Pilot: From the void
2014-03-23 08:15![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
multaekappae in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
realitywar_drwhvs“I’m the Doctor,” whispered the battered, broken, and bruised earth pony stallion as he slumped against the inside of the only constant in his seemingly eternal life. Well, it had seemed eternal, until what he’d just seen made that eternity look like it might very well be incredibly short. The same went for the universe, if he didn't act soon. “I’m over a thousand years old. I have witnessed the rise and fall of empires, the birth and extinctions of species, the lighting and extinguishing of stars. I have saved the universe from utter annihilation more times than I can count...
“...and I am afraid,” he finished.
With great difficulty, the Doctor raised himself up into a sitting position and reached his mouth into the white collar he wore on his neck which, alongside his green tie, was the only clothing he ever wore. Carefully, wincing with every movement, the Doctor pulled out his latest sonic screwdriver.
It too was badly damaged, sparking and sizzling with data that would be incomprehensible to anyone but a Time Pony such as himself. However, being the last son of Gallopfrey, he was the only one in the universe who could read it. Opening the device with a flick of his head, the Doctor took in what the technological marvel had been able to acquire from the brief scan he had managed to take before... they... had realized his presence and nearly ended it altogether.
He didn’t like what he saw.
“This... this just isn’t possible!” he gasped. “Nothing could create such an organized, destructive force on such a massive scale! It would take billions of years to even begin, and surely somepony would have noticed what was going on and stopped it before it went to far! Surely, somewhere in the time stream, I would have encountered this and tried to stop it myself!”
Suddenly the Doctor frowned. Perhaps someone had. Perhaps they had tried to warn him, and he just hadn’t seen the signs. Painstakingly, he limped up the staircase to the control panels of the last Gallopfreyan time machine and pulled out a small, thin book from one of the drawers beneath the odd assortment of knobs, buttons, and levers.
Surely, if someone had tried to contact him about this, they could have reached him through the psychic paper contained within this booklet. He flipped it open, but it was blank, completely and utterly. At least, it was at first... until a single black dot appeared near the corner of a page. The dot stretched and grew, spreading and branching until it had formed a letter. This was followed by an entire string of letters, which formed a word that grew into a sentence.
Well, a rather short sentence, but a sentence nonetheless.
Hello, Doctor.
“Who is this?” the Doctor wondered aloud, of course not expecting an answer. The psychic paper was usually one way. That’s the way it had always functioned, anyway...
...until now.
You know us all too well, Doctor. In fact, you just met our proteges, did you not?
“Your proteges?!” the Doctor echoed after he had gotten over the initial shock of the psychic paper responding to him. “You mean you’re responsible for the creation of those monsters out there?”
Of course. Who else could create such artistry?
“Who are you?” the Doctor demanded.
You mean you really don’t know? What a pity. We thought you were smarter than that, Doctor. It appears we were wrong. Oh, well. We suppose you’ll prove to be just another one of those boring adversaries. Nevertheless, your universe will still be all-too-fun to destroy before we move on to the next one.
“The next one?” the Doctor stated, trying to wrap his mind around the claims of... whoever this was. “What do you mean, ‘the next one?’ Crossing universes is almost impossible ever since the Time War ended!”
Really? We hadn’t noticed. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have to get back to watching the show. Our proteges have already left a tenth of your universe a warped wasteland. It’ll be so much fun watching the other nine tenths suffer the same fate.
And with that, the message faded into the paper and out of existence.
The Doctor angrily threw the book across the room. They were toying with him! These monsters, they actually enjoyed causing such destruction, apparently for no other reason than because it amused them! This was the lowest form of intelligence he’d ever encountered. If they had the power to easily cross dimensions, then they had the power to do so much good. Instead, they ended universes, one at a time... or perhaps more than just that. Perhaps they were active all across the multiverse.
“What would you have done, old friend?” the Doctor sighed, looking up at a sketch done by an artist in medieval Equestria of a most curious creature. It vaguely resembled a monkey, but the only fur it possessed was atop its head, underneath a fez. It grinned widely, making the creature look even more ridiculous than it already did due to its bow-tie and old jacket.
They had only met once, on a rare occasion that had required the saving of two universes rather than just the Doctor’s home dimension. They had had quite a lot of fun together, he and the two-legged being, but in the end both had known that it wasn’t best to stick around too long with your alternate reality counterpart. Thus, the Time Lord and the Time Pony had each gone back to their home dimension after a bit of adventuring in each other’s universes.
“Perhaps you’ve already encountered them,” the Doctor wondered. “I only hope you defeated them.”
But how could his counterpart have defeated them? Their armies had nearly just destroyed this universe's Doctor, and surely the two Doctors were evenly matched, as they were essentially the same person.
Wait a minute... their armies... not they themselves. If they had the power to cross dimensions, why had whoever those mysterious entities been not just swept destruction across the universe by themselves?
Perhaps... perhaps they couldn’t!
It wasn’t much, but currently it was all the Doctor had to go on. Maybe despite their tremendous power, they had to get others to do their dirty work. Without those others, then they couldn’t be causing this mess!
The Doctor whipped out his sonic screwdriver again, scanning the data once more. After a bit of careful analysis, he nearly leapt for joy.
“I knew it!” he laughed in a eureka moment. “These armies are tailored specifically for fighting me. If I fiddle with this data, and turn it around, reverse the polarities a bit... then... there!”
The Doctor plugged the screwdriver into a port in the control panel. An odd device that looked like an old-fashioned Equestrian television from the post-industrial age sparked to life, showing in black-and-white a picture of a most curious creature. It then flicked to another, and then another, and another, and another, and another still...
“Yes!” the Doctor rejoiced. “If these armies are specifically made to fight me, then I just have to find some help that they’re nottailored to fight. And who better to fight them than entities who are exactly the opposite of these monsters in every way?”
