In 2157, ponykind discovered it was not alone in the universe.

Thirty years later, they found a peaceful place among dozens of galactic species. But this idyllic future is overshadowed by a dark past: Reapers, a sentient race of machines responsible for cleansing the galaxy of all organic life every 50,000 years, are about to return. The leaders of the galaxy are paralyzed by indecision, unable to accept the legend of the Reapers as fact. But one soldier has seen the legend come to life.

After a long fought battle, rife with conflict, sacrifice, and unsatisfactory endings, hope for ponykind continues. The greatest minds of the Alliance put together a program to explore uncharted galaxies, establish new colonies, and make a new home for the equine, asari, turian, and salarian people. This program was called the Andromeda Initiative. Led each by a Pathfinder, the greatest soldiers, scientists, and adventurers the Alliance had to offer boarded their Arks and began their 600 year journey to the Andromeda Galaxy.

The pony Ark, the Hyperion, arrives in the Heleus Cluster, and the automatic thawing systems begin waking passengers to start the process of colonizing Habitat-7, the first of many so-called “Golden Worlds” that will form the foundation of the Milky Way’s new civilization in Andromeda.

Octavia Ryder, daughter of the pony Pathfinder, awakens from sleep, ready to get her fins wet in a brand new galaxy.

Wait, wait, fins?

Octavia gasped, sitting up suddenly in her cot. Due to her massive size and poor design of the Hyperion’s medbay, Octavia slammed her head against the top of the ship. She swore loudly, but her words were not understood by most ponies, for she spoke not Equus, the universal language of the pony’s homeworld. Indeed, it would be strange if Octavia did speak Equus, for she was not born on the planet’s surface. Octavia did not speak Equus, the language of ponies, for she was not a pony.

Octavia was shark, and, logically, spoke Sharklish.

“Careful, Ryder,” said Lexi, the Hyperion’s head doctor. She was an asari, a beautiful being that resembled a pony save for her hairless blue skin and tendril-like appendages that resembled a mane. “You just woke up, don't move too quickly. You'll hurt yourself.”

Octavia let out a garbled, growling snap, baring her countless razor-sharp teeth.

“Heheh. Assessment first, coffee later, Ryder,” said Lexi. “Follow my hoof.” Lexi brought her hoof up to Octavia’s face and moved it left, then right, then up and down.

Since Octavia was a shark, and her eyes were on the side of her head, she couldn't actually see Lexi’s hoof and instead flailed wildly. She snapped her jaws and growled, swinging her tailfin beneath her.

“No, Ryder, I don't think it's strange that all aliens look like beautiful Equus women,” sighed Lexi. She knew where this was going.

Octavia flopped out of her bed, flailing over to Lexi a slapping her flank with a fin. She snapped and growled, winking her shark eyes (Lexi wasn't even aware that sharks had eyelids).

“Yes, Ryder, I am blue ‘down there’, too, if that's what you're asking,” sighed Lexi. If Octavia wasn't the Pathfinder’s daughter… Lexi still probably wouldn't say anything, because Octavia was a goddessdamn shark and Lexi very much enjoyed being uneaten. Octavia growled, arching her eyebrow seductively (sharkductively, as she said).

“No, Ryder, I do not want to shag a shark. It's unprofessional. Unethical. And it's physically impossible. You'd crush me.” Octavia growled, low and gravelly. “That is not a euphemism! In any case… You appear to be good to go. I just need to have SAM give you a once-over… SAM?”

“THIS PASSENGER IS A SHARK,” said the robotic voice of the Hyperion’s top-of-the-line, flawless, super-ethical AI SAM.

“Alright, then. You're free to go, Ryder.” Lexi tapped her forehoof, which became wrapped with the orange interface of her Omni-Tool. “Your father and Vinyl just got out of cryo, and they'll want to see you.”

Octavia nodded, flopping across the floor and attempting to romance every living, breathing thing that she came across. She arrived at a tram system and stepped into a car. Once the screaming had subsided (she assured them that her authorization would clear her, she was the Pathfinder’s daughter), she zipped through the station and to another part of the Ark. She flopped out, down the long corridor, finally stopping at a door labelled “PATHFINDER’S QUARTERS”. Octavia activated her Omni-Fin and the door slid open with an audible hiss.

Octavia flopped herself through the doorway, just barely squeezing through the frame that was (quite rudely) not designed with the massive girth of the Pathfinder’s daughter in mind. She managed to get in with all of her scales still attached, almost running over (and subsequently crushing) her twin sister.

As far as twins go, Octavia and Vinyl bore very little resemblance. Vinyl Ryder was a smallish white unicorn with dark, red eyes that she inherited from her father. Her hair was spiky and blue, and gave her the appearance of having just been recently struck by lightning.

