Rainbow Dash: Pitch Black
(MLP/Riddick crossover.) Rainbow Dash... Repeat convict... murderer, monster, animal... I finally caught her. She gave me a nasty little gift next to my spine; but she missed the Sweet Spot. Too bad. I've got her chained up as we take a ghost lane to the best paying slammer nearby. But then something wen wrong, we crashed... she got loose... and then ponies started dying.
That's right! Yet another movi-based story to add to my collection!
Some of my other movie based stories:
The Legend of Celestia Futarius.
Sisters in Blood and Magic, a Tale of Witches and Love.
Dash, Dog of War.
***DISCLAIMER***
I do not own MLP: FIM or Riddick nor do I have any afiliations with them, there producers, or their benifactors. I make no money off this work of fiction.
***DISCLAIMER***
****************************Warning*************** ******
Gore.
Swearing.
Anthro.
*****************************warning************** *********
Chapter One, The Animal Side
-There are two sides to everypony. The rational, thinking, logical equine side... and then there is the primitive... survival... dark... violent... animal side... the side that refuses to die; that fights only for itself... the side that does anything to stay alive... the Animal Side.- excerpt from the secret book of Bemnal the Fallen
The depths of space... just a long... endless... mass of pitch black... filled with the most infentesimal specks of white...
And through the darkness... a lone space ship drifts through the void...
Crosing over through a dust filled ring trailing behind a comet...
"They say say most of brain shuts down in Cryo sleep... all but the primitive side... the animal side..."
...
...
"No wonder I'm still awake..." Dash's thoughts rang out in a methodical stream; even here in the most silent... cold depths of space... still... still her mind couldn't sleep... even here in the ship... strapped up against the wall lined with passengers and of course... her...
"Transporting me with civilians... sounded like 40... 40+... I heard a soft Pegasus voice... some voodoo Druid mare... probably on her way to New Everfree... but one problem... one problem..." Fluttershy was her name... dressed in priestess garbs, deep in a hibernetic slumber like the rest... tall... fit... old...
Dash's senses continued to scan the ghost ship among the other cryo tubes.
"Smelt a mare... sweat... leather horseshoes, toolbelt, a hide stitched hat, fresh apples... farmer type..." A yello mare with a briliant blonde mane... Applejack... yet another silent passanger amidst the darkness...
"Free settlers... and they only take the backroads... through the uncharted regions of space..." Ah... Minuette... just looking for a cheap transport to a new job outside the Delta Sector... and yet another, next to her chamber, a Unicorn, alabaster white with a violet styled mane... Rarity; deals in antiques... though more than a few of them were attained by unsavory means... had to avoid the inspections at the edges of each galactic station you see... and thus, she'd lowered herself to joining this unregistered, quiet ship in its silent journey... And then there was the tiny stowaway... little Scootaloo, bearly in her teens; passing herself off as a colt, hidden amongst the 40+ passangers.. little orange Pegasus, wings too weak and small to fly; tuffet of purple mane...
And at last... Dash's senses landed on a tall muscled sleeping Earth Pony with a flare of pink coat and a dark pink curtian of mane, "now here's my real problem... Ms. Pinkamena... blue eyed devil... planing on taking me back to slam... only this time she picked a ghost lane..."
And yet again... Dash's mind went back into its own recesses... quiet... silent... waiting... stalking... "A long time between stops... a long time for something to go wrong..."
And then it happened... tiny space fragments of a rogue meteor storm ripped through the hull like high calibur bullets; they pierced through the metal; air began flowing out into the vacuum of space.
Twilight stirred; her Cryo Sleep interupted; her mind hazy from the prolonged rest. What was that? A blinking... a blinking on the screen... A picture on the glass of her tube: EMERGENCY P280 HULL BREACH.
NAV - BAY SECTOR.
Atmosphere loss: 21.60 MB/MIN.
Gravity: +.830 g.
Chrono: + 22 WEEKS FROM DEPARTURE DATE
Twilight's eyes blinked sporadically before coming into focus.
40 CRYO-LOCKERS INTACT AND OPERATIONAL
CAPTAIN: SHINING ARMOR-WAKING
NAV OFFICER: SPIKE-WAKING
DOCKING PILOT: TWILIGHT SPARKLE-WAKING
Through the glass, her eyes focused on the two cryo pods just across the room; it happened so quickly... more meteorite shards sailed through the air and shredded Shining's pod, the blades cut through metal and flesh like paper. The stallion's body spazmed before falling limp against the hole-ridden glass.
