The Dungeon Master of Equestria

Chapters

Finding Things Out
How Not to Begin an Adventure 101 (Part 1)
How Not to Begin an Adventure 101 (Part 2)
How Not to Begin an Adventure 101 (Part 3)
To Get What You Need and Know What You Want
The Problem with Changelings is....
..... They Are Known to Change Their Plans.
Enacting a Plan and Making Relations
How NOT to Win a Mare-athon
Remember to Gather Friends and Allies
Welcome Back to Crazy Town, Population: You Don't Want to Know
Herald of the Prophecy of Insanity
Remember to Choose Some New Powers When Leveling Up
Is That a Tesseract? No? Just a person, then.
Question Everything.
Prophecy of a Madman
Always Remember the Unspoken Rule
To Meet THAT Guy
THAT ALICORN'S A CHANGELING!
To Mess with Ponies
Miss Me Celestia?!
Why Does it Always Have to be One After Another?
A Day to Remember (Part 1)
A Day to Remember (Part 2)
A Day to Remember (Part 3)
Home is...
.... Is Not Here Anymore.
The Plan That Follows
Return of the Kind Heart
Reunion and New Friends
That One Discontinued Lego
Eridium? That Purple Stuff isn't Thaumium?
To Question the Dungeon Master
Learning to Fight a Little Dirty
So, I Heard You Like Rocks
This Sure as Hell Ain't Moria
Celestial Retribution
Aftermath
Another Mare-athon? Really?
To Deal with a Pain
Familiar Faces
The Call to Adventure
The Dragon Named After a President
Somepony Call the Plumber
(Gamma) Dragon Quest
Gravity? You mean the thing I'm lacking?
AGAIN WITH THESE JERKS?!
Crystals. Well, can't say I wasn't expecting that.
This day just gets weirder and weirder.
Date Night
Move Quickly, Small People!
How NOT to Plan a Wedding. (The Bachelor Party, Part 1)
How NOT to Plan a Wedding. (The Bachelor Party, Part 2)
How Could You Forget? (The Bachelor Party, Part 3)
The Obligatory Shitty Water Dungeon
Friend of a Friend
I'm going to RIP you a knew one.
Ben Ten Again, Hello Jason!
Vacation Over, Time to Plan That Wedding!
... Did I Win?
Have I Been Here Before?
Damn Aspects, You Scary!
What Have I Become?
ANOTHER Borderlands Guy? SWEET!
I've Been Replaced....
Let's Begin Our Tale
The First Roll
Exposition, The thing EVERY story needs.
Into the Woods
The First Encounter With the Leadership Position (a.k.a. Don't Screw This Up)
Remember to Stretch Before Your Workout.
Oh a Hunting I Will Go
Avarice, No. We Don't Do That to Friends!

Finding Things Out

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Um, hello? I asked you a question." I said indignantly after about 10 minutes of waiting for a response.

Okay, this was getting weird. First I'm teleported by some weirdo who sold me playing dice. Now I'm here on the roof of a building in a town that seems eerily familiar. Where was I? Why was I here? Why can't I remember things? But most importantly.......

"For the third and final time, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!" I screamed at the two alicorns.

"There is no need to yell. We're all friends here." said the white one.

"Finally you say something!" I said. "Now would you mind explaining everything?"

"Very well." said the blue one. "I am Princess Luna, and this is my sister, Princess Celestia."

"Princesses? I guess I'll buy that for now." I said. "Now would you please answer my question?"

"Yes." they said in unison.

........

"So?"

"So what?" Celestia asked.

"Weren't you going to answer my question?" I asked in response.

"We just did." Luna said.

"Smart asses." I mumbled to myself.

"What was that?" Celestia said.

"Nothing!" I said.

"But it sounded like-" Celestia started.

"I said nothing! ABSOLUTELY! NOTHING!" I interjected. "Now. Tell me what you want from me!"

"Fine, but be warned. You may not be ready for this" Celestia said, coming closer.

"Okay." I said. At this point she was right in front of me.

"Now, hold still" she said, leaning forward.

"What are you-" I started.

Then she touched her horn to my head.

"WHAT THE CRAP!" I said as a saw millions of images flash before my eyes.

"You told us to explain. There it is." Celestia said.

"AND WHAT, PREY TELL, WAS THAT MESS?" I screamed at her.

"Just go back and look at it." Celestia said.

"HOW?!?!?! If you haven't noticed, Prrrrrincess, I CAN'T DO THAT!" I yelled at her. "And another thing! How did you even do that? Where am I? What do those marks on you behinds mean?"

"Calm down, young dungeon master." Luna said. "We'll answer your questions. Just slow down."

"Ok. Ok. Where am I?" I asked.

"Ponyville" Luna said.

"How did you do that?" I asked.

"Magic." Celestia said.

"Ok, kinda bull, but ok. What up with the butt tattoos?" I asked.

"They're called cutie marks. They show what that pony is best at and helps to determine their destiny." Luna said.

"Ok. I have one last thing to say." I said.

"Shoot" They said in unison.

"SCREW YOU!" I said as I ran for the stairs.

"Wait!" they screamed.

"Nopenopenopenopenope!" I screamed, then ran into the hospital. Unfortunatly, when I got into the hallway, I tripped on my cloak.

"Stupid cloak!" I screamed. I voted to adjust everything in the elevator.

What a suprise. Everything under my cloak changed. Instead of what I had originally worn gone. Instead, it was all replaced with what appeared to be a hunter outfit and various weapons. What were those weapons? A longbow recurve hybrid coupled with a quiver full of arrows on my back, a knife in a bandolier holster, and a bastard sword in a sheathe.

"Well, should have seen that coming." I groaned. "First I'm stuck in magic land, now this. At least I have weapons...."

The second the elevator opened on the ground floor, I went running out with the bastard sword in hand. I only had it out so as to scare people away from me so I could get the heck out.

Next stop, giant crystal tree in the distance.

Wow, I must have been scaring them to death or something. I haven't seen a single one of those ponies since I started my trek from the hospital to the tree. I should have at least seen someone poking out.

Speak of the devil and he shall come. Or in this case, a purple as hell alicorn standing at the base of the tree-thing......

"YOU!" she screamed at me as I approached the tree.

"A good hello to you, too, Dr. Purple." I said.

"You can't just run from the princesses like that! They were just trying to help you!" she said.

"Yeah? Well it seemed to me the only type of help they were going to give me was to 'help' me get admitted to a psychiatric ward!" I yelled at the small purple alicorn. "In fact, after what that white one pulled, I think I have a migraine!"

"How dare you! You can't say something like that about Princess Celestia after she just tried to help you!" she practically screamed at me.

"NO! I'm done! You don't get to say that!" I yelled. "I've had enough of this place, and I've only been here for a few hours! I don't care what's going on! I've just had enough!" To accentuate my point, I swung my arms in an x formation.

What I did shocked me. I don't know how, but, just by doing that simple action, I had opened a portal in front of me. I did the only logical thing at the time and poked my head into it to see what was on the other side. All I saw was spacial expanse. Galaxies and galaxies..... AND SO MANY STARS! Space core would have been proud.

What I couldn't see was little miss purple having a freak out and then try to close my portal. This almost went unnoticed, instead I got shoved out of the portal right before it closed.

"What the....." I said, turning to her. I noticed that her horn was glowing and immediately put two and two together.

"HEY! You closed the portal!" I screamed at miss purple plot.

"You can't leave!" she said. "There's still too much I have to learn! And so much for you to help us with!"

"What is up with you ponies? JEEZE!" I said. "Know what? I'm out of here!" I then proceeded to attempt to open another portal. "HOW?! GRAH!"

"You won't be able to open another portal that easily. Not so long as I'm here to block you!" she said triumphantly.

"We'll see about that!" I declared defiantly. Basically, I just kept randomly reaching around until I caught my hands on something that wasn't there. Then I just 'pulled open' what I think was the fabric of space time.

Once I got it open far enough, I proudly announced to the purple pain, "Later loser!"

I had no clew where it would take me, but nonetheless I did the stupidest thing I could ever think of.......

I jumped in.

How Not to Begin an Adventure 101 (Part 1)

"Wow. This is trippy." I said. Of course, I was travelling through a portal that reminded me way too much of an iTunes visualizer. "Yep, super trippy."

The only thing I could wonder, was where was this portal taking me? I literally just opened it without thinking about it, just wanting to get away from Ms. Purple. I couldn't really even comprehend what was going on. Like, seriously, how did I do that? Where am I going? Will anyone help me?"I need help. I really need help." I said to no one. "Just let me out!"Why does the universe hate me sometimes? I ask this because just as I said that, the other end of the portal opened up.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"Ow." I groaned.Why the portal opened up ten feet above the ground, I'll never know. All I do know, is that that HURT. At least it put my cloak back on me.As I looked around I saw virtually the same thing that I tried to escape from. Except, there was no purple pony. Instead, there was… an arrow coming at my head?!?!“Get down you idiot!” said a cloaked figure as I got shoved to the ground.“WHAT THE HELL?!” I screamed at the figure. “Who are you? Where am I? WHY WAS I ALMOST SHOT?!”“Drake Blackwood. Equestria. Your-” said Drake.“WHY ARE THERE GRIFFONS HERE WITH CROSSBOWS?!?! THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!” I screamed as I tried to force myself up.Drake sighed as I saw him raise his right hand and slap me across the face “Listen pal, it’s rude to interrupt someone, trust me I’ve been there. Right now I can’t explain everything, but we need to get to that dome over there” he said pointing to a pink dome around a treehouse across the battlefield.As we ran, I noticed a weird metal gauntlet on his left hand. I noted to ask him about that later, as it was probably a bad idea to ask him while we were in the middle of the freaking battlefield.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ When we finally got under the dome I had a good look around. The village that I had appeared in at first was utterly destroyed. If there wasn’t a pile of rubble, there was a building on fire. I could see a few buildings that were like the one that I was near, what with a bubble over it, protecting it from the battle raging on. I couldn’t believe that this is what was going on. Where was I? Is this the same place I was? Was it a new world or some sort of parallel dimension? What was going on here? Yet, all that had to wait, because right then I noticed that the building I was standing next to was the same one that I had met purple smarts at. One thing in my mind engaged at the moment….. Panic Mode: Engaged “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” I started screaming before getting backhanded by the metal gauntlet on his left hand. “Stop screaming you dolt. Next time I’ll just knock you out” Drake said as I saw him rub the bridge of his nose annoyed. “OW!” I yelped. “Sorry, I needed that. Anyways, what’s going on here? What happened to the town?” “To put it simply, I did, but also I didn’t. The Griffons and Diamond Dogs caught wind of a weird bipedal helping the ponies with strange powers and wanted me for different reasons. Sun Queen told them no and well, they decided to use force to get me. Simple really, but a pain in the ass.” Drake said as he shrugged his shoulders. “Sun Queen? Ya meen the white alicorn? I’m sorry, but I’m still new to this whole ponies rule the world thing,” I said. “Also, if what you’re saying is true, I have one question.” “Yes, the white alicorn. Her name is Celestia, ruler of Equestria along with a blue alicorn named Luna. So what’s your question?” asked Drake. “Well, since Alicorns are basically gods…. why go after you instead of them?” I asked. “What makes you so important and special? That is, not to sound so pretentious.” “Put it simple, I have powers this world has never seen and thus makes me a bigger target…. that and I don’t have a menagerie of guards protecting me or the power of a celestial body” “Oh….. I see. How did you get here anyways. Matter of fact, how did I get here? Who are you?” I demanded from Drake. Drake just simply smirked “This weird talisman brought me here” Drake said as he held up the necklace around his neck. It was a silver necklace with a simple chain lanyard to allow it to dangle. In the center of it was a light purple gem in a pentagon looking pendant that seemed to glow with a light blue shade under it. “Bought it off a merchant and next thing I know I’m in talking pony land.” “Hold up. Did that merchant happen to look like that guy from Resident Evil 4? Creepy hooded guy and so on?” I asked. “Yeah, even had that same creepy voice that made me want to shoot him everytime he popped up” Drake confirmed. “As for how you got here, I got no clue pal, probably took a messed up spell or something.” “My portal? I don’t think that was a spell… It was more like me just sort of ripping a hole in…. something……” I said.“As for who I am, I already told you. Name’s Drake Blackwood, the Ancient Summoner” Drake said as he looked at me and extended a fist.I could only guess he wanted a fistbump, and took him up on his offer. “I honestly can’t remember who I am. All I remember that I was supposed to be at anime expo with my friends playing D&D. I was their dungeon master.”Just then, what looked like a bottle came soaring towards us and bounce off the barrier protecting the building. The second it hit the ground flames spread everywhere outside of the forcefield. Drake looked at the battlefield “Damn Diamond Dogs. Quick inside!” he said to me while dragging me inside.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The second we got inside I saw…. weird humanoid things? Were those anthros? Anyhow, they were all huddled around and concentrating on…. something. There was an anthro dragon over by the window keeping lookout. Well this is a lot different than the pony world I was on…. I guess I did end up somewhere else. “What are they doing?” I asked Drake. “Maintaining the barrier and with Twilight as the main caster. They’re channeling their magic to her so she can keep the barrier supported” Drake said as he seems to rummage through books looking for something. “Ok then…” I said. I noticed his gauntlet again and, since we weren’t in danger anymore, “What’s up with that gauntlet of yours? What’s it do?” “It’s my tool. It helps me protect Ponyville and my friends from those that wish to do it harm. For more info read this” Drake said as he held out a large, thick, coverless book. He walked over and placed it before me. The title read Drake’s Gauntlet by Twilight Sparkle and I saw Drake grin “Three hundred pages over it pal” he said with a chuckle. “Screw that!” I yelled at him. “Couldn’t you just show me what it does? I mean, I don’t have that kind of attention span buddy.” Drake shook his head “Sorry I can’t. Got to save up my power for if they break through. All the magic details are on pages one hundred eighty-four through one hundred ninety-two” he said. Before I could ask more, he walked over to the weird anthro looking pony that looked like purple smarts, only, she didn’t have wings like she did. Was that actually the purple alicorn I saw before? Did these anthro ponies not have wings? “Hey, wait up. Who is that?” I asked. Drake stopped, turned to face me and said, “Twilight Sparkle, who else?” “And she is?” I inquired. “The pupil of Celestia? What, don’t you have one wherever you came from?” Drake asked as he walked to Twilight and sat down next to her. I saw his gauntlet rise and rub her back, as if trying to help her relax or something. “Yes. It does. I just meant what is she.” I explained. “The population doesn’t look like anthros from where I came from. Also, shouldn’t she have wings? I mean, where I came from, she was an alicorn. Not an anthro….. whatever she is.” Drake seemed to stop as he heard what I said. He stood up and walked over to me as he whispers “Shut up about that. You want to mess up the future?” he asked in a hushed whisper. “What do you mean the future?” I asked in a quiet voice. “I don’t understand. First I was on Earth worrying about getting to a meet up at Anime Ex, then I’m here. I don’t really remember much else. Sorry.” Drake just nodded “Listen. The world we are in is a tv show in our world called My Little Pony.” Now let me stop you there, dear reader. Because, as much as I could remember, which was very little, that was not part of it. But still, it sounded so familiar. “My….. Little…… Pony……..” I said quietly. ……. Oh damn it. I remember that…… “WHAAAAAT?!?!?” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Quiet!” Drake shouted at me as his metal gauntlet clamped my mouth. He looked over as the anthro pony seemed to waver a bit. His eyes turned back to me “I swear if the barrier falls because of your scream, I will go Necrophos on you and plague you to oblivion!” he quietly yelled at me “Understood?! I will not stand by and let innocents get hurt because of you” he finishes. “Sorry. Jeeze.” I said. “Look. I’ve watched the show and where we are now is within Season 2, a long way from the alicorn version which appears at the end of Season 3. If your Twilight has wings then you are either in Season 3 or 4, a good year or two ahead…. was your world attacked by some monkey/centaur thing?” Drake asked me quietly. “Well, there was no crystal tree, so Tirek hasn’t been there yet. But I did see that Discord was walking around in the open.” I said in hushed tones. “Okay then that means you are in between Season 3 finale and the start of Season 4. Sorry for the quiet, but she works better when she can concentrate. She also seems to be more relaxed when I’m around” Drake said as he glanced by at Twilight. “Ok then…. You have a place where I can put my cloak?” I asked. Drake simply nodded as he showed a coat rack. He soon returned to sitting next to the anthro pony and resumed to rub her back slowly, leaving me to my own devices. I walked over to the rack and proceeded to take off my cloak and placed it on the rack. I saw the same pale as heck hands again. What was up with that? I mean, it’s like as if I was….. “I’m a changeling…” I said quietly. “You say something?” Drake asked as he looked over at me. I saw his eyes go wide a bit as he ran over and hastily tossed my cloak back over me.Twilight looked over at us. “He’s indecent” Drake said quickly as she turned back around. I saw him look at me “Okay now a question of my own. What the hell are you?” he asked quietly.“I’m a changeling,” I said to him. “What’s wrong with…… oh. Sorry ‘bout that.”Drake just nods fast ‘Yeah. The changelings haven’t show up yet. Like literally this is between episode four and five. Evidently time acts differently between our world and this world” Drake said as he looked at Twilight and sighed. “Just… read the report and please try not to screw up the timeline. I do not want to get mooned because of it” he said as he walked back to do the same thing as before.“Huh. Well then…..” I muttered. I walked over to the window and looked outside. I couldn’t believe what I saw.“Hey Drake?” I said.A long inhale was heard in response. “This better be important or I will toss you out of this barrier” Drake said with a hint of annoyance alongside a soft giggle from the mare next to him.“What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen?” I questioned him.Drake looked over, “On this planet, or our planet?” he asked.“Just in general…” I said.“Well I say a group of Minotaur do a Equestrian version of… what was that song?.... Oh yeah! The Numa Numa song while dressed as dragqueens” Drake answered.“While I admit that that is indeed weird, it’s wrong.” I said.“Then what is it?” Drake asked.“Blimps.” I said pointing to the sky.

How Not to Begin an Adventure 101 (Part 2)

What’s worse than an enemy that doesn’t play fair? An enemy who brings bullshit to the table. I mean seriously. Have you ever been aboard a war blimp? You know, a zeplin? It’s like being on a giant flying fortress of pain. It’s like a battleship and a zeppelin got together and had a demonic child of a baby. I swear, if this is winter, it’s more fucked up then I thought it was.

“Oh for the love of Luna! Why? Why did it have to be goddamn war blimps?!” Drake yelled as he looked out at the blimps in the sky.

“Not sure, don’t care, but we need to do something about it now.” I said.

“Why?” Drake asked.

“Because of that.” I said, pointing at the barrier.

“Well… fuck all kinds of wrong sideways… guess there’s no choice” Drake said as he walked over to the unicorns. He held his gauntlet out. “Twilight. We got a problem in the sky and I need all the magic you all can spare to decimate them” he said.

The unicorns seemed tired, but they agreed nonetheless as their horns started to light up before my eyes. Beams of magic came out and all channeled into some weird, large, grey gem in the palm of his gauntlet. As the magic flowed into it, the gem started to glow and shift till it looked like three separate pools of liquid, one green, another blue, and the final one red.

Drake stopped the process by closing his gauntlet. “I thank you for your power. Rest easy” he said. As he turned, he looked at me. “You want to see something cool?” he asked with a grin.

“What are you going to do? Magic them to death?” I asked sarcastically.

Drake smirked. “In a way, yes. You see I have no magic whatsoever. My gauntlet though, uses magic like a unicorn’s horn, but different in a sense” Drake explained. He turned the gauntlet to show me the palm as he touches the red pool and the red takes over, showing different images on the gauntlet. “Okay…. need a flyer...”

“And preferably someone who can blow up things.” I said to him. “But I still don’t understand, are you summoning someone or what?”

“Just wait and see.” Drake told me. He gets an idea as he switched the red to green and picks a gnome looking image. The green comes out of the gauntlet as it washed over him like a wave of magic as sounds emerged from it. A running motor, the swoosh of blades, as soon enough, the mist fades as Drake is gone and instead is replaced by some gnome in a makeshift helicopter. “Gyrocopter!” it yelled as the gnome grinned. “You like?” it asked.

“The. Absolute. Fuck.” I said. “Who do you think you are? Ben Ten?”

“I wish, but that’s how my gauntlet works. With enough magic, I can transform into a hero from a game called DOTA 2. Now if you excuse me, I need to go Red Baron now” Drake said. Drake soon took off into the sky as his small helicopter started to shoot out missile barrages. Some of them collided with one of the war blimps’ propellers and sent it colliding into another war blimp.

“... Again, the heeeeellllooo.” I said suprisedly.

“Drake! It’s not down yet!” I screamed at him as the blimps started to open fire on him. “Watch out!” I screamed as I threw off my cloak and shot an arrow at one of the missiles fired at him, just barely hitting one of the fins and knocking it off its course.

Drake laughed as he looked at the blimps “Prepare for domination!” he yelled as he flew around to the front windows as he gets his cannons ready “Flak cannons ready” he said as he stopped to dodges some crossbowmen. Some arrows got stuck to the vehicle as he flies away “Damn Griffons!”

“Get back here!” I screamed as I shot an arrow with a hook, which latched onto the back of his helicopter. Unfortunately, I didn’t expect what would come next and got pulled away after him. “FuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!”

“Will you stop messing around?!” Drake yelled as he reached back to try and pull me closer to the helicopter.

“We can’t just go in without a plan.” I said. “You shitlord, that’s how you always lose. Have you not learned strategy from ANY of the games you’ve played? We can’t just Leroy Jenkins this!”

“Look! I know what the hell I am doing! I’ve done this before and I’ve never lost. I know how Gyro works and how he is faster than their armaments” Drake said as he flew past a war blimp, firing his Flak Cannon into it, effectively hitting the bridge of it and wiping out any of the griffons controlling the blimp.

“Why did you do that?” I questioned. “What, did you think it was just going to explode?”

“I didn’t. I just wanted to get rid of one nuisance from the sky…. besides. Whose to say we can’t use it against them?” Drake asked as he looked at me.

“Well, you just blew up the controls and sent it hurtling towards the ground.” I pointed out. “So there’s that.”

Drake looked over as he groaned. “Well… let’s grab another one then. I maybe powerful, but enough rounds and even this copter will fall. Be nice to see what ordnance those griffon’s have right?” he asked with a chuckle.

“I say we take out the propellers, then.” I proposed. “Then we could infiltrate the blimp and take them out from the inside.”

Drake groaned. “If we do go in, I will need to change again since we’ll be in close quarters” he said as he flew through the skies with me. “Where are they?” he asked, looking for the propellers.

“You just shot one out earlier!” I screamed at him. “Why are you asking me? What, did you shoot some kind of homing missile?”

Drake chuckled nervously. “I was actually shooting blind. The missile locked onto something important and blew it up” he admitted. He looked around and stopped as he got in position to fire, but something stopped him from firing. He groaned, “Damn it! Ammo’s stuck!” he yelled.

“What do you meant it’s stuck?” I asked.

“It means the damn ammo belt is jammed…. take the controls!” Drake yelled at me as he hopped up and held the controls so I could take over.

“I don’t know how to control this thing!” I screamed.

“Just grab the controls and pull it close to you, but keep it level!” Drake yelled as he let the controls go for me to grab them. All I could hear was Drake bang on something and something fall “Fixed!”

“What in the hell did you just drop?!” I asked as I handed back the controls.

“Nothing. Bullet casing got lodged. Now we attack!” Drake yelled as he took aim and fired his Flak Cannon at the propellers.

“Hey, you got an extra explosive and some rope?” I asked as I readied my bow. “Maybe even a metal rod?” Drake seemed to mill around his seat for something and pulled out a small rocket for me as he grinned. “That’ll do.” I said as I strapped the rocket to one of my arrows.

Now, you would think that someone in our position would be saying the best one liner involving an explosion. Something that would be memorable for all time. Something that would make them a god in the history books, if only for their great speech ability… or something like that.

But sadly, the only thing that came out of my mouth was:

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!”

And man was that a boom. So glad I learned archery from my cousin. If I ever get back to Earth, I’m totally buying him something. Drake was just laughing his ass off from the one liner as he started to fly towards the opening. “Get ready. It’s going to get bumpy.”

“Great.” I said sarcastically. “And me without a barf bag.”

“Or we could blase a missile barrage in there before storming the place” Drake suggested as he already had the barrage ready.

“No, we want to keep it intact.” I said.

Drake simply nodded as we started to fly through the opening and into the hangar as he landed with ease…. by that I mean he crashed into some Diamond Dogs on board and into a wall.

“What did I just say about keeping the blimp intact?” I said as I pointed to the fresh hole in the hangar wall.

“You did that with the missile arrow mister grumpy!” Drake retorted as the green aura took over him and turned him to his regular self. He turned and looked at the hangar as he went wide eyed. “Uh…. how many weapons you got?” he asked me.

“I got my bow, my sword and this knife…. why?” I asked. It was then that Drake grabbed my head and turned it in the direction he was looking. “Son of a….”

The hangar was stocked with crates that were full of weapons, food, and previsions; or at least that was my guess. The main issue was that the hangar had over fifty griffon archers and twenty Diamond Dog guards that had weapons pointed at us.

I leaned over to Drake and asked, “You got another one of those missiles? Maybe one that’s not as strong?”

“I’m not Gyrocopter so all I can say is this…. you distract as I get another choice!” Drake yelled as arrows started to fall towards us. I saw him scramble to the crates that stopped most of the arrows as he searched through his gauntlet.

“Shit.” I said to myself. Then the d20 started glowing. “Oh what now?!”

I just went with it as I always did and rolled the thing. I got a 16. Why do I never understand these things?

“Will you stop messing with whatever that is and help?!” Drake yelled.

“Right.” I said. I got up and just started firing arrows willy nilly, not even looking where I was aiming. Over to my left I could hear grumbling and cursing as Drake was…. still Drake. “What’s going on over there?”

“Fucking arrows are pissing me off! I can’t concentrate!” Drake yelled as an arrow almost grazed his cheek.

“Got it!” I said. I looked over to see how many of the griffons were shooting arrows. There were too many for me to just shoot out. “UGH! I don’t know what to do for you man!”

“Just distract them!.... Fuck it!” Drake said as he made his gauntlet into a fist as all three of the colors flowed and twisted around him, till the green took superiority. Before my eyes, I saw his body turn green, but a sick kind of green with a pair of red eyes. His legs merged and twisted as it turned into a tail, like he was turning into a serpent or something. As the green faded, I saw a creature that looked like a cobra and a Predator had an unholy baby, but with the scent of death. It kinda reminded me of a naga, but the face was off and it didn’t have a torso per say. The creature looked at me as it said in a voice that made me shiver “Venomancer”

“That works! Spare me some venom, snake-boy?” I said in a slight mocking tone.

Drake simply hissed as his current forms hood, I guess it was, opened to show visible pouches of venom in them. The pouches glowed as it shot out blobs of venom that exploded and blinded a few griffons “Poison run rampant here. Fear my Wards!” it said as small maggot looking creatures came up from the floor. The creatures started to fire green blobs at the griffons, keeping them moving and unable to get a straight shot at us.

“That’s perfect!” I said. “Now it’s my turn.” I unsheathed my bastard sword yet again and charged the griffons. “Just try and keep up!”

Drake chuckled with a hiss as more wards came up to fire at the Griffons. Now it looked like it was a pointy eared nerd, a serpent, and over eight maggots taking down griffons with ease of poison and blades. Some of the Diamond Dogs tried to charge, but not before an orb of poison came at them and covered them in poison.

Let’s just say it was gruesome.

We decided that the smart thing to do after we got out of the hangar was to get control of the blimp.

Drake slithered his way to one of the only two open doorways “We sssssplit up to cover more ground. That way we can find it fasssster” he said.

“Good thinking.” I said. “Meet you at the bridge.”

I took the left hallway. There wasn’t much down there. I saw a few more Diamond Dogs, but not much else. I did find a room full of weapons, though.

There wasn’t that many people in that room, all of them weren’t wearing armor, so there’s that. There was a guy with a tape recorder, though. I took it off of him before I continued to the bridge.

How Not to Begin an Adventure 101 (Part 3)

What.

No seriously. What the heck?

I just got in here and it’s empty. Drake is just sitting at a console mashing buttons.

“The hell? How’d you get here before me?” I inquired. “And where are all the gryphons?”

“I have items for each hero. I simply exchanged for speed boost items. Plus Poison Nova really clears a room” Drake said as he kept mashing buttons. “As for the griffons, I believe they cleared it out when we came crashing in like the Dukes for fucking Hazards to kill us” he explained. He looked over at me “Also I am mashing these buttons because of a lack of an instruction manual!”

“Oh.” I said. “Wait…. did you say it was already empty?” Please let me have misheard him……

Drake looked back over at me. “Yes…. why?”

Oh no…. Hopefully I’m wrong…..

I looked around the windows in the bridge. Sure enough, another blimp had a cannon pointed right at us.

“Crap.” I said. “GET DOWN!”

Drake looked over just as the cannon fired as he got sent flying into a console, groaning.

Now, I pretty much thought of this guy as my friend. And I remembered something when I remembered the show……

I protect my friends.

Although, I should have fixed what that means. ‘Cause just as the blimp started to fire the next volley of canons, I jumped in the path of it.

Let me just say this once: You don’t know pain until you’ve been hit by a cannon and lived.

What I saw next was black.

I woke up in the treehouse.

“Ugh.” I groaned. “How long have I been out?”

“About two hours” a voice said. As I turned my head I saw purple smart sitting next to me in a chair. Odd thing was, only her and that dragon were in the treehouse with me. “You were carried in after the blimp crashed into the lake.”

“Where’s Drake?” I asked. “Did he make it out okay?”

She sighed “He did, but before I could get to healing his wounds, he ran back out to fight the Griffons and Diamond Dogs. I swear he is more stubborn than a minotaur sometimes.”

“Oh.” I said. “Well, I guess I should be doing the same.” I got up and proceeded to the door.

Outside, the battle raged on as more griffons dropped from the sky. Right outside the door, Drake was standing, arms crossed, as if waiting for something. Probably something bad.

“Yo, what’s up?” I questioned. “You okay man?”

Drake looked back at me. “I… kinda called out the leaders of the Griffon and Diamond Dogs to a duel and am probably going to die for a simple reason” he said with a nervous chuckle.

I swatted him upside the head and said, “You have got to be the biggest moron I’ve ever met. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?”

“Ending this skirmish early. The deal is simple. If they beat me I go with them, if I win they leave. Easiest way to end this without losing more lives” Drake said in a oddly serious tone.

“And if they take you up on that?” I questioned.

“Then I am fucked because I have no magic” Drake said as he shows his gauntlet. The gem in it was a dull grey.

“Okay then….” I said. “Don’t look now, but you’re fucked.”

“Fuck” Drake said softly “I thought they would not show up knowing my power…. fuck fuck fuck…. you got magic?” he asked me.

“I don’t know!” I said. I felt around myself for anything that could help. I found a vail on my bandolier. The vial had some kind of rainbow liquid.

Why does that seem so familiar…..

And the d20 is glowing again. I guess I should take it out and roll it…. again…..

13? Why is that number giving me a bad feeling?

Oh well.

“Would this work?” I asked as I handed the vial to Drake.

When Drake reached for the vial though, I could feel something…. strange. I could feel the cold fingers of his gauntlet touch my hand as I felt something get pulled out of me. When he let go, his gauntlet had a weird bright glow about it and with him gripping it as if in pain.

I decided to ignore it as I watched the two leaders arrive. The Griffon came flying down from a blimp. He was wearing what looked like armor that belonged on a Roman Centurion, what with the red plume on his helmet. The Diamond Dog leader came barreling at us in a weird cartoonish mound of dirt. When he got about a meter away from us he popped out of the ground. To say that he was large would have been an understatement.

“I call the Roman looking guy.” I whispered to Drake. “That’s if we have to fight….”

Drake just kept holding his gauntlet as he looked over at me “Hey… just a warning, but I think my gauntlet is overcharged and that’s not a good thing” he warned me.

“Okay, well…. fix it I guess.” I said.

“Its not that simple man. When my gauntlet is overcharged then I end up getting a feedback when I transform…. which is the only way to get rid of this charge. Just so you know, I won’t be in control. The hero will be” Drake explained as he made a fist out of his gauntlet. The colors all came out, but like a raging ocean as they collided, mixed, and rushed around him. Soon enough, the red took over as he yelled in what sounds like agony as I could see him grow, grow to a good six foot seven inches, his skin turning as red as blood and eyes a golden color. The problem was, that he also had some weird marks on his arms and were covered in muscles. His hands were gripped tight around a red scythe as his attire looked like that of a bandit. Before I could say anything, the new hero spoke “Axe! Reporting for duty!”

“Again, you’re not Ben Ten.” I said.

“Who is this Ben Ten you speak of? Axe will cut Ben down!” Axe yelled as he looked around before looking at the Dog and Griffon. He raised the axe as he pointed at the dog. “Axe reports that you will be Axe’s bitch!” he yelled.

“Ooookay…” I said. The way he was talking was kind of strange, but I just brushed it off and looked at the griffon. “I’ll be your opponent, griffon guy.”

“I demand respect!” the griffon said. “I came here to fight that….. thing,” he said as he pointed at Drake/Axe, “Not you. I will be paid proper respect, knave.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I said. “Can we just get this over with?”

“That’s it!” He shouted.

The griffon glared as he raised his sword and took off into the sky, ready to dive bomb at me, just from how his wings were spread and from that predatory look in his eyes.

I reached for my sword to defend myself… only to notice that it was gone…..

DAMN IT! I must have lost it when the cannons fired at me and Drake!

Well, at least I have a knife and a bow…. I’m so screwed.

I refocused myself just as the griffon brought himself down to strike me. I rolled out of the way and unsheathed my knife. I charged the griffon in an attempt to stab him. Unfortunately, the griffon raised his shield and blocked my knife as the sword spun in his talon before going to bring it down towards my neck. “Such a weak fighter, no respect for killing such a creature” he said with a scoff.

Dear god, what a prick. I blocked his attack with my knife, but the second I brought my knife off his shield he bashed me in the face with it, sending me back a few feet. How strong was this guy? Jeeze. I seriously wish I had my sword right now! Where the hell was it?

Know what…. Screw it. Desperate times call for desperate measures….. and memes…..

I resheathed my knife, giving the griffon enough time to say, “What? Giving up so easily, little bug.” before taking out my bow.

Ya know, he’s getting what he deserves. Prick. Also, Skyrim fans, avert your eyes to the next line.

I shot him in the knee, then shouted, “ADVENTURE NO MORE!”

Somewhere in the multiverse, you could hear a million people facepalming at once.

The griffon though groaned at the arrow stuck in the joint of its armor. He relied now on his wings to keep him moving to strike at its opponent, being me. Honestly this battle was getting a bit tedious, if only I could stop its wings. If only I had my sword. Then I could even out this battle!

“Where is my sword?!” I shouted at no one.

Well, I guess the old saying is right, ask and you shall receive. Why do I say that? Because just as I said that, it fell right into the skull of the griffon, killing him. Why am I so lucky today?.....

And now I feel like I just jinxed myself. Crap.

As I turned my head, I could see Drake/Axe caved in the skull of the Diamond Dog with his scythe as he laughed, “Axe reports, you have been Axed!” as he ripped his weapon out of its head.

Wow. What got into him?

He turned towards me and narrowed his eyes, as if sizing me up.

“Yo, buddy.” I said. “Calm down, fight’s over.”

…. He didn’t take it that well….

“Fight is not over according to Axe! Enemy still lives! Axe will turn them all into rugs!” he yelled as he hoisted his scythe over his head. He definitely seems different. Why is he so aggressive all of a sudden?

“Drake!” I yelled. “We won! You made a deal, remember? They’re going to leave!”

“Who is this Drake you speak of? I am Axe!” he yelled. From behind I felt something tap my shoulder. It was Twilight.

“Oh Celestia, is he suffering another Magic Feedback?” she asked worried.

“Magic what now?” I asked right before Drake/Axe slammed into me, sending me flying.

“You assist enemies! Axe will mount you as a trophy!” Drake/Axe yelled. Before he could charge again, a purple barrier popped up, separating us as Twilight ran up to me.

“If you read the research, it’s an effect that occurs with Drake when he either switches too often, or his gauntlet holds too much magic. It happened once before during a test run and he went around robbing food. It wore off in a few minutes, but this one seems more…. violent” she explained.

“Well, we both know he hasn’t been switching too much…..” I said. “But where’d he get enough magic to overload?”

….. Wait…. Oh no… I just remembered what that vial had in it.

Ya know how there are artifacts in D&D? Like, super prizes that have really special abilities? Well, that was one of them. Specifically, that was one that I gave to the players from the game of D&D that I played with my friends.

That was….. Dungeon Master essence…. Specifically the pure form….

What was it supposed to do? Basically make the person who drank it so powerful, that, normally, they would die after a few seconds.

….. It was also my champion’s blood….. but he’s immune to it…… just gets a healing factor…..

“I don’t know where it came from, but I do know he gets it from channeling magic into the gauntlet from others, like I am sure you saw or-” She gets interrupted as Drake/Axe’s scythe made cracks in the shield, yet Twilight simply made the shield stronger “Or by siphoning, a direct contact means of draining magic from something or somepony by his gauntlet” she finished and focused on the barrier.

Wait contact?...... oh hell…… his gauntlet touched my hand and the vial. Shit.

“I think it was me….” I said.

“Wait, what?” Twilight said, right before Drake/Axe broke through the barrier and body checked her.

“TWILIGHT!” I said. I glared at Drake/Axe. “She was innocent you prick!”

“Axe sees no innocents in battle! She helped a enemy’s ally and thus is a enemy. Now stand still so Axe may execute you! Axe will judge all by his blade!” Drake/Axe yelled as he jumps in the sky. His scythe glowing a sickening red as he yells out “Wheat before a scythe!” as it is aimed at my neck!

“GAH!” I screamed and jumped out of the way of the blow. “If that’s how you judge people, maybe we need to check your judgement!”

I swear, those last seven words sounded like a demon was talking…. Jeeze…

Anyways, I charged him with my sword and stabbed him in the chest, right before everything went black.

The hell. This crap again?

Yep, there’s the little window thing. And in it is me stabbing Drake/Axe in the chest.

Wait…. he’s not moving either…. Why isn’t-

“Oh.” I said. “You’re here to.”

There he was, right before me. Floating in the abyss of black. He seemed to be struggling against some invisible restraints.

Why is all this familiar?......

OH YEAH! I remember! I remember doing this when one of the players took over the game of D&D I was playing that one time. It was meant to be some kind of finisher. I called it Judgement. It was meant to do damage, or other things, based upon the entity that was struck’s alignment.

“I guess I have to judge you.” I said. “But this is wrong…. You’re not you! Drake is a good person! You are just some chaotic moron!”

“Axe will chop your head off! Axe will end you with one swipe at your head!” he bellowed as he struggles against the invisible binds more. “Axe will gut you and turn you into a rug! Axe will kill you and dance on your grave you worthless maggot!” he just kept on yelling and yelling, insult after insult, never ending it seemed. Not to mention his struggling was getting annoying as well.

“Enough!” I yelled. “I can’t judge you for this. You’re not the one I’m after….”

I grabbed his face.

“No….. YOU DON’T BELONG!” I screamed as I ripped off his face. For some reason this caused him to go all Majora’s Mask on me and turn back into Drake. I looked at my hand to see a mask of Axe. “The hell.”

“Oh god this guy smells like sweat and testosterone and why are you holding Axe’s face?” Drake asked.

“You okay man?” I asked.

“Well considering I just killed a Diamond Dog, almost killed a new friend and my…. special friend, and went into a Magical Feedback…. I’m fucking peachy” Drake said the last line with obvious sarcasm.

“Yeah. You’re welcome.” I said.

The reality around us started fading and turning white.

“Huh, I guess I was supposed to judge Axe….” I said. I offered the mask to Drake. “You want this?”

Drake looked at it and back at his gauntlet. He seems to bring up the red pool as he sees Axe’s icon is missing. He grabbed the mask as the gauntlet absorbed it. “Have to. I’m the only one who knows the strengths and weaknesses of Axe. Anyone else and they lose complete control without a feedback effecting them….. still at least noone important got hurt” he said.

The second we got back, Drake shifted into his normal self. Exactly five seconds after that, Twilight tackled him in a fierce hug.

“Careful Miss Purple, he might be a little woozy after what just happened.” I said.

Draked chuckled “I’ll be fine. Not the first time I went Feedback” he said. He holds Twilight closer, but the thing was though the hug seemed more than ‘simply friendly’. He let go as he looks at me “Thanks for…. well all this. You wanna know the funny thing though? I never got your name” he said.

“I…. I don’t remember it….” I explained. “I realized just before I came here… All I remember was going to Anime Expo to go and do a live action roleplay with my friends. I was there Dungeon Master.”

“Hmm… I’ll just call you DM, cause you got dice and look like some kind of weird mage. Dice Mage” Drake said as he smiled.

I cracked up at that and cried. I was just too happy. I finally had something to call myself.

“Thanks man.” I said.

“Well… it’s either your name or a temporary till you get something more normal-ish. Either way, we got to get rebuilding. You can feel free to stay at my small base till…. whatever the hell brought you here returns”

“I brought myself here, I guess.” I said. “I just don’t know how to get back. I used a portal, but I don’t know how it works. I don’t even think I could open another.”

“Well… we got books on portals, this is a library. Or could do the same thing you did before that may have opened one” Twilight actually suggested this time.

“I never thought about that.” I said. I started feeling around like I did last time, just trying to find the weird edge that I was able to grab last time. In the end, I just looked like an idiot. “Nothing. I got nothing.”

“You mean that you really can’t feel anything of… whatever it is?” Drake asked me.

“Basically.” I said. “Last time, I was kind of just running from some ponies, and just kinda got fed up. Then a portal opened…. I guess it works differently here….. I don’t know.”

“Well you can read the library if you want…. or maybe you need something that has a lot of magic in it?” said Drake.

“I don’t think so.” I said.

“Well, let’s head out to my base and see if the location would do any difference” Drake suggested.

“Fine.” I said.

Twists and turns, climbs and falls, and before long I found myself in some kind of damp cave following Drake to only God knows where. Ahead of me Drake was ripping down vines and going into a stone pathway that was lit by weird, ghostly blue flames. As I followed him down the path, I could feel something light…. but also something dark. The path felt like it went on for a few miles before stopping and seeing the so called base. It was a fountain of white and black stone, sharp pointed trees and living, healthy vines, both of which were intertwined around the fountain, like some kind of dance. The fountain itself had running water that made it feel alive, yet as we got closer, a strange sense came over me, as if it was…. healing me and reenergizing me.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“The main base of the heroes in my gauntlet. Enhanced regeneration, revitalization, and a small store for items…. problem is I got to buy them with bits that I get from odd jobs like apple picker, painter, etc.” Drake explained.

“Oh… Okay.” I said. “I mean, I do feel much better.”

Drake nods as he sits at the fountain edge “Feel anything?” he asked me.

“Eh?” I said. “Well, here goes nothing.”

Again, I went at it, trying to feel around for that weird edge. The same result…. Damn it.

“Nothing.” I said. “Absolutely nothing. I don’t even understand what I’m doing wrong. It’s like I used some kind of magic, and I don’t understand magic.”

I could see Drake rub his chin a bit as he looked at me and then at the fountain “Well…. I know of a few things we may try, though you may not like” he explained.

“If it involves more magic, then I’m pretty sure it won’t work.” I said. “Listen, I think before we try anything, I should get a better understanding of what I am now….”

At this point, I saw Drake’s eye go wide as if he had gotten an idea. “The changelings of course! Listen, I know of a changeling base runned by one Queen Chrysalis, however its location is unknown to me…. but probably not to Oracle. Either way it maybe a bit hard since well…. you may want to look” he said as he motions to the fountain.

I looked in and saw a pair of eyes looking back before Drake pulled my hood off and showed my face. I really was a pale, pointy eared nerd. I had white, almost silver, hair. I had a white left eye and a green right eye, which I found odd. Sadly, I had no facial hair. Darn, I loved my facial hair. Oh well, no harm, no foul.

“Your a changeling… well sorta. Problem is changelings are not pale like you, but black like obsidian in a way. Also have blue-green eyes.” Drake explained.

“Okay then.” I said. “How is this helping me find the changelings, exactly?”

“Well for one you know what they look like. As for where I say go to the Badlands or Everfree” Drake said as he pulled out a map of Equus. He marked down the two locations “Only two places a pony wouldn’t go out of fear. Also here,” Drake handed me a small scroll. “You can use it to summon me if you need help. Small warning, it takes about six and a half seconds to teleport me there” he explained to me.

“Thanks man.” I said. “I better get moving, I’ve got a long journey ahead of me.”

“No problem.” Drake said to me as I was left his base. “Also, be careful! Chrysalis is not friendly with strangers!” Draked yelled.

“Will do!” I called back.

Well, now I have an idea of what to do….

Next stop, the Everfree Forest.

To Get What You Need and Know What You Want

After my little meeting with Queen Chrysalis, I was immediately escorted out of the throne room and towards a hallway full of open doors. The escort stopped me at the second to last set of doors and pointed me into the door on the left.

"The Queen has requested that you be situated in standard quarters for the duration of your training." the changeling said. "She has also requested some 'special' accommodations and that you would please eat dinner with the rest of the hive. By then, the accommodations shall be here for you."

"Um, thanks." I said. "What kind of-"

"I am not the one to thank, but I shall relay your thanks to the Queen." it said. "As for what kind of 'special' accommodations, I was told to be silent on the details."

"Okay then..." I said. "I guess I'll see you at dinner..."

"Very well then." it said. "Someling shall be sent to get you when it is time to feed, which will be soon."

The changeling that had been escorting me left immediately after he finished talking to me. He didn't check to see if I was alright with the room, or anything that was common to having a guest. One thing was certain here: This sure as hell wasn't a five star hotel. Nor would it be.

As I went into the room and climbed up onto the bed, the question that I had tried asking the escort was plaguing my mind: What were the 'special' accommodations? Was I going to be taken in the night and held inside a cocoon? Was someone going to come and 'service' me? What exactly did Chrysalis have in mind for me?

I was pulled from my thoughts when a changeling entered the room and made itself known. I recognized her as the one who had taken my weapons. She must have come back to rest or something.

"I'm here to guide you to the feeding hall." she said.

"Don't you mean the dining-"

"No." she said.

"Oookay. So what's being-"

"Do not ask me questions, outsider." she said. "I don't know how you learned of our Queen's glorious plans, or even of her for that matter, but if you so much as look at a single one of us funny, you can bet your ass I'm going to come at you."

"Fine! Fine!" I panicked. "Just calm down. Jeeze."

She obviously had something against me, if not all outsiders. I made a mental note to try not to piss her off in the future.

We didn't talk any more than that, not until we got to the 'feeding room' and she directed me to a seat and then pretty much forced me to sit down. By that I mean that she gave me the option of either sitting down or, and I quote, having her break my legs before forcing me into the chair and then binding me against the backrest, end quote. Again, she obviously didn't like me.

The table was set with forks and knives and what not. There were fancy wine glasses filled with a strange green liquid. I couldn't see any platters or anything, so I couldn't begin to guess what the food was. Directly to my left, at the head of the table, was none other than Queen Chrysalis. To my left was a changeling in wearing some special wraps of some sort. Across from me was a changeling wearing what appeared to be armor of some sort, sans a helmet. To his right was the changeling that led me in here, giving me the death glare. They weren't the only ones there, but they were the only ones that stood out from everyone else.

The room was made silent by Chrysalis who had tapped on her glass.

"I would like to thank you all for attending this gathering." said Chrysalis. "I am sure you know why I have called you all here tonight, as we have plans to discuss in the morning with our new guest here."

Those at the table erupted into applause which ended when Chrysalis raised her hand.

"I am sure you all know why he is here, as we all know how fast word spreads through the hive." she said. "Tomorrow we shall discuss the plan, and if his information is any good, he shall start his training."

The changelings stayed silent, hanging on every word their Queen spoke.

"For now, however, we shall enjoy ourselves and show our guest a good time." she said. "But before we begin eating, is there any words you would like to say, dear guest?"

Crap. Hadn't thought about a formal dinner with multiple people, I mean changelings. What do I do? What do I do? I know! Suck up mode activate!

"Just that I would like to propose a toast." I said. So far so good, no objections. I raised my glass. "To you and your health, as well as that of the hive. May it last for years to come."

..... Please take that.... PLEASE. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS. ACCEPT THE DAMN TOAST. I REALLY DON'T WANT MS. DEATH GLARE OVER THERE TO KILL ME!

"Yes, to the health of the hive." Chrysalis said, raising her glass.

"To the hive." said the rest of the changelings seated at the table in unison.

"Bring out the food." Chrysalis commanded.

I saw several changelings come out with trays that were covered. As they reached the table, they took off the covers to reveal plates of a strange green substance with a pink coloring in the middle that I could only compare to slime. One such plate was set in front of me. All I could do was stare at it.

"Well? Dig in." Chrysalis said to me. "It's not the usual way we feed, but this is one of the hive's favorites."

"Um, what is it?" I asked.

"It's love."

"Uh.... yeah, about that." I said.

"Yes?"

"I know I said I'm a changeling, but...."

"But what?" Chrysalis said with a hint of malice in her voice.

"I'm not the same as the rest of you." I said. "Like I said, I came from a different world. I'm not the same type of changeling as the rest of you...."

"Meaning.... what?" she said. "Get to the point already!"

"I don't eat love." I said. "I wouldn't be able to digest it."

"Oh, well then." she said, her voice now full of spite. "I guess you should go back to your room. But before you go, these two shall be in charge of your training. Meet Major Artifice," she motioned to the changeling on her right, "and Captain Con," she motioned to the changeling on my left. "These two shall be in charge of your training, if I deem you intelligence as useful." She started to motion for me to leave. "Until tomorrow."

When I reached to door to my room, which took me a bit due to me almost getting lost, I heard a noise come from the other side. I prepared myself for whatever and reached towards my sword as I opened the door.

What was in there totally caught me off guard.

On the other side of the door, waiting in a chair, legs crossed, was a changeling that was undeniably female. I say that because of her curvy figure, her clothes, and high pitched 'Eep' when she noticed that I was there.

"I'm sorry, wrong room." I said.

"No, no! This is your room!" she said.

"Then why are you in here?" I said.

"I was told to stay with you and help you out. Do whatever you want me to do." she said. "If you want I could just stay outside."

"No, no. Can't have that." I said. "Um, why were you told to stay here?"

"You were told that you would be getting accommodations? Right?" she said. "Well, that's me, I'm you accommodations. Here do to as you please."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What?" I said, completely confused. "Why would... What would.... UGH!"

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do anything!" she panicked. "Please don't hurt me!"

"Why would I hurt you?" I said, sitting down on the bed. "I not even mad at you."

She just whimpered and made her self look smaller.

"Ugh." I groaned as I curled up into a ball on the bed. "This is just too much for me. First it's getting sucked in, then it's the portal, then fighting in a war, then killing things, then this. What's next? A freaking explosion? Poison in my food? I don't care anymore! I just wish I had a way to cope with all this! I wish I had my freaking cello, or at least my bass!"

It was true. I had no way to deal with all this, and the stress and guilt were starting to impair me severely. If I couldn't find a way to vent my frustrations like how I used to before I came to Equestria, then I'd surely become a shell of the person I once was.

Well, you know how things are. Ask the universe hard enough, you'll get your answer.

Right before me, in a flash of light, appeared an unmistakable Fender bass guitar with a red yellow and black Fender strap. The body had a natural wood color and the pick guard was custom and made of a clear plastic.

"I can't believe it...." I said in a hushed voice.

"What is it?" the changeling asked.

"This is my bass." I said to her. "I played in a jazz band with this. I love this instrument like I love my celli."

"Interesting." she commented.

"Lemme try something...." I said.

"One, two, three, four..."

I played out like how I used to play back on Earth. I loved this song. It was Chameleon. But, something was weird. I could hear the other parts when I played.

I stopped playing for a second and asked the changeling if she heard it, too. I really didn't want to be a full blown maniac now, nor did I ever. Strange thing was, she did. I went back to playing, and sure enough, the rest of the 'band' played with me. Where was it coming from? Hell if I know.

I'm just happy to have my music back.

The Problem with Changelings is....

I didn't think at that point that I could have been any more happy. I mean, I had the one thing that meant the most to me, back in my life....

I mean, seriously, how would you feel if you were thrust into a place where you lost that one special thing that made you feel good, made you feel special, in ways that you could never describe, just made you happy? What would you feel like if you made to feel like it was impossible to get that special something back? Then, all of a sudden, you got it back in one fateful moment. That was how I felt at the time. Music was to me like the portal gun to the Portal series. Bad analogy, I know, but it's true. Music made me who I was. I quite literally function without music for too long. I was music, and it was me. Having music back made me more happier than I ever could have thought of.

I just wish it wasn't just me and the changeling to witness this..... Wait a second.

"Hey, why did you say you were here?" I asked the changeling.

"I am here on orders." she said. "I was told to help you out with whatever you want."

"Um. O-okay." I stammered. "Do you have a name? Something I can call you?"

"......No........" she said softly.

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked. "I didn't quite catch that."

"No, I don't have a name." she said, this time a bit louder.

"I still couldn't hear that. What?"

"I don't have a name, okay!" she screamed at me. "We only get names by either training to be an infiltrator or proving our worth."

"I-I'm sorry." I said. "I didn't know....."

"It's okay." she said. "You are an outsider, after all."

"I don't get something though." I said. "Why do you changelings not get names unless you've proven your worth? Why not just a name when you're born?"

"I don't know." she said. "It's been like that for a while now."

"Well, that's not right." I said. "I think it needs to be changed. From now on, I'm giving you a name."

"W-what?!" she said very excitedly. "You would do that?"

"Well, I think you deserve a name." I said. "Everyone deserves a name. It's something that the ponies do, it's also something the people where I came from did. I mean, all it does is show that you're your own person. There's nothing wrong with it."

"Oh thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" she chanted. This kept going on until I spoke up again.

"From now on, I'm calling you Emerald." I said.

"Emerald?" she said.

"Yeah, Emerald." I said. "It's has a nice green colored gem. It's honestly one of my favorite gems."

It's true. Why? I like the color green. Honestly, I like green gems. That, and when you've played as much Minecraft as I have, you kind of develop a love of the gems that you can find while mining.

"So, I'm a gem?" she said.

"And a really pretty one at that." I said.

She responded with a blush. It took me a second to realize why she was blushing, I had just inadvertently flirted with her. If you could see my face, you would see a huge crimson blush covering my entire face.

"I'm sorry, about that." I said, reaching my hand behind my head. "I didn't mean to say it like that."

"So I'm not pretty?" she asked.

Crap. The question that many a man tried to avoid. Why? Because it's a trap! I mean, seriously ladies, why do you ask us guys with our simple minds these really opinion based questions. If we say yes, we either look desperate or seem into you. If we say no, you start calling us jerks and start crying. We don't want that.

Anyways, back to the matter at hand.

"U-um. U-um." I stammered, thinking over my options.

"Yes?" she said, breaking out what seemed to be her secret weapon: absolute freaking cuteness. Why changeling lady? WHY?! All that is doing is making it harder for me to think and making me blush! WHY ME?!

".....Y-y-yes......." I said in as quiet a voice as I could do.

"What was that?" she said.

".....Y-yes....." I said. "......You're cute....."

"I knew it!" she said excitedly. "I'm cute! And I have a name! I'm Emerald! I'm Emerald!"

She just kept chanting 'I'm Emerald.' over and over again and wouldn't stop.

She eventually stopped when another changeling showed up and made himself known.

"The queen would like to speak to you." it said.

"About?" I asked.

"I was not informed about what." it said.

Just then, two of my die started glowing. The hell? What was it now?

"I'll be right there, could you wait outside for just a second?" I asked him.

"Very well." it said.

"Oi! What now?!" I said, taking out the two die that were glowing. As per usual, the d20 was glowing, but the other one caught me off guard. The d6 was glowing. Crap.

For those of you that don't know, the d6 is meant to signify damage at a certain level. That, or a random event that was predetermined to signify which path it'll take, which is one of the ways I do it. Thing is though, I'm pretty sure there's no path to take. Though, a d6 isn't used until a higher level.....

I did kill a bunch of griffons, and kill a centurion..... Crap, it's for damage......

"What are those for?" Emerald said. That's right, I forgot she was there for a second.

"I'll explain later." I said. Best she not know right now.

So, time to roll....... Shit, and double shit.

A 1 on the d20, and a 6 on the d6. I am NOT looking forward to this.

..... They Are Known to Change Their Plans.

Crap. Well, I don't know what the d20 was about, but nonetheless I'm still heading to go meet Chrysalis. I left my bass in the room, or I think I did. It just kind of poofed into some kind of black smoke when I set it down.

Anyways, I guess it's for the best that I go see Chrysalis, I need to talk to her about the whole 'You don't get a name unless you've proven your worth' thing. It's kind of bull. Hopefully I can convince her to give the changelings names.

As I entered the throne room, the first thing I noticed was that there were a few more guards than last time. By that, I mean that there were guards lining the freaking walls. So yeah, not giving me the best of confidence.

"Ah, there's our guest." said Queen Chrysalis. "How are you liking your accommodations so far?"

"They're okay, I guess." I said. "I didn't appreciate not being told about getting a helper."

"More like a servant." she said. "The drone I gave you is there for your use. She can go with you after you're done here, even."

"You mean Emerald, right?" I asked.

"Who?" she asked in response.

"Yeah, she has a name now." I said. "And about that, what's up with the system of getting a name here? The young should get names when their born, not when they prove their worth!"

"You named her?!" she said in disbelief. "She does not deserve a name!"

"No!" I yelled. "Everyone deserves a name! It helps to define who you are!"

"Not in this society nameless!" she said. "Yes, I know your little secret. And frankly, I don't think we can train the likes of you anymore. I don't even want to hear your information anymore. As of now, you are useless to the hive. And since you know too much about us now, we can't just let you go....."

Crapity crap crap. So that's what the d20 was about...... SHIT!

"Guards! Imprison him!" the Queen commanded. "If he fights back, kill him!"

NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE! Come on DM! Think of something!

BY GABEN'S HOLY STEAM SALES! I'VE GOT IT!

"I challenge you!" I screamed, right before a guard tackled me.

"What?" Chrysalis asked.

"I challenge you for leadership of the hive." I said. "No weapons, no help, no magic. Just hand to hand combat. Right now."

Please work. Please work. FOR THE BUTT CRACK OF THE DAWN, PLEASE WORK!!!

She got up from her throne and walked up to me..... Then she raised her hand.

"I accept." she said, bringing her hand across my face.

"Ow." I said. "Let's get started then."

I took out my sword and jammed it into the ground. Right afterwards, Chrysalis tackled me and started laying into me.

"When I win, drone, you shall be my personal slave, to do whatever I wish." she said.

"Oh hell no!" I shouted, laying a punch into her face. It stunned her long enough for me to shove her off of me.

Wait a second. Where'd she go?

She's next to my sword....

Hold up, I'm fighting the Queen of Changelings, and changelings are all known to be deceitful.... Crap.

She pulled my sword from the ground. It was obviously too heavy for her, 'cause when she started to swing it, she would swing around with it.

"SHIT!" I said, just barely dodging one of the swings. "That's against the rules!"

"Who cares!" she said, continuing to swing.

"I do!" I said, dodging yet another swing. "And I will not lose to a lying cheat like you!"

The next swing was an overhead swing. I dodged and landed an uppercut straight to her jaw. She released the sword and fell backwards. I picked up the sword and brought it just under her chin.

"Yield. Now." I commanded.

"Never!" she said defiantly.

I screamed in rage and brought the sword down..... next to her head.

"You've lost, and I'm done with you." I said.

"No you're not!" she screamed charging at me, fangs bared.

Right as she was about to strike, one of her own guard got in her way and slammed her into the ground.

"You've lost." it said in an unmistakably feminine voice. I turned around, confirming my guess. It was the same changeling that hated my guts not but twenty minutes ago. "As such you are stripped of power. Sir, what would you have us do with her?"

It was then that I noticed that all the changelings in the room were looking straight at me.

"Me?" I said.

"Well duh." the changeling pinning the ex-Queen of Changelings said. "You're our king now, as per the rules of the challenge."

Oh yeah, I forgot about what that fight was about for a second. Kinda hard to focus when the adrenaline's pumping from fighting for your life.

"Have her removed from the hive immediately." I said. "From now on, she is banished from the hive."

"Yes sir!" said the guards.

"And you," I said, pointing at the changeling that had stopped Chrysalis from getting in her sore loser blow. "Come here."

"Yes, sir?" she said.

"Who are you? I never got your name." I said to her.

"I don't have a name, sir." she said. "I never proved myself."

"Okay. I have another question for you."

"Yes?"

"Why did you save me? Just twenty minutes ago, you hated my guts."

"It's because I heard what you did for my sister. It means a lot to both of us. Thank you."

"You're welcome. Really. But you need a name." I said, stating my mind. "Everyone needs a name."

"But who is to give us names, sir?" she asked.

"Give them to yourselves, silly." I said. "And stop calling me sir."

"But what else should we call you?" she asked. "The old queen said it herself, you don't have a name for us to call you."

"I guess I can go without a name then." I said. "But I need to give you one. No one deserves to not have a name."

"Thank you." she said.

"From now on, I'm calling you Sapphire." I declared. "You are just like your sister, but you're stronger, more willing to fight."

"Th-thank you." the newly dubbed Sapphire said.

"Think nothing of it." I said. "You deserved a name. So does every other changeling in the hive. In fact, alert the hive about it."

"Yes sir!" Sapphire said.

"Hold up!" I said. "While you're at it, call back the changelings in the princesses old castle."

"Sir?" she said.

"We're cancelling the ex-queen's plans." I said authoritatively. "I've got a better idea anyways. But we'll have to enact that after the training I originally came for. Now get to it."

"Yes sir." she said, saluting. "Right away, sir."

"Welp. Time to get to it." I said with a sigh.

I have a long day ahead of me.

Enacting a Plan and Making Relations

The next couple of months consisted of an extensive amount of training that took me to my limits.

I also made friends within the changelings who taught me: twins Benevolent and Malevolent. As it turned out, they were assigned to teach me in the first place, but Chrysalis had a change of mind and assigned Captain Con and Major Artifice because they were fiercely loyal to her. Apparently she was already scheming to get rid of me from the start. As punishment, those two were also banished. Call me harsh, but I don't want people in high positions that had relations to old rulers that hated me.

Anyways, during the training I was able to get to know many of the changelings better. It also helped with my relation with the entire hive. Turns out having a king with no name really inspired all of the changelings who hadn't gotten a name.

Speaking of such, in the first month of my rule, I made it a point to get every single changeling a name. Although, I did save a certain name for myself. Why? 'Cause back on Earth, I decided that if I ever had a son, I would name him Loki. I kinda liked the trickster god, I mean, he's the god of people who like to troll. Why wouldn't I want to name my son that?

Also what happened in my first month of rule, was that I appointed Sapphire into a commanding position in the guard. It pays to have honor and be willing to fight at a moments notice. Her sister, at Sapphire's request, stayed out of the guard and high positions. I agreed with her, but told Emerald first. She wasn't too hot about the idea, but took it in stride anyways. She knew her sister was just looking out for her.

But enough about the past, it's time to focus on the present.

Today was the day I finished my basic training.

I had learned many things: from more advanced swordplay, to basic magic that was useful to changelings. I even learned a spell that allowed me to walk on water.

I had even made time to focus on some more advanced magics, such as basic transmutation. Transmutation is fun. I somehow made freaking Mountain Dew. Don't ask me how, it just involved a lot of fruit, air, and trial and error. Honestly, it's probably a thousand times more healthier. I also learned how to make other sodas, but Mountain Dew was just the hardest to do.

To say that I was happy it was time to finish my training, was an under exaggeration.

So, it was today that I stood in the throne room, wearing a custom set of formal, yet functional, armor pieces. Why was I in here? Because the changelings, as an entire unit, had a surprise for me.

I was just outside the doors, waiting for my cue to come in. When it came and I stepped in the room, I noticed that the entire hive had gathered into the throne room to see me rewarded. At the throne stood Sapphire and Emerald, as well as my teachers Benevolent and Malevolent. When I reached the throne, I was asked to kneel.

"We have gathered here today, everyling," Malevolent started.

"To celebrate the completion of training of our new king." finished Benevolent. I had forgotten that these two liked to talk like purely male versions of the Lutece Twins.

"We have also come to bestow upon him what he has bestowed upon us." said Malevolent.

"As you all know, he came here with no name, so we have all come to rectify this." said Benevolent.

"Today," they said together, "we give our king a name."

"I have been told to give you the name, my king." said Emerald.

"And I, the crown." said Sapphire.

"From today on," Emerald said, "You shall be known as Dox."

With that, a crown of ebony and emerald crystals was placed on my head. Following, I was asked to stand and address my subjects.

"My fellow changelings." I said. "As much as this day is about me, this day is about you. Today I plan to help the hive so that we will no longer have to hide in the badlands. Today, I go to Canterlot."

I paused to let the changelings take in my words. I got pure silence in response. It became so quiet in the room that you could hear a pin drop.

"That's right." I said. "I plan to go to Canterlot. I know what day it is, too. Today is the day of the royal wedding."

"Sir?" I heard Malevolent say. "Why there? Wouldn't that be the worst idea? You said so yourself, the plan Chrysalis had was canceled because it was bound to end in failure."

"Yes, I know." I said. "I plan to go there for a different reason. Two, in fact."

"And what are those reasons, sir?" Benevolent asked.

"I plan to warn the princesses about the traitors," I said. "I also plan to make a treaty, of sorts. It is my intention to make it so that we won't have to hide again, so that we can live out in the open."

It took a second, but the result was exactly what I hoped. The room erupted in cheer, praising the hive and its ruler.

"Those of you who I've contacted, you know your jobs." I said. "We leave immediately for Canterlot."

"Wait sir!" said Sapphire. "As part of the force you contacted, I'd like to advise that we teleport to the outpost we have in Canterlot."

"I see no problems with that." I said. "Let's get moving then.

So it came to be that I was on the move for Canterlot from a changeling outpost about a mile away with ten other changelings.

“I thought you said that the outpost was in Canterlot.” I said.

“It is.” said Sapphire. “We’re in the outskirts. Where else would we hide an outpost of full of changelings? In the center of the city?”

“Touche.” I said. “Anyways, lets get moving.”

The shield was just like how it was in the show: big and pink. Although, there weren’t any guards around that I could see. You would think, what with the whole princess wedding and all, that there would be more guards, but I digress.

Well, there’s something I thought I wouldn’t see for a bit longer.

“Hey Drake!” I yelled as I waved down my fellow human. “How’s it goin’?”

On the other side, I could see Drake stop as he stood next to a princess. She was pink and in a well pink dress with a white veil on. I saw him briskly walk forward before hearing him laugh “DM! How the hell did you get here and….. why are there Changelings with you?” he asked as he pointed to my companions.

“Long story man.” I said. “I can’t really tell you all of it right now, but I need to go see the Princesses. Oh, and the name’s Dox now.”

I saw him look back at the pink princess as he does a hand motion and she runs off “Dox huh? Well as much as I would like to man, you got to understand that well….. today is a Princess wedding and security is pretty tight, but also…. how do I know your Dox?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that I freaking knew you!” I said. “Jeeze man. The changelings never encountered you, remember? All they did was know of you. They don’t really know anything about your Dota powers.”

“Except that you just told them if it’s true! Just answer me this…. what three heroes did I turn into during the Equestria vs Griffon Kingdom war when you were at my side?” he asked with a raised brow.

“Gyrocopter, Venomancer, and that one red guy.” I said. “I can’t really remember much about him. I remember he had an scythe and that whole trippy experience when I stabbed you. I ripped him off your face like a mask.

That was all that was needed as I saw Drake smile and grin. When the sound of hooves reached my ears I looked to see six mares and one white stallion who seemed quite defensive of the pink princess “Hold on”. Drake walked over to them and seemed to say something softly as they seemed to relax…. sort of. I swear that blue winged one wants to kick me in the face for some reason.

The shield opened a bit as I saw Drake wave us in “Come in Dox and friends! They will let you in as long as I act as your guard. One wrong move and let me warn you I will be allowed, by Equestrian law to go Phoenix on you.” he told us in a serious tone.

“You touch them…” I warned. “You won’t like what’ll happen.”

“Hey! Nopony threatens my flyguy!” the blue one says as she flew up in my face. Drake patted her back as she stands down as he looked at me with a look as if I was serious. Of course I was….. if only I knew how to use these damn dice.

Drake simply motion “Follow. Trust me the sooner we get this done, the faster we can enjoy cake before Celestia ‘Royally decrees all cake to go to her quarters’” he said with massive airquotes.

“Good idea.” I said. I pulled Drake aside and said, “It appears that we both have stories to tell.”

When we got to the castle, Drake simply pushed the guards aside as they just let us stroll on in. Apparently Drake had some pull around here, possibly as a war vet technically. As we walked down the halls, it wasn’t a surprise of the looks we got from guards, servants, and some white coated unicorn who simply looked at Drake and instantly shut his mouth. As we reached a large set of double doors, Drake simply grinned as he called out “Sunny! Moony! You have guest!” he yelled as he pushed the doors open.

There they were, sitting in their thrones: The royal princesses, Celestia and Luna.

Now I could enact my plan.

I walked to the feet of the thrones and got down on one knee, then bade the changelings to do the same.

“Princesses,” I said as I quickly bowed my head and then went back to looking at them. “I have come here on behalf of all changelings in this realm, to ask one thing.”

It did not take long for the sound of hooves to descend from the throne and to our position. Before my eyes, I could see a pair of golden slippers as a voice, sweeter than honey and softer than any cloud, spoke “Please raise your head young one” she said.

I did as I was asked and said, “I have come to ask for a treaty.”

This greatly surprised the changelings behind me. They thought that this would have been the last thing I would have done, bowing before the diarchs of the nation that they had invaded, captured citizens from, and drained love from for centuries.

The reaction that came from Celestia was unexpected. A soft giggle is heard “I believe both of our nations will benefit from this. However-”

“What doth your leader, Chrysalis say of this?” a new voice spoke as up on the throne, Luna descended, but with a look that was more skeptical than open hearted like Celestias.

It was at her arrival that I stood up to my full height and removed my cloak, revealing my fancy armor with the emblem of changeling royalty on the right breastplate.

Celestia looked a bit surprised, but quickly regained her composure “Sister. He IS the leader” she said. Just as she said that, I could see Drake walk between them as he looked over me. Every inch of my armor and emblem.

I could hear him inhale sharply “So….. let me get this straight….. you changed the future by doing something with the leader? The leader whom I already warned the princesses here of?” he asked in a oddly…. calm manner.

“Yes.” I said. “If you don’t remember, I went off to go find her and the hive. Turns out, instead of giving me training, when I brought up something I didn’t like, she had a change of heart and tried to imprison me. I took her out of power and banished her. Fun thing is, I just got officially crowned today.” I took out the crown I had in one of my pouches and showed it to Drake and the Princesses.

I could see Drake’s eye twitch a bit “I am honestly at a crossroads right now. A part of me wants to strangle you for changing the future…. but the other side of me wants to grab you, drag you, and buy you a damn mug of cider and honestly the latter is more in control…. however a question does strike me” he said as he taps his chin with a gauntlet finger.

“Yes?” I asked. “Please, ask away.”

Drake pulled me in close as he says “What will happen when you have to leave? Chrysalis might return and steal control. She be pissed and do a much more violent assault” he whispered to me as he let me go. He cross his arms “Still… damn glad to see your not dead DM” he said.

“Same here.” I said. I pulled him closer and whispered to him, “Talk with me after the wedding.”

Celestia politely cleared her throat “Not that this is intriguing. Shall we speak of a treaty after the wedding of my niece and soon to be nephew-in-law?” she asked. Luna still looked skeptical, but she kept quiet as she is apparently trying to get more with new modern negotiations…. probably.

“Sure.” I said. “It’ll be a perfect time. A momentous occasion to crown another. In the mean time, however, is there a place for me and these changelings to stay?”

Celestia simply nodded “You will stay with Drake” she said as she smiles at them.

Me and the changelings got separate rooms in the castle. They were all right next to each other, too. I was in my room talking with Drake.

“So, Drake.” I said. “About that whole flyboy thing with Dash. What’s up?”

Drake just had this look on his face that said he regretted what Dash said. His face was beet red, hands trembling “Um…. remember the whole war incident? Also of what medics use to keep patients calm after war of anesthetic?” he asked nervously.

“Yeah?” I said. “What about it?”

He simply looked down “I was under anesthetic when I…. blurted out…. that I love to have a herd of all six of them together and well….” he stops as he groans softly.

“Good job.” I said, clapping slowly. “Just… good job.”

“Well… mix in how each of my heroes kinda appeal to them and before long I ended up dating them all…. that it’s also Celestia fault” he said with a huff.

“Again, good job.” I said.

“Not really…. turns out Celestia made a secret law of whoever dates one of the Mane Six, must date them all. All to keep their friendship strong and connected” Drake said as he chuckles “Also flyboy is because when I turned into a winged hero I couldn’t fly at first, but she helped me” he explained.

“Yep, totally not the most hilarious thing that I’ve heard in two months.” I said.

Drake simply chuckled “What’s more hilarious is how I shut Blueblood up. You know that white unicorn that instantly bit his lips when we passed him? Well…. to the nobles here, I am pretending to be a Phoenix God” he told me. He soon opened his gauntlet and let out a preview of a literal Phoenix in his hand “Now… they watch their mouths around me and my friends. Still, they pale in comparison to a problem that is going to start tomorrow” he told me. I could swear when I looked at him he actually looked afraid and scared, more so than at the battle.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “What problem?” All Drake simply did was stand up and walk to a small calendar on a nightstand. He handed over a small calendar to me as tomorrow’s date was circled and on it, in bold read:

Reminder!!!! Heat Season Begins!!!!!! Get a bunker!!!

“......... What……” I said.

Drake simply nodded as he looked at him “Problem is I got an all powerful magical unicorn, a speed defying pegasi, a cowgirl pony, a ‘too cute to resist’ pegasi, another unicorn, and a logic defying pony that have already called dibs on me….. I’m pretty much fucked beyond reason Dox.” he said. As he sighed and rubbed his forehead “I still feel like I am going to get chased by more than those six” he said as he falls onto his ass with an audible thud.

Well crap.

How NOT to Win a Mare-athon

Out in the Canterlot Castle gardens was a sight that very few could say they had seen in their lives.

Dox and Drake, however, were currently busy following Dox’s crazy plan, to which Drake had no idea about.

The two stood on the edge of the garden that overlooked the rest of Equestria. The sheer cliffside below giving a horrid contrast to the beautiful sight before them.

“So, I assume you would like to know my plan now?” I asked.

Drake just looked over at me with this pissed off look, probably from being awoken so early in the morning “Do tell since I have no damn clue what your planning” he said as he crossed his arms.

“Well, my plan is to get to Ponyville to hide out.” I said. “And Ponyville is over there” I pointed to the nearest town, “so you can see my problem. I have figured out, however, that the trains function at this early so that stallions, or in our case men, can ride out of the town their in on last notice. It’s a pricey ticket, but it’d work.”

Drake looked over at Dox as he rubbed his temples “Let me tell you how this plan is idiotic. One, in both Canterlot and Ponyville, the majority of the population is female like say….. eighty percent. Two, in Ponyville, there is a mint green pony who lives to track down non-stallion creatures like us. Three, all my bits, that I get from small time work and a bit of ‘monster tranquilizing’ as Mayor Mare calls it, is all the way at my base and I can’t access since someone took me out without letting me have enough time to get the damn pendent on!” Drake whisperer/yelled at me.

“Who said anything about buying a ticket?” I said. “We’re gonna hitch a ride on the train. That’s all assuming that we can get out before the castle is opened to the public and we’re swarmed by-”

I was interrupted by the ding-dong of a bell, stating that it was now indeed time to open the gates. As the gates opened, it became clear that it was indeed, too late, for standing on the other side of the gate, were thousands of mares looking over at us with a look of pure lust.

“Aw crap baskets.” I said. “Well, there goes plan A.”

“And here is Plan B…. ready?” Drake asked with a grin that left me feeling uneasy.

“You can’t be serious.” I said. “I had my own plan-”

It was then that I saw a guard being dragged off, all the while screaming for help. That poor stallion shall be missed.

“Nevermind,” I said.

With a raise of his gauntlet, Drake turned into some kind of creature that looked part demon, part monkey “Phase one: I turn into Riki since he has permanent invisibility. Phase two is where you come in” he said looking at me.

“Oh hell no!” I said, grabbing him. “We do this together!”

It was then that the ultimate bout of stupidity hit me……..

And I jumped off the side of Canterlot mountain with Drake in tow.

Drake glared at me “You idiot! I was going to drop a smoke bomb since that is something Riki can do as well!” he yelled as he clonked me in the head with the hilt of one of his daggers as he reverted back to his human self.

“Yeah? Well I don’t like it that you could just go poof and I can’t!” I screamed at him. “Besides, can’t you fly?” Drake just keeps glaring as a bright light came before my eyes. As I felt the wind rush past my face, I also felt a weird warmness over me as I looked over my shoulder to see myself being carried in the talons of a large firebird.

“Great! Now off to Ponyville, my flaming friend!” I said.

“Did you just give me an order?” Drake asked as his flaming head looks at me.

“Maybe? What about it?” I asked. Without any warning, I felt myself start to fall before a cold wetness came over me. As I scrambled up to the surface, I saw that I was in a lake and Drake was sitting on a tree branch looking at me. “The hell, man? The hell?”

“You come into my world, screw up the future in a major way, and expect me to follow your orders? I do not think so buddy. I’ve been following orders for more than my fair share of life and I won’t take orders from a guest. I know a place we can hide, but we do it my way understood?” Drake said.

“Yeah, no.” I said. “I know what you mean, but we have to work together on this, okay? We can’t just have a one man show here.”

“I know what I am doing, I already had everything planned with a few other stallions. Just been unable to get any message out of your arrival with the wedding and all….. not to mention I am also hiding from a certain mail courier” Drake said as his feathered shook a bit.

“Listen, man.” I said. “I know you have a plan and all, but I’d rather we have a conjoined plan, here. I had only planned on getting us out of the castle and to someplace we could hopefully hide. I was hoping we could brainstorm on how to avoid getting raped.”

“This is conjoined. Your plan of getting to Ponyville and my plan of a bunch of stallions who have a bunker made in Ponyville. Trust me, if worst comes to worst, we’ll just leave them to the mares. The worst one you’ll have to look out for is Cheerilee” Drake told me as he landed on the ground.

“Well shit.” I said. “But how are we getting in the bunker? Think of that one?”

“Simple. It’s hidden in a large, red, barn and the only mares there are a 10 year old and some 80 looking mare who is too old for heat season so we’re golden” Drake said with a big nod.

“We’re gonna get to the edge of Ponyville, then run to a barn?” I said. “That’s your master plan? Fine, I’ll trust you this once, but if this fails, I blame you. Just give me a second to do something”

I got out of the water and dried off my clothes with a quick spell. Then I took off my cloak and shook it a few times. On the last shake, the cloak changed from being black and long enough to cover my entire body, to a leathery brown and small enough to cover my arms. It also lost the hood, but I knew I could change it back.

“Ok, now we can go.” I said.

Drake looks at him “Now you have more magic? Oh freaking perfect” he says. He lowers himself “Hurry up. I’m sure just about everypony saw a large firebird enter the Whitetail Woods” he said.

“Let’s move then.” I said.

After a ‘lovely’ morning flight, the sun was just peaking over the mountains, yet that was quickly killed by the sound of stallions screaming and running. Hell I even saw a really buff white pegasi run away from about ten mares “Welcome to Ponyville in heat” Drake said after reverting back to normal.

“Let’s get moving!” I said. Drake started the path to this so called ‘Bunker’ as we had to immediately go and hide in a alleyway. Out on the street was a mint green unicorn with all sorts of traps, nets, and even weird goggles as she seemed to be ignoring the stallions all together.

I pointed to the unicorn in question and asked, “That the one you were talking about earlier?”

Drake simply nodded “Lyra Heartstrings. Basically obsessive as she is musical. She plays in an ensemble with some mare named Octavia” he told me.

“Ah.” I said. “Starting to remember the whole internet thing about her obsession with hands….. I say we run, or better yet: Where is the barn?”

Drake pulled out a mini map as he pointed to us, next to a place called Sugarcube Corner and traced his finger all the way to a place called Sweet Apple Acres “Here” he said.

“Okay then.” I said as I grabbed Drake. “I’m still not used to this, but let’s try it. Just follow with me.” I started to walk forwards, which for us was, in the direction of Lyra.

Drake looked wide eye “What the fuck are you planning you-”

“I found you!” Lyra shouted as she looked ready to pounce on us both.

Just as she started to pounce upon us, we dissolved into a shadowy substance and disappeared, leaving a very disappointed Lyra sitting where we once were.

The duo reappeared at the edges of the apple farm known as Sweet Apple Acres.

Dox, immediately after coming out of the shadowy substance, collapsed onto the ground, breathing very heavily.

“WHY?!” I screamed. “WHY IS THAT SO FREAKING HARD TO DO?!”

“Is som’one out there?” an elderly voice called out. Coming up the path was a wrinkled pony who looked around a good four foot two inches. As I looked at Drake, he bent over and hugged the old mare as she looked over “And who might you be youngin?” she asked me.

“I’m…. Dox…” I said in between heavy breaths. I took a second to get myself together and then continued. “I’m Drake’s friend.”

The old mare just chuckled weakly “Well any friend of Drake’s is a friend of the Apples! Name’s Granny Smith!” she says as she sticks a hand out.

I took her hand and promptly shook it. “It’s very nice to meet you. We’re in a rush, however. We’d rather not get hit by the horde of mares out there.”

Granny simply nods as she started to walk down the dirt path. Drake started to follow, but not before asking “Need me to carry you lightweight?” he joked.

“Hey, I’m still not used to using that teleport.” I said. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I’d be fine if I wasn’t dragging you, fatty.”

“Well excuse me mister bug king” he said as they came up to a pair of large barn doors. As the doors open, there stood a large, muscular, red stallion who looked like he could bench press the princesses and not get winded “Dox. Meet Big Macintosh”

“Uh. Hi….” I managed to get out. Holy shit, this guy is huge. All he did was nod as he stepped aside and showed us to a large, metal door. As he pulled it open, we could see four other stallions here.

Drake smiled “Dox, allow me to introduce you to these stallions who were smart for the Heat. You already know Big Mac, the light brown one is Caramel, the grey one with the jelly is Jelly Jammer, and the final one is Golden Delicious, a member of the Apple family” Drake explained.

“Hello everyone.” I said. “I’m Dox, and I’m a friend of-”

“Dox?” Jelly asked.

“He’s a changeling, a good changeling! King actually, but still he was here for a treaty, but well…. heat season. Look he is my friend and I can guarantee he ain’t trying some fancy, smancy takeover attempt or anything alright?” Drake said to at least relieve some of the tension in the room.

It had the desired effect, to an extent, but Jelly perked up again. “Wait, don’t changelings feed on love?”

Well shit. I can already tell where this is going. “Yes, but Dox is different. I say different as in it involves facts and other science/magic related stuff that only Sparkle or a Princess would understand” Drake told them as Mac shut the doors, locking all six of us down here for the heat season.

Wait, we’re in a barn….. Why was this a good idea again?

“Um, not to point out the obvious, but we’re in a structure made of wood and screws. Not just that, but….. isn’t there a window up in the loft? Specifically a window that DOESN’T CLOSE?!?” I yelled at them.

Of course I had to point out the only flaw as a weird high pitched voice called out “Finally somepony notices! I mean I always knew, but I wondered how long it take for somepony else to notice!” the voice said. I looked at Drake and he had this look of absolute terror on his face.

Just then, as if to accentuate me and the voice’s point, my chest pocket started glowing…. Why dice, why? You trying to warn me of something?

It was the d20….. Shit.

“Brace the door!” I yelled out. I rolled the die…… and got a one…...

At the door, Drake was some kind of stone giant creature as him and Mac braced the door. A southern voice spoke out “Big Mac! You open this door right this instant!” the voice yelled.

Drake looked back “That’s Applejack. Stubborn as a minotaur, but as honest as a church girl. Also kicks like hell too” he said as the door’s wood started to warp from the assault. Out the window multiple rainbow trails could be seen.

I started freaking out. I rolled a one and we were found…. and it’s still glowing, what the hell? I rolled it again…….. ANOTHER ONE?!?! WHAT IS MY LUCK TO DAY?!?

“DRAKE!” I yelled. “We’re screwed! Something bad’s gonna happen!”

“No crap! I can hear Rainbow getting ready to Rainbow Nuke us! AJ is kicking the door, Pinkie’s blocking the window, and I think Fluttershy is having Harry claw at the door!” Draked yelled just as the doors blew apart by a powerful magenta magic blast.

“SHIT!” I screamed. “Drake! Get over here!”

I ran over to the wall on the opposite side of the building and hovered my hand over the wall. On the wall appeared a circle full of runes for all of five seconds before going boom, leaving a gaping hole in the wall.

“MOVE PEOPLE! MOVE!” I screamed.

As I looked back, I saw all six mares run past the stallions and come after us. The other stallions were grabbed by a flock of other mares who followed those six.

Drake looked at me “Remember the six who called dibs on me? Well these are those six pal!” he yelled as he ran for his life alongside me. As we ran through the apple orchards, a shadow hovered over us as something started to fall from the sky. What landed in my hand was a….. muffin?

Oh god no. If the internet has taught me anything that I will never forget, it’s the mare of muffins…..

“RUN FASTER!” I screamed.

“Go away Derpy!” Drake yelled. He looked over “Give a mare a muffin and a pat on the back to help their emotions and they fall for you…. goddamn it” he said as he looked at his gauntlet “Idea!” he said. He soon turned into some kind of redhead woman as he grabbed my hand. Before I knew it we were moving as fast as the wind as we soon stopped in the middle of a field, near the edge of Ponyville with him reverting “Not many transformations left before Feedback. Still at least we got some distance” he said…. that was until a loud POP was heard and behind him were the seven mares who were chasing us “....They’re right behind me aren’t they?” he asked as he got enveloped in a magenta bubble.

“Hey ladies, he’s not up for that right now!” I said as I grabbed Drake. Sadly, this meant trapping myself in the bubble with him. “Well shit.”

“Don’t worry mister Dox” a soft voice said “We know two mares who would love to spend some time with you” the voice said with a smile.

Drake looked at me “Dox meet Fluttershy, the shyest and more easy to scare pony in all of Ponyville. Not to mention the kindest. You already know Sparkle, the unicorn of Magic. The pink menace is known as Pinkie Pie, a mare who loves to make friends and make ponies and people laugh in our case. She also loves parties. The flying rainbow is Rainbow Dash, fastest flyer and most loyal pony you’ll ever meet. Finally there is Rarity, the fashion queen and most generous pony you’ll ever meet. Also there is our mailmare Ditzy ‘Derpy’ Hooves” he said.

Well I guess introductions would be nice since we ARE stuck in a magic bubble.

“Yeah. Nice to meet ya.” I said. “But I’m sorry we can’t stay, we have a long busy schedule of not getting raped today. So sorry, but bye!”

I grabbed Drake and did the whole teleport thing again…… or at least, I tried….

Instead, I was left alone in the bubble, and Drake was freed, left standing about 2 yards away.

“RUN YOU MORON! RUN!” I screamed at him.

As Drake tore off in a fast run, the bubble dissipated “Come on girls! We can’t let anyone else grab him!” Twilight yelled as they all just left me there, sitting in the dirt as they all flew/ran after him. Unbeknownst to me though, two pairs of eyes watch me from the trees.

“Well, at least I’m free.” I said. About literally two seconds after I said that, I heard a bunch of screaming coming in my direction. I looked over to see a huge crowd of mares coming my way.

I did the next logical thing to do and took off running.

I met up with Drake after running non-stop for about an hour. Drake looked out of breathe, but also he was strangely without his gauntlet as he plopped down onto a rock. I ignored it, however.

“Dude, I can’t believe we outran all those mares.” I said.

“I had to outrun the fastest flyers and magic users! That’s hard dude!” Drake said as he drops the hood to breathe a bit more.

“Yeah, try outrunning the rest of the town.” I said. “That’s hard.” He just chuckled as he leaned back looking at the sky, letting silence sit over us during our break.

“How did you get away, anyways?” I asked.

Drake chuckled “Simple, I made them all think I went into the river”

“How’d ya manage that?” I asked. “Surely one of the mares chasing you could have figured out you faked it?”

He shook his head “Not if I tossed my gauntlet. It’s practically the only magical thing I got so they follow it thinking I go hero or something”

Wait a sec…..

That’s his ace in the hole. The thing that would allow him to change into something that could outrun them, at least for a little…..

And there was another fact……

‘I’ve got one more transformation before feedback’

Why would he take it off if he still had one more go with it?.......

Unless, it wasn’t him…..

Crap.

“Listen, whoever you are, I’d rather not have any funny business right now, so I’m gonna go now…..” I said as I started to back away slowly.

Just as I turned around, however, I was met face to face with Sapphire….

“The hell? Didn’t I send you home?” I said.

She simply smiles “Apologies my king, but… well natural instincts trump authority” she said as a green flame came up behind me…. oh crap.

Standing there behind me, completely nude, was Emerald….. Well then….

I’m pretty sure if they kept me tied up like they did to drag me here, this would be considered bondage.

I’m currently in my bedroom back at the hive. Simple teleports and boom, back here now. As I was currently laying in bed, all I could see before me was the bedroom door, walls, and of course two naked changelings that looked at me with lust. I could hear the small buzz of their wings as they started to move closer to me. One thing’s for certain, they were really ready for this. “Now where to begin?” Sapphire asked as she moved herself onto the bed

“Perhaps at his lips sister?” Emerald suggested as she came up on my left. Before me were a pair of Emerald’s eyes get in my vision “Don’t worry my king. This will be more fun then you can imagine~” she said with a purr. Before I could respond, I felt the pair of changeling lips meet my own.

*Obligitory Tease goes here. Look in the notes for reason.

The next morning I woke up and found myself between two very happy changelings. Arms over my chest and lower back, soft murmurs as I felt their faces nuzzle my hair and neck, and legs crossed over mine…. I wasn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.

Remember to Gather Friends and Allies

As the portal closed behind him, all Dox could say was, "I'm glad to be back."

Unfortunately, a certain purple flaming alicorn wasn't sharing in his joy.

More unfortunately, was that she was scaring the crap out of Dox, who preceded to run away.

He didn't get very far before tripping on a cylindrical object.

"The hell?" Dox said, looking at the object. "This thing looks like it's from Ben 10. It's even got the symbol."

Sure enough, the cylinder was black and green and had the Ben 10 symbol on the side.

"I wonder." Dox said as he hit the symbol.

There was a flash of light. The cylinder disappeared, replaced by a man standing in front of him.

“What the hell.” Dox said. “Who are you? What’s going on?”

“I’m Jason, who are you?” the human asked. “Let me guess, you found a unitrix core right?”

“So that’s what that was.” Dox said. “My name is Dox. That thing was from the show Ben 10, right? My memory isn’t as good as it was, too many hits to the head. But, yeah, I found a unitrix, hit the symbol on it. Why?”

“You’re the first person to actually use my token,” Jason said with a laugh. “That only took several months.”

“Token?” Dox said. “The heck do you mean token? I just found it on the ground and hit the button.”

“You... do know what a Displaced is right?”

“What about displacement? I’m sorry, ya kinda lost me there.”

Jason just facepalmed, shaking his head. “Are we in Equestria right now?”

“Yes, I’m pretty sure we are. I thought that was obvious. Don’t you see all the ponies wandering around? Or the purple alicorn over there? Speaking of that, can we move this elsewhere? I’m pretty sure that one is mad at me.”

“Hi Twilight~” Jason waved happily, smiling at her.

Twilight responded with a fireball, shot between Jason and Dox, just barely missing both of them.

“Told ya she was mad. Now can we please get out of here? Preferably to somewhere that doesn’t have an angry purple alicorn?”

“I’m not scared of Twilight,” Jason rolled his eyes, “Omnitrix, Arcticguana,” with a flash, he shifted into a blue lizard creature.

“The hell?! How did? Why did? What?! You’re just like the last guy I met, but with an actual Omnitrix. All he had was a weird gauntlet.”

He breathed in, then out, unleashing a torrent of icy winds that froze everything it touched, including a very suprised Twilight, “That should cool her off.”

“Heh, cool her off. But seriously, what the heck is going on? What did you mean by Displaced? And how did you get a working Omnitrix? Last time I checked, Equestria ran on magic, not science that’s light years ahead of us.”

“One sec. Omnitrix, Siegfried,” he shifted again, this time into a griffon. “Come on,” he spread this wings, flying off toward the Everfree.

“I can’t fly!” Dox screamed as he ran after him. “I don’t have wings, genius!”

“Oh yeah,” he said, swooping down and landing on a log. “This looks like a good enough place to talk.”

“So, what’s up with all this stuff? The Omnitrix, humans in Equestria, and that Displaced thing you were talking about? I’d like to know.”

“Ok so, you’re from Earth right?” Jason asked, spreading a wing, starting to preen it to pass the time.

“Yeah, of course. Don’t let my currently pale as hell skin and pointy ears fool you. Before all this started, I was from Earth. I’d just like to know what is going on.”

“And you bought something from some weird guy and got sent here correct?”

“Bingo. Also had this weird change happen to me. Used to just be a white kid... Now I’m super white. That, and my cloak,” he said, pointing to the tattered brown cloak. “Trust me, this isn’t what it normally looks like.”

“That makes you a Displaced.”

“Ah, and the whole magic and me being a completely different species now is part of that, too? Great.”

“Most Displaced bought things from that jerk,and we all got sent to different versions of Equestria,” Jason explained, looking at Dox.

“Mhm. Again, great. My already crazy life is all the more crazy. BRING ON THE DANCING BANANAS!” Dox shouted sarcastically.

“All I got is the Omnitrix, I’m still me,” Jason said, shifting back to normal. “Oh, you should be warned, stuff related to whatever you bought might appear in your Equestria,”

“Are you speaking from experience? ‘Cause if you’re serious about that, then I’m pretty sure I have nothing to fear about, other than what’s already in Equestria. Maybe a few more creatures, but still the same. Oh, and here’s something, you’re lucky as hell! I got changed into a completely different species. Meanwhile, you’re still human!”

“My Equestria was just ransacked by a bunch of genocidal knights who killed thousands, I’m not all that lucky,” Jason said with a slight glare.

“Oh. Sorry man, didn’t know you had it that hard. You have to kill anyone?”

“Yeah I did,” Jason said, looking at him, “I don’t recommend it.”

“Well then, I guess I can relate. Still kinda freaking out from the place I just was,” Dox said, looking solemn.

“Back on topic, a token is a item a Displaced sends out into the multiverse, that allows other Displaced to summon them.”

“You mean like this thing?” Dox asked as he held up a scroll. “A guy named Drake gave me this in the Equestria I just came back from. He said I could call him over with it.”

“Yeah, thats exactly what a token is, though I’ve never met a Drake before.”

“And you might not ever. I found him by accident. Kinda got fed up here and portal jumped without thinking. I didn’t even know what I was doing and next thing I know, I’m in what looks like an iTunes visualizer, then I’m in a Ponyville that’s in the middle of a war. Tough day for me.”

“A war?”

“Yeah, apparently the griffons and the diamond dogs had the idea of using Drake as a weapon. I helped him out, killed a few griffons, then left him to go find the Chrysalis of his world. Got trained in being a changeling, got a new name, and went back to find the war was over... I also got back around the time of a bunch of ponies heat periods... Yeah, not gonna talk about that.”

“You met Chrysalis?” Jason asked rather intrigued.

“Well, A Chrysalis. I figured if his world had a Chrysalis, this one might, too. Although his world did happen to be in the past compared to this one. I mean, I stopped the invasion of Canterlot from happening, who else can say they did that?”

“You did? Huh,” Jason said surprised, “I’m actually engaged to my Chrysalis.”

“Wow. I still haven’t met the Chrysalis here. Not even sure if the one in this world survived the whole wedding fiasco.”

“Yup, good ol’ Chrissy...” Jason said, getting a dreamy smile on his face.

“Ya know, I’m kinda surprised that you’re engaged to a Chrysalis. I guess I shouldn’t be though, what with all the crazy stuff going on. I mean, going to a convention, getting turned into a changeling, then going to another world on accident, the heat... then all this.”

“Well... she was my stalker for a while...”

“Dear goodness, that is hilarious. Lemme guess, now she never lets you out of her sight now that you’re engaged,” Dox said in a matter of fact voice.

“Actually no, she’s rather cool with that. I mean we live together already so what would be the point in that?”

“Good point. Although, let me ask this. Where is that place that you live?”

“We live in the old Everfree castle,”

“What a coincidence. Back on Drake’s Equestria, I found changelings out there that were using it as a base. They teleported me out to the actual changeling hideout. I learned about some of my new abilities there. At least, any of the ones that involve being a changeling. And some basic magic...”

“I’m new to magic as well,” Jason said. Holding his hand up, he conjured up a fireball, letting it dance around his fingers.

“Wow. Magic human. I don’t suppose you learned this though,” Dox said as he snapped his fingers. Ever so slowly he started to fade until he became completely invisible. “Did ya learn that yet?”

“No, but I can do this,” Jason said getting up. “Ultima!” he shouted, firing off several streaks of magic aimed at the empty forest. The explosion was deafening, leveling a good section of the forest.

“Jeez man! The hell was that! Sounded like a spell from Final Fantasy,” Dox said, reappearing next to Jason. “Where did you learn that? All I learned were cantrips.”

“Bought it from a shadow Displaced,” Jason said, sitting down. “And yes, that was from Final Fantasy,”

“A shadow Displaced? The heck do you mean? I’m getting confused again.”

“He’s a living shadow.”

“And he does what?” Dox deadpanned. “In fact, while I’m at it, what do you do? What were you doing at your convention?”

“Umbra goes from universe to universe selling stuff. As for what I was doing, it was my first con actually.”

“Okay. It was my third convention, my second Anime Expo, though. I was going to go meet my friends to go play some impromptu D&D at the con. I was actually dressed up for it, too.”

“I see.” Jason said with a nod,” I should tell you, the one Displaced you should meet is Gilgamesh, he taught me most of what I know.”

“Okay. I’ll look into that after I figure out how to master making portals. Also, do you think he’d even know enough to teach a Dungeon Master?”

“I have no idea, he’s more of Final Fantasy guy,” Jason said with a shrug.

“Hey, who knows. Hey, wanna see a trick?” Dox asked as his cloak changed from being brown and short enough to cover his arms to being black and long enough to reach his feet. His head became covered in the hood that emerged from the cloak, obscuring his face from view.

“That is pretty cool.” Jason said with a nod,” Don’t think I can do that,”

“That wasn’t the trick,” Dox said, “this is.” Dox’s entire body was encased in a green flame. When the flame faded, where Dox was standing was now a perfect copy of Jason. “Pretty cool, huh? Kinda hurts to do it still.”

“That is awesome man, I have to turn into a changeling to do that,” Jason said, getting to his feet, looking Dox over.

“Well, as I said, I am a changeling,” Dox said in a voice that sounded identical to Jason’s. “This sort of thing was why I had to go find Chrysalis. I mean, where else was I going to learn how to do this?”

“You got me there,”Jason said in agreement. “So... what do we do now? Someones going to come looking for the reason why a part of the Everfree is gone.”

“WHO BLEW UP MY HOME?!” said a loud, deep voice from far off.

“You were saying? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure whoever just said that is the guy who’s gonna come looking for us.”

“Well, fuck,” Jason said with a sigh.

“Agreed,” Dox said as he changed back and then proceeded to change his cloak. “I say we don’t just wait to find out who it is.”

“Yeah, I’m not really in the mood to fight anything...”

“That makes two of us. So what do we do?”

“Omnitrix, Hodgepodge!” he commanded, shifting his form once again. “Come on let’s go!” he said, throwing Dox over his shoulder and running away.

“The hell! Where are we going!”

“Wherever the plot takes us!”

“The hell are you talking about?!”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older!”

“Not funny! I would rather know where I’m being dragged!”

He came to a stop as they reached Twilight’s residence. “End of the line my elfy friend!”

“I’m a changeling, not an elf! And why are we in front of Twilight’s?”

“I dunno,” he said with a shrug. “We’re just here.”

“Wait... Take us to the plot... I KNOW!” Dox said, pulling out a thick booklet from Jason’s hair and opening it. “We blame Twilight!”

“Yes it is her fault isn’t it?!” Hodgepodge asked, scowling in anger.

“Yeah. She’s the one who chased us off. But one problem. She’s still frozen.”

Hodgepodge snapped his fingers, instantly thawing the frozen princess.

“Well then,” Dox said turning to the now unfrozen Twilight. “Yo, Twi. Take care of whoever you pissed off!”

“Yeah!”

“What?! I didn’t-”

“You hit the Everfree with your little spell, ruined someone’s home.”

Jason shook his head, reverting to normal. “Ugh I hate it when he gets to me... so uh... sorry for freezing you...” he said, giving you a sheepish smile.

“I’m still mad about that,” Twilight said, turning towards the Everfree. “Might as well go solve this problem and apologize.”

“That was my fault, let me,” Jason said looking at her. “Besides, I figured you would just melt the ice...”

“Dude. You’re seriously going to go in and take care of... whatever is angry?”

“Yes I am,” Jason said nodding. “I’m the one who blew up his home.”

“We don’t know what you angered. It sounds huge. And you’re still going out there? ARE YOU NUTS?!”

“I got this,” Jason said, moving back toward the source of the voice, “Hey uh, sorry about your home, It’s my fault!” he called out.

A large dragon rose from the Everfree Forest. “You did that? My hoard has been destroyed thanks to you!”

“I can make it up to you,” Jason said, putting his hands.

“And how can you make up a hoard as impressive as mine?”

“I can turn into a creature that grows diamonds, it’s really simple actually.”

“Then give me my hoard!”

“Ok jeez just relax,” he said, shaking his head. “Omnitrix, Diamondhead,” he said, shifting forms. He planted his hands into the ground, causing massive spikes of diamond to grow around him.

“This will do nicely,” the dragon said, heaving the spikes from the ground and turning back to the Everfree.

“Nicely done Jason,” Dox said. “I didn’t think you would be able to do that. Then again, I forgot about Diamondhead.”

“Hey, I’m trying to leave my assholeness in the past.” Jason said, reverting back to normal. “Again Twilight, I apologize.”

“I’m still kind of mad, but I forgive you. Could I ask you a few questions about your species, abilities, magic skill...” It was at this time Twilight started to list as many things as she could think of.

“I think she’s going to be like that for a while. You better get going while you have the chance. When I left, she tried closing portals like crazy. Almost closed one on my head!”

“Well it was nice meeting you,” Jason said, turning to Dox.

“Wait! I almost forgot! How the heck are we going to keep contact? Like, how are you going to get a hold of me? How do I make a token?!”

“Just pick an object that represents you and recite an oath into it.”

“Thanks! I’ll see you around!”

“You have to say ‘Jason, our contract is concluded.’”

“What. Why’s that?”

“To send me home. Thats how you send back a Displaced you summoned.”

“Oh, in that case. Jason, our contract is concluded. See you around.”

“Take care of yourself.” Jason said as he vanished, the unitrix laying where he once stood.

Welcome Back to Crazy Town, Population: You Don't Want to Know

Jason had just left, and I was left standing out in the open...... alone.....

At some point or another, Twilight had left us. I had no idea where she went though, so there's that.

"What to do, what to do." I said as I started wandering around Ponyville. In all honesty, I was kind of glad to be back in my own universe. Sure, I left behind a couple of anthro Changelings that loved me.... and kind of raped me..... but still, it was good to be back. But.......

No matter what, I felt as if something had been off since I got back......

Something was missing.... Something.... important.....

I stepped into what I thought was town square and realized what was wrong.

All the ponies were missing.

"Where is everyone?" I asked to nobody. "Hello? Anyone out there?"

I was answered with silence. Complete and utter silence.......

Silence, and a tumbleweed.....

"The heck?" I said. "That shouldn't be here...."

I started to follow the path of the tumbleweed, which ended up going in a very strange path.....

In fact, now that I think about it, where was the wind guiding the tumbleweed?

The tumbleweed led me to a building that looked like it was made of pure sugar. It was like as if just looking at the thing would give me diabetes....

Wait... I know this building... It's Sugarcube Corner......

And if a tumbleweed led me here.... then that means......

Pinkie Pie. It's always Pinkie Pie. Only she could have made the town disappear without a trace.

I walked up to the front door and stopped. Why go in the front and get the ever loving crap scared out of me, when I can go in the back and scare them? I mean seriously, I'm wearing a hooded cloak that shows none of my body and completely hides my face.

There's also the fact that I'd gone a long time without messing with someone........

What? You're the one reading about a guy who wanted to name his firstborn son Loki.....

Forth wall aside, I walked away from the front door and made it around to the back of the building until I found the back door. I opened the door and noticed that it led into the kitchen. All the lights were off, and I still couldn't see anyone with what little light was coming through the window.

I continued into the main part of the building, or what I assume is the main part. There were chairs and a counter in the room, so I can only guess. I also made out a couple pony shapes right in front of me. One had a scruffly mane, the other had a very poofy mane...... Pinkie Pie....

Let the trolling begin.

I got into a crouching position and made my way up behind the two ponies and began to make conversation.

"Hey, I just go the memo," I said in a low whisper. "Who's the party for? I kinda ran out before I read the whole thing."

"It's for the hooded guy," a squeaky voice said. It had to be Pinkie. "Ya know, the DM the princesses said they found and then said they'd reward if someone else found where it went?"

"Oh, I remember that guy." I said, sarcastically. "So, why are we holding a party for 'it'?"

"Because Twilight said she saw it!" said a tomboyish voice. That must have been Rainbow Dash, what luck? "She told us we had to stall it until the princesses got here. So here we are."

"Ah, but how is a party going to stall 'it'?" I asked. "What if it doesn't like parties? Or better yet, what if 'it' doesn't like surprises?"

"That's nonsense." Pinkie said. "Everyone likes parties! Except for Cranky. And everyone likes surprises sometimes."

"You're right." I said, dropping my fake voice. "I do like surprises. Like this one. Surprise."

It was at this point that the lights came on and every single pony in the room started to flip the shit out. I heard a few tables being flipped, a bunch of glass break, and one pony going 'the horror!'. In all, it was the most hilarious thing I've ever seen. As such, I started laughing like a madman.

At the end of it all, the ponies realized that I had them duped and calmed down. They all went up and apologized to Pinkie Pie and the Cakes, then stood around me and glared. I had freaked them out, and I'm pretty sure they expected me to apologize or say something about it, not just laugh my ass off.

"What do you all want?" I asked. "It was frickin' funny. You all looked like someone just set off a bomb in the middle of the room!"

"You should apologize!" one pony said.

"You scared us!" another said.

"IT WAS FUNNY!" I cried, still laughing. "None of you have a sense of humor."

"Get the ruffian!" a pony cried. The voice had an accent that made me think of a snob, instantly..... What? I think Rarity can be a snob at times, sue me (Please don't).

"And that's my cue to leave." I said. "Later nerds!"

I ran out the door with the utmost haste. I had to get away at any cost.

"GET HIM!" shouted a pony in the mob that was chasing me.

"JEEZE!" I screamed. "I'M SORRY!"

At some point they had taken my apology and stopped chasing me, but that wasn't before the princesses showed up with Discord in tow, who decided it would be funny to run with me.

Short story short, I slugged him after the whole run was done.

In all honesty, he deserved it. He also kinda congratulated me on having the balls to do it, too.

Anyways, the ponies did what they were trying to do, they had stalled me long enough for the princesses to arrive.

Why were they here? Well, I was about to find out.

Herald of the Prophecy of Insanity

“I feel like I’ve been in this situation before.” I said to no one in particular. “Anyways, why are you guys here, and what do you want from me this time?”

“All we want is for you to help us.” Celestia said.

“And how, might I ask, would you have me help you?” I asked. I mean, for all I’ve seen, all I could be of help with right now is if they were on a military campaign. Big problem for them, because there was no way I’d ever help with that. For all I know, if there actually was some kind of military campaign, it was to the Equestria equivalent of Siberia... and we were in Paris being led by Napoleon.

“We thought our sister already told you how,” Luna said. “Do you not remember?”

"What the hell are you talking about?" I asked. "She hasn't told me anything."

"I told you everything." Celestia said. She started to step towards me. "You must have forgotten, let me show you again."

She stopped in front of me and started leaning her horn towards my head.....

Okay, now I know I've been in this situation before.......

Just, one difference, though.

"Oh hell no!" I said. It was at this that I backhanded Celestia (Which earned me a Discord holding a sign over his head. The sign had a ten on it.) and proceeded to turn tail and sprint as fast as I could away from the situation.

"Guards!" I heard Celestia cry out. "Do not let the dungeon master get away! He must fulfill the prophecy!"

It was after this that I heard a bunch of armored foot steps (hoof steps?) coming in my direction....

Let's just say it was a bad idea to look back at the noise.

Behind me was an uncountable mass of pony guards. Some were pegasi, some were unicorns, but the bulk of the front of the mass were Earth ponies.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: Crap baskets.

"You'll never take me alive!" I taunted them as I ran away.

I don't know what I was thinking, 'cause the guards seemed to take that as a challenge and sped up considerably.

"Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!" I screamed as I ran past all the civilians on the streets.

It was about a few seconds later that I heard a voice say to me, "Follow me!"

When I looked in the direction of the voice, I saw a pony shaped figure in a brown hooded cloak. Just in time, too, because the second I looked it turned down an alley way.

Now, I know it's not a good idea to just follow random strangers down dark alleys, but what else would you have done? Sprouted wings? In all honesty, I could have changed my form if I could have stopped to just rest a bit. Sadly, though, there was no way I could have gotten any rest, what with the run from an entire village, and now the run from what seemed to be a very large platoon of guards in metal armor.

Anyways, I did the only thing I could have done at the time, and chased after the hooded figure......

Didn't think it through though, because it led me down to a dead end.

"Stop right there!" a guard shouted at me. "You're under arrest."

"On what charge?" I asked. Stupid I know, but I had to hope that my friend in the cloak had a plan, and just wanted to stall for them.

"For assaulting royalty and evading capture." the guard said flatly.

"Very well, under who's authorization?" I asked. I leaned over to my hooded 'friend' and whispered, "You do have a plan, right?"

"Of course, why wouldn't I?" it whispered. "It's not like we want to die. You wouldn't want to, right?"

"What up with your speech, bud?" I asked.

No response.

It was right when the guards were almost upon us that the figure did anything.

What did it do, exactly? It threw a bottle at the ground that teleported into a big tree-house.

There was a cauldron, and several masks, and ingredients.....

And a zebra.....

"Welcome to my home, friend." said the zebra. "Glad to see that you did not meet your end."

"The heck is that supposed to mean?" I asked.

An earth pony with a green and white striped bucket hat stepped out of the shadows and spoke up in a masculine voice.

"Oh, don't mind that." he said. "That's just how Zecora speaks. She's honestly glad that you made it in one piece."

"Hai." said the figure who helped me earlier. It's voice was masculine, too. He removed his hood to reveal two kinda squinty eyes. He kinda reminded me of my Japanese friends, although, I guess he'd be Japaneighs. Heh, horse puns. "Watashitachiha, anata ga anzende daijōbudearu koto o subete no yorokonde iru."

"He's happy you're safe, too." the earth pony said. "You can call me hat and clogs."

Hat and clogs... hat and clogs.... Why does that sound familiar?

Eh, must not matter that much...

Remember to Choose Some New Powers When Leveling Up

Well, things happened.

The ponies that have been hiding me this entire time have been treating me well. In fact, it’s like I’m just staying over at my grandmother’s house. It feels welcome, yet strange. I feel safe, yet barely know my environment.

The best part of my stay here is that Mr. Hat-and-Clogs has been training me in swordplay. Turns out, he was a master with his weird shaped katana. And not only that, he’s been teaching me advanced moves. In fact, I learned that I can do special moves with my sword. How did I figure that out?

Well, the other day during training, my sword started to glow this weird whitish-bluish hue. It was strange, but I noticed that during the time that it was glowing, my hits on the dummy we were using were a whole lot stronger. I was told by Mr. Hat-and-Clogs that I might be able to turn that into some sort of beam if I could master it.

Sounds cool right? Well, it only happened when I got mad. Why was I mad, you may ask? Teacher was throwing shit at me from behind the dummy and saying block and dodge every time I got hit. He stopped only after I slashed clean through the dummy’s torso. He also never did the same thing again.

That’s not the only type of teaching that he’s been doing.

What he's done, as of late, has been telling me to meditate and think of nothingness. I've been doing that, and having the result of going to that weird void-hammer-space. You know, that place where there's nothing, yet spirits can still come and communicate to me? Well, fun thing is, he keeps showing up there during my meditations and telling me that I'm doing good, per his instructions.

Honestly, the reason he taught me how to get there is, apparently, to learn how to get in touch with myself. He tells me that I have a long way to go, but I'm getting there. He also tells me that when I've finally gotten in touch with myself, I'll unlock a huge power that not even he can understand....

So I've dedicated my free time to meditating on the void, pretty much....

Funny thing is, it's been working.

Just yesterday, as me and Mr. Hat-and-Clogs were training together, I was thinking about one of my favorite songs, Dubstep Guns, and just as I bring down my sword I say, "Hit Stream," and this giant laser comes out of my sword. It honestly reminded me of when....

Actually, before I say that, let me tell you about today.

It started as per the usual, Zecora and the Japoneighs pony (who is named Renkinjutsu. He's a pretty good alchemist) made some breakfast. Then me and Mr. Hat-and-Clogs got to training....

We were out in the Everfree, looking for some timberwolves to fight, when he looks over at me and stops. He then proceeds to tell me about how he knows that I'm special and that I should know that he is also special, but in a different way.

I start thinking he's coming on to me, when he tells me he's not and then all of a sudden drops dead onto his face..... then deflates.... I mean he literally deflates like a balloon.

Then I hear something behind me, and surprise surprise, there's a blonde human standing there in a white freaking jacket and a black kimono. What the hell. He looked like he was from Bleach.

Again, surprise, he introduced himself to me now as Kisuke Urahara.

Now I can say what I wanted to, my 'Hit Stream' reminded me of Urahara when he used Benihime's 'Scream' attack. It was basically a giant slash of energy that came out of my sword.

Man I love how things work.

...... And freaking messed up dimensions.

Is That a Tesseract? No? Just a person, then.

So, this has been a very eventful day.

Let me clarify by telling you all exactly what has happened.

It was just like any of my normal days out here in the Everfree. Renkinjutsu woke me up early so I could get ready. Zecora made breakfast (recently she added eggs and bacon, although she rarely makes them). Then, Urahara dragged me out before I was done and set me to meditate before training.

This is where the fun bit starts. Why? Because recently, I’ve started seeing things floating in the void when I meditate. Strange things….. I’ve seen a golden coin, some kind of cylindrical metal tube, a rupee with a triforce on it, something that looks like the T-Virus from Resident Evil (Which I have avoided because of what the last Resident Evil guy did), and a small tear drop shaped talisman with the insignia of a helmet….

Oh, but that doesn’t include the one I saw today.

As I was meditating, I saw a blue freaking cube float in front of my face. The first thing I thought of was, oh hey look, the tesseract, so I grabbed it.

What happens next? I’m not meditating. Instead I got teleported to the freaking void, only for a portal to open up and instantly toss me out. Which sucked.

Why did it suck? Because I tripped while I was falling out of the portal…..

What sucked even more? I accidentally summoned someone again, because I dropped the freaking cube. No joke, I just dropped it and boom. He was there.

He slipped out of a hole in the air, faceplanting with the ground in front of me. It left me to wonder, was this what my entrance to Drake’s world looked like?

Anyways, I freaked out and drew my sword on the poor guy. Then I just stood there…. waiting… watching… monitoring his every-

This is getting creepy now.

He wasn’t moving, seeming content to simply lie there with his face in the-

*ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ*

Or he could be asleep... What the actual hell? He let out another groaning snore, and flopped onto his side. It was then I noticed this guy...was wearing nothing but a pair of rainbow colored tighty whiteys, and a weird watch.

…. Why?.... No seriously, why? Why on Earth would you wear-

And again, saying things before thinking. I actually knew people who would wear those kind of things…. not to mention that that one pony with the rainbow mane would probably be one of them.

He let out another snore, and I decided to wake him up… by violently kicking him in the side and shouting, “Get up!”

What? I never claimed to be a saint.

He awoke with a start, flailing about and letting out a frightened grunt.

“What? I, she with the paddle, what? Blueberry...on Thursday…” And with that he turned back over, and was soundly back asleep.

I kicked him again, intent on waking him up. Why should he get to sleep while I was awake? I mean seriously, the only reason that I woke up early is because Urahara insisted on meditating before training.

“Nyeagh! Crap, I’m up, I’m up!” he yelled out, blearily wiping at his eyes. “God damnit Twilight, what the hell was so important that I-” He finally stopped, seeing me for the first time, with my sword pointed at his face, no less. “Uh...theres a distraction behind you? Would you believe that? Any chance whatsoever?” he tried, in vain.

“Nice try, buddy,” I said. “But that’s not going to work. Now, I don’t intend on hurting you, but I do have a few questions.”

He visibly relaxed, folding his arms over his chest. “Shoot. I’m an open book, and it doesn’t look like I got much to lose. First things first though…” he looked down towards his toes, then back up at me, “Can I have my clothes back?”

“You didn’t come with them,” I said flatly. “Ya kinda came here stark naked.”

“Wait...So we’re in your Equestria?” he asked, his eyes wide in surprise.

“Yep,” I said before immediately facepalming. “And I’m being a bad host,” I lowered my sword and offered my hand, “My name’s Dox.”

“Um, Wade,” He stated, getting to his feet and shaking my hand while looking up at me. “Sorry about the drop in, it isn’t supposed to work like that. The way it’s supposed to work, is that you summon me via my token, I get the request, and then I can say yes or no. I’ve never had it happen...while I was asleep…”

“Well then,” I said. “This is honestly the second time I’ve summoned someone. I’ve never had to say anything… ever. The last one, I hit. This one I dropped…. apparently tokens don’t like brute force. At least, the ones I’ve found don’t.”

He looked around, ignoring me for a few seconds. I was about to voice my displeasure at that when he suddenly started...shrinking.

His flesh melted and twisted together, his skin color changing drastically. His skin grew paler, taking on almost a greenish pallor, while his hair changed from a darkish brown to an almost greenish blonde. His hair lengthened, forming what I think is called a ‘pixie cut’, but I’ve never been that good with fashion so it could easily be called something else…

Clothes grew out of his skin as he shrunk,was wearing some sort of green, sleeveless shirt with a stylized crescent moon on it. It was tied off with a sash, that surprisingly hung down lower than what looked orange bike shorts.Purple slippers grew out of his feet, along with green socks almost reaching his biking shorts.

His body continued to shrink, softening on his...now her curves. He actually was turning into a girl, what the flipping hell? No, seriously, what the hell was going on here? What is he doing? Some kind of transformation obviously, but even then, WHY A GIRL? He curious? Is it gonna be like that other world? I hope not.

Finally, the changes slowed, and ceased. He opened his eyes, looking at me with a green eye on his right, and a...I’m honestly not sure what the hell it was, it looked like he now had a smooth chunk of emerald where his left eye should be. What the absolute hell…. Ok, if this is some kind of transformation, he had to have seen something like this- wait, was this… did he?

He looked like a green version of Pearl, from the cartoon [url= Universe[/url].

“Sorry about this,” He said, his now feminine voice confirming my suspicions, by sounding exactly like Pearl from the show, “But this is the only form I have that comes with clothes. Pretty much everything else I have requires the clothes I’m previously wearing, or else my clothes just morph away completely. I hope you don’t mind, but I was getting super uncomfortable just talking to some random guy in nothing but my underwear.”

“It makes sense,” I said. “But, morphing? The heck? Are you using some kind of magic, or what?” I asked.

He...she…it? looked around a couple seconds, before…his gaze fell upon the tesseract-esque cube.

“Thats my token,” he claimed, picking it up, “It’s from the book series Animorphs, the original lets me morph. It’s called an Escafil Device, if you were wondering.”

“Holy crap,” I said. “I remember that series! I read it when I was younger! It was a good series, but um, how did you get the Escafil Device? Creepy merchant guy?”

“According to the other Displaced,” he started, tossing me the cube, “He calls himself The Merchant. His motif is that he sells you an item from a given fiction, mythology or otherwise, then strands you in a random Equestria. So what...did you get?” he asked, inspecting my appearance.

“Well, I’d think it would help with a visual more than anything,” I said.

I took off my cloak and shook it twice, and let it transform into the long, black, hooded cloak it normally is, then put it on. I then proceeded to reach into my pocket and pull out the set of strange playing die that I had bought from the merchant.

“I bought these,” I said, showing them to him, “Every now and then they glow, then I roll them, then they stop glowing. I don’t know what any of the rolls mean, though. It’s kinda weird if you ask me.”

“Dice?” he asked, leaning over my hand and poking at the assorted die, “So...you have magic D&D powers or something? Roll for initiative?” he joked, scratching at his head.

“As far as I’ve seen,” I said. “All the spells I’ve been able to cast come straight from D&D, even the race of the character. Fun thing is, I was the dungeon master, not a player. Somehow I ended up being a homebrew rule that I made up called the DM’s Champion. I still don’t know how that happened. What about you? Ya just found that, and got teleported?”

He got a sour look on his face. I could tell this wasn’t exactly the best memory for him based on that one flicker, but he quickly regained his semi jovial appearance as he replied.

“Yeah, pretty much. I was at a convention, and I found it on a random table in between halls. The guy selling it had a shitton of other animorphs stuff, I kinda wish I had grabbed some of it before getting deported from the universe…”

“Wow,” I said, “that sounds pretty shitty. The guy just sorta approached me when I got my stuff. It was almost the last day of the con, and he seemed like he was in a hurry, so there’s that, too.”

“Who is that outside I hear? Dox, tis you! I did not think you so near…”

I suddenly found a VERY female body clinging desperately to me, holding me between itself and the door of Zecora’s cottage.

“Twas not my intent to cause such fear. Let your friend know, there be no danger here!”

“Yo, Wade,” I said, “You okay? Waaaaade~?”

“Sorry,” he stated, physically shivering against me. God that’s weird. “I didn’t exactly have a favorable meeting with the first Zecora I met. Even though none since have been like her…” He peeked over my shoulder, to which Zecora gave us both an amused glance, “It’s something that seems to have stuck with me. Twilight thinks I might have PTSD or something… At the very least she’s the normal pony version...she is normal, right? Your world isn’t a crazy ‘everything is in heat all the time’ world, is it?”

“No,” I said. “Where the hell did you go to find a place full of ponies that are always in heat? Speaking of that, try to avoid Drake Blackwood’s world around the heat period there. The anthros will rape you. I don’t care what they are, they just will. I got lucky, turned from kidnapping, into rape, into consensual sex. Dem changelings.”

“God damn,” he uttered, “It sounds just like Donkey Kongs world. Which, by the way, avoid a glowing golden banana, and a Displaced requesting you that sounds like he’s a stereotypical surfer dude. If you’ve seen the horrendous cartoon, he sounds like that. Everyone is in heat, all the time, and the entire world is nothing but furries. Anthro, I guess. Weird as hell.”

He glared over my shoulder at Zecora for a few second, before he broke into a huge grin.

“Thats right! I have a rat morph now! Can’t rape a rat, ha! Eat that!” he yelled, flinging a finger forward to point at Zecora.

“You have heard from twisted tongues, if you have heard that I eat meat. I would rather partake of a boars dung, before consuming such a ...’treat’.” she replied, wrinkling her muzzle in disgust.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the two. They were both acting so ridiculously.

“Dude,” I said, “She’s not going to rape you. Just accept it! Not all Zecora’s are the same!”

“I’m not stupid,” he nearly yelled in my ear, before I pushed him away. Let him shield his own freaking self from the ‘dangers’ of the demure shamaness. “I know full well they aren’t the same. It’s just...when I hear her voice, and the way she rhymes…” he looked back between the two of us, acting like a flighty little girl. “I can’t help it, my skin gets cold, I break out in goosebumps and a cold sweat, and I can’t look in her direction without feeling afraid!”

“You said that one was an anthro?” I asked. “This one’s not. Calm your flat chest.”

“Flat? I wish, I..wait, why am I getting upset over what is basically a compliment? Sorry...I..sorry. I’m just...Sorry…” he trailed off, looking at the ground.

“It’s okay, buddy,” I said, attempting to comfort him. “It’s okay. Let’s get inside, shall we?” I asked, motioning him inside.

We walked inside, and Wade took a seat. After asking if Zecora had any clothes -a cloak or anything would be fine, he claimed- Zecora replied that her one personal cloak was currently at the seamstress being serviced. Wade was a bit despondent at that, and was still a bit fidgety. After Zecora offered us some zebrican tea, he managed to actually start to look relaxed.

“So…”he asked, shooting Zecora another wary look, “What’s up? I assume you haven’t summoned me just for shits and giggles?”

“Well, as I told you, I kinda did it on accident,” I said. “But since you’re here, maybe you can help me with a problem I have.”

“Well...it does say in my phrase thingy that I’m willing to help. So, I guess, shoot.”

“Well, there is the fact that the ponies in this world, minus the ones in our company, seem to be insane,” I started. “They keep telling me about this weird prophecy. Then they try to lock me up. Honestly, the last time it happened, I could have sworn something was up with them. They were fine for a bit, then poof, back to insanity. Think you could help with that?”

“Uh...sure. Don’t know how much help I’d be if they’re as insane as you say they are…” he got a pensive look on his face, reaching up and started to tap on his stone eye with a green tipped finger. What the hell. Can he not feel that? “I guess if they’re under a spell or something we could look for the caster, or the object thats messing with them. Did you happen to notice anything odd, well, odder than normal around them?”

“Nothing that I could see,” I said. “Come to think of it, actually, there’s something weird about what was going on. There was a party for me, but then a big prissy pony said ‘Get him’ and everyone obeyed. That was right before I scared Pinkie Pie…. Could it be something with the 6?” I asked.

“You actually managed to scare Annoying Pink? Dang, gimmie a copy of your guidebook, I wanna steal your secrets,” he joked, “You said prissy pony. I’ve technically met everyone in ponyville due to...previously aforementioned Annoying Pinks meddling by throwing me a party. I don’t remember all of them, but if you give me a description I might be able to narrow down a name…”

Just then, there was a loud growling noise that came from outside.

“The hell was that?” I asked.

“Wasn’t me,” Wade oh so helpfully supplied.

“Well, let’s go check it out then!” I yelled at him.

I quickly got up and headed outside with Wade tailing me. Upon getting outside, we both came face to face with a huge bear with a yellow… and pink... object on its back. The heck is on its back?

“Hi there...Misha? Misha, right? Whatcha doing all the way out here?” Wade asked, addressing the bear.

The bear didn’t respond, instead growling at Wade. What the hell did he expect? It took a swipe at him, and he recoiled with a violent jerk of his back. It almost looked like he jackknifed backwards, before he extended one leg and did a pirouette away, like a freaking ballerina. The hell? No, the [expletive deleted].

Wade righted himself, and took a second to look back at the bear. “The...hell? I didn’t do that. Did you do something?” he asked, directing his attention towards me.

“Me?” I asked. “Why would I do anything?! This is the first time I’ve even seen a normal animal! All I’ve seen in this world is ponies and wolves made of wood!”

“Thats Misha, one of Fluttershy’s animals!” he yelled at me, spinning away from another swipe. “What the hells wrong with him, he usually wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

“I don’t know!” I screamed, dodging a swipe from the large bear. “It’s probably the same thing wrong with everyone else!”

“Misha? Come on you great big fluffy teddybear, don’t make me hurt you!” Wade yelled, dodging yet another swipe. “Alright, you asked for it!” he yelled as he placed a hand over his rock eye.

Stupid, he was just taking away his depth perception, did he want to die here? With a sudden jerk, he tore his hand outwards, dragging a glowing mass of magic out of his eye. Within a few second, the mass solidified, becoming an emerald sword. It looked like the kind a pirate would have-what are they called, a cutlass?- except for the fact that it had a large, ornate hand guard over a two handed hilt.

“I don’t want to hurt you Misha,” he stated, reversing the blade and holding the guard as the handle, “but I know your head’s thick enough to take a few bumps!”

“Get out of the way!” I yelled at Wade. “If you’re not going to do something, I will!” At that point, I brought down my sword and yelled, “Hit Stream!” My sword launched a large blue slash that headed straight towards Misha. It nailed him dead on in the chest, but it didn’t cut him, it just knocked him back a few feet. He then proceeded to roar at me once again before reaching behind him and pulling off the pink and yellow thing from his back. He tossed it to the ground and walked away.

The heck? Why isn’t he in two pieces like the dummy? Wait a sec, if this is like that thing I did to Drake a while back…..

“Does...that mean we win? The hell was that he...Oh god.” he stopped, seeing the yellow and pink thing that was now on the ground.

I walked up next to him and asked, “What’s up with… the…. thing…..”

Upon reaching Wade, I was able to see what the thing was. It was a dazed yellow pony with a long, pink mane….. Wait a sec…. Long, pink mane?.....

…...Shit……

Right then, the pony gets up and jumps on Wade, crawling around and trying to get on his back.

“AGH! What the crap! Gettoff Flutters!” he yelled, doing an amusing jig as he twisted and turned, trying to dislodge the petite pegasus.

He gradually grew slower, until he stopped struggling altogether. He turned towards me and let out a low growl. His eye-the real one, not the freakish rock thing- had glazed over, and he wasn’t looking anywhere in particular as he returned the blade in his hands to its normally held position, suddenly rushing me!

It wasn’t that effective of an attack. I easily parried his blade, buckling slightly at the strength behind it-seriously, his arms were tiny, how the hell did he get so much power behind his strikes?- but easily turning it away.

“Wade!” I yelled at him. “The hell are you doing? I’m your friend! Snap out of it!”

He merely let out another groaning snarl, once again trying to cut me in half. I say trying, but it was barely that. Wade’s sword might have been impressive...but his swordsmanship was not. He was flopping it around like a drunkard with a broken bottle…. Actually, that’s a compliment, he was worse.

I quickly positioned the tip on my blade near his hilt, and snapped it out of his hand. Slapping him in the face with the flat of the blade, Wade tumbled to the ground, dislodging the yellow pegasus.

“The...hell was that?” Wade whined, nursing the darkening bruise that patterned his face.

“She did,” I said, pointing to the now dazed pegasus. “Any idea what to do with-”

I was interrupted by her trying to jump back on top of Wade, and once more his eye became glazed over.

“Oh no you don’t you little-” I lashed out with a boot, catching the pony on the chin and flinging her to the ground.

“I...nyeafffgh,” he muttered, slowly getting to his feet.

The yellow pegasus was apparently out cold, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

“Zecora!” I belted out, turning to the cottage, “Do you have any rope?”

“She left while you two were fighting,” said a familiar voice. “I got ya though. Bakudo number 4. Hainawa.”

The little pony became bound in some kind of rope made of energy. Wow, isn’t it great knowing someone that shouldn’t exist in Equestria?

“Thanks Urahara!” I called out. “Come on, lets get her inside.”

“Is...that a freaking pony version of Urahara Kisuke?” Wade asked, reclaiming his sword from where it had been lying on the ground. With halted movement, he tapped the sword’s pommel against his rock eye, and it got sucked back in. Like some sort of perverse omnom nom meme.

“For the short of it, yes.” I said. “Long of it, he’s training me for now. He’s told me recently that he’s almost out of stuff to teach me though.”

“Damn,” Wade uttered, visibly impressed, “Does that mean you can go hollow or something? Or just swordplay?”

“So far it’s just swordplay,” I said, “He has been teaching me some stuff about meditation, for all that’s worth.”

“Is that it?” he asked, flinching at Urahara’s flash of a grimace, “Not to say having an ex commander of the soul society teach you swordsmanship isn’t impressive. It is. Just… Is he not teaching you anything else?”

“Well, he taught me how to use some of my ‘powers’, if you can call them that,” I said. “Come on, lets get Fluttershy inside, then I’ll show you what I mean.”

“What? Oh yeah,” he walked over to Fluttershy, and lifted her inert form over a shoulder. He followed me inside Zecora’s hut, and set her down on Zecora’s couch before rubbing at the bruise that ran across his face. “My face hurts,” he whined.

“Stop your whining,” I said, “There’s a demonstration to be had!”

“Fine, fine,” he replied, rubbing at his face. “Hey Urahara, do you have any human pants? like, just sweatpants or something?”

“Sorry, buddy,” Urahara said, “I don’t. All I do have is the pony gigai, and I’m pretty sure you can’t use that.”

“Anyways…” I started, readying my sword, “Let’s go outside so we can start the demonstration.”

It wasn’t like Fluttershy was gonna get up and run amuk, so we just left her laying on the couch inside as we exited Zecora’s cottage. Urahara flash stepped, placing 28 dummies in the clearing around her cottage in under a second. Showoff.

“Let’s get started,” I said. “First off, we have… well, I don’t even know what to call it. Basically, I can channel energy of some sort into my sword for a stronger attack. Let me show you.”

I started… well, channeling energy into the sword. What did you expect? Some fancy words that mean the same thing? Anyways, when I finished I slashed at the dummy, leaving a deep gash on its chest.

“Now,” I started, “I can also unleash that energy with a move that I’m starting to call ‘Hit Stream’. Don’t ask about the name, it just happened to happen when I said that during a training session, so that’s what I’m calling it.”

I did much of the same thing for the last move, but this time, I took a few steps back before bringing my sword skyward -theres a joke here involving skyward swords...I’m just not seeing it-. I brought it straight down and it emitted a blue slash (beam? I don’t know. It’s like Benehime’s scream attack.) of energy that hit the dummy and cleaved it in two…. Ok, what the hell is up with this attack? First it breaks a dummy, then just hits the bear with no marks, then it destroys the dummy again. What. The. Hell.

“I’ve also been learning a bit of Flash Step….” I said. “But I’m not that good with it yet.”

“Just show him,” Urahara commanded.

“Fine, fine,” I said. “But when I fall on my face, you know why.”

“Trust me, I do that enough as is. I’m not gonna make fun of you for something you can’t control.” Wade responded, reminding me of just how he arrived. Poor guy, even does it in his sleep, apparently.

I took off running a bit before I think -and this is a big ‘I think’- I started doing flash step. I say I think, because every time I look down I-

It was after the seventh dummy that I tripped up on myself and was sent flying into a tree.

“Ooooow,” I moaned.

Wade was obviously trying to hold back a fit of laughter, but he managed to restrain himself after Urahara poked his bruise, fully erasing his good mood.

“I...er...yeah. sorry. Almost laughed. My bad. That looked painful, are you alright?” He asked.

“Yes,” I said, getting up, “It hurt a lot.”

“Well sucks for you,” he said with a grin, “once I get back to my Equestria, I’ll be able to just morph my bruise away, You gotta live with yours…”

“That’s what you think,” I said. “It’ll be gone before you know it. I heal really fast. Oh! I almost forgot. I have one more move to show you, but before I do, I have a question.”

“Questions are good. Shoot.” Wade said, almost tripping over his own feet as he moved to lean against the wall of the cottage.

“Now, don’t freak out,” I started, “But what’s your opinion on stab wounds?”

He got a pensive look on his face, “I don’t like pain in general, but if you’re asking how I’d react to a stab wound on me, I’d probably cry for a few seconds and complain about how much pain I was in, before morphing back to my original form as fast as I could. Then I’d morph back to this form seeing as, well, see my previous explanation involving clothes.”

“Okay then,” I said. “It’s time for Judgement!”

I rushed him. He had to see this. I had no plan on hurting him, but he had to see this.

Wade flinched back, letting out a surprised yelp and ‘dodged’ back -really it was more of a swollen step, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt in saying that it wasn’t just him falling over- as he suddenly hunched over, his rock eye sparking like a firework.

“Oooh~” hummed Urahara, Leaning over from his position. ”Forgot to warn you. Don’t use that on ponies...people that can absorb energy. Unless you pack in enough to kill them, they’ll just suck it up like a bowl of quality udon.”

“Thanks Urahara,” I said. “That would have been a lot more helpful if you had just told me before I tried it. Sorry about that. That was supposed to be my best move. As far as I can tell, it’s based off alignment. I don’t know how, or what, it just does. The last guy I used it on was actually a transformed human. He kinda went on a rampage in his own world and I used it to stop him.”

Wade stopped shaking, leaning backwards with a stretch. “HoooWOO! What a rush! Why didn’t you tell me you were gonna do something like that? I feel amazing! Ow. Except for my face. That still hurts. Aaaaaand my rush is gone. Nuts.”

“Well, I didn’t know,” I said. “It was supposed to be a stab kind of attack. Then we were supposed to enter the void-”

“Fret not, I have returned, with Alicorns Rhye, It shall surely cure what ails, our poor Fluttershy.”

Wade flinched worse than when I went to stab him in the chest - he got four feet of clearance, sucks for him that the threat of being stabbed didn’t rate as high for his survival instincts as a harmless mare- and hid behind a tree.

“Dude, seriously?” I asked. “Let it go. Different world, different Zecora. We’re not even near spring here, man!”

“Thank god,” He uttered, two stepping back over to us -obviously putting me between himself and Zecora- and trying to pass it off like nothing had happened.

“Now, what is it that you found, Zecora?” I asked the stripe laden mare.

“This right here is Alicorns Rhye, it rids the mind of magics stye. It will return your friends mind to her, It will be as it ever were.”

“That’s great, Zecora!” I basically screamed.

“I warn you now, the potion must be drunk, If you cannot force the victim, you’re sunk.”

“.... Well crap.” I said. “Wade, could you help out with that?”

“Uh...sure,” he said, unsure as he took the chalice from Zecora, still trying to recoil away from her as much as he could. We went back inside, and he propped Fluttershy’s head up on his lap. “Okay...I think you’re supposed to massage the throat? I think?”

He poured a tiny amount into her mouth, and tipped her head back with one hand while stroking her throat with his other. Sure enough, I could hear the animal loving pegasus swallow. First success under his belt, Wade tipped the remainder down her gullet, repeating the process.

With a start, Fluttershy awoke.

She looked blearily at Wade for a second, like she was trying to see something far away. Finding herself immobile due to the sparkling light rope, she let out a giggle.

“Um, is she okay?” I asked Zecora. “She seems…. loopy. Kinda like she’s…”

“Doooooox~” She trilled, wobbling her head from side to side. “Your lap is so soooooooooft~ and theres two of you! Two laps… all mine… all mine to lay on...mmmmmmmm”

“Wade,” I started, “You need any help getting her off you?”

“Not really,” He replied, easily lifting Fluttershy off his lap, before plunking her back down on the couch. “So I guess the ‘rye’ part of that name isn’t just for theatrics?”

“It is true, this draught holds sway with pitchers of wine, a small price to pay to get ones mind back in line.”

“She’s drunk,” I stated. “She’s drunk enough to kill someone. She’s freaking drunk.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Urahara said, “I had a drop of it just to see what it was like. I was drunk for weeks.”

“I guess that’s that.” I said. “Hey, if I need any more help, can I call on you?”

“Sure thing, sorry I wasn’t that much of a help, do you have a token I should be looking out for?”

“Yeah, about that,” I started. “I don’t have a token… nor do I know how to make one…. Could I… get some help with what to do?”

“Well, I didn’t make mine. But so far my general advice of ‘hold something you want to be your token, and just will it into being one while reciting a summon phrase’, that seems to work. for some reason.”

“Oh, okay then,” I said. “So, uh. What to use…. What to use….”

Aaaand dice are glowing again. Wait… just the d6….. The hell?

I took out the die in question, but before I could roll it, its glow became bright, up to the point where I had to shield my eyes. When I removed my arm, in my hand was the die, along with a strange copy that had a purplish tint to it….. I guess the dice wanted to help or something….

“Would this work?” I asked Wade.

“Looks like,” he muttered, leaning in close to take a closer look. He somehow was so absorbed in my newest acquisition that he completely forgot about how close Zecora was. I almost had an urge to shove him onto her, just to watch him squirm.

“So, what I just say an oath or something?” I asked.

“As far as I know…”

“Okay then.” I said.

“This is for anyone who needs help or just wants a friend. Summon the Dungeon Master of Equestria if you’re ever in need.

“So now what?” I asked. “Is it supposed to do something, or am I supposed to do something or what?”

“Uh, basically, I’ll take it and hand it off to Auric once I get a hold of him. He knows how to distribute them.”

“Distribute them? How?” I asked. “Wait, does it have something to do with the void? I mean, that’s kinda where I found your token.”

“Well, yeah. Auric made my token, and then he opened up a hole in the air and tossed it in.”

“Like, this?” I said, feeling around for the edges of space again. “Aaaaand open!”

With that, I pulled open a portal to the void and tossed in the d6.

“Tada!” I said.

“Oh.” Wade uttered, a look of dumbfounded appreciation on his face. “I guess that works.”

“Well, I guess that’s it then,” I said. “But, uh, one more thing.”

And with that, I pushed Wade into Zecora.

He tumbled head over heels, getting his limbs tangled in hers. Once he was aware that he was basically nose to muzzle with her, he let out quite an impressively girly squeal of terror, shoving her off and back peddling as fast as he could.

I bust out laughing. It was just too funny.

I stopped laughing when a brown pony with a green mane walked out from behind some trees started….. growling at us. His eyes were slitted like a reptile, and, I swear, it looked like he had fangs.

Wade stopped moving, watching the strange reptile pony. He made no reaction, save for tracking the pony with his eyes, and gradually gaping his mouth wider and wider. Any more and he might have been able to stuff a whole trout inside.

“Uh...should I be worried? So far the only threatening thing has really just been a cute pink and yellow fluffball, by all lines of causality this should be a benign event, right? Right?” He asked hopefully.

“Don’t worry,” I said, walking over to the strange pony, “Just give me a second and I’ll handle this.”

When I reached the pony, I lifted up my right hand and then brought it down across his face. This, in turn, caused the pony to sprawl to the floor and close his eyes. When he got up, he looked around for a little bit before asking us where the heck he was. His eyes had changed to the normal giant eyes that I was used to for the ponies, just big and round… honestly, they all look kinda squishy….. WHAT?!?!

“Sleeping,” I started, “It happened, again. Just go get your potion from Zecora then go home.” -I turned to Wade- “That’s Sleeping, this happens just about every week, as far as I can tell. He runs out of potion, then his alternate personality starts going nuts, he ends up here and we send him home.”

“Thanks!” said Sleeping as he left.

“Don’t mention it, little buddy!” I called after him.

“Creepy…” Wade muttered.

“I know, but it happens,” I said. “What ya gonna do?”

“Complain and hide from the terrifying looking lizard pony? Although, I guess that is kinda rude. Should I apologize, you think?”

“If you ever stop by again, yeah,” I said. “He’s honestly kind of sensitive. But it’s okay. Speaking of that, don’t you have a universe to get back to?”

“I honestly don’t have any way of returning when I want. It’s completely random, sometimes I only stay in a given world for a few minutes, other times entire days go by. It kinda just happens whenever it wants, as if the multiverse is be-”

Suddenly, Wade just...wasn’t there. Well then….

I guess that means I’m free to do whatever…..

Just then, a little portal opened up and pooted out (I’m being serious, it even made the little poot noise) the same cube I had grabbed from earlier. I guess I have another token to add to my collection.

Question Everything.

Today's a big day, or so I've been told by Urahara. It's been a few weeks since that time I pulled Wade into this universe, and that was pretty special.

Fluttershy has been staying with the rest of us, and she's a big help. I don't have to scare off any of the creatures anymore, which is really handy, since yesterday a manticore decided to stop by. She just petted it like a little kitten and it went off on its way.

Anyways, Urahara told me that he had a big announcement for me and the rest of the inhabitants of Zecora's little tree hut. He said he'd do it after training, and that's almost done. So, what is he planning for us?

"That's enough, Dox," said Urahara.

"Hai, sensei," I replied.

"You weren't joking about that," said Urahara. "Right up, 'til the last day."

"Wait, what?" I questioned. "What do you mean by that?"

"Get everyone else out here," commanded Urahara, "then, I'll tell you what I mean by that."

....... What?.....

Oh yeah, let me fill you in. I told Urahara one day that if he was gonna be so formal with me, I'd just keep going 'Hai, sensei' until either he stopped, otherwise I'd keep doing it up until the last day of training.... He never stopped being formal though....

Anyways, after getting everyone outside as ordered, Urahara told us to gather around for his big announcement.

"Today," he started, "I have ran out of things to teach."

"Okay," I said. "Why does that concern anyone but me?"

"Because, Dox, I'm leaving today." He stated.

"But why?" Zecroa asked. "To where do you fly?"

"I'm heading to the Soul Society," Urahara said. "I'm going to be staying with a friend of mine for a bit before heading elsewhere."

"But why can't you just stay with us?" I questioned.

"Because I'm no longer needed here," he said. "I don't want to hear any more objections."

"Anata ga hanareru toki?" said Renkinjutsu.

"I'm leaving in an hour." Urahara responded. "Before I go, however, I'd like to let you all know that I will miss you."

"We will miss you to, my friend." said Zecora. "But let us not say goodbye, that this is the end."

"Don't worry, I'll come back and visit." Urahara said. "Oh, and Dox."

"Yeah?" I said.

"I need to talk with you before I go," he said. "In private."

"..... okay..." I said.

He took me out to a clearing deep in the Everfree. He said that after he was done talking with me, that he'd be leaving.

"So, you're probably wondering why I needed to talk with you," Urahara stated. "Well, that's because a few days ago, when it was my turn to go and get supplies, I was confronted by a random pony."

"Okay," I said. "Isn't that part of getting supplies, though?"

"This one was different," he said. "They confronted me on the outskirts of the Everfree. They said they know that you're hiding here. They sent in Fluttershy to confirm it, but they know now. Then they walked off. It was really strange. I just thought I could tell you."

"Okay, but what does it mean?" I asked. "Surely a pony wouldn't just be that creepy. Maybe some mind control, like how Fluttershy was?"

"I don't know." Urahara said. "And I don't have any more time to dwell on it. I'm leaving it up to you to make a decision on what to do. Good luck."

And with that, he disappeared. Freaking flash step.......

When I returned to Zecora's hut, I immediately told them what Urahara had told me. We formulated a plan to get out of the area, and move out to the abandoned castle out further in the forest.

Before we could leave, though, we had to pack up and get ready. It was during this time that Fluttershy pulled me aside to talk.

"I'm sorry," she started, "but I can't just leave my little animal friends wondering where I am. The poor dears probably have been worried sick about me."

"It's okay, Fluttershy," I said. "You and I can go back and leave a note, or something. In fact, while we're there, we could probably grab some of your things from your cottage."

"Oh!" she squealed in delight. "Thank you, Mr. Dox! Thank you!"

"It's honestly no problem," I said. "I just don't want you to get brainwashed again."

"Can we go right now?" Fluttershy asked. "I'd rather we not keep the little dears worried for longer."

"Okay, okay," I responded. "Let's go then, just let me tell Zecora and Renkinjutsu first."

And with that, me and Fluttershy left for her cottage.

Fluttershy was right, the animals were worried. In fact, they almost took me down. If it weren't for the giant bear, Misha, I'd probably be animal food. But I digress.

"So, is there anything you want to grab?" I asked the little pegasus.

"Well, I need to grab Angel," she responded. "I'd also like to grab some of my private belongings."

"Ah, okay then," I said. "Would you like me to stay outside or-"

"Oh, no no no no no," she interrupted. "I couldn't ask you to wait outside for me. Feel free to come inside."

"Well, if you insist." I said.

"I'll be down in a little bit," Fluttershy started as she was going up the stairs. "When I come back down, we can leave. Please make yourself at home.... I mean.... If you want to....."

"Don't worry," I said. "I'll be fine."

While I was waiting I started looking around the house. I swear, the show did not do this place justice. It was amazing! The little pathways for the animals, the holes in the walls, the little houses hanging from the ceiling. It was just the most amazing thing that I've ever seen.

I was pulled out of my musings by a scream from upstairs. I ran up the stairs and readied my sword as a precaution.......

I wasn't ready for what I saw, though.....

There.... on the opposite side of the room from the stairs.... was a statue.....

........ I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't. I had seen him in the town the other day. Why was he here? He was alive and walking just the other day! If that wasn't him, then who was it?!

There was a note stuck to it.

He disagreed with the prophecy. No one may stop the prophecy. All hail the princesses. All hail the chosen few.

What the hell? Chosen few? And what's up with this prophecy again? What is going on here?!?!?!

I looked at the statue.

What's that at Discord's foot?..... It's a book with weird lettering on it.....

Wait a sec...... That's elvish......

..... It said, and I translate:

The Prophecy of the Ancient Champion

..... Looks like I'm about to get some answers.

Prophecy of a Madman

Long ago, when Equestria was still young, there was a war between the tribes on who should lead. You see, the founders had died from sickness after founding the new nation. The cold in their hearts may have thawed, but the cold on their bodies left a lasting effect…..

In the war, a lone stallion sought out peace between the tribes. He wished to end this war so that he and his fiance might live together in peace and harmony, just as the founders had wished it, just as his mother had seen it. He had seen what war had done to the tribes before, and did not wish to see a repeat of their somewhat recent history.

The tribes downright refused to meet together, as it was commonly known at that point. But how could he reunite Equestria under a single flag, if they would not come to even say hello?

Even if the situation seemed grim, he persisted without falter. Under the advice from his wife, and the courage in his heart, he went forth to meet the tribe leaders separately.

First were the unicorns. They believed that the other tribes were in every way inferior to them. They believed that magic could solve any problem, for to them, it was magic that had thawed the power of the windigoes. His visit was denied. The guards treated him with nothing but malice and hatred, and utter racism simply because he didn’t have a magical protrusion spouting from his forehead, like his mother. They told him that they would not be seeing the bastard son of Princess Platinum at this or any other time, to come back when he was a unicorn.

As he was begrudgingly leaving, a hooded unicorn approached him. The unicorn knocked him over, but left a note. The note read, Meet me in the forest made of birch, the forest now known as Whitetail Woods.

Who was this unicorn? Why were they asking to meet him? Why did they feel the need to knock me out? All these questions and more swam through his head at once, but one thing was for certain: he was going to meet this pony and get some answers.

It didn’t take him long to make his way to the mysterious forest. It had an unnerving feel to it, due to it being the dead-middle of night, but that didn’t halt his determination. He stood in silence in the middle of it, and uttered with confidence and not a shred of falter, “Alright, I’ve arrived at your request. What is it you want from me?!” he shouted into the seemingly empty forest.

There was no response for several minutes. Before long, though, the stallion heard his response. “Why must you shout, young one?”

“Who are you?” called out the stallion. “Why must you hide when you sound as though we’re friends?”

“Because we are friends,” said the voice, revealing itself to be the hooded unicorn from earlier.

“I ask you again,” said the stallion with a fierce glare, “Who are you?”

The unicorn removed its hood, revealing a mare with silver hair beneath it. “I would have thought that you would have recognized me. After all, I was a friend of your mother,” she said with a friendly smile.

“Clover the Clever?” said the stallion. “Is that actually you in your old age?”

“I’d watch your tongue, young Solaris,” she said. “I came here to help you, but if you keep talking like that, I might just leave.”

“I’m sorry,” Solaris said. “Please, I need as much help as I can get.”

“Well then, let’s get started,” Clover said.

It was then, that tales tell of a deal that Solaris struck with Clover the Clever. She would help him, but only if he did as she said. The young stallion agreed, and began his journey anew.

She instructed him that she would use her magics to transform him, but he had to do it in order.

First, he had to convince the Earth Pony tribe. It was easy enough, being close to the leader helped a lot.

Next, came the ponies of the sky, the pegasi tribe. To even get to them, Clover had to transform him into a pegasus. And so she did. The leader of the pegasi took more to convince than the Earth Pony leader, but it was still a simple enough task.

Finally, the unicorns were to be convinced. Clover knew of his predicament, and told him that she could transform him. Sadly, she wasn’t able to remove the wings in the process, and thus he became an artificial alicorn. She told him to wear a cloak when he met with the leader, so as not to draw attention. The meeting went just the same as the one with the pegasi.

At the meeting, none but Solaris spoke. It took three days for him to convince them to come, it took three months to convince them to rediscover the founders ideas and lead together.

In the end, it was a success, but during the final day of discussion, his cloak fell off. He was revealed to the world as an alicorn. The leaders went into an uproar. The tales of old told of the alicorns as bringers of peace, but they suspected something else. When questioned, he told them what he did to convince them to come. They threatened to banish him for his outright heresy, but then Clover the clever came in. She told the council that she may have helped him in the first place, her spells were temporary. They had worn off two months ago.

It was then the entire room was notified by an unseen force. The tales say that the force spoke in first in an ancient language lost to pony kind. After a few minutes, it spoke in the language that the ponies understood. It told the ponies that it had chosen Solaris as his representative, and that his old form was not suitable for what he was tasked for. That task was to unite all the creatures of Equis under the flag of peace. It said to do it at any cost.

Thus began the time that is now known as the trials of peace. There were many treaties, and a few wars, but in the end, most of the ponies saw peace.

The few that didn’t, however, planned to ruin this new ‘herald’. A few bandits got together one night, and attempted to kill the pony closest to the alicorn of peace, his young daughter and wife who was with child.

That night would spell the end for Solaris, for as he saved his family, he took a slash to the arm by a poisoned knife. His last words were that he had led a good life, and that he wished he could have seen the world fully turned to peace.

A few days later, a note appeared in his house. It was the word of the being from the conference that had brought the tribes together. It told the prophecy. It told of how a leader would arrive one day and bring the world into a new era, one that would bring forth an era of peace to the entire world. It also told of a pretender that would lead them astray.

We now see Celestia as that leader, and she is close to that peace. We all wish to see her successful in these endeavors.

There was a note attached to the bottom of the page, it read in a very neatly written script:

I look forward to the day we meet again, ‘Dungeon Master’.

All Dox could think was, She knows…

Always Remember the Unspoken Rule

"She knows," I said.

"Who knows what?" Fluttershy asked. "What are you talking about?"

"SHE knows!" I yelled. "She knows where we are! She knows where we're hiding!"

I just couldn't believe it. The one person- er, pony, that I didn't want to know about our hiding spot knew. Celestia was going to get me and either throw me in a dungeon or kill me, or SOMETHING!.....

..... And then it dawned on me.

"We have to get back!" I screamed. "Grab what you have to, then hide in the castle in the Everfree. When you get there, hide in the room with the Organ to the Outside. I'll meet you there when I can."

"Alright," she responded. "What about you?"

"I have to go help the others," I said, running out the door.

I ran through the forest, aiming for Zecora's hut and running as fast as I could. As I ran, I thought about what the note had said. How did she know? What gave us away? Why did she want to catch me so badly?

Well, I had a theory for the last one. She probably thought that she was the 'leader' person, and that I was the bad guy. I'm not a bad guy though. I sure as hell didn't plan on 'leading the world to peace' but I didn't want to 'bring despair' to it either. But still, if I wasn't the bad guy, who was? I doubt it's Celestia, but who is it?

That question would have to remain unanswered, as I heard a shout of "Come out! We know you're in there!" Shit, that must have been part of Celestia's guard! But what luck! Just when I get to the clearing in around her hut!

"Hey!" I yelled at the guards before I noticed that there was about fifty of them. "Um... Leave them alone! you're here for me. Right?"

The head guard walked up to me and said, "Yes, we are. You are under arrest."

"Under what charge?" I asked. "Surely you have a reason for arresting me, and it's not just because Celestia ordered it."

The guard was stupified. Clearly, he didn't expect me to say that. "Grr! GET HIM!" he screamed at his men. "And get the ponies in the hut! For all I care, they're traitors to the crown!"

"I thought I told you to leave them alone!" I yelled at the guards as they charged into the hut. I pulled a branch off a nearby tree and started smacking the guards out of my way as I ran towards the door. What? I didn't want to hurt anyone.

When I finally got to the door, I saw that the guards that had made it in were being fought back by Zecora and Renkinjutsu. I ran through the guards to help them. When I got to them, I realized that I had wandered into a battle that we couldn't escape from..... Unless....

"Zecora! Renkinjutsu!" I screamed at my companions. "Get close to me!"

"What to you plan to do?" Zecora asked. "They won't just show their backs to you."

"I know that," I said. "But that doesn't mean that they won't blink. Renkinjustu, NOW!"

At that, the alchemist threw down a capsule that let out a loud bang and released a bright light, stunning the guards in the room. I grabbed the pony and zebra in my company and jumped backwards, the three of us turning into a shadowy substance before fading to nothing.

We reappeared at the castle of the Pony Sisters.

"I can't believe it." Renkinjutsu said. "We ran from a large battle./'Tis a shame on us."

"Oh can it." I said. "We got out of there and we're sa-"

I was cut off when I saw the one figure that I sure as hell didn't want to see.

There, in front of me, stood Celestia. She was dressed in golden armor similar to that of her guard. A halberd floated on her left, and a large metal war hammer was clipped to her right.

"You shall go no further," she said. "You cannot escape me again."

"That's what you think!" I screamed in defiance. "Drake! I need help!"

Drake flopped out of a portal and got up before yelling at me. I noticed that he was almost completely naked, in fact, he was only wearing his underwear. "What the hell man! Me and Fluttershy were about to.... you know! It took her months to work up enough courage for that! And you just-"

He was struck with Celestia's war hammer before he was able to finish. As he was hit back into the portal he screamed, "Goddamn it Dox!"

Well shit....

Celestia returned her attention to where I was, she was surprised to find that I was running off further into the castle.

Further in the castle, I found Fluttershy waiting for us. I'm glad she made it here alright.

"Okay, we're all here," I said. "It's time I tell you guys why we came here. We're going to enact Urahara's fail safe just in case something like this were to happen."

"And that is?" Zecora asked. "Surely you can tell us this."

"We're going to hide in the soul society." I said. "Just let me open the portal."

I walked over to the organ and played the keys that Urahara told me to play.

C-Bb-F#-Eb-Chord of Eb minor

A portal opened up next to the organ. I could see the gates of the Seireitei just beyond the portal. Before anyone could pass through, however Celestia burst into the room.

"That's it!" she screamed. "This is your last chance to come with me. If you don't comply, then I'm going to have to kill you."

"Go." I told the ponies and zebra. "I'll be right behind you." I turned towards Celestia and unsheathed my sword. "I won't run. But you won't take me!"

"Such a shame then," Celestia said, charging up a spell. "You could have lived peacefully in the dungeon."

"That's not living!" I screamed. I charged my sword and brought it above my head before bringing it down and yelling, "HIT STREAM!" and sending a beam of energy at Celestia.

Celestia said nothing, instead shooting her spell straight at me. It collided with Hit Stream and pierced it, dispelling it in the process. The beam continued towards me and struck me.

The last thing I remembered was pure pain.

Fluttershy, Zecora, and Renkinjutsu stood there, baffled. They just watched their friend and comrade get incinerated by the solar monarch.... Yet, there wasn't even so much as ash where he stood. What had become of their friend?

Elsewhere, the entity that had come to be known as Dox floated in front of a large astral being. Who this was was a mystery to him, and would be for as long as he 'lived'.

"Welcome to my realm, Champion," it spoke.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I am, who I am." it said. "I am everything, yet I am nothing. I am the void, yet I am not."

I stood.... floated, in awe. This was the Dungeon master! I thought the dungeon master was me, but.... Wait, he called me the champion. I was a rule that I made up! This was the real dungeon master!

"Yes, Dox." it said. "I am indeed the Dungeon Master. You are the Champion. Before you ask me, you are not dead. I have brought you here before you would have died. Your body has sustained a lot of damage, enough that a normal player would have died. You are not a player, though. As such, I am keeping your body here so it may recover. You may use one of the other bodies I have here in the mean time."

In a flash of light, two figures approached into the void. The first one was most definitely an alicorn, the other was humanoid.

The second figure appeared to be an elf with some kind of mutation, the poor guy. He looked at me with a scowl and crossed arms. It stared at me for a solid minute before raising its left arm and flipping me the bird.

"Two characters to use," the DM said. "One old, and one new. One from this universe, and one from a different campaign."

To Meet THAT Guy

"What the hell?!" I said. "What are you talking about, big guy? And why the hell are you trying to introduce me to these two weirdos?"

"Hey!" the elf interjected. "Speak for yourself! You haven't had to deal with radiation, or giant monsters, or being the only wizard on a team! You haven't even had to deal with having a mutation!"

"Wait," I said. "Mutation.... Yours wouldn't happen to be telekinesis, would it?"

"Yeah, it is," he said. "What of it?"

"Holy crap," I said. "You're my Gamma Dragon character. What the hell. It's been a while since I've used you."

"Well duh," he said. "Now, you gonna let me and the alicorn introduce ourselves or what?"

"Oh, sorry," I appologized. "Please, go ahead."

"Alright then," the elf said in his regal voice. "I am Hyper Bolic (*This is pronounced Hi-pear Bowl-ic NOT hyperbolic*). An elf of Gamma World."

"And I am Solaris," the alicorn stated. "I came from Equestria."

"Wait a second," I said, turning to the astral projection that was the DM. "Why did you choose these two for a backup character? Why not just revive my body?"

"Because that is not how it works," it said.

"Plus we offered to help," Solaris said.

The DM ignored Solaris and continued to speak. "I cannot interfere that much. For some reason, your world has been warded against me. It should not be, but some other worldly creature must be canceling out my influence with their own."

Wait, what? That can't be good. Nor should it be possibe! No one should be that powerful!

"I know what you mean," it said. "Reminds me when your elf companion Elsyrin would continually use the rules to keep you from doing fun things."

.... Dude, why must you read my mind? It's creepy as hell.

"I know," it said. "I'll stop when you start listening to me."

"But I have been listening to you!" I yelled. "I've been listening to you the entire time!"

"Ah, but you haven't," it stated matter o' factly. "I've been trying to contact you through the dice, yet as of late, you've been ignoring me. Maybe you could have stopped Celestia if you had just payed attention to the dice."

"Wait, what?!" I shouted. "What do you mean payed attention to the dice?!"

"It's how he contacts you," Hyper Bolic said. "He was trying to give you a power boost this time."

"Serriously?" I said in disbelief. "What the hell?! If you're trying to contact me, why not just make a noise, or make the dice burn or something?"

"Because that's not how they work," the DM stated. "It's meant so that I speak, and you listen. Not for me to grab your attention. It's the way we comunicate. You wouldn't want someone to just up and shank you before saying hi, would you?"

"Good point," I said defeatedly. "I'll listen better next time."

"Good," it said. "You can start now. Someone is trying to summon you. Use one of them and get out of here."

"Right," I said. "Yo, Hyper, let's get a move on."

"Watch it!" he said. "You're not my friend just yet, don't act like you are."

"Got it." I said. "Let's just get moving."

Konrad was sitting on the dock of Dock End’s river, trying not to snicker at the irony of the name at the moment. He decided to go fishing today, his cabin still being built in the village. ‘Ah...so peaceful, so quiet...you’d never think a war was happening barely a few days southeast of here.’

{War is often like that Rookie. It’s everywhere, but in places like this, so removed from the grand scheme of things, it’s easy to forget the world’s troubles.}

Konrad looked at the slowly flowing river that managed to push the mill nearby, and the sudden yank of his fishing line drew his attention. ‘Bite!’ Konrad quickly grabbed the pole and yanked, getting the fish hooked, and began pulling in the line by hand. It was one of those ancient things, just a stick and a long bit a wire, but hey, these folks got their occasional fish craving handled. “Oh~! Red Snappah!” Konrad quoted an old machinima by Oxhorn and sniggered as he held the flopping them in his hands. “Now...raw or cooked?”

The Plaga that was the real Konrad practically shot an extending “Alien” like mouth out to bite a chunk out of the fish from under the bandanna, killing it instantly.

“Raw it is!” However, before Konrad could properly chow down, he began choking, his Plaga mouth extending out of his own human one to spit something into his hand. “Ugh...what is it?”

He held out a purple-ish d6 that seemed to contain a galaxy inside of it. While holding it, he heard a voice call out:

This is for anyone who needs help or just wants a friend. Summon the Dungeon Master of Equestria if you’re ever in need.

“What the hell? Magic die?” Konrad blanked out for a few moments, and then jumped up and danced with nonsensical joy. “A magic die! A summons! I feel like I’m playing some sort of role playing game all of a sudden.” Konrad considered summoning this DM to help him, but he figured he’d save it for a rainy day as he sat back down facing the water.

A thunderclap sounded in the distance, and Konrad looked up to notice a storm front rolling in. ‘Huh, said rainy day might happen sooner than planned.’

“Freeze!” Konrad froze, but only in shock as he slowly turned his head around to see several pegasus soldiers, all garbed in the rank-and-file basic bronze and leather armor all aiming spears at him. “You are to surrender for questioning, unders suspicion of using forbidden magic!”

{Rookie...I don’t know about you, but we’re kinda between a bad spot-} The river. {And a sharp place-} The spears. {So, whatever that little trinket you found is, I’d suggest you use it to at least buy time to get out our boomstick.}

‘Yeah...good idea...how do I do that?!’

{I don’t know, roll it or something! It’s a die, nothing complicated!}

Konrad rolled from his seated position onto his back, throwing the die at the soldiers who jumped away on instinct while Konrad got himself upright.

When the die touched the ground, it bounced up into the air and turned into a portal, sending out an elf clad in strange robes and a tattered brown cloak. He held a staff in one hand, a spellbook in the other. He spoke with a voice that commanded respect, as if he knew much….. Stuck up elf…..

“What the hell?!” He said, staring at the guards that were pointing their spears at him. “I swear, it’s like no matter where I go, Celestia’s finest hate me.”

“H-h-halt foul…. thing!” Said one of the soldiers.

“Okay, that’s enough of that,” He said, pointing his staff at the soldiers. “Sleep.”

In an instant, they were all out like a light.

“Now,” he started, turning to me. “Who summoned me?”

Before Konrad could even blink, or respond, several flaring red lights shot up from the incapacitated soldiers into the sky, bursting in a display of light all too synonymous with “OVER HERE!” “Uh...Konrad, or Avarice the Merchant. I appreciate the save, but I think more of them might be incoming!” Konrad reached into his coat and pulled out his Chiappa. ‘Shit, shit, an actual battle! I’ve never killed something sentient before!’

“Wait, did you just say, the Merchant?” He asked, ignoring both Konrad and the lights. “As in… the guy who sent me to Equestria? OH HO HO! I HAVE GOT A BONE TO PICK WITH YOU!”

“Wait, WHAT?! Hey! Point that thing somewhere else!” Konrad shouted as he dodged a bolt of magic that came flying at him, only to start floating randomly, flailing his arms about trying to get down.

“WHY?!” The elf asked. “Why did you send me here?! What reason?! Why did you think it was just okay to mess with us con goers and such?!”

It started to feel like the air around Konrad was trying to choke him…. and was succeeding as he started to feel a lot of pressure around his throat. Only to remember he didn’t need to breathe anymore aside from keeping his host body alive. He could revive it if worse came to worst. “I...don’t...understand….”

“What do you mean you don’t understand?!” The elf screamed at him. “You sent me here! I can…. I can….. You’re…. not him. Are you?” The elf asked as he noticed the differences in appearance between this Merchant and the Merchant that he thought he was.

Konrad felt the air around him release it’s grasp and set him down gently. “Well! That was a fine how-do-ya-do you bleedin’ wanker! I should shoot ya fulla holes for that stunt!” Konrad aimed his shotgun angrily at the elf, forgetting his pacifism in his anger for a moment, only to suddenly jerk away when he realized it and shoot the dock to the right of him. “Oh...shit...almost did something I’d regret there….”

“You bet.” He said. “If you shot me, I woulda decked ya in the face with my staff. Or used telekinesis again. Man, I’ll never get used to the Gamma Dragon rules.”

“DnD? That’s really convoluted. Well...I’m not sure what’s going on, what with them claiming me using illegal magic. I’m just a...humble Merchant.” Konrad had to chuckle. “Regardless, I’m on the run from Equestria’s more upstanding elements. I got here, looted a battlefield, traded a debt for information on current events, and next thing I know: I’ve got pegasi after my ass. I know it’s sexy, but could they not be chasing it?”

“Ooookay,” The elf said, finally turning around and noticing the magic flares. “So, someone wants your butt. I’m gonna guess it’s Celestia. But enough of that. Shouldn’t we get out of here before those reinforcements get here? I’m pretty sure they want me now, too.”

“Well, if they do I bet it won’t bug ya none considering you got Dark Side powers. Let’s go, got a cave nearby we can hide in for the moment.”

“Home sweet home! Take a seat anywhere! What’s mine is yours!” Konrad joked as they walked into the cave. It had a small entrance, but opened up rather quickly into a surprisingly well-structured cavern that seemed artificial. In fact, a carved entrance with ancient runes deeper in informed the elf that this was the entrance to a crypt, and Konrad had shamelessly piled it’s riches and a vast assortment of odds and ends about the entrance cavern, to note he was specifically sitting on a throne that had moldy cushions, gesturing for the elf to take a seat on a rickety stool.

“What the hell?” He said before taking a seat on the ground. “This is a crypt! A place where the dead are buried! And that’s Elvish! Why is there Elvish here?! Who the hell are you?!”

“Hell if I know anymore! I’m Konrad Skinner, I’m Avarice the Merchant. I’m a Stranger, a familiar face! As for this being a crypt, when you’ve got questionable abilities with questionable clients of unknown levels of trustworthiness and a questionably stable parasite that’s replaced your actual self, you find it hard to find a place to feel safe. I WAS getting a cabin in the village, but with the soldiers after me, nothing’s likely going to be so open as before. So close to getting Dock End a proper merchantry too.” Konrad bemoaned, running his hand through a pile of gold next to him, watching it run down to the floor in boredom.

“But why a crypt?” The elf asked. “Why not just a different cave?”

“Why bother? This place is perfect! Well hidden in plain sight, easy to reach yet hard to find, and filled to the brim with riches! I was going to invest all this into the village, I ain’t got a use for it. But now I’ll have to move on, but I don’t know how to get this place noticed, or even if they’re allowed to desecrate it as I’ve blatantly done.” Konrad informed as he took some coins from the pile and jingled them about. “As for me getting it all out….” Konrad put the coins in his coat, and then pulled out an ancient and rusted sword out that was blatantly too large to fit. “I have my ways.”

“What the?!” He yelped. He calmed down after a bit and started talking again. “Ya know, I thought that I was the only one with a ‘Magic Satchel’.” He said, pulling out a bag. “Although, yours is a bit different.”

“Heh, a bag of holding? I’ve got more than that, more than all the bags of holding could ever hope for. See that statue over there?” Konrad gestured to a small golden statue of an elf women, clearly in a very lewd pose, possibly a fertility idol or something. “Watch.” Konrad reached into his coat, and just over the statue, his hand appeared as if from thin air, where it then grabbed onto the statue and pulled it into nothingness. When the elf looked back to Konrad, it was now in his hand. “Fancy as all get-out.”

“What. The hell. That shouldn’t be possible. That…. That….. Ugh…” He facepalmed, with the audible slap echoing throughout the cave.

“Don’t think too hard about it, I just accept it as it is. The only limitation is that I cannot use that on anything except things either I, or nobody has claim to.” Konrad said with a nod and set the statue down at his feet. “Just as well, actual stealing, from the living at least, is something I abhor and will never resort to. I’d rather die….again.”

“So, let me get this straight.” The elf started. “If I were to call dibs on, oh I don’t know, that pile of gold in the corner?”

“Can’t touch it now. You own it. Simple as that. Unless you say you don’t want it, or give it away to nobody, then that nobody becomes me.”

“Ah, okay. Well then, I’m not claiming it.”

“That’s fine, then it’ll go to the village. I’ve got ideas, but I’ll need a little extra help getting this all moved to town.” Konrad said as he gestured to the vast wealth in the cave. “I can’t just warp it all there, not with those soldier boys aiming spears at my rear.”

“Oh, how I know how that feels. Well, kind of. Back in my Equestria-”

“WHOA! Hold up! YOUR Equestria?! I kinda get Multiverse theory, but you’re saying that you’re from another version of this universe?” Konrad asked in surprise, getting the elf to blink in confusion.

“Uh, yeah.” He said. “What, am I the first Displaced you’re meeting?”

