Gundam: Pilots Of Harmony

Chapters

Operation 1: An Eventful Encounter
Operation 2: Learning Curve part 1
Operation 2: Learning Curve part 2

Operation 1: An Eventful Encounter

Gundam: Pilots of Harmony

Operation 1: An Eventful Encounter

Once long, long ago in the magical land of Equestria there resided a group of six mares who were the best of friends. But what they didn’t know was that soon their bonds of friendship would be put through many hard trials that would tax them to their limits. For out among the stars, they would quickly be beset by a group of creatures that called themselves humans. These humans would share information and technology with them even as they warned them of others like themselves who would do anything to dominate life in the galaxy and bend them to their will. But that’s for later, for now, I should probably tell you just how this all started. After all, that’s why you all are here are you not?

Now I’m sure many of you have heard the theory of the multiverse or something along those lines. Or at the very least you have listened to about parallel Universes where many different outcomes have happened. Well, our story just so happens to start with one of those parallel universes. Here, many people had heard and watched the Japanese anime franchise known as Gundam. The series managed to gain much popularity among the people of Earth and spawned many kinds of merchandise, the biggest of which were plastic models of the robots in the show called merely Gunpla.

However, in time the franchise managed to inspire brilliant people who worked in many different occupations such as engineering and various fields of science. At first, the experiments were discouraging; mobile suits would fall apart as soon as they were finished, propulsion systems would malfunction, spewing fuel and other resources everywhere, and pilots would get so sick fighting the g-forces the mobile suits were known to produce causing many to pass out. Over time, these mishaps became less and less frequent that after 200 years the first mobile suit finally walked out of the factory unaided. At least until it promptly fell over.

But after another century of time had passed, the mobile suits were able to move about and perform all sorts of actions that had been seen in the franchise, which continued to hold the hearts of so many people captive. Then in the years that followed the first colonization process was started by the government at that time. All the nations of the earth had managed to finally set their differences and hatreds aside and formed into one unified earth government that worked towards the betterment of humankind as a whole. This council approved a project set forth by a group that had named themselves after a team from the anime franchise they so loved. This group had taken the name of the Earth Federation. They decided to call their project, Project Eden.

The Innovators had eventually managed to replicate and produce the types of particles that were seen in that season of Gundam. They used these particles as the engines for spaceships that could be sent into deep space. They had also found a way to continuously reproduce these particles inside of their spaceships so that their ships wouldn’t run out of fuel unless pushed to their limits. It was because of this that it was possible to proceed with the colonization effort in the first place. The first place they tried colonizing was their moon, both because of how close it was and because of how many resources were readily available.

After they successfully colonized the moon, the government approved their next projects to colonize planets that were within their solar system. Mars soon became the new base for building and maintaining the various suits produced as well as training new pilots in how to move in low gravity and hostile environments efficiently.It was also here that the first authentic reproduction of a ship from the franchise was recreated in real life. The ship that had been reproduced was the Pegasus-class mobile suit carrier White Base from the first season of the franchise. This vessel had the capability of launching many different kinds of mobile suits with its twin launching cannons but also had a repair bay inside of it that could fix the more advanced mobile suits that were then starting to be created.

Then 25 years after the production of White Base, the first Gundam frame mobile suit was created, the RX-78 Gundam. The RX-78-2 was the second of three Gundam prototype units constructed on Side 7 in UC 0079, as part of the Earth Federation's V Project. The three machines acted as the defense force for White Base. For a time, peace reigned throughout the solar system. The colony on Mars began producing more Gundams and defense platforms, mostly for deflecting large meteors and the occasional cosmic storm, but after another century passed, their peace shattered. A group calling themselves the Principality of Zeon attacked, beginning what was commonly called the One Year War.

When Zeon Zum Deikun, the leader of the republic, became gravely ill in UC 0068, he mentioned only one name on his deathbed: "Degwin Zabi." The people of Side 3 took this to mean that Deikun was naming Degwin to succeed him as leader of the Republic in that year. After being appointed as the leader of the Republic of Zeon, Degwin Zabi adopted the title of Sodo, meaning "Lord," and was referred to from them on as Degwin Sodo Zabi. Seizing control of the government, Degwin maintained the only way for the colonies to be independent of the Earth Federation was for the Principality to fight (though in reality, Side 3 was already independent of Earth at that time). To this end, Degwin appointed his children into military and political offices and pushed for rapid development of military technology.

Gihren Zabi, the eldest of the Zabi children, remained at his father's side as his aide, achieving the rank of Admiral, and eventually became the Supreme Commander of the Zeon Armed Forces in place of his father. Dozle Zabi, the second eldest son of the Zabi family, became Vice Admiral and the Commander of the Zeon Space Attack Force, responsible for overseeing the fleet movements within the Principality and for securing territory. Kycilia Zabi, a Vice Admiral as well, shared command of the Zeon Space Attack Force with her brother Dolze, which led to conflicts between the two as she operated from the lunar city of Granada. Garma Zabi, the youngest of the Zabi family, was placed in command of the Zeon Earth Attack Force.

With the backing of the Principality of Zeon’s new leadership, technological breakthroughs were made in many fields of research. One of the most significant developments was that of mobile suit technology, which while initially intended for colony construction found military applications. Analysis by Doctor Minovsky lead to the discovery of the Minovsky Particle and the Minovsky Particle Effect, which allowed for the development of further technology, such as the Minovsky Craft System. Supported by Kycilia Zabi, research into a growing phenomenon led to the classification and discovery of Newtypes, and with her support the development of Newtype based military units.

Negotiations with the Earth Federation finally broke down in UC 0079, leading to the Principality of Zeon (re)declaring its independence from the Earth Federation and at the same time declaring war on the Federation.

One of the first groups of colonies to be drawn into the conflict were the colonies located at Side 1, also called Zarn, which served as the capital of the Earth Federation in space. The group of colonies at Side 2 (also known as Hatte) and Side 4 (also known as Mua) were drawn into the conflict as well, with one of the devastated colonies from either Side 2 or Side 4 being used for "Operation British", which was to use a settlement as a weapon by sending it on a collision course with the Earth.

Operation British met with moderate success, as an explosion caused the colony to alter its trajectory and instead of impacting on the Earth-based capital of the Earth Federation, it instead landed on Sydney, Australia, destroying 16% of the continent. While attempting to gain another colony to drop onto the Earth, the Earth Federation Space Forces intercepted the Zeon Space Attack Force at Side 5 (also known as Loum), resulting in the "Battle of Loum." The resulting battle employed the use of both nuclear and biological weapons, causing the complete destruction of Side 5 as both forces attempted to bring a quick end to the war.

The massive loss of life at the Battle of Loum resulted in a truce being called between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon for representatives of both governments, as well as those of other colonies, to meet and discuss the terms the Federation's surrender, as they had been vastly demoralized. Gihren threatened to drop Luna II on Jaburo next. However, General Revil, haven been rescued from Zeon captivity, arrived in time to reveal Gihren's bluff, leading to the Federation to change the tide and set the terms of the war. This meeting lead to the signing of the Antarctic Treaty, which prohibited the use of nuclear and biological weapons by both the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon. The treaty also outlined that colonies could not be used as weapons in the conflict, the treatment of prisoners of war, and the neutrality of other provinces that wished to remain out of the war, becoming a safe-haven for refugees.

With the signing of the Antarctic Treaty, the war between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon entered a new phase. Knowing that they could not continue the war without resources, the Principality of Zeon organized an assault force to invade Earth and securing supplies for the war effort. Garma Zabi, the youngest child of Degwin Zabi, was named as the Commander of the Zeon Earth Attack Force and descended to Earth with mobile suits. The invasion of the Earth proceeded quickly due to the Earth Federation Forces being ill-equipped to deal with the new threat of the Zeon mobile suits, and so the Principality capturing a large number of territories and setting up mining operations as well as bases to transport materials back to the homeland. The base of operations for the Zeon Earth Attack Force was the captured California Base of the Earth Federation.

The Earth Federation were however able to develop new tactics in dealing with the mobile suits, which, with the aid of the Antarctic Treaty and the return of General Revil, led to a stalemate in the war as both sides worked to replenish their resources for the war and the Earth Federation gained a morale boost due to Revil's speech "Zeon is Exhausted!". However, even with the war at a stalemate, a Zeon victory seemed to be inevitable due to the high-quality mobile suits produced for both their land and space forces.

The discovery of "Project V" marked the turning point for the Zeon's war against the Federation. Till the discovery of the Federation project, the corporations within the Principality of Zeon led the way in technology and production of mobile suits. Curious and alarmed by the development of a series of Federation mobile suits, as well as a new ship to carry them, operations were carried out to investigate the ship codenamed the "Trojan Horse." The pursuit of the mobile suits and the ship eventually contributed to the death of Garma Zabi, as well as experienced and valuable pilots such as Ramba Ral and the Black Tri-Stars.

