Indistinguishable from magicby SzalhiChaptersIt's a dangerous Universe.This world is weird.Guess I'm Stuck here.Leaving BoundsPersonal Codex: The Xephoes V1It's a dangerous Universe.Author's Note Welcome to the first story I've posted in ages. I haven't written in a while so I may be a bit off. This is self-edited, but I don't consider myself any good. Some information is purposely omitted. I'm not sure if things happen fast or not. One issue I had when editing was tense. The story is mostly written in First person with Past tense. Thoughts are in italics, which is the usual for me. Another issue I tend to have is lack of expressions in dialogue tags. Oh well, If you like this, see you in a minimum of Two weeks. It's a dangerous Universe. The Damn, Xephoes. I was just trying to do my job. To clarify what I just meant, the Xephoes are a bipedal 6 limbed race. They are a race of pride and honour. Or at least, they mostly used to be. According to Xephoes history, there was a civil war and some of the Xephoes split off. Loyal Xephoes are hard to come by, the ones that are the most common are basically pirates. When referring to Xephoes, you are generally referring to the pirates entirely. I didn’t expect there to be any Xephoes in the area, so I came somewhat unprepared. My Shield was broken from a previous encounter with some other pirates. I only had my Overshield, A shield that is very powerful but has a short life before overheating. It was extremely hard to reconfigure this specific type of brand to use less power and act as the average shield. “Human, drop your supplies now and you will live,” The Leader commanded. “Not a fucking chance. You guys can fuck off. You fucking raiders,” I called out behind cover. Looking over to occasionally fire off a few shots. “Are You not but a raider yourself?” The leader contradicted. I was kind of a hypocrite, but at least I had somewhat of a choice. “You Xephoes are all the same, at least I had a choice.” I checked my ammo. Three rounds left, better get a fresh mag just incase. The Rifle I was using was ballistic. Ballistic and energy weapons are both used, both being effective in their own ways. “Why are you surprised? It’s what we do!” one of the lackeys shouted. “I’m not,” I remarked. “I’m just saying you could be doing something different.” “You could be doing something different.” “I’m just one human.” Let me take some time to explain what I do. I’m a scavenger, a raider as you can see. A Pirate? I do not associate myself as one. I do not really try to steal from people directly. If it’s clearly owned, it’s not worth going over. As a scavenger, I can find some really cool stuff. The Black market is a pretty interesting place too. Half the stuff I find, I can sell off to the black market. I might even buy something from the black market. It’s certainly an interesting job. I’m not saying it’s a better job, but it’s still kind of worthwhile. ”Enough with the talk, just blow him up already!” The leader shouted. I looked over to see one of them pulling out an rpg. Oh shit, I dived out of cover right before the blast hit me, I landed on the ground right in the open space. Oh fuck, oh fuck! I thought before I quickly activated my Overshield, gunfire being negated by it. I quickly dashed over to another bit of cover firing with my recently digistructed shotguns before my shield deactivated. “Fuck you too!” I screamed as I chucked a grenade over head, landing between two lackeys and the leader. The Leader managed to activate his own overshield, but the other two weren’t so fortunate to have one. “I’m already winning!” ”Prepare the big guns on his ship over there.” Wait, what? I just managed to hear the order. Oh fuck no you don’t. I checked my overshield status. 20 seconds. Thank god I have a plan to distract them. I primed all of my remaining grenades and proceeded to throw them at the group. The Group completely scattered as the grenades went all “hail mary” on them. I dashed out of cover, activating my overshield and back in the direction of the ship. I saw a shiny crystal on the ground, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I momentarily stopped to grab it, not fearing any sort of dangers such as radiation, or the stray bullet that could hit me at any time. I dashed back inside the ship, dropping a few supplies, but they weren’t really important to my survival. Just need to get off this god forbidden moon. “Seal, the ship and launch into orbit…” Boom “Shit!” The Hull was hit by a rather large projectile. “Keep her steady!” I commanded as I dashed over to the piloting seat climbing in. I felt the ship rise off the ground and upwards. “Hull integrity at 50%, Recommend dispatching drones.” “We don’t have time for this! Prioritise ftl jump. Dispatch the flares,” I shouted annoyingly. If there’s one thing that’s good about having a Dumb A.I Is that they don’t really talk back that much. ”Dispatching flares, FTL Drive at 50%.” I heard the flares pop out as I saw a rocket fly past the cockpit. “FTL jump when ready.” I switched over to gun control and saw the Xephoes run into their own ship. I took aim and suppressed fire on them. The flares managed to divert most of their return fire, but one missile made it through. ”Hull integrity at 20%. FTL Course not plotted.” “Just jump anywhere!” ”That’s not viable.” “Anywhere’s better than nowhere.” ”Jumping into enemy territory is highly likely. FTL Charge is at 85% “Just do it!” There was a transmission over the comms. ”Human, surrender now and you will be only slightly harmed.” “Fuck off now and you won’t be harmed,” I replied as the Jump button lit up, prompting me to activate it. I took no hesitation and activated it. It was a beautiful night In Equestria. The stars were bright in the sky including stars not controlled by Luna. “I have to admit, finding out that you don’t control all the stars was a weird experience,” Twilight said to Luna. “Some stars are just outside my reach or just too big,” Luna responded. “But as the Princess of the night, shouldn’t you be able to control every star?” Twilight asked. Luna turned to face towards the sky. “Most ponies believe that they know everything that there is to know about astronomy, but they don’t know how things work outside this galaxy.” “Things work differently outside this galaxy?” Twilight asked curiously. Luna sighed. “As a Princess, I guess it’s your right to know. This galaxy is far different from other galaxies. This is a small galaxy, all the stars in this galaxy are rather small. That what makes me able to grasp them. Outside this galaxy, Stars are big most of their life. This is only a handful of what makes this galaxy different.” Suddenly a bright flash lit up the sky sending out a massive shockwave that shook the ground. IF this was on the surface, it would’ve done more damage than ever. Twilight winced as she was looking straight up at the sky, blinding her for a moment. When her sight finally returned, she saw an object shoot down straight into the Everfree Forest. Twilight rubbed her eyes to be sure. “What just happened?” She asked with concern. Right then Two guards ran up to Luna. “Princess, Are you okay?” The Larger one asked. Luna Blinked a couple of times before responding. “Corporal, Rally up as many of the guard as you can and send them to the Everfree borders,” She Commanded before turning to Twilight. “There’s no time to lose, Get your friends there as well.” ”Warning, atmosphere depressurised.” I groaned as I opened my eyes and looked around. Atmosphere depressurised? Well, that’s what’s to be expected when you blind jump. I looked around a bit, spotting the rather large opening in the side of my ship. I also realised that the distorted field of the oxygen field wasn’t present. Oh Shit! I thought as I stumbled upwards. I was still breathing. The Atmosphere was fine here. Gravity seems different. No wait, it’s normal. I found out the hard way. ”Warning, atmosphere depressurised.” Why’s it telling me that? I thought as I moved over to the console. The System was bugging out. It’s repeating the message on loop that’s why. I was going to have to fix this up if I was to get off this planet. Perks of being a scavenger is that you need to know how to fix things. I turned off the system. I then turned it back on in self-repair mode. Hopefully that would fix it. I peered out through the hole in the ship. I was inside a forest. A forest that looked pretty dark and gloomy. Not the scariest I’ve seen. It was also the middle of the night here. I switched on my night vision in order to get a better view. I stepped out and inspected the ship. It was mangled in some spots, but I could have easily had that fixed. The Main issue at the time was that I just crash landed out of FTL Jump. There must be something wrong with the engines. Although they seemed alright the last time I checked. Walking around the back, I saw that the thrusters were damaged beyond repair. I was going to have to digistruct a new one. I don’t think I have any supplies for this. Or If the planet has any. Digistruction is a fairly new concept. It’s really two different things. There’s Digiprinting, This is similar to the old 3D printing. You store resources and it uses those resources to construct a new object. Digistruction can take a while though, but unlike 3d printing, has a wider array of options. Due to this, I only really use it to create bullets and explosives. If I get the materials, I can create a new engine, but who knows how long that’s going to take, or if the machine can handle it. The Other form is Digistorage. This is digitally storing matter. Digistorage can only hold so much before it fills up. The stability drops before that. Generally storage is reserved for weaponry that needs to be concealed and I’ve heard most people living normal lives don’t bother with it. I heard some rustling behind me and drew my pistol. My pistol was situated in it’s holster. Normally I digistructed weapons, but due to the nature of it, It was safer to keep a weapon on me at all times just incase. There was a canidae like creature behind me. But it was entirely made of wood. I wasn’t sure if it was an animal or a tree, but it didn’t matter because that thing acted before it thought. It charged right at me. I side stepped and it crashed into my ship. No big deal, it’s already half dead. I aimed at it and fired a couple of shots. The shots tore through the wood, but it didn’t seem to care. Shit, this isn’t going to work. I pulled out a grenade and set the fuse for 3 seconds. I ran away from the ship in order to lure it away. As it growled to me, I Shoved the grenade into it’s mouth and dashed away. Boom The Creature shattered into tiny bits and pieces and a green orb flew out. I was about to holster my pistol when I heard more growling. Shit, they heard it. I saw two more of them leap out in front me. At the same time, the Green orb returned and the Wood re-assembled itself. These things are elementals. The orb must be the core, I have to destroy it. I reloaded my pistol and aimed at the Eyes of one of them. I fired a burst and the Head exploded causing the rest of the body to collapse. Instead of an orb, a green mist dissipated into the atmosphere. I took aim at the other two, but they closed their eyes. Sneaky bastards. But I still have a trick up my sleeve. I said literally. The digistorage drive was located below the sleeve. I took out another grenade and chucked it between the two. The Two of them didn’t seem to realise that beeping round thing equals death. They shattered into million of pieces and the orbs started to fly off. “Oh no you don’t!” I called out as I took aim at the orbs and fired four shots. The Orbs were stunned on the first shot, but the second shot caused them to dissipate. “Holy fuck, Thank god that’s over,” I said before resting on the ground. I’ve had worse I guess. The elements were just arriving at the Edge of the forest when they heard a series of sounds, Followed by an explosion. “What is that?” Rarity asked concerned. “It sounds like an explosion, but I don’t know what the first sounds were,” Twilight answered. “Ya’ll think that ha something to do with the thingy-ma-bob?” Applejack asked. “Possibly, we can’t be for sure.” Rainbow dash flew up to Twilight, causing her to back away. “Oh c’mon! A Giant thing falls out of the sky and some unknown sounds occur. Obviously they’re related.” “We can’t be entirely sure. The Everfree forest changes all the time. While some things remain the same, there could be new things happening at any time,” Twilight Replied. At that moment Luna made her appearance in front of the group. “There’s no time to explain, we need to get to the crash site as soon as possible,” She commanded with a serious tone before turning to the guards. “Guards, up front.” I took the time during the break to repair my standard shield for use. I also digistructed some more Grenades. Due to the presence of hostile creatures, I didn’t want to take any chances. I re-equipped the shield generator, seeing the field wrap around my form before going transparent. If I’m to find a way off here, I need to see what this place is like. I thought to myself. I looked around for a way to get a height advantage. Guess I’ll just climb this tree then.. When I made it to the top of the tree, I could see how big this forest was. It was a rather large forest, but in the distance, I could see a mountain with what appeared to be a castle over the edge. Could there possibly be a civilization here? Or is it just a remain. I thought before realising. How The fuck is that castle staying up like that? Must be some freaky shit I heard some rustling from down below. Along with some flapping. I looked down and just made out what appeared to be a lion… With wings. Well, Anything’s possible I guess. They had not noticed me yet, but they showed no signs of leaving anytime soon. “C’mon, move. I don’t want to attack you’ll but I’ll do it if I have to,” I said quietly, knowing that they probably couldn’t understand him. “You don’t want to become my lunch do you?” They still didn’t appear to want to move. Guess I’ll do it the hard way. I climbed down from the tree and walked up behind them. I digistructed my shotgun and held it facing towards them. In my other hand, I held a machete. Hopefully, they’ll understand the machete. “Hey, Lion-freaks. You can go ahead and move on now. Nothing to see here,” I told them. ROAR I pointed my machete at them in response. Two of them whimpered and backed off, but the last one, which just happened to be the biggest, Did not. It continued to stand it’s ground. “Oh c’mon, Don’t try to be the tough guy. It’s not worth it,” I said. “Now you can just back off or…” He charged, right at me. Fool I thought as I fired off my shotgun, right into it’s head. It didn’t give a chance to react as it fell to the ground dead. No cry or anything. Just the sound of a body thumping. I walked over to it and looked at it. I wonder… “Okay, who’s next?” I asked as I looked up to see the two others had left. “Smart choice.” I looked back down to the corpse on the ground. I pulled out my scanner. “Scan for venom.” “That’s the third set of sounds now. Surely this isn’t natural,” Rarity mentioned. The Group had been walking for a while now. They were sure they were close. “I suppose it isn’t,” Twilight replied. This was actually getting quite scary. Even Rainbow had resorted to walking. “Could be aliens,” Pinkie blurted out. “Pinkie, the chances of alien life coming here is very slim…” “There’s still a chance right?” Twilight sighed. “Yes, there is.” “Hush, We’re approaching, Guards fall back, we can’t intimidate incase Miss Pie’s prediction is true,” Luna commanded. The Guard fell back as they saw a clearing up ahead. Up ahead, was a giant metallic