“I know I must seem dumb to ask, but what the blooming fuck is a Displaced?” Konrad asked gruffly as he picked up a coin and tossed it. “There, that coin is now displaced, what special meaning is there to the term?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.” The elf said. “It’s just what someone called people like me. Apparently it’s those of us that have been sent to Equestrias by the Merchant. That shady guy that sold us stuff. I also heard about some kind of lottery, but apparently it’s not common.”

“Pfft, yeah, right, not common he says. If there’s enough of us to earn a capital lettered title just from existing, I think it’s beyond common. Because this means I’m a Displaced too. Damn. There went any consoling thoughts that I was unique. And also this explains you trying to kill me on the dock. Bastard probably used me as a scapegoat. For all I know, I’m going to be attracting hundreds of Displaced looking for revenge.” Konrad grumbled as he shifted in his throne. “Ugh...that’s a later topic. I don’t want to think about it. So, let’s keep things simple for now; like what the hell is your name? I’ve been thinking of you as “the elf” since you popped up.”

“I honestly forgot my original name.” He said. “I did create a new name for myself though. In fact, got it after becoming king of changelings in a different universe. I’m Dox.

“Well that isn’t an odd name, but better than all these word-names ponies have. Well then Dox, mind stirring up some trouble to buy me time for some charity work?” Konrad asked as he gestured again to all the treasure.

“Ugh. Fine, but you owe me.” Dox said. The reaction to the words was violent, as Konrad spasmed and gasped as he clutched his chest. “Yo, you okay?”

Konrad’s eyes shined brightly, and they began to keep glowing as an audible snarl entered his tone. “Ya had to enact a debt...now we’re in contract. So now, neither of us can get out of this without backlash. I HAVE to deliver this treasure, and you HAVE to help me now. Watch words around me Dox...words have binding power when I’m involved.”

“.....Okay then. Let’s get to it.” Dox said.

The village of Dock End was as it normally was. Ponies were going about their business, going to and from the logging mill with wagons of felled trees, or tilling fields. There was even construction on a new cabin in the town, what with the fact that there was only like, five buildings.

The ponies were busy working on their own things when suddenly a figure appeared on the northwest horizon of the village. The figure stood there for a bit before the figure summoned a large ball of fire before sending it flying down the road.

This in turn alerted all of the soldiers in the village, who promptly ran out of the buildings that they were in and swarmed the strange figure. When he was completely surrounded, they heard him speak.

“I don’t normally do this kind of roll, but…..” The figure said before screaming: “CHAOTIC EVIL BITCHES! YOU CAN’T STOP ME!” And proceeding to run away from the village, the soldiers following in quick pursuit.

Along the way out the figure cast a few beams of magic to keep the soldiers from getting too close. It even threw one of the soldiers back at the town, all the while screaming like a madman. It’s safe to say, that one soldier wasn’t able to rejoin his brothers in arms in the pursuit.

Around the corner of the inn, Konrad poked his head out, and glared at the hissing soldier holding his leg as Logger and a couple of the other villagers helped him up and started carrying him to the inn. ‘No! Damn it! That was the best spot!’ Konrad tightened his grip on his Chiappa angrily, before he took a few steadying breaths. He may not need to breath, but it was still cathartic. ‘Where am I going to drop the loot now?’

{Where you originally planned to.}

‘But there’s a soldier in there! He’ll see me drop it and might claim it as stolen or some other bullshit, and then there goes the village’s capital! This place would never get on the map then!’

{I’ll deal with the toy soldier.}

‘No killing!’

{Wouldn’t dream of it….}

Avarice coughed, before spitting out Konrad’s human teeth, licking his bloodied lips as the mutation replaced his human mouth with an insect one. “Bleh...great, mouth’s gone. Sorry kid.” ‘Ew...win some, lose some.’ Avarice then chittered his mandibles still surrounded by the flesh of Konrad’s mouth, thankfully all hidden by his convenient bandanna. “Meh, better for eating anyway.”

Avarice stormed into the inn, getting their attention by shooting the ceiling.

Meanwhile, back with Dox:

“EAT IT LOSERS!” Dox shouted as he shot YET ANOTHER magic missile next to a soldier. He was aiming at the soldiers, but he had no intent to kill them.

All in all, this was almost as fun as that time that Urahara asked him to help set up some explosives for training….. and he put some in his pants…… Ah, that was funny shit right there.

Back with Konrad:

At the thunderously loud bark of the shotgun’s buckshot being fired into the ceiling, all the ponies had screamed and ducked out of instinct rather than ingrained fear. ‘Odd, how even across time and space, intelligent and instinctive response is so similar.’ “Alright you ungrateful whelps! I provided my services to your town and you sell me out?!”

“It’s nothing like that Avarice! They’re soldiers, our country’s soldiers, we couldn’t just turn them away!” Logger defended, only to yelp in pain as Avarice took an old throwing knife from his coat and threw it into his shoulder.

“Quiet! There’s something called Friendship, and I was bothering to learn your names! For a Merchant, that’s pretty damn close to trusting! I won’t be coming back, but I still plan to hold up my bargain with you all.” Avarice then looked at the injured soldier laying on a table the villagers had placed him. “Watch you little cog, as I demonstrate my benevolence.”

Avarice then took off his pack, opened it, and turned it over. Promptly, a pile of gold began forming as a waterfall of gold coins, various treasures, and other valuables spilled forth. Within a few minutes, he’d made a pile big enough to fill a good portion of the floor, before he pulled his pack back upright, and closed it. Avarice’s new mandibles clicked in amusement and satisfaction at their gobsmacked faces. “Adieu.” With that, Avarice bolted out the door and into the woods to the east, readying the d6 to contact Dox.

With Dox:

“OW OW OW! SCREW YOU GUYS! I’M OUT! PEACE!” Dox screamed angrily as he quickly teleported away.

He reappeared right next to Avarice, in the cave, now empty.

“You’re welcome,” Dox said. “Now I’m bloodied as HELL! That hurt, just so ya know.”

“Well, hot damn. I thought you were a mage/warrior dual class, but since you took so much I’m guessing you’re just a mage then. Staff threw me off. Well, I’ve got some healing potions that’ll-.” Suddenly, as Avarice reached into his coat, Dox keeled over backwards, landing in a boneless heap. “Uh...did he just...SHIT!” Avarice quickly fished out a fistful of potions, and began desperately pouring them into the unresponsive elf. “Shit! SHIT! Don’t die on me! Debts aren’t settled when people die! FUCK! I got the first Displaced I met killed!”

“That’s what you think.” Said a different voice. “I’m kinda unkillable. As long as I still have a character to use, I’m alive.”

Avarice turned to the source of the voice only to find a non-anthro alicorn standing at the mouth of the cave. It just stared at him and said, “Sup.”

“YOU ARSE! YOU GOT ME WORRIED FOR NOTHING! DO YOU REALIZE HOW CLOSE I WAS TO INFECTING YOU TO RESURRECT YOU?!” Avarice screamed angrily as he smacked the stately alicorn stallion across the face with the but of his shotgun. “I would’ve cursed you with undeath damn it! Don’t scare me like that!”

“Yeah. That would have pissed off both me AND the guy whose body that actually is.”

“Oh, great, so I still got SOMEBODY killed! That’s a relief! Not! Tell me there’s some sort of other sorcery involved in this to clear my conscience.” Avarice pleaded sarcastically as he gestured angrily at the bloody corpse on the floor.

“Eh, don’t worry. He’s still alive.” Alicorn Dox said. “In fact, I’m pretty sure you just helped res him. According to the big guy, it’d take weeks to do normally.”

“Oh, so those potions didn’t go to waste. Good. If there’s anything I hate more than killing innocents, or stealing, it’s wasting valuable resources.” Avarice calmed down as he sat on his still cushioned throne. “So...is that body just going to lay there?”

Just as he said that, it started getting up and fading away. Before fading away, Avarice could have sworn he heard it say, “Fuck you Dox, and fuck you, too creepy guy.”

“...I like him. We should invite him over more often.” Avarice joked, getting them both to laugh. “So! Alright, now that all the excitement’s over with, I can slip away while they’re dealing with things in Dock End. But before I do, I want a couple things. Firstly; how the hell did you make this?” Avarice asked as he brought out the d6.

“Well, I just sort of aquired the d6 and said an oath.” He said. “Honestly, it can be any item, and obviously the oaths are different. Just take something and say what you stand for or something like that and offer aid. I don’t know. Oh, and before you choose a coin, someone already has a coin.”

“Well, damn. Money is sorta my thing...wait a tick…” Avarice focused hard, reached into his coat, and then began tugging on something. “Mm! Thing’s stuck! Hold on!” Avarice tried pulling harder, only to make no progress. “Grab on my sleeve and pull would ya?”

“..... I’m not even going to ask.” Dox said as bit on the sleeve and started to pull. “Gwoss.”

“Hey, it was leather before I came here, just pull harder!” Avarice shouted as he could feel his prize loosening.

“Itphs Wowphs thin phsnake phskin!” He shouted through the material.

Finally, with a crack, the prize came loose, jerking Avarice’s arm and elbowing Dox in the jaw.

“OW!” Dox screamed as he released the sleeve. “First the bad taste, now I taste blood! DAMN IT MAN!”

“Oh come off it, have a potion, it’ll grow back any teeth ya just lost.” Avarice idly said as he carelessly tossed a vial of the opaque red liquid at the alicorn, too involved in looking at his chosen icon. “Beautiful….” Avarice said as he held the ancient cold blue iron brazier torch up, it had a length of rusted chain connected to the bottom. Likely, that was what had been resisting the pull from it’s secondary mounting.

“That gonna be your token?” Dox said, wiping blood from his mouth and downing the potion. “Now say an oath, like what you’re offering and some instructions on how to call you.”

Avarice held the torch up, his mandibles clicking in excitement.

”If you seek a bargain, a trade, or an extra gun. Light this blue flame and call my name! Avarice, The Merchant!”

“That it?” Dox asked. “Dude, someone is gonna connect you to THE Merchant and come at ya, you know that right?”

“Let then come! Let them call! I will prove I am every bit greater than that swindler! I shall fend off any who attack me, and happily provide service to those who seek it. I can get my hands on anything that isn’t owned, what better honest Merchant is there?” Avarice asked as he cackled darkly, and then fished out a lit torch from his coat, casually passing it over the fuelless brazier, which then lit a bright blue, before he threw it into the open air, where it vanished into nothingness.

“Great.” Dox simply stated. “I’ll keep an eye out for that, then. You still have a debt to fill.”

“ACK! DON’T SAY THOSE WORDS! NOW I HAVE TO PROVIDE A SERVICE!” Avarice shouted, upset that his powers were being used against him. “Bah, fine. Better you than some twit out to get me. Call on me should ya need me, and I’ll be along. Sorry for making the summoning requirements a little difficult, but I don’t want my summons to be an accident made lightly.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it. I know a place that’ll work.” Dox said. “Hell, go ahead and call me if ya want. But, uh. Before I go, you need to say something…. aparently…..”

Then a portal opened up……

“Or that could happen. Later dude!” Dox said as he jumped into the portal.

THAT ALICORN'S A CHANGELING!

After leaving Avarice, I started floating through the void, just waiting for the REAL Dungeon Master, who I've dubbed the big guy, to open a portal back to the realm of Equestria. As I floated there, however, I started contemplating things. Things like:

Dear God. Why do you like to mess with me?

You do know that I'm more powerful than him, right?

SON OF A BITCH! He's in my brain now. GREAT.

"Oh stop complaining. You have a new body, I suggest you check it out."

"Huh. Ya know, I never took the time to really look at my current body when I was helping out Avarice. That's actually a good idea."

"It's not an idea. You do that, THEN I let you out of the void."

"..... Fine. But if there's something I think needs changing-"

"I ain't messing with your dangly bits."

"I didn't mean that! I meant my.... I guess the term is mane and coat?"

"Oh, I can do that."

"Okay then."

Anyways, I started examining myself. I had a pristine white coat and a nice mane that looked like a mixture of blood red and sunset red. Hell, the more I thought about it, it started to turn into a mane like Celestia's, just going in that weird sunset look with yellow, orange, and red.

"..... I'm pretty sure from all the fan art and such that it's pretty recognizable that I'm Solaris. BIG GUY! WE GOT A PROBLEM!"

"On it. Got a color you'd like?"

"Well, I'd rather not me too out of the usual. I mean, I'm already taller than normal ponies. In fact, I'm as tall as Celestia.... Anyways, I'm thinking either white or brown."

"I am not doing white. White mane and coat? Boring as hell. And why brown? Why not black?"

"'Cause I'd rather not be an alicorn version of Woundsalt. He's to remain the Un-alicorn."

"Done. You might want to do something about the butt mark while you're at it."

"The cutie mark? Yeah..... Huh, it's a burning sun surrounded by stars. Yep, that needs changing. Sorry Solaris."

"Oh, don't worry, he's fine. I made a copy of him when you started changing things about him. Before you ask, your the copy."

"Ah, okay. Well, could you make the cutie mark into a galaxy, or something like that?"

"You want something like your dice basically? Just not as easily recognizable. Done."

"Cool! I have an irregular galaxy on my ass. This is amazing."

"Alright then, have fun with the landing!"

"Wait. WHAT?!?!?!"

The portal on the opened around where the DM had pulled me from existance. The spot just before I would have died..... Meaning.

I pressed the keys that Urahara had taught me on the organ to thee outside and.......

Nothing..... Nothing happened... Nor is happening...... In fact, I didn't even hear.....

I looked up from the keys to stare at the pipes of the organ........ Only to find the instrument heavily damaged.

"Damn it! Celestia must have done it after I disappeared," I said. "But what does that mean of my friends? Crap, there's only one way to find out. I have to go into town.... Damn it...... Wait a sec, what's that on the floor?"

There on the floor, lay a sheathe with a bastard sword in it and a few vials full of rainbow liquid attached to the strap. Either I dropped that earlier, or the DM isn't as much of a bastard as I thought he was.

Now the dice are glowing. What now?

"Watch your mouth..... Er, mind. I'm a dick, but I wouldn't leave my champion without his defenses. By the way, you might want to try some magic before you head in, I'm pretty sure you don't just want to pick everything up with your mouth."

"Thanks big guy," I said. "Now, let's try something basic, like levitation."

I tried picking up a rock with as much concentration as I could muster..... and sent it flying into the outer reaches of space.

"Holy crap," I said. "Maybe if I just don't try?"

I tried picking up another rock like as if I was a biped just reaching down and grabbing the damn thing. And it just lifted like I wanted it to. Huh, okay then. I guess magic comes pretty easily to this body.

Well, I guess it's time to get to town..... Now where was that path?

I finally made it out of the forest. There was Fluttershy's cottage.

I sighed at the thought of what was in there. Poor Discord. To think of what they must have done to him to make him behave in the first place. Now he's stone again, all because he didn't agree with Celestia. Don't worry Discord, I'll find out how to free you some day. Maybe I'll even get Celestia to stop being a nut. I don't know.

Heh, that'll be the day. said a mysterious voice.... Although, I didn't actually hear it, it was honestly in my mind..... Wait a second.....

"Discord?" I asked to the air.

Yes. Apparently, you can hear me. Heh, must be you being a displaced. said Discord.

"I guess so," I said. "Hey, how can I even hear you in the first place?"

I don't know. I wouldn't think about it if I were you. Discord advised. Chaos magic works in strange ways. As does the void magic keeping you here. Oh, on that note, how's the void been recently? Still a big nothing?

"Yep, pretty much," I said. "Listen, I got to go. I have to get some answers."

Don't let little old me keep you there, Discord said. I mean, it's not like we could walk and talk. Just remember to not be a stranger.

"I'll remember that," I said. "Later, Discord."

Beezly bye! Discord said.

The trip into the village didn't take too long. Although, the entrance was complicated.

First off, the second I stepped foot into the perimeter, I heard a gasp and saw a jumping pink blur. I guess Pinkie Pie knows that I'm here. Well, there goes the element of surprise. But I guess that means I won't see anyone on my way to the crystal tree, and hopefully the library inside of it.

Just as I thought, I made it through the center of town and to the crystal tree with absolutely zero encounters with any other ponies.... That is to say, until I made it to the castle of Twilicorn.

The guards immediately stopped me when I reached the doors. What with them holding their spears in that X shape. One of the guards addressed me.

"Halt!" said the guard. "State your name and busine-e-e-e HOLY SHIT!"

"Huh? What?" said the other guard in a sort of drowsy tone. "What is it kid?

"S-sir!" the younger guard said. "It's an alicorn!"

"What?!" the older of the two yelled, obviously now fully awake. He started looking in my direction. "The princesses aren't supposed to be here for..... for..... Kid, go get the princess."

"Sir?" the guard said.

"NOW PRIVATE!" yelled the senior guard.

"Yes sir, Sergeant, sir!" said the private as he ran into the castle.

It took a few minutes for the private to reach the princess. Of course, I could only tell by the loud "WHAT?!" and the fire that burst from one of the windows. About thirty seconds later, a flash of magenta light turned my attention away from the door to find Princess Sparkle Butt looking straight at me.

I will never forget the next few moments.

"Oh, well hello there, handsome," said the Princess in a sultry voice. Well crap. It looks like Princess Mc Magicpants has developed a crush on me in my alicorn body. Damn it.

"Uh, hi." I responded.

"How about you come inside?" she suggested in the same tone. "That way we can get a bit better, acquainted."

I felt myself shudder. I hope this won't be a thing with her so long as I'm in this body. PLEASE GOD, DON'T BE A THING!!!

To Mess with Ponies

Why?

Why did it have to be a thing?

Ever since she saw me, she's been all goo goo eyes and sultry voice. And she's been wiggling her butt every chance she gets. I've been keeping count, she's currently at twenty-three.

"Oh, a book that should be on the shelf," Twilight said, bending over and wiggling her butt. "Let me get that."

..... Make that twenty-four. Damn it. Why is she so infatuated with me?

.... Dice are glowing again..... He knows why, and it's probably REALLY obvious. What do you want big guy?

You look kinda like her teacher. She loves her teacher, kinda sees her as a parent.

God damn it. I look like her parent, and the horrible match making rule states you are attracted to people like your parents.... Damn it!

"Um, Miss?" I said to Twilight.

"Ooooh, yes, big guy?" she said in response with that same damn tone and that same goofy face.

"You never even told me your name." I stated flatly. "Yet here we are, walking through your castle to a location that only you know about. I didn't even tell you what I was here for! You just dragged me in and said 'Follow me!'"

Let's just say that she got my point. She dropped the whole sultry voice and the smile and the goo goo eyes and took on a serious tone before apologizing.

"I'm so sorry! Please forgive me!" she said in a pleading tone. "I don't know what came over me. I just.... I'm sorry...."

Oh shit. She's begun to deflate and become a sad sack. I ain't having none of your shit!

"Listen, I shouldn't have yelled," I said. "But that doesn't excuse what you were doing."

"Alright," she said, visibly getting better. "What did you come here for, anyways?"

"I wanted to talk to the Princess," I said. She immediately got really happy and hyper. "I meant Princess Celestia. Sorry to disappoint you. But I did hear that you were once her student. Is there a way you could contact her for me? Ya know, tell her I want to talk?"

"Yeah, that'd be easy," she said. "Just let me get Spike really quick. You can wait for me in there in the meantime." She pointed to a door with her last sentence.

I entered through the door to find a large hallway of books. Moving through the hallway, I came to the center of what appeared to be a MASSIVE library built into the crystal tree. There was giant bookshelves leading to the back walls just filled with books. There were even a few books on a table in the center of the room..... Wait, is that one floating?

As I investigated the table, I found that one of the books was indeed floating. There was a glowing mini-pedestal below it, attached below it and to the table was a small tablet made of some kind of grey-ish clear gem. It had something written on it:

Rainbows

..... Oookay. So, what's this book about, anyways?.....

It's about rainbows. Oookay, that can't be a coincidence. I remove the book from it's floating perch and write my own words on the tablet:

Duplication Spell

A book instantly flew over and opened to a page describing a temporary duplication spell... Which I started reading.

"'Just concentrate mana through the horn,'" I read. "'And focus on making yourself in multiple places at once. Spell lasts ten minutes or until user's mana depletes.' Huh, it's an easy spell, but it takes a lot of mana. Well, let's try it."

I focus as hard as I can and imagine myself where I am and also right next to me. Immediately, another me audibly pops into existence. Oh, I could have fun with this.

Twilight came back a few minutes later with Spike. She headed directly to the center of the library, only to find nothing. Where had that new alicorn gone?!

"Hey, miss?!" said the alicorn as he emerged from one of the lines of bookshelves. "I think I had an accident."

"What do you mean?" Twilight asked. "What kind of accident could you have possibly ha-"

She was interrupted by another alicorn emerged from a different hall of books, followed by another one.

"How did this happen?!" she practically screamed.

"Well, it happened while I was waiting," he started. "I was bored and started looking around. Then I got ansy, 'cause I still didn't know who you were, nor do I know your dragon buddy. So, I went and looked around for something to do. Then this happened!"

"And why were you looking down THAT isle?" Twilight asked the alicorn.

Youtube Video

Twilight effectively broke down at that point and collapsed.

While Twilight 'took a nap,' I played chess with Spike. Let me say this, he is damn good. Not as good as one of my old Jazz Band friends, but still pretty good.

Anyways, I waited for Twilight to wake up. When she did I was bombarded with questions.

"Where did you come from?" she asked.

"I just appeared in some castle in that crazy forest," I responded.

"What were you doing there?"

"I just told you, I just appeared there. I don't really have any memories other than that," I lied.

"What is your name?"

"I'm.... I'm Galaxy Wishes," I lied again.

"Alright Galaxy. It seems that your story checks out," she said.

"Wait, what?" I asked. "Were you testing me or something?"

"Yes," Twilight admitted. "I've kinda been reading your memories to see if you're lying. Although, I must say, I like your nickname."

"What?" I said.

"Gold," she said. "It's kinda cute."

"Um. I-I have to-" I choked out before being interrupted.

"Spike, could you show him to the bathroom," Twilight said to the baby dragon.

"How'd you know I needed to..." I started before realizing the obvious. "Oh yeah, reading my mind. Could you please stop that?"

"Sure," Twilight said.

I'm in the bathroom now. The dice are glowing and I'm washing my face.

"What do you want?" I whispered to the dice.

Look at the mirror.

I turned my head to see the astral projection of the DM in the mirror. "Again, what do you want."

I'm betting your wondering what's going on with your 'memories,' correct?

"Actually, yeah. What's up with that?"

Well, this body of yours isn't the original one, so I thought that I'd do you a favor and block your original memories so that you wouldn't be given away 'till you want to. Hell, haven't you seen your eyes yet?

"Actually, no," I said. "Let me see."

Wow, he changed my eye color to brown. Huh, who woulda thunk it.

It's not hard to change it back, just think about revealing yourself, they'll turn back to how they are on your normal body.

"Oh, okay."

*SNAP* *FLASH*

"What was that?" I questioned.

She knows about your connection to me now.

"WHAT?!" I screamed.

Don't worry, it's a good thing. If they knew last time, things would have turned out better. Instead, they thought you were a pretender, set to destroy the peace they had worked so hard to achieve.

"About that, how do you know about it?" I asked.

I'm the DM, I've been watching everything. This is just the neutral world. Your 'Earth' is a realm close to Limbo.

"The realm of Chaos? I didn't think it would be THAT bad," I said.

The Solar Goddess is coming. She is bringing the Goddess of the Moon. Be ready.

The astral projection faded away, leaving me with my thoughts.

"Well shit," I said.

Miss Me Celestia?!

Wow, they got here quick.

Apparently, right after taking that photo of me with the DM's projection in the mirror, the Princesses teleported into Twilight's castle. Hell, they even brought Cadence and Shining Armor with them. Either I scared them something fierce, or they really wanted to make sure I was who I said I was.

I'm going with the latter, however, because before I entered the room they were all waiting in, I saw a barrier around the doorway. Apparently, me seeing it and telling them I saw it was part of their little test.

Why do I say that? 'Cause apparently the only other pony, or even being they've met, was Solaris.

Anyways, they kept bombarding me with questions. They were all along the same ones that Twilight asked me, except for one.

"Who was that man in the mirror?" asked Celestia.

"That was the Dungeon Master," I responded.

"So, you're in leagues with that bipedal creature?" Luna asked.

"Who?" I responded. "What the hell are you talking about? Bipedal creature? That was the Dungeon Master. I don't know what you ponies have seen, but it wasn't the DM."

"You keep referring to the fugitive like as if he was an important being," Celestia said. "What's worse is that you say it like he's more powerful than me and my sister."

"I'm not talking about what you think!" I said. "That biped you keep talking about isn't the DM and never will be!"

"We have had enough of this foolishness," Luna said. "We think thou needs time to think about thou's actions in the dungeons."

SILENCE, rang out the voice of the DM.

"Who is there?!" Celestia questioned. "Reveal yourself!"

If I were to do that, he started, everything would become nothing. This realm would become another void. No, I will not reveal myself. I will show you what I can, though.

Welcome to the void, young ones.

We're in the void. I swear, if this doesn't convince them, nothing will.

"What matter of magic is this?!" Luna screamed.

"Where are we?!" Twilight questioned.

"This is...." Celestia said. "This is the void...... I've been here before, when I was young."

Yes, and it seems you have forgotten what I told you. said the now appearing visage of the DM.

"What did you tell her?" I asked.

I told her about the prophecy. I tried to tell her that she was not the Champion, but apparently an immortal goddess who lives in the physical world tends to listen to mortals. I will tell you once more, Celestia. You are not the one.

"But if I'm not the one, who is?!" she screamed. "What do I tell my ponies who thought that I was their savior?!"

That the new alicorn that has appeared is my new champion, and that the evil is on it's way. I can sense it, but for some reason, I cannot touch it. It is out of my grasp, like as if it never originated from this part of the multiverse.

"Very well," Celestia said. "I shall announce to my ponies what is happening."

And release Discord. He is of vital importance for what is coming soon. And 'Gold' the other form is ready.

"Thanks, big guy!" I said before he teleported us back out of the void.....

..... and into Twilight's castle.

"What did he mean?" Twilight asked. "What other form?"

"Well, I might have been lying to you the entire time," I said.

"How can this be?" Luna questioned. "We hath read thou's mind. It has revealed that thou hath told us nothing but the truth. How could thou be lying to us?"

"Well, I was going to wait until later," I said. "But certain things have brought this to current light." I blinked a few times and did as the DM told me to do when I wanted to reveal myself. I then stared straight at Celestia while wearing the biggest 'eat shit' grin I could muster. "MISS ME CELESTIA?!"

"Mother of me," Celestia said. "You're the biped!"

"Yes, I am," I said. "My name is Dox."

"THE BIPED!" Twilight screamed before using her telekinesis to slam me into a wall.

"Twilight?" Luna said. "What is the matter with you?!"

"He wills you to die," Twilight said. Her face became the same as Fluttershy's was when she appeared in the Everfree forest that one day.

"Twi...light...." I was able to cough out as she crushed me against the wall.

"Twilight Sparkle!" Celestia yelled at the young alicorn.

"Huh?" said the tranced alicorn. She let up her spell and dropped me to the floor. "Prin.... cess?"

I coughed a few times before speaking. "She's still in there, Fluttershy was the same. I think the other ponies are, too. There's a way to fix her, but I don't have it."

"What is it?" Luna asked.

"I don't even remember the name of it," I said. "But I think I have something that would work as a substitute."

I slipped out one of the vials on the strap for my sword's sheathe and uncorked it before attempting to bring it over to Twilight's mouth so I could pour it in. Safe to say that it didn't work. She noticed what I was trying instantly and slammed me against the wall again, effectively canceling the magical grip I had on the vial, letting it drop to the floor and shatter.

She continually slammed me against the wall, over and over again. In between the slammings, I was able to toss both Celestia and Luna a vial with what little magic I was able to muster.

"Twilight!" Celestia said, again. "I don't want to fight you, if I don't have to."

"But we have no such problems!" screamed Luna before slamming into Twilight's body, sending her flying across the room.

Twilight recovered quickly and slammed Luna into the same wall that she was slamming me into. In fact, she didn't just slam her into the wall, she slammed Luna into me! Luna dropped her vial during her journey into my side, letting it shatter on the floor.

"Sister!" Celestia screamed. "That is enough, my former student. You shall not harm any more ponies!"

Celestia attempted to do the same thing Luna did, only to get the same reaction. Same wall being slammed into, and by wall, I still mean me, and same dropped vial. Her's didn't shatter, however.

"Twi.... light...." Celestia choked out.

"Prin... cess...." Twilight moaned. "N..... No..... NO!"

Twilight's telekinesis dropped instantly as she started writhing about. Obviously the real Twilight had finally seen what was wrong with her and was now fighting whatever was controlling her mind.

I took this as an opportunity to enact my plan. I jumped up and rushed Twilight, grabbing the vial and uncorking it along the way. When I reached Twilight, I pinned her to the ground and forced her to drink the rainbow colored contents of the vial. The effects were instant, as Twilight started to come out of her trance like state.

"What in Tartarus just happened?" Twilight asked.

"Someone is trying to tell us something," I said. "And by what I've seen so far, all of the elements have been put under the influence. I know you're okay now. Fluttershy is completely safe. I think I also broke Pinkie Pie's trance on accident. She was like how you just were, then I scared her. Then here eyes went wide for a second before becoming pupil-less like the townsfolk. So, in other words..... I don't know who's good and who's not under the influence still. But I'm sure we can help all of them if we just-"

Just then, a guard burst in screaming.

"Tirek has escaped!" the guard screamed.

My reaction: "Oh, crap baskets."

Why Does it Always Have to be One After Another?

“Tirek?!” Twilight screamed. “But how? Me and my friends banished him to Tartarus with the power of the rainbow!”

“I-I…. I….” Twilight stammered.

“Listen, we need to get Princess Celestia out there!” the guard screamed. “Tirek is rampaging through town and screaming for the Champion. We can all only assume it’s Celestia.”

“I’m…. I’m not….” Celestia said.

“Princess!” the guard said. “There’s no time! We have to get the Champion out there!”

“Then stand back,” I said, walking out of the room. “Let me do my job.”

“Who the hell was that?” the guard asked. “And who does he think he is?”

“That’s Dox,” Celestia said. “He’s the champion.

Tirek was massive. It was evident that he had absorbed a ton of magic, due to the fact that he was easily three times my size. What had given him this much magic? On the show, he was about one and a half times the size of Celestia when he absorbed the magic in all of the ponies. I’m as tall as Celestia! How did he get so massive?

“Champion!” Tirek yelled. “Come out and face me!”

“I’m here!” I yelled at the massive beast that was Tirek. “Stop destroying the town. The homes belong to innocent ponies, I’m the one you’re after.”

“You?!” he laughed. “You’re nothing but a small meal of magic to me. Surely the Champion would be more…. impressive.”

“What you see is what you get!” I screamed. “Now stop attacking these ponies!”

“You are just a pretender.” he said. “Although, you may have a use. I could use a magical snack.”

Tirek picked me up in his telekinesis and opened his mouth. Before he could ‘inhale’ my magic, I unsheathed my sword with my own telekinesis and slashed the corner of his mouth. The effect was instant, he tossed me back a bit, sent my sword flying off, and clamped his hands to his mouth. I could see a bit of blood oozing from between his fingers. I had gotten him good.

But not good enough as he instantly picked me up again and proceeded to scream at me.

“YOU INSOLENT LITTLE BRAT!” he screamed, crushing me a bit in his magical grasp. “I DON’T CARE WHO YOU ARE! YOU WILL PAY FOR THAT!”

He then proceeded to spin around before flinging me into a nearby building. That building just so happened to be the town’s gym. As I went on my imminent journey to the ground, I hit an active treadmill, bouncing off into an elliptical, before finally ending up bouncing off the wall full of weights and landing on my face, right before a dumbbell fell off a rack and pinned me to the ground.

“Ow….” I said. I struggled under the weights. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t budge. Tirek showed up a few minutes later with my sword in his magical grasp.

“So sad,” he said. “Too bad the mighty ‘Champion’ is to meet his end at the hands of the mighty Tirek. When you’re dead, I will take your magic and continue my search for the realChampion.”

“I told you already,” I said. “I am the real champion!”

“Such sad last words,” he taunted. He then sent my sword flying at me, only to end up impaling me through my spine and pinning me to the floor. “I will tell the real Champion what has happened in his lack of attendance.” He walked away from me, leaving me to bleed to death on the floor of the gym.

Before I could lose consciousness, I noticed something:

The dice were glowing.

The DM said I had to pay better attention, so now I am. What do you want me to do big guy?

Roll me……

Roll me? Roll the dice….. Come on…. Just got to…

I rolled the dice, only for them to land all perfect.

It was then, I felt a surge of energy. As I forced myself up, I felt all of the weights fall off of me, all of my bones snap to place, my wounds close, the sword dislodge itself from my back (Which was kind of painful), and my weight shift. Wait, what?

I’m…. I’m a biped again! HELL TO THE YEAH! I’m in my old body again! But, the cloak…. It’s big and long again. And my sword is gone again…. And I can’t feel anything….. What is going on?

That was the perfect roll. Consider this move a gift. Now USEit!

Right. Tirek, I’m coming for you!

I used my weird teleport ability to get to the top of a building in front of Tirek, surprising him greatly.

“And who are you?” he asked. “If you are the Champion, I already killed someone while you sat around doing nothing. In a few seconds, I’m even going to kill-”

That was all he got out before I slammed my fist into the center of his face, breaking his nose and spraying blood on the ground.

“Why you little!” he screamed, charging up a spell. “DIE!” he shrieked, shooting a massive bolt of energy at me.

I just stood where I was and held up my hand. When the beam made impact, nothing happened. It just disappeared into my cloak. I then started running on some weird instinct that the DM must have put in my brain and lifted my other hand. I can tell you, I wasn’t the only one surprised to see Tirek’s beam coming out of the sleeve. It impacted Tirek, sending him sprawling to the ground outside of Ponyville.

Where he went, I had to follow.

When I teleported over to the field that Tirek was now in, I realized two things:

One, my cloak had turned back into the tattered brown thing that went from my shoulders to my waist.

Two, Tirek had shrunk considerably. He was now only twice my size. Could it have been his own magic hitting him?

Either way, I had my sword now, and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t do that trick with deflecting magic again. Let’s get to this, then.

“You insolent little brat!” Tirek screamed at me. “You will pay for that!”

“Not likely!” I yelled.

I charged Tirek. He tried to kick me. And so it went on for several hours, neither of us letting up. The battlefield that was once a majestic field of tall grass had become a giant, barren crater, with me and Tirek still battling in the center of it.

During our bouts, I was able to cleave off one of his horns. He was able to get revenge on me and left a rather large gash on my left arm that oozed a rainbow liquid that I had come to know as my blood now. There was a ton of it staining the battlefield, along with his own crimson blood.

So, here we were, in the middle of the crater, covered in blood, and tired as hell. We’re both ready to end it here and now. Both of us are starting to muster the last of our energies for the final attack.

Tirek launches his first. It’s a massive beam of energy, one that is as big around as he is tall. I don’t have a single move that can counter it. I’ve already proven that during our fight when he launched another, much smaller beam and I tried using Hit Stream. It slowed it down, but it still went straight through.

I’ve only got one chance, but wait, the dice are glowing again.

Ultimum Judicium

What?

Use it. USE IT NOW!

Alright then…..

I charge up as much energy as I can before charging at Tirek and into his beam of energy sword first, all the while shouting, “Ultimum Judicium!”

Amazingly, my sword pierces through the beam, sending the energy away from me, right as it hits the tip. In the end, I feel it hit something solid and then stop. I look up to see that I’ve impaled Tirek with my sword.

Then things go black.

“The void again?” I said as I floated through the nothingness.

I saw Tirek floating there with me, as well as the astral projection of the DM.

“Uh, big guy?” I said. “What did you just make me do?”

That was a form of Judgement.

“Uh, huh.” I said. “And what exactly does it do?”

That was final judgement. As such, this is the last time he shall be judged.

“And what do you mean by that?” I asked.

His judgement…. is death…. followed by an eternal trip to the realm of Hell. Now enact his sentence.

“Very well then.” I said, floating up to Tirek, who seemed to be paralysed. “Tirek, you have been judged. Your sentence….” -I lifted up my sword- “... is death!”

I brought down my sword, cleaving off his head. It floated away from his body, which went limp the second it was severed from the head.

The last thing I saw before I returned to the normal world was Tirek’s look of horror on his severed head.

When I got back out of the void, I found myself lying down in a room made of crystal. I must have been dragged back to Twilight’s castle.

I proceeded to force myself up and walk through the door of the room. Outside said door, were Twilight and her friends, sans Fluttershy. I immediately started freaking out and backing up, until Twilight explained that she had used some of my ‘rainbow blood’ that had been leaking down my arm to find and cure her friends. She said that after she did, the entire population of Ponyville seemed to come out of a trance, everyone questioning what had happened.

When I asked her what had become of the battlefield and of Tirek’s body, she hesitated. Apparently the entire battlefield had regrown the second she pulled me out of the crater. She told me it was amazing to watch it just repair itself. She dodged answering about Tirek, however. When I was finally able to get her to talk about him…… she froze. Apparently his body wasn’t there when they retrieved me. She said it was like he was there, and then he wasn’t.

She advised that I just go back in the room I was in, calling it my room, and to rest.

For once, I took up her advice and went to sleep.

Later that night, I awoke to see someone entering my room.

They went up to me and crawled into my bed, snuggling me before falling asleep.

I couldn’t do anything about it at that moment, so I just went back to sleep.

A Day to Remember (Part 1)

I woke up the next day to find none other than Twilight Sparkle cuddling me. Not only that, during my sleep, it had become spooning. It was all around very embarrassing.

To make matters worse, as the world around me came more into focus, I noticed that apparently her friends- sans Fluttershy still- had come in during the night to snuggle up to me. To say it was adorable would be an understatement at best. It was also EXTREMELY embarassing. Thank goodness none of my other dimensional friends could see this.

*flash*

Damn it. Someone set up a camera..... wait, no. That's......

DAMN IT CADENCE!

As I struggled to move from everything, I started hearing a voice. I couldn't make any of it because of Rainbow Dash's snoring, so I just continued doing what I was doing.

Just as I made it out of the pony pile, I heard the voice again. Not only that, but now the dice were glowing. What the hell?

Someone is trying to summon you. I can't help you hearing this time, but maybe you should listen to your d6 if you start hearing things again.

"Wait, why?" I whispered so as not to wake up the snoozing ponies.

Because that's what your token is connected to.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" I asked in a hushed voice while putting on my outfit. It smelled as if it had been washed recently, and looked like the damage that it took from the fight with Tirek had been repaired. Note to self, thank Rarity when she wakes up.

The d6 that you used to make your token is a copy of the d6 in your possession. It allows you to communicate with it, but not with the person holding it.

"Ah, well that's kinda stupid," I whispered while strapping on my gear.

Hey, don't call me stupid, call the mechanics stupid.

"Already did," I said as I stepped out of the room.

As I walked down the hallway in search of the kitchen, I became assaulted with the smell of burnt food. Someone in this giant castle obviously doesn't know how to cook.

I found the source of the offending smell. It smelled horrible, but had it's use. I found the kitchen, with none other than Shining Armor trying to cook some breakfast..... and failing..... badly.

"What are you doing?" I asked somewhat loudly to get his attention.

"I'm trying to make Cadence some breakfast in bed," he responded. "I mean, the castle staff always makes us our food, so I thought it would be nice and romantic if I did it for once."

"Well, you failed," I said. "And you made the room smell like burnt...just burning things in general. Plus, Cadence is already awake, she snuck into my room and took a picture of me sleeping with your sister in my arms."

"She did WHAT?!" Shining screamed. "And why were you cuddling my sister?! I want answers now!"

"Your sister came in while I was asleep," I said. "I was too tired to object so I just let it happen. As for your wife, I don't know why she was in there. Anyways, this isn't about me! This is about the fact that you can't cook!"

"But I'm-" he said.

"But nothing!" I interjected. "I don't care if you're a prince, or a man... er, stallion. It's no excuse to not know how to cook! I know how to cook, damn it!"

"Sorry, I just..." he said defeatedly.

"Hey, don't be sorry," I said. "I can teach you how to make eggs, but you have to ask your staff to teach you how to cook more than that."

"It's a deal, then!" he said, extending a hoof to me. I eagerly fist-bumped it in response.

About thirty minutes later, we had breakfast. I had taught Shining how to make some basic eggs, which took a few tries. In fact, I even ate some of them! He got them down pretty well after about ten tries. The others were entering right about now, so I took it to myself to help out with breakfast and cut up some fruit.

The ponies were pleased with the fruits. But before any of them congratulated me, I pointed all the thanks towards Shining. He had made the main course for breakfast, so he deserved the praise.

Just as they started swarming around Shining, I heard some mumbling again and immediately took out my d6 and put it to my ear.

"Dungeon Master! I, the Megaman of Equestria-"

"Don't you mean Megamane?"

"Oh hush you. I, Megamane, er, Megaman, call upon you! Nothing going on really, just wanted to talk. If you wouldn't mind."

“Okay then.” I said. “Just roll the die.”

I waited for a scant few seconds, and then felt a pull from inside my stomach. It was like if someone had stuck a hook in there and was tugging on it… well thats just the best I can figure out how to describe it…

I woke up in a small room. I only say it was small because I bumped my head on the freaking ceiling. In front of me was a pony in a wheelchair… thing, and some floating chunk of metal. The first thing that popped into my head is as follows: Did a pony summon me?

“Uh, hi,” I said to the pony. “I’m looking for the guy that summoned me. Goes by Megaman, or I guess Megamane, I don’t know which.”

“Hi,” The pony said hesitantly. “Are you...okay. Trivia test. Star Wars or Star Trek?”

“What?” the chunk of metal asked.

“The hell?” I said. “Are you nuts? That’s a nerds worst nightmare for a question! There have been wars about that freaking question! Flame wars!”

“Okay, okay, calm down,” The pony said, scratching at his face. “I was only trying to figure out if you were from earth without randomly cluing some weird … ‘Dungeon Master’ into a world of over six billion people without magic.”

“I’ve seen beings like him before, he looks kinda like the people from where I’m from!” the metal chunk stated excitably.

“He’s a humanoid, this is what ‘I’ normally look like as well,” he claimed, gesturing to me.

The flying chunk of metal flew down closer, almost less than an inch from my face. After a few seconds, the feminine sounding chunk of metal floated lazily away.

“Weird...I really can’t see you with fingers,” she tutted.

“Oh shut up A,” the pony replied.

“Um, what?” I asked. “What the hell are you two talking about? I only came here because I was summoned. The guy said he wanted to talk, so do you know where he is or not?”

“Uh,” the pony started, holding up a hoof. “I’m the one that called you. I found your dice, and just wanted to say hi. Not every day you get flung across reality into a tv show, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “So wait, you called me? And you were flung here?....”

Meanwhile back in Dox’s Equestria:

“WHAT THE HELL?!”

Back with Dox:

“I got jumped in my apartment a couple nights ago. I was just surfing the web, and suddenly, Discord. Scary as hell, and he just plopped me down here. Along with the current...casing,” he gestured to himself. “Model A here seems to be from the actual Megaman ZX games universe, at the very least she seems to be very convincing.”

“Of course I’m convincing, I’m not going to just up and lie about my home, am I?” the flying chunk of-...Model A claimed, fluttering around the ceiling. “Speaking of, Discord brought you here too, right? You wanna smack him in the face just as much as we do, right?”

“U-uh,” I stammered. “No. Um, I got transfered to Equestria through different means. I got sent here by some guy who calls himself The Merchant. I still don’t know why he sent me, but what I do know is that he did it after I bought something from him. Other than that, I’ve been here ever since. On the subject of Discord, my Discord is actually a nice guy. Got imprisoned recently, and I’m trying to figure out how to get him out.”

“Hmph,” Model A snorted, losing interest in the conversation.

“Don’t mind her...she just has people she needs to get back to. So, Discord. ‘Your Discord. You’re telling me theres more than one running around this crazy world?” he took a moment to consider his own words. “Actually, that makes a lot of sense.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” I said. “I’m kinda wondering something… actually, a couple things. First of them, how are you a pony?”

“Short answer, Discord. Long answer, Discord is a jackass.”

“I am not a donkey!” a voice echoed through the room, before it fell silent.

“Oh, now you’re listening in on my calls? Weak, man!” the pony called out, before turning back to me. “Sorry. Introductions. My name is David Everson, But the name everyone around here knows me by due to Discords meddling is Rock Light. And then the papers are calling me Megamane, so thats yet another name.”

“Heh,” I chuckled. “That’s honestly kinda funny. Now, here’s the other question, do your ponies know about other Displaced yet? Or about the existence of humans?”

He took a second to think on it, and replied, “I don’t think so. Discord did some huge memory thing on the entire town of Ponyville, everyone here thinks they already know me. And I have had yet to see any evidence of humans, or even heard anyone talk about them.”

“Ah, okay then,” I said. “Now, surprise final question before I do anything else. Do you know anything about changelings?”

Before he answered, I shifted my form into the best impression I could muster of the alicorn version of myself. I screwed it up a bit, but it’s probably for the better. I mean, now I’m not as tall as Celestia, and I’m missing my wings, but hey less suspicion!

“...On...ly what I know from the show. Were you turned into a humanoid changeling? Cause frankly thats freaking awesome.”

“Pretty much, yeah,” I said. “But I’m not a changeling from MLP, I’m more like a changeling from the Eberon books for D&D. What you saw earlier was a base form. Thing is, I’m not sure why my clothes change with me, they’re honestly supposed to stay the same. I also shouldn’t really be able to change sizes, or go from biped to quadruped. Oh well, it helps with any disguises that I can make.”

“Dang, wish I had rolled that, thats much more helpful than what I got…” he looked up at Model A, “Not that I think I could do better than you, you are hands down awesome!”

“Hmph,” she replied.

“Wait, roll?” I said. “Wait a second, you’re one of those power lottery guys! I heard about you guys! Not much though. That’s honestly pretty cool if you ask me.”

“Wait, so how many of us did Discord strand here? How have we not run into each other, it seems to me that if there were a bunch of guys with super powers running around pony-land, the ponies would be freaking out, right?”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “But here’s the deal. Apparently we’re all in different universes, ya know, multiverse theory. And I can’t really tell you how many Discord stranded, ‘cause I don’t know. I do know that there’s a lot of us that got stranded by the merchant, though. Still don’t know how many.”

“Oh.” He took a second to think on it, then let out a- “Ooooooooooooh. That makes sense. So you ‘aren't’ from this Equestria?”

“Nope,” I said. “Any other questions?”

“Wanna help me search for biometal? I can see you’re packing,” he pointed at my sword, “So you probably have some combat experience, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “In fact, I beat Tirek quite recently. Although, I think that was just me getting lucky and having a little bit of help, myself.”

“Tirek...the big red guy from the end of the series?”

“Yep,” I said. “My world was done with it, but apparently things are still going on. Like, we all think someone freed him. And I think it’s pretty evident someone did. Ya know how he was about twice as big as Celestia when he went up against Twi?”

“Yeah?”

“Well,” I started. “He was about three times the size of Celestia when I started fighting him. The last time I checked, that only happened after he absorbed all the magic from the normal ponies, Discord, and the alicorn magic. So yeah.”

“Daaaaaaaaaaaamn, that must have been awesome! All I got from Discord is a new body and a wheelchair instead of my prosthetic. Although the more I think about it, a prosthetic wouldn’t really work on a ponies back legs…”

“Yeah, I see what you mean,” I said. “I do have a new question, though. If you’re called Megamane, then why aren’t you like a pony Megaman?”

He gave me a quick grin, looking out his curtained windows. Drawing them up tighter together, he raised a hoof towards Model A and said in a normal volume, “Megamerge.”

A ball of sparkling magical lights covered him from head to toe, obscuring him from view. Once it stopped, David had been replaced with a armored, megaman version of a pony. Looking at his face I could tell it was the same pony, but the fact that he was slightly bigger- and the fact that his LEG WAS ALL BETTER- caught me off guard.

“That is why I’m the Megaman of Equestria-”

“Megamane~” Model A trilled, her voice echoing from Davids helmet.

“Oh shut it. Henshin.” the ball of sparkly lights returned with a vengeance, searing into my corneas. When I recovered the ability to see once more, David had gone back to the appearance I had first seen him in.

“Ow. My eyes,” I said. “So, why do you stick like this? Why not just stay as Megaman, or Megamane, or whatever.”

“Twilights on a warpath,” he started, “Apparently I didn’t wake up immediately when Discord brought me here, decided to take me out for a test drive. Ended up destroying part of town, and attacking her brother. Now she’s attached that to the ‘grey armor pony’ and thinks that ‘Megamane’,” he took a second to glare up at Model A, who was barely containing her laughter. “Knows something about that. They’re apparently dissimilar enough to not be recognized as each other, but still, every time Twilight see’s me its just another step closer to whichever episode it was that she tried to figure out Pinkie Sense. I have no intention of being looked at like a science subject.”

“Ah, okay then,” I said. “So, you said something about finding some metal or something earlier? You wanna do that and then maybe we can mess around a little?”

He looked up at Model A, and gave her a quizzical glance. “Nope, nothing doing, I don’t read anything in the area.”

“Oh well, its not like I would have wanted to brazenly start running around Ponyville with a humanoid battling some sort of pottery biometal or something.” David surmised.

“Alright then,” I said. “Let’s get to it.”

“So, I didn’t really ask earlier,” I said. We had made our way to a deli of some sort, and David had graciously offered to pay for my meal, “But what does this biometal stuff look like?”

“Like me!” Model A called out, her voice muffled from the inside of Davids Satchel.

“Yeah,” David confirmed, “Kinda like her. Chunks of metal, but different configuration, different designs. Easy enough to spot a floating chunk of metal, but apparently there aren’t any in the area. Although I guess thats a good thing, means we don’t have to deal with fragments of Model W for a while,” he said, sipping from a straw out of the cup before him. I think he ordered tea, but I can’t honestly remember.

“Okay then,” I said, sipping on some pony version of soda. It honestly tasted kinda weird, but with that reminiscent taste of Coke…. or was it Pepsi? “So, if there isn’t any here, why are we hanging out here? Shouldn’t we be looking around for some of it? I mean, I kinda remember the games, that stuff isn’t the best to just leave around.”

“Its not like I can just up and go,” he said, gesturing to his legs. “I have no idea if the megamerge has a time limit yet. I don’t want to get all the way out in the jungle, halfway out to buttfuck nowhere and have the only thing going for me to suddenly switch off. And I technically have a job here, I can’t just not show up one day, that would make people start looking for me.”

“Ah, I see,” I said. “Luckily for you, I can teleport. Although… There are limitations. Can you pinpoint one of the pieces?”

“Honestly, no. Model A’s signal range is actually pretty large, but she hasn’t picked up anything from here to Canterlot. And a fair ways into the everfree forest. The thing is, with the last two they were basically just chilling right outside of ponyville, one of them in a giant invisible plant tower, the other at the bottom of an abandoned well.”

“Okay,” I said. “Any idea why it chose those places? Any at all? And another thing, does that signal reach into the Pony Sisters Castle?”

“Yeah, and beyond it. I don’t know why they chose those places exactly, but the first one was plant oriented, and the other one was water related.” David let out a short coarse laugh, “I poured cement mix down the well and filled it up.

"So, it's after something," I said. "Obviously it has a plan. Did you notice how they kind of follow a theme so far? I mean, plants and water. Plants depend on water. Now, I'm not sure if that's part of the theme, but if it's not, I have another idea. You know the robot masters?"

"Yeah, that is a Megaman staple, after all," David replied.

"Well," I started, "I'm pretty sure that the pieces are trying to act like the robot masters. I'm not completely sure, I'm just pretty sure. So, if my hunch is right, we need to look for something related to a robot master, like an area or an element or an object. The only one I can think of is Flame Man and his location. The equivalent here, would be Saddle Arabia. So, I guess we could look there, like I could try and teleport us."

A sudden voice broke out of the croud, hailing David from afar. Or at least-

"Rock! Rock Light!" Called a certain white haired unicorn.

"You know what, I'm down for that," David stated, groaning into his salad.

"Rock! Its good to see you up and about, I thought about dropping by later with a bowl of hay noodle soup~." She said, somewhat seductively.

"Er...thanks, I guess. Rarity, this is my friend, Lone Traveler," he pointed to me with an outstretched hoof. I guess I never really gave him my name, but why such a weird replacement?

"An...er...old...friend?" she asked, her gaze drifting sadly between us.

"Uh, yeah...sorry. He just drifted into town, and we figured we'd shoot the breeze, try to catch up. He just recently came from Saddle Arabia, and was telling me about the landmarks."

"Thats...thats wonderful," Rarity said, obviously unhappy but her tone and voice betraying nothing of her inner feelings. "Well...I guess I'll just leave you to it...I wouldn't want to...intrude..."

Rarity swiftly walked away, rubbing at one of her eyes.

"She gonna be okay?" I asked. "Also, I'm sorry I didn't give you my name earlier, I'm Dox."

"Huh, good to meet you, Dox," he said, munching at aa stray piece of lettuce from his salad.

"As for Rarity...Well remember about how I told you how Discord made it so everyone remembers me as Rock Light?" he asked, his voice dipping down to a conspiratory whisper. "Well it turns out with Rarity he... complicated it a bit. She thinks we're...involved," he said with a sheepish cough. "According to everyone I've asked, apparently I 'moved here' to be closer to her. Turns out she thinks we're engaged." He munched forlornly on the salad he had ordered, a small tomato falling to the ground in his carelessness.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm all for getting a girlfriend for literally no effort, but I definitely don't know her well enough to even consider being her fiance. I am definitely gonna throttle Discord the next time I see him," he said, shooting me an apologetic glance, "my version, not yours."

"Dude, don't worry about it," I said. "You can just get to know her all over again."

The dice are glowing. I pulled them out and thought: WHAT DOES HE WANT NOW?!

We could always help him....

"And how could we do that?" I said to the dice. David obviously saw me, because he started looking at me like I was crazy.

"Well I assume that if we found him," David started, obviously thinking I was talking about Discord, "We couldn't really do anything anyways. He is Discord, after all. It's not like he would just let us have a free hit or anything."

He can't hear me. the DM stated.

"And why not?" I asked the DM.

Because he isn't holding the dice, among things. There's also the fact that I'm connected to you, not him.

"And if I were to grab him?" I asked.

That could work.

"Alright then," I said and then grabbed David, who looked at me like I had gone insane.

"Uhhhh," he let out, looking at the hoof I had placed on his shoulder like it might bite him, "Freezer dono, yamite?" he asked in a childish tone.

"Oh, shut up and listen," I told him.

Hello David. Can you here me? This is god. You're in heaven.

"You are not god DM," I whispered so that if anyone else heard, it would have only been David and the DM.

You can't let me have ANY fun, can you?

He looked at the dice in my other hoof, and gave them a sharp jab. "Is there...someone inside your dice? Bummer, at least with Model A she can move around when she wants to..."

"I think it'd be better to explain by showing you," I said. "It'll just have to wait until after the food."

At this, he heartily dug into his salad, finishing it in under a minute. I also tucked into mine, but not as...sloppily as he had his.

"Okay," I said after David had given a few bits to the waiter pony. "Let's get somewhere where we won't be seen."

"Back to my house, I wager would be the best place," David claimed. "That way we could just lock the doors. I even have a basement we could use, no windows to peep in through."

"That's perfect," I said. I then turned to the waiter pony. "Do you mind if I teleport in here?"

"Sure," he said. "No skin of my bones."

"Thank you, sir," I said before grabbing David.

We both then faded into shadow.

We reappeared in David's house, in the exact same room I had appeared in.

"So, we're here now," I said. "Where's the basement?"

"Over here," he stated, pointing at a closed door. He opened it, revealing a staircase that went down. With that, he flipped open his satchel, and pulled out Model A. "Megamerge," he said, giving me enough time to shade my eyes from the death sparkles of brightness this time. "What?" he asked, gesturing down the stairs, "Did you think I was going to try going down stairs in that freaking wheelchair thing? Its already hell enough, what with the four legs headfirst thing I have to do..."

"No, no," I said. "It makes sense."

We made it down the stairs quite easily. The second David and I reached the bottom, however, I grabbed him before we disappeared.

We reappeared in the emptiness that was this sector of the void, floating in front of the DM's astral projection.

Hello, gentlemen. it said.

"Hey big guy," I said, waving at it.

"Uhhhh....hello?" David said, trying to swim around the void with paddling hooves.

"David, this is the Dungeon Master," I said. "Dungeon Master, you know who this is."

Yes.

"Now, before you say anything about my token being false advertising," I said. "I did not know this guy existed when I made it. Plus, he is kinda still me. I mean, the body I'm in is based off of a homebrew rule that I made up, and is directly connected to him. We share the same soul, apparently....."

"Wait, so is it like a split consiousness thing or something?" he asked. "Or is it like you're the same person, but part of you is the player character while the other part is the overseeing game master or something? Avatars, how does they work."

"Well, basically," I started. "I'm here, but he's my soul. I'm just a version of him that can enter the physical realm. Dungeon Masters can't leave their realm or else the entirety of reality will be destroyed."

So I can create or select a body to be a vessel of sorts to carry out what I couldn't do in the physical realm. Such as interacting directly with 'players'. I could do this to them, but it must be in the void. The void isn't part of reality, and I'm still not here, but I can show a common representation of me here. Oh, and let's not forget what happens when I lend Dox some power.

"Yeah," I said. "Last time, I redirected a blast of energy that was about eighteen feet tall, just by holding out both my arms. It was intense as hell. Although, that did wear off, and I have pretty much no idea how to do that normally. In fact, I'm pretty sure I can't."

He can't. the DM whispered to David. I honestly took over his body so he could do that.

"Huh, still sounds impressive. So, what are we doing here? I mean, I don't want to be rude seeing as apparently this is the only way you can talk to me normally, and I understand how annoying it is to be left out of the loop while two other people just talk around me, but I thought we were heading to Saddle Arabia."

I've been pinpointing a good location to send you two to since that genius can only teleport to places that he's familiar with, and not places he's never been to.

"Hey!" I yelled.

In fact, I'm sending you in..... Now.

And with that, we were no longer in the void.

We reappeared in a dessert. It was night around the area we were in, but that makes sense, considering Saddle Arabia was probably on the other side of the world. Off in the distance, there was a town that had a few lights on in the buildings. If it weren't for the lights, neither of us would have noticed it.

"Well, we're here," I said. "Can you get Model A to scan now?"

"Scan mode, activate!" David called out. After several seconds of apparently nothing happenneing he asked, "Please? Model A, Hellooooo?"

"A please is all I wanted," Model A chirped. "It wouldn't hurt you to appreciate me a bit more."

"Fine, fine, I'm sorry. Will you please activate Scan mode? Or whatever it's called?"

""Already did, and I'm reading a Model W signal...and a Model P signal, in that direction!" she jerked his head off to the left, causing him to almost fall over.

"Alright, let's get moving then," I said, looking out towards the sands.

And the dice are glowing again.... No wait, it's just the d20. Guess that means I have to roll it, but no flat surfaces..... Wait, David's back....

So I roll it on David's back, and got an eighteen. Pretty good.... Wait, what the? I can see further now...... Must have been a perception check.

"Hey, you said it was coming out that way, right?" I asked. "Is it any bit muffled? 'Cause I see a pyramid."

"I just know that the signal's coming from that direction, I can't tell if it's in it or beyond it. But there does appear to be a sloping surface in the path, mainly made of sandstone."

"Alright," I said. "Man, I love perception checks.... Hey, I see a guy! No, wait, he ran inside the pyramid. Odd."

"I can't even see the pyramid," David whined. "It's in this direction, right?"

"Yeah," I said. "Let's get moving, we only have so long before it's noticed that Rock Light is missing. My best guess is that we have about three hours minimum, five at best."

"Ehn," he replied, "I can do whatever I want till morning, if I end up missing from work the post office will end up worrying. Plus I'll end up missing a days pay..."

We continued on, and in about five minutes David was actually able to see the Pyramid. About ten minutes after that, we were finally at the very front, a suspiciously visible opening right on the front.

"So I didn't just see it," I said. "Someone did enter the pyramid. But who?"

"Well, going off of the obvious element styling, I'm gonna guess sandman. Or Pyramid man. Or Egypt man. Something like that. And seeing as this is cartoon world logic, look out for booby traps. We're bound to run across a trapdoor, maybe an Indiana Jones rock..."

"Alright then," I said. "In other words, this is gonna suck."

"Sharp rocks at the bottom?" David asked, shooting me a comedic grin.

"Most likely," I said.

David looked into the dark recesses of the pyramid, then flashed me another wide grin.

"Bring it on." And with that, he took a step into the ruin. Seeing that he wasn't immediately dead, he continued till he was completely inside the doorway.

To that, I did something stupid.

"Oh come on man," I said. "Ya gotta just run in! Like this..... LEEEEROOOOOY JEEEEEEEEEEEEENKIIIIIIIIINS!" And with that, I just ran in..... Blindly ran in..... David tailing behind.

About three seconds later, a trap set off and we had to run even faster. David wasn't kidding about the Indiana Jones rocks. What he didn't tell me, is that it went inside the pyramid with us.

David tripped a dart trap, forcing us to leap in awkward formations to avoid the firing paths. It didn't seem to stop the giant boulder of copyright breakingness, which kept rolling after us without even slowing from the cramped corridor. We turned a corner, and the boulder crashed to a halt. I turned to say something inspirational regarding our escape, but a grinding of rock pre-empted my victory gloating.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me," David muttered, pointing up at the ceiling, almost right above us. The CEILING was sliding open, and it looked like...yeah, it was another boulder. "RUN!" He yelled out, breaking into a run.

As we ran, we came upon the end of the hallway and....

"Oh, COME ON!" I screamed. "The doors are closing now?! This! IS BULLSHIT!"

"Gushing Geyser!" David called out, the white accents on his armor becoming a deep blue as a cannon of water sprayed out of his mouth, knocking the stone doors off their hinges. We continued to run, diving inside the doorframe as the boulder slammed to a halt behind us.

"And who," called a voice from the inky blackness, as torches lining the walls burst to light, "Are you? Disturbing our home, disrupting our sleep, leaving WATER all over the ground?!!?"

"Hate to tell you dude," David said with a groan, holding his stomach. "That ain't one hundred percent water. I doubt its even thirty..."

Oh that was GROSS. I was RUNNING through that! It was all over my pants!

"Silence!" The voice yelled, revealing the speaker. It was...I am not even joking. It was a Pharo pony. Funky hat and everything. He was sitting upright -in a position that seemed like it would be quite uncomfortable- in a gigantic royal throne, all accents of gold and jewels poking from every orifice. In one leg, he held a wand of some sort. Attached off the left side of his face, a grotesque configuration of wires and metal were visible.

"Theres the chunk of Model W!" Model A called out.

"SILENCE!!!" he yelled once more, the very sound pushing me back a step. "Retainer, what is the meaning of this?" he asked, once more in his normal voice.

"My master, please forgive me..." sniveled a dry sounding voice off to the side. A camel of all things ambled out of the shadows, covered in a black body stocking, as well as red and white armor plates. A giant x of a blade covered his back, I think it could still be called a shuriken... "I activated the traps, but they bypassed them, please don't punish me..."

Wait a second, that was the thing I saw enter the pyramid earlier! And hold on a sec, HE activated the trap?! Son of a bitch!

"You jackass!" I screamed as I unsheathed my sword and took a vial out of my bandolier. "You're gonna get your ass kicked!"

I rushed the Pharo pony, only to get smacked in the face and knocked to the ground.

It took me a couple seconds to realize the camel was quite literally sitting on top of me, pinning my sword to the ground with a knife directly attached to the armor on his leg.

This was almost instantly fixed, seeing as David cannonballed out of nowhere and smacked into the ninja camel, right in the mouth with his two back legs.

"I got Pinky," he called out, doing a complex looking backflip off of the camel guys face and landing on all fours, "You get the Brain!"

"Hit Stream!" I yelled, swinging my sword and sending out a wave of energy.

The attack collided with a block that the Pharo pony raised from the ground. He had a wand in his hoof and when he flicked it at me, the block went flying in my direction. I dodged and sent another hit stream at him, he blocked with another part of the ground. That's when an idea hit me.

I began running around him, sending waves of energy at him one by one. As I ran in circles, I also got closer. This resulted in him making a spiral pattern in the floor, and a path that led right to him. When I was directly in front of him, I slashed his wand with my sword, cleaving it in two. The pharo pony then proceeded to attack me with the wrappings on his forelegs, sending them out like whips. He was able to knock my sword out of my hands and keep me away from it, but I still had an ace in the hole.

I threw the vial I had taken out earlier at him and watched as it shattered at his hooves, releasing a thick veil of smoke around him. Huh, so that's what the purple colored vial does. Go figure.

I used this to my advantage, avoiding his now wild swings of his wrapping-whips and took out my knife as I got close. When I was on top of him, I smacked him in the face with the butt of my knife, stunning him. I then proceeded to rip off the big chunk of metal off his face. Before I could issue another attack, however, he reverted back into a normal pony, who seemed to be confused as heck as to why a giant pale biped was attacking him.

The camel collided with the throne, neatly snapping it in half, snapping us out of our revrie. A bright light surrounded the prone form, coolescing into a tiny chunk of purple, red and white metal. It clattered to the floor, inert. David came trotting up to me and slapped the chunk of metal from out of my hand, letting it clang to the floor in a jumble of metal and wires.

"Trust me, you really don't want to be holding that so close to bare skin," he said, holding his right leg up and pointing the end at the chunk of metal like a gun. His leg then unfolded with a whirring of machinery, transforming it into a wide barrelled canon. With several blasts of warm, yellow tinged energy that roared out the end of his leg like laser blasts the chunk of 'model W' was no more than dust.

He grabbed up the purple chunk of metal, balancing it on top of his head. "Hey Camel guy, you allright? " he called out.

"Mmmmmmmmnnnnnn," a dry voice moaned from the rubble.

"He'll be fine," muttered the Pharo turned regular pony, "His hump is harder than his head."

"Oh shut your face, Shahid," the camel mumbled, dragging himself from the rubble.

"Make me, Malik," the pony replied.

"Both of you shut the hell up," David snapped, drawing their attention. "Unless it escaped your attention, both of you were very recently the victoms of a device which basically brainwashed you. We saved you. Show your damned respect."

Both of them were cowed, and gave each of us a a slight bow.

"You have my thanks, I am El Presidente of the Republic of Oasis, and this," the camel waved a limb at the pony as he continued to brush the dust from his coat, "Is my close friend, Shahid. He acts as the main dignitary between us and Saddle Arrabia. If it weren't for you two...Oh my Faust..." he whipped his head between David and I, shock filtering across his face. "We were going to destroy the main Oasis!"

"No problem, El Presidente," I said. "Just doing our job. Let's get outa here Megamane."

Just as David tried to correct me by screaming out the word 'Megaman', we teleported back to his house in a poof of shadow stuff.

We reappeared in his living room, with me hitting my head on the ceiling, again.

"No! No its MegaMAN, not Megamane! God damnit, they can't hear me anymore, can they?" David whined, plopping the purple chunk of metal down on a workbench. "At least we managed to find another Biometal. Henshin!" he returned to his wheelchaired form, allowing Model A to fly about over his head. "Can you scan it? It isn't going to go mental and attack someone else if we just let it roam free?"

"No, Model P was just being controlled by the fragment of Model W," she explained, bathing Model P in a beam of pinkish light. "Once he recharges sufficiantly, he should be back to normal."

"Hey, what was with that?" I asked. "They were just possessed by the freaking metal? And why is it called biometal? What would happen if I touch the 'Model P' as you call it?"

"Absolutely nothing," Model A snapped harshly, flashing a pinkish light over me. "For starters, you're incompatible. A megamerge would not be succesful with you. Second, Model P has been temporarily drained of energy. Until he reboots he will be little more than a block of biometal. Third, from what I remember Model P is a bit antisocial. He'll probably try to fly away from you, making it so you can't touch him, " she explained.

"So he'll just recover naturally?" David asked.

"Yeah. Maybe prop him up in a window," she suggested, "We do run off solar power, after all."

"Okay, that sounds like a plan," I said, grabbing Model P. I set him down in a window before noticing a bit of metal dust on my hand. "Uh, guys? What's this stuff?"

"Biometal dust," Model A replied, flying close and blasting my hand with heat from her face. Jumping away and shaking my hand in pain, I unsheathed my sword and pointed it at the pint sized pain. "What? Better safe than sorry. Don't be such a baby, I only burned off the outermost epidermal layer, it's not like you've never been sunburned, have you?" she trilled happily.

"Just watch it next time," I said, sheathing my sword. "So, it's been..... about three hours since we left. Wanna go mess with some ponies?"

"If you can do that 'teleport back here' at any point in time, I thought you'd never ask. I say I'd rather fancy another bit of food, just one course of salad never quite fills me up." he raised his hoof towards the fluttering Model A, "Megamerge!"

"Again? You're going to wear me out if you keep this up..." Model A chastised.

"Oh hush, I just figured I'd put on something snazzy," David retorted. He turned to me, "Do you think you can just teleport us to the cafe again?"

"Sure thing," I said, grabbing David before teleporting us.

We reappeared in the cafe. I honestly almost collapsed afterwards.

"Whew," I said. "So much teleporting in one day. Plus that huge one. I'm tired. I really need a drink now. Hey waiter! Can I get some coffee with cream and a ton of sugar? Oh, and a salad for my friend."

The waiter just stood there slack jawed, not sure what to say.

"C'mon sah!" David called out in a ridiculous english accent, his voice deeper for some reason. "We just popped o'er tah Saddle Arabia, saved El Presidente of the Republic of Oasis. We need drinks to sate our dry, sandy tongues," he turned to the rest of the cafe, sunlight glistening off his blue armor, "Looks like everyone could use a refresh. Drinks on me!" he roared, sending the waiter off with a scuttle in his step.

"Perfect way to grab attention, while simultaniously diverting it," he assured me.

"Great job," I said. "But if you listen closely, you can hear him exit through the back door and start screaming for the guards."

A few seconds later a guard popped in. Litterally popped in, like teleportation. Few seconds after the first guy, another guy pops in, then another, then another. In the end, it ends up to be about ten guards and a curious Twilight and an angry Shining Armor.

"Dude," I said to David. "How many ponies are after your metal butt?"

Right after I said that, they tried to rush us. Instead of that, I teleported us outside. And thus, the chase began.

"You can do that at any time, right?" David asked, refusing to run but coninuing along at a slow...very slow walk. "Just keep walking, all peaceful like, and get ready to teleport us to the everfree when I say 'Doctor Who'. Don't give me that look, thats a classic reference, it will NEVER die."

"I may be able to teleport us whenever," I started. "But I can't teleport both of us constantly. I'm used to teleporting myself, and even then, I don't teleport too far. Plus, my teleportation is based on Shadow Walking, so it's easier in shady areas. We're out in the broad daylight. We're honestly lucky that I was able to teleport us away from Saddle Arabia."

"Hey! Hey, stop!" came a voice from behind us. David didn't quicken his pace any, so I decided to trust him a little. The fact that he purposefully herded our way past a line of buildings that cast shade over us certainly helped. "Wait a minute!" called Twilight from behind us.

"Sorry my dear," David called back in his ridiculously English, low voice again. "But seeing as you chased us away from a snack and a drink that I was fully well going to pay for, I really don't have any patience for you. Add to that the fact that I am busy entertaining a guest from out of town, he gestured to me, "I must ask that you leave us alone."

"You will stop in the name of Equestria," Shining Armor demanded, coming up alongside us and giving David the stink eye.

"Seeing as I am a sovreign dignitary from outside of Equestria, no, I will not," David claimed. "And if a lowly captain of the guard such as yourself demands as such again," David stopped, staring down the irate unicorn. "I will personally bring my concerns to Celestia herself that her subjects are throwing their weight around, acting in an EXTREMELY unharmonious manner. Even somepony as high a rank as you can be demoted if they make a big enough mistake," he threatened.

"We don't mean any disrespect," Twilight claimed, waving off the guards who retreated to a safe distance. I noticed they still stayed close enough so that if they needed to jump us, they could. I really hope David knew what he was doing. I could probably fight all of them off if I needed to, but all the excitment of the day had so far tired me out. Just a little.

"You...you're the one the papers are calling Megamane?" Twilight asked.

"A translation error from the original language, but I suppose it rolls off the tongue better," David spouted, never breaking from his phony accent. "You may call me Megamane if you please. I am third in line for the throne of Prairie, and my friend here is Master of the keep of Lankmar." He took a second to glare at Shining Armor, "And if you even think of insulting my friend by daring to refer to him as a 'deformed minotaur', I will be forced to defend his honor. Even if I have to make a fool out of myself to do so," he said pointedly.

"Shining," Twilight hissed, "Back off!"

With a harumph, Shining Armor retreated to walk with his guards.

"So...my eternal apologies, but I have some questions, if you could possibly find the time to answer them..." Twilight pressed. I was about to go tell her to stand by her brother and leave us alone, but David cut me off.

"Ask them if you may. I may or may not see fit to answer them," he answered.

"Well...okay then, what are you doing in Equestria? You set a large area of the forest on fire-"

"I disabled an array that was being set up by a fugitive from my country. The fugitive was last seen in this area-"

"If theres a refugee criminal, that would have been -" inturrupted Shining Armor. David quickly inturrupted his inturrupt, would that be a double inturrupt?"

"Tell me, Captain. Are you the highest authority of your land?" When Shining Armor did not reply, David let out a low bark of a laugh. "This is need to know information, and obviously Captain," he fixed him with an angry grin, "Those above you decided you didn't need to know. Go along, back to your squad," he shooed him away, watching until he was back with the rest of the guards.

"I disabled a piece of technology which had attacked one of your citizens," David claimed, stopping under the shade of a tree. I leaned back on it, letting the rough bark cool on my back through my clothes. Upon seeing that the guards decided this to be an opportune moment to group around he let out an angry shout. "Oy! You lot! Back, all of you, at least to there!" he pointed at a house, at least thirty feet away. "If I wanted you crowding us, I would have asked as much. Back, I say!"

They sheepishly complied, acting like a bunch of children who had been caught with their hands in a cookie jar.

"Ah, much better. As I was saying, I also filled an old well in the Everfree with cement mix, to trap another shard of the mad stallions delusion. The female zebra knows of where I speak. If you lot want to do anything useful," he directed to the group trying to eavesdrop on us from beyond the shade of the tree. "I'd suggest looking into that."

"Um," Twilight started, clamming up when David glared at her from beneath his helmets visor. "Mad...Stallions delusion?"

"As I was saying, bearer of Magic," David stated, causing Twilight to gasp in surprise, "A fugitive from my country escaped to this area, he is mad, and goes by the title of 'Albert'. His technology...well you've seen and heard the proof of it, talked to the Zebra from the tower, I wager."

"Yes...I have," Twilight started. "This...mad stallion...he wouldn't happen to wear an armor similar to yours...but grey?"

David didn't answer, instead closing his eyes and enjoying the breeze.

"Um...Megamane...sir?"

"I know not what garb the fugitive wears," David finally replied. "I only know him to be in the area. If you would not mind, I would now like to enjoy my friends company, not yours."

"I...I...I..." she stuttered, trying to get words to form properly.

"I tire of this," David claimed, "My good friend, as the good old Doctor, Who would say, I believe it is time for us to be away."

"Later," I said, giving a two finger salute before teleporting us off in a poof of shadow stuff.

We reappeared in David's basement, due to the fact that his living room. What? His living room was well lit, and the basement wasn't as well lit. It's easier for me to teleport to darker areas. Anyways....

"You're lucky my teleportation isn't easily tracked," I said. "Shadow magic is really hard to track, due to the fact that it leaves virtually zero magic residue."

Davids look of initial panic was swept away, and he let out a low sigh. "I guess that fixes my initial complaint of 'why didn't you teleport to the forest?' For a second there I almost had a fit. Henshin!" Before me once more stood the gimp version of David. "Sorry we couldn't have had more fun, but now Twilight and her brother are going to be on the war path, searching high and low for us."

"Lucky me, I have another universe to go back to," I said. "Don't worry though, if you need me, you can just call me. You do still have the die, right?"

"Right here in my bag," he said, patting at his wheelchair bag. "I'll be sure to call you if I get in a jam, but I do have a bit of a question. How did you make it? I assume magic, but do you think you can make me one as well?"

"Well, I learned from someone else," I said. "Basically, you take an item and say an oath that you believe in. Or at least, that's what I got from the guy. Man, I hope Wade's doing well."

"Wade?" David asked. "I assume yet another poor fellow who was kidnapped by Discord or...who did you say got you again?" he asked.

"Merchant. Got it," he replied with a huff. "So I just wish really hard?"

He went over to a cabinet and opened a drawer, pulling out his sack of bits as he had earlier. He gave me a sheepish grin, "One of the only things Discord left me with. A sack of unending gold coins. Man, I would have killed for something like this back on earth...hey, you want any of this? It'll just be refilled in the morning..."

He took a handful of the coins, holding them in his two front hooves. How the hell did he even do that without pitching forward onto his face? He closed his eyes, a look of deep concentration stamped across his equine muzzle. He opened his eyes, them suddenly glowing a deep blue the same as his armored self.

"I am Megamane. If ever you fight against the forces of evil, when ever you may need a guarding light to light your path, call upon me." He took a couple seconds to let that sink in before adding in at the end, "Also, I happen to have the form of a pony. If a question of how discrete one may be is ever a question, fear not."

The gold coins glowed in his hooves, slowly transforming into a metalic blue X, small enough to fit snugly over the back of someones hand.

He looked at his new aquisition, staring dumbly as Model A flew overhead and scanned it with her pinkish light.

"You turned gold...into biometal?" she asked, confusion seeping into her voice. "Quick, wish for a portal back home, for all the other biometal to be here, wish for ANYTHING!!!"

David was startled out of his revrie by her outburst, and turned his attention back to the metal x in his hooves. After a few seconds of nothing happening, he gave up and shot her an apologetic grin.

"Sorry Model A, guess it's a one time thing. So Dox," he asked, holding up the x, "what do I do with it now?"

"I take it," I said, grabbing it from him. "And that's it. I have a copy of it, and since I travel through the void to leave, it should automatically be sent out when I go. Also, why the x? Does it do anything?"

"Not that I know of?" he said, looking at it in my hand. "For some reason though...the way it looks in your palm looks...wrong. Can I?" He took it from my palm, flipping my hand over with his other hoof. He placed it on the back of my hand, but nothing seemed to happen. "That looks...right? Almost like its a button, for cosplay or something..." he looked at it for a couple second, before pressing it down.

It clicked into the flesh like it was a button actually ON my skin. A flash of light momentarily blinded me, and when my sight returned it seemd the thing had turned into a...blue...canon thing. It made my hand look like Megamans. Big surprise there, right?"

"The hell?" David asked, poking at my armored appendage. "Is it permanent? If it is, I am sooo sorry..." he explored the surface of the megabuster, until he pressed the x in where it lay exactly where it had been on my hand. Another flash of light proceded the metal x returning to normal. "Or it could do that. Cool, I guess." I shifted my hand to get a better look at it, and it fell off onto the floor. Guess it wasn't permanently fused to the back of my hand. Thats good, I guess.

"Dude," I said, picking it back up and putting it on again. "That's cool. Hold up, there's a power meter.... and it's empty. This thing is solar powered, I assume? Anyways, I can't just leave you with my crappy token when you got something cool. Hmmmm...." -I pulled up the my dice- "Hey, DM."

Yeah?

"Anything you can think of to do to make something cool for David here?" I asked.

Yeah. Just let me see Model A.

"Okay then," I said. "Hey, Model A. Mind if you come over here for a second?"

"If you scratch my paint job, it's coming out of your hide," she quipped, floating close enough for me to grab.

Okay, now bring the dice up to her, and let me work.

"Alright," I said to both the DM and Model A.

When I brought up my left hand with the die in it, they started glowing brightly. When my hand was right next to Model A, the dice floated out of my hand and started floating around her.

"Whats with the lightshow?" she asked, spinning in place to track the dice. "If this hurts, I'm gonna make you feel it and more, just warning you," she muttered.

The dice that were spinning around her began spinning faster and faster, so fast that it became hard for even Model A to keep track of. They kept spinning until they were nothing but blurs of light. Just then, they stopped glowing before a flash of light appeared in the area they once were. The dice then fell to the ground, done with their mission, leaving a mystified Model A just floating there. When she started looking around however, she, and everyone else in the room, noticed that there was now a new biometal that looked like a black version of Model A floating with her. Although, it looked like a small cubic piece was missing from it, as it just floated there lifelessly.

The dice started glowing again. I picked them up and listened to what the big guy had to say.

There we go, now you just have to put your token in it. Don't worry about your token changing, this thing is just for him.

"Okay," I said to the DM. I then looked at David. "Hey, can I see my token real quick?"

"Sure," he dug in his satchel, and pulled out his copy of the dice.

I took the die from his hand and put it in the place on the biometal where it looked like something was missing. It was a perfect fit. Just as it became snug, the biometal reacted, coming to life. The eyes lit up and the little being started floating around freely.

"WOO!" it stated. "What a rush!" -it looked around before finally setting it's eyes on David- "Oh! You must be Megaman! Or should I call you Megamane? Heh. I am Model DM and a direct contact to Dox over there."

He stared at it stupidely for a few seconds, before giving it a nod. "Uh...hi. Welcome...to life, I guess..." He turned to me with a questioning glance, "Do you do that often, just create new life forms out of nothing?He stared at it stupidely for a few seconds, before giving it a nod. "Uh...hi. Welcome...to life, I guess..." He turned to me with a questioning glance, "Do you do that often, just create new life forms out of nothing? Wait...does that make you its father...or its mother?" Wait...does that make you its father...or its mother?"

"Well, I don't," I said. "But the big guy does. And I guess it'd make me the father.... Meaning Model A is the mother."

"Mommy!" cried out the newest arrival, buzzing around my head. "Mommy mommy mommy!" Its voice shifted and changed, until it sounded like my own.

"Well he sure is excitable," David snarked.

"I am not his mother," Model A griped.

"You're not mommy, Dox is mommy!" Model DM belted out.

"Damn it," I said. "Kid, I am not your mommy. If anyone is your mommy it's the astral being known as the Dungeon Master. And no, that's not me."

"Don't worry mommy," Model DM spouted, fluttering in front of my face, "I know you aren't going to be staying long, daddy filled me with information when I was born. I know you're going to go back to your world, and I have to stay here. I know that...You'll still visit though, won't you?"

"Of course I'll visit," I said. "But can you stop calling me mommy?! I ain't your mother! I didn't give you life, I just helped the process! Seriously, if anything, the DM's the mother!"

I swear, I could hear the big guy laughing. He wanted this to happen.... And the dice are glowing again.

Don't worry, kid. When I created him, I thought it would be a good idea to talk to him before I sent him in. I taught him how to be a big troll. Just wait until you're gone and then come back again. Trust me, Model A is gonna have a GREAT time with that. Or is it a hard time?

"Okay then," I said. "Well, I need to get back. to my world. But, I can't really do that myself. Summoning rules and all that. No, I need you to do something."

"Fire away, kinda wish you'd told me before we went on adventures and all that," David groused, "What if something had happened to me, would you have just been stuck here or something?"

"Well, I mean, sometimes portals just open," I said. "But it's not always certain. Anyways, I need you to say, 'Dox, our contract is complete'. And if you need me again... Oh wait."

"If you need him again," Model DM started. "You can either Megamerge with me, or Double Megamerge with me. I should be compatible with at least Model A, I'm not sure about the others though. Model X, definitely, but again, not sure about the others."

"Okay," I said. "You can do that if you need me."

"Good to know," he stated, "Don't be a stranger Dox. If you can come over on your own, don't just wait on an invitation from me." He gave me a wide smile. "Dox, Dungeon Master penultimate. Our contract is complete."

And with that, I was back in my Universe.

When I returned, I found that all of the ponies had noticed my absence. To them, I had been gone for about an hour, even though in David’s universe it had been at least eight. They all wondered where I had gone and I had to explain it to them. I had to explain that I had been in another universe, helping out another Displaced. Man, talking about what a Displaced was took a long time. In the end, they finally realized that I was not originally from this world. I had to promise Twi and Dashie that if I ever went back to my world, I’d have to take them with me. Celestia was unsurprisingly distant during the entire thing. I mean, why wouldn’t she? She wasn’t the Champion, and she only found that out a small time ago. Now she found out I’m not even from Equis! She probably doesn’t want to even see me right now.

Oh well, it’s been a good day, and I’ve got more things to do.

A Day to Remember (Part 2)

Since I've been back, I've been able to chat with the ponies, and ask what was up with them all being in my bed after explaining Displaced.

Apparently, Twilight was the one who had come into my room in the middle of the night. She had decided to snuggle up against me so that in an attempt to convince me to change back into an alicorn. She was going to try and talk me into it when I woke up. Her plan, however had been compromised by falling asleep and leaving the door open, which allowed a certain pink mare to see us. Pinkie Pie, then came in and decided to join in the group snuggles, and after finding that I made a great pillow, decided that she wanted all of her friends to experience it. She had then proceeded to bring in each and every one of the 6 of her best friends that she could find, meaning she was disappointed to not find Fluttershy. This conversation went on for a while before my d6 started making noise again.

In total, I had only been back in my universe for about two hours before getting another call.

"Dice? Who would leave something like this here?"

Meanwhile, in another universe:

Tomas and Meowth walked down the hallway, ignoring all the glares they were receiving from the guards, “Man, these guys need to learn how to lighten up.”

Tomas ignored Meowth, his gaze wandered to the stain glass window, stopping mid-step, he gazed at the window the image showed a dark blue alicorn, the element bearers surrounding her. “Is that what happened to Luna?”

Meowth looked at the window and sighed, “probably, Celestia did say that she was imprisoned like us,” looking at the window more closely, he growled, “HEY! That’s the nerdy unicorn, who blasted us of!”

Turning to what Meowth was pointing at, he chuckled, “Yup, no doubt about it, I guess that explains how she was able to defeat the Robocord.”

At the sound of someone clearing their throat, both Meowth and Tomas turned and saw a dark colored guard, the guard had a pair of bat wings, and wore a blue colored armor, signifying his role as a Lunar guard. “The princess asked me to escort you.”

“*sigh* Looks like sight seeing will have to wait another time.”

Following the Lunar guard, they saw Sarah and Screwball there already waiting for them, but the thing that caught their attention the most was the black chariot, two bat ponies already ready to take off, “Hello Sir Tomas, Sir Meowth.”

Tomas clenched his fist at the sound of her voice, but reminded himself of what happened, “Hello Princess Luna.”

Ignoring the hurt look in her eyes, the five of them entered the chariot and took off, Sarah turned towards her brother looking worried, “Tomas how do feel?”

Smirking at the two bat pony guards, he answered, “Well Sarah, I guess you can say I’m feeling pretty ’Baty’.”

“OH HA HA HA!! LIKE I HAVEN’T HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE!!!”

Besides the two upset guards, and occasional pun, the trip was mostly kept in silence. Finally arriving near Ponyville, Tomas wasn’t surprised that the ponies ran away from them, what did surprised Tomas was that they avoided Luna as well, even the foals scream in fear.

Tomas looked at the heartbroken Luna and couldn’t help but wonder what she did to get such a negative response from the them. Turning towards Sarah and Meowth, he handed them each a Chaos Gem, “Incase anyone attacks us come and find me.” Before they could protest he silently walked away.

“Uncle Tomas wait!”

Looking behind him, he suddenly found himself tackled to the floor by a worried filly, “Screwball what are you doing here?”

Screwball looked up at Tomas, tears in her eyes, “I was worried, you looked so sad.” Instantly her expression began to brighten, “So I decided to come with you, to keep you company!”

Knowing that he wouldn’t be able to get the filly to leave, he smiled, “ Alright but try to keep up with me, okay?”

The filly nodded her head, “ Soooo, where are we going?”

“I don’t know, just going to take a walk.”

Screwball nodded, content with the answer, instantly her eyes fell onto a shining object near the bushes.

“Screwball where are you going?”

Ignoring her uncle’s call, she continued her advancement towards the shining object, “Hey, uncle Tomas, look what I found!”

Running to catch up to Screwball, his attention was caught by the object on the floor, “Dice?” Picking up the six sided die, he began to notice the galaxy like decoration on it. “Who would leave something like this here?”

“Hey! Who’s there?!” a voice said. “You summoning me or what?”

Tomas nearly dropped the dice in shock, taking a few moments to recompose himself, he looked at the dice more closely, “Is this a displaced token?”

“You know it buddy,” the voice said. “And I can hear you. So, if you’re gonna summon me, just roll the die.”

Screwball gasped in excitement, “Another hooman! Come on uncle Tomas, roll the dice! Roll the dice!”

“Screwball you can’t just-!”

“Booo! Roll the dice! Roll the dice!”

Knowing he had no way out this he shook the dice and rolled it across the floor.

A portal opened up and out popped what looked like an extremely pale, white haired elf in leather garments. It had a long sword strapped to its side, a bow and quiver on its back, and a bandolier full of vials with a knife strapped to it.

“Sup,” it said in a masculine voice. “You the guy that summoned me?”

“ummm.. Yeah that’s me.”

“What’s your name kid?” he said.

“I’m Tomas, and this-,” He pointed at the silent filly next to him, “-is Screwball. So what’s yours?”

“I’m Dox,” he said. “And hold up, did you say Screwball? As in daughter of Discord, Screwball? That silly filly?”

Screwball puff out her chest, looking rather smug, “Yeah, that’s me, you heard of me?” Screwball said, trying to pull of a cool act.

“Yeah, but only in rumor,” Dox said. “Ya know, you’re the only one I’ve seen in any of the universes I’ve been to. Granted, that hasn’t been many, but still, there’s one thing I’ve always wanted to do.”

Screwball looked up at him, curiously, “What’s that?”

“This!” he yelled before tackling Screwball and then proceeding to give her a light hearted noogie.

“AHHH!!! NO! STOP!” Screwball yelled, trying not to laugh and hide her embarrassment. “Noooo!”

“I ain’t letting you go ‘til I see a smile!” he declared while continuing his assault. “Now, who’s a silly filly?”

“Nooo, I’m not silly, I’m awesome!” Screwball tried to struggle.

“If you say so,” Dox said, finally letting go of Screwball. He turned to Tomas before saying, “So, why’d you summon me? You just want to talk, or is something up? Also, where the hell are we?”

“Well, Screwball here was the one who wanted to summon you, and we’re somewhere outside Ponyville,” Turning towards Ponyville, he saw Princess Luna walking away from Ponyville, a certain purple mare following her. “ I guess you can say somethings up.”

“I see,” Dox said. “So this world is on that episode…” He started looking pensive. “You know, there’s something we can do.”

Tomas looked at Dox curiously, “hmm?”

“Well, you summoned me, meaning the ponies don’t know me well,” he said. “I could help Luna get a better reputation. But…. that leads me to a question. What’s your standing with the ponies? I mean, so far I’ve met those with good standing, and the last guy was kinda iffy with his.”

“The ponies fear us, and our Pokemon,” Tomas sighed and looked away from Ponyville, “ Don’t blame them, we did attack their village a few weeks ago, kidnapped a few fillies as hostages.” He clenched his fist in anger, “and it was his fault! He tricked us! After we trusted him! It’s true what they say, ‘never trust a ghost’.”

“Well, I can’t say it’s your fault,” Dox said. “I mean, look at Hamlet. Ghosts are jerks. Anyways, I’m pretty sure my plan can help you out, too.”

“What’s your plan?”

“Well, I’m keeping most of it as a surprise,” he said. “But, before I enact it, what type of pokemon do you have?”

“I have a Victreebel, Carnivine, Weezing, Mime Jr., Arcanine, Cacnea, Yamask, Amoongus, Inkay,” Tomas tapped his chin, “I know I have one more, Oh yeah! Gyarados!”

“Gyarados?!” Dox said. “Dang son…. Wait a sec. Aren’t those the same pokemon as James from Team Rocket?”

Tomas shrugged, “Yeah, well I did sort of become James, when I entered Equestria.”

“So wait,” he said. “Is there a Jessie here, too? And maybe a Meowth?”

Tomas smiled, “My sister came here as Jessie, and our Meowth plush came to life when we got here. So yeah, we became the Team Rocket Trio!”

“Coolio,” Dox said. “So, now to enact my plan. I’m gonna need you to go running off for Ponyville. Tell your sister that I’m going to fake an attack. Once you’re done with that, contact me through the die, then go run and find Luna. And don’t worry, I can take a few hits.” -he pointed to the vails on his bandolier- “I mean, I have these for a reason.”

“Yeah, that could actually work!” Tomas grabbed two pokeballs and threw them out, summoning out a Yamask and Inkay, “Alright you two go find Sarah and Luna and bring them to me.” The two pokemon nodded and flew off.

“Alright,” he said before walking over and picking up Screwball. “Now I’m going to need you to run while I pretend to hold this little filly hostage.”

“Alright then,” Tomas stopped mid step, “Oh and before I forget, If my sister summons out her Arbok, please be careful how you act around her, she could mistake your actions as a sign of you wanting to mate.” Tomas finished with a blush.

“What,” Dox said, absolutely stupefied. “How?... Just how? I mean, that’s honestly a good warning, keeps me from shifting to a form like a snake, but still. HOW?”

“My sister’s Arbok is very lonely, and she has been wanting to have a child for some time now,” Tomas started to laugh, “I remember when Arbok kidnapped a guard just because he complemented her.” He then started to shift around nervously, “Also I had to find that out the hard way, I’m just glad that Celestia found me before Arbok could continue on further.”

“Wow,” he said. “Ya know, I think I know something to leave you with. But anyways, you might want to run. Now.”

Right after Dox said that, as his body started to become lit in a pale green fire. He then started changing shape, growing in size and width. When it was over, a large dragon stood over Tomas, still cradling the small filly known as Screwball.

“Man,” the dragon that was once Dox said in a gravelly voice. “I’ve always wanted to do that!”

“Terrifying, well I’ll see you there.” Tomas started to run towards Ponyville, Luna, Twilight, Meowth, and Sarah already in front of the small village.

I set Screwball down and told her to hide in a tree and watch. It was then I noticed something.

The dice were glowing.

So, what is your plan, anyways, kid?

"I'm going to pretend to be a dragon, what else?"

I meant for that Arbok.

"Well, I was hoping you could help me out with that."

How so?

"I want you to create a copy. Like, a male version of her. That way, she has a mate."

Alright, that'd be easy, but what if it fails?

"Well, there are other options."

You'd be willing to give yourself to her?

"If that means helping her and getting her to stop assaulting people and ponies, yeah."

Alright then, I'll help.

Meanwhile, back with Tomas and the others:

“So you’re sure this plan of his is going to work?” Sarah looked at her brother worriedly.

“We have to agree with Sarah, this plan seems rather dangerous.” Luna looked around nervously.

Tomas waved off their concerns, “please have some fate, alright so you four go to Ponyville and wait for my signal.”

The Sarah and Meowth nodded along with the two ponies. After making sure that they were in a far enough distance, Tomas started to take some deep breaths, eyes full of determination, he ran towards Ponyville and started yelling, “Dragon! There’s a dragon coming to Ponyville!”

A dragon roared out as it glided over the skies and into the town square, perching itself on top of the town hall. It roared out again with fire breath before speaking. “I am going to burn this village to the ground! How dare you forsake my original nest!”

“THOU SHALT DO NO SUCH THING YOU BEAST!!!” Suddenly a bright flash of light appeared, and from it stood Luna, looking determine, “THOU WILL NOT HARM OUR CITIZENS YOU FOUL BEAST!!!”

“YOU CANNOT STOP ME!” the dragon shouted. “I HAVE BEEN ALIVE FOR AGES! I HAVE BURNED DOWN COUNTLESS VILLAGES! THIS VILLAGE SHALL HAVE THE SAME FATE AS THE REST!” The dragon then breathed fire at Luna.

Suddenly a large blue blob appeared in front of Luna, taking the blast instead, “WOBBUFFET USE MIRROR COAT!” Wobbuffet’s body was covered in a white aura, and the blast was redirected to the dragon, the blast being twice as big than it was before.

The dragon recoiled from having it’s own fire being used against it. It leapt at Wobbuffet in an attempt to slash it, only to have it’s attacks bounce off.

Sarah walked up behind Wobbuffet and laughed, “ You should have retreated while you had the chance.”

Tomas walked up standing next to his sister, “And know you’ll have to pay the price.”

Sarah struck a pose, her arms outstretch, “Floating on the wind.”

“Past the stars!”

Meowth jumped in landing between the two, “In your ears!”

“Bringing Chaos in a breakneck pace.”

“Dashing fear, and putting hope in it’s place!”

“A rose, by any other name just as dangerous!”

“When everything fixed, our work is complete!”

“JESSIE!”

“JAMES!”

“AND MEOWTH ARE THE NAMES!”

“Putting the evildoers in their place.”

“Team Rocket!”

“We’re in your face!”

Wobbuffet saluted, “WOBBUFFET!”

A popping sound echoed, and another pokemon appeared. “MIME, MIME!”

“No matter,” the dragon said, taking another swipe at the Wobbuffet and getting the same effect. “Strange bipeds or no, you shall perish all the same!”

Sarah took out pokeball and grinned, “Arbok your up!” In a flash of light a tall purple cobra appeared, “Arbok use poison sting!” Arbok opened her mouth, firing a barrage of poisonous needles.

The dragon took the needles full force and staggered backwards a few steps. It recovered quickly, however and attempted to breathe fire on the serpent.

“Arbok, use dig!” The cobra raised it’s body, before plunging itself underground, causing the flames to miss.

“YOU IRRITATING SERPENT!” the dragon screamed before redirecting its gaze towards the two humans and the Meowth. “IF THE SERPENT IS GONE, THEN I GUESS THAT YOU’D BE MY TARGET INSTEAD!” The dragon then breathed fire at the trainers.

“WEEZING, SHOW HIM WHAT A REAL FLAMETHROWER LOOKS LIKE!!” Tossing a pokeball, a two headed ball of gas emerged, yelling out his name, Weezing took a deep breath before releasing a torrent of flames, the two flames collided before dispersing.

Suddenly the floor beneath the dragon started to shake, and a familiar cobra appeared, slamming her body onto the dragon’s chest. Arbok opened it’s mouth firing another barrage of poison stings.

“HOW DARE YOU VILE SERPENT!” the dragon screamed before slashing at Arbok.

“Weezing!” Weezing flew towards Arbok, catching her before she could hit the ground. “[Are you alright?]”`

Arbok shook her head, “Charbok, [Yeah, the drake just got lucky.]” Arbok turned towards the dragon and sighed, “Arboo… [Still the attack did sting, I’ll have to get him back for it.]” Opening it’s mouth, she fired a barrage of brown sludge at the dragon. Weezing, taking a deep breath, shot a Shadow Ball at him. The Shadow Ball impacted the dragon and knocked it back considerably.

“You cannot defeat me with such puny attacks,” the dragon said before charging and knocking back Weezing and Arbok. “Your strange creatures are nothing compared to me!”

“THEN TRY TO TAKE ON OUR MIGHT!” Luna flew up towards the dragon and shot a large blast at the dragon. “TASTE OUR WRAITH YOU FIEND!!!”

The dragon took the blast full force and screamed out in pain before exploding into shadow stuff. Some ponies could have sworn they saw the dragon smile as it was blasted into oblivion.

Some of the ponies came out of their hiding spots and looked around for any signs of the dragon, slowly the walked towards Luna and Team Rocket. Twilight suddenly ran up to the four of them, “Princess!” Twilight stopped and looked at them frantically, “Are you okay?! Is anypony hurt?!”

Luna raised her hoof, silencing Twilight, “Breath friend, it is alright, the dragon has been dealt with!” Turning towards the rest of the ponies, she yelled, “CITIZENS, WITH OUR COMBINED MIGHT, WE HAVE BESTED THE DRAKE, YOU ARE ALL SAFE!” Soon all of the ponies started cheering and crowded around the four of them, shouting out ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’.

Sarah turned towards Tomas worried, ignoring all of the chanting, “Where’s Screwball?”

“She’s right here,” said Dox, walking out from behind some buildings and holding Screwball. The ponies were a bit frightened by his appearance, but he quieted them by stating, “The dragon had a hostage held up in the woods. It even set some of the woods on fire. Team Rocket summoned me to help out with that while they dealt with the dragon.”

The ponies began to cheer again, causing Meowth to clench his ears, trying to block out the sounds. After a few ‘thank you’s’ the ponies started to go back to the stalls, continuing their Nightmare Night, despite the events that took place a few minutes ago.

While Luna took of with Screwball to play some games, Team Rocket stayed behind watching them have fun. Sarah turned towards Dox and smiled, “Sorry if Arbok or Wobbuffet hurt you in the fight.”

“Oh, trust me, they did,” Dox said calmly. “It hurt like crazy, but luckily, I have potions. Oh, and can pull out Arbok again? I kinda need to apologize for what I said.”

Sarah looked at Dox oddly before taking out Arbok’s pokeball, “Hope you know what you're doing, Arbok come on out!” In an explosion of light Arbok appeared, yelling out her name.

“Hey Arbok,” Dox said before getting pounced and ultimately constricted by her. “Listen, I know you’re angry, but I’m sorry. I had to say those things to make the ponies believe I was an actual threat!” Arbok continued to constrict around Dox. “Listen, if you can let me go, I think I know how to make it up to you.”

Arbok glared at Dox for a moment, before slithering off of him, “Charbokk, [Make it quick.]”

“Okay then,” Dox said before raising a hand, obviously holding something. “Okay, big guy, you’re up.”

When Dox opened his hand, several different dice floated out and started circling around Arbok. As they circled, they started glowing. The more they circled around her, the faster and the brighter they got. It came to the point that the dice had become nothing more than just huge circles of light orbiting Arbok.

“Uncle Tomas! Mama Sarah! Uncle Meowth!” Turning towards the sound of the yelling, they saw Screwball running towards them, a teddy bear on her back, “Look what I got! Isn’t it cute!”

“Wait!” Dox screamed. “Don’t enter the circle!”

“Huh?” Screwball looked at Dox confused, but showed no signs of slowing down.

When she entered the circle, there was an explosion of light and sound and dust kicked up. When the dust settled, Arbok stood there next to a dust covered Screwball. While the others looked on in relief, Dox started panicking like crazy.

“Oh no,” he said. “Oh no no no no no! This isn’t good. In fact, this could be monumentally bad.”

Sarah ran up to Screwball, franticly looking through her pockets before taking out a small red gem, the gem glowed and produced a towel, a bucket of water next to it. Sarah glared at Dox, “If you did anything to my daughter, then I’ll make sure a angry Arbok, would be the least of your problems!”

“Please,” Dox said. “I already know something happened. I’m really sorry. Listen, I was trying to duplicate Arbok so I could give her a mate. Neither I or the big guy expected for Screwball to come running in. Me and him are very sorry. What ever happened to her, I take full responsibility, and I’m sorry.”

“Mo-Mom.”

Sarah stared wide eyed at Screwball, “What’s wrong?!”

“I feel funny,” Before Sarah could say anything, a torrent of fire erupted from her mouth, instantly burning everyone around her.

“Again, I’m really sorry,” Dox said. “I was only trying to help Arbok, not splice Screwball’s DNA.”

Arbok stared wide-eyed at Dox, tears threatening to escape her eyes, “Charrr? [you were trying to get me a mate?]”

“Yes,” Dox said. “I’m sorry that I failed.”

Arboks expression started to lighten up, gaining a large smile, she pounced Dox, wrapping herself around him, “Char! [No one has ever try to do something so thoughtful, I mean Sarah tried to get Seviper and Ditto to mate with me, but the two are completely uninterested!]” Arbok’s grin started to widen, “Charbok~ [But you were the only one to come so close, and you know what, I wouldn’t mind having you as a mate~]”

“And quite honestly,” Dox started, “Neither would I. But not right now, there are children present.”

Arbok purred, “Charrr~ [She’s going to learn about these kind of things anyways~ Why not introduce the topic a bit earlier~]”

“Because I have a world to go back to,” Dox said. “I promise, next time I come along, we can go run off and do that, but not right now. I’d at least like to take you to dinner first.”

Arbok leaned away from Dox with a shocked expression, “Ar? Charbok? [You mean you really do want to be my mate? You’re not just saying that so I can let you go?]”

“Of course not!” Dox retorted. “If it means I can help out a lovely lady, I’d be happy to. You are a beautiful pokemon. I don’t understand why the others won’t help you. You just have to promise that you’ll wait for me to come back.”

Arbok felt tears coming out of her eyes, leaning forward, she licked Dox’s neck, adding her scent onto his, “Char~ [I promise, mate]”

“All right then,” Dox said before leaning towards Arbok’s face. He whispered to her, “I’ll be looking forward to seeing you again.”

Arbok slither off of Dox, a mild blush on her face, “Char, [come back soon.]”

“I promise, m’lady,” Dox said, getting up. “Okay, I think I’m ready to go now, Tomas.”

Tomas staring at the scene wide-eyed, simply nodded, “Yeah alright.”

Meowth jumped forwards, landing on Tomas’ back, “Hey Dox, you have our token?”

“No, but I can look for it,” Dox said. “What is it?”

Meowth pointed at his charm, “It looks like my charm, or head coin as some people call it, it also has a bold red ‘R’.”

“Ah, okay then,” Dox said. “I’ll keep an eye out for it. And hey, don’t hesitate to call me if you need me. Just gonna warn you though, don’t throw that thing at anyone. I’m warning you that it’ll end really badly for the person you hit.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, and don’t forget you can count on us, if you ever need help, okay!”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I still have a promise to keep,” Dox stated. “You can send me back now.”

Tomas nodded, “Right, so I think it goes like this, ‘Dox, our contract is complete’?”

A portal opened up behind Dox. He just stood there and stated, “Yep. Bye!” -He turned towards Arbok- “I’ll be waiting for our next encounter!” And then Dox stepped through the portal and disappeared.

Arbok stared where the portal had been and sighed, “Arbok, [See you soon….Dox]”

I reappeared back in the castle, this time, I had been gone for about half an hour. The ponies asked me what I had done, and I told them, sans what I promised Arbok, let alone that conversation in total.

I had a small party that Pinkie hosted between us, all for helping out a Luna of another universe, as well as making more friends. She even pulled me aside at one point and told me that she knew about the whole Arbok thing. It was honestly a little creepy.

Celestia somehow disappeared before the party. I have no idea where to, and neither did Pinkie. I wonder what she's up to.

A Day to Remember (Part 3)

That party.

Just, that party.

It took up about five hours before it finally ended…. and we only had nine people there! I mean, I’m not going to just question Pinkie Pie’s abilities, but HOW THE HELL DID SHE MANAGE TO DO THAT?!

In the end, I was so full of sugar and crap made of sugar, that I looked like I was that one can of soda that had taken a few too many shakes and was about to explode. And, honestly, I was probably about to. Luckily for me, I had always been that one hyper kid, ADHD and everything. No joke!

Unluckily for me, I had another ‘knock at the door’, so to speak.

Someone was trying to summon me.

“My name is Asphyxious and I would like to, talk with someone like myself if you are free I hope that we can meet”

“Hold up, Asphyxious?” I said. “Okay, I’m coming over.”

Once I got to the other side it was clear I was underground. Not only that but I could hear the sound of an iron works going on around me. I didn’t have to think about this when I heard something hiss behind me.

I turned around, only to see a GIANT FUCKING METAL SNAKE! What the hell?! I could only imagine the look of pure terror on my face. Was it this…. this THING that summoned me?! What the hell is going on?!

“A….A-a-asphyxious?” I stuttered out through my fear. “I-is…. Is that y-you?”

I then heard a deep laugh off to my left side as a deep voice said, “Now, Now Cankerworm, there’s no need to frighten our new friend. Come here and let the poor boy get his breath back”

At that, the giant metal serpent slithered away from me and over to who I assume is its owner: a large being made of metal and spouting some kind of blue mist. He was about two feet taller than me, making him eight feet tall.

What. The. Crap.

“Who the hell,” I said. “Are you Asphyxious?”

I got a somewhat tired laugh from that, but he then said this after petting his snake thing on the head. “I am Asphyxious the iron lich. I guess you could say I had a run in with a dragon spawns who wanted to kill my friends.”

After he said that I start to notice there were canines all around. What were they called again? Diamond Dogs….. Wait, why the hell was he hanging around Diamond Dogs? In another universe, they were at war with the ponies, in mine, I have no clue… Here, they’re friendly?

“Dude, what’s up with all the Diamond Dogs?” I asked.

“Let me guess their not as friendly in your world are they?” I saw him sigh and rub his….. skull? Huh, guess I didn’t notice he had no skin…

“Well,” I started, “It wasn’t my world, but in a world I visited, they were at war with the ponies. I’m pretty sure if one of these dogs were to sniff me, they’d smell the scent of Diamond Dog blood. The guy in that universe is nice, but kinda roped me into a war…. Still one of the better universes I’ve been to, though.”

I noticed there what looked like ponies hiding in the tunnels, but parts of their bodies were glowing green or blue. They also looked like they had metal limbs or parts over there body’s. I even saw some who looked like they haven’t eaten in days.

“Hey, what’s up with those ponies?” I asked, pointing at the ponies in question. “They look like they’ve seen Hell and come back.”

I heard a hiss from his Worm but Asphyxious put his clawed hand on it head and sighed. “They are… who we rescued from a group we don’t know much about. My only guess is they’re trying to make an undead army. As you can see, they are what’s left from their work…” With a wave of his hand, the ponies who glowed blue were guiding the green ones away somewhere deeper into the tunnels.

“Where are they going?” I asked. “And why is your Equestria so messed up?”

“They are going to there new domes inside the den, until we can change the necrotite within their bodies they could poison the others just by being near them. Come. We can talk more in my room if you like” I saw him float off into one of the near by tunnels with that thing following close behind him.

I didn’t follow him, immediately, however. Instead, I decided to check out the one straggler that had stayed behind and watched. It was interesting to watch the pony as it stared back at me. The poor guy was glowing blue, just like Asphyxious, and had a metal right front leg. I almost touched the guy, and would have too, if not for Asphyxious coming back and pulling me before I made contact. I heard him grumble as pulled me along the floor, “Don’t touch that one, there something wrong with him. Not even moon dancer can figure it out”

Alright then.

When we finally entered his ‘room’, Asphyxious tossed me into a chair and started talking.

“Okay so when I got to this world I had no clue what happened to me. So I spent most of my time learning how to move and use magic. I ended up using some necromancy that I thought was a healing spell and I got found out by old Cleaster and you can guess what happens from there”

“Not really,” I said. “What, were you trapped in stone or something?”

“A gem then she thought it was a good idea to bury me under ground for nine hundred years. I say a hundred but I think she intended for me to be down there longer. That is before the dogs found me”

“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t realize some of the Displaced had it like that. Eh, still better than my Celestia. She didn’t even try that. No, she tried to obliterate me. Now she’s okay, but I mean, why? Bigger question is why she’s done this complete 180 on me, and how she’s managing that.”

Asphyxious sighed as he sat in his chair and started playing with…. Wait. Is that a token?!

“What the,” I said. “Is that someone else’s token?”

He looked at me then back at the coin in his hand.

“Is that what these are? They were one of the first things to drop on me when I took over the den. Not only that but after ringing Dante’s bell… I wasn’t up for getting my ass kicked again”

“Okay,” I said. “Wait a second, that’s Auric Fulcrum’s token. I heard about it from another displaced. I also heard he was a good guy. I’ve honestly been keeping an eye out for token’s like his. Hey, you met a guy by the name of Gilgamesh yet? I’ve been looking for his token under a suggestion. Heard he could train me a bit.”

The Iron Lich, as he called himself, was still staring at the coin when he said, “Never heard of him but sound interesting… he could be what I need to take out Lord Toruk…”

“Lord Toruk?” I asked. “Who the hell is that?”He then looks at me and said this.

“Lord Toruk is a dragon, more than that he is known as the dragon father. He is the one when made the cryxien army. He is also the one who turned me before I got here…” I watched as he dug his clawed fingers into the wooden table as if it was something to stop himself from something. I didn’t want to know what it was.

“Well, I could try and help you,” I said. “I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I could help.” Asphyxious just shakes his head at me.

“Thank you, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ve already found out that one of his kin is here, Everblight. He is weaker than Toruk, besides I don’t want you or anyone else to be blighted by them. Who knows what that will do to you”

“Just about nothing!” said a booming voice.

Odd, I could have sworn that was the DM, but he can’t leave his realm unless….. Wait, he’d have to possess someone, normally that’d be me… but…

I looked around to find a Diamond Dog standing at the entrance. His eyes looked to be glazed over and glowing red. Wow, that’s kind of creepy.

“Okay… that was not somibr trapped in my staff…”

“Big guy?” I said to the possessed Diamond Dog. “Is that you possessing that guy?”

“Who else would it be?” the DM said through the Diamond Dog.

“And why are you here?” I asked him.

“To teach this buffoon something about D&D!” he yelled, pointing at Asphyxious.

Asphyxious then chuckled to himself. “Dungeons and Dragons… Let me ask this have you heard of the Iron Kingdoms?…” He then seemed to glare at the dog. “I have seen things that will make you look like nothing more than a toy compared to them”

“You say that, and yet you haven’t seen me yet.” the DM stated. “How about I show you who I REALLYam.”

And with that, we were gone.

We both reappeared in the sector of the void that I was used to. The DM had a projection of his huge-ass self there with us.

He seemed to go back to speaking directly into our minds.

Thisis who I am. I am the Dungeon Master. The controller of realities and creator of the champion that I have chosen and set before you. Your puny disease is nothing more than a debuff for him. With just one move, he can remove it from himself if he were to become afflicted.

“Wow,” I said. “Thanks for making me seem like a bigger deal than I am, big guy.”

I looked to Aspyhxious to see if he was going to attack me or something all he did was cross his arms and say this. “Faust is scarier than you”

I have no intentions of being scary. I am an astral being that must reside in either his own realm or the void. The only reason why I’m in the void right now is because if I were to take you to my realm, you would cease to exist within .0324 nanoseconds. And if I were to enter your realm, all of reality would cease to exist in this sector of the multiverse. Frankly, I would rather not have the admins of this sector mad at me. They’re already pissed that I talk to Dox.

“Wait, admins?” I asked. “Is there someone more powerful than you?”

No, I’d just rather not piss them off. Trust me, a ton of admins coming at you is NOT something you want to see. And, honestly, if they were to work together, they could seal me away to a different sector.

“Well damn,” I said. I then heard a powerful voice that felt like my head was going to split open.

WHO DARE’S TO ENTER MY REALM!?!, ASPYHXIOUS YOU DARE COME BACK AFTER STEALING FROM ME!!!.

“You have got to be fucking KIDDING ME!, we’re in Lord Toruk’s Realm!?!” He screamed out.

“He lives in the void?!” I screamed. “Why does he live in the void?”

“He’s trapped here. He want me or someone to set him free so he can kill every living thing in my Equestria”

“Yeah, not going to happen,” I said. “Big guy, I’m pretty sure this is a private conversation. Can you do something?”

With pleasure.

And with that, the DM’s projection moved it’s hand and shoved Toruk away from us.

“That’s it?” I said. “What, no teleporting him, or anything like that?”

I am not allowed to interfere that much. He just so happened to be interrupting a private conversation.

I DO NOT KNOW WHO YOU ARE, BUT THIS IS MY REALM! MY MIND!!!

A large storm took shape in both black smoke and green fires as it got bigger. Then two glowing green eyes looked at us all in hate.

Big talk, little game. the DM said before shoving off Toruk… again. Now, before he becomes more of an annoyance, I’m sending you two back.

And with that, we popped out of the void.

We reappeared back in Asphyxious’ room.

“So yeah, that’s my boss,” I said.

“Okay, that was what I’m trying to not to let enter this world… So I guess you can call him my x-boss” He said as he looked around the room and what looked like a passed out dog in the doorway.

“Okay then,” I said. “So, any way I can help?”

“Urr sure?, I guess anything that can keep that dragon away from me and keep it trapped in the void is good in my book”

“Well, I’m not sure I can do that,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure I can give you something better to call me with. Hey, big guy!”

What? I looked at Asphyxious for a second to see if he heard him. He did not.

“I’m gonna need a standard champion’s token,” I said. “Think you can do that?”

With pleasure.

I didn’t even need to take out the dice. No, they just floated out of my pocket and started swirling around in the air. A small bit later, they stopped, leaving a bass guitar in the center of where they were floating. Then they floated back into my pocket.

The bass was nothing special. It looked like a Fender Bass, but I don’t know what type, and it had a small groove missing in it. Looked like it was big enough for my token.

“Hey, you have my token?” I asked Asphyxious.

“Ya one tick” He looks around then pulls out a dice.

“Okay, lemme see that,” I said, taking it from him. I put it in the slot on the bass and it instantly flashed a bright white light. When I was able to see after the blinding flash, I noticed the strings were now glowing the same color as the die. They even now had that same galaxy motif to them. I then held out the bass to Asphyxious. “Here ya go. One standard champion’s token. Just hit the invincible thing on something and I’ll be summoned temporarily for a quick attack. Trust me, it’s cool. You smack someone, I come flying in, and I slash them with a charging attack from my sword. Then, poof! I’m gone. Of course, if you want me around to actually talk to and hang with, or need me for extended combat, just call out again, and I’ll come running.”

“Thanks dude this will be a lot of help” He say after taking it then looks at me. “So… how do I send you back home then?” He asks.

“Well,” I said. “All you need to say is ‘Dox, our contract is complete’. It’s the standard way to send people back. Although, sometimes they just go back. It’s kind of random.

“Okay here it goes. Dox, our contract is complete. And if that big guy sends us in to the void again I will slap you with a wet fish”

“Understood,” I said as the portal opened up behind me. As I climbed in, I called out, “Don’t be a stranger!” And then I was gone.

I reappeared back in the castle. But, something seemed off.

Now there was no noise. No sounds of laughter, or worry, and no welcome back from Pinkie. She had been extremely consistent about that….. Okay, that worries me.

“Hello?” I called out as I started to wander the halls of the castle. “Girls? Anyone?”

I couldn’t find anyone. Where was everyone?

I found my answer when I entered the library.

All around the central area of the library were statues, statues of ponies. But not just that, they were statues of the ponies that had been with me at the party, the ones I had made friends with quite recently….. And standing in the middle of them….. Was Celestia.

She stood there, horn lit and tears flowing down her cheeks.

“You,” she spoke. “You’re the reason why this had to happen. You’re the reason my sister and my student had to be trapped in stone. You’re the reason why my subjects in Ponyville are questioning me and my rule!”

“What?” I questioned. “What do I have to do with it? I didn’t do this! I didn’t make them question your rule!”

“But your existance did,” she said. “I turned them to stone. They are corrupted. They aren’t following the prophecy. And now you must be turned to stone as well.”

“But why?!” I asked. “I didn’t do anything!”

“Oh yes you did,” she said. “You and your illusions corrupted my student, and the only family I have left. It’s your fault she’s in stone now! Your fault!”

With that, she started firing bolts of energy at me. Based on what she had said, it was obvious that she was trying to turn me to stone, and I’m pretty sure a saving roll can’t fix that. So I ran. I ran until she cornered me in one of the isles of books.

“Now, you must face judgement,” she said.

“No! You must face Judgement!” I screamed, trying to charge her.

I was instantly smacked to the ground. The dice fell out of my pocket when I impacted the ground. They were glowing, but before I could reach them, I as shot with a spell and petrified instantly. How I hoped this wasn’t how I was going to end. At least I could still hear things, and see things…. Wait, what’s she doing? IS THAT HER HAMMER?! NO NO NO NO NO!

I felt nothing as my statue was smashed.

Elsewhere:

“Ugh,” I said. “My head….. Where am I?”

Home is...

"Ugh," I said. "Where am I?"

I opened my eyes and was immediately dealt a shit ton of pain. Where did this headache come from?! As I looked around, I began to notice that I was in a hospital. What happened to me?

Wait, I was.... I was.... I don't remember....

What the hell? I remember.... something... I was in a similar situation before. I remember... ponies... Equestria?

"GAH!" I screamed. The pain had seemed to increase every time I tried to remember what happened.

"You're awake," said a voice. "I'll go tell the doctor."

Was that a nurse? The hell happened to me?

I got my answer a few hours later. Apparently, I've been in a coma since Anime Expo.

But that doesn't make any sense! I remember being awake! Nothing happened to me! I remember going into the building and heading towards the room where weapons check was, the downstairs part where the Hetalia fans normally hung out. Then a shady guy who looked like he was from Resident Evil 4 selling me something..... then nothing.... just fragments....

But.... What happened?

Everyone I ask that question to seems to avoid the question, just saying that I've been in a coma for a few months.

But it doesn't make sense! I specifically remember being awake! I saw an Arbok! I made a promise! I saw a pony version of Megaman! I even saw a guy who called himself the Iron Lich! He had a skull for a face! A SKULL! It hurts to remember them, but I remember! I remember other ponies, as well, but I can't remember who....

What happened to send me here?

Three weeks later:

It's been a few weeks since I woke up.

I'm starting to think those 'memories' are nothing but a dream. They seem so unrealistic, but....

But nothing. People don't have powers. Sentient ponies don't exist. I am not some 'Champion' with amazing powers....

The problem is... I still remember it. It seems so vivid, like it's not a dream. I can feel something calling me, even, I just don't know what.

What's worse, I've been so upset about it, I've stopped playing D&D. I haven't played it since I've been in the hospital. I mean, I got released a couple weeks ago, and that was my favorite game! What is up with me? It's like, every time I get the urge to play it, something blocks me.

I'm not kidding. This last time, the box with my dice in it just disappeared. I went to go do something after being called by my parents, only to come back to it not being there. I told my mother about it, and she just said that maybe I should clean my room.

So, I'm doing that right now in hopes of finding it.....

......

.... Wait.... what's that?

I see a black handle on the floor, buried underneath a pile of clothes. I try and grab at the handle, but it seems to pull away. I keep trying, and eventually grab hold.

This is the sword I used to practice with. What was it doing on the floor?

In fact, how did even get on my floor? I left it by the front door to the house, last time I had checked. Oh well.

So, just to mess around, I take a few swings with the sword, careful to avoid hitting myself or the pieces of furniture scattered about the room. After that, just for fun, I run the 'blade' end against my arm, just to feel the sensation of being fake cut.... Wait.... I actually cut myself....

WHAT THE HELL?! And.... and.............

....

It's rainbow colored liquid..... But that only happened in.....

No, it can't be, I'm just seeing things.

I look around for the sword I had purchased after I had turned eighteen. Ah, that was a good year. Went to college, got a sword, and hung out with friends. And there's the sword!

Just as I did with the fake blade, I did with the real blade, only this time, I wasn't as careful. I ended up cutting my leg with a deep gash.

"OW!" I yelped.

"Is everything alright in there?" I heard one of my parents yell.

"No!" I screamed, looking at my leg. "Everything's-"

I saw the same rainbow liquid.... and it's closing the gash....

"I mean, yes," I said. "Everything's fine. Just a little cut. I'm good now."

"Alright then," my parent said.

"What the hell?" I whispered to myself.

I put down my sword and kept looking for the box that contained my dice, only to find a blue iron brazier.

Wait a second, I remember this. It's from some Merchant guy....

Then I remembered. I was awake. I did buy something, and I did meet those people, and many more.

I also remembered that this guy owed me a debt.

Well, there's only one way to get help now.

I lit the brazier before shouting, "Avarice! I need you to get your butt over here! You have a debt to pay and I've come to collect! I need your help!"

And with that, a portal opened up and popped out a hooded man with a backpack.

"Dox? Thank Gog. I need a distraction. What can I do for ya?"

.... Is Not Here Anymore.

After taking a bit to explain to Avarice why I looked so weird, what with me looking like a human now, I stood there, taking in the fact that I had summoned someone.

What? Every other time I summoned someone, it was on accident. I did this on purpose for once! The best thing is, it worked! Bad thing is….

Well, he may have entered through a portal, but that portal lit my room on fire since it was oddly rimmed with blue flames when it appeared…. so yeah.

“HOLY CRAP!” I screamed. “Dude! Help put out the freaking flames!”

Avarice was, hilariously, already on it, having grabbed an old rusty fire extinguisher from his coat, and promptly put down the blue blaze. “Ah, sorry ‘bout that. Didn’t know my token was so...temperamental.”

“I see,” I said. “Listen, I’m just glad you’re here. Something’s up here, and I’m not sure what. For some reason, every time I try and remember things, it hurts, the dice have gone missing, and to top it all off, every time I try and use or even obtain something I had in Equestria, something seems to happen to prevent me. I’m honestly freaking out here man! It’s like I’m in a prison or something!”

“Hm, is this an illusion, no wait, can it be? You summoned me here....” Avarice looked around, but then looked at the old extinguisher. “No...it isn’t. I couldn’t have grabbed this if...wait a second! Chance!” Avarice put the extinguisher away, reached in his coat, and yanked out a rusty MP40. “WOO!”

“What the hell…” I said. “I swear, I will never figure out how you do that.”

Avarice was a little preoccupied, using this chance to grab old weapons and store them away. “They may not work, but damn if having them won’t make figuring out making my own versions easier. Want to see my own design for a breach-load single-shot shotgun? Been a slave the past few months making them even.” Avarice said nonchalantly as he took out the steel-barreled and brass adorned beauty.

“Holy crap, man,” I said. “That’s amazing. How did you-... AGH! We’re getting off topic! I called you here to help me find my freaking dice! Or, since you’re connected to the merchant, sell me something so I can go back!”

“Uh...I’m not...wait...my outfit recently became sort-of self-aware when I was separated from it for a prolonged period of time, and when I put it back on I sort of...flip. It’s hard to describe. Let me put it this way; I was all for completely voiding Tia of any responsibility, then next thing I put Vagabond, my equipment, back on, and I’m suddenly binding her to a contract based on her debt! Maybe I am still connected to that bastard. But before we do that, how about this? I try to “deliver” the item you seek with express permission. It’s similar to me using my coat to just grab things, but it’s a bit more complicated.” Avarice explained as he continued to idly grab abandoned weaponry and put it away through his coat, I could’ve sworn I saw a nearly broken mosin nagant.

“Dude. you can’t take those weapons,” I said. “They belong to museums. And if not, they belong to time. And that means by extension here, the DM.”

“Pfft, you know what museums are? Glorified and sanctified tomb raiders and grave robbers. Time? Time owns nothing, everything slips through it’s cracks like so many pebbles in the ocean.

“Okay, then explain my last reasoning,” I said. “And why your coat is catching fire.”

“Because your “boss man” is a sore loser. If I can grab it, it has no owner, remember? He has to lay dibs on it to stop me, heh, heh.” Avarice chuckled as he idly pat out the fire springing up on his sleeves as he continued his plundering.

“Get me my dice first, then we’ll see if he calls dibs,” I said.

Avarice groaned as his eyes shined red. “Fine, fine. Let me just see if I-YOW!” Avarice yelped as he pulled his hand back to reveal...it was cut off at the wrist! “Damn it! Not again!” Avarice complained as disturbingly red and purple blood gushed out all over my bedroom floor.

‘WHAT THE HELL MAN!?” I yelled at the merchant. “My stuff’s in here! Or, at least this was my stuff. Kinda still is, but…. eh. Oh lookie! My iPhone! Been looking for that.”

“Okay, you just go on ahead while I bleed all over your carpet.” Avarice idly complained as he reached into his coat with the other hand, and took out a half-eaten whopper before taking a bite out of it, not giving two shits for hygiene since he’s immune to most things. “Mm...whopper...been too long.”

“You gonna be okay? Need some help with anything?” I asked.

“Nah, just give it a second.” Avarice said, blase about how his stump kept spraying blood, until it suddenly stopped, and the bones and tissue seemed to grow out into a new hand before skin covered it, then his glove oddly regenerated. “Ah, there. Need to have food in my belly to heal like that, and the outfit repairs itself. Explains why I never had to maintain it, heh. So...your dice are out of my coverage area, would you like to change service plans?” Avarice asked cheekily.

“Oh, ha ha,” I said. “Listen, if you can pull a distillery out of your ass, I think I have a way to help-”

I was cut off by the noise of Avarice, LITERALLY pulling a slightly rusty small distillery out of his ass, or at least the area near there from between his trench coat’s coattails, him making a farting sound with his mouth as he did so. I swear, he did that to mock me.

“All right then,” I said, reaching down and picking up the sword I had tossed to the ground. “Now, don’t freak out, but I need you to distill this.” I accentuated the last work by bringing the sword across my arm, creating a huge gash and allowing my arm to leak rainbow colored fluids.

“Oh, sure. There’s a Red Rum joke in here somewhere, but your blood being all magical rainbow juice sorta ruins that. But...shouldn’t we go someplace...more...secluded than your bedroom? I’ve already lit it on fire, bled on the carpet, and now you want to try and run a distillery in it? Do you KNOW how hot a distillery gets? My old friend Anthon says a moonshine still can be felt a few miles downwind.” Avarice informed in a serious and concerned manner. “Listen, I can get us out of here discretely. If this IS your original world, then you know places here. I can learn about it through an ability I gained called Recall, with your permission, and then I can warp us there through Vagabond.”

“Go right ahead,” I said. “The only problem is, there’s not really any places that I know of.”

“Well, you have to think of the place first, and also, if you can’t think of one suitable enough, think of one near some secluded woods or something else really remote. Stills get hot, and stink. My dad’s still out in the desert….” Avarice paused for a moment, seeming rather sad for a second before he shook his head. “Whatever, you get the point.” Avarice walked up to me, and it wasn’t until now I realized just how freaking tall he was, he easily dwarfed me by two feet! Was he this tall before?!

“Okay…” I said. In a few seconds I came up with the perfect place. “Got it.”

Avarice raised his left hand and put it on top of my head, it felt rather demeaning considering our height difference, like I was a little kid as I felt him root around my surface thoughts, said thoughts were heavily accentuated, I felt like I was actually there, like I was standing there right now in fact. “There, I’ve felt what the location feels like through Recalling it through you. Now then.” Avarice stepped back and invitingly opened his coat like the real Merchant would, gesturing to it with a twinkle in his eyes. “After you. You’ll seamlessly appear where the location is. By-the-by, nice choice.”

“.... Okay…” I said, stepping into his coat. Wow, not sure what I was expecting. Apparently, his coat has it’s own void-space. Who knew? Heh, there’s even these weird transparent red barriers in here, and the stuff he’s grabbed is floating inside them like little bubbles….. Is that a thing of drugs?.....I think that’s a bag of marijuana.

“Enjoying the sights? I said to step through, not step in.” Avarice chided as he suddenly appeared next to me, wearing nothing but a pair of red silk pants and-HOLY SHIT! The dude’s ripped! That’s not fair! I remember him looking so scrawny when we met, how’d that happen?!

“Where are your clothes?!” I asked, seriously, he was just wearing them, why was he topless all-a-sudden? Also, he’s ginger? Huh, didn’t even think of that. Although, he always did seem to lack a soul… heh.

“We’re inside my clothes right now. I had to leave Vagabond at our intended exit point because you decided to sightsee rather than just pass through. Welcome to my true store. Nobody else has seen this, consider yourself lucky. Want to browse some wares?” Avarice asked with a disturbingly pearly-white grin and a twinkle in his green eyes as he stood with his arms gesturing towards an assembling stall floating in the middle of this dark void, that had a massive sign next to it listing his available wares, which basically had one word: EVERYTHING. “No refunds. Unless previously offered.” He then idly poked his left hand through the very air, vanishing, only to pull through a heavily decayed claymore. “Aw, shame. William Wallace’s claymore has seen better days. Anthon would weep at the sight of his culture’s hero’s sword so neglected.”

“.... What the hell….” I said. “Let’s…. Let’s just go.”

“Fine, you’re the one who dallied, not me. This way. You have to keep a mind for your destination, or at least be aware of Vagabond to leave this place. Imagine my clothes, only without me wearing them and standing on their own power, you’ll wind up at our destination.” Avarice informed.

“Alright then,” I said.

I stepped out of seemingly nowhere and nothing and out onto a mountain. Whoa, we’re really here. It was the top of a mountain in a state park in the mostly uninhabited area of the Rockies between California and Nevada proper. It was sorta bordering between Cali’s garden opulence and Nevada’s barren desert wasteland. It was mostly just a giant spire of rock, slightly covered in grass up the sides. Perfectly secluded and away from nearly everything. Well then.

“Okay, let’s get started,” I said.

Avarice, surprisingly wearing his outfit once more, then jokingly pulled the distillery from his rear with the farting noise again, getting me to chuckle as I shook my head at his antics. “Okay then, let’s set this bitch up. Good thing it’s light out, don’t want the fire to be seen so easily.”

“Yeah,” I said, raising up my sword again. “Just let me get another cut so we can access my ‘blood’.”

“Uh, no need to be so crude about it. Hold on.” Avarice quickly retrieved a blood kit from his coat, thankfully, it seemed to be sealed and unused. “Huh...so there are shipments of aid lost in the jungles of Brazil. Depressing.”

“Trust me,” I said. “I don’t know your world, but mine is corrupt as hell…. Actually, it’s bordering hell and Limbo…. Cool, huh?”

“Sounds better than mine. My world was just a foot in the grave and a single phone call away from a nuclear holocaust when I left. No hope, no dreams, economy shot to hell, everybody save the nerds who were too immersed in fantasy were without any life to them. Fuck, wouldn’t be surprised if it’s already been nuked. I don’t miss it, just my friends and family….” Avarice mused sadly as he opened the kit and prepared the sample gathering needle. “Okay, I’m going to stick this big, very large needle into the vein on your left arm’s elbow, and have the tube lead into the intake of the still. Let me know when you want me to stop. Now, just keep still.” Avarice said as he wet a cotton ball with rubbing alcohol, and held it up, clearly showing he was ready to play field doctor.

“Ow,” I said as I was stabbed by the needle. I watched as it extracted the rainbow liquid and an idea came to mind. “Hey, mind if you take a little extra so that I can have it? Ya know, just for on hand.”

“Yeah, sure. Kit comes with sample taking vials. Can easily double as vials of healing potion using your magical rainbow juice. Taste the rainbow mutha-fucka.” Avarice joked as he fetched some vials from the kit and began filling a couple as he also kept the rainbow blood flowing into the intake. “Five vials, want more?”

“Just one,” I said, taking the vials from him. “Need to have five on hand for emergencies.”

“Alrighty then.” Avarice said in a fashion reminiscent of Jim Carrey, as he watched the blood flow. “Aren’t you getting light-headed yet? Losing this much blood would’ve killed a normal person by now.”

“Yeah, losing blood would have killed me,” I said, uncorking one of the vials, “Good thing I don’t have blood.”

Before Avarice could question what I meant, I drank the contents of the vial, downing it in one swig. Right afterwards, I started feeling weird. A few seconds later, there was a bright flash of light. Then nothing… I looked down at myself and found myself to be wearing different clothing. Not the leather armor that I was used to, but still different. The hoodie I had been wearing was now a deep black with a silver grey trimming. My pants had become black denim. My shoes were now black leather running shoes, which were weird. And I was now wearing black leather fingerless gloves. Honestly, it was pretty sick. I felt around my face to find I was also wearing some pretty sick shades. Wait a second, I can see my skin now! I’M PALE AGAIN! And the white hair! My eyes are probably green and white again, too. Man I love being a changeling.

“Dude!” I said. “I was only hoping that would work! I’m back in business buddy! Wait, where’s my sword?”

“Do you mean this sword?” Avarice asked as he held out a wicked greatsword! The thing was as big as a claymore, but instead of being a solid blade, it was wavy and rippled like...fire. I remember what that is!

“Is that a Flamberge?! Where the fuck did you snatch one in that good of a condition?!” I yelled. “I mean, that’s not even easy to find in the first place! Good or bad!”

“Meh, apparently there’s a forgotten collection or arsenal somewhere in Germany. Some rich arse probably didn’t tell anybody about it before he was offed or something. I can sense SO many goodies!” Avarice handed me the epic weapon before he then pulled out a Landsknecht halberd. “Woo! Historical piece here! Now THIS belongs in a museum. To the gallery you go.” Avarice said before apparently putting it someplace to be found.

“Okay,” I said, processing the information. “Hey wait, is there a flintlock in there?”

“Hold on...yep!” Avarice said before producing a restored Denix 18th Century German Flintlock Pistol!

“Lemme see that!” I said before snatching the thing from him. I uncorked another vial. “Now, let’s see if this works.”

I poured the contents of the vial onto the pistol. There was no flash, but instead a weird sort of circuit board type of design appeared before fading away.

“Okay, now a test.” I said, aiming it at Avarice. “Uh, no hard feelings, just want to test this.”

“Meh, no big. Unless you blast off my head I’ll live.” Fun thing, right when I fired, Avarice pulled a freaking mannikin out of nowhere. Guess he saw where I was aiming on him. “Dude, not cool. You never aim for the bait and tackle!” -I fired again.- “Mother-of-F-what?!”

“This is cool,” I said. “So, apparently, my ‘blood’ has altered this thing. INFINITE BULLETS, BABY! And I didn’t even cock the gun! Wonder what happens when I do.”

At this being said, Avarice was suddenly on his knees at my feet, clutching my torso in desperation. “PLEASE! I NEED THAT FOR MY GUNS! I’LL BE YOUR SLAVE FOREVER IF I CAN HAVE INFINITE AMMO!”

“Do what I asked,” I started. “And that’ll be me paying off my brand new debt with you. I only asked to get help back to Equestria. This stuff… Well, I don’t feel like being a freeloader.”

“Oh posh! You’re a friend, I don’t consider any debt from all this. I’m having fun even! See the eyes? Not glowing, Your’s aren’t either.” Avarice pointed out. “Friendship is a Magical thing, it makes debts and favors seem silly little trifles.”

“Well, just think of it as a gift after we’re done,” I said, tossing him a vial. “Now let’s get to work on distilling my rainbow ‘blood’.”

The distilling process took a couple hours, with a bunch of errors before we found the correct distillation. Apparently the rainbow stuff is pure power if you distill it. Who knew? Eh, I’m not gonna question the fake alcohol. Which Avarice practically got drunk off of just sniffing, heh…. Honestly, I forced him to drink some of it. Took a bit, what with him changing shapes on me and almost making me shit my pants. I was even able to save a couple vials of it. Could come in handy later.

Avarice was currently in his pegasus form, oddly being barely over my height as an anthro pegasus, his white and black patterned wings were all ruffled as he tried to stay coherent. “M-my thish is good boozshe. Not even Anthon’zh home-brewed moonshine can compare!”

“Wow,” I said, slapping him a little. “Now can we get back to the matter at hand? I need my dice. If ya can’t get that, I need a freaking portal matrix.”

“Yeah, yeah, jusht...let me get a bit lesh dishcombobulated.” Avarice replied as he fished some half-full whisky from his coat, and took a hearty swig, his face flushing a bit as he then downed the whole thing to my surprise, and he let out a bite of air in refreshment. “Dude. This shit’s like fire in the belly. So, let’s see how I can help.”

“Well,” I said. “Can you get my dice or what?”

“Right, hold on, let me *hic* get comfortable.” Avarice then shifted into his Verdugo form, again, his glowing red eyes nearly made me shit my pants as he towered over me at 9 fucking feet. Seriously, why was he so huge?!

“Dude,” I said. “What happened to you since I last saw you?! I mean, seriously, you used to be smaller! Now you’re towering over me! What happened?”

“Well...after ya *hic* went home, I ran into swamp, skirted it, died, wound up in a mass grave where I experienced the pleasure of binge eating the corpses of people. Cannibalism, give *hic* it a try man. Sweet as sin. Anyway, then I evolved fully into this from all the eating, ate some changelings, gained the ability to transform and feed off love. By the *hic* way, the love gland in a changeling’s torso causes orgasms when eaten, no fucking joke. Then I crossed a desert, taught a hot smith mare how to make shotguns like these, oh *hic* here’s the first one that worked we made together!” Avarice then took out the breech-loading single-shot shotgun he showed me earlier.

“And then, I, like an idjit, took off when she got it down, had sweet, hot, sweaty sex with Princess Luna without even realizing it was her, like, *hic* eleven times over a whole night, went to Trottingham, got captured by a fucking secret society with serious pull in the Equestrian government, enslaved to *hic* make these shotguns for em for two months, and apparently, APPARENTLY, that wasn’t enough for the mare overseeing me, who drugged me with a mutagenic drug that made me bigger, randy as all fuck, and fertile *hic* enough to probably impregnate YOU, if we went at it. She then raped me, by *hic* the way, she had a sweet, round, juicy ass that just bounced. It was like a fucking shelf. Her thighs were so~-!”

“Uh dude,” I said. “You’re drooling. And being creepy.”

“Don’t care, Sharp’s ass is on my mind. Mmf...want to bang her again...anyway, yeah, she raped me to sire her foal since she was gettin’ too old or something. Don’t see how, she looked barely a year over twenty. Also, banged Princess Celestia too, about Thirteen times. Anyway, yeah, that happened. That’s why I’m so fucking big. Now...what were we doing? My mind’s getting a bit clearer.” Avarice shook his head as he tossed the empty whisky bottle behind him, ignoring the shatter of glass.

“That’s good,” I said. “Enough about being raped and some weird mare. We’re after my dice. If you can’t get that, I’ll need a Runic Portal Matrix, instead. Do that, and the debt between us is done.”

I swear, that freaking flash of red in his eyes…. I had to go run over to a bush just to avoid shitting in my pants! Luckily, Avarice saw my hasty retreat, and placed a mostly empty pack of toilet paper next to my bush. Good guy. “Alright then!...How the blooming fuck do I do that?! I can make guns, swords, shields, armor, all that good shit, but...I’m a videogame nerd, not a high-fantasy or sci-fi super-nerd. I’m going to need your help too. This’ll have to be a cooperative effort.”

“Okay, grab hold of me and do that ‘Recall’ thing again, I’ll show you what the dice look like,” I said. “If ya can’t get them still, I’ll show you what the matrix should look like.”

“Okay.” Avarice then casually grabbed my head in his left claw. Nearly shit myself again. Doesn’t he know how fucking terrifying he is like this! The damn thing wrapped all the way around my head for fuck’s sake! “Recalling….” Whoa, trippy, every single minute detail involving my dice, as well as the matrix filled my consciousness, until he removed his claw, thank god, and blinked his glowing eyes. “That’s...oddly simple, yet contrived. Let me try again.”

Avarice then steeled himself, opened his coat, and jabbed his right claw in, hissing in a disturbingly insectile manner as he moved his arm around violently. “You fucker! I’m going to take SOMETHING this time! You stole my pal’s stuff, and nobody, NOBODY steals from Avarice or his friends!” Avarice froze however, and his arm stopped moving as he instead seemed to be feeling something, his eyes lidded gleefully. “Well~! Hello! Someone’s got nice tits!”

“Focus!” I yelled at him. “Your goal is the dice! Not tits!”

“I AM trying to get the dice, I tried getting your d20. Whoever has it, they’re really powerful, like, in both magic and physical resistance, but I’ve got her by the tit. Fills my whole claw if you’d believe me.” Avarice perked, and chattered his mandibles under his bandana. “Oh~ I think I heard a moan.”

“Trust me, I believe you,” I said. “So, can you tell who has it?”

“Oh~ yes. I know that moan. Tia~! Got your titty again! What’s with you being so naughty, takin’ me pal’s stuff? You’re such a sweet gal in my dimension.” Avarice seemed to put his head into his coat a bit, and nodded a few times. “Oh...well, that’s just selfish. I’m not going to give you any more pleasure in that case.” Avarice then tried to yank his hand out. “Oh, let go you letch! You lost groping privileges when you told me you were doing this all to spite him.” Avarice managed to yank his hand free, but it didn’t come through empty-clawed. “Woo...see-through robe? Damn...would’ve like to see that.”

“Where’s the dice?” I asked frantically. “What happened to them?!”

“Tia, well, your Tia, has em all secured in various ways. The d20 is in a necklace on Tia’s neck. Which is why I ended up copping a feel. I can’t grab it since she’s got it, I’ll give the others a try.” Avarice informed as he dropped the scanty transparent cloth and reached back into his coat.

“Well shit,” I said as Avarice growled in irritation, pulling his hand out and trying again, only to growl even more, and then one more time, only to sigh and pause. “What’s up?”

“They’re apparently ALL on her person, I tried the d10 and it’s apparently in her bosom since she tried to put it on her peytral, but she’s gone all anthro-”

“Wait, what?!” I said. “She wasn’t an anthro last time I checked.

“What part of “I’ve got her by the tit” didn’t you understand? If she was a proper pony, and she had teats that big, she’d never walk anywhere, she’d be stuck standing still.” Avarice informed. “She’s holding me up, trying to cut off my claw since she can’t stop me from trying, and my chitin’s too hard for her to break normally, and I’m too close for her to use something more destructive without hurting herself. So...she’s settled for trapping my claw in her boobs. Real classy Tia. Real classy….”

“Here, let me help,” I said aiming into his coat with my newly aquired flintlock. I cocked the gun and fired. Welp, shot was loud, and heard a shrill pained scream. “Bet that hurt the bitch.”

Avarice ripped his claw out, and slugged Dox in the shoulder. “Dude! Not cool! She’s clearly not in the right mind. Different Tia or not, I don’t think she’d be doing this if she was in her normal state. Something’s wrong here. Also...thanks for showing me a badass way to use my coat for combat.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “Also, I doubt she’s that badly hurt. If she has my dice, she’s probably nigh-invincible. I mean, I was when I had them. Seriously, I used to accidentally scrape my leg all the time…. or my arm…. or other parts of me…. There was that one time I hit myself in the crotch…. Anyways, I’d always just come out with a bruise at worst. The only time I bled was in combat with Tirek. Meanwhile, here I just scrape myself, I bleed. She’s fine. Oh, and if you ever use a line about owing people a bullet, I gave it to ya.”

“Well, alright then. Let me try one last time, the weakest one.” Avarice once again shot his claw into his coat, and then brightened as he yanked a glass jar out holding the d6. “Well...alright then! Got ya the weakest one at least.”

“No, that would be the d4,” I said. “Honestly, this one is really important. I got a lot of summons through this. Apparently my token is linked to it. I can hear voices if I concentrate hard enough.”

“Oh? You mean like my brazier?” Avarice took his blue iron brazier from his coat, fondly shaking it to watch the chain jingle. “Yeah, I found a copy of it in the desert in my own world...actually...where’s the one you used to summon me? Gotta watch out for it’s fire, it burns hotter than normal flames.”

“Right here,” I said. “I never really let go of it. Speaking of such, where’d my original sword go?”

As if to answer my questions, my arm lit up with a circuit board pattern before the handle of my sword appeared in my hand. When I grabbed it, the sword flipped out of my sleeve before locking in place.

“Whoa,” I said. “That’s new…. Hold up… You got a computer in the coat?”

“I’d be surprised if I didn’t. People are so wasteful.” Avarice then retrieved what looked like a perfectly fine solid black CyberPowerPC laptop from his coat. “Jackasses, just because you’re upgrading doesn’t mean you can just toss out old reliable. Anthon had one like this.”

“Cool,” I said, taking it from him. “Pretty cool laptop, but the battery’s dead…. I wonder.”

When I touched the power port on the left side of the laptop, I saw a bit of electricity arc from my finger and into the port. About a second later, I pressed the power button and it immediately turned on. Fun thing was, this thing had no owner…. ever. Brand new laptop…. probably tossed out because it wasn’t being sold anymore or it just wasn’t the one the child wanted. Damn rich families. I had a laptop that freaking fell apart on me, and I still used it! Anyways, I continued to mess with the laptop until my finger grazed one of the usb ports…. Then the laptop gained the same circuit board pattern as everything else…. Then it was gone…

I started to look around for it, only to find a new screen on my arm…. Then it hit me….

“Wait a second,” I said. “Circuit board pattern… advanced technology…. able to interface with tech through what I can only assume is magic…. HOLY CRAP I’M A TECHNOMANCER! My new body is a technomancer!”

“Sweet! Okay, so this’ll make making that matrix easier right? Let’s get to it!” Avarice was excited, he loved crafting things apparently.

“Okay,” I said. “So, we need steel, chalk, a small amount of my blood, and…”

I looked over at Avarice, only to see that he had pulled out everything and was even holding out a tiny syringe filled with the distilled blood. Damn, he moves fast. “What kind of steel? Grabbed about two kinds of spring steel, one stainless, and a couple of high carbon steels.”

“..... The high carbon should work….” I said. “Well, the last things we need are stone, like cobblestone, and pure magic. But how are we supposed to get pure magic?” At that, suddenly an avalanche of cobblestone dumped out of his coat onto the ground, and he even held up a ratty old tome bound in faded leather. “What’s up with the tome?”

“You said magic, this is what I grabbed when I reached through. Take it, I don’t know anything about no fancy magic. Just how to exploit it.” Avarice idly tossed the tome at me, and he bounced in place, excited to get started. I looked through the tome, only to make a great discovery.

“This is a technomancer tome,” I said. “Where the hell did you find a technomancer tome?”

“Leonardo Da Vinci’s preserved parlor in Florence Italy. Might explain a bit why he was so far ahead of his time.” Avarice then gestured for me to get on with it. He was clearly excited to get building.

“Alright then,” I said. “Well, we need a forge, or a smelter. We also need a spheric cast. This thing has to be shaped like a ball.” I informed, only to again be surprised at seeing a small smelter, no bigger than a paint bucket...actually, it WAS a paint bucket?! How the fuck does that work?! “How?! Actually, I don’t think I want to know. I need you to light it with a normal flame.”

Avarice was already making a spherical cast from two bricks of wet clay and a large billiard ball, when he looked up? “Why? The hotter the flame, the faster metal melts. I mean...sure a little backyard metal bucket smelter might not be able to handle the temperature, but we’re only making a single ‘cup’ of alloy, it should survive one use.”

“I need you to do that because it needs to be done with an aetheric flame,” I said. “The only way I can think to do that is by lighting a normal fire, then filling it with pure magic… Speaking of which, apparently Da Vinci had a bookmark on a page about a spell that literally pours out magic. Great.”

“Anything in there on hidden blades? My game nerd senses are so tingling.” Avarice chuckled as he used his coat to fetch a propane torch that seemed like it belonged in the trash, rather than being used again. He removed the ball from the nearly perfect sphere halves, and then carefully pressed them together before digging out a hole in the top, and then used the torch to braze the clay until it started to harden, and then went to prime the bucket smelter. Once it was lit, I used the spell I had found to pour some magic into the bucket and watched as the flames turned a weird light blue.

“Aetheric flames,” I said, admiring the flames. “Take a good look, Avarice. This might be the only time you ever see them.It’s like staring into the infinite pool of magic that is the Aether.” In response, Avarice cheekily lit his brazier, and held his torch near it, showing how damn similar they were, him quirking his eyebrow at me. “Dude, these flames are made of magic.” Avarice shrugged and accepted it at face value. With magic, apparently he doesn’t really give a shit. It’s there, he accepts it. “They won’t stop burning… not even when introduced to water or an extinguisher. Go ahead, try it.”

“And compromise the condition of the smelter? You don’t EVER douse a smelter! Magic flame or not, it’s hot, that bucket is only going to last one use, I’m not chancing some other backyard smith in Tennessee forgot his spare smelter.” Avarice practically bellowed in a cold, calm tone. Apparently, you don’t fuck with his work.

“Alright, alright,” I said. “Okay, we need to toss the materials in, in a certain order. First goes the cobble for a runic base. Then goes the steel for durability. Then just drop in a bit of the ‘blood’ and more magic. Then we put it in the cast, or however that works. Then I write the runes on it with chalk.”

“Uh...magic, fancy, rule-breaking magic. Accept that it even destroys the sanctity of your craft Avarice...breathe.” Avarice took shuddering breaths as he tried to calm down. “I need a titanium cup at least.” He fetched a soot-coated and dented smelting cup from his coat. “Okay, I’ll just accept all that bullshit. Stone’s melting point is ridiculously higher than metals, ignore that, ignore how the ‘blood’ would create impurities, just...fucking do it.”

Avarice put the cup in the mount over the fire, and used the small bellows on the side to feed the magic fire, not caring if it needed it or not, more out of habit. And then he put in some cobble and watched as it melted. “Ignore...failing logic.” Avarice growled as he then added the high carbon steel, enjoying watching it slag almost instantly. “That, was cool.”

“Ya know, I could bottle some of the magic,” I said. “Leave you with a way to make Aetheric flames for a forge. Just a warning though, they kinda need a constant supply of magic… Either that, or just a lot of energy.”

“Meh, Equestria, land of magic. I’ll just plant my forge on a leyline or something.” Avarice idly said as he held the syringe of blood over it. “Just a drop? Or the whole thing?”

“Just a drop will do,” I said. “Though, adding the whole thing will make it more powerful… And I kind of would like to check out other realms… plus the fact that you couldn’t reach Equestria at first….. Yeah, add the whole thing.” Avarice then squeezed the plunger and squirted the rainbow juice into the glowing yellow molten mix of cobble and steel, which instantly hissed and began to shift through the color spectrum like a molten rainbow. “Okay, now just a bit more magic.” I cast the spell and held it for about a minute. “That’s it. The mixture is done.”

“Stand back!” Avarice shouted as he brought out a long set of cup tongs meant for just this sort of thing, the rust on them meant nothing as he easily picked up the molten-hot cup of slag, and carried it over to the block cast, which he then poured through the hole in the top until it overflowed, and he set the thing down. “We’ll be able to cut off the excess, and polish off any imperfections along the outside.”

“Good,” I said. “Also, remember how it didn’t obey any laws during the smelting process? It’s already cooled…. and is a perfect sphere….” Avarice mentally called bullshit, but then he screamed in rage before he fished a sledgehammer from his coat, and smashed the cast, freeing the perfect steel sphere that seemed to also have a stony finish, and still somehow shimmered through the color spectrum. “Okay, now for the runes.” I started flipping through the book…. only to find nothing…. “Uh oh. Um, can you find a magical artifacts book, per chance?” Immediately after saying that, I was handed a book. “Let me guess, Da Vinci?”

“No. Morgan Le Fay. It was either her little cave somewhere in England, or Merlin’s keep hidden in the highlands of Scotland. The latter felt...risky.”

“Okay, I’m with you on that,” I said. “You don’t mess with Scottish people. They’ll kill ya while wearing kilts. And I mean true kilts! Nothing but PRIDE underneath those things!”

“Oh aye! Me friend Anthon is Scottish and proud ‘bout it. He’d go rantin’ an’ ravin’ ‘bout how grand the motherland is and how he wished his family still lived there, and didn’t sell their keep back long before they emigrated to the colonies.” Avarice gloated. “Apparently though, they owned the most slaves in the colonies for the longest time. It’s why there’s so many Robinsons.”

“Cool,” I said as I skimmed through the book. “I’ve always admired the Scotts. Proud people, except for the slave thing. Anyways, I found the page. I also found a location… but I’m not gonna go into detail about that.” I started drawing symbols in chalk all over the sphere…. but nothing happened. According to the book, once the process was done, there was supposed to be a lightning strike and the matrix would become active….

Son of a bitch.

“We need lightning,” I said flatly. “We need fucking lightning. I was able to just guess everything. But we need lightning…”-I looked at the book-”and magic chalk…. Damn it.”

“I know where to get lightning easy. Anthon was always complaining about Florida constantly storming. Let me try it.” Avarice picked up the surprisingly dense orb in his left claw and held it into his coat, shortly after, he screamed and jolted as he yanked the orb back out, his claw melted around it. “HOLY FUCK! GET IT OFF! CUT THE THING OFF!”

“I told you!” I screamed, attempting to slash off his hand. “We need magic chalk! I don’t have that!” I then picked up the flamberge that Avarice gave me, and the wavy blade easily sliced clean through the joint of his forearm and wrist, which he shouted over, but was just glad to have the melted claw off as he quickly grabbed some rotting food from his coat to heal with. Right after the claw fell off his body, the orb slipped off the claw when there weren’t any muscles to keep clenching it. “So, any idea how to get magic chalk?”

Avarice finished...ew...it was a smelly fish he just finished swallowing whole as his claw grew back. “I sense magic infused chalk like you’re requesting...but...guess where it is.”

“I don’t know, where?” I asked.

“Merlin’s keep...ugh...I feel like I’ll be cursed by protective counter-measures if I try to reach in there. Just considering it makes me feel uneasy.”

“Is there a way for me to reach in there and grab it?” I asked. “I can basically shrug off curses.”

“Sure, have a go. Just keep in mind exactly what you want, or you’ll grab something else.” Avarice held open his coat’s side, gesturing for me to reach in at my leisure. I reached in and felt around. Honestly, it felt cold reaching inside of his coat. Not sure if he felt like this, but to me, it’s a deathly cold, like a warning not to take what isn’t mine. Like if I were to grab his things, or anyone elses items, I’d be killed by the magic that was in his coat…. It took a good solid three minutes to find what I was looking for. I could feel the chalk, and I could see where it was. Damn, Merlin was a crazy magician. I pulled my hand out and opened it to reveal that I had indeed gotten the chalk that I was after. It was purple and had a faint glow to it….

And damn do I feel bad now. Freaking curses. A few seconds later I started feeling normal again and continued my work. First I picked up the dense orb. Then I washed it carefully, leaving none of the chalk marks to be seen. Then, after letting it dry, I started drawing the runes with the correct chalk.

“Okay, done. I need lightning, again,” I said. Avarice then wordlessly grabbed the orb again, and promptly did as he did before, only this time instead of screaming pain, he simply jerked it back out when the deed was done. We both gawked at the matrix in awe. It was like Avarice held a piece of existence itself in his claw.

“Somehow...I feel dirty...and feel the need to declare ‘no homo’.”

“Well, I mean, me and my friends did call that object the DM’s left testicle,” I said. “So there’s that.”

Avarice then chuckled as he held his other claw over the orb. “Is that so? What kind of pain could I inflict for him trying to lay claim to all that is free in this wretched realm?”

“Pretty much nothing,” I said. “I mean, you’re holding it, so it’s not connected to his nerves… I think… I mean, you could try. Just don’t break it, says here that if you do, it’s a violent explosion.”

“Oh, that’s no fun. Whatever. Catch.” Avarice carelessly tossed the item they’d painstakingly crafted over the course of several hours, and I scrambled to keep from dropping it. “Let’s get you home, hm? And I don’t mean this horrible place. You may have family, but why would you want to leave if you really cared hm?”

“Hey, I do care,” I said. “It’s just that…. it all seems so fake now. Knowing there’s more out there, and that this is just part of a smaller thing….. That and finding out that I’m actually made of some kind of magical essence.”

“Meh, I just didn’t really have any hope for the future. This new world, I have hopes...hopes that the Merchant outright tried to sabotage, hopes that those fucks who enslaved me have tried to take by making me their damn breeding stock. I can hardly be around a female without trying to jump them.” Avarice hissed as he looked out at the land around them in scorn. “Our worlds...they were just false hopes and dreams, all falling to pieces when we left. Did the Merchant really curse us? Or...give us a chance?”

“I don’t know man,” I said. “But let’s try this thing out, shall we?”

I started concentrating, focussing all of my thoughts into the orb. I thought of Equestria, about the Crystal Castle, about all of the stone statues in the library. All of it. In front of me, a portal started to open…. But the image of the other side wasn’t clear. It was like something was trying to keep me out. What the hell?

“I can’t get through,” I said. “I don’t know why, I just can’t get through.” I was about to look back at the tomes when Avarice held up my Celestia’s see-through robe, and I looked from it to him.

“Hey, I’m a game nerd, but this is from the world you’re trying to get to. Wouldn’t this work as an anchor?” Avarice asked, and I just about say something when he touched the thin silk to the matrix, and the portal instantly solidified into a stable gateway.

“Yes!” I screamed in joy. “We did it! I can go back to Equestria now!”

“No you can’t!” said an unknown gravelly voice that seemed to originate from the portal.

“What the?” I said before a massive black dragon emerged from the portal.

“My master wishes that you be kept here,” the huge fifty foot tall dragon said. “I, am Leere of the Void! Loyal vassal of my master and-AH~!” The dragon known as Leere was interrupted by Avarice promptly not giving two fucks, and whipping out a small shotgun, and blasting him right in the face. “MY EYE! YOU LITTLE FUCKER! WHO INTERRUPTS THE VILLAIN’S MONOLOGUE?!”

“I do. Fucking seriously. What is it with villains and needing to monologue? I get it’s really satisfying, but there’s a time and place! Don’t care why, don’t care who; you’re now nameless dragon number one! You’re in the way, you’re against my friend, and I. I have a boomstick. I could care less.” Avarice then...he fucking FLIP COCKED it! That’s his Chiappa! It’s barrel was cut down to the feeding tube, and had the choke welded on just after it, and the stock was gone. It was the fucking 1887 from Terminator 2! “So, Hasta la vista, baby!” Avarice shot the other eyes, making a very, VERY pissed off dragon as he grabbed me and jumped away as it breathed black fire at us. “What’s the plan?! I have a shotgun, but I’ve never fought a dragon before!”

“Blast it and slash it!” I screamed. Honestly, after him doing the whole ‘epic’ thing, I kinda lost my cool factor. At least I didn’t lose my man card…. No, that’s what happened to the dragon while he was distracted by Avarice taking pot shots at him. Cut his nuts CLEAN off with a blade of magic slashed from my sword. Poor bastard, I’d honestly feel sorry for him if he wasn’t trying to kill us.

I heard a click instead of a shotgun blast, and Avarice cursed. “Reloading! Fucking reloading!” Avarice shouted as he barely rolled out of the way of the stream of fire being desperately blanketed at us by the blind dragon. “I need that infinite ammo deal when this is over! Reloading for this shit is tense!” Avarice complained as he had to drop a shell he was loading, and it exploded when it cooked off from the heat, some buckshot cracking his chitin. “Fuck! Dox! Need some cover!”

“Right!” I screamed back at him. “Hey ugly! Here’s lead in your eye!” I started shooting my flintlock at him. Freaking infinite ammo is amazing…… after a while though…

“THE FUCKER’S JAMMED!” I screamed. “SHIT!” I was barely able to jump out of the way as the dragon brought his claw down at me.

“Hey Smiley!” Leere hissed as he took a breath to breathe fire in the direction of Avarice, only for him to be interrupted by a brass-balls move I never would’ve tried in a normal situation. He jumped right at the big lizard, and span around as his bladed tail shot out, practically slashing the side of Leere’s cheek open, spilling hot blood everywhere as he roared in pain. “Not done!” He then landed on all limbs save the one holding his Chiappa, and he jumped up at the thrashing dragon’s head, grabbing on and holding the startled beast’s mouth open. “Are your insides as tough as outside?!” He blasted, cocked, blasted, cocked, and blasted one more time before Leere managed to smash him into the ground, I couldn’t ignore the disgusting crunching noise that came from it. His crazy tactics gave me an idea though… an idea that I am forever going to regret.

“Hey jackass!” I screamed at the dragon. “Leave my buddy alone!” And with that, I charged the dragon. When he tried to crush me with a claw, I dodged. And when he tried to bash me with his tail, I jumped on and ran up his back. When I finally got to his head, I grabbed onto the side of his face and jumped into his mouth. Just as I expected, he swallowed me, but like hell I’d go down without a fight! As I started going down his esophagus, I stabbed the flamberge that Avarice had given me into the squishy walls, ripping huge holes as I went down. At one point, I got caught on something, I could only guess it was bone. I pulled myself up a bit and into the hole I had just made…. Kinda regret it. Flesh everywhere. It surrounded me, so I started slashing through it in an attempt to find what I was after: the dragon’s heart. It took me a few minutes, but I was finally able to get to it, what with all the movement on the outside. I stabbed straight through the fucker, bursting it and sending me back into the flesh.

Shortly after Leere stilled, a familiar blade punctured through the flesh near me, and oh GOD! Blessed fresh air! I took several deep breaths, some just to feel the air again. It was HORRIBLE moving through that damn thing. I don’t care what you find, alive or dead, there is not a stink that could match that…. But I had to wonder, if that’s what they smelled like alive… I’m just thanking my lucky stars that Avarice started going all canibal on it.

No, really. He was in bad shape, his arms seemed broke, well, the left one was, his right was was just plain gone. It seemed only his tail was intact as he was using it to cut out sections of bloody flesh, and his now bandana-free bug mandibles were viciously tearing, masticating, and stuffing it down his throat. It was incredibly disgusting. I turned to the side and threw up. No wonder he wore that thing. “Fuckin’ thought ya died mate. Don’t do that again.” Avarice said between swallows, and soon his limbs had healed and grown back, equipment was the same soon after.

“Dude,” I said. “How do you eat like that? No, don’t answer me. I’d rather live my life not knowing.”

“Oh shut it ya pansy, now...where’s the heart?” Avarice asked with some liquid, clearly not from Leere’s corpse, dripping from his mandibles. Did he have fucking poison in his mandibles too?

“Around where I was,” I said. “I kind of stabbed it, and it kind of went boom.”

“Damn, heart’s are good eating. Oh well, flame sac. If I eat enough of that exclusively, I might be able to incorporate it into my genetic structure.” Avarice’s...let’s call it drool, dripped from his mandibles as he climbed into the dragon’s body through the wound he opened up. The analogous behavior to a bug climbing into a dead body just made me ill.

“Avarice!” I called out. “Dude, finish eating it, I’m gonna send you back in a sec.”

The squelching sounds inside were sickening, but soon enough it stopped, and Avarice climbed out, coated in blood. “Well, alright then, just enchant my beloved Chiappa with infinite ammo and I’ll leave. Feel free to call on me whenever Dox.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” I said. “And you can still call on me whenever. Now, hand me your Chiappa and the vial I gave you.” Avarice then did so, and eagerly bounced in place like an excited child, making me roll my eyes. I poured the contents of the vial over the gun, getting the weird pattern again. “Okay, now to test fire.” I pulled the trigger a few times out in the open air. I got the expected result, nothing. I then tried cocking it, only after doing so did a shot come out that just seemingly fired without a shell. “Okay, so, not as overpowered as the flintlock. Probably won’t jam as often, though.”

“Perfectly okay with that. You gotta admit, flip-cocking this bitch mid-battle is so sweet.” Avarice crowed as he accepted his new magic shotgun. “Now all that’s left is to enchant it to shoot an element, like, ice spikes or something.”

“Lasers?” I said. “I heard there’s a Handsome Jack. Found his token the other day, haven’t bothered to use it yet, though.”

“HJ? I’m a little conflicted on that. Jack is one of my most hated villains, because, seriously; he’s really fucking good at it. He monologues, and knows how to do it when it’s necessary, at least up until the end, but every bad guy get’s an obligatory sendoff monologue.” Avarice commented.

“Yeah,” I said. “Now, do you want to wait to go back before or after I go back into Equestria? I mean, it’d probably be safer to do it in Equestria. Who knows what’d happen if I sent you back from here.”

“Yeah, after. Rather make it home than end up in some eldritch nightmare world that’s Lovecraft’s wet dream.” Avarice then gestured to the portal that was, still open. Huh...didn’t notice that until now. Fucking dragon.

“Alright then,” I said. “Let’s go.”

The other side of the portal opened up in Canterlot…..

Specifically the castle……

More specifically, Celestia’s throne room.

Bad part about this, she was super powerful and could probably kill us both if she tried.

Good part about this, she was hot. And I mean hot. “Why is this good?” You may ask.

Because she was an extremely buxom and curvy anthro now several levels above Brazilian bikini models. And Avarice was recently turned into a complete baby-maker by his captors back in his world.

Avarice promptly ceased to be a sentient being the instant he saw her, and he transformed into a 9-foot-tall anthro paint horse stallion and charged the surprised mare, tackling her as he forced her into a deep kiss.

I promptly took this as a chance to run for my life, sprinting as fast as I could out of the room and onto a balcony. I quickly searched through Da Vinci’s book as fast as I could for a flight spell. I got cut off as I saw Avarice fly out of the castle and into the gorge between Canterlot Mountain and the adjacent mountain. I went back to flipping pages, only to come to a glide spell, meant to make my clothes gain wings like a flight suit. I had no other options. I cast the spell and jumped. I eventually caught up to Avarice, only to send him back with the normal phrase.

“Avarice! Our contract is complete!”

Or at least I tried. Didn’t work though. Had to be something about his magic. Avarice wasn’t any help either though, as he seemed dazed, confused, his eyes glazed over. He sniffed the air in the direction of the castle, and I facepalmed. Of course. Horny idiot’s totally screwed up by lust. Probably doesn’t realize where he is or what’s happening right now.

“Avarice! Go home!” I yelled at him. For some reason, it worked, as he burst into blue flame and disappeared. Hope he had a good landing.

Me, I continued my short fall before opening up the ‘wings’ and gliding in the direction of the Everfree. It was my only hope. That’s where the passage to a safe haven was, so that’s where I’d go.

The Plan That Follows

I landed in the Everfree after a few hours of gliding. Damn, I was high up. Really didn't help my cause when I messed up the landing. I mean, seriously, I had never gone parachuting, let alone in a freaking flight suit!

After recovering, I set out to find my base of operations: Zecora's hut.

It wasn't that hard, considering the animals mostly left me alone, probably because I smelt of dragon blood. I mean, if you could smell it, would you want to piss off the guy who killed a dragon? Yeah, neither would I.

Anyways, I eventually found the hut, just had to look for the poison joke and go from there. What I was surprised to see, however, was a few guards standing by the entrance to the hut. I snuck up to them, and before I could do anything, another guard peered out of the doorway. He started talking to the pair of guards that were standing watch.

"Why did Celestia send us out here again?" one of them said.

"Because, Private, she wants to make sure that that biped is dead," another guard said.

"Well, Sergeant, I'm pretty sure he's dead," the private said. "If he didn't show up last week, he's not showing up this week. I mean, seriously, it's been a month since she reported him gone. Last time, she said he reappeared after a day. If he was alive right now, wouldn't he show up?"

So I'd been 'dead' for a month? I guess that's what happens when you lose a body. I mean, she destroyed it! Right as she was smashing my statue, I could feel an immense heat! She must have completely slagged me. So, why didn't I just go into a temporary body? Last time I 'died', I was able to use one of the other characters. The alicorn was damaged at the time, so that's that. But what about the elf? And where was the DM?

Right then, something happened that I had been hoping to see for a while. My d6 was glowing. I immediately took it out and whispered to it, "What's up, big guy?"

I can't reach you to well. Something's been keeping my contact to you severed. You're lucky I'm able to do this.

"I understand that," I whispered. "So, what happened?"

Well, she destroyed your body. Completely and utterly destroyed it. Sadly, you dropped the dice when you were petrified, so I couldn't pull you out of reality before you 'died'. You're lucky I was able to even craft you a body after what happened!

"By the way, thanks for that," I whispered. "You said something about keeping you from contacting me?"

Yes. You see, the dice should have automatically gone to you, sending a message with them. Instead, someone else grabbed them.

"Celestia...."

Not exactly. You see, something is corrupting her, making her do its bidding. It's like as if there's another copy of me here with their own champion. Someone is using her as a proxy, spreading its taint with it.

"But how?" I asked in a hushed tone.

I don't know how. This.... THING is covered in void magics. These void magics are keeping me from doing anything to it. That includes finding out who they are. It's like an admin was brought here, but something's off about it. An admin would have seen me, or at least said hi. Whatever it is, it's purposely trying to stop me, and by extension, you. You need to find out who it is on your own. I'm sorry, but it'll be hard to contact you from here on out. I'll try and warn you of danger if I'm able, for now, you might want to KO those guards and claim the item I left for you before I was cut off.

"Right," I said. 'Cut off'? Who has the power to cut off the DM? No one should be able to do that! If I'm going to find out who this is and take them down, I'm going to need help. But first, I need to find out who. And before even that, I need to get my dice back. The first step to that, is to get back Fluttershy and the rest of my team.

I watched the guards for a few more minutes before jumping out and attacking them. I smashed the two door guards’ heads together, getting a strangely satisfying clang sound and knocking them unconscious. The third guard that was inside, heard the noise and came running out to investigate, only to come running to me where I smacked his head into the ground, then the door, and then the ground again, knocking him out, too.

“Celestia’s finest my ass,” I said as I entered the hut. Everything was where we left it, save a few ingredients. I looked around and came across the table where my friend, Renkinjutsu used to work, finding a few smoke bombs on the table. I took the smoke bombs before continuing to look around. I eventually came across a book that Zecora had left out on the counter. I remembered this, it was that special cures book. If I can get to her again, she might want this. Right before I took the book, however, I realized that I had no way to carry it. In fact, I had no real way to carry anything properly. I should have asked Avarice for a backpack. Oh well. I know Zecora left a spare saddlebag around here, anyways.