The death of Garma Zabi on October 4, UC 0079 marked yet another turning point in the war as it led to a shakeup in the political power of the Principality of Zeon. Grief-stricken by the death of his youngest son, Degwin Zabi started to strongly consider moving towards a peaceful end to the war with the Federation. Degwin, however, fell out of power and was now little more than a figurehead as his eldest son Gihren took command of not only the military but the Principality itself. Inspired by the speech given by Gihren Zabi at his brothers funeral, the Zeon military forces fought harder to obtain victory and independence. Their moral boost, however, did not last long, as the Earth Federation started to deploy its mobile suits on Earth and in Space, as well as carry out successful operations against the Zeon forces on Earth due to its lacking an adequate command structure with the absence of Garma Zabi. The victory of the Earth Federations "Operation Odessa" on November 9, UC 0079 started a collapse in the support infrastructure for the Zeon Earth Attack Forces.

To regain their momentum, an attack was carried out on the Earth Federation headquarters of Jaburo on November 30, UC 0079. The attack led by Captain Char Aznable succeeds in breaching the Federation Headquarters, however, due to the lack of supplies and resources at his disposal, the operation failed and eventually resulted in a mass evacuation by Zeon forces from Earth.

With the success of operations on Earth, the Earth Federation again turned its attention and the war effort to space, which both the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon knew would be the final battleground for the war. Confident that the Zeon Space Attack Force can withstand anything that the Earth Federation could throw at it, Vice Admiral Dozle Zabi amassed as many ships under his command to the asteroid base of Solomon, his base of operations and a Zeon stronghold located close to Lagrange Point 5. Dozle Zabi was reluctant to ask for support from his sister Kycilia but was able to get some reinforcements for Solomon before the Earth Federation Space Forces attacked, his reinforcements coming in the form of the MA-08 Big Zam. The added firepower of the Big Zam, however, was not enough to curve the tide of the Federation forces as Solomon fell with the aid of a secret Federation weapon on December 24, UC 0079, the battle ending with the abandonment of the base by the Principality of Zeon and the death of Dozle Zabi.

With the loss of Solomon and a second son, Degwin Zabi started to make a move to peace; however, he took notice of the shifting ideals of his eldest son Gihren. The war between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon transformed under the leadership of Gihren Zabi, where instead of real independence from the Federation, Gihren wished to destroy all human life on Earth so that the chosen race of Side 3, the Principality of Zeon can rule. Degwin departed from Side 3 in an effort to meet with General Revil, in the hopes of negotiating peace between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon before the Federation launches an attack on the last line of defense for the Principality. Knowing of the plot, Gihren ordered the firing of his secret weapon, a colony laser called the "Solar Ray." The firing of the gun led to the destruction of a third of the Earth Federation fleet as well as the deaths of General Revil and Degwin Zabi on December 30, UC 0079.

Taking command of the remaining Zeon forces, Gihren Zabi commanded from the space fortress A Baoa Qu as the remaining Federation forces launched an attack against the Zeon forces. Gihren was able to control the troops for a while; however, he was executed for the assassination of Degwin by his sister Kycilia. Kycilia took command of A Baoa Qu and oversaw the battle, deploying as many mobile suits as she can to combat the Federation forces. Curious as to why they are taking such heavy losses Kycilia learned that a majority of the troops deployed are pilot cadets who had not yet been fully trained to pilot mobile suits. Determining that the battle was lost, Kycilia gave the order to have her ship ready to depart and for the remaining forces to surrender once she had left with an escort group. The command, however, was never issued as the command center was overrun by Federation forces that gained entry to the fortress, and Kycilia was assassinated by Char Aznable, her ship destroyed not long after.

With a lack of command and control, the remaining Zeon fleet went into a panic. Split as to what to do, some of the ships gathered as many as they could before fleeing the battlefield, while others remained to fight to the last man, each believing that it was what their commanders wanted. With the fall of A Baoa Qu, the remaining government of the Principality of Zeon surrendered to the Earth Federation, bringing an end to the war on January 1, UC 0080.

With the reign of the Zabi family ended, the remaining citizens of the Principality of Zeon entered negotiations with the Earth Federation. It was replaced by the Republic of Zeon, the colonies of Side 3 formed their nation subject to Federation inspections and review. Maintaining a small defense force that was comprised of ships and mobile suits from the Principality of Zeon, the Republic of Zeon has taken on a more peaceful relationship with the Earth Federation.

Loyalists to the Principality of Zeon and the Zabi family did continue, however, as those that escaped capture or death at the Battle of A Baoa Qu either hid within the Earth Sphere or fled to other regions, including the asteroid Axis and Mars. These loyalists later formed their movements based upon the principles of the Principality of Zeon, with one Neo Zeon movement being led by the daughter of Admiral Maharaja Karn, Haman Karn, who used Dozle Zabi's daughter Mineva Lao Zabi as a figurehead and rallying point for the movement.

Interestingly the Second Neo Zeon Movement did not have any loyalty to the Principality of Zeon or the Zabi family. Led by Char Aznable who had revealed that he was the son of Zeon Zum Deikun and thus the true heir of the Republic of Zeon. The goal of the Second Neo Zeon was to force humanity to move to space and kill those that didn't, by dropping asteroids onto the Earth and starting a nuclear winter that would destroy the majority of life on the planet. This, in turn, would achieve the two original goals set out by Zeon Deikun long ago; The first would be allowing the earth to rest (albeit entirely unable to support life after that), and the second establishing full independence for spacenoids from the rule of Earth. Almost three years later, the scattered forces of the late Char Aznable's Neo Zeon gathered and were reorganized by a man named Full Frontal. These remnants of the second Neo Zeon movement referred to as "The Sleeves" by the Federation army, not recognized legally, were considered a terrorist organization.

Over time the wounds from the war began to heal, but the Principality of Zeon was still not ready to throw in the towel just yet. On March UC 0093, Char Aznable, who many had believed dead, emerged after five years in hiding and lead the Neo Zeon once more in the fight for independence from the Earth Federation. Still determined to make humankind fully colonize in space, he mobilized Neo Zeon forces to drop the asteroid 4th Luna on the Federation headquarters in Lhasa, Tibet. Under the guise of surrendering the entire Neo Zeon forces, he planned to drop the Axis asteroid base on Earth as well.

However, the Federation had assigned its anti-insurgent task force, the Londo Bell, to take him down. Among the Londo Bell's members were two veterans of the One Year War; Bright Noa and Amuro Ray, both of whom Char wanted to kill in revenge for the death of Lalah Sune. A significant battle around the Axis broke out as the Londo Bell struggled to stop Char before the asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere. A Londo Bell demolitions team managed to blow up Axis from the inside, but that still left one-half still on course to strike Earth.

The explosion within the Axis had too much power, resulting in the rear half of Axis decelerating towards Earth. Amuro rammed Char's escape pod into Axis in an attempt to push it clear of Earth while Bright wanted to use the Ra Cailum to push back the Axis, but his officers stopped him. Char soon revealed that his victory would be nothing if he hadn't allowed Anaheim to give Londo Bell the psycoframe technology, at which point the psycoframes on both units begin to resonate and glow, unseen by both pilots. Suddenly, the Earth Federation's 88th Fleet arrived to assist Amuro with a team of RGM-86R GM III.

Eventually, Neo Zeon suits joined in attempting to push the Axis back, even when their mobile suits began to be destroyed by the heat of the atmosphere. Amuro's dominant brainwaves started to channel the resonance of the psycoframe to increase, pushing away all suits except for the V-Gundam. Amuro claimed that he didn't want to be Quess' surrogate father, but Char revealed that Lalah was like a mother to him. At that point, Amuro and Char vanish within the psycoframe luminescence phenomenon, and both halves of Axis are pushed back from Earth in an aurora-like display.

It was after this point around UC 0100 that things took a drastic change from what they had previously been. There was a small faction of people that was slowly growing that had held the Gundam franchise anime close to their hearts and still watched all that had been made for the franchise. So to see the franchise play out in real life was somewhat concerning for them. They were forced to watch all the pain and the suffering pan out in real life. This group wanted all the violence and war to stop, so they went about trying to figure out just how to get that to happen. Then an idea came to them about what to do.

The idea that they had was for space exploration all over the galaxy. Surely with such a vast cosmos out there, the violence would stop once humanity had a joint goal once again of exploring together. But even when they went about proposing the idea of deep-space exploration to both the United Federation government and the Neo Zeon government both sides still warred with each other in secret. The war between both factions continued in secret out of the public eye in small skirmishes or other operations and the idea proposed by the group was pushed to the side. So the team itself took it upon themselves to go ahead with their plan without the support of either government.

This team formed its own private corporation, which they named Celestial Being after the Gundam season known as Gundam 00. Their business managed to gain control of different sections of the market by investing in lucrative portions of the private sector throughout the solar system. And it was because of this that they were able to fund their research for a new type of particle which they named the Gundam Nucleus Particle or GN particle for short. Celestial being then proceeded to create a new kind of engine which they called the GN Drive, also known as the Solar Reactor or Solar Furnace. Using this new engine they had designed, Celestia being set about creating a new type of spaceship along with new highly specialized mobile suits that would be capable of using these new drives.

