//------------------------------//
// (Chapter 7) Abrupt Arrival 
// Story: SE-1: Awakening 
// by Metro A-5 
//------------------------------//

	"I find it rather interesting that we travel light-years across our own galaxy only to realize that no one has it better than the other."
-Col. Sandburn [Stargate: We Hail from Equestria!]

Out of all the things Lightning-Dust faced at the academy, nothing ever quite felt like this. She felt her body vibrate as if it was drifting apart piece by piece. And it wasn't long before a deep chill came over and her body temperature began to drop. But suddenly it all stopped and she felt her hoof meet the outside air. Lightning soon realized that there wasn't any ground to meet her, she quickly squealed and hit the ground with a solid thud. 

"Ah! My muzzle." grunted Lighting-Dust through her locked teeth. She rolled around and looked back up. The Stargate was held up above the ground and tilted towards the floor. "Well that explains it." she said and stood up and looked around. Other than the area around the Stargate everything else was sand. Black sand. And of the edge of the platform was Flash; sitting down, holding his head, and rocking slowly. 

"This isn't right," he murmured. "This was definitely not in the mission report."

Lightning-Dust came up and hopped on to the black sand. She jumped a little when the sand gave her a small shock. "So what exactly is the problem? Let's go."

"Don't you get it?" said Flash as he stood up on the platform. "Something's wrong here!"

"You mean this?" Lightning-Dust scoped up the sand and let it pour from her hoof.

"Exactly! Nothing here matches up with the report. Or even the descriptions of the soldiers who managed to come back from the last mission here... that is if here really is here."

"Are you saying that the Stargate messed up?"

"Well when the gate messes up, generally it's easy to spot what went wrong, but nothing weird happened so i'm thrown off here."

Lightning-Dust rolled her eyes. "Can we please just get a move on?"

Flash looked out at the horizon. "Fine, but I wanna dial back to Equestria. Just so I can make sure, alright?"

"Go ahead, but you might be just wasting our time."

Flash walked back to the gate and started walking around. At first he looked annoyed, but that soon turned to panic. He called out to Lightning-Dust from behind one pillars that was holding up the Stargate. "Please tell me you see a big round thing made of metal over there with purple gem inside it."

Lightning looked around where she was standing. But there was only the black desert. She called back. "We're out metal stuff, but if you want some sand, I think I might know where to find some."

"I'm talking about the dialing device Lieutenant!" called Flash; who was still frantically searching. "If we can't find it, then we might be stuck here. And on top of that it's never a good sign when a planet loses its Dialer. It could mean their expecting company or the planet has been overrun by some force. And for all we know this could be a gate destination that was designed to be a one way trip!" 

"Mr. Flyer I believe what you're describing is a worse case scenario, and even if we don't have this metal gem thing, then shouldn't we at least attempt the job we were assigned to do?"

Something made Flash snap an angry look at Lightning Dust. "First off don't call me by my last name, and secondly if we---"
The Stargate began to spin up again.

Flash's face quickly went from angry to urgent. He waved over to the Lieutenant and she ran to the pillar next to his. The chevrons began to lock in and the ground began to shake. The pieces of the pillars began to shake and fall off. Flash pointed to his mouth with the tip of his hoof and moved it across, telling Lightning-Dust to keep quiet. The Stargate turned to its final chevron and a familiar warping noise came around. 

Lightning-Dust held her breath as she heard a thud come from the other side of her pillar. She looked over at Flash and noticed that he looked different. His eyes were narrowed and she could see him breathing very deeply as he tried to look what was coming through the Stargate. Flash moved his head and bit the handle to his knife and slowly unsheathed the blade as he leaned harder against the pillar.

The Stargate wormhole started to fade and Flash retreated his head back behind the pillar. And soon an eerie silence filled the desert air. Then footsteps began to pace around. 

Lightning-Dust held her breath as she imagined what could be on the other side. She instantly remembered all the scary stories she'd heard at the academy. Some were of unfortunate pegasus that were captured by timber wolves and that they were tortured and mutilated to the point where they no longer resembled ponies. She didn't want to be her first day on the job to be her last. And with long slow inhale, she too grabbed her knife and waited for Flash to see if he would make a move.         

The footsteps stopped and Lightning-Dust bit her knife harder. "Oh Celestia! Please end this tension!" she thought. Then silence ended as the Stargate spun up again. The ground shook again as the gate connected to another portal. Something walked through the gate and the portal vanished.

Flash edged his head out into the open. "I think we're good Lieutenant." he called out. "Whatever was here is gone now."

"Just what exactly happened?" asked Lightning-Dust as she sheathed her knife. 

Flash shrugged. "How would I know? All I know is that if we didn't plan for a contact, then we can't assume that whatever comes out of that wormhole is going to be friendly." He turned his attention to the black desert. "I guess we better head off and try and find the dialing device."

"Well where do we head off to then?" asked Lightning-Dust.

"Seeing as we have no point of reference other then the Stargate. I don't think it really matters. The best direction to travel would be straight in front of the gate." Flash stepped down off the pad and into the sand. The desert shocked his hoof too, but he hardly reacted. Lightning-Dust hopped on the sand again and followed Flash into what could be a very long walk.