The glass' screen in front of Twilight's face raged with warning lights.
CAPTAIN: SHINING ARMOR-FLAT-LINE
NAV OFFICER: SPIKE-WAKING
DOCKING PILOT: TWILIGHT SPARKLE-AWAKE
Twilight's mind raced as her heartrate accelerated, she reached over with a shaky hand to the emergency switch; with a weak yank from her stiff body, the pod released and she fell onto the ground with an unceremounious thud.
With the emergency switches linked, Spike's own pod thrust open and he too fell out landing ontop of Twilight causing her to cough out the small amount of air she'd managed to inhale. In the background; the emergency alarm rung out while red lights flashed through the decks.
"Why did I fall on you..." Spike breathed out as his mind regained its functioning processes.
Twilight, her mind still reeling could only respond with, "He's dead... Captain's dead..."
Spike crawled up into his elbows and flipped open his com wrist lock before shuffling up to his knese even as Twilight coughed, "I was looking right at him..."
Spike didn't register his words as he surveyed the computer's log, "the log shows we've only been 20 weeks out so-so gravity was not supposed to kick in until in for another nineteen! Why did I fall at all?!"
Twilight got onto her hands and kneese, "did you hear what I said?! Captain's dead..."
Spike turned and saw Shining's ruptured cryo tube. Behind them they could hear more meterorites ravaging the ship.
With a singular look, they both knew they had to move... fast...
Twilight and Spike both rushed into the two front-most pilot's seats with Twilight at the helm. "Fifteen, fifteen milabars..." Twilight said more to herself as she flipped various switches, "dropping twenty mb per minute... SHIT! We're hemoredging air!" she put her jacket on as the room's temperature began to drastically drop. "Something took a swipe at us."
Spike shook his head as he flipped through a few consol switches, "come on... come on, just tell me we're still in the shipping lane! Just show me all those stars... come on!" he flipped through the camera's until... "Show me all those big bright..." he trailed off as he stared agape at the screen.
Twilight blinked, "what?" she turned and saw the camera's feedback only to see that they were headed straight along a collision course with a nearby planet. Twilight turned back to the Spike and the two shared a grim look.
Outside, the ship cought fire as it sailed towards the planet's surface, the metal turning molten as it soared towards the atmosphere at the worst possible angle; straight downt towards the surface.
Inside, Spike quickly hooked up the coms, "this is an emergency dispatch from burtrom vessel Books and Branches, we're in the Cadenza system with 40 surviving commerceal passangers on board! Repeat-"
Twilight crawled up into the direct cockpit of the ship above Spike's control room and strapped herself into the chair as Spike continued his distress signal "-we have been knocked out of our shipping lane and are currently entering the atmosphere of an uncharted planet in the following position, X38-Stroke-5-"
Spike's words faded from Twilight's mind as she took the outter metal shield down and through the glass screen of the ship's helm, she saw the inferno consuming the vessel as they sailed down towards the planet... a few seconds later, the com systems were melted and peeled away from the ship's exterior.
Spike's eye twitch as his headset offered only static, "Twi... where the hell's our coms?"
Twilight didn't answer as she backed the chair up and ressed a few switches to open up the emergency breaks. In the back exterior of the Books and Branches, four large pannels flipped out to create drag, but within seconds one of them was torn off from the tremendous velocity.
The now three pannels caused the drag to hurl the ship around in a spinning carousel of death. Twilight and Spike jerked around as the ship twirled above the pale yellow clouds of the planet below.
"RATE OF DECENT, BEYOND TOLERABLE. RATE OF DECENT, BEYOND TOLERABLE" the computer chimed out as the clouds whipped around the front glass of Twilight's cockpit.
Down in the lower deck, Spike continued to do what he could in the control room, "they trained you for this right Twilight?!"
Back in the cockpit, Twilight whirled around and began flipping the secondary drag pannels. One... two... three... fo- the Switch cought. Twilight's eyes whipped to it in frenzied panic, she yanked and yanked. 'Shit, shit, shit, SHIIIT!' she mentally screemed as the computer chimed out "center of gravity... too far out... recomend purge."