According to the TARDIS’ supercomputer, such entities did exist, something those interdimensional meddlers must not have bothered to realize, as according to these readouts these beings were living out ordinary, unharmed lives.
They were scattered across the history of the universe, but gathering them altogether would be half the fun.
“Time for a little road trip,” the Doctor chuckled. “Well, first a trip to the medical bay, and then it's time for a road trip. And then it’s time to save the universe from these monstrosities once and for all!”
Throwing a large, ornately-decorated switch, the Doctor laughed with hopeful glee as the temporal motors of the time machine began humming and turning, sending the little blue box hurtling through time and space.
If only the Doctor hadn’t thrown his book of psychic paper across the bridge of the TARDIS, he would have seen the last message of his taunters, who apparently hadn’t left the conversation after all.
Excellent. He’s falling right into our trap.
| Theme Music:
|
![[Archive]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/entry/memories_add.png "[Archive]"){kind=small}
Pilot: From the seas
2014-03-23 15:19 (UTC)As ponies splashed and played in the shallows, several dark shapes under the water darted up from the depths, startling the ponies. Before a full scale stampede could break out, a very equine head emerged from the water. A sea pony. The crowd relaxed as the ocean's guardians were well known for being friendly, out-going creatures. Soon ponies and sea ponies were at play again, splashing each other with merry abandon. No pony noticed a young pair of pegasi, a light gray mare and a white stallion, sneaking off even further to the south.
The pair's goal was a small cove that was well isolated from the much more crowded beaches and with what they had on their mind, they wanted as much privacy as they could get. It wasn't until much later, exhausted from their... activities that the two ponies decided to take a swim in the warm waters.
Unknown to them, deep beneath the water on a submarine ridge of rock covered in seaweed a form stirred, then moved. A flash of blue magic reverted the being's chitinous outer shell from the same brown as the rock she lay on to it's natural blue. The creature, a kelpie, yawned; a flurry of bubbles rushing into her mouth only to be expelled from the armored gill covers on her neck as she slowly roused herself from sleep.
Hunger had stirred the kelpie from her slumber and she had delayed too long once again in feeding the curse that every kelpie suffered. Normally she would have simply gone to the surface, singled out a changeling among the ponies, and lure them back to the beach with flashes of love where she could drag the hapless insect pony under the water to feast on. Now she would have to make due with whatever was closest.
Unlike ponies, sea ponies were omnivores, eating some meat to get the nutrients they needed. Kelpies, a very rare type of sea pony, were strictly carnivores. This would have been fine for them if it weren't for the Kelpie's infamous hunger that could only be sated by the flesh of an intelligent being. This alone pushed kelpies to the edge of sea pony society, nopony wanting to be near cannibalistic creature when their hunger overtook them.
This wasn't on the kelpie's mind as she sedately cruised upward with slow steady strokes from her shark like tail. She herself had retreated from the depths to shallower waters, finally finding the perfect food source in a seaside changeling colony. Noone missed a changeling and she liked most ponies she met.
However survival came first. As much as she wanted too, the kelpie knew she had delayed a full feeding as much as she could, the empty water around her attesting to her attempts to stay the urge. Now with not one, but two ponies frolicking in the water, she regretfully closed in.
As she closed, another muted flash of magic had large tentacles with the same chitinous plates that covered her body running along the topside. It was her favorite shape shift as it made grabbing prey from the water without exposing herself much easier.
Expressionless, black eyes watched the two ponies as the kelpie decided how to strike. If the smell in the water was any indication at least one was a changeling! She tried her best to still her beating hearts. if she chose wisely, she wouldn't have to worry about losing sleep wondering if she had killed someponie's sibling or parent!
After a moment's hesitation, the kelpie lunged forward, her tail pumping left to right as fast as it could. her mane of seaweed flattened against her back.
The white pegasus stallion had just been caressing his marefriend's back suggestively with a hoof when he felt a powerful blow smash her up against him. As he watched, the mare's body was jerked bodily backwards into the deeper water, a large dark shape was just barely visible through the churning water. A terrified shriek tore through the air before being cut off with a gurgle. The water frothed red as the underwater assailant tore into the hapless pony.
Seconds later a head emerged from the water. To the terrified stallion it looked like some primeval beast that had been dredged up from the abyss itself. seaweed hair, a blue almost rocky looking shell all over it and eyes that almost looked dead. Still, even in the alien face he could see a look of absolute sorrow.
"You stole my lunch!" Shouted the stallion mockingly before a flash of green flame turned the soaked terrified stallion into a steaming, smug changeling. Only when the beast looked at him with a look of absolute hatred and four large tentacle erupted from the water around her, did the changeling drone realize the stupidity of taunting the beast he had just baited with his marefriend in it's own element. Thankfully his earlier frightened thrashing had taken him just out of range of the tentacles. His holed hooves just barely able to touch bottom, he swam as furiously as he could.
The drone somehow managed to get to where he could walk, the water still touching his belly. Turning as he fled to the shore, he smiled tauntingly at the beast, who seemed reluctant to leave the water. This turned out to be his undoing as an odd noise rang through the air and suddenly a large blue box appeared in front of him. Not paying attention, the changeling smacked into the blue box sending water everywhere. Dazed he stumbled back a bit before realizing that he was caught in a riptide, the treacherous current pulling him away from the shore back towards the kelpie who gave him a smile that was shark-like in more ways than one.
Afterwards, the kelpie aptly named Riptide who for the first time in her life, actually felt stuffed. A flash of guilt shot through her. She'd have gladly settled for merely full, but because she hadn't identified the changeling correctly, a helpless mare had paid the price. Once blood was in the water, her body seemed to ignore her and kept attacking the pegasus.
