Ponies on Earth and their New Horizons

by TikiBat

Chapter 19: The Start of Something Grand

Silver sat next to Orion’s bed, a wing draped over the tired colt as he read him another bedtime story, something he had come to do almost every day since Scarlet had left for her trip all those months ago. These brief tender moments were some of Silver’s favorite parts of the day, it offered a chance for him to embrace his protective instincts and bond with Orion, who gleefully took in each and every story with childlike wonder.

“... and then the brave night pony fought off the moon monsters and saved the moon, and all the space ponies threw a big party for him, and there were lots of games, and toys, and the brave night pony was the happiest night pony on the moon. The end!”

Orion let out a large yawn as he struggled to keep his eyes open, cuddling up next to Cosmo as he finally drifted off to sleep. The dog wagged his tail a few times before resting his head next to Orion and falling into his own deep sleep.

Silver smiled and slowly stood up, setting his homemade storybook down on the shelf next to Orion’s bed and turned towards him, lowering his voice, “Sleep tight, little buddy… I know you probably don’t understand this now, but someday we’re going to explore the whole wide world together. Maybe you’ll even get to be the brave night pony that goes to the moon… anything’s possible. It’ll be our own adventure, just like in your storybooks and I can’t wait to take you everywhere!”

“Well isn’t that adorable?” Scarlet commented from the open doorway, catching Silver off guard.

Silver jumped back in surprise, “Scarlet, I uhh, didn’t hear you walk in. I was just reading Orion another story.”

“I saw, so you finally finished the story about the moon monsters and the night pony astronaut?”

Silver nodded, “Yeah,” he paused for a moment, “don’t tell your mom but I think he’s really liking my stories, I’d hate for her to think I’m upstaging her as the best storyteller in the family.”

She let out a small laugh, “Yeah? You’re a children’s author now too?”

“Only for Orion, our little demon gets only the best stories that a dad can think of.”

She let out a laugh, “You know, I think it’s cute that you channel your protective instincts into taking care of him like that… even if you do go a little overboard sometimes.”

Silver rolled his eyes, “Oh come on, I don’t go that overboard…”

Scarlet raised an eyebrow, “You don’t? Silver, you had the advanced systems team synthesize an entirely new form of foam padding so Orion wouldn’t get hurt when he tried to glide off the playground equipment.”

Silver started to shuffle his hooves around nervously, “Well uhh… that was for the other foals in the Oasis too— plus we can make a ton with it, and it has other applications beyond just padding playgrounds.”

“Like?”

“Like acoustic dampening panels—“

“Which you used to soundproof Orion’s room, and only his room mind you, so he wouldn’t be woken up by the geese outside, despite the fact that he’ll sleep literally anywhere at any time.”

Silver flashed his fangs for a moment as he stared off into the distance, “Oh it’s not to help him sleep… he just doesn’t need to hear those rats with wings constantly honking away like the big dumb birds they are, trust me…” he blinked a few times before flashing Scarlet an embarrassed look as he realized what he had just said, “uhh, sorry about that, I meant to put some up in our room too… I just forgot. We also made sure the lab was extra safe in case there’s an accident and someone falls… it’s not just for Orion, there’s a whole bunch of industrial uses for the stuff...”

“Okay, I’ll believe it. But what about the time you banned Hoof Ball for a week because a stray ball very lightly hit Orion? A very soft ball mind you...”

Silver’s midnight blue face reddened as he shifted his gaze away from Scarlet, “That… okay I’ll admit, that was going a bit overboard… way more than a bit overboard— but at least I didn’t go off on some crusade to get rid of every ball in the Oasis!” He quickly added.

Scarlet chuckled and shook her head, “There’s nothing wrong with embracing your instincts, you just have your own… special way of doing it that goes a little further beyond what any of the other ponies would consider… normal.”

Silver shuffled around, “Okay, maybe you have a point— but I’m working really hard on dialing that back. It’s hard when the drive to protect others and be aggressive is literally baked into our psyche. Sure, ponies here don’t bat an eye at it, but humans don’t understand that it’s a fundamental part of who we are. They see us getting aggressive with each other and suddenly word spreads that we’ve got all these anger problems and they wind up avoiding us like the plague, or worse, and you get more serious stigmas like the ones the mares have to deal with. You guys have your whole fight night every month, but I can’t exactly go around doing something like that without it looking incredibly bad for me. But when I take care of Orion, I can just embrace my own instincts. It’s hard to explain, but taking care of him when he went through his whole diablo phase sparked something inside me, and we’re much closer because of it.”

