Cataclysmby Mythic VoidChaptersPrologueChapter 1 - Shattered RealitiesChapter 2 - FragmentsPrologueThe Cataclysm Prologue ISD Spatial Research Facility 2343 hours, 29 APR 59 “Hey, Mark, come have a look that this.” “What is it James?” “I’m not sure, but station 13-b is receiving some weird signals from around Jupiter...” “Weird how James? You can’t just tell me something is strange without telling me why.” “Alright alright, it’s just that the gas being picked up by the station’s sensors are apparently comprised of hydrogen and helium. Now before you say anything, I know what the gas giant is made out of, I took the same courses in astrology that you did. But the station is also picking up heavier elements like carbon and iron, you know, the stuff that stars make?” “So… what you’re saying is that a star is forming inside of Jupiter?” “What? No! I said that the signals were coming from around Jupiter, in fact, our cameras can’t even find where they’re originating from. Or rather they can, it’s just that they’re seemingly coming out of nothing, empty space as far as the eye can see.” “...You’re right, that is weird. I’ll go ahead and notify the higher-ups, let them know something is up and see where to go from there. Can you let the crew up at station 13-b know about this too? I wouldn’t want them to unwittingly have front-row seats to a star popping into existence.” “You don’t think that’d actually happen... do you?” “Heh, well… maybe not, but better safe than sorry ri-” --ZZZZT-CRACK “Warning: Spatial Anomaly Detected” ISD Satellite 13-b 11:43 PM IST, 4/29/59 CLANG My boredom-filled grey eyes ventured briefly over to where I assumed the sound originated from. Another slab of space rock impacting the still undamaged white hull, nothing new there really. I was just about to get back to eating the painstakingly bland--but thankfully plentiful--food in front of me before I heard someone speak in a hushed whisper. “What was that?” A blonde-haired caucasian, Michael, asked me. His own green eyes looking up fearfully. He was my space-faring companion for the entire six years we’ve been up here and admittedly quite eccentric in terms of overthinking things--something which is becoming apparent once more--but he ultimately has good intentions and a brilliant mind when concerned with spaceflight. I honestly wouldn’t trust anyone else with keeping this station in orbit. I sighed, “Why are you whispering?” “Because what if there’s something out there?!” he replied, still using the hushed tone that inevitably caused me to roll my eyes. “Michael, we’re in space, orbiting Jupiter. It’s probably just some more asteroids.” I could never understand why he was so paranoid, the chances of something alive out there were pretty slim to begin with, let alone something intelligent and with malicious intent. Plink Of course, the universe liked to make him think otherwise, probably just to fuck with me, “Then what was that? Asteroids don’t come by that often, Karen!” “We're in space, asteroids come by all the time!” Dink “There, see?! Three in a row just isn’t natural!” Well he did have a bit of a point, usually it’s one every couple hours. Still though, “Probably just a meteor shower then, I think Jupiter has a large enough gravity to pull something like that.” “Meteor shower?” I swear, his eyes shrunk to the size of needles, I could hardly see them. “Yup,” I replied simply, What’s his problem? I’ve never seen him this worried. Another asteroid let me know why, creating a resounding clank throughout the station and shaking me slightly. I’ll admit, that one was a bit worrying... “As in the meteor showers that tear into satellites like wild dogs?” He stated pointedly. Despite the mounting evidence for such a thing to happen, I still thought that the whole thing was very unlikely, “Yes, the very same satellites which were made nearly sixty years ago, honestly, you’ve got to stop reading those old newspapers. If we were in danger don’t you think our systems would’ve warned us by now? That I would’ve caught hint of it by now?” “W-well what if they were damaged when the asteroids started hitting? And you aren’t always able to watch the read-outs on our sensors anyways...” “Then we would get a error report of some kind, look, this station is state of the freaking art. The only disturbance we’ve had was a month ago and it was the size of a golf ball. Hell, the alloys used to make these walls are not only lighter, but thirty times stronger than the metals used back when those older models were made. Not only that, but even if something were to happen, we have an escape pod capable of flying all the way back to Earth in under a week at the ready at all times! We’re perfectly safe.” Another chunk of space rock slammed into the hull, to which Michael glanced at fearfully. Once he saw my patented ‘Dude, seriously?’ expression though (Which I worked very hard on by the way thank you very much), he simply sighed and rested his head on his arms, leaning over the table, “Sorry, it’s just… I worry sometimes y’know? It gets so quiet around here that all my mind can think about is when it isn’t quiet… Maybe I just need to distract myself for a little bit, got any ideas?” Ooooh, now that’s what I was waiting for, see space can get really boring after you’ve studied it for more than six years. I honestly think that chronic boredom is a very real problem out here, maybe I should run that by the higher-ups later? That’d make an interesting study project… Shaking my head momentarily to clear it, I allowed a terrible smirk to grace itself upon my face. “Oh I’ve got an idea,” I said as I strode towards my locker, reaching for a deck of cards. Not terribly spectacular, I know, but it doesn’t burn up the oh so important energy like electronic entertainment does, “I just hope that you can handle my-” KRRRRRRZZZZZZZZZZT-CRACK “...What-” “The fuck-” “Was that?!” My belovedly like-minded companion said as he stood up and followed just behind me on the way to the bridge. Red warning lights glowed ominously above us and it wasn’t long before the station’s Virtual Intelligence had determined whatever the hell that was. “Warning: Spatial Anomaly Detected” Spatial anomaly?! What kind of spatial anomaly shakes an entire station like a fucking earthquake?! I thought frantically as we pulled into the bridge, I slammed down on a nearby button as soon as I could, bringing up a large holographic projection of whatever the exterior cameras found. “Holy shit, what is that?” I said, though I couldn’t really hear a response from my friend over the sound of space being fucking torn open. It’s okay though, I doubt he heard my question anyway. There, in the distant space above Saturn, was a… well I would say it’s a crack in space if I were a sci-fi fanatic, which I was, so that’s what it was until further notice. The whole thing was made of this bright blue plasma-like material, it even had these weird smokey swirls coming off of it. And the best part? It was growing wider. Fast. Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit. Okay, no problem, just gotta remember protocol. I tore my gaze from the viewscreen and moved to open a communications channel with Earth’s Interplanetary Space Defense, or ISD if you’re a simpleton that needs to use acronyms. Anyway, they were the ones who sent us up here, so they must know how to fix this right? Well, that was my thought process at least. I briefly noted a small loading screen appearing in the bottom right-hand corner of the viewscreen, composed simply of Earth with laurels around the edges and the acronym in the center. KRRRRRRZZZZZZZZZZT-CRACK “Warning: Spatial Anomaly Detected” Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me… I looked up to confirm that no, the universe was not giving a single fuck about my life right now as I witnessed yet another crack opening up just a slight distance away from Mars. The many cameras on our space station turned our view of the situation into a split-screen and as I looked to the previous crack I could see a fucking planet coming through it. I probably would’ve been pretty happy about having my theory proven right, but naturally the apocalypse put a downer on the whole thing. And it was not five seconds later that shit hit the fan in the worst way possible. Several more of the portals opened up around the solar system, the viewscreen quickly dividing itself to display at least twelve portals of various sizes. There were probably many more just from the sheer amount of sound that tore through the station however, the cameras were just too few in number to see them all. It looked to me like every time a new portal opened, the others would speed up in unison, like some weird buff aura was applied to them with every new portal. It wasn’t long until all of them were open completely and various objects ranging from planets to moons to asteroids much larger than our station poured out of each one, and all of them were moving like they had thrusters strapped to them, which I think one of them actually did have. I couldn’t help but stare at the display, the entirety of my world shaken to its very core by the sight, luckily my friend wasn’t quite yet out of commission. A good man, Michael. Paranoid beyond all belief sure, but when shit went down, he kept his head on straight long enough to deal with it. I felt him grab my shoulders and pull me towards him, jerking me out of my daze, “Karen we need to get the fuck out of here!” he said, pointing towards one of the screens. I followed his hand and saw exactly what had gotten him so worked up. It was a planet by the way. Heading right for Earth. With us in between the two. Fuck I hate space. I snapped my gaze back to him, my terror turned up to eleven as I yelled over the ‘woman’ that kept announcing the already obvious danger. Honestly, once was enough, not how ever many times she was trying to spit the warning out now. Hm? Oh right, I yelled, “Go!” It was a simple command to be sure, but he didn’t need to be told twice. Neither did I really, the fucking universe was ending after all. We both turned and ran out of the room. Our footsteps barely audible over the sounds ringing in our ears from the various alarms going off. I cast a brief thought to the call I had sent out to the ISD but quickly dismissed it, I mean, who couldn’t see what was happening right now? We soon reached the end of the relatively small station, the doors to the diminutive escape pod opening automatically as we ran inside, I didn’t even look as I hit the big red ‘Close’ button that was forever burned into my mind during training, and moved to take the seat beside the pilot’s. Michael sat next to me shortly after and quickly slammed the big red ‘Launch’ button (There were a lot of red buttons), holding onto the controls well enough to make sure the sleek white pod was steady as it shot out of the station on blue flames. Meanwhile, I looked over the various holographic panels in front of us, providing data that I knew he could never hope to understand. I knew because it was intentional for the pod to only be operable by all the crew of the station, Michael was the only one who knew how to fly the thing and I was the only one who knew how to keep the whole thing from blowing up in our faces. It seemed like a pretty decent way to keep us from abandoning each other, albeit by starving me of sweet sweet information, and over the months I suppose it had worked quite well, good thing too considering that there was only one escape pod on this whole thing. It only took a few seconds before the pod offered its full range of controls to my companion and he immediately pushed up on one of the handles, causing the pod to hum slightly as the engines were pushed to max. In just a few seconds we were a good distance away from what would have soon been our graves. I glanced out the side window to see that the planet, which looked surprisingly green and likely habitable, was actually pretty fucking close to us now. Michael also took note of this, and swiftly turned the lifeboat towards the right, ensuring that the planet was directly behind us and not about to T-bone us in the deep black void of space. I was sweating profusely at this point and I shouted over the rumbling of the pod as the planet’s atmosphere started brushing against our hull, “We need to go faster!” “This thing won’t go any faster!” He shouted, the fear in his voice matching up with my own. I didn’t really like that answer however, and a slight amount of annoyance poked its way into my mind before something truly horrifying dawned on me. This is it. We’re going to die. A small wreckage on the surface of this fucking planet right before it destroyed Earth. I cast a quick thought back to my siblings back on Earth, would they even know that I died? Would they themselves even live long enough to think about it? Would humanity even survive this? Sure we were a tenacious bunch of bastards but… I was jolted out of my thoughts by a sudden shift in our pods position. The sheer speed with which we were moving was surprising to say the least and we quickly found ourselves spinning around faster than my eyes could process. It was no surprise that my stomach gave up on me and as soon as our ships thrusters managed to wrestle control back, albeit with several warnings of system malfunctions and unknown interference, I turned my body over to the side and threw up all my lunch on the smooth metal floor beneath me. It took several minutes before my brain had cleared itself enough to form some manner of coherent thought and I turned over to see that my pilot buddy had also lost a handle on his digestive system. I gave him a couple more minutes to calm down before talking to him, “Hey, Michael... are you alright?” My voice croaked slightly as the stomach acid burned along my throat. Vertigo, not even once. I couldn’t help but laugh slightly at my little inside joke, wincing as my body countered my bout of giggles with a sharp pain near the back of my head. Not quite yet wanting to worry about potential injuries to my cranium, I lifted a hand to wipe the sweat and tears off my face as I waited for a response. He slowly turned to look at me, the fear in his moistened eyes visible for just a moment before he relaxed a little. His throat shifted slightly, likely to clear the bile still clinging to the interior, before he spoke to me, “Karen, what the hell was that? I thought we were going to get burned up in the atmosphere or something, but then there was this weird light on the outside and…” He trailed off as his gaze shifted to the viewport at the bow and his body instantly froze, his jaw hanging open even as new tears began to form in his eyes. “Michael? What’s wrong?” I shook him slightly, but after getting no response I apprehensively turned my gaze to look out of the viewscreen. What I saw brought a small amount of confusion. It’s just a bunch of dust and asteroids, why is he so worked up abou- That was what he was so shocked about, what had broken him--and now myself--down to our very cores. Our solar system. Earth. Humanity... My family… It was all… Gone. Chapter 1 - Shattered RealitiesThe Cataclysm Shattered Reality Unknown Location Unknown Time, Unknown Date Sweet Celestia that hurt… I let out a loud groan into the rough stone tile beneath me and opened my violet eyes, the light immediately causing the painful throbbing in my head to come back full force and prompting me to slam my lavender-furred eyelids shut again. Okay, not going anywhere for a little bit, time for some damage control. First off, what in Equestria happened? What do I remember… Friendship Castle, Ponyville Sunset, April 29, 