The Son of Earth

David awoke on something soft. Opening his eyes, he saw himself to be in some sort of library, lying on a couch in the corner. He felt something was missing, but he couldn't pin what it was. He looked down his body and limbs; his arms and legs were all there, his clothes and weapons were still on him how, and his briefcase, dossier, and rifle were lying on the ground next to him, with a small silver-looking bracelet on them --

Wait... he thought to himself. Looking at his arm, he saw that his bracelet was indeed missing from his arm. Now, if this was a normal bracelet, it would've been inconsequential. But it was a special-order bracelet given only to the Sons of Earth; it contained highly experimental technology that supposedly allowed him to learn most or all of any language from just a few spoken samples. While it was extremely expensive, fragile, and power-hungry, it was also an integral part of his setup; in fact, it was so important that he'd never once taken it off since he was given it upon leaving Earth nine and a half years ago. He sighed as he quickly grabbed it and slipped it back on; if he lost it somehow, he'd be stuck on this planet with no way to communicate with the locals. Speaking of the locals, he thought to himself. I still have a mission to complete. Getting off the couch as silently as he could, he slowly grabbed his briefcase, dossier, and rifle, and started walking stealthily to the door. He nearly made it before he heard the sound of footsteps behind him. Doing the only logical thing he could, he dived behind a nearby chair and hoped that nothing had seen him. He sighed in relief as the creature stepped down the stairs, looked at the couch and sighed.

Then he heard the door behind him open. Twirling around and grabbing his pistol out of its holster, he tensed slightly as he saw the same yellow winged-pony-horse-creature thing that he'd met earlier. It just stared right back at him, eyes wide and mouth partly open. He beckoned for it to move with his pistol, hoping that nobody else was there to notice her having stopped. Unfortunately, his luck was rarely ever good. An orange appendage stuck in from the doorway, and another creature's face appeared. This one almost looked to be confused, and he felt like he'd seen it before --

Oh. he thought to himself. That was the one with the one who captured me. Well, not really captured, but... His thoughts were cut off when he saw the purple unicorn-thing walk around the corner of the chair to take a look at him. "Well, shit." he said as he holstered his weapon, raised his hands, and stood up. "You got me; now what are you going to do, dissect me?" While that probably wasn't a very appropriate question to ask, considering what the Ceryllians had done to civilians they captured it would almost have been merciful. The creature just stared at him incredulously.

"Why would I do that?" it asked, its voice sounding purely confused.

His sigh of relief was audible across the room. He visibly relaxed, but was still somewhat wary. "Alright. Well, can you take me to your leader?"

"What are you?" it queried, paying no heed to his question.

"I couldn't tell you legally if I wanted to. Now, please can you tell me who your leader is so I can take my message to them?" David half-pleaded.

"The Princesses are the supreme authority, but if you just need to send a message I can have spike take care of it. What's your name, anyway?" replied the purple unicorn-thing.

"I'll only tell you mine if you tell me yours." replied David, eager to understand whatever he could about these creatures to use it to his advantage.

"Well, my name is Twilight Sparkle. Now will you tell me yours?" she asked, sounding somewhat irritated.

"Well," said David, puffing up his chest, "my name is Son of Earth David Wilhelm of the Eighty-Third Colony Fleet, or just David Wilhelm for short." He then put his arms at his waist , put one foot on a chair, and turned his head up slightly. When he realized all he was doing was looking stupid, he quickly assumed a more normal posture. "Sorry," he said. "Anyway, I need to meet these 'Princesses' in person; it's critically important." he said in his most official tone.

The purple-unicorn-horse thing , or Twilight Sparkle (Very odd name, he thought to himself) just sighed. "Alright, then. If you want me to take you to the princesses, you'll have to tell me what you're going to do there."

David cursed under his breath. "I can't tell you. This is for the ears of the 'Princesses' only." he said coldly.

"Well, I won't send you unless you tell me." she replied.

"Do you want to be responsible for the deaths of forty thousand innocent people?" he replied, his voice gaining an edge.

This stunned Twilight for a second. So far, she'd assumed he'd been alone; after all, he was the only one of his kind they'd found so far. But perhaps that could explain the strange objects he had, and his odd bracelet, and the strange metal thing that flew over Ponyville. "Fine." she replied in a defeated tone. "But you'd better not be lying, or else..." She didn't need to finish that sentence; David understood entirely what she meant.

"Alright. So, when and how are we going?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm not going," she said. "I'll just drop you off in the throne room."

"But you'd need to come with me, no?" he asked, the unicorn beginning to get on his nerves.

"Nope!" she said, her horn becoming surrounded by some strange purplish aura.

"Wait, what the hell are you--"

He couldn't finish that sentence before he was surrounded by a bright flash of light, blinding him temporarily. He felt himself stumbling around and falling on something cold and hard. When his eyes opened, he was lying with his face on the floor in an ornate room filled with surprised-looking pony-horse-creature things. The only thought that he managed to coherently think was, "What the fuck?"

He quickly shut himself up, but the damage was already done. Scanning the room further, he found that many of the horse-pony-creature things were still just staring at him, eyes wide and mouths open. Meanwhile, on the end of the room, two larger horse-pony-creature-unicorn things were just looking at him, shaking their heads. "Err... sorry?" Their attention was temporarily averted from him when a scroll materialized in a flash of green fire, however.

"I am sorry, my little ponies. I must close the Day Court for the rest of the afternoon." said the larger white unicorn-thing. All the other horse-pony-things shuffled out of the room except for a slightly smaller, darker-colored one that was sat next to it. The larger one then proceeded to begin reading the scroll, while the smaller one fixed its eyes on him. He sighed and looked around on the floor. His rifle was lying next to him, and his briefcase was, surprisingly, standing on its bottom right next to him. Neatly folded on top of it, he noticed, was his dossier. He quickly pocketed the papers, grabbed the briefcase, and slung the rifle over his shoulder before turning to face the two "ponies", as he presumed they called themselves.

"Hello?" he asked. This caused the larger white 'pony' to look directly at him.

"Are you speaking to me?" it asked.

"Well, are you the so-called 'Princesses', or am I at the wrong castle?" he replied.

The two ponies looked at each other for a second before turning to face him. "We are the Princesses, yes. I am Celestia, and this is Luna." The larger white one, Celestia, gestured towards the smaller, dark-blue one.

"It is an honor to meet you, Princesses. However, I have no time for formalities; I am not here of my own choosing, but because my people depend on me." David decided to cut to the chase; he had no time to spare, at least until he could work out a deal with these 'ponies' to let the humans have some land to rebuild and recover.

This piqued the Princesses' interest; however, they seemed somewhat less eager. "Before we get to this dreary business you must have to offer us, shall we move into the meeting room? I shall have the maids bring us some drinks. Do you prefer tea or coffee?" asked Celestia.

"And what is your name, Stranger? We have not seen anything like you before."

David decided that it was not a good idea to withhold much information from these ponies. "My name is Son of Earth David Wilhelm of the Eighty-Third Colony Fleet. I was born and raised on Earth, which was in the Sol System. I was chosen as a Son of Earth shortly before the Launching of the Fleets and the Burning of Earth."

The two Princesses looked at each other again before nodding their heads gravely. "Let us go into the meeting room, then. I am sure you have much to discuss."

The two sisters rose from their thrones, and David realized how large they actually were. While the normal 'ponies' would only reach up to about his chest, the one who called herself Celestia was, including the massive white horn protruding from her forehead, nearly half a foot taller than he was. Meanwhile, the smaller one, Luna, stood almost exactly even. Celestia beckoned with her head for David to follow, and he obliged. The hallways in the castle were massive; he reckoned that an average Human Empire fighter could easily fit in the hallway, with plenty of room off of either wingtip. The Princesses and the human walked down the hallway for about three minutes before they took a sharp turn into a set of double-doors to the right.

David was quite impressed with what was behind the doors. There was a well-set table stocked with piles of grapes, apples, bread, pastries, and.. was that hay? There were also chalices on the table that held a liquid that looked conspicuously like wine, as well as candles and a chandelier illuminating the room. There were four seats around the table; in front of each seat was a small plate with a cup on it and a larger, empty plate. David took a seat in one of the chairs and waited for the Princesses to do the same. Celestia took the seat directly across from him, while Luna sat off to his side.

"So, Human, what have you to discuss?" said Celestia bluntly.

David replied with as much formality and grace as he could muster. "Fair Princess, I am here to discuss the aversion of a potential disaster for my people. As we both know, you have never before seen one of my kind. That is because I am not one of this world; I come from far beyond the stars, from a planet you have never seen, and now never will."

The Princess just said in a low tone, "Your flattery will not work on me. What do you really have to discuss?"

David sighed. This may be harder than he expected. "Since you obviously want the cold truth, let me tell you the whole story. It began almost fifteen years ago. The Human Empire was quite large, encompassing nearly eight hundred systems; over a trillion and a half humans lived on all of these planets combined. We would send out ships to the frontier, to colonize any planets that were habitable or could be. Over the seventy years that Humanity was primarily interstellar, we colonized and terraformed almost thirteen hundred worlds. But, one day, we spread too far.

"We thought we'd found the Holy Grail, a potential new capital for the Human Empire. So, we sent a team down to try to establish a colony. Unfortunately, we found out, it had already been colonized. We found a nest of alien monstrosities, the Ceryllians. We thought it to be inconsequential, and that it was just some hostile fauna, so we attempted to ignore it while we built. We were wrong in the worst possible way.

"It started when they raided the colony. At first, it seemed like nothing was out of the ordinary; after all, they were only attacking with their, still quite formidable, natural weaponry; but then they started bringing their technology. In the early stages, they only used small aircraft and spacecraft; nothing more than a few frigates and gunships. It was really quite easy to defend against. Then they started bringing their landing forces. The colony only lasted for six hours after the first landing ship touched down on the surface of that planet, and every last colonist was slaughtered in cold blood.

"But they didn't stop there. They had seen our colonization of that planet as a declaration of war; so, they started sending their fleets. Again, it began with smaller attack groups, comprised mainly of frigates and light cruisers. They were no match for the defensive fleets we had parked in orbit around the outer colonies, and we actually made some inroads onto their territory. When their capital ships started appearing was when things started spiraling downhill. We lost a good thirty or forty systems, with all the population, before we could muster enough ships to prevent them from breaking through further. We managed to hold the line for almost two and a half years, fighting massive battles nearly monthly, before the first Titan showed up.

"The Titans were massive powerhouses of capital ships that the Ceryllians used; they were nearly sixty kilometers in length, and only three were ever seen in battle. In all instances where a Titan appeared in a battle, it utterly annihilated our fleets; in the first battle against one, it alone destroyed ninety-three capital ships and killed nearly a million crewmen. As soon as the reports of what these Titans could do came through the Admiralty pipeline, they commenced work on a new project: the Sons of Earth.

"This was a plan to, quite simply, keep Humanity from going extinct. One hundred fleets, each consisting of three capital ships and seven frigates, were constructed, with a crew of forty thousand people each. They were to be sent through the Ceryllian blockade of Earth, and from there out into the galaxy to search for hopefully friendly habitable worlds. It was anticipated that at least fifty to sixty of them would make it through Ceryllian space and out into the open; their estimates were woefully wrong. Only one made it through.

"Now, the reason it was called the Sons of Earth was because each fleet was given a leader. He would spearhead political, internal, and, if necessary, tactical decisions and committees. He was also to be the diplomat for his fleet; he would be the first to go down to a planetary surface in his ship, fly around and try to scout out any native life, and try to make contact and find a peaceful way for the fleet to start a new colony. Yes, I am the Son of Earth of my fleet.

"My fleet, the Eighty-Third Colony Fleet, was the only one that survived the blockade. We managed to not lose a single ship going through it, too, so there's that. Anyway, we traveled across the galaxy and explored countless worlds and stars, and saw thousands of natural wonders you'd have to see to believe. Eventually, though, we began to run out of fuel for our jump drives; without a solar refueling station, the ship's antimatter and negative energy reserves slowly deplete, which is why we're here now. My fleet used the last of its jump fuel coming here, and they only have three months of power left before they have to make planetfall, one way or another.

"So it is with this that I implore you, please allow us to make use of your land. We will land our ships wherever you permit, and we will set up our colony there. The only resources we will require from you is some iron, copper, and gold to repair damaged components and construct some other things we will need. In return, once we have landed our ships and set up our colony, we shall give you the schematics of our capital ships such that you may construct your own. Once this happens, we hope to be able to cement a long-lasting relationship of peace, cooperation, and harmony between our two peoples."

David finished his speech, nearly panting from the explanation. The two Princesses just nodded silently and turned to face each other.

"Well, Sister. What do you think of this creature's tale?" asked Celestia.

The younger winged-unicorn thing stared forward into space, formulating an answer. After an awkward silence of about thirty seconds, she turned to face David.

"We will consider this, if you can impress us. You say that you have vehicles that can both go up into the stars and come down onto the earth?" she asked inquisitively.

David saw his chance. "Not only can they go up into space and land on the surface; my personal ship can hold eight people. I'm sure the engineers wouldn't mind modifying it to be able to carry you on a flight, perhaps even to orbit."

The two sisters looked at each other again, deliberating without words. Finally, Celestia looked into his eyes and spoke.

"We have agreed that it would be better for you to take someone else on this flight; after all, we have important duties to pertain to. Perhaps you could take my student Twilight Sparkle? I am sure she would be glad to report her experience."

"Wait, Twilight Sparkle?" David asked incredulously. "You mean that... 'mare,' I guess, that nearly took me hostage?"

Celestia simply nodded. "Yes, her. She can become somewhat... obsessive when she sees something new and interesting. Please forgive her."

Sighing, David leaned back in his chair. "Fine. I'll do this, if it means that it'll ensure the survival of my species." He turned to look out of the window in the side of the room; he could very faintly see the little dots that were the capital ships, so far above. "I'll call the fleet, tell the engineers to modify one of the seats, and tell them to get it down here. Do you want me to also have our honour guard on board the ship?"

"No," replied Celestia. "Just you, Twilight Sparkle, and whoever is necessary to run the ship."

"Alright." David replied. "I'll begin making the necessary arrangements." He stood and turned to go, but was stopped by a voice from behind.

"Wait." said Celestia imperatively. "Let me transport you. Where were you going to go?"

"Probably to the house of that 'Twilight Sparkle', just because I'm pretty sure I left my portable computer there." replied David. "Ohhh, not again..." he said as Celestia's horn became enwrapped in a golden aura before he was blinded by another flash.