselves Humans.” Hunter crossed his arms before asking his question.

“And I’m going to take a wild guess that your kind is some kind of horse…pony….thing? Celestia was rather impressed that the human had taken a fairly accurate guess to what they were, perhaps the humans had some kind of encounter with her kind in some distant past before they had learned to record their own history?

“We prefer the term ponies ,and if you would be much obliged we could go somewhere a bit more pleasant to answer further questions. Perhaps we could get you something to eat, it’s been about two days since we found you.” Celestia motioned for the commander who had been in the entryway the entire time. “Commander if you would please escort our guest to the banquet hall and have a runner sent to the kitchen to prepare at least … a dozen different dishes and not to elaborate too much, well shall meet you all there shortly.”

Before either of the princesses could make it out the door he asked them a question that had been nagging at him. “I’m guessing you’re not going to let me have any of my armor or equipment back are you?” Celestia turned to address the human. “No. at least for the time being” she then headed out the door with Luna following behind.

Commander Redoubt sighed and motioned at the human to follow him. “Well come on I’ve been ordered to take you to the banquet hall.” Hunter looked at the commander that wanted him to follow and was surprised to see how rugged he was compared to the rest who looked so pristine, the commanders horn seemed to have snapped off half way up and sported an eye patch hiding a scar over his left eye, and by his gait showed he had seen a lot of combat, Hunter felt like he could relate to the commander.

Several quite minutes had passed while Hunters escort led him to wherever the two princesses wanted him to wait for them so he decided to break the silence and ask the commander. “So what happened to your eye?”

Redoubt waited a few seconds before responding. “Griffon got a jump on me, but it placed a bad swing with its sword so it took out my eye instead of my head, and before you ask about my horn it was from one of their new weapons they invented, a cannon or something, and it’s not a story I want to share right now.”

Hunter sighed, first he runs into magical talking ponies now a story of griffons with cannons, next he was going to hear about dragons baking cakes he thought.

“So what lead to that ghastly one on your face?” the Commander asked, looking over at Hunter with his good eye.

“Oh, I took a big piece of shrapnel from an artillery shell that landed not too far off from me, cleaved its way right through my helmet and about took my face with it.”

The Commander and Hunter both swapped stories on their way to the banquet hall and continued on from there until both Celestia and Luna walked in with a couple of guards pushing trolleys laden with fruits and vegetables organized into different dishes.

“Commander, you and your men are excused for now.” Celestia ordered the commander as she made her way to the head of the table. “We will be outside in the hall if you need us your highness.” The commander and the guards all gave a quick bow before moving out into the hall and shutting the door behind them.

Hunter watched as the two princess moved into the banquet hall and dismiss the guards, and he noticed that now their manes were different, going from the translucent rainbow and night sky to a light pink and a light blue.

“So, how shall we proceed?” Celestia said as she started to move the foodstuff off the trolleys and onto the table with her magic.

Hunter watched as the food began to float off the carts with a golden glow that also surrounded the white princesses horn and move their way onto the table, the display left him with an uneasy feeling. “How are you doing that?, Also you both had translucent manes and tails not too long ago.”

Celestia had finished moving the dishes onto the table before replying. “Just simple telekinesis magic, and as for the change in style, we can change it at will, we prefer our natural colors when it’s a casual occasion.” Hunter had a hard time believing that this was all real and not some fantasy.

“Do you not have magic from where you are Hunter?” Luna asked in a puzzle tone.

“No, all this talk about magic, griffons and seeing what appears to be Pegasus and unicorns and not to mention that you all talk, it’s all ancient fairy tales to my kind, I’m honestly having trouble convincing myself this is real.”

Luna was now interested on how humans evolved without magic and had stories about their kind. “Well, perhaps these stories are true, and your kind somehow found our world and their stories became diluted through time?”

Hunter turned to the blue princess called Luna that sat on the other side of the table from him while grabbing a handful of blackberries from a nearby bowl. “It’s impossible, my kind only started to travel into space about one thousand years ago and roughly five hundred years ago we mastered faster than light travel, we’ve only explored and colonized about three hundred some odd light years from our home system, and have never found anything but simple alien life, and hardly any of them were advancing to what could be the start of a civilization, also … Heh, I don’t think I’ve ever tasted food as good as this in almost twenty years.” Hunter finished his story with a smile as he tried one of the pies.

Both Celestia and Luna looked up from their food when Hunter talk about how his species had managed to travel faster than light itself and start to live on other worlds. “You evolved without magic, yet you managed to figure out how to move faster than light and start new homes on worlds with distances that are almost impossible to imagine, imagine what both of our species could teach each other if you can find a way to reach out to your kind from here.”, Celestia said with a smile.

Both Princesses were shocked to find Hunter aggressively rise from the pillow he sat on, the fire in his eyes told them their conversation took a wrong turn. “If you value the lives of your subjects then you will pray to whatever deity that you pray to that my kind will never find this world.” Hunter had venom in his voice and he turned and walked to one of the windows and looked out. Celestia had a dreaded feeling in her stomach now as to what Hunter was implying.

“My kind has known nothing but war, ever since we learned to make tools and weapons we have been killing each other with them, all of our technologies we’ve invented have mostly been to gain the upper hand over another, very few times in our recorded history have there been any kind of peaceful age.” Hunter looked out the window seeing the land beyond, imagining it as the UES burned it from orbit, removing all in its way to get at the resource rich earth underneath.

Luna looked at the human by how tense he was she could tell he was fighting inner demons. “Hunter, you're judging what could happen based on experience of what your kind did to itself, and you’ve said yourself your kind never found any true civilization, it could be possible that meeting a species that’s at least on the same level of thinking could result better?” Hunter gave menacing laugh.

“You have no idea what my kind can do, the only reason there why there have been no signs of simple civilization is because the government I served made sure that nothing would get in the way of them from getting at the riches that lay beneath the ground. Everything that stood in their way was destroyed, even if it was another species that was evolving or showing signs that it could become a civilized species. Instead of uplifting them or ignoring them to go about it on their own we instead committed genocide, wiped them from existence so the government could become rich.” Celestia was shocked at the barbarism the human was describing to her and her sister.

“Hunter? If this is the life your kind lives then how am I supposed to trust you?” Hunter was silent for a moment before finally replying in a somewhat mournful tone. “ I don’t expect you to trust me, I don’t expect anyone to trust me after the stuff me and my team has done, all of the war crimes we’ve committed… we were the dagger for our government, the elite of the elite, they gave us an order we fulfilled it no matter what the cost was… fifteen years… fifteen fucking years I watched my self and the rest of my team slaughter innocents to get at our target, never stopped to think what we were doing … just did what we were told to do.” The stone windowsill that Hunter was grasping started to crack under his grip.

“And just as we come to realize what we have done, what we’ve become, we are given the power to stop it all… stop the tyranny of our government, to lift the iron hand of oppression off the people and free them, show them what life truly meant… and the fucking bastards started to grow suspicious of us, figured we knew too much, starting to lose their control of us, decided we had to be put down, keep us silent… so they give us one last job, use a ruse to get us between and hammer and a hard place, oh but we had hints that they were planning something against us, so we took precaution made sure we were equipped to fight it out if things went south, and they did, my entire team gave their life so I could live and become a redeemer for them, to topple everything we helped the government build, cleanse some of our past sins, but now I end up stranded on an alien world...I’ve let my teams sacrifice go to waste”

Both Princess’s watched as Hunter’s shoulders shrank. Looking defeated, he turned and came back to the table crossing his legs as he sat on the pillow. “I can understand if you don’t want some fugitive hiding under your ceiling, if you want me locked up or executed, I won’t resist just make sure my body and what’s left of my ship is destroyed, hopefully they will never find this place and if they do…”

Celestia grew frustrated with the humans sulking. “Hunter, we put the effort into making sure you lived, and even though you have a very dark past you proved you were willing to do what it takes to right your wrongs showing you have a heart. Your comrades gave their lives to give you the chance to bring justice to a pure evil, if they were willing to make that kind of sacrifice then I believe you deserve another chance at life to redeem yourself and bring them honor.”

Hunter looked up and the white Princess, she gave a smile that a loving mother would give their child when they would confess their wrongs. “It almost sounds like you speak from some kind of experience Princess.”

Celestia, with tears starting to show, looked over to Luna who averted her eyes. “No one is ever perfect, we all do something we regret in life that haunts us to our end days.”

Luna decided it was time to break the conversation off and peruse a new topic. “Well, it’s starting to get late into the day and we have duties that need to be attended to so I think we can stop here for the day.”

Celestia realizing what her sister was doing added her input. “Oh yes, it seems time has breezed by fairly quick. Sadly Hunter I’m going to have to have you stay in one of the guest rooms for the day as I figure out how to explain to the locals without inducing mast hysteria how an alien is now a royal guest.”