1059 PE “Spike! Spiiiike!” I yelled throughout the crystalline castle’s halls. The call echoing for several seconds. It wasn’t long before I heard the familiar clicking of claws making its way towards me and I simply waited in one of the many libraries found throughout my increasingly homely abode. A purple-scaled face poked around the door, green reptilian eyes scanning the interior of the room briefly before falling upon me and bringing a smile to my number one assistant’s snout, “Hey Twilight, what’s up?” I sighed in relief before getting straight to the point, no sense in beating around the bush really, “I can’t find ‘The Complete Expository of Known Elements’, I’ve looked through every place it could possibly be with no success. Do you know where it is?” I’ll admit, I was quite frantic at the time, usually all my books are well-organized and it was a pretty big thing to find a book out of place. What’s more is that I desperately needed the book for something I think could’ve been a very big discovery. “Oh! I think you took it up to the balcony while you were experimenting with the air or something weren’t you? Something about trying to figure ou-” I interrupted him shortly after ‘balcony’ focusing my attention on a quick teleport spell. I chided myself briefly for forgetting about my prior escapades, but right at that moment I was much more focused on the sweet sweet research. With a familiar pop and flash, I soon felt the high-altitude winds brushing against my fur and the cool heat of Celestia’s setting sun. I didn’t pay the sensations much heed however as I quickly cantered over to a nearby stack of precious literature, levitating a decently sized book from it to me as I teleported it and myself back to the library. Spike seemed slightly irritated by my brief trip, “You know, you could’ve told me you were going to do that. Being left alone like that isn’t exactly good manners.” I winced slightly, swiftly moving up to him and bringing a hoof down on his shoulders, “I’m sorry Spike, it’s just that there’s this strange anomaly that’s suddenly popped up in space and I’m trying to find out how and why it’s there.” I could tell his own curiosity was piqued, something I liked to think I gave him in my time spent raising him, “What’s an Ana Mally?” I winced, mostly at his grammatical butchering of the Equish language, partly because I hadn’t managed to teach him that particular word yet, “Anomaly,” I corrected gently, “It’s basically an unusual event.” His eyes lit up in comprehension, “Ooooh, so pretty much Discord?” I couldn’t help but giggle at that, “Yes, Spike, like Discord.” The infamous draconequus was always up to something weird, it’s not hard to imagine him as a literal source of anomalies. Spike smiled, and was likely about to make another wit-filled comment before his expression turned into one of discomfort. His cheeks puffing up slightly and a fist lifting up to cover his mouth before he let out an uproarious belch. To anypony else, this might have seemed somewhat rude or ill-mannered. We had an entire discussion and experiment over how it would be perceived by other ponies in fact, but I knew better as I followed the magically-laced smoke that trailed out of his snout and swirled briefly in the air. A mere second later a scroll was caught within my magical grasp and I unlatched the wax seal, bringing the unrolled letter in front of me as Spike recovered from his expulsion. Dear Twilight Sparkle, It is with great urgency that I request your presence in Canterlot Palace. There is a matter which my sister tells me your varied expertise will help with, and I am inclined to agree. You must venture here post-haste, and bring anything you deem necessary concerning astrology or strange occurrences. Most Sincerely, Princess Luna, Co-Ruler of Equestria Spike didn’t wait long before determining that I must have finished reading, “So what’s it say? Twilight?” I’d like to briefly interject that most ponies would probably find this a little worrying, I sure did, but I believe Spike described my version as ‘freaking out’. Okay, no problem, it’s just”Princess Luna asking for my presence in Canterlot for what I can only assume to be the anomaly I found! Totally not a cause for concern, oh noooo, everything will be just fine when she finds out that I failed to notify her the moment I caught wind of something that’s clearly a matter of great importance!” I barely registered my own pacing, my mind was so wrapped up in potential consequences for this. I mean, it was, “Princess Luna! Her methods are still excessively archaic, and add that to her learning more and more about modern culture… there’s just no way of predicting what would happen if I told her I knew about the anomaly, but then I can’t just lie to her because that would be wrong and far too difficult to hide without forcing myself to come unprepared! Gaahh!” My ranting was interrupted when Spike breathed a light amount of dragonfire on my hoof, causing just enough pain to be noticed, but thankfully not enough to leave a mark. Still, “Spike! Don’t do that! You could seriously injure somepony with dragonfire!” “Sorry, but somepony had to get you out of that. You’re working yourself up far too much over something that’s probably totally fine! Now c’mon, let’s go grab our things, she did say it was urgent after all.” He replied, putting down the scroll he was reading during my verbal prodding before walking through the various shelves and grabbing anything that fell under ‘astrology’ or ‘anomalies’. He mostly got the former, I had already taken most of the latter to the other balcony. The one I used for stargazing, not the one I used to examine sunlight, or even the one used to survey the Ponyville population for behavior that would differ from normal towns or cities. I had a lot of balconies. But I digress, I teleported up to the balcony I had my telescope set up on. A stack of books placed beside it much like the previous balcony, this stack however was much smaller due to just how few records there are of unusual space-based occurrences. A true tragedy if I ever saw one. I lifted the entire stack in my magenta aura and was just about to bring them back with me before something in the now blackened night skies caught my eyes. It wasn’t particularly large, it was just about as large as any old star really. But what really caught my eye was that it seemed to be growing larger, and was ultimately blue in comparison to the characteristic white of most stars. Thus I determined that it was not a star. And that it was most definitely what Luna needed me for. With this in mind, I teleported down to the library once more, adding a confused Spike to my back and several more books to my magical grasp before flying down the halls towards the entrance. Luckily Spike was able to recognize when he needed to grab onto my neck and hold on. And it was less than a minute before he asked me the fated question, “Twilight, what’s wrong? Is something happening?” I rounded a corner, the books trailing behind me in the very same pattern as I responded, “I’ll explain when we get to Canterlot, but we need to get there really quick because whatever Luna wanted us for is happening right now!” I could feel his grip tighten in worry, luckily he was grasping my fur instead of my skin or else I would have a very different situation on hoof, “You aren’t going to be able to fly all the way to Canterlot, Twilight! It’s too far away!” “I don’t need to fly all the way there, I just need to get close enough for a teleport!” I turned once more and saw the large double doors at the end of the hall marking the castle’s entrance. I concentrated briefly on pushing them open while still holding the books in my grasp as I flew up and out of the castle. I turned briefly to my left and angled myself towards the distant spiraling towers that marked the nation’s capital before trying to get my thoughts in order. It was a long flight even with the added shortcut, so I thought I would have the time to think for a bit. It was at this point however, that a prismatic and cyan blur swung in next to me, “Twilight! What the hay is going on? There’s this big blue crack in the sky and everypony is freaking out over it! I was just about to get you when I saw you flying to Canterlot like it was the end of the world!” She paused a moment in thought before adding nervously, “It isn’t the end of the world is it?” Where in Equestria did she come up with that? Well… I guess it’s not too far fetched… still, can’t let her be thinking that, “What? No! Rainbow, I’m going to help the princesses deal with this, but I need you to get everypony indoors and to keep an eye on that thing for any signs of danger. The world isn’t going to end just because of some spatial anomaly, but be prepared for anything.” I wasn’t a great liar, but the current situation didn’t really leave much room for Rainbow to catch onto my own doubts. With a quick nod, the pegasus turned around and flew back to Ponyville, leaving me to go over how I was going to get to Canterlot in the shortest time possible. I think I’m close enough for a teleport… if I wanted to pass out from exhaustion. Though I haven’t really tested my limits with such distances ever since the Tirek incident… “Ooooh, this is going to hurt. Hang on, Spike!” I pushed a not inconsiderable amount of magic into my horn, placing all my concentration on getting the spell’s distance and safeguard glyphs in place and setting them accordingly. I could already tell by the way some of them were straining that I’d need a different design if I wanted to make a more efficient long range teleport, but naturally, I had no time. This all took place in the span about a half-minute, but just as I was about to release the spell, a large blue shield erected itself around Canterlot, effectively blocking any magic from penetrating it. I would’ve stopped myself a mere second before hoof, but sadly I didn’t have the luxurious second to correct myself and before I knew it a sharp pain spiked its way into my forehead. I could just barely make out a large, plasma blue wall passing through me before everything went black. Oh, you have got to be bucking kidding me! “A rogue teleport?! How the buck am I still alive? I mean, sure, I’m freaking ecstatic that I survived, but just… ugh. That was the second most foalish thing I’ve ever done! Right up there with a magic surge in the middle of an exam...” I trailed off, I kinda had to after noticing that I was now pacing away my frustrations in the Castle of the Two Sisters. I took a moment to glance around, everything from the grey walls to the various multi-colored tapestries seemed… muted, as if a sage-colored shroud covered the entire place. It lended a rather disturbing sense of foreboding and I could feel my body trying to shrink itself as I snuck my way to the entrance, it was only luck that the teleport landed me right in the entrance hall and not somewhere deeper in the decrepit castle’s depths. If the latter had occurred, I no doubt would've spent hours trying to find my way out of the labyrinthine halls. As I stepped out of the castle, I soon saw what was the likely culprit for such an odd tint covering the Everfree Forest. There was a large, dark green shield covering up the sky, giving off a sense of immediate wrongness which was only further pressed by the thorned vines climbing up it and dark magic radiating out of it. I fell on my haunches and simply stared out at the strange magical occurrence, subconsciously poking and prodding it with my own magic to try and make sense of the strangely natural but unnatural occurrence. I was broken out of my daze soon enough by the feeling of something far different laced within the shield, a magic foreign and yet all too homely in this forest that was strengthening the barrier and keeping it held together. It almost looked as if, without it, the Everfree would’ve failed to form the shield spell at all. And apparently, the harmonious magic felt me too. ”Bearer of Magic, hear our words for we have need of yo- AHHHHHHH.” What I could only guess was the Tree of Harmony was actually screaming in agony, in my mind. I was terrified to say the least. I mean, how often does a sentient artifact, that has existed for over a millennium, and has the power to encase someone like Discord in stone, scream? Whatever that thing was out in space, it must have been a bigger worry than I first realized. In the time it took me to register what had just happened, the Tree spoke to me once more, with a far more exhausted tone, “Our apologies Bearer, Equus has been dealt a most severe toll that not even our considerable power can fix and we only just managed to protect this forest before the destruction was wrought. We were even so desperate as to reach out to the dark magic within these lands to ensure at least it survived, however vile.” “Are you… alright? Is there any way I can help? What happened to Equus?” I found myself asking, I wasn’t entirely sure if they were able to hear me too, but I needed answers after that spill of disturbing information. “We do not believe you can help us on your own, you will have to bring the other Bearers for us to be fully repaired. However, that is not of concern at this moment, we can still keep the Everfree at bay, as we have always done. In answer to your other question…” The silence that followed was deafening, I was about to ask again when Harmony spoke once more, “The anomaly you discovered above this planet, it was a far greater threat than any of us realized. Once it had fully formed, it began to pull all of Equus towards it. We tried to extend our power through the planet, to pull Equus away from what revealed itself to be a portal to another universe, but the power behind the anomaly proved too great. We were pulled in alongside various other spatial bodies, and set to collide with an inhabited planet already residing in the dimension…” At this they paused once more, and I briefly wondered just how bad it truly was. It couldn’t be too big if the Everfree survived right? It’s likely that Celestia and Luna just pushed us away from the planet, or maybe they were able to teleport us past it! At the very least they might have been able to get in touch with Shiny and Cadance in time to cast a shield spell around the planet, sure the resulting destruction of an inhabited planet is terrible beyond all belief, but… The Tree soon proved my worst suspicions, “We impacted with it, and the other bodies with all the other nearby planets. It was only through the efforts of some of the most powerful mages across Equus that we were able to detect chunks of land that still survived despite the inevitable destruction that followed… We are all mourning the loss of our treasured lands, and wish to extend that sorrow to you, for we do not yet know how many of your friends or the Bearers survived.” I slumped down to the ground, tears rushing forth as my mind struggled to comprehend what I’ve been told, “I-I- This- No… This can’t be happening… please tell me this isn’t happening!” Maybe they’re wrong? Maybe Discord pulled some elaborate prank or the Tree of Harmony lost contact with the rest of the world and simply tried to guess what happened, maybe this is all some bad dream and I’ll wake up in bed with Spike trying to come up with his next plan to be with Rarity… “We are sorry, but it is unlikely that Equus came out unscathed from this event. At the very least the Everfree is most certainly separated from the planet’s surface, and we are in turn forced to maintain this shield, ‘lest we allow the dark void of space to destroy all that resides here.” “No…” I whispered, so