Chapters 3rd person POV
A stallion ran on the hallways of Canterlot Castle, his greenish-gray with a tan stripe mane and lab robe flowing through the air. He finally reached his destination, a simple metal door, completely featureless except for a small window, and a hoof-scanner on the right side of it. He placed his hoof on it, and after hearing the sound of gears moving, the door opened.
This yellow-coated stallion entered the room the gate lead to and saw a rather familiar looking place, a large room with three rows of tables with computers and ponies on them, some making computer simulations, others writing pages full of data and others playing solitaire. At the back wall of the room there was a huge screen, displaying a map of Equestria, on the right side showing coordenates and data, and on the left illustrating an image of the night sky, remarking the most important celestial objects. The bowtie-wearing unicorn proceeded to his spot, only to be stopped by a loud voice:
"Saturn Eclipse!"
Saturn's POV
I sighed and turned around, to face an orange-coated unicorn.
"Solar Flare." I said, trying to act casual.
"You're late. Two hours late."
"Not in Alfa Centauri." I respond, I started laughing, but the raging look on his face made that laugh die off.
"One more time and you're fired." He said, that fury in his light gray eyes still displaying.
"Yes sir." I said, before putting an incredibly forced grin on my face.
I mantained that smile during all my trip to my workplace, boy, I hate Solar Flare, I think hate is not an appropriate word, I despise him, I loathe him, I rebuke him, yes rebuke is the word. I said hello to my best friend, a light gray pegasus with an azure mane and a cutie mark that resembled a lens, the part of a telescope that is responsible for magnifying an image.
I finally get to my desk, I looked to my left and saw an indigo earth pony, with a bright yellow mane with traces of magenta and a spiral galaxy cutie mark; I would recognize that mare anywhere, mainly because she was my older sister, she walked up to me, and with a smirk on her face she said:
"So... Came late for work huh?"
"Oh bite me Milky!" I exclaimed.
She only laughed, and then said:
"Hey! Calm down, I'm just messing with ya!"
I gave her a condescending face, even though she is probably my best female friend, we grew up together and we almost never fighted.
I turned to my computer and proceeded to do my job, but I checked my E-mail first, my favorite TV analyzer posted a new video, I just love these guys! Always overthinking a show out of their demographic, next NerdHerd is making a super sale on my favorite TV show, Professor Whom merchandise, last, but not least my favorite fanfic got updated! Oh Yeah! Oh wait! A double update! This poop's more real than Kraft Mayo!
As a planet, moon and planetoid specialist, my task is to analyze the data sent from the different observatories around Equestria. I started with interpreting some false-color pictures of Uranus, sent from the Vanhoover observatory. Then a newfound asteroid orbiting jupiter, dispatched from Fillydelphia. I continued with this process, Las pegasus, cloudsdale...
Until I got to the data emitted from Manehattan.
"What?!" I asked to myself out loud, getting a few weird looks around me, but they just continued working.
I remebered the first, well second -after not touching solar's salad- rule of my job, always report something suspiscious, so I stood up and looked for my "boss" I didn't find him, he's probably locked on his office watching that little filly show, what was it called? My Little Human? Well someting like that. I decided to tell the very top.
"Princess Luna? You have to look at this."
"What is it?" She questioned.
"Ummm..." I said, trying to remember the secret code "Oh! We found a new moon on mars." I winked after that.
"Oh!" Luna said, returning the wink " You two! We need to talk in private."
The two stallions guarding the door nodded and left the room.
"What did you find?" Luna asked, a serious look on her face.
I adjusted my glasses, and then said "The Manehattan observatory sent coordenates and pictures of a Celestial object, presumably about the size of the crystal empire."
The princess' face turned less serious and then said "Well, we discover around a thousand new asteroids per year, that's completely normal."
I fely increasingly nervous, I really wasn't the speaker kind of guy, actually that was the first time I talked in person to the royalty. I stopped for a minute and then announced " well, yes, but this asteroid's trajectory is pointing to..." I stopped for a minute to get rid of the knot in my throat and continued "this asteroid is in crash course towards Earth." I finally earn the courage to say.
Luna's face turned pale and cleared her throat, before announcing "okay let's go to the observatory and see what is this about."
"Yes, your majesty." I respond.
Milky Way's POV
Ahh... I love lunch, it's like breakfast but you get to do it with your friends, except one thing: Where is Saturn? I saw him leave his work place but I haven't seen him since them.
I walked over to Telescope Lens, Saturn's best male friend, and ask him:
"Hey Lens, have you seen Saturn?"
He turned his beautiful light gray, almost white eyes to me and answers "no, I haven't, but i'm sure his fine. So hey, I was wondering if you wanted t-"
He was interrupted by princess Luna, accompanied by my brother. She walked over to Solar Flare and said:
"Eclipse told me that there was something rather "interesting" in the information sent from Manehattan."
Solar winced and shouted to a nearby mare "Show today's Manehattan data!"
The green Earth pony nodded and typed on her computer, then on the massive screen at the back of the room, the map of Equestria was replaced with a document that went like this:
Canterlot royal observatory
Today, on August 9th, our telescope detected an asteroid with considerable mass orbiting the Sun between Jupiter and Mars, this object contains a trajectory that, if unchanged, can collide with Earth in aproximately 4.3 months, we expect your response as soon as possible.
Manehattan observatory
We were all dumbfounded from that I heard somepony scream, other one run in circles. I just stared blankly at the screen, but I was waken up by Princess Luna Yelling:
"Everypony listen! This information can't leave this room. All of you go home."
Saturn's POV
I was ready to go home, probably just to stare at a wall, but then I hear Luna say:
"Except you, Eclipse."
Author's Note
So, my first Fanfic, don't be afraid of leaving constructive critiscism and sorry for any grammar mistakes.
