Second Sun

Silver was led by Fluttershy through a couple of empty corridors and hallways until they eventually made it to the elevator. As they entered, Fluttershy pushed a button that would lead down to the hangar and they soon began their descent. As the elevator traveled down, Silver and Fluttershy just stood there. After a few seconds of silence, Silver finally decided to try and start a conversation. “So, how have you been?” It wasn’t the best question to ask at the moment, given the situation, but it was a start.

Fluttershy glanced at him for a quick second. “Oh, um, I-I’ve been alright, I suppose.” She quickly turned back around. The rest of the elevator ride could only be described as awkward. Every time Silver tried to talk to her, she would always either give one-word answers or not even respond at all. By the 8th time Silver tried to get her to at least say something, he sighed in defeat and gave up. He had only his thoughts to keep him company now.

‘What was I even thinking? I’ve always wanted to pilot a strider but not like this. Not when the whole ship is at stake.’ Fear began to take hold of Silver. To go out in the strider with no proper training or knowledge of the situation, it began to not sit well with him. He began to think of little scenarios in his head. One thought was that everyone would praise him as a hero for what he did. Another was that he became too careless and got himself. After that, he immediately tried to not think at all. Fluttershy took notice of how worried Silver had become. “I-I’m scared too, you know.”

Silver looked towards her, surprised that she finally said something. “Yeah, but you have nothing to worry about. I’m the one that has to actually go out there. I’m the one that has to fight. And if I fail, you and everyone else on this ship would die because of me.”

“But, isn’t that why you volunteered in the first place? To protect everyone when no one else would?” she asked. “I-I mean, that’s what you told that other girl.”

“Yeah,” he uttered. Silver realized that she had a point. If he had volunteered to pilot the strider only to back out almost instantly, than all of this would have clearly been for nothing. “I’m sorry. It’s just, I’m just a little on edge, that’s all.”

Fluttershy took notice of the elevator’s position. The elevator came to stop and emitted a ‘ding’ sound. Its doors opened to reveal the hangar bay, a huge area showcasing the gigantic robot that Silver would be soon piloting. “Ah,” Fluttershy said. “We’re here.”

Episode 2
Test Drive

Fluttershy and Silver both stepped out of the elevator as it closed behind them. Silver leaned over the catwalks he was walking on and looked down at the floor. He certainly didn’t want to slip and fall here. He continued to look around the hangar. Engineers were running around, putting the finishing touches on the strider. Silver stared in amazement at the robotic behemoth before him. For him, it truly was a spectacle to behold. It wore blue and red armor, with a V-shaped visor for eyes. It also had a cockpit resembling that of a fighter jet, pointing out of the strider’s chest and a ladder next to it. He noticed something odd however. This strider was…different. Its right arm wasn’t even an arm at all. It was more of a cannon of some sort. It seemed more advanced than the other ones he’s seen before.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Silver jumped when he heard a certain voice from his left. He quickly turned around to notice the captain standing right next to him. Silver couldn’t stand straight and had a lump in his throat. The captain was standing right there. Right next to him. He tried to not make a complete fool of himself, but most of the time he stammered when trying to speak. “You can return to your post now, Fluttershy. I’ll handle it from here.” Twilight said. Fluttershy nodded and went back towards the elevator. Twilight held out her hand, a purple aura forming around it. A file detailing Silver levitated towards her hand. She grabbed it and began to read it out loud.

“Name: Silver Wash. Age: 19. Hair: Silver. Eyes: Blue. Wings or Magic? Wings. Height: 5”9. Weight: 170 lbs. Occupation: Janitor. No known criminal record before or after Day of Departure.”

“I do tend to keep myself out of trouble.” Silver said, rubbing the back of his neck. Twilight glanced at him. “Sorry.”

Twilight put the file down and stared towards the strider. “Do you know what this is?”

“No, can’t say I do.” Silver tried his best to look as unknowing as he could. He couldn’t let them know about Vinyl’s snooping and his knowledge of something as top secret as this.

