Luna pranced in place with a grin. "A complete success."

Other ponies skittered out of the way, not expecting a princess to abruptly appear, and holding so much, or wearing a strange set of robes.

Luna arched a brow. "Ah, yes." She willed the robes off with a dramatic pull and tossed them aside for the moment. "We have things of great import. Where is the local expert with weaponry?"

Floating over her head was a small cloud of human weapons, guns, grenades, bullets, and the like. "We have things they must begin examining at once."

Flim and Flam were summoned, both trotting over to the scene with an opposing brow raised each. "What's this?"

"It appears to be a princess, Brother."

"And she's brought quite a haul."

"Impressive."

"Fantastic."

Their horns glowed, taking bits from her collected cloud of... stuff... Flim rotated the firearm he held in his magic. "Can you tell us what makes these different from the ones we already have?"

Luna gestured with a wing. "They are automated cannons. The humans could fire many times in a short period of time." Uselessly, she quietly added. "Can you replicate the design?"

"Can we?!"

"Can we?!"

Flam leaned over to Flim. "Can we?" he asked more quietly.

"Of course we can!" Flim turned towards the factory. "Let's get to work!"

Flam grabbed for more goodies, but they stopped coming free of Luna's cloud of magically held items.

"I will accompany you." Luna advanced with them, taking her cloud with her. "I must go as soon as these are safely put away."

The train arrived with a soft whistle announcing its presence. Many ponies disembarked, arguably far too many for the train to have carried. Most were soldiers and guards of various sorts, filing off to replenish the fighting force.

A few were national heroes. Applejack glanced around the snowy scape. "Always forget it's cold until you get into the Crystal Empire proper. C'mon!"

Fluttershy gladly hopped off the train, but remained close to her friends.

Spike glanced around as he came, covered in a thick trench coat and fedora. "Any fans around? We'd better get going before they notice."

Pinkie laughed, pronking out after Spike. "You know you like the attention."

"I mean, yeah." He shrugged. "But we have things to do, so we'd better, you know, wait on that."

"I had thought," spoke an elderly male that followed. "--that such trials were behind Equestria." Star Swirl shook his head slowly. "But I cannot allow such a threat to not be challenged. Time has not removed all sense of patriotism."

Applejack tipped her head. "An honor to have ya with us, Star. Let's get settled in and find out where we're needed."

He slapped the desk with the flat of a hand. "They what?"

"Fresh communication, Sir." A manilla envelope was offered towards the president.

He had it open in a flash. There it was. Billions. They had lost billions of dollars of military machines. There wasn't even the capability of making half the things specified, with all the foreign points of fabrication taken offline, though that would be fixed, eventually.

Casualties: 17

That was... very low.

Confirmed Deaths: 0

That was... impossible? He began reading more thoroughly. Men had been battered, and an enemy combatant had been struck, once, status unknown. Not a single person was in a state that could be considered critical.

A localized earthquake had struck just as they were being attacked, causing rifts to consume the valuable equipment. There were estimates of how much could be salvaged. Some of the planes could be repaired. Some of them even were already in the process.

The moment the earthquake had occurred, the attacked had fled. All attempts at intelligence failed, no traces or tracks to follow.

The most impossible part came from testimonies of those involved in the fight leading up to the earthquake. Hundreds of rounds were expended, with only one hit. Soldiers did not have that poor of an aim.

"Bloody hell," fumed the president, thumping the top of the same desk. How? Shadows? "We don't know what we're facing," he had to admit. The attack had come during daylight hours, seeing shadows as the attackers?

Perhaps of lesser import, many munitions had gone missing. A motley assortment of guns, grenades, ammo, and other misc. gear as if they had simply fallen into the same rifts the planes had and vanished.

Was the earthquake poorly timed, or something their alien attackers had created? Both ideas were fairly wild...

He had to stick to the facts. The base had been attacked, and many things were stolen, but there were no fatalities. "If I wasn't fighting them, I'd hire them." As covert ops went, amazingly done...

As for the planes... He couldn't say how they were lost with confidence. Coincidence or natural phenomenon with bad timing? 'Bad Luck' was a dirty term in the military, but sometimes it really was just that. He had to know more... He reached for the phone. "Get me Queen Novo."

Deep under the waves, in the safety of Sequestria, Novo saw to the needs of her faithful subjects. At least, until a device began trembling and beeping urgently. She had accepted the device the last time she had visited the topworld. Its ringing meant they wanted to talk to her. She had no idea what the words were to the song it played, though it made the humans that could hear it look amused.

She held up a hoof, then sinuously swam to where it lay. "Hello?" she asked after she found the button to start talking.

"Novo," spoke the president. "Good to hear the phone's working properly."

"It's like you're inside this curious little thing." Novo peered a moment at the device she was speaking into. "I'm in the middle of court, you know how these things are. Can you do this again in about an hour?"

It took quite some ingenuity and work to get cellular service to reach down from the ocean's surface to their court, and then other rigging to get it ferried safely back to the mainland. It was also bulky and likely not durable. More permanent solutions were pending construction efforts.

But it would wait an hour...

He pulled up into the parking garage space and turned off the engine. "There is no use hide you on the way. They all know you missing."