Twilight's POV
I was on my throne, just reading a book, then I heard the sound of feet running. I finally saw a source of this, my assistant, Spike, he came in front of me, and inmediately released a body of green fire out of his mouth, and a scroll materialized out of it.
"Thanks, Spike."
"You're welcome, Twilight. What does it say?
"Hmm... Let's see"
I opened the scroll with my magic and proceeded to read it.
Dear Princess Twilight
Yesterday our royal observatory received data sent from the Manehattan observatory that contained alarming information. Due to this observatory being top-secret I ask you to keep this to yourself, I also ask you to come here to Canterlot as soon as possible.
Princess Celestia
I started wondering what this "alarming informarion" could be, but my thoughts were interrupted by the voice of a certain purple dragon:
"So... What does it say?"
"Oh! Uh... Princess Celestia wants me to go to Canterlot to... Talk in her school for gifted unicorns for being a famous former student."
"Oh! Okay do you want me to come with you?"
"N-" I stopped myself. Twilight, remember the last time you tried to keep a secret from your friends. I know! Use inverse Psichology!
"Well, I am reading them a couple of books, so if you want to come..."
"No! I think i'd rather stay here taking care of Owliscious. He he."
"Okay, please tell my friends I went to Canterlot"
"Sure thing."
I walked away, Oh books, you never fail me, now let's see what's going on in the observatory.
I was almost there, I could see the castle already. Anypony who has gone to Canterlot or even seen a picture of it recognizes the west tower, probably because it's the tallest, they may also recognize the observatory at the bottom of the tower, well, that's actually not the "royal Canterlot observatory" no, the real observatory, is beneath the castle, hidden from everypony, just because it has technology centuries more modern than the rest of Equestria. When Luna came back from the moon, she was fascinated by Astronomy, and she made the observatory. I've never been to it, but that was about to change.
I finally reached the castle, I entered, greeting some guards on the way, and met Princess Celestia talking with Princess Luna:
"If we don't stop this, Equestria could be doomed."
"Yes, and everypony would die in a horrible manner."
"Yes, I know, I remember the dream you gave me. Why would you do that anyway? Couldn't you have just told me?"
"Yes, but telling you by a dream is cooler, and besides, sometimes your dreams are quite spicy" Luna said with a wink.
"Um.. Am I interrumping?" I asked.
"Oh, no, come in" Celestia said.
"What's going on?" I questioned.
Luna looked at Celestia and the Sun princess nodded. "Please follow me." Luna said.
We walked through the hallways of Canterlot castle, ocassionally going down a set of stairs. Finally we reached a metal door, Luna placed her hoof on an object next to the gate and it opened.
We both entered and I was greeted by an orange stallion with a cutie mark that resembled a portion of the Sun with a column of gas coming out of it. He cleared his throat and said:
"Hello, I am Solar Flare, manager of the control room and specialist in Solar activity."
"Hello, I'm princess Twilight Sparkle, but I'm pretty sure you already know that." I released a giggle after that.
Saturn's POV
Twilight sparkle? Princess Twilight Sparkle is in the same room as me?! Oh Celestia! Alright, calm down Saturn, just because you are her biggest fan doesn't mean you can't act casual around her. Oh god! She's here! Oh god I'm having an asthma attack! Or a heart attack I don't know! Okay. Keep it cool, breathe. That's better.
She walked up to me, accompanied by Princess Luna. Then the latter said:
"And this is the one who received the data"
Twilight turned to me and waited for me to say something. Oh god it's my turn to talk, okay, here goes nothing!
"Hello, I'm Saturn Eclipse, specialist in planets, moons and..." Oh god! What was the third thing?! Wait planets, moons and... I think it sounds like...
"Planetoids!" I yelled, the princess of friendship's eyes turning larger than normal. She then asks:
"Oh, so what was the data you received?"
I simply nod my blushing face and turn to my computer, my horn started glowing with a dark grey aura, inmediately that same glow covered the computer's mouse and. I started typing, a few moments later, the document sent from the Manehattan observatory appeared on the monitor. After a few seconds of reading Twilight looks up and said:
"We... We have to do something."
I simply nod.
"I think that my friends in Poniville and me can do something. Maybe you can come."
"Ye... Yes!" I respond, increasingly feeling more relaxed and excited.
"Okay, I think we should hurry, that document says aproximately 4.3 months"
"Wait." I said. "If we gonna do something, we gotta do it right." After that statement, I took out a cellphone out of my lab robe and said:
"I'm calling the war dogs!" I screamed dramatically, before tyiping a number on my cell phone and putting it next to my ear.
Twilight's POV
I watched him stare into the vaccum and waiting, after about thirty seconds, he started talking:
"Hi? Hey Telescope! So I was wonderin if y..."
He listened for a moment and then answered:
"O-okay, so... Okay, call me when you finish your Souflé. Bye."
He took the cell phone away from his ear and sighed.
"I wonder if Milky is done with buying flowers." He asked to himself, before typing on his cell phone again and bringing it to his ear.
Twilight's POV
"Yes, I took my pills, yes I've gone to my phsychiatrist, ye-" Saturn said, still holding his phone on his ear.
"I'm not hallucinating, I'm here with Twilight Sparkle. Yes, the princess." He then carried his hoof to his head and sighed.
"Look. Listen to me. Listen to me! Im not crazy! No! Don't call mom and dad, they have enough problems already."
I chuckled at that sibling interaction, i know what it's like, your older sibling teasing you calling you insane just because you are bookish and smart...
"Yes, look, I'm putting her on speaker!" He inmediately pressed a button and said:
"Princess, please tell my sister that you're real."
"Umm... Hello?" I asked, putting my head closer to the cell phone.
"It's it actually you?" The voice coming out of the communication device asked.
"Uh... I think." I responded.
"Oh my gosh, princess Twilight! It's you! My brother is your biggest fa-" her statement was interrupted by Saturn turning off speaker. The blushing stallion then said:
"So now, that you know that she's real, could you please come?!"
