Indistinguishable from magic

by Szalhi

It's a dangerous Universe.

Author's Note:

Welcome to the first story I've posted in ages. I haven't written in a while so I may be a bit off. This is self-edited, but I don't consider myself any good. Some information is purposely omitted.

I'm not sure if things happen fast or not.

One issue I had when editing was tense. The story is mostly written in First person with Past tense. Thoughts are in italics, which is the usual for me.

Another issue I tend to have is lack of expressions in dialogue tags.

Oh well, If you like this, see you in a minimum of Two weeks.

The Damn, Xephoes. I was just trying to do my job.

To clarify what I just meant, the Xephoes are a bipedal 6 limbed race. They are a race of pride and honour. Or at least, they mostly used to be. According to Xephoes history, there was a civil war and some of the Xephoes split off. Loyal Xephoes are hard to come by, the ones that are the most common are basically pirates. When referring to Xephoes, you are generally referring to the pirates entirely.

I didn’t expect there to be any Xephoes in the area, so I came somewhat unprepared. My Shield was broken from a previous encounter with some other pirates. I only had my Overshield, A shield that is very powerful but has a short life before overheating. It was extremely hard to reconfigure this specific type of brand to use less power and act as the average shield.

“Human, drop your supplies now and you will live,” The Leader commanded.

“Not a fucking chance. You guys can fuck off. You fucking raiders,” I called out behind cover. Looking over to occasionally fire off a few shots.

“Are You not but a raider yourself?” The leader contradicted. I was kind of a hypocrite, but at least I had somewhat of a choice.

“You Xephoes are all the same, at least I had a choice.” I checked my ammo. Three rounds left, better get a fresh mag just incase. The Rifle I was using was ballistic. Ballistic and energy weapons are both used, both being effective in their own ways.

“Why are you surprised? It’s what we do!” one of the lackeys shouted.

“I’m not,” I remarked. “I’m just saying you could be doing something different.”

“You could be doing something different.”

“I’m just one human.”

---

Let me take some time to explain what I do.

I’m a scavenger, a raider as you can see. A Pirate? I do not associate myself as one. I do not really try to steal from people directly. If it’s clearly owned, it’s not worth going over.

As a scavenger, I can find some really cool stuff. The Black market is a pretty interesting place too. Half the stuff I find, I can sell off to the black market. I might even buy something from the black market. It’s certainly an interesting job.

I’m not saying it’s a better job, but it’s still kind of worthwhile.

---

”Enough with the talk, just blow him up already!” The leader shouted. I looked over to see one of them pulling out an rpg. Oh shit,

I dived out of cover right before the blast hit me, I landed on the ground right in the open space. Oh fuck, oh fuck! I thought before I quickly activated my Overshield, gunfire being negated by it. I quickly dashed over to another bit of cover firing with my recently digistructed shotguns before my shield deactivated.

“Fuck you too!” I screamed as I chucked a grenade over head, landing between two lackeys and the leader. The Leader managed to activate his own overshield, but the other two weren’t so fortunate to have one.

“I’m already winning!”

”Prepare the big guns on his ship over there.”

Wait, what? I just managed to hear the order. Oh fuck no you don’t. I checked my overshield status. 20 seconds. Thank god I have a plan to distract them.

I primed all of my remaining grenades and proceeded to throw them at the group. The Group completely scattered as the grenades went all “hail mary” on them. I dashed out of cover, activating my overshield and back in the direction of the ship. I saw a shiny crystal on the ground, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I momentarily stopped to grab it, not fearing any sort of dangers such as radiation, or the stray bullet that could hit me at any time.

I dashed back inside the ship, dropping a few supplies, but they weren’t really important to my survival. Just need to get off this god forbidden moon.

“Seal, the ship and launch into orbit…”

Boom

“Shit!” The Hull was hit by a rather large projectile. “Keep her steady!” I commanded as I dashed over to the piloting seat climbing in. I felt the ship rise off the ground and upwards.

“Hull integrity at 50%, Recommend dispatching drones.”

“We don’t have time for this! Prioritise ftl jump. Dispatch the flares,” I shouted annoyingly. If there’s one thing that’s good about having a Dumb A.I Is that they don’t really talk back that much.

”Dispatching flares, FTL Drive at 50%.”

I heard the flares pop out as I saw a rocket fly past the cockpit. “FTL jump when ready.”

I switched over to gun control and saw the Xephoes run into their own ship. I took aim and suppressed fire on them. The flares managed to divert most of their return fire, but one missile made it through.

”Hull integrity at 20%. FTL Course not plotted.”

“Just jump anywhere!”

”That’s not viable.”

“Anywhere’s better than nowhere.”

”Jumping into enemy territory is highly likely. FTL Charge is at 85%

“Just do it!”

