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// Bonus Content 1 
// Story: The Unlikely Lanterns of Planet Equis 
// by xanderman1201 
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The following is an unedited bit from the original draft of Unlikely Lanterns of Equis. In the original draft, Applejack and Rainbow Dash (who latter turned out to be a changeling with a personality disorder that made her think she was Rainbow Dash) were the green lantern heroes of the story. This scene is Pinkie Pie (an ex-green lantern at this point of the original draft) explaining how she managed to survive her apparent death and join the Sinestro Corps. Please remember that this scene was taken unedited from the original draft, and holds no sway over the current draft of Unlikely Lanterns of Equis.

Please enjoy.

I realized the aliens were somehow tracking me through my power ring. Every time I used it, they would instantly know where I was. So, in an effort to try and ditch them, I removed my ring, hoping I could find it again once I was no longer in danger of being incinerated by an exploding planet. I managed to find a ship, and I was going to go for help, but…well…the countdown was a little off.

The planet exploded before I could get into communications range, and I wasn’t terribly good at flying the ship, seeing as it wasn’t designed for ponies. I ended up crash landing on a very arid world. My ride was completely ruined, and my power ring had been left behind, so it was just me against an entirely unknown planet.

Eventually I became aware of a bit of a problem; edible plants were just too few and far between for me to survive long enough to be rescued, assuming there was even a rescue team looking for me. Water was going to be a problem too. As I desperately tried to figure out a way to solve my problems, another one presented itself: Predators. With nothing to use to defend myself, not even my party cannon, I was a mouse trapped inside a giant sand box with a whole mess of hawks and cats all trying to eat me.

It wasn’t until thirst and hunger drove me to incredible levels of desperation that I had the idea…the idea that saved me, and destroyed me, and changed me forever.

I had come across the body of a creature, as it lay dying in the sand. My mind was playing tricks on me by that point, and I wasn’t certain if the creature was really there at all until I touched it. It had clearly been attack by some other beast, and had lost the fight, though why it had been left behind without being devoured was beyond me.

Until then I had been telling myself that if I kept searching, I’d eventually find some kind of forest or location of abundant flora that had to be feeding the smaller creatures these things must have been feeding on. But as I stood there, with one hoof on the dying creature, it became apparent to me that if I didn’t eat soon I was going to be in the exact same position as it was. There was no way I could keep surviving on the small amounts of edible plants I kept finding, usually miles apart from each other. I’d gotten lucky a few times and managed to fine some drinkable water, but I never could get enough before a predator would show up. I had to do something…I had to eat something if I was ever going to make it.

And right in front of me was a very big serving of the local cuisine…and it tasted like survival.

At first I detested what I was doing. The thought made me gag, and I was sure I there was no way this would ever work out. I was going to get sick, or start vomiting until I dehydrated myself, or something like that…but it turns out desperation and the need for survival are very powerful motivations. I managed to keep from losing my new found lunch. Although I could tell the long term effects to my mental health was going to make one lucky therapist very rich, I knew I had to do it to survive.

I managed to get back to my ship a few days later (by local planetary time standards, of course) and started looking through the salvage again. Not in an attempt to find some sort of beacon or communications device to increase my odds of being found, as was my purpose the last time I had been there, but rather to find parts of the wreckage that I could use to make weapons; nothing fancy, just a simple ax or spear or anything that I could use to assist with my survival.

I quickly started learning the ropes, so to speak. I managed to secure a water source all for myself, and I grew desensitized to the horrors of what I was doing. Eat enough of anything, and you grow used to the taste.

Now, here’s the funny part; it turns out, I wasn’t quite as alone out there as I thought I was. In fact, the locals had actually been watching me from a distance since the day I landed. If I had bothered to head east (or the direction I believed to be east anyways) instead of west when I first started exploring, I would have found civilization wasn’t too far away. With luck I could have managed to overcome the language barrier, and found a place to stay until someone that could take me home showed up. But since I didn’t go east, I had instead been subject to starvation and thirst. I had been forced to adapt in order to survive, and I had managed to make myself the number one predator on a planet where all the sentient inhabitants were herbivores. In other words, they thought I was a demon straight out of Tartarus…one that needed to be destroyed.

As you can imagine, I didn’t take that so well.

I’m…not to particularly proud of what happened, but considering the circumstances and the fact that it got me rescued, I don’t need to be proud of it to say I don’t regret it. I had no clue what they were shouting at me, only that I didn’t like being hit with rocks and chased by a bunch of spear wielding, primitive aliens. They were being hostile, so I responded in kind. None of the ones that came after me ever made it back to their settlement.
And so their fear of me grew.

Eventually, I became confidant enough to go try and see why they had attacked me in the first place. I managed to find the settlement. All the natives had seen me coming, and in there terror hidden from me, barricading the entry ways to their homes in hopes of preventing me from harming them. I found out that they had managed to cultivate a bit of the land, and I cried. Had I only gone in the other direction…but there was no turning back the clock. What was done was done; there was no point in regretting it, so I didn’t. I still don’t regret my actions.

It was right then and right there, as I was crying and sitting in the middle of an alien town, understanding how Zecora must have felt when ponyville was still terrified of her (the largest difference between me and Zecora being that these creatures had good reason to fear me), that it found me: My yellow power ring.

I later returned, just for a brief visit, and discovered that they had made my image into their new god of death. There is actually a whole little story about what they thought I was doing there. It’s a rather interesting bit of their culture.