The Planet of Eden

by Antylamon

Rating: teen
Tags: Human
Length: 18645

All of a brilliant scientist's hopes of space exploration are exceeded, but complications arise...

The year is 2101. A government scientist has begun fulfilling his lifelong dream: locating a sentient species away from Earth. Countless years later, he stumbles across the discovery of his lifetime. It's the perfect planet: Its surface is similar to Earth's, it has endless indications of life, and it even has a moon. But does he really want what he wished for?

(Please elaborate on all dislikes with a comment. A dislike with no words is useless and doesn't help me write a better story.)

(In memory of Sensei John, June 22nd 2012. He was my karate teacher who not only taught me how to defend myself, but helped me discover that there's more to life than having the right answer. He also taught me that karate is not simply defending oneself, but rather an art of discipline which can bring out the best in people. I have never used my knowledge of karate to protect myself against any person, but Sensei John helped me develop as a person to an extent that only my parents can hope to rival.)

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2012-07-27 14:54:55 UTC

Arrival (Prologue)

The Planet of Eden

Prologue:

December 27th, 2100 C.E.

My work is finally going to pay off tomorrow. My request to accompany the four soldiers assigned to The Eagle has been accepted. I'm not surprised. Hell, they probably would've ordered me to go anyways. They'd be screwed without me. I made the thing, after all.

I just hope that they won't trash the thing within a year of travel. That's the main reason I hate working with the military. Unfortunately, I can't stop now. I'm relying too much on government funds at this point. Hopefully this project is worth the effort…

December 31st, 2100 C.E.

The Eagle launches tomorrow. After getting to know the troops I've been paired up with, they seem to be less destructive than I initially thought. Nevertheless, they could've been better. Two of them smoke cigars and all of them seem to drink a little too much. Too bad I can't be picky. If I were more than just a researcher to the government, then I would have a little more jurisdiction about who goes with me.

Final calibrations were finished less than an hour ago. The cryogen chambers have been tested a billion times under a billion conditions. The clocks have been quadruple checked for perfect accuracy, and the communications system has been examined thoroughly. We don't want any mistakes when it comes to waking us up.

January 1st, 2101 C.E.

I've just experienced my first day of deep-space travel. The solar panels and thrusters are working beyond anyone's expectations. Right now we're a few meters per second shy of hitting the speed of light. We aren't risking any more than that for obvious reasons.

The planet scanners have had less luck. It doesn't sound too serious, though. The main problem is that we haven't traveled close enough to the next closest solar system yet.

While I'm still bored, I'll list off the soldiers. I don't actually know their real names yet, so I'll just use the code-names they were assigned to for this mission.

There's one guy named Hermes, a short fellow with blonde hair and blue eyes on his young face. All he seems to do is sit in a corner. I still haven't figured out what the hell he does all day. I should probably ask him.

Then there's Hades, the most enthusiastic of the bunch. That is, if you can call bloodlust a kind of enthusiasm. He wears full body camo armor all day every day. I still haven't seen his face at all. Come to think of it, I don't think Hades knows the difference between cautious and cowardly. Don't tell him that, though.

Poseidon spends most of his time talking and gambling on the ship. He's excited about exploring a new planet, but not in the same way Hades is. Poseidon is in it for the thrill of discovery. He's a lot like me in that way. I've managed to teach him a few things about The Eagle as well. That is, when he wasn't bouncing off walls with excitement. I can tell that he'll be a huge help to me eventually.

The most experienced veteran among us is Zeus. He's been a leader in the military as long as anybody can remember. In my opinion he's bossing us around too much. Hopefully I can stay on his good side. I'm nervous that he would boot me out the airlock if I stepped out of line for a split second. Speaking of Zeus, he's ordering me to do some useless task right now.

January 2nd, 2101 C.E.

Most of the people here have already gone to bed. They won't be waking up from their cryogen naps until either a message comes from Earth or a planet with multi-cellular organisms shows up.

Before they went to bed, I finally asked them about their real names. Too bad I'm not allowed to mention their names here because of security reasons. Oh well, it's just a journal after all.

Anyways, I'm the only one still awake besides Poseidon. He's been full of surprises ever since I met him. Poseidon knows more about space than some good astronomers I know. He even spotted a flaw in my planet scanner program. It turns out that it would only detect organisms if they were human. We'd be screwed without him.

Poseidon's finally going to bed right now. He must be bored. I guess I'll stare at the cosmos for a while longer before I take my turn. I never thought stars and nebulae could be so amazing when you're looking at them farther away from Earth.

June 16th, 2945 C.E.

I just got woken up by the planet scanner about an hour ago. It was a false alarm, of course. There were only a few complex microscopic organisms. After investigating the planet further, we discovered that it just barely had the required conditions for life. If you give it a few thousand years, there won't be anything living there for an incredibly long time. Perhaps it won't ever have life again. Fuck.

There was also a massive buildup of messages. I hope the goddamn idiots who investigated The Eagle's communications died a painful death. We should've been woken up by every single message.

All of my friends are dead. I know nobody in the universe except these fucking retards who somehow got paired up with me. I'm probably a great grandfather of a great grandfather by now, and I don't even know my grandchildren's names. I won't ever have friends again. I doubt that anybody on this shitty piece of scrap metal gives a damn about me.

Without even being a religious person, I prayed. I prayed to be home. I prayed to be saved from this terrible fate with nobody to actually listen to me.

God, if you exist, spare me from my agony.

June 21st, 1002348 C.E.

I just woke up for the first time in almost a million years. My muscles feel weak, even though they're exactly as strong as before. My bones feel fragile, even though they're as sturdy as ever (hibernation prevents bone degeneration). Even my mind feels powerless. Then, I stared at the main screen.

It took me a very long while to finally realize exactly what it was I saw out of the main screen. I was gazing at the planet that fit all of our criteria. It's inhabited by various types of multi-cellular and unicellular life, it has the perfect environment for humans to survive. It even has a moon! I hereby name this newly discovered planet Eden.

There's only one problem: there are only 2 sentient creatures on the entire planet. Is this how humans started out as well? Were we so few in number before we became more civilized? Was Earth so beautiful before we effectively destroyed it?

My solution to this problem is simple. I've set the cryogen chambers to wake me, Hermes, and Poseidon in intervals of exactly two thousand five hundred years. I excluded Hades because he's an idiot and Zeus because he's the worst boss I've ever had. Just the idea of seeing people besides these four soldiers makes me feel more alive than ever before. I no longer feel so feeble and insignificant. My fears and desperate hopes have been replaced with joy and dreams.

Then I realized that I had gone through an undetectable depression. It should have been obvious to me, but it was almost too late for me. I'm so god damn lucky to have come across this amazing planet.

June 21st, 1003848 C.E.

My goddamn calculations were off. I woke up with the blaring alarms going off. After turning on the main screen, I discovered that we are on the moon. The Eagle is beyond repair, but its parts are salvageable. The escape pod is fully intact and currently facing directly towards Eden.

Thank god the scanner is still fully functional. I'm running it right now to see the current progress of Eden's sentient population. It would probably be a good idea to check if there is anyone else on the moon, too.

For some reason, Hermes and Poseidon aren't getting up. They're probably trying to get some real sleep. I can't blame them, becau

FINAL LOG ENTRY COMPLETE. REPLAY LOG? (Y/N)

"No."

The pocket-sized screen shut off just before Zeus closed the thin, black notebook. After a long pause and a sigh, he spoke remorsefully.

"God, how could this happen? The Eagle's a useless hunk of scrap now, and we can't fix it. Now, where's the security camera footage I asked for? "

"Right here."

After receiving the cartridge from Poseidon, Zeus hastily thrust it into the bottom of the device.

"All right, let's see what this thing's got."

Zeus spoke as he opened the notebook and watched the red, green, and blue colors instantly form an image.

"Play: 17.2 minutes ago."

The device replied by springing the image on the screen to life. Although most of the area was still, there was Apollo sitting at the scanner while typing away at his journal.

The video viewed much of the single-roomed ship. Zeus noticed the cryogen chambers in the back, and the scanner nearer to the camera and on the left. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all colored a solid dark silver.

Apollo wore a serious look of concentration. His pale blue eyes never looked away from the journal. His short, light brown hair was sticking up oddly near the back of his head. Without a doubt, it was a result of thousands of years of sleep.

Suddenly, the wall creaked. Apollo ignored it and continued typing his final journal entry. On Zeus's end, the screen slightly lagged. The creaking swiftly rose to the screaming of triple-layered supersteel. With a final, explosive cry of pain from the wall, the hull split open. However, the hole produced was a quite neat square.

If Apollo hadn't wondered what was going on before, he certainly was now. As he turned towards the gap in The Eagle, his eyes widened simultaneously with the viewer's.

There stood a tall, black and blue winged unicorn. It stood about as high as Apollo, probably higher. Its long mane was dark as the most gloomy night, and its sinister gaze easily penetrated Apollo's already weakened mind.

After a long stare between the two, the unicorn spoke.

"How nice of you to visit me. It's been awfully lonely here on the moon."

She, or at least what sounded like a she, looked around at the immediate area.

"What an uncomfortable looking home. I hope you don't mind me visiting, or else I'll mind your visit."

Apollo took the hint and shrank back while his right arm hid itself under the desk. Wildly shaking, he spoke to direct her attention away from his arm.

"Wh-wh-who are you?"

"You don't know who I am? Pity. I am Nightmare Moon, rightful ruler of Equestria! Its citizens fear me, and even Princess Celestia herself cannot match my power!"

Even though the sheer enormity of the royal Canterlot voice took Apollo by surprise, he still found himself pointing a small but intimidating gun at Nightmare Moon. Even Apollo could only guess how his weapon got there.

She simply laughed.

"You don't want me here? I don't care. I'll stay here as long as I like."

A dark blue glow surrounded Nightmare Moon's long and pointy horn. Moments later, an identical glow trapped the gun as it flew out of Apollo's grip.

"Now, let us take care of this camera in the corner. We don't want anypony eavesdropping on our nice chat."

Both heads turned towards Zeus along with the barrel of the sleek Glock 41. Zeus's pulse rapidly accelerated as he saw the trigger pulled back in slow motion...

