Nonfiction, Book 1: A Drop In The Ocean

It was a fantastic summer day in Equestria.
Well, everywhere that wasn't a freezing pole, arid desert, or towering mountain, it was a fantastic spring day.
Or was it summer?
It was kind of hard to tell in Equestria, where the seasons were, more-or-less: Nightmare Night, Snowponies, and Picnics.

It was especially nice in the area around Ponyville. Birds sang and raccoons played in the wooded areas, rabbits and groundhogs frolicked in the plains and clearings, chirping and squeaking and howling with joy. They were critters, and critters need not care for death nor taxes.
A certain two little critters, a hedgehog named Thorn and a rabbit named Carrot were playing hide and seek in a sizable field that they liked to call The Grassway.

Carrot jumped about, sniffing the air in hopes of catching the scent of his hidden friend.
He checked in Bushmeister, Thorn wasn't there.
He looked under Stumpy, Thorn wasn't there.
He looked behind Big Rock, Thorn wasn't there either!
Where was Thorn?
Carrot thought of all Thorn's favorite hiding places, and remembered he had forgotten somewhere. Carrot ran over to the hole where he and Thorn dug for dinosaur bones. There was Thorn!

"Found you! Found you!" shouted Carrot, jumping up and down.

"Yeah, you got me!" giggled Thorn, "Okay, your turn to hide!" Then Thorn turned and started counting, "One..."

That was all Carrot needed. He took off towards his favorite hiding place, the Broken Teapot. But, when he got close to the teapot, he took a sharp turn for Big Rock. Thorn would never find him there!

He jumped up on top of Big Rock, and from Big Rock, he could see everything! He saw Thorn looking for him in Stumpy, he saw Brown Bear giving Dolphy some berries, and he saw Bunni picking flowers in the meadow.
Bunni was the strongest, smartest, nicest rabbit Carrot knew, but she didn't know that he thought that, because Carrot had never told her. She always did her best to uphold justice and peace, and make sure everyone important was happy.
Just then, Carrot made a decision. He would tell her today.

He leaped off of Big Rock, and he bolted towards his love through the Wildflower field, making a bouquet for her as he ran.

But, Carrot was going a bit too fast, so he bumped into her. When she turned around, he offered her the flowers, "Miss Bunni, you are the strongest, smartest, nicest rabbit I have ever met."

Bunni was stunned, and blushing slightly. She reached her hand towards his flowers and said "Stop objectifying me you fucking shitlord."

As you may have guessed by the title, this chapter is not about rabbits, hares, or jackalopes. Which is why is should not come as a surprise to anyone when a large metal tube burst into existence a few hands from the ground, crushing both rabbits, and ending this ridiculous lagomorph subplot.

The homicidal cylinder in question was about eighteen hands in diameter, and about forty hands long. It was sitting horizontally, with four large electrodes on top, and six long metal bars across the bottom, perpendicular to the main cylinder. Each end was closed, but inset about half a hand, with two gray strips down the center of the circle.

For whatever disgusting eldritch thing may be reading this in ignorance, one hand is equal to 4 inches, 101.6 millimeters, 5.333 etzbahs, 0.0000636 millariums, or 0.00000000078 ph'thlemeps.

Just then, one of the ends of the capsule split in two, sliding to the outside of the main tube, revealing a creature who scanned the surrounding area. It was masculine though mildly skinny , holding a weathered pump shotgun and clad in a light blue shirt and policeman's hat, "Area's clear, air's clean, nothing's on a cob..." his grip on his weapon relaxed slightly, "Looks good!" he shouted, giving the door behind him a good couple knocks.

The door behind him, which was identical to the one previously in front of him, then split open as well, allowing a second entity to boot him out of the airlock, then stepping out itself. This creature was considerably more feminine, wearing glasses and a lab coat, with it's hair in a ponytail behind it.

"Excellent work Mike," she said, her voice wrought with sarcasm, "In your first day you've spent two-thousand dollars on a barely functioning weapon, stranded us in an uncharted universe, failed to show up to work on time, and broken our last working vending machine."
she attempted to pinch the bridge of her nose, finding it difficult due to lack of fingers, "Why did I even waste money on hiring you?"

A third creature exited the capsule, looking around nervously, "Because you found the out hard way that the multiverse is a dangerous place?" he asked, rubbing the gash on his cheek.

"Mmm, yes," the bespectacled female said distantly, "Cybernetically augmented honey badgers... Why didn't I think of that?"