Octavia, on the other hand (Hoof? Fin? Let's go with fin) was many times larger than her sister, and unquantifiably more shark-y. Octavia was a cold, clammy grey, with a wig of straight, tidy black hair. Around her neck was a pinkish bow tie (nopony really knew where the Ryders had found a bow tie that could fit a shark).

“Yo,” said Vinyl. “Sup, sis?”

Octavia snapped and rolled, flopping around on the floor.

“Damn, that sucks. Well, can't win em all,” sighed Vinyl. “There are plenty of asari in Andromeda. You'll find your gal.”

Octavia slapped the ground with her tailfin, then nibbled lightly on Vinyl’s hoof (which only made her bleed a little).

“Heh. We shouldn't. Sisters and all,” said Vinyl, her face blooming distinctly red. “Maybe when we're settled on 7. Anyway, Dad’s in bed. I feel like there was something I was supposed to tell you…”

Octavia flopped forward, slowly pulling herself into the room. Vinyl walked with her, trying desperately to remember what she needed to say.

“It had something to do with Dad…”

The two walked (or flopped) into the bedroom proper. It was a stunning, sleek sleeping area, with a large closet set into the wall and an array of the finest tech the Alliance had to offer. The wall furthest from the door was actually a screen that could project the background of any environment the owner wished. In the center of the room was a lush, extravagant bed.

And, laying atop that bed in a pool of blood, was a grey-ish pony with red eyes and a large stab wound in the chest.

“Oh yeah, I remember now,” said Vinyl. “Dad’s dead.”

Octavia flopped across the floor, laying across her dad's chest. She sobbed salty, sharky tears for her deceased father. Vinyl sighed, patting her gently on the shoulder (do sharks have shoulders? I dunno, probably).

“Shhh, it's okay, ‘Tavia,” said Vinyl. “Dad would want us to be stronger. Preferably stronger than the knife that stabbed him.”

Octavia slapped the bed with her fins, snapping her jaws and nibbling at her father's hooves.

“Octavia, he's not coming back, no matter how hard you try to romance him,” said Vinyl. “And, even though you just found out literally forty-eight seconds ago, you've got to learn to get past it. We owe it to him.”

Octavia nodded weakly, but continued nibbling on her father's leg. Though she mourned his passing, Octavia wasn't a wasteful shark, and to let all this delicious pony go bad was unthinkable.

“So, yeah, Dad’s dead. And, since I was born thirty-seven seconds before you, I guess that means I'm the Pathfinder now,” said Vinyl. “Rad! Uh… rad that I'm Pathfinder, not that Dad got stabbed. That kinda sucks.”

“Vinyl… Octavia…”

The Ryder sisters gasped in shock. Somehow, beyond all logic and reason, despite having a gaping wound in his chest and a half-chewed leg, their father lived.

“Girls… come closer…” gasped Ryder Sr.

“How are you still alive?” asked Vinyl. “I stabbed the everliving fuck out of you.” Her eyes darted nervously. “Uh… I mean… Whoever attacked you stabbed the everliving fuck out of you. I wouldn't dream of stabbing my own father just to become Pathfinder. That's crazy!”

Ryder Sr. was so focused on not dying that he didn't even notice his daughter's inadvertent confession.

“Girls… my time is short… I won't make it to Habitat 7…” breathed Ryder Sr. Octavia grabbed her forehoof in her flippers, thrashing wildly in despair. “No, Octavia, we can't hook up. Stop trying to romance me and listen… The Hyperion needs a new Pathfinder…”

“Oh, if that's what you're worried about, don't sweat it,” said Vinyl. “I kinda already got that covered, you can go back to being dead now.”

“Octavia… You must take my place…”

“WHAT THE FUCK?!”

Octavia nodded sadly, understanding the gravity of the situation. Then, she went back to nibbling on her father.

“That's… my girl…” And, with that, the Hyperion’s original Pathfinder was dead. Vinyl paced back and forth, running her hoof through her mane uneasily. This was not what she expected. She needed to find a way to get Octavia to give up her status as Pathfinder.

“Alright, alright, this is okay,” said Vinyl. “I can work with this… So, ‘Tavia, what do you plan to do first as Pathfinder? You’ve got complete control over SAM, where we go, what we do. We could start thawing people out of cryo, or start scanning Habitat-7, or give Vinyl control over the Hyperion…”

Octavia flopped onto her back, flipping her tailfin in the air. Vinyl’s eyes went wide in shock.

“W-wait, what? ‘Tavia, you can’t romance the entire station! It’s not possible!”

Octavia flipped her tail more rigorously, slapping the floor with her flippers. She chomped onto her dead father’s legs and pulled one clean off then chewed it thoughtfully as she wriggled out of the room.

