The Chronicles of Arcuz

by Lee Geko

Marooned

Stardate: 10/24/78
Time: 2:00 pm
Planet X

After spending a few hours on planet X, my crew and I have learned much of the locals, who are pony's, strangely enough. And after testing several factors, we concluded that this planet could also support human life, our mission was almost finished, all we had left to do was convince the government to establish a human colony (like that's going to be easy.) We noticed that the sun was beginning to set. "Looks like the time is about 4 hours ahead of us" Sgt. Wallace said with a chuckle "well, we can figure this out tomorrow, 2 hours until curfew, boys." "Yes, sir" we all said in unison. We all headed back into our transport and ate some dinner, dehydrated steak isn't half bad, and we took turns throughout the night keeping watch for locals for the rest of the night.
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Ponyville, 6:00 pm.

Twilight was growing more excited with every minute that passed, she had planned out everything that she was going to do tonight. She had a slow day tomorrow as well, so she could stay up late tonight stargazing. She aimed her telescope near the spot the moon would be in in mere minutes. Spike came upstairs to check up on Twilight, he saw the excited look on her face and curiosity got the better of him. "Hey, Twilight?" Spike asked, the unicorn then snapped out of her joyful trance and stared at the dragon for a few seconds before he continued "why are you so happy all of a sudden?" he asked. Twilight gave a small giggle of joy and replied "my new telescope lens is here, I'm going to see what outer space looks like tonight" Spike stared in awe at this. "Wow" he said "can I look too?" "not tonight, Spike" Twilight replied. Spike just shrugged and went to get a snack. After about half an hour, the moon was finally out, the night had begun. Twilight was so excited, and she had already planned out her night. "Okay" she said, pulling up her checklist "first, a look at the surface of the moon." She gave a slight giggle before gazing through her telescope. She gazed in awe as she took in the sight of the moons very surface, but something disturbed her. "Hoofprints" she muttered to herself, writing down this find, but the fact that nightmare moon's hoofprints were still on the surface of the moon disturbed her. She continued following the trail until something obscured her vision. A large, tan object blocked her view of the moon. She looked away from her telescope at the moon, but could not see the object. She looked back into the telescope and slightly retracted the zoom. Before her was a strange object that looked nothing like she had ever seen.
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Canterlot Castle, observatory, 7:30 pm.

Princess Luna had one again raised the moon, bid her sister a good night, and made her way to the telescope of the great observatory. Stargazing had been one of her hobby's, witch is why she sent Twilight Sparkle one of the most powerful telescope lenses in Equestria. "If anypony shall benefit from the mystery's the stars hold, it is her" Luna repeated to herself with a grin. It was a perfectly clear night, perfect for maybe finding a new planet. Luna looked out at her moon first, beautiful, bright, and, obstructed? Luna took her gaze out of the telescope to find the strange, tan object that was blocking the view of her precious moon, but could not find it. She looked through the telescope again, and there it was. "Strange" she said to herself, this required further investigation. Looking through the telescope once again, she zoomed out and saw the object in full view, a strange ship maybe? She saw what looked like letters on the side of it. She zoomed in slightly and read the letters "Phantom Train." Was this some sort of trick? Ever since discord was reformed, he hadn't been much trouble (besides playing some practical jokes on the guards, but he is the god of chaos after all.) Speaking of Discord, he was standing right behind her. Luna looked up at him, he was starring in the same direction as the object. "Your stumped too, huh?" he asked Luna, who just looked baffled. "You can see it without any magic help?" Luna asked, Discord laughed a bit before answering "no, but my magic senses are more honed than yours." He saw that Luna looked confused again "whatever that thing is" Discord continued "it's under some kind of cloaking spell, you would be able to see it if it were closer." Luna understood now. "I think a letter to the elements of harmony is in order" Luna said, Discord nodded and coughed up a perfectly dry piece of paper. Luna didn't question this, but instead took a quill from a nearby ink pot and began to write.
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Neptune shuttle, 10:00 AM