*BANG*

Zeus violently jerked backwards as he suddenly realized he was watching a recording. The last of Apollo he saw was a terrified, helpless, and innocent face before static engulfed the screen of the electronic journal.

"What the FUCK was THAT?"

All heads turned towards Zeus. There was a shaken Poseidon, an unaffected Hades, and a slightly frightened Hermes staring at him.

After a short pause, Hermes stepped forward and spoke up for the first time since Apollo's disappearance.

"Why don't we use the escape pod ?"

"The other one has already been activated, right? So you want all four of us cramped in that tiny-ass thing? You gotta be shitting me."

Poseidon yelled from behind the clean cut in The Eagle's hull.

"It's a thousand times better than a permanent vacation on the moon. Just let me finish my quick scan of Eden before we leave."

"Who put you in control, private! It's MY decision, and MY decision ALONE!"

The short lecture had a minimal effect on Poseidon. He simply shrugged and continued supervising his scan.

"Although… I agree that it's better than staying here…"

Zeus took a pause to look at his comrades. He finally realized that he couldn't even see their faces behind their radiation-blocking helmets. In fact, they all looked exactly the same in their bulky blue-colored armor. After a moment, Zeus shook his head and decided that it wasn't worth thinking about.

"All right, let's roll. You done over there, Poseidon?"

"Yep."

"What've we got?"

"Approximately 4.4 million sentient life forms on Eden, sir."

"Excellent. I just hope they're friendly. What about this god-forsaken rock?"

"Nobody here besides us..."

"So Apollo's on Eden?"

"No. You see… n… none of the life forms are human…"

At this, everyone slowly tilted their heads downward. They stared at the ground for about two minutes, thinking about their loss. Apollo, one of Earth's most brilliant minds, had disappeared without a trace.

As they stared, they paid no attention to the powdery white substance more still than even death itself. Instead, they were staring at the void in their mind where Apollo used to be. All of them had experienced death before, but nothing like this. Apollo was the heart and soul of the mission; the one who organized the entire project in the first place. He sacrificed everything to find another planet with sentient life. He sacrificed everything… including his own life.

Hermes finally broke the silence.

"Let us explore Eden… in memory of Apollo."

"Amen."

Yay for my first fanfic!

This chapter was previously uploaded about 5 months ago on fanfiction.net. I'll upload one old chapter every day until I've caught up (believe me, it won't take long).

Constructive criticism is encouraged, even from grammar Nazis! This is my first fic after all, so I won't be surprised if I have some mistakes I overlooked.

Thanks in advance!

Contact

"Life support system is normal. ETA to Eden, 1 day."

"Good. Are we in range to take a good look at Eden?"

"Yes, sir. Calibrating zoom..." Poseidon paused mid-sentence to tap a few buttons. "... And there we go."

Everyone crowded together to get a look at the visual which appeared where the cockpit window used to be. It was essentially Earth with brighter forests, brighter oceans... brighter everything. The zoom was enough to see colossal land features, but that was about it.

"I can't see anyone."

"That's what you wanna see? Sorry 'bout that Hermes. I guess I'm equally curious to see if they're anything like... her..."

None of them wished to utter Nightmare Moon's name. If first impressions mean anything at all, it's a terrible idea to mess with her.

"All right, that should do it."

Hades chuckled and went back to his initial seat.

"Damn. That's a shit-load of horses right there." Poseidon and Hermes slowly nodded in agreement with Zeus. However, none of them appeared to be completely surprised.

The projection over the cockpit showed a town full of horses colored from red to violet and everything in between. Unicorns, pegasi, and those with neither horn nor wings were equally represented.

The roads they were traveling on were dirt roads, and the architecture seemed to be a mix of colonial and modern style. All of it was nearly blinding with its bright colors.

"Of all the possible places we could've come across, we get a little girl's dream world."

Hades relatively loudly turned towards the wall closest to him. "Hades? What's up?"

"...Shut up."

"Aaalways a pleasure. Anyways, let's run a scan on the geography. It'll take a while before we can upload it to our nanocomputers."

The rest of the crew returned to the places they were sitting or standing before Poseidon's interruption. Hades sat on the ground in a corner and Zeus sat in a rather comfortable chair, considering he was in an escape pod. Poseidon was at the computer with Hermes looking over his shoulder.

"So," Poseidon decided to initiate another chat. "What do we do once we get down there?"

"We find out what kind of government those freaky things could've come up with. If we don't like it, we can take it down and replace it with a proper republic."

Hermes appeared appalled by his statement. "Zeus... why bother? We could leave them alone and explore the planet instead."

"And here I was thinking you were too passive to argue."

Zeus flicked a lighter and lit a cigar.

"It's simple. Most governments back on Earth probably wouldn't be extremely friendly to otherworldly beings. They'd run tests on the aliens. Hundreds of them. But we'll fight back. If this government treats us poorly..."

The cigar was spit into Zeus's hand.

"We crush them."

His still-new cigar was transformed into a pile of black dust in his grip of steel.

At that moment, an alarm began torturing the escape pod's crew.

"Shhhhhit! How many damn alarms can you hear within a day!"

Hades instantly charged towards the controls for the pod's defense system. Poseidon furiously typed away at the main computer to find the source of the alarm. Hermes found the alarm override and forced the button down. Zeus was left with nothing to do but watch. Poseidon found the info he was looking for a few minutes after the alarm's shutdown.

"I have bad news and good news, everyone. The bad news is that the other escape pod exploded. The good news is that we've seen the last of that scary bitch from earlier."

All of them breathed a sigh of relief.

"All right, now let's get busy and look for a good landing site."

Escape Pod #2, 30 minutes prior

Apollo recollected his thoughts as he sat in a small, cylindrical pod.

"Damn, what was that thing? It seemed to be capable of breathing without oxygen... I should research it if I get the chance."

His face became twisted in confusion as he looked through the 5-inch-thick glass window at Eden

"At least I had my oxygen mask on. If I was completely exposed, I would be dead. Come to think of it, I almost died anyways..."

The Eagle: 15 minutes prior

"Wh... what do you want from me?"

"I want to practice my magic on you just before I depart this wretched rock of a moon. However..."

Nightmare Moon grinned with an evil and slightly eager smile.

"...I mostly want to have fun."

At this, her horn was engulfed by a dark blue glow for the second time since arriving in The Eagle, but with one difference. The glow steadily rose in intensity. Its blinding light was spectacular to the eye as it grew brighter and brighter. Just as Apollo thought that it couldn't get any more amazing, it did. This thought went through his head again and again and again until he noticed a thin veil surrounding him.

"Shit."

Apollo then felt as if his entire body, inside and out, was being shredded to pieces. He floated into the air and nearly lost consciousness, but willed himself to stay awake. At this point, he began to shrug off the excruciating pain.

All I need is an opportunity to run... I only need about two seconds to run to the escape pods. How will I distract her...?

Apollo's question was never answered. Nightmare Moon suddenly started gasping for air from the sheer amount of energy she expended to cast her spell.

Yes! She couldn't finish it!

Even as his mind raced, Apollo was running. His heart thundered against his chest while Apollo almost broke the launch button. Even 10 minutes later, his heart would beg for freedom from Apollo's rib cage.

Back at the ship, Nightmare Moon was laughing.

"That fool thinks he's outsmarted me. He'll learn how wrong he is very soon..."

Nightmare Moon galloped out of The Eagle and flew towards Equestria.

Escape Pod #2

Apollo was brought back to reality by one of the most deafening noises he could think of.

"Warning: trajectory incorrect. Pod exterior overheating."

"Shut up! I need to focus!"

"Warning: Temperature leak inside pod."

"SHUT UP!"

The rising heat of the pod didn't help Apollo's mediocre piloting skills as he found himself dive bombing towards the planet. The immense pressure from multiple Gs made it even worse. Apollo pulled back on the throttle to disengage the engines.

Hopefully that will keep me from speeding up... wait a sec! The eject button!

Apollo bashed the eject button even harder than he had for the launch button. A gap appeared in the top of the spacecraft, then the chair was sent flying out of the escape pod. A moment later, the pod ignited on the exterior. The fire engulfed the interior within seconds, then it exploded into thousands of tiny shards. One of them singed Apollo's hair as it flew by above his left ear.

Good, I'm safe. Now the last thing to do is to activate the parachute.

Instead of finding the parachute, he found a pair of bright green hooves where his hands used to be.

This was Apollo's last realization before blacking out.

Over the next few days, he strayed along the line between consciousness and unconsciousness. At some times Apollo was more awake than other times. With every time he regained consciousness, he became more aware of his surroundings. Eventually, Apollo recognized that he was lying on a soft bed. He bolted up as soon as he realized this.

Apollo awoke in a plain room with about 10 beds, including the one he was laying on. After a few moments, he deduced that he was in an infirmary.

Yeah... a fall like that can leave you injured for a long while. Speaking of that fall...

He looked at where his hands used to be.

This has got to be either some sick, cruel joke or a dream. It's the only possible explanation for what happened on The Eagle and the events after.

After giving his new hooves a long, hard look, Apollo abruptly ceased to be fascinated with them. Instead, he turned his head backwards to see if he had wings. Apollo saw his new neon green body with a thick tail with two shades of navy green. He saw no wings, so he poked the top of his head to check for a horn. He winced when his hoof met his head earlier than expected.

I guess that makes me some kind of unicorn. What the hell would make me dream of unicorns? A Wrinkle in Time or something? Hah. What happens now, IT comes to make me its mind slave?

Apollo attempted to get out of bed, only to discover that one of his hind legs was in a cast.

"Ugh, great. Now I can't do anything."

"Hm? Oh, you're awake!"

A white mare with a pink mane stepped away from her medicine storage. She was about half the size of Nightmare Moon, unless Apollo's sense of size was distorted from his transformation.

"You fell from very high. Somepony used their magic to try to catch you, but as you can see they weren't completely successful." She pointed towards Apollo's cast.

"Yeah, I noticed." He decided to play along. After all, it had been a while since Apollo had had a dream.

"Anyways, I don't think I know your name."

"Oh, sorry. It's Nurse Redheart. I must be getting tired... long day."

Apollo nodded slowly. He had been in that situation far too often. Then he pondered for a few moments on which name to use before deciding.