structure that appeared to be damaged. Some of the vegetation around was damaged. There was shattered wood around. A strange bipedal creature was standing there. One Luna had never seen before. Next to it was a Manticore’s corpse. It’s not possible. “No real, venom detected. Should be safe,” The Creature spoke before turning around. ”Oh.” This world is weird.Author's Note Remember how I said It was going to be a minimum of Two weeks? I lied. Anyway, here you get to see Josh initiate first contact as casually as possible. Wow, Imagine having an alien visit earth any they're just chill. This chapter is unedited as of posting. I will be editing it later. This world is weird. There are Equines in front of me. I thought to myself. I didn’t want to say horse, because they break the appearance of Earth horses. But they are similar. Perhaps they were related? Distantly? There were a bunch of humanoids in the universe so why not more equines? They stared at me for a bit. I stared at them for a bit. They were aliens to me. To them? They probably thought I was an alien too. Judging by their appearance, they appear to be sapient. Their eyes slowly looked down at the body that was below me. Oh right, they probably think I’m some sort of predator. I thought. There goes the chances of me possibly making friends with them. “I’m just y’know, going to bury this body okay?” I said pointing to the body and a possible grave location. They stood there staring for a bit more. “I’m sure you understand.” I started to drag the body away. Damn this body is heavy. I can handle it. I thought as the body left drag marks on the ground. Poof The poof startled me and I dropped the body. I turned to face where the equines were previously. They were gone. Huh, that’s weird. I thought before looking at the body. They don’t have to know I thought before dragging the body behind the ship instead preparing to break it down. “Princess what was that?” Rarity asked concerned. They had all seen the strange creature. It was nothing like any other sapient species they’ve ever seen. “I believe, Miss Pie’s Suspicions may have been true…” Luna admitted. “But It shouldn’t have been possible.” “Wait so… that creature there, is an alien?” Twilight asked. “Well, I guess anything’s possible.” “I wonder why you ever doubted me,” Pinkie stated matter of factly. It was a common fact that half of what Pinkie Pie said was true. “Wait, what should be impossible?” Twilight asked tilting her head slightly. Luna nodded. “What i previously told you was only a bit of what I was meant to tell you. This galaxy is beyond simply different. It’s too different that to avoid consequences, this galaxy is isolated. Nothing should be able to leave or enter. Or so we were told. Perhaps there is no barrier.” “Where did you get this information from?” Twilight asked. “I’ve never heard of this in any book or scroll.” “It’s too confidential. It’s probably for the best you don’t know. Besides, The information appears to be invalid,” Luna answered. It was probably bad for a pony to comprehend the source of the information. Luna having been around since the beginning of Equestria and with millennia of experience can barely comprehend it herself. Twilight pouted. “Fine, but what are we going to do with the creature? We already made first contact and that did not end well.” Luna put on a serious expression. “Twilight, the creature had hunted down a manticore,” Luna stated. “There’s no doubt that it may hunt us down.” “Manticores are nowhere at the same level of sapience as us. Would it really be that much of a fool to hunt down a sapient species. It replied to us. It knows we’re sapient,” Twilight pointed out. “Besides, Manticores are known for being particularly territorial, for all we know, the creature is currently residing in that territory. The creature was merely defending itself.” Luna sighed. “I suppose we could re attempt contact. I will put it through with my sister soon,” Luna said putting a hoof over Twilight. “Get some rest, tell your friends to do the same.” It had been an hour and there seemed to be no signs of the equines returning. Whether they were sapient or not , I wasn’t sure, but they disappeared so quickly, it was like magic. In the meantime, I had managed to strip what I could of the corpse. Sensors indicated most of it as edible. I had the meat stored away and I was now working on the console. “C’mon, let’s get you working,” I said as the Console neared completion. “There we go, now to set up defenses.” The System had started up and no system errors were found. There were obvious errors, like the status of engines and the hull damage, but I dismissed them. I activated the security. “Let’s see, External Camera’s active, except the camera over the hull breach, obviously. Internal cameras are working fine, I shall switch them on.” I turned around and looked up at the hull breach. I was going to have to get that fixed. The security systems should alert me to any intruders. “Okay, Now, weapons systems,” I announced as I opened up the weapon control. I was announcing everything out for the purpose of the blackbox. If for some reason I manage to get off, it would be useful to record whatever I can.”Weapons system seems fine. I’ll keep them offline for now. The recent kill should keep animals away. I’ll check the weapons in the morning.” I turned off the display and climbed into bed. “Day 1, A pretty strange world this is. But, I haven’t seen much. I got attacked by two different types of animals. And Was discovered by what appears to be a sapient civilization. Hopefully they aren’t hostile to me.” ”Warning! Intruders detected.” I awoke to the sound of the security going off. I remotely turned the alerts off, not wanting the noise to seep outside considering there’s a hull breach. I climbed out of bed and Equipped my shield. I walked over to the camera and switched to external cameras. “Let’s see what we have.” I looked at the display on the camera. The equines were here again. Whether they were examining the crash site or actually waiting for me I didn’t know yet. But I could get a better look at them. There were subtle differences, especially in the colours. But what were more interesting were the anatomical differences. “Is that one… Flying?” I muttered to myself quietly. Surely enough, one of them was flying. How the hell is that… nevermind, that’s probably not the freakiest thing. There appeared to be four different types of Equines. There were two that resembled Horses the most, but they were more muscular than the rest, as if it was natural. There were two that had wings, one of them was flying as mentioned before. The other one wasn’t. The wings seemed to be too small for them, yet they still seemed capable. There was that had a horn. The horn looked like it was specifically made for something though. There was one that had wings and a horn. The last two were the most interesting. They were large, the largest of them all. They had horns and wings at the same time like the other one and they were wearing regalia. Is this a diarchy? Do they expect me to know protocols? I grabbed my pistol from nearby and holstered it just incase. The chances of me being able to talk to these Equines was low, but maybe the universal translator could do it. I turned off the display and climbed outside. The Equines were still waiting for me. The White big one noticed me and signalled for the others to stay back. It approached me slowly while I climbed off the ship. “Ugh, Hey…” “Hello.” Holy shit, It just spoke English! Granted, it was probably just the one word but… “Do you understand me?” My god, it’s working! That’s convenient… Hold on… I looked through my inventory. The Universal translator was in there. That means it wasn’t on. I Scratched my head. “We can understand each other…” I stated. “That means it works,” The Equine replied. “Yes, it works. I guess. Whatever you’re referring to.” She looked at me sheepishly. “The Spell. That’s assuming you know what spells are.” Spells? As in magic? Like, magic is a thing here? But magic is unexplainable. Surely they wouldn’t call it that if they know how it works. “Like, Magic?” I blurted out. She smiled. “I see you are accustomed with magic.” I blinked. “Is that what you call it? Because I’m only calling it that because I don’t know what it exactly is.” “You don’t know what magic is?” I shook my head. “Magic doesn’t exist where I’m from.” “So you must be extraterrestrial then. This whole world revolves around magic,” She said before pausing. “Why are you so calm?” “I’ve seen weirder stuff. This isn’t the weirdest. Besides, I’m not really apart of any big space civilizations so there’s no real first contact protocols,” I answered. Truthfully, I had no reason to act weird. If they were hostile and managed to take me out, then I’m only one person. I’m not introducing them to the rest of the universe, they don’t even appear to be ready for that. And I’m not ready to accept claims for first contact. “Fascinating, Life really does exist out there? How much life do you know of?” A Different voice came from beside her. The Purple one with both wings and a horn was now standing next to her. “Twilight, you were meant to stay back with the others,” the Diarch deadpanned. “Oh, but Celestia! This is a new Species, one that’s extraterrestrial!” Twilight pleaded. I stepped between them. “I can assure you that I am no harm to you. I’m sure you’re basing your judgements off the scene from before.” “Well I wasn’t there at the time...” The one named Celestia informed. “But I’m sure you had your reason?” I nodded. “The Creature was overly aggressive. I’m saying that because it came here with a group but it was the only one that didn’t try to flee. I hope I can be forgiven.” Celestia nodded. “I’m not sure about my ponies here. But I probably would’ve done the same.” “Ponies? Is that what you’re all called?” I asked. Sure It might be a translation error but that’s the name of some equines back on Earth “Um, excuse me, I’m sorry if I’m interrupting, but why are you here?” Twilight asked. “What business would an alien have here?” “I didn’t come here intentionally if that’s what you’re asking. I was escaping from pirates. I don’t know why they were there, and they seemed like they were over prepared for the situation,” I explained. The area I was scavenging would’ve been too insignificant for A big band of pirates to be there. Was there something important there? The others had approached by then and seemed shocked. No surprise that they probably haven’t experience real combat in their life. “How did you ever escape?” The Yellow winged one asked. “I’m not really a civilian. I’m a scavenger. My job requires me to be prepared. It’s not a safe job. I do it because I’m good at it.” I saw a hoof get raised. “I have some rules that separate me from pirates. Like I don’t steal what’s obviously claimed.” The Hoof went down. “Does that include…” she said before trailing off. I understood what she was getting to. “Yeah, I am required to kill. I mean, sometimes it seems wrong, but you’ve got to know that the pirates shoot first and have no respect for my existence,” I clarified. She seemed kind of alright with this. Maybe she understood survival. I mean, I was sure they all did. “Hey I was kind of thinking, there are four variations of you, what’s up with that?” I asked. “There are technically six, but the last two are harder to explain,” Twilight answered. “Everypony is born as a different race. This is determined mostly by the parents genetics, but some other factors can go into it.” “Right, and you’re all basically the same species right?” She nodded. “We’re all capable of breeding together. The three basic different types of us are Pegasi who can fly and control the weather, Earth ponies who are centralised around strength and nature and Unicorns who actively have spell capabilities...” “Woah woah woah hold on,” I said interrupting her lecture. “Pegasi what now?” “Pegasi control the clouds.” She noticed my expression. “What’s wrong?” “That doesn’t really happen anywhere else I’ve been. Every world I’ve been too has self managing weather.” “Really? That’s so weirdly fascinating!” Twilight expressed. “So to you our planet must be really weird in that sense.” “I’ve seen weirder things.” This planet is close to the top though. Guess I'm Stuck here.“Twilight, I know you want as much knowledge as possible but could we do this at a later time?” Celestia interrupted. Twilight paused for a moment before nodding. “Thank you. We’ve got more important things to discuss.” Celestia was about to speak up when she heard a squeak from nearby. She turned to see Twilight shocked. “Twilight? What’s wrong?” “The… thing,” she said pointing to the ship. “It has no magical signatures present.” “No magical signatures?” She said before turning to me. “How do you explain that?” “Magical signatures?” I asked. “Magic isn’t a thing back home.” “You never learnt magic?” Twilight asked. “We never had magic at all,” I replied. There were things similar to the magic seen here, but they were all explainable. They weren’t on the same level as most things I’ve witnessed today. “No magic? Who do you think I am? Stupid?” Twilight asked with anger. “Twilight…” Celestia asked but she was ignored. “How else do you explain all the feats that you’ve done?” “Twilight…” “You’re arrival here determines that you must have magic. There’s no other way you could’ve gotten here.” I coughed. “Ahem, there is a thing, it’s called Technology,” I pointed out. Do they not have technology here? “Technology?” She repeated. “Technology? Technology is just a myth created to try and explain anomalies that occur without magic or nature!” I Approached her slowly. “Well, excuse me, but I didn’t think that magic really existed before I came here but I’m not denying that it exists. Do you even know anything outside this world?” Suddenly, I felt a rainbow figure zoom in between us. A rainbow maned Pegasus was standing between us. “Hey! Nobody treats Twilight like that but me!” The Pegasus shouted. “And I don’t actually treat her like that!” I stepped around her. “This is between her and me, if you don’t have anything verbally to contribute than you can leave for now.” “Rainbow, it’s alright,” Twilight said with a sad expression before turning to me. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry like that. You’re not from here and you’re right, I don’t know much from outside this world.” “It’s… it’s alright,” I replied. “I shouldn’t have done it either, but all the times I’ve been stood up haven’t ended well.” “You know, as much as an alien as you seem, you don’t seem that weird,” Twilight admitted smiling. I chuckled.”Yeah, I mean, everything’s still weird, but at least we’re not ripping each other apart.” Twilight chuckled nervously before turning to the ship. “So… Technology does exist…” “And so does Magic.” “Weird.” “I know,” I said before turning to the five others. They haven’t said much at all. Except the Pink looks like it’s about to explode. “Well?” “Yeah, weird.” “Quite.” “Incomprehensible.” ”it’s um.. Yeah I guess.” “Oh my god! A new Alien I’ve never met before!” The Pink one seemed to explode into confetti and dashed right over to me. “Hey Mr Alien! I’m Pinkie Pie! What’s your name? Do you like parties? Oh who am I kidding of course you do! I mean, who doesn’t like parties? Well, some ponies pretend they don’t but I know deep down they do! But you’re an alien, maybe things are different? Oh by the way what’s your name? It can’t be a pony name, that would be weird.” That’s all I heard before I pulled her mane right down over her face muffling her before releasing. She looked stunned for a second before giggling and stepping back once. “That’s enough of that. To answer that, yeah I guess I like parties,” I said before turning to everyone else. “And my name is Josh.” Celestia cleared her throat gaining our attention. “I can see that you’re conversing but as I said before there are quite important matters to attend to.” “If this is about my stay here, it is pretty obvious that I won’t be leaving soon,” I stated. “How long is it going to be until you think you can leave?” She asked me. I rubbed my head. “Honestly? I don’t really know. I haven’t quite figured it out yet, this is the first time I’ve ever had my engines damaged so I’m kind of new to that. I also won’t really be getting any help from any of you since you don’t know anything either. Even if I do get my engines repaired my ftl drive is even more complex than that. I’m pretty sure I have the resources for the engines but not the ftl.” Celestia looked at me puzzled. Yeah, if technology doesn’t exist here she wouldn’t understand anything I just said. “Basically, I’m trapped here for who knows how long. I don’t even know where this planet is located,” I said before thinking. “I’d have to perform a scan. One moment.” I walked over to the ship and climbed back inside. “A.I, scan for nearby planets.” ”Scanning for nearby planets.” I walked over to the refrigerator where I grabbed a can of soda. I cracked it open and took a sip. ”No registered planets located.” “Huh?” I said as I walked up to the console. No search results were coming up. “Widen scan.” ”No registered planets located.” Okay, maybe space stations? “Scan for nearby civilizations.” ”No sapient life detected.” “Okay seriously? What the hell?” I said out loud. “Is everything going okay in there?” I heard Twilight shout from outside. “No, Apparently This planet is nowhere near any other explored and registered space,” I explained. “Registered space?” “Yeah, apparently no one's been here before, I may be the first,” I clarified. “Hold on, I’m going to try and connect to the internet.” ”No connection found.” “Hmm, Kind of weird but, Oh right! Extend connection to max,” I ordered. “Signal being jammed.” “Okay seriously? Is there some kind of mega nebula or something?” Twilight peeped over the edge of the breach in the ceiling. “Mega nebula?” “Yeah, Nebula’s can interfere with communication but generally don’t interfere the galactic network,” I explained. “The galactic network is very widespread but the nexus is quite powerful that I’ve never been disconnected.” “What’s a galactic network?” She asked confused. I sighed. Well, If there’s magic here, then there’s no way they would’ve developed the internet. Unless of course they developed something similar, but I doubt it. “It’s going to take a while to explain and I don’t feel like doing it now,” I explained. “But basically, I have no Idea where I am, the sensors can’t tell me where I am and I have no connection to any other civilization.” “Does that mean you’re trapped here?” Twilight asked concerned. “Yeah, I’m stuck here, with a broken ship. Even If I do manage to fix it I don’t know where I am so I’d have to pick a direction and stick with it.” I sat down on my couch. “So yeah, I’m the only spacer here.” “Spacer?” “One’s who spend most of their time travelling in space. It’s more of a slang term.” I sighed. Twilight noticed my sigh and sat down beside her. It was interesting how she sat, being quadrupedal and stuff. “Hey, what’s wrong?” “I don’t know. I mean, obviously I was alone coming here, but sometimes I wonder If being alone was a good thing. There were a couple of times where I had an acquaintance with me. Losing them kind of has an effect,” I admitted. She shuffled in her seat. “So, you don’t mind if I ask you how you lost them?” I shrugged. “Like I said, I have mix emotions of my life. I’m good at what I do, but sometimes I wonder if it could’ve been better. My last friend died to Xephoes. We were scavenging a junkyard when they came by. They were the full deal, Thirty men, quite large for space pirates. I was not looking for trouble, Just wanted to grab some stuff and run. There’s some interesting things you can find lying around untendered. You know the saying ‘One person’s trash is another person’s treasure?’ right?” She nodded. “Yeah well, for me it was all money and it was there for me. However since it was a junkyard it also attracts other scavengers and pirates. Other scavengers you may get into conflict, but pirates you’re almost guaranteed. And these pirates were going to use anything including lethal force to get rid of opposition.” Twilight gasped. “They were willing to kill you just over some junk?” I nodded. “That’s how the Xephoes are, or at least how most of them are. You don’t see regular Xephoes around that much. Or, at this point the pirate one’s are the regulars. That’s also what separates Pirates from Scavengers. Scavengers like me don’t steal directly off others.” Twilight shuddered. “They sound like Griffons.” I nodded wondering if the griffons here were anything like the mythological Griffons. “So yeah, I’m not going to go into all the details, I sometimes hate to remember them, but the Xephoes did a big job on us and he didn’t make it out. But sometimes I wonder if he’s better where he is now, wherever the hell that is.” “I’m sorry for bringing it up.” “It’s alright. Feels kind of weird socialising with someone who I’m probably not going to see again.” “What do you mean never going to see again? Are you saying that you’re leaving so soon?” I stared at her for a moment. “I don’t belong here, maybe I should just get out of your faces.” She seemed surprised at this. “Are you suggesting what I think… No wait, you don’t have to leave, you can stay here with us.” I looked at her all surprised. “Are you inviting me to stay here? Are you sure I won’t be much of a burden? I mean, I’m literally an alien.” She smiled at me. “Listen, Josh. You don’t have to leave just because you’re an alien. Ponies may seem a bit weary of you at first, but they should grow to accept you. Besides, You brought something we thought didn’t exist. Maybe Technology and magic can exist together.” I was shocked. Was she really asking me to stay? “Well… I mean, I guess I could stay?” At that moment a pink blur shot in front of me. “Yay! Joshy’s here to stay!” Pinkie pie shouted hugging me hard causing me to fall off the couch. “What the hell? How did she do that?” I asked getting up off the ground with a pony still wrapped around me. “It’s just Pinkie being Pinkie,” Twilight exclaimed smiling. Pinkie was still wrapped around me and it was getting old quick. “No seriously, and why is she still doing this?” “Pinkie get off of him,” Twilight commanded with a half serious tone. Pinkie Obliged and hopped off me. “I’m sorry! It’s just I thought he was going to leave without a welcome to Ponyville party!” She Apologised. “He hasn’t been to Ponyville yet Pinkie,” Twilight pointed out. That’s a real simple name. I wonder if it was the first village created here. “Oh! That means I need to throw him a welcome to Equestria party and then a welcome to Ponyville party right after that!” Pinkie Explained. I turned to Twilight. “What’s with all the parties?” “It’s just her thing,” She explained blandly. “Huh.” I turned to Pinkie and put up one finger. “One party, that’s it. Not too big, just regular. You can call it a welcome in general party, but there’s only going to be one got it?” Pinkie stared at me frozen. Does she even know the meaning of just one party? “Only one party?” she eventually whispered. “That’s more than one party than I originally considered,” I explained. Her eyes shot up. “Oh okay then! I got really lucky, one party it is!” She said before running off, hopefully not to to plan the party. “So, ugh… Anything else you want to talk about?” I asked Twilight. She smiled and her horn it up and a flash occurred. Hovering in front of her was a giant stack of paper. “We have lots to go through!” Shit Captain’s log, stardate, whatever the fuck does it matter? Day 1 After nearly getting brutally murdered by Xephoes (Fuck those guys), I’ve appeared to of emergency jumped onto a pre technological world. Or at least the civilization I’ve met seems to represent it. My ship is heavily damaged, there’s a hull breach in the ceiling, but luckily this planet has the right atmosphere to sustain me. I should be able to repair the hull breach. My thrusters and ftl drive are offline. It’s going to take me quite a while to repair them especially considering I don’t know if this planet has the resources. The locals will most likely not be able to help due to their lack of engineering skills of this degree. After a couple small conflicts with the wildlife I met the locals who did not act hostile on site and in fact welcomed my existence despite me being an alien. They appear to have a strange force they call magic. They literally call it magic, no other scientific term, it’s not slang, it’s literally called magic. They seem to reject or used to reject the existence of technology, stating that it was just a myth created to try and explain non magical circumstances. Well I seemed to prove them wrong. But their use of magic was also unexplainable to me. They proved me wrong too. Could it be that Technology and magic aren’t supposed to exist together? If so I must be really messing that up. I am not able to track this planet’s location. The scanners will not detect any other registered life off this planet. I can’t even connect to the nexus. I am basically exiled at this point. Finding out I was stranded, was not the easiest thing. Since I thought I didn’t belong here, I thought about simply killing myself. Not contaminate this planet with my existence. But the ponies didn’t want that. They accepted me, or at least the group that found me did. I’m not sure about the whole civilization. This pony, her name is Twilight seemed to have quickly grown on me. She appears to be a scholar. Whether or not she generally likes me or just has a scientific view on me is unknown. I like to think it’s both, but she did just ask me a billion questions about me and the milky way which in turn resulted in her comparing everything to this planet. Everything is going smoother than it should be. I thought I would be dead by now but it appears not. Seems a bit suspicious, but it’s only been around a day. Wait, I forgot to say this. The Pink one, perfectly named Pinkie Pie wants to throw me a party. Not wanting to seem to mean I said yes, but only one. She seems so extroverted. I kind of regret saying yes now. I think this may be my last log. Author's Note I'm posting this early in the morning, I'll check over everything after I wake. I already see some small punctuation mistakes. So yeah, I'm not going with the route that Griffons and minotaurs have significant enough technology. As usual, I would appreciate grammar and punctuation fixes. This is the third chapter and a lot is being purposely omitted. Anyway, things might seem to be going fast, I mean, Guys already made successful contact and not gotten into any trouble. But that fits with the character. Onto Technology vs magic, I'm not sure if anyone's going to like it. I mean, the title kind of suggests it. But I like it. I'm too self-conscious. Leaving BoundsAuthor's Note Oh hey, Longest chapter. I don't know why it took me so long to write this chapter. It was originally planned for like, April 2018, but I ran into problems. Problems which I can't see two years later. Oh, yes, I do see problems, but not hold the chapter back for two years quality problems. I really don't understand myself. One good thing about this was that I found a bunch of editing mistakes that I fixed. Might have missed some, as is usual. So yeah, here is chapter 4 finally. Decided to get this out while I have free time before I start going into the workforce for real. With all the other stories I have been trying to write to no success, at least I was able to get this out. Leaving Bounds “What do you think is that thing?” “It looks like it’s broken.” “Do you think it’s living?” “There’s no way it could be living, it’s weirdly damaged.” “Could be a golem.” “Golems aren’t really living are they?” “That may be the meaning. I guess you’re right.” “You smell that?” “Something died here.” “You think it got it?” “It looks too heavy to move without noticeable tracks.” I had managed to distract her. I was grabbing a drink from my ever draining supply of soda when I saw Twilight looking over at my workbench. The spherical Artifact I had picked up before ‘great disaster’ was sitting there, where I left it. “Hey what’s this?” She asked, reaching to touch it. I grabbed her hoof before she could touch it. “I don’t think touching without protection is a good idea. I don’t know what it is, I found it while escaping from the Xephoes,” I answered. That artifact was still sitting where it was when I jumped. It wasn’t affected by turbulence when I landed. “Hey how…” I thought before realising. “Oh right! The Grav generator was still running on impact.” “The what?” Twilight asked. I went over to the Console and went into gravity control. The Grav generator was still on. I switched the settings to a little higher feeling the effects. Twilight stepped forward before stumbling over. I suppressed a laugh before turning off the generator. “That was me messing with the gravity generator. I was wondering why nothing had moved. I assumed the gravity generator would’ve been damaged on impact but it still works preventing turbulence,” I explained sipping my soda. Damn, I’ll run out sometime. Can they replicate this here? “You can generate gravity without magic?” Twilight asked curiously. I nodded. “Basically creates a new gravity field that can even sort of over right other fields. I have no idea exactly how it works. Maybe there’s some information in the codex.” “The codex?” “Yeah, a big offline database I’ve got on my computer,” I explained. “We can check it out later. However it’s civilian so it may not have that sort of deep information.” I went over to the weapons rack that held a couple of interesting weapons. The pride of all my looting had acquired me: the “Gravity Vortex Launcher.” It’s exactly what it sounds like, fires a giant gravity vortex that sucks things into it before collapsing into an implosion. How did I know this? I saw it in use. Such an experimental weapon shouldn’t be in my hands, but, it was. Another Xephos raid gone wrong and I was there to clean up, all that was left was the launcher, the Xepho that stole it had no idea how it really worked, and yeah, basically wiped out everyone that wasn’t already dead in the raid. The indicator on the side of the weapon read the number one. There were two charges in the weapon it seemed at base and I had no idea how to recharge it. It probably would cost too much to do so. Maybe there’s something here that could help me, but I don’t want to dive in too deep. “What’s that?” Twilight asked, pointing to the monstrosity of a device. “Oh that old thing. Just the end of the world,” I jokingly answered. It was a half-truth. It wouldn’t start the end of a world. Well, to the receiver it would appear as such. I should probably lock it up somewhere in case to prevent anyone from getting to it, who knows the collateral damage that could be caused with such a device. I won’t be putting it in my drive, it’ll take up too much space there. I climbed out of the ship with Twilight following me. It was getting dark. Everyone else had already basically left. I guess that’s what happens when you spend a while getting to know each other. I checked my night vision and my infrared when I noticed a lot of figures standing around. “Hey, ugh Twilight. Are there supposed to be other Ponies here?” I asked her. There were a bunch of ponies standing around. I clicked off my infrared and they