"Thank you!" He screamed.
"Okay, see you, bye." He finally put his phone back in his robe and turned to me:
"Alright, the dogs are coming."
I smiled and then said:
"Great, but first I have to do something."
I walked through the doors and faced the ruler of all Equestria, I cleared my throat and then said:
"Your majesty, I know that you said this issue was extremely confidential, but I was wondering if I could tell my friends in Ponyville about it, to see if anypony has any ideas."
Celestia nodded and responded:
"Of course, Twilight, remember, if you need any asistance, just tell me."
"Sure, your Majesty." I answered. After saying that, I turned around and left.
Saturn's POV
We were all now on a train to Ponyville, I've never actually been there, both Milky and I have been born on Baltimare but lived on Canterlot during our whole life. Milky and Telescope sat next to each other on one side, leaving me next to Twilight in a rather awkward silence, now, I would have been watching through the window, but she sat on that end of the seat, so if I wanted to look over there, I had to go over her. Come on, Saturn, make a conversation, something, hm... Let's see the possible topics:
Her mane smelling nice. No.
Her mane smelling really nice. Heck no.
Me being the creator of twilightsparkleisbestpony.com, .net and .org. No. Just no.
I turned my head to the right, were three little fillies were seating, looking rather sad. The white one then said:
"Come on girls, we may have not gotten our cutie marks on water purifying, but we got to visit Canterlot."
"Yeah, Ah guess" the yellow one responded.
"Next time, it's my turn to have a new idea to get our cutie marks" the orange one added.
Cutie marks, cutie mark, cutie mark!
How I got my cutie mark. Ding! ding! Ding! We got a winner!
I turned to the three fillies and said:
"Hey! Are you trying to get your cutie marks?"
The three fillies turned to me, but before they could say anything, I heard a voice behind me:
"Sweetie belle, Scootaloo, Applebloom?! What are you doing here?"
"Uhh... Cutie mark crusading?" The three responded at the same time.
I continued:
"I got my cutie mark when I was around your age..."
I started thinking and remembering, I could also notice Twilight, Milky and Telescope getting closer, paying attention. I turned to my flank, displaying a pictographic representation of a Saturnian syzygy.
"When I was little, I was very smart, well, I still am, but very smart for my age, I always loved science class at school, specially Astronomy."
I entered the classroom and sat down on my desk, ignoring the utter chaos around me, the few minutes before the teacher came to class were always full of Entropy. I turned to my schedule and saw the first class. Math, ugh, I know math is important for everything but I just don't like it, besides, the teacher is kinda... Weird, they said they once found him crying on the back of the school.
But I ignored that and turned to my left, fillies talking in their weird extraterrestrial language, colts playing with a ball even thugh being telled not to play with that inside the classroom and, oh, Solar Flare, mom tells me that I needed to be sociable with everypony in my classroom, just like my sister, but she fails to realize that my sister is more open than the Equestrian Air and Space administration during the cold war and her head is more empty than the vacumm of space, and yet, I suck more than a black hole.
Back to the Solar Flare thing, I tried being nice to him, but that didn't work well, it was on Milky's birthday party...
I walked to the bright orange unicorn and happily said:
"Hello, my name is Saturn Eclipse, and I brought some cake for you!"
I brought the baked dessert up to him, before he punched me on the stomach, making me fall to the ground, he then took the cake and left. I raised my voice and said:
"Th- the forks are in th-the table." Before laying on the ground some more.
The bedevilment didn't end there, there was a lot of supply stealing, homework sabotaging and book incineration, after a while I started ignoring him, and that was for the best, but that didn't mean that I still didn't hated him, no, hate is not the right word, I despise him, I loathe him, I rebuke him, yes! Rebuke is the word.
My self and world hate thoughts were interrupted by a tall stallion entering the room:
"Good morning class!"
I sighed and turned to my textbook.
~~~
It's finally over! Ugh! Neighstein's theory of relativity says that time gets slower close to an object with a large gravity, but in math class it just stops.
But thank Celestia my favorite class is next! Science! I've always loved space, and I think it may be my occipation for the future, but I haven't really done anything to it that could give me my cutie mark, that reminded me of another reason why I rebuke Solar Flare, he got his cutie mark in Astronomy! And he hates it! What?! What?!
Soon my frown got replaced by a grin when a tan stallion entered the room and said:
"Hello class, I- class..."
Then the class setttled down and our teacher, Periodic Table continued:
"Thank you, today we will proceed with our topic: The solar system."
My smile just grew wider as he turned to the blackboard and wrote:
PLANETARY MOTION
"Okay, can someone tell me how do planets and other celestial objects move?" He asked.
My hoof rocketed as far as it could go and started wiggling in the air. Table turned to me with a smile and said:
"Saturn?"
"Planets, moons and planetoids rotate around their own axis and around the Sun or planet, depending on which body are we talking about. Both movements occur thanks to gravity!" I yelled.
"Great." My teacher said.
"There are three laws of planetary movement, the first law, Kepler's first law - sometimes referred to as the law of ellipses - explains that planets are orbiting the sun in a path described as an ellipse."
I listened, my eyes wide paying attention to every word he says. Every single word.
"Kepler's second law - sometimes referred to as the law of equal areas - describes the speed at which any given planet will move while orbiting the sun. The speed at which any planet moves through space is constantly changing. A planet moves fastest when it is closest to the sun and slowest when it is furthest from it."
~~~
"... And that concludes the third law, reffered as the law of harmonies."
"Law of harmonies..." I said to myself, just before the bell rang.
"Okay class, tomorrow we will talk about the syzygy."
Syzygy? Uh... I'm not sure what does that mean... But meh, I will learn tomorrow, my next class is social studies...
~~~
"And then basketball hoop realizes he as been in love with her all along!" My sister, Milky Way, screamed, followed by a high-pitched scream.