"My name's Apollo."

"Mhmm."

"Do you know when I'll be back on my feet?"

"What? Oh, from three to six weeks, depending on if you can get help from a unicorn doctor. We called for one from Canterlot, but we don't know if he'll have the time to come."

Nurse Redheart sighed and gave up looking for something. "Oh well, I guess I'll go to bed now. You'd be best to do so as well. You have a long way to recovery."

"Thanks."

"No problem at all."

Apollo understandably had a very difficult time falling to sleep.

All right... so I won't be moving very much for at least three weeks. That should probably account for my entire dream. Unless... it isn't a dream? Come to think of it, how could I be so injured in a dream? In a dream as vivid as this, I should be able to do anything...

"FUCK!" Apollo crashed his front hooves on the bed in rage.

Even though nobody else was in the building, Apollo instantly regretted yelling. Either way, he was furious at Nightmare Moon.

Why the hell would she care, anyways? She could've done something, anything else to practice her magic.

He shook his head gently.

No... I can't think about this while I need sleep. I'll save it for tomorrow...

Apollo closed his eyes and eventually slept.

Escape Pod #1

The pod arrived at its destination in the middle of the night. It had a significantly better landing than the second pod, especially since Zeus was a considerably better pilot than Apollo.

Oddly enough, the sky seemed to have a dark purple tint to it, as if it were sundown. The moon was obscured by the forest full of evergreen trees that they had landed near. Their landing site itself was in a forest lightly populated with birch trees. They were atop a tiny hill with a few flowers here and there.

Scattered dirt patches served as a natural border between the evergreen forest and the other parts of the world. Those areas didn't seem to receive enough sunlight to grow grass, but didn't have enough decaying organisms for fungi. It also had too much sunlight for the dark navy green grass of the forest which was adapted to much lower amounts of light

"Don't forget your weapons. We don't know if all of these creatures are hostile or not yet."

Hades didn't need a reminder to bring along his heavy machine gun. Zeus carried a knife in a belt sheath, two grenades, and an M18A4 assault rifle. Poseidon brought along another M18A4, except without any other weapons. It took a long time to force Hermes to carry Apollo's Glock. Half of the reason for avoiding it was the fact that the last person to carry it died. The other half was Hermes' reluctance to fight. The group also brought out a sniper rifle for good measure, as per Hades's recommendation.

"Now let's set up a forward base. Poseidon, Hades, you put up some tents. Hermes, man up and help them. I'll start a fire. We want to conserve our flashlights as long as possible."

Within thirty minutes, they had four tents pitched and a fire with enough firewood nearby to last into the day. There were no horses in sight, since they were far away from the nearest road.

"I think they're called ponies, general. After all... she... said 'somepony'." Hermes spoke up in response to Zeus talking to himself.

"That's marshal, sergeant."

"Pfft, self-appointed marshal."

"Piss off, Poseidon. If one of us had to be a marshal, it'd be me."

There was a sufficient amount of truth in Zeus's words. Poseidon wasn't experienced enough, and Hades was too quiet. That didn't explain why Hermes was a sergeant, though.

"Whaaatever. What's your rank, Hades?"

"He's a captain. I was the one who suggested him for that promotion." Zeus answered quickly in Hades' stead.

"Hey, let Hades talk next time. He can't fight if he doesn't communicate."

"Trust me, he won't talk . Hades only talks when he needs to. That means during battle."

Poseidon looked around for Hades. He found Hades looking for the sniper rifle in the tents.

"...We better get some sleep before Hades shoots someone." Poseidon said nervously.

"Good idea."

"What about recon?" Hermes spoke more eagerly than usual.

"Wait for tomorrow. That's an order."

Nobody talked after Zeus's command.

Everyone at the forward base plus Apollo had similar dreams that night. Though none of them would remember their dreams at all in the morning, the experience would impact them for a long time.

All of them were haunted by Nightmare Moon's frozen cold heart and fear of a highly uncertain future.

Hermes and Poseidon were terrified by Nightmare Moon as well as the increasing odds of a very bloody first contact.

Apollo was nearly driven to insanity over the idea of leaving humanity. He had finally discovered the reality of his situation just before falling asleep, and his nightmare reflected his grief like a mirror.

Zeus had his death-ridden past thrown into the mix in his dream. He saw his entire dead family, just to see them depart again. It was if they only wished to torture Zeus further.

As for Hades, he was left helpless without a gun, the object he had relied on to obliterate all of his threats.

Hades was the first of any of them to escape from his terrors. He instantly flew up out of bed to retrieve his weapon. He basked in the comfort it gave him for about a minute, then left the tent.

The sun had not quite risen, but it would rise soon according to the brightening pink glow on the horizon opposite of the forest. Hades sat down next to the fire to watch the sky just before sunrise. The fire had disappeared, but its light would be replaced by the yellow-orange light of the sun.

"Can't sleep?" Zeus had apparently awoken as well.

Hades twisted his head to see the newcomer. Once he discovered the source of the voice, he turned back towards the east .

"Thinkin' about... Nightmare Moon?" Zeus summoned all of his courage to utter the frightening pony's name.

"No... about how we got in this mess and how Apollo is gone... stuff like that."

"Hm."

The two of them remained still for a while thinking about it. Hades broke the silence.

"Ya know, Apollo actually inspired me. His enthusiasm got me enthusiastic, and his sadness got me sad for the first time in a long time."

Zeus nodded and started a reply. "I know what you mean. We were... lucky to have a comrade like him."

Hades pointed towards the east as the first rays of light breached the dark night sky.

"Look. Sunrise."

At first, there were a few purple-pink-colored puffy clouds to the far east. The color of these clouds spread at a snail's pace towards the clouds closest to them. As this occurred, purple-pink turned into hot pink, sending shock-waves of brightness again. Now the open sky took on a brighter color as well. Pink became brighter, sending more waves. Brighter pink became faint yellow which became yellow, then the tip of the sun peered into the exhausted land. After about a quarter of the sun was visible, Hades couldn't look at its blinding gaze any longer.

"Anyways, we had a rough night, but we'll survive." Zeus attempted to bring Hades into a slightly better mood.

"I hope we can say the same about the first horse we encounter." Poseidon joined the chat in a worried voice.

"They're ponies, I deduced it yesterday."

Now it was both Zeus' and Hades' time to turn around and look at the newcomers. Hades stood up and prepared for another conversation.

"Horse, pony, doesn't matter." Zeus spoke in an annoyed voice.

"It matters to them." Hermes retorted.

"All right then," Poseidon gave in and corrected himself. "The first pony we encounter. Either way, don't shoot 'em until we talk to them... If all of them can speak, that is. Poker?"

All of the other soldiers shook their heads.

"No time for games."

"We have work to do."

"C'mon, we have nothing else to do."

"Do I need to use more orders?" Zeus' nanocomputer vibrated in his pocket, indicating the presence of another large life form nearby.

He conjured his nanocomputer, a notebook much like Apollo's journal, and opened it, folding the front cover onto the back.

"Looks like someone strayed off the road. Move out and capture the creature with a surround."

"Yes, sir!" Even Hades added his voice to the affirmative.

Hades and Hermes took the long route around to the corners of an imaginary square around the moving target. There was no underbrush, but the trees obscured enough vision to make the task easy. Zeus and Poseidon split to complete the square, then Zeus gave the command to close. He communicated via a mic and speaker built into everyone's armor. Once the target became visible, they saw a yellow pony with a symbol of three butterflies on her flank.

Hades was the first to notice that the mare seemed to be searching for something.

Have we been spotted? Too late for her anyways...

He leaped out of a bush and tackled the stunned pony. Her hooves refused to let her flee. Before she knew it, the pony was on the ground looking down the barrel of a gun.

"Do you understand me?"

No answer.

"Do you understand me!"

Hades noticed a slow nod. He then waved for the others to cease hiding and help with the interrogation. Poseidon took over.

"First things first... where are we? What the hell is going on?"

"I... I... eep!" She spoke softly in a manner that clearly revealed her fear.

Judging from the four men's face-palms and sighs, they could tell they weren't getting anywhere anytime soon.

"All right then, let me rephrase that. What... ah..." Poseidon paused and moved his eyes up to think of a universal word for country. "What civilization are we in? I'm assuming you have one?"

"C-civilization? You mean Equestria?"

Zeus snorted and commented on it sarcastically. "Equestria. What a fitting name. Can't wait for more horse-related words and names."

"Um, I-I'm a p-pony... not a horse..."

"Horse, pony, no difference! Now, what the hell is going on?"

The mare's sky blue eyes grew and turned away from Zeus.

"You dare..." Zeus was cut off by Hermes.

"Wait, I'll take care of it." Hermes stepped forward and kneeled to get eye contact. "What's your name?"

She mumbled. Hermes rotated his head with his ear facing the pony in response.

"I... I'm Fluttershy..." Although Fluttershy's words were hardly audible, Hermes deciphered it.

"All right, tell us about Equestria. Fluttershy." He added her name to encourage an illusion of peace, even with someone's weapon aimed at Fluttershy at all times.

"Oh, um, I don't know that much... except that Princess Celestia raises the Sun and-"

"HAH! Bullshit! It's just your average absolute monarchy. The citizens treat their leader like a god." Zeus slowly lowered his gun without realizing it as he spoke.

Fluttershy finally broke down and ran off. Zeus was stunned for a second from Fluttershy's sudden surge of courage. Hades started looking around to find out who had carried the sniper rifle, since Fluttershy was already too far away for an average weapon.

"Hades, don't bother. The sniper rifle is back at the forward base. There's no way we can kill her now. We just need to hope God's on our side today." Zues took a cigar from one of his many hidden pockets.

Poseidon bore a fearful expression on his face. He had fully realized what could happen if the word spread about them.

"All right team, back to base."

"Yes sir!"

Magic

Apollo sat in his hospital bed while peering out a window. Three to six weeks is a long time to do nothing, as he had realized after just one day. There weren't even any other ponies to chat with. Nurse Redheart always had something to do. More often than not, she wasn't even in the same room.

Then he heard footsteps, err, hoofsteps coming from behind the door.

"Apollo? You have a visitor." He turned his head away from one of the only windows in the room to see a purple unicorn with a violet mane and a pink stripe.

