The Planet of Eden

Three days later

An enthusiastic pink earth pony unleashed an onslaught of questions upon Twilight. "Hi Twilight! Where are you goin'? I haven't seen you in a while! Have you been reading too much again?"

"I'm going to the hospital."

"What? Why? You feeling sick?" Pinkie Pie slowed the slightest bit and twisted her smile into a neutral expression.

"No, I'm visiting. Rainbow Dash and Apollo are there."

"Apollo? Who's Apollo? I know everypony in Ponyville, but I don't know any Apollo! Should I get a 'Welcome to Ponyville' party set up?" Pinkie Pie took on her happier face again.

"No, his hind leg is broken. He'll be fine in a few days, though." Twilight picked up her pace to catch up to Pinkie.

"Okie dokie lokie!" Pinkie turned the opposite direction towards Sugarcube Corner to begin preparations for a surprise party despite Twilight's recommendation.

"Phew. I just hope she doesn't visit Apollo and assault him with questions." Twilight mumbled to herself.

When Twilight came into the hospital, Nurse Redheart wasn't there yet. There was no doubt that it was because of the early time. Twilight had awoken at about six o'clock after falling asleep earlier than usual.

Apollo laid asleep without a book underneath him, for once. Thankfully he had decided to rest more rather than read late into the night.

He can do all the reading in the world once his leg is rejuvenated, after all.

Rainbow Dash was appeared to be asleep as well, until she lazily raised her head off of her bed. Rainbow fully woke up and smiled as soon as she noticed who had entered.

"Hey Twilight! It's nice to have company besides Apollo. He's more boring than you are."

"That's because you never saw me before I came to Ponyville. Besides, wouldn't you read so much if you didn't know anything about where you are?" Twilight realized the answer as soon as the question left her mouth.

"Nope."

Twilight's eyes rolled. "Anyways, you'll probably be ready to go tomorrow. Do you feel up to confronting those trespassers?"

"Always! I'll give them the fight of their life!" Rainbow Dash sounded as headstrong as ever.

"Good! I'll come back later to talk to Apollo."

"Later Twilight..." Rainbow plopped her head on the bed again and allowed her eyelids to droop.

Whitetail Wood, the next day

"Why are we still eavesdropping on Ponyville?" Hermes complained.

"You know why. We need to find out all we can before besieging the capital." Zeus replied.

Hermes bailed out to be replaced by Poseidon in the chat. "Yeah, but we've found out everything we can here. We know what and where the capital is, we know there's dragons and magic and other fantasy things, but we need to know about Camelot."

"Canterlot." Hades corrected.

"Wha? Was that you, Hades?" Zeus stuttered in his response.

"So what if it was?"

"It's good. That's the first time I've heard you talk outside of battle situations." Poseidon said. After a pause, Zeus finished off the almost forgotten argument.

"All right, fine. We'll leave for Canterlot soon. Start packing your stuff if you have any; we start walking in half an hour."

Hermes considered grabbing a thick fabric bag out of the escape pod, but decided that he could carry everything he needed without one.

Poseidon gathered a few tools including a camera and an old Swiss Army Knife. He also grabbed Apollo's nanocomputer, and stuffed everything in a bag.

Zeus only carried weapons and food. Hades refused to carry anything but weapons. He bore both his machine gun and the group's sniper rifle.

Besides that, everyone carried their nanocomputers and tents.

"All right, looks like we're all early." Zeus looked around. "Let us ride to Canterlot." Zeus said commandingly.

They all nodded and began on their trek to the Equestrian capital.

A bit closer to Ponyville, the mane six found themselves trotting directly next to the Everfree Forest and approaching Whitetail Wood. They wore the Elements of Harmony. Twilight had a large diadem, while the rest had necklaces with gems resembling their Cutie Marks.

"Ugh! Even getting near the Everfree Forest is revolting!" A white unicorn with a spiraling purple mane spoke up.

