Our Days are Numbered

Chapters

Prolouge
Disaster part 1
Disaster part 2
Rescue
Welcome to New Haven part 1

Prolouge

Prologue:

Commander Ren

“What do you just say?” I yelled into the monitor at one of the reporting soldiers. We found out a few days ago that ships in a certain sector filled with pilgrimaging humans and other alien species had never reached their destination and had disappear around a certain sector. As our job in the Galactic alliance, we have to check any sectors within our area of the galaxy and stop whatever was causing this. Everything seemed to be going alright, until this transmission was sent in.

“The entire end of the ship has been destroyed sir. Its nothing but rubble.” He replied with his radio. It was obvious that this wasn’t space pirates anymore, they never had that kind of firepower and would have taken what they want before leaving.

I was about to reply when I heard a sudden explosion through his side of the radio. Static played for a few seconds before fading away. I looked at the green ship on the monitor that marked the spaceship I was in contact with, the one we sent to investigate the disappearance, only to see it had out of existence telling me the main engine of the ship was destroyed.

“All contact with the ship has been lost. Battleship has most likely been destroyed by camouflaged attacker.” Was the reply of the Stations A.I. Omega, confirming what I could clearly tell. This was clearly no normal threat as far as I’m aware of, nothing ordinary forces could handle.

The ships weren’t the only thing that had gotten attention from Haven Stations citizens. I similar group sometime ago led by a rogue A.I. had also attacked ships, but those were purely human ships and was defeated. What was it’s name again… Ultima! That was the one who had attacked humanity, the one our lead researcher had built to try and find a planet that humans could live on. This was far beyond him though as we also had confirmed yesterday that an entire planet seemed to have been wiped out. We have sent rescue missions to save those who survived but a planet with billions of creatures was - for the amount we have seen so far survive - quickly reduced to hundreds.

Then, came the word from Omega that had given me some light “Shall I contact team Fallen about this incident” I was shocked. Not because he mentioned a horrible group or anything as Team Fallen was far from that, but because I had totally forgotten about them. “It seems that they would be more suited to the task”

Omega was right. If we were to stop them this was the only choice. They had another mission right now, investigating a string of murders and catching the culprit, who has targeted a well known family. Even with this, the only hope at this point was them. So I gave Omega the following command “Yes, but contact them when you have confirmation that the threat they are currently dealing with is eliminated before sending it, both are high priorities” I then turned around to head out the door as Omega gave its reply.

“Yes I shall send it right away then”

Ellith

“Pilot please respond, I am nearing the location” I spoke through the radio as I closed in on a nearby bar.

“Got it Ellith, ready to knock out power on command” Came the response of my friend and ally Pilot. We had confirmed that the next target is in fact none other than Captain Reiss Lewis, who was on vacation when the murders started happening. Well, to be honest Pilot’s brother Haydn was the one who figured this out and who we are looking for.

As I approached a guard walked in front of me “Sorry kid, adults on-” I quickly held up my Galactic Special Forces badge to him. Not only was he not letting me in but he just called a 17 year old a kid. I am not a kid, I am an almost adult with a small chip on my arm that turns into a giant cannon-claw thingy when in battle. This guy would have immediately back away if he knew this.

“Ellith Celestial of Galactic Special Forces Team Fallen, here on business to take care of a small problem in the bar you’re guarding. I demand you let me in before I decide to break your bones” I said to him. He easily recognized the name and stepped back, not wanting to get on my bad side.

“S-sorry I had no idea. P-please c-come on in” He said scared. I just gave him a small smile and walked in. Of course I have the harder way in. As far as I knew, Haydn and Asa were already inside disguised as bartenders or something like that. At least I got in, it usually is much harder with places guarded.

As I walked into the main room of the bar, I immediately noticed two of my companions at the bar serving some drinks. Asa was a human like species known as Quillis that’s only non-human trait was the porcupine needles on her face, arms, and legs. Her long blond hair and enthusiastic waving made her stand out easily to me. Next to her was the before-mentioned brother to Pilot, Haydn. He was in uniform unlike Asa and had a very focused glare. With them was another human, this one was definitely Reiss Lewis as she tilted her head to say to come over.

I took the empty seat Reiss and Asa saved for between them and looked to Haydn for the where-abouts on the attempted murderer. “That's him there” He said in a normal and strict voice. I followed his gaze to see a guy and a group of what I was guess are thugs talking. “They tucked their weapons into their shorts so they weren’t noticed. Sadly for them, I was able to notice a distinct bump on the sides of their pants that is attached to their belt,”

The took one last look around and, knowing we weren’t going to leave, got up and took out their weapons. Sadly, they didn’t have the upper hand.

“Pilot, now” I ordered to a younger boy in one of the booths. At that command he turned off all lights in the bar and quickly took out a rapier and took out one of the goons who went after him.

With that I touched a button on a small part of my arm which started to take on a very much different shape. Before they could get to Asa, Reiss (how had taken out a pistol at this point), and I the earlier mention rust colored Energy Cannon with Sharp Crab-like claws fully formed and quickly realised a blast of energy at the group before us. As they close in Asa jumps over use running at them. Easily dodge the incoming knifes she lands a clear uppercut into her attack and sends him flying across the room.

This is where they finally came into contact range as I launch another Beam of energy at them. That’s when I hear the music. As we battled a few began to look around wondering who the music is playing without the lights on. This is one of the reasons Pilot’s the leader as we see our weapons slowly become stronger with each hit of the beat we hit.

An quick fact about Pilot’s Rapier, Rhythmic Buster. It has a unique ability were ally weapons get stronger with each beat they hit. It’s worth not going full on rampage in order to do some extra damage. This made the fight go much easier as goons easily fell before use. The main target, was much more prepared and experienced than his mooks and used elemental essence (magic to you fantasy fanatics) to attack.

Pilot ran up to me “Time to end this?” he asked, clearly eager to get this over with. I nod and before we know it a gray light formed around the two of use.

“MONOCHROME”

With that, everything around us went black and white except for us. Monochrome was a spell that froze time for a few seconds with only those touching the caster and the caster itself able to move. Those few seconds we used to deal some pretty deadly blows to the enemy and he quickly collapsed to the ground once time resumed. Everyone stopped once they saw this, Haydn bending over in exhaustion, Reiss look at us with a face of relief, and Asa being her usual pouty self.

Before she could speak we got a transmission from our radios and Pilot quickly answered “This is Pilot Rose of Team Fallen, mission completed”

“Roger that Pilot, Commander Rens would like to meet with you and the others for something of grave importance” Omega replied. This must have been urgent if the Commander wanted to see use. The last time we met was when we cut Ultima down, so it must be bad if he wants to meet.

