Chapter 1
“Hurry up Rarity! I don’t wanna be late for the meeting!” The pink party pony supreme said with an irritated tone towards her fashionista friend. She wasn’t a pony known for being late alright!
“I am doing the best I can darling! It is just hideous how they handled my belongings!” Rarity called out in distress. Her precious luggage had been carelessly thrown around before transported to their room, at least she thought so. She had to personally check all of her things and make sure they were alright before she would budge.
“But we need to hurry, you can check your stuff later!” Pinkie called out. She didn’t wanna be late! She had even said so to Rarity!
“Just a moment darling.” Rarity stressed as she was picking among her things.
Pinkie sat down on her bed with a sigh. She looked at Rarity, the white unicorn was doing her best at hurrying up. She let out a quiet giggle as she watched her stress about, she was adorable. Trying to hurry her up more would just make things worse. She just had to look at the bright side of things, she shared a room with her and they would soon get to meet two of their other friends again. They would understand why they were late.
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“What in tarnation are those ponies up to? They’re almost an hour late!” Applejack said loudly while stomping her hooves at the ground and looked at her yellow pegasus friend while trying to vent out her irritation.
“I-I’m... s-sor..ry...” Fluttershy whispered as she quickly shied back and whimpered slightly from getting such a stern look.
Applejack quickly realised what she had done and let out a sigh. “Ah’m sorry sugarcube, ah’m just a might irritated at them, is all. It’s not yer fault.” She said to her friend and nuzzled her slightly to calm her down. It seemed to work as Fluttershy stopped whimpering.
“Oooh, snuggle party!” Somepony called out. They fell into a pile on the floor as they were tackled by a pink blur.
“Pinkie, what the hay are you up to?” Applejack yelled at the party pony as she struggled to rise from the pile before they had more attention than they already had. Which didn’t go very well.
“I just can’t let you have all the snuggly fun, can I?” Pinkie giggled as she wrestled with her two friends.
“P-Pinkie....” Fluttershy struggled half-hearted, it was nice to hug, but embarrassing in such a public area and that it looked like a wrestling match.
“Stop this nonsense Pinkie, you are a lady and should behave as such!” Rarity complained at her friend as she saw the scene. Before she could react she was dragged into the wrestling match.
“Awww, don’t be such a Grumpy McGrumpypants Rarity, join the fun!” Pinkie giggled as she pulled her friend into the pile. This was quite the scene now. The pile in the middle of the crew quarters floor started to draw quite much attention.
After a good five to ten minute “brawl”, Applejack finally got out of the pile. She looked at the commotion the group had made, about twenty five ponies stood around while snickering and whispering amongst each other. “OK, enough is enough, the show is over everypony!” She said loudly to the surrounding group as she watched the pile for a good timing. There it was. In an instant Applejack shoved her front hooves into the pile, grabbed a momentary pink blur and dragged out Pinkie. The pink pony didn’t try to resist as she was grabbed and just let it happen while she was giggling immensely. The other two ponies stood up, looking embarrassed as they tried to hold their faces.
“Thank you for saving us, dear.” Rarity said to Applejack and then turned to the Pink giggling pony in her friends hooves. “That was just awful Pinkie! Wrestling us down upon the floor in such an uncivilised matter!” Rarity continued as she scolded Pinkie, which didn’t seem to react very much as she just continued giggling.
Applejack let go of Pinkie just to see her friend fall down on the floor and starting to laugh louder now, her eyes tearing. ‘What in tarnation might be that fun?’ She thought with a sigh. A smile crept up on her lips, it was kind of funny to see Rarity all fuzzed up like that, her mane was tangled and messed up, and scolding Pinkie with that look didn’t seem very serious at all. Pinkie had obviously not been gentle with the fashionista.
“And what are you smiling about?” Rarity said to Applejack as she had seen the smile creeping up on her friends lips.
“Oh don't fret about it.” Applejack answered quickly. “It’s nothing you can’t handle.”
At this Rarity just frowned. “Of course I can handle this, you will just have to wait a few more seconds while I go fix it.” She said with contempt and went to the mares room.
Pinkie continued to laugh for a bit as her friends just looked at her, all of them smiling at her. She could certainly bring a smile to anyone. “What?” She said after she stopped her laughing fit, still wearing a great smile. Her friends just continued to look as they started laughing, and Pinkie continued to laugh with them. This was going to be an awesome trip.