Scarlet smiled, “Well I’m glad you’re at least embracing it. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t cute watching you make up all these stories for him every night and take him along on little adventures here and there.”

“I can’t wait to take him on some real adventures. Maybe we could even make it to Equestria together someday, you’ve been slipping into the language so much that I’m sure he’ll pick up on it and wonder why Aurora’s family are the only other ponies he knows that can speak it.”

“Oh trust me, that’s the idea. It’d be a real shame to let such a good opportunity go to waste.”

Silver smiled, “Maybe you could give me some more lessons down the line? I’d love to pick that up too, and I love hearing your singing voice, even if you aren’t really singing.”

Scarlet let out a few laughs, “Oh alright, but not tonight. I don’t know about you, but I’m beat. Why don’t we go snuggle up in bed and talk about it in the evening.”

Silver let out a long yawn and glanced over towards Orion, who was peacefully sleeping next to Cosmo, and gave Scarlet a quick nod as he stood up and walked towards the door, “Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Cosmo and Orion already have us beat there.”

“Why don’t you go get ready for bed and I’ll meet you there, just have to send a quick email to Ursa about some observatory stuff before I forget, since we were running some maintenance again and I don’t think she got the memo.”

“Which one? Major or Minor?”

“Minor, Major’s off at some conference this weekend.”

Silver gave her a quick hug as he started towards their room, “Sounds like a plan, I’ve got a fun idea for tonight, can’t wait to try it out with you.”

Scarlet paused, “Oh? What’s that?”

“I can’t ruin the surprise,”Silver responded with a smirk. “Just trust me, I think it’ll be a ton of fun for both of us.”

---

“You sure about this? It seems… complicated” Scarlet hesitantly asked as she took in the bright blinking buttons that lined the complicated control panel. Aside from the two controls ticks, nothing else on the dashboard immediately stood out to her, leaving her with countless questions about what exactly Silver had in mind.

Silver nodded, pulling a set of flight goggles on, “Mhmm, trust me. I’ve been working on this for a while and I think you’re the perfect pony to pilot it, it’s just like the flight simulators in Aero’s lab.”

“You mean the simulators that I barely have any experience flying?”

“Yep! If it makes you feel any better though, you’re really just controlling the four axes. It was easier to set the dream up if we followed a set path, though you can navigate around that path however you want.”

Scarlet looked back towards the controls, giving a quick nod, “Gotcha, guess we’ll see how this goes, won’t we? So what’s your job? Copilot? Engineer?... Your outfit doesn’t really answer much.”

“Gunner. It’s uhh… a good way to get some of the aggression out, you know? It’s just like the old west shooting gallery dream I used to set up, just a lot more complex.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to start dressing like some space pirate in real life, I still laugh every time I see that ridiculous duster you bought on a whim.”

Silver rolled his eyes, “Don’t diss it… it was cool at the time— and it does a good job at keeping me warm when we go up north.”

“It's also two sizes too big for you and doesn’t look flattering at all…”

“Alright, alright. Just don’t worry, I’m not going to dress up like a space pirate this time, okay?”

“Right… this time,” She rested her hooves on the control stick, “So how do we start anyways?”

“See that flashing red button?” Silver asked, gesturing towards a large button towards the side of the dashboard, “Go ahead and give that a push once you’re buckled in, the launch might be a little rough, but it should fly nice and smooth once we’re up in the air.”

“And you’re absolutely sure about this? It’s not going to shake apart or explode or anything is it?” She asked, glancing back towards him with a nervous expression.

Silver quickly strapped himself in, “Yeah, it’s a dream, not like anything can actually hurt us here anyways…”

“So why are you buckling up so tightly then?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, we can still get tossed around here, it’s the illusion of safety more than anything. If you feel safe then you’ll trick your brain into believing it, kinda like how you find yourself breathing when there’s no actual reason to here. It’s just something that you do out of habit and it makes the experience feel all the more real that way.”