quietly but with so much vehemence that I probably would’ve scared myself. “We beg your pardon?” I threw my legs into a standing position and turned straight towards the bridge leading into the forest, “No! I do not believe that Equus was destroyed by that… thing Celestia and Luna wouldn’t allow it! I wouldn’t allow it! And you can bet that my brother and friends wouldn’t either!” I started a heavy canter towards the bridge, crossing the rickety structure before breaking into a full gallop. “Wait Bearer! Twilight Sparkle! You do not know what you are doing!” The Tree shouted into my brain. “Whatever it is it’s better than sitting around here while my friends are in danger, I need to find Luna and fix this before it gets any worse!” I shouted back, the shield was quickly coming into sight, the small traces of harmonic magic becoming steadily apparent as a thin vein-like structure laced within. “You are not of stable mind! There is nothing but darkness outside this place!” “I’m not going to believe whatever the buck you say, even if you are the Tree of Harmony! This is far too important to sit idly by on!” “If you will not listen to reason... then I will show you it.” The concession threw me off, making me slow down just in front of the shield as a small portion of it turned itself into a transparent window to the outside. What I saw was irrefutable, because I was close enough now to tell that the spell was not an illusion. It was mind-shattering, because I knew that all those plans and all that I once knew was now gone forever. It was terrifying, because it was what I had known all along and feared all the same. And because of these things, it was all the worse to finally see it for myself. I don’t know how long I lay there, whispering to myself in an effort to comfort my broken spirit despite my silent weeping into the tainted grass, all I knew was that it was long enough for me to fall into a dreamless slumber... ISS Resonance 0600, 30 APR 59 ”Good morning everyone! Today is: April thirtieth, twenty fifty-nine. This marks the tenth year of service for the ISS Resonance, and to celebrate you can find pizza and spaghetti in the cafeteria for all meals! Have a nice day!” No one payed the robotic announcer any heed save for a few prideful smiles at hearing their favored ship staking it out for ten years in the harsh void of space. All were running about, frantically trying to keep the ship’s advanced defenses up. The defenses, because no more than six hours ago a great cataclysmic event occurred right on their doorstep which had the added effect of shattering their homeworld alongside various other spatial bodies. If it had not been for the steely resolve of their captain, which kicked their emotionally destroyed brains into gear, most would doubt that they would have survived the ensuing debris that came flying towards them. As it were, the ship only suffered some minor hull breaches, many in number, but easily sealed using the most advanced sciences that humanity had to offer. It was with this in mind, and the recent statement of, ‘No incoming debris, ma’am. Clear across the board.’ That I let out a heavy sigh and sunk my white ass into my logistics chair. A pleased smile on my face as I listened to the ensuing conversation between the various crew that filled the bridge with ‘all clears’ and ‘systems cooling down’. There were a couple of people calling out for system repairs, but mostly the ship was safe, and with only three reported casualties out of the several hundreds of people that manned the specialized military ship. None of the casualties were fatal, and after sending some medical supplies their way, they were back on their feet in less than an hour. Thus, I decided now was a good time to start reflecting on what had truly happened. I later wished I really hadn’t. I wouldn’t be lying when I said that others would rather not have me thinking on it either, I had a… special way of dealing with things like this that I had developed over the years. “Holy shit the fucking solar system just blew up! Are you serious?! What kind of shit just throws planets and asteroids at us from out of nowhere?!” I shouted with language that one might say was unbecoming of my IQ score, but to them I’d just say ‘Fuck you, the world just fucking ended you heartless shit’. The captain however, was not amused by my antics, probably because shortly thereafter, everyone was losing their shit from my sugarless coating of literal Earth-shattering revelations. She groaned in frustration, pinching her nose and clenching her amber eyes shut before addressing me, “Specialist Lansky, please refrain from stirring up a commotion again before I have to enact consequences neither of us would like to see in the light of day. It’s bad enough that this has happened, I don’t need some half-wit making things worse for the crew.” I took a moment to swallow my curses before responding, “Yes ma’am, sorry ma’am.” “That’s what I like to hear, now then…” She took a brief moment to flick on the intercom and move it close to her lips, I saw this as a good sign to cover my ears, “ALL PERSONNEL, REPORT TO THE MESS HALL FOR BREAKFAST AND BE PREPARED FOR FURTHER ORDERS AT O’ SEVEN-HUNDRED! MOVE IT!” I glanced around at the various reactions of the crew, most were going through a ‘deer in the headlights’ phase, others seemed slightly indignant at basically being told ‘go to breakfast’ in the middle of their mourning, others still were simply solemnly walking out of the bridge on their way to the mess hall. I stood up to follow them, a few tones brighter than the rest of them but still shaken from the thought of everything I knew being destroyed in an instant. I was certain that given a couple more hours I would’ve fallen into the same pit that they did, but just as I was about to leave, the captain extended an arm in front of me. I held in an exasperated sigh that would normally be applied to anyone else, instead simply asking, “Ma’am?” She simply sighed, “I have no idea why you just pulled that pile of horseshit back there, but I’m going to let it slide because I need your help with something.” Oh? This sounds like a nice distraction from pain-filled mourning... “Some of the crew have found that key military installations, and even some advanced research stations, alongside the cities surrounding them, have all come out of the… event, unscathed. Or at the very least, their beacons are still active. I need you to gather a group together and try to make contact with them, find out how their still up. At the very least, determining that some of the people on Earth survived this mess would be a huge boost to morale. Can I count on you, Lansky?” “Yes ma’am, though I would like to make a request.” I kinda wanted this ever since I joined the military and spoke to someone that outranked me. Protocol, manners, and tradition be damned, I wanted this. Badly. “What’s the request, Lansky?” “I would prefer to speak casually for the duration of this assignment, it would at the very least provide a slightly faster way of communication if I didn’t have to speak using ‘sir’ and ‘ma'am’ all the time.” It was a long shot, but fuck, I really hated speaking like this. Arguably the biggest issue I had with the military was formal speech, and I really didn’t want to do it now that I had the whole ‘solar system exploding’ thing on my m-. “Granted, Kyle” The most beautiful woman I have ever met said simply as she literally let her long black hair fall down from the bun she had it in, “The chain of command has been severely severed anyways and I don’t see why I can’t allow such a privilege.” I let out an exaggerated sigh and smiled, “Oh thank God, it’s so booooring talking like that!” She raised a single dark-colored finger to the air, a mischievous smile on her face as she said, “Of course, this also means I’m going to be speaking casually back to you, so don’t get squeamish when I start throwing insults your way for a bad job.” “Honestly, Reel I-” “Call me Lonni.” “Honestly, Lonni, I doubt that you can say anything worse than what I can come up with on my own.” I chuckled slightly, trying to shake off the encroaching feeling of shit in my gut. Lonni offered a smile of her own, far more disconcerting than her previous one, it had teeth and everything I swear, “I think I’d like to test that sometime...” ISD Satellite 13-b Lifeboat 1-a 12:39 PM IST, 4/30/59 Ugghhh, okay where am I? Limbs, check. Head, check. Coherence, awaiting wake-up call. Memories, still suffering from uh… Okay I’ll get back to that later. Eyes! Open up! And so they did, and with it I released a rather unflattering groan of irritation as the harsh glare of artificial lighting assaulted my irises. I flailed my limbs for a couple of seconds before finally managing to sit up properly, rubbing my eyes and blinking away the last vestiges of a rather uncomfortable sleep. Another groan made me aware of the presence of a male. Naturally a lack of recent memories made me kinda... freak out. Spectacularly. I backpedaled from the man lying next to me, my feet slipping on the metal surface as I tried to avoid what could’ve been a terrible, terrible mistake, “Gaaah! Who are yo-” He sat bolt upright and gave an irritated glare at me, “Oh, uhhh… hi Michael.” Well that’s a little… embarrassing, “Karen, what the fuck are you doing?” “I-I uhh, well you see umm... I just thought that…” “Nevermind, we’ve got bigger issues on hand.” “What? What bigger iss- ohhh… fuck.” How the hell did I forget that? What the fuck brain?! I shook my head to silence my brain’s attempts to defend itself as Michael spoke up again, “Glad to see you remember, because all I can think about now is that we’re stranded in an escape pod, with likely no way of contacting ISD and even worse, I’m pretty sure that humanity was annihilated less than a day ago.” He sighed, “We need a plan. Or at the very least we need to try and explore the remains to see if anyone somehow survived this mess.” Okay… ignoring that particularly rude outburst, “Alright… I guess we might as well try and contact ISD first, before we start wasting fuel on a potentially useless gesture.” I said solemnly, standing up on stiff legs before making my way over to my seat and activating communications. The fucking thing blew up in my face. No. I am not lying, the entire thing just blew up, fuck you ISD. It was by sheer chance that the small chunks of shrapnel mostly embedded themselves in the cushions on the roof rather than permanently blind me in my attempt to pick up what’s left of humanity. That didn’t stop me from swearing like it was the Fourth of July though, “Holy fuck! You’ve gotta be fucking shitting me really? You motherfucking piece of shit! Damnit ISD, your shit is supposed to work, not blow up in my fucking face!” “Okay… so now that you’re done with the expletives, why don’t we start working on other options besides communications?” I snapped my head around and glared menacingly at my podmate, I assumed the glare was working because he flinched slightly and took a step back, “This was the fucking control panel you half-wit, now we can’t do anything! We’re fucking screwed! Humanity is screwed, you’re screwed, I’m screwed, we’re all fucked!” I turned back to the front, slammed my skull against the headrest, and promptly cried out in pain as I slumped into my chair. Holy fuck that hurt, it was like I just drove an ice pick into my brain. Twice! I heard footsteps as Michael ran up next to me, “Hey, are you okay?” He asked, reaching a hand to rest on my shoulder. “Oooohoho, I’m just peachy! I may have a fractured skull, but who cares about that when I slept for..." I took the time to look at the display at the pilot's chair, "Twelve hours with it?! I might as well be dead already!” I was probably going insane by that point, but fuck, world ends, stranded in a pod, and now I have an untreated head injury that’s likely caked with blood?! Does the universe truly hate me or am I just imagining it?! “Oh fuck, I knew that something must have happened to you when you passed out, why the fuck didn’t I check you over?!” “Probably because the fucking world ended? I’m pretty sure that most people would lose coherent thought when something like that happens.” I gave a strained smile, my vision shifting slightly as my brain suddenly decided to shout it’s issues to the rest of my body. Michael smiled back at me, “Heh, I guess you’re right, we still need to get that thing treated though. Let me go grab the First-Aid kit and patch you up, then we can decide what to do about humanity.” I didn’t pay much attention after that, my mind wandering off and slowly slipping me into unconsciousness. One last thought remained when I finally passed out though. What the hell are we going to do? Chapter 2 - FragmentsThe Cataclysm Fragments ISD Satellite 13-b Lifeboat 1-a 1:48 PM IST, 4/30/59 “Hey, wake up, Karen. We need to get going.” A voice called out to me just as a very annoying and persistent shaking started moving my body around. I let out an extremely irritated grown before opening my eyes and glancing up at the perpetrator. Seeing the slightly concerned but otherwise adventurous gleam in Michael’s eyes worried me a bit, but after remembering the events last night, I honestly can’t complain. I needed something to do in order to keep my mind off of… that. Because of that reasoning, I moved to stand up right as Michael put a firm hand on my shoulder. I looked at him questioningly and he replied with, “Take it easy, you were out for a few hours, and I wrapped the head injury. But no sense in pushing yourself until we’re sure it’s healed right?” I gave a slight nod, “Sure sure, but it is kinda hard to avoid stressing my brain out over this whole thing. I know that look in your eyes though, what are you thinking?” He smiled at me, though it almost looked like a smug grin from the way I was looking, “When you had that whole outburst about us being ‘screwed’, you failed to take full note of the fact that the pilot’s controls are still undamaged. I tested them just a couple minutes ago and well, despite some minor damage to the ventral thrusters, the thing seems fit to fly out to the… remains of that whole thing. From what I can see, there are still several decent-sized chunks of land left and I figured that chances are, some of that shield tech we saw in the news might have actually been fielded and used to save portions of Earth. It’s a hell of a longshot but it certainly beats moping around while our food reserves drain out and we starve to death in the vast void of-” “Yes yes, I get it! God, you are the worse at explaining yourself, always magnetising towards the bad and just briefly mentioning the good as an afterthought… But how are we going to keep the engine from overheating and check on fuel reserves and all that shit? Without the readouts from my side, we might sooner find ourselves with a fuel leak than with a civilized chunk of life.” He definitely was smirking at me now, “I’m well aware, however, I was able to find some of the damaged stuff in the terminal and patch them up a bit using some adhesive. It was enough to get the fuel and damage schematics to pump out and from there we should be able to keep everything-” “Woah, wait what? Where did you get adhesive? I don’t remember a supply storage in this thing…” I crossed my arms and rose the oh so inquisitive eyebrow, this didn’t seem right at all. If only to confirm my suspicions, he winced and quickly tried to explain, “O-oh well it was um… duct tape! Yeah, I had a spare roll of duct tape on me when we left hehe… pretty lucky right?” I was not amused, and my expression said as much. “Uhhh… it