//------------------------------//
// Section 1: Arrival 
// Story: Into the Rainbow Factory 
// by Ractrin 
//------------------------------//

“Princesses” announced an armored colt. “You have a visitor from Fillydelphia.” Princess Celestia and Princess Luna looked up from their conversation to see a young unicorn walk into their court room. The young filly couldn’t have been any older than a pegasus soon to graduate flight school. The nervous unicorn walked up to the base of the staircase that led to the two princess’ thrones and looked at them with great unease. 

“Greetings young one, for what reason have you come to visit us?” Luna asked, looking down on her with a curious smile.

“Y-Your highnesses…my name is Rose Seed and I’ve been looking for my friend. She is a pegasus and the last time I saw her was when she went to Cloudsdale to take flight school. When she didn’t come back on the day after the test; I asked her parents about it and they said that they didn’t even have a daughter.” 

A black pegasus stallion in the corner of the room flinched nervously. He needed to stop this filly from continuing her story. Her friend’s parents had broken containment by just saying that one thing to this young one. Thinking of something only he would consider brilliant, he began to walk towards her. “Young filly,” he calmly said as he approached her, “Your friend surely failed the flight test and was deported to where all of the other flunks went.” He grinned callously at her.

The Unicorn frowned and her ears lowered. “Where is that exactly?” she quivered.
He just replayed in a smooth tone, “A place for no one of our standard.” he ran his hoof comfortingly under her chin, his smile being that of pride now. Princess Celestia looked at him suspiciously. She knew about the exiles, but he acted as if their was something more to it; as if he knew what he spoke was not the whole truth. The defeated unicorn left with the Princess’ grace and the black pegasus returned to his corner.

“Chancellor Black”  Celestia called. The onyx pegasus had just leaned against the wall when his name resounded through the room. With a huff he returned to the stairs in front of his two rulers.
“Yes your highness?” he replied with a bow.
“Where do the exiled ponies go?” she demanded. With great inquisition, Luna looked at him with hope that he would end this daunting mystery. At first he was nervous about his response, but he wasn’t chosen to be the chancellor to Canterlot for no reason. He quickly and efficiently thought of an excuse and brought about a knowledgeable smirk.

“Why your Highness, we send them beyond the lands of Equestria. A place where they have formed their own colony of failure. Far away from this great nation so as to prevent them from doing any harm.” he tried to hide a smile of satisfaction, but he just could not help himself.

“WHERE DO YOU SEND THEM TOO!?” boomed Celestia. This startled Black, causing him to stumble on the stairs; nearly falling.
“Your majesty, you must understand. They don‘t tell me everything! I only know what I told that young filly.” he retorted quickly. Still unsatisfied at his answer, but enough that it cooled her rage; Celestia settled down a little.

“Leave us” Luna stated to everyone in the room, seeing her sister disgruntled. Everyone, including Black, bowed and left hurriedly out of the main door. Luna looked with concern at her sister. “Are you alright sis?” Celestia shook with anger. She knew the pegasi were lying to her, and pondered deeply about what it could possibly be. 

Without looking at her sister Celestia spoke, “We should go to Cloudsdale and investigate this matter Luna.”
“I do not believe that would be a wise decision.” Luna stated cautiously. A surprised Celestia looked down at her younger sister curiously.
“And why is that?” the white and golden mare muttered.
“If we do find something, our subjects may lose their trust in our capability of ruling. Also, if we wrongly accuse them, then our subjects may never trust our judgment.” Celestia sighed in aggravation because she knew her sister was correct in her assessment. 
“Then…” started Celestia, “ we need to get some help from the outside.”
“Outside?” Luna did very little to hide her befuddlement.
“From somewhere were no pony will challenge him.” Celestia smiled as her horn began to glow.
“Who?” Luna looked out as a portal opened in front of them, revealing a room containing unfamiliar architecture.

A universe away, the Highrule, a massive space cruiser, sat alone along an enemy sub-space trade route. They were sitting in wait for an enemy cargo freighter to jump into the system to re-supply at the space station on the other side of the solar system. The Highrule sat in the dark shadow of one of the gas giants, the planet’s blue surface glistening off the ships grey and scaly hull. The Humans of Earth had found this Ractrin ship in the galaxy of Andromeda two years ago. 

