Digibro

For as long as I can remember I've always had these thoughts that parallel those of my reality. When I was a young colt I was confused and confounded by this dual existence caused by what appeared to be a retention and re-experience of a former life. It wasn't bad, per say, and often times I found it pleasurable once I had a true grasp of what everything really meant. I was somehow in touch with a parallel universe that my own universe is dependent on in a way where everything is written out by these strange humans for some sort of television program and accompanying fan work. Call me crazy right?

I woke up alone in bed as Applejack moved on with the early morning chores that needed to be done. She and I have vastly different sleeping schedules even before we went up into space. She would always get up bright and early while I slept in. I balanced it out by staying up all night working on many of my projects that I keep myself busy with. You'd think that our conflicting schedules would cause a rift between us, but in actuality I wake up relaxed and ready to comfort her as she gets home from a hard days work. I always find time to hang out with her, Big Mac, and my little sis Applebloom back home in Old Ponyville.

I got out of bed and walked outside to see the others eating lunch. This time it was Pinkie Pie serving the group as Sky Buster and the rest of the soldiers ventured off to the thing we built yesterday. I took my seat next to Applejack who was covered in a thin layer of mud. She decided to pat me on the back with a muddy hoof.

“Howdy there sleepy head! Rise and shine,” AJ smiled. I let out a small squeak as I took a bushel of wheat and crammed it down my throat.

“Good morning dear,” I smiled as I gulped down my food, “Sky Buster and the other guards went off again I see?”

“Well, not quite. Them rascals just gone for a little training. They were waitin on you the whole time to get up.”

“Oh shit! Okay AJ, gotta go see ya!” I hurried back to the house and into my shed, “Love you!”

“There he goes again, bye honey!”

With that I was back home hurriedly trying to pile all the stuff into one of the wagons we had sitting out back. I was suppose to deliver the distress beacon, the battle saddles, and a bunch of wooden crates Sky Buster had dropped off yesterday. I made my way to the outpost and saw them standing by. There was Kim, Antony, Sky, Puzzle, and Rainbow. Three of the humans were there too: Troy, May, and the other one who is rather racist to us, I forget who that bastard was called.

“Ah there you are Digi! Late to the party again I see?” Sky looked at me funny.

“Okay, shit I forgot alright? I got everything you need in the wagon. Ammo, your battle saddles, the distress beacon and everything. Let's just get to work okay? I'll be in the bunker waiting to see what happens. Let me show you how to turn on the beacon,” I floated the distress beacon up from underneath the junk I had piled on top of it. It was intact and ready to go, “Where do you want it?”

“Right there in between the two runways where I've marked the X. Troy, get over here. You're the one who has to turn on the beacon. I need to suit up in my flight saddle along with my squadron,” Sky sounded just a little ticked off, and rightly so because I was the one to accidentally have the minor fuck up. One of the humans came up to me.

“Alright, show me how the beacon do?”

“Well, all you have to do is push this button, crank this knob and switch!” I started to sing song to the rhythm of cupcakes, “Now you take a little step back, don't be scared don't twitch! Using this thing is such a synch add a 9-volt battery will-ya! Just a little more then to count to four then a starship will come here-a! Beacons, so big and twirly! Beacons, so spinning whirly! Beacons! Beacons, beacons, beacons!”

“...Um... Okay?” Troy looked at me weirded out, “Does your race often break into song like that?”

“A little, sometimes we can't help it. It's just so happy, well... It used to be just so happy back home that people broke out into song when they felt like it. It was part of our overall culture so vastly different from your own. Music and magic are cornerstones of our society. That and cutiemarks.”

“Uh, cutiemarks?” He looked at the symbol on my flank, “So you had that tattooed on your ass?”

“Oh no. A cutiemark is a thumbnail image of our destined talent. It's a magical symbol that appears on our butts after we learn our true calling in life, typically during our elementary school years. Our society revolves around the discovery of our true talents and how to best implement them. As you can see, my mark is that of a magnifying glass over a color wheel. It's rather vague but my true talent is analysis in its raw form. Making me suited to be a scientist. By the look on your face I'm guessing your society works differently?”

“Yes it does,” Troy sighed. I figured as much because the humans from that other dimension in my past life had a much different set of rules than ours, “We go to school, learn so much useless shit that we can't practically use in the real world, yet no one teaches us how to look for jobs, how to save money, how to do the practical everyday things that we need to survive, and all the other shit that we have to deal with. And frankly, even if you had a special talent some people end up working on something so unrelated to that talent that it just becomes a hobby for them. I, as a gamer could not make a living off that. I was viewed as a food service worker with a nack for video games, military knowledge, and firearms. Again, more reason why I think humans get the short end of the stick when it comes to interstellar races.”

