Chapters Ganymede couldn't help but stand stiff as a board as he absorbed his surroundings. Trees, real ones not artificial ones, towered above him, their leaves rustling and branches shifting in the wind as it blew. Birds chirped and sang as they roosted in the trees or flew through the air. He could feel the sun, filtered by a working atmosphere, shine down on his skin and hair in rays of pure light and warmth.
And, as the nanites that composed of his body finished installing a working pair of lungs, for the first time in just over two centuries, Ganymede breathed. He breathed twice, once through his mouth and again through his nose, each breath was pure euphoric bliss. Air...sweet, unadulterated, unpolluted, unsterillized, unfiltered air.
As he stood there taking deep breaths and basking in the suns warm rays he suddenly noticed a small white rabbit staring at him as if he was the most bizarre thing it had ever seen in it's entire life.
"A rabbit?" he thought as he studied the small white ball of fur. "A RABBIT!!!" he shouted as he used his wings to quickly close the distance between him and the rabbit. The rabbits expression quickly changed from a quizzical one to one of utter terror as the strange beast suddenly swooped in and cluched him in his odd claws. Ganymede was overwhelmed by feelings of joy as he felt the soft fur and squishy flesh of the rabbit in his hands.
"HOLY FUCK A RABBIT, I haven't seen one of these in over two centuries!" yelled Ganymede as he flew up into the air higher and higher as he gave the biggest bear hug he could could possibly give without crushing the little thing in two.
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Angel didn't think he had ever been more scared in his life. He was just off for a hop through the forest looking for something to do while fluttershy was away, when all of a sudden a big black and red round thing appeared out of nowhere followed by three big black boxes and some strange monster.
Next thing he knew the monster screamed something and took hold of him in his claw's and started flying high up into the sky, all while trying to crush him to death! He was too focused trying to get air to his lungs to notice what the beast said but soon the bear hug of death ended as they landed again on the soft grass.
"Holy hell i can't believe it, after all these years I...you know what little guy, for being the first living thing i've seen for the past 233 years, i'm gonna make sure nothing ever tries to eat you or get you sick ever again!" said the beast.
Angel started to calm down when the monster said he wanted to protect him. He thought of all the predators that roamed around the Everfree and began to get a smug look on his face. That was quickly replaced by panic again when the creature suddenly procured a large syringe from seemingly out of nowhere, filled with a weird silver liquid that looked like it was alive.
"Whoa there little guy," the monster said as Angel began to squirm like his life depended on it. "just hold still this won't hurt a bit"
Angel would have scoffed at that if not for the fact that he was too busy trying to get the hay away from this crazy thing to care. Luckily the monster must have lost it's grip on him because Angel soon found himself back on the ground and, without waiting another second he took off sprinting for Fluttershy's house as fast as he could to warn her of the crazy monster running around with syringe.
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Ganymede smiled through his face mask as he waved goodbye to the bunny as it sprinted off free as bird from him.
"See ya little guy, enjoy the long life free of sickness and hungry predators!" he yelled as the nanites that made up the now empty syringe melded back into his body.
"Fucking hell that guy's heart beat is nearing the speed of light," he said to himself as he could now see the creatures heart rate in his view. "guess I must have scared him a bit more than I thought."
As he turned around and noticed the three blocks of nanomass where the portal used to be, he remembered the reasons he brought them here. He quickly gave the nanomass directives aimed at exploring the surrounding landscape and local wildlife, not least of wich was to keep an eye out for signs of more advanced intelligence, language, tools that sort of thing.
No sooner had he finished giving his orders than the blocks of nanomass began to deform and spread over the immediate area, quickly absorbing a few trees and shrubs to gather data over their composition and any properties they might have, as well as gain materials to make more nanites.
Confidant that that situation was handled, he decided he needed to get a hold of himself before he tackled another random ass animal to the ground and thanked it for being the second living thing he'd seen recently. With that he took to the air and scanned the horizon for other areas of interest.
Soon he saw another interesting landmark to add to the local map in his database, a large collection of appletrees. But what was strange about these trees was that they appeared to be growing in rows, way too ordered to be natural. Then he remembered as he sifted through his data for an explanation. An appletree grove! That indicated skills in farming, which would indicate the use of tools and beasts of burden, which indicated intelligence!
Ganymede nearly forgot that he was flying, and almost stopped flapping his wings to keep himself aloft. Almost without thinking, he started flying towards the apple farm, steadily increasing speed in anticipation of what he had searched for for all these years. As he felt the wind flow through his hair, as he could see the farm increasing in size he couldn't help but hold hope that this wasn't some kind of sick joke. Years of searching, years of failure, years of lonliness. Could this be it? Could this be the day he finally found what had eluded him for so long?
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Twilight walked with her friends Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Pinkiepie, Rarity, and Fluttershy as well as the princesses Celestia and Luna along with a small escort of royal guards, as they made their way to Fluttershy's house to discuss plans on how to deal with the disturbance.The princesses had brieffed all of them that they had detected a big disturbance in the fabric of reality earlier today, and with Twilights help managed to narrow down the location of the disturbance to somewhere in the Everfree Forrest.
One thing kept bothering her though, through years of studying all manner of different forms of magic, she wondered why she hadn't detected the anomaly as well. Granted the princesses were much much older and therefore more experienced with these things than her, but a disturbance in the very fabric of reality itself would still require an enormous amount of magical power.
"Princess Celestia, could I ask you a question?" she said.
"Of course my faithful student," Celestia replied. "what do you wish to know?"
"Well it's just that...well i've been studying magic for years now, learning everything there is to know about it,"
"Indeed you have my student." said Celestia, already guessing where this was going.
