Rainbow Dash - 6th of Solar Dusk, 1st year of Harmony
749,573.29 A.H.
Shielded Landing Station 12 - Chern, Noctae Sector
Rainbow wasn't sure what she expected a Chernin-made space station to look like, but she hadn’t expected this.
SLS-12 could have been the most boring place in existence. There was no decoration at all, not even paint. The walls were bare metal, dull gray, with only screens displaying departures, arrivals, weather warnings, and advertisements to break up the dull monotony of endless gray.
The floor was hardly any better. The grav-plates had a simple rubberized coating sprayed over them, providing a black floor with random flecks of gray and white embedded in it. The patterns in the rubber formed something similar to the way stars dotted the night sky. A fact Rainbow picked up on after getting bored of looking at the ceiling covered in pipes, air ducts, and power cables for nearly ten minutes.
At first, the people passing by had been interesting to watch. Everywhere Rainbow looked she could see at least four Chernin doing something. Most of them were walking from one dock to another, some were performing maintenance on various pieces of equipment, while others squatted in loose circles sharing snacks and vodka.
As interesting as it was to watch a sea of people in brightly colored tracksuits go about their days, the people themselves looked a little off to Rainbow. Over the last month, she’d gotten used to Penny’s pale, furless skin and humanoid shape.
Living on a world with many different sapient lifeforms was a boon for Ponykind. Anything close to the shape of Jo or Penny weren't going to bother Rainbow, or even be all that interesting anymore. They were just be people. In this case, creepy people.
Rainbow wasn’t about to say it, but almost every Chernin looked the same to her. They seemed to have about a dozen different faces for stallions, and eighteen for mares. They had a few different body shapes, ten or so hairstyles which were equally common among men and women, and perhaps ten different voices for each sex.
The best way Rainbow had to tell Chernin apart was by their clothes. Since most of them wore tracksuits, which Rainbow we're pretty sure were all made by the same brand, that meant she mostly had to go off of clothing colors, hair color, and the augmented reality nametags she’d started pinning to everyone she saw.
This is creepy… Rainbow thought to herself with a shiver as she watched two girls who she swore were completely identical have a conversation and laugh while another pair of girls down the hall from them who also shared their faces had an argument. I wonder if there’s a reason they all look so similar? I know Penny said her people are clones, but that shouldn’t mean everyone looks the same. Right?
Rainbow sighed and turned to look up at Penny. The Chernin woman had gotten back in her suit despite being on a ship equipped for her people’s needs. She’d also gone unusually quiet the moment she’d stepped foot on the station, creating an air of unease which prevented a conversation from taking place.
Rainbow cleared her throat, and Penny squatted down to look into Rainbow's eyes. “Da, Comrade?”
Rainbow pointed to the dull green rubberized radiation suit which covered her hoof to snoot. While she found the bulky and stiff suit hideous, she knew it was necessary, and at least it had sleeves for her wings. Unlike the radiation suit she wore when helping the Rainbow Factory fix their arcane reactor a few years ago.
“Should I have also brought my armor?” Rainbow asked. “You said this suit could get a hole in it real easy and you don’t have to be in that here. So like, is a fight gonna happen, or what?”
Penny rolled her lips uncomfortably. “Nyet… I— I’m in here so I can hide if I need to. Is… Personal thing.”
Pan facehooved and groaned. “Right! You don't like interacting with your own people.”
Jo tilted her head. “You never mentioned that to me, Captain. Is there a reason?”
“I can’t read our body language. It makes it very hard to understand if I’ve upset another Chernin. I can read aliens just fine though. Normally this isn’t a problem for me. I’m a spacer. But here… I have a faceplate I can drop and not have to look into people’s eyes then hide behind. Is better, da?”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “You can’t look people in the eyes either?”
Penny shook her head and looked Rainbow in her eyes. “Nyet, I can. See? I’m doing it right now.”
“I mean other Chernin,” Rainbow prompted with a polite smile.
“Oh, I know where this is going,” Penny said as she stood back up. “I’m not autistic. That mental issue persists across species. Papa thinks my cloning process was a bit off when it came to social training is all. Just a manufacturing error. Really, I’m fine. Ey, as I can be, blin.”
Jo’s cooling fans hummed as she burned with excitement. “That’s right! I forgot you’re manufactured too! How does your programming work? Could we swap files?”
Rainbow hummed. “That’s a good question! You said your people get memory downloads. Could Jo buy a childhood to know what growing up here is like? Oh! Could I do that and then watch it as a movie or something?”
Penny frowned. “Uh… I don’t know? It’s not quite programming. But it is memory files… I think you’d need an organic mind to decode everything and fill in the blanks. Ask Papa, he’d know.”
Pan looked around the semi-busy dock as Penny mentioned her father. “Speaking of him, where is he? It’s been what, ten minutes? He’s supposed to pick us up right?”
