Equestrian Odyssey: Rise of the Sleepers

Cinder was currently sitting inside of a hollowed-out tree that had been converted into a library at some point. The group of ponies and capsuleer had arrived to the town almost an hour ago and she was letting Jack handle most of the affairs with the ponies, much to his chagrin. As of now she was going through the cargo manifest of the fleet's collective group of ships, debating on what they would most likely need that they could still use. She had just gotten halfway through Flint's Iteron's cargo when the other unicorn, Rarity, if she remembered correctly, walked up to her and rather awkwardly began,

"Um, I couldn't help but notice your strange choice of clothing, is it normal for everyone where you come from to wear that?" Rarity asked. As she said this Cinder looked down at what she was wearing, not having put much thought in it before. She was wearing a standard Caldari Navy jacket with the front open to a black shirt, along with grey pants and combat boots.

"I wouldn't know, I've never bothered to even really look at the non-caspuleers. They aren't worth my time," Cinder said rather darkly, somewhat upset that the unicorn was bothering her in the first place, but upon seeing she wasn't leaving, continued, "I guess Capsuleers like us are apparently known to dress... 'extravagantly' but I guess I never really put much thought into it, I've always just worn whats comfortable or on hand,"

"Really?" Rarity seemed somewhat shocked, "How can you not put thought into what you wear everyday?"

"I honestly don't spend much time IN clothes, these are honestly just what was for sale on the market the last time I bought some," Cinder explained.

"When i asked Jack he was polite enough to inform me that clothes are more required where you come from than here, are women an exception?" Rarity asked puzzled.

"Nope, I just spend most of my time in my pod, it just doesn't feel natural outside of it," Cinder said.

"You mean you just sit in one of those green things all day?" Rarity asked aghast.

"You wouldn't understand what its like, but you don't feel whole without the rest of your ship, when you're in there both of you become the same thing, and it just feels, right." Cinder said rather wistfully, "I don't really have a way to explain it in ways that I think you would really understand, but it is more natural to me than walking,"

"Well, I am in no position to judge although it does seem rather odd, however this is far from my original point. I was wondering if you and your friends would allow me to make clothing for you," Rarity said, "It would be a nice challenge, and seeing as you all appear to only have one pair I would say that you will probably need more, after all, one cannot limit themselves when it comes to fashion,"

"I couldn't care less but if i were you I'd check with Drake and the rest of them first," Cinder answered.

"I'll make sure to do that," Rarity said, "Now do you prefer blue or-"

"I don't really care,," Cinder interrupted, "Like I said, its of no real importance to me,"

"Ah i see," Rarity said slightly dejected, "I guess I just thought that as another woman you'd be my best bet to ask first,"

"Is that so?" Cinder said darkly as she continued to go through the list. It was quiet for a little longer before Rarity spoke up again.

"Well it looks like those two want to talk to me," Rarity said, leaving cinder, "Ill make sure i ask every- er how would you people put it? everycapsuleer?"

"The term we use is everyone, its all inclusive so everyone can use it, you'd probably be better off using it, its less confusing," Cinder replied

"I'll keep it in mind," Rarity said, stopping before she could continue to look at Twilight and Flint, "Well they seem to be done arguing, hopefully we can get something done now,"

"Yea... Hopefully..." A distracted Cinder replied.

"Are you sure there's nothing we could do to help besides sit over here?" Rainbow asked for the thirteenth time that hour.

"Yes I'm sure rainbow," Drake replied, stuck halfway into a rather tight compartment in the wall of the corridor they were in, "That's been the answer for a while now, and its probably going to stay the same,"

"But its sooooo boring," Rainbow whimpered.

"Then you shouldn't have tagged along," Flint replied from below the floor which now had several panels removed for access.

"Well Twilight wanted me to babysit you guys and make sure you didn't go all crazy and hurt somepony," Rainbow said, "Its not like I had any other choice," At this Flint stopped working and looked up at the pegasus, apparently in thought

"Tell you what Dash, we actually do need something for the next section we head to," Flint began, "If you take a left down that hall over there and then go into the room marked 'cargo hold' there are boxes, I need you to find me some headlight fluid, it should be in one of them,"

"Headlight Fluid? Got it!" Rainbow Dash said as she sped off, "Finally something to do!" was heard as she turned down the hall. At this Flint went back to working as Drake stopped and stared at him.

"What?" Flint asked innocently.

"I cannot believe you just did that," Drake said incredulously.

"Eh, she'll figure it out sooner or later," Flint replied

"Um, excuse me, but what is headlight fluid?" Fluttershy asked.

"It doesn't actually exist," Drake explained, "It's more of a joke than anything, something you send somebody off to find if they're being particularly annoying,"

"Oh," Fluttershy simply said, pondering what they had just said.

