//------------------------------// // The Calm Before the Serious Storm // Story: Friendship is Serious // by The card holder //------------------------------// For almost a whole minute, no words were spoken from either party. Until suddenly, the figure inhaled sharply and clapped his hands together. "Alright then. Start explaining what I'm doing here." Silence reigned in the room for a few more seconds. Then Twilight cleared her throat. "Um... May we ask who you are?" "And why should I tell you?" the being responded. However, he started to look like someone was scolding him, despite the ponies not hearing anyone else, and he threw up his arms. "Alright, Netty, sheesh." He looked back to the ponies. "To answer your question, Sam I am. Serious Sam, to be more exact." Twilight looked at her friends, who only offered shrugs. "Are you the one that the book said defeated most of Mental's forces?" The man seemed surprised at the name Mental. "Well, yeah. What were you expecting, a squad of highly trained special ops soldiers, who only carry two guns each and have to hide behind something if they so much as get a paper cut?" None of Twilight or her friends knew how to respond to this, and they started whispering amongst each other. Twilight then broke the commotion and looked at Sam. "Will you excuse us for one moment?" She led them out the door, leaving Sam alone. "Now, Ah'm th' first one t' trust ya on these things, Twi," Applejack started, "but how in the hay is he supposed t' help us?" "Yeah, he seems kinda... odd," Rainbow Dash chimed in. "And while it's of low priority at the moment, I can't help but notice that his ensemble is rather drab," Rarity said. "Well, he's our best bet at the moment," Twilight told the others. "It's either him, or we do nothing." She turned and looked at Spike. "Spike, will you stay down here for a bit?" "Aww, why?" "Because we don't yet know if he's dangerous. Besides, we'll need someone to keep a lookout for us." Begrudgingly, the dragon nodded, and the others started creeping back into the room where they left Sam, just in time to catch him talking to what looked like nothing but an empty wall. "No, Netty, I'm not saying we should shoot our way out of this, just that I'd like for it to be an option." Silence. "Yeah, because I've really been quite the negotiator this whole time, haven't I?" More silence. "You know what, fine. But if one of them even thinks of calling in those headless freaks, I'm out. Seriously." Sam turned back around just in time to see the six ponies standing back in the room, confused looks on all of their faces. "Who were you talking to?" Applejack asked. "Oh, you know, voice in my head. Nothing unusual." The ponies shared concerned looks, before Twilight spoke up. "So... You hear... voices in your head?" "Nah, just the one voice. She kinda works as the brains to my... everything else, really." "So you're insane," Dash stated, unamused. "While some might say yes, it's not for the reason you're thinking of. You see, it's all a really complicated series of stories and testing with AI and me being picked." A moment of silence passed, then Sam added, "Oh yeah, and Netty asks you where we are." "Well, you're in Ponyville," Twilight said, "which is located in Equestria, which is a country on the planet Equis." Sam just stood there, before he chuckled. "I don't think Netty likes all the puns you listed there." Before Twilight could ask just what he meant, Dash flew up and loudly said, "Can't you just have 'Netty' talk to us herself?!" "Well, let me see." Twilight spotted an almost unnoticeable image of various numbers and letters appear in Sam's eye, then disappear suddenly. "Nope." "Wait," Twilight said, "let me try something." She lit up her horn and started focusing her magic on Sam's head, which didn't go unnoticed by him. "Woah, what are you doing?" he asked, concerned. "Just... hold... still..." Twilight told him, face scrunching up in concentration. Then, as soon as it started, the flow of magic stopped, and she let out a sigh of relief. "Done." Sam rubbed his head. "Well, apart from giving me a headache, what was that supposed to do?" "Running scan on body systems... Well, everything seems fine. Except..." All of the ponies, save for Twilight, gasped. "So he's not crazy!" Pinkie Pie said, hopping in place. "Well I'll be..." Applejack added. "Wait, you can hear her now?" Sam asked, genuinely confused. "Interesting... It seems that here, magic is much more free form. And not a moment too soon; I was getting rather tired of only speaking to Sam." "Hey!" "Anyway, I am the NEuroTRonically Implanted Combat Situation Analyzer, or NETRICSA, for short." "Nice to meet you, Netty!" Pinkie greeted the AI. "Well, now that I can speak to you all directly, would it be too much to ask for, say, books on local geography, history, and legends?" "Why would you need to know about legends?" Dash asked. "Trust me when I say that we have a track record on these sort of things," Netricsa answered. Shrugging, Twilight left the room to tell Spike what to get. "So, you've fought against Mental before?" Rarity asked. Sam laughed. "Boy have I. Through space and time." "Time?" "It's a long story." At that moment, Twilight came back into the room, carrying a rather large supply of books with her. "Will these be good enough, Netricsa?" "That'll be fine, just put them down in front of me- err, Sam. We are technically the same person, aren't we?" While the others pondered the implications of this, Twilight set the books down in front of Sam, and he immediately began reading. Much to Twilight's horror, however, he only skimmed through the books before tossing them behind him carelessly. She had to grab them one by one out of the air with her magic to keep them from getting damaged from the force of the impacts. Soon, Sam had gone through the entire pile in this manner, and he cracked his knuckles. "Alright, Netty, do your thing." "Processing... Done, records updated." "Say, something just occurred to me," Sam said. "We told you our names, but you didn't tell us yours." Twilight blushed slightly once she was sure all of her books were safe. "Oh, right," She stood up straight. "I am Twilight Sparkle, and these are my friends, Rainbow Dash..." "Nice to meetcha!" "...Rarity..." "The pleasure is mine." "...Applejack..." "Howdy." "...Pinkie Pie..." "Hi! I can't wait to throw a 'Welcome to Ponyville' party for you two! But how would I give Netty a cupcake? Would I just give Sam two? Or-" "And," Twilight almost had to yell, in order to cut off