Penny looked over to Jo. “See anyone in a yellow jacket, black pants, black ushanka, white shoes, a balaclava, and aviators?”
Jo shook he rhead. “No, Captain. I’ll keep an eye out.”
“Please do, you’ll be the only one who’ll see him coming,” Penny grumbled.
Rainbow frowned and quickly looked around. Those colors were all common, but as far as she could tell, next to no one was wearing a mask. “He’ll for certain wear a mask?”
Penny nodded. “Da. Babushka named him after the legendary Shashik King, Boris. Papa decided to model his whole life off him, since he was named for him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen his face, just whatever balaclava he put on that morning. Ey, ‘coz that’s how his namesake dressed.”
Pan looked around, his eyes straining as he tried to spot anyone in a mask of any kind.
“Uh, okay… But why wouldn’t we be able to see him coming then? I can't see anyone wearing a mask except for that guy,” Pan’s left hoof pointed towards a tall Chernin man dressed in a blue greatcoat and starfighter helmet who still had his breath mask on as he patiently waited next to dock 17.
Penny reached up and scratched the back of her head. “Oh, ey… Should probably have mentioned papa is a retired Stalker.” Penny said as if that explained the entire situation.
The three blank looks her friends gave her proved otherwise.
“Oh, da!” Penny said with a nervous chuckle. “So, we uh, we grow everyone. That means we’re all about the same in strength, stamina, speed. There’s only so much you can do to improve yourself before your body locks in after you’ve grown. It’s not enough to have special forces which are any more capable than well, me.”
Jo nodded slowly. “So you designed some Chernin to be soldiers, and your dad is one of them?”
“Kind of,” Penny shrugged. “Is not caste system. Everyone has the same random chance to be made using better templates. Psyker templates. You might turn out to be a Stalker, or a Commander. If you are, you serve for as long as you like. Papa served two hundred years, then retired. Now he makes weapons.”
Pan blinked. “Excuse me, but do you mean you engineer people to be wizards specifically to be your special forces?”
Penny nodded once.
“He can turn invisible, can’t he?” Pan asked.
“Nyet. He can make organics not notice him. Invisibility is… Hard, blin,” Penny elaborated. “Jo will still see him because he cant fool machines.”
Rainbow narrowed her eyes and begun to look around, thinking back to the brief lesson Twilight had given her in how to spot invisible creatures after Rainbow had gotten a little too spooked by the latest Daring Doo novel.
“And that means he’ll be lurking around to figure out what kind of people we are before saying hello!” Rainbow said as she continued to look around.
A squatting Chernin man wearing a black cloth facemask and aviator sunglasses appeared from thin air a leg length from Rainbow nose.
“LUNA!” Rainbow yelped as she jumped three meters into the air.
“No. Just Boris,” the man said as he gently gripped Rainbow’s right hoof as she hovered in the air and shook it. “Hello! My name is Boris. And what my little girl means is, I like to make her friends jump. Heh heh heh!”
Rainbow’s ears twitched irritably. “Rainbow…” Rainbow introduced as she turned to glare at Jo. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Jo tapped her fingers together. “He bribed me…”
Boris stood up, adjusted his sunglasses and laughed. “Don’t be mad at her. I showed her my ID from a distance and made an offer she couldn’t refuse,” Boris looked over his shoulder at Jo and smiled enough to warp the fabric of his balaklava. “We’ll draw up those parts when we get home.”
Rainbow huffed and let herself drop to the deck. Figures she can be bribed with spare parts. I’ll have to remember that.
Pan trotted towards Boris cleared his throat and held out his right hoof for Boris to shake. “H— Hi. Nice to meet you M—mister Hawking!”
Boris’ shoulder slumped. He ignored Pan for a moment and looked over to Penny, seemingly hurt. “You’re still using the company’s name?”
Penny shuffled her feet awkwardly and dropped her faceplate, both actions making her suit’s servos protest angrily.
Boris sighed and turned back to Pan. “When she was little, she advertised my suits. Penni Hawking isn’t her uh, legal name. But it’s what she prefers. Even if it hurts her papa’s feelings,” Boris held out a loved hand to shake Pan’s still extended hoof. “Boris Slovaki, you can call me papa. If you can hold your vodka.”
Pan returned the hoof shake as best he could while looking up at Penny with a little hurt in his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me that was a stage name?”
“I— I feel that name is mine more is all…” Penny mumbled quietly.
“Isn’t she a junior? Shouldn’t she be going by Boris Hawking?” Jo asked curiously.
“No, she’s named for her mama,” Boris explained before letting go of Pan’s hoof only to press a bottle of vodka into it. “Don’t feel bad. She’s called herself Hawking since she was two. I just wish she’d see herself as a member of my family more than my company.”