I rolled my eyes, and then said:
"Yes I know, I watched it." Don't get me wrong, I didn't want to watch it, but I lost a bet. It turns out you can forget how to ride a bike.
We finally reached school and said goodbye to each other and walked to my classroom, thank Celestia the next class was science, unfortunately the class after that was physical education, I hate PE! What do you even learn? How will knowing how to throw a ball gonna help me get a job? And besides that class is stupid and torturous, its a vortex of dying souls that slowly and painfuly leave the body, and the unfortunate victims that have the sad destiny of suffering in that cauldron of entropy cry and scream as they see this torturous, horrible experience. It's also stupid.
I sit in my desk and prepared for the best class. Finally I sae the stallion with the cutie mark that resembled a square with the word "Hydrogen", a letter H and the number one.
He walked to the blackboard and started writing, meanwhile he said:
"Hello class! Today we will continue learning about the solar System, now has someone heard the word Syzygy?"
He walked away from the blackboard to reveal the word:
ECLIPSES
He looked around to see if somepony had lifted his or her hoof. No one had, he seemed a bit surprised when he saw my hoof on my desk, nevertheless, he continued:
"Okay, Syzygy is the term for when three bodies in the space are lined up in a row, for example, during an Eclipse, the Sun, the Moon and the Earth are in Syzygy."
The whole class said:
"Ohh..."
A syzygy. Well, even though it sounds like the sound I make when I sneeze, it sounds pretty sciency.
"The most important kind of Syzygy is the Eclipse, and we are going to learn about it today."
Eclipses, I should pay attention, after all, that word is my middle name!
"A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes in front of the Sun causing a shadow to fall on certain portions of the Earth. The eclipse is not seen from every place on Earth, but only from the locations where the shadow falls. From these locations, it appears as if the Sun has gone dark. " He said.
I continued listening, this is getting interesting.
"A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes through the Earth's shadow. Lunar eclipses have the same three phases or types as solar eclipses including the umbra (total), antumbra (annular), and penumbra (partial). Lunar eclipses can be seen by a much larger area of the Earth than solar eclipses. They also can be viewed without special equipment to protect the eyes."
Hmm...
"And finally, there are other kinds of Eclipses, for example, a couple years ago, the Earth's and Mars' orbits got very close, and the moon eclipsed mars, it was wonderful. We also have seen minor planetoids eclipsing Jupiter, venus, U-"
"Saturn?!" I screamed/asked.
"Yes, an asteroid called Cerberus eclipsed Saturn ten years ago, some say it has happened before but there is no written record of it."
Wait a minute, ten years, i'm ten years old! A Saturn eclipse occured when i was born, could this relate to my name? I have some digging to do.
~~~
I walked to the Canterlot library, as I entered, I saw a lavender unicorn filly leave, I didn't pay much attention and walked directly to the astronomy section, I took out a pencil and a notebook from my saddlebag and started working.
~~~
Yes, almost exactly ten years ago an asteroid called Cerberus passed in front of Saturn in just the right position to Eclipse it.
"Mom?!"
"Yes sweetie?" She responded.
"Can I ask you something?" I questioned.
"Of course darling, what's wrong?"
"Well... Today at science class I learned that a Saturn Eclipse occured ten years ago. Is that somehow related to my name?
My mother smiled and said:
"Yes, sweetheart, just after you were born this astronomical event happened, so we decided to name you like that."
"Interesting, do you know of this phenomenon happened before?"
"No, sorry, dear, but you can investigate."
"I can and I will." I responded, determination in my voice. I ran back to the library.
"Come home before dinner!" I heard my mom yell.
~~~
After reading about three hundred pages on a book on Asteroids, comets and other planetoids, I finally found Cerberus. Yep. This asteroid passed 3 AUs away from Earth, eclipsing Saturn that in that moment was roughly 8 AUs from Earth at the time.
Now, I have to see if another Saturn Eclipse before that, once that is done maybe I can know when the next one will come!
~~~
Well, that was a big ball of poop, I found nothing, every time I searched 'Cerberus' I only found the creature that protects Tartarus. Ugh! Oh my gosh! Look at the time! I quickly grabbed a book on the history of astronomy galloped through the door.
"Dear Celestia! Where have you been Saturn?!" My mom asked, clearly worried.
"Trying to find historical evidence of a Saturnian syzygy occuring durong a timespan older than ten terrestrial years." I respond, my voice comparable to that one of a zombie pony
Mom sighed and just said:
"Go to bed, you have school tomorrw."
I had forgotten completely about school. Hmph... If i'm lucky a flash flood will come and everypony on Canterlot will drown. If i'm really lucky.
I laid on my bed, trying to sleep but failing.
"Saturn Eclipse. Cerberus. Syzygy."
Oh great! It's time for my beloved late night self-conversations!
"Why would an event so important like a Saturnian Eclipse could have so much little information?!"
"Oh right, because everypony is a moron. I am a moron."
I turned my head to my left and saw my desk, and on top of it the burgundy book with golden letters that said:
History of Astronomy throught Equestrian history
"Screw it." I got up from my bed and turned on a candle, grabbed the book and started reading from where I left it.
~~~
"Saturn! Time for school!"
What?! Is it day already? Wow. I spent all night reading this darned book.
"Saturn! Sweetie, get up"
Now the sleeplessness came. My hooves moved as slowly as they could as they closed the book, but the acceleration of a worried mom is much greater than the velocity of a sleepless colt's hooves.
My mom opened the door and gasped.
"Saturn! Did you stay up all night reading that book?!"
I slowly turned my head to her and embarassedly nodded.
"Ugh! Just take a shower, today's friday, so you can catch up on your sleep."
I smiled weakly and walked to the bathroom.slowly.
~~~
Yeah, you thought that the shower would make my sleepiness go away? Guess what? It didn't. It just made me smell nice. However, that sleepless night was not worthless, I got to a period were Cerberus got discovered, about twenty-seven years ago. Soon they will start tracking the asteroid and the Eclipse will be detected. But I will do that later, for now I just have to try to stay awake during school.
