The Son of Earth

The pair appeared in a flash of light, popping up in the middle of the library. Five 'ponies' surrounded him, staring intently at the man. "Uh..." he said. "Hello?"

He was cut off from saying anything more by a flood of purple light going straight into his eyes, mouth, and very soul. When it was over, he felt surprisingly dizzy, but he felt something was different. "What just happened?"

"He talks?" he heard an unfamiliar voice say.

"Yes, I talk. I've always - Wait. Say something again," he said, turning to the source of the noise. A white unicorn, its purple hair organized in curls, was looking at him incredulously.

"What do you mean, Darling?"

"You. I can understand you. Why can I understand you?" he said to himself.

"You speak Equestrian, no?"

"No, I don't. I only know English, Chinese, and German." David said. He quickly saw that the unfamiliar words flew straight over the heads of all present. "Uh. I mean, I only speak languages from my native land."

"You're talking just fine to me." a blue 'pegasus' said, hovering above the group.

"Oh Christ. I think I know what happened." He turned to the purple pony. "What the hell did you do to me?"

"I may have written Equestrian into your language center, making you as fluent as a native speaker."

David sighed. "Might as well get this over with," he said.  "I'm here to take Twilight Sparkle away from you for some time. Do not worry; she'll not be harmed in any way, and she will be given the utmost comfort."

"And how can we know that you're not lying, you sack of meat?"

"Firstly, please do not call me that. Second, I swear on my honour as a Son of Earth that I-"

"What's a 'son of Earth'? Are you the son of an Earth Pony or something?" the blue one piped up again

"Shut up," said the orange one. "He's obviously not from around here."

David sighed. "Anyway, I will be taking Twilight up to orbit with me for about two weeks, where we will tour the fleet and --"

"I can't let you do that." said the blue one. "I won't let my friend go away with a creep like you."

He cleared his throat. "Do not interrupt me. I am on official business, and I will take her with me, with or without your permission. Who are you, anyway? Some plebeian trying to interfere with -"

He was interrupted by the pink 'pony', who'd been jumping almost the entire time. It spoke as if it had just been connected to the direct output of an antimatter reactor.

"We're her friends, silly!" She began gesturing gratuitously to each of the 'ponies' assembled. "This here is Fluttershy; she's pretty quiet," she said, pointing to the pale yellow 'pony'. "This is Rainbow Dash! She's really fast." she said as she turned to point both of her... arms? Legs? Hooves? at the cyan 'pony'. "And this here is Rarity! She makes really fancy clothes!" Turning to the orange 'pony', she continued her rant. "This is Applejack; she works on a farm and makes really good apples!" Turning around to face his object of interest, she kept talking. "This is Twilight Sparkle; she's always in a book, except when she's not!" David felt his brain slowly melting away as the 'pony' wrapped up its tirade. "And I'm Pinkie Pie, maker of candy and parties everywhere!"

Oh, joy. thought David to himself as he tensed his body to run out of the door, call an evacuation, and try to get off the planet away from that creature as fast as possible.

"But who are you?" it asked. "And what are you? I don't think I've seen one of you before."

Damn. David reluctantly answered the question in the flattest tone he could. "I'm David Wilhelm, from the Eighty-Third colony fleet. I am on important business here, so if you would kindly just allow me to call my shuttle and escort Twilight Sparkle -"

"What's a colony fleet?" it asked.

David sighed, groaning in irritation. "It's a fleet of ships that colonizes planets. As I was saying, if you'd just let me finish, I --"

"What kind of ships?" it continued to pester him with questions.

"Capital ships and frigates. Now please, just let me --"

"Oooh! What's a capital ship?"

"You wouldn't understand without seeing one. So please, --"

"Can you show me one?"

"No. Now, PLEASE, just let me finish what I was saying!"

"Okie dokie loki!" said the pink fluffball.

"Thank you. Anyway, with her permission," he said, turning to the purple pony, "I will take her on a flight onboard my personal spacecraft. We shall tour the airspace of this land before going up to orbit and docking with the Arcadia, where we will remain for approximately two days before coming back down and landing here, if that is satisfactory with her."

Twilight seemed lost in thought. "Hmm? Oh, yes, of course."

"Thank you. I will call down the spacecraft immediately. As for the rest of you 'ponies', you can go back to whatever you were doing." David promptly walked into a side room and switched on his earpiece. The sound of static filled his ears before the connection was linked, and he began to speak."

"Is the connection stable? Good. Can you hear me clearly? Good. I need my shuttle prepped and ready to go, with no extra passengers, within two hours. I need it landed here in four. You can do it? Good. No, no guards. No, I don't need fighter escorts. Actually, yes, have fighters ready to escort on my signal. No, we're not going to be doing bombing runs. No, I'm not trying to escape. Seriously, shut up and get my shuttle ready." His conversation with the fleet over, he heard the sound of voices. He decided it might be wise to eavesdrop before entering back into the main room.

"...might not be worth it. After all, who knows what he could be planning to do to you?"

"Don't worry, Spike. I'm sure that he has no intent to harm me. And plus, he probably thinks this is going to be an interesting adventure, so why shouldn't I try it?"

"Don't you think anything bad could happen? At all? After all, he insulted my flying! Who knows what he could have done if you guys weren't here?"

