Chapter 1: Final stand and new arriv- HOLY SHIT! Is that a horse?!
Location: Shandu’s third moon orbital outpost.
It was just another common and boring night cycle and in the control room of the outpost 3 certain figures were doing nothing really interesting. They were Eddric Dharas from the Esper especial forces, Captain Tamara Wyn, first in command in the place and Ulf Damir, engineer and explosives expert.
“EDD!!! I swear to God that if you don’t take that dirty noodles out my face, I’m going to ruin your life!” said Ulf while trying to swat away the offending food that was flying around him via telekinesis. “I’m sorry man, but they are no longer in my control! They evolved! Now they have a mind of their own… WE’RE ALL DOOMED!” replied Dharas while snickering.
“That’s it, now you’re fucked!!” Ulf getting up from his chair started chasing Edd trough the room, ruining everything in their path. “Jeez Ulfy, you must calm down those noodles are messing with your mind, don’t let them control you. Stay strong and fight THEM! I know you can!”
“Rrraaaaaaaaarg! Come here you insufferable piece of shit! Once I grab you I’ll make sure to bash your head so hard against the wall that you’ll never get to use those mind freak powers of yours ever again.”
“Guys please… SHUT THE FUCK UP! I’m trying to write today’s report here, so please stop it,” said the third figure in the room, causing both guys to stop on their tracks.
“The report… right. WHAT REPORT?! Tammy! Nothing to report ever happens here, it’s the most boring place in the galaxy!” replied Edd angrily.
“I’ll have to agree with him, even if think he is a childish fool, he’s right,” said Ulf in a disinterested way.
“First, don’t EVER call me Tammy. Second, don’t ever call me Tammy and third, calm down right now and keep quiet or I’ll have you cleaning the bathrooms for 3 months.”
Both Edd’s and Ulf’s eyes widened and said in unison. “AYE AYE, CAP’N!!” while saluting.
Finding a place to sit Ulf muttered to himself. “You’re lucky I’m not allowed to put a bomb under your bed, you god damn psifreak”
Tamara grinned and said. “That’s better,” then she released a sigh and frowned. “The fact that nothing ever happens here makes this stupid reports ever harder to write, I never know what to put in them.”
“Then, just don’t do it, seriously, I don’t think they even care at all. Heck, I doubt something they might care about will ever, EVER! Happen here…” Just a moment after Dharas finished saying that, an emergency alarm activated.
“Wow man… you just had to jinx it. Didn’t you?” said Ulf with a deadpan face.
“{Emergency. Emergency. Warp space breach detected,}“ exclaimed a robotic voice.
“Wha… but how... Bob! Report. NOW!” ordered Tammy to the main computer AI.
‘I still can’t believe she named it Bob…’ tough Ulf
“{Terran tech was detected coming out of a warp jump inside the external barrier, escaners identify a fleet of battle ships nearing five hundred}”
“WHAT!” exclaimed the three in unison. “But that’s i-i-impossible, Terrans shouldn’t have the means nor the necessary knowledge to breach the barriers trough a warp jump, they are especially designed to prevent that!” stated captain Wyn, while desperately looking for the real time holo-maps of the sector. “No… NO! They… they’re right at our doorstep!”
“{Incoming message from the central command. Playing now.}”
“General P. Nirum here. I’ve got orders for you Captain Wyn. Its time. Our worst fears had become true. This fight is not one we can win, our forces are not going to be able to hold the enemy forever. You’ll have to follow the special protocol we gave you and star the operation N.h0p3. I trust you’ll be able to complete the mission. I wish you good luck, you all will need it.”
“{End of the message.}”
“You heard him, Bob prepare the ship “Akani” and activate the evac and self-destruct protocol. Ulf go fetch the restoration project and you Edd follow me to the hangar, we must be ready as soon as possible.” The captain and Ulf went running to their respective objectives, meanwhile Edd just stood there, with his mouth hanging open, trying to process what the fuck was going on.
“{Protocols initiated. The Akani will be ready for lift-off in ten minutes.}”
Tamara realizing that Edd wasn’t following, returned and pulled him from his arm, dragging him while running. “Edd what the fuck are you doing. We must hurry and reach the ship, so you better start running now.”
“I…just ah… aaaaarg, okay, okay I’m following, but can you at least explain what’s going on? Really, just what the fuck is operation hopitywhatever,” Edd said while trying to free himself from Tammy’s grasp. “Shut up and run, I’ll explain all later,” replied Tammy without looking back at Edd.