“Uh… You’re not actually gonna try, are you?” asked Vinyl. “That’s just a metaphor, right? Please tell me you’re not going to try to fuck the whole ship!”

Octavia gave no answer as she departed from the Pathfinder’s quarters, with the goal of fucking the whole ship in mind.

“She’s the Pathfinder… Oh, dear lord, we’re going to die…”

The Andromeda Galaxy was not a nice place.

Before the new Pathfinder could even land on Habitat-7, their ship had sailed through a massive cloud of dark energy known as The Scourge, which sent them crashing down onto the planet below. When the ponies (and shark Pathfinder) recovered from the impact, they realized very quickly that the supposed “Golden World” was anything but golden. The atmosphere was all wrong, and the entire planet was in some sort of perpetual storm that shouldn’t have been possible.

Then, there were the locals. A race of very impolite, unromancable aliens called the kett. They weren’t the most attractive of aliens, but Octavia was willing to look past that for the sake of harmony in a new galaxy. But, unfortunately, the kett had no desire to have any relationship with a shark, romantic or otherwise. Still, Octavia found a way to neutralize that particular threat.

After dealing with the kett (she ate them. All of them. It took several hours), Octavia flopped around in search of a way to solve the problem of the planet’s atmosphere being mostly poisonous. She discovered a ruins of sort, where she was attacked by a swarm of robots with the very creative, original, not-on-the-nose name of The Remnant. After she consumed the robots, Octavia found a Remnant computer that, for some reason, could fix the atmosphere problem. So, a literal wave of the fin later, that issue was solved.

Finally, was the politics. The Hyperion eventually stumbled across the other arks and, to the surprise of literally nobody, the four races immediately began bickering like children. Instead of deciding how they’d survive in this strange, terrifying new galaxy, they bitched about who was in charge and whether the next outpost should be for science or military and what to serve in the cafeteria (the ponies were getting sick and tired of turian worms and grubs finding their way onto the menu). Perhaps appropriately, this was the most difficult part of the job. As the pony (shark) Pathfinder, Octavia was sort of the de facto leader of the whole Initiative, regardless of what that snarky salarian said. Nothing got done unless Octavia went and did it herself, and she got blamed every time something went wrong, which were both the traits of leaders. If the kett didn’t defeat Octavia, nor the Remnant, it seemed certain that the other Andromeda Initiative races would be her doom.

Then, Octavia turned up her sharkduction.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” groaned Vinyl, slamming her head against her table. “I stabbed my dad for this?”

“Frankly, Ryder, I think stabbing your father might’ve been for the best,” said Lexi, not looking up from her datapad. “I doubt he’d have gotten us off to such a smooth start in Andromeda.”

“She romanced the entirety of the other three arks.”

“Though her methods unconventional, you cannot argue against their effectiveness.” Lexi’s datapad beeped, signaling a notification. “Oh, they’re giving her another medal. Good for her.”

“Those are supposed to be my medals…” complained Vinyl. She rested her chin on the table, wishing she could go back and somehow stop this whole thing from happening. “I should’ve stabbed her, too. Then I’d be getting all those sweet medals…”

“How did she manage to seduce all of those politicians?” asked Lexi. “She’s tried to romance me before and it’s never worked.”

“It’s ‘sharkduce’, first of all, and she has some sort of pheromone or oil or something. She calls it the Shark Effect. It also helps us move at light-speed? I dunno, Lex, and I really don’t give a shit anymore.”

“Hm… Shark Effect… That’s not a bad name,” said Lexi. “We could spin that into a PR thing. Like, the Shark Effect for Andromeda… or something.”

“Sharkdromeda, you might say,” mumbled Vinyl.

“Ooh, that’s clever. Shark Effect for Sharkdromeda.” Lexi clapped her hooves giddily. “She could run for councilwoman with that!”

Vinyl took in a deep breath through her nose, then let it out through her nose. This was the definition of absurdity. She didn’t stab her father to death just so her sister could reap all the glory.

“Alright, I just gotta know,” said Vinyl. “Am I the only one who noticed that Octavia IS A FUCKING SHARK?!?!”

“THIS PATHFINDER IS A SHARK,” noted SAM.

Vinyl sighed. It was better than nothing.

“Well, I’m gonna go see if I can stab her and become Pathfinder like that,” said Vinyl, heading for the exit. “See you around, Lex.”

Lexi looked over her datapad for a moment, mulling things over. It’d been a crazy ride from the Milky Way and, while she never would’ve picked Octavia to be Pathfinder, she had to acknowledge that she was doing an amazing job. Her methods were strange and possibly even unethical, but they worked, and that’s all that really mattered in the end.

Then, what Vinyl had said finally sank in.

“How the hell did a shark get into space?”

Author's Notes:

Writing this made me feel like I did a few lines too many of coke.

Hope you enjoyed!