was…” He slumped slightly, “Gum. I patched the wiring up with gum.” “...You WHAT?!” I shouted, I’m pretty sure that if I were any angrier, or perhaps psychic, there’d be flames rolling off of me. “Patched the engineering panel with chewing gum?” He replied nervously. “OF ALL THE STUPID, HALF-WITTED, RETARDED AND ABSOLUTELY INSANE THINGS I’VE EVER HEARD COME OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!” I shouted at the very top of my lungs. I was pissed, hell, I was furious, “What the absolute fuck possessed you to put fucking chewing gum inside one of the most advanced and refined machines this generation has ever produced?! Do you have any idea what sort of malfunctions that can produce to those very systems you restored?! It could tell me that the vessel is totally fucking fine and yet we’ll be missing a god damn oxygen generator the entire time! There could be a fuel leak! The hull might be compromised! The-” Before I could finish venting my pure, unrestrained rage, a bright flash appeared inside the pod right behind Michael (Who was cowering slightly by the way, hands over his ears and everything). Thinking this to be and explosion, I grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him to the floor with me as he let out a yelp in surprise. My eyes were clenched shut, expecting a hole in the wall to suddenly suck us out into the deadly emptiness of space. When no such thing occurred however, I decided to glance back over to where the assumed explosion originated from. What I saw however, went beyond all forms of logical reasoning. Brain, what is that? Hm? Oh, that’s just a purple winged unicorn with an oversized cranium. It really isn’t all that surprising… Oh, well… wait what?! I could hear a rather strange pounding filling my ears as I watched the ‘unicorn’ speak a few words in a very much foreign language before collapsing to the floor, her body--if the voice was anything to go by gender-wise--making a small ‘Thump’ as it hit the metallic floor. I glanced briefly over to Michael to see that, oh, he had already passed out. Well, I guess I might as well follow along, seems to be the new trend after all right? Thump Everfree Forest Afternoon, April 30, 1059 PE My eyes flew open as my mind brought memories of recent events close on its fetlocks. A quick glance around confirmed that no, this was not a dream and yes, everything I knew and loved was in fact destroyed. I sat up groggily and was about to weep some more over this fact before I was interrupted by the Tartarus-damned Tree again, “Bearer, we are glad you are alright, we had almost believed you would have left the safety of our sustained atmosphere in order to reunite with your friends.” “Well that is still the plan thank you very much!” I snapped at the air, not really having a direction to speak to, “I need to leave this place and find them as well as the princesses before the debris has time to drift further apart! I can still fix this if I move quickly!” I stood up, berating myself slightly for passing out for the aforementioned reason. My determined mind moved towards the shield once more to gaze out over the empty expanse, thinking briefly about how much darker it seemed both with the lack of atmosphere to screen it and the all too apparent hazard it presented. It was a little far-fetched that I could fix a planet, even with the elements and the princesses, it was likely some chunks would be missing at the very least. But at this point, I didn't exactly have much choice on the matter. “While it is good that you wish to reunite with your companions, the simple fact of the matter is that we don’t have a way to safely transport you to them. The distance to teleport is too great in our fractured state and even still, the damage done to the planets in this universe is far too great to repair with just a handful of ponies, no matter how strong.” “Don’t you dare say that,” I said, seething through grit teeth, “Tree of Harmony or not, I refuse to believe that there isn’t a way to fix this. All I need is a way to get to them and work from there, easy peasy!” “The sheer level of concentration required to maintain and maneuver an atmospheric bubble around yourself is hard enough in hazardous environments, and is made only slightly easier with the presence of outside oxygen that can be filtered in with the right amount of control. The ability to maintain it in a place where there is instead a vacuum constantly pulling at the bubble and the limited oxygen within is effectively impossible. Even if you did have the concentration and finesse, the magical power alone would be very difficult to muster and would likely result in a very quick death.” “Well then I’ll just teleport myself!” I said defiantly as I gazed out into space. “We had already stated that the distance to teleport is too gre-” “Not there! Haven’t you been paying attention to anything? Look over there!” I pointed a hoof over to a small white object in the distance, hoping that the Tree was actually able to see my pointing and not just create an awkward moment. It was a few moments before they responded, “We did not sense that before. It seems that it has an interior with a breathable air pocket. Strange, but a viable solution to your dilemma. Be careful with the teleport Bearer, we do not wish to risk somepony’s life in an attempt to teleport to such a small object over such a large distance. Any error could result in death.” Wow, way to put a downer on everything... I waved a hoof behind me as I gazed outward, “Yeah yeah, I’ll just need to throw together a spell matrix that can sustain a longer range teleport and then be off, now hush, I need to concentrate.” “Of course, Bearer.” The Tree replied before their presence faded. Now that that was out of the way, I closed my eyes and started examining my previous teleport. It was very close to malfunctioning, even without the anti-magic shield that threw off my destination, I probably would’ve ended up in a very different place despite the intended target. I shuddered slightly at the thought. It was likely a blessing that I ended up here in the first place. Maybe the Tree guided me here when it thought I was in danger, or maybe the assumed magic of Princess Luna held some slight impressions of her old castle and my attempt to pass through her shield caused me to end up here? Or maybe- No! Focus Sparkle, you’ve got to get to the princesses first! I turned over, disassembled, reassembled, and over all reshaped my teleport spell as I looked for ways to improve the distance. What I came up with worked, but with a substantially higher energy requirement than the normal one, there was no way of knowing just how much energy would be needed to traverse this much distance but it was likely to be much more than even Cadence could pump out with ease. I didn’t like it. But hey, the world ended, I think it was worth a shot at trying to start the world up again. I started setting up the new glyphs and pushing magic into them as I spoke, “Alright, I’m going to head over there, if… if anything happens to me…” “We will try our best to inform your friends and family, courageous Bearer.” “Thanks…” I took one last moment to breath in even as sweat started to soak through my coat. Here goes nothing! I released the spell, and I could immediately feel the effects as a ‘tube’ much longer and thinner than my usual teleport spells pulled me inward. The feeling wasn’t new to me, but it was much stronger than I had thought it’d be and the energy drain didn’t help. To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tree of Harmony made the whole experience more bearable, albeit slightly, because looking back… I think that would’ve killed me. By the time I finally reached the end, my mind was swirling, my brain unable to keep up coherent thought as I tried to say the sentence I had planned when I was making the spell matrix. “Buck I’m… Starswirl is the new master of pancakes now…!” I think that with a simple swap of some nouns you can already guess that what I tried to say was meant as a victory cheer. Close enough really. ISS Resonance 1348, 30 APR 59 CLANG “Sir, are you okay…?” I glanced up from my desk, looking at the only person in my team that would’ve called me ‘Sir’, “I’d be better if you stopped being so damn formal Thomas, I thought I already told you that informal speech is allowed and preferred for the duration of this assignment.” It wasn’t a question because I know that I had told him, multiple times. “Oh, sorry sir.” I groaned, “Sorry Lansky!” I groaned again, “Kyle! Sorry Kyle! Won’t happen again!” I perked up immediately, “Great! Now that you’ve seen reason we can move onto the task at hand, right everyone?” I pointedly looked at the two sitting next to him that were currently trying to stifle some pretty potent looking laughter. They gave up on that pretty quickly though, must’ve been another minute before they calmed themselves down again. And what a surprise that my chosen communications specialist was the first to speak up, “Oh come on, Kyle! You have to admit zis is one of ze funniest zings to happen on zis ship since ze cook accidentally lost his pistol in one of ze private’s food tray!” I managed to keep a straight face, barely, it was a really funny memory, “Be that as it may, Angela, we still have work to do. The captain gave me this assignment,” I tapped my desk for a little bit of emphasis, “asked me to round up your sorry asses, and try to find out if humanity is still standing after the shitstorm we witnessed less than 24 hours ago! I hate to be a downer, but we have bigger fish to fry right about now.” Angela and our team’s scientist, Anton, looked down at the table. Seemingly sobering up at the thought of all those they lost, and inadvertently causing me to wince as my face started reflecting my own empathy, however little it may have been. I could see out of the corner of my eye that Thomas was feeling the same thing, hell I think I saw a tear or two there as well. Eventually however, Angela broke the silence up, “Vy us?” “What do you mean?” “I mean vy us? Specifically us? Surely zere must be better people for ze job on a ship zis advanced and zis large.” “Well… I would be lying if I said part of it wasn’t because I know you two better than anyone else on this ship, but yet I also wouldn’t be lying when I say that Lonni specifically said you three might be the best candidates for the job anyways. I’m not too sure about dear Thomas here, but I’m certain that the four of us? The four of us can finish this assignment better than any team on this entire ship.” I gave them what I hoped was a winning smile to maybe further emphasize my point, it didn’t feel terribly genuine though, hell I wasn’t even sure why Lonni picked us. Especially considering that I can name at least six occasions where we managed to piss her off with some of our shenanigans. But it seemed to work, since all three looked at me after that, and I could tell that while Angela was the only one smiling after that, the others were happy to hear me say it too. “So... what do we do now?” Thomas asked. “Well now we kinda should work on actually finding and contacting one of those beacons…” I rubbed the back of my neck, chuckling slightly, “sappy uplifting speeches aside we really need to find out how their still up and active. Any ideas?” I made the unseen request for Angela to pick up on that, seeing as how she knew the most about this sort of thing. She perked up upon hearing that, answering my hidden request with little difficulty, “Vell, it’s not very likely, but maybe some of ze communications satellites survived ze explosion? Ve could try to contact a nearby or even distant phone through zem?” “Sounds like something, probably our most straightforward option actually. I’ll see if I can use the ship’s communications array to reach one of them.” My hands moved to turn on the computer sitting peacefully to my left, logging into my account and bringing up our standard application for contacting long-distance devices. It wasn’t terribly flashy, and was mostly meant for anyone to use on the ship, so I got on easily enough, trying to find a signal however was another thing entirely. For that I had to call over Angela and Anton, their combined smarts and privileges allowed us to find juuust what we needed, and we all crowded around the screen as soon as the readout showed something that was actually legible. [WARNING: Extensive Damage to Satellites 23, 14, and 11; Repairs Needed | 3043 Satellites Missing; Investigation Recommended] Satellite [1]: Linked, 12 Components Damaged, Call Services Disabled, 32 Maximum Characters Satellite [2]: Linked, 16 Components Damaged, Call Services Disabled, 16 Maximum Characters Satellite [3]: Linked, 23 Components Damaged, Call Services Disabled, 2 Maximum Characters 13 Communication Dishes Found: 5 Military, 6 Civilian, 2 Other Satellite [1] and Communication Dish M-1 Selected Thomas was the first to speak up, “So… what do we type?” “Maybe we should start with a simple greeting?” Anton suggested. “No no no, we can’t just say ‘Hey! How’s it going?’ when the freaking world ended, that’s just too callous.” “Vat about asking if zey’re alright? Or if zey need any assistance?” Angela asked. “The first one I think, we don’t really have much more than what we need to take care of ourselves and we can probably lead into our main goal afterwards.” Thomas looked to me and I took that as my cue to start typing. Characters Remaining: 2/32 Hello? Anyone alive out there?| I blinked, grimacing slightly at how short of a message that was, “I guess you never really notice just how fucking small thirty-two characters are until you actually have to type something up with it… how the hell are we going to get a conversation going with something like this?” “A looot of patience.” Anton said knowingly. I glanced over at him, but he just shrugged and turned back to the screen, I did the same and hit ‘Enter’. 1: Hello? Anyone alive out there? 2: Who is this? How are you alive? Characters Remaining: 1/32 This is the ISS Resonance. You?| I hit ‘Enter’ again, only to groan in exasperation at the response, “Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me…” 1: Hello? Anyone alive out there? 2: Who is this? How are you alive? [ERROR: Satellite Deactivated to Preserve Systems, Reactivating in 30 Minutes.] Characters Remaining: 1/32 This is the ISS Resonance. You?| I flinched as Angela clapped her hands loudly, “Velp! I guess ve’re going to be in zere for ze long haul, snacks anypony?” I frowned in confusion, my mind briefly being caught on something before my stomach interrupted it with a all-suffering growl, demanding sustenance, “Heh, that sounds good Angela, I’ll see if I can get a more comfortable seating arrangement too, don’t want you guys leaning over me every time we’re about to send a message.” “I’ve got a deck of cards I keep under my bunk, I’ll go grab those so we’re not overtly bored during our wait.” Thomas said before walking out with Angela, humming a happy tune. As soon as I stood up to started rearranging furniture in the somewhat confined office space, Anton sat down and began typing a bunch of gibberish into the computer. I rose and eyebrow in confusion but otherwise let him do his thing, he probably knew more about computers than I did after all. We were going to save humanity, one thirty-two long text message at a time. Author's Note Whelp, I finally managed to belt out another chapter... Yeah... Now you get to wait another three months for the next one! ...Hopefully not, but you know what I mean... you should really just kinda go about your regular routine while I work on motivating myself to write another. A win/win if you ask me.
