A World Apart

Calico stood there with a look of dismay on his face for a moment as he realized his situation. He was trapped on a strange planet, had no food, not much of a shelter to speak of, and was sure that he was missing something rather important. Didn’t take him long to figure it out.

“Hmm have you seen my arm Twilight?” Calico asked with the same amount of

“You mean the one I bandaged? It was pretty badly burned and looked…” She stopped as she looked up at him and noticed that his entire arm from just below the shoulder joint down was completely missing. Calico was already searching for it as concern that he would have if he were asking where the butter was in a refrigerator. She was talking and with a smile he had produced it from the far side of the chair he had just been sitting in.

“Hmm must have fallen off when we hit ground. Now where is that other one?” He said a bit under his breath. Within seconds he was busy searching through the debris that littered his floor and checking the few locked cabinets left intact.

“Your arm… quick get over here so you don’t bleed out.” Twi yelled. The look of panic was obvious on her face and she was ripping a sheet that she had found in a strip with her magic.

“I’m not bleeding, its synthetic,” he said as he held it out for her to see. She noted the metallic ring that had some sort of wired connections on it. Calico in a bit of a huff all but tossed the arm in front of Twilight as he continued his search.

“What the hell are you? What happened to your arm?”

Calico turned to Twilight and just smiled. He had found his spare arm and was holding it as he said, “I told you what I am, as far as the arm, that’s a story for later. Until then I need to find my tools.”

“What do you need those for?” Twilight inquired with a bit of annoyance in her voice.

“To fix my arm…” Calico mentioned as he flipped up one of the bench style seats where his dining area had apparently once been.

“What do you have two broken arms?”

Calico stopped searching then slowly looked up at Twilight from his bent over position. He achingly slowly stood up, never taking his gaze off of her. His face showed no expression past his eyes seeming to be a bit wider than before. This creeped Twilight the hell out. To her chagrin, Calico simply nodded his head up and down and said “Yes, exactly…”

Calico immediately went back to searching through his cupboards and other random places that didn’t even seem like storage areas. Twilight sat there for a moment before assuring herself once again that Calico was indeed insane. Her contemplation was thankfully cut short as the sound of hoof beats on metal hit her ears. AJ and Rarity had finally come to check on everything.

“Twi, are you ok in here?” Applejack called as she finished stepping inside the hulk of metal. Surprise was the least of the things that she felt when she saw not only the state of the interior but also all the strange things that she had never seen before.

“Yeah, but what took you so long?” Twilight asked.

“Ah was helpin’ Big Mac shore up town hall.” She replied. AJ noticed Calico holding a small box in his left hand and also jumped at the fact that his right arm was all but missing. She all but yelled, “What happened to yur arm?”

It took only a fraction of a second before he popped off with, “She stole it. Look its right by her hooves.”

Twilight looked shocked and nervous at the same time, like she always did when she felt like she had to protect herself from lies.

“I did not, you threw it at me.” She said defensively.

“Only after I wrestled it from your grip. I threw it at you to try and escape.” Calico half yelled at her, defending his position.

“Twi?” AJ looked at her incredulously. She knew something was up.

“I didn’t…he…he”

“I did it because I was hoping it would distract you, you …you monster.”

A smile broke on his face when he noticed that she was finally speechless. She just didn’t know what to say at the wild accusations being thrown her way. Twilight’s mouth just hung down, unable to move as if stuck in a perpetual state of shock.

Applejack couldn’t help it, she started to chuckle. Calico soon followed suit now feeling like it was appropriate to. He walked over to Twilight and reached down to pull her jaw up to a closed position.

“That was too easy.”

“You are so not a nice…wolf…thing” Twilight said with slightly gritted teeth.

“Ill make it up to you then. If you provide me with a place to work on my arm and some food, I will tell you everything you want to know about me. Seems like a fair trade. “

Twilight thought for only a minute then agreed to the deal. It only took a moment for Calico to gather up his tools and extra limbs to be brought to the tree house library that resided only a few hundred feet away. In very little time the group of three was sitting around the table in the kitchen area of twilights home while she looked around to see what she could make up for a meal.

