Justiceby TwoTailedFoxChapters1 - Crash2 - Deal3 - Exposition Calls1 - CrashSolitude. That’s what he enjoyed most about this. Sitting in the Captain’s Quarters, Alex looked over and over again at the mission objectives, quietly swishing his tail behind him, with the only sound to share his consciousness being the soft hum of the ship’s drive system, one of the most comforting sounds known to any spacefarer. With the tap of a clawed digit on the console, he brought up a 3D representation of the course the ship was traveling. In the after aftermath of the annexation of Earth, he’d been ordered to investigate an area of space showing signs of instability to the sensor stations erected in the area. Rather than risk his command ship, he instead was flying the Aurora, his personal ship. What he didn’t tell the Admiral, was that he was intimately familiar with this part of space. Nobody knew that. Well, except for the voice that decided to join him. “From what you told me, Alex, there isn’t much waiting for you if what we think happened, has happened.” That was the voice of Lucy, the Artificial Intelligence that Alex had programmed as a kit, her voice as crisp and refreshing as the day he programmed it. Lucy had been a constant fixture in his life, and was as much a friend to him, as she was an archive of everything Alex had ever known, both from his old life, and his new life. He regaled her with tales of striking achievements that Humanity had accomplished, and chilled her with tales of soul-crushing sadism and depravity that very same species was capable of. He had taught her where he came from; Earth, a planet full of squabbling nations and mistrustful leaders, and how he came to where he was now, even if it did mean a new body along the way, a story that many would never believe, and he suspected, many would never. “Hmm. I can imagine how that will go down. Soldier caught not disclosing the answer to one of the biggest secrets his people ever stumbled upon. That’s grounds for a court-martial.” Almost to punctuate the point, the fur on his stood up on end at the thought. “I remember the video footage you showed me of the burial site. That must have been… quite morbid to watch that.” She wasn’t untruthful, but Alex found it more weird than morbid. He’d flown a ship back from his version of Earth, through an artificially-created space-time fissure, and emerged into the universe he was in now. The ship itself was fine, but he remembered that the engines had taken a hit. By the time he had reached Vulperia, the main engine was in bad shape. He had forced the remaining crew to use the escape pods, and attempted to pilot the ship down to the planet surface. As soon as the ship landed, Alex hot-footed it away from the landing point while the engine went critical. The ship inevitably exploded, but while he was at a sufficient distance away not to be incinerated by the heat blast, he was hit with a radiation dose that would eventually prove to be lethal to his then-human body. The explosion clearly triggered a planetary emergency, and his life-signs were picked up by medical personnel within a half hour after the explosion. While the doctors at the hospital they transferred him to treated him with a mixture of suspicion and fascination in equal measure, there was one particular doctor who understood the gravity of the situation that he’d been deposited in. He would be dead within a week or two, and there was nothing medical science could do. His DNA had been physically destroyed at the chromosomal level, and it would be only a matter of time before his body began to suffer the ill-effects of his body being unable to cope with the extreme damage. His name was Doctor Phal, a light-blue fox with more ‘mystical’ connections that he was prepared to admit to his colleagues. Through subsequent conversations with him, Alex had learned two things; a young kit had been brought in with severe injuries due to an accident, and that ‘magic’, or rather, the manipulation of arcane energies was a thing in this universe, albeit one not entirely trusted. Thinking like a Doctor, he saw two doomed patients, but with his help, he offered to mitigate those numbers. The next day, he had brought two assistants, and they secretly wheeled the young kit to Alex’s room, while security were distracted by a few choice “false alarms” across the compound. Before the procedure, he was asked for two things; to make this effort worthwhile, and to never tell a soul, to maintain a false form of amnesia when he would later awake. After he weakly nodded his head in agreement, the two assistants nodded theirs; Alex’s consciousness was forcibly extracted from his failing human body, and ‘grafted’ into the brain of the young kit. A loud alarm woke Alex up from his quiet musings, and he hot-footed it up to the ship’s multi-purpose Command Centre. “Activate the viewscreen; what did we stumble on?” The command came naturally, as he made his way to the Captain’s chair. A glowing fissue was dead-centre of the screen... a large, almost star-like shape at it’s centre, and five smaller ones around it. As he contemplated its meaning, the ship began to vibrate. “Lucy... what’s causing that?” “It’s some sort of force being applied to the hull… we’re being pulled into the fissure!” “Full scan, I want to know everything we can about that thing!” Several seconds ticked by, feeling like an eternity to Alex as they passed, “It appears to be a localised distortion of the space-time continuum. The ship’s sensors are also reading Arcane energy, and it’s causing a disruption to the ship’s drive system. We can’t fight this.” “Is there anything we can do to stop it?” “Not on board. We don’t have any magic-countermeasure systems, and I don’t want to risk making that fissure bigger... or it could become a threat to neighbouring worlds.” “Then let’s make every second count. Secure all systems, and secure your quantum bluebox; the last thing I need is for you to be damaged. I’ll handle navigation as wel go in.” “See you on the flip side. Lucy out.” The lights in the cockpit dimmed, and most of the monitors went dead; Lucy had indeed gone into what was the cyber equivalent of hibernation. “Good job, Lucy. See you on the other side.” Alex’s training kicked into action, switching the helm’s controls to manual, and making sure that his mechsuit was ready and configured for long-term wear. He secured the ship’s Quantum Capacitor, and switched the ship’s systems to battery power, powering down the fusion reactor; he didn’t want to risk an adverse reaction. As the ship was pulled into the fissure, it felt like a gradual, but fast acceleration, pinning Alex to his seat as the inertial dampening system struggled to compensate, as the interference from the conduit wreaked havoc with that, and other ship systems. Without warning, the ship suddenly found itself in normal space, the jolt being more violent than Alex remembered it the first time around, as his face became reacquainted with the floor. He staggered back to his feet, and was about to stabilise the inertial dampening field, when he looked at the viewscreen, and saw that a planet was looming large in front of the ship. Alex staggered out of his seat, and made his way to one of the the forward consoles. Smashing a small glass box, he pressed a button within it. I’m going to need that if I’m going to survive down there. Alex then activated the protected data lines from the console on the other side, connected to Lucy’s blue box; her virtual consciousness once again joined him, “Lucy, I’ve got navigation to handle. I need you to train every sensor we have on that planet. Every populated area, every landmark, every landmass, even as this ship goes down. Download all that data to my Holotool so we’ll have some way of navigating later. If we survive this, that is...” The flight into the atmosphere was turbulent, but Lucy was already collecting data on what locations were populated, and Alex used that data to full effect to plot a crash point, away from anywhere important. The ship itself was designed to survive a planetary crash mostly intact, aside from alloy damage to the ventral side of the vessel. “I’m going to try and smooth out this landing with the ventral thrusters. Lucy, brace for impact!” Alex engaged the seatbelt he purposely fitted to the Captain’s Chair, just in time for the rear of the ship to make contact with the canopy of a large wooded area on it’s way to making contact with the ground. The impact with the soil was harsh, causing the vessel to momentarily launch itself into the air again, before coming back down even harder, an impact that caused Alex’s seatbelt to unbuckle, and his head to make contact with the console at the front of the ship, knocking him unconscious. Lucy may have been an AI, but to her, it felt like an eternity before the ship came to a stop. There wasn’t much she could do for Alex, but she carried out the major operations required after a crash of this magnitude, like shutting down the engines, re-engaging the fusion reactor after an inspection scan, and sending a Med Bot to the bridge for the incapacitated captain. Controlling the bot was second nature to the AI, although her multi-tasking capacity was diminished after the crash. Alex might be seriously injured, but she needed him, regardless of his state of mind. She commanded the bot to give him a shot of intravenous stimulant, to force his consciousness to the surface. For Alex, it felt like he was swimming back up to the surface of an ocean; when he finally came to, it felt like he had the mother of all headaches. “Lucy…. the ship… I assume we made it?” The words struggled to come out for him “Yes, Alex, we made it, but you look like you’re in bad shape. Get up, and make your way to the Med Bay, I’ll provide navigation lights for you down the corridors.” With a paw applied to his face, Alex stumbled out the door, and made his way to the back of the ship; the Med Bay was dimly lit, and all but two of the eight beds were damaged. He propped himself against one of the working ones, and hauled himself onto the smooth surface. His eyes ached at a sudden light coming from the ceiling, “Steady, Alex, I’m just running a bioscan…. you have a concussion, blunt-force trauma to the head, and whiplash. Just lie back and relax, I’ll have you up and ready in no time.” “While you’re patching me up…. can you give me the run-down of what…. you found on this planet?” Alex strained. “It’s a curious planet, to say the least. I was only able to scan this side of it, but I found a large supercontinent, with scattered concentrations of life-signs, undoubtedly a civilization of some description. We landed near the center of this continent; there is a small hamlet, and a large city almost bordering it to the north-west of our position. The planet itself is strange, and I don’t use that term lightly. It’s got suitable mass for a stable rotation on its axis, as it orbits its star, but it’s tidally locked; one side permanently bathed in sunlight, the other in complete darkness save for starlight. It has a single satellite, and that, too, is tidally-locked, and in one location has caused a permanent solar eclipse.” Alex was only half-concentrating, as the intense pain in his temple gradually lifted, and his eyes adjusted to the light, “We’re not seeing the whole issue here, Alex. Arcane energy… targeted arcane energy, pulled us into a space-time anomaly, and we just happened to crash land on a planet with intense residual magic traces. I don’t think this is a co-incidence.” The medical equipment retracted, and Alex swung his legs over the side of the bed. “What are you trying to say, Lucy?” “That someone wanted us here.” 2 - DealThe ship was in bad shape, but salvageable nonetheless. Due to the slight buckling of the underside of the hull, and the precarious position of the spacecraft, the egress rampway was out of the question. Alex had to instead fight one of the external maintenance airlocks to allow him access to the outside world (after confirming it’s habitability, with a slightly higher-than-normal oxygen content), and then make his way, rather precariously, down the side of the ‘craft. While he left his mechsuit in the ship, deeming the environment suitable for standard uniform wear he did, however, leave with one of his Holographic Interfacing Tools equipped to his left wrist, standard wear when in hostile locations. Incorporating a quantum computer architecture, massive internal storage space, and fully able to integrate into a mechsuit’s myriad range of sensors, as well as possessing a sensor array of it’s own, the tool was many an officer’s first line of situational awareness. It also had limited communications ability, able to reach a ship in orbit, and had a limited computer library, usually restricted to mission-specific information, such as chemical or metallurgical analysis databases. However, Alex was taking no chances; he asked Lucy to compile a library comprising of geological, chemical, biological, meteorological, and radiological databases, as well as all the information they had on magic and its application as known to his species. He’d also made sure to pack a knapsack with water, some Meals-Ready-to-Eat, and various other survival-critical items. The ground was very much like he remembered Vulperia… or even Earth for that matter. Grasses and various terrestrial plants dotted the landscape, punctuated by trees in blossom. In the distance, he spotted a large, black enclave of trees, with even the sky itself darkening above the canopy. It gave off an eerie, haunted vibe. Even being a stranger to this land, he knew well enough to stay away from there. Alex tapped several buttons on his Holotool, “Lucy, until I can establish what’s going on, we are to maintain radio silence. Initiate Repair Protocol 3, and wait for further instructions.” “Understood, radio silence until you re-establish contact. Good Luck. Lucy out.” Alex took one last look at his ship up close; it pained him to see the Aurora like this, but he knew that Lucy would have her fighting-fit eventually. Tapping his wrist, he brought up a map of the local area, with his destination being the small hamlet picked up earlier. Sure, there was a city not far from it, but it’s a well-known fact of intelligence gathering that it’s easier to conduct it in areas with appreciably less population density. Also easier to… contain certain problems. As he made his way to his destination, he was stuck by the strangeness of the sky. The sun was on one side, and the moon, in full waxing, was on the other side. Being told about it by Lucy was one thing, but seeing it… he was in awe at the majesty of such a celestial occurrence, natural or artificial. He was about to press on with his journey, when he stopped, his ears picking up distinct sounds of movement in the distance... rapidly approaching, judging by the increasing volume. Sounds like someone’s travelling by horseback. I’d best find somewhere to hide, I don’t want to reveal myself this early. His eyes darted around, before finally settling on a modest-sized