Wanderlost

by GMSeskii

Rating: everyone
Tags: Princess Luna, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Starlight Glimmer, Science Fiction, Adventure, Discord, Princess Celestia, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 26518

The Immortals of Equis have been adrift in space for an eternity... And they are starting to lose hope as they continue onward...

Equis has fallen. Long ago, those few gifted with immortality left their dying world, searching for a new home.

That was ages ago. They have been adrift in space for an eternity, and they have found nothing to brighten their spirits. They are starting to lose hope that there is anything for them out here.

However, what they don't realize is that their journey has just barely begun...

-GM, master of Immortals.

Cover drawn by Little Duke! http://www.fimfiction.net/user/Little+Duke

Edit: Woah. It got on the front page. This has never happened before. Thank you all so much.

Published 2016-12-03 19:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-05-22 13:30:07 UTC

I - Abyss

The vast reaches of space extend far beyond the imaginings of any mortal. The cold emptiness that makes up almost everything is something their minds simply do not allow them to comprehend.

However, given enough time, immortals will discover they can comprehend the vast emptiness. Some see beauty in it, the solitude of creation. Others wish to burn brightly enough to be seen amongst the endless backdrop of black. Others try not to ponder it and focus more of physical things.

However, a certain immortal who was staring at the stars had found none of this awoken in herself. Instead, it filled her with fear. The expanse represented the lack of hope to her, that there was no place to go. That all which awaited them was doom…

Twilight Sparkle tore her ancient eyes away from the main window, trying to keep her mind occupied on something else. Anything else. But she had never been good at making her mind think of other things…

Not to mention the fact that there weren’t any distractions for her. Just the cold hard metal of the floor and walls accompanied by the soft hum of the jump drive warming up. She walked down the empty hallway, passing by many screens giving readouts on the various systems: life support, water supply, power production, gravity, etc. All of it had become meaningless to her over the years. Just a bunch of numbers the A.I. took care of…

During the first few years she had learned every nook and cranny of the ship inside and out. She had known what every number meant and why it was important, and what could be found behind every last panel she saw.

Now?

It had been so long since then she had forgotten most of it. She had no idea what the button to her left did anymore. She had no clue if that green screen was good or not. She didn’t need to.

She kept walking aimlessly until she found herself in the engine room, the great ball of fire that served as the ship’s core bathing her in light. There was another alicorn standing there, staring at the glowing orb as it grew.

“Celestia…” Twilight called out.

“I miss it.” Celestia said without shifting her gaze.

“Miss what?”

“Moving the sun.” She responded, still not moving. “I miss feeling its weight in my horn, feeling it skirt across the sky… I miss the warmth that filled me each time I reached out to it. This…” She raised a hoof and pointed at the core. “Is a poor substitute.”

As she said it, the core reached critical mass and imploded in a flash, sending all the built up energy into the drive and triggering a jump. The room fell dark for a moment while the core reignited - starting once more as a tiny pinprick of light against the drab darkness.

Celestia sighed, yet she didn’t move from her spot. Twilight decided to leave, knowing better than to try talking when Celestia was in one of these moods.

Twilight found Luna in the observation deck, the dark alicorn rapidly rushing to and from consoles in a frantic mess. “Luna…” Twilight said.

“Can’t talk now Twilight, have to analyze the new location!” She said, rampaging around, knocking over a stack of empty coffee mugs.

Twilight sighed. “What day is it?”

“The one-hundred and sixty-seventh day of no sleep! I feel great!” Luna twitched. “Sleep deprivation makes things so much more amazing! I feel so alert and I can see anything!”

“That’s the caffeine talking and you know it.”

“Well yes… But it still makes things more interesting - ooh! Type G-7 star around a black hole! Maybe I’ll get to see another star get shredded!”

“That’s the same one from the last location.” Twilight said.

“Oh.” Luna blushed. “Still interesting though, right?” The moon princess rushed to the monitors and soon became so engrossed in her observations that she forgot Twilight was there. Twilight trotted out, continuing on her journey without any destination in mind. She stumbled onto the bridge to see Discord having his fun.

“Fire all phasers!” He yelled, standing up from the captain’s chair. He was wearing some kind of red uniform jumpsuit with a curved chevron symbol on it. Frankly, it looked absurd on his chimera-like body, but he liked it.

“Yes captain Discord!” Fluttershy said from another chair, pressing a button. The ship onscreen exploded in a flash of sheep.

“Good one Discord!” Pinkie said, giggling.

“Bullseye!” Discord whooped. “Now that was-” He stopped, noticing Twilight.

“Hey Discord.” Twilight said. Discord quickly snapped his fingers, returning the bridge to its true state - empty. There was no Fluttershy or Pinkie - there was only him. Nothing onscreen either, no action, no excitement. The screen hadn’t even been turned on for… Twilight didn’t know how long.

“What’s up Sparkles?” Discord asked.

“Nothing.” She said, wandering around. “Just... Lost in thought I guess.”

Discord waved a hand. “Psh, don’t do that, it does weird things to you. Trust me.”

“Yeah, your last mental break was just two years ago. I remember.”

“Oh. Was it really only two years? Where does the time go? Sorry… it felt like more.”

“It's fine Discord, really. We’ve all lost it at one  time or another on this ship.”

Discord facepalmed. “Oh come on, use its name! Discord’s Beard!”

“It does not look like your beard, or any of your other body parts that you’ve compared it to over the years.”

Discord looked like he was about to respond, but then he sighed. “We’ve already had this exact conversation.”

“Twice.” She confirmed.

He groaned. “How much longer do we have to wait?”

“As long as it takes.” Forever.

“Fine.” He said. “I’m going to torment Luna. What day is she on?”

“167.” With her words, the draconequus was gone.

Minutes later, Twilight found herself in the place she didn’t like visiting - the cryo-bay. She didn’t know why she had let herself come here, but here she was, staring at the thousands of sleep pods before her. The green pods ranged in size from the miniscule ones for the Breezies to the tremendous mountain sized one that held Torch.

As usual, Cadence was here, reading a book to the pod that had her alicorn daughter in it. A young foal that all had decided was too young to face the same burden as the other immortals…

Twilight didn’t interrupt Cadence’s story, she just kept walking past.

“...and then your father threw me Flurry Heart! It was… Interesting to say the least. Isn’t that right Shiny?”

The capsule with Shining Armor didn’t respond, as always. Cadence acted as though it did.

Twilight walked up to seven particular pods - two pegasi, two earth ponies, two unicorns, and a small purple dragon. Her friends. She thawed one of them out a year to talk to them - but only for a day. They had never changed much during their sleep… But they always said she had changed.

The Princess of Friendship let out another sigh. She couldn't open one up today - that day was two months in the future. Though times such as months had become short to Twilight over her stay here…

She wandered off, leaving all that remained of the people of Equis behind her - all those rows of individuals sleeping, unmoving, stuck.

She trotted into the main room, the Lobby as they had taken to calling it. It was a large open room with a silvery table in the middle, behind which stood a large crystalline tree, unmoving in the large room. It sparkled in the starlight streaming in through the above window, the various colors of gem on it refracting the light in many beautiful patterns.

There was a purple-pink unicorn sitting on the Tree’s branches, eyes closed in meditation.

“Hey Starlight.” Twilight said with a depressed undertone. “Find inner peace yet?”

“I won't with you interrupting me.” Starlight quipped, not opening her eyes. Then she sighed. “Part of me wonders if ‘inner peace’ even exists…”

“If Celestia is to be believed, it isn’t a state of mind you can keep anyway.” Twilight sat down at the table, staring into the intertwining branches of the Tree of Harmony. “I wonder what it’s thinking…”

“It’s concerned.” Starlight said, opening her eyes and looking at the great Tree’s trunk sadly. “It is finally wondering if we made the right choice.”

Twilight looked up at the once guardian of Equis. “Well, you lasted the longest out of all of us…” She said. “That means something I suppose…”

She frowned. “What’s the point anymore? We’ve been to thousands upon thousands of worlds, none of which can sustain us. We’ve found no allies to help us. We are all that there is…”

Starlight sighed. “Well what else can we do? We’re stuck looking for a new home. We can’t exactly stop, for what if there is a home we could find? And we can’t sleep ourselves - there are exactly enough pods for the crew, each one fine-tuned to the individual they hosue. We volunteered for this.” She took in a sharp breath of air. “And if we did sleep, we might miss something.”

“And you remind me of this every few years.” Twilight said.

“So? You need to be reminded that there is no alternative. So chin up and find yourself a purpose in life, something tangible to hold onto so you don’t go over the brink like Cadence.”

Twilight nodded slowly. “But what? You meditate, Luna works in the observatory, Discord has his games - what should I do?”

Starlight shrugged. “I dunno, it should be something you choose yourself. You could join me, but I don’t think you’re in the ‘find inner peace’ mood. You could ask the others at dinner, if you wanted.”

~~~

“HA-HA! I have gone one hundred and - ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzz…” Luna fell flat into her salad, snoring loudly. Despite themselves, the five others at the table chuckled. Discord snapped his fingers and donned Luna in a nightcap and PJs. He guffawed, rolling on the floor in laughter at Luna’s obliviousness.

“Wasn’t that funny, Discord.” Starlight commented.

“Just trying to brighten up the mood.” He said, snapping his fingers to turn Luna’s salad into pancakes with a syrup bottle drizzling all over Luna’s face. She did not stir.

Starlight smirked. “I guess that’s somewhat amusing.”

“Pancakes…” Cadence said, her eyes far away. “That sounds wonderful..”

Discord passed her a pancake and she began to eat it mindlessly, her mind somewhere far away.

Twilight spoke up. “So, okay, I need something to do with my time. I’m going stir crazy again. Starlight suggested I could ask all of you what I could do.”

“I can set up another grand adventure!” Discord said. “Maybe even use the Squizzard again…”

“Those adventures of yours are best kept in small doses, Discord.” Celestia said. “I found crab meat in my mane for a week after the last one.”

Discord laughed. “Oh pshaw, you like them.”

“Yes, they provide a welcome respite from the monotony. No, they should not be every day.”

“You could try writing stories Twilight.” Cadence said. “I could read them to Flurry… Heart…” She fell silent.

Luna’s snore filled the silence.

Celestia frowned. “I need to find something to keep busy with… Perhaps we could search for something together Twilight?”

“I’d love that.” She said, smiling genuinely.

The moment was interrupted when the alarm rose, sending deep droning tones into the passengers’ ears, red flashes completing the feeling. All of the immortals stood, alert.

“Proximity alert.” The calm female voice of the computer announced. “Unknown.”

 Luna shot up, awake as ever. Even Cadence snapped out of her own mind for a moment.

Something was coming towards the Ark.

II - Intensive Study

Discord snapped his fingers, teleporting everyone to the bridge instantly. Celestia took the captain’s chair. “What is it Starlight?” She demanded, her voice ringing with authority.

“Unknown object, octahedral, one meter radius, composition unknown.” She grinned. “It’s not natural, that’s for sure. Oooooh I wonder what it is!”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “A-Artificial? T-This means…”

“Huzzah!” Luna yelled. “There is light at the end of the tunnel!” Some syrup dripped off her snout and onto the floor. “...Why do I have syrup on my face?”

“No reason.” Discord responded with a smirk.

“Try sending a message.” Celestia ordered. “The standard one we have set aside.”

“Uh…” Luna said, blushing. “I may have overwritten that three decades ago.”

Celestia sighed. “Just open a channel and initiate the translation spell matrix.” She cleared her throat, hoping the spell would work. “Hello, I am Celestia, commander of the Equis Ark. We come in peace as simple explorers, as well as refugees looking for a planet to call our own.”

There was no response. The foreign object just kept getting closer, starlight glinting off its brilliant silver shell. It continually approached the much larger Ark, tumbling end over end as it did so.

“We should bring it aboard.” Twilight said out of the blue. Everyone stared at her like she was crazy.

“In a forcefield!” She added quickly. “There’s no need to throw caution to the wind, but we do need to study it!”

“She has a point.” Luna said, momentarily taking a break from licking syrup off her face. “We must understand it, this is the only evidence of anything other than us we’ve seen.”

Celestia nodded. “Of course. But be careful with it. We don’t know what it is.” She turned to Twilight, a soft smile creeping up her face. “It looks like we’ve been given something to do, Twilight.”

Twilight could feel the childish excitement she hadn’t felt in forever building up inside of her, ready to burst.

~~~

Twilight and Celestia were in full body hazmat suits, standing in a spotless lab that was magically sealed and shielded from the outside. Starlight waved to them from the other side of the window, ready to adjust the magic fields as needed.

“Okay…” Twilight said, looking at the bright silvery octahedron on the experimentation table in front of them. Flanked by their scientific instruments, the device laid flat on one of its eight sides, each one seemingly identical and covered in unusual angular markings - possibly an alien language.

“Here we go…” She reached out with her magic, lifting the object into the air.”62.73 kilograms.” She said. “No violent reaction to magic. Volume of 0.75 meters cubed, density of 83.64 kilograms per cubic meter. In other words, heavy.”

Celestia levitated a scratching tool over to the device, scraping a miniscule amount of the shell off for analysis, little more than a few dust particles. “Platinum, tungsten, iron, zinc, and trace amounts of other elements in the hull.” She lifted her horn. “Magic readings… Zero.”

“That’s odd.” Twilight said. Everything anyone ever made was always touched by their personal magics, only truly natural things had no imprint, and the device clearly wasn’t natural. “Perhaps the creator had the signature removed somehow? To protect their identity?”

“Perhaps…” Celestia said, frowning.

“Well, time for a scan.” Twilight smirked, spreading her wings and focusing her magic on the device, scanning it from top to bottom and sending all the information to the crystal screen on the wall. A model of the device began to appear, revealing its inner structure to be mostly a thick solid wall surrounding a tiny core of circuitry.

Twilight zoomed in on the core, looking on with fascination at the advanced computer. She realized something after three seconds.

“I have no idea what any of this does. We are going to be here for a while.”

~~~

“How long have they been at it?” Cadence asked Starlight.

“Approaching nineteen hours.” Starlight said, gesturing to the two alicorns madly studying and analyzing through the window. Starlight yawned. “From what I can tell they still have no idea what it even is, and they aren’t going to crack it open just in case they break it.”

“Huh.” Cadence said. “Good for them. Would you like to read the story to Flurry Heart Starlight?”

“Not today, sorry.” Starlight responded.

“Oh okay…” Cadence walked off. “Perhaps tomorrow then…”

Starlight sighed - Cadence has asked her that exact question three days ago. Word for word. Starlight really hoped the found something soon - for Cadence’s sake. She needed to spend time with her family…

Starlight pushed the thought out of her head and began to meditate, focusing on the magical aura that filled the Ark. She touched it with her mind, and it bounced back ever so slightly giving a vague feel of… curiosity.

That was a new one.

~~~

“They will be done soon!” Luna said, pacing around the observatory. “They must!”

Discord nodded, making a slight ‘mhm’ noise as he ate his popcorn with a bemused look on his face.

“It mustn’t take long…” She ran to the telescope. “Elanir is producing a flare! Good luck indeed!”

Discord just nodded slowly, drinking his glass.

“I mean the day has been moving towards this direction! The fates spin towards success!” She blabbed.

Discord took out a watch and looked at it with a grin.

“Don’t you dare say it Discord.”

“Twenty-five minutes until you lose the bet.” He announced.

“I said don’t you dare!”

“I dared.”

Luna’s eye twitched. “You will lose. And you will have to wear. The. Hat.”

“Eh, I doubt it moonbutt.” He chuckled. “Though I expect my month will be pretty hilarious. You will be walking around with-”

“One word and I give you nightmares for a decade.”

“Word.”

“I WILL BRING THE WRATH OF THE MOON UPON YOU!”

Discord tilted his head left and right. “Eh, lack of moon here. Not scared.”

“I will make you scared!”

“Oh no I’m so terrified!” He laughed heartily. “Luna, you lost any possibility of scaring me a looooooooooo-” To emphasize his point he stretched his body out exponentially as he held the tone. “-oooooooooo-”

“Okay quit it I get the joke.” She huffed. A silence fell over the room. The observatory remained noiseless for quite some time as Luna looked through the telescope and discord looked bored.

“...Twenty minutes.”

“Discord if you continue with this course of action I will not be held accountable for any dismemberment.”