disappeared. “Nope, I don’t see anypony else here,” She answered gazing around. “Why do you ask?” “Do you have some sort of invisibility magic here?” I asked. That was the only logical answer. “Yeah, Invisibility magic is generally restricted to high end users… Are there cloaked guards here?” I nodded. “Yeah there’s like Eight of them and they’ve got a perimeter set up. If they’re guarding the ship they don’t have to.” Honestly if what Twilight said was true then these guys must have been special forces. Twilight looked up at me before concentrating. I noticed her horn glow for a moment. “How did you know they were there?” “Infrared lenses. I can see heat signatures. They should really mask their heat signatures. Didn’t I tell you? I’m wearing contact lenses.” “Contact lenses? Those were only just developed here, you have…” “They’re not new technology. Well, contact lenses in general. The augmented ones are kind of new,” I looked over to the area where I fought the Timberwolves, the wooden bodies still lying there. “Hey, does anyone technically own this forest?” “The Everfree? No. Well, it falls within Equestria so it’s within that domain, but on a lower level no one owns it,” She answered. “Well, as far as I know. Maybe somepony owned it a long time ago.” “So that means I can do whatever I want here?” “Theoretically, yes. But I wouldn’t advise doing just anything.” I walked over to the pile of wood that was lying there. “I want to get rid of these carcass. Not sure if I would need a fire permit or something. I can assure you the fire won’t spread.” “I, I never thought of that,” She replied, following me up to the pile. “Not the timberwolf thing, we never got to the destroying the cores part. No I’m talking about the fire in the Everfree. For as long as recorded history, there’s been no sources of a fire breaking out in this forest.” “Is that a good or a bad thing?” “Well since the Everfree is mysterious and unknown… I don’t know. It might be, but at the same time, fire is a good tool to counteract weeds.” “Uh huh, well, what matters is that someone is the first to try,” I said pulling out my lighter. “Time to light a blaze.” I turned to see her staring at the lighter. “What? You don’t have lighters here? Geez, what kind of planet is this?” “Oh, but we do have lighters here. They’re just not things that we would just carry around everywhere,” She clarified. “When you get lost in the forest, you’ll be glad to have one with you,” I checked my watch. 1300 nexus. 1900 local. I wasn’t sure what the habits of the locals were, but assuming these ponies are diurnal, I was guessing she should probably head back to whenever she lived. Funny how this world followed a twenty four hour day. Don’t ask me why the nexus is set up that way, I’m not going to say that us humans set that up. “Hey, Twilight, I’m assuming you should be heading back around now, it’s Seven. I don’t know if time is different around here, if you know what I mean.” “Oh seven? I told Spike I’d be back around now. I should go,” she explained, concerned. “Yes, that’s exactly what I said. Now go and I can maybe work on the ship, maybe burn the carcasses as I suggested. Come back tomorrow if you want.” I walked outside following after Twilight. The guards were still there. “And tell them to fuck off.” I watched Twilight walk over to one of the guards. After a couple of moments, the guards uncloaked themselves and walked away from the crash site. Peace and quiet, well as far as i knew. It was weird considering I was alone for the last year or two. Maybe it was just the whole alien thing. After I gathered the corpses and lit them in a controlled environment, I returned to my ship and went over to the main console. “Set up a cam on the fire. If it exceeds the boundary significantly, then warn me.” “Hold still mate, I’ve got yah,” I reassured the crippled form of my friend on the ground. His Chest was blown through, his main shield was destroyed and his secondary was barely deflecting the strays. I digistructed a nano-shot and popped the cap off. “Dude, I’m done. It’s too much. You can’t help me,” He sputtered out over the blood in his mouth. “No, No man. I can stabilise you,” I countered as I injected the serum into his body. “C’mon man stay together. “No man, They’ll just get me again. You’re just going to get yourself killed. Back to the ship now.” “WE CAN MAKE THIS WORK!” “Shut, the fuck up man,” He said his voice clearing as the nano-shot stopped the blood flow in his mouth. “There’s no time. Believe me, you’re the only one who can make it, I’m not letting you die with me.” I ducked down just in time to dodge the shot of a sniper shot. My shield could have resisted it, but a second shot would have time to get through. I turned behind me spotting the target and fired my handgun at him. The first two shots missed, but the last three made it. Terrible positioning for him. “Please, if we’re both dead then no one can remember what a big son of a bitch I was,” He pleaded to me before gesturing to the rifle on the ground. “Hand me my rifle. Then go.” I reluctantly reached down and grabbed the rifle. I turned and looked at Ben for half a second, but to me it felt like five, before handing it over to him. I dropped him another nano-shot before activating my overshield and running out of cover. As I ran towards the ship that was parked on the other side of the valley entrance, I saw all the Xephoes turning their guns towards me. I didn’t have the dexterity to fire and run at the same time. But I didn’t have to. Ben propped himself up from behind the cover and aimed his weapon at who I assumed was the leader of the ambush. The leader thought that he was safe to be open, but he didn’t know Ben’s perseverance. “You’re looking at the wrong spot!” I woke up the next morning and rolled off my bed. Nothing bad had happened when I was asleep, nothing literally. But, my mind. It was not good. My last one was a month ago so I thought they had stopped. But it would seem otherwise. Might have something to do with my arrival, or it’s just coincidental. I didn’t really want to think about it then. The whole being stranded on this world thing got me thinking. If I were to get seriously injured, I wouldn’t have a doctor to go too. Or at least an intergalactic one. I’ll have to rely on my medi-chamber and the nano-shots I have. I could always make more nano-shots from the chamber. That’s at least until It runs out of serum, then I’ll have to try and get some more. The Thing was that I didn’t know too much about the serum in the first place. I mostly just scavenged it or bought some. The Chamber had limited functions anyway and if my head was ripped off then it wouldn’t do much anyway. Basically, I can’t do anything stupid here. I didn’t know anything about this planet’s medical situations. While I was eating my breakfast, a thought occurred to me. What foods am I able to eat here? I knew I could probably survive off hunting, but that would get old real quick. Really, I wanted to know about the plants and stuff around here. If they could replicate some of the food I already have then that would be a bit surprising. After breakfast I climbed my way out of the ship. Waiting there in front of me was Twilight. I know I told her to come back, but I didn’t really specify a time. There was no way she could have guessed my sleeping habits and such, but still, here she was. She looked a bit worn out. “How long have you been waiting there for?” I asked, walking up in front of her. “Not very long,” She replied smiling up at me. “You don’t have to worry about it. Are you ready to go to Ponyville?” Not a very surprising or original name for a pony settlement, I thought to myself, before staring down at Twilight for a moment. “Since when were we going to Ponyville?” I questioned her. She stepped back stroking her neck. “Oh um, I thought I already discussed it with you,” she stumbled over her words. “I thought that maybe, it was about time I showed you our town. I mean it has to happen sometime.” “Wasn’t really what I was planning for today, but really, I wasn’t planning anything so I guess it’s okay. Although, would it be okay to bring an alien into your town so early?” “Nopony’s really reporting your existence yet, but Princess Celestia hasn’t put any restrictions on it yet. I figure we should get it over and done with so you don’t have to lurk around in the Everfree like a hermit,” she looked down for a moment. “We don’t want a repeat of Zecora.” Zecora huh? I’ll save that question for later. “Alright then, I kind of want to see what a pony settlement is like anyway. I’m thinking the townsfolk will have a lot of questions for me. Should I be upfront or more classified?,” I asked for her opinion. “I’m asking because even though I’m not like a Pathfinder or anything, I feel like maybe I should follow some sort of protocol?” “I don’t know anything of your protocols, but I think you should be a bit upfront, but not too much that it might give them any weird ideas.” Twilight started trotting away from the ship and towards town. I checked to see if my defenses were active before following behind her. The further we walked away from the safety of the ship, the less dense the vegetation got and the more anxious Twilight seemed to get. As if she was expecting something bad to happen. “Hey are you okay?” She turned to face me. Clearly she wasn’t, and I think she knew she couldn’t lie in this situation. “Really, I’m not. I’d rather spend as little time in this forest as possible.” “Is it really that bad?” I said looking around. I couldn’t see much of harm, other then maybe a carnivorous plant that was easy to avoid. I couldn’t hear anything either. “I mean, you made it here before right?” “I did, but I had to make a bit of a long range teleport, and the Everfree does not make it so easy. It’s kind of draining,” she explained. Right, so that was why she looked worn out. “Well, if it makes you feel better, just know that you’re not getting hurt under my watch. Heck, I don’t even know if any of them would dare to attack me.” It was that which made Twilight stop and listen around. “You’re right. We’d normally hear a couple of noises by now. But I haven’t heard anything. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, and honestly, I don’t want to take the risk.” “You make it sound like you’ve come through here a couple of times. I thought you didn’t like this place.” “I don’t, but the first time I came through here, I didn’t believe it could be so bad, besides it was during a time of desperation. It was during the return of Nightmare Moon, and I theorised her presence put some fear into most of the creatures here.” She stopped and turned towards me. “You don’t think they’re scared of you?” “Scared of me?” I thought for a moment. Yeah they were definitely scared of me. “Yeah, probably. Though, I wouldn’t expect them all to straight up ignore me. I’m still an invader in their land, kind of, so maybe they’re just checking me out.” “Checking you out?” “Instead of going full rampage on me, they’re trying to analyse me for any weaknesses and stuff,” I explained. “Not that I’m exposing much right now. If they were smart enough, they’d know that looks don’t always mean anything.” Twilight didn’t say much else as we continued to walk along. When you’re seeing almost the same stuff over and over again, the trip can kind of feel longer. I left a mental note to myself to make a path through here so at least there will be some sense of progress getting here. I heard from Twilight earlier that there are two paths in the forest. One leading up to Zecora’s hut, someone who apparently actually lives here, although not too far in. The other one leads up to the castle of the Two Sisters. It kind of intrigued me but I didn’t ask much about it. We finally made it to the edge of the forest. I say finally, but my clocks say it only took around thirty minutes. It was certain that the foliage slowed us down a bit. Adding on the fact that Twilight was pretty worn out otherwise I would have just told her to fly on without me. I assumed flying was better than walking, but who knew if this forest had tons of flying monstrosities as well. I could see the town ahead of me. It was kind of like a village, not a small one but regular sized I would say. Considering the name it literally must have been a village. In the distance, I could still see the mountainside city. Compared to the village, it looked as if it was more prestigiously constructed. “Hey guess what Twilight? You made it, all while being quite a bit fatigued,” I congratulated her as she sighed in relief. “There was nothing to worry about, see?” “I can assure you that any other pony would have felt the same way that I had. Well, maybe not Rainbow Dash.” She let out a loud yawn. “With your ship as a safe haven she would feel a bit alright.” “Twilight, you seem more than worn out. Maybe you should get some rest. Just get one of your friends to show me around or something,” I suggested. “I don’t understand what’s going on. I know I’m tired from the teleport, but I shouldn’t be this tired. I teleport everywhere all the time.” “Didn’t you say before it was long range teleportation with some sort of Everfree fuckery?” I replied. “I… Yeah, but I never expected it to be this draining. I’ll have to make adjustments next time. Maybe I’ll try walking as much as I can,” she answered. “I think I’ll take up your offer. We’ll go to the castle first.” “Or maybe I could just come to you. Since you showed me the way out, I know the way back.” “That fast?” “Yes, I’m that good.” It was just some technological fuckery actually, but I didn’t want to tell her that. “In fact, I know an easier way for you to contact me. I don’t have it here with me now, but I’ll give it to you as soon as possible.” “Oh yes please. If it saves me from walking, then I’d gladly take it. Maybe we could replicate it?” She perked up all giddy like. “Hey, no experimenting on it without me there. I don’t think that will go well and we need to make sure it will work.” She paused for a moment, as if she needed a bit of time to process my request. “I promise I won’t do anything wrong with it.” I looked at her suspiciously. “You’re worn out. Don’t make promises now, especially since you don’t even have it yet.” She didn’t protest or really say anything as she just walked towards the glistening tree crystal structure thing in the distance. Personal Codex: The Xephoes V1The Xephos are a race of six limbed mammals that almost resemble reptiles. When referring to Xephos, one is generally referring to the pirate factions and not the loyalist faction, of which there is a low population. They are characterised by their inherent lust for energy and power. They are known to seek out sources of high energy provided they have enough strength to do so. They have no concern for civilian life, if it's available they'll take it. In saying that, they do not go into civilian sectors fearing the military support. If the Xephos were to band together, it could possibly create an army bigger than the average military, due to their aggressive nature. However Xephos are not a conjoined faction, they are not averse to fighting each other for power. The Biggest of the Xephos factions are known to have attempted to harness the power of the weakest stars. No successful attempt is known to be made as all attempts have usually resulted in the implosion of the flagship due to the overwhelming power or the attack from other factions to steal the power. Due to the nature of the Xephos, there may be a successful attempt, but hiding the energy from others would be hard. The ranks of the Xephos are generally self-centered with only their own race being accepted properly into their ranks. They are not against slavery and will capture other races to do their dirty work or act as cannon fodder.
