Delta's Hopeby The saiyan bronyChaptersChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 1(Delta POV) “Bye mom! I’ll see you on Friday!” My daughter Apogee called out as she took off with that dick of a father, Jet Stream. I didn’t bother to say anything as I slammed the door to my trailer shut and made my way to my fridge. Swinging open the door, I grabbed myself a beer, kicking the fridge door closed before jumping onto my bed. I looked around my shitty-ass room as I popped the cap off my beer and took a long, long, very long swig of it. I looked out my window to see the moon was full and the stars were shining bright. ‘Bout the only good thing about living out here. No fucking salesponies, and a damn good view of the night sky.’ Taking another swing of my beer, I rolled onto my side and looked at my room some more. When I did, I was greeted with a painful memory. A photo of me fifteen years ago. I looked so much happier back then, and I had so much potential. I was going to make history, and then that son of a bitch betrayed me and made it big. “Gah! Fucking traitor!!” I screamed out, throwing my bottle away to hear it crash against the wall. For the last thirty minutes, I tossed and turned in my bed, too frustrated to even try and sleep. “I hate this…I hate him…Why am I even still trying anymore?” No, really, why am I still trying? After I lost my job at EQSA, my chances of making it big and having a good life had gone down the drain. ‘If only I hadn’t let that fucking prick manipulate me that night, then none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have had to live in this run-down dump. I wouldn’t have to sell scrap parts to keep myself from being evicted. And I wouldn’t have had…Apogee.’ I felt like shit, and my life is shit. What does it take for a mare to catch a break in this world? “Psh. Yeah right. Like asking that is gonna help. Next thing you know, the solution to all my problems is gonna come falling out of the-“ BOOOOOOMMM!! I was cut off as the ground shook violently and my whole trailer rattled from the shockwaves. “Da fuck?!” I quickly opened my window and stuck my head out to look around for the source of all the commotion. That’s when I saw a small trail of smoke not too far off in the distance. “A meteorite?” I ran to my door and kicked it open as I trotted out to where the meteorite landed. I ran as fast as my legs could take me before unfurling my wings and taking to the sky. Within a minute, I could see the crash site where the meteorite had landed, only to see it wasn’t a meteorite, but a space capsule. “Ugh, there goes my idea for a tourist attraction. Or selling it to make some bits.” I touched down and carefully made my way over to the space capsule. “I bet this is one of Jet Stream’s. He probably said this place would make the perfect area to test his rockets and shit.” I tried to find his stupid logo for his compony to confirm it’s one of his, then maybe I could call the news saying how he did this on purpose to try and almost kill me. Seriously, had the trajectory been off any more upon reentry, this shit would have landed on my trailer. While I circled around the capsule, I couldn’t help but take in its design. Despite it being for that asshole, the shape and design was unlike anything I had ever seen. The shape reminded me of a cone, and I could also see the remains of the parachutes that probably didn’t deploy fast enough to prevent the crash from being this serious. “Sure hope nopony was riding inside this thing, otherwise they may be dead.” The design was so sleek and almost slender, but I didn’t find Jet’s logo anywhere. When I moved to the front of the capsule, I did see a logo that had a picture of a dragon with its wings wrapped around the word “Dragon”. What really threw me off was the flag atop of what I guessed was the door. Instead of being the usual flag of Equestria or any other flag I’ve seen in the history books, it was a flag with red and white stripes, and in the upper left corner was a blue rectangle with white stars. I flared out my wings again and flapped them as I moved over to one of the windows to see what pony was inside. It proved to be pointless as the windows were rather small and tinted to the point where looking inside was impossible. “Probably to prevent too much light in during space travel.” Seeing I wasn’t getting anywhere just staring at this thing, I quickly flew back to my junkyard to bring over my excavator to haul this thing back to the hanger. One hour later and I finally managed to hall the damn thing back to my hanger. It would have been less than that if I hadn’t accidentally slammed the thing into a rock I didn’t see, making it detach from the magnet. Thankfully, there wasn’t any damage to it, so meh. I grabbed my crowbar and jammed it into the door, making sure it was in there pretty good. “Let’s pop you open and see what you’ve got for mama.” With any luck, there wasn’t anypony but a training dummy inside, meaning that if I’m quick enough, I can salvage the tech inside before whoever launched this thing can come try and find it. I grabbed the crowbar and started to pry open the door. The thing was shut pretty damn tight. “Fuck! What I’d give to have some earth pony muscles right about now!” After I gave the damn thing another hard push, I heard a hissing sound, a slight breeze of air coming from the door, and stepped back as the crowbar fell to the ground. The door slowly started to slide upwards until it was completely opened. I couldn’t help but smile with satisfaction as I grabbed my flashlight with my wing and turned it on. “Alright, time to see if you were worth the trouble or not.” Stepping inside, I saw that it was much bigger than the space pods I read about. The walls were a pearly white and I didn’t see much in terms of buttons or knobs, which was rather impressive since you usually see tons of those in any shuttles or escape pod. As I walked around inside, I shined my light around and spotted the seat, which is what really surprised me. The size of the chair looked big enough to fit a minotaur, meaning they might have been the ones who made this thing. But this is odd since, from what I’ve heard, they had no interest in this kind of stuff. “Could that have been a lie so we wouldn’t know about this kind of tech?” As I was about to try and hop into the seat, my front hoof bumped into something, or more like someone. When I shined my light down, I saw a figure lying face down on the floor. I had to step back to get a better look at the unconscious pilot and saw that it was no minotaur. This thing didn’t have any horns growing out of its head. This thing also has five fingers where minotaurs have four. And its body wasn’t as bulky or large like a minotaur and didn’t have cloven hooves below its legs. “What the fuck kind of creature are you? I’ve never seen anything like you in Equestria.” No sooner did those words leave my muzzle did I finally piece it together: highly advanced space capsule, unknown flag, a species not seen on Equestria. “Holy shit…it’s an alien.” I was snapped out of my revelation when I heard something similar to a groan. Looking down, I saw the hand of the creature begin to twitch. I just stared in awe as the thing slowly moved its arms under its body and pushed its upper half up. When it did, I was now face to face with a reflection of myself in the creature’s black helmet visor. For what felt like freaking who knows how long, we stared at each other until it slowly tilted its head to the side. Leaving me with the only logical choice any sane pony would do when making first contact with an alien species, I swung my flashlight at its head and knocked it the fuck out. Author's Note Delta vee and her home Apogee and her father Jet Stream This is what the space capsule and astronaut look like. Chapter 2(??? POV) ‘Ughh, my head.’ I groaned out as I slowly started to wake up with the aid of my throbbing headache. I carefully moved my hand to rub the spot from where the pain was located and winced as my fingers barely touched it. I could already tell there was going to be a bump there. But a headache was the least of my worries as the events prior to my head injury came to mind. ‘Did I actually see a miniature horse with wings holding a flashlight? Or did I imagine that?’ As I tried to stand up, my head slammed against something hard, making my crouch down while clutching my helmet in an attempt to hold my head. “FUCK!!” I shouted loudly while trying to rub my head, which again proved pointless since my helmet got in the way, yet provided no protection from any injuries to my head. When I finally opened my eyes after having them shut tightly from the pain, I saw that I was in a cage of some sort, and not a very big one at that. In terms of length, it was the appropriate length, but as for the height, it wasn’t so good. Without causing myself any more pain than I had already gone through today, I slowly tried to stand up, only my head to barely reach three feet off the ground. I gripped the bars to my cage and tried to shake them loose with little to no effect. “Shit. Was this thing made to hold a crocodile?” I asked no one in particular. “Close. It’s meant to hold a cragadile instead.” A female voice spoke out, making me quickly look around to find the owner of the voice. “Hey, who’s out there!?” I grabbed the bars of my cage and tried to shake them loose again. “Let me out of here!” As I tried to find some kind of weak spot in my cage, something jumped into view. Standing around four feet tall was the same miniature horse I saw from last night, and it did indeed have wings, meaning that it wasn’t just my imagination. But now that it wasn’t dark anymore, I could see this wasn’t any normal winged horse. It had baby blue fur and its mane was two tones of teal with one side being lighter and darker. Besides the wings on its sides and pastel colors, there were three things that I found incredibly odd about this pony. The first were the large set of red eyes that almost took up its face. Second, it was wearing a white tank top that seemed to have oil stains on it. And last but not least was how it didn’t look like an actual pony like you would see on documentaries, but like it came from a cartoon. The winged pony stared at me for a moment with eyes that give it a look of intelligence, especially how it moved its eyebrows as if puzzled by my appearance. I took a moment to survey my surroundings and saw that I was in some sort of hanger. Tilting my head to the side to look past the pony, I saw a trailer through the open hanger doors. To my left, I saw what looked like a rocket engine with some tools laying on the floor next to it. ‘Am I back on Earth?’ I thought it couldn’t be Earth because, though I’ve been away for over a year, I don’t remember Earth having pastel, winged ponies, or the world being animated. I took one last look around the hanger to see if I could find the owner of whoever it was that spoke to me earlier. “Hello? Look, I don’t know who you are, but can you please let me out of here? I promise I mean no harm to you or your pet pony.” “Who the fuck are you calling a pet, dipshit?” My eyes nearly popped out of my helmet as I slowly turned my head to the little pony, who was now glaring at me. “D-did you just speak?” I asked, my voice slightly cracking as I asked my question. “No shit, dumbass. So much for intelligent life in space.” My jaw practically dropped when I heard this little pony talk, and with such vulgarness, too. She (at least I think it’s a she if the voice was any clue) circled around the cage I was trapped in and looked me over. “Just what in the hell are you anyway?” She asked as she stopped in front of my cage while keeping some distance, probably so I wouldn’t grab her through the bars. Normally, any sane human in my possession would either A: start to panic like a guy in a shark tank with a bleeding finger, or B: curse out my captors, demanding to be set free while expressing their rights. But given the circumstances and the fact I’m clearly not on Earth anymore, both those options would prove ineffective. Thank God for my training, otherwise I might have been doing the latter. After taking a moment to plan out my next few sentences, I was ready to try and defuse the situation. “Okay, look, we clearly got off the wrong foot/hoof here. I would first like to apologize for my earlier statement. I was expecting you to have the one who was actually talking. Where I come from, animals don’t talk, or at least not with the same level of intelligence as my species. And to answer your question, I am known as a human being.” The mare (which I believe is the correct term for any female equine) stared at me for a few moments without saying a word. It was really strange as I watched this colorful pony just staring at me as she moved her wing, using it like a hand to stroke her chin. And I’m not exaggerating about the wing acting as a hand; she is literally bending the tips of her feather to rub under her chin. It was both impressive and kind of creepy to watch the gears turning in this mare’s head as she examined me some more. “Alright, fuckface.” The mouth on this one. She would make a sailor blush. “I honestly have no idea what I’m gonna do with you. I was just planning on scrapping your space pod over there and selling it. But something tells me that could prove to be more trouble than it’s worth if ponies start asking questions.” “Gee, how considerate of you.” I replied with a hint of sarcasm, making no effort to hide it. She didn’t take too kindly to that as she walked out of my peripheral vision. A moment later, she came back holding a small black rectangle in her wings. I wasn’t sure what it was until one of her feathers pushed a button on the side, making a small current of electricity run at the top. “Is that a taser?” She gave me a cocky grin as she nodded her head. I quickly held up my hands as a sign of defeat. “Shutting up now.” She let go of the button, canceling out the current. “Smart colt. There may be some hope for you yet. So here's the deal, I could A: turn you into the government and probably make a lot of bits. Or option B: you give me a good reason I shouldn’t go with option A.” ‘Well shit. Now what do I do? I’m held captive by an alien species with a high chance of ending up like E.T. Only I get the feeling phoning home isn’t an option she will take.’ I was trying to brainstorm some kind of idea that could help me out of this situation, but given I’m in a cage, all my ideas are pretty much useless. ‘Okay, let’s think for a minute here. From what I can tell, these ponies are highly intelligent, I even dare say on the same scale as humans. She clearly isn’t the kind of mare you want to piss off. She mentioned that selling my space capsule would be more trouble than it’s worth. Meaning that the tech is probably a bit more advanced than this world currently has. I could use this to my advantage.’ As I was trying to think of a good way not to end up on a lab table while some pony doctors dissected my body, I noticed her tapping her front hoof impatiently. ‘Man, she sure is a pushy little pony. But given the bags under her eyes and the bed head, coupled with how she lives in a trailer in no doubt the middle of nowhere, I can safely guess she’s had a rough life.’ And that’s when it hit me. “What if I could help you make your life far better than selling my body?” She quirked her brow and gave me a questionable look. “Go on.” “Okay, so here is the deal. I can offer knowledge from another world, as well as its history. And given how it would seem that my kind is capable of interstellar travel, as evidenced by my space capsule, I could give you some ideas on things you could make from my world and claim them as your own work. This way, you’ll be seen as a genius and possibly make a fortune. And worst-case scenario, if plan B fails, and you can go ahead with plan A. It’s a win-win for you.” She stroked her chin for a few minutes before asking her next question. “Besides not becoming a lab rat, what’s in it for you?” “All I ask is that I’d be given a chance to try and make contact with my own kind.” “What, so you can call them over to take over our world?” “No no, I swear that was never my intention!” I shook my hands in defense. “In fact, quite the opposite really. If my kind knew about other forms of life that were just as sentient as us, they would try and make peace negotiations. And you could be one of the first pony ambassadors, which could bring you fame and glory.” She still seemed skeptical by my proposal. “And how do I know you're not just saying what I want to hear?” ‘She had me there. I had no way to prove what I was saying is the truth.’ I let out a sigh. “You don’t, and I have no way to prove myself. All I can offer you is my word, however much that is worth.” “Not much.” She answered coldly, meaning it's straight to a lab for me. As I was about to give up on any hope for my survival or any chances of seeing my home and family again, the door to my cage opened, causing me to look up at my equine captor. “Let’s get something straight here. If you try to escape or make any funny business, I won’t hesitate to kill you. Whether you're alive or dead, your body will make me some bits. So keep that in mind before you even consider trying anything. And you will be put back in this cage every night. Those are my conditions.” She glared down at me. “Unless you prefer plan A?” I slowly crawled out of the cage, careful not to rip my suit on the way out. Once I was completely outside, I sat up and folded my legs together rather than standing up and risking looking more intimidating. I held out my hand to her. “I agree to the terms of your deal. I’m Orion by the way.” She glanced down at my hand for a while before moving her hoof to my hand. I gently wrapped my fingers around it and gave a brief shake. “Delta.” Chapter 3Author's Note Hey guys hope you enjoy this chapter. I forgot to mention this for my last two chapters but special thanks to my editor Codex92, please make sure ti check out his stories and follow him. Lastly I want go remind you guys that there is a "science fiction" tag in this story for a reason and you'll see it in this chapter. So remember not ti take it too seriously. Chapter 3 (Delta’s POV) After a few minutes of negotiating with Orion, I allowed him to stay out of the cage under one condition. “Is this really necessary?” He asked while tugging on the makeshift ball and chain I made from a cinder block and rope that I attached to his left leg. “I mean, I already said I wouldn’t run away. Plus, even if I did try, if your species is anything like the ones we have in my world, I’m pretty sure you could outrun me.” “Don’t care, it helps me feel safer. Plus, I don’t know what kind of alien powers you might have.” He snorted at that and I quickly turned to glare at him. “Did I say something fucking funny?!” He cleared his throat, or at least that’s what I think he was doing. It’s hard to tell with his helmet hiding his face. “Sorry, but yeah, that was a funny idea.” I continued to glare at him, showing I wasn’t amused. “Look, if I had ‘alien powers’ as you implied, then wouldn’t I have already used them when you had me locked in that cage? Or at the very least, before you tied this to my leg?” He raises his foot with the makeshift ball and chain. “I mean, come on, I’m not Superman or John Carter.” I quirked a brow as he listed two names I wasn’t familiar with. “Who the hell is ‘Superman’ and ‘John Carter’?” He just rubbed the back of his helmet and let out a sigh. “Right, of course. You wouldn’t get those references. I made a reference that only another human would know, so I guess that one is on me. To make a long story short, they are people who go to another planet and gain powers due to some crap like the gravity being less than earth, or the sun gives them superpowers.” “And that’s happening to you because?” I asked with a bit of confusion. Does he really have superpowers because he’s on our planet? Who’s to say the gravity here isn’t lighter or heavier than his home world. And why would the sun affect whether his species receives power or not? “Because that’s not possible. Hence why it’s only known in fiction and movies. I think the only reason we even came up with characters like that is because our species will never know what it would be like to have such a life. As though we can live vicariously through the character we write about to make up for us not having real powers or magic and stuff.” “…What?” I was a bit surprised by what he just said. “What do you mean ‘what’?” He asked while looking back down at me. Now that he is standing and not sitting down, he was as tall, if not taller, than Princess Celestia herself. “I mean, what do you mean your kind doesn’t have magic?” “I mean that my kind doesn’t have magic. What part of that sentence didn’t make sense? We humans don’t have magic or anything like it in our world. The only time you would ever hear about it is in fantasy, movies, or video games.” He shrugged his, what I’m guessing to be, shoulders. I’m not sure since I’m basing most of his physiology like that of a minotaur. “How in the hell does your world not have any magic?” Again, he shrugged. “Then how does your kind control the weather? And fend off creatures that seek to harm you?” I know I only needed him to get rich and all, but the knowledge of another species and world altogether was surprisingly getting me excited. I can’t actually remember the last time I felt this way before. “To answer your first question, we humans don’t control the weather. At most, we try to predict it, and even then, it’s not completely accurate. Second, we just use or build weapons to defend ourselves. I assume you understand the concept of those since you literally threatened me earlier with a taser.” I was left completely baffled. A whole world without magic with a species who had none to speak of. The idea of such a thing is ludicrous and shocking, I’m not sure what to think. “Okay, now I have a question. Judging by your reactions and questions, you make it seem like magic is part of the norm here. As though it actually exists, and you can use it.” “Because it does exist, and we can use it.” He folded his arms, and I was assuming he was giving me a look behind his helmet that was asking me to prove it. I tried to think of a way I could properly demonstrate magic, but given I wasn’t a unicorn, I didn’t have an easy way to show it. It was only when a shadow passed over us did I get an idea. Looking up, I saw a cloud breezing by. “Wait here.” With that, I unfurled my wings, pushed off the ground, and took to the skies. I flew in a spiral motion upwards till I was at the same level with the cloud. With little to no effort, I grabbed the cloud and made my descent with it in my hooves. Once I was close enough to the ground, I tucked in my wings and landed right in front of Orion, wearing a smug smile with the cloud between us. Once again, with his visor tinted so dark, I couldn’t make out his facial expressions. It was hard to see what he was feeling. Thankfully, his slumped shoulder and the sound of his voice groaning in shock was all the confirmation I needed to show him the proof he wanted to see. He shook his head as I imagined him snapping out of the shocked daze he was most certainly in. “Okay, I’ll ask. HOW?!” He began to circle around the cloud, examining it before looking back to me. “A cloud is simply water vapor! It’s not a solid that you can just grasp with your hooves like it’s a ball of cotton candy!” He moved his hand down to try and touch it, only for his hand to go straight through it. “Nope. I’m drawing the line here.” He threw up his hands as he paced around in a circle. “I’m willing to accept the existence of pastel-colored ponies that can talk, but I am drawing the line at magic!” He plopped down on the ground while folding his legs together, which in my opinion looked very uncomfortable. He let out a sigh while holding his head as he shook it. “Basic training didn’t prepare me for this.” “I’m honestly surprised that the concept of magic existing is where you draw the line. I would have expected you to be screaming like bitch when you realized you were being held captive by an alien life form. And what exactly do you mean by basic training?” He propped his head up with one of his hands while his elbows rested against his legs. “Well, firstly, if we are being technical here, I’m the alien here, since this is not my home and you are part of the native life forms.” I rolled my eyes as I’m starting to get the feeling he was one of those kinds of creatures; the ones who take everything too seriously. “And to answer your other question. Back on my home world of Earth, I had undergone a very long and intensive training session before I was sent off to space. One of those things I was trained for, though it was the shortest session throughout my training, was the possibility of encountering signs of life in space. Of course, the protocol for such a nearly impossible probability would have been for me to not engage and to maintain a safe distance from said life form until it was determined whether or not they were hostile.” He let out another sigh as he shook his head. “But given the circumstances that led me to landing on this planet, I was not given that choice.” “Okay, I’ll bite. What do you mean, ‘You weren’t given a choice to land on this planet?’ I thought you told me that you were out in space trying to find another planet to colonize.” I felt like this whole Q&A was going to take a while, so I hopped onto the cloud to rest on it. “In order for me to properly explain, I’ll have to go back to exactly how I got here.” He decided to lay on his back as he stared up at the clear blue sky. “I’m not sure how long ago it took place, so I’ll just say it happened yesterday at around midnight.” (Orion POV: Before landing on Equis) BEEP BEEP BEEP “Agh I’m up. I’M UP!!” I groaned as I slammed my first down on my alarm clock. I opened my eyes and moved my hand to rub the crust out of them. I checked the time to see it was twelve P.M. Due to the fact there wasn’t really a solar cycle like back on Earth, it didn’t matter when I went to bed. Just so long as I made sure to do my daily routines before the next day starts, I was allowed to do as I please. Stretching out my arms and sighed in relief, I pushed off my bed and ever so slowly landed on the floor. One of the great things about an artificial gravity machine was I was allowed to adjust the gravity to be half the normal amount of Earth’s. Meaning that not only was I not burdened by the weight of my body while sleeping, but I didn’t have to worry about myself or anything else floating around. I yawned as I carefully glided to the door and opened it to perform my daily chores. I currently live on a space station that was named the Ark. I’m not sure if the name was a reference to the bible story of Noah’s ark or some Syfy movie, but I didn’t bother paying it much attention. The Ark was the latest and greatest space station conceived by mankind in the year 2050. It had everything any space traveler would ever need while exploring the vast wonders of space. I floated along the corridor as I made my way to the greenhouse. I smiled as I entered the room, feeling my feet land on the floor. Due to the nature of the plants here in the greenhouse, the gravity was that of Earth’s. “Good morning, everyone. Isn’t it just another beautiful space day?” I asked my friends as I walked into the room after picking up my watering can. “Good to see you up and awake, Nem. You are looking especially vibrant today.” I complimented my neem tree as I poured some water into its soil. “Oh, Hissy, you look like you’ll need a change in soil soon.” I watered my snake plant before moving onto the next one. “Hey, Chris, I see you starting to blossom some flowers. You trying to impress Aloe again?” I teased my Christmas cactus while pointing over to my aloe vera plant. “But seriously dude, I get that being a cactus means you need little water, but you shouldn’t starve yourself to impress the girl.” I stared at Chris, who was giving me the silent treatment. “Ok, ok, I get it. It’s your body. Just don’t come crying to me when you’re thirsty, sheesh.” I went on to water all the other plants and greet them, but before I left the greenhouse to move onto the next one, I took one last look at my Christmas cactus. “I can never read that guy.” Greenhouse 01 and 02 were designed to house a large array of plants, all of which produced a rich amount of oxygen that would circle through the whole station. Any excess oxygen produced was stored away in either containers or flowed into the escape capsules for an emergency. Greenhouse 03 and 04 were the ones that housed all the produce. It’s here that I obtain my main source of food. Before leaving Earth, I was given enough rations to last well over one whole year so long as I watched my diet. However, these two greenhouses were just in the event something should go wrong and I need to rely on them. Much like the oxygen, any excess produce is dehydrated and stored away as to not waste food. I had quite the garden here: tomatoes, corn, carrots, peas, watermelons, strawberries, potatoes, beans, and a few other fruits and vegetables. None of which I named, because why would you give your food a name before eating it? That’s messed up. I would take a few things from here when I didn’t feel like eating liquid peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I still shiver a bit when I think about how nasty astronaut food really is. Even when training, I hated how they made us eat that crap for three whole months straight. Once all the vital parts of the station were checked and working at max efficiency, I moved onto the lounge area where I got to hang out with my three closest buddies. Me, Myself, and of course, I…I’m alone here. When scientists found out that Earth was going to become harder to live on within the next few decades, everyone on Earth got the rudest wake up call. It was so bad that every nation in the world put aside their differences to try and solve the problem. At first, they thought if they could find a way to reduce the pollution and toxic fumes that were being released, it could help give us more time. Too bad the damage was already done and that wouldn’t be enough to save us. So then it was onto plan B: search the universe for a new place to call home. That’s when Project Pioneer was set into motion. The world’s finest scientists, engineers, and so on would get together to begin building multiple Ark space stations. They made it so that each space station could be easily maintained by a single human being. And that’s where I came in. Every country in the world began to search for people who would be able to handle the mission that could very well save the human race from inevitable extinction. The Arks would take a considerable amount of time to be up and running for space travel; ten years, to be exact. It was in those ten years of waiting when my government started to search for candidates to enlist in the program. They were looking for individuals to raise and mold into the perfect astronaut to handle the solitary journey through space. I was one of the few selected for the project, and I was around fifteen when I started training. Over the next decade, I was trained in any and every possibility I may encounter while out in space. I had to learn a lot of things in order to be fully ready. They taught me everything from rocket science to agriculture, to hand to hand combat and survival skills, and coping with being alone for long periods of time without going completely insane. In ten years’ time, they molded m, along with the other chosen few into the perfect pioneers. When the time came to depart, we were hailed as heroes for embarking on this crucial quest. Tears were shed as we all said goodbye to our families and friends. I still get teary-eyed when I think back