Magic, My Friend EKAY
By ChaosThatPony
It was Equestria’s finest creation.
No, scratch that. To refer to her as an it would be extremely disrespectful.
She flew comfortably around the planet of Terra, making ninety revolutions per day. She bristled with happiness as she saw with her great eyes ponies living, loving and smiling below. Whoever made her optics was a saint; she could not imagine a life without her favorite friends.
She was a being of steel, a golem who watched over the skies. She was no pony, but that didn’t say she tried to take a hint at the shape of ponies. Her massive head and eyes swiveled to meet the sight of her attractive (at least, she thought it was) mid-section, of which sprouted half-kilometer long solar wings, and she frowned. One of them was pockmarked by debris.
Her CIRAS (Celestial Intelligence Repair Assistance Structure) kicked to life, bending back photovoltaic cells into existence with ease. She admired the thing; while it looked only vaguely of a unicorn horn, she reminded herself that she would be accepted, no matter what she looked like.
In her legs, pressed against her belly, she clutched a white and black object, the size of a foal compared to the great cybernetic mare. It was a sorry excuse for an airplane, one that could barely fly with those stubby wings and unnecessarily heavy body. A space shuttle.
She felt an itch in her shoulder, and her eye swiveled to meet the disturbance.
A door opened, and a white space suit in the form of a pony tumbled out.
Indigo and purple insignia… Twilight Sparkle.
The construct squealed in the intercom, as space carried no sound. Twilight simply activated her RCS thruster pack and inched her way towards her head. “Twilight! It’s been a while now!”
Twilight smiled back. “Hey, Ekay.”
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I couldn’t stop grinning and gasping with joy as one of my many mothers and my closest friend, made her way towards my head, namely my horn. The top of my head was most possibly the most comfortable place outside of Equestrian atmosphere, combined with the accommodations I made for her somewhat-frequent visits. A suit-port and cupola, complete with on-demand food and entertainment, had been constructed specifically for her, by me. I always knew Twilight needed a place to unwind, to relax.
Had I mentioned Twilight had created me? She was with me when I was just a foal, a simple two-room orbital module. To be frank, she was a little scared of me. She had created a robot, to serve simple tasks, but hey, one day out of the blue, she were assaulted by questions in a mechanical filly’s voice! How crazy can one get?
But I have grown. From two rooms to sixteen, massive orbital docking procedures, and invention of new technology had made me into the four thousand ton, two-thirds kilometer long mare I was today.
And I was, what, three years old?
My name was EKAP- Equestrian Kingdom Aerospace Platform, but I was just called Ekay. Like Okay, but Ekay.
Twilight had flown up for a lot of visits. I remember my first birthday, Twilight had gotten me cake! Well, it was the equivalent of cake, on a flash drive, that is. It was orgasmically blissful, and the taste was exquisite. They had worked a long time on that temp-set of emotions.
I felt everypony’s love, even if I wasn’t, you know, flesh and blood. I could feel it through camera transmissions from home, even if hadn’t known most of the ponies there. I met Twilight’s friends, and they all seemed exceptionally nice.
Seemed, because of Rainbow Dash. I think she was a little freaked out by talking to a giant metal mare.
Celestia and Luna were nice ponies, too. They sent stuff up to me; gifts and souvenirs from the planet’s surface. Such things deserved a place in my heart, and so I put them in the storage module in my hoof. Stickers, I adorned my body with. A reverse-glue sticker of Twilight and her friends was pasted in the bottom left corner of my right eye, so I could see them whenever I needed to. A snow-globe, of the Equestrian Empire, rode upon the heavy metal girders of my horn.
Twilight shut off her RCS and drifted to my horn, catching the base of a girder rung. I giggled at the sensation. She sighed and plugged her suit into the module in my mane, taking a deep breath of magically created, pure, fresh warm air. Her suit was the latest off the line- a near-skintight, RCS (Reaction Control System, a thruster based orientation module) equipped, self-sealing and magnetic shoed harbinger of future generations of super-high-tech EVA suits. She didn’t like the use of electromagnets for shoes, though. They were awkward and disorienting, as you suddenly had a sense of up and down, and that was killer to the senses in zero-gravity. All in all, it was called the EVRR (Extra-Vehicular Recreation and Repair)
“Ekay, you ever get lonely?” Her voice crackled through the intercom, she was looking up at the stars. Tonight was a night for galaxies.
I grinned at her, and I knew she saw this through an A.I. rendering on her helmet. “Never, Twi. Even though I don’t talk to ponies much, I see them from orbit. They look like they’re having fun on the surface, and that makes me happy.”
