Interference Trilogy Book I: Derpy and the Assimadrons

by I_Darkstar_X

Rating: teen
Tags: Alternate Universe, Sad, Romance
Length: 13161

(Originally posted on Fanfiction.net) A story about Derpy Hooves the Pegasus, and how a single accident brings about both the destruction and salvation for her world. (Yes, the short summery is pretty chessey, but whatever. Hope you enjoy.)

(Originally posted on Fanfiction.net.) Ever have one of those days when everything seems to go wrong and nothing goes your way? No, I didn't think so, but Derpy does. A lot. And by a lot, I mean, A LOT. For example, after ruining several days worth of confectionary masterpiece, she runs off outside the city to cry in peace… Under a wormhole, through which a massive mechanical planet can be seen. So this should be interesting, should.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-09-29 01:00:05 UTC

Prologue

Prologue

The Universe we live in is cold, grey, heartless, and evil. But, there is a host of races seeking only to help others. Over years and years of conflict and sacrifice, they have drawn the line that protects us from the Evil. One such race are the Assimadrons. Their civilization's life began when a derelict starship carrying billions of eons worth of bacteria that thrived in the cold vacuum of space careened through a star. The intense heat and friction melded the surviving electric equipment with the bacteria, creating nano-life. The ship could have easily disappeared from history by shooting out of the star system, but instead, it smashed into a massive arid planet. The bacteria slowly evolved, by seeking to better their mechanical structure by absorbing and assimilating the other biological creatures on the planet. The result was an entire empire of cyborgs ruled by sentient machines. After a few millennia, they discovered Hyper-Warp, the most effective version of faster-than-light travel. With this technology, they explored their galaxy, adopting other cultures, and adding more and more volunteers to the ranks of their empire. One day, one of their starship prototypes, named: Bringer of Ascension, a disc-shaped ship with 2 pairs of slating wings with a pair on top and on bottom, accidentally created a Portal while testing a new, experimental Hyper-Warp Drive, through which they could see a M-Class planet. The planet's name: Equestron. A planet is home to 3 remarkable branches of intelligent equine beings, Earth Ponies, Pegasai, and Unicorns. At first, the Assimadrons were apprehensive of entering the Portal. So they sent an unmanned probe to collect a sample of life from the planet. Why? I really have no idea. The probe descended on the planet in the dead of night. Searching for the perfect specimen. Locating a small village, it detected an ideal target, and using a tractor beam, it pulled the specimen into the probe and began to analyze the target. It was an extremely young male Earth Pony, commonly refered to as a "colt". Sifting through his memories, it deduced that he had gotten lost while attempting to follow his mother who was going to talk to someone named Princess Celestia. Once the probe returned to the Bringer of Ascension, the Asimadrons assimilated the colt, turning him into a very special cyborg. He grow, mature, and could think for himself, and possessed advanced emotion simulating technology that wasn't used much, as emotion is more or less useless to the Assimadrons. But while they were busy with the colt, the Hyper-Warp Drive on the ship began to overheat from the exertion of keeping the Portal open, and soon, The Drive began to go into meltdown, the Drive was going to explode and the Portal would close. Quickly, they evacuated the ship, and escaped to a safe distance. But the Portal closed. The Asimadrons were deprived of Equestron. The colt was given a name, to give the equine aliens on the planet a way to effectively socialize with him: Xylo. So life continued on Equestron, and in Equestria uninterrupted by the Asimadrons...

But...

The Asimadrons do not give up so easily, they rebuilt the Hyper-Warp Drive that created the Portal which they called: Opportunity. So over the course of 12 years, they built a starship that harnessed the power of one of their two suns. (Binary star system.) A Solarsphere, titled, The Power Core. And now, an eager Xylo waits in a small corvette to return to Equestron and spread the Asimadrons' culture across the planet, starting in his old hometown, apparently named Ponyville...

The Assimadrons

Chapter 2; The Assimadrons

Derpy was still asleep when the metal backpack that had expanded like that suitcase did in Iron Man 2 was almost finished with basicly enveloping Derpy in black metal, except her head. Xylo still stood next to her, he smiled down at her.

"So picturesque..." he thought.

"and her eyes, ethereal beauty." he returned to his ship and stepped inside. the ship was black with dark green lights blinking on and off on all sides of the main control room. This room had a scaffold-like floor with a green glow beneath it. The door was near the front of the small ship on the right. At the front was a rotating chair facing an arch-shaped console with many high-tech equipment and read-outs. At the back was another room separated from the main control room by a automatic sliding door. Xylo headed straight for the back room, pausing only to push a couple buttons by the exit hatch. The door automatically opened when Xylo came near. The back room is the storage room. This room is filled mostly with large metal chests, with random numbers and letters on the sides like, BD-739.ND, or HDK-93936.82GS.

"Where is it?" he asked himself as he looked through the storage compartments, looking for the Mobile Transport Unit Command Card, or MTUCC. In compartment 9-B, he found it.

"Here it is, now, I need to insert it into the CCTD." The MTUCC is is like a orange floppy disc, except... Actually it's just an orange floppy disc, except... Cooler. The CCTD stands for Command Card Transformer Device. What it does, it take the information on the Command Card and uses it to change the practical use of Xylo's corvette. (I don't mean the car.) Rushing back into the main control room, Xylo ran over to the control panel and pushed a button marked: CCTD. Just above the button, a slat opened. Xylo pushed the MTUCC into the slat, which closed once the CC was completely in. At once the ship began to move. The wings angled straight down, to serve as legs, with the laser cannons at the tips flattened to become feet, the back engines extended and rotated up so the pointed at an angle away from the ship. After a few seconds, the ship stood up. Xylo opened the exit hatch again, now at least 20 feet off the ground. Xylo just jumped down, heights were not a problem when your knees were practically indestructible. Derpy on the other hand was just waking up. The backpack thing had finished, it did not completely cover her entire body, but most of it. Strangely, the chest-piece resembled a rib cage, as opposed to a sheet of metal for protection purposes.

"Ohhhh..." she moaned, sitting up and rubbing her head.

"Hello Derpy." Xylo said, somehow managed to land next to her, bipedal, without Derpy noticing.

"Ahhgh!!!" Derpy yelled as she jumped, scrambling to her feet. Xylo raised his front hooves and held them out in front him, innocently.

"It's okay, calm down. How do you feel?" he asked smiling again. Derpy slowly calmed down, watching Xylo. Her eyes drifted to his and for a moment, nothing happened.

"I feel..." Derpy said before blushing and looking away.

"I feel... Different. More, alert. More..." Then she noticed the MTU.

"Whaaa..." she stammered, backing away from the transformed ship.

"What is that?" Xylo finished, taking a step toward Derpy.

"It's my ship. I used it to come here through that." he pointed up at the Portal. Derpy looked up too and gasped when she saw the Power Core.

"Is...is that... Your home?" she asked shakily, looking back at Xylo. Xylo chuckled and took another step closer.

"No. That is what my people call the Power Core. It uses our sun," he pointed at the sun.

"to keep the Portal open." Derpy nodded and turned to look at the Portal again.

"What's a Portal?" Derpy asked, looking at the outline of the Portal, which shimmered like water dancing on a sea floor.

"Well," began Xylo, sitting down cross-legged.

"My people believe that there are 2 examples of, that." he said pointing at the Portal again.

"The one called Wormholes you can find if you look hard enough, is like a really long multi-colored tunnel that you can use to get somewhere much quicker then you would normaly be able to do. The other kind are usually much smaller, and very easy to make if you have the right machines. These ones, called Portals, you can see right through. The one above us is the second kind." he finished and looked back up at the Portal.

"I actually came from this planet." he said looking back at Derpy. Derpy's eyebrows shot up.

"Really?" she asked, intrigued. She sat down across from Xylo. Xylo smiled at her again, before continuing.

"Yes, I don't remember much about this place except, my hometown was a village named Ponyville." Derpy grinned and said,

"That's where I live too!" Xylo jumped up and said,

"Perfect! Could you take me there?" Derpy smiled and nodded, also standing, but not noticing that she was standing bipedal-style.

"Can you fly?" she asked. Xylo smiled and turned to the MTU.

"Watch." he said simply as arches of black metal unfolded and folded untill 2 large cylinders sprouted from his back, like a jet pack, he shot straight up and hovered next to the entry hatch of his ship. He waved for Derpy to join him. Derpy's jaw dropped.

"How..?" she began but didn't finish because her own jet pack sprouted and activated, sending her straight up,

"AHHHHHHHHH!!!" she screamed as she went zooming in random directions for about 26 seconds.

