//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: My little Capsuleer // by LeHarfang //------------------------------// Chapter 2 How could I have been so careless.... there I was.... plunging towards a planet I knew nothing about... inside of a green egg. Was it my end finally coming? Me? A demi-god of the skies? How could I die so soon in my career? I still had a lot to learn. Pretty ironic, I thought, since eggs are supposed to be the beginning of a new life... The egg was brutally shaking all around me and in mere seconds, I thought all of this would be over. No clone to save me this time. my conscience would be trapped in this fading body. I could'nt see anything at all since my camera drone probably melted as we descended into the atmopshere and i couldn't launch another one, obviously. I was now blind and descending really fast towards a certain death. All of a sudden, the little container's scanners started to make noise in my head. My scanners detected a large city like signature really far below. “What's this? Civilization?! On this deserted planet?!” I told myself, surprised. “Maybe, I can be saved after all!” A shock even stronger then before reminded me the position i was in. “Oh yes! I need to find a way to land!” A split second thought came as i remembered i was in hostile territory, but the signature differed from usual Amarr ships or structures. At that point, I was desperately searching for a way to make it out of this alive. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. In my mind, i quickly reviewed everything i could in this little Jovian coffin: even the scanners, which were blinking red and not helpful at all. Then i got an idea about the engines and how i could use them. “Of course! It's my only chance!” I started the right thrusters to try to debalance my capsule which had its pointty nose towards the planet. It was'nt enough so i started my top thruster as well and pushed those two up to their maximum. I might have overheated them as well, but i thought they would be useless after that landing, anyway. I felt the capsule move then almost came to a stop against the air resistance. It slowly reached the point of no return and turned upside down, main engine towards the planet. “Perfect! Now, let's hope for the best!” I sent all the power, i could into the small capsule engine, again probably overheating it. I even fired up the warp drive as well, setting its destination to the station to try to slow the capsule down. I knew I wouldn’t warp away any time soon, but it was my only hope. I thought that I did everything I could, the ground below was coming fast. The initial push of my ship gave my capsule lots of momentum as well. Through the smoke covering the cameras, I could see more buildings, fortunately for the inhabitants, I wasn’t going to crash into it. After that, my cameras went down and i was blinded by darkness. I was panicked inside. The capsule scrapped the top of the first tree it hit, then went right through the branches of the second leaving a huge burning hole in. As it continued its descent, it went right through all of the carefully lined up trees. They slowy but surely reduced the momentum of the capsule until it arrived to a stop... after crashing through a fence, the bottom of its nose burried into the ground. The pain was horrible and I could feel my mind fade away.... -~*~*~*~*~*~*~- Moving along the road, was an orange pony, carrying a closed stand behind her, the road was right along the length of her family's orchard and led directly to Ponyville. She was on her way to sell apples, as she usually do on this day of the week. Everything seemed calm around her. Last week, has been hell with what happened in Canterlot and the changeling invasion. At least, they they still got a nice party in the end, thanks to the true Candence's power and her love with Twilight's brother. Applejack never knew love would have been so powerful as to rid the entire city of the invaders when mixed with magic and Shining Armor's shield spell. At least, in the end, everything have ended well. She continued walking along the road pulling the cargo behind her and then she looked to the sky, for no apparent reason then feeling calm. She thought it was a pretty good day so far and she was looking forward to selling lots of apples. The season has been a pretty good one and a loads of apples grew in the trees. With an orchard that big, it has been an harvest longer then usual and they ended up with full of apples to sell. She do realized she's still young though. Only last year, she truly realized their property's sheer size when she tried to harvest it all alone one time, last year. Big Macintosh was hurt and couldn’t help. Willing to help everypony she could, she went on to say she would do it all alone. Of course, Big Mac thought her crazy, but she acted out of pride and was'nt paying attention to his wise words. Of course, she ended up super exhausted and