Raptor looked at the planet from his apartment in the ship’s upper decks, near the bridge that sat in the large bulbous dome atop the cruiser. He thought back to the days when they had found the ship adrift in the midst of an asteroid belt. Straining, he pushed his head against the glass so as to try and look along the hull. There, he could barely see another massive dome on the side of the ship that had two gigantic cannons extending out of it; a total copy of the other side of the ship that he couldn’t see. 

Looking down he could see one of the defensive Hellfire Cannons that ran along the side of the ship. Only six on this side; running along the ship in two rows. He crawled out from the window seal and looked around his apartment, yawning. The couch that sat in the middle of this room looked very comfortable, and he longed greatly to sleep on it. Unfortunately it would provide him little rest. He had been having disturbing visions of late. Glancing at the kitchen that sat to the left of the room he was in, he knew that food wouldn’t help. 

He meandered over to the couch and sat in it. Flipping on the holo-tv, he scanned through many of the sub-space channels that had been recorded by Valtor, the ship’s sort-of A.I. There were only recordings because with the Highrule being in hiding it was in a state of radio silence. No transmissions of any kind in or out. 

With a glance into the bedroom he could see his wife sleeping. He sighed and slouched further into his chair. “Can’t sleep again?” asked Valtor, a tall and see-through hologram. The hologram depicted what he looked like when he was alive, a Ractrin. Ractrins hailed from the planet Rectron; a planet now destroyed by a war ten thousand years ago. Valtor loomed behind Raptor, portraying himself to lean on the couch. 

Valtor himself is a special A.I. in the fact that he is actually a living spirit that has taken control of the ship’s computer network. His body was destroyed those ten thousand years ago and his soul trapped in a Spirit Energy Capsule known as the Eye of Mortals. Raptor found the Eye about six years ago. 

Well, six years ago to him. Since then him and his companions had traveled through time to this future. Raptor and his friends had discovered a time device left behind by an alien race back in 2002 and it projected them first back in time to the past. There they found another device and it sent them to this future, and at times he felt out of place in this future layout. 

Him and his companions had been thrust into this war with the aliens they were waiting on. They didn’t mind. After all, they had sworn an oath back when the Twin Towers were attacked to defend Earth and that’s just what they intended on doing. Just right now they had to wait. This mission was very important and they couldn’t blow it.

“Yeah, unfortunately.” Raptor finally responded in a huff.
“Why?”
“Every time I shut my eyes…all I see is two waterfalls that lead into a pond below. Once I investigate more I see that the waterfalls are actually blood pooling into a rainbow pond that never fills, no matter how much bleeds into it.”
“That’s rather gory. Is this war getting to you?”
“It’s a possibility…we’ve been fighting since we first met Val.” Valtor walked around the couch and looked sympathetically at the young Human.
“And in those six years, we’ve never failed.” Raptor looked up at the hologram and grinned.
“And never faltered. God’s gotten us through a lot hasn’t he?”
“Yep. Speaking of God, you think that maybe he’s the reason why you’ve been having these visions?” Valtor raised a hand to his chin in thought.
“Maybe” Raptor said as he stood up and walked over to the window that looked out into deep space. “I kinda wish I had Joseph from the bible here to help me on that.”

“Well, you may not have an interpreter, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” Valtor walked over and stood next to him. “You need to get some sleep, you’ve been a bit of an ass lately.”
Raptor chuckled. “According to you Val, I’m always an ass.” the holographic Ractrin let out an amused laugh as he turned to leave. When he was just beginning to fade, he spotted a glowing yellow circle that’s outline flowed like air.
“Josh” Valtor said in a concerned tone. Raptor looked over his shoulder and saw the phenomenon.
“Dammit, better not be Derkon again.” Raptor growled as he walked over to the circular object. It was completely grey on the side he was standing on, just the gold, wavy circle outline had color. 

“Hello!?” shouted a feminine voice from the other side. With a raised eyebrow Raptor walked around the object to find inside the portal a white equine with flowing multi-colored hair and a singular horn pressing through on her forehead. Having seen plenty of aliens before, he wasn’t to surprised to see something new.
“Uh…Hello?” he asked confused, leaning down to see into the portal.
“Are you Raptor?” the equine asked.
“Yes I am.” Raptor responded slightly surprised that she knew his code-name.
“I’m Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria.” she said calmly.
“Okay….and?”
“I need your help”
“…With…?” 