“Sorry, papa… Is only business,” Penny sighed.
Rainbow blinked as she tried to figure out where Boris had been keeping that bottle. His clothing didn't seem loose enough to hide it, nor had they seemed weighed down anywhere before.
“Where did you get that bott—” Rainbow began only to stop mid sentence as she recognized the label as the same type she’d had on her very first day in space. “Wait, is that Borisblood?”
Boris turned around, producing a second bottle from somewhere on his person with a flourish. “Opa! Blue knows what good vodka is. Have a bottle, Solnyshko!”
Rainbow hesitated for a moment. I know I got drunk last time, but I thought it was only as strong a cider… I should have just a little bit to be polite.
Rainbow reached out for the bottle.
“NYET!” Penny yelped.
Boris turned to see what the commotion was about, hand still extended to offer the bottle. Pan reached out with his magic, plucking the bottle out of Rainbow’s hoof as she took it from the squatting Chernin.
“The blin’s gotten into you?” Boris asked with a confused frown. “I own the brand. We have as much to go around as we want.”
“Papa,” Penny said as she plucked the bottle from Pan’s magical grip. “The last time Rainbow had your vodka she got so drunk she started ejecting things out the airlock to watch them woosh off into space.”
Pan nodded in agreement. “Yeah! And when I asked her what she was doing she said and I quote, ‘I’m helping asteroids make new friends.’ end quote!”
Rainbow triple blinked. “I don’t remember that!”
“Then, she got into my armory and argued with my flightpack,” Penny added.
Pan nodded. “Apparently it said its wings were cuter than hers.”
Rainbow blushed and looked away. She vaguely remembered that.
Boris snickered and looked back to Rainbow. “Heh, don’t worry. We all have our drunk stories. This one time, I blacked out and woke up on Pari Prime, halfway through a slave revolt I started… Blin…”
Boris shook his head slowly then laughed. “Too bad. I would have liked to do a shot with you.”
Pan’s ears perked. “A shot? That should be okay. She had three bottles last time.”
Penny squatted down to look Pan in his eyes. “She had… Three… Bottles?”
“Yeah. Why how much did you think she had?”
“A shot!” Penny exclaimed. “Who sits down and drinks a whole bottle of vodka?!”
Boris looked rapidly between Pan and Penny, then turned to Rainbow. “Opa… Three?”
Rainbow shrugged her wings. “I have no idea,” she admitted with a sheepish grin.
Jo closed her eyes and quickly linked with the Dawn’s computer. “Standby… Accessing security records… Yep, she had three bottles.” Jo shook her head incredulously. “That’s the compressed stuff too… You had almost five liters of— How the heck are you alive?!”
Rainbow shrugged her wings more and took a step back defensively. “I don’t know! I just remember it tasted good, then I woke up in my room with a headache.”
“Blin!” Boris grinned, and rubbed the top of Rainbow’s rad suit as it to ruffle her mane, then handed her a third bottle of vodka taken from Luna knows where. “At last, someone I can have a real drink with.”
Penny sighed and shook her head. “Can we get going, Papa? I need to fix my suit.”
Boris nodded. “I noticed. Don’t worry, we’ll get you all fixed up.”
Penny recoiled, her suit’s servos sparking slightly. “I know, I’m sorry I— Wait, you're not mad?”
Boris stared blankly at Penny for a long moment then sighed. “Ah, yes… I forgot you have that problem. No, I’m not mad. The T-34 is older than some of babushka’s jam, Penni. I don’t know why you never asked for an upgrade.”
Penny tapped her fingers together. “B--But this is your first one…”
Boris sighed and turned to Jo. “Can you believe this girl? She thinks she should keep using old things just because her papa made them. She kept my first starship, my first suit, and even the old Lada I helped her build. But... She won't use my last name.”
Rainbow winced and looked up to try and see what Penny thought about her father saying something like that right in front of her. The unfeeling view slit of Penny’s armor looked back at her, and Rainbow immediately understood exactly why Penny had worn her armor onto the station.
Boris shook his head, chuckled, smiled at everyone. “Come! Let’s go home. Mama’s cooking soup.”
The trip to Chern’s surface in Boris’ Zhiguli shuttle was a very memorable experience for Rainbow, Jo, and Pan. The design reminded Rainbow of Penny’s ancient Lada, only the Zhiguli was a luxurious box with four engines on it instead of a rusty shitbox with four engines on it.
The Zhiguli had two distinct compartments, one for the pilot and a single passenger, and then a large cargo bay with fold up seats. Dash called dibs on the front seat before she knew the Zhiguli turned the dividing wall into a screen to show the front view out the cockpit’s windshield. For her the worst thing about space travel was being cooped up. Her wings ached at the thought of flying again. She’d needed to feel like she was flying even if she was riding something.