butched the help she gave to her friends. She worked day and night to harvest the apples, until one day Twilight went to see her and reasoned with her. At that point, she thought she got all the apples, only her brother making her realize that she only got something like half of them. She stopped walking right there. She noticed something in the skies, up facing her. It looked like a small dot surrounded by bright light at first, but it was getting bigger the more she looked at it. She did'nt knew what it was, so she standed there, he eyes fixed on the unknown entitie. Soon, she noticed the object was actually on fire and realized it was an object coming right at her! She did'nt have time to do anything that the object flied right past her at a speed she never saw any pegasi reach, not even Rainbow Dash, ripping through trees one by one. AppleJack ducked to avoid being crushed by the branchs that flew everywhere around her, she then stood back up and looked behind her. All the trees next to the road have been torn apart by the crashing object. She could'nt see the farm because of all the trees blocking the road. She quickly detached herself from the closed stand and ran as fast as she could towars the farm and the unknown object. What she discovered, seemed strange to her, not from around here. It was green and large and encased itself into the ground, right in the middle of the road. She looked at the trail of devastation and gasped at the line of trees that has been destroyed during the descent. Big Macintosh who heard the explosion from afar came out fromthe farm only to abandon his own calm self at the sight. “What the hay happenned!?” he said loudly and panicked at the idea that his family could be hurt “Ah have no idea!” responded AppleJack, panicked “A-Ah was walking towards Ponyville and then... and then that thing came out of no where in the skies and destroyed all the trees next to the roads!” “'re you awright AJ?!” “Yeah, don't worry, ah just got bruised by branches, but i'm fine otherwise.” “Good, at least everyone's safe.” said Big Mac as he sighed. “True but our trees are ruined!” responded AJ while pointing at the trail the alien object made in the orchard Big Mac returning to his calm self, responded: “It's alright, we got more then enough apples. Ah' would be more worried about that thing, if I were you.” Applejack stopped looking at Big Mac and looked at the overgrown egg, just outside of their front gate. “Do you think it's hostile?” she said looking back at Big Mac Big mac, shrugged. “This looks scary...” she said as she looked at the overgrown object, worried, and thought “Ah...Ah'll go get Twilight. Maybe she will be able to help us with this... egg...” Big Macintosh nodded and Applejack ran towards Ponyville. -~*~*~*~*~*~*~- The purple mare was reading a book she found deep into a hidden part of the basement of the library. In it, was written all of the thoughts and calculations somepony made showing that the whole princesses-raising-the-sun-and-the-moon was but a lie and that they only made it up so that they could be leaders of the kingdom. Of course, Twilight thought that the author, her predecessor as the librarian, went crazy with conspiracy theories, and she didn’t even finish reading the book. She thought however that no book should be left forgotten. Something in her, was curious about what the ex-book guardian had to say. Twilight, believing her teacher 'knew' all of this was but simple machinations from a confused pony. When she was young, she actually saw Celestia raise the sun, one morning and that's even been one of the events that made her realize what she wanted to do in life and study magic. She came back upstairs, levitating the book back with her. Since it was named 'The Universe', she decided to put it in the 'U' section. As she went down stairs to go check the other books in that bookself, somepony knocked at the door. She turned back and went to the door instead, wondering who that might be. When she opened, she saw the mare farmer in front of her, a worrying look on her face. “Twilight! You really need to come with me! We have a big problem! Something just fell from the skies in our farm and it looks out of this world!” “What?” responded Twilight “What is it?!” “Ah don't know! That's why Ah came and asked you for help!” “Alright, I’m right behind you”, said Twilight as they ran towards the Apple Orchard. After running for some minutes they arrived at the farm where Twilight saw 'it' for the first time. It was shaped like a huge green shiny metallic egg. Twilight was stunned by the scene. A whole row of trees have either been shattered or cut off. There were branches, shuncks of wood and apples everywhere! "Wow! This place is in chaos!" She joined with Applejack, at the front of the strange object. "Don't tell me, that thing made a hay' of a mess. Now, do you have any idea what that might be?" “I... I've never seen anything like this before! It