"well... if this disturbance is as big as you said it is, don't you think I would have at least detected the magic used to cause it?"
"Yes Twilight I believe that you would have." she said, trying to reassure the young mare.
"But if thats true then why didn't I sense it, surely the aftershocks of magical energy must have been staggering for such an event?" she asked, truly puzzled by this point.
Luna was the first to answer "Because that is what troubles us most," she said. "me and my sister hath not detected any magical energy at all."
"Now hold on a minute" Applejack spoke up. "Now ah ain't exactly one'a them magical types, and ah sure as hay don't know the first thang 'bout it. But ahm pretty sure that tearin' open a hole in'tha world takes a bit more than jus' wishfull thinkin."
"You are correct Applejack, these things dont just happen," said Celestia "which can only mean one of two things. Either somepony is trying very hard to hide what they are doing, which suggests they are doing something they shouldn't..."
"Or somepony hath mannaged to generate enough power to tear open the very fabric of reality," Luna continued "without the use of magic."
Everyone let out a collective gasp at that last suggestion. If anypony else had told them that they all would have called them crazy, but it was the princesses that were telling them this. None of them could decide which was worse, the thought that somepony was actively trying to hide something horrible, or the thought of something that didn't need magic to be that powerful.
"W-what could possibly be that p-powerful" squeaked Fluttershy.
"I haven't the faintest idea dear Fluttershy," said Celestia "your cottage is just up ahead, we'll figure out what to do when we get there."
As they neared Fluttershy's cottage they began to notice a much larger concentration of rabbits, birds, squirls, mice and many other animals gathered around her house than usual.
"Oh dear," said Twilight. "I didn't realize you were so busy today Fluttershy"
"I w-wasn't," Fluttershy said hesitantly. "they weren't here this morning when I left."
As she checked on the animals, the rest of them couldn't help but notice that many of the animals seemed more skittish than they usually were. Some even appeared to be constantly swivelling their heads, as if expecting something to burst out of the trees any minute.
"Well I talked with a bunch of the animals," said Fluttershy "a lot of them say they were chased out of their homes when some gray liquid came and started spreading through a small patch of the woods"
"Gray liquid?" asked Celestia, puzzled at the discription.
"W-well some discribed it as a kind of silver ooze, they say it smelled metallic"
"Well...that is quite strange"
Everypony agreed that it was definitly a weird situation, which only got weirder as Angel suddenly came sprinting out of the woods and nearly ran right into Fluttershy as he neared the group.
"Angel, whats wrong?" Fluttershy asked
Angel proceeded to give the group a visual rundown of the horrors he experienced in the clutches of the monster in the woods.
"What's he saying?" asked Rainbow Dash as she hovered above the group.
"He says that he was attacked by a monster of some sort out deep in the forrest."
"Can he describe it?" asked Celestia
Fluttershy proceeded to ask Angel if he could describe the monster to them, which Angel seemed more than happy to do.
"He says that it didn't have a mouth or nose, but it had long dextrous claws that could summon big sharp needles. He also says that it had a pair of silver wings, it had either white or peach colored skin, white glowing eyes and was hairless except for the top of it's head in which the hair was brown/blonde. Ummm, oh, and it was tall."
"How tall exactly?" asked Rarity
"Um, a little taller than Celestia...I think he said."
Everypony mulled over what they had just learned. A strange silver ooze was rampaging at some point in the forrest, consuming some but leaving others. And now they had an utterly bizarre needle summoning monster on the loose somewhere in the Everfree.
Luna was the one that broke the silence "Can thy animal friend lead us to where he saw it?"
"Let me see." she leaned down and asked Angel if he could lead them to where he saw the monster. He seemed hesitant at first but finally agreed and began hopping back through the forrest. Leading the way with Fluttershy they were followed by the royal guards who made a path through the forest followed by the princesses and finally the other five friends. They all followed Fluttershy and Angel as they made their way through the Everfree, determined to find what was causing all the mayhem today.
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Ganymede had made it to the grove of trees and was currently studying the way they had been planted. There was no doubt about it now, these trees were planted in such a way so as to be evenly spaced in rows for farming purposes. On each tree were literally dozens of big red juicy apples, grabbing one of them and taking a bite out of it, he noted that they tasted as good as they looked.
As he turned around to look for some sort of watering apparatus, he noticed what looked like a big red building just barely seeable through the trees. As he flapped his wings to raise himself above the canopy of the trees, he realized it was a great big barn.
"hmm, Barn requires construction skills, which requires at least a basic understanding of mathematics, which requires intelligence." he thought, getting more and more excited at the prospect of meeting another intelligent species.
He noticed a stocky looking red horse pulling a cart absolutly filled with apples off in the distance near the barn. Ganymede breifly thought about the fact that the horse was red but let it pass as an interdimensional inconsistancy.
He was about to head towards the barn, when his sensors in the nanomass picked up something that got his attention away from everything else.
Spoken Language Detected.
Those were the first words he noticed in his vision and they were the only thing he needed to see to convince himself to abandon the farm altogether, climb a certain ways into the sky, turn and blast off at full speed towards the initial landing site. This is it, this is what he waited for, this is the day 233 years, 2 months, 14 days, 14 hours, 27 minutes, and 53 seconds of searching became justified.
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"Welp...ah guess we found it." Applejack said as she and her friends stared at the sight before them. What they saw was a tall, large, pyramid shaped obelisk standing in the middle of a small clearing devoid of any and all plantlife. Surrounding it for half a mile in every direction was what could only be discribed as a sort of sea of silvery ooze, that seemed to shift and turn as if it was alive.
"So..." said Rainbow Dash, growing a bit tired of having a stareing contest with grey goop."how exactly are we gonna deal with that?"
