Chapters 38th Year Of Celestial Peace
Canterlot. A relatively new shining beacon of hope for the citizens of Equestria the sun shone rays of beautiful white light down upon the new city. The rays of light bounced off the newly finished buildings and the stunning walkways giving a majestic glow to the new city.
Amazing parks littered the upper-class areas of the city. These parks were filled with much greenery and magnificent trees that stretched high into the sky that would be placed nicely near a bench to offer that perfect bit of shade for one who would like to simply rest for a while.
Meanwhile, the foals and fillies would run around playing games with each other with the occasional daredevil pony that would try to climb one of the trees which would always end with a bruised foal and an unhappy parent.
At the centre of these parks would lie an amazing fountain which had a beautiful statue in the middle that expelled water from its mouth. Many would come to sit by the fountain as the running water provided a calming nature to those nearby.
Near the parks, many fancy shops and restaurants could be found. If a pony was willing to pay then the five-star service was only a door away. For this reason, many of the nobility could be found indulging in the five-star service that was offered by the staff of the various restaurants.
In the lower parts of the grand city, many common ponies of all kind could be seen wandering the street going about their day, collecting food and other daily goods from the busy and lively marketplace. The markets were full of many different items and contained goods from all over Equestria, from exotic spices to rare enchantments the Canterlot market was full of it. The citizens who walked among the crowded market could be seen haggling with the stall vendors as both participants endlessly shouted different figures of currency at each other both trying to come out on top.
"20 Bits!" A mare would shout throwing her Bit's pouch down on the stand to emphasize the point.
"20 Bits?!" A heavy stallion would shout back. "Outrageous I would lose my business if I gave away my stock at those prices and I've got plenty mouths to feed, 30 Bits!"
"30 Bits? I would think not good sir I'll give you 25 and not a bit more," The mare would reply.
"Honestly lady you're killing me here but it's a deal,"
With the middle figure now being reached the two would shake hooves and exchange goods and continue on with their respective days.
However as chaotic as it sounds there remained a sense of calm and order. Dotted throughout the many and vast streets were the newly formed E.U.P guard. These were the new elite fighting force in law enforcement and were comprised of all three of the main pony tribes, the Earth, Unicorn, and Pegasus respectively. Each type of pony brought with it an elite skill that was utilized by the guard.
The Earth pony guards were the main grunts of the E.U.P guard. They were commonplace in the streets of Canterlot and had high endurance and strength which made them amazing pursuers of thieves. The Earth regiments usually worked alongside the Pegasus regiments of the streets and could quickly pursue and escaping criminals as the Pegasus guards had no issue in taking to the skies in a heated pursuit.
The Unicorns guards, whilst still a common sight in the busy city were normally reserved for more dangerous criminals and specialized in different kinds of protective spells and enchantments to give them the edge in battle. They were often seen as better and nobler guards and were often given higher profile assignments whilst the main street protection assignments were left to the Earth and Pegasus ponies.
They wore elite golden armour that covered their chest and back section of their body and adorning their heads were golden helmets that glistened in the light. The helmets also provided a unique enchantment that allowed the wearer to be disguised as a textbook Royal Guard. The enchantment turned their coats a bright white and their manes a navy blue.
The guards also came equipped with spears and lances that had traces of enchantment embedded within them allowing them to feel much lighter than they actually were.
However, by far the most outstanding sight in Canterlot and if maybe even all of Equestria itself was the Grand Royal Palace. The palace outshone every other structure within the city and was at least twice as tall than all the other buildings. The building itself was painted with beautiful patterns and had swirls that stretched all the way up its many towers and many pillars. From the outside, you could see gold adorned the tips of the many buildings within the castle ground making it truly a sight to behold.
Outside the palace, a heavily guarded gate separated the castle grounds from the rest of the main city. The gate itself was huge and had many layers to it. It was also guarded by several squads of Royal Guards who all stood at attention remaining motionless, only ever moving if someone dared to approach the gate unannounced.
Within the palace itself, there was many maids and other servants making their ways through the large spacious corridors. Many other important looking ponies were roaming the castle, many of these ponies were in suits and were busy talking amongst one another.
In the lower levels of the castle, a large kitchen could be found with many of the kitchen staff running around frantically looking for different ingredients to add to their brews. The sounds of shouting ponies could barely be heard over the sound of clattering pans and pots.
However, by far the most amazing site in the entire palace was the grand throne room. Within its walls sat a large throne embezzled with gold and other jewels of all different kinds shapes and sizes. However, it was what sat upon the throne itself that probably brought the most attention.
Princess Celestia as she was known to most was a majestical being of pure radiant light. She gazed down at her subjects with love and compassion. She was known to be fair and kind and many would flock to the great city just to hear her words of wisdom.
Today the Princess was holding her usual day court, where an assortment of different ponies and other species would stand before her asking for advice, guidance or help.
An old grey unicorn mage stood before the Princess he was rambling on and on and on and yet the princess kept a face of secrets her expression only ever slightly changing with the wind.
"And you see your majesty with this new device we can make timely transport a thing of the past!" The unicorn exclaimed his face glowing with confidence.
"A most peculiar device I must admit however you must be aware that we must make sure that this device is safe for ponies to use?" The Princess responded her eye site turning to the device that laid before her. The device was a small brown box with a few buttons along the side and a brass slit in the top of the box. An identical box sat opposite and the two were connected with some cheap looking wiring.
"O... Of course your majesty, that is why I have prepared a demonstration for us here today," The unicorn stuttered.
The guards stationed at the entrance of the throne room exchanged worried glances.
"For this demonstration, I will teleport myself across this room using the device and don't worry your majesty you have my assurance that this is 100% safe.
"Ok, I will humour this short demonstration of yours please proceed," The Princess looked down at him whilst giving him the wave of her hoof giving the signal to the stallion to start up his machine.
The machine started to sputter and spew as a bright light that could rival Celestia's Sun started to emerge from the top of the machine. Suddenly a loud bang could be heard coming from within the box, the two boxes both started to shake violently as a smile crept onto the unicorn's face.
Then after what felt like an eternity, the noise stopped and the boxes ceased to make any movement of the sort. Celestia pondered at the nature of the mysterious box and for the first time, she felt her usually firm composer slightly falter as she mentally braced herself for the next part of this act.
Without any warning of the sort, two bright explosions covered the boxes and burst into the air like a shooting star, what stood before them was truly a sight to behold. Before their eyes were two crystalline structures, the structures looked like a shattered mirror floating in water. The mirror-like objects were suspended in air and slowly started to descend towards the floor of the throne room.
The unicorn stallion stood with excitement on his face whilst the Princesses was filled with untold curiosity and awe for the beauty of the structures that lay before her throne.
"Now your majesty I invite you to watch as I perform the first non-magic based teleportation!" The stallion exclaimed with a tone that some may have considered boastful. His ego had clearly been given a boost from the current working state of his contraption.
The stallion began to walk towards the mirror and gazed into it his face changed from one of boastfulness to one of awe and perhaps a hint of trepidation. All the eyes in the room were fixed on him and as the stallion gulped he slowly entered the mirror. As he disappeared into the silvery mirror silence fell across the room and with the exception of the low humming of the mirrors, not a sound could be heard.
Then the mirrors started to hum louder as the first mirror (the one in which the stallion had entered through) started to spark and change form with shards of mirror stretching in and out of the mirror portal, the shards started to disintegrate. Celestia and her guards could only look on in horror as the mirror grew smaller and smaller eventually the mirror was so small that it was barely even visible to the naked eye.
Clearly, the disappearance of one mirror threw the other out of balance as it started to spew bits of crystal everywhere.
"GET HER OUT OF HERE NOW!" Yelled one of the unicorn guards a sound of panic and fear in its voice.
Two guard ponies that had been standing near the throne threw up protective shield spells as bits of shard started to hit off them, they extended their shields to cover their princess and started to escort her down off of the throne and out of the area.
The princess looked horrified as she left the throne room she could hear guards yelling obviously trying to get the mirror under control. She turned around to re-enter the throne room but was stopped when one of the guards that were escorting her put his armoured hoof out in front of her.
"Please your majesty I must advise that you come with us to safety," The guard tried to plead with his ruler but Celestia's look of defiance was well known throughout her kingdom. The look spoke a thousand words and so the guard looked over at his partner.
"Booster! Re-rase your shield spell full power and protect the Princess at all costs," The guard barked his orders. His fellow guard did a quick salute before re-casting his shield spell. Together the three walked back to the throne room to find nothing but utter devastation.
The walls had been engraved with bits of shards and three guards were lying wounded on the floor crying out in severe pain as the remaining mirror spewed crystals erratically across the room hitting bits of decoration as it went.
Celestia charged a spell and shot a beam of light towards the mirror but the mirror simply absorbed the light. In return, the mirror spewed more shards at quicker rates than before. The shield that Celestia was under started to change colour to a pale yellow. Celestia was already pumping as much energy into the shield as possible and the two guards at her sides looked exhausted from the constant pounding of the shield.
Mustering all of her strength Celestia shone a pure beam of energy towards the side of the mirror. As it passes the mirror a small tear began to appear from nothing. She poured all of her energy into making this tear big enough and soon the gap from nowhere was about the size of the mirror. She fired four huge blasts of energy towards the mirror blasting bits of shard along the way as the mirror started to move towards the mirror. Sensing victory she put all of her energy into one final blast and pushed the mirror into the gap just before she sealed it with the last of her magic.
Celestia dropped motionless to the floor as the ever-growing darkness grew upon her. She could see new sets of guards bursting into the throne room and like that the lights went out.
"QUICK SOMEONE GET A DOCTOR!"
Author's Note
So yes this is a complete re-work I have had a long think about what to change and how it would affect the overall story so the changes are pretty substantial any constructive criticism would be helpful as I'm just a uni student and not a professional by any account.
Thanks
1st January 2017 9:01AM
"This is Tom Grant wishing you a happy new year it's just passing 9AM here in downtown Philidelphia and its set to be another cold one so make sure to wrap up warm and make sure to have something warm to drink, we're here all day folks on TopStop FM"
BEEP ... BEEP ... BEEP
The unmistakable sound of my alarm clock woke me from my (up to that point) peaceful slumber. It had been a busy few days. We had left London on Friday afternoon, I recall it being very busy as many different people were trying to make it home in time for the new year celebrations. Unfortunately, storms in the area had been making travel a nightmare. The news was calling it the "Nightmare After Christmas" a nice little reference that gave me the chuckles whenever I saw it in the headlines.
Never the less we still managed to make it out of London all be it three and a half an hour's late. Every couple of hours the storms would break allowing for the passage of aircraft that wanted to depart and land, however with all of the delayed flights it was like a traffic jam in the sky with hundreds of planes looking for a suitable place to land with the vast majority deciding to divert to France and other parts of Europe. I guess we were the lucky ones as many other flights were most likely delayed for longer and probably even canceled.
Realizing I was still lying motionless in my bed I decided to make an official start to the day, however, the softness of the hotel pillows kept on pulling me back like I was a prisoner in my own bed. While I laid there I tried to piece together what had happened last night. I could distinctly remember meeting with all of the crew downstairs and heading out for a night out. Of course, it wasn't much of a night out considering that we were flying home the next night, however, we tried to make the best of it.
I rolled over and saw a few displaced items on my bedside stand. My phone was lying underneath a party hat and a pair of wacky glasses that read "HAPPY NEW YEAR" in big bold letters.
Good god I thought to myself, I knew my taste in fashion was never that good but there was fashion and then there was just plain ridiculous.
I stretched over and grabbed my phone turning on the power I could see that it was fully charged and it had just gone past 9 in the morning
"Damn guess I missed breakfast," I said to no one in particular.
It didn't really bother me that much considering I heavily doubted that any of the other crew members would be up yet. I'm pretty sure we weren't up too late, at the very latest 2 or 3 in the morning. However, that was no problem as we weren't supposed to be at the airport for a while anyway which gave us some much needed time to chill and recuperate.
"And coming up it's our first competition of the year, we are giving you the chance to start your year off with a bit of glim and a bit of glam,"
The sound of the radio play throughout the room for the next couple minutes as I listened to the usual radio competitions. You know the ones where they promise you more money than you can carry.
If only I thought to myself
Eventually, I decided to perform the unique human operation of leaving the bed. It took a couple more minutes but eventually I was sitting straight up on the king sized bed. While I was getting up I turned the local news channel on and listened in to hear what they had to say.
"If you're just tuning in this morning then I'm afraid you've missed quite a lot," The news anchor paused for some dramatic effect.
"God I'll never understand American media it's like watching a live action soap opera," I commented.
"The search continues into New Years Day for two missing passengers from a transatlantic flight from Miami to London,"
I looked at the TV with pure curiosity.
How is this even news. If I had a pound for everytime a passenger went missing then I wouldn't need to be a Pilot.
"The passengers were onboard the overnight flight when they went missing,"
Now, this peaked my curiosity. I reached for the TV remote and turned the volume up a tad just to be sure that I was hearing correctly.
"The plane was swept multiple times by the cabin crew during the flight and a further detailed search was conducted by security and border forces when the plane landed in London but nothing out of the ordinary was found,"
I looked at the TV for a bit truly puzzled. Eventually, I decided I would figure it out later and went about the rest of my morning.
I opened the curtains and saw the beautiful Philadelphia airport before me. The hotel was pretty new and had become the go-to spot for cabin crews during their stays. The hotel provided a great overview of the airport and from the view of my window, you could see the end of the closest runway.
I decided against going out to get something to eat as I imagined that most of the crew would still be in the early phases of waking up so instead, I opted for the best next thing. Room service. After carefully reviewing the varied and extensive menu I decided to have the full English breakfast brought to me. I knew full well that there was no way that I would eat it all, probably not even half, however, I was too tired to pick individual items so I just opted for them all.
