Chapters Reasons For Home Chapter 1
Before we start this story let me tell you a bit about me. My name is Lewis Jameson, and I used to spend my days working as a financial advisor for a company by the name of Space X. I had always lived a great life working for the company, and through the years had been promoted quite a few times within the financial department.
However, before the years in high school and college I I used to dream of becoming an astronaut, but as the years passed I began to learn that I was not quite fit for the grueling job. I was not a particularly brave person, nor could I take much movement before getting motion sickness, and disorientation. During high school, I realised that I had to settle for something... less daring, and what better career for partial failures like me than financing for a large corporate company?
So fast forward a few years, and there I was sitting at my personal cubicle, when I received a letter. This was in no form or way extraordinary. As a financial advisor one learns to expect random letters on a day to day basis. The letters would often contain anything from memos from the company I work for, Space X, or some sort of banking invoice. This letter, however did not fall into the ordinary zone of memos, and banking invoices.
The reason for this letter was that Space X had created a new project. Due the recent theoretical failure of the space elevator, and the cruelty of physics when people are on a rocket, they needed a way to get people who couldn't take many of the difficulties in a journey to space, like me, into space... Space X is a civilian company, therefore a lot of their budget is actually paid for by selling seats to brave, aspiring entrepreneurs. Sadly This did not give them a very expansive consumer base. People with lots of money are normally very smart, and very smart people tend to be wimps (no offence). Space X needed a way to expand their enterprise to the wimpy wealthy masses.
Space X had created a great plan to do just this. I’m sure everyone reading this has heard of cryogenics; the act of freezing a person solid so they can sleep for very long periods of time. It turns out that doing this is not just science fiction. Space X had created a ship that Used cryogenics to keep a person in hibernation during any large gut wrenching journey. Sleeping like this could both shorten long trips to a seemingly small amount of time, and greatly reduce food usage during the journey. Having something like a cryo pod would be useful for both trips to space, and long journeys with your mother in-law.
I had been chosen by space X as the perfect test subject for this technology. I had proven I was both dedicated to the company by my many years working a mostly dead end job there, and I had shown much interest in joining the space programs, despite failing to endure any sort of training. Due to my special circumstances I was going to be able to get a free ride into space, and despite all my shortcomings I was finally going to be able to achieve my childhood dreams, and more importantly get a week long well earned break from balancing budgets.
I of course accepted the offer, and my fairly minimal training began. Keep in mind that this ship was designed to be as simple, and easy to use as possible. I was not to mess with anything technical the whole journey. Just clearly labeled buttons and incredibly obvious instruction booklets for me.
After the incredibly boring three weeks of training was completed I began my journey. In short I would end up getting frozen solid, get shipped off to the moon, wake up only to send a radio message confirming I was alive, and check some readouts before stepping back into the cryo chamber, pushing a button, and beginning my journey home.
To this day I still don’t know what went wrong after the launch...
//_______________________________________________________________________//
Waking up from cryo is tough. I've only experienced it once, and I would not advise it to anyone. Imagine that feeling you get after sleeping on your arm for a night. You know that tingly feeling? Now apply that numbness to your entire body, and add on a complementary dose of a weakened bone structure, and a little muscle degradation, and you have just about what I was feeling at the time.
I was never much of a morning person, so I sat inside of the pod for quite a while before I was able to get my mind back in working order. Looking around the room I noticed that nothing had really changed since my trip had begun. The curved walls and low roof were all still in perfect shining cleanliness. The only difference was that instead of the many feet of cables that were here when I was initially frozen there was now only the blank walls of the cryo bay to greet me.
When I finally built up the motivation to attempt to step out of the pod I ended up falling straight onto the floor. I was far to weak from the effects of cryo to walk, and trying to do so ended in not so much success. Wondering if any bones had broken in the fall I began to crawl/drag myself over to the emergency box. This Emergency box was a sort of first aid kit for any sort of disaster, or trouble that could occur during or after the launching, and landing. The scientists who designed the pod had told me that I was supposed to be in perfect health when I awoke, therefore I was in an emergency, and my primary goal was to reach that box.
The journey was not a easy one, nor was it an interesting one. I slowly belly-crawled across the slick floors of the pod, eventually making my goal of reaching the E-box which was in fact conveniently located inside the floor, (an object I was developing very close relationships with). After reading a few labels I decided to inject myself with the very clearly labeled "In case of weakness upon awakening" syringe. It took a few moments for me to start feeling the effects, but when I did they worked wonderfully. The full tingly feeling left my body, and I began to feel much more energised, although due to future events I was soon thinking that it may have addled my brain a bit.
After the effects had completed taking their course I made it my new goal to get to the communication center and contact Headquarters. The communication center was the only "technical" room of the ship. It held the ships communication system, along with many plainly labeled readouts that I needed to copy, and send to Headquarters. Although most of these numbers were useless to me, they would be a great help to all the technicians doing work on the cryo pods.
Contacting Headquarters would not normally be my first priority,(that award goes to food) but they would know what specifically had gone wrong to cause this whole weakness issue, and what I should do to fix it for my return journey. There was only one major goal standing in my way... I had yet to stand up.
So began the epic quest to reach the communication center. I spent quite a long time trying to stand without assistance before I noticed a nearby guardrail (Thank you engineers!). Using the rail I was able to, with much less difficulty slowly force myself into a standing position.
Once I had myself upright I began to slowly walk to the communication center, using various handholds along the main hallway to help support my weight, and keep me from falling face first on the floor. Once I reached the center I was exhausted! I practically fell into the main chair after the short rail-less stride from the door. I had never felt more relived in my life. I then turned on the console, and hit the very plainly labeled big red talk button and said. "This is Lewis Jameson I have had a malfunction with the cryogenetics, and require guidance. Over". The only response to this copy paste request was static.
It was here that I started to really and truly panic. I began to spam the radio with increasingly desperate cries for a reply. Receiving no replies after what must have been 20-30 minutes I began to wonder what was wrong. Could there be some sort of moon cloud? Impossible. Could they just be ignoring me? I doubt it. Could the satellite dishes be malfunctioning? Possibly. It took me over 10 minutes sitting in the chair staring stupidly at the console before I realised... I was not feeling very light.
The whole time I was dragging myself across the floor of the cryo bay, and stumbling down the halls of the ship like some sort of lifeless zombie; I had not thought once about how I should be happily skipping across the floor in low G. Normal gravity, although hindering the locomotion process, meant that I was not on the moon. In fact this meant I was back on earth! This well explained the fact that the radio was not working, there were a thousand things that could block a radio signal on our relatively turbulent home planet. Unfortunately
With that mystery settled I had no reason to continue sitting at the console and spend hours trying to communicate with cloud cover. After who knows how long of being in the cryo pod my stomach was empty, and I needed food, my stomach was making demands at this point. I stood up from the chair (which is much easier than getting up from laying on the floor), and made my way over to this ships so called kitchen. The kitchens were far more advanced than what they had on any of the Apollo missions, but they were no testament to the culinary arts. After a good reheated meal, and a good drink of water I was feeling much better. Maybe even good enough to take a trip outside!. I decided that I could probably manage to take a quick walk outside to figure out where exactly I was, what the sky looked like, and if the radio antenna was still there, and functioning.