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“So, when do we depart?” Rainbow Dash asked Twilight. They had just gotten back from their tour of the ship, which didn’t take long. They didn’t really need to look around much as they knew most of the ships layout already. Now she was laying on her back on Twilight’s bed. The room was a small single room with just a bed, a desk with a sitting cushion and some digital frames on the walls. The frames all had different paintings, but they were just the same old boring classical stuff that was so typical of Twilight.
“Well, in the report we got an hour ago they stated that we would be departing at 0800 hours.” Twilight answered matter-of-factly as she rechecked her wrist PDA, standard issue in her division. “Didn’t you get it?” She said as she looked back over at Rainbow who was now sitting up on the bed, who replied with a sigh.
“Yeah, I think I got something about an hour ago.” She said as she laid down on her back again. She didn’t really care to read some message she got unless it was something important or urgent. Or if it was something from a friend of course. Her friend just stared her for a bit.
“You don’t read the messages from the military department?” Twilight asked slightly dumbfounded. She knew Rainbow was a bit lazy, but not caring to read the messages from their military department? That was a bit too much.
“Urgh, don’t you start this with me, you know I don’t like reading!” Rainbow exclaimed as she sat up again. “Besides, I read the important ones.” She added quickly before Twilight could answer, she did not want this argument started, especially not with her egghead friend.
“Only the important ones?” Twilight said loudly as she moved closer to her friend. “How could you know which ones are important if you only read some of them?!” She exclaimed, this was absolutely absurd, all messages should at least be checked quickly!
“I read the ones titled ‘Important!’, those should be the only important ones!” Rainbow called out irritatedly and stood up right in front of Twilight, she would stand further back if there was room for it. She looked as irritated as she sounded.
Twilight was dumbstruck, her mouth slightly ajar as she simply stared at her cyan friend. This was probably the most stupid thing she had heard for quite a while. She shook her head, bringing her hoof to her forehead. “So. You say that the only messages important enough to read is the ones titled ‘important’? That is so stupid, so... Irresponsible!” She almost yelled at this point, she knew Rainbow was irresponsible, much because of laziness, but this much?
“I will not take this from you! I’m out of here!” Dash yelled back at Twilight as she stomped out from Twilight’s room. Sure, she didn’t read all the messages, but that did not make her stupid in anyway, irresponsible, sure, but not stupid!
Twilight just stared after the rainbow blur leaving her room in a dash. She quickly realised what she said and sprung towards the corridor outside her room. Seeing a rainbow colored tail rounding a corner further away she already knew it would be futile to try and follow, her friend was simply too fast. She decided to send Rainbow a message hoping that she would read it and then she decided to do some reading about the mission, she had already read about it a few times but repetition brings perfection.
Rainbow went to her room and locked the door behind her not really feeling to do anything so she laid down on the bed. It was getting late and it would be good to get some sleep anyway, even though she wasn’t really that tired. ‘Stupid Twilight, I’m not stupid..’ She thought as she lay there. The bed wasn’t very comfortable, far from her cloud standards anyway, but it would have to do. She felt an incoming message, but brushed it off.
Dash looked around in her room, it was exactly like Twilight’s but mirrored and the digital frames on her walls had much cooler pictures, switching between her favorite Wonderbolt fliers, Spitfire and Ice. Spitfire in her regular Wonderbolt suit while Ice had a weird attachment on his back which allowed him to fly, the engineers called it jet pack. Spitfire and Ice, the electric lead duo. So graceful and exciting to see in action when they worked together. It was a rather fun thing, Ice was an earth pony and still had a part in the Wonderbolts, a lead part too. It was a wonder what the engineers could create with some metal and magic. Well duh, they did have spaceships. She looked at the shifting pictures as she continued drifting towards her well deserved sleep.
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Dash woke up from her dreamless sleep when she heard knocking at her door, still rather drowsy she looked over at her clock, 0700. It was an hour left before they would depart, she could manage half an hour more of sleep and tried to get back to sleep, not really caring for the knocking. That was, until the knocking began again, louder this time. Hoping the visitor would leave she put her pillow over her head to muffle the sound. But the knocking kept on going, now closer between each knock too. Rainbow Dash sighed and threw herself off the bed. “I’m coming, you can stop knocking now!” She said as she walked towards her door to open it. “Oh, it’s you..” She said with a bit of resentment as she saw Twilight on the other side of the door.