After I eat a bit of the huge breakfast that I had ordered I got dressed. I carefully inspected every part of my uniform. I paid special attention to my new stripes. Instead of having three on my shoulder now in its place were four of them. I had only recently been promoted to Captain. I don't believe I was the youngest to ever achieve the rank but I'm pretty sure I was close.
I soon finished inspecting my uniform and began to pack away all of my things. I threw all of my "relaxing" clothes as I called them into my small suitcase and started to prepare my flight bag.
The flight bag had all of the necessary information for today's flight. It contained various maps and forecasted weather, however, I already knew that I would pick fresh ones up when I got into the crew area. From what I could see it looked like we were in for yet another whopper of a storm on approach but apart from that the rest of the flight should be fine.
Next to all of my flight books was my Ipad. I pulled it out to get and opened up my company app that all staff members had. From there I was able to get a more accurate idea of the weather, however, it was mostly unchanged. I decided to spend a few more minutes sitting with my Ipad playing a few brain teaser apps and catching up on the latest news. Whilst browsing I read some more on the "missing passengers" story, however, I remained skeptical.
After a couple minutes had passed I put my Ipad and phone on charge, I also made sure to put my on the go charger on charge. As the devices started to refill with energy I left them to go and double check that I had everything I needed. As I started to go through the first of many checklists I stopped and thought to myself.
This is going to be a hell of a trip
I checked my watch as I waited for the elevator to arrive. The symbols showed me that it was just passed 10 o'clock in the morning. After a bit of waiting the elevator finally opened its doors allowing me in. Luckily there was no one else in the elevator allowing me to fit all of my luggage in with me.
When I got to the ground floor I found it surprisingly empty. With the exception of a couple members of my crew and the hotel staff, the place was desolate.
Paying it no mind I walked over to the seating area that my First Officer and a couple of the Cabin Crew were sitting in. The area was filled with a bunch of soft large couches with little coffee tables positioned in front of the various seats. On the table, there was a selection of half drunken tea and coffee along with a selection of the hotels signature biscuits.
As I approached the area where everyone was sitting my First Officer noticed me walking over and stood up.
"Captain on deck," He said with military tone giving a little mock salute in the process.
As he spoke many of the crew turned around and broke off their little conversations to give me a nice smile.
"Morning everyone," I said giving my standard good morning smile. "I do hope that we aren't in the process of having any hangovers?" I questioned with a light smile.
In return, I got a few chuckles as many of the crew thought back to the events of last night.
"No suck luck I'm afraid," My First Officer replied.
Craig was my second in command. I'd flown with him many times and had formed a close friendship with him. He was around the same age as me if not a year younger. He was a bit on the skinny size but what he lacked in body mass he made up for it in his height as he was a good few inches taller than me. His love for aviation and flying rivaled my own, he would have no problems in talking at length about any topic aviation wise. Overall he was a very good friend which was something that I didn't really have much of.
"Want to make a quick start?" I questioned him
"Sure, wasn't doing much anyhow," Craig replied as he unlocked his own flight bag.
"So I was checking the weather looks like were going in for a rough one tonight," I commented as we looked over bits of paper that had been scattered across the small coffee table.
"Yeah well rough would be putting it lightly," Craig responded taking another sip from his tea. I had gone for a hot chocolate alternative as I had never really been a fan of tea or coffee.
Craig looked at the map for a few moments as if he was deep in thought. After a minute of relative silence had passed I waved my hands in front of him.
"Earth to Craig?" I said curious about his lack of tongue.
Craig was the type of person who could talk for hours on end and still have room for more conversations so this moment of silence was quite unusual.
"Earth to Craig?" I repeated again, however, this time I clicked my figures to try and get a response. My plan worked and Craig looked at me with a hint of confusion and then realized that he had been sitting silently for the past minute or so.
"Sorry," He said. "I was just looking at the weather and it occurred to me that once we left the NAT we could try and dodge the storms by flying over the Paris FIR before making a turn back towards London, that way we could potentially dodge a large portion of the storm," He finished his mini presentation and took another sip of his tea.
I processed what Craig had just said and to be fair to the guy he wasn't wrong. However, I had a feeling that there was something far greater that would stop us from executing this particular plan.
"Well," I started. "It looks good on paper I must agree but I heavily doubt we would be allowed the extra fuel required to make that addition to the route, plus we're already going to be taking on extra hold and diversion fuel due to the storm in the area anyway," I finished my counterpoint before returning my gaze to the map.
"Well it never hurts to ask now does it," Craig replied with a mischevious smile before breaking into a slight chuckle.
The next hour or so was spent discussing finer details about the trip and all of the contingencies that we may take in case the storm got too close for comfort. Eventually, our shuttle arrived to take the crew (which by this point had completely assembled) to the airport terminal. One by one we started to shuffle aboard the slick looking transport once aboard we compiled our luggage in one area before the doors to the shuttle closed over.
The engine revved and the shuttle started moving towards the terminal. As we began moving I took the opportunity to make my usual speech.
"Can I have everyone's attention please?" As I started to speak the crew all stopped what they were doing and looked up some more eagerly than others. The wear and tear from last nights celebration had begun to crack through the thick wall of makeup that some of the ladies were wearing whilst the men just looked plain tired.
"Now I can already tell as I look around that some of us are still recovering from last nights... Celebrations," The pause gained an amused look from Craig.
"However I must remind you all,"
"Here we go," Craig muttered just low enough that only me and my crew chief could hear.
"That here at British Airways we represent a mark of quality and when we step out there we represent not only ourselves and not only our airline but the entire nation of Great Britain," If I had some inspirational music in the background that speech might have lifted the hopes of the whole company, however, it was the same speech I used every time and the crew many of whom I'd worked with before just looked at me with that "we get it" kind of look.
Seeing that I'd clearly done enough speaking I took my seat next to Craig who had a cheezy grin on his face.
"Well, I must say every time I hear that short speech I just get so inspired," He said mockingly.
"Yeah okay I get it I'm clearly not the best speech writer," I replied my face now bearing a hint of annoyance.
"Emphasis on the clearly there,"
"YES, thanks for your input Craig it has been ever so helpful do me one favor though," I said the annoyance increasing with every passing second.
"What?"
"Shut up," I replied quietly like a whisper of air in his ear. My head cabin crew poked her head between ours and smiled.
"Wow Craig a new record it only took you a minute to get him to say it," She said giving me a slight pat on the head.
"I know I'm kinda just brilliant," He replied.
"If you two weren't my best friends this would be a staff complaint," I said trying to bottle up my frustration, much to my friend's amusement who only gave chuckles in response.
Yep a VERY long day...
Author's Note
For some immersion, I've left some links for you all.
During Aircraft Flight - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t842besvDs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UO-wYpNN0s
Chapter Two
1st January 2017 11:30AM
Eventually, the shuttle bus that had been carrying us towards the terminal stopped. There was a little jolt to the side of the transport as one side of the shuttle depressurized to make disembarking easier. One by one the crew picked up their luggage and left the bus, I was the last person to leave the bus and on my way out thanked the driver as he wished us a happy new year.
Outside the shuttle bus was a totally different world, there was cars, buses and a massive sea of taxis for as far as the eye could see. Along the line of cars, you could make out various people going about their day as they said goodbye to loved ones and friends.
Besides the tsunami of people, there was a distinctive blend of car exhaust and jet fuel in the air. It was a smell that for different people it meant different things. For some, the smell meant relaxation and holidays and for others, it just meant another day at the office, but for me, it meant home. Flying had pretty much become my second home and the smell gave me a save reassurance whenever I was panicky. Now that I took a moment to think about it I really wouldn't be surprised if I spent more time in the air than I did on the ground.
A small tap on my shoulder brought me out of my little daydream. As I turned around I saw Craig clicking my fingers at me.
"Ah ha the tables have turned," He announced triumphantly.
"Sure whatever you say," I replied not giving it much mind.
Before I could continue the conversation I got another tap on the shoulder. Although much to my surprise it wasn't Charlie playing tricks as I'd first assumed. Instead, standing there was Rose, my head cabin crew.
"I don't mean to interrupt your no doubt fascinating conversation however if you haven't noticed it's freezing out here and I'm standing in a skirt," She said using her hands to show what she meant.
"Okay fair enough," I told her. I turned around to face the rest of the cabin crew who by this point were all shivering with the exception of a few.
"Okay everyone let's head inside and get some heat into us," I announced much to the delight of the shivering cabin crew. As we walked in Rose and Craig both pulled up beside me.
"Honestly Phil I have no idea how you don't notice that it's freezing," She said curiosity mixing with shivers. I simply laughed.
"Ha you know I'm from Scotland this is like an extra summer holiday,"
"Well, it wouldn't hurt to remind yourself every once in a while that the rest of us are not," She replied.
"Fair enough,"
The terminal building was also freshly renovated and had just reopened in the past couple of months. The smell of fresh paint adorned the many walls and new LED TV's were dotted all around the check in area. Touchscreens had become the new keyboards as many checks in staff were now using the devices at their desks. I had no doubt in my mind that the place was also made to be more "energy efficient" as everyone these days had to pretend to save the planet somehow. This truly was a terminal made for the 21st century.
Our group began to make its way over to the designated crew area. As we passed through the airport security we all went through the usual routine making sure to place everything in the tray. The crafty TSA were always on hand to both speed up and slow down our day.
When we finally made it to the crew area everyone got settled in for a bit of wait. It would be another hour or so before we even got out to the aircraft. I, however, wasen't complaining as it gave us time for the weather to get better outside. Most of the crew decided to go and get a fresh round of tea and coffee. Unfortunately, there were no hot cocoa machines in the crew room much to my disappointment. Craig seemed to have noticed my disappointment and decided to speak up.
"Still no hot chocolate?" He asked as he drank his tea.
"Nope, I swear the airport never reads my suggestion cards whenever I submit them," I exclaimed. I wasn't lying every time I would come to Philadelphia the one thing it would lack would be the hot cocoa machine and every time I would submit a staff suggestion card to no avail.
"I'm sure they'll put one in one day,"
"Yeah but by the time they do I'll either be dead, missing or in another universe," I said. I was greatly over exaggerating my issue but the hot cocoa always helps me to focus.
"Yeah probably,"
Just as we finished our mini conversation I heard Rose call over to us giving us a little wave to signal her position.
"Hey we're just going to have our Cabin briefing shouldn't take to long today,"
"Okay thanks for letting us know, I'll give you a little shout when the crew briefings about to start," I replied.
"Gotcha," She said before turning around and walking back to a large room in the back of the staff area.
"We should probably get over to the dispatch counter while we have time," Craig said.
"Lead the way," I said signaling him with the motion of my hand.
We both made our way over to the dispatch counter within the staff area. From there we could review all of our plans for the day in a more controlled environment with more access to different pieces of equipment and charts.
We made a start by looking at the main flight plan for the flight. The plan was very straight forward, once we departed Philadelphia we would fly north towards Canada before flying east across the Atlantic Ocean. All going well the flight should take around six hours to complete.
After reviewing a couple more items including the weather and NOTAMS for both airports myself and Craig both started to make our way to where the cabin crew was currently meeting. As we approached the door I reached out with my hand to give a clear knock upon the door. A few seconds later the knock was greeted with a.
"Come in,"
As I opened the door I saw the crew many of which were sitting down at a large round table with a couple of the others standing with drinks still in hands. As we walked in we saw Rose who by the looks of things was just finishing up her crew briefing. Their meetings mostly consist of delivering customer service but also focuses on safety for the flight.
"Good you're here just in time," She exclaimed packing most of her sheets into her bag. "We're all finished here so you can have the floor,"
I walked to the middle of the room whilst Craig took a seat next to Rose as the room slowly fell quiet.
"Okay, good morning everyone so let's start our group brief then," I said before setting out a couple of documents out on the table in front of myself. "So just in case your hangovers are causing memory leaks let me just re-introduce myself, I'm Phil and this is my first officer Craig," At the mention of his name Craig gave a little wave.
The briefing continued for a bit mainly focusing on details for the specific flight in question. I noticed that time was running short so I decided to start to wrap things up.
"Please remember you are my eyes and ears down the back so if there's anything that you see that you're not happy with suspicious or abnormal then please don't hesitate to contact the chief or ring any of us up on the flight deck and we will sort it out," I took a breath of air before continuing. "That all being said thank you very much and let's have a good flight,"
As my final remarks showed the end of the briefing the crew who were sitting went to stand up as the already standing crew made their way to the door of the briefing room. Finally, once everyone in the room had left I got up and started to make my way to the gate.
After much walking, we finally arrived at our gate A16. It definitely wasn't the fanciest gate I'd parked at but overall it wasn't terrible. As we approached the entrance to the gate the airport staff recognized us and let us through. As we gave them a little smile and thanks we began to walk towards the aircraft.
G-YMMD was a Boeing 777-200. It was beginning to show its age in someplace, however, the airline kept all of their aircraft nice and shiny. Inside the age of the aircraft disappeared as the cabins had recently been renovated and had been given a much-needed face lift. Old machines in the galleys had been replaced with new ones for the cabin crew to use and new mood lighting had been installed to reduce jet lag.
Finally came the cockpit which was already extremely modern. It still had all the latest bells and whistles and was in of itself a technological marvel. The cockpit contained many in-flight computers that could allow the pilots to stay relatively hands-free for most of the flight. Nice comfy seats were also installed for the pilots which were a godsend for many.
The only downside to this marvel was the price tag that came with it. In order to buy just one of these flying machines, you would need at least $260 Million. Luckily I worked for an airline which had many so I guess that was a plus.
As we entered the cockpit the aircraft was in a turn around state. The ground power unit was still connected and powering most electrical systems within the aircraft. Craig and I took our seats and started to unpack some of the paperwork hidden within the leather bags. Most of it was just sheets regarding the route and the weather, however, there were still some finer details to be worked out now that we were on the flight deck.