Releasing a sigh Edd looked with a dejected face. “Fine…”
Five minutes later…
The Captain was in the cockpit checking all the system and readying the ship for the lift-off. The place was really big, the ship being huge by itself. It made Edd wonder why three people would need a ship this size, it wasn't one of the combat ship he knew about, it didn't make any sense. Still, there was something about it that kept prodding his toughs.
Ulf finally arrived with his cargo, a strange piece of advanced machinery that was a mystery to Edd, it was just a spherical thing like some kind of metal core. ‘I don’t get it, what it’s that thing and why would we need it to fight against the enemy army?’ Edd tough while observing Ulf securing the strange object.
“Now that you both are here, would you kindly explain to me, what it’s that thing a how are we supposed to fight against the Terrans with this ship that does not have any kind of fucking USEFULL WAPONRY!!!” Edd glared at them while trying to catch his breath.
Ulf and Tamara froze in place, not daring to look at Edd directly in the eyes. “Well, Edd I… uh w-we, errr… *sigh* Edd I’m sorry but our mission wasn’t to go and fight or actually guard the outpost, since the beginning it never was…” Tammy answered in a sad tone.
It was that moment that Edd realized what was going on. “Now I get it… this is a fucking colonizing ship! You pair of COWARDS! How could you be planning to escape while our forces are trying to protect our home planet? There is innocent people there and they are going to get all killed! And you are thinking about escaping and starting again in a hidden planet? And to make things worst you are dragging me with you… You disgust me!”
Ulf couldn’t hold himself any longer and let his anger go free. “Who the fuck do you think you are to judge us!!! You’ve no right to do it! You think I’m happy doing this? Hu!? Having to leave everyone behind to die just to do this god damn mission…? But we… we have no choice. This is necessary and the only way to keep at least a little legacy of our people, that way we can hope that one day we’ll manage to rise again. The mission is… I… it’s just …”
Tamara took a step ahead, interrupting Ulf. “It’s okay Ulf, I’ll explain it to him.” Turning to look at Eddrick she started explaining. “The mission was one of preservation, to save what we could of our legacy and the way they planned on doing it was to use you and your control of the Psi-energy to create a new model of the old the data cloud, this new core could hold immense amounts of knowledge, but the workings of it were way too complicated, as a result to connect with core and access the information an Esper of the highest category would be needed. That’s why it had to be you the one to carry the core with you to an unknown place out of the borders where the races that are part of the galactic council have control, to start from scratch and rebuild what we can.”
“I… b-b-but we… this is just not right… Our forces are still fighting out there, our home planet is still untouched, we can still hold and maybe turn the tables… we can still wi-” Edd was interrupted by a sudden alarm.
“{WARNING: an enormous amounts of concentrated Psi-energy has breached the external barriers. The scanners identify that the trespasser has high chances to be a colossus class vessel from the Divines.}”
“…”
“Why would the Divines be here? They never get themselves involved with any other races. It doesn’t makes sense!” an alarmed Tamara stated.
Looking through the main window at the distance the occupants of the Akani saw something that made their blood run cold. A colossal ship that looked like it was made of lighting itself that possessed enough armament to take an entire fleet. But the most notable thing it had was its main canon, so gigantic it could hold the biggest battle cruiser model inside of it.
With an incredulous look Eddrick retreated a little from the main window. “I… I tough those were just a myth… A Divine’s planet destroyer. It’s obvious what’s going to happen now, they are the ones that must have helped the Terrans breach our defenses and also would explain how they suddenly became stronger in the middle of the war. With them by their side all hopes we had of fighting back are gone, we probably never had a change at all…” Turning to meet the Captains gaze Eddrick finally took the decision. “Tamara deploy the ship.”
Looking and Edd with sadness, but without a second though the Captain turned on the thrusters, positioning the ship on right course and took off at high speeds. “Ok, now we must only distance ourselves enough from the battle so they don’t detect us when we make the warp jump, after that we should be safe to find a new place to colonize”
The three of them turned to look for a final time their home planet. With faces full of sadness and horror they saw what a Divine’s planet destroyer was capable of. It took only one shot of the main canon, it sailed through the space at enormous speeds, it was an astoundingly beautiful ray of energy that sparked in a red crimson color. But they knew what that ray truly was, a deathly convergence of corrupted Psi-energy ready to pulverize everything on its path. And then in a blinding flash of light, the planet was no more. Shandu and its people has been lost forever.