"Ah, don't worry. We don't even hafta go in." An orange pony named Applejack replied in a southern accent.

"Actually, uhm, I kind of agree with Rarity, it's too scary..." Fluttershy stared at the ground while walking, remembering their first time in the Everfree Forest together.

"I'm not scared by it!"

Applejack shot a piercing glance at Rainbow Dash.

"Uhh, I mean, I'm not scared cause we've been there before."

"Can you just let me pay attention to where we're going so we don't wander into an abyss?"

"Sorry Twilight." Everypony spoke in unison with the exception of Applejack, who stopped at "Twi."

The mane 6 kept trotting beside the Everfree Forest for about an hour. They had started at the part of the forest closest to Fluttershy's house on the outskirts of Ponyville. Not surprisingly, they saw nopony since they were a minute's walk away from the road of Whitetail Wood. Fluttershy occasionally hid behind a tree from the infrequent situation of a birch tree's branch falling on her. Each occurrence caused the ponies to lose about a minute or two of time reassuring Fluttershy.

Rarity moaned. "How long do we have to keep trotting?"

"Hopefully not too long. According to this map, there's a hill a few minutes in front of us. That's a good place to take a rest." Twilight said in her informative voice.

Rarity refrained from complaining until reaching the top of the hill.

Once the mane 6 arrived in a clearing on top of the hill, they noticed a strange, gray, cylindrical object with a tripod keeping it standing tall. After further investigation, Twilight noticed sixteen small holes in the ground. For every four holes, there was an eight by two foot rectangle formed by them. The grass in the rectangles was slightly compressed, with some of it most likely dead.

"Hmm... they must have camped here for at least a few days, then left. Which means-" Twilight was cut off.

Pinkie gasped. "Apollo told them!"

"I agree with Pinkie! I was right to suspect him..." Rainbow Dash added.

"I don't want to believe it, but all evidence does point to him... but one thing is still uncertain. How would Apollo contact them? He can barely use magic, and last I checked he was reading up on history."

"Twi has a point. Ah think y'all should simmer down." Rainbow Dash completely ignored Applejack.

"He could have! All that weird computer stuff could've let him! I think we should check his drawers and-" Rainbow was interrupted mid-sentence.

"Rainbow! Ya know we should respect his privacy! Let's ask him first. From what ah've heard, Apollo ain't a lier."

"Fine..."

"I still think you have a point, Rainbow. We need to talk to him about a few things..." Twilight began her journey back to Ponyville.

Ponyville Hospital

What a nice night of rest... I'll get up in a few minutes...

Come to think of it, wasn't I reading just before I fell asleep?

Apollo willed himself to raise his head slowly. After finally opening his eyes, Apollo confirmed the validity of his memories.

Hah. I never would've thought pony history would be so fascinating a week ago. Wait a second, why am I alone?

Apollo's half-open eyelids retreated to make room for the alertness charging into his mind. He had to get outside and get to his comrades before the ponies did. All Apollo needed to do to get outside without being caught by Nurse Redheart was a teleportation spell.

First I need to find a place to teleport to...

He focused his entire mind on the location he had chosen: an alley on the other side of the street. Apollo stared at it for a long minute, specifying every detail of the spot.

There was no road there, and the two sand-colored houses on the sides of the alley were about four feet apart. The roof on top of the buildings had an overhang of about a foot, casting a shadow in the alley. The shadow on the left was two feet long, while there was no shadow on the right. After that detail, Apollo thought about how stupid it was to be staring for so long.

Then he focused all of his strength through his horn. Although Apollo had learned to do movement spells with ease, teleporting was a different matter entirely.

After a short while of concentrating energy on himself and the target destination, Apollo's mind and body disintegrated into nothingness. Looking back at it, he could never determine how long he had been nonexistent. It could have been a nanosecond, a minute, or even an hour. It was an eternity, and it was no time at all. It was infinity, and it was nothing. After what seemed to be an infinite eternity, Apollo reappeared exactly where he wanted to go. Mentally congratulating himself, he galloped onward towards the Everfree Forest.