And so she did, Twilight flipped the switches, turned the dials and pulled the purge lever dropping off the back section of the elongated ship and sending parts of the cargo bay flying off into space.
Spike's eye twitched, "what the fu..." he glared up at the ceiling, "was that a purge Twi?!"
"TOO HEAVY IN THE ASS! CAN'T GET MY FUCKING NOSE DOWN!" Twilight yelled back before purging the next section... and the next... and the next... yet still it wasn't enough to level the ship... but... the only section left was... the... one with the passengers in it...
Spike began running a diagnostics of the planet, "cryo systems are good, mineral deposits of nitrogen and carbon... atmosphere shows at least some oxygen, though severely lower than Equis; and terrain 220 meters over mean surface... deposits of Chraeyomalachite? Isn't that refined Changeling excremint used for their hives? But the terrain looks way too dry for them to surv..." he trailed off as he heard doors locking behind him... he turned to see the corridor to the passanger section closed off. His heart skipped a few beats, "Twi... what the fuck do you think you're doing..."
Upstairs, Twilight finished purge loading process, she stared at the screen with small rappid breaths, "... I gotta drop more load..." on the screen held the words: PURGE ALL?
XXXXX
Back inside the passanger section, Fluttershy shook her head as the cryo systems shut down, then so did AJ... and Rarity... and the rest of the 40 passangers. Pinkamena's eyes slowly fluttered open, and directly across from her, she saw Dash restrained by every means conveivable within her own pod as the red lights flashed.
XXXXX
"Look, I tried everything else and I still got no horizon."
Spike glared up at the ceiling, "well you better try everything twice 'cause there's no way we just flush out th-"
"LOOK IF YOU KNOW SOMETHING ELSE, get your ass up here and take the chair-"
"Listen, company says we are responsible for every single one of those ponies Twi!"
Twilight stared off into the burning glass, "what, we both die of sheer fucking nobility?" she said as she held her hand on the purge level.
Spike began furiously unbuckling himself, "don't you touch that handle TWI!"
Twilight let go and grabbed the steering controls... she looked back up at the switch.
Down in the control room; Spike manually overid the seal off door and forced them open before sticking a solid piece of reinforced steel bar intebtween the somewhat open doors.
Twilight's eyes widened as her breath became ever more ragged, she stared out towards the endless mass of the planet; the ship juttered and bounced uncontrollably. This was it... a sinlge choice... Equinity... morality... survival... rationality... logic... will to live...
The Equine side... and the Animal Side...
Twilight looked up at the purge lever.
The Equine side... and the Animal Side...
She grabbed it and pulled. But it cuaght and locked. She yanked. She yanked again and again and again; the computer chimed out. "AIR LOCK DOORS BLOCKED. ERROR AIR LOCK DOORS BLOCKED."
"SPIIIIKE!" Twilight shouted in rage.
"Seventy seconds Twilight! You have seventy seconds to level this beast out!"
Twilight roared and pounded her fists against the consol; she didn't wanna die here! Not here! Not like this! Not over pitty fucking morality! Who cares about those ponies?! Like she was ever going to see any of them or their families ever again! She just wanted to fucking live!
She kicked her hoof against the jammed break pannel lever; she kicked again, and again, and again, each time harder as she screemed out like an a berserk animal fighting over territory. "SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!" With one last kick the lever loosed and slid into position.
Twilight blinked... she stared out the glass in disbelief; the final emergency panels flipped out and the ship finally began to level.
Then one of the pannels peeled off and slammed into the glass shattering it to pieces; Twilight covered her face with her arms as she summoned up a barrier... only no magic came to her horn...
Tiny shards of glass bombarded her as she covered her face with her arms.
"What the fuck is happening up there?!" Spike shouted at the ceiling of the control room.
XXXXX
Pinkamena opened her pod and fell out onto the ship's deck; she shook her head and uneasily got to her hooves.
XXXXX
Twilight's eyes watered as the full force of the turbulant winds blasted her face; the ship sailing just a few hundred feet from the surface. The g-force was causing the skin on her face to be pushed back against the chair, her body shook in tiny rappid vibrations and her heart... she couldn't even register how fast her heart was beating as every vein in her boody pumped adrenalin through her system.
XXXXX
Pinkamena shook her head and looked around; she saw Dash, still restrained in her pod.
XXXXX
Twilight's body almost flowed like water as the wind sailed by; the equine mind wasn't meant to handle speeds of this calibur in raw exposure... the sheer gravitational force... her mind idly remembered the pilot training in the g-force simulator... she'd passed out at around 7-Gs...
That was nothing compared what she felt right now.
She couldn't even register the scanner's distance reader; 45 feet from the surface of the plannet, 42... 39... 37... 34...
Faster and faster, so much speed, so much pressure... so much air rushing past; the ground below, the rough terrain and sand rushed underneath like a golden see with a milion waves flowing past in an almost unrecognizable siezmic mesh.
Time almost seemed to slow... her eyes open... so open... the veins bulging against the retina. The ground, so close.
30, 28, 24, 20, 18. For one split moment, she was aware of everything, the sound of the alarm, the flash of the lights; the computer's SYSTEM ALERT message, the consol's lights blinking.
15, 11, 5.
Her eye flittered, moved, so open, so wide, so aware.
And then it happened, the explosion of electrical light as the sand rushed in shredding the consols; she covered her face and curled into a fetal position as the soil shot forth through the cockpit.
Down in the com room, Spike's body was tostled around like a rag doll.
XXXXX
Pinkamena's ears twitched as the sound of tearing metal filled the room. Suddenly, there wasn't a room any more; the walls ripped apart, the severe pressure and turbulance nearly sucked her out into the open; she latched her arms around a nearby column as more and more of the ship was torn asunder by the rocky terrain and gritty sand that grinded away at the ship.
Pinkamena's eyes went wide as she saw the rear of the ship obliterated before her. The majority of the passanger hold was sent to oblivion and only the front most section of it remained.
XXXXX
Twilight's free moving chair twirled around as the sand flew past, ever faster, ever stronger, ever more pressure.
And then there was darkness...
XXXXX
...
...
The few survivors couged up dust and pushed fallen debris off their bodies, they called out to each other and helped one another out.
Pinkamena kicked off the plate of metal that covered her body before standing up, her head was dizzy and nauseous from the fall, the pressure, the colapse, everything.
Looking up, she saw Dash's tube bearing the letters LOCKOUT PROTOCAL NO EARLY RELEASE
... it was empty...
Pinkamena slowly crouched and reached for her side arm only to find nothing there, "shit..." she reached around for a few minutes before spotting an open hatch. She hopped down it into a lower deck and pulled out a small flashlight.
Cautiously, she made her way through the ship, searching for any sign of Dash. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted her gun. She carefully began to reach down for it when something wrapped around her neck; the hoof binds of Dash; they snuggly encased Pinkamena's neck like a garrot wire around a cheese wedge.
One of Pinkamena's hands rushed up to grab the restraint while the other went to her extendable police baton; she whipped the carbon fiber up against Dash's thigh as the cyan mare hung by the metal wires above.
The baton then whipped Dash's ribs over and over and over. Pinkamena could feel conciousness slipping away from her, her heart beat slowing, and slowing...
Then the petal coils supporting Dash snapped from their combined weight and Dash slammed into the ground below.
Pinkamena quickly got her hooves with her baton in the air; but Dash lay their not moving.
Pinkamena panted and retracted her baton, "Somepony's gonna get hurt one of these days..." she chuckled through her sore throat, "and it aint gonna be me."
XXXXX
Twilight shuffled aside sheets of metal as she dug around for Spike, she yanked and yanked on large broken equipment.
Meanwhile, Applejack and Minuette worked to get one of the surviving pods open that had fuzed shut from the intense heat of the crash. Minutte lit a cutting torch and slowly managed to unseal the pod. With a pop, the lid fell open and Scootaloo rolled out. She fell on her back and looked up with a bewildered expression, "so... I guess something went wrong?" she asked with a forced gruffness in her voice in an attempt to sound like a colt.
Twilight finally got hold of Spike's chair and yanked it to a position in which the Dragon's chest faced towards the ceiling. And from his chest protruded a long steel rebar.
Twilight' jaw quivered.
"... ... I'm sorry..." she whispered out as she felt tears beginning to sting at her eyes; she layed a hand on his forhead.
Suddenly, he began to screem; Twilight lept back in surprise.
The other survivors drew near.
Twilight went to grab the rebar just as Spike shouted, "DON'T TOUCH IT! DON'T YOU TOUCH THAT HANDEL TWI!"
The other ponies argued over what to do.
