The air was like that in a sauna. Rainbow Dash hated saunas. She found the idea of shutting yourself in a small room being slowly hard-boiled to be, for a lack of a better term to be found in her mind, dumb. At least saunas had sense enough to keep to themselves and not belch their stuffy smog out into the world around them, but this weather didn't hold the same humility as the sauna. It was stubborn, intrusive and unforgiving. Just like those that had brought the weather with them. Dash couldn't complain all too much, however, as much fog and steam as there was the air was far from hot. In fact it was fairly chilly, and the rain didn't help matters at all. If the Federation denied they had any intent to gun down the ponies of Equestria, Dash was sure they had instead decided to just drown them seeing how heavy the rain was pelting down on the residents of Ponyville, along with their alien 'Benefactors'.

Dash's dull blue hoodie was already soaked clean through, along with her sports vest beneath and her jogging bottoms. Her waterlogged tail swayed from side to side like a wet towel, its various colours darkened and partly melted together, its length occasionally slapping itself against the back of her legs. Rainbow Dash looked about, thankful to see the fog was too thick to see anypony through, and presumably too thick to be seen herself by unwanted eyes. She had tried her best to look as 'casual' as possible, remembering what Princess Celestia had told the Elements of Harmony and the other princesses. They had all gathered as often as possible, sometimes once a week, other times once in only a couple of months. Sometimes the Feds caught wind of all of them gathering together and sought to intervene as quickly as possible. One of Dash's fondest friends, Pinkie Pie, had an almost supernatural capacity for precognition, able to determine events before they actually occurred. This capability came as an invaluable tool when Federation forces advanced on one of the princesses secret meetings, allowing all the members to quickly scatter out of sight and back to their homes. However the Federation was, if anything, tenacious, and kept their alien ears firmly to the ground. It had become increasingly difficult to dodge the ever quickening raids made by the Federation, and the last meeting the princesses called for had almost ended in catastrophe.

Dash still remembered that night. Celestia had at that evening noted how everypony should try their best to appear as uninteresting as possible, and avoid causing trouble or fueling conflict with Feds as often as possible. Princess Cadance had then started saying how she and her operatives in the Crystal Empire had encountered a strange access point to some unexplored portion of the Crystal Palace, a pathway that lead deeper than any had thought the gigantic castle could have ever gone. She was about to continue, until Pinkie had clasped a panicked hand around Dash's arm, Dash quickly turning to see Pinkies expression awash with a deep sense of terror. Dash didn't need another second to know what Pinkie had just caught wind of, and called for everypony to keep dead silent and to make for the predetermined exits as quickly and quietly as possible. Not two second later the door to the cider storage warehouse had burst open into a thousand wooden fragments, dark figures hustling through the breach, firearms held aloft, laser-designators flitting through the air, hungry for fresh targets. Dash had always prided herself on her capacity for unmatchable, raw speed, but that night called for a different manner of haste as she had darted to three of her friends within as many seconds, snatching them from were they stood or crouched to put them behind cover or down on the ground as the thin red lines had hovered closer to their faces. The alien soldiers had stalked closer by the second, and would have easily caught everypony in the storage room if not for Princess Luna throwing out a magical curtain of fabricated darkness to obscure the line of sight between the two groups. Applejack had happily delivered a ferocious kick to the chest of a pair of assailants with her titanically powerful legs, assuredly breaking a handful of ribs in the process. Rainbow Dash herself had tackled a soldier to the floor like a lightning bolt and thrown a flurry of blows to the aliens face while he was pinned down. If Fluttershy hadn't thrown herself into Dash when she did, the bullets that had stitch themselves into the wall besides Dash would have had a fair bit of blood soaked into them.

Luckily everypony had escaped the ordeal, but had signified something truly worrying. The Federation was looming over them in all, and would likely not let them slip away a second time. This revelation had put a full stop on the subject on the next step the princesses had to take. They had to deliver some kind of solution.