So I started walking toward the main airlock of the ship, this time with much less assistance from the guard rails. There was an emergency exit, but opening that door would cause the fire extinguishers to go off, and I did not feel like getting wet, foamy, or getting my eardrums blown out. So It was safer, dryer, and quieter going with the main Airlock. After reaching the center of the airlock, through a thick metal door and closing this door behind me I did a quick check out the window to make sure that It was in fact earth.
Instead of a barren lunar landscape awaiting me. After confirming that I was in fact on earth, and not the moon, or somewhere more sinister I cycled the exterior door open, and stepped into the great outdoors.
The first thing I checked when stepping outside was the sky. Looking up only made my panic increase. There was little to no cloud cover, and what tree branches that would have been over the ship, were now either laying on the floor or hanging by a thread to the tree that that they used to be firmly attached to. This meant that it was not clouds blocking the signal from reaching HQ. It had to be a problem with one of the satellite dishes, or HQ was playing a VERY mean prank.
Before walking to the rear of the ship to inspect the antenna I took a look at my new settings. The main detail of the landscape was the sparse, randomly placed trees, and green grass. I was in a very lightly packed, but very green forest. The sun looked a bit low on the horizon, and was putting large amounts of glare in my eyes, but It was a very nice day.
I was meant to land on a true landing pad, not some sort of forest but I figured that whatever had happened to cause me to take a round trip to earth also had messed up my landing destination. Taking not of how lucky it was to not end up in some sort of ocean or lake, I made quite a few laps around the ship while looking for the antenna. When I found it, it was sitting in very plain view on the top of the ship, laughing at me for my ignorance, and it was just out of my reach. I stared at it for quite a while, and could see no visible damage to the shell of the antenna or its base, so either the landing had to have cut some sort of wire, or jarred something loose in the technical area if it was broken. It could also have been that it was HQ with the problems instead of me.
While I was staring at the antenna I heard a voice coming from behind me, I called out in excitement and turned to meet my savior, only to meet face to face with a number of... Highmans Horses? They were many of them, each a different color, and my yell had alerted them to my presence. We were currently in a stare down. The longer I looked at them the less they appeared to be horses. The biggest issue was that some of them had horns, and were in fact unicorns, and on closer inspection some of them even had a small set of wings, and were in fact pegasus. Their noses were much shorter than the average horse, and they lacked fur. Instead they had incredibly long, and even stylised manes. Did I mention that they were all incredibly colorful? More importantly did I mention HORNS, and WINGS?
//__________________________________________________________________//
So there I was, Staring at these horses, when I noticed that one of them was moving towards me. I was not afraid to admit that I was a bit scared of these horses. Bright coloring, which these horses definitely had, did not mean peaceful in the wild. I was starting to step back from them, and even thinking about running away when I heard one of them talk. Yep... Talk... This was not a good thing, not a good thing at all.
“Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle. Me and my Friends were sent here by our princess to check a meteor landing, the first one in centuries... We did not expect to find a creature in it! what exactly are you?" It was still talking, its mouth was moving, and it was speaking... I on the other hand was speechless for the moment. The highmans horse talked! I was glad I had named this species what I did, because that injection must have messed with my brain. I decided to do a quick dream/sanity check. I pinched myself in the arm. To my disappointment, and great amounts of surprise It hurt. Wonderful... I can hear the calls of the loony bin, they are coming closer.
If I wasn't dreaming, and I was fully alert, and there was a purple unicorn really talking to me. There was nothing left to do but reply. "Umm... My name is Lewis Jameson. This over here is not a meteor, its a ship". I guessed that maybe these horses knew where exactly I was. "Do you have any idea where I am? I am kind of lost". The fact that they spoke English, meant that if I was lucky than they would have replied with some well known country or state, and take me to their human leader. I was not so fortunate.
"This is Equestria, home of the two regal pony sisters who control the sun and the moon. we are just a few miles away from the town of Ponyville." while the purple unicor was saying that, its "friends" who it had mentioned earlier had started to come out of the bushes, and joined it in the clearing that my ship had created in its landing. I guess they had thought me as dangerous, and had waited for this horse, who I assumed was their leader to speak to me first. I I was starting to get cautious of the group coming closer when the leader distracted me by replying to my question,. "What exactly are you, and what do you mean by "ship", I highly doubt that would float, and it does not have any sails or paddles?"
"I am a human, This is a space ship, designed to take me to the moon and back, not a normal boat like what you are thinking of.“ I replied, these horses probably didn’t have much technology if they had no clue what a space ship was, or at least did not have any sort of science fiction.
"You were banished to the moon?!?" There was a certain fear in the horses voice now. I wondered why exactly being banished to the moon was an issue. Perhaps there was some sort of supernatural story that they had dealing with that...
"No, nothing like that, I actually wanted to go to the moon, I was definitely not banished there. Heck, I didn’t even get to see it, whatever went wrong removed that part of the journey.” I was a little bit sad about the fact that the journey had gone wrong, I was really looking forward to actually be able to go the the moon.
"Why exactly did you want to go to the moon? Is it not barren up there? What would you go to see, or discover?". This set me back a bit, and It took me a while to reply. I knew why I wanted to get to the moon so badly, but how to put it into words... It was true that there was very little of use, and I did not really go for large amounts of money...
"I'm not sure really... It was something new, something exciting... I don’t know" I decided to turn the tables with a very important question "What exactly are you anyways?"
"Oh!, We are ponies, one of the only species in Equestria that are capable of controlling magic. There are four types of ponies: Earth ponies, who use magic for strength, and knowledge of the earth. Unicorns like me, who are able to directly control magic to do many things, and Pegasus who use magic to fly, and control the weather. There are also ponies like princess Celestia who have both a horn and wings, but they are very rare." Okay, Talking horses, I could understand. Talking unicorns... Maybe I could believe that. Talking magical unicorns, along with talking magical normal horses, and talking magical Pegasus, and some sort of combination.... This was getting out of hand. There was no way that they were not only talking horses, but talking MAGIC horses. Well, Ponies.
"What exactly do you mean by magic?"
"You don't know what magic is?" I nodded my head yes, no reason to reply out loud. "magic is the force that keeps the whole of Equestria in one piece. It keeps everything in order, without it the sun wouldn't go up or down, the clouds would move on their own, the whole world could fall apart around us." I was just beginning to comprehend what exactly what had been said when this pony continued. "How in the world have you never heard about magic!?!"
"I really don’t think its magic that does half of those things. Most of what you said happens on its own. No magic involved.” In hindsight that was a really stupid thing to say right off the bat. It really sounded a bit like magic was something these ponies worshiped for causing all the good things in their world, kind of like God. And had I said something of that sort in the middle ages I would soon be looking for my head.
"So you would have to see magic before you would believe in it?" I was relived at this reply, and even more skeptical than before.
"Yes" I replied. I was really expecting a generic “look at the world around you” sort of reply when I answered.
However It was not a moment after that word left my mouth that the unicorns horn began to glow, and a nearby stick matched the glow. I watched silently as a stick levitated up to my hand. When I grabbed the stick out of the air, the glow surrounding both the stick and the unicorns horn dissipated, and it fell back into my hands. Well... staring at a now very normal stick, and I was eating my words. Looking at the stick I would never have been able to tell it had just been floating in mid-air.