"Should we take it out?" "no, no it's too close to his heart."
Twilight panted, "th-there's some menestaphine in the medlock in the back of the cabbin!"
Rarity turned and looked in the direction of the destroyed vessel before turning back to Twilight, "not anymore there's not."
Pinkamena scrateched her chin with her thumb.
Twilight gazed down at Spike's spasming form, "... get outta here... everypony..." the ponies got up to leave while Twilight pet Spike's head comfortingly as he bled out.
Scootaloo and Pinkamena were the last to leave, and as they made their way towards the exit of the ruined ship, Pinkamena turned to look at the now restrained Dash, bound to one of the remaining support beams, her eyes covered with a blindfold; a metal bit still forcing her mouth open; hands bound behind her around the beam.
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Outside, Fluttershy and the three zebra foals she was escorting to New Everfree washed their hands in the dry sand of the planet's desert before standing up to pray to the eldritch gods.
Applejack dusted herself off and shielded her eyes from the two intense suns hanging low in the sky. Rarity held up her glases, one of the lenses severely cracked, she sighed before putting them on.
Pinkamena stared down at her compass, the dial spinning around chaotically; "interesting." she sighed as she looked out over the vast empty plains.
After a few minutes, all of the survivors: Twilight, Pinkamena, Rarity, AJ, Fluttershy, the three foals, Scootaloo, and Minuette all climbed up to the top of the half burried vessel.
"Is anypony else having difficulties breathing?" Rarity asked as she held her chest.
"Ya, Ah feel one lung short..." AJ replied.
"I feel like I just... ran or something..." Scootaloo panted.
When Twilight climbed up to join the rest, AJ spoke, "there was talk of a scoutin' party lookin' fer other ponies but..." she turned and gestured towards the mile long crater behind the ship, "then we saw this..."
Aside from the cockpit and the remaining section of the passegner hold, the rest of the ship was in pieces strewn throughout the line that seemed to stretch on and on into the desert.
"What the hell happened?" Minuette asked as she turned to Twilight.
The Unicorn shrugged, "could have been a meteor storm... or the anti-magic field of the planet messing with the enchanted systems... might have been a rogue comet... I don't know."
"Well, Ah for one am thoroughly greatful!" mused Applejack, "this ship here wasn't made tah land like this but..." she scratched her head, "Ah think ya did well. Actually the only reason we're alive is 'cause o' her."
Twilight suddenly found it difficult to swallow.
"Yes I suppose you're right." piped Rarity, "thanks very much."
Twilight's legs felt week.
Scootaloo patted her shoulder, "ya, thanks for saving our dicks."
"No really, thank's awfully." reprimanded Rarity.
Twilight's eyes twitched a bit and her breath felt short.
AJ put a hand on her other shoulder, "well done."
XXXXX
A few minutes later inside the ship, Twilight stared contemplatively at Rainbow Dash when she heard Pinkamena speak; "she just escaped from a maximum security prison."
Twilight let out a breath and crossed her arms as she leaned agains a beam, "so do we just keep her locked up forever?"
pInkamena chuckled, "well, now that'd be my choice."
Twilight looked back at Dash and then to Pinkamena, "is she really the dangerous?" she whispered.
To this, Pinkamena chuckled, "only around ponies."
XXXXX
A small ways away, Rarity was scuffling around inside one of the ruined cabbins, "the whole thing got turned around, it's all topsy turney." turns out, one of the cabbins that Twilight had purged contained all of Rarity's antiques, including the alchohol.
Rarity undid the lock around the changed and opened up a container; smiling, she took one of the bottles out, "well, thank goodness it's not a total loss!" she chirped.
"Booze?" Twilight asked with a cocked eyebrow, "this is what you have to drink?"
"I'm gonna need a recipt for that!" Rarity snapped, "for all of this, this is my personal stash!"
Twilight turned and aimed her flashlight at Fluttershy, "I don't suppose this will help you at all?"
Fluttershy shook her head, "unfortunately, it is not permitted, especially while on Hotch."
pinkamena turned back to look at the butter yellow Pegasus atop the staircase, "you do realize there's no water right?"
"All deserts have water," she replied, "it only waits to be found." Fluttershy replied cryptically.
"All the more for me then!" Rarity chimed before closing the casket.
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Dash's ears flickered... nopony... she was completely alone... she turned and gazed up at a break in the support beam. Even through her blindfold her eye shine saw the shape of the construct.
