All Ganymede could bring himself to do was stare in awe after the revelation that he had finally found the one thing he had been searching for for the past 233 years. Living beings, twelve of them to be exact, were now gathered in front of him. For the first time in over two centuries, Ganymede's mind actually had to catch up with what he was experiencing. He managed to snap out of his brief stupor and started taking note of his present company.

First he noticed that they were all horses. Not only that but some had horns, others had wings and the two biggest ones had both, plus manes that seemed to flow without there even being a slight breeze. "Multi-colored, miniature ponies, with unicorns, pegasi, and a mix of the two?" he thought to himself. "Ooookay...not exactly my first choice but it'll do."

As he continued to observe he took notice of the four ponies in romanesque armor directly between him and and the pegasus unicorn hybrids. The way they stood in a uniform line glaring at him, placing themselves between him and the hybrids, and the gold colored armor they wore pretty much confirmed that the hybrids were definitely royalty or someone else important.

As for the other six, he could only guess, but they all looked like civilians by comparison. The one in front of them, predominantly purple in color, seemed to be giving him a look that mixed caution with curiosity. The one next to her with orange fur and a blonde mane, was moving to a more defensive stance and was making sure to keep her eyes on him. Ganymede also couldn't help but notice she was wearing a hat usually associated with cowboys back on old Earth.

Next he could see one with a white coat and purple mane, hers was a look of worry followed by attempts to create a little more distance between him and her. "Not one for direct conflict." he noted, he then noticed another one cowering behind her with a yellow coat and pink mane. "Definitely not one for conflict in general."

Then he noticed a predominantly pink one that didn't seem too phased by the whole situation."That one is either really brave or really stupid," he thought. The last one, a pegasus with light blue coat and rainbow colored mane, was flying just above the pink one and had the look of a challenger on her face. "and that one seems to have a healthy dose of both"

Before he started a conversation he decided to see what this scene might look like from their perspective. He communicated with the nanomass to discreetly form some optical sensors on a tree located just behind the group. As the artificial eye began to take shape the tall white one spoke.

"I am Celestia," she announced in a clear and regal tone.

"And our name is Luna." said the other in a louder and even more regal tone.

"and we are the princesses of Equestria. We ask that you explain your presence here."

"Art thou friend or foe?" asked the darker one.

That last question caught him slightly off guard, he thought he had been making himself appear as welcoming as possible given the circumstances. Then the artificial eye finished and Ganymede quickly reconsidered that last thought. Ganymede never was one for appearances, didn't ever care much about what people thought about his looks.

Unfortunately, he did have a soft spot for anything with a dark or creepy vibe attached to it, and as a consequence anything he designed was doomed to look that way. "Nothing says I come in peace like dark and forboding...yeah...that should send the right message...great fucking idea." he thought. "Well, I guess introductions are in order."

____________________________________________________________________

Celastia was the first to break the silence "I am Celestia," she said

"And our name is Luna." said her sister. Celestia made a personal note to remind Luna that she really needed to work on her speech, ponies just didn't talk like that anymore.

"and we are the princesses of Equestria." she continued. "We ask that you explain your presence here."

"Art thou friend or foe?"

While Celestia knew full well that it was a good question to ask when meeting someone whose intentions weren't immediately apparent, she feared that she might already know the creatures answer to it. By all means the creature looked inimidating enough, standing at a height a few inches above Celestia herself. The way this creature looked also brought a surreal feeling to the table.

First of all the creature stood on two legs instead of four, not unlike some species of apes she observed in her life. But even they tended to lean on their forelimbs for support and it was obvious that this creature was built to walk around on it's legs alone. She also noticed that it's "claws" were actually fingers, also not unlike apes, although it's hands were somewhat smaller and it's digits thinner than an apes were.

After that the simmilarities seemed to dwindle, as she didn't remember apes having wings of any kind, nor did any of them quite reach the height of this creature even when standing. She also remembered them having thick hair covering their bodies but, despite only being able to see part of it's face, she did not see much hair at all except for the top of it's head which had a brownish/blondish coloration to it.

There was something strange about his wings too, they just didn't look natural. By all means they basically looked like wings, but they looked just too...perfect. They had this metalic gleam to them and they had all these unnatural angles, it was almost as if they were attached to it instead of grown.