“This would be so much easier with spike here. He would have an idea of what to do with all these random food items.” Twilight said, obviously frustrated. She never really was much of a cook but why would she need to be when she had her loyal assistant there to make amazing meals, even being such a little guy as he was.

“Need some help there, Twi?” AJ asked as she got up from the table to go to the aid of her friend. Rarity stayed in her seat, looking up only to watch as Applejack left the table. Her eyes were focused on the fact that there were two arms sitting on the table and one arm that was nimbly working on the other two. Her gaze wandered up briefly to see the stump that was Calico’s right upper arm.

Calico saw her look at him even while his eyes were looking down at the undamaged arm in front of him. He continued his work but was intently waiting for the question that he knew was coming.

“So, Calico, tell us about yourself.”

That wasn’t quite what he was expecting. Given the current situation, he figured he would have to tell them about his arm and how he had lost the flesh and blood version of it. No matter though.

“What do you want to know?” He looked up for only a brief moment as he looked for the proper screwdriver in his little kit. He was noticeably fumbling to get a screw into place but will little success as it kept popping out of its slot. “Damn lack of magnetics.”

Rarity saw his plight…if one could call it that. A slight blue-ish glow started to emanate from her horn as she lifted and replaced the screw in its slot, holding it there so that he could screw it in. Calico of course looked dumbfounded as this was yet another thing that he was not expecting to see happen in this world. He couldn’t help but smile a bit and start to screw the last piece into place.

“How about you tell us where you are from first.”

“Heh, that is a long story. Considering that I don’t really know where I am at currently in the universe it may be hard to explain where I am from but I will try my best.” Calico showed a little bit of dismay at the fact that he really had no idea where in the universe he was at nor any idea as to how he got there.

“Well to help you out a bit, we are in the Milky Way galaxy and this planet is called Earth.” Twilight said from across the kitchen. She was now doing the dirty dishes with her magic because Applejack was now the one cooking.

Calico was dumbfounded once again.

“What…what year is it?”

“It is the year 1264 of the rule of Princess Celestia.” Twilight answered again.

Calico was very confused. None of this made sense.

“I think when all things here are said and done, I will need a history book on this planet. I’m sure you have one here.”

“There are 15 copies of various historical textbooks…” Twilight was cut short as Calico threw up his hand.

“I didn’t need to know that quite yet. Anyway I’ll tell you what I can. I’ll say this, until we understand how I came to be here, some of this is going to sound completely insane.”

Cant be any worse, Twilight thought, than what I already think of you. She walked over with some empty plates in her magical glow and placed them around the table while Applejack finished her preparations.

“Go on then Calico. Tell us all about yourself.” Rarity urged. She was very interested in hearing this story.

“Well originally I come from a planet called Argnurus 4. It was a beautiful land for so many millennia. We explored the stars and made contact with so many peaceful races.”

Calico stopped talking for a moment. His mind was desperately trying to pull certain memories to the surface but had problems getting them to be completely vivid in his minds eye.

“We met one not so peaceful race. I species beyond anything even we had seen in five thousand years of searching the heavens. To this day those monsters roam free, destroying everything they come in contact with and annihilating every species they saw for the sake of resource collection. It was a chilly day when they hit our planet. Hundreds of warships rained down from the sky and simply destroyed major cities. There was a resistance.”

Calico stopped again. This time not to think but to pick up his now fixed arm and look at the connection ring and check it one last time. A sudden knock at the door caught Calico off guard and he dropped the arm to the floor narrowly missing his foot. He took a moment to put his wings back into place as they had fluffed out quite a bit from the fright. He let out a slow breath and placed his head on the table for a moment. When he looked up, he was greeted to the sight of a cyan blue Pegasus with a prismatic mane.

“Heya RD, now where have you been?” Applejack asked as she sat down at the table, nearly all the empty spaces filled with food or dishware for dinner.

“Napping, what else? What is this thing and when did you build that new shed?” Rainbow’s ability to be crass and ask abrasive questions came as little surprise to AJ, but Twilight was looking at her like she had just cursed the sun itself.