bush. After diving in with all due haste, he quickly regained his sense of direction, and peeked out in the direction of the incoming sound. Two equine-like life forms quickly emerged over the hill, sans any form of rider. Aside from the sound of their hooves making furious contact with the earth, the only other sound he could hear was that of his breathing, Bigger eyes, shorter posture… could these be sapient? His question was answered quickly, as they came to a stop nearby, both of them gazing up at the sight of the Aurora in the distance. One of them had a cream-coloured body, with pink and purple highlights in her mane and tail. The second one had a light green body, with white and light green mane and tail highlights. “Lyra, we have to go back! If we don’t we’ll be… punished. You know that!” shouted the first one, looking slightly nervous. “Roseluck, I’d risk any punishment for this! You know how much Humans fascinate me! This could be them!”, the green one beamed, with an almost enviable obliviousness to how severe the situation appeared to her companion. At least I have names of two of these… I still have no idea what these are. Horses? Ponies? “You know what happened to the last ponies who defied her. I don’t fancy being turned to stone, and neither do you. You don’t trifle with the sort of power that can put princesses into stone prisons! If this means that much to you, we can come back when we’ve worked out the Guard’s patrol patterns. It’s a miracle we haven’t been followed already….” the cream-coloured one pawed at the ground nervously with a hoof “And you saw what they did to her friends.” “I know, Roseluck, but… what can we do? She sits in that castle, protected by magic stronger than anypony in Equestria, with guards so loyal to her cause, they’d sacrifice themselves for her. What if… what if the person who owns that thing… can help us? I want my old life back, Rose. I don’t want to worry about when my next meal is going to come. And if we don’t get to that thing soon, she could find it! She’d be able to solidify her control over everything, possibly even the Crystal Empire!” Do I or Don’t I? If they were to be apprehended on their way back, my situation could be compromised. The craft would have clearly caught attention from that spire in the distance. But… these beings are in distress. I know it’s none of my business, but can I ignore my training? My pledge?” Alex mused to himself, his instinct to help grappling with his training. While he was debating with himself, they quickly sped off. running off in the direction they came from. Well, that raised far more questions than it answered. So, they’re ponies, clearly intelligent beings, and speaking the same language as me. It’s a little convenient, but I’ll take everything I can get at this point. This ‘all-powerful ruler’ bit is interesting, she appears to be responsible for a great amount of hardship… this needs investigating more closely. Emerging from the bush, he could see the two ponies still running off in the distance, in the direction that should take him to his destination. The small hamlet was visible in the distance, most notably for a large structure that seemed to almost gleam in the combined sunlight and moonlight. There didn’t appear to be any sort of borders, just a number of dwellings that got greater in concentration as they got closer to the hamlet’s center. It didn’t take him long to get to the first run of houses. While he wasn’t able to guess the two previous ponies’ sizes from bush observation, the houses seemed to indicate that they might be around waist-height, judging from the door sizes. For a race without opposable thumbs, they’d made impressive architectural strides. His idle musings were shattered by a window being slammed open, immediately leaping against a tree in response, “We have been through this before, Vinyl, there is no food in the house! All the food farmed here in Ponyville is collected, and shipped off to Canterlot. Every time I go to town to get food, I’m given the bare minimum for two mares! If you hadn’t binged on the food I brought back, we would have been able to pace ourselves!” “I know, I know, I’m jus’... going stir crazy for the lack of food here! I couldn’t help it! All I could think about when I saw the packs was that it had been months since I’d had a decent meal. I’m sorry Octy, I’m so sorry!” the argument ended with what sounded like sobbing, and the cries of someone on the edge of a mental break. Population Control 101: A society weakened through hunger and exhaustion is less likely to rebel against you. ”It’s alright, Vinyl… I’ll try and see if I can scavenge something at the other side of town later on. Maybe the food bank will have something...” Alex’s chest tightened. There was suffering going on around him, suffering apparently inflicted willingly by a central authority. There is no going back from this. I swore an oath in front of my Elders that I would do what is right, wherever I went. This is definitely not right. He gingerly undid the straps of his knapsack, and removed two MREs. I have a month’s supply of these.. I think I can spare two of them. Enough calories in these to make them forget about hunger for a night. The task now, was how to approach them. In any kind of first-contact situation, great care had to be taken to prevent outright panic of seeing something that didn’t fit that species’ idea of ordinary. One would usually present themselves an intellectual-type, like a scientist. Or rather, this is what would have happened, had a certain white-coated pony not taken the time to stare out of the window at Alex, MREs in hand. “Are those.. are those food…?” she stammered. Remembering the earlier conversation, he surmised this pony must be called Vinyl. This pony had a horn, unlike the two previous ponies he encountered. “Yeah, they are… tell you what; you let me into your house, and you can both have one each. Deal?” The pony bolted from the window, and ran across to the other side of the house. Alex navigated around the house, just in time for the pony to hurriedly open the door for him, “Deal.” 3 - Exposition CallsThe other pony put up a little resistance to Vinyl letting a stranger into their house, but the promise of a meal put paid to any and all questions on the subject. Both of the ponies made short work of the two meal bars, Vinyl almost forgetting to remove the foil wrapper before tucking in. The room was oddly silent, save for two equines furiously masticating, “So, now that I have your attention… where exactly am I?” The brown mare to his left neatly finished her portion, “Given your appearance, I don’t doubt that you’re not from even from remotely near here. You’re in a town called ‘Ponyville’, part of the nation we call ‘Equestria’... or so we did. Who are you… and what are you, exactly, if you don’t mind me asking?” “Me? My name is Alex, Captain of the Aurora. My species is called “Vulperian”... or if you want simple, you can just call us Foxes. Our race is the result of virus-based genetic experimentation by another species that went out of control. We rebelled, and fled their space, afterwards establishing a new government and society on a planet far away from them.” His tail stilled behind him, as if to punctuate his next point, “Until they got wind that they’d located the edge of our space. That led to war. We soon realised that we were outgunned, only a handful of ships to their fleets of ships. We initiated a campaign of hijacking command of their ships. As their fleets dwindled, ours grew. We annexed