And in front of her, a hanging cutting torch attatched to a wire that could easily make its way through her restraints.
Dash slowly stood up and began to raise her arms behind her back; rasing higher and higher and higher until they reached their limit. She kept pressing. The bones made a crunching sound as her shoulders dis-located; raising higher and higher; her thick bulging muscles forced the joints back into place as they reached their apex.
At last she got her bind through the break in the column and fell to her kneese. Her hooves still bound to a restraint attatched to the ground, she fell forward and snatched the cutting torch.
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Pinkamena sprinted along the desert sand until she reached Dash's severed restraints.
The Earth Pony picked the binds up and growled, "mother fucker..." she looked around and saw nothing but empty deserts and elevated mountains.
With a roar, she threw the binds into the sand and stomped back to the crash site.
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Inside the ruins of the Books and Branches, Pinkamena opened her weapons casket, secured a pistol behind her back and loaded her combat shotgun.
Meanwhile, Rarity stepped in with a few scythe looking objects, leather shields, and blow dart guns from what remained of her antiques.
"What are those?" Twilight asked in curiousity.
"Obsidian war picks from northern Gryphonia. Very rare." Rarity answered.
Minuette picked up the blowdart, "and this?!"
"That's a hunting blowdart from the buffalo tribes outside of Appleoosa, which is verry, verry, rare since the tribe is now extinct."
Minuette cringed, "looks like I couldn't hunt shit with these things..." she commented.
Rarity sighed dramatically, "well, what's the point?! I mean, if the mare is gone, she's gone! Why should she bother us?"
"Maybe to take what you got..." Answered Pinkamena as she slipped on a kevlar vest, "maybe to work your nerves..." she suited up the rest of her equipment, "or maybe she'll just come back and, skull fuck you in your sleep."
Applejack scoffed, "sounds like a charmer..."
Scootaloo picked up a war club and left whle Rarity stood blinking.
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Out atop the ship, Pinkamena surveyed the landscape with a telescope as Minuette and AJ worked to fashion a few respirators; once she was satisfied, AJ put one around Scootaloo, she breathed through it, "working?" AJ asked.
"Ya!" Scootaloo answered excitedly.
"Fluttershy!" Twilight called out, "if we're looking for water we should leave soon before nightfall while it's cooler."
Then Rarity appeared, "excuse me," she panted from the low oxygen in the air, "I think you should see this..."
The ponies walked over to a nearby hill allowing them to see the horizon; there it hung... a giant blue orb rising into the sky as the yellow and red ones in the opposite direction sank.
"THREE suns?!" Scootaloo gawked.
Applejack shook her head, "mah stars..."
"So much for your nightfall." quiped Minuette.
"So much for my cocktail hour..." sighed Rarity as she scratched her cheek.
Fluttershy smiled as she walked over with the three foals in tow, "we take this as a good sign! Blue sun," she pointed at the star, "blue water!"
Minuette rolled her eyes, "ever wonder why I'm an athiest?"
Pinkamena climbed down from the ship, "it's a bit of a bad sign, that's Dash's direction." she pointed out towards the blue horizon.
"I thought you found her restraints over there?" she asked as she gestured towards the yellow horizon, "towards sunset."
Pinkamena nodded, "right, which means she went towards sunrise." she then walked over to Minuette, "Minuette?" she pulled out her pistol, "fully loaded clip; safety's off, one shot if you spot her allright?" the blue pony nodded.
Rarity walked over and once again needed to lean on the scythe for rest, "what happens if Rainbow Dash spots us first?"
Pinkamena chuckled, "then there'll be no shots."
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The terain, the sky, the rocks, everything was blue... just pure blue as the sun hung high in the sky. The chanting of Fluttershy's native prayers ringing throughout the valley they now past through, small sandy mountains around them.
Dash surveyed from above.
Pinkamena's ear twitched as a few pebbles fell from one of the mountains, "QUIET! Shh, shh!" she crouched low and readied her shotgun.
More pebbles rumbled down the hill as the ponies fell deathly silent.
Pinkamena made her way up the hill still in her combat crouch with her finger on the trigger.
Back with the others, Fluttershy stood by Twilight. They heard a few shouts form the foals and turned to see them casting rocks behind them.
"Severed stones to keep the devil at bay." Fluttershy explained with a smile.