Twilight perked an ear. "I presume you were not... supposed to take me anywhere."

He had to pause to try desperately and find those words. "No," was his simple reply. He exited the car and circled around to find her already standing on the pavement. After making sure his car was locked, he led the way.

"(Mr. Smith,)" greeted one of his contemporaries, spotting him, then his companion. "(What in the...)"

Twilight dipped her head towards the human that was dressed much like George was. "Nice to meet you."

"(Uh.) Good Morning." It was one of the only phrases that came to his head.

Twilight smiled radiantly at the response. "Good morning to you too." She looked up at George. "I thought they couldn't speak Ponish."

"We're learning. (I should go, they're expecting both of us.)"

"(You're a brave man.)" The other politically minded male made himself scarce rather than hang around potentially dangerous equines.

They stepped onto the elevator that would take them up to the street level. The floor moved beneath them lightly in a moment of peace. With a little chime, the doors slid open revealing far too many hostile ends of firearms pointed at them.

Both of them froze, eyes wide.

"(Mister Smith, please step forward, slowly,)" ordered one of the men facing them. "(You're safe.)"

"(Please put those away. She's a...)" He needed to pull on legalities... "(Refugee.)"

Guns lowered with quizzical looks passing from one person to the next.

Twilight softly cleared her throat. "Pardon me, but I assume you are guards?" They looked at her oddly, she wasn't sure if she was being understood. "Can you take me to your leader? Please?"

George dared to take a step forward. "(We're heading inside.)" He gestured to the town hall. "(I have calls to make. The biggest crime she's guilty of is a civil matter concerning a lack of documentation.)"

One of the men clapped a hand down on George's shoulder as he tried to pass. "(We have direct orders; that horse is to come with us.)"

"(That horse is a person. She has the right to due process.)"

"(She's an enemy combatant,)" argued the soldier. "(It's up to the brass what due process she does or does not get.)"

"(Probably unlawful too,)" Added another soldier.

"(Not up to us to decide. You speak their language?)"

George deflated with a sigh. "(Yes, can I serve as her translator?) They're taking you."

"Taking me where?" Twilight's eyes drifted from one person to the next. "Your leader?"

They were led away, ferried with all due haste. They did not attempt to handcuff Twilight, with her lack of hands. Ideas of simply handcuffing her forelegs and hindlegs and then attaching the two cuffs together was entertained briefly, it would surely limit her mobility, though she still had wings, and those had no cuffable contact points.

They trusted her to keep being a good pony, as she had been so far.

"Hello? Is this the human president?"

"Queen Novo, good to hear you. Is court complete?"

"Oh yes, all over for now. Your people seem quite enamoured with watching it, curiously. Are they smitten with me? I'm flattered, but not looking." She smiled into the phone as she spoke. "Now how can I help you?"

"I need to know some things. You mentioned you know the people we're having trouble with, the ponies?"

"Oh, yes. Did Celestia take care of those brigands? Really, ponies attacking people? I'm sure she's beside herself."

"No such luck." Not that he had received a single word of a 'Celestia' outside of Queen Novo. "I need to know what ponies can and cannot do."

"That depends on the pony," she admitted. "They have marks on their bottoms. They call them 'cutie marks', pictures of their 'purpose', and they're usually good at whatever that is, especially good."

"Could... they have a mark that would let them make earthquakes?" asked the president, doubt dripping in his voice.

"Not usually," quickly admitted Novo. "But if a unicorn... Oh! Do you know about unicorns?"

"I know what a unicorn is." He imagined the mythological creature with cloven hooves and a tufted tail, symbol of purity. "What about them?"

"Unicorn ponies have magic. The ones that practice it hard--"

"Magic?"

"Magic. You know, like the thing we use to turn humans into mer people?"

"That is a very specific effect with a clearly defined cause and effect. That's unexplained technology."

Novo rolled her eyes softly. "Well, then this is 'unexplained technology' if you prefer, lodged in the forehead of every unicorn. Some of them are really good at it and can do many things. Many of them are lucky if they can pick up a few things at the same time."

This was only growing more and more distressing. "Pick up a few things?"

"They have two basic tricks that basically all grown unicorns can do. Make their horns glow, and move things as if they had their hooves on it, without their hooves actually touching it." Novo huffed out a few bubbles. "I keep forgetting how little you know about the world."

Magic...

They had magic... "So... could a unicorn, in theory, create an earthquake?"

"One unicorn? That's a stretch. But, maybe, if a bunch of them worked together? Why would they want to do that?" Novo shook her head softly. "Are those brigands creating earthquakes?! Poor things, you should be being welcomed, not attacked like this!"

She scowled softly. "Keep an eye out for an alicorn--"

"--alicorn?"

"Wings and horn. Look for a pony with wings and a horn, kinda purple colored, star on her bottom. She's the one Celestia usually sends to settle things. If she's there, point her at the brigands. Don't trust her around interesting 'unexplained technologies' though, she has sticky hooves."

Author's Notes:

Let's ask the important questions, what song was Novo's phone playing?

My bet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sds8vgkZykc

Meanwhile, she drops a hint to look for Twilight. She did not forget being stolen from.