The Greater Good

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The Greater Good
Chapter 1 – A Burning Sky
By Deathstrike666
Thx to Tresviri for proof reading
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It was a typical peaceful night over Ponyville, Luna had just started raising the moon and everypony was heading to bed except for one purple unicorn who was staring up at the night sky through her telescope.

“Twilight, why are you still awake and what are you looking at?”, said a voice coming out of nowhere causing Twilight to jump up startled.

“Oh.. Pinkie Pie you scared me. How did you get in front door without me noticing?”, asked Twilight

“I didn't use that front door silly”, replied Pinkie Pie while bouncing up and down in her usual fashion.

“Then how did you get in?”, said Twilight even more curious about the intrusion.

“Well...”, said Pinkie then paused for a while trying to remember how she had gotten inside in the first place, ”I don’t actually remember but who cares anyway because I don’t care anymore, do you care twilight? I don’t think you care still what are you looking at? Please tell me? Please? Please? Pleeeaaaaasse?”.

“Fine Pinkie”, twilight said to just stop her friend’s nonstop talking, “What I am looking at is this weird space anomaly that appeared a couple of hours ago. I have been looking through my books to find out what it is but I cannot find anything about it. I have even sent Princess Celestia a letter about it but she hasn't replied back yet”.

“Don’t look sad, you will find what that thing is eventually. You’re like the brainiest pony I know”, Pinkie said in a reassuring voice.

“Thanks Pinkie”, Twilight said while turning back around and staring back into the telescope, “Now what are you”.

“I’m a pony silly, jez Twilight haven’t you been sleeping or is there something broken in your head?”, said Pinkie while tapping her hoof on Twilight’s head.

“Ow! No I wasn't talking to you Pinkie, I was talking to myself”, Replied Twilight while rubbing her head and thinking about how anypony have an actual conversation with her, “Can you please give me some quiet time to study this thing?”

“Okie dokie lokie.”, replied Pinkie, “But can I still watch?

“Of course you can Pinkie, but remember to be quite”, said twilight, Pinkie just nodded her head and actually zipped up her lips with a zipper, “Thank you Pinkie, now I can get on with my research”.

About 30 minutes later Pinkie Pie couldn't hold her mouth any longer.

“Why is this so BORING?”, protested Pinkie, “And why haven’t we heard anything back from the Princesses yet? Maybe the letter got lost in the mail or even worse... they were abducted by vicious race of pony eating ALIENS!!!”.

“Pinkie just calm down”, replied twilight trying to stop her friend from waking up everypony during the night, “I don’t think that has happened to the Princesses. Now can you please be quiet?”.

Twilight then looked back into her telescope to see something different about the anomaly; it looked like something was coming out of it. When she looked more closely she noticed that the thing coming out looked like two giant metal boxes, but one of them was cut in half and the other was missing nearly the entire right side and most of its rear. Looking at it for a few more seconds she also noticed lumps of metal floating around the two boxes and something that looked like fires all over the strange objects. But the thing about all this that scared Twilight the most wasn't that some weird alien thing came out of nowhere, it was that the objects were relentlessly heading straight towards Equestria.

“OH, NO!”, Twilight yelled out.

++++++

“Aarg..”, said Angus while grabbing his left arm and trying not to let the pain get to better of him, “ Thank the Emperor we’re still alive”.

Looking around the command deck he noticed that everyone was still alive and that the only injuries were a few broken bones and bruises. A quick look around the deck, Angrus could see many of the control systems were either damaged beyond repair or were on fire.

“You four”, ordered Angrus point to four officers who seemed to be the least injured, “Put out these fires and get me a report of what systems are still operational”.

“Yes Sir”, said the four officers before saluting and quickly going off to their duties.

“Umm... Sir, I think you should see this?”, said Lieutenant Astrine.

“What is it?” replied Angrus.

“I don’t think we are orbiting Hyperion IV anymore”, said Astrine while pointing at a circular in the distance between all the scattered debris.

“What?”, replied Angrus, then looking in the direction of where she was pointing, “Well then, let’s hope that there is an imperial settlement there so that we can find out where the fuck we are”.

“And what if there isn't a settlement? And even if there was a settlement there, how are we even going to contact them or even land for that matter, this ship is a wreck?”, argued Astrine.

“I don’t know that yet”, said Angrus, “But we are the Imperial Guard, the hammer of the Emperor, and the Emperor will show us the way”.

Just after the last of the officers had been patched up, the four officers that Angrus sent came with their report but when they handed Angrus the data slate it was grim news. The only systems that were working were still operational on the ship were emergency lights, the oxygen recycling system, some the holo-screens, the ships short ranged scanners, the short ranged vox-network mainly used for contacting other ships in the general area, and one defensive turret which was out of ammo. Everything else was either destroyed or non-responsive.

“So all that we can do then is sit here and orbit around this unknown planet until we starve to death”, said Angrus.

“I don’t think that we are in orbit around the planet”, said Astrine, “It looks more like we are plummeting toward is”.

“Well then, change of plans, we’re not going to starve to death, we are all going to die in a fiery inferno of scrap metal. Well that is a more exciting way to go than starving to death and kill each other for food”, said Angrus sarcastically.

“Something doesn't seem right about this planet either”, said Astrine, “The sun and moon are smaller than the planet, and they also appear to be going around it as well”.

"I have seen the warp so strange things to a planet but this has to be the weirdest of them all”, said Angrus, “We might as well wait for us to crash then, wonder how long it will take”.

As the seconds turned to minutes and the minutes turned to hours, that felt like an eternity, everyone on the command desk were just sitting there waiting to crash into the planet and die. Because of this everyone felt reluctant to talk but instead just sat there listening to the sounds of creaking metal and the occasional ‘thud’ when the debris outside crashed into each other. Currently Angrus was thinking of the only good thing about this scenario, that he didn't have to see or work with another filthy xenos every again. Suddenly the silence was broken when the vox-network came to life with the voice that seemed to be another guardsman.