The time flew by as we performed checklists after checklists. Eventually, Craig went outside for a walk around of the aircraft which gave me a little bit of time alone in the cockpit. As I read up on a couple of the airports NOTAMS I heard a knock at the cockpit door.
"Yes?" I questioned.
I turned around to see one of the members of the cabin crew standing in the door way.
"Captain, we're all ready down the back are we cleared to board?" She asked.
"Sure, let them in," I replied still flicking through the NOTAMS. The cabin crew just gave a nod of the head and proceeded to walk out of the cockpit. I heard muffled talking from behind the door and a few moments later Craig re entered the cockpit and sat down removing his high visibility vest in the process. As he sat down I turned to him.
"Looks like we are approaching our time I'll give delivery a call,"
"Sounds good boss," He replied going through his own charts.
I moved my eyesight down to the radio panel and started fiddling with the frequency knobs. When the numbers matched the frequency I wanted I hit the enter button and grabbed my headset.
"Philadelphia delivery good day, Speedbird Six Seven Victor with you requesting IFR to London Heathrow as filed," I released my finger off of the transmit button awaiting a response.
"Speedbird Six Seven Victor, Philidelphia Clearance Delivery. Cleared to London Heathrow via the Tbrig One Departure, Ditch Transition, then as filed. Maintain 5000, Expect Flight Level Three Four Zero five minutes after departure. Departure Frequency 124.35, Squawk 7201. Good Morning
"Cleared to Heathrow via the Tbrig One departure, Ditch transition, then as filed. Initial altitude 5000, expecting 340 in 5, departure on 124.35, squawk 7201, Speedbird Six Seven Victor," As I spoke Craig started to enter some of that information into the flight management computer whilst I wrote the information down on a sheet of paper.
"Speedbird Six Seven Victor, Readback Correct"
As the controller finished his speech I started to enter the departure information into the flight management computer as Craig set up the transponder.
"Ladies and gentlemen my name is Rose and I'm your chief flight attendant on today's flight from Philadelphia to London Heathrow. I'd also like to introduce my fellow cabin crew Richard, Yam, Don, Emma, Sam, Ashley, and Eva. It's a pleasure to have you with us today and I'm pleased to see some of our executive club members and frequent flyers on board. Please ensure that your seatbelts are fastened whenever the signs are on and just as a reminder smoking is not allowed during any part of the flight. In our Highlife magazine, you will find various exercises to help you relax during the flight. Regarding service on board, our premium economy and club word passengers are now being served the various beverages found on our list. If there's anything we can do to make your journey more comfortable then please don't hesitate to ask one of our crew members. Thank you for listening we do hope you enjoy your flight to London,"
"Philadelphia ground Speedbird Six Seven Victor requesting taxi to active," I said taking my hand off the mic as a crackled message soon followed.
"Speedbird Six Seven Victor after the American A320 taxi to holding point Sierra 10 via Juliet, Yankee, and Sierra,"
"After the American A320 taxi to Sierra 10 via Juliet, Yankee, and Sierra Speedbird Six Seven Victor," I replied.
As Craig slowly advanced the 777's throttle quadrant I felt the aircraft slowly wake up as we began to roll forward on the taxi-way. After a couple of minutes, we slowly advanced behind a line of traffic a small bing rung throughout the cockpit.
"Cabin secured," I commented as I looked through the taxi charts.
"Before takeoff checklist please," Craig said keeping his hand on the tiller his voice more serious than before.
"Before takeoff checklist," I replied as I pulled up the ECAM display page. "Flaps?" I asked.
"Flaps 15," he replied.
"Before takeoff checklist complete," I said closing down the ECAM display page.
"Speedbird Six Seven Victor line up and wait runway 09 right,"
"Line up and wait 09 right for Speedbird Six Seven Victor," I replied as I turned to look at the overhead panels turning the various landing lights to their on positions.
Slowly the massive flying machine positioned itself on the runway. I switched the radio panels to the PA mode.
"Cabin crew, seats for takeoff please," I switched the radio panels back to the control tower knowing that a transmission was imminent. As if on cue I heard the crackled voice of ATC speak once more.
"Speedbird Six Seven Victor the winds are 90 degrees at 4 knots runway 09 right cleared for takeoff,"
"Cleared for takeoff runway 09 right Speedbird Six Seven Victor," I replied placing my right hand over Craigs. When my hand was in a comfortable position I heard Craig say.
"Takeoff," Both our hands began to advance the throttle forward as Craig said "TOGA," I released my hand from the throttle and held it close by my side like a gunslinger would just in case we needed to stop.
"Thrust set," I called out. After a few seconds, my next robotic comments followed. "80 knots... V1.... Rotate," as I spoke Craig pulled back on the control column of the aircraft as the nose lifted into the air as the miracle of flight took full effect.
"Positive rate," I commented checking that we were in fact now climbing.
"Gear up," Craig answered back.
I pulled the gear lever up as the familiar mechanical noise was heard throughout the aircraft. After a couple of seconds, I heard the familiar locking noise as the ECAM display indicated that the gear was up and locked. "Gear's up lights off,"
1st January 2017 07:47PM
"So we invited her up to the flight deck and tried to tell her that there was something wrong with the undercarriage," Craig started.
"Oh god on her first-day that's cruel," I responded taking another spoonful of my desert.
"Hold on it gets even better we told her that she had to jump up and down in the middle of the cabin section to help lower the landing gear!"
"Mate I'm surprised you're still in a job!" I told him giving a chuckle.
"Well cabins crew's first day plus it's April the 1st so why the hell not,"
"Touche,"
"Seriously though back to what I was saying before we got off topic what do you think happened to those passengers?" Craig questioned me.
"Honestly the most logical thing tells me that they were never on board you know as well as I do that there's..."
"No way off the aircraft, yeah I know but they were on the plane, they posted a photo before they took off it was on the news this morning so your most logical answer is the wrong one," Craig countered.
"Who knows might just be one of those mysteries that are never solved," I said finally finishing my dessert.
As I placed the dessert cup back onto the tray it came in on I noticed an orange flicker on the edge of my navigation screen. "Here we go," I said out loud.
Craig turned to me surprised as he followed my line of sight to the navigation screen as he realized why it just spoke out loud. "The storm starts way out here?" he asked. "It's not supposed to start until we reach Ireland.
"Right well this storm doesn't plan on playing by the rules, inform the cabin crew let them know to secure anything loose down with whatever they can find," Craig nodded in response picking up the phone in the cockpit to contact the cabin crew. I looked outside, however, couldn't see a thing there was no moon light and it was pitch black it was like looking into a deep abyss.
Whilst Craig was talking to the cabin crew I prepared a little speech of my own.
"Good evening ladies and gentlemen and I hope your journey with us has been pleasant so far. We are a couple hours away from London and we should be getting there on time. You'll notice that I've turned the seatbelt signs on as you are probably aware that there are severe storms around London. Fortunately, there is nothing to worry about as these storms are routine and will not endanger the aircraft in any way. We are just about to enter the storm area so please take this opportunity to stow any of your belongings now. Once again I'd like to thank you on behalf of British Airways for flying with us today. I'll inform you when we begin our decent thank you,"
"Speedbird Six Seven Victor descend to flight level seven zero,"
"Down to flight level seven zero for Speedbird Six Seven Victor," Craig responded as he turned the altitude knob anticlockwise.
The aircraft was being blown about by the storm as gasps and the occasional shout could be heard from the back of the cabin.
Not a very good day for bad flyers I thought to myself as myself and Craig bumped up and down within the cockpit.
Now storms weren't unusual as I'd been through many but this particular storm was by far the most violent and the most persistent.
"Well Phil you got your work cut out for you," Craig said running through his memory items turning the landing lights back on.
"I know but I'll have us on the ground safe and sound so you don't need to worry," I said in a sort of mocking tone.
"Who said I was worried I've been through much worse," Craig countered his ego growing with each word.
"Yeah, sure you have," I said. I wasn't convinced this storm was horrible the whole navigation screen was just pink the fact that the airport was even still open was a miracle but I suppose money talks.
"Speedbird Six Seven Victor descend to 2500 feet your number 3,"
"Cleared down to 2500 feet for Speedbird Six Seven Victor," Craig responded.
As the aircraft descended further the storm got more intense. Lightning strikes were visible for a microsecond as they flashed through the far off clouds. The aircraft's speed was erratic increasing and decreasing every second and yet on the flight deck, it was business as usual.
"Speedbird Six Seven Victor you're cleared for ILS approach for runway 09 left once established contact Heathrow tower on 118.5 goodbye,"
"Cleared ILS approach for 09 left and we'll contact tower once established for Speedbird Six Seven Victor,"
For the first time in what seemed like forever, the aircraft finally burst through the thick layers of cloud that had been encompassing all of southern Britain. The aircraft was now descending on the glide path and was inching ever closer to the runway all the while being thrown about like a ball.
I could see Craig fiddling with the radio knobs as he tuned the tower's frequency.
"Tower good evening Speedbird Six Seven Victor with you fully established ILS 09 left," Craig said awaiting a reply.
"Speedbird Six Seven Victor good evening continue approach your number 2,"
"Continue approach number two Speedbird Six Seven Victor,"
"Gear down please," I said firmly.
Craig pulled the lever downwards before bring his hand backward. "Gear down," he confirmed.
The mechanical noise of the gears returned once more along with the flaps and slats that were now extending downwards.
The storm was becoming very distracting as the plane rocked like a baby in a cradle moving from side to side as the strong wind battered against the shell of the aircraft. It almost felt like we were in an action movie however the need to land the plane brought me back to my senses.
"Speedbird Six Seven Victor the winds are 102 degrees at 29 knots cleared to land 09 left, be advised the last arrival reported severe winds on final,"
The wind reading did not settle my agitated mind but I was pulled out of thought by Craig's reply.
"Cleared to land 09 left for Speedbird Six Seven Victor and thanks for the heads up,"
With that statement, I knew it was time I flexed my fingers and placed them on the control column. "Autopilot off," I ordered.
"Autopilot off," came the reply along with an alarm indicating that I now had control. The sudden weight of the four silver bars on my shoulder now weighed more than ever as I used the rudder and alerions to battle the winds. The ground warning alarms started to play indicating our distance from the ground.
500..... 400.... 300.... 200... MINIMUMS
"Continue," I replied.
The plane responded with a large thud from the side and a loud bang struck throughout the aircraft. I responded with a kick of the rudder to bring the aircraft back onto the center line.
"What the hell!" I heard Craig say. Out of the corner of my eye, a bright light was starting to engulf the side windows. shards of what could only be hail of some sort started to pelt the windows with intense force.
100 ABOVE
The runway was now just inches away but a sudden jolt sealed the fate of the aircraft. As if by magic a huge force pulled at the aircraft as light engulfed the front windows.
"ABORT!" I shouted but it was too late. I felt my body being lifted up and thrown forward into the controls. I could hear screaming from passengers in the back it was horrific.
I can't die I don't want to
Suddenly I felt my body make contact with a solid surface and all went dark.
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Location Unknown Time Unknown
TERRAIN AHEAD, TERRAIN AHEAD
Noises. Noises are all I could hear. Alarm bells were ringing accompanied by hissing sounds, I could hear fire alarms blended in with standard emergency alarms. Along with that automatic callouts started ringing throughout the cockpit.
PULL UP, PULL UP
Loud crackles and pops filled the air around me. Small sparks of electricity ran through my veins. More alarms than I'd ever heard before all started playing at once as if in a creapy avation alarm choir.
FIVE HUNDRED, TERRAIN, TERRAIN, PULL UP, PULL UP, SINK RATE, SINK RATE
Beneath me, I could feel it. As if being in a flying brick my seat beneath me starting to leave me as I slowly rose up from it as gravity began taking effect.
THREE HUNDRED
I tried to move but was met with a wave of immense pain washing over my entire body from head to toe. It felt like my whole being was being tortured by some form of evil mastermind.
I slowly began to open my eyes, the moment I attempted the move more pain began flowing this time from the bottom of my eye to my forehead. I could feel something rolling down my forehead, however, I pushed the feeling asides as I focused on my eyes.
Still pushing through the immense pain that was coursing through my very beings my eyes opened themselves, a millisecond passed before they were immediately assaulted by an array of different colors as well as flashing red and yellow lights.
After the initial bombardment was complete I quickly tried to scan the area around me. In front of me, I could see the altimeter which was slightly pointed nose down as well as the engine display screen which was a wash of red and yellow lights.
TWO HUNDRED
Upon hearing the sound I looked up to see my surroundings but froze when I saw it. The front windshield was completely covered in cracks and what looked like Ice making it impossible to see through.
MINIMUMS
Another alert was blurted out causing me to jump I turned to my left and began to speak.
"Craig are you...," I froze again. In Craig's seat, there was nothing. The seat lay empty void of any person at all. "CRAIG!" I shouted my breath was laced with roughness as if there was a chainsaw within my throat.
I began looking around the cockpit glancing at every possible thing on the flight deck as I did so my breathing got faster and faster until I felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest. However, another loud alarm going off brought me out of my panicking state if only for a short while.
ONE HUNDRED, SINK RATE
My head glanced back to the altimeter as a jolt of pain shot up my spinal cord and into my head, I began screaming internally as I placed a hand on the yoke and another on the throttle levers.
50, 40, 30
Quickly I pulled both throttle levers all the way back from to the idle position. The throttles had been moved forward during the go around attempt which had caused the aircraft to gain speed. I could hear the throttles making a less powerful noise as I eyed the altimeter.
20
With as much precision as was possible, I began to pull back on the yoke, however, the vertical speed was already far too low and my already weakened state was having little effect on the aircraft's movement. It was too little too late.
10
The back wheels touched down onto something as an almighty bang could be heard from below the aircraft. The force of the impact knocked me forward towards the dashboard, however, it was less force when compared to the original explosions. My head narrowly avoided the dashboard as I scored a small mental victory.