“Affirmative, we’ll be there as soon as possible”

Rainbow Dash (yeah, finally ponies)

“Welcome Dash, what can I do for you” Rarity asked with shock. It wasn’t often that I come here on business but with the shape the uniform was in, I really had no choice. I set the uniform down on the counter, it was worn out from all the practicing I have been doing. Their was a show tomorrow and I needed to have this fixed up by tomorrow.

“Yeah Rarity, can you fix this up by the end of the day?” I asked, I really needed this to look just as awesome as it was before but in as little time as possible too.

“Why of course Dash, I can have this fixed in an hour or so. You can wait here if you like” She pointed a hoof at the table and I nodded in agreement with nothing better to do.

I poured a cup of coffee and sat down to drink while Rarity got to work on my uniform. I knew she was going to make it more awesome than before and was really excited to see it brand new. I suddenly heard what sounded like an explosion of in the distance and screaming ponies. I looked outside to see an unfriendly ray of light coming straight for the boutique. I quickly flew to the side as it incinerated half of the boutique with the upstairs suddenly falling on both me and - from what I believe - Rarity as well. I was Completely buried in it when I suddenly saw a weird mechanical thing come up and punch at the ground, hearing a sound I never wanted to hear. The scream of a pony dieing.

(So… yeah. I know I didn’t get to the ponies until the end but I thought it felt right to talk about the other human characters in this first as they do play a big role. I promise that most of the questions you are probably asking do concern what just happened to ponyville, who Ultima and Team Fallen are and what they have to do with this, and if any of the other main six besides Rainbow - since you probably got the picture of who that scream was from - are still alive. These will all be answered in time, but for now I will leave it up for you to decide. Also, next chapter will have the first of many choices you will have to make throughout your journey so be prepared)

Disaster part 1

Rainbow Dash

I was really scared, and that was something I was going to have to get use to. Why was I scared? Their was robots everywhere looking for survivor to kill, the only reason I made it was because of the rubble left from Carousel Boutique burying me almost completely. Saying that, I definitely felt blood running from my wings a back left hoof, but I couldn’t stay here. I waited for the giant mechanical death machines to leave before I started to unbury myself. This process did cause a few scrapes and bruises but nothing I couldn’t handle.

I finally managed to unbury my body and looked to see if any of those things were still around. They were not equestrian, that's for sure. I would have thought about it longer if I hadn’t forgotten about Rarity. I limped my way over to where she was, losing a bit of blood in the process. When I finally got over there, my eyes were wide in horror at what I saw. The machine had slit her right in the stomach.

I fell backwards and crawled away. Even for me this was to much to handle, and I have had a lot of nasty crashes. I heard something coming and quickly hid out of sight once again. This time, two of those death machines came to examine the work they had committed. I was to worried about the blood I was losing to hear what they said. When I turned around, they were carrying Rarities limp body out of sight.

I needed to find someone and fast. I took some napkins and some tape and used that as a temporary bandage for my leg and wings. With that taken care of I peaked out of cover to see if any of those things were their and ran down the street to find the others.

Pilot

As we sat in the waiting transport that arrived to take us to Haven station (a giant Space city made by humans before we joined the galactic alliance). A place that brought back lots of memories for us. It was the place I spent most of my childhood in after the unknown death of my parents. Willard Ren was a old friend friend and companion of mine when an A.I. named Ultima went rogue and sought to destroy humanity entirely. It was us, Team Fallen that had destroyed Ultima after a desperate attempt to chase us while we made our way back to Haven. We destroyed its so called ‘Ultimate body’ and left it in the very ship that it had been placed, now very much destroyed. At least that’s the short version of the story. Trust me you would be here for days if I told you everything that happened so consider it lucky.

“I see it guys” Asa yelled as cheerfully as ever “Look. Right there. The giant space ship with the-”

Ellith shut her up before she continued by simple give her an annoyed glance. Being one of two who survived the first Ultima attack Ellith and Asa were the first two friendly faces I meet when we got out. Asa and me have basically become a thing and Ellith was one of intimidating people you would ever meet. Not who she looks, being very pretty with her incredibly smooth skin and brown hair. She is intimidating in that she talks like she will crumble you into dust and can very much take a rocket in mid flight and aim it back. No joke, she actually did that.

“Not in a good mood huh?” I asked seeing the annoyance in her voice.

Ellith walked over to me and sat down so she could respond without someone here. “Hearing Asa acting immature is just another reminder that my body is not the one it use to be,” She looked at her hands, face steaming with anger. “Sure I may have more power than a normal human, but it is in no way like the body I use to have,”

I give her a strange look, wondering what she is talking to me about. I was going to respond when I heard our pilot speak to us. “We will be arriving at the Haven docks in ten minutes, I suggest you get ready to depart”

Asa

As we finally touched the metal ground of New Haven I happily jump for joy. I was home, well my home was a few systems away but this is where Pilot was so this is where I go. I looked back at the others to see Pilot happily smiling, Haydn chatting with Reiss about who cares what, and Ellith just facepalmed at my happy attitude. I hadn’t stopped running while I looked at the others and found that I had knocked into someone without knowing. Looking at the blue hair girl in front of me, I quickly jumped up to wrapped them in a hug, only to be denied by a hand.

“I thought we established a no hugging policy Asa” She replied reminding me of the time I had fire essence active while trying to hug her. Embarrassment and worry quickly formed in my head as I realized what I was doing.

“Sorry Skyler, please forgive me” I apologized in response. Skyler, the earlier mentioned blue hair girl quickly chuckled and looked down at me with a smile.

“It’s okay, just try to remember next time, alright?” I nodded my head to her request. Pilot walked up to the two of use, happy to see his best friend. “It’s been too long Pilot”

Pilot nodded in agreement as we walked start to walk again out of the drop off area and entered the main area of New Haven station. While the walls and floors were completely made of metal, something that degraded the look of the station, the place was filled with races of all kinds. I would tell you them all but it would have taken up two hour that you rather would probably rather not want to hear. Shops and doors to residential areas lined the sides of the space station while other events went on around the station. It wasn’t an A+ but it was still a suitable place to live, considering it was one of the only places humanity had for a while, after the sun started expanding and devoured an entire planet.

We didn’t have time to enjoy ourselves yet though, we had to see Rens as soon as we returned according to Omega. We went around the inner side of the ring shaped hallway before coming to a door guarded by two men in black armour that looked a lot like those Glactic Force people from that Metroid game Haydn showed me (Authors question: How many of you defeat Berserker Lord with using the internet) but more detailed. They stepped away to let us through and we entered a gondola shaped room with seats on the sides. We all stepped inside as Skyler (also part of Team Fallen) pressed a button that said ‘top floor’ and sat down. Reiss had decided not to join us and simply waved goodbye as the doors closed and we started our ascent to the giant tower in the middle of the station.