~~~
I failed in my noble quest. No not the eclipse thing, I fell asleep at social studies class. My foal-comparable slumber gave me energy (and a notification to my parents) so I can continue with my other noble quest. I ran home and got to my room and when I went to my desk... The book was not there. My still unstable colt brain told my mouth to yell:
"Where is the flipping book?!"
My mom and dad came and said:
"Saturn, we're worried, you didn't sleep at all last night."
"Sorry, i'm so close to making a discovery."
My dad sighed.
"Son, that's what you said when you discovered that twinkle twinkle little star and the ABCs had the same tune."
"Okay, in my defense, that is amzing. Second, please just let me finish reading it."
My mom turned to my dad, who nodded.
"Okay Saturn, you can keep it, but please don't get obsessed."
"C'mon, mom, when have I obsessed over something? Don't answer that question."
Then, without a word my parents gave me the book and left.
I opened it with amazing speed and started reading, oh boy! I'm close! I feel it!
~~~
Make friends, they said, you're insane, they said!
I did it! The first documented Saturnian Syzygy ocurred nineteen years and three houndred and sixty one days ago!
Wow. I forgot my birthday is in four days.
But I did it! The asteroid Cerberus eclipses Saturn every ten years!
The next Saturn Eclipse will occur on four days!
"The next Saturn Eclipse will occur on four days!" I yelled.
My dad, my mom and Milky ran through my door.
"Saturn! Are you okay?" My sister asked.
"I couldn't be better!" I yelled, jumping through the air.
"What, are you in love?" My dad asked.
I stopped jumping and glared at my dad.
"No. I calculated the date of the next Saturn eclipse. It's in four days!"
"That's great sweetie!"
I'll just have to wait.
~~~
Those were the four longest days of my young life. But finally, the day came, I sat on my house's front yard with my trusty telescope and a cup of coffee, yes, I drink coffee. At last, I pointed the planet that has been orbiting my head during the last week. And there it was, the planet that was always yellow was gray, and it's rings were white. I succesfuly predicted a Saturn Eclipse, I wasn't done celebrating ehen a blinding light was emitted from my flank that soon was ornamented with an image of Saturn during the eclipse. I admit I cried a bit that night.
"And that is how I got my cutie mark." I said, proud.
"Wow" the three fillies said. "You know what this means?"
"Yes, you just have to work hard and-" I was interrupted by the three younglings saying:
"We have to try some nerd thing to get our cutie mark!"
I sighed and rested my head on the table in front of my seat. But then I felt my body being embraced by a warm object. I slowly moved my head to discover Twilight hugging me. She's hugging me!
"I think that was a great story. She said.
I could feel my face getting tomato red.
Author's Note
Now, probably a smart person that reads this will say that the astronomical information in this was horribly wrong, but guys, this happens in a world of magical talking ponies! Let's just use our...
http://spongebob.wikia.com/wiki/File:Spongebob_Imagination_by_kssael.png
Saturn's POV
Thank goodness the hug was rather short, I mean, i kinda liked it but...The train was arriving on Ponyville in less than twenty minutes. With all this story time and face coloring, I forgot how hungry I was, and that is baffling, because I was really hungry, I didn't have breakfast this morning and I spent my lunch break talking to princess Luna. Finally the train stopped on the Ponyville station. The three little filles stood up, the white one then walked to me and said:
"Thank you for the nerd cutie mark idea!"
I used my trademark condescending face and turned to my Super-Alfa-hardcore-Astronomy Suad! TM. Maybe when this whole asteroid thing is over, we can take pictures for a calendar in superhero suits... Oh yeah.
"Okay, Princess Twilight, how do you think we should proceed?"
"Oh! Okay! I think I can call my friends and start thinking of a plan."
"Okay! Let's go!"
We all left the train station and walked through Ponyville, as I said before, i've never been there, it was actually a pretty small and simple town, at least for me, a city colt who was born on Baltimare, raised and lived on Canterlot and my vacations being limited to Manehattan. Suddenly my stomach released a grumble, and made my body stop walking, my three companions turned around to face me.
"Uhh... Is there a place were we can eat something first?" I asked shyly.
"Of course!" Twilight exclaimed. "I guess we can stop by Sugarcube corner for a minute, besides, I think Pinkie Pie is working there today."
We all walked to a building, i'm not even joking when I say that there is a giant cupcake on top of that business. If somepony lives there, I can only imagine the mental breakdowns that poor thing must suffer. Nevertheless, we entered and we sat down on a table. We were first greeted by the pleasant aroma of fresh baked bread, and then by a pink earth pony, who litteraly ran across the whole store in like seven seconds and greeted Twilight.
"Hello, Twilight! Who are your friends?!"
"Hey, Pinkie, these are Milky Way, Saturn Eclipse and Telescope Lens, royal astronomers from Canterlot."
"And what brings you here?!" She asked.
I opened my mouth to respond, but I was interrupted by Twilight:
"We'll discuss that later." She then turned to me. "You said you wanted to eat something?"
I nodded and stood up, then Telescope said:
"I'm going with you, i'm a bit hungry too."
We walked up the counter and looked at the treats, I then turned to the stallion on the counter and said:
"I'd like a chocolate chip cookie and a coffee with all the caffeine possible."
"I will have a muffin and a vanilla milkshake, please."
I saw a gray mare with a yellow mane look at us when he said the word 'muffin', but she turned back to her food. While we waited as they made our treats, we looked back to Twilight, Pinkie and Milky talking, but I was mostly focused on the princess of friendship.
"So, Twilight's pretty nice isn-"
"I wasn't staring at her!" I defended myself.
"No! It's not what you think!"
He mantained that face and opened his mouth to speak, but I prevented that.