Twilight was the first to speak up. "Well...I don't know... maybe if we can destroy that obelisk it will turn everything back to normal."
"Maybe, though if ah may ask, what the hay is that thang anyway."
"I don't know, but whatever it is it's definitely not magical in nature" Twilight said
Celestia stared at it for a while as if considering something. "Twilight is right," she said "I can't detect even a little residual magic on that thing."
"Do you think this is what caused the disturbance?" asked Rarity
Luna was about to answer when all of a sudden a deafening boom could be heard overhead. As everypony looked up they could see a large figure in the air, they watched as he swooped down and landed in front of them as the silver ooze hardened into more solid ground to land on. The guards reacted quickly, forming a line in front of the princesses ready to fend off the newcomer if need be.
Slowly the creature rose from it's kneeling position till it rose to it's full height a few inches taller than Celestia. As it folded it's wings it spoke in a soft baritone voice.
"At last, after all these years, I have finally found you."
Author's Note
Whoo, boy that was a much longer chapter. So yeah, Ganymede and the ponies have finally made contact. What this means is anyponys guess and the only one who knows where it goes from here is me.
So anyway hope you enjoy the chapter, as always feel free to chat me up in the comments about any questions or critique's you have for my story...or you know you could just use it to shower me in praise and worship for my godlike writing ability (heh as if).
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."
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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."
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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.
Ganymede was flying alongside the chariot convoy as they soared through the clouds high above the landscape. Celestias earlier sympathies had caused most of the flight to proceed in silence for a time, but eventually the smaller ponies began asking questions trying to lighten the mood. The purple one, Twilight as she called herself, had asked him what his world was like, or at least had been like. He told her how as far as he could see his worlds geography was at least somewhat similar to how his local area had been, with deep forrests seperated with grassy fields.
"I can't say much about the weather quite yet though," he said as he glanced around. "i've only seen fair weather like this thus far."
"Yeah, we have the pegasi to thank for that," Twilight responded. "they usually keep it like this most days. They only really let it rain when the crops in nearby farms need the water." Ganymede shot Twilight a quizzical look.
"Wait, you mean the pegasi here are able to control the weather?"
"Well, yeah, without them our crops wouldn't get the rain they need to grow," she explained. "didn't your species have members to make the weather?" she asked as she dug out her quill for some more notes.
"No not at all, where I come from the weather just happens naturally, we didn't have any way of controlling it."
"How odd, that sounds alot like the Everfree Forest." Twilight noted.
"Without the ability to control the weather how did you get rainfall to your crops, and how did you keep lightning storms from forming?" asked Rainbow Dash.
"We didn't, if you wanted rainfall all you could do was hope that it would rain soon. Otherwise you would have to use machinery to pump water from a nearby water source out into your fields." he explained as Twilight wrote furiously into her notes. "And if a lightning storm was forming it was gonna form, simple as that."
"Sounds tah me like a pretty rough place tah live." said Applejack
"You think that's bad?" said Ganymede. "That's mildly bad weather by comparison to the other stuff that could happen."
"Like what?" asked Twilight.
"Well in the nation I lived in there was a whole region nicknamed 'Tornado Valley'." he said. The ponies were a little caught off guard by the sudden increase in severity. They could only imagine how bad it had to be for an entire region to be nicknamed after tornados of all things, especially since in their world tornados only occurred in Equestrias ancient history during times of war involving pegasi.
"Then there's things like earthquakes, hail storms and blizzards in the winter and even floods." he said as the ponies sunk deeper into disbelief, unable to believe that such things occurred naturally and with a fair amount of frequency.
"And don't even get me started on hurricane season." and at that their jaws literally hit the floors of their chariots. The only recorded instance of a hurricane occuring was during the pony civil war in their ancient history, which the pegasi used on their enemies to devastating effect, and was never used again. The prospect that Ganymede came from a world where they not only occurred naturally but with enough frequency for a season to be named after them, was almost too much for them to absorb.
"Ya know what ah take it back, that sounds like the worst place to live ever." said Applejack.
"Yeah no kidding, I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it was to live there." said Twilight.
"It could be difficult at times yes, but we managed." he replied. As they continued the others took the opportunity to ask their own questions.
"Is what you are wearing common garb amongst your species?" asked Rarity, taking note of his black trenchcoat.
"Eh, not really, some wore stuff like this but otherwise the clothes my people wore could be quite varied."
"I see." she said, a little relieved that his rather bland clothing was not all his species wore.
Applejack asked next,"You said that when you didn't have rain that ya had to use machines ta pump water over yer crops, how did ya manage that?"
"Well we gathered water from nearby water sources into large tanks, which were then attached to a large network of pipes running over the crops. When we turned on the pumps the water would rush through the pipes and out several little nozzles along the way, spreading water to all the plants." he said.
"Huh, I guess thats one way ah do'in it."
"Um...i-if it's okay for me ask...what is wrong with your wings?" asked Fluttershy
"My wings?" he asked.
"Yes, it's just that...well...I don't think i've ever seen wings shaped like yours, and you don't seem to flap them very much."
"Thats because these are not real wings, my species didn't actually have wings." he said. "These wings I created with nanomass, they have machines underneath the feathers that provide a majority of the lift and help give me more speed." he explained pointing to a feather among it's symmetrical bretheren. The mention of speed snapped Rainbow Dash out of her boredom, who for the most part had found the ride quite uneventfull.
"My race used to make flying machines that could carry over a hundred passengers and fly great distances. We called them, 'airplanes', they could make a trip that would normally take days, weeks or even months travelling across the world only take a few hours."
"That's amazing!" said Twilight as she wrote furiously into her notes.
"So how fast could these 'air-planes' go exactly?" asked Rainbow Dash with newfound interest.