Pilot

After we arrived on the top floor, we quickly made our way to the room Omega told us Ren was waiting in. He turned around as we entered and let out a breath of relief. I stepped forward to shake his hand, his grin telling who happy it was to be here.

“Long time since I’ve seen you Pilot,” As we broke off the shake. “As much as I would like to catch up and have a friendly chat, though, I have something I would need to tell you” His earlier smile disappeared, replaced with a face that told me just how serious this was.

“What do you have for us.” I replied. He beckoned us over to the monitor in the center of the room.

“You remember the Space cruiser that had vanished vanished a week ago right?” Everyone nodded their head in response “Well, more and more have vanished since then. These ships all crossed a certain sector of the Milky Way that is seen as a very busy area used by both civilian and military class ships. Since that attack a week ago, more and more ships traveling that area had been destroyed. At first we suspected the space pirates where behind this as they also use that area for pillaging because of its traveling routes and figured that it would be easy to eliminate them if we sent a group over to investigate. I think you can figure out what happened next”

“You found something worse” Ellith said, clearly understand that this was no lowlife scum who take for their own needs.

“Correct,” Ren continued “At first everything seemed fine, no immediate attack from these thought-to-be pirates, as they usually would do on sight of a military class ship. We weren’t picking anything up on engine waves given by a ship in the area. ‘Maybe someone had already taken care of it’ we thought. We were really wrong” He pulled up a holographic image that we guessed was from the radar of the ship he sent. He brought up a holographic pad and sled it a little to reveal something suddenly come up behind the green ship that indicated an ally. “You can’t see it on the top down monitor because of the invisibility, but a ship unknown to us suddenly fired from above” He moved it again a little bit to see the green ship disappear and a red one suddenly show up before vanishing for real. A light speed drive, it was clear they knew that he sent a ship to investigate. “Whoever they are, destroyed half the ship with a clear blow. Then quickly destroyed the other before leaving,” He closed the holograms as Omega then spoke.

“This is also related to another attack on a planet in the same area classified as Equin. A ship bearing a similar style of attack quickly start sending mechanical troops down. This was also followed by a series of high power lasers that hit multiple points on the planet in what seemed like an attempt to destroy all life on the planet. I have calculated that of a planet once consisting of more than seven billion was quickly and drastically decreased to the low hundreds”

I was in completely shot to hear the beastly nature of this group. The amount of beings they killed could only be one thing “A planet wide genocide”

“That is what we believe to be the cause, but their is little to no detail on these attackers. They seem to leave as quickly as they kill. An average speed of 12 minutes and 32 seconds, rounded up of course”

“Impossible,” Haydn said shocked. “No way they could have erase so many unless-” He couldn’t say it, but we all knew what he was thinking.

“The strategy of the attacks are the same as the ones used during the war against Ultima,” Ren replied, finishing what Haydn was trying to say.

“While this seems connected, I have calculated that it is only a 5% probability it could be. The only ones who survived the Ultima A.I. test mission, the one he went rogue on, is Pilot Arma Rose, Skyler Elizebeth Schmit, and her sister Dusk Rebecca Schmit. All of which part of Team Fallen, stopped Ultima from trying to wipe humanity out, and destroyed the ship he was connected to. To further prove my point, Ultimas only sought to erase men, while these attackers are going after races of all kinds. The only way Ultima could have had anything to do with this is if his A.I. fragment was taken by a passing scavenger ship and was given connection to the ship itself, or if it had installed a backup component to convert itself to one another ship, the latter being the most likely” Omega finished. He was definitely right about the three of us not being involved in anyway. The entire reason Team Fallen exist is to take down high level threats of all kinds, whether it’s a killer trying to murder a powerful and well known family, or an A.I. who got corrupted during some stage of development and saw humanity as the universe's problem and wanted to eliminate us. Team Fallen was the one called upon when threats of this level showed up, and we never backed down knowing full well it could be the universe's end.

“We have sent small rescue ships to the area in order to save those who are still alive,” Ren continued. “but they still have some of their death machines on the planet looking for survivors and - while we have been handling these alright so far - think it would be good to have some more experienced soldiers to take on some of the areas that have been better guarded”

“I’m guessing that us,” I asked.

“Correct,” Confirmed Ren, nodding his head as he responded “There's one area in particular that seems well guarded. A small town on the edge of a dark forest with a crystal tower in it. I want you to go in and see if you can find any survivors here and get them off of Equin to safety, we will discuss further plans after we rescue the planets civilians. Understood”

I nodded in responce “send us the coordinates of the planet and the town's location and we will be on our way” everyone else followed, knowing that this was just as important as finding the culprit. He sent the coordinates to both places immediately and we went on our way.

Ellith

As we began our descent onto the planet, we all had the thought that Ren might have sent the wrong coordinates to us. The planet looked like it hadn’t been scratched at all by anything of great devastation. Of course, we were still in space so we could really only tell once we got closer to the planet's surface. Rage was already burning in me for the completely monstrous behaviour that we were told these people had shown to the planet's inhabitants.

As we started to near the surface of the planet, we began to see the exact destruction that these things had caused. We all stood in shock at what we thought was once a peaceful town. Many of the buildings were reduced to rubble and smoke from fires could be seen. As we got closer, we finally got a look at the machines they had sent. They looked like the mechon from Xenoblade but deadlier, more intimidating, and many had the stains of blood on them from those they had killed.

“Oh my god,” Asa said, her normally cheerful attitude replaced by one of fear and sadness. She was the only one who could mutter a single word.

“Nearing landing site” Pilot yelled scared at what we were going to see when he got out. Ren had informed us on the way of the inhabitants of the planet. They were small ponies, unicorns, and pegasi of all different colors and special traits that were represented with a tatoo called a cutie mark on their flanks. This is what we were looking for.

The ship Pilot was flying landed and we got out to search for survivors. We followed the trail through the destroyed town and quickly saw bodies of the victims from the attack. They were just as described, and I was honestly shocked that anyone would want to do anything to something that looked so sweet. After a little bit more travel we came to a red house that was still standing in the middle of the destruction and thought it was the best place to start. We opened the door to see the house empty. After a little bit of search I heard a sound coming from a door leading to the basement and called the others over as I opened it up. Right there, was three small fillies (that’s what young horses are called... right?) huddled up down in the middle standing scared as they looked at us. One was a yellow pony with a reddish mane, another was a white unicorn with a purple and pink mane, and a pegasus with orange fur and what I was guess is a dark pink mane of some kind.

