Name: Esper Teach
Species: Pony - Unicorn
Gender: Female
Coat Color: White
Mane Color: Green (with a red stripe down the middle)
Eye Color: Blue
Cutie Mark: A hydrogen atom with a blue proton, two red neutrons, and two yellow electron rings. (So it is a negatively charged tritium atom.)

Abilities: Esper can generate various types of metals from nowhere. They seem to be permanent unlike most kinds of magic. A complete conversion of magical energy to mass. She specializes in creating heavy radioactive elements. She can also launch these metal compounds like projectiles or create a shield out of them. Esper is amazingly intelligent. While normal equines develop much faster and so learn much faster, she continues to learn and synthesize information as if she were many grades more experienced than she is. She is probably smarter than me. She also seems very resistant (if not immune) to radiation which explains why the heavy elements did not affect her.

Unique Features: Her horn has notable amounts of various metals within it. I have yet to determine if this affects, or is even the cause of, her abilities in any way but I believe it is harmless. The rest of her body has trace amounts of various compounds. Again, they do not seem to affect her positively or negatively though they are the reason why her skin and hair seem to reflect a bit of light, making them faintly glow.

I’d say it was our seventh month on Equestrian soil (well Zed’s fourth or fifth one) when something we had never planned for happened.

While I was working on one of my experiments, Zed picked up something on the UAV. He immediately rushed to me and showed me the video footage.

There was some sort of odd signal emanating from a creature but we could not see where it was.

That was not the issue.

There was a little filly in the area and the signal seemed to be heading in its direction.

Zed had no idea what to do. If that was a monster, she would be defenseless and probably killed but we were under oath not to get involved. In fact doing so risked exposing us to all of Equestria, risking first contact, and ruining our studies prematurely.

Of course, for me, it took two seconds to make a decision. No one was going to stop me if I broke protocol. I donned my armor, activated its boosters and headed straight for the filly. There was no chance I would let her die if I could do something about it.

Unfortunately, back then, I relied on my technology. I was certainly no fighter. The first thing I did was grab what I saw as the nearest weapon off of the table. It was an Equestrian sickle.

If anyone knows what a sickle is they know how, above all else, it is a farming tool and not a weapon. In fact, it probably would have been a better idea to bring the metal pipe that was sitting right next to the sickle but, when you are panicking, rational thought is the last thing your brain finds important.

Regardless, I left and told Zed to activate and bring the other robots. We hoped they would serve, if nothing else, as a good distraction. They were not built for combat and would not last long against a serious threat.

Actually, thinking back to it now, our whole battle plan was stupid.

Zed, the android who was training himself in various forms of combat and was overbuilt to withstand high-stress forces and had combat armor and basic weapons programming, was the one who stayed back to activate the robots. I, being a scientist who had only had my last basic combat training well over half a year ago, was the one going to fight a deadly monster when I could have stayed behind to start the androids just as well. He was also faster than me so would have been able to respond to the situation quicker.

Hindsight might be 20/20 but foresight should at least be 20/200.

Well that was what we did and obviously I’m not dead. I guess it could have been worse.

By the time I arrived the situation was thus: The area was a barren grassy field. Near the center there was a white unicorn filly and a giant skeletal snake (a basilisk) coming out of the ground. I was equipped with my aforementioned Armor Incorporated recon armor (this model was designed for non-military personal in a combat situation) in order to greatly boost my speed and strength. I was wielding my, also aforementioned, sickle. I had a few items on me that I normally use for experiments.

The snake did not seem to notice the filly or was ignoring it. For a split second I thought it was just a close call.

Then the filly magically generated these metal spikes and shot them at the skeleton.

The spikes jammed into the creature. It did not do much aside from grab the undead basilisk’s attention. Knowing what would happen, I yelled at her to run and dashed over as fast as I could. Far from being afraid, the pony began to create another set of spikes when the snake glared at her.

The one completed spike fell to the ground. Life began to drain from her.

In one swift motion I lunged in front of her (breaking its line of sight with her and reversing the process) grabbed the metal spike, pivoted, and threw both my sickle and the spike with enough force and precision to lodge the spike within the thing’s skull and the sickle between the bones of the neck.

Of course, this only angered the monster and it roared at me (not sure how it does that without vocal cords but… magic!) I scooped up the filly and tried to run away as fast as I could.

Unfortunately, not only was she struggling, but I used up all the power of my boosters and now the armor was weighing me down. The basilisk slithered in front of me (leaving a trail of poison in its wake) and struck me with its tail. I was thrown I’d say forty meters into a boulder. The armor absorbed most of the blow and my body absorbed most of the remaining impact meaning the filly was fine.