She gave a hesitant nod and fastened her own seatbelt, reaching towards the flashing button, “Uh huh... well are you ready?”

“I was born ready,” Silver replied with a smirk.

Scarlet shook her head and let out a giggle, “You’re such a geek sometimes.”

Silver let out a laugh of his own, “Maybe, but I’m your geek, you know you love it.”

She smiled, “Maybe… now let’s get going before I start second guessing this,” She finished, grinning as she punched the button. The ship immediately hummed to life, slowly rising off of the launchpad and speeding over the starport and into the canyon with a rough rumble.

Silver flinched back as they narrowly missed a series of large stone arches, earning another chuckle from Scarlet as she glanced over at his frightened expression. He gazed down towards his own joystick, giving it a few experimental clicks and smirking as a series of plasma bolts launched from their ship, striking a few of the targets that were set up along the canyon walls, “Weapons are online, think you got the hang of flying?”

Scarlet veered the ship left and right a few times, testing out how it would respond to her controls. After a few more rounds of experimentation she returned a short nod, “Yeah I think so, think you can keep us in one piece?”

Silver nodded, idly shooting a few more targets, “Yep! Hope you’re ready, this is just a tutorial, the real fun starts once we kick it into warp speed.” He quickly pressed his own flashing button, bracing himself as the ship suddenly veered up towards the atmosphere and into the inky black void beyond, speeding up until the stars formed long white trails of light along the ship. With a sudden kick the ship slowed it’s progress, dipping down into a sickly gray looking planet.

“Alright Silv, so what’s the plan now?”

“Glad you asked, we’re gonna infiltrate the citadel and steal their data core, hope you’re up for some real high octane action today.”

She glanced towards him and smiled, “I was born ready, now get ready to shoot, looks like the welcome party’s here!”

Silver glanced down at the ship’s radar and nodded, taking hold of his joystick and locking onto the approaching ships.

---

Scarlet expertly piloted their ship through the mostly empty skies, a pair of gunships trailing closely behind them as they dodged and weaved between the twisted remnants of buildings that comprised the dystopian planet. Without much warning she veered into a barrel roll, bringing their ship dangerously close to the torn up ground below them.

“Brakes! Brakes! Scarlet, hit the brakes!” Silver loudly shouted out, frantically bracing himself for impact.

“Just hold onto something and keep an eye on the radar! We’ve still got two gunships on our tail, I’m gonna try and shake them off.” She shouted back as their ship crashed through the boarded up wall in front of them.

“I thought we lost them?!”

“Hey don’t blame me, this is your dream after all, I’m just the pilot!” She paused, “Hang on, I’ve got an idea.”

“Alright, I’ll let you do your thing.” He sat back and watched as Scarlet expertly navigated the ship into a dark narrow tunnel that the two trailing gunships would be unable to traverse. He was about to question her plan until he realized that this would force them to navigate in front of them… putting them in prime position for him to blast them away.

“Scar, you’re a genius!” He began with a smirk.

She smiled, “That's why I’m the pilot and you’re the gunner, dear. Now we’re coming up on the exit, get ready to blast em’ away!”

“With pleasure!” Silver said with a smirk as he excitedly launched bolt after bolt into the robotic invaders’ ships, cheering as their own shuttle flew through a ball of fire and up towards the planet’s atmosphere. “Did you see that?!” He called out.

Scarlet returned a quick nod, “Nice shooting, ace! Now let’s offload our precious cargo before the others find out we took it from them.”

Silver nodded and locked in the earth’s coordinates, slamming his hoof down onto the button and smiling as the pair were suddenly pushed back into their seats. The planets and stars began to stretch out into a long coridoor of light as the ship began to loudly rumble again, threatening to shake apart at any moment. The swirling stars brightened one more time before shifting around again, though instead of appearing in the spaceport like they were expecting, the ship merely came to a stop, as if as if someone had simply hit the pause button on the dream.

Scarlet looked towards Silver, “Is this you?”

Silver glanced around at the unmoving landscape outside and shook his head, “No, it’s one of them. I don’t know who though…”

“Well that’s lovely. You didn’t break any rules doing this did you?”

