Long time no see.

We now return to your scheduled program.

~~HUH?! EXCUSE MY LANGUAGE BUT SAY WHAT NOW?!~~ I silently shout in bewilderment. Cracked raises her head and starts speaking quietly.

"Oh, it's so good to see you again Jex. I missed you so much." Tears are rolling down Cracked's face.

"Mom? W-w-what happened to you? Dad said y-you died. And what happened to you? You look so different. What's going on?" Shining stutters in total shock.

"Yes, I'd like to know that too." Cadence says, walking up to us from the hallway, her face pensive.

"Oh, right. Cadence, everyone, this is… my mom. Cracked Sky." Shining says, his voice sounding like he just now realized what he said. He looks at his mother. "Mom, this is Cadence… my …girlfriend." He says slowly, now embarrassed.

"Oh. Well it's nice to-" I cut off Cracked as I step forward.

~~Okay, whoa whoa whoa.~~ I say, wave my arms around. ~~Everybody stop. I'm going to need you to run that by me again. WHAT is going on right now?~~ I ask Shining/Jex.

"Diego? What do you mean?" Shining/Jex asks.

~~I mean can someone explain what is going on right now? Cause I'm lost.~~ I answer.

"Oh. Right. I better try to explain then. For everyone's sake. This is my mom." Shining/Jex points at Cracked. "I know that because, other than the fact that her skin and hair are different colours and her ears are… pointy, she looks exactly like my mom… who I was told was dead."

~~Dead~~? I ask.

"Yeah. My dad said she died in an accident during an expedition. Anyway, I know that she's my mom because she just called me by my name." Shining/Jex says, to which Cadence asks.

"Your name?"

"Yeah. My full name is Jex Shining Armour. I just have everyone call me Shining though." Shining says.

"You should be proud of your name." Cracked says, looking irritated.

"Isn't your name a false name?" Luna asks.

"What?" Shining asks.

"It was but not anymore. I chose to take pride in the name I have chosen for myself, I just hoped my son would take pride in the name I gave him." Cracked says.

"You changed your name?" Shining asks.

"Yes. When I came here, I knew that my name wouldn't fit so I chose one for myself. My first name was Cracheam but I no longer use it unless I have too." Cracked answers.

"Is that why you look different? Did you change how you look too?" Shining asks.

"Yes. I am a member of the Blades of Marmora, a Galran resistance faction." Cracked answers, making Shining and Cadence gasp. "My arrival on Mystacor was actually an accident."

"Unit one, watch your flank, you've got three on your tail"

"I see them!" We were in an intense battle, our base of operations having been discovered by the Galra. I thought we were winning. We had been fighting a large armada, having destroyed multiple interstellar-cruisers. We hadn't suffered many losses, while the Galra had lost three of the eight ships that were sent after us.

"Hold on, I'm detecting something on long range sensors." Little did I know, all our efforts were in vain.

"Oh, quiznak! I'm detecting an armada approaching our position. Ten intergalactic-cruisers, five battle-cruisers, twelve interstellar-cruisers AND A RO-BEAST COFFIN!" They had sent the Vox armada, the second largest Galra armada, straight at us. We didn't stand a chance.

"Retreat! There's no way we can fight that many ships, prepare to go FTL on my ma-" Our commander, Kolivan tried to order us to run, to live another day and survive to fight the empire…

"Victory or death!" But many wouldn't listen. Some tried to fight…

"We're gonna die!" Others panicked and wouldn't listen to reason. The ro-beast coffin arrived first, carrying within it a mechanical monster that could end worlds. I tried to save my brother's and sisters, distract the monster while the others retreated but…

"DIE YOU FREAK OF NATURE!" One of my brothers, Kres, tried to attack the monster head on but he failed to see the danger he was in.

"Kres, no! Don't go near its ch-" Kres died, made into nothing more than fuel for the abomination. I tried to avenge him…

"All units, this is a direct order, return to the Dagger. We don't have anywhere near the firepower to beat that armada. Prepare for Universal Jump. We live to fight another day."