"...Do I know you?" Apollo questioned.

"Ah, no. My name is Twilight Sparkle. I caught you when you fell yesterday. I heard that you woke up, so I came to ask you a few things."

"All right, anything personal?"

"Well, all of them are personal."

"Great." Apollo remarked sarcastically. "Ask away."

Twilight magically brought a scroll out of her satchel. "So... what's your name?"

"Apollo."

Twilight checked off a question on her list. "Occupation?"

"Scientist." There was more movement of Twilight's quill.

"Okay, where are you from?"

"Uhh... ahh..."

"Wait a second, are you from Equestria?" Twilight started to look increasingly curious.

"Um, yes?" Her curious gaze turned into suspicion.

"Who is Princess Celestia?"

Apollo gave Twilight the best 'wtf' look he could give before sighing and answering reluctantly. "Fine, I admit it, I'm not from Equestria."

"Then where?" She took on her curious face again.

"Ah, uh, hm..." Apollo searched his mind for a believable reply, only to realize the risk of a backfire was too great.

"A different planet entirely."

"That's better... wait what?"

"The third planet rotating around the star Sol, in the Milky Way galaxy. I'm not sure if I'm still in the same galaxy or not, though."

"Ah..." Twilight thought fast to formulate a reassuring sentence which would lead Apollo to talk more. "Sounds interesting. A few books I read cover other planets with life. Theories, of course. This proves it all." Apollo saw right through the attempt, but decided to play along. He had determined that the best course of action was to cooperate, since he saw this chat as an interrogation.

"So you're just going to believe me?"

"Of course! You seem like a nice enough pony. Although... I can't imagine the odds that you would be a pony. The odds of a near identical species developing from a different evolutionary chain is astronomically low."

"I'm not. Or rather, I was not. I used to be human." Apollo looked gloomily down at his hooves. After noticing Twilight's bewilderment, he added on to his statement. "A bipedal mammal with neither fur nor tail."

"The-... how... wha...?"

"I met some mare after my spacecraft crashed on this planet's moon... she called herself-"

"Nightmare Moon." Now Twilight looked grimly through the window and at the sky. "Let's just say that she isn't your average pony."

"Understood. She... used some kind of magic on me..."

Twilight frowned. "What kind of magic?"

"No idea. I can't explain it at all..."

"Hmm..."

"Hah. You don't have to believe that. It's a miracle that you have believed everything else."

"...All right, I'll have to research it... Anyways, I'm going to try to help you with your injury." Twilight noticed Apollo being completely taken off guard and wide-eyed. She couldn't help but giggle.

"With Nurse Redheart's permission, of course. I know, I'm a student not a doctor, but I'll do what I can."

Apollo remained tense and mildly uneasy.

"I'm only teasing. I've read a few books on the matter."

"Experience always overcomes knowledge..."

"Don't worry. I have plenty of experience when it comes to magic."

"I hope you're right. I'm ready." Despite his words, Apollo was still quite nervous.

Whitetail Wood

Fluttershy sped through the forest using her wings to help her run faster than ever before.

Oh my goodness... what were those things? They were so scary... Wait, where am I going anyways?

Without even realizing it, Fluttershy was going directly to Rainbow Dash's house. After discovering this, she decided to stay on her course and tell Rainbow about what happened.

Fluttershy finally arrived after what seemed like hours and stopped to gasp for air. She pounded on the door desperately once she caught her breath.

"RAINBOW DASH! HELP!"

The door of the cloud-house catapulted open, leaving Fluttershy on the ground. Behind the door was a pegasus with a teal coat and a rainbow mane. The front of her mane sported red, orange, and yellow, while the back of it had green, blue, and purple.

"Whoa whoa whoa, I'm right here!" Rainbow Dash replied.

"Oh... sorry... it's just that there's a few scary things near the Everfree Forest and they... *sniff* attacked me..."

"They did WHAT! See ya later Fluttershy, I'll take care of 'em!"

"Thanks... but, um, please be careful..." Rainbow Dash was already too far away with the wind in her ears to hear Fluttershy.

So... they were near the Everfree Forest... but where? Gah, I should've asked where Fluttershy was exactly.

Rainbow spent about 10 minutes hovering above sections of the border of the forest before finding what she was looking for.

There were four strange bipedal creatures sitting around a dead campfire.

That must be them!

Rainbow Dash charged down with every ounce of speed in her, until she heard a loud noise echo in the forest. She stopped dead in her tracks.

"What the...?"

Another bang and Rainbow felt a throbbing pain in her right wing. As she quickly scanned over it, she found a small hole about the size of a coin.

"Huh? That's not right..."

A third shot went right past her ear, and Rainbow Dash finally decided to flee. With all of her effort, she managed to flap her right wing violently to make up for all of the lost air from the hole. It took her about half an hour just to arrive safely at the hospital.

Ponyville Hospital

"There! Now it'll just be about a few days to a week." Twilight awaited Apollo's response.

"Wh-what did you do...?"

"Simple, actually. I moved the broken bones closer to each other, like solving a jigsaw puzzle. Then I slightly sped up the reproduction of the bone cells."

"Wait, you know about cells?" Apollo followed the explanation completely, but was astonished by the level of scientific knowledge that these ponies had.

"Of course I-" Twilight was interrupted by the door creaking open. She pivoted to see...

"Rainbow! What happened?"

"Nothing much..." Rainbow Dash trotted to one of the beds unhindered, and then extended her wings. A drop of blood fell on the floor from the small patch of red on Rainbow's cyan wing.

"What the... how did that hole get there?" Nurse Redheart finally unveiled the problem.

"A hole? How?" Twilight rushed to Rainbow to get a closer look.

"Well, Fluttershy said some jerk attacked her, so I went near the Everfree Forest to check it out. I was flying above the border between Whitetail and Everfree when I saw a few weird creatures. A few loud noises later, and I was flying crooked all the way here."

Twilight and Apollo in particular were intrigued by the story.

"By loud noises, what do you mean?" Twilight asked.

Apollo immediately followed up. "What kind of creatures?"

"Well, they kinda looked like tall, fur-less monkeys... and the noises were nothing like I'd ever heard before. Sounded pretty cool though, if my wing wasn't injured."

"Those sons of- agh!"

"What are you doing! You still need to recover more!" Nurse Redheart instantly pushed Apollo back into bed.

"Those people... how many were there?" Apollo had given up on escaping the bed, but persisted with questions.

Rainbow Dash frowned and attempted to remember. "Didn't count them, but there was at least two."

"This is bad... very very bad..." Apollo continued after receiving multiple confused looks. "I didn't come alone; there were four others with me."

"Hold on, what the hay are you

talking about? And why can we trust you?" Rainbow noisily added.

"Keep... your wings... still!" Nurse Redheart said, obviously agitated.

"Oh, sorry." Rainbow Dash extended her wings farther again.

"I was telling Twilight that I'm not from here earlier. That's all you need to know. You can choose to trust me or not."

Twilight shot an accusing look at Apollo and took up where he left off. "He's not from this planet."

Rainbow wasn't convinced. "Hah, fat chance. How hard did you hit your head?"

"I didn't. I landed on my hind leg. That's how I broke it."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Anyways, two of them have relatively good intentions. The other two are a different story... they'll attack anyone at the first sign of hostility... or sometimes even before it."

"So... you thinking what I'm thinking, Rainbow?" Twilight said after a pause.

"Kick their hindquarters out of town?"

Twilight facehoofed. "No, use the Elements of Harmony on them."

"Oh, yeah, that should work too. If we can even make it close enough to them."

"Wait, Elements of Harmony? What?"

"It's what we used to bring Nightmare Moon back to good. Long story short, it turned out me, Rainbow Dash, and four of my other friends represent the elements." Twilight explained.

"Oh. If they can do that, then they can do just about anything."

"All right, let's get going!" Rainbow Dash was already eager to leave.

"Don't. They're probably expecting an army to attack them by now." Apollo cautioned calmly.

"All right then, how about when you're fully healed, Rainbow?" Twilight added.

The pegasus in question groaned. "Fine..."

"All right, it's settled then. Apollo, how about I get you some books for while you're here?"

"Please. It'd be better than staying here with only Rainbow to accompany me for a week."

"Hey!"

"I'll be back in a few minutes, then."

Twilight left the room, and Apollo suddenly noticed that Nurse Redheart had left a while ago.

"So, what did you mean you're not from this planet? Are you a spy from the Moon?" Rainbow Dash questioned.

"Hah, no. There isn't nearly enough materials on this planet's moon to construct an escape pod with thrusters powerful enough to-"

Rainbow interrupted Apollo to spare herself from the details "Whatever. You could've magic'd yourself here though."

"I didn't even know magic existed until a few days ago."

Rainbow Dash giggled while attempting to hold back laughter. "Really? A unicorn who doesn't know that magic exists?"

"I wasn't a unicorn before either... or pony at all, for that matter." Apollo said reluctantly.

"This just keeps getting better and better!"

"Oh, shut up."

Rainbow stopped talking, but couldn't stop chuckling until Apollo spoke again.

"Anyways, I was telling Twilight earlier that I'm from a planet much like this one."

"Like, how much like this one? Is it just as cool?" For once, Rainbow Dash seemed legitimately interested.

"Well, I haven't been here long, but I can still compare them. I've heard stories about when there were forests acres wide, and they weren't even at protected areas. It was all ruined by technology... especially pollution. Black Mesa can suck my bankrupt-"

"Uhh, about the planet?" Starting with the part about technology, Rainbow Dash couldn't follow what Apollo was saying at all.

"Right. It's a long story that I don't know much about, but it used to be more like this place. In contrast, this place is, in essence, perfect. A true Garden of Eden. Speaking of which, is there a name for this planet?" Rainbow tilted her head up and frowned in thought for a second, mostly to process what the hay Apollo had said.

Twilight joined the conversation before Rainbow got a chance to speak. "Equestria is the largest kingdom in the known world, and as such we refer to the planet as Equestria. Equestria encompasses every piece of dry land we know of, after all."

"Kingdom? As in a monarchy or a monarch with his power spread between a larger group?" Apollo instantly asked.

"A diarchy. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna govern all of it. But there's more about that in one of these books."