"I'm sorry, dear, but I must agree with Rainbow Dash here. I do not think it is a good idea for you to go with him on this; in fact, I think you should get rid of him as soon as possible."

"Are you suggesting I just tell him to up and leave? He needs me to come on this."

"Well, yes, I am. It is simply not prudent for you to risk your life simply so he can get whatever satisfaction he needs."

"How about if I talk to him about it?"

"I suppose that could work, although he'd probably just try to lie to you to keep you from finding his motives."

"Fine. I'll talk to him, and if I find anything off, I'll do my best to not go."

"Okay, dear. I just want what's best for you, after all."

David chose this moment to burst through the door. As expected, there was the pony Twilight Sparkle conversing with 'Rarity', along with some sort of dragon-creature next to him. A rainbow  "Well, I called my fleet. My ship will be here in about an hour; do you two want to ask about anything while we wait?" he said as he took a seat in one of the various chairs scattered along the lower level. Play it cool; don't make them think you have anything to hide.

Before Twilight could even open her mouth, Rarity spoke. "What are you hiding from us?" she asked in a demanding tone.

"Nothing! Nothing at all..." he said, only half-convincingly.

"Mhmm. Of course. I won't ask again," she said, her voice growing darker by the second. "What. Are you. Hiding?"

David felt genuinely threatened by this; as such, he began to blurt out things that should probably have remained secret. "I'm sorry, alright? It's just that with this being the only chance I have to save Humanity, and with the Ceryllians probably searching for us, I had to take the first chance I got, okay? It's not my fault I was put in charge as the diplomat, commander, and governor of the last forty thousand humans!"

Both Rarity and Twilight's jaws were just on the floor. "Now do you understand why I needed to take her? Without following your princess' orders and taking her with me, I'll basically be damning all that remains of my species. So, no, I won't hurt her, try to take advantage of her, or do anything else. Fuck, I just wanted one thing, ONE THING, to go smoothly in all of this, but I can't have even that, can I? For fuck's sake..."

"I- I'm sorry for --" began Rarity.

"Don't start that shit. It's not your fault. I'm the one who withheld information I shouldn't have; you just made a logical conclusion from what you had."

"Are you alright?" Twilight piped up. She almost had a look of concern on her face.

"Yes, I'm fine, don't worry. Anyway, do either of you have any other topics you want to talk about?" David asked, trying to steer the conversation away from the topic it'd quickly reached.

"What did you mean, 'all that remains of your species'? Surely there's more... humans, I think?" Twilight asked again.

"Indeed, darling. The way you said it made it sound almost as if something terrible happened."

Sighing, David shook his head. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Are you sure? It'll help ease your mind."

He sighed again, before beginning. "The first time I met Eric was back in university. We had the same aerodynamics and diplomacy classes; he was always the better student. At first, we didn't talk much. He was the quiet, reserved guy while I was the one who was going to all the parties, getting drunk off my ass, all the usual shit. Eventually, though, we started to drift close together. By the end of our second year, we were fast friends. Then, one day, about a month after we graduated, news of the war came."

"What war?" Rarity asked, her voice tinged with concern.

"The one that almost resulted in the extinction of the human race," David stated bluntly. "At first, everyone was hopeful; technology and plain luck had bred some of Humanity's smartest commanders as if specifically to fight in this conflict. And we were winning for a good few years, even pushing back into Ceryllian territory, before the Titans came. They were massive ships that no commander could ever hope to survive combating, let alone survive. Eric was... he was on the front line in the first Titan attack, while I was sat on a couch at home with my name out of the command roster. He was out there, being a hero, while I was living off my government stipend. It was my fault, of course; they'd set me to go as first choice, but I declined, so they sent him instead. He should be alive instead of me; I stole his life to continue my own..."

At this point David's stoic voice started cracking. "And after that battle, I had to be the one to bring the news to their family. The look on his kids' faces when they learned Daddy wasn't ever coming home... And then to make matters worse, I was selected for the Son of Earth program soon after. They kept me away from friends and family for three years, trying to make me as good as possible. They did things to my body... to my mind that no man should ever have to go through, in the name of science. Of course, now I thank them; without it, I probably wouldn't be here at all. But that doesn't change the fact that I was selected to live while trillions were left to die.

"After the conditioning, they gave me ten ships to command and forty thousand people and sent me off. I wasn't the only one; there were a hundred like me. I got to knew them well; Taiko, Steve, John, and Daniil, we were all assigned to the same group. We set off about ten years ago and... well, I really don't want to go into the details right now. Suffice it to say that I'm the only one left; me and my forty thousand.

"So that's why I needed you to come, Twilight. If you didn't agree, I'd be stuck, alone, with nowhere to go and no way to keep my people alive. I'd not only have failed all forty thousand of those people, but I'd have failed the memory of all my friends, family, and acquaintances that died for me to get to where I am."

David's eyes were red, and his hair had become disheveled. "Well, that's what you wanted to know," he said in a weak voice. "I guess it does feel a little better, talking to someone else about it."

The clouds slowly began to roll in as the two ponies conversed with the human, talking about various topics from personal experiences to old friendships to even the sciences. They were only interrupted by the sound of the ship's VTOL engines as it landed, cutting off their conversation.