“Yeah, it’s me, may I come in? I would like to tell you something.” Twilight said quietly as she looked down on her hooves, not wanting to look her friend in her eyes at the moment.
Dash noticed Twilight’s weird behaviour and decided to go with it. She had been a bit rude just losing her temper and running away from Twilight like that, probably for not sleeping very well the day before, what with saying goodbye to everypony and such. She waved at Twilight to enter and sit down somewhere, which she did quickly, and then waited for her friend to talk.
Twilight looked around her friends room a bit as she went in to sit down on the cushion that laid in front of the desk. Dash had some frames with the Wonderbolts on her wall, nothing unusual. She quickly realised that she was supposed to continue her talk. “Well, I got a new mission update and.. I won’t be able to be with you for the duration of this mission.”
“Why not?” Dash asked her friend while staring at her.
Twilight couldn’t rise her head right now, she didn’t want to see the look on her friends face, she had to continue before looking. “As you know I’m in the special OSA agency and the military officers decided that I was to enter cryogenic sleep.” She said as she looked up at her friend with a forced smile, it was unnerving, she had never entered cryogenic sleep before and she was quite nervous as it was still rather new technology.
Dash just continued to stare at her friend, she could see how nervous Twilight was and how fake her smile was, but she couldn’t really react, it felt as if she was stunned by some unknown force. The lavender mare stood up and started to move towards the door.
“Well, now you know, and I’m sorry for calling you stupid, you're not stupid.” Twilight said, looking over her shoulder to give a final smile before going to the cryogenics. What she saw made her smile turn from nervous and trying to real and sincere, Dash had stood up and walked over to her, Twilight turned around as her friend hugged her.
“I can be stupid sometimes, I’m sorry too Twi.” Being sentimental wasn’t really her thing but as she saw how nervous her friend was she felt she had to do something. “I’ll follow you to the cryo-thingy, ok?” She continued and patted Twilight on her back as they started walking towards the cryogenics. “So, why do you need to..” How would she put this without disturbing her friend.. “Go to sleep?” And that was not a good word apparently as her friends winced at her choice of words but didn’t comment it, which Dash was glad for.
After that blunt use of words Twilight winced, she didn’t really want to think of it too much as it was right now, she was still glad Dash was with her for this. “I am sorry Dash, it’s classified information..”
“Oh, ok, that’s too bad.” Dash answered, a bit disappointed. She was quite protective about her friends and made a great deal out of doing all she could for them.
A sudden realisation hit Twilight, if Dash followed her to this she would be late for her own station assignment! “Dash, you don’t need to come with me, you will be late!” She continued quickly, dropping all her earlier nervousness as she looked at Dash and almost shook her. Dash just seemed to shrug it off.
“No worries, I can take the punishment for being late if it’s for a friend, you know, loyalty and all!” Dash answered with a big grin, this was nothing, she did this kind of thing all the times and her officer would have to deal with it, she was their best after all.
Twilight was glad she had such good friends to rely on, she smiled back at Dash and then continued forward, the rest of the journey towards the cryogenic chambers were in silence. Not bad type of silence but a content one, silence between two good friends.
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“Well, this is goodbye for a while then..” Twilight sighed to Dash, they were at the cryo chambers now, her cryo-chamber to be exact. She looked at the infernal machine once again, it looked like a huge rectangular metal pod, almost like a mechanic coffin.
Dash could see how reluctant Twilight was and gave her another hug, it would probably be a quite a while before they would see each other again so she hugged her tightly. They stood like that for almost half a minute before they let go as the grunt of the medic who handled the machines interrupted them.
“Agent Sparkle, your cryo-chamber is ready, please enter.” The stallion in a lab coat ordered in an uninterested manner and slightly pointed towards it with his horn. “You will be asleep instantly and the technology is in principles perfected, there is nothing to worry about.”
Dash gave the stallion a slight glare before looking back at her nervous friend. “It’s gonna be alright Twilight, We’ll see each other again soon.” She comforted and walked back a bit so she wouldn’t be in the way. She watched as her friend walked towards the pod and get in.