to how proud my mother and father were of me before I left. After we said our goodbyes, it was time to depart. There were over fifty-seven Ark stations created, and fifty-seven astronauts to pilot alone as they were flying in different directions of Earth. “Hard to believe it’s been a year already.” I mused as I floated over the couch and flipped on the television. “Alright, I’ve got a good twenty minutes before I have to make my daily data log. Now, what to watch.” Before we had all left Earth, our government thought it best that we had as much entertainment as possible so we wouldn’t get bored, so they downloaded a shit-ton of shows, movies, and games into the station to help us stay occupied. This was unfortunately due to the fact that once our stations moved far away enough, we would lose contact with Earth, with the only exception being our data logs that can somehow transmit what we record over to Earth over a period of time. It’s kind of like a phone tag, only you’re the phone leaving the messages and not receiving any…Sounds more like a crappy relationship when I think about it now. “Hmmm, let’s see. Yesterday, I watched all the Harry Potter series, including the Fantastic Beasts trilogy. Hmm. I could watch season ten of The Mandalorian again. I still can’t believe baby Yoda was actually old Yoda, using the force to time travel in order to repeat the cycle all over again. My mind is still blown from that. Hmm... Or maybe I could watch ‘Sharknado 34: Lava Sharks From Mars’. The CGI got so much better after ‘Sharknado 25 - Attack of the Miming Sharks: Silent but Deadly.” I spent a good fifteen minutes searching through shows before realizing it was time to get to recording. “Ugh, might as well get this over with so I can get back to the fun stuff.” I pushed off from the couch and floated over to the communication center. It was here where I would perform my daily data log entry. I’m required to record one of these at least once a day. It is one of the most boring parts of my chores, but once I get it over with, I’m free to do as I please. I started up the monitor and adjusted the camera, waited until my face popped on the screen. “And…we’re live. Hey, everyone, this is Orion checking in. It is officially day 365, and so far, no new sightings of any planets that can support life. Pretty much like it was yesterday.” I let out a sigh as I leaned into my chair and thought of what to say. “Everything is working at max efficiency. Uh, yeah, the garden is producing a good amount of produce. The water collection system is doing its job, so I don’t have to worry about being dehydrated anytime soon.” I chewed on my tongue a bit as I tried to think of something else to say. “Oh, I decided to move some stuff into the space capsule. Mostly food, water, and tools, since Helga would never stop reminding me to always make sure it was fully stocked in case of an emergency.” Helga was one of the other space candidates that I trained with for the program back on Earth. “Heh, I hope she is having better luck than me. Same for Vlad and Shin…I really miss those guys.” I thought back to my days of training with my peers and smiled. “Yeah, those were the good old days.” I looked back to the camera as I continued my data log. “But yeah, so far, everything is in tip-top shape. Only four more years to go before I come back. And I swear, if I come back and you guys tell me that you had already found a planet while I was gone, I’m going to kick the nearest warm body right in the face.” I glared at the screen for a moment before breaking out into a small chuckle. “Ptf, I’m just kidding…well, kinda.” And to finish off my transmission, I do the same thing I always do. “Hey mom, hey dad. I hope you guys are doing okay without me. I know you probably miss me, and dad turned my room into a mancave like he said he would.” Again, I chuckled before continuing. “But yeah, I miss you guys, too. It’s pretty lonely up here in space all by myself. Hell, there’s not even a Starbucks or McDonalds up here. And since they are practically everywhere, you’d think they would have at least two or three in the middle of space, am I right?” I always liked to keep a more positive vibe when I could. Then I remembered something that I neglected to do during my last few transmissions. “I know it’s probably already past, but when you see Hailey, can you-?” Before I could even finish my sentence, the whole station started to shake with the lights flickering. “Son of bitch!!” Then, all the lights in the station started to glow red and an alarm went off. I moved to the nearest window to see what could have caused the massive explosion. To my horror, one of the stars in the distance had gone supernova, and I could see meteors already flying in my direction. I ran to the communications station. “Huston, we have a problem! One of the stars has gone supernova! Taking immediate course of action! Orion signing off!” I moved as fast as I could to the command station to try and steer the ship manually out of harm's way. On the way, I could feel some of the debris from the star slamming into parts of the station, making everything shake. The Ark was designed to handle almost any kind of heavy impact possible in space, but that wasn’t my greatest fear. It’s what happens when a star explodes that makes me terrified. As I reached the cockpit, I moved to the control system to override to manual controls. I had to move as fast as possible before it was too late. I set in the program to fire all main thrusters to get the station away from here as fast as possible. I glanced at the monitors to check the progression of the exploding star, only to feel my face turn pale. I watched in horror as the star began to collapse in on itself, and began to evolve into the worst thing any astronaut would ever want to see in space. “A blackhole.” I knew that it was too late. The station was already too close to escape the pull of such a phenomenon. But just as I was about to give up on any hope, I quickly remembered that this was one of the rare few contingencies that was planned ahead for. It meant leaving everything behind and abandoning the mission, but it was either that or certain death. I pushed out of my seat and moved as fast as my body would move to the escape capsule. The capsule was designed to fire off from the station at mach three speeds in the highly likely chance something like this should happen. Once inside, I would be fired out of the station and to the safest planet while it sent out a distress beacon to signal my rescue. While inside, I can initiate cryosleep until I am rescued. “Now if I could just make it.” The station shook violently as I could only guess another shockwave went off, meaning my time was getting shorter. I had reached the capsule, quickly jumping in and sealing the hatch shut before getting into my seat and buckling up. I leaned back and turned on the monitors, then initiated the launch protocols while putting on my helmet. Once the code was punched, I slammed my fist down on the launch button and felt myself being pushed back into my seat by the force of takeoff. Once I was no longer under the intense G-forces, I moved my hands to start booting up the distress beacon. “Come on, you piece of shit!” I moved my fingers as fast as I could until I saw a green button flick on and start to blink a few times. “Great, now that it’s works, it’s time to set a course for the farthest planet from the-” The capsule violently shook, making me fall back into my seat. I glanced out the window and saw that I was moving backwards…toward the blackhole. “No no no!!” I started to put the thrusters at full blast, hoping to escape the pull. But they were already firing at max capacity. There was no escaping it. Soon, my pod was being pulled back into the blackhole, and I could only watch in horror as I stared into the horizon. “So, this is it? Death by blackhole…?” I closed my eyes and sighed, for it was inevitable. “Well, I had a good run. I never got to go back home and do all the things I wanted to do. Like visiting Manhattan and trying their pizza. Or ever gone on an actual date. But what I regret most is not saying goodbye to-” There was another big explosion and my head was slammed back into my seat, knocking me unconscious. (Orion POV present time) “And then I remember waking up, only to meet you and be knocked unconscious by your flashlight. Bringing us now to this point in time. Any questions now?” I asked as Delta was staring at me with wide eyes while she laid upside down on her cloud. Still not completely used to that yet. She stared at me for a few moments before raising her hoof. “Yeah, I got one. Did you seriously give names to your plants and talked to them?” Though she couldn’t see due to my helmet, one of my eyebrows was twitching while I could almost feel a blood vein popping out. “Are you serious? I just told you about how my race created what may be the most advanced space station in the universe, how I got sucked into a blackhole, and lived mind you, and the only thing you took away from that entire story was me naming and talking to my plants?! Are you fucking kidding me?!” She shrugged her shoulders. I was so angry that I couldn’t help but facepalm. A big mistake I would soon regret as the visor began to crack. “Oh no.” The damage was done as the cracks grew before breaking apart and falling out. I grabbed my throat as I was slowly losing oxygen, falling to the ground while clutching my neck. “Can’t...breathe...” Soon, my vision began to darken as I passed out for the last time. Chapter 4(Delta POV) I sat on the cloud, watching Orion clutching his throat and gasping…for the last three minutes. I knew he would have been dying from our world’s atmosphere the moment his visor broke, but I wanted to see how long it would take for him to realize he was fine. ‘I wonder if I have enough time to go make some popcorn.’ I continued to watch as he rolled on the ground, clutching his neck like an overly dramatic Canterlot unicorn. ‘Maybe I should help him. He may not have many brain cells left if he keeps this up…Well, assuming he has a brain if he’s acting like this.’ I hopped off the cloud and used my wings to push it up, sending it back to the sky. I walked over to his body and took a moment to consider my action. Even with him struggling around like how he is, I couldn’t see his face. ‘If his anatomy is like a minotaur, then I swing here.’ With a sweep of my hoof, I kicked him right in the groin. The effects were immediate as he sat up and screamed. “AAAAAHHHHHHH!!” He started to roll around the ground in a circle while clutching his groin. He writhed in pain for a good while before sitting up and glaring at me. I was now able to get a look at his face. It was kind of flat compared to a pony’s muzzle, his nose small in comparison. Even his eyes, which were a chocolate brown. And it didn’t look like he had any fur at all. He reminded me of a hairless monkey. “What the fuck was that for!?” He screamed right in my face, causing me to fold back my ears. I quickly shoved him back so he wasn’t in my personal space. “You were gasping like a retarded fish out of water for over three minutes! If the air wasn’t breathable to your kind, you would have already been dead, dumbass!” His scowl quickly disappeared as he cocked his head back before taking a deep breath and letting out a slow exhale. “Huh. Well what do you know? I can breathe properly.” He slowly moved his hands up to grip his helmet and turned it before pulling it off his head, and I could see he wasn’t completely hairless. He had short, light brown hair, a similar color to his eyes. He took another deep breath and repeated this process a few times. “The air here is almost that of Earth’s, but way cleaner. How very interesting.” His smile was brief before he glared at me again. “I still want to know why you hit me in the groin. That hurt like hell, you know.” “Well maybe if you weren’t acting like an overdramatic baby earlier, then I wouldn’t need to.” I rolled my eyes while holding my head. “I mean really, how long would you have kept doing that had I not kicked you?” He turned his head away and sighed. “Ugh, forget it.” He threw his hands up in defeat. “I’m still surprised the thing broke after just from you facepalming.” I added as I looked at some of the broken shards on the floor. “To be fair, it did manage to remain intact after it, along with the rest of my body, got sucked through a blackhole. And need I remind you how it took most of the blow when you hit me with that flashlight last night?” He added some snark with that last part, to which I rolled my eyes. “At least I don’t have to worry about running out of oxygen now. Hell, I wasn’t sure how much reserved air was left in the capsule…” He stopped for a moment before his eyes widened. “Shit, the capsule! I need to go make sure that it’s still worAAHHHH!” Just as he was about to sprint over to his capsule, his feet got tangled up in the rope to his makeshift ball and chain, causing him to fall face first onto the ground. I may or may not have cracked a grin at that as I watch him slowly struggle to get back up. “Ugh. I forgot about this stupid thing.” He stood up and dusted his body before picking up the cinder block with little effort before walking back to the hanger. I had placed his capsule in the corner of the hanger and had it covered with a large tarp in the event I receive any unwanted or unexpected guests. Last thing I want is for somepony coming in and try to steal it or tell somepony else about it. I watched as Orion set down the concrete block before he pulled off the tarp. I’ll be sure to make him put it back on when he’s done. The door was still open when he walked inside, and I opted to just wait outside. It was about a few minutes before he came back out with a metal box and a gloomy look on his face. He pulled the block along to the side of the capsule while carrying the metal box under his arm. He set the box down and opened it, pulling out a few tools, some of which looked similar to what we have here on Equis. He used the tools he pulled out to open a metal hatch that was on the capsule. The door opened in a way that blocked me from seeing what he was doing. “Can I borrow that flashlight from earlier?” He asked in a slightly depressed tone while extending his hand out. I was skeptical about handing him a blunt object, but given he lifted the stone block that I attached to his leg with ease, it didn’t really matter. I went to my workbench to grab my flashlight and gave it to him. “Thanks.” I saw a small amount of light shining onto the floor as he turned it on. For a while, he stood back there doing who knows what, but when I looked at his hand that was holding the door open, I could see it trembling a bit. After a moment, he stepped back, letting me see his face, along with a look of dread. He closed the hatch gently, turned around to lean against the capsule, and slowly slid down till he landed flat on his plot. His head dropped and he clasped his hands together. He stayed like that for well over three minutes before he threw his head back, slamming it into the capsule. “Looks like I’m stuck here forever.” His eyes looked like his life had just been shattered right before him, a look I’m all too familiar with. “The circuits and fuses that connect to both the battery and distress beacon are completely fried.” “So? Can’t you just fix them?” He shook his head in defeat as he looked up to the ceiling. “I would need to replace the parts that were destroyed, and something tells me this planet doesn’t have the parts I need that wouldn’t cost a lot of money. And even if I were to have everything I needed, it would take me well over a month to make them.” “Okay, so you’ll be stuck on Equis for a while. That doesn’t mean you can’t try and get back home.” Again, he shook his head. “It would be too late by then.” Raising his head off the capsule, he quickly slammed it back against it. “If I were able to get the beacon back and running, ‘if’ being the key word there, the deadline would have passed, and command will register me as KIA.” I was surprised by that, but it still didn’t make sense why his home world would do such a thing. “You’re probably wondering why my world would do such a thing, aren’t you?” I honestly felt a bit shocked that he somehow read my mind just now, making me wonder if he could have done that the whole time. “The reason being is, during my last transmission, I mentioned the blackhole that sucked me up. And if command was listening, and I know they were, then they would have initiated code Countdown.” “What’s that?” “In the event one of us has our distress signal cut off at any point or if we don’t do our daily data log transmissions, the command starts a countdown. If we don’t set up our beacon within forty-eight hours, we are considered dead. And because of Earth’s current condition, they can’t afford to take a chance of coming out here to try and find me. So even if I do get the beacon up, they won’t be looking for it by then. Plus, there is the fact that the blackhole might have sent me so far in space that the beacon probably wouldn’t be detected.” His head lowered to rest on his knees as he curled his legs up to sit in a fetal position. For a while, he remained silent and unmoving. I could barely see his chest moving as he breathed. After a while, he took a deep breath and raised his head before standing up and brushing his pants of any dirt. “Well, there’s no point in moping now.” He turned to me with a genuine smile. “So, I believe we made a deal. Since you held up your end by letting me try and call home, it’s my turn to help you now.” I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t caught off guard by his sudden change in attitude. A moment ago, he looked like he was about ready to give up on life, but now here he is with a smile on his face. “Are you bipolar or something?” He cocked his head to the side, looking confused. “Don’t give me that look! You know exactly what I mean! A minute ago, you just found out that you weren’t gonna be able to go home and it looked like your life was ruined! Now here you are, giving me a smile while worrying about holding up our deal!? What the hell!?” I wasn’t sure why this bugged me so much. But I felt something similar to envy just now, and I don’t even know why. “Hmm.” Orion hummed as he moved his hand to hold his chin like he was deep in thought. “Well, what good is it gonna do me to mope? It won’t, honestly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still upset by the whole thing, and I still have some regrets. But at this point, there is no reason to allow that to weigh me down. I’m still alive and well, and though I may have hit rock bottom, that leaves me with one option.” He gave me another smile as he held up a finger and pointed upward. “Because I’ve hit rock bottom, the only other place for me to go is up, and keep on living.” Something about what he said struck a chord with me. I was angry, I was sad, and I was confused. I just sighed and shook my head, “You really are a dumbass, you know that?” I looked back at him, seeing that same smile from before. “Well, since you already tried to phone home, I guess we better see how you’re gonna help me make money like you promised.” He nodded his head, leaned down to pick up the cinderblock, and walked past me. “I am a man of my word, after all. So let’s do a bit of investigating of this world of yours. I want to see how far your species has come in terms of tech. Once I have an accurate idea, then can we get to work.” I was left standing there, still in a bit of a daze by his attitude. I shook my head as I followed behind him. “What have I gotten myself into?” Chapter 5(Delta POV) I quickly trotted till I was walking alongside Orion as he was stroking his chin in thought. I was still somewhat irked how he seemed to brush off the fact that he is now stranded here on Equis and with me keeping him as a slave. I didn’t mean for it to come off like that, but looking back on my choice of words, it seemed that way now. But that aside, I couldn’t understand this guy at all. He lands on an alien planet, gets knocked out by me, and is given the choice to be a slave or a lab experiment. All while maintaining a calm demeanor, to which he responds with, “I’ve been trained for stuff like this.” How could any creature just expect that? And that brings us back to how he willingly accepted the fact that he will never see his home again. His whole life ruined in seconds, and all he can think about now is holding up his end of the deal; a deal he was forced to accept. ‘Why does this piss me off so much anyway?’ I needed an answer. “Okay, that’s it.” He turned to look at me with a confused look. “How are you okay with any of this?” I asked with a hint of frustration. “You just found out that you're stranded here with no means of going home or seeing your family again. Literally everything you had was ripped away from you, leaving you with nothing.” As I spoke, my voice began to sound angrier for some reason. “You’ve lost your home, your family, your future, everything has been stolen from you! And yet you brush it off like it’s no big deal, all with a smile on your face!” My heart started to beat faster as I started to scream. “Tell me why!” Once I had finished screaming at him, I was huffing and breathing heavier. I glared at him waiting for my answer that I needed to know for some reason, but I wasn’t sure why. He didn’t say anything at first. All he did was stare at me as I huffed and puffed. But for a moment, his eyes had a look on them, like he was feeling sorry for me. Or maybe it was something else. It was so brief, I couldn’t recognize it. He took a deep breath and rubbed the back of his head while he hummed for a moment. “What else am I supposed to do?” He asked in a calm tone while giving me a neutral look. “What good does sitting around and moping do for me?” I was taken aback when he answered my question with one of his own. “Most of what you said was true. I lost pretty much everything: my friends, the world I called home, and my family.” His lips slowly curled into a warm smile as he held up one of his fingers. “But there is one thing you were wrong about; something I didn’t lose.” “A-and what’s that?” Why was I scared to hear his answer, all of a sudden? With a bigger smile, he answered. “My future.” I had nothing to say. I just stood there, baffled by what he said. How can he say that he still has that? “Don’t get me wrong, I’m still depressed about not being able to go home or see my family. But feeling sorry for myself, wallowing in self-pity, and disappearing won’t get me anything. All that will really do is drag me down as I try to pick up the pieces of my life. And that whole part about having lost my future, yeah, that’s where you're wrong.” He moved one of his hands over his chest and took a deep breath. “So long as I’m still breathing and can see tomorrow, I still have a future. It’s only when one has truly given up on moving forward does their future no longer exist.” He smiled and looked to the sky, which was nice and clear now. “I know if my parents were here, they would tell me to keep on living and to try to make the best of what I can.” ‘How? How can he be like this?’ I asked myself as I looked down at the ground beneath my hooves. ‘He went through almost the same thing I did, if not worse. And yet, somehow, he can stay calm.’ The more I thought about it, the more I felt confused. He talks about having a future despite all that has happened, or the fact that he’s not as free as he believes to be. “You really think you have a future here?” I asked as I looked back at him, and in turn, he looked back to me. “Did you forget about how you’re the only one of your species here? You are quite literally alone in this world. And you're stuck with me basically as my slave. If you were to leave here, there is no guarantee you won't be captured and sent to a lab to be put into a cage and experimented on.” Why am I trying to put him down? Why do I feel the need to remind him of his position here? “How can you still be okay with wanting to help me when I’ve given you no other choice? Don’t you hate me? Aren’t you angry that you are being forced to stay here as some kind of work monkey?” He just stood there, unmoving, staring at me like a deer in headlights. That was only for a moment before he stepped closer to me and kneeled down in front of me. It was really intimidating how he stared at me with those brown eyes of his, like the eyes that belonged to some kind of predatory beast. When he raised his hand up to me, I flinched and closed my eyes, thinking he was going to strike me. Instead, I felt it lightly rub the top of my head, lightly ruffling my mane. When I opened my eyes, I could see that same warm smile from earlier. “You and I both know you don’t see me as a slave. If you did, you wouldn’t have given me a chance to call home, or let me out of the cage you put me in, which you only did out of self-defense since you didn’t know if I was friendly or not.” His fingers lightly dug into my scalp as he gently started to scratch it. I hate to admit it felt pretty damn good. “As for your crude demeanor and foul language, I’ll chalk it up to the rough life you’ve had so far.” My eyes shot wide open as he said that. How could he have known I had a rough life? I never once talked about that since he’s woken up. “H-how?” The corner of his lips dropped for only a split second, but I definitely saw it as he tried to play it off with a cough into his hand after taking it off my head. “I’ve been around the block long enough to see all the signs.” He stood back up and stretched his arms out, letting out a satisfied sigh. “Now back to why I want to help you. It’s really more of a sense of self-preservation, really. Seeing as you’ll be my current caretaker here, by making your life easier, I’d be doing the same thing for myself. Similar to when a child helps pay the rent with their parents, it helps ease the stress of living for not just the parents, but for the child as well.” He twists and turns his upper body in a series of stretches, getting a few bones to pop. “So in order for me to make my time living here better, I need to help improve your own. It’s what’s known as a symbiotic relationship. We both help each other in order to get ahead in life.” He rolled his arms around in circles before finally cracking his fingers. “Does that answer all of your questions, or did you have some more to ask?” When I didn’t say anything, he just shrugged. “Okay then. Now, in order for me to help you out, I’ll need to know more about this world. More specifically about its technological advancements.” I only had one thing to say at this point. “You are so fucking weird.” (Orion POV) After our deep conversation, Delta went back to being her slightly grouchy self, which I had no problems with. We then talked about this world's technology and how advanced it is. Turns out it’s not that far behind Earth’s. They had rockets that could go into space, but have yet to land on the moon due to, and I’m quoting what Delta told me, “Because the princess said not to.” Yeah, I’m not sure why, and neither does anyone, or as Delta would correct me, “anypony'' else knows why the princess forbids it. Other than that, they were slightly behind in some other things. They had video games, but the most advanced games were still pixelated, and they didn’t have cell phones yet. They also have guns, which Delta had and showed one to me, leaving me confused since theirs are designed just like the ones back home. How do they even pull the trigger, let alone hold them up without fingers? I’ll worry about that later. They also have cars, which weren’t as advanced as our own, but they weren’t as ancient as the ones from the 1800s, they were like the cars from the early 2000s. They do have the internet, so that would be a great help. If Delta had a computer, that is. I got a general idea of her financial state when I looked around the place she called home. ‘I’ve got my work cut out for me.’ “Okay, so we need to make something that is sure to bring in a lot of money, but given the lack of resources we have, we can’t go into anything too complicated.” I paced around the middle of the junkyard while not moving too far from the cinderblock I was attached to. Delta told me that she got by from selling junk that would be dumped around here. This wasn’t the main junkyard, apparently, and that was a few miles away from here. That’s where she goes to get most of the stuff to sell, meaning we had access to some kinds of resources. The only problem I had now was trying to figure out what to make. The last thing I need is for us to try and pitch an item that someo- er, somepony has already made. And without access to the internet, I couldn’t look up more information on this world, which meant my only source of information was Delta. ‘Let’s think. What kind of item to make? It has to be something that will not only increase our cash flow, but also her reputation as well. The more she is well known, the more ponies will take her seriously and pay her more attention when she is trying to sell something.’ I remembered the advice my friend Shin would give me in times like this. I sat down, folded my legs, and took a moment to meditate and clear my mind. ‘This world seems to hold some similarities to Earth in both technology and a bit in politics. Both of which are crucial for what I should aim to make.’ I then remembered the gun Delta showed me. ‘They also have a form of military as well, so that could be another deciding factor as well.’ That’s when it hit me. Something that was used on my world for both military purposes and for fun. I turned to Delta with a smile. “Hey, Delta, do you guys have drones on this planet?” She quirked her brow, which was a good sign in my opinion. “Like the kind of bees?” That only solidified my theory. “I’m gonna need a piece of paper and a pencil to make a list of things I’m gonna need you to find.” She wasn’t keen on me giving her orders, but after a moment, she walked into her trailer and came back out with the stuff I asked for. Taking into account the stuff I know about this world, I was able to make my list. I handed her the list once I was finished and she looked at me with a skeptical look. “What are you gonna make with all this?” “It’d be easier for me to explain once I finally finished making it.” She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Whatever. Now,, I want you to go back into your cage until I get back.” I couldn’t help but groan. “Really? After the emotional bonding we just did?” She grunted and huffed. “First off, we didn’t do any ‘emotional bonding’ like you say.” She used her wings to act as fingers to make air quotes. “I was having a moment of weakness and you were my emotional punching bag to vent to. That’s it. Second, I don’t trust you not to try and run away, so it’s the cage whenever I’m gone or at night.” She pointed for me to go back into the hanger where my cage was. I groaned, seeing as there was no changing her mind. “Ugh, fine. But could you at least leave me something to read while you're gone? Boredom can be hazardous to my health, you know. And you wouldn’t want that, would you?” I playfully bat my eyelashes, trying to look innocent. She glared at me before marching into her trailer. I could hear her moving stuff around before something came flying out the door slamming into me, and boy was it heavy. “Here, now get back to the cage.” When I looked down at what she threw at me, I saw it was a large book with the words “Equestrian History” written on the front, causing me groan. “Ugh, a history book? Really? Don’t you have any magazines or something with pictures to read?” “CAGE, NOW!!” She screamed as she pulled out the taser. “Alright, I’m going!” I scurried onto my feet with the heavy ass book in my arms as I ran to my cage. “Would it have killed her to say please?” Chapter 6Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.Chapter 7Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.
