//------------------------------// // The Ride // Story: Ain't No Rest // by Konseiga //------------------------------// Yawning, I leaned against the window of the Celestia-forsaken bus that was shuttling me off to pony-knows-where. My ear lightly scraped against the window and I winced as the chipped glass nicked it, and while I couldn’t see it myself, I knew the crimson blood that I could feel drizzling down slowly stood out in stark contrast to my opalescent coat. Groaning in displeasure, a faint glow enveloped my horn as the blood floated off my coat, wrapped in the light blue of my magic. Grimacing, I let the blood fall to the floor, adding to year’s worth of stains and muck. Sighing in resignation, I knew that much worse potentially awaited me in the uncontrolled chaos that was Discord. I glanced around the bus, my ears flicking slightly as the safety harness that I strapped myself into chaffed against my sides, and really started looking at my fellow riders. There were three of them, minus the driver. One of the passengers was a sandy-beige colored, pegasus pony with a short, grey mane riding up near the front. Tinted black goggles covered her eyes, and leather armor was strapped to her chest, underbelly, back, and upper legs. While the taste in style left something to be desired, I couldn’t argue with the functionality of it. It was light, sure, but that meant for unhindered movement (I noted with a wry smile that she had cut holes in front of each flank in her armor to allow her wings to unfold with ease), which was a pegasus’s greatest strength. Plus, the sniper rifle strapped across her back hinted that when the fighting came, she preferred to find the high ground and pick people off. Glancing out the window again, I felt slightly sorry for her preferred method. There wasn’t much high ground in the barren sands that continued to roll by. Glancing back to the pegasus, I revised my opinion as I spotted the…well, for lack of a better classification, sword, fastened underneath her sniper. Also, her unzipped duffel bag hinted at the various repeaters and revolvers she employed. Maybe she’d survive in close-quarters combat after all, I thought to myself with a smile. My eyes swiveled to the quiet, well built earth pony, disregarding the safety harness and instead just sitting on the floor. His mane was a stark crimson color, standing out against the discreetness of his black coat. While observing him, I jumped when one of his eyes opened and looked directly at me. They were a piercing red, just like his mane, but he didn’t go wide eyed or seem insane, as I had seen with other ponies of that color of eye. The only thing he did was let a small smile tug at the corners of his mouth and allow a barely discernable shrug grace his shoulders as he closed his eye again. My mouth went agape as I just stared at him. Usually, people confronted me aggressively when they caught me staring. Though, then again, I thought wryly, he probably had the same problem. I did a double take when I observed his armor; a crimson horseshoe, much like the color of his eyes and mane, rimed by an olive branch of gold was stamped into the shoulder guard of his torso armor, and once again emblazoned on his left flank, right over the location of his cutie mark. My mind went a little numb as it only took a moment to register what that symbol represented. The Crimson Hooves? What they hay was this soldier doing on a bus if he’s part of the Crimson Hooves? However, as I looked over his belongings – saddle bags containing mediocre weaponry (a standard assault rifle and a few hundred rounds of ammo) and a hat, I found it less likely that he actually was part of the dreaded Crimson Hooves. My attention finally turned to the last of the bus riders. Standing at the back of the bus, with little regard to the unspoken rule of “keep your hooves out of the isle”, was a bulky, beefy, larger-than-life earth pony, his grey coat insufficient to cover up the various scars he had no doubt acquired over a large span of time. One of the scars, a vicious cut mark right above his eyes, looked recent, and I cringed at the painful sight of it. His eyes were a deep green, which I hardly expected, and his closely cropped mane matched the color. I furrowed my brow at this – both of the earth ponies on the bus had color matching mane and eyes. No other earth pony I had met had any color of eyes that even resembled their color of mane, and yet here were two of them, acting as if it wasn’t special at all. Wait. Was I marveling at a coincidence? …I must really be bored. Shaking my head and snapping out of my thoughts, I turned my attention back to the bulky pony. His jaw was set in a permanent grimace, as if something foul was continually stuck under his nose. With disdain (and no small bit of horror), I noticed what looked like…no…yes, it was a bloody dog paw. On a chain. Around his neck. My nose scrunched up and I had to look elsewhere to keep from vomiting. Hastily looking elsewhere, my eyes settled upon the standard looking shotgun strapped to his side. But that wasn’t what really grabbed my attention. As I followed the veins down his legs (seriously, this pony was built like a stable, and just him standing straight up was a testament to how strong his legs were), I noted that every single one of his muscles stood out like cords. And yet, this still isn’t what caught my attention. At the base of each of his hooves, he had what looked like steel plates bolted to the bottoms. And when I say steel plates, I’m not talking about simple horseshoes (I doubt anypony wore those anymore). I’m talking about inch-and-a-half steel plating that was literally bolted to his hooves. “Hey.” I jumped at the deep, gravelly voice. I looked right up into the eyes of the pony I’d been staring at. The grey earth pony was looking right at me with those dark green eyes of his. “I know I’m pretty,” he continued, the smallest fraction of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, “but you don’t see me staring at you, and you’re probably the strangest one on this bus. No offense.” “N-none