I was bewildered There were no strings, no tricks, no magnets, just a floating stick. This could be a great discovery for science, and humanity for a while. A whole new field of research! I really hoped that HQ would be able to find me soon. This was amazing! For some reason I was still fascinated with the stick, long after it had stopped floating.
"Wow Twilight, He actually looks amazed! I think he has really never seen magic before. Just wait until he sees one of my patented sonic rainbooms, he wont know what hit him!" A rainbow colored Pegasus had spoken up, probably surprised that I was telling the truth. After this comment the leader shot it a bit of a mean look.
“So if you don’t have magic where you come from, How in the world do you get to the moon? That ship looks really heavy” Said the pony who had called herself “Twilight Sparkle”.
Still recovering a bit from the recent display of magic, I replied “Well... There was a very large rocket attached to this" This explaining was not important to me, I needed to know more about this magic! Physics were being destroyed right in front of my face! "What else can you do with this magic!?" I asked.
I think this "Twilight" was a bit surprised by my continuing interest, maybe it was a boring subject around here. "Well... Magic can be used to do tons of things. Most ponies use it for levitation, but some use it for for more complex actions. Anything from fancy light shows to growing a mustache."
The fact that they could do something like this far dwarfed even the technological revolution, and its child the computer. If humanity could build something to control this, and use it along side with computers the possibilities were endless! Robots would not be a thing of the past. My interest doubled. We had been talking for quite a while, and my legs were starting to get tired the sun was also starting to set, but I had to know more "How are ponies able to do this?"
Twilight looked at me a bit weirdly when I asked that, but she repeated herself "all unicorns like me are born with the ability to use magic, but it takes years of study to truly understand, and learn to control it." She glanced at the group before continuing. "We need to start to head home, Its starting to get dark, and its quite a walk back to Ponyville. Do you want us to come back tomorrow?"
"Um.. sure” I would probably be there the next day, and I highly doubted Headquarters would be able to find me without the ship transmitting, and with it being dark. after my reply the group said their goodbyes, a few of them looking a bit disappointed. My guess was that they had been told not to speak, and had thought they would get the chance to ask a question or two. They were a very quiet group aside from their leader.
I really hoped that HQ would be able to find me I did not want to die stuck in a place like this, with such potential for advances, but nobody knowing. I made my way to the crew pod, where my bed was, being sure to place the once magical stick in a storage compartment the wall on the way there. I spent a few moments staring at the stick in my hand before walking back to the airlock. Still just an ordinary stick...
It took me quite a while to sleep. the ship had quite a few lights blinking on and off in the crew compartment, and the room was a tad brighter than what I was used to. I also had quite a few things on my mind, with good reason. At the time the most prevalent question was weather or not I was insane. I couldn’t really do anything about that one so I quickly moved onto more important issues. The fact that I was stuck in some random place was quite a problem. I would need to find food, and water, along with building some sort of signal fire for any sort of rescue efforts coming through the area. It had been a really strange day, and as I drifted off to sleep I was wondering what exactly was going to happen next.
I don't think I could have even begun to predict what was to come.
Chapter 2. The strange planet.
I woke up in the morning feeling as weak, and feeble as ever. After sleep for the night the stimulant dosage from yesterday had run out, and I needed another dose before I could function properly again. Depressed, I began to look for handholds to assist me in the incredibly hard journey from bed to cryo chamber. While I was searching for some sort of external assistance I noticed a peculiar box in the wall next to the bed. I reached up, and opened it to find a large supply of the stimulant. It was at that very moment that I would give many thanks to the ingenious designers who built this ship when I got home.
The simple fact that I would not have to drag, and shuffle my way back around the entire ship really started my day off well. I was nearly smiling with joy as I injected myself. The happiness lowered a bit when the stimulants did there job all to well, and I was unable to get any extra sleep. I was destined to be a morning person that day.
After overcoming my denial, and realising that sleep was impossible. I finally got out of bed, and began my normal morning routine. Get dressed, eat breakfast, begin the day’s activities. Short simple, and to the point. After a quick change of clothes I made my way back to the kitchen/dry food storage unit for breakfast. The menu this morning was was freeze dried cereal, and some re-hydrated powdered milk. I would never had imagined that cereal could be freeze dried, or that milk could taste stale... At least it could never possible go bad, or get any more stale then it was when I ate it.
It was about at my third bite of cereal that I finally left the no thought morning stage, and recalled how extraordinary yesterdays events had been. I briefly thought over the Highmans Horses from last night, but quickly dismissed it for a dream/hallucination. Not only had I been dosed up on stimulants, but talking unicorns with magic... Not happening.
I quickly moved on to more important matters. If I was stuck here alone I would need to find some sort of water source fairly quickly, and some sort of food in at least the next week. I also needed to build some sort of signal to help any rescue efforts to find me.
After finishing the mother of all stale bowls of cereal, I made my way back to the cryo chamber to try and find the ships survival kit. It would be somewhere in the emergency kit I had gotten into yesterday. the trip to the chamber felt much shorter with a full stomach, and a nice dose of stimulants. Once in the chambers I opened the kit, and found the basic survival kit safely secured inside of it.
Getting the kit out, and opening it I found a number of things: A lighter, a camel pack with some water sterilizer, a couple dozen doses of aspirin, some basic band aids, along with antibacterial paste, some gauze, A CPR mask, and a pair of scissors. Seeing that the only thing I needed to do was start a fire, and find food, and water. I grabbed the lighter, the camel pack, and some of the band-aids. I then headed to the airlock, and made my way outside.
The moment I was rescued any sort of effort to get food and water would be useless. As soon as I reached the outside I headed into the clearing, and began my search for some firewood. After nearly an hour of searching it seemed that my efforts were in vein. All of the trees seemed to be abnormally healthy. Not a good thing when looking for good, dry firewood. Even with plenty of light from the sun it seemed that there was little to no usable firewood in the whole forest. due to the lack of firewood I developed a technique to not get lost while searching.
Walking in straight lines from the ship, I would check any tree in sight, and then used the trees as markers to find my way back. I was able to find much more than I would have due to this. I even found a small creek that I could use for water fairly near the pods landing zone.
It was during one of these searches that I stumbled on what looked like a good dead, dry stick wedged into a tree. Being the perfect sort of stick to burn I immediately grabbed it, and tried to lift it from its position. Unfortunately for me it turned out that stick was also perfect for something else. Bees. The Bees had chosen the perfect place on the stick to build their nest.
The stick was both securely stuck to the tree, and the nest was in the perfect position on the other side of the tree trunk for me to not notice it until it was to late. While shaking the stick around trying to get it out of where it was wedged into the tree I noticed the infamous buzzing sound, and then to notice the nest attached to the other end of the stick. It did not take me long to turn around and run as fast as my drugged up, and weak accountant legs would carry me away from that stupid nest.
I ran for what seemed like an eternity. Running over roots, and weaving through branches I soon found myself exhausted, and struggling to keep going. That was until I finally attempted to stop and check behind me. It took a second for me to recognize it, but behind me was a incredibly large cloud of bees coming right at me. With greatly renewed motivation I began running full speed ahead. Running while exhausted like this was starting to take a toll. I began putting all of my focus solely on taking that next step.
It was due to this focus that I soon found myself nearly running full speed into the entities from yesterdays hallucination. I narrowly avoided them, but not the branch that sent me right onto the ground. All I could do was watch as the large cloud of bees came closer... Glowed a bright purple, and disappeared. Yep, a whole cloud of bees. Poof. I guess they may not have been fake...