PrologueThe Cataclysm Prologue ISD Spatial Research Facility 2343 hours, 29 APR 59 “Hey, Mark, come have a look that this.” “What is it James?” “I’m not sure, but station 13-b is receiving some weird signals from around Jupiter...” “Weird how James? You can’t just tell me something is strange without telling me why.” “Alright alright, it’s just that the gas being picked up by the station’s sensors are apparently comprised of hydrogen and helium. Now before you say anything, I know what the gas giant is made out of, I took the same courses in astrology that you did. But the station is also picking up heavier elements like carbon and iron, you know, the stuff that stars make?” “So… what you’re saying is that a star is forming inside of Jupiter?” “What? No! I said that the signals were coming from around Jupiter, in fact, our cameras can’t even find where they’re originating from. Or rather they can, it’s just that they’re seemingly coming out of nothing, empty space as far as the eye can see.” “...You’re right, that is weird. I’ll go ahead and notify the higher-ups, let them know something is up and see where to go from there. Can you let the crew up at station 13-b know about this too? I wouldn’t want them to unwittingly have front-row seats to a star popping into existence.” “You don’t think that’d actually happen... do you?” “Heh, well… maybe not, but better safe than sorry ri-” --ZZZZT-CRACK “Warning: Spatial Anomaly Detected” ISD Satellite 13-b 11:43 PM IST, 4/29/59 CLANG My boredom-filled grey eyes ventured briefly over to where I assumed the sound originated from. Another slab of space rock impacting the still undamaged white hull, nothing new there really. I was just about to get back to eating the painstakingly bland--but thankfully plentiful--food in front of me before I heard someone speak in a hushed whisper. “What was that?” A blonde-haired caucasian, Michael, asked me. His own green eyes looking up fearfully. He was my space-faring companion for the entire six years we’ve been up here and admittedly quite eccentric in terms of overthinking things--something which is becoming apparent once more--but he ultimately has good intentions and a brilliant mind when concerned with spaceflight. I honestly wouldn’t trust anyone else with keeping this station in orbit. I sighed, “Why are you whispering?” “Because what if there’s something out there?!” he replied, still using the hushed tone that inevitably caused me to roll my eyes. “Michael, we’re in space, orbiting Jupiter. It’s probably just some more asteroids.” I could never understand why he was so paranoid, the chances of something alive out there were pretty slim to begin with, let alone something intelligent and with malicious intent. Plink Of course, the universe liked to make him think otherwise, probably just to fuck with me, “Then what was that? Asteroids don’t come by that often, Karen!” “We're in space, asteroids come by all the time!” Dink “There, see?! Three in a row just isn’t natural!” Well he did have a bit of a point, usually it’s one every couple hours. Still though, “Probably just a meteor shower then, I think Jupiter has a large enough gravity to pull something like that.” “Meteor shower?” I swear, his eyes shrunk to the size of needles, I could hardly see them. “Yup,” I replied simply, What’s his problem? I’ve never seen him this worried. Another asteroid let me know why, creating a resounding clank throughout the station and shaking me slightly. I’ll admit, that one was a bit worrying... “As in the meteor showers that tear into satellites like wild dogs?” He stated pointedly. Despite the mounting evidence for such a thing to happen, I still thought that the whole thing was very unlikely, “Yes, the very same satellites which were made nearly sixty years ago, honestly, you’ve got to stop reading those old newspapers. If we were in danger don’t you think our systems would’ve warned us by now? That I would’ve caught hint of it by now?” “W-well what if they were damaged when the asteroids started hitting? And you aren’t always able to watch the read-outs on our sensors anyways...” “Then we would get a error report of some kind, look, this station is state of the freaking art. The only disturbance we’ve had was a month ago and it was the size of a golf ball. Hell, the alloys used to make these walls are not only lighter, but thirty times stronger than the metals used back when those older models were made. Not only that, but even if something were to happen, we have an escape pod capable of flying all the way back to Earth in under a week at the ready at all times! We’re perfectly safe.” Another chunk of space rock slammed into the hull, to which Michael glanced at fearfully. Once he saw my patented ‘Dude, seriously?’ expression though (Which I worked very hard on by the way thank you very much), he simply sighed and rested his head on his arms, leaning over the table, “Sorry, it’s just… I worry sometimes y’know? It gets so quiet around here that all my mind can think about is when it isn’t quiet… Maybe I just need to distract myself for a little bit, got any ideas?” Ooooh, now that’s what I was waiting for, see space can get really boring after you’ve studied it for more than six years. I honestly think that chronic boredom is a very real problem out here, maybe I should run that by the higher-ups later? That’d make an interesting study project… Shaking my head momentarily to clear it, I allowed a terrible smirk to grace itself upon my face. “Oh I’ve got an idea,” I said as I strode towards my locker, reaching for a deck of cards. Not terribly spectacular, I know, but it doesn’t burn up the oh so important energy like electronic entertainment does, “I just hope that you can handle my-” KRRRRRRZZZZZZZZZZT-CRACK “...What-” “The fuck-” “Was that?!” My belovedly like-minded companion said as he stood up and followed just behind me on the way to the bridge. Red warning lights glowed ominously above us and it wasn’t long before the station’s Virtual Intelligence had determined whatever the hell that was. “Warning: Spatial Anomaly Detected” Spatial anomaly?! What kind of spatial anomaly shakes an entire station like a fucking earthquake?! I thought frantically as we pulled into the bridge, I slammed down on a nearby button as soon as I could, bringing up a large holographic projection of whatever the exterior cameras found. “Holy shit, what is that?” I said, though I couldn’t really hear a response from my friend over the sound of space being fucking torn open. It’s okay though, I doubt he heard my question anyway. There, in the distant space above Saturn, was a… well I would say it’s a crack in space if I were a sci-fi fanatic, which I was, so that’s what it was until further notice. The whole thing was made of this bright blue plasma-like material, it even had these weird smokey swirls coming off of it. And the best part? It was growing wider. Fast. Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit. Okay, no problem, just gotta remember protocol. I tore my gaze from the viewscreen and moved to open a communications channel with Earth’s Interplanetary Space Defense, or ISD if you’re a simpleton that needs to use acronyms. Anyway, they were the ones who sent us up here, so they must know how to fix this right? Well, that was my thought process at least. I briefly noted a small loading screen appearing in the bottom right-hand corner of the viewscreen, composed simply of Earth with laurels around the edges and the acronym in the center. KRRRRRRZZZZZZZZZZT-CRACK “Warning: Spatial Anomaly Detected” Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me… I looked up to confirm that no, the universe was not giving a single fuck about my life right now as I witnessed yet another crack opening up just a slight distance away from Mars. The many cameras on our space station turned our view of the situation into a split-screen and as I looked to the previous crack I could see a fucking planet coming through it. I probably would’ve been pretty happy about having my theory proven right, but naturally the apocalypse put a downer on the whole thing. And it was not five seconds later that shit hit the fan in the worst way possible. Several more of the portals opened up around the solar system, the viewscreen quickly dividing itself to display at least twelve portals of various sizes. There were probably many more just from the sheer amount of sound that tore through the station however, the cameras were just too few in number to see them all. It looked to me like every time a new portal opened, the others would speed up in unison, like some weird buff aura was applied to them with every new portal. It wasn’t long until all of them were open completely and various objects ranging from planets to moons to asteroids much larger than our station poured out of each one, and all of them were moving like they had thrusters strapped to them, which I think one of them actually did have. I couldn’t help but stare at the display, the entirety of my world shaken to its very core by the sight, luckily my friend wasn’t quite yet out of commission. A good man, Michael. Paranoid beyond all belief sure, but when shit went down, he kept his head on straight long enough to deal with it. I felt him grab my shoulders and pull me towards him, jerking me out of my daze, “Karen we need to get the fuck out of here!” he said, pointing towards one of the screens. I followed his hand and saw exactly what had gotten him so worked up. It was a planet by the way. Heading right for Earth. With us in between the two. Fuck I hate space. I snapped my gaze back to him, my terror turned up to eleven as I yelled over the ‘woman’ that kept announcing the already obvious danger. Honestly, once was enough, not how ever many times she was trying to spit the warning out now. Hm? Oh right, I yelled, “Go!” It was a simple command to be sure, but he didn’t need to be told twice. Neither did I really, the fucking universe was ending after all. We both turned and ran out of the room. Our footsteps barely audible over the sounds ringing in our ears from the various alarms going off. I cast a brief thought to the call I had sent out to the ISD but quickly dismissed it, I mean, who couldn’t see what was happening right now? We soon reached the end of the relatively small station, the doors to the diminutive escape pod opening automatically as we ran inside, I didn’t even look as I hit the big red ‘Close’ button that was forever burned into my mind during training, and moved to take the seat beside the pilot’s. Michael sat next to me shortly after and quickly slammed the big red ‘Launch’ button (There were a lot of red buttons), holding onto the controls well enough to make sure the sleek white pod was steady as it shot out of the station on blue flames. Meanwhile, I looked over the various holographic panels in front of us, providing data that I knew he could never hope to understand. I knew because it was intentional for the pod to only be operable by all the crew of the station, Michael was the only one who knew how to fly the thing and I was the only one who knew how to keep the whole thing from blowing up in our faces. It seemed like a pretty decent way to keep us from abandoning each other, albeit by starving me of sweet sweet information, and over the months I suppose it had worked quite well, good thing too considering that there was only one escape pod on this whole thing. It only took a few seconds before the pod offered its full range of controls to my companion and he immediately pushed up on one of the handles, causing the pod to hum slightly as the engines were pushed to max. In just a few seconds we were a good distance away from what would have soon been our graves. I glanced out the side window to see that the planet, which looked surprisingly green and likely habitable, was actually pretty fucking close to us now. Michael also took note of this, and swiftly turned the lifeboat towards the right, ensuring that the planet was directly behind us and not about to T-bone us in the deep black void of space. I was sweating profusely at this point and I shouted over the rumbling of the pod as the planet’s atmosphere started brushing against our hull, “We need to go faster!” “This thing won’t go any faster!” He shouted, the fear in his voice matching up with my own. I didn’t really like that answer however, and a slight amount of annoyance poked its way into my mind before something truly horrifying dawned on me. This is it. We’re going to die. A small wreckage on the surface of this fucking planet right before it destroyed Earth. I cast a quick thought back to my siblings back on Earth, would they even know that I died? Would they themselves even live long enough to think about it? Would humanity even survive this? Sure we were a tenacious bunch of bastards but… I was jolted out of my thoughts by a sudden shift in our pods position. The sheer speed with which we were moving was surprising to say the least and we quickly found ourselves spinning around faster than my eyes could process. It was no surprise that my stomach gave up on me and as soon as our ships thrusters managed to wrestle control back, albeit with several warnings of system malfunctions and unknown interference, I turned my body over to the side and threw up all my lunch on the smooth metal floor beneath me. It took several minutes before my brain had cleared itself enough to form some manner of coherent thought and I turned over to see that my pilot buddy had also lost a handle on his digestive system. I gave him a couple more minutes to calm down before talking to him, “Hey, Michael... are you alright?” My voice croaked slightly as the stomach acid burned along my throat. Vertigo, not even once. I couldn’t help but laugh slightly at my little inside joke, wincing as my body countered my bout of giggles with a sharp pain near the back of my head. Not quite yet wanting to worry about potential injuries to my cranium, I lifted a hand to wipe the sweat and tears off my face as I waited for a response. He slowly turned to look at me, the fear in his moistened eyes visible for just a moment before he relaxed a little. His throat shifted slightly, likely to clear the bile still clinging to the interior, before he spoke to me, “Karen, what the hell was that? I thought we were going to get burned up in the atmosphere or something, but then there was this weird light on the outside and…” He trailed off as his gaze shifted to the viewport at the bow and his body instantly froze, his jaw hanging open even as new tears began to form in his eyes. “Michael? What’s wrong?” I shook him slightly, but after getting no response I apprehensively turned my gaze to look out of the viewscreen. What I saw brought a small amount of confusion. It’s just a bunch of dust and asteroids, why is he so worked up abou- That was what he was so shocked about, what had broken him--and now myself--down to our very cores. Our solar system. Earth. Humanity... My family… It was all… Gone.