I don’t remember much at that point. I was not knocked out but my adrenaline was pumping so much I lost myself in the moment.

Luckily, because I was doing an experiment, I had my audio recorder on me and I neglected to turn it off. Because of that I was able to piece together most of what happened.

The filly had, by now, deduced that I was on her side. Once again, I told her to run. She yelled “NO” back at me.

The snake probably thought it killed us but her voice made it realize its mistake.

Reacting quickly, the filly surrounded us in a metal wall which nearly exhausted her completely but kept us safe for the moment as the basilisk could not break through the barrier no matter how much it tried. She asked who I was. I said I was Stratos Lucid, a human scientist (I had to take off my helmet to show her I was not just some sort of construct). I in turn asked what she was doing here and, after she got over the shock that I was a human, she told me she was there to slay the “bone snake.”

I shelved the question of “why?” for now and focused on just defeating the creature or escaping.

I said we would have to pool our talents to survive this adding that, because of my origin, I was immune to its abilities, which is why its death-gaze did not affect me (actually the gaze hurt a lot but it didn’t kill me) and explained that I was not a fighter.

She agreed to work with me. She told me her name was Esper Teach. The filly added that she could create metal but she was not used to using this ability in combat.

Before we could think of anything else, the basilisk came up from underground to swallow us and the metal barrier whole.

Esper magically exploded the metal barrier, damaging the undead skeleton’s mouth. I picked her up, pushed off of a piece of metal in midair, and jumped what must have been ten meters away. I now realize that this was the first time I had instinctively used some of this world's passive magical abilities for humans. Problem was, I was not used to moving that far or that fast and my resulting landing was less than graceful. Nonetheless, Esper and I quickly recovered from that impact and found the nearest source of cover.

Luckily, before anything else could happen Zed arrived with the pony androids and service droids. Zed leaped into the air, activated his boosters, and punched the thing’s skull with enough force to lift the entire body off the ground, toss it sideways, and stun it. (He also damaged his left arm.) That done, he rushed over to us hiding in a ditch while the robots served as a distraction.

Zed: Stratos, is the filly safe?

Esper: I’m Esper!

Stratos: Yes. My suit’s out of power. The basilisk is too fast, we can’t escape.

(One of the androids was crushed.)

Esper: Those ponies-

Stratos: Aren’t real, they’re machines.

Zed: Plug in a droid power cell.

Stratos: Thought of that, not enough power for a run back. It would run out. We need to kill it.

(A droid crashed into the basilisk and exploded cracking some of its bones.)

Stratos: Did you put explosives in them?

Zed: Yes. How do we kill something that is undead?

Esper: Destroy the head.

Zed: Why would that work?

(More explosions.)

Stratos: Have a better idea?

Zed: … No. Two android, three service remain.

Stratos: I’m going to decapitate it.

Zed: It has no ligaments.

Esper: How can I help?

Zed: You should stay-

Stratos: We need her. Esper, Zed is an android and is a lot stronger, faster, and more accurate than me.

(Which is probably why he should have been the one attacking it and not me.)

Stratos: Zed, Esper can create simple metal structures. The snake’s gaze is not instantly fatal. You two distract it. Kamikaze the bots. Let’s go.

As I said, I do not fully remember what happened but Zed and Esper do. Apparently, I was very impressive, we all were.

Esper and Zed jumped up. Zed threw a rock through the thing’s neck while Esper generated more spears to throw. The basilisk wanted to attack them but the remaining robots we had rammed into the creature at full force and exploded.

Meanwhile, I ran forward, scooped up two power cells from fallen androids, and stuck them into my suit, reactivating it.

Zed dodged its attacks. He nimbly ducked, side-stepped, and rolled away from each bite, tail swipe, and poison spit. Naturally, its gaze did not work on a machine.

Esper launched another wave of metal spears into the skeleton angering and distracting it.

I jumped over the surrounding poison and landed on its back. I ran up its spine as fast as I could toward the base of its neck. The thing turned to me.

Esper generated a heavy ball of metal and threw it towards Zed. Zed jumped and kicked the sphere towards the creature, scoring a direct hit on the side of the undead snake’s face confusing it for a moment.

I leaped up onto its upper neck, grabbed the sickle I had lodged in there at the beginning of the fight, and wrenched the farming tool back through the bones. It was more my suit-enhanced strength than actual cutting that did the trick as the bones shattered under the force and the head fell from the body.

Not taking any chances, I jumped away from the falling neck, overloaded my boosters and stomped down on the skull, smashing it to pieces.

With the skull gone and the rest of the body heavily damaged, the rest of the undead basilisk finally fell apart and “died.”

It’s amazing how fast it happened. The end of our talk to the crushing of the skull happened in what certainly less than forty seconds. Possibly even less than twenty.

But we won. Against all odds an android, a scientist, and a filly unicorn, backed up with weak non-combat machines, managed to take down an undead legendary creature whose gaze could kill.

So, perhaps needless to say, we spent the few moments jumping up and down with joy at our victory.

Then, we had a few things to clear up.

Stratos: Alright, that’s enough. Zed, go get the important parts to take back the base.

Zed: They are all important; we can’t replicate any of it yet.

Stratos: Then get the most important ones.

Zed: Right.

Stratos: Now, Esper.

Esper: Yes?

Stratos: What are you doing here?

Esper: I should ask you the same thing, humans aren’t supposed to exist.

Stratos: You sound very smart for a filly.

Esper: … I study in my free time. I won’t tell you anything until I know I can trust you.

Stratos: Fair enough. Hopefully this isn’t too complicated for you. It would take too long to tell you the whole story but I came to this world with others to study an alternate reality. When we discovered your species inhabited this one we decided to study it. We were quite impressed and decided to leave. Even knowing they might never come back and I would be stranded, I stayed behind to study your species and civilization.

Esper: Why?

Stratos: Many reasons. My species is ailing. I think we can learn something from yours.

Esper: Wait, you’re an alien?

Stratos: I come from another reality but yes I still fit under that classification. By the way, as I said, I was the only one who stayed behind. I created Zed to be my companion. Zed is an android, meaning he looks like a human but is actually a robot.

Esper: Humans can create artificial intelligences?

Stratos: Yes. Now tell me why you are here.

Esper: I told you already, to kill the monster.

Stratos: Let me rephrase that. You knew how dangerous the thing was. Why did you risk your life?

Esper: … It’s not worth talking about it.

Stratos: Trust me, I have plenty of time.

Esper: I wanted to be a hero.

Stratos: By getting yourself killed?

Esper: Those who die fighting monsters are still heroes.

*PAUSE* (The implications of those words terrified me.)

Stratos: Esper, you knew you were going to die fighting it?

Esper: …

Stratos: You were trying to kill yourself. Why would you do that!?

*She began to cry*

Esper: You-you sh-should stay away from m-m-me.

(I tried to go to her side to comfort her.)

Stratos: What’s wrong? Please tell me.

(She backed away)

Esper: No, no, no. Please stay away.

Stratos: I won’t unless you tell me.

Esper: I’m cursed!

Stratos: Well then good news, humans aren’t affected very well by magic or curses.

Esper: You d-don’t understand! Everypony who stays around me, gets sick and dies. My parents, my friends, Ms. Fleur. Everypony at the orphanage has to stay away from me or the curse will get them.

Stratos: Couldn’t it be a coincidence?

(Yeah, that was a stupid line.)

Esper: No! I studied everything. I looked for anti-cruse remedies, magical shields, and scientific explanations. Nothing worked! Nothing explains it! Too many ponies try to help me and die because they didn’t believe me. I study and practice my magic alone. Everyone’s afraid of me. They should be! I don’t want to hurt anypony anymore.

Stratos: So you attacked a basilisk.

Esper: It was terrorizing our town. Stealing everyone’s souls. I knew if I killed it, they would live again. Everypony was too afraid. I wasn’t… Hopefully, they think I died killing it. I can’t return. I don’t want to return.

*PAUSE*

(In that silence, I noticed something.)

Stratos: What the heck? Why is my Geiger counter going off?

(My audio recorder was not the only thing that was left on but I was too focused on the battle to notice the fuzzy ticking. It took me moments to connect the dots. For the time being I decided to hide my unfortunate conclusions.)

Stratos: Esper, you have a unique ability I have yet to see anywhere else.

Esper: The metal?

Stratos: Yes, could you please create a shard for me right now.

(She did so and I picked it up. I waved my personal Geiger counter over it and it went crazy.)

Stratos: Esper, how often do you create this metal?

Esper: Ever since I was a little filly. It’s my special ability. It was the one thing I was proud of and could make me happy. I showed it off to everypony. Is something wrong?

(I tried to think of something positive to say.)