A vindictive smile spread across her face. Justice had been met in her eyes as the kelpie had felt no remorse eating the changeling, however. She should have known the Changeling Queen of the local hive would have wised up and tried to find ways to draw her out. Riptide couldn't help but lick what passed for lips on her at the thought of the juicy Queen that sat a top of the local changeling hierarchy. What she wouldn't give for that meal!
As she ruminated about whether she would eat a changeling queen raw or take advantage of the occason and actually cook herself a feast fit for royalty, Riptide felt her eyes constantly drawn towards that weird blue box in the shallows. Slipping off the exposed bit of rock at the mouth of the cove, she swam towards the curious thing. Coming to a stop in front of it, she stared at the box. Letters that looked like pony script were written across the top. Extending her four tentacles, she ran them over the object, feeling the edges and sides of the thing. She must have hit something as before she knew it, a door flew open.
Pilot: From Madness
2014-03-23 15:21 (UTC)He glances over to his bedroom wall. Thousands of pictures, ranging from medival paintings of knights to modern photos of Canterlot, his hometown, are pinned over the maroon wallpaper, all connected by multiple threads of yarn. The only thing in common was a bright blue box, sticking out of each picture like a sore hoof.
He grins at these photos, as if they were each a delectable dish. You may have cost me my job, Healer, but you've only backed yourself into a corner: Soon, I'll find out who you are, and prove your existence. He chuckles to himself at the idea of pinning the elusive being, whatever it was, like a bug on a piece of carton. "Keep on running, Healer," he murmurs under his breath. "That'll make the game more fun for me."
Pilot: from Curiousity
2014-03-23 15:22 (UTC)And even though he was probably the least qualified for the job.
Canterlot was shining brightly this early morning and everypony was enjoying themselves in peace for once. Though, at one corner of the proud city, one pony was still having a pretty hard time.
The one pony was at a small caffe, sitting outiside at a covered table, surrounded by piles of papers and cups. His head was face down on the table, covered by his hooves, light snoring could be heard from within. He was an average looking, young earth pony. Eraser clippings and paper shreds stuck to his blue fur, bits and pieces falling off with each snore.
As he snored the owner of the caffe, and also the waitress, walked up to his side. She was a unicorn mare with cream colored fur. She took one look at the mess and shook her head.
"Scribble." She poked him lightly with a hoof. "Scribble, wake up."
"Snrrk-Wha?!" The earth pony jerked awake at the prodding, nearly launching himself out of his chair, his disheveled orange mane waving about. He looked around confusedly before noticing the unicorn.
"...Sugar Spoon?" He yawned loudly, wiping the tiredness from his teal eyes. "Wha...what time is it?"
"Morning, you stayed her all night, again." Sugar Spoon stated. She really did like the earth pony. He was a good cutomer, and a pretty nice guy, but he just couldn't sleep in her workplace anymore. It was bad for buisness.
He smiled sheepishly and stretched his limbs out. "Well inspiration can come to you at a moment's notice." He gestured to the papers. "And I got it all down on paper. See?"
"Yeah I see." She nodded. "I see another mess of scribbles and doodles."
"Those aren't doodles!" He gasped, gathering the papers in his arms protectively. "They're illustrations for my story. At least...some of them are...I think."
She looked at him concernedly. "Do you even remember what you were writing?"
He looked over the mess. Yeah, it was a mess, he realized that pretty quickly. "I, uh, it kind of became a blur after the fourth cup..."
Sugar Spoon sighed. "Scribble, you really need to stop doing this, it's not good for you."
He returned the sigh. "I know, but I need to keep trying or else my talent might be worthless!" He pointed a hoof to his thigh, a picture of a severely sharpened pencil was upon it. "See? My talent is supposed to be witing!"
"Are you sure that it doesn't mean you're good at pencil sharpening?" The waitress glanced at the other, similarly shortened pencils that littered the table. "Because I think you might be good at that too." After a moment she sighed and gave what was meant as a comforting smile. "Wanna help me clean this up?"
"I...I..." The earth pony nodded slowly, his excitement surely dampened now. "Sure. Just let me-Ah!" He was interrupted when suddenly, out of nowhere, the ground began to shake. It was accompanied by a loud crash that knocked chairs and tables over and sent papers flying.
"Ah!" Sugar Spoon instantly dove under a table for protection like she had been taught in foalschool. "It's an earthquake!"
Scribble, apparently unfazed by the apparent earthquake, took a sip from one of the almost empty cups nearby. As long as he had lived in Canterlot, they had never experenced an earthquake. Truth be told, he was actually sort of excited. "Are you sure? It might not be, and what's that noise?"
There was a noise that followed the strange quake. A long, loud noise that in the future Scribble would only be able to describe as; Like if somepony scratched their keys against some piano strings, but who would do that? And, just as the sound and the quake started, it ceased, the whole street going silent once again. Sugar Spoon poked her head out nervously from under her table.
"Wha-what in Celestia's name was that?"
"I don't know." Scribble anwswered truthfully, staring out at the street where a small cloud of dust had been thrown up. "But I wanna find out!"
Pushed by mad curiosity, Scribble leapt off his chair and dashed down the street towards where the noise came from, leaving the waitress behind to watch him go, as well as clean up the mess he had caused. A moment later, Scribble had just reached the end of the street, and quickly sped around it to look for what had made all that noise.
And he smacked full force into something blue, slowly sliding down the side until he was on the pavement. He layed there for a minute, softly groaning in pain and thanking Celestia and Luna that eath ponies had heightened stamina so they didn't get head trauma when they did stupid things like this. He glanced up slowly at what he had slammed into, wondering just what you could run into in the middle of the street.
It was a box. A big, blue box squating in the middle of the empty street. It didn't look like anything special on the outside: made of wood, big words written on its sides, though Scribble had never heard of a "police box" before. The startling thing was that it couldn't have possibly been here yesterday, and by the cracks in the pavement underneath it, it had just arrived. This was the thing that crashed? Scribble couldn't believe it, so he just sat there in front of it, slowly trying to process the situation.