"Lens! Lens! Listen to me! It's not what you think!"
"I think somepony has a 'widdle' crush on Twilight." He finally said.
"No, no! That's not true, please stop saying that!"
"Saturn and Twilight..." He started singing.
"Please don't say that..."
"Seating on a tree..." The pegasus with the azure mane continued.
"Please don't say that..."
"Fine, I won't tell anypony..."
"Thank you!"
"... But, you'll have to do something for me."
"Um... I'm sorry lens, but I'm not on that side of the street."
"What?! No! I want you to set me on a date with Milky."
"Uhuh... And you can't do that yourself because..."
"I'm too much of a coward."
"Right."
"Order up!" The worker's voice finally said.
We took our food and walked to the table, again, I forgot how hungry I was, silly Telescope, I don't have a crush on Twilight, why would I? But now we have far more important business to take care of, I sat down next to Milky and started eating, I could see Telescope holding a smirk the whole time. We finished eating and left, the cookie was pretty good, but that coffee didn't have enough caffeine. As we exited a cyan mare with a rainbow mane crahed into Milky, and then said.
"Whoops... Sorry."
Milky stood up and cleaned the dust of herself.
"No problem. Uh. Your name here."
Yep. Milky was a social pony, unlike me.
"I'm Rainbow Dash, best flyer in all of Equestria."
"I'm Milky Way, best Saturn Eclipse annoyer in all of Equestria."
She wasn't lying.
"Saturn Eclipse? What's that?"
Then I entered.
"That would be me." I simply said.
Twilight walked up to Rainbow and announced:
"We have something big coming. Please tell our friends to meet me at the castle as soon as possible."
Rainbow nodded and flew away, well, she is a really rapid flyer. We finally reached our destination: A crystal castle that resembled a building on top of a tree. I continued staring at it, analyzing every little detail on it. We went inside to a throne room and Twilight sat on her throne, the rest of us just stood awkwardly there, but soon five mares entered and sat on their respective thrones. Then Twilight started to speak:
"Recently, the royal Canterlot observatory received alarming data, Saturn, please enlighten them.
I walked up to the center of the room, so everypony could look at me.
"Hello, i'm Saturn Eclipse, planet, moon and planetoid specialist, and with my sister Milky Way, specialist in galaxies, and my friend, Telescope Lens, telescope expert work at the Royal observatory. Early this morning I received data that said that a massive asteroid will collide with Earth in four-point-three months, so we decided that you, because you being the saviors of Equestria more than three times would have any ideas to prevent this."
The mares' faces were mixed, with emotions including but not limited to: Surprise, fear, deep thinking and concern.
"Umm... Maybe we can try deviating the asteroid with gravity." A yellow mare said quietly.
"I don't think it would work, I mean it could, if we had more time." I responded.
"Oh! okay.sorry." she answered.
"Maybe we can nuke it!" Rainbow said excitedly.
"It wont work, an asteroid with mass enough to cause considerable destruction won't be damaged enough by a nuclear bomb." I heard somepony say, it wasn't me. It was Pinkie Pie! I guess she's right.
We all silently pondered.
Twilight raised her hoof and said:
"Maybe we can send a group of ponies up there."
"That could work, but we will need lots of help."
Twilight turned to a baby dragon sitting next to her and started telling him what to write. Soon she got a letter like this:
Dear princess Celestia
After some contemplation, we devised a plan that might work, but in order to conceive it we need help. Lots of it. I request you to help me gather every available astronomer, astrophysicist, aerospace, mecatronic, astronautical and software engineer.
Princess Twilight Sparkle
The dragon used his fire breath to presumably send the letter to Celestia.
...
We were all outside the castle now waiting for the princess to respond.
"What's taking her so much?!" Rainbow pondered.
"Maybe she's just busy." Telescope responded.
Rainbow turned to Telescope and seemed to focus on his wings, probably because the tip of it had a piece of metal, each one connected to a golden tube that ended on a small metal circle on the base of the airfoil.
"Hey, what you got there on your wing? Wanna fly so I can see what it does?"
"Oh! I would love to! But sadly I can't. Because of something that ocurred on my foalhood...
Author's Note
I hope to enjoy this! Please leave your opinions and suggestions.
Telescope's POV
I turned to the back of my body and started remembering, while watching my wings.
~~~
"Happy birthday dear Saturn, happy birthday to you!" I sang, accompanied by four other voices. Saturn smiled and blowed the candles, rekilling a few survivors. We all cheered in glee.
"Would you like to open your gifts now, sweetie?" Saturn's mom, a magenta earth pony with a pale yellow mane, asked.
Saturn stopped licking tan icing from his hoof and shouted:
"Of course!"
My best friend's mother, Sugar Meadow, grabbed a small burgundy case, and handed it to Saturn. He opened it and his smile just grew bigger. He lifted his hoof to reveal a scarlet bowtie. He ran to his parents and hugged them.
"Bowties are cool!"
"I expect great things from you, son." His light gray father said.
"Oh! I'm next!" Saturn's older sister, Milky way, exclaimed.
Saturn trotted to her and grabbed his next present. A book that said:
OBSERVING THE SKYAstronomical Discoveries Throughout Equestrian History
He gave Milky a kiss on the cheek and left the book on the table, and he put on his bowtie. A dark green filly with an auburn mane walked up to him, looked at him shyly and gave him another gift, which was unpacked, it was some sort of cubic device with a propeller on the top and another one on the front, and an object with an antenna and a couple of buttons.
"Oh boy!" Saturn said, confused by the gift.
"It's ah remote control flying machine." The filly, that I know as Air Flow, said with a smile.
Saturn returned the smile and hugged her. That's nice, he got all his gifts... Oh my gosh! I left my present home! Oh dear! What am i gonna do?! Uh... Screw it, i'll just tell him the truth.
"Um... Saturn, I forgot my present, i'm sorry. May I bring it later?" I asked, feeling honest preoccupation.