Chapter 1 - Shattered RealitiesThe Cataclysm Shattered Reality Unknown Location Unknown Time, Unknown Date Sweet Celestia that hurt… I let out a loud groan into the rough stone tile beneath me and opened my violet eyes, the light immediately causing the painful throbbing in my head to come back full force and prompting me to slam my lavender-furred eyelids shut again. Okay, not going anywhere for a little bit, time for some damage control. First off, what in Equestria happened? What do I remember… Friendship Castle, Ponyville Sunset, April 29, 1059 PE “Spike! Spiiiike!” I yelled throughout the crystalline castle’s halls. The call echoing for several seconds. It wasn’t long before I heard the familiar clicking of claws making its way towards me and I simply waited in one of the many libraries found throughout my increasingly homely abode. A purple-scaled face poked around the door, green reptilian eyes scanning the interior of the room briefly before falling upon me and bringing a smile to my number one assistant’s snout, “Hey Twilight, what’s up?” I sighed in relief before getting straight to the point, no sense in beating around the bush really, “I can’t find ‘The Complete Expository of Known Elements’, I’ve looked through every place it could possibly be with no success. Do you know where it is?” I’ll admit, I was quite frantic at the time, usually all my books are well-organized and it was a pretty big thing to find a book out of place. What’s more is that I desperately needed the book for something I think could’ve been a very big discovery. “Oh! I think you took it up to the balcony while you were experimenting with the air or something weren’t you? Something about trying to figure ou-” I interrupted him shortly after ‘balcony’ focusing my attention on a quick teleport spell. I chided myself briefly for forgetting about my prior escapades, but right at that moment I was much more focused on the sweet sweet research. With a familiar pop and flash, I soon felt the high-altitude winds brushing against my fur and the cool heat of Celestia’s setting sun. I didn’t pay the sensations much heed however as I quickly cantered over to a nearby stack of precious literature, levitating a decently sized book from it to me as I teleported it and myself back to the library. Spike seemed slightly irritated by my brief trip, “You know, you could’ve told me you were going to do that. Being left alone like that isn’t exactly good manners.” I winced slightly, swiftly moving up to him and bringing a hoof down on his shoulders, “I’m sorry Spike, it’s just that there’s this strange anomaly that’s suddenly popped up in space and I’m trying to find out how and why it’s there.” I could tell his own curiosity was piqued, something I liked to think I gave him in my time spent raising him, “What’s an Ana Mally?” I winced, mostly at his grammatical butchering of the Equish language, partly because I hadn’t managed to teach him that particular word yet, “Anomaly,” I corrected gently, “It’s basically an unusual event.” His eyes lit up in comprehension, “Ooooh, so pretty much Discord?” I couldn’t help but giggle at that, “Yes, Spike, like Discord.” The infamous draconequus was always up to something weird, it’s not hard to imagine him as a literal source of anomalies. Spike smiled, and was likely about to make another wit-filled comment before his expression turned into one of discomfort. His cheeks puffing up slightly and a fist lifting up to cover his mouth before he let out an uproarious belch. To anypony else, this might have seemed somewhat rude or ill-mannered. We had an entire discussion and experiment over how it would be perceived by other ponies in fact, but I knew better as I followed the magically-laced smoke that trailed out of his snout and swirled briefly in the air. A mere second later a scroll was caught within my magical grasp and I unlatched the wax seal, bringing the unrolled letter in front of me as Spike recovered from his expulsion. Dear Twilight Sparkle, It is with great urgency that I request your presence in Canterlot Palace. There is a matter which my sister tells me your varied expertise will help with, and I am inclined to agree. You must venture here post-haste, and bring anything you deem necessary concerning astrology or strange occurrences. Most Sincerely, Princess Luna, Co-Ruler of Equestria Spike didn’t wait long before determining that I must have finished reading, “So what’s it say? Twilight?” I’d like to briefly interject that most ponies would probably find this a little worrying, I sure did, but I believe Spike described my version as ‘freaking out’. Okay, no problem, it’s just”Princess Luna asking for my presence in Canterlot for what I can only assume to be the anomaly I found! Totally not a cause for concern, oh noooo, everything will be just fine when she finds out that I failed to notify her the moment I caught wind of something that’s clearly a matter of great importance!” I barely registered my own pacing, my mind was so wrapped up in potential consequences for this. I mean, it was, “Princess Luna! Her methods are still excessively archaic, and add that to her learning more and more about modern culture… there’s just no way of predicting what would happen if I told her I knew about the anomaly, but then I can’t just lie to her because that would be wrong and far too difficult to hide without forcing myself to come unprepared! Gaahh!” My ranting was interrupted when Spike breathed a light amount of dragonfire on my hoof, causing just enough pain to be noticed, but thankfully not enough to leave a mark. Still, “Spike! Don’t do that! You could seriously injure somepony with dragonfire!” “Sorry, but somepony had to get you out of that. You’re working yourself up far too much over something that’s probably totally fine! Now c’mon, let’s go grab our things, she did say it was urgent after all.” He replied, putting down the scroll he was reading during my verbal prodding before walking through the various shelves and grabbing anything that fell under ‘astrology’ or ‘anomalies’. He mostly got the former, I had already taken most of the latter to the other balcony. The one I used for stargazing, not the one I used to examine sunlight, or even the one used to survey the Ponyville population for behavior that would differ from normal towns or cities. I had a lot of balconies. But I digress, I teleported up to the balcony I had my telescope set up on. A stack of books placed beside it much like the previous balcony, this stack however was much smaller due to just how few records there are of unusual space-based occurrences. A true tragedy if I ever saw one. I lifted the entire stack in my magenta aura and was just about to bring them back with me before something in the now blackened night skies caught my eyes. It wasn’t particularly large, it was just about as large as any old star really. But what really caught my eye was that it seemed to be growing larger, and was ultimately blue in comparison to the characteristic white of most stars. Thus I determined that it was not a star. And that it was most definitely what Luna needed me for. With this in mind, I teleported down to the library once more, adding a confused Spike to my back and several more books to my magical grasp before flying down the halls towards the entrance. Luckily Spike was able to recognize when he needed to grab onto my neck and hold on. And it was less than a minute before he asked me the fated question, “Twilight, what’s wrong? Is something happening?” I rounded a corner, the books trailing behind me in the very same pattern as I responded, “I’ll explain when we get to Canterlot, but we need to get there really quick because whatever Luna wanted us for is happening right now!” I could feel his grip tighten in worry, luckily he was grasping my fur instead of my skin or else I would have a very different situation on hoof, “You aren’t going to be able to fly all the way to Canterlot, Twilight! It’s too far away!” “I don’t need to fly all the way there, I just need to get close enough for a teleport!” I turned once more and saw the large double doors at the end of the hall marking the castle’s entrance. I concentrated briefly on pushing them open while still holding the books in my grasp as I flew up and out of the castle. I turned briefly to my left and angled myself towards the distant spiraling towers that marked the nation’s capital before trying to get my thoughts in order. It was a long flight even with the added shortcut, so I thought I would have the time to think for a bit. It was at this point however, that a prismatic and cyan blur swung in next to me, “Twilight! What the hay is going on? There’s this big blue crack in the sky and everypony is freaking out over it! I was just about to get you when I saw you flying to Canterlot like it was the end of the world!” She paused a moment in thought before adding nervously, “It isn’t the end of the world is it?” Where in Equestria did she come up with that? Well… I guess it’s not too far fetched… still, can’t let her be thinking that, “What? No! Rainbow, I’m going to help the princesses deal with this, but I need you to get everypony indoors and to keep an eye on that thing for any signs of danger. The world isn’t going to end just because of some spatial anomaly, but be prepared for anything.” I wasn’t a great liar, but the current situation didn’t really leave much room for Rainbow to catch onto my own doubts. With a quick nod, the pegasus turned around and flew back to Ponyville, leaving me to go over how I was going to get to Canterlot in the shortest time possible. I think I’m close enough for a teleport… if I wanted to pass out from exhaustion. Though I haven’t really tested my limits with such distances ever since the Tirek incident… “Ooooh, this is going to hurt. Hang on, Spike!” I pushed a not inconsiderable amount of magic into my horn, placing all my concentration on getting the spell’s distance and safeguard glyphs in place and setting them accordingly. I could already tell by the way some of them were straining that I’d need a different design if I wanted to make a more efficient long range teleport, but naturally, I had no time. This all took place in the span about a half-minute, but just as I was about to release the spell, a large blue shield erected itself around Canterlot, effectively blocking any magic from penetrating it. I would’ve stopped myself a mere second before hoof, but sadly I didn’t have the luxurious second to correct myself and before I knew it a sharp pain spiked its way into my forehead. I could just barely make out a large, plasma blue wall passing through me before everything went black. Oh, you have got to be bucking kidding me! “A rogue teleport?! How the buck am I still alive? I mean, sure, I’m freaking ecstatic that I survived, but just… ugh. That was the second most foalish thing I’ve ever done! Right up there with a magic surge in the middle of an exam...” I trailed off, I kinda had to after noticing that I was now pacing away my frustrations in the Castle of the Two Sisters. I took a moment to glance around, everything from the grey walls to the various multi-colored tapestries seemed… muted, as if a sage-colored shroud covered the entire place. It lended a rather disturbing sense of foreboding and I could feel my body trying to shrink itself as I snuck my way to the entrance, it was only luck that the teleport landed me right in the entrance hall and not somewhere deeper in the decrepit castle’s depths. If the latter had occurred, I no doubt would've spent hours trying to find my way out of the labyrinthine halls. As I stepped out of the castle, I soon saw what was the likely culprit for such an odd tint covering the Everfree Forest. There was a large, dark green shield covering up the sky, giving off a sense of immediate wrongness which was only further pressed by the thorned vines climbing up it and dark magic radiating out of it. I fell on my haunches and simply stared out at the strange magical occurrence, subconsciously poking and prodding it with my own magic to try and make sense of the strangely natural but unnatural occurrence. I was broken out of my daze soon enough by the feeling of something far different laced within the shield, a magic foreign and yet all too homely in this forest that was strengthening the barrier and keeping it held together. It almost looked as if, without it, the Everfree would’ve failed to form the shield spell at all. And apparently, the harmonious magic felt me too. ”Bearer of Magic, hear our words for we have need of yo- AHHHHHHH.” What I could only guess was the Tree of Harmony was actually screaming in agony, in my mind. I was terrified to say the least. I mean, how often does a sentient artifact, that has existed for over a millennium, and has the power to encase someone like Discord in stone, scream? Whatever that thing was out in space, it must have been a bigger worry than I first realized. In the time it took me to register what had just happened, the Tree spoke to me once more, with a far more exhausted tone, “Our apologies Bearer, Equus has been dealt a most severe toll that not even our considerable power can fix and we only just managed to protect this forest before the destruction was wrought. We were even so desperate as to reach out to the dark magic within these lands to ensure at least it survived, however vile.” “Are you… alright? Is there any way I can help? What happened to Equus?” I found myself asking, I wasn’t entirely sure if they were able to hear me too, but I needed answers after that spill of disturbing information. “We do not believe you can help us on your own, you will have to bring the other Bearers for us to be fully repaired. However, that is not of concern at this moment, we can still keep the Everfree at bay, as we have always done. In answer to your other question…” The silence that followed was deafening, I was about to ask again when Harmony spoke once more, “The anomaly you discovered above this planet, it was a far greater threat than any of us realized. Once it had fully formed, it began to pull all of Equus towards it. We tried to extend our power through the planet, to pull Equus away from what revealed itself to be a portal to another universe, but the power behind the anomaly proved too great. We were pulled in alongside various other spatial bodies, and set to collide with an inhabited planet already residing in the dimension…” At this they paused once more, and I briefly wondered just how bad it truly was. It couldn’t be too big if the Everfree survived right? It’s likely that Celestia and Luna just pushed us away from the planet, or maybe they were able to teleport us past it! At the very least they might have been able to get in touch with Shiny and Cadance in time to cast a shield spell around the planet, sure the resulting destruction of an inhabited planet is terrible beyond all belief, but… The Tree soon proved my worst suspicions, “We impacted with it, and the other bodies with all the other nearby planets. It was only through the efforts of some of the most powerful mages across Equus that we were able to detect chunks of land that still survived despite the inevitable destruction that followed… We are all mourning the loss of our treasured lands, and wish to extend that sorrow to you, for we do not yet know how many of your friends or the Bearers survived.” I slumped down to the ground, tears rushing forth as my mind struggled to comprehend what I’ve been told, “I-I- This- No… This can’t be happening… please tell me this isn’t happening!” Maybe they’re wrong? Maybe Discord pulled some elaborate prank or the Tree of Harmony lost contact with the rest of the world and simply tried to guess what happened, maybe this is all some bad dream and I’ll wake up in bed with Spike trying to come up with his next plan to be with Rarity… “We are sorry, but it is unlikely that Equus came out unscathed from this event. At the very least the Everfree is most certainly separated from the planet’s surface, and we are in turn forced to maintain this shield, ‘lest we allow the dark void of space to destroy all that resides here.” “No…” I whispered, so quietly but with so much vehemence that I