“We’re getting close guys prepare yourselves for the jump” Captain Wyn was preparing everything to jump, when explosions started wrecking the ship activating the alarms.
“{Main engines heavily damaged, propulsion system working at 20% capacity.}”Announced the ship alert systems.
Tamara was desperately pressing every option in the controls, trying to make it work again. “No no no no no no no no, we were so close!! What happened?!”
“A Terran ship intercepted us. Probably came out of a warp jump right next to us… Ha! Talk about bad luck, the chances of this happening are almost none”
“This. Is. BULLSHIT! We failed because of a fucking bad luck coincidence?” Tamara replied angrily hitting the controls.
“We haven’t failed yet, we’re not the ones that have to survive.” Ulf said looking at her with determination.
“You’re right we have a duty and a mission to complete, ensure the survival of the Esper and the core” Tamara turned to look at Eddrick with a determined expression “Edd you must get on the emergency escape pod, we will use a disabling pulse to shut down the enemy ship system for a moment and distract them so you can escape.”
“What! Guys you can’t be serious! You expect me to escape while you stay and die?”
With a dead serious face both of them replied at the same time with a simple “Yes.”
Looking directly at them for a moment Edd sighed. “Then I guess there is no convincing you otherwise. Hu? You leave with no choice, I’ll do it” Edd took the cloud core and went to the escape pod “I’ll miss you guys. Thank you for everything”
“Yeah yeah whatever just get in there you mindfreak, and don’t expect me to say a cheesy farewell line now” said a smirking Ulf.
“Ok Edd everything its ready, make sure you survive and don’t do something stupid, I know it’s too much to ask of you but at least try. Ok?” said Tamara in a serious tone. “Good Bye Eddy and remember keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times.”
“Bye Ulfy. Bye Tammy.” It was the last think Edd said to them before closing the escape pod.
Getting separated from the ship the last thing Eddrick saw, was a beam impacting the Terran ship, temporally shutting it down. Then came the warp jump, taking Eddrick Dharas to an unknown corner of the galaxy.
Out of the long range random warp jump, Eddrick found himself floating in space in a new system. “Computer give me our location and look for the nearest planet that can sustain life.”
“{Actual location: unknown, there is no recorded information regarding our actual location on the Galactic council archives. New status: unexplored territories, initiating analysis of the star system. Objective: locate nearby planets with sustainable life. Matches found: one. Do you wish to initiate course to the planet?}”
“Yes. Set the coordinates and prepare a short warp jump”
“{Coordinates ready. Warp jump initiating in three. Two. One. Takeoff}”
“{Warp jump successful. Preparing to enter planet atmosphere. Do you wish to proceed?}”
“Yes computer initiate the desc- WHAT THE FUCK! IT’S THAT SUN ORBITING THE PLANET? That’s ridiculous! That’s impossible! Does this system has no regard for the poor and violated laws of physics? Oh god, just what kind of place I ended in…?”
“{Descending protocol initiated}”
“NO WAIT! It’s too dangerous that crazy sun could kill me on the way!!”
“{Planet atmosphere closing in, process can’t be canceled now}”
“Stupid universe always fucking with me, this has been an unfortunate event after another nonstop. I hate you universe…Shit! The temperature rose too fast with the sun being so close, the pod might not resist. Please stupid machine you must keep going we’re half way there”
“{Temperature too high. Situation critical, emergency ejection engaged}”
“NO NO NO NO WAIT! I need to get the COREEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee….”
Getting suddenly ejected from the pod Eddrick started approaching the land at high speeds. ‘Shit I need to do something or I’m gonna dieehehehee… I KNOW!! Retarded me, I just need to make a strong psi-shield to protect me from the impact!’ Eddrick, concentrating his psi-energies around, created a shield strong enough to absorb the impact. ‘HA! Take that universe! I’M GONNA LIVE! Wait… is... is that… a horse? OH SHIT!! IM GONNA LAND ON TOP OF THAT HORSE! And I can’t control my fall… great just great. Screw you universe I know you like to fuck with mi life but that horse is an innocent creature!!’