After a few moments of searching, I found the bag and promptly put the smoke bombs and the book of cures into it before closing the latch and beginning the search for what the DM had left me. It took a few more moments before I stumbled across a glowing blue ingot. I could only wonder what it was, ‘cause when I touched it, it obtained the circuit board pattern and disappeared. Must have absorbed it to upgrade something. I wonder what.

I took this as my signal to leave the hut. As I left, I noticed that the guards had somehow gotten themselves into the position of spooning each other. Noting that I still had my iPhone on hand from before Avarice had teleported us to the mountain, I took out the phone and snapped a picture. I just wish I could have left them a copy of it, it would have been hilarious.

I put the phone away and refocused myself and continued on my journey.

As I neared my destination, I started to notice that the path that I had taken during my trips to the old castle in the Everfree was now littered with more rubble than it usually was… which was none…

I rounded a small corner, around some trees and bushes, only to find that the area had been leveled. Where there once stood a mighty castle that had stood for a thousand years as a testament to time, now stood a hulking pile of rocks, dirt, and dust. I could only assume that Celestia, with her newfound power, had come and destroyed this ancient monument. I felt sad to see such a sight, while at the same time I cursed her and her name. She had destroyed the one building that had my access to my safe haven: The Soul Society. I was going to retrieve my…. my friends…..

No….

No….. I couldn’t give up because of this. My friends were counting on me, and I wasn’t about to let them down.

That organ had multiple ways to get to it, plus it was underground. This all looks like she did it from the outside. I started looking for a secret door, a path, anything that could lead me to the organ. It was only then, that I remembered one of the places I had found a passage way to while I was messing around with the organ.

The Tree of Harmony.

I booked it to the tree, only to see most of my pathway blocked. Celestia had thought of almost everything. But she wasn’t counting on me having new powers, or a special flintlock.

I cocked my gun and aimed it at the obstacle in my path. I pulled the trigger and the resulting impact of the ‘super’ bullet destroyed the offending thing. I was now free to continue my on my path.

When I reached the tree, however, I was shocked to see all of the statues of the Elements of Harmony that Celestia had petrified. Not only that, they were moving.

Twilight’s statue looked like she was really unhappy about something, probably not being able to cast magic. Rarity was ‘crying’. Pinkie was lying on her stomach with her legs spread out and her face a look of total defeat and sorrow. Applejack was slumped over in a corner. And finally, Rainbow Dash had an angry face and was slowly trying to flap her stone wings.

Rainbow Dash was the first to notice me. She proceeded to run over to the others and tell them what she saw, and immediately the others became more active, more happy. It was at this point that I noticed that they all had a gem on the back of their necks…. ones that looked like their cutie marks. Had Celestia put the Elements of Harmony into the statues?

Twilight was the first to walk up to me….. Well, more like she pounced me and knocked me onto my butt. I could hear sobbing sounds from the poor petrified pony.

“What happened?” I asked, partially knowing the answer.

“Celestia petrified us,” Twilight said. “She said that we had all become tainted, that we had lost our focus. She said that we lost our ideals from ‘The Being’ and proceeded to use a powerful spell on us. Then she brought our statues here, destroyed the castle, and then shoved the Elements into our necks before sealing us up in here.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “If only I had been there sooner, maybe I could have changed the outcome. Now she’s all-powerful and it’s all my fault.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Pinkie said. “None of us saw it coming. Just be glad you have friends to help you.”

“You’re right, PInkie,” I said. I do have friends to help me, and I’m going to go get some more of those friends.” I started feeling around the wall for a passage. It took a few minutes, but I eventually snagged something on the wall. I pulled at the wall with all my might before giving up and taking out my flintlock again. I cocked it and fired, opening up the wall to the passage into the room with the Organ to the Outside.

“It’s time to go get my friends,” I said.

Return of the Kind Heart

The hallway was empty and barren, the walls, nothing more now than jagged pieces of stone that had coroded from the water that now leaked down the walls. This place was old, ancient even, but it was still a better place to be than out in the open where I was sure to be killed.

Yes, it was here in the underground secret passages of the Castle of the twin sisters that I felt at home. It was far from comfortable, but it was far safer than the crystal castle in Ponyville. Hey, even my friends were here. They may be made of stone now, but they were still my friends, and they were still here. I just wish that they could have come with me.

In fact, before I started my treck down this long hall, I asked if they wanted to accompany me to my destination. They told me that they couldn't. It was the power of the Elements that were keeping them active and animated as they were. They had strayed away from the tree and the Element of Kindness earlier, they went still and rigid and stone like again. Lucky for them, Celestia was monitoring them. It was only after moving them all back that she had sealed them in the alcove near the Tree of Harmony. I had to leave them, but promised that when I came back that I would bring Fluttershy with me, that way they could move away from the damned tree.

So here I was, travelling this long forgotten hall. All just to get back a friend that I wasn't sure escaped. Hell, I didn't even know if she thought I was alive. It was during these musings that I bumped into the smooth wall that marked the end of the hallway.

Luckily, I was able to move this wall instead of destroying it. It was a pleasent surprise to find the room unscathed, minus the damage already done to the organ. What wasn't a pleasent surprise was finding the three other statues of my friends. The statues of Shining Armor, Princess Cadence, and Princess Luna. They weren't animate, but I knew what they felt. They were ponies stuck behind stone shells, doomed to somehow observe everything around them. It made me think back to Discord and how he was trapped, too. It saddened me to see everyone like this. It got me thinking, however, that maybe they would become animate in the pressence of the elements, too. That would only be possible if I could move them, though. Sadly, in their stone forms, they were FAR too heavy for my current body to lift. If only Celestia hadn't destoryed my original one. Well, I lost my abilities and gained new ones, if only I knew how to use them, though.

I mean, seriously, this tome from Da Vinci's workshop is helpful, but it details nothing on preforming magic! The closest I have to doing magic is sending out a spray of it. The problem with that, is that it wasn't a form of attack and only had use in making items. The tome from Morgan La Fey didn't help either. It had plenty of notes on how to create magical artifacts that could, if worn, increase the magical prowess of my body, or increase the power of ceratain spells. But nothing about casting spells! I set it to mind that when I was done with my little fetch quest that I would set out on finding a master of the arcane that would teach me. Hell, I'd take a Displaced teacher for however long they'd have me, if only they'd have me.

It was then I started to stumble across a few things scattered on the floor. The first one was a Rupee with a triforce carved into it. The next one was the unitrix I had found before. Next to that was what Asphyxious had described to me as his token. Then the golden x from David. And the gold coin with Team Rocket's symbol on it. And the default Escafil device. And Drake's scroll! These were the tokens that I either had found or was supposed to find! But why were they here? Was this the result of me being cut off from the DM and thus the void?

I knew I couldn't find an answer to that right now, so I decided instead to continue on my quest. The first thing to do on the list was to repair the organ so that I could play the notes Urahara had taught me.... And remember the notes....

It took a few hours to get it done, as well as a lot of brute force. I felt lucky to have been able to accomplish the monumental task.

Now, what were the notes.....

C-A-G-E

Nope, I just summoned a little metal bird. The bird flew up and just landed on my shoulder. Heh, looks like a mini-Songbird from Bioshock. If it stays, I'm naming it Guardian Angel. I had to laugh a little at that.

D-F-D, D-F-D

And now it's storming outside. Great, at this rate I'm going to give away my position.

C-Bb-F#-Eb-Chord of Eb Minor

That did it. A portal opened up right next to the organ.

This was a chance for me. A chance to leave, to get friends, strength, what I needed to defeat Celestia. Maybe, if I was lucky, I could find a trump card to pull along the way.

But first, I had to take a step into the unknown. The step into the Soul Society.

After entering the portal, I was immediately met with a horrifying sight.

All around the field that I had entered, there was nothing but death and destruction. Dead soul reapers laying here and there. Chunks of rubble strewn across the entire area. There were a few trees nearby, but that was the only sign of life here, even the grass was dead. Where had Urahara gone off to if this is where the portal leads?

"Who- Who's there?" a familiar timid voice called.

"It's Dox," I said. "Fluttershy, is that you out there?"

"Dox?" called out the voice. It was coming in from the direction of the trees. In fact, it was coming from a tree. Said tree started moving towards me at high speeds before falling apart and revealing a yellow pegasus who promptly tackled me into a hug.

"Oh Dox, we thought you were dead!" Fluttershy said.

"Well, I kind of was," I said. "But out of sheer luck, I'm alright."

Fluttershy had been reduced to a sniffling mess. She was so happy that I was alright, it made me almost cry. I say almost, for a reason. Because of the sniffling, she eventually caught wind of a scent that I had been carrying.

"D-did.... Did you fight a dragon?!" she questioned. "That's so dangerous! You could have died!"

"But I didn't," I stated. "And it was a void dragon, thank you very much. Fucker ate me and I killed him from inside."

"Why would you put yourself in that situation?" Fluttershy asked. "We're here worrying about you, and you go off and do dangerous things!"

"I know," I said. "But it was the only way to get to the portal back here. And by here, I mean Equestria. I have a lot to tell you guys, but first and foremost, we need to get you and everyone else back."

"Alright, I'll go get everyone and tell them to be ready to leave," Fluttershy said. "I hope you know what you're doing."

"Don't worry, I do," I said to the now retreating Fluttershy. "I do...."

Reunion and New Friends

"Where is that mare?" I questioned aloud.

I had been standing in the same field for the past three hours, waiting for Fluttershy. She hadn't come back since I told her to go get the others, and there hadn't been the sign of anything else since I got here. Everytime the wind made the leaves of the trees rustle, I looked over hoping to see the butter cream mare with everyone else, only to find nothing. I expected her to take a while, but three hours? How far away was everyone else?

Eventually, Fluttershy showed up. She had a necklace on her that looked like her Element of Harmony. When did she get that?

Behind her was Zecora and Renkinjutsu, but no sign of Urahara. Where was he?

"Hey," I called out to them. "Is everything okay? You kind of left me for three hours. Why'd it take so long?"

"Because we thought you had died. We are sorry for the doubt," said Renkinjutsu. Wait a second, when did he speak English... er, Equestrian, normally?. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that they were the same here?

"Hold up, when did you start speaking normally?" I asked. "Last time I checked, you spoke in haikus."

"I've been helping him with his Equestrian," Fluttershy said. "It's how we passed the time. I taught him proper Equestrian, and he taught me a little Japoneighse."

"Okay then. So, did you all pack up?" I asked. "I told Fluttershy to tell you all that we were leaving. Speaking of Flutters, where did you get that necklace?"

"Oh, this?" Fluttershy said, pointing to the necklace in question. "Renkinjutsu made it for me.... He's been really nice and all...." She shuffled around and got closer to Renkinjutsu, then he draped a wing over her and nuzzled her. What was going- Oooooh.

"Was it part of some courting ritual?" I asked. "Because of how you're acting, I can only guess."

"Hai," Renkinjutsu said. "Watashi wa shin'ainaru Fluttershy o kamoshite iru."

"One sec," I said, pulling up the little screen on my arm. I hadn't really messed around with it until now. Well, no time like the present. The screen came to life, and apparently had already done what I was about to try to get it to do: Pull up Google Translate. "Oh, so it was. Well, good for you two. I wish you luck in what comes. Right now, however, we need to get moving. Come on!" I started running for the portal and jumped through, followed by everyone else.

On the other side of the portal, my friends were shocked to see a petrified trio of ponies.

"What happened here?!" Fluttershy questioned.

"What has happened? These ponies here seemed to have met there end," Zecora said.

"Well, I'm not completely sure about that," I said. "And trust me, it gets worse. Just follow me, and don't touch them."

The others followed down the corridor without complaints. After about an hour of solid walking down the old hallway, we eventually came out to the Tree of Harmony.... as well as the former Element Bearers. Fluttershy immediately broke down into tears.

"Girls!" she sobbed. Her friends meant a lot to her, to see them petrified must have been horrible to her. I could have sworn they could move, however, as they just sort of sat there looking at us.

"Okay, fun time's over," I said to them. "If you don't stop scaring her and making her cry, I'm going to smash all of you."

That comment got them on the move again, all except for Applejack, who was still in the corner looking sullen. Rainbow Dash went to the entrance of the 'cave' that the Tree of Harmony was in. Twilight started wandering around. Rarity went to try to console Applejack. Pinkie Pie stood there with us.

"Fluttershy!" Pinkie screamed before pouncing the poor mare. The look on her face as she got pounced by a stone Pinkie was priceless. It was the perfect combination of 'Holy Crap', 'Yay', and 'I think I just shit my pants'. All in all, I burst out laughing.

"P-p-p-Pinkie?" Fluttershy stuttered out. "I-is that you?"

"Well of course it's me, silly," Pinkie said in reply. "I mean, who else would it be? Oh! It could be Inkie, or Blinkie, but their on the farm, or it couldbeMaudbutshe'sgonetoooritcouldbemyparentsorIknowPrincessCelestiaor-"

"Okay, fun time's over," I said, muzzling the stone known as Pie. "I swear, I was getting a horrible migrain from that."

"FMRRY" Pinkie said through the muzzle that was my hand before licking it. Ew, stone spit. "I mean, sorry."

"Gross," I said. "Promise me you won't lick me again and I'll accept that."

"Okie dokie lokie!" She said.

Alright, gang's back together," I said, pushing the still terrified Fluttershy towards her petrified friends. "Now, I have a plan, just let me do something." I started climbing up the Tree of Harmony, coming to sit on a branch. I reached over said branch at a crystal embedded on it. I was able to grab it and pull it free, but I fell out of the tree doing so. "Ow. I got it!"

"But that's my Element of Harmony," Fluttershy said. "What about the tree?"

"The tree is already full on energy," Twilight said matter of factly. "Plus, when we defeated Tirek for the first time, the power that came from the tree to give us those weird rainbow abilities destroyed the plunder vines and the seeds for them."

"Okay, now I have a plan," I said. "Flutters, can I see that necklace of yours?"

"But it was from Renkinjutsu!" she said. "I can't just hand it over!"

"Don't worry, it'll be fine," I reassured her. She reluctantly handed over her trinket, only for me to break the stone that was set in it out. Heh, now that I've gotten a feel for it, the stone was made of a pink marble. Honestly, pretty nice stone, not really an engagement item, though.

"Anata wa nani o shite iru nodesu ka?!" Renkinjutsu exclaimed angrily. "Sore wa kanojo to watashi no kyūai no saindesu! Anata wa sore o hakai suru koto wa dekimasen!"

"Don't get your tail in a knot," I said. "I'm just giving it a proper stone." And with that, I imput Fluttershy's Element of Harmony into the necklace, it glowed for a second before I handed it back to her and the stone to Renkinjutsu. "There we go, now it's propper, and you can keep this stone, set it into a ring or something."

"Why would you do what you did? The stone it had was alright," Renkinjutsu said.

"I'm with him on this," Fluttershy said. "Why would you do that?"

"Because, your friends have to keep the elements of harmony together to stay active," I said. "This way, everyone can move. I'm sorry that it means you have to go with them, but it's how it has to be. At least I left the stone with you, that way you can make another necklace."

"Alright then," Renkinjutsu said. "I shall make another one. But you must assist me."

"Very well then," I said. "Well, I have another plan in the meantime. I want all of you to go to the room with the Organ to the Outside and see if the Elements will animate the ponies in there like they did you."

"Alright," Twilight said. "Who's in there, if I may ask?"

"Your brother, Luna, and Cadence," I said. "If they can become animate, then good, if not, our base shall be set in that room."

"Sounds like a plan," Rainbow said, walking over. "One problem, though. I think they know we're here."

"What makes you say that?" I asked the stone pegasus.

"There's a guard over at the entrance," she said. "He's calling out for you, says he has a message for you."

"Okay then..." I said. "You guys go ahead, I'm going to go see what he wants."

"Is that really a good idea?" Twilight asked. "I mean, he works for Celestia, and she's not right currently. Something's off about her. I just can't put my hoof on it."

"Yes, it is," I said. "If it's one guard. If he tries to start trouble, then I can take him, if not, well...."

"Alright then," Twilight said. "Come on girls, we're going inside."

I watched as the entered the hallway and disappeared before walking to the 'cave' entrance. There was a guard standing there, just as Rainbow said, but something seemed off about him.

"Are you Dox?" the guard asked. The voice sounded feminine. So that's why I thought she was off, it wasn't a male guard as I'd seen everywhere else!

"Yes, and who are you?" I asked in return.

"I'm Sergent Halberd," she said. "I have a message from the Princess for you." She handed me the message... but she seemed kinda shifty. Almost like something was up.

"Is everything alright?" I asked.

"Y-yes. Everything's fine," she said. I didn't believe her act for a second.

"Really?" I asked. "Well, you're standing in front of Equestria's current most wanted. Someone who's wanted dead, not alive. To be sentenced to death on the spot... and everything's fine?"

"NO!" she screamed at me. "Everything's not fine! Something's up with the Princess. I don't like it! I saw her taking in the guards a couple days ago for what she called a 'routine check'. They all came back with either glassed over eyes or weird faces. I don't know what's going on anymore! I told her I wouldn't go in and she sent me to find you and give you a note, so there it is."

"Alright then," I said. "Are you okay?"

"No..." she said. "Something's not right. I don't want to be a part of this anymore if it means being part of the wrong." This gave me a plan.

"Alright then, join me and my friends," I said. "We can keep you safe, all you have to do is find Celestia and tell her you found me and gave me the note. Say you found me at the base of Canterlot Mountain, that I had made camp there."

"Okay," she said. "But the note asks for you to show up. She'll know something's up if you don't show with me."

"Really?" I asked. "But why would she want to see me?"

"I don't know," the sergent said. "I don't like it, though."

"Okay then, here's the plan," I said. "You take me to the palace, then leave. Say you're taking your leave for a while, that you need a break. Then you come here and hide with my friends. Is that okay?"

"Yeah," she said. "Listen, I'm not going to lie, but I'm scared. This is considered desertion. I can get killed for this."

"Well then," I said. "We'll protect you."

"Okay," she said.

And with that, we started the trek to Canterlot Palace.

That One Discontinued Lego

I reached in and pulled out my iPhone, figuring out that it was making the noise.

"Is that?" Celestia said.

"Is that what?" I asked. I started flipping around the phone randomly, until I found the d6 stuck to the back of it. "Oh crap, what the hell?"

"He has contact!" a gravely, and somewhat familiar voice said.

"Wait, what?" I said, turning my attention back to Celestia and her throne.

Up on the throne, I saw a dazed Celestia...... and the shadow of Tirek without his legs. He seemed to be holding her by the shoulders.

"What the hell?!" I said. "How did you escape Hell?!"

"I traded my body to become a fell shadow," Shadow Tirek said. "Apparently, demons really like it when they can obtain a body that absorbs magic."

I heard another voice. Hit...... Use..... Stream..... Ad.... Finem.......

What the hell is going on?! It's like a badly written fan fic! Oh well, might as well.

I quickly drew my bastard sword and swung it while yelling, "HIT STREAM!" A wave of energy came flying out and collided with Shadow Tirek, sending him flying backwards. I turned and ran after that.

I heard Celestia scream for the guards to get me, but I was already on the outside of the castle. In fact, I had already reached a dead end. It was the same fucking balcony that I had jumped off last time.

And not a moment too soon, as guards swarmed me, but they weren't hesitating. They instantly charged me. With no other way to escape, I jumped off the balcony. Sadly, the guards started following, as did Shadow Tirek.

I didn't even have time to pull out Da Vinci's book before I heard another voice.

What in Mata Nui?!

Perfect, a guy to summon me so I can escape!

“What in Mata Nui?!” Alex shouted, dropping the dice as he scrambled away from the die, looking around wildly for wherever the voice came from. After a few minutes of looking, and failing to spot anything, he looked back at the dice, which gleamed innocuously in the the daylight. Walking back to the die, he picked it up and examined it, careful not to let it roll out of its hand.

“HELLO?!” a voice called out. “Is someone trying to summon me? Ya picked a REAL great time. If ya could roll the die, that’d be nice. Kinda trying to run from someone. Need help.”

Alex stumbled back a few steps as the voice rang in his head again, and he looked back down at the die-shaped stone. Perhaps someone was using it as a telepathic conduit? A few seconds passed before Alex, acting on a childish impulse, rolled the die on the rocky ground and shouted, “Roll for Initiative!”

After rolling the die, a portal about ten feet tall and four feet wide opened up, sending an elf looking creature barreling out of it, followed by a shadowy mist before the portal closed.

“Get back!” the pale elf yelled. “HIT STREAM!” Alex, not sure as to what that was, dove to the side as a wave of blue energy was sent flying from a sword he hadn’t noticed the elf had. The wave impacted the shadow, sending it hurtling into the stream. The shadowy mass let out a screech as it was swept away by the river’s current.

“Thanks,” the elf said, getting up and heading towards Alex. “Ya really helped me out there, getting me away from the guards.” Alex looked at the elvish man with suspicion. While he felt as though he could trust the man, he was still unsure of whether he could. What guards was he talking about?, Alex thought. He hoped he didn’t accidentally help a mass murderer escape prison or Death Row...

“Who are you?,” He asked after a few seconds of staring off, and the elvish man stood there, taking deep breaths.

“I’m…. I’m Dox,” he coughed out, “I’m also the guy you just summoned. You just helped me escape the shadow of a guy that I killed. He kinda fused with…. Well, I’d have to explain something else first. Just let me tell you that now he’s trying to destroy me and pretty much all life back on my Equestria.”

“Equestria? What’s that?” Alex asked, his guard now up since the man had blatantly stated that he had killed a man. However, after a few seconds of skimming through the memories Mata Nui had procured for him, he remembered what, or rather, where Equestria was, and said, “Never mind, now I remember.”

“What do you mean what’s that?” Dox asked. “Equestria is the land we’re in right now. It’s the nation here.”

“Well, I haven’t been able to get a chance to review all of the memories Mata Nui gave me, considering that I’ve been on the run for the last two days or so,” Alex replied.

“What do you mean you’re on the run?” Dox asked. He looked thoughtful for a second before continuing. “Actually, nevermind. I know how it feels. Back in my Equestria, the ponies were kinda…. well, weird. The princesses were even worse.”

“Princesses?” Alex said, letting out a snort. “Geez, with all of the pastel colors, it’s like this is a little girl’s show.”

“Oh, don’t get me started,” Dox said. “In all honesty, it was. Pretty funny, right?” Alex let out a chuckle in agreement.

“So, you were saying something about ‘your’ Equestria?” Alex said, drawing the conversation back to its starting point.

“Yeah,” Dox said. “Apparently, there’s this whole multiverse out there. A bunch of us got tricked by this guy called the Merchant into buying something, then he sent us to Equestria. Well, all but this one guy I’ve met, but I’m not sure he’s the only one with his circumstances.” At the mention of the Merchant, Alex felt what could be described as if someone had electrocuted, for some unexplainable reason. Wincing slightly at whatever the pain was, he focused back on Dox.

“That happened to me, too. Saw it happen to this other guy with a pronged ruby, as well,” Alex said, before his mind wandered and he wondered aloud, “So, what he trick you with?”

“A bunch of playing dice meant for Dungeons and Dragons,” Dox said, holding up a d6. “Mom said if I ever bought something, make sure I can actually use it for something. That, and they had this awesome galaxy design to them.”

“Huh, I’ve got one like it right here,” Alex said, holding out his hand, only to stop when he remembered rolling it. “Where did it go,” He muttered, looking left and right until he finally spotted it wedged between two pieces of granite. He walked over to it and, after picking the die up, showed it to Dox.

“Yeah, that’s a duplicate of this red one,” Dox said. “It’s actually connected. That’s how I was talking to you before you summoned me. I can hear things through it…. It’s just that, I lost the others to Celestia. Since then, my connection to the tokens has gotten weaker. So yeah, sorry for yelling at you.”

“At least you had your full set of equipment earlier,” Alex said, holding up the Kanohi Volitak, “While I was given just the Kanohi Volitak by the Merchant, apparently all of the Kanohi have been scattered across Eques. So far, I’ve found the Elda, which’ll be a blessing and a curse for finding the rest, but the rest are going to be troublesome to find.”

“Well, I might be able to help,” Dox said, “But I have one question first. Those words… are you talking about-” He was interrupted by his d6 glowing. Then, he started acting crazy and talked to it. “What do you mean?..... I understand. Hey, new question before I ask the first one. Can I see the token real quick?” Alex was unsure what he meant by ‘token’, but gave him the die he had found, anyways. “Thanks. Okay, big guy, I have it. Now, what did you want from me?”

That was all Alex heard before everything went black.

Alex looked around in confusion, unsure of where he was.

“Wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve been here,” Dox said. “Oh hey, big guy! How’s it going?” Alex looked in the direction of the voice, only to see Dox facing a giant being cloaked in a black robe, concealing all of his face except two gleaming spots where his eyes would be.

“What’s going on here?!” He asked, slapping the Kanohi Volitak on without hesitation. He felt that familiar energy course through him and, once the transformation was complete, drew the Aqua Blaster Blade, pointing it at the two.

“Dude, calm down,” Dox said, “You REALLY don’t want to piss that guy off. Trust me, an immortal being with his power can kinda screw you over.”

I don’t care, he amuses me, the large being said, I find it funny for a being like him to try and take a stance against me. Don’t worry, little man, I won’t harm you.

“And I should trust you because…” Alex said, his voice trailing off as he looked between the two. “On that note, who are you?” He asked.

I am everything, the being said, I am the Dungeon Master, the energy that controls everything. Right now, you’re in the void. It’s the only other place I can reside, besides my own realm. If we weren’t here, your world would have been destroyed, along with all of reality. I’m honestly glad you’re helping my champion. Just be careful, and good luck.

“Wait, what’s that supposed to mean?” Dox said.

Just call meif you need me Dox.

HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, CREATURE OF THE VOID!! A familiar voice interrupted, and the three looked up, Alex gaping slightly at the sight. Coming out of a rip in the sky, descended Mata Nui (Or at least, what he assumed was Mata Nui) in his Titan form, the gargantuan robotic form rocketing towards the ‘DM’. If you think you can corrupt my champion of realms, Mata Nui said as he came level to the DM, You’ve got another thing coming!

Oh calm down, young god, the DM said, I have no intention of corrupting your champion. I was merely saying hello to him and mychampion. Now, calm down before something breaks in that giant machine of yours.

If you say so… Mata Nui says, before a bright light surrounds the robotic form before dissipating, leaving Mata Nui in his Bara Magna form and half the height of the DM.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, the DM said, I have to send these two back. Good bye kiddos!

And with that, everything went black again.

Alex blinked in confusion as he arrived back where he had stood. “Did I really just see Mata Nui about to put the beat-down on someone in his Magna Bomonga form?” He wondered aloud, still trying to comprehend what had just happened.

“Looked more like his Titan form to me,” Dox said. “Well, either way, ya can’t really kill the big guy, nor harm him…. He’s kind of an invincible over-god of all reality. I mean, he doesn’t really do much, but at the same time, he does. Kinda sucks the Fell Shadow is cutting him off from his powers. Freaking DM essence for blood…..”

“Great, so this ‘Fell Shadow’ is basically the DM’s version of Teridax?” Alex said.

“Well, kinda,” Dox said, “He got the ‘blood’ sample from me…. and it used to be Tirek. By the way, you see that douche try and steal magic, kill him. Or detain him forever. I mean, I destroyed his body, pretty much. Yet somehow, his soul escaped the plane of Hell. I mean, it’s no Tartarus, but Hell is Hell.”

“If he’s as bad as you say he is,” Alex said, images of a Teridax wearing an amplified Avsa passing through his mind, “I’ll just end up sending him into the Shadow Zone. He can’t escape there without the help of an Olmak or a Kahgarak, so he’ll most likely spend the rest of eternity fighting off the Zivon. Besides, since I’m technically a Toa, that means I can’t kill anything that’s sentient.”

“Ah, okay then,” Dox said. “Well, that means you’re obviously a good guy of sorts. Oh! That reminds me. Do you know where the mask of shadows is? Or maybe the mask of time?”

“Unfortunately, no, though they’re S-Rank on my list of Kanohi to find before any pony puts them on,” Alex answered.

“Good,” Dox said, “Although you might want to make them both Z-Rank. The multiverse does NOT want another Teridax running around. Found his token a while ago, vanished a few minutes later. I think he might be dead.”

If Alex was drinking when Dox said that, he would’ve most certainly had done a spit-take. “Teridax?!” Alex sputtered. Grabbing Dox by his shoulders, he fervently asked the man, “Are you sure he’s dead? Are you absolutely sure he’s dead?!”

“Listen buddy,” Dox started, “I don’t have a freaking clue if he’s alive or not. I didn’t bother to summon him, nor would I ever. Teridax was an amazing villain, yeah, but I’m not bringing him to my world. Not in a million years. Plus, his token just kind of vanished, so I won’t ever know. Just try and keep the mask away from people, or ponies in this case. Never put it on, and if you can without harming the world, DESTROY IT.”

“While I don’t think it’s best if I destroy it, I’m sure as heck keeping any and all Kanohi out of any pony’s hooves, because the Kanohi can’t be turned off once a pony puts them on, or even controlled,” Alex said, “So if the Vahi’s put on, you can kiss the time continuum goodbye.”

“Do you know what’d happen if a Displaced put one on?” Dox asked.

“As far as I can tell, they should be alright, provided they’re human,” Alex replied, “It’s mainly because the ponies’ cutie marks demand a constant supply of energy that the Kanohi will use that as a power source. And I don’t want to find out if that’s only for one universe.”

“Well, do you have a mask I could try?” Dox asked. “I mean, I’m not actually a human, I’m a changeling, but it should work. So, you got one?” A static noise started emanating from Dox right then. “One second.” Dox pulled out an iPhone and started messing with it. “Come on, again?” Alex could see the d6 sticking to the back of the phone. “I’m sorry, this happens. Or at least, it has recently. Happened in the middle of a meeting with Celestia, then she grabbed my arm when I went to check it out. Then, that fell shadow started chasing me, so I ran out of there. I don’t know why, it just does it. I think it’s the DM trying to call me, or at least that’s what it said. And then there was what he said to me, ‘Just call me?’”

“Perhaps,” Alex said, “Or maybe it’s meant to be some form of divine intervention?”

“I don’t know,” Dox said, “So, about that mask.”

“I’ve actually got two,” Alex said, holding up the Elda and…

“Whoops, forgot to take off the Volitak,” he noted, and pulled off the Kanohi on his face, his body transforming back to his human state. “Before I offer them up,” Alex said, holding up a Kanohi in each hand, “I have to ask: How comfortable are you with Rule 63?”

“Absolutely fine, why?” Dox asked. A small grin grew on Alex’s face at this answer.

“In that case, why don’t you try the Elda first? It should be less affecting the Volitak,” He said, holding out said Kanohi for Dox to take. When he put it on, he immediately transformed from a fleshy elf-looking guy, into the female Toa Inika of Water.

“Whoa!” Dox screamed. “What the heck?! Dude, not cool!”

“Now, you realize how I feel every time I change into her,” Alex said, snickering slightly at the now-female Dox, “The curse of the Gender-Swap is upon you!”

“Ha!” Dox said, “That’s what you think! Guess who’s a technomancer!” Dox then reached his hand onto the mask he was wearing. A weird pattern, reminiscent of a circuit board appeared on the mask before there was a flash of light. When Alex could see clearly again, there was a normal Dox standing in front of him, still wearing the Elda and flipping him the bird. “HAHA! TAKE THAT!”

“I hate you…” Alex said with no venom to his voice as he glared at the once-in-a-timeline male Toa of Water. However, the glare faded away as he looked at Dox’s hand with intrigue. “However, how did you do that? It looked like how I use my elemental attacks.”

“Well, it’s magic,” Dox said, “Let me run you through technomancer 101. Technomancers channel magic through objects to manipulate, control, and upgrade. It’s just how we use magic. Fun thing is, it works really well with machines. Technically, a toa is a machine, and so is this mask….. technically. So, it was easy to-” Dox was cut off as he fell to his knees and clutched his head. “Holy crap. Bad headache. REALLY BAD HEADACHE! And what is this glowing object in the distance?!” Dox looked up at Alex. “WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?!”

“That… is the power of the Elda,” Alex tentatively said, “When the mask detects nearby hidden items or beings, or spiritual beings, it should-”

“The crap!” Dox screamed, “It looks like a mask! It’s in some kind of forest. WHY DOES IT HAVE TO HURT?!”

“I don’t know!” Alex said, “It should only be causing a headache when-” Alex’s eyes widened as he realized what that could mean. Walking over to the writhing changeling, he put his hands on the mask. “I’m going to take this off in three, alright?”

“IT’S….IT’S…. IT’S…..” Dox said, clutching his head. “IG…. NI…. KAAAA!....” Deciding to skip the countdown, Alex grabbed the Elda and yanked it off, a blue aura dissipating around Dox as he did so. Dox then fell onto his face, exhausted.

“You alright?” Alex said as he helped Dox to his feet.

“I saw something,” Dox said, “It started with just something in the distance… Then, the headache got worse. I saw a blurry image, and as the headache got worse, the image got better. I saw it! The Kanohi Ignika! It’s in a forest somewhere! I don’t know where though, but it seemed farther off.”

Alex looked at Dox, then at the Elda, wondering how Dox detected the Ignika in five minutes when he had it on for an hour without detecting it. Putting on the Elda, he transformed into the Toa Inika of Water. Once the transformation ended, he activated the Kanohi, trying to figure out how far away the Ignika was. Sure enough, as soon as he triggered it, he felt an extremely small headache, but nothing on par with Dox’s episode.

“Looks like you can’t use the Kanohi either, as given,” Alex said as he deactivated the Elda.

“That would make sense,” Dox said, “Considering my conditions. Freaking rainbow ‘blood’. First making Tirek a fell shadow, now this! Sure, I heal faster, but I can’t do something cool. Fun thing was, I didn’t even try to use the mask!”

“That’s the same thing that’ll happen to any pony who uses it,” Alex said as he raised his hand to take the Elda off, but stopped as he detected… something to the far right of him. “I’m picking up something!” He said, walking in the direction of the signal.

“That’s the direction I detected something first,” Dox said, “Then, it kinda shut off. Then, the freaking headaches and the vision.”

“Considering that the Ignika has priorities for any Elda user, I’m not surprised,” Alex said, walking to the edge of the river. He paused only for a minute to pick up the Levahk unit, then turned to Dox. “You coming or not?” Alex asked.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dox said, jogging to catch up, “Don’t get your undies in a bunch. By the way, what’s up with the Bohrok?”

“A swarm of them attacked me shortly after I had grabbed the Elda, and I ended up fighting them off,” Alex said, shifting the weight of the currently spherical Bohrok on his back, “Luckily, none of the Krana got on any of the ponies, and I grabbed the Levahk unit shortly before I jumped in the river. I’ll need the acid-spewing shields for when I’m human, since I don’t have any powers of my own.”

“Yeah,” Dox said, “You also may want to look out for the queens. Holy crap, those guys are gonna be tough. Imagine if they took over a town full of ponies. The poor things….”

“To be more honest, I’m more worried of why they’re in Equestria in the first place. Mata Nui said that only the Kanohi were sent over, and no other rifts were opened. So, the big question is: How did they pass through dimensions?”

“Well, I heard things leak,” Dox said, “Apparently, things from whatever universe the item you bought from the Merchant is, starts leaking into Equestria. I mean, it also applies to the Power Lottery guys, but they’re still another story, kinda…. Anyways, things from Bionicle are gonna leak in man. I’m just lucky things from D&D haven’t started leaking in to my universe… Actually, there was that fell shadow… and me…. and that void dragon… Okay, maybe my universe sucks.”

“Well, at least it hasn’t been a tarrasque,” Alex joked, “However, if things from Bionicle are passing over, that’ll mean I’ll have to face Tarakava and Visorak... and Mana Crabs… Oh, joy,” He noted, grimacing at the end of the statement.

“Let’s not forget Crystal Climbers,” Dox said, “Or Frost Beetles, or maybe even an Archives Beast! That’d be interesting! Oh! Maybe even a Matoran or two!”

“Archives Beasts are at least non-hostile, provided that you don’t harm them or force them to leave,” Alex shot back, “Though I shudder to think what would happen if a Matoran was captured. That one ‘Twilight’ pony looked like she wanted to dissect me when I transformed into a Toa, but I, at least, can fight back with my element.”

“I’d be more afraid of a Frost Beetle,” Dox said, “Do you KNOW what they eat?! Freaking memory crystals, that’s what! They’re smart as hell!”

“Visorak are worse,” Alex quipped back, “Their venom is just as potent as energized Protodermis, except it mutates your mind as well as your body. That’s not including each separate ability the various types have!”

“Good point,” Dox said.

“...Did we really just degrade ourselves to an argument of which Rahi was worse to meet?” Alex said after a few minutes of silence, lifting himself over a fallen tree as he did so.

“Yep,” Dox said, jumping the same tree, “Actually, you know about the weird fusions? Maybe a Frost Beetle Visorak fusion would be the worst. Smart, mutated, and dangerous as hell.”

“If we’re going that angle, I’d say the worst fusion to fight would be a Oohnorak and a Gate Guardian. All the dangers of a regular Visorak and is as smart as a Frost Beetle with the ‘bonus’ of telepathy, but you can’t see the real one without submerging it or dousing it in something,” Alex quipped.

“Maybe a Frost Beetle, Visorak, Gate Guardian combo?” Dox suggested, “I mean, then you’d be fighting a super smart being that has the danger of a Visorak. It’s probably be HUGE, too, with the abilities of the Gate Guardian….. Actually, screw the Visorak, Zivon. Zivon Frost Beetle Gate Guardian. Definitely, the worst thing ever.”

“Fader Bull, Tahtorak, and Doom Viper,” Alex said with a note of finality, “Is big as a city block, can teleport without anyone noticing, and if its size doesn’t kill you, its ‘breath of death’ will.”

“Okay,” Dox said. “Add in my fusion and we have the ultimate Rahi of- WHOA!” Dox tripped and fell on his face. “Who put that there?!”

“Dunno,” Alex said, looking back at Dox. He didn’t see anything that Dox could’ve tripped over…

A sharp sudden buzz filled Alex’s head, and he turned towards the direction of the buzzing. “We’ve got incoming!” He shouted, drawing his ‘Conduit Cannon’ with one hand while setting down the Levahk. A couple of boulders came flying in, only to be destroyed by Alex with a volley of electrically charged streams of water.

While he was dealing with that, Dox sneaked over to the Levahk. He raised his hand and brought it down with a loud *clang* noise. Then, the Levahk was enveloped in the circuit board pattern before it started shifting its shape.

Right as Alex was about to shoot another boulder, a large, mechanical fist smashed it out of the air. Alex looked to the left, and saw Dox sitting comfortably in a Boxor unit, a sword attached to the right arm of the vehicle.

“A Boxor unit?” Alex wondered, then gave a deadpan look to Dox. “Considering that you most likely used the Levahk unit I’ve been hauling for the last five miles as the building pieces, please tell me you at least left the shields intact,” He said with a hint of aggression.

“On the back, buddy,” Dox said, turning the mech around. “Feel free to remove them before this thing gets damaged.” A loud roar drew the two away from their conversation, only to see a black-and-brown blur land in front of them, sending dust flying everywhere. When the dust cleared, the duo looked at the center, only to see a Spiny Stone Ape glaring at them. However, unlike its usual brown self, this one had several pieces of metal be completely black, and the eyes were a sickly urine color. The reason for this was soon apparent as a Shadow Leech attached to the Rahi was seen sticking out of the shoulder.

“Nope,” Alex said, slowly backing away as the Spiny Stone Ape drew its arm back, “NopenopeNOPE SOOO MUCH NOPE!” As the Ape let out a roar and swung its fist, Alex turned towards the direction of the object he had been detecting earlier and began running, continually stating, “Nope,” over and over again.

“Pansy!” Dox yelled at him. He turned back to the Ape before shouting, “BRING IT ON!”

The Spiny Stone Ape did bring it on, colliding its fists with Dox’s Mech’s fists. Dox even got in a few slices and stabs with the flamberge he had connected to the Boxor. That is, until the Spiny Stone Ape did something odd. It started laughing like a madman before grabbing the sword off the mech, taking the right arm with it. It then brought the sword down on Dox, slicing off his right arm. Dox screamed out in pain before magically setting the Boxor to a weird auto-pilot, taking the shields, and running off, bleeding profusely all the way.

“Holy crap, man!” Alex said as Dox drew to his side, carrying the shields in his one remaining arm, “What the hell happened?”

“Freaking ape did this!” Dox screamed, dumping the shields in front of Alex before clutching his rainbow spouting wound. The rainbows instantly disappeared when they hit the ground.

“Just for the record, I’d like to point out that this is why I fear Spiny Stone Apes, considering that even Visorak consider them a threat,” Alex said absentmindedly, then turned forwards. “C’mon, we’re almost at the object’s location!” He shouted, running faster as they neared their destination.

“Yeah, yeah, the object,” Dox said, “Since when is a Spiny Stone Ape THAT F%&#ING SMART?! It ripped off the Boxor’s arm and then used my sword to slice off my arm! MY ARM, MAN!” At this last statement, Alex felt his heartlight stop for a second.

“They shouldn’t be,” He said gravely. His mind was drawn elsewhere, though, as the two burst out of the woods and into a grove. There, hovering above a stump, was a Kanohi that Alex hadn’t seen before. With its four points at the top and its teal coloring, Alex was certain that it wasn’t any Kanohi released to the public. However, he was soon distracted as he heard a growl, and noticed several wolves that were made of wood standing in front of it protectively, as though the mask was their young.

“They’re mine,” Dox said. He pulled out another sword from his sleeve, surprising Alex, before charging at them and slashing them to bits. The bits in turn lit with a blue fire that seemed to be the same color as the edge of the sword’s blade, burning until nothing was left. Dox then muttered, “So, that’s what happened to that ingot. Aetherium.”

“Thanks,” Alex said, nodding to Dox, only to turn around as a roar shook the forest. Running over to the mask, he pulled off the Elda, turning back to his human form, before grabbing the unknown new mask. Please don’t be the Mask of Undeath, He thought as he put the mask on. Once again, he felt the energy course through him, before dissipating once the transformation was complete. Looking down, Alex saw that his body (Which, luckily, was male this time) looked somewhat akin to that of the Toa Metru, with thin arms and broad shoulders. However, it was an odd mixture of green and blue, with the upper legs and chest being blue. The colors reminded him of some Element, but he couldn’t put his finger on what…

“Hey!” Dox screamed at Alex. “I kinda need your attention here, not on whatever it’s on!” Alex looked back at Dox, his ponderings going to the back of his mind, when a loud roar shook the woods. The two looked in the direction of the roar, when the Spiny Stone Ape burst from the copse, sending a rock flying at the two of them. “Damn it!” Dox yelled, running into Alex and throwing the both of them out of the way of the incoming boulder.

Alex lifted himself off of the ground and looked at the Ape, before his eyes flickered over to the Shadow Leech embedded in its shoulder. “We need to get that Leech off the Ape!” He said, pointing out said leech with his right hand.

“On it!” Dox yelled as he charged at the Ape, only to get smacked back into a tree. “DAMN IT! Wishing I had my arm right now!” Alex instinctively reached to his side, only to pull out what could be best described as an axe blade with a handle rather than a pole, a chain running from the end of the handle to what Alex assumed was something attached to his back. However, his mind drew back to the battle as the Ape stood over Dox.

“Get off of him, you damn dirty ape!” Alex said, swinging his arm sideways while letting the blade fly. The blade flew fifteen feet to the side before the chain snapped taught, and the blade arced forwards, ripping the Shadow Leech right off of the Ape……

And right onto Dox. A few seconds later, a large shadowy figure emerged from the leech, taking on the visage of a centaur.

“Finally,” the shadow said, “Now, your body is mine. Equestria shall bow down or be destroyed. All of the magic in the universe is MINE!”

“Not exactly,” Dox said, ripping the leech off his face. “No, I’m still here. I’m bleeding, but fine.” Dox then took out his sword again before continuing. “NOW GO AWAY, YOU JACKASS! HIT STREAM AD FINEM!” With that, a wave of energy came flying out of Dox’s sword, missing the shadow and opening a portal behind it. The portal sucked the shadow in forcefully, causing the shadow to let out a deathly screech as it was sucked in and disappeared. “Wow, I was just shooting the breeze, didn’t actually think it’d work.”

The stone ape, meanwhile, whose color was quickly returning to normal, looked around in confusion for a few seconds before letting out a grunt, then turned around and went into the woods, with mountains deep in the distance it was heading. “I guess that’s the end of that,” Alex said as he looked at Dox, who was still bleeding profusely.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Dox said. “Now, DO YOU MIND DOING SOMETHING TO HEAL ME?!”

“I don’t know if I can!” Alex said, grabbing his armless shoulder for emphasis, “As far as I know, there’s only one Kanohi that can heal you, and that one is-” He stopped suddenly as he felt his Kanohi lit up and activate, and the two looked at the armless stump. Right before their eyes, the muscle of the gash rapidly repaired itself, skin growing over the socket until all that remained was an armless shoulder, but the injury looked like it had healed over years ago.

“Wow,” Dox said. “I don’t have my arm back, but at least now I’m not bleeding like hell. Thanks.”

“No prob, though this does answer the question as to which Toa this is,” Alex said absentmindedly as he pulled the mask off, reverting to his human form. “So,” Alex said, looking at Dox, “What now?”

“Well, if you don’t need any more from me,” Dox said, “You could send me back. I just need you to say ‘Our contract is complete.’”

“Very well then,” Alex said, and echoed Dox’s words with, “Dox, our contract is complete.”

A portal opened up next to Dox. “That’s my ride,” he said. “Thanks for the help, again. Call me if you need me, and if I ever see your token, I’ll make sure to call you and say hi.” And with that, Dox stepped through the portal and disappeared.

I reappeared in the room with the Organ to the Outside. In the room there were stone ponies, two non-stone pegasi, and a zebra. I noticed that among the stone ponies that were moving about, was Luna, Shining Armor, and Cadence. They all looked happy to see me for a second, before their looks turned to dread.

"Hello everyone," I said. "What'd I miss?"

Everyone in the room started freaking out about my now missing arm, questioning what happened and how. It took me an hour to tell them the tale, and then even longer to tell them about the Bionicle. Man, it took me back.

In all, they were happy that I was alive, and we spent the rest of the day talking.

About an hour before sunset, however, Sergent Halberd showed up.

"Hello Sergent!" I called to her. "How's it going?"

"That's ex-sergent," she said. "I've been discharged. I don't know why, they just said it was an order from the higher ups."

"Wow, that sucks," I said. "Hey, at least your here now."

"Yeah, and I brought a gift," Halberd said, pulling out a small bag and tossing it to me. "And my name's Gallant, Gallant Halberd."

"Many thanks, Gallant," I said. "What's in the bag?"

"Just look," Gallant said.

"Alright," I said. I opened the bag, only to be surprised by what was in it.

Inside the bag.......

Was the d20 necklace.......

Eridium? That Purple Stuff isn't Thaumium?

What the hell.

“How did you get this?” I asked Gallant. “How in the HELL did you get this?!”

“I snuck into her room while she was taking a nap,” Gallant replied. “Since she hasn’t been right, she’s been sleeping more and seeing ponies less.”

“But how did you get it off of her?!” I asked. “Avarice said it was on this necklace, and it was in between her boobs!”

“Well, she takes off everything when she sleeps,” Gallant said simply. “It’s kinda easy to take things at that point. I kinda got caught though. I wasn’t supposed to be on shift there, or anywhere near the inside of her room. It’s why I said that I’m a former Sergeant.”

“Well, thank you,” I said, getting up and hugging the ex-guardsmare. “Thank you so much. This is the one die that means a lot. It’s really important.”

“Well, it’s the least I could do,” she said. “I mean, you’re taking me in. So think of it as my way of saying thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, letting go of the mare. “Listen, I have to go search through some stuff, see if I can’t summon someone to help me.”

“You do that,” she said. “I’ll be here with the rest of us.”

“See ya later!” I called out to the mare as I walked away.

I eventually came upon the place where I had stashed all of the Tokens that had appeared. Among them was the Team Rocket coin, the Rupee (which I had yet to use), the Escafil device, and the Runic Portal Matrix. A few new tokens had appeared as well.

“What the hell?!” I said, picking up a comic book. “Power Ponies and DOOM?! And what’s this? Some book…” I shuddered. “Creepy, feels like someone’s watching. But why hasn’t the beacon appeared?”

Just as I said that, I heard a loud BOOM noise. I ran outside of the cave that contained the Tree of Harmony, just in time to see something falling from the moon. It was coming in fast and impacted the ground, causing a crater to form. The crater was littered with little purple rocks, they looked familiar, like I had seen them somewhere before. And hey, right in the center of the crater was the Hyperion Acquisition Beacon, the token I was looking for, looking very pristine despite all the damage in the crater..

“Okay, now to try this,” I said. “Handsome Jack! I need some help if you please. I can offer something in return if you’d respond!”

“Safety Test Code is in effect. System lockout for safety reasons, upon arrival of wilderness environment.” the beacon replied.

“...... WHAT THE HELL?!” I shouted. “What do you mean ‘system lockout’?!”

The beacon only responded with the same line. No matter what I said, it just said the same thing. If I asked nicely, ‘System Lockout’. If I yelled at it, ‘System Lockout’. If I begged and pleaded for Jack to show up on my hands and knees, ‘System Lockout’. I couldn’t get it to work no matter what I did. It’s too bad I couldn’t leave the forest, ‘cause I think that’s what was causing the whole lockout in the first place. Hell, I did try moving it, but the inside didn’t work either. Apparently the whole thing that Celestia did screwed up my chances to call Jack. Then again, I’d say it was, too. I mean, the chamber with the tree kept making noises and dropping dust, and the Organ room had a ton of rubble resting on top of it. I eventually brought it back out to the crater to enact my last plan.

“WORK DAMN YOU!” I yelled as I started beating the beacon with one of the purple rocks. The rock felt of energy and pain, kind of fun to hold, but also HORRIBLE. “WORK!” I yelled one more time before the rock cracked against the beacon.

Next thing I knew, there was a flash, and I wasn’t in ‘Kansas’ anymore.

Meanwhile, in another universe:

Jack was grumbling and giving the F.A.U.S.T. walking calmly along beside him a sidelong look even in his early morning start with a just as sleepy Princess Glitterstone holding a giggling baby Pandora. Whom somehow took the edge off his irritation for a short time until reaching the kitchen, crystals fucking everywhere with these ponies and how the light always reflects off them easily!

Upon entry the only thing to receive was a cup of nice warm zebracan coffee, it’s nice they weren’t just known for their tea anymore. Might have been the longing taste for his FIRST coffee in so long, which happened to be just ruined by a flash of purple light and his hand on near instinct by this point drawing his Nemesis Pistol leveling it at the poor fucker who’s decided to ruin HIS FUCKING COFFEE! “Purple spark I swear if this is you again, I’ll ram this gun up your alicorn asshole!”

“WHOA WHOA WHOA! I’m not Purple spark! I’m Dox!” I said, holding up my arm in defence. “I only wanted some help!”

I then turned to look at the pony next to Jack, the first thing I saw was a Hyperion Yellow Business suit. It fit her like a latex body suit and showed off all her curves. Noticeable heeled hoof shoes….. which had ‘stockings’? I gazed up higher, only noticing a smooth robotic finger pointing further up as if ‘knowing’ where I was looking. That reached a buttoned skirt that could go from conservative business to sexy hip show which covered her hips and a buttoned suit jacket barely covering her bust that only a mother next door would have, with a small silver and gold H badge on her vest under her suit jacket. I kept looking up until I saw a jaw dropping fair white, smooth, beautiful face with plush looking lips, her sharp beautiful teal glowing eyes could be seen as a mane like red cables and tail were noticeable by her sway and walk when it would cover one eye normally.

Holy crap, whoever was with Jack was HOT!

“Hello there, miss,” I said to the female, now ignoring Jack pointing his gun at my forehead with a cocked hammer. “Is it hot in here, or is it just you?”

She gave an amused look before leaning closer speaking in a voice that made her casual talk the prime example of audio erotica by that voice. “Thou do seem to attract the attention of many a strange stallion, displaced or not our Handsome Jack. But at least he seems to have the balls to openly compliment a mare while being a trigger from death.” she smiled giving a calming gesture that could easily be seen saying ‘Are you fucking kidding me’ as he directed it at the beauty.

“Faust, you know that shit happens always when I am around. Just glad he isn’t causing trouble yet like a couple of twin brats..” Seeming to completely disregard me as he put the gun down, finally taking a sip of his first coffee, only to give out a pleasure inducing sigh that this Faust clearly smiled at, even making a note for more?

“So, um, anyways,” I said. “About that help.”

Both of them looked back at me, Jack giving a shrug gesturing to the Diner Table with a crystal pony holding a filly in her arms took the head seat, while Jack and now named faust sat closest to them. “You might as well join us since you crashed my sacred coffee moment and ruined it…” Jack said giving me a death glare that was subdued by him drinking more as he perked with it drunk.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” I said, taking a seat on the opposite side of the table. “Anyways, if you can’t tell, I’m kinda missing something…. I want to know if you could help me by replacing it.”

Lifting an eyebrow as Jack looked me over, looking confident only to say these words out with a mock jovial tone. “And here I thought you were making some type of fashion statement, because fashion ponies can be a bit crazy.” Only to look serious at the end of that statement.

“Dick,” I said in response. “I don’t care about fashion. It’s overrated… And I’m also wondering while we’re on the subject of my arm, if we could fix my hoodie and shirt, too.”

Giving me another look saying this calmly while pointing at the hoty named Faust while not taking his eyes off mine. “Well how would you be paying for all that? Because we’re under some problems here regarding ‘vault hunters’.” He paused making literal quotes with his fingers, as if he wasn’t sure of it himself.

“Vault hunters?” I asked sarcastically. “Don’t you have a train leading out to the middle of nowhere for that? Or how about calling out the warrior? Oh wait, both of those failed on the same damn people. And one of those guys was a freaking Psycho! How did you screw up that badly? I mean, you may be displaced, but the real Jack killed freaking Roland! You can do better than him! MUCH BETTER! If you want me to help with that, though, I need the arm first.”

Well, my little speech had an effect on him….. It just wasn’t what I wanted it to be, ‘cause Jack pulled out his gun again and put it to my forehead. Firing literally just above my head before bringing it down just a bit, as the two crystals and the servants in the room stopped to look at us. “I am NOT him. I considered myself the good guy, and helped bring the old pony empire in the old country into a golden age, until the Chaos Wars which killed many a unicorn and draconequus. My tech and Faust’s power alone assured the pony tribes a continued existence while Discord was rather accepted because young as he and us were didn’t side with his species.” He took a moment to drink some more of his coffee.

“Though Faust here, as you will see, is very much alive because of me bastardizing life and science. After that, for awhile I helped the tribes rebuild, my two other buddies, Celestia and Luna, worked to reunite them under their rule, which by that point I left with Discord to try and find any more of his species, namely any family. I hate winter because of that..” Looking into his cup before drawing another drink to continue. “I helped the Crystal Ponies get out of their isolationist ways, founded the Hyperion Headquarters in what is today known as the ‘Badlands’. Funny enough it was once called Filli-Glade, I wanted it as ‘New Eden’ but my workers took a vote. But after awhile I left to go on a world tour to try and get my head straightened out, had good times but mostly bad. Been enslaved in a Minotaur gladiator pit in their capital?” He took this moment to pause for me to possibly respond.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know…. The worst I’ve had is Celestia trying to kill me with freaking solar blasts. Or a giant Tirek trying to kill me. Or better yet, a Tirek who’s now a freaking fell shadow! No, scratch that, fell eclipse. He has the powers of a freaking Demon Lord and a fucking ghost!”

Giving me a look he snorted before looking at faust again to say this. “I think the bitch was going easy on him, she used the full might of the sun down on our heads when the shield was up all those years ago and still got through. But that’s how i got my ‘lovely’ new complexion all thanks to that fucking siren lilith, just like in the prequel sequel..” Giving a clear deadpan while mentioning lilith.

“Did I forget to mention a giant dragon?” I said. “A void dragon, for that matter. Ever find one of those? Or better yet, have you ever felt the sensation of dying? I’m not joking, I’ve been killed before. Last time, Celestia petrified me and then smashed me with a FUCKING WAR HAMMER!”

“I have a few responses to that, Badass Loaders with explosive ordinance does wonders to tearing up the softer insides. If the shells don’t get through, no matter the type, one of the rounds always works. Literally need only three to take on an adult, also a little think called a ‘new you’ station feels like being brought back by defibrillator paddles, all over.” He seemed to have experience with that bit.

“So apparently you do,” I said. “What about being eaten? Actually, don’t answer that. As much as I’d like to compare my horrible life with yours, I’d rather not. Can I just say that I’m sorry, and we can get to what we’re going to inevitably agree to so I can get a new arm?... and maybe some jet boots?”

He made another gesture to Faust before speaking again. “So how will you pay for that? Because transactions happen for a reason. Hyperion is a company, and right now we’re overhauling the Crystal Empire to modern/golden age levels.” Waving a now empty coffee cup only for it to be refilled by a crystal pitcher that he looked at it with a twitch of an eyebrow seeing the two crystal ponies at the head of the table giggling and looking adorably cute of a mother and daughter at Jack’s reaction.

“Well, the least I can do is offer my services,” I said. “I could also help out with some tech, maybe. Or maybe even these vials.” I pulled out the vials, only to see the all rainbows that were once held inside had gone grey… Well, all but the distilled ones, but like hell I’d give those up. “What the hell? These aren’t supposed to be this color. They’re supposed to be different, full of power. What happened to them?! Wait!” I quickly pulled out the d6 and the d20. The d6 had turned grey, just like the vials. The d20, however, was just a slightly lighter shade of red. “What the hell is up with these things? Big guy, I’d like some answers!”

Jack looked at my response or what look had crossed my face when he refilled his cup once more, also having apparently got a bacon grilled breakfast with eggs and toast. “Got performance issues or something? Because those brats’ draconequus was ‘bug’ on faust’s scan of chaos power reading. Though, if you have the ultimate alicorn amazon warrior queen on your side, you don’t get phased by much or scared. Or it is simply because I trust her to have my back.” At that point a slithering misty shadow entered the room and formed a pure black alicorn wearing a simple nightie pressing herself against the back of jack’s current chair nuzzling him. “Also if you have THE nightmare incarnate using you as a snuggle pillow, that makes anything else just a cough…”

“What happened to the DM?” I said aloud, shaking the dice in my hand. “Come on, big guy. I need a little help here!”

Jack simply shrugged while Faust extended a hand out to me. “Let us give them a bit of a boost, likely there is some form of interference.” Soon enough taking said dice, pouring what looked to be a tiny bit of chaos magic into them, likely NOT to have any strange reactions or changes.

“And that’s supposed to help how?” I said. A few seconds after that, the d20 started glowing brightly again. Huh, it worked….

What the hell is going on over there?! Where did you go, Dox? I can’t see into the universe you’re in! For some reason, that section of the void is warded off. Who’s over there?!

“Uh, I don’t know who did that,” Dox said. “Glad to hear you again, though. And hey, rainbows are back!”

F.A.U.S.T. merely smiled, as if having heard the conversation, and in her erotic tone spoke up. “It is rather interesting to hear a being of ‘your’ caliber being unable to accomplish something like that, because I think last we spoke you were curious about a custom character for a future champion?” She started giving me a wink that may or may not have given me a blush.

Oh great, so that’s why it’s warded. You’re in hersector. Hello you cold hearted metal bitch. Hows your corrupted ass world doing?

Her eyes narrowed dangerously at the D20, turning a shade chaotic for a brief moment as if giving a slap. “Thou doesn’t direct crude words towards as lovely maiden as us, for it only lowers thou character of honor.” Giving Jack a loving nuzzle that he didn’t shrug off, only to look confused at himself muttering about being into human women and not other species rather weakly an argument.

Listen, I don’t care why he’s there, I want him back. NOW. I don’t want him leaving that world with your corruption. I want that ‘Architect of Corruption’ to stay as far away from him as possible. They’re not to touch him. If it does, so help me I will come over there. And I mean physically come over there. I don’t care if it destroys everything, that thingis to stay where it is. Sending Tirek was my test, and he’s-

“HOLD UP A GOD DAMNED SECOND!” I screamed. “YOU sent Tirek at me?! Do you even KNOW what became of that dick?! He’s the one who’s restraining you now! And it’s all because you sent him to Hell! You fucking JACKASS! Do you know what you’ve caused now?!”

I will admit, it was a mistake. I didn’t foresee him becoming what he is now. I apologize for that, Dox. I would change the past if I could-

F.A.U.S.T. coughed lightly at the mention of that, earning a look from Jack while she continued. “The ‘all powerful’ DM cannot simply roll for an event of that nature to happen? It is rather unbelievable as it has been done before.” Stating a bit with pride, only for Jack to facepalm, motioning her closer as I for the first time saw a spike in Jack before she suppress whatever it was with a solution from a needle that looked like a sedative.

How dareyou question me! I am not some puny god, and I will be-

“Is he okay?” I interrupted, more interested in Jack than my ‘boss’.

Sighing F.A.U.S.T. took the lead when Jack motioned towards me as he was recovering, looking to be regaining some color in the process. “Our Jack, long ago in the former headquarters for Hyperion was weathering the assault by the princesses. Having evacuated personnel to form line ques to escape while he maintained the barrier, which was until Celestia used the full might of the sun in a solar strike to cleave through the shield and MELT those whom survived the shock only for the flash heat to turn them into dry boiled meat puddles, even foals. But around that time a Vault Hunter by the name ‘Lilith’ or ‘that fucking bitch, she punched me’ destroyed a purified Eridium artifact that Jack had been painstakingly with high risks to his own life accomplished only to have it smashed in his face as it would have provided him a ascended status to have immortal genes merged into his system only for it to be interrupted.” She only stopped seeing Jack just stare at the table in a twitch of horror, now plastered across the once boisterous face of Handsome Jack.

“Holy crap,” I said. “I’m sorry I ever said anything bad about him now. Ya know what, I’ll help you out with the Vault Hunters, I just need an arm first.”

The silence was permeable, until Jack quietly mumbled something I couldn’t hear. As only to be given a smile in return from F.A.U.S.T. responding as to what was said. “He has agreed to thou terms, though he has stated that the brand would be for one of our model’s arms be used as the proper payment for services to be rendered.” She made a show of having me see it’s quality was like a work of sex and art mixed together.

“The brand?” I said. “Well, duh. As far as I can tell, Hyperion is the only company that makes GOOD arms. I mean, seriously, how hard is it to make an arm? Apparently only you guys got it right.”

That got Jack to weakly laugh giving a quip. “Well none of those limp bastards are like yours truly, though i’ll have to perform the cybernetic surgery on you to than attach it.” Giving me what seems like a warning of what’s needed to be done for this.

“That mean I’ll have to get that special eye like Rhys had?” I asked.

Quirking an eyebrow before a ghost of a smile appeared, lifting his head finally. “Well here I thought you wanted to go all ‘space marine’ on me with gene seed on your fucking mug, but I guess one good eye will have to do.” It may have been more of a joking tone, given about all that he’ll do.

“Just leave my green eye, if ya can,” I said.

Nodding at that before jack gave the two crystal ponies who were now hugging him in tears as he mouthed towards me their names. ‘Princess Glitterstone and her daughter Pandora, I’m legally her ‘adopted uncle’ by royal decree since a couple days ago.’

After saying hi and everything to the girls, I was led off by F.A.U.S.T., who disappeared at one point. Next thing I knew, however, I got a sharp pain in my back and saw a red light. These were my last words before I blacked out:

“Not a-fucking-gain.”

I was woken up by a slap to the face.

When I opened my eyes, I noticed that I was in a medical ward. So that’s what the bitch did. Drugged me and slipped me in here while I was unconscious. Did she put the arm on yet, or did she want me to-

And that’s the arm waving at me…. Damn it. It’s already attached…. but I can’t really move it. It’s like it has a mind of its own. What the hell? Did they not fully install the damn thing onto me yet? Now it’s doing freaking sign language! What the hell is up with my arm?!

“Are you sure it’s supposed to be acting like that? Because it only started wigging out the moment we finished with attachment, it even broke the restraints.” I could hear Jack talking about my arm to someone, maybe F.A.U.S.T. as it pointed towards the noise.

“Guys,” I said. “What the hell is going on? I’d like to know why my arm is wigging out and why I can’t freaking CONTROL IT!” The sound of movement drew my attention as jack came into view.

“Well honestly it is the first time doing this on a displaced, so your biology is likely the cause. Or what your ‘big guy’ might be doing, since you are apparently some big ‘champion’.” He said this using air quotes each time to make the point clear.

“Big guy!” I screamed. “Cut it the fuck out!”

Sure, once you leave that cursed universe.

“Up yours, big guy,” I said. “I kinda need my arm to be useful right now, not sentient.” The arm slapped me for that. Right in the nads…. WHY THE NADS?!

Giving a cough Jack looked to have shared that pain at one time, or just male empathy towards nad hitting. “Well if things are settled I could send you back though do you have a token? Make’s keeping in track to get help rather easier.”

“Yeah, I do,” I said. “If ya see a purple d6 that looks like it has a galaxy in it, that’s mine. Feel free to call me, ‘cause I do owe you for this. I just wish I could give you a better version of it.”

Nodding softly before suddenly the whiplash of being thrown ass first into a portal apparently by F.A.U.S.T. was where she was at in all this, making me give out a manly battle cry.

“GOD DAMN IT!”

I reappeared in the chamber that held the Tree of Harmony….

Sad thing was, I fell on my ass….

…. I was wearing a hospital gown. It hurt a ton.

“DAMN IT!” I screamed. “Why did she have to do that?! And where the hell are my clothes?!” Oh great, the dice are glowing again. “What the hell do you want? I’m still angry with you!”

Just check your ‘magic satchel’. I told F.A.U.S.T. to put everything in it.

“And just HOW do I get into it?” I asked aloud. “I mean, it’s not like it’s some kind of pocket that’s made out of thin air!”

Why is it today just hates me? I mean seriously, the next thing that hit my hand was a freaking ‘pocket’, which I pulled open to reveal the pocket of space time known as a magic satchel….. God damn it. Well, at least my clothes got repaired. Oh hey! There’s an extra set in here, too! Wow, Hyperion is better than I thought…… Wait, what’s up with the second set? Sparkly glove…. Hyperion logo on the hoodie….. Damn it Jack.

To Question the Dungeon Master

The night I came back went by in a flash. It was rather uneventful after all that had happened, kinda helped that the others didn't see me when I got back.

The DM had sent Tirek?! What the hell! I thought something else was going on, but no, it's the DM trying to do something to entertain himself. Douche.

And now I have a robotic arm. Let me mention that I woke up today because it groped me in my sleep. I had a massive boner when I woke up. Seriously, what was up with it?

"DM!" I yelled. "Take the sentience off the arm. NOW!"

Sorry, buddy. No can do.

"And why not?" I asked.

Because I refuse to mess with that. It's from one of the worlds I warded. I am not coming anywhere near things from that world.

"Dick," I said.

I started wandering around the rooms, searching for the girls. I found a stone pony in the entrance to the organ room. After a little bit of investigation, I found that it was Pinkie. She looked so peaceful in her sleep. Then again, so did all of them. I picked up the stone Pinkie and started carrying her further into the room.

I just have to say thank goodness she was asleep, 'cause my robot arm started groping her. Damn it, robot arm! Why must you be horrible?! OH GREAT, now it's signing at me.

"Shut up arm," I said quietly. "Just focus on carrying Pinkie, and not groping things."

The arm just gave me a thumbs up before doing what I asked. Huh, apparently it doesn't just grope things and sign at me. It's better than I thought.

..... And it just flipped me off. Real mature, arm. Real mature.

I carried Pinkie into the center of the room, where the rest of the ponies were, and then I went back to sleep.

When I woke up, I found that all the ponies were looking at me and whispering. Apparently they had waken up just a few minutes ago and seen my new arm.

I heard things like: "Where'd that come from?" and "Oh my gosh! A new arm buddy!". My favorite reaction was from Twilight, who seemed to be having a total nerd freak out about me having a new robotic arm. All you could hear from her was how she had something to study, that there was something new to learn about. I even think I heard her say something about writing a book about it. It was hilarious and cute at the same time.

"Whoa, calm down everyone," I said, getting up. "Now, what's up?"

At that, I heard a collective gasp. Apparently, the arm wasn't all Jack had done, because they were all staring at my face instead of my arm.

"What?" I asked aloud. "What's up with my face?"

"You're eye, deary!" Rarity said. "Something's happened to your eye!"

"My eye?" I asked. It took me a minute, but then I realized what she meant. Jack must have put the implant in my eye. And to think, I was somewhat joking about that. Oh well, an improvement's an improvement. I moved myself into a standing position before continuing. "Listen, I can explain everything that's happened to me. I just need to go take care of something first."

I meant it, too. My arm had started going nuts! It looked like it was going to jump off my body at any second, only to go and start groping people the next. What the hell was wrong with it?

I walked back into the room with the Tree of Harmony and started talking to my arm.

"What's up?" I asked the arm. "Why are you wigging out so much?"

It just signed out that it was something to do with its AI. It then turned over and popped up a holo-screen before playing a video. The video was about how to use the eye implant and how the arm normally works. It didn't really tell me how to fix it, but I didn't really mind. It had an AI, and one that helped. It just liked groping things.

Let's not get started on the eye. It was really cool. I started scanning EVERYTHING. It documented everything with ease. It even knew what everything was. Funny thing is though, it thought the petrified ponies were all just statues of them, but it knew who they all were. Had Jack been able to document a non-anthro world, or was Hyperion just that good?

"Hyperion's just that good, kid," said a pop up hologram of Handsome Jack. It gave me a smile and a thumbs up before disappearing back into the hand. Heh, Jack, always the modest one.

I spent the next few hours just scanning away. Man, I scanned everything. Somehow, I even found something that caused an error. Apparently there was something that the Hyperion database didn't know about. That object was the Runic Portal Matrix. I had to freaking input the data, myself. It wasn't that much fun, but at least I got to sign who discovered it.....

It was through this that I found my Hyperion Data Card. It was as follows:

Name: Dox

Codename: Nerd

Age: ???

Race: White and Nerdy (PALE AS SHIT)

Specification: Nerdy and Annoying. Less annoying than Claptrap, evidenced by the fact that I can actually talk to him without losing brain cells.

Wow. Either Jack liked me, or he didn't. I couldn't tell. Oh well, at least we were on okay enough terms.

The rest of the day was spent explaining to the girls what had happened to me the night before. It took a while to explain what Hyperion was, and what the displaced Jack's version of it was. Hell, it took them a while to be convinced that the displaced one was actually a good guy. They did kinda just shut up when I mentioned F.A.U.S.T., however. Apparently, she was a goddess here, and maybe in most of the other worlds. Probably should ask her about that the next time I see her.

Learning to Fight a Little Dirty

Dox had had a pretty uneventful day after having to explain to everyone why he now had robotic features.

Hell, he even went back to experimenting a bit and messing around.

He named his new arm Righty, and even found out that it could recharge his iPhone. He also found that Righty had taken his headphones in the middle of the night, and got a little pissed about it. But he couldn't stay mad at his own arm.

After about three hours of messing around, a portal opened up and pulled him in.

Meanwhile, in another universe:

Mistress Change had been in equestria for about two weeks now. In that time she had managed to sort enough of her memories to find out she had gained the ability to read minds. Something that Jeff wasn’t aware she could do. This proved to be very useful for learning equestrian, her mind also seemed adept at learning them.

She had formed herself a persona, Morning Glory, a soft yellow unicorn with vibrant yellow hair. She was currently in a small town about three days travel from the chaos capital of the world. A tyrant of god like power currently was responsible for the world being in such a strange state. They had been in this state for over a decade as two mysterious alicorns sisters, led a small resistance group in search of a solution.

“Thank you for the information Logger Joe. I’ll be sure to be careful,” Mistress wandered off from town to the last known location of the sisters.

Galloping through the forest she stopped when a strange object smacked her in the eye. It fell to the ground as she rubbed her now sore eye. Looking it over, she was able to recognize the object as a playing die, like one from Monopoly, but weird. It was purple and looked like it had a galaxy in it. Then she heard something.

This is for anyone who needs help or just wants a friend. Summon the Dungeon Master of Equestria if you’re ever in need.

What the heck? Why did that sound familiar? Wait a second. That was a summoning phrase from one of the fanfictions she had read. What was it again? Some DM in Equestria or something? She remembered reading that she had to roll it to summon the guy, so she did.

A portal opened where the die landed, and out popped a tall, pale guy with a robotic arm, wearing all black. Black hoodie, black jeans, black leather shoes (weird). What was up with this guy and black?

“Whoa,” he said, getting up and dusting himself off.. “Well that’s new. Normally I hear whoever’s gonna summon me first, then I have to tell them to roll the die. They don’t normally just roll it.”

“Hello, I’m Mistress Change, or Morning Glory at the moment,” The small equine looked up at him,” I think i’m displaced although in my world they were fun cheesy fanfics, I remember reading your’s I think, Dox right?”

“Um, yeah,” Dox said. “Hold up, how the hell do you know that? I never told you my name! Do you read minds or something?!”

“Yes but I am being polite and not reading your’s. In my world your story is a fanfiction, similar to how the world of Equestria is known in the show My Little Pony,” She said smugly.

“Wait, what,” Dox said. “Okay, I know My Little Pony is a thing…. But I’m a fanfic?! Am I at least a well written one?! I mean, seriously! I refuse to believe that! I’m a living being! And about that, if I’m a fanfic, doesn’t that make you one, too?!”

“I thought you were really well written, love your story. I really liked your events with Arverice. But yes I am likely a fanfic as well, with the theory of the multiverse, everything is true. Meaning out there our story here is being animated as a movie,”

“WHAT THE HELL?!” Dox screamed. “Ya know what, I’d like to get off this subject. Where the hell are we?”

“We are about a three day hike from the chaos capital of the world, Discord still rules,” She was cut off by Dox.

“We’re on that episode here?” Dox said. “Wow, you’re pretty far back in time. Most of the people I’ve met have been at least past there.”

“Farther back actually, this is the first time Discord took over, Celestia and Luna have yet to ascend to the throne,” Mistress Change pulled out a thin device covered in a white and pink case,"also any chance you can get me infinite battery life on my phone?"

“Whoa!” Dox said. “Look, I barely know you. Last time I checked, I had to spill blood to do that, my blood. Maybe I’ll do it before I leave, but not right now. I can help a bit with the battery, though.” Dox reached over and grabbed the phone with his robotic arm. “Okay Righty, I need you to charge this person’s phone like you did mine.” Mistress Change saw a bit of electricity arc from the arm to the phone before Dox handed it back.

"Yay now i can take pics again, say cheese," she said before quickly snapping a picture of Dox.

“Gah!” Dox said, reacting to the flash. “Yo, next time, turn off the flash!”

Mistress sheepishly grinned, "Right sorry. Jeff, you’re on camera duty."

After fixing the setting she lifted the phone to her mane, which promptly grabbed it before returning to normal.

“Whoa, what’s up with your hair?” Dox asked. “Actually, don’t want to know. I’ve already seen Pinkie pull a party out of literally nowhere, so I don’t want to know. So, what did you summon me for?”

"Well I really wanted to meet you, but while you’re here i could use some help. Need to get the princesses to find the Tree of Harmony, Discord will likely get in the way. In return i will offer my services, anything you need."

“Trust me, I’m not sure you could really offer me much,” Dox said. “Although, if I run into trouble, I could use an extra hand…. er, hoof. Actually, were you always like this? Did Discord do this, or what? Last guy I met had something to do with the Power Lottery, that happen to you, too?”

"No I was humanoid, when I got sent here I got all jumbled. Jeff explained I am a changeling, specifically biomass shifter, not like the locals. Here watch," Mistress closed her eye, slowly her body grew larger, her coat and mane turned a rich blue. Her previously golden mane stretched over her body, forming armor. By the end of the process, she had become an imposing stallion. " See? Now I'm a guard, name of Solar Guard."

“Wow, what the heck,” Dox said. “Ya know, lemme try.” Dox burst into a green flame, when the flame dissipated, a white unicorn with a brown mane stood where he was. “Well, it’s good to know I can still do that.”

"Right, Celestia smashed your old form, right? I really hope mine is more reasonable than most stories make her out to be," Mistress started walking, "Well shall we get moving, need to find the sister's camp."

“Alright, let’s get moving,” Dox said before taking off. “Keep up if you can!”

It took a few hours to find the camp. It would have taken an hour less, but Dox forced the duo to find the Tree of Harmony first. He said something about needing to figure out the relative position from the tree to the camp. Nerd.

“Alright, we’re here,” Dox said, trying to catch his breath. “Wow, *huff* should have gone with a *huff* pegasus. They’re *cough cough* better for exercise. *WHEEZE*”

Mistress fell on the ground next to Dox, a little worse for ware, "Must *puff* mutate better, lungs."

A few moments later she returned to her hooves, "Remember, I am Solar Guard. Also, expect the scouts from the camp found us. Two pegasi left to inform Celestia we are here."

“And you know that, how?” Dox asked.

"Wasn't joking when I said I could read minds. I'm not reading your's because that would be rude" sitting down still recovering from the run they waited for the future princess to arrive."

They didn’t have to wait long, because they showed up a few minutes later. Both of the princesses were wearing full battle armor and had weapons attached to them. Luna had a sword and a scythe was clearly on her back. Celestia also carried a sword, but instead of a scythe, carried a warhammer. Dox cringed a bit upon seeing her.

“Who dares intrude upon our camp?” Celestia said.

"I am Solar Guard, a researcher and warrior. I come to aid you in displacing Discord from his throne," He kneeled before her," I have found a way, with my friend's aid, to seal him in stone. We have found the Tree of Harmony."

The group of paranoid ponies fell dead still. Celestia had a look of horror and confusion. Reading her mind, Mistress realized the mare never considered such an option, "You wish to desecrate one of our greatest legends?"

“It’s not just a legend.” Dox said. “It’s a powerful asset. It can help you so much. If used by the just, it can help you in your quest! We believe that you two are the sisters the legends tell about!”

"What legend? My sister and I are not aware of any legends regarding us. We are simply alicorns bestowed with the power to control the sun and moon," Luna explained, reading her mind Mistress found this to be true, well if one bluffs, bluff big.

“Listen, I may not be able to vouch for my friend, but I can for me,” Dox said. “I will admit to you, I am not of this world.” Dox enveloped himself in a green fire. When it dissipated, he appeared to have changed back. “I am from another world. In that world, you two used these gems in the Tree of Harmony. They’re called the Elements of Harmony. You two were able to harness them and defeat Discord-"

Dox was cut off by a hoof in his mouth preventing him from sharing too much information. " He speaks the truth. Our world is but one of many. I stumbled upon him while wandering the forest. After which he led me to the tree. This magic tablet shows the truth."

A blue aura emanated from his horn, he pulled out his phone flipping to a picture of Dox and him by the tree. Mistress was in a stereotypical tourist pose waving at the camera. Dox was pointing at the tree, like as if it had great significance. He was even trying to point out all of the different gems on the tree.

“Sister, they may be telling the truth, the two marks on the trunk are similar to our cutie marks,” Celestia eyed over the small screen. Mistress visibly relaxed, Celestia was willing to trust them. Luna however eyed the human with distrust, it was almost too convenient for them.

“Fine but what doth thou plan to do in regards to the Tyrant? He will likely already know of this and dispatch creatures to stop us?” Luna leaned in bringing her face lose to Dox’s. Her scythe floating menacingly in her magic.

“I cannot judge that,” Dox said. “But I can help you so that it comes true. As you have noticed, I can change shapes, much like your changelings. The difference between me and them, however, is that I don’t have as many limits. Such as,” Dox was enveloped in a green fire. When the fire dissipated, there stood a female Discord. “I don’t have the species problem. So, I will distract him while you use the elements on him.”

Mistress couldn’t help but snicker at the plan, the strong stallion bringing everyone eyes upon him. Looking back at Dox he asked, “May we call this, ‘Operation Trap’?”

None of the guards or the two princesses understood the joke. Which caused Mistress to fall to his side laughing, one day he would corrupt their minds with the truth of the worlds out there. He looked to Dox hoping the fellow displaced would understand the joke.

“Ya know, I woulda called it ‘Operation Drag’,” Dox said. He started laughing like a madman, unable to even stand.

“Oh I like that one too,” The princesses’ looks of confusion matched their inner thoughts,” But I digress we must hurry, the longer we wait the longer Discord has to prepare.”

The princesses turned to each other and stepped away, Celestia was for the help, although strange it was. Luna on the other hoof didn’t trust them in the least, Discord was capable of anything, creating spies didn’t sound too far fetched.

“Luna I see that look on your face but, this is our best shot. Discord’s reign of chaos is leaving the world in shambles. This must be put to end,” Celestia whispered to her sister.

“I don’t like it, there must be another way,” Luna said.

“We have been looking for a way for the past year, maybe this was destined to happen. Besides it sounds like we will be out of harms way, with Discord distracted our trip should be quiet.”

Luna’s internal war finally ended with the logic of her sister, she however failed to warn anypony that she had one last test for the ponies. Raising her scythe, she swung it at the white stallion’s head. She wouldn’t actually hurt him, but she need to test his nerves.

He didn’t even blink.

“What the heck,” Dox said. “Why’d you do that? We’re already offering to help you! Why do you not trust us, still?” Dox quickly transformed back and pulled up the sleeve on his right arm. “I lost my arm for the better of another Equestria! I had to fight a fell shadow that had gained enough power to be called a fell ECLIPSE! Yet you don’t trust either of us. What is wrong with you?”

“Please excuse our sister. Discord’s rule has taught us to be paranoid. I assume she simply wanted to test Solar Guard’s resolve.” Celestia stepped between her sister and the two. Luna simply nodded at the comment before retracting her scythe. Celestia continued,” Let us begin the operation, ’Drag’ as you called it at once!”

“Yeah!” Dox said. “Okay, Solar, let’s get moving. We need to get there now.” With that, the two started off. A few seconds later, they dissipated into shadow stuff and vanished.

Over by Discord:

The duo reappeared, seeming to be remade from shadow stuff.

“WHOA!” Dox said. “I can still do that! HOLY CRAP! I haven’t been able to do that for a bit! So much fun!”

“Um Dox, how am I to lead Luna and Celestia to the tree now?”

“.... Crap,” Dox said. “Um, gimme a second.” Dox started feeling around like an idiot.

“Sure I’ll distract Discord, who is on his way over here, while you prepare to drop me back off,” Mistress charged off in the direction of the floating draconequus, “Hey Dissy, bet your minions can’t catch me.”

Discord laughed at the merry little game, he caused several enhanced beavers to come running form some peppermint cane trees. They were fast, but Mistress was far more agile causing the brutes to tumble over each other while making sharp turns.

Sadly, she hadn’t noticed all of them, as a few came out and jumped her.

Dox appeared right afterwards and sent them back with a wave of energy.

“You idiot,” Dox said before teleporting them back to the location they had appeared at. There was a portal there now, just waiting to be used. “You never pull a Leeroy Jenkins unless you know it’s going to work! We had a plan!”

“Still do have a plan. I figured you would need to teleport us, and Discord was on the way,” Mistress looked at the ground chastised, he only meant to help.

“Listen, I’m sorry,” Dox said. “But that wasn’t the original plan. I screwed up at first. We should have stopped and regrouped, possibly fixed it.” Dox looked over to the portal. “Listen, that portal is for you to get back to the princesses. While you lead them, I’m going to distract Discord alright?”

“Right, will do,” Mistress turned to the portal looking back a last time,” Thanks Dox I really appreciate the help,” with that he jumped through the portal.

Dox waited for a second before erupting into green flame and shifting into the form of a female Discord. He then walked towards the draconequus before calling out, “Oh, Discord~!” in as much of a voice like a hooker he could manage. Funny thing was, he was just trying to pull of a stereotype….

What? I’m not talking about the hooker stereotype, I’m talking about the stereotype that pretty much all changeling hookers are actually males.

Meanwhile with Mistress:

Reappearing before the two confused princesses, Mistress righted herself, looking each in the eye, “Sorry about that, lets be off.”

“Can you not teleport?” Luna asked confused by the rapid activity that had previously left them without a guide.

“Not really, but the area isn’t far from here. Actually, if we move fast, we can likely be there in fifteen minutes.” The princesses and Displaced changeling took off running like Tartarus was on their heels. Several guards had attempted to follow them but were unable to keep pace. Luna was curious how a unicorn was so easily outpacing earth ponies.

They began hearing the cries of beasts in the forest. Yellow eyes looking from the trees started chasing them. Mistress couldn’t find any thoughts, making it difficult for him to track the creatures.

A wolf made of wood lunged at Luna, who quickly dispatched it with her sword, “Be alert Discord’s beasts will not make this easy.”

By the time they arrived at the tree may beasts were chasing them. Mistress called out to the sisters, “Its in that cave please retrieve the elements locked within and imprison Discord.”

Turning from the cave he fired a few spells from his horn, the blue lights exploding and blinding the pursuers. Now that no one was watching he allowed Jeff to form blades on their forehooves. Jumping at the stunned beasts, he began hacking away till he was able to destroy their cores. The cores were soft mushy bits of leaves and mud with a green glow connecting them to the trees.

After a few moments there was a bright flash and he stood with the princesses before Discord’s throne.

They stood shocked for a second to see Discord and a female draconequus trying to avoid his advances. When the female saw the ponies, she immediately ran over to them.

“Come on, baby,” Discord said. “We were only getting to the good part.”

“Eugh,” the draconequus said. “Trust me, kiddo, you’re not my type.” Dox took this chance to change back into his normal form. “And you never will be.”

“Discord,” Celestia stepped forward glaring at the tyrant,” Your tyranny ends now.”

Luna and Celestia pulled three gems, each, out of their armor. Red, pink, yellow, green, blue and purple. They started glowing and spinning around the mares. Discord laughed while he started eating some seeds spilling them all over the ground.

“Please you think some pretty stones will stop me? I am Discord! God of Chaos,” He tossed the bag over his shoulder, “Please try.”

Celestia and Luna’s eyes glossed over, emitting pure white light. The gems shot forth a rainbow into the air which turned and slammed into the creature of chaos. He barely had a chance to raise his arm before the magic of the elements turned him to stone.

The magic rose farther into the air, arching over the small valley before splitting into a dome and banishing Discord’s magic leaving the world pure once again.

“Well then,” Dox said. “I guess my job here is done.” He turned towards Mistress. “Hey, gimme your phone.”

“Sure,” He pulled the phone from his armor again, passing it and two identical items to Dox, “These are my tokens. If you don’t mind dropping one in the void on your way out. The other is for you.”

The tokens were simple dog tags on chains, imprinted on the metal was a twin double helix, one green crossing a red one. Over the top of the two were an orange set of spikes with blue spikes coming out of the bottom. On the front side was a short bit of text.

‘I am Mistress Change, grasp this token to call upon a friend.’

“Alright then,” Dox said. “I’ll be sure to call you if I need you. Now, just let me do this.” Dox pulled out his sword and ran it along his arm, creating a cut. He then held the cut over Mistress’ phone, where it dripped rainbow ‘blood’ onto it. After a few drops, the phone gained a circuit board pattern. The pattern disappeared in a flash of light, leaving the phone in Dox’s robotic hand. He handed the phone back to Mistress. “Alright, I said I might do it before I left, so here ya go. Infinite battery. Now, I’m assuming you don’t know the words to send me back?”

“Wasn’t it something like,’Dox our contract is complete?’ or other?” Mistress started tapping her chin in thought.

A portal opened up next to Dox.

“Well, yeah,” Dox said simply. “See ya in the multiverse!” Dox then jumped through the portal and disappeared. The portal vanished immediately upon his entry.

“Take care Dox,” Mistress called out as he vanished, “I knew he would be awesome to meet. Now then, to talk with the princesses.”

"Whoa," Dox said. "Freaky. I gotta remind myself to try my best to not talk about the existence of the multiverse with that crazy person. I mean, come on. Me? A fanfiction? Who do they think they're kidding?"

So, I Heard You Like Rocks

The day after my last other universal adventure had been pretty uneventful so far.

I hadn’t questioned my existence since last night, when I finally convinced myself that if I was a fanfiction, it was probably the DM’s. Then I cornered him on it. He just said no, we’re not fanfiction. I mean, seriously, he wasn’t writing anything, and nothing was above him.

Anyways, the day had been uneventful so far. I had gotten up like normal, hunted down some food, and then did a bit of self training and planning on how to stop Tirek… wherever he was after I used ‘Hit Stream ad Finem’ on him.

It was just about time for me to go and try and get dinner, when I was warned by a stone Pinkie Pie. Something about her Pinkie Sense, an incoming pony, and family. She ran off before I could ask her to slow down and explain what she meant.

Oh well, it couldn’t have been that importa-

…… Is that a pony coming over the horizon?..... With a dust trail?..... AND WHY DOES SHE LOOK ANGRY AS HELL?!

Well, I got some answers when the pony’s hoof collided with my face. It was indeed a pony, it was obvious from the hoof and the shape of who hit me. There was indeed a dust trail, some of it hit me when it collided, plus there was the fact the speed that the pony hit me turned into pure force…. which made me do an impossible three backflips before falling onto my back. The last of it all I had yet to understand. Why was this pony so angry?

Next thing I knew, the pony threw me back into the cave chamber containing the Tree of Harmony. Honestly, I’m lucky that the tree is made of pure crystal, making it nigh indestructible, because I swear, I would have gone farther if it weren’t for that tree.

Well, at least now I could get a good look of the pony…. Considering the fact that they freaking rammed into me right after I collided with the tree. No joke, they’re even using their foreleg to pin me, and choke me. All I could tell is that it was a grey pony with a purple mane. I couldn’t see the cutie mark, meaning it could have virtually been anyone.

“Where is my sister,” the pony said coldly.

It was now that I finally realized who it was. The pony who had me pinned against a tree. The pony who was strangling, no, beating me within an inch of my life….. was Maud Pie…..

And she thought I did something to Pinkie Pie……

HOLY SHIT, I’M GOING TO DIE!

“Maud…. Maud!” I choked out. “Didn’t….. do…. any…. thing….”

“Where. Is. SHE?!” Maud said angrily, and progressively getting more angry.

I was starting to lose feeling in my biological body. Thank goodness for Hyperion technology, because it reached up and blasted her.

Maud went flying backwards into the wall of the chamber. She got up a few seconds later and shook herself off. She then charged at me again. I was still recovering, however, so I couldn’t react in time. Again, thank goodness for Hyperion. The AI might have been an accident, but I sure as hell enjoy having Righty in my arm. Righty raised up the arm again, but instead of shooting her back again, this time, she was trapped in a field of telekinesis. As I recovered, I watched as she floated there, squirming in the telekinetic grip of Righty, who was probably using my magic pool….. which was infinite….

Again, HOLY CRAP! She could be stuck there forever! Just so long as Righty holds up, she’s stuck there.

That gave me an idea.

I started walking down the hallway to the organ room with a gently floating Maud following closely behind. Ya know, I knew nothing about this type of spell, it was all Righty.

“Hey Righty,” I said. “Remind me to get you a freaking body when we’re done.” Righty just stuck up his thumb in response. I knew he was just showing the least amount of emotion, but that was probably because he was holding up Maud with magic….

Actually, that reminds me. I didn’t even know what gender Righty was. I swear, that was going to keep me confused for a while. I need to ask Righty when I get the chance…. or just get Righty a body and figure out which gender it decides to make itself.

Anyways, we all came upon the room containing the Organ to the Outside. Inside the room were all of the stone ponies, but Pinkie was nowhere to be seen. They were all animate, so they had to be in the room, but where was Pinkie?

I got my answer when she popped up in front of me and yelled “SURPRISE!”

“Gah!” I screamed. “Pinkie! Don’t scare me like that!”

“Sorry, Dox,” Pinkie said. “It wasn’t a surprise for you, though. It was a surprise for Maud!” She leaned out from behind me and looked at the pony floating in magic and waved. “Hi Maud!”

Maud went slack jawed. It was the most amount of emotion I had EVER seen on her, show or otherwise. She then broke through the magic field holding her and slammed into me, pinning me into the floor. “What did you do to her?!” She yelled, tears now starting to pour from her eyes. She punched me in the nose. “Answer me!” She punched me in the face again. “Answer me!” She punched me yet again. “ANSWER ME!” She kept laying into me, tears flowing freely from her face all the while.

It was a few minutes before the punching stopped. My nose had long since been broken, her first punch had made sure of that. There was blood flowing freely from my nose and from the corner of my mouth, as well as a few cuts that she had made. My right eye was swollen, and I’m pretty sure my robotic eye, which was on the left side of my face, had cracked or broken the optic, considering I could no longer see out of it. Going to have to get that repaired when I can.

I did not move, instead listening to the pony that had collapsed on my chest, crying. When I did decide to move, I moved to drape my left arm over Maud, holding her close while she cried.

“I’m sorry, Maud,” I said simply. “I wasn’t there in time. I know I could have stopped it, but I just wasn’t there to do so. I’m sorry.” Maud did not reply, instead crying her eyes out on my chest, her tears staining her face and my hoodie.

After what felt like an eternity of hearing Maud cry, she finally spoke up.

“Who did this?” she asked.

“Celestia,” I said. “But she’s not in her right mind. Something is affecting her mind. And that something is a fell shadow, no. Fell eclipse known as Tirek. He corrupted Celestia into thinking that I was the enemy, that I was going to bring ruin to Equestria. I’m going to do the opposite, however. I’m going to save Equestria, and everyone on it while I’m at it. But I’m not sparing Tirek. He deserves to meet his end now.”

“And I’ll help you,” Maud said, cheering up slightly. “No one messes with the Pie family and gets away with it. No one.”

“Well then, glad to have you on the team,” I said. “Now, about your help. As your first bit of help, I’d like it if you could please help me bandage up my nose. Righty, give her some schematics on what to do, please. And if you can, when you’re done, I’d like it if you could please call up Handsome Jack. I have to talk to him about repairing things and possibly getting you a body.”

It took Maud a few hours to bandage me up. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, though. Luckily, my healing factor applied to everything, as Maud told me that she had used enough force to destroy the entire room when she was hitting me.

Afterward, I had Righty scan around for some resources by syncing it up to the computer on my left arm. If Righty was going to have a body, I was going to either make it, or pay Jack to make it. Luckily, we found some iron, aluminum, copper, nickel, titanium, and amazingly, mythril. There was also a bit of ruby, sapphire, and emerald. It made me remember the changelings I had left in Drake’s Equestria. I had to call them up some time when I got the chance.

Now, however, I was back in the room with the Tree of Harmony, calling Handsome Jack, just waiting for him to pick up. A pile of minerals and gems waiting next to me, courtesy of the digging of Maud. Man, she was EXTREMELY helpful when it came to ANYTHING involving rocks and or mining.

Eventually, someone picked up. Whom happened to be familiar, and quite terrifying for how she could be, as a familiar F.A.U.S.T. was wearing in all appearances, a tight form fitting white bathrobe. Her cable mane looked to have been styled, even her cable tail swished in annoyance, with those watching this image take form of a healthy looking Anthro Alicorn with fluttering wings behind her. “Thou calls on us, young champion of DM? For we see thou has a friend at present too.”

“Actually, I have more than this,” I said to F.A.U.S.T.. I turned to Maud and continued. “Hey, Maud, can you go get everyone else? They need to see who I’m talking to.”

Maud had been bowing her head, but at my querry, got up and ran off to go get everyone else.

“Ah, Maud,” I said. “Just gotta love that pony.”

Taking a cursory look over of his condition before frowning, gesturing to his condition while the token scanned him. “Thou appear to have suffered a recent beating of a quadruped sort, we assume there is decent variation compared to our’s? For we’re curious about this version of ‘our’ dau-” It was quite possibly at this point that a very animate Luna statue rushed into the room with her eyes darting in all directions.

“Where is our mother?!” she shouted after looking around. “We demand to see her! NOW! Dox! Where is our mother? We heard her! Where is she and who is it that being coming out of that piece of metal?!”

F.A.U.S.T. projected by the Hyperion Acquisition Beacon Turned her head that is strikingly familiar to said princess before openly stating this in a regal tone. “Thou would be looking at us daughter of ‘ours’, though, know we are speaking by this token that Dox has ‘recovered’.” She shifted her weight as her arms crossed under her endowed bust giving a concerned look upon seeing.

“Mother?” Luna questioned. “But why do you look like this? What has happened to you?”

“Luna,” I said. “Remember that whole ‘Displaced’ thing I told you all about? Well, she’s from one of those other universes. The Displaced there is a man called Handsome Jack. He’s a good person. In fact, he’s the man who owns and runs the company that gave me the new arm and the eye.” I turned to F.A.U.S.T. before continuing. “Speaking of that, the eye broke when Maud was hitting me. Can’t see a thing out of it.”

F.A.U.S.T. leveled a withering look at me, which surprisingly was rather effective with Luna being caught in the crossfire of being in view as she scolded me. “Thou must realise that such things need to be taken care of much better, otherwise we will have to expect this every time thou calls-”

“No!” Fluttershy screamed. “No! Stop it, Renkinjutsu! You don’t have to kill yourself for seeing her!” Renkinjutsu started screaming angrily in Japanese. “No! You didn’t dishonor anyone! Stop trying to kill yourself!”

“One second,” I said. I then walked over to Renkinjutsu and took his knife away. I held the pommel in my left hand, and with my right hand, snapped the blade clean off. “Don’t do that again,” I threatened. “You’re worth more than that. No one is dishonored here.”

“Hai,” Renkinjutsu said. “Sorry…. But I….. I….”

“I nothing,” I said. “Please, you’re worth more than that. Plus you mean even more to those around you. Fluttershy there is counting on you. You’re to be wed, remember?”

“Hai,” he said. “I am sorry.”

“Alright then,” I said. I turned back to F.A.U.S.T. “Now, I believe you were scolding me about breaking my eye? In my defence, she can mine through solid stone and ores like as if they’re butter and she’s a diamond drill. She was also extremely angry.”

The anthro Alicorn in question leveled the earth pony Maud a look, as if directing her to look at me with her digit pointed towards him. “You Filly, thou will first apologise to the DM’s Champion for performing violent action upon his form, then at another time thou will repay the costs he must undergo to have what thou had caused fixed. Understood?” Waiting for her to nod with a slightly lower head before continuing. “What has transpired to cause all of this?” Gesturing to the stone ponies moving about at present, as seeing Luna visibly sitting next to me to be close enough to the hologram.

“The Celestia here was corrupted by a fell eclipse known as Tirek,” I said. “He’s tainted her mind to the point of making her think that she’s what this world needs as a protector. She petrified these ponies. She was even able to petrify me, and destroy that petrified body. Luckily for me, I was able to get a new one.”

Giving me a look before gesturing towards Luna to speak up. “Thou claim to nor had seen the signs of thy own SISTER was not of sound mind nor body, to continue ruling in any capacity? For we believe there is a clause we had instated that allowed a temporary regent to hold commanding position, as the Champion could receive thou mark as proof of this if the laws are the same or similar here.” F.A.U.S.T. intoned looking at anypony present who could confirm this spoke thought process.

“That could work!” Twilight exclaimed. “We’d need the mark, first. But I know exactly what it looks like! The problem is, it has a magic signature attached to it.”

“Well,” Luna interjected. “We know our mother’s mark better than anyone. We also know how the magic feels. If mother were to put the mark on Dox’s arm, and he were to scan it, we could check with him to see if it is the same.”

“I’ll do you one better,” the voice of the DM said from Renkinjutsu. “I’ll check it. If it’s not right, I’ll change it. But I doubt it wouldn’t be. I know that F.A.U.S.T., she has the same signature as this one.”

“Wow,” I said. “DM, way to be creepy as always.”

F.A.U.S.T. simply looked at the possessed pony, giving a leveled look before smiling lewdly. “Thou art being a Voyeur like us once more, though not so subtle oh ‘Master of Dice Rolls’. But give us this arm thou wishes it upon and we shall, with also a bonus from an idea that Jack’s been developing.” She stated rather cryptically though a couple vials were digistructed in a small container big enough to fit six cigars was marked with a medical sign.

“Um, okay,” I said. I presented my right arm. “Okay, now what?”

The token Digistructed the arm out of my grasp and into her own, giving a sidelong look at Luna’s apparent rapt attention. Beginning the process of a Mark upon the hand of said arm so it could be clearly shown, before infusing it with her magic signature that leaves it glowing with a pulse matching the arm’s power spikes. “This shalt do, though perhaps Luna’s as well will show more than one whom has faith in said champion.” She stated, only to return it to my hand once more Digistructed into view with a slight change on the inner side of the forearm for a few unlabeled buttons.

“Hey, what do these do?” I asked.

Ignoring my question, F.A.U.S.T. looked at Luna asking this. “How art thou on the timing of this conversation Little Moon?” Giving a motherly smile that could buckle many a male’s legs as her voice was that of a loving tone. Shining’s jaw dropped, and Cadence in turned smacked him, reminding him that he was indeed married.

“We art fine, mother,” Luna said, stepping closer to the token. “How art thou?”

Giving a small sigh before she started, as her expression seemed a bit harder now than before. “Thou would not believe the mess that our Jack is struggling through, from tech of rival companies ‘mysteriously’ popping up in paws, talons or digits of other places attempting to gun at our human. That tis NOT including these ‘vault hunters’ whom have stolen a Vault Key that could very well be the precursor to leading up to his death! We have been spending more cycles focusing on paths of availability to ensure this won’t happen, but he is believing it will become self fulfilling.” Her ears drooped and her head a bit lower, as she seemed to appear more like a mare worried about her young stallion or colt.

“Thou speak of him as if he is thou’s special somepony,” Luna said. “Mother, what has been going on over there?”

“Special somepony~?” Cadence chimed. “Did I just hear that someone has a special somepony?”

Blinking quickly before a powerful flush raced across her robotic muzzled face, acting as if trying to keep the conversation down before looking back and to the side before speaking again. “We have been through much which is quite ‘different’ than thou knows of, we owe our second life to Jack because he used his alien methods to bring us back from death. Even if he did claim to have ‘bastardized science’ to accomplish the task that not even necromancy could hold a candle to, as we breathe and live as though we hadn’t died. We fell for him the moment we awoken from that, carefully in subtle gestures groomed him to accept us or at least one whom isn’t human and not feeling dirty.” She said smiling a bit more before gesturing to her robe.

“Oh!” Cadence squealed. “It’s so romantic! A fair princess falls, but a valiant knight rescues her from death!”

“Tis romantic,” Luna said. “But to steal away a mare from death. We may not approve of his methods, but tis very noble.”

“Alright,” I said. “Now, you said you’d mark Luna? How do you plan on doing that while she’s made of stone?”

The hologram of F.A.U.S.T. gestured to the earlier Digistructed medical cigar sized container, stating what was within it. “We believe this alchemical cure for petrification will be suitable to the task, though to be sure we had intensified the dosage.” She stated in a matter-of-fact tone, now rather neutral in tone.

The possessed Renkinjutsu walked up and examined the case. “That should even make them immune to petrification for a few days,” the DM stated. “It should be plenty effective. But you only sent six. There’s eight petrified ponies.”

“Alright then,” Shining spoke up. “Then I vote my wife and Luna get unpetrified. Then I say the elements get unpetrified.”

“But Shiny!” Twilight interjected. “That makes seven! There’s only six vials!”

“I’ll stay as is,” Pinkie said. “If it makes you all smile, then I’ll do it.”

“Pinkie….” Twilight said. “Thank you…”

“He’s right!” Fluttershy whisper yelled. “Discord was also petrified! We need to save him! He’ll be a big help!”

“Alright,” Twilight said. “Then I’ll stay in stone, too.”

“You’re a princess, Twi,” Rainbow said. “They’ll need you. I’ll stay in stone.”

“No, Rainbow,” Twilight said. “We can’t just-”

“I don’t care, Twi,” Rainbow said. She then ran over to the box, pulled out a vial, then poured the liquid down Twilight’s throat. She then spit out the vial, which shattered on the ground. “And besides, it’s too late now.”

“Rainbow!” Twilight exclaimed, cracks slowly appearing on her. “Why did you do that?”

“Because someone has to stay behind,” Rainbow stated. “Why not it be me and the one that can help me enjoy it?”

“Yeah!” Pinkie said.

F.A.U.S.T. was smiling at the progression, giving Luna a look to make sure she took it while smiling at me when her focus shifted onto me. “Thou have good ponies present besides our youngest daughter, though do be sure of accounts be paid in full in the future after this. As we included how thy friend in the arm can help thou in combat.” She stated pointing at one of the unlabeled buttons on the arm she marked.

“Wait what?” I asked. I pressed the button. “What does it- WHOA!”

A not so blinding moment of rainbow light appeared before me, forming into a Griffin Female anthro by appearances giving me a look before whacking my face with ‘her’ tail that got quite a few ponies blushing from the action.

“Holy crap,” I said. “Hello, Righty….”

“Hello Dox,” she said. Her voice was considerably smooth, like a river. It didn’t have the same effect as F.A.U.S.T. but was still amazing.

“Ya know,” I said. “I think you need a new name.”

“Oh, you don’t say?” she said. “But I love being referred to as your jackoff hand.” With the last comment, she smacked me in the face with her tail.

“Wow, sassy,” I said.

Smiling at the A.I., F.A.U.S.T. looked at the ponies whom had taken a drink of the potion, seeing Luna in her freed state at last. “Thou shalt take thy time marking him, for we wouldn’t want the conversation to trail off again do we daughter?” Nodding her to Dox as well as the last vial, to be intended for the spirit of chaos. I took the vial and stored it in one of my pockets for when I saw Discord next.

“Hey!” I said. “I’m just as responsible as these guys!”

F.A.U.S.T. gave me a look before pointing at me then one of her eyes as if in gesture with a open palm. “Thou needs that fixed while our daughter makes her mark on thou, though be it not a lover’s sort we are settling for the traditional one. But simply command ‘disconnect eye’ and it shall come out, so we may get this over with for we are not in only a bathrobe for nothing.” Possibly speaking in a way to hint at some courtship ritual of a mare dominant society.

“Alright then,” I said. “Um… ‘Disconnect eye’?” At that, my left eye popped from its socket. I was able to catch it, but just barely. “Um, okay.” I held out the hand with the eye in it. “Alright, now what?”

Wordlessly the eye was Digistructed out of my palm as a moment later another appeared within it, though F.A.U.S.T. decided this moment was needed for a rather ‘unconventional’ way of entry. “Daughter, would thou have a saddle? For if thy champion baring thy mark enters riding upon back would be rather impactful.” Giving a sly grin that quite possibly caused everypony to gawk at her before she said this in addition. “We take pride in ponies creating life or express such freedom.”

The two pegasi to be wed just stared at each other and wrapped their wings around each other. It had seemed the DM had long since left.

“Um…” I said. “Thats… *cough* That’s kinda weird, even for my standards. I mean, riding her into battle?”

“That’s….” Luna said with a slight blush. “That’s preposterous, I’d never let him ride me…. er, ride me into battle. That’s what I meant!”

F.A.U.S.T. smiled a bit more as she leaned forward slightly. “Doth the stallion Dox fly? For surely it would only be quicker if he rode on thy back and had it safe from attacks from behind.” The anthro robotic alicorn spoke with a happy tone in a wistful smile forming on her muzzle, with her eyes only to bore into the two said individuals while noting Cadence’s sparkling eyes.

Me and Luna just blushed. Apparently F.A.U.S.T. didn’t have a clue what I had done on my various adventures out of this universe. After a few seconds, Luna started looking over at me with a slightly sultry look. Damn it F.A.U.S.T. and your innuendos! You’re almost as bad as Mad Moxxi!

“Well, mother,” Luna said. “If thou dost approve.”

…. Damn it, sexy Luna….. and F.A.U.S.T.

Oh great! And now Cadence is hovering over my other shoulder….. And she’s got a look like she’s planning something…. Her horn is charged…. OH HELL NO!

I grabbed Cadence’s horn before saying, “No. No love spells. I won’t have any of that.”

“Aw….” Cadence said. “But maybe-”

“No,” I said, increasing the pressure of my grip. “No love spells.”

Cadence moaned in reply. Everyone else in the room, minus Shining and F.A.U.S.T., just blushed and stared at me.

Shining came up to me and bucked me in the leg while saying, “Get your hooves off my wife!”

I let go. Then Twilight called me over.

“Um,” she said. “It’s obvious that you don’t know, but the horn of a unicorn, or alicorn in this case, is considered an erogenous zone and is quite sensitive. If you put enough pressure on it, or rub it enough…. Well……”

“Oh my god,” I said in realization. I turned to Cadence and Shining. “I’m so sorry! I had no idea! Please, don’t get the wrong idea, I didn’t know!”

F.A.U.S.T. smiles softly and beckoned Luna closer to say this for her ears to hear, though most other ponies with good hearing heard it except for me. “Thou shalt know that human hands are VERY wonderful to experience, it is rather addicting if they are taught right. Our daughter, perhaps when thy older sister is truly well, thou may share him to show this fact.” She held that smile while having painted some rather intriguing imagery during my outburst.

“Okay,” I said, trying to get back on subject. “Now, about the payment I have here for you for fixing my eye and the mark.”

She gave a look before digistructing the materials that were first mentioned within range, seeing Luna’s face slightly blushing as her mind raced from such acts that could be while she spoke to his statement. “Thou has done it though success would be HIGHLY prefered, defeats only cost more take it from us whom had lost much.” F.A.U.S.T. stated firmly as if to drive that fact home to me.

“Alright, alright,” I said. “I’ll make sure not to screw up next time. Thanks for the repairs, I’ll see you later.”

I watched as the beacon turned off and then turned to the rest of the ponies, most of which were now unpetrified.

“Alright then,” I said. “Now, let’s go free Discord.”

A couple hours later, we all arrived at Fluttershy’s cottage, stone ponies and flesh. We could all hear Discord singing bottles on the wall, I believe he was at 746 when we heard him. It was good to know that he was still okay in there.

When we entered the cottage, we were able to hear a guttural groan. Apparently, Discord was now animate. To prove that, he walked down the stairs to meet us.

“Now, this is a sight to behold!” Discord stated. “All my friends, come to save me. It’s good to see you-” His attention then quickly diverted itself all to me and my right arm. “Is that…. Is that the mark of Faust?”

“Yes, Discord,” I said. “It is that mark exactly. I got it from the Faust of another universe.”

“It wouldn’t be that robotic one, would it?” Discord asked.

“How do you know about that?” I asked.

“Simple,” Discord stated. “I’m Discord.”

“Anyways,” I said. “I have a gift for you.” I held up the vial for a second before tossing it to him. He quickly downed it in one go. The cracks started appearing on him slowly afterwards.

After about 20 minutes, Discord was free.

“Ah, finally,” he said. “Ya know, I always develop a crick in my neck while I’m in stone. This one’s a rather bad one.” He snapped his fingers. “Ah, that’s better. Now, let’s get back to your base.”

And with that, Discord snapped his fingers, and we were back. You know, I’m hoping right now that he can’t be tracked easily, cause if he can, then he just led Celestia straight here.

This Sure as Hell Ain't Moria

It was late that night, and everyone had gone to sleep.

Everyone…. Except me.

I had always been a night owl, what with staying up and playing video games, among things. I always loved to admire the night when I could, so here I was, sitting outside under the stars. It was a beautiful night, but I knew it could have been much better. This was a corrupt Celestia’s night, and I knew that even Nightmare Moon’s night would have been better. No, I did not accept this night. I would never do so. At some point during the night, I started messing around with the computer on my left sleeve. I had hooked it up to my arm the other day, so I was using it somewhat like a mouse.

After a few hours of this, I eventually nodded off. Finally, I could sleep in peace.

I woke up in a cavern to little ‘pings’ and ‘clangs’ that made me think of mining.

The first thing that entered my mind was that Maud was digging up what else was in the caves, but then I saw something.

It was bipedal and was wearing a collar of sorts, as well as a metal chest piece and helmet. I could also see that the creature was wearing some leather garments underneath the armor, as some of it poked out. Then I noticed the tail. The tail was clublike and spiky.

…. Holy crap, I’ve been abducted by Diamond Dogs.

I started formulating an escape plan before I was bothered by my arm moving on its own. Had Righty been put back into my arm?

“Righty?” I whispered to my arm. “What happened?”

A holographic finger brought my focus up. Right in front of me was Righty, but she seemed to have changed slightly. This time, however, she was an anthro mare. She had a pink mane and a lavender coat, or maybe it was a light purple. She appeared to be wearing a similar outfit from when she was a gryphon. Though, instead of shorts and a t-shirt with the Hyperion logo on it, this time she was wearing pants and a short sleeved button up, which still had the Hyperion logo.

“Alright,” I whispered. “What happened?”

“Some Diamond Dogs got us in the middle of the night,” she said. “I responded to the danger, but sadly they had already grabbed you before I was able to respond. I was able to collapse the entrance so that the others were safe, but they overpowered me. I took down a lot of them, but then some in some strange alloy armor came out. They took me down, but I was able to stun them. Unfortunately, that sent me into cooldown and I had to go back into the arm. About two minutes later, I’m out and about following the canines.”

“Alright,” I said. “The others are safe. But how are we getting out?”

“Well,” Righty said. “There’s a guard in front of this cell, there’s a guard down the hall, and the rest of the cells are empty. I checked around the guards for a key to the cell. Sadly, my probability sensors indicate a zero percent chance of a stealthy escape if we attempt to steal the keys. That is due to the fact that these guards have sharper senses than most ponies. Sadly, I cannot advise a way out that won’t involve us either having to fight, or ending in death. Either way, there is still a zero percent chance of escape on your own. Luckily, you have me, but you’d need to deploy me, which would alert the guards, and that would end up in you fighting or losing the arm. I have been advised by F.A.U.S.T. that if you lose the arm like you lost the first eye, she will not be as nice.”

“Ah, okay then,” I whispered. “So, what’s the best option?”

“Try stealing the keys and hope for the best,” she said.

“Oh yeah, that’s totally the best option!” I whispered sarcastically. “Wait! What about the DM?”

I can’t interact in a way that could help you, the DM said to me, using his normal method of strange telepathy. I can’t interact with the environment around you without all of your dice. And I can’t control these guards. For some reason, they’re more thick headed than the ones from Asphyxious’ universe. I can’t even think of their intentions. Sorry, but your calldidn’t go through.

“What is up with you and- OH!” I whispered in surprise. “I think I understand now.”

I took out my iPhone and the two dice I had from my pocket. Hopefully, I got this right. I unlocked the phone and set it to the dice roller app that I had on it. I then put the dice over the dice that were on screen. Then, hoping this would work and not just break the phone, I pressed the dice down onto, or in this case, into the screen. There was a small bit of light that projected onto the ceiling. Luckily, neither the guard in front of me, nor the guard down the hall noticed anything. I also noticed that the dice I had shoved into the screen had changed from being a soft blue like the app normally was, to the deep red with a galaxy motif like the dice were. I tried to exit the app, only to find that it wouldn’t change. Luckily I had backed up all of the songs into the computer on my arm. But what did I just do to the phone?

Good job, Dox, the DM said. You have just made the Dice Rolling Core. It’s meant to act as your dice. It’s also a more direct connection to me. You shouldn’t have to worry about losing powers or abilities that are connected to you being my champion, like your ‘blood’ changing to grey in universes like F.A.U.S.T.’s.

“Well that’s helpful,” I whispered. “But how does that help my current situation?”

Install it into something, the DM said.

“Um, Righty?” I asked quietly.

“Nope, sorry,” she said. “I can’t install that. The foreign unknowns are too great. It’d take a while to even figure out how to use it.”

“Alright then,” I whispered. “Arm computer it is.”

I took the Dice Rolling Core and jammed it into the computer on my left arm, resulting in a flash of light and the circuit board pattern to appear. Right after my vision returned from being accidentally flashed in the face, I saw a hologram of a d20 floating above my left arm. Curious, I grabbed at the hologram d20 with my robotic arm, only to find it to be solid. I looked at the computer, which had a screen on it depicting the red d20, and rolled the hologram one. I ended up with a 16. Good, but just barely. I wonder what kind of check it is… Wait a second, it say so in the corner of the screen….. Persuasion…. Oh shit.

The guard banged on the door to the cell. “Hey! What’s going on in there,” the guard said. The guard’s voice was rough, but still very feminine. Hey, they aren’t sexist about who does who! I’m actually kind of proud of the little monsters that were keeping me prisoner. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing,” I lied. “Just trying to get comfortable in here.”

“Well, stop it with the light show,” she said.

“Fine, fine,” I said. “Hey, is there someone I could talk to about why you captured me?”

“GRUFF!” the guard called out. “GO GET ROVER! AND TELL HIM THE PRISONER WANTS TO TALK TO HIM!”

“Wait, seriously?” I questioned. “I’m the prisoner, why would you just go and grant my request?”

“Because, unlike my pack mates,” the guard said. “I’m not a monster. If I were in charge, I wouldn’t be capturing ponies for slaves. I would have thought Rover would have learned when that one pony got away, but no. No, he instead insists upon continuing to capture ponies.”

“ROVER DOESN’T WANT TO SEE HIM!” said the unseen guard.

“I DON’T CARE!” the guard said. “IF HE WON’T SEE THE PRISONER, TELL HIM I WANT TO SEE HIM AND THAT I’M NOT MOVING TO SEE HIM!”

“Wow,” I said. “Really assertive there.”

“Yeah, well,” the guard said. “The males here tend to be idiots.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” I said. “Hey, do you have a name?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s Beatrice.”

“That’s a nice name,” I said. “Why are you here? With how you act, I would have thought you led this pack.”

“It’s because rover is-” Beatrice said.

“Here,” Rover interrupted, just entering the room. “What does prisoner want?”

“I want out, bitch,” I said. “Now, either let me out, or I’ll kill you.”

“HA!” Rover scoffed. “Stupid prisoner no have weapons! How prisoner going to kill Rover?”

“Like this!” I yelled, drawing my sword. “Guard, duck!” I then brought up my sword, bringing it down yelling, “HIT STREAM!” sending a wave of energy flying at the bars, and at Rover, who was on the other side of them. The wave cut straight through the bars and slammed rover into the wall opposite the cell. I then proceeded to use my robotic arm as a focus by passing energy through it into a beam. I then used that to cut the bars so that I could get free.

By the time I was free, Rover had gotten to his feet. I had to take action now, or lose everything. I used the flash step technique I learned from Urahara to get right up to Rover. I slammed him back into the wall and pinned him against it with my robotic arm. I then put my sword against his neck, effectively preventing any attempt at escape he had in his mind, what with his life now being on the line.

“Now,” I said menacingly. “You’re going to explain why you captured me and why you tried to capture my friends. If you don’t, I’m going to cut your head off.”

Rover just scoffed. “Try me,” he challenged.

Well, it was his funeral.

I mean that. I cut his head clean off. They captured me, tried to get my friends, and now they thought I didn’t have the guts to kill because of that? What kind of morons were they?

“Beatrice,” I said, looking over at the now terrified Diamond Dog. “Where are the other pack leaders?”

“T-there in the next room,” she said. “In the mines.”

“Would you please take me there?” I asked. “I have no intention of killing those that are innocent here. They planned to get my friends, to put them into slavery. I can’t stand for that. Right now, I just want an apology and some information. Please, take me to them.”

“A-a-alright,” she said. “I’ll take you there.”

“Thank you,” I said. And thank you persuasion check! I put away my sword so that I could confuse the other leaders when I pulled it out.

The room we entered was huge. It held a large cacophony of ‘clangs’ and ‘pings’. This was obviously the mines.

Beatrice led me to a small ‘building’ in the center of it all. Inside were two Diamond Dogs, one large and muscular, the other was short and pudgy.

“Bitch,” said the short one. “Why did you bring the prisoner here? Where is Rover?”

“Prisoner smell of Rover,” the large one said. “Prisoner kill Rover!”

“What?!” the small one said. “Kill him!”

It was then that I jumped them. I took out my sword and used Hit Stream, again, sending them into the walls of the small room that was the ‘building’. I then ran over and pinned the small one under my foot. Righty decided it was a good time to help me with magic and used telekinesis to pin the other one against the ceiling.

“Why did you kidnap me?” I questioned angrily. “Why were you after me and my friends?!”

“We needed more workers!” the small one screamed. “Scouts said that there were a bunch of tireless ponies over there, so we went to go and get them!”

“Thank you,” I said. “Now we have an explanation for why you had to die.”

“What?!” he screamed. Those were his final words as I plunged my blade into his throat.

“Let’s go outside,” I said, picking up his dead body. Righty moved the Diamond Dog she was pinning with magic outside and I followed with the corpse. I teleported to the top of the ‘building’ and held out the corpse. “DIAMOND DOGS! LISTEN HERE! LET THIS BE A LESSON TO YOU ALL! RELEASE ALL OF YOUR SLAVES OR THIS IS THE FATE THAT SHALL BEFALL ALL OF YOUR KIND!” Righty then brought over the other Diamond Dog, and I sliced off his head. “YOUR FORMER LEADERS CHOSE TO PUT OTHERS INTO SLAVERY! I WILL NOT TOLERATE IT ANY LONGER! LET THE SLAVES FREE OR FACE MY RATH!”

That was all the Diamond Dogs needed as they feverishly ran about down the caves that spanned from the giant room. They all kept returning with ponies in varying conditions and then running back. I after a while, I saw more variations. I saw a couple gryphons, and even a zebra! After about three hours of watching this, they were finished and gathered around me.

“What do we do next, alpha?” one Diamond Dog questioned. The rest soon followed.

“I am not your alpha!” I yelled. “If anything, she is.” I pointed to Beatrice. “But if she doesn’t want it, she can pick another.”

“I don’t want this,” Beatrice said. “I don’t want anything to do with it! Let my brother do it, he didn’t like the slaves, either.”

“Fine then, he shall be alpha,” I said. “Now, I’m going to leave. Let everyone who wants to leave go, or I will be back. Remember me, for I am Dox, the champion!”

“All hail the champion!” one of them yelled. Soon after a few more said it. It eventually became a chant.

I turned towards Beatrice and asked, “Now, how do I get out of here?”

“I’ll only tell you, if you take me with you,” she said.

“Fine,” I said. “Now let’s get out of here.”

About three hours later, we made it back to the area around the cave containing the Tree of Harmony.

“Alright guys!” I yelled, hoping the ponies inside could hear me. “If you can hear me, I’m about to open the cave. Stand back!” I then took out my flintlock, cocked it, and fired, producing an explosion that opened up the entrance to the cave.

“Dox!” Luna yelled as she jumped out and tackled me. “Art thou alright?”

“I’m fine, Luna,” I said. “Now, could you get off of me?”

“Very well,” Luna said, getting off. “But soon thou will be ours.”

Let me explain. Ever since F.A.U.S.T. had said what she did about me riding her, she’s been on me, trying to seduce me all the time.

Good job on that, F.A.U.S.T.

Anyways, after Luna got off me, we had a small celebration of the liberation of several slaves, as well as my safe return. By the time we were done, it was nightfall, so we all went to bed. I didn’t go to bed, though, before I pressed the button on my arm, releasing Righty so that she could guard. Apparently, what I had seen in the caves was just a projection that I could see, and no one else. Kinda like that weird hologram that Rhys saw in Tales from the Borderlands. Anyways, I went to bed after that, letting sleep embrace me.

Celestial Retribution

I awoke the next morning to the sound of marching and trumpets.

Now, don’t get me wrong, in a normal situation, I would have gladly accepted this, seeing as my sisters were both in the school’s marching band. But, this was Equestria, and I had yet to see anything like that. This led me to my only other thought, because the only other place where I know I’d hear marching and trumpets is the military.

I was able to get up and run outside, only to see a massive amount of ponies in armor, all of them followed by Celestia. Said Princess, immediately upon seeing me, gave the order to open fire.

Instead of dodging like a normal person, I yelled “STOP!” and pulled up my sleeve on my right arm. This revealed the Mark of Faust that was given to me by F.A.U.S.T. a couple days prior. I had been hoping to have gone to Canterlot instead, but this would have to do.

There was murmuring in the guard. Apparently, they didn’t know what to think about this.

“I told you to attack!” Celestia commanded.

“And I say stand down!” commanded a Luna who was emerging from the cave. She must have been woken up, too. She presented her Mark of Faust to the guards, who immediately dropped their weapons.

“Attack them!” screamed Celestia. “Attack them, or I will make you attack them!”

The guards stood there motionless. They didn’t know what to do anymore.

“Alright then,” Celestia said. “You give me no choice!” She flew up into the air, horn charged, then cast down a spell onto the troops.

Right before my eyes, I saw several of them change. The ones that didn’t ran for cover, or ran into the cave. The ones that changed, however, became behemoths. Tall, bulky, monsters of the stallions they once were. Throw that in with her spell turning them anthro and completely mindless, and you’d have the monsters that now stood before me.

She didn’t order them to attack, however. No, first she took advantage of her arial spot, and fired a massive beam of energy down at me. I was able to dodge, but just barely.

“Luna!” I screamed out. “We need to get inside! I’m pretty sure we can’t beat her like this.”

“But what about your friends?” she asked. “Surely they could help you!”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” I yelled. “Luna! Get inside! I’m gonna follow close, and we’re gonna get to the token stash!”

With that, we ran inside the cave, cowardly guards keeping the entrance closed.

3rd Person:

Dox ran inside, and franticly to a pile of tokens that he had made, and hidden from the ponies. He sorted through all of the different tokens, only to find that most of the ones he was after had mysteriously gone missing. Twilight must have found his stash and started investigating the tokens. Oh well, he’d have to do with what he had. Among the ones he was able to find, he took the token for Asphyxious, and the Team Rocket token.

Just as he was about to summon all of them, a portal opened up and deposited a stunned Alex, holding a golden mask in his hands.

“Yo, Alex,” Dox said. “You couldn’t have showed up at a better time! I need as much help as I can get if I’m going to stop Sun Butt out there.”

“Dox?” Alex asked as he looked around in mild confusion, “I’m guessing that this is your ‘world’?”

“Oh hell yeah,” Dox said. “And there’s about to be a few more people, hold on.”

Dox then used the tokens in his grasp and summoned the others.

The first portal opened and out of it came out a tumbling blue blob, “WOBBA!!!” The blob fell face first onto the floor, “fffeett….”

Not even seconds later a small pink filly jumped out of the portal landing on Wobbuffet’s back. “WEEEE, let’s go again!”

“SCREWBALL!!!” Moments later the rest of the Rocket gang popped out of the portal, Sarah looked at Screwball with a angry yet worried expression, “Screwball! What have I told about following us!”

Screwball looked at the floor, pouting, “To not do it…”

The next portal that opened took a little longer to open as if something else was coming throught. Then THE METAL SNAKE THING POKED IT HEAD OUT!?. It wasn’t alone as it moved out of the way to let a large monster of metal claws and spines on it back walk out next and just as I thought that he wasn’t coming Asphyxious come out looking around before hugging his metal monsters.

“Haha!, it worked oh this is going to be fun. Oh, hi Dox”

“Hey Asphyxious,” Dox said. “Glad you could make it.”

He looked like he was about to say something else, until he saw the large group of ponies staring at him like he was something out of a horror movie.

“Umm, hi” Asphyxious said as the large metal monster standing next to him give a small wave with it large claw.

Alex seemed to be questioning the lich. The large metal monster looked like it was playing with Screwball. Fluttershy was in shock, but still made her way over to the metal snake to pet it. Luna looked to be in approval. Twilight looked scared, yet extremely interested. Pinkie was bubbly as always. Rainbow took a protective stance, and the others seemed to be cowering behind her.

“Alright,” Dox said. “We have a good amount of people. Now let me fill you in. Out there is Celestia. Now, I don’t know about you guys, but this Celestia is corrupted as hell. She’s been corrupted by a fell shadow supercharged into what I call a fell eclipse. I have no idea where that is, but we need to stop Celestia. She’s taken my dice and become nigh invincible, but I know we can still stop her. If we can get the dice off of her, then we will have a better chance. Now, she’s also taken to the air and corrupted about thirty guards. They’re all anthro now, just like she is. Apparently it’s to assume a form compatible to the power. I don’t get it, don’t ask me. All we need to do is stop her, not kill her. Got it?”

Asphyxious held up his hand as if wanting to ask something.

“Yes, Asphyxious?” Dox asked.

“If she can fly, how do we keep her on the ground?”

“Not a freaking clue,” Dox responded. “I could try and keep her grounded, but I’d need a boost to get up to her. Hey, Team Rocket, you guys have a pokemon that could give me a lift?”

Sarah looked around her belt for a pokeball, “Yeah, I think Yanmega strong enough to carry you, and if you turn out to be too heavy for her, theres always Weezing.”

The Iron Lich then looked at everyone before saying. “So what about her guards, do we kill them too?”

“No!” Dox screamed. “We’re not killing anyone! Not unless we have to. If you can, please, try to just take them out of the battle. I don’t want deaths on our hands.”

The Lich just stared at Dox as if thinking about what to say next. “You may have to…”

“I know,” Dox said. “And I’m already at terms with killing. A certain war with Diamond Dogs made sure of that. Listen, we don’t have a lot of time, we have to….. Where’d Alex go?”

True to the changeling’s word, the Displaced known as Alex had disappeared. Dox was able to notice some strange footprints, however.

“He left to go get fighting,” Dox said. “No wonder it’s been quiet over here. Let’s go guys, we can’t just let him have all the fun.”

The second the party made it outside, they were met with a supercharged solar blast from Celestia. Asphyxious the yelled out. “Seether block that attack!” His metal beast ran off ahead on all fours then stood in the way of solar attack, holding its large arms up in a cross.

After the blast and the smoke cleared, they could see it was still standing, but its left arm was hanging from it shoulder. Even some of the armour on its arm was falling off.

“Oh now I’m pissed!” Asphyxious yelled before running out and shooting at her with a smg.

“Alright, while he distracts her, I need a lift,” Dox said.

Sarah took out Yanmega’s pokeball and handed it Dox, “Take care of her, alright.”

“I will,” Dox said. “GO! Yanmega!”

In an explosion of light the large dragonfly appeared, yelling out her name, “Yanmega, I need you to give Dox a lift.” Yanmega nodded, flying behind Dox, she wrapped her legs around him, flapping her wings she started to take off.

Down below, you could see a character made of metal pop up every now and again, slashing at the essentially mutated guards. Every now and then, a guard would go down, but eventually he was pinned by one of them. As the guard stood down on him, crushing his chest, someone yelled out.

“Weezing, use Thunderbolt!” The large two headed ball floated behind the mutated guards, grinning, Weezing shot out a large bolt of lighting at the guards, knocking them unconscious.

The Weezing sneered, “Weeez [Such dishonor, are a group of guards really needed to take down a single opponent? Disgraceful!]”

The metal beast that the Lich called a Seether gave out a roar as if agreeing with the pokemon. It then ran at the guards swinging it working arm wildly at them, it even sent a small one flying in to a tree.

“Lickitung, Rollout!” A large pink chameleon appeared, curling into a ball it launched itself towards a guard, momentarily stunning it, “Now Seviper finish the guard off with a Poison Tail!” Bursting out of the ground, the black snake called Seviper rammed it’s tail onto the guard, rendering it unconscious.

“Hold it right there!” A guard cried out as he rushed forwards, five guards following shortly behind him, only to stop as the ground underneath them became like quicksand, the guards seeping down into the ground.

“On the contrary,” A voice said, before a form flickered at the edge of the quicksand, revealing Alex as Nuparu, his Aqua Blaster Blade shoved into the earth, “I think you should hold it.” However, the guards easily broke out of the swampy ground and lunged at Alex. Alex tried to pull his Blade out as quick as possible, so as to avoid the oncoming hulking guards. However, he was too slow, and the first guard who had broken out slammed into him, pinning him…. again.

Just as it looked like the guard was about to try and take a bite out of his face, a metal centipede shot out of the ground right next to Alex’s head and bit into the face of the mutant guard’s head. As the guard pulls back, the Cankerworm started to wrap itself around its body and started to constrict him.

“Thanks!,” Alex shouted to Asphyxious, then rolled back, stepping behind a nearby tree. “I really picked the wrong Kanohi for this,” He said as he pulled off the Volitak, switching back to human form before slapping on the Kanohi Elda, transforming into Hahli. Immediately, the Elda detected two presences behind the tree, and he let out a curse as he jumped away from the tree seconds before a mutant guard burst out from behind the tree, snapping the tree just to get to him. Right afterwards, a beam of energy annihilated the guard, leaving nothing but ash where it stood.

“SORRY!” Dox yelled from above. “Kinda hard to keep her from aiming down there!”

“DIE YOU!” Celestia yelled, letting out yet another blast.

“HIT STREAM!” Dox yelled as he let out another wave of energy to try and counter, only to have the beam slow down slightly. “Son of a bitch! I need a better way to deal with her! Somebody, please tell me you have a better way to get her down! I really don’t want to do what I’m thinking!”

“I got one, just make sure she stays in one place!” Yelled Asphyxious as he tried to fire some fire spell’s at her.

“On it!” Alex shouted as he dove behind a rock, and pulled off the Elda before slapping on the Kadin, transforming into Toa Jovan within seconds. “Still not used to this form,” He muttered to himself, his voice having a slight metallic ting to it, as he activated the Kadin, launching him away from a guard that slammed into the place he had been moments earlier, before focusing on Celestia, his hands outstretched. “I hope this works,” He said, then focused his magnetic energy outwards. Using his magnetic powers, he focused on the metal bits in Celestia’s armor before amplifying their attraction to the earth’s core to extreme amounts.

Celestia was sent plummeting to the earth. She was able to stop her fall at about ten feet above the ground. This cost her to lose her crown and an earring, however, the latter tearing part of her ear off with it.

Dox and Yanmega followed after her. Though, when they reached the same height as Celestia, Dox told Yanmega to drop him and go back to Sarah. After touching down, Dox ran over to the discarded bits of Celestia’s outfit, removing the dice that were inside of them and inputting them into the Dice Rolling Core in the process.

“Alright,” Dox said. “Thanks Alex!”

“No prob, though you might want to hurry up!” Alex gritted out, his teeth clenched as he kept focusing on Celestia, ”I don’t know how much longer I can hold her!”

Just before Dox could even ask what Asphyxious’s plan was, they saw him teleport behind Celestia and slash her wing clean off with his staff. However he was kicked by her into the woods and landed by crashing into Alex, breaking his hold on Celestia in the process and knocking out the Toa in the process. She then started floating HIGHER into the air, propelled by magic.

“Okay… That, kind of hurt” He said laying in a half destroyed tree.

“Team Rocket!” Dox yelled out. “Please tell me you have a pokemon that knows Gravity or Smack Down!”

Tomas looked through his belt in a panicked expression, “Ummm.. hold on.” Snapping his fingers, he grabbed a pokeball from Sarah’s belt, “Porygon Zero! I choose you!” In an explosion of light came out a Porygon, the Porygon had a black flag with a red R tied onto it’s tail and a zero on it’s forehead, “Zero, use Gravity!” The Porygon’s eyes glowed as suddenly the area around Celestia became much more heavier, forcing Celestia down onto the ground.

“Thanks!” Dox yelled. He then charged Celestia, only to get blasted at. The blast barely missed, Dox just teleporting behind Celestia in time. “NOW STAY DOWN!” he yelled as he brought the sword down upon her, lodging it deep into her right shoulder. He then attempted to rip off the die lodged in her glove, only to get a good hold on it before getting blasted into Tomas, ripping out the die in the process. “Sorry Tomas,” Dox said as he got up, extending a hand to Tomas to help him up.

“Thanks,” Grabbing his hand, he pulled himself up. “Meowth, if this turns out to be too troublesome, try to have a mech ready.”

Meowth saluted and pulled out a yellow gem. “Right!” Meowth then ran out of the battlefield, Wobbuffet running besides him.

“Let’s hope you can get it up soon,” Dox said. “We might need it.”

Right as Dox said that, the guards stopped what they were doing and started heading towards Celestia. When they reached her, Celestia hit what was left of them with a spell, turning the ten guards that were left into MASSIVE behemoths, at least 30 meters tall each.

“You have got to be kidding me, they are bigger then a heavy warjack” The Lich complains as he makes his way out of the woods with Alex over one shoulder.

Sarah looked at the massive guards fearfully, “Screwball go with Meowth, and take Lickitung with you,” Screwball simply nodded running towards Lickitung, she climbed onto it’s back and the two ran towards Meowth’s direction.

“How long is that going to take?” Dox asked. “Because I’m pretty sure we need it now.”

“With the Chaos magic inside the gem, it should take about a few minutes,” Tomas took out a golden pokeball. “We’re going to have to buy some time.” Asphyxious dumped Alex at their feet and called over his warjacks as he called them.

“I’ll get you that minute, but you owe me one” He start making his way to the behemoths with Cankerworm on his left side and Seether on his right.

Tomas smirked and threw out the golden ball, “Gyarados! Use Thrash!” The ball opened up and out of it came out a large blue scaled snake-like fish, his height almost matched the mutated guards, Gyarados lunged at the guards already attacking them.

“Well shit,” Dox said simply. “If you guys can get an opening for me, I can get at Celestia. She has my sword, without it, I’m no help.”

“I got my hands full with just one!” Roars out the Lich as he stabbed his staff into the eye of the behemoth as one of his metal monsters was holding the behemoth arm and his metal snake was biting as it wrapped it body around the behemoth leg.

“I just need an opening,” Dox said. “I’m not asking for much. Wait a sec, I think I know how to help.” Dox then pressed a button on his robotic arm, calling Righty out to help. She took the form of a black dragoness, still wearing the Hyperion logo, and immediately started to blast at the behemoths. “Alright, that should help, but I need that opening!”

“On it!” Alex said, though albeit a tad slurred from having just regained consciousness, then took out Jovan’s Magnetic Bolt Launcher and shot several bolts at the guards, shooting them through their knees so as to keep them from attacking or jumping at the team of Displaced. One of the behemoths fell to its knees.

“That’s it!” Dox yelled. “Someone, throw me!”

Asphyxious laughed at this as he teleported over to Dox just before another behemoth smashed its fist into the one eyed behemoth where the Lich was before. “You sure about this, dude?”

“Absolutely,” Dox said. “I need you to throw me through the gap that Alex made.” Right then, a bolt of energy was shot at the team, just barely missing all of them. “See? Celestia is right over there! If I can get over there and get my sword and the last of my dice back, I can end this!”

“A simple ‘yes’ would of done it” He grabbed Dox and threw him as far as he could.

Dox went sailing over the behemoths, only to collide directly into Celestia. Celestia tried to shoot him point blank, but Dox had other plans. Grabbing his sword and ripping it out of her shoulder, Dox was able to do one more move.

“THIS IS IT!” Dox screamed. “TIME FOR JUDGEMENT!” and with that, Dox brought down his sword into Celestia’s chest, right before EVERYTHING went black.

Dox was floating in the void again, he could see everything the battlefield held, while Celestia floated in chains in front of him. But the strange thing was, he was accompanied by the other Displaced this time.

“Wow,” Dox said. “This is odd.”

The Lich on the other hand was just staring at Dox. “Remember what I said before Dox…”

“Ah, great,” Alex said as he looked around, now back in his human form.

“ARE WE IN THE VOID?!” Sarah yelled panickedly, “LORD ARCEUS WHAT DID WE DO WRONG?! I DON’T WANT TO BE TRAPPED HERE WITH GIRATINA!!!”

Tomas looked around fearfully, “PALKIA IF THIS IS A PRANK, IT’S NOT FUNNY!”

“Don’t worry guys,” Dox said. “This is a strange part of the void. It’s actually known as the inbetween.”

Asphyxious looked around at the others. “Anyone have a fish”

“Seriously guys,” Dox said. “This is what happens when I use that move. That was my form of ‘Judgement’. It’s used to punish those based on alignment…. normally. In this case, it’s so I can help Celestia.” Celestia floated closer to Dox, as if in response to him acknowledging that she was there. “Celestia, you are corrupt, and you have stolen something. First things first, this” -Dox grabbed the d10 on her chest piece- “is mine.” With that, Dox ripped off the die, resulting in a flash of light that restored Celestia back into a non-anthro alicorn. “Now, as for taking care of the corruption. Any of you know how to get rid of it?”

“Trap it in a soul cage?” Asked the Lich as he then hit Dox with a fish in hand.

“Two things,” Dox said, rubbing his head. “One, where the hell do I get a suitable crystal to use as a soul cage? And two, where the hell did you get that fish?!”

Asphyxious looked at the fish in hand then back at Dox. “I don’t know but-” He then held up what looked like some kind of laten that was hanging from a chain around his waist. “-I do have a soul cage”

“All right then,” Dox said before taking the soul cage and turning back to Celestia. “You are to be purged of corruption…. What’s this?” Dox pulled back the soul cage from Celestia, only to find it to be full… and containing a spirit of sorts. “Tirek? Is that you? And to think, you were the cause of all of this. As punishment for your crimes, I’m banishing you to the void.” A small portal opened up next to Dox’s hand. “Have fun in nothingness.”

And with that, it faded to black again.

All along the battlefield were bodies. Most of them living, some of them dead. The behemoths that once stood 30 meters were now back to their normal states as guards ponies.

“Well then,” Dox said. “That was fun. Anyone want to stick around for the aftermath?”

“Well we have nothing to do,” Tomas shrugged, “so sure...Although I’m going to have to check on Meowth, tell him we don’t need his mech anymore.”

Asphyxious was what looked like yelling at a pile of unconscious bodies but then his metal snake thing pokes it head out of them before hissing at the Lich and going back to nesting under all the bodies.

“Sorry Dox what did you say” The Lich called back as he tried to pull worm out.

“I said, aftermath,” Dox said. “Ya know, a party most likely?”

Right then, stone Pinkie popped out of nowhere with a stone Rainbow Dash and Shining Armor following close behind.

“Did you say party?!” Pinkie asked.

“umm, ya sure why not” He then get his warjack to pull Cankerworm out but it just hissed angry at the Lich for being pulled out of its new home.

“Alright, let’s grab everyone else and get to partying!” Dox said.

Aftermath

Once the group reached everyone else, Dox informed Discord of their plans. Discord then teleported them to Canterlot. After a ton of questioning by the public and the guards in the castle, they realized Luna as the current leader, due to their laws. The party started soon after, as somehow, Pinkie Pie had alerted EVERYONE and organized a party within the span of the three hours that it took to quiet the public.

“How did she even do it?” Alex asked as he looked over the party from his alcove from where he could sit in peace.

“Don’t ask,” Dox said to Alex. “It’s Pinkie Pie. She’s a good friend to have. I mean, I know how you stand on the ponies in your world, but she’s a good one to know.”

“Plus she’s cute” Added the Lich from out of no where.

And then the dice started acting up… or should I say the Dice Roller Core started acting up. It glowed a brilliant red before Dox tapped the screen of the device. Out popped several holographic dice that swirled around before exploding in a flash of light. When everyone could see again, there was a black robe cloaked over Dox.

“What the hell?” Dox said. “Well then. I guess I got my cloak back….”

Yo, echoed the sound of the DM’s voice amongst all of the Displaced heads. Someone said the ponies were cute? Look at them now.

“Oh, My, God…” The Lich’s jaw dropped at what he saw.

All of the ponies had become anthros. All of them. They all even seemed shocked about it, not knowing what to do, or what happened.

“DM, what did you do?” Dox asked.

I turned them anthro. the DM said. I just thought it would be fun. I mean, at least now no one will have to worry about combat advantage. Oh, and I changed the houses so they can fit properly.

“Wait a second,” Dox said. “You did what? Is EVERYONE anthro now?!”

Yep. the DM stated. Have fun with that…. and your new powers.

“...Guys, remind for me to sick an Irnakk on DM later,” Alex said as he looked over the crowd, his eye twitching.

“Wait everyone is anthro…...SCREWBALL!!!!” Sarah bolted out of the room and ran towards where she left the filly.

“On second thought, I’ll make it ten,” Alex corrected himself, his eye now twitching like mad.

Dox just started laughing like crazy. That was until he saw Pinkie Pie and Maud walking up to him.

“Hey, we heard someone called me cute. Who was it?” asked Pinkie.

“That would be him,” Dox said, pointing to Asphyxious.

Dox couldn’t tell, but he thought he saw the Lich’s eyes, or eye, widen as they walked up to him then they both hugged him and give him a kiss on the cheek each.

“Umm, I don’t know what going on… But right now, I just don’t care” He said sounding a little to happy about what was happening. They then started to drag the Iron Lich out of the room, giggling all the way.

“...Dox, on a scale of 1 to 100, what do you think the chances are that DM released an airborne ‘love potion,” Alex deadpanned as he looked in the direction that Asphyxious had left.

“Well, considering that he’s a major troll,” Dox said. “About 2000. But then again, even he has his limits on evil. So, it’s doubtful, but highly possible.”

“Rriiight,” Alex said, then jumped off of the windowsill he had been sitting on. “So, do you know which way to the nearest restaurant is?,” Alex asked.

“Not a damn clue,” Dox said. “Hey, I just remembered something, Alex. When I first met you, I forgot to ask if you even had a token. Do you?”

“‘Fraid not,” Alex replied, “Though I’ve been meaning to ask you how to make one. You go enough free time to do so?”

“Yeah,” Dox said. “Just so long as Team Rocket doesn’t let out Arbok while I’m teaching you. I kind of promised her something.”

“I really don’t want to ask, do I?,” Alex deadpanned as he took a seat, ready to begin the token creating process.

“You really don’t,” Dox said. “Anyways, to make a token, you first need an item to represent you.”

Alex thought over what he could use for a few seconds, before a thought struck him. “Hold on a second,” He said as he changed back to human form, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a chunk of protodermis that he had found a while back. “Do you think you could mold this into something with your technomancy?,” Alex asked as he held out the metal chunk.

Dox took the chunk of protodermis and poured energy into it, resulting in it gaining the circuit board pattern. A small flash of light later and Dox was holding a small protodermis capsule. It looked much like the capsules that the Toa Mata came from. “Here ya go,” Dox said, handing the capsule back to Alex. “Now, the next thing is to say an oath. You also get to say how it activates. Like, you can either tell them to open it or something else.”

Alex took the capsule, and stared at it for at least a minute before beginning to speak. “For those who protect the innocent, fight the darkness, or need help themselves, you can call on me, the Omni-Toa of Kanohi, to help by opening this canister,” Alex intoned.

“Nice,” Dox said. “Now, can I have it real quick?” Alex nodded, and handed the canister to the changeling. “And now I do this.” Dox threw the canister, which vanished through a portal. Another portal opened up and sent a similar canister flying out of it. Dox caught the canister and put it in his pocket. “Alright, now it’s been scattered across the void.”

“CHHARBOK [DOX!!!!~]” Suddenly a large purple cobra pounced at Dox, wrapping herself around him. “Arboo~[It’s been so long~]” She started to growl impatiently, “char [You have no idea how hard it was to go without my mate.]”

“Alright then,” Dox said. “Now, if we could just go into another room, we could do the do, as it were.”

Arbok suppressed her urge to just pounce at him again, “[Alright, then, let’s go!]” Arbok unwrapped herself and bolted out of the room. “[Let’s go Doxxy~]”

And with that, Dox followed Arbok out of the room.

“...I’m surrounded by sex-crazed people,” Alex said as he looked where Dox had gone.

About 12 hours later, Dox finally emerged from the room he was in with Arbok, the pokemon still firmly wrapped around him.

“Hey Alex,” Dox said. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Dunno, I haven’t seen them” Alex said as he entered the room, “Which is odd, considering that I’ve been around a good portion of the city while you two were… busy.”

Arbok sighed, “Arboo [Can you really blame me, it’s been a while since I last saw my mate, I just couldn’t control myself.]”

“I’m pretty sure he can’t understand you, Arbok,” Dox said. “I’m lucky to know what you’re saying, and even more so to know you.” Dox cuddled the Arbok wrapped tightly around him a bit.

Arbok smiled, “Charr [True, even Sarah has trouble understanding me, the only pony I know that can understand me is that Fluttershy.]”

“Speaking of Sarah, let’s go find her and Tomas,” Dox said. “I want to see if the DM did anything to Screwball, and see how they’re taking it.”

“Arboo [Alright then, besides Weezing has been wanting to know who my mate is.]” Arbok gasped excitedly, “Charbok! [Maybe if I introduce you two, you guys could get along…. hopefully.]”

“I’m guessing you want for me to find Asphyxious, then?” Alex asked as he held up the Kadin.

“Nah,” Dox said. “We can all go look for him after we’re done finding Team Rocket, alright?” Alex shrugged in reply, but kept the Kadin out just in case.

“So, Arbok,” Dox started. “Can you find them? Or do we need Alex to use his mask?”

Arbok slithered off of Dox, “Arbo [Don’t worry I know this trick my father once taught me when I was an Ekans.]” Putting her head on the floor she waited there for a few seconds. “Char [I think they’re at the park? Probably it’s been awhile since I last did this.]”

“Alright then,” Dox said. “Everyone, hold onto me, I’m going to teleport us.”

Alex grabbed onto Dox’s shoulder, while Arbok squeezed a little tighter. Then, with a puff of shadow stuff, the trio teleported to the nearby park.

“WOBBUFFET!!!” Nearby, a blue blob was seen flying into a nearby tree, “waabaffet…” Burn marks were all over his body.

“Whoa!” Dox said. “What the heck is going on here?”

Suddenly, two vines wrapped themselves around the injured Wobbuffet, “Come on Wobbuffet, mom said you were supposed to help me train!” The vines picked up the injured pokemon, and slowly it started to spin him around. “Vine Whip!” The vines let go of Wobbuffet, causing him to fly off to a nearby tree.

“Screwball! Be gentle with Wobbuffet! He may have the best defence, but he is not indestructible!”

Walking towards the unconscious Pokemon, the filly revealed herself to be completely the same, only difference is that there are two vines sprouting from her back. “Sorry Mom, sorry Wobbuffet.”

“This fits into one of those ‘don’t ask’ areas, doesn’t it?” Alex stage-whispered to Dox as Screwball neared the downed Pokemon.

“Yep,” Dox whispered to Alex. He then turned towards the impromptu pokemon battle and shouted, “Hey guys! What’s up?”

Sarah looked at Dox with anger in her eyes, “YOU! Do you know how big of a scare that DM caused me?!” She then grabbed Screwball, pulling her into a hug, “I almost cried when I found out that she was alright!”

“Well, glad to see she’s okay, then,” Dox said. “Where’s Tomas?”

Sarah sighed and pointed behind her, “He’s over there training Weezing and Victreebel.”

“Thanks,” Dox said before walking over to Tomas. He surprised him by putting a hand on the unaware Tomas who was more focused on training than anything else. “Wassup, Tomas?”

“GAH!” He spun around and glared at Dox, “Don’t scare me like that.” Looking at the Arbok, who was still wrapped around Dox, “I see you and Arbok found each other.”

“Yep,” Dox said. “And we had a grand ol’ time. She’s a really great lady.”

Arbok blushed and looked towards the mock battle, “Charbok! [Hey Weezing, Hi Victreebel!]”

Weezing looked at the source of the shouting, instantly his gaze fell onto Dox, who arbok was still wrapped around, “Weez [So this is your mate…]”

Victreebel screeched happily, “VICTREEE!!! [Arbok! Is this the guy?]”

“Hi,” Dox said. “Yes, I’m the guy, Victreebel.”

Weezing looked at Dox with a serious expression, “Weezing [So you really can understand us.]”

“Yep,” Dox said simply.

Weezing nodded, “Weez [Good, so then you’ll be able to understand this perfectly,]” Taking a deep breath, he glared at him, “Zing! [Give a good reason as to why I should let you mate with my sister!]”

“You’re a little late to say that,” Dox said. “She’s a very good lady. Honestly, I’d move mountains to help others, worth it or not. Let me tell you, she is worth it. She’s a magnificent lady, she has a fire in her heart that I rarely see. It’s the type that says she’s a lover, but she’s not against fighting for what’s right. It’s one of the reasons why I even tried helping her a while back.”

Weezing stared at Dox, his expression didn’t change, “Weez [Do you at least know the proper Arbok mating traditions, did you even prove your worth to any of the team members?]” Weezing snorted, “Weez [If you didn’t, then I’m sure that you can prove your worth right here! With me as the judge.]”

Arbok looked at Weezing pleadingly, “Arboo [Weezing, please, I know you’re a mon of tradition, but is this really necessary?]”

Weezing looked at Arbok, shocked, “WEEZING! [Of course this is necessary! It’s Arbok tradition for your chosen mate to prove himself in front of your family, specifically your father, and since he isn’t here, it will have to be me!]”

“Arbok! [Exactly, my father isn’t here! So I don’t see why I should follow these silly traditions-]”

“No, Arbok,” Dox said. “If this is tradition, then I’d rather do it than not.”

For the first time, Weezing smiled, “Weez [Good, at least I know there is some type of honor in you.]” Weezing cleared his throat, “zing! [According to Arbok mating rituals, the chosen mate must prove his worth, by defeating the father, but since he is not here, I will be his substitute.]”

“Alright then,” Dox said. “Arbok, please let me do this.”

Arbok looked at Dox worriedly, “Arbok, [Dox please, you don’t have to do this, Weezing is Tomas’ strongest Pokemon.]”

“Well then,” Dox said. “I guess he’ll be a good match.” Dox then slipped Arbok off of him, along with his cloak and his hoodie, leaving a solid black shirt on his top. “I’m not going to use any of my items. And as assurance,” -Dox picked up his clothes and threw them. A small portal opened and let his clothes in.- “I won’t have any access to them.”

The two heads chuckled, “Weezing [Excellent, you are honorable afterall,]” Clearing his throat, he explained the rules, “[This battle will be just like any normal battle, no outside help, no items, no hints, just pure strength and magic.]” He looked at Dox, “[Are you ready, challenger? I will not be holding back.]”

“Then maybe I shouldn’t either,” Dox said. “I’m ready when you are.”

Weezing bowed, “[I shall grant you a quick and honorable defeat]” Glaring at Dox, he took deep breath, “[Smokescreen!]” He released a thick black fog, covering the whole area. “[Gyro ball]” Spinning, he tackled Dox, a white ring surrounding his body.

“Heh, my move,” Dox said. He teleported behind Weezing and then hit him with a beam of energy from his right arm. “MAGIC MISSILE!” he screamed, shooting out a ball of energy from his other hand.

“[Double Team!]” Weezing then disappeared, only for a group of Weezings to take his place, “[Thunderbolt!]” All of the Weezing clones fired bolts of lighting at Dox. Only to result in a puff of shadow stuff.

“Over here!” Dox yelled at the Weezings. “I think it’s time I disappear!” Dox then started running around the Weezings at hypersonic speeds, kicking up a cloud of dust and hiding his exact location before disappearing entirely. “This is what happens when you mess with a wizard.”

The Weezings glared at the area around them, “[Scatter!]” Quickly all of the Weezings flew above the cloud of smoke, “[Sludge Bomb!]” Taking a deep the Weezings fired brown sludge all around the cloud. The Weezing in the middle started to prepare an attack, a orange ball started to form in front of him. “[Come on out Dox! Where’s your honor? Unless hiding is like a coward is who you really are?]”

“Nope,” said Dox from behind Weezing. “Just very sneaky and tricky.” Dox then grabbed Weezing and threw him into a tree, this ‘caused Dox to drop his invisibility spell. “If I was a coward, I’d have shot you in the back.” He then raised his right arm. “No, I’d rather shoot you in the face like a man.” A beam of energy came out of his arm, just barely missing Weezing by an inch. “Ready to give up? I could have aimed closer.”

“[Hah! A Weezing never gives up! We fight until the very end!]” Taking another deep breath, the orange ball appeared again, he launched a beam of pure energy to him, “[HYPER BEAM!!!]”

The beam made perfect contact, sending Dox flying backwards through several trees before finally pinning him against a restroom building in the park. When it stopped, Dox slumped off the wall, a mark where he had been pinned into it. He lay there, unmoving.

“ARBOK! [DOX!!!]”

Weezing floated in front of Dox, “[You’re stronger than I thought, but I’m afraid it’s all over.]” Turning his back away from him, he started to float away.

“Heh,” Dox laughed. “Ahah…. AHAHAHAHAHA! You think I’m done?” Dox slowly got up, a ring of energy forming on the ground beneath him, runes forming and slowly rising off the ground. “I’M JUST GETTING STARTED! AND YOU JUST FLOATED THROUGH A LIGHTNING RUNE!”

“[What?!]”

A giant bolt of lightning crashed down upon both Dox and Weezing. Dox, however, took the max amount of the damage, as he was standing in the middle of the rune when it triggered. Dust was kicked up from the explosion that resulted afterwards. Yet, when the dust settled, Dox was still standing in the same spot.

Weezing laid on the ground, unconscious, spirals on his eyes, “Weeez.”

“Arbok! [Dox!]” Arbok slithered across the field, a worried expression on her face, “Arr [Dox, are you okay?!]”

“I’m fine Arbok,” Dox said, now shifting through his pockets. He pulled out a red vial. “But I can’t say the same for Weezing.” He walked over to Weezing and poured the contents of the vial into his mouth. “Drink up guy, you’re going to be fine.”

Blinking, Weezing slowly started to float, “Weez... [Dox… I am sorry for the way I had treated you, truly you are worthy of being my sister’s mate.]” Weezing then started to laugh, “[It is a good thing we are not going by actual Arbok rituals, or we’ll be fighting to death instead!]” He looked at Dox with a serious expression, “Weez [Just please promise me you’ll take good care of her…]”

“Don’t worry, I will,” Dox said. “So, what now?”

“[Well you’re my sister’s mate! So there really isn’t much else, you have already proven yourself worthy in my eyes.]”

“Alright then,” Dox said. “Well, let’s go get everyone else. Actually, we still have to get Asphyxious while we’re at it. None of us really know where he went, though.”

“I can find him,” Alex said as he stepped into the clearing as Jovan, then looked around and let out a whistle at the damage the area had taken. “You two certainly let it rip,” He noted as he looked at the destruction.

“Yeah,” Dox said. He then opened a small portal into the small pocket dimension that was his magic satchel and pulled out his things, leaving the cloak in the hammerspace. He put back on his hoodie and then started talking to the computer on his arm. “Hey, big guy, mind repairing things for me?”

Don’t expect me to do it again. Just this once. the DM said. The area around him started to rebuild itself, the bits of rubble floating back into the spots where they used to be before fusing into place.

“Thanks, big guy,” Dox said. “Alright, now lets go find Asphyxious.”

“On it,” Alex said, then closed his eyes and began to focus. After a few minutes of concentration, he finally said, “I’ve got three signatures that big enough, but unless he’s at the museum or someplace 1500 feet underground, the most likely place he’s at is over there,” And pointed in the direction of the castle with those last few words.

“Alright then,” Dox said. “Everyone grab hold, I’m going to teleport us again.”

Arbok slithered up onto Dox and wrapped around him, Alex grabbed a shoulder, Sarah and Tomas grabbed his other shoulder, Meowth was latched onto Dox’s arm, Screwball latched onto Dox’s back, Victreebell wrapped some vines around Dox, and Weezing bit onto Dox’s head. And with that, Dox teleported them all into the tower where Asphyxious was most likely residing.

They all regretted it instantly.

“Hmm, I don’t know how you girls did it… But it felt wonderful…”

In the room, were Asphyxious, Maud, and Pinkie. The two mares were naked and cuddling him tightly, their arms wrapped around his metal body, a thin sheet just barely covering them all.

“WHAT DID I JUST TELEPORT US INTO?!” Dox screamed at the top of his lungs.

Sarah screamed and covered Screwball’s eyes, “Hey, MOM! What’s going on?!”

Meowth began to laugh, Tomas looked away blushing, “Oh Arceus have we truly angered you this much.”

Arbok blushed and looked away, Weezing was seen looking away with his eyes closed muttering something about honor and disgrace, Victreebel was screeching, whether from embarrassment or delight no one knows.

Alex stared at the three for a few seconds, before finally twitching his hand upwards while exerting all the magnetic energy he could muster. A second later, there was only the two anthro ponies in bed, and a lich-shaped hole in the ceiling, the Iron Lich nowhere in sight.

Once Alex sent the Lich flying, he had two angry naked mares glaring at him. Alex looked back at them with the same deadpan look before swapping out to Nuparu’s form in only a few seconds, his proto-steel shield ready to block any incoming attacks.

Sadly, he didn’t count on Maud’s monstrous strength, as she punched clean through the shield and into Alex’s face. This knocked his mask clean off his face and him out, the shield dissipating into light and disappearing.

“IT WAS-AUGH-WORTH IT!!!” He shouted as the two ponies proceeded to pummel him.

Somewhere else, Fluttershy was looking after the two metal monsters that belonged to the Lich. They may have looked scary, but were really nice. Then she jumped when something landed next to them. She was about to call for someone, when the Iron Lich pulled himself out and growled to himself.

“Cankerworm, Seether, we have some metal ass to kick when we get back.”

Back with Dox and friends, Alex was getting the snot beat out of him, and the others were watching in shock.

“So, is anyone gonna try and stop this?” Dox asked. “Anyone? No? Just me? Okay, then.” Dox pushed everyone off of him and tried to grab at the two mares beating on Alex, only to be shoved away by Pinkie. Dox then grabbed the stone pony and threw her onto the bed, her sister following suit. He then pulled out a red-purple vial from his pocket and poured it down Alex’s throat, reviving him. It was obvious that Alex wasn’t fully up to snuff, though, as he moved around groggily like there was something still wrong with him.

“Ugh, hold on a second,” Alex said as he put on the Mask of Healing, sending a few of his masks clattering away, before transforming back into his ‘Dinosyus’ form. A few seconds later with the help of the Kanohi, and Alex was back to normal. “Thanks for the healing, Dox,” He said, then looked at the changeling and asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have any extra Bags of Holding or something similar, would you? I really need something to help carry my Kanohi,” He asked, pointing at the strewn Kanohi for emphasis.

“Nope, sorry,” Dox said, shrugging. “I honestly don’t even know how I got one. I think it might have something to do with biting Averice’s cloak. Not really sure. I could probably get you a backpack though. Let me check.” Dox opened another portal to his little ‘hammerspace’. He shuffled around for a little bit before pulling out a large backpack. It had the words ‘Bag Of Holding’ on it, but also had the words ‘Think Geek’ on it. He handed the bag to Alex, saying, “Here you go, it’s the best I got.”

“Thanks,” Alex said as he transformed back to human form, then put all of his Kanohi save for the Olmak in it before slinging it over his shoulders.

“All right,” Dox said. “So, who’s ready to go home?”

They all then heard the Lich yell as he smashed through the doors into the room with both his metal monsters by his side. “ALEX!”

“Yep!” Alex quipped as he slapped the Olmak on, then gave the incoming Iron Lich the one-fingered salute, careful not to let Screwball see the gesture he was making, before racing into a portal he had created, laughing like he was a madman in the process.

“When I find you I’m going to eat your soul!” He yelled after him just before the portal closed on him. A smaller portal then opened before a plastic refrigerator ‘L’ flew out of the second portal, which had closed in milliseconds, and attached itself to the Lich’s forehead. He then pulled it off and melted it in fire.

“Wow,” Dox said. “Jerk move. Hey, if it helps, he kinda left a portal signature. I could try and get the big guy to open a portal….. Or I could give you this.” Dox held out Alex’s token to Asphyxious. “I do suggest doing it back in your universe, though. I don’t want this one being destroyed by your rage. So, yeah. There’s also the fact that he doesn’t know you can’t leave once summoned, not until the universe wills it.”

Asphyxious then started to give off a evil laugh and took the token. “Oh, I know just what to do with this when I get back.”

“Yeah, have fun with that,” Dox said. “Asphyxious, our contract is complete. Later buddy!”

The Lich looked at Dox with wide eyes as he was being sent back. “Wait!, can Maud and Pinkie come with-” And he was sent back before he could finish.

Dox bowled over laughing. When he was able to breathe properly again, he said, “So, Team Rocket, you ready to go back yet?”

Meowth nodded, crossing his arms, “Yup, just say the words and we’ll be off.”

Arbok nuzzled Dox, “Arbo [You’ll come to visit, won’t you?]”

“Of course, Arbok,” Dox said. Then he turned to the rest of Team Rocket. “Hey, feel free to call me up if you need me or just want to talk. And if Arbok wants to see me, you let her, got it?”

Sarah smiled, “Of course, hey you’re part changeling right?”

“... Yeah?” Dox said. “What about it?”

She then turned towards Arbok, “hmmm….” Looking towards Dox, she smiled, “Oh nothing, just curious.”

“Alright then,” Dox said. “Now, if you’ll all stand together.”

Slowly they all stood together, Victreebel already inside her pokeball. “Ready when you are.”

“Alright,” Dox said. “Team Rocket, our contract is complete. Bye guys!”

A portal opened up behind them, Meowth looked and threw a small yellow gem at him, “Hey Dox, catch!”

Dox caught it and asked, “What is it?”

Meowth smiled, “It’s called a Chaos Gem, with it you’ll be able to use a small amount of chaos magic, nothing like Discord’s, but still pretty powerful.”

“Thanks!” Dox said.

One by one they all jumped into the portal, Arbok going in last. “Arbo [Goodbye Dox!]”

Dox waved as she left, saying, “Goodbye, love!”

A few seconds after they left, the DM spoke up.

Do you know anything about Changelings as a species?

“Somewhat,” Dox said. “Why?”

Then how did you not know that your DNA is compatible with pretty much everything? the DM said. The only thing you can’t mate with is a doppleganger.

“... Well damn.” Dox said.

Oh, and watch out.

“For what?” Dox said.

“Oh, Dox~!” said a sultry Pinkie.

“Damn it,” Dox said.

Another Mare-athon? Really?

I was barely able to escape the Pie sisters.

….. They weren’t the only ones, though.

All throughout the castle, if there was a mare, they were after either me, or a stallion. The worst part of it was that I couldn’t find a single stallion to get them to stop and chase after instead of me. Where had all the freaking guards gone?!

Well, I got that answer. One of them just disappeared into a room, and I heard them lock it. Gosh darn it, DM. What did you do?

Long story short, the DM said. I turned everyone anthro and unleashed an essential rape bomb or pheromones into the atmosphere to even out their pheromones for their new bodies.

…. Damn it, DM.

Welp, if I’m going to escape getting raped, I’m gonna need help….. And I left all the tokens back in the Everfree…. FUCKING DAMN IT!

At least the balcony is right there. Just let me get the spell prepared… And let’s go!

“GERONIMO!” I yelled as I jumped off and glided towards the Everfree Castle.

I swear, I need a better and faster way to get around. I was followed on my way to the ancient castle ruins. Just a few female guards…. And Luna…. Freaking Luna. She was almost just like Celestia was when she was anthro. Except, instead of being freaking 6’ 6”, she was a more modest 5’ 8”. That, and instead of having the gigantic bosom of Celestia, hers were, I think, an above average E or F cup, but nowhere near Celestia. Dat ass tho…. WHY DOES SHE HAVE TO BE SO SEXY?!! Now I’m running away from a super Brazilian bikini-model Luna with a freaking hardon!

The good part of this is that I was able to evade them during my mad escape to get to the tokens, where found I had a new one for Alex, and even lost the female guards in the process! The bad part of it all, was that WHEN I lost the guards, I lost sight of Luna…. She was waiting for me in the room where the tokens were, laying amongst them on her side facing the door, with a demure smile, twirling some of her ethereal mane in a finger as she licked her lips, her wide hips sticking into the air like a small mountain among the trinkets. Damn it, sexy Luna. Why do you have to know my moves?

I was able to bolt towards her and grab a token before spinning around and, running as fast as I could, managed to use it on the way. Which token, you might ask? Avarice’s token. I managed to spark it on the wall as I ran. I just needed to say the words to summon him, and then I’d be golden.

“AVARICE!” I yelled as I ran from the Lusty Luna. “I need your help buddy! Now, PLEASE HELP SAVE MY ASS!” I then ducked into a corner, watching as Luna flew past, unintentionally giving me a look at her royal goods, which was REALLY hard to ignore, and then threw the token onto the ground.

And perfect timing on it, because right when it hit the floor, a blue flaming portal opened up, and dumped out…. sentient clothing…. What the hell?

I mean, that’s Avarice’s gear…. But where is Avarice? How is Vagabond here alone?!

“Vagabond?” I asked surprisedly. “Where’s Avarice? And how the hell are you standing on your own?! AND WHY ARE YOU SO GOD DAMNED BIG?! I want answers!”

“I HEAR YOU!” Screamed a desperately horny Luna. Well shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have screamed that loud….

Vagabond was currently 14 feet tall, easily dwarfing Dox twice over, and had red shimmering “mirage” ether extending from his back and between his coattails in the shape of dragon wings and a long dragon tail. He pretended to snap his fingers, and lean back before aiming two “gun hands” at Dox in a stupid “Ey~” pose, just as Luna rounded the corner. She was about to pounce on me while I was stunned, only for her to suddenly vanish. Like, instantly. into thin air!

“.... What.” I said. “What the absolute crap.” Before I could properly react, suddenly the giant black leather outfit was plopped on the floor next to me, leaning into my side with a massive arm...sleeve? Sleeve, wrapped around my shoulder. “What are you doing?....”

“Nothing much.” My eyes widened in incomprehensible terror at the almost unknowable voice. It was every tone, every scale of the audible kind available and then some. It was a rasp, a whisper, a shout, and a scream all in one. It was as if a child, a woman, a man, and a dying animal all spoke together. It made my skin crawl. I nearly shit my pants out of terror. I did, however, piss them, only for them to become dry an instant later. So, apparently, Hyperion did something other than just repair my hoodie. “Oh, suck it up godling.”

Then he stabbed me. With a hyper-futuristic syringe in the shoulder which instantly drew rainbow ‘blood’. I screamed in pain for an instant before he was suddenly not on me, and leaning against the wall across from me, shaking the syringe as he seemed to examine it idly.

“WHAT THE HELL?!” I screamed. “Why did you do that?! And before I forget, where’d you send Luna?” I got my answer when Luna’s luscious and sexy bubble-butt was thrust right into my face, marehood first, before her rear was suddenly gone again, leaving me stunned stupid, and really, REALLY wanting some of that when she WASN’T all hopped up on pheromones.

“Someplace.” Vagabond then...WHEN WERE WE IN A DESERT?! “Like we are now.Everything is relative, little godling. You’ll learn this with time.”

“Alright, why do you keep calling me Godling?” I asked. “And what is up with you?”His response was a peal of shifting laughter, which sounded between screeching nails on a chalkboard to a demure titter would’ve made me piss myself again if I hadn’t already done so earlier. What was it with Avarice and now this Jerkoff that made me soil myself? Why are we friends again?

“So, the little Dice Roller didn’t tell you? Not surprising. The little idiot is a terrible father.” Vagabond commented idly as he seemed to focus more on the vial he removed from the futuristic syringe.

“WHAT?!” I screamed. “He’s my father?! WHAT THE FUCK?!”

You little troll, Vaga, the DM said. You had to say it. I was hoping he’d be smart enough to figure it out himself. I mean, he’s made of my essence, for crying out loud.

“Not my fault your progeny is of average intelligence, playing in the realm of immortals and gods. He’ll grow out of it eventually though. They all do.” Vagabond, or is it just Vaga? Said as he then carelessly tossed me the vial of my blood. “The only reason you can even comprehend my Supernal without your mind melting is because you’ve already ascended into the realms of demigods.”

“... What… The…. Crap…” I said. “No seriously, what the crap. I have that much power?! Since when?!”

“Um, since, ever? You had it the moment DM created you some couple hundred years ago. You just had to have it brought out. WHY do you think The Merchant even had the patience to deal with you, lollygagging about his wares like you did? He and DM had a deal-.”

HE DIDN’T NEED TO KNOW THAT! NOR SHOULD HE KNOW! the DM yelled.

“Hold up, let me get this straight,” I said, massaging my temples. “The big guy made me two hundred years ago, even though I only know of freaking eighteen years of my existence, and then made a deal with the merchant to send me here. What the absolute hell?! I swear, this keeps going, you two are gonna give me a freaking migraine.”

“Good. Get used to it. Soon the pain will fade, and only annoyance will remain. It’s best you know now, rather than later. DM has a terrible sense of timing, no respect for others, pfft, I’m an Elder God of Chaos and I have more respect for the boundaries of others. Your dad’s a dick, kid. Welcome to Olympus, Percy Jackson. There’s your dad. He’s an ass even though he’s more involved in your life than all the other gods are with their kids yatta-yatta blah, blah, blah, gibberish and gobldygook.” Vaga rambled with absolutely no respect at all for either me or my now apparent dad...what a dick.