probably would’ve scared myself. “We beg your pardon?” I threw my legs into a standing position and turned straight towards the bridge leading into the forest, “No! I do not believe that Equus was destroyed by that… thing Celestia and Luna wouldn’t allow it! I wouldn’t allow it! And you can bet that my brother and friends wouldn’t either!” I started a heavy canter towards the bridge, crossing the rickety structure before breaking into a full gallop. “Wait Bearer! Twilight Sparkle! You do not know what you are doing!” The Tree shouted into my brain. “Whatever it is it’s better than sitting around here while my friends are in danger, I need to find Luna and fix this before it gets any worse!” I shouted back, the shield was quickly coming into sight, the small traces of harmonic magic becoming steadily apparent as a thin vein-like structure laced within. “You are not of stable mind! There is nothing but darkness outside this place!” “I’m not going to believe whatever the buck you say, even if you are the Tree of Harmony! This is far too important to sit idly by on!” “If you will not listen to reason... then I will show you it.” The concession threw me off, making me slow down just in front of the shield as a small portion of it turned itself into a transparent window to the outside. What I saw was irrefutable, because I was close enough now to tell that the spell was not an illusion. It was mind-shattering, because I knew that all those plans and all that I once knew was now gone forever. It was terrifying, because it was what I had known all along and feared all the same. And because of these things, it was all the worse to finally see it for myself. I don’t know how long I lay there, whispering to myself in an effort to comfort my broken spirit despite my silent weeping into the tainted grass, all I knew was that it was long enough for me to fall into a dreamless slumber... ISS Resonance 0600, 30 APR 59 ”Good morning everyone! Today is: April thirtieth, twenty fifty-nine. This marks the tenth year of service for the ISS Resonance, and to celebrate you can find pizza and spaghetti in the cafeteria for all meals! Have a nice day!” No one payed the robotic announcer any heed save for a few prideful smiles at hearing their favored ship staking it out for ten years in the harsh void of space. All were running about, frantically trying to keep the ship’s advanced defenses up. The defenses, because no more than six hours ago a great cataclysmic event occurred right on their doorstep which had the added effect of shattering their homeworld alongside various other spatial bodies. If it had not been for the steely resolve of their captain, which kicked their emotionally destroyed brains into gear, most would doubt that they would have survived the ensuing debris that came flying towards them. As it were, the ship only suffered some minor hull breaches, many in number, but easily sealed using the most advanced sciences that humanity had to offer. It was with this in mind, and the recent statement of, ‘No incoming debris, ma’am. Clear across the board.’ That I let out a heavy sigh and sunk my white ass into my logistics chair. A pleased smile on my face as I listened to the ensuing conversation between the various crew that filled the bridge with ‘all clears’ and ‘systems cooling down’. There were a couple of people calling out for system repairs, but mostly the ship was safe, and with only three reported casualties out of the several hundreds of people that manned the specialized military ship. None of the casualties were fatal, and after sending some medical supplies their way, they were back on their feet in less than an hour. Thus, I decided now was a good time to start reflecting on what had truly happened. I later wished I really hadn’t. I wouldn’t be lying when I said that others would rather not have me thinking on it either, I had a… special way of dealing with things like this that I had developed over the years. “Holy shit the fucking solar system just blew up! Are you serious?! What kind of shit just throws planets and asteroids at us from out of nowhere?!” I shouted with language that one might say was unbecoming of my IQ score, but to them I’d just say ‘Fuck you, the world just fucking ended you heartless shit’. The captain however, was not amused by my antics, probably because shortly thereafter, everyone was losing their shit from my sugarless coating of literal Earth-shattering revelations. She groaned in frustration, pinching her nose and clenching her amber eyes shut before addressing me, “Specialist Lansky, please refrain from stirring up a commotion again before I have to enact consequences neither of us would like to see in the light of day. It’s bad enough that this has happened, I don’t need some half-wit making things worse for the crew.” I took a moment to swallow my curses before responding, “Yes ma’am, sorry ma’am.” “That’s what I like to hear, now then…” She took a brief moment to flick on the intercom and move it close to her lips, I saw this as a good sign to cover my ears, “ALL PERSONNEL, REPORT TO THE MESS HALL FOR BREAKFAST AND BE PREPARED FOR FURTHER ORDERS AT O’ SEVEN-HUNDRED! MOVE IT!” I glanced around at the various reactions of the crew, most were going through a ‘deer in the headlights’ phase, others seemed slightly indignant at basically being told ‘go to breakfast’ in the middle of their mourning, others still were simply solemnly walking out of the bridge on their way to the mess hall. I stood up to follow them, a few tones brighter than the rest of them but still shaken from the thought of everything I knew being destroyed in an instant. I was certain that given a couple more hours I would’ve fallen into the same pit that they did, but just as I was about to leave, the captain extended an arm in front of me. I held in an exasperated sigh that would normally be applied to anyone else, instead simply asking, “Ma’am?” She simply sighed, “I have no idea why you just pulled that pile of horseshit back there, but I’m going to let it slide because I need your help with something.” Oh? This sounds like a nice distraction from pain-filled mourning... “Some of the crew have found that key military installations, and even some advanced research stations, alongside the cities surrounding them, have all come out of the… event, unscathed. Or at the very least, their beacons are still active. I need you to gather a group together and try to make contact with them, find out how their still up. At the very least, determining that some of the people on Earth survived this mess would be a huge boost to morale. Can I count on you, Lansky?” “Yes ma’am, though I would like to make a request.” I kinda wanted this ever since I joined the military and spoke to someone that outranked me. Protocol, manners, and tradition be damned, I wanted this. Badly. “What’s the request, Lansky?” “I would prefer to speak casually for the duration of this assignment, it would at the very least provide a slightly faster way of communication if I didn’t have to speak using ‘sir’ and ‘ma'am’ all the time.” It was a long shot, but fuck, I really hated speaking like this. Arguably the biggest issue I had with the military was formal speech, and I really didn’t want to do it now that I had the whole ‘solar system exploding’ thing on my m-. “Granted, Kyle” The most beautiful woman I have ever met said simply as she literally let her long black hair fall down from the bun she had it in, “The chain of command has been severely severed anyways and I don’t see why I can’t allow such a privilege.” I let out an exaggerated sigh and smiled, “Oh thank God, it’s so booooring talking like that!” She raised a single dark-colored finger to the air, a mischievous smile on her face as she said, “Of course, this also means I’m going to be speaking casually back to you, so don’t get squeamish when I start throwing insults your way for a bad job.” “Honestly, Reel I-” “Call me Lonni.” “Honestly, Lonni, I doubt that you can say anything worse than what I can come up with on my own.” I chuckled slightly, trying to shake off the encroaching feeling of shit in my gut. Lonni offered a smile of her own, far more disconcerting than her previous one, it had teeth and everything I swear, “I think I’d like to test that sometime...” ISD Satellite 13-b Lifeboat 1-a 12:39 PM IST, 4/30/59 Ugghhh, okay where am I? Limbs, check. Head, check. Coherence, awaiting wake-up call. Memories, still suffering from uh… Okay I’ll get back to that later. Eyes! Open up! And so they did, and with it I released a rather unflattering groan of irritation as the harsh glare of artificial lighting assaulted my irises. I flailed my limbs for a couple of seconds before finally managing to sit up properly, rubbing my eyes and blinking away the last vestiges of a rather uncomfortable sleep. Another groan made me aware of the presence of a male. Naturally a lack of recent memories made me kinda... freak out. Spectacularly. I backpedaled from the man lying next to me, my feet slipping on the metal surface as I tried to avoid what could’ve been a terrible, terrible mistake, “Gaaah! Who are yo-” He sat bolt upright and gave an irritated glare at me, “Oh, uhhh… hi Michael.” Well that’s a little… embarrassing, “Karen, what the fuck are you doing?” “I-I uhh, well you see umm... I just thought that…” “Nevermind, we’ve got bigger issues on hand.” “What? What bigger iss- ohhh… fuck.” How the hell did I forget that? What the fuck brain?! I shook my head to silence my brain’s attempts to defend itself as Michael spoke up again, “Glad to see you remember, because all I can think about now is that we’re stranded in an escape pod, with likely no way of contacting ISD and even worse, I’m pretty sure that humanity was annihilated less than a day ago.” He sighed, “We need a plan. Or at the very least we need to try and explore the remains to see if anyone somehow survived this mess.” Okay… ignoring that particularly rude outburst, “Alright… I guess we might as well try and contact ISD first, before we start wasting fuel on a potentially useless gesture.” I said solemnly, standing up on stiff legs before making my way over to my seat and activating communications. The fucking thing blew up in my face. No. I am not lying, the entire thing just blew up, fuck you ISD. It was by sheer chance that the small chunks of shrapnel mostly embedded themselves in the cushions on the roof rather than permanently blind me in my attempt to pick up what’s left of humanity. That didn’t stop me from swearing like it was the Fourth of July though, “Holy fuck! You’ve gotta be fucking shitting me really? You motherfucking piece of shit! Damnit ISD, your shit is supposed to work, not blow up in my fucking face!” “Okay… so now that you’re done with the expletives, why don’t we start working on other options besides communications?” I snapped my head around and glared menacingly at my podmate, I assumed the glare was working because he flinched slightly and took a step back, “This was the fucking control panel you half-wit, now we can’t do anything! We’re fucking screwed! Humanity is screwed, you’re screwed, I’m screwed, we’re all fucked!” I turned back to the front, slammed my skull against the headrest, and promptly cried out in pain as I slumped into my chair. Holy fuck that hurt, it was like I just drove an ice pick into my brain. Twice! I heard footsteps as Michael ran up next to me, “Hey, are you okay?” He asked, reaching a hand to rest on my shoulder. “Oooohoho, I’m just peachy! I may have a fractured skull, but who cares about that when I slept for..." I took the time to look at the display at the pilot's chair, "Twelve hours with it?! I might as well be dead already!” I was probably going insane by that point, but fuck, world ends, stranded in a pod, and now I have an untreated head injury that’s likely caked with blood?! Does the universe truly hate me or am I just imagining it?! “Oh fuck, I knew that something must have happened to you when you passed out, why the fuck didn’t I check you over?!” “Probably because the fucking world ended? I’m pretty sure that most people would lose coherent thought when something like that happens.” I gave a strained smile, my vision shifting slightly as my brain suddenly decided to shout it’s issues to the rest of my body. Michael smiled back at me, “Heh, I guess you’re right, we still need to get that thing treated though. Let me go grab the First-Aid kit and patch you up, then we can decide what to do about humanity.” I didn’t pay much attention after that, my mind wandering off and slowly slipping me into unconsciousness. One last thought remained when I finally passed out though. What the hell are we going to do?
Chapter 2 - FragmentsThe Cataclysm Fragments ISD Satellite 13-b Lifeboat 1-a 1:48 PM IST, 4/30/59 “Hey, wake up, Karen. We need to get going.” A voice called out to me just as a very annoying and persistent shaking started moving my body around. I let out an extremely irritated grown before opening my eyes and glancing up at the perpetrator. Seeing the slightly concerned but otherwise adventurous gleam in Michael’s eyes worried me a bit, but after remembering the events last night, I honestly can’t complain. I needed something to do in order to keep my mind off of… that. Because of that reasoning, I moved to stand up right as Michael put a firm hand on my shoulder. I looked at him questioningly and he replied with, “Take it easy, you were out for a few hours, and I wrapped the head injury. But no sense in pushing yourself until we’re sure it’s healed right?” I gave a slight nod, “Sure sure, but it is kinda hard to avoid stressing my brain out over this whole thing. I know that look in your eyes though, what are you thinking?” He smiled at me, though it almost looked like a smug grin from the way I was looking, “When you had that whole outburst about us being ‘screwed’, you failed to take full note of the fact that the pilot’s controls are still undamaged. I tested them just a couple minutes ago and well, despite some minor damage to the ventral thrusters, the thing seems fit to fly out to the… remains of that whole thing. From what I can see, there are still several decent-sized chunks of land left and I figured that chances are, some of that shield tech we saw in the news might have actually been fielded and used to save portions of Earth. It’s a hell of a longshot but it certainly beats moping around while our food reserves drain out and we starve to death in the vast void of-” “Yes yes, I get it! God, you are the worse at explaining yourself, always magnetising towards the bad and just briefly mentioning the good as an afterthought… But how are we going to keep the engine from overheating and check on fuel reserves and all that shit? Without the readouts from my side, we might sooner find ourselves with a fuel leak than with a civilized chunk of life.” He definitely was smirking at me now, “I’m well aware, however, I was able to find some of the damaged stuff in the terminal and patch them up a bit using some adhesive. It was enough to get the fuel and damage schematics to pump out and from there we should be able to keep everything-” “Woah, wait what? Where did you get adhesive? I don’t remember a supply storage in this thing…” I crossed my arms and rose the oh so inquisitive eyebrow, this didn’t seem right at all. If only to confirm my suspicions, he winced and quickly tried to explain, “O-oh well it was um… duct tape! Yeah, I had a spare roll of duct tape on me when we left hehe… pretty lucky right?” I was not amused, and my expression said as much. “Uhhh… it was…” He slumped slightly, “Gum. I patched the