"You're on a trip to New Everfree right?" Twilight asked with a tilt of her head.
"Once in every lifetime, should there be a great Hotch, a great pilgrimage. To get to know the gods better? Yes... but to know yourself as well."
Twilight stared, "ya..." she breathed.
Fluttershy placed a hand on her shoulder, "we are all on the same Hotch now."
Dash, from high above, stood and left her vantage point.
Pinkamena scouted atop one of the larger hills through her spyglass. Then she heard it; a hoof crunching the tiny rocks of the sand below. She whipped around and pointed her shotgun straight at Twilight's face.
Twilight jumped and yelped. Pinkamena released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, "sorry..." she turned back to the landscape.
"So did you see anything?" Twilight asked when she'd calmed down enough to speak.
"No Dash... but trees... trees mean water." She answered as she saw tall white awkwardly shaped protrusions that she took for branches.
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Rarity sighed as she relaxed in a chair with an umbralla above it acompanied by a small table and a tea cup with some wine poured in.
"YOU COMFY UP THERE?!" Minuette yelled indignantly as she picked up the reigns to a sled bearing the dead bodies of ponies not so lucky.
"Yes, well it's amazing how you can do without the necessities of life provided you have the little luxuries." Rarity answered in a haughty tone.
Minuette scoffed, "well just keep your bloody eyes open, I don't want that psycho sneaking up on my ass." she turned and dragged the sled away.
Rarity sighed and grabbed the teacup, "yes well, you dig the graves, and I'll hold down the fort old gir-URK!" a war club was held right up against her neck scaring the life out of her.
Behind her stood Scootaloo, "She'd probably get you right here, right under the jaw," she spoke into Rarity's ear, "and you'd never even hear her coming, 'cause that's how good Dash is."
"Tell me something," Rarity turned to glare at Scootaloo, "did you run away from your parents or did they run away from you?"
Scootaloo didn't answer, she just took her war club and walked away.
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The scouting team finally arrived at the sight of the desert trees, they looked something akin to the arid desert trees of Zebreca... but when they got closer... they learned the truth... these were not tree branches... they were bones... the remainders of some long dead giant animal...
And there beyond the dinasaur sized corpse... were thousands... millions of sekelatons in all shapes and sizes... they stretched on for miles along the flat plains.
"It's a catastrophy graveyard perhaps... like the Elephants of Equis..." Fluttershy mused.
One of the Zebra foals said somehting in his native tongue.
"He asked what could have killed so many great things." Fluttershy translated.
Twilight's brows scrunched as she looked out over the grim sight, "is this whole... planet dead?
The ponies made their way down into the plains and sifted through the giant bone copses, dry, ruined, decomposing into dust.
Pinkamena made her way through the ribcage of some whale sized creature, her shotgun still ready, a place like this would offer uncountable places for Rainbow to hide.
And rightly so... for Dash was also with them, but rather than hiding within the corpses, she lay atop one of them inside the eye socket of a giant skull.
Down by the ribcage, Twilight stopped to use her respirator... dang... out of air... she turned to her flank to begin undoing the tube and attatching it to one of the other air cannisters holstered to her hip.
Behind the giant ribs to her back, Dash slowly snuck towards the light peaking through the massive bones. Twilight rested her back against the skelaton and slouched down until she was sitting on her rump. Hearing hoofsteps, she turned to see Pinkamena aproach.
The Earth Pony took a swig of scotch before offering the bottle to Twilight, "drink?"
Twilight smiled weakly but took the bottle, "probably shouldn't do this, it dehydrates you even more." she said before taking a big gulp of the liquid.
Pinkamena brushed some stray strands of her curtain mane from her face while chuckling, "ya you're probably right..." before squating down in an eagle perch. "You know, you could have stayed back at the ship and probably should've... you know what happens if we don't find water."
Twilight shook her head, "I wanted to get away..."
"I've never seen a Captain so ready to leave her ship." Responded Pinkamena.
Twilight gave a fake smile before standing up, "I think we should keep moving."
"What'd Spike mean?" Pinkamena inquired out of the blue, "about not touching the handle?"
Twilight took in a long breath through her nose and sighed, not seeing Dash closing in to the ribs behind her and drawing a small bone shiv.
Pinkamena stood up, "it's just between you and me Twilight, I promise."
