The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee.

The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy.

With a load of iron ore 26,000 tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty

That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed when the gales of November came early.

-Gordon Lightfoot, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

The dot hung in the air for half an hour:  seven-hundred to seven-hundred-thirty.  Passers-by would have thought it was a plane; only one anonymous witness testified to its motionlessness.

"I knew something was wrong when I saw it wasn't moving.  It couldn't be a plane, and it was too high up to be a helicopter (as high as a fighter jet would fly).  It just hung over the monument like a tiny spider on a dragline."  

At precisely seven-hundred-thirty-one, seemingly out of nowhere, a small sound like a buzzing gnat was emitted.  For the next ten minutes, it got louder and louder, eventually manifesting itself into a deafening, mechanical roar.  As the roar grew louder, the dot grew exponentially, from an apparent centimeter in width to the width of the National Mall.  A shadow grew over the city as the massive disc lowered itself to the tip of the Washington Monument, like a gyroscope on a pedestal.  As the disc did this, it emitted a grinding screech of unholy proportions.  Those that were within a 200-foot radius of the blast are now deaf; windows were broken to Fairfax, and cracked to the National Harbor.  The erupting sound of car alarms was almost as terrible as the screech itself

The disc was dark-grey, and coated with satellite dishes and antennae on both sides.  Spectators from miles away described it as a quasi-cylinder.  Its surface was cleaved and raised in small rectangles at odd intervals.  They noticed that it began to slowly rotate, like a spinning restaurant.  

General Melski of the army recalled the spectacle with wide eyes.

"That fuckin' thing didn't show up on any radars!  Infared, UV, radio, you name it.  It was almost as if the goddam thing was cloaked by magic!"

Troops were immediately mobilized; helicopters swarmed around the disc like wasps.  Welders tried to cut their way in, but the metal was too strong.  RPG's were fired, but the metal blasted off and destroyed the offending helicopters with shrapnel.  Finally, large amounts of gamma rays were shot at the disc.  This melted the metal like lead.  Most people within a 200-foot radius of the ray blast will likely develop strong cancer by the 2050's.  The elderly present were reduced to a bloody paste of charred skin and bone fragments.

Four corporal troops (the expendable kind) were deployed by helicopter to the hole in the ship.  As they jumped into the orifice, they found themselves in a hallway four meters wide.  Steaming pipes and raging valve gauges lined the walls, and were illuminated by a single cage-light, dangling from the rusty ceiling.  The hallway became darker as the troops walked on.  The sunlight was quickly fading due to the steam and smoke pouring out of the hole....

No.

It was repairing itself.  One of the troops looked back to see the bizarre sight.

"Oh dear God!"  He picked up his radio.  "Sarge!  What do we do?  We're getting trapped inside!"

"Focus on your objective, corporal!  Make contact with whatever's in there.  You have two hours before we-zzzzzzzzzzzzshshshshzzzzzzz,"  

The radio went dark.  One of the troops threw himself into the closing metal hole (in hope of getting back on the helicopter), but wan't fast enough.  He was cut in half by the wall, the lower half of his body falling onto the floor.  The other half fell seven-hundred feet to the grass below.  His head was removed by the tip of a flagpole; the rest of him hit the sidewalk with a loud "thump."

The other three turned around slowly to feast their eyes on a circular door ten meters ahead.  It was only ten feet high and covered with rust, giving it a diarrhea-brown color.  One of the soldiers (codename:  "Texan") walked valiantly to the door and plotted its penetration.

There were no cranks or hand-wheels present, only a fist-sized, quasi-egg-shaped socket on the door to which gears were attached.

"The fuck do I do now?" said Texan.

The two other soldiers came to his aid.

"Try shootin' it.  That's how it works in the movies," said one of them (codename:  "Nitro").

Texan fired his XM8 into the socket, but to no avail.  There was, however, a notable sound from the other side of the door.  Nitro recalls it as a "sort of 'clopping' sound."

The creatures were obviously startled, because the sound was repeating like a machine-gun.

"Poor bastards are runnin' for their lives like ants," mumbled Texan.

The last soldier (codename:  "Key") pushed his left fist into the socket and twisted hard to the left.  His eyes watered with force, but he made no sound.  The gears twisted with a frightening shriek, and the door swung three inches to the right.  

