//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3: Re-awakening 
// Story: Project Eden: Evolution is Magic 
// by Feral Pony 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 3

Scientist`s worked through Celestia`s day and Luna`s night in attempt to safely extract the creature sleeping in the pod. They had used the other pods as test`s and they had finally figured out a safe way to open the pod. They would pry open the front half with magic and some tools such as crowbars. Herdem Freestallion was the one to figure out how to open pods with a crowbar. He always seemed to carry a crowbar for no apparent reason. Anyway everything was ready to release the creature, all the scientists needed now was the all clear to open the pod from the princesses.

Celestia was curious about the message the Metal room had given, but figured it irrelevant until they could translate it. The pod with the creature in it was extracted to the best guestroom in the castle to where it would be released. Celestia ushered all the ponies out except Luna and Twilight. She grabbed a crowbar and began prying at the points the scientists had deemed safe. After some effort the pod opened and revealed the creature. 

Raine felt a cold breeze hit him and some unintelligible sounds. He could not think properly and felt nauseated. His body was numb and he had a small urge to puke, but held it back. Nicholas tried to open his eyes with very little success, but after a few attempts he managed. His vision was a bit blurred but when his eyes came into focus his eye caught a slightly smaller than average white horse in front of him. He shifted his eyes onto a dark blue horse that was even smaller than the white one. The last horse was lavender and was so small he had to hold back the urge to laugh. There was something wrong though, their eyes were huge, and then I mean HUGE! They also had this intelligent look in them that said that they were far from stupide. 

These three horses looked at Raine with great curiosity. Only they weren’t horses they had horns and wings, all three of them. Raine would call them Horse for now. The silence was as thick as can be, eventually the white horse spoke. Raine widened his eyes and felt his heart begin to race. The sounds the horse made sounded like complete gibberish but Raine would have to assume it was another language since after a few awkward seconds the small lavender horse said something to the white horse.

Raine had, had enough and decided to try and speak.

“Hello… urgh… Can you understand me?” 

The horses looked at Raine with slightly surprised looks. The white one began speaking again with her gaze fallen upon the dark blue and the lavender horses.

When she had stopped talking she lifted her hoof and made a motion that told Raine could come out of the pod. She gave off a friendly smile while doing so. Raine took a step outside of the pod but quickly trembled and fell on his knees, his arms barely able to hold him up as he stood there on all his four limbs. He heard some small gasps from the horses but shrugged it off. The sounds they had made so far sounded very Feminine like so he would assume they were female. He noticed the floor was made of marble, So he was no longer in the Ark. He felt weak but made a second attempt to stand on his two legs. When he stood up he noticed he was slightly smaller than the white horse but almost at eyelevel. He took his gaze away from her face and noticed he was in a room built for wealthy people. The walls had a deep blue color to them while the doors leading to other rooms where white. Windows allowed Raine to know it was either really early in the morning or about to become nighttime. He scanned the rest of the room and noticed that some cushions had been placed around a table. The roof had chandelier`s lighting up the room. There was also a bed which looked really fluffy, too fluffy for Raines taste.

Raine felt the curious look of the lavender horse upon him as he scanned his environment and the slightly surprised look from the dark blue horse. Maybe he surprised the blue one by being so tall, the tough almost made him want to chuckle. The white one just looked with a friendly smile and let Raine take his time.
Raine took a few careful steps towards the bed trying not to lose his balance. His legs were stiff so he had some trouble moving but quickly got used to the feeling. He reached out and touched the silky cloth on the bed. It felt good to finally touch something again after being in stasis. He looked over his shoulder to find the three horses still standing by the pod he had been in earlier with curious eyes on him. Raine was about to speak again when he began to puzzle a few thing together in his mind.

They had let him go, they had not attacked him so Raine would have to assume they were friendly. But where was the rest of the Survivors from the Ark. Had they released them too? Given them the same warm welcome to later be backstabbed for experiments? No…no, nothing is so inhumane. Or are they? Either way, he was not going to partake in anything they had planned. He had a job to do. Find the others and initiate Project Eden.


He kept his cool, but all trust that was built up earlier had shattered and was replaced by mistrust. "They would only delay him" raine though. Raine however did not let the horses know this and continued to act friendly until he was all alone and could begin to think of how he could escape and save the others, or find out what fate had bestowed upon them. The white one took a few careful steps towards Raine and stopped about an one and a half arm length away from Raine. She then stretched out her hoof and gave a small smile.
Rain felt a small lump being made in his throat, but reached out and took the hoof and began shaking. She looked at him a bit confused at first but shrugged it off. When he let go the White horse had a big friendly smile and called for the other horses to what Raine assumed greet him.