It was soon that I heard the things moving towards me, and soon a slightly worried voice came from above me. "Oh, wow. That was quite a large cloud of honey bees. Are you OK?"
I took quite a few deep breaths, and began to mentally prepare myself before replying. "I’m fine, Thank you," As I then got up, and got a good look at what had just spoke I nearly freaked out. It was definitely the pony from yesterday. I couldn’t just have been a hallucination could it?
"It was nothing. A teleportation spell on something so lightweight is easy," Said the pony. Seeing its face, I now knew I was once again talking to the one with the magic from yesterday. "Why were they chasing you anyway?"
I smiled a bit and replied. "I tried to pull the stick their nest was on out of a tree. It was really dry, and I was going to try and use it for firewood,"
"Why in the world would you need firewood?". asked the unicorn
"I was going to start a fire back where my pod landed," It was then that It dawned on me. I had no idea where I had just run to. Luckily I was talking to 6 "people" who probably knew exactly where my pod was. "Were you by any chance headed to see me?"
"Yeah, we were going to come, and talk to you some more. Remember?" Replied Twilight
Given a ray of hope I said. "Would you mind taking me back there? I got a bit lost running away from those bees."
"Sure, and maybe you could show us around the inside of the ship as repayment for us helping you!" She replied, probably wanting to see what exactly a space ship looked like on the inside. I however was not very sure about doing that. There would be severe consequences if they did something to break the ship, heck there would probably be consequences if I even let them in.
“Sorry, I don’t think I could do that... I don’t think I am allowed to let anyone into the ship,” I replied. “Maybe I can just tell you about it instead.”
“Well... That’s fine. I am sure I can learn a lot just from the outside anyway!” The unicorn replied.
I looked up at the sky, and back down at my watch. "Well lets go. I need to get back soon," If someone had found the ship I wanted to be there as soon as possible. I was never gone too long when looking for firewood. These bees threw me quite a bit off schedule.
I soon found myself walking with a group of colorful talking ponies as they lead me to the ship. Despite my constant state of amazement I managed to discuss a few things with them while we were walking. I learned quite a lot about the ponies themselves, mainly how their names seemed to co-relate to their colors and personalities. This fact would come in very handy in the future. I was very bad with names, and the way these ponies were named would make my life much easier. I also learned that the groups individual personalities were just a diverse as their colors. Ranging from the book smart Twilight Sparkle to Rainbow Dash, who possessed what one may call “speed fever”.
As we began to come into view of the ship the conversation had begun to delve into the question of where I was from. After hearing Twilight comment on how there were no humans in the entire world according to their princess I had gone on a small rant on how large the earth really was with all its oceans and continents. Unfortunately for me I had underestimated what they knew.
“Yeah... we know about other continents. There are even ponies that have crossed the oceans, and have set up some colonies up there. Its a very tough place to live by what I’ve read on it.” said Twilight.
“Ooooh, I know about those colonies Twilight. Some of them throw these really funny parties too! They don’t even use balloons and streamers, can you believe that?” That comment had come from Pinkie Pie, who I would have defined as the class clown of the group.
“If you have explored other continents then you should have found some humans. There are people on nearly every corner of the world. There is no way you could travel across the ocean without you meeting us or us meeting you.” I replied; Mostly ignoring Pinkie’s small rant. Looking back, I really was being a bit condescending toward what I thought was a a technologically in-superior race.
“Yeah we have definitely been to other continents. I know what an island is, I am not talking about those.” Despite this comment I still doubted that they could have crossed oceans, and not met humanity. They had to be doing something wrong, or not crossing oceans at all.
“If you have actually been to other continents, you would have had to meet humanity.” I restated. “I am not sure you really comprehend how large the world is.” I was pretty sure that it was impossible for humanity to go extinct in a week, these ponies probably had a very small world-view.
"How about this? I’ll light a signal fire, and after someone comes to rescue me I can show you what I mean by continent." I said.
"Um... I don’t want to bother anything, but I don't think we should be starting any fires in the forest. We could set off a forest fire...," Whispered Fluttershy. This pony had always been quiet, and was easy to identify due to the "flutter" in her name, and the butterfly tattoo. I was going to have to ask what those were later. The other half of her name fit also. She had hardly spoken the whole walk to the pod, despite the others rapid firing questions, and answering my own.
"Fluttershy is right," Said Twilight. "Not only could you start a fire, but Ponyville could see the smoke, and panic. We shouldn’t be doing anything to attract too much attention right now."
"You're probably right. Heck it is probably not too hard for anyone to find this ship from the air in the first place," I replied. I was never one to really care to much about the possibility of starting a forest fire. However I did not like the idea of sending an entire town into a panic before even meeting any of them.
"Wait a second. How do humans fly with no wings? Do you have Pegasus men?" Asked the pony named Rainbow Dash. She had been one of the more talkative ponies on the walk. It was fairly easy to remember this ones name due to the match between hair color... colors, and name. This pony seemed to love speed, and talking about speeds she had achieved. She even said that while flying she had broken the sound barrier, which was quite impossible for any flesh and blood creature to do.
"Not in the way that you do," I replied. We have machines that fly for us instead of wings. We just ride in them, and control where they go.”
"So kind of like pinkie's flying balloon bike? aren't those really slow?." replied Rainbow Dash
I guess they did know a bit about creating things, at least hot air balloons. “No, our machines are much faster, and more controlled than any sort of hot air balloon.” I replied
“I still doubt any stupid machine could fly faster than me!” Boasted Rainbow Dash. "I can even outrun fireworks!"
I thought back to the hyperbole about the sound barrier from earlier before replying. "I don't think you understand how fast these “machines” can go. Not only can they go faster than the speed of sound, They are capable of traveling across entire oceans in less than a day, and some are large enough to hold hundreds of people while doing it," I smirked a bit while I was talking. I knew that even though the pony may have been exaggerating, I was telling the full, and total truth. I was always proud of what technology had been able to accomplish. Even if I had nothing to do with it.
"Ha! I will believe that when I see it." The rainbow haired Pegasus replied, reflecting my exact thoughts on her earlier comment. I started to reply again, when we were interrupted by an exited voice.
“Oh, I got it! What if instead of you lighting a fire I cast a lighting spell over your ship,” Said Twilight. “Then any rescuers can find you, and there will be no risk of starting a fire, and because the light will only be on top of your ship there will be little chance of scaring Ponyville!” said Twilight. She had apparently felt bad about making me not light a fire, and was trying to think of a solution the whole time I was discussing aircraft with rainbow dash.
Figuring there was no harm in trying, and eager to see more of this “magic”, I gave my go ahead. I watched as Twilight’s horn began to glow just as it had before. Soon after the air over the ship began to appear to shimmer and shine just as Twilight's horn. The air above the ship soon looked as if someone had taken powdered glass and suspended it there while shining a flash light onto it. I could see the light coming off of it, even with the sun out.
"There, that should help it stand out," Said Twilight
Still a bit amazed by the fact that this was even possible There was only one thing to say. "How in the world is that possible?"
"Just a modified illumination spell," Replied Twilight. "I didn't do anything except change its area of effect from the area around my horn to the top of your ship, and I did not put too much mental energy into it so it should wear off in a few days. I had some trouble with the....”
