chapter 3: hello? anyone here?
Chapter 3
Nothing happened last night. In fact, it was just like an earth simulation on the ship. (The ships name was UNOTG, which stands for: United Nations of the Galaxy. Most FEAR its name, for it has destroyed countless useless planets that had humanities’ enemies, or planets that had no water or vegetation.) I decided to go back down to the lake, considering I drank all of my water the night before.
I had been too thirsty to conserve water, which had turned out to be a great idea. As I was walking to the creek I decided to take a new path to get a better knowledge of my surroundings. While I was walking I noticed a new trail in the grassy forest… it looked like it was made by something capable of intelligent thought.
“Well at least this world might have some kind of intelligent life form on it.” I had to admit, there were traces of emphasis on the word “might.” They could always be primitive beings that are nothing but violent. I hoped they weren’t. I was walking along the trail, and I noticed an opening in the trees. Yet again it looked light sentient beings made this, so I decided to take a closer look.
I took a crouching position behind a bush and looked through my rail gun’s scope. It was a small pond in a clearing with some hills here and there, but what surprised me the most is the fact that there was a bench… and on that bench were… six ponies? There was an all pink one that looked like it was about to explode with energy.
There was also purple one with a pink highlight in its tail and mane, and a… a HORN?! The egg heads are going to love it when I tell them something from ancient mythology existed on an alien planet. It had a gleam of intelligence in her eyes. A yellow one with a pink tail and mane acted like an insecure child shying around the group, keeping her head low.
A pony with… gee, what a surprise! Wings! It was blue and had an all rainbow tail and mane. It acted like she was some kind off boss of the group. The blue one even pulled off a super speed aerial trick. It got some high speeds! I'd love to see it race one of our VTOL jets. There was one with a white body and purple mane, who acted like grass and dirt were lava and poison.
There was an orange one with a blonde mane and a cow girl hat. It looked strong and proud. Finally there was something I didn’t notice before, a small purple and green dragon. The dragon looked like some kind of slave to the purple pony who gave him orders and he complied. He seemed happy to do it though. They were eating some kind of picnic with flowers in between bread. How could they even do that with hooves?
The unicorn would make sense though because it probably could use magic, but the others? I can't even imagine how they could do such a feat with hooves. Back to the point. They seemed to be talking but I couldn’t hear them from where I was. I was sure they would be talking about whatever they talked about on this planet, which would be valuable Intel… maybe. I needed to move closer, but without being detected by the multicolored ponies. "Well,” I thought. “This is going to be fun.”
Even some devices have some weaknesses. Just like me. I'm not physically strong, but by wearing this armor I make up for that. I also wasn't social in my life, but the armor couldn’t help that. Being anti-social made convincing or asking people questions hard for me. Then comes the devices weakness: the little flat square chip implanted in my armor can't keep me invisible if I run. If I’m still, the armor makes me invisible. But, if I move, the faster the motion, the more visible I am.
That makes any form of escaping while cloaked impossible. High risk, high reward, am I right? I took a prone position and activated my camouflage and slowly crawled over to a cluster of trees right by the ponies. I was sweating heavily in my armor from the fear that they would notice me by some magical chance, plus if anything fell on me it would alert them of my presence. I didn't want to take that chance so I semi circled around to them instead of a crawling in a straight line.
When I was at my objective I heard the ponies talking. "So do you think I'll make it to the wonder bolts?” The rainbow pony asked.
"I think you'll make it to the wonder bolts when you’re ready to act properly and loose that attitude of yours darling.” Replied the white pony in a upper class manner of speaking. Wonder bolts? Is that some kind of club or something?
"I can have an attitude if I want!” The Pegasus picked up a piece of vanilla cake and threw the cake directly at the white one. The worst part is the fact she dodged the cake and it was coming right at… me! SPLAT! I was hit right in the head.
"Now, Rarity and Rainbow Dash, ah don't want to separate you two. But if it's what ah got to do then by Celestia I'll do it!" The white one, who the orange one with a southern drawl had called Rarity, dropped a blueberry pie and the rainbow pony, whom was just called Rainbow Dash, hung her head in shame. "Now both of you apologize t’ each other.”
"I'm sorry Rarity. I shouldn’t throw pieces of cake at you.” The white one smiled warmly.