Angrily Celestia pulled Raptor through the portal and let him fall the meter or so to the bottom of the steps. Valtor went to peer in but Celestia closed the portal before he could. Raptor stood holding his head and looked up at the two alicorns. His eyes widened with what he saw. “Wait…y’all are just horses?!” he exclaimed in confusion.
“Ponies…is what we refer to ourselves as.” stated Luna.
“Of course you do.” sighed Raptor.
“This is my little sister, Luna.” Celestia said.
“Howdy” Raptor said mockingly as he leaned forward, putting his hands on his knees attempting to catch his breath. His side hurt a little from landing on a step. “Now what’d y’all want?”
“There is a place I would like you to look into for me.” 

“Aaaannnd…Why should I? I mean, y’all kinda kidnapped me…” Raptor huffed as he gestured to where the portal used to be.
“Because you help people don’t you?” Celestia looked at him concerned.
“That’s my job…but hard to earn my trust by taking me from my ship without asking.” Raptor stood erect and crossed his arms. “Tell me why I should help you? Not like y‘all have been to hospitable in the past two minutes.”
Celestia smiled, “Because they haven’t told me what they’re doing for one thousand years…” Before she could continue Raptor stuck his hand up. 

“Wait wait wait…one thousand years? What are y’all immortal?” he looked at them with a look of pure befuddlement.
“In a way, but that’s not important. There is a city near by that floats in the clouds and makes all the weather for Equestria. It’s called Cloudsdale and is the home of the pegasi in the area.” Raptor held up a hand, again interrupting the Princess.
“Pegisi? Explain…”
“There are three types of ponies: earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasus ponies.” Celestia’s irritation with the constant interruptions was becoming apparent.
“Uh-huh…so I’m guessing that neither of you fall into those categories because both of y’all have wings AND a single horn?”
“We are alicorns.” explained Luna. Raptor nodded in understanding.
“So…” he began, “Y‘all kidnap me, tell me that y‘all want my help in stopping some ass holes that are supposedly lying to y‘all, and expect me to believe that there‘s a floating cloud city nearby?” both princess nodded. “I’ll need some of my stuff.”

“Of course, whatever you need. I can send you back at any time.” said Celestia gleefully. Her horn began to glow gold and then another portal opened up behind Raptor and closer to the ground. He stepped through it and looked back. “I’ll leave this open so you may return when you’re ready.”
“Okay.” Raptor said as he disappeared out of view of the portal.
“Are you sure we can trust him big sis?” Luna asked.
“I believe so. I’ve been watching him and his friends for some time now. That’s how I knew to ask him.” smiled Celestia.

“Valtor!” Raptor exclaimed as he dug through his closet. Realizing his wife, Masha, was asleep, he glanced at her to ensure his exclamation had not woke her. As soon as he was certain her slumber had not been disturbed, he returned to searching his closet. As he pulled out an ammo vest, Valtor’s hologram appeared in the living room. Raptor saw the ambient light from his hologram on the wall and walked into the room.

“Josh! What the hell was all that!?” Valtor exclaimed as he motioned to the portal.
“SHUSH!” Raptor said pointing to the bedroom. After shaking his head with an annoyed glare at the transparent alien, he continued. “Apparently some horses wants me to help save their people.” Raptor said as he slipped on the vest. He disappeared into his room again and then moments later returned with a green camo backpack strapped to his back. “I’m gonna need my G36 C and swords from the armory please.” he stated as he slipped on two fingerless gloves.

“You must be really tiered to be wanting those old things.” Valtor stated with a chuckle as the items asked for appeared in a cloud of mist on the floor. Two long swords laid over one another next to an automatic rifle from the early 2000‘s.
“Their technology doesn’t seem to be all that great…” Raptor slid the two sheathed swords onto his back one crossed over the other and under the backpack. He then slung the G36 over his back, it came to rest atop the backpack. “So I’m not gonna need much. Gimme…about ten spare magazines please.” a box appeared on the floor and Raptor stuffed it into the backpack.

“Anything else?” Valtor queried in an annoyed huff.
“Nah, I’ll be fine with this.”
“No food? I know how picky you are.” 
Raptor just glared at Valtor, “I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Valtor shrugged as Raptor prepared to walk through the portal again. “What’cha want me to tell the ship?”
Raptor thought for a moment and then stated, “Tell’em I’m on a mission. That’s all they need to know.” Valtor nodded as Raptor stepped through the portal and then the room became dark as it closed; only to be lit by Valtor’s hologram. He looked at the bedroom and sighed. The room went completely dark as he disappeared.