Yet so little of the old world was left, so many of its relics broken or taken by the Federation. The Elements of Harmony had been integrated into the Tree of Harmony only a few days before the first Federation spacecraft had been spotted in the sky, and one of the first actions the Federation took to 'Neutralize the potential threat of foreign weaponry' was to destroy the Tree of Harmony and the magical power it was imbued with. This was a measure taken to ensure the energies of magic could not be used against them, for as much as they boasted their calculated analysis of the fabric of magic itself, they would never truly admit how little they still knew about the obscure energy. Dash allowed herself a sly grin as she remembered pulling those research files from a Federation console and handing them personally to Princess Celestia. She'd never been much good with technology, she couldn't last thirty seconds on one of the blocky eight-bit game consoles that used to be found in the old Ponyville arcade. However somehow she'd managed to press enough of the right holographic symbols in the right order to find some truly informative material.

One such confession given by the files was, despite what the Feds told the public, the Tree of Harmony remained whole to this day. Explosive plastics, artillery and even a ship-mounted orbital particle beam had utterly failed to even graze the ancient construct, and instead the Federation had resorted to burying the tree under a dozen layers of irradiated multi-filament alloy three feet thick, buffered apart by electro-conductive gelatin, not to mention about a hundred feet of concrete. This had all been taken to ensure that the Tree of Harmony could never breach its influence into the outside world. If the current state of Equestria was any sign, it would seem these measures were working. The Crystal heart had been stolen by, assuredly, the Federations breed of assassins that stalked every shadow in Equestria, the chemically enhanced soldiers seemingly having snuck into the palace grounds, used some portable form of energy displacements technology and had removed the crystal relic and had taken it to the Equestrian Federal Research Facility, a sprawling facility twice the size of Canterlot located below Foal Mountain, near were Canterlot River met the sea.

Dash kept walking. Eyes locked downwards to the wet cobblestone. She hoped whatever the princesses had in mind involved either somehow raiding that research facility, that or hoping they had a lot of time and a lot of shovels. Dash took a left at the street junction and into Mane Street, headed towards the town hall. She could see a few ponies out and about, but not nearly as many as there used to be, before the Federation. All of them wore thick clothing, most had their hoods up to attempt to shield themselves from the downpour. All of them were on the move, having somewhere to get too apparently. However Dash noticed up ahead ponies were headed towards and then passed her with a gleam of fear in their eyes, some even holding close to one another to feel some form of safety.

Here we go. Big smiles everypony. Dash thought as dark figures awaited up ahead.

As Dash approached she see could more and more of the creatures up ahead, and all in greater detail. They wore grey bodysuits, like those worn by the Wonderbolts, only with thicker padding in the legs, shoulders and back, and a certain segment pattern running through them revealing how they were sewn together. Atop that was a snow white armour covering the shoulders, knees, chest, back and over the head in the form of a helmet, all of it angular, made of steep, wide plates and smooth metal. Their helmets hid their faces in favour of the entire front of the helmet being composed of a pair of small, circular glowing red lenses built within a mechanical composition that looked like a high-tech form of night-vision goggles, along with a large rebreather assembly below were the mouth would be. The whole assembly mad them appear very insect-like in the facial region, the mechanical setup allowing no expression of flesh to be seen. The back of the angular helmet had three wires coming out from it, the wires arching down a short ways to then sink into a spinal backpack that gave the soldiers a slightly hunched appearance. Besides the small circular visors a few other select locations across their combat suits glowed with small red lights, notably on a couple of location on the side of the spinal pack, the back of the hips and from one of their wrists in the form of a glowing red slab. This small slab was their wrist mounted data-reads, small computers that allowed each soldier to remain updated and informed about not only military occurrences, but any information gathered from across their domain, accessed through their 'Ever-net'. Across the white of their armour plates could be seen angular patterns coloured in a deep blue, the shapes cutting across the angles of their armour in a commonly diagonal manner.