That matched what I had lived through in my past life. I patted him on the shoulder.

“Sorry to hear that, but let's not dilly dally. Sky Buster can be quite bossy when he's pissed off,” I placed the beacon and trotted back to the bunker, “You ready over there?”

“Ready. I'm running back into the woods,” Troy yelled as he disappeared from sight, using his optical camo. I could hear Sky, Rainbow, and Kim rocketing overhead in a combat air patrol formation. There was a long pause before we heard anything. Tony and Puzzle were in the bunker with me.

“Do you feel that?” Tony turned to me.

“I do,” Puzzle looked out of the bunker into the sky. The ground started to shake as something from the heavens descended from the clouds. It was a massive alien flying disc that hovered with a soft hum. I saw Puzzle turn wide eyed at me, “Um! Digi!”

“Hold on, hold your fire until Sky says to engage,” I trotted to the radio and vectored it to Sky Buster, “What's it look like up there?

“We're still in CAP formation and in combat spread. We're assessing the craft. I'm seeing,” he paused, confused, “Um, I think I see a penguin piloting the damned thing!”

Troy came in shocked and pushed me away from the microphone, “Get out of there Sky! That's Dreadwing the pirate!”

“Say again? I-” Sky Buster was cut off by the sound of anti aircraft fire that erupted from the space ship into the clouds, “Whoa! Confirmed bandit is hostile! My squadron is engaging!”

“I've got times two, five hundred pound bombs! I'm going in for a diving attack!” Kim exclaimed, “Digi some flak would be a nice distraction!”

“Flak is going up!” I raced out of the bunker to one of the AA guns as Antony and Puzzle did the same. I got into my flak gun and whirled it upwards at the UFO. I floated up clips of ammo into my Bofors and with a quick press of the right pedal forty millimeter shells filled the sky and it was barely denting the spaceship.

I looked over to Tony as he handled the ammo. He carried it back between Puzzle and I with the rounds harnessed in his saddlebags. I quickly exhausted my clip and he came over to me.

“That thing's not even scratched! Give it another go! I've set some impact fuses on those chap!” Antony gave me a pat on the head and loaded in a fresh clip.

“Let's bring this fucker down!” I started to unload another volley at the enemy spaceship before it hovered right over me with what I assumed to be its particle beam charging up at me. I was so screwed had I not ran out of there. The beam shot down an accelerated bolt of particles that completely destroyed the AA gun. There was little more than charred scrap left of what was once my gun emplacement.

“No damage on target! That flak's not doing any good,” Kim came over the radio with a damage assessment, “I've dropped two bombs on that thing and it's still flying!”

“Press the attack! We've got the air superiority!” Sky Buster swooped in with his volley of rockets fired from his battle saddle. Upon impact the pirate ship started to wobble as the rockets disabled one of its engines. Sky yelled victoriously, “Critical hit! He's not going back into space with one of his engines knocked out!”

I saw another charge of the massive particle beam under the craft as balls of energy focused into the middle of the glowing energy weapon. What came after it was fully charged surprised me. Instead of the expected volley of particle fire the ship beamed down a small army of penguin soldiers complete with rocket launchers, machine guns, and even a few tanks. Now we were really screwed.

“Guys! They got reinforcements!” I galloped back to the bunker fearing for my life as I slid to the floor to keep my head down. Antony busted in to check up on me.

“Okay, so we have a little bit of a situation.”

“Just a little bit? We're getting fucking owned dude!” I grabbed his collar and pulled him to the floor. Machine gun bullets ricocheted around the room and we both kept our heads down. Antony took the rifle off his back and returned fire.

“Well what are you waiting for Digi? Fire back!” he shoved a sniper rifle into my hooves and I looked at it with confusion. He knew as well as I did that I wasn't up to snuff with firearms let alone fighting a war.

“I have deep moral reservations about this you know! I don't even know how to use this thing!”

Antony glared back at me in panic, “Well figure something out! There is a tank rolling towards the bunker!”

In curiosity I peeked at above the lip of the bunker opening to see three penguin tanks aiming their guns right at us. I could see the commander of the lead tank lift a flipper ready to bring it down with an order to fire.

“Ready!” I heard him yell in a squeaky yet raspy voice, “Aim!”

“Duck!” Antony grabbed me and threw me to the floor. He was right on top of me using his own body to shield from the shrapnel. In mere seconds I expected a deafening explosion and total loss of hearing. Instead I could hear metal being scrapped and torn outside. Antony got up and looked out. His jaw was wide agape.