"Derpy, try and hover. Think the word 'hover' and you'll do it." he called to her as she zipped right under the MTU and then up.

"Ok!" she yelled back. She closed her eyes,

"Hover." she thought, the rockets decreased power and she slowed down, before stopping directly in front of Xylo, hovering. She opened her eyes again, then she blushed at how close she and Xylo were hovering.

"Uhhhh..." Derpy said, looking away.

"I didn't catch your name." she asked, trying to feel less embarressed and/or awkward.

"Xylo." Xylo said queitly before backing up and opening the hatch.

"After you." he said, bowing. Derpy nodded and attempted to make it into the ship without bumping into anything. Unfortunately, when she reached out to pull herself into the ship, the jet pack deactivated, but a small, green light shot out from Xylo's front left hoof and enveloped Derpy, instantly stopping her fall.

"How..?" she began as Xylo lifted her up into the ship using the tractor beam.

"I used a tractor beam. It creates a dent in the space around you, which keeps you in place, then if I move the dent, you move too. I will show you how to do this too." he finished as he set Derpy down in a chair next to the command chair. Then he entered the ship, closed and locked the hatch, and sat down in the chair at the front of the vehicle known as a command chair.

"So which way to Ponyville Derpy?" Xylo asked turning his head toward her.

"That way." She replied pointing straight ahead.

"Right." Xylo said as he pushed several buttons. Suddenly, the MTU began to walk forward, whiring with every step, and every time a foot hit the ground, a quiet "*Boom!*" echoed across the land.

"Why exactly did your people come here.?" Derpy asked as the MTU began to scale a hill.

"12 years ago," Xylo began,

"My people, the Assimadrons, were building a ship that was supposed to be the faster then our other ships, instead, the engine overloaded and expelled the excess energy into space, which formed a Portal. The Portal led to this planet, which we call Equestron. Curious, my people sent a probe through, to scout out the planet to see if you were hostile, which you obviously aren't." Derpy nodded, listening intently.

"The probe found one of you that was lost, like we always do. Then, the probe took me back to my planet to be Ascended. But the engine keeping the Portal open exploded from over-exertion. But no one was killed." Xylo paused, inspecting a flashing panel, showing a structure nearby. After pushing a few buttons of the control panel, he continued.

"Luckily, the Assimadrons didn't give up. They built the Power Core to recreate the Portal so I could come here and be with you." Xylo blushed realizing what he had just said. Derpy giggled.

"I-I mean come here to-to show everyone, um..." he stopped. Not wanting to say something stupid.

Fluttershy was the first to notice the MTU. Mainly because her cottage was very close to Xylo's impact zone. She heard the roaring from the ship entering the atmosphere, and the noise from the MTU approaching, and panicked... Why am I not surprised? Fluttershy is kindly described as a "gentle soul", she also is highly experienced with any and all animals, the normal ones at least. You could say her cottage is an apartment for animals. Her income comes from the chickens she keeps in her backyard. Chickens, surprisingly, lay eggs! I never knew that. So anyway, she panicked and is now hiding in her bedroom. Note: This is not the first time she's used that as a refuge. The MTU stopped as it reached visual range of Fluttershy's cottage. Xylo blinked. He never guessed that that so many differing creatures could possibly coexist in one structure of that size.

"Derpy? Is that a house, or a animal adoption center?" he asked turning to her. Derpy let out a tiny giggle before replying.

"No silly, Fluttershy lives there." Derpy said gesturing at the cottage.

"She loves animals. Every animal there lives there." Xylo nodded slowly.

"Fluttershy? Is that her real name? Or a nickname?" Xylo asked carefully.

"It's her real name." Derpy replied.

"Fluttershy... That sounds rather..." he rubbed his chin for a second, trying to think of something that wouldn't sound rude.

"...conspicuous." he finished, glancing at the cottage. The mech stopped beside the cottage and it somehow bent down, to allow ease of access. Xylo knew Derpy hadn't yet mastered her jetpack ability yet, so he thought it would be smarter to have the ship bend down instead of risking Derpy careening through Fluttershy's cottage.

"I guess a lot of the ponies' names are rather... conspicuous." Derpy said, scratching the back of head.

"Like mine."

"I wouldn't say your name is conspicuous." Xylo quickly said, standing and turning to Derpy.

"No you wouldn't because you're very considerate." she replied, smiling at him. Xylo nodded and approached the exit hatch, opening it with his tractor beam emitter. Derpy turned and followed him out of the MTU.

"You seem to be taking all of this very well." Xylo said as he closed the hatch after Derpy had exited the MTU.

"It just seems commonplace to have all this, stuff, around me, almost like..." Derpy mentally searched for the right description.

"I've been around it all my life." Xylo nodded as he turned towards the cottage.

"That's expected to happen. The Assimilation Pack uploads data of all our tech into your brain, however your brain structure cannot handle all that information at once, so as soon as you see a piece of tech, it releases the data, so as not to overload your brain." he finished. By now they had reached the front door of Fluttershy's cottage. Xylo almost walked right into the door.

"Why is... Oh whoops." he said blushing lightly as he knocked slowly.

"What?" Derpy asked.

"Nothing," Xylo said turning his head to answer her.

"I'm just, not used to manual doors. All the doors at my home automatically open when you approach them." Derpy's eyebrows raised.

"Really? That would be helpful." Xylo nodded and turned back to the door. Several minutes passed. Xylo just stood there mumbling about all the reasons why someone should build a automatic door. But it was soon interrupted by a loud squawk from behind the house. Xylo didn't seem to react beyond nodding once or twice. Derpy on the other hoof knew what a chicken sounded like.

"What the..." she said to herself as she began to head towards the backyard of the cottage. Xylo noticed this and asked, rather puzzled,

"Where are you going?" Derpy replied to this, saying, "I heard a chicken, it sounds like they're being attacked or something." Several more squawks were heard. Derpy rounded the corner and gasped. The MTU was firing the same spiders that had pinned her down when she first met Xylo. The spiders latched onto the chickens and began to expand like Derpy's Assimilation Pack did, but on a much smaller scale. Some chickens had finished being Ascended and were attempting to calm the remaining un-touched chickens down.

"It's not going to hurt you at all.",

"The worst is over.", and,

"No! It didn't hurt! I just told you that!" could be heard from the Ascended chickens who were, as previously mentioned, calming the unscathed chickens. Surprisingly, to Derpy that is, she didn't feel as... worried? As she thought she would.

"Must be part of this, Ascension, thing." she thought as she watched the last chicken got hit by the MTU's spider-thing cannons. Xylo had followed her and was now sitting beside her watching the last chicken suddenly jump up, completely Ascended. The other chickens cheered and one noticed Xylo. The chicken waved to him and called out,

"Sir? Could we borrow your MTU for a bit? We'll need it to get to the Steel Heart!" Xylo nodded, then smiled.

"Of course! But just remember to return it!" he called back. The chicken who had spoken got the attention of the other chickens and instructed them to enter the MTU quickly while he, "gives our caretaker our sincere thanks." Then he presently rocketed up to the top-floor window, and knocked on it. After a couple seconds, he peered in. Xylo cocked his head and asked quietly,

"Why doesn't, Fluttershy, answer?" he had to pause to remember Fluttershy's name, due to it being... Conspicuous. The chicken-drone stopped peering and jumped down. Saying something about,

"I would have guessed. Poor Fluttershy." he said as it hopped inside the MTU. Which jumped straight up, and before reaching its apex, the "legs" returned to wings, the engines rotated back and it flew up towards the Portal. Xylo then noticed that Derpy had disappeared. But then he heard a door open, Derpy say:

"Thank goodness you're alright!" Then a very quiet scream.

...

Three guesses who. (Hint: Derpy is covered in black metal.)

———

This would be a good place to pause, refill your lemonade, grab a sandvich, and whatever else.

———

Meanwhile... (That means that this is happening alongside what you've already read.)

Twilight was reading books.

...