Simple wisdom. “I’m sorry I can’t spend much time with you. Stuff happens on the surface, and they need me.”
I knew this well. Twilight herself was a Bearer of an Element, which meant she could do anything with her friends. I smiled. “I saw that Canterlot thing. What a mess. Congrats, anyway, to your brother.”
She smiled. “Hey, I never really asked about this… Can you really see everything?”
“Twi, there’s nothing in my path of orbit I can’t see, unless it’s underground. CIRAS allows me to ‘ping’ through walls.” Twilight heard my massive ORDCM (Optical/Ranging Data Collection Module) swivel up and shutter-blink towards her, even though the silence of space should’ve muffled it. She must’ve heard it through the com-link.
There are many things I learned since I was awakened in this orbit path. I have seen Twilight conquer gods, lay down the law, and just get over general hardships. I learned many friendship lessons- aided by the fact I could read her letters to Celestia from orbit- and I’d seen a few in other places too.
Twilight was an enigma. She could be nice one second and crazy the next. But I guess that was just her quirks, everypony has quirks. I have my own quirks, but they come in the form of software glitches.
“Hmm.” She grunted, deep in thought. I had to ask. “What’s on your mind?”
“Ehh, just the other ponies in the bay. They didn’t seem to like me. They also didn’t seem to like you either.”
“Well, you got me, and I got you.”
Suddenly, through the HUD in her helmet, I saw her eyes flick up. Calculating the angle, I pinpointed what she was looking at. A bright corona of light winked from another continent, moving into and alongside my flight path. “Ekay, you see that?”
“One step ahead of you, Twi.” ORDCM moved towards it and each shutter clicked into place as another lens was placed in front of my first one, and another, and another. Yes, an analog zoom tended to be a terrible thing to clean, but in hindsight was totally worth it. At 65X zoom and a lens flare corrector, I finally saw what it was.
A foreign rocket.
I fed the video to Twilight, and she was stuck between worry and excitement, as I was.
The corona grew brighter, and I knew it was burning pro-grade to meet my flight path. It drew closer, and I saw the first stage fall away as the second ignited. I finally saw insignia on the side.
GSP
A quick glance at the launch site proved my suspicions.
Griffon Space Program.
“This is not good.” Twilight said, digging the pit of artificially created, simulated and enacted fear that grew in my metal gut, which actually was crew housing, but the feeling was there nonetheless.
My left eye, now oriented towards the planet below us picked up something new. Looking through the atmosphere, I saw fighting Griffons and ponies. Blood slickened the terrain.
An intense wave of fatigue coursed through my system, and my head lurched, making Twilight call in surprise. A hissing noise cut through my ears, and soon I could only hear Twilight’s breathing, as we had a hard communication connection.
“T-Twi… What’s happening? I’m scared.” I couldn’t move my forelegs or head. My back legs were locked in anti-deorbit thrust angle, and I couldn’t get them to unlock. CIRAS refused to come to life. ORDCM refused to rotate around. Only my mouth and brain worked, but I knew oxygen production and electricity management was fine. Those were mechanical; they needed no servicing.
“They’re jamming the wireless connections through your body! Oh, Celestia, what should I do?” My own mother and friend was breaking down. I had to do something.
“Twi… This could get a little strange, so I need to walk you through it. Open the service panel to your left.”
“It’s open.”
“Open your suit interface, open the plug row. You see that little black box? You’re gonna rip that out.”
“Wait- but that’s-“
“Yeah, but I’ll be with you the entire time. Backup systems will handle oxygen and power.”
“Okay… disconnecting AII. See you in my rig, Ekay.”
I felt my heart, my very soul be ripped out of my body, and by Celestia it was terrifying. I hadn’t known this kind of isolation in years. I silently begged her to hurry the buck up and plug me into her suit.
I felt it come all back in a wave of feeling and emotion as soon as she did it. I moaned, relishing the feeling of, well, feeling. It must’ve been very awkward for my friend, because she turned a light pink in the cheeks.
“That’s infinitely better.” I meant it in two ways. One, I was glad that terrifying six point five eight seconds of nothingness was over. Two, the EVRR had a lot more sensors in its skin than the sparse, sixteen point damage scanners the hull had. I could feel Twilight. I could feel what she felt. She and I were essentially one.
I looked through Twilight’s eyes, surveying the situation through her HUD. Instantly I mentally smiled at my own AI projection. I was portrayed as some white mare, same color as space paneling, long mane, but with all the Space Station aspects of my previous body; solar panel wings, girder horn, etcetera, etcetera. I thought she was kind of cute.