Chapter 1(Delta POV) “Bye mom! I’ll see you on Friday!” My daughter Apogee called out as she took off with that dick of a father, Jet Stream. I didn’t bother to say anything as I slammed the door to my trailer shut and made my way to my fridge. Swinging open the door, I grabbed myself a beer, kicking the fridge door closed before jumping onto my bed. I looked around my shitty-ass room as I popped the cap off my beer and took a long, long, very long swig of it. I looked out my window to see the moon was full and the stars were shining bright. ‘Bout the only good thing about living out here. No fucking salesponies, and a damn good view of the night sky.’ Taking another swing of my beer, I rolled onto my side and looked at my room some more. When I did, I was greeted with a painful memory. A photo of me fifteen years ago. I looked so much happier back then, and I had so much potential. I was going to make history, and then that son of a bitch betrayed me and made it big. “Gah! Fucking traitor!!” I screamed out, throwing my bottle away to hear it crash against the wall. For the last thirty minutes, I tossed and turned in my bed, too frustrated to even try and sleep. “I hate this…I hate him…Why am I even still trying anymore?” No, really, why am I still trying? After I lost my job at EQSA, my chances of making it big and having a good life had gone down the drain. ‘If only I hadn’t let that fucking prick manipulate me that night, then none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have had to live in this run-down dump. I wouldn’t have to sell scrap parts to keep myself from being evicted. And I wouldn’t have had…Apogee.’ I felt like shit, and my life is shit. What does it take for a mare to catch a break in this world? “Psh. Yeah right. Like asking that is gonna help. Next thing you know, the solution to all my problems is gonna come falling out of the-“ BOOOOOOMMM!! I was cut off as the ground shook violently and my whole trailer rattled from the shockwaves. “Da fuck?!” I quickly opened my window and stuck my head out to look around for the source of all the commotion. That’s when I saw a small trail of smoke not too far off in the distance. “A meteorite?” I ran to my door and kicked it open as I trotted out to where the meteorite landed. I ran as fast as my legs could take me before unfurling my wings and taking to the sky. Within a minute, I could see the crash site where the meteorite had landed, only to see it wasn’t a meteorite, but a space capsule. “Ugh, there goes my idea for a tourist attraction. Or selling it to make some bits.” I touched down and carefully made my way over to the space capsule. “I bet this is one of Jet Stream’s. He probably said this place would make the perfect area to test his rockets and shit.” I tried to find his stupid logo for his compony to confirm it’s one of his, then maybe I could call the news saying how he did this on purpose to try and almost kill me. Seriously, had the trajectory been off any more upon reentry, this shit would have landed on my trailer. While I circled around the capsule, I couldn’t help but take in its design. Despite it being for that asshole, the shape and design was unlike anything I had ever seen. The shape reminded me of a cone, and I could also see the remains of the parachutes that probably didn’t deploy fast enough to prevent the crash from being this serious. “Sure hope nopony was riding inside this thing, otherwise they may be dead.” The design was so sleek and almost slender, but I didn’t find Jet’s logo anywhere. When I moved to the front of the capsule, I did see a logo that had a picture of a dragon with its wings wrapped around the word “Dragon”. What really threw me off was the flag atop of what I guessed was the door. Instead of being the usual flag of Equestria or any other flag I’ve seen in the history books, it was a flag with red and white stripes, and in the upper left corner was a blue rectangle with white stars. I flared out my wings again and flapped them as I moved over to one of the windows to see what pony was inside. It proved to be pointless as the windows were rather small and tinted to the point where looking inside was impossible. “Probably to prevent too much light in during space travel.” Seeing I wasn’t getting anywhere just staring at this thing, I quickly flew back to my junkyard to bring over my excavator to haul this thing back to the hanger. One hour later and I finally managed to hall the damn thing back to my hanger. It would have been less than that if I hadn’t accidentally slammed the thing into a rock I didn’t see, making it detach from the magnet. Thankfully, there wasn’t any damage to it, so meh. I grabbed my crowbar and jammed it into the door, making sure it was in there pretty good. “Let’s pop you open and see what you’ve got for mama.” With any luck, there wasn’t anypony but a training dummy inside, meaning that if I’m quick enough, I can salvage the tech inside before whoever launched this thing can come try and find it. I grabbed the crowbar and started to pry open the door. The thing was shut pretty damn tight. “Fuck! What I’d give to have some earth pony muscles right about now!” After I gave the damn thing another hard push, I heard a hissing sound, a slight breeze of air coming from the door, and stepped back as the crowbar fell to the ground. The door slowly started to slide upwards until it was completely opened. I couldn’t help but smile with satisfaction as I grabbed my flashlight with my wing and turned it on. “Alright, time to see if you were worth the trouble or not.” Stepping inside, I saw that it was much bigger than the space pods I read about. The walls were a pearly white and I didn’t see much in terms of buttons or knobs, which was rather impressive since you usually see tons of those in any shuttles or escape pod. As I walked around inside, I shined my light around and spotted the seat, which is what really surprised me. The size of the chair looked big enough to fit a minotaur, meaning they might have been the ones who made this thing. But this is odd since, from what I’ve heard, they had no interest in this kind of stuff. “Could that have been a lie so we wouldn’t know about this kind of tech?” As I was about to try and hop into the seat, my front hoof bumped into something, or more like someone. When I shined my light down, I saw a figure lying face down on the floor. I had to step back to get a better look at the unconscious pilot and saw that it was no minotaur. This thing didn’t have any horns growing out of its head. This thing also has five fingers where minotaurs have four. And its body wasn’t as bulky or large like a minotaur and didn’t have cloven hooves below its legs. “What the fuck kind of creature are you? I’ve never seen anything like you in Equestria.” No sooner did those words leave my muzzle did I finally piece it together: highly advanced space capsule, unknown flag, a species not seen on Equestria. “Holy shit…it’s an alien.” I was snapped out of my revelation when I heard something similar to a groan. Looking down, I saw the hand of the creature begin to twitch. I just stared in awe as the thing slowly moved its arms under its body and pushed its upper half up. When it did, I was now face to face with a reflection of myself in the creature’s black helmet visor. For what felt like freaking who knows how long, we stared at each other until it slowly tilted its head to the side. Leaving me with the only logical choice any sane pony would do when making first contact with an alien species, I swung my flashlight at its head and knocked it the fuck out. Author's Note Delta vee and her home Apogee and her father Jet Stream This is what the space capsule and astronaut look like.
Chapter 2(??? POV) ‘Ughh, my head.’ I groaned out as I slowly started to wake up with the aid of my throbbing headache. I carefully moved my hand to rub the spot from where the pain was located and winced as my fingers barely touched it. I could already tell there was going to be a bump there. But a headache was the least of my worries as the events prior to my head injury came to mind. ‘Did I actually see a miniature horse with wings holding a flashlight? Or did I imagine that?’ As I tried to stand up, my head slammed against something hard, making my crouch down while clutching my helmet in an attempt to hold my head. “FUCK!!” I shouted loudly while trying to rub my head, which again proved pointless since my helmet got in the way, yet provided no protection from any injuries to my head. When I finally opened my eyes after having them shut tightly from the pain, I saw that I was in a cage of some sort, and not a very big one at that. In terms of length, it was the appropriate length, but as for the height, it wasn’t so good. Without causing myself any more pain than I had already gone through today, I slowly tried to stand up, only my head to barely reach three feet off the ground. I gripped the bars to my cage and tried to shake them loose with little to no effect. “Shit. Was this thing made to hold a crocodile?” I asked no one in particular. “Close. It’s meant to hold a cragadile instead.” A female voice spoke out, making me quickly look around to find the owner of the voice. “Hey, who’s out there!?” I grabbed the bars of my cage and tried to shake them loose again. “Let me out of here!” As I tried to find some kind of weak spot in my cage, something jumped into view. Standing around four feet tall was the same miniature horse I saw from last night, and it did indeed have wings, meaning that it wasn’t just my imagination. But now that it wasn’t dark anymore, I could see this wasn’t any normal winged horse. It had baby blue fur and its mane was two tones of teal with one side being lighter and darker. Besides the wings on its sides and pastel colors, there were three things that I found incredibly odd about this pony. The first were the large set of red eyes that almost took up its face. Second, it was wearing a white tank top that seemed to have oil stains on it. And last but not least was how it didn’t look like an actual pony like you would see on documentaries, but like it came from a cartoon. The winged pony stared at me for a moment with eyes that give it a look of intelligence, especially how it moved its eyebrows as if puzzled by my appearance. I took a moment to survey my surroundings and saw that I was in some sort of hanger. Tilting my head to the side to look past the pony, I saw a trailer through the open hanger doors. To my left, I saw what looked like a rocket engine with some tools laying on the floor next to it. ‘Am I back on Earth?’ I thought it couldn’t be Earth because, though I’ve been away for over a year, I don’t remember Earth having pastel, winged ponies, or the world being animated. I took one last look around the hanger to see if I could find the owner of whoever it was that spoke to me earlier. “Hello? Look, I don’t know who you are, but can you please let me out of here? I promise I mean no harm to you or your pet pony.” “Who the fuck are you calling a pet, dipshit?” My eyes nearly popped out of my helmet as I slowly turned my head to the little pony, who was now glaring at me. “D-did you just speak?” I asked, my voice slightly cracking as I asked my question. “No shit, dumbass. So much for intelligent life in space.” My jaw practically dropped when I heard this little pony talk, and with such vulgarness, too. She (at least I think it’s a she if the voice was any clue) circled around the cage I was trapped in and looked me over. “Just what in the hell are you anyway?” She asked as she stopped in front of my cage while keeping some distance, probably so I wouldn’t grab her through the bars. Normally, any sane human in my possession would either A: start to panic like a guy in a shark tank with a bleeding finger, or B: curse out my captors, demanding to be set free while expressing their rights. But given the circumstances and the fact I’m clearly not on Earth anymore, both those options would prove ineffective. Thank God for my training, otherwise I might have been doing the latter. After taking a moment to plan out my next few sentences, I was ready to try and defuse the situation. “Okay, look, we clearly got off the wrong foot/hoof here. I would first like to apologize for my earlier statement. I was expecting you to have the one who was actually talking. Where I come from, animals don’t talk, or at least not with the same level of intelligence as my species. And to answer your question, I am known as a human being.” The mare (which I believe is the correct term for any female equine) stared at me for a few moments without saying a word. It was really strange as I watched this colorful pony just staring at me as she moved her wing, using it like a hand to stroke her chin. And I’m not exaggerating about the wing acting as a hand; she is literally bending the tips of her feather to rub under her chin. It was both impressive and kind of creepy to watch the gears turning in this mare’s head as she examined me some more. “Alright, fuckface.” The mouth on this one. She would make a sailor blush. “I honestly have no idea what I’m gonna do with you. I was just planning on scrapping your space pod over there and selling it. But something tells me that could prove to be more trouble than it’s worth if ponies start asking questions.” “Gee, how considerate of you.” I replied with a hint of sarcasm, making no effort to hide it. She didn’t take too kindly to that as she walked out of my peripheral vision. A moment later, she came back holding a small black rectangle in her wings. I wasn’t sure what it was until one of her feathers pushed a button on the side, making a small current of electricity run at the top. “Is that a taser?” She gave me a cocky grin as she nodded her head. I quickly held up my hands as a sign of defeat. “Shutting up now.” She let go of the button, canceling out the current. “Smart colt. There may be some hope for you yet. So here's the deal, I could A: turn you into the government and probably make a lot of bits. Or option B: you give me a good reason I shouldn’t go with option A.” ‘Well shit. Now what do I do? I’m held captive by an alien species with a high chance of ending up like E.T. Only I get the feeling phoning home isn’t an option she will take.’ I was trying to brainstorm some kind of idea that could help me out of this situation, but given I’m in a cage, all my ideas are pretty much useless. ‘Okay, let’s think for a minute here. From what I can tell, these ponies are highly intelligent, I even dare say on the same scale as humans. She clearly isn’t the kind of mare you want to piss off. She mentioned that selling my space capsule would be more trouble than it’s worth. Meaning that the tech is probably a bit more advanced than this world currently has. I could use this to my advantage.’ As I was trying to think of a good way not to end up on a lab table while some pony doctors dissected my body, I noticed her tapping her front hoof impatiently. ‘Man, she sure is a pushy little pony. But given the bags under her eyes and the bed head, coupled with how she lives in a trailer in no doubt the middle of nowhere, I can safely guess she’s had a rough life.’ And that’s when it hit me. “What if I could help you make your life far better than selling my body?” She quirked her brow and gave me a questionable look. “Go on.” “Okay, so here is the deal. I can offer knowledge from another world, as well as its history. And given how it would seem that my kind is capable of interstellar travel, as evidenced by my space capsule, I could give you some ideas on things you could make from my world and claim them as your own work. This way, you’ll be seen as a genius and possibly make a fortune. And worst-case scenario, if plan B fails, and you can go ahead with plan A. It’s a win-win for you.” She stroked her chin for a few minutes before asking her next question. “Besides not becoming a lab rat, what’s in it for you?” “All I ask is that I’d be given a chance to try and make contact with my own kind.” “What, so you can call them over to take over our world?” “No no, I swear that was never my intention!” I shook my hands in defense. “In fact, quite the opposite really. If my kind knew about other forms of life that were just as sentient as us, they would try and make peace negotiations. And you could be one of the first pony ambassadors, which could bring you fame and glory.” She still seemed skeptical by my proposal. “And how do I know you're not just saying what I want to hear?” ‘She had me there. I had no way to prove what I was saying is the truth.’ I let out a sigh. “You don’t, and I have no way to prove myself. All I can offer you is my word, however much that is worth.” “Not much.” She answered coldly, meaning it's straight to a lab for me. As I was about to give up on any hope for my survival or any chances of seeing my home and family again, the door to my cage opened, causing me to look up at my equine captor. “Let’s get something straight here. If you try to escape or make any funny business, I won’t hesitate to kill you. Whether you're alive or dead, your body will make me some bits. So keep that in mind before you even consider trying anything. And you will be put back in this cage every night. Those are my conditions.” She glared down at me. “Unless you prefer plan A?” I slowly crawled out of the cage, careful not to rip my suit on the way out. Once I was completely outside, I sat up and folded my legs together rather than standing up and risking looking more intimidating. I held out my hand to her. “I agree to the terms of your deal. I’m Orion by the way.” She glanced down at my hand for a while before moving her hoof to my hand. I gently wrapped my fingers around it and gave a brief shake. “Delta.”