Stratos: This is radioactive. Radiation isn’t normally that dangerous. Especially not alpha radiation.

(And suddenly, something else clicked in my brain and I forgot all about her mistake.)

Stratos: Wait a second, this is radioactive! Holy… this is radioactive! Equestrian physics are different but this is similar to alpha particles. Esper, this is amazing!

Esper: That’s a good thing?

Stratos: It’s a great thing! Zed and I have had power issues. We keep having to make trips to the generator but we could build a small power station.

*I picked her up and spun her around*

Stratos: We can create nuclear power! Clean, safe, nuclear power! YesyesyesYES! Esper, would you please come back with us for a bit?

Esper: Are-are you sure?

*I put her down and patted her on the head*

Stratos: Yes! Trust me. It’s not a curse, it's radioactivity. It’s just radioactive, no big deal. There are ways to deal with it even if it were more dangerous.

Esper: *She began to panic* S-Stra-Stratos.

Stratos: Kind of weird though. Alpha particles are highly radioactive.

Esper: Stratos.

Stratos: They expend all their energy on the immediate air around them.

Esper: *She began to cry again* Stratos!

Stratos: My Geiger counter shouldn’t be able to pick that up unless it was near.

Esper: Stratos please listen!

Stratos: What?

Esper: You’re bleeding.

(I looked down and indeed saw blood running down a metal shard jabbing upward through the armor and into my stomach.)

Stratos: *Still jolly* Oh. That explains it. When the battle began I threw a metal shard into its skull. When I stomped down on that skull I must’ve jammed that piece through my armor. That’s gotta be like a one in a thousand chance. No wonder my Geiger counter is going off.

Esper: Don’t you need help?

Stratos: Yeah, that would be good. Hey Zed!

Zed: Yeah? *drops all of the scrap* Oh crap.

Stratos: I appear to have stabbed myself with a piece of radioactive metal. I require immediate medical attention. When you have a moment, could you please get on that?

Esper: Are you all right?

Stratos: It doesn’t hurt, but yeah, I’m going to—

Esper: Stratos!

And that was when I died.

Nah, just kidding. That would have been terribly inconvenient.

I passed out but I survived. The recon armor was able to stabilize me enough that Zed could get me back to the base in time. Zed and the medical devices were able to take care of me. I only needed to replace a kidney, some of my intestines, part of my liver, and patch a hole in my stomach. No big deal really.

I woke up about a day later. I was surprised to see both Zed and Esper by my bedside. Zed had agreed to allow her to stay with us, if only until I recovered.

It took another day before I was healed enough to walk again. So in the meantime I told Esper everything. Sadly, I didn’t catch that on tape but I do remember the gist of it.

I told her about radioactivity, how average Equestrians couldn’t have known about it and that while it was fine in small doses (it is everywhere after all) her constant use of it likely gave everyone around her radiation poisoning. That was a very hard moment for her, but not as bad as you might expect. She was already blaming herself for what was happening so all this did was confirm her suspicions. She asked why she was fine and I told her about Chernobyl. I didn’t remember the full story but one of the Soviet firefighters had a genetic immunity (or high resistance) to ionizing radiation. He was fine but when he threw his clothes out, his son kept the hat. His son died of brain cancer. Even though he was immune, his family was not.

That explanation brought a question to her mind. What kind of place did I come from?

So I told her. I told her about Earth (well, the Earth of humanity,) I told her about humans. I told her about the bad things. I told her about natural disasters, the savage animals, the poisonous plants, pollution, disease, death, war, famine, genocide, the corruption, the poverty, the hatred, the indifference. Knowing how I was back then, I no doubt exaggerated. I did not mention any of the good things. I was not the kind of person to think they existed. The closet positive I had was that, no matter what happened, for better or for worse, (and for me it was worse) humanity always survived.

By the end she was crying, asking how she could help.

I told her exactly what the council said. There was very little that could be done but that this was also the reason why I was here. For some reason, Equestria was a paradise compared to Earth. I said that there must be a reason for it and hopefully my discoveries could be brought back and used by Earth. She accepted that response.

From there, we just talked. About our lives, our past, our dreams (she wanted to be a writer and a scientist, fancy that) and about anything really. Sadly, Zed wasn’t there to talk with us. He was making another trip to the thermal generators.

Still, it felt liberating to talk with someone new. And when she fell asleep by my bed, I could tell it was the first time in a long time she had been happy. I didn’t think it was possible for a filly like her to be that miserable. I guess it just goes to show even Equestria isn’t completely perfect. Not that I noticed that, nor would I for some time.