As for the particles itself, they had to create a process using the power of a star to make the particles in the first place. At least that is the way it was until they discovered a way to have the particle replicate itself through a new process they created which was aptly named the Solar Particle Replication Process.

After forming this new method, Celestial Being was able to redesign parts of their future spaceship that would be able to use the process to give itself a near infinite amount of the particles by replicating new ones. All it would require is them having at least one remaining GN Particle to replicate in the first place. So they set about outfitting the ship with several incredibly small containers that held a plethora of the particles needed for replication. After they finished equipping the vessel with the tanks, Celestial Being was able to complete their spaceship and finish up creating their new mobile suits.

Once the spaceship was complete alongside the new mobile suits, the company had to train a capable crew for their ship as well as specialized pilots for their new mobile suits. To this end, they set about preparing people from within their ranks to become the crew for the new ship. However, Celestial Being was forced to secretly recruit people from earth underneath the government's nose due to pressure from the two separate parties to become a more public corporation. They were able to find a small batch of candidates which they were able to train to become pilots for their new mobile suits, but it almost cost them their secrecy.

Once the training of their pilots and crew were complete, they were able to send them off into deep space on a maiden voyage where they hoped they would be successful in finding new places to colonize for humanity. Unseen by the group was a small Neo Zeon task force sent to ‘acquire’ the research being developed in hopes to use it to finally put an end to the Earth Federation once and for all.

While Celestia Being was unaware of the group themselves, their pilots were on the constant lookout for danger as that is what they had been trained for. They were able to find out about the small task force, but sadly it was still too late for the task force to be stopped. The pilots along with the crew of the new spaceship were able to escape with a good amount of the employees of the business into deep space but not before much of their research had been copied and stolen by the Neo Zeon task force. Celestial Being knew that their research would be used to create new machines of war to be used in the destruction of the United Federation. Sadly, before they could go about transmitting the data to the United Federation the small task force was able to cause Celestial Being’s headquarters to explode, and the company collapsed in on itself from there before the data could be sent to the United Federation.

All that survived of Celestial being was the spaceship and mobile suits they had created. Of course, there was the crew, employees, and pilots on the ship and together they all decided that it was better to disappear altogether from their solar system. So it was to that, that they set off into deep space leaving behind Neo Zeon and the United Federation. Over time both Neo Zeon and the United Federation forgot about the Celestial Being research company and went back to their pointless fighting, eventually leading to the destruction of the mars base.

After the destruction of the United Federation’s Mars base, Neo Zeon was able to route the remainder of the United Federations forces quickly. The United Federation was forced to surrender to Neo Zeon, but not before sending off a small team to find the Celestial Being Research company in the hopes that they would help retake the earth. What the U.F and N.Z didn’t know about was the secondary mission Celestial Being would be embarking on; Finding alien life in the galaxy.

The Celestial Being Research company had already disappeared into the vastness of space while leaving only a very minimal trail to follow. They were trying to erase their tracks entirely as they set about on their secondary mission. Although seeking out new forms of life in the galaxy would be treacherous without funding or resources, Celestial Being was determined to follow through with their plan. Eventually, after five years of traveling through deep space, the ship “A new hope” finally found a clue. On a planet orbiting a strange anomaly in space, the crew noticed what looked like a small capsule emitting a peculiar energy along with the surroundings. Pulling the capsule in, the team found on the side the logo of Side 3, before it changed to the Principality of Zeon, then later to Neo Zeon, indicating that this capsule must have been sent to seek planets to colonize without risking human life landing on a hostile world. At least, that's what most of the crew thought before they brought the capsule in, finding a little girl deep asleep who appeared to be about seven or eight. Just before they could ponder what a child was doing in an exploration pod, an alarm started blaring, and a frantic voice was overheard on the intercom.

“This is engineering. The energy readings were getting from that pod is starting to grow at an alarming rate. Whatever that thing is it’s producing enough energy to knock out a star. Get out of there. Now!” The voice of Chief Engineer Cinder Blaze shouted over the loudspeakers.

Concerned about the girl in the pod, the engineering crew opened the pod, grabbed the girl and hightailed it out of engineering just before there was a loud explosion in the cargo bay. As the pod exploded a massive wave of energy passed throughout the entire ship, knocking out power from aft to stern. Luckily, no one was harmed as the energy passed over them, but many were concerned about adverse effects.

The engineers led by Cinder Blaze were unable to find any adverse effects from the energy that had blasted throughout the ship. As far as they could tell the energy did not have any adverse impact on the ship’s systems. The medical crew of the vessel called everyone in for a checkup to see if the energy had done anything to any of the team or pilots. The scans they ran on everyone, including the little girl they had rescued from the pod, said that there were no adverse effects from the energy. They ran through a series of high-level medical scans for each person a second time just to make sure that there was no threat from the energy. Once again their scans said that everyone was perfectly healthy and no one was suffering any ill effects from the energy.

A kind doctor ended up asking the little girl they had rescued what her name was and she was able to tell them that she had been named Eclipse. The doctor thought it was an odd little name but that was all, and they ended up assigning the girl to a foster family on the ship until she could be placed with a more permanent family. What they did not realize was that the girl had ended up getting a massive dose of energy from the wave that had spread throughout the ship. This power was undetectable to all of their instruments and was moving throughout her body slowly introducing changes to the cells inside of her. It would be a very long time before the energy wholly dissipated into thin air.

The engineers of the ship set about scanning the pod to see if they could find out any more about the explosion but their scans were inconclusive. So Chief Engineer Cinder Blaze went over the data and results that had appeared on the scanners before and after the explosion to see if he could find anything. With the aid of a young assistant, he was able to piece together a theory about what the energy was. As far as the scanners could tell him the energy was some kind of astral energy that had built up strong enough to become some physical energy which is what moved all around the ship knocking out systems. So the theory he pieced together was that the so-called Astral energy the scanners had picked up before the explosion was caused by something in a dimensional plane that they could not see or detect.

The reason why he called the energy before the explosion astral energy was because he had read so much fantasy literature in the past that it reminded him of some magic from a book series he had read. The books in question were titled “Final Fantasy,” and there had been fifteen books in the series. His favorite in the series was book number thirteen, as he could relate to the character named Lightning, as he too lost his little sister. Her name was Aurora and at times a little adventurous. She was killed visiting their parents in Sydney, Australia when a colony from Hatte hit. Cinder, in a fit of rage, managed to steal one of the suits piloted by Zeon and destroyed half of their research fleet within five years. He had nearly lost his life when Zeon forces managed to corner him near the asteroid belt when he was rescued by a team from the Celestial Being. They offered him a chance to put the war behind him as an engineer onboard their research vessel “New Horizons” and a chance to work on his own mobile suit.

Cinder Blaze set about reconfiguring the scanners to see if he could get them to detect this other dimensional plane. It took several days, but he was able to reconfigure them enough to give an accurate depiction of this different plain through a type of echolocation. It was a day afterward that the scanners managed to pick up an object residing on that plane that hadn’t been there the previous day. As the object got closer to where the scanners were continuously scanning, it resolved into what appeared to be some being moving about on that plain. Cinder was both awed, and concerned by this supposed being that had made itself known on this other plane of existence. What happened next was something he wouldn’t have dreamed of happening for years. The being came closer and seemed to conduct a scan of its own on his scanners.

From there it was only a few days later that the creature, which had appeared on the scanners as some equine creature, appeared on the ship in a great burst of energy in the cargo bay atop a mech.

The energy that it appeared in was the same type of energy that had been part of the explosion in the first place. When this creature appeared in a burst of light, another wave of that mysterious energy wove itself throughout the ship, once again knocking out different systems. To say the populace of the vessel was alarmed was an understatement and they soon had guards poised all about the intruder on their ship just waiting to raise their guns and fire. They didn’t want to appear hostile to this creature, but at the same time, they wanted to be ready just in case something went wrong. When the guards got close enough, they were able to see that the creature was unconscious.

When it became apparent the creature wasn’t going to wake up anytime soon, the crew managed to move him/her/it? Into a nearby containment cell. It had been repurposed from a mobile suit dry-dock to house the energy this creature was emitting in a small, yet constant stream. Only Cinder and, surprisingly, the young girl seemed attracted to this strange horse-like creature. As Cinder was scanning the horse-like creature's health to see if it was carrying any foreign pathogens, it started to stir.

“Ugh, What happened?” The creature spoke. To say that both Cinder and Eclipse were surprised would be an understatement.

“Oh, your waking up? Could you tell me who and what you are?” Cinder said, hiding his nervousness of the first encounter of a sentient alien.

“Uh, Huh. W-who are you? W-Where am I? ...Who am I?” The creature said though; it appeared to have suffered a head injury.

“Huh? You are on our spaceship. It appears you might have a case of amnesia.” Cinder asked in a detached manner. Even though Cinder was carefree, he still felt the heartache the war put him through.

“W-what do you mean, Spaceship? How did I get here then? Did you foalnap me?!” The creature backed up to the to the corner of the containment cell, shaking in fear.

