The New World: Peter's Story (seeking rewrite)
The New World: Peter's Story
Load Full StoryChapter One: The Journey Begins.
It had been thousands of years since the apocalypse had taken place. You don't know if the planet is habitable yet, or if there is even life left on it. You also don't care right now, the cryo-serum used to keep cells from splitting open while you were frozen is heavily sedating.
You suddenly remember that you, along with thousands of other human beings were shuttled up into space to large space station, to save humanity. You were thawed, along with five others to patrol what is left of North America, if that is even it's name anymore.
After the cryo-serum thawed off completely, you quickly get to your senses and go to the equipment room to get your suit. You are shocked to see not a standard issue haz-mat suit, but the experimental power armor suit that you designed yourself. It had everything you needed from water and radiation shielding, to...a lazer? You couldn't understand why until you thought about it. It came to you that you will need defense from possible hostile life forms on the planet. It hurt you to even think about using it on any living thing.
You enter the drop pod to descend into the planet’s atmosphere. The pod was a small 15' X 15' space with few necessities, a rain collector, tools, and a thorium powered ATV. You strap yourself in for the drop and feel the airlock close. The clamps release, and the decoupling boosters fire up, sending the pod into a direct path to the planet below. A nervous feeling tingles in the pit of your stomach, making you feel like you bit off more than you can chew.
Chapter Two: The Landing.
Everything was dark, you were dazed and confused. You knew you had something to do, but the darkness was killing your thoughts. You couldn’t understand, you were terrified, you couldn't breathe, you told yourself to wake up.
The rest of your crew wasn’t near the pod, you supposed they had already decided to explore by themselves. You think that you had passed out after the air leaked out at about 10,000 feet in the air. Your attention was brought to a dim light coming through a small opening in your pod.
Climbing out of the opening, you see a rod shaped object lodged into a tree where the pod landed. It appeared to be the communications antenna. You were cut off from the station until you could repair it. That didn't matter, you needed to get to work.
You found small amounts of radiation in the forest you were in. Eventually, after exploring it thoroughly, you found a way out and entered where the forest ends and grass begins. In front of you, are rolling hills with short and soft green grass, the radiation was incredibly low here. Glancing ahead you think you must be hallucinating.
Looks like a village, you tell yourself. You decide to get a closer look.
Chapter Three: First Encounters.
Before long you could see more signs of intelligent life. Gardens, shops, carts, and stands, surrounded you. At first, you were tempted to take off your helmet and devour the delicious looking pastries at the vast number of carts in the streets, but you knew better than that.
You hear shutters slam shut at a home behind you and the shattering of wood, and turning around, you see a cart tipped from what seemed like moments ago and curiously walk over to it. You stop right before you reach over to it as you here a whimper from just underneath it. You say it's alright and you just want to help.
You grab a hold of the near thousand pound cart and lift, with the help of your mechanical suit you just manage to flip it over. After flipping it you stand dumbfounded at the sight of a blue pony with what seems to be feathered wings staring at you with a mix of hatred and bewilderment. The pony can apparently talk, in english of all languages.
"MONSTER!" she screams, attempting to run. She then stumbles and falls on an obviously broken hind leg.
You kneel down be the winged pony, and take off the exoskeletal arms and grab bandages from your utility bag. Then, using the laser from your suit, you cut a piece of the cart's handle in half so you can make a splint out of it.
"I need you to calm down so I can help you,” you tell her,
”Please hold out your leg so I can put a splint on it, I don't want to see any creature suffer,” you say to the pony.
She then holds out her hind leg while you apply an anesthetic, and start to gently put on the splint. You sense that she is still scared of you in some way.
"I need you to trust me,” you tell her.
You pick her up carefully asking where the hospital is. She points her hoof to a large white building in the middle of the village.
Chapter four: The Explanation.
You step through the doorway to see nobody there. Of course, you can't help but feel sorry for the poor creatures afraid of everything new that steps through the barrier of shrubbery. You see a wheelchair next to you and decide to put the injured pony down onto it.
You don't know what you should say to the poor creatures obviously hiding behind the counter, so you decide to explain yourself.
"Sorry if I scared you,” you say in sympathy, "My name is peter, and I come from a space station orbiting the planet,” you went on.
"My people were sent out there as a last resort because our greatest nations went to war thousands of years ago. I was one of 5000 survivors sent to space to be put in sanctuary until the earth was safe again,” you explained.