When I joined the formation, that monster had already devoured over ten of my brothers in arms. We were all about to jump, to leave this battle behind, when the ro-beast attacked us. It's weapons disrupted our UJ Field, causing it to destabilise.

When we entered, some of us were being randomly ejected from the field, sent to places none of us knew. I was one of the ones ejected.

The ejection damaged my ship, causing me to lose control. The turbulence from the destabilised field was like nothing I've ever felt or want to feel again. I exited unconscious.

I landed on Mystacor, in a dangerous forest. I somehow survived the crash, my ship damaged but not beyond repair. Thankfully, I came prepared. I had a survival kit in my ship that came with a disguise generator.

I looked, scavenging for any useful materials that I could use to fix my ship. Not long after, I discovered a nearby settlement. Walkerville.

Using my disguise generator, I started learning about the people here. I learned about magic, the races, the princess who would control day and night, the names of where I was.

Unfortunately, the search for resources to fix my ship were slow going. Very slowly going. I eventually decided to start integrating myself into society. I knew I was going to be here for a while so I found ways to survive. It wasn't easy.

Eventually, I had cemented myself as Cracked Sky, astronomer and scientist. It was at this point that I met… the love I never knew I needed. Night Light.

We met at an expedition, I had recently joined the Royal Science and Research Team which he assisted. He was basically my caretaker. I kind of disliked him because of that. I never needed someone to take care of me and I still don't.

The first day of the expedition, we went out to explore some ruins that had recently been discovered in Zefrica. I tried to distance myself from him, determined to prove to the rest of my accomplices that I didn't need to be coddled. He was surprisingly stubborn.

"Hey! You're not supposed to be alone! Come on, they found an entrance that hasn't collapsed." He would chastise me when I tried to get away from him. Eventually I just decided to walk with him but ignore him. This lead me to find a secret within the ruins that no one else had found.

Unfortunately, he had found another secret that I had missed: the trap that guarded the secret I had found. He pushed me out of the way, taking several poison darts in his side. Realising what had happened, I rushed him to the camp we had made, seeking medical aid for him.

Thankfully, he survived with no lasting effects, the poison safely counteracted. From then on, I started to respect Night Light and his resolve. After that, we were basically partners on any expedition we went on and my respect for him grew.

Almost a year later, he asked if I would start joining him for launch, to discuss star constellations and the wonders of different kinds of magic. We had so many discussions together. Him, talking about theories about stars, me shooting them down, him arguing that he was right. It was fun.

A few months after that though… I got careless. My disguise generator, which I had been using progressively more and more, had been damaged. I had what I needed to repair it but because of that, I didn't realize that at that time, Night Light had decided to pay me a surprise visit.

"Guess who's here unannoun…!" Night Light walked in on me working, he saw me like this, without my disguise and with my disguise generator sitting in front of me. "Cracked?" He was deeply confused.

At the time, I almost didn't know what to say. "Yes, it's me." Thankfully, I had my training to fall back on.

"What happened? And what is that?" He asked me.

"I'm fine. Believe it or not, this is what I really look like." I was thinking of ways to deal with this situation but I also didn't want to hurt my friend.

"This is… the real you? Why did you hide this?" He seemed saddened about what was happening.

"Because, I needed to blend in."

"Blend in? Why?"

"Because I'm an alien. I'm not human like you, and I'm not from this planet." This shocked him. He had always believed that there had to be life outside of his world. He just didn't believe he would meet it.

Let alone become close friends with it.

"You're… an alien? But- why- since when?"

"Since always." I answered him, donning the disguise generator. For a brief second, I became Cracked Sky again before the generator failed. He was shocked by the technology.

"Night Light, listen. You can't tell anyone about this, okay? Not the Team, not the princess, no-one. Understand?" I didn't expect him to. He had seen things that shocked him to his core, shook his whole world view…

And then he said this.

