Bad news guy, school work is piling up for me. That means that this is the last update for a while. But don’t worry; I will get back to this
Chapter 5: A Quite Interlude’s Beginning
Carter, having turned off the Fourze Driver a while ago, was lounging in the captain’s quarters with Shining Armor and Cadence “I didn’t mean it like that” he moaned, pushing his face into the book he was reading. The small room was well furnished. Aside from the book shelve; there was a small couch that Cadence was lying down on. The floor was covered by a red rug. Shining Armor was sitting behind his deck, directly across from the door
“Well how did you mean it?” Shining asked, a little peeved
“You ponies look like talking animals to me” he defended
“What!?” Cadence balked
“Before I was cryogenically frozen, there was a species of animal on the earth called horses. You ponies are likely descended from them” Carter explained “so when I called the princess adorable, I meant she was adorable in the same way that a cat or bunny is. Though I have to admit; you look pretty huggable too Shining” he finished with a smirk
Shining backed up as fast as he could, though since his desk as already at the end of the room, he couldn’t go far, he simply bumped into his window “you stay away from me!”
Carter got up and held out his arms “aww, come on big guy. Want me to brush your mane? I could put pretty, pretty ribbons in it. You’ll look so beautiful” he cooed
Fear swept over Shining’s face. Cadence on the other hand was in a laughing fit “I have some old accessories we could use” she offered
“Why are you encouraging him!?” Shining panicked
“But Shining, don’t you want to be pretty for your lady?”
It had been a long time since anyone had mercilessly teased Shining like this. As such, he was not prepared “My lady!? But, how-”
“Did I know?” Carter finished “I really hope for your sakes this isn’t some big secret, because anyone with eyes can see it. Those quick looks you share, the blushing, the kiss you snuck in when you thought I was out of earshot” that one added a hint of red to their faces “and then there was Madam Sherbet begging me to save your life. I believe your words were ‘If…if I lose him. I’m not sure what I’ll do!’”
“Madam Sherbet?” Cadence repeated confused
“Your hair reminds me of sherbet. That reminds me; what kind of sweets do you have here? I need me some sugar”
Grabbing a paper bag from his desk with magic, he levitated it over to Carter “well, you can try some doughnuts-”
Carter yanked the bag out of the air “my god! It can’t be…” he pulled out the contents of the bag “…it is. You ponies have doughnuts!!” he began scarfing the surgery dough down
“You know what a doughnut is!?” Cadence asked surprised
“Yeah, we had them back in my day” he let out a wistful sigh “too bad dad never figured out how to replicate them”
“Um, ‘replicate’?” questioned Shining
“Oh, yeah” Carter lightly bonked himself on the head “forgot to tell you about my dietary needs” but before Carter could tell them the door opened and Luna entered “Oh hey. Where’s your sister, I thought we were waiting for here to get better?”
“My sister does not want us to wait for her to regain her health” despite her regal statue, she seemed nervous “I must confess, I have not conversed with a member of an elder race before. I am not sure how to proceed”
Carter shrugged “Eh, don’t worry about it; we’re all in new territory here. I’m not used to speaking with talking animals”
Luna raised an eyebrow and looked to Shining, hoping he could explain. He caught her gaze and understood what she wanted “apparently when the Precursors, or ‘humans’ as they called themselves, were the dominate species, there was a race of animals called horse which Carter here believes are our ancestors”
Luna nodded at him. Now finally understanding what Carter meant when he called her adorable “’Carter’ was it?” she tested the foreign name on her tongue, she was rewarded when the human nodded his head in conformation “would you care to explain just what these Dark Precursors truly are?”
Carter nodded again “they’re called the Zodiarts. Each one is based on one of the 88 constellations”
“88!? There are 88 of them!?” Cadence panicked
“Well…” Carter started nervously “more like 100”
“100!?” she nearly fainted
Carter nodded yet again “the strongest 12 Zodiarts are called the Horoscopes, each one being based off of a constellation in the zodiac” then Carter realized something “oh wait, I doubt all the same stars are still around. You probably don’t know which constellations I’m talking about”
“Dorado, Andromeda, Coma, Sextans Pavo” Luna listed off a few of them
“…ok wow. How do you know about those?” Carter was baffled
“A very long time ago, I acquired some very old Pre…human star charts. I thought that they looked quite beautiful, so I decided to paint them in the sky each night. Of course I was unaware that they had been made by humans at the time”
“…‘Paint them in the sky’…is that some kind of metaphor or something?”
“It is not” Luna answered “It seems I may have neglected to inform you of my status as princess of the night”
“…The what?” Carter flatly asked
“The princess of the night” she repeated “it is my duty to raise the moon each night and set it each morning, I am also in charge of the stars”
“Yeah…I’m going to call bull shit here” Carter deadpanned
Luna blinked “forgive me, but I am unaware what it means to ‘call bull shit’”
“It means I don’t believe you” Luna’s eyes widened “let’s ignore for now your claim that you’re moving a giant rock in
space more than capable of moving round the earth on its own. Your claim that you control the stars is the one that really bugs me”
Though she felt offended, Luna still made a great effort to keep her emotions in check “and pray tell, why does it ‘bug’ you so much”
“Because I doubt anything in the universe could control that many suns” was Carter’s answer
Luna’s head reeled back in surprise “suns? I had thought we were talking about stars”
“Stars are really just very far away suns” Carter explained. Although reeling from another revelation, Luna didn’t say anything. She knew that if she interrupted every time Carter said something surprising, that they were going to be here a while. “And honestly; controlling celestial bodies” Carter disapprovingly shook his head “what are you going to tell me next? You ponies also control the weather? Do you just drag clouds where ever you want and make them rain? Maybe you also need to change the seasons too”
As rude as his words were, they gave Luna a much better understanding of his situation “there is something I must show you” She effortlessly lifted Shining and his desk up with magic, much to his surprise, and led Carter to the window. When he looked outside, he saw several pegasi were dragging around black clouds up to an even bigger black cloud that loomed over the city. A few seconds later, the giant cloud released its payload
Maintaining a neutral expression and voice, Carter turned towards Luna and asked “the fuck did I just see?”