At this point the ponies went to ease and began poking their heads up above the counter.
Now you decide to take off your helmet, ”I suppose you don't know what I am, I am a human, creatures like me ruled the world thousands of years ago, before and during the war that destroyed us."
"I come in peace, I hope you understand that."
One of them spoke up from behind the counter, “W-Why did you attack us earlier?"
"I didn’t,” you reply, “I have been asleep in my pod until an hour ago."
You then remember your team. "Oh no. This is bad, I need to go,” you said. You sprinted out go the hospital back the way you came.
Chapter Five: The Battle.
Once you return to the drop pod, you flip the ATV hoping it is still working. You sigh in relief as it the electricity flows through it, bringing it to life.
"Thank god,” you say.
You then ride ahead at top speed back toward the village of ponies, "I hope I'm not too late."
"Computer, send out a distress signal, and enable my GPS."
On the screen within your helmet, you see four blips heading in your direction, and one heading away. It is #4, the only one you didn't see when you were in the lounge of the space station, oddly enough, he didn’t talk to anybody at all in the lounge either.
"Computer, show direct route to #4,” you say as you head towards the blinking ping on your screen.
You head into an apple orchard. Your stomach morns of the fruit, but there are more important things to attend to. The signal cuts off near a large barn, you think #4 is most likely inside. The barn doors were slightly open, and you hear voices inside. You enter slowly and quietly.
"Please don't hurt me,” says a female voice, ”I didn't do anything to you."
Glancing toward the voice, you see a plasma blade glow to life. Your brain races to think of what to do, all you focused on was that blade. The blue curved light raised, prepared to slice through anything in its path.
You know the ferocity of its power, it can slice the hardest of objects with no effort. Seeing no other options, you bolt behind #4, and grab his armored arms, flipping him over your head. He landed with a loud smack on the hard stone floor. A dark pool grew from the helmet of #4.
"Computer, shut down #4,” you command.
Chapter Six: The Aftermath.
After executing #4, you cannot recall what you did afterwards. All you you feel is pain, trapped by heavy armor. You remove it piece by piece and lie on your back, facing up at the wooden ceiling.
You cry for help. You feel the straw underneath you wet and warm, and blistering pain across your back. The last thing you is an orange pony's figure, as the ceiling grows blurry and fades black.
You open your eyes, and look up to a ceiling, in what looks like a real house. You lay on your back on a soft bed cozy cotton sheets. You feel a soothing warmth where only pain once dwelled before.
"You're awake." A soft feminine voice told you. You looked over to her, she looked awful familiar to the orange figure you saw just before you blacked out.
"I didn't get to say thank you, my name is Applejack,” she said with an accented voice.
“Peter," you reply, holding out your hand. She takes it in her hoof to shake.
"What happened?" you ask.
"You had a deep cut across your back, that shell you had on protected you,” she told you.
"Thank you for saving me,” you told her.
"It's the least I could do,” she replied.
"Where is my power armor?" you ask.
“You mean that heavy shell, my family is cleaning it,” she told you.
"Oh no,” you say, ”Run and tell them to stop!”
"Why?" she asked, confusion in her voice.
"There is a part of the suit that if handled improperly will release deadly radioactive energy that contaminates everything it touches,” you tell her gravely, "Run!"
Later a doctor comes and tells you that the potion that had been give to you had done its work and you were fully healed in a matter of hours. You felt rejuvenated and full of energy, and decided to visit Applejack at her orchard.
You saw that your ATV had not been moved from where it last stood. You did notice that every storage compartment had been opened, and that your tablet was missing.
“Wow, they are curious,” you mutter under your breath.
Putting your key into the ignition, you fire up the ATV’s engine as you drive back up the hill to Applejack’s orchard. You park near the barn and walk up to the door. You then knock on the door and Applejack answers it promptly and seems glad to see you.
“Welcome! Please, come in,” she tells you.
You immediately see your armor in pieces on the table. The slice in it was only about an inch away from the thorium reactor, you were in relief that it did not get hit. You walk over to the armor and twist the handlebar of the reactor. Pulling it, you are satisfied to hear the hiss of negative pressure relieved in the reactor slot.
"It is safe now, but I might actually take this back to my pod to be repaired,” you say.
"Also I need my device to finish my work,” you say
"What device?" asks Applejack.
"The device that was taken from my ATV outside,” you tell her.