their home world, and they sued for peace. The war was not without tragedy, of course; our government had been comprehensively destroyed. But enough of that for now... what were your names again.” The brown mare got up from the table, and slowly trotted over to him, “My name is Octavia Philharmonica, although my partner over here calls me ‘Octy’.” she said, barely hiding an eye roll, “To your right sits Vinyl Scratch. We’re both musicians in our own ways... or rather we were, until…” “Until that little brat got her hands on some unbelievably powerful magic. Magic strong enough to imprison ponies whom we thought were invincible.” said the white-coated pony. “Heck, a bunch of ‘em have saved Equestria multiple times in the last few years. Hard to believe that there exists something powerful enough to turn ‘em to stone… something more powerful than friendship.” The last part caused Alex’s ears to prick up in attention, “Friendship manifests as magic here?” “Yeah. Or something like that. I don’t really knows the ins and outs of it, just that it hadn’t failed us before.” The look of optimism he’d seen on Vinyl’s face when he opened the door had been replaced by one of defeatism. “You look different to the two ponies I saw earlier. You have a horn, what’s that all about?” Alex said, slightly intrigued. “Oh, that? I’m a Unicorn, we’re the magic-wielding type of pony. Octy here is an Earth Pony. They don’t really have magic you can see, but they tend to have natural skill with the arts and the world around us to make up for it; call it ‘hidden magic’, or something. There’s also Pegasi, who have wings, can fly, and can walk on clouds, you’ll see ‘em soon enough. Who did you meet earlier?” “Well, I didn’t exactly meet them, I just saw them as they went past me, looking for my ship that crash-” “Wait, wait, that was you!? I’d sort of hoped it was, but I never dared to… Octy, he might be able to help us!” “Whoa, slow down there… while I can wield magic, and have done so in situations I’d rather forget about, I don’t even know if I can make a stand against… who was this pony that’s taken over the place?” Vinyl signed, almost not even believing the answer she was about to give, “A little brat who used to live in this town. Went by the name ‘Diamond Tiara’. Her father was an industrialist, and pretty much had this town by the flank. She got free reign to be nasty to other ponies, who were too scared to do anything, lest her father make life hell for them. But it doesn’t make sense, Diamond Tiara is an Earth Pony, only Unicorns are supposed to be able to wield magic like that!” “Could it be there is a unicorn propping her up behind the scenes? If magic flows through Earth Ponies to grant them skills over the land and arts, could someone still channel magic power through them?” “Even if somepony did that, our rulers combined shouldn’t have gone down that…. effortlessly.” “So... what happened? If the rulers of this nation were as powerful as you suggest, how were they defeated? Were they killed?” Vinyl shot her partner a depressed look, “Should we show him?” “Yes, Vinyl. He must see the horror for himself.” Without further hesitation, the two ponies left the house, Alex following them in a brisk jog to the center of the town. Debris was strewn across the wide area that had presumably been the town square, replaced instead by a series of stone statues. Five of them were in the center, with three further ones outside it, two facing out, and one facing in. Alex noticed something immediately about the ones in the center. “Hey, you two… the ponies in the middle look odd, like they’re in pain.” Octavia trotted over to Alex, “Yes, that’s correct. She… deliberately injured them, and then turned them to stone, leaving them as immortal images of suffering to anyone who would happen to gaze at them. A warning to us, mayhap. The three ponies outside the middle are Alicorns, winged Unicorns, essentially. The two facing out were our rulers, Princess Celestia, Princess of the Sun, and Princess Luna, Princess of the Night and Stars, both of them responsible for raising and lowering the sun and moon. As you can see, their imprisonment has left the sky in a state of ambivalence. The third statue is that of Princess Twilight Sparkle. She was Princess of Friendship, and her friends are the ponies in the middle,.” Alex caught was now looking intensively at the final statue. This one was also expressing a look of severe pain, but he could see no signs of physical injury. “This one puzzles me. If a stone statue is designed to serve as a warning, why would this one face away from a potential onlooker?” As his mind began to search for possible answers, his eyes did the work for him. There was a faint glowing light from atop the Alicorn’s horn. The horn. “While I remember, why do you all have pictures on your flanks?” “They’re called ‘cutie marks’, oft a representation of a ponies’ innate special ability, talent, or calling. Mine is a G-cleff, and Vinyl’s is two bridged eighth notes; each represents that we’re ponies of musical talent. Other ponies have marks similar to their vocations. Nobody really knows how they work, only that every pony gets one eventually.” Octavia said, reciting facts like she was a foal in front of a classroom. Alex quickly turned to the side of the statue. His eyes almost refused to believe what he saw. That mark! It’s the same one that was in the fissure! Alex stepped back, and made eye contact with Octavia “At least now I think I know who it was that caused me to crash land here. Somehow, this... Alicorn, you say? This Alicorn used her magic to interfere with space across dimensions. But, how…? Oh… I really hope I’m wrong about this next bit.” Alex slowly walked to the front of the statue. His eyes were on the same level as the Alicorn’s, owing to his superior height. Seeing nothing unusual given the circumstances, he placed a paw on her torso. It took a few seconds, but he seem to feel the outer periphery of consciousness. “My God… I’m sorry. I am so sorry…Vinyl, Octavia, this isn't an ordinary stone statue. This status is living stone.” Vinyl piped up, “Wait, Living stone? That spell’s been outlawed for over a thousand years. That means…” Alex picked up where Vinyl trailed off, “... that every day, she is forced to watch her friends in permanent states of agony, powerless to act. Although, judging by her little feat here, she’s not quite as powerless as they expected. The magic residue I detected in orbit is very strong here... when I felt my paw make contact with Twilight’s statue, I felt a sort of warmth inside me. Quite pleasant, really… but when I pulled my paw off, I felt the residue of the magic that defeated her. It felt like the precise opposite, making me feel deathly cold inside for an instant. If Twilight Sparkle fought with Friendship, Diamond Tiara must have fought with something diametrically opposed, like hatred, or any other number of negative emotions, if magic and emotion here are as intertwined as has been inferred so far. I don’t think we’re seeing the whole issue here.” Alex’s attention was momentarily caught off-guard by three empty statues caught by his peripheral vision, between Twilight and her stone-turned compatriots. “Were more ponies to be placed here? They look a little small to be statue placeholders.” Octavia looked over the small plinths, “I don’t know. They look like they were made for foals… but we sent all foals out of here by train before the town was completely seized and all trains halted.” “I think some research is needed. Is there a library in town?” Alex inquired.
