//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 - Liftoff // Story: My Little System: Friendship is Shocking // by Sockis //------------------------------// Chapter 2 A small quartet of friends had gathered in the crew quarters, ready to say their farewells for the night. “Thank you all darlings, this day has been simply divine.” The white unicorn of the group began as the others nodded in agreement, especially the pink party pony nodded with excitement. “YES! I totally agree, this has been such a fun day! It couldn’t be more fun then this, except if Twilight and Dashie was with us that is, but they had work to do so they couldn’t and so that makes this the most fun it could be at the moment while not being the most fun it ever could be! But if we count with..” Pinkie Pie rambled on. “Yes Pinkie, it was fun.” Applejack said slowly, cutting off her friend so she and the others could say something. “First I would like to thank y’all for the day, it was all good an’ fun. But speaking of Twi and Dash, we should be sure to contact them tomorrow when we get the time for it, we don’t want ‘em to think we forgot about ‘em.” “What about a voice message?” Fluttershy suggested. “That is an awesome idea! Let’s do it together right now in case we don’t have time later so we can send it to them later!” Pinkie agreed as she bounced up and down in place. “Let’s do it right now then.” Applejack continued as the friends gathered to record a message to send later. ------------------------------------------ “This night was really fun, not like regular fun but a super kind of fun! Right?” Pinkie said while bouncing along Rarity towards their room. It was getting late and they needed to get up in the morning so they had said their good nights after doing the voice message together. “Yes dear, it was quite superb if I may say so.” Rarity answered with a slight smile, it was just too bad that not all of them could be together. “Of course you may, silly filly!” Pinkie said. “You don’t need to ask me to say anything.” “Oh Pinkie, you know what I mean.” Rarity giggled slightly. “You are the silly filly.” The two friends continued to giggle as they got into their room. “Well, good night Pinkie. Sleep tight.” “Oh you with your silly words, I don’t want to sleep tight, it would be too hot.” Pinkie giggled once again. Rarity just sighed, a smile on her lips as she slowly fell asleep. Just in time before Pinkie started to snore. ------------------------------------------ “I am glad we share a room Applejack, I don’t what I would do if I didn’t have a friend with me on this trip. They didn’t even let me bring Angel along.” Fluttershy said with some worry to Applejack as she was making her bed ready before laying down. Her friend had just jumped into her own bed as soon as they got in. “Ah’m just as glad as you are, Fluttershy. And don’t fret, ah’m sure Angel is just fine with Apple Bloom at the farm, she might be a bit small but she has a big a heart as ah do.” The orange mare said with a soothing voice. Talking about the farm made her think back to her family, she hoped they were fine without her and would make it through. She quickly diminished the thought, big Macintosh was still there and he could be relied on, her big brother was really good at what he did. “It was really nice of her to do that for me, I just hope that Angel wont be too much trouble..” Fluttershy continued as she laid down under the cosy cover of her bed, it felt nice. “Nah, mah sister probably has her friends to help her while trying to get a cutie mark for it or sumthin’.” Applejack shrugged and chuckled a bit at the thought, those fillies always got into all sorts of trouble, just the week before they left, Apple Bloom had gotten some weird cutie pox and all. She shook her head slightly as she turned to her side. “Well, time to sleep. G’night Fluttershy.” Fluttershy looked over at her friend and smiled a bit too, she was glad to have such good friends. “Good night Applejack.” ------------------------------------------ Day 1, Tuesday 0700 hours - Fluttershy and Applejack. Applejack had awoken a couple of minutes ago, it was cosy to stay in the bed for a little while in the morning. She laid there and listened to her friends gentle breathing, she could even hear a slight snore at times. It felt like it would be a good morning. The alarm clock started to ring and Applejack slapped it quiet. 0700, time to get ready, this was no pleasure cruise after all. The other alarm clock in the room rang for almost half a minute before the covers of the other bed was shoved away. Under it was Fluttershy who quickly shut the alarm off before dragging the covers over herself as she stuffed her head under the pillow. This was a sight Applejack never thought she would see, it shocked her to a degree. So Fluttershy was no morning mare then? Applejack rolled out from her bed and onto the floor, starting to walk towards her friends bed. “Fluttershy, it’s time to wake up and get ready.” She said as she gently shook the mass under her friends covers. The only answer she got was a grunt and a hoof that shoved her away before going under the covers again. “Oh, so you wanna do this the hard way.” Applejack chuckled before grabbing one corner of the cover with her mouth and pulled away the cover in one swift movement. “Noooooo... Stop it.. I want to sleep...” Fluttershy whined quietly as she curled up into a ball, still with her head under the pillow. Her tail and what could be seen of her mane was rather messy, a big mess of pink laying around her yellow body. “Ah’m sorry sugarcube, but we have to get to work in about.. fifty minutes. I thought you were a mornin’ pony like mahself.” Applejack continued as she nudged the fluffy ball. “I am a morning pony.. I just need my animals to wake me... I dislike this.. artificial feeling I get.. here.....” And she felt comfortable enough curled up like that to fall asleep again, apparently. Applejack sighed and grabbed the pillow, pulling it away from the sleeping pony, she really hoped this wouldn’t be routine, however cute and adorable she might be. Fluttershy flinched the instant the pillow was pulled away and reacted with curling up even more, was that even possible? She put her tail over her head so the mane and the tail covered her head completely. Applejack sighed once again. Now she really had to do this the hard way. She positioned herself at the end of the bed and reached her mouth for the pink tail and pulled. The yellow and pink ball uncurled rather quickly as she now was dragged down onto the floor with a thud. “W-w-what happened?” Fluttershy nearly screamed, this was something she certainly was not prepared for, but she was awake now. “Ah’m sorry, but ah told you we would have to do this the