Adaptation
Prologue
A large creaking sound rang through a large, dark hallway followed by a rounded room with a large pedestal in the middle.
The roof of the room was decorated with red and black wires that sparked with electricity. Four round prongs rested on top of the pedestal, which was held up by three heavy-duty steel ropes that were attached to the sides of the spherical room.
The sides of the hallways began lighting up and glowing a lime green color. A pulse of electricity surged down the hall and entered the room in a flash. The steel ropes began to conduct the high voltage, causing the pedestal to light up. A trap door opened up from the side of the pedestal with a deafening screech of metal rubbing, and a container-like object emerged, connected to a fibrous arm that slowly made it’s way down to the four prongs connected to the dimly glowing pedestal. The “container” hovered over one of the prongs and suddenly shot out a hollowed, cylindrical object with a transparent ring around it that connected directly to the prong. The ring that was holding the cylinder began to glow a whitish color. The mechanical arm repeated the process until all four prongs were occupied. The arm shrunk back into it’s holding immediately after.
All of a sudden, a voice started booming through the room. A man was speaking through an intercom and began giving orders.
“Send in a subject from EQ-13. Make it a male.” The voice commanded.
Out of nowhere, two doors swung open from the luminescent, green hallway. A large, round and translucent capsule floated out and stopped in the middle of the hallway. As the two doors closed behind it, another trapdoor opened above it and the capsule disappeared into the opening.
“They’re sending another human”, exclaimed an Earth Pony to a Pegasus as a man was audible from the other room, screaming and pleading. The Earth Pony had a bright-yellow coat and an orange mane. On his flank, he had two pencils crossing each other with a piece of paper in the middle.
“That’s the fifth one today… What is happening behind these walls, Sketch?” The Pegasus pony said, flapping her wings in unease. She had a messy, purple mane and light blue fur. Her cutie mark was a hurricane’s eye.
“I’m not sure, Whirlwind, but we’re gunna get outta here one way or another.” Replied Sketch, determined to get answers from somepony… hopefully.
A buzzing sound rang through the containment room and red lights started flashing.
“Oh, no.” Whirlwind cringed and curled herself into a ball.
Nearly every other pony did the same.
Sketch squinted at the red lights, flashing on and off, until he turned his attention towards the roof of their containment room opening slowly and a transportation capsule entering the fear-filled room. The capsule’s data scanner buzzed and formed a beam from one side of the room and slowly moved its way to the other side. The capsule hovered towards the motionless, bright yellow Earth Pony.
Sketch sighed. “I guess this is it, Whirlwind. It’s my time to go now.”
The capsule opened up and a claw emerged, gripping Sketch’s waist.
“NO! Don’t take him!” Whirlwind stood up, trying to grab Sketch’s hoof. “DON’T TAKE HIM!!” She shrieked, tears flowing down her cheeks.
Sketch closed his eyes tightly, not wanting to see Whirlwind in devastation. The capsule soon had him in full embrace, and closing the hatch. Sketch could no longer hear screaming and hollering, but as he opened his eyes, he began floating further from his partner and everything began fading. He was not unconscious, but he let himself imagine he was, eyes closed once again, drifting away from reality, hoping it would all go away.
Sketch was all of a sudden jolted forwards a bit, assuming that the capsule had stopped forward motion. He prepared himself for the worst, as the capsule’s insides began buzzing and creaking, while playing smooth jazz music. The bottom opened, dropping the suspecting pony on top of the pedestal, each leg in a cylindrical slot.
“What the hell…?” Sketch looked around the spherical room, obviously puzzled.
The sound of an intercom turning on instantly had every muscle in his body tense up. Static rang through the room until another being started to speak, this time, a woman.
“Welcome to the Multi-Race Research Facility.” The woman said in a soft, but quite icy tone.
“For safety protocol, you will be gassed with a paralysis drug so you will refrain from making any unwanted actions upon this facility. Do not worry, for this drug will be ineffective within the next twenty-four hours.”
The chamber opened vents, releasing the drug into the air. As Sketch started to breath in the foul, contaminated air, his muscles began to seize up and his bones joints became frozen. Sketch grunted in pain as the drug slowly spread through his system.
Once Sketch could move nothing but head and vital organs, the vents sunk back into their sockets.
“Safety protocol complete.” The woman said.
“Wh… What do you want from me…?” Sketch muttered, ready to give up.
“Many answers are classified for the sake of everyone in this facility. However, I will be able to fill you in on the basics now.” The woman said, in the same tone every time she spoke.
“Our purpose at the Multi-Race Research Facility, or M.R.R.F for short, is to have our test subjects will be given codenames and are to document and log your time on a different world. Your codename will be Sierra. Test subjects will be wearing our specialized suits for protection and finishing certain objectives. I will be your suit manager, you may call me Teresa.”
Two claws came from the sides of the room, each with a half of the suit and ready to place it on Sketch.
Teresa continued. “You will be doing a 60-day course on that planet to obtain and log your experiences on that planet.”