“Oi,” I said, rubbing my temples, again. All this gave me one bad headache. Well, at least it’s not a migraine. AND NOW WE’RE ON THE MOON. And there’s that migraine. Freaking elder gods. Oh god...there she is. WHY is Luna here?! And...why is she dressed so classy? I mean...wow...she’s in a silvery, shimmering one-piece dress that hugged all her curves sensuously and stylishly and also had an off-side skirt that just flowed in a nonexistent breeze like her hair...my gosh….

“Dox?” she said. “It is you!” And now she’s running towards me….. again. Welp, there goes her class. Or...not? She stopped in front of me, and seemed to blink in confusion. “What...Dox, what happened? I felt so fuzzy earlier….”

“Welcome home Lunar Goddess. Here, DM’s little pheromone bomb isn’t present, nor can it be here with my interference. And unlike his required indirect methods, I have properly adjusted your mind to your new body. So, now, if you two decide to get frisky, it’ll be completely consensual. Oh, and like the dress? Nabbed it from the abandoned planet of Morag in one of the countless Marvel universes.” Vaga said as he floated overhead as if swimming the backstroke, his tail only brushed Luna, but she shuddered with a look of fear plastered over her beautiful face.

You do know that once she’s returned to the planet’s surface, she’ll be under effects of the pheromones again, right? DM said.

“You also know Luna can return herself and Dox to Equus whenever she pleases correct? So unless you go out of your way to cause Dox trouble, you have no reason to spoil what these two have starting. I also trust you’ve given the same treatment to all the other sentient races of Equus? For ‘balancing issues’ I’m sure.” Vaga snidely commented, hugging both the still scared Luna and the slowly recovering Dox together.

Of course, why wouldn’t I? the DM commented. I’ve released pheromones into the entire atmosphere. Sadly, they won’t settle until later tonight. But I was able to use them to reset the heat period. I’m amazed Luna is still able to control herself. Maybe I released too many pheromones….

“Typical DM. Always overkill, never ‘just right’. Oh well, just means you two can have plenty of time to get to know each other. In any way you want. Bet you didn’t imagine having a picnic on your moon so soon, hm Luna darling?” Vaga asked as suddenly we were all seated on a cheesy classic red and white plaid blanket with several picnic baskets around us, and Vaga shoving a giant sub sandwich under his dragon snout-shaped bandana, disappearing without any slowing of motion. “Mm...free abandoned food from rain-interrupted picnics.”

“Well…” Luna said, blushing profusely. “A picnic would be nice before anything else….”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. “Wait, anything else?” And with that, Luna glomped me. Eh, it’s just a hug. Well, it’s better than getting raped. I draped my arm over her shoulder in return. Aw, and now she’s blushing more! She then nuzzled me a bit before we broke off from the hug, smiling at each other, but when we turned to look at the Elder God that bothered to set this up, in his place was a Looney Toons Acme sign that said Be Back In The Morning Lovebirds and behind that was a luxurious bed, that was clearly either Luna’s actual bed, or one that was abandoned by another Luna in the Multiverse. Wow, he said he had more respect than the DM…. Well, at least he left us with privacy. But where the hell did he go? He can’t really leave the universe….

Meanwhile, in the capital city of Neighpon:

“AH~! IS GOZIRA~!” A suspiciously familiar stallion who looked very much like Renkinjutsu screamed while pointing upwards as Vaga appeared from the sea shaped as if being worn by a giant dragon.

*GOZIRA ROAR* Came the keening screech of an abandoned Gozira from a dead timeline before it began rampaging, somehow killing nobody. ‘I love my job sometimes.’

Meanwhile, back with Luna and Dox…. who are on the moon:

The picnic was done in a few hours, what with us being playful with each other. Man, it’s really fun hanging with Luna when she’s not either trying to seduce me or rape me. And to think, it’s still heat season for her, it’s kinda shocking that she’s still acting so well. Last time I had to deal with a heat cycle, I had to run for my freaking life so I wouldn’t get killed by mares…. Then again, to each world their own differences.

“So, Dox,” Luna said. “As much as I would love for you to admire my night, aren’t you tired?”

“Eh, I can stay up a bit longer,” I said. “It’s not like I mind.”

“Well, since you’re staying up,” she said…. She’s blushing more. What does she want? And now she’s whipped my in the face with her tail! What the heck!

“What the heck?” I said. “Why’d you whip me?”

Her expression went blank for a second before suddenly becoming surprised. “You…. you don’t know?”

“Know what?” I asked. “Is it supposed to mean something?”

“Well, yeah!” Luna said. “It’s a sign that I’m interested. I assumed that you knew. It’s just like how leaving a feather is a sign of love. Or curling a wing around someone…. Or even simple nuzzles.”

“Oh….. OH,” I said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“No, no….” she said. “I had assumed incorrectly. It’s okay, you don’t have to-”

With that, I silenced her with a kiss. I mean, I was already getting a little close to her, and this just sort of solidified it. She hummed in content as we leaned into it, deepening it until we broke off, me smiling as I looked her in her sparkling silver-blue eyes.

“It’s alright, Luna,” I said. “If you’re willing, then I guess I am, too.”

She got really excited at that and tackled me. She hugged me for a little longer before throwing me onto the bed and undressing me with her magic as she stood at the foot of the bed. Well, I know how my night is gonna go. “I am more than willing Dox dear. Do not think of me as a Princess, do not think me special. Tonight.” Luna stepped up to the bed, and elegantly shed her dress in one move, really getting me excited. “I am just Luna.”

Meanwhile, somewhere in Hockland.

“ACH~! IT BE SEONAIDH~!” A frantic minotaur bull wearing a green plaid kilt shouted as Vaga rose from the sea as a giant mass of a gloriously shapely female water deity of sorts. “SHE HAS COME TO ABDUCT ALL US MALES FOR HER PLEASURE SINCE WE FORGOT THE ANNUAL ALE TRIBUTE!”

He and his fellow bulls all paused in realization as the demi-goddess swept her body across the land, sweeping away all the suddenly excited males while leaving distraught and worried mates and females in general as the demi-goddess cooed in anticipation. ‘You’re welcome Seo.’

Meanwhile, back on the moon:

Wow. We just spent several hours, just doing it. What the hell.

I’m tired as hell, she’s asleep. And I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t have had that much stamina. I mean, seriously, we went at it fucking 10 times! How the hell did we manage that?!

Well, might as well get some sleep, I sure as hell need it after that performance. I hugged my contently sleeping mare to my chest, kissing her horn before nestling into the pillow.

Meanwhile, in Space Neighpon.

“AH~! IS SPACE GOZIRA~!” Screamed a Space Pony suspiciously akin to both the random Neighponese stallion and Renkinjutsu whilst wearing a Scouter and World Trade Organization armor. “KILL IT ONCE AND FOR ALL~!” He screamed before aiming a palm at it and firing yellow Ki blasts alongside thousands of hovering wingless Space Ponies all in the same armor and scouters.

“IN THE NAME OF LORD FREEZER~! DIE YOU EVIL BEAST!” Screamed a Space Alicorn mare with suspiciously spiky black plumage. “I; PRINCESS VEGEETA SHALL NOT FAIL MY PEOPLE!”

*GOZIRA SCREECH OF PAIN* ‘Sorry big fella, Chaos needed sewn here this day to spare tragedy.’

Back with the lovers:

Eight hours later and it’s wakeup time.

Man, you wouldn’t have believed my dreams, even if I told you them. I slept next to a goddess who can manipulate dreams, that, and I had sex with her last night, so yeah. Go ahead and think about that.

“Mmm...good morning my mate.” Luna cooed as she leaned up and kissed me tenderly. “Did you enjoy our dreams as much as our coitus?” Luna asked as she smiled slyly, eyes half-lidded and running her hands down my torso. Whoa...getting a bit low there.

“Of course, Luna,” I said. “I’ll always love it, just so long as you’re there.”

Luna beamed as her wings flared behind her, and she pounced me into a deep kiss. “Ahem.” We both broke apart suddenly and looked to see a floating Vaga laying sideways in the air. “Do I seriously need to give you two MORE time?”

I pulled the sheet up higher in surprise. “What the hell?! No, you don’t need to give us more time,” I said, Luna pouting in disappointment as she didn’t even bother to try covering her breasts, not being used to any sort of human sorts of decency.

“Oh~, why did you have to interrupt? I wanted morning snog….” Luna pouted a bit deeper. Oh gosh she was adorable!

“Sorry Lulu, but I can’t stay here much longer. Time difference between universes may ultimately be completely negatable, but I don’t want to linger for too long. I can stay as long as necessary, but you have a kingdom to sort out, and YOU.” Vaga pointed to a suddenly clothed Dox, who balked at his clothes being returned so suddenly, and Luna blinked before looking down to see she had her dress back on. “Have things to sort out as well. Chaos is all well and good, but I’ve spread the Chaos this universe needs for some balance already, and the locals need to get started on their own brands of madness.”

Suddenly, we were no longer on Luna’s pearly orb, and instead were in Canterlot Castle’s throne room. Luna blinked at realizing where she was; seated on the throne which...was now black and gothic rather than gold and elegant. Celestia was also there in a golden sun-themed dress alike to Luna’s own, blinking in confusion, and we were all especially shocked when she spread BOTH her wings out. “W-what?! I-I was in the hospital…. in shackles, how did I-?”

Tia was stopped by two massive leather glove claws reaching down and around her to cup her massive breasts, making us all blush. “Got ya by the tit.” Vaga said with Avarice’s voice, making Tia blush even more at remembering being fondled by an alien appendage while she was possessed, and she began breathing a bit heavier when he began kneading her as she leaned back into him. “Heh, heh. Every incarnation. Every time. Always a boob mare.”

“Wow, first Avarice, now you,” I said. “Why are BOTH of you like this? WHY?!”

“Like Elder, like Younger.” Vaga replied simply, before moving away as Tia moaned, being held up by her nipples through her dress as his glove hands LITERALLY stopped being attached to his sleeves, and kept her going as he moved away while they lowered her to the floor and kept molesting her while he approached in a slow, measured pace that put both me and Luna on edge.

“Thou art aware that she is in heat, are you not?” Luna asked. “The more you do that, the more she’s going to be agitated.”

“Of course, and HE, is going to be helping her come to terms with what she’s done, what she thinks, feels, and all the jumbled mess she is from all of this insanity that is this whole hogwash prophecy. By fucking her brains out. It’s the easiest way to settle things. She’ll be able to accept things as they are if she finds herself at all...enamored with Dox. You two end up usually sharing in most dimensions anyway.” Vaga explained, making Luna blush, remembering some of her incestuous thoughts of her sister.

“.... NOPE!” I said, letting go of Luna and attempting to run out of the door, only to find it locked…. from the outside? WHAT DOOR DOES THAT?! “The hell?! Why can’t I get out?!”

I twitched when Celestia squealed in what was clearly her getting off, on BREAST PLAY?! “OH~! YES! THESE THINGS ARE GLORIOUS!”

“I can’t speak among mortals without killing them. So, to ensure that I don’t accidentally kill anyone, and that you man up and resolve this extremely serious issue as quickly as possible, and help Tia stabilize by letting her ravish you. There’s no escaping this Dox. Besides, it’s good for you too. It’ll get you to stop hating her for something not her fault, and possibly see the mare beneath the crown. Toodles.” Vaga vanished, his detached hands along with him, and the gasping and panting mare with a great flushed face bolted upright, her heaving boulders of breast flesh bouncing as her hungry eyes locked onto the only viable male in the room.

I am SO literally fucked...DAMN YOU VAGA!

“RUNNING!” I yelled before running around the room in a futile attempt to get away. The doors were all locked, the windows were all turned invincible for some reason, hell, even the freaking walls, floor, and ceiling were all invincible, too. Who the hell did Vaga expect to come in?.... Oh wait, he was expecting me to attempt to leave. Well then, maybe my sword…… SON OF A BITCH, HE TOOK MY STUFF! Maybe I can EMP her………. AND HE DISABLED MY ARM’S DEFENCE FUNCTIONS?! HOW THE FUCK IS HE EVEN ABLE TO DO THIS SHIT?!

Well, at least I already had my joy, might as well accept it.

I just stood there, arms outstretched, waiting for my inevitable fate. Hoping maybe that Luna would help me, but no, she’s...she’s…. Making out with her sister on her throne...holy hell that’s fucking hot!.... And they just noticed me….. And now they’re lunging….. Well, better say goodbye to my pelvis now. “Goodbye Pelvis, I will miss you.”

They went at it all day and night with me. ALL FUCKING DAY AND NIGHT! I even passed out after the thirtieth time! I only know they’ve been doing it that long because I just woke up and they’re STILL going. How do they have this much stamina?! And how did they manage to keep me from going limp?!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Damn it DM….. Actually, no. Not this time. No, this time it’s Fuck you to HELL and back, DM. Literally. Go eat shit and DIE, DM.

Yeah, and then who’ll keep this universe, and all of reality, together? The DM said. Well, when he’s right, he’s right.

“Oh, get over yourself DM. Any of us Elder Gods could do your job, we’re just more content with being voyeurs of all existence in this Multiverse rather than get involved...well, most of us. Me not being included.” Vaga stated, and I had to look around Celestia’s butt that was sitting on my face to see him off to the side, not even at all affected by the three-way in front of him.

Need I remind you, Vaga, that my being is tied to ALL of existence? I am more powerful than all of you combined.

Vaga’s unreal voice exploded in a mind-numbing cackle, getting the kissing and gyrating sisters over me to pause and come a bit to their senses. “And once again! YOU forget that we have ASCENDED beyond you! We are not bound by the constraints of reality unlike you! Need I call one of our even bigger brothers? Ahem...HASTUR, HASTUR, HASTUR!”

Uh, uh, uh. I don’t want multiple elder gods in the room, the DM said.I’d rather have this universe’s inhabitants alive right now. Dox may be able to handle it, but the others in the room, besides You and him aren’t ready for that.

Oh DM, it was just a jest. While I would’ve liked to pay a visit, he’s right Vaga, don’t try and get those hot little things killed, y’hear? Now if you don’t mind, me and Slendy are at a concert in another existence. Totally cool new god here invited us to visit whenever, but this world’s sisters only let us visit for crazy shit like this. Later little bro.

The sisters had promptly passed out on top of me the moment the mind-hurting voice of whom must have been Hastur himself echoed through the room. I was glad for that, but I hoped they were okay. Huh...Vaga was right, I don’t begrudge Celestia anymore...must’ve worked out my frustration already.

“Ya know, thanks Vaga,” I said. “I mean, you totally just broke my mind, but hey, you helped out…. But I honestly called to get away from everyone. My question to you is, what happens when you leave? All the males in this castle sealed themselves away in a vault of sorts, hidden somewhere. Meanwhile, all the ladies are looking for a mate. I smell of arousal and happy time for mares. What the hell is gonna happen with all the sex crazed mares out there?!”

“Remember how Luna was up on the moon? That’s how all the mares are right now. The pheromones are gone, but they’re still in heat. They’ll be able to restrain themselves so long as you don’t entice them. As for getting yourself clean...well, that’s up to you three. This has to blow over as it normally does, I’ve already kicked off the latent Chaos that needed doing. So, whenever you’re ready, just send me on my way. I have my own little Godling to see after.” Vaga stated as he removed his hood and bandana, the wavering red aura that was his body aside from his possessed clothes turned into a black dragon’s head that I could only assume was the form Avarice gained from eating Leere back then.

“Yeah, just let me ask you to do something,” I said. “Could you take a picture? And also, you kinda just did a shitload of stuff to me. So yeah.” I blink as suddenly a fuckton of photos rain down on me and the snoring sexy sisters. I notice the one right over my eyes is of an especially good scene of...holy SHIT! When did I transform into THAT?! “Alright then. Could ya take one to Avarice? I’d kinda like to shove it in his face after he did the same to me.”

“No point, too late. He’s knocked up our Tia with six foals, knocked up his living robot dragoness with seven eggs, and I don’t even know how pregnant that bitch Sharp he’s got a Kismesis with is since she took his first load after months of being pent up AND indulging in the drug herself. Avarice is my avatar, and I was...kinda...the god of Fertility of my world before I...became Chaos when I realized how much more potential it had.” Vaga stated with actual sheepishness. “Like I said before; Like Elder, like Younger.”

“Damn,” I said. “Just…. Damn. Well, I think I’m done.”

“No you’re not. I have thrust a lot of bullshit onto your shoulders in a very short period of time. So. You get ONE item. Of ANYTHING, from ANYWHERE and ANYWHEN in the Multiverse! Know though, that it DOES have to be without an owner at some point, and, well...whatever you ask for, if I cannot supply it, I will explain why.” Vaga said as I moved the sleeping sisters off of me, and let them cuddle each other as I gathered up the raunchy photos...hot damn...I did them both at once in THAT form?

“That’s...a lot of options to choose from Vaga,” I said. “I...don’t really know what I could ask for.”

“Ugh...why can’t you be as simple as Avarice? He’d just say ‘the power to manipulate the bodies of others without hurting them’ for sure, so he could be a huge perv...well, huger. I’m going to go hang out with my son Discord then. You think on it.” Vaga vanished, and I let my jaw drop.

Discord is his son? Does that mean ALL of them are his kids?! Well, that sure fucking explains a lot! “PRINCESS!” I jolted up in surprise, glad that I was somehow, suddenly clothed again, and saw Twilight and her friends plus Maud and Renkinjutsu all burst through the throne room doors, all of them wearing clothes now. DM must’ve done that… or Vaga. I don’t know anymore. They all gawked at the naked and spent sisters on the floor, and then looked at me. The ones with wings all instantly got wingboners, and I mentally cursed Vaga. ‘Damn you Vaga...DAMN YOU!’

And so began the chase again....well, except for Fluttershy, she just pounced on Renkin, thanks for taking one for me bro!

I eventually evaded them. Hell, I had to smash through a window, a door, AND A FUCKING WALL just to do so. The item I decide on has to be worth it….. and there’s more mares over here. GOD DAMN IT!

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY MARES IN CANTERLOT WITHOUT STALLIONS?!

I AM GOING TO FREAKING DIE! THERE’S MORE COMING IN FROM THE OTHER CITIES!....

I’m starting to feel like Vaga has something to do with this….

Meanwhile, somewhere in Cloudsdale:

Discord sipped a cup of tea, a pinky claw extended. He didn’t escape the anthropomorphization, either. “Ah. Such delicious Chaos. You really must visit more often Daddy. Especially since you’re up for retirement.”

Vaga was pouring a hot kettle of spearmint tea down his hood, making a satisfied sound the whole time, and spoke while still drinking. “Dissy, you know you’re just one of my sons in a nigh infinite Multiverse. Even Elder Gods can’t be everywhere all at once. That’s DM’s schtick. And look where it has him.” Vaga looked below as pegasus and thestral stallions were flying with haste to try and escape, only to be tackled into clouds by amourous pegasus and thestral mares, who promptly began making lewd sounds once pinned together. “I’m just glad to be watching some vintage local Chaos. It’s nice to see the world’s going about it’s own business.”

FINALLY GOT AWAY! Jeeze! There were so many freaking mares!

I can’t believe I got them to stop by just cuddling with Celestia and Luna. Wow. Either they didn’t want to mess with them and their mate, or they just didn’t want to anger a couple of goddesses. The fact that they backed off and grumbled about me being “claimed” meant that I should’ve just done this from the start. I mean, the princesses seemed to be very welcome to me cuddling between them.

“Finally figured it out?” I shot my gaze towards Vaga, who was sitting with a small chair, table, and tea set all scaled up to his size, and he raised a mocking toast with his cup. “Made up your mind? I’m not leaving until you tell me what you wish for.” He then splashed the tea in the cup at us, and I flinched only to instead feel...better. “Have some tea. It’s good for you.”

“How?” I asked. In response, Vaga pulled his hood off and turned his red ether “head” back into a copy of Avarice’s head, and looked at me with a very clear ‘really?’ expression, a devil-may-care grin on his snout and a brow raised. “Alright fine. I get it. So, you said anything, correct?”

“Absolutely. Anything. Anywhere. Anywhen. No limits. Unlike Avarice, I’m not constrained to a single universe.” Vaga reminded, sipping his tea straight from the kettle.

“Alright then,” I said. “How about a complete comprehensive guide to all things D&D from every series, including homebrew. One that has ALL the weapons, armor, and spells written out in detail for crafting and practice…… With a cover made out of something indestructible.”

Vaga blinked...he actually blinked in surprise. I made an Elder God blink in surprise. I could not describe how happy that made me. “Well...that...will actually take quite a bit of doing. It exists, but so few are unclaimed. Hold on.” I could actually see Vaga manually reach into his coat/body, and seem seriously focused on this. After a moment, he then pulled out a...whoa. “Yeah, couldn’t get the original copy, or the copy of the copy. Had to get the thing in installments all chained together...literally.”

It was beautiful! There were several books, like, text books of information all literally chained together in binders. This was some old legendary D&D player’s complete guide, personally compiled and lovingly stored away in laminated sheets! As a D&D player, a devoted one at that, to me; that was worth more than what I originally asked for.

The second I grabbed it, however, it all disappeared…..

“What the hell?!” I shouted. “What just happened?” My shock and outrage was quelled, however, when in the place of the several chained binders, was a chain-bound brown leather book, so thick I could’ve used it as a weapon! On the cover was written: Dungeons & Dragons: the Complete Guide. By The Wizards of the Coast.

“.... Holy shit….” was all I managed to get out. I just couldn’t believe it. It was amazing, no. Beyond amazing. This thing was like pure gold to me, and even then, that’s a SEVERE understatement! Hell, with this, I could become more powerful than….

Why would you do that, Vaga? The DM asked. That thing is godly, if even further than your powers. I’m still wondering how you managed to get that. Right now, the only thing keeping him from ascending past all of us is that he’s of my essence and that that’s the 4th edition of it. That, and the fact that he has no idea how to do that, nor does the book tell. I’m just glad you couldn’tget the 1st edition. That would have actually made him reality itself.

“He still could DM. Be careful what you say. Just because it’s the Fourth Edition doesn’t mean it isn’t capable of the power of the real ones. Should Dox apply himself, it could actually do all you’ve said. I know I said anything Dox...but be careful won’t you? You’ve got something infinitely greater than any bomb in the Multiverse.” Vaga warned as he sighed and put his hood back on, his head becoming red ether again. “Well, I’m done here. Send me off.”

“All right, then,” I said, snapping out of my own mind. “Vagabond, thank you. Our contract is done.” Vagabond waved as he burst into blue flame, vanishing in a swathe as I lay here, cradling possibly the fourth most epic book in the Multiverse, with two hot sisters spooning me on either side. “Life...is awesome right now.”

To Deal with a Pain

Ya know, this book is pretty amazing. I mean, apparently there's some sort of magic woven into it.

I mean, I tried reading the freaking thing, but all the pages turned out to be blank.... except for the first few pages. They went into detail about how this book could be used to obtain power if the person studied, or learn tricks if they just so willed it. But it also went into detail about its fail safe to avoid losing ownership or just in case someone else took it and tried to read it.

It honestly made sense why Vaga couldn't get any other copy than this one, now. Apparently, the tome became soulbound once the person's name was signed into it. It had a page, just saying 'This Compendium of Ultimate Knowledge Belongs to ____', right next to a blank page. I put my name in the 'Belongs to' thing, and while I wrote it, I felt as if I had been pricked on the arm. Meanwhile, the ink turned into my 'blood'. Also, the DM told me to add a last name, otherwise the magic wouldn't bind properly. He even gave me an idea for it. So, here's how it turned out:

This Compendium of Ultimate Knowledge Belongs to:

Dox Ad Finem

Right after I wrote that, the book flashed a bright light in my face. When I could see again, I noticed that the opposite page had writing on it. It was a table of contents for the rest of the book! It showed that there were THOUSANDS of pages. At the bottom of the tenth page of the table of contents, it said that the owner of the book had to think of what they were looking for, and the page they opened to would automatically be that page. Pretty handy if you didn't want to go looking on page 2633 for a basic fire spell. No joke, that was the first thing I looked up. The entire page just spoke about how to do it, how dangerous it was, and even how to max out the power of the basic spell. The next page had a more advanced one, and so on. Sadly, I accidentally cast one of the fire spells on the book, but nothing happened. Apparently, the cover of the book wasn't the only thing that was invincible. Vaga had really been nice, it was kind of more than I asked for.

Anyways, the next thing I did, logically, since I had looked at a common D&D thing, was look around for something that could be in the homebrew. And knowing people on the internet and other places, I knew just about anything could be in here. So, what did I look for, you ask? A dubstep gun like the one in Saints Row IV. Why? Because what's cooler than killing something with dubstep? Actually, don't answer that, I already know a few things.

But anyways, I opened the book, and there it was. A freaking dubstep gun. The even better part of it, was that it was the version that I had made up from when I played with my friends at school. It even took the same things: a crossbow or like weapon, aetherium, steel, and an artifact called the Rainbow Censor Bar. Why a censor bar? Because it was absolutely hilarious to make something like that into armor. Yeah, I said armor. It was meant to show that, the skimpier the armor, the better the armor. The only thing close to it was the normal censor bar, which couldn't be enchanted. The only difference was that the rainbow variant was one that was enchanted by using this special water that we all called 'Mainstream Water'. Hell, the book even said how to make those, and find the other pieces for the dubstep gun. What? I only let the players use it if they could find a Wub Wub gauge and a record with dubstep on it.

Did I forget to mention how much I love this book?

I fell asleep with the princesses cuddling me on the floor of the throne room. I woke up in the same place. Apparently, no one wanted to disturb the celestial deities that were cuddling a male, lest they be sent to a new planet far away from here.

The girls were the ones that woke me up. When they found the floor to be less than comfortable, they decided that it was enough rest for now, and woke me up. Let me tell you, best wake up call ever. I mean, they didn't try anything, but they were still naked.

We all had apparently slept through the rest of the day.... and that night. I mean, it was morning. What had woken the girls up was a knock on the throne room door from a snobby Blueblood. Heard he got sent flying back to his room by an angry Luna when he attempted to burst in.

Anyways, we were all now sitting at a table for breakfast. The princesses were clothed, Cadence and Shining had shown up, and eggs were being served with a big bowl of cereal. Celestia even got a muffin, and since I was sitting next to her at the foot of the table, I did too!

It was all going well until Blueblood decided to show his head, again. Let's just say he was less than happy to see some random person in the room with his aunts.

"Who is this ape, aunty?!" Blueblood accosted. "Why is he sitting at our table?! He doesn't belong in this room! He should be outside in the garden like the rest of your 'pets'! Aunty Luna, do something about this!"

"Blueblood, this is Dox," Luna said. "He is to be treated with the amount of respect you would give to me or my sister."

"But he's a filthy ape!" Blueblood whined. "He's a common animal! He doesn't deserve to be anywhere near me!"

"Blueblood," Celestia said. "You shouldn't be-"

"Shut up!" Blueblood interrupted. "You don't get to say what I can or can't do anymore! I know what you did, you bitch!"

"Wow, kid," I said. "Where's the respect?"

"It speaks!" Blueblood screamed. "Get this abomination away from me! Kill it if you have to!"

"Blueblood!" Luna yelled. "We don't treat-"

"Let me deal with him, Lulu," I interrupted. "Hey Blueballs. Pay attention."

"It's Blueblood, filthy ape," Blueblood said.

"I don't care," I said. "You want to disrespect me? Fine, go ahead. But you just insulted your elders. That's not okay, kid. Hell, I don't deserve to be in your presence? More like you don't deserve to be alive right now."

"How DARE you," Blueblood practically screamed. "I will have your head for that!" He then attempted to storm out of the room.

And he would have succeeded..... if I wasn't using magic to keep the doors locked. Telekinesis rules, did I ever mention that?

"Let me out!" Blueblood yelled. "I demand to be let out, NOW!"

"Yeah, no," I said. "Not until you've gotten proper punishment."

"And what would that be, peasant?" Blueblood mocked.

"A duel," I said. "Outside, after breakfast. I win, you pay your respects and apologize to Celestia and Luna, then join the guard to learn some respect. You win, I leave. Or better yet, I'll kill myself."

"Deal, welp," Blueblood said confidently. "I will be looking forward towards your loss."

"Yeah," I said. "Good luck to you, too."

Breakfast had come and gone. There was now a crowd out in the yard where the guard normally trained. Hell, even the guard, themselves had shown up. Apparently the DM wasn't kidding. There were mares and stallions alike here, all just standing in a circle around me and Blueblood, with Luna and Celestia observing from a balcony.

"Sirs," said a guard stallion carrying a rack of weapons. "Please choose your weapons."

Blueblood immediately picked up a shortsword, spending no time to show off his little tricks. When I was offered a weapon, I motioned for the stallion to stand down.

"I don't want one of your weapons," I said. "I have my own." I then pulled out my bastard sword, which still had its aetherium edge. The blade looked to be dulled for the first time I had ever seen it. No joke, for some reason, my sword normally just stayed sharp. Apparently it could sense my intentions and dulled itself. "I doubt I will have to use it, though." And with that, I tossed my sword to the ground.

Blueblood scoffed and said, "It'll only make your inevitable loss and death faster."

"Yeah," I said. "Again, good luck to you, too."

"OH!" Blueblood screamed.

That's when he made the first move. He thrust at me with his sword, I just moved to the side and slapped him as he went past. The crowd laughed at Blueblood's expense. This made him angrier, and as we all know, the angrier the opponent, the sloppier. He kept charging at me and slashing randomly in an attempt to hit me. Every time he'd miss, I'd give him another slap on the face and the crowd would laugh again. It was honestly the most hilarious thing I've ever seen. Seriously, it became a pattern up until the last minute. He'd keep doing his thing, receive a slap, and the crowd would laugh.

Although, the pattern didn't go on forever. Eventually, he got so mad that he started to swing his sword using magic. Not only that, though, he also managed to pick up my bastard sword and start swinging it at me with both hands. I continued to dodge, but just barely. He almost nicked me once with my sword, but I pulled a matrix on him and dodged it. The crowd just ate up the fight, what with me barely trying and Blueblood continuing to swing like an idiot.

I finally pushed him too far, though. At about the twentieth slap, he started cheating with his magic. He started to hold me in place with his magic, or he'd grab at my legs with it, or stuff like that. I had to start focusing more on escaping his magic than I had to focus on dodging his attacks. He got a few good nicks before I finally started getting angry, myself.

"Hey, Blue Balls," I said as the crowd started laughing. "How about you stop using your magic to cheat before I get any more angry."

"IT'S BLUEBLOOD, YOU FILTHY COMMONER!" screamed Blueblood. This time he grabbed all of me in his magic, holding me in place. "AND NOW YOU WILL DIE!" He swung my sword at my neck.

"Yeah, no," I said, my right arm breaking free of his magic and catching the sword. Man, I love Hyperion. Vaga might have been able to disable the security and safety protocols on my arm, but Blueblood sure as hell can't. "Now, remember what I said about being angry?" I ripped the sword from Blueblood's grasp, throwing it to the floor. I then aimed my arm at him and fired a blast of energy into him. He dropped his magical hold on me and was sent flying backwards. It took him a bit to recover, but in that time, I was upon him with my sword pointed at his neck, the tip of the blade resting just under his chin. "Now give up."

"NEVER!" Blueblood screamed, knocking my sword away, only for his sword to replace it.

"I told you, give up," I said. "I will not hesitate to use more force."

"I told you NEVER!" Blueblood screamed, blasting me with magic. "I would rather die than be humiliated by a peasant like you!"

"Have it your way, then," I said. I used flash step to get right into his face and grabbed him by his shirt. "But I don't like killing for no reason." I lifted him up into the air and threw him into a wall, only to send his sword after him. It ended up pinning him to the wall by his shirt. There he hung, just humiliated.

I gave the crowd a bow before saying, "And that, ladies and gentlecolts, is how you teach a prideful fool a lesson." The crowd erupted into applause.

It was right after that that everything went black.

To the crowd, it appeared that Dox had simply erupted into shadow stuff and teleported away off to who knows where. In reality, the DM had taken him away and into the void temporarily for a small chat.

“What the heck?” I said, realising my sudden change of scenery. “Why am I in the void?”

Because I wanted to talk to you, the DM said. It’s time you start helping out. You’re meant to help out either the players, or me. Currently, there’s a couple of beings that are on the wrong side of the multiverse. Because of what’s happened to them, they don’t belong where they are anymore. You are going to bring them back, now.

“And why are you telling me this?” I asked the DM.

Because it’s a pain in the ass to either put you in a new body or make a new champion from scratch, the DM said. I’ve started to like you, kid. If only for the fact that you have been able to put up with my shit. I’m giving you an actual job because things have been spiralling out of my control as of late. I’ve lost my hold on the worlds, and I need you right now to manage the worlds while I help the being known as reality to keep all of the multiverse in tact.

“And why are you doing it instead of one of the elder gods, or an admin?” I asked.

The only reason why I’m doing it, is because the ascended elder gods can be lazy, and I was born for this task, the DM explained.I am meant to make it so that beings like Auric Fulcrum and the admins don’t have to keep extremely close tabs on the multiverse to keep it from fading into nothingness. No, they only have to worry about anomalies or corruption or things like that.

“Wow, how noble of you,” I said sarcastically. “So, can I get my job now or what?”

Ya know, being a dick to a dick isn’t a good idea, the DM said. Especially since it was me that gave your arm that AI.

“Wait, that was you?!” I asked surprisedly.

Technically, the DM said. F.A.U.S.T. didn’t mean for one of her ‘children’ to be an arm. No, at best, she would have given it a passive AI, like a simple loader. I altered it by making it slap you, although I did accidently leave a bit of my essence in the soul, making it complex. Hell, she’s technically your half-sister. Why do you think she gave you that upgrade when she gave you the mark? She wanted her child to have a body and not be restricted to that arm of yours. Speaking of her, I sent her ahead for you. She got sent to look for the ones I want you to bring back.

“Yeah,” I said. “Thank you, big guy.”

Shut up and get to your job, the DM said. And good luck, kid. You’ll need it.

And with that, everything was black again.

Familiar Faces

A portal opened to Ponyville. But this Ponyville was not the same Ponyville that I had seen last. No, there were a bunch of buildings missing, with new ones replacing them. And that was just some of it.

“Where did the big guy send me?” I asked out loud.

Around me were a bunch of nurses and construction ponies who were slowly rebuilding the town. All around me I could see large footprints, scorch marks, and slash marks as if a large sword carved the ground like Pinkie Pie and the cake. One of the injured ponies was Twilight as she was being cared for some burnt hair and bruises by a Nurse Redheart outside of her library.

“What the hell happened here?!” I yelled to the injured Twi as I ran up to the ponies. “What did all this?”

She looked up at me with red eyes “Drake…. he… he tried to stop the duel before it got out of hand, but…. something happened,” she said as she grabbed her head. Redheart have her lay back down telling her she needs rest. Questioning others didn’t really give more insight all ranging from ‘massive monster that left fire in its wake’ to ‘a demon from Tartarus itself’.

When I made it back to Twilight, only one question was on my mind. “Twi, which way did he go?”

She was a bit lucid from the painkillers, but she looked at me. “I don’t know. All I saw was Rainbow’s rainbow trail go south, but she returned with no report of finding him,” she informed me. The only thing to the south was the Everfree from where we currently were. Probably went to his base.

“Thanks, Twi,” I said. “I’m gonna go find him.”

And with that, I set off as fast as I could go, using the Flash Step technique when I could.

When I arrived at Drake’s base, I was surprised to find that it was in similar condition to Ponyville. The walls were scorched, and the area around the entrance was either burnt or burning.

“Drake?” I called out as I walked inside. “You in here, buddy? It’s me, Dox!”

As I walked down the path, I could see the large footprints get smaller and smaller before stopping at the familiar black and white stone steps. Sitting near the fountain was Drake, but in only a black shirt and jeans. His gauntlet looked tossed in the tree as his left arm was….. words couldn’t describe how it looked from all the times he must of overloaded the dang thing. Scars and burn marks were all over it. As he looked over at me, his eyes looked… downtrodden “What are you doing here?” he asked in a defeated tone.

“I’m here on a mission, among things,” I said. “It’s hard to explain, alright? But, hey, I’m helping you out right now. So, what happened to you?”

“That amulet…. that damn amulet did all this. I tried to yank it off, thinking my gauntlet would work, but….. it just overloaded worse than usual. When this thing took over, it…. it stayed out longer than any other hero did, as if it took complete control,” he explained… vaguely.

“Well, then,” I said. “So, it was what burnt up the town? That’s why there’s so much ash everywhere? You’re gauntlet thing caused the burning plantlife?” I walked up to Drake and sat down beside him.

He nods “In a way. Remember when I was Axe? I lost control, but this thing I turned into…. it… it felt like it was trying to keep control away from me, as if it KNEW what I did.” he said. He looked at the pool “The thing I turned into…. oh dear god the thoughts that ran through it’s head made Tirek look like a puppy,” he said looking green with sickness.

“Trust me,” I started, “You have no idea what he’s really like. Mine not only tried to kill me, but tried to take over my entire universe. Hell, I killed him, and he still got out of that to attempt to kill me again. He took over my Celestia and corrupted her. He had her turn me to stone and smash me into bits! Luckily for me, I have the big guy on my side. Later on, he followed me to another universe when I was summoned and cut off my freaking arm! MY ARM! I had to call another displaced just to get a new one. Speaking of that, if you see a Hyperion Beacon and use it, say hi to Jack and F.A.U.S.T. for me.”

Drake looked at me as he sighed “This hero tried to eat the children of ponyville, tried to kill my lovers, and I think the princesses…. well they will be living in Ponyville for sometime. He is a monster, a bigger one then Tirek” he said with a sigh. He looked at the pool “If only I could show you what he was, who he was…. then you know what to look out for.”

“Does it have a name?” I asked. “You seem to have names for all of them. I mean, I’ve played a little Dota 2 before. I mean, it’s not much, but I might know who it is.”

Drake looked up at the gauntlet as he spoke only one word “Doom.” before turning back to the pool “I…. need to leave here, let stuff blow over I…. I can’t face them after all that happened.”

“But you have to,” I said. “That’s the life of a hero, buddy. You have to fess up to your mistakes and hope the people accept you still. I was shunned by the ponies for a while, but hey, look at me now. I’m still shunned, but I’m a hero to at least some of them. Then again, a good amount of them saw my recent act of putting Blueballs in his place.”

He smirks a little “I remember when I put up a act as being a sort of ‘Phoenix God’ and caused many nobles to fear me…. even Blueblood. Downside…. Philomena now wants to preen my feathers, but…. all that I did was in zero control! I tried to eat fillies and colts for Tartarus sake! How are they going to accept me for that?!”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’ve never had to face that.” That’s when I got a horrible idea. I got up and walked over to Drake’s gauntlet. “But I think I know how to help,” I said as I reached for the gauntlet.

“If you’re thinking of putting it on…. it won’t work. Last pony who tried ended up getting zapped, like a taser had struck him when he tried to put it on,” he explained.

“Well,” I started, “I can try.” With that, I put on the gauntlet.

The first thing that I registered was the Dice Roller Core being ejected and fall to the floor. The next thing was a surge of pure, burning pain. It felt like a million needles, that were on fire, had just punched through my arm and started orbiting it, only to puncture it again and punch straight through it again, only to repeat the process. The last thing I registered was the floor, as I fell to the ground in pain.

Third person:

When Dox put on the gauntlet, a wave of pain overtook his body, and he collapsed to the floor, leaving Drake to look at him, thinking of how stupid his friend was. The look on his face changed, however, as he saw Dox start shifting, changing into something else, only for a flash of light to enter his vision and surprise him. When he could see again, no longer was he in the room with his friend, Dox. No, in the room with him now was a large, white Hellbear that easily stood a good four feet taller than him, which was strange. Normally Hellbears weren’t that tall…. nor did they have a robotic arm. The Hellbear roared at him before running down the hallway that led back to the Everfree, and then into Ponyville.

Drake just stood there shocked that someone else was able to wear that gauntlet as he shook himself free of the shock. He wanted to go after him, but what could he do? Without the gauntlet he was just some gamer nerd with average strength and a scarred/burned left arm. He looked down as he saw something…. glowing. His mind told him to not touch it, but since he had no other choice, he picked it up.

HELP HIM, DAMN YOU! a voice yelled in his head. Chase after him! I’ll help you out with it, just save my champion or so help me I will destroy you! You’re the reason he strayed from his mission anyways!

Drake immediately dropped the phone as he started to pant and look around for the voice. He slowly picked it up again as he ‘said’ If you can hear my thoughts, then don’t blame me for your so called ‘champion’ putting on something I warned him about! Also why the hell should I take orders from you? Your not my boss.

Correction. You’re not MYboss, the voice said.And unless you want me to destroy you, I’d get moving. That room won’t stay that chilled for long. And you don’t have to think, moron. I can hear your voice if you just speak normally.

And look like a crazy person speaking to noone there? Yeah that will go SOwell with the rest of the crap that has happened today! all before he ran after the Hellbear. He knew Fluttershy could calm any creature, even a Hellbear calmed down before her, but this one felt… off.

You moron, that ‘Hellbear’ as you call it, is Dox, MY CHAMPION! the voice screamed. And if you don’t revert him back, I’m going to make sure you get a nice trip to the nine hells.

I’ve been to hell. Nice place, made friends with Rasputin and shut the hell up! You think if I knew that dumbass was going to do this I let him do it! I don’t want to put anyone through this! So how about you shut the hell up and be helpful in telling me why the fuck he would do this?! Drake thought.

Because Dox believes in putting himself in others shoes, the voice said. Listen, he’s a good kid, he thinks well, but not enough. He tends to ‘leap’ before he ‘looks’. He also doesn’t listen to his Dungeon Master as much as he should. I tried to warn him, but no, he didn’t pay me any mind. Good job, Dox. Listen, if you just do as I say and cast what I say, you should be fine.

Drake dodged a flying tree as he rolled his eyes In case you haven’t noticed, without my tool, I have absolutely, positively no connection with magic. Put it simply I am your very last chance to take. If I can get you to Twilight or a Princess they be able to help…… hopefully.

Yeah, well, you have the Dice Roller Core, the voice that called itself the Dungeon Master said. That item is connected to me, and I exist past the Aether. Trust me, letting you use magic for a bit isn’t that big of a deal. No, what is, is keeping my mind focused on you, my champion’s doings, AND the rest of the multiverse.

Drake stopped as he saw the Hellbear running through town. Drake grabbed a broom from a destroyed store. He walked over and smacked Dox on the head “Hey dumbass! You’re wearing MY gauntlet!”

The Hellbear roared in response. It then picked up a partly destroyed building before chucking it at Drake.

You idiot! Cast a spell! the voice yelled out at Drake. Just put out your hand and yell Magic Missile! DO IT BEFORE YOU GET CRUSHED, YOU MORON!

Drake did so as he yelled out “Magic Missile!” as he felt something build up in his hand before a large ball of energy shot out and collided with the building, blowing it to pieces. He looked at Dox “Look around you Dox! Look at all this! You want to make their lives worse? Is this who you are?!” he yelled at the Hellboar as pony’s watched from hiding at the two.

The Hellbear just continued to roar out in anger, but before it attacked again, it seemed to….. hesitate. It was as if the creature was feeling regret…. No, Dox was feeling regret. He couldn’t control the form he was in, and he knew it.

“HELP….. ME….” the Hellbear that was Dox struggled to get out as he continued to ransack the town.

You have to down him, the voice said to Drake. It’s the only way to get him to stop. Then I can tell you how to revert him back to normal. Just do it quickly. You can do that amped up Magic Missile, but there’s more spells. Just think of them, and scream them out. Just pretend you’re playing Dungeons and Dragons!

Like from any fantasy world with magic? Drake asked in thought.

Duh, the voice said, blankly. Just get to it!

Drake looks at Dox as he heard of downing him. He thought of a few words before yelling out the words to Skyrim’s ‘Kyne’s Peace’.

The Hellbear was impacted by the shout. It seemed to hesitate again, this time, though, it turned towards Drake before charging at him, instead of continuing to lay siege to the village. When it got within ten feet of Drake, it clapped its hands together, sending out a shockwave that knocked Drake onto his behind.

Nice try, buddy, the voice said. But something like that isn’t going to work well on Dox right now. Notice how your gauntlet is nowhere to be seen. That’s because he’s essentially become the gauntlet. He’ll just absorb minor attacks, like that. Be offensive! Do damage! Shoot a lightning bolt! It won’t destroy the village, trust me.

Damn it, he practically is under its control, he thought. As he got up and aimed his hand, he started to shoot out large blasts of ice shards at Dox. He eventually shot enough to pin Dox to the ground, where he roared in anger.

Good, he’s prone. Now you just have to knock him out, the voice said. If you don’t, it won’t work properly. Just keep smacking him, okay?

Drake ran up and kept smacking his face in, but the more he did so, the harder he hit him, slowly releasing anger he had against Dox. Why? For three reasons he will explain to him afterwards.

Eventually Dox passed out from the amount of smacking.

Good, now stop smacking him, the voice said. I don’t know how much you know about Dox, but even though he can take a beating, he’s not fully immortal. Now, to revert him back, just shove the Dice Roller Core against the gauntlet. It should short it out long enough for him to revert back and for you to pull it off.

Drake sighed as he put the core to the gauntlet as sparks started to fly and an influx of magic started to grow between the two items. Slowly, Dox started to revert to normal-ish form. When the transformation back was complete, Drake yanked the gauntlet off Dox’s arm.

A few seconds later, Dox started coming to.

“What the hell happened?” Dox moaned as he rubbed his head. “Last thing I remember is trying to put on the gauntlet, then blank.”

Drake was glaring at him “You turned into a Hellbear, nearly gave the Mayor a heart attack, and your DM wants you to know you’re a dumbass for this. Also, I got a couple of things I’d like to do to you,” he said as he roughly grabbed Dox by his collar and lifted him up. He had his gauntlet on as he pulled his hand back, ready for a punch.

“Dude, I don’t even know what happened,” Dox said. “Could you fill me in first, then attempt to punch my lights out?”

Drake’s eye twitched. “You put on my gauntlet and turned into a fucking Hellbear, then went rushing out of the base to here! I’m going to punch you for five reasons, though, and the rampage is one of them!” he yelled as his gauntlet made contact with Dox’s face.

“Yep, keep it going,” Dox said. “I’m just glad the eye is good for impacts. Better yet, I’m glad that Maud basically made my face immune to pain.” Dox then registered the comment that Drake had made. “Wait, five reasons? The hell are the other four? I tried to help you, damn it! It wasn’t my intention to go on a fucking rampage!”

“Reason one! Getting my face used as a baseball by a pissed off Celestia,” Drake said as his gauntlet hit Dox, again. “Reason two! Getting my arm broken after getting launched through the portal!” he yelled, repeating the process. “Reason three! Summoning me in a humiliating attire and the ultimate reason! You cockblocked me!” he yelled as his gauntlet came to hit Dox…. but stopped. Between us was a mass of pink hair, along with buttercream wings as Drake looked at her. “Out of the way Fluttershy, this is between him and me.” he said.

“No. Listen to me, Drake. You don’t want to do this,” she pleaded.

“Why not? He could of killed someone as a Hellbear!” Drake yelled in response.

“And what about when you lost control?” she countered, keeping a calm face. Drake just looked at her. “None of us know what it’s like in those forms you take, or the power you hold, but one thing we do know, is that no matter what, you somehow keep control of them, even if you don’t know it. Well… except this time, but that’s not important! What is important that you shouldn’t be like whatever he was. Do you really want to hurt Dox or anyone?” she asked, looking into Drake’s eyes. Drake just closed his eyes as after a minute, he let Dox go to drop as Fluttershy hugged the man.

When she released him, however, Dox took a cheap shot and launched Drake into a building.

“Don’t hit me ‘cause you’re mad,” he said simply. “The only thing that I’m at fault for is for the rampage and the summon, but how the hell was I supposed to know anything about what would happen, or the circumstances leading up to it? You don’t take it out on others, got it?” Dox then walked over to the Dice Roller Core that he had left on the ground and picked it up, putting it back in the computer on his arm.

Drake just got up and shook his head. He walked over as he looked at Dox. “I’m coming with you Dox. I need to give a piece of my mind to your world’s Celestia. Just my mind, no hitting” he said.

“Yeah, I’ll think about it,” Dox said. “I have a job to do. Now, where the hell did the big guy send Righty?”

First person:

I spent a few minutes just wandering around aimlessly, calling out Righty wherever I went. Where the hell was that AI? Near the destroyed school, I could see a small brown colt playing a Gameboy looking device, but it seemed to speak to him in a familiar voice.

“Where the hell is Dox?!” the voice in the Gameboy kept saying. “I demand that you take me to Dox! It’s extremely demeaning to be stuck in such a stupid low tech device such as this!”

“You’re a weird game…. oh well” he said as he turned the volume on it all the way down, focused more on the game than the voice.

“Hey!” I called out to the colt. “Let me see that!” I snatched the Gameboy from the colt and turned the volume back on. “Righty, is that you?”

“Dox!” the AI that was stuck in the device called out. “I’m glad to see you made it all right! Now get me the hell out of this thing! It makes me feel low tech! I hate it!”

“Alright, just gimme a sec,” I said. I touched my robotic arm onto the charging port of the device, glad to see a small arc of energy as I made contact. A second later, a hologram of righty appeared next to me. She seemed to be an anthro dragoness this time. She was wearing a very modest Hyperion outfit, but it seemed to be about five sizes too small around her chest, accentuating what I could only see as a size F chest. She also stood a good foot above me, and I’m 6’2”! “Glad to see you’re back, Righty.”

“Yeah, glad to be back,” she said. “Now, can we go do the mission now?”

During the entire time I was talking to the AI, Drake looked at me as if I was crazy. “Who are you talking to?” he asked.

“What do you mean? She’s right here,” I said, motioning to the hologram.

“You idiot,” Righty said. “You’re the only one who can see me right now. Just press the button to let him see me.”

“Right,” I said, pressing the button. There was a flash of light, and there stood the AI in her dragoness form.

Drake looked at her as he chuckles “So…. you made your AI eyecandy?” he asked referring to her form.

“No,” I said. “It’s Hyperion tech. It’s just how it works. She chooses the form, not me. Plus, she’s not just an AI, she’s a real living being! She’s also technically my half sister, so yeah.”

“Hi,” Righty said. “I’m the AI that was assigned to Dox, designation, currently Righty.”

Drake rolled his eyes “Your life is getting all sorts of fucked up Dox. Either way name’s Drake Blackwood, The Ancient Summoner.”

“Hello, Drake,” Righty said. “You seem to be a plain individual.”

Drake raised his gauntlet. “That’s cause I am. I get my power from this baby, but the problem is, I use it too much, and…. Well, I’m sure you know from how Dox was.”

“Of course,” said the AI. “There should be a way to fix that, but Hyperion would need to scan the gauntlet back at home base. Currently, I cannot get a sufficient enough surface scan.”

Drake just looked at them. “Okay, that all just went right over my head,” he said honestly.

“Don’t worry, man,” I said. “A lot of it goes over my head at times, too.”

“What I mean,” Righty said, glaring at me and Drake. “Is that I cannot get a good enough scan on my own. I’d need to scan a lot more than just the item, like its abilities. Also, I have been informed that you have to absorb magic to use the device?”

“That or get a channel of magic into it. Problem is, it takes longer, and upside is less chance of an ‘overload’ to occur”

“Right,” the AI said. “Now, have you found Dox’s token, yet? I have received data from home base of them finding it and scanning it. It lets off magic passively. It’s a small amount, so it should suffice to work for your needs.”

Drake simply shook his head. “Sorry, can’t say I have. First time he arrived was an accident and this time…. Well, I did just go overload….. oh god I nearly forgot!” he yelled as he seemed to run off to the treehouse for something.

I started to follow him, but was stopped by Righty.

“I can sense your token in that bush over there,” she said, pointing to a bush.

“Thanks, Righty,” I said. “Ya know, I’ve been thinking of a name for you for a while.”

“Really?” the AI commented.

“Yeah, and I’ve finally decided what it is,” I said. “I’m going to start calling you Athena, after the Greek Goddess. She was-”

“The goddess of wisdom, yes,” the newly dubbed Athena said. “Hyperion has a very large database about close to everything.”

“Right, forgot for a second,” I said, reaching into the bush and pulling out the purple D6 that was my token. “Alright then, let’s go catch up to Drake.”

“Very well, brother,” Athena said.

At the treehouse, the place had seen better days. Most of the leaves were burned off, windows shattered, and of course a large, demon footprint before the door from Drake’s earlier hero change. Inside, a feminine scream could be heard as the door was opened a crack. Inside, Drake could be heard sighing as soft whimpering was heard. “I told you to be careful. You can’t turn into smoke anymore remember?” he asked.

A new female voice was heard. It sounded dark, seductive, but also…. soft. “Sorry master”

“Don’t call me that! I’m not your master, I’m Drake.”

“But you’ll always be master to me,” the voice said, along with clanking metal. As the door opened wider, I could see Drake being hugged by a mare of at least six feet even, a body of dark grey, with large bundle of black hair. Her eyes were green and purple, and she simply radiated dark magic from her form. She was wearing steel armor and a red cloak. The most surprising part of her, however, was the large, curved, red and black horn on her head.

“What the heck is going on in here?” I asked as I entered the room with Athena following behind me. “Drake, who is this woman and why does she call you master?”

Drake just sighed “It’s… a long story.”

“Alright then,” I said, letting it slide. “Now, why did you have to come here? Oh! Before I forget, here.” I handed him my token. “It radiates magic, passively. According to Athena here, it only lets out a small amount, but she told you that already.”

Drake sighed as he stood with her. “Umbra, can you please make us some tea?” he asked as the unicorn nodded and left. He went and sat on a chair “Trust me…. you won’t believe me.”

“Eh,” I said, shrugging. “I’ll believe it if you’d tell me, but you don’t have to. Hell, with all the weirdness going on, the only thing I wouldn’t believe is if you saw the Red Dragon. I say that, because it would eat you before you left. That thing scares me.”

Drake sighed as he looked at me. “Well you see, it all started back when the Crystal Empire came back from vanishing years ago. Celestia called us in to go and see about this kingdom, but what we weren’t expecting was that an old foe returned, King Sombra. After Shining Armor saved our asses, we tried to find this ‘Crystal Heart’ or whatever it was called and get the town’s ponies to be happy, again. One problem that happened, was that the King had more tricks than the show led on. He was somehow able to summon some creatures from DOTA to fight us. I turned into Chen and tried to use his ult to control the creatures, but…. Well, crystals tend to do a lot of bouncing,” he said with a light chuckle as he nervously rubbed the back of his head.

“So, you took control of Sombra, instead,” I said. “I’m assuming he’s shapeshifted, or something, to look like a girl? And about that, how good is the shapeshift? I’ve met other shapeshifters, and done some myself. The average My Little Pony changeling just puts up an illusion. The average D&D changeling actually becomes the humanoid they’re trying to impersonate. I’ve met a mass shifter, they did a good job at becoming whatever they wanted to be. And then there’s me. I’ve turned from being male, to female, to even a genderless dragon once. That was hella weird, so don’t ask me to do it again, ‘cause I won’t. Fuck innocence, just as long as I don’t have to do that again.”

Drake rubbed his temples. “Too much information, dude. Too much. As for the gender bend, well… After the control, something different happened. Normally my power would go poof after reverting, but after reverting, Sombra was still under my control and calling me master and what not. Odder thing was, he did anything I asked and after feeling like I was avoiding him for being a male, he went to Zecora for a shapeshift potion and to the princesses, on bended knee, and asked them to change the potion to a more ‘permanent’ solution. After that, he became Umbra and, well, I found out something. Without the armor, she is a really cuddly pony,” he said. Umbra came back and set the tea down as she smiled, but still looked a bit creepy with the smokey eye bit, not that I minded. Drake leaned up a bit and kissed her cheek as she sat down next to him.

“Hey, it’s as I was told once,” I said. “To everyone their own. Let others be who they want, you be who you want, and I’ll be who I want. Hell, you should see what I’ve been up to. There was a huge event that happened recently, but to sum it up: Celestia got possessed, went evil, turned several to stone. Hell, I summoned a bunch of displaced to help fight her. Eventually got her down without killing her and ridded her of the spirit. It was amazing. After the fight, we all celebrated. Thanks to a promise I made to one of the displaced that I summoned, I had a pretty fun night. Let me say that if you ever find a token for Team Rocket, tell their Arbok that I say hi. And no, I’m not joking.”

Drake smiled. “You make it sounds like you got to shag a princess,” he said with a chuckle.

“Well, yeah,” I said. “But I mean, before that, it was a pokemon. A bit later, I was told that I’m apparently able to mate with any species. Pretty fun for me, right?”

“So…. you went to bed with a snake and a princess? Damn.”

“Well, not at the same time,” I said. “And dude, you wish you were there. Here, look at this picture of what happened with the princesses.” I then pulled out one of the pictures that Vaga had given me of my fun with the princesses. “Eat it, son.”

Drake looked at it and whistles “Damn man…. too bad I sort of beat you,” he said. He pulled out a picture of him with the main six and Derpy back during the heat cycle. “Alright enough of this accomplishment stuff, I want to go to your world and get an apology for the warhammer to the face from her. I promise not to hit her, but I will want an apology still…. And a cupcake.”

“Yeah, good luck,” I said. “First off, I need to do my mission. And that is to bring back….. Um, Athena?”

“Yes, Dox?” Athena said.

“Who are we after, again?” I asked.

“You weren’t told, were you?” Athena said.

“No…” I said.

“Ugh, we’re after Emerald and Sapphire,” Athena said. “We’re to acquire them and bring them back to our universe, as soon as possible.”

“Right, what she said,” I said. “Do you know where they are?”

Drake shrugged. “My guess is back at the hive. After you left, they went back because they, quote unquote, ‘Don’t trust Equestria to not harm them’.... can’t say I blame them, stupid nobles.” he mumbled the last part.

“Yeah,” I said. “I remember where it is. Hopefully I can skip the trek of going into the badlands. Wanna come with?”

“Enter a lair full of changelings? Only if Umbra comes along. She likes to tag along to make sure I’m safe…. Honestly, I think she just likes my scent,” he said as Umbra nuzzled his chest.

“Alright then,” I said. “So, Athena, where you able to scout, since you got here before me?”

“I tried,” she said. “Saw your friend, got hit by an attack of his. For some reason, I bugged out and got shoved into that colt’s gaming device. It made me feel dirty. Horrible low tech, non-Hyperion technology.”

“Right,” I said. “Well, let’s just start with checking the Everfree castle.”

And with that, the group set out for the forest and the structure inside it.

The group arrived at the Castle of the Pony Sisters, only to find it empty and devoid of life.

Drake looked around. “Probably ran after Doom came through,” he said as he walked towards the bridge to find it in cinders.

“Wow, you really scare people like that, don’t you,” I said.

“Doom is a massive demon the size of Canterlot castle with a blade of fire, you tell me,” he said. Umbra just grasped his hand and rubbed it as if calming him. “Thank you Umbra.”

“Touche,” I said. “Now, if they’re not here, then we can only hope that teleporter they made is still here. Come on.”

I led the group through the castle, which was still lacking life. There was literally nothing living in this castle. It got me to think about it. Was something up with the area? Was this castle dangerous? To be frank, a ‘no duh’ can go the the latter question. Anyways, I led them to the room where I had been taken the first time I found the changelings. There was another, smaller room connected to it. When we entered it, we found it to be void of objects. Athena started running scans, and I started looking around the room, myself, while Drake and Umbra just stood around watching us.

“Well this is…. odd,” Drake said, his voice echoing off the walls of the big room.

I walked back into the big room and asked, “What is? There a button or something?”

“No just, normally there’d be sound here. Manticore, Timberwolf, even a Cockatrice, but listen,” he said as there was…. nothing.

“Well, yeah,” I said. “But I mean, this place has been screwed over for decades. What’s your point?”

“What I mean is, there is at least something living here, but there is no sound. Not a growl or a hiss or even a footstep. It’s like this place became cursed or something.”

“Again, no duh,” I said, then went back to search for a way to activate the teleporter. “I mean, with all the crazy shit that’s gone on around here, I wouldn’t be surprised if-”

“-if there was a large ass demon living here or perhaps a whole group of Changelings?” Drake asked.

“Holy crap,” I said. “Give me a second.” I felt around the air for a second, snagging on something, and pulled it. This revealed to be my little hole in space time that was my magic satchel. Man, glad I have that ability. I reached inside and pulled out a piece of black armor that looked to be made of some dark steel alloy with bits of obsidian on it. There was a certain crest on it that glowed in the semi-dark castle.

Immediately, changelings started to appear. It looked like they were all just using advanced invisibility spells to hide from us. My only guess to why they hadn’t attacked us was because of Athena, what with her currently looking like a dragoness.

“Our king has returned!” one said. The other changelings in the room followed him and soon the entire room was just a giant mumble of, ‘the king has returned’.

I stuck my hand up to silence them. “Hello, all,” I said. “I’ve come back for a reason. Where are Emerald and Sapphire?”

The changelings talked amongst themselves for a second before one stepped up to me.

“They are back at the hive, my king,” it said.

“Thank you,” I said. “Can you use the teleporter to get us there?”

The changeling called to the others to get the teleporter ready. The others immediately started swarming around the smaller room, but did not enter.

“Athena, let them in,” I called into the room. “They’re going to activate it.”

“Right,” she said, emerging from the room. The changelings stared at her for a few seconds. “Well? Get to it!” With that the changelings ran into the room and immediately got to work.

Drake looked at me. “Still a king, even when away? Keep this up and they may follow me, thinking I brought you here,” he joked with a grin.

“Yeah, not on your life,” I said.

A few minutes later the the teleporter sprung to life.

“Ready?” Drake asked Umbra, who nodded.

When the group entered through the teleporter, they were instantly transported to the changeling hive, which was buzzing with activity.

“Well, looks like I was missed,” I said, taking off my hoodie and replacing it with the chest piece that I had taken out. I flagged down a nearby changeling. “Hey, where are Emerald and Sapphire?”

“In the Queens’ chambers,” the changeling responded. “They are teaching the new queens the proper ways to act.”

“Queens?” I asked. “Did Emerald and Sapphire give birth?”

“No, my king,” said the changeling. “They are still in the midst of their pregnancies. No, some other eggs turned out to be queens. They were the only ones found. We were about to smash them, but they reminded us that those were the orders of the ex-queen, who shall not be named.”

“Queen Bitch, you mean?” Drake asked the changeling. The changeling nodded.

“Right,” I said, disregarding Drake’s comment. “Can you take us to them?”

“Very well, sir,” it said. It then began to walk off, stopping every now and again to motion for us to follow it.

“So, what do you think of the hive, Drake?” I asked. “I mean, seeing as this is the first time you’ve ever been in here. You training me with portals was outside, but you never entered.”

“Reminds me of ants and insects,” he said honestly.

All the changelings around us stopped and glared at Drake.

“Dude, you don’t want to say that,” I said. “I found that out during training, and I made a joke that they laughed at! You might want to apologize before they murder you.”

“Sorry?” Drake said.

A noticeably large group of changelings started making themselves known. I mean, they were big and burly and they were floating right above us. They glared down at us angrily.

“I said I was sorry.”

“Well, they don’t believe it,” I said. “And frankly, I don’t either. Dude, be sincere about it.”

Drake seemed to mull things a bit, as Umbra bowed her head “I humbly apologize for my master’s idiotic word choice. He meant to say that your system and home is aesthetically pleasing and quite unique among other homes he has been to. Do forgive him for his weak word choice,” she said with a cute smile.

The burly changelings float away, but the biggest of them stayed behind. It floated down and stood in front of Drake.

“I want to hear it from him,” said a feminine voice from the changeling.

Drake looked a bit surprised. “You’re a female? You officially scare me. I am sorry about accidentally insulting your home. My word choice is very poor, please do not kill me,” he said.

The changeling punched Drake in the gut in response before saying, “Apology accepted. Don’t do it again.” She then walked away. The hive then went back to its normal business, and our guide started to motion for us to follow it again.

“That’s why you don’t crack jokes about insects in here,” I said.

After about five minutes of walking, we came upon some large ornate doors.

“Here we are, my king,” the changeling that had been leading us here said. “They are inside, although I caution you to be careful when approaching them. The queens are still learning, and you brought this…. person here.” Man, just like I remembered them. Changelings can be spiteful when you call them insects. Must have been because of Chrysalis. I’d have to explain that to Drake later.

“Thank you, sir,” I said to the changeling. “Please, have a nice day.”

I watched as the changeling ran off, obviously trying to get back to work on whatever it was working on earlier.

Drake looked back at him. “After you, King. They are your subjects after all,” he said with a smirk.

“Keep doing that,” I started with heavy sarcasm, “And my next decree will to behead you.” With that, I pushed open the ornate door, revealing four changelings in the room.

They all looked over at me, Athena, Drake, and Umbra. I immediately recognised Emerald and Sapphire, they were hard for me to ever forget. With them, on twin thrones, were two changelings that seemed to be taller than them. I mean, they got up when they noticed who I was, and they stood at a good six foot even, making them taller than Emerald and Sapphire.

“Hello, ladies,” I said to the four. “How’s it been going?”

Emerald and Sapphire became overjoyed. The queens, however, had a less than happy look.

“Who are they?” the queen on the right asked. “I demand to know why they were granted access to the throne room!”

Drake just smirked. “You want to tell them or should I, Dox?” he asked.

“Go ahead, Drake,” I said. “I’m honestly just amazed they don’t recognize the crest on my chestplate.”

Drake stepped forward and cleared his throat and with a smirk looked at the queens. “I am Drake Blackwood, a guardian of Equestria and… I will say, ally of Dox. This here is Dox, the very being who had made the ‘Queen who shall not be name’ banished and helped forge a… relatively calm treaty with Equestria. Also, the king of this hive,” he said as he walked back, next to Dox.

“King of this hive?” the queen on the left asked. “There’s no king of this hive. The last king left the hive in charge of these two changelings.”

“Yeah, and I’d prefer you use their names,” I said. “Emerald, Sapphire, how’s it been going?”

“Dox!” Emerald said as she charged me. She ended up knocking me over and falling onto me, not that I minded. “It’s been so long!”

“Just a few months, not that long,” I said.

Sapphire walked up to me. “Not that long?” she said. “A few months is pretty damn long, Dox. Don’t be leaving me and my sister alone like that, again.” She accented her last sentence with a small jab to my ribs.

Drake chuckled. “Well… at least that’s what he came to our world for… Well, at least from what I overheard anyway” he said with a shrug.

“What you came for?” Emerald asked. “Dox, what’s he talking about?”

“Well, I’m here to take you and your sister back to my world,” I said. “I have my reasons, and an order, but in reality, I did miss you two.”

“We missed you two, Dox,” Emerald said, giving me a squeezy hug.

“You’re planning to take our subjects away?!” the queen on the left shouted. “You must be mad to think that we’ll let you take our nannies away!”

“Yeah, no,” I said, getting up and pulling out my large tome with the D&D symbol on it. The symbol seemed to have changed slightly, ‘cause right now it looked like a Dota symbol. “I’m here to take them away, and you’d be mad to stop me.”

Drake nodded. “I’ll even help him escape, cause trust me, you don’t want any of what I can do. Don’t believe me? Ask Dox, he has seen what I can turn into,” he said, flashing the gauntlet as it brimmed with magic.

“You dare threaten us in our own hive?!” the queen on the right said. “Guards! Guards! Get in here and detain these trespassers!”

A group of fifteen guards filed into the room and stood around us.

“Ignore that order, I demand it,” I said. The guards immediately stopped what they were doing and marched out of the room. “And stay out there until I say so.”

“Where are you fools going?” the queen on the right asked. “Get back in here and do your jobs!”

“We are. We are doing as our king ordered,” a guard replied as he left with the others.

“Don’t you see?” I asked the queens. “They know me. They know who I am, and give me respect for it. So far, I’ve not seen an inkling of respect for you two. What have you two done while I was away?”

Drake looked over. “Well I can vouch for Emerald and Sapphire acting as mediates for the proper treatment of Changelings… So far, not a lot of nobles are all for the topic, but I know Fancy and Hoity are supporting it. They at least believe in treating others fairly, despite appearance and other differences.”

“Well, that’s good news, at least,” I said. I then turned my attention back to the queens. “What have you two been doing? ‘Cause it looks like all the projects I asked to continue in my stead have stopped. My only question is, why?”

“We saw no point to them,” said the queen on the left. “My sister and I saw no benefit from them. No one ever visits, so why refurbish the hive, or comes by. So why do it? Or why push to build a city? Again, no one visits.”

“They were foolish endeavors,” said the queen on the right. “It was pointless to continue them, seeing as how the ponies would never come near a changeling for any reason, let alone a hive of them.”

“Well, perhaps it would be good for moral?” Drake said. Umbra and the queens looked at him. “What? I’ve built cities from absolutely nothing before, and in a short term of a few thousand years, I controlled a whole country. Not to mention, moral was very high, especially with all the feasts, citizens, and of course portraits made,” he said as if he knew what he was doing. He walked over and whispered to me, “In truth, I just played weeks of Civilization V.”

“Nice,” I whispered to him. I turned back to the queens. “See? There’s reason to it. But it seems that you forgot some of the most important rules of leading.”

“And what would those be?” the queens asked, simultaneously, which was weird as heck.

“You forgot that you are not above them,” I said. “That’s how I led. My subjects weren’t just drones, warriors, or jobs. I learned as many names as I could, and if I didn’t know a name, I apologized for that and asked for it. The only reason I let them call me ‘king’, was because I didn’t have a name. When I got a name, I pressed for months for them to call me by it. I was their equal, even if I did have more power. Yet, here you are, and you haven’t even tried to tell us your names.”

Drake just nodded. “It is better to be a leader who works with their citizens, rather than one who rules over them,” he said, trying to sound sagely…. admittedly, it didn’t suit him.

The queens looked at eachother for a bit. Then they turned back to face us.

“I am Jadeite,” said the queen on the left.

“And I am Ruby,” said the queen on the right.

“That’s better,” I said. “My name is Dox. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Now, please act better to your subjects. Treat them as changelings, not insects. That’s how the last queen treated them, to my knowledge. Look how she ended up.”

Drake nodded. “Exiled. Defeated. And ultimately pissed…. I’m just guessing that last part.”

“No, you're right,” I said. “She was pretty pissed when she got kicked out. In fact, you might want to look out for her. I don’t know where she went.” I turned back to the queens. “But anyways, I have a schedule to run. I will be back to visit, trust me. So, please, try and act better in the future. Restart the projects, ask for help in moving the hive closer. Or even make the Everfree teleporter a way in for the ponies by making a safer path.” I then took out my dagger and slashed it through the air.

Now, I was only guessing it would work, and thank goodness it did. Right in front of me now stood a portal, the destination I could only guess being my Equestria.

“I’m off,” I said. “Come on, Emerald and Sapphire. It’s time to go.”

“Right,” the sisters said in unison before running through the portal.

“Well, Drake,” I said. “It’s been fun, but I must be going.” I started to make my way into the portal before I heard Drake.

“Hey!” Drake called out “We’re not done yet, damn it. I am getting that meeting with Celestia!” he yelled as he ran to the portal….. unfortunately, he didn’t see a lip in the floor and came tumbling into me and right into the portal.

On the other side of the portal, the two sisters waited for Dox to emerge. Instead of Dox emerging, Drake and me came tumbling through the other side, I stopped just in front of them. Drake rolled a bit before sliding under, right in front of Celestia. He looked up at her. “Remember me Princess?” he asked her. The odd thing was he looked a bit…. paler than before the portal.

Right afterwards, we heard a familiar voice come through the portal, followed by Umbra bursting through before the portal closed. Umbra soon helped Drake up and held his arm close to her. “Master!” she called out happily. Celestia just stared at the strange pony.

Drake just sighed. “Dox can…. he can explain this,” he said referring to Umbra.

“That’s a genderbent Sombra,” I said. “It’s a long story, and one that I’m not going to explain.”

Drake just glared a bit as he seemed to be getting paler and paler still. He looked at Celestia as he tried to step forward, just to fall to a knee as his breathe starting to get more visible.

“Yo, Drake,” I said. “You okay, buddy? You’re looking kinda pale.”

“I’m feeling….. cold,” he said. Now that was odd, ‘cause it felt more like it was ninety-eight degrees here. The odder thing that happened was a cracking sound being heard as ice started to form around him. He looked back. “G-Get her away,” he said in a crackling voice. His gauntlet started to swarm him in blue as he did something different then usual. He started to scream as if it was burning him. The blue soon took over as the last thing he said was, “Get away!” as the whole room started to feel like the Crystal Empire, but…. colder.

There was a flash of blue light, and where Drake once stood, now stood a massive beast. Scales of dark blue, a crown of ice on its massive head, with purple wing flesh, and a pair of eyes and teeth that were ice blue. It looked like a dragon, but its wings were connected to its arms. As it looked around, it spoke in a cold, but feminine voice, “Winter Wyvern!”

“Shit,” I said. I turned towards the others and shouted, “Get out of here! I’ll hold him off.”

Yet, as soon as I said that, the wyvern seemed to just turn around and leave the room, ignoring the guards as it kept speaking one word, “Books~,” in a spine chilling voice.

“What the hell did Drake turn into?” I questioned to myself as I ran after the wyvern. “Is he a dragon version of Twilight now?”

As I followed the wyvern, it’s very presence seemed to coat halls and ponies in snow and ice as it went into rooms, looked around, and left while repeating, “Not books”. It even found its way into the royal vault, yet, even seeing all the gold and gems inside, it showed no interest. When it finally found the library, it shook the shelves a bit to make books fall off as it gathered them all up into a giant nest like structure and laid on top of them like a dragon would its hoard.

“Drake!” I yelled at the wyvern. “What the hell has gotten into you? I need you to tell me what’s going on, buddy!”

The wyvern’s head rose. “If you mean a dragon, they are not here. Only I. You may take any of these things that are ‘not books’, but I keep the books,” she said as she lowered her head again. The walls and roof seem to slowly get ice, as if her mere presence brought the room to freezing temps.

“Damn it, Blackwood!” I yelled in frustration. “What’s up with you?! You don’t normally act like this! DId you overload, somehow?”

The wyvern’s tail slowly moved and pushed Dox out the door. “I am not this ‘Drake Blackwood’ you speak of, mortal. I am Auroth, a Winter Wyvern of the Eldrums,” she said as the doors closed.

I walked around the castle, checking up on everypony. Thankfully, besides the minor freezing, everypony was okay. Celestia walked up to me as I approached the library again. “Dox, what is the meaning of this?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “He’s acting strange.”

“Maybe he got some new hero and right now it’s in control and he doesn’t know about it!” Pinkie yelled.

“Where the hell did you come from?!” I yelped out. “And how do you know about ANY of that?!”

“I have secret passages everywhere, in case of an emergency party!” Pinkie yelled, showing a massive hole behind a column. She bounced into it. “Also, know anything about what?” she asked while still smiling and tilting her head, looking at Dox.

“Pinkie, go home, you’re being weird and giving me a migraine,” I said.

“Okie-dokie-lokie, then,” she said before diving into the hole.

“Now that that’s out of the way,” I started. “How do I fix Drake?”

“Well how doth he normally get out of this?” Luna asked.

“I have no freaking clue,” I said. “Only someone from his universe would…..” It then dawned on me. Umbra had come through, as well. She came from Drake’s universe, and had been around him during an overload. At least I hope she had been. I started scouring the castle for her, shouting “UMBRA!” the entire way.

A door slowly opened as Umbra poked her head out. “Yes?” she asked as she walked up from behind me. Apparently, she was helping some of the staff clean off the ice from the wyvern’s search.

“How do we fix Drake?” I asked. “He might be suffering from an overload, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

Umbra put a gauntleted finger to her chin and thought. “Master always told me that his transformations normally last an hour, and he can only do five in a single day. If he tries more, he would end up overloading, and the only ways to get him out is by either draining the magic out of him completely, waiting an hour, or a good old fashion beat down. The problem is, with the one who went all…. well basically destroyed Ponyville, it was in control for a good four hours and there was no sign of master in control,” she explained. She looked down, though. “Plus…. I’ve never been told of this ‘Winter Wyvern’ form, or of even seeing it amongst his other forms in the gauntlet,” she informed.

“Well, great,” I said. “Just fucking grea…. How the fuck do we-” My wrist lit up at that. Specifically my left wrist, the one with the Dice Roller Core on it. In fact, that’s what was glowing. “Alright, then. What do you want, DM?”

I tried helping your friend earlier, now I’m helping you, the DM said. I’d rather if you not be a dumbass, but I guess I have to help you. What’s the opposite of ice, of extreme cold?

I immediately facepalmed. “Don’t I feel stupid?” I said. “Fire spells. Lots and lots of fire spells.”

“I could help with that,” Umbra said as her horn glowed that sickly purple and green color.

“Alright, then,” I said. “How about you, Celestia?” No response. “Celestia?” I turned around to find the alicorn that had been following me, was now gone….. and so was her sister. “Girls? Umbra? Where did they go?” I asked as I heard voices coming from the library.

I walked up to the door and put my ear against the freezing surface of it.

“So, in short, we’d just like it if we could retrieve thee old tomes of Starswirl the Bearded from thine nest. We would like to preserve these tomes for other bright minds to learn from,” I heard Luna say to Wyvern.

“So, you wish to remove old books that belong to me, to preserve those books for others?” Wyvern replied.

“Yes,” came the response from Luna.

The sound of rustling was heard before a large bang was heard “Only old books. Newer books stay,” Wyvern said. The library door opened as Luna and Celestia walked out with large piles of books in their magic as Wyvern remade the pile and laid back on it.

I walked in and closed the doors behind me after the princesses left. I saw the Wyvern was snoozing on the book pile.

“Hey, Wyvern,” I called out to the sleeping creature. “You like books, right?”

That got her attention as her head raised. “Why?” she asked as she moved her head closer to where I could gaze into her ice cold eyes and practically feel my bones freezing.

“Well, I have this one,” I said, taking out the giant compendium that was the indestructable book of all things D&D, which was basically everything ever. I waved the book out in front of her. “This is a compendium of all things. Does it interest you?” Without another word, she snatched it with her teeth and tossed it onto the book pile before laying on it.

What the fuck. That was my entire plan, and nothing happened….. Wait a second. Backup plan.

“Hey,” I called to her, summoning the tome back to me. “Why don’t you try reading it?” I opened the book to reveal the pages.

She walked over and looked down at the pages, her cold breath forcing every goosebump to rise. “This book is blank,” she said.

“No, this is a spell,” I said. “Want to know which one?”

She looked at him. “No. I can just write my own stories in it, for those who can’t see your spells, can still read the stories I write,” she replied as she went to take the book again.

Well crap. That was plan B, and now she has the book….. AGAIN. I had hoped to surprise her with a fire spell, but no. No, the freaking wyvern of books had to be like that. She dropped the book onto a pile and pulled out a random book to read. The title of the book though, reminded me of a book called ‘Icha Icha Paradise’.

“I…. I….” I stuttered out. “But….”

“Quiet. I’m reading,” she said as her tail came out and made me feel small when she patted my head….. like a child. FREAKING DAMN IT.

“Screw it,” I said. “I’m taking my book with me.” I called the book back to my hands and proceeded to walk out the doors…. just as a bolt of ice froze the doors shut and a menacing growl was heard.

“You try to steal book,” she said as her frosty aura flickered and moved on the shelves like it was of a frozen fire. “Now you will freeze!” she said with a mighty roar… just as the aura of hers started to consume her. A bright light came, and laying on the floor was Drake, who sat up and yawned. He looked at me. “Dox? Why are we in a library that looks like Superman’s fortress of Solitude?” he asked.

“Long story,” I said. “You appeared to have overloaded somehow. Turned into a wyvern and horded books. I pulled out this baby, tried a few plans, failed on them all, then tried to leave. Wyvern got angry about me trying to leave with the book, and almost tried to kill me. Luckily for it, the overload wore off.”

Drake looked confused. “Overloaded? Wyvern? Dude… I don’t have a wyvern hero,” he said, as if not remembering anything. “All I remember is feeling… cold, then falling asleep,” he said.

“Well, you turned into something that called itself the ‘Winter Wyvern’,” I said. “So yeah. I don’t know if you do or not, but I don’t really care. Listen man, I need to send you back, okay?”

“Princesses want to kill me? Ponies hate me? Think I’m a menace?” he asked as he looked into his gauntlet. He stopped and smiled. “I got a new hero!” he called out happily.

“That’s good,” I said. “Now, go make nice and try and make up with your princesses.” I started looking through the book for a portal spell. Sure enough, there was one. “Uh, I can’t do that…. Crap.”

I can though, just tell him goodbye first, the DM said.

Drake started to leave as he coughed to get the two princess’s attention “Princess Luna, Princess Celestia, I humbly apologize for any problems Wyvern may of caused and damages also caused by her. I had recently acquired her not a few seconds after entering your world and she seemed to have taken control without my knowhow.

“Just get out,” Luna said. “We accept your apology, just please go home.”

“Well… at least you’re nicer than those changeling queens I met…. they weren’t nice. If you ever need help, just call me. I owe Dox more than I could ever could,” he said.

“I got this one,” I said. “Later Drake!”

Drake held Umbra’s arm. “Hey. Maybe when I return we can do something fun… like pranking Rainbow,” he said with a chuckle.

“Sure thing, Drake,” I said. “See ya later.”

And with that, a portal opened up and pulled Drake inside. Hopefully he got back to his world properly. After the portal started to close, I could faintly feel a chill run up my spine as a rageful yell could be heard through the portal.

Well, that answered my question.

The Call to Adventure

After the whole incident with Drake, the princesses, Emerald, Sapphire, and myself, as well as a bunch of castle staff, got together to fix the library. When we finished, it was night time, the time for most of us to go to bed.

I woke up the next day just like any other day. It was pretty normal, minus the fact that I had a sleeping princess next to me.... Well, two.... Actually, two and a couple of changelings.... Did I forget to mention how lucky I am?

Anyways, the day was like any other. I woke up, got out of bed, got dressed, then unceremoniously woke up the others in the bed by opening the blinds and taking their sheets away. I mean, it wasn't the nicest way to wake up, but hey, they all had jobs to do. Let me tell you, the changeling sisters were not happy with it.

Well, afterwards we all went to go get some breakfast. On our way there, however, I felt something strange. I told the others to go on without me and started to investigate the strange feeling. Let me tell you, it was weird. It was as if someone was telling me, no, screaming at me to move, to get moving, to go and explore. I don't even know where it came from. All I did know was that something was telling me to get moving.

The only thing keeping me from following that voice was another, much stronger one. That voice was my stomach screaming out angrily for food. So, as per usual, I went off to the dining hall, hastled the cooks for a bit, made my own food, as well as everyone else's breakfasts, then ate.

The only change to the entire pattern was that I decided to bring up my experience with those in the room.

"What do you mean, 'an urge to explore'?" questioned Luna.

"I mean I had an urge to go off and explore," I said. "It's like something inside of me is telling me to go off and investigate things, to search the world. I just feel like I don't know enough about the world I'm living in right now. I need to explore it."

"Well, I'm sure Luna could help arrange something so we could go off on a vacation of sorts," Celestia said. "I'm not sure how Luna could come with, but I'm pretty sure we could pass me off as being supervised by you, Dox."

"Ooooh!" Emerald squeed. "I love going off to new places! It'd be so much fun! Please, can we go?!"

"Wow, Emerald," Sapphire said. "I haven't seen you act like this since Dox got us to leave the hive to go to Canterlot."

"Well, it's fun seeing new places!" Emerald responded. "Last time I got like this was because I didn't go in disguise, but this time I get to go to a brand new place, entirely!"

"Ya know, that does sound fun," Sapphire said. "Yeah, let's go on a vacation."

"Actually, I think it'd be safer if you all stayed here," I said, getting a disappointed response from everyone in the room. "I know, and I'm sorry. But all of you are too close for me to risk it right now. It really doesn't help that the feeling that I'm getting is telling me that what I'll find won't be good. I just don't want to risk it, especially with me having shagged all of you, and me being compatible with all of-"

"You're what?!" came the interruption from the four mares, as well as a few castle staff that could hear me.

"Yeah...." I said. "I'm able to mate, and have children, with all of you....."

"DAMN IT DOX!" screamed Sapphire.

"Yay!" squeed Emerald.

Celestia blushed a bit.

Luna looked as though she was now thinking over all meaning of life.

"Welp, I guess I'd better be going and-" was all I managed to get out before Sapphire's fist collided with my face.

"Damn it, Dox," she said. "Why didn't you tell us that? I was starting to get worried when my sister was getting fatter."

"Hey!" came Emerald's slightly peeved voice.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I should have told you. If you'd-"

"And if you finish that statement, we'll all kill you," said Luna. "I don't care what you have to say about that. I know what you were about to suggest, and if you do it again, you will be missing BOTH arms, and a leg, all before I'm done with you. No, you'll be missing MUCH more than that."

"Alright, sorry," I said. "Listen, if you could double the guard while I'm gone, it'd help me feel less concerned about you. Alright?"

"It's been done," Luna said. "Now, please, go off on your adventure. Just remember to come home sooner rather than later."

"Right," I said, getting up and heading to the door that led to a balcony. "I'll be back when I'm done with the adventure. Bye!" With that, I turned my outfit into a wingsuit again and jumped off the balcony.

"I worry about his sanity, sometimes," Celestia said.

"We all do, sister," said Luna. "We all do."

As I fell, I started to think about things.

What was calling me? Why was it calling me? Why now, of all times, was it calling me? Where was the voice coming from?

Well, that last question was easy to answer. The voice seemed to be coming from Ponyville, specifically Twilight’s giant ass castle.

Why would it be calling me? Oh well, I guess I’d have to find out when I got there.

Well, what do ya know. It’s a map. When I walked in, I found Spike and Big Mac trading what looked like baseball cards, called it hoofball.

Anyways, I found my way further and further into the castle, that was, until I found the room with six thrones in it. It was there that whatever was calling me…. stopped.

Then, I found what looked like my token start to hover over the map. After a quick bit of investigation, I noticed that it wasn’t just floating over the map, but so was Twilight’s, Fluttershy’s, Rarity’s, Pinkie Pie’s, Applejack’s, and Rainbow Dash’s.

Their cutie marks were floating over a different town, however, while mine was floating over Twilight’s Castle.

Wait, where’s my token going? I tried to grab it, but it just went through my hand. What is this map trying to say?

It stopped moving….. Wait a second. It’s hovering over the frozen north, specifically a frozen mountain…… Now why does that sound familiar?

About a minute after the hologram-like token stopped over the mountain, a sword spouted from the map. Curious about it, I grabbed it and gave it a few practice swings. Then I started hearing things.

“Save him….” said a voice. The voice seemed to come from the sword itself.

“What the hell?!” I screamed.

“Please…. save him….” said the voice. It was definitely coming from the sword. It even seemed to glow when it talked. It was weird.

“Save who?” I asked the sword.

“My owner,” the sword said. “Yngve, the Nord of the North.”

“Wait, Yngve?!” I asked, surprised. “That was a character of mine, he was the most overpowered of all of them.”

“Yes, I know,” the sword said. “We only recently showed up. We were also informed about this world when we were brought in. At least, I was informed. Yngve was extremely incompetent and just charged in. Then he ran into a dragon and got eaten. He’s still alive, I can tell, but he won’t be for long. Please, I need you to save him.”

“Fine, fine,” I said. “But you owe me, alright?”

“Very well,” the sword said. “For now, you can use me to help you, alright?”

“Alright,” I said. “Now, you’re gonna have to guide me once we get to the Crystal Empire, but otherwise, let’s go.”

It took a while to get to the Crystal Empire. Hell, the train took twelve hours, and even then, I had to walk the rest of the way only because I didn’t take a crystal train.

When I got there, the crystal ponies swarmed me. They were all saying thank you, and I couldn’t understand it. Well, not until I got to the castle. I couldn’t even go on my journey to help Yngve, all because I got herded by crystal ponies! Anyways, I found out why the ponies kept saying thank you. Standing at the castle was Shining Armor and Cadence, but something was different. Shining wasn’t made of stone, anymore. No, instead he was made of a fine crystal. No wonder they were thanking me! I inadvertently turned their prince into one of them! Hell, the second he saw me, he even started thanking me, told me something about being immortal now, connected to some kind of consciousness. I didn’t really pay attention to it, though. I had to say goodbye and run off on my quest.

So, that’s where I am now. At the destination of my quest about five hours later. It was obvious that this was a dragon’s lair, but what dragon? Who was this dragon? Why did they eat Yngve?

Well, whatever the answer, it can wait for tomorrow. Right now, I’m camped out at the foot of the mountain that the dragon’s lair is connected to. Why? For some reason, I just don’t feel safe near the entrance. I’m honestly really apprehensive about entering the lair. Tomorrow I’m gonna need help. Like I said, I’m apprehensive about it, if not just scared. I don’t want to go in there alone. I know there’s the sword, but I’m gonna need more help than that. So, here’s to tomorrow. Hopefully it’ll give me the answers I’m after.

The Dragon Named After a President

The next morning, I woke up and went out for breakfast. Hell, I had to search through the compendium to figure out how to create a waypoint at my camp, then I had to figure out how to teleport to the freaking crystal empire. Then I had breakfast and teleported back. It was amazing, but seriously, it was a pain in the butt. It took about half an hour to figure out how to set up the waypoint, ten more minutes to figure out how to teleport to the Crystal Empire, an hour to eat, let alone find food, then another fifteen minutes to get back to the camp.

Anyways, it made me glad that I started storing all the tokens that I found in my weird pocket dimension that was known as my ‘magic satchel’. Now, who could help me out with what I’m going to face….

Instead of being able to open the rift in space-time that would allow me to access my stuff, I heard a couple of screams, followed by what sounded like a pair of objects falling into the snow behind me.

“The heck?” I said, turning around. I walked over to investigate, finding a green humanoid and a white and blue humanoid. “The heck?” They stood up and dusted themselves off from the snow. “Who the hell are you two?” I questioned them.

The blue and white one of them was a robotic looking sort, appearing to look like a sixteen year old girl, somewhat. She had armor made to look like a short top and skirt, and a pair of blue metal pigtails. Why did they look so familiar?

The green one looked more biological, but less human than he did monster. He had a torso with the same build of an athletic human. He had only a pair of deep red pants on, and a sword at his side. His head looked like an octopus of some sort, with red eyes, and his feet looked like those of a dragon, along with the pair of wings on his back.

The two looked over at me and started screaming. The green spoke first.

“GAH! What the hell!?!”

They both looked freaked out. He drew the sword and a pair of blasters extended from the girl’s arms. She spoke.

“We’ll ask the questions whoever the hell you are!”

“Yo, calm down,” I said. I raised my arms in a sign that I meant no harm. The problem with this was that my sleeves fell down when I did that, and they saw my robotic right arm, all before proceeding to freak the hell out.

She kept the guns trained on me, and the guy seemed a bit confused at seeing the robotic arm. He spoke, still holding his sword.

“Answer the question crazy magic dice guy!”

“You didn’t ask me anything!” I screamed at them. “Now, if we could all just calm down, then we could do the questions.”

He seemed a bit unsure, but put his swords tip into the snow. Still out, but not immediately set to attack. The girl retracted one of the guns, but kept out the other. The guy spoke.

“Fine. Who the hell are you, where the hell are we, and what the hell was with the die?”

“Die?” I questioned. Then it hit me and I facepalmed. “Oh! You mean my token. That’s odd, though. Something else should have happened. You shouldn’t have been teleported here. Unless the DM teleported you. Sorry about that.”

The girl spoke in a familiar voice.

“What do you mean ‘token’? And who’s the DM?”

“You guys must be new to the Displaced scene,” I said. I then extended my left arm out for a handshake. “My name’s Dox. I’m the DM’s Champion. The DM is my ‘boss’, and he’s an astral being above just about any god you could think of.”

They both seemed a bit unsure still, but the green one took the handshake.

“Uh. Hi. I’m Cthulhu, Kyth for short. That’s my girlfriend Jen, also known as XJ9. What do you mean ‘Displaced’?”

“Wow, Cthulhu and XJ9,” I said. “That’s pretty cool. Anyways, Displaced are people that were wearing costumes to a convention, then got teleported to an Equestria by the Merchant. Ya know, that shady guy that looked like he was from the Resident Evil series? Although, I know there’s other ways here, and other reasons besides the Merchant just being a dick. Hell, the DM made a deal with the guy to get me here.”

Jen spoke next.

“So there’s people in the same boat as us? We just planned on waiting until the point in the show’s timeline with Equestria Girls to see if the mirror could get us back.”

“Yeah, that won’t work,” I said. “Some worlds have that, but if you remember, it wasn’t canon to the show. I mean, there might be a way back, but look at us! We all have powers now! Plus, I’ve been back to my world. It sucks ass there!”

Kyth spoke up next.

“Well ours was still pretty good! Not super awesome, but we have families, siblings, friends, all back there waiting for us. We figured we could use the mirror to get home while still having all the powers and stuff.”

Kyth seemed to get a blank look.

“Uh. How old were you when you got ‘Displaced’?”

“Eighteen,” I said. “Or that’s what I thought. Turns out, I’m actually over two hundred years old. I only know about eighteen of those years.”

Kyth spoke again.

“Well both of us are sixteen. We still have stuff to do back home, at least saying goodbye…”

They both seemed to get saddened expressions. Jen seemed to look out into space.

“We’ll never get back…”

“Oh no, no, no,” I said. “No, I was only displaced about eight months ago. Or has it been a year, already? Anyways, I’m over two hundred years old because my Earth wasn’t in another universe. No, it’s part of this one. Hell, I can even open a portal to it with this!” I pulled out the ball that was the Runic Portal Matrix to show them. They both seemed to still be kinda uneasy from the sudden news, but gave half-hearted smiles. Jen spoke up lightly.

“Well okay.”

Kyth gained a blank expression and then looked back at me in realization.

“Wait a sec! That other voice in the die said you needed help with something!”

“Hey, yeah!” I said. “See this mountain? Well, there’s a dragon’s lair near the top. Yes, I know it’s a big mountain, but I’m more freaked out about this feeling I’m getting about the area. Something feels familiar, and it’s freaking me out more than anything. It keeps telling me to get help.”

Kyth shrugged with a grin, and then the two of them put away their weapons.

“Well, like you said the two of us are new to this, but we do have some idea as to what we can do,” Jen said, placing her hands on her sides.

“Alright then,” I said. “Just be careful. I’m honestly worried about what’s in there. Whatever this feeling is, it’s telling me that we won’t like it.”

Third Person:

One trek up the mountain later, and the trio found themselves near the top of the mountain. Dox stood in front of a cave that led into the mountain’s interior.

“So, this is the Dragon’s lair,” Dox said, staring into the dark abyss that was the cave entrance. “I don’t know why, but not being able to see in there is NOT helping me at all.”

Jen spoke up.

“Well from what I can see with my scanners,”

Jen tapped the side of her head, gesturing to her eyes.

“There isn’t much of anything other than some houses in there,” she said.

“Houses?” Dox questioned. “There’s no way there’s houses in there, it’s a dragon’s lair.”

Jen shrugged. “Well maybe the dragon likes giant legos.”

“I doubt that,” Dox said. “Dragons from D&D like killing, eating, and being worshipped by mortals. They aren’t really known for much else. Well, except for Bahamut, but he’s a special case. And any of the other dragon gods….”

Kyth nodded. “It’s been a while but I’ve played D&D. Maybe he has the houses in there cause he stole them from a town and keeps slaves/worshippers in them. Maybe even something like a corral for… livestock.”

“It’s possible,” Dox said. “We’ll have to find out the hard way. As a wise frenchman once said, ‘Allons-y!’”

Dox then walked into the lair, followed by Kyth and Jen, only to find that instead of the abyss that they saw from the outside, it was a brightly lit -and utterly enormous- cave filled with houses, trees, and a small hill in the back with a…..

“Is that the White House?” Kyth questioned with a dubious tone.

“Son of a,” Dox said. “No wonder I was getting a bad feeling about this place! This is the lair of the Obama dragon!”

They both gave Dox flat stares. Jen spoke in a vaguely British tone of voice.

“Uh… You wot mate?”

“The Obama dragon,” Dox said. “It’s a huge as hell dragon, or at least that’s what I remember. I know there’s more to it though. It fooled me and a group of mine a while ago. Made us give up for a bit. Got us to do work, then one of us broke free and helped the rest of us. We kicked its ass then found it somewhere else. Kicked its ass again, and it turned into my character’s armor. Then I couldn’t play D&D for a while, but I digress.”

Kyth blinked. “So I’m gonna guess you were Displaced as a D&D character of yours? That would explain ‘DM’. Dungeon Master of the gods n’ shit.”

“Well, among things,” Dox said. “Honestly, I got Displaced as a homebrew rule that I made up. It’s pretty cool, too. But I’ve found out that my characters do exist here. Luckily for me, they’re all on my side.”

Jen shrugged with a smile.

“Well that’s good. So then bad guys got sent here...too..”

She looked up and locked eyes with Kyth. Kyth yelled out in a freaked out tone of voice.

“Does that mean we’re gonna have the Cluster and a whole mess of Lovecraftian shit showing up in our Equestria!?”

He grabbed Dox by the shoulders.

“Calm down, Kyth!” Dox yelled. “This is what attracts the Obama dragon! I don’t know your answer, alright?! Maybe!”

Jen moved Kyth’s hands off of Dox’s shoulders and onto hers.

“Kyth.”

he looked at her with wide eyes.

“Y-yeah Jen?”

“I’m sorry, but-”

*smack*

Kyth flopped onto the ground a few feet away. She walked over and helped him up.

“Stop being a dumbass. You’re Cthulhu. Any lovecraft stuff that pops up, you can deal with. The Cluster I can take, just like the real XJ9. We got both of us anyway, we have at least an even chance if anything does show up.”

He took a deep breath and nodded.

“R-right, Sorry. It’s just that I didn’t really think that Lovecraft stuff’d ever be real. Sorry Dox.”

Dox, meanwhile, just dusted himself off. “It’s alright,” he said. “You ripped my sweatshirt, though. Lucky for me, I have another.” He then opened the whole in space-time that was the magic satchel before pulling out an almost identical hoodie. This one had a certain logo on the back, though, as well as a yellow stripe going down the right sleeve. He took off his ripped hoodie and replaced it with the new one before discarding the ruined piece of clothing into the hole in space-time. “Thank goodness Jack sent me back with this one, it’s cold in here.”

Kyth looked at the hoodie and gained an excited expression.

“Wait a sec is that the Hyperion logo!? There’s a Hyperion out there?”

“Uh, yeah,” Dox said. “They made me the new arm, among things. They also replaced my eye. Honestly, they’re a bunch of good people. It’s not like Borderlands 2. This Jack is more like the one from the Pre-Sequel. He’s a good guy, just take my word for it. He calls you, help him, alright? He’s helped out a bunch of us Displaced.”

Both of them nodded. Jen spoke up.

“No problem. But wait. Are there Displaced villains out there? Y’know, humans with super powers but that were huge jerks back on their Earth?”

“Well, I haven’t met any yet, but I know there are,” Dox said. “I’ve found a few tokens…. and heard about this one guy. Just a note, if you find a Matoran Stone, avoid it. It’s Makuta’s token. He’s kind of a dick. Tried to start a war with all the displaced, from what I heard. Haven’t heard more than that, though. Oh! And if you find a Toa Capsule, that’s Alex. He’s a good guy.”

Jen facepalmed at this and Kyth seemed more excited.

“There’s freakin’ Bionicle Displaced? Awesome!”

“Yep,” Dox said. “And that’s how I reacted, too. That is, ‘til I put on one of Alex’s masks. Got a vision from it. Showed me where the freaking Mask of Life was.”

Kyth shrugged.

“Still cool, even if I can’t get Kanohi masks and stuff. It would be cool to get a blade to upgrade my sword like in the game though.”

Jen seemed to consider this.

“Well from what I remember about Bionicle the masks always went apeshit to purely biological beings. Y’know, since they’re meant to be worn by biomechanical types. I wonder if I could wear one though…”

She shrugged.

“So, Obama the dragon. What’s his biz?”

“What do you mean, my biz?” said a voice.

The trio turned to face the source of the voice, only to find a 50 foot black dragon. It had some jewels on it, but not much.

“Oh shit,” Dox said. “Well, I’m here to get Yngve!”

Kyth took a stereotypical ‘heroic’ pose.

“And we’re his friends I think! So we’re gonna help him!”

“But why?” the dragon known as Obama asked. “This is a peaceful place. Your friend is one of us, he’s over there, working the trees.”

Sure enough, when the trio looked over to the trees that the dragon pointed out, there was a nord chopping down trees one by one. He was the only human in the entire cave. The rest of the inhabitants were a mixture of many different types of ponies, from Crystal ponies to Pegasi.

Jen and Kyth both looked suspiciously at the dragon. Kyth spoke.

“Well how do we know that he isn’t an illusion or mind controlled?”

“Of course, he’s mind controlled, stupid!” Dox yelled at Kyth. “Hey Yngve!”

The nord responded by looking at them with an inquisitive expression.

“Catch!” Dox yelled, taking out Yngve’s sword and chucking it at him.

Amazingly, the nord caught the sword by the blade. He looked up, smiled, and then was no more.

“Gosh darn it,” said the dragon. “You shouldn’t have done that. Now I have to use you all as replacements.” The dragon then swung it’s massive tail at the trio.

Dox jumped out of the way of the tail, then burst into shadowstuff. Jen braced herself and managed to stop it. Kyth drew his sword and he pulled Jen into the air as he spread his wings and took off.

Obama took off after Kyth and Jen, clawing at them and shooting fire when he could. Jen dropped away from Kyth and started flying of her own accord, sending blasts of energy into his side. Kyth charged his sword and weaved through the air to avoid the flames.

The dragon would not give up though, no matter what, however. Eventually, a puff of shadowstuff appeared on the dragon’s back.

“Sadly for you, Obama,” Dox started as he started forming onto the dragon’s back. “I know this form’s weakness!” Dox then drove his sword into a crystal on the back of the dragon’s neck, shattering it. The dragon then took a dive. It appeared to have died. Kyth and Jen landed tentatively next to Dox. Kyth spoke and scratched the back of his head.

“So uh… Is he dead?”

“No,” Dox said. “We need to get out of here now. Just hold onto me.”

They each placed a hand onto one of his shoulders. Then, they turned into shadowstuff and disappeared.

The trio reappeared in Canterlot Castle, the garden to be exact. All around were the cries of panic. Suddenly, a massive dragon claw came crashing down in front of the trio, one that was just as big as the dragon that they had just fought was.

“I always did hate it when he did that,” Dox said.

Jen looked around the city for a moment, and then glared back at Obama. She spoke up.

“So round two Dox?”

“Yep,” Dox said. “Just try not to die.”

Just then, another claw came down, barely missing Kyth and Dox, but it did hit Jen. Kyth jumped back.

“JEN!?”

He turned to Obama, flames erupting around his sword as he brought it down into the dragon’s claw.

“YOU ARE SO DEAD! FLAMING STRIKE!”

The attack did next to nothing to the humongous dragon that was now using the castle as a chair. It did get the dragon to get up, however, and turn around to face the trio.

Meanwhile, Dox started investigating the damage done to Jen, who was now on the ground. She groaned and made to sit up her arm hung limp and wires were barely holding it. One of her legs was the same at the knee. She groaned and Kyth rushed over to her. A dent was visible over one of her eyes, holding it shut. She groaned and managed to speak.

“Shit. That… hurt.”

“God damn it,” Dox said. He took out his large tome and started shuffling through the pages. “I know I have a repair spell in here somewhere.” He eventually stopped at a certain page, then pointed at Jen. “I reject!”

A flash of light came from where Jen was sitting. When the light faded, there was Jen, perfectly repaired. Dox was now trying to suck in air, like as if he was punched in the gut. Kyth helped Jen stand as she looked over herself. She spoke out now. “Well then.”

They looked over at how Dox was and both went to help him stay standing.

“That spell,” Dox said, trying to breath properly. “That spell took a lot out of me…. Could…. Could you two help with the…. dragon *hack* problem.” Dox coughed violently again, this time spouting out his rainbow blood before passing out. Kyth let him lean onto Jen.

“Jen get him to medical attention. I’ll keep big dark and ugly occupied.”

Kyth’s sword lit up with energy and Jen nodded, spreading her wings and taking off towards the castle. As she flew she yelled down at him. “I’ll take him to his world’s princesses!”

Kyth turn to the dragon and lifted into the air with his wings.

“Hurt my friend… Hurt Innocents.. And My girlfriend… Let me rephrase this…”

His sword lit up brighter.

“YOU ARE FUCKING DEAD!”

The dragon roared at him as he dove towards him. Before landing any hits Kyth made it too close, sinking his sword into his chest, yelling out.

“PIERCE!”

His sword ran into him, down to the hilt. He took off again, only to get smacked away by the dragon’s claws. He flew out of control, only for a pair of hands to catch him. He looked back and smiled at Jen. She spoke up.

“Well I got the cavalry, anthro style as it is here.”

Kyth looked back to see an anthropomorphic version of Luna wearing battle armor and wielding a scythe. She also had a sword and shield strapped to her back.

“We may not fully know how to fight like this, yet,” Luna started. “But we shall help you.”

He grinned.

“Well good. I ran my sword into his chest, so he has a weak point now. Let’s wreck this shit!”

Luna readied her scythe, Jen’s hands reconstructed into a pair of large, spiked gauntlets and Kyth’s sword started lighting up again. The dragon sent a wave of flame at them, only for all three to dodge out of the way. Obama lunged out with a claw towards Jen to strike her as he did earlier, only for her to smirk. She punched the dragons claw, a shockwave blasting out from where she struck. The dragon roared, and looked down. His claw was bloodied, and his talons were cracked and fragmented from the impact. Jen laughed and yelled at him.

“How’s that for a chipped nail!? No more of your cheapshots and shit!”

He sent a wave of flames at her, only for her to smirk further. Her body looked a little heated, but otherwise unaffected. She laughed at it, and Kyth grinned. As the dragon looked down at Jen in shock, Luna sent a wave of magical lighting into the wound left by Kyth, and Kyth tore a large gash into one of Obama’s wings.

Obama did not seemed fazed by the wing, however, as he started sending walls of flame at all of them, all while yelling, “CHAAAAAANGE!” It then proceeded to rip pieces off the castle, the ground, whatever it could get its claws on, and chuck them at Kyth, Jen, and Luna.

The trio either dodged, or in Jen’s case blasted, the chunks that were hurled at them. Jen finally grabbed one of the larger chunks and tossed it back, nailing Obama in the jaw. The dragon recoiled backwards, stumbling from it’s perch that was the castle. Kyth dove in, bringing his sword across its eye.

“Drain strike!”

A small aura of magic sapped from Obama and some of Kyth’s injuries healed.

Obama attempted to take flight so it could retaliate, but round that it’s wing would not respond properly. It flailed around, trying to fly. It failed to fly, eventually slamming down into the chasm that was the area below Canterlot. There the 5 mile large dragon lay for a small amount of time before getting up and roaring in anger. Kyth, Jen, and Luna remained above it in the air but went after it, staying in fighting distance. Jen swapped out the battle fists for a pair of laser blasters.

Before they were able to attack, however, a loud noise came barrelling in their direction from above. Everyone seemed to stop what they were doing and look up, only to see Dox falling down at terminal velocity with his sword pointed at the dragon.

The impact was messy. Dox collided with the dragon and the dragon exploded in a mess of blood and guts, splattering on the mountain, almost reaching Canterlot with the gore. There, in the middle of it all, lay Dox. He seemed a bit worse for wear, but none for the worse. It was like the fall didn’t even affect him. Kyth and Jen lowered their weapons in surprise, and then landed down next to him. Kyth looked over all of the parts of the dragon.

“Well alright. How are you doing, Dox?”

“I’m fine,” said the blood covered Dox. “You?”

Kyth shrugged.

“Well. A bit scratched, but none worse for wear.”

“That’s good,” Dox said. “How bout you, Jen?”

“Eh I’m good. Power’s running a little low so I may need to get a bit of lighting magic to charge my gem batteries.”

“Yeah, let me help out with that,” Dox said. He pulled out a vial of what looked like a dark rainbow liquid in a vial. “If you can turn this into a battery, you might have a solution, I don’t know. Just don’t break it, I only have one more of these.”

Jen reached out and took it. “Okay, but uh...What is it? It kinda looks like your blood.”

“It’s a distilled version of it,” Dox said. “An experiment that Avarice and I did. It was pretty cool. Honestly, it’s pure power.”

Jen smiled as she inspected the vial. “Well alright. Maybe I can find a spell or something that can convert it into a crystalline form. I’m still figuring out all of my transformations so I’m not sure if I’m capable of running off a liquid power supply. Then again, I could try drinking it like oil, see if that works…”

“I would advise against that,” Dox said. “That would overpower you severely. It would make your powers become supercharged, almost to the point of being uncontrollable.”

Jen nodded. “Yeah that’d be bad. Though I suppose that would make a decent final stand sort of attack weapon. Anyway, cool. We’ll figure out what can be done with this later.”

She opened a compartment in her chest with that and placed the vial within.

“Hey guys Obama dropped some loot!” Kyth yelled out as he walked among the remains. He held up a chunk of silvery metal. Around him was various other chunks of metal. There was a giant deep black chunk behind him. There was more of the silvery metal behind Kyth, as well. There was also a ton of gold coins, as well as some bags that appeared to be filled with mysterious contents.

“Mine,” Dox claimed. “My world, my loot. You can have some of the mythril, but the rest of the loot is mine.”

Kyth shrugged and pocketed one of the chunks of mythril and held out the rest of the items to Dox. “No problem. Maybe we can use some of this to make a battery with that blood of yours and maybe an upgrade for my sword’s blade.”

“Nah,” Dox said, finally getting up. “If ya put my token into a sword made of mythril, it should be fine. You’d get a pretty kickass sword. It’d work like this thing I gave Asphyxious. He’s this… actually, I don’t think I should be telling you that. Just swing it around. Concentrate hard enough, I’ll come help out. Okay?”

“Cool! Oh yeah, how do you make one of those token things?”

“Oh, that’s simple, kinda,” Dox said. “Just get an item to represent you, then just say an oath of sorts, something to tell others who you are. Then I can distribute it through the void for you.”

Kyth walked over and talked for a bit with Jen. Jen nodded and Kyth grabbed a dagger out of one of the bags. He held it in his hand and Jen placed hers on top. They both concentrated and when they were done the hilt of it looked to be the same shade of blue as Jen’s armor and the blade was made of an unknown green metal. They both decided on a phrase.

“For those who need a knight or a robot to lend a hand or just to hang out, feel free to give us a call, and Cthulhu and XJ9 will be on the way!”

They held out the dagger to Dox. Jen spoke as she handed it.

“Alright, send it out or whatever!”

“Alright, let’s do this,” Dox said, taking the dagger. He did a baseball wind up and then tossed it randomly in front of him, right as a tiny portal opened up, taking the token before disappearing. “There you go, expect some random people asking for help at random times.”

Kyth shrugged. “Eh, that’s no problem. Now after this, we actually know a bit of what to expect.”

Jen spoke up.”So you need anything else Dox?”

“Nope, that should be it,” Dox said. “Now, for the phrase to send them home, just in case they don’t just disappear. Our contract is complete. So, in this case, it’s Kyth and Jen, our contract is complete.”

A portal opened up behind Kyth and Jen. Kyth waved goodbye. “Bye Dox! Call us if you need us when you get our token!”

Right as he said that, a copy of the token came flying out and landed at Dox’s feet.

“Well, talk about convenience,” said Dox. Jen waved goodbye after Kyth had stepped through.

“Yeah. Well peace out Dox!”

She hopped through the portal.

“Well, that was fun,” said Dox. “But now how do I get all this loot back to Canterlot?”

Somepony Call the Plumber

Location: ??????

Time: ??????

A gray and black lion-eagle anthro griffon sat behind his desk looking over reports in the waning light of day through the lone high window with his burning orange eyes. His coloration aside, his defining feature were the two tall “ear-like” crests on the sides of his head, shaped more like the blades of daggers than any ear on a living creature. He paused, hearing something that nobody would’ve had any right to hear, and then pushed his ink well, scrolls, and the reports to the side. He calmly straightened his regal dark suit, fluffing the ruffled cuffs of his sleeves before the doors opened silently to all but him.

“Lord Sharp Ears. Reports from the Rift.” A quiet and raspy voice said from the small five-foot anthro griffin cloaked from head to paw in shadow as he smoothly glided up to his superior’s desk, laying the scrolls out on his prepared space, the Panther Crow messenger never bothered asking how he always knew he was coming, he knew this griff with his unnatural hearing could hear a pin drop halfway across the valley if he focused.

“Very good Swift Wind, I’ll be finished with them in a moment, please sit.” Lord Sharp Ears gestured to the uncomfortable stool before him, and Swift begrudgingly decided to comply. Not heeding Sharp’s commands was a quick way to have one’s ear holes assaulted by his mind-shattering screech which oddly only he wasn’t affected by. It could lend one deaf for days.

It was a tense couple of minutes, the spymaster’s uncanny ability to skim for all the important details in a report was always unnerving. He could spot out the slightest weakness on sight. There was a reason Sharp was head of Die Leucht’s Spy Network. It was only due to their recent failures to assassinate the Royal Sisters that the Panther Crow Assassins found themselves put under his network’s thumb. They missed being independant. They lost fewer agents then….

“Very good. Move to acquire the potential power source immediately. Use as much lethal force as you deem necessary. We failed to contain him before thanks to that fool Avarice’s meddling before, be swift, be silent, and be efficient. Go.” Swift wordlessly bolted from the office as silently as he came, the doors slamming shut without a sound.

Only Sharp could hear it, hear Swift’s pounding heart as he fled to follow his orders. He licked his hooked beak with his black tongue, stained with the wine he kept in his desk, fetching the bottle, chuckling darkly as he mused how things were going so well, even if they failed him, the plan would still go forth with what they’d stolen from that fool Avarice. “Everything is coming together. Even if the others don’t quite see it that way.”

Canterlot Castle

Night

It had taken me several hours to organize everyone, let alone get them to help.

What? The ores left by the dragon were heavy.

In better news, I found a chain chest piece that looked like it was made of mythril in one of the bags, as well as another dagger, and a shield that shone like as if it was reflecting pure sunlight, even though there was no sun shining near it in the chasm. I gave the shield to Celestia, and the chest piece to Luna, since it wasn’t my size. They both accepted my gifts graciously.

The dagger, meanwhile, I took for myself. Why? It was weird. It was made of some kind of material that I had never seen before. The material was definitely metal, but not one that I had ever seen before, nor heard about. Hell, when I tried to look up the freaking dagger in the giant compendium, it came up with a page that was almost blank. What was on the page was a picture and one word……

Orichalcum

Other than that, I found nothing on the page. I don’t think I needed any more than that, though. The word reminded me of Skyrim, but at the same time, gave me a horrible shudder. I felt fear at the name of the material. I couldn’t place anything on it, though. I mean, it’s was late at night now, and I was laying in a bed with Celestia, Luna, Emerald, and Sapphire. I gave up after seeing the word, and went to bed.

About halfway through the night, we all woke up to the echoing buzzing sound of two screaming changelings. Sure enough, it was Emerald and Sapphire, who were in immense pain. Apparently, the DM forgot to tell me a few things, as he immediately told me what was wrong. Turns out, changeling gestation is only a few months, where they then lay the eggs to incubate for several more months. Damn it they were in Labor!

“They’re in labor!” I screamed at the alicorns in the room. “Tia, Lulu, help me!”

The girls rushed to help me, and, guided by the careful instructions of Emerald and Sapphire, we were able to help them remove a bit of their chitin around their underbelly and groin so they could give birth. The natural armor came off like a solid sticker that seamlessly and easily came off, revealing flesh the same color as their eyes and manes. It made me wonder why they didn’t take it off when they got frisky with me. Must have been all the hormones.

They screamed in pain, but mostly kept calm, huffing in deep breaths, and focusing on moving the eggs out. They explained that since eggs were much easier to pass than live births, they wouldn’t be at it long, and sure enough, Sapphire was laying her first shining light green egg about the size of an infant within minutes, but I could tell there was more in her, and from how big both she and her sister are, they could have a couple more eggs each. How effing fertile am I?!

Anyways, after the birth, the girls explained what the eggs needed. I didn’t really expect much, but apparently, love meant more than warmth. It was an interesting concept, hearing about how the whole lower anatomy of a changeling female worked. A few hours later, we all fell asleep cuddling changeling eggs. Honestly, it was the weirdest thing I have ever experienced. It was still amazing though.

I woke up a while later to more screaming. This time, however, it wasn’t for such good news. Someone had broken into the room…..

Well, more like, six people.

They were all invisible to the naked eye, but my Echo Eye was not a naked one. I could see them clearly, six black robed and black furred anthro griffins with straight beaks and piercing amber eyes, all wielding green daggers that were exactly the same as the one I’d claimed for myself, emblem on the crossguard and all. The screams were from Celestia, Luna, and Emerald. The loudest of them was Emerald, who was crying as a couple of the griffons dragged her away. Her gaze never left the floor in front of the bed. When I went to look….

I was horrified by what I saw. There on the ground lay Sapphire, cold and unmoving. She had a single thin line through her throat. It looked as if she had sensed the intruders, but had never found them, instead being killed on the spot. The strange thing was, there was none of her green blood on the ground, even though there should have been a lot sprayed from such a wound. My answer for where the blood went was when I saw a bronze flask with her blood flowing into it like a stream through the air be stoppered and stowed on a belt by the one cleaning his dagger on his robe without care for soiling it, as it seemed to drink in her ichor thirstily.

I couldn’t fully make sense of what happened next. What I do remember was touching Celestia and Luna, them disappearing in puffs of shadowstuff, then pure red. My rage had boiled over. I could feel it. I didn’t care who these freaks were, they were going to die. I felt myself charge at them, then…. black.

3rd person:

Dox charged at the intruders in the room, his sword in his left hand, the Orichalcum dagger in his robotic right hand. The sword glowed with power as he slashed it across in front of him, a wave of energy coming out from it immediately following the swing, only for one of the four that remained, not being the ones dragging his other changeling lover away, to idly hold the tip of his wickedly curved green dagger towards the magic slash, and it vanished instantly. Annihilated by the magic-killing metal of the blade.

“Hmph, a berserker. This one won’t be much trouble, even if he is the avatar of an omniscient god. Space apart, draw him in.” Swift ordered, and they all promptly moved to the end of the room away from Dox, spaced apart to bring him into an easy position to pin.

Dox kept attacking, not hearing the stated plan by the intruder. He sent waves of energy left and right, utterly demolishing the bedroom he was in when the skilled griffins didn’t bother blocking with their daggers when the attacks clearly missed them. The more he attacked, though, the more things started happening. At first, it was hard to notice, but slowly and steadily, things started changing on Dox. His body morphed, shifted, and mutated. Eventually, no longer stood Dox as he was. No, now stood a mutant of horrible power. His body was stone and metal. The area directly next to him was cold, warm, and pushed things away if anything stayed near too long. Large pieces of metal now freely orbited this mutant, spinning around him at such a velocity, that if you were to come near them, you would surely be cut into ribbons. The energy that he sent out now was a deep black, and exploded on contact with the physical objects in the room.

The intruders didn’t care one bit. The room was already muffled, nothing could be heard. They essentially had all the time in the world, Royal Sisters or not. This wouldn’t take much longer. “Silent, give him a present.” Swift ordered, and the griff across from him idly drew a long throwing knife made of the green metal from his robe, and then threw it so fast his arm was a blur.

The magic-killing blade flew through everything like it wasn’t there, cutting what might’ve knocked it away, and then stabbed right into what had been Dox’s knee. The mighty mutant fell to his knee and attempted to pull the knife out of the now suddenly normal leg. Only for another to stab the offending arm, and it too reverted to normal. Before Dox could even scream, several more were stabbing his other leg, and multiple points of his torso. “Hmph, tough one. Took several more knives than a dragon.” Silent commented with an impressed huff. He took a step back, and threw the last one into Dox’s right arm.

Athena screamed soundlessly from outside, but Dox could hear her through his haze, her absolute agony and shifting tone was like hearing a thousand voices screaming all at once, as if her very soul was being violated. In another world, a certain robot mare gasped, and clutched her chest, feeling a pain she hadn’t imagined could happen again. In a certain point outside the realms, another being felt pain, something he hadn’t felt since his creation.

Dox began to glow. It was subtle at first, but the glow increased in intensity. Eventually, he became an orb of light, which turned into a different shape…. an icosahedron…. a d20 of rainbow light, no, of energy….. with a large 20 clearly visible on all sides. Then there was a massive explosion. A fourth of Canterlot Castle was now ash and rubble. The intruders, however, still didn’t care. They stood barely singed, near point-blank to the explosion, hovering with their wings as they held their daggers out, their talons burnt, but nothing they weren’t used to.

“Feh, hate it when they go suicidal. So irritating.” One of the four still-invisible griffins growled, and they looked down to see the sheared rubble of a fourth of the castle, everything within the blast radius aside from themselves had been utterly vaporized in the icosahedron blast of perfect shape, leaving the perfectly angled imprints on the parts of the castle that still stood.

Swift growled when he saw that the two who were dragging the changeling mare for breeding and the several eggs had been caught right on the edge of the blast, their lower bodies along with the mare’s were sheared clean off. Thankfully, the bags holding the eggs were in the left one’s free talon, and seemed intact. “This operation is going down the drain fast. Prowl, Stalk, fetch the eggs and the mare’s blood, we’ll see if we can’t clone her for a broader breeding template, I have the other mare’s blood. Silent, with me as usual, we have an energy source to collect still.”

Their job was made slightly more easy as a bit of shifting rubble told them exactly where the body was. There lie the body of Dox. He was most definitely alive, but, by the time they reached him, in a state of unconsciousness. His rage was gone, leaving him in his normal changeling state, his pale skin now coated in a thick layer of ash. He seemed undamaged by the massive blast of energy. A broken sword lay near his left hand, and he was completely naked.

“Such a fool, but that power is admittedly impressive. Collect him, I’ll arrange the Rift to open-.” Swift was interrupted by the screeches of his griffs, his hackles rising at sensing a powerful presence.

“ENDA!” yelled a deep masculine voice. A second after hearing it, a loud clang of metal sounded next to them as an armored figure slammed into the ground, a couple of bodies coming with him. The bodies had been punched straight through, the longsword that the figure held apparently slicing through them like a searing hot knife through melted butter. The figure drew its sword from the bodies and pointed the glorious blade at the griffons.

Swift was wary, he could feel this being could easily kill him if he didn’t take him seriously. His eye quickly caught the sight of his now lifeless compatriots daggers both sliced clean through, and from the direction of the blade if the inward dent from that direction said anything. Whatever that sword was made of, it was strong enough to completely nullify orichalcum. Unheard of...interesting. “So, warrior, you can see us, and wield a blade that can slice past orchalcum’s sharpness. Are you a tactical genius, or-.”

“Drop him,” said the warrior, gesturing to Dox’s body being held by Silent over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, the wing he might’ve covered already open over him.

“Afraid that can’t happen.” Swift said coldly, taking out a runed steel rod that had a stony finish the size of a hand-and-a-half hilt, and tossing it behind him and Silent. It oddly floated in the air, before sparking and suddenly flashing into a swirling purple vortex that was eerily familiar. “So long.” He and Silent flapped their wings, backstepping so fast that when the warrior attempted to bull rush them, he only managed to clip Silent’s belt, dropping it to the ground just before they escaped into the portal, which vanished instantly, it’s portal matrix with it.

“Damn them,” said the warrior, who stood there for a few moments. “Now, where was it that I left that matrix…..” With that, the warrior began searching for something.

Dox’s POV:

I woke up….. somewhere. I couldn’t really tell where I was. The room was dark, I was tied up by my chest against a wall, and I couldn’t feel most of my limbs. I could feel a tube hooked up to all of my limbs, everything else was numb. “Finally awake I see.” I weakly lifted my head up, and a light was suddenly turned on, blinding me as it shined directly in my eyes. “About time. I was getting bored of watching you bleed in silence.” The voice was female, sultry even, but she held a tone of light arousal. The idea that it was from watching me bleed made me shiver.

“Who….. Who… are… you…?” I managed to get out. I felt really weak, trying to talk. What had happened when I blacked out?

“Who I am isn’t important. Where you are doesn’t matter. What does matter; is that your very essence is raw magic incarnate. Not even orichalcum can kill it entirely, and refined~.” I felt a hooked beak stab into my neck, and I screamed in pain as I felt her use it to bite into me, sucking on my magical rainbow blood like a perverse babe at a teat. She groaned in pleasure, and let go of me, tears let from my eyes against my will. “So~ good….”

“You’re….. sick….” I struggled out. I tried to move with that, but I felt too weak to even attempt to struggle against my restraints. What had they done to me? Why was I so weak?

“Can’t move? Good. I’ve cut off all your limbs. If you can’t feel it; all the better. I’ve severed the nerves to them. All I’ve left are your head, those eyes, and this.” I shouted in pain as I felt a rough talon grab my groin, teasing me. “You’re rather impressive. For a hairless freak.”

“Go….. die….. you bitch……” I got out. It wasn’t much, but it’s what I could manage. “Fuck……. you…..”

“Oh~ is that an invitation?” Her voice purred, and suddenly the light was gone, and I realized I wasn’t on a wall, I was on a table, my senses all fucked up. Over me was a disturbingly sexy black on black griffoness with the same colors as the griffins that had attacked me and killed Sapphire. She wore the same robes as them, but had her hood down, revealing her hooked beak and blue eyes. Her head wasn’t a crow like theirs, it was...different, an eagle head despite her black plumage. She growled before she jabbed a talon into my chest, making me scream in pain. “I know that look! Just because I’m a half-breed you think I’m different! I’ll be making you see differently worm.”

“Fuck…… off…..” I said. She leered at me, licking her beak as she grabbed a large breast in her talon, groping herself, and I only now remembered what Avarice said, about his captors raping him, my eyes widening in fear.

“As you wish.”

3rd POV

‘What is he doing here? How?’ Vagabond thought as he ran as fast as his lightweight leather body could. He’d popped on over the west coast of Equestria when he sensed Dox entering this world through another dimensional anomaly. He’d been trying to hunt these things down, their essence that of the Architect. That damn sadist wasn’t getting his hooks into this new world of his and his avatar’s if he could help it! ‘Whatever plan he has for Dox, I’m not going to let him have his way so easily!’

He’d been running for days now, straight south along the coastline, that was where he felt the portal last and felt Dox arrive before he began fading. Dox was his avatar’s friend, the son of his frienemy, and he wasn’t about to let him die. ‘Of all times for this sort of shit to happen, it has to be when I’m on my home field, and Avarice needs to be sharing my essence!’

He couldn’t just warp there; he hadn’t been there before. Here, in this dimension; he was little more than a powerful golem of sorts. Here he was divided between himself and Avarice, who was meant to succeed him, and to cut off from him might ruin all the effort he’d put into this plan. Soon the land next to the rocky and sandy shore changed from deep woods, to dirt desert, to sand desert. And he felt he was getting near, so he began slowing, prowling about, trying to feel where the portal let out. “I forgot how hard it was, not being nearly all-powerful...I won’t miss it though.’ Vagabond mused until he stopped, kneeling on the beach and sifting his dragon claw gloves through the sands. ‘Traces of the Void are here...and another incoming.’

Vagabond quickly seemed to sink into the very air, leaving only a small bit of his hood exposed in the dark of night.

Down from the sky fell a being seemingly made of armor. It hit the ground at speed, stopping only after creating a large crater, kicking up sand into the air. The sand settled quickly, revealing a warrior holding a mighty longsword, seeming to manipulate the very air with it, using it to settle the sands himself, while simultaneously chilling the air to a bone freezing 90 below celcius. The air heated up almost instantly afterwards. “What a waste of a good move. I didn’t even freeze the creature.” The warrior began looking around for the ‘creature’. “Come out. I know I didn’t kill you.”

“How quaint. A mortal of godly power thinks he can slay me? Amusing. Even in my current state, you are little more than an annoyance.” Vagabond chuckled darkly, his unknowable voice not even hurting the Nord’s ears.

“And why would I want to kill one of the gods?” the warrior said. “I merely wanted to meet you the way the people of my village once did. I was informed of your presence, but not much else. Who are you?”

“Hmph, irony. You are smart enough to actually remember the first encounter I had with your people, and yet you are daft enough to not know the reason why? I like you. Chaos practically breathes your essence. I am Vagabond. Elsewhere you would know me as Vaga.” Vagabond informed as he seemed to slowly appear from the air, as if he was the air becoming dead flesh of black leather.

“Vaga?” the warrior questioned. “I am Yngve, the Nord of the North. I remember your tales. Such diversity in them…. When did you become bound?”

“Months ago in this realm. Even Elder Gods must pass the torch someday. But that isn’t important right now. What is; is that a friend of my avatar is in peril, and I seek to save him. Are you with me mortal?” Vagabond asked, extending a glove out to the 7-foot tall man, who was exactly half Vagabond’s current height.

“I am bid by my master,” Yngve said, accepting Vagabond’s glove and shaking it once. “He bids that I traverse this ‘dungeon’ and save his champion. He bids that we hurry though, something is weakening both Dox, and the master’s connection to the realms.”

Vagabond growled, and began seeking the direction of the Void’s lingering essence. “The Master of Corruption, the Architect of Realities is behind this. He is seeking to sink his hooks into other worlds, add them to his collection. He plays with his puppets, his Shades, his Agents. It would seem he’s using Die Leucht both here and afar. Come, we have little time.” They both ran as fast as they could, Yngve trailing just behind Vagabond.

Dox POV:

The griffoness was gone. She left after she had her way with my limp body. I couldn’t resist, I didn’t even have any limbs now. How could I even try to resist without my arms, or my legs? The entire time, I could feel the tube just sucking out my blood, making me feel weaker and weaker. Hell, I had passed out during everything a few times due to weakness, and she kept waking me up everytime I lost consciousness. I wasn’t in control, and I had no chance of gaining it. It wasn’t like with Emerald and Sapphire…… Sapphire….

Why did she have to die? Where was Emerald? Why was this happening to me?

I had just about given up hope now. I was ready to resign myself to however short a life I had left here. I had nothing else. I couldn’t heal myself, I had no means of casting a spell. Hell, I was too weak to even stay awake for more than fifteen minutes at best. All I could do now was resign myself to my dismal fate…..

Until a familiar sword stabbed through the tan stone ceiling. I was effectively jolted awake at the hopeful sight, and soon it moved around the ceiling in a circle, like a hot blade through melted butter. Thankfully it wasn’t directly over me, and a huge cylinder of rock crashed to the floor along with the unfazed Yngve standing atop it. “WOOOO! Not even stone can stop my blade!” He bragged as a familiar figure made of leather gently floated in.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s just another adamantium sword. If you want a real sword of power, you should see the Third Key. Damn thing can rip space asunder with it’s blade. Yo Dox. Saving your ass again.” Vagabond said as suddenly four gloves similar to his own appeared from the air, but he hadn’t moved, and ripped the tubes draining me painlessly, being I couldn’t really feel around there anymore, and my bleeding stopped instantly.

“What sort of blade is this Third Key? And how is it greater than mine?” Yngve demanded, only for the hands to lift me upright, and hold me in midair.

“It is a field sword longer than you are tall, straight, but in the style synonymous across the Multiverse as being Japanese in some form. It’s blade cuts everything, from anything solid, to the air, to the boundaries of space and time, and even nullifies all magic it cuts like these damned orichalcum blades. It is the favored sword of the Elder God of Void. Having gifted his First and Second Keys to those he dubbed friends.” Vagabond said as he and Yngve casually walked towards the door, me being carried through the air behind them, blinking.

“I’m good with my sword as is,” Yngve stated. “Can we focus on saving Dox he-” Yngve stopped when he laid eyes on me. “BY THE GODS! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!”

I couldn’t respond. My body was still too weak to do anything. After what had happened, I had been drained enough so that I couldn’t even speak. It was terrible. Like being in a bad dream, then finding out it was real.

“They’ve been…. draining you, haven’t they,” Yngve said. “Vagabond, please deal with Dox. I have something to take care of before something bad happens.” And with that, Yngve cut a hole to the floor below. The sounds of battle sounded from below. Several screeches could be heard, as well as a loud nord crying out in victory and anger. It sounded like a bloody battle.

“I’m taking you to your limbs Dox. They’re up ahead.” Vagabond then paused, and looked at me. “...I sense it...the Chaos of Loss...two of them.” My heart froze, and tears began dumping forth as I choked on nothing.

‘Two?! Then...then Emerald too!’ I coughed, my dry throat burning as I dry heaved.

“Don’t count them out. They’ve only died recently, I can still grab them before the Elder God of Death can process them for reincarnation, or leave them in the ether where only Gods of Creation like Faust can reach them. I’ll be needing your arm. Hope your sister doesn’t mind sharing living space.” Vagabond turned back around, walking briskly down the tunnel and winding through it’s dripping and salty passages, seeming to know exactly where he was going.

What did he mean? Was he going to bind Emerald and Sapphire to my arm? I still feel weak, I can’t think hard enough to process everything. I was barely awake as is. Why was I so weak? Why was is so easy for these freaks to wound me? Where did Yngve come from? Where did Vagabond come from? How did they even know I was here? And still, what happened when I blacked out?

Vagabond wasn’t going to bother answering the thoughts running through my head, time was of the essence, and he wasn’t going to waste it answering questions that could be handled later. I could figure that was the case at least, I mean, while he is of Chaos, he’s oddly pragmatic.

We soon found ourselves in a sort of lab, my limbs laid out on examination tables, all cut up. Damn it… but at least Athena’s arm body was still intact, it seemed they were being more careful with it than my other limbs. The place seemed ditched in a hurry, tools and belongings abandoned with all haste. Then again, this place seemed to be a sort of convenient base, these caves were natural, it wasn’t any trouble to lose it in exchange for secrecy I guess, or however these bastards operate.

“I’m going to lay you down and get busy on this. While I’m here in my new ‘root’ realm I’m greatly weakened, so I’ll-.” Vagabond froze, and then chuckled in mirth. “You’re in luck Dox. Avarice just got called away. That means I can do this.” Vagabond tossed me carelessly on an empty table, getting a choked grunt out of me, and he snapped his nonexistent fingers.

Oh. That fucking asshole! That hurt! All of my limbs, even the butchered ones were suddenly reattached to my body and regenerating back to their proper states. Then, he seemed to be focusing, his red essence drawing in through his hands, and he even growled and seemed to be straining. “I know it’s breaking the rules Ichor, but I’m not able to turn a blind eye to suffering like you.” Whoever this Ichor was, it seemed he was trying to keep Vagabond from getting my girls back! That fucker! Go Vaga!

With a roar, Vaga yanked two blue wisps from the air, and then promptly slammed them into my robotic arm, Athena both grunting and cooing at the action. “Oh~ my! This guy knows how to-mmph...treat a girl!” Ew~ my somewhat-sister was getting off to having the souls of my lovers being shoved into her body! …. For some reason I’m okay with that. Soon, I heard Athena cry out in ecstasy, and then sigh in relief when Vagabond was finished infusing Sapphire and Emerald into Athena. “Oh~ I just thought of how funny it would be if I was named Ruby instead, ha! We’d be a trio then!”

“Ow...Dox...what happened? I was being dragged away and then...nothing.” Emerald asked feebly, I was so glad to hear her voice.

“Where are those fucks?! I’ll tear their eyes out!” Sapphire roared into my mind, oh, I’m so happy to hear her.

“They’re dead,” said Yngve, who just walked in. “I killed as many as I could. They left a lot of his blood behind, but they made off with much more. I was at least able to stop them from taking this.” He held up a small vial with rainbow liquid in it. It looked like my blood, but it was brighter…. What did it do? “This would have made them gods. Glad I got to them when I did. The fucker who had this was almost through the portal when I ripped the arm holding the vial off.” Well damn. “There were more vials down there. One of them might be able to help you, but this one’s off limits for now.” Yngve seemed to then open a hole in space-time. He dropped the vial in it, then proceeded to pull out clothes. Wait, was he in my magic satchel? He must be, because those seem to be my spare clothes, thank goodness, I wasn’t looking forward to being in the buff. He didn’t take out my hoodie, though. I knew why, it was scratched up. But where would I house the Dice Roller Core, then? In fact, where the hell was it?

“Right here.” Vagabond said before holding the device, along with my aforethought hoodie. “Don’t be surprised. They’re yours, they stole them, I just whipped them back up. Your blood though...well...not even I can touch it. No idea what the Architect might do with what they likely gave to him though. Let’s go Yngve, we’ve got to force-feed as much of his rainbow juice back into him if he’s going to recover anytime soon.”

“Right,” Yngve said, retreating down the hallway and leaving me on the table. I tried to get up while they were gone, but it was no use, I was still much too weak. Hell, I could only hope to get back to normal now.

“Don’t worry, Dox,” said Athena, now appearing in her hologram form. She’d taken up her guise of a griffoness again. “You’ll be fine. I’ll need repairs, but you’ll be fine.”

“Screw…. you….” I said. Fucking hell. What the fuck did she think just happened?! I just got raped! And it was by a griffoness! Now she’s telling me that it’ll be fine, and she’s doing it in the form a griffoness?! “Go….. away…..”

“Dox, what’s wrong with….” she looked at herself, noticing what form she had taken. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry.” Her hologram glitched out a little before turning into her dragoness form. “I’m so sorry. I forgot. Please, you’ll be fine, Dox. I know you will.”

I wasn’t willing to listen, but that changed when alongside her, two familiar changeling mares appeared as holograms to either side of Athena, surprising her. Sapphire’s hologram was blue, while Emerald’s was green. Fitting. “Buck up you little ass! I died, but I’m here, so if I can fucking cope with it then you can get over being raped!” And there’s the tsundere Sapphire….

“W-what sis means is; we’re here for you. Even if we’re not...really alive anymore. What happened to our eggs Dox? Please...tell us they’re okay.” Emerald pleaded, and I couldn’t say anything, both because I was too weak, and also because I honestly didn’t know. For all I knew, these fucks had taken my unborn kids someplace for their sick experiments.

“Ladies, this is all a big shock, he’s weak. So we’ll just have to grin and bear it until Dox can literally get back on his feet.” Athena brokered between them, and the sisters both looked at her sadly. “Hey, it’s no so bad...I mean, we can do this!” Athena’s ‘body’ arm twitched, spasmed, and moved laboriously to my groin, and I had to choke out a weak laugh. Like when we first met. Sure, I wasn’t in any mood for that sort of thing, but it was the sentiment that mattered.

“Well, what about this?” Sapphire asked before suddenly grabbing Athena’s dragoness head and bringing her down for a kiss, surprising both her and Emerald, she broke it off shortly in her own surprise. “How did that work?”

“I don’t know! I’m new to this too!” Athena protested, and licked her maw. “But...I wouldn’t mind a...repeat test?”

“Sis, Athena, that’s no fair to poor Dox. He’s frustrated enough without one of his lovers and his...sister?” Athena nodded. “Getting frisky. He can hear everything we do, right?”

“I’m not sure...uh...we could...y’know…?” Athena ventured, before disappearing, and the sisters looked to each other before leaning towards my face and fake-kissing my cheek, before disappearing too. Love those girls.

Just then, Yngve came bursting in with a large crate of vials in one arm. In his other arm, he held a large container full of rainbow liquid. Wow. They were stockpiling it. He dropped the crate and the container on the floor next to me, then headed back down the hall, most likely to get more crates or containers. Then Vaga’s freaky air arms started appearing and opened the crate, and formed a chain with the one ending over my head popping the stopper with a thumb, and gesturing for me to open my mouth.

Even though he’s my pal, the fuck still scares the shit out of me when he isn’t actually here. Then again I showed Avarice this trick with my flintlock, so, kinda dug my own grave here. I opened my mouth, and the glove started pouring my own rainbow magic juice down my gullet. Every swallow made me feel better, so I kept going. I have no clue how long I was there, Yngve carrying crates in sometimes two at a time, and Vaga’s disembodied arms feeding me my own blood. Some morbid shit, but it was necessary. After who-know’s how many, I finally felt strong enough to sit up on my own, and Yngve and Vaga were both standing off to the side.

“Ugh…” I moaned. “Thanks, guys.”

“Lay back down, idiot,” said Yngve. “I don’t care how good you feel, you should be drinking more than that. In fact, take this.” He held out a deep red vial as he forced me to lay down. I took the vial graciously, gulping it down as fast as I could. it tasted horrible, but I could feel myself getting better from it.

“Again, thanks,” I said as I lay there, being fed my own blood again, but at a faster pace. It was like a macabre beer bong now. The thought made me choke a bit and almost spit up some of the stream of vials being dumped in my mouth now. For some reason, my blood started tasting like Mountain Dew, if not a bit watered down. I was glad it was going right back into whatever sort of paradoxical space my blood came from, because there was no way in hell my stomach could have held even a fraction of what I’d consumed, and soon enough the stream stopped.

“That’s it, no more. The Die Leucht have the rest. Damn it, I’ll go looking for them, but I’ve got to drop you off someplace safe. C’mere.” Vaga insisted, and gestured me to get up, and then for us to walk into his drape of a coat. Honestly, it was understandable when he was this huge. Like walking through those door drapes in fancy or hipster places? Well, we easily walked right through the Elder God of Chaos’s own little section of Limbo and out the other end into a tropical paradise. Well, as tropical as a tropical island can get when it doesn’t have any trees.

“Where the hell did Vaga send us?” I asked to no one in particular.

A mechanical sigh was my response at first. “More problems, more complications, more setbacks. I swear. Avarice is a vicious taskmaster without realizing it.” Yngve and I turned around to see a gray on gray earth pony claptrap stallion that was BUILT, I mean, frick, WHY was he so beefy when he was wearing a gray business suit, and those futuristic glasses like that accountant guy from the Borderlands Games wore? Pfft...how hard is it for him to get ten million dollars? “Sub-Foreman Vagabond has dropped you in the midst of my work site.”

The claptrap’s gesture around us made me...I just pissed myself. There were BUL, PWR, and basic Loaders all around us, aiming their respective weapons at us, their blue eyes turned red. We were at the bottom of a massive cubic hole, perfectly dug and shaped to precision, the Loaders all had dirty hands and digging equipment, so it was clear that this was a massive project.

“Well….. Shit….” I said. Seriously, what was going on here? What had happened to Avarice since I last saw him? “Um, where is Avarice? Can you guys, um… Fix my arm?”

“Certainly, but without Foreman Avarice or Sub-Foreman Vagabond funding it, the repairs will cost you-.” Athena appeared, again a griffoness, and seemed to have trouble appearing as something else.

“S-sorry Dox, emitters, fluxuating, can’t maintain other forms so well.” Athena apologized, and while seeing a griffoness did upset me, I could easily get over it since she was struggling with other forms. Besides...she’s my sister, and I knew her this way first. Back when she was a shameless tease and we didn’t know we were related. “H-Homage, I need serviced, o-or transf-f-f-ferred!” Athena? “Damage catastrophic! All power routing to-!” She cut off, and went limp…. NO!

“Please! Save them! I can’t...I can’t lose them again!” I yelled, running up and grabbing the claptrap unit. “Save them!” He quickly grabbed, my arm, broke my wrist, and tossed me to the ground in one smooth move, while pulling a cord from his hair, Yngve was going to move, but a few warning shots from the surrounding Loaders made him pause.

“This’ll be quicker if you stay still! Do not waste your energy, the arm’s feeding off your neural impulses, the pain will cause your brain to be more active, so agitate that wrist if you have to.” Homage growled, kneeling next to me and plugging his mane cable into a port on my bicep. “Damn, damn...transferring to local storage space. This arm’s scrapped. Whatever happened, whoever tried to open it up triggered a self-defense protocol and fried most of the hardware.”

“But you can fix it or replace it…. right?” I asked. “Please…. I don’t want to lose them, again. Not again….”

“The arm itself is worthless, better off slagged. But if you’re worried about the souls in here.” Athena as a griffoness, and the sisters Sapphire and Emerald all projected from his left eye, and seemed to be just fine. “They’re in my storage systems right now. I’ll have to transfer them to blank loaders or claptrap units. I don’t trust this sort of platform with three souls.”

“Excuse me!” Called out the projected Athena. “I would love a body, but if you can find a way to set up a new arm with the same capabilities, I’d gladly go back in there.”

“Oh, come on, Athena.” Emerald’s projection said. “Surely you’d rather have some more fun with us?”

“Yeah, that was fun, what we were doing.” said Sapphire. “Couldn’t you just join us?”

“I’m afraid that’s out of the question. If Mother was the one you were speaking to, she’d be fine with it. Until I told her you nearly died because you couldn’t defend yourself.” Homage pulled the “telling mom” card!

“No! Not fair! I like molesting him!” Athena then turned red, and sheepish. “Um...it’s...not REALLY incest….” It was super effective and brain-bleach worthy information makes her lose the battle!

“You’re getting your own body sis! Ew….” ‘Still...I’m a little disturbed I find that hot.’ “So, how can I repay you? I’ve just had most of my blood forcibly drained and nearly died, so I don’t have much of myself to give you.”

“You say that like we’re loan sharks. We’re Hyperion, not Jakobs.” Homage then cast a healing spell with his Magic Core and my wrist snapped back into place. “Now then, thank you for your patience, follow me.” Homage moved over to a lift in the side of the pit...a lift? This place was several stories deep...they must be getting ready to begin building the place proper.

“So, what’s being built here?” I asked, getting in the lift with Homage. Yngve followed behind us, albeit slowly. He seemed very wary of the robotic beings around the place, even as their eyes turned blue and they got back to their assigned tasks, the potential threat dismissed. He calmed down though when it was just us in the lift shaft and it began rising.

“You must not be in contact with Avarice often if you do not know. Avarice and Vagabond are the recently hired Foreman and Sub-Foreman of this universe’s branch of the Hyperion Corporation. They offered to fund the venture, and so we are setting up shop. Just before Avarice was whisked away in a swathe of blue flame, he asked me to get to work on setting up a New-U system and Fast Travel network, because the more mundane methods of travel are not sufficient or efficient in our current state.” Homage explained and the long ride up ended surprisingly fast. Hyperion lifts were pretty quick.

“As awe inspiring as all this is. I feel the danger has passed for now,” Yngve stated. “I was told to do something, and that was help you out. Seeing as you’re fine now, I can go. I’m not leaving you without something though, here.” Yngve held out his sword for me. “Take it. I’m not going to be using it any time soon. Plus, I have this!” He pulled out a large tome with a face on it. In the mouth of the face was a large bomb. Wow, kinda forgot I got him that. “Now, I must be off. Take care, Dox.” Yngve pulled out the Runic Portal Matrix, opened a portal, and was exited through it, leaving no trace that he was even here, besides his sword.

“Well, that was nice of him,” I said. “So, about getting a new arm, and su-.”

“What was that?” Homage gestured to where Yngve vanished. “What device did he just use?”

“That was an artifact from my universe,” I said. “I started putting it into the Hyperion Database the other day. It’s a Runic Portal Matrix. It allows the user to open portals to other realms, or apparently in this case, universes.” Dox noticed that it hadn’t followed Yngve and he sighed. “He just tossed it...this thing doesn’t follow unless you take it with you.”

“Mind if I have it a moment. I have an entire suite of software and hardware capable of several different analysis types. I believe this being directly sent to Faust might earn some commission towards your debt.” Homage held out his hand, getting a bit of a creepy grin to his otherwise stoic face.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Just be careful not to damage it. It’s a very volatile item if damaged.” I said as I carefully handed it to him, and his eye not having Athena, Sapphire and Emerald projected from it began scanning it several times over as he moved it around in his hands.

“Fascinating...simple, yet pointlessly complex...I believe Mother might be able to find a less unique and fragile alternative using data gathered from this, and with our current portal technology. Let me take you to the beacon, we still have to converse with-.”

“HOMAGE! FRONT AND CENTER!” The gray claptrap stallion started at hearing his mother’s furious tone from the direction of the beacon, and quickly ran towards it, I followed, kinda scared, since Faust sounded PISSED.

“Oh damn,” I said, following the claptrap. Homage was practically bowing to the holographic screen showing a very perturbed F.A.U.S.T. that fidgeted in place, her expression a mixture of stern and worry.

“Thou shalt report where Unit Athena is this instant! We felt her...vanish, a moment. We sense her data stream in thou’s dimension, seek her immediately.” The Robe wearing robotic alicorn bristled, before blinking a moment in my Direction as those eyes showed white dots in a black void like from Five Nights at Freddy’s, with bared chainsaw teeth revving slowly or erratically in clicks, looking me over than the arm he was holding. “We presume thou enacted emergency recovery protocols?”

He instantly lifted the ‘slagged’ arm in question as the Token Digistructed it in almost a flash, while her response was a withering stare upon Homage and myself. As he seemed to draw out the holographic projections of the three currently inside himself showing said A.I. sister and my two changeling lovers as spirits inside.

“Um, may I please get a new arm and claptrap bodies for my sis and lovers?” I asked the mechanical alicorn. “I was kinda kidnapped, nearly exsanguinated to death, my lovers over there died, and I almost lost Athena too. I...I kinda need assurance that they’ll be able to defend themselves...because clearly I’m not able to….”

The Expression dragged over to Athena and the girls felt as if forever froze over, with F.A.U.S.T. Now almost literally boring a hole in Athena’s direction and by accounts; Sapphire and Emerald, giving a chorus of ‘sorry’ or fearful expressions as they hugged each other for comfort. “Thou doth cares to explain thyself or simply bare for us a data-dump of what we’ll get out of thou for being lax in thy duty to thy brother…” The last word her gaze instantly shifted back onto me for just a moment, until flicking back in less than a blink.

“It’s not her fault,” I said. “I didn’t have her body deployed. She was stuck as a hologram. There was already a commotion in the middle of the night, then the bastards showed up and attacked me, them, AND my Tia and Luna in their own castle. They were using black cloaks that rendered them invisible to the biological eye, and some special daggers. I think they were made out of this thing called orichalcum. I even found a dagger of it, myself. I lost it, though. They must have taken it. I could check my magic satchel…” I opened the space-time rift that was the magic satchel…..

What the hell. Yngve is a badass. Why do I say this? ‘Cause there was at least fifty of the freaking daggers inside the magic satchel. Wow. I pulled out one of the daggers to show F.A.U.S.T.

“These are what they were using,” I said. I then noticed that there was a large nick in the blade. “What the heck?” Oh, right! Yngve’s sword is made of a special mithril alloy and adamantium! Of course it would cut into this stuff. “I’m pretty sure this can cut it.” I held up Yngve’s sword.

F.A.U.S.T. gestured from myself to Athena with barely a smile after hearing that though having started by stating what’s to come. “Thou wouldn’t mind study of the sword in question to adapt possibilities onto a defensive treatment we would be working on? Oh also thy sister could control ANY of thou cybernetics at any time, With an eye and arm much could be ‘accomplished’ such as sticky bedsheets?” Giving Athena a slight nod of approval for a moment before glowering at her pointing back at my shocked self. “Were thou busy ‘getting off’ from thy images of the DM’s Colt?”

“M-MOTHER!” Athena squeaked, her wings flaring in embarrassment as the changeling sisters on either side of her grinned and leaned into her, whispering into her ears, making her projection turn even redder, and Homage to sigh.

“I can hear all of your nasty little words Mares. Have some decency, would you?” Homage chided, getting them all to turn the same shade of blushing red. “Mother, please, I implore you; I will bill Foreman Avarice for the units and explain why, he’ll be understanding.”

“There is a Priority order from earlier, we are still in the process of preparing for deployment of the Starting Hyperion satellite; Plague-0 as named in which he ordered, and the New-U Fast Travel stations...very well. We see no issue, but Foreman Avarice must know that money cannot solve everything, as much as we wish otherwise.” F.A.U.S.T. shook her head, before reaching up to her mane and pulling out a long cable, and a small hole opened in the air in front of the screen. “Homage, connect for transfer.”

“M-Mother this is quite embarrassing….” Homage stuttered, his cheeks actually blushing, and it wasn’t until I noticed the cable had a ‘female’ ending that I blushed, understanding the implication.

“Nonsense son. It is nothing unusual. Just port in and we shall take thy sister, and our new daughters into ourself for proper installation.” F.A.U.S.T. stated with an understanding and caring expression, and Homage sighed before taking a long cable with a ‘male’ end from his mane.

“Wait, what,” I said. “Just…. what.” I was too late, and the moment they connected, the three girls vanished, and Homage shuddered while F.A.U.S.T. hummed in content.

“We shall be along shortly. The initialization process takes a bit, but since they already have all their sense of identity, they’re...oh. Goodness. You really are naughty mares.” F.A.U.S.T. purred with humor as she disconnected from her son’s cable, and he briskly cleared his throat, stood, and walked away. “Mm...we must try that on Jack~....” F.A.U.S.T. mused with a purr before the beacon shut down, and I was left standing there, down an arm, my lovers and sister in the body of a goddess….

Oh god...she’s pregnant with my sister and lovers all at once….that’s a strange thought. “Okay~!...Now what do I do?” I looked around, and aside from the enormous cubic hole where the Loaders were digging, there was the equally massive slag heap of dirt and stone off to the side. Everything else was valley, a quiet warm breeze, the warm sun overhead, a lazy feeling in the air. “I can...actually...relax?” It was a...weird feeling. I felt safe here, it was quiet, aside from the construction, and there was the ocean a short distance away, like maybe a half-mile.

Hey, there’s some small plaster huts over there! Locals? I’ll just go over and see-.

I was frozen on the ground, a spear stabbed between my legs, and several serious and wary zebras aiming spears at my face. ALL I DID WAS SAY HI! Then again, I was a one armed guy, currently, with a device strapped to that one arm…. and I was pale as all hell, and I had pointy ears, a green eye and a robotic one….. and I was dressed in all black… Okay, maybe they had a reason to be like this.

“[What should we do with the weird one? He came from metal warrior’s place.]”

“[He looks like the demons of lore! Aiding us or not, if they ally with the demons we must flee!]”

“[Do not be hasty! Brother Avarice is much more monstrous than this one-armed fool. If he is so kind, then shouldn’t we extend the same courtesy of giving him a chance?]”

...Were they...speaking Hawaiian? Wow, never thought I’d see the day that happened. Now…. what to do… Wait! I know! Speech check!

Aaaaaand…. FUCK YEAH! CRIT!

“[Hello there,]” I said. “[Um, I’m not a demon. Listen, I’m friends with Avarice, okay? Something happened recently, I got kidnapped and now I’m here because Vagabond rescued me. I’m just waiting on a few things and was interested in seeing what was here.]”

“[Oh~ you poor thing!]” I was suddenly blinded by a view of MUCH closer black and white, causing me to lean back and blush from the warrior zebra mare that had moved her spear aside and knelt in front of me, not at all seeming to care she’d shoved her chest into my face with the action. “[You are so pale and thin, we must fix that! Girls!]” The warriors all backed off and went about their previous duties, and a couple of other shapely mares all approached. I JUST noticed they’re all wearing LEAVES and VINES for clothes! “[This poor dear is famished and paler than is natural! We must heal him!]”

“[Oh~ I’ll get the tanning lotion!]”

“[I’ve got the massage.]”

“[I’ll get the food.]”

I tried to move away, but the warrior mare’s quick reflexes already caught one of my ears, and twisted, making me shout as she grinned impishly. “[You won’t be getting away so easy, our hospitality would be at stake.]”

“WHY NOW?!” I screamed. “NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE! SO MUCH NOPE!”

I slowly walked back up to the beacon, my pale skin now a dark tan from that weird alchemical tanning lotion, my muscles relaxed from masterful massage, and feeling rather full on bananas, coconuts, and pineapple drink mixes...and wearing nothing but a thong made of leaves and vines. Dem Hawaiian zebra mares...so sexy, smart, and hospitable. Still wish they had given me back my clothes, though. I was enjoying wearing normal clothes. Hell, they even took my weird ass leather shoes!

“Ah, enjoyed the local flavors I see.” Homage stated near the beacon as the sun was nearly setting. “I also see they took your clothes. I shall have them sent to you later, but right now, Mother is ready to send over her daughters.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I said, walking past Homage. I hit him on my way past, I think I might have taken off part of his shoulder when I did, too. Serves him right, no one acts like that to me but those close to me. Homage simply brushed his shoulder off, and cast a self-repair spell, fixing what I’d broken, not really caring. I walked into the room that the beacon was in. “So, Homage tells me the girls are ready to come back? And my arm?”

“We feel you will...enjoy, both the arm, and our reborn daughters.” F.A.U.S.T. replied, now wearing her skin-tight Hyperion uniform outfit again, and first came...WHOA-HO-HO~?!

“Hello Dox~.” Emerald and Sapphire said in unison, flaunting their new bodies by pressing their upgraded assets together and looking at me at the same time. They were changeling models, but clearly the Mature kind, that skin their armor was showing wasn’t fake! I swear, my nose started bleeding just from looking at them. Sapphire’s accents were a vibrant blue, while Emerald’s were a similarly vibrant green. Their E-cup breasts mashed together until they moved apart, their blue and green tails swishing in joy at being alive and having bodies again. “Like our...upgrades?”

Before I could respond, Athena popped up between the mares who were the same 5’10” as before, but she was a couple feet taller at 7’ even, and was a busty, shapely orange griffoness that mirrored her original hologram avatar. Sure, I had mixed feelings about her being a griffon, but it was her choice...I hope. But sister or not, when she leaned over, and her huge gazongas being about the same size as the sister’s HEADS did not escape me. “Like MY upgrade...Little Brother~?” If my nose wasn’t bleeding before, it sure was now. I could feel the liquid coming out my nose. Hell, it could have been my brain being liquified from the sight, I just felt liquid. “What’s wrong brother? Feeling...flush?” As she asked that with her husky voice, both sisters pressed their heads into the sides of her massive breasts and began nuzzling.

I think my heart stopped a moment, but they laughed and broke apart, thankfully the tease seemed to be over. “Girls, please, your incesutous behavior is harming him.” F.A.U.S.T. grinned evilly. She planned that! “Now for the arm.”

Holy...shit.

“Like it? Avarice put it on order for you earlier actually, something about wanting to get you something.” Homage commented from the side, grinning evilly.

“Like it? I LOVE IT!” It was literally Samus Aran’s ARM CANNON with a hand on the end of the cannon that was clearly able to morph if it’s liquid-metal appearance said anything, it was like the Type-2 Terminator from Terminator 2! Hyperion has this technology?! This was freaking sick! I could only imagine what would happen if I used David’s token with it. “Does it fire beam shots? Or is it E-Tech? And uses bullets?”

“The latter. We have yet to perfect Eridian tech, but E-Tech is absolutely easy once thou know how to make eridium. Thou can feed the cannon almost anything, and it will convert it into energy blasts of the various elements we have the skill to infuse into, from fire and lightning, to acid and slag. Even explosive. Avarice paid a fortune for this. Appreciate thy friend, won’t thou? Now take care of our daughters...or we WILL END THOU!” F.A.U.S.T. shouted, her eyes turning into pits with a white pupil and her mouth filled with chainsaw teeth again, and the beacon shut down.

Dammit I pissed myself again…. And I was wearing the freaking thong. Damn it.

“Hey, Homage,” I said. “I need a way to get back…. and I need to place an order. I’m gonna need some loaders in the future.”

Homage sighed, taking the Runic Portal Matrix from his storage. “Good news...Avarice put in an order for THAT too. He said he figured shit might hit the fan for you too. Some inept form of a contingency plan on his part and all that. I will inform mother to send them on over when we are not so bogged down in orders. Unit Markus is so busy lately too.”

“Alright then,” I said, taking the Matrix from Homage. I used it to open a portal back to my world, then tossed it to Homage as I put the arm to my shoulder socket, and it connected perfectly, actually making my nerves hum. Oh~ that felt good..... “Hey, remember to return it when you’re done with all the scanning. I’ll have something else for you to scan when you’re done.”

Homage actually smiled when I said that. Huh...guess he does have SOME soft spots. “I will be sure to. Now off with you. I have business to tend. Sisters...don’t kill our employee.”

“We’ll try not to~.” All three of them responded, and giggled, making me shake my head with a laugh before we all walked on through to home. I had so much shit to explain to the princesses when I got there. About what happened, and the fuckers who did this….

(Gamma) Dragon Quest

I walked through the portal, ending up back in my world with the two newly robotic changeling mares and one robotic griffoness who was happy to have a real body. The only cons I could see to this were that I lost my Runic Portal Matrix and my clothes. Hey, at least I’d get those back.

A few seconds after walking through the portal, I stepped on some metal. Looking down at it, I recognized it as my sword. So that’s why Yngve gave me his. My sword was completely destroyed, it was nothing but blackened metal now. There must have been some kind of fire….

Or an explosion. I mean, looking around, a fourth of the castle is now missing! Holy crap! Now I really wanted to know what happened when I passed out.

“Dox,” Athena said. “Sensors are picking up incoming. There’s two of them…. Wait, scratch that. There’s two, there’s at least eight others close behind them. The eight seem to be chasing the two, and they’re closing in on them.”

“Well, can you tell who the two are?” I asked Athena, picking up the remnants of my sword and putting them into my magic satchel.

“Give me a second,” Athena said. “It’s the princesses. They’re moving quickly, but I don’t think they know that they’re being followed.”

“Damn it!” I yelled. “You three stay here. Athena, guard them. I’ll be back with Luna and Celestia.” I then ran off, leaving Athena to guard the changeling sisters.

I could have sworn I heard one of them ask about how they could do magic now as I ran off, but I didn’t really pay it much mind. I had some other mares to save.

3rd person:

Celestia and Luna ran down the hallways of Canterlot Castle. They had heard the explosion from their teleported destination of the rubble of the Royal Pony Sisters Castle in the Everfree forest. Hell, they had seen it! The devastation was obvious from where they were situated.

After seeing the devastation happen, the sisters immediately teleported back to Canterlot, only to find that they couldn’t teleport directly to their previous position. They were able to make their way to the castle, only to be attacked by a small team of griffons. They only saw four, and they had strange looking daggers. The intent of the miniature strike team was obvious. At seeing them, the sisters opened fire upon them with all of their magical might, only to find their magic useless to the assailants’ blades. As such, they took the only other course of action. They shot at the ground around the assailants and fled into the castle.

After a while of running, they seemed to have lost their would be assassins. They then set their focus on the devastation that had happened in the castle. The sisters went running through to the point of destruction, eager to see what had become of their lover. It did not help that during their run, they felt like they were being watched and followed.

After about ten minutes of running through the castle, they found Dox running full speed at them, bearing a longsword. The sword looked strange and ancient, and it brought concern to them how Dox was wielding it. He was holding the blade like he was preparing to strike someone, and they were the only ones in their path, to their knowledge.

Dox ran straight past them. They heard the sound of metal clashing, then metal cutting metal before the sick sound of a sword cutting through flesh and a body hitting the ground. They turned around to find Dox standing there with a bloody sword, a griffon corpse at his feet. They had been followed! That griffon must have been like the unknown assailants that had killed the changeling sisters!

Dox didn’t stop moving for long. He then swung around with great speed, cutting through another body that the royal sisters hadn’t seen. Then another, and another, and another! By the time Dox stopped moving, there was eight bodies on the floor, all of them bearing a large and fatal wound of some kind. One had been sliced clean through, another had been partially cut through, its guts spilling out on the floor. The one closest to Dox was missing its face, it’s brain had fallen out, and it’s tongue spasmed for a little before going still.

Dox moved to collect the blades of the fallen griffons before depositing them into a strange hole that he had opened from the air.

It was then the sisters finally noticed what Dox was wearing. He was wearing a thong that appeared to be of Zebra make. It was form fitting and hid nothing to the imagination.

The sisters wings opened with an audible *pomf*, and Dox looked over. He then proceeded to drop the sword he was holding and sheepishly cover his body. There was a noticeable blush on his face.

“Um, hi girls,” he said. “Care to follow me…. and stop looking at my crotch?”

Dox’s POV:

The walk back to where the girls were felt longer than it actually was, the reason being I could feel Luna and Celestia staring at my butt. Damn thong not covering up anything. Why wouldn’t those mares let me have my clothes back? I mean seriously, not cool.

Anyways, we finally made it back to Athena, Emerald, and Sapphire. Athena was holding a Hyperion repeater pistol in one hand, another one holstered at her hip. She appeared to be teaching the girls how to use their new bodies, while staying armed just in case. When she noticed me, she smiled and went back to talking to the girls.

“Um, Dox?” Luna asked. “Who are those three?”

“Those three, girls, are Athena, Emerald, and Sapphire,” I said. Luna and Celestia looked at me strangely. “Listen, I know what you saw. What happened after you guys got teleported changes things, though. Let me explain.”

I proceeded to tell them the tale of how I blacked out, only to wake up to being strapped to a table without any of my limbs, minus my head, attached. When I mentioned how I had been raped, they all appeared to get livid. They only calmed down when I told them that I was saved and taken to safety, as well as treated for my wounds. When I told them about the Zebra mares, they laughed a little, but also took on angry looks. They lost them, again, when I told them of what Avarice and Vagabond had done for me, as well as what F.A.U.S.T. had done to help. They also seemed to light up when I mentioned how Yngve had killed a bunch of the people who kidnapped me.

Come to think of it, I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for them. I owe them now. They saved my life, and for that, I was grateful.

After telling them the horror story that had only just happened, Sapphire piped up about something on her radar, moving quickly towards us. Athena readied her other pistol, and Emerald and Sapphire appeared to pull out pistols of their own.

When Sapphire announced that the bogey was nearby, the girls opened fire. I could barely see the creature that had come towards us, myself, it was moving so fast. I could only wonder how they were handling with it.

I got my answer when I felt a knife tip pressed against my throat, only for it to cease to be there. I looked down to find a griffon with a bullet wound in its chest. I looked over at the girls to find Emerald to be really happy. Apparently, she was the one who shot it.

I heard breathing from the griffon. I reached down, tossed it’s dagger aside, then picked it up by its neck.

“Who are you?!” I questioned. “Who sent you? Who do you work for?”

The griffon laughed. “Who I am is of no concern,” it responded in a deep voice. “Just know that you’re essence will belong to us! We will become gods!”

“You’re crazy!” I yelled. I pulled out Yngve’s sword and held it to the griffon’s neck. “Tell me who you work for or I’ll kill you.”

“Ha! Go ahead,” the griffon laughed. “I have no qualms with death. I will be honored when I die.”

“Okay then,” I said, putting away the sword, but not letting up my grip on the griffon. I then pulled out the D&D tome and opened it to a random page. It ended up being a page on soul trapping…. and how to torture the victims of it. I then put the book away and pulled out an orichalcum dagger from my magic satchel. I carved a rune on the griffon’s chest, letting him scream out in pain before continuing. “Alright, new deal. Tell me who you work for, and I won’t torture you.”

“Do your worst,” the griffon said, spitting blood onto my face. “I’m not much longer for this world, anyways. Soon I will be dead and my secrets with me.”

“Fine,” I said. “Have it your way.”

I drove the dagger into the griffon’s chest, right where his heart was in the center of the rune I had drawn. He screeched out in pain, trying to grab at the dagger as his life essence faded from his body. I watched as his body visibly shriveled in my grasp, becoming smaller and weaker, until it turned to dust. The dust scattered to the wind, and the dagger I had been holding glowed a sickly green color. I could hear the girls gasp behind me. Obviously, I had scared them with my little show.

“Now,” I said to the dagger that now held the soul of the griffon. “Tell me what I want to know, or I destroy your soul.”

I could hear the griffon’s voice come from the dagger. I didn’t hear it talk, only screeches of terror. Clearly, I had scared it. It kept screaming ‘Die Leucht’ over and over again. I could have sworn I heard that name before. Only after a while did it finally hit me. I could have sworn Vagabond had said something about them. They were the guys who held me captive. But they were in another realm! How did they get here?!

“How did you get here?!” I yelled at the soul in the dagger. Hearing no response, I yelled some more. “Answer me!”

“Portal rods!” it yelled. “That’s all I know! I’m not even sure that’s what they are! That’s all I know! Now please! Release me from this dagger! You’re magic and the metal aren’t reacting we-”

The voice cut off as the dagger shattered like glass. The spell I had used ensured that the soul inside the object would be destroyed along with the object, so I had no doubt the fucker was now gone for good. Served him right, as well as any other Die Leucht bastard that dared to enter this world. The girls started to scold me, but I paid them no mind. I had something else on my brain.

“Die Leucht,” I said. “Well, now I have a target. Now it’s time for revenge.”

No, it’s not, intoned the voice of the DM. Now it’s time you start leveling up, gaining powers.

“But they attacked-”

No buts. I have a quest for you to go do, said the DM. Find the Gamma Pool. It’s in dragon territory. You’ll have to ask Luna and Celestia how to get there, but hurry. I sense something is not right in dragon country.

“Fine,” I said. “But you better keep them safe while I’m gone.”

Just then: Yngve, Hyper Bolic, and a now anthro Solaris appeared from a portal.

Done. Now do as I’ve told you and get going!

The girls told me where dragon country was after freaking out over the sight of their dad. They pointed out how long a trek it was, and how the trains would only take me so far. I told them thanks, told the people that the DM had summoned what to do, and handed Yngve his sword back. For now, he was going to need it more than I was. I had my pistol to help me, instead.

After saying my short goodbyes, I set off for dragon country. Of course, I got some new clothes first. Thank goodness the royal seamstress worked around the clock. Of course, it took a while for her to do her job, considering I was standing there in a thong, a bulge visible due to the fact that my lovers decided to follow me into her office in an attempt to see me undress. I mean, seriously, it’s not like they hadn’t seen it before.

Anyways, I left the castle at about five in the morning, according to Celestia. Aparently, not much time had passed when I entered Avarice’s Equestria, but I digress. I left the castle the same way I always did, by magically turning my outfit into a wingsuit and jumping off a balcony. There was only one deviation in my normal departure, however. That deviation was me using magic to create a jet of flame by my feet, propelling me forward and through the air. I had a long way to go, and air travel was the fastest way I knew how to go.

I arrived in dragon country almost three days later. I had to stop my flight several times so that I could eat, or sleep, or use the bathroom. What? Oh, you sickos out there saying I could have just gone while flying, there’s a thing called common courtesy and another thing called decency!

Anyways, I now stood at a camp just outside of the center of dragon country. Let me tell you, the entire ‘country’ was just a massive volcano. Granted, the volcano did have a bunch of smaller volcanos sprouting from it, all with different types of volcanic biomes around them (I even saw a frosted over volcano), but it was still just one giant volcano. I was near the peak of the main volcano, just on the outer rim of it, in fact. It was hot as hell over here! I started to regret not bringing Yngve’s sword, what with it passively emitting cold.

Now was the time to find that ‘Gamma Pool’ the DM had told me about. Now if only I could find where….

Right in the center of the volcano was a small green speck. I could only see it as a speck, and guess that that was it, because of how massive the volcano was. There was nothing else in the volcano I could see, save for a shrine near the green speck, or what I thought was a shrine. I couldn’t get near it though, it was too hot.

I started scouring through the book for a cold spell, something, ANYTHING to keep me cold. I was able to find a spell. Endure Elements, man am I happy that thing existed. I casted it, and immediately felt better about the area around me. The air didn’t feel uncomfortable anymore, and the ground didn’t burn my feet anymore, even though I was wearing some shoes with some kind of natural rubber insole. Did I forget to mention that seamstress was amazing?

Anyways, I started walking down to the green pool in the center of the volcano.

Did I forget how much it sucks to traverse a volcano? Well, it sucks!

Not only that, but I found an unexpected surprise waiting by the fucking Gamma Pool!

I’ll give you three guesses. No, not a friend. No, not a dragon. No, not some weirdo nerd or fanboy or something like that. You’re all wrong! No, sitting just on the edge of the fucking pool was Tiny motherfucking Tina. Why she was there, I had no clue. Why she was wearing a freaking black hood, I also have no clue. All I did have a clue to, was that she was giving me a crazy look, and I nearly shat myself out of fear because of it.

But Dox, you might be saying, she’s just a kid! What kind of damage could she do? Well, let me tell you, my friend, of a DLC for Borderlands 2 called Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep. It’s a little DLC, pretty fun, adds a nice ending to the story, and it holds the reason why I almost shat myself…..

Throughout the entire fucking DLC….. Tiny Tina was a dungeon master. That little psychopath, that thirteen year old MONSTER was playing dungeon master. That thing, the only creature that is comparable in my mind to the insanity of Krieg the psycho, was a dungeon master.

I am screwed.

“Oh, hello adventurer!” she called out to me. “You’re just in time for the boss fight!”

Well shit. Either she had some DM-ing powers, or she had some kind of trick up her sleeve involving explosives.

Dox, I’m gonna tell you this now, and I’m gonna tell you this once, the DM said.

“What?” I asked the DM.

Run….

Well…. I have now officially pissed my pants.