The long slightly boring conversation marked the end of the days interesting events. The rest of the explanation was fairly long, and way to detailed but nevertheless useless. Most of it was focused on what I would call magical jargon. After the discussion on magical theory the conversation turned to revolve around the ponies questions on what technology can do, and my questions on what the ponies could do with magic.
I was greatly amazed with the things that could be accomplished by these ponies with magic. They could even control the weather! On the other hand the group seemed amazed at what technology did without magic. They seemed more amazed at what technology could accomplish without magic, instead of just being amazed at what it could accomplish in general. I guessed that most of what I said was already possible for the ponies to do.
The exception to this was computers. Twilight was absolutely amazed with the concept of computers, and the Internet. I think she was a bit disappointed when I could not explain how it worked. I was able to explain some things such as light-bulbs, and airplanes already, and it had greatly interested some of the pones. It seemed that magic took a lot of this basic knowledge from them. They simply didn’t need to know it.
I did try to ask a few times as to what magic was on a basic level. The best answer I got was that magic was a force of the universe, just like gravity. Maybe it was something that was somehow never discovered by mankind yet nature had been using for centuries. You know all those commercials talking about how we should save the amazon? This is why!
Before any of the true conversation about the in depth parts of our culture could begin the ponies had to leave again. There was some sort of event back in the town, and they would be missed if they were not there. I once again said my goodbyes, agreed to be waiting for them the next day, and watched them walk back the way they had first come from.
I sat down to think after they left. The fact that these ponies even existed was still bothering me. Their body structure really had me intrigued. They seemed to be the human equivalent to monkeys, from their lack of fur to the shorter more expressive faces. They also shared a scary number of cultural similarities. They even did simple things like smiling when happy, or shrugging when they did not know something, I could have closed my eyes when talking to them, and almost confused them for real people.
I was not too sure how much I really trusted these ponies. Despite the fact that they had even helped me earlier, I couldn't help but think that they were a bit... off. I still somewhat believed that they were simply a figment of my still hallucinogenic minds imagination. Seriously, Talking ponies, unicorns, and Pegasus that both spoke English, along with having the same nonverbal body language. Not a very likely occurrence.
After my thoughts I decided to use the extra time on the ship wisely. The first think I did was go back to the communications center and check if anyone was listening, or had tried to contact me while I was gone. After wasting an hour desperately trying to find some human contact I finally decided that trying any more was pointless. If nobody was replying after all of my attempts to contact them the radio system had to be broken somehow. In the end the hour wasted was still worth it. It was not as if I had anything better to do at the time.
After spending quite a while sitting at the radio system my stomach decided to remind me that It was about time for some lunch. I headed over to the ships microwaves, (I'm no longer calling it a kitchen) and made myself a meal any school cafeteria worker would be proud of. While I was sitting at the ships kitchen tables, and eating my lunch another idea came to me. There were supposed to be recordings of the entire trip on the ships computers. I was supposed to send them to HQ when I got to the moon so they could review anything that needed changing. Seeing that I never was able to contact HQ to send the video, and have them figure out what went wrong. I could try to get a hold of these videos, and watch them I could figure out what exactly happened to the ship, and why I was in my current predicament.
Luckily, despite the ships mostly nontechnical design, the ships designers had decided that the future customers would also like to see this video. Due to this fact it was pretty easy to get access to the video. In fact it was provided very plainly on the bedroom computer console. A few minutes figuring out how the system worked, and the cursed video was soon playing.
The video began with the pod’s launch. I watched as the pod, sitting on top of the “giant firecracker” part of the ship, slowly rose through the atmosphere making its way into high orbit. I fast forwarded through the large amount of time that the pod spent orbiting the earth. It was both very unlikely that something had gone wrong in this stage of the trip, and I did not have the attention spawn to watch that amount of footage. I did take a few moments before fast forwarding the video to observe how beautiful the earth was from orbit.
After watching the video move in high speed for a few minutes the moon came into the cameras view. The ship was landing. I watched as the ship activated the thrusters on the bottom, and began to slow. Even with the thrusters it seemed to land harder than I thought it should, although that was not likely to break anything. It hit the moons surface hard enough to send A plume of dust up into the view of the camera. Dust slowly began to settle, and the video clip came to an end.
I then toggled the second clip, which was a time lapse of the whole time the ship spent sitting on the moons surface. The clip started normally, beginning where the high quality video had left off. The dust that was in the cameras view settled in an instant. I then watched the earth jump around in the background as the clip progressed days and days were flashing by in an instant. After nearly thirty minutes of waiting for the clip to end I began to worry. I then impatiently put the video into fast forward. Time passed even more quickly Thirty minutes, Forty, Fifty, an hour, hour and thirty, two hours, three and a half hours... The clip lasted nearly 4 hours before it finally went dark, due to lack of allotted video space. That camera was supposed to be able to hold at least a year of footage....
after skipping over most of the four hour time lapse, I started the next clip. This one was a true video instead of a time lapse. The video began as the ship began the process of lifting off with a shudder. The pod then began to make its way upward. The liftoff from the moon was much less dramatic than that of earth. The lack of gravity really made it look like the ship was simply hovering with some sort of sci-fi technology instead of rockets. It was soon that the pod was once again in orbit. I set the clip in fast forward yet again, not wanting to view the process; I soon found myself pausing the video. Was I looking at.... Earth?
It was the same blue, and white planet I was used to, but it was very different. I could not recognize any of the continents. No America, no Europe, Asia, Australia, or Africa. Not even Antarctica! The whole planet was entirely made up of what looked like new continents. It was not as if there was continental drift, they looked truly new.
Nothing else was correct either, the oceans were wrong, the ice caps were nearly gone, merely a speck of white among a sea of brown and green. The whole center of the world was also a green color, not the blue ocean one would expect to see if the ice caps had melted. As a whole it was much greener than how I had seen it in the first video. It looked more alive, but yet it seemed dead due to its lack of diversity. After staring for some time at this strange sight I once again set the video into fast forward.
The pod came closer to this strange planet and began its descent. I watched the flame cone develop around it as it entered the atmosphere, then as it deployed its parachutes, and come down towards a forest, Looking closely I could see what looked like the town the ponies had been referring to earlier, there were a few areas that looked like some sort of town or city. There were a few other interesting features of the land around me. This clip would at least be useful to have a birds eye view of the whole area. Then ship finally crashed down through the forest canopy, and the video ended.
I sat for quite a while staring at the dark screen when the video ended. This was impossible. It had to be some sort of joke, trick, or something. There was no way that the video was the truth. First off the pod was made to come back after only a week. I really doubted it could survive an eternity on the moon. Secondly even if I was frozen, there was no way I could have stayed alive long enough to survive that sort of time passage. The only problem with the joke theory was the ponies from earlier... they were living proof of something having gone wrong. I really doubted that anyone could, or would go that far for a simple prank. Heck I even doubted anyone would use a multi million dollar space ship for a prank either.
This video made the reason that HQ had remained silent this whole time painfully obvious. Perhaps that was why I was so weak emerging out of the pod. I would have to have been incredibly lucky to survive all that time without any sort of injury.