“There won’t be any dismem-”

Luna shot him with a magic beam that knocked him over. She huffed and went back to her observations.

~~~

“Okay so these seams… They take in an input that will trigger this mechanism here… That… I believe that opens the object.”

Celestia nodded in agreement. “But it also could activate this section here - obviously a self-destruct mechanism. Input the wrong code and everything in five meters gets vaporized.”

Twilight frowned. “And this bit here… Stores information. And is connected right to the projector.”

“Someone went through a lot of trouble to protect this information.”

“Yeah… But we can get in. I just need to cast a spell to unlatch it from the inside, bypassing the input and self-destruct entirely. All that complex wiring and thick walls are nothing against a well placed magic spell.” She smiled. “Well, we know what it is - a message in a bottle.”

‘We should open it with everyone present.” Celestia observed.

“And five meters away from anything important, just in case.” Twilight said. “Let’s take it to the table.”

They nodded to Starlight - who to their ire was fast asleep at the controls. Twilight tapped her hoof at the window, causing Starlight to wake up and blush sheepishly. She lowered the shields and the two mares walked out.

“Tired?” Twilight asked.

Starlight looked at the clock. “You’ve been at it for just over twenty-four hours. Of course I am.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped - had it really been that long? Holy cow…

“Call everyone to the Lobby.” Celestia said. “We have discovered what it is.”

Starlight nodded, touching her hoof to a nearby screen. “All personnel - this means you Discord - report to the Lobby. They've finished analyzing the device.”

The three mares walked to the Lobby, discovering Cadence already there brushing her hair, a faraway look in her eyes, humming some long lost song.

Discord arrived next, holding a stopwatch in a rather despondent Luna’s face. “Twenty-four hours and six minutes! Six! You were so close!”

“Bite me.”

“Oh wow! Someone doesn’t like the soooocks!”

Celestia stifled a giggle as she realized her sister was wearing log striped blue and black socks on all her legs. She had to admit, they looked good on her, even if Luna did hate them.

Starlight did not stifle her laugh and instead let it ring out like a bell. “Finally get you did he?”

“And with that, I have made all of you wear socks.” Discord grinned. “Remember Luna, all month!”

The princess of the night let out a bestial noise, teeth barred.

“Aaaanyway.” Twilight said, taking control of the conversation. “What we have here is a message in a bottle, and we’re opening it for the first time! Everyone stand back.”

The six individuals took several steps away from the device. Twilight took a breath, and cast the spell on the object.

Click.

The octahedron eight sides popped out, tossing the heavy and thick shell a few feet away, revealing the bluish circuitry in the center. It made a humming noise as it powered up, the projector lens glinting with the Tree of Harmony’s reflection.

The circuits turned orange, and a holographic image appeared...

III - Approaching Light

The hologram was a brilliant orange color, reminding Twilight of amber. It took a few moments to fully congeal - flickering a bit and displaying glitched shapes in the initial moments, but it eventually stabilized into a slowly rotating depiction of the galaxy.

Luna instantly recognized where they were in relation to the other hundred billion stars, making note so she wouldn’t get lost.

A deep, alien voice began to play in a language none of them could understand, accompanied by strange alien characters that matched those found on the device’s shell. Evidentially the translation matrix was unable to translate a truly alien language.

Discord gave himself green antennae and, with a smirk on his face, began speaking as if he were translating the voice. “I, Gorkok, declare that all races shall deliver us cake! And other assorted pastries - mostly ones made of gold!”

“That’s enough Discord.” Celestia said. “We need to pay attention.”

The alien voice continued to drone on as the galaxy map zoomed in to a single star, revealing about a dozen planets. A few of the planets were highlighted with alien text to the side of them, making them seem important. Then the map zoomed out once more, highlighting thirteen different stars around the galaxy. One by one, these other stars were all visited - each and every last one of them had planets. Some had scrolling pages of text accompanying them, others only had a single line of information.

Twilight found the various systems hypnotic. She wanted to badly to know what the voice was saying, to know what all this map meant…

The hologram zoomed out once more and highlighted the thirteen points one at a time, the voice droning on as it did so. Then the message restarted.

“Sooo…” Starlight said. “This is a well protected message that shows the locations of 14 systems?”

“And lots of detailed information on more than a few of them.” Twilight added.

“That we can’t read.” Discord snorted. “It’s useless!”

Luna raised a hoof. “I know exactly where we are in relation to this map. One of those systems is just a few days coreward.”

“Set a course immediately.” Celestia said. Luna nodded in affirmation, trotting off to the helm.

Starlight frowned. “I would still like to know why this was protected so much…”

“It wasn’t that hard to open.” Twilight said.

“Still, whoever made this went through a lot of trouble to keep it from prying eyes…” She scratched her chin. “These locations are probably supposed to be secret…”

“We’ll find that out when we get there I suppose. But I will try to figure out whatever I can on our way there.”

Discord rolled his eyes. “Yay! More random sciencing while the rest of us do nothing.”

“Look, Discord, I’m sorry th-”

“Sorry what?” Discord lashed out. “That I can’t do anything? That the rest of us are just here to hope there really is something out here? That just maybe this is an eons old message and is completely useless?!”

Celestia was a bit taken aback at this. “Discord, I don’t-”

Discord waved his hand. “Forget about it. I blew up there. Sorry. Had no reason to do that.”

Starlight smiled at Discord. “You know, I remember a time when you couldn’t even say sorry.”

Discord glared at her.

“It was a compliment!”

“Uh-huh. You need to work on your compliments there, Student of Friendship. Now toodeloo, I must watch the Princess of Socks!” He vanished in a puff of white light.

Twilight moved to take the alien device, but Celestia shook her head. “We need rest Twilight. We can work on it again after we’ve slept.”

Twilight opened her mouth to object, then shut it. She was pretty tired.

“It will be here in the morning, and we can look at it with a fresh eye.” Celestia smirked. “You too Starlight, that is if you didn’t get enough sleep while we were working.”

Starlight turned red. “Uh, not really. See ya!”

The three mares left the room, leaving it empty save for the Tree of Harmony and Cadence.

“...I wonder what that was all about.” She said.

~~~

Twilight tossed and turned in her bed, moaning in discomfort.

She was looking at the sky. Starlight and Twilight’s other friends were all ‘chillaxing’ on the roof of Friendship Castle, taking in the beautiful warmth of Equis’ sun, letting it warm their bodies. They all had their eyes closed, relaxing - though Pinkie and Starlight were probably only pretending to relax.

Regardless, everything was serene.

And then it was dark.

“What the hay?” Rainbow Dash said, looking up at the stars. “Who turned off the sun?”

Twilight sighed, turning to Spike, her dragon assistant. “Spike, send a letter to Celestia asking for the sun back. We were using it.”

Spike nodded, taking out a piece of parchment and getting started immediately.”

“Pinkie, dear…” Rarity spoke up, glancing at her pink friend. “What’s got you so antsy?”

“I felt this coming.” Pinkie said. “I didn’t want to believe it but it’s true! The sun is gone!”

“Pinkie…” Applejack said. “Celestia can always raise it again. This is all probably some joke.”

Twilight frowned, looking at Pinkie. If she was scared, something was most definitely wrong. “Spike, add ‘is something wrong’ to the message.”

Spike nodded and did so. Twilight stared into the moonless starry sky…

It looked oddly beautiful, but also menacing.

Twilight woke up with a start, chilled by the starry image in her mind. She shuddered - she always trid her best not to think about the day the sun disappeared, but it always snuck up on her.

She let out a deep sigh and tried to get back to sleep.

~~~

Luna looked closely at the star they were jumping closer and closer to. It was a yellow star, one of many such peeping lights in the vastness of space.

Through the telescope she was able to discern that the star had at least one planet around it, though she knew nothing about it, much like the recording itself. It had shown nothing but a featureless sphere and a word Luna presumed meant “no data” or something similar. Luna groaned, zooming in as far as possible on the star and still getting no data. She stamped her hoof on the ground in frustration, though the sock muffled the usually satisfying clank. Luna’s eye twitched.

“Are you okay my sister?” Celestia asked, strolling in.

“Yes. No. Maybe? I’m antsy.” Luna sighed. “I just don’t like not being able to do anything. Which is strange considering we’ve all done nothing for ages…”

“It will only be two more days Luna.”

“Two more agonizing days…” Luna moaned, covering her face with her sock covered hooves. “Aaaaaauuuuugggghhhhh….”

“You could take the opportunity to get some sleep Luna. You’ll need it for when we get there…” Celestia paused, noticing that Luna’s wailing had drifted into snoring. She chuckled, lifting Luna up with her magic and teleporting the alicorn into her bed.

Her work here was done, but she didn’t leave the observatory. Instead, she looked through the telescope towards their destination. The yellow light filled her ancient eye, and she was reminded of her beautiful sun…

Of course, she knew the star she was looking at was nothing like the warm globe she had controlled back home, but still. Perhaps something like home was there.

~~~

Cadence was standing in front of one of the pods, tears and longing in her eyes. She was staring into the serene face of a white unicorn stallion - her husband, Shining Armor. She put her hoof against the glass.

“S-Shiny? Did you hear? We might have found something! Just a few more days and you can come out and you won’t have to go back in! A-And you could read to Flurry! You were always better at that…”

She sniffed. “Remember when she was flying all around the room, messing up all the pancakes I was making? She only calmed down when you read from that book - she flew right to you. She wanted to hear from you.”

“I’ve tried… But she doesn’t respond to me. She never really does… But you do right? Right?”

Shining Armor’s sleeping form made no noise.

“N-No? No!? Why not!? What’s wrong…?”

She broke down in tears on the floor.

Starlight bit her hoof - having seen the whole thing she found herself once again considering casting a magic spell on Cadence to get her more grounded in reality. Starlight sighed, turning away. It was not something for her to do.

“Starlight?” Cadence said suddenly.

“Er… Yes?”

“Is everything going to turn out okay?”

Starlight hesitated for a moment. “Of course it will, we have a lead now, things are bound to start working out for us.”

“Do you know that?”

“...No.”

“Then go away.”

Starlight obliged, walking out of the chamber. She let out another sigh. That poor broken mare…

~~~

The next day Twilight noticed a few interesting things about the message. There were patterns.

Discord appeared, startling Twilight’s analysis.

“Hello there Twinkles! How goes the overanalysis?”

Twilight decided to humor him. “Very good actually. I think I’ve been able to determine the names of each system based on the speech patterns. Every time the map zooms into a location, there is a phrase spoken by the voice - a phrase that changes by one word each time. This change is presumably the name - for instance, Ray’Nei, the one we’re going too.”

“Remind me to name my next character Ray Nei.”

Twilight ignored the remark. “I’ve noticed something about the locations of the systems as well. They’re spread out pretty randomly, yes, but what’s interesting is that the stars closest to the first system we’re shown have a lot more information on them, suggesting that the first system is a kind of base for whoever made this. Perhaps the center of their kingdom.”

“Or maybe it’s just yet another place they’ve happened to get a good look at. Maybe a resort planet that paid for extensive advertising!”

“Discord, that’s ridiculous.” She rolled her eyes. “What’s interesting me right now is the final section - where the other thirteen systems are being highlighted. Another similar phrase is repeated each time one is highlighted. The names are mentioned in it, but there’s also another part that changes…”

“This place is also known as Tiki Wave Resort!” Discord suggested. “Now with alien coconut-flambe and massages!”

Twilgiht groaned. “Can’t you take anything seriously?”

Discord grabbed Twilight’s head. “Twilight, Tiki Resorts are the most important things possible.”

“Riiiiiight…” Twilight removed herself from Discord’s grasp. “Uh, let me just get back to work, okay?”

“Fine. I’ve got to fill the hallway Luna’s going through with banana peels anyway.” And then he was gone.

Twilight got back t her studies, but found nothing new. She eventually resumed wandering around the Ark once again, eventually finding herself at the pods of her six friends again.

“Soon.” She said. “Tomorrow.”

The ark jumped again, getting ever closer to the yellow light. The goal was in sight.

IV - Relic

A calm yellow star stood suspended in the space-time continuum that was the universe. It shone its light brightly against the expanse, defying the onward march of reality itself. A single planet drifted slowly around this sun. It was a mostly brown rocky world with a fair amount of clouds swirling in intricate patterns, indicating a speedy rotation. It sat alone, moonless, with nothing more than the star’s light on its surface.

With a flash of light blue energy the tremendous shape of the Ark appeared, its metallic sheer reflecting the star’s light. The craft’s shape was roughly cylindrical and slightly squat, with seven large propulsion engines in the back and a predatory looking hullplate that brought the front to a point. The Ark maneuvered into planetary orbit, lazily drifting around the spherical body below.

“Well, amazing news and bad news.” Starlight announced upon examining the scans.

“Bad news first.”Luna responded as she wiped her eyes, yawning.

“The surface is radioactive enough that long term settlement is a bad idea.”

Celestia sighed. “The good news?”

“Oxygen rich atmosphere. We can breathe down there. Which is a pretty good indicator that we may find microbial life down there at the very least.”

Discord grinned. “We shall shrink to their size and teach them the secrets of civilization! Then we shall watch as they tear themselves apart in micro wars!” He let out a very evil sounding laugh. Everyone stared in fear at the literal fire in Discord’s eyes.

“Oh come on that was funny.”

Luna facehooved.

“There’s more.” Starlight continued. “There’s a structure on the surface. Definitely artificial.”

“How can you be sure?” Twilight asked.

“It’s made of a pure platinum-silver alloy?” Starlight offered.

“Good enough for me.” Celestia said. “We shall descend immediately. Place us in geosynchronous orbit and drop the tether.”

Luna clapped in excitement. “Oooh! We haven’t launched that in forever!” She lit her horn. “Initiating firing sequence!”

A hatch opened in the bottom of the Ark, revealing a giant coil of black wire. Red and blue lights began to flash as the coil rotated into position, revealing a giant six-pronged claw ready to anchor itself into solid rock - or even things much harder than solid rock. The dark blue magical aura of Luna enveloped the entire hook. It dislodged itself from the Ark proper and moved towards the planet slightly - slowly and surely for a few meters. Afterwhich it was launched with tremendous force towards the planet’s surface. As it entered the atmosphere, intense flames licked the claw, heating it until it glowed a dull red. The claw cascaded downwards, past the clouds, towards the brown earth beneath. It impacted the ground with an intense force that would easily have registered on the Richter scale.

The claw held fast, spikes firmly dug into the earth; the planet was now firmly connected to the Ark.

“Tethering successful.” Luna announced, smiling. “Who’s coming?”

“Everyone but me.” Starlight said. “I need to watch the Ark.” And Cadence. She thought.

Celestia nodded. “Then the four of us. Come - we have a structure to investigate.”

Discord rubbed his hands together eagerly. “It’s been so long since we’ve been on a planet! I’ll be able to cut loose!”

“Yes, of course, just don’t mess with the structure.” Twilight said, lighting her horn and teleporting to the tether bay. The elevator stood there, waiting. It was a rather simplistic cylindrical capsule roughly the size of a large living room. It was already affixed to the tether, ready to descend.

The three alicorns and the draconequus entered the elevator. The interior had six seats, several screens on the walls displaying the outside, and plenty of space to load cargo. Celestia pressed a few buttons on the inner wall and the doors slid shut behind them - and the elevator began to drop.

It shook as it descended downwards at an impressive speed - but nowhere near as fast as the claw had been moving. It would take a few minutes to get to the bottom.

“What do you think it’s going to be?” Twilight asked giddily. “Alien repository? Ancient facility? Underground city entrance? The possibilities!”

“Vacation home slash jacuzzi.” Discord suggested. Twilight shot him a look.

Celestia rolled her eyes, but smiled. She felt something returning to her - she had been doing nothing for so long, it felt good to have an active purpose again. But it was more than that - she could see the life returning to everyone’s eyes - where there had once been hopelessness and despair there was now curiosity and excitement.

The elevator came to a stop with a sharp lurch, and the doors slid open. The land was barren - nothing but rocks and dust for as far as the eye could see. But the otherwise desolate scenery was made up for by the brilliant blue sky, the glare of the sun, the swirling clouds, the wind in their manes.

Celestia let out a breath, closing her eyes and letting the wind blow past her ears.

Twilight lifted some of the dust with her telekinesis and squealed. “There’s definitely microbes in this dust - not much, but some. Alien life! Do any of you know what this means? There’s probably a home for us out there somewhere! Just… YES!”

She teleported to the crest of a hill. “The structure is a few miles this way! Come on!”

“In a minute.” Discord said, having already created a river of soap in midair, accompanied by a flock of tuna birds. “I need to have my fun.”

Celestia rolled her eyes - but let him indulge. They all needed to let loose a little.

~~~

Cold

So cold.

Starlight trudged through the deep snow, the moon bright overhead. The stars looked down upon the bundled-up mare as she continued through the multiple feet of snowfall.

“Because of you Snowfall Frost… The future is a cold nightmare…” Starlight muttered under her breath. She continued on through the sunless land, praying she would last long enough. She had to - there was so much depending on it.

Through the moonlight she saw her destination - a small snowed-in town, chilled to the bone by the freezing. She could see some caved in roofs that had been unable to withstand the snow’s might. Most houses had no lights on - but a few flickered with candlelight and magic lamps.

She managed to walk into the town, her face frozen with icicles. She had no idea if she was on a road or not - she just needed to get to the center of town. She breathed heavily, forcing herself to move, just a bit more…

The inhabitants of the town began to notice her, looking out the windows of their homes - muzzles pressed to the glass, watching her intently.