The inside was carpeted, nicely decorated with a yellow, black, and white color scheme, wood paneling, and Rainbow’s personal favorite, working inertial dampeners. The shuttle also had a holographic system which turned the shuttle’s walls into displays which showed a live feed of everything around the shuttle, making it perfect for sightseeing.
Chern was quite the sight to see.
From orbit, the world was red and gray. Not the red of iron sand, but many shades of red ranging from scarlet to wine and ruby to rose. The reds swirled together, flowing and overlapping in harmony. The gray formed patterns as well, only the slate, silver, and jet gray mixed and melted in chaotic, splotchy patterns which covered vast areas, making the melodic spread of red hues into patches which resembled islands and continents.
Despite no water to be seen on Chern’s surface, thick clouds covered much of the land, forming rolling banks of thick black clouds. Each and every one of them crackled with bright blue-purple lightning as they crept across the planet’s atmosphere like angry slugs.
The most astonishing aurora Rainbow had ever seen rippled above the clouds like a foal’s blanket. Pinks, reds, purples, blues, and greens all flowed together to make a natural piece of art. It couldn’t be called a wonder of the world, such a term was too bland for the grandeur of Chern’s ionosphere. The planet-wide aurora was art, plain and simple. A painting physics chose to grace the universe with.
The wonderful sights form orbit transitioned into an amazing and fascinating sight as the shuttle slipped down through the clouds and transitioned into a low altitude flight over one of the red patches near the south pole.
On the way down, Dash could tell that the gray sections were rock, dust, and strange jet gray clay veins. The red segments were plants. Millions upon millions of plants which soaked in the sunlight streaming through the purplish sky.
Chern had nothing like trees. The plants were small, scrub brush, flowers, grasses, and other short things. There were also mushrooms and mosses growing here and there. All of the plants were some shade of red, and all of them appeared to be quite happy and healthy. Even if most of the leafy plants were of the same species.
Despite the abundant plant life, Rainbow couldn’t see any animals. That didn’t surprise her. With Chern’s constant rain and lack of oceans she couldn’t see where animal life would get water form on the surface. The Chern lived here, there must be water somewhere, perhaps in aquifers deep below ground. Wherever it was, it wasn’t on the surface for long, so animal life couldn’t have evolved up here.
Especially since the planet seemed to be as flat as a pancake. On the way down Dash hadn't seen any mountains, or valleys, or even many large hills. The entire world appeared to be one massive plains biome, broken up only by soil too dusty to support plantlife.
All of this was a very odd thing to see for someone who had grown up on a blue and green marble. The sheer alienness of Chern fascinated Rainbow in the same way the fantasy world contained in a good book did.
Boris was silent as Rainbow looked out over the world below them. Occasionally he would look over and smile behind his mask, vicariously enjoying Rainbow’s love of discovering a new world for the first time.
“Enjoying yourself?” Boris asked, shaking Rainbow out of her trance.
Rainbow nodded and turned to face the masked Chernin. “Yeah! I didn’t think a radioactive planet could look so cool.”
“Most don’t,” Boris chuckled. “Everyone forgets she’s a place people can live too. A little digging for water, some shade for when the sun goes pizdek, it’s all you need.”
Rainbow tilted her head curiously. “Is that why you wear a mask? Are you outside a lot?”
Boris shook his head. “No. I’m named for a certain slav superstar. I looked him up, and… Ey, in short, heros are important. Why shouldn’t I dress like my boyhood hero? Is not like I don’t blend into a crowd. Besides, I was a Stalker. This mask made sure people who you don’t want to remember your face didn’t remember mine. It’s habit now.”
Rainbow nodded slowly. “Sooo Stalkers are special forces and like, spies then?”
“Ey, mostly,” Boris shrugged. “We're also—”
The shuttle’s comms screeched three times, snapping Rainbow out of the conversation. Before Dash could event yelp or flutter her her wings in surprise the alarm was followed up by a Chernin man’s voice.
“Class Three emission on the way, tovarishchi. Anyone in orbit has two minutes to get to a shielded orbit or station. Anyone in the air, land.”
Rainbow’s eyes widened. “Ummmm, what’s happening?!”
Boris sighed and shook his head. “Cyka… And you were enjoying yourself so much.”
The Chernin man reached up to a control panel over his head and flipped a switch. “Hey! Buckle up back there. Emissions are no joke.”
Rainbow looked down at her seat and tightened her buckles, just to be safe. “Boris, what’s happening?”
Boris flipped a few more switches on the shuttle’s consoles sending it into a rapid descent. “It’s okay, Blue. Just an Emission. We get one or two every month. Class three is on the smaller side, we’ll be fine.”
Rainbow took a deep breath. “But what are they?”
“Sometimes our sun gets a little angry, and sends a big flare our way. Usually, they miss. Sometimes, they hit. When they hit we call it an emission,” he answered as he started the ship’s computer up to perform an auto-landing sequence.