Twilight had already laid her satchel on the bed nearest to Apollo's. She had begun plopping books on Apollo's bed one by one with her magic until a total of seven books were emptied out. "One for each day of the week." Twilight explained.

"You should probably read the Beginner's Guide to Magic first." Twilight laid the said book in front of Apollo. "It would make it easier to get the other books, especially since you can't walk."

"All right. Thanks."

"No problem!" With these words, Twilight took her leave again.

Magic, huh. I hope it's easier than it sounds.

Apollo flipped open the book to the first page. Upon noticing the first few pages were of the title, author, and author's notes, he skipped them. Apollo began reading on the first interesting page he found.

First off, what is magic? Magic is the ability to manipulate your environment using the energy in you body. This energy is focused through your horn, so if you're a pegasus or an earth pony, you might as well stop reading.

So that means not all ponies can use magic? I guess that makes sense.

Using your horn, you can focus your energy and release it into your environment.

How do you find your energy? Simple. Every living pony has energy. Know this, and it's easy. First, you have to stay completely calm. Then, you search in the center of your body, until you find a pull. All you have to do is bring it out by channeling it through your horn.

Apollo looked away from the book and began his course through the steps.

So I have to stay calm...

Apollo took several deep breaths.

Then search in the center of my body for a pull. What would be the center? Near my lungs? My stomach? My heart? Only one way to find out...

Apollo took a minute to focus on each part of his body. He began with the lungs, then the heart, then the stomach with no success.

Wait a second, the center of my body? That must mean my brain!

He delved into the depths of the brain. Beneath its many layers, in the center, he found a mystical power he had never seen in himself before.

Now I just need to pull it out. All right, deep breath in... deep breath out, and... now.

To start, Apollo had a constant fizzle at the tip of his horn. As Apollo called upon his newfound power more, it began to grow, but still at a fizzle. With one final surge of willpower, Apollo's struggle with his mind was over. His horn was surrounded by a turquoise aura. Apollo couldn't help but smile.

Wow... unreal... This is amazing! I feel incredible!

"Haha, if you think that's hard, you don't even know."

Rainbow Dash's comment annoyed Apollo greatly. He shot a glance at Rainbow, then continued reading.

Escape Pod #1 Landing Site

"No sign of it anywhere... are you sure you shot that pony out of the sky, Hades?" Poseidon turned towards the one who wielded a sniper rifle about fifteen minutes prior.

"Positive."

"Well whether you did or not, it's not here. We better go back before Zeus calls us back."

About a minute later, the duo arrived at the forward base.

"No sign of the pony Hades shot, sir."

"I still don't see any reason to shoot a civilian." Zeus accused Hades.

"I told you before, it was charging straight towards us."

"Hostile civilian? Don't shoot 'em for God's sake, at the most use a taser." Zeus stood up and stopped to think.

"All right then, fine. We don't know what these things are capable of anyways. Once we know, we'll hold back as we deem necessary. But..."

Zeus paused again, this time for just a couple of moments.

"We can't do much at the moment. We still need to gather intel about Equestria. It's safe to say these ponies probably won't treat us very kindly, but we still need to confirm it. We should take turns doing recon missions routinely. Don't get too close to the town, but gather as much news as possible. Hermes, you come with me."

Zeus and Hermes rose up and started walking towards the town they had discovered that day. They avoided the road, yet traveled about twenty-five feet away. A little calibration on the microphones outside of their helmets, and Zeus and Hermes could pick up every single whisper and hoofstep.

A long while later, they came close to the town they discovered to be called Ponyville. It was the exact same town as the one they saw through the zoom in the escape pod.

"All right, we should be fine staying here. All we need to hear right now is the local gossip." Zeus explained.

Hades nodded and began listening to the daily chats of the ponies.

"There's talk of dragons in these parts." "Yeah, one of them was sleeping in that mountain a couple days ago."

"Dragons? That could be trouble." Hermes uttered.

"Yeah, but a 'nade in the mouth and they won't know what hit 'em. Keep listening." Zeus' voice slowly rose as he spoke.

"Did you hear about the Summer Sun Celebration last week?" "I didn't. Did you?" "Nightmare Moon kidnapped Princess Celestia and wouldn't let her raise the sun."

Hermes and Zeus looked at each other with concerned and confused looks, and then looked back towards the town.

"Really? What happened next?" "Some six ponies used the Elements of Harmony to bring her back to being Princess Luna."

"Excuses to keep the worship going... It's still a good idea to let Poseidon know about it, though. He wouldn't stop ranting about that long night in that damned escape pod." Zeus said.

"Hi! Have you seen Fluttershy...? Oh, thanks anyways!"

"Hah. First good news so far."

"Zeus, cut down on the talking. We might get caught." Hermes whispered.

"Oh, right."

After around an hour of eavesdropping on Ponyville conversations, Zeus and Hermes decided to head on back and report. When they left for the base, it was the beginning of sunset. They arrived in the darkness of night.

"Hey, you're finally back. What did you hear?" Poseidon was anxious to hear about the current events. Zeus spoke up about them after taking his seat at the newly lit campfire...

"Yeah, yeah. We took a while. Anyways, we heard a few interesting things. Apparently this place has dragons too. Hell, this is almost a full-on fantasy world now." Zeus said with a slightly solemn tone.

"Anything else?" Poseidon said.

"Oh right. Remember Nightmare Moon? Turns out she made it safely here. She kidnapped Princess Celestia for a few hours, and didn't let her raise the Sun, so the story goes. I heard at least three ponies talk about it, which confirms its validity."

"So that's what happened... it makes sense, I guess."

"What! How does that make any sense whatsoever?" The solemn part of Zeus' voice disappeared.

Poseidon spoke calmly. "Well, relatively. You have to admit that magic Nightmare Moon used on The Eagle was unexplainable, yet it happened. The extended night they had is explained by this, too."

"All true... ugh. One last thing. Some pony was talking some gibberish about magic. Didn't make any sense whatsoever. That's it for the interesting stuff... don't make me try to remember the other bullshit they said."

"I gotcha."

The group then sat silently for a good amount of time. Upon further investigation, Zeus noticed that Hades was already asleep. No doubt it was because he was the first to wake up.

"Anyways, I'm going to bed. We got up early today." Poseidon rose and walked towards his tent.

Without much else to do, Zeus and Hermes thought about nothing in particular. A half hour later, everyone was asleep.

Ponyville

Twilight walked across the dirt roads between Ponyville's beige houses with red roofs. Noticing the hospital, she decided to take an evening visit before calling it a day and going home. Twilight found Rainbow Dash asleep, and Apollo lost in the realm of books.

She waved her hoof in front of Apollo to gain his attention. He reacted by flinching. "Wow, didn't see you there."

"Which one are you reading?" Twilight asked.

"The one you suggested."

"Which is...? I don't have a perfect memory."

The book was surrounded by a turquoise aura, and then it was tilted upwards. The title was A Beginner's Guide to Magic.

Twilight smiled. "Show-off. What else did you learn?"

"Another one of the other simple ones, specifically a light spell." Apollo attempted to seem modest, but failed and instead spoke confidently.

"That's great progress! You should really get some rest though."

"Hmm..." Apollo frowned.

"It's all right, I know that feeling too. Just try to stop reading eventually. Good night." Twilight walked out. She closed the door with her hoof by hooking her hoof around the doorknob.

Apollo is exactly like how I was not too long ago... reading too much. But it doesn't add up... he's friendly, but how could anypony possibly adjust to their form so quickly? He spoke the truth about being a human before, proven by his knowledge of the odd visitors in the Everfree Forest. Hmm... Apollo must be hiding his feelings, or else he's hiding something else...

Twilight arrived at her tree house. Since nopony answered, she deduced that Spike must be asleep. She walked over to her scroll and quill and...

Twilight shook her head and reconsidered.

No, not right now. Spike is in bed already, and Princess Celestia is probably too busy anyways.

Although in reality, she knew that she was only making excuses. Word about this must get to the princess, but that didn't mean it was easy to say. After all, if everypony found out Apollo is an alien, he might lose his chance at a normal life in Ponyville.

Twilight spoke to herself while half asleep. "After we take care of the other humans, then I'll tell Princess Celestia about Apollo..."

(Fixed italics/bold/underline in chapter 2)

Just to make things absolutely clear, I'll be uploading one chapter a day until I hit chapter 5/6, depending on whether or not I finish 6 by then.

Yes, I'm doing it to bump the story.

Doubt

EDIT: This chapter is now long as hell.

Ponyville Hospital

Nurse Redheart had no idea that Apollo wasn't supposed to leave.

"I'm sorry, won't happen again. Assumptions can kill... could have been literal in this case." Nurse Redheart crammed as much as she could into five seconds of talking.

"It's fine, honestly. If his leg wasn't fully healed, he couldn't have gathered enough energy to teleport." Twilight eased the nurse's guilt with a partial lie. Teleporting while injured would still be an incredibly unlikely event, though.

"All right, back to work. Thanks for stopping by to resolve that. Oh, and here are the books that you left here." Nurse Redheart began to heave the books to Twilight, but she was stopped when the books were encased in a purple veil.

After receiving her books and placing them in her satchel, Twilight turned and trotted out the door to reunite with the patiently waiting ponies. This included Rainbow and Pinkie for once. Twilight then nodded a single time. Everypony else mimicked the action.

On the way to their destination, Apollo was too busy pondering the destination to notice how many ponies staring at his blank flank. Though he had known what his job would be on Earth ever since middle school, Apollo's uncertainty about how he could use his intelligence in Equestria prevented his realization of his talent.

As soon as he departed from his daydream imagining where he was going, Apollo turned red in the cheek from the presence of so many onlookers staring at him. Twilight took note of this and increased her pace.

Soon after, they arrived at a gigantic tree-house with several windows and a balcony near the top. Apollo was awestruck by the enormity of the tree, and payed no heed to the fact that everypony else was going inside. He shook his head and exited his trance, then entered Twilight's Library.

It was even more incredible on the inside. There were dozens of bookshelves with hundreds of books on each of them. Apollo noticed the presence of an upper floor with less books, but the mane six stopped and turned to face him at the side of the room opposite to the door. Or, at least, the members of the mane six that were there.