“He didn’t.” Came the unfamiliar reply of the Warden of Fear from behind them, earning a surprised jump from both Silver and Scarlet, who were still tightly buckled into their seats, “Sorry to intrude,” She looked around at the strange cockpit the pair were sitting in, “...Am I interrupting anything?”

Silver stood up and quickly shook his head, “Nope, not at all… we were just having a little adventure on our own, y’know, for fun.”

Phobia nodded, “Yelling and shouting seems like a strange way to have fun, but that’s none of my business. Neither of you are in trouble in case you’re wondering, you’re not the first nor the last that we’ll be visiting today either.”

Scarlet nodded, “Silver had some crazy idea for a new adventure to try out in here; we may have gotten a little heated with it. It’s still rough around the edges, but it’s honestly a ton of fun.”

Silver gave a quick nod, “Yeah, what she said. Plus you kind of have to be on your best behavior when you’re dealing with a bunch of boring business types in the waking world. This is a creative outlet for our aggression and stress. It’s just something new I’m trying.”

“I’m sure you were having fun. Do you have a few minutes? I just wanted to talk about something real quick.”

Silver raised an eyebrow, “I uhh… sure? No offense, but this is very much out of the ordinary for us. Nothing bad I assume?”

She shook her head, “Not at all.”

Silver smiled, “Perfect, well why don’t you stay and have a drink, tell us about what’s on your mind.”

Phobia nodded as the world melted away, shifting into a peaceful lakeside villa with a vibrant starry sky hanging overhead.

Scarlet cleared her throat, “So what’s up? I’m guessing that you’re not just here for a friendly chat— no offense or anything, this just feels weird.”

“I just wanted to let you two know that there’s been some more talks with the president and there’s going to be some official announcement in the next week or so that introduces us to the world and all that. We’re all just letting everyone know in advance so it’s not a surprise.”

Silver nodded his head and leaned forward, brushing a hoof through his mane, “So it’s really happening then, this should be interesting to watch, very interesting.” He looked towards Scarlet and then back towards Phobia, “So does this mean you’ll grant dreamwalking on larger scale? And will we still need to avoid talking about you guys in the waking world after all this? There’s just so many other questions that this sparks up...”

Phobia raised a hoof to quiet him, “Just keep an eye out on the news for the next few days, all of your questions should be answered by then. If you still have more you’re more than welcome to ask us after.”

Silver began to raise his hoof in question, but paused, giving the warden of fear a short nod, “Alright, gotcha, thanks for giving us the heads up.”

“Mhmm, anything else before I go?”

Silver shook his head, “Nothing other than what you’ve already answered. This is all so exciting, I mean it’s going to really open so many doors...”

Phobia nodded her head, melting into a shadow on the floor before vanishing altogether, leaving Silver alone with Scarlet once more.

---

Silver cast up a few more walls, pausing and then adjusting their placement as if he was playing some complicated building game.

“So run it by me again, why are you building a nightclub here? You’re not thinking of starting up your own dream business are you? Maybe the hottest night club this side of the dream realm?” Scarlet asked with a smirk.

Silver smiled, “Well, that would be a pretty lucrative venture. I could just throw together some crazy robot DJ… some exotic drinks… Maybe that’s my true calling?” He looked towards her, “Go ahead and jot that down, that might be an interesting idea to pursue once the wardens go public, especially if there’s an influx of new dreamwalkers.”

She let out a small laugh, “I was just joking Silv, so what’s up? I was kind of hoping we could finish our game from earlier… You’ve been at this for an hour now.”

Silver shrugged, “Time’s subjective here, I’m sure it’s been closer to 15 minutes, but I suppose you’re right.” He turned towards her, pausing his construction, “Call me crazy but I’d like to teach others how to harness their powers like I did. I had this big crazy dream a while back— an idea that we could maybe use our abilities to bring ponies closer together. The fact that we’re going to have a chance to interact with so many other dreamers gives us an awesome opportunity to actually do something great with our talent on a larger scale, and if we get more day pony dream walkers then just imagine what that kind of thing could do. Having a big persistent world that stretches past physical and language barriers is probably the most useful tool we have right now and it’s a shame we don’t do more with it.”

