Conversation with Sovereign
"Come on girls!" Twilight yelled back to her friends, as she rushed into the tree's of the Everfree forest. She had gotten a letter from Celestia about a strange object that had landed there, but then again, the noise of it impacting the ground had woken up all of Ponyville regardless.
"Twilight dear, you need to slow down, we don't even know what we are going to find!" Rarity yelled back, slowly trotting with the others (after-all, she had just done her mane and tail!). "Oh dear.. Why does it always have to be in the Everfree or some other messy place? There is to much mud and dirt.." She gasped loudly, accidentally scaring Fluttershy. "What if it gets in my mane!?!"
"You worry to much Rarity, a lil mud ain't bad sometimes." Applejack replied, quickly taking the lead. Might as well clear the path for her, ah don't want her whinin' all the way there. She was the first into the foliage and underbrush of the Everfree. Herself being an earthpony with her size and build, quickly pushed a bush to the left or right, making a small path. The others starting to follow, save for Rainbow Dash, who was flying around in the air above the undergrowth, nimbly dodging tree's. Fluttershy was hanging back with a gravity-denying Pinkie Pie, being the last two of the group to enter.
After a short trek and catching up with Twilight, the six were at the far edge of a large field, where in the middle was a smoking crater and a red flickering object. Rainbow Dash, being the more outgoing of the group, instantly took off to it, but was held back by the purple aura of Twilight's magic. "Hold it Rainbow, we don't know what that thing is."
"All the more reason to check it out!" Complained Rainbow Dash, hanging limply from her tail, still in the air.
"Then we should all go, in case this thing is hostile. There is a reason why Celestia chose the Elements of Harmony!" Twilight replied back, slowly taking a step out into the field, followed by the others. She dropped her magic, letting Rainbow go. Rainbow was obedient, though the way she slouched while flying showed she was reluctant.
They approached the somewhat small crater in the middle, cautiously peering over the edge. There was a large black box in the ground. There was a flickering red of what seemed to appear as controls. Pinkie Pie suddenly backed up and jumped, letting out a loud "WEEEEE!!!"
"Pinkie no-!" Twilight started, but stopped as the flickering on the 'controls' stopped, and was now constant. Twilight could feel something in the back of her mind, something foreign. As she and the others slowly slid down the side of the crater, Pinkie had already begun pressing random buttons.
"OO what does this do? This do? This do? This do? How about this one?" Pinkie pressed the last button, and the box itself shook, something inside of it coming to life. Pinkie jumped back a little, her Pinkie Sense going insane.
"Pinkie Pie, what did you do?" Twilight asked, taking a step forward to her friend, but was instantly cut short as there ws a huge amount of red above and behind the box, illuminating (yet still flickering). the form the large amount of sudden light took, was that of an insectoid creature. It froze for a second, looking, Twilight thought, at the six ponies before it. It started to speak, and a loud, deep, and near synthetic voice.
"Rudimentary creatures of blood, and flesh. You touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding."
They all froze. The sound of Its' voice terrifying on instinctual levels. Applejack was the first to shake off the sudden chill that had went up her spine. "What is that?"
There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own. You cannot even imagine it. I am beyond your comprehension. I, am Sovereign. Or, known by the cycle before you, Reaper."
Twilight spoke up next, "What is a 'Reaper' and what does it have to do with you?"
"Reaper, a label created by the Protheans to give voice to their destruction. In the end, what they choose to call us is irrelevant. We simply, are."
"What is a 'Prothean'? How old are you?"
"Organic life is nothing but a genetic mutation, an accident. Your lives are measured in years, and decades, you wither and die. We are eternal, the pinnacle of evolution, and existence. Before us, you are nothing, your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything."
"Wait, extinction? So your going to kill us off then? Ah'd like to see ya try!" Applejack said, taking a step up. Her eyes narrowed.
"Confidence born of ignorance, the cycle cannot be broken. Just like it was not broken fifty thousand years ago, when Shepard stood up against us."
"Cycle? What cycle?" Rarity finally overcame her fear for the large flickering illusion.
"The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. Organic civilizations rise, evolve, advance. At the apex of their glory, they are extinguished. The Protheans were not the first. The rest of my explanation you cannot fathom, for your kind is too... Primitive to understand."
"Why are we too primitive? We know more about magic and how this world works better then anypony." Twilight Sparkle said, getting a few nods of agreement from her friends behind her.
"Civilization is based on technology. Our technology. By using it, your society develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it."
"So.. You're going to...Harvest us? Letting us, and from what i understand, other races advance to what you need? And then wiping us out?" Twilight said uncertainly, taking a step back.
Rainbow Dash flew up to the blinking red of the hologram. "What do you want from us!? Slaves? Resources?"
"My kind transcends your very understanding. We are each a nation, independent, free of all weakness. You cannot even grasp the nature of our existence."
"Where did you come from? Who made you? Who created you? Who built you?" Pinkie Pie finally decided to jump up, looking at it quizzically.
"We have no beginning, we have no end, we, are infinite. Millions of years after your civilization has been eradicated and forgotten, we will endure."
"Where are the rest of your kind? Are you the last of them?" Twilight asked, terror growing slowly in her voice.
"We are legion. The time of our return is coming. Our numbers will darken the sky of every world. You cannot escape, your doom."
"Are you even alive, or are you a machine? If you a machine, machines can be broken!" Rainbow yelled, swishing a few hoof's through the hologram harmlessly.
"Your words are as empty as your future in fifty thousand years. I am the vanguard of your future destruction. This exchange is over." Sovereign said, the lights shutting off and ending the hologram
The six ponies stared at it in horror and surprise. They all ran from the crater, back to town.
As they reached the town, they looked back to the forest in the general direction of the box and Sovereign. They saw the box lifted out of the crater by some unknown force, and suddenly shoot off into the sky back to where it came. They heard in their heads softly We shall see you next cycle, and how much farther you have advanced.