The Mickey Dilemma

by iDashingRainbow

Sacrifice

Guns were blazing, security was running around helpless; the crew was losing control dramatically. It was not everyday that this kind of thing happened. Nothing could stop him; bullets, fire, sulfuric acid, even the greatest minds of the crew were baffled by his strenght. To make matters worse, the gigantic Starship was heading straight to a collision with the heart of New Mexico. There was little time left. A decision had to be made. The officers tried desperately to contact satellite commands orbiting Earth for some kind of hope, but all communication was futile. No single second could be wasted.

'Sir.. We must do it.' proclaimed the Engineering Officer JO-58 as power was cutting off dramatically. 'We can't stay on this ship. We must evacuate and--'
'Officer!' yelled the General in anger, demanding his immediate attention. 'I'm not getting off this ship. You can go if you want, but I must stay. I lived here, I'll die here. It'll always be this way. Very well.. Do it.'

Nodding in fear, the officer runs back as the General turned back around and sat on his old, yet comfy chair he had always used all his life for the last time, enjoying every second of it. He looked up towards the broken, zapping commands and muttered like a mad man; 'Goodbye, old friend. It was nice--' before being blown to bits by the ship's unstability. Meanwhile, the order echoed throughout what was left of the ship to evacuate at all costs. The crew left their current tasks and simply ran to the escape pods, which were each big enough to fit 10 people in for a maximum of 72 hours. There was place for everyone, well, almost everyone, as some were already blown up by then or malfunctionning.

JO-58 looked back at the ship one last time, the ceiling blowing down, the lights flickering faster and faster, and at a beauty never forgotten. 'Come on, hurry!' a fellow engineer exclaimed in the pod, waiting for the day-dreaming Officer, as he jumped in and before he knew it, the pod was already launched. The glass window showed a good view of the doomed Starship. He had rarely been outside the Starship, and had never been so close to Earth. He was born there, raised there, and almost died there. It was how it was supposed to be. Well, not anymore. The ship was now but a distant shadow; the power had been completely shut off. Never would such a beauty be forgotten, never.

The last sight to be seen was of the grand, and majestic explosion of the main core. A good half of the ship broke away into the void of dreams, and the rest was still heading down to Earth, although there was a good chance it would burn up in the atmosphere, given its current state. 'Hopefully that son of a slack is gonna die for real this time.' a fellow crew-member laughed off, as the others joined with him. It seemed like such a happy, albeit tragic ending to such a wonderful creation. All because of one man. One man, with all his strenght, managed to destroy one of the most beautiful creations that Humanity had ever created.

It was not over. Oh no, it was far from all over. Looking down, there was something wrong. Very wrong. As the Starship descended further and further into the atmosphere, there seemed to be some kind of.. violent outburst. It was inexplicable at the time. It was like a gigantic, light grey cloud had taken over a good portion of North America, and was swinging around like a humongous cyclone. What could it have possibly been? We were all amazed at the sudden sight, and could not stop gazing at it. It turned and turned at inexplicable speeds, and as we watched, it got denser yet seemed much heavier and more powerful.

As if the crew didn't see enough already, this 'violent outburst' started to literally lighten up. The pod was moved and stopped in its track from landing to examine it further. Besides, it didn't seem like a good idea to land in such an extraordinary phenomenon at the time. When a better view was established of the event, jolts of lightning could be seen from above, shooting at the ground like a God showing his anger at the Earth. How such a thing was possible, was inexplicable by anybody, even after spending decades in space exploration and studying events such as these, nothing was found of that size and abnormality.

Some theorised that it may be the long-awaited end of the world as predicted by many, but at this moment in time and in our sinless world, it was unaccounted for. Whilst some optimistic minds in the pod rejoiced of the fact they were not on Earth at the time being, control of the pod was slowly being lost and they were being pulled towards the inexplicable cyclone. Panic started. Desperate minds tried to regain control of the pod, but they all knew, deep down, that it was futile to even attempt. Many lost hope and started to accept their inevitable deaths as the pod slowly but surely headed towards the gigantic clouds of God. Could you blame them?

As the last bits of the Starship desintegrated into thin, literal air, the distant pods were nowhere to be seen. Only theories could be made of their conclusions, however that would not matter for long anyway. As they barged in closer and closer, the vibrations were felt, its cranked noise echoed throughout the distant air, and the pod was losing power and stability in priorities. The cloudy gas clouded the outside world, and the deadly flashes were the only source of available light in short intervals. It was like a war. It was like death in itself. Before they knew it, the pod started to flash, zap, and it seemed their deaths were finally arriving - until something happened, something impossible.