He couldn't believe it further when the doors to the box flung open on their own, beckoning him inside. He started to back away in fear but his thoughts started It might have been his curiosity shining through again, or maybe it was all the coffee he had drank the night before, but he stepped slowly through the doors.
"Hello? Does anypony own this box? You kind of crashed into the middle of the street."
Pilot: For the Birds
2014-03-23 15:25 (UTC)"Still worth every bit," he smirks to now one in particular as he trots to his kitchen.
A crow flies through the air and lands on his head, cawing loudly. "Hello there, Alpha-Two," the pegasus grins. The crow caws again and nips his ear affectionately. "I know, you want a snack," he smirks, going over to his refridgerator. A pony skull promptly falls out, tipping over the fez perched on his head and startleing the crow. "So that's where that went," he chuckles, and he flips it onto his back with his tail. The crow pecks at his head to remind him of the original task ahead. "Yes, yes, I know, you want food, you lazy ball of feathers," he grumbles, and pulls out a small bit of cantelope from the fridge. The crow promptly snatches it out of his hoof and flys away, undoubtly to feed his flock. "Well, fuck you too!" the stallion yells behind him with a smirk. "You know, Alpha-One at least had the courtesy to say thanks!"
Realizing that the crow wasn't coming back, he sighed and went to fetch his own breakfast of hay and beanut butter. Sister's... I'M SO BORED!!! he inwardly rages as he munches quietly on his hay. If you two are truely merciful gods, then either kill me now or send something interesting my way!
As if to fufill each goal simulatiously, a blue blur smashes through the apartment. The grey stallion narrowly dodges the projectile, feeling a few fethers off his wings come off. Well, it looks like you twop truely ARE merciful.
He looks up at the pile of rubble caused by the object....
Pilot: From Despair
2014-03-23 15:28 (UTC)Protected by the snowy peaks surrounding it, the griffons have little outside influence on their land. Not that those influences would be welcomed, for the last few decades the griffins have been engulfed in a bloody conflict between the Lords of the land. While it is currently split into five pieces, the griffin’s remote valley is a place where they as a species are separated from the rest of the world and have had many years of relative peace.
That, however, is not their valley right now. Very recently the castle of one of the Lords of the Griffins came under a sudden and brutally effective siege. Lord Osaro’s forces were decimated by ballista and trebuchet, leaving only a crumbling ruin in the castle’s former location. Tattered scraps of red banners flutter in the evening winds as nature begins the process of reclaiming of the once prosperous stronghold. Griffins lay about, slaughtered by ballista bolt and falling rocks, creating an eerie atmosphere of a place of the damned.
They died not a few hours earlier, and the scavengers have yet to brave the silent mass grave. A crow flies in, landing on the breastplate of one slain griffin, examining the dead bird’s eyes as one might eye a fruit. It pulled its head back, ready to pluck out its dinner.
But some rubble collapsed nearby causing it to dart off, cawing loudly. A fallen pillar shifts slowly, pushed from underneath. When it falls back to the ground, a battered griffin lies where it had been, once covered by the pillar’s mass.
The griffin has a light tawny coat of feathers, slightly lighter on her head while slightly darker on her wings. Small pauldrons (shoulder armor) sit atop her shoulders and on her legs are leather bindings that protect from the knee to lower calf. The armor is adorned with designs similar to that on the banner shreds, which looks like a stream going off into a sunset. The griffin doesn’t attempt to get up, just lays there looking up at the sky. Her stormy grey eyes spot the buzzards circling high above the ruins, which makes her only gulp in fear.
“Alright Ako…” she mutters quietly. “It can’t be too bad. Not like everyone would let Lord Rungo just… win…”
The utter silence flooded back in as Ako’s motivational speech halted abruptly. She suddenly wonders how it is so quiet in a place that was so boisterous the day before. Pain crashes through her midsection as the griffin tries to sit up and look around, broken ribs pushing painfully against her organs. Ako barely makes it to her feet before coughing up some blood onto the ground. She stares down at the crimson liquid as it drips down across the feathers of one of the other griffins. The expression on her face is at first shock – at both the pain and the blood – then horror when she realizes who is lying dead before her.
The griffin now coated with her blood had been beheaded, his head resting a few feet from his torso. His feathers were a dark brown, but much darker than she remembered with the dried blood on them. He wore a large suit of armor, very ornate and ceremonial with plenty of precious metals woven into the designs on its plates. This beauty of griffin craftsmanship was tarnished by a ballista bolt puncturing its breastplate, straight through the bird himself and sticking into the ground.
“N..No…” Ako whispered. “L..Lord Osaro?!”
Twisting around, not caring about the stabbing pain in her breast, she saw the absolute carnage that had once been the Castle of Lord Osaro.
For everyone she saw Ako could remember seeing them alive and well sometime over the past week. Friends who now had left her behind, and rivals who could now never be beaten. Bitter tears started working their way out of her eyes, as Ako fought to hold back sobs.
“Everyone… Everyone’s…” she gasped.
Raising her head to the empty sky, Ako Swiftwing opened her beak in a sob. The tears came then, in a sloppy gush and flung everywhere as her crying shook her body.
“NNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” she wailed to the setting sun.
- - -
The next morning, Ako sat solemnly before the shallow graves she had dug for her comrades. She had worked through the night on them, after finding a halberd suitable enough for digging. Three times she had gotten scared in the night and hid, thinking that Lord Rungo had returned to make sure that everyone was dead. He hadn’t though, luckily for her. Ako had found her swords, but with her injuries she doubted she would ever be fit for combat again if she didn’t get medical attention soon. Every scoop of dirt taken away made her chest feel like it was on fire, as her ribs shifted about.