She clears her throat, “Applebloom? Bring Peter his uh thing!"
A shy small yellow pony brings you your tablet and hand it to you from her mouth. You examine it, and thankfully, it is not damaged in any condition.
"Thank you for keeping my things safe, young one,” you say to her.
She seems afraid of you. You couldn't understand why, until you realized that you have canine teeth, and you were smiling.
”Oh don't worry I won't eat anyone,” You hastily say to her.
"I should leave and finish my work so that the rest of my species can live,” you say to them.
You leave with your power armor and hop onto your ATV to drive once again back to the forest to your pod.
You soon reached your pod and found the communications antenna stuck into the trunk of a tree where you last saw it. Barely managing to pull it out of the tree, you begin working on the landing formula. The antenna surprisingly is not damaged and is still fully functional. You get to work and begin to repair.
Hours of work later you find the perfect formula, and send it up to the station. You feel satisfied with your work and head outside for some fresh air.
Chapter Seven: The Debate.
You hear light commotion going on from outside the pod, and quickly switch out the bad parts from your power armor for defense and head outside to see what was going on. You see a bright spot on the twilight sky and decide to check it out.
Heading out, you walk into the middle of a large clearing and stop to see the spot in the sky. Soon the spot grows into a dozen or so medium sized winged ponies with spears and two very large ones that you don't know what to call.
The leading one yells, "Charge!" And swoops down toward you followed by the rest of the pegasi.
They pull up as they throw their metallic spears. Most missed, and the one that would hit would not inflict any damage, but you caught it anyway.
You caught it a mere inch away from your forehead, and set it down to the floor. You thought it was best to not fight back but wait until they got the message and found you were friendly.
The darker one which stayed behind yelled out, "Enough!"
You then see radiation counts soar through the roof when you aimed it at her. A ball of light gathers at the dark one’s horn, and you arm your plasma shield and brace for impact as the pegasi scatter. You were pushed backward as this light bombarded your shield. The shield slowly diminished to nothing as the bombardment stops abruptly.
Seeing that you cannot convince the pegasi, you put your hands up in defeat. You know that the two large ponies wield great power and can obliterate anything if they chose. Seeing this, you know not to take any chances. You stood your ground and asked mercy of them calmly.
The white one spoke, ”Like you granted our citizens mercy? You monster.” There was rage burning in her eyes.
"That wasn't me!" You tell her, "I captured and executed the one you speak of."
"My student describes you exactly,” she replies, "You won't fool me."
"This is only armor,” you tell her, "Here, I'll show you."
You take off your helmet and begin stripping the armor off your body. You were still nervous that she might obliterate you in a ball of light like the darker one did, but she looked surprised.
J-Just ask Applejack,” you say, ”I saved her life, from the one you describe.”
She still looked dead serious, ”We still want you to leave,” she said.
"Wait!" you yell, ”You can’t! We will die if we go back, I beg you please let us stay. We will even keep to ourselves in the uninhabitable parts of this land if that is what it takes, but we cannot go back to the void of space!”
The dark one and the white one exchanged glances. The dark one looks unhappy and shakes her head. They both look at you.
"We'll think about it,” said White.
"Thank you,” you tell her, with a sigh of relief.
You turned back and head to your pod on foot to finish your work. The communications antenna had already been set up so you and your team had full communication to the station orbiting the planet.
The sun had already set and the moon had risen about halfway. It was a beautiful silver moon that glimmered and winked to him in the sky. Applejack had brought her friend, Twilight Sparkle. to see you at your pod. She seemed very interested in your biology and physiology.
"Would you like to see something amazing? Look up,” you tell her.
She looked up and in the sky was dotted with small lights as the individual parts of the station burned in the stratosphere, fired their rockets and launched parachutes.
“Wow," said the unicorn, ”What is that?"
"That, is the return of my people,” you tell her.
The primary engine on the largest sector stutters abruptly and stops working correctly. The station then begins to plummet into the planet below. You break into a sprint to the crash site.
Chapter Eight: The Crash.
You run. You run as fast as you ever had. You forget why you are running, but you ran anyway. Sliding to a halt, you fall to your knees in front of a blazing ruin. You remember why you ran.