1 - CrashSolitude. That’s what he enjoyed most about this. Sitting in the Captain’s Quarters, Alex looked over and over again at the mission objectives, quietly swishing his tail behind him, with the only sound to share his consciousness being the soft hum of the ship’s drive system, one of the most comforting sounds known to any spacefarer. With the tap of a clawed digit on the console, he brought up a 3D representation of the course the ship was traveling. In the after aftermath of the annexation of Earth, he’d been ordered to investigate an area of space showing signs of instability to the sensor stations erected in the area. Rather than risk his command ship, he instead was flying the Aurora, his personal ship. What he didn’t tell the Admiral, was that he was intimately familiar with this part of space. Nobody knew that. Well, except for the voice that decided to join him. “From what you told me, Alex, there isn’t much waiting for you if what we think happened, has happened.” That was the voice of Lucy, the Artificial Intelligence that Alex had programmed as a kit, her voice as crisp and refreshing as the day he programmed it. Lucy had been a constant fixture in his life, and was as much a friend to him, as she was an archive of everything Alex had ever known, both from his old life, and his new life. He regaled her with tales of striking achievements that Humanity had accomplished, and chilled her with tales of soul-crushing sadism and depravity that very same species was capable of. He had taught her where he came from; Earth, a planet full of squabbling nations and mistrustful leaders, and how he came to where he was now, even if it did mean a new body along the way, a story that many would never believe, and he suspected, many would never. “Hmm. I can imagine how that will go down. Soldier caught not disclosing the answer to one of the biggest secrets his people ever stumbled upon. That’s grounds for a court-martial.” Almost to punctuate the point, the fur on his stood up on end at the thought. “I remember the video footage you showed me of the burial site. That must have been… quite morbid to watch that.” She wasn’t untruthful, but Alex found it more weird than morbid. He’d flown a ship back from his version of Earth, through an artificially-created space-time fissure, and emerged into the universe he was in now. The ship itself was fine, but he remembered that the engines had taken a hit. By the time he had reached Vulperia, the main engine was in bad shape. He had forced the remaining crew to use the escape pods, and attempted to pilot the ship down to the planet surface. As soon as the ship landed, Alex hot-footed it away from the landing point while the engine went critical. The ship inevitably exploded, but while he was at a sufficient distance away not to be incinerated by the heat blast, he was hit with a radiation dose that would eventually prove to be lethal to his then-human body. The explosion clearly triggered a planetary emergency, and his life-signs were picked up by medical personnel within a half hour after the explosion. While the doctors at the hospital they transferred him to treated him with a mixture of suspicion and fascination in equal measure, there was one particular doctor who understood the gravity of the situation that he’d been deposited in. He would be dead within a week or two, and there was nothing medical science could do. His DNA had been physically destroyed at the chromosomal level, and it would be only a matter of time before his body began to suffer the ill-effects of his body being unable to cope with the extreme damage. His name was Doctor Phal, a light-blue fox with more ‘mystical’ connections that he was prepared to admit to his colleagues. Through subsequent conversations with him, Alex had learned two things; a young kit had been brought in with severe injuries due to an accident, and that ‘magic’, or rather, the manipulation of arcane energies was a thing in this universe, albeit one not entirely trusted. Thinking like a Doctor, he saw two doomed patients, but with his help, he offered to mitigate those numbers. The next day, he had brought two assistants, and they secretly wheeled the young kit to Alex’s room, while security were distracted by a few choice “false alarms” across the compound. Before the procedure, he was asked for two things; to make this effort worthwhile, and to never tell a soul, to maintain a false form of amnesia when he would later awake. After he weakly nodded his head in agreement, the two assistants nodded theirs; Alex’s consciousness was forcibly extracted from his failing human body, and ‘grafted’ into the brain of the young kit. A loud alarm woke Alex up from his quiet musings, and he hot-footed it up to the ship’s multi-purpose Command Centre. “Activate the viewscreen; what did we stumble on?” The command came naturally, as he made his way to the Captain’s chair. A glowing fissue was dead-centre of the screen... a large, almost star-like shape at it’s centre, and five smaller ones around it. As he contemplated its meaning, the ship began to vibrate. “Lucy... what’s causing that?” “It’s some sort of force being applied to the hull… we’re being pulled into the fissure!” “Full scan, I want to know everything we can about that thing!” Several seconds ticked by, feeling like an eternity to Alex as they passed, “It appears to be a localised distortion of the space-time continuum. The ship’s sensors are also reading Arcane energy, and it’s causing a disruption to the ship’s drive system. We can’t fight this.” “Is there anything we can do to stop it?” “Not on board. We don’t have any magic-countermeasure systems, and I don’t want to risk making that fissure bigger... or it could become a threat to neighbouring worlds.” “Then let’s make every second count. Secure all systems, and secure your quantum bluebox; the last thing I need is for you to be damaged. I’ll handle navigation as wel go in.” “See you on the flip side. Lucy out.” The lights in the cockpit dimmed, and most of the monitors went dead; Lucy had indeed gone into what was the cyber equivalent of hibernation. “Good job, Lucy. See you on the other side.” Alex’s training kicked into action, switching the helm’s controls to manual, and making sure that his mechsuit was ready and configured for long-term wear. He secured the ship’s Quantum Capacitor, and switched the ship’s systems to battery power, powering down the fusion reactor; he didn’t want to risk an adverse reaction. As the ship was pulled into the fissure, it felt like a gradual, but fast acceleration, pinning Alex to his seat as the inertial dampening system struggled to compensate, as the interference from the conduit wreaked havoc with that, and other ship systems. Without warning, the ship suddenly found itself in normal space, the jolt being more violent than Alex remembered it the first time around, as his face became reacquainted with the floor. He staggered back to his feet, and was about to stabilise the inertial dampening field, when he looked at the viewscreen, and saw that a planet was looming large in front of the ship. Alex staggered out of his seat, and made his way to one of the the forward consoles. Smashing a small glass box, he pressed a button within it. I’m going to need that if I’m going to survive down there. Alex then activated the protected data lines from the console on the other side, connected to Lucy’s blue box; her virtual consciousness once again joined him, “Lucy, I’ve got navigation to handle. I need