The next day, I could walk again. Well actually my recon suit was doing most of the work but still. I decided to show Esper around the facility. By this time, Zed and I had completed several automated machines and devices. We also had a nearly endless library of texts and general information. On top of that we were conducting rudimentary experiments and digging for materials. The facility was quite a sight to behold.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a filly’s eyes light up like hers did. She was amazed by all of it. It seemed so foreign and alien to her. When I told her all of it was running without magic, she was rendered speechless. Well speechless except for the fact that she asked how humans could be suffering so much if they had such wonderful creations. It was a question I always asked myself. I never had an answer, at least not one that did not involve me writing off humanity in its entirety.

I guess I must have looked angry because she immediately apologized. I said it was no big deal. She asked if there was any way she could help us. I thought about it, turned on my audio recorder, and told her to follow me.

We left the facility and traveled to what Zed and I had then recently dubbed, Sunset Hill. Zed had already finished his self-assigned work for the day and was already there. We stood there and observed the lands before us. At that time it was just a little after noon so no sunsets but it was still beautiful. It always was.

Stratos: You still don’t want to go back home do you?

Esper: No. They would still think I am cursed. And I don’t have anywhere to go.

*PAUSE*

Stratos: You know, I’ve given this a lot of thought. My studies require that I do not reveal myself to Equestria at large. I shouldn’t be in contact with the populace. At least not yet.

Esper: I see… *Esper was trying to hold back tears*

(I looked over at Zed and he nodded.)

Stratos: However, provided that you only stay with us, don’t contact the outside, and continue our studies with us. We could always use more helping hands, er, uh, hooves as it were.

(Her sniffling stopped.)

Stratos: Esper Teach, would you like to stay and be my research assistant?

(Her eyes brightened and her cutie mark appeared.)

Stratos: Oh wow.

Esper: YesyesyesyesYES!

(She tackled me in a hooved hung.)

Stratos: AH! MY STITCHES!

Esper: Oops.

Zed: Not again.

After more medical attention and some apologies, Esper joined us.

Following a return trip to the basilisk and cleaning up the area, we worked on and finished a rudimentary nuclear generator. Having completed that, our situation was even better than before. Finally, I could stop worrying about constantly maintaining the base.

Esper was great to have around. It turned out Esper could create more than just radioactive metals; she could create almost any kind of base metal including titanium or some molecules such as silicon and silicone which were very useful for future construction and electronic devices.

It was also great to have an actual Equestrian around. She told us of Equestria from a citizen’s perspective, especially of the great Princess Celestia. And she was always curious and willing to learn. We actually made several discoveries about Equestrian physics.

In turn, sometimes I would read with her or teach her anything about humanity. I tried not to be as direct as I was the first time. Equestrians have a hard time with that kind of misery. Then again, occasionally she would catch me reading Lovecraft and she would badger me into reading the stories to her. It’s not something I particularly like to do given the nature of his writings and her youth but she seemed to enjoy it.

Moving on, Zed was happy to have someone around who wanted to train with him. Esper was eager to learn combat. I guess meeting us while fighting a basilisk made an impression on her or something, she could never really explain why she wanted to do that. Regardless, we built her some combat armor.

Overall, we couldn’t be more satisfied.

There was one thing though. I still was not getting anywhere in my research. I kept hitting dead end after dead end. I just could not find any significant differences in Equestrian culture or personality that could account for their good fortunes.

There was actually something else. I was starting not to care. My life had never been so good. I was seeing positive things everywhere. I had great friends. I was making new discoveries. I was constantly building and improving my home. This was the place I wanted to be. I began to care even less about what would happen on Earth. I told myself my studies would probably amount to nothing when I began so it was no real loss.

Instead, my curiosity pointed me in another direction. I wanted to learn more about Equestria. Esper had a unique ability that seemed to be an exception to the rule. I wondered why that was and subconsciously decided that, if I could, I should catalogue and collect more oddities of Equestria. Inwardly, I had hoped that those studies could someday make me famous across the world. With the way things are currently shaping up, I’m not sure those studies will ever be released.

Nevertheless, it was not going to happen at that moment. Other things needed to be done.

You can get a lot done when you put your soul into it. It took two months when Esper was with us to get that generator up and running even though we were doing other things at the time. And after those two months, well you see Esper may have been the first pony to join us, but she most certainly was not the last. My initial studies into Equestrian culture would be effectively ended by a simple wandering pony.