My Starbound Ponies

Twilight woke to the beeping of the ship's console. She unbuckled herself from her seat and tried to stand up. Her legs were a bit wobbly upon standing, but she managed to steady herself. Spike heard the shuffling behind him and dropped what he was doing to rush to his friend. Twilight barely withstood the dragon tackling her and almost fell to the floor. The two then shared a brief embrace. Tears and small fits of laughter came from the two in their short time in each other's arms. Once the two calmed down they tried to recollect themselves.

"Are you okay Twilight? Nothing hurts?" Spike asked.

"Besides a minor headache, I'm fine," Twilight answered. She looked over her draconic friend. He was mostly fine. There were some scuff marks here and there, but it wasn't until she looked at his right arm that she found it wrapped in partially bloodied gauze. "Are you okay?!" she asked as she gestured towards his injured arm. Spike looked at his arm and then shrugged.

"It doesn't hurt anymore. That vine we fought really got me. The cut wasn't as deep as I thought though, but I still didn't want it to get infected. It's a good thing that this ship had some medkits." Spike answered. Twilight sighed in relief.

"That's good. Now, let us see where we ended up." Twilight said as she went to sit in the console seat. Spike hurried behind her.

"About that..." he began to say, but it was too late. Twilight had begun looking over what Spike had been doing prior to her awakening. She looked over the console once and then twice and finally a third time to make sure that what she was seeing was real. Red warning signs flashed everywhere. Their communications were down, their engines and thrusters were only working at twenty-five percent, the right side of the ships hull was severely damaged, the A.I. system was having trouble rebooting, and the warp drive was somehow damaged beyond simple repair. Not to mention that they were in a star system she hadn't been to before. Which meant that she had no idea where to go. She tried to search the vastness of space for any signs of constellations that looked familiar to her, but, with the limited reach of the ship's console, her search proved unsuccessful. She put her head in her hands and groaned. Spike sat in the co-pilot seat and looked into the black void of space.

"How much food do we have?" Twilight asked. Spike sighed and leaned back into his seat.

"We have about a week of food at best if we manage to ration it perfectly between us," Spike answered. Another groan could be heard from the lavender unicorn. Spike sighed as the two sat in silence for a few minutes, think about their next move. Though Twilight didn't know what to do. On the day of her graduation, her home planet was attacked by some vines that could absorb magic and now she was somewhere in the nearly infinite void of space with a damaged ship and a week of food. Twilight tried to find some hope in this situation. "Is there anything on this ship that still works perfectly?" she asked.

"Well, there's the life support, obviously," Spike answered," as well as the left side blasters. The planetary scanner is still functional and the surface teleporter should still be working." Hearing this made Twilight instantly sit up. With a look of determination, she started to work on the console. She minimized the warning signs and zoomed in on their position to find the closest planet. It was then that she found one. It was about the same size as their home planet and if the scanner was right, there was edible vegetation there and the air was breathable. It would take about a day or so, with the current condition of their thrusters, to reach it and maybe a couple of hours after that to maintain an orbit around it. If anything, they could set up a base there until they could find a solution to how they were going to fix their damaged ship.

"Spike, I'm setting a course. Keep an eye on the engines and thrusters for me." Twilight ordered. Spike nodded his head as the ship began to roar to life. Unfortunately, to the dismay of Spike, they found out that the radio had also been on the technology casualty list. With nothing but the sputtering of the engines and the low hum of the lights to entertain them in the silence, the two continued on their way to the planet Twilight selected.

The two had finally made it towards their destination and had obtained an orbit. For Twilight, it wasn't as circular as she would have liked, but it would have to do. The two made sure that their Matter Manipulators' ship teleport function was synched to their ship before they activated the teleporter. With a flash of purple colored light, the two were beamed down to the planet's surface.

The two blinked to get their eyes to focus. They were currently standing on the out edge of a lake with a few trees dotted here and there with the surrounding plain as well as some plants. On the horizon, more trees were scattered around. A few wildlife stood and looked at two new arrivals. After a stretching for a short while, Spike was the first to speak. "Okay, Cap'n. What should we do now?" he said. The unicorn question was looking through her Manipulator Spellbook. Her horn began to glow in a pale blue light. A beam was fired from her horn and a small pile of rubble appeared on the ground. "Ah... you found the building spell," said Spike. Twilight's smile began to spread across her face.

"I think I'll start building our base. You wanna go look for some edible plants?" said Twilight. Spike shrugged as he readied his sword.

"Don't think I have much of a choice, Twi. I also don't think I want to eat another meal of canned food," Spike said, "I swear they put too much salt in those things." With that, the two parted ways. Spike continued to walk throughout the vast plains that surrounded him.