There's not much more to say. Spike on the other hand, was asleep, dreaming of *blank*. (Take a guess. Correct answer: Rarity. Duh.) Today, Twilight was researching a topic that had recently come up, according to an old record book, there was one Unicorn that drove himself mad from drinking posined water several years ago. According to the book, the Unicorn, driven mad, used his magic as a weapon, not an indirect weapon, like dropping anvils on people's heads, or as a "beam of virtue" but focusing the magic into an incredibly dense beam, that was devestating at close to long range. The Unicorn ended up killing himself in an explosion caused by a massive overdose of magical power. Twilight figured that this could be used if Discord ever reappeared. Which was doubtful. (NOT FORESHADOWING!!!) All records regarding the specifics of the spell were banned, but the vague record was not. Twilight knew how dangerous the spell was because, I mean come on! The spell created a 2 mile deep crater in the middle of nowhere! It's obviously dangerous! Spike was not doing anything dangerous, unless you count dreaming dangerous. Which I don't. Who would count dreaming dangerous? Unless you're in a coma, then its dangerous because if don't stop you could die. I'm getting off-topic, sorry. Twilight's studies were interrupted by a fierce knocking, which jerked Spike awake.

"It wasn't me officer!" Spike yelled as he sat up. (Whut?) Twilight put her book down and trotted to the door and opened it

"What's wrong?" she asked, already assuming that if somepony was knocking on her door that hard, their must be something wrong. Turns out there was 2 ponies at her door. The first was Apple Jack, and the second was Pinkie Pie, who didn't look at all like her normal cheery demeanor, in fact they both looked downright scared out of their wits!

"Twilight! Come look at this!" Apple Jack said shakily, pointing at something in the sky behind her house. Twilight raised an eyebrow, but stepped out and looked at the sky, right in the middle was the Portal, through which, she could see the Power Core and the Assimadrons' homeworld. Twilight's eyes widened in shock.

"Do you know what is?" Asked Pinkie Pie. Twilight turned to them and asked,

"What makes you think that I know what it is?" Apple Jack looked to Pinkie before replying.

"We thought so because you read so many books and maybe you might have read about it." Twilight questioned the logic of that statement inwardly. Now I bet you're itching to find out what happened with Fluttershy and all of that, what happened was that she fainted. I'm honestly not surprised. Derpy felt bad about it, and Xylo used a stimulant to wake her up. They tried to explain the situation, but she just fainted again. So Xylo used his tractor beam to place her in her bed. Then they continued on the way to Ponyvile, but as you know, the Ascended chickens had to use Xylo's MTU to fly to the Assimadrons' homeworld, which has remained unnamed, but fear not! I will disclose its name now: Vratran II. …yes, that's the planet's name. However, the Assimadrons call it "Steel Heart" because it is the Heart of their entire collective intelligence. (That seemed too easy.) Anyway, Derpy and Xylo had to fly there using their jetpacks, they passed overhead and headed to the center of the deceptively large town.

"How long did it take to build this town? Xylo asked, landing in front of the town hall.

"Uhhh... I actually don't know." Derpy replied, landing beside Xylo. Xylo nodded and looked around at the ponies who had frozen in their tracks, gaping at him and Derpy. Derpy spotted the Cakes among them and instantly felt embarrassed. Suddenly, some kind of visor rose up and obscuring her face, through it, she could see all kinds of strange things, such as: A clock, personal vital signs, air density, altitude, longitude and latitude, etc.. Xylo on the other hand, waved at one pony who was shakily pointing at him, then looked up at the Portal to Vraten II (I will refer to it from now on as Steel Heart FYI.) expectantly. Meanwhile, Twilight, Pinkie, and Apple Jack had seen Derpy and Xylo fly overhead, and raced after them, mainly because they wanted answers, if a massive alien Portal opened above your hometown, I bet you would want to know why they were there. Anyway, the Ascended Chickens had reached Steel Heart and set the MTU, or Scout Corvette, as it's called when in space, on an automated course to Xylo. Xylo saw the Starship approaching and stepped back to allow the ship room to land. Which it did, unfortunately, the wing slammed onto Xylo's head, knocking him to the ground, before anyone could react, he just stood up, and rubbed his head, otherwise uninjured. Xylo and everyone else in the vicinity weren't the only ones to notice the ship, nope. Rainbow Dash saw as well. Her reaction was surprise, opposed to panic. She followed the ship as it landed in the square.

"What the hay is going on?" She thought to herself. Then she spotted Twilight, Pinkie, and Apple Jack, who had just made it to the square and were about to approach Xylo. Twilight cautiously approached him, but saw that the other one (Derpy) was closer and approached it instead. (Holy crap! Twilight has serious guts!)

"Uhh, hi! Why did you come hear?" she asked, which caused Derpy to jump and snap around to face Twilight. This also caused Twilight to jump. For a second neither did anything except stare at one another. After several seconds, Twilight shook her head and said, rather cautiously,

"Why are you here?" Derpy was afraid to reply, because her "distinctive" voice might give her away.

"Yeah, just what are you doing here?" Derpy jumped and spun around. Rainbow Dash was floating behind her, her front hooves folded.

"Uhhhh..." Derpy said, glancing between Rainbow Dash and Twilight. Fortunately, Xylo came to her rescue.

"You'll see Rainbow and Twilight. You'll see." Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow.

"It's Rainbow Dash, if you don't mind." she said floating a bit higher off the ground. Xylo turned to her, smiled, and said,

"Of course." then he turned back to his ship, which he was having trouble getting open.

"Open you dumb door." he muttered. But it swung open with such force that he was launched through the air like a catapult's ammunition. He activated his jetpack just before clearing 10 meters away from the ship. He rocketed back, landing in front of the now open door. He clambered inside, heading to the cargo room again. This time, he was looking for the Ascension Zone Command Card. (AZCC.) It looked like the MTUCC, except purple. He found it under half of a nuclear refrigerator (...The Fr'ij am I saying?) near the back. Then he inserted it into the CCTD. Outside the ship, Derpy was still standing between Twilight and Rainbow Dash, when the corvette began to shake. Everyone except Derpy, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight backed away from the ship, which suddenly shone brilliantly. Derpy stepped slightly closer, she could just see through the light, it seemed. The light began to dissipate, revealing a small building, with a small podium by the front door. The building itself was a cube. The front door was an automatic double door. On the left side was some kind of small pad. To Derpy, an image of a teleport pad appeared in her head. But everyone else didn't have that info. Xylo was standing, yes, I said standing, bipedal no less, at the podium. He waved to Derpy to come join him. Derpy waved back and walked over to him, and stood beside the podium. Xylo looked up at the Portal absentmindedly. He scratched his left ear, looking around. His eyes drifted up to a castle hanging off of a cliff in the distance. (Caterlot.) and raised an eyebrow. He closed his flesh eye, allowing his mechanical eye full control of his view, but before he could take a closer look. Twilight and Rainbow Dash stepped up. Xylo reopened his flesh eye and looked at them.

"Uh, what is that for? What is your purpose here?" Twilight asked glancing at the building.

"Oh that." Xylo said, looking at the it as well.

"That, my friend is what my people call an Ascension Zone, or an AZ. As for what it does, imagine you were an artist. Say you went in there," Xylo pointed at the AZ.

"when you came out, you would be a better artist. Not in the sense that you would make masterpieces every time, but you wouldn't need any equipment, the Ascension process adds all of the required equipment needed." Xylo rested his head on his front hooves.

"Oh yeah? What if you were a good flyer?" Rainbow Dash asked, still hovering.

"You would be outfitted with scramjets, for maximum speed potential."

"What about a good farmer?" asked Apple Jack, who had just stepped forward.

"Automatic hydration mechanisms, alongside a whole new variety of seeds that apparently don't exist on this planet." Xylo said, glancing at her.

"Good partier?" Asked Pinkie, who had appeared next to him from seemingly thin air.

"I'm not sure that's a word..." Xylo said slowly.

"Oh." Pinkie said, and sunk into a deep thinking period. Xylo blinked.

"You certainly have a diverse populace." he whispered to Derpy. Twilight was thinking.

"An alien that looks like us shows up saying that he can improve on our traits. It seems almost too good to be true." she thought.

"What if, you were a good reader?" she asked. Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. Xylo looked at Twilight before replying.

"I don't know about that, but we have a database about everything that ever happened to my people. Makes for a good read. If you want to take the time to actually read through it." Xylo pointed at the AZ.

"As to why I'm here." he pointed at the AZ again.

"That's why." Twilight turned to AZ, and begun to slowly walk towards it. Everyone's eyes were on her. When she reached the front, the automatic door slid open. Inside was just blackness. Gathering her courage, she stepped inside. The door closed behind her... Then a metallic voice rang in her ears.

"Welcome, prepare yourself. There's no turning back. Do you wish to proceed?" Twilight was sweating now. She was disoriented, was she standing on her head or her hooves? Was the exit in front of her or behind her?

"Y-Yes." she stuttered.

"Excellent. Close your eyes if you haven't already." Twilight obeyed.