However, it seems that I'd spoken too soon as Murphys Law started to kick in with full force. As the nose landing gear came into contact with the surface it completely collapsed in on itself sending me unexpectedly into the cockpit's dashboard. More intense pain than I'd ever felt before erupted through my body.
My brain (or what was left of it) had clearly decided that I'd had enough as a sea of black washed over me for the second time that day.
Fuck...
Beep.... Beep... Bring Beep...
Bring.... Beep Bring... Beep...
Beep Beep Beep Bring Beep Bring Beep Beep Beep
I cracked my eyes open once more. As I did I was once again greeted with a great barrage of colors and sparks that had filled the flight deck that I sat slumped in. Directly in front of me, I could see that the glass on the windshield had been cracked slightly. In certain areas, I could also see that the ice that had previously covered the whole windsheild had partially broken away on impact with the ground which allowed me to get a sort of view out of the front windows.
Looking closer I could see that the nose of the aircraft was now completely embedded into the dirt. From the little I could see, I could tell that we had touched down in some sort of field or park.
A part of me calmed down with the knowledge that we hadn't touched down in a city center, hopefully, the field had been empty when we hit. However, the whoops and beeps of the several ringing alarms pulled me out of thought and back into my captain state of mind.
Quickly searching through my memory I quickly recalled the evacuation procedures. Pushing aside the fact that Craig was somehow not present I pushed on with the checklist by myself.
Tilting my head down I turned my attention to the throttle column. I hovered my hand over the column before reaching down and activating the aircraft's parking brake, as I pulled the switch up I could hear the distinct clicking noise indicating that the parking brake was on.
Looking up I reached out with my hand and began to open the outflow valves. This process was going to take a little bit, instead of waiting I used my other hand to begin to shut down the two engines, both of which were still sputtering outside (most likely chewing dirt).
Flipping the control switches the sputtering began to slowly die down as the engines stopped. As the noise became quieter I quickly went back over everything I had just done making sure I hadn't missed anything in the frantic rush. Satisfied I'd completed the first section correctly I pulled up the evacuation guard switch and activated the alarm.
Immediately another alarm joined the mass alarm choir that was still blaring through the cockpit much to my annoyance. Trying my best to ignore the sound I switched the PA microphone on and gave my evacuation message.
"Attention. This is the Captain. This is an emergency, evacuate, evacuate, evacuate,"
Switching the microphone setting back to the air traffic control I relayed my message to them.
"Tower this is Speedbird Six Seven Victor we are evacuating on the ground request fire services, we are at position east of 09L at an unknown distance in a large field,"
Happy with my message I removed my headset from my head before reaching over and pulling on all of the fire handles. Upon doing this I could hear a few of the fire alarms cut off as the fires began to die down, it was a blessing to my ringing ears.
Realising that the checklist was complete I decided that now would be a good time to depart from the aircraft myself.
I quickly unfastened my seatbelt and got up from the seat. Before I exited I took one last glance at the now wrecked flight deck. Just as I was turning back around my eyes caught something standing out.
Blood I thought to myself. Thats not possible, but that means, he's still...
I turned around and opened the cockpit door leaving behind the mess of a flight deck along with the drying blood on the right dashboard.
I entered the front galley expecting to see a line of terrified passengers along with Rose and Craig assisting them off the aircraft. However, instead of seeing that I saw the opposite. The galley was devoid of any frightened passengers or crew par me who was now standing in an empty galley with both aircraft doors closed and still armed.
"N... no,"
"No, NO!" I shouted into thin air. Trying to escape this nightmare as fast as I could I ran forward towards the door disarming it faster than anyone could imagine. Pulling on the handle I threw the door to the side as a large whooshing sound could be heard.
Whilst the slide inflated for the first time I could get a good view of my surroundings. It was mostly greenery with some weird looking flowers and bushes dotted within and around the grass. In the distance, I could see a dark tree line which seemed to contrast with the bright area I found myself in.
Great... Hyde Park off all the places
With the slide now inflated I put my hands over my chest and jumped. As I jumped I found myself becoming dizzier than before. I slid off the slide with a thud and landed onto the grass which unfortunately was not as soft as it looked.
I tried to level myself using my arms which worked surprisingly. I tried raising one of my hand's to my head as my headache worsened. However, it was only when I pulled my hand back down that I caught the cause of my dizzyness. My hand was a deep red, suddenly memories of the past few minutes all poured in at once as my mind caught up with my body.
As I became aware of the state I was in my adrenalin supply had finally run dry as I felt myself slipping away. I could feel my body collapse under me and I dropped back to the ground. Just before passing out my ears perked up.
VOICES
Using all of my available strength I pulled myself upright as my face came straight into contact with another pers.... No, not a person a...
"Huh?" I blurted out as my reserve strength ran out I collapsed back to the ground.
Horses? Yep definitely Hyde Park
"What just happened?"
"Your majesty we must get this creature to a medic immediatly,"
"Reporting for duty si.... whoa the heck is that,"
"Get it... th... stretcher,"
"We're los... it,"
Author's Note
This is a much shorter chapter than usual as it's only to establish things from Phillips POV next chapter will carry on the story.
Hope you enjoy it though. Feel free to leave any questions below.
Enjoy
Location Unknown Time Unknown
"Get it in here NOW!"
Faint sounds from the outside world helped me escape the gravity well of unconsciousness. The world around me started to become more real and less muffled.
"Clear the hospital!"
I could barely see, only being able to make out certain colors as they flew by my vision. My eyes were blurry with tears of either pain or fear, although I guess it didn't really matter what they were. Even though I could see very little, I could still identify the green and yellow colors of a hospital. Its features were so defining and were accompanied by the unique hospital smell.
"Bring into emerge...
The sounds of doors opening and closing along with many quiet gasps filled my ears as I was rushed throughout the building. Any attempt to move or talk was met with immense sharp pains that would run up and down my body. It appears that I had been locked into place, however, my restriction of head movement prevented me from viewing the world around me with the white roof and the top parts of the walls being the only exception.
"Heart rates 170, I need morph... over her..."
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
Sounds of beeps and cranks surrounded me in a sea of machinery at work. The beeps were quick, following in rapid sensations. I could feel tubes being inserted down my throat (most likely to help with breathing). Hissing sounds of respiratory machines soon followed along with the sounds of what I hoped were doctors talking seriously amongst themselves.
"Okay we need to make an incision here,"
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
"Doctor it's waking up. What should we do?"
"Just send it back to sleep,"
The thought of being put back into a state of sleep terrified me as I tried to lash out in protest. Unfortunately I had been restrained and any attempt in movement only resulted in pain. I could only lie here awaiting my ever approaching sleepy fate.
HISSSS
The sound of machines starting up could be heard next to my head. Soon after a cold feeling of liquid began running up my arm starting at the base of the hand. I must have been injected with some form of IV line which caused myself to strain as I let out a grunt of pain.
"Arghh!"
The grunts were to no avail the world around me started to fade away. Despret to stay in the land of the living I fought with all of my strength, however, it was a battle I was quickly losing and soon my strength faded away as the colors and sounds started to dim.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
"Looks like it's in pain, bring more morphine over already!"
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
Canterlot Castle 13:17
Within the walls of the majestic castle, the normal day proceedings of the day court were in full swing. Ponies from all over Equestria and beyond its borders lined the various visitor waiting rooms in the castle. Each waiting room seemed to be unique in both the way it was designed and the ponies that currently occupied it.
One such room was a small cramped room with a large ceiling and many windows of different shapes and sizes. The room was hardly ear friendly, with many ponies talking at once the room was soon filled with an unbearable drone much to the despair of the Solar Guard who stood watch in their designated posts outside the large golden doors.
Across from that waiting room was another with similar golden doors, however, the interior of this room was quite different to the other. It was a much larger room than its smaller weaker counterpart with many bits of furniture for ponies to rest on. It was beautifully decorated with many old paintings from times gone by. Some of the paintings depicted the old pony wars with generals leading the charge against the various enemies of old. Along with the paintings were several large stained glass windows that appeared to show the images of various noble ponies.
The ponies themselves were different in nature to the other across the hall. Most of them were clothed and had a very sophisticated look to them. Some even bore golden pocket watches that they would occasionally look to with much contempt.
Various ponies in white suits would walk around the room carrying silver trays of horderves stopping every now and then to offer some to the waiting ponies.
One of the waiting ponies was Lord Ashdown, he had been patiently waiting for at least nine minutes and yet still no call for his name. It was an outrage. Every so often he would catch a glimpse through the opening doors of those... Common ponies being led towards the throne room whilst he was left waiting like a caged animal.
He was an important pony and he had many things to attend to. Honestly what could be causing such a holdup. As he looked around the room he could tell that many of the other nobles clearly shared his views as they too were also pacing the room looking frustrated.
As he was about to say something the large golden doors swung open as a Unicorn guard walked into the room before clearing his throat.
"Lord Ashdown, it is my duty to inform you that your request for an audience with the princess has been accepted. Follow me please," The guard turned on the spot and began to walk back out of the room as Ashdown followed still bearing ill will.
He took one last look to the room before mumbling "It's about time,"
"And you see your majesty, that is why the need for a new tax fraud agency is a complete waste of money," Ashford finished his mini presentation almost expecting a round of applause, however when none came he simply returned to his original stance and awaited the response from the princess.
"Curious,"
The response knocked Ashford back a few steps as he gazed up towards the throne. The guards standing next to the throne and doors smirked ever so slightly.
"Y... Your Maj... jesty?" He questioned streaks of nerves suddenly filling his voice.
"This is the fifth time this year that you have petitioned this government with regards to cutbacks, yet you offer no alternative on where best to spend the funds instead," Her voice remained calm and consolidated as she read over the many pieces of paper that had been given to her.
"Oh... Well, of course, your majesty I was thinking that we sho...,"
BANG
The doors to the throne room swung open as several guards flooded the room with their spears in hoof. The leader quickly separated from the pack coming to a stop beside Ashford who stood with mouth dropped open in shock.
As the leader of the group stopped he bowed his head low to the ground, "your majesty,".
Celestia (who was initially taken aback by the sudden intrusion) regained her normal sense of composure as she waved her hoof towards the guard signaling him to rise. "Lieutenant, what can I...,"
"Excuse me but just who do you think you are? I was in the middle of a very important discussion with the Princess!" Celestia followed the trail of harsh words back to Lord Ashford who had recomposed himself and was now standing with a look of outrage and fury on his face at the interrupting guard.
Celestia frowned ever so slightly and opened her mouth to speak but was once again interrupted.
"Remove him at once," The Lieutenant signaled to the two guards standing behind him and the Lord.
The two guards quickly saluted as they grabbed hold of Ashford as they began to remove him from the court room.
"THIS is outrageous!" The Lords protests started to fade as he disappeared down the corridor out of the throne room.
Turning his head back towards the princess he continued. "Your majesty, I bear news from Ponyville. A large foreign object has crashed south of Ponyville,"
"Has anyone been injured?" The princess asked her eyes showing concern as she put down the papers she had been levitating.
"Nopony was injured, however, I have to tell you that an unidentified species has emerged from the object. It's severely wounded and has been taken to Ponyville Hospital," Finishing his report the guard stood back to the position of attention. "Awaiting orders Ma'am!"
As Celestia thought she levitated a piece of parchment up towards her and started writing as she spoke. "Once the creature is stable enough have it transported here, please deploy the Ponyville garrison around the "object" and create an exclusion zone, we wouldn't want the press getting their hands on this. We don't want to cause a national panic,"
The guard threw up a quick salute "Ma'am!" The guard then turned face and sped off down the hallway as several other guards followed him down the same route.
Location Unknown Time Unknown
BEEP BEEP BEEP
BEEP BEEP BEEP
BEEP BEEP BEEP
That sound. The evilest sound on this Earth. The sound with no heart or emotions. The hotel alarm clock. I could hear it buzzing and buzzi... wait, no, beeping and beeping?
I tried to move my left hand but found it stiff and hard to move from its position by my side.
Great, just great I thought to myself. I hated waking up only to find out that I'd slept on top of my everything, it always seemed to happen to me. Guess I'm just unlucky that way.
As I lay on my back unable to turn off the annoying beeping alarm clock I decided to make an official start to the day. As I slowly began to open my eyes I allowed my eyes to adjust to the light using my other hand to clear out the bits in my eye that had formed during sleep.
As I pulled my hand up towards my eye I felt something slide along my arm. I may not be a genius but I'm pretty sure I didn't pull at last nights party. Fearing an impending spider attack I snapped my eyes open and brought my back upwards with immense speed as my anti-spider defense systems kicked in.
As I rose from my lying position I felt a sudden pain shoot up my spine as my alarm clock sped up. Trying my best to ignore the back pain, I freed my stiff arm from its sleepy demise and began to swat like mad at anything that might have been on my arm.
To my relief, I didn't find any signs of spiders on my arm. Looks like it was just an IV line that had been inserted into my arm during my sleep.
WAIT! WHAT? My brain did a double take as I quickly started to take in my surroundings as the beeping increased to such a rate that it sounded like a single beep.
I was in a white room that was definitely not my hotel room. As I looked around I began to take in more features. I could definitely tell I was in some sort of hospital or medical ward, I could see several lines that had been inserted into my arms along with several bandaged areas where cuts had been treated.
I quickly turned my attention to my alarm clo... No, not an alarm clock at all. In my alarm clocks, usual place was a huge set of rustic machines made out of wood and metal. One of which I assumed was some form of heart rate monitor. Along with other machines one of which was printing out a vast amount of paper.
The room had no windows making it quite dark with just a single lamp next to my bed illuminating the room I was in. Overall it was starting to feel like a really creepy Hollywood horror movie.
