"So..." Bright Idea says to the others as we eat breakfast at a small diner in Canterlot. The sun, just risen, shines through the restaurant, illuminating the nine figures seated at a table. "We're just not going to talk about the fact that your ship's still here?"
"What's the big deal?" Rainbow answers. "It's not like it changes anything about the story."
"Don't worry." Twilight says, giving Rainbow a look. "We'll explain everything."
"But where do we start?" Pinkie asks. "We had a hee-yuge adventure out there! There's so much to say that whenever I try explaining it, everything just gets jumbled around!"
"We'll start the way every other story starts." I cut in, smiling. "At the beginning."
"All systems are go." Rarity calls. Her confidence, a bright, orange glow, suffuses the engine room, and I smile. We've all come so far; everything we've spent five years working for is coming together, and - even as detached from my emotions as I am - it feels great.
I close the door on Rarity as she engages the locks on her chair, strapping herself in. The corridor leading to the cockpit is long and wide, and I climb up it, glancing at the rooms off to the side, making sure everything's running smoothly; it is.
"Do we have auto-pilot yet?" I call into Spike's room.
"98% done!" he replies, and I shout for him to keep up the good work, nodding to a calm, blue-glowing Fluttershy as we pass each other. Her place is not in the cockpit, but in the lab; Twilight and I will share the front row view with the pilot.
I enter the cockpit to see Twilight already strapped in, swiveling in her chair like a little girl. I chuckle at her and strap in, the cloth of the belts wrapping snugly around me, holding me fast to the seat.
Twilight wiggles a bit in her chair and swivels it to face me, excitement and nervousness swirling in a purple-and-green vortex around her. I give her a reassuring smile.
"We've got this." I say, poking her in the chest with a finger. "We've been training for, what, five years now?"
"I know, I know." Twilight replies, rolling her eyes at me as the purple fades, replaced by lime green anticipation. "Still, it's hard not to be nervous, you know? This is just such an amazing opportunity!"
"Yeah, I understand." I say, taking another look around the cockpit that encloses us, glass and metal and plastic and all sorts of computers and navigation systems; it's a wonder to behold.
"And ta think," Applejack says, orange confidence radiating off of her as she climbs up to the pilot's chair, situated in front of Twilight and I. "Two years ago, we'd have never even thought this whole thing was possible!"
"I know, right!?" Pinkie's voice, yellow happiness dripping from the sound, floats to us via the intercom. "This is the best thing ever!"
"Pinkie, get in your chair." I say. "Takeoff's waiting on you two!"
"Yeah, yeah, we're on our way." Rainbow's voice replies. "She just got sidetracked in the little girl's room."
"Again?" Spike's voice chimes in. "What did you have to drink, Pinkie?"
"Oh, two gallons of soda, a pint of water, some apple juice..."
"I mean after we boarded."
"Oh, two gallons of soda, a pint of water, some apple juice..."
"Pinkie, get in your chair right now," Dash says. "or I'll put my foot so far up your-"
"Aaaaand we are strapped in and ready for takeoff, Twilight!" Pinkie calls.
"Spike!" I press the button on the intercom, sending a message to the crew's quarters. "Got an ETA on that auto-pilot?"
"Done!" he calls. "I've got the module safe in the lockers; heading to the engine room now!"
There's silence for a few seconds, broken only by the beeping of the various terminals and consoles, before Spike talks again.
"Ready!" he calls, his voice full of green.
"Everyone's ready, then?" I call. No harm in making sure. "I can let Celestia know?"
The seven other crew members signal their readiness again, and I press the green button on the right armrest of my chair, the one that sends messages to Mission Control.
"Canterlot, this is Sunset Shimmer." I say. "We are ready for takeoff."
"Roger that, Sunset." Celestia's voice replies, full of glowing, golden pride. "T-Minus ten. Nine. Eight. Seven."
I share an excited glance with Twilight. Even though we're prepared, it's still so new, so incomprehensibly amazing, the possibility of going into space.
"Five. Four. Three. Two. One."
The engines rumble, then roar.
The planet begins to fall away in front of us, leading to clouds.
We're doing it.
We're doing it!
We're going into space!
And then there's a beeping.
"Mission Control," Rarity says, yellow fear staining her words a grisly color. "There's something wrong with our engines!"
"Something's hit the galley!" Pinkie calls. "I don't know what it was, but it was big!"
"Damage to the nav room!" Rainbow Dash yells. "Feels like a train just hit us!"
"The lab's been hit too!" Fluttershy's voice, normally quiet, rings through the intercom frenzied and frightened.
Rarity's voice has descended to the grey-gold of panic now. "They're not supposed to - how are they even doing that!? They're about to overload! Someone-"
And then there was light.
I'd expected death to come swiftly; after all, an explosion doesn't exactly take its time... well, exploding.
But there's nothing but the light. I can feel the seat under me, I can hear the crew; from Pinkie's high-pitched wail and Fluttershy's quiet sobbing to Applejack's near silent 'Oh, horseapples.'
But the burning, the death...
It doesn't come.
Instead, as the light somehow grows brighter, two words echo through the ship, emanating from the intercoms.
"Look up."
"We still don't know exactly what it was that made the engines fail." Applejack says as we walk slowly down the boulevard that leads to Canterlot Castle. "But later on, we figured out why we didn't die."