“You’re staring at Strider Model EC-032. Designation: Poseidon. Class R. The first of its kind.”

Silver continued to stare in amazement. He clearly wasn’t ready for something like this, yet he was going to pilot it anyway. If it weren’t for a pirate attack, this would’ve been the best day of his life. Before he could completely fall in love with it, everything shook again. Everyone grabbed on to the railings, desperately trying to keep their balance and not falling over to their deaths.

“Ugh,” Twilight groaned, “They don’t give up, do they?” She turned back towards Silver. “Alright, listen up. We need this ship defended long enough for the warp to activate. We only need a few more minutes so it shouldn’t be much longer.”

“Wait,” said Silver. “Why can’t you just activate them now?”

“Because somebody thought it was a good idea to have a ‘We Finished Construction on the Second Sun’ party and got cake frosting and ice cream all over the warp drive.”

All of a sudden, a pink-haired engineer in a grey jumpsuit appeared seemingly out of thin air. “Oh, come on, Twilight. It didn’t take that long to get out.”

“It took 5 agonizing weeks, Pinkie.”

Pinkie shrugged her shoulders. “Sorry.” She noticed Silver next to Twilight and suddenly gasped. She rushed over and shook his hand violently, causing Silver to shake as well. “Hi! My name’s Pinkie, what’s yours?”

Silver had no idea what was going on. First, the ship he lives in is getting attacked and now a hyperactive poofy haired girl was ecstatic to meet him. “Uh, My name’s Silver Wash.”

Pinkie gasped again, this time for much longer than the last.

“ohmygoshsilverwashareyoulikesomekindofjanitororsomethingcauseonetimeiknewthisonejanitorithinkhisnamewasestabanorsomethinghewasreallyoldandsmellybuthewaskindanicesoanywayonedayiofferedhimacupcakeandheateitandheslikeohnoesimallergictocupcakesandimlikeohjanitorguyyouresosillyandthenhe-“

Pinkie’s rant was suddenly cut off by Twilight. “Pinkie! I know how excited you get around new people, but now isn’t the time.” Twilight turned back towards Silver. “Are you ready to begin?”

Silver’s palms became sweaty, his thoughts and worries racing. He swallowed his fear the best he could and was able to issue his response. “I’m ready.”

The voice of Rainbow Dash suddenly buzzed in Twilight’s ear. “Twilight! We kind of need help out here! There’s too many of them!”

“Hang in there, Rainbow. I just sent out another. He’s on his way.”

“Another? You don’t mean…”

“Just hang on a little longer.” She tapped her ear, hanging up on Rainbow. She looked at Silver once more. ”Here, you’ll need this.” She held out her hand to reveal an earpiece. “It’s for communications.” Silver took the object and placed it inside his own ear. “Good luck. We’re counting on you.”

Twilight’s words somewhat brought back some confidence in Silver, if only by a little. He began making his way towards the cockpit of the strider. His heartbeat went faster and faster, pounding at his chest. By the time he made it to the ladder, it was ready to explode. He got in the seat and took a look at the controls. “Only two joysticks?” he asked.

“Is that a bad thing?” Twilight asked.

“Well, no. It’s just…I’d thought the controls for a giant robot would be a bit more complex.”

Sitting in the cockpit was extremely comfortable due to the leather seat, and the smell was rather metallic, which would take some getting used to. He also noticed a few other things. A few buttons here and there, and a seat ejector between his legs underneath. In an instant, everything lit up. The window above him began to lower and seal Silver in, making the cockpit a bit more cramped than before but nothing he couldn’t handle. As the window finally lowered, the catwalks began to separate, clearing the way for Poseidon. The wall in front of him began to separate as well, a blue force field keeping everyone from getting sucked out into the cold reaches of space.

“You might wanna hang on for this next bit.” Pinkie said.