Chapter 3Author's Note Hey guys hope you enjoy this chapter. I forgot to mention this for my last two chapters but special thanks to my editor Codex92, please make sure ti check out his stories and follow him. Lastly I want go remind you guys that there is a "science fiction" tag in this story for a reason and you'll see it in this chapter. So remember not ti take it too seriously. Chapter 3 (Delta’s POV) After a few minutes of negotiating with Orion, I allowed him to stay out of the cage under one condition. “Is this really necessary?” He asked while tugging on the makeshift ball and chain I made from a cinder block and rope that I attached to his left leg. “I mean, I already said I wouldn’t run away. Plus, even if I did try, if your species is anything like the ones we have in my world, I’m pretty sure you could outrun me.” “Don’t care, it helps me feel safer. Plus, I don’t know what kind of alien powers you might have.” He snorted at that and I quickly turned to glare at him. “Did I say something fucking funny?!” He cleared his throat, or at least that’s what I think he was doing. It’s hard to tell with his helmet hiding his face. “Sorry, but yeah, that was a funny idea.” I continued to glare at him, showing I wasn’t amused. “Look, if I had ‘alien powers’ as you implied, then wouldn’t I have already used them when you had me locked in that cage? Or at the very least, before you tied this to my leg?” He raises his foot with the makeshift ball and chain. “I mean, come on, I’m not Superman or John Carter.” I quirked a brow as he listed two names I wasn’t familiar with. “Who the hell is ‘Superman’ and ‘John Carter’?” He just rubbed the back of his helmet and let out a sigh. “Right, of course. You wouldn’t get those references. I made a reference that only another human would know, so I guess that one is on me. To make a long story short, they are people who go to another planet and gain powers due to some crap like the gravity being less than earth, or the sun gives them superpowers.” “And that’s happening to you because?” I asked with a bit of confusion. Does he really have superpowers because he’s on our planet? Who’s to say the gravity here isn’t lighter or heavier than his home world. And why would the sun affect whether his species receives power or not? “Because that’s not possible. Hence why it’s only known in fiction and movies. I think the only reason we even came up with characters like that is because our species will never know what it would be like to have such a life. As though we can live vicariously through the character we write about to make up for us not having real powers or magic and stuff.” “…What?” I was a bit surprised by what he just said. “What do you mean ‘what’?” He asked while looking back down at me. Now that he is standing and not sitting down, he was as tall, if not taller, than Princess Celestia herself. “I mean, what do you mean your kind doesn’t have magic?” “I mean that my kind doesn’t have magic. What part of that sentence didn’t make sense? We humans don’t have magic or anything like it in our world. The only time you would ever hear about it is in fantasy, movies, or video games.” He shrugged his, what I’m guessing to be, shoulders. I’m not sure since I’m basing most of his physiology like that of a minotaur. “How in the hell does your world not have any magic?” Again, he shrugged. “Then how does your kind control the weather? And fend off creatures that seek to harm you?” I know I only needed him to get rich and all, but the knowledge of another species and world altogether was surprisingly getting me excited. I can’t actually remember the last time I felt this way before. “To answer your first question, we humans don’t control the weather. At most, we try to predict it, and even then, it’s not completely accurate. Second, we just use or build weapons to defend ourselves. I assume you understand the concept of those since you literally threatened me earlier with a taser.” I was left completely baffled. A whole world without magic with a species who had none to speak of. The idea of such a thing is ludicrous and shocking, I’m not sure what to think. “Okay, now I have a question. Judging by your reactions and questions, you make it seem like magic is part of the norm here. As though it actually exists, and you can use it.” “Because it does exist, and we can use it.” He folded his arms, and I was assuming he was giving me a look behind his helmet that was asking me to prove it. I tried to think of a way I could properly demonstrate magic, but given I wasn’t a unicorn, I didn’t have an easy way to show it. It was only when a shadow passed over us did I get an idea. Looking up, I saw a cloud breezing by. “Wait here.” With that, I unfurled my wings, pushed off the ground, and took to the skies. I flew in a spiral motion upwards till I was at the same level with the cloud. With little to no effort, I grabbed the cloud and made my descent with it in my hooves. Once I was close enough to the ground, I tucked in my wings and landed right in front of Orion, wearing a smug smile with the cloud between us. Once again, with his visor tinted so dark, I couldn’t make out his facial expressions. It was hard to see what he was feeling. Thankfully, his slumped shoulder and the sound of his voice groaning in shock was all the confirmation I needed to show him the proof he wanted to see. He shook his head as I imagined him snapping out of the shocked daze he was most certainly in. “Okay, I’ll ask. HOW?!” He began to circle around the cloud, examining it before looking back to me. “A cloud is simply water vapor! It’s not a solid that you can just grasp with your hooves like it’s a ball of cotton candy!” He moved his hand down to try and touch it, only for his hand to go straight through it. “Nope. I’m drawing the line here.” He threw up his hands as he paced around in a circle. “I’m willing to accept the existence of pastel-colored ponies that can talk, but I am drawing the line at magic!” He plopped down on the ground while folding his legs together, which in my opinion looked very uncomfortable. He let out a sigh while holding his head as he shook it. “Basic training didn’t prepare me for this.” “I’m honestly surprised that the concept of magic existing is where you draw the line. I would have expected you to be screaming like bitch when you realized you were being held captive by an alien life form. And what exactly do you mean by basic training?” He propped his head up with one of his hands while his elbows rested against his legs. “Well, firstly, if we are being technical here, I’m the alien here, since this is not my home and you are part of the native life forms.” I rolled my eyes as I’m starting to get the feeling he was one of those kinds of creatures; the ones who take everything too seriously. “And to answer your other question. Back on my home world of Earth, I had undergone a very long and intensive training session before I was sent off to space. One of those things I was trained for, though it was the shortest session throughout my training, was the possibility of encountering signs of life in space. Of course, the protocol for such a nearly impossible probability would have been for me to not engage and to maintain a safe distance from said life form until it was determined whether or not they were hostile.” He let out another sigh as he shook his head. “But given the circumstances that led me to landing on this planet, I was not given that choice.” “Okay, I’ll bite. What do you mean, ‘You weren’t given a choice to land on this planet?’ I thought you told me that you were out in space trying to find another planet to colonize.” I felt like this whole Q&A was going to take a while, so I hopped onto the cloud to rest on it. “In order for me to properly explain, I’ll have to go back to exactly how I got here.” He decided to lay on his back as he stared up at the clear blue sky. “I’m not sure how long ago it took place, so I’ll just say it happened yesterday at around midnight.” (Orion POV: Before landing on Equis) BEEP BEEP BEEP “Agh I’m up. I’M UP!!” I groaned as I slammed my first down on my alarm clock. I opened my eyes and moved my hand to rub the crust out of them. I checked the time to see it was twelve P.M. Due to the fact there wasn’t really a solar cycle like back on Earth, it didn’t matter when I went to bed. Just so long as I made sure to do my daily routines before the next day starts, I was allowed to do as I please. Stretching out my arms and sighed in relief, I pushed off my bed and ever so slowly landed on the floor. One of the great things about an artificial gravity machine was I was allowed to adjust the gravity to be half the normal amount of Earth’s. Meaning that not only was I not burdened by the weight of my body while sleeping, but I didn’t have to worry about myself or anything else floating around. I yawned as I carefully glided to the door and opened it to perform my daily chores. I currently live on a space station that was named the Ark. I’m not sure if the name was a reference to the bible story of Noah’s ark or some Syfy movie, but I didn’t bother paying it much attention. The Ark was the latest and greatest space station conceived by mankind in the year 2050. It had everything any space traveler would ever need while exploring the vast wonders of space. I floated along the corridor as I made my way to the greenhouse. I smiled as I entered the room, feeling my feet land on the floor. Due to the nature of the plants here in the greenhouse, the gravity was that of Earth’s. “Good morning, everyone. Isn’t it just another beautiful space day?” I asked my friends as I walked into the room after picking up my watering can. “Good to see you up and awake, Nem. You are looking especially vibrant today.” I complimented my neem tree as I poured some water into its soil. “Oh, Hissy, you look like you’ll need a change in soil soon.” I watered my snake plant before moving onto the next one. “Hey, Chris, I see you starting to blossom some flowers. You trying to impress Aloe again?” I teased my Christmas cactus while pointing over to my aloe vera plant. “But seriously dude, I get that being a cactus means you need little water, but you shouldn’t starve yourself to impress the girl.” I stared at Chris, who was giving me the silent treatment. “Ok, ok, I get it. It’s your body. Just don’t come crying to me when you’re thirsty, sheesh.” I went on to water all the other plants and greet them, but before I left the greenhouse to move onto the next one, I took one last look at my Christmas cactus. “I can never read that guy.” Greenhouse 01 and 02 were designed to house a large array of plants, all of which produced a rich amount of oxygen that would circle through the whole station. Any excess oxygen produced was stored away in either containers or flowed into the escape capsules for an emergency. Greenhouse 03 and 04 were the ones that housed all the produce. It’s here that I obtain my main source of food. Before leaving Earth, I was given enough rations to last well over one whole year so long as I watched my diet. However, these two greenhouses were just in the event something should go wrong and I need to rely on them. Much like the oxygen, any excess produce is dehydrated and stored away as to not waste food. I had quite the garden here: tomatoes, corn, carrots, peas, watermelons, strawberries, potatoes, beans, and a few other fruits and vegetables. None of which I named, because why would you give your food a name before eating it? That’s messed up. I would take a few things from here when I didn’t feel like eating liquid peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I still shiver a bit when I think about how nasty astronaut food really is. Even when training, I hated how they made us eat that crap for three whole months straight. Once all the vital parts of the station were checked and working at max efficiency, I moved onto the lounge area where I got to hang out with my three closest buddies. Me, Myself, and of course, I…I’m alone here. When scientists found out that Earth was going to become harder to live on within the next few decades, everyone on Earth got the rudest wake up call. It was so bad that every nation in the world put aside their differences to try and solve the problem. At first, they thought if they could find a way to reduce the pollution and toxic fumes that were being released, it could help give us more time. Too bad the damage was already done and that wouldn’t be enough to save us. So then it was onto plan B: search the universe for a new place to call home. That’s when Project Pioneer was set into motion. The world’s finest scientists, engineers, and so on would get together to begin building multiple Ark space stations. They made it so that each space station could be easily maintained by a single human being. And that’s where I came in. Every country in the world began to search for people who would be able to handle the mission that could very well save the human race from inevitable extinction. The Arks would take a considerable amount of time to be up and running for space travel; ten years, to be exact. It was in those ten years of waiting when my government started to search for candidates to enlist in the program. They were looking for individuals to raise and mold into the perfect astronaut to handle the solitary journey through space. I was one of the few selected for the project, and I was around fifteen when I started training. Over the next decade, I was trained in any and every possibility I may encounter while out in space. I had to learn a lot of things in order to be fully ready. They taught me everything from rocket science to agriculture, to hand to hand combat and survival skills, and coping with being alone for long periods of time without going completely insane. In ten years’ time, they molded m, along with the other chosen few into the perfect pioneers. When the time came to depart, we were hailed as heroes for embarking on this crucial quest. Tears were shed as we all said goodbye to our families and friends. I still get teary-eyed