Luna motioned for Hunter to follower her as she gathered up the commander and guards to escort them to one of the guest rooms in the tower. Once they had reached one of the rooms, Luna instructed the commander to have his guards keep everypony out of the tower expect her and her sister. She also told them to not let the human leave the room, but they could bring him any food or books he requested.

Luna met back up with her sister in her private chamber to discuss everything they learned from the human. “Tia, I’m not one to turn down anything that seeks asylum but this… this could be over our heads, who can fathom what will happen when more of his kind arrives on ships demanding we turn him over, if what he says is true they probably will just invade anyway”.

Celestia was worrying about the same thing, what if they were getting over their heads? “Luna, I’m not sure there is much else we can do, even if we could help get his ship working again so he can leave, it could take years to get it to work and that’s saying if it can even fly off the ground, something that massive could not have been made to work on a planet, and to make matters worse the reports I’m reading coming from the griffons kingdom shows their mad king is fueling old hatreds. We could be facing a war with them again within a year or two, and now the possibility that an alien race more advance than anything thing we’ve seen could invade… We can’t fight a war on two fronts like this Luna!”

Celestia rubbed her temples the headache was coming back. “I truly believe our best bet for survival in a worst case scenario could lay with the human, if we can turn him into an ally we have a great chance of ending a war with the griffons quickly or preventing it altogether, and if his kind does coming to look for him, he could help us prepare for it”

Luna thought about what her sister was saying. “Tia how would we even get him to fight for us, I doubt offering him protection and fixing his ship would be enough, he has no ties to this world, what’s to say he won't walk away when a war is at our doorsteps?”

Her sister sighed heavily. “I’m dreading the idea but we may have to have the elements partake in this I don’t want to risk the girls lives but they may be the only ones who can make him see that life and freedom are worth fighting for no matter who it’s for.”

Both sisters sat in quiet thinking of the day’s events. Celestia stood up and gave her sister a quick hug. “We have faced the impossible before Luna we must have faith.”

Luna looked up at her sister and smiled. “I know Tia.”

Celestia made her way to the door. “I’m going to address the locals of Hunter, hopefully they will believe that he’s just another strange creature from some faraway land that wandered here. You should go check up on him see if he’s made himself comfortable. With that, Celestia made her way down to the throne room to start addressing the nobles to get word spread that a new creature is staying as a royal diplomat, while Luna made her way back to the royal guest rooms to see if Hunter had settled in.

Chapter 5: Introductions

Hunter sat in part of the lavished guest room, positioned where he could keep a constant eye on the door. He was reading a book on the history of the Equestrian kingdom that he requested from the guards outside. While Hunter read, he kept touching his gauntlets, right where one of his two last ditch knives blended in. He realized what he was doing.

“I’m getting paranoid, the only threat these creatures seem to pose me is their ‘magic’. (If that’s what it is). So far they’ve show no ill will towards me, in fact … they’ve actually been taking my arrival fairly easily. It’s almost like having some alien creature drop on them is perfectly natural? But, then why am I so calm? Shouldn’t I be hysterical or something? Sure, I’ve seen alien life on several of the worlds we fought on, but nothing like this.”

Hunters thoughts were halted by a knock on the door.

“It’s open.” Hunter called to whoever was at the door.

Princess Luna opened the door and walked in. Hovering a tray of tea and sweets, she looked to the far side of the room, seeing Hunter sitting upon a stool with a book in hand. He was still wearing the same stoic expression that he seemed to favor.

“Afternoon Princess…Luna was it? Hunter said, while watching the midnight blue pony set down a tray of tea.

“Yes.” Luna replied, as she sat down on a pillow. She began to pour a cup for Hunter and herself. Hunter took a cup, when she offered, and she was honestly surprised at how gracefully he took it.

Hunter took a sip of the tea, finding it to be a honey and ginseng mix with a slight hint of mint, as he savored the flavor of the tea he grabbed what looked to be a shortbread cookie.

“I want to apologize for earlier, going from being shot at and watching my comrades die, to stealing an advanced classified ship and then crashing onto an unknown planet, to then find myself waking up in a hospital surrounded by…ponies, kind of left me confused and let my emotions run a bit unchecked and I hope the one that I threw across the room this morning didn’t get to badly beat up.”

Luna set her tea down as she responded.

“I understand and I’m also sorry for pressing you against the wall, as for the doctor, he was a bit dazed and suffered some minor cuts and bruises but other than that he’s fine, though I’m sure he will pursue more caution in the future if he runs into you again.” Luna gave a small chuckle.

“I also have a question that’s been nagging at me since I gained sense of the situation I’m in, how is it that we understand each other? I mean shouldn’t there be some kind of language barrier or am I truly just hallucinating all of this?” Hunter asked the Princess.

“As for you hallucinating all of this, I can assure you it’s all real, and it has been puzzling us that there is no kind of barrier preventing us from understanding each other, if I had to guess for a reason behind it, there could be a possibility that some ancient magic still roams across the world letting us understand each other.” Luna refilled their cups before asking her question.

“Why is it that you're still wearing that suit, wouldn’t you be more comfortable without it?”

Hunter burst out laughing almost spilling what was left of his tea.

“Out of all the questions you could ask, you wonder why I’m still wearing my ballistic nano weave?”

“I don’t see what’s so funny?” Luna asked puzzled while Hunters laughter died to a light chuckle.

“It’s nothing, I just found it funny that you would ask me why I would still wear this instead of where I’m from or something else about my species, anyway I’m still wearing this suit as the only thing I have on under it is the biometric skin, and since humans are mostly bare skin we wear clothing to protect us from the elements.”

Hunter began to stretch as the tea finally started to take effect making him relax, several pops and cracks could be heard as he twisted his body to relieve the tension in his back, leaving Luna to wince at the sound.

“So I guess it’s my turn for a question. “Luna nodded at Hunter.

“Since I’ve seem to become a guest here or at least under house arrest, I’m wondering when I will be allowed to retrieve my gear that was taken from me and be allowed to return to what’s left of my ship.” Hunter crossed his arms and leaned back as he stared at the Princess hoping for an answer he liked.

Luna felt unnerved by the humans penetrating stare, she knew that he wanted a certain answer, but the one she could give, she knew he wasn’t going to like, she had to tread softly as it now seemed she was on thin ice. Luna gulped hoping she could pull this off without causing an incident.

“Sadly I don’t think I have the answer you want, my sister Celestia is the one who will be making the final decisions on whether you will be a threat or a friend to us, and until that’s decided you gear will be secured and you will be asked to stay at least within the castle, as for your ship that’s another problem entirely, you crashed within the borders of a different nation, though they are a strong ally of ours we have little jurisdiction and the only reason we brought you here was to prevent the possibility of a political backlash as they’ve had little experience with dealing with other species, so please don’t take any of this the wrong way, we truly want to help you but until the unknowns can be sorted out we will have to ask you to at least comply for the time being.”

Hunter stood up suddenly and walked across the room to look out one of the windows overlooking the city below. Luna was worried that he may have taken her words the wrong way

“I can understand your reasoning and I’m glad you and your sister at least have common sense not to disturb a beast you don’t understand, to be honest if our scenarios were reversed, your kind would have been tied up and studied and probably killed if you tried to resist.”

Before Luna could make any kind of comment hunter leaned against the railing and began to speak in a relaxed tone.

“You know I’ve set foot on several worlds like this one, but it was always after my government got there first, starting to tear up the land to get at its natural resources, or spill the blood of innocence and set the world on fire when the separatists stood their ground to deny them what they wanted, I always imagined what they looked like before we had violated them, beautiful plains, majestic mountains, rolling hillsides, powerful rivers, yet I set foot on those worlds to assist in the destruction, follow my orders, do whatever was necessary to protect the government's interest.

Luna got up and walked to stand next to hunter and look out with him.

“How could anything put up to live with such tyranny looming above them?” she asked the human while watching shop owners starting to clean up and close the shops for the approaching night.

“They were an authoritarian council, to keep everyone under their control everything was censored, people only knew what they government wanted them to know and their voice was law, they were also given free housing and schooling , catch was that the house was owned by the government, they could kick you out any time without any kind of reason, and for the schooling, the government decided what you where, I could have become a physicist if I had failed the military aptitude test, but I had scored high and it showed I had the potential to become an officer probably even a general by now, but once I turned sixteen I was conscripted into the army and quickly ranked up in the eleven years of service, the government noticed my combat prowess and decided I was better serving them as a ghost instead of a captain, so next thing I know I’m leading a company of men to battle when we start getting hit by an orbital bombardment, didn’t take long before I had lost about 90% of my men and give them enough room to get a ground team behind us and attack the HQ where I was at, I managed to hold it for a while with some the other officers and troops who managed to fall back but we still ended up getting over run, and it wasn’t till later I found out that It was the government disguised as the separatists… bastards killed over a hundred good men so I could wake up on some medical station floating out in the middle of empty space, they told me I was now part of a special task group, and that I was dead to my family and the rest of the world, that I was buried with full military honors and received the highest valor medal for my valiant defense for the UES.”