“Wait, whaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!” Just like that, Poseidon was shot out into space the same way someone would be kicked out of a bar. The wall behind him had closed, as he simply floated through the stars. Explosions were all around him with plasma fire whizzing by. Silver caught his breath after the sudden maneuver and grabbed hold of the controls. Silver looked around and counted 6 battleships, more than he thought there would be. He pulled the left joystick back, causing Poseidon to fly backwards toward the ship. ‘This might be easier than I thought.’ It did seem rather simple enough. In time he learned that left joystick caused the strider to move and strafe while the right joystick made it change directions.

He noticed a trigger on each control column with a few extra buttons on the right. He had no idea what those were for but he had a feeling he’d soon find out. Right now, he had to keep moving, dodging anything that might potentially kill him. An unrecognizable voice that sounded much like a young man began to speak. “Twilight! Is that what I think it is?”

“It’s your support, Spike,” said Twilight. “Now keep holding them off. We’re at 86%. It shouldn’t be long now.” Another unrecognizable voice was heard, this time it was female. “Well, let’s hope this guy knows what he’s doing.”

Truth is, Silver had no idea what he was doing. He just stood there most of the time doing absolutely nothing. He kept flying around, avoiding any potential dangers. Pinkie’s voice rang in. “Hey! Come on, dude! Shoot some bad guys!”

“Um, okay. How do I do that, exactly?”

“You see that little nub on the right joystick?”

“Y-yeah?”

“Use that to aim, center in on the target, and pull the trigger.”

Silver placed his thumb on said nub and moved it around a bit. He noticed a green circle that popped up and moved around in front of him. He took aim at one of the ships and tapped the trigger. A few plasma bursts shot out of Poseidon’s cannon and hit the ship, doing nothing. A strider wearing rainbow colored armor and a pair of mechanical wings on its back flew up to Poseidon. “Really? Shoot the striders, you moron!” said the unknown female.

Another strider, this time wearing purple and green armor with a tail and spikes running along the back, flew up to him as well. “Hey, ease up on him, Rainbow,” said the unknown male. “He’s new to this sort of thing.”

“Our lives are at stake, Spike, and you want me to ease up on the new guy?” she yelled.

Spike’s voice lowered, “It was just a suggestion.”

Rainbow groaned as her strider flew away to deal with more enemies. Spike’s strider waved towards Poseidon. “Hey,” Spike said. “Follow me. Let’s take care of a few of these guys.” Poseidon followed Spike’s strider towards one of the other battleships. As one pirate strider flew up to Spike, his strider grabbed the pirate with both hands and ripped it in half. He dropped one and threw the other half towards another pirate strider causing an explosion. Silver was impressed and terrified of Spike at the same time.

“Woah.” Silver didn’t really have much to say after that little demonstration.

“Cool, huh? It’s one of the main things I like about Ares. He's one of those berserker types. ” Ares then pointed out to 3 other striders. “Look out, dude. Here come some more.” Silver became terrified as the pirates moved closer and closer. He moved the crosshair everywhere, desperately trying to regain control of his trembling hand. As soon as he saw the circle center in on one of them for a split second, he pulled the trigger. The pirate’s head was blown clean off as the rest of the body just floated away. Ares moved ahead, grabbed the other two, and slammed both of their heads together.

Silver remained silent when their little quarrel was finished. He breathed heavily as his heart began pounding harder and harder. He had just taken a life and he wasn’t taking it well.

“You okay?” Spike asked.

Silver swallowed. “Y-y-yeah. I’m alright.”

“Well, come on. We’re not out of the woods just yet.” As Ares flew away, Poseidon followed. Silver was still shaken. He vowed he wouldn’t let his fear of death get in the way, but he felt as though he had betrayed that promise.

‘You’re doing well. You’re helping to protect these people. That’s got to count for something, right?’ he thought. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for him to keep moving as he continued following Ares.

“Rainbow,” said Spike. “How are things on your end?”

“A little busy over here.” Rainbow’s strider could be seen flying around, a couple of pirates trailing right behind her. She flew around left to right, dodging all of the heavy fire being thrown at her. She turned over and aimed the minigun attached to her right arm. It began to spin, and later fired a rain of plasma toward the group of pirates, hitting and disabling them. Suddenly the minigun had overheated once she had finished the others off. “Oh come on, not now!” She hit her gun repeatedly.