“Rainbow really, how rude.” Rarity said in a tone that would make most mothers feel bad about something they had done wrong.

“Heh, um…sorry. Didn’t mean to upset you,” she said, as she looked Calico square in the eyes. He only blinked and reached down for his arm that lay on the floor. He lightly tossed it up just enough to shift his grip from the wrist up to the connection coupler and proceeded to lock it into place on his stub of a right arm. He let out a rather pained groan for a moment then settled down to test his fingers and make sure they all functioned properly.

“You didn’t upset me, your arrival did startle me though. No harm, no foul.” Calico said with a bit of a smile that could even be heard in his voice. “Now where was I?”

“Something about a resistance to the army attacking your planet…” Twilight said as she started to dish out food to everyone that didn’t have magic. Rainbow Dash was even sliding in next to Calico since that was the only seat left open.

“Ah yeah, well when the war first started we didn’t have much of a chance it seemed. But we quickly amassed a force that could do some good to protecting our planet. I had already spent time as an interstellar pilot but decided that I wanted to do some land warfare, because a death in space means that your body will never rest in peace…only in pieces. I was squad leader because of my past experience leading large ship crews.”

Calico looked down at the plate being set in front of him. His surprise was evident when he saw a nice salad mix on one small plate and a larger plate with cooked potatoes and something similar to a burrito filled with black beans and some form of salsa. It took only a single bite of the food for Calico to sigh loudly.

“Is something wrong with the meal?” Twilight asked, not taking into account that he might not eat the same things that ponies eat.

“It tastes amazing.” He said biting down another mouthful

“What were you expecting?” Dashie asked like it was something that she never doubted in the first place. To be fair it wasn’t.

“I don’t know what I was expecting…maybe something with hay or grass.”

There was a simple little chuckle from the group as they all ate dinner together. This seemed very odd to Calico though. Usually it takes a great deal of time for a group to become accepting of an interloper in their midst. He could see these 4 were probably friends and something like this would be normal, but to have an alien share a meal with them so easily seemed a bit strange indeed.

“Anyway, sorry. I tend to get sidetracked easily with long stories. So anyway I retained my rank as a captain, a rank just high enough to be a large group leader but also low enough that I could be out with a team directly instead of staying in the clear and just hearing about my team’s day. It was a position I valued for a very long time.” Calico took another bite but noticed something was missing.

“Could I trouble you for something to drink, Sparkle?”

“You can just call me Twilight and yes let me see what I have.”

With a nod of appreciation, Calico resumed his story.

“To break away from the boring details, one day I was out on mission with another team from a separate unit and we ended up being pinned down. After some still unknown number of hours, we realized that we were screwed. I called for the team to pull out and retreat back to our safe zone. My team began to run for it and I tried to suppress the aliens enough to let them escape. I played my trump card and was able to make my escape also but unlike the remaining members of my team, I didn’t get out free.”

Calico didn’t need to say it; it was very obvious what he had meant. He looked down to see the mug of some slightly frothy brownish liquid sitting in front of him. He grabbed it in his now reattached right hand and held it for a moment, looking more at his arm then at the drink before him. A small sip was all it took as he noted a bitter taste that he knew all too well from many a quiet night.

“Hard cider huh? I’m surprised this would be the first drink you would give me. I expected water.”

“Well we all have some so I figured it would be alright to offer you too.” Twilight said kindly as she passed mugs around to everyone at the table. Calico wasn’t as much stunned as he was confused and he finally let loose something that was on his chest since the start of the meal.

“Ok that’s more than I can handle. What the hell is up with you all? Is this normal for you to just be so inviting of an alien creature that has wrecked part of your town, disturbed the peace and is a total unknown to you?” Calico’s suspicions were at an all time high by this point.

“Partner, you landed in Ponyville, the town voted “The most friendly town in Equestria” 6 years running.” AJ said, pride just dripping off of her every word.

Calico just sat there a bit dumbfounded. This was going to be a long evening. He took a long chug of his drink and set the near empty wooden mug down. Drown me again, Calico thought, in the bitter waters of memory oh sweet cider.