The creature had a large amount of black clothes on it, perhaps due to the lack of hair, that covered it's arms chest and swept down over it's legs just past the knees. It also wore a seperate article that covered it's legs exclusively, and seemed to have something only just barely resembling a hoof where it's feet would be...shoes maybe?

It's face, contrary to Angels discription, did in fact have a nose and mouth but they were hidden beneath a grey colored cloth, a scarf maybe? It's eyes were the strangest part of it's face, they had a red glow to them and looked like they were moving. As if they were made of tiny red plates that shifted and rotated around their iris's.

But the most glareing differences were the ones she couldn't see, the ones she had to sense instead. First, despite the grey ooze seeming to conform itself to the creatures wishes, she didn't detect any magic being used by the creature or the ooze. That meant that the creature could manipulate it without magic, which meant that it could be the source of the disturbance, or at least the product of it.

But possibly the most disturbing thing about the creature was that it didn't give off an aura. Every living thing gave off an aura of some kind, a sort of glow projected around the being itself, even dead spirits had auras of sorts. But this thing and the surrounding ooze did not give off an aura, despite the fact that both could move and the creature at least could talk, they weren't alive in any sense of the word. That alone disturbed Celestia the most out of everything.

"I am a friend, you can call me Ganymede." the creature spoke. Celestia noticed that it had a deep yet soft voice that had some kind of unnatural inflection to it, like a second voice or two speaking slightly out of sink.

"Well, Ganymede, if you are indeed a friend would you mind explaining what it is that you are doing here?" Celestia asked.

"Well to put it simply, I was searching for you."

"Me?" she asked a little confused by the statement.

"Well, not you specifically," it responded, Celestia fairly certain it was male by now. "rather I was searching for other beings like yourself."

"Why?" Luna replied

Ganymedes expression changed from one of indifference to a more somber one, as if he was remembering something that happened a long time ago. "Well, because where I come from i'm...well...I am the only one left."

_____________________________________________________________

The ponies suddenly adopted an expression closer to the one he currently had, as if they all felt sorry for him, even the guards seemed to loosen a little at his words. He hated it when he remembered those days, they always brought back the memories he tried so hard to forget.

A figure...kneeling...tears streaming down his face...bleeding

Lines...more lines...red and blue ones...red curved, no, curving...blue straight...white shapes...a map

Red splotches...expanding...darkening

Numbers...many numbers...changing...increasing...ever increasing...increasing forever...stopped...a large number...

8...6...5...4...8...4...2...7...7...6

Ganymede pushed his hardest, pushed the damn memories back to where they were kept. Now was not the time for them, nor was any time. One of the ponies spoke up snapping him out of his thoughts.

"What happened?" asked the yellow one.

"My species was destroyed during a long and terrible war."

"How big was this war exactly?" asked the blue one

"It started off in only a few territories, but after a few years it pretty much took place everywhere across the globe." he said. That seemed to leave them somewhat confused.

"If you don't mind us asking Ganymede, how can that be? We have not heard of any such war." said Celestia.

"Because I am not from this world, in fact I come from a completely different plane of existence all together." he answered. If his last statement left them confused, this one left them utterly bewildered.

"How did thou come to be here then?" asked Luna.

"Well, basically I constructed a portal that ripped a hole in the fabric of my reality, punched in some random coordinates, and ended up opening a portal here in your reality."

"How did thou manage to do it without the use of magic?" said Luna. Now it was time for Ganymede to look confused. While he wondered about the implications of that statement, most importantly how they knew about the portal and why they thought magic was a factor, he decided to play along for now.

"Well, in the place where I come from there's no such thing as magic, my species had to rely on technology to do the things they needed to do. I therefore used technology to open the portal, not magic." he said. On that note all of the smaller ponies broke out into hushed wispers between each other.

"That is quite impressive."

"Could you imagine living in a world without magic?"

"Imagine how hard it would be if you had to replace magic with technology."

Ganymede tried listening to their conversations but was inturrupted by Luna. "What is this grey ooze and what is it doing?" she asked, pointing to the nanomass on the ground in front of her.

"Well you may not believe it, but that is actually me you are pointing at." he said. The way they looked at him it didn't look like they did believe him, not that he really expected them too.

"What do you mean by that?" asked the purple one.