“W-What?! Foalnap you? I did nothing of the sort. You were scanning our ship from some other dimensional plane of existence and then appeared here in a large explosion of energy! As for what a spaceship is it is a metallic ship that moves through space.” Cinder was confused as to how this creature had never heard about a spaceship if she came from space to get here.

“How would I be scanning your boat if I don’t even know how I got her?! W-who are you creatures?”

“We are called humans, and we are sentient beings just like you. And I thought you would know how you got here since you were the one that just appeared in that explosion.”

“E-explosion?! Is anypony hurt?! How did you- Ahh my head!”

“Whoa, easy there! It seems that you have sustained some injury to that horn on your forehead there. And no one was hurt in the explosion.”

“M-my horn?” the creature said as it slowly reached a hoof? To its horn, “M-my horn?! WHAT HAPPENED TO MY HORN!!!!” the creature screamed in hysterics before collapsing in a broken heap continually mumbling about how she’ll never get home.

“I’m sorry. I guess that was the wrong time to bring up your horn injury. According to my medical equipment, it fractured in three separate places. But we should be able to help your horn heal if you’ll let us near you.” Cinder Blaze calmly said as he worked the scanners on a terminal near the holding cell.

The creature just kept sobbing while saying “my horn” over and over again. It came as a surprise to Cinder to see the girl they rescued from the exploration pod merely walk up to the sobbing creature and hugged it. Before Cinder could even move to get Eclipse away from the creature, Eclipse started to glow. At first, it was just a simple Bioluminescence before the creature began glowing as well. While Cinder stood there dumbfounded, he bore witness to yet another phenomenon. The glow from Eclipse started, for lack of a better word, healing the creature. Before Cinders eyes, the creature started floating an inch or two above the flow without even flapping the wings Cinder just noticed, while Eclipse’s eyes began glowing bright enough to make figuring the color impossible.

Unseen by anyone, an outline of another horse-like creature floating in the vacuum of space was silently watching the event inside the ship unfold, before silent fading back into the aether.

“I’m sorry for putting you through this Twilight, but dark times are heading our way, and you need to be ready for the hardships to come. You and your friends, both new and old, will be pivotal to save everypony. I know you can handle it Twilight, even if I won’t be around to see it.” And with those words, the silhouette faded from view; Just as silently as it appeared.

Back inside the ship, Eclipse rose into the air right alongside the horse-like creature. The creature’s eyes were glowing a pure white with this light pouring out upon all that she saw. The creature’s horn was healed thanks entirely to all the magic pouring into the cell all around them, but then something even more unexpected occurred. All the energy that was building up in the cell reacted with the astral energy that was emitted from the creature. This caused the creature’s horn to flare up with what seemed to Cinder like several layers of glowing light all over the creature’s horn.

The creature opened up her muzzle and let out a piercing scream as the energy became much for it to handle,”AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!” Then with a great flash of light the energy around its horn shot in a beam through the air to connect with Eclipse who then started to scream in pain herself because of all the energy. A great swirling mass of energy moved up around Eclipse before cocooning her in a solid orb of magenta colored light. The light emitting from that sphere grew brighter with every passing second before a large crack rang through the air and the light died down. The creature was set down gently upon the ground by the energy that swirled around it. It rested on its side, now wholly unconscious yet again.

The orb continued to hover in the air for a few moments until it to was softly lowered to the ground by the remaining energy which swirled around it. Once it was lowered to the ground, more cracks started to form all over the orb with sharp noises to accompany the appearance of these breaks. Finally, with one significant ringing crack, the sphere split into tiny pieces of light that winked out of existence almost instantly. What was left behind was no human girl, or rather, it had the form of the human girl, but there was one glaring issue with that observation; The girl in question had a horn jutting out of her forehead.

Author's Note

Greetings. I'm sorry about the lack of updates to The Phoenix princess, but I have hit a snag. Mostly the fact is that I can't figure out how applejack would react to what she would perceive as a ghost. So while I might not update that story anytime soon, I hope this story tides those hungry for updates on the Phoenix princess satiated.

Operation 2: Learning Curve part 1

Gundam: Pilots of Harmony

Operation 2: Learning Curve

The days following the incident in the holding cell were rather eventful as Cinder Blaze, his engineers, and the medical staff of the ship worked overtime to make sure the mysterious creature and the little girl would be alright. It was the medical staff who were the first ones to notice Eclipse’s new horn that sprouted from her forehead. It was rather odd to them, and they conducted a series of in-depth scans to make sure that she was alright. It surprised them to find out that the horn was now a natural part of her body and she was soon emitting the same type of energy that the creature was at a small constant rate. Furthermore, it didn’t seem to be having any ill effects on her health and in actuality was helping to strengthen her immune system.

A couple of weeks passed from the day of the incident; the medical staff found something strange going on with Eclipse. It seemed like she was having substantial memory lapses as she couldn’t seem to recall any memories from when she was younger or from a week ago. They didn’t know why this was happening, but they gave her some medicine which seemed to help and things went back to normal for her. They were able to take her off of the medication, but she still had a memory lapse now, and then it seemed. Another of the strangest things that happened involving Eclipse was the fact that she kept asking where her mother was and when Eclipse would be able to see her. They thought she meant her foster mother, but when her adoptive mother showed up to pick her up, she promptly hid from her declaring that she wasn’t her mother. The staff had to keep her in the medbay to make sure that she was alright.

The creature itself was moved to a small room in the ship so that it could be under both constant watch and within easy reach of the medical staff should something injure it again or make it sick. The creature had been in a sort of deep sleep for the past several weeks following the incident in the holding cell. It had yet to reawaken so they could question it once again. They felt that it should be Cinder asking it the questions still since he seemed to be the only one who could understand it for some reason. All the other engineers and technicians aboard the ship had tried to understand it, but the creature’s words sounded like gibberish to them. They had listened to the recordings of the conversation between Cinder and the creature but had made no progress in understanding what it had said.

Although Cinder made a working translator that could easily translate up 500 known languages, for some reason it couldn’t pick up on what language the creature in front of him said. Stranger still was the fact that he could understand her at all, and when playing back the recording he noticed one other strange occurrence, he was speaking the same language as the creature yet when he turned to talk with one of the engineers maintaining the barrier his voice changed back to his usual Australian accent. Although it could be counted as a strange discovery, Cinder was concerned about what it meant.

Putting aside the fact that he could understand the creature, Cinder’s concern only grew when he heard reports that in the medical bay where Eclipse was, strange occurrences started happening. Medical charts would seemingly lift off their stands and float around, even when the artificial gravity was in full working order, glasses of what appeared to be ‘Chocolate Milk’ were found on the bed-sides of some of the patients. That one was the most concerning because chocolate milk, or rather the cocoa plant that chocolate came from went extinct during the one year war.

The incidents kept popping up day after day until finally, the medical staff reported that the creature was starting to stir. The time this occurred was over three weeks after the incident. The doctor in charge of watching the creature sent a message to Cinder to come to medical bay two as soon as possible, preferably before the creature woke up. Cinder rushed down to the medical bay with full speed only to stop outside the creature’s room in surprise. There in front of the door to the creature’s room was young Eclipse, and she seemed just as surprised as him. He had just been rounding the corner when he heard a pop which made him move even faster only to find her standing there right outside the door.

“E-Eclipse?! How did you get here?!” Cinder blurted out as he skids to a stop before he could crash into her.

Eclipse looked up at him with her soulful amber eyes as she whispered in a soft voice, ”I wished I could see my mama and I just appeared here.”

“Why would you be deposited here if you wished to be with your mom? I don’t think the creature is your mother...Is she?” Cinder asked, though, even he had to wonder if the incident three weeks ago had another side-effect.

Eclipse nodded her head frantically as he asked if the creature was her mother, ”Yes. She’s my mother. All the white coated people won’t let me see her. So I wished to see her, and I saw a lot of glowing light before I just appeared here.”

‘How can the creature be this girls mother? She looks nothing like her...even though the horn popping out of her head is concerning.’ “Well if you’re sure she’s your mother then perhaps we should go in,” Cinder said instead, hoping that his hunch was incorrect in thinking the creature was portraying itself as her mom. ‘I hope this doesn’t backfire.’

Eclipse smiled eagerly, ”Thank you. You’re a lot nicer than all those other people. I can’t wait to see Mommy.” She turned towards the door with her face shining eagerly. Strangely while she was jumping anxiously to see her ‘mom’ her newfound horn was radiating a soft, almost unseen light.The light from the horn seemed to extend to the door as she continued to jump around. The door itself wobbled bit by bit as if something was tugging on it rather insistently to get it to open up.

Cinder blinked as he saw the door wobbling in its support frame even though it shouldn’t be doing that. The door was solidly built and designed to slide open to the right to let a person through. He peered closer at the door and just managed to pick out the light that was surrounding it at the moment. He stepped back surprised as he let out a gasp of exclamation as he looked at the door and then down to the eager child waiting for him to open up the door. He saw that the horn on her head was glowing rather faintly and he pieced what was happening together rather quickly. The girl was the cause of the door wobbling in the frame but just how this was happening was beyond him at the moment.