"It turns out," Rarity cut in. "When the engines failed, they began producing their own magic, which flowed into the energy storage."
"The storage that was set to feed into the engines." Bright Idea gasps.
"Exactly!" Rarity exclaims. "It created a feedback loop that opened a - let's call it a 'rip' - in space-time, which we fell through. The excess energy released itself the only way it knew how, creating the explosion the rest of Equestria saw."
"Well, what happened after that?" Bright Idea asks. The crew looks at me, and I shrug, resigning myself to my role as storyteller.
"Well, eventually, the light fades..." I begin.
Eventually, the light fades, leaving the three of us sitting there, strapped in, wondering what in the fresh, orange-speckled Tartaurus just happened. Eventually, Twilight presses a button and talks into the intercom.
"Crew," she says. "Report. Are you all right?"
"I'm shaken, but not stirred, Cap'n." Pinkie replies.
"Rarity and I are all right." Spike answers.
"Ditto in the nav room."
"I'm not hurt, and the lab equipment seems unharmed..."
"Looks like we're all okay." Applejack says. "Considerin', you know..."
"I'm heading up to the galley." Spike calls.
"Good idea." Twilight replies, her voice shaky. "In fact, let's all head to the galley, and talk about whatever just happened."
Twilight unstraps herself, and, as I begin loosing myself from my reclining prison, begins glowing a multitude of colors.
"Hoh boy." I mumble as Twilight curls up into a ball and proceeds to have a mental breakdown.
"I did not!" Twilight protests. "I just... Took a seat; that's all! I sat down on the floor and thought everything through calmly, logically, and-"
"Yeah, she pretty much threw a tantrum." Rainbow interrupts.
"She didn't just fly off the handle." Pinkie adds. "She did an acrobatic freaking pirouette off of it."
"You weren't even there!" Twilight protests. "How would you know!?"
"The intercom was on." Applejack replies. "Everyone heard you."
Twilight stops, a shocked look on her face.
"I do believe some of the words you used were 'Celestia or Star-Swirl or Great Faust or whoever's up there, kill me now.'" Rarity adds, grinning. "At least, that's what I could make out between expletives."
"I don't wanna know what kind of books you got some of those from." Spike laughs. "But at the same time, I wanna read them all."
"Okaywe'redonetalkingaboutthisnow." Twilight says, face red. "Sunset, why don't you get on with the story?"
I nod, grinning, and take a breath, only to be intrrupted by a flash of lime green light.
A small, white diamond lands at my feet, along with a small, broken piece of metal. I pick the items up, and find the metal to be exactly half of a coin.
I've been summoned.
"I'm sorry." I say, turning to the others. "But I need to go. There are some friends I've been neglecting, and I need to let them know I'm alright."
The others nod; we trust each other.
"We can tell the story just as well as you." Rarity says. "Go talk to your elusive mentors."
Nodding again, I speak into my watch.
"Archer, local transport please; about seventy-two klicks northeast. Thanks."
The light of teleportation envelops me, and Canterlot disappears.
So, after my - alleged - mental breakdown, we all go to the galley and begin talking things out. We discuss different courses of action to take, and eventually decide on trying to make our way back to Equestria; keep in mind, at this point, we thought we were in space.
Then Spike glances at his diagnostic tool - it's nothing big, just a panel that keeps him up to date on the status of the ship's electronics - and notices something rather odd.
We have no life support. No air. No artificial gravity. No pressure regulation. All of it was offline, knocked out by the launch.
So the question has to be asked, and Sunset asks it:
"Where's the air we're breathing coming from?"
Needless to say, we're all pretty perplexed, until Pinkie suggests opening up one of the viewports and having a look around. We oblige, heading over to the wall of the galley and unlocking one of the small, circular side ones.
What we see is astounding.
We're in a forest teeming with green and purple plants, not growing up but hanging down, as if from some giant ceiling far, far above us. Yet, there's light, brighter than an Equestrian afternoon.
"Whoa." Pinkie breathes. "That's trippy."
"Alright, Sunset." Rainbow calls from the entrance to the galley. "We going out there or not?"
We all look at Rainbow, who's busy sealing her helmet.
"What?" She asks, in response to the stares. "Sunset and I are the surface crew, aren't we? And this is an alien planet, isn't it?"
More silence.
"Whatever." Rainbow says, turning to leave. "If Sunset doesn't wanna help me do our job, then I guess I'll have to be the first one to make contact with alien life."
Sunset rolls her eyes and walks to the entrance, sealing her helmet as well.
"If we're not back in an hour, send out a distress signal." she calls, walking out of sight. There's a faint 'whoosh' as the airlock opens.
Then there's a faint screaming.
As the airlock opens again, the screaming fades, and Sunset half-runs backwards into the galley, her eyes wide. She trips over the threshold, and scrambles backward on her hands and feet, putting as much distance between herself and the airlock.
"Sunset!" Fluttershy calls as we rush to her aid.
"Get Rainbow!" she yells. "She can't go out there!"
Applejack rushes for the airlock, and another 'whoosh' signals her exodus.
"Sunset, what wrong?" Rarity asks, as Sunset sits down on a chair and begins breathing heavily, her helmeted head in her hands.
"The planet." she says. "It's alive!"
Just then, there's a tapping at the window.