Twilight slumped back against the ribs just as Dash reached them.
Twilight sighed, "I'm not your Captain."
Dash rose her bone shiv.
Twilight looked away from the Earth Pony, "during the landing... when... th...things were at their worst... Spike was at his best..."
The shiv drew close to the ribs as Dash prepared to strike.
Twilight continued, "he's the one that stopped the... docking pilot from dumping the passenger cabbin to level the ship..."
Dash paused...
Pinkmena sucked on her cheek for a few moments, "and the docking pilot being?"
Twilight turned to stare at her intensely as if to say, 'who do you think?'
Dash brought the shiv up behind Twilight's head and descretely cut off a small few hairs of her mane.
Pinkamena chuckled, "I guess I'm a little more glad to be here than I thought."
Dash brought the small lock of mane to her nose and inhaled the scent.
Twilight gave a mirthless chuckle before following Pinkamena as she walked away.
Dash blew the lock into the wind.
XXXXX
Minuette panted, continuously using her respirator as she dug deep for a grave... but the further she dug, the more she began to hear strange noises... like a white high pitched moan... something that didn't sound like any animal she'd ever heard before... acompanied by a strange clicking...
Minuette frowned, her face drenched with sweat, she pulled out her gun and looked around the area as she panted and inhaled the pure oxygen through the device.
XXXXX
The group continued their journey through the graveyard when the foals found something in the sand.
One of them ran over to Twilight, "Captain! Captain!" Twilight turned and saw the small device... it looked like a little robot toy; its head bearing a glass dome with what looked to be solar pannels inside; holding it up, the blue light of the sun it it and soon the toy came to life.
Everypony blinked, then, with hopes high at the prospect of civilization, they marched on through the valley until they came to another open plain filled with buildings and tents and towers.
Everypony called out... but got no response.
They searched through the city, Pinkamena picked up a nearby thermus, shook it, heard no liquid inside, and tossed it with a sigh.
The place looked, for lack of a better word, abandoned.
Fluttershy found a tube nearby... it looked like part of a k-series 77f2 arrigation system, "there was water here!" she said excitedly.
Twilight made her way into one of the main buildings to find pitch black dark room after pitch black dark room. She opened a door to yet another room and looked around to be greeted by the same darkness.
Unfortunately the anti-magic zone that the planet radiated prevented the use of illumination spells. "Lights?" she said experimentally, "lights on?" Nothing... She sighed, "OK..." and walked through the area; she found windows, with rotating shutters. Accompanied by the sound of a rusty squeak, she opened them and sunlight poured through.
As it did so, hundreds of solar pannels beneath her hooves just underneath a plane of glass that made up the floor absorbed the solar light; and everything in the room sprung to life, including a scale model of the current solar system she was in.
XXXXX
Outside, Fluttershy found a solar powered water tap. The foals whispered out something gleefully.
"They are saying, 'the gods are good' yes indeed, this is the source of the water!" Fluttershy said excitedly to Pinkamena.
"Think you can get it working?"
Fluttershy nodded, "I've worked with these before in the old Everfree tribes."
XXXXX
Twilight ran her finger along the scale of the system, three planets... three suns... the one she was on; a neighboring planet, and a gas giant. It seems that the planets were in a bizarre orbit around each other's gravitational pull. The suns were too far away to majorly affect the synchronized process; Twilight had seen systems like this before.
Three large planets each orbiting each other in a strange but fascinating patern, and two or more stars, too far away to have a large enough effect the orbit, but close enough that some of their heat got through; but with multiple suns in different directions; the radiation could hit from both ends compensating for the great distance; this combined with a thick atmosphere to trap what radiation it managed to catch made this bizarre aligntment of planets and stars amazingly suitible for life.
Or, it would be in theory... yet the planet was one giant desert... with low oxygen and, as of yet, no water.
But still, this did explain something... the way the orbit was set up, everything would be eternally daytime... there simply was no such thing as night on this planet.
"No lights because no darkness..."
She didn't seem to notice the year counter ticking along the model...
XXXXX
Twilight exited the area and looked around... and then she saw it, a shimmering in her eye... metal! A ship!
Pinkamena and Fluttershy turned their heads as they heard Twilight woop in cheer, "HEELLLOOOOO EVERFREE!" there it was... a small escape ship... easily capable of taking the entire group off world.
Maybe they'd survive this after all...
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