I awoke to go on watch with Cpl. Lance, we decided to give the others another hour of sleep before attempting to fulfill our mission. I decided to check out the village for myself. I climbed a tree and turned on my armor's stealth function. After about a mile of forest, I happened upon a small cottage. I opened up the map I got from Richards and saw that it was marked. "Zecora's hut" I read to myself "and Richards said they couldn't speak English" I chuckled. I leaped down from my tree and looked at the map. "I'm not far from the settlement" I said, continuing down what seemed to be a path. I was stopped by an odd smell, I turned to see what looked like a zebra with a mohawk brewing a potion. I just shrugged and continued on, and about ten minutes of sneaking around, I saw it. The sign that marked the town gate read "Ponyville," well, I came here to do some scouting, and I think I did. I turned around to find another tree to climb, when a small pony ran into me. I did not make a sound, but rather moved behind the group of three small pony's. The one that ran into me, a pale yellow pony with a bow in her red hair, was rubbing her head. then the orange one began to speek. "Era uoy yako elppa moolb?" It seemed to ask "haey, I kniht os" the pale pony replied. I slowly climbed the tree that I found and proceeded to head back to the camp. 'I'm never going to hear the end of this from Richards' I thought.
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Ponyville, 10:20 AM

The Cutie-Mark Crusaders were headed to Zecora's for a visit. "Okay, what are we going to do today?" Scootaloo asked "ah don't know, maybe Zecora will have an idea" Apple Bloom replied. As they reached the city entrance, Apple Bloom suddenly collided with something. She rubbed her head with her hoof. "Are you okay Apple bloom?" Scootaloo asked "yeah, I think so" she replied. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle just looked in confusion at their friend. They started to feel the air around them, then Scootaloo sighed. "Well" she said "I guess it was no-" she was about to dismiss her suspicions when they all heard a nearby tree branch snap. "What was that?" Sweetie Belle asked, they then looked up at the trees lining the entrance to the everfree forest and saw another tree lose a branch, then a branch move, then another. "There's something in the trees!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed. "Follow it!" Scootaloo shouted, and just like that, they were chasing Arcuz through the woods.
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A moment earlier.

I had just climbed a nearby tree, and I was about to head back to base camp, but I stepped on a week branch. "Shit" I said to myself, I then looked at the three small pony's, who were looking right at me. "They can't see me, can they?" I asked myself, but I wasn't about to take the chance. "Sereht gnihtemos ni eht seert!" one of them shouted. That's when fear overcame reason, and I bolted. I hopped tree after tree, but they were in hot pursuit, and refused to give up. so I decided to try something, I pulled out my silenced revolver and shot a branch on another tree, they took the bait and turned another direction. I used the chance to escape. When I got back to the ship, Richards was awake. "How'd it go?" he asked "I need another hour of rest" I replied.
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Ponyville, 12:00 PM

Twilight and Spike were eating a nice \lunch Twilight had a flower sandwich, and Spike had emeralds, he was happy about the emeralds that Rarity had recently given him, Twilight was lost in thought about the strange object she had seen the other night. Spike had just taken a swig of his juice when he began to violently cough, "are you okay?" Twilight asked, Spike nodded and coughed up a letter in a puff of green fire. "I'm fine" he said, grabbing the letter "I just got a taste of the paper, and it is NASTY." Twilight levitated the letter over to her and began to read. "Dear Twilight Sparkle, if you have indeed aquired the telescope lens that I have sent you, then you may know of the mysterious object looming in the presence of the moon. Discord has informed me of a possible cloaking spell it uses to hide itself. We may be on the verge of an extraterrestrial encounter. I wish for you and the other elements of harmony to be on the lookout for anything suspicious. We do not know if this is a threat or not, but if so, we need all the help we can get. Be safe. Signed, Princess Luna." Twilight looked in confusion at the letter for a moment, then nodded and set off to find the others.
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Froggybottom Bog, 12:00 PM