“Hey! This is my story here!” Tiny Tina said. “Now shut up! Prepare yourself, smelly pants! It’s time you fight the boss! Now, ROLL FOR INITIATIVE BITCHES!”

And with that, and a puff of smoke, she disappeared. The second she left my sight, the ground started shaking, small craters in the volcano around me started spouting lava, and the shrine, which was as large as a small LA building, fell into the volcano. Well shit.

Wait, didn’t Tina say something about bitches? As in plural? As in more than one?!

I looked around frantically, only to find a sheepish looking Athena behind me.

“Damn it, Athena!” I yelled. “I thought I told you to stay back with everyone else!”

“But I’m always used to being with you, or at least a part of you,” she said, giving me an innocently cute look, squeezing her chest and acting like nothing was wrong. “Not to mention, those guys are really easy to give the slip to. I mean, seriously? You put a lovely, young, smart minded little sister-” She took a moment to saunter up to me giving a gentle grope on my jewels. “- with advanced technology under the guard of an ancient Nord, an elf, and an ancient anthropomorphized pony. Emerald and Sapphire may not know how to handle themselves, let alone use their new bodies to the fullest, but I sure as hell do.”

“But you’ve put yourself in a lot of danger!” I yelled, feeling hot in the cheeks and smacking her hand away. “Who knows what Tina just summoned!”

“Actually, I think I do,” Athena stated. “I’ve got a large blip on my sensors. It’s down in the lava, but it’s coming up really fast. It’s also REALLY big.”

“That’s what she said,” I coughed, earning a kiss from Athena.

“Now’s not the time for that,” Athena said, swishing her tail slightly. “No, now we have to deal with….. that….” She pointed behind me.

When I turned around, I pissed myself again, sure enough ruining these pants and these underwear. There, standing before us, was The Warrior, a massive being made of stone and molten lava. The Eridian superweapon stood before us, roaring it’s terrifying roar. This thing was a bitch to kill in Borderlands 2, and that was with extremely good weapons. All we had were Athena with her shield and Vision pistols, and me with a flintlock that happened to have infinite ammo……

In other words: We were screwed.

An inhale of breath was heard from Tiny Tina, as a screen showed in the sky above the boss in question, smiling creepily down at us. “Why haven’t you bitches rolled for Initiative yet? Unless you want it to be an Action RPG, like the game I am MORE than fine with taking away the handicap on your asses. Unless you want my snuggle rockets to be strapped onto?” Showing a couple stuffed animals with bombs in them for us to see....

“Fuck off, you psycho bitch!” I yelled at Tiny Tina, pulling out my flintlock and flipping her off. “Why are you even here?! WHY ARE YOU HERE?! You’re not god!”

Dox, I highly advise you NOTaggravate her any more than you already have, the DM stated. She’s being nice, just do as she says, and maybe-

“I can hear you, big scary cloaky pussy!” Tina called out. “Why don’t you come out here and behave like a real player?”

‘Cause that’d destroy reality, and I’d rather not do that, the DM said.

“Alright, fine you big baby,” Tina said. “But I’m done with going easy on you, bitches. No one flips off Tiny Tina and gets away with it!”

“Can you shut up?!” I yelled. “It’s already hard enough down here as is without you two yelling at each other!” I felt Athena clinging behind me with her large shapely robotic griffon body shivering at the conflict.

The view of Tiny Tina on the ‘screen’ scowled at us before snapping her fingers, with snuggle rockets appearing on The Warrior’s back, swiveling towards our direction. “Handicap’s off now, scrubs! We play this boss battle my way!” The screen vanished as it literally LUNGED at us, with Athena pulling us both out of harm’s way as it dove into the lava again.

“Damn it, Tina!” I yelled. “I’m not in the mood for games right now! I have a job to do, and revenge to get! Now piss off and let me do what I came here to do!”

Her voice emanated from around the ‘arena’ with a couple ‘Snuggle Missiles’ being avoided by Athena’s mobility and trying to look every which way. “Scrubs don’t get anything for pissing off the Bunkers and Badasses Bunker Master! Prepare your assholes!” Athena squawked before leaping forward as The Warrior Slammed a massive rock clawed hand down from behind us.

“Oh, fuck off, you!” I yelled at the massive monstrosity before whipping out my flintlock, cocking it, and firing at it’s face. Sad to say, flintlocks were not known for accuracy. The good news was that I hit it, the bad news, it hit it in the arm, where it did almost no damage. Speaking of that, I could have sworn I saw a health bar in my vision. It was weird being able to see its health.

It gave off a ‘livid’ vibe to it slamming a fist down before retreating into the lava as smaller fire based quadruped monsters shot out of the volcano hitting the ground only to uncurl and stomp towards the two of us while throwing up projectile flaming ‘vomit’. “Dox…? Isn’t this the sort of fight Jack dies from?” There was an internal moment of realization, since this could happen, what might happen to Displaced human as Jack? How did Athena know?

“Um, Athena, how did you…” I said. “Never mind. Let’s just focus on- WHOA!” I barely dodged an incoming laser coming out of The Warrior. Man, I nearly forgot that it did that. Cheap move…. Cheap move. Now, what kind of attack could I use to damage this fucker…..

The six sets of eyes narrowed a bit before a clawed forelimb dunked into the Lava pulling out a Rakk, curled into a ball and THREW it at us. “Scrubs will get an EXTRA helping of death!” Following that by a second throw as it looked ready to try blasting us again with it’s mouth beam ‘cannon’ attack, until it’s tail came into view with charged Eridium might, coursing from the tail as a purple slag laser! Seriously?! AGAIN?!

“HIT THE DECK!” I screamed, jumping out of the path of the laser. “CHEAP MOVE TINA! CHEAP MOVE!”

Tina’s voice came through again in a immature tone as The Warrior threw a couple more Rakks to try and get us from that tail slag attack. “I’m not listening to weak scrubs, who didn’t take my kindness before! Only pussies complain about shit being cheap or broken!” Giving a sound that was familiar to a raspberry with The Warrior flipping us off to match her sentiments.

Alright, screw her, the DM stated. Hey Dox.

“Yeah?” I asked.

Go nuts, the DM said. Right after he said that, I felt a surge of power. I didn’t gain my black cloak, but I felt powerful. It was like the DM just supercharged me.

I had searched through the big book of D&D, and found a spell earlier, right before we had to hit the deck. Now would be a great time to use it.

“CHAIN LIGHTNING, BITCH!” I yelled, throwing out my hand. A spray of sparks came out for a second, before fizzling out.

”WOW, having performance issues? I wouldn’t be surprised if you took it up the ass with a toy to get off! I’d even let you borrow one of my snuggle missiles if it’d help!” She giggled firing off several from The Warrior’s back at us in a close cluster inbound.

A HUGE bolt of lightning came out of my hand, bursting through the missiles and destroying them before striking The Warrior in the chest.

It screeched, though not causing efficient damage due to it’s earthy body but the force made it fall backwards into the volcano again. This time causing a sort of ‘mutant’ Rakk, if you could even call them that, to come out this time, what looked to be bones were exposed while in other parts it looked disportionately grotesk compared to what it was before. But these ones spat out a Black substance that has my echo eye blaring off warning signs of something called ‘Balefire’ that causes permanent sort of necrotic damage. Don’t know where that’s from, but Athena was also keeping away from it as it ATE through the arena floor. That could cause swiss cheese stability to happen.

Yeah, try to avoid that no matter what, the DM said. That shit eats through just about anything.

“What the FUCK?!” I yelled out. “Hax! I call Hax! Where is the Hax man when you need him?!”

“Up your butt like your boyfriend, little cry baby,” Tina mocked.

“Know what, screw you, Tina,” I said. “And screw your warrior crap! It’s time I show you who the real dungeon master is.” With that, I tapped the Dice Roller Core. I felt the familiar sensation of being in my cloak, and I felt as though I had an immensely larger amount of power.

The Warrior sent another beam of slag at us, as well as some fire. With the power I now had, I erected a shield that stopped the attacks in their tracks. The mutated Rakk came flying overhead, and spit out another glob of ‘Balefire’. Before it landed on the ground, I used the power I had to catch it in a bubble, then flung it at the Warrior, hitting it square in the chest. I watched as it shot one more slag beam at us as the Balefire orb melted through its chest. I redirected the shot into the Rakk, which exploded on impact, sending little bits of Balefire splattering to the ground below it. Right afterwards, I lost the feeling of the cloak

The Warrior fell to the ground, spewing out random loot. I saw an item that was highlighted orange by my Echo Eye, as well as many items that I could tell were bits of Eridium.

“No fair!” I heard Tiny Tina say. “You cheated! I’m resurrecting the Warrior and we’re doing that again!”

“Not if I have anything to say about it!” I yelled before reaching into my magic satchel and pulling out the Hyperion beacon.

A holographic Handsome Jack appeared from the beacon. Giving a Yawn before looking slightly Bleary eyed at Me before saying this. “My first response and it’s YOU, the one who nearly ruined my first coffee moment after so long.” Tina was oddly quiet when this started as The Warrior in question twitched and howled weakly.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry about that,” I said. “But I have an urgent problem. I need a moonshot or something, now! There’s Eridium in it for you.”

Blinking rubbing his eyes to focus more before responding. “What’s so important to require a fucking moonshot across universes? Do you know how much that shit costs to get rolling?” Only to slowly stop at the end when seeing The Warrior, going just as oddly quiet before he started to press some buttons on his end with every hair on my body rising up as a rupture was tearing a hole in space time above us, only for Athena to grab onto me and flap her robotic wings for all their worth, trying to get to the Volcano ledge.

I saw why, because about five seconds after we touched down on the ledge, a massive laser came from the hole in space time, completely obliterating the Warrior, the arena i was on and causing fissure cracks spanning the mountain. No telling how much damage this has done, let alone alter the heart of the dragon lands.

The blast also kicked up a lot of dust and ash, and from the dusty, ashy cloud came Tiny Tina, the edges of her dress and hood now burning. She landed in front of me and Athena.

“This isn’t the last of me, bitches!” she said as she shakily got up. “I’ll be back, and you’ll regret messing with the Bunker Master.”

“Oh, just go die already,” I said with an annoyed tone. I proceeded to punt Tina, who went flying a few feet before poofing into a cloud of dark purple smoke, which then faded away.

“Finally,” Athena said. “That girl was a pest.”

“Yeah, she was,” I said, agreeing with Athena.

She was also a major threat, the DM stated. Why in the nine hells did you not finish her?! She’ll come back, and when she does, it’ll be a major problem for you! I mean, seriously! You should have done what you did to that griffon and destroyed her soul! She was an agent of the Architect!

“.... Oh.” I said, realising my blunder. “Well shit….. This one’s on me, then. I’ll have to deal with her later. But first, I have a job to complete.”

Yes you do, now do it, the DM said impatiently.

The trek back to the center of the volcano was horrible. Thanks to Jack’s overkill laser, the entire volcano had become unstable. By that, I mean every few seconds, the fucking thing would shake violently. Not only that, but now there was a bunch of cracks in the top of the volcano! Thank goodness his attack got rid of that ‘Balefire’ stuff, that could have had horrible effects…. Well, he screwed up the volcano by doing it, but I digress.

Anyways, the trek to the center was hell. I was lucky that the Gamma Pool wasn’t destroyed in the blast, so yeah.

“So, uh, what now?” I asked the DM. “Do I just get into it, or what?”

Yes. Get into the green pool, the DM said. Get in now.

“Okay, and what’ll happen to me?” I asked.

Something. Now get in.

“Fine, fine,” I said, undressing and getting in the pool. I settled myself into the pool, even dunked my head a little. I felt something at my feet. Actually, make that two somethings. I reached down and waved my hand around a little bit before I touched something. I pulled the first thing up into my lap, then went for the second one. I pulled the second one out of the Gamma Pool, only to realise that it was a shotgun. But hell, it wasn’t just any shotgun. No, this was one of the legendary shotguns that everyone farmed the Warrior for. This was the Conference Call, a legendary Hyperion shotgun that was able to do a MASSIVE amount of damage. Athena, who had been mumbling to herself about how stupid I seemed, stopped what she was doing and looked at the shotgun in my hands with awe.

“That’s…. That’s…” she said, unable to process what I was holding.

“Yes, this is the Conference Call,” I said. “Has Jack been able to make anything like this, yet?”

“Well, yes,” Athena said simply. “But he’d never under any circumstances sell one ever! I mean, he’d probably let you keep that one, because of looting rights, but he’d never sell any of his collection.”

“Wow,” I said. “So, he’d let me keep this. What about you?”

“Well, I’d keep it,” Athena said. “It’d be mine. Mine, mine, mine, mine! But I already have a legendary ‘Gun’.”

….. Oookay…. Gonna ignore that for now.

“Well, here,” I said, holding out the shotgun for her. “Take it.”

Athena reached out and quickly grabbed the gun, holding it to her chest. “Marry me,” she said in shock.

“What was that?” I asked, surprisedly.

“Nothing!” She yelled, a huge blush appearing on her face, turning her face a deep shade of red. I could have sworn I heard the DM laughing.

“Alright then…” I said. I pulled the other item above the pool’s surface to find I was now holding a Maliwan Sniper Rifle. This wasn’t any normal snipe though, as evidenced by the orange indicator on my Echo Eye. No, this was a legendary one, but which one? Well, it was glowing red, looked like it was charred as hell, and had a black barrel. There was only one Maliwan I knew that looked like that. This was the Volcano. Holy crap. Two legendaries in one fight? This was unheard of! No wait…. Loot day and moonshot. Welp, I still considered myself lucky.

Athena stared at me with a strange look. I couldn’t place it for a second, but when I did, I felt a twinge of fear spike through me. She had a lusty look in her eyes and a sultry smile on her face. I didn’t want to think of it too much, but I had to when she dropped all of her clothes and climbed into the Gamma Pool with me before snuggling up against me…. Then ripping off my underwear and tossing it into a crack in the volcano’s surface, and thus into lava….. Well then….

And now she’s giving me a handjob. And she’s moving….. Okay then, sex it is!

Why was it so good? Why did I not fight back? Why did I not say no?!

Eh, oh well. It was wow sex. Hell, she even got me to go with it, telling me that in reality, she’s NOT my sister. I mean, she technically is, but she’s not. The DM explained it better than I did. What he said was that it was like he adopted her at first, but then her mother took her back. Well, he said something like that, at least. It all kinda just went over my head ‘cause we were in the middle of sex.

When we finally got out of the Gamma Pool, the search for my clothes was on, while I sent Athena to go around and collect all of the Eridium that had dropped from the warrior. I found them after a few minutes, only to find a burnt ass shirt and Athena’s clothes in perfect condition. Well, shit.

So, how was I gonna get home? Let alone the fact that I was naked. I walked back to the Gamma Pool, to find my normal clothes right next to the pool with a note from Homage attached to them.

“‘Here are your clothes, restored. Try to keep your pants on hooligan.’” I read aloud. “Wow, Homage, way to be a prick.”

Either way, I put my clothes on, happy to have them back from Avarice’s world. Hell, he’d even sent me a repaired hoodie. Man, Homage was a nice guy when it came to it.

Athena returned to me a while later, declaring that her Echo Storage was now full of Eridium, and her precious item that signified me proposing to her…. I asked her about it after she said it. Apparently, giving her a legendary Hyperion item was like kneeling with a ring presented to a girl you like. So yeah, I had apparently proposed to Athena. Now, while I liked that, it’d kinda ruin the thing I had going on with everyone else. I asked her to keep it a secret until I was able to propose to Luna, Celestia, Emerald, and Sapphire. She humbly agreed, but she said she’d get to tell them about what was up with her now, first, so as to explain why she was going to get fatter…. Then she told me that what we had just done had gotten her pregnant, what with her being an M+ Model…. I nearly fainted. I swear, I heard the DM laughing again. What a dick.

Anyways, afterwards, we started heading back after I was able to recover. I was wondering though, what had the pool done to me and Athena? When was it going to come to the front?

Well, one of the results happened at the end of the flight, anyways. I wasn’t able to touch down. I freaked out for a bit before the DM explained that I had some Gamma World mutations now. He told me which ones I got, even: Gravity Manipulation and Magnetism……

He also explained how Athena now had some Gamma World powers based on what she already was…… And that our kids would probably get some random mutations…..

Well damn.

Gravity? You mean the thing I'm lacking?

So there I was, floating around in my lack of gravity…..

I swear, this has been getting old fast. I’ve been stuck like this for a few days now, and I still have no clue how to control this power. I mean, I was able to figure out the magnetism crap thanks to Hyper Bolic, apparently it’s just like using telekinesis, but the gravity powers? Nope.

No, I get stuck floating through the air, completely unable to even try to set foot on the ground.

An item popped into existence near me. I could tell because it came with an audible *POP* sound, and the fact that it hit me on the head right afterwards. Looking down at it, I noticed it was a black diamond. Huh, odd. Wait a second, the only things that randomly show up besides loot, is tokens! I didn’t beat on any enemies around here recently, so that must have been a token! Now, if only I could reach it.

After about an hour of struggling to reach it from my suspended point in the air, Emerald walked in and handed me the dang thing.

“Thanks Emerald,” I said to the robotic changeling.

“No problem, Dox,” she said back. “You should know by now that you can just call us if you need to pick stuff up off the ground.” She looked at me smugly before exiting the room.

Well, great. Now I have the token. Now, how do I activate it….. Ah screw it!

I threw the diamond towards the ground. It bounced back and hit me in the face before a portal opened up about a foot away from it, sending a very good looking girl tumbling in.

“Oh mon dieu,” she groaned, her long blonde hair falling over her face and nearly covering her deep red eyes. “I really need to get the hang of Void travel. This tumbling about is so annoying.”

“Tell that to me, or Wade,” I said. “We’ve both had portals open beneath us. Hell, I fell a good ten feet once thanks to a portal. Let me tell you, it hurt.”

“Oh hello,” she said with a wave, finally noticing me. “Sorry, didn’t see you up there… what are you doing up there anyway? That’s supposed to be my bit, merde!”

“Hey! You watch your tongue young lady,” I said. “I’m up here ‘cause I decided to go for a swim in a Gamma Pool. Now I have gravity powers…. apparently. I’m honestly just going off the big guy’s word. Don’t ask. All I know is that I’m at a loss for gravity right now.”

“Va te faire foutre,” the girl said with a smirk. “Gravity powers, huh? Don’t know if I should be flattered or insulted.”

“I said watch your language!” I yelled at the girl. “Ah forget it. Listen, can you help me or not?” She snapped her fingers with a smirk… and I fell flat on my face. “Thanks. Now, can you actually help me so I can fix it if it happens again?”

“Hmm, we’ll see,” she said smugly. “First I need to see if you’re worthy of such power. If not, well I’m just gonna have to take it from you.” She cricked her back and strolled off in a random direction. “I’m hungry, let’s get something to eat.”

“The dining room’s this way,” I said, pointing in the opposite direction than she was heading. “I don’t know what your Equestria is like, but mine’s pretty different. Such as, the big guy turned everyone Anthro, so yeah. Be prepared for that.”

“I knew that.” she said, making a one eighty turn. “Anthro, weirdness, peaceful, military, dégueulasse. I’ve seen ‘em all. Nothing’s new anymore.”

“Yeah, try a world based on D&D,” I said in an annoyed tone. “That’s all my world is. Hell, it’s getting worse, too! Ever met Avarice? How about Jack? Well, things have been leaking in from their worlds, let alone creatures. I think Jack’s world leaked in some form of corruption. That corruption took the form of Tiny Tina who had Dungeon Master powers. Called herself the Bunker Master and summoned The Warrior on me and Athena. Trust me, it sucked.”

“Blech,” she stuck out her tongue. “D&D? That’s for lonely nerds who live in their mother’s basement.”

“Hey!” I yelled. “I don’t know what sort of ideas you have about D&D, and I don’t care. If you don’t like it, keep it to yourself. I liked the game. Hell, I was a dungeon master myself! Now I’m a changeling with superpowers! My life has, debatably, gotten better because of D&D.”

“NERD!!” she shouted with a big smile.

“Yeah, say that later when I cast a fireball on you,” I said. “Then we’ll see if you and your stuff makes a save.”

“Hey, boy, you gotta take this lady to dinner first before you see her naked,” she said nonchalantly.

“Yeah, keep dreaming,” I said. “Already got a bunch of mares here literally begging me to take them.”

“I don’t beg.” She looked over her shoulder with a demon’s grin. “I command.” She turned back away, humming lightly no doubt with a happy smile.

“Yeah, whatever,” I said. “Let’s just get some food, then we can get this done with.”

Out in the dining hall, everyone seemed to be eating lunch. Made me hungry. I had to have been fed weird liquids to eat because I kept flipping over in my lack of gravity. Finally, I could eat solid food!

I took my seat on the right side of Luna, who was sitting at the head of the table.

“Yo, waiter!” I called out. A waiter came running out with a notepad. “Can I get a salad with Ceasar dressing? Oh, and a… Um, miss? I never got your name. Anything you want?”

“It’s Kat. Kat Shifter, the Gravity Queen. I’ll take whatever the waiter recommends… and maybe the waiter himself later.” She gave the poor guy a sultry wink.

The waiter nearly fainted from the look. Wow, either she’s good at that, or the waiter was an even bigger nerd than me, which was impossible. The waiter quickly recovered, scribbled something down, and took off.

“Ya know, the staff here knows Displaced pretty well,” I said. “I had a party here once. There had been a big battle. Celestia over there was corrupted by this Fell Shadow that had gained a ton of power, see? She had come to confront and try to kill me, so I summoned a bunch of Displaced. It was a pretty epic battle. Afterwards we had a party here. A few of the guys I summoned ordered things like burgers, though, so don’t be surprised if you get one.”

A few minutes later, the waiter came back with a large lidded tray in his hands. When he stopped between me and Kat, he removed the lid, only to reveal my salad and, guess what, a burger for Kat. “Bon appetit,” the waiter said before running off into the kitchen.

“I should feel insulted, but there’s meat in front of me, so I’ll let it pass.” She took a big bite out of the burger. “Mm, glorious meat~.”

“Glad you’re enjoying it,” I said.

“Um, Dox,” Luna said. “Is she… a Displaced?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, Luna,” I said. “I summoned her, she put me on the ground, now we’re eating, okay? We’re all friends here.”

“Mmhm,” Kat said, wiping her mouth and swallowing the bite. “Hi Luna. Nice to meet you… well, this you, anyway. I’ve met a lot of you.”

“U-u-uh…” Luna stuttered.

“Um, Kat, can you not mention things like that?” I asked. “The ponies here are still having a hard time trying to comprehend things like that. They’re fine with beings from other universes, but for some reason, mention other thems, and they break.”

“Whoops, sorry. Forget sometimes. Travel for too long, and oops! You forget stuff like that. Sorry, Luna. Just been on my own for too long. Ya go a bit nuts in the head, you know what I’m sayin’? ...Oops, just did it again. My bad.”

It was at this point that Luna had a total meltdown and passed out, her head landing on the table.

“Great,” I sighed, abandoning my salad to try and wake up Luna. “Luna, wake up. You’re the only you I have eyes for, okay? You’re you, they’re them. Just remember that Luna. Now please, wake up.”

Luna woke up slowly. “I need to go lay down,” she said before leaving the room.

“She’ll be fine,” I said. “She just needs some time to get her brain working again.”

“Well that happened,” Kat said, taking another bite. She sighed afterward, setting down her burger. “Sorry about that, I’ve been going a little crazy lately. Some things happened and, well, I’ve been on my own for far too long.”

“Sounds pretty bad,” I said. “I’m not sure if it helps much, but hey, you’re not too bad. As far as I’m concerned, so far, you’re welcome here. Hell, if you want to talk about it, I’m all ears.” At that last statement, I cast an illusion spell to make it look like I had grown ears all over my body.

“...that’s creepy. It’s just… no, no they’re my problems. Not anyone else’s. Don’t worry about it.”

“Hey, that’s not how things get fixed,” I said, dropping the illusion. “Well, they do, but it helps to have friends by your side. It’s like a dungeon, it’s good to have multiple people to take it on with, it increases the chances of success. I’m just trying to make you smile a bit, maybe get you to be happy.”

Kat chuckled, no emotion in it. “I don’t get happiness. It doesn’t exist for me. I’m here to make others happy. It’s fine, just drop it.”

“Hell no,” I said. “You sound like my sister back on Earth, granted her attitude was worse. Even then, though, I got her to be happy. I can get you to be happy, too, ya just need to tell me what’s wrong.”

Kat smiled. “That’s nice, but it’s fine. There’s nothing that can be done to give me any happiness. I’m here for others, not myself.”

“Well, why not make it about yourself for once?” I asked.

“Because every time I do, people die,” Kat said nonchalantly, taking a sip of water before returning to her meal.

“Well then, you haven’t met me,” I said. “I’m Dox Ad Finem. Here in this world, as well as another, I’ve died helping others. Well, except for that one time, but I let that slide. Listen, I’m not easy to kill. So, if it makes you happy, I know a spot where we can go so you can let it all out, alright? It’s far out of the way, up in the Frozen North. You can let it all out there, and no one will get hurt, alright? We can go there after lunch.”

“No thank you,” she waved off. It was at that point I noticed that continually talking about this, her voice had gone from happy, enthusiastic and teasing to straight up dead. It was disconcerting to say the least.

“Fine,” I said. “But you said you wanted to see if I have what it takes to hold gravity in my control. If we’re gonna do that, I’m not doing it anywhere near ponies. I don’t want anyone getting hurt. The only place I know where that’ll happen is the same place I was just talking about.”

“If you think I’m going to test your battle mettle, then you’d be wrong. I would only train someone good of heart in the ways of gravity manipulation.” She smirked through her food. “You’ve already proven that to me.”

“Wow, and I didn’t even do anything,” I said. “First it’s convincing Jack to get me an arm, then it’s you. Oh shit! Speaking of him, I still need to send him all that Eridium the Warrior dropped! I’ll be right back.” I got up from my seat and left the room.

Kat stayed there for a moment before sighing. “He’s got a good head on his shoulders. Hopefully he doesn’t suffer the gravity shifter’s curse.” She got up and followed after me.

After going back to my newly relocated room in Luna’s side of the castle, sending Jack a good sixty bars of Eridium, and purchasing a metric crap ton of ammo for my new sniper rifle and ammo for Athena’s shotgun, Kat dragged me out to the Canterlot Gardens.

“Alright, this place will be empty enough to practice. Wide open spaces and nothing too bad to fall on. Hopefully you have high durability… because you will get hurt doing this,” she told me.

“Don’t worry, I do,” I said. “I’d still rather do this out at the other location. There’s plenty of things there, and absolutely no creatures to harm…. unless that dragon somehow respawned, then we’d have a battle on our hands.”

“Just trust me… you’re gonna wanna be close to modern medicine.” Kat shuddered at some old memory. “It’s not fun without it.”

“Well, I could always bring Athena,” I said. “For some reason, she’s always prepared for everything. Plus, she’s kinda hooked up with Hyperion tech. And if that’s not enough, I have my magic satchel.”

“Might wanna have her on hand then. Because… well, lesson one is… falling.”

“Wait, what?!” I said. “Athena! Can you get out here, quickly?”

“Already here, Dox,” Athena piped up. “I’ve got his vital signs synced up automatically. Reading yours now, Miss Kat.”

“Alright… now… please forgive me for this.”

“For what?” I asked.

“This.”

She snapped her fingers and I suddenly found myself in the air… very high up in the air… very, very, very high up. Oh sweet Jesus I can see the planet below from up here, what the hell was she thinking?! ...and then I fell.

“SON OF A BITCH!” I screamed as I fell. I eventually hit terminal velocity. Hell, I felt EVERYTHING at that point. I could feel the air around me heat up, my skin start burning, I even felt a bone or two in my leg break from the sheer speed and force from the fall, and I hadn’t even hit the ground yet!

Back on the ground, Athena was looking around for me while Kat was staring up into the sky.

“Might want to keep that med kit on standby,” Kat told her.

“Sure,” Athena said, pulling out a large white box with a red cross on it. “Um, might I ask, where did you just send Dox?”

“Upper atmosphere.”

“WHAT?!” Athena screeched. “YOU SENT HIM THERE?! Sure, he’s dived off Canterlot Mountain before, but he was always prepared for a fall like that! It was always controlled! You just sent him up without warning!” Athena looked up. “He’s falling too fast to even ready a spell to slow his descent! What were you thinking?!”

“Have faith in your friend,” Kat said wisely. “He’ll be just fine.”

“Not if he can’t ready a spell!” Athena yelled.

Back in the air, I was still falling. I tried pulling out the big tome of D&D a few times, but the only time I was able to get it out, the thing blew out of my hands! Lucky for me, its soul bound, I just willed it back into my magic satchel. Too bad, though. It was my only saving grace. I’d have to figure out a way to stop my descent without it, if not just slow it down.

I tried my hoodie, no dice. I tried my other clothes, no dice. I tried acting like a skydiver without his parachute open, still, no dice. Hell, I even rolled my dice in the Dice Roller Core.

Wanna know what I got? A one. This did not bode well for me. Either it meant there was no way I could find a way to slow myself down, or this was gonna hurt….. a lot.

After about a solid hour and a half of falling, I could finally see where Kat and Athena were. They were coming up really fast. I barely had time to wave to them before colliding with the ground… or so I thought. Somehow, I had actually stopped barely an inch above it, floating in place.

“Um, what the hell?” I said, not bothering to look up from the ground. “Did… did I do that?”

“Mmhm,” Kat nodded with a proud smile. “Gravity is a tricky power, my boy. It may not always work when you want it, but it will always be there when you need it.”

“Huh, cool,” I said. I tried to stand up, forgetting what I felt when I was falling, only to cringe when I put pressure on my left leg. “GAH!” I had to sit down. “I think my leg broke mid fall. Man that hurts.”

“Yeah, like I said. Need to be around modern medicine,” Kat said apologetically.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I heal fast.”

“Yeah, but you’re gonna need a brace at least,” Athena said, reaching into her big white box. She pulled out a large leg brace and put it on me. “There you go. You should be able to walk on it with that on.”

“Hey, just be glad you stopped… took me a few tries before I did, and I started in the upper stratosphere.”

“Uh, wow,” I said, finally getting up. “That’s pretty scary, come to think of it. Glad I have a teacher. Heh.”

“Yup… I did too at one point.” She looked sad for a moment, but shook it off just as quick. “Anyway, lesson two is about practical manipulation. Essentially, gravity powers are a good replacement for unicorn magic. It runs on similar principles and perform similar tasks, it just packs an enfer of a lot more punch.”

“Um, okay then,” I said. “So, what are we gonna practice on?”

“What else? The statues in this garden!” Kat said, waving her hands at the multitudes of stone statues. “They’ll be perfect for practice.”

“Alright,” I said. “So, got one in mind? There’s a bunch in here. I even saw a few made of metal, but I’d rather not practice on those ones. Apparently, I have magnetism powers, too. Gamma Pools are weird things.”

“Bah, magnetism isn’t as helpful as one may think. Not many metals can be magnetized for it to be very efficient.” Kat put out her hand and every statue in the garden lifted ten feet in the air and began to dance around. “See, when you are able to get full control of these powers, merde like this becomes easier than cake.”

“Alright then,” I said. “So, just concentrate on moving it and- WHOA!” I sent the statue I was trying to move skyward. It went flying into the sky, so far that I couldn’t even see it anymore. “Well…. that happened.”

Kat sighed, snapping her fingers and making the statue appear right next to me. “That was your freebie. Next time you send one flying or break one, I’ll start dropping them on you.”

“Yeesh, harsh much?” I said. “So, lets try that again. Just focus, and….”

Woops. That was a teleport spell. Shit. Oh hey! This was my camp outside the Obama Dragon’s lair!

“Um, oops?” I said, shrugging. “Eheheh, sorry about that. I’m really not used to the whole having powers that are like telekinesis thing. Kinda used a teleport spell instead. Oops. Hey, on the bright side, there’s a dragon’s lair up in a cave in this mountain just full of stuff to practice on. Hell, if you didn’t like the president, there’s even a white house in there. Don’t ask why, it involves a dragon.”

"Any dragon here?"

“Not anymore,” I said. “I killed it with some help.” Why did a chill just run down my back.

"Sweetie," Kat said with a voice so sweet it could kill. "Please keep in mind that I am a goddess of the dragons. That being said, please tell me it was an evil dragon. If not well, things might get messy, mkay~?"

“Okay,” I said. “Um, ya know, it had a name. The dragon was black, named Obama, and please don’t ask. Let me just say, yes, it was evil. It was holding ponies, and a friend of mine, hostage here and in a trance. Then, it did some kind of magic power that revived it and made it huge. It then proceeded to lay siege to Canterlot while using Canterlot Castle as a huge chair.”

"Alright," her voice went back to normal. "That's perfectly fine. Allons-y."

A short trek up the mountain later, and we were at the Obama Dragon’s former lair. There were random houses and trees all around, as well as the random white house on the hill in the back of the lair.

“See?” I said. “Completely empty and full of stuff to practice on.”

"Eh, I suppose it will do. Now then, resume practicing. Until you can manage levitation, we won't be moving on to the next one."

“Alright then,” I said. “So, just like telekinesis… Gonna move that tree over there.” I pointed over to a tree that was at the end of the clearing. Alright, I got this. Just imagine grabbing it and… pull!

The tree went flying into the air, but not as high or fast this time. No, this time it went to a manageable height before staying there.

“Oh hey!” I said. “I got it! Well, kinda. I kinda got it!”

"Good," Kat said. "Now replant it in that far wall."

“Alright,” I said. I focussed a bit, sending the tree towards the far wall. Right before it hit the wall, however, I got a strange feeling. “Um, Kat? Am I supposed to feel tingly?”

At that moment, the tree crumpled like paper. The strange feeling I had turn from a tingly feeling into pure pain. The tree kept compressing, until it became a black hole. Right afterwards, I lost the pain in my arms.

“Um, Kat, I don’t think I’m controlling it anymore,” I said. The black hole then started pulling me towards it at an alarming rate. “KAT?!”

Kat sighed, reaching out with her hand. She started to twist it in the opposite direction the hole was spiraling. A moment later, it faded away like the end of a tornado.

She walked over to me, looking disappointed. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

“I don’t know what happened,” I said. “Everything was going so well, then I felt a weird tingling sensation. That turned into pain, then that black hole happened. What was up with that?!”

"You used gravity to the extreme. Anything can be condensed into a black hole with enough pressure. Tell me, were you starting to think this was easy?"

“No! Not even for a second!” I screamed. “Hell, I was having problems just picking it up! I was just trying to move it into the wall. I honestly don’t know what happened! I was focussing and then bam!”

"Hmm, then it just maybe the opposite is the problem."

“What do you mean?” I asked.

"You might actually fear this new power."

“Oh no,” I said. “No, this power is awesome. It’s like when I found out I could do magic, but way more cool. I don’t know how to use it, but I know to respect it.”

"Therein lies the problem."

“What do you mean?” I asked.

"Gravity is not a power that demands respect. It is one that demands fear. You need to fear this power. Understand that you are nothing but its tool."

“Wait, what?!” I said. “But, how can that be? It’s being used as a power. How can I be its tool?”

"You must understand that gravity is the oldest primal force in existence. It is the first force of nature. It is not just a power, gravity is law. Those granted its power must use it so that even they know they are not above that law. Abuse of this power equals death."

She started to stroll about. "Being as ancient as it is, it holds phenomenal power. That power is not one meant to be wielded by one person. As such, it is prone to fluctuate and go berserk. That's why I am bothering to teach you, because these fluctuations can and will kill people. I will teach you how to use these changes and shifts appropriately. Do you understand?"

“Fine,” I said. “But why fear? Why all this emphasis on being afraid of the power? Is this what’s the whole not being happy thing is about?”

Kat chuckled. "Because only when you are afraid, can a person use their true power. If you fear your powers, you will know how, where, and when to use them. When you are afraid, your power spikes to keep you alive. And when that happens, then you can start to master it."

“Alright, I think I get it,” I said. “Okay, let me try this again.” I tried to move a tree again, this time getting it a few feet out of the ground. “Alright, so try to plant it in the wall again?”

“Just keep your power stable, don’t focus too much energy or you’ll overload it again… if it helps, think of it… like the Force, actually.” Kat smiled, looking up in thought. “Yeah, actually, from how I see it, gravity is basically the Force. Great! I get to get my Yoda on!”

“Alright,” I said. “Hey, come to think of it, would that make me one of the younglings, or would that make me Skywalker?”

“A youngling in training,” she said with a giggle.

“Alright then, master,” I said, laughing a little myself. “Alright, so, tree into the wall.” Alright Dox, you can do this. Just put it near the tree slowly.

The tree went flying towards the wall.

“Crap!” I said, only for the tree to stop a foot away from the wall. “Holy crap. That was close. Okay, now to turn it sideways.” I concentrated as much as I could, trying to get the tree to turn. Luckily for me, it did so really slowly. It was when it was actually sideways, I noticed the flaw with my plan. “Um, I don’t have a hole to plant it in.”

“You make the hole, andouille,” Kat said with a roll of her eyes. “Multitask.”

“Okay,” I said. “Now, how to-” I sent a large amount of dirt flying away from the wall and towards Kat and myself. It stopped right in front of my face. I looked at saw that Kat had her arm up, her hand point out towards the rock.

“Control, control, you must learn control,” she tsked. She clamped her hand shut, causing the dirtwad to evaporate before my eyes. “You’ve got a long way to go. Now get to it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. I moved the tree into the hole, if not a bit too fast. The top of the tree broke off a bit. I then tried to smooth the dirt around the tree, to try to merge it with the wall. I succeeded, but accidentally used too much… in the wrong area, shattering the tree at the base. “Damn it. I was so close.”

“Again,” Kat ordered. “Practice makes perfect.”

This whole process went on for another twenty times before I was finally able to put the tree into the wall without breaking it.

“WOOHOO!” I said, glad to see I finally got it right. It was kind of short lived, as I noticed Kat was staring at me.

“Great… but you have a long way to go.” Kat gave me an apologetic look. “See, this is only lesson one, beginning control. I’m gonna have to fit in nearly a year and a half’s worth of training in only a few days for you, so we’re just starting small. Tomorrow morning,” she smirked, “is when we get tough.”

“Alright, but where do we sleep?” I said. She pointed behind me, to all the different houses. “Oh, I feel stupid now. You gonna call one of the houses? ‘Cause I kinda want to sleep in the white house.”

“You wanna feel like the president?” she asked with a smirk.

“Eh, it’s been a dream of mine to sleep there,” I said. “Maybe not in the presidential bed, though. I mean, that was a dragon’s house, after all…. Actually, I think I’ll just take a random house, there’s no way I’m gonna fit in one of the beds in there.”

“Then I’ll take it. Won’t be the first time I’ve been in a dragon’s bed… and yes, that entitles both ways you can take that.”

“All right then,” I said. “Let’s just get to some beds.”

The next day, I was awoken at “0600 hours” by Kat...with a flugelhorn.

“WHASAWHOSITHUH?!” I screamed. I calmed down almost instantly. “Oh, hey Kat. Is it time to get back to training, already?”

“Yep! Celestia hasn’t even risen the sun yet, perfect time to get to work. Come on, sleepy. Up and at ‘em!”

“Fine, fine,” I said, getting up and out of bed, my sheets clinging to my body. “Um, mind getting out so I can get dressed?”

“Alright fine,” she shrugged, stepping out. “Just don’t take too long, I already wasted enough time taking care of your morning habit~.”

I closed the door behind her and got dressed. Kat was waiting for me outside, leaning against the wall opposite the door.

“Ready to get started?” she asked, now in full training mode.

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s get to it.”

The second we got outside, Kat immediately set me to work.

“Okay, lesson two through five,” she clapped her hands together. “Now we’re getting to real spiel. Remember your little skydiving fun yesterday?”

“We gonna do more of that?” I asked.

“Nope… well, sorta. You need to do it… in reverse!”

I groaned in response. “Really? So, I’m guessing send myself into orbit?”

“Yep and then back down, each time without killing yourself.”

“Wait, each time?!” I said. “How many times am I doing this?!”

“Two through five, remember? Ten times per lesson and we’ll be adding in additional objectives each time. Now hop to it, chop chop!”

“Fine, fine,” I said. “Okay, now…. focus on getting-” I went flying into the air, slamming through the top of the mountain and continuing my path. “WHYYY!”

I may have overshot how much power to use when I launched myself skywards. Not only did I send myself into orbit, but I sent myself OUT of it, too. I felt a pull on my back and suddenly I was right back where I started.

“Again!” Kat shouted right into my ear. “And don’t die. You’re not covered on my health insurance.”

“Ha ha,” I said. “Okay, let me try this again. Up, up, and away!”

I went flying into the air again. Thank goodness I stopped in orbit this time.

“Now, to get down,” I said. “Just change the direction I was first flung, and-” I went hurtling back towards the ground, stopping an inch above it, just like when Kat had sent me up.

“And failed,” Kat said, clicking a stopwatch. “I saw that. You didn’t stop yourself, your power’s natural safety mechanism did. Again!”

“Alright,” I said. “Here we go again.”

This continued for about seven more times before I finally did it right. I was about to celebrate, but Kat told me to do it again….. and again…. and another few times. Eventually, I reached ten times.

“That’s good. Lesson two complete. Now,” she hefted a tree stump with one hand and placed it in front of me. “To combine the first and second. You’re gonna go up and down ten times again, keeping this thing in a telekinetic grip. And no cheating, I can tell when you’re not using gravity.”

“Fine,” I said.

The trial went along with a few mistakes, one of them being me letting go of it, sending it out of orbit. Another was when I sent myself up and back too fast and it burst into flames. I was able to eventually get it right, though. Then I was told to do it again…. and failed. Then again, success. Heck, I got to ten successes, but was told to do it one more time all because I had failed that one time. Oh well.

“Okay,” I said between deep breaths. “Now what?”

“Now we get to the hard part. You’ve gotten up and down, but now, you gotta fly. I want ten laps around the world. Ten clockwise, ten counterclockwise. After that, then you can rest and eat.”

“Okay, ten laps, got it,” I said. My eyes widened when I realised what she said. “Hold up, around the world?! Seriously?!”

“Yep. Lessons three and four: horizontal shifting. Your task is not to touch the ground even once during your laps. If you need water, fly over a stream or through a cloud. But no landing.”

“Well, shit,” I said. “So, hold up. How high do you want me to go? Orbit again?”

“As long as you’re in the air, it doesn’t matter. Just only gravity flight is allowed. Are we clear?”

“Clear as the Crystal Empire,” I said. “So, no assists in any form, right?” I jumped into the air and stayed up there. Wow, not liking this already.

“Hmm, if you get starvingly hungry, fly by a friend and have them grab you a bite. That’s all I can give you. I’m already losing military cred by allowing you that.”

“Right, thanks,” I said. “Now, this is just like skateboarding…. just with no board, and I’m shoving myself with gravity…. Well, as a wise man once said: Allons-y!” With that, I took off, flying at an extremely fast pace at first. When I stopped, I almost touched the ground while I tumbled mid-air to catch myself. “No, Dox, no touching down. You can do this. Just gotta remember what Kat taught me.”

I shoved off with gravity again, this time going at a much more manageable speed. Sure enough, after about three hours, I had made my first lap around the world.

“That’s one,” I said. “Now for the other nine in this direction, then the ten in the other direction.”

“Keep it up, kid!” Kat called from a nearby cloud, reading a magazine.

“Right,” I said.

This time, I took off at a faster pace. This time, it took me two and a half ours. The next was two hours, then faster and faster. Hell, the last lap took thirty minutes, it was almost unmanageable, but hey, I did it.

“Woo! Did it!” I screamed. “Finally!” Kat looked down at me from her cloud. “I know, I know, now go the other way.

Counter-clockwise went a bit slower at first, taking an hour for the first lap. Eventually, I got it back to going half an hour per lap.

“Finally, I’m done,” I said after my tenth lap. “That was amazing.”

“Very nice, now come on down. Luna’s here and she brought us a spread!” Kat called from the white house.

“Sweet!” I said, dropping to the ground, running over, and throwing my arms around Luna. “Lulu! I missed sleeping next to you last night!”

“As did I, Dox,” Luna said. “But please, I brought food.”

“Alright, fine,” I said with a harumph and letting go of Luna. “But I want some fun tonight.”

“I’m open~” Kat said, swaying her hips a little more as she walked past me.

I felt a blush appearing on my face. “Okay then,” I said. “L-let’s just eat…. Er… You know what I meant.”

“Sure thing,” Kat said before digging into the food. “Offer’s still open though.”

“I-I don’t really know how to process that,” I said, laying into the food.

“Oh, come on Dox,” Luna said. “We could have a lot of fun with it! I could even call Celestia over~!”

“..... Fine….” I said. I could feel the blush on my face spreading. I swear, at this rate, I’d become a tomato.

“Oh now you’re just teasing, Luna…. but seriously, could you? That sounds like it’ll be even more fun.”

“Of course!” Luna squeed with delight. “I could even call over everyone else, if we felt like it!” Damn it Luna. You know just how to press my buttons, sometimes.

“That sounds amazing! Good thing I swing both ways.”

“Oh, that sounds like fun,” Luna said. “Of course, we could always get Dox to-” Luna leaned over and whispered something into Kat’s ear. I wonder what she said….

“Oh mon dieu,” Kat muttered with a blush. “...Luna, we are not sharing at all besides with each other. No one else is invited anymore.”

“Um, Luna,” I said. “What did you tell her?”

“Something that I won’t repeat~,” Luna said with a smirk. That smirk turned into a sultry look. “Not until tonight, anyways~.” Why, Luna, why?! Why must you be so cute?!

“It’s going to be a good use of that big bed,” Kat said in an equally sultry tone. “We gravity shifters have a special trait that just makes everything so much better for us.”

“What,” I said. Damn it, Kat. I can feel my face just completely enveloped in heat. Well, I must look like a tomato now, no doubts about it.

“Invulnerability… all over.” She leaned in and whispered, “We never loosen up~.”

“Je suis vissé,” I said. Again, damn it Kat. Oh great, and now Luna is looking at me with that look of hers! Wait, why is she getting closer?

“Well, why don’t we just do it now?” Luna asked.

…. Again, I’m screwed. Literally and metaphorically, take your pick.

“Sounds like a plan to me, Luna,” Kat said, licking her lips. “You willing to put off dinner and get right to, mmm, dessert?”

They’re both looking at me with that sultry look. “Sure,” I said. Why can’t I resist that look?! “Wait, Luna, no!”

After being dragged over to the white house by an overly enthusiastic Luna, there was a lot of fun to be had. Luna tried to hog me a bunch, but hey, she only had so much stamina. Kat… Holy. Shit. How does she do the things she does?! I mean, come on! No girl should be that good. It’s just not fair! Backward, forwards, underneath, on top, she could do it all. So insatiable too, she didn’t let up even after I passed out! ...I only knew that because she brought Luna in to do it as well and the two were comparing notes during breakfast.

“So, uh, wow,” I said. “So, um, now what?”

“Last day, I’m afraid,” Kat said, back in trainer mode. “Lesson six is where the teaching stops.”

“What happened to lesson five?” I asked.

“Oh, you passed that last night, sweetie,” she said with a sultry wink.

“I… I…” I said. “So, back to the lesson please.”

“Yes, ahem, anyway, lesson six is reflexes. You’ve built up your stamina and endurance plenty, but the real challenge is being able to move in with your powers in order to maximize their effect. I refer to this lesson as, the gravity dance.”

“Um, okay,” I said. “Why’s it called the gravity dance?”

“Because--

“I’M BACK, BITCHES!” interjected an annoyingly high voice. Please don’t be who I think it is. “You’re Bunker Master has returned!” DAMN IT!

“Damn it, Tina!” I yelled at the teenager. “Go away! I’m in the middle of something!”

“Nope!” Tina yelled back. “Gotta get you back for kicking my butt back at that volcano.”

Speaking of volcano, I decided to try and take a cheapshot with my Maliwan Sniper. It missed, but hey, I tried.

“Fuck off!” I yelled at Tina.

“Hey, screw you, smelly pants!” she yelled at me. “It’s time I showed you what I can do! And by that, I mean it’s time for dragons!”

Wait, she wouldn’t…. She is. From all around us, things started being ripped from the ground and sent flying towards Tina. Trees became bone, houses turned into flesh, the white house was ripped from its foundations and turned into scales. When Tina was done transforming herself, there now stood Obama Dragon…. with the mind of Tiny Tina.

“GOD DAMN IT, TINA!” I yelled. “Why the Obama Dragon?!”

“Well,” Kat stepped forward, “good thing I was raised a republican. This is going to be a little enjoyable… in the sadistic kind of way.”

“You say that, and it has horribly effective attacks,” I said. “Just watch out when we beat it. This isn’t the final form, and I’m sure she knows that.”

Kat smirked. “Hmm, I think this will be a good opportunity to enact lesson six.”

“Yeah, hopefully we don’t get screwed,” I said. I then realized Luna was with us… without weapons. “Wait, what about Luna? She doesn’t have weapons!”

“I am more than good enough with- WHOA!” Luna said before being snatched up by the dragon. A magical inhibitor ring appeared on her head.

“Hostage now, bitch,” Tina’s voice said. “Watcha gonna do?”

“We gonna putain you up, that’s what we’re gonna do, ya crétin!” Kat shouted.

“Just try it, bitch!” Tina yelled at Kat. Now, I’ve only known her for a couple of days, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what you want to say to the ‘Gravity Queen’.

I took a few steps back from Kat, uncertain of what she was gonna do.

“Oh, sweetie.” That creepy voice is back!! “...you’re going to die today. Won’t that be lovely?”

Yep, taking a step back was a good idea. Kat’s scary when she’s mad. Well, might as well help her.

I opened my magic satchel and started reaching around in it. “Hey, want a weapon?” I asked. “I got daggers, this snipe, and a flintlock that’s got infinite ammo.”

“And I got this.” Kat put her hands together by her side and...No. Way. “Ka. Me. Ha. Me.” Red energy began building in her hands and… I’d better back up some more. Maybe a lot more! “HA!” she blasted the energy right at Tina.

Tina stumbled back a bit. She looked like she was about to counter attack, but when it connected, it did nothing. Like, literally nothing. She tried to swipe at Kat, but what connected was a tap.

“Oh yeah, forgot that this form’s all defence,” I said to Kat. “Pretty cool, right? Kick her butt!” I then started shooting at her with my sniper rifle. Tina, realising that she couldn’t hurt us like this, began to run like hell. “Get back here bitch!”

Kat teleported right in her path. “Unh uh,” she shook her head.

“Oh butts,” Tina said.

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Kat Shifter. I am the Goddess of Battle to all dragon-kind. I am the eradicator of the changeling race. I am the Queen of Gravity itself. And you… you have pissed me off.”

Tina attempted one more attack, this time picking up a tree and hurling it at Kat. She didn’t even move, the tree just disintegrating into nothing long before ever getting near her. Kat smirked. “I should also mention, I’m what you could call, ‘OP’.”

“Tina, get owned,” I said.

Tina panicked for a second and attempted to take to the air. Kat teleported right above her. “Nuh uh. Seriously girl, just give up already. I’ll make it worth your while~.”

“Yeah, no thanks,” Tina said, trying to fly away.

“She’s just trying to help you, Tina,” I said. “But if you want to fight, I’m afraid the only way this will end is with me destroying your soul.”

“Hmph, why is it always the cute ones that are evil?” Kat asked herself more than anyone. “Just give up, kid. You’ve got no chance.”

“The Bunker Master never admits defeat!” Tina screamed defiantly.

“Yeah, well, she’s Kat Shifter, and I’m Dox Ad Finem,” I said. “We’re not too keen on giving up, either.”

“Maybe this will make you reconsider.” Kat reached out and yanked her arm to the side, Tina’s left arm being ripped off at the same moment.

Tina screamed out in pain, clutching her new wound.

“Oh come on, Kat,” I said. “Where’s the mercy kill?” I took aim and fired at the distracted Tina, nailing her in the head with my snipe. Her body fell to the ground before bursting into a dark purple mist. “Great. Now we need to get ready, Kat. It’s time for the giant dragon.”

As if on cue, a loud ‘Boom’ sound came from outside the dragon’s lair. Kat and I ran outside to find, surprise surprise, a giant Obama Dragon Tina.

“You ready for this?” I asked Kat. “This one can actually hit.”

“I’ve fought worse… and bigger. This? This is going to be fun.”

“Great to know,” I said. “But can you actually cut loose on it? It takes a lot to kill the damn thing. Last time I had two Displaced helping me.”

“Cut loose?” she asked with a sinister smile. Before my eyes, Kat’s entire body became enveloped in white and red fiery energy. “You might want to stand back and watch. It’ll be a good visual aide for you.”

I took a good ten steps back, then another ten, followed by another ten. Let’s just say I was afraid of Kat’s full power, especially since I had never seen it.

Kat disappeared from my sight and right in front of the massive dragon. “Alright, sweetie, let’s dance.”

Tina breathed fire at Kat and tried to swipe into the fiery cloud to strike her. The cloud exploded outward from Kat, the flames dissipating, and Tina’s claw was stopped by just Kat’s hand.

“Sorry, sweetie,” she told the dragon. “But this is gonna hurt you a lot more than it’s gonna hurt me.” She grabbed the claw tight and with incredible strength, she flipped Tina over her head and down onto the ground.

Tina laid there for a few seconds before getting up and attempting to do a repeat of her last tactic, this time adding in a tail swipe instead of using her claws. Again, Kat got rid of the fire no problem, but the tail was a different story. Instead of stopping it, Kat moved out of the way, pulled out a sword, literally from nowhere, and then completely cut it off from the middle. With one slice, Kat cut off Tina’s tail.

Tina screeched in pain and clutched at what was left of the tail, which wasn’t much. She glared at Kat for a second before lunging into the air and attempting to bite her. Then, Kat did one of the most epic things I’ve ever seen. She bitch slapped Tina. Not even kidding, she literally bitch slapped giant Obama Dragon Tina into a far away mountain.

Tina laid there for a few minutes, unmoving. When she finally did get up, she breathed fire and then attempted to flee. Kat sighed, lifting Tina into the air with her power. “If you thought you could get away, you were mistaken horribly, sweetie. So… not sorry about this.” Kat backflipped up above Tina’s head and shot down with enough force to break the sound barrier, slamming her feet into the dragon’s cranium. Tina was out like a light.

Tina’s body poofed in a cloud of dark purple smoke. Now no longer laid a giant dragon dead on the floor, now laid an unconscious Tiny Tina. I teleported over to her in my normal shadow-poofy way, then took out one of the orichalcum daggers in my magic satchel, as well as the giant D&D tome. The book opened to the page on soul trapping, and I carved the rune into Tina’s chest before stabbing down on the center of it. Tina’s body disintegrated, and a few seconds later, the dagger exploded into shards.

“Well, that’s done with,” I said. “Hey, Kat! Thanks for the help! Wait a second, where’s Luna?!” It was a good question, she seemed to have disappeared in the middle of the fight.

“Is it possible she got left behind after the first transformation?” Kat asked.

“Well, yeah,” I said. “But she kinda disappeared after you did the Kamehameha.”

“Yes I did,” Luna said, walking up to us. “Turns out that beam of yours disrupted this inhibitor ring. How odd. It must have overloaded when it came close. I was able to teleport away, but afterwards, I was stuck with walking.”

“Well, that answers that,” I said. “Now, how do we get it off?”

“The old fashioned way, of course,” Kat said as if it was the answer to everything.

“So, just pull it or break it off?” I asked. “Huh, seems simple enough.” I walked over to Luna and put my hand over the ring on her horn. I pulled, the ring snapped, and Luna was free to do magic once more. “Well then. So, Kat, any other lessons you want to tell me about? Any kind of tips or tricks?”

“There is only one more thing you need to understand about gravity.” She walked over to a small rock and picked it up, caressing it in her hands. “Gravity is not just about floating or crushing. It’s so much more.” She covered the rock, her hands lighting up for a brief moment. When she opened them, there was a perfect little bust of Dox and Luna together. “Gravity is a power of creation. It thrives on the ingenuities of life. There is so much you can learn and do with this power, so I urge you to embrace your creativity and imagination. You’ll be amazed at what you can do.”

“W-wow,” I said. “Thanks for the tip. And the lessons…. and everything else. I owe you. So, are you just gonna go now, or do I need to send you back?”

“Back? Back where?” Kat asked with a tiny laugh. “There’s no place for me to go back to. I’ll probably just head into the Void again and see what there is to see… and hopefully not get shot by Daleks… again.”

“Wait, what?” I asked. “What do you mean there’s no place to go back to for you?”

“I’ve been in exile from my world for nearly thirteen years.”

“But why?” I asked. “What did you do that put you in exile? I mean, you’re a good person, as far as I can see. Why would you be in exile?”

She gave me a sad smile. “Not every hero starts on the side of good, Dox. I’ve got a dark past of death and destruction. Exile was the only thing I could do to save my friends from further torment because of my mistakes. I gave up everything for them. I don’t know when I’ll be able to return for sure, but it won’t be for a long time.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s….. deep. Anyways, glad I got to meet you, Kat. If it means anything to you, I’m sure you’ll be able to return sooner than you think. Heck, if you need anything, I’ll be more than willing to help you out with it. Again, I owe you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Dox. Honest I will. That’s the one benefit to all these travels, I’m always making new friends and finding different ways to make them smile. That’s all that matters, right? As long as I can make a difference, that’s all I need.”

“Well, you did here,” I said. “So, again, how are you gonna leave? Do I need to say the whole contract thing, or what?”

Kat smirked, snapping her fingers. A swirling portal opened up behind her. “Like I said, there’s so much you can do.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Thanks, again. See ya later, Kat.”

“May you fall in whatever direction you feel, Dox. I hope to see you again sometime… perhaps I’ll just show up some night~. Ta ta!” She jumped through the portal, closing it behind her.

“She was fun!” Luna said. “Can we just summon her tomorrow to-”

“No,” I said. “If she pops up, then we can do that. Otherwise, I’m gonna summon her if we need her. She’s a good friend, and I don’t plan on abusing that.”

“Fine,” Luna said. “But when we get home, I want to go have some fun.”

“Alright Luna,” I said.

AGAIN WITH THESE JERKS?!

When we got back to Canterlot, there were fun times to be had… if not somewhat forced.

The next day went as normal as ever. I got up, had some breakfast, and then wandered about the castle, trying to sate my boredom. I swear, I either needed to go back to Earth and download some games onto the computer on my sleeve, or take the girls out on a bunch of dates.

Anyways, my normal walk around was going well. It seemed like a good day, the guard was training out in the yard, and Luna and Celestia were in the throne room listening to the ponies. I decided to walk back to the guards who were training. Amongst them was a complaining Blueblood. I was glad to see he kept his word from out bet. Even if he was being a whiny bitch about it.

“I’m just saying, why can’t we start out on a smaller scale for new recruits? Forcing ponies that aren’t used to the strain through such rigorous training could-.”

“Stop complaining, maggot!” The middle-aged drill instructor yelled. “When you get to my age and my rank, THEN you can complain! Now drop and give me fifty!”

Wow, was it wrong for me to be getting a laugh out of Blueblood’s torture? Actually, come to think of it, the one in this world was a prick, screw him.

The drills continued for about five more minutes before being interrupted.

“Intruders!” Came the yelling from a guard in the standard golden bronze armor, running up to the drill instructor. “They’re powerful, sir! They have something that’s cancelling magic! We need to get these recruits out of here, orders from Luna!”

“Right,” the drill instructor said. “Let’s get going maggots! We don’t have time to wait! Get to the barracks!”

The drill instructor led the recruits back in the direction of the barracks. The guard who delivered Luna’s message turned to me.

“Sir,” he said. “Luna has requested you get out for your own safety, as well. She and Celestia are already evacuating as we speak.”

“No, I know how to deal with these jerks,” I said. “I just need to grab Yngve and-”

“Sir, they’ve captured Yngve,” the guard said. “Or, they tried. They grabbed him, tried to chain him, then he just disappeared. He hasn’t returned. The only ones of the protectors that you brought forth are the one known as Hyper Bolic and the vision of the dead king Solaris.”

“Shit,” I said aloud. “I still have to face them, though. They shouldn’t be here, and they need to understand that.”

“Sir?” the guard questioned.

“Go help with the evacuation, soldier,” I said. “I have someone that I need to call.”

“Yes, sir,” the guard said before running off.

Great, if I was right, it was these Die Leucht douchebags again. I swear, after this, I’m going to Avarice’s world and I’m hunting down these jackasses myself. For the moment, though, I have to summon said friend and show him what the fuck was going on with these douches.

I shifted around in my magic satchel for a bit, finding Avarice’s token, and lit it. But, instead of Avarice, I got Vaga, again. But something was off about him….

Vaga was...different, to say the least. His big travel pack was gone, and he seemed...grayer, less potent. Rather than feeling like I was in the presence of an Elder God, it was...weaker. He was still 14 feet tall, but he felt older, tired.

“Vaga?” I said when he stepped through that blue flaming portal that normally opened when I summoned him or Avarice. “What’s up, buddy? What happened to you?”

“Like Elder, like Younger.” Was all he said in response...oh shit, this is what that is then? Also, his voice was tired, and elderly. It didn’t hurt to hear either. “Avarice has absorbed enough of my power that he can use the Pack without me, and can freely access Limbo through it. I know why you’ve called. Sorry. Couldn’t reach them in time.”

“That’s okay, Vaga.” I said. “But now we’ve got to deal with them. I don’t want them here, especially not in my home.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got this.” Vaga stated before...why am I JUST now noticing this? On his back are four more sleeves, ending in sewn-in gloves. Oh~ his pack is gone now, so that’s why! It would also explain, no it didn’t! His ‘air arms’ appeared again, this time, each handing one of his new arms a gun while he held a Hyperion Brute in his main hands. One back arm had his Chiappa, another had a Hyperion Maximized Pistol, another held a sniper rifle? And the last one had a spinigun! ZOMG! He’s like first-stage Gilgamesh from Final Fantasy XIII-2! Only serious, and not joking.

“Wow, nice.” I said. “But check this out.” I pulled out my legendary Maliwan Volcano Sniper Rifle and showed it off to Vaga. “Pretty sick, right? I fought the Warrior in a volcano down in Dragon Country. And this wasn’t all.”

“I hate you, so much right now. Not even I can just summon a Legendary. They’re ALWAYS owned by somebody. Avarice is going to have a conniption when he finds out. Just be glad he isn’t my intended replacement, if HE found out, he’d murder you for it. Literally.” Vaga warned, and I could FEEL the jelly! Not from him, but someplace out there in the multiverse, somepony was VERY jelly.

“Well shit.” I said. “Again, this isn’t all I got. I did give a certain Hyperion legendary to Athena. If we find her, you’ll see it.”

“Proposed huh? Nice, didn’t think you one to commit.” Vaga commented, facing the direction the clashing and screeches of griffins was coming from.

“Shush!” I yelled at Vaga. “I don’t want anyone else hearing about that just yet! I need rings for the others first… And I need to take them on some dates.” I said, trying not to worry about the sounds of soldiers screaming in agony, and none of them seemed to be the enemy. “Shit, they’re dying out there!”

“Don’t even bother, they’re here.” Vaga said in exasperation. “They’re always already there. Like fucking Lord English.” At mentioning the Time Lord I felt a shiver, hoping that I don’t have the misfortune of connecting to a world where that evil being of destruction exists.

The east wall of the courtyard suddenly exploded outwards, flinging stone, mortar and dust everywhere, and a stream of fully-covered green-tinted steel-armored anthro griffons all mostly the standard lion-eagle kind stormed in, forming ranks with huge lances, swords, axes, halberds, shit, a whole fucking armory’s worth of variety came from these guys, aimed at us. There was even a...is that...okay, no, they don’t get to be that cool! At least seven of these guys had Greatbows! Like from Dark Souls! With spear-size arrows aimed at us! Each blade had the tell-tale green of orichalcum, while the bodies of the weapons were steel, making them even more dangerous. Their armor tells me that it has orichalcum too, and these fuckers are a shock troop of anti-mages.

“Well, shit.” I said. I took a second to think about my next actions before finally settling on my plan. I pulled up the Dice Roller Core and started whispering to it. “Hey DM.”

What is it? The DM responded.

“Is there anyway you could, I don’t know, move these guys?” I asked.

I tried that when they showed up. The DM said. Apparently, they have your essence in them. It’s tainted, though. It’s keeping me from being able to touch them.

“Well, double shit.” I said. I turned to the soldiers and put the Dice Roller Core away. “Well, plan B. ATTENTION ALL SONS OF BITCHES!”

“YOUR MOTHERS WERE HAMSTERS, AND YOUR FATHERS SMELLED OF ELDERBERRIES!” Vaga shouted, getting me to lose my fire and just start laughing my ass off, I wanted to say that, but damn it, he did the voice perfectly! Suddenly, even if these guys are badasses on the Borderlands scale or whatever, I couldn’t take them seriously for the moment.

“You mock us, when this world is weak, it’s soldiers pathetic, and it’s rulers unworthy. At least the Sisters of our world can actually put up a fight. What does this say for the rest of the multiverse? We shall bulldoze them all, and enlighten them of the true essence of Power.” A bigger, taller, and all-around stand-out from the wall of steel and orichalcum stepped forth. He was easily two feet taller than the rest, the armor for his beak was much more viciously curved into a more prominent hook, and the lack of a hair tuft at the tip of his armored tail and the patterned feathers of the inside of his armored wings were not eagle wings. “Do you yield? Or will we get to have fun?” He asked, eager for us to resist, his deep voice echoing from his helm.

“Give me a second to respond to that.” I said, before I put away my snipe and quickly took out my tome of D&D and searched rapidly through it. I could see Vaga giving me a questioning glance, but he remained silent, only idly aiming his Hyperion Caustic Longitude over his shoulder. I eventually found the page I was looking for and prepared the spell on the page. “So, Vaga, these guys are immune to magic, right?”

“Completely, it’s even turning their own magic back in on them, strengthening them, healing them, energizing them. These are true anti-mages, and they can even resist forces of the natural world. Fire, wind, lightning, even magnetism and Gravity. They aren’t immune, but they can’t be tossed around like ragdolls young Gravity Shifter. I hope you realize what you’ve gotten into, both with this, and your foolish acquisition of power.” Vaga warned sagely, his spinigun going over his other shoulder and spinning, preparing for a charge.

“Uh-huh, okay then.” I said. “So, what about sound?”

“That too, since it...ah...ha! It won’t be as effective as you think, but go ahead, I want to see them cringe.” Vaga prepared Chiappa and his pistol, aiming his Brute forward, getting ready.

“You’ll see more than that.” I said, casting the spell I had been holding. There was a small flash of light, when it settled, there was a Dubstep Gun like the one from Saints Row IV in my hands. “GET REKT, NEWBS!” I fired off the weapon, sending weaponized music at them. It wasn’t as blatantly effective as I had hoped, but the blue and purple beams of the gun made them all scream and fall over clutching their heads. Save the big guy, he just flared his wings and whipped his tail in agitation. How tough were these pricks? OH SHIT! I just barely Matrix-dodged a spear-sized arrow from one of the Greatbow Archers still standing. The fact that would’ve taken off my head meant he wasn’t taken down by the wubs either!

“Griffs, if you don’t get up, I will kill you personally.” Their leader’s dark voice was all they needed, and they all briskly got back up, and began edging towards us, a couple of the lighter-armored ones taking to the air.

“Vaga, we need to find the girls and leave. NOW.” I shouted, dodging another greatarrow by a hair, the force of it nearly spinning me to the ground, but then I flipped into a handstand on instinct as a glaive stabbed into the grass where I’d been standing, and without meaning to, I launched they heavily armored griffon away from me with gravity, but although I’m sure it would’ve normally turned him into a crumpled tin can of meat, he was only tossed several feet, and landed with unnatural grace. “REALLY?!”

“You go on ahead.” Vaga said calmly, blasting his attackers away with shotgun, pistol, rifle, and sniper rifle shots, but it seemed only the rifle and sniper rifle had much effect, as the other guns only knocked them back, while a few of the ones he’d shot with the rifles stayed down, bleeding, but got up shortly afterward. Their blood had a shimmering rainbow hue!

“The DM said they had my essence…” I said. “BUT THEY’RE USING IT FOR THEIR BLOOD?! WHAT THE FUCK?!”

My gobsmacked expression suddenly got a healthy helping of talon taco courtesy of the big boss among them, throwing me several feet back as he laughed with an air of superiority. “Our organization’s scientists created the recipe for orichalcum! What made you think your blood was special enough to avoid synthesization? What we have isn’t the real deal, but it mimics everything your base blood has to a T! It isn’t potent, because the refined forms require your actual blood, but we’ll achieve it eventually. Now stand down, and become a good donor, or I will relish crushing you bit by bit!”

“Yeah, no.” I sniped hatefully, pulling out my tome again to a special page. “No, you have something that belongs to me, and I’m not letting you keep it.” I looked at the page, describing a forbidden technique that had been lost to the ages. “IT’S TIME TO BEND YOU!”

I put the big-ass tome away, and took a stance that clearly put the big bad on edge. “Don’t know this form big guy? Good. Now prepare for pain.” I moved my body, my legs, arms, everything in a flowing motion as if I were water, or a leaf on the wind, and pulled away from them in a languid and harsh motion.

I watched as several of the soldiers fell, writhing in pain, their blood ripping out of their bodies in thin rivers that flowed through the air towards me. The larger ones fell to their knees, but were otherwise unaffected. The lead griffon stayed standing, completely unassailed. Yeah, that forbidden technique I mentioned earlier, it was blood bending. I quickly guided the rainbow essence to my mouth, drinking it all in as fast as I could, trying to ignore that my blood had been in the veins of someone else. When I was finished, I gasped, feeling some of my strength I hadn’t realized I’d lost return, but none of them had died, and even hissed as they got back up, struggling to move.

“You ripped the blood from my men...ha, ha...HAHAHAHAHAHAHA~!” Big Bad started cackling as his men tried to gather themselves, Vaga remaining poised to attack as his air arms reloaded his guns. “This is hysterical! Weaklings! Retreat. You’ll get a proper flogging later. I’ll deal with these fools alone.” Wow, asshole has an ego.

“Don’t underestimate him Dox. He’s had both his blood replaced, and has drank a refined version. He isn’t some rank-and-file member of Die Leucht.” Vaga warned, backing away with his guns ready while the rest of the soldiers I’d put down all retreated through a swirling purple vortex.

“Um, Vaga, he has a huge sword.” I said, eyeing the boss’s weapon. It was an oricalcum edged steel monstrosity that was several times larger, and likely heavier than even the griffon that was going to wield it. It was easily 14 feet long, at least two feet wide, and had words in German engraved along the fullers. And he picked it up with one hand, not even resting it on something...or showing any sign of it doing anything to him. “I don’t have a sword…. at all….”

“You don’t want a sword, you want to run.” Vaga said, before an air-arm grabbed me and he high-tailed it with me being dragged behind him.

“FACE YOUR DOOM COWARDS!” Big Bad shouted, and with a flap of his wings, he was upon us! HOW FUCKING POWERFUL IS THIS GUY?! “You shall fall before Gram as all others have!” He sliced, not lugged, not forced, not even swung, he SLICED that monstrosity called a sword at us, cleaving Vaga’s legs off at the knees and sending him tumbling before his air arm tossed me as far as he could into the lower atmosphere away from the city.

“Damn it Vaga!” I screamed as I fell. He threw me as far away towards the Everfree as possible, and HOLY SHIT HE’S GAINING ON ME?! The big griffon was holding his giant sword in both hands, flying fast enough a cone was forming over him. “NOPE-NOPE-NOPE-SO~ MUCH NOPE!”

Counter, gotta counter. He’s gonna swing at me and I have to be able to counter. Need a sword, need a sword, need a- WHOA! Cold feeling in my hand!

I looked down to my hand, only to find a sword handle in it, a blade appearing to be running into my sleeve. Well, a sword’s a sword, better pull it out.

I pulled the sword, only to get a flash of light. When the light settled, there was the flamberge that Avarice had given me oh so long ago being gripped in both of my hands, the 6-foot slim and sexy greatsword felt comfortable in my grip. Hell yeah! This could be what I needed… but what’s up with the edge? It’s all blue… now it’s red…. and now it’s indigo. Wait a second, it has an Aetherium edge now! I was wondering where the Aetherium on my old sword went! HAIL TO THE (future) KING, BABY!

Before I knew it, Big Bird had suddenly finished closing in on me and swung his monstrous beast of a weapon at me. Only...we...did we just literally ping off each other like same-polarity magnets? I’m floating now, my gravity powers kicking in, and Big Bird is looking at his sword in confusion, or, at least I’m assuming confusion. All he did was knock me away. Why did his orichalcum...wait…. Orichalcum ‘Kills’ magic, Aetherium ‘IS’ magic given solid form! They repel! I suddenly got a shit-eating grin on my face.

“Aetherium, bitch.” I said. “An incredibly rare element that can’t be made by anyone but a dwemer.” It was true. The Dwemer were the only ones who had ever discovered the recipe, let alone were able to make it. That recipe was scattered to the world, but no one else could make it but the Dwemer. Pure magic is a bitch to handle. I mean, to give it solid form is to dilute it a lot, but hey, magic is magic is magic.

“Impossible! We’ve been trying to create such a substance for centuries! While I feel magic as a crutch is for the weak, I cannot deny it’s power. Such a thing, able to deny the nullification of Orichalcum...this armor is a nuisance then, and I shall not risk the sanctity that is the ancient weapon Gram.” Big Bird surprisingly tossed one of those portal rods below himself, and dropped his enormous sword into it, followed swiftly by him actually ripping his armor off, dropping it in as well, leaving himself bare save his comfortable looking orange and red silk pants, and iron-braced talons.

Whoa...Big Bird wasn’t all boast. He was ripped, like, Avarice levels of ripped. But that wasn’t what really drew attention. He wasn’t a lion-eagle, or a panther-crow. His orange and black striped tiger body, and his fierce brown and darker brown patterned feathers were those of a hawk. This...tiger-hawk griffon was easily 10 feet tall, and made of muscles for days. The cocking grin on his brown-tipped yellow hook beak and his gleaming excited eyes told me he wasn’t considering himself at any disadvantage, even exposed as he was. “Behold, child, the body of the epitome of physical prowess! I am Lord Iron Talon, head of the Enforcers of Die Leucht. You face death today, given form.”

Well shit. Welp, if I’m gonna die, might as well do it foolishly and with honor.

“Good for you.” I said, dropping my sword into my magic satchel and casting aside my hoodie into it. “I’m Dox Ad Finem, the Dungeon Master of Equestria and the True Dungeon Master’s champion. Today, you face death, given at the hands of the scales of life.” I started getting a weird feeling around my hands after saying that. I ignored it, though, as I had something much more important and annoying to focus on.

“Cute. You think you’re people.” Before I could react, I had yet another serving of talon tacos rammed into my jaw, launching me down into the forest, creating a long ditch through the trees and foliage. “But you’re all talk, no substance, like every other filthy mage.”

“There’s a difference between me and mages.” I said. “I LIVED IN THE WORST PART OF LA, BITCH!” I used my gravity powers to send myself flying into him, punching him in the gut while making my ascent. But...omg...he just clenched his abs onto my fist, and smirked down at me. Did...that even do anything?

“That tickled. May I have another?” Iron taunted, leaning down until he was in my face. “I am the closest a mortal can be to a god, without giving in to magic. Can you seriously make me bleed? Make me cringe? Even flinch? Try. Try little man.” He backhanded me away, and I was sent once again crashing through the Everfree like a gravity bomb. Ow...fucker...I’m so lucky I got these powers from the Gamma Pool, and lessons from Kat, or I’d be tree pizza right now.

“You fuck!” I yelled at him. I could feel my rage boiling, but I ignored it. I charged at him again, this time with more force. He didn’t flinch, but he did move back a bit from the impact. He grabbed my left arm, and a slight grip broke my wrist, making me cry out in pain, before he grabbed my face with his left talon while still holding my wrist in his right one, chuckling darkly.

“Lord Force see’s you as a threat? You’re nothing.” He started pulling, I gasped, feeling him starting to pull the muscles of my neck apart!

‘NO! Fucker! I won’t let you put me down so easily! Spare bodies or not!’ I changed my body’s constitution, my body becoming nothing but putty, the bastard’s talons squishing my head and wrist uselessly to his confusion, and I turned my right hand into a blade, not even using my powers since the metalloid arm could do that already, and jammed it into his chest. He lost some air, but the blade didn’t penetrate. It was enough for me to sink out of his grip though, and my right hand melded away as an Explosive blast charged from the barrel, and flashed in a ball of raw explosive power into his face as I fell, reforming my head and left wrist before floating a short distance away from him.

“Suck it, bitch!” I yelled at him. “I’m a changeling, motherfucker! Now taste my power!” I shot another blast of energy at him from my arm, hoping to distract him long enough so I could fix my arm. Since I kept it putty, it was easy enough to put it in place before returning it to normal, only to hear a deep, and terrifying tiger growl from the overpowered Herakles of griffons.

“Weakling...I will rip you in more than two pieces for that.” Iron Talon growled as the smoke cleared from...his...pfft...his face feathers were gone! “STOP LAUGHING!” I couldn’t help it! His pale skin under the dark feathers was just hilarious! It was all baby soft! My amusement ended when his feathers rapidly grew back out, and I was reminded he wasn’t just stupid tough, but also had my own regenerative factor with my blood in him, along with whatever a refined version did to him. Shit. “Killing you is too easy. I’d rather see how long you can survive being eaten alive repeatedly.”

“Yeah, how about no?” ‘DM, please, PLEASE tell me you have an idea? I don’t know how to use that black hole thing on purpose, and Kat didn’t teach me some of the more overly destructive techniques, not that I don’t understand why.’

Yeah, I’ve got next to nothing for ya. The DM said. Well, nothing that you haven’t done before…. But then again, maybe you haven’t realized what happens in a valley.

‘Seriously?! Why do you have to be so cryptic?!’

DM buddy, it’s my job. Can’t make it tooeasy now, can I? Then again, you are my champion. Eh, here’s a hint, don’t forget to wave.

‘The fuck does that- Oh!’

I knew what the DM meant, now. Wave, something I’ve done before, I didn’t get the valley thing, but hey, let’s add that in anyways. ‘Wait! What about my sword?!’

What about the Aetherium on your hands?

Oh shit. I could actually feel it! Well then, let’s get to it!

Iron had waited long enough, he’d been wanting to stay on the defensive, show me how helpless I am against him or something I bet, but he launched himself at me with one of his iron-coated talons ready to crush my sternum.

I charged the light blue-white Aetherium that covered my hands like skin, and then swung them like I had harder-than stone talons like the Iron douche I was fighting. As I swung my fist in front of me, I screamed three words…..

“HIT STREAM VALLEY!”

“GAH!” Iron actually choked. My blue energy covered fist plowed into his gut, making him bow a bit and slightly double over, but he grabbed my arm, and gasped air back into his lungs. I wasn’t scared though, because rather than be pissed, or retaliate, Iron grinned and looked at me in excitement. “Where did that come from brat? C’mon! Bring more! I haven’t had a good fight in twenty years!” He then let go and backed a fair distance away, actually looking prepared for a real fight, and I couldn’t help but grin, figuring I could actually even the scales against Winged Herakles here.

“Let’s try this one,” I said, charging my fist again. “Falcooooooooooooooooooooon” -my fist burst into flames and I charged Iron- “PUNCH!” I’ll admit, while he’s an ass, Iron won some respect points when he faced a fucking, REAL Falcon Punch with his own fist using only his own brute strength. Our fists clashed, and our impossibly hard fists collided in a struggle until we glanced off. I wasn’t sure what I felt at first, I didn’t really understand it then, but when I looked at Iron’s face and knew he felt the same, I just didn’t want to end this fight. I was having fun.

We began trading blows, our speed increasing until I couldn’t tell if it was a kick or a punch I was landing or taking. I felt my skin breaking, bleeding, my bones creaking, but I felt Iron’s incredibly hard hide doing the same under my own blows. After I clipped one of his wings though, the battle turned as he fell like a rock, I’d forgotten he needed those to be honest. I took advantage, and dove onto him, increasing my gravity several times. “TEN THOUSAND KILO PRESS~!” ONE PIECE REFERENCE MUTHA FUCKA!

We crashed into...oh shit! We flew over Ponyville! I think we just ruined somepony’s house!

“You okay, Talon?” I asked, concerned for the guy who had originally come to capture me.

“*wet cough* Brat…you’re still a couple centuries too young to worry about me.” I was admittedly unsurprised when Iron simply climbed out of the rubble, and nursed his chest. I could see blood dripping from his beak, but although he was cringing, he was also grinning with a hint of insanity that I was growing a little familiar with. “You broke something...nobody’s broken anything in me save Lord Force before...heh...guess he was right, you are dangerous.”

“Well, good to see you finally can tell.” I said. “Heh, you can warn him that I’m even coming for my blood. I don’t really care.”

“You should.” Iron became grim, but rather than boasting, he actually seemed serious, and worried. “Lord Force stole the life force of Faust, our Goddess of Creation. He took her soul and made her his, forever. He can make gods kneel before him and beg for their lives. I’ve yet see anything make Force be concerned until you showed up. He isn’t even bothered by Avarice, and he’s by and far the greater threat to our plans. Do not agitate him more than you can handle Dox. I don’t want my new punching bag getting annihilated so soon.” Iron warned, and by then he’d stopped nursing his chest, and seemed fine, his gained regeneration from me likely having healed him.

“Yeah, well, I don’t want my sparring partner getting hurt, either.” I said. “Take care, Talon. Try not to piss off your boss.”

“I won’t, Force is an admittedly fair guy, he’ll let this go, he probably expected me to fail. I have more training to do now. Since you can actually fight me...I need to up the ante.” Iron chuckled, before he took a portal rod from his pocket and tossed it behind him. “Until we meet again Dox. You’d better get stronger, or I will be standing over your crippled body in victory.” He flapped his wings, giving me a grin and a salute before he vanished into the portal.

“I’ll be waiting, Talon.” I said. Then I remembered I just so happened to leave someone back in Canterlot. “OH SHIT! VAGA!” I burst into shadowstuff and teleported back up to the Canterlot Castle yard where I last saw Vaga. “VAGA! VAGA! WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GO?!”

“Oh, be quiet, I’m fine.” I looked to the voice, and saw the empty, deflated, and motionless heap of black leather that was Vaga and his guns all spread out on the ground, as if somebody had just vanished from their clothes as they were running, which was essentially what had happened I guess. “Just need to get my strength back. Gram is a cruel sword, likes taking everything’s magic for itself. It’s why it’s steel hasn’t rusted away.”

“Wow.” I said. I pulled out the Flamberge that had deflected Gram from out of the air, since it couldn’t fit up my sleeve like my old sword. “I’m just glad I pulled out this when I did. Apparently Gram doesn’t like Aetherium. It also appears that the Die Leucht can’t make Aetherium, yet it just so happens to spawn at my fingertips.” I pulled up my left hand which was covered in Aetherium. “It’s actually pretty weird.”

“You’re DM’s son, of course you can spawn Aetherium. DM is the purest essence of magic across the multiverse, and you as his son will eventually one day, become just as potent, whether or not either of you want that. But he’d either have to cease to exist, or you’d have to move to an empty multiverse. Like Auric. So proud of that one we are. Became an Elder God of Creation by making his own multiverse. Inspiring.”

“Sounds amazing.” I said. “I just wish that wouldn’t happen. I kinda like being able to have a physical form without destroying the multiverse.”

“You could, but it would involve a lot of bleeding, far, far more than you’ve been doing. Oceans worth in the future. You’d face the plight of those of the Gurren Lagann realms of the Spiral Nemesis. Your mass could eventually cause the universe to collapse if you didn’t exsanguinate regularly. But I don’t see that being an issue for a few more centuries yet, especially with all the bleeding you’re doing now.” Vaga continued making me worry, until I felt the oddly calming presence of DM, as if he’d placed a hand on my shoulder.

Or I could keep draining him like I’ve been doing. The DM chimed. It’s a nasty process, but hey, if I wasn’t doing this, he’d have already grown too powerful. What do you think happens when he puts on that cloak during a fight?

“Wait, you’ve been draining my blood?” I asked the DM. “When? Was it while I slept? You sicko!”

Oh calm down. It’s not like I’m stealing something that I never gave you. Besides, if I did not, you’d already be a titan, this world a mere baseball to you, would you want that?

“It’s still weird.” I said. “But you’re right. Keep doing it if you need to. I don’t want to end up like Chronos from God of War. Or like one of those freaky fake gods from Asura’s Wrath.”

“The main issue here Dox, isn’t potency, it’s substance. DM’s essence is so thick and heavy of an energy, that it keeps building. I’m sure if you distilled enough to replace the blood in your body, his essence would stop having to be exsanguinated to avoid you becoming dangerous to this universe.” Vaga offered up, his ‘body’ filling up with ether, his cut-off legs reattaching, and his guns all being dragged through openings in the air by his air arms. “Ugh...reduced to being a demi-god...becoming mortal won’t be any easier on me.”

“Ya know, I could always give you a pick-me-up if you asked.” I said. “I wouldn’t mind it in the slightest.”

“I still have my pride Dox. If there’s one thing nearly all us Elder Gods...right, not one anymore...if there’s one thing nearly all Elder Gods, both current and former have, it’s our pride. We EARNED our places, either by choice, or by the machinations of powers that had been greater than ours at the time. I’m just...I guess I’m one of the first of us to decide to let it go. My siblings all call me crazy, say that I’m a fool. But that’s because they’ll miss me...I’ll miss them, but, I haven’t experienced Death, I’m tired, I...I want it to end, let the cycle actually continue. That’s why Avarice is taking my place. That was the Deal with Merchant.”

“Wow…. That’s deep, Vaga.” I said. “Well, if you’re up for it, want to be sent back now? I kinda have to go find the girls.”

“Might as well. I’ve been stuck holding the fort down with the facility, since for some reason; Avarice hasn’t come back yet. He’s still off gallivanting about the multiverse with other Displaced like he’s on holiday or something. Can’t contact him, can’t find him. But I can feel he’s having fun.” Vaga shook his head, sounding like a disappointed parent, or elder sibling. “Feh, kid needs to get his priorities straight. Our robot armies aren’t going to arrange themselves.”

“Alright then.” I said. “Vaga, our contract is done. See ya later, buddy.” Vaga vanished in a swathe of blue flame I’ve become so familiar with, yet was also saddening, because Vaga has been really cool to me, and to know he’s dying is...really sobering.

“MY HOUSE!” I heard from the direction of Ponyville, and I groaned, that sounded like Lyra and Bonbon.

“AH~! WHY AM I A MARE?!” A much closer feminine scream came from nearby, her accent and tone of being Upper Canterlot not really being unusual, but the statement was. “Dox! You ruffian! Humiliating me wasn’t enough, but you had to take my stallionhood?!” I turned, and gawked.

It was Blueblood...or, should I say Bluebelle? My nose exploded in blood, as due to her anger, she’d stormed out onto the field in her male designed armor, which did not hide her extremely shapely form that was comparable to Celestia. I guess that proves more than anything that Blue really IS related to her….

“Fix this! Now!” Blue demanded with her blue eye boring holes into me, poking one of her tightly constrained enormous breasts, which, again, were easily comparable to Celestia’s bosom, and I growled in frustration. I knew who did this, somehow.

“VAGA YOU FUCKING TROLL~!” I laughed. I swear I could hear Vaga’s laughter echoing in my head. I was amused, until Blue’s chest armor exploded off from the pressure of containing such huge melons, and knocked me over, getting an adorable ‘kya!’ from her, and she blushed as she tried to cover her immense assets in her arms.

“H-how does auntie LIVE with these boulders?! Tia~!” Blue burst into tears as she ran off, likely to try and find her aunt, her long and flowing golden blonde mane and tail whipping behind her, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. Maybe the bitch could learn even more about humility from this.

Crystals. Well, can't say I wasn't expecting that.

Crystal Mountains - Tambelon Front Lines - Year 0039 AU(After Unification)

[Sombra Perspective]

Pouring over the recent scouting reports, while Shard Hammer’s camp has been preparing themselves to try another push later in the day due to this ‘stagnant shite’ as he so politely terms it. Has left us on edge while he may be naturally gifted in strength and combat arms we have been working ourselves to the bone, though it’s been troubling seeing our nails fall out for more sharpened Amethyst ‘claws’ came in.

It’s been a great help that Metal Heart has been sticking around, for whatever reason of her ‘job’ still is. But at least my version of food has been coming in the shipments from the Empire’s Princesses, despite their growing spite for each other no matter what we do to make them make amends or be as sisters should. Taking a finger sized gem to chew it slowly while we make the adjustments for the deployment fronts to try and assist the Emperor’s Hand this coming afternoon if knowing how he acts by now.

Blinking at a especially sparkling gem in the dish from our view giving us a smile, looking as if Crystal Heart sent us another magic infused gem it seems! Pointing to the map showing our Enlightened Mage Construct the changes to deliver out to the bannerstallions and hopefully Shard Hammer, if he’ll go along with it, despite his belligerent comments he is a stallion who has some honor when fighting. Taking the gem in hand tossing it up into the air not hearing of a possible message only to bite down on it hard to savor it’s grand taste.

At that moment not knowing what we have done as once more one of our fanged jeweled teeth of Amethyst cracked, making us groan in pain while the said gem fell onto the floor in our personal tent. ‘By the Gem! Let us hope this wasn’t another joke done onto us, if so we’ll be having words with the Supplies Mistress, AGAIN!’ Rubbing our jaw as it was quite sore from this endeavor, with only to grumble looking back at our maps on the Crystal Table. Taking a chance to pull out our cracked tooth, seeing the severe fracture.

Dox’s POV

I was looking around frantically for a noise I had just heard. It sounded like a massive crack. I couldn’t even tell which direction it came from.

One second, I’m supervising the repairs to the house of one Lyra Heartstrings and one Bon Bon, the next, I hear a crack noise and I go running around trying to find it.

“Where the HELL did that noise come from?!” I asked no one in particular.

That sound came from your Dice Roller Core, genius. The DM said. The noise originated from another world, and you just got it now through the Dice Roller Core. It’s just like listening to your D6, but you don’t have to hold it to your ear.

“So wait, someone’s trying to summon me?” I asked. “Then I have to go help them.”

Not by going there, you won’t. The DM declared. I’m not letting you go to another one of HISworlds. I don’t want more corruption coming here.

“So, it’s one of the Architect’s worlds.” I said. “I don’t care. I have to help them. They called me, and I’m going to help them. Now open the portal and let me through.”

Fine, but you have to deal with the corruption that comes through from now on. I’m not sending most of it to Shadowfell to die, anymore.

“Wait wait wait, let’s not get drastic here.” I said. “Maybe you can continue to help stop it, but please, don’t make me stop helping others. I mean, if others need help, who am I to stop them? Hell, who are you?!”

Fine. But only because you remind me of myself when I was created by the cosmic being Reality.

A portal opened a few feet next to Dox.

Now go. But remember, eventually, you’ll have to fix some of this corruption.

“Thanks, big guy!” I called out before jumping into the portal.

How did I regret that.

Now here I was, falling through the portal, not knowing when it was going to end.

Oh, hey, there it is!

…. OH SHIT!

“LOOK OUT BELOW!” I yelled as I exited the portal, falling on somebody.

[Sombra Perspective]

Blinking once in our Battle Armor as a noise soon came above with a stallion’s voice calling out. “LOOK OUT BELOW!” Upon looking up do we see what is happening, only too late as something that we thought NEVER to see again. Only to have what we thought from the short glimpse of a Human male fall landing on top of us brutally, by their feet into our muzzle and our grunting from pain while our fingers clawing at him trying to stop his descent only to land fully falling on top of us. “Why doth the pain come, when we were safely in our personal tent…?”

“Whoa, sorry man.” said the being that fell on us. It’s weight started shifting until it wasn’t there. “Ow, claws, ow. Yep, bleeding slightly. And now I’m not. Hey buddy, get up.” Hearing the voice while rubbing away some of the blood from our muzzle blinking as we look up at him, what would have been white for most of our eyes were black as the void with Amethyst Irises glowing softly in a warm nature blinking owlishly. What we thought to be a Human Male was actually a Elf Male, with a right dark green eye color and a more mechanical robotic left eye? with a sky blue glowing color.

“Who art thou-” Our question was interrupted by a lifting flap of our personal tent, both of us looking towards the opening to see a Gun Grey Crystal Mare that we only knew well to be Metal Heart. In her Crystal Pony form who first looked shocked as her eyes shifted from us to the new Elf, Her face immediately scowled while lifting a platter by the bookshelf holding our expensive imported miniature ‘globe’ of Equis. Only to throw it landing square upon the Elf’s forehead sending him reeling onto the ground only for her to pounce with her unnatural metal body lunging at him to pin said elf. “Wait he doth only caused an Accident!”

“GET HER OFF!” The elf screamed. “Let me rephrase that. Get her off before I start fighting back!”

We stumbled back onto our hooves, wrapping her into our magical telekinetic grip was a labor we’ve been training on having only become moderately difficult by now when used on another Crystal Pony type due to our resistance to magic. “Metal Heart, he fell from a portal ABOVE us. There was no way any of us could have dodged, let him speak before thou tries to maul the ‘elf’?” Speaking in a questioning tone to see if he could confirm it while our standing only knocked the crystal we tried to chew on only into the open flooring.

“Oh hey! That’s my token!” The elf said happily. “So you’re the one who summoned me! And could you stop calling me an elf? I’m a changeling, and I have a name. I’m Dox, and you are?”

Blinking and Carefully standing behind Metal Heart mostly as she sported glowing purple irises as well that hummed in more of a cybernetic tone. “We are Duke Sombra Onyx Founder of House Onyx, Royal Court mage and first Crystal Unicorn Hybrid by Ritual. Headmaster to the first Royal Empire Academy and-”

“Sombra?!” Dox yelled, pulling out an impressive sword with a strange blue metal edge. “What the fuck?! Alright, you have about ten seconds to explain how you got my token, why you called me, and where I am, before I decide to kill you. And just remember, I’m kinda bad at counting when I’m angry.” Our eyes widened at his actions as we prepared a bubble shield with our Crystalmancy.

Though Metal Heart took the initiative by picking up apparently his ‘token’ of summoning and throwing it Square yet again upon his forehead, and responded by being well ‘her’. “You, motherbucker, better chill the buck out! He’s not the one you’re likely referencing to by how you’re acting, so stallion up and unpretzel your knotted bucking babymaker from your own horeappled plot!” She gestured with her thumb at us, while her other arm made that ‘cannon’ like shape once more as it glowed with raw energy that crackled.

“Listen, I just want the explanation from him, okay?” Dox said. “Afterwards, I will listen, okay?”

We noticed her annoyed flat look, likely switching her action by netting his legs dragging him further into the tent. “Well Motherbucker, come with me and after I’m done telling you what’s up then we’ll all ‘talk’.” Her rather intimidating presence if not for her slightly shorter size tends to put most stallions off by how ‘aggressive’ she gets, especially around mating season.... “We’ll be right back Sombra, continue organizing or redoing the Empire’s war strategies while I set this colt straight before some tea or better yet mead.” while now waving her free hand before tossing the elf in the far corner near our bed.

Dox POV

“Jeeze, you could have asked me to walk with you, ya know.” I said, putting away my sword. “It would have been much easier.”

She leaned in uncomfortably close with her ears swiveling one on me and one on this Sombra stallion, only to start heatedly whispering into my ears better than any pony trying to be quiet. “You and your stupid muzzle plot where spouting stuff that he doesn’t know, also he’s one of those ‘human’ things. From what my system’s drives have he knows NOTHING, like anything from this bucking universe, it’s still hard for even me to wrap my head around all of this but he’s NOT the Sombra you know.” She looked back at him before saying this softly still. “Your left eye is robotic right? Bucking use it and try a x-ray scan of his body, you’ll understand why by that alone.”

“Alright, fine then.” I said. I turned on my Echo Eye’s scan function, already picking up on a bunch of different things in the room. Something new, that it showed, were auras. I hadn’t seen them before. Sombra had a dark aura over him, and so did this Metal Heart pony. I scanned her, turns out she’s a cyborg. I scanned Sombra next….. Just whoa. Fucked up shit right there. I may not have gotten an x-ray, but hell, I didn’t need it. His bones, according to the Echo Eye, were slowly being replaced by crystals, hell, his horn down to his upper ribs were already crystal. Man, this is some messed up shit. “Alright, I see what you mean. This is some fucked up shit. I’ll keep my mouth shut, okay? But did he summon me? Is he the Displaced?”

She looked at me oddly for a moment as my echo eye saw she was looking for a reference until momentary ‘glimpse’ came up before her eyes returned to normal-ish for her I guess. “Yeah from what my records show he’s the first one or maybe better terming is ‘first successful’ one as you’d call it, but knowing him and seeing your plotting ‘token’ is a dice gem? I’ll give you three guesses what happened to it for somepony who can ONLY eat gems now, or drink things.” She stated by slapping me on the forehead lightly, while giving me a condescending look to her eyes down at my token held in her thumb and first finger, looking straight into my eyes without fear.

“In all reality, it’s a six sided die.” I said. “It just so happens to be purple, and look like it contains a galaxy. It’s pretty cool, if you ask me.” She muzzle palmed at that, looking back at me with an exasperated look.

“Right, well dingus over there likely didn’t get a good look at it before nomming on the bucker that brought you here.” Pointing at my token showing how ‘bite sized’ it is, before slapping me on the head again as her ear perked towards Sombra for a moment. Us looking towards him seeing a crystal unicorn statue thing walk in with a tea set on a crystal platter, tilting it’s blank crystal featureless head at us, before placing the platter onto the table and pouring tea with three bowls of soup also on said platter.

We heard him thank it politely with some sort of chiming noise, a response came in the same sort of sound. “That’s one of his weird crystal construct things, not the scariest looking but does magic like any unicorn mostly.” She said pointing out that bit of knowledge. It was something I have never seen before as a magical field of study.

“Ooookay then.” I said. “So, these constructs just go around and do stuff, sounds okay. But how the hell are they made? Actually, I feel like I don’t want to know that. Just, tell me how I can help out.” She seemed to be looking me over Critically before giving a snort through her nostrils at my face. With a roll of her eyes, she stood up, offering her four fingered hand to help me up.

She pulled me up effortlessly with a sigh before calling back to this Sombra displaced guy. “He’s cool now, also saying something about willing to help our plots with what’s going on if he’s even decent.” She said, giving a offhanded remark while walking back with a slight swaying gait to pick up a steaming bowl and chowing down as a pig would.

“Hey!” I yelled at the metal pony. “I’m plenty good. Now, what are your plans? Who the hell are you working for, and who are you attacking? Why? What did you all just pull me into?”

[Sombra Perspective]

Sighing at Metal Heart’s antics, it’s become a ‘normalcy’ she gives off luckily not at some weapon point or distancing herself. “Well if you could come closer it would be easier to explain with showing you while we eat..” We said cautiously waving the Elf closer to our table, showing the sigil markers for the Crystal Empire and the more Bell and Fang markers for the area leading up to Tambelon. “We are currently waist DEEP in a Military campaign against the City of Tambelon, the Goats whom live there and the ascended by death of his father. Crowned Prince Grogar; who has Undead, Demons of some sort and wields dark magic with use of their Bell Magic. We as we stated before, the Crown Prince Grogar started this war in attempts to enslave the Pony Races.”

Giving him a careful look before continuing on this last question. “WE had no intention of summoning another, this is our first time if accidental. Though Metal Heart here has been making a habit of securing strange ‘artifacts’ and putting them in our Academy’s Vault.” Taking a moment to sip on some Berry tea, giving out an audible sigh while Metal Heart just rolled her eyes cutting in.

“What I was doing, was keeping his busy plot from summoning any of YOU bucking plots, because I don’t even know if I could protect his plot from any of your kind.” She glared daggers momentarily at this strange Elf but we shrugged looking at the map. Showing what looked to be a map of the Northern lands with the southern part of the map showing what may be the rough ‘borders’ to Equestria. “If thou wishes to know the year we are being, by thy reaction. This would be 0039 After Unification, if thou wishes to go by Equestrian Standards, but do note that many of our species suffer from EXTREME speciesism..” Making that a point giving him a sidelong look, than to Metal Heart and pointing at ourself.

“Ah, okay then. Let me just change real quick.” Dox said. He erupted into a green fire that swirled around him. When the fire settled, there stood a Crystal Pony.

Though Metal Heart instantly reacted now on a hair trigger. “You’re a bucking changeling?! What the buck!” She growled out instinctively looking quite ready to brawl and hoping to bludgeon him silly, not knowing honestly what a ‘Changeling’ would be we held her and him back respectively. Just to keep the situation ‘civil’ for now, though it doesn’t help that Metal Heart is looking at him heatedly.

“I told you I was!” Dox said. “Calm down. I’m not even like the ones you know of. I don’t feed off emotions, I feed off normal food, like vegetables, grains, those kinds of things. Oh, I also like meat.”

Our eyes started to sparkle at this discovery, with inked quill and parchment in hands writing it all down, even writing what we read from his magic emission during said change to try and replicate later on. “Thou wouldn’t mind being prodded for magic study?” Attempting to give this ‘Changeling/Elf’ the eyes while pouting. “Also may we have thy name for our records?” We blinked at seeing the exasperated look on Metal Heart’s face also a strange look of recognition on this new sample.

“I’ve told you already!” Dox screamed. “My name is Dox Ad Finem! And no you can’t study me! Your data wouldn’t be correct for any changeling you find. I’m unique to my world.”

Looking depressed by that note, slowly scrawling the information notation out about Dox’s name, species, possible theories on his former human features to now abilities until that was until, Metal Heart started ripping the parchment from my hands only to rip them into tiny pieces, leaving our jaw only slacking in response from such ruining of physical recorded knowledge. ‘Tis a good thing Keen Mind has a perfect memory.’

“Listen, you seem like good ponies, so I’m willing to help.” Dox said. “So, how can I help? As far as I can tell, you’re in a war. Anything I can do to help the effort?”

The response was our digit pointed towards the map for his eyes to see, as pointed at a few spots that seemed to be ‘fortified’ on the main most widely traversable mountain like road. “The Emperor’s Hand has ‘deemed’ that WE push up the main path, to Tambelon. When such tactics have stopped us before due to their use of Bell Magic. Before thou goes into any triad about how ‘silly’ it sounds, tis true in that regard because we LACK knowing of how it works. But the issue is they Ring, thou saw our Crystal Construct correct?” Gesturing to the ever quiet sentient Crystal Enlightened giving a happy sort of chime response at our gesturing.

“Yeah, what about it?” Dox asked.

Giving him a quiet look before sighing softly. “We mean is that the crowned goat Prince Grogar, has devised a way to ‘shatter’ our Crystal Works. By use of this SAME Bell Magic, what this entails is that so long as these bells are stationed with his cultist followers may the All Gem pierce their blackened hearts. Our Crystal warriors cannot advance onto the City of Tambelon, for he has not from our sight deemed it worth to install the city with them at this time.” Pointing to a couple circles vaguely on the city in question, before tapping the wall side just off the path with our Crystal Pony-Spider brute figure moved to said wall showing him in reference. “Thou could help us in making the path clear for our siegers to break the outer defenses to give a closer distance to spearing the ingrate goat youth.”

“Alright then. But why the kids?” Dox asked. “I’d rather spare the children…. Well, most of them, just the innocent. Actually, I’d spare all the innocent. It’s not really fair to wipe out an entire species just because of some of the others. Anyways, I’d be happy to help on those terms. I could just change my disguise and slip in, like so.” Dox was enveloped in green flames again. When the flames settled, there stood what looked like the spitting image of one of our unicorn Crystal Constructs made of what appeared to be diamond. “I could also mimic the vocal patterns of them, but I’d need a bit to study how they talk.”

Blinking at what he meant, tilting our head in response to say this. “What does thou mean ‘why the kids’? Also the Campaign tis to secure the north while deposing of a great threat, while the Emperor is doing battle with the Elks to the east.” Stating this aloud while rubbing our muzzle’s chin. “Oh and we would not be trying to slay the civilians, only to strike at the head as it were. For it is Emperor Shatter Hoof’s will we do must follow, while the spoils of their magic arts will also go to our Academy once able.”

“Well, you said the youth, so I just assumed.” Dox said. “Ya know what, never mind. Just get me a few of those constructs and I can study their speech patterns. Afterwards, I could go in on my own and take out the bells.”

Blinking before pointing at the map once more at the City Tambelon, giving him a flat look before gesturing to the Crystal Enlightened Unicorn Construct still there tilting it’s head at him. “We speak of the Goat Prince Grogar who did slay his own father, but as for our constructs one is present here still…” Smiling at him wondering what he’d learn, with a new quill and parchment appeared in our hands while Metal Heart grunted in frustration, flipping her hands up into the air before sitting down with an irritated look.

“No studying me.” Dox said in an irritated tone. “Okay, so, does the construct have a name?”

Tilting our head in thought looking over the Enlightened Crystal Construct Unicorn, looking over the form with a critical eye at seeing something before giving a nod. “We believe this one is in the future to form a ‘ruby’ nature, so we would think ‘Ruby’ shall work for her.” The action of saying a name was almost subtle if anyone wasn’t watching they would have thought the construct left and another replaced it, having a more pink bordering red tone of crystal form as some mare features started to appear if of a slim elegant body tone. “They ‘change’ upon the name and it’s context to gender as we’ve gauged from back home from a more safe environment..”

“Interesting.” Dox said, obviously intrigued. “So, Ruby, talk to me. Sombra, since you somehow speak the language, could you try to translate for me? If this doesn’t work, I have a plan B.”

Blinking at Dox, before shifting our seat to face Ruby directly now with a gentle nod while making a motion of the hand. “Ruby how art thou today now having a name to behold unto thyself?” The response was a Musical melody as her crystalline slim fingers gestured with a light ‘smack’ against her wider hip. “I am glad thou ‘FINALLY’ took notice, here I was wondering if and when thou would notice my color. Also thou do know Hallowed Maker, that thou have been considered ‘crazy’ by these kin whom speak words of ill behind thy back?” Our features fell at those words looking more onto the ground fiddling with our thumbs sighing out of our nose in irritation.

“Yeah, I couldn’t catch any of what she was trying to say.” Dox said. “That leads me to plan B, magic!” Dox’s lifted up his right hand, which seemed to be covered in some weird blue crystalline metal. “Now, don’t panic, I’m just gonna touch you with a spell.” Dox reached out and tapped Ruby on her forehead and there was a small ping and a small glow on Dox’s fingers. “Okay, that should be it. Now, let me test it. Sombra, if you would please translate back for me?” Dox spoke the next few words in what sounded like a melody of chimes.

Giving a look at this Dox, our eye twitching as we scribbled a couple notes down onto our parchment in response while speaking. “Thou has stated for us to translate thy own words in what we have ‘tentatively’ dubbed Harmonic or Crystalline Speech, which is strange in how ‘new’ it is yet so well developed. It was about a year since our ritual did we start ‘hearing’ what their melodic sounds were becoming as words we understood..” Gesturing to our own head at the ears, with a twitch showing a thin if nearly covered crystal like ‘growth’.

“Okay, so, you barely understand it and you only picked up on it recently.” Dox said. “Anyways, we have a plan, shall we enact it, my strange friend?”

The fire in our eyes grew again as we smiled, though by the cringe that Metal Heart gave, we must have been ‘creepy’ for how excited we get due to Star Talent inside us, as a child on christmas would be. “We would hope so, though these mountains are laid by undead and demons alike from the black beyond. We do not know what happened but, the shadow that fell over Tambelon shook us to the very core.” Shivering again unintentionally as if something slithered over our back.

“So, the plan right now is to break through the mountains to get to Tambelon, right?” Dox asked. “You saw my sword, I’m pretty good at using it. If that fails, I always have my spells.”

Our look of intensity must have grew, by how his face seems to be leaning back a bit away from us. “Thou will share thy magical knowledge with us perhaps? We would share what we’ve learned of Crystalmancy in exchange too! Oh even elemental magics and their combinations!” We blinked once having now to actually restrain our excitement, only to summon out Star Talent from our shadow, the pain of her coming out now only a wince until her slender unicorn shadow formed. Which took only a moment for her to wiz on into Ruby’s crystal form as the coloration and figure changed to match Star’s features giving out a erotic purr. “We introduce Star Talent, one of our closest friends, literally and figuratively.”

Her body language gave Dox a formal ladylike bow, as she silkily coiled the smooth royal purple crystal form to rest leaning against us from behind. Giving out a shiver inducing purr in Crystalline Speech, the tone in speaking comparable to ‘buttery sweet’. “Our handsome colt, thou hast an interesting if new friend whom knows more than us. We hope thou wouldn’t mind keeping him around for us both to learn the depths of his knowledge?” A crystal tongue slowly slinked out suggestively licking her upper lip, even a flutter of actual crystal like eyelids that formed too.

“Um…. Hello to you too?” Dox said, taken aback by our friend’s actions. “Listen, I’d teach you what I know, but I’m still learning this stuff, myself. I’m only doing what a book is telling me to do, and some of it is really complex.”

Looking in Star’s direction, we could see how ‘unnerving’ her thirst for knowledge on magic is like. Attempting to redirect the conversation back by speaking up, with a patting gesture onto her hands draped on our neck. “Perhaps imparted books? Those are easier to ‘absorb’ than a few ‘slower’ methods she’s been taken keen on…” We couldn’t completely shake off that distaste even if it has been useful, if not morbid or strange.. “Any book of knowledge helps us who wield magic, by expanding what we could do.” Star’s attention for now is smiling as she nuzzles our cheek affectionately.

“Well, the problem with that is, I’m pretty sure you can’t read it.” Dox said. “At least, that’s what I’ve seen when others try to read it. The thing is soulbound to me, though, so it makes sense.”

Giving a uncomfortable cough now, turning our head away though it was Metal Heart who spoke up with the brunt method of saying ‘how’ we learn and use other skills or abilities that is ‘bucking black as can be heard of’. “If he gets a book and throws it into his shadow he and those others in his headspace can learn it in moments, if he absorbs a corpse he gets the skill the cutie mark on it had. But if he kills another bucker like that leg spreading mare dangling on him, you see what bucking happens.” Giving a waving of her hand in spooky gestures while Star Talent gives her a livid glare.

“We would have thou know he was ORDERED to extinguish our life and the others years ago, before THOU had stumbled on the doorstep to our handsome colt’s house..” Star Talent’s voice always gave an air of culture more fitting to a Unicorn Tribe noble before unification. “We wouldn’t be surprised that thou had no taste like as we sought his company at times besides teaching OUR student.” Blinking again at her very, well, lewd look before looking at the one known as Dox for aid in quelling mare arguments pleading with our eyes.

“Anyways!” Dox yelled, trying to get everyone’s attention. “We have a plan here. I’ll play the construct and walk in there to confuse them. You guys follow behind and wait for my signal. Speaking of that, I think we need to establish one. Got any ideas?”

Thinking it over before levitating a book over, flipping a few pages to point at a Firework Magic Spell modified to be a ‘flare’. “Thou could use this, though considering the positioning Shard Hammer will likely also believe it is one of our Constructs giving warning or stating advancement. If we are asked why thou are ‘different’ from the others, we shall say it’s experimentation with denser gems imported from afar..” Looking thoughtful on this before nodding softly, giving Dox a once over. “Thou needs to not give off emotions of offence or body language that shows it too, because it will only expose something is off.”

“Alright, so then how do I act?” Dox asked. “I mean, they’re gonna tell things are off the second I send out lightning and electrocute people with it.”

Giving him a flat look before pointing at his diamond coloration. “Thou could get away with air based magic as the more ‘proficient’ type as thy ‘construct’ nature is attuned to, but for earth ones, do avoid that when possible because of thy ‘free nature’.” Using air quotes, gesturing to a crystal model looking like a pegasus.

“So… I’m good with lightning as I am, just avoid some of the other constructs, got it.” Dox said. “But um… what about other types of magic? I mean, I can teleport, among things. It’s considered shadow magic, so is that a no?”

Tapping our chin while Star Talent smile wider interrupting our chain of thought. “Thou could always say that ‘we’ overshadowed this one…” She purred out while lightly raking her slender crystal digits, eyeing him with interest before leaning in to nibble our ear in a cooing hum of a wordless song. Going so far we think to wink at Dox only for Metal Heart to gesture towards Star to restate her own point. “Try to keep from being seen when using other magics, the Unicorn type of construct is a blend of mobility and magic.”

“Alright then, but I give no promises.” Dox stated. “If everything goes to Tartarus, I will pull out my sword and drop my disguise.”

We waved our arms quickly at Dox as Metal Heart muzzle palmed, before uttering something about getting a mead. “Thou doesn’t know what tis like here! Thou would risk personal safety by that of either goat or Crystal Pony trying to skewer thou upon weapon, we would HAVE to deny our involvement with thou if so. Though Shard Hammer and his bunch likely would ignore most of what thou does, so long as thou doesn’t start out performing them, because a stallion’s pride would be on the line against one of our constructs…” Finishing lamely at the end there.

“Well, I’m pretty sure I could take them, but thanks for the warning.” Dox said. “But I’m serious. If it gets to the point where my life could be at stake, all bets are off and I’m pulling all the stops.”

Metal Heart for once in her life since we knew her, started to giggle let alone snort at the same time. That made us raise an eyebrow at her than back at Dox, though her explanation of ‘playing along’ with his idea only made us worry more. “Let me guess, have you EVEN taken a look outside this tent yet? If not you’ll lose your marbles once you do, for me I can see and hear whatever ‘boss’ I have above when not close to him.” Pointing towards us with a serious edge to her voice, that made us wonder aloud.

“This would be the FIRST time thou has mentioned of such ‘oddities’ besides the ‘artifacts’ thou has been most keen on getting besides watch over us..” We stated, thinking over while counting our fingers to recall as many times it’s happened, let alone times her advantages has saved our life.

“Wait a second. Your ‘boss’?” Dox asked Metal Heart. “The hell do you mean by that? And how the hell do you know about my boss?”

Metal Heart gestures him to stay in his crystal form, standing up from her seat after taking another drink of her mead. Only to drape an arm around Dox’s neck, drawing him to the Tent flap for a moment, opening it and pointing up for a moment letting him see it as we watched them both shiver.

Dox POV

“What the fuck is that?!” I screamed.

Metal Heart waved a free hand up at the sky being quiet as possible, though I felt her shiver slightly before giving the cracked sky. With various sized eyes with tendrils holding open, the cracks were random but they get bigger towards the northern direction which must be Tambelon, with a writhing tentacle pulsing appendage touches down at a black cloud. “That human, would be my ‘boss’ not by choice to watch over that displaced inside the tent to make sure no bucker kills him until he feel’s my bucking ‘bodyguard’ job is done..” Giving me a glare to make it a point, she wasn’t too happy before pulling us back in though a whisper barely reached my ears.

“We finally reach thy ears young ‘god’...” The voice sent shivers through me while she offered her mead, which I refused. I don’t care if it’s to take off the edge, I don’t drink. She smiled at Sombra who had yet again a Quill and Parchment in handwriting vigorously, of how our ‘reactions’ must have been like. ‘How could he NOT see all that?!’

“Who are you?” I asked the giant thing made of corruption.

Some of the larger eyes made a odd ‘tilt’ from what could be seen, though many of them sparkled happily, if that could even be described. There was actual giggling or twisted laughter with a wet slapping of some of those inky tentacles. “We are known by our neighbors and their children to be the Architect of Realities, though some often refer to us as the ‘Architect of Corruption’ for other reasons. But we get to FINALLY speak with the child of the Dungeon Master! How has the bleedthrough of realms been so far to thy understanding?” The voice was always like some nagging whisper of something just behind my shoulder, that tone spoke of joy and twisted intent.

“Wait, you’re the one who sent through that fake Tina?” I yelled to the Architect. “That bitch almost killed me, let alone destroyed a lot of shit and tried to hold one of my lovers captive!”

The following sound made no sense as if hearing a ‘shrug’ with a couple eyerolls though the ‘shrug’ happened when half of the seen tentacles moved. “We have no ‘direct’ control over the actions of others, we can give a goal or task in mind but how they accomplish that is up to their own devices. So far about ‘eight’ out of ‘ten’ are going about a more ‘evil’ path to our aims.” Getting a feeling as Metal Heart shivered being the later. “She is an example of the ‘good’ so far encountered by thou, though we are curious are thou having fun with what we wrought?” It seemed far too happy with even talking while Sombra’s just writing as he watches our reactions and muttering something.

“What was the point of her?!” I asked. “She attempted to kill me! She summoned a horrible boss of a monster and almost killed me! HOW IS SHE GOOD?!”

There was a momentary look odd almost deathly quiet, even Sombra’s ears perked while nervously looking around. until this ‘Architect’ started a mad giggling falling down to a light chuckle. “We were referencing the Outsourced Pony next to thou, but as for Tina she is a good ‘polar’ to ‘balance’ thy nature of been too ‘good’. Though she wouldn’t have killed thou, likely confine and corrupt thou as we wished!” Speaking in a tone as if that were a good thing…

“Yeah, hell no.” I said. “I’d rather not be corrupted. Hell, if I get corrupted, and it’s because of you, you better not start messing with me. Listen, I’m here to help Sombra, not listen to you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”

There was a peel of more giggling as it’s whispering taunt was made before it got oddly quiet with it’s gaze shifting north afterwards. “If thou really wishes to ‘help’ our little human Sombra, we will ‘allow’ it. Though it will be rather difficult if our Goat student wins this ‘war’ to gain our little human as his sacrifice for us to claim in his future corrupted glory.” those eyes could from appearances bore into anyplace almost and give no privacy.

“Yeah, I don’t care.” I said. I turned back towards Sombra. “Yo, Sombra buddy! Let’s get to work on that plan of ours!”

Sombra nodded with a smile gesturing to the table, showing three new pieces, of each of us also one who must be Shard Hammer. “We are willing to see what thoughts thou hast, and adjust the odds of success.” Pointing towards the camp which is just north of a village, also a listing of what resources he has at his disposal compared to the lion’s share that Shard Hammer has. “As a note we cannot take any more than this.”

“I’m willing to go through with our little fake construct plan, but I think it’d be better if I did something else.” I said. “Mind if we step back into the tent for a bit?” I looked around, seeing the others that Sombra normally had with him. “Alone? I have a plan, but I need to make sure that only you know the full extent of it.”

Metal Heart nods and pats his crystal self on the back drawing him back inside with a smile waving at some passing Crystal Ponies, before calmly closing the tent flap having left to get something else from what we guessed. “She doth enjoy drinking since her arrival, though we’ve never seen her truly drunk whatsoever.. But we’re curious of this ‘conversation’ with the sky thou beheld, at a later date.”

“Listen, I have a plan, alright?” I said. “So, here it is. I’m going to shift back to my normal self, and you’re going to say you summoned me, all right? It’s not a lie, you did. Why am I doing this? I’m going to fake some things. One of those things is me not being armed, okay? I’m just going to go in, let them take me, and then I’m going to disable everything. It’s crazy, but it should work.”

Blinking at that softly, nervously chewing his finger in thought. “Well it might work, though Shard Hammer would likely keep thou under watch..” Snapping his fingers before grinning at Me. “A fake collar might be more believable perhaps?”

“No, no collar.” I said. “Listen, I don’t mind being under watch. I have weapons, and I have a few things they haven’t seen before. They won’t expect it. Also, what the hell would a collar do to help?”

Waving his fingers apart in a spooky manner saying this in response. “Well we would say ‘magic’ but only so much can be done that way before they start protesting, or calling ‘bullshit’. But we can try it thy way and Shard Hammer will likely test thou for comba also see if thou art a beast.” He showing me a piece from the table that ‘looks’ like him.

“So, if I just show up, he’s gonna challenge me to combat.” I said. “Great. Well, I’m still doing it. If he challenges me, that means one more problem out of the way, right?”

Sombra just sighed, placing his hands onto his face before refilling his drink. “We will have a fun time explaining all of this!” Soon after taking a gulp of tea. “Since thou are willing to put thy life and freedoms at risk than we may as well get this over with.”

“Yeah, let’s.” I said, shifting back and then walking out of the tent. I turned back to Sombra. “I’m gonna head off. Okay? The signal that means that I’ve succeeded is a burst of flame in the sky. Alright?”

I honestly don’t know what happened. One second, I’m fine, I’m walking out in the middle of camp like I’m fine. I’m just trying to get out of it and on the path that Sombra pointed out, and now this shit.

“I keep telling you jackasses that I’m not an elf!” I yelled. “And where the fuck are you shoving me?!”

A large crowding of troops were moving aside when a opening for the main camp here, with a loud hearty stallion who stands taller from the crowd looking more built than my Big Mac. How the hell did he get that ripped and how can I get like that?! “We’ve got this ‘summoned elf’ beast thing that has been walking as we do, I wonder if such a thing is even capable of honorable combat that only we stallions of the north can accomplish!” The roar of the Crystal Empire soldiers in the crowd likely must be some form of ‘moral’ rising.

“Fuck you guys, I’m not participating in this bullshit!” I yelled and attempted to teleport away…. Fun thing was, or in my case, bad thing, I wasn’t able to teleport. Turns out, the Crystal Ponies were blocking me. Hell, it took me a second, and a slight panic, but I could actually see their magic. “Alright, fine. I’ll fight, but who wants to go up against me-” I quickly opened my magic satchel and pulled out my sword, allowing it to close. “-and my blade?”

Shard Hammer, by guess gave a sadistic grin in response before yelling out to the crowd. “My hammer! I’ve got a nat to squash if he’s this frail!” He easily pushed through the crowd but a Crystal Hammer covered in glowing runes sailed into the arena to land at his side, hefting it’s sizable weight in a showy fashion in one hand leaning it onto his shoulder. But the symboled wording on it from this angle seemed to mention some sort of ‘nullification’ among other things.

Well shit.

“Alright fine, but a warning first.” I said. “My blade isn’t normal. The edge is made of Aetherium, a mystical metal that actually is magic. I don’t care what kind of countermeasures you have, this blade will ignore them.” It was a slight bluff, but it was true. You don’t mess with Aetherium unless you know what you’re doing.

The crowd blinked, before Shard Hammer gestured to Sombra who was pushed closer to the front to get ‘his’ likely take on it. “We would believe me means the metal that was gifted to the FIRST Emperor in the form of a Staff seven to nine generations ago. It is pure magic given physical form.” At that little ‘blurb’ on his history a lot of the crowd started to stare at me or rather my sword.

“Well, I know not of your Emperor, but that is what the metal is.” I said. “Aetherium is what it’s called. It’s almost impossible to create, and even harder to find. Very few knew the secrets where I’m from, and they’re gone now. I wish to find them one day. But do tell me, who made that staff, and how did someone make that?”

There were heated murmurs in the crowd some loud enough to even grouse. “Bucking figures, the beast thing knows more about it than we do.” Another did a spitting motion before trying to be quiet. “Bet it was those alicorns who took the staff or lost our divine gift.” The rest of them were devolving into rumors or wild hearsay until the thumping of Shard Hammer’s well, Hammer into the ground quieted everyone.

“I wouldn’t blame them.” I said. “I know not of the alicorns of here, but where I’m from, they’re much nicer than you’d think. They’re not bad ponies. I’d trust the alicorns I knew with my life. I’d suggest maybe looking around for it. It might be where your Emperor was. I’m not sure. What I am sure of, is that it might have been good for you to have lost the staff. Too much Aetherium can sometimes poison the mind of the wielder. Enough of it could destroy their physical form, turning them into magic itself.”

The crowd of soldiers were about to start speculating again before a withering glare from Shard Hammer’s gaze shut their collective jaws with a numerous ‘click’ noise. “Enough of this banter, we’ll go until third blood or broken bone!” Shard Hammer proclaimed. Wait, broken bone? Now, I know about the whole third blood thing but broken bone?! Fucking shit!

AND HE’S STARTING IT OFF!

Shard Hammer swung his weapon at me while I was still trying to comprehend what he was saying, barely giving me enough time to block with my sword. He still sent me backwards from the force of his hammer and into the crowd of Crystal Ponies, who eagerly shoved me up and back towards him. He swung again, and I ducked a la Matrix style to avoid getting hit in the gut with his hammer.

“You son of a bitch!” I yelled, swinging my sword and missing him completely.

He gave a wider grin, swinging his hammer from a lower angle upwards while providing a spin from the pole portion, making it only turn in a upward angle at myself with the top of the hammer being a fist sized spike top.

“FUCK!” I said, slamming my sword into his hammer at the last second to avoid being hit. He recoiled from the block, stumbling backwards a little. It was a good enough opening for me to slash him. He went down from the attack, but did not get up. Instead, he stayed there panting, like as if he had been going like this for rounds at a time. “Oh shit. I didn’t mean for that to happen. You see, Aetherium does strange things when combined with weapons. On a staff, spells cast through it are more potent. On a hammer, the impact is greater, and the wielder is stronger. A sword has the strangest effects, though. The blade cuts through the air faster, and when someone is slashed with it, they get a random effect. You appear to have been weakened by it. Lucky you, the most common effect is bursting into Aetheric flame, which cannot be put out.”

“Get him to the medical tent!” Screamed one of the Crystal Ponies. “He needs attention now!”

“He’s fine, he’s just ill.” I said. “His sickness will blow over. It’s just an effect of a magical material, not some kind of poison. Ya know, Sombra, while I’m here, could I perhaps get another sword so I can prevent this kind of thing?” The casual way in speaking his name earned many a glare towards Sombra in question by the Crystal Pony soldiers, some even muttering to themselves as some could be heard.

“Is the duke making a power play on The Hand?” The mutterings only got worse as when he had guided me to what looked like the mobile armory next to a hastily set up forge showing me the available gear for replacements if anything else being standard issue. Though the rumor mill spread faster than I thought possible, by this point everyone here was thinking what he’d likely do to solidify his position from this campaign with his ‘pet elf thing’.

“We should have expected this, now if this push does go well as thy optimism shows thus far. It will only solidify that we ‘up handed’ the Emperor’s Hand, his oldest and most trusted friend.” Giving me a rather icey look, before outright groaning with his hands going onto his face adding onto this. “It’s bad enough that the Empire’s Two princesses are near to outright killing one another, to get us as their stallion.”

“I’m sorry, Sombra, I didn’t know about all of that.” I said. “Listen, the rumors are fake, and you know they are. I’m here to help. I can even prove it. Afterwards, I’m gone. I’m no pet, and I plan to leave saying so. I’m just a friend, one that answers to a greater power than you.”

He just gave me a look, lifting a four fingered anthro hand counting off. “First because the BEST melee fighter of the Empire second only to the Emperor is now out of commission for this new push, which will depending on success of failure cause waves. Second is being common PLACE for those of Influence in the Empire to try and ‘one up’ another, but if we have success then this will likely be one of the more ‘riskier’ gambles any had done. Third is that ourself and those on the Empire’s Small Council are always trying something to shift the balance in their favor, especially so since we came to be on it. Fourth would be the NUMBER of assassination attempts number to at least THREE a week for just US, how does thou take the morbid thought of coming up with countermeasures to such things?”

“Wait what?!” I asked. “Dude, I’m not here forever. Plus, that fighter will recover. He’ll be a little weak for at most a week after the sickness lets go, which it should by tomorrow or the day after. I could give him a potion to help him, but it’s my only one, and I’m saving it. Just keep him under a bit of medical care, and when the sickness lets go, keep him still for at least a day afterwards, it’ll help the recovery immensely.”

He waved off my potion idea, thankfully, as he said why. “Would thou even think he or his personal guard would allow such a offering? It’ll likely be spilled onto the ground wasted, the best choice is to distance ourselves and hope he recovers while keeping an eye on anypony who isn’t his personal guard. Because if one working for another did end up finishing Shard Hammer off, we’d get the blame even long after you were dismissed.” He stated as he looked over a few weapons, laying some of them out for me to look at, with all of them being made from crystal.

“Don’t worry, he won’t really be weakened, he’ll just feel like crap.” I said. “Honestly, he’ll recover and be fine. The sickness doesn’t last long, but he might have some problems in the future, but I wouldn’t know what those are.”

Sighing again before responding to me. “Well we hath much ground to cover literally and figuratively, before we lose thy assistance in this endeavour. At the least we hope to have success, so that any stormed up ‘facts’ about us will be mulled over by much gains.. But for now We should try to push the offensive early due to Shard Hammer’s state to make sure the troops morale doesn’t affect everypony.” Showing even a set of crystal armor he’s been pulling out, that seem very close to my body’s current sizes are by sight alone.

“Right, let’s go enact that plan.” I said. “Now, if you could lead me to the front…”

“So, this is the what Sombra was talking about.” I said.

I had, as best as I could, ‘ninja’d’ my way up to the flatter plateau ground before the outer walls of Tambelon, ‘shattering’ cursed bells along the way with whatever I had, meaning magnetism and gravity. Those bells were huge, they even had ‘emergency’ enchanted mallets to strike them too. It was kind of bullshit. I’m just lucky I had gotten as far as I had, what with the guards, the undead, and the fact that my invisibility and muffle spells wore off when I got close to the gate. Okay, so that’s bullshit, I hid in a box a la Solid Snake and everyone was stupid enough to let that pass. At least I left a trail of broken towers and bells in my wake.

The icy wind lashed against my face, the chill of the mountains unnaturally harsh on the ascent closer to the City of Tambelon with each step. Shuddering screams of something out there forced a tingle along my spine, while those eyes in the sky glowed. It was like something was watching me from somewhere. Sombra had told me about the city, if only briefly. The city stood out from the mountain, what with it being half inside the mountain itself. I couldn’t really see the city itself, only its enormous walls. I could see a few building roofs, but not much else. Along the walls were motifs of Alicorns, most being ruined by a large buildup of ice and snow. I could see a bunch of shiny lights. The lights must have been the bells that Sombra talked about.

“Well, lets get this over with.” I said, walking up to the city gates. I banged harshly upon them for a while before getting a response.

All of the sounds around me, besides the distinct feeling of the harsh wind on my body, felt as if it were the only telling of real danger. When the more individual sized stone covered openings slid open, showing a leather cloaked Goat, whose face had yet to be seen by other than a chill covered muzzle that seemed ‘thinly’ holding on as it’s breath spoke the next words. “What passage does one seek in what heart that lays frozen, hide that is to be tanned and straightened only to be bent this way or that way?” The head tilted a bit as the Goat’s face became revealed showing a half rotted guard with glowing eye sockets of a sickly nature.

“Um, what?” I said. “Listen, I’m not in the mood for riddles. Let me through to see Grogar.”

The sickly glow of the guard’s eyes intensified before the door shut again, with a small bell like sound was barely heard as a muffled ‘tink’ as the doors and main gate glowed from a surge from whatever layline this city was built upon.

“So, is that a yes?” I asked.

Why did I say that?

Immediately after I said that, several undead of a couple species started popping up from the ground, and three demons made themselves known as they flew over the city walls.

“Shit.” I said, pulling out my sword from my magic satchel. “Maybe this won’t work….” I quickly put away my sword as the undead drew nearer and the demons flew overhead. I pulled out my Volcano snipe. “Alright, let’s get fiery.”

I opened fire upon the undead, all of them bursting into flame instantly, the ones around I shot also bursting into flames from the Volcano’s unique and powerful elemental effect.

“Take that, undead pricks!” I yelled as the undead burned to a crisp around me. I swear, all these ponies and other undead, I’m gonna be in therapy for weeks. I turned my attention from the burning undead to the flying demons and started taking shots at them. Damn their flying. “Know what? Screw this!”

I put my snipe away and pulled out the D&D tome. I searched through it for a bit before deciding on a spell, meteor swarm. I attempted to pull it off…. only to be met with nothing. The spell didn’t even fire off.

“What the hell?!” I said, surprised. “What’s wrong with my ability to cast magic?!”

There was whispering giggles just behind my shoulder again as if something ‘icky’ brushed across my spine as ‘HE’ spoke again. “We see how easy it is thou must fail, has one’s parent told thou of the lesser known ‘rules’ of one universe to another? We shall say that we are disappointed by the Dungeon Master’s child, tis only easier to let us corrupt thou with such ‘lacking’.” Peels of laughter even came from those flying demons, as sharklike teeth formed on some of their inky faces.

“Yeah, well fuck you!” I screamed, putting away the tome. “I have a better idea!” I concentrated on one of the demons and then focused on him slamming into the ground. Down the demon went, thanks to my gravity powers. “How’s that for lacking?” I focused on a different demon, focusing more on his sword than him. I raised my hand and moved it in a swiping motion, sending the sword into the demon next to him. The demon whose sword I magnetized into his friend fled in terror and into the city, only for his corpse to come flying back over the wall. Wow, tough crowd.

I turned to the wall, and tried to focus on bringing down a large part of it… Finding that I could not.

“Well, shit.” I said. “Thought I could keep everyone from even having to come. Oh well. Back to the original plan.”

I used my gravity to levitate myself up and above the wall before looking around for the bells. I found a couple on the part of the wall I was floating outside from, and attempted to use gravity to crush them. I only put a dent in them both, hopefully it was enough to ruin their effect. I saw a couple of black bells towards the other side of the mountain. I wasn’t able to use gravity on them for some reason, but I was able to magnetize them slightly. Hopefully with them trying to reach each other, the citizens of Tambelon wouldn’t be able to use them.

“Hope that’s enough for Sombra.” I said. I took out my Volcano snipe again, this time firing away from the city and into the sky. That was the signal, hopefully Sombra saw it.

It wasn’t for about three hours until Sombra arrived with a haggard, but from rough counting there were a couple thousand Crystal Ponies with maybe two ‘Crystal Knights’ to each stallion or mare there of Crystal Ponies. Also among those fewer were at least twenty giant dririder type of Crystal Constructs a bit bigger than ELEPHANTS!

“Duke Sombra, glad you could finally make it.” I said. “Did you like my work?”

His battle gear looked just as dinged, scraped or worn as any other soldier as he gave a labored sort of ‘laugh’ if that could count for anything. “We did, otherwise none of us whom had made it up to here would actually be here.” Giving a hand gesture towards himself and the Crystal Ponies behind him, some actually giving deadpan looks or twitches of the eye as one actually muttered about seeing a lot of filth rammed on their spear.

“Well that’s good.” I said. I then felt a slight burning on my left arm. Looking over at it, I noticed that the Dice Roller Core was glowing.

I’M PULLING YOU! Came a voice that I hadn’t heard since I got here.

“DM! Finally you speak to me again!” I called out to the screen on my arm, which currently showed a pair of glowing lights in the shape of eyes, as well as a glowing frown. “Where the hell were you?”

Trying not to see ‘him’. Sadly, I must if I’m going to remove you from here. The DM said. I’d rather you not see what’s behind those walls. All futures that involve you seeing that do not end well. In fact, most of them end in you attempting to permanently murder yourself.

“Wait, what?!” I asked. “What the hell are behind those walls?!” I turned towards Sombra. “What’s behind those walls?”

He blinked while gesturing to the Crystal Troops and Constructs to advance onto Tambelon’s City Gates. “We would say the City of Tambelon, if one ventured north beyond that would be the long not since traveled path to the Alicorn Empire of olde, that being dead in recent memory is still saturated in enough magic that could kill anybeing even a dragon tempting their luck. But as for Tambelon, it’s been under a Dark Shadow for YEARS. Whom knows what horrors lay within now?” He stated curiously and grimly.

“Alright then.” I said.

He doesn’t know what’s beyond those walls. The DM said. Just tell him you have to go, I’m pulling you soon.

“Hey Sombra, I’m going to be leaving soon.” I said. “If you need me again, you have my token so that you can summon me again. Just, don’t call me in Tambelon. The ‘greater being’ that I follow won’t allow me to enter Tambelon, let alone see the inside.”

Blinking at this before giving a nod, as it seemed that ‘Ruby’ made it up the path also, if looking fractured. At Sombra’s motion took a translucent Crystal Case off ‘her’ back offering it to me. It looked like there was a book, some gem heart, and a note inside. “We offer these gifts as well, the book we have guessed may be as we hoped from success our own ‘token’ of summoning, good agent of beyond this realm.” He then bowed politely halfway, around that time, even from here, the heavy bashing made by two of those huge spider like constructs were hitting the city gates.

“Thanks.” I said, taking the case. “I know I could give you something. So, what could it be….. Oh, I know!” I looked to my hand, which was currently covered in Aetherium. I broke off a piece. It took the form of a ring in my robotic hand. “Here, take this. I don’t know what it’ll do, but I’m sure you’ll find a use for it.”

Blinking down at it, his fingers touched it causing a funny enough intense shiver of his entire fur coat that I could see. Though he looked at the size than nearly cross eyed at his own horn, before trying to put it on to see if it can be worn like that. I suppressed a chuckle as he held onto his head while the ring fully slid down and he grunted, the horn on his head shifting to look a natural if longer length by two inches but the horn now had some faint inlays of mana pulsing into it.

“Thank you, Sombra.” I said. A portal opened up behind me. “And that’s my exit out of here. I’ll see you around the Multiverse.” As I walked through the portal, I saw what looked like possibly Inquisitor Drogan from Warhammer. What the fuck?!

He stumbled out into the open from a violent portal when a Crystal Soldier had picked up the symbol for the Inquisition, with a ‘Ordo Zenos’ sort of carved on it. “It would seem Someone has need of Myself, Inquisitor Drogan is whom I be-” Was all i heard before the portal fully took me.

As I walked out through the other side of the portal, all I could wonder is why that ‘Inquisitor’ showed up.

I didn’t really have much time to think about that though, as I was assaulted by an angry Lyra.

“WHY ISN’T MY HOUSE FIXED?!” she screamed.

Well shit.

This day just gets weirder and weirder.

I had just gotten back from my trip into Sombra’s world…. right to an enraged Lyra.

“And where did you go?!” Lyra screamed at me. “You’re supposed to be helping out with repairing the house that YOU destroyed!”

“Um, I got summoned... “ I said. “Oh hey! Someone’s summoning me right now, better go.”

“No they’re not!” Lyra yelled at me.

“Too late, bye!” I said, teleporting off to Canterlot. “Whew. That was a close one. Can’t believe I got away from that. I’m going to have to apologize later, though.

As I walked to Canterlot Castle, I found a strange gear. It was hard to deny that it was a token, what with it being red with yellow teeth and an arc reactor in the middle of it. I could only guess it was an Iron Man Displaced.

"My name is Jacob, but you may know me better as Iron Man. I am a prankster, a warrior, an inventor, as well as a pal. If your intentions are good and you hold love in your hearts, I will be there to help you. If you need a shoulder to cry on, a partner in a mission, someone to talk to, or an ally in battle, just clutch this gear and call for my aid!"

Yep, called it. Iron Man Displaced.

“Hey, Jacob.” I called to the token. “Wanna talk and mess around a little?”

Meanwhile at the Legion of Doom, er I mean a lab:

I was sitting in my lab, tables surrounding me piled high with inventions or spare parts. Spider man left a while ago with the armor and the bike. He was nice, and now I am alone with my thoughts.

When alone, one could think many things. They could range from an equation to the most simple, yet complicating problem of them all. Why? Why did I still feel mad after one thousand years trapped in stone? That was easy, I have ADD and I got bored after a couple of hours. Why did I go to that fucking convention. Simple, I wanted to make my brothers happy. Now I just had one question on my mind, “Why did I introduce rock, alcohol, and fireworks to ponies?”

“The answer to that question is simple, sir.” said Jarvis. “You felt that like spreading cheer.”

“Yes Jarvis, but why?” I said with a hint of wit.

Jarvis replied with, “Sir, I don’t quite follow.”

“What I am saying Jarvis, is that I want to know what led me to do those things? The ponies didn’t seem like they needed them. Granted, they enjoyed them, but they weren't depressed or sad in the first place.”

“Perhaps in time, you’ll figure it out, sir.” Jarvis said with a small hint of care in his voice.

Suddenly, a voice appeared in my head. “Hey, Jacob. Wanna talk and mess around a little?” Sure why not. I stood up and extended my arms to open a portal. Once I made it wide enough, I then yelled, “Bubbles, we are off.” I lept through the portal and Bubbles along with me.

Back with Dox:

A portal opened up in front of me and out stepped a guy in an Iron Man suit. Looked like the Mark Fifty. Now, that’s all I expected to walk out. What walked out after Iron Man was what I didn’t expect. No, I didn’t expect an Ursa Minor to walk out from the portal behind him.

“HOLY CRAP!” I yelled, jumping back in surprise. I could have sworn I heard several of the Canterlot ponies yelling and running away. It would have been funny, but the Ursa was right in front of me. “What the heck man?! Why do you have an Ursa Minor?!”

Iron Man walked out from behind the giant star bear and said, “Why not? I have raised Bubbles to be kind and playful. She is adorable and has a passion for helping me smash stuff.”

“Alright, I’ve heard stranger things.” I said. “But why name it Bubbles? Couldn’t you have given her a better name more fitting to an Ursa, like Andromeda?”

“Easy, when she was a cub, she was adorable, small, powerful, and blue. What other things could I name her other than after a powerpuff girl?”

“Again, Andromeda.” I said. “Eh, you named it, and I’m not gonna criticize people I just met. Speaking of such, let me introduce myself. I am Dox Ad Finem, and you?”

Clearing his throat, he said, "Okay then, I'll give you my name. I am: the student of Surprise Pie, ace pie thrower, inventor of the party bomb, traveler of universes, adventurer, the Iron Man, to a certain abridged vampire, I am known as Michele McDoesn'texist, and I am also the guy who will fight tooth and nail to protect his friends, but you may call me Jacob.”

“Well then, hello Jacob and welcome to my universe.” I said. “So, I’ve called you here to hang out a bit. Honestly, I’m still trying to get over my trip to another Displaced’s universe. That Sombra.”

Jacob fell silent for a few minutes and put his head down. A dark red aura that only I seemed to be able to notice seemed to flow from him in multiple directions. Bubbles took a few steps back into a nearby park. His head looked up and the helmet retracted to reveal a slightly chubby guy with bags under his eyes, straight hair, and a look that could only be described as scary. I guess the old saying is true. Always fear the anger of a man who never gets angry. It is slow to come, yet terrifying to behold. I almost pissed myself. “What did you say?” He said in a quiet, almost inaudible tone. I could feel the anger and joy within him trying to overpower each other.

“I, uh, said something about Sombra?” I said. “What’s up with you and Sombra?”

“Before I say anything, I was wondering if we could go into a secluded area. Do you have a house that we could use?” Jacob said after he calmed down.

“I know a good spot, why?” I asked.

“It’s a long story that I don’t think that the ponies that are hiding from Bubbles will find enjoyable. Also I might need some coffee.” He said in a calm and collected tone.

“Alright then. If you’ll just allow me to grab you for a second.” I said, grabbing onto Jacob and Bubbles. I then teleported us to the rubble of the Royal Pony Sisters Castle. “And there we go. Nice secluded area.”

We both sat down while Bubbles walked off to find a playmate. He cleared his throat and began his tale, “It all began with a stupid decision and spiraled from there. Whether it is an upwards spiral or a downwards spiral is up to you. I bought this sweet helmet from this Resident Evil merchant at comic con. Once I put it on, my face was pulled into a large portal along with the rest of me. I landed in a clearing and figured out how to fly thanks to the data banks that Jarvis had stored. I climbed up a mountain and found Surprise, a small, joyful, white coated, yellow haired, purple eyed, party pegasus. We had a decent first impression, and decided to go to Cloudsdale. I know what you are going to say, “But Jacob, wouldn’t you just fall from the clouds? To answer that question, I took two of Surprise’s feathers and I put them in my boot. She didn’t seem to notice that I took them, so I didn’t get into any trouble. I met some friends of hers, and we hung out. A few hours later, I revealed that I was homeless, while Surprise said that she needed a roommate. I was also out of a job because of the fact that I didn’t have a cutie mark and wasn’t a griffin, minotaur, donkey, cow, mule, or some other sentient creature native to Equestria. Instead of kicking me out, like an average roommate, she took me under her wing and trained the crap out of me to be a great performer and eventually her partner. I still remember the montage of it. I could sing it if you want.”

“Wow, sounds like you two hit it off pretty well.” I said. “But what does this all have to do with Sombra? How does he get involved?”

“I’m getting to that.” He said in a nice, yet serious voice. “Four years of training, labor, good deeds, and building a pretty kickass lab, both Surprise and I decided to go on a little trip to the Crystal Empire for some skiing. We had no idea about the battle that was currently raging on, so when we arrived there, we were quite surprised. Corrupted crystal soldiers vs pegasi aerial defence mixed with an earth pony strike force. The unicorns had to stay at Canterlot to act as a last line of defence. While singing some stuff from mission impossible, we snuck into the main castle and made it to Sombra. He was in a solid form when we first saw him. Surprise and I said that we wanted this to stop because we would like to ski. The king responded by firing a magic bolt that froze Surprise in a crystal prison. Before I could try to break it with my repulsor blasts, Sombra said that if I harmed the barrier, I would destroy Surprise, my one true friend. I then stated that magic can wear off, or just become next to useless. Sombra replied by saying that it would take almost a thousand years for the trap to wear off. I then charged at him with everything that I got. Magic met lasers while rocket punches met hooves in a blinding array of combat. I fired a barrage of missiles at him, he turned into shadow. I activated my hulkbuster suit, he summoned crystal armor. We were so evenly matched, that the battle took two hours. Both Sombra’s and my body ached all over. The thing is that Sombra had a trick up his sleeve. He summoned a dark crystal heart, and teleported me and all of Celestia’s army eight hundred miles out of the empire. I was going at mach five trying to reach the empire, but I was too late.” His voice then turned sad as I saw his voice drop. “He put the empire in a locked time bubble, which either sent the empire into the future, or froze it in a single moment in time. At this point, I broke down. I had just lost my best friend, and the one responsible for it was long gone. With a heavy heart, I returned to Cloudsdale to find that royal guards were waiting for me. I was sent to a fake trial that was so rigged, that an infant was my defence attorney. After making it official, I was sentenced to be turned to stone. After a thousand years of staring at the same bush of roses, singing “One hundred billion bottles of beer on the wall” for about a hundred times, I have finally escaped and with to get justice.” He calmed down and said. “That is why I have a problem with Sombra.” At this time, Bubbles returned with a hydra. Bubbles didn’t have any scars, but the hydra was bruised, beaten, and unconscious. Jacob then used a potion from a pocket in his suit that I didn’t see before, and that healed up the hydra. Once the hydra saw Bubbles, he ran for his life. Iron man then turned to Bubbles and said, “Next time, be gentle.”

“Wow. That sounds rough.” I said. “But hey, if you’re willing for spoilers, I can give you one.”

“I am fine with spoilers, so shoot” He said with a calm look.

“Well, first off, do you know of a show called My Little Pony?” I asked. “The reason I asked is because this world is essentially that, but with variations because of us Displaced. If you know the timeline of the show, then you’ll find that the world generally follows that timeline. So, if you’ve faced a changeling invasion recently, the Crystal Empire should show up soon.”

Iron Man stood there for a good twenty seconds before facepalming. “Why didn’t I see this sooner? It was so obvious.” He then let out an exasperated huff. “Can I at least troll the Celestia of this universe? It might give me some closure.”

“Well, why not troll your universe’s Celestia?” I asked. “I mean, I kinda have a thing with mine…. Even if she did originally try to kill me.” I then realized what I had just said. “B-but she never meant to!”

“I don’t know about yours, and I think that I forgot to mention this in my backstory, Celestia took all of my research. While some of it is good, like the medigun or the cure for the common cold, some of the things were from weapon’s development. For all I know, she could have an army of iron stallions.” He said with a small look of fear on his face.

“Well damn.” I said. “Sounds like you could have used my help more than I could be using yours. I mean, I just wanna have some fun… Unless Lyra or BonBon shows up….. Speaking of them, you wouldn’t happen to know how to instantly construct a house, would you?”

“Give me access to my lab, all of my drones, and about a metric ton of steel and stone, and I can make a pallice for them... in about three hours.” He said.

“Well, I can’t get you the steel and stone, and they don’t want a palace.” I said, opening my magic satchel. “What I can get you is the materials they already have at the construction site and a rift in space time…. Oh wait, no I can’t. I don’t have my Runic Portal Matrix. Sorry man.”

“It’s okay dude, I’ll just use my portal tech.” I said as I opened a small portal to my lab. “Wanna have a peak?”

“Sure, why not?” I said.

We then spelunked into the portal and landed on a small sofa. I then turned to a grinning Iron Man. “You finally have a purpose for something other than an excuse to play videogames or company.” He said while petting the couch. He then stood up and said in a very assertive voice. “Jarvis, activate drones fifty to one hundred and get as much steel as you can from the basement storage facilities.” He then turned to me and said, “You go explore this place, and try to find anything useful. I also would like to know where you got Hyperion tech?”

“There’s a displaced Jack.” I said. “Wait a sec, how’d you know I have Hyperion Tech on me? I never mentioned it.”

He then put on a Sherlock Holmes hat that he pulled out of nowhere, and said, “It’s clear from the smell of machine grease, fluid motion of your arm, and the fact that you have a tiny Hyperion logo on your false eye. It’s quite well hidden and I almost didn’t notice it. The other reason that I knew that was because most robotic eyes are red because of the fact that they would use infrared vision, while yours is bright blue. It lowered my guesses to me or Handsome Jack, and seeing as how I never met you before, you got it from either a Handsome Jack displaced or the real deal. You, Dox, just lowered my guesses.” He said all of this in a pretty good Sherlock Holmes voice while pointing a bubble pipe at me.

“Uh….” I said. “I think I’m gonna go take a walk.”

I got off the couch and started walking around the place that Jacob called home. Let me tell you, there was a lot of advanced things here, a lot of it far from my understanding. I got lost while observing all of it. It really didn’t help that his place was like a maze.

“Jacob?” I called out. “Hello! I’m kinda lost in a huge laboratory!”

“Do you need help, sir?” Said Jarvis on a random microphone.

“Um, yeah. I’m kinda lost.” I said, looking around for the source of Jarvis’ voice. “Hey, where the heck are you anyways?”

“I am capable of controlling and communicating through all tech in this facility.” Jarvis said. “What room in particular are you looking for?”

“I’m just trying to find Jacob.” I said. “I mean, I got lost looking around, and I think I’d rather be around the guy that can actually send me back.”

Just as I said that, my stomach rumbled. As soon as this happened, Jarvis said, “Alert, I am sensing increased activity in your abdominal area otherwise known as, hunger. Am I correct, Sir?”

“Um, yeah.” I said. “Man, I’m glad Athena doesn’t do that. Creepy.”

“Well then, I will have to direct you to the dining room. I may be an AI system, but I am still a butler.” Jarvis said in a calm voice. “I sent hundreds of nanobots out to go shopping and they should be back. I am even getting reports of an old griffin that sold us meat. The way there is through the eighteenth tunnel on your left” Jarvis said. “I will now prepare lunch.”

“Okay.” I said, following Jarvis’ directions. “So, what’s for lunch?”

“Meat lover’s deep dish pizza with a side of cider and a bushel of grapes.” said Jarvis.

“Alright then. I’m more of a normal pepperoni man, but hey, I’m not gonna shun free food.” I said.

“How about I give you a slice of each?” said Jarvis. “After all, you are the guest and I am the butler. Too bad that the host is too busy amassing an army of construction drones.”

“Yeah, too bad.” I said. “Hey wait, can’t you take over his armor and kinda force him to come over here?”

“NEVER!” Jarvis said in a mad voice. “I would never do that unless if his life was in danger or he ordered autopilot. Forceful takeover is against nearly every single code in my command.”

“Alright, sheesh.” I said. “Sorry I suggested it. How about you open a link to him instead so I can talk with him.”

“I apologise for my outburst earlier, I will open a chat to Jacob” he said in a slightly apologetic voice before a hologram popped up out of nowhere and then showed Iron man in the Hulkbuster armor, “Sup” he waved to me.

“Hey Jacob. Want some lunch?” I asked. “I mean, there’s pizza over where I am.”

As I was saying this, a puff of confetti burst over a chair next to me and Iron man was there. “How’s it hanging?”

“How’d you…. Know what, I don’t care.” I said. “I’ve seen plenty of strange shit, and this doesn’t even come close. Hell, this is what I do when I teleport.” I burst into shadowstuff and reappeared in the chair next to Jacob. “Sup.”

“I need an adult.” Iron man said in a childlike voice.

“I am an adult.” I said, immediately laughing like a madman afterwards with Jacob joining in.

The pizza came in and we talked while we ate.

“So, you asked earlier how I got Hyperion tech.” I said. “I told you it was from a displaced Handsome Jack, but let me tell you, he’s nothing like the Borderlands 2 game. He’s honestly one of the better displaced I’ve met so far. In fact, he pretty much just gave me the arm on the fly. I lost it from a Fell Shadow taking my sword and lopping it off. It hurt like hell, let me tell you. But if it wasn’t for Jack, I’d just have my one arm. He even put an AI in it, but that AI turned out to be a lot more advanced than what he intended. Well…. him and F.A.U.S.T. Now that AI has its own body… and is kinda one of my lovers…. who I technically proposed to with a legendary Hyperion Shotgun….. Yeah, when we get back to my world, please don’t tell any of the others that I’m involved with about that. I plan on telling them later, as well as proposing to them, too. So, for now it’s need to know only, so be quiet about it.”

“Don’t worry about that, I’ll keep my mouth shut. Also, damn, the worst I ever had to deal with was a technovore trying to eat my heart out while I was conscious. Speaking of eating hearts, I saw what the species of your world looked like and I can now say this. Furries, eat your hearts out!” He said with a triumphant smile.

“Yeah, about that.” I said. “They weren’t always like that. Thanks to the overgod being only known as the Dungeon Master, they’re anthro now. Also, let me tell you, that whole arm being cut off thing, not even close to my worst. I’ve been impaled, shot by arrows, hell, while Celestia was under the influence of the Fell Shadow that cut off my arm, she killed me. Turned me to stone, then smashed me with a hammer. Took my stuff, too.”

“About that. I got one that can top them all. Ever been to hell? While I was my old self, I was thrust there by a wizard that I pissed off and had to play the devil in a fiddle competition after being tortured. I won in the end and bitch slapped the wizard.” I almost didn’t believe him, but I couldn’t find a tell on his face. Either he had a really good poker face, or he was telling the truth.

“Alright.” I said. “Sounds pretty intense. I mean, sent to hell? Having to play a fiddle contest against the devil? Pretty metal. I don’t know about my version of hell, but I know there’s multiple ones of them. I’m not joking. Since my world is connected to D&D, there’s an entire plane of existence set for hell, and there’s nine in it. There’s also Tartarus, which is probably where you went, but I’m not one to judge. They’re both pretty bad.”

“I can still play if you want me to.”

“I’d like that.” I said. “Hey, maybe I could play with you. I’ve dabbled in bass and cello a bunch…. Well, more like I dabbled in bass and played cello as my main. I’m not one to brag, but I was pretty good…. Then I got sent here. It’s been months since I’ve touched a cello. You wouldn’t happen to have one, would you?”

“One sec,” said Jacob. He pulled out a remote and activated an elevator, and it went up to reveal an entire orchestra of handcrafted instruments. Jacob scratched the back of his head, “I had some free time.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of free time.” I said. “I mean, those look like they were handcrafted by a master. How the hell did you get that much free time? It takes a long time to make an instrument properly, let alone master the craft.”

“I couldn’t sleep one night and I decided that I could use an orchestra to get me to go to sleep. After some trial and error, I made my first violin.” He picked it up and played a short but beautiful melody that almost made me lose myself. He set it down and picked up a thirty piece drum set. He played a simple tune to wake me up and then said, “I made these based off of the schematics that Jarvis had. He then stepped off the drums and picked up a cello that would make Octavia green with envy. “This one, however, is one that I call, il Mio Bambino, or my child. It is fashioned out of timberwolf hearts and has a certain property to it that lets the sound travel for miles before dispersing and never sounds too loud. The rest I crafted in a matter of weeks. I was sleeping like a baby after that.” He then turned to me and thought for a bit. He slowly handed it to me. “It’s yours if you want it.”

“I couldn’t.” I said. “But hey, if you’re giving it away, far be it from me to stop you.” I took the cello from him. “Hey, you have a chair that I can sit and play on?”

Jacob then pulled one of the chairs off the dining room table and then said, “This should do.”

“It does, and I feel stupid now.” I said, taking the chair and sitting down. “Hey, where’s the bow?”

I then saw Jacob chuckle and take out a bow that had a string on it that was still, yellow, and seemed to like my hand’s embrace. “Horsehair, one of the things that can be used to make a nice bowstring. Or in this case, pony hair. In fact, that is Surprise’s mane hair.”

“Ew.” I said. “I mean, not complaining, again, I’ve seen crazy shit, but still, did you at least clean it?”

“Yes, I make sure to sterilize anything that I take that could possibly have agents of disease on it.” Jacob said with an annoyed tone. “Besides, it’s not like I took one of her tail hairs. I am not that disgusting.”

“Sorry for assuming.” I said. “So, any suggestions, or should I just pick?”

“You pick, you are the guest after all.” he said politely.

“All right then, you asked for it.” I said.

I started playing a familiar tune, but slowly but surely, it developed into another song altogether. I still had no idea how when I played, all the other parts just happened to come out as well, but hey, I’m not gonna judge it. I will judge Jacobs face, though. He looked surprised for some reason, but I couldn’t tell why.

“What?” I asked after I finished the song, noticing he had the same look on his face. “What is it?”

“You made shadow clones of yourself while playing. I would like to know how you did that.” said Jacob as he slowly walked over to me.

“I did what?” I asked, genuinely surprised. “What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t do anything.”

“If you think that I am lying, then why don’t you watch this.” Jacob said. “Here, I’ll show you.” As soon as he said this, he stuck his hand out and a security video popped up. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw eight of me playing that song. Jacob then turned around and said, “So, still don’t believe me? I have surveillance nanobots all over this place. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a few on your hoodie or your leather shoes.”

“Get them off. Get them off. GET THEM OFF!” I yelled at Jacob. “I know you want security, but I am NOT willing to have a ton of nanobots on me! Who knows what you’re doing with them?! I mean, I can’t tell if you’re trying to get specks of my stuff or not. Obtaining Hyperion schematics is highly against the rules!”

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t think of taking Hyperion schematics, if there is one thing that Jack and I can’t stand, it's theaves. The nanobots will leave when I give the order. Nanobots, dismissed!” All of a sudden, one hundred nanobot glowed bright and flew off of me.

“Thanks.” I said. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I’d rather not have Jack mad at me. Trust me, he’s scary when he’s mad. Hell, I was fighting the Warrior, called him up during the fight, and he brought down a giant laser. Got home and was told some things about Luna that I’d rather not repeat right now. Let’s just say the laser was powered by the moon.”

“Ah, the orbital death ray, I tried to get a satellite up there, but Luna kept shooting it down, thinking that someone was trying to blow up the moon.” Jacob said in a nice tone. He then got a shocked look on his face and said, “Shit, the construction drones! They were probably done hours ago.” He then grabbed me and ‘il mio bambino’ and we disappeared into a puff of confetti.

Upon reappearing in the room he first showed me, I immediately coughed up some confetti from the strange teleportation. “WHAT THE FUCK?!” I yelled. “Warn me next time you do that!”

“Sorry.” He said in a sheepish tone. “The drones are ready and we have a house to build.” He turned over to his army. “Let’s move out!” with all of that, we marched straight into the portal.

After about an hour of trying to get back to town, and explaining to Lyra and BonBon what the hell was going on, plus another three hours of building, we were done, and Jacob sent the drones back to his world. Lyra and BonBon had thanked us and gone inside to do…. something, and locked us out, leaving me and my iron suited friend to our own devices.

“So, now that that’s done with….” I said. “Wanna go mess with some ponies?”

“Sure, but I get to blow up Tia’s cake vault.” The fool said as he ran off to Canterlot making a road runner ‘meep meep’ sound.

“He’s gonna get so punched in the face when he learns what happened.” I said.

Off in Canterlot, Luna and Celestia were having a nice day. The court had been called to a close early, and they were just enjoying some tea and cake, when:

An explosion happened on the east side of the building.The guards were all tied up then and the claptraps were chasing a decoy.A tall, red, laughing figure was flying at mach ten, away from the explosion.Bluebelle was bitch slapped

Luna, who had been covered in cake from the explosion, looked to her sister, who was somehow not covered in cake at all.

“Luna, I know you’re mad.” Celestia said.

“Yes, I am Tia.” Luna said. “What about it?”

“I am giving you my blessing to go and smack the one who did it.” Celestia said.

“Who said I needed your blessing?” Luna said, spreading her wings and taking off.

“And there goes Luna…..” I said. “OH! That’s gotta hurt.”

Let me explain what I just saw, Luna just sent Iron Man flying into the ground…. The ground in front of me….

“You okay, Jacob?” I asked. “You took one mighty tumble there. I should have warned you about who the actual ruler was here and what happens when you mess with her.”

“First off, ya think? Next, I am going to make my armor one that can stand up to Luna, but I need the go to from you, seeing how this is your world.” Iron man said in a simple tone.

“Yeah, no.” I said. “No, I’m not putting my Lulu at risk. She means a bit too much to me. Plus, I’m pretty sure with all the differences between the worlds, you wouldn’t be getting good data.”

“I was talking about using the endosymbiotic armor. It has the ability to stand up to Luna because it absorbs both electromagnetic and magic fields. It wouldn’t physically harm her. What kind of Luna fan would I be if Luna got hurt.” He then got punched in the face.

“That will teach thou to blow up our cake!” Luna screamed in anger.

“Luna, calm down.” I said. “You slipped back into the royal we.”

“But he blew up our cake!” Luna screamed. “All of it got into our-er, my mane!”

“It’s okay Luna.” I said. “He’ll make it up to you. Right, Jacob?”

“I can’t feel my anything and for the record Luna, I was simply getting revenge on Celestia. I didn’t mean to get you in the crossfire.” Said Iron Man in a pained, yet defencive voice.

Luna simply flipped him the double bird, and shot out lasers at him, hitting him where his nips would be.

“Luna! What did I just say?!” I yelled at the Princess of the Moon. “Now, I want you to apologize, or no snu snu for you!”

Luna’s face turned into one of shock before she ran over to Jacob and picked him up back onto his feet.

“I’m sorry!” Luna said eagerly. “I’m so sorry!”

“Nah, It’s cool. I’ll just need to go to a hospital.” As soon as he said this, he coughed up blood. “Mom? Is that you? I want my money back.” After he said this, he fainted.

“Great. Just great.” I said. “See what you did Luna? Now he’s in such a state that we can’t heal him fast enough. Lucky for you, I have really good spells.”

I turned back to Jacob, who was passed out on the floor, leaking blood from his armor. I put my hands out and focused on the spell that I meant to cast. When I was done, the blood was gone, Jacob was awake, and his armor was fixed….. Sadly, I was not. Immediately after fixing Jacob, I turned my head away and coughed up some rainbow blood, which dissolved into nothing upon touching the ground.

“Man I hate having to do that!” I said.

Jacob turned to look at me and summoned a portal, “Jarvis!” he shouted, “Summon the medical bots, I have a debt to pay.” The minute he said this, three robots came out. They looked like the animaniacs. The tall one had a medigun while the female one had a nurse outfit, and the third one was in a dog suit, for what reason I don’t know. The tall one pointed a medigun at me and fired. I stood up feeling as good as new.

“Wow, pretty good healing, doc.” I said. “Thanks.”

At that moment, a pony with a short cut mane and tail and wearing glasses, a labcoat, and a backpack came running by yelling ‘Octoberfest’ before running away. I could have sworn he had a red cross in a circle on his labcoat and backpack.

The Wacko like one turned to me and said, “Good night everybody.” Then I got a lolly pop from the Dot looking one.

“Um, thanks?” I said. I turned to Jacob. “Did you just see the Medic pony running by, or am I crazy?”

“Perhaps TF2 is canon?” said Jacob.

“I don’t even know.” I said. “I don’t even know.”

“Wait a second, that was the doctor that Ponyville Hospital reported about!” Luna said. She ran off after him yelling, “GET BACK HERE YOU SCOUNDREL!” And with that, she was gone.

“Well, now that we’re alone again, let’s go have some fun.” I said. “Unless you’d rather just go.”

“Actually, I felt good when I summoned the Animedicacs or gave you the cello. Perhaps there is still some good that I can still do.” Jacob said in a surprisingly mature voice.

“So, is that a yes to messing with ponies?” I asked. “I mean, I have just about nothing else to do, so yeah.”

“Do you have any abilities that you need help with.” Jacob said.

“Well, my magnetism could use some work.” I said.

“I got it, instead of using magnetism to affect things on a bigger scale, try to magnetise the nueons that are around each electron and focus the energy in one direction. Then you can make a natural concussive blast. Try it.” He said with determination.

“A concussive blast, eh?” I said. “Can we take this out to somewhere that’s less inhabited?”

“Sure, I would recommend Everfree. Just a warning, I am going to teleport us.” As he said this, he grabbed my shoulder and teleported. I was prepared this time, as I had my hand over my mouth. When we got to the Everfree, I focused too hard on the atoms that I messed up. Jacob then cleared his throat and said, “Clear your mind, young one.”

“Hey, no Star Wars on me, man.” I said. “You’re talking to the king of nerds back on my Earth.”

“Well King Nerd, meet Emperor Geek.” he said,

“Yeah, yeah.” I said. I focused and tried to feel around for the atoms in front of me. I eventually found a feel for one and tried to send it towards a tree. What resulted was essentially a big Hadoken.

After seeing my decent blast, Jacob got up and did a kamehameha on thirty feet of trees and it led a path to Bubbles playing with the CMC. “Try meditation, it tends to work better with a sharper mind. Although that is a nice start. You can also make an EMP wave.”

“Nice. But what the hell is up with everyone being able to do a Kamehameha?!” I said. “Seriously, first Kat, now you! And the meditating thing sounds like my first teacher!”

He couldn’t help but chuckle, “I think that all of us learned from experience. That and the fact that I got that from the smile HD powerboost.”

“Smile HD powerboost… WHAT?!” I yelled.

“Long story.” said Jacob as I was panicking.

“No no no.” I said. “You’re telling me. I want to know about this shit, ‘cause as far as I know right now, you could go crazy and try and kill everyone.”

He noticed my fear and sighed. “Fine, I’ll first have to explain what gives a party person his/ her power. The party person’s power and nonsensical abilities come from joy, laughter, cheer, and anger, don’t ask. When a party person is too low on these emotions, they become fragile and easily hurt, thus they go into a protective mentality, Pinkamena for Pinkie, Shock Value for Surprise, and, as you saw for a short time, Mr. Hyde for me. These personas are aggressive, mean, but caring at heart. On the opposite end of the equation, we have High Domain mode, or HD for short. This happens when we make over a hundred people happy and can be unleashed at will. And before you ask, no, it will not make anyone murder crazy. That video was just that, a video. Just think of HD mode as Super Saiyan 2. The only reason that I would kill anyone would be if there was no other solution.”

“Wow. Okay then.” I said. “So that’s pretty interesting. Not sure if I want to see that though, but lets go have some fun.”

“Well, I used to be a performer, want to see that?” Jacob said.

“Why not.” I said.

“Awesome. You seem to be well liked around here, so I want you to go get an audience. Just be sure not to tell them anything about it and to keep the seniors and infants home. Wouldn’t want to damage them. I’ll go get my drones and build a stage, and get some musical drones for the drums and what not.” Jacob was almost ecstatic at this.

“Right, I’ll meet you back by the town hall.” I said, setting off to go find an audience.

About an hour later of running through Ponyville and gathering an audience, I was at town hall, where a stage had been erected. How did I acquire the audience, you ask? I went running around screaming like a complete moron. For some reason, everyone decided, ‘Hey, let’s go check out what our hero is running around and screaming about’ and followed me here.

“AAAAAAAAaaaaaaah…. We’re here!” I shouted to the ponies who had followed me.

The stage lights turned on and everyone got in their seats or spots on the floor. As soon as that happened, the curtains opened up to reveal Iron Man and three drones in suits. Iron Man was on the guitar, while two of the other drones were on drums and backup vocals. The final drone looked to be a backup vocalist, but it also held a bass guitar.

Now, if there’s anything I can’t stand for, it’s robots playing music. I could deal with it for this one time, but there’s no way in hell I’m letting a drone play bass. I walked up on stage, yelled at the drone to get off, rejected the bass it tried to give me, and pulled out my own from nowhere.

“So, uh, what are we playing?” I asked, plugging in my bass and checking the level. “Looks like a band set up. Which song?”

“I figured that these ponies like Celestia, then ‘Here comes the Sun’ by the Beatles would be a good choice.” After he said this, he started to play a small rift on the guitar, which he then started to sing. As he did this, both the backup drone and I started to make do do do sounds. After about twenty seconds of this, Jacob started to sing.

“Here comes the sun, do do do.

Here comes the sun, and I say it's alright.”

A light drumbeat started to play and so did I, and that seemed to get the audience’s attention.

“Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter.

Little darling, it seems like it has been years since I have been here.

Here comes the sun, do do do.

Here comes the sun, it's alright.

Little darling, the smiles are returning to the faces.

Little darling, it seems like it has been years since I have been here.

Here comes the sun,

And I say it’s all right.

Sun sun sun, here it comes

Sun sun sun, here it comes!”

The chorus then began.

Sun sun sun, here it comes!

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting

Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been clear

Here comes the sun, do do do.

Here comes the sun, and I say, It’s all right.

Here comes the sun, do do do.

Here comes the sun!

It’s all right

It’s all right!

The song then ended with a guitar riff and a pleased audience.

“That was pretty fun.” I said. “But uh, how is it messing with ponies?”

“Just wait for it.” As he said this, a giant, sun shaped hot air balloon came over the audience and rained down a bunch of sun shaped cream pies. I was wondering how the fuck he stuck that over here, while Jacob was laughing his ass off. He then turned towards the ponies. “I warned you!”

“Dude, that is hilarious, but I’m pretty sure you’re gonna wanna go home before they kill you.” I said.

“Don’t worry. They seem to like the pies.” He then pulled out a pie. “Want one?”

“No thanks.” I said. “Hey, is that Luna over there?” I waved off to the dark blue figure over in the back of the audience, and sure enough, it was Luna. I waved for her to come up to the stage.

“The scoundrel got away.” Luna said as she approached. “He has yet to live another day out in the normal world, shouting about beer and calling himself a god.”

“Wow. Sounds like a crazy medic I knew about.” I said.

“Hey don’t blame Dr. Wacko, it is just a name.” said Jacob.

“I am not talking about your machine.” Luna said. “I’m talking about the stallion that ran by while your machine was healing Dox. He stole a patient’s skeleton.”

“Why not enlist him in the guard? Wait Luna, before you kill me or insult my intelligence, I have an idea. He will do anything not to go to jail, and will just love to mess with ponies body parts. Why not put him on the front lines. If he dies, then you don’t lose anything and if he doesn't then he will be an asset. Perhaps you could put him with other members of a rouge’s gallery.” said Jacob with a wise look.

“He’s insane.” Luna said. “That’s the reason why. I’ve thought about enlisting him before this whole mess, but he’s since gone insane. He was a good medic already, then he stole a skeleton. I had heard about his breakthroughs in healing, how he made someone invincible for a short time, how he was able to do a complete heart transplant while a patient was conscious. The second he stole a skeleton, he went insane, though. My only intent right now is to lock him up and get him some help.”

“Have you tried to appeal to his demented side. It might make you able to see why he did what he did, and get him to calm down.” Said Jacob.

“Trust me, I’ve tried.” Luna said.

“Then why did he do it.” Said Jacob.

“Like I said, he went insane.” Luna said. “He just ‘felt like it’.”

“Listen, Jacob, I don’t think you’re gonna get anywhere with this.” I said. “That guy is crazy, and has been running around even before I got here. We’re not gonna get to stop him.”

“Fine, I might know where he is.” confessed Jacob.

“Wait what?” Luna and I said simultaneously.

“He is backstage, tied up with a beer bottle shoved in his mouth. He tried to attack me, saying that I stole the schematics for his Medigun.” Said Jacob.

“Wow. He is a nut.” I said. “Thanks Jacob.”

“Finally I can bring this crackjob in.” Luna said with a sigh. “I thank you, ironclad being. I shall now take him to the insane asylum in Canterlot, where he will get good treatment.” And with that, she took off for back stage.

“Again, thanks man.” I said. “Today’s been pretty fun with you.”

“Indeed it has.” said Iron Man as he laid down. When he did this, the audience that I summoned was running to us saying “Encore! Encore! Encore!”

Iron Man then said, “You want to run or do as they say. I’m up for both.”

“Let’s give them what they want.” I said. “But, uh, we’re gonna need a different instrumentation. Like, we’re gonna need a band. How good are you with a trumpet?”

