The victory party was simply something to behold, with stands and the worldwide famous singer Songbird Serenade participating on the celebration. And what not to celebrate? The Storm King and his army had been defeated, the three petrified princesses restored to their selves, they had finally made lasting relations with their hippogriff neighbors, the Friendship Festival interrupted two days before could continue... Even Discord (who hid and did nothing during the occupation for fear of being turned to stone again) came to party with his friends alongside those ponies who hid away during the occupation, along many storm guards who deserted.

However, not everypony attending the Festival was happy after seeing a black armoured warrior killing in front of them, including a certain alabaster alicorn, who was right now talking with her sister and another fellow royal, Queen Novo of the hippogriffs. Unlike them, however, she had other reasons to feel uncomfortable that night.

Celestia couldn't help but frown seeing her little ponies celebrate the victory over the Storm King as if the Elements of Harmony had been the ones who took him out, even when most of them knew in fact it had been the actions of a dragon-like warrior from the heavens, called Praeratus, who killed him. That was probably the reason they didn't want to talk about him.

Nopony had ever killed in Equestria for the last thousand years since she prohibited the death penalty (which had been never applied to begin with), and the first thing they had seen from Praeratus was a tall armorclad warrior killing storm guards with a weapon that shot deadly pulses of light, and the aid of his 'pet', a bear-sized, dog-like reptile.

There was also the fact that the wave emitted from the Staff of Sacanas only repaired the damage commited by the Storm King... and the corpses of the brutes killed by the brainwashed brutes. The rest of the damage (the corpse splattered on her balcony, the damaged tower, the brutes killed by Praeratus companion, the crater he made when he saved her, and all the windows and glasses in the palace save one in the throne room) were not affected at all, which needed a hasty clean up before the party could continue later that day. Fortunately, the metal pod that brought the demons to the planet was a simpler thing: they moved it away from the plaza and put it inside a warehouse somewhere in the city. It was too big to fit anywhere but the warehouse, but at the very least it was hidden from the public.

And of course, there was Rainbow Dash. The pegasus, who in another instance would be flying over the party goers and performing a sonic rainboom to awe them was instead covered in bandages in a wheeled cart, pulled around by Fluttershy due to her broken bones (among them her wings and part of her ribcage) and her wrist wounds (done by herself after Praeratus forced her to bite her arms to the point she drew blood). Although she understood why he did it (after all, the pegasus tried to attack him while was in essence punishing Twilight), she still didn't like the fact that he esentially crippled one of her ponies, even if it wasn't for life: breaking a pegasus wings deliberately was like breaking their back and therefore a serious crime in Equestria, even if the wings eventually healed (like her own wings, which had casts because the shockwave of Praeratus spell slammed her through the railings of the balcony). The bitter expression that could be seen despite her bandages made clear that she was very, very angry about this (and still pained).

Which was why her sister was trying to convince her, with Novo's help, to apprehend the alien warrior and throw him and his pet to Tartarus to rot (Cadence had teleported to the Crystal Empire, so she had no opinion in the matter) over three vases of cider in a table. Celestia's response to her sister's petition was obvious.

“No.” Before either mare could cry their astonishment, she continued. “Girls, you want to arrest someone who not only defeated the Storm King and by extension ended his reign, but also saved me twice.”

“That thing was this close to rip Twilight's head off, and that's not counting how it pushed Skystar to...” Replied the hippogriff before being cut off by an angry Celestia.

“HE, Novo, he's a male. And his name is Praeratus, not thing, and from his point of view WE may be things, since he's not from this world. And Skystar and the others had it coming since they attacked him when he was helping them.”

“They weren't in any danger!”

“How would he know that? He told me he hated slavery, and the first thing he saw of our planet after arriving were enslaved ponies and a giant cake pulled by the chained Elements of Harmony. Yes, they were disguised to enter Canterlot, but at that moment he didn't know it.”

“What about Twilight? She could have been incinerated for one simple mistake!”