“I accept your apology darling, and I'm sorry myself for telling a great friend like you how to act.” Rarity replied.
As I stood up to leave, I realized I forgot about the cake! To them, it seemed to come off the ground on its own. I heard a delighted high pitch squeak. "Look Twilight! A GHOST! Do you think it wants to play?" Screamed the bright pink one. She seemed to be talking to the unicorn, who must be named Twilight. I uncloaked as it would be useless to run by foot and I didn't have a jet pack with me.
"MONSTER!!" Yelled a not-as-friendly Unicorn. “Not on my watch!” Rainbow Dash charged me only for the word "OUCH!!!!!!!!” And the sound of a fainting pony, who had just flew into my armor head-first. As I picked up Rainbow Dash and flung her at a tree the white one named Rarity screamed at me. Clearly they all were close friends of some sort if they cared about a friend being thrown into a tree. My allies had had the same look of horror when they saw someone step on a mine or a plasma grenade. She also began to charge at me.
"YOU BEAST! HOW C-" she was silenced when I punched her wind pipe then a blow to the face to knock her out.
"Twilight what are we going to do!?” the orange pony looked over at Twilight, who seemed to be the leader of the group. They all looked terrified, accept for Twilight. The yellow one had even fainted when I was discovered.
"You'll see AJ!” Twilight's horn started to glow a deep shade of purple, and then fired a small beam of energy at me.
"Way to go Twilight! That'll get him!” AJ, the orange pony, yelled. The beam of energy just bounced off my armor leaving both ponies jaw-dropped. I gave them a cold stare, though they couldn’t see it through my helmet, letting them know they better leave. Needless to say, it worked anyway. Rarity was carried on the back of AJ, and Rainbow Dash was carried along with the yellow one in a purple glow, just like Twilight’s horn. That must be how her magic works. The purple dragon that had been hiding ran off with them.
They all ran off northeast, leaving hoof prints behind. Something in the back of my head begged me to follow them. "Well I better get my stuff before I go." The short journey back to camp was pony free except for a deer here or there. As I collected my stuff I found a solar battery laying on the ground. "So that's where I dropped that.” I picked it up and placed it in my eye piece. Hearing a satisfying hum, I checked my status, and placed a marker on my headpiece’s mini map, right on the trail left by the ponies.
Chapter 2
I groaned as I slowly woke up. Apparently I was lying in a plain of soft grass and green trees "Well,” I thought, “At least I didn't pop up over a canyon." I sighed. I am never signing another contract without reading the fine print again. What I thought I was doing: testing a weak teleportation device. What happened: I got stranded on another planet. The giant rails that held it together were unusually small, which made me nervous. But I ignored that fact, and when I was told to go through the piece of tech that made me proud to be human, I did it.
I was told I would be visiting a planet not too far off from the spaceship I was on. Well I'm here now! The thing that made me worry was not only that the teleporter was experimental, but the fact they sent a soldier to a foreign planet with no Intel what so ever. I had no map, no GPS, or even a compass. (Well, I would’ve had one in my h.u.d glass piece, but it was not really functional for some reason)
"Great,” I said to no one in particular. “I'll be blindly wandering around an alien planet armed to the teeth.” I had many weapons, including a ZC-73 railgun, rail pistol, and plasma pistol. This is going to end well. I thought for a while about my dilemma. “I better make a shelter if I'm going to stay here for a while, and I probably am going to.”
There was no sign of civilization everywhere.
I looked for some tree limbs and branches. Luckily they were trees around, pretty sparse in number, but good enough. I tore off some branches from the trees, constructing a small tent complete if leaf shingles and working branch-door. "Wooden tent...check."
Next I went find a source of water. I had taken a bundle of branches and used them to leave a trail, in case I got lost. After about a fifteen minute search I found a small creek, which I used to fill my water bottle. I didn’t bother to check if it was ok to drink, because my water bottle could automatically filter the water for me. "Find water source...check."
Finally I went back to the tent to find some food. I looked up in the trees and saw fruits everywhere. I was grinning ear to ear, but that couldn't be seen under my mkVI soldier combat helmet. One side had a piece of glass that looked like half a set of glasses. My guns and armor weren’t of importance then; I had to find a way to signal General Taylor, leader of the Portal Project, codenamed Project Takeover, back on the spaceship.
The ensuing events made that the least of my concerns…