“P-please don’t hurt us,” the yellow one said as that covered their muzzles in fear. This was obviously the group's first encounter with our kind.

“It’s okay,” Asa said, trying to calm them down “We're here to help and get you out of danger” She started petting the yellow one who seemed to calm down when she heard the mention of help. “Do you mind telling us your names?”

The one with the white fur coat stepped forward to introduce herself and her friends “I’m Sweetie Bell,” She replied, pointing at herself with her hoof before turning and pointing at the two behind her. “This is Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, and you things are?”

“The names Asa, and these are my friend Pilot, Ellith, Skyla, and Haydn. We’re humans,” She replied with a little bit of a lie in what she said. Asa - as I mentioned before - is a Quillis, but being that she look almost exactly like the rest of us we did chime in to correct her. “We are… um,” She said hesitant before looking at us for an answer. I stepped forward to reply.

“We’re from space,” I pointed to the ceiling to trying and get my thought through. “If you can’t explain something as simple as that then we would look very unprofessional,” This was a little harsh, but it was necessary knowing that if we would end up doing this a lot then it would just make the rescued very confused.

The pegasus, who I believed was Scootaloo, rushed up to me flying with a look of excitement “You’re aliens?” Normally a question like this would be a big insult to a space traveling species, but seeing that their technology was less advance made it seem understandable to act in this way.

“Yes,”

Pilot brought our attention back with a forced cough, seeing that the talk was getting very unfocused. “Getting back on track, the job is to send one of us back with the refugees if it’s a small group and two if a bigger group. Seeing as there are only three of you I think it would be safe to send just one” We nodded our approval. “So, who would like to volunteer?”

(So now it’s time to make a choice, who will Pilot send back to the ship and who will stay with him to look for other survivors)

Choice #1: Send Asa back with the CMC

Choice #2: Send Haydn back with the CMC

Choice #3: Send Ellith back with the CMC

(So with that, both Team Fallen (once again made by me) and MLP (not owned by me) have collided and we also get a whole lot of in depth information on the how the universe has been formed. I hope I answered a few of your questions, but knowing the context I may have brought a few more questions into perspective also. Once again I will try to answer your questions and would like your input on what you would like to see happen in the future. So, I will see the responses in a week and see what you guys have chosen to let happen. Until then, see you guys later)

Disaster part 2

Pilot

Asa stood up from her position over Sweetie Belle and Applebloom and looked at me before speaking. “I’ll do it,” She said with determination and ferocity that I don’t usually see from her.

“Are you sure about this,” I replied back. I knew Asa was powerful, but she was the first person we usually would go to for this kind of stuff. My only reply was a rare look of seriousness from her and a nod of the head. I sighed before giving permission “Just be careful, please?”

“Whats going on. What do you mean were being taken somewhere?” Applebloom asked. It was going to be hard to explain to them what happened.

I decided the simplest thing to say was “It's not safe here right now. So we have to get you to some place that is safe,” Luckily, they seemed to understand. They nodded and they started to head off with Asa behind them to make sure nothing snuck up on them on the trip home. We watched them head out the front door of the building and hoped that they would be safe.

Before they disappeared they gave us a request “Could you please find some people for us?”

I nodded and quickly asked who they were, each of them giving me one name.

“Applejack,”

“Rainbow Dash”

“and Rarity”

Rainbow Dash

I walked out of Sugarcube Corner with another sigh as I once again walked out to find one of my friends taken. I didn’t know if they were or alive not which just filled me with even more fear at what they could have done. So far Twilight, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie were missing and probably taken as well. I took a deep breath to trying and calm down my worried mind and tried to figure out who might still be around. Fluttershy! Sure, she isn’t as brave as most ponies, but seeing how these robotic killing machines only go for things in sight (or at least that's how I hope I survived this) Fluttershy is probably hiding under her bed hoping she isn’t see.

I walked down the streets best I could. The homemade bandage wasn’t doing much help in keeping the blood from running down my fur and staining it. If I didn’t find anyone soon, I would probably die of blood lost, and that isn’t the way I was going to go. I made my way farther down the street until I saw a group of those mechanical monsters again. They seemed to be talking to something or someone, but I could understand it at all.

I hid behind a nearby wall as they turned around. Thankfully, they were too caught up in what they were talking about to come check. Most of what I heard was gibberish to me, but I was able to hear one voice that was understandable.

“I see, so this planet is pretty an essence gold mine in other word” A mechanical voice said. What was this essence they were talking about, I have never heard of it before, and why did they want it? After a few more weird noises from the other machines, it once again responded “What? and you didn’t tell me they arrived sooner. Stop them before they evacuate any resources” Resources? What kind of resources were they talking about. Their isn’t anything war worthy (at least I think it was war purposes) here in ponyville. What could possibly be worth taking as a resou-.

I cover my mouth with my hoof when I realized what they meant. They didn’t mean gold or diamonds or anything like that, they were talking about ponies, unicorns, and pegasi! We’re this essence they were talking about. That why I haven’t seen any pony around here, these thing were using them for something, and I didn’t want to find out. They talked for a little while longer before heading in different directions.

Once they were gone, I headed out in a big hurry to get to Fluttershy and warn her about this. It was painful, however, to run with a broken leg and it really tired me out. After a short time, I had no choice but to take a break. I sat down to rest for a bit, and took a look at how my body was doing. It was painful to see that my makeshift bandage was useless at stopping the bleeding. At least I didn't have to look at the actual injury. While I was looking however, I saw something walk up to me and heard a shout soon after.

“GET OUT OF THE WAY”

Pilot

So far, everything seemed to be going smoothly. We haven’t even been here an hour and we have saved three souls from this carnage. It made me glad that some of them seemed to have gotten out of here alright. We had three more though that we needed to find, the names the “Cutie Mark Crusaders” (They told us that before we separated) had mentioned. We hoped that we could find these other ponies before it was too late.

As we headed down the road, we got to a part of the town that seemed to have stayed together very well. Many of the houses were still standing, but were completely silent otherwise. This wasn’t the creepiest thing though, as we also found a few spots of dried blood with no owner.

“Where’s all the blood coming from?” Ellith said, speaking what was on the minds of everyone here.

Haydn got down next to one of the spots of blood and we all saw him started to glow yellow. This is what essence was, while it can be thought of as a elemental power, it heightens one's abilities and allows them to see things people wouldn’t normally wouldn’t be able to. Only those with great talent could use essence in this way, so it's a open welcome invitation to Team Fallen whenever it happens to someone around us. Only a few of us could use essence in this way, Haydn is a master detective and can use essence to see past events that centered around what he touches. I can also use essence in a similar way. I’m one of the lead mechanical experts of New Havens military and essence allows me to see errors, flaws, and other mechanical related things to. Asa can also use essence in an interesting way, but I’ll talk about that later.

Anyway, it was only a few seconds before Haydn stood up and the visible essence around him faded away. He turned to us and his response was something that shocked us all. “They took the bodies, those damn death machines took the bodies” It wasn’t often you heard Haydn use a word like that, but still, taking the bodies! This was already messed up enough, I didn’t think it could get any worse. We would have talked about it if Skyler hadn’t noticed something in the distance.

She drew our attention with a load “HEY” and all looked to see her pointing at something close in the distance. After a little walking we could make out two shapes. One was a pony on sitting on the ground looking herself over, she seemed pretty beaten up by the looks of it. We gasped when we saw what the other figure was. It was one of those death machines Omega had described on the journey here. With urgent hurry we drew our weapons (Skyler has a sniper in case you were wondering) and rushed ahead. I called out to the pony in the distance, which we could now see was a cyan-like color fur that had been stained by blood and a rainbow mane.

“GET OUT OF THE WAY” I yelled out as the larger death machine started to close in on the pony. The pegasus limped over to us as quickly as she could when she saw the danger she was. I quickly activated Rhythmic Buster’s Rhythm boost (the special ability Ellith mention in the prologue) and quickly dodge a swinging saw like blade and easily landed a few hits before falling back.

I looked back to see Haydn just standing there without his bow and electric arrows. You gotta be kidding me, he forgot his weapons back on the ship AGAIN. I glad he didn’t volunteer for bring the Crusaders back then because he would have been no help at all.

Ellith quickly brought me back to reality when she blocked an incoming attack. “We should probably end this quickly” We all nodded and Skyler quickly stuned it with EMP round and Ellith quickly jabbed the claw part of her cannon into the center of the machine. We backed up a little as it fell to the ground.

Seeing that it wouldn’t be getting back up, we quickly ran to the badly injured pegasus to see her exhausted and badly bleeding. Ellith was the first to step right up to the pony and place her hand on its head. “This is going to sting a bit,” She warned as a green essence aura covered both of them. I looked to the side to see the bleeding wing and leg heal itself up and the light to fade.

The pegasus let out a sigh of relief “Thank you, I was too sure that it was safe and didn’t bother to get out of the way” She looked at us with a smile “Name's Rainbow Dash,” This time we sighed as we recognized the name.

“Hey Rainbow Dash,” I replied “We were sent to come find you by a pony named Scootaloo, sound familiar?”

Suddenly Rainbow Dash was in my face, flying, with her hooves on my shoulders. “Wait, Scootaloo, sent you? Is she okay?” I nodded and she land on the ground with another sigh of relief “Thank goodness, I was starting to worry I was the only one that had made it out. Do you mind telling me your names?”

I nodded again and introduced us to her. We explained the current situation to her, told her what we are doing here, and asked what happened down here. The last question seemed to be the one that hurt, as she had trouble telling us without breaking into tears. Her voice made her seem so confident, but yet she seemed to be having a major breakdown. We decided it would be best to change the question after seeing this and decided ask her something else.

“Do you happen to know where Applejack and Rarity live, we were also asked to find them?” Rainbow Dash shook her head in an attempt to get herself together and looked at us.

“Applejack live on a farm some way out of town, as for Rarity,” She shivered at the mention of the name. “They already got her, we were in the same building when it collapsed and one of those things-” We stopped her before she could say anything. She was obviously traumatized by the experience and we didn’t want to have a repeat of the earlier question.

“What about anyone else? Do you know anyone who may still be alive?” The rainbow-maned pegasus nodded her head. “What’s their name?”

“Well, Applejack may still be ok, and I was heading to Fluttershy’s house. I was hoping she would have the best chance of still being alive being that she is very shy and would likely hide on site of those things. I can show you the way there if you want?” Despite Rainbow Dash’s previous (and now non-existent) injuries being so grave, I was surprised to see her ask to help us. I wasn’t against her helping, but I needed to know what she could do that could help her in a fight.

“We would like some guidance, but I’m not so sure you can handle it. These machines are very advanced tech and probably wouldn’t be dented by a normal kick. Unless you got something I don’t know about I think it would be good if you just told us the directions to these places and have one of us help you get to a rescue ship we have prepared,” When I said this, I was expecting her to nod in knowing what we were up against. Instead she grew even more confident which, compared to how she acted with the earlier questions, was not something I expected out of her.

She quickly started straight to the sky as we simply watched, not knowing what she was doing. After a few moments she finally started coming down, and gaining speed greater than we had thought would have been possible for a living creature. A few second before she would have collided with the ground, she suddenly hit a clear 90 degrees angle and all we saw was a blur past by us with a rainbow shockwave appearing where she turned. We turned around as we saw Rainbow Dash come to a halt and put as much of a grin on her face as a pony could.

“If you think that’s something, I’d like to tell you that I’m the only one who has ever been able to pull off a Sonic Rainboom,” She said with a much different tone than earlier. “And what were you saying about me not being able to handle myself, because I pretty sure that amount of speed would have broken most of your bones if that had hit you,” She had a point, if that speed put as much of a punch as it looked then that would do much more than dent metal, no matter how hard it probably was. There was one question that was at the top of mind though.

“How did you learn to use essence like that?”

She looked at me confused “What do you mean essence? It’s just a talent. everypony has a special talent represented by their cutie mark,”

Ellith was shocked when she heard this “You mean all ponies, pegasus, and unicorns have talents like this represented in the same way?” Rainbow Dash nodded “And you have no idea what essence is?” She nodded again “This is not making sense, I can’t believe it but I think I have finally found a world that makes zero logical sense, even to me,”

We bursted out in laughter and amazement at this accomplishment. Rainbow Dash has just made the impossible possible in two ways. She was able to break the sound barrier without any injury, and has managed to easily confuse Ellith enough to declare that the planet make no sense. We would have laughed longer if we didn’t hear Asa call over the radio.

“Pilot, are you there?”

I picked up the radio as she repeated herself a few time before answering. “Hey Asa, are you at the rescue ship?”

“Yep, we got a little bruised up by some robots but nothing fatal,” This was a relief to here. It’s a little disappointing that she couldn’t get them out completely unharmed, but this was better than nothing. “I guessing I should wait here for you guys to come back?”

“Yes! we'll be back once we find to Applejack and someone named Fluttershy. Just stay there and keep those three safe”

“Got it, bye”

She got of the radio and I turned back to the others to say who's going where. “We can explain essence and stuff on the way back to New Haven. Right now lets just focus on finding these two ponies before whoever is attacking them get there first. I’ll go with Rainbow Dash. We’ll head to Fluttershy’s and tell her what's going on, it's best that only two go there since it seems she is easily scared. We don’t want her overwhelmed. The rest of you guys head to Applejack’s and retrieve her and anyone else in that area,” Everyone nodded in agreement and Rainbow Dash told them the directions to her place. We then started off to our destination and hoped that they would be alright. This is definitely worse than we first imagined, and we needed to make sure as many lives as possible are safe before we headed back.

We’re going to show these pieces of metal exactly what they’re up against.

(So... I think we can all tell chosing Haydn would have been a bad Idea. Thankfully, Asa was able to pull through with only few minor injuries and should be able to keep the CMC from danger until Pilot and the others get back. I haven’t thought of a plan for when I will post these but I hope to try and keep a somewhat steady pace with the upload and will give a heads up when a new chapter is coming. Also, if you guys can try to get this out there as much as possible it would be great. Put things you want to see happen and things you would like me to make a chapter for in the comments because I can’t think of these chapters and what they will be about forever. So with that, see you next chapter)

Rescue

Rainbow Dash

Things were going much better with Pilot around, we didn’t have to hide from the robots anymore because of his skills with that sword (which he told me was called a Rapier) and my speed. We made a really good team. It wasn’t long before we were able to get out of ponyville and onto the road that led to Fluttershy’s place. It didn’t seem like there was anything trying to block our way so we had a nice little chat while heading down the road, and I had one question I had to get out of my mind.

“Pilot, would you mind explaining what this essence thing is to me?” From what it seemed, the reason those things were here was because of this force and I wanted to know exactly why they would want something like this.

“I should have known you would have asked me that,” He start “I guess you could say that essence is the very thing that allows us to exist. Without essence, none of the minerals needed to form planets and stars would exist. There are many different forms of essence, but only a few kind be used by mortal souls. There are the normal elemental ones like fire, ice, water, earth. and ect. but also others. Time essence, for example, is what keeps everything moving. You remember that Monochrome thing I used against some of those machines back their?” I nodded my head in reply. “That was me using essence to stop time, I can’t do it for more than a few seconds because we’re mortal and our minds can’t take that kind of energy,”

I was shocked at this information. I get that he would have been able to do it for that long, but the fact that this meant unicorns aren’t the only thing that can use magic was a big surprise. Wait, if essence can manipulate time and cause spontaneous bursts of fire to come into existence, then did that mean that magic was actually essence? I didn’t really know but it seemed to make since.

“There is also something known as essence enhancement that only a few people could use,” Pilot continued on “When a person is superior in a certain area of expertise they can use essence to enhance that skill even further. It is very rare to see someone with this ability but I do know some people that can use it. So you’re ability to break the sound barrier without injury is probably due to you having that ability to use essence enhancement. If that's the case, however, then that means all of your kind is special and has the ability to use it,”

Oh, so that’s why he said I was using essence when I showed them the sonic rainboom. If he is right, and all ponies, pegasus, and unicorn have their talents because of essence, then this was an amazing breakthrough for our species. However, it also explained something else. It explains why these machines saw us a resource.

“That's explains why they are gathering us up then. This essence is a much more powerful resource then I imagined,” Pilot stopped as he heard this.

“Their gathering you as a resource?” He asked in monotone voice. He kind of scared me a little when he said that. I don’t know why but he seemed to be trying to hold something back, something he didn’t want me to see. He finally looked at me like he has been for the time we have been traveling together. “They must be making some sort of machine or device, but who in their right mind would ever using a living being as a resource” He started running, a look of worry now on his face. “Quick, we gotta get them as soon as possible,”

Haydn

We were now out of ponyville as we made our way to the home of Rainbow Dash’s friend Applejack. The road seemed to have been completely surrounded by apple trees, many of which seemed to have been destroyed with squashed apples on the ground. If this pony managed to survive this, I will honestly be impressed. We had started running as soon as we saw the destroyed trees, hoping we weren’t too late.

After some time we came to a wooden arch with a sign on it that read “Welcome to Sweet Apple Acres”. This was the place that pegasus had told us about, it had to be. When we arrived it didn’t seem like any of those machines had yet to show up, or had already left with Applejack and whoever else was on this farm in tow. Ellith seemed like she was about to speak when we saw something fly past us and crash through a pile of hay and into a nearby fence. With a look I saw the body of a Orange pony with blond hair and a cowboy like hat. She also had a tattoo of three apples somehow showing through her fur.

“Where the hay did these crazy beast come from?” She spoke out with a southern accent. Skyler rushed over to check on her before she could get up. I took one look over to the left to see another one of those strange machines, blood stained on its claw-like arms.

I looked behind it as it came closer to see if I could find a cause for the blood, as the orange pony seemed unharmed except for a few bruises. It wasn’t that long until I saw the body of a red pony, dead on the ground with a terrifying gash in his stomach. I suddenly wished that Pilot was here, he diffenently would have had a fun time tearing this thing apart.

“Haydn,” Ellith yelled, standing beside the orange pony and Skyler. “You help out Skyler with checking her wounds, I’ll handle the pile of rusted bolts behind you,” Knowing I didn’t stand a chance without a weapon, I stood aside and let Ellith handle the enemy.

Ellith

I walked past Haydn and stood ready to face the enemy as it came towards me. The thing seemed to notice I wanted to fight and immediately launched towards me and great speed. I quickly dodged the attack and threw a good blast from my hand cannon at it to knock it back. I didn’t seem as fragile as the one we saw when we first came in contact with Rainbow Dash, as it merely seemed to push it back instead of falling into pieces. It after came straight back throwing more quick jabs at me. I wasn’t use to fighting by myself but I was quick enough to dodge its attacks.

After a few more rounds of this I finally started to feel fatigue come to my body, the stupid robot still standing there in front of me. The robot didn’t seem to be feeling any wear and tear from the fight and once again got ready to launch its claws into me. That's when I heard a bullet zoom past me and hit my enemy, hitting it right in the middle of the head. It bent backwards as sparks started to fly out of its body, before eventually hitting the ground. I looked behind me to see Skyler give me a thumbs up, rifle in her hands.

I took one last look to make sure the robot was offline before heading over to the orange pony and joining the others. “Thanks y’all, that thing came out of nowhere and started attacking us,” The pony said, tired “Name’s Applejack, might I ask who and what you guys are?”

I sighed as I heard her name, didn’t seem like we were too late after all. “I’m Ellith,” I introduced myself before adding “and these are Haydn and Skyler. Rainbow Dash told us to go find you, ponyville was attacked by the same enemy you were,”

Applejacks eyes widened with distress. “Is everyone okay? did you find Apple Bloom?”