Key pulled his hand out from the socket.  It was completely destroyed-his fingers had nose-dived into his palm like bloody water.  In fact, the pinky finger poked its head from the back of his hand.  This horrific ornament was dangling from a limp wrist-the bones smashed to pulp.

"Fuck, man!  How did you know to do that?" yelled Nitro.

"My wife taught me that one; I've seen worse.  Good thing I used my left hand," was his reply.

Texan and Nitro looked at each other with disgusted glances.

Key re-aligned his fingers and pushed open the door with his good hand.

A crack of yellow light poured into the chamber.  All the men could see was ten feet beyond; the rest was pure blackness.  They saw a small yellow appendage retract itself from the light.

No 'clop' sound...

Nothing.

Key slowly pushed the door with his foot, being mindful of whatever creatures lay inside.  He held a Desert Eagle in his right hand with confidence.

The light-crack grew wider, exposing thick dust in the air.  The place was beginning to look like an ancient tomb.

One more push...

The door creaked open to its extent, revealing...

Nothing-it was like looking at a black piece of felt-so black that no depth is visible.

Texan pulled out a flashlight and shined it to the left, holding his knife in his left hand...

The two ovaloid discs were six inches tall, four inches wide, and glowed like cat eyes, radiating a brilliant yellow from their glossy surfaces; nothing else was visible around them.  From the discs' perspectives, the soldiers' reactions were quite a sight.

"OH DEAR SWEET MOTHER OF FUCK!!!!!" one shrieked at the top of his lungs.  He dropped his flashlight fell back on his behind and scuttled away by kicking his feet.

Another fell to his knees, then to his face, his nose emitting a sharp "CRACK."

The last said nothing and held a stoic face, but, if the other soldiers had listened closely, they would have heard the distinctive sound of a water stream hitting cloth.

Nitro, still expressionless, pulled out his M9, clicked off the safety, and aimed directly at the two-inch space between the discs (which were now illuminated more dimly by the cage-light).  

The discs did not lunge at him, nor did they dash away.  Any alien with a brain should recognize a weapon, or at least a hostile stance.

Why didn't this one?

Nitro lowered the M9, emptied the chamber, and put the gun on the ground slowly.

"Welcome to Earth," Nitro calmly said to the discs.

They twisted to the right, as if the alien was cocking its head (if the discs were indeed eyes).

Nitro sat down and leaned against the open door.

"C'mere, li'l fella,  I'm not gonna hurt ya," he said calmly, as if speaking to a pet.

"Nitro!  What the fuck is wrong with you?" Texan whispered.

"S'OK,  I'm friendly," Nitro continued.

The discs began to move toward him.

As the creature stepped into the light with a quick "sort of clopping" sound, Key sat up and turned around, his face covered with blood.  Texan's eyes grew so wide, they could have been replaced with grapefruits.  

"Dear... Fucking... God..." Key murmured.

The discs ceased to glow as the creature moved, unable to reflect light from certain angles.  Nitro noticed an inch-long yellow iris surrounding a three-inch-long pupil for each disc:  definitely eyes.  Each eye was graced by three short lashes on the top half.  One eye was facing Nitro, but the other was facing upward, as if searching for some semblance of a ceiling.

The rounded head was a full foot tall and light-grey, its scalp hidden by a bleached-yellow mullet.  Two pointed ears graced each side of the hair.  There was a cleft halfway down its face (just below the eyes), jutting out two inches and displaying two small nostrils two centimeters below.  An inch below that was...

What the fuck...?

A smile?

It was true; the creature's mouth was bent into a definite smile.

From Nitro's head-on perspective, the creature was four-and-a-half feet tall, its body composing one-and-a-half feet of its height.  Its four legs (two in the front and two in the back) were completely smooth, their shapes resembling bell-bottom capri pants.  The whole creature was light-grey like its head, its skin appearing to have the same texture as a human's.  Overall, the creature vaguely resembled...

A horse?

"HI!!"  the creature blurted out in a low, stereotypically stupid, female voice.

Its mouth moves like a human's!

After staring at the creature astoundedly for a few seconds, Nitro nervously reached out his hand.

It can speak English and it can show expression?

"NITRO!!  It could be a brain-sucking tube!" Texan whispered from his temporary state of paralysis.