"Well, the fastest ones could actually--"
"Now now my little ponies, you'll have to save the rest of your questions for later, we're almost at Canterlot." said Celestia in her motherly voice.
As they crested a hill of clouds, Ganymede could make out tall white spires tipped with golden roofs. The palace certainly looked like a center of power, built on the cliffside of a mountain, with small rivers running down the mountain and through the palace. The scene was quite picturesque, the architect must have been told to build a palace that was the spitting image of beauty. Mission accomplished i'd say. Ganymede thought.
Finally Rainbow Dash couldn't contain herself any more, she jumped out of the chariot and flew alongside Ganymede, keeping in mind his greatly enlarged wings.
"Hey Ganymede, how about a race against the fastest pegasus in Equestria?" she asked in a challenging tone. Ganymede had never really been all that into racing before, but right now he felt up for just about anything, that, and he could tell that Rainbow Dash wasn't going to let this chance pass her up. Besides, it was a good opportunity to make a first impression, and to show off a little too.
"If you want to lose be my guest." he snarked back. That encouraged a smirk out of Rainbow Dash.
"Pfft, are you kidding me, with those hefty wings of yours i'm surprised you were even able to get off the ground."
"Hey, maybe this way you might be able to 'almost' make first place."
"Alright on three--" Rainbow Dash began.
"THREE!" shouted Ganymede as a high pitched whine escaped from the thrusters in his wings. He sped past Rainbow Dash at a fairly respectable speed, he didn't want to completely own the competition after all. By all means he could have hit mach speeds within a few seconds if he--.
A large boom could be heard behind Ganymede, when he looked he saw a rapidly growing ring the color of a rainbow spreading out behind him as Rainbow Dash rocketed past him leaving a rainbow colored trail behind her.
"Try to keep up to this!" she shouted behind her.
Well give the girl credit where credit is due, he thought as he watched in disbelief as a small pony with wings was actually outflying him. she's almost hit the speed of sound. he watched as Rainbow Dash's speed bottomed out at half way to the finish. That's when Ganymede allowed himself to let out a large grin as his thrusters finnished charging to maximum output. Almost.
______________________________________________________________________________
"THREE!" Ganymede shouted and took off before Rainbow Dash could begin to count. As she flew after him she couldn't help but admire how much ground he had managed to cover in his current speed. She was sure that he would go slower with how large his wings were. Unfortunately for him, he still wasn't going as fast as he would need to go. Let's see him outrun a rainboom. she thought as she began to increase her speed more and more until it happened.
With a loud boom a rainbow colored ring spread left and right as she rocketed forward at incredible speed. It wasn't long before she passed right by him, she could see the look of utter perplexion on his face as she did. She turned her head to look behind her at Ganymede.
"Try to keep up to this!" she shouted as she quickly approached the halfway mark. Ha, looks like i'm also faster than strange interdimensional aliens too. she thought. Suddenly she could see Ganymede speeding past her field of view.
What? That's impossible, no one can go faster than a sonic rainboom! she thought, utterly bewildered at how fast he was going. Then it hit her, Why didn't I hear him? Shouldn't I have-- she was cut off from her thoughts as she heard a deafening crash moments after Ganymede passed her. The noise was so intense it disoriented her slightly and forced her to slow down to avoid crashing into something.
She looked behind her for the telltale rainbow colored shockwave of a sonic rainboom, but she couldn't see one at all. She looked back towards Ganymede to see him flying circles around the castle, he was going so fast he was almost a blur. All she could do however was look with a blank expression as one thing kept running through her mind. She, Rainbow Dash, the fastest pegasus in all of Equestria, had just lost a race.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ganymede circled the castle a few times to get a good look of the place, it was definitly quite imaculate, although he probably would not have built it hanging over the side of a mountain. He spotted a clearing that looked safe to land in, he swooped down low amongst the palaces' spires and came to a soft landing in the courtyard. A minute later Rainbow Dash came to a landing in the clearing and immediately trotted over to Ganymede wearing an annoyed exspression on her face.
"I just performed a sonic rainboom," she said. "it's something only I have been able to do because I am the fastest pony in all of Equestria. But you still beat me, which means you had to have gone faster than that. How fast were you going? And why couldn't I hear you when you passed me?" she asked in an irritated tone.
"I can answer both those questions with one answer," he responded, "I simply went faster than the speed of sound."
"What?" she said, a look of disbelief on her face. "That's impossible, that doesn't even make any sense, how can somepony go faster than sound?"
"Because even sound travels at a certain speed, in fact, at this altitude it is 343.59 meters per second. I was flying at 350 meters per second, thereby breaking the sound barrier. In short, you couldn't hear me because I was traveling faster than the noise I was making."
Rainbow Dash was having a hard time absorbing what she had just been told. She had always believed sound was instantaneous, that when something made noise it would instantly hit your ears and that was that. Now here was Ganymede, this extradimensional alien, telling her that sound actually had a speed limit. Not only that, but that sound itself could actually be beaten in a race.
At that point the convoy of chariots landed in the courtyard as well. As the ponies in the chariots got out and trotted over to the group Applejack called out to dash.
"Well..." she said in a confident voice, "how does it feel ta beat an alien from another world Dash?"
"I don't know..." responded Dash, her voice somewhat trailing off.
"Whad'ya mean ya don't know? It must feel fantastic ta win against somethin like him."
"But I didn't win...I lost." she responded. That made every pony that heard her collectively gasp in shock at what she just said.
"WHAT!!!" said the other five ponies, before turning to face Ganymede.
"Ya actually beat Rainbow Dash in a race!" yelled Applejack in complete astonishment.