you to train every sensor we have on that planet. Every populated area, every landmark, every landmass, even as this ship goes down. Download all that data to my Holotool so we’ll have some way of navigating later. If we survive this, that is...” The flight into the atmosphere was turbulent, but Lucy was already collecting data on what locations were populated, and Alex used that data to full effect to plot a crash point, away from anywhere important. The ship itself was designed to survive a planetary crash mostly intact, aside from alloy damage to the ventral side of the vessel. “I’m going to try and smooth out this landing with the ventral thrusters. Lucy, brace for impact!” Alex engaged the seatbelt he purposely fitted to the Captain’s Chair, just in time for the rear of the ship to make contact with the canopy of a large wooded area on it’s way to making contact with the ground. The impact with the soil was harsh, causing the vessel to momentarily launch itself into the air again, before coming back down even harder, an impact that caused Alex’s seatbelt to unbuckle, and his head to make contact with the console at the front of the ship, knocking him unconscious. Lucy may have been an AI, but to her, it felt like an eternity before the ship came to a stop. There wasn’t much she could do for Alex, but she carried out the major operations required after a crash of this magnitude, like shutting down the engines, re-engaging the fusion reactor after an inspection scan, and sending a Med Bot to the bridge for the incapacitated captain. Controlling the bot was second nature to the AI, although her multi-tasking capacity was diminished after the crash. Alex might be seriously injured, but she needed him, regardless of his state of mind. She commanded the bot to give him a shot of intravenous stimulant, to force his consciousness to the surface. For Alex, it felt like he was swimming back up to the surface of an ocean; when he finally came to, it felt like he had the mother of all headaches. “Lucy…. the ship… I assume we made it?” The words struggled to come out for him “Yes, Alex, we made it, but you look like you’re in bad shape. Get up, and make your way to the Med Bay, I’ll provide navigation lights for you down the corridors.” With a paw applied to his face, Alex stumbled out the door, and made his way to the back of the ship; the Med Bay was dimly lit, and all but two of the eight beds were damaged. He propped himself against one of the working ones, and hauled himself onto the smooth surface. His eyes ached at a sudden light coming from the ceiling, “Steady, Alex, I’m just running a bioscan…. you have a concussion, blunt-force trauma to the head, and whiplash. Just lie back and relax, I’ll have you up and ready in no time.” “While you’re patching me up…. can you give me the run-down of what…. you found on this planet?” Alex strained. “It’s a curious planet, to say the least. I was only able to scan this side of it, but I found a large supercontinent, with scattered concentrations of life-signs, undoubtedly a civilization of some description. We landed near the center of this continent; there is a small hamlet, and a large city almost bordering it to the north-west of our position. The planet itself is strange, and I don’t use that term lightly. It’s got suitable mass for a stable rotation on its axis, as it orbits its star, but it’s tidally locked; one side permanently bathed in sunlight, the other in complete darkness save for starlight. It has a single satellite, and that, too, is tidally-locked, and in one location has caused a permanent solar eclipse.” Alex was only half-concentrating, as the intense pain in his temple gradually lifted, and his eyes adjusted to the light, “We’re not seeing the whole issue here, Alex. Arcane energy… targeted arcane energy, pulled us into a space-time anomaly, and we just happened to crash land on a planet with intense residual magic traces. I don’t think this is a co-incidence.” The medical equipment retracted, and Alex swung his legs over the side of the bed. “What are you trying to say, Lucy?” “That someone wanted us here.”
2 - DealThe ship was in bad shape, but salvageable nonetheless. Due to the slight buckling of the underside of the hull, and the precarious position of the spacecraft, the egress rampway was out of the question. Alex had to instead fight one of the external maintenance airlocks to allow him access to the outside world (after confirming it’s habitability, with a slightly higher-than-normal oxygen content), and then make his way, rather precariously, down the side of the ‘craft. While he left his mechsuit in the ship, deeming the environment suitable for standard uniform wear he did, however, leave with one of his Holographic Interfacing Tools equipped to his left wrist, standard wear when in hostile locations. Incorporating a quantum computer architecture, massive internal storage space, and fully able to integrate into a mechsuit’s myriad range of sensors, as well as possessing a sensor array of it’s own, the tool was many an officer’s first line of situational awareness. It also had limited communications ability, able to reach a ship in orbit, and had a limited computer library, usually restricted to mission-specific information, such as chemical or metallurgical analysis databases. However, Alex was taking no chances; he asked Lucy to compile a library comprising of geological, chemical, biological, meteorological, and radiological databases, as well as all the information they had on magic and its application as known to his species. He’d also made sure to pack a knapsack with water, some Meals-Ready-to-Eat, and various other survival-critical items. The ground was very much like he remembered Vulperia… or even Earth for that matter. Grasses and various terrestrial plants dotted the landscape, punctuated by trees in blossom. In the distance, he spotted a large, black enclave of trees, with even the sky itself darkening above the canopy. It gave off an eerie, haunted vibe. Even being a stranger to this land, he knew well enough to stay away from there. Alex tapped several buttons on his Holotool, “Lucy, until I can establish what’s going on, we are to maintain radio silence. Initiate Repair Protocol 3, and wait for further instructions.” “Understood, radio silence until you re-establish contact. Good Luck. Lucy out.” Alex took one last look at his ship up close; it pained him to see the Aurora like this, but he knew that Lucy would have her fighting-fit eventually. Tapping his wrist, he brought up a map of the local area, with his destination being the small hamlet picked up earlier. Sure, there was a city not far from it, but it’s a well-known fact of intelligence gathering that it’s easier to conduct it in areas with appreciably less population density. Also easier to… contain certain problems. As he made his way to his destination, he was stuck by the strangeness of the sky. The sun was on one side, and the moon, in full waxing, was on the other side. Being told about it by Lucy was one thing, but seeing it… he was in awe at the majesty of such a celestial occurrence, natural or artificial. He was about to press on with his journey, when he stopped, his ears picking up distinct sounds of movement in the distance... rapidly approaching, judging by the increasing volume. Sounds like someone’s travelling by horseback. I’d best find somewhere to hide, I don’t want to reveal myself this early. His eyes darted around, before finally settling on a modest-sized bush. After diving in with all due