Even if an incredible amount of time had passed It was probably still possible that somebody was out there. Heck these ponies didn’t really mean anything, they may even be some sort of experiment, a human experiment. I could just be sitting in a science base... Couldn't I? There could be someone out there right now trying to contact the strange, archaic vehicle that had just come from the moon. I could just wait at the radio room until some future human decides to contact me. There was still a chance.
After finishing my meal I made my way back to the bedrooms of the ship. I then removed the mattress, blankets, and pillows from the bed. I dragged these down the hallway to the communication center. I set up a makeshift bed in the middle of the floor in the room using these materials.
After I had set up my makeshift bed I laid down. It was early, but due to this recent news, and my weakness.... CRAP! Remembering something very important I quickly got back out of bed, returned to the bedrooms, reached into the cabinet from earlier, and got a dose of stimulants. Had I forgotten those.... Lets just say I would have had a bad day. Soon after my mistake I was I began to comprehend what I just seen in that video.
It began to dawn on me that Everyone I knew was probably gone, or very very old at this point. There was a very good chance that all of humanity humanity was gone, and I could be nothing but a relic of a long dead past. I began to slip into true depression before I remembered something. Humanity couldn't gone, why? There is no way any sort of disaster, or even an infinite amount of time could defeat a species as powerful as my own. The loss of any of my family and friends had much more of an impact, but it helped knowing that I had "died" a hero to my family. In the end it was all a waiting game. Somebody would find me eventually.
I spent the last few moments of consciousness staring at the radio console, hoping to hear a voice calling for me, but hearing nothing but some really strange background static.
CHAPTER 3: DECISIONS
I was almost disappointed at not being woken up in the middle of the night (first time that has ever happened in my life, mind you). Not a single peep from the radio systems through the whole night. Due to my change in location, and the ships still fairly tight design, I had no alarm clocks to wake me up in the morning. As a result it was already fairly late upon my awakening.
I started my morning, well morning in relative to having just woken up anyway, as part of a new routine. After a few minutes I had injected myself with stimulants, sent out another broadcast for help, and was resting in the office chair next to the radio console, ready for my day to begin.
Despite that to an outside observer I probably looked very relaxed in the moderatly comfy chair, I was still worried over the video I had seen yesterday. It was not so much what the video contained that was really messing with my head, but the fact that I could not really remember whether the video was even reality or some sort of dream, or hallucination like those ponies from the days before.
Even after the stimulant had finished its job, and I was feeling well, and a little bit restless I was determined to remain in the radio room. I was still eagerly awaiting the call that would change the rest of my life for the better. Perhaps my life could have been different, perhaps someone may have even ended up calling in asking for my coordinates had it not been for the innate stubborn trait of these "hallucinations" to keep existing despite my eternal arguments.
It was fairly late into the afternoon when I began to hear some sort of thumping sound on the outside of the ship. I figured that, due to the fact that the ship had just landed on soft ground, and sat there for much longer than it was designed, it would be making some thumping sounds over time so I thought little to nothing of the sound, and continued with the important task of shuffling through radio frequencies.
It was not until long after thumping from outside the ship stopped that I finally decided that obeying my stomach's pleas for food were no longer able to be ignored. With impeccable timing, just as I stood up and began to make my way into the main hallway, a unicorn "hallucination" teleported straight into my path... The sudden appearance of that... thing shook me up quite a bit, and took food off of my mind for another few minutes.
.....The universe.... It does not like letting me get tasty food.....
“What are you doing in here?!? The unicorn wasted no time in starting conversation "Yesterday you said you would be outside waiting for us!” Her voice was a bit distressed, and she was quite quickly.
I was taken aback by that. I had promised that I would meet them outside? I did soon remember what I had said the night before, but it was still not of importance. There was a far more important question at hand “How, and why the heck did you get in here!” I asked, feeling suddenly insecure inside the large ship with multiple locked, airtight doors. I truly want to know what my life would have ended up as if the ponies had just been nice, and stayed figments of my imagination. I can assure you though, I've been off of those stims for a while now, and am quite healthy enough to assure you. They were not in any form, shape, or way fake. Nevertheless; had they not existed, and instead humanity was still kicking I could have ended up having quite a better day.
“I teleported myself in. I'm sorry, but I had no other choice! I tried everything that I could. I even tried knocking on your door, and sending off bolts of light to get your attention!” She rapidly scanned the surfaces of the radio centre, until her eyes stopped on the digital clock embedded above the radio. After seeing the time she then said, “You need to hurry, Princess celestia is waiting outside to speak to you right now!" PAUSE: Did she just say princess? As in royalty?
“Princess?” I asked for a repetition, feeling that I may have misunderstood. Heck, I was wishing that I had misunderstood.
“Yes, Princess Celestia, the ruler of the sun. I told her about you, your ship, and your stories about humanity in a letter that I sent to her yesterday night. She was so intrigued by what I said about you and your ship that she was standing outside my door practically demanding for me to take her to you. And now I am wasting time explaining this while she is waiting!”
“So... Is this the same princess that, according to you, raises the sun and the moon every day?” I inquired, not wanting to meet the type of person who would tell their subjects such a lie. If one thing had not changed in that video it was that the sun had not stopped moving.
“Yes, that is her. She might get impatient if you make her wait too long... We have to hurry!" She was still glancing between myself, and the clock. Her actions were scaring me, This was definitely not a "nice" leader.
"Ok, you go ahead and tell this princess that I am coming out." I stated. "I need to get... prepared to see her."
By prepared I meant that I needed both food, and weapons. I had still not eaten breakfast, and I definitely was not going to go out into the open with that "sun goddess" with no forms of protection. Due to how nervous, and jittery Twilight was acting I guessed that I was going to need to be very careful. Despite the fact that I had never met one, I was pretty sure that I did not mingle well with tyrants who think they are gods.
“Great! Please hurry, I will tell her that you will be out here soon.” Twilight said with a grin. She sounded very relieved at finally having something proactive to report. Her horn was soon glowing, and with a flash, and a jaw dropping onto the floor, she teleported out.
As soon Twilight had finished teleporting, and I got my jaw off the floor, I ran straight to the kitchens as fast as the narrow hallways would let me. As soon as I reached my destination I hastily began to search for anything useful, whether it be food or some sort of a weapon.
Being the room of microwaves it was; all I found inside of the "Kitchens'' was a bunch of useless, cheap, plastic, and very dull knives. I did however find some food in the same place it had been for the entire trip. Grabbing a handful of dry cereal, and hastily spreading it onto a piece of bread (I am a great chef) I made my way to the pod room, still moving as fast as I could. If I could not get a useful knife than I needed some sort of weapon to replace it.
The contents of the emergency kit inside the pod room would not have made good weapons either. Lighter; could work, but not really. a few doses of emergency stimulants; again not really feasible as a weapon, and I needed them for the future. Scissors! They were large enough to at least do a bit of damage. I quickly stashed them in my pants pocket, and continued looting the box for something else of use. The only real thing of use I found was the flares. Although probably useless for injuring anything, they could make a pretty good distraction. I grabbed a few of them, and stored them in my pants pockets, just alongside the scissors.
The next thing I did was to go to the bedrooms, and check my appearance in one of the mirrors. Although I doubted that my opinion on clothing, and appearance would be appreciated by royalty; it was still worth the effort.