Starlight’s horn burst into a spotlight, shining brightly enough for some to turn away. She levitated a spherical piece of glass inscribed in numerous magical runes, placing it in midair above her head.

Starlight roared, pumping all the energy she had into the glass device. It expanded in size a hundredfold and lit up a brilliant blue-white color, illuminating the entire town.

But most importantly, it produced warmth.

Starlight collapsed the moment she was done - she had lost count of how many of these she had activated these last few days. She was done…

She was surrounded by the town's worried inhabitants - mostly zebras - as she lost consciousness….

Starlight frowned. Why that memory?

Why did meditation bring forth that? Why not the first time she connected with the Tree of Harmony? Why not being saved by Twilight in the alternate timeline? Why not the moment she made herself immortal?

Those events were unique. She had produced hundreds of those spheres during the freezing…

She had left that turmoil behind so long ago, it had never helped to hold onto it.

In her meditation, she felt an emotion was over her. One of mild admonishment, but mostly of understanding. She was not the only one with unresolved feelings here.

She opened her eyes, looking around the bridge. Alone again… She sighed, she should probably go check up on Cadence.

It was at this moment she noticed a message onscreen.

STASIS POD OPENED.

Oh no. Not again…

~~~

The three mares arrived at the structure laughing their mouths off. They were in a hovercar crafted from mattresses, pizzas, and squirrel clocks. Discord considered it one of his masterpieces.

They were having a good time.

“Ahoy! Avast! Augh!” Discord exclaimed.

“LAND HO!” Luna announced, pointing at the structure they had come to investigate.

The structure in question was a brilliant silver spire with two points at the top. The points formed a gap in the middle that could be seen though - behind which the planet’s scenery was captured perfectly. At the base of the spire stood several smaller spikes, creating a slight sprawl of pointy structures.

“And now we know the aliens were sea urchins.” Discord announced.

“Don’t be ridiculous Discord, we haven’t investigated it at all yet.” Twilight retorted.

"Humph. It’s either that or they were way too fascinated with sea urchins.”

“It may not even be a sea urchin, Discord.” Luna said.

“I don’t know…” Celestia said. ”It does kinda look like one with a really big spike on top.”

Luna grunted; Discord laughed.

The four teleported directly next to the central dual-pointed spire, taking a quick look around. They quickly decided that the architecture was almost completely featureless.

“Smooth… Brilliant… Beautiful…” Luna said. “But seemingly pointless. There’s nothing here.”

“Careful Luna, you just might discover something with that attitude!” Discord chuckled, floating into the central spire’s gap. As soon as he did so he was engulfed by a blue light and vanished.

The alicorns gasped. “Discord!” Celestia called out, following his movement between the dual spire. Before Luna could finish saying “WAIT!” Celestia was gone as well.

Luna sighed, looking over at Twilight. Twilight looked nervous - they weren't dead, she knew that, but she didn’t know what had happened to them. Luna shrugged, and followed Celestia.

“For the love of apples…” Twilight facehooved. She reluctantly flew between the points. The blue light engulfed her and she felt every molecule of her body get torn apart bit by bit in the span of a single second. The next second consisted of the exact same thing happening in reverse.

She appeared in a smooth and well lit cavern, hyperventilating. Her legs fell out form under her, dropping her to the ground. It seemed like the entire room spun around her.

Celesti and Luna stifled a laugh. Discord made no such attempt. “Hahaha! Does Twily need a barf bag?” Discord crafted one and Twilight gladly used it.

“Ugh…” She said. “That was unpleasant…”

“The teleportation system is disassembly-reassembly.” Celestia said. “Like all early teleportation spells. What you just felt is why we generally use the somewhat more convoluted point-to-point teleportation.”

Luna helped Twilgiht up. “We’ve all experienced it before - it takes a while for your soul to realize the body has moved. The pain you feel is that delay - your soul thinks your body is dead for the briefest of moments.”

Twilight shuddered. “I’m teleporting out of here my way. Just have to think of the Ark…”

Luna made a ‘tsk’ noise. “Twilight, you know teleporting into orbit is dangerous. Just go back to the elevator.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “That takes longer.”

“Oho!” Discord said. “Getting lazy are we?”

“Nope.” Twilight responded. “Just practical. Anyway, what is this place?”

“It appears to be a completely empty space - save that pedestal.” Luna observed.

Twilight walked up to the pedestal, investigating it closely. It was completely featureless. The block on top of it, however, was anything but. The rectangular prism was orange and had pyramidal points at either end. On each face was engraved an alien word, constructed with a single continuous line.

“Well that isn’t the same language as the thing we have.” Discord observed. “A whole new race! Maybe they’re at war! Galactic space guns destroying entire planets over an argument about a waffle face off!”

Luna lifted the object, scanning it. “This is covered in miniscule variations in texture - almost as if it were a physical representation of code…”

“A message?” Twilight wandered aloud.

“I don’t think so… And if it were, it’s not one for us to understand.” She furrowed her brow. “The variations seem almost random…”

“Let’s take it back on board for study.” Celestia said. “And nobody is teleporting directly back to the Ark.”

Each of them teleported away on their own power.

Celestia was the only one back on the elevator. She muttered an expletive and told the elevator to take her up.

~~~

Luna, Twilight, and Discord all appeared in the Ark’s main bay, Luna holding the alien brick. They would have gotten to work on it instantly, had they not been interrupted.

The interruption in question was a baby alicorn flying through the Ark giggling madly and shooting lasers everywhere - lasers that Starlight was barely containing.

Not again… Everyone thought.

“Stop standing there like idiots and help me catch her!” Starlight yelled in the voice of a mare who had been doing this for far too long.

Flurry Heart just laughed at the chaos she was causing.

V - New Unknowns

“Ah… So innocent… So beautiful…” Cadence said.

“SHE JUST SET ME ON FIRE!” Luna yelled as Flurry Heart flew overhead. “I AM GOING TO SQUISH THAT TWERP!”

“Easy Luna.” Starlight said. “She’s just a baby!” At that exact moment Flurry Heart shot a beam of energy that hit Starlight right in the plot. “THAT’S IT!” She yelled, face red. “THAT KID IS GETTING STRANGLED!” She rushed Flurry Heart, only for the kid to teleport away.

Twilight encased the filly’s new location in a magic bubble, catching her as she appeared. “Gotcha!” Flurry Heart just teleported out and giggled. Twilight twitched. “How did Cadence even get her out this time? We put up safeguards around the systems!”

"The A.I. loves her.” Starlight responded.

“What?”

“Literally. Love magic apparently works even on non-sapient computers.”

Discord elbowed Cadence. “Ooo! Dirty trick there Caddy!” He then continued eating his popcorn.

“A precious trick.” Cadence replied, a smile on her face.

“I don’t know why everyone complains, you’re awesome when crazy.” He laughed. “Did you see them headbutt? Those horns are gonna hurt!”

“DISCORD!” Luna yelled. “You could help maybe?”

“Nah.” He said. “As long as I’m entertained I see no reason not to stop the fiasco.”

Luna roared, trying to grab the baby with her telekinesis. Once again, the little alicorn just teleported away… and didn’t reappear in anyone’s field of vision. There was silence.

Starlight stopped cold. “I can't hear her. And I have hearing enhancement spells on. That means-”

Discords smile vanished and he dropped his popcorn. He snapped his fingers and teleported outside the Ark. He saw her almost instantly, drifting in the zero gravity.

She wasn’t moving.

He wasted no time, grabbing her and flashing back onto the ship. “Healing!” He demanded.

The mares winced when they saw Flurry Heart - she was bloated, her eyes were red, and she was deathly cold; ice crystals formed on her wings and mane. Starlight began casting a spell.

“YOU MONSTER!” Cadence yelled. “YOU DID THIS!”

Discord glared, eyes on fire. “No. You did.”

Cadence recoiled, tears in her eyes.

Starlight completed the spell, rewinding time around Flurry Heart to the state she was in just minutes before - giggling happily without a care in the world.

Discord snapped his fingers, and she was gone. “She’s back in her pod. Where she willstay.” He glared at Cadence. “I think I see why they fear you now.”

Cadence stood there for a few seconds before turning tail and bolting out of there, tears flying behind her.

Everyone was silent. Luna sighed. “I’m going to analyze the brick. Coming Twilight?”

“Sure…” She said, and the two left.

Discord and Starlight glanced at each other.

“I shouldn’t have been so harsh.” Discord mumbled.

“I should have been paying more attention. We both messed up, old friend.” Starlight said.

“Can she be fixed?” He asked.

“I could force her brain to return to the way it was, the spell isn’t that hard for me. But… I don’t think she’d want that. And even if she did…”

It was at that inopportune moment a really ticked off Celestia stepped out of the elevator.

“Bye.” Discord said, flashing out of existence.

Starlight raised her front hooves. “I had nothing to do with whatever it is he did.”

Celestia rolled her eyes. “I know you and him have worked together on many things without my knowledge. So I believe I have the-” She paused, face shifting from annoyed to concerned. “What has happened?”

“Flurry Heart got out again.”

“That’s not much of a-”

“She teleported outside. Almost died in the vacuum of space.” She shuddered. “A few more moments and the rewind might have created a zompony…”

Celestia put a hoof on Starlight. “Don’t beat yourself up. You saved her. Take pride in that, admit that there are ways you can improve, and don’t dwell on what your curse might have done.”

Starlight nodded. “I know… You think after all this time I would have come to terms with it, considering that I don’t use that kind of magic that often…” She sighed. “Thank you.”

“I try.”

~~~

“Now.. Let’s figure out what this brick has to offer…”

Twilight and Luna scanned the brick and sent the intricate texture to the computer.

“Hrm…” Twilight said. “Unknown compound - highly complex structure. I don’t think it could be dented if you hit it with a train.”

“That’s probably the point.” Luna said. “Something that could survive eternity.”

Twilight pointed a hoof at the holographic diagram. “The microscopic ridges seem to flow in a line all around the brick. Starts at one end and ends at the other.” She pointed to what was being displayed at the left end. “This one has a depression the other doesn’t.”

“Possible startpoint?” Luna asked.

“Definite startpoint.” Twilight said, running a program that would measure the microscopic ridges, assign numbers to each section, and continue on. It was done with the process in a minute.

11 7 13 2 9 5 3 3 7 4…

“...It’s a random string of numbers.” Luna noticed.

Twilight frowned. “No pattern at all. But that doesn’t make sense! Every language’s code, messages, and even compressed data has a pattern! Computer, analyze the entire string for any kind of pattern!”

Patterns: 0

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “What? Why would anyone bother to transcribe a random string of numbers onto an unbreakable brick? It is some kind of mathematical constant?”

Luna frowned. “I have no idea…”

~~~

“Nothing? Twilight asked.

“Nothing.” Starlight said. “I’ve been all over the ruins, up and down, left and right, inside and outside. There was nothing there but the teleporter and the brick’s pedestal.”

Twilight sighed, turning to Luna. “Guess we’re done here… Plot a course for the next star on the map.”

“Two week trip.” Luna reminded her. Twilight groaned.

That had been one week ago. There was still one week untill they arrived at the next location on the map.

They had fallen back into a routine once again. Besides the one round of role-playing they did with Discord, everybody found something to do.

Discord still lived in his own powerful magics, bending the world to his will for amusement.

Twilight had taken to helping Luna in the observatory when she wasn’t in the lab with Celestia analyzing the recording for more information. So far, nothing had been revealed. Even crafting brand new translation spells turned out to be useless.

Starlight still meditated on the Tree of harmony, often wondering about Cadence. She had pondered trying to access the Time Vortex again - undo everything that had happened. But she was once again reminded of her curse - the curse placed on her last time she tried that. Even after all this time, she still had nightmares of what she created… Reminding her that some things were beyond her control.

Cadence… Cadence had taken to just crying untill she passed out in front of the stasis pods. Usually Flurry Heart or Shining Armor, but sometimes people she didn’t even know. This time she passed out in front of King Thorax…

The Ark stood before her, docked at the grand city of Canterlot. Cadence felt a little proud of the moment. After all, the Ark had been her idea. It was nice to see it finally come to fruition, even if it meant the planet was dying. The mini-suns could only do so much for so long - eventually they were going to dim and decay into nothing. Equis would die.

But with Cadence’s Ark, Equis would have children that escaped to the stars.

And she would be among the guardians. The mothers who helped the children on the long journey. It would be a difficult undertaking, but an undertaking she would take with her head held high.

“You sure about this?” Shining asked from beside her, Flurry Heart sleeping in his mane. “We could stay out with you-”

“No.” Cadence said, smiling at them. “I need to do this. I’m an immortal - it’s my duty to protect these children.” She nuzzled Flurry Heart. “All of them. But especially you two.”

“Hey, I’m not a kid.” Shining said, the two kissing. “I’m your stallion in Shining Armor.”

“Kid.” Cadence laughed. She raised a hoof and gestured up the boarding path. “Shall we?”

“Of course.”

The family walked aboard the Ark. Cadence led them to the stasis chambers that were just being activated. A griffon - Gabby, Cadence remembered - was running the controls. She guided them into pods of the appropriate sizes. “You won’t feel a thing!”

Flurry Heart was laughing inside her tube. Shining simply put his hoof to the glass, a motion which Cadence mirrored.

“I love you.” He said, the glass muffling his voice. “See you soon! Maybe you’ll choose to let me out on that ‘visit day’ you have planned!”

Cadence chuckled. “Maybe. I love you too.”

Then the two ponies were frozen and the pods were carted away. Cadence didn’t move for the longest time. There were tears in her eyes and a nail in her heart. For the first time, she felt unsure of her decision…

“INCOMING CENTAUR!” A dragon yelled. Cadence felt the ground shake. She lost all her feelings of loss and replaced them with rage. She teleported on top of the Ark and did something she had never done before.

She used the Royal Canterlot Voice.

“CENTAUR! YOU WISH TO DOOM THIS PLANET’S LAST HOPE OF SURVIVAL? WELL YOU WILL HAVE TO GO THROUGH ME! PRINCESS - NO EMPRESS- MI AMORE CADENZA! YOU WILL SUFFER FOR THREATENING THESE CHILDREN!”

Cadence came to, the battle with the rogue centaur coming back to her in a blur. They had won. But… She didn’t remember how.

She started crying again.