“Now that is awesome. I think you might want to check this out,” he dusted me off and I got to my feet. To my surprise there was a mech suit that had just bulldozed the three tanks and was rampaging the others that were beaming down. In the pilot seat of the bipedal heavily armored beast I saw Troy the human.

“Hey guys! Thought you could use some heavy firepower!” the radio on my chest rang out in his voice. The mech he piloted had twin chain guns mounted on the sides of the cockpit, “I'll take care of the tanks. Looks like your friend Puzzle is clearing the area of infantry.”

“Wait what? Puzz-” Antony stopped as we both saw Puzzle Piece being a complete badass using his agility to dodge rockets and fake out enemy soldiers with a ninja like assortment of spells. From smoke bombs, double teaming, and even short invisibility spells he was quite a sight and killed the penguins with nothing but his bow and arrows landing shot after shot even while jumping, sprinting, and on the move. He ran up to the bunker to greet us.

“Hey guys!” he was casual in his tone of voice and we just sat there dumbfounded, “You okay?”

“Um. Yes, quite,” Antony walked up to him and patted him in the shoulder, “You did good out there but let's finish the job.”

“This is Sky Buster! Enemy craft is launching fighter saucers to intercept us! Ground crew, can you keep them busy with some flak?” Sky chimed in.

“We'll try! Most of our AA guns are out of commission,” I saw the last of the turrets get pummeled by a shot of particle beam from the alien mothership right as I said that, “Scratch that, AA defenses are down.”

“Digi I got a suggestion,” I almost confused Troy with Sky Buster, “I've got some crates on the back of this walker. I'd love to come over there but I'm a tad busy. May! Help them out with some cover fire!”

Something popped up in my mind that hinted that Sky and Troy were being controlled by the same person in that other dimension. I shrugged it off and focused, “Will do! I need you guys to cover me while I go for those crates.”

“Say no more Digi I'm ready!” Puzzle notched another arrow in with his magic and nodded.

“Some day you're gonna have to learn how to defend yourself Digi,” Antony sighed, “But that's what I'm here for after all. Let's go!”

Antony was on point as we emerged into the battlefield. The army of penguins kept spewing out of the mothership and Troy was doing his best to keep them off us. One of his sniper friends was also picking off multiple penguins with a semi automatic rifle in the distance. Bullets whizzed past our heads and our three pegasi were engaged in dogfights with many smaller UFOs that chased them relentlessly. Puzzle and Antony were doing a damn fine job at keeping me alive as we got near Troy's walker. I levitated the crates off the back with my magic and used the large frame of the robot as cover. I opened them to find missile launchers that were human in origin.

“Those are Redeyes! Fire and forget AA missiles, single use. Flip up the IR dish and once you hear the lock on tone change to a solid ring fire away!” Troy briefly gave instruction.

I lifted the launcher up out of the crate and sighted it with my eye. I flipped the receiver dish like I was told and locked to the nearest UFO that was chasing Kim. I was being careful not to lock on to my friend but the damned thing was fickle and kept switching targets. I heard the solid ring of the lock on sound and fired. The recoil of it planted me face first into the dirt from the back blast. I forgot that Antony was right behind me and he was subjected to a small burn and the knock back of the rocket motor. I ran up to him in panic.

“Holy shit I'm so sorry! Are you okay?” I assessed his condition. He got right back up and put out the fire on his tail.

“Digi I swear to Celestia. You could have killed me with that thing!” Luckily he was far enough away and only suffered minor injuries, “Let me handle that!”

He tried to manipulate the next launcher out of the crate and shouldered it with one hoof. He tracked another UFO and fired making sure that Puzzle and I were out of the way of his back blast. The missile shot up and impacted. The small UFO was blown to bits but it still wasn't enough. Their mothership was still flying and we had to take it down.

“No matter what we do that thing is still gonna phew out mini saucers, tanks, and penguins! It's like it has some sort of teleporter for them,” Antony kept my head down as he called to Puzzle.

Puzzle was surprising us both with the accuracy of his bow. He shot down a lot of the mini UFOs with well placed shots into their glass cockpits as he bounded back and forth between them in an amazing show of agility. It was then that I noticed that he prepared a spell that gave him butterfly wings similar to Rarity's during the Young Fliers Competition. He was actually up there dogfighting with those mini-saucers with a fucking bow and arrow!