"Where's the other unicorn?" Apollo questioned.

"I asked Rarity to check the area around your bed in the hospital. You can never be too sure, especially with the explanation you gave us..." Twilight seemed a bit more friendly than when she was asking the questions. "Anyways, this situation calls for a full interrogation. We can't trust you when you have so much to hide."

"Understandable..." Apollo was looking at the ground in front of him, wondering about how many horrified reactions he would recieve.

"So... what is your specific occupation? 'Scientist' isn't enough this time."

"I am, or rather was, an aerospace engineer and astronomer. I was employed by the National Aeronautics and Space Defense Administration, or NASDA for short." Apollo stopped himself before mentioning NASDA's military background.

"Defense? Defense from what?"

I was hoping she wouldn't ask that...

Apollo bit his lip. "Defense from... foreign relations gone wrong."

Twilight detected Apollo in the act avoiding something. "How so?"

"As in hostile foreign relations." He avoided the topic of war yet again.

Twilight pierced Apollo's mind with her glare and continued her barrage of questions. "What kind of hostile foreign relations? And why is there so much worry about it?"

Gah! No avoiding it now...

Apollo sighed and prepared for the worst. "Human nature includes a severe tendency towards violence. War, crime, and terrorism are very prevalent dangers to every country..."

Everypony, including Pinkie, dropped their jaws and stared in disbelief. Twilight managed to scrape up the courage to press further.

"What kind of crime? And what is terrorism?"

"Crime can be anything from stealing a worthless object to mass murder. Terrorism..." Apollo winced. "...is spreading terror, usually by killing hundreds or thousands of people at a time. At times it can be over a trivial matter like a creationism belief..."

Twilight could not ask another question. She simply could not comprehend the hatred that humans must have for each other.

"I was payed by the military to make a deep-space vehicle. They hoped that it would eventually lead to space warfare. I only accepted because it had been my dream to explore the depths of space and find another planet with intelligent life..." Apollo looked away from the mortified ponies. "I assure you I am not like those people... I never would have accepted to construct a machine built for the sole purpose of destruction..."

Rainbow Dash shook away her nightmareish daydream and spoke everypony's mind.

"We can't trust you! What makes you think that claiming you're different will make any difference!"

"I agree... We need to report this to the princess." Everypony agreed with Twilight. "In the mean time-"

Rarity trotted into the room. "Hello! There's nothing there..." She trailed off as soon as she noticed the expressions on everypony's faces. "What... is going on...?"

"There wasn't anything...? Really?" Twilight almost seemed excited.

"Yes, I checked everywhere. I made the dreadfully messy beds too. Did I miss something?"

"Yes, a lot... you can catch up later." Twilight faced Apollo again. "Anyways, how did Rainbow get injured?"

"That's an easy one. She was shot with a gun. It's an object which uses gunpowder, a highly explosive substance, to propel a small metal cylinder called a bullet at speeds high enough to fly through just about anything."

"'Gunpowder?' What's that?"

"It's made of sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter. It's used in cannons and fireworks."

Twilight bit her lip and tilted her head downwards.

How could somepony take something fun like fireworks and turn it into a tool of destruction...?

"So ya know how to make gunpowder and ya expect us to trust you?" Applejack took a step towards Apollo.

"C'mon everypony, cheer up! Maybe he likes to make fireworks!" Pinkie Pie brought the tiniest bit of happiness into the interrogation.

"Actually, it was a substance I considered at one point for separating an escape pod from the main spacecraft. I never got it to work, though."

Twilight brought the group back to inquiring Apollo. "All right, let's get back on topic. If you don't like war, why don't you like it?"

Apollo sighed.

This is it... This is definitely the last question. This is my last chance to clear my name to these ponies.

"I believe that any form of violence is like fighting yourself. You're always hurting yourself in some way when you hurt somepony else. For example, by killing another you reduce the number of people, er, ponies you can befriend, or at least cooperate with. Most people back home don't fully realize that at all. Come to think of it, I didn't either..."

Are they starting to rub off on me? What am I even saying? Is this my true opinion or is it something I made up to sound less guilty?

It most likely isn't my opinion, but rather something I made up just so I don't appear to be a madman... I'm screwed if they figure that out. I've ignored the Element of Honesty, and the Elements of Harmony are the closest things to laws in Equestria. It's incredibly cheesy and yet it works better than any law system we've ever had on Earth. Almost a thousand years of total peace with the occasional tyrant who gets overthrown after a while. Discord failed and Nightmare Moon failed because of a bunch of qualities of friendship... What the hell! That only brings me in a full circle... how do the Elements of Harmony bring peace so easily?

Apollo brought himself back to reality and analyzed the current situation. The mane six were whispering to each other, then became silent and broke their huddle.

"We told Rarity what you said before, and we came to an agreement." Twilight informed.

Apollo recognized the hints of emotion in everypony's faces, and determined that they were certainly less grim than before.

"Since there was a complete lack of evidence to find any wrongdoings, we can trust you."

Even though he saw this coming, Apollo felt pleasantly surprised. He faintly smiled, then abandoned the serious tone he had used earlier for a more lively one.

"Well, that's a hell of a lot better than being completely guilty."

"BUT! If you do one thing to hurt anypony, I'll take care of you personally!" Rainbow Dash rashly added.

Apollo heavily nodded. "Anyways, you have no idea how terrible it is to be put under so much suspicion. Thanks."

Apollo looked at the faces of the mane six, then ceased to smile after a few moments.

"Where's Pinkie P-" *BOOM*

Apollo jumped and took cover under the table and noticed a few balloons around the room. A handful of pegasi came from upstairs and shouted: "Surprise!" The door burst open and dozens of ponies flooded in. Pinkie Pie was hysterically laughing on top of a blue cannon. Apollo lightened up and discovered that he was the recipient of an incredibly surprising surprise party.

"I'm right here, silly! That was the funniest reaction I've ever seen!"

Apollo decided not to take the comment personally and replied. "You really got me with that one Pinkie, but a party? You didn't have to..."

"I do a 'Welcome to Ponyville' party for everypony! I even did one for myself! That wasn't a surprise party, though. Anyways, let's party!"

The party lasted through the remainder of the afternoon and late into the night. The party would have seemed childish if Apollo was only watching it, but it was better than it seemed. Apollo found a great amount of warm welcomes and amiable discussions. By the end of the day, he could remember almost everypony's names. Pinkie Pie's cupcakes were better than any cupcakes Apollo had eaten before, and the same could be said about the punch. Even Pin the Tail on the Pony was a highly entertaining game for him, especially since he gave the pony a mustache by mistake. After the game was over, ponies gradually started to retire from the party.

Once almost everypony had gone home, the mane six discussed where Apollo should go to sleep.

"Most of our houses only have one bed excluding yours, Applejack. But I don't think Apollo would like to sleep at a farm very much... No offense."

"Ah agree, Twi. Anypony else have a spare bed?"

Rainbow Dash spoke up. "Well, I have one, but he can't walk on clouds... What about you, Fluttershy?"

"Oh, um, no..."

The mane six strained to think of an idea, until Twilight thought of one.

"How Apollo stays here? He wouldn't have to walk to anypony's house tonight, and he should appreciate the library."

Everypony agreed.

Once Pinkie Pie finally left about fifteen minutes later, the party officially ended. Spike, the purple baby dragon whom Apollo had met during the party, walked to bed like a zombie. Twilight offered her bed to Apollo, but he refused and proposed to sleep on the couch. Spike's blanket was taken by Apollo while Spike was asleep.

Apollo laid down and processed the day's events.

So all four of the team were gone when Twilight arrived at the campsite, and the campsite was at the top of a hill. According to Twilight it seemed to be hastily cleaned up, but she brought nothing back... Since nothing was brought back, I can safely assume nothing important was left behind. That doesn't make any sense...

He figuratively bashed his brain for answers.

What about inside the escape pod? There's no way that anypony could have gotten in since the campsite was evacuated... Gah, the hell with it. Nopony can get in, so I shouldn't worry about it. I can just sit back and relax for a while.

Apollo clambered downstairs to bring up the history book he had begun reading in the hospital, titled A Brief History of Equestria.

Hah, there's nothing brief about a book bigger than a dictionary. Now where was I... there was something about the beginning of Discord's tyranny...

He read about two dozen pages, then submitted to darkness.

Twilight lasted a long while after Apollo fell asleep that night.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Our journey in Whitetail Wood was quite tranquil. We trotted for a total of an hour and a half along the border of the Everfree Forest with no hindrances whatsoever. Despite this, the trip as a whole was unsuccessful. Instead of finding the enigmatic creatures I told you about, there was a rashly cleared campsite at the top of a hill. A bulky device on a tripod was present in short proximity from the campfire. I have no clues as to what purpose it serves. As for the creatures, I suspect they may be headed towards Canterlot. I found bizarre hoofprints which lead away from the campsite in that direction. They probably will not pose too much of a threat once they arrive, but I for one hope they will not arrive at all.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

Twilight purposefully avoided mentioning Apollo in case the princess would overreact. She proofread her letter once, twice, and thrice before finally feeling satisfied. She rolled the letter up and tied it shut with a red ribbon.

Should I wake up Spike, wait for morning then ask him, or send this via the postal service?

Due to the priority of the message, Twilight reluctantly decided to interrupt Spike's rest.

She nudged Spike with her snout and spoke in a near-whisper. "Wake up, Spike. I need you to send a letter."

"Wah...? This early?" Spike slackly peered towards Twilight with low eyelids.

"Come on Spike, it needs to get to Princess Celestia right away." She nudged Spike again.

"Okay, fine..."

Spike shot out a miniature lime green blaze which engulfed the scroll immediately. The fire diminished quickly, then disappeared with a strange popping noise.

"Hey, where's my blanket?" Spike became slightly more alert and scanned the room.

"Oh, I guess Apollo borrowed it. I'll get it for you." Twilight used a movement spell to relocate Spike's blue blanket. Apollo turned over on the couch.

"Thanks... Good night..." Spike thumped his head on the pillow of his tiny bed.