"What? Of course! The important thing is that you're here!" He exclaimed.
Wow, Saturn is either a great friend or his lack of sleep is affecting the cognitive areas of his brain. Anyway, I smiled and inserted some cake on my mouth. I'm glad his happy, he has been acting weirder than normal lately, since that science class on eclipses.
~~~
We were all now on the roof of Milky's and Saturn's house, to test Air Flow's gift. Saturn grabbed the toy with one of his hooves and the remote control on the other one, after turning both gadgets on, he proceeded to let go of the autogyro and quickly turned to the remote, he pressed a button on the top and the superior propeller started turning, elevating the device seconds before hitting the ground. He then pressed the left button, causing the front rotor to spin, moving the device forward. We were all amazed by that object soaring through the sky.
"Wow. Were did you get this? If you mind me asking." Saturn questioned.
"Uh... I made it." She said, grinning.
"It's amazing, I..." Saturn didn't end that sentence, his gift had stopped soaring gracefully and started falling at a high speed. Soon it collided with the ground, breaking in five parts, and docens of small chunks of metal. We stared at the remains of the present.
"I'm so sorry, Airie, I didn't..." Saturn was interrupted by Air, saying:
"Don't be, i'll rebuild it, darling." Her Trottingham accent getting stronger in that sentence.
"Really? Thank you!" Saturn responded, hugging her.
The sun is starting to go down now, and I think Air Flow is going home soon. I better get Saturn's gift before it gets too dark.
~~~
Darn! My house is more far than Saturn's house that I thought, it's already night! But lately he has been staying up late, sometimes even not sleeping at all! But I know he will love the present. I finally got there and I saw Saturn jumping up and down in his front lawn, singing and... Oh my gosh he has his cutie mark! I ran up to him.
"Saturn, what's going on?!" I asked.
"I succesfully predicted a Saturn Eclipse! And I got my cutie mark!"
I smiled and said:
"Congratulations, Saturn!" Then I remembered what I was here for.
"Here's your gift!" I gave him a big blob of gift paper. He opened it and gasped.
"Could it be? A new telescope!" He exclaimed.
He inmediately placed the instrument on the ground and pointed to the sky, soon he found the right place.
"It's great, thank you!" He said.
"May I have a look?" I asked.
"Certainly!"
I walked up to the telescope and looked through the lens, there it was, Saturn was tinted gray and its rings were white. I turned away and Saturn (my friend, not the planet) thanked me, I left and returned to my house.
~~~
Milky, Saturn and I were now in the siblings' house waiting for Air Flow to come, she told us that Saturn's gift would be repaired by today. After about twenty minutes she entered the door, her coat was stained with oil, her mane was uncombed and it had small bits of metal on it.
"I did it." She simply said.
She used her olive green magic to reveal the same toy, but modified, it now had wings stretching from either side, the top propeller was larger and there was another rotor on the back. Air handed it to Saturn and he thanked her. We all went up to the roof of the house and tried flying it, it worked like a charm, it could now move faster and do stunts, and when it achieved landing perfectly, a light emerged from Air Flow's flank, and it revealed a cutie mark that represented a wing horzontaly, with blue arrows over it and red ones under it. She smiled and pulled us into a hug.
~~~
The next day, we decided to go to a hill near my house to play with the autogyro. I got there first, then Air Flow and then Saturn and Milky.
"Are we ready?" I asked.
"Absolutely." Saturn answered, with a determined grin.
Saturn started flying the toy, doing stunts, then he passed it to Air, playing for about seven minutes, then it was Milky's turn. I was getting impatient to try it, so I decided to use my newly aquired ability to fly to soar next to the toy, I was having fun, doing aileron rolls and different tricks. Until it happened. I was flying next to the autogyro in a straight line, but without any warning, it did a hundred-eighty turn to face me, I didn't have time to react before it impactet with my face, it was moving so fast that it caused me to start falling, thank Celestia the propeller wasn't pointing directly at me, but I was still falling to a rocky part of the hill.
"Telescope!" Is the last thing I heard before everything going black.
~~~
I saw four ponies over me talking to each other, over what appeared to be a ceiling.
"He has two broken ribs and major damage in the aerial magical artery..." I heard a distant voice say, before blacking out again.
~~~
I woke up, with an awful pain in my wings and in my torso, my vision started getting better, and I could see various tubes going from inside my airfoils to some sort of machine, carrying blood and some sort of gloing golden liquid.
"He's waking up!" A familiar voice said.
I moved my head to see my mom, my older brother, Saturn, Milky and Air staring at me.
"Hi Lensie." My mom said.
I tried to talk but it was very hard, after a lot of effort, I achieved saying:
"Wh-what happened?"
My loved ones looked each other, and Milky nodded, before talking to me.
"After you crashed with Saturn's toy you fell into some rocks, you broke two ribs and..." She cleared her throat and continued.
"You got major damage on your aerial magical artery, a vessel that transports magic to your wings, enabling you to fly."
I felt my heart sink a little, and did more effort to continue talking.
"So..."
"The doctor says you won't be able to fly again... Ever." My mom said, her eyes watering.
Then my heart sinked completely. I'm never flying again. Everypony looked at me, sadly, until Air Flow broke the silence.
"I'm so sorry, I just wanted to have fun with all of you."
I didn't answer. I just thought.
~~~
After two weeks, they finally let me out of the hospital, but they did something in my wings, the end of the feathers covered in metal, then a golden tube streched from them to a metal circle at the base of the wing. I think it's time to continue with my life. I guess...
"So that means your wings are totally useless?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Well, I don't think so, I mean, I can't fly, but O can use them to uh... Carry stuff, making ponies know i'm a pegasus and uh... I don't know, unvoluntarily express my arousal..." I say the last part awkwardly.
"Finally! Princess Celestia responed!" Twilight exclaimed.
"What does it say?" Saturn asked.
"It just says: on it."
Suddenly we heard the sound of a train, no wait, two trains.
Author's Note
I wan to say that Air Flow has a Trottingham Accent but I won't write it so it won't be awkward. Also remember to give feedback! If you dislike don't be afraid to say why.
3rd person POV
In the Ponyville train station, about a hundred ponies and a couple gryphons, mules and other waited patiently, the mane six plus the three royal astronomers went there. Then Twilight said:
"Hello! Please move to the town hall to explain why are you here." Twilight assumed they were all just called by pricess Celestia without an explanation.
Meanwhile, Saturn walked through the crowd, just admiring the amount of specialists, but then a familiar shamrock green mare caught his eye and trotted up to her.
"Air Flow?" He asked.
The mare turned around and smiled.
"Saturn!" She yelled and hugged him.
"How have you been? I haven't seen you since you left to Trottingham to continue your studies." Saturn asked, releasing from the hug.
"Fine, rather boring, until Celestia called, did she summon you too?"
"Um... Do you know why did the princess call?"
"No, not really."
Saturn got closer to her and whispered:
"Don't tell anypony, but..." he proceeded to explain the whole conundrum to her.
Air just remained silent, pondering, while he walked next to Saturn to the hall.
All the specialists were now in the place where Nightmare Moon showed up, when Twilight Sparkle first came to Ponyville.
"Hello?" Twilight was on the stage and tapped on the microphone, then she cleared her throat and continued.
"Recently, the Manehattan observatory detected an asteroid of considerable mass that... Is in crash course towards earth."
Twilight closed her eyes while he heard everyone in the room gasp.
"We're all gonna die!"
"This is the end of times!"
"Blame the princesses!"
"Calm down!" Twilight yelled.
The crowd ignored it, but instead of yelling or responsing aggresively, most of them were lying down and crying.
"Let me handle this." Saturn, who was also on the stage said to Twilight.
Saturn grabbed the microphone with his magic and put a smile in his face.
"Hey, here's a joke for all the programmers out there: there was once a foal who wanted to be a great author, when they asked him to define 'great' he said that he wanted to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to in a very emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, wail, howl in pain, desperation and anger! He now works at a computer company writing error messages!"
A slight chuckle could be heard from the crowd, another joke came to Saturn's head, even though he really wasn't a social pony, whenit was time to tell a nerd joke, it was just his duty.
"Here's one for the engineers: most people say 'if it ain't broken, don't fix it', but engineers believe 'if it ain't broken, it doesn't have enough features yet'."
This time the laugh was louder. Then Twilight finally comes and says:
"Helium walks into a bar, but the bartender says, 'sorry, we don't serve noble gases.' Helium doesn't react."
A couple of nerd jokes later, including the "Photon goes into a hotel and the bellhop asks if he has any luggage. The photon replies 'no, i'm travelling light'" classic, the whole crowd was calm.
Of course it was highly unusual to see such a crowd come without any notice, and to Ponyville! So obviously a couple of curious ponies were able to sneak in.
"Okay, now you may be wondering why did Princess Celestia called you, well, we have devised a plan that just might work." Twilight said.
Telescope brought a big blackboard and gave a piece of chalk to Twilight.
"Okay, the plan is this: we build a group of spaceships..." She drew a simple cluster of cones, and then a shapeless circle-comparble object over it.
"Each spacecraft will have a laser, and with some synchronization..." She drew some 'spaceships' orbiting the 'asteroid' and started tracing lines going from each 'spaceship' to the 'equator' of the 'asteroid'.
"They'll be able to decrease the size of the equator..." Then she drew a larger 'spacecraft' pointing towards the asteroid.
"And once it is weak enough, we will drop a bomb of powerful, destructive magic to the equator." She drew a small box "flying" towards the asteroid.
"If we do everything correctly, we will be able to save Earth!" She said, crazily writing irregular lines to simulate an explosion, and happy faces around it.
"Any questions?"
Only one claw could be seen lifted, but it wasn't from a gryphon, it was from none other than the former god of chaos/current god of trolling: Discord. Twilight let out a heavy sigh and asked:
"What do you want, Discord?"
"I want to know why didn't you invite to this little gathering."
"Are you an astronomer, engineer, or anything space related?" She asked, clearly annoyed.
"Of course! back in the day, outer space was pretty fun to fool around with."
"Okay, I didn't know that, so if you just had the courtesy to leave..." Twilight was interrupted by Discord.
"Of course not! I'm gonna help you solve this!"
"Why?" Saturn asked, getting into the conversation.
"Because it kinda somehow technically could be considered my fault."
Twilights heart nearly stopped, a little for the surprise, but mostly for the rage.
"What?! Did?! You?! Just?! Say?!"
" you'll see, back when I was ruling Equestria in eternal chaos, I decided to play with space, like I just said, so while messing with the asteroid belt, one asteroid collided with another one affecting its orbit so it would collide with earth in a thousand years. I didn't know back and had forgotten until you reminded me! Thanks by the way."
Twilight was still recovering but she payed attention to the story.
"So... That means you're powerful enough to get the asteroid of its course?"
"Sorry but... I haven't told anyone, but my magic is getting weaker, I was much more powerful back then. Sorry."
"Well, it seems you want to legitimately want to help, so I guess welcome aboard!"
Discord dissapeared a millisecond and reappeared in an astronaut suit, floating and spinning slightly.
"Thank you! I won"t let you down!"
Twilight turned to the microphone and announced:
"Okay, everyone get rest, tomorrow we will start planning, physicists and mathematics will come with me, astronomers with Saturn and engineers and programmers with Telescope.
...
Saturn was now on a bed in a small bedroom, he was staying in the house of an old schoolmate, Lyra Heartsrings, while she and her room-mate went on a trip to Trottingham. Soon, he will start working and everything will be fine.
Or that's what he thought...