After a significant explosion, there was a bright flash of nothing but a void of white for a good few minutes. Everywhere one looked, it was bright, blinding white. They could feel themselves, but they seemed somewhere.. so right. As the time passed, the white void started to cloud away to bring way for the incoming darkness, but soon enough they started to regain consciousness. Each individual seemed to almost wake up from an inexplicably long coma, or perhaps they woke up from death and whatnot. As each member opened their eyes once more, they were amazed, yet so confused. Silently and in shock, they slowly got up and examined what laid in front of their wide-open eyes.

Over the horizon, light green hills could be seen, cartoonish landscapes were never-ending, everything seemed so.. perfect. The sky was brighter, more blue than ever before, and the air was as clear as one could ever dream of. After looking over the place for what seemed like hours, they started to come back together and theorise on what happened.

'Well, it could certainly mean something. It can't just be heaven or something.' started John MacDorele, one of the smartest minds of the now-lost Starship.
'Are you quite sure?' replied the unnamed engineer. 'It could very well be. I mean.. When will this trip end?!'
'To be fair.. I mean.. Perhaps we have entered some kind of.. How do I put it.. Alternate universe.' the Officer proclaimed as many gave him a peculiar look. 'Well, let me see. It's just a theory; it's not.. it's not meant to be real, but uh.. It.. Heh.. Certainly feels like it is.'
'Good point. Right, I think we oughta accept it and move o--' started the engineer.
'Accept it?! Are you out of your mind?!' interrupted John MacDorele. 'We can't just--'

'Everyone, stop arguing!' replied another crew member as attention silently turned towards him. 'Over there, I can see some kind of settlement! It seems.. Primitive, rather, but could be of slight help.'
The remaining crew started to move towards him and looked towards the horizon with him, and to their amazement, a small, peaceful settlement was seen near their location. The Officer looked towards his right and in the distance was a dark, wicked forest to be seen. He nodded to himself and was confident the settlement was the way to go, but was still very nervous about his choices.

As the crew started walking in a patriatic manner, they had a better insight of the new world in which they had discovered. The trees looked fine and perfect, the horizon was nothing but great hills and mountains which looked like the perfect doors to heaven, and the settlement, not far from here, proved to be quite of help as suggested. As they peacefully arrived in the settlement, they panicked a little before entering, but realized they had no choice, so with a tactical plan, they got in, all careful to make sure they were right. The now-unified crew of 8 members walked, quietly and with little worry, to the village or town.

The houses looked perfect, yet rather quiet. The birds were heard signing into the distance, proving this was indeed a similar universe to theirs, to their benefit. At one point, they stopped, and the Officer stepped up in the seemingly middle of the town, with markets being put up before the population would rise. Not much were seen of their figures just yet, but they seemed to have hooves instead of hands and fingers, some had a horn on their head, and they did not have much body hair, if any. It was then that one purple pony with a familiar, cowboy hat jolted up and catched the Officer in his imminent sight.

More and more of these.. creatures were seen walking towards the tall figures, in their amazement. Not a single word was exchanged in the intercourse. It was a good few minutes that an audience of a relative size was made. They seemed to look like a more intelligent, evolved version of ponies, albeit a bit smaller but with more facial expressions, and brighter and unique colours to each. It was also noticed they each had a tattoo on their lower back, which was quite strange indeed. After a few minutes of awkward staring and examination, one started speaking his mind, in an impossible language to be spoken here.

'Eeeaaahhh.. And you are?' started the orange pony, seemingly confused but rather casual about the whole situation. The Officer looked at his crew who nodded him to start and he stepped up, once again. 'I am.. Officer JO-58, from our Starship which has collided with Earth, our home planet. We seem to have been caught in an interdimensional rift tha--'
'Woah, woah woah. In English, please?' the pony interrupts once again.
'Well.. Um..' the Officer restarted in annoyance, unsure of what to refine. 'Well let me put it this way. We basically come from another universe, like yours! It.. Kind of looks like here in our universe, with a bit of uh.. Changes.. But uh.. Yeah. And so our ship crashed, and uh.. We woke up here!'

'Oh oh oh! Let's host a party for these guys!' an enthusiastic pink pony exclaimed, much to their suprise.
'Pinky, ugh.. Not now!' the orange pony replied in annoyance, although it was too late as the other ponies starter rejoicing all of a sudden and with great speeds, started to set up balloons and party items in flawless co-operation in the minimum amount of time.