She raised an eyebrow, “So you weren’t joking about wanting to become a dream teacher? Not exactly the career shift I’d peg you for, but hey if that’s what you want to do, I won’t stop you.”

He smiled again, “Not full time of course, but I can’t stop thinking about what I could be doing to actually use my talent to its full potential. You used yours to help another world with its astronomy program, but there’s ponies like me and Emily who have these amazing gifts and aren’t using them as much as we can.”

Scarlet raised a hoof, “Well firstly, I was just a part of a much bigger team, it’s not like I was this big vital piece to the puzzle. And secondly, didn’t you already talk with Emily about this a few times? Didn’t she say she wasn’t really interested in using her vision thing to teach others?”

Silver shrugged, “Well you know what I meant. You’re a published author with a book on another universe’s stars, something that no one else on earth has done. As for Emily, not exactly. She said she was open to the idea, but obviously that’s not a full-on yes. But what if she could teach others? We were able to spread the vision, so it’s not like others couldn’t learn to do what she does, too. Granted, we’d have to get her to agree with it, and we’d have to find strong dreamers, but I think I have the latter part figured out.”

“That and you also need to get the wardens onboard and make sure that they’re fine with Emily using her talent for that… maybe ask Phobia, she seems a bit more… personable than the rest, no offense to the others of course.”

Silver paused, expecting the arrival of a warden now that they were actively talking about them, but that arrival never came. He turned back towards the balcony that overlooked the bay, trotting up close to Scarlet, “I’ll handle that part. Do you feel like paying Emily a visit and floating the idea with her? I can’t do this alone after all.”

Scarlet smiled and nodded, “Sure, she’s always got some of the best dreams anyways, and it’s been a few months since we’ve had time to catch up. Want me to say anything in particular or just roll with what you said already?”

“Just give her a basic rundown, I’ll explain it all once she’s here. Don’t make it sound like she’s being pressured into anything either— she isn’t. I just want to float the idea by her and see if she’d be willing to give it a shot, and if not, if she’d be willing to at least try and teach a few others her vision thing.”

Scarlet gave a quick nod, “Gotcha. Have fun working on… whatever this will wind up being, can’t wait to see it once it’s all done.”

“Same, it’s gonna be big, maybe the biggest thing I’ve ever done here… in the figurative sense of course.”

“Alright, well if you need me you know where to find me, have fun dear.”

Silver smiled, “You too, tell Em I said hi.”

“For sure, though I’m sure we’ll all see each other soon enough.” Without much fanfare, Scarlet vanished, leaving Silver alone to his own thoughts as he continued to work away on his new construct.

He had definitely come a long way since ETS had changed his world all that time ago, for as short as it was, it felt like an eternity ago for him. His little shared dream of a place that could change the world had grown into something that was actually starting to meet that very goal, and even though it was still growing, they now had steady funding and partnerships that would help make the dream into an actual reality. The Oasis would be his group’s legacy, something he would share with his team for the rest of their professional lives, but he had other sights on the horizon.

What he was about to propose to Phobia was something that he had been thinking of for a while now, ever since he had first met Phoenix in his dream, and the fact that the wardens were going public only served to reinvigorate that plan. It presented a chance for him to finally share the knowledge on creating a persistent dream and guiding others to use it to help teach others. For what was the point in keeping some amazing discovery to himself if he could be doing so much more with it?

Sure, he could pass this knowledge down to Orion and keep it as a family secret, the colt would very likely inherit his talent for dream crafting, but why wait that long to pass on groundbreaking knowledge that could genuinely benefit others? Of course, there wasn’t any guarantee that others could learn this, they’d have to practice, have patience, and be sufficiently powerful enough to handle the feat magically, but it was still worth a shot. Somewhere wasn’t just some impressive illusion, it was a carefully crafted wonder of dream magic, something that had earned the intrigue of its few visitors when they had learned that it would persist even when he was awake.

He began to flip through the list again, looking over the names of ponies that he had spent a fair amount of time seeking out. They were all gifted in the art of dream magic in one way or another, which would make them perfect candidates to pass his knowledge onto, it was just a matter of finding the right group to start with. Eager to begin, he called out to Phobia, and got ready to explain his plan.

Comments

[ProgAltRocker]

An exciting future awaits, I see