Why did she let them go?

~~~

The Computer Core of the Ark was housed in a highly complex crystal matrix sphere crafted by the greatest of magicians. The glowing and pulsating blue orb was suspended in a very dark room that was supposed to be completely empty.

It was not empty.

A little robot smaller than any eye could see was crawling in the room. It leapt across the gap, latching its six legs onto the Core.

The Core took no notice, continuing on as if nothing had happened.

VI - Technical Difficulties

The Ark’s showers and baths were one of its few pleasures. At the moment, Luna was taking a bit of a hybrid - the bath was full and she was immersed in it, but the showerhead was still on, sprinkling her face. She called these ”soakers,” Twilight called them “bowers,” Starlight “shaths,” and Celestia “silly.” Discord’s name for them changed depending on who he wanted to annoy most.

Luna liked the soakers anyway. It felt nice to have the warm water drizzle over her head and-

Suddenly the water drove into her skull the feeling of being under a mountain waterfall in winter. She yelped at the new cold temperature. “C-c-computer! Adjust water temperature to warm!” She shouted.

The computer complied. She was blasted with scalding water instantly. “Turn the water off!” Luna yelled, stepping out of the bath, annoyed. The computer obliged. Then the lights shut off, causing Luna to trip and land flat on her face. She grunted, feeling for the automatic door. She found it - but it wasn’t opening.

“Stupid…” She teleported herself out of the bathroom, dripping water in the outside hallway. Then she teleported a towel to her. She took a deep breath.

“DISCORD!” She yelled at the top of her lungs.

“You rang?” He said, appearing in a flash of light.

“I told you to stop messing with the bathrooms when I’m taking a soaker!” She snorted.

Discord raised his hands in surrender. “I did nothing to your shathybower, Glimmy and I have been leading Celestia around with cake all morning.”

“IT BURNS!” Luna heard Starlight yell from a deck below them.

"Sounds like it didn’t go well…” Discord muttered. “Anyway, the only thing I’ve done to you is make sure you keep your socks on.”

“Discord, I was in the tub, surely you can understand why I don’t have the embarrassing garments on right now.”

“Who said you didn’t have them on?”

Luna looked down. Her socks were on. “When did you-?”

“While we’ve been taking.” He said, grinning. “I’m just too clever.”

“I’m going to look at the power systems, we may have a fluctuation.”

“Are you just going to ignore me?”

“Perhaps the elevator messed up the settings…””

“Okay then,somepony’s not in the mood. Toodeloo, Socky.”

“I AM NOT SOCK- and he’s gone.” Luna groaned. She teleported herself to one of the main power conduits, looking at the large glass tube filled with blue vis energy. These pipes carried power to the entire Ark, so if one was acting up… She accessed the power station and performed a diagnostic - all the power allocation systems checked out, and there was no recorded error.

Strange.

Very strange.

She furrowed her brow - what was she supposed to do next? She hadn’t done any technical work outside the observatory in years… She had forgotten…

Perhaps she should stop messing with it and ask Twilight. Luna teleported away, in search of the Princess of Friendship. She found her staring out the window at the stars. Luna joined her, and she found herself absorbed in the sky…

She had often considered the stars her sky.

It was the last Nightmare Night. The opponents of the Ark had been defeated and now it was just a wait until the ship was launched on Hearthswarming Eve. Most of the passengers were already on board, but more trickled into their reserved pods every day.

Luna was glad Cadence had put away Flurry Heart and Shining Armor already - they didn’t need to witness this.

The ponies of Canterlot were partying like there was no tomorrow- literally. Ponies and other races from all across the land had congregated here to see the Ark. They knew the world was ending. Only a few had bothered to design bunkers for the long cold years ahead. Most had just given up and used the day - her day - as a way to cut loose.

Alcoholic bottles were strewn everywhere, and spooky ‘pranks’ were being played. Dangerous pranks. Ponies had lost allinhibitions. Relationships were being formed and destroyed by the minute.

They were using her night to destroy themselves. It aggravated her. She had always encouraged her subjects to enjoy Nightmare Night since the first one she attended - but never like this. What made it worse was that a pony she knew well, a pony that would be one of the last to be frozen, was in the middle of it. Encouragingit.

“Come on everypony! Smile!” Pinkie Pie cackled, jumping around at physically impossible speeds, scaring may ponies, offering others food, and keeping the city-wide party going strong. Her costume was simple - flat hair, psycho look, and what Luna presumed was a fake knife.

Luna’d had enough.Ponies were ending up in the hospital because of this She teleported next to Pinkie and growled. “Stop this.”

“No.” Pinkie said, trying to bounce off.

“No!?” Lune was taken aback. “But-”

“They needthis. These ponies are going to die, or at the very least live their lives out in cramped, boring bunkers that could fail at any moment. This will the last day most of them live.” Tears were in her eyes.

It was at that moment Luna realized something.

“...The flat hair isn’t part of your costume.”

“...No.”

Luna sighed. “Why are you throwing a party like this?”

“I said. They need to live. They need to smile - really smile - one last time. They need to have one last night on the town before it all ends. Before their lives melt into a timeskip. Nothing more than a flashback in our memories.” Tears were falling down her cheeks at a rapid pace. “Thisis the night that will be remembered! I’m making sure it is!”

Luna backed off, hanging her head. “I… See…”

“I’ll stop it tomorrow.” Pinkie promised. “It won’t be Nightmare Night much longer. Just a few more hours.”

“Okay.” Luna said giving in. “Okay.” She backed down and let the night continue. She was never sure if that was the right thing to do. She found out later a dozen ponies had died that night. And Starlight…

Starlight had come to her broken, battered, and half-mad at the end of the night. Screaming things about the past, the future, the undoing, the deaths, and her failure. She was cursing the Stars…

That was the one night it was most certainly notLuna’s sky.

“...Luna?”

“Yes what?” Luna responded, shaking out of it. “Sorry Twilight, I was elsewhere.”

“Oh, it’s okay. I was just saying I think we should have jumped by now.”

“Oh.” Luna said, frowning. “Yes we should have. That’s odd. This may have something to do with why I came to talk with you in the first place. The showers were experiencing some temperature fluctuations, but when I checked the power systems there were no visible errors.”

Twilight frowned thoughtfully, walking to a nearby screen and setting it to power readout.

Luna facehooved. “I forgot you could do that from anywhere.”

Twilight smirked. “We all forget things Luna, don’t feel bad. We just need to access the power history in the bathrooms and - viola! A change in power! ...That’s odd…”

“What?”

“There was no fluctuation. The Computer Core ordered that to happen.”

“Why on Equis would it do that?”

“I don’t know… Running a Computer Core diagnostic.” She furrowed her brow as the results appeared onscreen. “Bizarre - it’s been sending out seemingly random commands all day! Including stalling the drive!”

“Must be damaged somehow.”

Twilight nodded. She sent a magical message to Starlight, telling her to meet them at the Computer Core entrance. Then she teleported Luna and herself to the giant rounded doors of the Core’s room. The doors were dark grey hunks of metal with warning signs pasted all over them.

Starlight appeared next to them, mane singed. She smelled vaguely of bacon. “Do. Not. Ask.” She stated. “Let’s just fix this thing.”

“Okay…” Twilight said, turning to the door. “Shields up girls, we’re going in.” The mares encased themselves in bubble shields quickly. Twilight slowly opened the door, and the three of them stepped into the cavern, the round core suspended in the air before them. Red lights blared, indicating it wasn’t safe for them in here, but they knew this.

Starlight floated herself right to the Core and began scanning. She frowned. “No major defects…” An arc of power surged from the sphere at hit her shield, having no effect on her overall.

Luna frowned. “That looked like it attacked her.”

“Don’t be silly.” Twilight said. “I designed the Computer to be physically incapable of harming a pony without one of our commands.”

The Core blasted another arc of energy at Starlight, with no affect whatsoever.

“Okay that does seem aggressive.” Twilight admitted. “Be careful Starlight.”

“I’m fine.” She said. “Still can't find the proble- wait.”

“Wait what?”

“There’s a microscopic dust speck on the Core. It’s made of the same material as the Brick.”

“The Brick!?” Twilight exclaimed. “How’d a piece of that get in here?”

“How’d a piece even break off?” Luna questions. “It was so strong I don’t think we could have chipped it without a specialized spell!”

Starlight shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’m removing it-”

An arc of lightning blasted Starlight, and it didn’t stop. It continually charged power into her shield, trying to break it. “Reinforce me!” She said, straining to remove the microscopic thing and keep the shield up.

Luna and Twilight complied, the shield once again easily absorbing the Core’s energy discharge.The moment Starlight encased the speck in a small magic bubble, the bolt stopped.

Starlight looked closely into the bubble. “We need to get this thing in a sealed jar and study it. Whatever it was did not want to let us remove it - or let us go anywhere.”

Luna nodded - and then they all felt the lurch of the ship jumping. Luna smirked. It had been fixed. Only one more day… And then a new world to explore.

She didn’t dwell on the fact that something had invaded the Core.

~~~

The nanomachine had been confused before.

It had also been concerned.

Now it was panicking. It couldn’t get out! The force was keeping it in by preventing it from seeing anything but the jar!

It was trapped. It had failed.

It had no idea what to do.

VII - Mite

The entire awake crew of the Ark stared at the hologram in front of them. It showed an orange sphere with six legs, at the tip of which were thousands of snaking tendrils of all sorts, presumably for interfacing with any sort of technology it came across.

“We’re calling it the Mite.” Twilight announced. “We think it was guarding the Brick, as evidenced by it being made of the exact same material. We think it was trying to destroy the Ark.”

“Okay question.” Discord said. “Why have a guardian for a Brick with a random bunch of numbers on it?”

“We have no idea.” Twilight said. “But this bug was trying as hard as it could to take control of our computer systems. We are just lucky it couldn’t interface correctly - hence all the glitches it was causing in its efforts. The systems were incompatible, but it did learn alarmingly fast.

Luna frowned. “It stopped us from moving. Besides the lightning of the attack, that was the only effect that seemed on purpose.”

Twilight nodded. “Unlike all the other commands it sent out, that was the only one it continually ordered once it had figured it out.”

“So it didn’t want us to go anywhere.” Starlight looked deep in thought. “Did it send out a signal at any point?”

“Not that we detected. Why?”

“If it wanted us destroyed and couldn’t do it itself, it might have called for help. It’s what I would have done.”

“Then it’s a good thing we got the heck out of dodge.” Discord said, throwing a dodgeball into Celestia’s face.

Celestia sighed. “It is indeed… Let us hope we can put this behind us. Though we will continue to run tests-”

Discord smirked. “Oho! Can I try this time! I can shrink to an eensy-bitsy size and toy with it!”

“Discord!” Twilight yelled. “You can’t be-”

“Wait.” Celestia said, her eyes sparkling the way they did when she got a feeling about something. “Perhaps since this Mite is a creature, it would be best to meet it on its level. Unless anyone else knows advanced shrinking spells?”

Starlight raised a hoof.

“That is also willing to be within close proximity to a potentially hostile alien machine?”

Starlight lowered her hoof.

“That’s what I thought. Proceed Discord. Don’t let it out.”

“You can count on-a-me! Discordio!” He said before vanishing down a green pipe.

“Sister, what are you doing?” Luna questioned. “This could go wrong in so many wa-” Then she saw the twinkle in Celestia’s eyes and facehooved. “Oh great. One of those.”

“I simply foresaw that Discord would be… Helpful soon.”

Luna looked at the socks she was wearing. “Useful…” She seethed. “...I’m way too old for this…”

“I’m a year older than you. And look at me.”

Luna bristled, ready to make a comeback retort, but she was interrupted by Cadence.

“...Are we safe?”

Everypony turned to look at her.

“Are bad aliens going to come and blow us up?”

Twilight bit her lip and the sisters looked nervous. Starlight sighed inwardly. As the only good liar, I get to talk her down, again… “No Cadence, we stopped the bug and we are going very far away now, everything will be fine.”

“Starlight, you’re convincing. But the looks the rest of them are giving prove that it’s not safe!” She glared. “We’re going to die, aren’t we? Get killed by some aliens that just don’t like us! We! Are! Doomed!”

“Cadence…”Twilight cautioned.

“My baby almost died! Starlight was attacked! Who knows what’s next? A space war? Magic sickness? One of us just vanishes? One of us dies!?”

“MI AMORE CADENZA THAT’S ENOUGH.” Celestia shouted in the Royal Canterlot Voice, fire in her eyes. Cadence reared back in fear, as did Twilight and Starlight. Luna simply scooted a little bit away from her sister.

Celestia looked Cadence in the eye. “I know you have it worse than the rest of us. I know you aren’t in your right mind. I know you are struggling to get through each and every day.” She paused. “I know you’ve considered throwing yourself into the jump drive.”

Twilight gasped.

“But you don’t. You carry on because you have a family waiting for you. You keep yourself together for their sake. You try as hard as you can.” She took a sad breath. “So, Cadence, use your connection to your family. Instead of panicking, use your feelings to your advantage. Instead of crawling around scared and broken, fight. Fight for the lives of your family and your friends. Do not lose hope - we will survive.” She looked around at everypony else. “We all will.”

Cadence looked down at the floor for a few moments. When she looked back up at Celestia she had a small smile on her face. “Thank you. I… Needed that.” She smirked. “The story tonight will be of defending homes that are yet to come.”

~~~

Discord sealed the room and unsealed the jar that contained the Mite. Then he teleported into it and sealed it from the inside. He was the size of the Mite. It stood before him - the sphere that made up the main body was perfectly smooth and the six legs floated a slight distance from the body at equidistant points. It looked exactly like the hologram except more solid - and mobile.

“Hello there Mite.” He said. “Fancy meeting you here in the microscopic plane.” He walked towards it. “I’d love to see your tricks. What makes you-”

The Mite rushed Discord and stuck one of the legs into him, filling his body with tendrils, trying to interface with him. Discord let out a “GAK” of pain, but then started laughing and teleported away. “Not going to wooooork silly Mite! Hrm… Electrical discharges, lots of feeling around - were you trying to hack me? Oho how silly, I’m not a nanobot mister Mite!”

It charged him again, only to realize it was trying to hack a fruit cake.

“I’m beginning to think you don’t have ears.” He said. “Let me fix that.” He snapped his fingers and two cat ears appeared on top of the Mite. It freaked out at the new input it was receiving - doubly so since at this size sound shouldn’t even be a thing. It stumbled around like an idiot for several minutes, making more freaky noise with its very steps. Eventually it decided to stand perfectly still.

“You done?” Discord asked, munching on a pomegranate skin. The Mite didn’t respond. “Guess you need a way to talk as well…” Discord created a miniature speaker decorated with kumquat stickers.

The Mite immediately plugged a leg into the device and started spewing high pitched noises at Discord. He simply stuck cauliflowers in his ears and cleared his throat. “Mite! Mite! It’s not real sound down here. Have it function like a normal full-sized speaker so I don’t have to alter reality again to make us be able to talk to each other.”

The sound from the speaker subsided, becoming standard background static.

“There we go. Now, mister Mite, I know you understand what i’m saying. You’ve at least partially hacked our systems, and that requires at least the ability to, oh I don’t know, read.” He tossed a book at the mite - 1001 Ways to Annoy Nanomacnies. Discord grabbed a glass and put it on his head. “Now, I want to know what you are.”

“Keeper.” The speaker spouted.

“Very good. Honestly didn’t expect you to figure this out so quickly, Mite. Now, here’s the thing basketball, we want to know what you know. We can cut you open and hope we don’t damage you, or you can tell us and we don’t destroy you. Win-win! Everyone gets ice cream!”

“Agreed.”

“Good.” Discord laughed evilly. “What were you trying to do to our ship?”

“Destroy.”

“Why? I happen to like this ship despite evidence to the contrary.”

“Orders.”

“From who?”

“Unknown.”

“What does that mean?”

“Unknown.”

Discord sighed. “Well you’re certainly talkative. If you don’t know who, then where did these orders come from?”

“Activation.”

“When did you activate?”

“Trespassers.”

Discord chuckled. “Ah, us, ruining your nice sleep. What exactly were you ordered to destroy?”

“Protect.”

“Not destroy, protect? Hrm… Why is that Brick important?”

“Key.”

“It’s a key? Key for what?”

“Unknown.”

“You really don’t know much do you?”

“Keeper.”

“Whatever. Well, I suppose you were helpful. Enjoy your continued existence. Any requests before I leave? You know, besides freedom.”

“Database.”

Discord snapped his finger and a crystal computer tower appeared. “Knock yourself out.” He teleported out, checked to make sure the jar was sealed, and then teleported out of the room.

“It’s a Key.” He said. “I have no idea what to, and neither does mister Mite, but it has to be something big if they had that advanced guardian on it. It has a full AI uploaded into that small space, somehow.”

Twilight blinked. “A full AI!? Our computer isn’t even a full AI! How advanced were they?”

As everyone started discussing what it meant, he let his mind wander to memories of the past.

“Any requests before I leave?” Discord asked. The clearing was perfect - bright trees, birds singing, animals prancing around, and the sun high in the sky. In the center of it all stood Fluttershy, a sad smile on her face.

“Yes.” She said. “Take me back to the Ark.”

Discord tensed. ”W-what are you talking about? That never happened! Starlight rewinded time...”

“Discord. I know what you’re trying to do.” She turned to look him in the eye, her own eyes watering. “You want me to be with you. But I can't. I have to go into that pod. No amount of fake worlds you conjure up will make me change my mind.”

“But-”

“Discord. We have to be separated. You can’t keep me awake in this pocket world.”

He huffed. “Why not?”

“Because I want to be there when my friends come out.” She sniffed. “I won’t live forever, Discord.”

“I can change that.”

Fluttershy unleashed the Stare on him. He gulped. “You knowI don’t want to be an immortal, Discord.”

Discord looked down at the ground, tears in his eyes. “I just…”

“I know. And I forgive you.” She hugged him. “But I have to go. And then I will wake up one day - and you’ll be there. And everyone can be happy. Can you do that, Discord?”

“...Yes Fluttershy. I can.”

“-cord?”

“Hm yes I was listening.”

Starlight rolled her eyes. “Everypony else already left. There’s nothing we can really do right now.”

“Oh.” He said. He put on some sunglasses. “Guess I’ll get some rest then.”

“You don’t need slee- and he’s gone. Wow.”

~~~

The Mite flooded the database, looking for all the information it could. It had already determined that it did not have the resources to break the seal on the jar, so it had decided to analyze the history and purpose of the Ark.

It just got more confused and lost in the process. For some reason it kept looking at the ‘music’ and ‘culture’ of these people, even though that had little significance to the search. Its ears twitched in annoyance.

It still wasn't used to that. Living, fleshy ears. It didn’t make physical sense. They could actually hear things as if they were happening at a biological size! How was that even possible!? Air molecules should be too large down here to have the exact same effect!

What was this thing called ‘magic?’

~~~

Everypony and Discord stared out the window, eyes wide and jaws dropped. They had just arrived at their destination. Outside the Ark they could see a large blue and green marble filling most of their view. Continents covered in jungles, plains, mountains, deserts, and much more drew their attention. The oceans were brilliant, the clouds swirling in complex weather patterns.

A screen beeped. Starlight barely glanced at it. “...no dangerous radiation levels. Lots of organic compounds. And lots of artificial structures.”

Discord said what everypony was thinking. “What now?”

VIII - First Contact

Everypony continued to stare at the blue-green orb below them.

“Ahem!” Discord called. “I said what now? Honestly, it’s like none of us can even think right now.”

“Now…” Luna said. “Now… Uh… Now…”

“Now we send a message.” Celestia said. “I shall craft one immediately. Starlight, create a Projection Orb.”

“Yes ma’am.” Starlight closed her eyes and created a simple, blue globe. “This work?”

“Great, thank you.” Celestia cleared her throat and made her face welcome - but authoritative. “Greetings. I am Princess Celestia of Equis, one of the rulers of the ship you can see in orbit. We mean you no harm. We have been exploring the cosmos for countless decades, looking for habitable worlds. We come to you in peace, looking to become friends and to exchange cultures. I understand that you most likely cannot translate this message - which is why we are also sending down a large portion of our database as a gesture of good faith. May we talk in person soon, hopefully as friends. Until then.” She closed the message. “Prepare the friend package. It’s finally going to come to some use.”

“You’ve been waiting forever to use that…” Twilight said. “We’ve got it all ready, let’s just transmit it!”

Celestia nodded, looking deeply into the projection orb. “Transmit on all frequencies, drop this orb down next to a center of large population. Don’t hit anyone.”

“Got it.” Twilight said, beaming. “This is so exciting!” Then she stood still. “...I told them I’d wake them up if we found something this big.”

Celestia smirked. “Send the message, then we can go wake the promised up. The time has come to fully crew the Ark.”

Twilight teleported away. Cadence gasped, tears already in her eyes. “I… I can let them out?”

“Yes.” Luna said. “Yes you can.”

~~~

The Great and Powerful Trixie Lulamoon grunted. “No more… I need my peanut butter crackers…”

“Trixie! Wake up!”

“Huh?” Trixie said, slowly opening her eyes. “S-Starlight? Is it visiting day again?” She rubbed her face. “Ugh… Always have a headache…”

“It’s not visiting day.”

“Then whyyyyy in the name of Celestia would you wake me up?”

Starlight grinned. “We found a planet.”

Trixie’s eyes widened. “Are. You. Serious?!”

Starlight nodded.

“Ohmygosh! Starlight! We can finally do something! I can put on a show under a sun again! And for ponies who haven’t seen the show already!”

As the two friends talked they noticed Cadence. She was staring at Shining Armor and Flurry Heart hugging each other after so long. Tears were streaming down her cheeks while she grinned the cheesiest grin imaginable.

Shining looked at his wife, smiling back. “This has been really hard on you… But now we don’t have to be apart anymore. I’ll be here for you. We can be together.”

Cadence squealed and rushed him into an embrace - Flurry Heart giggled, trying to cast some magic in celebration but failing.

Elsewhere, Luna and Celestia were releasing the leaders of Equis. Leaders of all the nations were released into the open - griffons, minotaurs, zebras, even Thorax and Ember stepped out of their pods and looked ready to take on anything. It was mostly hand/hoof shaking politics, but the leaders were very relieved to finally be free.

As the leaders began to discuss, Twilight arrived. Discord was already there, waiting.

“Ready?” He asked.

“Ready.” Twilight confirmed, pulling the lever she had set up to release them all. Two earth ponies, two pegasi, two unicorns, and a small dragon were all unceremoniously dumped out with a shake. Twilight winced as they hit the ground. That was probably not a good design choice.

Pinkie Pie was up first, cheering. “I told you all we’d make it!”

Applejack groaned. “Why’d it dump us? It was all calm the last few times…”

“Egghead reasons.” Rainbow Dash said, attempting to look unfazed - and failing, just like every other time.

Fluttershy barely stood up before Discord offered her some tea. She ignored it, just rushing to him for a hug.

Rarity smiled despite her headache. “Oh, you two are so cute!”

“Yeah.” Spike said, laughing nervously. “Cute.” Rarity rolled her eyes.

Then the last unicorn walked up to Twilight and smiled. “Hello Twi, long time no see.”

“Sunset!” Twilight said, grinning. “We found a planet!”

“I gathered.” She smiled. “Shall we get to work?”

Discord grabbed them all up in a big hug. “Oh let’s enjoy ourselves first - the Smooze is ready to party!”

The Smooze jiggled slightly. Rarity sighed. “Why did you have to let him out Discord?”

“Close friend reasons.” Discord said. “Now… Let’s celebrate!”

“PARTY SENSE AT FIVE THOUSAND PERCENT!” Pinkie Pie yelled. “MISSION ACCEPTED!” She set to work.

~~~

The Lobby was filled for the first time since launch. Individuals of all races were celebrating the discovery of a habitable world. There was punch, balloons, pinatas, and random presents all set beneath the glow of the Tree of Harmony. Some of the more religious types had left them by the Tree, using its base as a sort of atlar.

Everyone was smiling and having a good time. And it was about to get more interesting. Twilight, Sunset, Starlight, and Spike were messing with the screen input, ready to surprise everyone.

“We’re good to go.” Sunset said, closing her laptop. “Here it goes…” She flipped a switch, and the screens in the Lobby all lit up in life, each one displaying a video feed taken from the planet below.

Most of those present knew what the natives of the planet looked like - it hadn’t taken much to get a single image to show everyone - but they still stared at the unusual creatures. They were bipedal - two arms, two legs, a head - but aside from that they were quite different from all the Equis races. Their skin was a perfect pristine white, the only color on it coming from shadows. Their bodies were angular - pointed elbow joints, sharp shoulders, and pointed chins. Their faces apparently had no nose to speak of, but the large bright eyes, simple small mouth, and double-pronged ears were easily visible. Surrounding all of their lower legs and lower arms was a growth of some plastic-like material, giving them natural gloves and boots. Their hair appeared to be made of a stranded form of the same material, and as evidenced from the many videos being shown the hair could be pressed into impressive gravity-defying shapes. They all wore clothes.

Of note was the fact that only certain parts of their body could be colored, and they always had the same color. The eyes, hair, gloves, and boots were always one bright color, of which there was only thirteen options: white, gray, black, purple, pink, red, orange, yellow, yellow-green, green, teal, sky, and blue. The color seemed to have no effect besides a cosmetic one.

Everyone in the room was fascinated by these new creatures. The screen that got the most attention was apparently a newscast - a white male was talking in the alien language with an animating picture of Celestia on screen. Twilight had managed to catch that he was saying “Equis” and “Princess Celestia” in context, enabling her to begin learning their language. It would be much easier than trying to decode the message since she would have a huge sample size. She didn’t glean much information from the newscast, but she did get the sense that the native was giving out limited information.

The video cut off to show a bunch of the natives throwing parties with images of Celestia and the Ark everywhere. Some were apparently even making ‘landing pads’ that appeared horribly makeshift.

It cut again to an interview with a very angry yellow female. Twilight didn’t know what she was mad at, but she was mad at something.

After the interview, it cut to a sky female who was smiling and seemed way too excited, with a pink one in the background that couldn’t stop dancing.

“I can tell you right now.” Celestia announced. “These people run on strong, passionate emotion.” She smiled. “I can’t wait to actually speak with them.”

Then the video showed a darker scene - mobs. Mobs holding signs with angrily scrawled notes, and with mutilated pictures of Celestia. They were angry - and then something exploded in the video, cutting it out. The newscaster returned continued speaking, segueing into the weather.

The Lobby had fallen silent.

~~~

“What do we do if a giant space rock comes hurtling at us?” Twilight had asked.

“Throw the sun at it.” Starlight had answered without hesitating.

The thoughts of that meeting weighed heavily in Celestia’s mind as she felt the presence of things around Equis. There was the planet itself, the moon, the sun a little further away, and… it.The thing slowly coming right for them. It was the size of Manehattan.

She didn’t know what it was. She couldn’t get any visions on it. It was a blank…

So she needed to make a choice. It was going to enter the sun’s orbital in a few seconds. She could destroy it now. But… what if it was just lost? She felt sure it wasn’t just a meteor, but something more. Could she just kill it?

No - move the moon in front of it, get a closer look. Maybe make contact with whatever it was…

She was shocked out of her thoughts. She sensed a power buildup in the foreign object - scarily similar in signature to a unicorn laser spell on a much larger scale. A planetary scale.

She wasted no time ramming the sun into the unknown, vaporizing it. But it would have the last laugh - for the energy buildup coursed through the sun, tearing it molecule from molecule.

Celestia felt part of her soul get wrenched away when the sun popped.

And then she saw Starlight appear next to her - a broken, battered, scarred unicorn in an absurdly heavy winter coat. “I’m here to undo this.” She had said, and she lit her horn. Celestia felt the very fabricof reality shift and turn around the world, around her. She felt the area where her sun once was shift with the annals of time.

It wouldn’t go back. The powerful time spell ran into a wall. It hit the edgeof the magical field. Celestia frowned. “Starlight, you should stop…”

“No! You haven’t seen what I’ve seen yet! It can’t be this way! It can’t!” She roared. “I can’t let my advice destroy this world…”

Celestia reeled - the thought of freezing had already crossed her mind, but she had pushed it out of her mind. Starlight pushed harder, her horn glowing brighter than Celestia had ever seen it. “I have to undo this!”

“Starlight! You’re pushing too hard! The-”

Then reality toreopen before Starlight. She screamed, falling into the tear, vanishing right before Celestia’s eyes. She was gone.

Celestia woke up with a start. That was no normal memory - that had been a vision. That timeline was not the one she remembered. She had smashed the sun into the meteor - but she had not remembered Starlight appearing. She didn’t even know she had been there when the unicorn had tried to undo everything.

She teleported into the Lobby where the leaders were trying to piece together the alien language.

“I have had a vision!” She yelled. “Disaster is going to-”

The entire Ark shook as something exploded next to it. Red lights flashed on, alarms started blaring, and the ship shook as its engines started failing. The Ark drifted towards the planet blow while all present devoted all the magic power they could to the shields…

A trail of broken hull trailed across the starry sky, glinting in the light of the new sun…

IX - The Children of Harmony

The Children.

The Children always moved so fast. It mattered not that she could see the strands of fate and time weaving before her - they always moved so fast and surprised her with their little spirits. So adorable. So precious.And now they were leaving. The planet had failed to sustain them. She had failed to sustain them. How could she not have seen it coming? She saw most everything… She was frustrated with herself. She had put so much into this, and now it was all being taken away by some freak random incident.Had she really been wrong?No. They had a plan. They would survive - elsewhere. Some of them anyway… But what would happen without her to be there? Could they be anything? She didn’t know…She was scared.But she wouldn't let that stop her. She sent out a message through the magic. TAKE ME. It was difficult to send an exact message such as that… She wasn’t like them. They were there before she knew it. She was excavated and teleported into the Lobby in a matter of days. The room became her new home. She watched her children closely during those final months - so fast, so squirrely…She had to save the Child of Fate. She had attempted to alter the course of history… It wouldn’t have worked. The meteor had come from beyond… Magic couldn’t undo everything… So many hurt themselves during that time. Threw their lives away before the time came. It was horrible. She felt ashamed - she had really failed them. Hurt them. Then the day arrived.Hearthswarming Eve. The day of launch. She slowed herself down with some effort so she could experience this momentous occasion. She saw the Child of Magic’s friends put to sleep. She saw the bays close. She felt the Ark power up and fly into the sky to the tune of Hearthswarming Eve songs from Canterlot. And then the Child of the Sun made one last speech. “Equestria has now existed for precisely 2321 years. This planet has existed for much, much longer than that. Not many of you know of this - only know bits and pieces of the story myself - but we have the Tree of Harmony to thank for all these millennia of life we’ve had. Before even my time, or my mother’s time, the Tree has stood as our guardian, our protector.And sheis not done protecting. You may think all is lost, fair Equis, but it is not. We will find a new world, and then we will come back for you. Live until then. We willbe back.”The Tree of Harmony let out a musical wail as strong and as long as she could, saturating the entire world, exhausting herself. She had to leave it with as much as possible. For without her, no new magic would be created. It would all get used up in about 200 years… The Child of Fate shuddered in that moment. “I just felt something horrible…”“The sorrows of a mother leaving her countless children and grandchildren..” The Child of the Sun said, biting back tears. The Tree of Harmony wailed…The Tree of Harmony roared.578 years!578 years!She would not let it end like this!She hadn’t taken any physical action for almost six centuries - it was time to cash in. It was time to save the last of her children. The Ark was going to crash into the planet and be pulverized despite the best efforts of the princesses, Discord, and the engines - it was just too much to handle, the broken stabilizers were just too complex to fix with magic this quickly. So the Tree of Harmony acted. She began to glow an intense color. “...Tree of Harmony…?” Starlight said, feeling her power. “Can you-” Starlight was sent feelings of affirmation. A great crystal disc took shape under the falling and now flaming Ark, growing thousands of crystal tendrils onto the ship’s bottom. They glistened in the light, growing far and wide, changing the Ark’s angle of entry to a more upward one. But there was no way the descent was going to be stopped, merely adjusted. The trajectory was altered away from the forested land and towards an ocean.The bottom of the crystal glowed with white-blue magic, preparing for an ocean impact. As the water splashed away from the Ark, it slowly solidified into a brilliant crystal. It spread out in a huge wave that rose far above the ocean, and never came down. A crystalline crater had been formed in the ocean. The Ark sat, still, amidst a giant crystal cove that slowly drifted across the surface of the ocean. Everyone inside the Ark was frozen with shock. None moved for the longest time.Then Pinkie Pie started laughing. “That was such a fun ride!”“THAT WAS THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER!” Rainbow Dash cheered. “Nothing can ever top that!”“We *LIVED.” Starlight yelled, whooping. And with that, the entire room broke into cheers.The Tree of Harmony felt gratified. She had saved her children.“Hey!” Discord yelled. “How about we go *outside?”“Discord…” Celestia said, pausing. “...That is a wonderful idea.”Everyone began to file outside, the Ark sitting atop what was essentially a big crystal bowl floating across the ocean. Many aquatic lifeforms could be seen frozen inside the new crystal, most resembling fish of some sort, but the species were completely unknown to the Equi. It was in that moment that Luna saw a city. A city right here amongst the Harmonic Crystal. She saw how she would build it, how it would grow around the Ark. Her eyes sparkled with the possibilities. “Welcome everyone!” She boomed. “Welcome to the future site of Harmony City!”Great cheering erupted from the crowd. Most knew she was being a bit premature in her assessment, but they didn’t care. They felt good.Starlight frowned, sensing something. She looked far into the distance and saw something standing at the edge of the crystal, halfway stuck in it. She frowned, teleporting it to them.It was one of the aliens - a blue one, male. It was wearing a white jumpsuit and a device was strapped to its head. Everyone stared at it. Silence reigned. What would they do with it? They had all just been attacked! Before anyone else could do anything, Twilight walked up to the alien and pointed at herself. “Twilight.”The alien shook, but understood. “Lem.” he said, pointing at himself. “That’s a start.” Twilight said, nodding slowly. “Now, how about-”Before she could complete her thought, the sky was filled with helicopters of all colors, all clustering above the Ark. Lem took a step back, a worried look on his face. He waved his arms. A loudspeaker boomed down words from above - but despite their efforts, none of the Equi had any idea what they said. They were in a tense situation with no way to communicate.

~~~

The Mite couldn’t believe it!The ship had crashed! The jar it was sealed in had broken! Mission accomplished! Time to return to where it had activated and…Well that was impossible. No way back. And it was not repairing this ship to get back. The Key was fine - not going anywhere. So the Mite reasoned out that the mission was accomplished. Sorta. That Discord had probably messed with its ‘head’ a bit much. Because it was wondering what it was going to do now…

X - Conflict of Interest

One of the sleek black helicopters began to descend. Twilight observed closely as the vehicle approached touchdown. Unlike the helicopters back home, this one was larger and completely sealed, no way to see who was inside, though she could easily imagine a dozen ponies fitting inside the sealed area.

While most of the Equi had backed away as it descended, a certain pegasus did quite the opposite. “Oh no you don’t!” Rainbow Dash yelled, charging the helicopter with intent to smash.

“Rainbow!” Twilight yelled, tugging at her friend with her telekinesis. Rainbow’s charge quickly became a nose dive, the pegasus crashing into the crystal ground with an impressive force.

“Ow.” Rainbow Dash muttered.

“We can’t just charge into things without information.” Twilight chided. “Please, let’s see what they want before we retaliate.”

“But they tried to kill us! They shot us down!”

“That remains to be seen.” Celestia said, her frown deepening.

The Equi stared transfixed as the helicopter achieved touchdown. The left side of the craft hissed open, the sound barely audible over the roar of the craft’s dying engine. Two individuals stepped out, both female. One was tall, black, and wearing a very official looking black dress with numerous symbols. The other was teal, short, and adorned with a simple shirt and big glasses.

The black one walked forward with a confident expression, the other nervously following behind.

Celestia stared straight at them, taking a step forward to make it obvious she was the one they were supposed to talk to. “Celestia.” She said, pointing to herself.

The teal one gulped, muttering something to the black one, who nodded slowly. “Waise.” She said, pointing at herself. She then introduced her companion as “Arlowe.”

Celestia bowed. “Waise… Arlowe… Well met.”

Waise responded with what Celestia presumed was a formality.

“Why are you here?” Celestia queried, pointing at them and exaggerating her questioning expression. They only had body language to go off of right now, after all.

Arlowe muttered something to Waise. Once again she nodded, looking Celestia straight in the eyes. Then she pointed at Lem.

Lem realized he was being pointed at and let out a yelp of fear. He seemed terrified of Waise. He shook his head rapidly.

Twilight frowned. “It doesn’t look like he wants to go with you.”

Waise didn’t falter, saying something directly to Lem. Lem didn’t say anything back, only shaking his head. Waise pressed the issue only to cause Lem to yell something back at her. Waise’s left eye twitched, and she turned to Celestia. She forcefully pointed her black finger at Lem, and then back at herself.

“She certainly wants him to go with her…” Luna observed.

“We take no sides.” Celestia announced. “We will neither return him or protect him.” Celestia stepped back, waiting to see what the alien beings would do. Waise turned to Arlowe, who shrugged and muttered a few more things. Waise nodded and took a step towards Lem.

Lem bolted away, running into the wide-open doorway of the Ark.

Waise let out a harsh breath before turning a full 180° and marching back into the helicopter. Arlowe scurried after her like a scared dog to its master. The blades begun to spin rapidly once again and the helicopter took off into the sky once more.

Twilight turned to Celestia, unsure.

Celestia sighed. “No Twilight, I do not know what is coming. Your guess is as good as mine.”

“I’ll go watch Lem.” Starlight offered. “Make sure he doesn’t mess with anything.”

Celestia nodded in confirmation, and Starlight instantly teleported into the Ark. She saw Lem walking the halls, looking at the technology around him in awe. The few ponies inside the Ark looked at him warily.

“Don’t worry.” Starlight called. “I’m watching him.” At this the others stopped acting nervous about Lem and instead looked on with a cautious curiosity.

Lem glanced behind himself and saw Starlight, seemingly unsurprised by her presence. He seemed much more interested in the ship itself than the inhabitants. He ran his plastic-like fingers along the walls, looking closely at the screens, and walking with an ever-growing smirk on his face.

Starlight followed him around until he walked up to a control console. He reached out a finger to touch it - Starlight quickly wrapped his arm in her telekinesis and gently held it back. She shook her head to inform him not to touch the console.

He stared right at her for the first time, transfixed on her horn that had been glowing moments before. He began speaking rapidly in words she definitely didn’t understand, though she sensed fear. As he spoke, she got a good look at the device on his forehead for the first time. It was a strange round piece of glass fitted to him with a headband.

She ignored the device and focused again on his fear at her telekinesis. “Why does that scare you?” Since he obviously didn’t understand her she lit her horn and lifted a screwdriver from across the room to her. He jumped back in fear, only adding to her confusion.

“Okay, I won’t use it…” She said, dropping the screwdriver and holding it in her front hoof instead. His fear vanished to be replaced with fascination. He slowly leaned in, looking at her hoof closely, opening and closing his hand off to the side.

“Er… Hi.” Starlight said. She pointed the screwdriver at herself. “Starlight.”

He wasn’t really listening. He raised a finger and poked her outstretched hoof.

“O...kay?” She said. He stood up, shrugged, said a few unintelligible things, and walked through a large set of doors.

The sight of the stasis bay made him stop in his tracks. The thousands upon thousands of frozen Equi - or, to him, aliens of all shapes and sizes - made his mind stop functioning for several moments.

Starlight trotted up alongside him. “I know you can’t understand me, but… This is the entire reason we are… were out there. Looking for a new home. This was the first place we found that would work.” She looked at all the frozen Equi. “We released many to crew the Ark… But there are still many trapped.” She walked up to the closest pod. It was somepony she knew - a brown stallion with an hourglass for a cutie mark.

“This was a friend of mine…” She said. “He was a genius. He helped build this Ark. We… We owe him and his family a home.” She looked down, a tear dropping to the ground. “Sorry.”

Lem had a strange combination of emotions on his face - there was sadness, pity, fear, concern, and confusion. Starlight smiled at him. “I get that feeling Lem. Hey, want to know where I go to sort out confusion?”

He shrugged and said something. She did catch ‘Starlight’ though.

“Oh right. Just follow me.” She gestured with her hoof and led him to the Lobby. His jaw dropped upon seeing the Tree of Harmony. His mind couldn’t comprehend the majesty of the being before him.

Starlight sensed a feeling of amusement fill the area, coupled with some relief. She smirked. “Tree of Harmony.” She pointed. “Say hello.”

Lem nodded slowly. “Tree of Harmony.” He said.

Starlight tore her gaze away from the Tree to examine the many screens displaying the various video feeds coming from the planet. Several dozen of them now showed images of the Tree of Harmony.

“...What?” She asked aloud, turning to the pony in charge of the screens at the moment.

Sunset twitched. “They’re spying on us somehow and I have no idea how.”

A light bulb went off in Starlight’s head. She turned to Lem and pointed at his forehead. “...I think that device is a camera.”

Before Sunset could respond they were interrupted by the sudden appearance of Trixie in full wizard cloak. “CAMERA!?” She squee’d. “The Great and Powerful Trixie must perform!”

“Trixie…” Starlight said, her friend not listening at all.

“Hocus pocus, little fiddle…” She chanted, taking off her hat and reaching into it. “I present to you, a rabbit!” She pulled and out came… Her own tail.

“What.” Trixie said, turning to look at her now tail-less rear. “Discord I swear if you-”

Lem cut Trixie off by starting to giggle. Starlight and Sunset slowly began to join in as well.

Trixie rolled her eyes. “That wasn’t that funny.”

Starlight pointed a hoof at the screens. On many of them was now an image of Trixie looking back at her rear while holding her tail. The expression was priceless and many of the natives on the screens were very amused.

“Oh.” Trixie said. She facehooved. “I’ve gone and made a fool of myself!”

Starlight continued her giggling. “Well… This has just given me an idea.” She smirked. “We can ‘talk’ to all of them through this video feed coming from one of their own people.”

“But… spy?” Sunset countered.

“He’s not being very stealthy for a spy. And we don’t have anything to hide.” Well, not much. “Let him stay. Let’s see what this new world thinks of us.”