Around five o’clock in the morning she finished the mass grave site. From then to around seven in the morning Ako dragged all her former friends into their final resting places, putting those she could with their friends and weapons. It was a terrible ordeal, but Ako didn’t want all of them to be demeaned and desecrated on by the scavengers that had been trying to get at them since she woke up. The only person to get their own grave was Lord Osaro, as she felt he should be given respect even in death. As the sun rose she lay her former Lord into his place, setting his ax – the one he had proudly declared that HE had forged and would never leave his side – at his side.
Ako shook away the memory. It only made it worse when she came back to reality to see his once smiling head separated from his body. Giving him one final bow, she started covering him with dirt. Ten minutes later, the job was done. Fresh graves for nearly a hundred griffins lay in the former courtyard of the castle.
“No, can’t end like this. Must leave something to mark their place here…”
She searched around, and then found a suitable marker. It was the former top piece of the main gate, the essential piece upon which the wall’s stability is based on. It had been blasted from its place and a ways into the rubble in the courtyard. She chose it because it had a statue of a griffin carved into it, with Osaro’s family crest. After almost another hour Ako had wrestled the large stone over to where they all lay at rest, and carved everyone’s name she could remember into the rock. It was barely a third of them, and she felt terrible that she didn’t learn all their names before it was too late.
“Goodbye… Everyone…” she whispered to the statue before limping her way out of the castle.
- - -
Ako Swiftwing sat upon a hilltop a short ways away from Castle Osaro. The midmorning sun warmed her back as she gazed back toward its shattered walls, tears coming back unbidden to her eyes.
“Why…” she asked the wind. “Why must it always end so? I am not a bad person…”
Sniffing, Ako pulled out one of her blades. It was a long, barely curved sword with no markings along its surface, a basic grip of woven threads over a base of metal. Holding it in front of her, she looked at her reflection in it. Her stormy eyes stared back at her, red around the edges from crying.
“So why does destruction follow me like a shadow?”
Her gaze went from looking at her reflection, to looking at the sword in her claws. Ako turned it, to look down the length of it.
“My swords…”
For a long time she sat there, pondering why destruction followed her so. Eventually, she turned the blade around so that it lay against her side.
“I have nothing left…” Ako sighed. “My lord slain, all my friends gone, not a single family member left that knows I exist…”
She placed her other clawed hand on the hilt of the sword, starting to pull it across her stomach. A line of red appeared where it touched her belly, a line of blood dripping out.
“Nothing left to live for-…”
A strange noise cut through her thoughts, like all of time and space given a voice. Ako's head snapped around as she brandished the sword in the direction where she thought it was coming from, but nothing was there except the mountain top beside her. As the sound continued to drone on, she turned around slowly, looking for the source of the noise. Her side tingled from the cut and the broken ribs.
“Wh… What is that sound?”
Suddenly it stopped with a loud clunk. Ako jumped around, a sudden pain in her side causing her to fall sideways to the ground. The sword clattered on the ground, out of her grip, as her head cracked hard against a rock. Ako had enough time to make out the outline of a box in the rising sun where she had been looking before unconsciousness took over.
Pilot: From the Far Reaches
2014-03-23 15:31 (UTC)One thing, however, has never changed. Machines, given time, break down. Repair systems eventually need to be repaired, and monitoring systems need monitoring over the long term. As long as there are machines that someone wishes to use later, there will always need to be technicians.
"Technician Designate Ca, 'Cain', batch group 5955, number 9, Category Door Repair. Status log entry 1025-0414-3705LR043-113, Regarding Door #057, Sector 7, Hallway 12: status normal operation. Applied additional lubricant and reset protocols, extensive repair not deemed necessary by technician. Ending report." Packing his tools back up, Technician 09 began heading toward the next door on his list when his ear perked, a hissing noise was coming from a nearby ventilation shaft.
He almost passed it by, after all ventilation shaft repair was outside his protocol, but then the noise did something he had never heard a gas leak do before - it called his name. "This one wishes to speak with Technician Nine."
Intrigued, 09 walked over to inspect the panel. Behind the panel was a face consisting of a long pointed muzzle covered in coarse short pale gray fur, long narrow ears, and red eyes that spoke of a lack of pigmentation. It was almost exactly the same face that Technician 09 saw every morning while performing standard grooming procedure. "Technician 9 greets Technician 10, how go ventilation maintenance efforts?"
Technician Ten grinned, "This one acknowledges that one shaft is much like another. Designate wishes to know if Technician Nine has obtained the excess screws previously requested by Technician Ten?"
Reaching into one of the utility vest pockets of his uniform, 09 replied, "As requested Technician 9 provides three size fourteen bolts of between three and three point four centi-metrics. Designate wishes to know if Technician 10 has found any more of the packets of small white crystals, yes?"
Accepting the metallic objects, Ten produced two small white paper packages, "Technician Ten wishes to point out the labels denote 'Sugar' and 'Salt', and advises Technician Nine to not get these two items confused." The recipient nodded, eyeing his new treasures greedily, "Designate now offers the suggestion that Technician Nine may be able to obtain further condiments at the next meeting between Technicians Ten and Nine if Nine can obtain a cube of between one and one point one deci-metrics of a material with a density of equal to or less than One."
Technician 9 frowned, committing the odd request to memory.
"Technician 9 notes this request. Designate wishes to inquire what Tecnician 10 does with the requisite items?"
"Technician Ten wishes to comment that Central Computer is wise and merciful."
Nine frowned, but continued the litany, "Technician 9 concurs with the statement made by Technician 10, adding the addendum that Central Computer never makes mistakes."
"Central Computer is hardly a cycle over one thousand."
"Central Computer is still pretty."
"Central Computer hardly ever has to kill technicians for disloyalty, greed, or ineptitude."
"Technicians serve Central Computer in all things."