wiring up with gum.” “...You WHAT?!” I shouted, I’m pretty sure that if I were any angrier, or perhaps psychic, there’d be flames rolling off of me. “Patched the engineering panel with chewing gum?” He replied nervously. “OF ALL THE STUPID, HALF-WITTED, RETARDED AND ABSOLUTELY INSANE THINGS I’VE EVER HEARD COME OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!” I shouted at the very top of my lungs. I was pissed, hell, I was furious, “What the absolute fuck possessed you to put fucking chewing gum inside one of the most advanced and refined machines this generation has ever produced?! Do you have any idea what sort of malfunctions that can produce to those very systems you restored?! It could tell me that the vessel is totally fucking fine and yet we’ll be missing a god damn oxygen generator the entire time! There could be a fuel leak! The hull might be compromised! The-” Before I could finish venting my pure, unrestrained rage, a bright flash appeared inside the pod right behind Michael (Who was cowering slightly by the way, hands over his ears and everything). Thinking this to be and explosion, I grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him to the floor with me as he let out a yelp in surprise. My eyes were clenched shut, expecting a hole in the wall to suddenly suck us out into the deadly emptiness of space. When no such thing occurred however, I decided to glance back over to where the assumed explosion originated from. What I saw however, went beyond all forms of logical reasoning. Brain, what is that? Hm? Oh, that’s just a purple winged unicorn with an oversized cranium. It really isn’t all that surprising… Oh, well… wait what?! I could hear a rather strange pounding filling my ears as I watched the ‘unicorn’ speak a few words in a very much foreign language before collapsing to the floor, her body--if the voice was anything to go by gender-wise--making a small ‘Thump’ as it hit the metallic floor. I glanced briefly over to Michael to see that, oh, he had already passed out. Well, I guess I might as well follow along, seems to be the new trend after all right? Thump Everfree Forest Afternoon, April 30, 1059 PE My eyes flew open as my mind brought memories of recent events close on its fetlocks. A quick glance around confirmed that no, this was not a dream and yes, everything I knew and loved was in fact destroyed. I sat up groggily and was about to weep some more over this fact before I was interrupted by the Tartarus-damned Tree again, “Bearer, we are glad you are alright, we had almost believed you would have left the safety of our sustained atmosphere in order to reunite with your friends.” “Well that is still the plan thank you very much!” I snapped at the air, not really having a direction to speak to, “I need to leave this place and find them as well as the princesses before the debris has time to drift further apart! I can still fix this if I move quickly!” I stood up, berating myself slightly for passing out for the aforementioned reason. My determined mind moved towards the shield once more to gaze out over the empty expanse, thinking briefly about how much darker it seemed both with the lack of atmosphere to screen it and the all too apparent hazard it presented. It was a little far-fetched that I could fix a planet, even with the elements and the princesses, it was likely some chunks would be missing at the very least. But at this point, I didn't exactly have much choice on the matter. “While it is good that you wish to reunite with your companions, the simple fact of the matter is that we don’t have a way to safely transport you to them. The distance to teleport is too great in our fractured state and even still, the damage done to the planets in this universe is far too great to repair with just a handful of ponies, no matter how strong.” “Don’t you dare say that,” I said, seething through grit teeth, “Tree of Harmony or not, I refuse to believe that there isn’t a way to fix this. All I need is a way to get to them and work from there, easy peasy!” “The sheer level of concentration required to maintain and maneuver an atmospheric bubble around yourself is hard enough in hazardous environments, and is made only slightly easier with the presence of outside oxygen that can be filtered in with the right amount of control. The ability to maintain it in a place where there is instead a vacuum constantly pulling at the bubble and the limited oxygen within is effectively impossible. Even if you did have the concentration and finesse, the magical power alone would be very difficult to muster and would likely result in a very quick death.” “Well then I’ll just teleport myself!” I said defiantly as I gazed out into space. “We had already stated that the distance to teleport is too gre-” “Not there! Haven’t you been paying attention to anything? Look over there!” I pointed a hoof over to a small white object in the distance, hoping that the Tree was actually able to see my pointing and not just create an awkward moment. It was a few moments before they responded, “We did not sense that before. It seems that it has an interior with a breathable air pocket. Strange, but a viable solution to your dilemma. Be careful with the teleport Bearer, we do not wish to risk somepony’s life in an attempt to teleport to such a small object over such a large distance. Any error could result in death.” Wow, way to put a downer on everything... I waved a hoof behind me as I gazed outward, “Yeah yeah, I’ll just need to throw together a spell matrix that can sustain a longer range teleport and then be off, now hush, I need to concentrate.” “Of course, Bearer.” The Tree replied before their presence faded. Now that that was out of the way, I closed my eyes and started examining my previous teleport. It was very close to malfunctioning, even without the anti-magic shield that threw off my destination, I probably would’ve ended up in a very different place despite the intended target. I shuddered slightly at the thought. It was likely a blessing that I ended up here in the first place. Maybe the Tree guided me here when it thought I was in danger, or maybe the assumed magic of Princess Luna held some slight impressions of her old castle and my attempt to pass through her shield caused me to end up here? Or maybe- No! Focus Sparkle, you’ve got to get to the princesses first! I turned over, disassembled, reassembled, and over all reshaped my teleport spell as I looked for ways to improve the distance. What I came up with worked, but with a substantially higher energy requirement than the normal one, there was no way of knowing just how much energy would be needed to traverse this much distance but it was likely to be much more than even Cadence could pump out with ease. I didn’t like it. But hey, the world ended, I think it was worth a shot at trying to start the world up again. I started setting up the new glyphs and pushing magic into them as I spoke, “Alright, I’m going to head over there, if… if anything happens to me…” “We will try our best to inform your friends and family, courageous Bearer.” “Thanks…” I took one last moment to breath in even as sweat started to soak through my coat. Here goes nothing! I released the spell, and I could immediately feel the effects as a ‘tube’ much longer and thinner than my usual teleport spells pulled me inward. The feeling wasn’t new to me, but it was much stronger than I had thought it’d be and the energy drain didn’t help. To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tree of Harmony made the whole experience more bearable, albeit slightly, because looking back… I think that would’ve killed me. By the time I finally reached the end, my mind was swirling, my brain unable to keep up coherent thought as I tried to say the sentence I had planned when I was making the spell matrix. “Buck I’m… Starswirl is the new master of pancakes now…!” I think that with a simple swap of some nouns you can already guess that what I tried to say was meant as a victory cheer. Close enough really. ISS Resonance 1348, 30 APR 59 CLANG “Sir, are you okay…?” I glanced up from my desk, looking at the only person in my team that would’ve called me ‘Sir’, “I’d be better if you stopped being so damn formal Thomas, I thought I already told you that informal speech is allowed and preferred for the duration of this assignment.” It wasn’t a question because I know that I had told him, multiple times. “Oh, sorry sir.” I groaned, “Sorry Lansky!” I groaned again, “Kyle! Sorry Kyle! Won’t happen again!” I perked up immediately, “Great! Now that you’ve seen reason we can move onto the task at hand, right everyone?” I pointedly looked at the two sitting next to him that were currently trying to stifle some pretty potent looking laughter. They gave up on that pretty quickly though, must’ve been another minute before they calmed themselves down again. And what a surprise that my chosen communications specialist was the first to speak up, “Oh come on, Kyle! You have to admit zis is one of ze funniest zings to happen on zis ship since ze cook accidentally lost his pistol in one of ze private’s food tray!” I managed to keep a straight face, barely, it was a really funny memory, “Be that as it may, Angela, we still have work to do. The captain gave me this assignment,” I tapped my desk for a little bit of emphasis, “asked me to round up your sorry asses, and try to find out if humanity is still standing after the shitstorm we witnessed less than 24 hours ago! I hate to be a downer, but we have bigger fish to fry right about now.” Angela and our team’s scientist, Anton, looked down at the table. Seemingly sobering up at the thought of all those they lost, and inadvertently causing me to wince as my face started reflecting my own empathy, however little it may have been. I could see out of the corner of my eye that Thomas was feeling the same thing, hell I think I saw a tear or two there as well. Eventually however, Angela broke the silence up, “Vy us?” “What do you mean?” “I mean vy us? Specifically us? Surely zere must be better people for ze job on a ship zis advanced and zis large.” “Well… I would be lying if I said part of it wasn’t because I know you two better than anyone else on this ship, but yet I also wouldn’t be lying when I say that Lonni specifically said you three might be the best candidates for the job anyways. I’m not too sure about dear Thomas here, but I’m certain that the four of us? The four of us can finish this assignment better than any team on this entire ship.” I gave them what I hoped was a winning smile to maybe further emphasize my point, it didn’t feel terribly genuine though, hell I wasn’t even sure why Lonni picked us. Especially considering that I can name at least six occasions where we managed to piss her off with some of our shenanigans. But it seemed to work, since all three looked at me after that, and I could tell that while Angela was the only one smiling after that, the others were happy to hear me say it too. “So... what do we do now?” Thomas asked. “Well now we kinda should work on actually finding and contacting one of those beacons…” I rubbed the back of my neck, chuckling slightly, “sappy uplifting speeches aside we really need to find out how their still up and active. Any ideas?” I made the unseen request for Angela to pick up on that, seeing as how she knew the most about this sort of thing. She perked up upon hearing that, answering my hidden request with little difficulty, “Vell, it’s not very likely, but maybe some of ze communications satellites survived ze explosion? Ve could try to contact a nearby or even distant phone through zem?” “Sounds like something, probably our most straightforward option actually. I’ll see if I can use the ship’s communications array to reach one of them.” My hands moved to turn on the computer sitting peacefully to my left, logging into my account and bringing up our standard application for contacting long-distance devices. It wasn’t terribly flashy, and was mostly meant for anyone to use on the ship, so I got on easily enough, trying to find a signal however was another thing entirely. For that I had to call over Angela and Anton, their combined smarts and privileges allowed us to find juuust what we needed, and we all crowded around the screen as soon as the readout showed something that was actually legible. [WARNING: Extensive Damage to Satellites 23, 14, and 11; Repairs Needed | 3043 Satellites Missing; Investigation Recommended] Satellite [1]: Linked, 12 Components Damaged, Call Services Disabled, 32 Maximum Characters Satellite [2]: Linked, 16 Components Damaged, Call Services Disabled, 16 Maximum Characters Satellite [3]: Linked, 23 Components Damaged, Call Services Disabled, 2 Maximum Characters 13 Communication Dishes Found: 5 Military, 6 Civilian, 2 Other Satellite [1] and Communication Dish M-1 Selected Thomas was the first to speak up, “So… what do we type?” “Maybe we should start with a simple greeting?” Anton suggested. “No no no, we can’t just say ‘Hey! How’s it going?’ when the freaking world ended, that’s just too callous.” “Vat about asking if zey’re alright? Or if zey need any assistance?” Angela asked. “The first one I think, we don’t really have much more than what we need to take care of ourselves and we can probably lead into our main goal afterwards.” Thomas looked to me and I took that as my cue to start typing. Characters Remaining: 2/32 Hello? Anyone alive out there?| I blinked, grimacing slightly at how short of a message that was, “I guess you never really notice just how fucking small thirty-two characters are until you actually have to type something up with it… how the hell are we going to get a conversation going with something like this?” “A looot of patience.” Anton said knowingly. I glanced over at him, but he just shrugged and turned back to the screen, I did the same and hit ‘Enter’. 1: Hello? Anyone alive out there? 2: Who is this? How are you alive? Characters Remaining: 1/32 This is the ISS Resonance. You?| I hit ‘Enter’ again, only to groan in exasperation at the response, “Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me…” 1: Hello? Anyone alive out there? 2: Who is this? How are you alive? [ERROR: Satellite Deactivated to Preserve Systems, Reactivating in 30 Minutes.] Characters Remaining: 1/32 This is the ISS Resonance. You?| I flinched as Angela clapped her hands loudly, “Velp! I guess ve’re going to be in zere for ze long haul, snacks anypony?” I frowned in confusion, my mind briefly being caught on something before my stomach interrupted it with a all-suffering growl, demanding sustenance, “Heh, that sounds good Angela, I’ll see if I can get a more comfortable seating arrangement too, don’t want you guys leaning over me every time we’re about to send a message.” “I’ve got a deck of cards I keep under my bunk, I’ll go grab those so we’re not overtly bored during our wait.” Thomas said before walking out with Angela, humming a happy tune. As soon as I stood up to started rearranging furniture in the somewhat confined office space, Anton sat down and began typing a bunch of gibberish into the computer. I rose and eyebrow in confusion but otherwise let him do his thing, he probably knew more about computers than I did after all. We were going to save humanity, one thirty-two long text message at a time. Author's Note Whelp, I finally managed to belt out another chapter... Yeah... Now you get to wait another three months for the next one! ...Hopefully not, but you know what I mean... you should really just kinda go about your regular routine while I work on motivating myself to write another. A win/win if you ask me.