"Yep" said Ganymede
"Well ah'll be a baked apple pie, someone actually beat Rainbow Dash in a race!"
"How did you do it?" asked Rarity. "I've never seen anyone beat Rainbow Dash before."
"Easy, I broke the sound barrier." That made Twilight shove the others out of the way to get to the front of the group.
"Excuse me!?!" she said as she took out another scroll. "Did you just say you broke the sound barrier?"
"Um, yes." he said, a bit taken aback by her sudden outburst.
"That's incredible!" she said as she furriously wrote in her notes. "How fast did you go exactly?"
"About 350 meters per second." he answered.
"Amazing."
As the ponies showered Ganymede in admiration for his feat, Celestia and Luna glanced at the sky and realized it was time for their daily ritual.
"Ganymede," Luna called, Ganymede looked over towards the princess's. "Come hither for a moment, we wish to show thee something."
Ganymede walked over to the princess's position and stood between them. "What did you wan't to show me?" he asked.
Celestia was the one to respond "It is time for me to lower the sun and for my sister to raise the moon."
That made Ganymede pause, what did they mean by that? He didn't have to wait long for an answer however as the princess's horns each glowed and suddenly the sun, which had been in an evening state, abruptly dropped down from the sky over the horizen.
He then watched as the moon then sped up over the horizen to take it's place. It was then that it became abunduntly clear to him that this world did not follow the same laws of physics as he was used to.
"Well it's getting late my little ponies," said Celestia, "how about we all get some rest and we'll meet up again tomarrow. Guards escort the elements to some of the guest rooms."
"Yes your highness." they responded before leading the six ponies down a nearby hallway.
"You two, escort our guest to one of the larger guest rooms." said Celestia, pointing to two more guards.
"Thank you for your hospitality your highness." said Ganymede as he bowed to the two alicorns.
"You're welcome Ganymede. Rest up, we will have much to discuss in the morning."
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
By the time Luna had finished with her night time duties she was exhausted, having skipped sleep during the day in favor of investigating Ganymede. She was quite eager to get to bed when she was approached by a royal guard.
"Excuse me Princess Luna, may I have a word." he asked.
"Of course Swift Spear," she replied. "what troubles thee?"
"It's about our 'special guest' your highness, I think there is something wrong with him."
"How so?" asked Luna with newfound curiosity.
"Well i've checked in on him a few times now your highness and, well, he hasn't moved."
"*sigh* Yes Captain, ponies tend to do that when they sleep" she said, her voice almost dripping with sarcasm.
"That's just the thing your highness," he replied,"he isn't asleep, he's been standing out on the balcony of his room for the past few hours." That seemed odd, why would he just be standing out on the balcony? "He must be having trouble sleeping, that can happen to people when they change enviornments." she thought.
"Thank you Swift Spear, i'll see what the matter is." she said. She used her magic to teleport to the doorway leading into Ganymede's room, as she peeked into the doorway she could see that Ganymede was indeed standing at the balcony, looking out over the landscape. She stepped inside and made her way towards him.
"Ganymede," She said, "art thou alright?" she asked as she neared his position. Ganymede turned his head to glance in her direction before returning his gaze to the small town in the distance.
"Good evening Princess," he said "yes i'm fine."
"What are thee doing out here?"
"Just intertaining myself."
"Thou should be getting some sleep after the day you just had."
"I would but I can't sleep." he said.
"What do you mean, did you have a bad dream?" she asked, "I can help with any dreams thou may have."
"You misinterpret my words, It's literally impossible for me to fall asleep."
"Why can't you fall asleep?" she asked.
"It's because my mind is not organic, it does not fatigue like a biological one and therefore it does not need to rest like your minds do." he explained, "As a consequence my mind is constantly active, always making calculations, running through scenarios, finding the best option out of thousands, and constantly collecting data on my surroundings."
"What do you mean by that?"
Ganymede quickly turned and look Luna in the eye's, "Your heart is currently beating 104 beats per minute, your body tempature is 92 degrees farenheight, your breath smells of bread, daisy's and hay, a sandwich maybe? Your body language upon entering my room indicated worry, probably of my health." he said as he made his way to a nearby sink grabbing a glass and filling it with water, not breaking eye contact.
"You also are not picking your hoove's up as much as you usually do, that plus your slightly drooping eyelids indicate you are fairly exhausted, I would guess you have been awake for roughly 37 to 38 hours." He walked over to Luna and held up the glass of water. "And you are also slightly dehydrated."
Luna took a minute to process everything she was just told before grabbing the glass with her magic, levitating and tilting the glass of cold water into her mouth. How had he been able to tell all those things about her just by looking at her? After handing her the glass he walked back to the balcony and resumed staring off into the distance. Curious Luna walked over to his side and tried to see what he was looking at.
"What are thou looking at." she said, while she was getting better at talking more normally she was still awkward with her high canterlot voice.
"That little town, down there." he said as he pointed at a small village nestled into the valley below.
"That would be Ponyville, though I don't see how thou could stare at it for several hours." she said.
"It somewhat reminds me of what life in my world used to be like." he said, "I can see a woman and her husband closing up their shop, a candy store by the looks of it." he continued as his gaze flowed over the town, drinking in the sights of life that he had missed so dearly.
"A group, fairly young by the looks of it, waiting in line at a night club, all manner of colored lights peeking out the entrance. A colt, a guard by the looks of it, kissing his wife goodnight. A smaller filly, a foal, runs outside, she hugs his leg, he smiles and returns the hug, a caring father and loving husband, he heads out on a night shift...the filly doesn't get to see him much."
As he continued looking across the town he notices a sight he remembers all too well. "A little filly sitting in her bed, hugging her mother with a frightened look on her face." He continues, not realizing he is speaking out loud.