In response to my question, Jacob pulled out a trumpet and took off his helmet before saying, “Let’s do this.” Immediately afterwards, a bunch of drones showed up with instruments. It was like my high school jazz band all over again. Good times.

“Alright then.” I said confidently. “One, two. One, two, three, FOUR!”

After a while of playing, and I don’t just mean the two songs, the audience finally started going home.

“Wow, I haven’t done a performance like that since….” I said. “Well, since before I came here. That was a ton of fun. Thanks Jacob.”

“I live to make people smile. Speaking of smiles, any ideas on how to not get destroyed by Celestia when we meet.” said Iron Man.

“Yeah, try to have something that counters magic.” I said. “And possibly expect a war hammer. I don’t know. Mine had one, some others do, too. I’m not entirely sure what to expect, except for the magic.”

“Mine had a giant, anime style, sword that shot fire. I’ll see what I can do. Perhaps I could befriend the current elements of harmony and have the moral high ground in the face off.”

“That’d probably be your best bet.” I said. “So, you ready to go home?”

“Sure, I am. Be sure to call me if you need me, I am just a universe away.” He opened a portal up and had the music drones march back inside. He gave me a salute and walked inside. Before he did so, he said, “Tell DM that I said hi.” This left me with a what the fuck face.

“How the hell did he know about him?” I said.

Date Night

Man, that Iron Man guy was weird. I’m still wondering how he knew about the DM, even though I never mentioned him. Then again, he did say he practiced under a party pony.

Well, it didn’t matter anyways. If anything, it just meant I had less people to tell about him.

In the meantime, however, I had more pressing matters. I had nothing else to do again, and upon thinking of things to do, I thought of taking the girls all out on either a date, or dates. The issue with the whole thing was planning, and for that, I’d have to get to them and ask them what they’d rather do for a date… If not subtly stalk them. When did I turn into a creeper?

Anyways, off to Canterlot!

I never made it past the front door of the currently ‘under restoration’ Canterlot Castle, which had about half of the building condemned until it was repaired. No, instead I was tackled by the robotic changeling Sapphire, her blue lights and accents shining as she had an eager expression while I was dragged inside. “Oh~ I know that look! Got something kinky planned?” I asked, but wasn’t given a response aside from hearing her gritty artificial and gentle cicada-like purr as she continued to literally drag me through the halls.

About five minutes later, I was blindfolded and feebly tried to resist as I was stripped naked by what sounded and felt like all of my significant others, and then confusingly dressed in something that was both comfortable, yet uncomfortable, and then teleported.

When the blindfold came off, it was revealed that I had been teleported to a restaurant, and a fancy one at that made of marble with golden chandeliers, candelabras, and mahogany tables. Apparently, I had been forcibly taken out on a date by Sapphire. She wasn’t the only one there, though. No, Luna, Celestia, Athena, and Emerald were there alongside Sapphire, all dressed in elegant robes and dresses matching their colors, and for some reason, so was...oh shit. Bluebelle was here too! She was dressed just like Tia, in a very sexy and elegant golden and white robe that matched her perfectly. She looked extremely uncomfortable though, and was crossing her arms over her huge bust as her ears were bent back, her cheeks flushed, and she nervously glanced about.

“Uh, hi girls.” I said. “What’s going on?”

Tia nudged Bluebelle, and she whispered into her ear, getting Blue to blush even harder. “A-Aunties and these three wished to have some nice, quality time with you. And I’m here because...I...have to get used to...this.” Blue uncrossed her arms and lifted up her massive breasts by their bottoms for emphasis, lifting them up to almost her chin, getting me to bristle and Tia to whisper into her ear again, and she promptly stopped in embarrassment. “Sorry...not...used to...ugh….” She sighed and looked away, only to blink and look away as she briskly walked towards a huge table in the corner that was clearly for us.

I was confused, until I looked where she looked and frowned at the openly ogling stallion several tables down, who upon seeing he’d been caught, stopped staring. ‘I know she was a royal ass, but I’m not about to let someone be so objectified.’ Planning to keep an eye out for pervs, I approached the table, but was forced into the corner seat next to a flustered Bluebelle, who being the proverbial...uh...seventh wheel, was put next to me so she couldn’t avoid conversation. “S-so...how’s uh...being a mare?”

“Taxing. These breasts are so prominent, they practically dominate my life currently.” Blue bemoaned, poking one of her chest boulders, getting me to blush and Tia, who was right next to her to whisper again-oh god no. Looking at them, together, like this, made them seem like mother and daughter! No! Bad thoughts! But why did they have to be so sexy! NO! Stop thinking with your dick, Dox! Pull it together! You’re on a date with your loves, which you already have plenty of. “A-auntie!” Blue harshly whispered back, making me wonder what was said to, why was she blush-uh….

Luna, who was next to me, pushed me into Blue, who was pushed into my by Tia, and we were both intimately forced into sharing space, practically cheek-to-cheek, her right chest globe being pressed into my chest, and we were both incredibly flustered. “Um...Blue...I….”

“Aunties, PLEASE let us go.” Blue pleaded, but she shifted too much, and we ended up with our lips pressed to each other, looking into each other’s eyes in shock and confusion. Why were her lips so soft? It took us several moments to realize the mischievous diarchs had released us, and we slowly pulled away. “W-what...what just...I….” Blue was clearly as confused as me, and blinked as she rubbed her forehead under her horn. “What was that?”

“That, my niece, is the sensation of responding to the opposite sex. Sorry Dox, but she isn’t going to be getting to change back, whatever did it, made it permanent.” Tia commented, and hugged Blue to her side, pressing their equally-sized bosoms together. “As her mother-figure, I cannot let her be so disadvantaged in her prime. She needs heirs after all.”

“H-heirs?!” Both I and Blue squeaked with furious blushes, and we both looked at each other in a mixture of revulsion, and slight curiosity. “With Him/Her?!”

“Why not? After all you are...compatible.” Luna said to me huskily, and she grabbed my hand, and put it to her abdomen, getting me to gasp as she and all the other girls save Blue beamed at me. “You thought we wouldn’t be able to tell? I haven’t craved meat in centuries.”

“Wow.” I said. “But seriously, why are you trying to set me with Blue? We already have a huge thing with all of us!”

“This is nothing!” Sapphire blurted out in laughter, her slightly mechanical tone chirping and lilting. “You have no idea! I’ve seen a cloister of drones with over seventeen participants! All devoted! It was such a mess to clean up later when they spontaneously erupted into an orgy one day~.”

“Saph, why did you have to mention that? That was such an embarrassing thing to say, even if neither of us were part of it.” Emerald chastised softly, before looking me in the eyes from her position across the table. “At least for us changelings, we can end up having massive communal relationships, ponies are known to herd with up to ten members sometimes, and griffons still have prides.”

“One male, several females is the rule then.” Athena informed, blitzing her glass of wine without a care, her systems would protect the cub’s egg from harmful intake. “I personally don’t see the issue. Bend her over right here little brother, give us a show.” Athena grinned, and the mares all save Blue burst into laughter, the rest of the restaurant respectfully ignoring them since the corner was warded with a muffling charm I could sense really going to work right now.

I meanwhile, blushed at the joke. “You girls… You girls are weird in your humor sometimes.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Blue snorted as she rolled her eyes, grinning at me. “One time, they actually made public fornication legal for a day, just to see if anypony would have the balls to do it. Well...it was an interesting day.” Blue chuckled, her lilting and harmonic voice turning it into a giggle, and I snorted too, imagining such a display.

“Sounds like a real clusterfuck.” I said, laughing, and Blue joined in along with all the girls. “Okay, okay, so. Aside from trying to get me and Blue to hook up, when we’ve hated each other since we met, what’s up with you all lately? I’ve been kinda swamped with all this bullcrap.”

“To be fair, I only disliked you because you were a threat at the time.” Blue injected, getting me to blink. “To the ‘Order of Things’ that had been established. Well, you’ve already blown it all to hell, literally and figuratively, and a few weeks of basic has beaten some humility into me.” Blue said, smiling at me genuinely. “Ironic, isn’t it? I hated you because you represented something I feared, yet now that it’s happened...I’m...not as lonely, or as outright unhappy as before. I have you to thank for ripping me from my comfort zone. Now I just have to get used to the title of ‘Princess’ Bluebelle.”

“And I’m very proud of you dear.” Tia said warmly to Blue, kissing her on the brow, making Blue perk her ears and beam. Wow...she was beautiful when she was smiling.

“I… I don’t know what to say.” I said. “Ya know, I did kinda hate you when we first met, but only because of your attitude. But it sounds like because of what I did, you became a better pony. To think, you used to be a spoiled brat, now you’re a lot better.”

“I’ve been a right bitch, haven’t I?” Blue asked sadly with a tone of self-depreciation. “I’ll try to avoid that. It’s no way for a Lady to behave. In fact, it’s no way for a Lord to behave either. I’m ashamed. I hope you’ll accept my apologies.” Blue stated as she grasped my hand, and brought it up to her face to kiss my knuckles. Wow...she’s sincere.

“Well, since you put it that way…” I said. I quickly wrapped my arms around Bluebelle and brought her in for a hug, followed by a quick kiss to her lips before I let go of her. “Apology accepted.” Blue was frozen, until her face lit up with a fierce blush, and she fainted into Tia’s side. That was...surprisingly Rarity of her to do. “Alright then, since Blue’s all conked out, what’s on the menu?”

“I’ve...already prepared an order for you, but knowing your ravenous appetite, feel free to order anything else you might like.” Tia said to me as she picked up her menu, the others following suit. The three mechanical girls gladly imbibed their red wines, but the two goddesses avoided any liquor, instead they were drinking tea with the scent of fruits to it.

“Alright then.” I said, somewhat surprised and confused. I reached out for the wine glass, knowing it was fine for me since I wasn’t pregnant or anything, and I’m apparently 218 instead of 18...wait hold on. “Hey, Emerald, what happened to the eggs?” The sudden serious topic caught everyone by surprise, but Emerald and Sapphire were glad he’d asked.

“They’re fine, thank Faust. Luna and Tia found them in a bag in the death-grip of one of the griffons your explosion killed...a-along w-with…me....” Emerald froze, realizing she shouldn’t have said that.

“I...I killed you?” I asked, feeling absolutely destroyed. I knew she’d died, but I didn’t realize it was me who did it. I could feel my heart shatter, and my mood plummet. I felt like I didn’t deserve her anymore, like I didn’t even deserve to live anymore. She was one of my lovers, one of the ones that I would do anything for…. And in the end, it was me that had killed her, not the griffons.

“Don’t you dare!” Sapphire screamed, and I flinched, as she hovered over the table, her translucent wings not even moving, instead the ‘veins’ shined blue and she just hovered there. “You weren’t in control! B-before I...I left. Before I was yanked away by that fucking black hole that’s the ether, I saw you lose it. You went mad with such rage. You weren’t at fault. You just accept it happened, and we’re still here, BECAUSE of you and your friends.” She then flicked my forehead, getting me to shout in pain of the black metal armored digit almost cracking my skull. “You’re stuck with us. Wanted or not.”

“I… I….” I struggled to say. “I… Thank you.”

“No prob. But you have to visit our nests and feed our little ones some love. You’re their daddy. You need to remember that.” Sapphire suddenly became oddly gentle in tone and demeanor, before roughly grabbing my face, and pulling me up for a searing kiss, and then dropping me back into my seat. “Find some contraceptive spell or something, I want some of that.” Sapphire said, pointing to my groin, and she’s back folks.

She then hovered back over to her seat on the other side of Luna, and the appetizers arrived.

Oh~ gosh this place is awesome! The salads were crisp and moist, they even served meat here! I was given an order of sea bass I asked for, and told my steak would be along shortly. I thought cows were sentient here?

Not all of them. Most of them are no more intelligent than base animals. Not even worlds like this can avoid the simpler creatures. At least with what I did, the sentient ones are instantly distinguishable from the non-sentients since they’re anthros too.

Well, thank you DM for telling me. Now I can put my fears of eating sentient life to rest. I am not a cannibal today! Unlike Avarice...who insists cannibalism is the tits.

I wouldn’t say that so soon.

Wait, what?

You’ll find out soon enough, but know this ‘Do Not Panic’. It’s tradition.

The fuck is that supposed to mean? Oh well, I have a slice of cake to eat! It wasn’t here yet, but I was promised by the waiter it was to die for. Why he insisted it was so great I don’t know. But this steak! Oh! It must’ve been taken from the hock. It was so tough, but juicy and flavorful! I didn’t even need to use any dressing! “S-so, how do I, uh, it taste?”

“Amazing! It’s tough, meaning the beautiful creature this came from had strong muscles, it’s juicy, cooked medium rare, just the way I love it, and the flavor, oh gosh, so good, I don’t even mind chewing a bit harder thanks to the generous amount of compressed fat in it giving it so much taste.” I gushed, so pleased with my meal, and not even really noticing every praise made Tia blush brighter, especially when the small cake arrived and was passed to me.

“I-I am so pleased you find my hock so succulent.” What. “It was excruciatingly painful, having that doctor cut out a sizable section of the back of my left hock for you, and then using that insane doctor’s healing tool to regenerate it. I am so pleased. I had feared you might find me distasteful, or too fat….”

“.....” I failed to speak. My jaw would not move up and words would not come out. Ya know, you would have thought I should have come to expect crazy shit like this by now, but no. No, this was somewhat of a fear of mine, and I was struggling not to puke and or panic.

Calm, slow breaths. Do not, panic. You’ll be doing her the greatest of insults if you do.

Hey! You shut up! You weren’t the one who just ate a chunk of your lover’s thigh! As delicious as it is, it’s still crazy! Why am I sucking on it? WHY does she taste so good?!

Keep. Chewing. You’re eating the part of the thigh just beneath where her cutie mark was. This is one of THE, most important parts of alicorn courtship. She would’ve regenerated it back anyway, but fact is she literally cut a part of herself out for you. It’s to endear the fact she is willing to give everything of herself to you. Alicorns live eternally unless they are murdered or choose to die, so it is very important you let her know this isn’t just a passing fancy.

Wow, alright then.

“Dox? Dox?” Celestia asked in concern. “D-do you not like me?”

“Y-yes! I love you! You’re so good to me.” She seemed to take that as however she would, while I didn’t lie, I didn’t exactly say the truth either. ‘Oh gosh, oh gosh.’ The piece in my mouth gushed with succulent and delicious juices in a clenched bite. ‘WHY does she have to taste so good? Oh gosh.’ I put on a fake grin, trying not to moan from the flavor, while also trying not to panic from the fact that, yes, I am Avarice right now basically. He’d be savoring this openly if he knew it was part of her, I just know it. “So, uh, Athena. How are you doing?” I asked, trying to change the subject as I finished the Celestia ‘steak’ and moved on to the cake as Blue, who had woken back up during the appetizer leaned over to whisper.

“You’re doing fine.” Thanks Blue, so need some moral support right now.

“Oh I’m doing wonderful. The egg’s growing just fine too.” Athena didn’t notice what she’d said until she paused in lifting a bite of steak to her beak at all the girls gawking at her. “Uh...I’m betrothed?”

“To whom?!” Luna asked, slipping back into the royal we tone. And promptly grabbed my groin, getting me to jump and hiss. “Dox...hath thee given in to thy base desires? We knew the griffoness was in the herd, but we were...unaware of this development.” Luna squeezed my junk, making me hiss as my eyes bugged out, and Blue, being a former male, cringed as she put her hands to her groin, feeling a phantom pain of sympathy for me.

“You’re crushing my balls, Luna!” I squealed, my pitch gradually rising as she continued to squeeze harder. “If you’d let go, I could explain myself. So if you could please let go before you geld me, that’d be real nice!” She let go of my balls, but she grabbed my dick and tugged, both hurting and arousing me.

“This isn’t yours anymore. It’s OURS. Remember that.” Luna hissed, gesturing with the shoulder of her wing towards all the others at the table, before she thankfully let me go. “Explain. Thy hast just consumed the flesh of mine sister and consented to consuming it entirely upon finding out, so we know thine devotion is true. But why is it just now that we hear of thy betrothment to thy second-newest mate.”

“Auntie!” Blue blurted out, blushing, still all confused about the matter, but I couldn’t think about that right now.

“Sorry!” I exclaimed. “It was honestly an accident! I just gave her something, and I didn’t know that it meant that I was proposing to her!”

“Oh! It was so romantic!” Athena gushed, waving a talon to mime fanning herself as she popped some buttons on her dress to expose more of her heaving cleavage, probably to actually vent some heat like a real living being. “He and I fought a great monster, and when we were nearly slain, Jack let loose a great laser from the moon to slay it.”

“Oh yes, we remember that, it sent us into such a powerful orgasm we’d blacked out for several minutes.” Luna admitted, gesturing for Athena to continue as I gawked. Jack’s Moonshots cause Luna to get off? Whoa.

“Anyways, I gave her part of the loot.” I said. “It was a weapon-”

“The Conference Call~!” Athena crowed as if she was in the throes of pleasure, and reached into her cleavage before pulling out a digistructing shotgun which was said Conference Call. “Oh~! He handed it to me, so readily, not caring for it’s rarity if it would make me happy. I lunged and made hot, wet, soaking in a hot-spring sex to him for hours!” Athena panted, looking at me hungrily and the other girls all grinned, no longer feeling vexed about her being first. “Bed, after dinner. ALL of us.”

“Yeah, that ‘hot-spring’ was a Gamma Pool.” I said. “It’s kinda what gave me the magnetism and the gravity powers-.”

“Which Kat had so thoroughly instructed you in the use of for more pleasurable pursuits. And considering a few forms you took with Sister and I...we know you CAN do ALL of us...at once.” Luna huskily breathed, and I sank into my soft, velvety bench seat nervously, as all of them looked at me hungrily, they were all getting some tonight, and I had no choice, and from how Blue was blushing, and Tia had her arm hooked with her own, she didn’t either.

As I resigned myself to my future fate, I dug further into the cake.

“Wow! This is really good cake!” I exclaimed. “What’s in it?”

“Mine and Luna’s breastmilk, my cum, and some of my ether hair. I’m told by the chefs, quite embarrassingly, that my milk and hair make exquisitely delicious cakes. The cum however is part of the tradition, so I’m glad it didn’t spoil the flavor.” I...I would be more freaked out, but considering I spent a huge amount of time of that 30 hour long snu-snu eating her and her sister out, I can’t claim to be too disgusted by this, just slightly less disturbed than the meat...oh no, there I go, I want more of it. Bad Dox! No eating your lovers! You’re not Avarice!

“Well, why anyway?” I asked as I took another bite of the cake, and blinked. Oh...there was the cum. Tangy, like I remember. A little citrusy to be honest.

“While I may have been possessed, I was still in some way at fault. I had to let you know the depth of my sincerity and the level of my devotion to you. Luna has already proven herself, I had to still. And while I could have aided you in some other way, with myself in my...current condition, I couldn’t chance the foal once I’d realized I was with foal. And so, I took the safest route, and that was to give of my body to you in a form of complete submission. I am yours Dox. I shall do anything you desire, even...make you my king.” Tia leaned over Blue, her breasts wrestling with Blue’s as she rose over and kissed my brow, and she sat back down.

“I… I…. I…. I….” It was all I managed to get out. The once proud and dominant ruler, goddess of the sun, Celestia, was now completely submissive and offering me the throne at her side. To say my brain wasn’t able to process things at this point would have been like saying that clouds are made of water, or that fish swim.

“We have discussed this at length with Sister and your other lovers aside from Athena, and we have decided to wed you.” Luna then turned my face to her, and kissed me on the brow as well. “You will be both our king, lover, sire of our children, and protector of our realm. You didn’t think you would get away from such a strong chain if these sorts of things had conspired us to come together.” Luna then nuzzled me, and gestured to the other sisters, who were humming their soft cicada tones in happiness, and Athena was glad to put away the CC and sigh happily.

“Well...don’t I feel left out.” Bluebelle joked, getting me to snap out of my daze and look at the new mare who used to be an utter bastard, but was content with her new life and was, oddly, the only mortal at the table. “Here I am, a princess in name only, being stuck between you all like I’m something special.” Oh, gosh, such self-depreciation. I can’t let this slide.

I picked her chin up, and looked her in the eyes. “You are special. Everyone is. Never doubt yourself again Blue. You might’ve been an ass, but so far, and so soon; you’re proving to be a great pony. If THEY-.” I gestured to all the rest. “-Are going to force you into this, I’m giving you an out. You don’t have to be here.”

“...As nice as that is of you...Auntie is right. I need an heir, I’m at the age where I should already have one for Faust’s sake, but no, I dilly-dallied and now I’m a nearly middle-aged mare who needs to birth a colt. Fast.” Wait, what? Middle aged?! She doesn’t seem older than twenty! “And...I’d rather it be you, considering who you are...than some stuffed-shirt idiot like I used to be. If I’m going to have to do this...I’d rather do it with someone I know won’t take advantage of me. Especially since you’re already going to the top, you’ve nothing to gain from having me….”

“...Yes I do.” I countered, bringing her into a surprise hug. “C’mon everyone...let’s finish up and…*gulp* h-head home.”

I saw Emerald drop a generous amount of bits on the table, and then I felt the familiar tingle of someone else’s magic. The next thing I knew, I was being teleported onto Luna’s now humongous bed and being stripped.

I stared at the ceiling, surrounded on all sides and above and under me by naked, spent females. I was laying on Tia, her enormous breasts serving as plush pillows for my head. Bluebelle was actually on top of me, sandwiching me between her own massive tits and her aunt’s, she’d actually conked out after our last go and I was still in her, too tired to get her off of me, she snored cutely into her own boobs, using them as pillows against my chest and just out of reach of my face. Luna was spooning her sister on her left, Athena on Tia’s right, and the changeling sisters were both curled together at the foot of the bed.

‘I just had a seven-way with six super sexy women all at once...as a tentacle monster.’ ...I’m awesome.

That’s my child.

Oh, thanks for not butting in earlier, and helping me not freak out about eating a piece of Celestia.

You may not think it, I may not say it, but you are my child. I am still new to the concept, but I suppose the fact is, you can’t just dismiss your child if you’re going to be involved in their lives.

Hey...who was my mom?

The DM just laughed at that, not responding in any other way.

I’m...just going to drop that. Well...today was eventful. Jacob, the concert, the dinner, and now, an obviously impregnated LAST member of my herd. Just gotta figure out when the wedding is, and find out about the horrors that are a coronation wedding as a result, and also how screwed I am. I can’t just run about when I’m King...can I? Eh...later. I’m tired….

The night was quiet, silent, nothing was amiss, for once in a long time. I slept well, and without fear.

Move Quickly, Small People!

I awoke the next morning to the sound of something hitting the ground near the bed. Blue was still on top of me with me still being inside her. I could feel the warm bodies all around me, and didn’t really want to get up, but hey, I had to investigate what just clanged near the bed.

With a slow start, I pulled myself out of Blue with a resounding ‘pop’. The next step was slowly moving Blue off of me, and into my original spot while moving off the bed.

To say I succeeded doing so without waking up the girls would be a lie. No, I completely failed. While I tried to move Blue, I elbowed Tia in the stomach in the process. She awoke with a start, wrapping her arms around me and smacking Luna and Athena and accidentally kicking Emerald, who freaked out and fell of the bed while clutching Sapphire.

It would have been funny, if I wasn’t pulled into a crushing hug right after all the girls awoke.

“G-girls…..” I struggled to say. “Your… choking… me…..”

The girls immediately let go, not wanting to kill their future husband.

“Thank you.” I said as we all got settled. “I swear, if this is what mornings are gonna be like, this is gonna be one fun family we’re making.”

“Well, hopefully you won’t elbow me in the stomach to wake me up next time.” Tia said.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” I said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, don’t worry.”Tia said. “It takes more than that to really hurt me.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to hurt you.” I said.

“And that’s one of the reasons that I love you.” Tia said.

“Well, now that we’ve gotten through all of the morning pains, pun intended.” Athena said. “Why were you trying to slip out of bed, Dox?”

“Something hit the floor.” I explained. “I just wanted to check out what it was.”

“It’s this sphere thing.” Emerald said, peering over in the direction of the sound that woke me up came from. “Whoa! What the heck is going-..... Is that what that is?”

“What’s going on Sis- WHOA!” Sapphire said. “Are you getting some weird boxes in your vision like I am sister? This is really weird. Athena, what’s happening to us?!”

“You must have accidentally activated the scan function of your new bodies.” Athena stated, getting off the bed and walking over to the changeling sisters. “It happens. Don’t worry, with the lessons that I’ve been giving you, soon you’ll be able to control it.”

“You’ve been giving them lessons?” I asked.

“Well duh.” Athena said. “Who else is going to teach them how to use their new bodies abilities? Plus, we all have so much free time when you’re not here, so I thought, ‘Why not?’

“Well then.” I said. “So, what hit the floor and woke me up, causing the events that woke the rest of you up?”

“It’s the Runic Portal Matrix.” Athena said. “There’s a note attached to it. Here, you read it, it’s addressed to you, after all.”

“Alright, thanks.” I said, taking the note and the Runic Portal Matrix. “It says:”

"Here is your blasphemously simple yet irritatingly complicated portal device. Do ask for one of our own Hyperion Portable Portals when Mother has finished the prototypes. Wouldn't want that thing exploding in a miniature supernova should it rupture.”

“Well then.” Athena said. “Sounds like you have something to call mother about.”

“Wait, there’s more.” I said. “‘PS. Tell Athena to stop sending me pictures, I'm not the sort of stallion who enjoys naughty bedtime adventures. Instead send them to Mother, she enjoys such things immensely.’ Athena? What’s the meaning of this?"

“Yes, dear Athena.” Luna asked. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Um, well, you see….” Athena said. Immediately afterwards she darted out of the room, Luna and Sapphire following closely behind her.

“Well then.” I said. “Hey, now that I have this back, maybe I could have one last hurrah before we all schedule the day of the wedding!”

“That sounds fair.” Bluebelle said groggily. “Have fun, Dox. I’m going back to sleep.” Blue then forced Celestia down before resting her head on Celestia’s humongous boobs and falling back asleep.

“I guess this means I’m going back to sleep, too.” Tia said somewhat quietly. “You go have fun, Dox. Me and Emerald will tell the girls where you went.”

“Thanks, Tia. And thanks, Emerald.” I said, getting out of the bed and walking over to where I left my clothes.

“Hey, wait!” Emerald said. “What about my say in this? You still need to go see our eggs!”

“Alright, I’ll do that first, then.” I said, putting my clothes on. “So, where are they?”

So, apparently, Emerald and Sapphire had, with the help of some castle staff, turned an unused room of the castle into a nursery. In said nursery were the seven eggs that they had laid. I got to hug all of them! I mean, yeah, they were eggs, but they were the eggs of my soon to be wives! How could a father not find his children cute?!

After about literally an hour of me just hugging eggs, I was told that I was free to go now. I still stayed another half hour before I left.

Now I stood out in Canterlot Gardens, thinking about where to go, what plane to travel to. Then I thought about how Yngve got to Avarice’s world and then out of it. I was tempted to travel there, but Yngve appeared and told me not to go for my revenge, that it would lead to my ruin if I left for there without help. He told me about how he did have an item that would teleport me directly into the headquarters of who I wanted revenge on, but refused to give it to me, saying that I was not ready for it yet.

I eventually relented, and went back to thinking of places to go. I eventually came up with Mechanus, a plane that one of my friends always said that he wanted me to send him and the rest of his party to, back when I was on Earth playing D&D.

Just as I was about to open a portal to Mechanus, however, another portal opened up below me and I fell in.

3rd Person:

A blue blur raced across the wastes of Equestrian country side.

“Oh yeah finally free to run after so long.” Sonic said as he raced in the vast wilds. A black blur came up to his side. “Hey Shadow whats up?” Sonic asked.

Shadow rolled his eyes at his brother, who came floating up to their side. “Hey Silver. So what have you two been up to since we got freed?” Sonic asked.

Shadow was the first to answer. “I decided to join the Royal Guard. Of course, I kinda put the instructor in the hospital.” Shadow remembered him, an earth pony who laughed at Shadow when he said he didn’t need training. Shadow challenged him to a fight to prove him wrong.

Shadow sure proved him wrong. On the downside, he was yelled at by the Royal Guard Captain, Shining Armor. On the bright side, he was not the instructor.

Silver was next to speak. “I went back to school. I’m currently at college and an assistant teaching telekinesis.”

As they raced Sonic saw something in the ground. As he put the breaks, on the other two did as well. Sonic dusted off the dirt on a strange playing die on the ground. A voice was soon heard coming from it.

This is for anyone who needs help or just wants a friend. Summon the Dungeon Master of Equestria if you’re ever in need.

“Cool! I wonder how it works?” Sonic asked the other two hedgehogs ran/flew at him.

Sonic decided to roll it like a playing die.

“Wait Sonic!” They said and yet a portal opened up right in front of the three of them.

Out of the portal came tumbling a bipedal creature. It was tall, and had pointy ears. It wore a black hoodie, black denim pants, and strange black leather shoes. Its right arm appeared to be made of metal, and the sleeve on its left arm appeared to have a computer on it.

“Ow.” Said the bipedal creature. “Alright, whoever summoned me this time had horrible timing.”

Standing in front of him was three anthropomorphic hedgehogs. One was Blue with a bare chest and red shoes on, as well as white gloves. Next was Black with red streaks, white chest hair. His gloves had rings on them. The final one was Silver with a unique hairstyle and the biggest chest hair. Also, unlike the other two, he was floating. They each stood at around over four foot six.

“Sup.” The blue one asked.

“Uh, hi.” The black hooded creature said. “Who are you guys? And which one of you summoned me?”

“I’m Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog and these are my bros, Silver and Shadow.” The blueone, Sonic answered the Silver one who was floating was Silver and, the other was Shadow. “I summoned you.” Sonic answered.

“Okay, thanks.” The creature said. “My name’s Dox Ad Finem. And you sir just pulled me from a nice day of exploration through a different plane of existence back in my universe.” Dox pulled out a strange orb with a ton of runes on it. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get back to that.” A portal opened in front of Dox.

As he walked back though, Sonic had a smile. “Lets go.” He grabbed both his bros arms and took off for the portal going through as it closed.

On the other side the sound of a few extra feet caught Dox’s attention.

“The hell?” Dox said as he turned around, only to find that the three hedgehogs had followed him back to his world. “What the hell you three?!”

“We’re going along with you, I haven’t had any action since Discord.” Sonic said. Shadow and Silver facepalmed at him.

“What the actual hell.” Dox said, facepalming. “Do you even know where I’m heading?”

“Not a clue but I’m tagging along.” Sonic said with a cocky smile.

“Fine, I might as well.” Shadow said with his eyes closed.

“Can’t we just Chaos Control home?” Silver whispered to himself unfortunately no one heard him.

“Listen, I’m heading to a place called Mechanus.” Dox said. “It’s gonna be dangerous, and if you mess with too much stuff, I’m sending you back. I don’t want something in there exploding just because a hyperactive hedgehog decided to have fun. So, don’t screw up, because this is probably my last free day before I have to deal with the stress of setting up a wedding.”

Sonic gave a nod. “What’s the worst that could happen a Robot uprising?” Sonic asked, “Or a civil war?” He finished.

“More like a ton of sentient machines that could probably kill us.” Dox said. “So, like I said. Try not to screw anything up.” Dox held out the device he used to open a portal from earlier, and opened another one. “Well, let’s get going. Mechanus awaits!”

When the four stepped through the portal, they looked around to see a place literally made of machines. It was like everything was made of metal, from the random structures to the floor they walked on.

“Wow this is awesome.” Sonic said. “So do you know where the nearest inhabited place is?” Sonic asked. The hedgehog was stretching as if he was getting ready for something.

“No, not a clue.” Dox said. “Like I said. There’s a lot of things here that can kill us.” Just as Dox said that, a strange creature with one giant eye and a body of metal and carrying a spear went walking by. “Like that thing. Forgot what it’s called, though.”

Sonic, however, had a smile. “It doesn’t look so tough.”

However, the machine had its spear at them. “Stop intruders.” It said, charging at them with the spear.

Silver reacted first with his power. He unleashed a psychic wave tearing the machine apart with his mind.

“That. Was stupid.” Dox said. “Do you even know how those guys work?! The best idea there would have been to retreat! Now there’s gonna be a ton more coming our way!”

“So let them come.” Sonic said and true to that dozens of others came running towards them. Sonic had a smile. “I got this.” Sonic said. Sonic took off at great speeds, racing around them and breaking a few of them before one of the machines had the bright idea to trip him up, sending Sonic tumbling to the ground.

Just as another was about to bring its spear down on Sonic, he went sliding back towards Dox and the other hedgehogs.

“Next time, listen to me.” Dox said. “They’re more powerful than you think, and they’re not as stupid as you think.”

However, as they came at them, Shadow gave a Sigh. Holding up two gems one green, the other blue he said two words. “Chaos Control.” Time seemed to slow to a crawl around them.

“Wow, forgot you hedgehogs could do that.” Dox said. “So yeah, now would be a good time for us to get moving, unless you want to be killed by one of them.”

They nodded as Silver used his powers to move stuff in their way. Time started to slowly move forward as the machines found themselves boxed in. After a while, they stopped over in an alley. “Well good going Silver I expected this sort of thing from Sonic.” Shadow answered.

“Hey.” They both screamed.

“Can you three get along and be quiet?” Dox asked. “I think I heard something.”

Sure enough, once the three hedgehogs quieted down, they could all hear a distant clanging sound. When they poked their heads around the corner, they saw what was making the clanging sound.

It was a giant metal door that kept slamming down, only going up to pop out a large machine that looked strangely humanoid and armed to the teeth with weapons. When the four were able to see inside the structure that produced the huge machines, they were able to see small people with large arms.

“Hey, do you guys see what I see?” Dox asked.

“Yeah.” Silver said. Sonic got ready for a fight if there was going to be one.

‘I think I may need to go Super Sonic if these go bad.’ Sonic thought as the large machines looked around.

Shadow himself reached for his rings just in case.

“Calm down guys.” Dox said. “Hold off on the hostilities until we get inside. We don’t know what’s up in there. As far as we know, the people inside aren’t hostile.

At that moment, one of the large humanoid machines looked over at the four heads poking around the corner and started heading towards them.

“Those things probably are, though.” Dox said. “RUN!”

Sonic was the first to bolt down as was Shadow and Silver. The robot went after them while ignoring Dox for some reason. Sonic, Shadow, and Silver looked back behind them. “Oh great its following us.” Silver said.

“I have a idea. We use our speed to destroy this thing.” Sonic said.

Just then, the metal giant’s arm exploded. Everyone looked back to see Dox holding his arm out and bits of smoke coming off of his right arm.

“Guys, get back!” Dox yelled before extending out his left arm.

The giant seemed to halt its movement. It struggled for a bit before dents started to appear in its structure. All of a sudden, the metal goliath collapsed in on itself.

“There.” Dox said as he walked up to the stunned hedgehogs. “A little magnetism goes a long way. Now, I have an idea. How’s about we go stop whatever’s making these things?”

“Sure, why not.” Sonic said.

The way over to the structure wasn’t that hard, the four just needed to avoid the metal behemoths that were all around it. Getting inside wasn’t hard either. There were a couple of smaller versions of the metal giants, which Dox magnetised together before sending them into the ground.

The inside was sweltering hot. There were giant pools of metal, and many, many of the little humanoids running around. Most of them were in chains, being forced to work by metal men.

“I think they’re Dwarves.” Dox said.

“This almost looks like they are being forced to make them.” Sonic said.

“Then let’s free them.” Dox said. “I’m pretty sure we need keys to do that, though.”

As they sneaked around the structure, they saw something in armor with the keys on him. The being seemed to be one of the automatons in heavy armor made of the same material it was made of, as well as some strange blue metal. There were some keys on a small hook on the lower part of its armor.

“Ok how are we going to get it off without revealing ourselves?” Sonic asked. Shadow went over how he could stop time to get it but the effect would be felt. He turned to Siver. “You think you can get them?” He asked.

Silver gave a nod. With his hand outstretched he focused his powers on the keys. They glowed and floated to his hands. With the key in hand, Shadow handed Sonic the blue and the white Chaos emerald.

“You’re the fastest of us.” Shadow said. Sonic took the gems and the keys.

“Chaos Control.” Sonic said as time slowed to crawl. He took off unlocking as many as he could across the whole building.

The effect of Chaos Control didn’t last much longer, though, and the automaton was able to notice the blue blur running around. It took out a sword with a bright blue edge that was hidden on its back before swinging it in the direction of the hedgehog. A wave of energy came flying from the sword and struck Sonic. He was knocked off of his feet, barely harmed by the wave of energy that struck him.

However before it could get another attack in a shadow jumped behind it. “Chaos Spear!” Shadow said as he launched a surprise attack, tossing the spear right at it. The robot put up its sword to block it but Shadow had a smile. A hammer covered in Silver powers struck its exposed mid section. Sonic who was up on his feet delivered a kick to it while Shadow with a smile delivered a kick right to its head as it broke under his Alien strength.

As the broken robot’s body fell to the ground, an alarm sounded in the building. Immediately, another door opened, guards started to pour out, and robot production stopped. The giants that were in line started moving about, trying to stop the intruders.

“Guys, we might have a problem.” Dox said. “Get everyone else unlocked and then get out of the building. I don’t want any of you guys getting hurt. I’ll help Sonic and hold off the guards, now go!”

They nodded has the two of them helped the Dwarves out. As this went on Sonic looked around the giants. “Hey I have a question…” Sonic asked. Dox turned to him. Sonic closed his eyes as he summoned the seven Chaos emeralds. “How much damage could I make in a minute?” Sonic asked.

“Do as much as you need to.” Dox said. “We need to keep them occupied so Shadow and Silver can get everyone else out. So, take your pick. Guards or giants?”

Sonic gave a smile. “Giants.” With that the emeralds came to Sonic in a flash of gold light. His fur was now gold his eyes red and an aura of positive energy surrounded him. It was Super Sonic time. “Now I’ll show You!” The nearest giant was rammed right though as Super Sonic flew through him and part of the building. The others moved to defend against him.

“Alright then, go Sonic.” Dox said before turning to the guards that were coming towards him. Dox tried to use his magnetism on them, but found that he couldn’t. After finding out that that wouldn’t work, he turned to his other powers. “It’s gravity time bitch! Have fun in orbit!” And with that, the guards went shooting off, out of the building, and far out of anyone’s reach.

As the factory seemed to be coming down Dox and everyone else moved outside as an army was there to greet them. However SuperSonic came right of of the roof. “I’ll give you one chance to stand down.” Sonic said. With the Chaos Emeralds he had the powers of a god. Of course his time limit was almost up but he wanted to see if they would. However they didn’t take heed.

“Fine then everyone, Chaos Control!” With that, everyone not protected by the effect was trapped standing still in time.

“Nice, but we need to hurry.” Dox said. “I don’t know how long your super form lasts, but as I’ve seen, Chaos Control lasts even less. Move everyone! Move!”

After what seemed to be an hour of solid running, everyone had made it to an alley way about a mile away from the huge metal robot factory. A few questions were asked of the former captives. Turned out, most of them were dwarves. What they hadn’t noticed was that there were also some other humanoids that were about Dox’s size. They were, as it so happened to be, Low Elves that had been making the ‘batteries’ that ran the metal behemoths.

The four-now-thirty-six had decided that it was best not to stay for much longer, and Dox promptly used his portal device, explained to the hedgehogs as a Runic Portal Matrix, to open a portal back to Equestria, specifically Canterlot Gardens.

“Great.” Dox said. “Now what am I going to do with all of these Dwarves and Elves?!”

“Well we have no idea.” Silver answered.

“Hey mind me asking you something?” Sonic pulled out the die from a pocket dimension. “What is this?” Sonic asked.

“Well, it’s a token.” Dox said. “It’s used to summon me, or another being like me, called a Displaced. Some are good, some are bad. Just listen to the words that come from the token. I’m guessing you don’t have one. You can make one by using an item that sort of represents you, then saying a phrase that gives people a general idea of who you are.”

“Oh I see. Let me see.” Sonic pulled out a gold ring. “Shadow Silver mind helping me out?” The two grabbed it as will.

We are the hedgehog trio. If you fight for freedom, friendship, and good or, want some friends and hugging out, you can count of Sonic, Shadow and Silver!

The token glowed as it was sent into the multiverse with one appearing for Dox.

“Coolio.” Dox said. “I guess I should be sending you guys home, since I kinda brought you guys to mine. Normally, you’d just say that ‘our contract is done’ but I’ll have to send you guys home another way.” Dox pulled his Runic Portal Device back out. “If you guys will put your hands on this, I should be able to acquire your universe and send you home.” The three hedgehogs put their hands on the Runic Portal Device before a portal opened behind Dox. “Alright, that should be it. I’ll see you later guys.”

“We hope so.” Sonic said with that they were gone sent back to the fields of Equestria.

“That was actually fun.” Sonic said.

Dox’s Perspective:

Once the hedgehogs were gone, I had to collect myself for a bit.

“What do we do now?!” One of the Dwarves asked.

“Yeah? What now?” One of the Low Elves asked.

“I don’t know!” I yelled. “All I know is that me and my friends saved you! I’ll help you find what to do later. For right now, though, you’re safe, and you owe me.”

“Fine, changeling, but we’re not happy about it.” Said one of the Dwarves.

“This is gonna be just peachy.” I said with a sigh.

How NOT to Plan a Wedding. (The Bachelor Party, Part 1)

The problem with the Dwarves lasted a few minutes more, and ended up with me saying that I’d figure it out for them later, in the meantime, they’d have to just find somewhere to be. The main problem would be where they could diggy diggy holes and forge all day. The Low Elves…. Well...

What ended up happening was the Low Elves started following me as I went and looked around for my soon to be wives. It was pretty bothersome, considering they kept wanting to examine EVERYTHING in the halls. I eventually got them to stop and just keep calm, but I failed at getting them to stop following me.

After about half an hour of searching, I was eventually able to pinpoint Luna, who was in the throne room reading a letter of some sort.

“Luna!” I called out. “Luna! I have to talk to you about some new arrivals.”

“From where?” Luna asked. “I was just reading this letter from Cadence. Apparently she could tell what was going on, dismissing it as her being the alicorn of love. She says she knows of our plans, and is already on her way to be the neutral party so that we can have our wedding. I swear, how she’s able to know these things is on par with the crazy pink mare that’s friends with Twilight.”

“She’s crazy, I swear.” I said. “Anyways, about these new arrivals.”

It was then that the Low Elves realized who I was talking to.

“The Lunar goddess!” One said. The rest soon followed in a sort of chant of recognition before shutting up and bowing on the ground to Luna. “We are unworthy great sky goddess! Thee who graces our glorious nights with thine splendor, and brings thy silvery light to the beautiful darkness, creating such inspiring and powerful displays by merely being!” They then all prostrated, like, seriously, with their heads all to the floor. “Praise be to the Lunar Goddess Selune! Praise be to She Who Brings Light to Darkness! Praise be to Mistress of the Night! Praise be to the Dreamweaver!”

Luna was, to be fair, gobsmacked. Sure, she was getting used to being seen as the highest authority of the realm since she had to usurp Celestia and even switch sleeping schedules to run a combined court with her during the day, but to see so many actual WORSHIPERS just made her jaw go slack, her wings to ruffle, and her eyes to shimmer. Then, suddenly, without any warning, she suddenly shot up in size in every direction until she matched Celestia, her new heaving chest ripping out of her dress which made her blush and cover with her arms, as my nose erupted in my rainbow blood. “W-w-what?!”

“O-oh dear! Um...w-well Dox. As you know, I’m a goddess, if even a humble one, but...all deities derive power from worship, and...um...I’m not used to this….” Luna was still blushing, and levitated a nearby black and silvery tapestry over to herself to wrap around her new body that was proof of her increased power and status.

“W-well… Anyways.” I said. “These guys are Low Elves. There’s Dwarves outside, doing what Dwarves do into the mountainside. But they all need a place to stay, and a place to work. I just helped save them all from some factory enslavement in another realm.”

“WE ARE DWARVES AND WE USED TO BE IN PAIN!”

“I’m guessing that’s them.” Luna said.

“Well duh.” I said. “Anyways, could you help them out with figuring out everything? I’m pretty sure they need shovels, pickaxes, and forges.”

Luna perked at mentioning forges. “They are miners AND smiths? Verily! We shalt see to their needs at once! We wish to see the skill of their craft, and if it compares to our own!”

“Luna, the royal we?” I said, pointing out her slip. “So, I’m gonna go see if I can get help with all the supplies for them.”

“Well, I would not worry about that.” Luna said, calming down. “The castle already has all the supplies needed to do such a thing on hand, but it would take a long time to do such a task.”

“I think I have an idea then.” I said, reaching into my magic satchel and taking out Avarice’s blue iron brazier with the length of chain on the bottom. Hopefully, I actually get Avarice this time. I haven’t seen him in a long while, and I’m kinda sick of Vaga’s meddling. Sure, I got Blue out of it, but hey, guy’s got to have a limit for bullshit.

“I-Isn’t that the Master of Chaos’s token? Why wouldst thou call upon HIM of all beings?” Luna asked nervously, holding her tapestry-turned-robe tighter around herself in worry. “Certainly we have him to thank for our union with thee, but his methods are so insensitive….”

“I know, but don’t worry.” I said. “Just follow me out to the gardens and I’ll summon him.”

It took a small amount of time to get back to the garden and then round up the Dwarves so that when Avarice was summoned, he could get to work.

“Yo, Avarice, I could use a little help, and maybe a bachelor party.” I said, lighting the brazier by exerting my will into it, a trick I learned after having used it both as a summoning token for him, and as a light source otherwise. However...I...really wasn’t expecting what was about to happen.

An utterly MASSIVE portal rimmed in blue fire spawned in the lawn before us all, and even burned into the edge of the hedge maze, and then, twin roars echoed forth from the giant hole through the Void and two corresponding pitch-black HYDRA heads rose rapidly from the portal, the red-frilled head growling venomously with his green eyes narrowed as the head with the spiked brows seemed to be sighing, and the body the followed was NOT a hydra’s, it was actually a dragon’s, so...fuck...two-headed dragon!

“Um, Avarice?” I said nervously. “That you? Buddy?” The frilled head suddenly shot into my personal space with the speed of a striking viper, and I pissed myself at the raw fury pouring from his slit emerald eyes.

“You have so much gall! Calling me from another Displaced’s world before I could finish helping her!” Avarice’s cockney voice came from it’s mouth, so it was definitely him, but before I could try to explain myself, the second head butted in by biting into his neck and tugging him back as the others behind me had all already armed themselves however they could.

“Avarice! Mistress, Vinyl and the Sex Bobombs had the Yeti in hand, we did our part already.” The other head’s voice was a smoother Trottingham accent, sounding like Luna’s old dialect but more modern in execution.

“She is with our child! It is our duty to see to it she is safe!” Avarice roared back, seething as his massive wings flared, and the two heads glared at each other, emerald and gold eyes piercing each other for several tense seconds, before Avarice sighed. “Damn it Cresent...how is it you’re the sensible one?”

“Hey, I’m the idiot who died for Die Leucht, you’re the one who really ‘enlightened’ me. Keeping you level-headed is the least I could do for what you’ve done for me.” Crescent nuzzled his partner head who nuzzled back, and the scene was suddenly total bromance, so I decided to interrupt.

“The hell is going on?!” I yelled. “I heard something about Mistress Change, and then it turned into this! Listen, if you’re worried about her, don’t. I met her before, I know she can handle things on her own. Now, can you please explain what’s going on, Avarice?” I then noticed MC’s token hanging from the frilled-head’s neck, which was oddly full-sized for him. Just like mine, the tokens were simple dog tags on chains, imprinted on the metal was a twin double helix, one green crossing a red one. Over the top of the two were an orange set of spikes with blue spikes coming out of the bottom. On the front side was a short bit of text. But I noticed a heart was added to it.

“Well, simply, she summoned me, things were kinda awkward, I subdued and nearly killed a stallion, I had a breakdown, she cheered me up, we had extremely hot sex, she got pregnant, I turned into a Matter Shifter like her from eating a piece of her on accident, had beyond amazing and indescribably awesome Shifter sex, met some old nag with bells all over him who dumped us in a wintery area, had more sex in the snow, met a snarky and cool DJ mare named Vinyl and her friends the Sex Bombombs, fought a giant two-story tall yeti, and then you summoned me. That’s the gist of it.” Avarice shot off, getting a bit irritated at the end, only for the head named Crescent to bump him with his snout, and making Avarice roll his eyes.

“Okay, that explains a bit more than I wanted.” I said. “So, could you possibly shift down to something else? Like maybe not a two headed dragon?”

The sight of two hydra heads blushing almost made me burst out in laughter, Luna and a few of the dwarves couldn’t avoid chuckling however. “Um...we...kinda...can’t?” The heads spoke in unison, grinning sheepishly. “Our mass is so massive, we...um...okay...we’re currently now a low-tier God of Fertility, the zebra tribe back home Worships us now upon realizing that and...uh….” Luna butted in, hefting her huge boobs as a reference.

“Be at ease great Beast of Creation. We know thy predicament in a way.” Luna let her breasts drop, and all of the males accounted for could NOT stop watching them quake and jiggle as they settled, under a robe or not.

“Yes, so basically, we have a massive store of energy, which we instinctively converted to mass. We can shrink down, but only for a little while at the moment. It’s very straining to compress and convert mass into energy than it is to let energy turn into mass.” They both responded, and I groaned, hearing them talk like one entity was confusing.

“That sounds like a changeling issue!” One of the Low Elves shouted out.

“Wait, how do you know about the changelings?” I asked, turning around to face where the voice came from.

“ Besides the fact that I can tell that you are one, a small group of them passed through the realm we were in before we became enslaved.” The Low Elf said. “Said they were heading through to another realm. I don’t remember which one though. I think they said something about one of the chaotic realms, but it was too long ago for me to properly remember.”

“Thank you.” I said to the Low Elf before turning back to Avarice. “You hear that, buddy? There’s changelings out there somewhere. Maybe we could get you some help with your powers. But first, I’d like a little help.”

“Name it, and we shall provide.” They...okay, I’m just going to refer to them together as Avarice, whoever that other guy is seems the sub in their relationship anyway. Avarice said ominously, but then they split into two giant serpents as their body split and molded seamlessly into two giant basilisks, wrapping around us all so quick and smooth it was extremely unsettling. “But it comes with a price. You are our friend Dox, but we’ve been too lenient in our deals of late, too generous.” The circled back around, both serpents looking me in the eyes with their emerald and gold orbs. “Do you have anything to trade? Money is nothing to us, and we require compensation, our nature demands it.” The nearly encompassing glow of red in both their eyes kinda told me that they were bound to require a deal, damn, no hand-out this time, but then again, he’s a pal, and he bought me this sweet arm, and those Loaders I keep forgetting to sign for….

“Sure…” I said. “Well, I’m not sure if I can properly promise anything, but the Dwarves and Low Elves might be able to.” Good job, Dox. Spoken like a true politician. Just pass the issues onto someone else.

“Know this; money is worthless to us. Something must have either great emotional, personal, or otherwise potential value for us to consider it. Even something as paltry as an old trinket or a little bauble will be worth far more to us than a mountain of gold.” Avarice stated as the horned serpent seemed to vomit forth a mountain of treasure, and promptly spit on it. “Garbage to us.”

“What about Aetherium?” One of the Dwarves said. He seemed to be the leader, what with him having a crown made from broken pickaxes which were woven admittedly well, and had the only set of actual armor made from smelted and shaped broken mining equipment. Ragnar I think his name was. “The Low Elves can help make the special ingot and give some to you once our forges are set up.”

Avarice’s emerald eyes widened, and he shot forward, looking the dwarf in the face with incredible eagerness, his orbs shimmering in excitement. “You speak true?! Your companions know the secret of the mystical metal?”

“Someone forgot their Skyrim~!” I said in a sing song voice.

“Oh, he knows, that’s why he’s so excited. The Aetherium Shield was his favorite, if his memories serve well. Buy time in a melee by making an enemy ghostly and all that.” Crescent commented as he slithered over the mountain of gold, not caring he was crushing the precious metals together.

“Let them prove it.” Ragnar said, walking up to the massive serpentine form of Avarice. Wow, guy had balls, that’s for sure. He picked up a massive chunk of gold and brought it over to the twelve Low Elves that were grouped in the middle of the nineteen other Dwarves. “Watch, great beast of two, as they turn this gold into Aetherium.”

Everyone, especially the serpents that are somehow my buddy, all watched them carefully, and visibly, pour magic into the giant gold piece. It started to glow dimly, before flashing into a purple metal. They stopped for a bit before pouring more magic into the now purple ingot. There was a bright flash, and when the light dimmed, it was shown that Ragnar now held a large piece of glowing white-blue Aetherium. The Dwarf wore a proud smile, while the Elves appeared to be on the verge of passing out.

“We offer this to you, great beast of two, and ask in return that you help us to move the supplies we need to set up and create more of this material more effectively. Without straining our elven brothers and sisters.” Ragnar said, holding out the massive piece of Aetherium to Avarice.

“Hold, hold on. This sort of transaction is far too much for so little return.” Avarice stated, pulling away from the ingot before looking to his sibling serpent and both seemed to be speaking telepathically. “Very well, but we hope you do not mind a bonus stipulation, that we provide you extra materials in exchange for the Aetherium. Whether or not you can make more, my world has no Aetherium at all. If we could procure some sort of trade system….” Avarice suggested, his eyes shifting to me and Luna.

“We have our ways.” One of the Low Elves said. He wore robes that looked to have once been extravagant, but had been tattered from years of working at a forge. He wore a small circlet that held small gems of Aetherium in it. I think his name was Rulindil. “Do not fret, we know of your extradimensional ways, as well as yours, Dox.”

“Dude, creepy.” I said. “But cool. So, how are you gonna transport anything without me?”

“Again, we have our ways.” Rulindil said. “We just require… a sample… from Avarice.” We were all quite stunned when Cresent quickly lunged at his sibling, and ripped a chunk of flesh from him, dripping with fresh sanguine as he didn’t even flinch, and the wound rapidly closed. “That should be more than enough, thank you.” Rulindil wasn’t as shocked as he recovered quickly, and accepted the massive hunk of flesh and blood from the mouth of the serpent.

“We just require one thing from you to carry out your needs.” Avarice stated, and seemed to spit out a tattered blank scroll. “We require your signed permissions, as the leaders of your groups, to handle your supplies. Otherwise we cannot touch them.” Their eyes began turning bright red, their serpentine lips curling disturbingly. “Know though, that your signatures are binding, and we will be bound in a Contract. We shall be forced to deliver your supplies, and you will be required to pay us with that beautiful ingot, then we shall be free of the contract on both parties. This process is very, very important. We are paid to each other, in full, no debts. Are we clear? We don’t wish for any...unpleasantness. The last time we had to cancel a Contract we...suffered greatly.”

“Sounds fair.” Ragnar said, walking up to the scroll, only to be stopped by Rulindil. “What is it, forge-brother?”

“He’s using the magic that first brought us together, brother.” Rulindil said. “He reeks of Contract Magic. Good sir, is that truly all there is to the agreement? No hidden terms?”

“We’re trying to avoid them ourselves.” Avarice responded in unison, shivering, their scales actually rising in sorts of goose-bumps. “The price to pay for breaking a Contract...we’ve suffered it when a fool we’d accidentally bound in Contract refused to let his sense of debt go was driving him mad. We released him, on our terms, and the pain...the pain….” Avarice shrank away, shivering, and Crescent coiled around him, shivering too. “It is beyond description. We hate it, but this magic is bound to our very being, our souls...we are being as careful as we can in it’s use. Simply know that once this transaction is over, there is to be NO debt between either party.”

“Agreed.” Rulindil said. He pulled out a quill from his robe, which I questioned how it held anything, and proceeded to reach for the scroll. “I’m assuming we sign in blood? What with Contract Magic being how it is.” He then proceeded to write on the scroll without touching anything, his blood just appearing where he happened to scribble. Afterwards, he handed the quill to Ragnar, who proceeded to copy his brother’s actions.

“There, have your contract, great beast of two, and do your side of our agreement.” Ragnar said proudly.

“IT SHALL BE DONE!” They crowed, Avarice and Crescent then slithered a bit away, and clamped onto their respective tails, and began spinning around. Their massive sizes made seeing into the circle they’d formed impossible, but we could see a small mountain of gold rising above, littered with mining equipment, disassembled forges, and forging equipment. Soon, the great black basilisks ceased moving, and stopped biting each other’s tails to slither around the massive heap of tools and materials. “Is this satisfactory?”

“More than.” Ragnar said as Dwarves and Low Elves alike cheered. “With this, we could forge and mine for ages to come! Thank you, great beast of two! We shall erect a statue of you in gratitude!”

The serpents blushed and seemed to become bashful as they leaned into each other with sheepish smiles. “Worship is fine, but no debt, please, we don’t want to have to keep providing you concessions of your tributes. Just the Aetherium is enough. Any future deals will be on your terms.”

“My brother does not mean either.” Rulindil said. “He means it as a gift. ‘Tis simply a way of us saying thanks, even with the contract fulfilled.”

“But we are a god. If you make an effigy, or idol of us in any way, it is considered Worship, regardless of intent, unless you burn it, or deface it, then it would be the opposite….” Avarice stated worriedly. “Such things would weaken us.”

“Great beast of two, we already have plenty of gods.” Ragnar said. “We know of the rules, too. We just simply wish to give you something nice to remind you of us.”

“...Very well. But please, keep mind not to make anything in our image of your intention, we will feel it across realms, we would be able to commune through it, even grant boons...no, no, bad Avarice, no spreading your beliefs on the Rites of Life.” The serpents seemed to be having trouble focusing, and looked to Luna, becoming elated. “You are with child….”

“Y-yes….” Luna said. “How… How did you know? Am I showing already?” Luna moved her robe open around her waist and rubbed her tummy since she couldn’t see past her massive knockers, and there was a tiny outward bump on her otherwise trim and firm abdomen.

“Twins, a boy, and a girl. Both alicorns like their mother, since the father was a blank template. They are healthy, their mother happy.” They slithered to her, and nuzzled her a bit. “We are glad. Dox. Care for thy child...but we sense two here, who have trouble conceiving.” They stated, rising and looking to the Dwarves and Low Elves

“Yes. How do you know of me and my wife?” Rulindil said, his wife walking up, a full head shorter than he was. Apparently, Rulindil married a Dwarf. “Please, explain to us.”

“We are Avarice, God of Fertility. Propagation tis our domain, the creation, and flourishing of life tis our duty. Thou hast not been able to sire a child, and thou hast not been able to carry. We shalt fix this, if thou both consent.” They coiled around, looking down on the Dwarf and Elf with a disturbingly patronly and loving manner to them, in spite of their current forms.

“We do.” Said Rulindil’s wife.

“Then accept our blessing.” Avarice and Crescent both approached the couple, and pressed their snouts to the tops of their heads, which then sent an aura of deep emerald green cascading down them which vanished shortly. “Thou wouldst seek a private place soon. Thou shalt both ravage each other as rabbits in spring and conceive at least one child.” Avarice then blinked, and Crescent followed, both seeming dizzy. “What...what just happened?”

“You performed your duty.” Luna stated knowingly as she wormed an arm around me, and I blinked, huh...I turned into a spectator for a while, then again, Avarice is a showstopper. “You are definitely new to this, you shall be compelled to perform your Aspect’s duties at all times. It is hard to adjust to at first, but you will grow into it.”

“Whoa...so...Luna, I just watched a fledgeling god perform his rites for maybe the first time?” I asked in awe, not fazed by her newfound height, and proportions as she beamed down at me and the ecstatic couple ran off for some privacy in the hedge maze.

“Yes, what you witnessed was something amazing. He blessed those two with fertility, and the ability to procreate in spite of any trouble their different races could provide. And, in doing so, has ingratiated them to himself, whether he wished so or not. Looks like he might have some Worshipers here after all.” Luna grinned, and Avarice seemed tired as he laid next to Crescent on the grass and closed his eyes along with his partner.

“Cool.” I said. “So, Avarice, now that you’re done helping out. Wanna go have some fun?”

“How do you mean?” Avarice and Crescent asked through mumbles as they cracked their eyes open.

“How’s plane hopping sound?” I asked as I pulled out my Runic Portal Matrix. “It could be like a little bachelor party. But if we’re gonna do that, I’d have to call some more of my friends, first.” I almost shit myself when they suddenly shot forward at me, and shrank down into normal-sized snakes that coiled around me, and looked me in the eyes with excitement.

“You’re getting hitched?! This calls for a celebration! Booze! Dancing! Absolutely NO fornication! Can’t guarantee we won’t make EVERYONE PREGNANT! HA!” Avarice then, blinked, and purred as they neared my face. “We could~ make you pregnant too Dox...we sense it...you’re becoming a bit...curious. Changelings are completely gender neutral we hear.”

“Dude…. That’s creepy.” I said. “It’s one thing to change into a female, it’s another to have sex as one. But seriously, let’s just focus on having a party. Luna, I trust you’ll supervise our new guests? And while I’m gone, can you ask them to make the rings?”

“Lulu, don’t let him drop the ball! Make him know what it’s like.” Avarice injected. Shut up damn it!

“It would be interesting Dox. You can’t even imagine.” Luna teased, getting me to blush up to my ears. Damn it Lulu, not you too! “We shall see to it they get settled, I will organize the Guard to begin aiding them in moving their equipment and finding lodgings near the mountain. Excavating into the mountain has always been put off due to the risks the crystal caverns have below, but if they are careful, I shall allow it.”

“Great. I’ll see you later, Lulu!” I said as I walked off and into the castle. “Damn, you guys are heavy. I thought you said you couldn’t shrink down?”

“...What?” I was suddenly crushed under I don’t know how many tons of snake. Me and my big mouth….

How NOT to Plan a Wedding. (The Bachelor Party, Part 2)

After wriggling out from under tons of two giant basilisks, and escaping a near miss of damaging the already ruined castle (thank gog for Canterlot Castle’s long as hell hallways), Avarice sheepishly decided to try and see about literally pulling himself together, which they both admitted they hadn’t even noticed until I pointed it out. I hope I never have to deal with having multiple minds/souls in me….

So, he ended up managing to shrink down and fuse together back into one body, and now he’s walking next to me in nothing but red silk pants, and he looks like he used to as a human, all stupid tall, muscly and ginger as hell, but his green eyes kept changing shades and his hands were instead dragon claws, something about him having issues keeping a clean template. “So! First, we need a place we can wreck! Second! I’ll get the booze, and whatever the hell else we’ll needs. Third. Get wasted as fuck!” Avarice cheered, laughing so harshly his cockney accent and gritty voice sounded kinda painful.

“Sounds like fun, but this isn’t much of a bachelor party.” I said, opening my magic satchel. “Ready for some real fun?”

“So we’re just gonna call up a ton of guys, and go out on the town? I don’t think the world is ready for our kind’s sort of fun! We could end up playing yard bowling with buildings! HA!” Avarice cackled, ready for some insanity.

“Yeah, well, I have plans for that.” I said, pulling out a red and yellow gear. “First off, yo! Iron Man! I kinda need a little help with something. You game?”

A portal opened up and Jacob popped out. This time though, he was in a dark tux and had a portal gun on one arm and a trumpet in the other. “You caught me at a bad time, you son of a-” he was going to say more, but he then saw Avarice.

“Sup.” Avarice just idly greeted in his far-too-familiar voice with a disturbing pearly-white grin and a wave of his blackened claw that just eerily contrasted with his human flesh.

Iron Man then jumped up mario style, sound effects and everything and punched him in the face. “You son of a bitch, Merchant. You put me through hell and separated me from my family. I don’t even know if they are alive or not. I don’t give two thirds of an anal fuck that you are huge, that you didn’t budge at all, that my hand really, really hurts. I’m gonna kick your ass!” He then pulled out a small detonator and summoned a shitload of fireworks.

“Oh~ feisty! I like me a fella with gumption! Only, there’s an issue with your assumption. I’ve been cheated by that rat fuck too. But, go ahead and beat away if it’ll cheer ya up some. Pain is nothing to me at this point.” Avarice leaned around the fist, grinning wide enough to show his teeth were actually shark teeth, and his eyes had slitted. “Have some free chops.”

Iron Man’s hair stood up on ends while a giant grin appeared on his face and said, “Ever heard of smile HD?” He said while blue energy was surrounding him.

“No, but with these chompers I wouldn’t be surprised if that applied to me now.” Avarice replied as he tapped his saw-teeth.

At the speed of light, a glowing Jacob kicked him in the neck, stunning him long enough to flip him and crack the ground under Avarice, what with the force, AND Avarice’s extreme density. “Ka me ha me~-!”

“CAN YOU TWO GET ALONG FOR FIVE SECONDS SO HE CAN EXPLAIN HIMSELF?!” I yelled at the two, giving Jacob and Avarice a firm slap. “Jeeze! Stop acting insane!”

Jacob then stopped and just sat down. The smile long gone from his face. “I’m good down here, ow...nice one.” Avarice complimented, getting Jacob to crack a small grin.

“Yeah, can you help out with getting us a space to summon some other people?” I asked Jacob. “We’re kinda having a bachelor party, and while I’m at it, you’re invited.”

“Congratulations on not being a pussy and popping the question. I just need to go to my lab to get the equipment that I need. Sorry for the mess.” Jacob apologized while gesturing to the cracked floor.

“It’s okay, just hurry up.” After I said that, Iron Man opened a portal and fell through.

“Alright, in the meantime, let me see if I can get someone else.” I said, pulling out the glowing blue cube that was Wade’s token. “Hey Wade, can you make it to a party I’m having?”

“I might be there later, but I can’t come right now.” Came the voice of Pinkie. Odd. "I'm... kinda just a head at the moment. Pinkie, stop playing with that. I'll give you a call through your token when we're done here, okay?"

“Okay then.” I said. “I guess I’ll talk to ya later then. I have a party to throw in the meantime, though. Now…. Who to summon...”

Iron Man then came back in his armor along with a half sized train as that was filled with different things. On the front car, there was a shit ton of balloons, which I later found out to be sex dolls. On the next car, there was a giant flat screen TV with a bunch of video games, a poker table was next to it. On the final car, there was a stage with a robot band playing we are the champions. Iron Man then flew up to Avarice, who wasn’t used to his shit, and said, “My wedding gift.”

“Sweet...new, but eh, I do that sorta shit all the time. Have some gold.” Avarice flicked his hand at Jacob, throwing gold bits at him from nowhere. “Ya’ll never get me Lucky Charms~!” Avarice laughed as he managed to sound his native Irish through his cockney voice for a moment, and got up from the floor, losing his form for a moment and seeming a freak fusion of several different species before he growled and managed to hold his human shape.

“Guys, focus.” I said, taking out various tokens and laying them on the ground. Thank goodness for the currently empty party hall. “We have a party to be had. And I have people to summon.” I turned to the various tokens that I placed around me. “Alright, guys. BACHELOR PARTY!”

With that, various portals started opening up.

Alex’s portal opened up first, and out stepped the mask collector, himself. “Hey, Dox!” Alex said as he stepped out of the portal, his legs creaking underneath his jeans as he landed on the ground. The young adult adjusted his backpack as he got up, before he adjusted his black windbreaker and flipped the hood down. However, he winced as he felt his short brown hair being mussed as a result, and quickly corrected it with his left hand.

An H portal opened before it turned into a perfect ordered portal, showing strangely enough a paradoxical effect Revealing an individual wearing a full bodied Space Suit in a flared executive fashion with a Rather attractive motherly figured robotic alicorn who was nearly twice his size came out wearing a familiar Hyperion Business suit with a white painted coat that shimmers now with glowing red cable mane and tail. “So, we meet again. Under not interrupting my morning coffee moments, I swear if it isn’t you it’s somefucker else. But thanks for the invite, I need some kind of vacation...”

With a flash Kyth appeared, holding his sword above himself and covered in patches of fire and black slime. “I AM KYTH! KILLER OF SHOGGOTH AND FIRE DEMONS!” Above him Jen appeared as well and landed directly onto Kyth’s skull. Both stood up in a confused state, Kyth shaking in either rage or fear. Jen seemed to immediately focus on Kyth, who was covered in random injuries. After a moment of being about to attack anyone near him he calmed down and collapsed against Jen with a damaged leg. Both looked up to Dox as Jen started bandaging Kyth’s injuries. Kyth spoke uncertainly in a tired voice. “Uh… What’s goin on?”

The next portal opened up, from the portal came out the Team Rocket Trio, Sarah, Tomas, and Meowth, behind the trio were two kids, a boy and a girl, the boy wore a standard Team Rocket grunt uniform, a black hat covering his red hair, a green watch with a hourglass symbol on his left arm. The girl wore a miniature version of Sarah’s rocket uniform, a hair clip with a Arbok design was on her brown hair. The next two to come out the portal was a small pink filly named Screwball, and a Wobbuffet, the two kids and the Wobbuffet were carrying eggs.

The next portal open up, and instead of the lich that walked out, it was Queen Chrysalis with a young changeling queen holding her hand. “Wow, are they all daddy’s friends?” Asked the little queen who was holding Chrysalis’s hand. “Don’t know myself, though I do see Jack other there.” I was a little confused when she walked past, just what was that?.

The next one to walk out was…. Is that Faust? And does she have dragon wings? She smiled and walked right up to me. “Don’t worry, Asphyxious will be along he’s just trying to work out if he should bring the Warjacks or not” Just as she finished, a man with black hair and a long dragon like tail jumped out. He was wearing some kind of chest plate with armor all along his left arm and had what looked like a cutlass hanging off his hip.

“Aloha!, did you miss me brother?” He said with a big smile on his face. “Good to see you again, Dox. Come here and give me a hug!” He then wrapped his arms around me I swear I thought my spine was going to give out.

Once he let go, I gasped for air and looked at him that when I noticed something else he was wearing an eyepatch. “Asphyxious?” I asked and that just made him laugh.

“That’s right, it’s me dude. I guess that fight with Everblight hasn’t happened yet, huh.” He asked, giving me this big smile on his face.

“What.” I said. “Know what, I’m not gonna ask. We have a party to have.”

Iron Man then reached down and looked at the little changeling and said, “Aren't you just the cutest thing? I have someone who would love to meet you.” He then opened a portal outside and Bubbles tumbled out. The little one and Bubbles looked at each other and then smiled.

Avarice was really, really glad that they were in a big hall, like, huge, before all this started happening. It had huge gallery windows, a concert stage, the works, and it was rapidly filled by all the people answering Dox’s call, and being the cheeky and attention-seeking man-whore he was, he promptly allowed most of his mass to return to himself, allowed an unknowable number of species to be part of his appearance, like some eldritch Lovecraftian horror, and plopped his giant muscled ass down on the formerly intact stage, crushing it, as he looked down on all of us with a shit-eating shark-toothed grin. “Welcome to the party, you’ve been invited, and we are going to wreck shit up. I got the booze!” Avarice ended, holding up a small ship he summoned from the air. “No minors allowed to drink, of course, so I also got some non-alcoholic cider.” He commented, holding up a weathered barrel in his other hand.

The possibly eighteen foot tall Robotic Alicorn smiled first at Avarice’s shenanigans before adjusting her gaze down at the human visibly in a Hyperion Space suit with markings on it showing the ‘rank’ of C.E.O. “This ‘young one’ would be Avarice, we have made many dealings with him before. Though admittedly it appears he has undergone a ‘change’.” The helmet blank screen shows a view of Handsome Jack’s face, giving a shrug in response with a wave. “I’d come over and shake your hand for the business you’ve provided but, I’d say only my EGO could match your size.” Avarice grinned wider, and winked.

I saw Alex stare at the humanoid beast for a few seconds, before giving a salute and stating, “Yo!” As he did so, however, he noticed the lack of a Iron Lich in the crowd and gave a deadpan look. A few seconds passed before he began to shift around, trying to keep an eye out for any sign of the vengeful Lich.

Kyth looked up at Avarice for a moment before raising his sword and yelling, only to collapse as his injured leg buckled, with Jen rushing to hold him up and then aiming a plasma cannon at Avarice.

Tomas stared at Avarice, “It’s that merchant!” He grabbed a pokeball and threw it, “Victreebel!” In a explosion of light, the large flytrap pokemon appeared, as soon as it was summoned, she turned around and faced her trainer and proceed to bite on his head, “Victreebel! Don’t attack me! Attack that merchant!”

I saw the human Asphyxious was laughing his ass off at what was happening, Chrysalis was keeping an eye on the young changeling that was playing not really sure myself. The dragon like Faust was looking around as if she was looking for someone, not sure what that about.

While this was all going on, if you were to look at me, I swear, you would have visibly seen me turn red with rage.

“GUYS!” I yelled at the collective Displaced. “CALM THE FUCK DOWN!” I shifted my form to one of a giant version of myself. “CALM DOWN NOW OR I’LL MAKE YOU CALM DOWN!” Instantly, everyone dropped what they were doing and stared at me as I shrank myself back down. “Now then. Now that that’s out of the way… This, my friends, is Avarice.” I gestured to my strange friend. “And he is NOT the Merchant you all think he is. No, this guy’s a Displaced like the rest of us. He’s a good sort, and he means well, so don’t go and try and hurt him. And trust me when I say this, even if you do, it won’t work. Now that I’ve explained that, can we PLEASE get on with the reason we’re here?” I pulled out my Runic Portal Device and opened a portal. “Let’s stop with the crazy and get on with the party! I’m getting married soon, so let’s do this! Through that portal is my Earth. We’re gonna go and steal a limo, I’m gonna use my technomancy magic and other powers to upgrade it, and we’re gonna party! LET’S GO FUCK UP LOS ANGELES! OR TOKYO, I DON’T CARE!” I turned to the girls that happened to show up with the other people that I summoned. “You girls can stay here with Luna, Celestia, Emerald, Sapphire, Athena, and Bluebelle. Show them a good time, without sex, and we’ll be back later.”

“Also, as a precaution against my presence, can’t control my fertility powers yet, and any sort of intercourse WILL get you pregnant!” Avarice warned them all, and suddenly put down the small ship, and giant keg, and split in half into two giant basilisks again and began slithering to the portal.

“While I doubt that your powers will have any effect on me.” Alex said to Avarice, before he grew a shit-eating grin on his face, “I can’t wait to uphold my title as the Prince of Trolling.”

Jack just looked at Avarice and the others, giving a sigh in response to that speaking to Me. “Well at least there won’t be any alicorns there, so that’s an improvement. But I will shoot a fucker who deserves it.” Saying in warning though the alicorn bit sounded weird as he shuddered.

Jen raised a hand to Avarice. “What if we aren’t built with that..erm… function?”

“No worries, just ask Jack to make you one.” Asphyxious said as if it was no big deal. She responded by giving him an odd look and slowly taking a step away.

“EARTH!” I shouted into the portal that I opened. “PREPARE TO HAVE YOUR SHIT REKT!”

With that, we all stepped through the portal.

We were not received well by ANYONE. Apparently, no one likes it when you randomly open a portal in downtown LA. No joke. There were cops, gangsters, hell, even civilians, all pointing guns at us!

“Uh, guys.” I said to the gathered humans. “You don’t want to do that.”

They immediately opened fire…. Which never got close to us. Thank goodness for magnetism. It was like the fucking matrix, and I was Neo-Magneto.

“Told you.” I said. “Hey guys, don’t hold back. These guys are stupid enough to shoot at us, then they deserve it. I don’t care for my Earth anymore. Plus, we’re not here to play hero, we’re here to fuck shit up and have fun. LET’S GET TWISTED!” I yelled as I sent the bullets back into the guns that they came from.

“Why not, let’s do this!” Avarice and Crescent crowed as they shot forth from the portal, swallowing screaming people whole as they cleared the way. “It’s a fiesta! And you’re all going to jail cuz you’re not invited!” Avarice cast an emerald aura around him, making so that anyone who “died” was to be transferred to a prison cell, damn having those powers must be awesome.

Iron Man switched into the War Machine armor. “Let me get this straight, We get to go on a murderous, chaotic rampage and not have to deal with the after effects. In that case, let’s fuck them up!” The minigun on his back hummed to life as he ripped a crowd of cops to pieces. “HA HA HA HA HA, I am getting a huge boner from this!” He screamed. Luckily, pretty much 99.9 percent of the LAPD are corrupt and rapists here anyway.

The rocket grunt child fixed his black hat, looking at the destruction in front of him, he grinned devilishly, “Yahoo! Time for big ol storm of chaos!” Pulling out a small gem, he activated his magic, causing some of the cars to grow legs and start stomping on anyone who dared to attack them. “Come on out Shellder!” Summoning out the small purple clam, he pointed at a nearby building, “Shellder, use Ice Beam!” Firing a beam of ice, the building froze and collapsed, causing the Rocket child to laugh maniacally.

Alex stumbled as he fell out of the portal, but quickly righted himself before diving down to avoid gunfire. “I really regret not transforming beforehand,” He said aloud as he took the Olmak before slapping it on, transforming in seconds. As he got back up, bullets now bouncing off him harmlessly, he turned to me and asked, “You mind if I go terrorize Lego for dropping Farshtey as the writer for the new Bionicle series?” I nodded, and he gave a grin before opening a portal with his Olmak and stepped into it.

On the other side, Jack’s first action was to look around, raise a brow watching the show. “Well, I forgot how much of a shithole this place was. Hey, can the freeways through here be wrecked if I can’t bring a Mars Unit along?” Opening the visor to his Space Suit as a couple bullets reflect off his shield, priming his finger on a Moonshot summoning button just waiting for Avarice to give the signal.

“Go for it, I hate the traffic there anyway, might as well, but let Avarice incapacitate as many civilians as possible first.” I said as I floated up to a nearby building wall, and began to watch the carnage. Damn, had no idea how much spite I had pent up for my old home.

Tapping away on the watch, bringing up a holographic view of some kind, he then started to shift direction facing where Earth’s moon was. a Distant if unclear view of it before completing the task, those with a magic connection could feel distant ‘thumps’ of power with anyone looking at the sky will soon enough see a starting glow of what appeared to be a meteor shower. But in a matter of minutes of that being done Jack had his helmeted visor down, bracing for impacts by sitting on a street curb with shrieking crashes into the Freeway in several places around the city of L.A. likely cutting the city off from any vehicle traffic except for smaller roads. But the final impact only landed just across the street into a building, only to explode outward with a self righted Saturn Bot, lumbering over to a Casual looking Jack giving a ‘circle around’ motion.

I then saw Asphyxious get a hotdog from a stall and pay the guy in gems then he just watches us eating it with a smile on his face. Before someone tried to shoot him and missed, but the hotdog was nothing more than a mess on the street. “You know I was going to go easy on you all, but now…” His body was cover in fire and black smoke as Asphyxious transformed back to a lich form only he looked bigger.

“I am going to eat your souls!” He roared at them then they all ran away from him screaming like little girls. “Big babies” He said and went into a mall, I then could hear screams as hundreds of people ran out.

“You guys mind if I wire some money to my mom of this world?” Jacob said after pulling the arms off a mobster. Getting no response, he ran into a bank.

Kyth seemed to look around uncertainly for a moment before lifting up a chunk of metal to use as a shield as he dashed over to Jack. “Uh. You’re the Handsome Jack Displaced, right? You got any shields I could have? I don’t exactly want to test how bullet-resistant I am.”

Giving the Cthulhu looking displaced an unreadable look due to his blast visor being down, until lifting it up giving him a classic Handsome Smile. “Well sure, though for a first time customer I’ll play it easy on you kiddo. So I think for your ‘style’ from how you are standing a more ‘melee’ regen variety would be needed.” Tapping into his Echo, before pulling out what appears to be another echo with a possible shield device. “Just wear the Echo and put it in by accessing the Inventory screen like the video games. Also YOU will pay me with 35,400 Bits.”

Kyth blinked before reaching into a pocket and taking out a stone tome. He held it in one hand while getting a look of concentration before his hand erupted into green light and bits started piling on the ground. “Uh, tell me when to stop. And for the melee thing, that’s more because I don’t really have any ranged weapons yet.”

A retching sound came from overhead, and Kyth looked up to see the horned serpent that was Avarice vomiting gold coins into a pile next to him on the other side of the one he was already manifesting. “Say when Boss.” The frilled serpent said as Kyth just blinked and put the tome away, stepping out of the way to avoid being buried.

“Uh. Thanks guy. Sorry ‘bout trying to stab you earlier.” Kyth said.

“No hard feelings, if I held grudges against everyone who tried to hurt me, I wouldn’t be in a relationship with nearly any of my mares, ha, ha!” Avarice, the red-frilled serpent laughed as he shimmied in place.

Kyth gave a small chuckle, unsure what to make of that. When all the bits were exchanged by Jack taking the pile into his ECHO and handing it to Kyth, he simply programmed the shield and attached it onto his belt. “So, what exactly were… you... Displaced.. as?” He blinked as Avarice had already darted away and looked over to where the up was talking.

“Huh.”

Iron Man then walked out of the bank and said, “Turns out my family never existed in this dimension, so I have no qualms with blowing stuff up.” He then activated the bomb launcher and said, “We should play poker after this! No cheating!” And walked away from the exploding building without looking back, like a badass.

Tomas and Meowth stood shocked at what their nephew was doing, “Sarah is going to kill me…Ken!” He yelled. “Get back here! Or at least be careful!” Tomas ran after his nephew.

“Wow, looks like Discord taught him a lot about chaos magic.” Meowth commented in awe.

“Wobbuffet!” The blue blob said saluting.

Asphyxious then came back in his human form again holding a bucket of KFC and wearing a sombrero on his head. “Did I miss anything?” He asked as his tail was waving a little flag that say go team. I then saw him offer the bucket of chicken to the two pokemon.

“Sweet. Now, Jack, I have a few questions for you.” I said as I floated down from my perch. “First of all, can I do a request and pay you later? I have a lot of information to give you in return, as well as a new material to work with, but it’s back in my Equestria.”

Giving a shrug as he tapped open a document program it seems. “Okay but first thing’s first.” Turning to the Chaos being known as Avarice he yelled up. “Stop your pouring of precious metals! Has your brain rotted to the point of not simply giving the ‘exact’ amount?” He turned back to me, acting nonchalant in yelling off a likely more powerful being before continuing. “Sure we could get to work on something when we get back kiddo, though we’ll have to also have my assistant with me too.” Likely referencing to F.A.U.S.T. that I’ve only met once in the ‘flesh’.

“Heh, sorry boss, had a little trouble closing the flow.” Crescent commented as he gagged and tried to keep any more lost treasures of this world from spilling out of his mouth.

“Great. Hell, she can come over real quick if need be.” I said, opening a portal. “I’d like to get this done now so we can continue our rampage.” I turned towards the portal. “Yo! F.A.U.S.T., get out here! You’re needed for a transaction and possible rampage!”

The eighteen foot tall Robotic Alicorn came through the portal with a lingering smile, before it fell flat seeing the destruction on this side of the portal. Her gaze first fell onto Jack just giving a smile nudging at myself, while her eyes with a blur that only one of my eyes could track gazed at each of everyone else were up to. Also the active Combat logs from the possible Hyperion Robots coming out with the wreckage where the Saturn Unit fell having a couple constructors digistructing Loader Bots coming out in dual filed order getting in on the rioting and suppression detail. “We see thou art a destructive type young child of DM, we hope thy nature will not rub off too much on OUR Handsome Jack?” The question she gave might have been a loaded one.

“Hey, chill Boss Lady, nobody’s dying. I’m not exactly just joshing around here. Been working overtime transferring anyone who ‘dies’ to prison cells, heh, heh~.” Avarice said as he shrank down and reformed into a sort of black and cream paint-patterned mutant alicorn her height with a red mane, and clicked his pearly shark teeth. “Why can’t I get rid of those?” Avarice grumbled as he ruffled his dragon wings and twitched his red-frilled serpent tail.

“Dude, nice.” I said. “Anyways. I have a list of things that I need and want. First of all, I’d like some Loader ‘shoes’. Ya know, the jet boots? Next, I need twenty empty base loaders. No AI, no guns, nothing. Next, I need one HUGE gun. And that’s my order. In return, when we get back, I’ll give you something that can fight back orichalcum and can also function as a power source, but it’s extremely powerful. I might send a Low Elf and a Dwarf with you so they can help with it.”

A bar door opened and Jacob walked out, “Can I nuke Washington?”

“Later.” I said. “Now, Jack, F.A.U.S.T., do we have a deal?”

She nodded looking, to Jack for approval as he waved his hand. “Sure we can do that, though knowing us anyone you send will likely be joining the doppelganger program too as our employees to improve production, on a side note apparently she made a cure for cancer of some form a couple centuries ago and forgot about it.” Giving her a look as she merely fiddled her thumbs looking away, abashedly for how she looked. “But yeah after the festivities you’ll get a shipment, just place the beacon where ever when it does outside.”

“I need it now.” I said, pulling out the beacon and placing it in front of me. “Like, right now. It’s necessary for the fun, alright? I want my buddies to be up to full on the fun level, and I’m pretty sure my Team Rocket buddy could use something more to get into full action.”

There was an unnatural glow that came off the Badass robotic F.A.U.S.T. with a pop resulting in the unactivated loaders yet deployed, also crates holding the items requested with the gold that Avarice was pouring out before having been taken in response except for a little left over. “Thou hast it, now can we continue the ‘interesting’ festivities with our new friends as well?”

“Yay, verily.” I said, opening another portal for F.A.U.S.T. to exit through. “Now, where were we?”

Meanwhile, with the Ladies:

“Welcome back, mother!” Luna cheered from her seat in a recliner, now properly dressed in a comfortable gown that fit her, one of her sister’s, since it was her style of white and gold.

F.A.U.S.T. Reemerged through the portal from Dox’s location giving a sigh with shaking of her head with a light smile, Gazing over the other mares present giving a smile. “We thank thou, though thy groom to be is rather ‘enjoying’ himself with his colt friends and OUR Handsome Jack.” Giving a smile as her robotic wings gave a happy flutter. “We can see our Jack at least seems to be keeping an eye out, though the phrase ‘designated driver’ is lost onto us as for why he sighed.”

The ladies were all gathered in a parlor, sitting around on plush and comfortable couches and chairs, while the kids all were playing and laughing in the next room being watched by Chrysalis. Unsure of where to go, Jen had made the mistake of choosing to sit with the adults, and engaging the only other robotic female in the room. Oh, what a mistake. And now she was back, and she wasn’t too enthused to continue speaking with the voluptuous and over-sexed mare.

“So dear, where were we?” F.A.U.S.T asked conversationally as she gently set her large body down on the couch next to her. The only reason said couch didn’t collapse under their respective tremendous weights was due to it being magically reinforced by the Goddess of Creation beforehand.

“U-Um...you were talking about the theories you developed on synthetic flesh, nerve endings and...upgrades?” Jen responded with a squeak.

“Ah, yes. If thou would wish, we could even upgrade thou current chassis with nerve endings that have a full-range of sensation with dampeners so thou only really feel pain when something endangers thy structural integrity. We could also give your body a more organic appearance while not hampering your current functions, along with being able to eat normal foods to replenish your energy stores, and taste them too. Any more ‘Mature’ options would be entirely up to thou as well, since while to us thou art already an adult, we sense thou art uncomfortable with the subject of sex.” F.A.U.S.T supplied, Jen gaining a blue blush.

“Uh..Yeah, that does sound pretty good. Though y-yeah the erm..s-sex stuff I think would maybe be an upgrade for in a few years. But still, having a more organic body plus still having my battle armor, flight, weapons, et cetera would be pretty awesome.”

Smiling at her response giving a gentle synthetic sigh, leaning in a bit more conspiratorially to speak in an understandable computer programming script. (“Thou should try to see how a slightly more mature form at the least will ‘affect’ thy chosen mate, we could have it done long before those colts finish their fun for our own at how thy ‘Kyth’ reacts visibly.”) A smile adorning the larger robot’s muzzle giving a added wink, as her gaze shifted over to the other mares present. Jen let out a small, nervous laugh.

“W-well in a few years maybe… Though then again, wouldn’t there need to be time to actually y’know design it? Seeing as it’s gonna be a combo of your tech and mine...?”

Giving a slight nod as she continued in a binary tone. (“Thou art still thinking of how those of flesh and blood work mentally, a simple connection depending on processing speed could have our results in seconds or less.. Though tis understandable being so young, if thou doesn’t mind we may offer insights and our own teachings to help ‘adapt’ to thy nature as it were.”) She stated with a slight hand gesture not noticing some stares for how she has been speaking so alien a tone that only one side of the conversation was heard. Jen placed a hand to her chin.

“Well.. Yeah I suppose that’d be useful. I actually have some of the blueprints for other stuff in the show that I could use help deciphering… Yeah, sure. So where does the upgrading whatever happen?”

F.A.U.S.T. Merely smiled at her in a devious way. (“We COULD return to our Jack’s universe for such a procedure, or thou could give a ‘leap of faith’ by our remote model’s fabrication aboard this unit as a first ‘stage’.”) She stated with a soft hum emanating from the larger frame. Wasting no time Jen responded.

“Uh… Thanks but I’d rather make this as not weird as possible. First option!”

F.A.U.S.T. nodded and opened a portal to Jack’s world and the pair proceeded through, disappearing from view.

While F.A.U.S.T. was speaking with Jen, the Faust of Asphyxious’ world was having an equally discomforting conversation.

“He then removed the heart stone from my body healed my wounds and then ate it right in front of me, and that’s how we met.” Faust said with a warm smile on her face. Celestia in the mean time was still trying to get use to seeing her mother from yet another world looking part dragon, as well as trying to control her blushing as Faust told her what they did next.

“I see, well it’s still good to see you despite everything that happened to you. Tell me, did it hurt when you were, what did you call it?” Asked Celestia as she was drinking some tea. Faust sighed as she looked at her tail that was swaying from side to side.

“It’s called Blight. Asphyxious explained that it was more of a passive ability that belonged to the dragons like Everblight and his brothers. It changes living things around them. If they want they can even direct it, I thought I could stop Everblight. I didn’t think his powers could affect me. As you can see, I was wrong. And yes it did hurt.” Faust said as she drinks some wine.

“Anyway, I want to know more about you and Luna. Tell me how far along are you both?” She said with a knowing smile. “I want to know everything~.”

Celestia blushed at the question she then points over Faust’s shoulder and yells. “HEY, WHAT’S THAT!”

Faust just blinked at Celestia, then gave her a deadpan stare. “Really…?” She asked, sounding unimpressed. Celestia panicked, then flipped the table and tried to run away.

“TELL ME!” Faust flew after her, chasing her out of the room and down the hall.

“So Dox helped this beautiful creature have offspring?” Bluebelle asked Sarah as she nursed a wine glass full of juice, she had to be responsible after all.

Sarah nodded, petting her Arbok, “Yup, ever since Arbok had laid those eggs, she has been extremely overprotective of them, and lucky for us, we managed to see how they would turn out.” She looked off to the side, spotting a golden colored Arbok, “Violet here has been just darling, and Star, despite his disabilities, is just adorable! Sadly, I can’t say the same with one of Arbok’s sons, Regi…”

“Oh, how sad. I hope my foals aren’t with problems, but then again, I suppose it is only natural for a mother? I didn’t used to be a mare just a couple of weeks ago. Then I was slammed by the fact that I’m a middle-aged mare now with NO heir! I had to get busy, and Dox, well, he was the only option that wouldn’t lead to either a broken heart or a loveless marriage. He is a great stallion.” Blue smiled in reminisce as Sarah blinked in shock.

“You don’t look middle age, you still look pretty young to me.” Arbok shifted a little, a bit confused at something Bluebelle had said.

Blue blushed and tittered in a shockingly lady-like fashion. “Oh charmer! I’m thirty-four! But it’s nice to know I still look so young.” The golden-maned mare brushed her mane out of her eyes as she just beamed at Sarah, feeling very complimented, and she realized just why mares didn’t like to talk about their age. “But let’s be serious, you say Dox is in a relationship with this gorgeous serpent, yet he’s marrying myself and five others? That doesn’t sound right.”

Arbok’s eyes snapped wide open, “Charbok? [What?]” Arbok got up, facing Bluebelle, “Char?! [He’s doing what?!]”

Sarah eyed Arbok, nervously, “Arbok calm down, umm.. Blue, you said that Dox is marrying you and five other mares, right?”

“Yes, and the poor dear deserves to know.” Blue said turning to face the pokemon. “I’m afraid that he hasn’t mentioned you at all. I’m going to be abusing some of my new privileges to yank on his ear for this when he gets back.” Blue finished her juice, and sighed angrily as she put the glass down on the table next to her.

Arbok stared at her eggs, distraught at the news, “Char.. [Never mentioned me once…]” Her tail gripped the eggs, protectively.

“That may be so dear, but he isn’t the sort of stallion to abandon things. I feel he’s simply suffering from being an idiot. It happens to us all...to...to males on a regular basis.” Blue commented, losing her spite and suddenly becoming sad, remembering who she used to be. “I used to be such a fool myself. So blind...then Dox beat me up, literally, threw me into guard training, and then something turned me permanently into a giant-chested mare. I think...I don’t know.” Blue rambled, feeling upset, and trying to calm down.

“You used to be a stallion?” Sarah asked, trying to comfort her distraught Pokemon, noticing the snake starting to shake.

“Oh, come here dear, I’ll give you a hug. I was once nearly choked to death by a visiting bureaucrat’s pet anaconda, and I’m not afraid after having taken classes. Come and give me a hug dear.” Blue offered with open arms. “We’ll be giving Dox an earful when he gets back, hangover or no.”

Arbok slithered closer, dropping herself onto Blue’s arms, “Arrboo..” Her tail shook, causing the eggs wrapped around it to rattle.

Blue pulled her in and made sure her eggs were stable on the couch next to them as she nuzzled and pet the smooth scales of the hood of the despairing giant cobra pokemon. “Hush, it’s alright, Bluey’s here.” She kissed the sad serpent’s cheek. “Everything will be alright.” Blue only wondered a moment where such matronly feelings were coming from, but let it go, this felt right.

Not even the sounds of loud crashing, playful roaring, and the giggles of a little foal could interrupt the moment, save the few of the ladies who looked outside at the Ursa Minor and the changeling Queen pair of mother and daughter riding on said great beast’s back as it trounced through the statue garden, the other children all squealing in excitement along with Puparium as Chrysalis tried in vain to calm the enthusiastic celestial beast down..

“Thank goodness nopony else was in those statutes or are of actual ponies.” Luna commented, and shrugged, she was going to have the garden remodeled anyway.

Sarah bolted of her seat, chasing the Ursa, “MARIA! SCREWBALL! I BETTER NOT FIND YOU TWO CAUSING CHAOS AGAIN!”

In the distance, a familiar God of Chaos’s voice could be heard alongside his father’s. “CHAOS~!”

Back with the Guys:

“So, Tomas? Wanna make a mech?” I asked the Team Rocket member. “I got these Loaders just so we can scrap them into a mech.”

Tomas held down his power crazed nephew, “Sure thing, Meowth! help me out here!” Tomas handed Ken to Wobbuffet, the two got ready to start building. “So, what type of mech are we building here?”

“Whatever we want!” I said. “Hey! Back away from the Loaders!”

I grabbed onto one of the Loaders and watched as it lit up with that weird circuit board pattern that normally happened with technology and me. A spark of green lightning jumped from the Loader, infecting the next one, then the next one. Eventually, they all had the circuit board pattern. I used my magnetism to bring them all into each other, causing a huge flash of light. When the light faded, there stood not twenty Loaders, but instead, a small Mechagodzilla with a large Team Rocket R on the front of it. I ran over to the large unopened crate, pried it open, and took the giant gun that was inside it. I slammed it into the mouth of the giant monstrosity, giving it the cannon it needed.

“THAT is what we’re making.” I said proudly. We all stood around, looking at the glorious construct of destruction for a moment.

Then Avarice had to burst our bubble. “Dox...you could’ve done that with a ton of cars, and had me dump a bunch of computers around. Besides, I was going to end up giving that Aetherium to Jack anyway.” He said as Crescent dove into his back, making him grunt as the giant serpent seemed to flow into him like he was liquid and soon he was gone. “Ugh...all this matter management is so frustrating.”

“It wouldn’t be able to fly if I didn’t do that!” I said, walking over to the one unopened small crate. I pried it open, revealing the ‘Loader Shoes’ that I asked for.

Wow, when you order something, Hyperion delivers. I put them on and tested them out a bit, eventually figuring out how to get them to do a close to the ground hover with Jack’s help. Remember how I said they deliver? These things were synced up to my Echo Eye, meaning I could control the jets on the bottom of the ‘shoes’ with my mind. Pretty sweet, huh?

“Ya know, I feel like Shadow the Hedgehog now.” I said. “Funny thing is, I saw one a few days ago.”

Kyth casually glided through the air past me and spoke in an imitation of Shadow’s voice.

“You’ll never be the real hedgehog, faker…He he heh, JK. I’m just gonna go grab loot from wherever now. Cya in a bit!”

With that, he was away, and I turned back to Avarice.

“Ya know what, if you can get me a bunch of cars, I think I have an idea for you.” I said. “Just tell me how you feel about more giant robots, and possibly Power Rangers.”

Jacob then opened a portal and a bunch of nuclear missiles flew out of it. “Maybe now we can get the military here and have some fun. Bye Washington!”

“Don’t you even joke about that!” Avarice suddenly shouted in fury, as the missiles vanished in mid-air. “YOU HAVEN’T SEEN A NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST! HAVE YOU SEEN A WORLD DIE?!”

“Do all twenty nine hells count.” said Jacob with a sorrowful look on his face.

“The people there are already dead! You would condemn millions of people to a fate WORSE than death! Everything in the instant blast radius is turned to shadows on walls! The ones that aren’t so lucky are forced to live with having their bodies cooked alive for minutes! The ones outside that become walking dead, not even aware they are dead until their motor functions stop. The fallout after would have killed countless more with cancer and slow radiation poisoning!” Avarice shouted as he lost control of his shape again, growing over everything as he looked down at Iron Man in contempt.

“For your information, they weren't armed! They were supposed to slow down and drop wooden toys. I am sorry about the joke though, but even I have standards! I need a fucking drink!” Iron Man then walked down the road, regretting pissing a pal off.

“...Here.” Avarice held a hand out and dumped a small junkyard off to the side as he walked away.

Meanwhile at some random bar

Iron Man had about twenty empty beer bottles and was mumbling a song that he never heard. “Funny, the first party that I go to that ends with me being the bad guy. Hope the hero enjoys himself.” Iron Man’s hair went flat, and then just slumped down next to a drunk.

“Don’t worry about it, man at least you don’t have to worry about being eaten if you lose a fight” Said Asphyxious as he was drinking from a bottle of vodka. Watching the news on the tv about the others going nuts on the city.

Taking a slow drink of water looking at the two of them present, having not enjoyed a human bar in so long. “Well here’s a bit of advice if you want to hear it, Jacob is it?” Making a hand gesture before looking at his Hyperion watch, seeing updates from the bots in the city smiling at the H logo of destruction being made the city.

“Sorry.” said Jacob in an uncaring and deep voice, “Doc Jacob isn’t here right now. The name’s Mr. Hyde.”

His eyebrow slowly raised, giving a shrug before asking this. “Can a message be left for the guy who’s wallowing inside? Because I have some decent advice if you can pass it on, as it does go into a ‘bit’ about how morals or how you are perceived can be like. One of the first things I’ve learned since being plopped into ‘horse world’ was what I called it back then.” Pausing to take another drink before saying this. “Well the phrase ‘Hero’ depends on the views of those who look at you, because for me? I consider myself ‘The Hero of this Story’! While others will view me as something else, the point is you change in how YOU view yourself and those you consider close.. Also insurance against being fucking stabbed in the back for the other.”

“Funny, the doc never said he was the hero. He was just the guy who did stuff or made stuff or gave stuff to the hero because he felt like they would need it. The reason he gave Dox the Cello was because he looked liked the guy who would need to remember his past. The reason he made that shit for Spider Man was because the kid looked like he could easily get his ass kicked. Me? I view myself as a shield. I am a strong force that is strong enough to help the poor guy when his heart shatters into pieces. I will carry your advice, Jack. I just need to go correct Jacob’s mistake.” he started to get up, but then noticed Asphyxious looking at him.

Asphyxious blinked at them and smiled. “You know what the first thing I learned was?, Pinkie and Maud are wild” He said with a big smile on his face. “And don’t get me started on being married to Queen Derpy” Asphyxious laughs harder and take a big drink of his vodka. As he set his bottle down, though, the two of them were interrupted as Alex sat in one of the nearby booths in his Onua Nuva form, a Levahk shield with something etched on it sitting on the table.

Giving a flat look at the interruption before gazing back at Iron Man, putting down his glass to give him a blank dead stare. “He’s a bit unstable when you mention nuclear attacks, seeing how his world blew up and he had attachment to it. It’s rather surprising how just a ‘movement’ of the moon threw the world over, but having a full report puts it all into better perspective if you only view things as a statistic… It’s what becomes detached in the bigger picture, how else could a eternal monarch hope to keep sane when they have immortality and watch every friend or acquaintance die from one form or another, just imagine it for a second how DETACHED you need to be to function.” Holding a lifeless gaze with a shudder coursing through his back. “You should figure out how to ground yourself before becoming like Discord in his prime or kill others..”

“One question, how does this work on me? I and the Doc are mortal.” Hyde then said, “I will pass it on to him though.”

“Hey guys,” Alex said nervously as he picked up a menu, looking over the appetizers.

“What’s up, squirt?” Asked Asphyxious as he looked over at Alex.

“Well,” Alex said, not looking at the Iron Lich yet becoming more animate in his tale as he continued, “After I left the Lego executives traumatized, I decided to uphold my title as the Prince of Trolling, so I opened a portal over the White House before drowning it in molasses, before dropping 15 tons of jello on Buckingham Palace, flooded Geneva in rubber ducks, unleashed ten or so avalanches of snow in Kenya, put mustaches of stone on Mount Rushmore, and even,” Alex lifted up the shield before continuing, “Got Greg Farshtey to sign my Levahk shield!”

“It’s under your feet, dude” Asphyxious pointed as he looks at Alex. “Are you okay? You look… I don’t know, lonely?”

“What do you mean?” Alex said as he looked at the shield and the Iron Lich in confusion.

“I mean why are you sitting all by yourself over there then sit with us?” He asked, looking at the other displaced.

“Nah, I’m good,” Alex chuckled nervously. However, Asphyxious was smiling at him, making Alex wince slightly. “Come on and have a drink with us. I’m buying, anyway.”

Alex looked at the Lich for a few seconds, before complying, but making sure there was some distance between the two by sitting on the other side of Jacob.

“Okay, what up why do you not want to sit with me did I do that prank on you or has it not happened to you yet?” Asphyxious asked.

“Prank?” Alex looked at the Lich for a few seconds, before shaking his head and saying, “No, it’s not that. As a Toa, well, being around a necromancer makes me… uneasy, due to Toa being strictly against killing.”

“Oh right, well it not like any of the things I killed were just going to let me live. A lot of things try and kill me in my world but hey, no worries. It’s not like I raise the dead or anything” Asphyxious said as he drinks his drink.

This statement relaxed Alex a tad, but he was still wary of the lich as he set down the menu and quipped, “That, plus you nearly traumatized Tomas’s niece back then,” before turning to a nearby waitress and ordering a ginger ale.

“Hay you guys should have knocked on the door not teleported into the room without knowing what was going on” Said Asphyxious as he looks at the TV. “Or are you just jelly I got to sleep with them” He asked with a smirk.

Alex gave Asphyxious a light glare before shrugging and picking up the glass the waitress set down. “Not really, considering that I can’t have sex anyways,” He said before taking a sip. Asphyxious just blinked at him and stare at Alex as if asking to tell him why. Noticing the look, Alex set down his drink and sang so that only the other displaced, “I’ve got no balls attached to me...,” before taking another sip.

“Ouch man that sucks, but I think I can help or know someone who can,” Asphyxious grinned at him.

“Meh,” Alex said in reply, though he kept a wary eye on Asphyxious, “I’ve lived with it for ten years, there’s not much to change that.”

Asphyxious then go over to Alex and put his arm around him, making the Toa cringe. “When you have the powers of Everblight at your fingertips, the most useful of all his powers was changing the flesh of the living.” He said giving Alex a meaningful look.

“N-no, I’m fine,” Alex stuttered as he slipped out from under the Lich’s arm.

“Alright, nothing to worry about I’m just giving you the option if you want it. I have no plans to foshe this on anybody” Asphyxious said as he sit down. “But talk to Dox later. He could help, too.” Alex nodded in reply, but excused himself soon afterwards.

Back with Dox and the others:

“So, Tomas, how do you like the Mechagodzilla Mech?” I asked, watching as Tomas piloted the huge mech.

“Well, it’s probably the second biggest thing I’ve piloted.” Tomas answered, “Though, one thing's for sure, I’m going to have to keep Ken away from this mech, the kid has a thing for being a bit power crazed.”

“Sounds like a fun guy.” I said. “Have you tried the cannon yet?”

“Ummm, no, not yet.” He grabbed the lever, “Should we fire it?”

“Yes.” I said. “Fire it at anything…. Well, anything but the convention center. I like that place. Fire it at a bank or something.”

Pulling on the lever, the giant mech’s mouth opened and fired a green beam straight at a tall building, causing it to fall on top of smaller buildings. “Well, it’s probably stronger than all the other mechs Meowth built.”

“Ya got that right!” I said. “But that’s probably because I used Hyperion Loaders, and not random other things. Now, to find the others!”

Pulling another lever, the Mechagodzilla roared, and started stomping towards the direction of the other displaced, crushing some cars and other small buildings on the way.

Meanwhile, back at the bar:

The other displaced were having a nice drink. Nothing could have been wrong, but the beer could have been better, and the bartender could have been less…. scared shitless….

All of a sudden, a large laser came down and destroyed part of the bar.

“Sup, guys?” I yelled. “Have you guys been getting drunk without us?”

“Dox, I was watching that” Said Asphyxious as he pointed at the destroyed wall where I could see what left of a tv.

“Well, serves you right for not staying with us.” I said. “We were having fun with the Mechagodzilla, weren’t we, Tomas?”

Tomas shrugged, “I just like blowing up buildings as Godzilla.”

Wobbuffet appeared behind him, startling Tomas, “Wobbuffet!” The blob saluted.

“I saw it on the Tv they was just about to show the highlights, until you blasted the wall down.” Said Asphyxious as to looked behind the bar for another bottle of vodka. “Wait, did you say something about Godzilla?”

“Yeah.” I said, pointing at the mech we were driving. “I’m honestly waiting for the military to show up and try and stop us.”

“HALT! THIS IS THE POLICE!” Said a random voice.

“Well, it’s close.” I said. “Piss off, officer. We don’t want to have to hurt you…. Unless we want to hurt you, then we’ll hurt you.”

I then felt a hand on my shoulder and saw Asphyxious was smiling at me. “Let me deal with them”

Jack just looked at the hole in the ceiling, then towards the closed doorway where the ‘police’ would be. “Shouldn’t they be trying to keep people back and try evacuating?” Stating his opinion, moving his hand behind the bar to fish around for a new glass to replace his shattered one from the blow in. “Also, you dicks should be partying. Like kids on christmas, or however families treated each other. Unless we are city hopping, then I’ll be willing to tag along. Like Vegas or something, or even better the caribbean.”

Iron Man’s hair sprang back up. “Yay, city hopping!”

“Well, I say Vegas.” I said. “Anyone else up for Vegas? Might find you all some hookers. I got my ladies waiting for me back home.”

Iron Man just said, “Nah, I’ll just play poker, anyone want in?”

“I’m game” Said Asphyxious as he pulled up a table.

“How about Vegas, instead, Asphyxious?” I said.

“Can I summon my mechs as well?”

“Feel free.” I said. “Let’s just get to Vegas, first.”

It took a while to get to Vegas. It was fun, what with all of us riding the giant Mechagodzilla. Sure enough, the Military met us up outside the great city of sin, they’d even tried to stop us in the Rockies, but we’re super-powered dudes out for a good time, nothing like helicopters, tanks, or regiments of soldiers firing at us could stop us!

“There it is!” I yelled. “Vegas! And finally! There’s the Military! Again! When will they learn?”

“Mechs, keep the army busy, I have money to win.” said Jacob.

The Mechs were huge, like 200 meters tall. They looked amazing, to boot.

“So, where do we hit first? I have never been here before or anywhere in the US.” Asked Asphyxious.

“I’ve never heard of the U.S. until Ben told us about it, in my Earth, this place is just another part Britain.” Thomas said.

“No way, I used to live in Britain. Man that felt like forever ago” Said Asphyxious as he looked at Tomas.

“I traveled to the empire from time to time, my father was a rich business man from France, and he would take me to see the Holy Britannia Empire whenever he went.”

“Huh, I can’t remember what my old life was like before I was displaced has it really been that long?” Asphyxious said to himself.

“Ya know, I don’t even know anymore.” I said. “Honestly, I just want to fuck some shit up. Screw this world. The only redeeming thing would be finding another changeling like me.”

“Well look on the bright side, at least you got us to kick ass and take names” Asphyxious said with a smile and patted me on the back. Q

“Yay.” I said as we moved into the city limits. Amazingly there were a few citizens that were not concerned about us amongst the other screaming civilians. “Oh hey, look! I promised hookers, and hookers I give!” But, then, out of nowhere, people, wearing Hawaiian shirts, cargo shorts, flip flops and bucket hats all started standing around and taking pictures. “The fuck?”

“Oh! There’s a James! Can I have a picture with you?!” One of them asked, as they began asking us annoying requests for pictures, or autographs.

“Oh no...Tourists….” I shuddered. “Yo! Piss off!” They all just groaned and some backed off, while the persistent ones still hung around while most of the locals didn’t give a shit. Only newbies had to be the ones running. How crazy was this city?

“This could be fun” Asphyxious said with a smile.

Jack just raised his brow giving a classic ‘fitting’ smile as he held onto Jacob posing with him. “What about two wealthy individuals of two completely different ideals?”

“Let’s get the fuck out of here before a Marvel nut shows up.” Jacob said as a crowd of kids wearing Iron Man T-Shirts could be seen running towards them down the street. “Damn you Jack! I also need to know what you mean by different ideals? I don’t think I had a long conversation with you.” Jack just gave him a deadpan stare while pulling him back.

Leaning in closer to whisper in Jacob’s ear. “I’m a gun company/etc CEO and you represent..?” Gesturing to Jacob with a knowing smile that grew, while someone stood next to them for a new picture. With an excitable younger crowd in front, besides their folks taking poses for each side they were on.

Jacob then leaned and whispered back, “Remind me to make you a gun that has bullets that can pierce vibranium.” He then stood back up and said, “He’s the gun guy, I am the peace guy (most of the time). Take your pictures!”

“I’m just a pirate of the Iron kingdoms” Said Asphyxious as he pulls out his cutlass and poses with a grin on his face.

I rolled my eyes at the silliness, and turned to Thomas and Meowth. “You two go ahead, I’m going to go talk to the ladies while those goobs get pictures, see what their going rate is for reference.”

“Why hello there, mister.” Said one of the ladies. “What can we do for you?”

“Drop the act. I know you’re hookers.” I said, bluntly. “So, how much for my friends?”

“Hey, try acting like more of a gentleman, and we might tell you.” Said one of the other ladies.

“Sorry, it’s just that we’re having a party, and all.” I said. “So, how much for…. Wait a second. You girls…. You seem off.”

“Well duh.” Said one of the ladies in a masculine voice. “Honestly, I was waiting for you to figure it out. What about you guys?”

“Yep.” Said another.

“Totally waiting.” Said yet another.

“So, changelings?” I asked.

“Well, what did you expect?” Said the one who had decided to drop the act. “Human females?”

“Honestly, eh.” I said. “Ya know, we’re going to ruin this place. I can offer you all a better place to live. I mean, we already have the Dwarves and the Low Elves back where I was.”

“Eh, sure. Why not.” One said. “I’m guessing Material Plane, since we haven’t seen you before… Plus with you being the DM’s Champion and all. Bye.”

“Wait, what?!” I asked, but I was too late. The time it took for me to register what they had said was enough for them to leave and step through a portal. “Well damn.”

“Dox look cosplayers!” Yelled out Asphyxious from somewhere.

“Great.” I said. “Well, this is gonna be a good night.”

Several hours later:

“Ow, my head.” I said, clutching my temples. “What the fuck happened?” My head was pounding, like I had dwarves trying to smith my skull.

“Guess you couldn’t handle Vegas.” The Trottingham accented voice comments, getting me to blink and realize I was laying on a bed. “Avarice is right, this town eats people alive.”

“Well, you’re right on tha-” I said, finally looking around the room. I was in a cheap ass hotel room, with Avarice…. And he was spooning me. I wasn’t even the big spoon! The worst part of it all was, I was in a female version of my normal form….. naked. “GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” ‘No, no, no, no, NO! God of Fertility! Spooning me! Naked!’ “PLEASE TELL ME WE DIDN’T DO WHAT I THINK WE DID?!”

“Damn, my head well last night was… interesting?” I heard Asphyxious say from another room.

“What the...” I heard Alex say shortly after, before Asphyxious was sent flying through the wall and landed on the floor. “I don’t know who the hell put me next to Asphyxious,” I heard Alex continue, “But when I find you, PREPARE TO LOSE YOUR BALLS!!!!!”

Asphyxious then sat up and rubs his head. “Alex you don’t remember?” Asked Asphyxious before he turned to the bed and saw me. “Wow, nice look Dox.”

‘Oh no~!’ I mentally groaned, yeah, never felt that sore down there before. ‘if that isn’t proof I don’t know what is! How could I do this? Get pregnant on my Bachelor party? Did someone drug me?’

At the door an odd sound emanated.

*whump*

*crack*

The door collapsed to show Kyth trying to backpedal into the room. He gave all of us a pleading look and I saw that somehow all of the tentacles of his face were entangled with the contents of a vending machine. I also saw him chewing something. He spoke in a voice that let on that he was still a tad drunk, despite being a minor.

“I got the Pringles!… But I shorta got shtuck....” He fell over and glanced up at us. “Halp pls.”

“*Sigh* I’ll help you big guy, just let me find my underwear.” Said Asphyxious as he went back into the other room Alex was in.

“Okay, who of us DIDN’T screw each other?! Wake up!” I shouted as I elbowed Avarice behind me, only to hiss at feeling my elbow hit diamond-hard scales. ‘Damn it, what is he this time?’

Over where he laid behind me, still spooning me, I heard Kyth yelling. “I dunno! You guyses locked me in the hall, but I heard some SHIT! Like I heard grunts, schquealsh and even shomebody making cat noises! It was crazies… Hell I heard a shcream too I think.”

He burped. “Uh… I keep drinkin’ water but nothin makes me feel less weird…”

He took out a bottle of vodka and downed it, letting out a small hiss sound afterward.

Asphyxious walk back out of the room and closed the door and looked at everyone. “Don’t go in there Alex a little… Just don’t go in there” He then go over to try and help free Kyth. “Just hold still big guy”

I was about to comment about how Avarice was in bed with me, when I blushed and choked at feeling a certain something big start getting bigger between my thighs. ‘Oh, fuck, no….’ “NOPE!” I yelled as I jumped out of bed, not caring for my diminishing pride, and drew my sword on him. “NO! JUST, NO! NO SNU SNU FOR YOU!”

Kyth yelled out one last thing in a scottish accent before falling silent, pointing a claw vaguely in my direction. “SHE CANNAE TAKE ANYMORE CAP’N!”

Asphyxious, however, just growled and said. “Shut your gob and hold still I can almost get it out I just have to reach a little deeper.”

“Mmph...what’s all the racket?” Avarice finally woke up, his currently anthro dragon body shifting up. “Pee….” He climbed out of the bed, ignored me, and stumbled into the bathroom. Oh...that was just ‘morning wood’ then.

Tomas groaned, picking himself of the floor, “Arceus, what happened?”

Meowth groaned, struggling to pick himself up, looking around, he found himself being held by Tomas. “....Nothing happened between us, right?”

Tomas dropped the Meowth, checked himself, he sighed in relief, “Thank Arceus, that I’m still wearing my uniform.” His eyes snapped wide open, “Where’s Ken?”

Meowth looked around, “I don’t see him, maybe he’s still asleep.”

Tomas looked around nervously, “I lost a twelve year old boy in a large city, my twelve year old nephew, Arceus, my sister is going to kill me.”

“And there!, you’re free big guy.” Said Asphyxious with a smile. “Now I’m going check on Alex, seeing he’s a acting like a woman now. I’ll be right Back.”

Kyth gave a small thumbs up and stood uncertainly. He took one look over the room before his face seemed to bulge up. He gagged.

“BLEEEEECH!!”

We all stopped for a moment to watch the small pigeon that had flown out of his mouth land daintily on the ground and start pecking around. Kyth himself looked down on it for a moment before shrugging and plopping himself down on a chair in the corner of the room, looking utterly confused. “De fuuuhh…?”

Avarice came back from the bathroom, now wearing his pants and silver signet ring. “Ah~! Haven’t had to do that since I was Displaced. Now, so why’d you jump my bones last night Dox?”

“THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!” I asked, confused as all hell. “I was drunk! I don’t even remember last night!”

“Well, while I was sober, you lot all stumbled here into West Vegas, tearing shit up and playing bumper cars with actual cars, being hilarious jackasses all the while, and then you all sorta collapsed after I, Jack, and Jacob all managed to corral you to the Texas Station casino hotel. You were all totally blitzed, way worse than anyone I’ve ever seen. Anyway, I decided to get you all situated while Jack, Crescent and Jacob all offered to watch the kid. Then...well...you kinda didn’t give me an option. Pulled some sort of bullshit attraction spell out of your ass and I couldn’t resist you.”

“So, wait.” I said. “I got drunk, and then jumped you.”

Avarice shrugged. “Had fun, but, eh, sorry. I don’t know enough about magic to snap out of a haze that heavy. I mean, damn. You got really creative.”

“I vaguely remember something about magic strip poker or something?” Said Asphyxious as he walks around fully dressed.

“God damn it.” I said. “Ya know, fuck it. I’m just wondering if I can change back or not.”

Don’t worry. I took care of the protection. The DM’s voice chimed.

“Wow, thaaaaaaanks.” I said. “Where were you when I got drunk and jumped him?”

You call that drunk? You were all drugged. One of the humans decided to try and have fun with you all and it all backfired. You even ended up killing him. Hell, his body’s in the corner of your room.

“Joke was on him! I ate his… Er... Oh right! I remembered it! I ate his spleen ‘n haggis!”

I gave Kyth an odd look from the fact that he seemed to have heard DM.

“Yo anybody hearing The DM right now, I only ever heard his voice once and that was with Dox and I was in the void that one time.” Said Asphyxious as he looks around. Kyth held up a hand like he was going to say something.

“You guys oughta… Oughta know… BLEEEECHH!”

With that, the ruined floor of our hotel room had soda, vodka, and gummi bears that had gone through and been barfed up by a Cthulhu join it. Kyth blinked and gave a thumbs up.

“I don’ remember anymores!”

“Well I hear him, but then again I’m kinda stuck with the fate of being a deity, and I just did the nasty with Dox like, twelve times at least.” Avarice added, and looked at the body, licking his lips. “Mmm...human...haven’t tasted that yet.”

“Listen.” I said as I shifted back to normal, my clothes thankfully returning. “Let’s just all head back, then we can all say our goodbyes and go home. I think I’ve had enough of our little party.” I took out my Runic Portal Matrix, and opened a portal. “Well? Everyone through the portal, we’re going home.”

“The girls will not be pleased with any of us.” Said Asphyxious as he walked through. Kyth let out a drunken laugh.

“Tch! Says you! I didn’t sex nobody, I just drank and ate things! Hell I ateded a jellyfish! Or was it a fish covered in jelly? Eh… Either way, I gots loot and had some crazy shit happen!”

He took out a large sack of nondescript features.

“Well we just ended up sulking around until you all showed up and Dox got freaky. Damn dude, just to let you know; you’re a natural. That’s what disturbs me, considering you don’t go all girly at all.” Avarice and Crescent said before merging together and moving to quickly eat the corpse in the corner while they all looked away, but I grabbed his wrist with my robot arm.

“Shut the hell up before I make you.” I said, shoving him and the others through the portal.

Well, as expected, the girls were waiting for us.

“They’re smiling at us...” Whispered Asphyxious.

“DOX!” Bluebelle screamed at me. “You have some explaining to do!”

“Can it wait until I send some people home?” I asked.

“You can send everyone but Arbok home! SHE! Deserves to know where she stands in our relationship. Those are YOUR offspring Dox! Didn’t you even battle for the right to be her mate?” Bluebell shouted as she stormed up to me, and grabbed my ear in a paralyzingly painful pinch. “Now move it mister!”

“AH~! NOT THE EAR!” I shouted in pain as we passed my other betrotheds and Arbok, who was looking quite angry too, and Luna took my Matrix from my pocket as we passed.

“You can all go home by just focusing on your dimensions with this, just leave it behind so the others can all go home too.” Luna instructed before handing the billiard-ball sized portal device to Sarah, and turned to walk away after Sarah had nodded to Arbok, who slithered after them, her eggs still secure, three other Pokemon slithered towards their mother, the large shiny Arbok comforted her mother, while the tall dark Arbok stood protectively, a large blind Ekans with a large star birthmark slithered at the wrong direction and hugged a vase, until he noticed that his mother was ahead of him and started slithering towards her, smiling sheepishly.

“I want to wait and see what happens” Said Asphyxious with a smile, and Kyth nodded behind him.

“Oh Kyth~!”

Kyth looked up blearily as F.A.U.S.T. Called him. From behind her thick thigh, Jen stepped out with an entirely reconstructed form. She smiled uncertainly at Kyth as he walked up to her.

“Uh...Hey Kyth uh...Whatcha think?”

“..You look sorta like when you were human.”

He said this in a flat tone. Jen gained a downtrodden expression, which immediately left her as Kyth tackled her in a drunken hug.

Jen blinked and took a whiff off Kyth. She turned and glared at the crowd of males as she held up Kyth with one arm and morphed out a blaster in the other, aiming at the group. “Who the FUCK got Kyth wasted!?”

Asphyxious held up both hands and didn’t really do anything, then looked to the others. ”Well it was fun guys, but I think it time for me and the girls to head off home. Somebody say goodbye to Dox for me okay?” He then walked over to his girls and headed off through the portal home that opened when Chrysalis touched the orb.

“I’m going to take a nice long nap once we get back” He said once they all walk through. As Jen carried Kyth, who was now leaning on her back and letting out a soft snore, to the portal she mumbled something about ‘being glad that F.A.U.S.T. had made her upgraded body seven feet tall’ and ‘Kyth being easily eight feet and difficult to carry beforehand’.

When she stood before it she waved to F.A.U.S.T and all of the others in the room. “Well I suppose it’s been a good night. Tell Dox we said goodbye and that we had fun, see you guys later! If I need any tech support I’ll call you F.A.U.S.T!” She extended an arm out and grabbed the Hyperion Acquisition Beacon she had been given to call with and waved good bye as she carried Kyth through the portal.

“Tell Dox I said bye, and I wish him a happy wedding and honeymoon.” Alex said, walking up to the Runic Portal Device and opening a portal. He left through it without another word.

“Don’t hesitate to call me if you need anything, or if Luna wants more games. Also Jack, here is that gun I promised you.” He then tossed it to Jack, who caught it rather well. “It’s a high caliber revolver with twenty Nth metal/adamantium bullets. It also doesn’t miss.” Jacob said as he walked through the portal.

After everyone had gone, minus Team Rocket and Jack/F.A.U.S.T., Avarice was the only one standing in the room, holding the orb he helped create. He looked at it in trepidation, knowing how it worked on a level most wouldn’t know, since he helped make it, he hadn’t been able to forget Dox’s knowledge on the object. Still, he hoped, and opened a portal, only to grit his teeth, jump up in size to about F.A.U.S.T’s size again as a mutant alicorn once more, and closed it, before dropping the thing to the floor with a loud clank. “Fuck you...fuck everything….” He stormed off, leaving Team Rocket worried, while Jack sighed out his nose with F.A.U.S.T putting a hand to his shoulder. He could relate….

How Could You Forget? (The Bachelor Party, Part 3)

3rd Person:

Team Rocket stood in the hall with some apprehension, not too sure what to do with themselves in the current situation. Arbok was currently in a meeting with her significant other as well as her ‘competition/partners’ concerning her relationship with them all and her egg’s father. Meanwhile, across the room, sitting in summoned and obscenely comfortable-looking chairs were the disturbingly buxom and shapely giant robot mare F.A.U.S.T and her similarly intimidating average stature partner named Jack. Along with all that, just earlier, the Merchant Displaced had stormed out in a fury over something that they didn’t know anything about, leaving the event hall in silence as the group decided to sit on the edge of the destroyed performance stage.

Sarah turned towards her three children in the corner of the room, the rocket grunt named Ken was currently messing with the omnitrix his father had given him, the girl, named Maria, was currently playing with her Duskull, Screwball stood bored watching Ken mess with his watch.

The omnitrix glowed, Ken looked around, a bit worried at what he had did. “Uuhh...Is it supposed to do that?”

Jack sighed raising his arms back, getting a bit comfortable in his space suit before looking at F.A.U.S.T. speaking up. “Faust, can you give me one of the Coffee packs.” Stating as her hand started digistructing before present company, what looks like a squeezable tube that’s spun onto a connector. Looking over the supposed current ‘Team Rocket’ displaced and kids and strange pony. “Not sure kiddo, but from experience when you mess with something you know nothing about? First words of advice if you haven’t figured it out yet, ‘safe distance’. Simple two words but figuring those out for anything will save you.” Only for a shield to pop up around Jack and the robot female who simply connected the ‘coffee’ tube for what looked like a drink port.

“Well it’s not like I can have ANY ‘safe distance’ from something ON MY ARM!” Ken rolled his eyes, “Although, I wonder what I did to it?” He looked at it with an excited look, “Maybe if I press it down…”

“Boo, please use a Astonish attack.” The rocket girl commanded her Duskull. The Duskull nodded, teleported in front of Ken and scared him, making Ken flail around. “You shouldn't mess with something you barely know about, especially one with a lot of power.” She scolded her twin.

Ken scoffed, “Please, you’re just jealous that dad gave me an Omnitrix and you the power of teleportation, face it Maria, I’m the better twin.” He boasted.

Maria smirked, “If you’re the better twin, then why is it that a level 17 Magikarp was able to beat you.”

Ken blushed in embarrassment. “S-Shut up! That Magikarp was at least level 50 and you know it!”

Jack’s voice cut in on their ‘discussion’, with a snap of his gloved fingers, likely a sound that would get attention due to a certain Chaos user. “Alright kiddos, settle down and listen up. I am offering you two some perspective from a grown up who’s use to a more ‘possibly’ gory fighting here or there.. Teleportation CAN be awesome, but not when you cannot use it due to some dumb-butt… Who can negate it, for those who can just whack the spot they use for magic. But as for that device on his wrist? Gives him more options I am guessing but also JUST as many headaches to figure out, but you want to know what really works?” Handsome Jack asked looking at the kids in question, giving a momentary slurp to suck on what might be some sort of coffee jelly.

“Even if Ken can use the Omnitrix to fight, he doesn’t think, he just goes head first into battle without any plan whatsoever!” Maria argued.

Ken scoffed, “Oh please, with a watch with the power to transform into any creature you want, who needs a plan?”

Jack just raised an eyebrow from inside his helmet at the boy named ‘Ken’, drawing on his slightly more sadistic smile propping his elbows onto his plated knees. “Well kid, what do you do if the enemy somehow blocks your watch from being used? A simple shield spell or metal cover over that part of your arm and you would be helpless to any sick being out there, let me guess it’s one of those bits of advanced technology where it as a safeguard can come off at some phrase or if the wearer DIES.” Jack’s eyes looked to be burrowing a hole into young Ken’s face for his reaction while keeping his likely sister in his peripheral view to see how she reacts. “Oh and lets not forget if they somehow blinded your vision or other senses when fighting..” He finally stated in an additional ‘off-handed’ manner as if it were nothing.

Ken didn’t even flinch at the mention of death. “Well that’s why I have my Pokemon!” Ken said. “And while I may not be good at it, I can still use my Chaos magic, it’s not like I haven’t been through a similar situation before.”

Their conversation was interrupted when a bat-winged giant serpent flew in through one of the windows, shattering it everywhere. “Sorry about that, but Avarice is being a total downer right now.” The great horned serpent stated with a smooth Trottingham accent before he began to shrink down to the size of an average Arbok, and blinked at how they all were staring at him. “What?”

“Whoa, what the heck are you supposed to be?!” Ken asked in an excited but rude manner. “Can I scan you?”

“KEN!” Both Sarah and Maria gave a scolding yell. “Is that really how you should be acting towards others?!” They looked at each other when they noticed they had said the exact same thing at the same time.

However, the room suddenly increased in tension as a deep, bestial purr began emanating from the serpent as he eyed Ken, his golden eyes shining red. “A bargain? A trade? You wish access to my samples?”

Jack cuts right in at that with a disapproving stare at the Chaos being. “I’d stop right there if I were you, Contract magic on a kid? That shit can be nasty.” Blinking once he sighed forgetting about the kids before pointing at the two of them to try changing tactics. “Okay as a note, you boy. Sooner or later are going to screw up and get someone hurt like your Sister or your parents, the ‘advice’ I am offering for FREE. If you take the earlier ‘Safe Distance’ phrase in mind it means to actively THINK, because let's say you have nothing to defend yourself with and a manticore is in your face? How ‘far’ or such would you have to be to get away?” Giving Ken a disapproving look while the girl seems to have a head on her shoulders.

“Jack, for reference, I don’t work for you, I work for Avarice. He might work for you, but I only trust Avarice, because he is me, and I am him, in all save Ego and our Shared Souls. If the boy want’s a trade, it’s his choice. The Contract just ensures we both uphold our ends...or else.” Crescent then turned to Ken, slithering closer as the rest of Team Rocket moved defensively.

“Uhhh...I’ve always been told to never accept magical contracts with Ghosts…..and possibly evil and or mischievous entities.” Ken said nervously.

“Oh? This Contract isn’t just for you~. For the amount of forms you’re asking for, I require several of your fantastic and wonderful creatures to offer up bits of hair, nail clippings...maybe even….” Crescent suddenly bolted forwards faster than even Arbok was known to, and got into a startled Meowth’s face. “Saliva~.” He seductively intoned, lidding his eyes at the sweating and nervously chuckling cat Pokemon. “I do wish to know how a Capsule Monster tastes.”

An armored figure walked into the room and grabbed Crescent by the tail before pulling him towards him. “Must our master truly summon us so that you do not corrupt the youth?” Said the figure seemingly made of armor. “Please, young merchant, do not infect the young with your deals, we do not want to add more souls to our sword.”

“Ha! You would try to steal the soul of a god, Yngve? Amusing. Besides, this vessel doesn’t have a soul in it. Only Avarice can house our Shared Soul, for he is my king, my brother, my partner. Corruption is inevitable, and I see those children are already innocent no longer.” Crescent replied with a fanged grin, his mouth disturbingly filled with shark teeth as well.

“Well then, begone shade of the true form.” Yngve said. “We do not have deals to be made here. Leave before I summon Grandmother Lydia.”

“Oh, poor, foolish, stupid Yngve. Deals are always to be made.” Crescent’s eyes shined red as he looked Yngve into his eyes, and the Nord could practically FEEL the serpent probing his very soul. “Like, for you...oh, ho, ho...sorry, but I can’t do that...yet.”

“I mean it, merchant. My Grandmother is not to be messed with.” Yngve said. “The old wolf puts up a fight, and she always has a new trick.”

“And WE are not to be trifled with fool! Avarice may be lost to his woes right now, but I am not! Release our tail this instant oaf, or we shalt add thee to our templates!” Crescent demanded as he grew larger, towering over the large man like the angry god he was, or at least the angry Avatar of one.

Whistling to get their attention before Looking back at the kids, thumbing in the two bickering adults direction. “That kiddos, is one of the reasons why you don’t summon weird stuff that you cannot handle, but on the plus side is that some of that can be helpful if you have THOUGHT ahead.” Looking at Ken before shrugging and focusing on Maria in question continued in a more normal conversational tone. “Well, sadly enough, YOU will have to be the brains because he’s missing at least two halves…” Taking a verbal jab at Ken, for being dumb most likely to incite him and pat her on the back.

Maria sighed, “I’ve always been the brains for every mission we take, you can’t trust Ken with anything, there was this one time he was sent to supply run with a team of two other people, not only did he get caught, but he also endangered his team and almost got them killed.”

Ken fumed, “Hey! It was Ed’s fault for getting us caught in the first place! Besides we could have taken that Ghost horde! It was only a horde of Shuppets!”

“REGARDLESS!” Crescent shouted before he flicked Yngve across the room and crashing into the small ship full of alcohol. “The boy prompted a deal! It is HIS decision! While we must get permission from the Capsule Monsters for their DNA, it is HIM who is receiving all the forms we have access to.”

Jack just looked at Ken to say this with a shrug. “Well Kiddo, You could take advice from me, your smarter sister, or take your chances and spurn your family by taking risky deals. There’s fine print in every action, just remember that even though you or anyone else won’t know what happens.” Pressing a hand on the side of his helmet showing the kids what his face really looked like under that ‘joke tanline’, until it returned to what they first saw him as.

“Oh, leave The Ken be, businessman!” Said a drunk Yngve as he walked out of the hole he’d made in the side of the small ship’s hull. “The young merchant may be a bad influence, but yer not much better. Soon ye’d be letting ‘im hold a little baby gun! A child! And ye’d give ‘im a gun! It’s like Dox and that pistol, but Dox knew how to use it!”

“Speaking of which, we have a stock of quality Hyperion, or Demir firearms available at...fair prices.” Crescent grinned sharkily.

“And here we go again!” Said Yngve in his lilt. “Yer being a peddler now! Screw the merchant crap, yer a peddler! Leave the kid alone, why don’ cha. The Ken doesn’t need this kinda power at ‘is age. now back off.”

“Fool, fool, always a fool. Every thing thou don’t understand, makes thou lose thy cool. So why don’t thou leave poor, pitiful tool. Before we send thee flying, into a pool.” Crescent then suddenly whipped the impossibly sturdy Nord out a window, off into the distance with his lightning-fast tail. “Now then...that the distraction is gone~...wouldst thee wish to continue?”

Ken looked around nervously, “Umm… I think I’m good with the scans I have right now…” He gave the serpent a nervous smile.

Crescent merely grinned widely, his sawteeth just amplifying his terror factor. “Oh~ too late for that lie child. We see into the soul, the desires, the objectives. We have EVERY species on Equus in our DNA. And more. All thou must do, is scan us. And then let us...ravish thy partners for hair, and saliva. We will even make the process...pleasurable~.” Crescent stated as he looked down on the shivering Meowth.

“Don’t I get a say in dis?!” Meowth shouted in fear, only for Ken to be drooling, the concept of that much power rather hard on the Chaotic child.

Before Ken could decide, a hand grabbed his shoulder, looking up, he saw his uncle, Tomas, “Thank you for the offer, but my nephew doesn’t need that much power at such a young age, it will only serve to corrupt him.”

Crescent’s eyes stopped glowing, and he growled in frustration. “Damn it, Guardian’s count? Fine, but we will have at least ONE sample before this day is through.” Crescent shrank down and slithered over to Jack and F.A.U.S.T to sulk.

Jack just looked at the serpent before shrugging and rubbing his associate’s head while in some form of patting to avoid the horns on his brow. “Well that’s a good thing, though for first buyers of my stuff they would at least get a show of how to use things. Not like I am using magic, though-” Jack just stopped, looking up at F.A.U.S.T. while she smiled down at him in a recognized knowing manner. “...What are you smiling about Faust?”

She tittered softly before leaning a bit closer, her tone of voice shifting to audio erotica. “Thou doth at times when offspring are present display GOOD fatherly tendencies of offering advice or simply being protective.” She licked Jack’s helmet in a display of affection while he sat there just twitching an eye, only for her to continue. “We find it silly that thou has since learning of thy body’s natural pheromones being that of a alicorn stud we see thy paranoia simply spike.” His response was a deep glower at her, in which she did a mock expression of placating him until she winked with a smile.

“Faust. From one God of Fertility to a Goddess of Creation, you can’t force these kinds of things. You can tease, and peck away at his defenses, but irritating him won’t do much.” Avarice’s voice came from Crescent’s mouth for that statement as the eyes turned emerald, and looked Jack in the eyes, the man twitching at feeling his employee literally look into his soul, and then smile at him gently. “He’ll come around when he’s ready.” His eyes turned gold again, and he slithered up and around F.A.U.S.T’s thigh and up her body to be next to her ear and whisper something that made her titter.

Jack rolled his eyes, sighing. Creation Gods with Chaos tendencies, all the same. “Oh, you naughty thing! You remind me of myself at your age!” F.A.U.S.T cooed as she began whispering back, Jack groaned in exasperation.

Dox POV:

I found myself tied to a chair in a torture room after having been dragged by my ear by Bluebelle. Luna has one of these? I figured Tia did, but I didn’t label Luna as having those kinds of things in her castle. “Okay, I get I did something incredibly stupid, but Arbok, I’ve been so busy I-.”

“Charrr-bok! [You didn’t even call!] Bok, charbok! [Was I just a fling?! A toy?!]”

“It wasn’t like that, I swear!” I said. “I never meant to-”

“Likely story! Do you know the punishment nobles are dealt when proven guilty of infidelity?” Bluebelle intoned darkly, her horn lighting up blue like her eyes and I cringed in agony as I felt a force SQUEEZE my little jimmies!

“GAH!” I squealed. “I mean it! I meant to mention her a while ago! I could have sworn I did, too! I mean, at least Athena knew about it!”

“Just me doesn’t count Dox! I didn’t say anything because I thought you told them too! You basically shoved poor Arby here under a rug and forgot about her.” The beyond shapely robot griffoness replied angrily, and Blue’s grip on my balls tightened, getting a pitched squeal of pain out of me as the other girls all cringed.

“I’M SORRY! I ADMIT SHE SLIPPED MY MIND! BUT I WAS GOING TO INVITE HER INTO OUR GROUP ANYWAY! THAT’S WHY I SUMMONED TEAM ROCKET AT ALL!” I squealed. At this, Bluebelle’s death-grip on my junk stopped, and I gasped and panted for air. “I didn’t forget you Arbok, I was just...so busy….”

“Arbu? [Really?]” The beautiful purple cobra Pokemon perked up, tasting the air with her tongue and sighing out her nose in relief, smelling that the only things that hinted at any dishonesty was the pain induced by the abuse of his precious bits. “Char, charrrbok. [Well, in that case...at least you called in the end.]”

“Can we please not do that again Niece? We rather want his baby makers intact after all.” Luna said with a frown at her overzealous niece, who blushed and tittered nervously.

“Indeed, let’s get him out of that chair...or actually...can we have a bit of fun first?” Tia asked, licking her lips, and I shuddered. “I think I left my cat-o-nine-tails down here somewhere~....”

“And this, ladies, is where I make my escape.” I said, shifting into a huge king cobra and slithering out of the chair and away from the girls. I turned my head around, only to see a smokey eyed Arbok slithering after me. “NOPE NOPE NOPE!” Why… Just why?!

“Char~! [Come back sexy~!] Arbu~! [I wish to dance~!] Charrbok~! [The mating dance~!]

“I don’t want to right now!” I screamed, shifting back to my normal form and running as fast as I could. It then hit me; why was I running? I can teleport! And with that, I teleported out of the room.

“CHARRRRR~! BOK! [Come back~! I want us to coil!]”

I reappeared in my personal hideaway. I found this thing up here while I was doing my falling part of the training with Kat, and had only recently explored it in secret. The interior of the abandoned stone shack was anything but homey, but it would definitely do, especially since it was atop Mount Canterhorn, above the clouds even. I bet not even Tia or Lulu know about this place, considering they had forgotten about the crystal caverns beneath Canterlot too.

“Dusty, dirty, ancient stone and bronze furniture. If I didn’t know better, this is a Dwemer home.” I joked to myself. Seriously, this place looked too much like the residential areas of Dwemer ruins from Skyrim to be entirely coincidence, what with how things have been going with all the things in my world being so diverse.

Since it was so dirty in here, I decided to open the door, only to get a faceful of naked, tight, toned giant black-furred ass and the base of a reptilian black-scaled tail with red frills on it. “Uh…dat ass, but…..” I looked up, and up, and...oh hell, even more up to see what it was.

It was Avarice in his anthro mutant alicorn form. He was at full size, his staggering nearly fifty foot height was sitting on a dip in the top of Mount Canterhorn. His slit emerald eyes were glazed over, looking at the sunset with dead, unseeing eyes as I flew up to his shoulder.

“Yo, Avarice.” I said to my giant friend. “The hell is going on? Why are you up here?” I got no answer, it was like he was dead to the world. Somehow, just looking at him hurt. “If you don’t answer, I’m punching out an eye.” No response. “Alright then.” I then reeled back the Samus Aran-like arm he gave me, and flew into his eye fist first...EW~! I flew INTO his EYE! And he didn’t even flinch! Oh Gosh! So gross! There’s blood and eye jelly everywhere!

“Hm?” Avarice hummed in confusion, and he blinked, closing me in his collapsed eye socket a second. “Where’s my eye? I thought I had the eye thing down by now.” Suddenly, before I could voice anything, a flood of black flesh suddenly welled in from the back of the socket, pushing me out like a cannon shot as his eye regenerated. Thank Gamma Dragon I have gravity powers. “Oh...hey Dox.”

“The hell?!” I yelled. “Dude, what is going on? Like, what’s up with you? Why are you like this?”

“...You don’t understand. You can’t.” Avarice looked back to the dying sun as it began to set, and the moon rose from the other end of the sky, the transition from day to night uncannily fast. “You haven’t lost anything.”

“Really?” I said, giving him a deadpanned stare. “Dude. My old life is gone, the world we went to was it, yeah, but it means NOTHING to me now.”

“Who is your mother?” His sudden question spiked my in the chest in a way I didn’t expect. “He just laughed it off, didn’t he? Didn’t you consider that, maybe, he had to use an avatar to birth you? And then, from there, use a proxy to condense over two hundred years of power, and unborn mind to a point where you wouldn’t outright kill whoever brought you into the world? I am Fertility Dox. You DO have a mother. What do you say to this? If I said your mother, the one you thought fake, was weeping with worry for you back home?”

“But I know she’s not.” I said. “I’ve been there, remember? I never said where I was going when you helped me get back here. And trust me, I’ve lost plenty before….”

“The Matrix.” Avarice held his enormous claw down to me, the Portal Matrix appearing in the palm of his hand, seeming a tiny bb to him. Elsewhere, Sarah was freaking out about the Matrix vanishing. “It forces one to see what they’re attached to. It can make holes to other worlds, but it wasn’t initially intended to be used for travel. It forces one to acknowledge what is important to them most of all.”

“You’re point?” I asked. “I knew that. I was the one who pretty much came up with it as a homebrew-” Suddenly, an utterly massive portal opened behind me, since it was sized for Avarice, and when I turned around, my eyes shot so wide I thought they might pop out.

It looked like Earth, was shaped like Earth, but it couldn’t have been. It’s seas were red-orange, like all life in it had died instantly and bled into everything, the land had no green, all was dead, brown, or blackened earth, and the corona of the atmosphere was a sickly, disgusting green. Avarice said nothing, just stared at it with his dead, glazed eyes.

“That’s your Earth, isn’t it.” I said, only getting a nod from Avarice. “What happened there?”

“Everything I know, was told to me by Vaga, who felt leaving me in the dark, only to find out myself later would be too harsh. My friend, Anthon. He...He was supposed to be here.” Avarice patted the mountain, but then remembered this was my world, and sighed through his nose as he pointed a finger to his chest. “I was the runner-up. If Anthon hadn’t seen the Merchant for what he was, if he hadn’t fled the moment he felt something off, he’d be here and I’d...I’d be among the countless corpses littering that lifeless husk that they nuked themselves.”

“So… what happened to Anthon?” I asked, genuinely interested. “You speak as if he’s alive, but if your Earth is…. that how could he be?”

“The reason I say that, is because Vaga told me he’s alive. Very alive. He wasn’t Displaced by the Merchant, because, ironically, he somehow, by impossible chance, Displaced himself! Ha!” Avarice laughed, some life returning to his eyes. “That fat douche always managed to end up with the short stick of things. Vaga says he’s stuck in an Equestria that’s practically vanilla, as a Chaotic presence to balance it. But he was able to travel between our world and his new Equestria with ease due to the circumstances, at least until...It happened. It’s why I was in Vegas. I was sulking around my old school, home, and Anthon’s house...only…..”

“Really now.” I said. “Sounds interesting. Might look around for him later. But why has this got you so down? I see your Earth is destroyed, but what is it?”

“You still don’t get it? I didn’t care for how my world was run, but I still loved it! The people were cold, yes, but the good in it...it was still there. Now it’s all gone….” Avarice sighed, and a tear fell from his eye. “It’s nothing, I guess. Just a God of Creation thing I guess. I...I’ve just...I’ve been ignoring it all for so long. Just going with it as I was forced to change, or I’d break. I...I just….” He began crying earnestly now, his tears like enormous rain drops as he sniffled. “I didn’t ask for this Dox...I...I just wanted a simple life. I wanted to laugh, work, have friends, and die on my deathbed like any other average joe. Now...I can’t do that. Money...Money means nothing, Money doesn’t matter. The fact I’m a Merchant is true irony when that’s my philosophy huh?”

“Heh, yeah.” I said. “Listen, I had dreams like that, too. Hell, I wanted to be a music teacher, but look at that now. It’s gone. Sure, my world is still there, but the dreams aren’t. Being here makes me realize how much that world sucked. I have Equestria now. And that’s what I focus on, not the old world.”

“Money don’t matter if it feels for you. I used to worry everyday. But, I’ve got better things.” Avarice quoted the song he sang with Vinyl and the Sex Bob-Ombs when he was with Mistress, and sighed. “I know...I need to stop worrying about the things I can’t control. Stop worrying about the problems you should know.” Avarice looked sadly at his friend, and sighed through his nose as the portal closed. “I do. Have better things.” Avarice seemed lighter then, as if a great weight was taken off his shoulders. “Thanks Dox. So...don’t we have business to take care of down there? I sense some rather randy mates of yours wishing your presence~.” Avarice lilted, getting me to sigh. At least he was back to normal.

*Wolf Whistle* “Dang~ colt!” Both I and Avarice blinked, and looked up to see a veritable CLOUD of pegasus and thestral mares all holding cameras and drooling, and at the front was Spitfire of the Wonderbolts. “You’re ripped! Mind explaining how you got pecs like those? I want to give my coltfriend pointers.” The cameras all began flashing, and Avarice began drinking in the attention as I groaned. At least the stone shack blended into the mountain top’s snow.

I teleported back to the castle, leaving Avarice to have a little alone time with all those perverted mares ogling him for photos so he could get ahold of himself. I saw Crescent bothering Team Rocket and everyone else, and tricked him into going to help cheer up Avarice with a contract of ‘I’ll tell you a secret if you go help cheer him up’. Heh, I never even told him what the secret was! Avarice better teach him the ropes, or else he’ll be screwed later.

“So, guys.” I said to who was left in the room. “How’s it going?”

Sarah glared at Dox, “Where’s Arbok?”

“Well… We made up and-”

“Arboo~! [Oh Dox~!] Charbo! [Did you really think you could escape from us?]”

“OH SHIT!” I said, turning to the direction Arbok’s voice came from, only to be pounced upon by Arbok. Right afterwards, she immediately wrapped around me, constricting me and knocking me to the ground all at once. “Hi Arbok. No I didn’t think I could escape, I just thought I could say hi before you got me. Hey wait, where’s the other girls?”

Arbok purred, “Charr~ [Oh don’t worry, they’ll be here~].” She turned towards Meowth, “Charr chabok, [Meowth, would you be a gentleman and tell the others to wait for us in the other room?]”

Meowth nodded, blushing a bit, “S-Sure Arbok, no problem.” Meowth turned towards the others. “Come on guys, the lady wants some time with the kid.” The others got up. “Ummm, we’ll be waiting for ya back there.” Meowth left the room, the others following close behind him. F.A.U.S.T. was the last one to leave, giving them her ‘have fun’ look, me knowing quite well what kind of fun she meant with it.

“S-so, Arbok.” I said. “I’m getting married soon…. W-would you l-like to join me there? A-as a bride of course.”

Arbok stopped her advances, looking at me with teary eyes, “Charr, [I’d be honored to… I do expect a ring, though.]”

“I’ll have the Dwarves work on it.” I said. “I already have them working on the rings for everyone else. Would you like to join me when I ask them to do yours?”

Arbok nodded, “Char, charbok [Alright then, although you better make sure Weezing doesn’t find out that you forgot to tell me about this, he’s still a bit protective of me.]”

“Speaking of that…” I started. I got my arm free and used it to pull Arbok’s face closer to mine for a kiss. “We could go find the other brides to be and have a little fun, if you know what I mean. Just, no chair. I am not going through that.” I shifted and turned into an Arbok myself, and she blushed even more purple as I lidded my eyes and flared my hood as wide as I could, getting her to do the same. “Char~. [Let’s coil, love.]”

Wow. Just wow. We actually ended up spending a few hours together after Arbok and me found the other girls. Hell, they even coaxed me to get into the chair…..

I still hesitate to say it was amazing.

Anyways, we were now all looking around for the displaced that we had asked to please vacate the room. It had been a few hours, I mean, they couldn’t have gone far.

Short answer, they didn’t. Long answer? They were out in the garden, where some Dwarves were hanging out around a tunnel they’d dug down into the crystal caves. Wow, they work fast. Jack and F.A.U.S.T. were nowhere to be seen, and Team Rocket was chatting with the two Dwarves that were at the mouth of the tunnel that led down into the mountain.

“Hey guys.” I said as we approached. “What’s up? And where’d Jack and F.A.U.S.T. go?”

Sarah shrugged, “I’m not sure, they kinda disappeared when we went to the gardens.”

“Huh, odd.” I said. “It’s not like Hyperion to leave without a trace. Hey, you two, you see a-”

“Human with a mask and a large metal Alicorn?” Said one of the Dwarves. “They went down into the tunnel that leads to our new home.”

“Ah, right, I promised Jack a couple of you guys would work for him. Sorry, I didn’t really think too far-”

“Really? Well, ain’t you the thoughtful sort.” One of the Dwarves said with a smile. “The masked fella did say he was lookin’ for at least one Low Elf and one Dwarf to come work for him with potential benefits. I’m sure that even with our dwindled numbers, a couple of us wouldn’t mind workin’ for some bigshot.”

“Oh, alright then! Good to know. I’ll head down, is it safe?” I asked, getting a boisterous laugh out of the two short-statured mighty men.

“Is it safe he asks!” They laughed for a few more seconds, okay, starting to sound like asshats guys. “Of course it’s safe! Who do ya take us for?”

“Right, Dwarves in a mine.” I said. “What could be safer?” Just then, I heard an explosion from somewhere below me. “Oh great. Hyperion gave them explosives. You NEVER give a Dwarf explosives when they’re mining!”

“Ha! Who told ya that? If you must know, before we split from the rest of the clans, we knew a Dwarf by name of Edewecht! A mage if you could believe it! And not just any mage either; an Artificer! He could enchant nigh anythin’ you put in his hands. Especially, if you wanted it to explode violently! He made the cheapest, easiest explosives in the clans. Hell, heard he couldn’t cast a single offensive spell to save his life, instead he’d throw exploding pebbles at things, ha-ha!” The Dwarves seemed to be enjoying their memory of this Edguy or whatever, so I decided that since it sounded like they knew how to use their explosives, I went on down into the crystalline innards of the mountain beneath Canterlot, leaving my to be wives behind at the top.

“Whoa….” I hadn’t expected it to be so beautiful. I mean, sure, in videogames, cartoons, even TV shows they try to display concepts of how it would feel to have a place made entirely of crystal. They failed utterly to convey just how gorgeous such a place would be. *THOOMP!* And there’s the explosive shaking the whole place! Damn, if I didn’t see everything stand firm against that loud detonation, I’d say these guys were nuts! Freaking reminding me of that one guy from Kazmodan, or so he said. Lucky bastard went to the moon and was never heard from again.

There was an echo of Jack’s voice barely heard in between the explosions, though some impressions in the ground showed F.A.U.S.T.’s likely steps. With even a couple or dozen so footsteps, with some areas clearly marked by a laser cut line into crystals having likely made a few new paths to normally unwalkable gaps. “Alright, the other thing that would be useful for you guys and gals. It’s a little something called a ‘sonar’ that helps give you a better image of the other side, unless you want the surprise to be left intact.”

“Damn it, Jack.” I said, cursing the businessman. “Are you trying to make the greatest miners even more overpowered at digging?”

“Yes.” Jack offhanded commented as he was showing Ragnar and a few other Dwarves how the sonar projector worked. “If my Loaders were half as effective, Avarice’s Offsite Facility would’ve been done weeks ago rather than just recently. I see absolutely no reason to not give them an even greater edge.” Another explosion nearby grabbed my attention to notice F.A.U.S.T was standing between the source and the group, her enormous shield system stopping even the dust from shooting past her.

“Our Jack, as much as we enjoy this outing and all it’s benefits, we must return to Helios One soon.” She spoke in what could be best described as ‘audio erotica’ directed towards him, but every dwarf reacted to that voice. Some even having hearts appear over their heads, while the female dwarves were discussing automaton designs based around her.

Jack sighed, though handed a book off to a dwarf, the title of it may have said ‘Dummy’s Guide to Explosive Excavation and Methods’ but disregarding that now as he spoke up again to the gathered dwarves. “Alright, you all got to learn a few new if not ‘neat’ tricks. But remember about using ‘Safe Distance’ or accidental explosions because those hurt more than anyone’s business...”

“Thank you truly, Jack the Handsome. My people will make good use of these tools.” Ragnar promised, and his molded pick grown was now properly fitted and shaped with some engravings and crystals embedded on it. I think one of the engravings depicted Avarice...uh-oh.

“You guys aren’t worshiping Avarice, are you?” I asked Ragnar.

“Hm? Oh! Savior! Of course, why do you ask? We weren’t planning to, it just sort of happened. Suddenly, Rulindil’s wife is with child, and they JUST conceived! I can think of no reason not to worship the Fertile Beast of Two. He has brought great fortune upon us, and for merely a bar of Aetherium. He is benevolent and kind. We always revere beings such as so. Look here.” Ragnar turned his head, and an engraving of Jack and Faust was on another spine of the crown, and when he turned to face me, I realized the engraving on the front spine was of me. “The Savior, the Metal Father and Mother, and the Beast of Two. You have given us so much, for so little. You deserve veneration by our clan.”

“I… I don’t know what to say.” I said. “Thanks.”

“I saw them engrave that on his crown as he was talking to me.” Jack informed me, sighing slightly. “I tried to get them to call me the Handsome Father, but eh, Metal Father makes me out as some ‘rocker’. Hey Faust!” Jack turned looking up to his partner/assistant, who looked down to him as he approached. “How are things going with that girl upstairs?”

“The filly by name of Maria is doing fine. We see no issues in the near future, aside from uncalculated factors, which are few.” F.A.U.S.T intoned before her shields stopped another cloud of dirt and dust from surging out of the tunnel the Dwarves within were rapidly creating further into the mountain.

A Dwarf suddenly came running up. “MY KING! MY KING!”

“What is it Rengar?” Ragnar asked the young looking Dwarf. “What has you so spooked little brother?”

“Come! COME! You all must see this!” Rengar then spun around and sprinted back into the tunnel, and everyone besides myself, Jack, and F.A.U.S.T ran after him. We looked at each other and Jack and I shrugged before we followed, F.A.U.S.T had to use a Minimization spell on herself though to become small enough to enter the tunnel, still taller than us though. When we came out the other end of the tunnel, we were all baffled, probably aside from F.A.U.S.T at the sight. “I present you, our lost city.”

“Uh….” That...makes little to no sense. I mean, it being the Low Elve’s lost city I could understand, this is basically an enormous literally city-sized ruin of Dwemer design. But the Dwarves? “Rulindil? Hey, Rul! I get that this could be YOUR people’s lost city, but what did Rengar mean by ‘our’ lost city?”

“Tis Blackreach...the lost hub of our underground cities. We Low Elves and Dwarves have been friendly neighbors more often than not, and fierce rivals at worst. We called this; Blackreach, our capital, the center of our respective Thaigs and Fiefdoms. The clans. They must be informed!” Rulindil was breathless with amazement, and had his wife been down here she would have been too.

“So, king under the mountain?” I asked.

“We must inform the clans and convene a moot to select a king among the clan chiefs, or jarls if they still hold a thaig.” Ragnar informed as he looked out at the dark, dreary underground beneath Mount Canterhorn. “We shall have to see to it this place is cleansed. The dead will rise in this setting. The Shadowfell is too in tune with this place, is it brother? I can feel it.”

“Indeed...we do not have the manpower to-.” A series of hollow howls, screeches, and unearthly wails echoed from within, and everyone ran back into the tunnel. “RUN! THE UNDEAD RISE!”

“WHAT?! The Shadowfell?!” I shouted in shock and fear as F.A.U.S.T returned to full size and her eyes became as bright as floodlights, causing a glimpse of numerous undead before they hissed and backed away from the harsh and bright light, barely visible among the glowing mushrooms and lichen of the massive underground cavern.

“The living fuck are those things?!” Jack shouted as he drew his Nemesis and an Infinity he carried in case he needed a bullet hose.

“Abominations! Crimes against life!” F.A.U.S.T shrieked, her tone becoming so thunderous with rage that I thought she might just burst into flames herself. “Thou shalt not escape thy imprisonment! We shall ensure thy passing onto death once more!” F.A.U.S.T raised her arms and several E-Tech gun barrels materialized from her chassis.

“No! Wait!” I yelled, stepping in front of F.A.U.S.T. “You can’t do that! If this place gets damaged, we’ll never recover it. Besides, I feel something else here. Something special. It’s calling out to me.”

“Then all the more reason to destroy this place! We shall not condone harboring of-!”

“F.A.U.S.T!” Jack’s harsh tone made the Goddess of Creation pause. Damn. I know she has the hots for him, but damn. “No. This is Dox’s problem. He want’s to do it his way, he can take care of it himself. Let’s just back out, slowly, and collapse the tunnel.”

“...Yes Jack. But scans indicate the stone of this place is too strong to collapse in such a way, it would take time these heathens would not be willing to give. We shall instead deploy a Hyperion Environment Shield to repel all attempts of the monsters to escape.” F.A.U.S.T. returned her body to normal, and then shrank as she summoned a projector device as we backed away from the cautiously approaching horde of zombies and skeletons of numerous races.

I backed into the tunnel first, Jack second, and then F.A.U.S.T quickly backpedaled as the monsters roared and tried to surge into the tunnel, seeing an opportunity to pen us in, but she activated the projector, and a yellow hardlight barrier with the Hyperion logo appeared, stopping the undead...well, dead, but not killing them like the Anti-Competitor field from the game. “That will keep them in for a while, but with that pounding, this thing will need regular recharges, and there isn’t exactly a power source here that won’t overload it right now.”

“So what do we do?” I asked Jack, the skeletons and zombies were still beating at the barrier, completely uncaring about it so long as their targets were still in sight.

“I’ll run a cable up top, F.A.U.S.T; you get up there and summon a Hyperion Solar System.” I looked at Jack incredulously as F.A.U.S.T teleported to the surface, and he raised an eyebrow at me. “What? Solar is completely renewable, and viable everywhere save in places with constant heavy cloud cover. Don’t fix what isn’t broken if you can make use of it kid.” Jack then moved to the projector to get started as I sighed. “We’ll be leaving when we’re done. This little visit was fun kid, thanks for the invite, but your life is a bit too exciting for my tastes. Might take Avarice up on that offer he made earlier for a nice, relaxing vacation on his island.”

“Yeah.” I said. “Listen, if you can let me in and maybe give me a shield-”

“No can do kid. Those prowlers banging on the projector would overwhelm us before you could do anything, no matter what powers you have. I’m not some god-like being like you or that oversexed pile of flesh, and I’m not about to do something stupid like take unnecessary risks. I’m still alive because I’ve been smart, and careful. I’m not about to end that streak now. So until next time kid.” Jack was spawning an unbelievably long cable as he said this, and was now running it down the tunnel as I sighed.

“Damn...I’ll have to wait until the clans can come together then, or somehow summon my own army...wait….” Oh, DUH! I keep forgetting; I have an order of Loaders to sign for! “Jack! Wait up!”

After they set up the power, Jack and F.A.U.S.T took their leave with a Dwarf and Elf who offered to work for him upon getting my signature for those Loaders Avarice had apparently bought for me and...well. “The 77th battalion awaits your order sir!”

HOW DID HE AFFORD THIS?!

There was, literally, a WHOLE BATTALION OF ROBOTS HERE! I mean, good gosh! Doesn’t he need these more than me?! “Uh...um...how...how many of you are there?”

The one addressing me was a green camo-patterned claptrap stallion with no mane or tail wearing additional Hyperion Soldier armor, which clashed with it’s bright yellow and powerful shielding systems. “The 77th battalion numbers in 10 claptrap coordinators including myself, and 20 of each kind of Loader outside specialty Loaders such as the Mars ‘cousins’ to Saturn, or H3RL-E units.”

“U-uh… Well, damn.” I said. “So, I need some of you guys up top here to protect my to-be wives and the other Displaced that are here, the rest of you are coming with me to deal with an undead horde.”

“Division of units is acceptable sir. We shall devote two coordinators and forty Loaders to defense, the rest of us shall prepare for a siege.”

“Wait! Wait!” I turned to see Ragnar and Rulindil running up to me. “No! Please! Not yet! If we secure Blackreach without convening with the other clans, it will seem to them we are making a power play!”

“We’re not.” I said. “I’m taking them so that I can find out what’s calling me. That feeling I got down there…. It was strong.”

“Strong or not Savior, we are allied with you. Any action you take is reflected back upon us. If you do this, you might make us enemies of the other clans.” Rulindil warned anxiously, getting me to groan.

“I’m sorry, but I have to.” I said. “It’s part of who I am. If I make enemies, then I’m sorry. This…. thing is calling me, and I intend on answering the call. Plus, I can’t just let undead roam a place like Blackreach. It’s an insult to you all.”

The two leaders looked to each other, and wilted. “Very well Savior. We shall try to convey that your actions were not promoted by us. But finding and contacting the clans will take time that we suppose you do not have. We will try to work some form of damage control.”

Well doesn’t that make me feel like shit? DM, why did you have to make me like this?

Because I’m like that. You’re basically me, if I was able to directly interact with reality. I can’t ignore imbalances, or disturbances, or other malignant forces that try to tip the scales in the wrong direction. It is my job to keep Reality going, it’s your job to do what I can’t.

“I don’t know if I should be humbled, or get a big head about that.” My comment to the open air confused the Homage claptrap before suddenly I felt two big, strong, firm claws grasp my shoulders, making me gasp and shudder.

“Well! About time! I paid out the nose for these guys.” I shivered, feeling Avarice almost pressed up behind me, vague memories of an unplanned shared night….

‘Oh no~! Am I falling into my changeling nature? Bad thoughts, out of head!’ “Hey Avarice, thanks for the fucking army.” I said, gesturing to the entire demolished garden. It was already nearly leveled from Bubbles having fun out here apparently, but the digistruction of all these units destroyed what was left, and now the royal gardeners were off to the side, weeping about their fruitless efforts.

“Well, I felt a contingency was in order, and look; you ended up needing them right?” Avarice asked as he leaned over me, pressing his sexy rock-hard body into me, his face was so close…his lips looked so soft, his eyes so beautiful...I just had to lean up a little more, and we’d be kis-.

‘NO!’ I pushed his handsome pony face away, and he chuckled! Asshole! “Damn it Avarice!”

“I’m Fertility Dox. Arousal is just part of the territory. Thanks for sharing that secret with me. Well, if that’s all, when you’re done send me home...I have a few...deals to make.” His dark chuckle did not fill me with confidence as he leaned in and kissed my cheek, leaving me stunned as he turned into a serpent and slithered off.

‘Fucking! Damned pansexual ass! Stop making me question my sexuality!’ I shook myself off, getting the warm feeling of his hard, strong body out of my system. “Okay! Let’s go!”

“This was awesome.” I stood on top of the highest building in Blackreach, looking over the enormous ruin and all the burning corpses and bones below. The Homages were master tacticians and warriors in their own rights, and they organized the Loaders so well, we only lost about twelve of them to the initial tide of moving corpses. “Now, where is that thing that was calling to me?”

I leaped down to the courtyard, it was currently covered in dead bodies being prepared for cremation and loot the Homages ordered separated for repurposing. But in the center was a fountain that was too dry and conspicuous. Whatever was pulling on me, it was under this. I got into the fountain, and felt around, looking for the most subtle of...hey! A small indent in the very center of the top of the fountain caught my eyes, and I grinned as I took out the portal matrix and compared the half-sphere indent with the perfect orb. A match. “Damn, this thing is like the answer to all my problems. It must’ve been fate for me and Avarice to make it then.”

I put it in the small divot, and suddenly started falling. I didn’t scream because I knew I’d be fine, but I wasn’t expecting it and when I fell on my back on top of something enormous and hard, I groaned regardless. “Portals...why they think for themselves these days? I thought I was supposed to be thinking WITH them….”

“Sir! Are you alright?!” One of the Homages upstairs called down, and I looked up to see a portal the exact size of the fountain overhead, with the pedestal of the fountain floating in the center.

“Yes Homage, I’m fine!” ‘Gotta rename these guys….’ “No fall can kill me, so return to your assigned tasks!” I called out, standing as I dusted myself off, and froze at the sight of what had clearly been calling on me. In front of me stood -well, floated, I don’t really know how to say it- four soul gems, with a large soul in the middle of them. The soul itself was making a faint moaning noise.

“Heeeeelp meeeeee.” It moaned.

“I SENSE! A BARGAIN!” I was shocked when suddenly a gigantic eye was peering into the portal from overhead. Fuck, damn it Avarice! The gigantic green slit eye shined red. “The unbound soul! Name it!”

“A vessel...please….” The soul moaned.

“Knowledge, tangible, is the price. Acceptable?” Dude, Avarice. Just help the guy!

“Not… from you….” The soul moaned. It seemed to turn towards me. “Him….”

“Hmph, another stickler. Very well then. Dox. When you get back, there’s a surprise waiting for you. I’m ready to go home now.” Oh, that’s why he’s down here?

“Alright then.” I said to Avarice. “I’ll be expecting it. Avarice, our Contract is Complete.” I turned back to the soul, but my pal’s thunderous evil chuckling as he burst into blue flames did not fill me with confidence at all. “So, what do you mean, me?”

“I…. am Blackreach….” The soul moaned. “My heart…. is lost…. Please…. Restore it….”

“But where is your heart?! What is it?!” I asked.

“Aetheirum….” The soul moaned. “Trap me…. in Aetherium.”

“But that’d take…..” I started before realizing that I could just make some, myself. “Alright, here goes nothing.”

I put my hands around the soul and the gems orbiting it and focused. I had to make Aetherium. I had to restore Blackreach. I had to help him. I focused as I remembered how the Low Elves did it, and levitated several chunks of gold that were littered around the massive chamber, and especially under whatever I was standing on. I used gravity to carefully crush them together, increase density. Soon I had a several hundred pound ball of gold between my hands, and then began the process.

Holy hell, this was tiring. I pumped and pumped and pumped more magic into it, and it just demanded more and more! It eventually started turning purple, into Thaumium, close, but not yet. I had to practically force so much magic out I thought my veins might burst, scratch that, nose already did. But after what felt like forever, I had a glowing blue-white ball of pure Aetherium, and I was gasping for breath.

“Thank...you….” The soul seemed to be more energized now, and then the orb of pure physical magic became a damn beacon of white light that blinded me, and I cried out as I closed my eyes before it was suddenly gone. Before I could question where it went, the gigantic object beneath me shuddered, creaked, groaned, and then I saw lights start to shine from various points across it. “I...live...again!”

The voice was clear as crystal now, it was deep and artificial with a hollow tone to it, and steam began erupting from...oh no…. A long section of the object extended out in front of me, and turned around to reveal the glowing blue-white eyes of a giant Dwarven Dragoon! I thought those weren’t canon! “I, am Blackreach.”

“...Hi?”

3rd Person:

Arbok slithered towards her team, dreading what her master might say about her decision, she stopped when she saw a shadow over her, “Char? [Regi?]”

The pitch black Arbok narrowed his eyes at his mother, “RRRrrkKeggg.” The Arbok frowned at his latest attempt at speaking english, sighing, he started speaking Poke’speak again, “Charrr? [You are staying here?]”

Arbok nodded, a bit curious at her son’s question. “Charr? [Yes, why do you ask?]”

Regi nodded, and turned away, “Charrr, [I was just curious, Violet and Star will miss you though.]” He started to slither away.

“Char? [What about you?]” Regi stopped moving, “Arbo? [Well you miss me? I’m not leaving forever if that’s what you’re worried about.]”

“Char, charbok, [Why would I be worried, you are not my mother, my mother died years ago.]” Regi said harshly.

Arbok frowned. “Char [Regi…. I know you don’t think of me as your mother and I know I can never replace her, but perhaps I can introduce you to-]”

“Char! [NO!]” Regi yelled, his yell echoed through the halls, “Arbo, [Goodbye,]” The black Arbok slithered away, “Char, charbork! [And don’t worry about telling the others, I will tell them, you have fun with…...father…]” He slithered away into the room where the other rockets were.

“Char…. [Regi….]” Arbok sighed and then entered the room too. Shortly, a flash and sound familiar to those who have seen the Portal Matrix occurred.

Dox POV:

Well, today was eventful. Way too eventful. So was yesterday. That Bachelor Party was a horrible idea...I have to do it again sometime. I dragged my feet, tired from everything that happened today. I mean, I helped fight a whole damn army of undead today. Sure, I had my own army too, but I still did a lot of fighting along with that issue with Blackreach itself. I told Blackreach I had to get some rest, which it was completely cool with and said it could wait.

i had barely made it to the private sector of the castle where mine and my lover’s rooms were, when I was suddenly tackled by a very familiar scaly lover of mine. “Bok! Charbok! [Dox! I have something to tell you!]”

“Oh~...what is it Arbok? Where’s the rest of-?” I was silenced when she kissed me on the lips, and I sighed out my nose before I realized something odd was happening. I felt something, TWO things, pressing into my chest as two OTHER things seemed to start wrapping around me. ‘WHAT THE FUCK?!’

She drew back, and my jaw almost fell off my face as my nose asploded. Before me, was a busty, shapely, Arbok Naga! She lidded her eyes as she flexed her hood which went down over her shoulders a bit wider. “Do you like it?” She asked in English, ENGLISH! “I made a deal with your friend for a few...things.” She took her new hands and hefted her admittedly huge H-cup breasts up, the darker purple nipples engorging as a few white beads left them. Oh right, while reptiles don’t lactate, she’s essentially somewhat mammal I guess, and she’s recently had kids...ugh...brain hurts. “I sent my team home. So, we could… Ya know.”

“Arbok, I’m really tired and I-.” I was shut up by seeing her tail lower body split into three, and soon STOOD a full anthro arbok, naked and with a familiar curvy body shape I could only compare to my other lovers, her long serpent tail sensuously curling around and teasing her new groin. “I suddenly don’t care.” I jumped up and grabbed her hand, dragging her to my personal room with her giggling behind me. The details didn’t matter right now, I was too turned on by my mate.

The Obligatory Shitty Water Dungeon

“Tia, are you packed yet?!” I called down the hall with all my fiances behind me. For some reason, everyone but Tia were able to get ready for an impromptu tropical island getaway in minutes, and were all already stripped of their armors, and wearing nothing but skimpy bikinis and their beach mat towels for skirts. They all just went for plain white too, wanting to hurry to someplace to relax with their future hubby. But Tia….

“No! I look fat in everything I try on!” Tia’s despairing wail called down the hall, getting me and the other girl’s to groan, and both Lulu and Blue quickly trotted down the hall to fetch their equally-sized...hey...why is Blue so much taller? I hadn’t noticed until now...whatever, so much weird shit’s been going on I’m not even going to bother wondering why.

“Sister! Niece and I look exactly the same as you. Are you calling us fat too?” Luna demanded, and I had to choke a laugh while the other girls all giggled behind me.

“N-no! Of course not! You both look amazing in such simple wear, but when I-EEP!”

“Auntie! Do you see these glorious bosoms of yours?”

“B-bluebelle it is not-AHN~!”