“Like when she tried to steal your pearl and you nearly drowned her?” That made the hippogriff look down. Twilight had both forgiven her and apologized for trying her pearl, but she still felt bad about it. “He berated himself for nearly taking her out, and we all heard it in our minds. Even then what she did is, in practice, much worse than stealing your magic: she startled the monsters that Praeratus was about to destroy. Only one of them exterminated the entire Royal Army and nearly killed me, and now eleven more of those beasts roam Equestria. I was not happy with the way he reacted, but I do understand it.”

“You destroyed one though.” Pointed out Novo.

“Only after it exhausted itself by slaughtering ten thousand stallions and using the opportunity to smash it to death with a giant boulder.” Muttered Celestia while glaring at her. “I barely had enough energy to transport the thing it came from to the old castle and hide it there.”

“Are you saying that...?”

The glare that her sister gave to her made Luna shiver. She had never seen her so angry yet so scared before, much less towards her.

“Tirek was completely helpless until he began to steal the magic of others, Sombra was powerful but didn't have any tactics and refused to work with others, Chrysalis needed the love of Shining Armor to defeat me, and Discord was extremely annoying and unstoppable when he wanted to, but in the end just a jerk with a hidden heart; and none of them actually ever killed anypony for that matter.”

“That demon, on the other hand, ate, possessed, smashed, imploded and mauled thousands of trained stallions like an unstoppable force of nature, and I only survived because it was sloppy from escaping its prison and exhausted itself after slaughtering so many in so little time. I had nightmares for decades after that massacre, nightmares of red demons doing unspeakable things to me and my ponies, and with everything that happened today I'm pretty sure they'll start surfacing again.” Said Celestia, grabbing her forehead in anguish for remembering that. She couldn't sleep well for years.

“Surely I can...” Said Luna before being cut her off by her sister.

“For the sake of us both, don't enter my dreams if the nightmares come back.”

The trio remained silent for a few seconds.

“Still” Started Luna again. “, the thought of somet-some unknown being in our fair kingdom and powerful enough to ignore an attack made by the magic of four alicorns without supervision is just disturbing to me.”

“Luna, he didn't shrug off the spell, it dissappeared the moment it touched him. He's not resistant to magic, magic outright stops when it touches him, just like with the demon. Even then, you want to arrest an alien warrior from another world who has access to a powerful weapon that we can't simply counter because it's purely technological, wields a powerful magic-like power capable of wrecking a castle, owns a dangerous beasts and is and strong enough to lift a giant metal object and throw it away with his bare hands. The feat left him exhausted, but I doubt that even Rockhoof, who is the strongest earth pony ever born, could repeat that, or at least not without exhausting himself like Praeratus. Besides that, no normal chains or cage could restrain him, enchanted ones would not work, and Cerberus would not be able to stop him from getting out of tartarus. If he does not want to be captured, then we can't capture him, and if he decides to actually fight to kill...”

Seeing the dawning realization in Luna's face, she kept talking.

“Adding to that, whereas I nearly died to one single demon he was confident that he could take on eleven more of those things. That day two hundred years ago I discovered that are we are not alone in the universe, today I remembered that fact, and Praeratus himself is living proof that we can't fight against that. We simply cannot do anything to him if he chooses to pile us with the demons.”

“Then what do you suggest we do, nothing?”

“It's better than making him decide to attack us Luna! Aside from that, what would YOU do if you travelled to another place to save its inhabitants yet they start attacking you because they think you're evil, even though you actually helped them in some way?”

“You're defending someone who killed dozens, yet you were the one who outlawed the death sentence in Equestria.” Said Novo in a questioning tone.

“He saved me when he didn't have to, twice. Well, the first time was indirectly his fault, but the second was also partly mine because I didn't move from that beast's way. And I don't think he wanted to actually kill that one; he simply reacted.” Replied Celestia

This, however, made Novo smile in a way that Celestia didn't like.