Princess Celestia has happily humming a tune as she took a nice and relaxing walk through the palace gardens. For her today was really good day, the weather was just perfect and her sun shined brightly in the sky. Usually most of her days are tiring and exhausting, always ruined in the same ways, sometimes it was her little ponies freaking out for small things causing panic a chaos, the usual weekly destruction of Ponyville, all of those selfish nobles demanding more and more, just yesterday one them was suggesting that the funds directed to the Canterlot orphanage would be more useful invested in other projects, something like… a pool… for his mansion and let’s not forget the constants mountains of paperwork she has to deal with. But this day was special she could just feel it in the air, nothing could go wrong this day. But of course tempting destiny never ends well…
The princess of the sun decided to stop and sit in her favorite spot of the garden right next to a beautiful water fountain. The sound of water always helped her relax that’s she liked the place so much. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath she released a pleasant sigh.
‘This day it’s perfect, I just hope nothing bad happens and ruins it,’ the princess thought getting a little sad. “No Celestia you have think positive, today it’s a good day and nothing it’s going to ruin it for you. Today nothing can go wrong,” she told to herself.
-Yup, she just did that, and the universe was not happy about it… naaah, he actually was laughing his ass of and thanking all the fools who decided to tempt fate for all the opportunities to fuck with their lives.-
The princess ears perked at a strange sound, opening her eyes and looking at the direction it came from, she noticed that there was a weird flying shining blue ball and that it was making a sound like that of a whistle, felling closer and closer with each moment, she realized that the thing was coming right at her. The only thought that came through her at the moment was. “I knew I should've stayed inside.” Before the thing fell with a big explosion right on top of her, leaving a crater of decent size on its impact zone.
Luckily older alicorns are pretty durable, so she only felt pain and passed out. Nothing to really worry about.
“Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh SHEEEET! I think I just killed that horse! Great just great, my first moments in an unexplored planet and the first think I do its kill an innocent anim… is that thing still breathing!? Aaaaaand its hair it’s moving on its own, ‘how does it do that?’… And what the fuck is going on with that weird colors… just what is this horse made of!?... Well at least it’s not dead,” said Edrrick with relief.
That relief was only short lived, because suddenly Edd’s shield collapsed, and a searing pain went through all of his body. It felt like he was being burned alive maybe even worse. He didn’t know what was happening to him, this was not natural. He concentrated to use the psi-energies to scan himself so he could find what was happening to him, the moment he did that he felt it. The place, no, this planet had overwhelming and unnatural amounts of psi-energy on its atmosphere and it was killing him. His body, even if he was a high category esper, wasn’t prepared to survive that much amount of energy. His cells were being killed one by one, getting destroyed by the same energy he was trained to use.
‘Aaaarg the pain it’s too much, I won’t be able to maintain myself conscious at this rate. I need to find a genetic sample from one of the locals, and if don’t find it fast I’ll be dead in minutes at the rate this shit its going.’ Suddenly remembering the horse he almost killed he turned to its direction. ’The HORSE! It’ll have to do for now I guess, even if I don’t really like the idea.’
The esper started to make way to his objective, but even though it wasn’t far, for him it felt like an interminable torture, he could feel his body dying and failing with each steep he took. It was just a matter of time for his body to stop responding.
His legs were the first to give and he fell face first into the crater.”Aaaa!! No! Please, don’t fail me now… I’m so close just a little more, please body I know you can endure this.” Using his arms to crawl the rest of the way He finally manage to arrive, but by that time the lower half of his arms weren’t answering anymore. So he did the only thing his body allowed to at the moment, using his teeth to grab the horse’s wavy tail he pulled with the little force he had left, managing to get a piece and swallowing it.
‘Blerg it tastes horrible! Now I just need to find the strand that allow this horses to resist the enormous amounts of eneGAAAAAAH! SHIT! I can’t concentrate the pain it’s much and my body won’t last much longer, I’ll have to… GOD DAMMIT I know I’ll hate myself for this later…' Without another choice available he committed one of the biggest taboo of his people. He made a complete assimilation.
He felt what remained alive of his body changing entirely, meanwhile his dead cells became ash and fell around him. His body wouldn’t be able to maintain the amount of mass it used to have, due to all the dead cell he lost, changing into a smaller form. The transformation was slow and painful but the pain was very little compared to what he felt before. When it finally ended everything was blurry and he could feel the ashes of his old body surrounding him.
Without all of the pain tormenting him he finally was able to just lay for a while there and just let his exhaustion kick in. Sleep seemed really nice for him at the moment so after a couple of minutes he just let himself go. The last thing he saw was a white blur looming over him and then he fell unconscious.
Eddrick woke up groaning and with a horrible headache.