“WHAT?!” Rainbow sputtered and tried to dive under the shuttle’s dashboard, making her seat creak as her harness kept her in place.
Boris laughed and reached over to gently pat Rainbow on her head. “Relax! We just need to land for a little while.”
“Your sun is trying to hit us with plasma!” Rainbow yelled, her heart starting to hammer away at her chest. “We need Celestia! Celestia could stop this. She’s done it before. We have a radio we could call her!”
“Calm down,” Boris said as soothingly as he could. “Our ancestors survived these in wooden shacks. We have shields.”
“How?!” Rainbow demanded her jaw hanging slack.
“Ey, well…” Boris turned and adjusted the shields, diverting more power to them as the shuttle gently touched down on the wet ground. “Their emissions came from a place on their planet, not their sun. So they were less intense.”
Rainbow’s heart skipped a beat. The sun! Their sun’s a big ball of bad mana. Which is going to hit us!
Rainbow turned and waved her hooves frantically. “Mana! Your sun’s mana is bad! You need to make your shield stronger against ultraviolet right now!”
Boris frowned and glanced up at the sky. “Why? Is just a class three.”
“If you don’t, Pan and I might die! Being in your sun’s light in orbit was really really bad, we’re sensitive to mana, and your sun produces a very bad kind of it!”
Boris reached out with one hand and quickly adjusted the shuttle’s shields. “Your species has a natural psi sense?” He asked before closing his eyes tightly for a moment. “Of course you do! Ah, debil! I watched you blast a metal monster with lightning. To tell you the truth… The waves that hit us, they are more magic than plasma.”
Rainbow froze, locking up completely. “W— what?”
Boris nodded. “Is true. I’m not as powerful as you, I’m just a humble Stalker, but I can sense magic too. We all can. When emissions hit, we know what it is, even if our comrades don’t.”
A deep rumble of thunder boomed, shaking the landed shuttle and making Rainbow yelp. The rumble seemed to come from all directions at once, as if an army of giants had encircled them and were slowly closing the distance between them.
Rainbow winced and reached up to cover her ears, expecting things to get worse.
Boris reached out and gently held Rainbow’s shoulder. “Ey, is okay. I’ve slept out in the open during one of these. We’ll be okay.”
“We’re going to be blasted by wild magic,” Rainbow whimpered. “That’s not okay!”
“Trust me, we’ll be alright,” Boris promised. “It’s a class three. All that happens is electronic things shut down or go pizdek. If it’s a level six or higher, that’s when it could kill us. We need to take your mind off the danger… Mmm, I know! Emissions, they are scary and hurt things, but they do good things too.”
Rainbow laughed, shaking her head slowly. “Like what? Mutate these plants into another Everfree forest?”
“What forest?” Boris asked with a hint of intrigue.
Rainbow took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “A huge forest near my home town. It’s alive. Like a person… It hates animals. If you go into it, it will try to kill you.”
Boris stroked his chin. “Sounds like a good place to go camping! I’ll be sure to visit one day. But no! That won't happen. What will happen is small objects and sometimes even little patches of the air or ground will absorb some of the emissions magic and thereby gain anomalous properties.
“These anomalies are a little dangerous. Fortunately for us, comrade, they dissipate in a few days. Artifacts on the other hand, those little things that soaked up the emissions magic, those stay forever. Once the emission is over all across the world there will be all sorts of magic things laying around for anyone to find. My company uses hundreds of them in our factory to well, to make things that shouldn’t be possible.
“Don’t be afraid, Blue. Emissions are just a part of life here. Our civilization doesn't survive them like rats in a burning forest. No! We thrive on them. You’re about to see Chern bless her children with all kinds of gifts.”
Rainbow stared blankly for several long moments.
“What?” Boris asked as he reached into a pocket of his tracksuit and took out a handful of sunflower seeds. “Still afraid?”
“Are you telling me that we’re going to get blasted with wild magic intense enough to permanently enchant items at random?” Rainbow asked slowly.
Boris nodded and reached under his shirt collar to take out a small silver ring on a leather string. “And we collect them to use. Not everyone. You need a license to have things like this. See this? Blin! This ring… I slip this on and my skin becomes as tough as diamond. Bullets bounce right off! I’ve got others in my factory that make metal lighter without being less dense. When I was in active duty, I had a few which were weapons. If you’re okay with going through a century of training—”
Rainbow shook her head. “Random. Magic. Item. Storm! Why do you live here?!”
Boris opened his mouth to reply, but a loud thunderclap drown out whatever he had said. Rainbow winced as a second thunderclap followed the first.
Boris sighed and unbuckled his crash harness, stepped over to Rainbow and gently put his arm around her. “Ey, it will be okay.”