The ward I was in appeared completely empty with just myself present. I looked towards the lone door in the room which was completely closed over. It was a strange looking door, it was much wider than normal doors and appeared to be made out of metal. It bore a striking resemblance to a prison door.
God I hope I didn't do anything stupid last night, the next thing you know I'll have the governor of some American prison coming in to wake me up.
As if on cue a large mechanical noise started coming from the large door. I could clearly hear gears turning and locks being undone. The last lock finally became undone and the heavy door started to open. It was followed by a hiss and s blanket of steam (most likely from the release of pressure on the door).
As the steam started to clear three people... Three... Horses? rushed into the room. They were all dressed in what appeared to be lab coat attire, they had goggles and masks on which gave them points in the creepy department. They all were carrying some form of equipment on their backs which looked similar to crash packs that ambulance drivers would carry.
As they entered they froze, their eye locking with my own. Suddenly a rush of memories came flashing back. The crash, the horses and the distinct lack of people.
"It's awake!" One of the horses said breaking the staring match. He was a slender horse with a coat of brown that was mostly covered by the lab coat he was wearing.
"Okay what the HELL IS GOING ON!" I screamed finally snapping.
Collective gasps came from the horses "It can talk!" one of them said. "Quick one of you go and get the Princess," said another.
"I CAN TALK, WHAT ABOUT YOU, YOU CAN TALK!" I continued screaming at the clearly scared horses as one of them galloped out of the room shouting as it ran.
Just as I started to regain some control over my breathing several horses with SPEARS burst into the room. Unlike the other horses, they wore golden armor and golden helmets and they looked very angry with me for some reason.
I quickly tried to jump out of the bed taking a few of the machines with me. This, of course, resulted in another spark of pain that ran up and down my spine. I let out another grunt of pain which caused the horses to tighten their grip on their weapons. I started fighting the pain as I began ripping the lines that were connected to me out of my skin.
"Don't move!" One of the guards said as they began to corner me with their weapons. I had now formed a makeshift barrier between myself and the armed horses. Of course, this meant that I was now trapped in this room.
"FUCK OFF," I yelled at them trying to sound as intimidating as possible. Most of the guards standing there were taken aback by this seeing me speak for the first time. "YOUR Horses, how can you talk?" I said as my voice started to falter. The strain of the constant pain and shouting started to take its toll as I began to use one of the nearby machines for support.
"Watch your tongue, we're ponies, creature!" One of the guards snapped at me inching closer to me with his spear. I guess the word horse is an insult around here. I'll have to take a mental note of that one for later.
"STAY AWAY FROM ME!" I screamed trying to through bits of loose machinery at them which they quickly deflected with their spears and horns.
With my machinery ammunition now depleted we now stood face to face in a staring contest. The staring went on for a couple minutes with no one wanting to make the first move. After a little while, I began to hear more noises coming from outside the door.
"Your majesty I must protest, your safety is paramount in these circumstances,"
"I understand the risks, I want to see for myself,"
"Attention!" A voice came from just outside the door as the guards suddenly snapped to the position of attention. Their spears came away from me and pointed to the roof. Their expressions also changed from one of anger to no expression at all, they became like statues.
The ponies in the lab coats all planted their faces towards the ground in some sort of bowing motion, this only added to my confusion.
I looked towards the metal door as another figure appeared. It was another hors... Pony. However, this one was different from all the others.
It was much taller than the other ponies. It had a large unicorn horn and wings by its side. It looked like a she but I couldn't be sure. Her coat was a snow white and her mane was a blend of many different colors, her mane seemed to defy gravity as it floated in mid air without a care in the world.
Her eyes were the most interesting out of all her features. They looked old, really old. It looked like she had seen eons go by yet her body was young which created an interesting contrast.
She soon caught sight of me standing there in my bunker of machines. She appeared to study me taking notes of my various injuries. Her expression soon softened as she cleared her throat.
"Hello," she only spoke one word but it changed everything. Her voice was soft and motherly, it felt calm and reassuring... Unless this was some sort of trick I should probably play this safe.
"H.. Hello," I spoke back unlike the other ponies, she didn't flinch at my words, she simply smiled before carrying on.
"I'm sorry, this must be a shock for you, waking up in a strange room would shock anypony,"
Anypony? If this is a dream then it's certainly a very detailed dream if my minds bothering to change simple expression. Before I could continue my train of thoughts she spoke again.
"How rude of me, I should probably introduce myself. I am Princess Celestia, I am the co-ruler of Equestria. I must ask you little one what your name is?" The way she spoke it was as if I was her kid or something.
Equastria? The puns keep coming. It seems that this pony is a princess and a ruler at that, suddenly all that bowing by the lab coat ponies made sense.
I soon noticed that all of the ponies were staring at me with confusion plastered on their faces. I guess I'd blanked out for a minute. They seemed to relax and tense up when I cleared my throat.
"Um, my name is Phillip, Phillip Scott," I looked toward Celestia who simply smiled back at me.
"Well it's nice to meet you, Phillip Scott," Celestia said before turning to the guard that she entered the room with. "Guards you're no longer required, I wish to speak with Mr Phillip Scott alone,". At this, a few of the guards exchanged confused looks with each other.
The guard that had entered with Celestia suddenly spoke up. "Your Majesty I must protest, we cannot leave you alone in here with this thing. There's no telling what he could do,".
I glared at the guard who had spoken with a hint of anger. I was about to rebuttal his statement but Celestia beat me to it.
"Thank you for your observations Captian, you are dismissed," the guard was about to speak up again however thought better of it than to challenge Celestia.
"Of course, your Majesty," bowing once more the guard barked a couple orders at the remaining guards who one by one filtered out of the small room, each one gave me a different sort of look. Some looked nervous, some angry and some looked plain curious.
After a minute or so it was just me, Celestia and the few ponies who had originally entered. As soon as the guards had left I immediately felt more relaxed, those guys were assholes.
"Apologies for my guards, they can be a bit over protective at times but given the circumstances, I hope you can understand Mr Phillip Scott," Celestia said.
"It's okay... Celestia and also just Phillip is fine most people just call me Phil anyway," I said as I went to stand up straight, however, I had forgotten that I was still injured and ended up falling down face first into my barricades of machines.
I heard gasps from the three ponies behind Celestia and I could hear hoof steps approach me.
If this is a dream it's got some realistic pain I thought as I tried to look up at the pony that had approached me.
Just as I looked up I felt myself tingling all over. The pain in my body went dull as if I'd been given the worlds best pain killer. The feeling of tingling intensified as I felt myself being lifted off of the ground. Besides me, I could also hear bits of machinery kicking back to life.
As I was placed back into my bed I noticed that it was Celestia who was doing all of this. Her horn had a yellowish aura around it and found myself and other bits of machines wrapped in the same color of aura.
Soon the aura died off but I felt so much better for it. I still had some pain here and there and to be honest I was knackered however it was a vast improvement from before.
"See it as a small apology for the trouble we have caused you today," As Celestia spoke I could see the other ponies start to move around the room checking different bits of machinery that had been knocked over in my panic.
"Thank you," I said adjusting myself in the bed in order to be more comfortable. "Celestia, if you don't mind me asking can you tell me what you know? My memory's pretty fuzzy and if it weren't for you coming in when you did, I fear I probably would have had a mental breakdown,"
At this Celestia smiled softly as she spoke. "Certainly, I guess you have a lot of questions and you must be very confused,"
"Well that's the understatement of the century," I said bluntly receiving a small chuckle from the princess. However, when I looked behind Celestia I could see one of the ponies giving me a glare.
Guess they don't like how I'm talking to their Princess so informally. I cleared my throat and tried to sound as professional as possible. "Apologies for the interruption your Majesty, please, continue,".
Celestia eyed me curiously at the sudden change of tone but soon caught on after seeing where I had been looking. "Do not worry Phillip I know you are not of this world,"
This caught my attention, I kinda figured I wasn't on Earth anymore. Last time I'd checked we didn't have talking hors... Ponies walking around the place.
When I didn't give a response Celestia continued. "Your craft entered our airspace in the imperial north a couple days ago, we initially detected a high level of magical background residue when you came through,"
Magic, is this lady telling me I was brought here by magic. You know given everything that has happened today that didn't seem so far fetched.
"The levels were so high that your craft warped all the way from the imperial north to just a few miles north of where we are now. A teleportation of that distance with a craft the size of yours is unheard of,".
"If you don't mind me asking Princess, where are we exactly," The lack of windows made it very hard to get a bearing on where I was.
"Right now you're in the Canterlot Castles Dungeons Medical Wing," she said casually.
DUNGEONS! Hell no.
Seeing the look on my face Celestia quickly caught on and tried to calm my increasing nerves.
"Oh, you misunderstand. You aren't in trouble we just have to make sure that you weren't a threat to ponies, also we don't want to cause a panic on our streets,"
I relaxed at this new information. Knowing I wasn't going to spend the rest of eternity in a castle dungeon.
"Your craft crashed into a field south of Canterlot near a small town. Our guard's ponies had been following you since you passed Canterlot and brought you to the local hospital before transferring you here,".
"What about the others?" I questioned my tone taking a serious turn.
"Others," Celestia asked puzzled.
"Yes, others! There were hundreds of others with me, where are they?" I asked starting to get frustrated.
"I'm sorry, I'm afraid you were all we found at the crash site. Nopony has been allowed access to your craft and it's being kept under strict lockdown by the local garrison and additional guards ponies," Celestia looked to me with sympathy but could clearly tell I was becoming stressed. "We tried looking in through your port holes but we couldn't see anypony in there,"
"I.. I jus... need time to think," I said bringing my hands up to my head.
"Of course, I will let you rest for the time being. The other rulers of Equestria will be gathering here within the coming days now that we know you are sentient, but until then we will provide you with whatever you might need,"
"Thanks," I said resting my head back into the pillow with a sigh as I lay there one of the ponies attached some wiring back onto my and the beeping started all over again.
As Celestia was about to leave I shouted out to her. "Your Majesty, if it's not any trouble could I maybe get a room with a window in it?" I asked in a pleading tone. The current room was okay but I needed some natural light.
Celestia simply smiled before responding "I'll see what I can do, I know this is hard for you Phillip but trust me we will help you get home,". No words were needed I just responded with a simple smile and nod.
"Doctor if you may, there are things we must discuss,"
"Of course your Majesty,"
And like that she was gone from view.
"Fucking hell," I said out loud much to the surprise of the two remaining ponies.
"What's a fucking?"
*sigh*
Author's Note
Ah, the hardest part of a HiE fic, how will the human react?
I like to think this is a realistic reaction. I find it kinda weird how so many humans easily get over the fact that they were just teleported into another universe.
However, my question is this: How would you react?
Location Canterlot Castle Medical Wing 12:42
So, here I was. In this apparently "magical" universe, on this "magical" planet, in this "magical" castle filled with "magical" talking ponies. Honestly out of all the things that have happened to me, I think this has topped my list of what the fuck moments for the year. Telling the truth I wasn't sure if this was even real, everything that has happened seemed so illogical and chaotic than what should be normal. Not to mention the fact that (according to Celestia) there was no trace of anyone else, not even Craig. This made no sense.
I was still in the medical area although I had been moved out of the dungeon area into a normal medical wing, after calming down from yet another panic attack (and promising not to hurt anyone which I hoped eased those guards minds) I was finally moved rooms into a much nicer and fancier medical room. This room itself was a nicer shade of white with long streaks of purple painted along various areas of the wall. A large crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling with its main framework being coated in gold and silver.
Speaking of gold, it was pretty much anywhere my eyes moved. It lined the floor skirtings and along the edges of the large doors and even the windows, and yes there were windows in this room. There were two massive windows that were positioned along the side of the room. However, after attempting to look out of one of the windows I was "discouraged" from stepping too close to the windows by the nearby guards. I had sort of assumed that my appearance as an "alien" was more common knowledge, with you know, the fact that I crash landed my aircraft into the middle of one of their towns but whatever I guess.
I did, however, get an odd sneak peak outside the windows and by god, just the simple act of looking out of these windows was enough to pretty much fully convince me that I was definitely not dreaming.
There was just so much detail on every house and building in the city and not just simple detail, this was some precise work out there which clearly hadn't been built overnight and certainly not with my brain, unless my brain had suddenly gotten into fairytales. My window looked over the front courtyard, however, I could also see down into an upper part of the city.
Within the castle walls, I could see tens, if not hundreds of golden guards lining the various walls, fortifications, and gates that gave ponies access in and out of the palace. Whether or not extra guards had been placed because of me, I could not be sure.
Beyond the gates was the upper districts of the city. I could make out some of the rooftops and spires of the various buildings that littered the cobblestone looking streets. All of these buildings seemed to share the same sort of style and when I say style I mean that they were all immensely colored with bright purple, pink and whites color schemes. I don't think anyone would disagree if I said I was right in the middle of a suburban Disneyland... Thinking about it I might keep that one for later, though I doubt anyone would get the joke.
Overall the room was pretty nice. It went without saying that this was definitely by far the fanciest hospital room that I'd ever seen. However, even though that it was a really nice room, there was plenty of reminders that it was in fact still a hospital room and that I was still an unknown entity to these ponies. A fact that they were more than happy to remind me of every second of every minute.
Within the room itself, there was plenty of old-timey looking machines dotted around the lone bed. Some of the machines made no noise at all and some made too much noise to bear.
The silver looking machines had several plastic looking lines that were emitted from the middle of the machines and lead up into my arms, every so often I would feel a small jolt as the more wooden evil science guy type machines scratched out more and more unreadable lines onto some parchment that had started to accumulate into a pile on the floor.
However, one thing that stood out above all else was the distinct lack of plug sockets anywhere within the room. How these machines were getting sustainable power was definitely beyond my understanding but if I'd to hazard a guess I would say magic.
