Phantoms Of The Past

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.