taken,” I stammered. ~*~*~*~*~ Of course, before I go any further, I should definitely warn you now to the nature of these recordings. Firstly, the device I used to record them was on constantly throughout my entire endeavor, only stopping briefly to change batteries (how archaic, right? What pony uses batteries these days?) and to save the recordings. There was no editing at all, so some…personal moments are likely to be included in my chronicles. Second, I eventually used these as a conduit for my personal thoughts and emotions, so I may seem insane sometimes. And insane can encompass a great many things. Also, these recordings were thrown into a dimensional rift, so whoever you are and however you got a hold of this, I applaud you for simply not perishing in the act. I guess I should detail myself to you as I detailed the occupants of the bus. My name is Genesis. Cool name, right? Meaning “the beginning”, left purposefully ambiguous to hint at great things to come, and containing these powerful undertones. Pretty cool, right? Yeah. Cool name that absolutely didn’t fit my life. I was absolutely, painstakingly, horrendously normal. There wasn’t anything special about me at all. I was just a small, light grey unicorn with a dull blue mane. Hardly remarkable. My eyes were the only thing remarkable about me, being a solid gold color. However, living on a colonized wreck of a ship with so few ponies had its consequences, and my eyes soon marked me as an outcast. My parents did their best, you know? They sheltered me, fed me, and loved me (to an extent). But even they couldn’t stop the hatred from our little settlement. If it had been a more populated city, I would have understood. If I had some horrible defect, or contagious disease, I would have understood. But apparently, the only reason my family and I were treated as outcasts is because I had unique eyes. Our home didn’t even have a proper name, it was that small. And they cast us out because of my eyes. Adorable, isn’t it? I guess I should be thankful, though. You see, even though I was a mare, and mares at our settlement were expected to take care of the menial, day-to-day tasks at home, I was particularly gifted with repairs. Not gifted enough, mind you, to be graced with a cutie mark depicting my skill, but gifted enough that I could fix nearly anything once I reached sixteen years old. So the settlement leader begrudgingly came to our the room my family called “home” and offered to pay me to see if I could fix the output of fusion reactor core of the ship that the earth ponies so desperately relied upon. Something worth noting: even though we were “outcast”, we had what I assumed the cargo hold to ourselves. It had long since been stripped of anything of value, and the settlement was mainly organized on the bridge. The bridge and the cargo hold were far enough apart to be considered isolated, but not far enough apart that we’d die or anything. Another thing worth noting: I was the only unicorn on the settlement. My parents and the rest of the settlers were earth ponies, having been descendants of the crew that previously lived on the ship during the Great Race War fifty years prior to my birth. But my parents had told me that I was abandoned on the surface of the planet beneath, designated F7X-984. Apparently, the first people to discover it were miners, and by the time anypony else were to discover it, the miners had stripped the planet of any resources it held. It had been deemed uninhabitable due to the high concentrations of noxious gases on its surface, and the I.O.T.A (Interstellar Organization of the Treaty of All) couldn’t be bothered with it any more. My parents had praised Celestia (the goddess-princess, not the arms manufacturer), saying it was a miracle that I was even alive. It seems that, on occasion, scouting parties armed with the environment suits stowed away on the ship Hyponion travel down to the surface, scouring the wreckage for useful parts. It was then that they found the light grey unicorn filly wrapped in a blanket. Anypony, back to the original story at hand. I accepted the offer, of course. The payment was in food, and what pony could turn that down? I gathered the tools I thought I would need and strapped on my saddlebags, telekinetically levitating the tools into the confines of the bags, and headed off to the reactor room, which was near the back of the ship. As I opened the doors to the reactor itself, my mouth fell open. How could the reactor even run in this state? The containment unit itself was cracked in several places, the pipes providing it with hydrogen were steadily shaking themselves loose, and the core itself made a hideous groaning sound every time a pony drew on its power. (Which, while I was down there, was quite often.) I had just set my tools down when a hideous sound reverberated throughout the entire ship. WRRRRRRRTTCCHHHH. I looked around, panicking, as the room itself seemed to twist and pitch. A flash of blinding white light appeared right next to the reactor core, not a meter from where I was standing, and ripped through the room. I screamed, then there was nothing. ~*~*~*~*~ Shaking my head, mane flying everywhere, I snapped myself out of my momentary mental hiatus only to find that every pony on the bus was staring at me intently. “What?” I bristled. The Crimson Hooves pony just chuckled and closed his eyes, the pony built like a barn just rolled his eyes, and the pegasus pony just goggled at me. “WHAT?” I yelled, annoyed at not getting an answer the first time. “Did you know your coat is sparking with electricity?” The pegasus shot back, less in awe and more irate now that I yelled at her. “Oh…” I sighed, squeezing my eyes shut and willing the entropic activity in my coat to die down. It was only then I realized the intensity that I had been glowing, for when I opened my eyes again, the bus was notably darker, despite it being broad daylight. “That’s one scary pony,” the pegasus murmured, shifting her sniper rifle as she situated herself, turning around to face the front. I fumed silently for a moment. Scary?!