Regaining your senses you run back to your pod past Applejack and Twilight Sparkle and quickly put on your armor and hop onto your ATV. You drive at full speed to the blaze. Your team had also seen the crash and ran to it, they too have their power armor on. We arrived at different locations around the wreckage
"John, Andrew, you clear wreckage into the passenger room in the center!" you order. "Derek, Thomas, and I will carry wounded out of the wreckage!"
Your heart is racing, the future of humanity is in your hands. You think of other ways to support the blaze. You turn to Applejack and Twilight, they had an expression of astonishment and bewilderment.
"Applejack, Twilight, go get help!"
They nod in and start to run back toward the village to get more helping hands, or hooves in this case.
You run down into the crater that the station left. The fire rages intensely, you can feel the heat through the fire resistant armor. Soon you come across a person with a badly cut up leg. You hoist him up and carry him out of the fire into open air.
You do this with hundreds of other people, never resting for a mere second second. The fire engulfs the entire station. You feel as if this was a battle you had lost.
Hours later, the fire had died down and all humans who were alive had been salvaged from the station. Your crew had worked hard to salvage every last human from the wreckage. Applejack and Twilight brought back about three dozen ponies that carried water and supplies to help with the people and the fire.
In a team effort, the humans had won.
"On this day, two hundred people died in this crash." you begin.
"This was a tragic day for mankind, but a new beginning of humanity. Today will go down in history as the day that humanity was given a second chance to live. Without war, without poverty, and without communism."
“Now that this event has passed, we must start our new beginning. All physically fit men gather into groups of 200, and wait for me to assign you a job. All physically fit women gather into groups of 100 and wait for an assignment. Let us bring back humanity to Earth!”
A loud cheer nearly deafened you and groups of people began forming before your eyes. You sensed a new beginning for mankind.
We may be only about 5,000 men, but we have the strength of 50,000.
Chapter Nine: The Rebuild.
It had been nearly twenty four hours since the speech you gave, and all people were working hard. You couldn't understand why people were still listening to your commands, but it was a good thing they had a leader at all.
Strong three story buildings had been erected overnight, gardens had been plowed, wells had been dug, and trading centers had been established. People were free to scavenge through the wreckage, but if they found useful equipment they were required to turn it in to building teams or medical centers.
You had established an agreement with the Apple family, in exchange for your farming technology and most experienced workers, you would receive food grown from the farm. You also made a deal with the mayor, in exchange for materials, the town would receive specially designed computers and machines. You had now grown a relationship with the citizens of the village and was not considered a threat.
Luckily the station's thorium reactor had survived the landing and the fire, so you put it to some good use, powering the entire camp. Eventually it will run out of fuel, which, would render the entire camp vulnerable to chaos. The unicorns may be able to help you keep the reactor running, but theat will be thousands of years to come.
Chapter Ten: The Agreement.
You wake up the next day with the sound of flapping wings. You exit your pod and almost fell backwards in awe as the black and white creatures you had talked to the night before, landed in the camp. They looked around at the terrible state of some of the injured people, as well as the packed medical tents. You came up to them.
"Have you come up with a decision?" you ask.
They turn around to look at you.
"Your student told me your names. You must be Celestia, and Luna."
“Yes," She said. “We are gravely sorry. Your people have been mistreated and disrespected but all you were trying to do is reclaim the land that was once yours, so you can bring your people back to the ground again."
They look over to the graves dug at the edge of the camp.
You look up to them with a sheepish grin on your face. Humanity was officially granted a second chance.
"Thank you,” you say.
You burst into tears of joy and wrap your arms around Celestia’s strong neck.
You ran quickly into the other pods where, John, Andrew, Thomas, and Derek were. You tell them the news, and the pods erupt in roars of victory. Humanity is back.
Chapter Eleven: The Unity.
It had been a few months since humans were accepted into Equestria. You had been able to replicate the magic that the unicorns used with several high frequency radio emitters.
The medical team managed to put the healing potions into aerosol cans, and lotions. Some people who drank the stream water, had developed similar powers to the unicorn, and began learning spells.
You had been elected president of the New World, and to top it all off, you had been selected to represent mankind in the equestrian council. Everything had turned out fine.
You were in Canterlot with Celestia in the throne room, and you were going through some papers.
”I’m glad we could put that disaster behind us,” said Celestia.
"Me too,” you reply.
"I hope you'll adjust to your new home,” she tells you.
You focus onto a paper ball on the floor, which then shapes into a dove and flies around the room before diving into the trash.
"I think I'll be fine,” you say.
The end, for now.