"I told you this was the wrong way" I said to Richards as we found ourselves in what appeared to be a swamp. "Ze magnetic polarity of zis vurld is different zan zat of ours" Lance confirmed, looking at his compass "not my fault" Richards said with a shrug. "Regardless" I interrupted "we need to head back and try again tomorrow." As we turned to go back, we felt the ground shake. "What the hell was that?" Jericho asked, his question was answered when a giant snake-like head came out of the mud, and opened it's green eyes to look right at us. Jericho prepared his gatling laser, when 4 more heads came out of the mud. We all stared in amazement for a moment before anyone could speak, and Richards was the first to say what everyone was thinking "RUN!" We all turned off our stealth and ran for it, we needed to get back to the ship. Jericho turned around and began to fire his gatling laser, but the blasts to one of the beasts heads just seemed to piss it off, Jericho just kept running after that. We got to the stealthed ship with the beast in hot pursuit, it could see through the cloaking, apparently, because it attempted to bite through the ship. As we began to take off, the creature used two of its heads to hold down the ships wings, we couldn't get a clear shot at it with the ships cannons, so we were stuck. Sgt. Wallace try'd to escape, but we were going no ware. "Five heads" I said to myself, then I turned to Wallace and said "open the cargo doors, I have an Idea!" he nodded and pressed the release button. Everyone was holding onto a rail, trying not to fall out. I let go of my rail and turned to Jericho. "Give the others my regards" I said before taking the two plasma grenades from his belt. I also took out the two plasma grenades from my inventory, and pulled the pins on all of them. I jumped out of the ship, and threw all of the grenades, the hydra let go of the ship, witch took off at half the speed of light, and it grabbed each one of the grenades in one of its mouths, and I was next. I quickly pulled out my mine and tossed it at the beasts last open mouth. I heard 5 deafening explosions before I passed out, what a way to die.

Comments

[totallynotabrony]

Space Marine...Air Force logo...

Your spelling and grammar is pretty good, but punctuation needs some work. You also need more paragraphs! Start a new one every time someone speaks. Also, try to put dialogue at the begining and/or end of a paragraph. The "wall of text" doesn't look nice.

For example:

When I sat down at the table with my meal of 2 eggs, 2 slices of bacon, and orange juice, I saw my team had already finished eating. "What kept you?" Sgt. Wallace asked me "just some last minute business, sir" I said with respect. "No need for the formality's, you are the squad leader" he said, and it was true, though he was of a higher rank, I was the squad leader. After finishing my meal, we all proceeded into the control deck of the ship to receive our mission Lt. Noah Moar greeted us. "Gentlemen" he began "your mission is Operation: Frontier Purge, as the name states, you will be purging the frontier of this new planet. Eliminate any threat you can, and if its to tough, just get back alive with intel." "Yes, sir" my squad and I said in unison as we saluted, then exited the room to get geared up.

Would be better as:

When I sat down at the table with my meal of 2 eggs, 2 slices of bacon, and orange juice, I saw my team had already finished eating.
"What kept you?" Sgt. Wallace asked me.
"Just some last minute business, sir" I said with respect.
"No need for the formality's, you are the squad leader" he said, and it was true, though he was of a higher rank, I was the squad leader.
After finishing my meal, we all proceeded into the control deck of the ship to receive our mission Lt. Noah Moar greeted us. "Gentlemen" he began "your mission is Operation: Frontier Purge, as the name states, you will be purging the frontier of this new planet. Eliminate any threat you can, and if its to tough, just get back alive with intel."
"Yes, sir" my squad and I said in unison as we saluted, then exited the room to get geared up.

[Silverstein]

2189450

I was thinking the same thing?

Off we go, into the wild blue yonder?

Silver out!

[River Song]

That wall of dull description that is the first paragraph is a major turn-off. Work descriptions naturally into the text.

Also there's a ton of pointless description. Like what your character is eating. Don't caaaaaaare, just stick to the basics.

Also these are humans right? Then where is the damn [Human] tag?

[Shinzakura]

2189450

Marines, Air Force, whatevs, they're all the same, right?

This, aside from the Great Wall of China Text is the biggest turn off for me: I realize that not everyone's in tune with how the military works, but please do some research beforehand. Even faulty but attempted research is better than the USS Make Shit Up.

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