“Oh, so the mighty princess of the Sun is interested in a space dragon eh?” Said the hippogriff in a teasing tone.

Celestia blushed. In truth, Praeratus wasn't... 'unappealing' for Celestia, to say it in some way. Sure, he was a reptilian (or reptilian-like) alien with a rugged appareance and much bigger than her, but that ruggedness (especially his closed eye) made him somewhat attractive in a 'tough guy' way. Plus, the way he held her when they fell from the balcony with his strong arms...

“I'm not attracted to Praeratus, I can't! I barely even know him!” Cried the alicorn, making the hippogriff guffaw and her sister chortle on her drink. Novo laughed even more and even started banging the table... but she stopped abruptly when she looked at Celestia again. More specifically, her cleavage.

“What?” Asked Celestia in an annoyed tone. “Is there anything wrong with my breasts?” Although some times she was quite proud of her breasts, most of of the time she was bothered by them: many times she felt her back strained by their weight (although a session with the royal massager mitigated the pain), she felt them cramp from time to time, she had to order special bras because all the others didn't fit her, were quite sensitive, and overall make her feel awkward since many mares were secretly jealous of her (once she reduced their size with a spell, but ended undoing it because she didn't want to be an hypocrite) . She then smirked, swaying her breasts sideways a bit. “Is the Queen of the Hippogriffs jealous of-”

“Did you know that you have a blue beauty mark in your cleavage?”

“What?” Celestia said before looking down. What she saw made her gasp.

Praeratus, with his helmet retracted to have better vision through the scope, had been spying on Celestia (whose mane was somehow wavy despite the lack of wind; not that he hadn't seen weirder) and two other women for a while, watching them speak amongst themselves from a spot several hundred feet above the city. Cyranus, now awakened and fully recovered from his possession from earlier, was sitting beside his master and munching on some kind of local bird.

'Mph, pretty sure they're talking about me', thought Praeratus while lowering his rifle to a certain spot in the white alicorn. He then probed her mind (it was easy for a purple psionic like him; he only had to see his target and subtly 'enter' their mind, and these ponies had weak psionic defenses to boot) and saw that yes, they were speaking about him. 'Nice tits by the way.'

After leaving the city and driving back to the ship, Praeratus told the Senate representative that he could not stop the escape of the surviving bioweapons. Rather than canceling the bounty, the representative reminded him that the bounty was open as long as the creatures lived and that he, as a xeno hunter of reknown and a former Centurion, couldn't simply leave a task undone, much less when they had given him an alternative way to kill all the creatures that neither of them wanted used in fear of alerting the Hegemony. Letting the things kill and expand would alert them regardless, but the 'other way' would do it much faster.

After that the representative told him that the satellite overseeing the planet would self-destroy to avoid detection from the Hegemony. From that moment onwards, Praeratus and Cyranus were the only citizens of the Confederation in the planet.

Praeratus then decided to keep watch on the festivities from afar. Those things wanted to kill 'xenos', and the party had a lot of people on it.

Looking away from the cleavage of Celestia, Praeratus saw several things that gave him more facts about this world

-Despite its light gravity, it's inhabitants (or at least ponies, birds cats and hippogriffs, as the hybrids were called. He had probed the mind of the butter one a bit, finding out her name, Skystar, and her species name) were not only short (with ponies of the three subraces being only a bit more than five feet tall on average with some exceptions like some unicorns he had seen, Celestia and the blue alicorn, which given her looks was probably her sister; hippogriffs were taller, but not by much), but also quite slender (he doubted they weighed more than a hundred pounds, and that would be for the earth ponies; the others definitely weighed even less, especially the pegasi, who had to fly). In short, it meant they had the density of a lightworlder species yet the height of a heavyworlder one. Granted, some earth ponies were denser than average, but still nowhere as dense as a therawyrm, much less a former Centurion.

