The Son of Earth

The man solemnly stood on the red carpet. On either side of him, various flags and insignias of Humanity were posted. His deep brown hair hung limply on his head as he held his position on the soft cotton. A small silver band, its surface pulsing with lights, poked out from his wrist's cuff. He stared out the window, observing the planet below, watching the blue tinge of the atmosphere's glow slowly fading into the blackness of space. Occasional blue trails flew past as shuttles carrying people to and from their daily business traversed the inky black void between the vessels.

A door behind him opened. A young man, no older than twenty, stood in the door. "Sir," he began. "Your ship is ready for the planetary excursion."

He slowly turned. "Are my guards also prepared?"

The young man saluted. "Mr. Wilhelm, your entire guard division is at one hundred percent readiness."

"Good, good," Wilhelm said as he began to walk. "Tell them to be at my ship within thirty minutes." His black shoes made little sound on the soft material.

"Yes, sir. Thank you for your time, sir."

Wilhelm walked past, not uttering a single word more.

The young boy just sighed and walked away.

The sound of engines filled the hangar bay as Wilhelm walked towards the small black shuttle. He was intercepted, however, by a man in a blue, white-trimmed uniform. "David!" shouted the man, trying to catch Wilhelm's attention.

"Hmm?" David Wilhelm turned to the source of the noise. "Ah. Captain Shepard. Fancy seeing you here."

"Indeed," the captain replied. "I couldn't help but notice you and your guards going to the shuttle. Are you so sure this is a good idea?"

"What do you mean?"

"What if they're down there?"

"Don't be daft," David waved off his concerns. "We're thousands of lightyears out from their outer rim; it'd take them decades to send enough ships here, especially considering they'd have to find it."

"But couldn't they scan it from their own long-distance telescopes?"

"If we couldn't find it from one system out, what makes you think they'd be able to find it from one thousand?"

The captain sighed. "Fine," he said with a hint of resignation. "But if they're down there and they come to kill us all, don't say I didn't warn you.

"I'll try to remember that," David said as he entered the door on the side of the vessel, followed by a small posse of guards. The shuttle's door closed with a hissing sound, the engines spooled up with a deep whining, and blue flames of thrust began to spew out of its bottom as it lifted against the artificial gravity. As soon as it entered the ship's massive vehicle airlocks, its sound cut out. Moments later, it could be seen flying away at breakneck speed through the various tracking screens littered around the walls of the hangar.

Reddish-orange flames bounced off the bottom of the vessel as it dove through the atmosphere, moving thousands of meters every second. After only a few minutes of its hellish plunge into the blue-tinted air, the flames faded away, taking their heat with them. A jolt shook through the craft as its atmospheric engines came online, pushing it towards its designated landing site.

Mountains, plains, rivers, valleys, lakes, and oceans passed by as the vehicle continued to fly a surprisingly short distance to the landing site. Within half an hour, it had arrived, and was slowly levitating down on its vertical thrusters. It landed in a large forest clearing, surrounded on all sides by dark trees. Its landing legs creaked as it touched down, the sudden weight pushing them into the ground slightly.

"Shuttle 1-1 to Fleet Command," the radio message burst out of the surface. "We have completed the landing maneuver and are disembarking passengers. Be prepared to receive us in about four hours."

"Roger, Shuttle 1-1," a gruff voice replied on the other end of the line. "We acknowledge."

David's shoe planted firmly on the ground, muffled by the layer of fallen leaves. "Welcome to what'll probably be our new home," he said to the soldiers as they followed him out. Soon, five guards and one Son of Earth were spread out around the shuttle, the door of which was slowly closing. "Spread out to the west; I'm pretty sure I saw some sort of a settlement," David said. "Perhaps we can meet the local colour."

The group of six silently tread through the forest, occasionally doing status checks. Four traveled alone, while one of the guards stayed with the Son of Earth. While David had a pistol, it was still better to have a man trained to use a rifle with him. Soon, a contact report came through the radio.

"I was just attacked by fucking wooden wolves, guys," said one of the soldiers on the radio. "I think this forest isn't such a nice place as it looks."

Sounds of mag-rifle shots echoed through the forest nearby. "I just killed a manticore," a tired voice came through the radio. "Let's group together again. I think it'd be safer --"

He was interrupted by a status alarm. "Warning: Connection to unit 1-3 lost."

"Who was 1-3?" a worried voice said through the radio.

"It was Jenkins." said another one solemnly. "Let's get the hell out of this forest before we're all dead."

Grunts of agreement came from the soldiers as they slowly formed on David and his guard before continuing to the west.

Eventually, they came to what looked like the edge of the forest. "Stevens, Michaels, you go scout ahead," one of the guards said, his russian accent thin but noticable. "Richards and I will stick with Wilhelm; we'll follow once you either give the all-clear or call for support."

"Roger," said Stevens, his high-pitched voice a welcome break from the deceptive beauty of the forest. Green oaks, birch, ash, and pine trees covered the pair of humans as they advanced on the small hamlet.