"A nightmare? Afraid of the dark? Her mother says something, reassuring the young filly that everthing is alright. She returns to the door says goodnight, and closes the door after shutting off the light. The filly gets a worried look on her face but attempts to go back to sleep, dragging the covers up to her chin before closing her eyes."
Luna stared at him as he recounted what he was seeing, she could see many things in his eye's that she had seen many times before in her long life. Happiness, joy, warmth, as well as sadness, regret, loss. But above all others, and perhaps more strongly than she had seen in a long time, hurt. She could see in his eye's that what he was seeing had brought on a very painful memory.
"Did you have a young foal too?" she asked, hoping it wasn't too painful a question.
He gave a soft nod but did not look at her, "A son, of sorts." he said, his voice now just above a whisper.
"And a wife of your own?" at that he shook his head.
"Never had one, I had adopted him." he said.
"What happened?" she asked, Ganymedes grip on the railing visibly tightened.
"He was killed," he said his voice gaining a deeper tone. "if it's alright with you Luna i'd prefer not to talk about it right now."
Luna tensed at his more aggressive tone, but she got the hint. "It's fine Ganymede, just let me, my sister or the guards know if you need anything." she said as she exitted the room.
Ganymede couldn't take his eye's off of the little filly, she twisted and turned in her bed as she attempted to get a good night's rest. As much as he tried he couldn't stop the sudden onslaught of memories.
A house
A room, a bed, a tv, watching, motion, color, sounds
dark all around, nighttime
A flash, out the window, a low rumble, a loud crash
Another room, smaller, a voice, small, frightened, a shout, "Daddy!"
Ganymede shook his head to get his mind off the subject, he needed to find a book or something else to think about. He turned and took a few steps before stopping, he turned around and looked back across the town. The little filly now had something of a slight scowl as she continued to toss and turn, trying in vain to get to sleep.
He tried to tear his gaze away but found that to be impossible, with a heavy sigh he summoned a copy of himself out of the nearby nanomass cube and, leaving his first body in the same position it had been, he jumped over the railing and began his flight.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ganymede landed just outside the front door of the small house, the moon still high in the sky. It had taken Ganymede about 15 minutes to get here after he climbed high enough into the clouds that he wouldn't be noticed as he flew. He looked up at the window that contained the filly he had noticed earlier at the castle, it was still dark inside.
This was a stupid idea, he knew he shouldn't be doing this, that it could lead to a real awkward situation. But...he just had to have a look, if only to make sure she was alright.
He climbed up the side of the house until he was able to peek in through the window, she was still asleep but she was still restless in her bed as whatever troubled her continued to do so. He backed away from the window and began to change his shape.
If he got caught he didn't want anyone to know it was him if he ever returned to the town. Quickly his body began to melt and deform until he appeared as an unformed blob of nanomass, he colored himself black so that he could disapear into the shadows if he had to make a quick exit.
With that he slithered in through the window, being careful not to wake it's inhabitants. The room was a soft blue with purple trim and a deep blue carpet on the floor. A built in closet was located on his right and what could be a toy chest was placed next to it. As he quietly approached the bed he could begin to make out the little filly in greater detail. He could make out the wings of a pegasus on her back, like her room she had a light blue coat and a deep purple mane.
As his form loomed over the filly's bed he found himself staring at her again. It had been a very long time since he had ever seen something so young, a long time since he had seen a child. He could hear her breath softly and lightly while she slept, her whole presence emanating that feeling of pure innocence that only a child could have. He remembered his own adopted son, how he would peek in at times to check on him, only to find him fast asleep with the moon shining into his window.
He remembered how he would sometimes read him a bedtime story, or let him sleep in his bed during lightning storms. He remembered walking into his room as he slept, running his hand through his curly black hair and skin. Without knowing it Ganymede had formed an arm and hand from his body and began to reach out to the filly. Then his hand made contact with her mane, it was soft and flowed through his fingers as he massaged her head.
Suddenly she rapidly started to stir in her bed, she was waking up. You fucking fool! he thought as he quickly searched the room for somewhere to hide. He saw the closet in the opposite wall and quickly slithered into it, not bothering to close the door. No sooner had he done so the filly shot up from her bed and grabbed a flashlight on the desk near her bed and switched it on.
"Who's there?" she called out, strafing the light across the room.
Shit shit shit. He thought to himself. Then the filly shined her light at the closet, Ganymede tried to manuever himself away from the beam but it just barely managed to shine on him, initiating a yelp of fright from the filly. Damn damn damn!
"Who are you!?!" she said as she accidentally dropped the flashlight and saw it roll under her bed. Ganymede had to diffuse the situation quickly or this could get bad, he had to make it clear he wasn't a threat. First off his form was built not to be seen, and certainly didn't look inviting in the least.
He considered transforming into something like a pony, but he didn't want to risk resembling a local pony and getting that pony in trouble so he thought of something different. He changed to a more humanoid form and then produced a cloak that had nano bots built to mimic the surrounding enviornment, giving him somewhat of a ghostly look. It wasn't perfect but it would have to do.
"Show yourself!" said the filly, obviously getting more anxious by the second. Ganymede decided his normal voice might be too intimidating so he brought his voice down to a loud whisper.
"I'm sorry if I scared you." he said.
The little filly jumped at actually being responded to, "How did you get in here?" she asked in a nervous tone.
Well now how was he going to explain that?
"I've always been here."
The filly became confused at that statement, "What do you mean by that? Who are you?"
Well now he had painted himself into a corner, who could he say he was now. Then he thought of something so crazy it might work, the flashlight on her desk could possibly indicate one thing.
"The dark, I am the dark."
The filly visibly tensed, "Well why are you here? Why don't you just go away and stop scaring me?"