“You have to give that thing a break,” Spike laughed.

“Oh thanks, Spike. I’ll remember that the next time I get chased by a bunch of bad guys that are shooting at me.”

“I’m just sayin’”

Rainbow’s strider, the Artemis, turned towards Poseidon. “Where did Twilight find this guy?”

“Can we worry about that later? We’ve got bad guys, 12 o’ clock.” Ares pointed towards yet another group of pirates, about 6, headed straight for them, planning to attack head on. Artemis boosted on ahead towards two of them, and whacked one away with her minigun. She took the other one by the head and slammed it on her knee. Ares grabbed one pirate with two hands and held it over his head. He then tore it in two and kept hold of the remaining upper torso by the arm and repeatedly bashed it with another pirate until it was nothing but a pile of junk.

Poseidon meanwhile was frantically shooting blindly without even hitting a single target. As he desperately tried to aim correctly, he suddenly remembered the trigger on the left joystick, for he still had no idea what that did. When he pulled the left trigger, a blade immediately shot out of Poseidon’s left arm. He pulled the trigger again which caused Poseidon to swing his left arm which luckily sliced one of the pirates that had lunged straight towards him.

Twilight remained in her chair, watching the events unfolded outside. “He’s doing it,” she said. “I can’t believe he’s actually doing it.”

Applejack stood beside her. “He may be of some actual use for us. But, should we even hire him? He doesn’t look like he’s a part of the crew.” Applejack put her hand over her chin and started to ponder. “Ya know Fluttershy could’ve gotten Thunderlane or maybe even Spitfire. But instead, she brings this kid. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight said. “But whatever it is, I feel like I can trust this guy. He’ll suffice.”

“The warp engines are ready, captain! I can set a course for a less pirate infested sector.” Rarity announced.

Twilight got up from her chair. “Alright, you three, fall back! We’re getting out of here!”

“Well, it’s about time!” Spike said. Artemis, Ares, and Poseidon all began to fly back towards the ship until suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, one pirate managed to pounce on Poseidon and slam him on the side of the ship. The pirate began bashing Poseidon in the head causing Silver to close his eyes and brace himself by holding on the joysticks, unaware that he was holding down the right trigger causing the cannon to start humming. Poseidon tried to push away the attacker, his cannon up against the pirate’s chest, but the strider had an extremely good grip on Silver’s robot.

“Help! Please!” He cried, the cannon humming even louder. Rainbow thankfully took notice. “Ugh,” she groaned. “Hold on!” Rainbow made up to the two and grabbed the pilot and pulled the pirate away. Without a moment’s notice, a bright beam shot out of Poseidon’s cannon. Rainbow managed to dodge the beam in the nick of time and watched as the beam blew a hole through the pirate and take out a chunk of the pirate’s armor. The beam continued until it came in contact with one of the battleships, completely obliterating it. As the beam vanished, the battleship went down in flames hitting another ship causing a huge, bright explosion.

Everything went silent. The explosions and crossfire stopped as debris and pieces of pirate striders floated around. The remaining 3 battleships began to turn away from The Second Sun and warped out of the temporary battlefield. “What just happened?” Rainbow asked.

“They ran,” Spike said, astonished by what had happened. He turned towards Poseidon. “How did you do even do that?”

“I-I-I don’t know. It just…happened.” Silver was speechless. So was everyone else who had seen what he had accomplished.

“Ok, you guys, head on back. We’re about to warp,” said Twilight. They flew back towards the hangar when Silver noticed that it wasn’t him controlling the strider. “Hey. What’s going on? I can’t seem to-“

“Relax, dude. It’s just the autopilot. It helps us dock.” Spike interrupted. As the three made it inside, the ship vanished, warping to a quieter sector.