"Now, hold still..." Twilight heard a high pitched whirring sound right by her ear... Then...

Nothing.........

The Ascention of Ponyville

Chapter 3; The Ascension of Ponyville

When you read that Opportunity, as the Assimadrons call it, which I noted in the Prologue, reopened, I'll bet a spakker and two fish heads (?) that you thought to yourself: "I wonder what Celestia and Luna have to say about this." ... Ok, here's your spakker and your fish heads. Well, Luna was snoozing at the moment and really didn't see much of anything except the back of her eyelids. Celestia on the other hand, was... Uh... Er... How should I say this... Celestia was... Frightened..? (Hard to imagine, I know.) Which is incredibly strange mainly because Twilight and the others were all "Meh" about it. Also because she's hoooo-I-mean-powerful (...) and really shouldn't be scared in the least. Maybe she's met these creatures before in the past... Maybe. (NOT FORESHADOWING!!! *Trollface*) Moving on from that topic, ahem. Celestia just watches the whole debacle (?) unfold from her balcony-thing, using her telescope-like eyesight. When she saw the Ascension Zone appear, her eyes widened in shock. Quickly, a piece of paper and a quill appeared in front of her, and she begins to write;

"Twilight Sparkle,

I am warning you now, these creatures that have appeared are dangerous, and should be avoided at all costs. I wish I could give you more information, but I've wasted enough time with this letter already. I'll reply soon.

Celestia."

(Holy Fr'ij! She must have been in such a hurry, she left out the "Dear" at the beginning and the "Princess" bit at the bottom!) One quick, simple, istsy-bitsy, wee, question I want to ask. How, does Celestia send the letters? In the intro, we see the letter materialize in front of her, but what about the letters she sends? This is my-not-so plausible-hypothesis: She writes the letter, converts it into energy, (E=mc2 BEACH!!!) calculates the position of Spike, sends the letter's energy to Spike with a materialization timer, also with a message to the brain to make him burp, the result is him appearing to burp the letter out and materialize it at the same time. (Logic. It ruins everything.) Anyway, however she does it, the letter was sent. If you could remember, Spike fainted shortly after coming outside the library. Little hint, he's still there. The letter materialized on top of his head, and there it sat. Unread.

Xylo counted down silently in his head.

"19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7..."  a high-pitched whine filled the air.

"I guess my count was off." he thought as he watched the center of the teleport pad began to brightly glow dark green. A unicorn silhouette formed in the middle of the light, which began to get dimmer and dimmer. When the light was gone, Twilight stood in the middle. Well technicly that's not true, Twilight plus some, would be more specific. Twilight's purplely coat could still be seen in some places, mainly her left side, it seemed like it forgot to do half of the job! Most of the standard equipment was heaped on the right side of her body. Her right eye was replaced with an eye-plate, a piece of electronics that updates sight with vital signs, shield strength, ammo, should someone have any of these. In Derpy's case, it was implanted inside her eye, a bit messer, but it looks better in the end. The only thing that was Assimadron tech on the left side were metal straps, securing the tech in place, although its part of her body now, it can't come off, the micro-dish, a tiny radio dish, and a concealed Rapid Cannon. Her SP (Speacilized.) Box contained a class 2F7 connection to the Assimadron mainframe, and a vocabulary processor. The crowd was silent for several seconds, and even Rainbow Dash was speechless. (FINALLY!) All eyes were on Twilight, who suddenly began to look around, as if she was stunned to find out she was actually standing there. When she turned to look at Pinkie, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash, realization speard across her face.

"Pinkie? Applejack? Rainbow Dash?" She slowly approached them. Xylo raised an eyebrow.

"Memory loss is very uncommon, still, it seems like that could be the problem." Derpy on the other hand was to shocked to say anything. It was weird seeing Twilight like this, but at the same time, a comfort.

"How do you feel?" Xylo asked Twilight. Twilight's head instantly turned to him with a muffled whir and she replied.

"I feel... Different, slightly colder, less worried about things, more... Collected."

"The brain is trying to cope with the excess energy, causing certain brain functions to lag. Perfect. Nothing wrong there." Xylo thought, nodding. He looked up at the crowd and asked.

"Who's next?" For at least a full minute, no one moved. Then Pinkie popped up out of thin air beside Xylo and asked,

"Could you explain one thing to me?" Unfortunately, her question was never answered, for right then, Xylo jumped, slipped, catching Pinke's legs, causing her to fall on top of him. The added weight must have triggered a circuit or something because Xylo's jetpack activated for a spilt second, shooting both of them toward the AZ's front door. Xylo flew off in one direction, Pinkie flew inside the AZ, the door shutting behind her. Pinkie sat up, disoriented. Then the voice began to talk.

"Welcome, prepare yourself. There's no turning back. Do you wish to begin?"

"No! Let me out!" Pinkie cried, running around, trying to find an exit.

"Please!" she yelled again, tears falling.

"Excellent. now hold still..." Pinkie obeyed, then she heard a whirring to right.

"That must be the door!" she thought, and ran towards it. The second she turned and ran however, a

"*ZZZZZZZRRT!!!*" was heard, then all went quiet. Even the beating of Pinkie's heart was temporarily stopped. Duh.

Xylo picked himself up and put an ear close to the door. Derpy saw him flinch, then he sighed, and walked back to the podium.

"Is she going to be okay?" Applejack asked, eyes wide.

"Of course." He replied.

"She'll be out in about a minute."

"Will she look like, Twilight?" She asked glancing at Twilight.

"Oi!" Xylo exclaimed, turning his head toward her.

"Don't knock it untill you try it." he said.

"She won't look exactly like Twilight, but there will be similarities." The second after he said this, the teleport pad began to glow, and there was Pinkie. Xylo recognized a small electronic device hanging off the side of her neck as a SZ-1000, a small teleportation device. Not very powerful with a maximum range of 25 meters. Night vision googles hung over her eyes. Xylo noticed a metal line separating the sides of her head.

"Oh dear. I'm guessing she didn't hold still." he thought. There was no sign of an eye pad. But there were two tanks of gas on either side of her lower abdomen. There was also a miniature dimensional storage device at the base of her neck. But what stood out the most was the fact that the metal was not black, but dark pink! Yes, dark pink! Xylo was more that a little surprised, in fact, he blinked a few times just to make sure he wasn't seeing things. Pinkie was more than a little surprised herself.

"What just happened?" she asked, teleporting next to Twilight.

"You were just Ascended. How do you feel?" Xylo asked, resting his head on the podium's edge.

"Hard to say, I guess you could say I feel like I could be everywhere at once, and that I could just appear anywhere at once anytime and that I can see everything and ooh look at that fly over three on top of that house on the side of the hill and..."

"Seems like Pinkie." Rainbow Dash mumbled. Xylo tuned out to the ramblings. Gears were turning in his head. No really. Gears were actually turning in his head.

"She must have a direct mental link to the teleport. That shouldn't pose a problem." Xylo said to himself, standing upright.

"So that's three now."

"Three?" Rainbow Dash asked, raising an eyebrow.

"There's only Pinkie and Twilight. That's two." Xylo looked at Derpy, and gave a small nod. Derpy nodded back. She felt braver when she was with Xylo.

"Well?" Rainbow Dash pestered, hovering closer, giving him an accusatory look.

"That's because There was one other of your race that was Ascended first. He looked at Derpy, and smiled reassuringly. Derpy nodded back, and stepped forward. Rainbow Dash turned to her.

"Grey coat, who do I... Wait..." realization swept across her face at the exact same time that Derpy lowered the visor, showing her face.

"DERPY!?" Almost everyone gasped. The only ones who didn't were Xylo, Twilight, and Pinkie. Rainbow Dash's jaw dropped faster than the prices at a flea market! (LOL!.. What's a flea market?)

"What? How?" Rainbow Dash stuttered.

"I was sitting next to where Xylo's ship crash landed, so I was the first." She said, loud enough for everyone to hear. She stood there for a second. Looking down.

"If Derpy can do it, I'm sure I can too." Derpy looked up just in time to see Rainbow Dash disappear inside the AZ. She wasn't the only one who was surprised, everyone, even Xylo. 36 seconds later, an Ascended Raindow Dash appeared on the teleport pad. Xylo's eyebrow raised. There was at least 6 scramjets. There was also a sleek, streamlined helmet that folded back into the neck-plate, which folded up to cover her head, taking a much more helmet-y shape. The metal covered every square inch of her body, except for her head, as usual. Her cutie mark was visible through a small glass porthole on either side, as usual. Looking around, she made a strange noise of excitement, and then jumped up into the air, at her apex, the Scramjets fired. She achieved 0 to mach 5 in half a millisecond. Off she went, zipping around the town at super-sonic speeds. Then the AZ began to hum.