If I can get there first, maybe I could flee from this high-concentrated perfection. Such perfection is always sure to quickly lead to boredom.

Then again, there was antagonism present many times in this kingdom's history, or at least in the history I have read so far. Not to mention Nightmare Moon...

Then why am I even going to them? What is the point in getting there first if I have no reason to leave? Besides, there's no going home...

Apollo collapsed on the dirt.

No going home...

No more family and no more kind humans. None of them who truly care. Nobody who I can genuinely relate to. No more nostalgia about all of those days as a child in which I could be as careless as I could be. No more laughter and joy about memories of the past. My entire life is lost forever... deleted; purged; it means nothing to anyone. My friends, my parents, my siblings, and even my children will be forgotten.

Apollo began weeping for those who were gone both physically and from the mind's of others.

I'm just an insignificant sniveling weakling on a path laid out for me, and I can't even make it halfway. I'm a coward and a fool...

Apollo's tears thundered down like hail. His body knew no limits for pouring tears out of his body.

I just want to be reassured by somebody that everything will be all right...

Apollo's eyes closed as he finally gave in to the urge to add something more to his thought.

Anypony...

He was then startled by the pony who had just leaped on his back.

"Hi! I'm Pinkie Pie! Are you all right? Let me cheer you up!" A cloud of confetti appeared as if from nowhere, causing Apollo to jump in surprise. He was wide-eyed with leftover tears still dripping down his cheeks.

The rest of the mane 6 were a short distance away watching Pinkie Pie's work.

"Oh! Where's my party cannon? Don't tell me it's back at Sugarcube Corner! Oh well, we can have fun without it! Weeeeeee!" Pinkie Pie began jumping in circles around Apollo. Apollo let a tiny smile form on his drenched face.

And to think I thought nopony cares about me...

"Pinkie Pie, was it?"

"Yup!" Pinkie replied while smiling with her eyes closed and bouncing.

"...Thanks."

"No problem-o!" She bounced towards Twilight. Twilight was trotting towards Apollo. She bore a clearly forced smile on her face.

What now...?

"You have a few things you need to share with us."

By now Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash had revealed themselves. Fluttershy squealed upon being seen, then steadily inched herself out from behind the tree.

"What went wrong?" Apollo decided to play it safe for now.

Twilight spoke up first. "When we arrived at what was clearly a campsite, we found that it was hastily cleared out. The humans that Rainbow saw were gone."

"Why are you asking me about it?"

"Because you told them we were coming!" Rainbow rashly charged into the conversation.

"How could I? I barely know magic, and I don't have anything else that I could have communicated with." Apollo kept his cool. Then he had a second-long flashback and saw himself typing on a black nanocomputer with his human body. He finally realized he had left it on The Eagle.

"I'm not completely sure..." Twilight reclaimed her position in the conversation and gave Apollo a threatening stare.

"Do you have anything that you could have used to communicate, and did you use it?"

Apollo calculated the possible consequences of the next words he would say in record time.

"Yes and no to the first question. I had it a week ago, but I lost it. You can guess the answer to the second from the first.” Although Apollo was personally proud of his answer, he didn't input Applejack into the equation.

"Ah find that a mite hard to believe... you're probably hidin' it.” Applejack stared at Apollo with suspicion.

"Check everything around my bed, there's nothing there."

Rarity and Rainbow joined the throng of stares. Pinkie Pie smiled and waved when Apollo looked at her.

He ignored Pinkie and anticipated another question. It didn't come.

"All right, let's continue this in Ponyville. Nurse Redheart is probably frantically looking for you." Twilight said.

"Agreed." Apollo started trotting first.

I hope I don't lose my only two friends in the world from this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGvxoWytMig