"No, no, no, no, NO, NO! None of these have a cure! There has to be a real reason for this! An illness? An allergy?! I don't know!"
The lavender unicorn pony flicked through all the books in the Canterlot library, hoping to find something that can help cure this...thing...that threatened to destroy all she held dear. Piles of books fell behind her as she continued her furious search, throwing away everything that wasn't of use.
"Miss Sparkle, The escape craft are ready and ar-", a royal guard that had just appeared around the corner was foreshadowed by a great, looming, purple monstrosity-of-a-dragon bursting through what used to be the library wall.
"AAAAAAAUGH!!" They both screamed in unison.
"I see it, but I don't believe it!" Twilight Sparkle commented as the purple thing roared and, with a wave of heat, cooked the guard that was paralysed with fear.
With disgust, Twilight started to gallop away, but she realised there was another pony. One that had been here the whole time. Twilight stared at the shivering mass in the corner, barely visible with the hundreds of books on top of it.
Her daughter.
"Protect her" was Twilight's first thought, and she did exactly that. As the 'dragon' gushed another stream of flames, Twilight threw her daughter onto her back and managed to gallop through the doorway with only the end of her tail ablaze, but she was only greeted by the open, empty central plaza of Canterlot. She saw the escape ships in the distance and, mustering all her remaining strength, galloped towards freedom.
The scenery around her was not pleasant. Pony killing pony. Wierd beings kidnapping innocent foals. But there was nothing Twilight could do about it...yet. She still had to wait until everypony she cared about was safe.
Then she would stop this madness.
The unicorn dashed through the ruins of buildings, even recognising familiar places from when she was a filly, but she did not stop. She had a mission. And she was doing it without hesitation.
She could hear wings beating in the distance. Her heart skipped a beat, and then accelerated to make up for it. Twilight spotted their escape on the horizon when she heard a roar from behind. She gulped and ran on, not wanting to look back.
As she was galloping, she felt the sun stop shining on her. She turned around and was met with a purple claw to the face. Twilight felt all the air leave her lungs when she crashed into the cold, hard concrete, and gasped when a pressure lifted off her back which she forgot existed. Sprawled, bleeding, on the ground, she turned to her daughter. Twilight's daughter was about to run to her, when Twilight stopped her.
"GO!" She pointed behind her daughter.
The filly turned around to see strangers beckoning her to go inside of a large, dark grey ship. She
hesitated.
"QUICKLY!" Twilight yelled as the monster landed on top of her, pinning the unicorn down.
A unicorn stepped out and, using his telekinesis, thrusted the young pony into the ship. The doors closed behind him as the ship took off.
Sighing in relief, the purple mare faced the monstrosity and charged her magic...
... Only to have her horn ripped off by said 'dragon'.
Twilight panicked. She had no idea what to do. She glanced at the ship her daughter occupied.
Twilight's fears were instantly gone.
"I love you," she whispered as a single tear flowed down her face.
The purple monster opened its mouth and released a burst of flame.
I wake up from my dream and slowly get up. It was the same one almost every night. As I head to the mirror in my ship, I gently brush my light blonde mane and tail, proceed to tie them up in ponytails and wash my beige coat to get rid of stray pieces of fur.
As I check on any received messages onboard my ship's computer, I think about the dream, as always.
Well, it wasn't so much of a dream as an ancient memory. One from when I was three.
The death of my mother.
I sighed. That was twenty-five years ago. Now I'm a full-grown mare, I've already let go of it all.
But I still couldn't help but wince at what came next in the memory.
My mother's flesh seared, melting, leaving a puddle where she used to be as I ascend through the clouds.
I winced. Like I said, I always winced.
I put my left fore-hoof on a button located on a console at the nose of the ship and half a second later a holographic interact-able display came up. When I place a hoof on 'inbox', I remember what the psychologist had said.
This filly has seen things nopony should ever see. I would be surprised if she weren't mentally unstable.
I wondered when they said I was diagnosed with 'post-traumatic stress disorder'. I hadn't come across anything like that in my travels.
My sigh echoed with relief when my inbox appeared empty. More peace, quiet and reflection.
And, as luck would have it, I received a message.
This time my sigh was filled with sadness.
Mental note: Stop sighing so much.
It was from the Equestrian Federation. Probably just checking to see if they could use my bounty hunter skills when I finished my vacation soon.
Nope, I'm on permanent break from all your missions.
I read it out-loud, "To one Samantha-Ustad Sparkle."
I face-hoofed. Ponies always used my birth name, never my nickname. I hated my name. Whereas my parents liked myths, especially about humans, I didn't want to be named after one. And Ustad just sounded weird. Seriously? Samantha-Ustad?
They probably stopped using my nickname because they could never get it right.
Samantha-Ustad.
Samus.
Was it really that hard to get my nickname right?
Rolling my eyes, they flick back to the transmission.
I started mumbling the first section to myself. Long before I finished, my eyes had grown wide.
I hit a glowing red dot on my skintight jumpsuit and my trusted armour materialised onto my
person.
Ah, my trusty Power Suit. A marvel of arcane technology. No amount of metal had as much magical energy imbued into it. The Leg Cannon adorning my right foreleg fired pure magical blasts at anything I chose through mental links towards my brain. And it was customisable too. From a simple missile launcher to a magical tether, the possibilities were endless. Oh, and don't get me started on Morph Ball. Amazing. Being able to transform into a small ball is a lot more useful than you think. Not to mention the power bombs I can deploy. There were hundreds of functions on this thing.
I turned once again to the control display of my ship, this time with the HUD of my helmet booting up. I punched in the coordinates given in the message and glanced back at it before closing it off and flying towards my new destination.
S.O.S.
Frigate Orpheon.