As soon as I finished making sure that I looked civilized, and that my weapons were well hidden in my pants pockets; I made my way to the airlock. I was panicking a little bit as I opened the front door. A thousand "last minute" questions began to run through my head. Most of them had to do with self defence. Was there anything else I could have with me? Was I overlooking some sort of weakness? What if I had to leave the ship? The panic increased tenfold when I entered the space between the airlock doors, and a hundredfold when I began opening the external airlock.
Despite all of the thoughts, and the general panic inside of my head I was looking, and standing straight up as the outer airlock door began to open. As it reached the point that I could see through it I was met eye to eye with a pony unlike any of the ones I had met up to that point.
The first thing I noticed was that we were meeting eye to eye without me looking down. This pony was as tall, if not taller than a normal horse. The very next thing I noticed was the incredibly strange hair. The hair on all the ponies I had seen were certainly strange, but all could have been done on a human with some hair dye. This was different; The princesses hair was not only translucent, but it was almost flowing through the air as if it was some sort of liquid. There was no wind, but it was waving around like a flag. The final thing I took note of before events began to occur was that this pony had not only a abnormally long horn on its head, It had a fairly large pair of wings on its back! Flying magic pony with wavy hair.... I was in a 6 year old girl's dreams for sure.
Despite all my expectations, stepping out of the pod was not dramatic by any means. The only one of the group standing outside of the pod that really noticed my arrival was the hair-flowy one, much to my liking, I was never much for being the center of attention. Therefore it was rather unfortunate when the... Hairy... one decided that I was meant to be the center of attention, and bluntly pointed out my arrival.
"Excuse me Twilight, Is the the creature that you described in your letters," Said Celestia. This question served two purposes: Actually being a question, and getting the entire group to immediately begin staring at me.
“You are correct.” said Twilight, after looking up at me. “I am very sorry you had to wait for so long for him to come out.”
“Don't fret. I have plenty of time set in todays schedule for this... Meeting.” The "Princess of the sun" then turned her head so that it was facing me, and began speaking.
“Hello, and welcome to Equestria!, My name is Princess Celestia. My sister Luna, and I govern this land, and ensure lasting peace and prosperity for our subjects. Would you mind telling me your name?”
My god... Did one of the ponies just address me without leaving me in a state of amazement or confusion? For the first time in what seemed like a week I was actually able to speak without thinking.
“Hello Celestia, I am Lewis Jameson..... Also I am sorry about being so late.” I replied. The concept of a tyrannical leader were starting to dissipate. The flares were starting to feel really awkward in my pockets.
“I am very sorry to hear about what has happened to you. If there is anything you need from us ponies all you must do is ask,” Said Celestia.
“I don't think there is much you are able to do really. Do you perhaps know of any human settlements near here?" I asked
"I am verry sorry, I do not know of any human settlements in, or near Equestira. I can however order any royal guards to be on the lookout for any strange cities, or any creature that matches your description. We may be able to find your rescuers before they are able to find you." Celestia stated with a bit of pride.
"Although any sort of help is appreciated, I don't think that will be necessary." I started, remembering the fact that I was a bit in the future, and there was likely no rescue party anyway. "All I can do right now is wait, and hope for the best."
"In that case I am sorry that we cannot help you get home. Although the term human does seem strangely familiar to me... Perhaps there is something in the royal archives about your species. You never know with a library the size of the archives." She quietly laughed at that comment, Probably some sort of joke about the "Royal Archives".
"It would probably be worth your time to look.," I said. I was originally going to say that it was almost impossible, but I then remembered what I had learned last night. Humanity could be to ponies as dinosaurs were to man. The thoughts were starting to get to me, I really did not like having to think about this.
“Although, seeing you is reminding me of something. Although I can not quite remember what it is, I seem to remember having seen a creature like you in the past... Perhaps one of the creatures from the royal gardens?!” Said Celestia. Her voice was a bit less royal than it had been a few moments ago. She seemed to be lost in thought.......
It was during the silence that Celestia was using to ponder what I was reminding her of an echo'ee voice rang out through the forest. "Whatsamatter Celestia?" It said. "Can you not remember the very thing your ignorance made you forget?" I personally did not recognize the voice, and was almost not even surprised by it (I was adapting quickly to the situation I was in i guess...). The ponies, however, were incredibly surprised, and even scared by the voice. Amid many gasps of what I assume were terror Celestia addressed the voice.
“It cannot be. Discord! Reveal yourself at once!" She ordered. Obviously not amused at the playful tone of the voice.
“What’s wrong Celly? Are you not happy to see me again? Have you really come to hate me so much that you don't even say a simple hello? I mean really! I have never hurt you or any of your precious ponies.” It was obvious that the voice was taunting Celestia. I felt a little guilty about it, but I really wanted to hear more from the voice. It seemed to know things...
“Discord. I have no patience for these games. What are your intentions,” Celestia not so kindly asked.
“You never were much fun.” The voice commented. “I guess you can have it your way. I am here only to deliver a simple message from someone you once knew well. You see this creature in front of you? You are to bring him to the Far-Mountains, There is a... creature... That would very much enjoy a meeting with him.” This statement immediately made the voice go from something that I was mildly interested in to something I did not want to continue speaking. I had no idea what this "creature" was, but I had no plans on doing so.
“As if you are in any position to make demands. On what grounds are we to listen to you”.
“Oh Celestia, Celestia, Celestia....” A creature that looked ripped straight out of some sci-fi movie appeared inside Celestia’s personal space while speaking the words of the voice. I could only describe the creature as a genetic experiment gone wrong. It looked somewhat like a dragon, a bird, and many other things combined in pieces into one strange creature. Not really so much gruesome looking, or even disturbing. It was just... Freaky. “You assume that I expected to just tell you ponies to just do something out of the kindness in your hearts? No, no no no. I have a little inspiration for these "elements of harmony" over here.”
The creature that Celestia had referred to as “Discord” had created a handful of what I assumed was some sort of a weapon, and began to launch it at the princess herself. Just as Discord threw this strange ball of energy I felt a gust of wind go by my head, and heard a scream coming from behind me.
“Rainbow, Wait!”
The gust of wind was Rainbow Dash flying past me at an attempt to save Celestia from this weapon. The power of this ball of energy soon became apparent when it hit Rainbow Dash dead center, and she began to turn grey, and stop moving. Had she been frozen in stone?. The strange creature that had shot the bolt looked disappointed for a second after realising that its bolt had not struck its intended target before smiling, leaning down, and plucking the new statue off of the ground.
“Well Celestia... It appears another pony has taken a bullet for you. I was really looking forward to dancing on your frozen head, but this will suit me far better in the long run.” He had what appeared to be a massive smile as he brought the statue of Rainbow Dash up to his eye level and inspected it.
“Yes. This will do very well," He said. "Bring the creature over there to the Far-Mountains. Once you bring this creature to the mountains, and return him to the creature I mentioned earlier you will get your precious element of loyalty back. That is of course if you value her life more than you do this... things.” He was actually starting to laugh a bit, literally holding back tears of joy as if he was telling a hilarious joke.
“I will be waiting for you, O powerful elements of harmony.” After that closing statement he simply teleported away. Leaving nothing behind but a few sparkles floating in the air.
“Everyone stand back!” Said Twilight. Her horn had begun to glow in the same way it had done in the past when performing magic (I hate calling it that). “I think I can get this portal reopened. If we move fast we can get Rainbow Dash back!”
