Chapters Non-Sequitur Adventures of a Pair of Loose Canons.
I looked at the face of the worst enemy I ever had and immediately was overcome with rage. Of all the people to get sent to this world other then me it HAD to be Cain. I knew he would be up to his old tricks again so I quickly worked out a myriad of responses I could give to maintain the credibility I had with my friends. I couldn't be sure what sort of lies Cain had been spouting off, or god forbid he changed in the last few months and started telling the truth, so I knew I would have to take a reactionary stand. As
"Well look what we have here. It's been awhile hasn't it Cean?"
"It has hasn't it? I didn't know you got sent here too. How long have you been here?" I noticed a glint of hatred sneak past Cain's poker face.but he continued on as if all was well.
"Oh I've been here for a few weeks now. I just got to Ponyville a couple hours ago or so. I've been here chatting with Twilight and her friends since they all gathered up here!"
"Really? Well welcome to Ponyville. It's a shame you didn't show up around here. I would have been able to help you get acquainted with the place!"
At that moment Rainbow Dash spoke up saying, "See Cain?! I told you Cean wasn't a jerk. I'm sure whatever got between you two in the past is water under the bridge to him."
Hah. Stupid Cain you must be slipping. You didn't really think I'd show up guns blazing did you? "I'm hurt. Here we are in a totally new world and yet you still hate me Cain? I was hoping we could be friends but I guess if you're still up to your same old tricks it'll be hard to get through to you." Check. and. mate.
"I guess this place changed you too then. The Cean I remember absolutely hated me for no reason at all." You clever girl.
It was at that moment that a light of realization dawned on Twilight as she caught the meaning of my statement. Oh thank god I thought she missed that. "Wait, Cean, what did you mean when you said he's up to his same old tricks?"
I saw, much to my pleasure, Cain seethe with anger. Unfortunately he hid it quickly and as everypony in the room was looking at me, only I noticed. I weighed my options and decided to continue with being vague in an effort to reduce his credibility while restoring my own which he had tried to break. "Well don't let this ruin your opinion of him, but back on our old world Cain and I were at odds with each other almost constantly because his morals were considerably looser then mine. He is right though in that I changed since I got here. I became unquestionably forgiving of past mistakes because of how much of a turnaround Discord and Chrysalis made."
Pinkie, who up to this point had been remarkably silent finally exploded in a fury of excitement and barely understandable gibberish. I took that as my cue to let Twilight know I was going to type out my report of what I found in the Everfree and she was welcome to join me if she wanted to. I left Cain at the mercy of whoever decided to remain in the room with him, knowing he had no chance of ruining my credibility at this point. I walked back to my room of the library, set my laptop up, and prepared to actually type things out when she walked in to the room and closed the door with her magic.
"Alright Cean you never EVER type out your reports. You always just let everypony who wants to watch your memories directly. What's wrong that you wanted to speak to me alone?"
I sighed and smiled at how perceptive Twilight had become over the last few months. Looking up at her with a calm expression I closed my eyes and said, "well... it's because I'm worried Cain is going to do something really really bad. When I said he had loose morals back on our world that was a partial lie. He is, simply put, a horrible person. When I mentioned we were at odds with each other that was also a partial lie. He used and manipulated whoever he needed to to get ahead in life and even went so far as to blackmail people. When I was introduced to him I immediately listed him as public enemy number one and I ended up getting him expelled. I don't know what happened to him after that but I imagine he made a name for himself in some sort of illegal dealings. It would definitely fit his Modus operandi."
Silence reigned between us and I plastered a look of regret on my face as I opened my eyes. Twilight saw my expression and immediately moved forward to embrace me. "It's ok Cean. I guess I can help you deal with him... How do we deal with him?"
I returned Twilight's embrace and thought for a minute. How do we actually deal with him? I was completely unaware that other humans were even being sent to Equestria. I'll have to talk to Celestia and make sure she lets me know... Wait that's it! It dawned on me that there was a very simple solution to solve this mess. All I had to do is get Celestia to look through his memories of Equestria. I had no idea though what his abilities were since he already had a crystal lattice much like my own on his arm... only his was red instead of blue like mine. He didn't have a destiny brand though so I knew he hadn't discovered the focus of his powers yet.
Non-Sequitur Adventures of a Pair of Loose Canons.
"Everyone run. I'll hold off Sombra for as long as I have to. Just make sure you get something hot for me to drink ready once I'm done here."
The ponies and Spike, upon seeing my expression, listened to my order unquestioningly. The only one who elected to stick around was Shining Armor but he was a big Colt with an OP shield so I figured he'd be able to take care of himself. I closed my eyes, gathered my power, and unleashed a torrent of water which encased the ghastly form of Sombra in ice. Unfortunately, he passed through it without effort and so I decided a more hands on approach. I help my left hand to the sky and recited the chant to summon my bio-crystal armor and various bio-crystal blades. Huh... I'm a crystal warrior fighting to protect the crystal kingdom... I hope the others appreciate the coincidence.
You're welcome
Sister! Don't distract the poor man.
Oh come -on-! You don't have the time to see to this yourself but you -do- have the time to watch me every step of the way? And Loony what are you even awake for? It's mid day!
Oh shove it where it hurts Sparkles I'm only awake because I wanted to make sure you're ok.
My dear sister, I believe you're the one distracting him now.
Nah s'all good. It'll take more then an inner trialogue to distract me. Human mental power remember? And besides, you're just jealous because I haven't given you a mildly offensive pet name!
I hope you have plans to remedy that?
Aww I'm touched... No, really I just got stabbed in the arm. Give me a sec?