When Technician 09 looked up from the ritual bow, he was unsurprised to find his erstwhile companion was gone. Turning to continue his patrol he was interrupted by something impossible. Where there was supposed to be a column of air one and a half meters on a side by about three meters tall there was instead a sold object that had not been there moments before. Designate Cain 09 would have been more baffled, but he identified the surface facing him as containing two doors - and he knew what to do with a a door...
Pilot: From the Dawn
2014-03-23 15:34 (UTC)At least, there wasn’t anything that a modern Equestrian would call a pony. But there were similarities between that species and the one that made its home in prehistory, separated from its distant descendants by the vast gulfs of deep time. After all, if not for these tiny equine creatures, modern ponies wouldn't have ever existed.
All evolutionary lines have an ancestor, and the Equus Equestrias was no exception. Though the original equine wasn't quite a pony yet, or even anywhere close to one becoming one, that journey was about to begin.
One of these creatures, an Equus Prehistoricas, awoke with a start. She looked around worriedly, her bright, sky-blue eyes scanning the sleeping forms of her herd. There didn't seem to be any disturbance at first, but she couldn't shake the feeling that there was some underlying aura of danger lurking about. As the alpha-mare of the herd, it was her job to ensure the safety of everypony else, so she rose to investigate.
She stepped over the slumbering forms, careful not to let her toes (which were on their way to becoming hooves, but weren't quite there yet) cause too much noise as they walked across the stone floor of the cave her herd had made their home. She stepped out into the cool night air, her lavender coat blending in well with the soft darkness of the pre-dawn plains.
She looked to the right, and then to the left, but didn't see anything that could be causing her feeling of unease. She didn't even know what could have alerted her to this danger in the first place, as she hadn't truly heard anything, nor had she caught the scent of any intruder. Little did she know that she and a few other members of her herd were on their way to becoming ancestors of the modern unicorn; though they lacked horns or even slight bumps on their foreheads, they were already developing a sixth sense to tap into the magical undercurrents of the world, a sense that would only grow with each new generation.
Perhaps there was no threat? But, if that was so, then why did she feel that there was? It was all so confusing... if the pony-like creature could have formulated actual thoughts rather than simply animalistic emotions, she would have pondered the possibility of a false alarm, but since the uneasiness wouldn't leave her, she had to act until it left.
Thus, she began walking (since her species couldn't exactly trot) down from the elevated mouth of the cave. The night air was filled with the usual sounds of crickets and other chirping insects, and the dawn was just beginning to lighten the horizon with the first tints of gold, when—
She smacked right into something cool and hard.
The pre-pony leapt back, snarling and crouching her legs, preparing to fight if she had to and to run if she was outmatched. But as the Sun rose over the horizon, the thing before her was illuminated at last, revealing it to be... nothing she had ever encountered. Truth be told, it was nothing anything on the planet had ever encountered.
It was as if the night had stayed behind even as the Sun rose, but only the darkest parts of it, devoid of stars. It was tall and rectangular, towering over the small being.
After a few moments of snarling at it, the pony-creature crept closer and sniffed it thoroughly, only to find that it had no scent at all. It was big, to be sure, which was a natural alarm on its own, but it wasn’t making any predatory growls. But if this wasn’t a predator, then perhaps it was food?
She licked it with her long tongue, only to spit out the vile taste and retreat in disgust. It seemed that this thing wasn’t food either. Well, if it couldn’t be eaten and it couldn’t eat her, then it was irrelevant. It was time to wake the others, they had a long day of grazing and foraging ahead of them—
The thing ROARED. At least, that’s what it sounded like to the pre-pony. It was the loudest thing she’d ever heard.
Instantly, she whirled around on it, prepared to fight or flee. Other pre-ponies were rushing out of the cave in fright, terrified of what they had just heard, and they joined their leader, looking to her for comfort. They jumped in alarm when they too saw the tall dark thing, but they weren’t about to act until the alpha-mare told them what to do.
Suddenly thin beams of light shot out from the center of the monolith, striking each pony-creature in the forehead before they could react. They found themselves frozen as the thing scanned their minds, pushing information into them. Information on how to farm, harvest, plant, plough, speak, and even dream. Their animal instincts were shoved to the dark recesses of their brains as the monolith transformed them from animals into something that could one day be a sentient species.
All except the first pre-pony. The others were freed to wander off, no longer feeling the need to follow her, instead preoccupied with thoughts on how to start a farm and defend themselves from predators with tools rather than teeth. The first pre-pony, though, stayed behind.
Her gift was a little more extensive than the others. The others had simply been given the spark of intelligence. The mind of this first one, though, was uplifted from that of a smart animal to that of a truly sentient being. She was to be the super-prototype of this species, the link between her race and the alien creators of the monolith.
The monolith began to liquefy and melt before sweeping over the now truly sentient pre-pony, sticking to her skin and becoming a synthetic second coat, covering all but her head. The strange technology would keep her alive for eons and help her evolve with the changing planet, and if her species could not evolve fast enough around her, the technology would apply the changes it had made to her to the rest of her race to save them from any potential extinctions.
The tongue of the alien creators of the monolith would be incomprehensible to modern equine ears, but roughly translated, this ascended pre-pony had been given the name ‘Primeval, the First Evolutionary.’
“Danger,” Primeval suddenly noted, concern coating her voice as she spoke for the first time in a tongue her own race would never use. "The suit is detecting a quantum disturbance. This had better not be one of those cosmic cataclysms I was told about! We just started out! We can't die before we've evolved further than this!"
She whirled around to face a coalescing of the air as a shape even stranger than the one she now wore began to materialize.
Pilot: I suppose you're all wondering...
2014-03-23 15:36 (UTC)The moment he had lifted the stasis, however...