Besides the crazy science machines, there were some more.. reminders of my current status in this world. Positioned by the door was two horsey guards. Both of them bore golden armor (much like the earlier guards). They also were playing the same trick as the other guards, as in they all looked the same. Maybe they were clones or something, knowing what I've seen so far it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.
Currently, I was awaiting my lunch, I had been told by one of the nurses earlier that a maid would bring it to me at around 1 o'clock. Knowing what I had already seen in the castle it wouldn't surprise me if the lunch arrived at bang on one.
I wasn't half wrong either. Just as the clock in my room struck one there was a knocking at the door. It's what happened next that caught me off guard.
Instead of a maid entering, I saw Celestia carrying a silver plater in her golden aura. She wasn't alone, however, behind her was a shorter dark blue winged unicorn. She bore an expression I couldn't quite read. It looked like anger mixed with confusion. I think ill avoid eye contact with that one. Behind her was another one of the winged unicorns. It was around the same height as the blue one, although, this one was pink, almost too pink. Finally trotting in behind was a purple one. She was a lot shorter than the others and to be honest she looked about the same height as the guards standing by the door.
The purple pony also seemed to be carrying all manners of books, parchments and what I can only assume we're... quills? As they entered the room her eyes met with my own. This smaller pony seemed to bear the exact opposite expression of the blue one. She looked like she was a mix of excitement and wonder at the same time. I eyeballed her for a couple more seconds before a pony clearing her voice broke the uneasy silence.
"Phillip, it's good to see you looking better I thought we could discuss things over lunch if that is okay with you," I snapped my head around to find the source of the voice. Celestia was pulling over a table and some fancy chairs next to my bedside, the silver plater still levitating in her aura.
"Uh, sure that's fine," I heard a small gasp escape the mouth of the purple one whilst the others just eyed me cautiously. Celestia must have picked up on the potential tension in the room and spoke up again.
"Oh, how rude of me, let me introduce everypony to you," She started by waving a hoof over to her guards who just eyed at me before retreating from the room. Assholes, like calm it guys I'm a pilot, not a soldier.
"First off, this is my dear sister Luna," Celestia said motioning to the blue pony that was still eyeing me as if I were some sort of ali... Well, I guess I am but still. I can see who got the happy emotions in the family.
"And this is..."
"Excuse me, but just what exactly are you?" Both I and the others head's turned to see the blu.. Luna standing there her hoof pointed directly at me. Although I don't know where else she could've pointed it all things considered.
"Uh... I could ask you the same question honestly," I responded casually. These ponies really aren't that threatening all things considered, if anything it's quite adorable.
"Wha... How dare you.."
"Luna, that's enough, that's no way to treat our guest here and you know it," Celestia's voice was firm and assertive, a side which I had not seen of her before. I continued to watch both of them awaiting the other's response. She seemed to think about it for a second before conceding.
"Fine, you have my apologies, but I still want an answer," Celestia went into to counter her again, however, this time I raised my hand to stop her.
"It's fine, I understand your concerns about me just showing up out of nowhere, to be quite frank it concerns me just as much as you if you, but if you must know I am a human," the scribbling of a quill could be heard in the background but I paid it no heed. "But please, just call me Phil," There was silence for a few moments before she looked to me and extended a hoof.
"Charmed" I had no idea what the fuck I was supposed to do. Should I kiss it? to ponies kiss the princesses... Hoofs? This is getting weird. Instead, I just resorted to awkwardly shaking it much to her surprise.
"Likewise,"
A few more moments of awkward silence. This was beginning to feel more like an interrogation (with Celestia playing good cop and Luna playing bad cop) than a nice lunch, a lunch that I hadn't even seen yet. I don't even know what ponies eat, grass maybe?
"Alicorns," a new voice spoke up. I traced it backed to the pinkish pony who was standing at the end of my bed. She obviously saw my confused look before continuing. "Your question, the answer is Alicorns, we here are all Alicorns, however, there are also Unicorns, Pegasi and Earth Ponies,"
Okay, I guess that made a little bit more sense than winged unicorn.
“Oh, yeah thanks, what’s your name exactly?” That probably came off a little bit ruder than it should’ve been but at this point, I was losing the will to care.
“How rude of me, please accept my apologies,” seriously, why do these ponies keep apologizing it’s really starting to get irritating more than anything. “My name is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza ,” what the fuck. “But please just call me Cadence,” well I guess that’s a bit simpler than Mia Moria whatever.
“Nice to meet you Cadence,” I extended my hand out to shake her hoof which she returned trying to follow Luna's example. She did a little better than Luna I must say.
As I finished my hand-hoof shake with Cadence I noticed out of the corner of eyes a purple aura encompassing many objects that I had been using such as my water cup and so on. As I followed the aura I found the purple... Alicorn scribbling down notes upon notes onto her lengthy piece of parchment.
Is this pony obsessed or something? She does look familiar though.
Celestia cleared her voice as Cadence withdrew her hoof. “And finally this, is Twilight Sparkle” at this the purple alicorn ears perked up as her aura dissipated dropping many of the items she was holding to the ground. My head twisted to the source of the sound to see the pony slightly blushing as she waddled around trying to quickly pick up all of her books.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Before she could continue her little meltdown her books and scrolls were lifted into a golden aura and levitated into two little bags near the door.
To be honest watching her scramble to try and fix her mess was adorable, but after her things were packed she reverted to just starting.
Feeling the need to break the silence I decided to start us off this time around. "Nice to meet you Twilight," once again I extended my arm, instead of taking it she appeared to study it for a few seconds before accepting.
"Actually, we've met before now," this got my attention as I eyed her curiously. She didn't seem to notice as she continued to speak anyway. "When you landed your... Vessel! You came tumbling out like a pony with too much salt in their system, luckily I and my friend were able to get you to a hospital with the help of some of the guard ponies," After finishing her explanation she exhaled heavily. She seemed to eye me with wonder, awaiting my response.
I guess that explains why she looks familiar, although I still can't remember any of it. "Well, I'm glad you and your friend... uh?" I had no idea what the name of her friend was luckily Twilight soon caught on.
"Oh, her name is Starlight Glimmer," Okay, stop, these names are just getting stupid.
"Well like I said, I'm glad you and your friend were there to help me," I gave her a small smile which she happily returned, although maybe a little too enthusiastically.
"Well, now that introductions are out of the way perhaps we can get down to having some lunch," Cadence said lifting the lid off of the plater to reveal five decorated plates. Not unlike what I was expecting, the plates had some simple salad and a selection of cheeses on it with what looked like some flowers, I could only assume they're for decoration.
"What a wonderful idea Cadence, I bet you are pretty hungry Phillip?" Celestia asked levitating a plate over to me along with some basic cutlery. She wasn't wrong I hadn't actually eaten anything since I got here. Anything I had was given in the form of basic food supplements.
"Yes, that would be nice actually, I haven't eaten since I woke up," I started to eat some of the salad which all things considered tasted quite nice. In fact, this whole situation would be lovely minus the acid trip looking ponies.
"Well, I hope you find our cuisine acceptable, we had to guess since we don't really know what, humans, eat," I froze. If ponies are sentient on this world then I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that other animals from my world are probably also sentient.
However, It was too late to backtrack now as all of their ponies had their eyes fixated on mine with Twilight discarding her lunch quickly for some parchment and quill, a fact that hadn't gone unnoticed by Celestia who was now giving her a knowing looking smile. Well, honesty is the best policy.
"Honestly, anything really," okay, just breath Phillip, just avoid food-related questions and we'll be fine.
"Oh, like what?" Shit. It just had to be Twilight who had to seal my fate. I simply exhaled before continuing.
"Uh, you know the usual stuff some fruit, veg and em, meat," I mentally braced for impact, however, when no such attack came I exhaled again. The room fell silent once more with only the sound of a quill being heard. Seriously what is that girl's problem?
As the silence grew more and more uncomfortable I finally broke. "I don't mean like ponies or anything, well not me personally anyway!" Shut up brain! Why say that. Honest to god, sometimes you're the worst at speaking.
To my complete surprise Celestia just laughed, a fact that left me stunned. Once she had finished she simple cleared her throat and apologized.
"Wait your not, angry with me?" I questioned becoming more confused by the second, these ponies are weird.
"Of course not Phillip, why would we be?" Celestia's voice still rung from laughter.
"Well, because your herbivorous aren't you?" I asked as a new thought entered my head. What if these ponies were meat-eating ponies, well if they are and humans are tasty I'm pretty much screwed.
"Yes, we are but don't worry omnivores are quite commonplace outside Equestria," oh thank god, I breathed a sigh of relief but soon inhaled it back in again when another question hit me.
"How did you know about our dietary habits human?" I honestly thought we'd moved past addressing each other by names of species but whatever, as I turned I saw Luna looking at me with an accusing look whilst Cadence and Twilight were looking at me with curiosity. Celestia was looking but not at me. She was semi-glaring at her, sister, yeah her sister.
I honestly don't know how I should word this without using the word "animal". I really hope there are some easier questions after this. "Well, where I'm from we have Ponies and Horses there, but our Ponies and Horses are just, well, animals," Once again I braced for impact. At this point I was getting pretty used to it.
Twilight spoke first. "So, from your point of view, we're just, animals?" I really don't like this pony, she really likes to twist words.
"Well, no, mainly because of the fact that your talking, flying, magical, colorful ponies whereas our animals normally only come in a few shades of brown, black and white," I was starting to get good at this whole Q&A type thing.
"What about the other pony races?" Other races? Oh, she must mean the unicorns and stuff, easy enough to explain I suppose.
"Unicorns and Pegasi are just myths in our world, they don't actually exist,"
"Interesting," Twilight answered, however, she wasn't even looking at me anymore. Instead, she had her head down writing into another piece of parchment.
After this, we started to settle into our respective meals. The salad was actually good, although, saying that I had to move all of the flowery decorations off the plate. Seriously who puts flowers in the middle of a salad anyway.
My question was soon answered as I noticed Luna levitating one of the said flowers off the plate before placing it into her mouth. My brain stopped for a second but soon caught up when I realized that these are ponies. I must have been lost in thought because Luna seemed to catch on that I was looking her way.
"Does thou not like flowers, Phillip?" God, someones been stuck in the past for a while.
"Eh, not really, it's not something that's really on the human dietary list, the salads great though," This seemed to satisfy her as she went back to eating her meal.
"So, Phillip, would you mind telling us a bit about your world?" Celestia asked finishing off her salad.
"Uh, sure, what would you like to know exactly?" Earth is a massive topic, talking about it would take forever.
"Just tell us some basics, any information you give us might make it easier for us to locate your world," Celestia responded.
She did raise a good point so I better give them something they can use. "Right seems easy enough, well my planet's called Earth, it's a rocky planet and I'm pretty sure it's about 70% water and 30% land,". The noise of scribbling quills filled my ears, however, when I looked over to the usual suspect I found Twilight just looking at me intently hanging on my every word. To my surprise, it was Luna writing down the notes on my home planet.
"And, if you don't mind me asking how many live in your world?" Cadence asked taking a sip of what I could only assume was tea. I was going to tell them anyway so at least it's not another wild tangent question.
"Well in my nation alone there are about 66 million people but I believe on Earth the numbers around 7.5 billion,". I suddenly heard four collective gasps as Cadences cup fell onto the table, spilling some of the contents on the way down. I eyed them all curiously before asking "what?"
Twilight spoke up first. "It's just that number, it's so large, I can't even begin to imagine the scale,"
"It is truly a number beyond our understanding!" Luna added.
This peaked my interest, now it was my turn to ask a question. "What exactly is the population of this place anyway?"
"Well Equestria itself has a rough population of 21 million ponies whilst Equus itself has a population of around 80 million," Celestia answered using her "magic" to clear up some of the mess that Cadence made.
"Well... That certainly puts things in perspective," I just assumed that there would have been more of these ponies. Guess I was wrong.
The next hour or so passed by without any further issues. Most of the questions involved things like the size of the Earth to the different biomes that existed. I tried to answer their various questions as best I could but I was certainly no Earth expert. Although, in saying that I guess given the current circumstances and my current location, I was the closest thing to an expert that they had.
I also learned a few things out about this place. I still knew little about this planet as a whole, however, I did get a little more information about the area where I crashed or landed, crash landed. Apparently, I had crashed just south of the town that Twilight lived in, that's why she was the first to find me. However what really got me was the town name.
Ponyville, like seriously that’s like calling a town humantown like come on! Although the other ponies didn’t seem to get the irony.
Anyway according to Twilight I came out of the sky (no surprises there) and smashed into an open field almost hitting both Twilight and her friend... Starlight, I swear I'll get the hand of these names eventually. Anyway after apologizing for almost killing the purple pony and her pal Twilight started probing me about the nature of my "craft".
"Well for starters, it's not actually mine I just fly it for an airline that employs me to do so," I really don't want to go into details about the ins and outs of a 777 (not that they would really understand any of it).
"So it's your job?" Twilight asked.
"Basically yeah," I cleared my throat before continuing. "I'm an airline pilot, basically we use those machines called aircraft to fly from one place to another,"
"But I thought you said that humans can't fly!" Twilight remarked. God, girl its a conversation not a debate.
"Well, yeah that's true, physically we can't so we invented these machines that can, we use them to transport cargo long distances as well as people..." I froze. The people. How the fuck did I forget about all the people, my friends, my family. They're not here, the passengers are just gone (including Craig), my family and friends are god knows how many billions of miles away and I just forgot about them like they were just insignificant nobody’s!
"N, no," I said quietly, much to the confusion of everyone around me. My breathing quickly started to increase to clearly audible levels.
"Phillip, are you alright?" Twilight asked as she began raising a hoof towards my arm, the moment her hoof made contact I recoiled backward.
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" I screamed as I tried backing up which only resulted in me falling off of the bed for the second time. As I fell I felt the lines attached to my arm become undone once again.