*Bshhhhh* Is anyone th *Bshhhhh* This is *Bshhhh* If anyone ca *Bshhhh* Please Respond *Bshhhh*

Quickly, Angrus run over to the vox-network and replied, “This is Captain Angrus of The Righteous Vengeance. I can barely hear you, there is too much interference”.

*Bshhhh* Same here, Si *Static*

“Someone, try and get a signal from those Guardsmen”, ordered Angrus.

Meanwhile on deck 4, the Guardsmen who first sent the signal were also frantically trying to get the signal working again from the badly damaged vox-caster that they had. About ten minutes later they finally get a decent signal where they could at least understand each other without the signal dropping out every so often.

“How many are of you are there?”, asked Angrus

“26 of us, we are all fine except for a few bruises and scratches”, replied the guardsman.

“Try to make your way to the command deck”, said Angrus, “Also bring any other you find on the way”.

“Will do, Sir”, said the guardsman before closing the link and turning to the other guardsmen, “Well we have our orders, let’s move out”.

It had been twenty-five minutes of navigating through the endless passages of what was left of The Righteous Vengeance, sometimes having to turn back when they reached a blocked door or structural collapse, before they reached the command deck. The group of 26 now turned into 34 plus a commissar and for all that they could tell they were the only survivors of the exploding Warp Drive.

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Twilight hadn't gotten any sleep since the two objects had appeared in sky three hours ago, she had looked through every book she could find about strange space anomalies, space magic and anything that she thought could help, but found nothing. She got even more frustrated every time she looked into the telescope and saw the objects getting closer and closer. Suddenly the door swung open and Pinkie Pie bounced right in.

“Hi, Twilight, I brought friends to help you solve your end of the world problem”, said pinkie, “Wait… End of the world... END OF THE WORLD!!”

“Pinkie!”, said four other voices from behind her.

“What if it is going to be the end of the world”, said Pinkie.

“Honestly Pinkie, I don’t think it’s going to be the end of the world”, said Rarity.

“I agree with Rarity”, said Rainbow dash, “If these things were here to kill everypony wouldn't they of done that by now?”

“It could still happen though”, argued Pinkie.

“I think you should see this”, said Fluttershy in her usual soft voice but no pony could hear her over the argument Pinkie was making about how it could still be the end of the world.

“Maybe this is all a distraction to stop us finding out their true purpose here. Or maybe it is an invasion”, continued Pinkie.

“I doubt it could be an invasion, Pinkie”, said Twilight, “The objects look as if they’re in ruins and I haven’t seen any more come out of the anomaly”.

“Hello, I think you should see this”, said Fluttershy trying to get the attention of the others but without success.

“Maybe they want us to believe that their...”, Pinkie was suddenly interrupted by herself when she started uncontrollably bouncing around the room. Everypony quickly got to the edge of the room and tried desperately not to be taken out by the bouncing vortex of pink. This lasted for the next two minutes and stopped as suddenly as it started, exhausted and dizzy, Pinkie collapsed onto the floor.

“Wow!”, exclaimed Pinkie in-between her panting, “That was a doozie”.

“What in Celestia did that one mean?”, asked Applejack.

“It meant that we are going to say hello to aliens and something big is going to fall out of the sky”, replied Pinkie, “Do you think that they will like pink or blue icing on their cupcakes at their welcome to Equestria party?.”

“Pinkie, how big is the falling object?”, asked Fluttershy finally getting the attention of the others.

“Pretty big”, said Pinkie, “Why do you ask”.

“Because I think I can see it”, said Fluttershy, she then quickly walked out of the door and then pointing to the sky.

Everypony quickly went outside and looked up. What they saw both shocked and amazed them. Above them were thousands of burning pieces of metal falling towards the ground but were quickly disintegrating from the heat of re-entry. Half of Ponyville was outside to see what was going on and were all hypnotised by the stunning display of falling debris. It was about thirty minutes later The Righteous Vengeance and the two halves of The Nighthunter finally reached the atmosphere. Each part of the massive ships were heading for a different part of Equestria, the front half of The Nighthunter was currently heading towards the Crystal Mountains while the back half was heading for the desert near Applelossa.

The Righteous Vengeance however was currently however heading straight for Canterlot. As the ship was on its collision course with the capital, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had ordered all the unicorns in the city to use their magic to stop the strange object from killing them all. They all lined up on the castle gardens, each of their horns lit up in a magical aurora trying desperately to slow down and divert the object.

“What the fuck is happening”, said Angrus looking around the deck which was now surrounded in a strange colourful aurora.

“We are slowing down”, replied Astrine.

“How?”, asked Angrus.

“I don’t know”, said Astrine, “But from the aurora around the ship, I would say that the natives have psychic powers”.

“Well then, let’s hope they are human”, said Angrus.

Back in Canterlot some of the unicorns had collapsed under the massive strain they were putting on themselves but it was working, the object was slowing down and had started moving towards the left of Canterlot. When the Righteous Vengeance crashed into Equestria it just missed Canterlot by a couple of meters and instead crashed into the bottom of the mountain. The impacted left a creator two times bigger than what was left of the Righteous Vengeance and the front was now looked like a burning piece of abstract art. Thankfully, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna and the unicorns had slowed down The Righteous Vengeance just enough for everyone on the command deck to survive.

“That was close”, said Celestia dropping to the ground exhausted. Everypony was also lying on the ground exhausted but they had managed to save Canterlot from inevitable destruction.

“We believe it best to investigate what that was.”, suggested Luna, “Maybe after we have all recovered”.