"Who stepped inside?" Xylo asked quietly, looking around. Derpy instantly noticed a clear absence of orange and a cowpony hat. (Correct answer: Applejack.) After another 30 or so seconds, a fully Ascended Applejack appeared on the pad. (I just keep going don't I? Don't worry, after this, and a brief cut to Spike, this chapter will be over.) Applejack had dome-like pieces attached to the bottom of her hooves, these devices are know as PSHaMD, Planting, Seeding, Harvesting, and Moisturizing Device. Like the name entails, it plants, seed, harvests, and moistens. That sounded like a bad business salesman's motto-thing. It also does trees. Her hat was still there, except it had a metal brim. Besides those, there were two robotic pinchers, currently off, alongside a grapple cannon, a super-powered version of a grappling gun, but instead of a hook, it creates a tiny dent in space, increasing its already wide range of uses. A squarish eye-plate, was situated over her left eye, connected by wires to a point just below her left ear. Besides all this, there was plenty of blinking lights and such. She also looked surprised to be there, which was perfectly okay, in fact, it was expected. Applejack walked back to the others, walking not hindered by the PSHaMD at all.

"How do you feel?" Xylo asked, fiddling with a random screw.

"I feel..." Applejack began, like everybody else. (Oh I'M sorry, I meant everyPONY! Geez...) But unlike the rest, she couldn't find the right words, besides:

"Thank you." Elsewhere, Spike had just come to, and felt rather hungry.

"I wonder what's... Wait what's this?" He asked himself examining the letter.

"A letter? Is it for me?" He asked himself looking about. Then he made the awful mistake of looking up,

"Whaaaa..." Spike, being rather small, was genetically afraid of anything bigger than him that had a mind of its own. And plenty of massive ships were flying about in that Portal, in fact, a rather large amount... Spike didn't faint this time, instead he ran back inside, dropping the letter on the way in. It was whisked away by a breeze, through the air, and right through Rarity's window. But she was still out cold at her doorstep. (Oops.) Meanwhile, at the Steal Heart, the 3 L.O.R.D.s (Logical Omnipotent Robotic Designators.) watched through Xylo's eyes as all of this unfolded, but when they came to the part where Xylo had zoomed in on Canterlot, their nonexistent hearts skipped a metaphorical beat.

"Look who's there, Vortexcia herself." Said the first, who looks a bit like a darker, sharper, red-eyed GLaDOS.

"In the flesh." The second added, who resembles HAL on two pairs of large metal struts.

"Literally. In the flesh." The third observed, increasing the resolution to get a better look, who looks like a darker colored green and red lighted version of the Warp Core on the Enterprise in Star Trek; Insurrection.

"She isn't as pretty as she was before." The second said, slouching non-physically.

"Well, you know what the mortals say, 'You can't have your cake and eat it too.'" (I always thought Valve came up with that, it fits Portal really well!)

"I guess you're right." The second one agreed, but the first one ignored them. Instead, he said,

"Yes, but who is the white one on the balcony? And why is Vortexcia asleep?" (DUN, DUN, DUUUHHH!!!) Luna's an Assimadron!!! Oh no!!! Wait, is that even a bad thing?

...

I'm not going to answer that.

Yet.

There. The chapter's finished. I'm hoping that you're still awake, because things are about to get perilous.

WARNING!!! NEXT CHAPTER CONTAINS A TIME JUMP!!!

Confronting Vortexcia

Chapter 4; Confronting Vortexcia

20,000,000 years later, little had changed, and...

I'M JUST KIDDING!!! LOLOLOLOL!!!

The time gap is only about 2 days. The letter ended up being burned in a cake, Spike was Ascended, and so was everypony else in the town, and last, but not least, Xylo was staying at Derpy's house. In the guest room! He was staying in the guest room, obviously!

On that day, Xylo was showing Derpy how to master her PTB, (Personal Tractor Beam) when he suddenly went quiet, and stiffened, his back flat like a board.

"Xylo, are you alright?" Derpy asked, dropping a rock she had been practicing on. Xylo didn't reply, but he started to twitch. Now Derpy was really worried, but thankfully, Xylo jolted back into reality, groaning,

"Not Vortexcia!"

"Who?" Derpy asked.

"She's the last of her kind, she's been looking for a Sporeable planet, with help from us. But one day a long time ago she disappeared. Somehow ending up here."

"I'm still confused." Derpy said, scratching her chin. Xylo sighed,

"Let's go inside and I'll tell you all about it." Derpy nodded and followed him inside. Once inside, Derpy watched confused as Xylo checked every square inch of the ground floor.

"Why are you listening to the floor?" Derpy eventually asked him.

"Knowing that Vortexcia's been here for so long makes me feel less safe about the ground beneath my feet." When Xylo finally finished, it had been almost a full hour! Although Derpy didn't really notice, she had a great time watching Xylo... (Heh.)

"Now I feel safe." Xylo said, sitting across from Derpy on a stool.

"I believe I should start now. So way way back before your great-great-great-great-great Grandfather was even old enough to blink, we, the Assimadrons, had Ascended Steel Heart and the surrounding solar systems. Back then, Steel Heart didn't have the protective shell it has now, and still had oceans and forests and shorelines that could be seen from space, nowadays, you actually have to go down to the Biosphere Level to see them. As I was saying, one day, the three L.O.R.D.s were overseeing the construction of a Drone Storage Facility, kind of like a big house with multiple living quarters inside for Assimadron drones. But from out of the sky crashed a large ship, insect-like and very damaged, life support failing and basic systems barely operating. When they cut through the shell, they found an unconscious alien. The L.O.R.D.s quickly took it to a Revitalization Center and saved its life, when it regained consciousness, it went berserk, almost completely destroying the Center. They had to tranquilize it in order to stop it. When it woke up for a second time, it found itself in an Armored Observation Cube. It, or she, as we soon found out, turned out to be much less violent than we thought, and just frightened. After eating something, she asked to speak with our leaders. The alien is a quadrupedal insectoid, with fly-like wings, a dark blue exoskeleton, and glowing blue eyes, with the pupil only a thin slit. She has short and sharp fangs, a single horn, the top blasted off. When the L.O.R.D.s arrived, she said her name was Vortexcia, and that the last of her race were slaughtered by the Terror."

"What's the Terror? Derpy asked, head cocked to one side.

"The Terror," Xylo continued, stretching,

"is a massive robot mech who's only purpose is to destroy every living thing possible. Very, very, VERY bad. We tested your planet a few days back, and we can't find it, so you should be fine. So Vortexcia is the last surviver, and needs to rebirth her species. She was going to do this by injecting genetic material from a vial she picked up before escaping directly into her uterus, and therefore, repopulate her species; but in order to do this, a Sporeable planet was needed, one with a certain type of atmosphere, not oxygen, but gold."

"Gold!?" Derpy gasped, eyes wide.

"Yes, gold. It's a metal, and can be converted into gas. Just like any other element. But as you've probably guessed, these planets are very rare. Which doesn't make sense, why would she use this planet, it has an oxygen atmosphere... Wait, I got it! This planet's MOON is practically made out of gold, the sun light reflecting off it must boil some of it, and it would drop onto this planet. Granted, that seems far-fetched, but that's my theory. Not a very good one, but a food source, none the less. At least that explains why she sleeps all day."

"So you're saying Princess LUNA is an alien?" Derpy asked, part of her wishing that it was true.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying." Xylo answered.

"Vortexcia was under going post traumatic stress, mainly because all of her race consisted of her sons."

"No daughters?" Derpy asked.

"Only when the queen is about to die." Xylo explained.

"One interesting fact about her race is that they can..." Derpy had a hunch what this was.

"Was it that they could take on the forms of others?" Derpy asked, almost 99% sure she was right.

"Eh, no. But you're close. They can bend light around them, rendering them invisible! That would be pretty useful, I must say. So the L.O.R.D.s agreed to help her as long as she was Ascended."

"But, didn't you say that being Ascended was a choice, not forced?" Derpy questioned, confused.

"Let me rephrase that. The condition was that, and I quote; 'We'll help you only if we get to Ascend your beautiful body.' Unquote." Derpy was speechless. Then she burst out laughing. Xylo didn't join in, because he couldn't tell what she was laughing at.

"What's so funny?"

"Did the L.O.R.D.s—actually say that?" Derpy said, gasping for breath, but still laughing. (Somehow...)