“Remind me not to piss off that green unicorn,” Antony just starred up as they thinned out their air support. Rainbow flew in underneath the mothership and shot up another engine. Now the ship began to wobble and list uncontrollably.

“Number two engine is down! Wahoo!” she gave an excited yell as she zoom climbed to make an attack run on the top of the craft.

“Mothership AA turrets destroyed!” Kim chimed in as smoke bellowed from the large spacecraft.

Troy advanced forward as his mech was being barraged by penguin tank shells. We hung back as the dirt and dust was kicked up by the explosions. The mothership hovered right above us and started to charge its particle beams again.

“Take cover!” Troy yelled to Antony and I as the mothership sent down a full volley of beams that crippled Troy's mech, “It's no use! I have to eject! Stand back!”

Antony lead me into the tree line and shielded me from the blast of the exploding robot. We saw Troy shot up to the mothership and rodeo onto one of the engines. He used his assault rifle to jam the turbines and jumped off. He used a waist mounted jump pack to glide softly to the ground.

“Three engines down! Tell your ponies we got this!” he came up to me and secured my location. The mothership stopped beaming down reinforcements and was just struggling to stay aloft, “Nick! Bring in the Obsidian Class MPRG!”

“Boom boom motherfuckers!” Nick shouldered a strange weapon that fired off a loud and brilliant blue colored tracer that impacted the ship with no travel time or bullet drop. At first glance I thought it was some sort of laser until I saw that Nick recoiled with each shot. It was some sort of portable railgun.

“What the hell was that?!” Sky Buster called in, “Was that the humans?”

“Yeah, it was. They've got some sort of man portable railgun!” I radioed back out and looked as the mothership finally started to lose altitude and crash into the ground, “I see the ship! Confirmed shot down! We did it! We did it!”

A chorus of screams and victorious yells came over the radio as an explosion rocked the ground signaling the demise of the mothership. Sky stayed in the air while the rest of his squadron came in for a landing to offload their battle saddles. With us being the ground team Puzzle, Antony, myself, and the rest of the humans walked to the wreckage to see the single penguin that piloted the craft.

“Oohh, what happened,” it asked in a squeaky and raspy voice, “Bah! Humans and, are you fucking ponies?!”

“You're under arrest Dreadwing! Flippers up!” Troy demanded to the pirate captain.

“I can't believe I was shot down by a bunch of candy colored equines and your middling humans!” Dreadwing was shackled by May and prodded in the back with her sniper rifle.

“Preaching to the choir honey,” she lead the pirate back to Troy and he eyed the penguin with interest.

“Tell that to the USCM. I'm sure they'll find a nice cozy off world prison cell for you to call home,” Troy pulled his radio and communicated to his whole team, “Guys! We captured Dreadwing the pirate! Yes, THAT Dreadwing the pirate. We're rich boys and girls! Beam up to our ship and wait for May and I.”

I turned my head to see Antony, Kim, Rainbow, and Sky Buster hauling away one of the power cores of the ship.

“We got it!” Sky yelled to me,“ There's a temperature control device on this molten core! We'll be able to mass produce steel in no time! Yahoo!”

Troy tapped me on the shoulder and bent down to my eye level, “Hey Digi, thanks.”

“For what?” I cocked my head.

“For what your race has shown to mine. Never in our travels have we been so treated with the hospitality that you and your group has provided us,” he pulled something from his pocket and gave it to me, “I want you to take this. Blueprints for special teleporters we call Spawners. They'll be able to summon anyone from any race to the planet you place it on. Consider it a gift.”

“Oh my, thank you!” my face was a wide grin as I stuffed my prize into my saddlebags. Troy got back up and brought the radio to his mouth.

“We're beaming up now! Goodbye Digi. We will meet again soon,” he waved to the rest of my group, “Good bye everypony! Until we meet again in the stars!”

“Wait, you're leaving?” Sky Buster dropped his end of the core right on Puzzle's tail, “Oh! Sorry Puzzle!”

Puzzle's tail was chopped off and he was left with only a stub on his ass. I tried to hold back a chuckle.

“Yeah! We're leaving and we don't know when we're gonna get back! Gotta take this criminal in for his bounty!”

“Okay dude! See ya later!” Sky tried to tie on Puzzle's missing tail with a piece of string and a rubber band. Puzzle was quite angry at Sky Buster and tolerated his shenanigans.

“Okay, now for real. Good bye Digi, we will meet again some day,” his own body was enveloped by a beam of light that morphed and twirled into a swirling mass that shot up into the sky followed by his friend and captive. I looked on and smiled into the sky and the wonders that crossed my mind in the stars above.