when I think back to how proud my mother and father were of me before I left. After we said our goodbyes, it was time to depart. There were over fifty-seven Ark stations created, and fifty-seven astronauts to pilot alone as they were flying in different directions of Earth. “Hard to believe it’s been a year already.” I mused as I floated over the couch and flipped on the television. “Alright, I’ve got a good twenty minutes before I have to make my daily data log. Now, what to watch.” Before we had all left Earth, our government thought it best that we had as much entertainment as possible so we wouldn’t get bored, so they downloaded a shit-ton of shows, movies, and games into the station to help us stay occupied. This was unfortunately due to the fact that once our stations moved far away enough, we would lose contact with Earth, with the only exception being our data logs that can somehow transmit what we record over to Earth over a period of time. It’s kind of like a phone tag, only you’re the phone leaving the messages and not receiving any…Sounds more like a crappy relationship when I think about it now. “Hmmm, let’s see. Yesterday, I watched all the Harry Potter series, including the Fantastic Beasts trilogy. Hmm. I could watch season ten of The Mandalorian again. I still can’t believe baby Yoda was actually old Yoda, using the force to time travel in order to repeat the cycle all over again. My mind is still blown from that. Hmm... Or maybe I could watch ‘Sharknado 34: Lava Sharks From Mars’. The CGI got so much better after ‘Sharknado 25 - Attack of the Miming Sharks: Silent but Deadly.” I spent a good fifteen minutes searching through shows before realizing it was time to get to recording. “Ugh, might as well get this over with so I can get back to the fun stuff.” I pushed off from the couch and floated over to the communication center. It was here where I would perform my daily data log entry. I’m required to record one of these at least once a day. It is one of the most boring parts of my chores, but once I get it over with, I’m free to do as I please. I started up the monitor and adjusted the camera, waited until my face popped on the screen. “And…we’re live. Hey, everyone, this is Orion checking in. It is officially day 365, and so far, no new sightings of any planets that can support life. Pretty much like it was yesterday.” I let out a sigh as I leaned into my chair and thought of what to say. “Everything is working at max efficiency. Uh, yeah, the garden is producing a good amount of produce. The water collection system is doing its job, so I don’t have to worry about being dehydrated anytime soon.” I chewed on my tongue a bit as I tried to think of something else to say. “Oh, I decided to move some stuff into the space capsule. Mostly food, water, and tools, since Helga would never stop reminding me to always make sure it was fully stocked in case of an emergency.” Helga was one of the other space candidates that I trained with for the program back on Earth. “Heh, I hope she is having better luck than me. Same for Vlad and Shin…I really miss those guys.” I thought back to my days of training with my peers and smiled. “Yeah, those were the good old days.” I looked back to the camera as I continued my data log. “But yeah, so far, everything is in tip-top shape. Only four more years to go before I come back. And I swear, if I come back and you guys tell me that you had already found a planet while I was gone, I’m going to kick the nearest warm body right in the face.” I glared at the screen for a moment before breaking out into a small chuckle. “Ptf, I’m just kidding…well, kinda.” And to finish off my transmission, I do the same thing I always do. “Hey mom, hey dad. I hope you guys are doing okay without me. I know you probably miss me, and dad turned my room into a mancave like he said he would.” Again, I chuckled before continuing. “But yeah, I miss you guys, too. It’s pretty lonely up here in space all by myself. Hell, there’s not even a Starbucks or McDonalds up here. And since they are practically everywhere, you’d think they would have at least two or three in the middle of space, am I right?” I always liked to keep a more positive vibe when I could. Then I remembered something that I neglected to do during my last few transmissions. “I know it’s probably already past, but when you see Hailey, can you-?” Before I could even finish my sentence, the whole station started to shake with the lights flickering. “Son of bitch!!” Then, all the lights in the station started to glow red and an alarm went off. I moved to the nearest window to see what could have caused the massive explosion. To my horror, one of the stars in the distance had gone supernova, and I could see meteors already flying in my direction. I ran to the communications station. “Huston, we have a problem! One of the stars has gone supernova! Taking immediate course of action! Orion signing off!” I moved as fast as I could to the command station to try and steer the ship manually out of harm's way. On the way, I could feel some of the debris from the star slamming into parts of the station, making everything shake. The Ark was designed to handle almost any kind of heavy impact possible in space, but that wasn’t my greatest fear. It’s what happens when a star explodes that makes me terrified. As I reached the cockpit, I moved to the control system to override to manual controls. I had to move as fast as possible before it was too late. I set in the program to fire all main thrusters to get the station away from here as fast as possible. I glanced at the monitors to check the progression of the exploding star, only to feel my face turn pale. I watched in horror as the star began to collapse in on itself, and began to evolve into the worst thing any astronaut would ever want to see in space. “A blackhole.” I knew that it was too late. The station was already too close to escape the pull of such a phenomenon. But just as I was about to give up on any hope, I quickly remembered that this was one of the rare few contingencies that was planned ahead for. It meant leaving everything behind and abandoning the mission, but it was either that or certain death. I pushed out of my seat and moved as fast as my body would move to the escape capsule. The capsule was designed to fire off from the station at mach three speeds in the highly likely chance something like this should happen. Once inside, I would be fired out of the station and to the safest planet while it sent out a distress beacon to signal my rescue. While inside, I can initiate cryosleep until I am rescued. “Now if I could just make it.” The station shook violently as I could only guess another shockwave went off, meaning my time was getting shorter. I had reached the capsule, quickly jumping in and sealing the hatch shut before getting into my seat and buckling up. I leaned back and turned on the monitors, then initiated the launch protocols while putting on my helmet. Once the code was punched, I slammed my fist down on the launch button and felt myself being pushed back into my seat by the force of takeoff. Once I was no longer under the intense G-forces, I moved my hands to start booting up the distress beacon. “Come on, you piece of shit!” I moved my fingers as fast as I could until I saw a green button flick on and start to blink a few times. “Great, now that it’s works, it’s time to set a course for the farthest planet from the-” The capsule violently shook, making me fall back into my seat. I glanced out the window and saw that I was moving backwards…toward the blackhole. “No no no!!” I started to put the thrusters at full blast, hoping to escape the pull. But they were already firing at max capacity. There was no escaping it. Soon, my pod was being pulled back into the blackhole, and I could only watch in horror as I stared into the horizon. “So, this is it? Death by blackhole…?” I closed my eyes and sighed, for it was inevitable. “Well, I had a good run. I never got to go back home and do all the things I wanted to do. Like visiting Manhattan and trying their pizza. Or ever gone on an actual date. But what I regret most is not saying goodbye to-” There was another big explosion and my head was slammed back into my seat, knocking me unconscious. (Orion POV present time) “And then I remember waking up, only to meet you and be knocked unconscious by your flashlight. Bringing us now to this point in time. Any questions now?” I asked as Delta was staring at me with wide eyes while she laid upside down on her cloud. Still not completely used to that yet. She stared at me for a few moments before raising her hoof. “Yeah, I got one. Did you seriously give names to your plants and talked to them?” Though she couldn’t see due to my helmet, one of my eyebrows was twitching while I could almost feel a blood vein popping out. “Are you serious? I just told you about how my race created what may be the most advanced space station in the universe, how I got sucked into a blackhole, and lived mind you, and the only thing you took away from that entire story was me naming and talking to my plants?! Are you fucking kidding me?!” She shrugged her shoulders. I was so angry that I couldn’t help but facepalm. A big mistake I would soon regret as the visor began to crack. “Oh no.” The damage was done as the cracks grew before breaking apart and falling out. I grabbed my throat as I was slowly losing oxygen, falling to the ground while clutching my neck. “Can’t...breathe...” Soon, my vision began to darken as I passed out for the last time.
Chapter 4(Delta POV) I sat on the cloud, watching Orion clutching his throat and gasping…for the last three minutes. I knew he would have been dying from our world’s atmosphere the moment his visor broke, but I wanted to see how long it would take for him to realize he was fine. ‘I wonder if I have enough time to go make some popcorn.’ I continued to watch as he rolled on the ground, clutching his neck like an overly dramatic Canterlot unicorn. ‘Maybe I should help him. He may not have many brain cells left if he keeps this up…Well, assuming he has a brain if he’s acting like this.’ I hopped off the cloud and used my wings to push it up, sending it back to the sky. I walked over to his body and took a moment to consider my action. Even with him struggling around like how he is, I couldn’t see his face. ‘If his anatomy is like a minotaur, then I swing here.’ With a sweep of my hoof, I kicked him right in the groin. The effects were immediate as he sat up and screamed. “AAAAAHHHHHHH!!” He started to roll around the ground in a circle while clutching his groin. He writhed in pain for a good while before sitting up and glaring at me. I was now able to get a look at his face. It was kind of flat compared to a pony’s muzzle, his nose small in comparison. Even his eyes, which were a chocolate brown. And it didn’t look like he had any fur at all. He reminded me of a hairless monkey. “What the fuck was that for!?” He screamed right in my face, causing me to fold back my ears. I quickly shoved him back so he wasn’t in my personal space. “You were gasping like a retarded fish out of water for over three minutes! If the air wasn’t breathable to your kind, you would have already been dead, dumbass!” His scowl quickly disappeared as he cocked his head back before taking a deep breath and letting out a slow exhale. “Huh. Well what do you know? I can breathe properly.” He slowly moved his hands up to grip his helmet and turned it before pulling it off his head, and I could see he wasn’t completely hairless. He had short, light brown hair, a similar color to his eyes. He took another deep breath and repeated this process a few times. “The air here is almost that of Earth’s, but way cleaner. How very interesting.” His smile was brief before he glared at me again. “I still want to know why you hit me in the groin. That hurt like hell, you know.” “Well maybe if you weren’t acting like an overdramatic baby earlier, then I wouldn’t need to.” I rolled my eyes while holding my head. “I mean really, how long would you have kept doing that had I not kicked you?” He turned his head away and sighed. “Ugh, forget it.” He threw his hands up in defeat. “I’m still surprised the thing broke after just from you facepalming.” I added as I looked at some of the broken shards on the floor. “To be fair, it did manage to remain intact after it, along with the rest of my body, got sucked through a blackhole. And need I remind you how it took most of the blow when you hit me with that flashlight last night?” He added some snark with that last part, to which I rolled my eyes. “At least I don’t have to worry about running out of oxygen now. Hell, I wasn’t sure how much reserved air was left in the capsule…” He stopped for a moment before his eyes widened. “Shit, the capsule! I need to go make sure that it’s still worAAHHHH!” Just as he was about to sprint over to his capsule, his feet got tangled up in the rope to his makeshift ball and chain, causing him to fall face first onto the ground. I may or may not have cracked a grin at that as I watch him slowly struggle to get back up. “Ugh. I forgot about this stupid thing.” He stood up and dusted his body before picking up the cinder block with little effort before walking back to the hanger. I had placed his capsule in the corner of the hanger and had it covered with a large tarp in the event I receive any unwanted or unexpected guests. Last thing I want is for somepony coming in and try to steal it or tell somepony else about it. I watched as Orion set down the concrete block before he pulled off the tarp. I’ll be sure to make him put it back on when he’s done. The door was still open when he walked inside, and I opted to just wait outside. It was about a few minutes before he came back out with a metal box and a gloomy look on his face. He pulled the block along to the side of the capsule while carrying the metal box under his arm. He set the box down and opened it, pulling out a few tools, some of which looked similar to what we have here on Equis. He used the tools he pulled out to open a metal hatch that was on the capsule. The door opened in a way that blocked me from seeing what he was doing. “Can I borrow that flashlight from earlier?” He asked in a slightly depressed tone while extending his hand out. I was skeptical about handing him a blunt object, but given he lifted the stone block that I attached to his leg with ease, it didn’t really matter. I went to my workbench to grab my flashlight and gave it to him. “Thanks.” I saw a small amount of light shining onto the floor as he turned it on. For a while, he stood back there doing who knows what, but when I looked at his hand that was holding the door open, I could see it trembling a bit. After a moment, he stepped back, letting me see his face, along with a look of dread. He closed the hatch gently, turned around to lean against the capsule, and slowly slid down till he landed flat on his plot. His head dropped and he clasped his hands together. He stayed like that for well over three minutes before he threw his head back, slamming it into the capsule. “Looks like I’m stuck here forever.” His eyes looked like his life had just been shattered right before him, a look I’m all too familiar with. “The circuits and fuses that connect to both the battery and distress beacon are completely fried.” “So? Can’t you just fix them?” He shook his head in defeat as he looked up to the ceiling. “I would need to replace the parts that were destroyed, and something tells me this planet doesn’t have the parts I need that wouldn’t cost a lot of money. And even if I were to have everything I needed, it would take me well over a month to make them.” “Okay, so you’ll be stuck on Equis for a while. That doesn’t mean you can’t try and get back home.” Again, he shook his head. “It would be too late by then.” Raising his head off the capsule, he quickly slammed it back against it. “If I were able to get the