“What the...where am I? Is this Valhalla?” the griffon ronin, whose name the Doctor knew from historical records was Ako, demanded as she looked around. Seeing the other beings, who to her were mostly strange things she had never seen or sometimes even heard of, the warrior instantly unsheathed her swords and assumed a battle stance. “What demons are these?! This isn’t Valhalla—this is Hel!”
“Hel?” echoed the pre-pony, whose name wasn’t even recorded in Equestrian history. The Doctor noted from the black armor she wore that she was the super-prototype of the pony species, uplifted by the ancient alien race known as the Overlords. The Time Ponies had encountered them a few times before the Time War. Despite how the Time Ponies generally wished the Overlords would leave primitive races alone so that they could evolve on their own, the time travelling equines had concluded that the Overlords meant well, and had thus left them alone. The Doctor only hoped that plucking the pony super-prototype from the dawn of ponydom wouldn’t upset the other alien race. “What is ‘Hel?’ My evolutionary armor’s databanks bear no reference for ‘Hel’."
“Hell?” the writer pony from pre-industrialized Equestria stated, adding an extra ‘l’ to the end of the word, as was typical when the ancient Griffish word was translated into modern Equestrian. “Do you mean ‘Tartarus?’ That’s what most folks around here call it, though judging from your accent, I assume you’re not from around here.
Pleased to meet you, though—my name’s Scribble.”
“I am Ako Swiftwing, travelling ronin and honorable follower of the path of the sword,” the griffon responded, still suspicious. “Who are the rest of you?”
“If we’re going to be doing introductions, first I want to know what the heck is going on!” the kelpie demanded. She hadn’t been wearing any enchanted disguises when she was brought aboard...whatever this thing was...so there was no point in using one now, when everypony had already seen her true form. Thankfully, they looked at her only with the same unease as they looked at everything else in this strange space.
“The word ‘heck’ is also not among my databanks,” Primeval noted. “But I will add my name to the list of introductions. I am Primeval, the First Evolutionary and link to the Overlords.”
As the group talked more amongst themselves, two beings merely watched and observed.
One, a pegasus, finally turned and spoke to the other silent observant, the diamond dog clone.
“Salutations, I am the illustrious Inspector Sharpwit, esquire,” the pegasus introduced himself. “So, any idea what’s going on?”
“This one is Cain-9, and this one greets you as well,” the diamond dog clone stated. “This one regrets to inform the unknown life-form that he does not, in fact, understand the present situation. But, if this one may be so bold, this one thinks it is a most interesting development, and this one hopes that the Central Computer will allow him to partake in this situation as long as possible so as to experience more of this newness.”
“Computer?” Inspector Sharpwit inquired, his mind running through a list of words that might be explanative towards the new term. “What’s a computer?”
“Unknown life-form does not know what a computer is?” Cain-9 inquired, tilting his own head in surprise. “Oh, unknown life-form is making humor. This one acknowledges unknown life-form’s hilarious good fun.”
“Attention!” the Doctor shouted for the fourth time, finally making himself heard through using the TARDIS’ loudspeakers. The assembled beings at last all looked up at him. “Thank you. It’s not often that I get to have this many companions, so this should be rather interesting for all of us. But first things first: pleased to meet you all! My name is the Doctor. I know I look like a pony—well, technically, most of you look like Time Ponies, since we came first—but I’m actually a being born on another world beyond the farthest star you can see in the night sky. That goes for you in your space station as well, Cain-9.
“What you’re standing in is a TARDIS—a machine that can travel through time and space,” the Doctor continued. “This may come as a shock, but all of you save Scribble and Inspector Sharpwit are from different times and places from all across history. Ako here is from the medieval griffon lands, Cain-9 is from the far future of all of your times, Scribble and Inspector Sharpwit are from the pre-industrial period of a nation called Equestria, Riptide is from the medieval period of this country, and Primeval is from millions of years ago before even the griffon kingdoms rose.
“That being said, the reason you can all understand each other is because the TARDIS translates for you,” he went on. “And, this last bit will be hardest for all of you to understand. I need your help in saving the universe. Now, any questions?”
The Doctor smiled uneasily down at the faces of his newest companions, all of which looked up at him as if he’d just garbled off a bunch of gibberish. Perhaps he should have explained everything to them one at a time after all...
Pilot: Who Nose?
2014-03-23 15:38 (UTC)Muttering under his breath he tried to commit idents for each of the strange sentients he was surrounded by: pony Skrivel was blue, pony Sharkowitz had six limbs, the unidentified female was pony Fish, the one coated in nanotech was pony Prime, and the shouting thing with six limbs was Swifting. Oh, and of course there was thing-that-looks-like-a-pony: Pony Doctor. Each one had a smell far more individual than his podmates... come to think of it, everything in this place had a smell... Caine casually moved to the edge of the enclosure and began sniffing objects to see which ones had smells.
For a caniform born and raised on a hypo-allergenic satellite with continuous atmosphere scrubbing, the messy smells of this place were a revelation. He gradually lost himself in the act of seeing the world through his nose...
Pilot: Genre, savvy?
2014-03-23 15:39 (UTC)A Griffon ronin. He had only heard of those through the oldest books in Canterlot library. They were master sword users and it had taken the combined tribes to push them out of Equestria. He noted rather sadly that she looked to be quite a bit worse for wear than the others. He wished that he could help in some way.
A Kelpie. They were masterfully elusive creatures, never caught on picture and almost never seen and told about. He almost wanted to greet her, ask about her species, but with the knowledge that Kelpie's were possible carnivorous he kept a safe distance behind Ako.
The two others, Cain-9 and Primeval, he was almost afraid to look at, let along speak to. He chose to stay away from them for now. Though they seemed as confused by all this as he did.
And then the other earth pony. "The Doctor" He had called himself. He was still pretty confused with all this, so when he asked for questions Scribble raised a hoof into the air much like a student would.