"Holy ballsacks!" another creature said, running full tilt out of the clown car of a capsule, "Do you realize where we are?" before anyone could answer, he continued excitedly "The off-green trees, the elated animals, the smells of Autumn even though it's the middle of summer," he jumped high in the air as he shouted: "We're in Equestria!"

The mare of the party was light lavender, nearly white, with a mane of a slightly darker color. Her eyes were dangerously purple, to the point of making the rest of her look even paler. "And the fact that we're all pastel horses didn't tip you off?" she asked, annoyed.

The deep cornflower stallion had a bouncy, off-white mane, "Oh yeah, that too," he said, giggling slightly.

"Well congratu-lations Mike, your royal fuck-up might bare some research. I might not fire you after all" the purple mare said. She then produced from the cylinder what appeared to be a softball-sized ball of steel with a chicken-wire funnel extending out from it, and with a surprisingly primal grunt, given it's maker, tossed it high into the sky where it slowly rose out of sight.

"What was-"

"Satellite." she said simply, cutting Mike off, "It'll provide me a map of the area, and drop a beacon for revisiting," she glared at Mike, "that is, if we ever get the D.D.C. fixed, Mike," she made sure to jam-pack as much venom into the last word as possible, "Now let's go, science waits for no woman. Come on, Adam."

"Wait!" the blue stallion shouted, raising a hoof in the air "These aren't robo-tel,"

"Metallivora capensis" the lavender mare corrected, straightening her glasses.

"These are ponies you guys, if they hear us calling each other 'Mike' and 'Clare', they'll know something's up! We need Equestrian names."

"Don't you think the non-equestrian clothes, speech, and technology will tip them off too?" asked Alex.
He was gold all over. His hair was more of a brass, and his eyes hinted towards green, but he was more or less an Oscar in pony form.

"Eh, whatever, I just wanna give everyone names." shrugged the blue stallion. "Now, the secret to your name is in your cutie mark," he said, pointing to his flank "Mine is... a star... clipboard?"

"No no no," the mare said, examining his backside closely, "look at the formatting, there's clearly a small, seven-to-ten letter segment between each sentence. It's a script." she said in a know-it-all voice, her favorite voice of all.

"Ooohh... Okay, gimme a sec... OOHmygod HOOly shit, I've got it." he said, practically busting at the seams, "Genre Savvy! And Alex, yours is a rainbow!"

"...So?"

"And you've got multiple personalities!"

"Uhh... sso?"

"Soo, you're Spectrum!"

The newly dubbed Spectrum thought on this for a moment, "That's... actually pretty cool. Thanks."

"And me?" asked Mike, a bit eager for his name.
He had arguably the best palate out of all of them. He was a denim stallion with a messy navy blue mane, and deep violet eyes. And yet, even with such pleasing colors he still managed to look generic.

A security guard would have to have a cool name, Mike thought, something like Muzzle Flare, or Gunpowder, or Guardian, or-

"I think your old title works well," Genre said, after a moment of thought. "Nightguard!"

"Well..." Mike said, looking at his golden badge cutie mark, "that isn't exactly what I had in-"

"Okay, then you're Doorjam!" Genre said with a sly grin, putting his arm around Doorjam's neck, "Welcome to the team, Doorjam!"

"Well, I mea-"

But before Doorjam could finish, he was interrupted by the fifth and final pony stepping out of the D.D.C., closing it behind him.
He was bright red, with an equally blue mane and eyes, his cutie mark was a Sulfur atom, surrounded by six flouride atoms
"If we're discussing names, is Titty Twisterene an option?" the stallion said in his deep, bored voice, "Because at this point that is the only viable option for me."

"Well duh," Genre replied, with a small spasm of his head, "Yours is the easiest of all! Just change the middle two letters. Atom"

"Alright..." Atom considered, in his trademark monotone, "but if anyone asks, I'm Narcissus Nipplus, and Atom is a slave name pushed on me by my previous owners, Donald Trump and Magilla Gorilla."

The last member of the team, who had been spinning in circles trying to get a good look at her flank for the past several minutes, finally spoke, "Well after careful consideration, I've found my cutie mark to be a portal. Given the style of names and my personal attributes, I think Event Horizon woul-"

"You're purple and you like science, your name's Ultraviolet." chimed in Genre Savvy, cutting her off.

"Wouldn't Event Horizon be-"

"You're Ultraviolet, let's roll!" Genre yelled, charging towards a town in the distance, carefree. His eyes glowed for a moment, "Hah! Nice one Peacekeeper!"

"Ughh..." Violet groaned, "it's like putting up with a bunch of children."

"If you don't stop whining," the suddenly gray pony beside her said, "the only thing I'll be putting up is my hoof up your ass."