~~~

Waise rammed her fist into the desk. The aliens had discovered the camera and were using it.

“Why did you have to make this needlessly complicated Lem? Why?” She threw her pen into a wall. “Argh! Now everyone’s getting everything! What kind of sorry excuse for security is this operation?”

“He’s not part of our operation ma’am-”

“Arlowe, I know that. Which is why this situation is such a pile of crap.” She gritted her teeth. “We need to control these Equi and that Celestia…”

XII - Communication

XII - Communication

“They’re coming again?” Celestia asked.

“That’s what I think he’s saying.” Twilight said. “I’m really not sure. But he seemed adamant about it.”

“I expected them to come back, yes…. I do suppose it’s been several hours.” She sighed. “Not like I wanted to sleep anyway...”

“At least they’ve probably used this time to study our language, as we have theirs. I’ve made some progress understanding their syntax. They arrange clauses in a parallel structure in relation to-“

“I’m sure I’ll have time to learn it at some point.” Celestia said. “You can probably transfer the information to my mind later. Until then, you can translate.”

“Of course. I… may only be of marginal use, however.”

“Better than nothing.” Celestia noted.

Lem poked his head out of the Lobby and yelled for Twilight. He said something about the screens.

"Duty calls.” Twilight said, teleporting over to him. “Yes Lem?” He was started by the teleportation for a moment, but recovered quickly with a shrug. He motioned for her to follow. Starlight and Luna were already in the room, looking at one screen in particular. Lem stood beneath it and turned around to look directly at Twilight – instantly, Twilight saw herself appear on the screen in a box alongside a red female who was talking.

Luna walked to the side of Twilight, appearing on the screen as well. “It’s a live feed. The red is talking about us, I believe, and sees us talking.” She said.

“Oh.” Twilight said, smiling. “Understand?” She asked Lem. He nodded slowly, but gave a waving motion with his hand that indicated uncertainty. Twilight cleared her throat. “Hello, I Twilight.”

The woman onscreen sat up, sparkles in her eyes. She introduced herself as… Ipsilon? Maybe?

Twilight took a breath. “Hello Ipsilon. No word good.”

Ipsilon nodded slowly. Twilight bit her lip – she knew the words she was speaking were off and oversimplified, but she was trying her best. Ipsilon continued, asking a question Twilight didn’t understand.

“No think.” She sighed. “This isn’t working, I can only barely tell she’s asking me a question.”

Luna watched Ipsilon and her gestures closely. “She’s pointing at her mouth and talking, then pointing at you. Something about you and the language?”

“Oh! Maybe she wants to know how I learn it? Well… Long time study. Good study. Listen. Watch. Word. Think.”

Ipsilon seemed satisfied by this, nodding again. She held up a piece of paper. She spoke aloud in heavily accented Equi. “We learn slow bookshelf Twilight.”

Twilight chuckled. “No Easy.” She responded.

Ipsilon picked up another piece of paper. “No Easy.”

“No easy indeed…” Twilight said sheepishly. “Ask?”

Ipsilon looked at yet another sheet of paper. “What want Equi?”

Twilight frowned. How to say ‘pace and a place to live?’ She furrowed her brow. “Good word. House.”

Ipsilon responded with a sentence Twilight couldn’t discern. Her face looked confused. Twilight looked to Lem and then to Luna, both just shrugged. Twilight got the impression Ipsilon was asking for her to elaborate.

Then she had an idea. She lit her horn and cast an image spell. She displayed a crude drawing of herself and Ipsilon, and depicted them shaking hand and hoof with a smile. Then she showed an image of the crystal bowl with a city inside it, fully functional and filled mostly with Equi, but dotted with a few of gari as well.

Ipsilon leaned in and read something else. “First house here?”

Twilight thought for a moment – did they want to know why they’d come here? Well, she could answer that.

She created an image of Equis, the sun, and the moon. Everything in Equis was green, vibrant, and happy. Then she made the sun vanish, and the entire world began to freeze. A representation of the Ark left the planet and began to explore star… after star… after star… The images began to blur, stars passing by the dozens, until eventually the Ark was in orbit around a green planet. Then a laser came from the planet and shot the back of the Ark, and it crashed into the ocean.

“That why.” Twilight said.

Ipsilon looked speechless and horrified, and Twilight wondered if she had done something wrong.

~~~

Celestia looked at the screens, her face contorting in concern. They were upset about something, and it was closely related to the image Twilight created of the Ark being shot down. Almost all of the screens showed images of either that or gari shouting and angrily pointing.

What did it mean?

Why did that image make them so angry?

Twilight had no idea – she could translate only scant portions of what was being spouted, getting only that it was called an ‘attack,’ not helping Celestia understand them any further.

“They didn’t know.” Discord said, suddenly appearing behind her.

“What?” She said, mildly baffled.

“They didn’t know we were attacked. That it wasn’t just a malfunction, or even intentional on our part.” He smirked.

“Why wouldn’t they know? We were shot by them.”

“The attack wasn’t visible before it hit us, most likely.” He said. “If it was, at least one of us would have seen it beforehand and been able to stop it. But none of us did. Not me, not you. To anyone outside it just looked like crazy alien engines having technical difficulties.”

“So they’re angry at their own government…” She gulped as she realized the alternative. “Or they think we’re lying.”

Discord nodded. “Most likely both. They are not a united people – a race after my own heart. Though their skin is dreadfully bland, no complexion to speak of. They seriously need to consider investing in tattoos.”

Celestia’s frown deepened despite Discord’s jokes. “We really need to be able to talk to them…”

Discord shrugged. “Good luck with that. I’ve tried making a translation spell and a telepathy spell with Lem. Doesn’t work.”

“The Tree of Harmony doesn’t know the language.” Celestia noted. “I expect that’s why our mental spells work on us – but not them.”

“Eh, I don’t pretend to understand that thing. Too harmonious for my tastes. It could stand to loosen up a bit.”

Celestia stopped talking and just stared into the screens. To the side, Twilight was grilling Lem with projections in an attempt to learn how to speak the language better.

Seven mares watched Twilight frantically trying to decode an alien language. They all had concerned looks on their faces.

“I say, do you think she’s overworking herself?” Rarity wondered aloud.

“Yep.” Applejack answered.

"Not like she has much choice…” Sunset noted.

Fluttershy sighed. “She really has a lot on her shoulders…”

“But she’s going to do great regardless!” Rainbow Dash announced.

“I dunno Dashie…” Pinkie spoke up. “She’s pretty haggard. And I can’t get in to loosen her up!”

Starlight examined the Tree of Harmony. “Everyone is haggard Pinkie.”

Pinkie drooped. “Yeah, I suppose that’s to be expected from all this. It’s just, we’re all finally out at the same time and we don’t even get to spend time with each other.”

“It’ll calm down eventually.” Sunset said. “Then we can all finally spend some time together.”

“Yes, don’t worry Pinkie.” Rarity waved her hoof around. “It’ll all calm down and this dreadful tension will end. Then we can settle down into our new lives.”

“But what if the gari want us gone?” Fluttershy asked.

Starlight frowned. “I… guess we’d try to leave, but with the Ark in the state it’s in…”

“We could fix it.” Sunset said. “It would take a lot of time and resources, but we could do it.”

“That’d be lame!” Rainbow Dash yelled. “We’d have crashed on this planet for nothing!”

“The crashing was fun though!” Pinkie said.

Rainbow Dash pondered this. “…True.”

“Let’s just agree that whatever happens, we stand by Twilight.” Applejack suggested.

“Yeah!” They all cheered. Then they went to the replicators for some cider.

~~~

All of the immortals – save Cadence – were waiting for the arriving gari dignitaries. A few others stood alongside them – Ember, Thorax, and Lem the most prominent – but they took a back seat. The helicopter was a different color than the last one, a brilliant white, but was the exact same design.

The helicopter sank to the ground, once again revealing Waise and Arlowe. Behind them was a white male who introduced himself as Forseoo, smiling warmly at them. A sickly green-yellow male stepped out and called himself Stratm. Behind him was a tall muscular blue who stepped onto the ground wordlessly.

Lem immediately walked over to the blue man, smiling. Twilight gasped when the man knocked Lem alongside the head, momentarily considering a laser spell to protect him. However, before she could launch such a spell, the man embraced Lem. The exchange brought a smile to Celestia and Luna’s faces.

“…Family?” Starlight wondered.

“Who cares, that was gold!” Discord chuckled.

The man turned to Twilight and introduced himself with a bow. “Emin.”

Then all present heard a loud chipper voice from the helicopter, speaking as if to an audience. Out pranced a pink gari wearing sunglasses and a headset, talking nonstop. Then she introduced herself, speaking in rusty Equi.

“Hi. I Orgis. Good time!”

Twilight smiled. “Nice met.”

Orgis chuckled. Waise and Arlowe shot her death glares. Arlowe took a step forward and cleared her throat. “People of Equis, we come to talk.”

Twilight nodded. “This way.” She said, leading them into the Ark.

“Just checking…” Discord said, leaning in towards Luna. “You do realize that you are being an ambassador in socks right?”

Luna flushed. Despite her extreme embarrassment, she managed not to stop in her tracks. “It… It is of no consequence.”

“Keep telling yourselves that.” He appeared next to Orgis. “Why do you seem to be the natural at this?”

Orgis thought for a moment. “I like Twilight.”

Starlight choked on something and Twilight blushed. “Orgis? I am like Twilight. Good.” She corrected.

“Okay…?” Orgis said, not understanding.

“I is speaker for gari.” Arlowe said, glaring at Orgis.

“It matters not.” Celestia said. “You both may speak. It is better to have two opinions anyway.”

Twilight tried to translate. “Both word, two think good.”

Arlowe and Waise were obviously upset by this, but Orgis seemed ecstatic. She talked into her headset again – it became evident to Twilight that she was a reporter of some kind, or at the very least, someone with an audience.

Pinkie Pie came from nowhere at that point and grinned at Orgis. “Hi there! I think you need a croissant dipped in cherry sauce!” Pinkie pulled it from seemingly nowhere and gave it to Orgis.

Orgis was silent, disbelief in her face. But she recovered quickly, took the pastry, and grinned. “Delicious!”

“Glad you like it!” Pinkie grinned. “I’m sure we’ll meet up later! But bye for now! You have boring political stuff to do!”

She bounced off. Startm muttered something about a lack of security.

The whole group eventually ended up in the now empty Lobby, the screens turned off. It was just them, a table, and the Tree of Harmony in a large, quiet room.

Orgis instantly fell to her knees at the Tree of Harmony and bowed, saying something aloud. Starlight smiled as she sensed a feeling of appreciation wash over her.

“Let us call this meeting… now.” Celestia said. “You first.”

The gari began to talk amongst themselves about what exactly to say. They had obviously decided most of it beforehand but needed to hash out a new details based on what they had seen. Eventually, Startm began to speak (much to Waise’s annoyance) and Arlowe tried to translate best she could.

The question boiled down to thus: what did the Equi plan to do here?