I didn’t really know who to answer this, Pilot is usually the one dealing with situations like this. “Apple Bloom and her friends are safe, and Rainbow Dash is with a friend of mine, they are going to try and find Fluttershy at her place. We didn’t make it in time to save anyone else. Sorry,”

“Everyone?” She asked, I simply nodded. Her eyes started watering “Twilight, Pinkie, Rarity, all of them. How,” She burst into tears. “How did this happen,”

Pilot

“Hello,” I yelled into the cottage. Me and Rainbow Dash had reach Fluttershy’s house not long after we started running. The place seemed abandoned from the looks of it, but Rainbow seemed sure that she was here. “Are you sure she is here Rainbow Dash, the entire place looks empty to me”

“I’m sure she’s here, she’s just probably hiding. Fluttershy is scared easily so I bet she is curled up somewhere scared half to death, that's all,” If there was one thing about Rainbow Dash that bugged me, it was her inability to understand what to say and what not to say. She didn’t really seem to understand fear all that well, despite what state she was in when she got on the topic of what happened to her during the attack. I would have explained this to her if we didn’t hear something, or someone to be more specific nearby.

I looked under the nearby bed to see a scare yellow and pink pegasus under the bed. Even though I hate to admit it, Rainbow was right about her being scared half to death. Knowing what might happen if I spoke loudly, I tried to calming talk to her. “Um… excuse me” was all I got out before the pegasus bolt from under the bed and behind Dash. Guess me speaking was the problem to begin with.

“P-p-p-lease d-don’t hurt me,” She spoke softly and just loud enough for me to hear “I p-p-p-romise to behave,”

“It’s okay Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash said trying to reassure her “This is Pilot, he helped me out of a tight spot,”

Fluttershy took a peek at me from behind Rainbow before stepping out. Her entire body was shivering with fear. I made a note to wait for her to calm down before explaining to her what had happened. She was already terrified, and I didn’t want to do anything to make it worse (if that was even possible). I was about to speak before Asa spoke to me from the rescue ship we landed here on.

“Pilot are you there?” I motioned to Dash and Fluttershy to wait a minute before replying over the radio.

“Yes, I found another pony. Looks like this is the last of one in this area. We’re ready for pickup,”

“Got it, I just picked up Haydn and the others, they have Applejack with them. I’ll be there in a few,” After that Asa turned the radio off.

I looked back to Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. Rainbow was telling her what was going on and that they won’t be coming back to Equestria for some time. She looked at me before turning to Rainbow Dash and whispering something to her. I decided to sit down on the floor and wait for the rescue ship.

“Um… Mr. Pilot?” Fluttershy said with the same quiet voice as earlier. “Sorry to ask, but what is this place you are taking use to? Are other ponies there as well?”

“Well, if you want to know where, it’s a city up in space called New Haven, and a lot of refugees from Equin are there as well,” I started to explained “New Haven is one of the safest places to be at times like this. The military forces are pretty strong, but at the same time the are many places with just ordinary civilians. Giving how there are many other species living there, fitting in shouldn’t be too bad, and the shops and homes are as nice as you can really get up in space,”

Fluttershy seemed to be calming down with the more she new, but still had one question she wanted to get out of her head. “Are we going to come back? Are you going to stop whoever it is that’s doing this?”

I gave a nod to her before replying. “Don’t worry, we'll make sure you can return home,” I crossed my heart and gave her a look of confidence before saying on final word “Promise,”

(I’ll admit, this isn’t as good as the first three chapters in terms of grammar, action, and other stuff, but I have a lot of freedom with what I can do now that the rescue mission is out of the way. So I hope you’re ready, because the next few chapters are going to be touching on a lot of important things and the last of the main characters, at least for the time, are going to be showing up. See you next chapter everyone!)

Welcome to New Haven part 1

Applejack

It was all really hard to take in. The fact that so many good ponies died for a reason I don’t even know. The fact that Pinkie, Twilight, and Rarity might not be alive. The fact that we were heading into completely unknown territory with a species we don’t know anything about. This was all really terrifying to realize. In the end, I guess I should just be happy I’m alive, and that some of my friends were too.

The rescue ship that these human things took us on was all really advance tech from the look of it. As for the people on the ship, Haydn was simply looking down at the metallic floor clearly sad about all the good souls that he couldn’t save. Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom were talking about what the place they were taking us to looked like and what kind of things they would do there. Fluttershy was getting some rest while Rainbow Dash talked to some kid named Pilot about things they had done. A gal named Asa was taking us to some place called New Haven or something like that, flying the ship to our destination. As for I, I was just sitting there think about everything that had just happened.

We had been traveling for some time when a gal across from me named Skyler started talking to me “Sorry we didn’t get here sooner,” She said. “I really wish I could have done something to save your brother and grandmother,”

I sighed, tears still dripping down my face from crying earlier. “I understand. Y’all ain’t the ones to blame for what happened, that machine is. At least I’m not the only one to survive this,” I responded to her. She was about to speak again before Pilot yelled out to everyone.

“Sorry to interrupt everyone,” He apologized before continuing “but I got to explain what is going to happen when we arrive. Before we can get you all settled in with a house and everything I going to have to take you to the person in operations and get you registered for residence. After that one of us will tour you around the city to make sure you all get to your temporary house and that everything you need during your stay. Anything else you want to know before we land?”

Rainbow Dash was the first to speak up, “I understand if you want to make sure we stay safe and everything, but where can I sign up to kick some metallic butt?”

This is something I wanted to know as well. With all that those mean machines did to Equestria, I didn’t want to sit around and wait for it to be solved myself. Pilot seemed to predict this and answered immediately.

“With everything I’ve seen out of you Rainbow, I’m willing to let you and your friend help us take whoever is behind this down,” He calmly replied “I’m going to send out a notice to all ponies and army personnel and tell them to come to the operation area if they are willing to fight this cause,”

Rainbow Dash and I got really pumped up hearing this. Pilot seemed to have a lot going for him. He seemed like a soldier, always ready to head into combat and sacrifice his life, but at the same time didn’t take it as serious and seemed to have a civilian mindset more then that of any normal soldier. We all continued to ask questions about New Haven, what Humans were like, and other things concerning our stay before we hear Asa speak over the headset.