Well at least she isn't panicking, "I can't go away, I didn't mean to scare you I was just lonely." he said. He decided that it would be best to play off the child's fear and imagination rather than introduce something else to be afraid of.
"Why can't you go away?" she asked.
"It is nighttime, therefore I am everywhere."
The filly became puzzled at that, "If you are everywhere at night, how can you be lonely?"
"Because, have you ever talked to the dark? Everyone is either asleep, or they cower in fear of me."
"I guess you have a point, but i'm not afraid of the dark exactly, i'm just afraid of what might be in it...er...you." she said, "Could you at least step out from my closet so I can see you?"
"Then you would be afraid of me." he said.
"I promise I won't scream or anything, you can come out." she said, trying to sound reassuring.
Ganymede hesitated but he decided that it was already bad and couldn't really get worse. He creaked open the closet door a little bit more before stepping one foot outside the door. Then he placed a hand on the door as he leaned out the door to expose the one red eye of his new form, his cloak camoflauging most of his body that seemed to make the air shimmer.
"Well you do look a little strange. Do you have a name?"
"Just Dark will do." he said. "What is yours?"
"Bright Brush." she said.
"Well, Bright Brush, you should get some sleep, it's almost morning."
"I don"t know if I can go to sleep, i'm still kinda scared."
Ganymede thought for a second before he lifted his arm and began extending it across the room to the table next to her bed. She leaned away from his arm as it neared the table. When it arrived it deposited a small black box on the table, with his hand he lifted the lid of the box to expose a small orb that slowly floated about a foot into the air before it emitted a glow that managed to illuminate the room in a soft white light. And then the music began to play.
It was a soft flowing melody, somewhat sad but beautiful nonetheless. It was like a lullaby where every note was seeped in a cocktail of sedatives, as if it was trying to gently tug the entire room into a state of sleep. Already Bright Brush was yawning, as all the energy in her rapidly drained from her body. The room itself seemed to react to the music, the mattress in the bed seemed to actually slacken, the pillow become softer and even the blankets seemed to slowly creep closer to her.
"Bright Brush listen," he said, gaining the filly's attention. "it might be best not to tell your mother about our little meeting, I do not wish to scare her." As he said that he sank back into the closet.
"Wait," she said, holding out a hoof in his direction. "will I ever see you again?"
"Don't worry, you will." he said as his body melted back into the closet, shutting the door.
Bright Brush looked around the room, as if looking to see if she had anymore visitors, before she stretched and yawned, then crawled back into bed, pulled the covers over herself and closed her eyes. If Ganymede still had lungs he would have let out a sigh of relief. Knowing that it would be awkward to be found in the closet by her or her mother, he melted back into a formless mass. Then began to cover the walls of the closet, camoflauging his nanites to match the color and texture of the wall.
After he finished, his body back in Canterlot, who had been watching the window's of Bright Brushes house, set off for the guest rooms library.
What the hell am I doing?
Author's Note
Wow longest chapter i've written thus far.
Alone...that was what he felt these days, thats all he ever felt anymore. Ganymede was being distant again, retreating back into his thoughts. He found himself doing the same damn thing he always ended up doing and he hated it. Staring at absolutly nothing. Of course he wasn't staring at nothing, not really, he was actually staring at quite a few things going on. As he looked through the thousands of cameras on the many thousands of probes he had sent out, he noticed stars dying and being born again, planets colliding to form new planets and asteroid belts/fields, comets streaking across the sky. From above a planets atmosphere he could see it's techtonic plates shifting and grinding against each other, forming mountains, valleys, and trenches.
He could see all of this, all at once. Any normal man would have thought the entire spectacle utterly beautiful, a tad bit overwhelming but beautiful nonetheless. But he was not normal, hell he was convinced that things could not possibly be less normal. Really the problem was he had seen all of this before, for the past few centuries in fact.
"Construction of the transdimensional portal is at 75% All Maker." said a deep synthetic voice, interrupting his thoughts. Ganymede turned his head to see the terran 3 miles to his right.
"Thank you Builder Delta-Beta-3, let me know when it is finished."
"Yes, All Maker." said the voice as it cut the line.
Ganymede didn't like it all that much at first when they started calling him that. He let out a heavy sigh as his thoughts drifted to the days of their creation.
He remembered how in the early days of his "rebirth", as the terrans would one day call it in their religious texts, he had spread the mass of self replicating nanobots that had become his body across the globe. He had done this not only to get resources for more nanobots, but to also look for any survivors.
18 years...18 years of looking, searching every house, every hut, every island getaway he could find. Every city turned upsidown, every bunker dug up and turned inside out. After 9 years he became increasingly frustrated, in 3 years he drained the oceans and in 3 more years he had combed their bottoms, and still nothing.
15 years into the search and he became utterly desperate, he launched rockets to the moon filled with nanobots, and watched as they began to comb the surface and interior. Ganymede knew that if he still had lungs with witch to breathe he would have held his breath for the entirety of those three years. There had to be survivors, there just had to be someone, anyone, who had a contingency plan for this that survived. But as those three years came to a close. As he watched as the last spit of land on that ball of rock was covered in nanobots, his heart sank at the answer he had suspected but hoped wouldn't be true...nothing.
Ganymede cringed, bowed his head and placed it in his hand in an act of remembrance and self comfort. Unfortunately the comfort only went so far when he knew that that wasn't real skin he was feeling. He remembered the day he finally allowed himself to realize the truth after 18 years of searching...that they were all dead...humanity was dead.