Apollo awoke about an hour after sunrise. The Sun was shining directly at his eyes, leading him to deduce that the blinding light had forced him to wake up. Apollo pivoted his head so that his face was buried in a pillow. As a result, Apollo's neck started to heat up until he couldn't ignore the nuisance any longer. He attempted to use magic to pull the shades in desperation, but all he got was a fizzle. Apollo lazily crawled out of the couch to pulled the shades of the window down.

I guess I can only do it when I'm entirely focused for now. Magic might take longer to get used to than I expected...

Apollo began to search for Twilight, since she wasn't in her bed the floor above. Even Spike was absent from his bed. Upon further investigation, they weren't downstairs either.

"That's a little odd..."

Where would they go so early in the morning? Apollo shook away his thoughts of curiosity. It doesn't matter anyways. I have things that I can spend my time on...

His stomach growled.

...Like getting breakfast, apparently.

Apollo decided to opt for the easy method by grabbing some apples he found in a bowl containing various fruits.

It'll probably take a while longer to get used to being a herbivore, too. I still can't imagine myself eating grass-based food.

He attempted to hold an apple in his hoof, but it slid off.

Oh yeah, hooves. I honestly don't know how pegasi and earth ponies survive without being able to move objects easily. Manipulating objects with your mouth must be a chore.

Apollo floated the apple through the air and took his first bite with a loud chomp.

It's a bit harder to bite through it with herbivorous teeth, too. Come to think of it, I'm glad I didn't tell them that humans are omnivores. I can't eat meat now, but still.

He rotated the apple and bit it again.

The door opened with a loud, persisting creak. Apollo turned instantly and saw Spike holding half a dozen pairs of quills and ink.

"Huh. Those hinges need to be oiled. Oh, hey Apollo."

"Hey Spike. Where's Twilight?"

"She went to Zecora's place." Spike walked towards Twilight's desk and neatly placed the new quills and ink in a drawer next to the desk.

"Zecora?" Apollo bent his face trying to remember a pony named Zecora.

"She's a zebra who lives in the Everfree Forest. At first Twilight thought she put a curse on her and everypony else, though." Spike chuckled. "And... Fluttershy had a deep manly voice for a day!" He chuckled again and then fell over while laughing hysterically.

Apollo imagined the ridiculousness of the scene of Fluttershy with a low voice. He let out a curt laugh. "How does that even happen? If that's not a kind of curse, I don't know what is."

"No, not like that. Like the kind a witch gives you. Except it was just some weird plant in the forest that did it."

"Hah! A witch? I guess the presence of that plant proves that the Everfree Forest shouldn't be taken lightly, though."

"Yeah..." Although Spike had never been in the Everfree Forest yet, he had heard too many stories about it.

Apollo continued to eat the apple from before Spike came in.

"By the way, are there any dragons where you're from?"

"No, only myths."

Spike frowned. "Maybe there were dragons, but then they died out and became myths."

"It's possible, but not likely. Then again, this entire planet would be a fairy tale back there. This place seems real enough to me. There are astonishing similarities, too. The odds of all these similarities would probably be one in a billion at the very least. " Apollo noticed Spike's disappointment to the first sentence. "Add dragons and it would be at least one in one billion million."

Seriously, how are there so many things that are the same? Especially language... Did Nightmare Moon replace the language portion of my brain or something? That must have been it. I would think I would notice if I was speaking another language, but it's entirely possible, not to mention it is the most likely explanation. But... I can't help but feel like I'm missing something here...

Apollo shook his head.

No, there is no other way. I beat the odds. That's all there is to it.

"You all right, Apollo?" Spike called while peeking out from the top of the stairs.

"I'm fine." A notion popped into Apollo's head. "What do you think is taking Twilight so long?"

"It's only been about half an hour since she left."

That's another thing, measurements of time are very similar.

"All right."

Apollo took his last bite from his apple and disposed of the core.

Everfree Forest

Twilight trotted away from the beaten path of the Everfree Forest. In almost any other situation, the consequences would be ruinous. This time, however, Twilight had set her mind on where she was going: Zecora's house.

She was about seventy paces away from the road when the home came in view. A few small creatures scuffled into the bushes to remain hidden as Twilight came in sight. She didn't notice since she was staring at the twisted, leafless tree colored an abnormal shade of brown ahead of her. There were a couple of mundane glass windows in sight from the front. A pretty door set the contrast between the house and the rest of the Everfree Forest. As Twilight steadily came closer, she noted that there was light peering out of both windows, most likely from multiple candles.

She rapped her hoof thrice in swift succession. The door drifted open with ease when Zecora opened it in response. Twilight entered after thanking the zebra.

The interior was as mystifying as the exterior was unnatural. Several large masks with expressions ranging from uplifting to unwelcoming decorated the walls. Myriad colored bottles dangling from ropes littered the cieling, most likely filled with potions or ingredients. A round black cauldron with an inscrutable bubbling liquid contained inside of it marked the center of the one-room house.

Twilight spoke urgently. "I need to know about a creature called a 'human.' None of my books say anything about them. Can you help me?"

"A human? Alas, I do not.

Does this mean your journey was all for naught?" Zecora said rhythmically.

"Hmm..." Twilight paused to recollect a few specifics. "Is it worth mentioning that humans are bipedal furless and clawless creatures which supposedly evolved from monkeys?"

"They seem to be lacking in many ways.

I know not how they'd survive many days.

But do not rely on my judgment,

For some details appear to be absent."

"All right... Thank you anyways." Twilight said gloomily.

Twilight thought deeply as she trotted out of Zecora's home and then through the Everfree Forest.

Since neither the library nor Zecora know anything about humans, odds are that nothing short of the Canterlot Archives or the princesses themselves would know. I can't just walk into the archives, and I don't want Princess Celestia to have any more to worry about. Would anypony else know anything with unquestionable reliability?

Twilight ceased trotting.

That leaves only one option. I think I've heard of a mind-reading spell before, and if I can find it, I can use the most reliable source of all. I don't like the idea of it, but it's the best option I have.

Ponyville

Apollo sat on the first story of the library in the middle of the floor. He had his hoof over his mouth as he stared blankly at the window across from him.

"Apollo..." Spike said. Apollo reacted by steadily standing up then turning his head. "Seriously, stop worrying. Sure you've reached a plateau, but there aren't many unicorns that learn as fast as Twilight."

"I know, but that teleportation spell-" Apollo's excuse was cut off by Spike.

"That was probably some kind of motivation boost from the situation. But enough about that.  I've heard that there's been a price drop for houses near Everfree. It's nice here in the library, but think about long term. I don't think you want to sleep on a couch for the rest of your life."

"That's true, but I don't have any money at all."

"All the more reason to start thinking. Try for a job."

Apollo paused for a moment to think about jobs. "Come to think, I don't even know what jobs there are..." He drifted off for more time to think.

"I think you'd be good as an inventor. Gain some reputation in Ponyville and it could take you a long way."

"Thanks. I'll think about it." Apollo peered back at the window showing a splendid view of the hilly noon horizon.

Apollo forgot about his magical predicament for the remainder of the day.

10 Hours Later

"Is Apollo asleep?" Twilight asked inconspicuously.

"I think so." Spike replied.

"Good. I think I might have to read his mind."

"What!?" Spike whispered. "He seems nice enough, and he hasn't done anything suspicious at all."

"I know, but I can't risk my friends by blindly trusting Apollo."

"That's what we have Rainbow Dash for."

"Rainbow Dash can easily be outsmarted."

"That's what we have you for."

"Hmm..."

"If he finds out about this, it might put him against you."

"What if he already is?" Twilight said forcefully. "If that's the case, then when we give Apollo the benefit of doubt he would be able to use it to his advantage."

"I guess it's your choice... I hope you don’t regret this." Spike reluctantly backed out of the conversation.

"I hope so too…” Twilight frowned and started searching through the bookshelves.

Cliche Chapter Name

Apollo stirred in his sleep.

Twilight grit her teeth as she took the necessary few seconds to end her spell without causing any neurological damage or leaving behind any evidence.

After completion, she cautiously and wordlessly stepped up the stairs. Twilight dragged herself into bed and attempted to rest her disrupted mind. It took about two hours for Twilight finally settle down and gain what limited relaxation she could get so late in the night.

Next morning:

Twilight forced herself out of her bed after minimal rest. She attempted to extend her nap, but the will to do so vanished when Twilight recognized how late in the morning she had awoken.

Once she managed to trot downstairs, Spike told her that Apollo had left for the town square. Twilight nodded her head, barely having heard what Spike said, then sat down near the table.

Apollo trotted in a few minutes later. Twilight was still exhausted.

“Hey Apollo! Twilight just got up a little while ago.” said Spike.

“Really? Seems like the situation has been reversed.” Apollo redirected his attention to Twilight. “You had a spellbook lying on the floor over there this morning.” He said calmly. Apollo pointed to a spot on the floor near a bookshelf.

Twilight immediately shot up from her saggy position.

“Don’t worry, I kept the bookshelves organized." Apollo said reassuringly. "You shouldn’t be reading so late at night. That’s what you were telling me not to do.” Apollo laughed a little.

Twilight, on the other hand, was wide-eyed with one of her eyes twitching.

Spike spared her from further torture. “I think Twilight is still a little tired…”

Apollo nodded, then proceeded to trot outside.

“Could you make it any more obvious!?” Spike hissed at Twilight. “I told you it was a bad idea!”

Twilight calmed down as she looked towards the floor and sighed. “No… it’s not that.”

Spike’s irritated expression shifted to a raised eyebrow.

“I saw something that doesn't make sense... No, that's not it... Something I didn't think he would know...? Ugh! I just don’t know how to say it!”

Spike hushed her. “Apollo’s only just outsi-" *THUD*

Everypony's attention was diverted to the noise from upstairs. After galloping upstairs, Twilight discovered the source of the noise: A grey mare whose clumsy flying crashed her into the treehouse. Spike followed Twilight momentarily.

The pegasus's head had collided with the floor of the balcony, resulting in an awkward laid down position with her flank up in the air. Spike facepalmed at the sight.

"Why are you here, Derpy?" Twilight confusedly asked.

"Oh, hiya Twilight! Princess Celestia sent out a letter to everypony. Here you go!" Derpy bent her head into her satchel. She brought out a scroll and gave it to Twilight. Apollo came into the room.