It's a dangerous Universe.Author's Note Welcome to the first story I've posted in ages. I haven't written in a while so I may be a bit off. This is self-edited, but I don't consider myself any good. Some information is purposely omitted. I'm not sure if things happen fast or not. One issue I had when editing was tense. The story is mostly written in First person with Past tense. Thoughts are in italics, which is the usual for me. Another issue I tend to have is lack of expressions in dialogue tags. Oh well, If you like this, see you in a minimum of Two weeks. It's a dangerous Universe. The Damn, Xephoes. I was just trying to do my job. To clarify what I just meant, the Xephoes are a bipedal 6 limbed race. They are a race of pride and honour. Or at least, they mostly used to be. According to Xephoes history, there was a civil war and some of the Xephoes split off. Loyal Xephoes are hard to come by, the ones that are the most common are basically pirates. When referring to Xephoes, you are generally referring to the pirates entirely. I didn’t expect there to be any Xephoes in the area, so I came somewhat unprepared. My Shield was broken from a previous encounter with some other pirates. I only had my Overshield, A shield that is very powerful but has a short life before overheating. It was extremely hard to reconfigure this specific type of brand to use less power and act as the average shield. “Human, drop your supplies now and you will live,” The Leader commanded. “Not a fucking chance. You guys can fuck off. You fucking raiders,” I called out behind cover. Looking over to occasionally fire off a few shots. “Are You not but a raider yourself?” The leader contradicted. I was kind of a hypocrite, but at least I had somewhat of a choice. “You Xephoes are all the same, at least I had a choice.” I checked my ammo. Three rounds left, better get a fresh mag just incase. The Rifle I was using was ballistic. Ballistic and energy weapons are both used, both being effective in their own ways. “Why are you surprised? It’s what we do!” one of the lackeys shouted. “I’m not,” I remarked. “I’m just saying you could be doing something different.” “You could be doing something different.” “I’m just one human.” Let me take some time to explain what I do. I’m a scavenger, a raider as you can see. A Pirate? I do not associate myself as one. I do not really try to steal from people directly. If it’s clearly owned, it’s not worth going over. As a scavenger, I can find some really cool stuff. The Black market is a pretty interesting place too. Half the stuff I find, I can sell off to the black market. I might even buy something from the black market. It’s certainly an interesting job. I’m not saying it’s a better job, but it’s still kind of worthwhile. ”Enough with the talk, just blow him up already!” The leader shouted. I looked over to see one of them pulling out an rpg. Oh shit, I dived out of cover right before the blast hit me, I landed on the ground right in the open space. Oh fuck, oh fuck! I thought before I quickly activated my Overshield, gunfire being negated by it. I quickly dashed over to another bit of cover firing with my recently digistructed shotguns before my shield deactivated. “Fuck you too!” I screamed as I chucked a grenade over head, landing between two lackeys and the leader. The Leader managed to activate his own overshield, but the other two weren’t so fortunate to have one. “I’m already winning!” ”Prepare the big guns on his ship over there.” Wait, what? I just managed to hear the order. Oh fuck no you don’t. I checked my overshield status. 20 seconds. Thank god I have a plan to distract them. I primed all of my remaining grenades and proceeded to throw them at the group. The Group completely scattered as the grenades went all “hail mary” on them. I dashed out of cover, activating my overshield and back in the direction of the ship. I saw a shiny crystal on the ground, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I momentarily stopped to grab it, not fearing any sort of dangers such as radiation, or the stray bullet that could hit me at any time. I dashed back inside the ship, dropping a few supplies, but they weren’t really important to my survival. Just need to get off this god forbidden moon. “Seal, the ship and launch into orbit…” Boom “Shit!” The Hull was hit by a rather large projectile. “Keep her steady!” I commanded as I dashed over to the piloting seat climbing in. I felt the ship rise off the ground and upwards. “Hull integrity at 50%, Recommend dispatching drones.” “We don’t have time for this! Prioritise ftl jump. Dispatch the flares,” I shouted annoyingly. If there’s one thing that’s good about having a Dumb A.I Is that they don’t really talk back that much. ”Dispatching flares, FTL Drive at 50%.” I heard the flares pop out as I saw a rocket fly past the cockpit. “FTL jump when ready.” I switched over to gun control and saw the Xephoes run into their own ship. I took aim and suppressed fire on them. The flares managed to divert most of their return fire, but one missile made it through. ”Hull integrity at 20%. FTL Course not plotted.” “Just jump anywhere!” ”That’s not viable.” “Anywhere’s better than nowhere.” ”Jumping into enemy territory is highly likely. FTL Charge is at 85% “Just do it!” There was a transmission over the comms. ”Human, surrender now and you will be only slightly harmed.” “Fuck off now and you won’t be harmed,” I replied as the Jump button lit up, prompting me to activate it. I took no hesitation and activated it. It was a beautiful night In Equestria. The stars were bright in the sky including stars not controlled by Luna. “I have to admit, finding out that you don’t control all the stars was a weird experience,” Twilight said to Luna. “Some stars are just outside my reach or just too big,” Luna responded. “But as the Princess of the night, shouldn’t you be able to control every star?” Twilight asked. Luna turned to face towards the sky. “Most ponies believe that they know everything that there is to know about astronomy, but they don’t know how things work outside this galaxy.” “Things work differently outside this galaxy?” Twilight asked curiously. Luna sighed. “As a Princess, I guess it’s your right to know. This galaxy is far different from other galaxies. This is a small galaxy, all the stars in this galaxy are rather small. That what makes me able to grasp them. Outside this galaxy, Stars are big most of their life. This is only a handful of what makes this galaxy different.” Suddenly a bright flash lit up the sky sending out a massive shockwave that shook the ground. IF this was on the surface, it would’ve done more damage than ever. Twilight winced as she was looking straight up at the sky, blinding her for a moment. When her sight finally returned, she saw an object shoot down straight into the Everfree Forest. Twilight rubbed her eyes to be sure. “What just happened?” She asked with concern. Right then Two guards ran up to Luna. “Princess, Are you okay?” The Larger one asked. Luna Blinked a couple of times before responding. “Corporal, Rally up as many of the guard as you can and send them to the Everfree borders,” She Commanded before turning to Twilight. “There’s no time to lose, Get your friends there as well.” ”Warning, atmosphere depressurised.” I groaned as I opened my eyes and looked around. Atmosphere depressurised? Well, that’s what’s to be expected when you blind jump. I looked around a bit, spotting the rather large opening in the side of my ship. I also realised that the distorted field of the oxygen field wasn’t present. Oh Shit! I thought as I stumbled upwards. I was still breathing. The Atmosphere was fine here. Gravity seems different. No wait, it’s normal. I found out the hard way. ”Warning, atmosphere depressurised.” Why’s it telling me that? I thought as I moved over to the console. The System was bugging out. It’s repeating the message on loop that’s why. I was going to have to fix this up if I was to get off this planet. Perks of being a scavenger is that you need to know how to fix things. I turned off the system. I then turned it back on in self-repair mode. Hopefully that would fix it. I peered out through the hole in the ship. I was inside a forest. A forest that looked pretty dark and gloomy. Not the scariest I’ve seen. It was also the middle of the night here. I switched on my night vision in order to get a better view. I stepped out and inspected the ship. It was mangled in some spots, but I could have easily had that fixed. The Main issue at the time was that I just crash landed out of FTL Jump. There must be something wrong with the engines. Although they seemed alright the last time I checked. Walking around the back, I saw that the thrusters were damaged beyond repair. I was going to have to digistruct a new one. I don’t think I have any supplies for this. Or If the planet has any. Digistruction is a fairly new concept. It’s really two different things. There’s Digiprinting, This is similar to the old 3D printing. You store resources and it uses those resources to construct a new object. Digistruction can take a while though, but unlike 3d printing, has a wider array of options. Due to this, I only really use it to create bullets and explosives. If I get the materials, I can create a new engine, but who knows how long that’s going to take, or if the machine can handle it. The Other form is Digistorage. This is digitally storing matter. Digistorage can only hold so much before it fills up. The stability drops before that. Generally storage is reserved for weaponry that needs to be concealed and I’ve heard most people living normal lives don’t bother with it. I heard some rustling behind me and drew my pistol. My pistol was situated in it’s holster. Normally I digistructed weapons, but due to the nature of it, It was safer to keep a weapon on me at all times just incase. There was a canidae like creature behind me. But it was entirely made of wood. I wasn’t sure if it was an animal or a tree, but it didn’t matter because that thing acted before it thought. It charged right at me. I side stepped and it crashed into my ship. No big deal, it’s already half dead. I aimed at it and fired a couple of shots. The shots tore through the wood, but it didn’t seem to care. Shit, this isn’t going to work. I pulled out a grenade and set the fuse for 3 seconds. I ran away from the ship in order to lure it away. As it growled to me, I Shoved the grenade into it’s mouth and dashed away. Boom The Creature shattered into tiny bits and pieces and a green orb flew out. I was about to holster my pistol when I heard more growling. Shit, they heard it. I saw two more of them leap out in front me. At the same time, the Green orb returned and the Wood re-assembled itself. These things are elementals. The orb must be the core, I have to destroy it. I reloaded my pistol and aimed at the Eyes of one of them. I fired a burst and the Head exploded causing the rest of the body to collapse. Instead of an orb, a green mist dissipated into the atmosphere. I took aim at the other two, but they closed their eyes. Sneaky bastards. But I still have a trick up my sleeve. I said literally. The digistorage drive was located below the sleeve. I took out another grenade and chucked it between the two. The Two of them didn’t seem to realise that beeping round thing equals death. They shattered into million of pieces and the orbs started to fly off. “Oh no you don’t!” I called out as I took aim at the orbs and fired four shots. The Orbs were stunned on the first shot, but the second shot caused them to dissipate. “Holy fuck, Thank god that’s over,” I said before resting on the ground. I’ve had worse I guess. The elements were just arriving at the Edge of the forest when they heard a series of sounds, Followed by an explosion. “What is that?” Rarity asked concerned. “It sounds like an explosion, but I don’t know what the first sounds were,” Twilight answered. “Ya’ll think that ha something to do with the thingy-ma-bob?” Applejack asked. “Possibly, we can’t be for sure.” Rainbow dash flew up to Twilight, causing her to back away. “Oh c’mon! A Giant thing falls out of the sky and some unknown sounds occur. Obviously they’re related.” “We can’t be entirely sure. The Everfree forest changes all the time. While some things remain the same, there could be new things happening at any time,” Twilight Replied. At that moment Luna made her appearance in front of the group. “There’s no time to explain, we need to get to the crash site as soon as possible,” She commanded with a serious tone before turning to the guards. “Guards, up front.” I took the time during the break to repair my standard shield for use. I also digistructed some more Grenades. Due to the presence of hostile creatures, I didn’t want to take any chances. I re-equipped the shield generator, seeing the field wrap around my form before going transparent. If I’m to find a way off here, I need to see what this place is like. I thought to myself. I looked around for a way to get a height advantage. Guess I’ll just climb this tree then.. When I made it to the top of the tree, I could see how big this forest was. It was a rather large forest, but in the distance, I could see a mountain with what appeared to be a castle over the edge. Could there possibly be a civilization here? Or is it just a remain. I thought before realising. How The fuck is that castle staying up like that? Must be some freaky shit I heard some rustling from down below. Along with some flapping. I looked down and just made out what appeared to be a lion… With wings. Well, Anything’s possible I guess. They had not noticed me yet, but they showed no signs of leaving anytime soon. “C’mon, move. I don’t want to attack you’ll but I’ll do it if I have to,” I said quietly, knowing that they probably couldn’t understand him. “You don’t want to become my lunch do you?” They still didn’t appear to want to move. Guess I’ll do it the hard way. I climbed down from the tree and walked up behind them. I digistructed my shotgun and held it facing towards them. In my other hand, I held a machete. Hopefully, they’ll understand the machete. “Hey, Lion-freaks. You can go ahead and move on now. Nothing to see here,” I told them. ROAR I pointed my machete at them in response. Two of them whimpered and backed off, but the last one, which just happened to be the biggest, Did not. It continued to stand it’s ground. “Oh c’mon, Don’t try to be the tough guy. It’s not worth it,” I said. “Now you can just back off or…” He charged, right at me. Fool I thought as I fired off my shotgun, right into it’s head. It didn’t give a chance to react as it fell to the ground dead. No cry or anything. Just the sound of a body thumping. I walked over to it and looked at it. I wonder… “Okay, who’s next?” I asked as I looked up to see the two others had left. “Smart choice.” I looked back down to the corpse on the ground. I pulled out my scanner. “Scan for venom.” “That’s the third set of sounds now. Surely this isn’t natural,” Rarity mentioned. The Group had been walking for a while now. They were sure they were close. “I suppose it isn’t,” Twilight replied. This was actually getting quite scary. Even Rainbow had resorted to walking. “Could be aliens,” Pinkie blurted out. “Pinkie, the chances of alien life coming here is very slim…” “There’s still a chance right?” Twilight sighed. “Yes, there is.” “Hush, We’re approaching, Guards fall back, we can’t intimidate incase Miss Pie’s prediction is true,” Luna commanded. The Guard fell back as they saw a clearing up ahead. Up ahead, was a giant metallic structure that appeared to be damaged. Some of the vegetation around was damaged. There was shattered wood around. A strange bipedal creature was standing there. One Luna had never seen before. Next to it was a Manticore’s corpse. It’s not possible. “No real, venom detected. Should be safe,” The Creature spoke before turning around. ”Oh.”