He stood beside her as calmly as he could while he looked down at her. A small frown tugged at the corner of his lips before he turned his attention to the keypad by the door. He quickly punched a code in and was rewarded with a beep to signal that it had been accepted. The door opened up with a soft hiss to admit the unlikely duo.

Eclipse ran into the room with a happy cry of,”Mommy!” before leaping on the bed that was given to the creature. With a startled shout, The creature jumped like a cat and somehow managed to cling to the ceiling and started shaking frantically. It took about a minute before the creatures gravity pulled it back down to the bed when it realized it wasn’t a cat.

Cinder’s jaw was also trying to test cartoon logic as it worked to be on the floor only for real-world physics to catch up with it and scolded it for that which it’s not. Cinder himself, however, was trying to piece together just how in the world this creature managed what should have been impossible. He once thought that walking off a ledge without knowing you did would let you stand in the air, but all he got was a bloody nose and twisted ankle. Yet here was a creature that seemed to defy all known laws of physics and act like she was straight out of a cartoon.

Eclipse herself had managed to pounce on the creature after said creature came back down from the ceiling. She started to hug the creature’s front right leg as a bright smile lit up her face. She began to happily hum a tune that seemed rather strange to Cinder and more in line with a theme for a little girl like herself. But the creature seemed to respond to it immediately by stopping all movement of her body and just staring at Eclipse.

Then Eclipse looked up at her with those amber eyes as she let out a soft cry of,”Mommy!” Then hugged her leg tightly again.

To say the creature was shocked was an understatement, as it appeared to pale. Its eyes shrunk to pinpricks while its body seemed to lock up so wholly that had Cinder not seen it breathing or moving a few moments before he would have thought it a life-like statue. Before he could break up the awkwardness that had just happened, the creature once again did the impossible. It teleported. One second it was having its right foreleg hugged to death by a little girl, and the next, it popped over to a corner in fear and tried to be as small as possible. It even took the blanket it had been laying on with to hide. “W-Who are you?! W-where am I?! What do you want with me?! W-what are you?! Princess Celestia! Spike?! Anypony?” The creature mumbled that last bit.

Eclipse frowned as her bottom lip puffed out as she looked over towards the creature. Her eyes started to tear up as she sat there on the bed with arms limp at her sides. She let out a plaintive questioning cry,”Mommy?” The creature, however, did not respond to her and continued to just huddle underneath the blanket muttering to itself. Eclipse started to cry softly as she held her hands up to her face. Her soft sobs resounded throughout the room as she cried out again, ”Mommy?” This time she got a response from the creature although it wasn’t what Eclipse or Cinder expected.

“W-why are you c-calling me your mother?” The creature stammered as it looked up from behind the blanket to the softly crying girl.

Eclipse looked up at her with tears streaming down her cheeks,”Because you are my mommy. You always have been Mommy. Did I do something to make you mad at me?” The tears continued to drip down her cheeks as the soft sobs continued softly.

Cinder was very confused about the whole situation as he tried valiantly to understand what was going on. Cinder then spoke up in a calming manner,“What is going on? Can someone please tell me, because I feel like my brain is going to melt into a puddle of confusion.” He said trying to inject some humor into the situation, failing miserably.

The creature went rigid for a moment as she stared at him with her large lavender orbs, only, they didn’t look lavender anymore. Somehow they changed along with the creature’s posture, making it appear like it was royalty. The creatures’ eyes seemed to be a soft magenta color now as its gaze softened considerably into a more motherly one.

The creature spoke up in the same voice that it had been using before, but now there seemed to be an odd echo accompanying it. Like a much softer, more regal voice was speaking at the same time as the creature. “I apologize for all the confusion. I believe that I can shed some light on the subject at hand. Please ask any questions you may have. Though one thing I can say is that time is not on my side.”

“Uhhh…?” Was the only sound Cinder could currently make as, like predicted, his brain melted into a puddle of confusion.

Eclipse continued her soft sobs as she somehow seemed to understand the situation instinctively. She asked softly between sobs,”Why doesn’t Mommy like me anymore? What did I do to upset Mommy?”

“Do not cry little one,” The creature said as it got up and walked over to Eclipse and pulled her into a gentle hug, “Your mother has been dormant for some time and only just now has come out of a long sleep. Her body could no longer sustain itself and went to sleep till she could heal.”

Eclipse looked up into the golden eyes as her tears slowly started to stop, and her body stopped shaking,”So Mama was just sleeping because she needed to get better?”

The creature ran a hoof gently through Eclipse’s hair as she replied,”Yes little one. Your mother needed to sleep so she could get better.”

Eclipse’s lips turned a bit upwards as she slowly started to smile again,”So then Mommy does love me? I hope she gets all better real soon.”

The creature continued to smile until Eclipse was fast asleep before it’s smile faded. “I’m sorry little one, but if I really could bring your mother back, then I too would have my mother back as well.” It then looked over to Cinder who still had a ‘Deer in the headlights’ look about him.

Cinder’s brain slowly went through a reboot until he was once again standing calmly before the creature with a hand up to his forehead as he grumbled, ”I don’t get paid enough for this.” inside his head. He looked up at the creature before running his hand through his hair and cleared his throat.

“Can you please tell me just what is going on? Just who and what are you?” Cinder asked with a current of curiosity in his voice.

The creature’s expression shifted to a more teacher like one as the creature seemed to fall into some gentle teacher role,”I will do my best to answer your questions, but please keep in mind that I do not have much time left before I must rest. To answer your question about who I am let me tell you. My name is Princess Celestia. As for what I am why don’t you try answering that yourself before I tell you. Just what do I appear to be to you?”

Cinder frowned as he looked her over for a moment before answering in as calm a voice as he could manage,”You seem to be some Equine creature. You are too small to be some horse, so upon observation, I’d have to say that you’re some extraterrestrial pony.”

The creature calling itself Princess Celestia smiled just a bit bigger,”That would be correct. I am a pony. Now if you don’t mind a pony such as myself asking. What is your name?”

Cinder blinked and blushed a bit at forgetting his manners,”Ah sorry. My name is Cinder Blaze. I’m the Chief Engineer on the ship here.”

Princess Celestia chuckled,”It is quite alright. I tend to have that effect on other beings when they haven’t seen or met me before.”

Cinder chuckled a bit nervously before asking another question,”Just what kind of a pony are you? You’re not a regular pony at all from appearances. You have wings and a horn so just what kind of pony are you?”

Celestia replied warmly,”I am what is known as an Alicorn. I embody the three different kinds of ponies in my world. The ones that you would know as regular ponies are called Earth ponies in my world. The other two kinds of ponies are Pegasi and Unicorns.”

Cinder listened quietly before pulling out a datapad and looking back up at her,”I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to get this information down and record the rest of our conversation for review later by myself and my colleagues.”

Celestia smiled gently,”It is perfectly all right Mr. Blaze.”

Cinder nodded with a small smile as he typed away on the pad, entering the information that he’d already received from her. After entering the report, he set up the pad to record the rest of their conversation. “Alright, I have it all typed up. So the next question I’d like to ask is what is up with your personality changing so suddenly? Your eyes were violet before, and now they are a soft magenta color. What is up with that?”

Celestia’s smile faded to a more somber expression before she let out a sigh,”So you did notice. I suppose that was to be expected, but please keep this between us for the moment,” Celestia stated. When Cinder nodded, Celestia continued her explanation, “I am what you would call a passenger at the moment. My soul is inhabiting this body due to an unforeseen circumstance. Sometimes, like now, I’m able to temporarily take control when she is unconscious or in need of sleep. The problem with this being temporary is that the longer I stay out of my original body both it and my soul would slowly start to decay as immortal souls like mine aren’t meant to leave their body for longer than 24 hours.”

Cinder nodded as he looked down at his datapad for a moment to collect his thoughts. “I see. I’m afraid that doesn’t make sense at all to me, but I suppose I’ll just have to make do with what you’ve told me so far. I don’t know what this magic you keep referring to is. Do you mean that strange energy our scanners keep picking up emitting from you and Eclipse there?”

Celestia tilted her head for a moment as she thought about just how to answer him. Finally, she settled on a reply, ”You could say that. Although our magic is more than just the energy, you say your machines keep picking up.”

Cinder frowned,”I see. I’ll come back to that later then. So just how exactly did you end up here in the first place?”

Celestia’s expression shifted to an even more neutral state than before as she assumed her poker face. “That would take a long time to explain. Would you prefer the long version or the short version for now?”

Cinder frowned but replied, ”I’d like the long version, but you’ve already cited that you don’t have much time left before you have to rest so just the short version for now.”

Celestia nodded, ”Very well. I was in what we ponies call the Astral Plane. A place where our spirits walk outside of our bodies. The Astral Plane spans the universe and reveals many things to those who walk its paths. I was on the Astral Plane at the time before the incident with my student when she appeared here occurred. She was actually with me at the time which is one of the reasons why I am inhabiting her body for the moment. We were in the middle of; I guess you could call it a ceremony when you just so happened to pass through where our spirits were on the Astral plane. The ceremony was interrupted, and as a result, I was pulled into my student as she appeared on your ship.”