Hunter gave a loud sigh before continuing.

“That day I had to give up my real name and put my past life behind me, I became the second in command for the group, serving under a leader who had several years of experience ahead of me, so boom right there I went from being a captain of the UES to a lieutenant colonel of STG Omega.”

Luna followed Hunter as he walked back into the room and sat on the bed, she looked into his eyes and saw them deep in thought.

“So why don’t you use your real name now while you’re here?”

Luna asked him before she started to study a small pile of books he had the guards bring up, most where on the history of the land and the last couple being on pony anatomy.

“To be honest I can’t even remember what my old name was, once I joined the team we were all given a callsign pretty, much giving a basic description of our talents, mine stemmed from when I was in the regular army I gained a reputation on being able to track down my enemies no matter where they hid themselves, and I lead my men to victory time and time again digging the separatists out of their holes, so past skills carried over and I was called Hunter.”

Luna had no clue on what to say or do, she stood there in awkward silence watching a creature that showed to be a victim of corruption, she felt pity for him but she did not want to risk a move that he could find offensive or turn him away.

“If you don’t mind princess, I would ask if I could have the rest of the night to myself.”

Luna finally glad for a break in the silence gave a small nod of her head.

“Yes of course, I have the night to watch over but if you require any thing the guards are still outside”

Hunter looked over to watch the princess gather up the tea tray with her magic and head out the door closing it softly behind her. He wondered what she meant by having to watch the night, surely the guards where enough to keep an eye out for threats.

Luna found her sister getting ready for bed, she looked exhausted neither of them have gotten any proper sleep since Hunter’s ship crashed.

“How did they take the news to a new creature staying at the castle Tia?”

Celestia turned to her sister who had entered her room and offered her a seat near the fireplace.

“They took it fairly well, some were curious as to why a new creature had shown up in the castle all of the sudden without anyone seeing it, but not curious enough to pry for information on it.”

Celestia extended a wing over to embrace her sister who in returned snuggled against her sister.

“So did you find out anything new about our guest Luna?”

Luna who was enjoying the comfort he sisters feathery wing thought back on the conversation she had with hunter not too long ago.

“I did in fact find some new and interesting things about him, hmm… let’s see, Hunter isn’t his true name, it’s more of title but he doesn’t remember his original name after forgoing it for so long, he’s also about forty-two years old with just about twenty-five years of them being in combat, he also seems to be ranked slightly below a general and has had experience leading men to battle for several years, he’s also shown to have a sharp mind, he even said that if he wasn’t conscripted into the army he could have been on the path of becoming a physicist.”

Celestia processes the information her sister managed to get and thought to herself.

“Almost twenty-five years’ worth of real combat experience and also several years of leading troops through combat easily trumped what most of the commanders of the Royal guards and those of the Equestrian military had, save the few like Commander redoubt who were actually around long enough to have fought in the last conflict almost thirty years ago but still they hardly had half the experience Hunter could have, other than that most have been commanding and training troops in peace time, if she could get hunter on their side he could provide priceless input on their strategies, not to mention the technological advancement he could help provide them.”

Luna leaving her sisters embrace looked at her sister who was deep in thought, she did not want to disturb her sister but she needed to know what their plan was for tomorrow.

“Tia? What are we going to do about him tomorrow? I don’t think we can keep him locked in that room much longer, he already asked when he could have his possessions back and when he could be taken to his ship. I really don’t want him to take matters into his own hands and forcibly reclaim his gear and try and find his ship, even with magic I don’t think we could truly stop him before he and dozens of others end up dead.”

Celestia sighed, she wished she could have more time to prepare for events but the human was an enigma to them, she had no idea what he was capable of, and he saw himself as a fugitive which made things more complicated, if he decided that he felt threatened of being found while being held here he could end up fighting his way out to escape, and she did not like the thought of an alien going psychotic and ripping innocent ponies apart for dash at freedom.

“In the morning I will be sending a letter to Twilight for her to gather her friends and come here and discuss the events that have transpired and see to the possibility that they can help, and I will also have a letter sent to Cadence informing her that I would like to take custody over the ship as our guest has survived and would like to have what is rightfully his returned so as not to provoke any kind of incident, hopefully if we play this right we can end up with a very powerful ally.”

Luna now relieved that they at least had plan gave her sister a nuzzle before leaving to attend to the night.

Hunter had finished all the books he had requested and was shocked to find how much of a fairy tale he had landed in, besides the Kingdom of Equestria that he was in, there was also to the south the kingdom of Saddle Arabia, and he found it amusing to how it seemed to play on the words of the old country of Saudi Arabia back on earth, there was also a Griffon kingdom to the east, though not inherently evil they did managed to get embroiled in a war with Equestria a few times the last one was hardly thirty years ago, and they mainly fought amongst the other small griffon kingdoms that refused to ally with each other, he also found mentions of Dragons, Hydras, Manticores, and several other mythical creatures, also going through the books on their anatomy he found that they were very similar to the equine back on earth, except for the unicorns and pegasus who besides their defining traits also seemed to be tied to magic a lot more than a normal earth pony.

Hunter with nothing better to do decided he would try and sleep, even though the bed looked welcoming and was no shorter than a common bunk on a ship, Hunter felt more comfortable laying on the floor near the door with an analog in the bed to fool anyone who decided to sneak up on him in the night.

Luna traveled through her realm, Dreamscape, looking down at all the dreams the ponies where having and every now and then she would drop in on a dream and hide within the background to learn about them, and sometimes she would go into ones nightmare and help them through it especially the younger ones, but tonight seemed different, off in the distance she could see a rolling storm, usually the sign of a horrible nightmare, Luna rarely got to encounter these as by the time she made it to try and help, the ponies tended to wake up, as she moved closer she could feel it wasn’t just any kind of ponies nightmare in fact it didn’t seem to be a ponies at all!

Luna was baffled, the raging storm in front of her felt nothing like a ponies dream that she had experienced all the time, in fact in her entire life she had never seen anything but a ponies dream, every other creature had seemed to have their own dreamscape at least she thought they did, but here in front of her was a raging storm with a strong alien presence, she wondered if it could be Hunter’s, but again he wasn’t a pony, he was a totally different species how could his dream have made its way into a dreamscape that was filled with nothing but the dreams of her kind, but Hunter was from another world and yet they somehow could understand him, could the same force that let them understand him perfectly somehow let his dreams enter Luna’s realm? She was incredibly curious now if this was hunters dream and by the power of the storm what kind of nightmare was haunting him, but she would not risk going into something unknown and so alien, at least not for the time being.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Hunter tossed and turned on the floor being haunted by past demons again.

The pilot's voice came over the intercom.

“get your shit squared away boys we’ll be over the first dropzone in three mikes.”

“Hunter, Raptor check and recheck your gear, and remember the rest of us will be about twelve clicks away so don’t you bloody mess this up.” Razor ordered his two team members getting ready to jump.

Hunter and Raptor both checked their parachutes harness and the straps holding some of the gear they would be jumping with, the rest of it already deployed hours before. Both team mates gave their gear one last look over before checking on each other’s when turbulence began to shake the aircraft as a yellow light popped on followed by the pilots voice again.

“Dropping the ramp in 3..2..1.”

The back of the aircraft slowly opened up showing a breathtaking vista over nine kilometers below them.

The pilot chimed in again over the intercom.

“Green light for halo drop!”

Sure enough the light turned green and both Hunter and Raptor were running down the ramp, jumping off, once they were clear the ramp closed and the pilot began to maneuver the aircraft to bring it over the next drop zone for the rest of the team.

Hunter could hear the wind rush by his helmet as he and Raptor plummeted to the ground below, he radioed over to Raptor.

“Raptor set your chute release for three hundred fifty meters.”

“Confirmed, chute release set to three fifty sir.”

After free falling for a bit they reached the altitude they set there altimeter at, their chutes automatically deployed and began slowing their decent, once they hit the ground they both unhooked there harnesses and stuff their chutes back into the packs before hiding them in a nearby bush and started out to where there main gear was stashed, Upon reaching the crate that was dropped early in the morning Hunter radioed their team leader while raptor began to unpack the crate locating his gear.

“Hunter to Razor, boots are dusted and package is secured, over.”

“Roger, make your way to alpha point and report any developments, Razor out.”

Hunter made his way over to the crate, seeing that Raptor had put his stuff on top of it for him, and had already had slung his sniper rifle over his shoulders next to his assault pack and had his carbine in hand. Hunter placed his assault pack on this back and secured the straps before hefting his assault rifle, they both began to move silently to the vantage point that would give them a clear line of site over their objective.