haste, he quickly regained his sense of direction, and peeked out in the direction of the incoming sound. Two equine-like life forms quickly emerged over the hill, sans any form of rider. Aside from the sound of their hooves making furious contact with the earth, the only other sound he could hear was that of his breathing, Bigger eyes, shorter posture… could these be sapient? His question was answered quickly, as they came to a stop nearby, both of them gazing up at the sight of the Aurora in the distance. One of them had a cream-coloured body, with pink and purple highlights in her mane and tail. The second one had a light green body, with white and light green mane and tail highlights. “Lyra, we have to go back! If we don’t we’ll be… punished. You know that!” shouted the first one, looking slightly nervous. “Roseluck, I’d risk any punishment for this! You know how much Humans fascinate me! This could be them!”, the green one beamed, with an almost enviable obliviousness to how severe the situation appeared to her companion. At least I have names of two of these… I still have no idea what these are. Horses? Ponies? “You know what happened to the last ponies who defied her. I don’t fancy being turned to stone, and neither do you. You don’t trifle with the sort of power that can put princesses into stone prisons! If this means that much to you, we can come back when we’ve worked out the Guard’s patrol patterns. It’s a miracle we haven’t been followed already….” the cream-coloured one pawed at the ground nervously with a hoof “And you saw what they did to her friends.” “I know, Roseluck, but… what can we do? She sits in that castle, protected by magic stronger than anypony in Equestria, with guards so loyal to her cause, they’d sacrifice themselves for her. What if… what if the person who owns that thing… can help us? I want my old life back, Rose. I don’t want to worry about when my next meal is going to come. And if we don’t get to that thing soon, she could find it! She’d be able to solidify her control over everything, possibly even the Crystal Empire!” Do I or Don’t I? If they were to be apprehended on their way back, my situation could be compromised. The craft would have clearly caught attention from that spire in the distance. But… these beings are in distress. I know it’s none of my business, but can I ignore my training? My pledge?” Alex mused to himself, his instinct to help grappling with his training. While he was debating with himself, they quickly sped off. running off in the direction they came from. Well, that raised far more questions than it answered. So, they’re ponies, clearly intelligent beings, and speaking the same language as me. It’s a little convenient, but I’ll take everything I can get at this point. This ‘all-powerful ruler’ bit is interesting, she appears to be responsible for a great amount of hardship… this needs investigating more closely. Emerging from the bush, he could see the two ponies still running off in the distance, in the direction that should take him to his destination. The small hamlet was visible in the distance, most notably for a large structure that seemed to almost gleam in the combined sunlight and moonlight. There didn’t appear to be any sort of borders, just a number of dwellings that got greater in concentration as they got closer to the hamlet’s center. It didn’t take him long to get to the first run of houses. While he wasn’t able to guess the two previous ponies’ sizes from bush observation, the houses seemed to indicate that they might be around waist-height, judging from the door sizes. For a race without opposable thumbs, they’d made impressive architectural strides. His idle musings were shattered by a window being slammed open, immediately leaping against a tree in response, “We have been through this before, Vinyl, there is no food in the house! All the food farmed here in Ponyville is collected, and shipped off to Canterlot. Every time I go to town to get food, I’m given the bare minimum for two mares! If you hadn’t binged on the food I brought back, we would have been able to pace ourselves!” “I know, I know, I’m jus’... going stir crazy for the lack of food here! I couldn’t help it! All I could think about when I saw the packs was that it had been months since I’d had a decent meal. I’m sorry Octy, I’m so sorry!” the argument ended with what sounded like sobbing, and the cries of someone on the edge of a mental break. Population Control 101: A society weakened through hunger and exhaustion is less likely to rebel against you. ”It’s alright, Vinyl… I’ll try and see if I can scavenge something at the other side of town later on. Maybe the food bank will have something...” Alex’s chest tightened. There was suffering going on around him, suffering apparently inflicted willingly by a central authority. There is no going back from this. I swore an oath in front of my Elders that I would do what is right, wherever I went. This is definitely not right. He gingerly undid the straps of his knapsack, and removed two MREs. I have a month’s supply of these.. I think I can spare two of them. Enough calories in these to make them forget about hunger for a night. The task now, was how to approach them. In any kind of first-contact situation, great care had to be taken to prevent outright panic of seeing something that didn’t fit that species’ idea of ordinary. One would usually present themselves an intellectual-type, like a scientist. Or rather, this is what would have happened, had a certain white-coated pony not taken the time to stare out of the window at Alex, MREs in hand. “Are those.. are those food…?” she stammered. Remembering the earlier conversation, he surmised this pony must be called Vinyl. This pony had a horn, unlike the two previous ponies he encountered. “Yeah, they are… tell you what; you let me into your house, and you can both have one each. Deal?” The pony bolted from the window, and ran across to the other side of the house. Alex navigated around the house, just in time for the pony to hurriedly open the door for him, “Deal.”
3 - Exposition CallsThe other pony put up a little resistance to Vinyl letting a stranger into their house, but the promise of a meal put paid to any and all questions on the subject. Both of the ponies made short work of the two meal bars, Vinyl almost forgetting to remove the foil wrapper before tucking in. The room was oddly silent, save for two equines furiously masticating, “So, now that I have your attention… where exactly am I?” The brown mare to his left neatly finished her portion, “Given your appearance, I don’t doubt that you’re not from even from remotely near here. You’re in a town called ‘Ponyville’, part of the nation we call ‘Equestria’... or so we did. Who are you… and what are you, exactly, if you don’t mind me asking?” “Me? My name is Alex, Captain of the Aurora. My species is called “Vulperian”... or if you want simple, you can just call us Foxes. Our race is the result of virus-based genetic experimentation by another species that went out of control. We rebelled, and fled their space, afterwards establishing a new government and society on a planet far away from them.” His tail stilled behind him, as if to punctuate his next point, “Until they got wind that they’d located the edge of our space. That led to war. We soon realised that we were outgunned, only a handful of ships to their fleets of ships. We initiated a campaign of hijacking command of their ships. As their fleets dwindled, ours grew. We annexed their home world, and they sued for