A third thunderclap exploded directly above the shuttle. Rainbow squeaked as she felt the oncoming storm in her bones as well as her mind. She could feel it, the winds carried the sun’s twisted mana on them, sweeping the chaos bombarding the world evenly across its surface.
The purple sky began to bleed, becoming a deep red. The auroras flared brightly, melting into white, orange, and purple streamers which rolled and undulated as the stellar winds pushed them into new patterns.
Lightning flashed in the sky, making the world turn white as the thunder boomed deafeningly. Bolt after bolt of lightning blasted into the ground as if nature itself hard ordered a mortar strike right on top of the shuttle.
Dash opened her mouth to scream, but the sound was lost to the wild magic storm that burned around her. A wave of gold and crimson energy crept up over the horizon, burning like the most hellish of sunsets as it lurked for a few terrifying moments. Then it hit.
The emission crested over the shuttle like a tidal wave. The ground shook, making the shuttle vibrate hard enough to resonate. The shields crackled and sparked, but held strong against the nightmarish mass which squeezed them as if they wanted the shuttle to be crushed like an ant under a boot.
The storm raged around Rainbow, pounding at the shuttle’s shields and shaking the very earth beneath her hooves. With the shuttle completely engulfed with the storm Rainbow could feel the energies making it up swirl and flow through the chaos around her. The emission wasn’t an unnatural predator, nor a thing to fear. She could feel the tainted mana within the storm following and undulating in a fashion close to a hurricane, or a blizzard.
The emission was a storm. It was weather. The domain of Pegasi.
Rainbow wasn’t stupid. She knew if she tried to control the hell outside the shuttle, the emission would chew her up and spit her out like a stick of gum. Yet it could be controlled. It could be tamed. The emission was merely extreme weather. An alien storm. A thing she could come to understand and in time control with a little help.
Rainbow closed her mouth, sat up, and watched the hellish energy wave wash over the shuttle.
The emission disappeared as swiftly as it came. The aurora dimmed first, returning to the normal colors and swirling back into new harmonious patterns. The sky stopped bleeding, returning to a healthy purple hue as the thunder claps calmed down. Silence overtook Chern once more, then, as if someone had flipped a switch, the crimson leaves of every plant began to glow the most beautiful shade of gold.
Dash gasped as the world became a bright shimmering jewel for as far as the eye could see.
Boris chuckled and let go of the little pony and returned to his seat. “Not so bad, ey?”
Rainbow laughed nervously. “That was bad… But this is beautiful. Does this always happen?”
Boris nodded once. “The plants soak up all the mana left over and glow for… Well, however long they can. The worse the emission, the more they glow. Oh, blyat! If only you were here three hundred years ago. When we get home, I have a photo. The last class ten left things blyatiful.”
Rainbow nodded and closed her eyes to try and imagine the world appearing to be even more like a glittering jewel with infinite facets than it was now. “I can’t imagine that.”
“No one can,” Boris said as he turned around and opened the door to the rear compartment.
He stuck his head in the doorway and looked around. “Ey, is Jo okay?”
“I’m fine… Thank you for installing EMP shielding in your shuttle,” Jo replied, her voice filled with quiet terror.
“Why do you live here?” Pan whimpered.
Rainbow unbuckled herself and trotted over to the doorway. Pan was sitting bolt upright in his seat, his face white as a sheet under his fur. Rainbow offered him a shy smile. “Scary as that was, it was just a storm. I could feel it. Pegasi could tame one if we had enough time and practice.”
Pan sighed and visibly relaxed enough for Penny to give Rainbow an appreciative smile. “Thanks, Blue… Your people control your whole planet’s weather, don’t you?”
Rainbow shook her head. “Nah, just our kingdom’s. Other countries won't let us mess with their weather… Even to end droughts or heat waves. You know, Equinitarian aid stuff.”
Jo raised a hand to get Boris’ attention. The Chernin man acknowledged her with a roll of his eyes.
“Prepodavatel' Boris will now accept questions from the first row,” he said with a shake of his head.
Jo’s cooling fans began to hum audibly as she began to vent her fear. “How good are your city’s shields? Will I be okay there? Should I go back to the Dawn?”
Penny shook her head. “Nyet. We live underground. Emissions don't pass through fifteen centimeters of stone. We build kilometers underground.”
Boris nodded. “It’s easier to live places where the radiation isn’t so bad.”
Pan shivered, his radiation suit creaking as he moved. “I forgot this place is also a radioactive hell…”
Boris frowned and shook his head. Inwardly wishing his daughter had chosen to hook up with the blue one instead. “Don’t worry, comrade Pan,” Boris said as he squatted down to look him in the eyes. “We’ll make a proper Slav out of you before you leave. Then little storms and some healthy glow won't bother you ever again.”