hard way. Now get up and prepare for duty girl, we only got about half an hour left!” Applejack looked sternly at Fluttershy so she wouldn’t go for the bed again, which she didn’t. Once Fluttershy finally was up they both got to readying themselves for their work, it didn’t take long. Fluttershy started with brushing her mane and tail, it hadn’t been this fuzzy in quite a while. They both walked out from their room together as they both were done. “Have a good day at work sugarcube, we’ll see each other later.” Applejack said and smiled at Fluttershy. “And please tell me that this morning thing won’t be a routine, ah would much like to have breakfast in the mornin’s.” Fluttershy blushed slightly at this. “Of course not.. Have a nice day Applejack..” And with this the duo parted and they went to their respective work sites. Fluttershy went for her job at the medical bay and Applejack went for her job at the Engineering bay. ------------------------------------------ Day 1, Tuesday 0700 hours - Rarity and Pinkie Pie. Rarity and Pinkie both woke up almost simultaneously as the alarm clocks rang in their room. They turned their alarm clocks off and started to get ready almost immediately. They washed up and got ready to get some breakfast. Pinkie was unusually quiet, but Rarity didn’t say anything as it felt nice with some quiet in the morning, not bouncing into things directly as you wake up. Their morning was nice as they got breakfast and idly chatted before going to their working areas, Pinkie in the food court and Rarity in the equipment department. ------------------------------------------ Day 1, Tuesday 0810 hours - Rainbow Dash. “Rainbow Dash reporting for duty, sir!” The cyan pegasus saluted before her commanding officer, General Walter Coltchak. The stout stallion turned around and looked at the new arrival. “So we decide to show up now?” The military clad pony asks, his ice blue eyes piercing right through Dash. “Sir, I had some incidents sir!” Dash answered, still in salute. “What incidents are big enough to dismiss duty soldier?” Walter said harshly towards the smaller pony. “Sir, no incidents should be in the way of duty sir!” “That’s right soldier, now move to your station. We will continue this talk later.” And with that he turned around again and continued giving out his orders. The bridge was filled with machinery and personnel, about a third of them was unicorns who engineered and sustained the different machinery. Then it was mostly earth ponies, except the individual pegasus here and there. Dash eased up and went to work, this would be a long day and she did not look forward to the scolding. The ship had started it’s liftoff. ------------------------------------------ Day 1, Tuesday 0730 hours - The docks. The docks was filled with ponies of all shapes, colors and sizes. There were families of the voyagers taking farewell to the giant ship, tourists who wanted to see the new lifting ship. At the highest point of the docks, a balcony of sorts built for this occasion, sat the royalty of Equestria. Celestia, princess of the sun and Luna, princess of the moon, even prince Blueblood was there. “This is a grand day in the evolution of our science dear sister, if this voyage succeeds it will bring us much closer to the knowledge of all things around us.” Celestia said with regal manner to her sister. Truly, she could lift and lower the moon and the sun, and even send peoples ethereal beings to the moon, but she could not do interstellar traveling. “Yes, who knows what will be found at the edges of this universe, are there other beings like us out there?” Luna pondered. She had been at the moon, but not in person, her body had been locked away as she was ‘stored’ in the moon, like an inescapable prison. “With the technology of FTL (Faster-Then-Light) we will be able to traverse so much more of those unreached regions.” “Yes, there is much to learn. I just can’t shake this feeling about this voyage, something just seems.. off.” Celestia shuddered. She wanted to be happy, her star student was on the trip with a special assignment and all but she just couldn’t shake this feeling off. “Lighten up sister, everything will be alright.” Luna put a hoof on her sisters back. “Let’s just sit back and watch the show now.” She continued as she pointed her other hoof towards the ship. The sisters relaxed and moved their attention towards the spaceship. There were multiple platforms surrounding the huge vessel and on each platform there was around twenty ponies, all of them unicorns. Celestia counted to one hundred and twenty unicorns in total and she knew they were not the first, they had to switch between two teams each couple of hours. And this was not counting all of the ponies aboard the ship. The primary objective for the teams on the platforms were to fill up and ready the ship with magic to fill the empty machinery. They would also spark the liftoff and help launch it. Celestia and Luna had wanted to help out but the teams felt that they were the ones who wanted to make this work, without royal help. She understood this, the only difference would also be that it would get filled quicker and they couldn’t do anything special about it. The platforms started to sink as the second team came forward, both teams uniting in making the ship lift into space and beyond. All two hundred and forty unicorns stood all around the ship as they concentrated immensely. The ship got a silver hue around it as it started to shiver, more and more for each second passing. Silver streams of magical flames started to flow from the rocket engines of the ship and pushed it higher and higher. The silver hue around the ship brightened one last time and the whole ship shook as all unicorns pushed it upwards at the same time. “This is really something else, isn’t it sister?” Luna said in awe, this beat many of the royal performances she had been to, and would probably stay high in her list for a long time. Her sister just nodded in silence and continued to watch, not averting her eyes even the slightest. The huge spaceship was now quickly lifting upwards towards the infinite blue sky, the clouds had been removed this day because of the flight taking place. The silver stream of magic left a big trail after the ship as it moved further and further into the air, straight up. Before long the ship had gone out of everyponies eyesight, except for the royal sisters who had enhanced their eyes so they could view this sight for a bit longer. The audience had roared the entire time and the unicorns at the launch site was lying down and catching their breath, it had taken a huge amount of magic to pull this off. It was a success. “Good luck Twilight and everypony else, I hope you will come back safely.”