"Yes they did." Xylo replied, nodding. This only made Derpy laugh more, which ended up with her falling off her seat. Finally, after another minute or so, she calmed down and returned to her seat.

"You finished?" Xylo asked calmly.

"Yes." Derpy replied.

"Good, so yes, she did end up being Ascended, but it didn't seem to work properly, it rebuilt her entire bone structure, instead of adding gear, besides her horn's broken bit being replaced by a 3 pronged piece."

"I do have a question Xylo, if her species could only breath gold, how did she survive on your planet?" Derpy asked, leaning forward.

"Oh that's easy, we just filled the AOC with gold gas, and when she was Ascended, I guess that wasn't a problem anymore. So she took off, checking in every now and then to mark off planets. But one day, she found a wormhole, and according to the ship's black box, flew in, but it tore the ship apart, and she crashed into this planet most likely. Her ship is probably still here somewhere. So there you have it. That's Vortexcia."

"And why is this a bad thing?" Derpy asked.

"Because," Xylo said,

"Given all this time here, don't you think she would have recreated her race by now?"

...

Both Derpy and Xylo raced out of the house like bullets, only to smack into Twilight.

"Xylo, Derpy. I was just about to talk to you, I got this letter from Princess Celestia,"

"Who?" Xylo asked,

"Princess Celestia, she rules Equestria with her sister Luna."

"Alleged sister." Xylo corrected.

"What?" Twilight asked.

"Nothing, what does the letter say?" Twilight pulled it out from behind her. It read:

Twilight,

My last letter must not have gotten through to you. This is very important, you must send their leader and his accomplice to Canterlot immediately. My sister claims to have spoken with these beings before. I urge you to make as little contact with these creatures as possible.

Celestia

(THAT SEEMED WAAAAY TOO EASY!!!)

"Oops." Twilight squeaked fearfully.

"Yeah, and how did she know I had an accomplice? I mean, we're not accomplices, we're just friends. Right?" Xylo turned to Derpy, not too sure of himself. Derpy returned his gaze and replied, also not too sure,

"Yeah..." For a few seconds, they just gazed into one another's eyes.

"Ahem," Interrupted Twilight.

"Meeting with Princess. Remember?" Xylo broke away.

"Oh yeah. Canterlot is the castle hanging off the side of the mountain?" Xylo asked, pretty sure that it was.

"Yes it is. And now I need to find a way to explain this to the princess!" Twilight said, turning around.

"Explain what?" Xylo asked.

"This!" She exclaimed, pointing to the metal on the side of her face.

"Oh, yeah. That. Well you've got it easy, Derpy and I have to speak with Vortexcia!" Xylo said, slouching at the mere thought.

"First off, who's Vortexcia? And second, why is that a bad thing?" Twilight asked.

"For question 1, ehhh, look her up. And number 2, just, look it up." Twilight nodded slowly, processing the strange advice. Before she could say anything else on the matter, both Derpy and Xylo had rocketed towards Canterlot at maximum speed.

Right now, I'll bet you're wondering how the other cities are taking the news. The answer is that they haven't heard it yet. All they know is that the Portal appeared in the sky. However, Cloudsdale, being the closest to Ponyville, relatively, had some minor contact with the Assimadrons, but nothing serious. What was serious was a small-ish storm directly in Derpy's and Xylo's path. Did you know, that when a certain type of cloud begins to rain, airplanes actually have the option to go OVER them! This is because the type of cloud forms at a lower altitude than most, therefore, a plane can fly above it. Look it up online. They have soon sweet pictures! (Another fun fact is this: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."-Aristotle. So, in 2+2=4, 2+2 is the sum of its parts, and 4 is the whole, so therefore, 2+2=5. Problem, mathematicians? LOLOLOLOL!!!) Anyway, luckily for them, this storm could be avoided in the manner explained above, which they did.

"I never thought I would see a storm from above ever!" Derpy called to Xylo above the roaring of her jetpack.

"This is my first time too!" He called back, also peering down. That's right about when, with a loud, metallic "*CLANG!!!*", both Xylo and Derpy smashed head-first into the side of the Royal Palace, which, surprisingly, is a large building in Cantorlot, not Canterlot itself, which I always thought was the case. Turns out I was mistaken. Oh well. As I was saying, the damage done to the Palace was far greater than the damage done to Derpy and Xylo. A FAR greater difference. (Who says metal armor is outdated?) Both Derpy and Xylo hovered there, rubbing their heads after prying themselves off the wall.

"Where did the storm go?" Xylo asked no one in particular, spinning around only to be greeted with a blue sky.

"Celestia probably did something." Derpy replied spinning to face Xylo.

"Like what? Does she have a weather control system?" Xylo asked, yawning.

"No, she uses her magic!" Xylo jolted his head up to face her.

"Magic? Really?"

"Yes." Derpy said, flapping her arms to avoid flipping upside down.

"I have an idea, why don't we go inside." Xylo suggested, looking around for the front door.

"Good idea." Derpy said, following him. After a couple minutes, they found a large set of double doors, with guards flanking either side.

"Ah, yes!" Xylo exclaimed, landing gently in front of the doors, Derpy following him.

"Now which of you," Xylo asked, looking at each guard,

"will open the door for me? Because I'm terrible at opening doors." Just as he said these words, a yellow aura surrounded The doors as they slowing swung open. There was a long hallway, with another, much smaller door at the end.

"Or maybe your doors are automatic." He thought as he quickly made his way towards the door at the end of the hall, Derpy hot on his heels.

"You certainly love your glass." He observed, pausing to examine some of the stained glass windows.

"Yeh..." Derpy grunted dismissively. She was more interested in meeting this "Vortexcia." At long last, they reached the end of the hall, and Xylo walked right into the door. (...)

"Geez! Make up your mind!" He said angrily, rubbing the tip of his nose and backing up.

"Auto or manual?!" He knocked on the door in a certain way so that it sounded like the first 10 notes of Beethoven's 5th.

"A Xylo and Derpy here. I believe we have an appointment?" He called through the door, putting his visor and helmet up as he did so. Derpy followed suit, not sure why. A couple seconds later, the door opened, revealing the throne room. I won't describe it because if you don't know what it looks like, than you shouldn't be here. Just saying. Inside the room, besides, the stuff inside the room, was an out-of-place lamp sitting in a corner, and Celestia was sitting... Or whatever, on her throne, with a sleepy Luna, aka., Vortexcia, on hers beside it. As soon as Luna/Vortexcia saw Xylo, she immediately perked up.

"Greetings." Celestia said, in a rather cautious tone. Derpy bowed, while Xylo simply nodded.

"You said Vor...Princess Luna wanted a word with us?" Xylo asked, folding his arms.

"Yes I did, alone." She answered, shooting her sister a glance, but Vortexcia was too focused on the visitors to notice, never-the-less, Celestia left, whispering something in Luna's ear as she left. When she did, Luna jumped up, closed all the window that were close-able, than sat down in the middle of the floor. An intense blue glow seeped out through her nose, and with a bright flash, Luna was gone, and replaced by Vortexcia's true form,

"I've been ssaving up my energy for thiss." She said, clapping giddily. Derpy noticed that her voice was entirely different, it had a sort of snaky sound, and with the barest of bare hints of a lisp, making her forked tongue flick out with the pronunciation of s, q, x, v, and z.

"So this is where you ended up?" Xylo asked, lowering his visor and retracting his helmet.

"Yess it iss, and the Assssimadronss are here too. Perfect." She began to slowly circle them, because YOLO.

"So what is it you wanted to talk to us about?" Derpy asked, also lowing both helmet and visor.

"I did it." She squeaked happily, clasping her hands together.

"Did what?" Derpy asked.

"Rebuilt her species." Xylo whispered to her,

"Remember, I told you about the vial of DNA."

"Ssuper hearing, comess with the geness." Vortexcia said, pointing to ear-ish objects on the sides of her head.

"How long have you been here?" Derpy asked.

"About, ohh... I'm not ssure actually...."

"I'd guess around the ten thousands." Xylo said,

"When I got here, I was losst and dissoriented. I found a ssmall group of equine beingss, having very ssimilar featuress, I found that I could mimic their appearance using a small device I brought with me." Vortexcia turned to show them a small device in the shape of a semi-dodecahedron attached by a belt made from some kind of silvery metallic fabric.