One of them tapped a button on the side of his helmet. Two lenses flipped down behind his visor, allowing him to essentially zoom in.

"I see about four houses here, and nothing moving. Let's move up; use the shrubs and buildings for cover."

"There's a cottage over there," Michaels said in his usual deadpan tone. "Let's go check it out first."

"Your call," Stevens replied.

The two slowly approached the house. "There's some animals here," Michaels said quietly through his earpiece. "Some squirrels, a dog, some birds, a rabbit and -- a bear?"

Michaels did a double-take at what he saw. "Yep, there's a bear. On this side, there's a--"

He stopped in the middle of his sentence.

"What?" Stevens asked.

"I know this is an alien terran planet and all, but what the fuck is that?" he said, gesturing to a creature that was in the corner of the fenced-off garden.

"Jesus," said Stevens. "It's like a horse, but... weird. And yellow."

"Huh." Michaels said the only thing he could at that point. "Guys, come here," he said through the radio to the other squad.

"Michaels just called for support, I think," Richards said. "Move on their location."

"Yep," said Vasili in his signature tone. "Let's save him before he becomes ribbon."

David nodded his agreement. "Let's."

The posse of three stealthily snuck across the forest floor before coming to the bush that the other two guards were hiding behind.

"See that?" Stevens said. "It's a horse-thing."

"Let me handle this," David said, drawing his pistol. "Stay behind and provide covering fire if I need it," he said over his back as he walked away. "And don't do anything stupid or sudden."

David slowly snuck up to the creature. It definitely looked like a horse-thing, but smaller, and with wings. It also had a strange mark on its rear - he dismissed it as some sort of branding from its owner. He stopped next to it to observe it further before moving on. He was stopped by a quiet voice behind him, speaking in near-perfect English.

"Hey, big guy. What are you?"

He slowly turned around, pistol in hand. Seeing that nothing appeared to have said that, he dismissed it as a voice in his head and continued walking to the door, only to be stopped again.

"Can you hear me?" the voice said again, this time louder. He turned around, and saw nothing again. Just as he was about to continue moving, the voice piped up again.

"Down here," it said quietly again. He turned and saw the yellow horse-thing had moved closer to him. He just stared at it.

Then it spoke. In the same voice he'd just heard.

"What are you?" it repeated.

"What the actual fuck." was his only response. The creature seemed a bit taken aback by this; he quickly cleared his throat and began to speak.

"I am a human. How the hell did you understand me?" he inquired, somewhat forcefully.

"Uhm..." she replied, her voice going even quieter. "I can... kinda talk to animals."

"What?"

"I can talk to animals." she stated loud enough for him to hear. His jaw dropped slightly, but he regained his composure again.

"Do you see me as an animal?" he said, a hint of venom in his voice.

"N- No, mister. I just meant -"

"Good." he replied. "Now that that's out of the way, where in the cosmos am I?" he said, looking around. "And what's the dominant species on this planet?"

"You're in Ponyville, in Equestria," the creature replied. "And there is no one dominant creature. I mean, some have tried, but..." her face paled slightly. David simply nodded at this, understanding what she was getting at.

"Well, what are you?"

"I'm a pegasus," she said quietly.

"So this must be a pegasus town or nation, then," he said to himself. "Can you fly?" he said again, turning to the pastel yellow pegasus in front of him.

"I guess I can," she said. "But what did you say to yourself?"

"This is a pegasus town, is it not?" he said, looking out to the town a few miles to the west.

"Oh, heavens, no!" the pegasus replied, seemingly mortified at the thought. "There's earth ponies, unicorns, even some zebras and mules!"

David's jaw dropped so far he nearly had to stoop down to pick it up. He quickly regained his composure, and cleared his throat. "Well, this was a pleasant chat, Ms...?"

"Fluttershy," said the pegasus.

"Well, Ms. Fluttershy. May we meet again someday," he said as he walked away from the cottage. Talking into his radio earpiece, he issued a rather strange order.

"Guards, return to the shuttle. I think it'd be better if I did this alone."

"Whatever you say, boss," the russian accent of Vasili came through the radio. "We'll be back in a few hours to pick you up."

"Good," David said as he began to walk down the cobblestone path. He didn't get more than fifteen meters before he heard some voices speaking relatively nearby. He quickly dove into a bush on the side of the path, peering out.

The two voices were getting closer, and were accompanied by the sound of hard shoes hitting hard stone. He couldn't see out of the bush well, however, so he decided to poke his head up.

A purple creature and an orange creature were walking next to each other, apparently talking. He cleared his throat as if to address them, but all he managed to get was a pause in the rhythm of their movement. They quickly started up again, and he noticed that one of them had a horn on its head.

"Hey!" he shouted. "Ms. Unicorn!"

This succeeded in getting both of the creatures to look at him; a scream erupted from the purple creature's mouth, and before he could do anything, a purple beam of energy hit him square in the chest, and everything faded to black. The last thing to come out of his mouth was a very quiet, very drawn-out "Oh crap."