He felt extremely tired and… wrong, it just felt like things were wrong, he could not remember what happened the day before. His room smelled weird, like it was sanitized all the time, he tried to move and see his surroundings, but his body just didn’t want to answer like he wanted. He tried to open his eyes but the moment he did that they closed instantly, everything was too bright and his eyes were too sensitive at the moment. So he just laid there, thinking.
‘Did I got drunk las night? Nah, Tammy would never let me do something like that, she’d probably cut my balls if she managed to catch me drinking… Then, what happened? I know I do a lot of stupid things constantly but never something big enough to end like this. I can barely feel my body, let alone try to move it. I bet it must have been Ulf… he probably did something to my food… that bastard always jealous of my awesomeness.’ Eddrick kept like that, thinking for a couple of more minutes before deciding to do something. ‘Welp… can’t stay in bed all day, if I don’t start moving soon the captain is not going to be happy and Tammy’s rage it’s not something you want to experience at all.’
Slowly Eddrick started trying to feel and move his body, it still felt a little numb in lots of places, but he finally managed to sit upright in the bed, he didn’t know why but the position his extremities had right now felt absolutely wrong. Slowly opening his eyes he managed to take a look at his surroundings. To him it was some kind of medical facility but it looked very… archaic. The instrument they had were similar to those used in old Terra but even for them these would look old.
“What is this place?” Edd was expecting hear the voice he always recognizes when he spoke but instead he found himself hearing a squeaky high pitched tone. “Wha… m-m-my voice… w-what happened to my voice!!! WHY DO I SOUND LIKE A LITTLE GIRL!!?”
Edd started panicking and looking everywhere trying to make sense of the situation. Until he noticed something in the middle of his vision it was something long, colored in pale shade of pink. Aaaaand it was were his nose should be.“Wut… it’s that… a muzzle?” Edd raised his hand to touch the alien thing on his face, but he didn’t saw his hand or arm at all, it was a foreleg, a pink foreleg with a hoof at the end of it. “I uuuuhh… wha… that’s a horse leg why do I have a horse leg? And a horse muzzle? And a… ooooohh balls, please, please tell this is just a hallucination and the moment I look down at my body it won’t be that of horse”
Edd looked down at his body and what he saw didn’t make him happy at all. His body was really small and covered in a pale pink fur and instead of his feet or hands he now had 4 hooves at the end of each leg. Also, remembering how his voice sounded right now, he panicked and tried to look for the things that made him a proud male, but found nothing but girl stuff. He started panicking more and more, sweating and hyperventilating, trembling he could hear the palpitations of his racing heart becoming louder and louder until he finally lost it.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!! IMMA FUCKING HORSE!! AND FUCKING PINK!! A FUCKING PINK GIRL HORSE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!”
Alerting the medical staff of the place with his screams, the sound of a pair of hoof steps could be heard approaching the room. When sound finally arrived at the doorstep, two small pastel colored horses entered the room, both of them with a horn coming out of their heads, one with a nurse cap and other on who seemed to be a doctor.
Seeing how altered the filly was, the nurse got close to try and calm her. “It’s ok little one, nothing bad is going to happen, you’re safe here and nopony is going to hurt you, I promise” said the nurse giving Edd a warm smile “I’m nurse Ruby Helper, and over here its Doctor Stitch. We’re here to make sure all nice and healthy”
“Now please remain calm meanwhile I quickly examine you to make sure you’re healthy and uninjured.” The doctor then tried to approach Edd, only to be stopped by the filly’s scared expression.
Edd’s eyes widened. “Oh god I was captured by talking horses! Demon horses, demon horses everywhere! Stay away from me you spawns of hell!” trying to back away from them he bumped his back on the headboard getting a sudden pain on something that wasn’t there before, looking at his back he saw two feathery appendages attached to him. ‘I have wings?! Why would they put wings on me? Wouldn't that make it easier to escape?’
“Hey! A little filly shouldn’t speak like that, its rude and offensive, also we aren't horses, we are ponies, just like you.” Said the nurse while frowning
Edd turned his head and looking directly at the nurse and said. “Ponies? Ponies… hmmm.” then paused for a second. “LIES!! Filthy liar! I know there is no mention or data about talking ponies at al, in the species section of the Galactic council archives!! You’re nothing but big fat LIES! So you better reverse whatever this is you did to me and let me go or ill use lethal force on both of you, I swear ill really kill you if u don’t comply. I’ve been trained to kill stronger and bigger creatures than you, so better don’t test my patience.” Edd bared his teeth growling. ‘Aaarg! There is no way this is going to work, I bet I look as menacing as a crippled hamster’
Both nurse and doctor gave a scared shocked looks at the little filly. “D-d-d-doctor I think we should bring the princess, this seems really troubling” the nurse said without taking her eyes of the filly. ”I agree with that, the patient is being highly delusional showing extreme aggression and seem like she has a really complex case of post traumatic stress disorder due to the recent accident, ” stated the doctor.