Silver found himself in the hangar again, in the same position he was before he launched. The catwalks reattached as Ares and Artemis docked to his right. The window opened up as Silver began to step down on to the catwalks. “HEY!”
Rainbow yelled behind him. He turned around only to be smacked upside the head. “What the fuck were you even thinking? Were you looking to be killed?”

Silver reeled back from the hit and looked at her. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t-“

Rainbow cut him off. “You didn’t know what the hell you were doing, is that it?”

“Well, yeah. But-“

“You could’ve killed me back there, too!”

“I-I didn’t know.” Silver tried his best not to show his sobbing.

Spike walked up to all the commotion. “Calm down, Rainbow. He didn’t know that would happen. And besides, we won, didn’t we?”

“That doesn’t explain how useless he was back there!”

“Stand down, Rainbow.” Twilight appeared behind them all with Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy standing beside her.

Rainbow groaned once more. “Twilight! Where did you even find this guy?”

“I didn’t. Fluttershy did.”

Everyone turned towards the Chief Medical Officer. She squeaked in fear from all the sudden attention.

“Well?” Rainbow asked, anticipating Fluttershy’s response.

“Um, Well…He volunteered when I…” Fluttershy began explaining, her voice becoming quieter and quieter as she
continued her sentence, “asked a couple of people…down in…the shelters.”

“You WHAT?!?!” Rainbow became furious than ever before. “You let a random civilian, with no knowledge of striders whatsoever, come waltzing down here and piloting something that wasn’t even tested?! Why don’t we let everyone else come down here, too? Let’s let them see what a fun time we’re having!”

Pinkie jumped up. “Ooh, Ooh. I’ll get the decorations!”

“I was being sarcastic, Pinkie!”

“That’s enough, Rainbow.” Twilight said, her voice becoming more severe. “We’ll talk about this later. Rarity, escort Silver here back to his cabin.”

Rarity walked up to Silver and kindly took his hand. “Come along. Let’s get away from all this.” Silver nodded and followed her back to the elevator.

“I’m sorry.” Fluttershy apologized sadly. “I didn’t mean to. It’s just that, when I asked the crew, no one would pilot it.”

“It’s alright, Fluttershy. I realize now that I wasn’t specific enough.” Twilight turned towards Rainbow Dash. “As for you, Rainbow. I think you need to lie down.”

Rainbow stormed off and headed back to her cabin. As everyone began to go their separate ways, Applejack went towards Twilight. “For a citizen, he learns fast. He might be a good candidate for Poseidon considering what Fluttershy said about the crew.” Twilight began to take Fluttershy and Applejack’s statements into account and thought over them for a quick second.

She then made her final decision. “You may be right. I’ll see what I can do.”

***

Rarity and Silver made it back to Silver’s cabin, Room #935. Everyone else was already out and about, conversing over recent events and rumors about what they had just heard. They stood in front of the door as it slid opened. Silver began to walk inside until he was stopped by Rarity.

“Hey, before you go, “I just wanted to tell you that you did a good thing today.” She walked up and gave him a kiss upon his cheek. “Don’t let anyone tell you different, okay?” He turned around and watched as she walked away until the door automatically closed on him. Silver finally decided that he needed some rest and began getting ready for bed.

Before he could get to sleep, a knock was heard on his door. He got up to answer it, only to be greeted by Vinyl and another slap to the face. Silver rubbed his cheek so the pain could go away but got cut off as Vinyl immediately gave him a loving hug and began to sob. “Don’t. You ever. Do anything that stupid, again,” she said amongst her tears. Silver returned the hug and held her close.

As Vinyl kept crying, her face buried in Silver’s chest, he couldn’t help but think about what had happened. Somehow, even after everything that’s happened, he somehow knew that the others would need him again and that no matter what, he needed to be ready.

つづく

予告

Silver has nightmares after almost facing his death

Spike attempts to help Silver back on his feet

Twilight offers the chance to become a full-time pilot

However, Vinyl refuses to let Silver go.

In the end, Silver must make the decision that will change the lives of everyone aboard.

Next Time

Episode 3
Cause and Effect