"But I wass fairly certain that ssomething would go awry, sso, I found a couple giving birth, and thought, what better dissguise than as a baby? I jusst managed to ssqueeze ssmall enough to passss off ass a baby, which would be impossssible for me now, becausse way back then, I wass around your ssize. I ended up with the bizzzarre name Luna, meaning 'moon' but I guessss it fitss becausse your moon is essssentially made of gold. Celesstia, my adopted ssisster," Both Xylo and Derpy raised an eyebrow when she said this.

"was kind and benevolent, according to my adopted parentss. But, what they didn't know, iss that Celesstia has a ssevere casse of mavrossmetallophobia!"

"Of what?" Derpy asked.

"Mavrossmetallophobia! Fear of black metal."

"Which is why," Xylo deduced.

"she is reacting negatively towards us. I just thought she didn't like us."

"But why did you go to the moon for a while then if you really didn't become jealous?" Derpy asked.

"There are two ansswerss to that question. The first was that I wass currently pregnant with the firsst batch of eggss, the ssecond wass that I had carved out a massssive cavern for my ssonss to live in, and sshe almosst disscovered it when I wass ssuppossed to be at ssome meeting. I had to ssay I wass jealouss, and turn evil and all that, I couldn't rissk disscovery, not then. While I did my time on the moon, I hatched the first hundred of my ssonss, each one iss brave and sstrong and kind. When I ended up back here, much to my ssurprisse, truthfully, my ssonss followed me, invissible, back to Equesstron. Through sspace. I don't quite recall how they did that..."

"What about Nightmare Moon? That wasn't you?" Derpy asked.

"No, jusst a hologram. I teleported in when thosse 6 kidss blew it up ssomehow."

Xylo nodded and said,

"I see. So, can we see these sons of yours? These new Chainlings?" Derpy gaged,

"New what?" She asked, clearing her throat.

"Chainlingss. Not be confussed with thosse genetic rip-offss you call the Changelingss that are indigenous to thiss planet. I sswear, the universse ssometimess." Vortexcia clarified for Derpy.

"As to your quesstion Xylo, you've already met them, a few are here in thiss room now. I wass sso lonely after all thosse yearss, and thought ssome company would be nice." Derpy instantly shrank, eyes bouncing from shadow to shadow fearfully. And to make matters worse, the 15 Chainlings in the room all debended, (uncloaking, essentially, FYI.) which made poor Derpy faint, like a rock. You're probably saying that Derpy wouldn't really faint, I mean, come on, a ship fell out of the sky, but she didn't faint then! But look at the facts, she finds out that Luna is actually an alien that suspiciously resembled a Changeling, and was called a Chainling. A bunch just appear in random spots throughout a smallish room. Now who wouldn't faint? Besides, the spaceship crashed next to her, and she didn't notice the other Assimadrons ships until after she was Ascended. Xylo doesn't count because he knew Luna was Vortexcia in the first place. Xylo looked down at Derpy, sighed, and a syringe folded out of his hoof, loaded with a stimulant. Smelling salts are so cumbersome nowadays. Xylo carefully inserted the syringe into an exposed neck vein, and grave her a small doseage of the stimulant. Xylo only had time to pull his hoof away before Detpy jolted into a standing position, gasping.

"What, what do you put in that stuff?!" She exclaimed glancing at the still almost full syringe as it disappeared into Xylo's hoof.

"A chemical not native to this planet, Cardimethenbenyholl. (Made up wordz.) Sort of like a hard reset that takes place in the space of half a second."

"Cardimethenbenyholl? That's the sstuff you ussed on me way back when I tore down that hosspital. Ssorry about that." Xylo turned to her and asked,

"Why would you remember stuff like that?" Vortexcia just shrugged. Xylo turned back to Derpy and asked,

"Do you remember why you passed out?"

"Yeah," she answered, nodding at one Chainling sitting against the window nonchalantly, watching her inquisitively, head cocked to one side. When she did this, it made a feeble attempt at waving, and ruffled its insect wings, but that was it.

"Don't worry, Klikkir iss very friendly, and he doessn't bite" Vortexcia said, smiling at Klikkir, who returned it. Derpy glanced at Vortexcia confused, but quickly returned her attention to Klikker. Derpy slowly approached him, who cowered slightly, after all, this creature (Derpy) looked scary, all covered in the black metal, and tiny lights blinked and pulsed across the metal. Klikkir did look a lot like Vortexcia, but without the pupils, instead just a slightly darker tinted area. The horn was rather short in caparison to Vortexcia's. Also, he's about the same size as Derpy, minus an inch or two. He made a series of short clicks, followed by a deeper click, and a low hiss, like he was trying to speak. Derpy glanced at Xylo, not sure what to do.

"Ummm, hi." Derpy said, glancing from Xylo to Klikker and back again. Klikker tilted his head the other way and made another series of high pitched clicks, followed by another hiss, and click. Xylo frowned,

"Your Translator must not be working." Xylo said,

"One second, I'll fix it." Xylo walked up to Derpy and pressed a button on a small console on her back. As he was accessing the control subset, his eyes slowly drifted to Derpy's rump. When he noticed what he was doing, he quickly jerked his head away, and back to the console screen.

"I see the problem," Xylo said, blushing, and pressing a few more buttons.

"Derpy, put your visor up." Derpy obeyed, and much to her surprise, there were 2 lines of text in a green box labeled, "Translation." The first line read,

"Ummm, hi." Derpy could have face-palmed right there on the spot. The second line read,

"That's what I just said."

"I couldn't understand what you were saying, but now I can." Derpy said. A few more clicks, and you'll have to imagine what order the clicks are in because I'm not going to say it every time.

"Oh, ok. I see." Appeared in the Translation box.

"So, uh," Derpy began,

"What do you think of my planet?" She asked.

"Very, colorful." He replied. (In the Translation box. But I won't say it every time. It slows the story down.)

"Yeah, it is." Derpy replied, smiling a little bit.

"Question is, now what?" Xylo said, turning to Vortexcia.

"If you like the moon that much, we would happily terraform it for you." Vortexcia smiled and shook her head.

"Thankss for the offer, but I'll passss for now." Xylo nodded and said to Derpy,

"Derpy, I think we should go now, Celestia might get suspicious." Derpy nodded, and trotted towards the door, waving goodbye to Klikker, who waved feebly back, and then cloaked, alongside the other Chainlings in the room, except for Vortexcia, she used her Luna disguise. Celestia stood at the very end of the hallway, as well as some of those weird Pegasi who stood guard and never blinked. Well, at least we'd be in good hands if the Weeping Angels showed up. (ISN'T COPYRIGHT!!!) Both Derpy and Xylo bowed as they passed Celestia and left the building.

"First impressions?" Xylo asked as they rocketed back to Ponyville.

"She seems nice enough, an excellent mother."

"Yes, isn't she." Xylo twisted his head to look at Derpy, and smiled.

"She's even more beautiful when she's going Mach 1.3." Xylo thought to himself. Derpy smiled back, thinking pretty much the same thing. Meanwhile, Klikker watched them fly off, he didn't hear the door open, and he didn't notice that if light is bending around something, it makes the space behind it all distorted. He didn't know that Celestia had telescope like eyes, and he didn't know what it felt like to be paralyzed... Until now...

Discovery

Chapter 1; Discovery

One of the Pegasi inhabitants of Ponyville, Derpy, is, shall we say, accident prone. For example, she had once tried to hang a large banner a while back with the help of another Pegasus, who's name is Rainbow Dash, but only succeeded in unintentionally knocking Rainbow Dash through a wooden platform. Her coat is grey, her mane and tail are blond, her, "cutie mark" are a bunch of bubbles... (?) Also, her eyes are amber and point in 2 different directions at once, like a chameleon. Except, cuter... Annnyway, she also loves muffins... A lot. On the day the Asimadrons were just about to recreate the Portal to Equestron, which happened to be a Sunday, Derpy was just waking up from a wonderful dream containing, yep, muffins. "Awwwnahhhhh," she yawned, stretching as she sat up on her bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She shook her mane and looked out the window beside her bed, which was placed in a corner of a small wooden room. Also in the room, a short bedside table sat beside the head of her bed. On the other side of the room, opposite the bed's side, was a door that seemed as if the wood had varying degrees of age, probably due to "accidents". Opposite the door was a metal dresser and was probably the least damaged thing in the room. It was a gift from a Unicorn named Rarity, (?) to replace the African mahogany one that was literally "reduced to splinters" and who had hated the idea of "such beautiful" and "expertly crafted" dressers being "accidentally damaged". The door led to a short hallway extending both ways, left led to stairs to the ground floor, and the other way led to another door, that door was a guest room, and had not been used as such for, actually, never. Derpy rarely went in nowadays, which kept the room "alive". Opposite that door was one leading to the bathroom, and the door was made of solid metal, this protecting it from most harmful occurrences, mainly because who wants someone peaking through a crack while your using the "facilities". The sun seemed much larger then normal to Derpy, but then again, she often saw double due to her eye... "condition", which could make something seem bigger.