In their hands they held a lengthy firearm, a black machine that was almost twice the size of Equestrias own military rifles. They were rectangular in overall shape, even the barrels appearing as an extended part of the geometric body of the weapon. The rifles, 'Magna-rifles' as they were known as, had a large number of attachment rails built into them, one atop the length of the gun, one beneath the barrel and two either side, one above the other. The grip was also built into the main body, and from its bottom sprouted a single cable that lead to a cylindrical chamber that was built halfway up and into the rectangular bulk of the weapons barrel. Behind the grip the stock was also built into the main body, being the largest and chunkiest portion of the machine by a fraction, mostly due to it holding both the weapons battery and magazine. The weapon had gained an infamous reputation throughout Equestria and beyond, outmatching the Equestrian equivalent, the EBR-17, in terms of range, accuracy and raw power, the weapons electro-chemically charged rounds able to cut clean through even the thickest Equestrian infantry armour even at extreme range. Behind the firing grip, at the fore end of the stock was were the rectangular magazine was housed, a tall, thin clip that held forty, ten millimeter chem-rounds that could be accelerated by electrical stimulation, which assured ammo supply rarely ever ran dry for any given soldier. However the weapon was not without its drawbacks, no matter how much the Feds claimed it to be the technological pinnacle of the age. It was large, forty five inches from end to end, and very blocky and bulky making it difficult to use around corners or in buildings. It was semi-automatic in nature due to the power delivered by each shot and the length of the barrel, meaning it wasn't exactly suited for supressive purposes. As powerful each shot was, each round made a clean-cut wound rather than the shock and tumble of the EBR's seven-six-two ammunition, so each shot didn't cause much trauma to the surrounding tissue around the actual wound, and certain reports, especially those that came from Dodge Junction, detailed that Magna wounds were easy to clean, sew and dress. Dash kept her eye on one part in particular, however, the upper part of the stock that had a red light on either side in the form of a short line. This was the weapons power cell, produced a significant measure of energy every second and, when the core was breached, would detonate with the force of a grenade. In failing a core breach, bending or breaking the barrel in any way would entirely disable the weapons functionality, leaving the alien soldier to use his sidearm, and getting to that pistol took time.

Time for me to pop over and say hello with my fists, you creepy alien freak. Dash thought with a grin.

"You, civilian, stay right there!" The alien accent veiled in a tone of digital distortion barked out from just in front of Rainbow Dash.

Dash new the drill. Stop walking, eyes forward, hands up and open and no speaking.

"You know, officer, you don't have to frisk me, you can just ask me out." Dash said with a smirk, giving a satified squee after finishing.

Well, nopony's perfect. Plus, the drill is hard.

"Shut up! What's your name and designation code?!" The soldier barked as he strode closer, weapon raised.

"Rainbow Dash. Designation code four, three, eight.........something, something, something, yeah, I dunno what my code is." Dash said with a shrug.

"It's six numbers, dumbass. Turn around!" The soldier snatched Dash's arm, making her flinch, and spun her around to face away from him.

"What have we got?" Another distorted voice asked from behind Dash with a mellow tone, however this one sounded far more feminine.

"Local, looked up to no good. Got a bit of an attitude problem." The male benefactor growled.

"Wait, I know this one, Rainbow Dash, right? Wow little missy, lots of accounts to your name, nine by my count." The female benefactor chuckled.

"I've paid my fines." Dash said plainly with a scowl.

"Sure, whatever. Where are you going?" The female asked sharply.

"Home."

"Where's home?"

"Where I live." Dash allowed herself a grin a little.

Dash cringed and scrunched her eyes shut when she felt the chunky barrel of a Magna-rifle being pressed into the back of her head.

"Sheez! The cloud beyond Pink-tree Plains! Come on!" Dash said tensely as she pulled her head to the side and away from the weapon's barrel.