At the sound of my voice Twilight and the others flinched, Twilight instantly withdrew backing up off of her seat also stuttering numerous apologies my way but I blanked them all out, they were of little importance now.
Quickly getting to my feet I started backing up against the wall as I brought my hands to my head.
I can't forget them, I won't forget them again.
"Phillip whats wrong?" Celestia asked as concern flooded her voice, she tried to move forward to assist however I was no longer in a weakened state and quickly reacted. Bringing my hands down from my head, I stuck both of them outwards putting a barrier of flesh between myself and her.
"Stay away from me!" I shouted as my vocal chords started to strain once more.
"Phillip I don't understand, you have to tell me whats wrong!" Celestia said raising her voice.
"YOU!" I shouted but quickly realised that I didn’t have the energy to shout my response in her face.
“Of course, you don't understand, you have no idea what this is like, to know that your billions of miles away from everything and everyone that you ever loved or cared about!" I collapsed onto the floor and leaned back again the wall sobbing openly into my worn trousers. No one spoke a word for what felt like an eternity, that was until someone broke the sounds of sobs.
"Everypony, leave us," I inhaled sharply and held my breath. That was clearly Luna's voice, not Celestia. I looked up from my legs to find everyone now looking at Luna. To my surprise, Celestia simply looked at both at the both of us before nodding to her sister. I watched Celestia closely as she wrapped her large white wing around Twilight.
I stopped to study Twilight again, was she.. Crying? I continued to watch as Twilight was led out of the room with Cadence following closely behind.
"I... I'm sorry Princess, I didn't realize, I didn't thin..."
"Shhh, its alright Twilight,"
As the door closed an eerie silence fell over the room as only I and Luna were left present. Slowly I turned my head to face Luna but was soon caught off guard by the sight I was looking at.
She didn't look angry, nor was she looking at me with suspicion. Instead, it almost looked like... Understanding?
"Can you stand?" She asked, however, it was not in her usual assholish tone. Instead, it was one of compassion and care.
Caught off guard it took me a second to answer her question. "Uh, yeah I can,". My breathing had slowed down to a normal pace as my energy slowly recharged.
Getting to my feet as my eyes locked with hers.
"Right, this may feel a little uncomfortable on your first go," I did a double take as I eyed her suspiciously. Before I could enquire I saw her horn flash a deep blue before the lights went out. I could feel my stomach contracting and expanding at the same time. My ears popped as my eyes were greeted by a great flash of blue.
"Fuck!" I felt myself losing my balance as I dropped to the floor. I pulled one hand up to my eyes as I tried to get my sight back. As my sight returned I instantly noticed that we were no longer in the medical room. Instead, we stood in an empty chamber with large stained windows on either side. Did she just teleport us? Fucking magic!
"Sorry about that, but thou understands that it was much quicker and more convenient than walking," well at least she sounded sincere. She offered a hoof which I hesitantly took.
"It's fine, but tell me now, why the sudden change in attitude and location, last time I checked you didn't seem to like me that much, if this is your pity then I don't want it,"
She narrowed her eyes but softened them soon after. "This is not my pity, this is my understanding,"
I scoffed. "Your understanding? how could you possibly understand what this is like," I couldn't believe that this lady is playing the relatable joe role.
"Do you know how long we alicorns live Phillip?" Seriously?
"No, of course I don't,"
"We have lived for thousands of years," she stated bluntly. I was about to call bullshit on her statement but reconsidered after I remembered I was in magic horsey land. A world that basically gave a giant middle finger to the laws of physics.
"Go on," I said.
"Many years ago I was young and foolish not to mention reckless. In the end I let my emotions betray me into thinking I was better than the rest, I was fed up with being disregarded as nothing more than the "younger sister"," Luna began pacing back and forth as if she was frustrated with herself. I simply watched and listened now intrigued by her story.
"Eventually I lashed out in anger at the ones closest to me," she paused turning her head to face me as realization washed over my face.
"Celestia," I stated. Luna simply nodded slightly lowering her head.
"My sister was forced to use the powers of ancient magic to lock me away where I couldn't harm anypony else!" She seemed to be getting more and more frustrated, but not with me, more like herself.
"How long for?" I asked my realization dawning.
She sighed. "My sister had no choice but to imprison me in the Moon for one thousand winters,"
Realisation hit me like a freight train as the final pieces connected in my head. Suddenly I felt like shit for speaking to her like that.
"However, thanks to the strength of Twilight Sparkle and her friends, they were able to harness the power of the elements to free me from the darkness!" She pointed her hoof towards one of the stained glass windows.
The window depicted a blacky blue pony being blasted by what appeared to be Twilight with who I could only assume were her friends. Although I couldn't understand the finer details of the situations the main message hit me like a train wreck. She did know what it was like. She did understand.
"I'm sorry," I said holding my head down. I heard Luna walk over to me as she stopped by my side she put a hoof on my chin and raised it up.
"You have nothing to be sorry for Phillip believe me if anyone should be sorry it's me for treating you the way I did!"
Before I could respond she reached her two forelegs out and pulled me into undoubtedly the weirdest hug I've ever received. I can honestly say I never thought my first pony hug would've been with Luna, but here we are hugging each other in the middle of a random hall of the castle.
As the embraced ended I spoke up. "Thanks, I think I needed that," I wasn't lying. I was still worried sick about my folks and friends but I knew now that I wasn't alone and that I had peop... Ponies to help me get back to them.
"But you're wrong Luna," I said looking towards the window. "I do have something to be sorry for and I need to make it right,”
Luna simply smiled. "Follow me,"
Celestias Private Study 14:12 Twilights POV
"Twilight you need to calm down," Cadence urged trying to calm the pacing purple alicorn.
"Calm down? Calm down!" I continued pacing. "I can't calm down knowing I upset him that badly, if I hadn't had the big idea to bring it up none of this would have happened!" I can't believe I had been so stupid. I should've known not to bring such a touchy issue up.
"Twilight you don't know that for sure," I did a 180 and faced Celestia ready to dispute that claim but before I could the princess had me wrapped in a warm embrace.
Phillips POV
"This is it?" I asked looking towards the large wooden doors. Luna simply nodded so I reached forward and knocked on the doors.
I waited for a few seconds before I heard a response. "Enter," here goes nothing.
Luna opened the heavy doors for me with her magic as I walked inside, immediately I saw what I was looking for.
Twilight was sitting with Celestia on what looked like a fort of pillows. She looked a mess, I can't believe I caused all of this. Yeah, I will admit she was a bit overbearing and annoying but I didn't want to make her this upset.
The moment our eyes met she jumped up. "PHILIP! I was just going, Ill get out of your way," She began to make her way before towards the door before I reached out my arms and pulled her into an embrace.
Okay pony hug number two, just keep calm and do the same things as before.
Cleary Twilight was caught off guard as she gasped before trying to speak. "But... I.. I don't understand, your angry with me,"
"I'm not angry with you Twilight, I came to say sorry for putting you through this," I looked back to Luna who just gave me a small nod.
"But, what about your family and friends, you just said..." I just hugged her tighter.
"Look I know what I said and for the record, I'm not the hugging type so don't get used to this, but I'm doing this to show you that I mean what I say," I pulled back a bit and looked her in the eye. "Yes I was upset but that was no reason to lash out at you, so how about we start over?" I added a small smile for extra effect which seemed to work as Twilight returned the hug.
"Okay," Twilight said.
Well that went better than expected.
Author's Note
Looks like our human is having a tough time accepting pony land.
This chapter was a pain to write as writers block hit half way through. Nonetheless I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
As always if you find any grammatical errors feel free to point them out.
Until next time everypony!
Canterlot Castle
As I walked down the lavish halls of the castle I began to take in some of the detail that had been spread around the castle walls and windows. I hadn’t really had a chance to ask the princesses about the history of this place yet, but I could only imagine that it would be deep and extensive, although to be honest, this place looked pretty much brand new (must be some magic spell knowing this place).
Each brick had been miraculously hand... or hoof crafted I guess, or so it seemed. The attention to detail alone was something to gawk at. Earth may have had size and scale but this detail was on a whole other level. Perfectly level with each other the walls were and OCD’s heaven. No expense spared I’m sure.
The bricks.. or marble I should say were a pure white with several shades of purple and gold intertwining on the walls forming various fancy patterns. The corridors bore a striking resemblance to the room I had been staying in for the past for the past few hours.
I had been moved rooms late last night from the room in the medical wing to a much nicer guest room. Although my travels through the corridors had been very quiet and discreet. Apparently, there was a delegate from the Kingdom Of Griffonia If I remember correctly, and yes. Griffins are apparently a thing in pony land. I actually wanted to see one as the pony show was sort of dying down a little bit, however, Id imagine it’ll only take a few minutes before they break the laws if physics and freak me out all over again.
However, my hopes and aspirations were soon put to bed when the princesses told me that meeting the delegate would not be possible. At first, I was going to rebuke their claim, however, it was their next argument put me square in my place. Apparently Equestria (and the rest of this weird planet) wasn’t as technologically advanced as I thought. News travelled slow and I wasn’t exactly public knowledge. This honestly surprised me, they had good enough technology to save me from a crash landing but not enough to send emails?
The ponies had been kind enough but that doesn’t mean that everyone would be. According to Celestia tensions between the two species were at an all-time high, if I had to suddenly appear with new advance tech the Griffons might perceive me as some new threat, and so for now at least I was a state secret. Luckily for me, the Griffin Delegation had departed early in the morning so I had pretty much free reign... (terrible pun) of the castles many corridors.
Looking down to the floor a red velvet carpet was laid out as many servants walked along, all of them doing their own duties. Many of the cleaners were going to extreme lengths to dust each and every bit of the many walls and windows of the castle. I wasn’t about to stop them, those little ponies were small but their magic for cleaning was on a whole other level.
I had been forced to surrender my bloodstained clothes to the cleaners this morning, according to the princesses. I stunk. Apparently, they didn’t feel comfortable straight up telling me so instead I got the news in the form of a snooty looking unicorn. In the end, I was only left with my boxers for dignity. They didn’t seem to think that it was such a big deal and kept insisting that they would have them back to me good as new within the hour.
I had capitulated to their demands and decided to take my first shower in pony land to pass the time, even though it was extremely awkward to use (given that the shower head only went up to my stomach), I still managed to get washed pretty effectively (even if 87% of the water ended up on the ground).
Which led us up to here. At this moment I was being led throughout the various corridors by a lone guard. The journey to the dining room probably shouldn’t have taken this long but the way we were twisting and turning it was pretty obvious that I was still being kept out of the public eye, it still didn’t make sense to me apparently I had landed in a field just near a major town so the fact that hardly anyone knew about it boggled the mind. I guess these ponies just weren’t as curious.
Speaking of ponies, I was in the process of getting very agitated with one of them. At this moment I was getting increasingly frustrated with the guard escorting me. He seemed to be a normal guard, or at least I'm pretty sure he was. He bore a standard white coat and blue hair along with the golden armour that I had seen all the other guards wearing.
However what separated this guard was the lack of sound coming from him.
“So have you worked here long?”... Nothing
“Guess this is the highlight of your day huh?”... Nothing
I’d had it with this guard, fuck protocol this guy had gone fully robotic.
“Mate, do you have an issue with the English Language or something?” A slight head twitch however other than that, nothing.
“Right, fuck me,”
Abruptly the guard stopped dead at the entrance to what I could only imagine being another’s gigantic room filled with more purple, gold and white.
“Wait here,” hold on. I could have sworn that sound came from the muted guard.
“Bloody hell Mate was that a decibel you just emitted,” I knew manners and politeness, it was after all part of my job but I had my limits and this was one of them.
In response, the guard simply grunted again, straightened himself up before knocking three consecutive times on the large purple doors.
”Enter,” a quiet but firm voice could be heard inside, Princess Celestia if I’m not mistaken. Igniting his horn the guard pushed opened the door and slowly entered the room bowing as he did so. I simply followed him into what appeared to be a large dining room.
“Mr Phillip Scott your Majesties,” I’d never heard that guard sound so pleasant
“Thank you, Sergeant, you may return to your duties,”
“At once your majesty’s,” without another word the guard reversed out of the room closing the large door as he went.
“Phillip you're looking better,” Celestia said using her magic to pull a chair back from the table whilst beckoning me over.
“I do feel better your majesty and th....,” I was interrupted before I could even finish my sentence.
“Phillip come now, we’re friends are we not, please there’s no need for such titles here, your not one of my subjects and not of this world,” Celestia statement made me backtrack a little. I was fine by referring to the princesses by there names, in fact, it made it a lot easier for us to converse.
However, did Celestia really consider me a friend already? I’ve only known her for a few days. The first day I was scared beyond belief and spat insults at her and anyone around her. The second day I snapped at her prized pupil or so I’m told. Which leads us today three where we’re friends... Either ponies are a lot more forgiving than humans or Celestia's just extra nice.
“Is something wrong Phillip?” Celestia's question snapped me back to reality and out of my thoughts however it still buzzed my mind. As I looked around the table I was met with the eyes of all fou.. No, all three princesses, my logical mind quickly spotted an escape vector and I began my advance towards it.
“Uh, no I was just wondering where Cadence was?” I silently squeezed my hands under the table hoping that my little ruse would work and I wouldn’t have to go all emotional again. I hated emotional moments and I didn’t really enjoy friendship and that besides a few select friends and even then I’d known those people for years.
“Oh, of course, my dear niece is currently making her way back to her own palace in the Crystal Empire,” Celestia explained taking a sip of her drink.
“Okay Thanks, I was just curious,” I said trying to sound as normal as possible, however, given these circumstances, I don’t know if the word normal would have any bearings.
“So Phillip...,”
“Phil,” I said interrupting Celestia. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the guards stationed at the door tighten his stance. I’ve got a funny feeling that myself and these guys aren’t going to get on that well.
“I’m sorry I’m not sure I follow,” Celestia said looking confused.