This world is weird.Author's Note Remember how I said It was going to be a minimum of Two weeks? I lied. Anyway, here you get to see Josh initiate first contact as casually as possible. Wow, Imagine having an alien visit earth any they're just chill. This chapter is unedited as of posting. I will be editing it later. This world is weird. There are Equines in front of me. I thought to myself. I didn’t want to say horse, because they break the appearance of Earth horses. But they are similar. Perhaps they were related? Distantly? There were a bunch of humanoids in the universe so why not more equines? They stared at me for a bit. I stared at them for a bit. They were aliens to me. To them? They probably thought I was an alien too. Judging by their appearance, they appear to be sapient. Their eyes slowly looked down at the body that was below me. Oh right, they probably think I’m some sort of predator. I thought. There goes the chances of me possibly making friends with them. “I’m just y’know, going to bury this body okay?” I said pointing to the body and a possible grave location. They stood there staring for a bit more. “I’m sure you understand.” I started to drag the body away. Damn this body is heavy. I can handle it. I thought as the body left drag marks on the ground. Poof The poof startled me and I dropped the body. I turned to face where the equines were previously. They were gone. Huh, that’s weird. I thought before looking at the body. They don’t have to know I thought before dragging the body behind the ship instead preparing to break it down. “Princess what was that?” Rarity asked concerned. They had all seen the strange creature. It was nothing like any other sapient species they’ve ever seen. “I believe, Miss Pie’s Suspicions may have been true…” Luna admitted. “But It shouldn’t have been possible.” “Wait so… that creature there, is an alien?” Twilight asked. “Well, I guess anything’s possible.” “I wonder why you ever doubted me,” Pinkie stated matter of factly. It was a common fact that half of what Pinkie Pie said was true. “Wait, what should be impossible?” Twilight asked tilting her head slightly. Luna nodded. “What i previously told you was only a bit of what I was meant to tell you. This galaxy is beyond simply different. It’s too different that to avoid consequences, this galaxy is isolated. Nothing should be able to leave or enter. Or so we were told. Perhaps there is no barrier.” “Where did you get this information from?” Twilight asked. “I’ve never heard of this in any book or scroll.” “It’s too confidential. It’s probably for the best you don’t know. Besides, The information appears to be invalid,” Luna answered. It was probably bad for a pony to comprehend the source of the information. Luna having been around since the beginning of Equestria and with millennia of experience can barely comprehend it herself. Twilight pouted. “Fine, but what are we going to do with the creature? We already made first contact and that did not end well.” Luna put on a serious expression. “Twilight, the creature had hunted down a manticore,” Luna stated. “There’s no doubt that it may hunt us down.” “Manticores are nowhere at the same level of sapience as us. Would it really be that much of a fool to hunt down a sapient species. It replied to us. It knows we’re sapient,” Twilight pointed out. “Besides, Manticores are known for being particularly territorial, for all we know, the creature is currently residing in that territory. The creature was merely defending itself.” Luna sighed. “I suppose we could re attempt contact. I will put it through with my sister soon,” Luna said putting a hoof over Twilight. “Get some rest, tell your friends to do the same.” It had been an hour and there seemed to be no signs of the equines returning. Whether they were sapient or not , I wasn’t sure, but they disappeared so quickly, it was like magic. In the meantime, I had managed to strip what I could of the corpse. Sensors indicated most of it as edible. I had the meat stored away and I was now working on the console. “C’mon, let’s get you working,” I said as the Console neared completion. “There we go, now to set up defenses.” The System had started up and no system errors were found. There were obvious errors, like the status of engines and the hull damage, but I dismissed them. I activated the security. “Let’s see, External Camera’s active, except the camera over the hull breach, obviously. Internal cameras are working fine, I shall switch them on.” I turned around and looked up at the hull breach. I was going to have to get that fixed. The security systems should alert me to any intruders. “Okay, Now, weapons systems,” I announced as I opened up the weapon control. I was announcing everything out for the purpose of the blackbox. If for some reason I manage to get off, it would be useful to record whatever I can.”Weapons system seems fine. I’ll keep them offline for now. The recent kill should keep animals away. I’ll check the weapons in the morning.” I turned off the display and climbed into bed. “Day 1, A pretty strange world this is. But, I haven’t seen much. I got attacked by two different types of animals. And Was discovered by what appears to be a sapient civilization. Hopefully they aren’t hostile to me.” ”Warning! Intruders detected.” I awoke to the sound of the security going off. I remotely turned the alerts off, not wanting the noise to seep outside considering there’s a hull breach. I climbed out of bed and Equipped my shield. I walked over to the camera and switched to external cameras. “Let’s see what we have.” I looked at the display on the camera. The equines were here again. Whether they were examining the crash site or actually waiting for me I didn’t know yet. But I could get a better look at them. There were subtle differences, especially in the colours. But what were more interesting were the anatomical differences. “Is that one… Flying?” I muttered to myself quietly. Surely enough, one of them was flying. How the hell is that… nevermind, that’s probably not the freakiest thing. There appeared to be four different types of Equines. There were two that resembled Horses the most, but they were more muscular than the rest, as if it was natural. There were two that had wings, one of them was flying as mentioned before. The other one wasn’t. The wings seemed to be too small for them, yet they still seemed capable. There was that had a horn. The horn looked like it was specifically made for something though. There was one that had wings and a horn. The last two were the most interesting. They were large, the largest of them all. They had horns and wings at the same time like the other one and they were wearing regalia. Is this a diarchy? Do they expect me to know protocols? I grabbed my pistol from nearby and holstered it just incase. The chances of me being able to talk to these Equines was low, but maybe the universal translator could do it. I turned off the display and climbed outside. The Equines were still waiting for me. The White big one noticed me and signalled for the others to stay back. It approached me slowly while I climbed off the ship. “Ugh, Hey…” “Hello.” Holy shit, It just spoke English! Granted, it was probably just the one word but… “Do you understand me?” My god, it’s working! That’s convenient… Hold on… I looked through my inventory. The Universal translator was in there. That means it wasn’t on. I Scratched my head. “We can understand each other…” I stated. “That means it works,” The Equine replied. “Yes, it works. I guess. Whatever you’re referring to.” She looked at me sheepishly. “The Spell. That’s assuming you know what spells are.” Spells? As in magic? Like, magic is a thing here? But magic is unexplainable. Surely they wouldn’t call it that if they know how it works. “Like, Magic?” I blurted out. She smiled. “I see you are accustomed with magic.” I blinked. “Is that what you call it? Because I’m only calling it that because I don’t know what it exactly is.” “You don’t know what magic is?” I shook my head. “Magic doesn’t exist where I’m from.” “So you must be extraterrestrial then. This whole world revolves around magic,” She said before pausing. “Why are you so calm?” “I’ve seen weirder stuff. This isn’t the weirdest. Besides, I’m not really apart of any big space civilizations so there’s no real first contact protocols,” I answered. Truthfully, I had no reason to act weird. If they were hostile and managed to take me out, then I’m only one person. I’m not introducing them to the rest of the universe, they don’t even appear to be ready for that. And I’m not ready to accept claims for first contact. “Fascinating, Life really does exist out there? How much life do you know of?” A Different voice came from beside her. The Purple one with both wings and a horn was now standing next to her. “Twilight, you were meant to stay back with the others,” the Diarch deadpanned. “Oh, but Celestia! This is a new Species, one that’s extraterrestrial!” Twilight pleaded. I stepped between them. “I can assure you that I am no harm to you. I’m sure you’re basing your judgements off the scene from before.” “Well I wasn’t there at the time...” The one named Celestia informed. “But I’m sure you had your reason?” I nodded. “The Creature was overly aggressive. I’m saying that because it came here with a group but it was the only one that didn’t try to flee. I hope I can be forgiven.” Celestia nodded. “I’m not sure about my ponies here. But I probably would’ve done the same.” “Ponies? Is that what you’re all called?” I asked. Sure It might be a translation error but that’s the name of some equines back on Earth “Um, excuse me, I’m sorry if I’m interrupting, but why are you here?” Twilight asked. “What business would an alien have here?” “I didn’t come here intentionally if that’s what you’re asking. I was escaping from pirates. I don’t know why they were there, and they seemed like they were over prepared for the situation,” I explained. The area I was scavenging would’ve been too insignificant for A big band of pirates to be there. Was there something important there? The others had approached by then and seemed shocked. No surprise that they probably haven’t experience real combat in their life. “How did you ever escape?” The Yellow winged one asked. “I’m not really a civilian. I’m a scavenger. My job requires me to be prepared. It’s not a safe job. I do it because I’m good at it.” I saw a hoof get raised. “I have some rules that separate me from pirates. Like I don’t steal what’s obviously claimed.” The Hoof went down. “Does that include…” she said before trailing off. I understood what she was getting to. “Yeah, I am required to kill. I mean, sometimes it seems wrong, but you’ve got to know that the pirates shoot first and have no respect for my existence,” I clarified. She seemed kind of alright with this. Maybe she understood survival. I mean, I was sure they all did. “Hey I was kind of thinking, there are four variations of you, what’s up with that?” I asked. “There are technically six, but the last two are harder to explain,” Twilight answered. “Everypony is born as a different race. This is determined mostly by the parents genetics, but some other factors can go into it.” “Right, and you’re all basically the same species right?” She nodded. “We’re all capable of breeding together. The three basic different types of us are Pegasi who can fly and control the weather, Earth ponies who are centralised around strength and nature and Unicorns who actively have spell capabilities...” “Woah woah woah hold on,” I said interrupting her lecture. “Pegasi what now?” “Pegasi control the clouds.” She noticed my expression. “What’s wrong?” “That doesn’t really happen anywhere else I’ve been. Every world I’ve been too has self managing weather.” “Really? That’s so weirdly fascinating!” Twilight expressed. “So to you our planet must be really weird in that sense.” “I’ve seen weirder things.” This planet is close to the top though.
Guess I'm Stuck here.“Twilight, I know you want as much knowledge as possible but could we do this at a later time?” Celestia interrupted. Twilight paused for a moment before nodding. “Thank you. We’ve got more important things to discuss.” Celestia was about to speak up when she heard a squeak from nearby. She turned to see Twilight shocked. “Twilight? What’s wrong?” “The… thing,” she said pointing to the ship. “It has no magical signatures present.” “No magical signatures?” She said before turning to me. “How do you explain that?” “Magical signatures?” I asked. “Magic isn’t a thing back home.” “You never learnt magic?” Twilight asked. “We never had magic at all,” I replied. There were things similar to the magic seen here, but they were all explainable. They weren’t on the same level as most things I’ve witnessed today. “No magic? Who do you think I am? Stupid?” Twilight asked with anger. “Twilight…” Celestia asked but she was ignored. “How else do you explain all the feats that you’ve done?” “Twilight…” “You’re arrival here determines that you must have magic. There’s no other way you could’ve gotten here.” I coughed. “Ahem, there is a thing, it’s called Technology,” I pointed out. Do they not have technology here? “Technology?” She repeated. “Technology? Technology is just a myth created to try and explain anomalies that occur without magic or nature!” I Approached her slowly. “Well, excuse me, but I didn’t think that magic really existed before I came here but I’m not denying that it exists. Do you even know anything outside this world?” Suddenly, I felt a rainbow figure zoom in between us. A rainbow maned Pegasus was standing between us. “Hey! Nobody treats Twilight like that but me!” The Pegasus shouted. “And I don’t actually treat her like that!” I stepped around her. “This is between her and me, if you don’t have anything verbally to contribute than you can leave for now.” “Rainbow, it’s alright,” Twilight said with a sad expression before turning to me. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry like that. You’re not from here and you’re right, I don’t know much from outside this world.” “It’s… it’s alright,” I replied. “I shouldn’t have done it either, but all the times I’ve been stood up haven’t ended well.” “You know, as much as an alien as you seem, you don’t seem that weird,” Twilight admitted smiling. I chuckled.”Yeah, I mean, everything’s still weird, but at least we’re not ripping each other apart.” Twilight chuckled nervously before turning to the ship. “So… Technology does exist…” “And so does Magic.” “Weird.” “I know,” I said before turning to the five others. They haven’t said much at all. Except the Pink looks like it’s about to explode. “Well?” “Yeah, weird.” “Quite.” “Incomprehensible.” ”it’s um.. Yeah I guess.” “Oh my god! A new Alien I’ve never met before!” The Pink one seemed to explode into confetti and dashed right over to me. “Hey Mr Alien! I’m Pinkie Pie! What’s your name? Do you like parties? Oh who am I kidding of course you do! I mean, who doesn’t like parties? Well, some ponies pretend they don’t but I know deep down they do! But you’re an alien, maybe things are different? Oh by the way what’s your name? It can’t be a pony name, that would be weird.” That’s all I heard before I pulled her mane right down over her face muffling her before releasing. She looked stunned for a second before giggling and stepping back once. “That’s enough of that. To answer that, yeah I guess I like parties,” I said before turning to everyone else. “And my name is Josh.” Celestia cleared her throat gaining our attention. “I can see that you’re conversing but as I said before there are quite important matters to attend to.” “If this is about my stay here, it is pretty obvious that I won’t be leaving soon,” I stated. “How long is it going to be until you think you can leave?” She asked me. I rubbed my head. “Honestly? I don’t really know. I haven’t quite figured it out yet, this is the first time I’ve ever had my engines damaged so I’m kind of new to that. I also won’t really be getting any help from any of you since you don’t know anything either. Even if I do get my engines repaired my ftl drive is even more complex than that. I’m pretty sure I have the resources for the engines but not the ftl.” Celestia looked at me puzzled. Yeah, if technology doesn’t exist here she wouldn’t understand anything I just said. “Basically, I’m trapped here for who knows how long. I don’t even know where this planet is located,” I said before thinking. “I’d have to perform a scan. One moment.” I walked over to the ship and climbed back inside. “A.I, scan for nearby planets.” ”Scanning for nearby planets.” I walked over to the refrigerator where I grabbed a can of soda. I cracked it open and took a sip. ”No registered planets located.” “Huh?” I said as I walked up to the console. No search results were coming up. “Widen scan.” ”No registered planets located.” Okay, maybe space stations? “Scan for nearby civilizations.” ”No sapient life detected.” “Okay seriously? What the hell?” I said out loud. “Is everything going okay in there?” I heard Twilight shout from outside. “No, Apparently This planet is nowhere near any other explored and registered space,” I explained. “Registered space?” “Yeah, apparently no one's been here before, I may be the first,” I clarified. “Hold on, I’m going to try and connect to the internet.” ”No connection found.” “Hmm, Kind of weird but, Oh right! Extend connection to max,” I ordered. “Signal being jammed.” “Okay seriously? Is there some kind of mega nebula or something?” Twilight peeped over the edge of the breach in the ceiling. “Mega nebula?” “Yeah, Nebula’s can interfere with communication but generally don’t interfere the galactic network,” I explained. “The galactic network is very widespread but the nexus is quite powerful that I’ve never been disconnected.” “What’s a galactic network?” She asked confused. I sighed. Well, If there’s magic here, then there’s no way they would’ve developed the internet. Unless of course they developed something similar, but I doubt it. “It’s going to take a while to explain and I don’t feel like doing it now,” I explained. “But basically, I have no Idea where I am, the sensors can’t tell me where I am and I have no connection to any other civilization.” “Does that mean you’re trapped here?” Twilight asked concerned. “Yeah, I’m stuck here, with a broken ship. Even If I do manage to fix it I don’t know where I am so I’d have to pick a direction and stick with it.” I sat down on my couch. “So yeah, I’m the only spacer here.” “Spacer?” “One’s who spend most of their time travelling in space. It’s more of a slang term.” I sighed. Twilight noticed my sigh and sat down beside her. It was interesting how she sat, being quadrupedal and stuff. “Hey, what’s wrong?” “I don’t know. I mean, obviously I was alone coming here, but sometimes I wonder If being alone was a good thing. There were a couple of times where I had an acquaintance with me. Losing them kind of has an effect,” I admitted. She shuffled in her seat. “So, you don’t mind if I ask you how you lost them?” I shrugged. “Like I said, I have mix emotions of my life. I’m good at what I do, but sometimes I wonder if it could’ve been better. My last friend died to Xephoes. We were scavenging a junkyard when they came by. They were the full deal, Thirty men, quite large for space pirates. I was not looking for trouble, Just wanted to grab some stuff and run. There’s some interesting things you can find lying around untendered. You know the saying ‘One person’s trash is another person’s treasure?’ right?” She nodded. “Yeah well, for me it was all money and it was there for me. However since it was a junkyard it also attracts other scavengers and pirates. Other scavengers you may get into conflict, but pirates you’re almost guaranteed. And these pirates were going to use anything including lethal force to get rid of opposition.” Twilight gasped. “They were willing to kill you just over some junk?” I nodded. “That’s how the Xephoes are, or at least how most of them are. You don’t see regular Xephoes around that much. Or, at this point the pirate one’s are the regulars. That’s also what separates Pirates from Scavengers. Scavengers like me don’t steal directly off others.” Twilight shuddered. “They sound like Griffons.” I nodded wondering if the griffons here were anything like the mythological Griffons. “So yeah, I’m not going to go into all the details, I sometimes hate to remember them, but the Xephoes did a big job on us and he didn’t make it out. But sometimes I wonder if he’s better where he is now, wherever the hell that is.” “I’m sorry for bringing it up.” “It’s alright. Feels kind of weird socialising with someone who I’m probably not going to see again.” “What do you mean never going to see again? Are you saying that you’re leaving so soon?” I stared at her for a moment. “I don’t belong here, maybe I should just get out of your faces.” She seemed surprised at this. “Are you suggesting what I think… No wait, you don’t have to leave, you can stay here with us.” I looked at her all surprised. “Are you inviting me to stay here? Are you sure I won’t be much of a burden? I mean, I’m literally an alien.” She smiled at me. “Listen, Josh. You don’t have to leave just because you’re an alien. Ponies may seem a bit weary of you at first, but they should grow to accept you. Besides, You brought something we thought didn’t exist. Maybe Technology and magic can exist together.” I was shocked. Was she really asking me to stay? “Well… I mean, I guess I could stay?” At that moment a pink blur shot in front of me. “Yay! Joshy’s here to stay!” Pinkie pie shouted hugging me hard causing me to fall off the couch. “What the hell? How did she do that?” I asked getting up off the ground with a pony still wrapped around me. “It’s just Pinkie being Pinkie,” Twilight exclaimed smiling. Pinkie was still wrapped around me and it was getting old quick. “No seriously, and why is she still doing this?” “Pinkie get off of him,” Twilight commanded with a half serious tone. Pinkie Obliged and hopped off me. “I’m sorry! It’s just I thought he was going to leave without a welcome to Ponyville party!” She Apologised. “He hasn’t been to Ponyville yet Pinkie,” Twilight pointed out. That’s a real simple name. I wonder if it was the first village created here. “Oh! That means I need to throw him a welcome to Equestria party and then a welcome to Ponyville party right after that!” Pinkie Explained. I turned to Twilight. “What’s with all the parties?” “It’s just her thing,” She explained blandly. “Huh.” I turned to Pinkie and put up one finger. “One party, that’s it. Not too big, just regular. You can call it a welcome in general party, but there’s only going to be one got it?” Pinkie stared at me frozen. Does she even know the meaning of just one party? “Only one party?” she eventually whispered. “That’s more than one party than I originally considered,” I explained. Her eyes shot up. “Oh okay then! I got really lucky, one party it is!” She said before running off, hopefully not to to plan the party. “So, ugh… Anything else you want to talk about?” I asked Twilight. She smiled and her horn it up and a flash occurred. Hovering in front of her was a giant stack of paper. “We have lots to go through!” Shit Captain’s log, stardate, whatever the fuck does it matter? Day 1 After nearly getting brutally murdered by Xephoes (Fuck those guys), I’ve appeared to of emergency jumped onto a pre technological world. Or at least the civilization I’ve met seems to represent it. My ship is heavily damaged, there’s a hull breach in the ceiling, but luckily this planet has the right atmosphere to sustain me. I should be able to repair the hull breach. My thrusters and ftl drive are offline. It’s going to take me quite a while to repair them especially considering I don’t know if this planet has the resources. The locals will most likely not be able to help due to their lack of engineering skills of this degree. After a couple small conflicts with the wildlife I met the locals who did not act hostile on site and in fact welcomed my existence despite me being an alien. They appear to have a strange force they call magic. They literally call it magic, no other scientific term, it’s not slang, it’s literally called magic. They seem to reject or used to reject the existence of technology, stating that it was just a myth created to try and explain non magical circumstances. Well I seemed to prove them wrong. But their use of magic was also unexplainable to me. They proved me wrong too. Could it be that Technology and magic aren’t supposed to exist together? If so I must be really messing that up. I am not able to track this planet’s location. The scanners will not detect any other registered life off this planet. I can’t even connect to the nexus. I am basically exiled at this point. Finding out I was stranded, was not the easiest thing. Since I thought I didn’t belong here, I thought about simply killing myself. Not contaminate this planet with my existence. But the ponies didn’t want that. They accepted me, or at least the group that found me did. I’m not sure about the whole civilization. This pony, her name is Twilight seemed to have quickly grown on me. She appears to be a scholar. Whether or not she generally likes me or just has a scientific view on me is unknown. I like to think it’s both, but she did just ask me a billion questions about me and the milky way which in turn resulted in her comparing everything to this planet. Everything is going smoother than it should be. I thought I would be dead by now but it appears not. Seems a bit suspicious, but it’s only been around a day. Wait, I forgot to say this. The Pink one, perfectly named Pinkie Pie wants to throw me a party. Not wanting to seem to mean I said yes, but only one. She seems so extroverted. I kind of regret saying yes now. I think this may be my last log. Author's Note I'm posting this early in the morning, I'll check over everything after I wake. I already see some small punctuation mistakes. So yeah, I'm not going with the route that Griffons and minotaurs have significant enough technology. As usual, I would appreciate grammar and punctuation fixes. This is the third chapter and a lot is being purposely omitted. Anyway, things might seem to be going fast, I mean, Guys already made successful contact and not gotten into any trouble. But that fits with the character. Onto Technology vs magic, I'm not sure if anyone's going to like it. I mean, the title kind of suggests it. But I like it. I'm too self-conscious.
Leaving BoundsAuthor's Note Oh hey, Longest chapter. I don't know why it took me so long to write this chapter. It was originally planned for like, April 2018, but I ran into problems. Problems which I can't see two years later. Oh, yes, I do see problems, but not hold the chapter back for two years quality problems. I really don't understand myself. One good thing about this was that I found a bunch of editing mistakes that I fixed. Might have missed some, as is usual. So yeah, here is chapter 4 finally. Decided to get this out while I have free time before I start going into the workforce for real. With all the other stories I have been trying to write to no success, at least I was able to get this out. Leaving Bounds “What do you think is that thing?” “It looks like it’s broken.” “Do you think it’s living?” “There’s no way it could be living, it’s weirdly damaged.” “Could be a golem.” “Golems aren’t really living are they?” “That may be the meaning. I guess you’re right.” “You smell that?” “Something died here.” “You think it got it?” “It looks too heavy to move without noticeable tracks.” I had managed to distract her. I was grabbing a drink from my ever draining supply of soda when I saw Twilight looking over at my workbench. The spherical Artifact I had picked up before ‘great disaster’ was sitting there, where I left it. “Hey what’s this?” She asked, reaching to touch it. I grabbed her hoof before she could touch it. “I don’t think touching without protection is a good idea. I don’t know what it is, I found it while escaping from the Xephoes,” I answered. That artifact was still sitting where it was when I jumped. It wasn’t affected by turbulence when I landed. “Hey how…” I thought before realising. “Oh right! The Grav generator was still running on impact.” “The what?” Twilight asked. I went over to the Console and went into gravity control. The Grav generator was still on. I switched the settings to a little higher feeling the effects. Twilight stepped forward before stumbling over. I suppressed a laugh before turning off the generator. “That was me messing with the gravity generator. I was wondering why nothing had moved. I assumed the gravity generator would’ve been damaged on impact but it still works preventing turbulence,” I explained sipping my soda. Damn, I’ll run out sometime. Can they replicate this here? “You can generate gravity without magic?” Twilight asked curiously. I nodded. “Basically creates a new gravity field that can even sort of over right other fields. I have no idea exactly how it works. Maybe there’s some information in the codex.” “The codex?” “Yeah, a big offline database I’ve got on my computer,” I explained. “We can check it out later. However it’s civilian so it may not have that sort of deep information.” I went over to the weapons rack that held a couple of interesting weapons. The pride of all my looting had acquired me: the “Gravity Vortex Launcher.” It’s exactly what it sounds like, fires a giant gravity vortex that sucks things into it before collapsing into an implosion. How did I know this? I saw it in use. Such an experimental weapon shouldn’t be in my hands, but, it was. Another Xephos raid gone wrong and I was there to clean up, all that was left was the launcher, the Xepho that stole it had no idea how it really worked, and yeah, basically wiped out everyone that wasn’t already dead in the raid. The indicator on the side of the weapon read the number one. There were two charges in the weapon it seemed at base and I had no idea how to recharge it. It probably would cost too much to do so. Maybe there’s something here that could help me, but I don’t want to dive in too deep. “What’s that?” Twilight asked, pointing to the monstrosity of a device. “Oh that old thing. Just the end of the world,” I jokingly answered. It was a half-truth. It wouldn’t start the end of a world. Well, to the receiver it would appear as such. I should probably lock it up somewhere in case to prevent anyone from getting to it, who knows the collateral damage that could be caused with such a device. I won’t be putting it in my drive, it’ll take up too much space there. I climbed out of the ship with Twilight following me. It was getting dark. Everyone else had already basically left. I guess that’s what happens when you spend a while getting to know each other. I checked my night vision and my infrared when I noticed a lot of figures standing around. “Hey, ugh Twilight. Are there supposed to be other Ponies here?” I asked her. There were a bunch of ponies standing around. I clicked off my infrared and they disappeared. “Nope, I don’t see anypony else here,” She answered gazing around. “Why