The alien lowered the weapon, allowing Dash to look straight ahead again. Dash looked forward to see a pair of ponies, a mare and stallion both staring at Dash, jaws clenched, eyes desperate, both stood in the doorway of a nearby house. Not two seconds after Dash had seen them did they hastily avert their eyes and dart inside to the relative safety of their home.

Sure, no reason in making more of a fuss.

"All pegasi have been evicted from airbourne structures and said areas have been restricted from public entry." The female asked.

"Yeah, I know, thank for that by the way." Dash snorted back.

"So what are you doing headed to a zone designated restricted under Federation law? You must have been relocated." The male growled.

"I know it's difficult to understand, really, but that cloud used to be my home, and it has all my stuff in it. I'm going to move all my stuff into my new place."

"Do you have any medication, disability equipment, infant care equipment or environmentally damaging material in the structure?" The female asked.

"No."

"Then the Federation holds custody over the property until a time when it is deemed suitable for public access."

"So, you're stealing all my stuff."

"No, we are examining the potentially unstable nature of the structure and then determining whether it is suitable for public access."

"Unstable, it's my home?! I've lived there for years." Dash blurted, turning her head around slightly.

"Irrelevant. The science behind the nature of airbourne structures is inconclusive, its stability is yet to be determined."

"That nature is called magic, I thought you guys knew everything?" Dash sighed while rolling her eyes.

"My goodness, is it really that time of the week already?!"

Dash's ears twitched as she heard the new, undistorted voice coming from behind her, most likely just outside town hall. This wasn't surprising seeing who Dash knew who the voice belonged to.

"Attendant Yelli'Gov, sir!" Dash heard the two benefactors bark as they turned and snapped their feet together to attention.

"Well, Gilith Dash, turn around, I know it's you!" Yelli'Gov said happily with a chuckle.

Dash's neck muscles tensed along with her eyes as she started to turn, but just before revealing her face, twisted her expression into a sunbeam of content and happiness, simply dripping with sarcastic saturation. She rested her eyes on the tall figure before her, true that all Feds were a couple inches taller than their Equestrian counterparts, but the Attendant was a couple inches taller still, and seeing as Dash was quite short for a mare, he towered over her a little. He was as alien as any Fed, but his visage was not obscured by the thick layers of battle clothing and armour like the benefactor soldiers. Instead the Fed simply wore a form of officiant attire, the clothing quite form-fitting and lacking any embellishment. The cloth seemed elastic, to a degree, and covered his whole body beside his head from above the jawline and his hands. The clothing was mostly the same blue of the patterns on the soldiers armour, and had white geometric shapes patterned into its design. The sewing lines were segmented and diagonal in pattern, slicing across the white diagonal patterns, and a series of red light were built into the suit, all down the spinal length, at the wrists and the collar as a series of short horizontal or diagonal lines. His skin was paler than white in a sense as it was slightly translucent, it made him and his whole race appear deathly ill to ponies. His hands had three fingers and a thumb, and the whole appendage seemed creepily elongated when compared to the hands of a pony. His face was by far the thing that made Rainbow Dash feel the most ill. It was much like a mix between a squid and some tropical fish. His mouth was almost permanently shaped as a dissappointed grimace, despite his mood, his thin lips arching up at the middle like a fishes. His eyes were calm, yet held a certain energy of assessment about them, and unlike a ponies, the sclera held the colour, whereas the cloudy, irregular iris was a pale grey. He had no nostrils that could be seen, and his ears were simple hole in the side of his head. His skull was elongated slightly compared to a ponies, and swept upwards to a blunted point with a ride adorning each side of the flattened front of the skull. Like Dash had noted, the skull looked a lot like the body of a cuttlefish, and the face and jaw a lot like some breed of fish.

"You," Yelli'Gov pointed an elongated finger at Dash, "Are very easy to find it seems, yes. Not very good at sneaking around, are you?"