I dodged away from Sombra a few meters so I could run some healing water over my wound. After it was repaired and I got over the excruciating pain that accompanied it, I decided I'd have to do something about upgrading my armor so it wouldn't leave such large areas of skin uncovered. Though as I charged back into the fray like an avenging angel I reckoned if it would even be possible. There was an intervention at that moment which came in the form of Shining blasting Sombra with his magic. A large piece of him broke off and flew towards the Unicorn who failed to react quickly enough to avoid it. When the shadow melted from his body his horn was left with jagged black crystals poking out from the top of it. He tried to cast a spell but the crystals blocked his horn from being able to be used.
"Shining go back with the others and figure out a way to break the hold those crystals have over you. I'll need your shields up ASAP for a plan of mine." Shining nodded and swiftly ran off. Happy that he completely fell for my lie I got back into the thick of things.
That was almost too good.
I know right? Sad thing is I was actually kind of glad to have his support.
Whatever response was given to me was lost because at that moment I was pulled from the snow filled north and dropped into an endless black abyss. I looked around but alas I saw nothing. Behind me, a deep rumble of a voice said, "welcome to my dominion."
"Yea whatever Satan. Nice illusion you have here!" The voice was the last piece I needed to know that this was all fake. Not only was it always behind me no matter which direction I faced, but it was deep dark and scary sounding. I spoke up once more saying, "so hey, how connected are our minds right now? If I pushed hard enough could I get into yours?"
An even deeper rumbling of a laugh broke the "scene" around me and I was met with Sombra himself, only far bigger then he had any right to be. "Foolish mortal. The likes of you could never even break from my hold much less break into my mind. Give in to despair and perish."
I laughed myself and, with the brightest smile I could manage on my face I said "Dude, you have no idea who you're messing with right now."
"Well that trip was anti-climatic. But at least I passed my test by finding the crystal heart! How did you even beat Sombra anyway Cean?" The girls, Spike, all the princesses, Shining and I were chilling at the Crystal Palace enjoying the fair. Once they realized what happened they immediately pawned off their duties to the nearest noble and teleported to the Crystal Empire.
"He engaged me in mental warfare. Since he was basically a ghost as soon as I broke his mind he kind of stopped existing."
"I must say Cean. Your powers when it comes to the realm of the mind continues to surprise and even scare me. I remember when my sister and I fought him he had us both trapped for quite awhile. If it wasn't for Luna's natural affinity to dream walking I fear all would have been lost at that moment."
"Hey it's like I always say; humans are OP."
Non-Sequitur Adventures of a Pair of Loose Canons.
"Tell me Celestia, what would it take for you to lose all hope? To know that you are truly and completely powerless to stop me?"
"You could never push me to such an extreme. Even if my celestial given powers fail to stop you, the power of the elements will no matter what it takes."
"The elements and sun, huh? Very well then. I suppose I'll just have to delete them all."
The sun princess looked at me with a quizzical expression, "Delete? What could you possibly mean by that?"
I smirked and letting out a small chuckle I responded, "You know, I'm really tired of explaining things so I'll just let this next part surprise you."
I focused my power into my left hand, and raising it in an arcing motion towards the sun I snapped and let loose a beam of energy that shot towards the sun. As the seconds went bye it slowly began to disintegrate into nothingness. Celestia watched it dissapear before her eyes and once more I repeated the motion only towards Ponyville. Six multicolored ponies appeared in the throne room and as Celestia looked towards them in horror they too began to began to break apart at a molecular level. As an after thought I stasis locked the majority of her body, leaving only her ability to speak and hear unaffected.
"What reason could you possibly have," said the alicorn with tears in her eyes, "to doom this world and destroy my most precious student and her friends?"
I responded with a gentle rhythm to my voice saying, "It's simple. The amount of time this demonstration took will not even exceed half an hour within the flow of time. This was the fastest way I could think of that would give me your complete and total cooperation because I alone won't be able to do what's needed to save this dimension."
Celestia responded in muted rage, "save? You've been here for not even ten minutes and you've destroyed our life giving sun and killed six of my little ponies."
I smirked, knowing that now was the time to reveal my secret "You know... I can do more then just delete things. I can transport the two of us backwards through time. It won't do anything to stall the coming crisis since all time is linked but it will undo the horrible things I just did."
At that, I undid my stasis, which was immediately followed by the princess collapsing. "So you mean to tell me this will all have been just a horrible nightmare?"
I thought for a second, before responding "Kind of. Think of it this way, I'm plucking the two of us out of this world, then switching our places with a pair of us on another world that's exactly 30 minutes in the past, then destroying this world that we're now on— or rather, it'll be more like this world never even existed."
"Do you mean to tell me you'll then be killing everything on this planet?"
I shrugged, and said, "well, if you want to put it that way then I've killed myself hundreds if not thousands of times, including people that I would willingly give my life if it meant preserving theirs. It's about time we depart though. You'll be seeing me again... hopefully with me being on good terms with your 'little ponies'. If things do go south though I'll be needing you to bail me out and assist me in gaining the trust and friendship of your subjects."
"What... what use could you possibly have for the friendship of my subjects?"
I smiled knowingly, and said "Simple. I'm actually a really nice guy when I have the time for it. I have a time limit of exactly one week from the moment I jumped to this dimension to make my preparations. Had I ignored this crucial step that week and more could have been wasted just gaining your trust. By then it would have been too late and I would have had no allies to assist me when the darklings come."
"I think... I think I understand now. I've gone through this horrible experience so the rest of my subjects won't have to."
I smiled and said, "Exactly right! It really is time for us to move on though. Every minute counts after all!"
And with that said, I focused my power one last time and turned back the clock on all but Celestia and I. As the world around us shifted in an instant I sent myself to the Everfree forest and emerged from the woods, battered, lost, and with all my memories sealed for three short days.