When Raine had shaken all the Horses they made their leave and said something to Raine that he could not understand. Before the white horse left the room she gave a last smile to Rain and pointed towards the bed. Then she left.

Raine began further examining the room he was in. He went to one of the doors located on the other side of the room and found what clearly was a bathroom. He examined the room quickly but when his eyes reached the toilet he began to think of how long ago it was since he last time sat down and took a shit. A small grumble from his stomach and some pressure building up in his backside was all the confermation he needed. He was getting down to bussiness.





Celestia, Luna and Twilight were now in the library discussing what to do next.
“He has yet to show any sign of aggression towards us, but that might be because he was alone.” Twilight said.

“I will try to speak to it later. But for now I suggest Luna begins her night court and you Twilight go get some sleep.” Celestia said.
“Before we leave to do our duties, do you think we have secured the creature enough?” Luna asks her sister.
“I do, besides I will go speak to it some more before I call it a day.” Celestia finishes.






“Phew, holy shit that felt good.” Raine muttered to himself.
Okay time to find a way out. Let’s start with the most obvious one, the front door. Raine found no keyhole to peek through so he grabbed the handle and opened it.
What met him was a tall and huge hallway. The roof must have been at least 25 feet tall. The hallways went on for quite a distance. Raine was about to step out when two spears blocked his path. He saw two golden armored horses whom only glared daggers at Raine. Rain pulled back into his room. He did not want to start anything against the white horse who he assumed owned this place. Okay, next option Windows. He stepped over to the windows which revealed a beautiful night sky and a glowing city right in front of him. The buildings stood tall and looked like early human architecture. He opened the windows and looked down. From what he could see the drop was not too far and he would be able to land safely if he just rolled at the end of the jump. Before he would take his leave tough he would need to look for something to eat as well as drink.

He found a plate full of fruite and began nibbeling on a piece of apple. While he ate he gathered the supplies he needed to survive for at least two weeks and packed it up in the bed sheet. He secured the sheet with some rope that was holding some curtains open. He helped himself with some the little metal that was available in the room in case he could make something out of it later. He also stripped his pod of most of the titanium metal he could afford to carry without losing walking and running speed. What he would use the titanium for yet he did not know but he would have to break it down to craft something worthy of anything. He would figure out how to do so later.

Everything was set and ready to go. Raine stepped over to the window again dropped his bag of supplies. It landed with a thud, but not loud enough for it to raise any alarm. Raine was next, he had to be careful with how he was going to land. He had not done anything remotely athletic in the past few hours that have passed, starting with a three meters jump would not be the smartest move, so he was going to warm up with some very basic exercise.





Celestia walked down the hallway leading to the alien creature`s room. She wanted to try and establish a better relationship with the creature and see if she could try and communicate with it, even if it would just be hoof motions and such. It had made sounds that could probably be a language, also considering it was sleeping in a metal pod would have to mean it was intelligent enough to know the underground would be safe from any harm whatever the threat may be.
As she was thinking all this trough she almost passed the creature`s door, but managed to stop herself. The guards stood in position and saluted to the princess.

“I wish to speak with the Creature. I do not wish to be interrupted, and should any noise come from the door, do not enter unless I tell you to.”
The guards nodded and opened the door for their princess. She entered the room and looked over to the bed to see if the creature was sleeping. However she noticed the sheet was missing and no creature was sleeping there. She scanned the room to see the creature laying on its stomach but pushing its chest off the floor with its forearms. He repeated this over and over and over again, not noticing Celestia approach.





Forty eight. Forty nine. Fifty!
Raine was ready to go, he did not want to strain himself too much as he did not know how long the journey would be before he found any of the Arks, and he needed all the energy he could save. As he stood up he took in the environment of the room one last time before he would leave to on his quest to find the other Arks. As his eyes driftet from the bed over to the doors leading to the hallway he halted as his eyes met the white Horse`s Magenta ones. Raine felt his legs being glued to the floor and a few sweat drops began running down his face. They just stared at each other for what felt like hours. Suddenly a wind breeze coming through the open window broke the silence. The white horse noticed this. Her eyes shot towards the open window, then back to Raine. Raine collected what courage he could and began running towards the window as fast as his body allowed him to. He jumped and fell to the ground with a heavy thud. Pain shot through his right leg as he had completely forgot to roll so his body could take the fall, instead all that burden went to his legs. He quickly took the bed sheet filled with supplies and began running, ignoring the pain in his leg.