Cinder listened but frowned as he asked, ”I’m sorry, but I have to say that your not making much sense. Why didn’t you appear back in the physical world back where you were originally at if something went wrong? And why did you end up here on our ship instead? You talk about being a soul attached to another being’s body, so that begs the question why this being’s body appeared here and not in its original place?”

Celestia’s expression stayed somber although on the inside she was getting somewhat frustrated and annoyed, ”That is because my student’s original body was sadly destroyed in what you would call an accident. The ceremony was to give her a new body to fit the accomplishments that she achieved back in her old body. When you passed through our astral selves during the ceremony, it simply changed the place where she ended up from her original place in our world to that area of your ship that she appeared on.”

Cinder sighed but nodded, ”I see. I’d like for you to explain this all in more depth if you could please.”

Celestia’s expression slipped to one of sadness and at the same time exhaustiveness, ”I would like to, but I’m afraid that I’m out of time.”

Cinder frowned, ”What do you mean you’re out of time?”

Celestia sighed, ”I mean that my magical energy is running out and my student is finally waking up from her faint. Before I go, I must tell you that my student will be rather panicked about what has happened, but at the same time, I believe she will accept being this little one’s mother. And if my beliefs are true then she will end up becoming rather protective of the little one as her new instincts are awakened inside of her.”

Cinder blinked but replied calmly, ”I see. I will make sure to take that into account. Thank you.”

Celestia nodded before closing her eyes with one final phrase, ”You are welcome. Now I bid you goodbye for now.”

With that, her eyes reopened, but they were back to the original magenta color that they had been. The pony’s eyes were unfocused at the moment, but within a moment they were moving around generally as the pony looked around again. She looked down at the sleeping child with a small frown but this time did not attempt to run while the child held her foreleg in her small grip. Her eyes lit upon the little one’s horn, and her eyes widened dramatically as she mumbled to herself, ”She has a horn? Why does this creature have a horn? I don’t think their supposed to have horns.”

Cinder cleared his throat gently to get the pony’s attention. Her head snapped from looking down at Eclipse up to Cinder as her wide eyes grew even wider in fear and surprise. Fear flickered across her face for a moment as she started to take deep breaths in a panic. “Calm down.” Cinder spoke hoping to diminish the panic that was starting to rise, “I’m sorry if I scared you with my appearance. I was the person you talked to the last time you were awake. Although I’m not sure if you remember that because you were in hysterics the last time we spoke. Little Eclipse there has a horn because of an incident she was in three weeks ago after she came into contact with an unknown energy.”

“Oh. Still, w-where am I? The last thing I remember was completing a spell by a great wizard, and everything after that is blank.” The pony asked still scared but no longer about to attack out of fear.

“You are currently on our ship ‘A New Hope’ in our medical bay. We have been treating you for the past few weeks after you fell into a coma of some kind. You arrived around the same time that the little one there had her accident. You appeared in an explosion of light as some energy moved throughout our ships knocking things out of place.” Cinder explained in a calm, soothing manner.

“E-explosion?! But I thought you said nopony was hurt?! Now you’re saying she,” the pony tilted her head towards the still sleeping form of Eclipse,” came in contact with an unknown energy source the same time I arrived. Are you saying I did this to her?”

Cinder grunted, ”What I said before is a fact, Miss…..” His voice trailed off to show he didn’t know her name. “...uh what is your name? The last time we spoke, you said you couldn’t recall it. And I don’t want to keep referring to you as ‘the pony creature thing’ for the entire time you’re here.”

The pony once again tilted her head in confusion as she tried to remember her name, “Why would I say I forgot my name. I’m pretty sure that’s impossible to have happened. If you must know my name is…” the pony trailed off as it realized it still didn’t know. “....W-why c-can’t I remember my name? I can remember my friends and teacher… I think? But why is my name the only thing I can’t remember?!”

Cinder held out his hand in a calming motion as he spoke up soothingly, ”It is alright miss. I don’t know why you can’t remember your name, but it’s not the worst thing that could happen. If you are alright with it, I could give you a name.” His mind had already drifted back to earlier in the conversation when he was talking with the entity calling itself Princess Celestia.

“I-I think that would be o-ok. At least until I can remember my name.” The pony stuttered.

Cinder gave her a small nod as a little smile appeared on his face, ”Ok. What do you think of the name Sparkle? Sparkle because of those sparkling star marks upon your flank. What are those anyway? Some sort-of brand or tattoo?” He asked while pointing at the pony’s flank.

“What do you mean ‘marks on my flank?” she said as she turned to look, “Oh! You mean my cutie marks?” seeing Cinder nod she continued, “Well it what ponies get when they discover their special talent. Mine is for magic. I think? Now that I’m looking at it I’m not sure if that is what it means.” She said before remembering the first part of the question, “And I like the name.” Sparkle said.

Cinder nodded his head,”I am glad that you like it. Now, back to what I stated before about no one being harmed is a fact. No one was injured when you appeared in that explosion of energy, and what happened to Eclipse there was a separate incident. That separate incident happened when we moved you to a different room from where you arrived. You went into a blind panic because of an injury that you had received that was healed a bit later. Eclipse went in and hugged you to try and calm you down, but some kind-of energy within yourself reacted to the power that she absorbed from yet another incident. As a result, your injury was healed while she ended up with that horn. So as I said, no one was harmed. And don’t blame yourself for the little one gaining a horn. It is nothing to panic about. Although I do have a theory that it is because of that last incident that she has been calling you Mommy.”

Of course, this was absolutely the worst thing he could have said and instantly regretted his choice of words. “WHAT?!” Sparkle whisper-shouted, being considerate of the sleeping Eclipse, “What do you mean she’s calling me her mother?! I don’t even have a special somepony, let alone married to anypony!” Her hair started to frizz and, if he squinted hard enough, Cinder could swear he saw smoke coming off it.

He made a calming gesture, ”I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just trying to tell you what has been going on. I felt it was better to tell you now rather than later because I’m pretty sure that when Eclipse wakes up again, she’s going to call you her mother again. And the last time that happened you panicked and made her cry.”

Those three words stole all of Sparkle’s panic and anger in an instant. “I-I made her cry?!”

Cinder winced a bit at her question but nodded, ”That would be correct. You disappeared from the bed there and reappeared in the corner over there.” He pointed at the corner she had re-appeared in, with the blanket still on the floor, before continuing, ”You had somehow made the blanket appear with you. But you left her on the bed, and she called out to you again, but you ignored her as you started muttering to yourself. Then she started to cry, but you didn’t notice. You shortly passed out from all the panic you were experiencing. It was then that I picked you up and moved you over to the bed. It took some explaining to young Eclipse there that you just needed to rest to recover before she calmed down from her crying. Then she snuggled up against you and fell asleep. And in your unconsciousness, you wrapped around her for some reason.” Cinder lied, leaving out how she had been possessed by the spirit of her dead teacher, as he didn’t believe that any creature could be immortal.

Cinder could see that Sparkle was very confused again as her eyes started to unfocus yet again. He looked down at his pad for a moment before waving his hand at Sparkle to get her attention back. Once her eyes had refocused on him, he spoke up again,”Ok let’s just take this one step at a time. First off is that we have been taking care of you for the past three weeks due to that accident you had. Second, Eclipse there is calling you her mother, and she won’t be stopping anytime soon. Three, You are missing pieces of your memory due to said accident. Now I believe that if you start out asking a few basic questions that would help.”

Sparkle, after taking a few deep breaths, finally looked down at Eclipse and, though still nervous, decided to roll with it, at least until they could find her birth mother. “I guess so. I just hope I don’t get seasick when storms start rocking your ship.” She said with such a straight face that Cinder knew instinctively that she has never been in space before. ‘Oh boy, this is going to be awkward.’

Cinder’s soothing smile slipped into a more awkward expression as he thought for a moment about just what to say. Finally, he just decided to be blunt about it because just beating around the bush wouldn’t make this any less awkward or bad than it would already be. He nervously spoke up, ”Well um... We aren’t actually in any body of water. We’re moving through space at the moment. We are on a spaceship.”

Sparkle just looked at Cinder for a moment before starting to laugh, “Hahaha, good one. Of course this would have to move through a body of water; otherwise, we wouldn’t even be moving. I’m mean just look at the...waves… there.”

Cinder raised an eyebrow at her as her hoof pointed over to the window in the room that she thought would be looking out into the water of a river or the ocean. Her voice had trailed off as her eye started to twitch the longer she looked out the window. She carefully extricated herself from Eclipse’s grip before she moved on over to the window. She looked out into the vastness of space before her eye twitched more rapidly and strands of her mane started to stick out even more.