beacon back and running, ‘if’ being the key word there, the deadline would have passed, and command will register me as KIA.” I was surprised by that, but it still didn’t make sense why his home world would do such a thing. “You’re probably wondering why my world would do such a thing, aren’t you?” I honestly felt a bit shocked that he somehow read my mind just now, making me wonder if he could have done that the whole time. “The reason being is, during my last transmission, I mentioned the blackhole that sucked me up. And if command was listening, and I know they were, then they would have initiated code Countdown.” “What’s that?” “In the event one of us has our distress signal cut off at any point or if we don’t do our daily data log transmissions, the command starts a countdown. If we don’t set up our beacon within forty-eight hours, we are considered dead. And because of Earth’s current condition, they can’t afford to take a chance of coming out here to try and find me. So even if I do get the beacon up, they won’t be looking for it by then. Plus, there is the fact that the blackhole might have sent me so far in space that the beacon probably wouldn’t be detected.” His head lowered to rest on his knees as he curled his legs up to sit in a fetal position. For a while, he remained silent and unmoving. I could barely see his chest moving as he breathed. After a while, he took a deep breath and raised his head before standing up and brushing his pants of any dirt. “Well, there’s no point in moping now.” He turned to me with a genuine smile. “So, I believe we made a deal. Since you held up your end by letting me try and call home, it’s my turn to help you now.” I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t caught off guard by his sudden change in attitude. A moment ago, he looked like he was about ready to give up on life, but now here he is with a smile on his face. “Are you bipolar or something?” He cocked his head to the side, looking confused. “Don’t give me that look! You know exactly what I mean! A minute ago, you just found out that you weren’t gonna be able to go home and it looked like your life was ruined! Now here you are, giving me a smile while worrying about holding up our deal!? What the hell!?” I wasn’t sure why this bugged me so much. But I felt something similar to envy just now, and I don’t even know why. “Hmm.” Orion hummed as he moved his hand to hold his chin like he was deep in thought. “Well, what good is it gonna do me to mope? It won’t, honestly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still upset by the whole thing, and I still have some regrets. But at this point, there is no reason to allow that to weigh me down. I’m still alive and well, and though I may have hit rock bottom, that leaves me with one option.” He gave me another smile as he held up a finger and pointed upward. “Because I’ve hit rock bottom, the only other place for me to go is up, and keep on living.” Something about what he said struck a chord with me. I was angry, I was sad, and I was confused. I just sighed and shook my head, “You really are a dumbass, you know that?” I looked back at him, seeing that same smile from before. “Well, since you already tried to phone home, I guess we better see how you’re gonna help me make money like you promised.” He nodded his head, leaned down to pick up the cinderblock, and walked past me. “I am a man of my word, after all. So let’s do a bit of investigating of this world of yours. I want to see how far your species has come in terms of tech. Once I have an accurate idea, then can we get to work.” I was left standing there, still in a bit of a daze by his attitude. I shook my head as I followed behind him. “What have I gotten myself into?”
Chapter 5(Delta POV) I quickly trotted till I was walking alongside Orion as he was stroking his chin in thought. I was still somewhat irked how he seemed to brush off the fact that he is now stranded here on Equis and with me keeping him as a slave. I didn’t mean for it to come off like that, but looking back on my choice of words, it seemed that way now. But that aside, I couldn’t understand this guy at all. He lands on an alien planet, gets knocked out by me, and is given the choice to be a slave or a lab experiment. All while maintaining a calm demeanor, to which he responds with, “I’ve been trained for stuff like this.” How could any creature just expect that? And that brings us back to how he willingly accepted the fact that he will never see his home again. His whole life ruined in seconds, and all he can think about now is holding up his end of the deal; a deal he was forced to accept. ‘Why does this piss me off so much anyway?’ I needed an answer. “Okay, that’s it.” He turned to look at me with a confused look. “How are you okay with any of this?” I asked with a hint of frustration. “You just found out that you're stranded here with no means of going home or seeing your family again. Literally everything you had was ripped away from you, leaving you with nothing.” As I spoke, my voice began to sound angrier for some reason. “You’ve lost your home, your family, your future, everything has been stolen from you! And yet you brush it off like it’s no big deal, all with a smile on your face!” My heart started to beat faster as I started to scream. “Tell me why!” Once I had finished screaming at him, I was huffing and breathing heavier. I glared at him waiting for my answer that I needed to know for some reason, but I wasn’t sure why. He didn’t say anything at first. All he did was stare at me as I huffed and puffed. But for a moment, his eyes had a look on them, like he was feeling sorry for me. Or maybe it was something else. It was so brief, I couldn’t recognize it. He took a deep breath and rubbed the back of his head while he hummed for a moment. “What else am I supposed to do?” He asked in a calm tone while giving me a neutral look. “What good does sitting around and moping do for me?” I was taken aback when he answered my question with one of his own. “Most of what you said was true. I lost pretty much everything: my friends, the world I called home, and my family.” His lips slowly curled into a warm smile as he held up one of his fingers. “But there is one thing you were wrong about; something I didn’t lose.” “A-and what’s that?” Why was I scared to hear his answer, all of a sudden? With a bigger smile, he answered. “My future.” I had nothing to say. I just stood there, baffled by what he said. How can he say that he still has that? “Don’t get me wrong, I’m still depressed about not being able to go home or see my family. But feeling sorry for myself, wallowing in self-pity, and disappearing won’t get me anything. All that will really do is drag me down as I try to pick up the pieces of my life. And that whole part about having lost my future, yeah, that’s where you're wrong.” He moved one of his hands over his chest and took a deep breath. “So long as I’m still breathing and can see tomorrow, I still have a future. It’s only when one has truly given up on moving forward does their future no longer exist.” He smiled and looked to the sky, which was nice and clear now. “I know if my parents were here, they would tell me to keep on living and to try to make the best of what I can.” ‘How? How can he be like this?’ I asked myself as I looked down at the ground beneath my hooves. ‘He went through almost the same thing I did, if not worse. And yet, somehow, he can stay calm.’ The more I thought about it, the more I felt confused. He talks about having a future despite all that has happened, or the fact that he’s not as free as he believes to be. “You really think you have a future here?” I asked as I looked back at him, and in turn, he looked back to me. “Did you forget about how you’re the only one of your species here? You are quite literally alone in this world. And you're stuck with me basically as my slave. If you were to leave here, there is no guarantee you won't be captured and sent to a lab to be put into a cage and experimented on.” Why am I trying to put him down? Why do I feel the need to remind him of his position here? “How can you still be okay with wanting to help me when I’ve given you no other choice? Don’t you hate me? Aren’t you angry that you are being forced to stay here as some kind of work monkey?” He just stood there, unmoving, staring at me like a deer in headlights. That was only for a moment before he stepped closer to me and kneeled down in front of me. It was really intimidating how he stared at me with those brown eyes of his, like the eyes that belonged to some kind of predatory beast. When he raised his hand up to me, I flinched and closed my eyes, thinking he was going to strike me. Instead, I felt it lightly rub the top of my head, lightly ruffling my mane. When I opened my eyes, I could see that same warm smile from earlier. “You and I both know you don’t see me as a slave. If you did, you wouldn’t have given me a chance to call home, or let me out of the cage you put me in, which you only did out of self-defense since you didn’t know if I was friendly or not.” His fingers lightly dug into my scalp as he gently started to scratch it. I hate to admit it felt pretty damn good. “As for your crude demeanor and foul language, I’ll chalk it up to the rough life you’ve had so far.” My eyes shot wide open as he said that. How could he have known I had a rough life? I never once talked about that since he’s woken up. “H-how?” The corner of his lips dropped for only a split second, but I definitely saw it as he tried to play it off with a cough into his hand after taking it off my head. “I’ve been around the block long enough to see all the signs.” He stood back up and stretched his arms out, letting out a satisfied sigh. “Now back to why I want to help you. It’s really more of a sense of self-preservation, really. Seeing as you’ll be my current caretaker here, by making your life easier, I’d be doing the same thing for myself. Similar to when a child helps pay the rent with their parents, it helps ease the stress of living for not just the parents, but for the child as well.” He twists and turns his upper body in a series of stretches, getting a few bones to pop. “So in order for me to make my time living here better, I need to help improve your own. It’s what’s known as a symbiotic relationship. We both help each other in order to get ahead in life.” He rolled his arms around in circles before finally cracking his fingers. “Does that answer all of your questions, or did you have some more to ask?” When I didn’t say anything, he just shrugged. “Okay then. Now, in order for me to help you out, I’ll need to know more about this world. More specifically about its technological advancements.” I only had one thing to say at this point. “You are so fucking weird.” (Orion POV) After our deep conversation, Delta went back to being her slightly grouchy self, which I had no problems with. We then talked about this world's technology and how advanced it is. Turns out it’s not that far behind Earth’s. They had rockets that could go into space, but have yet to land on the moon due to, and I’m quoting what Delta told me, “Because the princess said not to.” Yeah, I’m not sure why, and neither does anyone, or as Delta would correct me, “anypony'' else knows why the princess forbids it. Other than that, they were slightly behind in some other things. They had video games, but the most advanced games were still pixelated, and they didn’t have cell phones yet. They also have guns, which Delta had and showed one to me, leaving me confused since theirs are designed just like the ones back home. How do they even pull the trigger, let alone hold them up without fingers? I’ll worry about that later. They also have cars, which weren’t as advanced as our own, but they weren’t as ancient as the ones from the 1800s, they were like the cars from the early 2000s. They do have the internet, so that would be a great help. If Delta had a computer, that is. I got a general idea of her financial state when I looked around the place she called home. ‘I’ve got my work cut out for me.’ “Okay, so we need to make something that is sure to bring in a lot of money, but given the lack of resources we have, we can’t go into anything too complicated.” I paced around the middle of the junkyard while not moving too far from the cinderblock I was attached to. Delta told me that she got by from selling junk that would be dumped around here. This wasn’t the main junkyard, apparently, and that was a few miles away from here. That’s where she goes to get most of the stuff to sell, meaning we had access to some kinds of resources. The only problem I had now was trying to figure out what to make. The last thing I need is for us to try and pitch an item that someo- er, somepony has already made. And without access to the internet, I couldn’t look up more information on this world, which meant my only source of information was Delta. ‘Let’s think. What kind of item to make? It has to be something that will not only increase our cash flow, but also her reputation as well. The more she is well known, the more ponies will take her seriously and pay her more attention when she is trying to sell something.’ I remembered the advice my friend Shin would give me in times like this. I sat down, folded my legs, and took a moment to meditate and clear my mind. ‘This world seems to hold some similarities to Earth in both technology and a bit in politics. Both of which are crucial for what I should aim to make.’ I then remembered the gun Delta showed me. ‘They also have a form of military as well, so that could be another deciding factor as well.’ That’s when it hit me. Something that was used on my world for both military purposes and for fun. I turned to Delta with a smile. “Hey, Delta, do you guys have drones on this planet?” She quirked her brow, which was a good sign in my opinion. “Like the kind of bees?” That only solidified my theory. “I’m gonna need a piece of paper and a pencil to make a list of things I’m gonna need you to find.” She wasn’t keen on me giving her orders, but after a moment, she walked into her trailer and came back out with the stuff I asked for. Taking into account the stuff I know about this world, I was able to make my list. I handed her the list once I was finished and she looked at me with a skeptical look. “What are you gonna make with all this?” “It’d be easier for me to explain once I finally finished making it.” She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Whatever. Now,, I want you to go back into your cage until I get back.” I couldn’t help but groan. “Really? After the emotional bonding we just did?” She grunted and huffed. “First off, we didn’t do any ‘emotional bonding’ like you say.” She used her wings to act as fingers to make air quotes. “I was having a moment of weakness and you were my emotional punching bag to vent to. That’s it. Second, I don’t trust you not to try and run away, so it’s the cage whenever I’m gone or at night.” She pointed for me to go back into the hanger where my cage was. I groaned, seeing as there was no changing her mind. “Ugh, fine. But could you at least leave me something to read while you're gone? Boredom can be hazardous to my health, you know. And you wouldn’t want that, would you?” I playfully bat my eyelashes, trying to look innocent. She glared at me before marching into her trailer. I could hear her moving stuff around before something came flying out the door slamming into me, and boy was it heavy. “Here, now get back to the cage.” When I looked down at what she threw at me, I saw it was a large book with the words “Equestrian History” written on the front, causing me groan. “Ugh, a history book? Really? Don’t you have any magazines or something with pictures to read?” “CAGE, NOW!!” She screamed as she pulled out the taser. “Alright, I’m going!” I scurried onto my feet with the heavy ass book in my arms as I ran to my cage. “Would it have killed her to say please?”