He continued to run for a short duration, before slowing down to a jog so he could catch his breath again. Raine had not taken into consideration where he was running and found himself surrounded by some tall dark green hedges. There were paths leading both left and right and all directions. Raine was in a maze from what he could tell. He was currently leaning onto a statue that looked really freaky. It had a snake`s tail, a goat leg, batwings and a lion paw. Raines hair began rising as he examined the statue closer but decided now was not a time for long breaks as he was probably being chased. The silhouette of a flying horse in the sky just confirmed his theory. He began jogging again in an attempt to find a way out.

After a short jog he saw the exit, but it was covered by some guard horses.

“Shit.” He whispered to himself.

He did not want to go back into the maze again but had no choice. He had no weapons other than his fists to defend himself with, he also did not want to hurt anyone unnecessarily. Raine did a quiet sigh and began jogging into the maze again in an attempt to find another way out. Hopefully with no one to witness his escape.

He had stopped jogging and was now walking. He had several times seen flying horses above including the big white one scouting for him. He had managed to hide every time thus far, however he did not know how long he could keep it up. The sun was on its way back up over the horizon again which told Raine he had been in that damned maze for quite some time now. But he was not going to give up. He needed to get away and find the other survivors and Arks.
He kept on walking and taking quick breaks every now and then to catch his breath and to think about his actions thus far.

Raine thought over how quick he was to judge the horses as evil and only wanted to experiment with him. Maybe escape was a bit of a rushed decision. Raine silently cursed to himself for acting so rash, but figured what`s done is done and he had to keep on moving to not only get out of the maze, but also to escape the Horses further.

After some infuriating hours of walking, Raine found another exit. It was covered by horses aswell as the previous one. Raine was done with this maze, he was getting out, even if he would have to fight his way out. He picked up a small rock and tossed it to the turn closest to the exit. Hopefully the guards would noticed the bushes moving. Surprisingly they did but only sent one guard to check it out while the other stood still at his post.

“Son of a bitch. *sigh* Shitface you asked for it” Raine muttured under his breath.

Raine did not want to hurt any of the horses but it was now or never. He made full running speed towards the guard that stood alone by the exit and had a quick mental argument in his mind. If he left him conscious he could alert the other guards and Raine would have a harder time escaping, or he could knock him out, but risk a bigger punishment if he got caught at some point. He chose the latter option and grabbed the horse’s throat and began chocking. While he did this he dragged him along to a place where he could hide the soon to be unconscious horse. When the horse had choked Raine checked for a pulse and luckily found one. He dropped the body into the hedge wall and began running along the maze outside wall before the other guard would notice anything.

Raine had left no trail to follow so all that mattered now was to get over the huge walls surrounding the city. There were stairs leading up to the top of the wall, so getting up was not the hard part. It was sneaking around while the sun stood high in the sky and guards were patrolling the walls. Raine would have to figure something out, but now was not the time. Hiding in the city for a day or two could not hurt too much if he were just careful. He would be able to plan his escape from the walls better as well as get some rest and wait for nighttime where the cover would be thicker. He found a gardening shed where he could only hope no one would go into while he stayed there.





Celestia`s wings were tired from all the flying she had done around the maze, scouting for that creature. Ugh, what did she do to scare it off like that? She tough as her laid flat on her bed relaxing. 
Celestia though through the whole encounter. She entered the room, and saw it do what she assumed was exercise. Then it stood up and made eye contact. What followed after made not sense to her. It just ran and jumped out the window to begin to run into the maze where she had lost it.
Ugh, she did not have time to search for the creature any more than she already had, maybe this would be a task for Twilight and her friends. The creature had posed no threat thus far, so sending the girls after it could not hurt. Beside she needed her guards here, for she had received several letters concerning the border between Griffynia and Equestria. 

"Yes sending Twilight and her friends after this creature may be my best option". Celestia tought. They probably also have the best chance to befriend it, considering they are not armed guards with intention of making their job as easy as possible by drugging it down into sleep. Celestia got out of her bed and made her way towards breakfast where Twilight and Luna would be. This would be as appropriate time as any to say the news of the creature`s escape.