do you ask?” “Do you have some sort of invisibility magic here?” I asked. That was the only logical answer. “Yeah, Invisibility magic is generally restricted to high end users… Are there cloaked guards here?” I nodded. “Yeah there’s like Eight of them and they’ve got a perimeter set up. If they’re guarding the ship they don’t have to.” Honestly if what Twilight said was true then these guys must have been special forces. Twilight looked up at me before concentrating. I noticed her horn glow for a moment. “How did you know they were there?” “Infrared lenses. I can see heat signatures. They should really mask their heat signatures. Didn’t I tell you? I’m wearing contact lenses.” “Contact lenses? Those were only just developed here, you have…” “They’re not new technology. Well, contact lenses in general. The augmented ones are kind of new,” I looked over to the area where I fought the Timberwolves, the wooden bodies still lying there. “Hey, does anyone technically own this forest?” “The Everfree? No. Well, it falls within Equestria so it’s within that domain, but on a lower level no one owns it,” She answered. “Well, as far as I know. Maybe somepony owned it a long time ago.” “So that means I can do whatever I want here?” “Theoretically, yes. But I wouldn’t advise doing just anything.” I walked over to the pile of wood that was lying there. “I want to get rid of these carcass. Not sure if I would need a fire permit or something. I can assure you the fire won’t spread.” “I, I never thought of that,” She replied, following me up to the pile. “Not the timberwolf thing, we never got to the destroying the cores part. No I’m talking about the fire in the Everfree. For as long as recorded history, there’s been no sources of a fire breaking out in this forest.” “Is that a good or a bad thing?” “Well since the Everfree is mysterious and unknown… I don’t know. It might be, but at the same time, fire is a good tool to counteract weeds.” “Uh huh, well, what matters is that someone is the first to try,” I said pulling out my lighter. “Time to light a blaze.” I turned to see her staring at the lighter. “What? You don’t have lighters here? Geez, what kind of planet is this?” “Oh, but we do have lighters here. They’re just not things that we would just carry around everywhere,” She clarified. “When you get lost in the forest, you’ll be glad to have one with you,” I checked my watch. 1300 nexus. 1900 local. I wasn’t sure what the habits of the locals were, but assuming these ponies are diurnal, I was guessing she should probably head back to whenever she lived. Funny how this world followed a twenty four hour day. Don’t ask me why the nexus is set up that way, I’m not going to say that us humans set that up. “Hey, Twilight, I’m assuming you should be heading back around now, it’s Seven. I don’t know if time is different around here, if you know what I mean.” “Oh seven? I told Spike I’d be back around now. I should go,” she explained, concerned. “Yes, that’s exactly what I said. Now go and I can maybe work on the ship, maybe burn the carcasses as I suggested. Come back tomorrow if you want.” I walked outside following after Twilight. The guards were still there. “And tell them to fuck off.” I watched Twilight walk over to one of the guards. After a couple of moments, the guards uncloaked themselves and walked away from the crash site. Peace and quiet, well as far as i knew. It was weird considering I was alone for the last year or two. Maybe it was just the whole alien thing. After I gathered the corpses and lit them in a controlled environment, I returned to my ship and went over to the main console. “Set up a cam on the fire. If it exceeds the boundary significantly, then warn me.” “Hold still mate, I’ve got yah,” I reassured the crippled form of my friend on the ground. His Chest was blown through, his main shield was destroyed and his secondary was barely deflecting the strays. I digistructed a nano-shot and popped the cap off. “Dude, I’m done. It’s too much. You can’t help me,” He sputtered out over the blood in his mouth. “No, No man. I can stabilise you,” I countered as I injected the serum into his body. “C’mon man stay together. “No man, They’ll just get me again. You’re just going to get yourself killed. Back to the ship now.” “WE CAN MAKE THIS WORK!” “Shut, the fuck up man,” He said his voice clearing as the nano-shot stopped the blood flow in his mouth. “There’s no time. Believe me, you’re the only one who can make it, I’m not letting you die with me.” I ducked down just in time to dodge the shot of a sniper shot. My shield could have resisted it, but a second shot would have time to get through. I turned behind me spotting the target and fired my handgun at him. The first two shots missed, but the last three made it. Terrible positioning for him. “Please, if we’re both dead then no one can remember what a big son of a bitch I was,” He pleaded to me before gesturing to the rifle on the ground. “Hand me my rifle. Then go.” I reluctantly reached down and grabbed the rifle. I turned and looked at Ben for half a second, but to me it felt like five, before handing it over to him. I dropped him another nano-shot before activating my overshield and running out of cover. As I ran towards the ship that was parked on the other side of the valley entrance, I saw all the Xephoes turning their guns towards me. I didn’t have the dexterity to fire and run at the same time. But I didn’t have to. Ben propped himself up from behind the cover and aimed his weapon at who I assumed was the leader of the ambush. The leader thought that he was safe to be open, but he didn’t know Ben’s perseverance. “You’re looking at the wrong spot!” I woke up the next morning and rolled off my bed. Nothing bad had happened when I was asleep, nothing literally. But, my mind. It was not good. My last one was a month ago so I thought they had stopped. But it would seem otherwise. Might have something to do with my arrival, or it’s just coincidental. I didn’t really want to think about it then. The whole being stranded on this world thing got me thinking. If I were to get seriously injured, I wouldn’t have a doctor to go too. Or at least an intergalactic one. I’ll have to rely on my medi-chamber and the nano-shots I have. I could always make more nano-shots from the chamber. That’s at least until It runs out of serum, then I’ll have to try and get some more. The Thing was that I didn’t know too much about the serum in the first place. I mostly just scavenged it or bought some. The Chamber had limited functions anyway and if my head was ripped off then it wouldn’t do much anyway. Basically, I can’t do anything stupid here. I didn’t know anything about this planet’s medical situations. While I was eating my breakfast, a thought occurred to me. What foods am I able to eat here? I knew I could probably survive off hunting, but that would get old real quick. Really, I wanted to know about the plants and stuff around here. If they could replicate some of the food I already have then that would be a bit surprising. After breakfast I climbed my way out of the ship. Waiting there in front of me was Twilight. I know I told her to come back, but I didn’t really specify a time. There was no way she could have guessed my sleeping habits and such, but still, here she was. She looked a bit worn out. “How long have you been waiting there for?” I asked, walking up in front of her. “Not very long,” She replied smiling up at me. “You don’t have to worry about it. Are you ready to go to Ponyville?” Not a very surprising or original name for a pony settlement, I thought to myself, before staring down at Twilight for a moment. “Since when were we going to Ponyville?” I questioned her. She stepped back stroking her neck. “Oh um, I thought I already discussed it with you,” she stumbled over her words. “I thought that maybe, it was about time I showed you our town. I mean it has to happen sometime.” “Wasn’t really what I was planning for today, but really, I wasn’t planning anything so I guess it’s okay. Although, would it be okay to bring an alien into your town so early?” “Nopony’s really reporting your existence yet, but Princess Celestia hasn’t put any restrictions on it yet. I figure we should get it over and done with so you don’t have to lurk around in the Everfree like a hermit,” she looked down for a moment. “We don’t want a repeat of Zecora.” Zecora huh? I’ll save that question for later. “Alright then, I kind of want to see what a pony settlement is like anyway. I’m thinking the townsfolk will have a lot of questions for me. Should I be upfront or more classified?,” I asked for her opinion. “I’m asking because even though I’m not like a Pathfinder or anything, I feel like maybe I should follow some sort of protocol?” “I don’t know anything of your protocols, but I think you should be a bit upfront, but not too much that it might give them any weird ideas.” Twilight started trotting away from the ship and towards town. I checked to see if my defenses were active before following behind her. The further we walked away from the safety of the ship, the less dense the vegetation got and the more anxious Twilight seemed to get. As if she was expecting something bad to happen. “Hey are you okay?” She turned to face me. Clearly she wasn’t, and I think she knew she couldn’t lie in this situation. “Really, I’m not. I’d rather spend as little time in this forest as possible.” “Is it really that bad?” I said looking around. I couldn’t see much of harm, other then maybe a carnivorous plant that was easy to avoid. I couldn’t hear anything either. “I mean, you made it here before right?” “I did, but I had to make a bit of a long range teleport, and the Everfree does not make it so easy. It’s kind of draining,” she explained. Right, so that was why she looked worn out. “Well, if it makes you feel better, just know that you’re not getting hurt under my watch. Heck, I don’t even know if any of them would dare to attack me.” It was that which made Twilight stop and listen around. “You’re right. We’d normally hear a couple of noises by now. But I haven’t heard anything. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, and honestly, I don’t want to take the risk.” “You make it sound like you’ve come through here a couple of times. I thought you didn’t like this place.” “I don’t, but the first time I came through here, I didn’t believe it could be so bad, besides it was during a time of desperation. It was during the return of Nightmare Moon, and I theorised her presence put some fear into most of the creatures here.” She stopped and turned towards me. “You don’t think they’re scared of you?” “Scared of me?” I thought for a moment. Yeah they were definitely scared of me. “Yeah, probably. Though, I wouldn’t expect them all to straight up ignore me. I’m still an invader in their land, kind of, so maybe they’re just checking me out.” “Checking you out?” “Instead of going full rampage on me, they’re trying to analyse me for any weaknesses and stuff,” I explained. “Not that I’m exposing much right now. If they were smart enough, they’d know that looks don’t always mean anything.” Twilight didn’t say much else as we continued to walk along. When you’re seeing almost the same stuff over and over again, the trip can kind of feel longer. I left a mental note to myself to make a path through here so at least there will be some sense of progress getting here. I heard from Twilight earlier that there are two paths in the forest. One leading up to Zecora’s hut, someone who apparently actually lives here, although not too far in. The other one leads up to the castle of the Two Sisters. It kind of intrigued me but I didn’t ask much about it. We finally made it to the edge of the forest. I say finally, but my clocks say it only took around thirty minutes. It was certain that the foliage slowed us down a bit. Adding on the fact that Twilight was pretty worn out otherwise I would have just told her to fly on without me. I assumed flying was better than walking, but who knew if this forest had tons of flying monstrosities as well. I could see the town ahead of me. It was kind of like a village, not a small one but regular sized I would say. Considering the name it literally must have been a village. In the distance, I could still see the mountainside city. Compared to the village, it looked as if it was more prestigiously constructed. “Hey guess what Twilight? You made it, all while being quite a bit fatigued,” I congratulated her as she sighed in relief. “There was nothing to worry about, see?” “I can assure you that any other pony would have felt the same way that I had. Well, maybe not Rainbow Dash.” She let out a loud yawn. “With your ship as a safe haven she would feel a bit alright.” “Twilight, you seem more than worn out. Maybe you should get some rest. Just get one of your friends to show me around or something,” I suggested. “I don’t understand what’s going on. I know I’m tired from the teleport, but I shouldn’t be this tired. I teleport everywhere all the time.” “Didn’t you say before it was long range teleportation with some sort of Everfree fuckery?” I replied. “I… Yeah, but I never expected it to be this draining. I’ll have to make adjustments next time. Maybe I’ll try walking as much as I can,” she answered. “I think I’ll take up your offer. We’ll go to the castle first.” “Or maybe I could just come to you. Since you showed me the way out, I know the way back.” “That fast?” “Yes, I’m that good.” It was just some technological fuckery actually, but I didn’t want to tell her that. “In fact, I know an easier way for you to contact me. I don’t have it here with me now, but I’ll give it to you as soon as possible.” “Oh yes please. If it saves me from walking, then I’d gladly take it. Maybe we could replicate it?” She perked up all giddy like. “Hey, no experimenting on it without me there. I don’t think that will go well and we need to make sure it will work.” She paused for a moment, as if she needed a bit of time to process my request. “I promise I won’t do anything wrong with it.” I looked at her suspiciously. “You’re worn out. Don’t make promises now, especially since you don’t even have it yet.” She didn’t protest or really say anything as she just walked towards the glistening tree crystal structure thing in the distance.
Personal Codex: The Xephoes V1The Xephos are a race of six limbed mammals that almost resemble reptiles. When referring to Xephos, one is generally referring to the pirate factions and not the loyalist faction, of which there is a low population. They are characterised by their inherent lust for energy and power. They are known to seek out sources of high energy provided they have enough strength to do so. They have no concern for civilian life, if it's available they'll take it. In saying that, they do not go into civilian sectors fearing the military support. If the Xephos were to band together, it could possibly create an army bigger than the average military, due to their aggressive nature. However Xephos are not a conjoined faction, they are not averse to fighting each other for power. The Biggest of the Xephos factions are known to have attempted to harness the power of the weakest stars. No successful attempt is known to be made as all attempts have usually resulted in the implosion of the flagship due to the overwhelming power or the attack from other factions to steal the power. Due to the nature of the Xephos, there may be a successful attempt, but hiding the energy from others would be hard. The ranks of the Xephos are generally self-centered with only their own race being accepted properly into their ranks. They are not against slavery and will capture other races to do their dirty work or act as cannon fodder.