"What can I say, Attendant? I have an attention problem." Dash said with an innocent, crooked grin.

The Attendants' mouth took up an almost awkward angle at the corners that Dash had learnt to be a smile, his lower eyelids floating upwards.

"That's very good, yes, very good. Keeps everyone here on there toes. Now, what are we inspecting the little Gilith for today?"

"Seemed in a hurry. Gave us some attitude when stopped." The male soldier grunted.

Don't even think it, Dash.

"She's a little pissy because she can't go home and collect her toys." The female snickered.

You're better than them, Dash.

"That is a shame, that is. But you see, Gilith Dash, we can't have you sneaking around and going places where you could get hurt. We need you right here to keep us all busy, right? This kind of sneakiness really upsets me, Gilith Dash, really upsets me." Yelli'Gov said, bending down slightly, his tone as if he were telling off a child.

Oh, whatever. I can take a hit.

"Well, if I had a face like a squid, I'd be upset too." Dash shrugged.

The two soldiers tensed their grips on their weapons, a sign they were getting pissed off and wanted a fight. Yelli'Gov however simply tightened his alien smirk and stood up straight to take a couple of steps back before nodding forward once. The tallest soldier, the male, strode forward and threw the stock of his rifle into Dash's gut. As much as it hurt a moment, the reality was the aliens had slight limbs and were not well trained in melee combat, and so was very much bearable. Not to mention Dash had earned herself a healthily muscular stomach from many years of disciplined workout routines that helped cushion the blow. Stumbling back a step, arms wrapped around her midsection, Dash took a single deep breath in, closed her eyes, and slowly straightening herself up and coming to a stand, hands now by her side as if nothing had happened. Although she appeared to be composed, Dash couldn't lie that hit was a little fiercer than the previous ones.

"Come on, Dash, let's not make this personal, just protocol after all. Now, you were headed home, yes? You can't go to your old home, you understand? Do you understand what I'm sayi-"

The Attendant suddenly ducked down along with the soldiers as several screams could be heard around town. It took a moment for Dash to even feel the shock-wave that rattled through her, or hear the d=near deafening crack of an explosion, but managed to compose herself a little better than the alien in front of her. Dash looked over in the direction of the town park to see a large plume of dirt and dust hovering in the air as something quite potent had just detonated nearby. Alien benefactors all hurried to the site of the explosion, a handful of squads passing by the Attendant and Dash.

"Maybe you should take your eyes off me and pay closer attention to 'your' town, Attendant." Dash called out over the commotion happening around her as the pair of soldiers that had stopped her quickly escorted Yelli'Gov back to the Town hall.

The Attendant looked back, his face still grinning strangely as he raised an lowered a finger in Dashes direction in a 'I'm onto you' gesture. Dash knew the Federation had a tight watch on her, and periodically made her life as difficult as possible at every opportunity. However what they failed to realize was this was all by design. The Princesses had originally come clean with the reality that it was a real possibility all the Elements in Ponyville would get a hard time from the Feds, however what they hadn't counted on was Dash. She was the Element of Loyalty, through and through, it wasn't some occupation or hobby, it was an energy knitted into her every fiber. She had taken it upon herself to take the brunt of as much attention as she could gather, making as much of a scene and breaking as many alien laws and protocols as she possibly could. It wasn't exactly the most glorious position, Dash had thought, but it would mean her friends could move and operate slightly less seen than if she'd behaved herself. She was, admittedly, growing tired of the charade, probably as much as the Federation was growing tired of her, and knew she couldn't take this punishment forever. She just really hoped the Princesses had come up with one hell of an idea.