"Um, I have a few. Where are we? And are you a doctor? Doctor who?"
Pilot: Wounded Warrior
2014-03-23 15:42 (UTC)First, her eyes darted between the pegasus and earth pony who she immediately categorized as 'non-threats'. While Ako remembered the tales of how the combined tribes of ponies had driven her kind from their lands, it had been before her time and she did not have any distinct hatred - or respect - towards their species.
Then her gaze fell upon Primeval, who made the griffon raise an eyebrow. One thing she had prided herself on during her wanderings had been the arms and armor of her enemies, but nothing she had seen in the past could be based to what she saw now. The swordsgriffon saw no way that she would get through it, but neither did she see any potential ways that the pony could hurt her. This earned the early pony the rank of 'possibly a problem' in Ako's mind.
When she got around to the kelpie and diamond dog, Ako stiffened a little. She had never met anything like the two, and only had heard stories of their respective kinds. As for kelpies - and seaponies in general - she had never really given any heed, for the lands of the griffons was nowhere near any large oceans. Diamond dogs however, had intrigued the young Ako. They were another old enemy of the griffons, and were sad to be as deadly in their underground element as the griffons were in the skies. The dog's outfit confused her, but she wasn't going to take any chances. These earned both of them 'dangerous, watch carefully' labels.
Only then did the kelpie's question sink into her racing mind. A few moments, after some thought, she responded only lowering her swords partially. The grifffon raised an eyebrow at her, her body language saying: 'You think I have any idea?'
"I have as much as an idea as you, fish." she said a little sarcastically.
"Trust me, if I weren't for my curren-.. hrk-..."
Ako fell forwards, her forelegs and swords slamming against the TARDIS's deck as she spat up blood. She rolled to her side - swords falling from her grip - as blood started spreading across her breast.feathers and started dripping to the ground.
"Damn..." Ako whispered, quivering on the ground.
Pilot: Riptide investigates
2014-03-23 15:45 (UTC)Riptide avoided rushing to the griffon's side as had the blue pony who'd been hiding behind the griffon did. In her mind, she was still trying to process the events that had just occurred. The kelpie had just dismissed her tentacles when she had poked her head into the blue box that had appeared before her last meal when a bright flash of light had flashed out and time seemed to stop.
She had no clue how the brown earth pony had managed to do that considering he lacked a horn, but she believed his claim of not being quite a pony despite his appearance. She knew better than anyone that appearances could be deceiving. Plus his smell was off. Part pony, part something else. Not changeling as she knew that smell by heart.
Aside from him, there were several other beings present as well. As Riptide studied them, her mind made note of which traits might be dangeroous to her.
Before the kelpie lay the injured griffon who claimed the name Ako Swiftwings. Obviously a warrior of some variety. Ronin was the word used. Riptide briefly wondered if that was a rank similar to the Royal Myrmidons that tried their best to chase any kelpie away from the Empress of the Seven Tides. As for griffons, the kelpie had heard tales of the warrior society of the half-cat, half-bird creatures from the times she went ashore disguised. From what she learned, griffons lived further inland having been pushed there by ponies at some point.
Walking over, Riptide examined the wounded griffon's weapon of choice. A sword, a weapon she had very little experience with. Sliding it over to the griffon, the kelpie caught another whiff of blood. She was thankful she had just eaten lest she be tempted, warrior or not.
Standing over the wounded warrior stood a blue earth pony. On his flank a picture of short stylus of some kind. This stallion had claimed his name was Scribble. The kelpie figured she might have enjoyed talking to him had she been brought here in either her earth pony or sea pony forms. As she hadn't, Riptide mostly dismissed him from mind, pointedly ignoring the small part of her labeling him as a potential back up meal. No point in worrying about something like that when she had at least two weeks before the Hunger returned...she hoped. She really had no idea how long she had been asleep.
Next there was the grey pegasus with the sharp eyes who seemed content to sit back and observe for now. The wings on his back forcefully reminded the kelpie of the poor mare she had just eaten and quickly turned to the next being.
Standing next to the Inspector was a large diamond dog who was wearing some odd type of clothing that covered most of his grey-furred body.The large canid intrigued her as she had heard of the diamond dogs at the same time she had learned of the griffons. According the ponies, these large canids could swim through the land itself, an idea she might have dismissed as ludicrous if it hadn't been for one of her brethren kelpies visiting from an inland sea who saw first-hoof a hole open up on the sea floor. Upon investigation they had learned that a group of these creatures had foolishly tunneled under the sea before the roof collapsed, swiftly flooding the tunnel network and drowning many of these canids. From the way this dog was sniffing around, it was apparent he explored with his nose just like her. However, with the large muscular arms ending in large clawed hands, Riptide could imagine him being a fearsome foe if need be so she made a mental note to keep an eye on him as well.
This finally brought her to the last being present aside from the not-pony that called himself Doctor. This individual confused the kelpie as it greatly resembled a pony but not quite. She looked like the end result of somepony giving an artist who'd never seen an equine the most basic description of one and then told to sketch it. Riptide might have said the one called Primeval looked like an earth pony, but one look at the end of it's legs dispelled that. Instead of hooves, this being sported short digits at the end of it's leg.
Aside from being just curious looking in general, this near-pony was wearing a suit of black armor that covered every part but the head, an odd choice as the kelpie had never met any intelligent being that could survive having it's head bashed in by a rock. While interesting, the kelpie knew too little of the one called Primeval to label it as a potential threat or dismiss it as she had with the earth pony, Scribble.
Flicking a few wet strands of her seaweed mane out of her face, Riptide looked back up at the brown not-pony who had brought her to this bizarre place of metal. "What reason do we have to believe you? If what you say is true, why aren't you asking the dang Empress or maybe even Princess Celestia for help? Surely they can provide armies to defeat whatever threat you face."