It was over an hour by the time both of them broke through the tree line and found themselves on a cliff overlooking a massive complex below, Raptor unslung his sniper rifle and attached a silencer before preparing a sniping spot on the ledge. Hunter took out a high powered pair of binoculars to scan for his objective, He found it, it was the main junction for the maglev, taking it out would stop reinforcements from getting to the rest of his team as they assaulted the compound where their primary goal laid, but hunter noticed something else about the place.

“Hunter to Razor.”

“Reading you Hunter, what do you got for us.”

“I’m seeing civilians, lots of them, conformation that we are at the right location?”

“Grid shows you’re in the right place hunter.”

“ Roger, what’s our rules of engagement”

“Council wants this this package secured no matter the cost, Consider all bodies armed and hostile, Razor out.”

Hunter rappelled down the cliff face before making his way to the rail station just over a kilometer away, once he had made it near the perimeter fence he checked around looking for any guards, only a single watch tower was in the vicinity.

“Raptor, tower to my 3 o’clock, gota sight on him?”

“Ya, ballistic computer is getting a lock now”

A moment later Hunter watched as whoever was inside the tower turned into a red mist as the 14.5mm round from Raptors rifle penetrated the thick glass of the tower. With the guard in the tower neutralized, Hunter pulled out a small canister from his pack and sprayed it onto the fence in front of him, it began to glow cherry red as the chemicals reacted with the metal and air, melting the fence, once Hunter was inside the perimeter he made his way towards the maglev line. Hunter stopped at the corner of a building and peaked around, seeing a bunch of people milling about waiting for their train to arrive to whisk them away to one of the many farms or ore mines that dotted this area of the planet.

“Raptor, I’m cloaking so watch your shots, also find me an extraction”

“On it.”

Hunter activated the suits active camo, turning him transparent, only a trained eye could make out his outline as it shimmered across a surface adjusting for the change. Weaving in and out of cover and stopping once to let the suits power cells recharge Hunter finally made it to the main junction, he dropped down and took his pack off, taking out the explosive charges and started to place them at key points, suddenly he heard a noise, hunter spun to his left and fired a silenced burst with his assault rifle into the person who had stumbled upon him, dropping him instantly, hunter waited perfectly still for a few seconds to see if an alarm would raise, none came, he returned to place that last few charges onto the tracks once he was done he checked the body of their person he killed, he found the face of a young kid staring back at him with dead eyes, hunter shook his head to clear his mind and began to drag the body to cover so no one would discover it until after he left.

“Charges placed and set, got an extraction for me Raptor?”

“Yep, central building there is a VTOL on the roof, no one really watching it either, I think you can sneak in through the door on the eastern side.”

“Roger, Hunter out”

Hunter made his way to the eastern side of the building looking for a door inside, he found one but It was locked, taking out a small handheld device he place it on the door near the lock, opening the holo display on his wrist he activated it, it gave a slight hum before the lock on the door clicked open, he made his way inside, quickly working his way up the stairs to the landing pad on the roof, he rounded a corner stepping into a small lobby where he startled two workers who were enjoying their lunch.

“Hey! Who the fuck are you, you can’t…”

Hunter brought his rifle to bare and fired two quick bursts taking out both men, then made a dash for the door to the landing pad, kicking it open, once outside he made his way to the VTOL, seeing it was an average civilian lifter he opened the door to the pilots seat and quickly got in, with a natural instinct Hunter hit all the controls bringing in it online, he could hear people yelling as they found the dead bodies but where soon drowned out as the engines roared to life, soon several security personnel came pouring out the door, Hunter with no room to fire his rifle drew his slugger out of its holster and fired into the group, the hypervelocity slugs tore through their light security vests and, and kept going passing through the cement wall behind them.

“Raptor get ready for pick up ETA 30 seconds!”

Raptor simply clicked his coms in confirmation. Once hunter got airborne he could see people scrambling as alarms went off, warning of an attack, before hunter set off the charges he noticed a train approaching, he let it get closer before setting the charges off making sure it had no room to stop and head back. The pressure wave from the chained explosions leveled several of the smaller buildings and ripped the oncoming train from the rail causing it to plow into the ground and explode as some of the cars that were carrying explosives for the mines went off.

Hunter made it to the cliff side where Raptor was waiting and pulled aside, opening the side doors, once raptor had jumped in and worked his way into the copilot seat he maxed out the throttle to put as much distance between them and the mess they had made.

“Shit Hunter use enough detpacks this time?”

Hunter chuckled.

“Just making sure Razor and them have a big enough distraction to slip in”

Once Hunter decided they were far away enough he radioed Razor to give him the update.

“Hunter to Razor, objective completed, and heading to rally point delta.”

“Confirmed Hunter, enemy patrols are breaking off to investigate, and you did good mate, see you at the rally in a few hours, Razor out.”

Hunter abruptly woke in a cold sweat, all he could see was a kids face, one that he had shot almost four years ago, he began to mumble to himself as he rubbed his face.

“Why the fuck now of all times am I being haunted by these images, I already accepted what I had done, what I had to do, and why now, why not any of the times I was on leave and had time to think to myself and do nothing.”

Hunter kept grumbling to himself as he laid back down trying to sleep again.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Twilight was reading the letter from Princess Celestia that spike had brought her.

“Well what does it say Twilight?” Spike asked

“The princess wants me and the others to meet her at the castle, while she discusses some important events with us over breakfast, And that our escort should be here within the hour.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad Twilight.”

“That’s just it spike, it’s too vague, what is so important that we all have to meet her early in the morning?” Twilight had a puzzled look on her face.

“Maybe she simply wants to chat about stuff. Like that comet from a few days ago!”

“I doubt it spike, she would not want to talk about just anything, especially about comet with all of us… unless is has to do with that one piece that looked like it broke off?”

Spiked looked at twilight while she packed her saddle bags.

“A piece broke off? I just had to miss it didn’t I.”

“well I’m not sure if it was part of the comet or not spike but something did fall from the sky... Are you going to be okay while I’m gone?”

Spike started to push twilight out the door

“yes I’ll be fine now go you don’t want to keep the princess waiting do you.”

After twilight had rounded up the others they waited out where their escort was supposed to meet them and Rainbowdash being impatient as ever, was the first one to break the silence.

“So what the hay are we doing Twilight.”

“Princess Celestia has requested our presence to discuss important events over breakfast.” Twilight yet again explained to Dash.

“It must be mighty important to have us dragged out here at such a time.” Applejack said giving her input.

“I believe it may have something to do with whatever fell from the sky on the last night of the comet.” Twilight said as she looked up to see royal guard Pegasus pulling three chariots in the distance beginning to approach.

“What fell from the sky darling?” Rarity asked twilight

“I’m not sure, just that all of the sudden a massive fire ball came shooting through the sky and seemed to land somewhere to the north possibly near the crystal mountains.”

“But that comet left the sky like three days ago, why are we know talking about it now?” Dash seemingly complained.

“I don’t know, and it could be that it something else entirely that she wants to discuss with us.” Twilight thinking the same thing as dash.

The royal guards where touching down once twilight had finished, and after quick introductions where made, the guards helped them with their bags then set off for Canterlot. After an uneventful and slightly moderate journey they landed within main courtyard of the royal castle where a grisly looking unicorn waited to greet them.

“Captain Redoubt, a pleasant surprise to see you again.” Twilight said to the battle worn pony waiting for them in front of the steps that lead to the main entrance.

“Hello Twilight, and it would be commander now.” Redoubt replied cracking a smile.

“Oh? I was wondering who had gotten my brothers job, well then I suppose congratulations are in order, I don’t think any pony deserves it more than you.”

Twilight congratulating the commander on the good news, before being motioned to follow him into the keep where the princess was waiting for them. A few minutes had passed by the time they had made it to the doors leading in the banquet hall.

“Just wait here a second while I see if the Princess is ready to accept you.”

The gruff commander ordering them before slipping inside, shortly after pushing his head out the door, he motioned them to come inside. Princess Celestia sat on the far end of the table waiting for them, Twilight noticed that her mane was pink, showing it was going to be a fairly casual meeting.

“Greeting girls, please have a seat and enjoy your meal while i explain the reason for your visit.” They all sat down around the table and began to eat while Celestia continued.

“I’m relieved that you all made it here without any trouble, and before i begin I must ask of you that you decide whether or not you would like to proceed, as the information I will be giving you is very sensitive and must not leave this room, other than my sister and I, commander redoubt, Cadence and shining, we are the only ones who know all of the facts. What I will be asking of you will be tougher and more dangerous than anything I have asked of you before, and I will understand if you decline and I will have the guards escort you back home.”

The girls talked amongst themselves, debating if they wanted to risk this kind of adventure, and it sounded like it could be once in a lifetime opportunity.