Finally, her rump hit the ground as she sat down with a large thump. Her eyes went unfocused for a moment before refocusing on the vastness of space. She closed her eyes and counted to three as if that would banish what she saw before her, though, when she re-opened her eyes outer space was still there. She ended up curled up on the ground in a fetal position as she started muttering to herself again, ”This is impossible. This can’t be real. This is just a strange dream.” She stayed this way for a good 5 minutes before she became unconscious once again from all the information she was trying to process.

All Cinder could do was watch the scene unfold, like a cartoon coming to life before he walked over to the nearest medicine cabinet and took out some aspirin, all the while muttering, “when did this become my life?”

Author's Note

and here is chapter two. strange things are circling around these three and discord doesn't have to even touch anything for chaos to unfold.

Operation 2: Learning Curve part 2

Gundam: Pilots of harmony.

Operation 2: Learning Curve part 2

A shadow passed over the ship known as ‘A New Hope’ that was rather small compared to the ship yet quite a lot faster. Purple light lanced out from a weapon that the figure the shadow belonged to carried. It lanced down towards the ship only for another character to get in front of the ship raising a shield which blocked the lance of light. Finally, the figures revealed themselves in the light of a nearby star as the ship traveled close to it.

The first figure stood at 50’ feet tall wielding a rifle in its right hand, and a shield in it’s left. On its hips were two beam-sword holsters capable of being unsheathed in the time it takes to blink. Its body was a deep purple with navy blue and hot pink stripes down one side. This was the Gundam known as ‘Strike Freedom,’ sworn to defend freedom at any cost.

The figure that was currently lowering their shield was slightly smaller, standing at 40’ feet tall. Instead of a lance rifle in its left hand, it was holding a much more modest gun that was only meant for short range to mid-range fighting. And sadly the weapon didn’t have that much of a charge to it. The Gundam was a bright blue color on the parts of it that had more armor which included the shoulders, arms, and legs. The rest of it was a beautiful silver color for the elements with less shielding. Great red wings rose from the back of the Gundam in a sort of angel way. This was the Destiny Gundam which always helped its pilot to find their destiny.

“So I see you have been hiding on this ship like the traitor you are.” The pilot of the Strike Freedom Gundam stated.

“Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t. The only thing that matters is my destiny to destroy this pathetic ship.” The pilot of the Destiny Gundam replied.

“Very well. Then I must do what I must. You will never again terrorize those you deem inferior to your destiny,” Strike exclaimed, before holstering its rifle and unsheathing the beam swords, “I will cut you down here and now for the galaxy to be free of your evil.” and with that, the Gundam charged for destiny.

“We’ll see. I won’t let you get in the way of my destiny.” The pilot of Destiny replied. The Gundam threw its beam rifle to the side before reaching behind it with its right hand and latching onto the handle of something that was right behind its wings. It pulled the object back in front of it and swung its arm out to the side to reveal lengths of blade unraveling before clicking together to form the sword that Destiny Gundam was best known for. The edge of it lit up with purple plasma energy as it brought its left hand onto the grip with its right side. It then burst forwards at high speed towards the taller Gundam swinging with all its might.

The battle between the two titans reached a fever pitch and-

“You two coming to eat or not?” A voice sound behind the two figures played with a couple of Gundam figurines.

A blush erupted from the faces of Sparkle and Eclipse as they put down their figurines. After having read up on the Gundams created, Sparkle was curious as to what they could do. Unfortunately, she wasn’t allowed to touch the Gundams nor fly them due to both species incompatibility and security risk. Although she may not have been allowed to learn how a Gundam worked, she was allowed to try making a toy Gundam. The Gundam she decided to make was destiny, because she felt it would be better if she at least got to know her ‘daughter.’ Sparkle still cringed at the mere thought, silently hoping they found the girl’s birth parents soon so she wouldn’t have to keep acting for too long.

Eclipse looked up at Sparkle as the blush stayed on her face, ”Thanks for playing with me Mama. That was fun. I hope I get to pilot one of these someday,” She said as she put down the Strike Freedom she made, “I just hope I can fly for real once these wings start to grow.”

That was another thing Sparkle had to get used to, Eclipse’s transformation. About two days after her little ‘ahem’ freakout’ Eclipse started complaining about her back starting to itch and the no matter what she did to try and relieve it would just make it worse. After checking with one of the doctors on staff, Sparkle was shocked to find that in addition to the horn growing from Eclipse’s forehead, she was also growing a pair of wings. Eclipse was turning into an alicorn, making her transformation all the more worrying than Sparkle’s own when she got over her little freakout. She didn’t even realize that she had wings until she tried turning over and ended up laying on them.

“Mommy?” Eclipse asked as she got to the door before realizing Sparkle wasn’t following, “You coming? I hear they’re making pancakes today~” she singsonged, knowing just how to get her mother out of her thought bubble.

Sparkle’s eyes quickly refocused on Eclipse as she shook her head for a moment to snap herself out of her daze. “Of course dear.” She got up from where she had been sitting as her magic put the figurines they had been playing within a glass case on the wall. She trotted out the door right behind Eclipse, while Eclipse was singing some song as best she could that belonged to the Gundam franchise.

Sparkle’s thoughts drifted to what might lay for her in the future. There had to be some way to convince the leaders of the ship to allow her into their mech bays to study one of the giant machines up close. There was just so much that she could learn from all this technology around her. She had been given an okay to go through the courses they offered to children and adults to teach them about mobile suits in general, but they had denied her entrance to their mech bays and to learn more about the unique mobile suits they called Gundams.

The other mobile suits were fine and all, but they didn’t seem to hold that same exciting spark for her that these mysterious Gundams did. It was rather strange to her because she had never experienced a level of curiosity quite like this. Maybe she could get a peek at even a basic mobile suit if she could just somehow sneak her way into the bay. Perhaps she could sneak a glance when there was a change of the guard or something like that.

Her thoughts were interrupted when she looked up after entering what she thought was the cafeteria. In her unfocused musing Sparkle managed to get separated from Eclipse and Cinder and somehow found her way into the very place she wanted to go, the mech bay. And there before her eyes was one of the very Gundams that she remembered reading about; The Strike Freedom. Ironically it was also the very same one as the figurine, which Eclipse has been playing with minus the color scheme.

The giant mech stood on a sort of metal platform, which its large feet were attached to. The metal platform had another piece attached to right behind the big suit so the whole section could act like a sort of improvised bed that would lower the Gundam onto its back or back onto its feet. This way the engineers could work on more delicate pieces when they needed too. As it was right now there appeared to be a couple of engineers working on it right at this moment. She was standing on a walkway that led right up to the mobile suit and more specifically to a hatch that was set right in the stomach area of the Gundam where the cockpit was located.

Her ears flicked this way and that as she tried to catch what the engineers were saying as she quietly snuck closer to the giant mech. Finally, she made it halfway across the walkway when she was able to hear the engineer’s talking without having to strain her ears. She listened as carefully as she could while they talked.

“Have you been able to figure out why this mech keeps issuing errors every time someone tries starting her up?” Th engineer closest to the mech asked.

“No. I just can’t figure out where the problem is. It’s almost like the mech is refusing to work with the pilot, but that’s impossible since these mechs aren’t sapient, ”The one on the left said holding a clipboard in his hands listing the various problems encountered, “However, there is one thing that’s bothering me. Some of these readings show that every time the mech starts up, it starts emitting a strange energy, the same energy that we’ve recorded coming from the creature and the anomaly.”

Sparkle’s mind went into overdrive as she processed what she had just heard. If the mechanics were right then, this giant mech was emitting magic the same way that she and Eclipse did. She had figured out that the energy which Cinder had talked about before was magical energy that she and other creatures from her world emitted. So to hear that this giant mech before her was also radiating the same kind of magic energy was somewhat curious to her. Her horn glowed with its soft magenta color as she performed a scan on the mech using a spell that she had devised herself. It would give her information on the mech’s internal workings in a way that she could understand.

However, as soon as Sparkle’s magic touched the mech, all hell broke loose. First; the mech activated itself in a manner of a pony just waking up. Second; one of the arms closest to the platform Sparkle was standing on grabbed her and placed her in the cockpit. And Finally; the entire thing launched into space so fast that it took, as one rainbow colored pegasus would say, ten seconds flat. There wasn’t even enough time from the opening and closing of the airlock to move the air that would have pulled the mechanics from the bay.