peace. The war was not without tragedy, of course; our government had been comprehensively destroyed. But enough of that for now... what were your names again.” The brown mare got up from the table, and slowly trotted over to him, “My name is Octavia Philharmonica, although my partner over here calls me ‘Octy’.” she said, barely hiding an eye roll, “To your right sits Vinyl Scratch. We’re both musicians in our own ways... or rather we were, until…” “Until that little brat got her hands on some unbelievably powerful magic. Magic strong enough to imprison ponies whom we thought were invincible.” said the white-coated pony. “Heck, a bunch of ‘em have saved Equestria multiple times in the last few years. Hard to believe that there exists something powerful enough to turn ‘em to stone… something more powerful than friendship.” The last part caused Alex’s ears to prick up in attention, “Friendship manifests as magic here?” “Yeah. Or something like that. I don’t really knows the ins and outs of it, just that it hadn’t failed us before.” The look of optimism he’d seen on Vinyl’s face when he opened the door had been replaced by one of defeatism. “You look different to the two ponies I saw earlier. You have a horn, what’s that all about?” Alex said, slightly intrigued. “Oh, that? I’m a Unicorn, we’re the magic-wielding type of pony. Octy here is an Earth Pony. They don’t really have magic you can see, but they tend to have natural skill with the arts and the world around us to make up for it; call it ‘hidden magic’, or something. There’s also Pegasi, who have wings, can fly, and can walk on clouds, you’ll see ‘em soon enough. Who did you meet earlier?” “Well, I didn’t exactly meet them, I just saw them as they went past me, looking for my ship that crash-” “Wait, wait, that was you!? I’d sort of hoped it was, but I never dared to… Octy, he might be able to help us!” “Whoa, slow down there… while I can wield magic, and have done so in situations I’d rather forget about, I don’t even know if I can make a stand against… who was this pony that’s taken over the place?” Vinyl signed, almost not even believing the answer she was about to give, “A little brat who used to live in this town. Went by the name ‘Diamond Tiara’. Her father was an industrialist, and pretty much had this town by the flank. She got free reign to be nasty to other ponies, who were too scared to do anything, lest her father make life hell for them. But it doesn’t make sense, Diamond Tiara is an Earth Pony, only Unicorns are supposed to be able to wield magic like that!” “Could it be there is a unicorn propping her up behind the scenes? If magic flows through Earth Ponies to grant them skills over the land and arts, could someone still channel magic power through them?” “Even if somepony did that, our rulers combined shouldn’t have gone down that…. effortlessly.” “So... what happened? If the rulers of this nation were as powerful as you suggest, how were they defeated? Were they killed?” Vinyl shot her partner a depressed look, “Should we show him?” “Yes, Vinyl. He must see the horror for himself.” Without further hesitation, the two ponies left the house, Alex following them in a brisk jog to the center of the town. Debris was strewn across the wide area that had presumably been the town square, replaced instead by a series of stone statues. Five of them were in the center, with three further ones outside it, two facing out, and one facing in. Alex noticed something immediately about the ones in the center. “Hey, you two… the ponies in the middle look odd, like they’re in pain.” Octavia trotted over to Alex, “Yes, that’s correct. She… deliberately injured them, and then turned them to stone, leaving them as immortal images of suffering to anyone who would happen to gaze at them. A warning to us, mayhap. The three ponies outside the middle are Alicorns, winged Unicorns, essentially. The two facing out were our rulers, Princess Celestia, Princess of the Sun, and Princess Luna, Princess of the Night and Stars, both of them responsible for raising and lowering the sun and moon. As you can see, their imprisonment has left the sky in a state of ambivalence. The third statue is that of Princess Twilight Sparkle. She was Princess of Friendship, and her friends are the ponies in the middle,.” Alex caught was now looking intensively at the final statue. This one was also expressing a look of severe pain, but he could see no signs of physical injury. “This one puzzles me. If a stone statue is designed to serve as a warning, why would this one face away from a potential onlooker?” As his mind began to search for possible answers, his eyes did the work for him. There was a faint glowing light from atop the Alicorn’s horn. The horn. “While I remember, why do you all have pictures on your flanks?” “They’re called ‘cutie marks’, oft a representation of a ponies’ innate special ability, talent, or calling. Mine is a G-cleff, and Vinyl’s is two bridged eighth notes; each represents that we’re ponies of musical talent. Other ponies have marks similar to their vocations. Nobody really knows how they work, only that every pony gets one eventually.” Octavia said, reciting facts like she was a foal in front of a classroom. Alex quickly turned to the side of the statue. His eyes almost refused to believe what he saw. That mark! It’s the same one that was in the fissure! Alex stepped back, and made eye contact with Octavia “At least now I think I know who it was that caused me to crash land here. Somehow, this... Alicorn, you say? This Alicorn used her magic to interfere with space across dimensions. But, how…? Oh… I really hope I’m wrong about this next bit.” Alex slowly walked to the front of the statue. His eyes were on the same level as the Alicorn’s, owing to his superior height. Seeing nothing unusual given the circumstances, he placed a paw on her torso. It took a few seconds, but he seem to feel the outer periphery of consciousness. “My God… I’m sorry. I am so sorry…Vinyl, Octavia, this isn't an ordinary stone statue. This status is living stone.” Vinyl piped up, “Wait, Living stone? That spell’s been outlawed for over a thousand years. That means…” Alex picked up where Vinyl trailed off, “... that every day, she is forced to watch her friends in permanent states of agony, powerless to act. Although, judging by her little feat here, she’s not quite as powerless as they expected. The magic residue I detected in orbit is very strong here... when I felt my paw make contact with Twilight’s statue, I felt a sort of warmth inside me. Quite pleasant, really… but when I pulled my paw off, I felt the residue of the magic that defeated her. It felt like the precise opposite, making me feel deathly cold inside for an instant. If Twilight Sparkle fought with Friendship, Diamond Tiara must have fought with something diametrically opposed, like hatred, or any other number of negative emotions, if magic and emotion here are as intertwined as has been inferred so far. I don’t think we’re seeing the whole issue here.” Alex’s attention was momentarily caught off-guard by three empty statues caught by his peripheral vision, between Twilight and her stone-turned compatriots. “Were more ponies to be placed here? They look a little small to be statue placeholders.” Octavia looked over the small plinths, “I don’t know. They look like they were made for foals… but we sent all foals out of here by train before the town was completely seized and all trains halted.” “I think some research is needed. Is there a library in town?” Alex inquired.