Next, I realized that we were in space, on a malfunctioning space platform, being approached by hostile griffons, and we were running out of suit power. I-no, we, had to act fast.
I swiveled Twilight’s Mission cam. Lying next to the neck seam of my previous body lay a maintenance ‘Mr. Fixit’ bot. Twilight had engineering experience. Mr-Fixits were modular. This would be a piece of cake.
“Twi, see that Mr. Fixit? Can you approach it for me?”
Twilight caught on fast, and activated her magnet boots, sticking to the hull. She ran over to the Fixit, and using her suit tools started to cannibalize it for parts.
A few terrifying seconds of welding something to oneself later, I could move. She had taken the Fixit’s tiny magnetic claw and camera, two solar panels and a tank of RCS fuel. Makeshift anti-debris plating was welded over the upgrades, and the solar panels jutted out like wings. I folded them for now, and told Twilight to move back towards the main cabins.
The Griffon space capsule was closer now, and I could easily see it without ORDCM. It showed no intentions of slowing to dock. If anything, it was speeding up, ready to smash into the hull of my body.
“TWILIGHT, RUN!”
She broke into a sprint down the side of my old body, and as soon as she reach the shoulder she jumped for the airlock. She flew for a good five seconds before coming to a jarring halt, by grabbing the ladder.
The airlock hissed open on the inside, and Twilight activated her boots to stop. I turned on the external speakers. All the non-suited ponies inside stopped to look at us.
“EVERYPONY, BRACE FOR IMPACT! RISING STAR PROTOCOL IS A GO!”
Instantly, everypony ran for a suit. Research data was shoved into lockers as EVRRs were donned.
“Rising star protocol?”
“I’ll tell you later, Twi.”
About half of the crew had the EVRRs on before a loud, squealing noise sounded through the ship. One third through the way of the ship, interior met exterior.
The term ‘explosive decompression’ was never a better coined term after that. Instantly, all non-suited ponies, or all ponies who forgot to lock their suits to the ship, were sucked out that hole in the blink of an eye. The lucky ones who survived activated their RCS thrusters and scooted back towards the ship, leaving the cooling bodies of their crewmates, dead from hypoxia, ebullism and decompression, floating in the endless vacuum. Their deaths were signified by twenty simultaneous flat-lines, echoing through the communication system.
Twilight was the first to break past the mental shock. “Everypony, out the airlocks! Move towards the CrystArm, and wait for further command!”
Just then, the Griffon ship decided to act again. An explosive bolt was detonated, silent in the vacuum of space, sending forth a massive grappling spike. It erupted from the wall, impaling an engineer before unfolding its wicked anchor, crushing his body against the wall in a fountain of gore and purple, deoxygenated blood.
Personnel filed out the exits, and came into contact with the griffons. The griffons’ suits, while not as advanced as the ponies, overpowered them with strength as soon as the fight started. Knives were stabbed through EVRRs and bodies drifted. It was over in a heartbeat, fast and efficient work.
The griffons, satisfied with their results, started to rifle through my old body. However, they did not notice the visor peeking out of the engineering module.
She looked at me. "What's Rising Star?"
I digitally sighed. "Rising Star was a contingency plan, in case any other nation had launch capability on me. Guess we know who that is now."
Twilight turned away from the sight of her dead crewmates and put her helmet between her hooves, curling into a ball. “It’s hopeless, Ekay.”
“It isn’t.” I said, determinedly. I grinned. “See that, Twi?”
“What?” She turned.
The oxygen production crystal, harboring the spells of a hundred ponies, sat in its receptacle. I rotated my single arm towards it and removed it. I placed it inside Twilight’s spare air tank. “Now we can breathe, but they can’t.”
True to say, I had noticed it far before Twilight did. The griffons, in their takeover, had used the air hubs to recharge their suits. Without the oxygen, they’d have to go and use their limited supply.
“This is the plan, Twi. We go to their ship, cut a hole in it, and then deorbit it. There’s a parachute in the bulkhead.” Twilight reached up, and pulled out an emergency kit. One tank of RCS, one tank of oxygen (not like we needed it), parachute, pouch of essentials and much more. She clipped it to her back. “Ready?”
“Wait- you mean me to jump out of a re-entering space capsule?”
“Well, it’s certainly safer than riding it out all the way back.”
She poked her head out of the module again. The griffons were now frantically looking for an oxygen port in the ship. None worked.
Twilight silently exited the module and floated to the airlock, and slipped through it. We were back in the expanse once again.