“We accept Princess.” Twilight said speaking for the group.

“Now with that settled. Commander will you please tell Luna that she may bring our guest down.”

The commander bowed before leaving to gather Luna and their special guest, shutting the door on his way out.

“Now for the reason I summoned you all here. Were any of you watching the comet on its last night?” Twilight was the only one to respond.

“I was, and I observed a piece that possibly broke off and looked to have landed somewhere near or within the Crystal Mountains.”

Celestia smiled at her star pupil.

“you are correct Twilight, something did crash within a secluded part of the Crystal Mountains, about one hundred kilometers away from the Crystal Empires capital.”

Twilight was intrigued on how the Princess said something had landed, did she already find it? Or was she tasking them with finding it, and who was this special guest she had referred to?

“Princess you said something crashed, has any pony found what It was that crashed yet?”

“Indeed we have twilight, that something in fact turned out to be an advance alien ship.”

All six of them gasped at the news, Dash shot up into the air.

“Aliens! Here?! Have they killed anypony yet?!”

Applejack grabbed onto Dashes tail pulling her down.

“Whoa there Rainbow, let the princess finish before you go an jump to conclusions.”

With every one settling down the princess continued.

“As I was saying, an alien vessel crashed within the mountains and the crystal empire had sent a scouting party ahead of us to investigate, they had managed to find nothing until Luna arrived, once she was there they began to go deeper into the ship in hopes of finding at least something that could tell them more about where the ship came from, and they did, they ended up stumbling upon a creature, though badly injured, Luna managed to get it stable and have it rushed here so we could monitor him.”

“Princess you said him, does that mean you figured out how to communicate with it?” Twilight asked puzzled.

“In fact he somehow uses the exact same language as us, if it’s a simple coincident or magic, we still don’t know, but before he and Luna gets here I must explain why I wanted you to be here. I want you girls to befriend him, show him around and make him feel welcomed, he does seem to have an interest in getting back to his kind but his ship could be beyond repair so he may end up being stranded here for a while, and I must warn you he does have a dark and troubled past so things he may tell you could be disturbing.”

“what about his kind coming here to find him?” Twilight asked the princess.

“He has made it known to us that if his kind comes looking for him they will only bring major trouble for us, and this also leads to another important item, if he is stuck here for a time, we will need him as an ally, events are on the horizon that I can’t talk to you about right now but we will need him.”

They all nodded, understanding what was asked of them.

“Remember Hunter, their still young and have never been put in a situation like they are now, so they may get a little excited and press you with questions all at once.” Luna told hunter as she lead him down to the banquet hall.

“I still don’t understand why you're using some young girls to get me assimilated here.” Hunter stated flatly.

“We are not assimilating you Hunter, we’re just helping you settle in as you might be staying here for a while.” Luna trying to ease the tension in the air.

“Still sounds like assimilation to me.”

Luna sighed, he’s been stubborn ever since she broke the news to him that the six elements would be helping him to adjust to his situation.

“Hunter just trust me, even though they are young they have helped us with critical situations before, and they are very talented.”

“I’ll take your word for now Princess.”

They both made it to the banquet hall doors, Luna poked her head in to see if Celestia was ready to have Hunter step in, Celestia saw her sister and motioned for her to bring in Hunter.

“Girls I would like you to meet our special guest Hunter, and please only ask him one question at a time.”

The six turned towards the door, there jaws dropped as a bipedal figure walked in, standing above eye level with Celestia, he was donned out in a black suit with a few piece of metal spread about parts of the armor guarding joints and spots that most likely lead to a vital organs, only his head was uncovered, he had a black mane cropped very close his head and showed signs of a beard starting to grow around its chin, other than that It seemed fairly furless, they could also make out a jagged white scar that ran from his right ear across his cheek and ending at the center of his chin.

Hunter looked back at the shocked expressions of the six ponies sitting at the table, he saw two pegasi one was cyan with a rainbow mane the other was butter yellow with a pink mane, two others were unicorns, one white a styled purple mane the other a purple with a violet mane with pink and purple stripes, the last two were simple earth ponies one was orange with a straw yellow mane and the last was pink with what he could swear was a pink mane that almost looked like it was cotton candy. He moved to sit across from them and near Princess Celestia with Luna sitting down next to him, with all the eyes on him he began to feel slightly uneasy, but hid any signs of it.

“So Princess how shall we proceed?” Hunter asked Celestia.

“I’ll start first by introducing you to the girls who will be showing you around, This is Twilight Sparkle and her friends Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack and Pinkie Pie.”

They all nodded to Hunter as their name was called, Hunter in turn nodded to acknowledge them.

They all started to ask Hunter questions.

Applejack started first, asking where he was from.

“I grew up in Koblenz Germany, within the Rhineland, before moving to Berlin for the military academy when I was sixteen.”

Rainbow Dash after finding out he was a soldier asked him if he had ever fought in a war.

“After completing two years of training I was thrown straight into combat, and for the next twenty four years I fought in battle after battle.”

Twilight was surprised to hear that he fought in a war for almost a fourth of a century.

“who did your kind go to war with for twenty four years? And since joining your military you're now forty-two, how old do humans live exactly?” twilight asked in a curious tone

“Well for one thing it was more of a civil war, it was my government against the outlying worlds who refused to bow to their iron regime, and have been at it for almost a two hundred and fifty years now, my kind tends to resolve problems in bloodshed, and as for my races life expectancy, it’s around one hundred fifty if you can manage to live a healthy lifestyle, but several hundred years ago it was only about one hundred years, so we have gotten pretty far with medicine.”

As the girls asked him more questions, Luna studied Hunter seeing if he showed any fatigue from a restless night, but he showed none, or was doing a good job at hiding it. She wondered if she should tell her sister what she discovered but was worried that if she told her, Celestia could demand that she enters Hunters dreams to learn more, but Luna treated her gift carefully, going into ones dream was practically going into their mind, invading the only true sanctuary one had, the only time she would go into one was to learn more about how ponies thought and acted but she was careful not to stay long or intervene unless needed like in a nightmare that was getting bad, even then she would just give them a slight edge to help them defeat it, only a few times has she ever made any kind of contact with them inside their own dream.

Luna was brought from her thoughts when her sister asked the girls to show him around the castle and even outside to the gardens. With them on their way Celestia turned towards her sister.

“He seems to be fairly trusting of us right now, and I believe we can return the favor and let him collect his gear, I have also gained permission from Cadence to take charge of the wreck, so when they get back I want you and the commander to escort the girls to his ship and help him retrieve some of his supplies to bring back to make his stay a bit more comfortable.” Luna set off to gather the commander and gather Hunters gear that was locked down in the armory, Celestia sighed, she hoped she was doing the right thing.

Hunter had just got done touring the garden, he was amazed at how tranquil it was, also the scope of it easily outshone the councils personal garden back on earth. As They started making their way through the corridors back the banquet hall the six ponies around him shot off a question now and then about his kind, but avoided his past for now, earlier they got him to tell them about some of the battles he fought in, Fluttershy still looked like she was going to pass out. When they entered they roomed they found Celestia and Luna both standing next to a cart covered in a sheet.

“Hunter, after discussing it for a while we have decided that you have shown us no ill, and have been very trusting of us, so we would like to extend the favor and consider you a honorary guest and friend of the kingdom.” Celestia spoke in a proud tone before Luna gave her insight.

“ And as a show of faith and trust we would like to bestow you with a gift.”

Both of them lifted the sheet off the cart, Hunter gave a sly smile as he saw all of his gear laid out on it, he moved to the cart and stopped in front of it and motioned to the Princess’s if he could take it, they both backed away so hunter could have room. Hunter looked over all the pieces seeing nothing was missing or out of place, he started to piece his armor on, with refined skill from years of practice, he started from the bottom working his way up only struggling slightly with the tungsten lined chest plate, once he had place the helmet on, he chinned the controls to boot up the suits firmware, nothing happened, he opened the holo pad on his wrist but it wouldn’t turn on either, he removed his helmet, strapping to his belt behind him and pulled a small latch on the collar that protected his neck, he saw a red light, the power core for his suit was dead, he now wore a massive suit of armor and the only thing that worked was the simple systems of the ballistic weave, that ran off its own self-generated power, giving him only enough power to enhance his strength and self-regenerate any damage to the nano layer.

Celestia looked at Hunter, he had a concerned look on his face.

“Is something wrong?” she asked him

“I Need to get back to my ship and fix some things up, crashed seems to have knocked a lot of pieces offline… soooo any chance I can go to my ship now?” Hunter asked as nicely as possible.

Celestia smiled.

“I have been able to work out a deal that will let me allow you to return to your ship but only with Luna, commander and the girls escorting you.”

Hunter gave a small sigh.

“Fair enough, let’s get going shall we?”

