//------------------------------// // Chapter 00-01 // Story: My Little Pony: Venator // by ScottWolf //------------------------------// Author’s Note: These chapters will be , for the most part, relatively short and to the point. I’m currently working on a Garry’s Mod based webcomic of this story. It and this involve events that have only ever been recorded in my head (sometimes on-the-spot) and likely won't ever be chronicled. I apologize if it seems confusing at times. And yes, I know my OC seems very Mary Sue, but I promise, he's not all powerful or all knowing. He's simply... complicated. Prologue: Home From the personal journal of Twilight Sparkle 24 May, First year of Exodus Space. It used to be so far above me. A giant tapestry of beauty woven by the Princess of the Night. Distant stars, while fun and exciting to study and observe, were always far out of reach. Constellations had more meaning when each point was only a few inches apart. And meteors were far more beautiful when they weren’t an actual threat to life on a daily basis. Now. Now our lives are confined to 1137 meters of dura-steel surrounded by eternal nothingness. And who’s been put in charge of it and the hundred something ponies that survived our world’s destruction? Me. Twilight Sparkle. Princess of Friendship. I don’t mean to sound bitter about it; honestly it’s a great honor that all these ponies trust me that much. And the Royal Sisters have every confidence and faith in my organizational abilities. A great honor and a noble responsibility. Life on a starship isn’t like life in Equestria. It’s the same thing day in and day out. You see the same ponies over and over. Most weathered the evacuation decently. Others.. well. Some things you can’t see the bright side of, no matter how bright your outlook is, and not even the support of your closest friends can help. Celestia and Luna took it upon themselves to see to the safeguarding of the ship. At the few planets we’ve stopped where sentient space-faring life existed, they’ve done well in acquiring needed defenses. It’s not the best equipment available, but with our limited resources, it should make do. Whether we can learn to use them safely and effectively remains to be seen. Fortunately, we have help with that in the form of a veteran fighter. An interdimensional hopping being who not only warned us about the coming danger, but also secured this ship for us. Along with his wife, Cloudchaser, Timber’s guided us through some very sticky situations, both politically and physically. I can honestly say we’d be quite lost without the two of them. Some of the other survivors have taken to learning how their new home operates, taking cues and instruction from the android crew. They’ll never completely take over for the automaton guardians, but at least they’re keeping busy. I should be happy they’re taking the initiative. But honestly, I just feel so… numb. I wish Spike was here. Chapter 1 - The Day Equestria Disappeared From the journal of Twilight Sparkle 3rd of February, 20XX You would think the day the world ended would have started out a little more ostentatiously. While there were several significant events going on in the world that day, none of which were a big concern for myself or the rest of Equestria. The only major thing of note was that Cadence was visiting Ponyville with my brother and Flurry Heart to prepare for my niece's fourth birthday. They'd assured me they would be fine on their own (as fine as dealing with Pinkie Pie can get anyway) and left me to my own duties. I was enjoying my normal Wednesday task: resorting, cataloging and re-shelving my library. I can honestly say that, next to any activity with my friends, this is my favorite thing ever to do. And, of course, I had my number one assistant to help. We were about halfway into the task before Spike finally began to gripe. “Come on, Twilight,” Spike complained. “It’s lunchtime! Can’t we take a break for a few minutes?” “Not yet,” I replied. “I’ve still got half of the Geological section to do still, and I haven’t even considered how I’m going to integrate the Zoological section.” “”You could try putting it at the end of the library,” he grumbled, folding his arms. I really should have agreed to stop; I was hungry and I knew he was too. But I wanted to get this done so I could go to Applejack’s farm without having to worry about coming back to finish. After all, Apple Bloom turns twelve only once in her life. “It’s not just that,” I said to Spike. “I’ve also got another order of books coming tomorrow, and if I put the rest of the sorting off, then it’ll just be a big mess when they arrive.” “Wouldn’t that be a crime,” he snarked back. Before either of us could comment further, there was a large bang that seemed to come from the Map Room. Both Spike and I dropped our books and ran out of the library. Another bang was heard, just as loud as the first, as we ran down the hallway. Starlight Glimmer joined us in our mad gallop, asking what was going on. I had no answer, which only sped us on further. The Map room was filled with a clearing smoke and the sound of coughing. I put a hoof over my nose and squinted through the smoke. In the middle of the map table lay two ponies who seemed to be tangled up with each other and some sort of mechanism. Starlight and I rushed to the table where we could get a better look, and as the smoke cleared, the colors of the two came into focus. “Timber? Cloudchaser? Are you two alright?” The male coughed a few more times, then looked directly into my eyes. Looking back as I write this, I should