does look like its from another world!” “Eeyup.” responded a familiar voice, behind them. “Oh hi, Big Macintosh.” responded Twilight. “Hi, Twilight Sparkle.” “So, from the angle at which the trees have been cut, it is clear that this... egg came down at an angle. Now....” she traced an imaginary line towards the skies “...that does'nt really help...” she said, a bit scared of what she might discover. The orange mare got annoyed: “Ah for Celestia's sake!” “I'm sorry Applejack, I have no idea what is this. Maybe its shape could give us an hint about its purpose?!" wondered Twilight, getting more and more stressed. “You mean... like an egg, there would be something inside?” “It is possible, indeed.” “Hum, ah'm not sure I wanna know what's inside, to be honest." "Me neither i don't. That thing gives me the creeps" said Twilight as she looked at the organic looking dark green egg in front of her. “Maybe, we can just wait a little and see if anything happens...” said AppleJack "You're right, we should'nt touch it. We never know if anything could happen. "..." After 15 minutes of waiting and starring at the alien object, nothing happenned yet. "Well, this looks pretty dead..." said Applejack No pony out of the three there could approach the egg. They were all paralysed by fear, and apprehension. “One thing's for sure, that thing went really fast. All that's left of the trees are little chunks scattered around.” the orange mare said, horrified at the simple idea of it, “That egg was surrounded by fire when it came down. It went so fast, I didn’t even see it pass over me.” “Oh, wow... how is it even possible for that huge egg to have reached that kind of speed? The only thing i know who's capable who reaching that kind of speed is Rainbow.” she wondered. “Maybe...” said a calm voice joining them as well. “Maybe, it fell from really, really far in the skies. Twilight knew it but she was scared of actually admitting it. She knew she would have to stop denying it at some point, though. -~*~*~*~*~*~*~- Slowly, I came back to my senses and I woke up, still inside the goo filled pod. I tried using my cameras, but the pod didn’t have enough power to feed them. I wasn’t getting any response from the warp drive, the engines nor the thrusters. My guess was that they melted during the fall, since they were facing the air resistance directly. The fact that i overheated them must have helped as well. The life support systems has been keeping me alive, thus why I came back to myself, but , they were going down as the pod was slowly draining the last of its power. If I didn’t find a way to open the capsule fast, I was going to die out of asphyxia. This very idea creeped me out and soon, i started to panic. Usually the two hatches are opened by stations, i couldn't open them from the inside. Outside, the three ponies were still staring at the strange object. Twilight was closer to it and was inspecting its surface. She noticed some lines forming shapes on both side of it. "Hum... i think i found something. Let me try magic on it." She focused her levitation magics on the two shapes and tried pulling on them. “Uh, oh... here we go!”, said the purple one as she first saw the huge big panels unlock, surrounded by a plum of vapor like gaz. “I'm gonna open it, be ready to attack if anything jumps at us." As the two earth ponies, prepared themselves, the two lids slowly floated on each side and magically dropped onto the ground with a loud noise. With my helmet on, i could'nt see anything, all i saw was the screen, in front of my face, but i did felt the pod move as it resonated through the goo. I turned off my helmet screen and I gasped as i saw three alien creatures standing in front of me. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I actually discovered a new sentient specie? They looked as if they came out of a children's cartoon holo. The three had different colors and i was wondering if they were from different races. The purple one on the most left had some kind of pointy appendages that was shining the same way as the hatches did. To be honest, It was hard for me to actually believe they were real, after all the dark stuff i saw in space. I was scared and curious as to what they would do to me, even though they looked smaller than me, that's only because they were standing on 4 legs. My head started to hurt and i started to become dizzy all of a sudden.Then i remembered i was going to be out of oxygen in less then a minute and tried to get their attention to the lid keeping the tube closed. I needed to come out of this glass container. I started trying to kick the small lid, but in goo, i did'nt have enough momentum to actually do anything! I could feel that the more i was breathing, the less the air was concentrated in oxygen. I pointed my neck with my hands and they did'nt understand what i was trying to do. "He seems to want to come out... is it safe if we do? He looks pretty tall..." said Applejack. "You