Luna motioned for the Girls and Hunter to follower her out to the courtyard where the commander was waiting with a large escort.

Chapter 6: Progress

Twilight sat on the chariot with Hunter. She had been trying for the last several hours to start a conversation with him. So far, he’d been noncompliant. Giving either a simple answer or a grunt.

Twilight had all but given up when Hunter broke the silence. “I’ve heard a few times now about an Empire up here in the North. Even though the books I’ve read say nothing about any kind of civilization up here.”

Twilight, excited that Hunter had finally decided to speak, answered. “Well it was missing for a thousand years and only recently came back.”

Hunter shook his head. “How do you misplace an Empire?”

“Well, a thousand years ago, an evil unicorn…” Twilight began before Hunter cut her off.

“It was a rhetorical question. I’m not really interested in a history lesson right now.” Hunter replied as Twilight scowled at him.

A few more hours passed and the air began to take on a chilling freeze. They made their way deeper into the Crystal Mountains and Hunter donned his helmet to fight off the frigid air. He attempted one last time to get his suit to start up without any results.

Watching as Luna’s chariot moved in closer to them, he was still awed by the fact that only a few Pegasi could move a loaded chariot at that speed. Luna shouted over to them. “We should be seeing the wreck within a few minutes.”

Sure enough, after they crested a few small peaks, Hunter could see the ship. What was left of it anyway. His gut sank at seeing the state the ship was in.

Twilight eyes went wide when she saw the massive vessel.

“Your kind managed to make something that massive fly?”

Hunter gave half a laugh. “It’s pretty small compared to other ships. I think the biggest ship in service is a Dreadnought. The UES Unyielding. She’s about…five kilometers long. Now that I’m thinking about it; I believe the ancient colony ships from the Federation where almost three times that size. Although, no one has seen them for about six hundred years.”

Twilight was awed by the fact that Humans could build ships larger than cities. She looked up at him and tried to peer through his visor to gauge his emotions, but gave up. “So how are we supposed to get your ship flying again?” She asked.

Hunter sighed as he looked back at the wreck. “She won’t be flying ever again.”

“Are you sure it can’t be fixed?” She asked, trying to be optimistic.

“After a crash like this, the ship is basically scrapped. Being in such a remote place, I doubt we can salvage much either. So, unless you can lift it up and toss it back into space with your magic. I’m stuck here until one of us can think up an alternative.”

Twilight pondered at the idea of lifting something that massive and moving it. The amount of ponies that would be needed to even move it an inch was staggering.

They landed and everyone disembarked. The group moved towards a small welcoming party. At the head of it, was a regal looking white unicorn.

“Shining!” Twilight shouted in excitement after seeing her brother.

“Twilly! It’s good to see you again.” Shining Armor said as he gave his sister a big hug.

“Prince Shining, what brings you here?” Luna asked as she nodded in his direction.

Shining returned the gesture, and replied. “Cadence heard that you would be coming. She asked me to be here to greet you all.”

Shining looked past the group at the massive figure that was now approaching. It took off its helmet and he was met with a very grizzly looking creature. “So, this is the special guest I have been hearing about.” Shining commented.

Hunter, ignoring all the formalities, got straight to the point. “Has anything been removed from the ship?”

Shining shook his head. “Not to my knowledge. If anything was taken, it shouldn’t be far away.”

“Good, now get everyone out.” Hunter said flatly before heading towards the wreckage.

“Wait…what? Why?” Shining stammered.

Hunter turned his head to look at the white unicorn. “I have things I need to do. Unless you want whoever is inside to be killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I would start ordering them to drop what they’re doing and to get the hell outside.”

Hunter continued walking towards the side of the ship as Luna turned to Shining. “I believe it would be a good idea to do as he asked.”

Shining nodded, and called one of the nearby officers over. Luna watched as lieutenant Gallant came forward to receive his orders. “Lieutenant, I need you to go and gather up all the teams that are inside the ship. Have them stop their work and report to the camp outside. Until further notice, they have orders to stay there.”

“Right away your highness.” The pony saluted before leaving to carry out his orders.

Luna and the others caught up to Hunter as he was starting to climb one of the ladders built into the side of the ship. He worked his way towards one of the few intact cargo bay doors and hoped that it was still capable of opening. He found the manual release and called to the ponies below him. “I would move out of the way if I were you!”

He waited for them to move before he pulled the lever. A massive screeching sound started as the massive cargo ramp began opening. It halted with a loud bang as the hydraulics jammed.

“Dammit! Really gotta make this hard don’t ya?”

Hunter climbed higher while cursing the door. Once he reached the top, he looked around for the small black and yellow striped hatch. Finding it, he ripped the panel off and pulled on a handle attached to one of the cylinders inside. Pulling it out as far as it would go, he gave it a turn and pushed. It clicked and turned green.

He repeated this with the next three cylinders and then pulled on the handle next to the hatch. Explosive charges sheared away the hydraulic arms and sent the massive ramp crashing down. Startling the ponies and throwing up a cloud of snow.

With the ramp open, hunter slid down the ladder and jumped off several feet above the ground. He regained his posture, and climbed up onto the ramp. Not bothering to help the others up.

Luna was curious as to why Hunters mood seemed to have changed since they left Canterlot. He was acting like something was troubling him. She brushed it aside, and as the last of the ponies made their way onto the ramp they scrambled to catch up.

The group now inside, Hunter began to look around the massive room. The ponies noted that it seemed like they had entered into this ship’s cargo hold. Crates were thrown about everywhere and most had broken open. Hunter ignored it all and headed for a specific place within the room.

Making his way through the mess, Hunter searched for the most important things in the room. He found them under a pile of broken crates. Cleared away, the debris revealed his teams footlockers. It had been tough, but they had managed to smuggle them aboard.

Seeing his teammates footlockers, and knowing they were dead, hit Hunter harder that he thought it would. He pushed the thoughts out of his head, knowing that he couldn’t think about them right now. He concentrated on the task at hand and began to take his right gauntlet off.

The group was fixated on Hunters hand. They had only been able to see his head so far, and they noted the scars and the short nails on the end of his fingers. They watched as he placed his hand above a small screen on one of the footlockers and it bathed his hand in a red light. The light changed directions several times before turning green and flashing. After a few moments, the light turned off and the bolts on the locker slid away.

With his foot locker open, Hunter moved his personal belongings aside and pulled out two small containers. One had a red cross embossed on it, while other had a radiation symbol. He took off his the chest piece, laying it onto his foot locker, and began to undo a small hatch on the backplate. Pulling it open, he grabbed the dead powercore, opened the small box and placed the dead one inside.

He pulled out his only replacement,the only one still glowing red, and placed it into his armor. Replacing the cover, he donned his armor again. To his relief, the suit booted up and ran a quick diagnostic. Showing his suit was in working order.

He then flipped open the holopad on his wrist and manipulated the projection screen to bring up a schematic of the ship. He marked the reactors core on the projection and wondered what would have happened if Ghost hadn’t sent him a copy after he infiltrated the systems.

The girls were all mesmerized at what Hunter was doing. Twilight studied the projection in awe. She watched as he manipulated the light like it was solid. “I thought you didn’t have magic Hunter? Twilight asked, still puzzled by the amazing display.

“I don’t.” He said while as he also marked down the location of the armory and CNC.

“Then how do you explain what you are doing?” She asked again

“It’s just a simple semi solid holographic emitter….. and I have no clue how this technology actually works. You have fancy magic, I have a fancy projector.”

With his route mapped out, he picked up the first aid kit popped it open and pulled out a syringe of a bluish grey, metallic looking substance. Taking off his helmet, he pulled down the neck of his armor’s nano layer and jammed the needle into his neck. He stiffened, as he injected himself with the substance. When the syringe was half empty, he placed it back into the case with a shaky hand. His entire body felt like it was on fire.

Fluttershy approached Hunter, noticing his pain. “Are…are you okay?”

Hunter waved her away with his hand while gritting his teeth. “Yes, just a…. minor side effect... of the… nanites.”

Taking a deep breath the fire finally started to fade. Feeling rejuvenated, he replaced his helmet and closed his footlocker. Being done with the cargo hold, he began to make his way out. He headed towards the reactor, but stopped when he saw the group following him.

“You know, I said I wanted everyone out of this ship.”

Luna spoke up for the group. “Yes, but we can help you if you need us too. We will stay behind you so we’re not in your way.”

Hunter shook his head and grudgingly complied. “Whatever, I don’t have time to argue. It’s your funeral if you touch something and it fries you.”

They followed him as he made his way through the ship. The lights on his suit and the faint light from the few magic users horn’s were the only things that lit the hallways. Several times, they had to backtrack and find a new route after discovering the previous one was blocked with debris. Over half an hour passed by the time they came to the engineering room door. Hunter opened a panel on the wall and flipped one of the switches. They all heard a pop as the door opened about an inch.