have been paying more attention to those eyes. If I had, I might have been more inclined to act quicker than I did. I saw in them a great fear, almost a panic, that in all the time I’d known him he’d never shown. This was a pony who had faced a full grown Ursa Major and simply laughed as he charged it, who I’d fought against countless Changeling incursions with, who had saved me from the wingblades of a griffin assassin twice. This was a pony I would confidently label fearless and knew he would live up to the title in every way possible. His eyes were the first sign of trouble. But, being naive as I was then, I dismissed the non-verbal cues. His first words to me were only a distant clue by comparison. “Twilight,” Timber said between coughs. “We need to evacuate Equestria!” I looked at him incredulously. There was no way I heard that right. Evacuate Equestria? Yeah right. I laughed a little, thinking (or really, hoping) he was playing some sort of prank on me. Starlight and Spike must have thought so too for they both gave a laugh. “Very funny,” Starlight replied with a chuckle. “And why exactly do we need to evacuate the whole country?” “Not just the country,” he said as he got to his hooves and off my table. “The whole world needs to evacuate!” Cloudchaser seemed to still be a bit woozy, but she quickly shook it off and began packing their teleportation device as we spoke. I noticed her movements were very hurried. They were going all out on this prank. “The whole world??” I laughed again. “Let me guess: something’s coming to destroy the planet.” “Crap, we only have the one ship,” Timber went on, starting toward the door as if he hadn’t heard me. “And it couldn’t possible hold an entire planet’s population, much less a whole country’s.” “What about the Lycan Federation,” Cloudchaser asked as she joined him, leaving Starlight, Spike and I behind as they exited the room. We looked at each other, exchanging nervous grins, before following them out. “No, they wouldn’t help,” Timber replied. “I don’t have enough pull with them, and they don’t have the ships for it besides.” “The New Republic then! They have the ships, and this is the sort of emergency they’d respond to!” “Not close enough. That monster’s only a few hours away.” “What monster,” Spike asked, running up beside the grey pony. He gave a quick flap of his wings and leaped up to ride Timber’s back, grabbing hold of one of the blue swaths of fur that made up his unique coat pattern. “The kind of monster you don’t see coming until it’s sucking you in,” Timber replied as we exited the castle. “A Rogue Black Hole.” “I would think we would have noticed a giant hole in space coming towards us,” I said tersely. This prank was going a bit too far. We trotted past the Friendship Academy and entered Ponyville proper. Timber maintained a home here when he wasn’t out adventuring with Cloudchaser. “Seriously, this joke is going a bit far.” He suddenly stopped and whirled to face me, throwing Spike off with the inertia. Before I knew it he was right in my face, his blue tipped orange mane brushing my eyebrows. “This is not a joke, Twilight,” he yelled. I backed away, stunned as he went on. “There’s is a Black Hole coming this way! You don’t see it because the accretion disk is almost nonexistant! It’s sucking matter in so fast it doesn’t show any color! We have literally hours before we feel it’s effects!” “H..hours?” Starlight’s eyes were pinpricks, her ears flat against her skull. I can’t imagine I looked any different. “Wh-what do we do?? How do we stop it??” “There’s no way to stop it,” Cloudchaser replied, much more calmly. “All we can do is get off this planet and out of it’s way.” “I need to get to our house,” Timber said, as he turned away. “I’ll call whoever I can to assist. Gaia knows a few governments owe me favors. There’s a ship in orbit, and it will be sending down transports soon. Contact Celestia and Luna. Tell them to get themselves ready. We’ll get as many as we can off planet.” I stood there as they galloped off, too stunned to do anything. My mind reeled with the information it had just swallowed, and wasn’t properly processing it. Fortunately, Starlight was a little more alert. “Spike, send a letter to Princess Celestia. Mark it Apocalyptic if you have to but get it to them quickly. Tell them what we know and to get in contact with us as soon as she can. We’re going to go find Princess Cadence and get her family together, as well as spread the word. We need to move quickly.” “Twilight?” Spike stared at me as I stood there, still dumbfounded. “Go, Spike!” Starlight telekinetically picked him up and threw him toward the castle. I dimly heard flapping of small leathery wings fading into the distance. My awareness didn’t fully return though until a hoof slapped me across the cheek. I blinked and looked at Starlight, who was suddenly holding me by my shoulders and glaring into my eyes. “This is no time for a Twilight Freak-Out! We need you alert! There’s going to be a lot of panic, and everypony is gonna be looking to you for guidance!” “R-r-r-right..” I said at last, shaking my head. “Find Cadence. Tell her to start organizing everyone. I’ve got to find my friends and get them to help. I’ll meet you at Town Hall.” It took me half an hour to round up the other Elements of Harmony, and after calmly but quickly informing them of the situation (and straight-up yelling at them when they wouldn’t take it seriously), we all headed off to different parts of town. I looked up at the sky and thought I could see a big patch of darkness through the blue. Maybe it was