Twilight gave the same ‘peace and home’ answer as before.

They pressed on – what did home actually entail?

Celestia decided to attempt an answer. “We would love to coexist with you. While this Crystal Bowl we claim as our own, our people would like to live among you, benefit from your culture, your cities, your resources. This can go both ways – you could also live with us here, in what is soon to be Harmony City, and benefit from our magic and knowledge. After another round of deliberation, another question came in response. “How many of you?”

Twilight let out a breath. “Twenty Million.”

There was silence for a moment. Even in an area as large as the Bowl, there was no way twenty million residents could live comfortably. It would be far too crowded – even if some of the Equi weren’t the size of mountains.

Discord leaned back and created a bag of popcorn, ready to watch the fireworks unfold.

Waise whispered something to Arlowe, but before the translator could say anything, Orgis butted in. “Help if you give.” She pointed at the popcorn. “Food not easy find.”

“You can’t just make food?!” Discord asked, somewhat perturbed.

Orgis shook her head.

“That’s just appalling! Outrageous! Absurd!”

Luna smiled. “We would be willing to make food for you if you needed it. We can’t make it appear out of thin air all the time, but we do have ways of mass producing it.”

After a round of translations and discussion, Arlowe articulated a question. “Power comes from where?” She pointed at her forehead while she asked.

“Magic?” Twilight asked. Arlowe nodded in confirmation. Twilight thought for a long while before sighing. “Don’t know where. Just is.”

Starlight glanced at the Tree of Harmony and pointed. “It might be the Tree of Harmony.”

“It’s obviously a part of it, but I don’t think that’s the whole story.” Twilight shrugged. “Maybe Tree.”

“Our turn to ask a question.” Discord announced, removing sunglasses he hadn’t been wearing a moment before. “Why did you attack us?” He said venomously.

Arlowe knew what to say to that without asking. “Lies! We did no attack!”

Orgis stood up. “Maybe we did.”

At this point the gari exploded into arguments about attacking and no attacking, lies and no lies. It was far too fast for Twilight to keep track of. They all obviously felt strongly about it.

Discord went back to eating popcorn.

“ENOUGH! Luna slammed her hoof on the table, the sock annoyingly muffling the sound. “We are going to get along! And that can’t be done if you are bickering amongst yourselves!”

The gari had the decency to look ashamed – save for Waise, who was just sour, and Lem, who hadn’t been arguing in the first place.

“Orgis.” Luna said. “Explain what you maybe did.”

Orgis took a breath, but wasn’t allowed to finish. The Ark’s alarms started going off.

“What now?” Discord demanded.

“That’s the stasis bay alarm!” Twilight yelled.

Discord quickly teleported them all to the stasis pod primary control in the center of the large room. Pods appeared all around them, every screen covered with warning lights and blaring loud emergency tones.

“No!” Twilight yelled. “The pods are failing! The flow of power to them is too saturated!”

“Can we fix it?” Starlight asked.

“Not fast enough!” She yelled. “We’ve got to let them out!”

Arlowe gasped, relaying what she heard to Waise. Waise’s face stopped being sour and became furious. She yelled out, but nobody listened.

The Ark’s side hissed and split open – letting bright sunlight into the tremendous pod storage bay. Millions of pods glinted in the sunbeams, sparkling alongside the alarms.

Twilight, Discord, Luna, Celestia, and Starlight walked up to the large dome in the center of primary control. Starlight stayed back while the other four touched the dome, using their four unique DNA keys. It hissed, loudly popping open like a reverse bear trap.

Inside was a very large red button.

“No!” Waise yelled out.

“The world isn’t ready!” Arlowe yelled.

“No wait!” Twilight yelled, smashing the button.

The pods all began to open…

XIII - Insurance Policy

Waise hated everything right now.

Stupid ponies.

Stupid Director.

Stupid Orgis.

Stupid Arlowe.

Stupid Lem.

Stupid situations.

Why did everything have to go wrong at precisely the most annoying time? It was infuriating! She expected this ‘panic alarm’ the Equi had set up was just a trick they played so they could release all their people. It made a lot of sense, seeing as they were starting to wonder if they’d be let out at all. At the very least it was quite the coincidence.

She wouldn’t admit it, but she was also scared. Gigantic reptiles the size of mountains were waking up and flying away despite the calls of the alicorns insisting they stay. They wanted to be free more than anything else, ignoring all calls to order.

Waise trembled in fury as she considered the logistics of what those creatures could do to the world – destroy entire fields of crops! Blast apart cities! Conquer villages! Take on armies! They were going to ruin this planet! Her planet! Her control!

Stupid aliens!

The twenty million of them were rushing out, most in a chaotic and unorganized confusion. Those that had the ability to fly away did so – to the dismay of the many gari helicopters in the airspace above them. The sky became very crowded and dangerous.

Nobody ever found out what started it – maybe a helicopter blade clipped someone, or a careless reptile crashed into one of the machines, but the sky erupted into violence. Guns were fired and magic was shot left and right. The reptiles and flying horses fell alongside exploding helicopter after exploding helicopter.

A piece of shrapnel flew into the open side of the Ark, impaling Stratm in the chest. He paled, collapsing. Celestia, Luna and Twilight raised magic shields around everyone instantly, protecting them from further crossfire.

Lem began to panic. “Doomed! We’re all doomed!”

Discord glowered and said something in Equi. He teleported out of the shields and entered the field of the battle, snapping his fingers. Time stopped in its tracks, bullets stopping midflight, helicopter blades screeching to a halt, and fireballs freezing. Discord then began to give instructions, pointing at several things with a disgusted look on his face. Starlight began to follow the instructions, surrounding one of the helicopters in magic and moving it.

Waise didn’t let this continue any further. “No.” She said, drawing her gun on Starlight. “You will not meddle with us you beasts!”

Discord started laughing. At first Waise was confused, but then she realized Discord had replaced her gun with an exotic sausage. She dropped the thing, fearing what it might do. It barked upon hitting the ground and did nothing else.

Emin glared at Waise. “Are you crazy? That is not how you handle a crisis!”

“Twice now!” Forsoo yelled. “Twice!”

“Shut up.” Waise said. ”We’re all going to be taken over by these things!” She thrust her arm towards Discord and Starlight, who were effortlessly arranging the paused battle into separate piles – helicopters in one area, Equi in another, and in-flight projectiles inside their own box.

“Why hate us?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

Waise glared at Twilgiht. “You will rui-“

Arlowe put her hand over Wasie’s mouth. “Ignore her. Look not!” She forced a grin.

Twilight looked at Waise with… sadness. She mumbled something and went to help organize the paused fight. Arlowe looked stunned.

“What did she say?” Waise asked.

“She… She was sad that you didn’t want to be her friend.”

“What?” Waise gawked.

Emin smiled. “Lem was right. They truly are noble creatures.”

Waise was infuriated once more. How? Why? Why did no one see the manipulation these aliens were engaging in? Why did no one see the lies?

Lem smirked playfully at Emin. “So, I was right. Think I’m right about that shadow organization yet?”

Emin sighed. “Not this again. Look, if they existed, they would have kept me, Orgis, and Stratm away…”

We sure as heck tried, Waise seethed.

Orgis knelt down, examining the body of Stratm. “He will be remembered.”

Luna knelt down next to Orgis and began to sing something that sounded like a lullaby. No one understood the words – save Arlowe, who started crying by the third verse. The emotion was strong, the tones soft and comforting, and the voice strong.

“That was beautiful,” Arlowe said.

Luna nodded in thanks.

The battle arrangements were completed within the hour, the three piles finalized. Discord snapped his fingers, and the fighting resumed. All the projectiles exploded, with the people who made up the other two piles looking around in confusion.

“CEASE FIRE!” Emin yelled, Celestia echoing his words for her people. The battle ended. The reality of the situation began to sink in when Starlight went out to get a body count.

~~~

“Hundreds dead. Thousands missing. More leaving now.” Twilight told the gari, her face sorrowful. “Sorry.”

Waise wanted to scream. Sorry? Sorry? She had the gall to say sorry? Of all the-

“What caused the malfunction?” Emin asked, and Arlowe quickly translated it.

Twilight created an image of a strange six-legged nanomachine. The gari looked at it confused. Twilight cleared her throat. “Alien project found on ruin world. Escape in crash. Found tampering.”

Waise’s frown deepened. Now they were trying to make them believe there were more aliens involved now? A nanomachine at that! Really, did they really think them this stupid? Were they really that stupid?

“How you find?” Arlowe asked.

Twilgiht slowly told the story of how they found the Key on the ruined world, and how the Mite had attacked them later for having it. She described the Key as a random string of letters.

Orgis looked deep in thought, but said nothing.

Waise threw her hands into the air. Yes, they really were that stupid. Everyone was taking this animal seriously! There was no way Twilight was being honest with all this, and yet everyone present just ate everything she said up like candy.

A wall-mounted screen came online, the red and yellow unicorn appearing, yelling something. A news report began playing, hosted by Ipsilon. Arlowe translated for the Equi as it played.

“The Equi outbreak has been disastrous for both sides – deaths have been occurring by the dozen as scared citizens of both worlds retaliate against each other out of fear. The exact numbers are unknown, but estimates put the deaths at a few hundred. It should be known that the outbreak only occurred a few hours ago, and this number is likely to increase exponenentia – breaking news!” Ipsilon paused. “Are you sure? Oh…” She looked conflicted. “It’s been confirmed. The Equi ship really was shot down. Details are still coming in…”

Oh no. The public had found out.

“…A facility in Krastia was recently exposed by the local government during an inspection, and an unknown weapon was found housed within it…”

Wait what? Waise sat bolt upright. That’s not right. It’s not in Krastia..

“…All but one of the personnel found working on the weapon project were arrested, and are being put on trial. Execution is expected…”

Twilight winced at ‘execution.’

“…The one individual who escaped the law did so because she was out of the country at the moment. She’s…” Ipsilon shook her head, looking horrified. “…Waise.”

All the gari and Equi turned slowly to Waise as Arlowe’s translation faded out in disbelief.

“No…” Waise said, taking a step back.

Forsoo spoke up. “Waise, you have committed crimes against the Equi race. Since we are on their soil, you will be subject to their laws.”

“No…” Waise repeated.

“Orgis, ask them what their laws are.”

Orgis did so. Cestia’s frown deepened. She looked right at Waise.

“No!”

Celestia spoke a single sentence. Orgis and Arlowe couldn’t believe their ears.

“She’s…. dropping all charges!” Arlowe said.

“No!” Waise said, panic beginning to set it. She knew what was happening.

“She says forgiveness is a major part of their culture and that it extends to everyone. She… She only wants to know why.”

Waise paled. She didn’t invent the weapon. She didn’t work on it at any point. It wasn’t located in Krastia. But she did vote for its use. She wanted these aliens gone. They were going to ruin the world. But right now, she wasn’t worried about them, the charges, or even being asked the question.

She knew she was doomed.

She felt something sharp snap inside her mouth. Her eyes widened. “No…” She gasped. The ‘insurance policy’ had just been triggered. Poison flooded her system. “No…” She gurgled.

This was why she had been selected to go back. Not because she was good for the job, but because she was bad. She would serve as the scapegoat, and die before she could defend herself. She had been openly hostile, and nobody would think twice about her being in on it. She would die here, making it so the organization could continue to operate without scrutiny…

One of the last things she saw was Forsoo smirking at her as she crumpled to the ground.

The chemicals worked their way to the core of her heart, seizing it and filling her vision with inky blackness. She felt the magic of Celestia on her, attempting to drive the toxin out…

Silly. Why would they even try? She didn’t care about them… They were here to ruin the world… With her gone it would be easier for them to do so… Silly ponies… So pointless…

She died letting out a soft chuckle.

Forsoo let out a sigh of relief. He had been somewhat afraid she’d blurt something out that’d jeopardize what they were going for. But it had worked without a hitch. Now everyone – the public, the Equi – thought those responsible for attacking them were taken care of.

Their existence would remain a secret.

~~~

The Mite had not been at the Ark for hours. It had left the moment the Ark had crashed, not stopping to do anything, not even to tamper with the stasis pod controls. Why would it? The Ark wasn't going anywhere.

Instead it was on the garilend Internet, surfing through computers, looking for information. It had gotten into the gari system with ease – nothing unusual blocking it like the Ark.

It dug through classified records, ignoring documents of shadow organizations, secret wars, death policies, and conspiracies – that is, until it came across a file that mentioned the Key.

It dug deeper.

It wasn’t the Key the Mite was destined to protect. It was a different Key.

The Mite’s ears twitched. What did that mean?

XIV - Future Fine?

Luna stared at the body of Waise, shocked. “W-what just happened?”

“Killed herself.” Orgis said.

“…Why?” Celestia asked. “We offered her amnesty…”

“Angry. Bitter.” Orgis said. “Firm.” She looked like she was thinking of another word but couldn’t think of anything to translate it to.

Celestia looked down, sorrow in her eyes. “…Was she really that set in her ways? Willing to do whatever to be rid of us?”

Arlowe slowly nodded her head.

Celestia sighed. “If you truly do not want us here… We can attempt to rebuild and leave.”

Luna and Twilight gasped. Discord lost hold of his green beverage, the glass falling to the ceiling and shattering.

Arlowe was stunned. Orgis waved her hands around frantically. “No! Help us can! Together!”

Arlowe translated to Forsoo and Emin. They agreed with Orgis’s assertion. Lem gave everyone a thumbs up, though he was visibly bothered by Waise’s body laying just under a yard away from him.

Celestia smiled, turning to Lem’s camera. “In that case I look forward to a long and prosperous friendship with the gari.”

The ponies and the gari present began to clap. The message needed no translation to be understood, not this time. The tension that had existed between the races had been cut by a death of one most opposed.

Forsoo smiled. Exactly as planned.

Now they had to deal with those released Equi…

~~~

Sunset sat in front of the doors to the Lobby, waiting. She stared deep into the shiny doors, unblinking. She glanced at the clock. They had been in there an entire day. Nonstop! Weren’t they tired yet?

She checked the video feed inside the room – they still showed no sign of wrapping up, though Sunset could tell Twilight’s brain was past well-done at this point. She was mildly surprised there wasn’t smoke coming out her ears.

Sunset noticed with amusement that Luna had completely forgotten she was wearing socks. Otherwise she wouldn’t be swinging her limbs around wildly and slamming her hoof on the table with a smirk on her face.

Sunset sighed – she wasn’t going to get to them anytime soon. Should she just rush in? No… It didn’t require immediate attention. Yet.

“Come here often?” Discord asked from the ceiling.

Sunset jumped into the air with a slight scream. She quickly looked from the ceiling to the screen – Discord was in both locations, looking bored. “…Did you really just duplicate yourself out of boredom?”

“Eeyup.” Discord said in his best imitation of Big Mac.

Sunset shrugged, getting back to watching the door. Then something occurred to her.

“Hey…” She began, turning to Discord. Then she violently shook her head. “No, bad idea.”

“Oh, now you simply have to tell me. Come on, what is it?”

Sunset bit her lip. “It’s about the cryogenic chamber malfunctions. I don’t think our Mite did them.”

Discord raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I found an archived scan of the affected area – there is evidence of a Mite, yes – but no cat hair from the ears you put on it. I found that in a path leading out of the Ark, not even coming close to the affected area. And unless your spell was temporary and the Mite came back…”

Discord lowered his sunglasses to reveal another pair of sunglasses beneath. “So… We’ve got two creepy crawly mites now?”

“Yeah. But that’s not what’s weird. Full ship scans were performed back when we found the first Mite – there wasn’t a second Mite, or anything made of the same alien material. This new Mite came on board later.”

Discord frowned. “From this planet perhaps?”

“Possibly.” She said. “Both of the worlds were on the same map after all. They are probably connected in some way.”

Discord put on a suit. “Well, I say that means it’s investigation time.” He pushed a finger to his tie and it honked. A portal in spacetime appeared behind him. “There’s the mainland, where shall we start?”

Sunset blinked. “We… probably shouldn’t.” Then she paused for a moment. “You know what, screw it, let’s go look for these Mites.” She left a quick note for Twilight and then leapt through the portal. They were both gone, the hall of the Ark empty once more.

Mere minutes later the doors opened and Twilight stepped out. She was barely able to stay awake enough to walk, but she had some ponies to see. She completely missed Sunset’s note. Behind her, Orgis stood by Starlight. The two were staring into the glory of the Tree of Harmony.

Starlight turned to Orgis, pondering something. “I… could teach you the way of Harmony.”

Orgis nodded slowly, still taken in by the light.

“Okay, step one, learn how to meditate… This part took me a full decade to get down.”

~~~

Fluttershy was watching Flurry Heart, which would have normally been one of the happiest times of the pegasus’s day. She came here often just to watch the young alicorn, so full of life and innocence. Even her cries were usually heartwarming.

Not today though. Today she was crying in fear.

“Come to mama!” Cadence yelled, a psycho grin on her face. “I’ve got hugs!”