Hunter grabbed the door and began to pull against it. Straining himself as it slowly opened. “Well since you’re all here.” He grunted. “How about you use some of that fancy magic and help me get this thing open?”

Luna, Twilight, and Rarity used their magic to help and the door opened a bit faster. At the halfway point, Hunter let go and stepped inside. Following him, the ponies noticed something odd about the massive room. Everything inside the engineering bay was slagged.

“What in tarnation happened in here?” Applejack asked as she looked at all the melted objects, warped walls, and floor that the light revealed. Hunter pulled out a couple chemlights from his belt and snapped them. Tossing them around the room and lighting it up a bit more.

“This is the result of a massive design flaw in the reactors cooling system. Causing the entire engineering bay turn into the surface of the sun…. At least it would have been a quick death for any poor bastard caught in here.”

Hunter continued on to the main reactor room to find it surprisingly intact. Compared of course, to the rest of the engineering deck. Pulling out a few more chemlights, he placed them around the main reactor control panel.

“I’m guessing none of you know about nuclear physics or how to restart a class C fusion reactor?” Hunter asked the group, and was rewarded with confused glances. “Don’t feel bad; Neither do I.”

Hunter made his way to the main reactor’s blast doors and used its manual release. Opening the door, he stepped inside and before he could close it the ponies tried to follow him. Blocking their path he told them, “Okay, you’re all are crazy for even following me through the ship. This is a lot more dangerous than that. So, unless you really want to know what it’s like to be inside the center of a star. Following me is suicide.”

“Then how are you supposed to survive in there?” Twilight asked. Not being able to understand why he was going into an environment like that.

“If I’m lucky and don’t fuck anything up, I should be able to make it out before I’m vaporized… Worst case scenario, I somehow royally mess up and vaporize half the ship along with anything near it.”

The ponies backed off as he shut the first blast door. He made his way to the next and began working on getting it open. This one door was a lot trickier than the first. You had to hit two of the manual releases at the same time to get the door to open.

After getting past the door, he closed it behind him and walked to the center of the reactor chamber. Hunter talked to himself as he walked. “Okay, this can’t be too different from a Class A. I know how to restart a core on one of those manually and Class C reactors are only about thirty years newer.”

He lifted up the reactor control panel and was somewhat surprised there was a diagram telling him what to do. The instructions were fairly confusing since he wasn’t a skilled engineer, but he figured out the basics.

“Would be a good time for you to guide my hand Voodoo… or you could just be sitting there laughing because I never listened to you when you tried to explain this kind of shit.”

After that sarcastic remark, he flipped the switch to release the tritium into the core. Then he started priming the lasers that would jumpstart the fusion process. “Here’s hoping you bastards remembered to install the fission batteries for the lasers.”

Hunter hit the igniter and the room began to hum as the lasers charged. With a loud snap, the lasers fired, ionizing the air around them. The control panel started to lower and that was his cue to get the hell out of there. Hunter made his way to the door and had trouble flipping both switches at the same time.

His suit was blaring a heat warning at him as he began panicking. “You fucking piece of shit open!” After another try he got the door open and slipped inside as the corners of his armor started to glow red. The nano layer started to char and as he turned to shut the door the core ignited. The light from the fusion reaction made Hunter’s visor automatically polarize to the max setting. Trying to protect him from the intense flash of light, but failing.

The heat coming from the chamber started to make his gloves glow as he attempt to shut the door. He could feel the skin on his hands starting to burn as he managed to get the door shut, but not before the room was superheated. His entire suit was failing as he started being baked alive and passed out from the heat.

Chapter 7: Thin ice (Part 1)

The girls felt a massive reverberation jolt the ground. They assumed it was from whatever Hunter was doing, since the room began to warm and the few lights that were not broken begin snap on, and the entire ship moved as it came back to life.

However, something felt wrong to Twilight. A minute passed before the door to the main reactor opened and a massive wave of heat emanated from the room. Twilight quickly used her magic to make a shield and push the heat away from the group and then stepped forward.

Looking inside, she saw Hunter slouched in the corner. His chestplate was glowing slightly red and the underlayer of his suit was smoking.

“Oh, this can’t be good. We... We need to get him out now!” Twilight said, starting to panic.

The unicorns of the group used their magic to pull Hunter out of the chamber. Dragging him into the large antechamber, Luna used her magic to try and undo the clasps that held his helmet on, but failed on the more complex ring lock.

Twilight noticed the problem, and remembering how Hunter took his helmet off earlier gave her advice. “Princess, I think you need to move the top one clockwise, and the bottom one counterclockwise at the same time.”

Luna now managed to undo the seal and was rewarded with a sharp click. Taking his helmet off, they could see that Hunter’s skin was red and hot to the touch; his breathing, rapid and shallow.

Twilight’s mind raced, searching through the medical knowledge she could remember to diagnose his injury. The only thing that came to mind was a heatstroke, but Hunter’s symptoms didn’t quite match up. The second option, was that Hunter, having sat in an oven for a long time, had heat trapped inside his armor, slowly cooking him alive.

“We need to get him outside and into the cold air ASAP.”

Dash turned to Twilight and spoke. “And just how the hay are we supposed to do that? After all of those turns and backtracking, I don’t think we even have a chance of getting out of here without help.”

“I’m with Dash on this one, Twah. Ah just don’t think we can get him out of this ship in time by walkin’. Can’t you or the Princess use yer magic to teleport us all outside?” Applejack asked Twilight.

“I...I don’t know. There’s a lot to take in account, and I don’t even know if Hunter would agree to teleport.” Twilight answered.

Luna voiced her opinion:“Twilight, I believe this is a risk we must take. Either he dies as we try to navigate this maze of a ship, or we to teleport him along with us. I think the latter may be the best choice.”

Twilight was unsure what to do. She didn’t want Hunter to die. “I guess we have to risk it.”

Luna nodded at Twilight . “I will join my magic with yours. It should give us a better chance of success.” Luna touched her horn to Twilight’s, creating sparks as she began to cast the teleportation spell.

Outside within the camp, Shining was discussing Canterlot life with Commander Redoubt. A massive ball of energy then appeared and exploded outside the ship, spewing out several ponies and another figure.

“What in harmony are those girls up to?!” the Commander exclaimed, turning and looking up at the explosion.

Twilight, a bit shaken, stood up and looked around. Surrounding her were everypony on board, now thrown haphazardly into the snow.

“oops… I guess I forgot to take into account the flights of stairs we went up.” Twilight said to herself.

Hunter regained consciousness finding himself in the side of a snow bank. Feeling like he was being bathed in flames and slowly cooking inside his own suit. He began to rip at his armor trying to undo the clasps, but failed horribly with the lack of feeling in his hands. He only managed to get one side of his chest piece unlatched before trying to rip it all the way off, resulting in him bending the latches on the opposite side.

After struggling with the chest piece he managed to get it out of the way somewhat, he then started to pull on the seal of the nano layer splitting it down the front center. Hunter cried out in pain as some of the melted biomesh that stuck to the suit pulled off, taking some of his skin with it and causing him to pass out again.

After the initial display of magic and Hunters cry of pain the entire campsite outside the ship sprang into action, orders were given to medics to see if any of the ponies thrown out from the spell where injured, while orders were given to another group to prepared a litter to drag hunter back to the campsite. Once they had managed to get hunter inside the main medical tent and placed him upon a table they began to work his suit off, after a while they managed to take off most of the armor plates and slip the rest of his suit off. While the medics were busy with Hunter, others started to gather up some of the surrounding snow to cool him down and prevent complications from his heat exhaustion.

Luna and the rest of the girls where inside another tent, finishing up a more thorough medical exam. Once done the medic gave them all a clean bill of health with no one suffering more than a few minor scrapes. While the medic was packing up her things Shining Armor and Commander Redoubt both entered the tent.

“Princess, girls are you alright?” The commander asked worried.

“And by harmony what is going on?! First the ship starts to rumble like it was coming to life, then you appear out of thin air being thrown about. ” Shining asked in a commanding tone.

“And what happened to Hunter? The medics told me he has numerous burns across his body. Some of them are even life threatening!” The commander asked.

“We’re fine, and Hunter did do something within the ship i believe to make it work again. He also mentioned some kind of jargon about nuclear psychics and fusion reactors, he also relating them with stars.” Twilight answering their questions.

Shining, the Commander, and the rest of the group in tow made their way to the main medical tent where hunter was being kept, they were denied entry as the medics where still busy working on him.

“Is he going to make it?” Luna asked the medic that barred their way.

“We believe so, we seemed to have gotten his body temperature down enough and he began to rouse and mumble incoherently. His skin has also paled a bit and is cool to the touch, but the burns on his body and hands are a different story. Unless we can get him to more experienced healers we may have to amputate them to keep them from becoming infected.” the medic told them.