-The six girls from before were apparently of some importance due to the way other ponies acted towards all of them, not just Twilight (although the cyan one was unable to move due to the injuries he gave her before. He wasn't proud of having forced her to a trolley, but she would be flying around at that moment if her 'loyalty' hadn't made her try to 'save' Twilight from someone who was justifiably pissed off with the purple alicorn).

-Alicorns were a special subspecies of pony treated as superiors by the others.

-Despite being an active part of the occupation, many storm guards had been received amiacably, although he suspected it was because they had gifts and none of them were actually on the festival, but being held by a pegasus that had clear influence of steroids.

-The local peacekeeping force (nicknamed 'Levy') finally reappeared on the scene after several days of forced work. Their uniform, if it could be considered like one, was simply a set of plate armor that appeared to be made of gold of all things, including a face revealing helmet with blue plumes on the top. The weapons they had, spears and swords, were even more primitive (no guns on sight). And yet the nation had trains and radio. Most intriguing of all, though, was that all of them were white, had blue hair and the same haircut. Where they clones? Maybe, their leader could move the (admitedly tiny) sun, it was possible they were clone troops.

These facts were useless for him for a fight, but it gave him a further insight of the world he was, and that would be useful to treat with the locals in the future. Besides, now he knew who could win in hand to hand combat between him and an army of 'levies' (yes, levies was the plural of a group, but he called them whatever he wanted).

(He realized that the festival had begun to quiet down, but he didn't pay any mind to it, believing that it was simply the people leaving for their homes after quite a day).

He also discovered that some kind of naked freak of nature (the head looked kinda like a goat, but everything else was a puzzle made out of animals; at least its height of nine feet was proper for a lightworlder) had jumped into the party. Literally, he jumped out of nowhere and started dancing with the ponies. Probably the so called 'magic'. Better watch out for it.

Another thing he saw was the indigo unicorn, Tempest Shadow, was next to Twilight and using her broken horn to create some kind of fireworks in the sky with a smile on her muzzle. He prodded her mind a bit and snorted. Apparently saving the young woman from falling to her death was enough to be considered 'redeemed' even though she was the right hand of the Storm King. Granted, the storm guards were the ones who carried it out, but they were soldiers, not officers, and even then he killed several of them already. It wouldn't be fair to let someone who had a hand on the invasion live. Besides, she also attacked him and would have died if not for Twilight. Still, having a rough life (attacked by a giant bear and losing her horn and friends) was not excuse to be a bitch (especially since she was the one who drove her friends away with her misery).

'If the legal system of this place was up to me, I'll blow her head off to make sure she doesn't hurt anyone ever again. Hell”, he thought while aiming at her body and putting his finger on the trigger. “, there's no need to wait. A soft pull and...” He shook his head and put his finger away from the trigger. “No, I've come here to kill those things. I've already rescued these people, let them judge their own.”, he thought before looking back to the unicorn, who kept smiling... until Twilight grabbed her shoulder and pointed towards his direction.

'How did she see me? I made sure to not generate lens glare.', he thought while watching both ponies gasp. It was at that moment that he saw a glowing blue dot on Tempest's chest. He grunted and facepalmed, remembering that his rifle was a laser.

“I'm getting sloppy.” Grunted Praeratus when he realized what happened.

He had forgotten that his laser rifle had a, let's call it a laser targeter, to point and aim better at targets that were farther away. What made it different to other targeters was that the dot came directly from the barrel instead from a sight attached to the rifle. That way, if he aimed to, say, the head of a quarry, he would shout straight to it instead of the chest or neck. Of course, like all laser sights it would be stupid (and suicidal) to let it on in the middle of a a firefight or while hunting something smart enough to realize what it was.

And he had it on all this time, moving it throughout the festival and startling ponies into silence. Now he knew why did the party became quieter.