"I mean that all of this stuff is pieces of my own body." he said as he knelt down and scooped up a handfull of nanomass then held it out so they could see it. "It's called nanomass, it consists of millions of tiny little machines that act together in order to create things I want them to or do things I want them to do." he said as the nanomass shifted and twisted into a cube, a pyramid, and then into the shape of a pony.

"Amazing...although that still doth not explain what thou meant earlier." said Luna

"Well you see, the body you see before you now is really only a representation of what I used to look like...er somewhat at least." he explained. "My real body nowadays is basically this mass of nano-machines, as well as a much larger amount of it back in the world where I come from."

"So what yer tellin us is that yer body is made of millions of those there mini-machines?" said the orange one.

"Basically..."

"So...doesn't that make you a machine too?"

Ganymede paused briefly at that question but already had an answer prepared for it. "No, I used to have a normal body, heart, lungs, stomach. But my conciousness was moved from that body to this one. Therefore I believe I am still human.

"Human?"

"The name of my species."

Ganymede could see that the two princesses were discussing something between themselves off to the side. Luckily he didn't have to wonder about it long as they approached him after only a few minutes.

"Me and my sister would like to invite you to our castle in Canterlot, we think that that would be a better place to continue this conversation." said Celestia.

"I would love to, it has been quite sometime since I last visited a castle myself." he replied. Celestia nodded and turned to the guards to tell them of the new plan.

"We would however ask that you remove...thyself...from the enviornment," Luna continued. "so as not to disturb the wildlife any further."

"As you wish." Ganymede turned and leaned down slightly to hold out his arm. The nanomass convulsed, shifted, and swirled as it began to rise and grab hold of his arm. Quickly it started to sink itself into Ganymedes body, compacting all of the new material into his hollow frame. The large solid looking obelisk in the center suddenly seemed to start melting, as if it was made of chocolate on a hot summer day.

As the last of the nanomass gathered inside of Ganymede he turned to find that three chariots, pulled by pegasi, had landed in the now completely cleared area of forest. One look was all he needed to know that with all the nanomass in his body they would have difficulty pulling him in the chariots.

"Aren't you coming?" asked Celestia as Ganymede hesitated.

"I'll be too heavy for them to pull after all that nanomass I just absorbed," he explained. "i'll just fly alongside you."

"Are you sure, it's a twenty minute flight from here to the castle."

"I'll be fine, I don't tire very easily."

"If that is what you prefer." she said as she stepped onto the first chariot.

As the ponies all got onto the chariots Ganymede used some of the excess nanomass to enlarge his wings to accomodate for the extra weight. The ponies started gaping in awe as they witnessed his wings growing till each wing was twice as long as he was tall.

"Whoa..." said the blue pegasus, her jaw looking like it would hit the floor. "how did you do that!?!"

"Well with all this extra nanomass in me I had to grow my wings bigger to compensate for the extra weight." he replied.

As the chariots took off Ganymede flapped his now greatly enlarged wings several times before managing to lift himself into the air and take off after the convoy. As he neared it Celestia turned to face him.

"You know, i'm sorry about what happened to your race," she said. "i'm sure they fought valiantly before their destruction." Ganymedes expression returned to one of sadness as he stared at the ground below as it passed by almost in a blur. He knew he would have to explain that whole situation to them at some point. But right now he didn't feel like talking about it.

"I appreciate your sympathies princess," he replied. "but I suggest you save them for someone else."

"Why do you say that?" she said, slightly confused at his response.

"Because princess...our destruction was our own fault."

Author's Note

Phew...another chapter completed. I apologize to those who just couldn't wait to see the next chapter, but I have had to balance writing this story with homework and, recently, preparing for a highschool prom. That and in recent years my eyes have been opened to the joys and pleasures of sleeping whenever possible, so there's that too.

Also, some of you may notice that the paragraphs are more spaced out more than usual in this chapter. It's because I looked at my stories from a smart phone and realized that my paragraphs looked kinda crowded on those devices, so to try to make my story a little easier on the eyes for moble viewers I spaced them out a bit more.

Now if for whatever reason you don't like the new format, feel free to bash me for my stupidity in the comments and, assuming I get enough complaints, I will make sure it doesn't happen again. And as always if you have any questions, criticisms or comments on the plot so far (yes even that plot) feel free to post it in the comments, email me or even post them on my user page. Anyway have a great day and i'll see you guys next chapter.