“Shut up and put on a skimpy top, a thong, and grab a towel and let’s go! No matter what you dress in, Dox is going to drool over you anyway!”

“B-but-OH~!”

“But nothing!”

“F-fine! Please let go of my nipples!”

By this point, I wasn’t even fazed by their nonsense. It seemed that Blue was getting more and more lewd by the day, but whatever, it was par the course by now. Thankfully her raunchy behavior paid off, as soon a blushing Luna and Tia were approaching us with Tia now wearing the same bikini as the rest of the girls and the same kind of towel as a sarong, while Blue was looking quite cheeky and accomplished of herself. “Are we ready now? So long as we have bits, I’m sure Homage, Avarice or Vaga will be willing to accommodate us.”

“Y-yes, we have our bits in our personal storages.” Tia replied, reaching into her great cleavage and pulling out a hefty bag of bits that couldn’t have fit in there even with how huge she was. Hammerspace ftw.

“Alright then.” I took out the Matrix, and thought of Valley Island. Soon a portal whooshed open. Just as we were all about to walk through, Yngve came running up to stop me.

“Dox, I have something for you!” Yngve called out as he came running up. He was carrying a long case with a handle on it. He stopped in front of me and handed me the case. “This is for you, Dox. A new blade, forged by the Dwarves and Low Elves, given special magic by the Changelings, and given your essence by me giving them the special distillation of your blood that I prevented you from drinking oh so long ago. Well? Go on, open it. It’s your early wedding gift, after all.”

I opened the case to find a silvery blade with no guard and an equally silvery grip. “Yngve, I don’t know what to say.” I said. “Thanks.”

“I’ll tell everyone involved what you’ve said.” Yngve said. “But please, hold it, try it out.”

I did as instructed and picked up the blade with my right arm. The second I did, however, I…. felt something. It wasn’t even like, ‘oh hey, Hyperion technology is amazing and gave you nerves’ type of feeling. No, this felt like I actually had my original arm back.

Anyways, I gave the sword a few test swings, and upon finding that it had AMAZING balance, attempted to put the sword back in its case, only to find it instead ‘melting’ onto my arm.

“What the heck?!” I exclaimed. “What’s going on with this sword?”

“It’s called the Changeling Blade.” Yngve said. “It’s meant only for you. As such, it has bonded with you. If you ever need it, it should automatically form a blade of your choice for you, as long as it’s not complex. While you’re not using it, however, it shall simply ‘rest’ on you. It can cut through the air like nothing else and never dull, being that it’s core was forged from pure Aetherium.”

“Again, I don’t know what to say other than thanks.” I said. “Please, Yngve, tell everyone that I say thank you very much.”

“It is the least we could all do.” Yngve said. “Now, have fun on your vacation.” And with that, he walked off.

After Yngve’s departure, my to-be wives (sans Arbok, who had gone home) and myself all walked through and all paused in surprise at the sight. “Uh...how long has it been?”

Standing before us, was a tower. A literal cubical tower that was almost seamless on the outside, standing at least ten stories tall and had framework going even higher with the Hyperion logo proudly emblazoned on the steel-colored exterior in bright yellow, with the subtitle ‘Multiversal Branch #1’.

“Well damn.” I said. “This place is pretty impressive.”

“Thank you Scout Dox. Your appreciation is noted, and you and your group’s reactions have been photographed and sent to our superiors as per instructed.” Homage’s dry, and completely business tone ruined it, and we all drew our eyes down at the stuck-up plothole who was put somewhat in charge here. He seemed no different, still gray on gray, still wearing the same gray suit, still looking as bored as ever. The only main difference was he now held a sort of link to his Echo device that acted as a tablet alongside his baddass glasses and his own programming. Guess running something like this requires even a precision machine like him to multitask.

“Hey Homage. We’re here for a nice-.”

“Vacation, clearly. Why else would your companions all be wearing next to nothing. No Athena, I haven’t looked at any of the files you’ve been sending, stop spamming my Echo inbox. Good to see you Sapphire and Emerald, greetings to the rest of you.” He then waved towards the direction of the village. “The resort is that way.”

What? I and the others all turned the direction he gestured, and gawked. HOW THE HELL?! WHAT?! The village was gone! Now it was a five-story cube-shaped condo building next to the nearly-abandoned adobe huts that now obviously served more as storage for the villagers, as we could see several zebras wearing actual CLOTHES now waving down at us, all smiles, shouting greetings in their native Hawaiian. “W-w-what? How?”

“Once the most important parts of the headquarters were finished, it was easy enough to start building our own more mundane loaders without souls to build and work on other projects. Thanks to Division President Avarice’s heavy-handed business practices of throwing money at everything, we’ve been able to focus entirely on productivity. That is just the first of several coast-lining condo buildings. The first few are meant entirely to house the Hawaiians, but there should still be several of them willing to share their condos to make room for guests.” Homage stated, and then paused with a small smile. “Might I interest you in a tour of the facility later? Avarice wants everyone who visits to see what we’re doing here.”

“Uh, sure. Why not.” I said. “Girls, you up for a tour later?”

At seeing the Mars unit tramp from behind the facility, helping as a mobile platform for JET loaders to move building materials up, the ones that weren’t claptrap units all nodded dumbly in astonishment. Sure, they saw my small army of robots, but seeing them put to constructive use must’ve really interested them. “Very good. I shall let the staff know to expect a tour. Off with you now, this is still a construction site, we don’t want any safety hazards.” Homage shooed us away, and we all wandered towards the condos.

“This place is amazing! I’ve never seen anything like it!” Celestia cheered, glad her niece forced her to hurry up so they could get here.

“We agree sister! Dox, could any of your soldiers perhaps help with rebuilding the castle? If so, the repairs could actually be finished in a quick enough time for us to put off the wedding until a proper pavilion could be ready without such garish damage nearby.” Luna said, before perking another idea. “Or we could have the wedding here! On the beach!”

“I don’t know Auntie, that sound’s rather imposing of us.” Blue commented, remembering that the places they were supposed to be staying for a few days were the homes of zebras who lived here.

“I agree with Blue. Don’t want my wedding in the same place I was born. Be really awkward.” Athena commented, shivering at remembering her mom bringing her into herself for transferral, the way the changeling sisters also shivered said they thought the same.

“Yeah, I want the wedding at home too. It wouldn’t make much sense to have it here. I mean, this isnt’ even our world. We want the wedding/coronation to be in a place the masses can see...oh...right...I need a speech don’t I?” I realized nervously, and they all looked at me like I was an idiot. “Great...how do I tell them I just happened to fall in love with the country’s leaders, and they all fell in love with me? The wedding itself should be enough for that...crap! I need to write my vows to you all!”

“No you don’t.” Blue said as we neared the building from the...I guess it doesn’t have a front or back, or side, each one had doors it seemed. “You’re marrying seven others. We’re officially considered a Herd then. To write vows for a herd is...well, ridiculous. You love us all and we love you, it’s simple. Using the Herd’s Vow is more than enough.” Blue said as we neared the doors, but before we could knock, they were burst open by a couple of buxom-oh, who am I kidding, they’re all buxom-zebra mares wearing actual cloth bikinis themselves that were honestly more conservative than my fiance’s garbs, and they greeted us with bright smiles and open arms.

“Welcome to Maui!” They greeted us in slightly electronic voices. I noticed they had Echos on their bikini bottom’s straps, so they must’ve had a translation software, cool. “We are Wave and Wash, and we shall be your hosts today!” Oh, boy...synchronized twins…. “Come! We shall show you our condo!”

They led us to the center of the building, which met all four halls that led straight to the doors, and had a glass-walled elevator in the center. It was an incredibly smooth ride to the top floor, and a quick trot to the end of the hall facing the shore. Why do we automatically get the penthouse suite? “Wow...this is….” It was like a five-star hotel back on Earth, all the modern trappings too. Even TV. But I guess there’s not really anything to watch, as it was just tuned to a ‘Hyperion Employee Schedule List’ and...ah, that’s why. These two were suddenly shifted from mining duty to acting as our hosts for the duration of our stay. No wonder they were so excited.

“Please, make yourselves comfortable! Would you like something to drink? Massage? Tan?” They asked eagerly, all too happy to get to serve someone rather than work in a cramped tunnel or dig in general.

“Oh~ a massage sounds wonderful~....” Blue said rather...breathily, getting one of the twins to blush, as the claptrap girls of my group all instantly moved to the computer station, more interested in seeing what they could do there.

“I want to play on the beach, how about you Dox?” Luna asked, Tia quickly nodded at the idea, and I saw no reason not to since the others were more interested in their own pursuits, which was fine by me, we’re here to relax after all.

“Sure! Race you down!” I ran for the balcony, grabbing a convenient volleyball that was sitting off to the side as they followed and we all jumped out, missing Blue grab both of the zebras and pull them into their bedroom which slammed shut. We all drifted down gently, me with gravity and them with their wings, before we met sand and dashed to the shore.

“C’mon! Let’s play some waterball-WAH!” I tripped on something that was barely sticking out of the sand, and the next thing I knew I saw the Void. Fucking damn it!

Meanwhile, in another Universe:

“NAAAVIIII!!! I’M BORREEDDUH!”

A tiny filly sized blue disguised changeling sighed.

“What part of a freaking SKY CITY don’t you understand! Cloudsdale was something you wanted to see! I learned the cloud walking spell just for YOU!” She ranted.

Her human partner sighed. Walking out into the empty streets she noticed something in the window. It was a single six-sided die. “NAVI! Where’s our bits?!”

Navi sighed again. “Here.” She mutters, tossing her a bag.

“WOO! GONNA PLAY DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS TONIGHT!” She shouts, running into the store.

“... What?”

Few minutes later…

“Back!” The human cried, holding the Die.

“Soo…Why’d you want it?”

“I dunno. I think it’s a token however.” Said human shrugged.

“Heather. How the buck is that a token?” Navi muttered.

“I heard this!” Heather then tossed the “Token” at Navi.

“OW!”

“Let’s roll it! This will be our Second displaced!” Heather cried with excitement.

“Wait-”

Picking the Die off the clouded ground, and ignoring her partner, Heather proceeded to roll the D6, opening a portal to the void.

Dox POV:

I fell out of the portal that opened up below me…. And then proceeded to fall through a layer of clouds.

“I got you!” A tiny voice said.

“No need!” I shouted back at the voice, not even looking where it came from. I used my gravity powers to halt my fall, stopping abruptly about thirty feet below the cloud layer that I fell through. “Ah, that’s better.” I looked up from the ground and moved to get ‘onto my feet’ and stand in mid air. “What?”

“... Uh… Navi? Who exactly did we summon?” Called a voice from above me.

“I.. Have no idea.” Said the voice from earlier. I turned to look at it, and saw a tiny filly with a purple mane and tail. Her eyes were emerald green as well.

“Hi.” I said to the little filly. “I’m Dox Ad Finem, and you are?”

She remained silent until she facehoofed.

“It’s another one!” She shouted.

“Another what?” I asked as I started floating myself back up through the cloud layer, only to rest on top of the clouds. “Another Displaced? I mean, you should expect that, considering you used my token.”

“I told you it was a token! But I expected something other than another Human.” A female voice said. I turned to face the source of the voice. What I saw was what looked like a female version of Link from the Legend of Zelda, specifically the Twilight Princess game. Man, just getting nostalgia from thinking about it. I loved that game.

“I am not another human!” I complained, gesturing to my nearly naked form, being that I got summoned while I was in my bathing suit, that being the leaf and vine thong the zebras gave me a while back. Man, kinda killed my mood. “I’m a changeling! And hey, I didn’t expect a human to summon me, either.”

The two remained silent until with a flare of blue the filly turned into a blue changeling with violet eyes.

“Uh… Navi? Your disguise dropped again.” The human pointed out.

“You are oblivious aren’t you?” She muttered.

“Oblivious to- HOLY CRAP ANOTHER CHANGELING!” The female Link exclaimed.

“Yo, calm yourself.” I said. “If I was one of the changelings that you knew, I would have done something else. I don’t feed off emotions, and I don’t do the whole ‘base form is a bug thing’. As much as I love my girls back home who do that, I am not like that. Like I said, I’m Dox Ad Finem, who are you?”

“S-sorry about that.. We haven’t had the best luck with other changelings… Oh I’m Heather, And this is Navi.” Heather introduced.

“Yeah, anyways, you summoned me?” I said, trying to get to the point. “What do ya need? I was kind of on vacation after almost getting killed.”

“Uhh… I kinda just noticed this in the store over there… and thought it was a normal D6. I was gonna try and introduce… Dungeons and Dragons to my Equestria.” Heather muttered, looking down.

“Ah, well then.” I said. “Well then, since I’m here, anything you need help with?”

“Weeelll… There IS this one thing…” Navi pointed out.

“Well? On with it!” I yelled at the tiny changeling. Wow, now that I’m actually just looking at her, I just noticed that she’s not Anthro. Wow, been awhile since I’ve been in a world like this.

“We found a temple-slash-dungeon thing!” Heather shouted.

“AAAnd the minute we stepped in we were nearly killed.” Navi deadpanned.

“A dungeon?” I asked with a deadpan look. “Really? You’re looking at the guy who was displaced all because of Dungeons and Dragons. So, do you know what kind of dungeon it was?”

“.... Water. And to make it even more annoying, the entrance was styled a lot like multiple LoZ water temples…”

Meanwhile, back where Dox left the girls:

“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!” Came the voice of Dox.

“Sister?” Said Luna, who stopped tossing a beachball to her sister.

“Yes, Lulu?” Said Celestia.

“I fear for whoever just pissed off our to-be husband on his vacation.” Luna said with a concerned look on her face.

“As am I, sister.” Celestia said.

“Did you guys hear that?” Emerald said, running up to Celestia and Luna and being followed by Sapphire, Athena, and Bluebelle, who looked rather disheveled, and sweaty.

Back with Dox:

“A WATER temple?!” I asked. “Are you freaking kidding me?!”

“... No…” Heather said.

“Well, great.” I said. “Let’s just get this over with. Where is it, anyways?”

“Around Rainbow Falls I believe.” Navi answered, unfazed.

“Huh, never been there.” I said. “Let’s go.”

“Side note, Don’t taste the rainbow.” Heather warned.

“Oh, too late on that, girly.” I said. “And you don’t even know what I mean.” ‘Mm...Tia…I suddenly want some more of her steak...even if it’s wrong.’

It was a calm trip over to Rainbow Falls….

And by calm, I mean that my new changeling and human friends were completely terrified as I used my gravity control to fly us around. Heather was at least able to give me directions in her state of panic, albeit they made the flight way worse on themselves. At one point, she just started screaming, and I had to guess which way to go. Honestly, just got lucky on that one.

“Alright, here we are, I think.” I said, setting us all down. “I’m not exactly too sure, I’ve never been here before.”

“Huh? Oh yeah, We’re here!” Heather chirped.

“Huh, nice place.” I said, looking around and admiring the scenery around me. The place lived up to its name. There were rainbow colored waterfalls all over the place! It looked amazing! “So, where’s that dungeon?”

“Over here!” She yelled, pushing a branch back.

I walked over to where Heather was, and looked at what I was about to enter. Two rainbow streams poured down on either side, being divided by a stone pillar. The door was up on a ledge that was nearly caved in on. Very interestingly designed columns stood on each side. There looked to be nearly no way up by foot. But by some kind of presence, out of rainbows that made the pool below, slowly rose stone platforms. They didn’t look like the most structurally sound items, however.

“Yep, just like a LoZ dungeon.” I said. “Mystic and weird. Wow.”

“Said nearly the same thing when I found it.” Heather agreed.

“Let’s just go get killed…” Navi muttered.

“Hey now, cheer up.” I said. “You got the Dungeon Master of Equestria with you. It should be fine.”

“Wonderful…” She sarcastically sighed.

Just upon entering we were immediately assaulted by three jelly-like ponies. They didn’t really do much on their own…. but I was dumb enough to want to see what they were gonna do. They all just sort of shambled towards each other and then morphed into a giant jelly pony...…. which was creepy as hell.

“Great.” I said, mentally summoning the sword I had recently gotten from Yngve. “So, jelly ponies. Now they’re a big one. Reminds me of the chus from LoZ. How did you screw up here, again?”

“It was more later on with arrow traps.” Navi explained.

“Not my fault that a boulder hit the button!” Heather shouted, slashing at the jelly pony.

“Hey, stop bickering and get the thing.” I said.

“‘Ey! We do this all the- CRAP!” Heather shouted, dodging a rock.

“Ok now that was mean!”

“Yo, calm yourself.” I said charging towards the jelly pony. “Enemy won’t play fair. And is generally mean. Just fight back.” I collided with the ponified chu jelly, only to get stuck inside it. I started slashing around inside of it, eventually getting it to separate into the three chu ponies again. Two of them retreated, while one of them stayed behind, dazed.

Heather readied her sword and took a step forward. As she brought down her blade to end the chu pony, I ran over and stopped her blade with my own.

“Hey, no.” I said, knocking Heather backwards a few feet. “The chu is down. I’m not even sure this one meant any harm. Probably just protecting its home.” I turned to the jelly pony, who had recovered and was now looking at me with wide eyes, confused as to why I had protected it. “You okay, little jelly pony?” The chu nodded. “Can you speak?” The chu shook its head. “Alright then. So, why did you and those others attack us? Do you know why?” The chu shook its head. “Well, did you mean to attack us?” The chu shook its head fiercely, as if trying to get its point across. “Well, what about the other ones? Did they mean to?” The chu nodded. “So, what about…. Wait a sec, you’re a red chu. Hey Heather, you hurt?”

“I’m fine…” She muttered.

“Really?” I said with an unamused tone. “Well, what about you, Navi?”

“I’m ok.” She peeped.

“Well then, I see no reason why you came towards us, little jelly one.” I said. “Unless you’re lying, Heather.”

“Seriously?! Why does everyone I meet always think I lie?!” She argued.

“Because I have no reason to believe you yet.” I said. “I mean, I don’t have to believe Navi, either, but she seems a little more trustworthy. I mean, she at least didn’t freak out when I revealed what I am. Plus, she didn’t try to attack the downed chu.”

“Not my fault I’m a little slow...” She said, looking down.

“So, are you alright or not?” I asked. “And please, be honest.”

“Other than being hurt inside, I’m fine.” I glared at her. “Don’t give me that look! I’m telling the truth! Honest!” I continued to glare at her. “Ok. I MIGHT have scraped my elbow.”

“Alright then.” I said, turning back to the chu pony. “So, is that why you came towards us?” The chu pony nodded enthusiastically. “You just wanted to heal her, right?” Again, the chu pony nodded enthusiastically. “All right then. Now, I’m not sure about her, but how’d you like to come with me?” The chu pony’s eyes lit up, as if to say ‘Really?’ “I mean it. I’ll even give you a bottle or something to sleep in, or just so you can hang with me and not get hurt.” The chu pony ran up to me and hugged my leg, seeming to cry without tears. “You’re welcome, little goo pony. Actually, do you have a name?” The chu shook its head. “No? Well, I’ll think of something. In the meanwhile, Heather, do you have a bottle?”

“Yeah.” She said, pulling out a bottle with a note in it. “One sec.” She took out the note and tossed it behind her.

“Can I have it?” I asked. “And you might want to read that note. Last time I checked, notes are important in LoZ.”

“Fine.” She said, giving me the bottle and picking back up the note. She read it over before chuckling a bit. “Ohhh! It’s this note!”

“Alright, you can tell me what it says in a sec, just let me do this real quick.” I said, opening my magic satchel and pulling out my massive tome. I went scanning through the book for a second before falling on a page describing an enchantment for bottles that made them seemingly bottomless. Settling for the enchantment, I reached back into my magic satchel, pulled out some chalk, and drew an enchanting circle on the ground, before drawing a rune on the bottle that signified space. I slammed my hands down on the ground around the circle and focused my magic to the bottle. One flash of light later, and the bottle now glowed a faint red. “Alright, that should do it.” I pulled off the stopper on the top of the bottle. “Go ahead, little goo pony, jump on in. I won’t trap you in there.” At that, I lit the cork stopper on fire and threw it away. Immediately afterwards, the chu pony turned into slime and lunged into the bottle. It settled immediately afterwards and poked out a goopy head. It rubbed itself on me then went back into the bottle. “You’re welcome chu pony. So, Heather, shall we continue?”

“Sure. ADVENTURE!” She shouted.

Navi sighed and facehoofed. “She gets over excited at the mention of these things…”

“It’s okay.” I said. “I get like that sometimes. But not with water temples. Nintendo made me hate them.”

“Nin… tendo?” She asked. “I’m guessing another human thing?”

“Duh.” I said. “Good company, but horrible sometimes.”

“Huh.”

“Hurry up slowpokes!” Heather cried from down the hall.

“Hold onto your tunic, we’re coming.” I called back.

Half of a shitty water puzzle later (What? You want this temple? Go play Twilight Princess!):

We ended up being stuck in a cave, with little things falling from the ceiling. I had shorted out my ‘Loader Shoes’ getting us here. Hell, they acted as a pair of iron boots while in water. It sucked!

“How the hell did we get here?” I asked. “I mean, you refused to put on your Zora Armor, all because I said I wouldn’t leave the room, and you don’t have iron boots! Do you know how hard that waterbreathing spell was for you? Changing into an Argonian, a lizard that breathes water, is easy for me, but giving you a spell that allows you to breath underwater? Hard as shit! And another thing, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to use gravity like how I was. I could have created a black hole on accident! And now look where we are!”

“Hey! Even though I look like a guy I’m still a- aw crap... Whatever you do… Don’t look up.” Heather said.

“What do you mean?” I asked, right before looking up. “Oh, I forgot. It’s this water temple.”

Immediately after looking up, I saw a frog like head look back at me, before a HUGE frog jumped off the stalactite of rock that was on the ceiling. It croaked at us before shaking off the weird things on its back, which turned out to be tadpoles, and wandering around and trying to attack us.

“Wow, that is…. underwhelming.” I said, willing forth the Changeling Blade and pulling out my flintlock. “So, what’s the strategy?”

“Get rid of the tadpoles, Then it’ll jump in the air if it’s exactly how it is in the game…” Heather said. She hit away a few of the tadpoles. “Then basically go ape-shit on it’s tongue.”

“Sounds perfect.” I said, shooting a tadpole next to me. “But what if I shot it in the eye?”

“I dunno.” Heather said, right as I shot the giant toad in the eye.

“I guess that’s one way!” Navi shouted, kicking a tadpole out of the way.

“Ok, This is getting boring, HEY FROG BREATH!” Heather shouted.

It turned to look at her.

“BET-” Cutting her off mid-taunt, It jumped into the air, casting a giant shadow over her.

“RUNRUNRUNRUN!” Navi shouted, flapping her wet wings as fast as she could.

“MINE!” I shouted, running right under the center of the shadow and pointing my blade above me. ‘Oh crap wait. I need a bigger blade than this…. What was it that Yngve told me? It’ll form a weapon I will forth? Something like that. Alright blade, I need you to be HUGE!’ The blade responded, and transformed into what seemed like a wider version of Cloud’s Buster Sword. The toad fell right on top of it, cutting open a huge hole and allowing me inside. I immediately shrank the sword back down to a more manageable size and started hacking away at the insides of the toad.

After about a minute of this, I heard it spit up something, then it just evaporated in a puff of smoke.

“Well, that was easy.” I said.

The two said nothing, They only gave me stunned faces.

“What?” I said, walking over to them and stopping at the brown sludge that the toad hurled up.

“N-nothing…” Heather muttered and walked over as well.

“Alright, so, let me clean this off real quick.” I said. I used some gravity to pick up a patch of water that was on the floor, then floated it over the sludge before letting it drop on top of it. The water washed away the sludge, leaving a chest behind. “Coolio. So, you wanna open it, or can I?”

“I’ll do it.” Heather offered. She stepped up to the chest and pried it open. As she did, Music began to play.

“Ok, Where the hell is that music coming from?” She said, stopping halfway. Her and Navi looked over at me.

“Eheheh. Sorry.” I said, turning off the music from my arm computer. “I couldn’t resist.”

“Eh.” She simply said, Opening the chest the rest of the way. “DUN DUN DUN DAAAH!” She yelled, holding up the two items inside.

“What.” I said, staring at Heather as she held up two different versions of the clawshot. “There was a longshot AND a clawshot in there? Can I have one?”

“Dibs on Clawshot!” She responded, tossing me the longshot.

“Sweet.” I said. I looked at the longshot in my left hand, then at the clawshot, then at my mechanical arm. “Hmm…. I wonder. Echo Eye, record.” I saw a small red dot in my vision, showing me that it was indeed recording. “Alright, sorry Jack, but I’m about to fuse this device to my arm. I’ll send you the new specs later, just please don’t destroy the warranty on the arm. Avarice will kill me. Echo Eye, end recording and send.” With that, the red dot left my vision.

“Who are you talking to?” Navi asked.

“No one.” I said. “Just recording a message and sending it to someone.”

“H-” Navi started before Heather clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Enough with the questions. Please. I don’t want you to turn into nerd pony.” She told her.

“Nerd pony, nerd pony…. Oh! You mean Twilight?” I asked. “She’s pretty weird, right? Anyways, wanna see something cool?”

“Sure.” They both agreed.

“Watch this.” I said. I focused some magic into the longshot in my left arm, and immediately it gained a weird pattern that was reminiscent of a circuit board. I brought it close to my right arm, watching as it, too, gained the circuit board pattern around the forearm. The second I made them touch, there was a blinding flash of light. When it settled, I noticed my arm now had some chains on the forearm, which were quickly being covered up by the currently docile Changeling Blade. “Sweet, now how do I-” I was cut off by my hand launching out and smacking Heather in the face. Good thing I wasn’t making a fist.

“OW! The hell was that for?!” She shouted, rubbing her nose.

“Sorry!” I said, panicking slightly over my now detached hand which was connected to my arm by a chain. “I don’t really know how to work it. Pretty sure I just figured it out, though. Considering my arm pretty much functions on my thoughts, I think I just have to think about it.” Sure enough, my stupid logic was correct, and the arm retracted when I thought about it. I turned and aimed my arm elsewhere, morphed my arm into a claw, then fired it off at a wall. I somehow got purchase on the wall, and made myself retract towards it. “Hey! Look at that! I don’t have to rely on random crap to use my longshot, how about you?”

“Oh haha. I can work mine just fine!” She shouted, putting it on her right hand and resting it on her left arm. It suddenly shot out, broke her left arm, and shoved a part of the bone out of her skin, allowing something black to drip out of it.

“S-see?... Ok, Yeah, I haven’t figured it out.” She said as she winced in pain.

“Hey, I can help you, ya know.” I said, dropping off the wall and walking up to her. “It’s easy, just pop your bone back in place, then a healing spell. It’d be painful, but I can heal you.”

“Ok… That sounds like it’ll work, but then again I kinda have dealt with something like this before…” She winced.

“Ok, Navi!” She shouts. Navi lit her horn and light weaved around it, mending skin and bone. It took a few minutes but soon her arm was back in working order.

“Ok, That took a lot…” Navi wheezed.

“Coolio. Thanks Navs!” She replied.

“Wow, that’s pretty handy.” I said. I turned to look at the bottle that I had secured to my hip. “Can you do something like that, little goo pony?” The chu pony poked its head out from its bottle, nodded a couple times, then went back into its bottle. “Cool. So, we have a dungeon to finish, so let’s get to it.”

“I figured this thing out!” Heather shouted, shooting the clawshot at the pressure plate above the door. It latched on, pulling her along until she weighed it down enough. She dropped down and smirked at me. “I can handle myself.”

“Good to know.” I said. “Now let’s get moving!”

Another half of a horrible water puzzle later (Again, play Twilight Princess if you want the actual dungeon, I don’t want to spoil it):

We stood at the entrance to the room that had the boss of the dungeon, according to Heather. I had long forgotten this temple, but the longer we went on through it, the more I remembered. Also, somewhere along the way, Heather had found a pair of iron boots, which never originated in this temple. She also at some point changed into the Zora armor.

“So, we jump in this hole in the ground, and we find who again?” I asked.

“Morpheel. He’s basically a giant eel… creature. Then again, It might be a different one.” She explained.

“Ah, alright then.” I said. “So, if I remember correctly, a horrible, horrible boss that is super easy.”

“Basically yeah.” Heather said, putting on her Iron boots.

“Great.” I said, slipping the broken ‘Loader Shoes’ on back over my strange leather running shoes. “Most underwhelming boss is a go.”

“Yolo!” She briefly yelled before slipping underwater.

“Yay, someone crazier than me.” I said to Navi before grabbing the tiny blue changeling.

“Oh no…” She muttered.

“Oh yes.” I said before jumping over the hole with the changeling. “LEEEEEEROOOOY A-JEEEEEEEEEEEEEENKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINS!”

We floated down slowly to the bottom, Navi and Heather not having to bother breathing because of my spell earlier. We eventually settled on the bottom near Heather, who was already fighting Morpheel.

“Oh yay, tentacle boy.” I said, staring at the already risen butthole that was Morpheel’s first stage. Another noise distracted me, however. As I turned to look, I noticed a giant fish swimming into the room. “Shit. Is that Gyorg?” Sure enough, it barfed up a ton of little fish that looked just like it. “Yep, Gyorg. Go to hell George!”

“OH GOD! WHY IS GYORG HERE?!” Heather cried.

“I don’t know!” I cried. “I’ll take him, you take Morpheel!”

“What?! I’m taking the easy one?! Give me a challenge! I’ll take Gyorg!” Heather cried out.

“Fine, I’ll go punch the water sarlak, you go get the one who vomits its young!” I yelled.

“WOO!” Heather screamed, swimming off to face Gyorg.

“I probably should make sure she doesn’t get killed huh…” Navi sighed.

About three minutes later:

“Wow. Underwhelming.” I said, shifting back into my normal form, seeing as how Heather killing Gyorg, then me killing Morpheel drained all the water in the room. “Seriously, this makes me wish I was fighting a dragon again!”

“I need to do this more often!!” She shouted.

“Yeah. And I should do less of this on my vacations.” I said, remembering what I was doing before I came here. “Speaking of that, can you send me back now, or can you not get out?”

“Uhhh I was honestly expecting this to be the kind of thing that make a portal appear, but… yeah we need help..” She sighed.

“Alright, but before we go, are those heart containers over there?” I asked, pointing over to where Morpheel originally was. Sure enough, there were two floating hearts.

“Huh. Interesting.” Navi muttered, walking over.

“I’m pretty sure only Heather can grab those, Navi.” I said. I looked over at the female Link. “Well? Get on with it. I don’t want to have to quote Monty Python again.”

“Fine!” She shouted, running over. She came running back a few minutes later.

“Ok, letsa go!” Heather said before grabbing the heart containers, which suddenly launched into her torso and seemed to melt into her. “Oh...oh~ I don’t feel so good!” I was really stunned, because Link never had this happen to him, but then again that was a game. She was visibly growing a few inches in height, her hips widened enough that she was now clearly a girl from any angle as her rear also got a slight boost. Her chest also grew out, making her tunic bulge and shift under them comfortably, yet still be perfectly conservative overall as her hair grew a bit longer. Now, instead of the 5’7” flat-chested girl that I had been adventuring with, there was now a 5’11” girl with at least a D-cup, and clearly some more muscle as her thighs had thickened a bit and really showed thanks to her white stockings.

Wow, if that’s what those did for her…. I want some now! Having some more muscles for my loves without having to alter my base form would be nice.

“Nice~.” I said, staring at her and acting just on the verge of being creepy. “Very nice.”

“I feel like I’m gonna throw up…” She moaned, stumbling over.

“Eh, you get used to it.” I said, reminiscing about my days of training back in Emerald and Sapphire’s hive. “Anyways, let’s get you two out of here, then I can leave.”

“Fine. I need to rest anyways.” Heather said.

I teleported us out of the temple, said my goodbyes, and then used my Runic Portal Matrix to open a portal back to Avarice’s world…. Where I was instantly crushed into a suffocating boob-to-face hug by Bluebelle yet again upon returning. “There you are! It’s only been an hour, but where have you been?”

I managed to struggle out of her surprisingly strong grip and gasped for air. I may be able to breath water, but damn it mare! I can’t breath through ten tons of boob! “Please let me breath Blue! *GASP* Okay, well, it was just a Displaced who summoned me on a whim. I decided to help her out with-.”

“Her~?” Blue asked with a purr, and I rolled my eyes.

“Blue, I have seven loves I’m marrying soon, I don’t need-.”

“Mistresses~!” Blue cooed with her eyebrows wagging, and I sighed as I pulled out of her hug, seeing nobody else on the beach.

“What’s with you lately? You’re getting taller, stronger, you’re getting all perverted. What’s going on Blue? I’ve been ignoring it, but I want to know if you have any idea while we’re alone.” I asked, knowing she might be embarrassed on the subject, and she wilted and twiddled her fingers.

“I’m not sure...ever since we...y’know...I’ve just been having so much energy. I’ve grown several inches and now I’m as tall as my aunts, and randy as all get-out. I...I even had several romps with those saucy zebra twins already.” Blue admitted to me, and the way her nipples were tenting her skimpy bikini top, I’m guessing this was a genuine issue for her if just talking about it was getting her bothered. Uh oh…. “Dox~...would you help me? I’ve always wanted to have sex on the beach...the chance somepony might see~....”

“Uh, Blue, as earnestly interested as I am…” I fought down the arousal, this wasn’t the place for it. “I’m tired, and this is a vacation. I didn’t exactly get to relax yet, and vigorous activity will just kinda-.” She shut me up by grabbing my crotch and growling in my face.

“You’re fucking me here, now.” She ripped off my thong and I gulped, yeah...some vacation…. Note to self. Find Vaga and make him explain. As she tackled me to the sand, I could’ve sworn I heard both Vaga’s, and Avarice’s laughter over the waves and our impassioned voices. Damn you two. Damn you two to Tartarus...for maybe a few minutes.

Friend of a Friend

Today was a great day! We’d already been here for two weeks just relaxing, playing on the beach, interacting with the locals, even took a tour of the Hyperion Multiversal Branch’s facility. Pretty impressive place, if you ask me. I swear, it’s making me want one, if not for purely selfish reasons. Well, aside from the Doppelganger Project. The fact that the zebras actually allowed themselves to be mass-cloned was disturbing. The fact Homage was training/programming the clones to be scouts and assassins was even more so. The benefits outweighed my morality on the subject though, since each clone had no actual soul I could identify, or much in individuality at all, they were simply more biological cogs in the machine, taking up roles that machines can’t easily do without extensive and wasteful efforts.

Also every clone a zebra has apparently adds onto their paycheck. Go figure. Homage also explained they weren’t ‘real sentient beings’ because they were intentionally made without souls, which also stunted their aging at a designated point, and essentially made them flesh-and-bone robots. Scary.

The girls also agreed with me on that, and kept a good distance from them. The few clones that DID have souls however, were treated like any other living being should, got a paycheck, and were just as alive and intelligent as the original, often even adopted as a sibling by the original if what Homage said was to be believed. In fact; Wave and Wash are one such ‘Clone Sibling’ pair, Wave being the original, and Wash being her clone.

It made our stay interesting to say the least, we only hoped the planned Pandoran Preserve doesn’t ruin Avarice’s ecosystem with ridiculously lethal monsters getting out into the world, even if this place was isolated by ocean in all directions.

Well anyway, today we were going hang-gliding off the cliffs of one of the islands further northeast of Maui, which was considered Valley Island’s official name, sounds better. Anyway, these islands, while smaller, had ridiculously mountainous terrain, perfect for hang-gliding. “While I do not understand why this would be so exciting, I’m glad I came along.” Luna commented, not getting the point of the activity beings she’s had wings her whole life.

“You may not understand, having been able to fly on your own power since you could use those things, but to ground-bound species, stuff like this is a real thrill.” I explained to my beautiful future Queen of the Night.

“Well I do appreciate the concept. I’m rather scared really, but if I fall I can use my magic to cushion the impact.” Bluebelle said from my other side, getting ready to jump with us, Luna was just going to use her wings, not wanting to risk it with the clunky gliding device, especially since she was really starting to show now, her tummy having bulged into a small bump, same with Blue too actually, but considering she was impregnated a whole month behind Tia and Lulu, it had me worried for how many she was carrying to be showing already at a couple months.

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t let any of you come along if I wasn’t sure I couldn’t keep you safe.” I assured her. The others had stayed on Maui, Tia wanting to work on her tan with help from the locals, starting to turn her fur a golden tone, and my three claptrap lovers were all so involved with the facility right now it was a wonder they weren’t being paid. Seriously, why were they working? This was a vacation! Then again, to them, maybe keeping busy was relaxing to them, one having been a program from the start, the other two from a hive-minded society, I’m surprised being cooped up in the castle with almost nothing to do hadn’t driven them mad.

“You have Cherry secure right? I don’t want to find out she wasn’t and have to go looking for the dear’s pieces if she falls and goes all splat.” Blue asked as she looked at my thong’s waistband, where the bottle holding my pet Chu Pony; Cherry was.

“She’s safe and secure. Have an enchantment on it keeping it fused to my clothes.” At my assurance, the head of the Chu Goo Pony stuck her head out, and made cheerful popping sounds in confirmation. Which, her color aside, was why I named her Cherry. Cherry Popper! Bluebelle got an enormous laugh out of it. “Alright, let’s go!” I ran and jumped off the cliff with my plain white hang-glider and was quickly followed by Luna and Blue if Blue’s squeals of fear and excitement said anything. It was yet another nice outing...until a portal appeared in front of me mid-flight.

“FUCKING EY!”

I was flung through the Void at speed, and shot out the other end like a cannonball, crashing through all sorts of things before coming to a stop under a pile of junk, that used to be something technologically advanced.

“Oh~...why? WHY~?!” A whiny raspy voice called out from the basement, which was also horribly mangled by the now-identified-as-living projectile that shifted under a pile of scrapped metal from what might have been a very expensive and sophisticated magical examination device, but we may never know now. “Why am I thinking in Narrative?” I asked myself as I crawled out from under the pile of scrap, shaking it off as I stood up, and promptly fell over backwards, hitting my head. “Ow! What the hell-?!”

‘Why are my hands gone?’ I asked myself as I stared at the metal right hoof and hole-riddled black chitinous left hoof that had replaced my hands, and the arms attached to them as well. “No! NO!” I wriggled around, the hard-shelled covers for what was obviously my new wings making it hard to roll over since I’d flared them open in panic. “Okay Dox, calm down. It isn’t your first time as a quadruped. Remember how you moved as Solaris...before the anthropomorphization of the planet happened.”

I, now a black-shelled bug-pony rolled himself over smoothly, and stood up to properly examine myself to ensure I wasn’t injured. I was as big as I’d been as Solaris, which is a bit bigger than Celestia, meaning I must be a King changeling. My legs had the tell-tale holes save my mechanical one, but my mane and tail were a shock of spiky white that was long and shaggy. I idly lifted my right foreleg up and the hoof morphed into a disk that became chrome and allowed me to see my reflection. My biological right eye was still green, and my left Echo Eye was still intact too from the odd forced change.

“Okay, I’m all in one piece, if a bit ragged. But no, not dealing with this.” I tried to reach into my dimensional storage pocket...and hoofed air. “What?” I began swiping at the air, starting to hyperventilate as I began panicking. “My stuff! All my stuff! And all I’m wearing is-.”

“MY LIBRARY!” I heard a terrifying shriek of fury that I had hoped I would never encounter. “WHO BROKE INTO MY-?!” Twilight’s infuriated voice stopped suddenly as the source had ended at the top of the stairs, and I blushed. I know why she froze.

“Um...I can explain?” I tried as I turned my head, seeing the flush-faced ‘Feral’ Unicorn Twilight gawking at my thong-squeezed chitinous flanks.

“Twilight, what is it? Do I need to get help?!”

“S-stay outside Spike!” Twilight urged, trotting into the basement as she cast a spell that restored everything to proper order, even the broken thingamajig I’d crashed through. “Who are you, what are you doing here, WHAT are you, and why are you wearing...that?” Twilight demanded, getting flustered at mentioning what to normal ponies is sexy-sextime clothes only.

“Okay, if I’m here, then that means one thing; a Displaced is here. Does that term ring any bells?”

“Uh...we have maybe hundreds of thousands of poor souls that were evacuated here from a dying world, but we don’t call them Displaced, they’re refugees.” Twilight replied, scanning me with her eyes as her horn brought forth a scroll and pen...a pen? An actual, honest-to-goodness ballpoint pen? “Well, I need to file a report if you’re a dimensional anomaly, name?”

This...could take a while….

This Twilight. I swear, my Twilight was easier to handle than this one! My Twilight just hit on me for a bit, this Twilight won’t stop asking questions! I hate it!

“Do you ever stop asking questions?!” I said, interrupting her long stream of questions. “No offense to you, but if you don’t stop, I might just kill myself.” To prove my point, I willed forth the Changeling Blade onto my hand-now-hoof and then held it up to my neck.

“Ah! I’m sorry, so sorry! Please don’t!” Twilight pleaded as she tossed the scroll and pen across the room. “No need to be extreme! I had to cross-reference your info with what I’ve gathered from the Internet!” Twilight insisted, levitating up a tablet she’d been using at the same time without my knowing.

“The internet?” I asked, pulling the sword away for a mere second, only to put it back to my neck. “Well, now I know I should kill myself.”

“No don’t-!”

“Too late.” And with that, I slit my throat and fell to the floor with a thud. Man, she didn’t react like I was hoping. Instead of running off in a panic, she summoned an emergency first-aid kid and started ranting off all kinds of medical jargon as she scanned me, and I rolled my eyes as I got up, making her scream, shouting zombie. “Braaaaaainnnnns~!”

“AH~! IT’S TRUE! THEY DO EXIST! BRONZE~!” Twilight screamed as she threw a table at me, running up the stairs and slamming the door behind her, barricading it from the other side.

“Bronze?” I said from under the table, pondering the name she screamed. “Huh, odd. Sounds like a normal pony name. Then again, it could be the Displaced. I mean, there was David and then Gabe who ended up going native, and this world so far is clearly a Feral or ‘Normal’ one. And then there’s me...maybe this Equestria has a limitation on the species here.” I jolted out from under the table as I heard Twilight frantically rambling to whoever she was leading into the library. “And Vanilla Equestrias, thus far from my own experience and other’s experiences, tells me I should run. But the question is, can I teleport out of this building?” My answer came in the form of me melting into shadows, and whisking away to find myself now standing in the familiar ruin of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, or as I prefer to call it lately; Castle Everfree.

“Whew! Thank gog I can still do that. Whatever’s blocking my storage here hasn’t blocked my other abilities. DM. What’s going on?” I didn’t get an answer, and I started pacing in worry. “DM, c’mon, I know you can answer.”

Signal. Poor. Local. God. Barrier.

“The fuck does that mean?!” I screamed.

Find. Displaced.

So that’s what it boils down to. Ugh...and I made things harder on myself by scaring Twilight like that. For all I know, I might have a witch-hunt out for me already.

I was exploring the castle as I pondered where the Displaced could be. For all I know, Bronze is just another pony here. However, for all I know, he could be the Displaced and I’m wasting time. But also, I kinda pulled a dick move with Twilight back there. Man, I’m becoming way too much like my father. Why did my vacation have to be interrupted again? While HANG-GLIDING at that! And for that matter, where the hell did my glider go?!

Upon thinking that, I regretted it, because somehow the damn thing popped out of the air like a token would and slammed full-speed into me. “Fuck. This version of Equestria is completely ruled by cartoon logic isn’t it?”

In response, a bowling ball fell from the sky and smashed my noggin open, spilling brains everywhere, yet I didn’t die instantly and could regenerate without a Saving Throw. “Yep...don’t question it Dox. Accept it.” In response an anvil smashed through the floor a foot away from my face, followed by a safe a bit further than that, and then a piano landed daintily on it’s stands without any damage. “...Ah...a reward?” The piano then suddenly collapsed into itself. “Damn it!”

“This way girls! My Pinkie Sense is tingling!” Crap. Not her. I don’t care what universe I’m in, please, just don’t throw her at me again-! “HI!” She popped out of a window that opened in the air.

“AH! AH~!” I screamed, jumping backwards and willing forth the Changeling Blade again. I swear, I was shaking from her little jumpscare. “DON’T. DO. THAT.”

“He’s up here girls! And the thong is hawt~!” She called behind her into the window, closing it, revealing herself and the others sans Rainbow and instead a black and silver alicorn stallion that was...extremely scrawny in muscle and almost shorter than most of them. “Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie and-!”

“I KNOW WHO YOU ARE! Stay back!” I shouted, waving my bladed hoof at them as I backed away from the Pink Menace.

“Dude, lower the weapon, or I show you how much having a horn shoved up your ass hurts.” The scrawny alicorn spoke with a deep, loud, tenor baritone that, had he been bigger, might have made me shiver at how radio-worth it was, or how angry he clearly was about me being so defensive.

I slowly brought my bladed hoof down to the floor, watching as they all visibly calmed down, only to freak out again as I brought the blade to my throat again. “We know who you are Dox. You’d have to be completely obliterated to die. I’m not falling for it this time.” Twilight declared, and I blinked at her. “I read your FanFiction.”

“Nope.” I said, bringing the blade away from my throat and abruptly slamming my hoof into the ground. “Nope. Not again, nope. Nope nope nope nope nope, SO MUCH NOPE!”

“Well unlike Mistress Change, I actually have a paper copy of it up to the point where you mysteriously disappear in a hang-gliding accident while on vacation.” Twilight added, making it only slightly less nope worthy.

“Twilight, please stop wasting paper. Not much survived the holocaust as it is, and it’s tiring getting Jeeves to hunt for the stuff for you, AND the manufacturers to use as templates.” The alicorn stallion scolded the purple mare, who whined and he rolled his eyes. “You can get the stuff the paper companies start selling soon over their less sophisticated stuff. Anyway, I’m Bronze Brave, and if you’re here, then you’re stuck here, aren’t you?”

“To my knowledge, yes.” I said. “Now, it’s my turn to ask a question. How the hell did you track me?"

“Twilight went all stalker and snipped some of your tail hair while you weren’t looking!” Pinkie answered, getting Twilight to blush and glare at her friend while I just shuddered. You can’t be telling me every Twilight across existence is so...ugh.

“Thank you.” I said. “Now, to quote a doctor and a friend: Allons-y!” And with that, I tried to teleport away. Emphasis on tried…. As in I failed, somehow. It wasn’t Null, I was just...denied.

“Going somewhere?” Bronze asked all business, his blank face as he approached told me he was to blame. “Sorry, you’re not just going to run off. I don’t have that kind of patience.”

“What about this, then?” I said, remembering something I had found out about ponies lately. I lifted up a hoof…. and poked his nose. “Boop.” He didn’t move...why didn’t that work?! He did grin though, and moved a hoof up to my face.

“Boop.” He only tapped me, and the next thing I knew, for some reason, Gravity had turned off on me!

“The frig?!” I said as I started floating upwards. I used my own gravity powers to stop my crazy flight, but I couldn’t bring myself in any direction! I tried to get gravity to listen to me like Kat taught me, but nothing was happening besides me being allowed to stabilize myself. “You have Gravity Powers?!”

“No. Now we’re going to have a chat and-.”

“OMIGOSH! Was that use of Star Swirl’s third law of relativity in action?! Bronze! When did you learn magic?!” Twilight started geeking out, and both Bronze and I groaned. Apparently we both had a similar distaste for Purple-Smart’s enthusiasm for these sorts of things.

“NO!” We both shouted as she was about to start running scans, and she cowered away behind her friends, who all both agreed with us, yet consoled her regardless.

“So, before we get going with the trivia, any idea how to get me down?” I asked. “I would get myself down, but it appears my powers are on the fritz because of you.”

“Not on the fritz, simply denied.” Wha? “Gravity is a tangible thing, a force that itself is the center of all-.”

“I’m a Gravity Shifter, I know this, could you skip to the part about getting me down?” I demanded irritably, only to find myself smashed face-first into the floor of the castle roof. “Ow….”

“Pay attention smartass. I’m not Gravity, not even one specific thing. Luna has the moon, Tia the sun. I am the Force that they obey. That ALL things in EXISTENCE obey!” I decided to stop his grandstanding there.

“Blabity blabity blah.” I said. “Listen, if you know who I am, my story, then you know I’m not impressed.”

“Don’t know, don’t care. What? Want a lollipop? I didn’t even have a fucking CHOICE in this! I’m sure you didn’t either from how I understand things now though. Fate’s a bitch. You smack it enough, it smack’s back, and keeps smacking.” Bronze growled, looking at his horn in disgust.

“Yeah, I know the feeling.” I said. “Hell, I never had a chance. Doubt you did, but hey, ya never know. Just reminds me of my friend Avarice.”

“Nice name...seems Shirish to me.” Bronze commented as he sat down in front of me as I sat up, dwarfing him. “So, are you going to listen? Tell me what’s what with this whole Displaced business? Because I found myself walking through my front door into this place a couple months ago, and if that isn’t being Displaced, I don’t know what is.”

“A couple of months ago?” I said. “Wow, you’ve had it easy, not taking into account your experiences. I’ve been like this for, well, a year or so now. I’ve known Displaced who’ve been like this for thousands of years.”

“Your world been nuked? You get to watch it happen?” Bronze demanded, and it triggered a memory of someone saying something similar. “You get to feel your very essence be ripped out of you as you desperately try to save as many as you can? Even if it destroys you?” He demanded, Applejack suddenly approaching him and nuzzling him as tears tried to come from his eyes. “Sorry...still getting over it.”

“Hold up, did you say your world was nuked?” I asked.

“Yeah. About a month ago. I brought Luna to my world, just as a stop-over for convenience to take her to Zecora’s so they could meet and we could have a time together butchering the hydra I killed. She thoughtlessly moved my world’s moon closer and...well...the ensuing Chaos just unraveled what little decorum was left and...it fell apart.” Bronze ended with a choked sob, AJ whispering sweet nothings in his ear as she pet his mane.

“Ya know, that story reminds me of someone else.” I said, putting a hoof to my chin and rubbing it. “In fact, it sounds identical to Avarice’s story about his world. The thing is, he kept mentioning a friend of his while he told me. You wouldn’t happen to know an Anthon, would you?” The stunned silence and gawking from all of them was answer enough.

“...Where’s Konrad?” Bronze demanded, he looked like he’d just been given a purpose when he’d lost hope, and considering who Avarice used to be, well, it was obvious I had no reason not to say.

“Avarice, or Konrad as you knew him, is fine.” I said. “He’s back in his own universe. If you wanted, I could probably tell him I saw you, or tell you what his token is so you can look out for it.”

“Jeeves has been scanning the Multiverse a whole month with no leads, that damned Merchant left no trail of where it sent him. I’ll look out for his...Token?” Bronze asked in interest.

“Yeah….” I said. “About that. He… He’s kind of…. How do I say this?...” I rolled my hooves around in the air, gesturing towards Bronze, who quickly grasped the concept.

“Damn, that Ascended has already gotten him that far along? Shit, I was hoping in vain I could stop it. Oh well. So long as he’s okay. Now what’s this about tokens?” Bronze asked as it started to get dark out, and he sighed. “Hold on, let me move this someplace more comfortable.”

“Okay, so where-?” Where’d that door come from? There was literally, a mahogany door standing in the middle of the floor. It’s presence was oddly intimidating, especially considering it was big enough for an 18-foot tall F.A.U.S.T. to walk through, and had several knobs along the left side, each one a different size according to the user. “What...the…?”

“Huh...Jeeves has been a little liberal in the remodeling. I just wanted it to not be so familiar, not entirely different. Now a hydra could squeeze through if it wanted.” Bronze shook his head, and moved to the giant door that the others were similarly in awe of. I’m guessing it isn’t normally like this? “Jeeves! Open up! What have you done with my house?!” He knocked on the giant door firmly three times, no more, no less.

And then the door cracked open, revealing a bipedal humanoid stone golem wearing a tuxedo, his rocky face somehow in a bland and dry expression as his equally bland and dry British accent answered. “I have taken the liberty of refurbishing your home sir. Please, do come in.” The fact the golem was full-size as the door was rather scary, but what was even more so was how when Bronze entered it, he was suddenly of a size on the other side where everything was at a scale he could comfortably interact with from what I saw through the door. “If you are quite finished dawdling, please, enter. I do not condone pests flying through the door.”

“Watch it snob. Or I’ll bring others in with me.” I said, walking inside. I found myself actually eye-level with Bronze now. It wasn’t disorienting at all though, which was what was most disconcerting. However, my pause got me a certain Pink Party Pony to put her hooves on my flanks, and click her tongue.

“Hey, giddy-up! The door’s only made for one silly!” She then punctuated it by squeezing my plot, and lidding her eyes. “Or do you want me to show you how to properly wear this thing?”

“GET OFF!” I screamed, running inside. I paused quickly, as the Pink Menace had quickly dismounted upon me leaving the small entry hall, and we were in a lavish marble mansion with a wall of bay windows showing views from multiple different locations, some in space, others other worlds that weren’t Equestrias, one however kept viewed on the dead, orange and brown rock Avarice showed me, another showing what my lessons with Kat have taught me was Equus. The fact Bronze was gawking right next to me told me this was new to him too. “Your house?”

“I thought it WAS!” Bronze exclaimed...huh, I just noticed he’s wearing a bronze nose ring. With Celtic Boars on it running Widdershins...that is all Chaos right there.

‘Right, Avarice said Vaga told him that his friend Anthon is a balancing Chaotic Presence for this world.’ I looked around as the girls came in behind us and the golem named Jeeves approached.

“Drinks anyone?” Suddenly, a mug of some drink was hovering before me. I sniffed it, and promptly grabbed it with my gravity powers and chugged the huge mug down in one go. Cactus Cooler, chilled to just the right temperature! Amazing. “Please, do wander. I wish to know everyone’s opinions of the home’s recent update. Since it was moved to the Void, fixing it up was as easy as-.” Jeeves pointed to Pinkie.

“Cupcakes!” Suddenly Jeeves was holding a whole tray of cherry-chimichanga cupcakes, fully cooked, moist, and frosted. “Oh~ I’m in heaven!”

“How did you… Know what, not questioning it.” I said. “Already seen enough weird shit today as is. So, who’s guiding the tour?"

“Nobody. I said you are free to wander, and that is enough. There is nothing here valuable and worth protecting from damage, nor is there enough space as of yet to get lost. The bedrooms are that way, and the facilities and kitchen is that way. Do avoid the stairs however, they lead to the other Doorways. Now then, I do ask that you keep your Chu behaved and in the pet palace over yonder with Bronze’s other pets.” The golem pointed towards a wall which suddenly had an entranceway, and inside was a veritable pet paradise that already had three dogs and three cats all lounging about contently as the red Chu pony was shifting about a shallow pool of water, and even waved to me.

“Ya know, I was kinda wondering where she went.” I said. “How’d she even get in there? I thought she was in a bottle that was connected to my thong.”

“Time and Place are irrelevant things. I had assumed you knew this much. If that is all, I have my duties on Terra to see to about continuing the transfer of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault’s contents to the Herbology department of the Star Swirl Academy.” Then he was gone. Simply, gone. Not there. Vanished.

“Where… How… Know what, still not caring.” I said. I turned towards Bronze. “So, boss, where to? I still need to tell you some things about the Displaced.”

“I was hoping we could just sit around on my ridiculously comfortable couches, but-.” Suddenly. Couches. “Nevermind, good to see that still works in the Void. Let’s chat.”

To say it was enlightening for me was an understatement. Bronze had thought his situation was unique. Sure, he wasn’t Displaced by the normal means, but he was still Displaced for sure, considering he met all the criteria aside from the fact he wasn’t cosplaying when it happened, and he wasn’t turned into a character from fiction. Well...aside from all Equestrias being works of fictions in our respective Earths.

“So now I have to watch out for others like us, along with trying to get ripped again and accustomed to my powers, AND the canon storyline?” Bronze asked Dox in annoyance, getting nods from me.

“Yep.” Dox said. “Among things. You should also watch out for anything weird that leaks through the multiverse. I’d say try staying away from anyone that is under the shadow of the Architect. Corruption is a scary thing.”

“Not to mention unexpected factors.” Twilight butted in. “After all, according to the script….” Twilight summoned another ream of paper, this one titled MLP:FiM, and skimmed over near the beginning, oh Gog no.... “It would seem you were Displaced here at about the start of our own story, and your involvement was sorta conveniently dovetailed in if I compare what happened with what’s here. Also, the hydra attack and you killing it aren’t mentioned at all, so this thing can only be a precautionary tool.” Twilight waved the small book of paper at them, getting Bronze to roll his eyes and me to want to burst it into flame.

“Twilight. Foreknowledge is as much a curse as none. The anticipation leads to both foolish certainty, as well as being unprepared for extreme disappointment should it not happen.” Bronze stated wisely, getting me to nod along with him.

“Hell, you might not even see some events.” I said. “You said something about a Starlight Glimmer, or something like that earlier. While I’m sure she might exist here, I never saw her. But that whole tale for her sounds like what the mane 6 had to do on my world. Honestly, I don’t know. Too much shit’s been going on for me to even consider ‘canon’.”

“But this is an important resource! In fact, I figured out that yesterday and today were supposed to be the events of a section called Griffon the Brush-Off, where Gilda shows up, acts like a total jerk, and leaves in a huff, where she isn’t mentioned for a long, long time after.” Twilight informed as she looked over the book-sized bound printing paper.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Be careful with your information. Spoilers ruin things. Trust me, they do.”

“But already things have happened differently, a Divergence. Bronze was there at Dash’s house when Gilda showed up. Gilda instead of being an outright jerk, instead revealed she was a baker and-.”

“Tried to steal my recipes!” Pinkie injected angrily, her mane and tail going flat for a split second. “A Bake Off challenge requires all parties share at least one personal recipe, unless it’s a friendly challenge. But her challenge was not friendly at all.” Pinkie ground out, her hair flattening a bit.

“Yes, well, anyway.” Twilight added, scooting away from the pink mare on their shared couch as the others had decided to explore. It would seem her foreknowledge of Party of One was already coloring her friend in a bad light. “As I was saying, Bronze; you are the main Divergence in our lives. You never existed in our base timeline or instance. Anything you’re involved in will by extension change accordingly. We’ll see the fallout of your interactions with Gilda when we get back, but otherwise I’ll have to see to somehow arranging your absences from certain events so they don’t take unnecessary turns.”

“For that, I have an answer.” I stated. “Bronze, you just need to make a token, and cast it out into the Void.”

“To help others right? I can’t help myself right now. That trick I did with turning off your gravity is pretty much the biggest thing I can do right now besides deny teleports and move vast distances quickly.”

“Well, yeah.” I said. “Hell, if I get a copy of your token, I could give one to Avarice. I’m pretty sure he’d love to see you.”

“I know I’d love to see him too. I need to see at least one of my old friends soon. I have no clue where they could be in this world, considering my power latched onto those close to me first since it was easier. Okay, so from what you explained earlier….” Bronze reached a hoof up to his nose ring, twitching his nose and removing it. “Can I copy this? I don’t want to lose the original. It’s kinda important to my personal identity.”

“Oh yeah, when you were a minotaur and had your Defining Trait revealed right? Well, here, it should be easy for me to do that. I just need access to my dimensional storage pocket.” I offered and Bronze sighed as his horn shined, and suddenly I could open my hole in the air and I reached in, taking out a bronze ornament that was just loot. “This will be easy to do.” I boasted, before using my gravity powers, since magnetism would just electrify the bronze, to literally mash the small ornament into a ring, which I then did the same to create the engraved Celtic Boars that were on Bronze’s actual nose ring.

“Gravity powers FTW.” Bronze joked as he put his nose ring back in, visibly becoming more relaxed when he did so. “Alright, give it here. I don’t really have much to offer, but I’ll see what I can say.”

“Just remember to be true about yourself. That’s the most important thing.” I insisted, giving the dense duplicate nose ring to Bronze, who held up the ring in his hoof, his deep blue eyes shining a bit.

“If you need Asylum, someone to talk to, or if I can; direct assistance, then feel free to call upon me. Bronze Brave of Space, master of spacial distortion.” Bronze then looked at a window, which flung open into the murky nothingness of the Void, and the ring launched out into the emptiness like a bullet, before the small hatch in the giant bay window closed, and resumed its previous viewpoint. “There. I’m another step closer to finding my best friend. I hope you or him find a copy and summon me soon. I need to hear from him how he’s doing.”

“Ya know, it would have been easier for me to do that if you just handed it back to me?” I said.

“Hey, I don’t control my powers as much as they control me sometimes, it just happened. This place IS in the Void mind you. For all I know-.” A copy of his token suddenly shot in through a window, breaking it and it fixed itself instantly before it struck me in the neck! “-That might happen!”

“OW!” I yelped. “The hell! Well, at least I can take this to Avarice now. I’ll tell him who it’s from.”

“Be sure to tell him ‘From the fat douche to the beanpole douche’, he’ll know for sure then.” Bronze grinned before he yawned. “Oh...yeah...it’s late, wow. Just go on through any Doorway, it’ll return you home if you have it in mind when opening it. It was nice to meet you Dox.”

“Nice to meet you too Bronze. Now then, if I am permitted to leave as you say, I have six sexy fiances to get back to. I hope they aren’t worried too much about this happening again.” I mentioned as I got up and approached the Pet Palace. “Cherry~, time to go!” My pet Chu Goo pony made popping sounds in elation before quickly slithering along and flowing into the bottle tied by the neck to my thong’s waistband. “See you later Bronze!” I approached a door, and opened it, only to see a Pet Pantry full of pet food. “Oh, heh, heh. Sorry.” I then tried the front door, revealing the penthouse I and my fiances were sharing with Wave and Wash, and exited, the door closed on it’s own after me.

AGAIN WITH THE SUFFOCATING BOOBS! Damn it mare! I said stop trying to kill me! I managed to push away the giant tits and take in a gasp of air. “*GASP* Damn it Blue! Stop trying to murder me with your tits!” I demanded, and Blue seemed to be the only one in the suite right now. Twice now. Twice have I been summoned, and twice have I ended up in her pillowy valley of breasts.

“Your mouth says no~....” She grabbed my crotch, which was bulging into my thong already. “But your groin says yes~....”

“Blue, not now! I have to get a message to….” I just noticed; my left arm is still a changeling king’s! “Hold on.” I shifted back to normal, but instead of it being a morphing sensation, or even process, instead a green flame had swept over me to do so, and I widened my eyes at realizing I felt a slight drain for doing so. “No….” I let go of the hold on the form, and I returned to being a changeling king. “No, no, no, no! Why? I...I don’t think I ever turned into a local changeling before! How do I turn back?!”

“I don’t mind handsome.” Bluebelle said as she stepped back and licked her lips. I realized why was because this form was much more muscular and taller than my original shape. In fact, I was as tall as her now! Meaning I was as tall as Tia and Lulu too! “Mrrr~...been working out hun?”

“Um...no? I don’t know what’s wrong. I can’t seem to go back to normal. Maybe Emerald and Sapphire can tell me what’s wrong. They used to be normal changelings before.” ‘At least, back in Drake’s world anyway. I don’t know if they-.’ I froze. I...I felt drunk. I felt amazing! I took a deep breath, my organic right eye glazing as I tasted what could only be described as sex in my mouth. I also felt more energized, more...frisky. “Mm...sexy lady...you taste fine~....” I approached my fiance, who grinned just as lecherously as I must’ve been, and we hugged, squeezing her massive tits into my chest as we drank each other in, I think me being more literal in that aspect. “Let’s see if we...can add a few more~....” I reached down and rubbed her slightly pooched tummy, and she purred as she took Cherry off along with my thong, tossing her onto the couch where my pet poked her head out curiously.

“Gladly~.” She breathed out, kissing me through my fangs as she led us into the bedroom, giggling as I slammed the door shut with my shaggy white tail.

I'm going to RIP you a knew one.

‘I think our vacation is going overboard….’ I thought to myself as I scuba-dived down into the depths of the atoll named by Homage. He poetically called it the Drowned Atoll, near the end of the Hawaiian Archipelago. Anyway, we’ve actually been here for MONTHS now! About three actually. All my partners save the changelings since they already birthed are really showing now. I wondered if they were okay, but they all told me it was natural for a mare to get so big so soon in an eleven month pregnancy, it just took longer for the fetus to develop. Well, not for Athena anyway, she was about to pop! She had a clutch of eggs in her that she said were due anytime now.

The reason we haven’t gone home is because the longer we stayed, the harder it was to leave. Homage informed us that time between this universe and seemingly all others from him sending out test probes was completely meaningless, and that settled it for my mares, who all preferred to just spend their pregnancies in a tropical paradise rather than be waited on hand and hoof by worried and otherwise over-enthusiastic doctors and maids.

When Homage also mentioned the potential for flipping TIME TRAVEL using this, we all also decided to give Arbok a call, but even with that sort of condition, both she and Sarah weren’t comfortable spending that much potential time apart, and politely declined. Besides, they said if what I said was true, then my vacation would be over in the blink of an eye to them, and Arbok was more concerned with trying to connect to her children from an alternate future than having something as frivolous as a vacation where she’d more than likely get pregnant again.

As for me, well, it gave me time to adjust to my new ‘true’ form. Sure, thanks to Sapphire and Emerald, I could turn back to my original base form whenever I want, but…. “Mmph!” I jolted at feeling two familiar hands squeezing my black chitinous plot, and I turned my head to playfully raise an eyebrow at a golden-furred Tia, who was also wagged her brows at me from her masked head, and my jagged and sharp horn shined green. ‘Tia, now? Underwater?’

Her own now-golden horn shimmered in response. ‘Why not? Bluebelle’s been hogging you this whole time, I want a fantasy of MINE to come true right now.’ Tia thought back at me, pulling me close as she hugged her glorious golden bosom which had actually gotten larger from her lactating to my back. ‘Under the sea~!’

‘Ugh, why’d I introduce you all to Disney movies?’ I was about to oblige my love’s desire when I felt a hoof nudge my head, and we looked up to see a very visibly pregnant Luna looking imperiously down at us, her own bosom having grown from lactation as well as she shook her head, and pointed to the surface. Dang...I’m surprisingly disappointed. I was curious about having sex so deep underwater now.

We all moved to the surface as slowly and carefully as we could. We didn’t want to endanger the foals from the changing pressure after all. When we surfaced, the sun was still high in the sky, and Luna removed her mouthpiece. “Really? Out in the middle of nowhere you two? I thought Bluebelle was bad.” Blue wasn’t with us, she was currently going through a serious bitchy phase as she was almost bound to a bed like Athena should’ve been if she wasn’t mechanical. The doctor claptrap that Homage appointed us said she was carrying quadruplets, but they were unusually big, so she’d be looking full-term with a single foal and getting bigger from now till she birthed, and she wasn’t taking her confinement to the penthouse well, even if the Hyperion Network now had all kinds of movies thanks to a deal Homage made with Bronze over obtaining copies he’d salvaged from his Earth, and from his own massive collection, dude was a movie buff.

“Oh come now Lulu! It’s safer than your current want to have sex whilst flying.” Celestia taunted back, making me choke and Luna to blush up to her ears.

“Thou said thou wouldn’t tell!” Luna protested, splashing her sister, making her giggle at having embarrassed her ‘little’ sister. I was a bit preoccupied though, watching their heaving breasts bob in the water, gold and dark blue. Damn, I never get tired of my ladies. “Regardless, perhaps we should head back? It will take even the speedboat that Homage has lent us a while to return the vast distance between here and Maui.”

“Oh~, fine. You’re right Luna. We don’t want to have to try and navigate back by the stars.” Celestia admitted as they began swimming towards the largest part of the atoll that had managed to breach the surface, where we’d set up camp early this morning. It was over a thousand acres according to Homage, more than enough for a small settlement as there was a couple hundred acres of a smaller surfacing of the atoll to the east that could be used for farmland. “Dox~! Stop staring at our plots and follow!”

“R-right! Sorry! You know what you girls do to me!” I responded, following after. Sure, the holes in my left arm and legs felt really weird and made swimming rather difficult, but it was still fun to swim after them. I ended up preferring my new changeling king base form for just relaxing about. I didn’t have so much raw power all the time, and my ladies...I could just breathe in their love for me, and it was better than any food I’d ever eaten. If only...if only all changelings across the Equestrias could have it as good as me. They wouldn’t be all scrawny, and alone….

“Dox, are you having sad thoughts again?” Luna asked as she and Tia climbed up the beach and stood, I’d probably been looking depressed as I usually did at thoughts like that. It was even harder to hide my emotions in this form than my normal one. “You stop that, or we’ll drown you in lust again.”

“Please no. I become a horny bastard when you do that.” I really did. I became an insatiably HUNGRY stallion when they did that. I ravaged my sexual partners in such a blind and lustful way during so though, that they’d taken to doing so at least once a week since Bronze’s universe forced this form on me. When I asked Avarice over Echo if that was what it was like for him, he just said ‘Welcome to the club’.

“Yes sister, please not right now. I don’t feel like being practically raped at the moment. I’d wanted a slow, and passionate session.” Celestia rebuffed, and helped me onto the beach. Still though, it was nice to be eye-level with them, rather than nipple-level. Made looking them in the eyes easier. “Alright Dox, let’s head on back. Don’t want Bluebelle getting any more jealous and eating herself fat off of snacks.”

“She has been craving a lot of chocolate lately hasn’t she sister? Lately, I’ve been wanting pickles and ice cream.” Luna admitted as we began walking towards the outer shore as we’d been diving inside the caldera of the atoll.

*BOOM*

A violent, big, and loud explosion almost knocked us off our hooves from the direction of the boat. Judging by the fact that it was so, and it was the ONLY thing big enough to do that; it was safe to assume we’d just been metaphorically stranded if we didn’t have wings. “What the hell?! Why’d the boat explode?!”

“We have no idea! Homage assured us that all their equipment was sound!” Luna shouted as the shockwave had hurt our ears. But as we looked back towards the explosion, through the fire we could see an enormous silhouette that was humanoid, yet seemed far too out-of-this-world to be native, the presence it gave off was incredibly terrifying too. I could sense from here, it wasn’t anything friendly, and it wasn’t anything to screw with.

“Girls...fly. Fly now.” I ordered as calmly as I could, whipping the Changeling Blade out of my arm, willing it into a smaller version of the flamberge, and moving forward to shield them from whatever it was.

“Dox, we can’t-!”

“You’re with my foals! You have the responsibility to protect yourselves! Now fly!” My voice brooked no argument, and while they clearly didn’t want to, Celestia and Luna quickly backed away, spun around, and ran before they spread their wings and took off to the southeast, towards the rest of the Archipelago and safety.

“Those with pups are safe from me. I kill those who deserve it for their weakness, stupidity, or their affiliations.” A completely auto-tuned and gritty deep voice stated from the silhouette, which began to become visible as the fiery lights behind him died, and revealed a nightmare from the first Borderlands, only it looked more complete, a finished product. “Ready to die?! Hyperion scum?!”

The wind suddenly whipped, blowing out the fire of the sinking boat entirely, revealing my opponent in full to be a properly proportioned Alpha Badass Man-Skag wearing nothing but a bandoleer with his Echo, shield, relic, and his class mod which seemed to be a collar as an acid green graffiti backdrop fell behind him, and red flavor text rolled in front of him. RIP: Rest In Pieces (IN ACID!)

Oh shit. This guy!. All that acid, and if what the Hawaiians and Homage have told me is true, he almost killed Avarice! Okay, he has guns, all of them are caustic. Good thing bullets these days are made...of. Shit. Hyperion produces pure lead bullets! If THEY do, then wherever this guy gets his! Lead doesn’t magnetize easily! “Hey, asshole! I’m on vacation! I don’t like being interrupted...ON MY VACATION!” I bellowed, working up some bravado. Shit. I don’t have my shield, and it’d take several seconds to fish it out and put it on. Let alone, I’m in nothing but my thong as usual, and this fucker’s fast from what I’ve heard….

“Like I care you shitty Hyperion Exec! I’m finally back here, took forever to swim here from Canida! Do you know how good shark tastes? Well it makes your tongue bleed if you eat the skin! Fuck you! Thanks to that Badass from before, I respawned all the way in the ass-end of nowhere Canida! Sure...hot babes there, sexy bitches...but I have a job, and I’m here to deliver all your rich asses to hell!” He summoned a caustic S&S Brute as I quickly tried to shadow-teleport away, but fuck, it just took me to the opposite end of the island. Guess water isn’t easy to transport on.

“Shield, shield!” I shouted at myself as I opened my inventory, and my horn shined before it swiftly allowed me to levitate my normal clothes, fitted for my new size and just outright teleported them onto me, put on the shield, and spun around just to dodge another blast of pellets my magnetism had no effect on! Shit!

“Have some Infinity bitch!” I shouted as I aimed my flintlock as the big bastard who was still taller than my current 8-foot stature, and started yanking on the trigger as fast as I could, but his green shield just took them as he kept running closer, spamming that ridiculously overfed shotgun like he had infinite ammo too. ‘Oh fuck, need to get some distance.’ I then exerted my gravity powers on him, going for a shove, only for his purple eyes to shine brighter, and the cracks of his natural bone armor to shine purple too, and nothing to happen! Fuck! He just negated my gravity powers! WHO CAN’T DO THAT THESE DAYS?!

“Whatever you just did, it fucked with my eridium! Do it again, and I’ll be eating your face off instead of killing you outright!” Wait, eridium? The fuck?! How does this asshole have-fuck it. He has his equipment and somehow has the bullets...know what? Time for some uncivil discourse.

“Where the hell did you get eridium here? Or your ammunition for that matter? Avarice is the largest source of ammo and eridium on this planet, and to be fair, you trying to kill him kinda makes him supplying you unlikely.” I asked, stalling for time as I discreetly opened up my storage behind me, my horn shimmering faintly as I telekinetically fished for Avarice’s brazier, which I learned recently DOES use aetheric flame after all.

“What? Dogs can’t have guns? I guess Saddle Arabia does under-the-table deals then, since the Iron Paw Clan up in Canida sells guns, bullets, and blasting powder to the rest of the clans from Saddle Arabia, and for the eridium. Well. Dogs love to dig, dogs love gems, and they recently discovered eridium growing here somehow, and have started stockpiling it in hazard caches since it’s faintly radioactive, and they don’t trust it.” RIP supplied, aiming his shotgun at my head. “So, have you given up? Or do we have to keep dancing this little sissy dance?”

“How about, neither?” I levitated the brazier in front of me and ignited it with my willpower, spawning a belovedly familiar fire-rimmed portal. “I’m calling in the Badass.”

“FUCKING DAMN IT~!” Avarice’s voice roared from within the portal as he stepped through, looking like total hell. Arrows, spears, and what looked like ballista bolts sticking out of his thick armored hide as he was currently at full size in his hydra/dragon form. “Fucking hell! Whoever you are, you have either the worst damn timing, or the best damn timing! They’d better survive until we get back damn it!”

“Hi, Avarice!” I yelled at him. “Welcome to the party! Now please help me!”

“Oh...fuck….” RIP gawked, his vertical mouth gaping open as his huge purple eyes took in the utter badassery that was a full-form and size Avarice fresh from a clearly siege-level fight. “And me without a launcher….”

“What? This tool again? Damn it, I already killed you three times! Leave me alone!” What?! Three times?! Homage and the Tribe only mentioned that one time, so Avarice has had to deal with him twice before since then?

“I’ll leave you alone when you stop spreading Hyperion’s presence! Eridium is growing in Canida! Eridium is from Pandora, and it’s your fault it’s influence is spreading!” RIP shouted angrily, looking between us as his Echo shimmered red whenever he looked at either of us. If I remember the Borderlands UI correctly, then his HUD is identifying us both as being Badasses. “Good thing I’m not alone this time either.”

“What-?” I couldn’t say much more when a ridiculously focused shotgun blast crashed clean through my back and out my chest, ripping my organs to shreds as I fell to the ground. I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. I’d be dead if I wasn’t who I was, and if I didn’t have such a huge stockpile of Love and other emotion energy stored up all the time. That said, it only took a few seconds for my stores of energy to quickly flood my body and fully regenerate my wounds, making me gasp as my lungs returned. “W-what just happened?!”

“You got Leon’d that’s what!” Shouted Avarice as Crescent breathed void-fire at the retreating Leon, who flipped and sprinted out of the attack zone with inhuman speed and grace.

“Yeah, well, he’s about to be Dox’d.” I yelled. “Your pick though. Leon or that douche.”

“Leon’s a bitch to fight, haven’t been able to finish him even once before he manages to run off. RIP’s a badass though, he’ll take punishment like a wrath sponge and keep shooting you until either he dies, or you do. We’re currently the meat between us, so we’ll take RIP off your hands. Don’t let Leon get behind you again though. He tends to have a one-hit-kill from behind like an assassin if you didn’t notice.” Avarice informed as suddenly RIP started pelting them with lead, and they roared as they charged at him.

“Got it.” I said, putting away my flintlock and Changeling Blade and taking out my Volcano snipe, aiming it at Leon. “GET BURNT BUDDY!” I pulled the trigger, and the blond back-stabber-or is it shooter?-just tilted his head like a douche, and my shot missed by an inch. “What?! Bullshit!” I kept firing, and the fuck just kept dodging the bullets like I had the aim of a small child! He hadn’t even moved yet! Not even aiming for his torso or his limbs! It’s like he had the Force or the Matrix or some stupid OP shit! “How the fuck are you dodging this?!”

“You have the killing intent of a child. Compared to monsters, you’re still an infant.” Leon taunted coldly before he whipped out a unique boxy handgun from nowhere that had a stock.

“Yeah? Well…” I started. Damn. I don’t have a snappy comeback…. “Um… You’re hair is stupid.” His response was to shoot me in the arm! From that distance! With a fucking handgun?! “Ow! Bitch! How’d you do that?!”

“Don’t blame me, blame the Architect.” Leon replied smoothly. Fucking cliche one-liner douchebag….

“Yeah, well, it’s easier to just shoot you.” I said.

“Yeah, maybe if I was fat, or a barn.” I...I’m so mad I don’t even know what to say to that. “So let’s make it easy. You surrender to the Architect’s Corruption, and I won’t have to harass and weaken you until you can’t resist. It’s rather pointless. Stop all the struggling and let the Ascended of Corruption just add you to his toy collection. In my opinion, considering I’m just a blank soul forced into this shape, it’d be so much easier to just give up.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I said, putting away my sniper, seeing as I couldn’t hit him. “How about no.” I willed my Changeling Blade back out, only to take it and shove it into the ammo slot on my mechanical arm, turned said arm into it’s blaster mode, then aimed it at Leon and fired. What resulted was about a hundred blades flying out towards Leon like a flechette cannon.

Despite the badass attack, Leon moved towards it, and he moved so fast it was like he was moving normally, but the world was in slow-motion to him. He jumped and flip-spinned through the blades in a way that only a couple cut into his skin, but he landed on the other side of the attack just fine despite that, and stood back up. “Nice. Bet they’ll come from behind now.”

“How the hell did you figure that?!” I demanded, annoyed as the Blade Storm finished impacting in various places behind him, and started shaking, about to return towards me.

“When you fight enough beyond unfair odds and impossible opponents, you tend to get jaded to it all. And since Architect forced me to relive everything the actual Leon S. Kennedy did, I’m afraid the same goes for me.” He replied dejectedly. Fuck...Architect is so screwed up, doing this to blank souls...I kinda regret eliminating Tina now, what she was like him?

“Well then.” I replied, whipping out my flintlock and aiming it at him as my blades rose back into the air behind him. “Sorry. But unwanted or not, I’m going to be killing you, and destroying your soul.”

“Sorry. But I like living, even if it is as a puppet.” Leon ran at me, yanking his combat knife out of his chest holster as the blades shot back towards me and I started firing at him. He juked, weaved, jumped, flipped, and ducked all my shots as he rapidly approached and my blades followed him. I figured out what he was doing! The blades are returning to my arm, meaning they’re condensing! He’s getting closer to avoid them and get behind me!

“Yeah, not letting you do that again, buddy.” I said, continuing to fire on him with my flintlock. He eventually got up in my face, and I just cocked the flintlock and fired at him point blank. He couldn’t dodge it, but he shifted his body so instead of getting his chest, I got his shoulder, and he grinned lightly as he stabbed his combat knife into my own shoulder, and used it as a fulcrum to flip over me, just an instant before my blades flew back into my arm, and I spun around just in time to avoid a magnum bullet to the back of my skull and took it to my horn instead, which hurt like fuck, but it would regenerate and not debilitate me. “You...are one annoying asshole….”

“I aim to please.” Leon replied sarcastically, but he was clearly enjoying himself if that shit-eating little smirk of his said anything. “Hope you don’t mind, but it looks like our host is getting a bit agitated. I think I’ll just slip out.” He commented, before he flipped away from me towards the water.

“NO YOU DON’T! GET BACK HERE!” I shouted in rage as I chased, shooting at him, but he dodged even from behind, and when he jumped into the water, he was gone. Just gone. Like he’d never been here. “DAMN IT! Avarice, your enemies are fucking cheap!” I shouted behind me as I yanked the combat knife from my shoulder, and glared at the infuriatingly familiar hexagonal emblem imprinted on the side. “Die Leucht. It’s always them.”

“We have to deal with these pricks! Who would know better than us?!” Avarice responded as they approached with RIP dangling by a foot from Avarice’s maw. “Decided not to outright kill him this time. I need a different method to get rid of my Corruption Agents.”

“I will rip your heart out!” RIP roared impotently as he tried to get free, but all his guns had been stripped from him in the explosive battle he’d had with Avarice, who was definitely looking worse for wear, as entire sections of his body were literally melting.

“Yo, dude.” I said to Avarice as I walked up. “Ya know, I wonder if we can get anything else out of him.”

“I’ve already pretty clearly laid out my intentions!” RIP defended, crossing his arms and actually seeming to be offended. “I’m actually honest unlike some Hyperion flunkies I can name!”

“Yeah, well, we’re not Hyperion flunkies.” I said. “Hell, I just have Hyperion gear. It’s good stuff if you know how to use it.”

“Dox, to be fair, I’m the president of the Multiversal Branch, and you’re a freelance employee paid on commission. We...kinda are Hyperion flunkies.” Yeah, thanks Avarice, not helping.

“Good point.” I said, turning back to RIP. “Now, what could you tell us about the Architect?”

“Not much, just that he’s a control freak who loves toying with people like a sick puppeteer, and he’s got power out that tentacle-covered poontang that makes resisting a demand kinda stupid. He ripped me from my home, and gave me a ‘deal’ that I kill or otherwise weaken Avarice and save this world from Hyperion’s influence and he’d give me the power to wipe out the original Hyperion back home, which is worlds worse than this one thus far.” RIP answered, and my empathy abilities granted by my new changeling king form told me he was telling the truth.

“Wow. He really tricked you, didn’t he?” I asked. “We’re not bad guys here.”

“No, didn’t you hear me? I just said to try and resist a being like that is pointless. I had no choice. If I didn’t say yes, I’d have probably ended up like that puppet Leon. Sorry. But having some freedom is better than having none.” RIP replied, his eyes shining brighter as he seemed to start twitching and panting.

“No, having pure freedom is better than none.” I said as I turned away from him. “Yo, DM. Please tell me you have a way to fix this guy.”

Yes.

…. Nothing…..

“Seriously, big guy?” I said. “I’d like to fix this guy instead of killing him. He doesn’t seem the sort that is worth killing. Hell, he seems useful.”

“I resent that!” RIP shouted as Avarice chuckled at his expense. “I’ll have you know I once ripped Crawmerax’s head off with my bare claws!”

You seriously want to risk that? He’s one of the strongest monsters pretending to be human from Pandora. If he’s freed of that asshole’s influence, there’d be nothing keeping him from just going on a rampage without the set focus of annihilating you.

“Because I’d rather give him the benefit of the doubt.” I said. “Listen, if you can free him, I’ll send him home. Alright? Then maybe you can shield his world.”

I could….. Alright fine. But you should know that the shield on your world is getting much weaker. It’s hard shielding multiple worlds.

“That’s fine, just tell me what to do.” I said.

Just put your left hand on his head. I’ll do the rest, alright?

“Great.” I said, following the DM’s instructions by explaining to Avarice what was needed, so he lowered RIP to the ground and pinned him so I could put my hand on RIP’s head. He howled in agony as the purple light was being pulled from his eyes, but was fighting back. After several tense seconds, the light pulled out entirely and flew into my arm where it vanished. “It’s not in me now, is it? I don’t feel all...different or anything.”

Avarice let RIP up now, and the mutant alien dog-man looked himself over. “I...I don’t feel compelled to do things now. I’m free! Heh...maybe....maybe not all Hyperion are sleazeballs. If you could send me home like you said I’d be really grateful. I’m getting worried about how my friends are doing without me there helping distract Hyperion from Sanctuary.”

“Don’t worry. This universe? Turn’s out it’s cut off from the rest of the Multiverse’s sense of time. Hell, you could even travel into the past of a world you’ve been to before.” I answered to alleviate his concerns. “So, time travel by dimension travel. If you want you can go back to just after the Architect took you, or even before. I wouldn’t advise that though. If you go back before, then the Architect could snatch you up again since technically, it’d be before DM raises his shield.”

You’re getting better at this Dox

“Just erring on the side of caution DM. So. Want to go home?” RIP eagerly nodded his head before he ran over to his guns and equipment, and Avarice shrank down into his by-now familiar mutant alicorn form, walking over to me as his wounds were almost finished healing.

“Well~ Dox...been working out?” He asked, lidding his eyes. Fucking damn it man! Cut it out! Oh shit, oh shit! Lust! The Lust! Resist! I turned back into my original base form so I wasn’t so overwhelmed with a tide of sexual desire and panted as I glared at the grinning God of Fertility.

“Dude, I don’t swing that way!” I roared, and he just flicked his serpent tail and stretched as his injuries finished sealing up.

“Yet. It’s going to happen man. Been talking to MC over token, apparently being pansexual is a Shifter thing. Sure, there’s preferences, but then again, I don’t mind some anal penetration now and then.” He wagged his eyebrows at me as I scoffed with a gag. Yeah, his changes were doing serious damage to his personal identity.

“Unless you could turn into a babe, not happening.” Oh shit, did I just? He’s grinning, yeah, I did. “Fuck...no. Just no.”

“You’re voice says no, but your head is still screaming yes at the back of your skull. Give it time man, you’ll come to accept who and what you are with time.” Avarice advised as RIP returned with all his stuff apparently stowed away in his Echo. “Now kick this ass off my planet. I don’t want to see his ugly mug again.”

“Likewise.” RIP growled at Avarice and I sighed in annoyance.

“Alright, jeez.” I said, pulling out my Runic Portal Matrix. “All you need to do is touch it and think of home. Time means nothing, but I suggest you think of one.” RIP promptly did so, and the portal opened next to us into a large room that was full of junk, a couch, and a repurposed JNK loader holding a platter with a smoothie shaker on it and wearing a fake bowtie.

“Ah, right, I was about to have my molten loader slurpee. Mm...acidic ferrous oxide….” RIP’s tongue was peeking out of his maw and drooling as he wandered in and the portal sealed shut behind him.

“Gross.” I said before turning back towards Avarice. “So, do you need a quick ride back or what?”

“I was about to ask you that.” He grinned as he pointed up and behind me, and I turned to gape at a small squadron of JET loaders and a couple gunships zooming in at us rapidly, and I yelped at feeling two huge claws grope my butt and he leaned down over me like back at my world. “I look forward to seeing you again Dox.” He kissed my brow and vanished in a swathe of heatless blue fire with a dark cackle and I shouted indignantly into the air.

“STOP FUCKING WITH MY SEXUALITY YOU STUPID SEXY ASSHOLE!” I screamed angrily, panting as I calmed down before doing the breathing exercises that Tia had taught me before turning king again since ironically my hormones weren’t so wild unless provoked by other’s emotions then.

After I’d explained what had happened in full in a report to Homage, as well as to my brides-to-be, they were all rather upset at the implications of such powerful beings just able to pop up at random like Tina did and not be friendly like a Displaced could be. Also they were greatly amused however at Avarice’s continued advances on me. Seriously, doesn’t he have his own herd? Why can’t he leave me alone like he does with my ladies out of respect?

“I’m glad you made us leave then Dox. We’d have lost them far too easily….” Luna bemoaned as she caressed her swollen belly worriedly, the other girls all doing the same.

“I’m glad we decided to stay here until we all birth. Until things settle down, it’d be too dangerous to try and go about our lives so casually.” Celestia affirmed, her own golden belly in her hands but half the size of Luna’s, considering she was only with one. Damn her new golden fur was sexy. And it was permanent apparently.

“If it wasn’t obvious considering I’m stuck in bed, I agree.” Bluebelle said, her belly already looking full term with one child and her breasts massively swollen with milk like her aunts. She was getting a bit pudgy too, but that was expected considering her bed-bound state, but her foals were eating up most of her energy as it was, she’d actually have trouble holding on to that fat before the end.

“Uh-oh!” Athena chirped, no, literally chirped like a bird as suddenly a gush of fluids sounded on the soft carpet, and we all froze and turned our heads slowly to her, who was full-term with triplets of eggs by now, her already literally head-sized melons even bigger from her own lactation and her one-piece swimsuit was really conforming, especially the part at her groin which was now soaked. “I’m going into labor! Damn it! The timer was off by a day!”

“WHAT?!” We all shouted at her in surprise, not expecting her to be due until tomorrow at least, and aside from Blue, all began rushing to get her to the doctor.

Ben Ten Again, Hello Jason!

“Breathe honey! Breathe!”

“I WILL DESTROY YOUR SOUL!”

“You can do that later! For now, BREATHE!”

Oh, hi there. Let me explain what’s going on. Currently, Bluebelle is giving birth. I had to deal with Tia and Lulu giving birth last month, and let me tell you, no matter the mare, when they’re in labor; they turn into the spawn of evil. But it was understandable, considering just how much agony they were in. I couldn’t even be in my king form when it was happening for Lulu, Tia, or now with Bluebelle (also, sadly, I found out that my tan went away after shifting back and forth a bunch). The afterward though, yeah, the emotional high was beyond explanation.

Anyway, as of now, Blue was still in primary labor, as in she hadn’t even gotten her first foal of four out, and even with painkillers, both medical and magical, she, like her aunts, was still in unbelievable agony. “AGH! KILL ME NOW!”

“You’re not dying until our kids have grandkids, now push!” I coached, not even caring she broke my hand towards the start like her aunts had. It was just me, the doctor claptrap and the midwife claptrap in the maternity ward of the Multiversal Branch. Thank Gog that Homage saw the medical staff as needing souls was true.

“Miss Blue you’re doing good! I can almost see the first head!” Doctor Fille said as she was knelt between my mare’s thighs. I had misgivings of her name and her usually oversexed personality, but the medical claptrap was all business when it came to her practice. “I think I see a horn, a unicorn, congrats.”

“It was expectED!” Bluebelle screamed as another contraction hit, and she grunted as she took deep breaths. “WHY DOES IT HAVE TO HURT SO MUCH?!”

“Sometimes it must hurt for the ones we love, dear.” I said. “Now keep pushing!”

“AGH!” Blue screamed as she squeezed her huge mountain of a belly, and she gasped when she heard the squeals of a foal crying, she smiled for the first time since her labor started. “Oh wow! I...I can’t explain-URGH!”

“Don’t stop! You have three more to get out honey! Luna had twins, but I know you can do it.” At my encouragement, Bluebelle pushed even harder, the midwife, whose name I can’t remember right now, was holding a white-coated and gold-haired foal that looked just like his mother. I could tell he was a boy from here considering as she cleaned him up, I saw his little pecker. I can’t believe how utterly adorable the infant was.

“Interesting...but not unheard of.” Doctor Fille stated as she kept vigil at Bluebelle’s crotch. “The displacement of the vaginal walls tells me this one is a pegasus.”

“*huff, huff* Huh?! But nopony in my recent family history is a-AGH!” Blue screamed as she pushed with another contraction, and soon another cry of life came into the world, and Doctor Fille helped remove another white and gold foal from her, but to my astonishment, the filly was, indeed, a pegasus. “Sh-she’s so beautiful. I-mmph...I….”

“Take some energy sweetie, I’m not letting you give up.” I told her as I channeled energy straight into her and she looked at me gratefully before she kept pushing, her belly had shrunk almost by half now to being Luna’s term size, but she was still actually a bit bigger.

“The foal is crowning, keep going sweetie.” Doctor Fille encouraged, and with the energy I’d given her, Blue wasn’t in so much blind pain now as she was determined, and easily pushed the infant out her birth canal, having gotten accustomed to the effort it took after two prior. “An earth pony...but that’s….”

“Impossible….” Blue finished, I was getting quite confused myself. I mean, the doctors never said anything, but then again the original doctors on staff were emotionless robots that only ensured health, and the Hawaiians were, of course, too traditional to be able to tell anything aside from gender. “House Blue has never had an earth pony before….” Blue said worriedly. “The poor dear will be so-ugh-bullied by her peers.” Blue commented in concern as she watched the midwife collect the oddly quiet foal, we were hoping the filly was okay, but considering how casual the doctor and midwife were, she seemed to be sleeping calmly.

“Last one dear, you’re almost done.” Blue wasn’t even phased. The energy I gave her shouldn’t have given her this much stamina, but she wasn’t even screaming in pain now, she almost seemed comfortable as she pushed the last child out of her womb with ease, her belly almost vanishing as the last bump left between her widened hips. “What on Equus? It’s...I...I don’t even know.”

“Holy...shit….” I breathed, my broken hand healing as Blue had let go in shock, and I moved down the bed to look at something impossible. Something just mind-blowing. “It’s a boy...a boy Changeling, like me.” This was physically impossible! Having birthed one of each tribe, AND a species that can only procreate with their own kind, Bluebelle had just performed an impossible feat! But for MLP standards doesn’t this sort of thing-.

“Dox! Something’s happening!” I looked back up to see my last mare hovering over the bed, gasping and panting in both fear and excitement as a blue light that matched her magic aura whirled around her, picking up speed as she rose higher into the air, going upright as we backed away, and in an explosion of light, it was over. I had to blink spots out of my eyes, but I was still able to see what had become of her and gaped at the sight.

As her hospital gown shredded off from her spreading two, glorious, large, white angelic wings with a serene expression on her face, and landed gently on the bed hooves first, and she slowly fell forward from the gravity of her heaving boulders of boobs dragging her in the direction despite her new counter-balancing wings, and I gently caught her as if she were an angel falling from heaven. “Blue? Blue, are you alright?”

“Mm...Dox...I feel...so...right….” She murmured to me, and then fell asleep straight away, her admittedly great weight was actually lessened by her ascension, considering alicorns had hollow bones like pegasi. I smoothly transitioned to my changeling king form, and gently maneuvered her into laying on her back against the raised hospital bed, my future queen looking so peaceful, and beautiful I had to marvel at her like I did both Tia and Lulu when they had given birth and similarly fell asleep from the exhaustion.

I moved from her to the group of newborns, and picked up the changeling the doctor was still holding. “You, you little impossibility. Thank you. Doctors, make a note, I’m naming my son here Loki.” I then handed little Loki back to the Doctor.

“Yes sir. Miss Bluebelle hadn’t stated any names for them, so we’ll make a placard with his name, and at least note these three are his quadruplet siblings.” That wasn’t a problem, Blue and I couldn’t really think of names for all four, especially considering we weren’t sure who was which gender to begin with, so we’d both decided to wait until they were born, but I’d insisted if she had a son that I’d get to name him Loki, and she graciously agreed, considering Lulu and Tia wouldn’t let me name their kids.

Lulu had her son, who she named Nymus, and his twin sister Nyx. I cringed at our daughter’s name, but wouldn’t say why, but couldn’t help but agree it went well with her brother’s name. And Tia named her son Golden Glow, honestly, I couldn’t complain, considering he actually was golden, and shined in the light of the hospital room when he was born. We were informed it was actually a sort of mutation, from Tia constantly sunning herself with the magic tanning lotion that had turned her equally as golden and radiant. Nothing bad from it, but he’s already a complete handful for us all to deal with since he absorbs sunlight into energy like no tomorrow.

As I watched my new children be carted away to a sterile and quiet environment, I turned to my love, only to fall through the Void. I’d be more upset, but the fact I could literally return the instant after I’d been ejected didn’t interrupt my happiness too much.

Meanwhile in Another Universe: 3rd Person:

Rainbow Dash sighed as the portal closed, pulling her scarf tighter around her neck. “I’m getting tired of this.” she complained, looking at her companions.

“Tired of what?” Jason asked her, raising his eyebrow.

“Every time you need to go to one of the realms, I have to drop what I’m doing to get you there,” she said, snorting in annoyance, “‘I mean sure, I like being needed but it’s cutting into my time with Gilda!”

“You are the only one who can travel between realms,” Celestia pointed out, “I know we ask a lot of you but it is only until we can find some other means of travel.”

“I actually might have an idea for that,” Jason spoke up, “It’ll take some time but, I think it’ll work.”

“Yeah well, you just hurry up with that,” Dash said, flexing her wings, trying to warm up. She blinked, spotting something in the snow. “Hey, what's this thing?” she asked, lifting it up, examining it. “Woah, it’s kinda trippy,” she said turning what appeared to be some kind of die around in her talon. On the inside seemed to be a starry night sky.

“Let me see,” Jason said, holding his hand out. Dash obliged, tossing the die to him. He looked it over, rubbing his chin. “Weird...” he said with a shrug, tossing it over his shoulder, not thinking much of it.

It rolled on the ground for a bit, and when it stopped, a portal opened up where the die was. Out from the die came a black figure, dressed in black. Said figure appeared to be a changeling, wearing a black hoodie and black jeans. It appeared to have a metallic front right leg.

“Ow.” The figure said. “Always when I least expect it. Why must people summon me on my vacation?” The figure looked around for a bit, before finally setting its eyes on Jason. “Wait a second. Jason? Is that you buddy? It’s me, Dox!”

Jason just stared at the figure, looking utterly confused. “Who?” he asked, blinking a few times.

“You don’t remember me?” The figure named Dox asked. “I summoned you so long ago and-” Dox looked down at himself. “Oh, well that’s why. No wonder you don’t remember me, among things, this isn’t even my original form. One second.” With that, Dox started to shift to an upright stance, and his body started changing. His front legs turned into arms, and all of his limbs extended. When the shift was done, there stood a pale skinned humanoid with pointy ears and white hair. One of his eyes was green, the other was mechanical. “See? It’s me, Dox!”

“Oh yeah!” Jason said snapping his fingers, “The D&D guy!”

“Yep, that’s me!” Dox said. “Glad to see you finally found my token! How’s it been going?”

“Insane, but you know thats just my life.” Jason said nodding, “Oh yeah, this is Celestia and Rainbow Dash.”

“Sup?” Dash asked, waving a talon at Dox.

“Whoa! What happened to you?” Dox asked surprisingly at Dash. “What happened to your legs?! Some kind of flying accident or something?”

Dash opened her mouth to reply before Celestia cut her off, “Perhaps we should wait until we are off the mountain before we talk? Poor Rainbow Dash looks like she’s about to become a pegasicle.”

“That was just terrible,” Jason groaned, shaking his head.

“I agree with Jason.” Dox said. “But you’re right. Anywhere in particular that you have in mind? I could probably just teleport us if I know the spot.”

“Everfree castle,” Jason said, looking at Dox, “Best place for this anyway.”

“Sounds good to me.” Dox said. “Now, if everyone could get a little closer.” They nodded, doing so. “Perfect. Let’s go!” The group burst into shadowstuff and disappeared from the mountain, only to reappear inside the Everfree castle. “And there we…. Holy crap. This place is amazing! It looks like a changeling hive!”

“It is a changeling hive,” Jason said, getting to his feet, brushing himself off, “It’s my hive.”

“Your hive?!” Dox said in surprise. “Wow, a lot has happened with you since I saw you last. What’s next, you’re gonna tell me you got married? That’d make my day.”

“Thats exactly what he did,” Chrysalis spoke up from her throne, eyebrow raised, “Welcome to Valhalla, I am Empress Chrysalis. I see you have already met my husband.”

“Wow, you married Chrysalis. But, uh, what’s up with her wings?” Dox asked, stifling some chuckles. “They’re… so different from what I’m used to.”

“Did you not hear me?” Chrysalis asked with a hiss, “I am EMPRESS!”

“I’m sorry, it’s just…” Dox started, barely holding in his laughter. “I’m just really not used to the wings. And Empress? When did you get a promotion?” At that point, Dox broke out laughing.

“She got it when all but three of the other queens decided to follow her rule,” Jason said, looking down at Dox, clearly not amused.

“Alright, great.” Dox said, ceasing his laughter. “Sorry, it’s just that it’s so different. Wow. Ya know, I have to say, good catch with the wife. So, how did you two meet?”

“I saw him in the form of a king and had to make him mine,” Chrysalis said, licking her lips, “Of course, I have to share with Rarity but I don’t mind her.”

“You have Rarity as a wife?” Dox asked Jason. “Again, good job with that. So, how’d the wedding with them go? I have to bet that it was amazing.”

“It did... after we stopped Ansem from eating the world...” Jason said with a sigh, “I really hate that guy.”

“I think I should get make to Canterlot, Slash is probably worrying up a storm,” Celestia lit her horn up before teleporting off in a flash of golden light.

“She doesn’t like to talk about Jay’s wedding,” Dash started, “That jerk Ben really caffs her something fierce.”

“Well… again, sounds like something.” Dox said. “Hey, do you honestly want to talk about it, or…”

“Of course I can talk about it,” Jason said, rolling his eyes, “I’m not sunbutt now am I?”

“Eh, good point.” Dox said. “And watch it with the sunbutt. I’ll have you know I’m in a commitment to my Celestia back home…. as well as six others…”

“That is insane,” Jason said, giving him a flat look, “Way too people for me. I got enough to deal with when it comes to Chrissy and Rares.”

“Yeah, try Celestia, Luna, a pair of changelings, a griffin, a female Blueblood that somehow became a goddess of fertility, and Arbok.” Dox said. “Best part about it all, they all have given birth by now. I’m a daddy! I even got a changeling son! My type of changeling! I named him Loki.”

“Really?” Jason asked with a grin, “Funny you should say that... I’m Loki’s great-grandson. Hel is my grandmother.”

“Your entire family is weird Jay,” Dash said, frowning a little, “I mean your uncle is a freaking wolf!”

“Fenrir?” Dox asked. “Dude! You have to introduce me! I love norse mythology! To hear all of this being real here, I just have to meet them!”

“We are not going to Niflheim,”’ Jason said sternly, “That place is for the dead only.”

“Darn.” Dox said. “Well, that’s okay. But anyways, I have to ask you, how did you do the wedding? Like, how did it work out? I only know how weddings between two people work, and I’m marrying seven.”

“We said our vows and then kissed each other,” Chrysalis spoke up, trotting over to the group, ‘Like this.” She grabbed Jason’s head, pulling him into a long passionate kiss, winking at Dox.

“This is why it’s just me and Gilda,” Dash snorted. “You guys are a bunch of crazy ponies!”

“Hey, it’s just love.” Dox said, staring at the two lovers. “Honestly, I congratulate you two. Well, three, but Rarity isn’t here right now, is she?”

“Oh, she’s down with the larva,” Chrysalis said, pulling away from Jason, “She insists on making them clothes. I have no idea why but, if it keeps her busy.” She ended with a shrug.

“Well, she is who she is, and you married her.” Dox said. “Back to the whole wedding thing, I have a few things to address about it, but first and foremost, you three are invited!”

“I suppose we could go...” Chrysalis said, rubbing her chin, “The larva should be okay under Pupa’s watch...”

“That’s great!” Dox said. “So, anyways, about the whole wedding business. What should I expect? Among things, Cadence is coming to do the ceremony, so yeah.”

“We had her do ours as well,” Jason said with a nod, “Also, expect to be as nervous as hell. I know I was, and I just had to marry two people.”

“Well, I was fine when we originally scheduled it.” Dox said. “Then I almost got assassinated. Apparently I ticked off some people in another dimension, and they found a way to get to me. Now I’m just worried that they’ll crash my wedding.”

“Oh I know that feeling,” Jason said with a shake of his head, “Come on, let’s go into town, better than just standing around here anyway.” Jason moved out of the throne room, the guards saluting him as he passed.

“Right behind you!” Dox called as he moved to follow. The group moved out of the castle, crossing the bridge into town.

“Well, welcome to Valhalla,” Jason said, gesturing toward the town, which had an equal number of ponies and changelings moving out.

“Wow. Impressive.” Dox said. “Hold up, are those changelings and ponies working together? Dude, nice achievement. I did that for another world, and I really want to do it for mine, but I haven’t been able to find the changelings yet.”

“I try,” Jason said with a smile, moving toward the local pub. “Oh yeah! Hey, you!” he called over to a drone. The drone stopped, giving him its full attention. “Let Maud and Twilight know I want to see them later.” The drone nodded, quickly buzzing off to pass on the message.

“Dude. Nice.” Dox said. “So, how’s this city going? Like, how did it get founded, you just decide to make it, or are you honoring some family?”

“Well...” Jason said, rubbing the back of his neck, “See, Chrysalis surrendered her hive to Celestia and Celly gave her the castle. Then uh... Don made Fenrir a zombie and he broke Canterlot mountain. Most of the nobles moved here and started to rebuild the town.”

“Dang.” Dox said. “Sounds like quite a tale. But, quick question, who the hell is Don? He a Displaced? So far, I only know of a bunch of good people, haven’t met anyone that acted like how you said. Well, Asphyxious might have, but he’s a good guy.”

“Yeah he’s a Displaced,” Jason nodded, taking a seat in a booth, “You ever meet him, summon me so I cut his heart out.”

“Dude, harsh much?” Dox said. “Eh, I’m not one to talk. I’ve broken horrible people's’ souls. I’ll keep an eye out, man. Heh, who knows, he might just summon me one day just to try and recruit me to get at you. Good thing I have your token on hand.”

“Can we not talk about all the multiverse insanity that goes on?” Chrysalis asked, taking a seat next to Jason, “Like when is Dash going to be due?”

Dash just stared at Chrysalis, her mouth flopping open and closed like a fish.

“Actually, that reminds me.” Dox said. “What happened to you, Dash? Why are your legs mechanical?”

“T-they got cut off,” Dash said, snapping out of her funk, giving Chrysalis a glare. The empress just smirked, snickering a little.

“Wow, sounds rough.” Dox said. “Reminds me of myself, actually. Here, let me show you.” Dox rolled up his right sleeve to reveal his mechanical arm. “It’s pretty cool, right? I bought it from Hyperion. Also got this cool eye to help make it work.”

“Jason and Twilight made these for me, called them magitech,” Dash explained, flexing her talons this way and that.

“Cool.” Dox said. “Can it do this, though?” His hand morphed away, revealing what looked to be the barrel for some kind of cannon. He aimed said ‘arm cannon’ at a nearby tree and fired, landing an explosive shot on the tree that sent splinters everywhere. “Woops. Forgot I had it set like that.”

“No,” Dash said with a frown, “But I am the living Bifrost!” she declared, causing both Chrysalis and Jason to roll their eyes at her.

“The Bifrost?” Dox said. “You have to be kidding, right? There’s no way someone can just be the Bifrost.”

Dash just smirked before bolting off into the sky. In ten seconds flat, she fired off a rainbow, opening up another portal. “Told ya so.” She dropped back into her seat, the portal closing up a few moments later.

“Whoa.” Dox said. “That’s awesome. But it does kind of bring up the question. What realm are we in? Last time I checked, the Bifrost was in Asgard.”

“This is Asgard,” Jason answered quickly, “Ragnarok already happened, several million years ago.”

“Well damn.” Dox said. “Sounds pretty epic.”

“Probably was,” Jason said with a shrug, “I wasn’t there to know.”

“Darn, you missed out.” Dox said. “Ya know, I just remembered, you summoned me. Anything you wanted?”

“I didn’t even know that thing was your token,” Jason admitted with a shrug.

“Really?” Dox said in a saddened tone. “Darn. Ya know, that’s what I’ve been getting recently, people who don’t know that my token is, well, my token. But still, since I’m here, anything you have going on that could use some help?”

“Not really,” Jason said, shaking his head, “Well there is one thing but... it might not work anyway...”

“Well hey, why don’t you tell me anyways.” Dox said. “I could probably help with whatever it is. I mean, I have learned a few spells recently that allow me to go through realms. Like a spell simply called Gate! I tested it out the other day, opened a portal to my original Earth, closed it, then tried a plane called the Nine Hells, closed that one too. Trust me, I’m not ready to go there yet.”

“I was planning a permanent portal system between the realms... or most of them anyway. We just sealed Muspelheim off and we’re going to do the same to Svartalfheim soon as well.”

“Well, I could probably make something similar to an item I have.” Dox said, opening up what seemed to be a hole in space-time. He pulled out a red orb that had a ton of runes on it. “This thing is what normally lets me get around. I could probably just make something similar by taking another orb and infusing it with the Gate spell. It’d make things really simple…. But let’s hear your plan first, ‘cause I don’t really know if what I said is possible.”

“Well, I’d be stealing an idea from Ben 10 but,” Jason started, “We make archs out of quartz crystal and have Dash fly through them. They should absorb some of her energy and act as permanent gateways.”

“Sounds pretty solid.” Dox said. “But?”

“I have no idea if it will work,” Jason admitted.

“Ah, alright then.” Dox said. “Well, we could try a combination of plans. I’m not sure if it’d work, myself, but hey, a plan’s a plan’s a plan.”

“We’ll wait until Maud and Twilight show up,” Jason said, ordering them some drinks.

“Alright then.” Dox said. “Hey, ya mind if I explore the town a little while we wait?”

“Go ahead, just don’t break anything,” Jason said, sipping at his drink.

“No promises!” Dox called as he walked away.

After Maud and Twilight showed up, everyone went to go find Dox. The group walked to the center of town to find Dox…. playing a trumpet… no, five trumpets, six trombones, eight saxes of various types, a piano, a guitar, a drum set, and a bass. The tune he was playing sounded like jazz, but how he was doing it was the real question. He didn’t even stop until Jason prodded the bass playing copy of Dox on the shoulder, which caused him to stop playing, and the rest of the band to simply poof into nothingness.

“Oh, hey Jason.” Dox said nonchalantly as his bass poofed into shadowstuff and disappeared. “What’s up?”

“The hell are you doing?” Jason asked, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Playing jazz?” Dox said. “What, you don’t like jazz? I have other songs I could play if you don’t.”

Jason just shook his head, sighing a little. “Anyway, this is Maud and Twilight.”

“Hello,” Maud said boredly, blinking at Dox.

“It’s always nice to meet new Displaced!” Twilight chirped with a smile.

“Hi girls.” Dox said. “It’s nice to see this world’s version of you two.”

Maud just blinked, rather unimpressed by that comment.

“Come on, we should get to Maud’s workshop, then we can do whatever this crazy plan entails.” Jason said, starting to move away.

“Alright, lead the way.” Dox said.

They moved through the town, with many of the nobles giving Dox odd looks. Jason just ignored them, leading the group into Maud’s workshop, which was one of the bigger buildings in town. Its interior was covered in various instruments and rock samples and had a very earthy feel to it.

“Dude, this place is amazing.” Dox said. “Makes me think of the dwarves back home.”

“Your world has dwarves?” Jason asked, taking a seat as Maud moved about the room, gathering various objects they’d need.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s one of the quintessential parts of D&D.” Dox said. “I mean, seriously. They’re amazing. Also found some special elves who can make this special magical ingot that’s unique to them, but I digress. Have you found dwarves yet?”

“Yeah, we just got back from a trip to Nidavellir,” Jason explained, “Celestia wants to open up trade and I needed to get my armor repaired after Surt nearly wrecked it.”

“Sounds rough.” Dox said. “Well, my dwarves live… well, around Canterlot Castle, I guess. Although, they mainly live in the mountain. Kinda helped find an ancient city of theirs.”

“I see,” Jason said with a nod, watching as Maud trotted over, placing a large chunk of quartz on the table.

“That should be big enough for a test,” Maud said, taking a seat looking at Rainbow Dash.

“So what? Do I just pick it up and make it happen?” Dash asked, lifting it up, being careful not to damage the shard with her talons.

“I suppose you should go make a portal while holding it,” Twilight asked, about to say more when Dash bolted out of the building. “I really wish she would stop doing that...”

Dash came back in not a few minutes later, clutching the shard in her talons. It crackled with energy, every so often shimmering with a rainbow light.

“Cool, so, we have that.” Dox said. “Now, how are you going to use this, again?”

“We have to see if it’ll work first,” Twilight said, carefully levitating the shard out of Dash’s grasp. She sent a pulse of magic into it, nearly dropping it when a small portal opened up around it. ‘Well, at least it didn’t explode..”

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” Dox said. “I say we go full scale and see what happens. And hey, if it doesn’t work, we can go to plan b.”

“Thats going to take a while,”Jason said, shaking his head, “We have to get enough of this for a whole portal, then have Maud get it into an arch, then we have to get everything set up to make an arch on the other side. This is going to take weeks, if not months to do and I get the feeling you don’t want to be here that long.”

“Well, yeah.” Dox said. “My to-be wives have all given birth recently, and I’d like to get back to them. Listen, I think I have a much faster way to do this. Where’s the quartz deposits, and where do you want the arch?”

“Maud can tell you where the deposits are but the arch, the arch has to go on the exact point I first arrived on Equestria,” Jason said, “It’s where the veil between here and Earth is weakest.”

“Alright, well, you can show me where that is after we get the quartz.” Dox said. “Maud, please lead the way!”

Maud nodded, getting off her chair, heading out the door without a word, Dox and the others following close behind.

“Wow, that’s a lot of quartz.” Dox said, eyeing the massive deposit that Maud had led everyone to. “Alright, stand back, I’m still not as close to perfect as I’d like with this power.” The others obliged, and Dox walked up until he was a good fifteen feet away from the deposit, then held up a hand. The mine that they were all standing in started shaking, and cracks started to appear on the large deposit of quartz. Just as it started, it stopped. Dox turned around towards the others, who had retreated to the entrance of the mine. “Alright, now where do we want this?!” He called from his spot near the quartz.

“Hold up,” Jason said, shifting into Hodgepodge. Hodge snapped his fingers, teleporting all of them, including the quartz, to a rather secluded part of the Everfree.

“Here we are!” Hodge declared, “Just set everything down and Mud and me will get everything ready.”

“It’s Maud.”

“I’ve heard it both ways.”

“You have not heard it both ways!” Dash shouted before blinking, “Why the hay did I say that?”

“Oh it’s just me trolling,” Hodge said, patting her head, “Hopefully, someone gets that reference.”

“I do.” Dox said. “And if you just need an arch, I think I can do you guys one better. You do just need an arch, right?”

“Well duh,” Hodge said, rolling his eyes, “I mean really, must your author write you so thick headed?”

“Yeah, leave the fourth wall alone, please.” Dox said. “Alright, so like I said earlier, I need you guys to stand back.” Dox turned back towards the massive block of quartz that used to be in the mine, and raised a hand to it again. The quartz started levitating off the ground. “Alright, now, where does the center of the arch need to be? It’ll make it easier for me to do this right if I can get it in the correct spot.”

“There,” Hodge pointed, floating around Dox, munching on a pineapple.

“Alright, here we go then.” Dox said, levitating the massive quartz block in place. He raised his other hand and clenched his fists. The quartz started reacting to him, starting to shift about and take the shape of a simple arch ever so slowly. When it was finally completed, Dox collapsed to the ground, panting. “That… was… hard.… How does Kat do things like this so easily?”

“Because all of DJ’s characters are Op as hell,” Hodge said, tossing a strange fruit to Dox, “Ever watch DBZ?”

“Yeah.” Dox said, catching the fruit and taking a bite from it. “This from it?”

“It’s a fruit from the Tree of Might, curtesy of Majin Buu,” Hodge started, “It doubles the power level of whomever eats it.”

“And you’re talking about making people OP.” Dox said. “Honestly, I don’t really feel any different.”

“Give it a minute.”

Dox started floating off the ground. “THE HELL?! AGAIN?!”

“Ohhh~ this is new!” Hodge said, rubbing his hands together.

“I CAN’T FIX MY GRAVITY!” Dox yelled at Hodgepodge as he started to spin in the air. “FIX ME!” Just as Dox said that, the others started to gingerly float off the ground too. “AND FIX THEM!”

“Only if you get me to say my name backwards.”

“Or I make you a super magnet.”

“Oh you’re no fun.” Hodge pouted, snapping his fingers and returning everyone to normal.

“Making a mental note, work on gravity powers when I get home.” Dox said. “Alright, so, back to the whole arch thing. And could you PLEASE shift back to normal?!”

“I am normal.” Hodge pouted. “I mean really, haven’t you realized that I’m not Jason?”

“Yes!” Dox snapped. “I’m asking if you could please turn back INTO Jason before I get a migraine. I’ve had to deal with enough chaos thanks to that one day when I summoned Vaga, I don’t need you adding more.”

“Fine! I know when I’m not wanted!” Hodge shouted, tapping the Omnitrix and reverting back to Jason.

“Migraine averted.” Dox said. “So, Jason, what now?”

“I have to talk to Celestia about all of this,” Jason said, shaking his head, “Nothing that you’d want to deal with.”

“Hey, I’m gonna be king when I get married.” Dox said. “I’m going to have to deal with things like this, but if you insist that I go, I will.” Dox pulled out the red orb from earlier and opened a portal. “See ya at my wedding, Jason!” Dox then stepped through the portal and was gone, the portal closing behind him.

Dox POV:

I returned to the maternity ward just as I intended to, several minutes later than when I’d left, to see Bluebelle had woke back up and looked a little...I can’t really describe it. She was so beautiful. She was before, but now, it was like everything about her was amplified tenfold, and the serene expression on her face as she beckoned me was so angelic I couldn’t help but move to her bedside and gently take her hand for a kiss. “How’s my beautiful goddess?”

“Tired...fulfilled...and very hungry.” She joked as she grabbed one of her massive tits and drew it to her lips, suckling herself to sate her hunger. It was incredibly hot, yes, but according to Tia and Lulu, it was common practice for lactating mares to even donate or sell their milk, since once they get started, they don’t ever actually stop. Made me cringe when I realized the milk I’d had back home was genuine pony’s milk and not just cow’s milk. “I taste different now...sweeter.”

“Must be the fact you're a fertility goddess. Now I know what it was Vaga did to you. He must’ve put all of his Fertility Aspect into you since Avarice didn’t need it. Why you though, I haven’t a clue, and why a mare when Avarice is a guy, I can’t understand.” I reasoned, only for her to smile knowingly at me and snort gently.

“Fertility isn’t a one-way road hun. It takes two to tango to get one in trouble. You said it yourself; Avarice is a male. That means he’s making his own way now. Vaga didn’t need the other half to be given to him because he would’ve made his own way. Why me though, that I cannot understand.” She then grabbed me in her brilliant light blue aura and dragged me down into a gentle and loving kiss. We were like that for a few minutes before she released me. “But I don’t care. I’ve never been happier than I am now.”

“I’ll be sure to keep making you happier all our days.” I swore, holding her hand between my own as we just looked lovingly in each other’s eyes. “...How are we going to have sex without getting you knocked up?” Bluebelle huffed and giggled as she swatted my hands with her free one.

“I’m not Avarice. It is entirely within the mare’s power whether or not they get pregnant most of the time. We do have a heat cycle, remember? Mares who outright force themselves into heat to conceive out of season isn’t uncommon, and mares who do so without conceiving avoid the madness that happens that time of year. I did just that when we coupled for the first time, and unless you manage to catch me while I’m completely in a rut, you’re not going to get me pregnant Dox...unless I want you to.” She grinned mischievously, making me sweat a bit. “I am Fertility Dox. It’s just natural.”

“...Oh Gog...I have my own Avarice….”

“Yet.” I froze at feeling him right behind me, suddenly sandwiched between him and Blue’s bedside, both of which had the same lecherous and outright perverse expressions as he again leaned over my shoulder. “I’ll have you yet Dox, isn’t that right sis?” Oh, fuck no….

“Oh absolutely brother, he’s a catch.” Damn it Blue! Don’t encourage him!

“Don’t I have a say in this?!”

“No.” They both said factually and I simmered as they laughed and started chatting as if I suddenly wasn’t there, in spite of Avarice practically melding into my back. Damn, sexy sex gods...why won’t they leave me be?

Because you’re me in physical form, and I am all desirable.

Shut up dad!

Vacation Over, Time to Plan That Wedding!

“You have been here for so long I cannot fathom the thought of you being gone. Now I can. It is wonderful.” Homage sniped as we stood before him in his office, idly paying attention to us from his computer at his desk as we were all packed, leaving with WAY more than we came here with in terms of both souvenirs and bodies.

“Oh, Homage. Don’t be like that.” I said, patting the Claptrap unit on the back after rounding his ridiculously huge desk by floating overhead. “I know you’ll miss us.”

“Like a virus. Now begone with you. I need Wave and Wash back on duty and they’ve spent literally almost a year pandering to your needs.” Homage brushed my hand away and then handed me a familiar red orb, only it was far more technological with light blue Echo-lit runes over it instead of chalk. “And here’s one of the first successful Hyperion Portal Devices. Avarice whined about it not being a ‘portal gun’, but I see no reason to improve on the current method’s remote activation compared to a manual guidance.”

“Wow, thanks-.”

“Do not thank me, Avarice paid for it, so it’s a gift from him. Now begone with you and your ridiculously naughty companions. Stop spamming me baby pictures Athena.” Homage growled as the massive motherly griffoness claptrap just cheekily grinned as she held her three sleeping Cyboid griffon cubs to her enormous breasts. Luna and Tia were doing much the same with their children, but Bluebelle could only hold two and levitate the other two in cradles, all too protective and proud to allow someone else to carry them.

“Hey, keep ordering my future wife around and I’ll start spamming your inbox.” I said. “You REALLY don’t want to know what I’m capable of spamming.”

“You really don’t want to know, Homage.” Athena said. “I spammed him once, he sent back something that I’d rather not talk about.”

Athena, myself, and even oddly Sapphire and Emerald were suddenly bombarded by a wave of hundreds of incoming messages all from Homage, and we looked up at him, his gray eyes glaring, daring us to continue our threat. Yeah...maybe taunting a Claptrap unit DESIGNED for high-capacity processing with something like that was stupid, especially when suddenly our UI’s were hacked, and clicked open a HORRID audio file! I just stared at him.

“You have incurred the wrath of the son of the Dungeon Master.” I said. “Expect something horrible. And because of your choice of annoyance, expect it to be random.”

Immediately, there was a ping on Homage’s screen. I just stared at him and motioned for him to continue. He narrowed his eyes, and accessed the file, only frowning slightly. “Begone.” Suddenly a portal opened in front of us, and actually moved over us, seamlessly leaving us now standing in the foyer of our home’s empty throne room without jostling anyone and the sleeping foals and cubs all remained so, but Loki made a fuss since he was especially attuned to magic like me and Blue had to calm him down.

“And that’s only part one!” I yelled back into the portal. “Expect annoyance!” The portal immediately closed afterwards. “Well, that’s that. Hey Athena, later on, wanna help me write a virus for him?”

“For an Homage? Dox, there’s a challenge, and then there’s stupidity...sure!” Athena nodded, but moved one of her cubs on top of her shelf of a bosom as she sighed and started walking towards the wings with our quarters. “But first we have to get these little darlings all situated and start actually planning the wedding. They’re overdue for a feeding anyway.”

“Oh yes, we must indeed get a nursery set up before anything else! Come sister!” Luna trotted after the griffoness, and both Tia and Blue followed. I watched them leave, their widened hips and bigger butts being very lovely sights in their Hyperion one-piece swimsuits. Damn their pregnancies made them even sexier….

“Aw~ you don’t look at us like that much anymore.” Sapphire teased as the sisters got on either side of me and also watched our fellow herd members leave. Huh...I didn’t realize I towered over them now as a king until just this moment. I’ve been so involved with the others and they so busy with their activities I hardly even spent time with them the whole year. Aside from all the orgies we had of course, but they were still happy, but I wasn’t happy myself at realizing they hadn’t actually spoken to me outside of meals or sex for nearly the past year.

“Girls...am I neglecting you?” They both blinked and looked at me in confusion, and then made faces as if they understood my concern.

“Oh, not at all! In fact, you’re a model Changeling Dox. You’re there when we need you, and are always willing to make yourself available, that’s the most we could ask for.” Emerald replied, but then looked towards where my other loves had left with their offspring. “I wish we could’ve kept our living bodies right now though...Athena’s got those mutations that made her even more alive than we are.”

“Android and AI specifically. She’s perfected compared to us, and she can split small parts of herself to make redundant system AIs that she can control idly as if it were an afterthought.” Sapphire grumbled, folding her arms under her fairly impressive bust, but she looked down and felt inadequate. “Are we...outmoded Dox? After all, your other lovers are all so sexy, plump, and bouncy….”

“Girls, you’re just perfect the way you are. You don’t have to have melons bigger than your heads or hips wider than your shoulders or table-top booties to make me horny. In fact...how about I remove any of your doubts right now if you want?” I offered puffing out my chest and making them giggle with my antics. Best thing was, I’m still wearing a thong, only I upgraded to a Hyperion speedo. Logo and everything on the butt for added humor.

Though, if I were honest with myself...they were partially right in one aspect. I couldn’t feed off their emotions. So they couldn’t actually drive me crazy with love or lust like the others. It made me sad, but I would put forth the effort, because I loved them too much to let such a small thing impede that. They were my firsts. They need to remember that.

“Dox….” I didn’t know how, but they could sense my feelings on the matter, and they both kissed me on the cheeks by hovering up and doing so at the same time, making me chuckle at how cute the action was. “You really have matured from that little man we fell for.”

“Thank you-whoa!” They both grabbed an arm and hovered, flying me through the halls. “Hey~! I can walk!” I laughed, knowing where this was headed.

Gosh that was refreshing. A simple and slow loving session of sex, no addled head filled with lust or love, and the tenderness of it all. Yeah, I loved these two so much that even without spiking emotions or hormones I could truly make love with them.

After that had happened, we checked on their eggs to find they’d all hatched! That meant Homage sent us back as we asked, a month after we’d left our world. It took a little frantic questioning to find out that the staff had already made a nursery proper on Princess Twilight’s order. Bless my world’s Twilight! So pragmatic.

Also...uh…. “Any questions?” An overly eager and excited Princess Cadence asked as she practically bounced on her hooves alongside Twilight, who seemed to have grown even more in all aspects since we’d been gone. It seemed that Magic and Friendship were indeed properly popular if she was already as tall as Cadence within a month of us being gone, said Princess of Love had gotten a little taller too at that.

“Yes, is there anything I need to clarify?” Twilight asked as she accidentally squeezed her huge breasts together with a movement of her arms and her tight sexy secretary outfit she was wearing with half-rimmed glasses on her face, squirting milk into her tight coat as she sighed and magicked the mess away. “Damn it Solaris, stop sucking them would you?”

“Yeah, you didn’t name my kids, did you?” I asked. “You better not have. It’s not going to sit well for you.”

“Of course not! That’s just beyond rude!” Twilight defended, and then held a chart up. “Instead, I settled for labelling them by individual characteristics and genders so you can think up names easier yourselves.” The reason I was sat down, being lectured, was because they hadn’t just made a nursery. Oh no. Twilight took it upon herself as Regent to order my Homages to arrange my Loaders into a construction crew, and help repair the castle. It was done in a week apparently. And now she and her sister Cadence were eagerly explaining how things have been since we’ve been gone.

“And why do I need to know girls? I’m glad you bothered, but why?” They both blinked at my question, and scoffed as if I’d asked something stupid, which I likely did. Damn it DM, why’d you make me a rambler?

Because I am.

“I don’t know. Twilight?” Cadence asked sarcastically and Twilight took on a fake thinking pose, not caring that said hand to chin motion pressed on her taut breasts and soaked her coat again.

“I’m not sure. He’s not marrying into becoming the highest authority of the most powerful nation on the planet, isn’t he?” Fucking damn it Twilight, you don’t get to be sarcastic!

“Oh, ha ha.” I said. I noticed a loader walking by in the hallway and waved it over. “Hey, Loader. Can you get the head Homage and send her my way? I need to talk to her about Twilight here’s privilege with ordering around you guys.” I turned back to Twilight and Cadence. Twilight was giving me a ‘what the fuck’ look. “What? I can see the cameras everywhere, among things. I don’t know where they’re connected, and I don’t care. That, and who really gave you the right to become Regent and order my Loaders? I know I’m sounding like a selfish bastard, but we only gave you control for a freaking month! We didn’t give you full rights to everything!” Just then, the Homage I had asked for walked over.

“You sent for me, Dox?” The femme Homage unit said, she was not much different from a standard model’s shape, so she was average in appearance across the board. “I was told it was about the Regent?”

“Yeah, remove her privilege for that.” I said. “She had no approval from me or my to-be wives to do such a thing. Also, I want to know where all the cameras I’ve seen are hooked up to.”

“They’re all hooked up to a central security station, sir.” The Homage said. “Well, all but several, your bedrooms. Those are actually hooked up to a private link that can be traced back to Twilight’s castle.”

“Remove and destroy them immediately.” I said. “As in YESTERDAY. I don’t care if most of them are hooked up to a security room, I don’t like it.” I took a second to admire the looks I was getting from Twilight and Cadence. “Actually, set them all so they’re hooked up ONLY to my bedroom. I want them hidden in a closet, and I want them locked in there with a key that only me, Emerald, Sapphire, or Athena can open. Understood?”

“Like crystal, sir.” The Homage said. She then took off in a brisk walk, no doubt calling a bunch of Loaders via Echo.

“What the buck Dox! Luna left a note!” Twilight shrieked and I blinked.

“When?”

“Before we left.” Luna entered, the Homage I’d sent out following her in, her looking rather annoyed while Luna was imperiously posed with hands on her broadened hips and leering down at me.

“When did you give her the right to order the Loaders, though?!” I asked. “Those are my jurisdiction. I gave them plans and everything!”

“Since thou art our betrothed, we had assumed thou would be willing to share a valuable asset to the security of our home and nation. Also, since we art thine Ruling Princess, tis our right to seize any assets we see fit, or appoint a regent we feel capable.” She narrowed her eyes at me, and I felt as if my very soul was going to burst into aetheric flame. “Dost thou think so little of us?”

“Of course not, Lulu.” I said. “Just next time, tell me what you’re going to do. I’d rather have someone else in control of the Loaders. Someone that I trust won’t be creepy about it. Seriously, Twi? A camera in our rooms linked to your castle?!” Luna smiled cheekily as she blushed slightly, and I gawked at her. “YOU ordered it?!”

“We wanted to record any of our future...sessions together. And we also know that whilst she would enjoy viewing them, Twilight would also be responsible in their security so that they do not become public, and we may even...watch them later.” Luna suggested, and I blushed so hard I think my chitin nearly turned from black to ruby.

“Lulu...that’s incredibly creepy...and incredibly hot.” I took a deep breath and sighed as I sulked and crossed my arms. “Just warn me from now on….”

“And ruin the surprises? The look on your face? Never!” Luna laughed haughtily and with false malice like a cheesy villain and the other mares also started laughing, save the Homage mare who merely quirked a small smile.

‘Some King I am...I’m totally whipped.’

Son, a man who isn’t under the thumb of his woman is a man with no restraint.

Not now dad!

“Okay, so! Can I assume the wedding is on for soon?” I asked eagerly, only for the girls to all sigh, what now?

“Dox, last time we were prepared, but now we have to send out invites again, get caterers, all the rest. This needs to be a fully recognized Herd Union and coronation for You, Bluebelle, Athena, Sapphire, Emerald, Arbok, AND alerting the public of all of your offspring. You’re also not just getting married to them Dox, you’re all marrying each other.” Twilight explained, and my mind kinda went very, VERY dirty places and my nose erupted with my rainbow blood.

“Wives?” I knew they played with each other as much as with me when we had group sex, but...marrying each other too? I hadn’t considered that. They love me so much, they’ll also love each other too...wow.

“Oh~ you’re so genuine Dox! I can feel it from here!” Cadence beamed at me as she shifted around happily. “The Love, so much of it. Ah~! I love my Aspect!” Geez mare calm down! Stop jumping! “He even has enough love in him to nearly latch onto me!” WHAT?! NO! “It’s not cheating Dox, you’re just so full of love it’s obscene!”

“For the last time Cadie! I don’t want a herd!” Shining’s voice shouted over a PA system I couldn’t see. Why were the cameras obvious but the PA not?! “Dox! Don’t let her get to you! She WILL get to you if you let her!”

“Shiny~! Stop ruining my fun!” Cadence shouted at the camera in the corner, ah~ I see, doubles as a PA too.

“I’m sorry, I’m with your husband on this one.” I said. Oh crap, I can just feel her channelling her Aspect in my direction now. NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE! I started shifting back to my original form, only for Cadence to interrupt my focus by exerting her magic on me and stopping the change altogether. Crap! I can feel myself slipping….. Slipping…. I gasped as I suddenly found myself in a small room filled with monitors, a familiar Guard Captain/Prince/Future Emperor of the Crystal Empire seated before me at the desk with his swivel chair facing me, his horn shining with his magic as sweat ran down his brow.

“That was close! Almost ended up falling madly in love bro. I just saved you and I from becoming butt-buddies.” Shining informed me, and I sighed as the drunken high I was getting off her pure, raw, undiluted Love started abating.

“Dude...your wife is crazy.” Shining nickered at my comment, clearly he agreed, but he was madly in love with her and accepted her insanity.

“I’m more concerned that she might include US in your union, make it a Double Wedding.” Shining shivered along with me. “I like you as a pal Dox, but I don’t swing that way.”

“Uh, yeah, me either….” ‘When did he suddenly become attractive?!’ I demanded of myself. Sure, I’d been...noticing the zebra stallions while we were on vacation, but I just thought I was jealous or something...shit, is Avarice right? Am I becoming so absorbed in my changeling nature that gender is starting to become meaningless?

“Shining! You give him back this instant or I will rut you so hard into our bed tonight your pelvis will break!” Cadence’s voice shrilly demanded and threatened and he gulped.

“Dude, your wife is threatening you with sex.” I said, still feeling drunk off the effects of Cadence’s Aspect. “Just go with it, man. Just go with it.”

“Man, you have no idea. I’m not immortal or super-powerful like you. Or her. She HAS broken my pelvis before! Look...I’ll be a bro and let you escape, you don’t want to be around right now. Besides, with all the fancy decorations, invites, foreign dignitaries and whatnot for a wedding with this much political weight, it might even take a month for everything to be in order for your wedding and coronations. So...I’d suggest you make yourself scarce around here for a while.” Shining winced when his wife roared and and tried teleporting in, but he erected a shield along the walls that stopped her.

“LET ME IN RIGHT NOW ARMOR! I AM GOING TO RAPE YOU BOTH!” We both were sweating and he mouthed “run” to me, and I quickly nodded before turning to shadowstuff and he let down the shield, only to instantly be pounced on by his wife who toppled the chair when she teleported in, and began molesting him as I made my escape.

As I ran, all I could hear was: “CADENCE WANT SNU SNU!”

“AAAAAAAARRRRRRGH~!”

Damn Aspects you scary!

I fled to Blackreach, it was the safest place I could think of on such short notice. Considering how Twilight and Luna both backed away from Cadence as her Aspect had started overriding her sensibilities, I figured I wasn’t going to be safe even around my betrothed right now.

The city itself was still abandoned. Dust and cobwebs were littered everywhere. There were still a few undead roaming around, and Loaders running around destroying them.

Yes, this place was so much safer than being up above ground with my betrothed and being possibly raped by Cadence.

I just hope that they can calm her down and get everything sorted out for the wedding.

Well, while I’m down here, I might as well finally get to chatting up Blackreach, that dude’s been so patient with me. I approached the stable portal to his personal chamber that I’ve been told was the Vault and leaned over to peer into the darkness.

“Hey, Blackreach!” I called out to the giant mechanical dragon. “How’s it going?”

The long neck and the fierce head of the giant automata rose up out of the portal and looked down on me like one of the Primordial Serpents from Dark Souls. Hell...did he get even bigger somehow? He didn’t look as ornamental though...did the Homages actually help him with proper maintenance and things like that? “Greetings once more Dox Ad Finem. I am pleased to see you’ve returned. Your vassals have graciously seen to my upkeep, and have zealously kept vigil against the lingering undead of Shadowfell.”

“Yeah, well, can’t let them keep haunting the place. When the other clans get together they’re going to have a moot to-.”

“That is unacceptable. My Maker will not wait for petty political squabbling to delay his people’s return to the world any longer. The Dwarves and Low Elves are to appear to the world once more as a people, and not as a legend or forgotten entirely as they’ve been so content to be. Seek the deepest place within Blackreach, and there you shall find my Maker’s altar; The Aetherium Forge. Commune with him, and he shall set you on the path.” Blackreach’s head then retracted into the portal, and said portal vanished, before the ground shook, and the fountain moved away from me, revealing a stairwell below that also had the pipeworks for the fountain cleanly disconnected, and the portal reopened before Blackreach’s head rose back out. “Go now Savior. He will not waste his time upon those who would dally with petty things such as politics.”

“Alright then. Wow, the Aetherium Forge...I’m geeking out right now!” I admitted as I giddily began descending to the depths of the city, not caring that it closed behind me and Blackreach shook his head before retracting back into his Vault. But just how freaking long was this staircase?! I’d just started hovering down the angle with my gravity powers and my loader shoes for a while now. GEEZ how deep was this forge?

Actually...now that I look behind me, I can’t see the top, so this place is actually just gently curving oh-so-slightly, giving the illusion of being straight. To do that would require meticulous attention to detail, AND an obscene amount of space and distance. The effect was similar to the world appearing flat to the naked eye up until the horizon, so this meant this thin stairwell was leading me deep, DEEP into the bowels of the mountain, deep enough….

Yep...magma. I’m not surprised at all honestly, after all, the Aetherium Forge in Skyrim used the intense natural heat of magma to help in the shaping of Aetherium, and this place looked almost exactly like it at that, save the Aetherium literally growing around the place like the crystal caverns under Canterlot, or the lack of Dwarven Automata trying to rip me to pieces. And then a giant Dwarven Centurion like the ones I fought in Mechanus with the hedgehogs walked out of the magma like it was out for a stroll. Lovely!

“Who intrudes upon this sacred ground? Has Blackreach granted you passage? Or are you a plunderer.” The mechanical and breathy voice called from the massive construct as it eyed me, the voice was almost reminiscent of a man’s, so he wasn’t a chick stuck in a masculine monstrosity, good.

“Blackreach sent me down here to commune with his Maker. Are you him?” I asked, and the gushes of steam and sparks from him as he slightly shook seemed to indicate laughter somehow.

“That is amusing. No. I am not Him. He is the one who had hewn the Dwarves from Stone, and the Low Elves from the True Dark. He is the one who gifted them Knowledge, Skill, and Magic. He is our Patron God. Aule. God of the Craft.” I was kinda gobsmacked for several seconds. I mean, AULE?! He’s a J.R. Tolkien work! He’s exactly as he’s being portrayed here too! Geez, how many legit High Fantasy settings does my world shamelessly steal from other awesome series?

“Uh, wow, okay. How do I talk to him? I mean, I’m sure he would’ve chatted me up earlier if he wasn’t indisposed. These realms of Equestria place Gods in the physical plane more often than not.” My response got the giant magical robot to nod his head.

“That is indeed so. Ever since the Collapse, the Dwarves and Low Elves have been scattered, and Aule sealed in another realm by the machinations of Shadowfell and those who sought to weaken the world. However, those beings have long left this mortal coil, fended off by the other gods and goddesses who had not known Aule since he kept to himself. Here, in this forge, his most sacred and personal refuge, communing with him is still possible, and you might even be able to aid him. Simply begin forging at the station. He shall speak to you.” The guardian then ambled off back to the magma, wading into it until it was submerged as if we hadn’t just spoken. Okay then!

I walked up to the forge, before realizing I had nothing to craft with, and had not consulted any sort of blueprint. Wow, failure on my part. So, if this place is like the Aetherium forge in the Skyrim game, then there should be a little nook with…..

I turned my head to the left, only to find that instead of a storage area like in the game with bits and pieces of metal, a few ores and what not, I found a small open door that had a glowing blue cave behind it. Holy crap! The ore in there was Aetherium, and there was a metric crap ton of it! I thought the stuff just sprouting on the walls was impressive, but holy hell that’s a lot of solidified magic!

“The hell?!” I said as I approached the small ‘mine’. “How did this come to be?” I stared around at the little ‘mine’ for a little longer before snapping back to the task at hand. I used my changeling blade to break some Aetherium off the wall by willing it into a pick, which I was amazed to find I could do since picks are a bit more complex than people think, then went to the other side of the room to search through what I found to be a little crafting area, most likely meant to store materials and do last touches on projects. I grabbed a few ingots that I didn’t recognize and brought them over to the forge with the Aetherium before throwing them in.

“Ah~, it’s been so long.” I heard a deep bassy voice say. Made me feel tingly and strange. It seemed to come from the forge itself when it spoke. Hell, I even saw the blue-white flame pulsate a bit when the voice spoke. “Well met, crafter. Who is it that brings me forth from my sleep?”

“Hello?” I called out to the voice. “Are you Aule?”

“The one and only.” The voice now identified as Aule called back. “And you have yet to answer my question of who you are. You are obviously not a Dwarf, or a Low Elf. You look almost like an elf, but not one. Who and what are you Not-Elf?”

“I’m Dox Ad Finem, sir.” I said as respectably as I could. What? You think I forgot manners? I don’t even know this guy! “You’d be right to say I’m not an Elf. I’m a Changeling.”

“And what are you doing here, Changeling? Last I checked, your folk followed the Traveller or the various gods of Fertility.”

“Well, I’m friends with one….. And betrothed to another….” I said, somewhat embarrassed. I continued to mess with the metal in the forge, not sure as to what to make with the materials I had on hand.

“That sounds exciting, and impressive.” Aule said. “I’d like to say that you did- HEY! Don’t throw the Aetherium in yet!” It was then I felt a force pull away the Aetherium that was in my hands right as I was about to throw it in. I turned to look for the source of said force to find what looked like a combination of a Low Elf and a Dwarf. Ya know, I couldn’t remember what Lord of the Rings said he looked like, if it did at all. But in all, it was impressive. He was about 5’11, like I had seen some of the shorter Low Elves, but had the massive features of a Dwarf. He looked as though he could bench press the Aetherium forge if he felt bored, probably with the giant centurion that I had seen earlier in it. “That is not how you forge with Aetherium! What are you trying to even make?!”

“I’m not exactly sure.” I said. “Would you like to help me make something?”

“You must learn somehow.” Aule said. “Aetherium is not like metal. You cannot treat it like one. You must treat it like a resin, fragile, and very picky about how it bonds. It is best used as a coating, or as a core. This.” He held up my right arm, and my Changeling Blade erupted out as he traced it. I didn’t do that…. “Is a splendid example. It used a unique formula for the shell, but it used an Aetherium core. This method, when finished, bonds the material with the Aetherium, imbuing it with it’s power, and not at all interfering with the chosen alloys durability or other attributes. The only material I have thus far been unable to meld with Aetherium is Orichalcum for obvious reasons. Not even I can make such a blasphemy work….”

“Wow.” I said. “So, what is this ingot that I’m using?”

“You mean you don’t even know?!” Aule screamed at me. “How can you start forging without even knowing what you’re using?!” He proceeded to bitch-slap me for my ignorance and growled/sighed somehow at the same time. “How have you survived so far if you cannot even maintain your equipment?”

“Ow! Hey, I just...had very skilled allies.” ‘Damn that hurt! Shit, it was like my SOUL was smacked!’

“Well then...if you are truly so ignorant….” I suddenly found myself shoved back and I gasped as I fell into a chair made of the bronze-colored unknown metal the Dwarven-Made items from Skyrim all seemed to be made of as a ghostly chalkboard suddenly hovered behind him, with...oh gog no! “First. You must become familiar with the physical elements of the world.” He said as he pointed out the Periodic Table of Elements to me. “And then some.” And then he EXTENDED it! WHY?! I HATE SCHOOL!

I...hate...school...science was never a favorite either…. Chemistry was good, yeah, but still far from my favorite…. So! Apparently...I was trying to use Dwemer Alloy, which was approximately somehow a perfect 33% copper, 33% zinc, 33% iron, and 1, JUST 1, percent carbon. The result was obscenely dense, strong, and brittle yet malleable. A decent go-to alloy for most uses, but not a spectacular alloy for specialized things. Also it was softer or harder depending on the forging process, the shape, the size, it went on, and on, and ON! And that was just the ONE alloy!

Good GOG! How does Avarice have the PATIENCE for this?! Speaking of him, I think I took on his Gog thing, huh. Wonder when I started doing that? “Cobalt is best used for what?”

Oh shit right! Pop quiz! Uh…. “Not as a base for any striking implement?” He just stared at me, like he was expecting more. “High friction and heat equipment?” He motioned for me to add on more. “A catalyst?” Same motion. “A good electricity conductor.” He gestured for more and this one I knew for sure. “And especially for it’s delightfully distinctive blue coloration when taken down to base. For decoration in many different fields.”

“Yes, very good DAF.” Ugh, WHY did he insist on calling me by my initials?! “That covers our fifteenth metal, now on to the alloys that it’s made-.”

“Hold it! Look, Aule, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but...I’m not a smart guy. I can get by, but I can barely remember half of what you’ve already crammed in my head! It’s not that I’m not trying either, this is awesome, but...I’m just not cut out for it….” I moped, and Aule sighed disappointedly.

“Apologies, it has been so long, and I forget that not all are so gifted with the Craft as my children are. Learn at your own pace, but do learn; it is a beyond valuable skill.” Aule insisted, and I had to give him that, Avarice got by before Hyperion with his own guile from what he’s told me when finally visiting during my vacation once and having a lengthy chat. Turns out he was mostly busy with hunting Die Leucht and securing the North at the time from Sombra, so I rarely saw him our whole trip save those few times he dropped in.

“Yeah, I’ll do that. But...what was I sent down here by Blackreach to do?” My question got Aule blinking, and he hummed as he ran a hand over his epic beard. Even as a physically manifested ghost that shit was legit.

“The Savior...saved a clan...found Blackreach and...oh! Right! Yes, well, I want my children to return to the world stage as it were, no longer HIDING down here in the caves. THey can live down here all they want, but no more hiding, it’s despicable. But, they’re so heavily mired in their political nonsense they’ll likely plan to just dig deeper and forget the sun. I refuse to let that happen, and so YOU are going to help me return to the Material Realm!” Aule stated, and I blinked before I shrugged. Gods. I’m too used to them by now to be at all fazed by such a concept as helping a god come to the mortal plane.

“Meh, sure. What do I gotta do?”

“First! I need you to collect some innocuous brown rocks.” My UI suddenly popped up with a mission objective to obtain WHAT?! 3,748,926 ROCKS?! “Then! I need you to climb to the stop of Mount Shuler, and retrieve my staff!” Well that was self-explanatory at least…. “And THEN I need you to defeat Shaggoth, Destroyer of Worlds!” Say what? Ugh...I think I remember what he’s clearly referencing now…. “And LASTLY! You shall DANCE! FOR MY AMUSEMENT! HAHAHAHAHA~!” I stared at him blankly, until the automata guardian from earlier reached a huge arm from the magma, and poked a point on the wall, which crumbled to reveal an exact replica robot of the god standing before me. “Or...you could just help me into my backup body over there...damn you Guardian….”

Borderlands...why? Why u no leave me alone?!

... Did I Win?

I stepped out of the portal from Kami’s world and into the castle gardens in my own world after my little adventure in Kami’s world. Immediately upon stepping back into my own world, I got hit by something which made a nice ‘pata’ sound upon hitting my head.

“OW!” I screamed. I looked down at the object that had bounced off my head. “A drum…. Kami, you weren’t wrong about your token. All I know now, though, is that I hate it.” With that, I picked up the drum and dropped it into my magic satchel. “Oi, now what was I doing before I got pulled away?”

I rubbed my chin a few times before my memory came back to me. I was helping out Aule with the Dwarves and Low Elves! I was supposed to be helping reunite all the clans… somehow…

Ya know, now that I’m thinking about things, I think I’m missing something… or someone.

“Cherry!” I called out. “Cherry, where are you?!” I could hear the little popping noises and little splats on the ground as Cherry came running up to me from the direction of the garden’s fountain and pounced me. She made happy popping noises as she clung to my chest. “Where have you been, you silly chu?” Cherry just snuggled my chest and made some noises that sounded kinda like purring. “Cherry? Cherry. Come on, I have things to do. Wanna come along? We’re gonna go running around to some new places.” Cherry piped up a little, then jumped off of me and slid into her bottle which was still connected to my waist. “Great, now, I need to find the girls and tell them what I’m doing, then we can go. Oh, and I should probably go ask Aule where I need to go.”

“The savior has returned!” Suddenly, I found myself surrounded by several Dwarves and Low Elves, all of them prostrating to me. “Savior! Please save us from our wrathful and cruel god!”

“Say what now?” The fuck? Aule seemed cool, even if he’s a fucking troll. Why would he be wrathful and cruel?

“He is angry with us for neglecting our traditions, and is forcing us to carve statues!” Okay, that is a bit mean, seriously, what’s the point of that? “He is especially insistent on ones of our kings of yore.” Ah, he’s trying to get them to preserve history, that isn’t cruel or wrathful. “Please savior! Molding stone with our bare hands is exhausting!” …. Never mind, that is pretty damn mean, even if they can do it.

“Alright, alright. I’ll go have a talk with Aule.” I said casually, which kinda surprised the Dwarves and Low Elves. “So, where is he?”

“No! His nose wasn’t THAT bulbous! Shrink it down!” I sighed as I rubbed my temples. That came from the direction of the former statue garden that Tia said she was planning to get rid of and double-check for anyone cursed by a cockatrice or something. Seems Aule decided to take over the garden while I was off in Kami’s weird Patapon Equestria.

“Hey!” I called out as I rounded a large shrubbery, entering the hedge maze that held the statues. “Aule! What the hell is….” My mind just stopped upon seeing a MASSIVE amount of statues. The entire path that I was on was just lined with statues of Dwarven and Low Elf leaders of all sorts. It was like that one area in Dragon’s Age where the most influential Dwarves had their statues, only these were in detail and there were way, way more. “Holy crap…”

“Ah, Dox. It is good to see you again!” From around a bend down the long stretch of hedge came the automaton body of Aule, steam and electricity-focused magic occasionally coming from him as he approached. “I’ve had my children at work restoring their lost history. Sure, demanding they do it by hand may seem harsh, but it’s the most effective method for accuracy.”

“Dude. You’re kind of abusing your power.” I said. Aule seemed to just ignore me. “Plus, wouldn’t this all be easier with the rest of the Dwarves and Low Elves?” Come on, reverse psychology, get him to help me out!

“Those fools won’t even respond with letter, let alone summons! It’s as if they’ve completely forgotten their heritage. If that is so; I want them to remember, just how storied and great a people they all were, and can be again. Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to see how Egregore and Silas are doing on the statue of Haemar the Seventeenth.”

“But didn’t you want me to go find the other clans?!” I called at him as he started to leave. “Come on! I don’t know where they are! Plus, I was kinda hoping for a casual adventure!”

“I’m the God of the Craft, not of quests. Ask your father, he’ll put you on the right path. Stop forgetting about him, he’s a terribly whiny god when he’s neglected.” Aule grumbled and went around another bend, making me sigh.

“Damn it, so; he’s doing this because he feels they don’t care when they should, but I’m sure there’s reasons they haven’t responded, if they somehow already know where the other clans are anyway. DM, sorry for kinda ignoring you, but can you give me a clue as to my next quest?”

Oh, so he finally asks the Dungeon Master for his next quest. Typical. How about I make it a radiant fetch quest out of spite, hm?

“Hey, hey.” I said. “There’s no need for that, and you know it. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Now, where are they?”

Hm… Fine. So, the first place you need to head to is the Frozen North or near it. You’ll find a clan led by Balgruuf the Greater directly East of the Crystal Empire, near the Neighagra Falls.

“Thats… Pretty freaking far man.” I said. “How far is it, again? And is it possible for me to take a train?”

You can fly. Why would you need a train?

“Because I heard that the trains are badass and I haven’t tried them, yet!” I said.

Yes. You can take a train, even if they aren’t the legendary Dwarven trains. The farthest it’ll go, however, is Neighagra Falls. You’ll have to head west into the foothills to find the entrance then, if you see the Crystal Empire you’ve gone too far.

“Woot woot!” I yelled. “Adventure Time is a go! But first, gotta go find the girls and tell them where I’m going.” I took off the ground, launching myself with gravity like a catapult up to the balcony leading to Lulu’s room, and stopped just barely before I crashed into the castle wall. Practice makes perfect after all, and I’m still way out of practice. “Hey, Lulu I know it’s daytime, but can I-oh, right; she switched sleep schedules to run the country alongside Tia during the day.”

Feeling absolutely no boundaries, I opened the balcony door and looked into the room, seeing it empty. There was a large crib in the room, but little Nyx and Nymus weren’t in here, so they were likely in the nursery with the other foals, cubs, nymphs and whatever else can be applied to them. “Not here….” I looked up at the sky outside, sun was a little to the west, so afternoon; court was going to adjourn soon or might’ve even already ended. I could watch and wait, or maybe tell the others instead.

Deciding to go the sensible route, I left Luna’s room, getting no guff from the guards, and began asking for my mate’s locations. Oddly enough, I found the staff still quite uneasy around me, until I got bored of looking UP at everypony and relaxed into my secondary base form. Then all the mares were all-too-happy to answer my questions, even shamelessly roving their eyes over me. Just let me say something about it; fucking, ego-boosting as hell. No wonder Avarice loves being eyed up so much.

With my new apparently natural charm, I was able to gather that Athena was currently in the nursery, so I made my way there. I wasn’t at all baffled or otherwise shocked to find her nursing two of her cubs at once with a content expression, even though one of them appeared to be on fire and the other one seemed to be frozen solid. I could see her third cub in a corner playing with Loki, crawling around and wrestling each other with adorable giggling. That one seemed to be statically discharging off on EVERYTHING, which just made Loki laugh harder. Kinda funny to watch, honestly.

“Hey big sis.” I joked, getting her to look up and a grin to split her beak.

“Dox, good to see you, it’s been a few days. Where were you off to now?” She asked beatifically, not seeming to actually care and more interested in her cubs and that I was here now rather than when I was gone. Such a sweet girl.

Wait a sec. A few days?! Jeeze! The time difference between here and Kami’s is tremendous! Which would also explain how the Dwarves and Low Elves managed to do that much work on statues, now that I think of it….

“Yeah, sorry about that.” I said. “I got summoned away and didn’t expect to be gone for so long. How are you? In fact, how is everyone else?”

“Oh? It sucks that not everyone’s world can be as convenient as Avarice’s I guess. Well, as you can see:” Athena pointed her beak into the nursery, pointing out all the little ankle-biters playing, napping and otherwise just living little baby lives like they should. These little brats were all mine too...that thought made me so content. Always did like babies. “The foals, cubs, and nymphs are all doing wonderfully. I myself have developed somewhat of an odd ability of late, possibly a delayed reaction to the Gamma Pool. I blame the fact I jumped your bones in it.”

“Something besides AI and Android? What is it?” I got my answer as she grinned even wider and her lower legs seemed to literally melt into a goo the same color as her, and I blinked. “Slime? Huh. Sexy.”

“Yes, happened shortly after I gave birth to these little elemental hellions. I wasn’t comfortable with it at the time and kept it to myself and the doctor. But I can add mass to myself by consuming large quantities of fluids and also lose mass by giving fluids away.” Athena hinted, and I finally noticed something, especially when she stood up and was SHORTER than me! Sure I was about 9 feet tall in this form, but Athena was originally around 11 feet.

“Just how much have you been feeding them?!” I demanded, and she smiled sheepishly, the little flaming and freezing cubs at her nipples hadn’t stopped once since I came in, and she visibly was getting shorter. “Honey, give them here.”

“But I love it….” She whined, clutching her cubs to her shrinking bosom in protest, but I leered at her and she sighed. “Okay. Don’t want them to drink all of me after all, huh?”

“Exactly, now let them be and go soak in a pool or something to get some mass back.” I nearly demanded, I wasn’t going to let anyone hurt themselves like this if I could help it. However, rather than hand them to me, Athena made a point to take them to the others and set them down, where they still made a fuss over their banquet being over, but quickly got over it and started playing with the others, their fire and ice not seeming to harm anything.

“Okay Dox, I’ll go soak in the swimming pool Twilight had installed. So; where are you off to now?” She questioned idly as she took a tube-top that was several sizes too big and tied it around her smaller breasts as she walked out of the nursery, me following and noticing how baggy her short shorts were, only being held up by her tail.

“What makes you think I’m leaving again already?” I asked slyly, and she huffed and rolled her eyes as I easily took stride next to her.

“You only come to us with important things or for love. You’re predictable Dox. Not to mention getting to be your arm for so long let me have an insight into you the others don’t have.” Athena teased, getting me to roll my own eyes back at her. Huh...used to be I was much easier to fluster. That kind of statement just a year ago would’ve made me all nerves.

“Neighagra Falls. The Dwarves and Low Elves are upset over Aule abusing their talents to make statues of their leaders from history, and DM says there’s a clan up around there. I’m hoping to get them to come down to help start things along proper so Aule can stop overcompensating with an arduous and tedious task like that until it’s actually the right time for it.” I explained, and Athena shrugged a bit. Shit, I am so not used to her being so short, well, as short as seven feet can be, but I tower head and shoulders and a bit of chest over her at 9 feet, so it was too weird. “Can you get even...bigger than you originally were?” I asked with a grin and light blush, and she smiled cheekily at me.

“What? Not enough lioness for you?” She joked, flicking my muzzle with the tuft of her long tail, and I chuckled as we neared the pool; a new addition added by my loaders on order of Twilight. It was an Olympic pool at that, so yeah; pool!

“To be honest? No right now. I just can’t feel comfortable being over you like this, and it isn’t the same when I’m normal, like this.” I shifted back to my primary base, and she was only a head taller than me, rather than me looking almost under her massive rack, which was also normal sized now. “It’s still uncanny.”

“Aw, and I was liking being shorter than you for once. Oh well, I’ll griffon up then and just see how big I can get to satisfy my mate’s macro fetish.” I snorted and chuckled as she turned into the pool area. “Later Dox, I’ll let the others know where you’re going later if you plan to leave right now.”

“Thanks Athena!” I called as I continued walking down the hall, changing back to my King form since for some reason everyone was more comfortable with it. I’d rather them all cool down a bit, they don’t seem to like me now that I suddenly have so many kids with their leaders.

“Oh, if it isn’t the Usurper.” Speak of the fucking devil…. I wasn’t going to stop and respond to the barb a noble said to his friend as we passed in the hall, and sighed quietly out my nose. Why can’t they just see it’s love? Why should politics get in the way of something so sacred and beautiful?

“Hun.” Hearing my pet name, I turned to look down a branching hall, and saw Bluebelle standing there in an absolutely beautiful white dress, her new wings flared a bit and ruffled in anger as she looked down the hall as she entered this one, pure rage smoldering in her gaze after the nobles. “Want me to flay them?”

“No. Not this Bluebelle, we talked about this while on Maui.” I said. “No flaying, mutilating, or any other type of harming to the neigh-sayers.” Well, that wasn’t the full conversation. The rest of it involved what would happen later. Like they find themselves under sudden inspection for corruption. That would be so wonderful to see.

“If I wasn’t involved with you; I’d have torn into them without question. But, since I am with you, for better or worse; I’m biased and cannot act without making things worse for you.” Bluebelle stated, feeling angry and impotent despite her new status. The wings automatically qualified her for a position of power, but she was already the duke/duchess of the Court as it was, so her current position wasn’t something to sneeze at without expecting a flogging afterwards. She wouldn’t be an actual princess until the wedding/coronation come next month. THEN she could punish them all she liked with impunity. Gotta love the power of this sort of system sometimes.

“Thanks for holding back for my sake, Blue.” I said. “So, where’s the others?”

“Auntie Tia is currently performing Public Relations tasks by publicly speaking more on the situation as well as on how things should be come next month. Auntie Luna is currently enjoying a peaceful tea and crumpet with her friend Derpy Hooves from Ponyville. She met her some time ago during her original visit and really came to like the mare.”

“Sounds like fun.” I said. “Also sounds like she might be trying to add more to the herd. But maybe not. Either way, I have to go find them and say hi, explain where I’ve been, where I’m about to go, you know how it is. Oh, any word on Emerald or Sapphire?”

“Oh, certainly. You never stayed in one place for long the whole time I’ve known you.” Blue giggled, before sighing and putting an elegant finger to her equally elegant chin. “I believe the Changeling Sisters are actually out of the city right now on their own bit of adventure. They’re looking to see about meeting this world’s changelings, if we have them.”

“Sounds like something that I would do.” I said. “Well, I know what I’m gonna go do after I’m done with my current quest. Hopefully I can get this job done and find them before something bad happens.”

“Oh, I’d worry more about what tries to hurt them than the other way around Dox. Those two and Athena spent most of our vacation working themselves contently into a routine with Hyperion. They worked, they got paid, they spent their money on guns. A LOT, of guns. Purple rarity guns.” Blue said in all seriousness, and I blinked in surprise.

“Well shit.” I said. “I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if one of them bought a rocket launcher, or worse, a laser.”

“Athena has three rocket launchers. Didn’t you notice the explosions? Oh, wait you might’ve been on another island at the time. Anyway, Athena has three launchers, a couple shotguns, and assault rifles, while the sisters got themselves at least one laser weapon each, a few pistols, and several smgs.” Bluebelle reported, shivering a bit. “Those three are deadly now if they weren’t before. Guns are such dangerous things. How you can associate with something so cruel with your kind nature baffles me.”

“Oh trust me, ‘my kind’ is worse than you think.” I said. “Hyperion just so happens to make guns that are even more deadly. Hell, I wouldn’t put it past them for one of them to have found an orange rarity gun.”

“They did.” Bluebelle said simply. “A creature attacked while you were gone. Athena called it a Tork, I think. Anyways, the creature attacked, Emerald shot it a bunch, and it dropped some strange shotgun that has almost zero accuracy. Blows up everything in front of it, though. Sapphire happens to love the gun to death, everyone else hates it.”

“Ugh...that would be a Flakker. I hate it too. I like my weapons to hit where I’m aiming. Well, my worries are nonetheless eased, let Tia and Lulu know I’m going to Neighagra Falls to find a Dwarf clan to help with the local situation...Lulu’s behind me, isn’t she?” I asked blandly, and felt her chest pillows press into my back through my hoodie.

“Yes Dox. It would seem this form is more aware of surroundings than your original one. Mind if I come along? These boorish nobles have already gotten on my last nerve even though we’ve only been back a few days.”

“Well, it might be a little dangerous.” I said. “I know you’re not pregnant any more, but I’d still rather not risk your-”

“Oh, be quiet!” Bluebelle screamed. “You and I both know that I am more than capable to handle myself if a situation should arise here, especially since Auntie Tia is still here. Plus, you’d be amazed at what I swindled off of Homage.” At that, she reached for an Echo storage that I hadn’t noticed was on her hip since I’d gotten so used to seeing them on Maui, and pulled out an Infinity pistol. THE FUCK?! I hope that didn’t come out of my pay, or worse, Jack’s vault of Legendaries. “He gave me this note, though. Said to give it to you, but hey, I forgot to. Here you go.”

I took the note from Bluebelle and started to read it, only to be mortified by what was on it. It read:

“Dear Dox,

I am letting your very well endowed mate purchase a very valuable gun with your accumulated credits, and let it be known that your current ‘balance’ is very low now, but considering how quickly you acquire them, I’m sure it isn’t an issue. Although, I would avoid making purchases through Jack for a while, because unless you find a new Infinity, he is now lacking a corrosive one from his collection of them, and should be EXTREMELY ticked off. Especially since the corrosive Infinity is considered the most worthwhile.

Here’s hoping you put it to good use, and also find a new one to replace the one that I ‘borrowed’ from The Vault, and soon, in which case if you do, your credits will be fully reimbursed.

Homage”

….. Son of a bitch. Now I can’t call Jack! If I do, he’s gonna mutilate me!

Wait a sec, I can dupe things. Why am I freaking out?

“Blue, hand me your gun.” I said.

“But it’s my shiny!” Bluebelle whined.

“And I’ll give you a new one, just give me that for a second.” I demanded.

“Fine.” Blue sighed and reluctantly handed over the gun.

“Thank you.” I said. “DM! Can I have some help, please?”

What do you want? Quest I gave you not hard enough? Want to change it to a fetch quest?

“Oh hell no!” I yelled. “I’m doing a ‘side quest’ right now. I just need to duplicate this gun. Can you help me out with-”

You have a book that has pretty much every spell known to this universe, which is a lot. Just look up the spell.

“Oh yeah.” I said. “Thanks.” I pulled out the D&D tome and searched through it. I found the duplication spell near the back of the book, believe it or not. It was a pretty advanced spell. At least, it seemed like it. Extreme focus and items of great power were needed. I had both, kinda. I mean, I had the dice, or the Dice Roller Core, so that was half of it. The focus…. Well, with Blue in the area and Lulu pressing her breasts into my back….. not so much. Might as well give it a shot, though.

But then there was a simple and ludicrously easy method that just seemed nonsense. According to the book, I just needed some scrolls of the exact same spell, attune to them, and instantly drop whatever I wished to duplicate, and said number of scrolls would be how many of said items were dropped upon landing on the ground. There was some kind of warning to it, though. Something about if done wrong that it would duplicate a corrupted version of the item forever until the original item was destroyed. Well, not doing that. Don’t want to risk destroying one of Jack’s items. Or screwing myself over with a ton of corrupted ones. Hard way it is.

Alright, let’s get started. I tapped the Dice Roller Core, and a bunch of holographic die appeared just above the Core. I started to focus on them, then on the Infinity. The die floated from their position and then to orbit the Infinity in my hand. I let go of the gun, and it started floating in front of me. Alright, so far so good. Now, the instructions said to focus on making it from one into two. One into two…. Alright, focus. I got this.

The dice started orbit the gun at a faster speed, and kept speeding up. Eventually, they were nothing but blurs. At some point, they started glowing brightly. From there on, the faster they orbited the gun, the brighter they got. It was all going very smoothly. Eventually, I was barely able to look at the gun and orbiting dice. The dice stopped speeding up, and only got brighter and brighter. According to the book, this was the end zone. Now was the time when it should duplicate. Hell, it probably would have worked perfectly…. If not for Bluebelle grabbing my attention.

“Dox! I like the light show and all, but I want my shiny!” Bluebelle complained. “If you give me my shiny back, you’ll get some well deserved attention~!” She puffed out her chest and otherwise accented the rest of her features, fully diverting my attention.

That’s when the spell ‘failed’. There was a flash of light and a small explosion that threw me and Bluebelle back. I was the first to get up after everything settled. What I saw surprised me a bit. The original gun was fine, it just sat there like nothing had happened, glowing a faint green like it normally did. That wasn’t what surprised me, though. No, what DID surprise me was that there was another infinity next to it, but with slightly different attachments and such. This one had a stock, augmented iron sights instead of a scope, and a laser pointer attachment. It also glowed a faint orange, instead of green. Looking at the stats of it on my echo, I found something even more surprising. It wasn’t corrosive like it’s original. No, this one, for some reason, was explosive. It was like a glitch in the programming. Hell, it even looked like one of the glitch weapons from Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. Had the pattern and everything. And oh shit, there’s the glitch stats: O2L4M3A5. Nice. Thank you Echo UI for being so informative.

“Um, Blue, here have the shiny back. I’ll take the one that’s not fully in the physical realm.” I said, picking up the guns and handing the corrosive Infinity back to Blue. Great, now the only question on my mind was: Do I give this to Jack, or do I keep it for myself? I mean, seriously, with my luck, I’d probably find another corrosive Infinity somewhere else, and what was that flash of light? “Blue?”

“I HAVE TWO SHINIES!” Blue screamed happily.

You’re welcome. Can’t believe you screwed it up so badly. Turned out well, though.

“Yeah, you’re telling me.” I said. “Blue, give me the original Infinity. I have to give it back to Jack before he kills me.”

“But it’s my shiny!” Bluebelle whined. “Come on, Dox. You don’t want to do that to me, do you~?”

GAH! MY ONE WEAKNESS! I quickly shifted back to my original base form, and Bluebelle sighed with contempt.

“Fine. But you owe it back to me.” Bluebelle said.

“Fine. Let me just return this, we’ll do the quest, THEN I’ll pay you back. Okay?” I said.

“That works.” Bluebelle said.

“Well, that is certainly a neat trick.” Oh, right, Lulu was here too. I turned to her, and froze with my jaw dropped, getting a smirk out of her. “Oh? Dox, you look like you’ve never even seen me before.”

“Why are you shiny?” Was my intelligent response. My reason for my fluster? Tia used the zebra tanning lotion and accidentally turned herself permanently golden. However, in just a few days, it seemed Lulu had the same idea, only her fur was now a gleaming silver. The way she just glowed yet had her dark ether backdrop of her mane and tail made her look like her very heavenly embodiment made flesh. She was the moon, and she couldn’t have been more radiant and beautiful. Whatever that cheesy movie was, with the line about lassoing the moon and pulling it down for someone, well; she just did for me.

“Whoa~! Dox!” Luna cooed as I had changed into my King form again, grabbed her and Blue’s hands, and started marching hastily towards the nearest empty rooms.

Have I Been Here Before?

Duncan POV:

Duncan was walking along the road out to where he was told Octavia and Vinyl scratch lived. Confirmed roommates made him happy, if they were a couple, that would be more awesome. Along the way he absent mindedly kicked the ground his foot making contact with a small purple square stone. It bounced along the road before falling over a small ledge and into a lake with a small ‘plop’.

A shadowy dark purple portal opened up just above the surface of the water and promptly deposited an equally shadowy figure out and into the water before abruptly closing. The figure splashed around a bit before popping its head above the water and calling out.

“Alright, who summoned me this time?! Come on, fess up!”

“Heh he, sorry. That would be me.” Duncan called out approaching the ledge to see who he accidently just summoned.

Dox POV:

It happened just as I started to leave the castle with Bluebelle, right at the freaking castle gates. A portal opened in my face and took me away from my fiance and my adventure.

I swear, sometimes Displaced either have the worst sense of humor, or the worst sense of timing. Either way, I just got cock blocked from something that was bound to be REALLY fun. This Displaced better be in need, dying, or someone I know in need of help, otherwise I’m going to be VERY pissed off.

AND OH GREAT! I got dumped into a FUCKING LAKE! What else now?! I sank down a little then quickly swam to the top and breached the water a little. Jeeze, this guy better need help, luckily I know a quick-dry spell.

“Alright, who called me this time?” I demanded. “Come on, fess up.”

“Heh he, sorry. That would be me.” A male voice called out from over the hill.

I looked over to see a young male with short brown hair and brown eyes. He was wearing green colored traditional chinese robes. Around his neck was a large red sphere. Oh great, a kid.

“Sup. What do you want?” I asked. “What was so important that you needed to call me away from one of my fiances and a possibly epic adventure involving Dwarves?”

“Dwarves? Actually, it was an accident. I was on my way to ask Octavia if she had a violin for sale and could offer me some lessons. If you are dealing with Dwarves I would love to help.”

“Eh, it’s fine. I was gonna go off with the fiance I mentioned and we were gonna go have some fun hunting down Dwarven clans and bring them back into the light.” I said. “You said something about a violin and Octavia, though?”

“Ya, truth is I’ve been missing my own fiance since being Displaced. Figured it was something I could learn for when I get back to her.” The kid crossed his arms with an air of depression hanging off of him.

“Heck, I might just be able to help with that.” I said. “But uh, first, let me get out of this lake.” I poofed into shadowstuff and reappeared right next to the kid, surprising him a little. I then cast my quick-dry spell just to get my clothes and self dry. “So uh, before anything else happens, I’d just like to introduce myself. My name’s Dox, Dox Ad Finem. Who are you?”

“Ah sorry my name is Duncan Klysh, my cosplay was Li Syaoran of Cardcaptors. You said Dox? As in the Dungeon Master’s champion?” He asked with a bit of curiosity.

“Um, yeah.” I said. “How…. How did you know that?”

“I read a fanfiction about you back on earth. I use to read a lot of Displaced fictions.” He answered, his face was controlled, awaiting a response and trying to figure out what my reaction might be.

“... Oh shit.” I said, hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. “Please. PLEASE. Not this shit again. Pretty sure there was only two people I knew about that talked about this whole ‘my life is a fanfiction’ shit. One was Mistress Change-”

“Oh, ya she is out right now, something about visiting her friend Avarice. She said she loved your fic and was hoping to find a way to catch up on your adventures since she met you the first time.” Duncan explained, amused at my reaction.