“Yes doctor I’ll be back with the princess as fast as I can,” said the nurse while leaving the room.
‘Wow… they actually got scared. Are you kidding me? These “ponies” are cowards!’ Edd started giggling but stopped abruptly. ‘Oh god that must that must be the most unmanly thing I’ve heard or done in my life. This stupid voice is really getting on my nerves.’
Seeing the filly relax a little the doctor took the chance to try and talk to her once more. “Ok little one, I can’t just let you go. We really only want to help you get better in any way we can and I promise that nopony is going to hurt you. Why don’t we start over? I’m Doctor Sticht. What would your name be little filly?” said the smiling doctor trying to calm the little pony in front of him.
Edd tensed again, putting a serious face and glaring at him. “I aint telling you shit, you mutant horse! So piss off and don’t even try to act all friendly on me, I know you’re planning something evil. I want you to stay back!” Edd warned the doctor, grabbing a pillow and throwing it to his face. ‘Wha… how did I grab that pillow just now? I think I’m getting crazier and crazier each second...’
Edd just sat there for a long time watching the Doctor and glaring at him, making sure that "Mr. Fake doctor demon horse" wouldn't make any sudden movement.
A sudden strange feeling took Edd by surprise, and made him direct his attention elsewhere, it was something "calling" for him, something haven’t felt in years, but it was so familiar, yet he could not identify where it came from. He concentrated in his past, trying to remember the feeling that was so familiar, until a specified memory flashed through his mind. The last time he felt something like this was when he shared moments with his mother before his family died. The calling was so strong that made him loose control and get dragged into it. “M-m-mom? Is that you?” Edd could fell the call getting stronger and stronger. ”MOM!! I’m here! It’s me Eddrick!” He tried to stand and run in the direction he felt it, only to fall whit his face into the bed covers and getting tangled in them. “LET ME GO YOU STUPID THING GOD DAMMIT! MOOOOOM!!! IM HERE!! PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE!!”
The feeling reached its strongest point when the nurse came with another figure trough the door, This pony was much taller than the other two, she had perfectly white coat and multicolored mane flowing in a non-existent wind.
The moment Eddrick’s eyes fell on her, he came to his senses again and all the memories of the past day returned to him in an instant, accompanied with a horrible splitting headache. “You… You’re not her!!” He exclaimed, then graved his head with both his forelegs letting out an extremely loud pained scream. All other ponies pinned their ears on the sides their heads due to the pain caused by the sudden outburst.
Finally the pained scream stoped and Edd remembered everything. The sudden invasion, the destruction of his home planet and race, the sacrifice of his friends and how he failed miserably on his mission despite everyone’s efforts, he didn’t only lost the cloud core, the instrument to rebuilt his culture, but also his right to call himself a member of his ex-species. He was supposed the be last of the assimilators and their last hope but now, they are all extinct… he failed and now was trapped in an alien world in the body of a child in danger of losing himself on the instincts that came with it. Heck, he wasn’t even a “he” anymore.
Feeling absolutely hopeless she slumped down on the bed, with a tortured expression and tears threatening to fall.
Prologue: origins and stuff
Hi!! My Name is Eddrick Dharas, or at least it used to be… Now these ponies keep saying that it’s not a real name and blah blah blah… So guess what? They forced me to change it!!! And they didn’t even let me choose. Those jerks.
I don’t give a shit, I still call myself Eddrick. I really like it’s meaning “Power and good fortune”. But even if I want to always use my old name and hate my new name I have no choice but to stick with it, because I definitely do not want to raise more suspicion than necessary. Really, If they send one of their rulers to the moon for throwing a tantrum out of jealously, I don’t want know what they would do to an alien, so I only call myself by my real name when I’m alone. God, that sounds pathetic…
Anyways life this last month has been… weird, tiring, annoying, full of ponies who think they have the right to control my life, accompanied by the loss of almost everything I knew and had. You know, the usual.