"So your saying that the big one could take out everything all the way to Philydelphia?" Twilight asked incredulously.

"Yep, if its reactor is still trying to go after that then it would put a serious crater in your nice little fields out there," Jack replied casually, his feet up on the table that Twilight had a map on and was trying to mark crash sites on.

"But thats not likely to happen right?" Twilight asked.

"Oh no, not at all but if it doesn't then you still have all that tritanium on there, and with the amount of stuff that gets used in ships and with no shield, well, you could be screwed. Tritanium gets really tempermental with in-atmosphere temperatures," Jack replied in a chuckle, making an explosion noise and mimicking an explosion with his hands.

"Well what can we do about it?" Twilight asked.

"Hell if i know, I'm not an engineer, why don't you use your fancy "magic" to fix it?" Jack asked.

"Because it's too big to put a bubble around," Twilight said.

"Can't ya just move it somewhere cold?" Applejack asked.

"Well we could move it up to the frozen wastes, there's nothing up there as far as we know," Twilight said, "But then I can't study it,"

"Well sparkle-butt its move it or lose it... and half the countryside," Jack said laughing, as Twilight frowned at the nickname.

"Cinder do you think you could come up with anything?" Twilight asked, causing the capsuleer to look up from her device.

"Well Sparkle, where is the wreck?" She asked getting up and pushing Jacks legs off the table.

"Hey!" Jack exclaimed.

"Its right here," Twilight said marking the spot the apocalypse had crashed, "and here is ghastly gorge where Drake is,"

"Well from what it looks like in either explosion the Proteus and this town are undamaged if it does explode, meaning we don't have to worry about it, we do need to worry about damaged drones and those half working sleeper components, wouldn't want something stupid happening," Cinder replied, assessing the situation.

"But in both explosions it hits towns!" Twilight said.

"So?" Cinder said, "Either way it doesn't really damage us getting out of here,"

"How can you say that!" Rarity exclaimed.

"Look, Your towns are replaceable and extremely cheap, I doubt you'll have a problem," Cinder explained.

"Wow," Jack said, "and i thought i was cold when it came to things,"

"I guess we'll just have to get the Princesses to teleport it," Twilight said dejectedly.

"Whats her problem anyways?" Applejack asked motioning over to Cinder who had sat back down.

"While I'm not going to say she's always sunshine and rainbows she is usually better than this," Jack admitted, "Its probably because of this whole predicament,"

"Well I hope she cheers up soon! The party won't be any fun if she's all mopey!" Pinkie said. As the group continued talking and moved on to the prospect of a party Jack and Cinder were both invited to a private chat channel by Drake and Flint.

'Hows everybody doing on your end Cinder?' Drake asked.

'The ponies are trying to find a way to neutralize the Battleship' Cinder replied.

'Great! How do they plan on doing that?' Flint asked.

'They think they're going to be able to teleport it with "magic"' Jack responded.

'I wouldnt worry about it, the only thing in the blast radius is a small town,' Cinder added.

'Just perfect... well at least when it fails them we aren't going to be paying for their blind beliefs,' Flint said.

'Still, it kinda sucks' Drake added, 'anything else happen over there before Flint and I start talking?'

'Not really, just weird shit in the cargo manifest for the iteron,' Cinder said.

'I'd like to err on the side of caution when on an alien planet with only one working ship,' Drake said, 'What kind of "Weird shit"?'

'Looking through compartment 04 there were quite a few unmarked objects, then the status for the whole thing changed to active and proceeded to blip out, like it got destroyed or something, I'm betting that the whole thing just bugged out or something' Cinder said

'We may want to check that out later,' Jack added.

'It is probably just a malfunction,' Flint said, 'But I'll add it to the to-do list I've got going on,'

'That is a bit concerning, but the Aura AI probably just went rampant,' Drake said, 'But back to the topic of said unstable battleship, Flint and I need to pull some parts out of it, because with the way it is the proteus isn't going to be too stable for much longer either if we don't get them,'

'Well Fuck,' Jack said 'That's just amazing,'

'We'll meet you all back at the farm-place, Rainbow just got back from looking for headlight fluid and she sounds kinda pissed, we'll see you all there soon,' Drake said.

"Alright everybody heads up!" Jack said enthusiastically startling the group of ponies talking in the middle of the room, "I just got done talking to the boss man and we are all headed back to Applejack's farm!"

"Its an orchard," Applejack corrected dully.

"Whatever, Now! Unless you have somewhere else to be, we're going to fix your crashed battleship problem," Jack Finished

"Uh Jack, they never-" Cinder began.

"Shut. Your face." Jack finished, "To the farm!"