This rather suprised the crew members. Such a race seemed rather good, beautiful and perfect in many ways. They didn't seem as conflicted as humans sometimes are, even if they lived most of their lives in almost a 'space-tribe' working together to fix problems and advance further at any given time. Obviously, they weren't perfect, but they were rather different than humans in some ways. Of course, it seemed rather strange that they had very similar, if not the same senses as the humans did. In fact, what was the most suprising thing was the fact that they could speak a language such as english. Perhaps it was just the way it was supposed to be.

The party went very well. The crew members stopped being so serious for a while and just went along with it. It just felt right for them, and natural. Besides, if you have the opportunity to have fun, you should just take it. The time for worry was for another time, and the Mickey threat seemed to have gone by the time. By the time. It was such a good feeling. Knowing that they used so much brute force, that so much hope was lost at the time. It was a heavenly feeling. The party in itself was fantastic. The crew met a lot of the ponies, and were introduced to a lot of the things in their community, in which the land was known as 'Equestria'.

Of course, after that, the light blue sky started to get darker and the air also got cooler over time, and they started to get worried about what would happen to them during the night, as they did not exactly have a place to sleep in and such. Conveniently, the party was called off in the end and everybody went home, still happy and hyper from the long day of partying. The newly introduced Pinkie Pie and Applejack said they'll give them some place to sleep for the night, much to their rejoyance. It didn't seem so dark at night as it did on Earth, and it was warmer as well, and the days seemed a bit shorter as well.

When asked, Applejack just said it was because their leaders, Celestia and Luna, controlled the Sun and the Moon. The crew weren't very sure what to think of that, but kept quiet for the time being in hopes of not offending them. Walking through the now quiet town known as 'Ponyville', they came across a rather luxurious, big house looking over the town. Another pony was waiting outside, seemingly having some sort of meditation time, with her purple horn litten up. They were unsure what to think of such things, but they weren't suprised, given what they saw already.

The pony then regained consciousness and apologized. 'Well, hello there. My name's Twilight, Twilight Sparkle. Just uh.. Call me Twilight. Who are you.. ?' she asked in casual confusion, suggesting she was already aware of humans being in Equestria. 'They're from.. Uhm.. Somewhere..' Applejack starts, turning to the crew, who nod back to her to continue. 'Uhh.. Do you have some space to keep them for the night ? Because uh..'

'Oh, but of course !' Twilight jumps back up from her seat. 'Do come in ! So that is.. 1,2,4.. Okay, 8 beds ! Let's go !' she proclaims, nodding them to come in, in which they do in enthusiasm. The inside was absolutely fantastic and magestic. The many paintings and the well-lit and decorated house, as well as the big tables in the middle gave way for a fantastic and huge room, as if she was some kind of princess living in a small castle in a tree. Most of the paintings were of her and her friends, but some were on the landscape and of multiple pony figures, probably of Luna and Celestia as they thought to themselves, examining the place figuratively.

'Here are your beds !' she says as she makes way for them in a rather large room occupied with a number of beds that she perfects with her magical horn, much to the crew's suprise. 'I know. I know ! Fab, right ?' she says, enthusiastically. The crew enter in amazement, a little bit shy to use such magestic beds, but neverthless are so happy to finally get some rest. 'Well you boys have a nice sleep. If you need anything I'll be in the room down the corridor. See ya !' she finishes with a very happy tone, jumping around with much excitement, as she closes the door behind her, giggling with her friends.
After the crew get silently treated and relax in the very comfy beds, they breathe a little after all that excitement and start talking to each other, as well as introducing themselves more. 'Well, well, what a day, huh?' proclaims the Officer, giggling a bit with the others. 'Not everyday you get something like this.'
'Sure you don't.' John replies. 'It's mad when you think about it. Even I wouldn't figure it out.'
'Hey, maybe if we fall asleep we'll be back or something.' Max jokes as the others laugh with him.
'Ehhh, this is so dumb.' the Officer continues as he sees some of the others have already fallen deep asleep ; can't blame them. 'Well, we'll see what happens tomorrow, we've got time. Nowhere to be, no one to miss. This is closest I've ever been to Earth.'

As they all started to get sleepy and fall asleep, this was the most bizarre and amazing day of their life. Most days were rather boring to be fair for them, I mean, going to space is cool and all, but it does get boring after a while. This was something not to miss. It was, of course, rather tragic, but to them, they had a new perspective on life now. No real point missing the dead ; they won't come back alive, unfortunately, much as we'd love them to. It would be so for the next few hours ; they would be deep asleep. No AC, no engine noises, no one watching them via security cameras. They were free. For once, they were truly free.