“Hello everyone, this is your captain here speaking and saying to put on your seat belts as we descend into our destination of New Haven. Thank you all for flying Asa airlines and we hope you enjoy your day,”

Asa’s talk seem to give us all a little chuckle, while Pilot and the other humans definitely laughed at it a bit more then we . Even in times like this, it’s nice to have people able to cheer you up. Everyone seemed to be looking out the window at something in the distance. I decide to follow and saw a strange object in the distance, and it seemed to be getting closer to us. As it did, I started to notice windows on the top and side of the ship, and getting even closer I noticed what looked like creatures inside of it, some similar to what the humans that saved us looked like. Asa’s next announcement confirmed what I had thought.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Mares and Stallions, and fillies of all ages. Welcome to the great space city of New Haven!”

Rainbow Dash

Stepping into New Haven was like entering an alternate universe. Everything was made of metal except for a few windows that showed the great expanse of space around us. I felt my jaw drop as I took everything in. When we arrived, another human was waiting for us at the end of what Pilot called a “depressurization chamber” or something like that. She looked a lot like Skyler, but with one key difference. Her left hand was completely made of metal!

That was no joke, her arm looked exactly like a human one, but it was a grey metal color unlike the rest of her body. Skyler noticed her and ran right over to give her a hug. It was easy to see that they were related after that. After an exchange of words Skyler introduce her to us “Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and you other three over there, this is my sister Dusk. She works with the army here in New Haven.” He explained

“Hello there,” Dusk knelt down and held out her metallic hand to us. It’s a very strange thing to see, nowhere back on Equestria can I remember somepony having an arm like that. Dusk seemed to recognized this. “Not use to seeing things like this huh? I understand,” She said “You still aren’t us to our level of technology. I had a hard time getting us to it at first too,” Knowing that it wasn’t worth waiting for anypony else to go on and shake your hand, I decided to be the first to do this.

I put my hoof out to shake with her hand and she immediately took it in her arm as I introduced myself. “The name’s Rainbow Dash,” I greeted her. Her metallic arm was really cold, but it didn’t feel that strange after some time. I took another look at her to take in what she really looked like. She had the same hair color that Skyler, a bit darker skin tone, and blue eyes. That wasn’t what stuck out to me though, it was the very noticeable scar across her left cheek that I noticed. Despite her soft looks, she seemed to have had some battle experience it the scar and metal arm had anything to say about it.

“Anyways,” Dusk said withdrawing her arm and standing back up “I’ll escort you all to the registration along with Pilot, the rest of you are free till we get everything sorted out,” Everyone except me, the other ponies, Dusk, and Pilot. Once they had left, Dusk motioned us all to the door as it automatically opened to a sight I never would have believed existed.

New Haven was huge, and that’s no understatement. The ceiling was very high up and was covered in what had to be some really strong glass showing the endless expanse of space around us. Along with that was the giant crowd of species walking around. Besides from a good amount of humans and few ponies, pegasus, and other species from Equestria, I wouldn’t be able to name a single alien species in front of me. As we pushed onward, I saw signs pointing to the direction of the stores in the area. It seemed so unbelievable, but it was true! This all existed in space.

“How in tarnation did you build all of this?” Applejack asked impressed. It didn’t seem very impossible with it standing all around me, but the fact that this was all in space did seem strange.

“Honestly, I’m not quite sure,” Pilot answered “It’s been a long time since this place finish construction. No one alive then is alive today,”

As we walked farther in we came to a pair of humans blocking a door to what looked like a gondola car. Once Pilot approached they moved to the side and opened the door. Everyone walked in a took a seat as the room started moving towards a giant building in the center of the city.

Everyone waited as the gondola car got closer to the center building. The car stopped as we arrived at our destination and got out. This building was a lot less noisy than the rest of the city only having a few people dressed in black and blue uniforms passed by discussing things I didn’t bother to listen to. After heading up to the top of the tower we meet a small circular hallway with a room in the center.

“This is the place,” Dusk said as she opened the door to a low lighted room with a bunch of screens and another human talking to two things I couldn’t quite make out. As my eyes adjusted to the room's lighting, I was able to make out the two figures the humans were talking with. My eyes widened with surprise when I realized who they were. They were Celestia and Luna!

Pilot

I watched as the ponies following me quickly rushed ahead to the white and black alicorns that were in the room. Ren turned to me as the two alicorns turned to talk with Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Fluttershy. He had a rare smile on his face as he came over to talk to me.

“Asa contacted me earlier,” He said happily “I’m guessing these are the ponies she mentioned?”

“Yes,” I replied. I looked over at the two alicorns that had already been in Rens office. “Hello,” I greeted to the “I’m Pilot, who are you?”

The taller of the two stepped forward to introduce themselves “I’m princess Celestia, and this is my sister Luna,” She pointed to the slightly smaller alicorn right next to her “As the rulers of Equestria I thank you for helping us in this disastrous event,” They both bowed their heads to me.

Ren walked up behind me as the princess’ finished their introductions “Celestia and Luna arrived not long after you left,” He explained “Omega and I have been getting them up to date with what we know about the situation,”

“Whose Omega?” Rainbow Dash stated confused. She looked around, not seeing anyone that she didn’t noticed before Omega gave her an answer.

“Hello,” The computerized voice scared the ponies (with the exception of Luna and Celestia) as Omega made itself known “I am Omega, an artificial intelligence created to help out all military forces onboard New Haven. It’s nice to meet you Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Appleja-,”

“How did you get my name? I didn’t tell it to you,” Applejack interrupted Omega, shocked at the fact it knew her name.

“After you boarded the ship that transported you here, Asa contact Commander Ren here and told us about what you all saw,” Omega stated “Your names are also constantly heard around the city by ponies and their descriptions matches that of you three,”

Omega’s explanation left all of the ponies in the room speechless, and I truly can’t blame them for it. Our technology level was very far off from their owns, its only natural that they would be a bit overwhelmed for some even if it was a simple as an AI.

“Anyway,” Ren said trying to break the silence “We have already filled most of the housing available for you refugees, and the building that are still open are still under some reconstruction, so you are going to have to stay with someone willing to spare some room,”

“I have room for three at my place,” I suggested. I knew I wouldn’t be able to give all five of them room, but being able to give some of them a place to stay was the best option. If I didn’t say anything, Rainbow Dash and the others would have to stay with people they didn’t know. Once I realized that last part I quickly added “and I’m sure that one of the other members of Team Fallen would be able to make some room for the others,”

“Very well then,” Ren replied without hesitation. “I’ll have Omega radio them to come here latter. Until then, we have important matters to discuss. I think you all know what I mean,” He looked at Dusk waiting for something

Dusked turn to the CMC “Come with me you three,” She requested “This is not something you can here,”

As Dusk left the room, everyone else started gathering around the holographic table in the center of the room. “So Pilot,” Ren began “Explain to me what you saw down on Equin,”