"I think it wants to shake my hand," Nitro quietly replied.  He grabbed the creature's "hoof" and shook benevolently.

Hm....  Its skin really does feel like a human's!

"MY NAME'S DERPY!" the creature declared happily.  "WHAT'S YOURS?"

"J-Jack, but you can call me Nitro,"

"I LIKE THAT NAME!!  IT RHYMES WITH 'MUFFIN!'  WHAT'S THAT THING ON THE GROUND?"

The creature held out its "hoof," pointing to Nitro's M9.

"I-It's a... uhh... it's-um... er-uh...."

"OOH!  I LOVE THIS GAME!  I'LL ASK YOU 20 QUESTIONS, AND YOU ANSWER 'EM!!"

Key finally broke from his awestruck gaze and quietly said:  "If you don't know what it's called, you can't play 20 Questions,"

"SURE, I CAN!  OK, LET'S START!!  UHH..."

The creature twisted its mouth into an "S" while puffing out its cheeks and holding up the right frontal "hoof" to its chin.

"IS IT A MUFFIN?"

Texan struggled to hide a laugh.  The thought was preposterous:  an alien came to conquer Earth and play 20 Questions with its inhabitants.

"It's not important what it is," Nitro said calmly, obviously warming up to the creature.  "Why have you come here?"

"WELL, IT ALL STARTED WHEN...  UUHH...  YA KNOW, I CAN'T REMEMBER!"

Texan and Key stood up slowly, not wanting to startle the creature(It could be secretly evil!).

"Are you alone?" Texan said stoically, holding his XM8 casually.

"FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK, MISTER!"

The creature turned to face Key, but stared beyond him into the blackness.

Now Nitro could see the creature's whole body.  It was three feet long and definitely horse-shaped.  The mullet on its head stretched down its six-inch-long neck, forming a frizzled mane.  Its tail was equally as yellow and frizzled as the mane, but Nitro focused on its torso.

Dear Fuckity God, they're real!

Wings.      

The creature was a pegasus, following the simple description from the Greek myths.  In addition, the creature's rear flank bore a picture of what appeared to be bubbles.

That's a weird marking for a pegasus.

"HEY LUNA, YOU CAN TURN IT OFF NOW!" the creature yelled into the dark.

The deep blackness vanished instantly, as if turned off by a switch.  When Key saw the sight before him, he fumbled back into the doorway, joining Texan.  Nitro, dumbstruck, stood up slowly to take in his surroundings.

The gargantuan room was illuminated by an estimated(The men could not see the entire room; it was too wide.) hundred randomly-placed, burning oil drums.  Rusty pillars of (iron?) held up the hundred-foot-high ceiling (which was made of the same stuff) at thirty-foot intervals.  The floor was hidden by a foot-high brown coating of feces, but the coating stopped dead at the ten-foot square in which the men had been standing.  Indeed, the whole place smelled like-

"Chocolate," Key whispered.

"What?" said Nitro.

"Their shit smells like chocolate,"

Texan laughed quietly.

"Ya think we should ask if it's edible?" Texan said in a false southern accent, sticking out his jaw.

"Fuck you, Texan," Key snapped.

Far away, in what the men believed to be the center of the room, sat two small shapes atop a rusted dais.  The men squinted, but could not make out the shapes.  All they could tell was that one was white, and one was navy-blue.

"WELL, WELCOME TO THE E.S.S. HARMONY, GUYS!  LEMME TAKE YA TO SEE CELESTIA!"

The alien flapped its feathery wings and lifted off the ground.  It flew quickly over the brown sea to the dais, where it was reduced to the size of a period.

"Well, go on, Key!  Wouldn't want to keep it waiting!"

"Fuck you, Texan,"

Key hesitated, then walked into the mire toward the dais, his boots making a wet sucking sound as he walked.

"Race you to the middle," Texan said to Nitro.

"You go ahead; I want to take in the scenery.  Think about it:  we're the first people to make contact with alien life!  Don't you think we should milk the moment?"

Texan stared at Nitro, then sprinted full throttle through the shit.  As he was running, he splashed chunks of it with each step, one of which shot into Key's teeth.

"Aw, sick!  Fuck you, Texan!  Can you at least try to act professio-hey, this stuff really is chocolate!"

"You can thank me later.  Last one there buys me a 6-pack!"