and Big Mac could take him on if he prooves to be dangerous?" asked Twilight. "Eeyup", they responded at the same time. "Alright, there goes nothing!" Twilight started forcing the hatch with her magic. Soon, a crack opened in it and the green liquid started flowing out, as bubbles of air entered the glass container. In mere seconds, the lid was opened and I felt myself going down with the flow of green-yellow liquid, until my body was completely out of the goo, which dropped outside of the pod, dousing the earth under. I quickly ported my hands to neck and unplugged the first tubes, hit a switch to disconnect my helmet from my brain implants and removed it to breath air, without even considering it could be poisonous. I could feel the fresh air entering my lungs and my mind becoming less and less dizzy. I looked at the tubes on my back and remembered there were no more power to automatically unplug them. It seemed i would have to remove them the old fashioned way. I looked at the three strange beings who kept staring at me. The orange and red one seemed ready to beat the hell out of me, but the purple one looked curious. I removed the tubes one by one from my back implants and crawled myself out of the glass container i was in. I got up and realized how small they were compared to me. The orange and purple ones were only as half as tall as me. The red one looked a little taller and stronger then the them. I guess he was a male and they were females. He started out of a sudden “Who and what are you?” “My name is LeHarfang.” I told him, a little to proud. “From where are you.... LeHarfang...” the orange little horse asked, cautiously. “I come from space.” The three ponies frowned in confusion as I said the last word: 'space'. “You mean, up there in the stars?!” asked the orange one surprised and even more horrified at the answer. “Yes.” Now I realized that I was alone from my specie, down here. I almost suffocated into that damn goo, and now, i was'nt sure if i could trust these three. “Alright,” the purple horned one said as she closed back the two hatches behind me “you're saying you come from the stars right?” I nodded “I see... now the most important question: What... what brought you here?" asked Twilight who looked worried. The two other horses were looking at me, waiting for my answer as well, prepared to face any attacks. “Well, i wasn't planning on actually descending upon this planet to be honest.”, I said and looked at my surroundings, wondering I was going to get out of this mess. The three equine-like creatures obviously didn't understand what I meant. "Look, its complicated. Can we get somewhere a little bit more comfy to discuss about it?" “Honetsly, I'm kinda curious to hear what he has to say. What do you think Applejack?” she asked the orange one. "How about mah farm?" she said, getting angry. "I need answers! Why did you attack mah farm!" I looked behind my capsule only to notice all the damage done. The trees on the other side of the road were in pretty bad shape, and some were still smoking. “Attack your farm?! I never did such a thing! As you may have noticed I crashed into it, that's a big difference! I mean i 'would' help, but i still need to recover a bit from what happenned. I mean, i never actually wanted to be dropped onto this goddamn planet!” I responded in defense "What do you mean by 'unforeseen'." as her angry face became laced with confusion. "Well, obviously you know nothing of what's going on up there so it's gonna be complicated. How about we talk about that later? I mean, I don't even know where the hell I am in the first place." “Alraight... but you must promise you're going to help us, repair the farm.” “I...” I stopped but I then continued when I saw those narrowed eyes “Yeah, I promise. I swear, i'm gonna help repair the damage once I'm done with this mess.” “You better!” as she came back to her angry face “Don't ever forget you promised!” “I won't!” I responded as tensed as if a fleet commander ordered me to do so. “Good.” she then looked at the purple creature, “Hum, mind if I come too, Twilight? I'm kinda curious as well about what he has to say to explain what he did.” she said. Twilight responded: “Of course I don’t mind, Applejack. I would need help anyway, if..." she started to whisper down to Applejack, "...he suddenly attack me.” Applejack responded with the same low voice. "Yeah... ah don't trust him yet, either, but ah guess we have to comply with his conditions if we want to hear anything else." I heard a faint Applejack through their whisper and i could see it in their face: they didn't trust me. I wondered if I haven't been better off dead, then in this mess. “Alright, Big Macintosh, can you take care of the farm while ah'm gone? I don't how long I will be.” The big red one whose name was Big Macintosh responded simply: “Eeyup!” So the two creatures and I went down the road, towards Twilight's home. -~*~*~*~*~*~*~- End of Chapter 2