"You're holiness," said a familiar semi-monotone voice, pulling him from his thoughts again. Ganymede remembered marking any transmission hails from Builder Delta-Beta-3 as urgent. Ganymede was a patient man, his history quite the testament to that, but sometimes he wished his terrans would just fucking learn already that he didn't have to be alerted about every other 5% increase in progress on a project. Hell he could actually just check the progress himself if he wanted to, he only needed to pretty much will it and he'd know if there was so much as a single microscopic screw loose for them to fix.
But he cared for them like they were his own children, and technically they were in a way. He didn't want them to feel like they weren't needed so he gave them tasks to work on whenever he could.
"the trandimensional portal is nearly ready. We are making the final calculations nescessary before activation now."
"Oh, thank you Builder Delta-Beta-3, continue preperations i'll be there shortly." he said.
"As you wish he who is blessed." said Delta-Beta-3.
"Yeah..." Ganymede thought.i'm fuckin blessed alright.
Ganymede started the proscess of growing a pair of high-tech wings out of his back in order to reach his destination. Having had a few centuries to himself left him with plenty of time to chase after any ideas he came up with. So having always had a soft spot for that little extra flair to a design he couldn't help but think about finally developing a jet pack.
Of course that led him to the thought, why make a high-speed jetpack with wings for stability when you could make fully fuctional and stable wings with high-speed jets inside them. Having turned what was left of Earth into a giant, semi-living computer, he had enough proscessing power to have the problems licked in barely a year.
The design he ended up with resulted in sharp and slick looking wings fit for an angel, with the speed and horsepower of a souped up fighter jet on steroids, capable of going from a static hover to faster than the speed of sound in just 3 seconds. That last part was a little tricky at first, but he managed to make a highly energy efficient engine that could be fitted snugly underneath each feather in a wing.
One of these things on it's own couldn't really compete with a bulkier counterpart, but that hardly mattered when there were several dozen of them on each wing. Needless to say he was pretty impressed with himself.
After the 45 seconds it took for the nanites to form the wings on his shoulder plates, Ganymede stepped off the presipice he was standing on, and set a course for his goal at a fair flying speed. Truth be told Ganymede was a little scared of what he might find on the other side of the portal, or rather what he might not find.
He realized that the probability of an alternate dimension not having any life in it was a solid 50\50 chance, but his life experiences didn't exactly make him feel very confidant about this. As he glided through the air towards the portal he couldn't help but remember all the failures of the past. First was the realization that his species was well and truly dead for good. Then came the 80 or so years afterwords that he spent searching the entire galaxy for other intelligent life, and again the answer was nothing.
And now here he was trying interdimensional travel. What would he do if portal after portal led him to interesting but otherwise lifeless planes of existence, what if the only thing waiting for him on the otherside of these portals was the same damn answer that seemed to follow him everywhere, nothing. Ganymede began to dispair but just pushed his thoughts back.
"NO!" he thought to himself. "I've done nothing but think that for the past three years, i'm tired of thinking about it, this time I will succeed!" he thought as he descended down to the location of the portal where he saw Builder Delta-Beta-2 awaiting his arrival.
"Great All Maker" she called out. "we were beginning to worry that you would not arrive."
"Sorry, i was just pondering the trip" he said as convincingly as he could."is the nanomass ready?"
"As ready as it will ever be your Holiness."
"Good then let us not waste another moment," he said, just barely concealing the anticipation in his voice. "start up the portal."
"As you wish your Holiness" she said, as she began signalling the Operator units to begin the startup sequence.
As the great machine started up before him Ganymede could hear a loud whine as the high-tech components began to do the job of tearing open a hole in reality. Eventually the whine gradually became more and more high pitched until a deafening crack split through the air as a large black portal rimmed in red tinged energy opened into the unkown.
Without any further hesitation, Ganymede magnetically forced the three large blocks of nanomass into the portal, and followed not far behind them.
____________________________________________________________
Princess Luna was in her bedroom busily reading a rather intreagueing book she recently bought from a bookstore in Ponyville, after her sister Princess Celestia had recommended it to help her get over her high canterlot voice and grammar. She wasn't really very keen on the idea of reading a silly work of fiction like that, but she had to admit after a few chapters in, the story was really beggining to grab her. It didn't have as much poetry or any of the other such literature she usually enjoyed, but it did have a captivating plot as...
Luna was not able to finnish that thought as she suddenly felt a very large disturbance in the fabric of reality. Putting down the book Luna trotted over to the windows leading to the balcony, pulled back the curtains and after letting her eyes adjust to the light just before noon, looked around to see if anything unusual was happening.
With the size of the disturbance Luna had expected something to be happening just outside the castle, but was surprised to see everything appear to be normal. Unfortunately that seemed to only make her more uncomfortable. If such a harsh disturbance wasn't nearby, then it had to be a really big one!
Suddenly her sister Celestia burst into her room looking like she had just been startled out of her mind.
"Judging by thou's expression," said Luna. "thy guess is that thou hath felt it too?"
"Indeed, but i don't have a clue what it was though. Did you notice anything strange about it?"
"Well, I did notice that it doth not appear to be anywhere near the castle," she said. "which can only meaneth that twas a very large phenomena."
"Hhhmmmm, yes that is correct. I found that whatever it was, it wasn't magical in nature."
"But sister, if twas not magical, then what else could it be?"
Celestias head tilted down towards the floor in thought "I don't know Luna, thats the part that worries me!"
Luna stepped closer to her sister to look her in the eye's "We should visit Twilight and her friends, and warn them of this possible Danger."
"Indeed dear sister," said celestia "we should go as soon as possible."
Author's Note
Okay, first chapter of my first fanfic ever is done! Okay I wanted to get a few things squared away real quick.Bold is communication between 2 characters by artificial or other means besides directly talking with one another.Italics is in that persons head, wether talking to himself or going through flash backs.