Pan blinked, not quite sure what to make of that. The shuttle’s computer chirped rather cheerfully, prompting Boris to stand and walk back into the cockpit. “Ah! Sounds like our friends have marked the anomalies on our map. Now we won't fly into a patch of sky where gravity’s decided to take a sharp turn to the left and atoms eat so much pelmeni they explode like old tourist delight.”
Rainbow winced. “Uh, wait. Anomalies do stuff like that?”
“Da,” Penny sighed. “They tell physics to ‘buck off and die’ to use a pony expression.”
“Is no problem!” Boris said as he sat down. “Every new anomaly has already been scanned, registered, and marked on our map. B.O.L.T. doesn't make mistakes.”
Rainbow let out a nervous breath. “Good.”
“Of course, there is first time for everything.” Boris added with a shrug. “Maybe we will hit the first ever missed.”
Rainbow, Jo, and Pan shared a look. It was short, simple, and to the point. No words needed to be exchanged, the look said it all.
What the buck did we get ourselves into?
Penny stepped towards the cockpit and gently punched her father's shoulder. The strike had no power behind it, was was fully symbolic. “Ey! Don’t scare the little ponies like that.”
Boris snorted and rolled his eyes. “Blue facetanked d'yavol’s android while it chewed you to pieces. What’s a little bit of physics pizdek compared to that?”
“He—” Rainbow opened her mouth to object, but closed it as she came to a realization. “— actually, that’s a good point. Let’s get going.”
Pan raised a hoof. “Um, I didn’t fight a robotic demon. Can we please double check the rest of our flight path? You know, so we don’t die?”
Boris laughed and tapped a few buttons on the navigation console. His eyes scanned the holoscreen for a moment.
“It’s safe as buterbrod, napugannaya koshkas,” he said in a kind of mischievous tone.
Penny’s armor created as she slammed her hands against her hips indignantly. “Papa!”
Boris sent a quick command to his neural interface and activated one of his stalker implants, scrambling the translation program in everyone’s implants.
“Kak ya ne mogu yego draznit'? U nego men'she pozvonochnika, chem u Calieesia, I ona byla kal'marom!” Boris said with a chuckle.
Penny glared at her father for several long moments. “Be nice. I love him!”
Pan gulped nervously and turned to Penny begging to know what her father had said with his eyes.
Penny bit her lip. “He thinks you’re uh… Well—”
Boris turned around and walked back into the cabin, cutting Penny off. “I think you’re a scaredy cat. That’s okay. Not everyone is brave. I don't hate you, or think you shouldn’t be with my daughter. But I will tease you mercilessly, blin! Is my right as a papa.”
Pan crossed his forelegs over his chest. “I’m sorry, but where I live, the sun doesn't literally try to blast us off the face of the earth with wild magic! Your planet is terrifying!”
Rainbow cleared her throat. “Uh, Pan? Remember how a few months ago Discord happened?”
Pan frowned. “That’s different.”
“Then before that,” Rainbow continued, “Nightmare Moon stopped the sun and moon in the sky to make night last forever.”
Boris blinked. “Wait, what?”
“Then there was that time when the Everfree attacked Ponyville with mutant beetles the size of a horse,” Rainbow added.
Pan shivered. “Okay, okay, you've made your point. Equis is dangerous too.”
Boris looked up at Penny. “They live on a planet with an evil moon that stopped their planet’s rotation?”
Penny shook her head rapidly. “Nyet! Is way scarier. Nightmare Moon is a person!”
Boris’s jaw dropped, but only for a moment. He turned to look Pan in the eye. “You live, on a planet, with people who can stop the world turning?”
Pan shook his head. “No. She stopped the sun and moon from orbiting us. She didn't stop the world spinning. Equis doesn't spin.”
The shuttle was deadly quiet for several long moments as Jo, Boris, and Penny exchanged a brief look.
Boris opened his mouth. Closed it. Then shook his head. He squatted down and looked Pan in the eyes. “You lived through a psyker attack, which involved them bringing a star and a moon to a stop, and keeping them from crashing into the planet?”
Pan frowned and nodded. “Well… yeah!”
Boris sputtered and threw his hand sup into the air. “The blyat are you afraid of anything for?!”
Pan huffed and crossed his forelegs again. “I’m sorry, but the world deciding to turn into fire is way scarier than it just getting dark for a while! Besides, I don’t think Dash could fight that storm and win!”
“I meant how you were afraid of meeting me back at the dock. Penny is five hundred, I don't need to go Stalker on her boyfriends! She can handle hers—” Boris stopped mid sentence as he finished processing all of what Pan had said.
He spun on one foot to look Rainbow in the eye. “Y— You fought a psyker who could stop moons, and lived? How the blyat?!”
Rainbow blushed. “Uh, well yeah… My friends and I stopped Nightmare Moon. I didn’t really do much, I just helped activate the Elements of Harmony. It was a group effort.”