You may be asking. “Why am I telling you this?”(If there anyone listening that is). Well… I need to keep myself distracted meanwhile this ridiculous pony psychologist whannabe, who barely knows anything about the about real psychology, keeps trying to make me talk about my issues… HA! Good luck with that brah. I mean seriously this ponies are so emotionally under developed, that the sole tough of death, meat, blood, and anything related makes them go pale. Sometimes I think that they have the emotional level of a little kid. I bet they don’t know anything besides a happy life, sunshine and rainbows. And it’s all the fault of that god damn old hag Celestia, who keeps mothering even the oldest of ponies!! And to make things worse that clingy cake gobbler refuses to leave me alone and keeps babying me whenever she has the chance… (Sigh.) Oh great, handsome and marvelous creator, if you exist, please give me the strength to keep going.
I’m probably just confusing everyone with my ramblings, so I guess it’s time to start explaining some things, like who I am (Or was,) where I come from and what happened to me for you to understand my actual situation.
I’ll start with where I come from. My home planet and main settlement of my race it’s planet Shandu, which means adapt, and the members of my race are known as the Assimilators, one of the only two surviving races of human sub-species, known by the Galactic Council. We are a sub-species evolved from the habitants of old Terra, the birth place of mankind. What made us different as the original human and gave us our name as a sub-species, was our unique ability that allowed us to absorb different genetic codes and use the natural traits of the living being we took them from. This allowed us to adapt fast, change ourselves according to the situation and gave an advantage in terms of survival. Also our body had a special inner “memory” allowing us to absorb and store certain amounts of different genetic codes and use them at convenience.
To explain and maybe clarify, in an easy, a little bit of how this additions manifest, I’m going to compare it to some old Terra's games known as “rpg” and the abilities on those games. Most of the abilities could be classified as active or passive depending on their effect and its duration. An example of and passive ability or trait could be gaining great heat resistance from a volcanic creature used to living in places with really high temperatures and an example of an active one could be something like fire breath or another cliché thing like that. Of course one must consider that this is a simplified explanation and the real stuff have a way bigger complexity and length.
There is also the “complete assimilation”, the biggest taboo of our people. It consist in breaking your original DNA spirals to replace most of them with the code of another species, which means abandoning most of your aspects while taking almost every characteristic that come with that code. This also means that you keep only a small amount of the main characteristics that define an Assimilator.
Of course this kind of assimilation comes with lots of big risks, the main ones being that all the new alien traits and instincts that the other race poses could easily overwhelm you, if your mind wasn’t strong enough, suppressing most of your original self, erasing what make you who you’re. Also even if you had a mind strong enough to overcome those changes, you would have a control equal to that of a new born of that race over the new impulse that comes with your new body.
For and Assimilator this was considered the worst heresy that one could commit (Actually I think it’s the only one). We being a really proud race (Or at least most of us,) consider this as the equal of taking a shit over all of what meant to be part of our race. So naturally the price to pay for that wasn’t pleasant, you lose your legal status as a member of the race and get exiled of any place under the government of Shandu republic and any of its allies territories. So yeah… it’s not pretty.
Now, with that out of the way, it’s time to explain who I am!!! YAAAAY!!! I am Eddrick Dharas, hero of the universe, destroyer of evil, conqueror of worlds!! Ok. No…
I know I’m not fooling anyone hehehe… Aaaaanyway my name it’s truly the one mentioned, and I’m the first Esper category five to be born in a millenia! (Really cool. Hu?). I bet you’re asking “But Mr. Eddrick the awesome. What’s an Esper?” Well my dear listeners, an Esper it’s an individual with the ability to interact and manipulate a cosmic power that flows from another realm in contact with our universe, called “Psi-energy”. What and how much one can do varies depending on the category of the Esper, five being the highest category known at the moment. (Like the most handsome and awesome Assimilator known as ME!!)
Still, I didn’t knew that from the beginning, before my potential as a high level Esper was discovered I lived with my family, in one of the farming colonies on a planet under the government of Shandu, though it wasn’t exactly a normal “farming” place, it was mainly made of bio domes and special controlled environments, and great part of work was done by machines, it was actually really comfortable in general. We keep nice and peaceful life with my Mom, Dad my big brother and my little sister with almost no worries.
Some years later when I was ten years old, I was discovered to be an Esper with high potential, so they sent me to the Esper academy on the second natural satellite of Shandu. It was a really beautiful place full of green and spectacular views, a real natural wonder. The reason this place was so especial was because it had a really good flow of energy and a calming environment, making it an ideal place to teach an Esper how to control its abilities.