The quest to get food proved to be somewhat successful. Spike had managed to find some rice and sugar cane. Both of which he didn't expect to find on an alien planet. Though he also didn't expect to wind up in some unknown section of the galaxy with a busted ship on said alien planet. Spike finally came back to Twilight and his base and was awestruck at what he saw. In the time that he was gone, which he estimated was about an hour, Twilight had already built a decently sized cabin made out of wood and just outside the cabin was a campfire that was primed for lighting. Next to the right side of the door was what looked to be a wooden workbench. Spike then stood in the door frame of the cabin and looked inside.

Twilight sat in a wooden chair, studying her Matter Manipulator Spellbook. In the back of the cabin was a furnace with a pile of coals beside it. A couple of oil lanterns helped brighten up the cabin as they hung from the ceiling. It wasn't much in here, but it was impressive. With a couple of knocks on the door frame, Spike gained Twilight's attention. She closed her book and official greeted Spike to their 'home away from home'. Spike chuckled a bit. "You know you could have just made a basic perimeter, a campfire, and called it a day right?" Spike asked. He used his manipulator to materialize the food he had collected and a can to cook it in. The sun was going down and it was time to cook.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. But once I got the hang of my manipulator I just couldn't stop. Sure I had to go mining for some resources, but it was worth it." Twilight said with glee. Spike looked at her with curiosity.

"Did you kill any creepers while you were mining? Got some gunpowder with you?" he joked. He then walked outside towards the campfire with Twilight close behind him.

"Oh ha ha. No, I didn't. But I did manage to find some coal deposits as well as some copper veins. It's amazing how strong these things are." Twilight said, looking down at her spellbook. Spike poured some bottled water in a can of his harvested rice.

"I'm surprised too. I'm surprised these things haven't been used in a murder case." Spike said as he lit the campfire with his green flames.

"You now I've thought about that too. I did some research about it and even did a report on it," Twilight said. Spike remembered that report, all two hundred and fifty pages of it. He placed the can of rice into the fire and prepared himself for one of the many ramblings of Twilight Sparkle. Halfway through the rambling, Spike had to excuse himself to go to the ship for a minute. He returned to the base with a can of tomato soup, two bowls, and some plastic spoons. "Wait a minute. I thought you said you couldn't handle another meal of canned foods!" said Twilight. To which Spike shrugged and proceeded to up the can.

"This rice is going to be pretty bland without any salt or sugar. And seeing as to how my manipulator hasn't finished converting the sugar cane into something usable, this was the second option." Spike admitted before placing the can in the fire alongside the rice. "With any luck, the soup shouldn't be too salty." Twilight soon continued her rambling as Spike kept checking on their food. Within ten minutes, everything was done and the two had their dinner.

The fire's crackling was the only thing that kept the complete silence at bay. The two had time to really think about what had happened. As a result, the two had been quite the whole evening except for when Twilight had asked for seconds. Maybe it had to do with the fact that both of them were scared to ask what they were both thinkings that caused their voices to be lost to them.

Neither of them wanted to bring into light what had happened or the possibility of what could be. It wasn't until Spike found that the can of rice and tomato soup had both ran dry did he finally find his voice. "So... what do you think happened to our home world?" Spike asked. He could see Twilight flinch a bit at the question. She put her bowl on the ground and laid on her back.

"I... don't know," she answered, "I've been thinking about it for a while now and I've come up with a couple of possibilities. One of them being that the vines that attacked us were some kind of infestation and the world leaders have come up with a solution to combat them. Some other possibilities come to mind, but they seem a little too complicated. And then we have the worst case scenario." Spike listened closely.

"And that is?" he asked. Twilight took a moment to collect herself.

"Judging by the size of some of those vines and the sheer number of them, I'd have to say that they could be part of a larger organism. And if my theory is correct, though I'm starting to question it myself, then that organism is so large that its capable of... destroying an entire planet." Twilight said finally. The silence once again was held at bay with the crackling of the soon to be dead fire. The two sat for what seemed like hours looking up at the night sky.

Once the fire had died, Spike had stood up and began to walk towards the cabin. "Well, we won't know what happened for sure if we don't get our ship fixed. So let's not get too gloomy eh?" he said. He turned to face Twilight with a smile on his face. Twilight looked at Spike for a moment before returning his smile and nodding in agreement. "You got our sleeping bags off the ship right?" Twilight nodded again as she followed the dragon into the cabin and made sure to finally craft and install a door for their cabin. The two slept comfortably that night with the mindset of fixing their ship to perfection.