Pan’s jaw dropped incredulously. “Oh that is horseapples!” He exclaimed. “I know the whole story! You were face to face with Nightmare Moon as soon as she appeared after defeating Princess Celestia. You were right there, in Ponyville, and instead of running and hiding you met up with the other Elements, marched right through the Everfree Forest, at night, all the way to the middle of the literally haunted forest, saving Twilight’s life on the way when she fell off a cliff!
“Then, you walked right into the Castle of the Two Sisters, a place everypony ever has always believed is a place of pure evil where Nightmares can possess ponies bodies, because you know, that actually happened, and to a bucking alicorn of all ponies! You, walked into that! Like it isn’t a place where you could be turned into a puppet of an evil ghost, dream, thing!
“Only to face down a possessed alicorn, with no plan other than to hope you could find an ancient magical weapon that you only knew was in the castle at one point in time. For all you knew, Celestia moved it someplace secure after that moldy old book was written!”
Pan took a deep breath. “For buck’s sake, Rainbow! You guys didn’t even know how to fire the stupid things! You marched in there with no plan other than ‘get elements, save the day’ and then you did! You saved the world! Without you, without all six Elements, you wouldn’t have been able to stop her. You played an equal part in— Ugh! You’re a hero. You earned that. Deal with it!”
Rainbow blushed and squirmed in place. “I just… I just did what anypony would do…”
Boris blinked. “You think anyone would do that?”
Rainbow nodded. “Yeah. It was the right thing to do, and you shouldn't let your friends go do something dangerous alone.”
The ex-Stalker looked Pan in the eye. “She do more than that?”
“Yeah!” Pan exclaimed “She faced down a creature that might actually be near-omnipotent.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and he mind controlled me into being a huge jerk to everypony.”
“And then you shook it off. And resisted him the second time, when you petrified him!” Pan exclaimed. “Celestia! I wish the act you put on for everypony was how you really felt about this stuff! The six of you are the only ponies I know of who earned being idolized. My little sister built a shrine to you in her closet! She thinks if she believes in you hard enough she’ll overcome physical disability and fly!”
Rainbow winced and nodded. “Yeah… That’s why I put on the act. Fillies need mares to look up to. But I’m just a normal mare… Well, mostly. I’m one of the best fliers in the world, sure, but anypony with a little talent could train just as hard and be just as good. Heck, Lightning Dust did exactly that! I couldn’t keep up with her even while totally motivated too.”
Jo cleared her throat. “Dash, hon, are you telling me that there’s other pegasi who can break the sound barrier?”
Rainbow’s cheeks turned a bright red. “Oh, uh… Not that I know of. I did that once as a filly by accident, then couldn’t do it again until just a month ago. I thought it was a fluke and never really counted it as my top speed. Before that my best speed was just under mach oh-point-eight-nine-two. Lightning clocked in at mach oh-point-eight-nine-five. Any Equestria Games level Pegasi will be around that fast. It’s where the best of the best fliers compete.”
“Sure, other pegasi are fast too,” Pan said dismissively. “But you know what they haven't’ done? Faced down an ancient dragon. Stopped a possessed Alicorn. Stopped a chaos god’s happy funtimes after a millennia frozen in stone. Heck, before you were an Element, you stopped that rogue lightning storm all by yourself! You’re a hero. Deal with it!”
Rainbow shrugged her wings. “Okay, maybe I’ve been in a position to help more than most ponies, but I just did what anypony in them should do!”
“Blin…” Boris said softly as he shook his head. “Blue, you and I are going to sit down, share some vodka, and swap stories while Penny catches up with her mama. It will take hours, and I know there’s some good stories floating around in your head if that’s how you think of yourself.”
Penny held her face in her armored hands and groaned loudly. “Void take me! She’s going to pry into every last little thing…”
Pan’s ears drooped in sympathetic terror. “Uh, hey, hon? It will be okay,” he said slowly while looking over to Jo to mouth ‘She’s doomed!’
Jo smiled and shook her head.
Boris caught he gesture as well and laughed. “Ha! So, there’s something I have in common with you after all. Good! We can share vodka too. Someone has to tell Blue’s stories properly after she tells them like the most modest pony in the galaxy.”
Rainbow huffed. “I’m not being modest! Just honest. I only talk things up for colts and fillies who need larger than life heros…”
Boris rolled his eyes. “Da, sure, whatever. Fighting a moon-stopping wizard isn’t heroic. Everyone does that on their way to get kavass at the corner store.”
Penny sat down, making her armor spark and groan. “Can we please go home so I can get this over with?”
Boris smiled. “Heh… Of course, of course. We’ve delayed long enough. Next stop, home!”
The shuttle’s engines hummed as power flowed through them once more. The shuttle shivered, twitched, then slid back into the air as it resumed its course for the city of Iv Damke.