He aimed again towards Celestia's chest (no way he'd aim at her head), who was looking up at the mountain alongside the other two women at the table, the blue alicorn and the hippogriff sharing the looks of alarm that the rest had. On the other hand, Celestia was apparently incensed with him, covering her cleavage and snorting before moving her lips. Praeratus couldn't help but chuckle seeing her reaction. That said he also chided himself for being so stupid to no realize he had the targeter on.

Standing up, Praeratus lowered the rifle and looked with his own eyes, which being augmented provided him with a wider visual sight of the city below him. He saw hundreds of ponies looking to the mountain above them with fear; some of them screamed and ran, but most were silent.

Several pegasi levies, shaking off their fear-inflicted paralysis, flied towards him at full speed and with weapons in hand, but the xeno-hunter, not in the mood to fight (and/or kill) alien soldiers who thought they could take an a former hyper soldier on, grabbed them with his psionics and forced them to land, pushing them down at a ludicrous speed before slowing down mere meters from the ground.

Naturally this terrified the ponies, but most didn't move from where they were.

Praeratus kept watching them from several minutes, not sure of what to do. Greet them? Ignore them? Uplift their technology to make them indebted to him and thus to the Confederation? No, the last one would be ridiculous AND stupid. The last time that something similar happened, the natives of the planet ended up covering their world in nuclear fallout.

Movement from below attracted his attention. If it had been a pony he wouldn't have paid it any mind, but the one that moved was a storm guard, and not just a storm guard but one of the big ones that had been hitting the pod. And he was in possession of a wood axe.

The storm guard took advantage of the state of the ponies to approach Tempest Shadow from behind, but either he was clumsier than he thought or Tempest had a fine hearing, because he had barely raised his weapon when Tempest bucked him several meters back. This made the ponies enter in a panic, and to make things worse the brute, who hadn't been fazed by the kick, grabbed the nearest being, the younger hippogriff, and grabbed Skystar's neck; he then threatened to crush the girl's neck unless his demand of 'destroying' Tempest Shadow was met.

Unfortunately for the brute, Praeratus saw this. In less than ten seconds, the therawyrm lifted the idiot mere seconds after he grabbed the girl with his psionics and raised him up to a height of several dozen meters above the ground; he then shot him with the rifles two times, the first time to kill him, the second to completely incinerate the corpse, with the ashes falling down to the ponies below.

Not even this made them move from their stupor (minus the young hippogriff, who ran towards her mother and hugged her, both of them crying, and the blue alicorn, who got up from her seat but was seated again by Celestia), probably because they feared that any sudden movement would end with them in ashes.

Which was why the sudden tremor that shook the city took all of them off guard.

Celestia didn't move from her seat.

She simply couldn't believe the speed at which Praeratus killed that storm guard.

Luna snorted angrily and stood up, but before she could unfold her wings Celestia forced her down on her chair with her magic.

“Sister, what are you doing!?”

“What did I tell you about angering him!”

“But he destroyed that creature!” Cried Luna.

“It was this close to crushing's Skystar head!” Celestia cried back while gesturing at Novo and Skystar, who were hugging. The former comforting and caressing the back of the latter, who whas crying a river.

“Oh, Skystar.”

“I was so scared Mom! He had his huge hand on my throat and-and-!”

...rumble...

The entire city Canterlot was shaken by the tremor, forcing many of the creatures present to the ground, Celestia and Luna included.

“What was that!?”

“I don't know!”

“It's the monsters, they've come back to destroy us all!”

The white alicorn ignored the cries of fear of her ponies and tried to stand up, but another tremor made her slip. Huffing, she used her magic to raise herself and flapped her wings to stay airborne, her sister and the hippogriff royalty following suit alongside several pegasi.

“What that an earthquake!?”

“No, it was too irregular.”

“Celestia!” Shouted a voice from behind them. It was Twilight, accompanied by Spike, the rest of the Elements (with Rainbow Dash being carried by Rarity's magic) and Tempest Shadow. Another tremor shook the city, but this one was weaker. “Do you have any idea of what's happening!?”

“No Twilight, I have no idea.”