Dash took the opportunity a certain friend had given her, and headed off. Taking wing not a foot from standing height, she used her immense wing power to blast herself into the nearest ally, only this wasn't the ally she needed to be in three minutes ago. She spotted out her surroundings with haste before darting, once again, to a nearby alley. A squad of benefactors jogged noisily by her as she pressed herself against the external beam of a house. When they passed she made two short dashes, first to an abandoned market cart, then a stack of alien containment crates. From there she could see her destination, one of the more narrow alleys in Ponyville north of town hall. She made a final daring dash for the alley, which was further away than she would have preferred.

"Hey! You!"

The distorted bark had come from behind her, forcing her to come to a skidding halt and swing her head to see behind her. A Federal benefactor was marching across the market clearing towards a frightened mare backing away from him. She scrambled to get away as she was backed in towards a corner of two houses meeting. The soldier quickly snatched her by the back of the neck and force her to her knees, all the while she was crying out, pleading her innocence for whatever she was being accused of.

I wanna help you. Creator knows I do. I'm sorry. Dash clenched her eyes shut as she made a final push into the alleyway. She felt like crying, like screaming and punching at the walls besides her, but in order to help everypony, she couldn't help everypony.

Relaxing and taking a breath in Dash took careful steps forwards into the shadowy confines before her. She stepped forward, every couple of steps making sure to take a moment to look behind herself in case she was followed.

Sure would be the worst time to run into an Eliminator. She thought to herself with a shudder, fearing the rifle sights of one of the assassin freaks was hovering over her face.

Dash froze, her breath frozen to ice in her very lungs as she held her ground at the sight of one of the shadows in front of her coming alive and stepping out from its unseeable home before speaking.

"Wow, jumpy today aren't we, Dash?" The husky, yet unmistakeably female voice said sarcastically.

Dash relaxed as the shadow took a few steps forward to reveal herself. She wore a dark grey hoodie under a black leather jacket and black combat bottoms. She was a fair bit taller than Rainbow, as well as bearing a wider, more muscular build. Her wings were large and a golden brown, her legs golden also, but had the nature of a large wild cat, most notably a lion. Her arms were significantly stronger than Dash's, her hands covered in a yellow hide and her fingers tipped with wicked talons. Under her hood was her eagle-like head, bearing fierce, predatory eyes, white and grey feathers and a sharp beak.

"Yeah, I had some trouble getting here. Do you have it?" Dash replied plainly.

"Right here. But you owe me one, Dash, big time. This was a real pain to get past eight Fed checkpoints." Gilda said with a sourness to her tone as she pulled out an item from her jacket pocket wrapped in a brown packaging paper which she handed to Dash.

"I know. Look, things go south on our end, and I'll pay you back, in full. But if the princesses have the plan I hope they do, I have a feeling I might not need to pay you back." Dash said with a smirk.

"Don't think you can worm your way outta a deal, Dash. I do a job for you, I want payment. Things aren't how they used to be." Gilda growled, taking a step forward.

"How's no more Feds? That payment enough?" Dash replied with a raised brow.

"I won't hold my breath. Half the Griffon Kingdom is in rubble and flames after we tried to fight those alien freaks, I don't see how the Equestrian 'peace-parade' is gonna do any better." Gilda retorted, arms folded, expression grim.

"This isn't some magical do-all spell, or some pre-destined heroic intervention. This is a counter strike, plain and simple. I think the princesses know it's our only option now." Dash said sternly, pocketing the package.

"Yeah, good luck with that. Can't wait to hear how Equestria manages to overpower and evict an alien empire. See yah around, Dash." Gilda said as she turned and strode off into the alley, her voice heavy with venom.

"Yeah, whatever."

Dash knew where Gilda's detachment was coming from. She'd lost her home, some family, most friends. Now she just kept to herself and travelled as often as money would allow, taking up smuggling jobs whenever she could. Dash knew better than to get into an argument with the sour griffon, and so she just stood there a while, feeling the package she'd tucked under her pants, her underwear strapping it tight against her rump. Unless a Fed felt particularly touchy, which they never did, it shouldn't have been too hard to get to her next destination.

Sweet apple acres.