There was a transmission over the comms. ”Human, surrender now and you will be only slightly harmed.”

“Fuck off now and you won’t be harmed,” I replied as the Jump button lit up, prompting me to activate it. I took no hesitation and activated it.

---

It was a beautiful night In Equestria. The stars were bright in the sky including stars not controlled by Luna.

“I have to admit, finding out that you don’t control all the stars was a weird experience,” Twilight said to Luna.

“Some stars are just outside my reach or just too big,” Luna responded.

“But as the Princess of the night, shouldn’t you be able to control every star?” Twilight asked.

Luna turned to face towards the sky. “Most ponies believe that they know everything that there is to know about astronomy, but they don’t know how things work outside this galaxy.”

“Things work differently outside this galaxy?” Twilight asked curiously.

Luna sighed. “As a Princess, I guess it’s your right to know. This galaxy is far different from other galaxies. This is a small galaxy, all the stars in this galaxy are rather small. That what makes me able to grasp them. Outside this galaxy, Stars are big most of their life. This is only a handful of what makes this galaxy different.”

Suddenly a bright flash lit up the sky sending out a massive shockwave that shook the ground. IF this was on the surface, it would’ve done more damage than ever. Twilight winced as she was looking straight up at the sky, blinding her for a moment. When her sight finally returned, she saw an object shoot down straight into the Everfree Forest.

Twilight rubbed her eyes to be sure. “What just happened?” She asked with concern.

Right then Two guards ran up to Luna. “Princess, Are you okay?” The Larger one asked.

Luna Blinked a couple of times before responding. “Corporal, Rally up as many of the guard as you can and send them to the Everfree borders,” She Commanded before turning to Twilight. “There’s no time to lose, Get your friends there as well.”

---

”Warning, atmosphere depressurised.”

I groaned as I opened my eyes and looked around. Atmosphere depressurised? Well, that’s what’s to be expected when you blind jump.

I looked around a bit, spotting the rather large opening in the side of my ship. I also realised that the distorted field of the oxygen field wasn’t present.

Oh Shit! I thought as I stumbled upwards. I was still breathing. The Atmosphere was fine here. Gravity seems different. No wait, it’s normal. I found out the hard way.

”Warning, atmosphere depressurised.”

Why’s it telling me that? I thought as I moved over to the console. The System was bugging out. It’s repeating the message on loop that’s why.

I was going to have to fix this up if I was to get off this planet. Perks of being a scavenger is that you need to know how to fix things. I turned off the system. I then turned it back on in self-repair mode. Hopefully that would fix it.

I peered out through the hole in the ship. I was inside a forest. A forest that looked pretty dark and gloomy. Not the scariest I’ve seen. It was also the middle of the night here. I switched on my night vision in order to get a better view. I stepped out and inspected the ship. It was mangled in some spots, but I could have easily had that fixed. The Main issue at the time was that I just crash landed out of FTL Jump. There must be something wrong with the engines. Although they seemed alright the last time I checked.

Walking around the back, I saw that the thrusters were damaged beyond repair. I was going to have to digistruct a new one. I don’t think I have any supplies for this. Or If the planet has any.

Digistruction is a fairly new concept. It’s really two different things. There’s Digiprinting, This is similar to the old 3D printing. You store resources and it uses those resources to construct a new object. Digistruction can take a while though, but unlike 3d printing, has a wider array of options. Due to this, I only really use it to create bullets and explosives. If I get the materials, I can create a new engine, but who knows how long that’s going to take, or if the machine can handle it.

The Other form is Digistorage. This is digitally storing matter. Digistorage can only hold so much before it fills up. The stability drops before that. Generally storage is reserved for weaponry that needs to be concealed and I’ve heard most people living normal lives don’t bother with it.

I heard some rustling behind me and drew my pistol. My pistol was situated in it’s holster. Normally I digistructed weapons, but due to the nature of it, It was safer to keep a weapon on me at all times just incase.

There was a canidae like creature behind me. But it was entirely made of wood. I wasn’t sure if it was an animal or a tree, but it didn’t matter because that thing acted before it thought.

It charged right at me. I side stepped and it crashed into my ship. No big deal, it’s already half dead. I aimed at it and fired a couple of shots. The shots tore through the wood, but it didn’t seem to care. Shit, this isn’t going to work. I pulled out a grenade and set the fuse for 3 seconds. I ran away from the ship in order to lure it away. As it growled to me, I Shoved the grenade into it’s mouth and dashed away.

Boom

The Creature shattered into tiny bits and pieces and a green orb flew out. I was about to holster my pistol when I heard more growling. Shit, they heard it. I saw two more of them leap out in front me. At the same time, the Green orb returned and the Wood re-assembled itself. These things are elementals. The orb must be the core, I have to destroy it.