Rainbow Dash, still in the casts, was quick to speak.

“I bet it's that freak's fault!” Said the cyan pegasus in a muffled tone due to her bandages. “When I get getter I'm gonna-!”

“RAINBOW DASH!” Celestia screamed to Rainbow with her Royal Canterlot Voice, shocking her and every other creature near. “Do not blame somepo-someone that helped us in our darkest hour!”

“B-but he broke my wings!” Cried Rainbow Dash

“And I may have doomed all the life in our world by trying to help!” Screamed Twilight back. Rainbow was about to say something when something interrupted her.

Something that gave a somewhat loud yet very familiar growl (especially to Tempest Shadow), which was soon drowned by dozens of animal cries and roars. Everypony in Canterlot stopped screaming and running and, turned slowly... and their faces paled when they saw a huge mass of flesh and fur rise from the city's outskirts. Now they knew the source of the tremors.

“Oh, no.” Whispered Celestia with horror in her voice.

It was an Ursa Major, a 160 feet tall, purple and partly translucid bear that was amongst the largest (if not the largest) monsters in all of Equus, and the adult stage of the Ursa Minor (the other difference between the two aside from size was the coloration; Ursa Minors were blue). These bears were big and dangerous enough to make fully grown dragons fly in fear (with a notable exception), and threaten even an alicorn. This one in particular looked like it had rabies, with its irregular behaviour (Ursa Majors stayed on their lairs for most of their times, and never went too far when they got out) and its foaming mouth, and several somethings hanging from its fur.

The fact that despite its crazed expression (with bloodshot, glaring eyes and bared teeth) it was only growling instead of roaring like most Ursa Majors would do when they were awake and angry.

And then the group found out WHAT was clinging to its hide and making the other sounds.

Monsters. Manticores, hydras, cockatrices... All of them were grabbing the hairs of the Ursa to hang on it and, unlike the gigantic yet somewhat silent bear, they were roaring and screeching at the top of their lungs.

The silent staredown was suddenly broken by a loud, brief and thick pulse of purple energy coming from the mountain that pierced the Ursa's left knee like an burning hot knife on a wooden plank (and coincidentially incinerated a monster hanging there). The Ursa Major, unable to hold its weight with a wounded leg, fell off the city. It managed to hold on the mountain, but it would take it some time to climb back onto the city.

Unfortunately, the beasts clinging to it had enough time to jump from the falling bear into the city and started attacking the screaming populace.... until most got grabbed by the same purple aura that Praeratus had used earlier to stop those guards and lift that brute. Then, to the amazement of the present, the hovering monsters were turned into ice staties and crushed, sending pieces of ice and frost down below. This settled it: Praeratus was helping them, because no pony could have used magic that violently

Even the insane monsters stopped their attack to see the gruesome display, although only for a few seconds before going back at their attack. Celestia and the group looked back towards the mountain and saw a black figure jump from the mountainside, glide the considerable height between the mountain and the city, and land directly behind them and on a manticore that had taken advantage of the distraction to attack a couple, crushing it with his weight.

It was Praeratus, carrying his beast over his left shoulder and his weapon on his right hand. The alien warrior released the beast, who inmediatly roared and charged towards another manticore, body slamming the lion hybrid and crushing its head with its powerful jaws. The grisly visage of blood, skull fragments and grey matter made all creatures present scream in terror (and Fluttershy outright fainted because of it).

All except Celestia, who was looking at Praeratus, who had his head exposed, with wide eyes. She could feel her heart quickening and her face blush at the sight of the large warrior looking at them. In fact, she was sure he was looking at her! Maybe Novo was right after all.

'He helped us again! And he'll fight those monsters to protect us! Oh, he's about to speak! Will he say that “this is the third time I'm helping you”?'

“What the frack are you doing standing there!? Get out of here!”

… Did he just insult them?

The third official chapter! For the next one I plan to write more detailed violence, and show that as powerful as Praeratus is, he's not omnipresent.