What the suit was not prepared for was the fact that the airlock didn’t lead to space it only led to a closed off area connected to the actual launch ramps used to propel mobile suits off of the ship. But it fixed that quickly enough as the same magenta hue that came off of Sparkle’s horn connected with the airlock door closing it behind the suit. That’s when the alarms started to blare throughout the ship, and the suit moved around somewhat frantically. The bells were loud blaring klaxons that rang throughout the ship as the lights went to more emergency type lighting with red lights blinking all over the inside of the ship. The magenta hue of the suit’s prongs then worked its way to the elevator that would lead lift it onto the ramp where mechanical clasps would lock onto the legs to give a secure grip as it moved along the slope. What’s more is that the magenta hue had worked its way into the ship’s systems and was systematically hacking it to activate the launch protocols used for launching a mobile suit in the first place.
To say that the humans were panicked would be an understatement. The humans on the bridge rushed around quickly while the ones at their terminals were frantically typing away to stop the hacking. They were too late to do anything as the elevator came down faster than it ever did from the ramp. The mobile suit stepped right onto the elevator, and massive metal walls came down around it as the elevator slowly moved back up to the ramp. This part couldn’t be rushed as the procedure was automatic and no amount of hacking could speed it up. Many different mechanical tools that you could see in an assembly line for cars and of course more futuristic ones popped out of these massive metal walls and checked the mech over. They applied several more layers of armor to it as well as adjusted pieces of its wings. Slots opened on the sides of the metal walls to reveal the suit’s weapons which of course included a small shield that attached to the left arm of the Gundam and its two large beam rifles meant for long to mid-range combat. The suit reached out and grabbed hold of the beam rifles as more implements came out and attached a handle for a beam saber on each hip right above the two large beam rifles that were built into the suit directly below each hip. Finally, a mechanical port reached out from the back wall and connected with its back and gave it a last-minute refuel so it would be topped off to move about.

After all this the process was complete, and the metal walls slid away as the elevator finally connected with the ramp. The ramp was still locked up, but the hacking from the suit managed to unlock the ramp, and it quickly unfolded from the right side of the ship. The ship itself was modeled after the Celestial Being ship in the Gundam anime. The model of the ship was called the Ptolomea Mark 2. The ramp finally unlocked entirely, and the suit stepped onto the ramp where metal clasps clamped right onto its feet. The suit crouched down and leaned forward as it waited to be launched. The launching sequence was engaged, and it was rushed forwards along the ramp until the clamps released and it was flying under its power away from the ship.

All the while, Sparkle was once again unconscious. As a bonus, the magic still coursing thor the mobile suit was changing its color to match its pilot, as well as it’s shaped. The prongs on its head were usually in a v pattern when not in weapon mode slowing morphed into that of a unicorn horn. The wings on its back morphed as well to mimic a pegasus’ wings. Once the wings had finished morphing, an enormous halo of light emitted right above the wings as they stayed out to the sides in leveled flight. It formed a perfect circle of the wings and sparkling light emitted from it softly.

Sparkle herself had gone through a change as well. The suit’s operator system had booted itself up. The system was just like the system used in the Mobile Suit G Gundam season. A circular metal ring had come down out of the top of the cockpit and circled down around her. The interior of the ring was covered with some black liquid material that didn’t move even as the ring circled on down. When it came into contact with her body, it made the unconscious Sparkle cry out in pain as the black liquid came into contact with her. From the first second, it touched her it had run a scan of her body to know best how to fit on her. But this process in and of itself was somewhat grueling as one wrong move from the pilot could cause significant damage to the pilot’s body. The ring circled down slowly as the liquid started to stick to her body. The bodysuit formed around her as the circuitry was also embedded into the suit through the fluid that hardened around her so she would sync up to the Gundam altogether. Finally the ring connected with the floor of the cockpit and disappeared from view as the suit finished solidifying around her. Purple lines ran down all over the suit combining to her chest to form her cutie mark as her cutie mark also appeared on the flanks of her suit. A special helmet had developed from the black liquid around her head that was airtight in case the suit was damaged enough to expose her to space itself. She would be fine now in case that happened. The last thing the suit did was give her a good jolt to wake her from her impromptu nap.

Back in the ship, the bridge crew was frantically trying to find who, what, and how someone managed to hack their systems and steal a mech from under their noses. The klaxon alarms continued to blare throughout the intercoms of the ship which only increased the panic and franticness of the bridge crew.

“Has anyone got any leads on who the hell stole that Mech!” the captain bellowed out to her subordinates.

“We don’t have any leads yet Captain, ”One of the operators, named Feldt Grace called back to her. She was in charge of the ship’s weapon’s division on the ship. She was currently at a terminal typing away trying to get some lead as to who the heck was out there. Finally, she figured out just who it was and turned back to the Captain, whose name was Sumeragi Lee Noriega.

“Captain, it would appear the perpetrator is none other than the alien creature who calls herself Sparkle. The camera footage shows she wandered off from Chief Engineer Cinder and the anomaly. She got into our mobile suit bay while the guards were slacking off playing poker again and did something to the suit. It was as if the suit itself just came alive and picked her up. The hacking came from the suit itself.” Feldt finished as she looked up from her terminal.

Captain Lee was stunned to hear that horse creature thing had that audacity to attempt to steal a mech. “WHAT!” She yelled, hoping she just heard things, “Are you telling me that the purple creature stole the only Gundam frame mobile suit that was still under repairs?! How did it even bypass the security codes required even to unlock the cockpit, let alone the ship?!”

Feldt scratched the back of her head nervously as she replied in a bit of an apologetic tone,”Well…The engineers left the cockpit open and unlocked as they ran maintenance on the machine. And as for the codes, they forgot to change them from last week, so the machine still had all the codes it needed.”

Unknown to all of the humans there was a figure watching the ship and the proceedings all from the astral plane. It was rather silent, and it sometimes showed up as a faint silhouette in space. The figure was none other than a reaper. Underneath its black cloak, one could see skeletal bones peaking out with what looked like the remains of ice blue fur in some places. And a great scythe rested on its back shaped like a grim reaper’s scythe in personal fairy tales. The cloak moved a bit in a non-existent wind which revealed the skeletal being’s flanks which still had patches of its old coat on them. Enough of the skin remained on the sides to show what had been the figure’s cutie mark in life. This cutie mark was an image of a pony that was lying on the ground shattered into pieces. In other words, this reaper was formerly a pony known as Shattered Souls. A being from another world and dimension who had ended up in this one such a long time ago. He had taken the place of the former manifestation of Death and was now in charge of it himself. He was an observer who watched everything throughout the universe and kept a strict balance between good and evil.

The reason for him watching the ship and its inhabitants right now was because the balance had been tipped far too sharply in favor of evil. It was an incredible force which had done so, and so he was forced to intervene and cause things to be set in motion which would bring the scales of good and evil back into perfect balance. Thus he was responsible for the engineers, who had been working on the suit, for forgetting to lock the cockpit up and change the codes for the ship. And he was also the one who had caused one of the guards in the poker game they had been playing to have an unusually high winning streak. All of this led to Twilight being able to get into the suit now when it was emitting the energy rather than later where she would have been denied getting close to the mechs. And although Souls could manipulate destinies to a degree, he could only do each scenario once.

“Cinder Blaze, Get up here, Now!” Captain Lee yelled into the intercom, which in turn silenced the alarm to indicate that the situation was now being handled by the captain and its crew. The red alarm lights continued to blink throughout the ship which stated that all non-essential personnel should stay in their rooms until the situation was resolved.

The intercom crackled with static before a frantic reply came through, ”Right away Captain Lee! I just have to make sure that Eclipse is secure back in Sparkle’s room.” He hurried through the hall of the ship tugging young Eclipse along as the headed back for her and Sparkle’s room. As he ran, he began wondering what the trouble was this time. ‘Come to think of it, where the heck is Sparkle? I could have sworn she was right behind me.’

Cinder was tugging rather hard on Eclipse’s wrist as he pulled her along, which caused her to squeak out in pain with every significant step. She cried out with a pained voice, ”Mr. Cinder, stop pulling so hard. It hurts when you do that.”

Cinder blinked as the words registered in his mind and he slowed down a bit,”I’m sorry Eclipse. But we have to get you back to your room now. I’ll find your Mom for you and send her your way. We have a bit of a situation going on at the moment, and I need for you to stay in your room so you’ll be safe.”

Eclipse’s mouth turned downwards into a frown as she looked back up at him with eyes laced with pain,”Yes Mr. Cinder.” She ran a bit faster so his insistent tugging wouldn’t hurt her as much even though he had slowed down a bit.

Cinder Blaze quickly arrived alongside her at her assigned room. The blinking red lights of the ship blinded him a bit, which caused him to press a couple of the numbers on the keypad by her door incorrectly. The display lit up red and beeped, indicating that the code had been input wrong. He growled a bit before he retyped the code again a little more slowly. Eclipse looked up at him with worry in her eyes as her frown deepened just a little bit more. The door to her room slid open with the soft mechanical hiss, and he tugged her inside the room. He brought her over to her bed before picking her up and setting her lightly down on it.

“Ok Eclipse. I have to get up to the bridge now. I’m going to lock the door to your room so you won’t just wander out. I’ll make sure to send your Mom to you as soon as possible ok?” Cinder asked her in a hurried tone.

“Yes Mr. Cinder,”Eclipse repeated in an unhappy tone. She pulled the blanket off her bed closer to her with her small hands.

Cinder Blaze stood back up entirely with a small nod before turning towards the door,”Good. I’ll see you later Eclipse.” With that, he ran out of the room before turning back to the door and locking it by inputting a new code into the keypad which caused this to happen.

Author's Note

we are now getting closer to the meat of the story. if you want your OC's to join our ragtag group of heroes then send them to either myself or greymon.