“When will you be moving him for better treatment?” Shining asked the medic.

“Until we know he’s stable, we can’t risk moving him. It could be couple of hours or it could be tomorrow.”

“Okay. Let us know if anything needs to be brought to our attention.” Shining said before leaving. The rest of the group, except the commander, split off to do their own things since they couldn't see Hunter and had nothing else to do.

“We best send a message to Canterlot and the Royal Crystal City to inform them of the situation.” The commander recommend to Shining while walking beside him.

Shining sighed. “I know…but I hate to do this to Cadence. I honestly believe that we‘re not ready to have an Alien sent into the Crystal Empire. The regions stability is shaky at best, and having Alien yet again injured now having to be sent there and treated could throw the balance off.” He finished, contemplating the issue.

“I understand Prince Shining, but Princess Celestia made it clear that she wanted the creatures cooperation as soon as possible. and having it die will complicate things in the long run.” Redoubt stated.

“What has Celestia so worked up about needing the Human alive and willing and not bothering to tell me or Cadence?” Shining asked him.

“I’m sorry Prince Shining, but I’m not at liberty to say at the moment.”

Shining huffed. “I guess we should send scouts out to see if the weather will permit long enough to get him out of here.

Hunter awoke under a light wool blanket. His entire body ached, but at least he felt cool... almost cold. He sat up, realizing that he had no clothing save the numerous bandages covering his body and he began to scan the room noticing the canvas walls of a tent, and medical supplies place about, he then spotted his suit and armor piled in a corner. He stood up and went to cover himself with the blanket to finally notice his hands where heavily bandaged and that he had absolutely no feeling in them.

He made his way to his gear and kneeled down working out the kukri knife that was sheathed behind his belt, as it was the only one of his blades that easily accessed in the pile and also the only one with a handle that would fit in his mouth. Once he had worked it out and had it secure in his mouth he carefully began to run his bandaged right hand along the blade to cut off the bandages. After working his way through he dropped the knife and began to peel it away with his teeth, showing charred black skin.

Third degree burns how fucking wonderful.” Hunter said to himself grimacing at the sight.

Hunter wrapped himself with the blanket tighter and slipped out the tents flap and noticing that it was now night. He quickly and silently made his way through the camp and towards his ship, once he had cleared the camp he started to run hoping to get inside and get fixed up before he froze.

______________________________________________________________________________

Luna was with Fluttershy as they made their way to the medical tent that hunter was kept in, they moved around the guard ponies that were breaking down the camp as the scouts had come back not too long ago reporting a massive blizzard was coming this way and could possibly keep them trapped here for a few days, so when Shining decided that they would all hunker down in the ship for a better chance of surviving as the massive blizzards that constantly engulfed the Crystal mountains killed those who failed to seek stable shelter like a cave or crevice. She had the Idea that they could possibly use Hunters own medical supplies in the ship when he woke up and told them what to do. When they had gotten near the tent they noticed one of the medics was frantic.

“What’s going on, what’s wrong?” Luna asked the worked up medic.

“He’s gone! I got up to get something quick to eat and when I got back he had just vanished!” The panicking medic replied.

Luna peaked her head into the tent sure enough Hunter was missing but she spotted his stuff in the back corner, one of his knifes laid on the floor next to a bloody bandage. She looked back at the medic.

“Calm down, he could have not gotten far, he’s most likely making his way back to his ship. Gather those that aren’t busy with taking down the camp to look for his tracks.”

The medic shook her head and set out to find ponies that weren’t busy with the camp to help look for Hunter.

Luna and Fluttershy made their way toward the ship while the others looked around the camp trying to find of him

“Oh I hope he hasn’t passed out again in the snow he might freeze if we don’t find him soon.” Fluttershy said in a nervous tone

“He should be in here as there is no other place for him to go and I don’t think he just wandered off in a delusion he would have had to avoid the guards working around the camp to get out unnoticed.” Luna said reassuring Fluttershy

As they made their way to the ramp on the side of the ship Hunter had opened earlier they noticed fresh prints that that had to be hunters as they were roughly the same shape and size as his boot prints, once they made their way inside they could hear something rummaging about in the back .

“Hunter?” Luna asked towards the noise.

After calling out a massive red flash appeared, coming from a rod like device that was in a badly mutilated hand of Hunter, he also now wore some new type of clothing and the red glow gave him a freighting appearance .

“Good someone finally decided to come looking for me.” He said sarcastically

Hunter tossed the flare towards the two ponies lighting up the area a bit more as most of the lights in the cargo hold were broken.

“How about one of you come over here and give me a hand.” He said more as a command then a suggestion.

Luna looked down at Fluttershy. “Go tell the others that we found hunter then come back with the rest of your friends.”

Fluttershy nodded and took off flying to find the others as Luna made her way to where Hunter stood impatiently and she quickly looked over the red object that spat small flames that he tossed near them as she passed it.

“Sure take your sweet time don’t you.” Hunter said with spite in his voice

Hunter the best he could pointed at the far wall where a switch was located, Luna almost lost her lunch when she saw the very edge of his fingertips were bone.

“Go and use your magic or whatever that shit is and pull that lever.” He told the princess.

Looking away from the dreadful site of his hand and making her way to the lever he wanted her to pull, as she pulled it down massive clangs could be heard as massive lights above her turned on lighting up the area from the large doors they had gone through earlier to the edge of the ramp on the opposite side of the room, she also noticed as the rest of the girls began to enter along with commander redoubt.

“I see our a guest is up and walking again.” Redoubt said in a cheeky tone.

The group watched as Hunter stepped out into the bright lights making his way for the door leading farther into the ship, he now wore a clothing with a white and black camouflage pattern and a heavy jacket that seemed to have a hood lined with fur, then they noticed his hand.

“By Celestia’s light, Your hand.” The Commander stammered.

A thump could be heard as Rarity feinted and the rest of the girls gladly turned away from the sight to see if she was okay.

Hunter raised his hand and looked at it. “Eh I’ve had worse.”

Hunter now ignoring them made his way into the ship Luna followed suit.

The commander mumbled to himself. “Princess you’re going to end up getting killed if you keep running off by yourself like this.” He turned to the girls behind him. “One of you stay behind with Rarity the rest of you follow me and stay close.”

Hunter worked his way to the CnC glad that for what light there was and cursing the ones that still sparked out at him, and not to long after working his way into the ship Luna had caught up with him.

“Why are you still Following me?” He said agitated

“Your hurt, and if we don’t get your hand looked at and bandaged up again you’re going to lose it.” She said concerned for hunters wellbeing.

“And why the fuck do you care if I lose a hand or not?” He retorted

“What is wrong with you Hunter? Ever since we left the castle I’ve noticed you become more troubled.” She was almost pleading with him for an explanation for his mood change.

“Maybe it could be that you and your sister are what’s bothering me “Princess”.” Hunter said putting venom into the last word.

Luna stopped, she felt like she had been slapped and she was confused all she and her sister did was help him never anything malevolent. Before she could think of anything to say she noticed dried blood on the floor, they were some near where they first ran into each other. Luna now thought that maybe saving Hunter the first time could have been what was causing him to be angry, perhaps humans didn’t like feeling indebted?

Hunter followed his blood trail from days ago into the CnC and once he had entered the room he pushed past the mess going towards one of the control panels and attempted to push key buttons, he winced as he pushed them wishing that all of the nerves in his hand had burned away.

Luna watched as black boxes that where every were start to flicker and come to life displaying random text and pictures while some sat still and black and a few others sparked from the looks of being smashed in.

Hunter watched as the ships main systems began to boot up running diagnostics on its firmware and hardware. He then made his way to the center of the room where a massive holoprojection table sat as it started to flicker to life.

The commander made his way through the hallways with the entire group now that Fluttershy and Rarity managed to catch up with them, he had tried to keep a good pace with Luna keeping her in sight and not too long ago he had almost charged ahead to lash out at the human when he spoke out at Luna and her sister in a disrespectful way, before they got out these mountains he would make sure the Human knew his place.

As the commander and the girls rounded the corner and entered through the door way they saw hunter leaning over a massive table with Luna sitting not too far back in awe, upon the table stood a small beautiful figure that showed some similarities to Hunter but was more feminine, It turned and smiled at them.

Authors note

Well I debated on making this kind of message but I couldn’t really think of another way to get word to the masses, but down to the problem at hand.

My editors are busy with other things and I’m fairly busy with things that are taking up my time. I’m also going through some stressful situations, but alas the story will continue, I just don’t know when the next chapter will be up so I guess this could count as a small hiatus.

As for a small solution to help ease things for the time being I would expect 1-2+ chapters a month, and if anyone is curious to were the story is at, my profile page shows the chapters progress and rest assured the story will never be cancelled unless I’m psychically incapable of typing.