Four years since I entered the academy I had reached the status of a category four Esper and was having the best times of my life, and then one day exiting news arrived (or at least exiting for me at the time,) the Terrans, our last brother race, finally decided to make themselves known and join the galactic council. When I heard the news I went absolutely crazy, I had a probably not so healthy obsession with the culture of old Terra and the Terrans, of all the human sub-species, were the closest one to the original humans. Really, if the human were Homo Sapiens Sapiens these guys were Homo Sapiens Sapiens Aweomens.
The excitement didn’t last long, a couple of months later for some mysterious reason the Terrans declared war on us. Some Said it was because the believed to be only worthy of the original humans legacy and name, I didn’t. I knew there had to be something else, it didn’t make sense at all, but at the moment it did not mater, because we already were at war.
Initially the progress of the war was equal for both sides, we were more technologically advanced, had our ability to adapt at will and had knowledge on the uses of the Psi-Energy, but they were more cunning and their fighting spirit was overwhelming, it was obvious that they were born and grew from war.
The first year of the war was equally sided, but it all suddenly changed they out of nowhere became stronger, it was a mystery to us, just were di they got that power, wasn’t known until the end. The only thing we knew was that the fight had become one sided, and even with our genetic enhancements we could not match them equally on combat.
I had the luck to be nowhere near the battlefields, but luck does not last forever. I was on vacations finally visiting my family again since the last year and everything seemed to be ok, the war hadn’t reached this corner of the system yet, so they still had a relative peaceful life. On the other hand the work did become harder, after all soldiers needs food (Loooooots of food.) Still it was a really nice vacation, I always had a good time while visiting my family.
Then it happened, a strategic strike from the Terrans, they decided to attack an unprepared food supplier. We were unprepared because the planet colony was surrounded by special military outposts in close vicinity of the star system, so nobody though it was possible to pass without us knowing it. It was unknown for us how they managed to pass without being detected and the effect of the attack was almost instant. Fire and death could be seen everywhere, military drop pots falling from space full of soldiers and war machines ready to kill anyone on their way.
Evacuation efforts were put in action, but it was too slow. The chaos finally reached our settlement, I tried to fight and delay them with what I learned in the academy, but it was too much for me alone to handle, so we ran. We ran as fast as our feet could carry us to the nearest evacuation point, we manage to get so close, salvation was just ahead, but the universe had other plans. A drop pod landed just in front of us whit four heavily armored Terran soldiers steeping out of it, and just a second later they opened fire. Everything happened so fast and at same time it was like the world was in slow motion, on instinct I raised a Psi-shield to protect myself. It managed to barely hold, but the rest of my family wasn’t so lucky, they didn’t have genetics useful for combat or protection on their inner memory and I couldn’t create shield strong and big enough for all of us, I was too weak and my weakness cost me too much that day, I had to watch how my family was mutilated, I saw their faces full of pain and horror meanwhile the bullets destroyed their bodies and their blood flew across painting the fields we once used to run and play in red. The last thing I saw of them was my mother’s face full sadness, regret and pain, the she looked at me for an instant showing a small spark of hope whole mothering to me the word “Live”, and then I saw how a bullet when trough her head finally ending her life.
The four soldiers looked at me with curiosity, probably questioning how I survived, then they just raised their weapons a prepared to shot again. I saw what they were doing and at that moment I felt full of rage, hate, desperation and the desire to see them die in the worst possible way. I lost myself in those fellings, letting everything out. I don’t remember exactly what happened, the moment I calmed myself I just saw pieces of armor and red covering everything around me and fell extremes amounts of pain coursing trough me. That was the day and moment I had awakened as a category five Esper.
After evacuating the colony and reaching Shandu to help the new refuges, I took the decision to join the army, train myself and join the war. As the Esper of highest the category there was, they took and gave me special training in combat and control of the Psi-energy, while also using me in investigations on augmentation of Psi-power and new possible uses for an Esper in combat. (The experiments part was not pretty at all… and in the end the jerks learnt almost nothing!!! Or at least that's what i though.)
It took me ten years to finish everything. (Short, considering that to complete the course of the Esper academy it’s eighteen years for a category four.) And I finally was ready to join the fight and make the Terrans pay for they had done for their pathetic and selfish reasons!!!. Or at least that’s what I wanted. But again the universe it’s an asshole and decided it would be fun to place me in most boring orbital outpost in the galaxy, right next to the third natural satellite of Shandu. Yaaaay…
All of this finally lead to events of a month ago…