"It looks like a beautiful day." she said as she jumped out of bed, tripping mid-jump on her blanket, which was caught on the corner of her bed. The result was her stopping short and slamming into the ground.

"Ow." said Derpy's as she stood up and rubbed her temples. She headed for the door, reaching over to open the door. She very carefully and slowly gripped the knob, opening it in the same manner. As she carefully closed it, she breathed a sigh of relief. She had managed to avoid damaging her bedroom door for the last 5 days. Derpy turned towards the stairs, but her wing bonked into a rather worn piece of wood, creating a rather large crack.

"So much for my record" she thought as she walked down the stairs pausing to look at a picture.

"When did I get this picture?" she asked herself lifting it off it's peg and looking at it closer. It was a dark green square cut into quarters, a small ring cutout at the point where the quarters converged with a space background. Derpy blinked. When her eyes opened again, the picture disappeared, replaced by a picture of Canterlot. Cautiously, she returned the picture to its peg and continuing to walk downstairs, often glancing up at the picture. The first floor consisted of a medium-sized living room connected to the kitchen and dining room via an archway. The front door led straight to the kitchen, which seems a little odd. She immediately grabbed a sausage and egg muffin (No really. she put scrambled egg and sausage bits into muffin bater and baked it. What the Fr'ij?) from her pantry, consuming it in record time.

"Mmmm..." she moaned contently as she swallowed the last crumb of the oversized muffin.

"I love muffins." she said as she grabbed her saddle pack from the hook by the door which she opened, and closed, hard, as she stepped outside.

"Whoops." she said looking at most of the door mechanism in her hoof.

"I'll need to get that fixed." she said as she set it on a small bench on her porch. She jumped into the air and flew through the air, heading for Ponyville.

"I'll stop by Sugar Cube Corner first." she thought as she clipped a cloud, causing it to unintentionally spinning it to the ground, landing directly on top of Fluttershy's cottage's chimney... And start to drip rain water. As Derpy approached the village, Rainbow Dash was sitting on her usual cloud, daydreaming, when something wet hit her cheek. Her eyes fluttered open, looking for the source of the water. Turns out, a tiny raincloud was floating just above her head. She swatted it away, sending it flying through the air like a bullet. Meanwhile, Derpy was slowing in for landing outside Sugar Cube Corner, but just before touchdown, a certain tiny raincloud smashed into the side of her head with such force, it twisted her flight path, sending her into the door of the shop, just as it opened and Mrs. Cake stepped out, carrying a cake that resembled something from Cake Boss. The resulting collision proved fatal... To the cake that is.

"Ow." Derpy said for the second time that day as she got up and gasped at what was left of what would have put Cake Boss to shame.

"I...I'm..." Derpy stuttered before suddenly realizing that Mrs. Cake was probably underneath almost a metric ton of cake "guts". Panicking, she franticly began to sift through the remains for Mrs. Cake.

"Mrs. Cake? Mrs. Cake?!" Derpy cried as she moved from mound to mound of cake remains. Mr. Cake walked into the front room from the back room holding a tray of small irregular shaped cupcakes. As soon as he saw the scene, the tray dropped from his hooves and made a large clatter when it hit the floor.

"Eigghh..." he choked out before fainting, making another loud clatter. Derpy didn't notice, she was too busy trying to find Mrs. Cake in the cake. (No pun intended.) Suddenly, Derpy's hoof collided with something hard,

"Mrs. Cake?!" she cried as she shoved more of the remains away from where she had hit the hard object. In a few seconds, Derpy had "dug up" a seemingly unconscious Mrs. Cake pinned under a cart that had been used to transport the cake. Derpy shoved the cart off of Mrs. Cake, practically crying.

"Don't be dead, don't be dead." she quietly wished.

"I'm not dead!" Mrs. Cake said angrily, sitting up as soon as the cart was lifted off her. Derpy then noticed that a sizable crowd had formed, which made her blush in shame. But then, she realized that it wasn't her fault. That raincloud caused her to spin out of control. For once it seemed, an accident she caused wasn't because of clumsiness.

"I'm so sorry Mrs. Cake, there was this tiny raincloud and—"

"Derpy," Mrs. Cake interrupted.

"enough. I don't want to hear it, I have to make a phone call." (When did they have phones!?) she turned and went inside, closing the door behind her. Derpy just stood there, she could feel the eyes of the crowd boring into her. She turned slowly, holding back her tears until she could be alone. She walked away, very slowly, her head down, and very, very sad.

"Why do I keep messing up?" she asked herself in her head.

"It's not fair. Why does everyone hate me?" By now, she had reached an old meadow, near the Everfree Forest. There she sat down, and commenced to cry, she didn't know how much time passed before, a new star appeared in the sky, one growing to the size of the moon, and bigger, with the naked eye, you could see through the Portal, right at the Power Core. Behind that, a planet smothered in electric machinery, pulsing, and blinking like a giant metal heart. Would have Derpy looked up, she would have seen Xylo's small ship pass through the Portal and into the atmosphere. It wasn't until Xylo was just about to (crash) land next to her that she finally looked up. The shockwave from the impact threw Derpy back a few feet, she landed hard on her back.

"Ow!" she said for the third time that day. Propping herself up with her fore-hooves, she watched, too afraid to move or say anything, as Xylo's craft hissed, releasing hot steam from some reactor. Suddenly, a bang erupted from the top side of the ship, like someone was pounding on a metal door. After 3 more bangs, the hatch burst, and Xylo hopped out and looked around. His entire body was covered in a black atmospheric suit, with a large opaque visor.

"Hhhghh." Derpy choked, which caused Xylo to jump, turn around, and trip over the wing of the ship. Just before he hit the ground, 5 strange metal spider things jumped out of the ship and rushed toward Derpy, who only noticed them until it was too late. 2 clamped down on her front-hooves, perpendicular to her body. Another 2 clamped down on her back hooves, forming an acute (...) angle. While the last one slowly made its way over, like it had all the time in the world. (In reality, two of its legs were non-functional.) Meanwhile Xylo stood up, his visor had shattered, and he was removing the helmet. Derpy didn't expect to see a pony's face, and such a handsome one at that. Xylo was standing bipedal holding his helmet with his remaing hooves, thinking the exact same thing about Derpy, except he expected for her to be a pony. Right away, Derpy noticed that his left eye looked like it was actually a mechanical amber light, while his right eye was real and also amber, like hers. His mane was black and silky, but then the last spider thing clamped down on her neck, not tight enough to choke her, but hard enough to keep her from moving her head. Xylo noticed this and walked closer, standing next to her head,

"What is your name?" he asked, smiling friendlily.

"D-Derpy." she said, she had a real name, but Derpy was what everyone called her, so it seemed the better option.

"Have you been exposed to any lethal radiation within the last month?" he asked, tilting his head to one side. Derpy blinked.

"What?" she asked, confused.

"Evidently not." Xylo guessed,

"I'll be right back." he said, and with one final look into her eyes, returned to the crashed ship and pulled out a metal backpack, he pressed a button on the side and 2 clamps folded out from the backpack. He returned to Derpy and showed her the device in his hooves.

"This backpack was made for you. Did you know that? It was made for you and all the creatures on this planet. Once you put it on, you will see." he said, smiling again. Derpy looked at the backpack. It seemed the alien wasn't going to let her go otherwise, so she might as well.

"Okay. Put it on." she nodded and then felt herself rise into the air, like she was floating up, the spiders let go but Derpy still could not move.

"You will be able to do this too, once you've been Ascended." Derpy shot him a fearful look.

"Ascended? What does that mean?" Derpy rotated in the air away from Xylo as he replied,

"You'll see. It's the most wonderful thing... Ok, second most wonderful." he placed the back pack on her and pushed another button.

"Third, more like. Maybe fourth." He continued, pushing a few more buttons.

"This may hurt." he said,

"But I'm right here." Derpy raised an eyebrow when he said this.

"...OkkkkOWW!" she cried as a hypodermic needle injected a fluid into her shoulder.

"Shh, sh. The worst is over." Xylo said, lightly placing a hoof on her head.

"Yeeahh..." Derpy slurred as the instant sleeping fluid kicked in.

"Youuuuu..." was all she said before falling asleep.