"Okay."

"What?" I was surprised.

"I said okay. I won't tell a soul. I promise." I was shocked by this. Night Light, a man determined to bring knowledge into the world, to explore the great unknown, had promised to keep a secret.

"D-do… do you mean that?" I had to know if he was lying or not.

"Yes. I promise." But I was foolish. He was a man of integrity. He was honest, yes, but he also kept his word. I almost fainted in relief.

"…Thank you, Night Light. Thank you so much." I then expected him to start asking questions, to find out about where I was from, what kind of technology I had, why I was on this planet… but all he asked was.

"Why did you make your skin gold?"

"What?" I didn't expect that.

"Your… disguise. Why did you make your skin gold? It looks fine as it is."

"Wait, why did you make your skin look gold?" Shining asks, interrupting his mother's flashback as he leans forward in his seat, all of us having moved into Celestia's study part of the way through Cracked's story.

"It's a base colour. Much of the life in the universe has a shade of gold or light skin. I didn't know what kind of things lived on Mystacor at the time so I decided to make myself look non-Galra. Anyway, I was glad that Night Light decided to keep my secret. If anything, this helped us get even closer than we were. Around him, I could relax. Around him, I could truly be myself.

Eventually, I realized I was falling for him. When he asked me out on a date, I was overjoyed. He took me to a beautiful restaurant. The two of us eventually became inseparable. I showed him my heart, he showed me his world.

Eventually, I found out I was pregnant. At first, I was happier than I had ever been. I was going to have a baby with the love of my life. Who was a completely different species from me. I panicked, worried out of my mind what was growing inside me.

I told Night Light. He seemed even happier than I was about the news. But then he realised it too. He and I were two very different species. But he wasn't worried.

He told me that it didn't matter. He told me that no matter what, he would love us. I was still scared.

"What about everyone else? What if they reject them because they're different? What if they don't even live long enough to-" I was stopped by magic. A soothing, warm, invigorating surge of magic passed through me. But it wasn't from Night Light. It came from inside me.

"It came from you, Jex. You used magic from inside me, when you were barely two months old." Cracked tells her son, his face awestruck.

"I used magic… before I was even born?" Shining asks, stunned.

"Your father was surprised too. After that, I stopped fearing. Because I knew you were going to be strong. Strong enough to fight through whoever stood in your way." Cracked says, her voice concise.

"Wow." Cadence says. "That's incredible."

"You were born later that year. The strongest baby I'd ever seen. You started walking before you were even a month old. Talking in less than six months." Cracked says, smiling. But then her smile starts to fade. "Unfortunately, three… years later, I received a message. A message from the Blade of Marmora. They had been looking for me, searching everywhere. I had to go back." Cracked's frown deepens.

"I had to rejoin the fight." She says.

"My ship had been nearly repaired. I was less than a few weeks away from takeoff if I worked hard. Unfortunately I didn't want to just leave all of a sudden. I had to disappear. Thankfully, your father came up with the idea to say I died in an accident.

I was able to rejoin my comrades even though I had to leave my family behind. Thankfully, I was able to leave something behind for you to remember me by." Cracked looks at Shining. He reaches behind his back, his hand slipping under his armour. He pulls out the knife his father gave him.

The Blade knife.

"This is yours?" Shining asks.

"Was. It belongs to you know, Jex. But I can show you how to properly use it." Cracked says.

"What do you mean?" Shining asks. Cracked stands from her chair, holding out her hand. Although hesitant, Shining gives her the knife.
Oh boy. Here we go. I think as the blade starts to glow brightly, the purple light flooding the room as the blade awakens from its long slumber.

Everyone else looks at Cracked with surprise as she stands with the sword, it having grown to the length of one of her arms. She starts to swing the sword around, moving with grace and precision.

"This is the power of a Blade of Marmora. The power to awaken your true strength." Cracked decrees, looking straight at Shining.

Author's Note

https://m.