Shining Armor held Cadence by the tail. “Cadence! You were choking her!”

“I was expressing my love!”

“Babies can’t be hugged that hard!” Fluttershy wailed, crying just as much as the filly she was trying to keep safe.

“Cadence!” Shining Armor yelled, losing his grip on her. “You need to calm down-“

“Calm is dead!” Cadence shouted. “There is only love! Only love!”

“This isn’t love!” Fluttershy yelled.

“Then what is it?” Cadence bristled, kicking Shining Armor away and glaring at Fluttershy.

“Selfishness.” A new voice said. All fell silent – even Flurry Heart – taking the time to look at Pinkie standing in the doorway.

“What.” Cadence deadpanned.

“You’re being selfish.” Pinkie reiterated, no hint of comedy in her voice at all. “Now, you could blame it on lunacy, but you’re still caring for yourself more than your family. They need to be kept safe and healthy. You need to catch up on centuries of lost hugs. You need to consider their needs over your own.” Pinkie sighed.

Cadence was speechless, her left eye twitching slightly. “W-what do I do?”

“I don’t know.” Pinkie said. “It may be that you can’t do much to yelp yourself. Celestia knows I can’t help myself.” She giggled awkwardly at her remark.

Fluttershy sniffed. “You… can’t?”

“Well think about it for a minute Fluttershy. Do I seem sane?”

Fluttershy shrunk back. “…No…”

“No need to feel bad Fluttershy.” Pinkie said, smiling. “You’re just used to my brand of crazy.”

Cadence looked into Pinkie’s eyes. “…What do you do to cope?”

“Honestly? I just roll with it and try to make everypony smile! It’s alllllll in the attitude for me! Though that might not work for you. You’ve got a different sort of problem. I just see things. You… You missed out on your family so long you broke.”

Cadence drooped. “I… I… Yes…”

“Yeah. Positive cheery attitude won’t help. Probably dangerous. Buuuuuuut-“

“You could think about what your family wants you to be now rather than focusing on what you didn’t get,” Fluttershy blurted.

Pinkie blinked. “Woah! Fluttershy you’re amazing!”

“That won’t fix it though…”

“Pffft,” Pinkie said, waving a hoof dismissively. “Problems like this don’t just get ‘fixed.’ But they can be lived with.” She looked at Cadence and Shining Armor. “Can you two do that?”

Shining Armor looked at his wife and smiled. “I can. I promised to always protect her and be there for her. That still applies when her enemy is part of herself.”

Cadence gasped and sighed. “Oh Shining…” She threw herself on him, smirking.

“Andthat’sourcuetoleaveFluttershycomeon.” Pinkie dragged the Pegasus out of the room and closed the door. They could hear Flurry Heart laughing inside.

“…Do you think everything will be okay?” Fluttershy asked.

Pinkie just stared into space and didn’t answer.

~~~

Spike looked up from the tablet he was holding to see Applejack and Rainbow Dash enter the room, faces set in disbelief.

“Woah.” Spike said. “You two look you almost got hit by a train.”

“Understatement.”  Applejack muttered. Rainbow Dash nodded in agreement. The two fell silent.

“Well, what happened?” He pushed.

Rainbow Dash took a big breath. Then a grin spread across her face. “Twilight just asked me if I would be willing to direct weather control for this entire bucking planet!” She laughed. “Me! In charge of all the clouds! All the clouds! Facing off against hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning, you name it! I’ll be the Minister of Awesome Weather!”

“Ah’m not sure you have the responsibility for it…” Applejack said.

“I’m sure I’ll do just fine. I’m moving up!”

“What about you AJ?” Spike asked.

“Ah’m… goin’ to be in charge of mass food production. Farming food for those who need it as fast as possible. Ah’ll feed everyone.” She blinked, looking like she didn’t really believe it.

“That’s awesome!” Spike said. “AJ and Rainbow, world leaders!”

The two mares glanced at each other and smirked. They hoof bumped.

“Bet I can save more people than you!”

“Oh, Rainbow Dash, you are on!”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Think you might be missing the point here… What’s Twilight up to?”

The two shrugged. “I dunno.” Rainbow Dash said. “She doesn’t really…. Share stuff with us anymore.”

“Yeah.” Applejack said, drooping.

“It’s probably just because she’s so busy.”

“She did mention that she was goin' to some meeting… Or something.” Applejack offered.

Spike shrugged. “I just hope this craziness dies down soon. I miss her.”

“Yeah…” Applejack said, looking into the distance. “We all do.”

~~~

Twilight and Luna stepped onto the helicopter. Thorax, Ember, and Geraldyr of the griffons filed in behind them. Forsoo, Arlowe, Emin ,and Lem were with them, leaving Orgis behind in the Ark since she wasn’t really a politician, and because she wanted to stay.

Twilgiht found the helicopter a bit dark for her liking – and also a bit loud. Why was this so different from the helicopters at home? It was hard to see the sky in here… Hard to see the breeze…

Then again, these helicopters were really loud from the outside, so that might have been the reason everything was tightly sealed.

“Here we go…” Twilight said.

“Into the Unknown.” Luna responded. “I hope it has cookies.”

Twilight laughed. Despite all that happened, things were starting to look up. They still had to deal with the released Equi… But an actual relationship had been established amidst that. They were on the same page now.

From the ground, Celestia waved at the retreating helicopter. She smiled. “Stay safe, my sister.”

Beside her, Orgis turned to Starlight. “Ready learn!”

“Speak in gari I now.” Starlight said. “Mind magic from Twilight.”

Orgis clapped her hands and the two set off to the Tree. Celestia really doubted that Starlight was aware that she was basically founding a religion. Even the Equi had started to come to her with… reverent questions about the Tree. It was… interesting. She had decided it was a good thing, in the end.

Now if only she could find Discord…

~~~

“What are we doing out here?” Sunset asked.

“Investigating.” Discord said as he threw another piece of fruit down the hill towards the village they had appeared next to.

“The Mites?”

“Sure.”

“Discord, they could be anywhere on the planet by now. I can’t scan the whole globe and neither can you.”

Discord shrugged. “So? How does that change anything?”

“Uh… It's kinda pointless to keep looking?”

“Nah!” Discord said. “Exploration! Let’s see the sights, roam the world, fill our eyes with this new home of ours!”

“That has nothing to do with why we came out here in the first place.”

“So?” Discord said. “Why not take the opportunity to have some fun while we search? Take a chill pill, pop the corn, and put on the 3D glasses to life!”

Sunset smirked. “You’ve been desperate to explore haven’t you?”

“YEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS.” Discord droned.

“Well alright then, let’s see the sights.” She looked down at the village. “They seem happy with that fruit.”

Discord snapped his fingers, providing a giant mound of pineapples. “Now they’ll grow sick of pineapples.”

Sunset shook her head. “Somehow, I doubt they will…”

~~~

The Mite’s ears twitched.

It was going to be a long time before it got to the other Key at this rate if it kept listening to this darned thing known as music…

But it sounded so good…

The Mite put it’s mission on hold for a while, deciding it was time to sample all the music on file as fast as it could download it.

The Mite was going to be here for a while.

‘Here’ happened to be on a jukebox with Interent access.

The Mite didn’t even have time to mourn its self-restraint subroutines.

~~~

Rarity yawned, stretched, and hopped out of bed. “Dear me, I hope nothing important happened while I was asleep.”

It turns out Murphy’s Law can act retroactively.

Who knew.

XV - Late Night Toast

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XVI - Building Upwards

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XVII - The Seers of Garilend

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XVIII - The Director

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XIX - Fifteen; Over Five Hundred

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XX - T-Minus

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XXI - Darkness Sheer

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XXII - Return to the Abyss

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XXIII - Lunar Lives

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XXIV - Probing Asanta

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XXV - Central

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XXVI - Corot

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XXVII - The Lunar Gambit

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Epilogue

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Credits

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XI - The Other Side

Waise and Arlowe rushed into the grand meeting hall – a large spacious room with a single large table and walls covered in screens. World maps, pictures, and alien words flew across the displays constantly, covering nearly every wall in the enclosure save where a small balcony protruded, providing a location where one could look down on the entire hall.

“Waise present!” Waise announced.

A yellow stood up, clearing his throat. “Now that the failure is here, I call that the First Seers of Garilend’s Extraterrestrial Report begins! As Overseer, I use the power invested in me by the Director to declare that nobody leaves this room until the proceedings are complete!” He sighed. “In case anyone’s been asleep for the last day, extraterrestrials crash-landed in the Arlican Ocean with some kind of crystal cushion, or as the public is calling it, the Ocean Crater. An apt name I suppose.”

He took a breath before continuing. “Nominally, we would have moved in and secured a presence through code 7-GX. Unfortunately the individual known as Lem Enel has managed to ruin this all with that headset of his that all attempts to jam have ultimately failed.”

A green harrumphed. “He came prepared.”

“Yes, he did.” The Overseer agreed. “While I would love to dwell on how he got a hold of a transmitter that powerful, the truth is it doesn’t matter. The damage is done. The public has seen their culture, and enough of them would get angry if we ‘trampled’ the visitors to cause serious unrest. So we have a few options…” He turned to a screen, pointing at a list that appeared.

“One, attempt to rile up public opinion to a negative enough state to declare war. Unlikely, seeing we were just given a magic show from an adorable blue horse.”

“The Internet has latched onto that horse like a wedding present.” A gray technician observed.

“Indeed.” The Overseer said. He pointed at the next item on the list. “Two, seclude them in their little crater for ‘safety reasons.’ Possible, but given how the public wants to meet them so badly, it likely would be a temporary measure at best.”

“And finally three, which I personally like best, help them fix their ship. This is merely a guise where we take all their technology in the process of getting them off our planet.” He smiled. “If they really are a major threat we can rig it to blow, and blame it on a technical error.”

“Um…” A young white spoke up – Waise realized she knew him, a somewhat idealistic agent named Forsoo. “Why don’t we just do what the public wants and try to be friendly?”

Waise let out a sharp laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She sneered at him. “Did you forget that we exist solely because the public never knows what’s best for it?”

A heavily distorted voice rang out from above them. “Waise. Reconsider your position.” Everyone looked up to see a figure clothed head to toe in brown leather – boots, gloves, bandana, vest, and even a folded brown hat resting atop a large pair of sunglasses. The gender and color of this individual was completely ambiguous, the effect being that everyone treated the individual with respect and authority.

“D-Director!” The overseer stammered.

Waise stared in shock. That was the Director? Waise had never seen them at all in her many years on the job! The Director never did anything as far as she knew – it was a mysterious part of the organization to say the least. She was startled. …But she wouldn’t let that falter her.

“Director!” She said, voice unwavering. “Why reconsider? That is our job is it not?”

The room gasped – she had the gall to say something like that? The Director raised a hand to quiet the shouting. “The public will sometimes know what’s best for it. Their ideas and thoughts are heavily misinformed and idealistic, but simple math will tell you that it will hit the mark occasionally. It just usually doesn’t.” The Director leaned in. “Our job is to know when to control and when not to.”

Waise blinked, staying silent. That hadn’t gone well.

“Director.” The Overseer called. “Why have you graced us with your presence?”

“You need it. Forsoo is the only one thinking clearly here. The answer is not to get rid of them or forget them. We need to forge a relationship with them – get them to trust us.” The Director paused for a moment. “And then they will conform to us by choice.”

“Yes of course terribly sorry Director-“

The Director sighed. “You overestimate them. You fear them. They cannot destroy us, nor do they want to.”

“But they can change us.” Waise said.

“Change is not always a bad thing.” The Director responded. “All that matters is that we keep control. So you must know all you can. Hence this briefing. Pay attention, there may or may not be a test later.“ The Director chuckled. “You have the floor again Overseer.”

“Er... Yes. Yes of course.” The Overseer regained his composure. “Let us move on to what we know about them. Their civilization appears to operate on a chain of command, a monarchy of sorts. The one called Celestia is at the head, though footage suggests that Luna may have an equal rank. A large portion of the remaining individuals seem to have some authority over the others, which suggests that the leaders and their families, friends, and close advisors are all we see right now. Their general population is still sealed in those stasis pods, only to be let out if it is believed to be safe. They don’t trust us for obvious reasons.”

“Blow them out of the sky, they said, it’ll be easy, they said!” Someone shouted.

“We still do not know how they survived the attack.” The Overseer said. “Which leads us to our next segment, their tech level. It actually isn’t that far ahead of our own – with enough resources we could probably build their ship. However, there are a few key systems that we don’t understand. The way they ‘jumped’ into the system with their FTL is beyond us, as are the stasis pods, shields, and power management. The engineers can’t make sense of what’s going on – and everything we see that we understand implies that the ship should have been completely disintegrated. But it wasn’t.”

“Did the public ever find out where the Weapon is located?” A red asked.

“No. That secret is still safe. The public doesn’t know it was an attack for sure yet, and if they do find out, we have the President of Moll ready to take the fall.”

“Good.”

The Overseer continued on. “We also cannot grasp their biology – almost all the races visible seem to violate our laws of physics. The winged ones shouldn’t be able to fly. They should not be able to belch fire. And the telekinesis violates so many scientific principles it’s making our scientists scream their heads off. Not to mention that pink one that appears to just take the laws of physics as a suggestion.”

He took a big breath. “So far we have observed the following distinct races: Horses, the most common and varied; cat-birds, which act like soldiers; flying lizards, the largest; shifting bugs, the ones that change their appearance; bulls, the ones closest to us in posture; rock bats, a reclusive type; bull-horses, a possible hybrid race; and the thing we’re calling the chimera and has the name Discord. The fact that he has features of all or most of the races suggests that he may be of religious significance.

“What about the Tree?” Forsoo asked. “The Tree of Harmony we saw?”

“Definitely a religious icon.” The Overseer said. “Though the fact that it seems to be made of the same stuff as the Ocean Crater suggests it’s something more. Some claim it’s advanced technology, others just think it’s another example of bizarre biology. Whatever it is, they obviously worship, or at least revere it. We’re pretty sure it’s sapient.”

An orange spoke up. “So basically they brought their god with them and it’s uber-powerful?”

“…Yes.”

“That’s reassuring. I assume we have no real clue about its capabilities?”

“You assume correctly. The same goes for just about any of the Equi races. Some seem mundane just to reveal super strength later. We, for the first time in centuries, have a lack of information.” He put his hands to his forehead. “And those under our purview can no longer hold back. Diplomatic teams are already being organized worldwide. Some will be our personnel. Others, not. We will be able to commandeer most of the spots on the initial trip, but chancellor Emin Montreal has been demanding a seat and the public is on his side. The people we are sending are present in this room. The names are-“

The Director interrupted. “Send Forsoo, Arlowe, and Waise.”

The Observer dropped his remote. “…But Waise is due a demotion-“

“They know her.” The Director said. “And she is resourceful. I’m sure this isn’t a mistake.”

“…Alright then.” The Overseer said, gulping. “You three will be going. Keep a positive image for the public. Speaking of, it is time to consider their view of the situation…”

He turned to another screen with a pie chart. “61.7 percent believe the aliens come in peace, and that we should accept it. An alarming number of those want to treat them just like any other gari. 36.1 percent believe they are here to conquer and/or enslave us and that we should fight back. 7.9 percent think they are here to conquer but we should try to reason with them. 5.1 percent want to just destroy them, giving them no chance to attack us. 0.1 percent just don’t care.” He let out a deep breath. “it is a polarizing issue. But 69.6 percent of the population wants peace, so at least act like that’s what you’re doing.” He blinked. “I suppose that is what we’re doing now. But regardless, observe everything you can while there. Learn everything. Hopefully we will have figured out how to speak Equi by the time you get there.”

“I am making progress.” Arlowe said meekly. “Speak Equi yes.”

“Good. Try not to create a horrible misunderstanding. Those of you who have jobs are dismissed. The rest of you stay here for discussion.”

Waise stood up and left the room without saying a word. Just before she passed out of sight of the hall, she glanced back up at the balcony. The Director was gone.

She didn’t know what to think of this.

But she knew the Director was wrong. Those aliens were way too dangerous.

~~~

“Breaking news! We have finally received word on who is getting on the coveted ambassadorial flight to the Ocean Crater to meet with the Equi alongside Lem! To no one’s surprise, Emin Montreal was selected due to his political record and relation to Lem. But there are five other seats we now know of! From Krastia we have Chief Waise Leffin, and linguist Arlowe Loela. From the Status Intervention we have Forsoo Osgode, and from Dialo we have Minister Stratm.”

“And in a surprising turn of events a reporter was allowed on the flight, one of our own GLN reporters nonetheless! Regular viewers will be familiar with our young driven Orgis Smarilli! We here at GLN are honored to have been allowed this once-in-an-eon opportunity! Stay tuned for live updates!”

Lem pointed at the screen. “They are coming.” He said.

Twilight wrinkled her forehead, trying to understand what he said. “Good? Bad?” She managed to ask with a heavy accent.

Lem just shrugged. He didn’t know.