my imagination, but I ran harder. Within another hour, I could definitely sense something wasn’t right. It felt like a pull in a direction I knew would be bad. The other ponies of town seemed to sense it as well, and panic began to slowly creep in. Most looked to me or Cadence or even my brother and followed our lead of staying calm, but quite a few screams and cries could still be heard around town. Timber’s dropships began to arrive soon after. They looked old and weathered, as if they’d been part of a war long past. I hadn’t seen Timber himself since he’d ran off, but Cloudchaser kept us apprised of the situation. Celestia and Luna both showed up with a detachment of Royal Guard to help keep ponies calm. After sending out missives to other world leaders, they had given the job of preparing Canterlot’s citizens to a general and flown here as quickly as they could. Loading ponies and other creatures onto the ships went fairly quickly. The ships themselves were crewed by android automatons. With help from the Guardsponies they loaded about thirty beings onto each ship, which lifted into the sky only to be replaced a few minutes later by another. Cloudchaser told me that another Galactic government had responded and was in the process of arriving to pick up other species around the world. It wouldn’t be a complete evacuation, but we would save as much of the population as we could. Ponyville was mostly evacuated when we ran out of time. The earth suddenly lurched, jarring nearly everypony from their hooves. A rumble crept across the town. I looked up, and my jaw dropped. The Black Hole was visible now, it’s outer event horizon a thin white and red circle before plunging into darkness. I fought the wave of panic and yelled for everypony to hurry. I looked around as ponies ran past me to board what would be the last shuttles off planet. Everything shook. Houses started to collapse. I couldn’t see my friends anywhere. I saw the Guardsponies bodily pushing Celestia, Luna, Cadence and her family onto one of the shuttles before it’s doors snapped closed and it lifted off. Several ran toward me, but I leaped into the air in search of my friends. I saw Spike flying faster than he’d ever flown toward me, a messenger bag around his neck. “Twilight! We need to get to Timber’s house!” “Where is everypony else?!?” I had to yell now because the rumbling had become a roar. Below me, the ground cracked and heaved, and molten lava erupted through, drawn up by the gravity of the beast above us. “They’re there on Timber’s ship! It’s the last one on planet!” There was an explosion, and as I watched, the town hall crumbled into a giant rift, taking several ponies who had thought to use the building as shelter. I would have looked on longer, but Spike grabbed my face and turned it toward him. “We need to go now!!” I nodded and together we streaked toward what used to be an unassuming home in Ponyville’s downtown area. All I saw was the semi-circular ship I knew as the Ebon Hawk. Timber’s personal starship. In all my travels with him he’d never let on how he’d acquired it, saying it was either a gift or a prize or a repayment of some debt or other. The story never stayed the same, and I’d eventually stopped asking. Somepony must have seen me, for the ramp lowered as soon as I landed in front of it, and we hurried inside. I first saw Applejack standing at the inner airlock, which she sealed as soon as Spike and I were aboard. She then slapped a hoof on another panel and yelled, “They’re aboard!” I heard engines whine to life and felt a lurch as the ship lifted off, then gravity normalized itself and we made our way to the main cabin and the rest of my friends. Rainbow Dash sat at the security station seat. She didn’t appear to be using the equipment, but just sat there in a seemingly catatonic state. When she looked up to me, she gave a small smile and a wave. I nodded back and continued to look around. The Apple Family had gathered themselves at the back to comfort a crying CMC. All three fillies where there, holding each other and weeping. Applejack joined her brother and hugged them close. Granny Smith was nowhere to be seen. Fluttershy was curled into a tight ball, her wings wrapped around her head. She made no sound other than small whimpers. Starlight, who lay next to her trying to be comforting, looked up at me. “You’d better go see Pinkie Pie,” she said quietly. “What happened,” I asked, dreading the answer. “Rarity’s with her in the crew quarters,” Starlight went on, looking back down at Fluttershy, who gave a small shudder. I nodded and hurried into the small room. Pinkie Pie lay on one of the bunks facing the inner bulkhead, her back toward the door. Her mane and tail were as flat as pancakes, not a bit of poof in them. Rarity sat on the floor next to her, nuzzling the pink pony as best she could. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes. “Her… the Pies… they…” Rarity couldn’t say any more. She didn’t need to. As I backed out of the room, reality finally closed in on me. I sat down with a thud, then slowly slid to prone, my wings splaying out on my sides. My emotions began to take control and I began to cry. I don’t know how long I cried for. I only remember my friends gathering around me, forming a group hug. Somewhere behind us, our home was crushed into its smallest atoms and swirled into an inescapable vortex that obliterated them. Within minutes of our leaving, nothing was left, and we were a lightyear away, making rendezvous with the rescue ships. Equestria, and the whole planet of Equis, had ceased to exist.