Twilight picked up the letter magically and read it aloud.

"'Dear citizen of Equestria,

I am delighted to announce that a great threat has been eliminated from Equestria. Some of you may or may not have heard about the dangerous creatures called humans which recently appeared in the Everfree Forest. All four of them were apprehended last night near the border of Canterlot. They were found with exotic and highly deadly weaponry. Although it is not expected that any more of them will appear, please be cautious in the event that they do.

From your loving leader,

Princess Celestia'

Whew, that's a relief. I knew the princesses could handle it on their own."

Spike spoke up. "Wait a minute, why did we get one from Derpy when- Urp!"

"Well, there's your answer." Twilight said confidently.

Spike burped out a green flame which solidified into a scroll. It was nearly identical to the previous letter. Twilight swiftly dropped the old one and opened the new one.

"It has the same content, except written specifically for me."

"Woops! My bad! Everypony but Twilight, forgot. Can I have that one back?" Derpy pointed to the unrolled letter on the floor.

A purple glow re-rolled the letter and floated it over to Derpy.

"Thanks!" She flew off ineptly towards the next house. Spike shook his head as he watched.

"I guess I underestimated their highnesses. They seem to have done a great job handling those four." Apollo said.

"Of course! They've led a nation for over a thousand years. A handful of humans with metal sticks can't overthrow them." Twilight replied proudly.

"You'd be surprised..." Mumbled Apollo. "Although this letter does mean one bad thing for me... I have to hide my identity even more than before." Apollo said gloomily. "I assume you and your friends can trust me, but anypony else wouldn't know enough about me to trust me."

"I assume so too. Rainbow Dash might have a few things to say, but even she should be convinced by now." Twilight said.

"You and your friends should be careful about what you say, too. No blabbering about who I am and where I'm from. Be sure Pinkie Pie knows this..."

"Of course. I'm sure she'll see the seriousness of the situation."

That night...

So that's that... Hermes, Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus are out of the picture.

Apollo rolled over on the couch to look through the window and at the Moon.

It's been a while since it happened now. I wonder what they thought when I disappeared and one escape pod was missing? Did they think I just left? Did they think that I died?

Apollo pivoted himself to look at the ceiling.

Either way, at least they had a safe landing unlike me. Twilight and her friends saw a fairly neat landing site from what I heard. Speaking of which, I recall that they didn't bring anything back, even though the place seemed to have been hurriedly evacuated. They could have left something very important there...

Dammit! My nanocomputer! If that thing is found when the pod is investigated... and then if they find the journal function... God dammit!

Apollo stealthily slipped off of the couch, opened a window, and jumped out. He had remembered that the door had creaky hinges.

Now it's a left towards the Everfree Forest and then...

Then Apollo let his hooves leisurely carry him to his destination in order to avoid gaining unwanted attention. He noticed a light drizzle begin pouring water droplets onto the ground somewhat noiselessly.

It makes sense, I guess. I haven't seen a single day of rain in Ponyville yet.

Apollo soon arrived at the entrance of the Everfree Forest, specifically at Fluttershy's cottage. Fluttershy was nowhere to be seen, but there were a few nocturnal creatures scuttering around the cottage. Apollo couldn't discern the types of animals due to the darkness, but he could see their silhouettes from a light in the cottage.

Then he trotted along the border of the Everfree Forest for about five minutes until he grew impatient. The occassional pair of eyes stalking you can be unnerving after seeing them over and over again.

Apollo broke into a canter and eventually a gallop. Soon enough, he came to the hill where escape pod one had landed.

The clang of water droplets on metal disturbed the area. Its source was clearly visible after Apollo had finished his ascent up the hill. The escape pod was a cylinder on its side with a tripod supporting it, with one leg at the cockpit and two at the back. It stood about three times as high as Apollo, including the landing gear. There was a burnt out campfire that stood out as well. Besides that, some uninteresting twigs and some holes in the ground littered the area.

There isn't much here at all, I have to admit. But what about inside the pod? Only one of the princesses could possibly hope to get inside there without the password.

Apollo flipped up an unassuming patch of metal to reveal a hidden keypad. He poked several buttons with his horn, then the airlock door let out a burst of air and slid to the side. He trotted into the vehicle with the distinguishable noise of hoof on metal.

In the inside there were no windows due to safety precautions. Instead, an inconspicuous camera on the exterior relayed what it saw to a screen in the cockpit. There were three seats at the cockpit: one for the pilot and two for the co-pilots. Near the walls in the center of the escape pod, two fairly comfortable seats were welded to the floor. A chair in the back was present directly in front of the controls of the defense systems.

First, the glove boxes of the cockpit.

After slipping the compartments open, they revealed entire containers full of nothing.

Great. Apollo thought sarcastically. Is it a different story for the defense controls?

Again, there was nothing.

Hmm... Where else to look... under the seats?

Apollo probed under the seats in the middle of the pod, but the only things there were were some tags from when the chairs were manufactured.

Huh. I guess not. Wait... I left my nanocomputer back on the Moon. Can't do much to get it from there. I guess I better head on back.

Apollo then trotted the half-an-hour-long walk back to Ponyville. The returning trip was about the same as the journey towards the landing site, except that Apollo didn't pick up his pace throughout the entire time. The drizzle began to dissipate slightly, but it still persisted.

As he was staring at the sky, hoping that the skies would not get cloudier, Apollo arrived at the treehouse library.

Apollo opened the door and- *SCREeeee*

He flinched an inch backwards before recognizing what he had forgotten. Apollo then slipped inside and closed the door as steadily as he could.

Twilight came downstairs not long after the door had been closed.

"Where were you?" Twilight asked curiously. She obviously was not angry in any way, causing Apollo to come close to sighing out loud.

"Just a nighttime stroll."

"You should've told me you were awake. There's a total lunar eclipse going on tonight!" She said eagerly. Twilight swiftly galloped back upstairs. Apollo followed more casually.

"It's going to start in about twenty minutes." Said Twilight as Apollo was nearing the top step. She was gazing at the Moon through her old-fashioned telescope made mostly of wood. Spike rolled in his sleep.

I've seen them before. They're all the same. Apollo thought regretfully. Except for one...

Apollo reminisced about when he was eleven years old.

On that vacation to Australia, my mother's birthplace, we drove across the southern plains. My dad nearly fell asleep in the car, so we pitched the tent which we used earlier in the vacation. Then I saw the night sky in all of its glory.

It was an indescribable beauty. The nebulae were clearly visible because there was no significant artificial light for miles. Until then I never thought the night sky could be more than a collection of tiny bright lights. When you add another brand new discovery for me, the lunar eclipse, it couldn't get much better than that.

Then my dad got my hopes up by telling me about the Southern Lights. Apollo smiled. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to see them. I did get absurdly lucky a couple years later, though. That was when I visited the house my greatgranduncle's father built in Maine. Who knew you could see the Northern Lights from there... Apollo sighed nostalgically as he brought himself back to reality.

Apollo decided to trot to the bookshelves to find a book to read while waiting. His eyes met with a familiar green spellbook. He plucked it from the second-to-lowest shelf of a bookcase and flipped the pages until he thought the book was around the same page as it was before. Seeing it was not the page he was looking for, Apollo progressed carefully until he saw the page format he remembered.

A telepathy spell. Interesting. This might be the kind of spell that Twilight thought I could have used to communicate with Zeus and company.

His curiosity satisfied, Apollo shut the book and neatly placed it back on the shelf.

I'm glad they're out of the picture, though. Although it's kind of sad, too. We're the only humans on this planet and the last humans from our time. Perhaps even the last humans in the universe, if everyone back home didn't create technology for mass transportation quickly enough. I especially feel bad for Poseidon... He could have done so much more.

Apollo exhaled deeply and returned to the top floor to watch the skies.

A few minutes later, Apollo asked: "How do they pull this off, anyways?"

"Huh?"

"The princesses. How do they coordinate this?"

"They're just a good team. They used to be the bearers of the Elements, after all. Although it must take a lot of concentration for Princess Celestia. All Princess Luna has to do is make a full moon."

How the hell does this "Raising the Sun" thing work, anyways? It's just not possible, nor is it necessary. Gravity does it all for her. But she isn't someone who would lie... or is she?

Apollo shook his head widely.

Now isn't the time to think about that. Anyways, how would she get enough energy to move a star? It would require millions of Joules to move it for only a second...

Apollo's eyes widened. "Wait, what did you say about Princess Celestia?"

Twilight thought for a moment. "I think I said that Princess Celestia needs a lot of focus to coordinate a lunar eclipse." Twilight stated plainly.

Dammit! Dammit dammit dammit dammit dammit!

"Why?"

"I knew they were capable of more... Remember the humans that were caught at Canterlot? I think they're plotting a jailbreak. It must have been a part of their plan all along..."

"Why would Zeus's plan involve being imprisoned?" Twilight's jaw dropped after a moment of thought.

"Ponies aren't very familiar with human weapons and human clothing. One of them must have concealed an explosive or something, either him or..."

Apollo stared at Twilight.

How do you know Zeus's name?"

"W-Well... you must've-"

Twilight's nervous mumble was cut off by Apollo. "I specifically avoided mentioning two people: Zeus and Hades. How do you know Zeus's name? And how do you know Zeus would be the person to make the plan?"

"I-"

"I mean, unless I was sleeptal-"

Then Twilight erupted. "I READ YOUR MIND!"

Apollo's eyes widened.

"Why did I say that... Why the hay did I say that..." Twilight muttered.

Apollo took a couple of steps back, then bolted towards the ground floor.

"WAIT! You're going to need..." After following Apollo's path for a moment, Twilight noticed that Apollo was already out the door.

"...help..." She fell to the ground. "Why did I say it... Why..."

Water barraged the leaves and branches of the gigantic tree.

I lost motivation to get a proofreader. :/

The first one I contacted gave up on proofreading because he didn't have enough time. Then there's people who won't do it because I already have 5 chapters done.

So that's how this chapter got delayed by a month. Tomorrow I'll start a week-long vacation, so I'll try to upload the next chapter once I get back.

I was in a rush to get the italics/underlines done (I use notepad), so notify me if I messed up somewhere.

Fun Fact: The name of this chapter is not cliche.

Everfree

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