The two halves of the suit attached themselves onto Sketch and a helmet was unfolded out from the suit, which was soon placed on him.
Sketch was still confused. “What do I do after? I mean, after I’m done 60 days?”
“Well, I’m glad you asked!” Teresa said joyfully. “You will be terminating the planet and coming back to do more testing on other planets with signs of intelligent life.”
Sketch made a face with a mix of shock and disgust underneath his helmet. “Why are you telling me this? Aren’t you afraid that I’ll go rogue?”
Teresa giggled. “Because the only thing you’ll remember is your codename, and I, being inside the general system of your suit. It’s time to go to sleep now, Sierra.
The suit injected Sketch with a knockout drug, causing him to go unconscious instantly. The prongs disappeared from the pedestal, and instantly folded inwards, dropping the yellow pony into a course headed for a distant planet.
Chapter 1
(short chapter, sorry)
Fireworks flew into the sky and popped as a group of mesmerized ponies witnessed below, oohing and aahing, just by the dark, Everfree Forest. Each firework ended into a flash of colors, followed by slight haze, which occupied the skies and the space above the dark forest.
A lavender unicorn mare sat on a small picnic blanket, watching as each firework dispersed into dozens of pieces in mid-air. On her flank was a star, pointing in six separate directions along with five smaller stars surrounding it.
As she was proceeding to take a bite our of a daffodil sandwich, she was interrupted by an abnormal jolt in the ground, then another and then another, each jolt becoming more vigorous.
“Twilight!”, A high pitched voice called out.
The lavender unicorn began scanning the perimeter, trying to find out the source of the voice and the miniature earthquakes, until her search stopped at a pink pony, with fluffy hair bouncing and a giant grin on her face. The pink pony had an extremely large backpack, filled with who knows what and she was heading straight for Twilight. By the looks of it, she had no intention of slowing down, but instead, was speeding up.
Panicking, Twilight quickly tried evasive maneuvers, but by the time she stood up, the pink, bouncing pony collided with her, sending both of them rolling in a big heaping mess of purple, pink and party equipment.
The flurry of mixed objects and emotions stopped right in front of a yellow Pegasus mare with neat, pink hair. She cringed, hoping she wouldn’t be part of the mess she just witnessed.
Twilight pushed herself away from the still energetic pink pony. “Pinkie Pie, what the hay?!” She shouted, dusting herself off. The yellow Pegasus cringed further.
Pinkie hopped back up, ignoring the verbal lashings. She looked over to see the frightened Pegasus, shivering in a little ball.
“Look at watcha done now, Twilight. You made Fluttershy all shivery and scared…” Pinkie frowned at Twilight, signaling that she wants her to apologize.
Twilight rolled her eyes and walked towards Fluttershy, showing her a weak grin. She opened her mouth to speak, but a pony interrupted her, an orange farm mare to be exact, trying to get her attention.
Twilight sighed with exasperation as she turned around to see the mare on top of a small hill. “Twi! Y’gotta come see this!” The mare shouted.
“Yeah! Applejack wants you to see something!” Pinkie Pie repeated. Somehow she had disappeared from Twilight’s side and reappeared by Applejack.
Twilight began trotting her way to the orange farm pony, Fluttershy following. As the reached the top of the hill, she peered down the other side to see two other mares watching the sky. One was a Pegasus had a cyan coat of fur with short rainbow hair. The other was a unicorn that was a bright aqua color with neat and curled hair.
“Alright, Applejack. What do you want me to see?” Twilight asked.
“Look at that.” Applejack said uneasily, pointing at the firework filled skies.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Applejack, those are fireworks. Nothing unusual here.”
The rainbow Pegasus spoke up. “Oh really, Twilight? Then how do you explain that?
She raised her hoof at a peculiar red dot in the sky. Twilight squinted at the red dot, noticing it was not one of the stars, nor a delayed firework, but something different. Something that gave Twilight a sick feeling in her stomach. Upon further examination, she noticed that the dot began to grow larger by the minute.
“Twi, what is that… Thing up there?” Applejack asked, still uneasy about the situation.
“Is it an asteroid that is going to send us all to oblivion?!” The other unicorn asked, who was on the edge of fainting.
“Don’t be so scared, Rarity. Whatever that thing is, I could probably take it down, all by myself.” The rainbow one said, her cockiness annoying Rarity.
“Darling Rainbow Dash,” Rarity began, “If that thing were to be even a bit larger than you, it would have the highest probability of winning this fight.” She explained mischievously.
Breaking up the arguments, Fluttershy spoke up. “…W-well Twilight? W-what is t-that… thing?”
“Well, I can’t say for sure what it is, but something tells me… This isn’t an asteroid or some space rock that’s going to crash into us.”
Pinkie Pie looked baffled. “Whaddaya mean, Twi?”
“I think that this is worse. Whatever is up there, it’s going to do a hay of a lot more destruction than anything we’ve seen.”
“How in the hay do you know that?” Applejack retorted.
Twilight closed her eyes in fear. “Because I felt a more subtle feeling when Discord, God of Chaos, began to roam free in Equestria.”