I reloaded my pistol and aimed at the Eyes of one of them. I fired a burst and the Head exploded causing the rest of the body to collapse. Instead of an orb, a green mist dissipated into the atmosphere. I took aim at the other two, but they closed their eyes. Sneaky bastards. But I still have a trick up my sleeve. I said literally. The digistorage drive was located below the sleeve.

I took out another grenade and chucked it between the two. The Two of them didn’t seem to realise that beeping round thing equals death. They shattered into million of pieces and the orbs started to fly off.

“Oh no you don’t!” I called out as I took aim at the orbs and fired four shots. The Orbs were stunned on the first shot, but the second shot caused them to dissipate.

“Holy fuck, Thank god that’s over,” I said before resting on the ground. I’ve had worse I guess.

---

The elements were just arriving at the Edge of the forest when they heard a series of sounds, Followed by an explosion.

“What is that?” Rarity asked concerned.

“It sounds like an explosion, but I don’t know what the first sounds were,” Twilight answered.

“Ya’ll think that ha something to do with the thingy-ma-bob?” Applejack asked.

“Possibly, we can’t be for sure.”

Rainbow dash flew up to Twilight, causing her to back away. “Oh c’mon! A Giant thing falls out of the sky and some unknown sounds occur. Obviously they’re related.”

“We can’t be entirely sure. The Everfree forest changes all the time. While some things remain the same, there could be new things happening at any time,” Twilight Replied.

At that moment Luna made her appearance in front of the group. “There’s no time to explain, we need to get to the crash site as soon as possible,” She commanded with a serious tone before turning to the guards. “Guards, up front.”

---

I took the time during the break to repair my standard shield for use. I also digistructed some more Grenades. Due to the presence of hostile creatures, I didn’t want to take any chances. I re-equipped the shield generator, seeing the field wrap around my form before going transparent.

If I’m to find a way off here, I need to see what this place is like. I thought to myself. I looked around for a way to get a height advantage. Guess I’ll just climb this tree then..

When I made it to the top of the tree, I could see how big this forest was. It was a rather large forest, but in the distance, I could see a mountain with what appeared to be a castle over the edge. Could there possibly be a civilization here? Or is it just a remain. I thought before realising. How The fuck is that castle staying up like that? Must be some freaky shit

I heard some rustling from down below. Along with some flapping. I looked down and just made out what appeared to be a lion… With wings. Well, Anything’s possible I guess.

They had not noticed me yet, but they showed no signs of leaving anytime soon. “C’mon, move. I don’t want to attack you’ll but I’ll do it if I have to,” I said quietly, knowing that they probably couldn’t understand him. “You don’t want to become my lunch do you?”

They still didn’t appear to want to move. Guess I’ll do it the hard way. I climbed down from the tree and walked up behind them. I digistructed my shotgun and held it facing towards them. In my other hand, I held a machete. Hopefully, they’ll understand the machete.

“Hey, Lion-freaks. You can go ahead and move on now. Nothing to see here,” I told them.

ROAR

I pointed my machete at them in response. Two of them whimpered and backed off, but the last one, which just happened to be the biggest, Did not. It continued to stand it’s ground.

“Oh c’mon, Don’t try to be the tough guy. It’s not worth it,” I said. “Now you can just back off or…”

He charged, right at me. Fool I thought as I fired off my shotgun, right into it’s head. It didn’t give a chance to react as it fell to the ground dead. No cry or anything. Just the sound of a body thumping. I walked over to it and looked at it. I wonder…

“Okay, who’s next?” I asked as I looked up to see the two others had left. “Smart choice.”

I looked back down to the corpse on the ground. I pulled out my scanner. “Scan for venom.”

---

“That’s the third set of sounds now. Surely this isn’t natural,” Rarity mentioned. The Group had been walking for a while now. They were sure they were close.

“I suppose it isn’t,” Twilight replied. This was actually getting quite scary. Even Rainbow had resorted to walking.

“Could be aliens,” Pinkie blurted out.

“Pinkie, the chances of alien life coming here is very slim…”

“There’s still a chance right?”

Twilight sighed. “Yes, there is.”

“Hush, We’re approaching, Guards fall back, we can’t intimidate incase Miss Pie’s prediction is true,” Luna commanded. The Guard fell back as they saw a clearing up ahead.

Up ahead, was a giant metallic structure that appeared to be damaged. Some of the vegetation around was damaged. There was shattered wood around. A strange bipedal creature was standing there. One Luna had never seen before. Next to it was a Manticore’s corpse. It’s not possible.

“No real, venom detected. Should be safe,” The Creature spoke before turning around. ”Oh.”

Comments

[Switch Gears]

hmm this seems good

[Mkchief34]

Interesting. I'll keep an eye on this one...

[Spc jacko]

Is this based of something? Seems familiar for some reason.

[Teikan]

Irrational act protagonist