Twilight was glad she had Dash with her, it was a huge support. She went towards the giant metal coffin which would hold her for as long her superiors wanted it to. She didn’t know how long that would be and didn’t want to think about it either. A few stairs was attached to the side of the device to help her ascend into the maw of this mechanical beast. She looked back at her friend who was holding her hoof up towards her, a goodbye, she smiled at her friend, new confidence acquired. She looked forward and went into the open machine, laying down on her belly on the surprisingly comfortable bottom of the machine. She rolled around so she lay on her back instead as it was needed for the machine to correctly work and make everything easier. The medic stallion from before went up the small stairs and proceeded to attach various medical supervision equipment so they could have her statistics on the monitor.
“Everything will be alright, just be calm and take deep breaths agent Sparkle, we will see you later.”
And with that the stallion went out Twilight’s peripheral vision and the the machine started to slowly close down upon her, locking her out of the world outside. She started to breath slowly and in deep breaths, as she had been told by the medical staff, and her psychologist. She hoped that she would go to sleep quickly. She had a slight case of claustrophobia, slight as in calling a waterfall a slight downpour.
The door closed, it was dark now, total darkness and only her slightly quickening breathing in the darkness. That horrible darkness. She closed her eyes, but who was she kidding? That wouldn’t do any difference. She had gone through the procedure in theory with the staff but it was still as unnerving if not more so now than she thought before. Now another sound started besides her breathing, something subtle. She knew what was coming next and tried as good as she could to prepare. She twitched as she felt a cold, thick liquid starting to rain down upon her, she had prepared but this felt bad. The liquid was rising quite quickly and Twilight was almost hyperventilating as she tried to stay still and breath calmly.
‘Breath Twilight, breath, good girl, don’t start hyperventilating, this will be over soon’ She thought quietly to herself, trying to calm down. The liquid was now above her stomach and still rising, now touching her muzzle, she took a deep breath as the liquid rose above her mouth, she knew that she was supposed to breath in the liquid but her panic started to kick in. She tried to struggle against the horrible machine as she felt her lungs starting to crave fresh oxygen. She wanted to cry but not a tear could leave her eyes, she wanted to scream, but couldn’t let herself to open her mouth, all thanks to this liquid. Her whole body started to hurt as she was getting out of breath and punching against the lid of this infernal coffin. Everything seemed to slow down, seconds becoming hours, the time itself seemed to agonize her. It was getting worse and worse until she finally heard something, it was quiet, but loud enough to touch her. It soothed her as she finally let her used up air out of her lungs and calmed down. She slowed down as she started to breath the liquid and quietly fell to sleep, her lips showing a quiet thank you. The darkness embraced her.
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Rainbow Dash waved goodbye, she felt sad for Twilight, going to be confined in such a crude machine. She stood there quietly and watched the staff putting all kinds of wires and such on what she presumed was Twilight, as she couldn’t see her from there. When the lid closed and she wouldn’t be in the way she went forward to the pod. She wanted to be there for Twilight in case something would happen. She just stood there quietly leaning against the big machine. After a while she heard something from inside it, like something, somepony, hitting against the inside. Was Twilight having an attack or something? “Hey, what is wrong with Twilight?!” She yelled to the staff as she instantly stiffened and looked up at the control bridge stationed above and flew up to it.
“We cannot say, she just suddenly started to have a panic attack, we are trying to calm her down but she won’t listen to us and she is hurting herself!”
“Why don’t you just open it then?!” She almost screamed at the staff, how stupid could they be?
“If we open it now we could risk hurting her more then she is hurting herself right now!” The lead staff member yelled back at her.
Quick as a snap of the fingers she bolted towards the controls and pushed the staff away, she looked around, not caring for the screams of those she pushed, and saw a microphone. “Twilight, you need to calm down in there! Or else your going to hurt yourself and I don’t want you to hurt yourself!” She screamed into the microphone, hoping that Twilight heard her. The lead staff member walked up to the monitors.
“S-she is stabilizing!” He called out in a happy voice.
Rainbow Dash sighed and sat down on the floor as she herself calmed down, she was glad it turned out alright, she didn’t know what she would have done if something went wrong with Twilight. Without saying anything she started to walk towards the military department while reading her PDA mail. She was not stupid, she would read all the mails she got from here on, starting with the one from Twilight the night before.