“The Canterlot weather team” Luna answered
As much as he wanted to flip out, Carter still had yet to recharge his crazy reserves, so he settled for a sigh “great…the earth’s gone completely manual”
“Now do you believe in my connection to the moon?” Luna asked
“Does your ‘connection’ to the moon allow you to sense its position and stuff?” Luna simply nodded “then I know a way
to find out if you’re really telling the truth” Carter pulled the Gate Switch out of one of his pockets and used it on the door
“let’s go.” The three ponies followed him through the gate, and into the Rabbit Hutch
Upon stepping inside, Luna was overcome with a strange sensation “does…does nopony else feel that?”
“Feel what princess?” Shining asked
Luna took a minute to think of how to describe it “It…it reminds me of the sensation I felt of being sealed in the moon”
The three ponies looked at Carter “look, I’m all crazed out. I’ll complain about the possibility of being sealed in a giant space rock later”
“No. Why would the princess be feeling this way” Shining clarified
“Oh. That” Carter walked over to the terminal and pressed a button “let me show you” a line of panels opened up near the roof an all sides, reveling to the ponies the window, and outside
“What the!?” Shining gazed out into the inky blackness, the stars seemed oddly placed “but its daytime, why is it so dark outside?”
Cadence was the first to spot a strange object outside “what is that!?” her hoof pointed to a mostly blue sphere amidst the darkness
Now thoroughly confused, Luna turned to the smirking Carter “where have you taken us?”
Instead of a straight answer, Carter asked a question “where’s the moon?”
Luna internally panicked “I…I cannot sense it. This strange feeling is hiding it from me”
Carter sighed “well princess, you’ve convinced me”
“Convinced thee of what?”
“Your connection to the moon”
“I have?” Luna asked confused “how was I able to do so?”
Carter sat down in a chair and put his feet up on the table “because I know what that strange sensation your feeling is,
and why you can’t feel the moon anymore…ok maybe not ‘know’ but I have a really good idea why” He got up and pushed a
few buttons on the terminal and a drum roll started, after a brief silence he answered them “We…are on the moon”
Luna answered with a flat “what”
Cadence’s eyes bugged out “the…the moon!? How is the even possible!?”
“Cosmic Energy” was Carter’s answer “its discovery was a complete accident, but it was the biggest scientific breakthrough in human history” Carter sat back down in his chair “since the very beginning, my dad was the biggest expert in Cosmic Energy” he shook his head wistfully “it was a science so new, we didn’t even have a name for it. But dad just got it somehow. He used it to make this place; the Rabbit Hutch, the Fourze Driver, and the Astro Switches” he got back on his feet “but enough about that. Who wants to go outside?”
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Despite her connection to it, Luna had never walked on the moon before. It was an amazing feeling. “This view…breathtaking” she awed as she watched the Earth from behind the visor of her space suit
“Cool, isn’t it?” Fourze beamed “I always loved playing out on the moon. It’s just so peaceful up here. Made me forget about the war on Earth”
“To not only be able to reach to moon, but to build space suits that could fit any species…truly the time of humans must have been magical” Luna gushed “even if these ‘sensor’ things that made my suit are itchy”
Fourze gave a small shrug “eh, it wasn’t so hot. There were a lot of bad people back then, and I mean really bad. Not only that, but there was too much pollution too. I’m a little surprised the planet managed to recover” Fourze folded his arms and shook his head “maybe it’s a good thing we got wiped out, we would have destroyed the earth sooner or later otherwise”
“Do you really have such little faith in thy fellow humans?” Luna asked with a sad look in her eyes
“Well we did have weapons that could do the deed. Everyone was just too afraid to use them for fear of retaliation”
“Why would such weapons need to be made?” Luna asked with a twinge of fear in her voice
Fourze sat down and sighed “look Luna, I’m going to be honest with you; humans weren’t a very peaceful race, we weren’t complete bastards, but we were still pretty bad. There’re a lot of wars in our history, each one waged for some stupid self-righteous. So many live have been pointlessly lost” Fourze lamented “those weapons I was talking about, they’re called nuclear weapons. They’ve been around almost a century…and they’ve only been used twice, in the same war”
“Only twice?” she echoed in a question
“That’s how afraid of them we were. Once mankind saw the destruction they could cause…well…it scared a lot of people”
“Then why keep building them? Why not make an accord to ban them?”
“Because we couldn’t trust each other” Fourze shook his head “humanity has never been fully united for anything. Not even when the Zodiarts began their attack. We were still kept apart by old grudges and other such stuff. We might have been less biologically diverse then you ponies, but there were still plenty of things to keep us divided. We didn’t have two immortal rulers to guide us. We were on our own”
“Truly the past sounds like a most horrible place” Luna commented
Behind his helmet, an amused smile appeared on his face “funny, that’s the same thing Shining said” he got up and turned around to watch Shining and Cadence frolic on the moon. However, their carefree attitude only served to make him more depressed “it’s really too bad that you’ll soon find out just how right you are”
I figured that a princess that had to fight Discord, and the captain of the royal guard would be able to handle the crazy better than a civilian. I hope that Cadence was able to convey that. Also, did anyone notice anything strange in this chapter?