“No Twilight.” Celestia called out, sounding frustrated. “Even if you could catch him, we can do nothing without the elements of harmony with us. We can do nothing but play along with his games... For now.”
It was at the mention of "his games" that the whole group of ponies turned, and looked right at me as if they were expecting something. I knew exactly what they were expecting, and knew why they were looking at me like that, but I decided to play it dumb. “What?” I asked
"I am sorry I have to ask this of you Lewis, but could you please assist us in rescuing Rainbow Dash," Said Celestia. “We cannot continue without your help”.
This set off quite a mental battle for a second there. I was silent for at least a few seconds; These ponies were something of an enigma to me. I had no idea what there culture was really, and truly like aside the few short days that I had been here. On one hand they had been quite welcoming of the strange creature in its strange ship. On the other hand I hardly knew any of them, This "creature" was probably not intending to hand me any cupcakes, and I was waiting for a call. Although I appreciated their help It was not really enough to make up for a life. "Im really sorry...., But I really can't do anything to help you. I wish I could, but If I don't stay in the ship very bad things could happen, and I can't take that risk." Stretching the truth in this situation was not optional.
"I want you to understand that without your help we will probably be unable to get Rainbow Dash back," Said Celestia "And without Rainbow to complete the elements of harmony we cannot defeat discord, and without defeating Discord equestria will be doomed to exist in near perpetual chaos."
Don't think I was not feeling a bit guilty about my decision It was really hurting my integrity, but I had to stay at the ship in case anyone tried to contact me by radio. Also without a daily dose of stimulant shots I would end up more useless to their group than the rock that I was standing on top of. Also due to the fact that I needed to regenerate any of the muscle, and bone density that I lost in the trip I would need quite a lot of protein, and other nutrients. Something I really doubted a bunch of sentient ponies would have in a large supply.
"I really am sorry, but there is nothing else I can do." The stimulant dependence tipped the tables. At that point I was sure of my choice, and was not going to change my mind.
"Well that is ve..." Celestia started to say before being interrupted by Twilight.
"How in the world can you just sit there and do nothing!" Scolded Twilight. "My friend is out there frozen in stone because she was trying to save Celestia, yet you can't get up and help her because you can't take the risk of leaving your ship alone? What are you even risking?!?"
"If I were to leave this ship, and somebody was to come looking for me anything could happen. Imagine they thought your kind killed me? And Trust me I have plenty of other reasons." I was surprised at how well I managed to come up with the "Imagine they thought your kind killed me".
Twilight did try to speak up again before being stopped by Celestia "Calm down Twilight," She said. "I know you are mad about losing rainbow dash. Unfortuatly he is right, and more importantly it is not up to us to decide on his fate. We will have to find another way."
"But princess.... How are we going to help Rainbow Dash without him?" asked Twilight.
"Do not worry, I will be sure to find a way. With or without the help from this... Human." Replied Celestia. "Let us go back to Ponyville, and regroup."
After this, and without another word the whole group followed Celestia back away from the ship. I stood there watching them, half relieved that I was not going to have to fight to stay at the ship, or end up being forced to come with them anyway. I was also feeling a bit guilty about the whole situation still, but there was really no reason for me to do anything for them.
Heck! The sum of what they did for me was akin to nothing in comparison to what they were asking of me. What had they done? Teleported some bees? Yet they wanted me to go along and risk my life going with them, a group of strange otherworldly creatures, to some far off mountain land where a "Creature" wanted to see me? Who in the world would expect someone to do that in the first place! I had no reason to be guilty!
After they had faded into the distance, or began to I stormed back into the ship. Seriously. Why the hell were they trying to guilt me into doing that. They really had no right! I could understand perhaps if they were actual human beings, Perhaps had they actually offered something in return. But no. They needed me to help their friend, and because I was not putting my life on the line I was evil... Yep, Makes sense.
I was actually starting to get pretty mad as I made my way to the radio room, and reactivated the radio systems. Once again I called out for help, I tried to contact the people that I lived with my entire life. Once again I tried to find my long gone species. Yet again they didn't reply. I nearly hit the radio out of frustration. I was really getting to the steaming point over what had just happened. I could find nothing other than Unfair to describe the situation. If I was never found by anyone I would end up subjected to whatever law these ponies had, and I really doubted I would be on their good side if they ever defeated this "Discord" without me.
Due to force of habit I continued to sit in the room long after I was sure that there was no possibility of receiving a reply to my previous calls for help. I turned on the scanner and listened to the static coming through on the radio. To this day I do not know if it was my imagination, or perhaps some other cause, but I heard voices in the static. I remember hearing human voices coming through the radio. However as soon as I would notice their presence They would be gone, leaving me frustrated at the situation I was stuck in.
My thoughts continued to spring back to the ponies. I was reasoning with myself for a very long time as to the reasons for my refusal to help them. I had no obligations, no debts, nothing to earn. I hardly knew any of them as anything but the strange ponies from across the forests. I had no real reason to even begin to feel guilty for not helping them. They were ponies. Ponies! Why in the world should I have cared that one of them was frozen in stone...
Frozen in stone... What had that one pony done to deserve that treatment? Tried to save her leader? Yeah, threw herself in front of a bullet, I think she got what was coming to her. Still though, What would it be like to be frozen in place like that. Imagine the ponies never did manage to free her, and she was somehow still conscious in there. Like living in a coma, and watching the doctor disconnect the life support. Heck. What if she was not conscious, and woke, tired and weak to a strange new world. It really must suck to be frozen like that, conscious or unconscious.... A whole new world...
What was I doing just sitting here waiting for some savior to rescue me from the situation. Were the talking ponies not enough? Just sitting in place waiting for some figment of my imagination future humanity to swoop down from the skies and rescue me. But what was I supposed to accomplish if there were no humans. No family, no friends, no history books recording my first manned cryogenic flight to the moon. What in the world was I supposed to do? Learn to hunt, fish, farm, and live the rest of my life staring at the radio until it breaks, ever hoping for the arrival of a human ship? Why in the world had I not thought of this a few minutes earlier.
More importantly, If humanity was gone what was I going to do? I had already cut ties with the only sentient creatures that were probably on the planet, and without some sort of civilization most of the useless science trivia I had learned would be useless. Perhaps I should have told them I would need time to think of an answer, maybe I was right to feel a bit guilty at the time. After all, How would I feel if I was in Rainbow Dash's position right now. Frozen in time. Waiting for my friends to rescue me, even though they could not, Stuck, perhaps unconscious, perhaps not in a state of paralysis. Perhaps to wake thousands of years in the future, with nothing to live for. No friends.... No family....
With the beginnings of those thoughts in my head I decided to forget and sleep, I didn't need to do anything. Someone had to be out there, waiting for me. However, after moving all my bedding back to the bedroom, and getting a dose of stim in close reach I found myself printing the orbital views of the area surrounding me. I remembered that the ship had caught glimpses of the town as it came down for a landing.
I may have ensured that the ponies would never come back to visit by my actions. I may have acted a bit selfish, and not put enough thought into my decisions. I may have even caused something bad, but there was still a chance I could try and renew ties with them. I was not planning to go on any journeys, but I sure as hell could give some tips and pointers to herbivorous creatures on fighting, and warfare, I could still make up for what I had done.