"Fine.  You get Coors!" Key yelled to a sprinting Texan.

"Fuck no! Shipyard, man!"

Texan reached the dais within two minutes, doubled over and panting.  When he looked up, he saw the shapes more clearly.

They were both of the same structure as Derpy, but with elongated noses and thinner bodies.  In addition, they were extremely tall:  the white one was nine feet tall and the blue one reached a full seven.  Each had a straight, rifled horn on its head in addition to massive wings.  The white one's mane and tail were comprised of pink, green, and blue horizontal stripes, while the blue one sported a darker blue shade than its body, strewn with white flecks.  Their manes and tails moved as if blown by a gentle breeze, but no wind was present inside the ship.

The creatures said nothing, obviously waiting for Key and Nitro.  When they caught up, the white one spoke with a stately female voice.

"I am Celestia, princess of the sun, and this is my sister Luna, princess of the night."  The white one turned its head to the blue one as it said this.  "We have ventured for light-years to find a planet suitable for habitation, our own destroyed by chaos and unhappiness."

The men noticed hundreds of aliens standing around the dais in a "D" shape, invisible to them when they came in due to their small sizes.  Each was of the exact same body type as Derpy, but with different colored manes and bodies; and different pictures on their flanks.  In addition. some were unicorns, some were pegasi, and some had no alterations to their bodies.  The leaders, however, were the only unicorn/pegasus crosses.

The soldiers looked at each other, silently debating over which one should talk to the leaders first.

Nitro, the careful thinker, spoke up fearlessly, his voice adopting a friendly, modest tone.

"Hello!  I'm Jack Holman, and, on behalf of the human race, let me be the first to say, 'Welcome to Earth.'

"Nitro, you dipshit!  Don't be nice to it!  It might shove its horn up your ass to harness your energy!" Texan said audibly through his teeth.

"If their door-horse... thing was nice to us, maybe they'll be, too!" Nitro rebutted.  "Excuse my friend, here.  He watched a lot of tentacle porn in his teenage years."

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

"Hm-hm.  Don't worry, we don't harness energy through our horns," Celestia calmly stated.  "We use our mouths for that sort of thing,"

"Whaddya know!  I-duh-ya know-can't believe it-I almost forgot!  That's how we harness energy, too!" Texan said, his voice riddled with fear.  "So!  Now that you've answered our question, I'm sure you want to ask us one!  I'd hate to keep you w-w-wuh-wuh-waiting!"

"Pussy," Key mused.

"Don't be afraid; we mean your planet no harm.  In fact, we would like to live amongst you peacefully."

"I have a question for you," Luna said, her voice informal, but sophisticated like a female punk-rock star who had gone to finishing school.  "Are you the only sentient life on this planet?"

"Well, there are theories that deal with other creatures being sentient, but we're the only ones that talk," offered Key.

"Do you benefit from the other creatures' existence?" Luna continued.

"Definitely.  We eat meat from cows, chickens, turkeys, fish, you name it," Nitro calmly replied

"And your atmosphere?"

"Well, if we can breathe in here, it's exactly like yours.  Does your race have a name?"

"We are ponies," said Celestia.  "I sometimes refer to my subjects as 'My Little Ponies.'"

"Well, the questions and all have been really interesting, but can we go now?  We should introduce you to our leaders so you can start your new lives," Texan quickly said.

"Of course," said Celestia.  Her horn began to glow a bright pink, and with a flash of pink light, the men and all the ponies were on the ground encircling the monument, facing the Capital.

Hundreds of soldiers nearby stared at them, guns brandished.  Some lowered them, and the rest eventually followed suit, seeing no reaction from the aliens.  Four tanks were pointed up at the ship, but moved their barrels towards the aliens.  Thousands of civilians filled the Mall, holding their camera phones up.

"They're harmless!" Nitro screamed.

The civvies cheered, relieved that their first contact with extraterrestrials was a peaceful one.

General Melski stood up from a tank hatch, yelling over a megaphone.

"How can you be sure they're harmless?"  

Luna spoke up in a deafening voice, making sure the whole Mall could hear.

"We mean your planet no harm!  We wish to live alongside you 'humans'  peacefully, due to our homeworld's destruction!"

"Get the president," Melski said into the tank's radio.  "We need some advice here."