“If I have to call you Celestia then I insist you just use Phil, I’ve gone by it my whole life after all,” Celestia's face lit up in recognition and pulled her face into a small but subtle smile.
“Ah, I see, well then Phil, tell me what would you like for drink I’ve already prepared pancakes for us all that is if you can eat or know what pancakes are?” They had pancakes here! Well, that made life a little more durable.
“Yeah, I’m quite familiar with pancakes and if you wouldn’t mind a hot chocolate would be nice,” If there was indeed pancakes in this magical land of small equine creatures perhaps hot cocoa wouldn’t be too far off.
“Excellent,”. With that Celestia summoned a unicorn dressed in a butlers outfit and started talking quietly into his ear. After a few moments the butler stood back, bowed and left the room, food was en-route I guess.
“So ladies if you wouldn’t mind me asking, what are our next steps here?” I was curious to find out what was going to happen to me, right now my priorities were still that of a captain. Find the aircraft, inspect the damage and find the people.. The people.
“Well, I guess I could fill you in on that part,” I looked to Celestia's right to see Twilight sitting with a piece of parchment along with a quill to match.
Jesus, does this girl ever put her quill down to have.. a normal conversation?
Twilight looked at me and Celestia. Celestia simply bowed her head slightly much to the delight of Twilight.
“Okay so, basically the plan is this, we know you’ll want to get back to your airship as soon as possible, we still don’t know how you got here and we have our best mages including myself working on a solution, in the meantime you can stay in my own castle in Ponyville which is much closer to your ship, that way you can inspect your craft whenever you like,” Twilight exhaled and took in a deep breath.
“Okay, yeah that could work, although I was also wondering about the world knowing about me, I mean I did fly over one of your towns at like 200 feet, surely people saw or at the very least raised suspicions?” I didn’t mind if the world knew I existed especially if it got me home faster.
“I think I can answer this one,” I turned my head again to see Luna now joining in on the conversation.
“By all means,” I said folding my arms. Out of all the ponies, I had met so far I trusted Luna the most, well, to be honest, I still didn’t trust any of them but ill take what I can get. She seemed like a bit of a bitch at first but after she opened up I feel like I have a little more respect for her.
“Right now, we are not comfortable with making your existence public knowledge, now is not the right time especially with changelings making more incursions on our borders than normal..,”
I raised my hand to stop her, she looked confused but then recognised the gesture. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to interrupt but I must ask, I’ve heard of Griffons as they are a myth in my world but I've never heard of these… Changelings, what are they?”
Luna face scrunched up but then relaxed. “Changelings are disgusting creatures…,”
“Luna..,” Celestia started but was soon cut off by her sister.
“No Tia they are, they're heartless disgusting creatures that take the forms of the ones you love and use your love for them to feed off you!”
I looked to Twilight and Celestia for confirmation, Twilight spoke up first. “Sadly what the princess says is true, a while ago the Changelings attacked Canterlot, they almost won and it was only thanks to Princess Cadence and my brother that we are still here,”
“I think what my sister is trying to say is that we are afraid that the public, especially the nobles May perceive you as a new changelings threat, even though we know that’s not true the public may not be so... convinced” Celestia finished.
“And along with the deteriorating relations with the Griffons, the timing is less than convenient,” Twilight added.
“I think I get the gist of it,” I said. In full honesty, I got lost about a minute ago but ill go along with it for now.
“Please understand that in time when the public is ready we will make your knowledge public until then the only ponies that will know of your presence here is the castle staff, us, and the guard detachment that are protecting your craft, all are sworn to secrecy,”
A cough from Luna brought all attention back to her. “Yes, well as I was saying we sent a specialised guard detachment to your craft in order to keep any ponies from getting to close,”
I wasn’t too convinced. “I’m sorry but I’m afraid I don't understand how having an entire detachment of your guards is going to make anyone less suspicious,” Luna simply laughed a little as did Celestia, however, I and Twilight seemed completely lost in all of this.
“Yes well, they are guards but trust me when I say you wouldn’t know it looking in,”
For the third time this week the realisation washed over me. “So you're telling me that you golden boys over here are in disguise?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” I've got to be honest I haven’t been impressed with their technology so far so unless they're going to pull some magic shit out their asses I’m not convinced of this working.
“Anyway enough of business, for now, I’m starving and you, Celestia, offered me pancakes,”
Celestia simply laughed. “Of course,”
“Wings is on the move repeat Wings is on the move,”
“Please confirm escort,”
“Escort Confirmed, full set with Wings,”
“Copy that, proceed, operation has green light,”
“Confirmed,”
Canterlot Castle Air Docks 12:38
“Well Phil I guess this is goodbye for now,” Celestia said reacher her hoof out. I hadn’t the slightest clue what to do so I just shook it up and down.
“I must admit it might not have been under the best circumstances but you three have made it a lot more bearable,” I wasn’t lying either. If it wasn’t for Celestia helping me out in the first few hours I don’t know if I would’ve made it through with my sanity in check. And if it wasn’t for Luna then I wouldn’t have been able to calm down after that little ‘incident’.
“We art sad thou is leaving so soon but we assure you we will check in on thee.. you every now and again,” I reached my hand out but Luna ignored it, instead opting for a hug. You know I didn’t enjoy hugging at the best of times but this better not become a reoccurring thing. Even my friends that I've known for years only ever get a hug or handshake at Christmas and New year.
“Now Twilight, do you know the plan?” Celestia asked turning to face the small purple pony.
“Yes, I do princess, Get to Ponyville and meet with your contact near the crash site,” Twilight said strapping her little pouches over her back.
“Excellent, in that case, ill begin phase one now,” with that Celestia's golden aura lit up as she shot a beam at my chest. Caught off guard I went to lash out but was quickly restrained in a purple aura.
Just as soon as the beam at started it cut off. “What the actual Fuck is wrong with you!” I shouted causing both Twilight and Luna to flinch.
“Phil!” Twilight hissed, however before she could continue Celestia raised a hoof to stop her.
“It’s alright Twilight, In Phils Defence, I probably should have told him before I performed the spell,”
“And what exactly was that spell?” I sneered, my good mood gone replaced by one of frustration and confusion.
“It was a simple perception spell, it makes you unnoticeable to the normal eye, your not invisible just unnoticeable,” Celestia finished by taking a step back.
“So how can you all see me?” I asked pointing a figure in the princesses direction.
“I gave all of us a bypass allowing us to see you clearly, Twilight has the spell should other ponies need to be added to that list,” I think I noticed her wink at Twilight but I chose to ignore it.
“Okay but feel free to give me some warning before you do something like that again,” I said folding my arms at her.
“As you wish,” Celestia said. “Now both of you should go if you want to make good time... good luck Phil,”
With that, both princesses turned around and left. This left just me and Twilight standing in the archway to the docks.
“So… I guess we better get going then?” I said.
“Sure, follow me,” Twilight quickly performed a 180 on the spot and began trotting out towards the platform.
As we walked out onto the platform I was taken aback by what I saw. Several large airships were docked onto the large platform. Besides the large airships sat several golden chariots placed at several of the docks.
Along with the mass of ships, there was a sea of royal guards. All of them stood at attention around us, some had bits of purple and pink engraved on their armour. They all bowed as soon as they caught sight of Twilight.
As we walked forward. We were met with one of the guards ponies who to my surprise was not decked out in the standard white and blue that I’d grown accustomed to. Instead, this guard had a brown coat and red hair. Along with that, his armour was much heavier and more decorated. I guess this is a higher ranked officer.
“Your Highness,” He said bowing.
“Twilight, please lieutenant we’ve been over this,” Twilight said signalling him to rise.
“Your brother would have my head if I didn’t adhere to proper protocol,” he said chuckling as he did so he began to look at me. Wait. Can he see me?
“Mr Scott I presume?”
“Uh, yeah nice to meet you,” I said reaching out my hand which the officer thankfully took.
“Likewise, I’m Lieutenant Hard Hitter of the Canterlot Castle Protection Unit, my guards will take you and the princess to rendezvous with Commander Septer in Ponyville,”
“Quick question Lieutenant, how can you see me, last I checked I’d just been blasted with a beam of death to prevent such a thing,”
“Ah, Mr Scott I should mention that most guards are trained to see through such spells in the event someone try’s to sneak around where they shouldn’t be,” The guard said before turning slightly to Twilight. “If both of you would like to follow me,”.
As we started walking over to the edge of the docks I soon found myself being shown to one of the small golden chariots. “Uh, Twilight?”
“Yes, Phil, what’s wrong?” Twilight said turning to face me.
“We’re not actually going to ride in that thing are we?” Twilight followed my gaze to the golden chariot then traced it back.
“Why, what’s wrong with it?” Seriously?
“Well, it doesn't look completely safe, there no backing to it or any seats or even a roof!”
“So?”
“SO? So that means there’s not a chance in hell that you're getting me into that death trap,”
Twilight simply sighed. “You know Phil most ponies would fall over each other at the chance to ride in a royal chariot,”
“Yeah now ponies would probably fall out, and if you haven’t noticed yet I’m not ‘most ponies’,” I said sarcastically.
An intentional cough broke our conversation. “I’m sorry to interrupt the discussion but if you could tell us what your specifications are, then I'm sure that we can meet them,” I turned to see the Lieutenant standing there.
Well at least someone here’s talking sense. “All I need is something with a roof and solid backing so I don’t go flying out the back,”
“Well sir I can guarantee you that all of these chariots are enchanted by the finest mages in all of Equestria so I can guarantee you will not go as you put it, ‘flying out the back’,”
“Come on Phil I have wings and a horn so If something goes wrong I’ll be there to catch you,” Twilight said fluttering her wings at her side.
It didn’t look like I was going to win this one. “Fine I concede but this thing better work”
“Excellent, if you and Her Highness could please step aboard then,” Doing as the Lieutenant asked we “boarded” the chariot and sat down. I say sat down but there were no seats to be found, so I found myself sitting down on what I could only assume was solid gold.
“See, this isn’t so bad,” Twilight said shifting around a little in order to get comfortable.
“See, we also aren’t moving yet,” I countered.
“Okay, well good luck to you Mr Scott and you Miss Sparkle,” the Lieutenant said giving the chariot the all clear signal.
“See you soon Hard Hitter, don’t let the walls fall down,” Twilight answered as the chariot slowly begun to move away.
As the chariot began moving I held on to the railings as if I was looking death straight in the eye. No doubt death would be just as confused as I am to why I am currently not failing thousands of feet to my death. However, true to Twilights Word we weren’t falling, we were flying!
The guards pulling the chariot begun to increase speed and just like that, we were off.
One step closer to home...
A Short While Later
“We’re descending into Ponyville now your highness!” The guard shouted over his back.
The flight to Ponyville had been a pretty uneventful one. Not even turbulence hampered the flight. I must give it to the ponies, Canterlot did look amazing from a distance, I hadn’t seen much from my window in my room so it was something else when you looked at it from here.
I was able to make out all of the different houses as well as the cobbled streets that appeared to be littered with ponies of all kind.
“So Twilight, what do you know about the guard we're meeting with?” I said turning to face Twilight.
Twilight turned to answer me but closed her mouth to think. “Actually I've never heard of a ‘Commander Septer’ before, all the princess told me was that he worked for a specialised division of the EUP guard,”
“The EU what?” I asked perplexed.
“The E.U.P guard, it stands for Earth Pony, Unicorn, Pegasus Guard,”
“Oh,” I said, seems pretty dumb to me. It’s sort of like the equivalent of being called the Human Army.
As we spoke the I felt the chariot slowly descend as I got my first good look at the town I almost destroyed.
The town itself was pretty moderate in size, though it looked nothing like Canterlot. Most of the buildings were made out of wood with what I could only assume was hay acting as the roofs.
Most of the buildings par few distinct ones seemed to have a standard colour scheme which was a basic cream colour with some more purple and pink splattered in there. (Must just be a pony colour fetish).
In the centre of the town was a large carousel looking building which I suppose is the town hall. To my shock, this one actually had a wooden roof so A+ to the designer for not being completely incompetent.
However, there was one building that stuck out like a sore thumb. I actually had to do a double take to make sure I saw what I thought it saw. On the edge of this charming-looking hamlet was a large purple crystal looking castle. I mean whoever designed that clearly didn’t look at the surrounding town.
Large shards of crystal stuck out from the castle, in fact, had they painted the castle a darker colour I could see it as a stereotypical bad guy castle.
Twilight must have picked up on me staring at the castle as she decided to pipe up. “Looks pretty amazing don’t you think?”
“It... is definitely something that catches the eye,”
“Well I’m glad you like it, cause you might be spending a while here,” Twilight said completely oblivious to my feelings on the matter.
Soon Ponyville was past us so I assumed we must be going directly to the crash site.
We were soon flying parallel to the forest that I had crashed next to. It was a dark and Erie place that I first assumed was Hyde Park. Obviously, it wasn’t, as this was nothing like Hyde Park, the tree colouring was all off. There was a distinct lack in beautiful ponds with the only watery bodies consisting of swampy marshes. Along with that, the borders of the forest were clearly seen. The dark green grass contrasted with the lighter green showing a clear divide between the light and dark.
However, my concentration was broken when I saw something much more important. The reason I was here. Like the worlds biggest mystery, it sat in a field with a brown trench line built around the nose. My aircraft...
”Wings has landed”
”Copied, begin scan”
...
”Scan complete sir, no Changelings magic detected”
”Scan again, I want no mistakes on this, ill stall them”
”Yes sir
Author's Note
Finally got this out a few weeks later than planned. Writer's block hit pretty hard.
This chapter was hard to structure as not a lot happens but it sets up important factors that will come into play later on in the story.
Once again let me know if you find any grammar mistakes and ill be sure to correct them.
In my opinion, this chapter is a little rushed at the end but I think it will help the next chapter.
Hope you enjoy and happy new year!