Pinkie's rambling, "Fluttershy." "Hello..." "What did you say?" Sam questioned the yellow pegasus. "She said 'hello'," Netricsa answered. "Enhanced hearing has its perks." "Huh. Well then," Sam clapped his hands together, "time for you to explain just what Mental is doing this time." Twilight and her friends started explaining the entire situation to them, from the rule of Nightmare Moon, to her sudden overthrowing by Mental, to the campaign he launched against all other countries on the planet. Sam and Netricsa asked for clarification on a few points, but otherwise stayed quiet. "And so, out of options, we decided to bring in a supposed mighty enemy to Mental," Twilight finished. "And that's where you come in." "So, you just need me-" "Ahem." "-us to clear out your little Mental problem here?" "I would hope so." "Sounds like a plan. Except for one problem. I have none of my weapons on me." Twilight smiled sheepishly. "Well, it occurs to me that in casting the spell, I only really focused on you, not quite what you had with you..." "Seriously?" Sam sighed. "Alright, I've started from nothing before, I can do it again." "Wait, before we do anything, I would like to get a look at a up-to-date star chart or something similar, in order to see exactly what time we're at in relation to our planet." "Well, I have an observatory here, and I was able to get a really big telescope for it," Twilight said. "Alright then, let's see it." Twilight led the human and other five ponies into another room, where the only items were a very large telescope mounted in the wall, and a screen hooked up to said telescope. "The screen shows a live feed of whatever the telescope is focused on," Twilight explained, "and it has a very, very high zoom." "Seems generous of Mental to give you this," Sam noted. "Well, apparently it's because he doesn't see us as a threat..." As Sam started looking at various constellations, Netricsa began to give directions to him on where to look. "Look a little more to your left. No, that's too far, go back to the right a bit." "I'm trying, Netty!" While the AI kept giving directions to the human, the ponies looked at the screen to see the view shifting across various groups of stars, not yet focusing on anything notable. "Wait, stop there. That looks like that could be it. Zoom in." Sam did so, and the ponies watched as the display on the screen flew towards a single star, which had a number of small specks revolving around it. "Bingo, that's our Sun." Now no longer needing instructions, Sam zoomed in on one of the specks, revealing it to be a green and blue planet with a single moon. Twilight noted that it looked rather similar to Equis... "Hey, Earth's still there, that's something." This statement broke Twilight out of her thinking. "What do you mean, 'still there'?" "Hold on a sec." The display zoomed into a region on the planet, which looked to be mostly desert. Sporadically placed settlements could be seen, and even without focusing on them the ponies could tell they were mostly in ruins. "Alright, so we know this is the same time Mental was attacking us... And from the looks of things, it's currently near the tail end of the attack..." "Mental attacked your home, too?" Fluttershy asked, barely audible. "Yep," Sam replied simply. He seemed to be looking for a specific spot, and after a bit of searching he found it: a rather long canyon that from what little they could see, looked to be filled with various corpses, both whole and in pieces (but mostly pieces). "What did all that?" Dash asked, both awed and slightly nauseated. "I did." As the ponies stared at Sam in disbelief, he moved the telescope to one end of the canyon, showing a lone set of temple ruins- and a certain white-shirted man walking out of the canyon. "Oh hey, look, it's me." He zoomed in more on the figure, whom the ponies noticed wore orange sunglasses along with their Sam's attire. The man walked towards the ruins, when suddenly the ground started shaking, and Sam zoomed the telescope out enough for the ponies to see a very, very huge alien burst out of the sand. The Sam on the screen didn't look too phased, and simply took out what looked like a whole cannon as the giant alien was attacked by an equally-giant sand worm. As Sam kept the telescope focused on the scene, the ponies watched in awe as the onscreen Sam grabbed a jetpack and flew up into the air, cannon still in his arms. "Just what is that dreadful thing?" Rarity asked. "Ugh-Zan the Fourth, one of Mental's strongest lieutenants. Well, former lieutenant, anyway." The ponies watched as, dodging countless rockets, lasers, and fireballs, onscreen Sam stuck lightning rods in the thing's back, one by one. Eventually, the beast fell with a well-placed cannonball, and Sam flew off to some sort of giant artifact of some kind. Before any of the ponies could inquire as to what it was, Netricsa answered them preemptively. "The Time Lock, an ancient Sirian artifact, vital to mine and Sam's continued existence. And to answer your question, no, I won't go into detail about the Sirians at the moment." Onscreen, Sam had some unheard conversations on his phone, before looking up, seemingly towards the telescope, and started booking it for the Time Lock. "Why were you running?" Dash asked, hovering in the air. In answer, Sam zoomed the telescope out, revealing the planet's moon flying right for it. The two collided, and a massive explosion nearly blinded everyone in the room. When they look back, all that remained was a bunch of floating, still-burning rocks. "You- Your planet was destroyed?" Twilight asked, in disbelief. "Yeah. That's part of the reason I went back, to keep that from happening." "I... I had no idea..." "Don't feel bad, you had nothing to do with it." Suddenly, Spike burst into the room, breathing heavily. "Those things... and the... Here..." "What is it Spike?" Rarity asked, concerned, along with all the other ponies. The dragon gasped some more, before saying a single thing. "Wreckers." Twilight stiffened, while Sam scratched his head in confusion. "Wreckers?" "You see," the unicorn explained, "rather than kill ponies for disobeying his rule, he just sends some foot soldiers to smash all their things." "Hopefully, they don't know that Sam and I are here already..." Spike looked around, confused. "Who was that?" "No time to explain," Twilight urged, leading all her friends downstairs. Sam followed, trying to remain mostly hidden. He didn't need a spot of expository narration to tell him that things were about to get serious.