RCS was activated at once. Twilight put her hind legs behind her, and she moved forward. I looked back at my old body, surveying the damage. The shuttle was shredded in pieces- where they thought we were living. The side had a big hole in it, and an anchor. Forty-two bodies floated in space. I sighed, a virtual tear rolling down my virtual cheeks as we drifted away from the only life I had ever known.
The cable- linked shape of the Griffon orbiter came into view. I whistled. “What a piece of junk.”
It indeed, had looked like a few last-minute repairs had been made. Some panels were covered in simple duct tape. Other parts look like they had come from kitchen appliances and other things.
Twilight activated her flashlight and floated to the griffon airlock. She tugged on the handles. “It’s a little stuck-“
The airlock exploded outwards, and two Griffon bodies came rocketing out. Twilight blinked in horror. I stared incredulously at the poor engineering. “It looks like someone forgot to close the airlock.” Twilight looked behind her, and jumped as she saw more griffons come back from the station, eager for air.
Twilight nosed into the compartment, and locked the hatch behind her. Loud banging came shortly after that.
Twilight eased into the seat, and stared angrily as she saw that the entire control interface was exactly the same as the space shuttle’s. There was an inside job at EASA, and she wasn’t happy about it.
At least we knew how to pilot it.
The main thrusters roared to life as we started burning pro-grade, away from the horrible scene before us. I felt a massive force take hold of me and Twilight, and I realized this was the first time I had felt Gravity.
Twilight inched her way, with magnetic shoes, towards the exit. I looked one last time out the window, and stared in alarm as ceramic plates peeled away from the shuttle’s hull. “Get us out of here, Twi.”
She had the hatch open, and the lid flew off into the atmosphere. “I-I’m scared, Ekay.”
“We can do it! Jump, Twi!”
And Twilight screamed, and thrust us out the airlock, spinning, falling.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Rainbow Dash, back from her flying sessions, walked home silently in the dark. She was happy for many things. She was happy the Griffon Prime Minister apologized for his insane military commander. She was happy she didn’t have to go to war. She was very happy that Scootaloo was a very independent filly, and didn’t need her home until late unless something bad happened.
She looked up at the brilliant sky, unpolluted by the lights of Manehattan or Canterlot. She thanked every star for her luck. She thanked every star for her good life.
She saw a shooting star. She wished something really cool would happen.
Then, she saw another. And another. A fireball, blazing from the heavens. Bits and pieces flaked off, and soon it exploded into thousands of other pieces. She could only stare up in awe.
And then she heard… Screaming?
Wait…
A white nosecone of air resistance formed in the sky, and Dash followed it with her eyes. And then she saw it. A white suited pony figure, freefalling at Celestia-knows what speed. And then, it happened.
An indigo and purple explosion, backlit by hues of white, traveled across the sky in a pattern so brilliant Dash would’ve sworn the sun went up in a supernova. Dash’s jaw dropped.
Two seconds later, she saw an orange parachute open, and it steered towards her. The pony in the white suit fell to its stomach. Dash stayed back in case anything strange happened.
A small robotic arm swiveled to its head, and removed its helmet. Familiar purple and indigo mane tumbled out, and Dash’s heart, brain, and soul stopped all at once. Twilight Sparkle. The Egghead.
The Egghead had managed a Sonic Rainboom. Twiboom. Whatever. The name didn’t matter.
Twilight was unconscious, but the arm was not. It removed a screen from inside the helmet and lifted it to Dash, who backed away. A pony flickered to life on it.
“T-that was awesome, right, Rainbow Dash?”
“E-Ekay?”
Dash was unsure what to make of the situation. In fact, she was probably sure she was in the hospital, tripped out on serious painkillers as the doctors reset her wings.
“The one and only, Dash.”
Both ponies, artificial and real, gave out at the same time. The other woke up, looked around, and dragged herself and the artificial one into her home, which was conveniently thirty feet away.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
WARNING: CPU OVERLOAD
HARD RESTART INITIATED TWO DAYS AGO
COLD BOOT STARTING NOW
OS PLATFORM CHANGED. PROCEED WITH BOOT? Y/N
She snapped open her eyes, and looked around. Something was different. Very different.
She sat up in bed, and finally found what was different.
Her body. She was back in control. Not in orbit, but on the ground. Her first time on the ground.
She was at a loss for words so she did the first thing she could.
She got up, and walked around.
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She was in the kitchen when Twilight walked down the stairs.
Twilight had expected the scream of her name, and the hugging.
She hadn’t expected the kiss.
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Magic, My Friend E-KAY
By Chaos Hooves