“No.” I said. Seriously, not this shit again. “No. No no. Not again. Don’t you start. You start, I’m gonna start freaking out, and you REALLY won’t like it.”

“Ok, in exchange you said you would help me with violin lessons?”

“Sure. I play cello, though.” I said. “So, don’t really expect the best. Then again, you were going to Octavia for the same reason, and she’s a cellist. I at least learned multiple instruments. In the show, she never really showed to know anything but cello, and last time I checked, your world follows the canon of the show pretty well.”

“Well that is how little I really know about music. I figured bow and string would be close enough to get started at least. I could also use the help of having someone to practice with. Maybe we could get together and I could practice with you, things like reading music and hearing tone differences?”

“I’d be fine with that.” I said. “Again, lucky you I know a lot of music. But again, a warning. I’m good at cello. Violin was kinda too small for me to learn properly without getting a modified instrument. Trust me, it was hard to get, and, to me, was not worth it.”

“I understand, but with hard work comes the greatest rewards. Shall we get going?” Duncan gestured down the road, following the path I saw a cottage that was split down the middle for colors and style….

“What the crap.” I said. “Now, the show in my world stopped at the end of Season 4, and planned on going forward. I never really saw anything else. Was there a fanservice episode or something that explained Octavia’s housing situation?”

“No idea, I got displaced right before season 5 came out. Right now, the world is a little after the start of season 3, Twilight is still a unicorn.”

“Ah, okay then.” I said. “Well, if I meet someone who knows, I’m asking. Found out a while ago the girls followed some kind of map that showed up in season 5 and went to a village that was pretty much communist. Made me think of Liberty Prime for some reason. Anyways, let’s get you that violin, then I’ll see if I can help out with your lessons.”

Duncan POV:

Dox was proving to be as cool as the fanfictions portrayed him. He hoped that Mistress could get internet and up to date chapters so he could catch up. It looked like a lot had happened since Dox lost his arm. Approaching the front door, Duncan knocked on it, aiming right for the split in the colors.

There was a crash from inside then a mare’s voice, “Yes one moment please!”

The door opened to reveal a gray mare with dark bags under her eyes. Spotting Duncan, she instantly slammed the door. From inside they could hear her say something about still being asleep. Duncan tried knocking again, this time a white unicorn with blue hair answered.

“Hello, I am Duncan with the guard. I’m hoping to speak with Octavia.” Duncan politely asked, the mare raised a hoof indicating for him to wait. She went back inside without a word. There was the sound of running water followed by a splash, a scream and another crash.

Octavia answered the door again, this time drenched from head to hoof. “Yes?”

“I am Duncan with the guard. I am here to speak with Octavia.” She eyed him starting to recognize the description she had gotten from around town. Her eyes wide at the introduction.

Meanwhile, unknown by Duncan, Dox was putting on a facade to make him look as intimidating as possible, almost to the point of him putting up the illusion of the grim reaper. But no, instead he had settled to transform into a unicorn royal guard, put an illusion on his mechanical parts to make them look organic, and pulled out some cuffs from his magic satchel, as well as some armor which Celestia had gotten him as an idea for wedding wear. Surprisingly, it had changed with him. He put it on and teleported behind Duncan from his spot at the side of the house and began to twirl the cuffs in his hand-turned-hoof.

The sudden appearance of the ‘guard’ with cuffs caused her to hide behind her door slightly before asking, “What can I help the guard with? If it’s about Vinyl’s music, I swear we keep it down during curfew.”

“What? No this is personal I wanted to ask for a violin and lessons, what gave you that…” Duncan turned around to see the pony guard with the handcuffs. Said ‘guard’ dropped the handcuffs and kicked them away before casually whistling.

“Dox?” Duncan raised an eyebrow, not completely sure it was the displaced.

“Eh heh heh.” The ‘guard’ responded before putting a hoof behind his head. One poof of smoke later, and there stood the Displaced that Duncan had summoned earlier. Duncan glared at Dox in disapproval. “Hey, I’m just having fun. I’m getting married soon, that, and climbing a high ladder on the status quo. Gonna be very stressful, so I’m trying to get as much fun in as I can.”

“Don’t blame you, now then.” Turning to Octavia with a smile on his face now, “Sorry about my friend, he is a good guy. I’m just trying to learn to play violin, I was hoping you could teach me?”

“Why don’t you two come in for some coffee and we can discus this.” she opened the door to them too tired to really want to deal with them. However turning them away would be rude and she was a proper mare. Vinyl levitated several glasses of the bitter liquid to the table for them.

“I would love to help you, but everything costs bits. I have a violin you could borrow but I recommend making a trip to Canterlot and getting yourself a proper violin if you are serious about this.” She yawed rubbing her eyes a bit. “Excuse me ever since the strange noise started we haven’t gotten much sleep.”

“I think I can help with the money.” Dox said. “But, uh, strange noise? Could you please explain?”

“Certainly, every night, after I go to bed, I start to hear music, a melody being sung. At first I thought Vinyl had left her stereo going. However, when I enter the living room, the music stops, all the equipment is turned off. Vinyl swears it isn’t her, then when I try and go back to bed it starts up again.”

“Odd.” Dox said. “Um, Duncan, something tells me you might know what this thing is… You do, don’t you?”

“It sounds a lot like the song card. It’s a mostly harmless card. It tries to replicate songs and voices that it hears but it is very, very skittish. Catching it will be tricky.”

“... card? what do you mean card?” Octavia asked dipping back and forth from exhaustion.

“Magic sealed in a card from let loose I’m the only one who can stop them. Why don’t you and Vinyl get some sleep and Dox and I can try and catch it?” Duncan offered.

“I’m up for it.” Dox said. “And Duncan’s right. You look like you’re about to pass out. Go get some sleep.”

“I shall try. If you need anything, let Vinyl or I know.” The mare walked up the stairs to her bedroom the door quietly closing behind her. Vinyl on the other hoof had already passed out at her turntables.

“So sealing should be simple, we just need a song that it likes to draw the card out. Have anything on hand?” Duncan asked as he summoned his sword getting ready.

“What, do you expect me to just pull an instrument out of thin air?” Dox asked. “‘Cause that’s physically impossible, let alone completely insane and anything you prefer?” During the whole run on, Dox had pulled out a cello and a bass guitar, separately, and set them down. “I mean, seriously. Got anything on mind?”

“I want a bag of holding so bad, but nothing in particular. In the show it was something soft and slow. Think something that brings tears to the eyes?” Duncan offered trying to see where Dox kept his bag.

“Well, I don’t think I can do that.” Dox said. “Well, at least not with what I have, alone. Do you see a piano around anywhere around here? I can’t really pull one of those out of nowhere.”

“Looks like Vinyl has one. I don’t think she will complain.” Duncan pulled the keyboard out from under a pile of boxes and trash.

“Great. Wish there was a normal piano to use, but what the hey.” Dox said, walking up and taking the keyboard from Duncan. “You see a stand for this thing anywhere, or do I have to use a table?”

“Here.” Duncan pulled a folded stand from between some furniture. He handed it to Dox letting the more musically inclined displaced figure how he wanted it setup.

After about five minutes of just setting up the keyboard, Dox finally got his act together.

“Alright, I think I know what I can do.” Dox said. “Now… How did that one piece go again?” After a few moments of thought, Dox started playing a very soothing song. He seemed very into it as he played. His eyes were closed, and it seemed as though nothing else could break his concentration. The song wasn’t very long, but it seemed to do the trick.

A beautiful woman with long purple hair began fading into being on the far side of the room. She began singing along in a lovely voice that sounded familiar to Duncan. She appeared in a white dress with a vest that looked like sheet music.

Duncan stepped quickly to try and catch the card, unfortunately his foot slipped on some trash. He fell forward onto the coffee table with a loud crash sending the cups flying. The loud noise scared the card, she silently faded away.

“Ow…”

“Good job.” Dox chastised as he finished the song he was playing. “Like, seriously. Good job. Not only did you scare the card off, but I think you woke up Vinyl.”

The mare stirred a little bit, looking up at the two. She wavered a bit before falling off her stool and falling asleep on the floor.

“I’d like to see you do it with all this trash around.” Duncan gestured to the piles of take-out and insta-meals “I wonder how long this has been going on or if this is normal for them?”

“Eh, anything’s possible.” Dox said. “And even though your point is valid, what are you gonna do about it? An excuse is still just an excuse.”

With a sigh Duncan reached down and started collecting all of the dirty dishes. “I suppose the best option is to help them out and clean up some. You in?”

“Eh, sure.” Dox said. A second later, he lit a small flame in the palm of his hand. “What? Might as well make it interesting. Just give me any of the trash, I’ll incinerate it.”

“Alright, catch.” Duncan blindly threw an empty carton of Chineighse food, over his shoulder in the general direction of Dox. He reached for the next one, sweet and sour hay. He could just smell the burning carton he threw, and threw the next one. Turning, he saw Dox standing smugly with the fire still in his hand.

“Alright how about rapid fire?” Duncan had a wide smile on his face as he started chucking box after box at Dox seeing if he could keep up. Instead of seeing Dox frantically moving around, Duncan saw Dox snap his fingers and a wall of flame appear in front of him, incinerating everything that had been thrown at him.

“You were saying?” Dox asked. “Is that all of them?”

“Nope, there are still some over here, and is that a pizza box? Oh this is impressive.” Duncan motioned Dox to come look behind one of the cabinets.

“And what am I looking at?” Dox asked as he walked over. He quickly saw what Duncan was referring to. Stacked from floor to ceiling were pizza boxes. The impressive part was how they were stacked varying from flat, to on edge. It looked like something from the Loony Toons, somehow it all balanced on an apple core that had been there too long. “Well damn. This thing…. This thing is getting eliminated. I don’t care how much that defies the laws of physics, but I’m getting rid of it. Any objections?”

“Hold on I wanna take a quick picture,” Duncan said pulling his phone from his pocket, “My brother would like to see this I’m sure.”

“Eh, go ahead. Take your picture.” Dox said. “Actually, screw it. I think we’ve cleaned enough. We can just move the rest of the crap. Let’s just get back to trying to secure that card.”

“Alright, I’ll stand by over here this time.” Duncan re-summoned his sword and stood next to where the card appeared last time.

“Alright, what other song to play…” Dox said, moving over to the piano and musing over his options once more. He eventually settled on a song that started out smooth and calm, but slowly changed into something more dynamic as copies of Dox started appearing and playing along with instruments that seemed to just appear.

Once again the beautiful woman appeared, this time a bit more hesitant, about half way though the song she joined in. Duncan took an extra moment to check his footing, swinging quickly he move to catch the card.

Only for a blast of static from Vinyl’s speakers to scare the card off again. It also broke Dox out of his concentration, causing him to stop playing and for the copies to just disappear along with their instruments.

“Really?!” Dox half-yelled. “Really? Great, well, guess we need to fix it.” Dox got up from his position from behind the keyboard and walked over to the speakers before examining them. “Double great. The wiring’s shot. Well, this is the point in which we can either get Vinyl over here, or figure out how to fix this ourselves. Leaving the call up to you.”

“Feel free to try and wake her, but if she is still out after this, I don’t bet much.” Duncan moved to the wires. “Don’t suppose you have any electrical tape? Some of these cables are damaged and shorting out.”

“Do I look like a hardware store?” Dox said sarcastically. “No, I don’t. I might have a spell in my book, though. Let me check.” Dox pulled out a large tome and started scanning through it. “Aha! Here’s one. Let me see the wires one at a time, otherwise I might screw up the spell and just fuse them to one another.”

Thus began the long and rather annoying process of Duncan lifting up a single wire and Dox then casting a spell on it, causing them to repair almost instantly. It took about thirty minutes to get done, but in the end seemed worth it.

“Alright, that it?” Dox asked.

“Yup, better than it was I think. Now then, lets try this again.” Duncan summoned his sword for the third time.

“Alright, but I think I might be out of songs….” Dox said, walking back over to the keyboard. “Yeah, I think I’m done with the keyboard. Maybe.” Dox walked over to where he had laid down his instruments. He picked up his bass and put it back into the weird trans-dimensional space that was his magic satchel. He then picked up the cello and took a seat. “I might have something else, but let’s just say that it’s not as calm as everything else, alright?”

“Worth a shot, ready when you are.” Duncan held the sword in both hands, arm cocked back ready to swing.

“Alright, let’s try this.” Dox said. He immediately started a build up on the song he was playing, but dropped it for a different theme as a copy of himself appeared, along with a harpsichord. That theme then shifted into something else entirely when another two duplicates of himself showed up, one taking the keyboard and the other playing another cello and a kick drum. All in all, it seemed like a fun piece and seemed to work.

The woman showed up again with a confused look, the beat seemed infectious though as she started to bob her head with it. After a few moments she started singing with the music. The card wore a huge smile on her face enjoying the session. With the final note, Dox’s copies (and their instruments) disappeared, and Duncan swung his sword. The card stopped moving.

“Song! Return to your power’s confined, Song!” The sealing circle rose up returning the card to it’s sealed from. It floated over in front of Dox, then hovered in the air waiting for him.

“Huh. Cool.” Dox said, grabbing the card. “So, is that it? I mean, the card or whatever seemed to be just trying to enjoy itself. What do we do with it now?”

“If I can have it back, I sign my name then let Octavia and Vinyl know the noise problem is gone.” Duncan explained extending a hand for the card.

“Oh come on, that can’t be it.” Dox said. “The card just seemed to be enjoying itself. It didn’t mean any harm.”

“Some cards are really that easy. Although if there is anything else you want to do? It's been a few hours. I’m sure the girls would be up for a session.” The card vibrated and pulsed with a purple glow from Dox’s hand. “I’m sure Song would like to join in, too.”

“Well, if you say so.” Dox said, handing the card to Duncan, who quickly scribbled his name on it, and then getting up and walking over to Vinyl, who was still asleep on the floor. Dox began to poke Vinyl repeatedly, all the while saying, “Hey. Hey. Wake up. The problem’s over and I need you to go and wake up Octavia. Wake up.”

Vinyl slowly stirred before looking up at the two displaced. Nodding, she climbed the stairs with a yawn up to Octavia’s room. There was a crash and scream again. A few seconds later Octavia descended the stairs with her mane a mess, Vinyl followed closely behind.

“You two need anything….?” She looked around the now mostly clean appartment, surprised. She listened for a moment and realized how quiet it was. “You cleaned and got rid of that awful static? How did you do that?”

“Eh. We just did what we do.” Dox said.

“Right well thank you very much, I assume you dealt with that other noise?” She asked.

“Yes it is sealed, however it only really wanted to have some fun. We were wondering if you two were interested in doing a bit of a session?”

“Uh sure, that sleep was the most restful in a while, Vinyl?” Octavia looked to the unicorn mare, who was currently putting her headphones on. She gave a hoofs-up before starting a beat.

“If she is up for it, then we would love to, anything in particular?” She asked getting her cello out carefully tuning it.

“Well, ever heard of Viva La Vida?” Dox asked. “We could do that.”

“From Coltplay? Sure we know that one.” Vinyl switched out a record on the turntables, starting the song. Dox, however, reached over and removed the record from the turntable.

“No. No, we do this from scratch, no records.” Dox said, walking over to the keyboard. “Just start playing with me and we’ll get this right. Duncan, do you know the lyrics?”

“...I don’t sing… karaoke night was awful, however I’m sure Song can fill in.” Duncan pulled out his sword and struck the card summoning the purple woman again, she hovered behind Duncan for a moment surprised by the number of ponies. “Go on Song, have fun.”

“So, does she need anything, or what?” Dox asked. “Like, is she just gonna know the lyrics or something?”

“I think so. Song do you know the lyrics?” Duncan asked the card, the card nodded gently and floated over by Dox and waited.

“Alright then. Let’s get playing.” Dox said. “One, two. One, two, three, four.” On four, the song started with Dox and Octavia. Bit by bit, the song got rolling. At one point, Dox got up from the keyboard, leaving a copy of himself playing while he pulled out his bass guitar. Two other copies appeared, one playing violin and the other playing guitar.

Duncan smirked watching the violin player emerge, apparently Dox knew enough to play. He watched as group played. Vinyl’s hooves moved as she regulated the audio from the different instruments and managed the beat, the effect made it all sound perfect with the right highs and lows for each part.

The song card’s voice change to emulate the correct cord set for the song, she had a wide smile as she sang with the group. As the song ended Duncan began applauding their skill. “So Dox, when did you learn the violin, I thought you said you couldn’t play it?”

“Music and magic.” Dox said as the clones started disappearing. “Music and magic. The less you question it the better.”

“Fair enough. Well then it’s been a long day. We can keep playing and I’ll send you home when you are ready. Thanks again for the help today.”

“Hey, no problem. It’s for a friend of a friend.” Dox said. “Hey, if you want more help, don’t hesitate to call me, unless I’m busy. If that’s the case, then I’m going to ask you to send me back. You sure you don’t need any more help? I mean, I’m more than capable with other types of tasks.”

“Nope, that is all I really have. Although, if you can call me over sometime once I start paying for lessons, that would be awesome.” Duncan smiled and extended his hand to offer a handshake.

“Can do, buddy.” Dox said, accepting the handshake. “Heck, I’m probably gonna call you over before then. You and Mistress. I’m having a wedding in a bit, so consider yourself invited as a guest.

“Thank you. I’ll be sure to answer the summons. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help, I’m sure MC feels the same way. I bet she would also like to see you again, for her, it has been a few centuries.”

“Well damn.” Dox said. “I’ll have to remember to call her over. In any case, you can send me home now. I need to get back to what I was doing.”

“You mean who? Dox our contract is complete.” Duncan smirked as a portal opened behind Dox.

“Ha ha, very funny.” Dox said, taking a step through the portal. “I’ll see you around, man. Have fun.” And with that, he was gone. Leaving the two mares very confused and with looks of shock on their faces.

“You Displaced are a strange lot, but thank you for your help. Now, about that violin.” Octavia shook her head in amusement.

Dox POV:

When I arrived back in my world, I was able to notice a few things.

One: The sun was in a different position.

Two: There was a VERY pissed off Bluebelle in front of me.

“Now, Blue, I can explain.” I said, backing away from the angry mare in front of me. “I know I said we’d be leaving right then and there for the adventure, but I got pulled away by another Displaced! Ya can’t really blame me, can you?”

“Start running.” Bluebelle said in a menacing voice.

“Er, what?” I asked.

“I said: START RUNNING!” Bluebelle yelled. “We are going on that adventure and we’re doing it NOW!”

She didn’t have to tell me twice as I took off for the trains, running as fast as I could as she chased me down. She literally tackled me onto the train, then pulled me into a private room. If it weren’t for the fact that she was angry as hell, I might have found it romantic. Either way, this train was gonna need to leave us in our own car.

Damn Aspects, You Scary!

The roar of the massive and majestic Neighagra Falls permeated even the train car from this distance. I twitched my black crinkled antennae-like ears in irritation. Shit, how LOUD could water BE?! I mean, even I can tell everypony on this train’s ears are twitching, and we’re only going to get closer. Why did I decide to shift into my changeling king form again? Oh, right, because Blue finds me sexier like this…. “We have arrived at Neighagra! If this is your stop, please remember to wear your protective complimentary earmuffs!”

“Oh thank GOG for that!” I shouted, gladly standing up with Bluebelle, everypony bowing as we left our private booth. When we first got on, since it was so sudden and unannounced; the train didn’t have a ‘royal car’ ready, and while Blue wasn’t an actual princess yet, she still held her former title, and was an alicorn now, but she drank it in with calm elation since she was long used to similar treatment.

My main concern though was...well, the noise we made. When Blue angrily dragged me into our private little booth/room, we...yeah...angry sex is one of the best ones, gets all the frustration out. To be honest, though, I was concerned during the entire ride that we would have broken the car’s suspension. Either Bluebelle REALLY didn’t like being ‘left behind’ when I got summoned right when we were gonna leave, or she REALLY needed to learn how to control her aspect. Might have to call Avarice to see if he can help her out.

“Your Majesty; our best earmuffs with our apologies for the lackluster accommodations.” Said one of the stewardess ponies. “And your earmuffs, sir.”

The hell? Are these the standard earmuffs for this scenario? The one’s Blue was putting on were all puffy and made of what seemed to be actual beaver fur, while the ones I got were cheap cotton things that barely did anything to reduce the sound of the falls.

I swear, every time I ask a question, I get it answered almost immediately. Just stepping off the train answered my question. All around me, I could see MUCH better earmuffs, and if they weren’t better materials, they were in much better states and qualities. “Blue, I think I just got shafted for being a changeling.”

“What?!” She shouted, blinking as the proximity to the falls was deafening, WHY was the station RIGHT NEXT TO THE FALLS?!

“I said! I think I just got Racially Profiled!”

“Yes, this station is quite spaciously styled!” Blue shouted back at me with a smile, and since I didn’t have the good muffs, I could actually hear her alongside the roar, and I just rubbed my temples to ease the growing sound-induced headache. Well, whatever. Might as well just get things over wi-

“Sir!” Came an exceedingly loud voice. “Sir! Your two’s presence has been requested!” We both turned as the train started leaving the station, the travelers getting on having finished boarding as a thestral of surprisingly short stature looked up at us. “Follow me!” The shockingly loud-voiced little stallion wearing Luna’s Night Guard armor turned and both I and Blue only glanced at each other before following as instructed.

He took flight, and while Blue was still new to it, she too managed to hover a couple feet from the ground with me steadying her and we flew at a sedate pace, thankfully away from the falls, but over the water of the gorge and towards a verdant isle in the middle. It was home to what seemed to be an obsidian gothic temple of sorts among the vast foliage of the healthy pines and redwoods, towering up out of the forested island.

“O-oh, Dox, please don’t let go….” Blue simpered as she leaned into me, making me have to buzz my wings a bit harder and focus my gravity powers a bit so we didn’t tumble down into the water.

“Blue, we really need to get you some flying lessons.” I said as Blue squeezed a little harder and leaned further into me. I swear, I could feel one of her legs wrapping around mine, too, and not for support. “We should also look into getting you some help with your new aspect.”

“I can’t help it...you’re so sexy, I want you, even now when I’m scared...I...I just don’t know how to handle this...raw; bestial need to just fuck you over and over until I pass out.” Bluebelle admitted with whimpers, pressing the side of her breasts into me and biting a lip. “And I laughed at those tragic comedies where the mare becomes a sex-crazed deviant. How much karma must I repay?”

“Karma’s a bitch Blue….” I said sadly. Ugh...damn I love her so much, I’d rather wrap her in a cocoon of my resin and keep her safe forever than out on an adventure like this...where’d that thought come from?

“We are almost to Luna Isle! We shall walk when we reach the shore!” The extremely loud, bass-toned voice echoed over the water back at us, and I just realized he’d almost ditched us basically, him hovering near the shore and waiting patiently as we slowly hovered closer, Blue’s distractions becoming ever more debilitating as her wings were getting stiff from her growing arousal, and she was panting with exertion to keep aloft through them.

“C’mon Blue, just a bit further, then we can walk.” I encouraged, carrying a bit more of her weight as her wings began to slow down despite her efforts.

“Take me...please….” She begged me, grinding her legs against mine and almost on the verge of tears. “I need it….”

“Just...just calm down Blue, I’ll figure something out.” ‘Holy fuck, Avarice wasn’t shitting when he said how hard it was on him being so damn horny all the time, and that was before becoming a god too. Now that I see it, with someone I love...my gosh, this aspect is as much a curse as a blessing.’ I rushed us over to the shore, and gently helped Blue to the ground, where she tried to pounce me, but was too weak to overcome me from the short and tiring flight and instead settled on grinding against me as she sniffled, feeling ashamed while I hugged her. “It’s okay Blue. We’ll find a way to help you.”

“I’m wishing I wasn’t so glad to indulge for so long while I was pregnant. I could’ve tried to practice resisting, but now I’m just...I NEED it….” She whined and began to cry into my shoulder, knowing she couldn’t force me to help her the way she wanted.

“Sir, Milady; this way.” The guard wasn’t at all impacted it seemed as he was as stone-faced as when we first saw him, and then turned to walk into the beaten path under the trees and between the shrubbery of the thick pine forest. Not seeing any other course of action right now, I picked my fiance up bridal style, which caused her to gasp and kiss me on the lips as she wrapped her arms around my neck.

I rolled my eyes, and kissed her back as I kept an eye on where we were going, paying careful attention as I maneouvered us through the trees and bushes without even getting her dress caught-whoa~ she snaked a hand down there while I wasn’t paying attention to her and is now yanking my tail, holy shit that’s an instinctive turn-on. Pants getting REALLY uncomfortable right now!

“Blue. Blue, no!” I scolded. “This is not the right time or place. As much as I’d love to take you right here and right now, I’m not going to-”

“I SLEPT WITH SEVEN OTHERS WHILE YOU WERE GONE~!” She cried out in shame, tears dumping from her bloodshot eyes as I almost tripped, but kept walking forward. Holy crap! But I’d only at most been gone a few days when that could’ve happened. “I...I can’t...I can’t stop it! I need to be sated or I just lose myself. I turn into a complete Whorse who can’t think of anything but sex if I don’t feel something alive in me! I tried masturbating, I tried our herd-mates, but it needs to be a stallion! I’m lucky I’m not pregnant again already, but I...I….” She buried her face into the crook of my neck, sobbing as she clutched my hoodie. “What can I do? I’m turning into a...a breeder!”

“I… I don’t know, Blue.” I said, racking my brain for answers. I had never gone through anything like this, myself. Hell, I had no clue what to even think of all of this….

But I knew someone who probably did.

“Listen Blue. We’ll get you to wherever this guy is taking us, then we’ll find a way to slip away and calm you down, okay?” I told Bluebelle. “Afterwards, I’m calling a friend I know that’ll be able to help us out, but you have to try your best not to give into your aspect until after we slip away, alright? Promise me, Blue.”

She seemed about to take my lips again, when she grit her teeth, and backed away, the action seeming to hurt her, even making her nose start to trickle blood. “I’ll...try….”

“Thank you.” I said, now running to catch up to the thestral who had gotten ahead of us. As we got closer, Blue started squeezing her breasts and squeaking as she tried not to outright fondle herself, I had to hurry. That sense of urgency was almost destroyed by the sight that greeted us.

Standing almost like a solid black wall of darkness through the only real opening in the maze of tree trunks and bushes was a tall black door carved of black stone with silver moons of every phase running around it’s rim, from full at the bottom left, to new moon at the top, to full again on the bottom right from waning to waxing. The half-pint of a thestral was standing before it, and simply knocked with the knocker shaped like a stereotypical cloud down at average-height, which was about up to his chest.

Seriously, smaller ponies? Had no clue they actually existed, thought it was a trope made by the brony community because they were cute already; why not make them more cute? The doors were open...they were suddenly open, they didn’t seem to move, they’re just suddenly wide-open without a noise, without any actual opening. “Follow.”

Damn it, this better not be some Temple of Darkness bullshit! Especially not with my fiance resisting masturbating in my arms as her nose was bleeding from all the pent-up pressure and her resisting her aspect or whatever. I trotted into the dark doorway, there was no light beyond as suddenly, without warning or sound; the doors were now closed like how they’d opened; unnaturally. Thankfully my Echo Eye let’s me see in the dark just fine. Still didn’t help the mystery of this place, though. Seriously, what was with all the suspense and darkness? Am I playing a horror game now?

“Hey, whatever your name is, you didn’t tell me.” I said, caring less about the small stallion’s feelings and more about my fiance’s needs. “Where are you taking us? I’d like to help out my fiance here, and soon, so all this frigging suspense bullshit isn’t helping.”

“Your destination and your current situation’s solution are the same. My name is unimportant.”

“Great, so can we hurry up?” I demanded.

“We are here.” He intoned, and then he was gone, with me standing fetlock deep in nice, cool...soothing….

“What’s with this water?” I asked myself as I noticed he’d led me into walking into a shallow tidal pool that got deeper as it went into the darkness. That was all that was here. Soothing cool water, silence, darkness….

“Dox...I...let me down.” Blue said hesitantly, and shimmied to make me put her down, and she sighed when her hooves entered the water, not caring that her skirt was getting wet. “My goodness...I don’t feel so insanely randy now.” Blue beamed at me, and it was only now that I realized by closing only my Echo Eye that there was a soft silvery-blue luminescence that was enough in this near-complete darkness to just barely see by. “It gets deeper this way.”

“Whoa, hey, don’t...why can’t I feel worried?” I was concerned, yes, but whatever this water was, whatever this place was, it was forcing a sensation of calm over me, and obviously Blue as she waded into deeper waters, and was waist deep which would be chest-deep for most ponies when she quickly unbuttoned her dress, and shucked it behind her, standing naked and bare, yet I wasn’t aroused as much as I was entranced with her beauty. “Aren’t you cold?”

“Mmm...no...this is wonderful. I’m so clear-headed...I wonder what this place is.” She pondered as she waded deeper, and I did so as well, my clothes remaining static in form even wet, thank you Hyperion. The water didn’t get any deeper though, and she sighed before allowing herself to lower into the cool pool, me joining her, just basking in the peace, the calm. “I love this sensation….”

“Me too….”

“I as well.” We didn’t jolt, but we did open our eyes and look to the source, seeing Luna in her nude silvery glory standing in the water with us, as if she’d always been here. When’d she get here? “Welcome my loves, to Luna Island’s Celestial Cistern. It draws power from the moon and stars, to form this spring’s power.” She then lowered down on my other side, me between the silver and alabaster angels. “Of calm. Sister named this island after me, because she said calm was what I brought her, even when I was less than so.”

“When did you get here Lulu?” I asked curiously, not at all with my head in the gutter, even with my fiance's naked beside me. I actually instead mused of the poetic and surreal beauty of the situation. Goddesses on either side, meditating peacefully, me between them, equally calm. It was amazing.

“I’ve been waiting patiently. When I Dream Delve, this is the best place to do it from. With calm, and patience rather than with passion or determination. I also knew Niece needed help, and this was the best place for her to get a respite.” Luna informed, looking lazily past me to the blue-eyed angel who also lazily looked to her.

“Thank you Auntie. So much.” We knelt there, I don’t know how long, but eventually Luna sighed and helped me and Blue up out of the water, guiding us in a direction my Echo Eye told me was actually a passage through the black walls of the dark temple. “Thank you. I’m not about to jump Dox unfairly soon.”

“But it is only a temporary thing dear Niece, it will fade given time, and your aspect’s needs will become paramount again. We must find a way to permanently aid you in resisting the pull of your aspect in guiding your actions.” Luna informed, and we were about to step out of the water fully when I blinked, remembering what I’d thought earlier.

“Oh, right. I know someone who might be able to do that, considering they’ve faced the same thing.” I said. I reached into my bag of holding and grabbed the Blue Flame Brazier that was Avarice’s token. I immediately felt a chill go down my spine, like an omen warning me of something bad that was about to happen.

You idiot. Of course something bad’s gonna happen. I swear, your ‘friends’ always cause trouble when they’re here, especially THATone.

“DM, I don’t like you insulting my friends… or reading my thoughts.” I said, getting glances from Lulu and Blue as I pulled out Avarice’s token. “I’m just about to summon some help, don’t worry. Alright, Avarice, I, or rather Blue needs your help. Mind coming over real quick and not sending Vaga to do it for you?”

The familiar blue-flamed portal flared into life vertically, showing the void like an open door, but through the token… “No! No, no, no, NO! Now’s the WORST time! Stop! No!” Uh...who’s the chick? “If I see you, no, please no!” The Portal flickered, and then suddenly changed from being vertical to being upside-down in the air, and tossing someone out of it onto the dry floor of the hallway, making them grunt. “Fucking damn it! Why can’t I get...that….”

“Uh….” ‘Brain.exe has crashed, rebooting.... Reboot has failed. Turns out Brain.exe is missing some information, would you like to fill in this missing information?’ “What’s going on, whoever you are? In fact, who are you?”

As she stood...and stood...oh fuck. At 14 feet stood a naked hourglass figure to match my fiance's, proportions to match if with much larger nipples. She was cream with black spots in a ‘paint’ pattern, her slit green eyes glazed, her long tongue licked her changeling fangs, her red curtain of a mane seemed to flow a bit, her draconic red-membraned wings flared out, and her serpentine tail tipped with a familiar sword flicked around as she purred. “Dox~...we hath...changed since thou has last seen us.”

Oh shit. This was Avarice…. And this version seems…. for lack of better wording, horny as fuck. I don’t care if this water is supposed to make people calm, I’m freaking out right now! I stepped back as she took a swivel-hipped step forward, her hoof clopping audibly, her steps accentuating her pelvis as she lidded her eyes, and I backed away nervously into the water, but Luna and Blue got in her way, their aura the complete opposite of before, filled with rage and territorial instinct.

“HE’S OURS HUSSY!” Avarice paused, and looked down at them idly, before leering at them. Shit!

“Girls run-.” Two tentacles suddenly fired seamlessly from Avarice’s wings like pistons from several feet away at a speed fast as a bullet, striking my loves in the guts and launching them into the dark water. “Lulu! Blue!”

“Now that those distractions are out of the way….” The leg-thick tentacles suddenly began getting bigger, and quickly formed like liquid flesh into two copies of her, both with purple manes and golden eyes, also looking just as horny. “We will have thee for ourselves!”

…. Well shit.

What Have I Become?

The Dox-Blue growled as her horn shined with a rainbow aura, and vines began rapidly rising from the waters, each as thick as a small tree and long enough to put most giant serpents in the world to shame. “H-hey! That’s my Growth magic!” Blue shouted as she fluttered down on uneasy wings with a few of the guards that caught her.

“Avarice, what hath thou done to our betrothed?!” Luna demanded as they all jumped away from the whipping and angry vines which started forming leaf-like blades.

“I did as I was going to do with my sister! He’s been mutated into an exact genetic clone of me, but there’s something different; sinister. His own nature and mutations are conflicting somehow, modifying my Plaga mutagen to it’s own needs.” Ava informed, growling as her eyes shined red. “I HATE Contract breakers! Even if they did it unintentionally! So this is what happens when a Contract is broken on the other end? They receive my wrath? Not fair, I get instant magic backlash!”

“So, if he got your wrath, what does that mean for us?” Bluebelle questioned, the worry evident in her voice.

“You’re clear; he was the idiot who jumped in. We’ll work something out later, but right now; I HAVE A DEAL-BREAKER TO CRUSH!”

“Not on your life.” Came the messed up voice from Dox-Blue. It sounded like a severely distorted version of Dox and Bluebelle’s voices playing at the same time. No one had much time to focus on that, though, as several new vines sprouted from the water and shot out towards Ava, pinning her down on her back, but just barely as she struggled upright. “What deal did I break, huh? None. I stopped a stupid deal that you were making with my fiance. It would have mutated her into a freak and now I’m suffering that fate, all because you told her the easy way out and she wanted to take it!”

“You’re the one who intervened! Your stupid rainbow god-genes are interfering with it and you got yourself into this mess! Who are you to tell her what she can or cannot do?!” Ava shouted, before breaking free of the vines and roaring as she shifted into a three-headed black hydragon with a cream underbelly, and the third head had whip-like purple tendril hair. “And don’t say her fiance! That isn’t how relationships work!”

“SHUT UP!” Dox-Blue screamed at Ava. Another vine sprouted from the water and shot out at Ava before impacting the wall right next to her central head, Ava having just barely dodged it with both her main head and Crescent’s head on her left, and they both bit into the vine and burned it with black void-fire, trailing down the wet vine as void-fire was harder to douse than normal fire, and Dox-Blue roared as she summoned more, only for them to be cut down by Bluebelle herself.

“Stop using my magic! I am Fertility; the promotion of life, not you!” Blue’s eyes turned white, and she roared as her blue aura overtook her horn, and all the vines began wriggling, before turning back on Dox-Blue, who easily used her wings to dodge away, until she was suddenly scissored by Luna and CS, who each grabbed an arm and used their wings to stop her wings.

“Dox, cease this outburst! Twas thine own fault this occurred! Thou art not a freak, nopony here is!” Luna shouted as she essentially tried to hug her lover, but Dox-Blue instead growled and looked her in the eyes, the rainbow orbs flashing deep blue for a second, and suddenly Luna was holding a near-perfect copy of herself.

“You would say that!” Dox-Luna hissed before charging her horn, and roaring as a rainbow pulse launched both Luna and CS away. “You love me regardless Lulu, and I love you, but stay out of this! It’s between me, and Avarice!” Dox-Luna turned to Avarice just as a silvery material started to slide off of her arm before it manifested into a double-sided scythe. “You…. You were going to go through with this…. This would have happened to her…. You know what happened to you, yet you still promised her the same fate.”

“I expected better from you Dox. I thought you were stronger than me…. I was wrong. She would’ve been fine. But like I said; your body’s conflicting with my mutagen, twisting it. Either calm down, or come at me, either way I need to get my flesh payment.” Avarice echoed from all three heads, before roaring and charging forward through the water.

“And that’s what’s worse.” Dox-Luna said, seemingly ignoring the charging hydragon. “You wanted a payment of flesh…. From my fiance…. and that…” Dox-Luna raised the scythe she was holding in her right arm. “IS UNACCEPTABLE!” Dox-Luna screamed ala Lemongrab before she brought down the scythe, sending a massive crescent of silver energy flying from the scythe and into Ava’s body, easily bisecting the giant beast between Ava’s and Sharp’s heads, down her body, but the great beast simply roared in fury as tendrils sprouted to hold the body together while it mended at a much slower rate, and they all breathed streams of void-fire at Dox-Luna, who nimbly evaded the attacks with her wings.

“Thou art not listening! We require payment of THINE flesh for thy treachery! We considered gaining Bluebelle as a sibling payment enough!” Avarice shouted through the flames as their body finished mending, and more tendrils began sprouting from their wings and back, trying to catch the elusive new Shifter when Dox-Luna swooped in and cut off Crescent’s head, making the other two roar in pain and fury as the removed head started sprouting TWO heads at the point of severance, the new fourth head being plain. “That was just irritating! Hydras-!” Sharp’s head was lopped off. “-Are immune to-!” Ava’s head was cut off. “-Decapitation!”

“Yeah? Well how ya gonna move?” Dox-Luna demanded coldly, and Avarice tried to move, but fell over onto their chest from the extra weight of three new heads. “That’s actually a weakness of the hydras. Cut off enough heads, you can just walk away since they can’t follow yet.”

“Mother fucker! Damn it, we love this form!” Avarice shouted, before begrudgingly sinking into a formless blob again, and then coming out as her giantess form, only pure anthro dragoness this time, covered in black scales, but certain areas were cream like her breasts, abdomen, and underbelly. “You think you’re smart asshole?! It was your stupidity that started all of this in the first place!” She grabbed her wings, and ripped them off as they turned into huge broad, sweeping bone blades, and she grew new ones from the stumps as she whipped her tail to emphasize her tail blade at the end of her thin and whip-like dragon tail.

“At least I know better than to put someone through the torture that I’ve gone through.” Dox-Luna said snidely. She grabbed the handle of the scythe she was using and pulled it in half, now mocking Ava with her own dual scythes. “Now, are you going to stand there and bitch, or do I get to play harvester again?”

“I’ll be the one harvesting! Thinking of it; fuck you, I’m taking your seed. If that doesn’t settle the debt, I don’t know what, but I don’t want to kill you as much as mutilate you!” Ava’s eyes shined red, and she swept one of the wing-like blades, creating a massive gust through the chamber, and knocking all the fliers around, including Luna and the guards nervously pacing the sidelines, since this was clearly a battle out of their league.

Dox-Luna had an especially hard time, since she was used to flying with gravity and not wings. She’d been using her new body’s abilities and obtained muscle-memory, but her lack of experience cost her as the gust launched her down into the water, which despite it’s calming attributes, was only lessening the anger, not abating it. The fact the pool was turning red with blood just made the fact it’s properties remained even more impressive.

“I’m not out, you fuck.” Dox-Luna said, launching herself from the water. “No, I’m far from it. Prepare to die!” Dox-Luna hurled one of her scythes at Ava, missing initially, but nailing her in the nape of the neck, where the scythe embedded itself deep into Ava’s scales. “You may not realize what you were going to do, but I sure as hell do. And I won’t stand for it, Ava. I will end this, and in the process, you.” Dox-Luna charged at Ava, but the dragoness grinned. Before Dox-Luna could process why, suddenly she felt a yank on her body, and she fell straight down into the water and was held there by a green aura.

“Aw, did little Dox forget? I have magic too. And while I don’t know many spells, I did have more than enough time to at least practice the basics. And let me say that levitation, overcharged, can easily turn into a pulping force, or an easy restraint.” Ava explained as she strolled towards the drowning mare, whose vision was fading, the air leaving her compressing lungs, her eyes widening in fear as Ava’s voice broadcasted into her ears through the dragoness’ aura. “I mean, really, it takes all the effort out of getting something to stay. Fucking. STILL!”

Ava cleaved the giant blade down, Luna and Bluebelle screaming for her not to, but the blade crashed into the water, and cleaved Dox-Luna in half, the two halves being bisected vertically from groin to crown, but there was no blood, just white flesh between the two halves, as Dox-Luna was levitated into the air, and blinked in disorientation. “Two perspectives, one mind. Confusing as hell isn’t it? Soon you’ll be able to handle several perspectives at once. Hundreds of eyes maybe.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Came the echo of a ‘voice’ from Dox-Luna’s chopped up body. It didn’t even come from her mouth, or half-mouths as the case may be. No, it echoed through the minds of those around the levitated body. “I’m tired of you thinking you can just one-up me like this. Just four words….” Dox-Luna’s body melted and slipped out of Ava’s magical grip before landing in the water below. Slowly, a new form rose from the goop that was Dox’s new body, taking the shape of a beast made of the actual flesh of the Plaga, a beast covered head to bladed tail-tip in white chitin, the Verdugo. “Get. On. My. Level.”

Ava, feeling offended, and unusually territorial, hissed as she rapidly shrank down, all her biomass consolidating into a body she’d neglected since she got forms she preferred. Sexy forms she couldn’t more easily associate her monstrosity with. She formed into the 9-foot murder weapon that was the Verdugo, and clicked angrily as her solid red eyes locked with Dox’s. “You asked for this.” Ava warned before shrieking and leaping at Dox with impossible speed.

Dox-Ava grabbed the charging form of Ava and hurled her over his head and into the water behind him. “You were saying?”

“...Fuck me?” Ava asked in confusion, and Dox-Ava blinked, before shifting from foot to foot.

“Uh...why am I getting horny?” Dox-Ava asked in confusion. He was male, and she was female right now, but Verdugo didn’t have sexual dimorphism, none he could tell.

“No clue! I’ve never actually been around other Plaga until now! But I want to fight! And fuck!” Ava shouted before she jumped to her feet, and charged at Dox-Ava again. “Fight me! I want to FEEL it!”

“FUCK OFF!” Dox-Ava roared, slashing into Ava with his claws, only to get his claws caught in Ava’s chest. “LET GO!”

“Ah~! Holy fuck! Why does that feel good?!” Ava demanded as she hugged Dox-Ava to her, and purred as he tried to yank his claws back out, getting purple blood and grunts of pleasure out of the black plated beast. “This is supposed to hurt, but oh~ it feels good when you do it!” She bit into his neck, puncturing, and Dox-Ava’s tail curled up as he groaned in unexpected pleasure.

“Holy shit! Plaga have fucked up nerves if other Plaga hurting them feels this good! Get off!” Dox-Ava managed to shove Ava off of him, yanking his claws free, and none of their wounds were healing, both panting as they were incredibly turned on. “Agh, it doesn’t hurt, it just keeps feeling good, like I’m still being stimulated instead of hurt.” Dox-Ava shuddered and backed away from the prowling and excited female. “Hell no, you’d win in this form, not letting you get another one over me so easily.”

“GIVE ME EGGS YOU PRUDISH PRICK!” Ava demanded as she tried to pounce again, but Dox-Ava leaped up and kicked Ava back.

“Why are you so fucking weird?!” Dox-Ava yelled at Ava as he landed and took a few steps back.

“I don’t know! Ask the fucking Merchant who Displaced me as this thing! Now either fuck me or be eviscerated!” Ava screamed as she charged again, coming in low on all fours this time, ready to leap up if he tried that again, which he did. She jumped and tackled him, shoving her mandibles into his, locking the mobile mouth-parts together as they tumbled into the water, being a shallow enough part near the rim that they didn’t go under, and she writhed against him, Dox-Ava groaning as he clutched her back, tails twisting together, but his eyes snapped open and he shoved her off, panting.

“THE FUCK?!” Dox-Ava screamed. “Stay the fuck back. I’m not going to fuck you, and I’m not going to get eviscerated here. Just fuck off!”

“I wouldn’t have to fuck off if you’d just fuck ME!” Ava roared as she charged, but Dox-Ava tried something his instincts told him was possible, and suddenly grabbed his chest, before ripping himself open, exposing a sort of rainbow vortex that sucked the shocked Ava into it, and he closed his chest, panting, before groaning, laughing, and then his chest opened back up, jettisoning Ava across the massive chamber, and his rainbow eyes turned red as his chest closed back together seamlessly.

“Oh! That’s fucking genius! I have the same ability as that faker Seth from Street Fighter! Now I know how to do everything you do! And how to BE you!” Dox-Ava crowed before his chitin turned the same exact black as Ava’s, and Ava felt an instinctive terror from all the way across the room, shivering as she backed away, her lust gone as her instincts screamed to run. “I’m a Doppelganger...I can become you, take you entirely! I AM YOU NOW!”

“Stay away!” Ava screamed, backing as far as possible, up against the wall, the soldiers all giving space as she quickly turned back into her giantess dragoness form, breathing fire as a warning. “Stay away from me!” She wailed as she kept up the stream of fire in a wall.

“I know I can do better…” Dox-Ava said as he walked calmly through the flames and shifted fluidly into Ava’s giant dragon form, his muscular masculinity a perfect contrast to Ava’s femininity. “I’ve always known I can do better. My magic’s better, my knowledge is better, my skill is better. Just accept it, Ava. I’m going to end you, and then I’m going to replace you.” Ava whimpered in fear as he pressed his cream-scaled pecks into her mountainous creamy breasts as his beefy arms hugged her to him, his chest rumbled with his purring as he neared her terrified face and cooed into her face. “I’ll just be taking all of you.”

He kissed her, and she was paralyzed, she couldn’t move, she screamed in agony and terror in her mind as she felt her souls, all of them being sucked through her lips into his. She tried to weakly shove him away, but her struggles were lessening, and she was almost gone when Luna and Bluebelle blindsided Dox-Ava from both sides of his head, stabbing giant swords through into his brain, getting him to roar in pain and fail to finish the transfer, and Ava gasped as her energy returned to her, and she shoved him away desperately, causing him to crash all 100 feet away on the opposite wall, getting the guards to start evacuating.

Ava shivered and hugged herself as she sank to her knees. “No, no. I’m fine. Cres, Sharp, you there? Please say yes. Please….” She wept, tears dumping into the water as she shivered and tried to hide in her wings.

“How dare thou! You tried to kill her! Where is the man we fell in love with?!”

“I… I-I...” Dox-Ava choked out after pulling the swords out of his head. He seemed to be faltering, unable to process what he was doing now.

[Dox PoV]

Dox…. Look at yourself.

‘DM?’ I questioned in my mind. What…. What had just been happening? It was all just a blur. A haze of rainbow colors… What did I just do?

I said: TAKE A LOOK AT YOURSELF! Do you not see what you’ve become?!

‘What are you talking abou-’ I thought, only to look down and see the first thing that surprised me. I was MUCH larger, several hundred times larger than I had originally been. The next thing that surprised me was that I seemed to be a suspiciously familiar dragon… No way, I had become Avarice’s dragon form!

No. You became Avarice, period. Now look in front of you. Look at what you’ve done to your so called ‘friend’.

I looked up from myself…. Only to see something that shall scar me even past the grave. In front of me, curled up on… well, it was currently herself, was Avarice. She was sobbing on the floor and seemed frightened for her life, as if she had just seen someone who was trying to-

Replace her? Yes. Good job, Dox. You’ve just scarred your friend for life. In your little tantrum, you attempted to replace her. In the process, you even used forbidden dark magic to try and steal everything from her. Her body, her mind, her souls. An atrocity only committed by the Doppelgangers such as the former god: The Traveller. When Solaris had become my champion, his first action was to hunt him down and kill him, then find any Doppelgangers and Changelings in Equestria that refused to turn away from his ideals. He slaughtered thousands before the lands of Man caught wind of my orders and misguidedly slaughtered all they could find, even innocents, causing the exodus from the Material Plane by the survivors, and the banishment of Man from the Material Plane to other realms. I do not believe you understand the gravity of what you’ve just done. I cannot let you remain my champion if this is what you are going to do.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked the DM through my thoughts.

Until things are fixed, and you’ve made amends and you have proven yourself worthy again….

No.

I cannot let you be my champion…..

No….

Even if you have achieved a new godship, that is as far as you shall go.

No… Wait, what?!

Have fun being the with the disgraced title of the Lord of all Changelings and Doppelgangers, NEWTraveller. I will not be talking to you any time soon.

What?! NO! NO-NO-NO! ‘DAD~!’

You are noson of mine.

I could feel a portion of my soul being ripped from me and myself become weaker as I shrieked out in a pain-filled draconic knell and fell to my knees, then toppled onto my side. I could feel the wounds that had been healing suddenly stop and reopen, and begin knitting together in a completely new, different, more physical than magical way, but that’s not what scared me. No…What scared me was….

My blood had changed from being a rainbow… to a pale silver, like mercury. It was hot, like lava, and hardened on contact with water into a metallic form, also similar to mercury. But this was my blood...the Blood of a Doppelganger! It’s true! I’ve become a monster! I… I… Please… No….

I was now viciously reminded I wasn’t alone by a body as large as mine snuggling up against me, arms pressing my head into comforting bosom. “Shh, shh. I’m here. I...I can feel it...you just lost something precious, didn’t you?” Ava hoarsely whispered through her sobs as she hugged me, and curled her neck around mine. “You’re not the monster who just tried to kill me. Please, stop. I can feel your pain. Please. Stop.”

“No! Stay away from me!” I screamed, trying to shove Ava away. “No! I don’t deserve this! No!” I tried to shove her away when she took my lips herself, and took some of herself back, along with a small bit of me with it, and I felt her despair, her fear, but she mostly was worried. She left the kiss and sniffled as she pressed into me, nuzzling my cheek.

“We’re both broken...aren’t we Dox?” She asked with a cracking voice, clutching onto me for dear life.

“I… I…” I choked out, trying to say something, ANYTHING that could get this all to stop, for all of this to go back to the way it was… But I had nothing.

“We shall leave thee alone for now.” Luna said, drawing my aways away from my thousand-yard stare and she was actually standing on my snout, looking into my eye. “Thou need to reconcile with thine friend, and whatever that may entail, we allow it.” Luna leaned down and kissed my cheek, before she took off, and I felt Bluebelle hugging my snout, and had to look down it to see her looking at me sadly.

“I’m so sorry. This was all to try and help me. You two kiss and make up. I’ll be meditating with Auntie elsewhere.” She kissed my snout, and quickly trotted away, I was too tired to protest as the shivering dragoness hugging me wormed her tail around mind, to assure me she wasn’t leaving.

“I’m sorry...I’m so sorry….” She whimpered into my reptilian ear, Ava’s tears staining my neck. “It’s all my fault….”

“I… It’s mine…” I said. “I got in the way… I just… I just wanted to protect Blue… I never meant… Listen, I can send you back, if you’d like.”

“No. I still haven’t helped you. I’ve caused too much damage to leave right now. And I don’t think I could ever look at you the same if we parted ways like this.” Ava moved back, and looked me in the eyes, a glint of hope in the despairing green reptilian orbs giving me hope too. “There...is a way I could reconcile, settle the debt, and the strife between us, but...I’d have to….” She reached down, and cupped my groin, making my wings pomf out and my face redden as she looked away with her own blush. “I could fulfill my aspect of Fertility as a female for once...that...that would make me feel so much better, make me able to forgive you more easily, and the fact you gave me something so precious, would of course help you too.” She looked me in the eyes, hopeful.

“I… I…I don’t deserve the help…” I said.

“I don’t care. I’m giving it.” She rolled us over, her under me as she left her arms out to the side, submissive. “I’ll give you all of me, if you’ll give me yourself. If you can give yourself too, it isn’t stealing.”

“... It’s only fair.” I said, getting a strange feeling go down my spine as her wings spread out in the water, and her eyes shined red as she cooed.

“Back within settling the Contract’s terms then. Don’t back out again, lover.” Ava pulled me down, taking my lips in a fierce kiss, and I groaned as I grabbed her glorious bosom, while our tails entwined.

I have no idea why I kept refusing until now. Fuck. And all it took was a Contract....

ANOTHER Borderlands Guy? SWEET!

So… All that happened....

It was almost like a dream… or in my case, a horrible, HORRIBLE nightmare that just wouldn’t end. I had been mutated, lost control of myself, almost killed my best friend, then somehow got into a Contract and had sex with said friend. Seriously, what was my life now?

Hell, on top of that, I had somehow become a GOD, and fallen from the grace of the DM and lost my upper edge on most people. I could only wonder what that meant for the people who I had given ‘blood gifts’ to. Oh jeeze! I gave someone a blood gift that’d help keep them alive! I hope they’re okay…

I also had to wonder where Avarice had gone during the night. Oh wait, there’s a note… from Bluebelle.

“Dox,

I have decided that maybe you were right to an extent. That’s not going to stop me from doing what I can to help control myself, however. I’m still making a deal with Avarice. I’m not going as far as I was going to, though. I’m only asking him to make me a shifter, no Plaga. While she can’t guarantee there won’t be Plaga involved, she has guaranteed that I will be come a shifter, and not a mutated clone of herself.

Please, my dear. When you awake and read this, do not be mad at me. It is the only way I can think of. I know it’s the ‘easy way’ as you put it in your rage yesterday, but it’s a way that will work well. I hope you understand. In the meantime, I have decided to go back to Canterlot to tell the others the news of what has happened to you. While me and Luna both feel sorry for your current condition, we are happy that you have achieved godhood. Hopefully you have achieved all that goes with it and we won’t be made unhappy one very sad day in the future.

Loving as always,

Bluebelle

P.S.- After going through with the transformation and teaching me what I needed to know, Avarice left quietly. She said something about eggs, but I couldn’t make it out, nor had the time to ask her what she was talking about as she left right afterwards, but not before doing something to your clothes. You may want to ask her about the eggs thing and whatever she did to your clothes the next time you see her, or him, depending on whatever form they take.

‘So, she still went through with it.’ I thought as I put on my clothes. ‘Avarice turned Blue into a shifter and left. Well, at least she didn’t add the whole copy/paste DNA thing. Honestly, that was all I was opposed to. I didn’t want Blue to become a Verdugo/Mass Shifter/Fertility Goddess. No telling what would have happened to her psyche, considering what happened to mine. Then again, I did kinda screw up and caused it all myself…. Damn it, now I’m getting depressed. I need something to distract me…’

“Dox!” Came the call of Luna. “Dox, down here!”

“Luna!” I said back. “How nice to see you!”

“Hey! Tone it down, will you?” Luna yelled back, covering her ears. “You’re still really huge. There’s no need for yelling with your size.”

“Oh, sorry.” I said before shifting down to a more manageable size by turning into a copy of Luna. Man… Still not having fun with being copies of others…Also afraid of what my base form is… But hey! My clothes shifted with me! I’m a perfect clone of Luna, all the way down to her regalia and clothes! ”Better?”

“Much.” Luna said. “Albeit somewhat disturbing, but this is what you are now. Anyways, I have something for you. It’s been making noises recently.” Luna held up a small rectangular device, one that I instantly recognized as my Dice Roller Core.

“Wait, noises?” I said surprisingly, snatching the device out of Luna’s hands. “What kind of noises?”

“Talking of some kind.” Luna said. “I could not make it out, but it was definitely talking.”

“Really? Maybe it’s the DM saying I did good!” I almost squealed. I had been without a connection to him for not even a full day, and here I was, wanting my status and power back. “Please be the DM. Please be the DM.” I chanted as I tapped the screen of the Dice Roller Core. What I was greeted with was not the DM’s voice. No, I was confronted with a stranger’s voice saying:

"If you are truly the Dungeon Master, then help me prove my worth by combat."

“Great. A Displaced calling me.” I said. “Well, not what I was hoping for, but still. Yo, whoever you are! If you’re trying to summon me, you’re gonna need to roll the die. Doesn’t work if you don’t for some reason.” I turned back to Luna. “I’m sorry, my dear. I have to take this. I’ll be back shortly…. In fact, let me try something.” I opened my magic satchel, something I was glad that still functioned properly despite my form shifting, and pulled out my D&D tome. I opened the large book, only to be met with a faded first page. There was something written in silver right under my name.

Unworthy. Limit Access.

Damn it, DM! I know you’re mad at me, but why must you make it worse for me!

I started sifting through the pages, only to find the more powerful spells had been blacked out, unless I knew them. I knew few, but it was enough. I kept searching through the book to find a certain spell, finally reaching it in the middle of the book. The magic waypoint spell. I read through the description of the spell again. I could leave a point anywhere, depending on what it was. One part of it was incredibly helpful. A waypoint through time. It was a one time use, but hey, worth a shot so I could get back to the time that I left.

I cast the spell right at the exact time a portal opened in front of me. Perfect timing. Now, let’s see what this Displaced wants.

[Krieg PoV]

Meanwhile:

I was lazing around in my cave, sleeping on my bag filled with hay. This was interrupted when an offending object dropped on my head suddenly, waking me up from my dreams of death and slaughter. I started to scream as the object fell down my mask and into my eye, causing me to bolt up in pain. As I shook my head to dislodge the object, it fell into my lap. When I had picked it up to see it more clearly, I heard a voice ring out from the object that I could identify as a D6:

This is for anyone who needs help or just wants a friend. Summon the Dungeon Master of Equestria if you’re ever in need.

A DM, if I could fight him, it might be a good stepping stone to killing Celestia and Luna. I spoke into the die hoping that the one who made it would hear me

“If you are truly the Dungeon Master, then help me prove my worth by combat."

“Yo, whoever you are! If you’re trying to summon me, you’re gonna need to roll the die. Doesn’t work if you don’t for some reason.”

[3rd PoV]

A shadowy purple portal opened in front of Krieg, and out stepped what appeared to be a silver anthro version of Princess Luna, regalia and all. The alicorn stared at the psycho for a few seconds before speaking.

“And what do you want?” Questioned the mare. “You summoned me, now please tell me what you wanted.”

“I am looking for a fight to prove my worth as a warrior,” Krieg said to the human like pony.

“Goodie.” Said the anthro Princess of the Night. “Bet you weren’t expecting this, though.” ‘Luna’ gestured to her well endowed self.

“I had figured that I would be fighting a human, not some mare who looks like one.” Krieg said to the ‘Princess’.

“Oh, so I’m disappointing you?” ‘Luna’ said. “Well, might as well change that. Let’s just see if I can.” The ‘Luna’ started shifting and shrinking into a 6’ 6” blob before turning into a white human male wearing a black hoodie, black jeans, and strange ass black leather shoes. “Better? Or would you rather me turn into a girl?”

“I was expecting something more human than a pony, even if it stood on two legs, so yes it is.” Krieg said to the unknown being before him.

“Great. And how would you feel if I did this?” The human said before turning into a humanoid blob and shrinking slightly. The blob then turned into a perfect copy of Krieg, clothes and all. Even his buzz axe had been copied in the shift.

Krieg had almost instantly pulled out his HellFire and tried to harm the thing in front of him, only for it to knock it away with its buzz axe.

“Hey now, no one said go yet.” The ‘Krieg’ said in the original Krieg’s voice. “Did you really expect to hit me with a cheap shot?”

“GO!” Krieg screamed as he rushed the copy, buzz axe spinning.

The copy blocked it with it’s own buzz axe and then punched Krieg in the face. “Nice try, but I’m not any ordinary opponent. You have to think of something more creative than that to beat me.”

As Krieg was falling back from the punch he, moved his head up and shot out a cone of flames at the shape changer.

“Heh heh heh.” Came the laughter from the copy. “Do you really think fire can harm me right now? If you haven’t noticed, I’m you right now. HA HA HA HA HA!” The copy rushed Krieg before picking him up and slamming him into the wall of cave they were in. “You don’t know how screwed you are.” As if just to mock Krieg, the copy lifted its mask and spit its own fire directly in his face.

As Krieg was flaming he took out his shotgun and unloaded it into the copycats chest, knocking him off balance and back five feet. Krieg switched to the Shredifier, launching a wall of bullets at the other him. A few shots missed him, kicking up dust and debris everywhere. He eventually went through the clip he was on and stopped to reload.

That was when he heard the laughter. The laughter of the crazed copy.

“You… You really think that’ll do something?” Came the voice of the copy between laughs. “Let me tell you a secret, bandit. I work for Hyperion. And I have a shield.”

“Who you work for matters not on the field, only weapons and tech” Krieg told the counterpart

“The tech sure does.” Said the copy as the dust settled, only to reveal that he was unharmed. “Too bad you drained my shield. I rather like avoiding bullet damage. Though, if I must, I must.” The copy seemed to reach his right arm into a different dimension before pulling out what looked like a messed up as hell Infinity. He fired it once and the bullet exploded on impact with the wall of the cave. Right afterwards, the gun started glowing yellow. “Heh, you’re screwed. I’d run if I were you.”

“Box cover, box cover! I'm the one who eats the stardom! I'm the hero of all the villains! You can't swallow my morality like a lollipop pill! I'll run around your mind and set the world record with my meat sleeves!” Krieg screamed as he threw his axe at the shifter in an attempt disarm him, the explosive payload on it ready to blow. The first few missed, but one eventually made its mark, embedding into the copy’s arm and exploding, obliterating its arm and sending the glitched Infinity flying.

“Damn it!” Cried the copy. “I like that gun! And that was my shooting arm! You’re gonna pay for that.” The copy turned into the featureless humanoid blob again before growing in size, stopping when it became over twice its original size at 15’. That’s when the features started showing up. The blob grew insectoid mandibles, and razor sharp claws. A tail sprouted from its back and ended in a bladed tip. Its body grew pale white chitin. Its eyes became like glass ovals that glowed red. “I’m pretty sure you should give up before shit gets worse.” Came the ‘voice of the creature that now stood before Krieg. It seemed to echo from everywhere, but also nowhere, like as if it was in Krieg’s head. “Also pretty sure this is the part where you piss your pants.”

Krieg stood before the beast in front of him, wondering if he should just give up before the might of the beast. After about 3 seconds, he charged at it, waving his axe in the air as he changed into a badass, screaming at the top of his lungs….

Only for him to be backhanded and sent flying into a wall at high velocity. He got stuck in the wall for a few seconds before losing consciousness, only to wake up a second later… in a newly digi-structed body.

“Ugggg” Krieg moaned as he came back to life and walked over to the beast and looked at him.

“Hello sunshine, the Earth says hello!” The beast mocked. “Welcome back to the land of the living, my psychotic friend.”

“I hate respawns.” Krieg muttered to the beast in front of him.

“Well, that’s what you get for fighting someone who’s essentially a raid boss.” The beast said. “And I’d look out for them, by the way. They might be alive on this Equestria. You can never tell, though. Oh, and I’d like it if you would stop thinking of me as ‘a beast’. I have a name, you know.”

“And what is it?” Krieg asked of the beast.

“I am Dox, Dox Ad Finem.” Dox said through his telepathy. “But you may call me master, because I just owned you.” Dox chuckled to himself a little bit. “I’m only joking. Just call me Dox.”

“I am almost sure you picked my name from my mind, but it is Krieg, just incase you hadn't yet figured that out.” The monster of a man said. “But how did you get here is what I want to know most.”

“Oh, simple.” Dox said. “I met the Merchant and bought something like an idiot. As to my currentappearance, let’s just say it was a long story involving breaking deals and mutagen and not go any further than that. I REALLYdon’t want to relive the event. A lot of bad things happened. I went crazy, almost killed my best friend. And it was all my fault.” Dox drifted off for a few seconds before refocusing on Krieg. “But enough about me. What happened to you? What made you join the ranks of the Displaced?”

“Displaced?” Krieg asked.

“Yeah, the Displaced.” Dox said. “We’re the guys that either got sent to Equestria by the power lottery bullshit, or, like most of us, were sent here by the douche only known as The Merchant. So, which is it? You buy something from some creepy guy that looked like he belonged in Resident Evil or just got randomly sent here?”

“I bought the buzz axe that I tried to kill you with, went to take a piss, and then passed out and woke up in rainbow hell.” Krieg said to Dox, explaining how he entered the Displaced.

“Heh, sounds like how most of us got screwed over.” Dox chuckled. “Don’t sweat it, man. It won’t be the last bit of crazy shit you face. Hell, you might just get stuck in stone if you’re not careful.” Krieg glared at Dox. “You…. You didn’t…. OH THAT’S RICH! You did, didn’t you? Good job! I’m betting that othervoice in your head had control at the time?”

“We have co-ownership over the body, he fights and I keep us from killing innocents. Why we were stuck in stone is because we woke up to about 20 ponies practically shoving spears down my throat, so he killed them and I let him for attacking us.” Krieg ranted to Dox.

“Well, sounds like you royally screwed your reputation, then.” Dox said. “Ya know, it’d benefit you more to be on the same side as the ponies instead of against them. I mean, you could be saving them, and they’d gladly help you out in return. Heck, I can even tell you six ponies that could help you save your reputation so much, that if Celestia went against you, there’d be a ton of problems, seeing as the ponies trust them just about as much as her.”

“And who might these six be?” Krieg asked Dox.

“They’re called the elements of harmony. Though, there might be some problems with you finding them.” Dox said. “So, before I tell you their names, how about I ask you this. What state is Discord in?”

“Stoned off his ass.” Krieg joked.

“Is this the first time or the second time?” Dox asked.

“Second,” Krieg said.

“Perfect.” Dox stated. “Well, if you know the ones who stoned him, they’re the ones you want to befriend. Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and the Element of Magic and PERSONALstudent of Princess Celestia, herself, Twilight Sparkle. I suggest you don’t go for her first, though. She’s a scholar and will probably alert Celestia of your presence if you don’t have her friends support first. I’d honestly start with Applejack, the one with the stetson. I’ll warn you, though. You’ll have to do some labor, most likely, if you want to get on her good side. Just try and appeal to her values, and be honest. If it’s a question that could screw you, though, try and dodge it if you must. But if she asks you about your past, the slaughtering and everything, tell her the truth. You didn’t do it, your other voice did. The key is just being honest, though, and I can’t stress it enough, why do you think I’ve been repeating it so much?”

“If she asks why I let the voice do it though and I am honest, I will say that I let it do it because it made us happy to see the ones who attacked us hurt like we were.” Krieg told Dox.

“Now, don’t say that.” Dox warned. “That’ll get you in the same boat as Discord. No. Tell her it was self defence, got it? It’s not a lie, but it’s not the brutal brutal truth. Hell, if you do tell her the brutal truth, tell her the full story. That you weren’t originally like this. I can tell you used to be better than that. Whatever the Merchant does to us Displaced really fucks with us. Speaking of that, you need a token, don’t you?”

“Token?” Krieg asked.

“Wow, you really know NOTHINGabout the Displaced, do you?” Dox asked rhetorically. “Don’t answer that. I already know. Listen, I’ll help you make one real quick, then I want you to send me back. I’m kinda testing something with my returns. All you need to do is take an item, pour yourself into it, I guess, or magic, I can never tell, then say something that tells people who you are. Like me. I’m the Dungeon Master of Equestria….. Or was… But let’s not focus on me. First step time. Pick an item that represents you.”

Krieg grabbed his axe and ripped out the spinning blade of it.

“Good, good.” Dox said. “Now you just need to pour yourself into it, or magic, whatever.”

As Krieg held the axe blade, he felt something pouring out of him and into the blade, making it glow an orange color. He felt compelled to speak words into the blade. “Should you need the blood of those who fight you to dye the ground red, then call upon me, Krieg the Psycho.” Krieg spoke into the blade, giving it a message to those who found it.

“Well, a little creepy and sinister, but who am I to judge.” Dox said with a shrug before taking the blade from Krieg. “Now, lets see if I can still do this.” Dox tossed the blade in front of him, a portal opening up and taking it. Another portal opened up behind Dox, and a copy of the blade came shooting out from it, only to be caught by Dox. “Ha! Still got it. Well, that should be that, I have my copy of your token, and you have mine. Let me tell you to not hesitate to call if you need me. Now, if you could send me back. All you need to say is: Dox, our contract is complete. Then I’ll be on my way.”

“Dox, our contact is complete.” said Krieg as he started to fall to the floor from exhaustion, snoring by the time he hit the ground.

“Ah, so peaceful when they sleep.” Dox said as a portal opened up to carry him back to his own Equestria. “Although, I must say, I like the insane one’s dreams better. Less killing, more hugging the ponies for some reason.” And with that, Dox stepped through the portal and was gone.

[Dox PoV]

Well, that was fun. I got to go meet a Krieg, and hey! The waypoint worked!

“That certainly was-” Luna started, but never finished, instead freezing as she took in my new base form which towered over her. One quick look at the reflective water showed me why. I looked like a fusion of Verdugo and Doppelganger. It was honestly quite frightening to look at.

“Sorry Lulu. Didn’t mean to scare you with this.” I said through my telepathy, seeing as I couldn’t speak normally like this. Glad I figured that out when I was in Krieg’s world…. Luna’s still giving me that look of shock. “Luna, it’s me, Dox. What’s wrong?”

“Is this what would have become of our niece?!” Luna almost shrieked at me.

“In all likelihood, probably.” I said. “Now do you see why I was trying to stop it? I didn’t want her to become…. this. Being a mutant like this is a horrible fate. I’m a monster now, and I don’t deserve even being seen around you.”

“Don’t say that, my love. We all love you no matter what you become.” Luna said, her voice reassuring and calm. “Just so long as you continue to be true and faithful, and don’t stray from your good path, we’ll love you.”

“You have no idea how much that means to me, Lulu.” I said, feeling a tear fall down my cheek. “You really have no idea.” It was true, just to be known that I was loved that much was enough to- WAIT A SECOND. I JUST SAID THAT NORMALLY!

I rushed back over to the water, almost missing the shocked look I was getting from Luna. What I saw in the water was….. Myself. My normal self. It wasn’t the creepy Doppelganger Verdugo fusion. No, I was my pale ass changeling self again! Holy crap! But I thought I was mutated for good! There’s no way I could have-

I was right. One look at my right arm told me I’m correct. It wasn’t the shiny metal I was used to, though the shiny metal of the Changeling Blade was there. No, this was more… biological. I had lost my arm for good, there was no getting it back… But I could feel this. Come to think of it, I could feel it in my fusion form, too. It was like the mutagen had affected my mechanical arm as well, turning it from mechanical into biomechanical…. Turns out I might have some things to chat with Avarice about the next time I see him…. And there I go, I’m back in the fusion form. What’s the key to turning back?

A question for another day. I have a quest to do.

“Luna, you wanted adventure?” I questioned. “Then let’s get to it.”

I've Been Replaced....

“These dwarves, why do they reside in such isolation?” Luna asked as she shivered in her heavy winter gear. She’d bundled up rather heavily in cotton sweats and winter cloak against the gusts of wind, and the biting chill of the snow around us. “One would think they have no way to sustain themselves in such harsh climes.”

“I’m not sure Lulu, all I know is dwarves tend to prefer meat, maybe they raise some sort of livestock that feeds off of cave fungus or something.” I replied, wearing nothing new, turning into a buffalo wasn’t that hard if I drew on...on the power I stole from Avarice. The thick fur made the cold an annoyance more than anything, so yay, big beefy buffalo man blazing the trail for his sexy alicorn future-wife into the snowed-in foothills and low mountains of the southern Frozen North was the sight someone could’ve seen if there was anything out here for someone to even bother being here for.

“It would be unusual then, to meet a society that is primarily carnivorous.” Luna mused as I continued to try and remember what DM said before. He said the place was in the foothills of the north, between the Crystal Empire and Neighagra Falls. That was it. That was a HUGE expanse of distance! This wasn’t some board game I could just take a dice roll on damn it! Hell, thanks to him ‘limiting’ me, I couldn’t even do that! The fucking Dice Roller Core wasn’t working properly for me! All it did, to my knowledge, was allow me to communicate through my token, which was close to nothing. Hell, I tried looking for a locater spell, even. In good news, I found one, bad news, the limit wouldn’t allow me to see anything but the fact that it existed. Not even a single bit of information on how to do it, or how it worked.

“Yeah, it would, but considering one of the guys from up here worships you like you’re the highest of gods, well, we won’t have to worry about them seeing you as food Lu.” Luna perked up at me mentioning she might have more worshipers, and my mind drifted off into a small fantasy of how her body might react, if it does again. I mean, Tia’s been her size almost her whole life, and Luna only finally caught up as ponies looked to her for guidance instead, and that was also only after the Low Elves prostrated in worship before her.

But...what if a whole clan of dwarves do? Would she…. My mind thought back to me as a giant, Ava the giantess...Lulu the giantess? I must’ve been drooling because my lips had some ice on them, and I scratched it off as I turned my focus back to the task at hand. Damn. Being a Doppelganger was much harsher on the mind than being a changeling. Especially since I often took Luna’s form lately and the more I did, the more I...became her. Is it self-cest then?

“Dox! I believe I see something in the snow!” Luna said.

Sure enough, I could see a mountain up ahead, previously hidden by all the snow flurries, and about fifteen feet up the mountain was a giant door covered in ice.

“Wow, nice eyes, Lulu. No wonder DM’s directions were vague, couldn’t miss that and we’re barely a mile off.” I said. “Just wish he wasn’t such a dick about everything. Now let’s get this quest over with so we can get back to Blue, Tia, and everyone else!” I picked up the pace, excited, and after a while we trudged through the snow and up the rocky ledges until we reached the door. “Whew, made it. If only we could’ve flown, but the damn weather….”

“Now why’d y’all climb up the cliff?” I looked up as Luna stubbornly climbed herself up the cliff behind me to see a dwarf of average short stature in a full suit of armor that seemed heated, considering every bit of snow and ice around him was slush, and his armor glowed a little yellow. “Why didn’ ye jus’ follow the trail?” He pointed to his left, and I turned to see a very obvious path cut down the mountain, and I sighed as I bowed my head in annoyance.

“And just who the hell are you?” I said, ticked at the dwarf’s attitude. “Listen, I’m here to deliver a message from Aule. It’s time to-”

“Unite the clans? We know, lad.” He cheekily replied, not seeming to actually care. “The ol’ god doesn’t know yet, but we’ve long stopped the old traditions. Been centuries since we even opened the Hall of the Honored to add a statue. Might be better if’n you see. Go on in. We never get visitors these days. I’m sure everyone’ll be tickled pink to have someone to host.” The nameless guard answered uncaringly, and knocked on the icy door, suddenly melting the ice seal off of it. “Well? In ya go then. Out of this cold and into the warmth of Bergmire. Mind the spiders; they don’t take kindly to strangers.” He seemed to stare at me for a bit longer. “And I’d be careful, lad. They probably won’t take as kindly to the Traveller being among them. They still know of the crusade against the last one.”

What?! How did he know?! Was I just that obvious?!

“It’s in yer aura lad. You cannae mask it? Hmph. Recently ascended fer sure. Jus’ stay a safe distance from the bigger spiders and they won’t try to eat ya. Their handlers can keep em calm well enough, but no promises, some are millennia old. Now truly; git in. They’ll start hollerin’ me ears off if I keep the door unsealed too long.”

“We’ll go right in, right Dox?” Luna said, snapping me out of my whole search for information in my currently messed up mind. Hell, I think I found a cloned soul developing in there during that search. “I said, right Dox?”

“Yeah, yeah. Right.” I said, following closely behind Luna as she pulled me in. The great stone and metal doors loudly closed back up, and a seal of ice formed over it from this side too. “Sorry Lulu, my head’s everywhere.”

“Dox, look at me.” I did, and suddenly I felt lighter, the fur gone, and my silver breasts pressing into hers. “Don’t think too hard, just think of me.”

“Yes Luna…” I leaned in and kissed her, and she huffed as she pushed me away gently. “Luna?”

“And don’t get so lost in me either. I know I’m irresistible, but have some restraint.” She teased, and I blushed, realizing I totally lost myself again. Been happening a lot lately. “I’m here for you Dox, but try to remember you’re you: nobody else.”

“But I’m you right...now….” I just did it again, forgot I’m not Luna. “Sorry….”

“It’s okay, just remember who you are and you can pretend to be me all you want. I find it endearing.” She grinned, and I mirrored her, until someone clearing their voice caused us to turn, still pressing a mirroring silver breast into each other without care or really acknowledging it to see a dwarf woman dressed in voluminous robes patiently waiting.

“Uh, hi.” I said to the dwarf. “Is there something you wanted?” Kinda rude, but I was having a moment with my other half, uh...wait, how many halves can I have? I mean, now that I can do all that I do? Ugh, no, don’t think, focus. Especially on that developing soul.

“I see the guard let you in. It is good to see two Goddesses coming so far out of the way to be here. Especially the endeared Goddess Selune.” She bowed, and Luna and I suddenly shot up an inch. Uh...welp. Guess Luna will be a full-power goddess after this. Gonna have to renovate a whole new castle just for her…. “Follow. I shall take you to Jarl Balgruuf. He would wish to meet you both.”

We looked at each other, and both followed after our diminutive red-haired guide. Luna was rather flustered, and by extension me as we passed through the streets of a giant hollowed-out mountain carved into a city. Since every other dwarf had to pause and gawk, or even bow, and each time we felt ourselves getting a little taller, a little bigger. I really hoped they had doors tall enough...this must be why Tia kept herself shut in her castle almost all the time when she wasn’t making public announcements or social events. Had she kept growing she would’ve never been able to go among the public. Worship-based gods have it rough….

“Dox...I do not think me coming along was wise….” Luna groused as she loosened her top and coat. “Being openingly and publically acknowledged as a goddess is causing too much power to center in me. At least most of the ponies we govern see us as benevolent leaders at best, but these people all see me for who and what I am and it’s-.” Her top button popped and I was just glad my outfit changed with me as our busts surged forward a bit. “I’ll have to commit sacrilege on some of my idols to shrink down after this….”

“D-don’t be ridiculous….” ‘Grow, grow baby. Oh yes….’ Where the fuck did that come from? ‘Hi.’ THE FUCK?! There’s someone else in here with me, and I do NOT like it! Wait a second, are you that underdeveloped soul? ‘I am ALL the yes for ALL the sexiness!’ Oh shit. Either this soul is going through some form of puberty, or that soul is a copy of Avarice. ‘Which one less stupid and more sexy?’ Yep, Avarice… Immature Avarice at that. ‘Put an arm around her!’ Suddenly my arm moved to pull Luna into me a bit, pressing the sides of our boobs together as I leaned my mouth up to her ear. “Don’t. You’re just getting sexier by the second.” I huskily whispered before I nibbled her ear, and she blushed as she shuddered and leaned into me.

Wait, I didn’t do that! ‘Ignorant foal! You just don’t know how to please a mare!’ Shut the fuck up! Now’s not the time to be sexy! Now’s the time to be actually NORMAL. That concept foreign to you or something? ‘If you’re not sexy all the time, you’re NOT normal!’ Knew it, you know nothing about blending in like a normal person.

“Oh~ Dox, n-not here….” Luna whispered as she didn’t really try to resist, why was I sucking her ear as we walked?! Everyone’s looking...I’m getting excited! New soul!

‘Look at the meek little foal. Such a virgin to the carnal desires of greater beings. You shouldn’t care what mortals think.’ Oh shit, it’s specifically got to be the Fertility part of Avarice’s soul I copied. ‘She wants you. You’re her in every way. You just have to use that to make her go over the edge~.’ Please. PLEASE fuck off. ‘As you wish~.’

“Luna, how about we request a room?” I asked with Luna’s voice on my lips, and she was practically panting, her face red and her heart pounding so hard I could feel it through our clothes.

“Buck yes.” Score! Wait, what? I don’t NEED to score! She’s already betrothed to me! NEW SOUL, STOP IT! ‘Not until you learn, young one.’ I know about sex. I know about how to seduce a mare. Now stop controlling me before I expel you. ‘You’re so naive, you think you know how to seduce? You got by with luck and natural charm, as well as your natural allure. I won’t stop until you can make anyone putty in your hands. Practicing with a loved one is just the easiest part. Watch.’

“Luna, have I ever told you how you look like the night sky given form? An impossible beauty, somehow captured in living motion.” Whoa...that was a thought I had earlier-

“Oh! Dox, that’s such a romantic thing to say….” Luna bashfully smiled as she giggled, holy hell that was adorable!

‘See? You THOUGHT it, but you didn’t TELL her. You’re as bumbling as a drunken child. Let me show you the ropes.’ No! Stop it! I don’t care how much we want to bang Luna right now, I just want control of my body back, and I want it back NOW! Now GET. OUT! “Luna, what made you love me?” No! No! Stop it you douche!

“What’s not to love? I mean, you’re so cute, how you try so hard to please me and others. You’re kind, and if a bit clumsy and unfortunate; you just make me feel so happy. Why did you only ask now? I had thought it obvious.” Apparently not, I had no idea-stop it! I’ll find out on my own!

‘You’re not proactive enough in your relationships. You’re detached, constantly thinking of other things. Your Wanderlust constantly gets the better of you, and even when forced on a prolonged trip with them all, you still neglected three of them even if they were happy enough.’ Stop it! Just...stop it…. “Well Luna, I just accepted your love. I didn’t need a reason to accept since you were so earnest, so true that wonderful first night on the moon.” I reminisced, oh, that was so wonderful.

“Okay buster, we’re going to the moon in a few moments if you don’t stop making me nostalgic.” She warned playfully, nudging me with a giggle. “But really, let’s save our lovemaking for after we see the state of things here and why they have not answered Aule’s summons.” Thank you for being the voice of reason Luna. I’d be so lost without you.

‘Wouldn’t you ever. See you later.’ Oh no. You’re not just shutting up now. Got it? I don’t care if I wanted you to stop, or if I’m getting control back now. I warned you. I truly did. NOW GET OUT!

The second I gained control, I dropped my disguise. Screw hiding, I needed to be rid of this fucker, even if that means ripping a part of myself out… Which is what I did. I ripped out a chunk of my flesh from my chest and stomach and threw it away from me. It landed a good two meters away, then started taking a shape of its own. It kinda looked like a 5 foot miniature Avarice in Dragon form. “Hey! That was mean!”

“Yeah, and controlling my body was even worse!” I yelled at the tiny Avarice.

“W-wait, so all those sweet things you were saying was him?” Luna asked hurt, and I ended up only looking down a little at the significantly taller mare...oh shit, didn’t notice she’d broke almost 10 feet since we came in here.

“No, it was his voice, but my thoughts.” I said. “I’m sorry Lulu, I’m not the best at being super sweet, but I at least know when the right time to do so is!” I shouted at the pouting micro-dragon, who seemed more childlike by the moment.

“Oh...but it was so nice to suddenly get all warm and fuzzy inside from the sudden compliments….” Luna admitted, and I shifted around nervously before turning back into her so I wasn’t looking down.

“Hey, sweetie, I can be more spontaneous if you want-”

“As if! You’re a child in a man’s world! Get with the program!” The Avarice clone yelled at me.

“Why you little!” I yelled, charging the clone and wrapping my hands around his throat in an attempt to choke him, and he does, but he laughs while it happens.

“Simp-gak-sons!” The Avarice clone choked out.

“Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!” I swear, as I vented my rage out on this perverted little bitch, I could feel myself changing into something more…. sinister than my already horrid base form, but I paid it no mind as I continued out my objective to end the life of this crappy wannabe Avarice.

“You -gak- do know this is -gak- a form of suicide?” The clone asked while choking.

“I don’t care! It’s worth it to get rid of a horrible being like-”

“Dox!” Luna screamed at me. “You’re losing yourself again. Calm down before something happens again! Just look at yourself!”

“What?” I asked, stopping my attack on the clone of my friend. I looked down at myself and was horrified at what I saw. I expected the normal creepiness of my new base form, but instead what I got was something much more evil in nature. I could see several spikes protruding from my arms. My claws had grown to be a foot and a half long and coated in a metal substance, this probably being how the Changeling Blade manifested in this form. I could feel several spines protruding from my back, and upon running my hand across what I could reach on my back, found that they were all razor sharp. I could even feel horns on my head, if you’d believe that. I had become a true monster. A being meant for killing, and only that…. Is this what I truly was?

… No. No, I’m not a monster that kills everything. I’m the Traveler…. No, I’m Dox, just a little different now, a little better.

I could feel myself shrinking down somewhat as I calmed down. When I looked at the finished result, I was glad to see the result. Gone was the monstrous form that I was just in, instead replaced with my original changeling form. Man I was glad to see it again. I guess for now, the key is to just remain calm.

“I’m sorry, Luna.” I said to one of my many significant others. “I started flipping out, and I shouldn’t have. I’m good now.”

“Don’t tell me that, tell the person you just tried to strangle.” Luna said, gesturing to the Avarice clone. “He’s the one you should be apologizing to.”

“Right…” I said, turning to the annoying clone in question. “Listen, I’m sorry, okay? Let’s just make up and get along so this shit doesn’t happen again, alright?”

“Whatever.” The clone said. “I want back in, though.”

“You can have back in, but we’re gonna have some conditions to work out.” I said, pulling out the Changeling Blade in the form of a shortsword and brought it under his chin. Well, that was one good thing of this form. I could still actually control what it manifested into. “I’m gonna make the terms, though. It’s my body, so my rules, capische?”

“C-capische.” The Avarice clone said.

“First off, no taking control of my body unless you either have permission from me or I pass out and we’re in danger.” I said, beginning my list of terms.

“But that was the fun part!” The clone complained. I moved my sword closer to his neck. “That’s fine though. Just don’t get hasty, now. Even I can tell this form has some mortality to it.”

“Alright, good.” I said, moving the sword back a little while keeping it under his chin. “Next term, you can coach me all you want with the whole being sweeter on my lovers thing, but the second you get out of hand or do it when I’m on a serious mission, you’re getting ejected again. Depending on the situation, you may be used as a projectile. Got it?”

“Fine.” The clone said with a humph. “Any more terms?”

“Yeah, one more.” I said, dispelling the Changeling Blade. “You still have free will, just don’t do anything nuts, got it?”

“So, in summary, essentially be like that ghost lady from that sexy sex game?” Clone Avarice summised.

“Wow, uh, yeah.” I said. “But no altering my body all of a sudden either! I don’t want to suddenly have an extra set of limbs or whatever.”

“Tch, you’re no fun.” The clone pouted, before jumping into me. Literally. ‘Try not to make me feel like a babysitter though. Actually put some effort into the love.’ Why you little-! Everyone’s looking at me...oh fuck. I did that in public!

“Dox. Look at me.” I did, suddenly I shot up to her height again, and sighed at seeing the shelf of flesh at the bottom of my periphery that has become quite familiar lately. “I know it’s mean of me, but you’re more stable when you have someone else as your anchor, just don’t forget.”

“Yeah, right.” I said. “Thanks, Lulu. Not just for helping me, but for putting up with me.” She then reached forth and grabbed my shoulders, squeezing our globular chests into pleasurable pancakes as she pulled me closer, making me gasp and shudder as she grinned mischievously.

“Not for me loving you?” Luna teased as she leaned in the distance to plant a kiss on my lips, and some of the dwarves cheered, making me blush bright red through my silver fur.

‘Now THAT is a mare! Reciprocate! I’m not going to do it for you this time!’ Honestly, I’m agreeing with you for once.

I wrapped my arms around Luna, pulling her even closer and kissed her deeply I think I felt a profound tugging of something from her, but then she tugged back. I felt amazing, so warm, so right. I am her, she is me. We are one. “How about we take this somewhere else.” I said in as sultry a voice as I could manage, which in Luna’s voice was incredibly sexy. I then turned away from her to scream at the dwarves for a second. “Where can we find lodging for-”

“At my abode.” My attention was drawn down...down...uh...how? WHY ARE WE?! WHAT?! We’re how freaking huge now?! How much WORSHIP do these dwarves have for Luna?! Is this what Avarice feels? Looking down on everyone who’s at eye-level with his pelvis or lower? “I understand it is hard to hear up there! But My home is the only place large enough for you!”

“And who are you?” I asked the dwarf below, who only came up to my lower thigh. Oh gog. Being so big...I feel so powerful!

“I am Jarl Balgruuf the Greater. You were making such a scene that your guide came and informed me two greater beings were in the market square having an unusual rapport.” He was wearing a mix of fur-coat and spider-chitin, not to mention the jewelry and his crown, making him look like a proper Dwarven King rather than just a Jarl, or a clan chief like Ragnar. “Now I see; that Selune has fallen in love with the Traveler. A new one. Your love is as obvious as your power, the way you shared pieces of your souls as casually as your hearts.”

I could tell in the corner of my eye that Luna had flushed as red as I had to have been. We’d just shared our souls together? That’s...amazing actually. ‘It’s like you’re already married! So romantic!’ “W-well that wasn’t...intentional. Not that I wouldn’t give her my soul if she asked, since we are to be wed.”

“Oh Dox.” Luna said lovingly as she nudged me gently. “I’d do the same.”

“Before you display your love in my streets.” The white-haired Jarl joked making us snap attention back down to our host. “Follow me. I shall lend you my entire guest hall for your purposes. Once you are sated, then you may ask for me at your leisure.” Jarl Balgruuf turned and we both followed, Luna taking my hand in hers, entwining our fingers, and I sighed out my nose as she leaned into me. God I love her.

Being a mare for sex was...extremely interesting. Among things, me figuring out everything was a little awkward, but somehow I got the hang of it pretty quickly, especially with Luna coaching me. She knew all the right positions, and...how to...um...use a horn for more than magic…. Heh, discharged a bit of magic through the whole experience, if you get what I mean. Especially when she...taught me how to...erm...suck, a horn. Being the sucker is actually more amazing than being the suckee if you’d believe me. Having raw magic just tingling into your mouth, numbing your body with such pleasant tingles you could fall asleep.

And oh gog, I had no fucking clue how flexible Luna was, or I was for that matter since I am her, and she is me. The best moment in my opinion, was when our flowers were kissing, and I kissed her deeply in an embrace, I felt complete. Why was I so scared of being a female ‘til now? This was amazing! Among things, I have legs for days! So silky and smooth~ with my shining, glistening silver fur. My thighs are thick with muscle, but just enough fat to be squeezable, my hooves, so strong, yet so perfectly pedicured. I love you Luna. I love how you’ve made me feel. About you. About myself.

“Dox.”

“Mm….”

“Dox, we need to get up.”

“No...I don’t want it to end….”

“I’m afraid we must love.” I sighed sadly, unwrapping my arms from around my beloved, removing my breasts from her back in our spooning. “Dox. You remember you’re you right?”

“But I’m you too...yes, I am me. Dox Ad Finem.” I said, and she seemed to relax a bit. “Why?”

“You called yourself Luna while we were in coitus.” Oh...that’s...that is bad…. “Please don’t forget love. I don’t want to lose you.”

“I...I’ll try.” I promised with my ears angled back in worry, because even if I don’t want to, I know I’ll lose myself again...what sort of curse do Doppelgangers suffer? ‘I’m here too pal, just know I remember. One of Avarice’s curses is he’s unable to forget anything.’ Right, Recall. Hey, if you figure out how it works, tell me immediately. That skill’s super useful, and I’d like to-. ‘No. No you don’t….’ Hey I...where….

….

I guess it’s a touchy subject…. I guess though, if you’re listening, is it okay if I call you Recall? Since you’ll remember when I can’t? ‘.... Sure.’ Thank you.

“Dox, you’re doing it again.” Luna admonished, and I blinked myself out of my thousand-yard stare.

“Sorry, talking to Recall. He says he’ll remember, so if I forget, he’ll remind me.” I told Luna. ‘Recall? Seriously? I was agreeing to remember for you.’ Hey, one of the new terms. Plus, at least you get a name other than Little Avarice. Okay? ‘Yeah, that’s fine. But I won’t ever teach you the power itself. It’s just...some things, are best left forgotten.’ But- ‘Just trust me on this.’ Well, okay then. Oh, Luna’s looking at me in concern again. “So Love, is there anything I can do to reassure you?” I asked Luna, presenting my breasts by thrusting my chest out a bit, and she giggled.

“We’ve done more than enough of that as it stands Dox. We need to ask-.”

“My Goddess!” A familiar dwarf in familiar blue robes rushed into the chamber, practically skidding on the tile as he dove into a prostrating kneel, stopping just short of the enormous lavish bed, which was just big enough for me and Luna at our gratuitous heights of 14 feet. “I came as soon as I heard you’d arrived! I’d been in my arithmancy lab the past several hours and nobody informed me Selune had come! Forgive me!” He got on all fours and smacked his forehead into the floor. HIs extreme devotion making both me and Luna jump a whole foot in height. Shit.

‘Buddy, he’s trying to steal your woman.’ … ‘You know what to do.’ On it.

I concentrated my hardest, trying to summon SOMETHING to hit him with. Somehow, I ended up summoning the Changeling Blade. It came out as a massive paddle at first, but I didn’t think that was humiliating enough, nor bad enough. No, I made it manifest into a certain weapon from the Saint’s Row series, and a giant silver rubbery dildobat was my reward of my desire to humiliate him...damn I’d love to use it later, but humiliation now! “PERV!” I screamed for both irony and to justify this; since he DID just barge in on me and my beloved, naked, in bed, in a private chamber!

“Hm?” Before he could look up to ask, the glans of the enormous dildo, and I do mean ENORMOUS since it’s scaled for my size, struck him across the head and sent him skittering across the tile floor, where Luna had teleported, and angrily added insult to injury by pressing her hoof down on him as he looked up at his imperious goddess in all her glory pressing him underhoof as she leaned down so her gigantic breasts didn’t block her vision. So hawt Lulu~! Show him what-for!

Edwercht, the dwarf who’d helped me survive the Black Forest and the Panther Crows, cowered under the furious glare of my love. “How dare thee intrude upon our chambers! And whilst we were still nude and in the company of our lover!”

“I am unworthy! I apologize my precious and fair Selune! I overstepped my bounds and I deserve any punishment given!”

“I say we castrate him.” I told Luna through my telepathy. She just glared at me with a “Are you joking?” kind of look. “What?! He stepped in on us and there’s a new voice in my head that keeps telling me he deserves the worst for it. I mean, seriously, he wants a woman, he can find his own. Leave me with my beauteous goddess of the night who shimmers like the stars in the sky.”

“No.” Luna firmly stated, rolling her hoof on the grunting-in-pain dwarf. “We may strike him blind for several hours for daring to look upon us in our beauty as we were in the company of our love.” Luna’s eyes shined white and her horn shimmered, and Ed’s eyes shimmered too, but Luna balked as she ended her spell. “What? Why didn’t my Blind spell work?”

I lovingly patted my giant dick-bat as I sauntered over with an evil grin. “Can I beat him senseless with my toy here?” I asked, and Luna looked at it for the first time and blushed, before she leaned closer to me and whispered.

“Where was THAT earlier?” She asked, and I blinked before blushing brightly. Oh~ I want to give this thing a try now.

“I-I don’t know, it just popped up when I wanted something humiliating to hit him with.” I whispered back. “Works pretty well that way, eh? Maybe we’ll use it later for some more fun reasons.” I offered, nearing the glans to her groin, and she grinned as she moved her pelvis a bit closer.

“Why not now?” Oh~ yeah, round sixteen! Oh, right, multiple orgasms. Women have those! Fucking awesome!

“B-but I am still here my Goddesses!” Edwercht declared. Oh yeah, he was still in the room.

“Maybe we should humiliate him further.” I said, looking at Luna, then subtly motioning from the bat to him. “What do you think, Lulu? What do you say we make this guy a bitch?”

“Hm...we don’t know. T’would be interesting. But, no. Too small.” She emphasized small, and I grinned, making Edwercht blush and look aside in shame. “So little dwarf. For what reason were you so bold as to intrude upon us? Tell us, and mayhaps we will let you go.” Luna teased, running her hoof a bit lower on his frame, pressing into his groin, making him hiss in pain, and us grin in our superiority.

“I was shamed by my lack of courtesy and not showing up as soon as you’d arrived as a true devotee would. I fear my eagerness to try and please you with my worship has instead left you wrathful with my lack of tact.” Ugh, he’s such an ass-kisser. Then again, our asses are glorious. ‘That’s the spirit! Flaunt it!’ Shut up, but yes, I will.

“No, just with your over eagerness to say hello.” Luna answered, and snorted out her nose, gosh that was cute. “We shall let you go, but only if you explain why my spell had no effect on your senses.”

“Hey! Not so hasty!” I said telepathically. “I reallywant to torture him. Please. I don’t care what his response is, I just really, really, REALLYhate kiss-asses.”

“How?” Luna asked, not open to the idea really, but then I leaned in and whispered something, and Luna perked. “Oh...that...would be interesting….” Luna looked back down at the worried dwarf, and proceeded to lightly rub her hoof into his lower body, making him blush. “Let’s make him squirm.”

Woo! Damn that was stupidly fun! Toying with someone a fraction your size is ridiculously entertaining! But, some of the play did get a bit rough, and he got a nosebleed when I went a bit too far and squeezed his head in my boobs. It was rainbow...I know now.

I’ve…. I’ve been replaced…

It hurt, so much, knowing my dad replaced me with a...a fucking, tiny, defenseless little dwarf! How DARE he?! How dare he replace ME with that, that...little….

The sad thing is. I know he’s the right choice. Especially when he somehow avoided me CRUSHING him when I realized it, and played it off like he just got lucky to avoid me stomping on him, and I played it off as an accident against my will. The fucker got a roll...I...I can’t do that anymore….

Why?! Why did THIS guy have to be my replacement?! I mean, seriously! And why did the DM keep trying to restrict and screw me at every turn?! That Saving Throw was against a FUCKING GODDESS! That’s almost impossible with the conditions it was in! I didn’t try again, knowing father dearest might just make a counter-roll and somehow make things even WORSE for me.

“So, when did it happen?” I asked, looking down at the dwarf I now hated. “Tell me before I start committing murder in the first degree.” I was seated on the edge of the bed, Luna rubbing my shoulders consolingly to calm me, but I spitefully left my legs wide open. Look at it you fucker. I won’t let you have any sense of security right now. But damn it, he looks up, past everything into my eyes. I hate him. So damn much. I can’t even use my body to throw him off. ‘Can’t win them all, especially cheaters.’ Good point Recall. Oh shit, call him a cheat, heh, irony.

“It happened barely a day ago. Suddenly; the Master of Dungeons, the Lord of Adventure, the Dungeon Master proclaimed me his champion from nowhere.” Edwercht explained. “I tried asking him about his previous champion, the noble warrior known as Dox, but he said to forget about him. He said that he was gone and would not speak further about it.” Oh great, he’s not just a kiss-ass to ‘his goddess’ but also to me. Oddly arousing, if annoying. And what’s this about the DM saying to forget about me, that ‘I’m gone’?!

“Well news-flash bud: I’m still here! I may have been thrown from his graces, but I’m still alive! You can hear me you fucking bastard! I know you’re listening! You always are! I’m still here!” I roared at the stoic dwarf, who stonily remained passive. “What did he say! Tell me or I’ll rip out your soul!”

“Dox, no!” Luna slapped my back, and I panted as I rubbed my temples.

“He refuses to allow me to convey. But you have my condolences Goddess Dox Ad Finem, for your bastardization.” Ed bowed earnestly, and I felt tears prick at my eyes. Bastard. I’m...a bastard…forsaken by my father….

“FUCK YOU, YOU CLICHE CLOAK WEARING DICK!” I yelled at nobody in particular, aiming my insult at the DM. “I WILL FIND YOU! I WILL TRAVERSE THIS MULTIVERSE UNTIL I WALK UP TO YOU AND RIP YOUR DICK OFF! YOU HEAR ME?! I AM NO ONE’S BASTARD!” I choked as I suddenly felt a lancing pain in my skull, and I hissed as I felt tears pour forth. “Damn it...just...I hate you...so much...nothing you do to me will make me change my mind.” ‘Fucker! Tried to rip me out! Well, I’m the clone of a god soul, so fuck him!’ Thank goodness for that. Fucking Pure Neutral my ass.

“Dox, stop. Please, don’t antagonize him. When you were his champion he could yank us into his realm at will. I don’t want to risk losing you.” Luna said as she hugged me under my breasts and put her head next to mine, making me raise and arm to caress her cheek.

“No, Luna. He didn’t yank us into his realm.” I explained. “He pulled us into the void. It’s just like his realm, but others can exist there. The only one that can exist in his realm is him, otherwise the being that foolishly enters his realm becomes a part of him. Fun part is, he can’t do that without risking his precious world.” Would serve him right, too. But I’d lose Lulu, and Tia, Emmy, Sapphire, Athena, and Blue. I’d lose Arbok, too, if she tried to come back. I’d even lose Avarice. Not even he could help me there. “But….” A devious, cruel, and evil plan formed in my mind, and I smiled darkly. “If. I were to say...sever him from THIS reality forever….” Ed finally showed an emotion: fear.

“Y-you wouldn’t dare!” Edwercht gasped as he balked at me.

“I would!” I declared. “And I know I can, too. Like I said,I’m the bastard of no one.” ‘Oh~ he mad. He can’t peek in here! Ha! I feel him trying to get in, but nope! Cockblocked!’ Can you control what he sees? ‘Yeah! Making him see a sodomy train right now!’ Good. That’ll help teach him to stay out. “Now then, away from...personal issues.” I stressed as I finally closed my legs, crossing them as I pointed a hoof at him, not seeing him worth raising an arm from the bed or away from Lulu’s cheek. “Why haven’t the clans answered Aule’s summons? He’s furious, and forcing the clan that secured Blackreach to craft statues. By hand.”

“That’s just cruel and unusual!” Ed shouted in shock, only to calm down and clear his throat. “Well. From what I understand, the Goddess Lolth of the-.”

“Whoa-whoa-whoa! Lolth?! What the fuck?! What does the Matron Goddess of the DROW, THE MOTHER OF LUSTS, have to do with this?!” I demanded, quite angrily and worriedly. Because damn it: the Drow?! DROW! Them Chaotic Evil fucks! They’re here? In my world?! I remember those guys from a campaign I played! They’re crafty motherfuckers! And they come in all flavors of class! If they’re here, this world could be screwed!

“Y-yes, as I was saying; the Head Priestess of our Church of Lolth-.”

“WHY THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE A SECT HERE?!” I demanded furiously, my teeth turning to fangs and my eyes slitting without my knowing, and I growled draconically as my wings started losing their feathers to become bat-like. “Where is it! I shall purge it from the face of this world!”

“I will allow no territorial disputes between gods here!” Edwercht surprisingly shouted back, his deep and powerful bass tone echoing through everything, even me and stunning me back into pure-Luna form. Holy hell...it was like Albus Dumbledore just used his voice charm in my face. “Lolth is a cruel witch, I acknowledge that, but she is the sole reason my clan has been able to thrive in this desolate frozen waste! She provided the spiders that feed on mana, and birth livestock for us. She has given us the silk and chitin that makes many of our clothes and armor that protect us from the harshest of weather and the sharpest of swords. But she corrupts us, she twists those who fall into her charm into spider-folk, driders! But that is the extent of it, we have assured she won’t turn us all, and she has failed for centuries. Until we have another way; we will not risk an assault on her church.”

“Then follow me.” I said, shifting back into my new base form. “I am at least nicer than her. I won’t corrupt those who decide to fall for me, or defy me. I’m not that witch. I am the Giver of Gifts, and I shall give one to your people.” Edwercht blubbered, and looked between his naked goddess and the Traveler, before scurrying after the Chaotic Neutral god, and Luna sighed.

“Dox...always one to shake things up.” The Chaotic Good goddess smirked as she chuckled and moved to find her clothes. “Even if it is with that bitch….”

Dox stood before the Church of Lolth. It was rather obvious; being the only pure-black gothic-styled building in the city, towering over all but the Jarl’s castle and coated in silken spider webs. Well, more-so than the rest of the city aside from the stables where they apparently kept them. “Please Traveller, I beseech you! Do not antagonize her!” Edwercht again begged me in futility. Sorry replacer, but I can’t ignore her presence, especially if she’s ordering them to ignore Aule, when he rightfully lays claim to the Dwarven Race, not her!

“Either leave or shut up. Daddy-dearest or no; I will CRUSH you if you utter another word against me. I am the Traveler, I go where I please.” I growled, and began ascending the steps up to the church, which was grand enough in design to allow my 15-foot disturbing form in with ease as I barged in through the doors, interrupting a service as a rather large drider man at the altar wearing black robes and his knotted beard balked at my entry. “Priest! Where is your High-Priestess! I demand an audience!”

He seemed about to deny me, but he stopped, and his eyes widened in a fear deeper than my visage could inspire, and he promptly bowed and gestured his commune to do the same as he backed away through a towering tapestry behind him that must’ve also served as a door for another chamber. I strode idly past the pews, every single person in here was a drider, an “honor” to be gifted to Lolth’s devoted. She must be desperate if she’s trying to convert Dwarves of all folk into them. What about her Drow? Wouldn’t she be happy enough with them?

“Traveler~!” The voice was sickeningly sweet, and filled with a level of longing and desire that I rarely hear. Out of the tapestry came a form that couldn’t POSSIBLY be a mortal! Lolth herself came?! “Oh my! You’ve been through a hard time lately haven’t you? If this is how you see yourself?” The drider woman was as big as me, in height. That meant in total she was much larger considering the giant spider she had for a lower body. Her giant fanged mandibles just below her human torso that served as both a mouth and her privates rubbed together in anticipation, her exposed, admittedly huge pitch-black breasts were only covered by two long silk-like strands of her stark-white hair, and her beautiful face was full of familiarity, and desire as she combed her great mass of long white hair out of her face and around her trio of towering angular horns.

“I’m not here on a whim, Demon Queen of Spiders. Well, not that big of a whim.” I said. “No, this is more of a business trip. I’m here to shoo you out. I don’t appreciate what you’ve done to the dwarves, even if it is a rather chaotic change.” I looked over the driders, they looked nothing like dwarves now, their upper bodies that of humans rather. “A...delicious change. But the dwarves are the children of Aule. Neither of us have the right to steal them ALL from him.”

“Hm? But you just said yourself; all. I’m not trying to steal them all, just make him a bit more...serious, about his children.” Lolth waxed poetically as she sidestepped around me, I turned to keep facing her as her long, sexy, velvety spider legs easily stepped just right without her having to look, over her followers, who all gazed longingly up at her swollen spider abdomen with desire, and she loved it, especially when a few were daring enough to reach up and touch her, making her spinnerets at her rear drool. I’d love it too. “Even if it means I must take custody for a while. He’s been so lazy, stuck in the spiritual plane and not actually trying to come back. Letting a prophecy play out like a fool.

“Prophecy?” I questioned. “Explain what you mean, Lady of Spiders. Explain before I decide to start using force.” I could feel the Changeling Blade start to manifest, but not as my claws this time. No, I could feel it ‘melt’ into my hand, manifesting as some sort of blade that I did not bother to look at. Could it be because I was channeling my actual position as the Traveller instead of as a beast?

“There, there. There’s no need for your strange scimitar here.” Lolth chided. Scimitar? So that’s what the Changeling Blade turned into. “Hm, but it has changed too...you’re new aren’t you?” She cooed, running a hand down her abdomen and caressing one of her mandible’s fangs, before tugging and from it came shadows that formed an elegant armor-piercing dagger. “I’m afraid I’ve kept Spider as she always was. Never needed to change~.” She taunted, still circling in sidestep, and I hissed at her taunting my beloved aspect!

“You’ve heard my stance! Allow the dwarves to reconnect with Aule, or I won’t hesitate to strike. I too can provide the dwarves with what they could need, without corrupting them.” I didn’t flinch as she suddenly bolted right into me, pressing the whole of her front to me, her mandibles hugging my hips as she pressed her luscious bosom into my chest, she cooed as she neared my face, but I simply glared.

“Mm, so serious. So unlike you. Maybe I should remind you of the great fun~ we used to be together….” She was nearing my lips, but I didn’t bother moving, but not because I wanted it. “Ah!” She was suddenly yanked away from me, and tossed across the church, over the pews and into one of the stained-glass windows, shattering it, and she hissed in fury as she looked upon Luna, who was just as furious, if not more so.

“Thou dare to move on our beloved! Wretched witch! Do not try our patience again, or we will relinquish our truce here and now! Our ponies have more than us to protect them now.” Luna declared, summoning a gloriously beautiful scythe that she twirled about herself like a staff, and planting the pole-end on the floor, cracking the tile. “Our sister Sarenrae has beaten back the various forces of darkness whilst we had been imprisoned, and we would not hesitate to finish thou off!”

“Selune! You dare enter MY chapel and-!” Luna’s scythe, which had blades on both sides of the blade, was suddenly pressed against the evil goddess’s throat from the distance, and let a drop of her molten-hot god-blood drip onto the blade, curving down it, and dropping from the tip. “Just like your personal emblem. Once again, so poetic Selune. And what’s this I hear? You stole my fuckbuddy?”

‘Is THAT why we’re so damn attracted to her? The Traveler was her fuck-friend?’ Apparently…. Though, I can kinda see why…. “Yes. Selune and I are to be wed. As is Sarenrae and I. It is a union between us, and several immortals of lesser status.”

“Really~?” Lolth’s tone did a 180, her eyes full of understanding and smirked at Luna. “Mind adding another Selune? He was one of the few who could sate me after all.”

“The fact you would offer disgusts me to no end.” Luna growled as she drew her scythe back, planting it next to her as I remained where I was. I’m just glad all that got broken was the window, and none of the mortals around us gazing upon us all in awe, but their devotion to Lolth was strong enough I couldn’t feel anything from it, and Luna wasn’t getting any larger, so there’s that at least. I was especially surprised when several of them moved to Lolth, wordlessly asking if she was okay, and she idly gestured them away.

“Lulu, Lolth, let’s just agree here that it’s not gonna happen, okay?” I offered. “Now, let’s just put away our weapons and let everything get back to peace. As much as I hate to say it, now’s not the time for this kind of chaos.” Holy shit that was hard to say. Hell, it physically hurt! I want everything to degenerate into an all-out brawl, maybe resulting in a three-way, maybe even pull in the mortals for a little pleasure for all. Ugh...being the good guy sucks sometimes…. Wait a minute, where did that come from? Is this what being the Traveler’s like?... Actually, I think I could get used to this. “Though, a three-way?”

“Dox!”

“Fuck yeah!”

“Hey, Chaotic Evil, Chaotic Neutral, and Chaotic Good. I could be the meat, you the bread~.” I tempted, and both of them looked at each other, me, then back, and both bit their lips before grumbling and shaking their heads no. Damn. “At least consider?”

“Dox, I wouldn’t touch that bitch with Moondrip if I had the choice, let alone pleasure her.” Luna stuck out her tongue, but blushed. “Even if she’s sexy.”

“I’d gladly ravish that hot body of yours Selune. What’s with you goody-good types and ruining the fun?” Lolth complained as she put away Spider, prompting me and Luna to put away our respective special weapons. “So...fine. A deal. Plainly; Traveler, give me a good rut and I’ll tell the dwarves at all my churches they’re all free to return to their father, but leave my followers to me.”

Hm, fuck sexy evil spider goddess, free a race from corruption. I don’t see how I lose here. “I-”

“Not on your life, Spider Witch.” Luna practically screamed. Damn it Lulu. I know you love me, but let me decide for myself! “I won’t let you fool him into being your plaything!” Wait, what? “The last time you did this sort of thing, the poor colt came back an insane spider-pony!”

“Oh Selune~ that was over 1700 years ago~! I’ve gotten better since then about letting my mandibles get...bitey.” The spear-like fangs rubbed together, and I would’ve paled if I could. “Besides, he started the races of spider/drider-ponies didn’t he? The little darlings are so fuzzy and cute.” She seemed to think for a second. “Well, the spider-ponies are, the drider-ponies are just sexy.”

“Anything with more than eight limbs is sexy to you.” Luna rolled her eyes, and Lolth started cackling in mirth.

“So true! Oh, the time. So sorry dears, but the daily commune is over.” Lolth called to the whole church, and got resounding “aws” in disappointment. “I know me showing up personally and NOT having an orgy is unusual, but I’m afraid business is paramount. Shoo, shoo! Off with you! Have fun on your own time!”

“But queen! We desire to lavish you in attention and pleasure!” Came a resounding chorus back from all the driders, and the evil goddess rolled her eyes.

“My offer won’t change. Now either leave me, or join in. My followers can get rather grabby, and I like it too much to dismiss them now that they’ve asserted they wish to please me. So, you have two choices. Have fun with me here. Or leave, and I refuse to allow the dwarves to return to Aule. Ever. Your choice~.” Holy fuck she IS a bitch. But a sexy one...ugh…. Recall, I know you’re gonna fight me over this decision, but…

“I choose the third option.” I declared, summoning the Changeling Blade into my hand, which changed from it’s new favored form of a scimitar into a rather obscenely large sickle with an extremely large curved blade that almost went full-circle, and had a blade along both sides, in and out. It was so big, that even if they were the size of average mortals, it would’ve been large enough to tower over a person, and big enough in the thickest part of the blade to hide a waif of a woman. “Either you let the clans go, or I start a campaign on your driders, all of them, and you know you won’t be able to stop me from getting to them. I’ll even send you their heads in little ornate boxes for you to enjoy.”

Luna balked at me, but Lolth hissed in fury, clicking her mandibles and her followers slowly backing away from me. “You would...damn you. Unlike Moontits here I know you would go through with it. Fine! Have the dwarves! But I’ll be waiting for you to drop your guard.” Lolth warned with a growl, and I nodded as I and Luna turned to leave, but I dodged as a bolt of dark magic almost struck me in the back, and I turned to glare at the enraged evil goddess who bared her fangs at me. “I did say I’d wait, but not for how long. I thought you were smart enough not to turn your back to me Traveler.”

“I thought you cared enough about your followers not to risk them.” I replied, and I left with Luna before either of them could ask what I meant, until we heard a despairing unearthly wail from the church we’d exited that I didn’t even flinch at, even as Luna growled at me.

“What did thou do?!”

“Sent a message.” I answered, holding up a woman’s severed head to my lover’s horror, and I dropped it without care in the road. “You don’t backstab the god of the backstabbers. Especially when he cuts you a deal. You saw what I did, Luna. I offered to leave peacefully, but she…. Well, she refused.” Luna just gaped at me in utter terror, unable to speak to me about the atrocity I had just committed. “Worse still, when we left, I grabbed the last of them. That head back there? That was her high-priestess she’d been possessing. Hope the bitch will be in utter pain and torture growing it back since she was really there too.”

“But how?! I was right next to you the whole time!” Luna demanded, both horrified and in awe, since the whole group I’d just slaughtered were still evil at heart.

“I’m the Traveller.” I said flatly. “I go where I want, when I want, however I want. If I want to be seen doing it, that’s my choice. Though, it wasn’t easy finding the other driders. Had to ask Recall for a tracking spell. He told me he needed blood for it, then gave me locations. I was gone and back before the air around my position even registered movement. The ONLY reason I could do it was because I could feel she’d make a condition I couldn’t accept. You don’t swindle the swindler.” I looked straight down after explaining myself. “I can’t help but mourn the loss, though. Nor can I truly accept myself for mercilessly killing them. It was a slaughter, Lulu, a slaughter that took place in less than even a millisecond. I… I don’t know how to accept it.”

“Dox. Look at me.” I did, and suddenly felt my breasts touching hers again, and she lovingly caressed my cheek. “Just remember. I’m always here for you. What you did was horrible, cruel, but necessary...it’s something my sister could never understand. Sometimes. to do good, you must perform acts of evil. She’s bound to honor her end, even if she betrayed you, and the dwarves are free. But now she has a vendetta against you. When you need me, even if I’m not there. Take my form. I will always be with you.” She leaned across our silvery valley of fur and kissed me, and I lost all my tension. I was finally able to register shifting and the Changeling Blade dismissing.

“Right.” I said. ‘Well, not many forms are as good as this for a base form!’ Huh? I tried to go back to that disgusting monstrosity, only to feel nothing, and I felt tears of relief build in my eyes. ‘You’re not a monster, just practical. Like her. She may not have liked your decision, but you did warn that bitch.’ That I did...and being dead sexy instead of terrifying is an awesome trade-off! ‘Now we’re getting it together!’ I so want to high-five Recall right now! High-five! A third arm appeared from my shoulder, and I enthusiastically high-fived the hand with my opposite arm, getting Luna to giggle at the silly sight before the arm melted back into me. “Well, I need to find myself. I’m not sure I can just stay you, I need to be my own person, find my own form, even if it’s not the one my so-called father gave me.”

“I understand Love. Take all the time you need. We’ll be waiting. But~....” She reached down and I grinned as she grabbed my ass. “I wouldn’t mind if you stayed like this~....”

“Maybe when I get back.” I winked, and laughed before I kissed her on the snout, and turned to get ready to run off. “When I get back! We are getting TURBO MARRIED!”

“Wait! Dox! What do you mean?! Where are you going?!” Luna called out in shock, clearly not getting I was being literal.

“To find myself silly! I’m the Traveller! I’m out there somewhere! Haha~!” I said.

“I’ll return afterwards, though. Don’t you worry. I’ll even use Avarice’s dimension to return here so I can be back before you know it.” I started walking away from Luna.

“No! You can’t leave!” Luna cried, tears visibly welling up in her eyes. “You can’t just abandon us here!” Luna felt devastated when her love suddenly seemed to shimmer, and vanish from existence, but before she could begin to cry, she gasped as arms wrapped around her from behind, and an even taller being was holding her tenderly.

“I said I’d be back. And boy, do I have a long story to tell you, but let’s get back to the others first.”

“Dox?”

“Who else, my personal piece of the heavens?”

Let's Begin Our Tale

“So how should I begin? Well, how about after I left you for a few seconds Lulu? I know, I know it was mean, but hey; I said I’d be back before you knew it. But for me, it’s been a long time. Ridiculously long actually. Who knew finding yourself was such a harrowing thing?”

“Well, as the Traveler, hopping dimensions was as easy as a hop-skip and jump, so that was what I did. I wanted some distance between me, and the world DM claimed as his own for a while. I needed time to get together my thoughts, control myself. Yes I still use your form a lot Luna, that was a big help.”

“Now then, to start off….”

The First Roll

I honestly don't know how it happened.

One second I'm at anime expo, the next I'm approached by some weirdo that looks like he came from the Resident Evil universe.

What did he want to do? Sell me some stuff.

So, not knowing what would happen after I bought something, I browsed his wares. Following the advice that I've been given all my life (by my mom), I looked for something that I could actually use multiple times, instead of just buying something for the flair and then never use it again. As I neared the end of both his wares and his patience, I found something.

What did I find you ask? Some cool looking dice meant for playing some good ol' D&D. The dice in question consisted of the standard playing dice: a d6, a d4, a d12, a d10, a d8, and, the piece de resistance, a d20. They all looked like they contained a galaxy of sorts, full of stars, planets and the blackness of space, all topped of with a weird effect of what seemed to be moving.

What a good find for a dungeon master such as myself.

Or so I thought, until I actually bought them. This caused the strange man to smile, take my money, then wave goodbye.

In anyone else, this would have caused some minor concern, something I didn't get to experience as I got teleported away to some weird pastel village full of small equines.

What to do, what to do.... I dunno.... PANIC?????

And so I did. I just hoped nobody would notice. The strangest thing is, none of the tiny horses did. And as my panic subsided, they just went on their ways. It was only when I went up to one of them and poked them that they noticed me. Then they proceeded to panic.

I mean, what would you do if some weirdo dressed in all black, wearing a freaking cloak and dark as heck robe? Say hi and act calm? I sure as hell wouldn't.

So, freaking out myself, I did the first thing that came to mind: I asked the nearest strange horse (which I now know was a unicorn) to please calm down.

The second most strange thing happened that moment. All the little horse people calmed down.

Then the third strangest (and most painful) thing happend. The pocket in my undershirt (the place where the dice were) started to give off a burning sensation.

I gripped the area and pulled out the offending object(s) causing my pain: the dice. They seemed to be giving off a strange glow, as if asking me to do something with them. So, I rolled them, getting perfects on all of them.

The fourth strangest thing happened then. The strange mint green horse decided to talk to me.

"Hello?" The little horse said. It sounded femanine.

I just responded the way anyone else in my position would have. I lost my marbles and freaked out.

"Um, mister? Please calm down, we're not gonna hurt you." She? said.

"Y-you can talk!" I squeaked out pathetically.

"Yeah, of course I can, I'm just kind of suprised you can." She said.

"Sorry, it's just, I'm not used to that. Um... Where the heck am I?"

"You're in Ponyville!" she beamed.

This was the last thing that was said as the fifth and final strange thing happened. A pink horse came literally out of nowhere and collided with my chest, knocking the wind out of me.

As I got up, all I could here was the small green horse asking if I was o.k. and the pink one constantly apologizing. That is, until I spoke up.

"ENOUGH! Jeeze, I'm o.k.! I'm o.k.!" I screamed at the two tiny horses that wouldn't stop asking if I was o.k.

"Oh. O.k. then. I'm Pinkie Pie!" the pink one said. "Who are you?"

"I'm.... uh......." Who am I? Who am I?.......... WHAT IS MY NAME! I can't believe I forgot my name! It was at this point that I started to freak the shit out and run off.

"Lyra, do you know who he is?" Pinkie asked the green one.

"Sorry Pinkie, I just ran into him like you did. I don't know who he is." Lyra said.

"Oh, then do you know why he's here?" Pinkie asked.

"No, sorry." Lyra said.

Pinkie then looked at me and asked, "Mr? Why are you here?"

It was then that I remembered what I was doing before I got teleported here. "I was going to go play D&D with some of my friends. I'm the dungeon master of the group."

"A DUNGEON MASTER!" Lyra screamed at me. "Can we play right now? Please?"

"Lyra, you silly little unicorn! We need to go bring him to Twilight before something happens! There's no time to play!" Pinkie instructed Lyra.

I however had walked away, wanting nothing to do with the crazed nerd and the super hyper pink horse. Yes, I just got up and walked away, straight into a large white horse with a giant horn and wings. She also had a notable flowey mane and tail.... and a sun on her butt? What the heck? Actually, not that I think of it, Lyra had a lyre on her butt, and Pinkie had 3 balloons...... What is up with these little horses?

Anyways, I started to, again, freak the shit out and run away. And run into another tall horse. This one was blue and had a starry mane and tail. Did I care to look this one over fully? No. I ran away again. Into a freaking tall something, all before passing out.

Exposition, The thing EVERY story needs.

What the heck just happened?

Is that me down there?

Why am I asking so many questions?

Well, dear voice in my head, I'm glad you asked! It's because I need an explanation for why I can see my body down there in all its black hooded cloak beauty.

Indeed, I can see my body down there..... In a stretcher....... Oh, now it's in a cart...... headed to the hospital, I assume......... All the while that cart is being pulled by ponies...... Ponies that I just saw talking about five seconds ago.........

As you may know, I came here as a DM, someone who enjoys reading, creating, and telling the story to his 'adventurers'. I am currently missing said story......

"What is going on here?!" I said to no-one in particular. Hey, it's not like anyone else can hear me.

"You're watching the story take place, young dungeon master." said a feminine voice that seemed to be originating from behind me.

I turned around and saw some strange being behind me that seemed to be made of pure light. I could have sworn that person wasn't there earlier.

"WHAT THE FRIGGING HELL?!?!?!?!" I yelled at the weird spirit lady.

"Do not yell at my sister, knave." said another feminine voice, originating from a being that I hadn't noticed earlier. This one seemed to be made out of pure darkness, sucking away all light, making her look like she wasn't there.

"Again, I do verily say to you two weirdos. WHAT THE FRIGGING HELL?!?!?!?!?!"

"Sister, we appear to be scaring him. Maybe this wasn't the best idea." said the being made of light.

"I agree, sister. Let's send him back." the dark being said.

"Send me back?" I said. "Send me back where?"

"Discord, would you please?" the being of light said.

That was the last I heard of that.

I woke up back in my body. My still hooded body.... Except now I'm in a hospital....... And the doctors are pointing a needle at me......

"GAH! Get that needle away from me!" I yelled at the doctor as I rolled off the gurney and onto the cold hospital floor.

"Quick get the patient back on the gurney! And check for any bruises or cuts, and also check if he has a concussion!" screamed a nurse.

"Get away from me!" I screamed as I got up and ran from the ponies.

Sadly, I didn't make it far, all because I was tackled by a nurse with a pink red mane and an image on her flank depicting a red cross and four pink hearts.

"Ugh. That hurt..... GET OFF ME YOU FREAKING PONY!" I yelled at the nurse who was currently holding me down.

"Shhhh. Don't make a scene. I just want to help you." she said. "Now, if you'll just let me do this." She proceeded to pull out a rather lengthy needle.

"NO! GET THAT AWAY FROM ME!" I screamed. "NO NO NO NO NO!"

She brought the needle to my arm and........... Wait, why didn't the needle go in? And why did she just wink at me?

"It's subdued. I'll take it to a private room so that a doctor can examine it." the nurse said.

"Go right ahead, Nurse Redheart." said the doctor.

The nurse propped me up on a nearby gurney and wheeled me into a room at the end of the hallway, all while I pretended to be knocked out...... Wow, good job nurse..... But why?

The second she closed the door, I let the questions fly.

"Why did you do this?"

"Why did you pretend to inject me?"

"Who are you working for?"

"Why did you pull me into this specific room?"

"Why did-" was all that last one got out before she stuck her hoof in my mouth.

"Shut it, or I really will inject you." Nurse Redheart said.

I spat out her hoof and went, "Ew, gross! I thought you were a nurse! That was horribly unhygienic!"

She just ignored me and said, "You can exit out that window, there's some scaffolding there. Climb up to the roof, the princesses are up there waiting for you. Now, go before the doctor comes and I lose my medical license. I'd rather not be like the last one."

"What do you mean?" I asked the nurse.

"The princesses asked me to send you to them and-"

"Not what I meant. I mean what do you mean by the last one?"

"Oh.... He went insane, stole a patient's skeleton, stole a bunch of doves from a wedding wagon, then ran off screaming something about knowing how to make temporary invincibility." the little pony nurse explained.

"..... That sounds way too much like something from a video game in my world." I said. "Anyways, thank you Nurse Redheart."

"Please, just go. The doctor will be here any minute." she said.

"May we meet again in the future, and hopefully we meet under better circumstances. Farewell." I said, then proceeded to go out the window.

I climbed up the scaffolding to the roof. I saw the princesses on the roof with..... something.......

What was that creature again? Oh yeah, draconequus. Thank you wiki.

Anyways, I walked up to them and said, "What do you want from me?"

Into the Woods

The Everfree Forest.

The symbol of fear for ponies.

The filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of deadly creatures.

And probably the absolute stupidest place to walk into.

Which is what I'm doing.... at night.....

Of course, I'm only looking for the changelings......

Who will probably try and take as much love from me as possible before locking me in a pod.......

....... Why am I doing this again?

Oh yeah. I'm a changeling now.... Maybe not the type of changeling from the show, but a changeling nonetheless....

Did I already say that I was walking through the Everfree Forest?

At least there was a path into it. Better, I knew where it lead.

"The castle of the Royal Pony Sisters!" I cried out in joy. "I can't believe it's right over the- WOAH!"

Unfortunately, in my joy and haste, I failed to notice that the rope bridge was broken. No, not down like in the pilot, there was a huge gap in the planks.

"GYAAAAAAAAAAA!" I screamed as I fell. I swore that I was going to die.

Fate had other plans, and I landed quite painfully and took into a roll that stopped when I crashed into a very luminescent tree.

"Ow." I said, trying to stop my head from spinning. "Ugh, where did I end... up?"

I couldn't believe it, I had just crashed into the Tree of Harmony.

"Wow," I said as I pushed myself up. "I can't believe it. It's..... glorious."

"Sir!" I heard a voice say. "We may have been discovered!"

"Hello?" I called out. "Who's there? Show yourself!"

I didn't expect what I saw. Then again, I'm still barely used to the whole 'this world has anthros" sort of thing.

Anyways, out from the shadows came a curvy obsidian figure with greyish-blackish hair. It had holes in its arms and legs, which I found odd. Behind the curvy one there was another creature of similar description, but it had a stockier build. I could only assume that they were changelings.

The stockier one spoke first.

"We should be telling you the same thing, cloaked intruder." it said in a deep voice. I could only guess it was male from its build and its voice. He was holding a sword that he was pointing in my direction. "How about you show us your face and drop any weapons you're holding. Now."

"Fine." I said. I proceeded to do as I was told and took off my cloak, revealing my face and everything else I had under it. I removed my sword, my knife, and my bow and laid them on the ground. "There, that's all I have. I mean no harm. I'm just looking for someone."

"And who might that be?" said the one with the more curvy build. Its voice was feminine, so I can only assume that it was female.

"Answer me this, first." I said. "Who are you? What are you?"

"Oh look, a stupid pony that-"

"I'm not a pony!" I yelled. "I'm a changeling!"

"No you're not." said the male. "We're changelings. Now tell us who you're looking for!"

"Really, commander?" the female changeling said. "He might just be a crazy pony."

"I'm looking for Queen Chrysalis." I said.

The two changelings just looked at me funny. It was like I just said that I was the King of Underpants and demanded to go to the moon to give it a wedgie.

"Under what right do you have to see her?" the female changeling asked.

"That is between me and her." I said in as commanding a tone as I could come up with.

The two changelings turned towards each other to talk. I couldn't make out what they were saying. Eventually they turned back to face me.

"We will take you to see her, foolish pony." the male changeling said. "But your weapons will remain with Fie here."

The female stepped up and started to take my weapons, but when she reached for my bastard sword, I stopped her.

"This stays with me." I said, picking up and sheathing my sword. "You don't trust me, I don't trust you."

"Grrrr. Fine." the male changeling said. "But the second you unsheathe that sword, you're going to be in a lot of trouble."

The changelings led me away from the Tree of Harmony and up into the castle. The further they brought me into the castle, the more I noticed changeling presence. It looked as if they had been using the remains of the castle as a base. Hopefully I could find Chrysalis here.

"In there." the changeling escorting me said.

"Is Chrysalis in there?" I asked.

"No, she was never here in the first place." he said.

"What?!" I said in disbelief. "Then where have you been taking me? I thought I was going to see Queen Chrysalis!"

"You are. She is this way." he said, pointing me towards the door.

"What do you mean 'she's this way'?!" I said, looking into the room the changeling was trying to get me to enter.

The room itself was badly lit. There wasn't really anything in there but a large circular pedestal.

"There's nothing in there!" I screamed at the changeling.

"Just go in there and stand on the pedestal." he said.

I tried getting him to tell me more about it, but he wouldn't budge on the matter. Giving up, I walked into the room only to have the door shut behind me.

With nothing next to do, I just did as I was told to do and stepped up onto the pedestal.

The second I reached the middle of the pedestal, the entire room lit up. The pedestal lit up in strange archaic symbols that I couldn't understand. When the entire pedestal was glowing brightly, I could feel something:

Pure pain.

The last thing I could think of before everything went white was this:

I regret nothing.

The First Encounter With the Leadership Position (a.k.a. Don't Screw This Up)

There I was, standing in the changeling hive.

All around me, all I could see were changelings going to and fro around the massive network that was the emerald colored solid that was the hive.

Unfortunately, I only had about ten seconds to bask in the beauty of the hive before I was snapped out of my daze by two changelings that had approached me.

"Come with us." said the first one.

"We will take you to see the Queen." said the second.

"Okay, but-" was all I was able to get out before one of them silenced me.

"Do not speak to us." said the first one.

"We are just escorts." said the second one.

"Okay." I said. "Thanks anyways...."

The two changelings turned around and proceeded to guide me through the huge self-operating machine that the hive seemed to be. The only time they stopped was when they reached a large set of doors that appeared to be made of obsidian. The doors had several patterns and designs carved into them.

"Whoa." I said in marvel of the doors. It was all I could think at the time. That, and if these were the doors to the throne room, the throne room itself must have been equally impressive.

I was so stuck in my own little thoughts that I hadn't noticed that the changelings had opened the door and had motioned for me to go inside. Until one of them stepped in front of me and snapped its fingers in my face.

"Whuh, huh?" I babbled. "What's going on? Oh yeah."

"Go inside, she's waiting." said the changeling that stayed at the door.'

"It's not good to keep her waiting." said the changeling in front of me.

It seemed at that moment that the entire hive had stopped. I say this because right after the changeling said that, absolutely everything had gone silent. It was as if the changelings had stopped to observe the creature that had the nerve to come looking for them and then demand to see their queen, even going so far as to call her by name. Let me say, if you thought your stage fright was bad when you had to do that presentation for you class, or you had to read a poem, or preform a solo piece in front of a huge audience, you only know a small fraction of the anxiety that I was feeling at that moment. For me, it was like I had another voice in my head. I wish I could have silenced the voice that was nagging me to behave, to not screw up. Oh how I wished I could kill the sound.

All of this happened in the span of a few seconds, just enough time for me to muster up enough of my nerves to get my body moving and head into the throne room.

I took a second to admire the room. All around the room were bits and pieces of art, all of them featuring some kind of royalty.

The doors closed behind me with a loud "THUD", and immediately I was addressed by the Queen of Changelings herself.

"Do come closer." she said. "It is terribly rude for someone to talk to a guest without even seeing them."

I really didn't enjoy hearing her say that. It's not the whole multi-tone voice, it's just how she said it. I could practically hear every word she said drip with a venomous and acidic quality. The worst of it was that I could tell she wasn't caring about manners or rudeness at all, she just wanted to size me up. She wanted to see if I was a threat, or just a fool who had come to die. Now, I'll admit to being crazy, bordering on insane even, but I was no fool.

I sure wasn't a threat either. I had come here with a mission, one that I intended to finish. I wasn't going to leave until the dead was done.

As I walked up to the throne from the other side of the room, I reached to my bastard sword in its sheathe, preparing to ready it if necessary. If my plan were to go as I hoped it would, I would need it.

I stood there at the foot of the throne before the queen, all the while being sized up by her.

"Why did you come here?" she asked. "Why did you purposefully seek out me and my changelings?"

"I came here on a mission." I said. "A mission that will benefit the both of us."

"Oh? And how is that?" she asked in disbelief.

"Like this!" I said as I pulled my sword from its sheathe.

I then proceeded to throw it..... straight onto the ground.

"I've come with a request for help." I said, getting down on one knee. "In exchange, I can offer intelligence and advice on Equestria and a plan I have no doubt you've already thought of."

"Oh? And what kind of 'advice' would you give me that would be of any worth to me and the hive?" she asked, her tone pure venom. "You are just a pony who has gone mad. A useless stallion that would be a bittersweet snack."

"I'm not a pony." I said in a hushed voice. "I'm a changeling. And I'm more useful than you think. I know about your plans for the royal wedding that's coming up."

"How?" she said in disbelief. "How do you know about that? No one outside the hive knows about that!"

"I know because of where I came from." I said. "A different world, a parallel dimension in a sense. There, you and your changelings had been defeated and thrown from Canterlot. I am not sure if that version of you is even alive any more."

I honestly wasn't lying. I wasn't sure if all of that happened in the world I was first, but judging that they were both Equestria, and this was just one that was further back, I just sort of went with what I could think of at the time.

"Fine." she said. "But know, if you lie to me about any of your information, you will be killed."

Remember to Stretch Before Your Workout.

"Damn it."

It's all I could say. I pacing in the private room I had been given for the night by the princesses.

My timing could not have been worse. Of course the day after the wedding was going to be the heat period. What are couples almost guaranteed to do after they get wed? Consummate the marriage. So, of course, the best time for that would be right before the heat period.

"I should have thought about this before I left the hive." I said to myself. "I'm so stupid!"

The next thing that popped into my head was as follows:

"I got it!" I screamed. "I can avoid the horde of mares! But I have to send the changelings back, first. There's not going to be any love here, just lust. I mean, I remember they told me it's like junk food, and with how much there's gonna be tomorrow, well....."

I sure as hell needed to save those guys.

Well, here I am about 10 hours later.

I've sent the changelings home, gotten my change of clothes, had a good rest, and then some breakfast.

I'm also in Drake's room.....

"Yo, buddy." I said as I nudged Drake. "Wake up."

Drake groaned in response. "What the heck man? What time is it?"

"Three in the morning." I said, flatly.

"Why did you wake me up at three in the morning?" Drake asked me.

"So we could get a head start on the mares and get the heck outta here." I said. "I don't know about you, but I'm not about to be raped by a horde of horny mares."

"Fine, but how are we getting out of the castle?" Drake asked.

"This guard that I found." I said. "He was the only male guard who didn't lock himself up in the building. Apparently he lost a bet or something."

"Okay then." Drake said.

"Did I forget to mention how we're getting outta here?" I asked.

"How?" Drake asked.

"Well, I won't be specific, but it involves the scenic view from the castle gardens." I said, ominously.

Oh a Hunting I Will Go

Unknown Location

Unknown Perspective

“These Losses are entirely unacceptable.” Lord Force’s voice echoed through the chamber. “Dozens of your assassins dead, entire spy chains lost, and even you failed me Iron. While I had not expected Dox Ad Finem to be so capable, your failures are hindering our plans.”

In the center of the unseen horseshoe-shaped table knelt the sweating and scared forms of Lord Corvo, Lord Sharp Ears, and Lord Iron Talon, all silent, knowing to try and defend their respective failures was futile. “My Dear, I know they have failed, but what of their successes? Do they not outweigh their losses?” The velvety female voice said from their right, and Force hummed in an agreeable tone.

“Worry not Lady Darkwing, I shall not punish them, severely. After all, Corvo’s assassins did secure two unique changeling samples for us to broaden the templates with. Sharp Ear’s current projects with the godling’s blood are promising, and Talon’s loss was only situational. You will all get your dues, yes, but you will not be harmed.” Force stated understandingly, and they all visible relaxed. “BUT!” They tensed again. “Do not continue to disappoint, or I shall not be so forgiving.”

“Understood, Lord Force.” The three chorused, and a gavel pounded, signalling them to return to their seats aside from Corvo, who wasn’t a seated member of the council.

“Now then, Corvo, your group has nearly been annihilated. I am quite saddened by this, as your organization and ours have been allies for centuries. I have one last task for you.” Corvo’s still living eye widened, and then he sulked, he knew it was too good to be true. “Bring me Dox Ad Finem’s head on a pike, ALL of his heads, and I shall resurrect your fallen comrades. Fail...well...don’t return alive.”

“Yes....My Lord.”

Dox POV

I can’t believe it. Today’s the day. Today’s the day Cadence arrives, and I’m supposed to be wed tomorrow. Cadence should be here soon, then we’re going to go back to the castle proper and have the wedding tomorrow, in the same hall she and Shining got hitched in. I’m so excited! I’m ready for this and I don’t have cold feet! I’m just so excited for this!

Right now, I’m waiting with Luna and Bluebelle at the train station. Her crystal train should be along any time now. OW! MY EARS! That whistle is like an audible dog whistle! Ow! Crystal makes painfully sharp whistles! Apparently everypony agreed with me because their ears were tilted back and were sneering at the approaching train. Sure, it was beautiful, but it had a buttervoice.

“Cousin needs to have her hearing checked if she thinks that is in any way enjoyable.” Bluebelle grimaced as she rubbed her ears.

“Indeed, my niece must have that cursed thing destroyed, or at least taken down at octave.” Luna commented as the beautiful pink, purple, and red train rolled to a stop. A couple of crystal unicorns in their own designated blue armor exited, stood to each side, and blew on trumpets in a fanfare, making Luna roll her eyes. “I know it’s customary, but really.”

“Oh Auntie, you know cousin has a flare for the dramatic like most of us. Let her have her fun.” Bluebelle beamed as she saw her beautiful cousin emerge arm-in-arm with her husband, the incredibly handsome Shining Armor, who recently went native and became of crystal from living up there while he was made of stone. “Cousin! I am so glad to see you!” Blue moved forward and hugged them both, the two blushing at her massive chest pressing into them.

“Um...who are you? You feel familiar and...also...something I can’t describe.” Cadence commented as they backed away from each other, she eyed her cousin’s hooters and was suddenly feeling envious. Sure, she wasn’t lacking, but she was more like Luna before she got a power boost from being openly Worshiped.

“Oh, yes, you wouldn’t have been informed, what with it only having been a few weeks since it happened. It’s me! Blueblood!” Her introduction had both of them gobsmacked, and she giggled at them.

“YOU used to be that pompous plothole?” Shining asked, getting a leer and elbow from his wife as Blue wilted a little.

“Yes. But, things have changed. I have changed. Beyond the obvious I mean.” She laughed at her own joke, and moved aside to lead them away from the train and towards Luna and I. “How have things been up north Cousin? We’ve been quite busy down here.”

“And how.” I injected, getting Cadence and Shining to look away from my stunning angelic fiance to me, and smile at seeing me again. “Things have been looking up over here! I bet you two already know one of those things, if you catch my drift. But in all seriousness, I’m glad you two could make it.”

“Auntie?! W-what?!” Cadence gawked at Luna, suddenly feeling even MORE jelly because now the relative she compared herself to was also superior to her. Knowing her, Luna blushed and covered her chest in vain with a sheepish smile.

“W-we have gained Worshipers...if you gain more Worshipers dear Niece, mayhaps you too shall gain a...boost?” Luna explained in embarrassment, and Cadence wilted, she already had a whole Empire Worshiping her though!

“Hey, honey, you’re perfect. You don’t need to be all big, and jiggly, and...eye-catching….” Shining was being hypnotized by Bluebelle mischievously lifting her boobs with each hand in tandem, jiggling them excessively in her white and gold dress, and Cadence leered at her while the oddly lecherous mare was tittering before she quit the teasing. “Uh...sorry hun.”

“Hey, you keep your eyes off my to-be wives, I don’t try to steal yours.” I said. “And I’m not joking. I’d love to add her to the wedding, even if she’s already going to be there. But in all seriousness, you’re fine Cadence. Stop doubting your looks, it doesn’t fit you.”

“Well, I’m sorry if...if….” Cadence was gawking as she looked to the side, and saw the Mane Six approaching from down the way.

“Hey Cadence! I-EEEK!” Twilight was interrupted by her former foalsitter and current-sister practically teleporting in front of her and groping her assets through her purple button-up shirt that was straining at the buttons.

“Why are YOU bigger than me too?!” Cadence bemoaned as Twilight blushed vividly and grinned sheepishly.

“Um...I might have...uh...met somepony?” Twilight offered up, and Cadence’s jealousy stopped instantly, instead she became ecstatic.

“Who’s the lucky stallion?! I must meet him!” She squeezed a bit too hard, and Twilight moaned as Cadence blushed and felt wetness in her palms, pulling back to see wet spots on her little sister’s shirt and licked her hands. “Oh~ he’s a teat stallion isn’t he?”

Twilight blushed even brighter, and nervously chuckled. “Y-yeah...he kinda can’t get enough of me….”

“He’s not the only one.” Dash grinned from the side, and Twilight sputtered as Dash laughed at her friend’s flustered state.

“So I’m not the only one getting hooked up huh? How’s things going for you and Renkin Shy?” I called over as we all approached and the train left the station to be parked in the trainyard down the mountain.

“Oh, we’re doing wonderfully.” She put her hands to her...uh...whoa…. “We’re hoping to kick of the wedding next spring after I’ve delivered the foals.” Holy hell she’s big! And so soon!!

“H-h-how?” I asked sputteringly, and Fluttershy blushed as she hid behind her mane and AJ grinned at me.

“Ya’ll don’t remember that sudden heat that kicked off and ya ran from us all? Well, Shy and Renkin got busy if ya remember. Faust, Shy’s carryin’ ‘bout ten of the little things.” WHAT?!

“I-it’s only eight….” Fluttershy meekly defended, rubbing her small belly under her green turtleneck sweater, that did nothing to hide it or her swollen bosom.

“How?! Just…. How?” I asked. “Actually, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know the details.”

Too bad son. Don’t you remember? Vaga was there, and he was still nearly at full power. A LOT of children were conceived that day. Only the very lucky ones got off without being impregnated, the slightly lucky only got one, most of them are having multiples. Fertile ones like Fluttershy are having excessive numbers.

“VAGA~!” I suddenly shouted into the sky as I fell to my knees, fists raised, anger coursing through me as Vaga’s cruel laughter echoed through the air.

Dox Vs. Vaga

“Where did those words in the sky come from?!” Twilight screamed in fear at the impossibility.

“The co-author silly!” Pinkie commented, giggling and everyone just decided to forget that happened.

“Alright, enough references.” I said. “We have a wedding to set up for, so let’s all get back to the castle and-” A disturbingly familiar sound of a boom, followed by a crackle-whoosh came from behind me, and I was suddenly subjected to blinding agony as a long green blade stabbed through my back and out my chest, spraying blood on the horrified group in front of me, before it yanked me back.

“DOX!”

I was pulled through a swirling purple vortex I had vainly hoped I had seen the last of, or at least for a longer while by the hooked blade on a chain and it yanked out of me with another tug, leaving me stumbling to the grassy ground, coughing up blood as my magic returned to me in full. I couldn’t even see the ground, it was so dark.

“So glad you could join us, Dox Ad Finem.” A deep, and gritty voice greeted me, it echoed from all around as I quickly gathered myself and stood. I couldn’t see anything. It was practically pitched darkness. “You and Avarice have cost us too much. Lord Force has ordered your execution, your bodies all donated to science.”

“Dox! Dox, where are we?!” Oh fuck, Yngve?!

“We have been brought here too it seems! I cannot bring forth any light!” Solaris?!

“Shit, shit, none of my spells are working! Damn it! We’re in some sort of pitch-dark forest. The pines are black, and climb to the skies like redwoods!” Hyper Bolic?!

“Do not bother, your magics are being blocked by a blanket Null spell being amplified with orichalcum. Null, ironically, is considered Anti-Magic, and takes well to it. Now, prepare to die as helpless worms you-.” The speaker and several unseen beings all shrieked in agony along with Hyper Bolic as suddenly a brilliant and magnificent flare of light shot into the trees and illuminated everything around, getting us normal-eyed people to be able to see clearly.

“Hrmph, idiots. Keep forgetting not all magic is reliant on direct casting.” The gruff, gritty, yet oddly mirthful voice was new, and when I looked, I saw a surprisingly tall 5-foot Dwarf, must be a Mountain Dwarf. He wore ratty, yet well-cared-for blue robes with numerous runes woven into them, with pieces of plate armor such as his boots, bracers, and pauldrons being strapped over it, each also heavily runed with arithmancy and other forms of enchantments I could only dream of with my current knowledge. “It’s why people keep forgetting how important Artificing is.”

“Who are you?” I asked earnestly confused, and the Mountain Dwarf grinned his false-toothed grin, made of silver as his green eyes twinkled under his hood, he also had no eyebrows.

“Edewecht. Master Artificer of Clan Melairkyn of the Northern Mountains. I was just delivering a finished commission to Jarl Balgruuf when one of these idiots snagged me from the throne room. The Jarl won’t be pleased I’ve gone missing….” Edewecht informed me as he reached into his satchel at his waist and pulled out a Thaumium-inlaid steel warpick far too big to fit in it, hey, a bag of holding! “Whoever ye be, know ye mess with a Master Artificer! Null spells or other trespassers of magic have no use against one such as I! Show yourselves cowards, or shall I use my Reveal idol again?!”

“If you do not know these others, then you were a liability the portals just sought out! Kill him!” A green bolt shot from the trees with the clank of a crossbow, and Edewecht surprised all of us when he moved to the side, brought up his warpick, and hooked the bolt out of the air in one surprisingly fluid motion. Holy hell! A Dwarf of any kind has to train for years to get that kind of dexterity!

“Orichalcum...we meet again, filthy, blasphemous metal.” Edewecht growled, tossing the caught bolt into a nearby tree, which barely yielded to even the incredibly sharp blade of the bolt. “We are in the Black Forest of the lands across the sea...I have not been here since my journey to meet Jarl Sidgeir. Careful. Every one of these trees is as strong as iron, their needles as sharp as arrowheads.”

“Great, now, any useful information, dwarf?” Hyper Bolic asked rudely. “Or shall we start shielding the champion so he can regenerate?”

“Hmph, elves, so callous of their peers. Be lucky I’m kind enough to help you anyway helpless mage. Circle formation!” Ed called out as he reached into his back and quickly drew out a small buckler shield that seemed to be made entirely of Thaumium with an interior of bronze as he blocked another bolt, the Orichalcum not even penetrating! Good not know.

I gasped as I focused on healing myself, the attackers having grown wary thanks to the unexpected presence and potency of our new ally. I was seriously going to check the Compendium on enchantments after this if just Artificing can make a person so deadly. More bolts, some arrows, and even throwing knives came down at us, Yngve slashing them out of the air with my borrowed Flamberge with ease, Hyper mostly had to evade since he didn’t have anything to combat Null, Solaris was in a similar situation but he could at least summon sunfire to his hands to melt incoming projectiles into slag. “Done! Okay you fucks! I know it’s you! Panther Crows!”

“Very perceptive, even when we hadn’t revealed ourselves.” From seemingly out of the bark of the trees, numerous cloaked Pather Crows all emerged from them like a certain snake Sannin many might be familiar with. “But this is our home terrain. Exposed or not, the Black Forest protects us, hides us, guides us.” He looked up, his hood falling back to expose his dead eye and bronze-reinforced beak. “I, Lord Corvo, twenty-seventh and possibly last leader of the Panther Crow Assassins, welcome you; Avatars of the Dungeon Master, to your deaths.” He chuckled darkly as did his minions as they all sank back into the very trees, royally freaking me and Hyper out.

“Oh, shit, oh shit. It’s like we’re in Shadowfell all of a sudden! I’m not geared up for this!” Hyper panicked, as Edewecht cackled jovially.

“And again with the reference of Shadowfell!” I screamed. “Can we please focus?! Hyper, I need you to be ready to start being the controller I know you are.”

“Dox! Null! EVERYWHERE! Not a single inch of this place isn’t a complete deadzone! My spells I...fine...okay...calm down. I’ve been to Shadowfell...I can do this.” He pulled out a dagger and held it in his off-hand, his staff at the ready. “Okay. They’re going to be trying hit-and-run tactics. Stay alert, but don’t fall for distractions. We’re heavily outnumbered, surrounded, our magic sealed, but we have something they don’t.”

“Mutations and actual muscle.” I said. “Alright, let’s do this.”

I ducked, a sickle-and-chain barely avoided removing my head as the others also ducked, and several bolts and arrows tried to get us as we were down, but we all rolled away from our clustered center, only for several of them to appear from nearby trees and try to stab, slice, or otherwise maim us, but we each in our own way barely evaded. “Ah!” Hyper shouted as suddenly a talon erupted from a tree root and grabbed his ankle, as another came from the same tree with a shortsword stabbing towards him! He twisted around the green blade, and stabbed his dagger into the griffin’s bicep, getting an echoing keen of pain from the tree before another sword almost took his head off, and he had to retreat.

The assault paused, they were regrouping. “We have to move!” Yngve was right, we couldn’t just stay in one place, but we couldn’t just blindly run in any direction either, they could have traps set out for us.

“Good idea!” Edewecht replied as he reached into his satchel, and pulled out a handful of...pebbles? “Cover your ears!” He threw them into the air and covered his ears, we did so as well, and deafening explosions occurred and numerous shrieks of pain responded as Ed bolted in a direction, we followed.

“After them!” Corvo shrieked in fury, and shadows seemed to swarm after us along the trees, the grass, everything. It was like they were flying through physical objects! Shit! If Shadowfell is anything like this, I’m going to be so mad!

“We need a clearing! Someplace they can’t strike us from anywhere all at once!” I shouted.

“We’d need a miracle for that! The Black Forest is so thick that-!” Ed stated before almost stumbling as we ran into a huge meadow. “Nevermind! It would seem Selune has granted us her boon this night!”

“You mean Luna?” I asked. “Well, it would seem that way, wouldn’t it.”

“Considering thou art marrying my daughters, I would believe this is so.” Solaris stated as we moved as close to the center as possible, only for a green dome of energy to suddenly erect around us. “Blast! Twas too good to be true!”

“And what magic is this?!” Yngve yelled out.

Hyper blinked and waved a hand, a fireball easily coming to him. “It’s blocking the Null! What is this?”

“You’re...welcome….” We all turned to the tired voice, and found a gray and fully armed Vaga standing atop a small still pond that shined as the skies overhead cleared, and the moon began rapidly changing phases until it was full and shining, the moonflowers that filled the meadow suddenly bloomed, shining brightly as well. “It took a while, but thanks, with them calling you here I was able to coordinate with Luna to see about shutting down these assassins once and for all.”

“Yay, verily!” A familiar voice called down from above, and a truly amazoness Luna with jugs even BIGGER than MY mares alighted down from the light of the moon adorned with silvery plate armor that conformed to her seamlessly, her regal features causing my companions save Solaris to all bow to her, as unlike my kind, gentle, and fair Luna, this Luna exuded such power, command, and raw Order that her presence as a goddess was completely acknowledgable upon mere sight. “We hath come deep into enemy territory to ensure these murderers are brought to justice! Will thee fight with us against thy kidnappers?”

“Of course, Luna!” I said. “Now, let’s kick some tail, just, stand back a bit.” I pulled up my left arm with the Dice Roller Core exposed. “Alright, time for the perfect roll.” I tapped the Dice Roller Core, and holographic die popped out of the screen. I grabbed all of them and tossed them. They glowed brightly and started to orbit around me for a second before I saw a small flash of light. When it settled, I was wearing my cloak again and could feel my power spiking beyond belief. “Alright. Let’s end this.”

“I am stuck holding the barrier! Keep them from me!” Vaga shouted as the Panther Crows decided their tactics weren’t going to work, and an all-out battle was at hand, as they all entered the Barrier and their cloaks turned them invisible. “Luna!”

“Our moon reveals all! The darkness scatters at the sun’s reflection, for it is weak! May our light shine upon thee! REFRACTION!” Luna cast a powerful spell from her horn, her moon shined brighter, and suddenly all the invisible enemies were now outlined, they weren’t fully visible, but anything with even the slightest physical form now had an illuminated outline.

“Goddess Selune! I fight in your name!” Ed shouted, not noticing how Luna gasped and beamed at the praise before we all scattered around Vaga, if the barrier stopping the Null fell, we’d be sitting ducks again!

Come on, Dox, think! You have the power right now, what can you do with it?!

I GOT IT! TIME TO BE STUPID!

“I’M A FIRIN’ MAH-” I said right before a massive laser came out from my mouth sounding like BLAH~ and I nearly vaporized at least three of the instantly. Then I turned my head. After I got another one, the rest got the idea and took to the air. Damn, we’re all ground bound and this attack’s ending soon. Wait, DUH! Gravity powers! The beam stopped and I took off after one of the attackers, whipping out Yngve’s sword to slice clean through them, only for the adamantium blade to be STOPPED! “What the-?” The answer was a dagger plunging into my neck.

I gurgled as I launched myself away from the opponent, but they stayed on me, stabbing me in the shoulder as I tried to let my neck wound heal, and I smacked them with the flat of the blade due to the angle only for them to stab me between several ribs in rapid succession. ‘WHO THE FUCK IS THIS?!’

I got my answer when a blatantly Adamantium dagger with fleur-de-lis engraved into it somehow appeared in the air, and the face of Corvo met mine mere inches away. “I send you now, to your father.”

As the dagger entered my skull, I saw a bright light flash in front of my eyes, as well the familiar shape of a d20. Roll, you son of a bitch, roll!

….. My lucky day! 20!

You survive…. Said a strange voice that I’d never heard before. It was almost ghostly. For now…..

I felt a surge of energy re-invigorate me. I felt several wounds close, and I could feel myself become stronger for a little bit. I snapped open my eyes to see the baffled face of Corvo, and promptly rammed my hand through his chest, using gravity to increase the power of my strike so I stabbed clean through him in a knife-hand, just barely missing his heart.

“L-Lord Force...I have...failed…..” Corvo gasped, before dropping his dagger that stabbed clean into the ground up to the pommel, and all the fighting was suddenly over. The other Panther Crows were gone, as if they’d never existed. HIs eye went glassy, and he slumped into me. Now that the Null was gone, all the fighting was over, I could sense the traces of his magic in his corpse.

“He was a High Priest….” I realized to my awe, and now knew who it was that begrudged my survival. “He was the High Priest of the Queen of Ravens. That explains so much.” I growled before pulling my arm free of the old griffon’s body, and kneeled down to grasp the pommel of the adamantium dagger and yanked it free. “How the hell did he get this though? Iron said they hadn’t figured out adamantium or aetherium yet.”

“Oh Goddess Selune! I am unworthy!” I groaned at hearing Edewecht’s praises and turned to see the Mountain Dwarf prostrating before Avarice’s amazoness Luna, who was practically drinking in the praise with a cheeky grin.

“Oh, whilst thee thinks so, we might disagree mighty magister. Rise. We adore thine adulations however.” She then looked around at us as Vaga dropped the barrier. The Null slammed back into us, but with the Panther Crows all gone, it was safe to assume we were in the clear for now. “And you must be Dox then.” Luna stated as she approached Hyper Bolic, who was frozen still in looking up at the nine-foot-tall Q-cup breasted goddess. “Whilst thou had assaulted our soldiers, we are to understand thou did it to aid our love.”

“Actually, Luna, that was me.” I said. “It’s kind of a complex story, but that was me.” She turned to me, and raised an eyebrow, before looking back to Hyper who nodded in confirmation.

“A body switcher? I have seen stranger things these past few months thanks to Avarice’s presence in all our lives.” Huh, her Royal We was gone, she must’ve calmed down. “Well, regardless, I am glad to have met you and prevented your deaths.” She froze however, upon seeing Solaris. “...Brute?”

“...Me? No, I am Solaris.” Solaris affirmed, and Luna quickly shook herself and calmed down.

“Good. Father is dead and should remain so.” The spite that she said that with made me blink in surprise. Guess not all of the Royal Sisters had good relationships with their parents. “As nice as it is to meet you all though, we must quickly make our escapes. This is in the heart of enemy territory, in the southern reaches of Griffonia, whom we are currently at war with. The fact Vaga had managed to scout this deep in at all is astounding. We don’t want to be caught by any patrols, or we’ll have the Legion bearing down on our heads like a storm.”

“Right.” I said, turning to the guys that came with me. “We should be getting back to our world.” I pulled out my Runic Portal Matrix and willed open a portal. “Come on guys. It was nice meeting you, Luna. I’ll be sure to say hi next time I’m here.”

“Do not be a stranger Dox Ad Finem. We do not forget our allies here.” With that, I led us all through the portal, though I think Yngve had to drag the groveling and prostrate Ed through. “The oddest thing Vaga, I don’t think I likes you.”

“It is hard to hold onto friends when one is as destructively Chaotic as I, heh, heh, heh~!”

When we emerged out onto the train platform, feeling it the most likely place for us to be noticed, I was right when I was promptly tackled to the ground by a hysterically crying Bluebelle. “Hush, hush. I’m okay honey. I’m fine.” I hugged and kissed the brow of the weeping and babbling mare who practically looked destroyed with worry as my other fiances and friends quickly made themselves apparent. “Hey, uh, well, we’ve got a bit of a story for you.”

After summarizing what went down, my brides felt that having the wedding tomorrow might be in bad taste. They didn’t want to have me at the altar while fresh from a life-or-death experience. I could relate honestly, I just wanted to lay down now. I still want the wedding, for sure, but not right now. I need some rest and relaxation, we all do.

Blackreach was having his needs tended by the Homages, so when I sent a message down to him if he needed me, he said he could still wait a bit longer. And so here I was, back in my normal hoodie, jeans, and whatnot as I examined the adamantium dagger I got from Corvo. The Compendium identified it as Kard, an ‘unstoppable’ dagger known to pierce anything. Considering what it’s made of, that’s a fair description. It was second only to Kingslayer, and another dagger the Compendium couldn’t seem to ‘remember’ as it were.

“...I need a vacation.” I decided. I’m more than sure everyone would agree with me too. So much fighting, so many conspiracies and sudden adventures. Sure, they were fun, but damn was it all tiring. Kat has the right idea, I need to find someplace I can just kick back and relax. “...Would Lulu, Tia and the others like Valley Island?”

“Dox?” Hearing her new voice, I looked from the dagger to the doorway, seeing my lovely fiance Arbok standing there wearing a lovely red dress. “If the wedding isn’t to be yet, I need to go home for now.”

“Oh, right. Avarice also gave you an ability similar to my matrix in exchange for a copy of your knowledge on Pokemon in general. I understand Arbok. I can always give you a call, and you can always pop in whenever you want, so don’t worry my sexy serpent, we’ll be together again.” I promised as I sat up, and she smiled before approaching to hug me. Interestingly enough, she was about my height, which was refreshing, since all my other fiances dwarf me by at least a foot.

“I love you Dox.” She kissed me softly on the lips, and then broke the embrace and left, being sure to sway her hips and swish her tail. Damn that girl knows her stuff already.

Under the Palace of Kings

Unknown Perspective

Lord Force’s shrieks of fury were echoing through the entirety of the base. All the others had left per his orders the instant news of Corvo’s death had reached him. He couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t murder anyone else with his bare hands like he did the messenger. The meaty thuds of his fists, and the cracking and shattering of rubble were the only sounds in the near pitch-darkness aside from the Dark Ruler’s infuriated voice.

He was in the prison pit, having already sought out and killed the prisoners he’d collected as the reward for Corvo’s success, so he could replenish his assassins. He had not believed for even an instant his old ally would fail. A white-furred fist shattered another tan stone wall as the shadowed hulking figure growled and stomped a hoof on the stone floor.

“Corvo, old bird...damn that child!” Force grit his fanged teeth, and his bright magenta eyes shimmered in the flickering torchlight of the hall, as his deceptively angelic white wings ruffled in anger. “Avarice, and Dox Ad Finem...you two are becoming liabilities rather than assets….” He left the cell he’d finished slaughtering with his bare hands, not a drop of blood on him as he entered the light, revealing a 10-foot tall slab of muscle, who looked mortifyingly akin to Solaris, horn and wings and all, his face one twisted into unbridled fury. “Hear me, across the realms!” His voice echoed, and elsewhere, a Changeling and Shifter shuddered. “I, Lord Brute Force, shall snap thine souls in twain!”

Avarice, No. We Don't Do That to Friends!

Again, I say: Well shit.

“Avarice, no!” I yelled at the crazed fertility aspect god/goddess that had just split into three and was now currently attempting to rape me. “No! We don’t do that to friends!”

“They do when their friends are fuckable and not shallow enough to let it ruin the friendship~.” Said the purple-maned one on the left as they each spread out and began to corral me into deeper water, which I used my gravity powers to help me stand on all Naruto style. Not as easy as I thought, kinda floating on the water rather than standing actually.

“Hey, I haven’t let Avarice screw me yet, and I’m not about to now!” I shouted at who must’ve been a recent addition to his mind, body, and soul, considering how Avarice changed when his buddy Crescent showed up. Why did this one want to fuck me so badly, though?! I know Avarice was always tempted to seduce me, and Crescent sure as hell didn’t help, but what was up with this one?!

“Shut up and be our plaything.” She demanded, one of her hands transforming into a bone-bladed whip made of flesh and bone...oh fuck I just realized it’s designed like the Threaded Cane from Bloodborne. This is going to hurt like hell. “Avarice was trying to accept his growing pansexuality, and you’re one of the most sexually active and open-minded guys he knows. Of course he’d fixate on you.”

“It doesn’t help the moment we brought her in that we forcibly transformed into a female body for the first time, and went into heat. You’re just unlucky enough to have summoned us while we’re like this.” The other purple-haired mare, I’m guessing Crescent, informed as she sprouted bones from her body in the shape of a...fuck, that’s the Saw Cleaver from Bloodborne too! Avarice must’ve played it a lot before being Displaced.

“Dude. Creepy and weird. Let alone that I didn’t want to know that.” I said. Shit. He… No, she… Oi, all this genderbending is weird. She’s cornering me with a group. This is pack hunting tactics. So… I’m guessing Avarice’s personality is gonna get a weapon, then they’ll pounce. So, plan: Take him/her/herm/whatever out now.

“And you’re thinking taking me down by interrupting me would work?” Uh…. “There’s two of me in front of me, armed. I’m not a bimbo hun, just look like one.” Okay...being in heat’s really screwing with Avarice’s personality. Then again, when doesn’t it? Turns meek things like Fluttershy into dominatrixes. Kinda scary, honestly.

“Well, uh…” I said, trying to remake my plan on the fly. “... Shut up!” I shifted my arm into its cannon form and took aim at ‘Avarice’ while keeping my eyes on the other two. “No more movements, or else.”

“Sugar, you once imploded my eye, and I didn’t even flinch. What do you think any sort of damage can-?” The answer came in the form of me blowing Ava’s head off with an explosive element blast, only for her arms to cross under her mountainous breasts in a pout as her head rapidly regenerated, mane and all. “Well, that was mean.”

“No, that was a warning.” I said, bluffing slightly, but preparing a ‘trump card’ anyways. Oh how I hope this works without blowing myself up. I prepared a certain spell in my other hand and hovered it over my arm cannon’s intake. “I mean it. One of you take another step towards me or makes a move for me and ma dick, I fire this off.”

“Hm, hm, hm...try us.” Ava taunted as she reached into her abdomen like her body was liquid and started pulling out...a...what is that? No, seriously, what is that? Whatever it is, I’m not letting her get it near me.

“I mean the warning. One more move of any sort, I’m firing.” I said, loading the spell into my arm cannon. “Pretty sure it’s not gonna turn out good for anyone.”

Babe, we’d listen on a normal day. But right now...we’re far from normal. Get him!” Ava ordered, and they were about to spread out and box me in. To hell with this Corruption of Champions bullshit, I ain’t getting raped today!

“I WARNED YOU!” I yelled before aiming directly at the ground in front of me and firing. Luckily, it didn’t explode, instead firing off the spell I had loaded into the cannon, which was the wall of flames spell. I was sure it wouldn’t really hold them, but I had to try. But just in case, I readied another spell and loaded it into the cannon. “Again! Another warning. Come through that, and I fire a different one. Please stay back, Avarice. You’re my buddy, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Buddy, you can’t really hurt us~. We’ve reached a stage of our power where only ridiculously powerful things can hurt us.” Three voices in unison answered, before they all casually walked through the wall of fire on the water, their flesh bubbling, their fur burning, and they didn’t care as it flaked away, leaving fresh, clean skin and hair, each grinning cheekily. “You have to pull out all the stops if you don’t want us to pound you raw.”

“Well then, I guess this shouldn’t affect you.” I said before aiming at the middle copy of Avarice, closing my eyes, and firing off a supercharged light spell through my arm cannon, effectively making it a flashbang shot without the bang. And now to metaphorically kick the Hulk in the dick.

“Ow, shit, damn it!” They each shouted, covering their eyes with a free hand and blinking, trying to get back their sight from going from dark, to blinding, to dark so fast. Now’s my chance.

I quickly opened up and reached into my magic satchel. I shifted around for a few seconds before finally finding what I was after. I pulled out my prize: an orichalcum dagger, then quickly went back in for more.

After I had about fifteen out, I closed my magic satchel and shoved the daggers into my somehow bottomless hoodie pockets. Why don’t I use them more often? Anyhow, they were all growling as their eyes fixed back on me, I wasn’t as worried now though. “Why’re you so calm? Girls, be careful, he’s up to something.” Damn it, why does she have to know me so well? Well, she is my friend, a dear friend, who’s...really rocking it right now. But no. Not going to let her have her way with me. I haven’t been resisting his advances just to change my mind the moment he went femme...even if I admitted it to him before that I wouldn’t mind banging her if she flipped genders, but not like this, fuck no, not in heated blind passion.

“Buddy. I’m warning you. Back off and calm down. I don’t want to have to cause you pain.” I warned, silently and discretely loading a dagger into my arm cannon behind my back. “You’re right about one thing, but I don’t have to do it if you just back off and calm down.”

“Grrr! I’m going to inject you with paralysis venom then!” All three of them lunged at me. The bladed whip coming in low, the saw-tooth cleaver coming down from high, and the sharp short piston-pike-thing coming from the front. Right as they were all about to impact, I dodged by teleporting behind them in a ‘poof’ of shadowstuff, then aiming at Avarice’s ‘Avarice’ personality and firing, nailing him directly in the back of the head.

She dropped like a sack of bricks, suddenly, no ceremony. Just lost the back of her skull and down...OH FUCK DID I KILL HER?! “You fucking asshat!” One of the clones screamed in anger as her hair turned red and her eyes green. “You just killed one of my bodies! Now I have to eat it to get that mass back!”

“Oh, good. I was scared I’d killed you.” I know orichalcum is called the god-slaying metal, but fuck, that would’ve ended any one of the gods/goddesses I know.

“You did you fucking asshole! The only reason I’m alive is because all my bodies are linked. But now, even though I’m not as horny from fucking dying and shit, I’m going to get you on principal! Sharp, fuse!” They jumped at each other, and melded together into a solid black mass of formless flesh, landing with a smacking thud and quickly drawing in Ava’s dead body. “We’re going to beat the shit outta you for that!” It echoed from several mouths that formed randomly over the mass of blob-like flesh as tentacles wielding all manner of weapons began sprouting everywhere.

And here I thought Avarice couldn’t get any fucking creepier…. Or fucking dangerous. Welp, time to load another- I had to dodge when a giant blade-whip slashed across where I’d been, and then barely tank a bunch of shotgun blasts from multiple guns the tentacles were wielding with my Hyperion-issued shield. Man, am I glad Homage sold me that while I was on vacation.

“We are going to forcibly transform you into a herm, and then ravish you in every possible way!” Yeah, I need to figure out how to beat them or I’m going to be fucking spit-roasted! In that form, they might as well be impossible to hurt, but I already have the ammo to beat them down. I ducked, weaved and twirled around in the air, really glad my regular use of my gravity powers was allowing me to dodge all of this. And I just realized I was still in my changeling king form too

‘Hey, this must mean I’m really getting better with my powers if in this form I-’ I was literally smacked out of my musings by the flat of a cleaver smashing me through the air, and me crashing back-first into an unseeable black wall in the darkness against the nearly unseeable black blob. Ow. Thank Jack for my Echo Eye or this fight would’ve been done at the word go, and I would’ve been Ava’s sex toy for who know’s how long. Bad End even?

“Sorry for the rough treatment, but we don’t exactly care because either way; you’re ours when we’re through here.” A ton of spears all launched at me, and I barely avoided them pinning me to the wall like one of those taxidermy bugs.

“What’s that? Can’t hear you over-.” I had loaded another dagger in the frenzy, and now I fired it at them, getting a deafening shriek of pain and the blob writhed in agony as they wilted and I took the chance to bolt at them, loading another one. “Shut up! Just shut up and sit down! Bad girls! No cookies for you!” I shouted as I neared one of the wailing mouths and stuffed my arm in it, firing.

It went silent, and collapsed literally into itself, almost taking my arm with it before I yanked it free of the suddenly-gone mouth, and after several seconds, the blob formed into Ava’s female form, hunched over the water and coughed up blood and bits of green metal.

“You calm now?” I said, taking a few steps back before being socked across the gigantic room. “I’ll take that as a maybe…. Ow.”

“You...bastard….” She choked out, hacking out another stream of blood and a shard of metal. “Are you trying to kill me? Do...do you hate me or something?” She asked, tears pouring forth as she whimpered in pain and reached into her mouth to dig the poisonous metal out, stretching herself impossibly, but she couldn’t seem to change anything. Maybe Avarice’s transformation power is magic based? Whoops….

“Listen, I’m sorry Avarice.” I said. “But I REALLY do not like the idea of being raped.”

“But it-*cough*-would’ve been fun.” She whined, as she ripped out a chunk of her insides, screaming quietly as more tears dumped down her cheeks. Damn it, her pain resistance must’ve been magical too.

“Avarice, Avarice. It’s only fun if both parties agree.” I said, walking up and draping an arm cautiously around the crying mass-shifter.

She spit out a rather large chunk of metal, and sniffled as the bleeding slowed and her shivering stopped. “But...then when Sharp raped me...why did I like it?” She asked pleadingly, looking up at me. Oh gog…. She was...she was a wreck. Not just physically. I know she was in a bad spot earlier, but damn it, I ignored it mostly. I could see in those eyes a depth of pain, despair, fear, and confusion that just warped and twisted her into this thing that seeks out her next thrill to drown it out. “W-was it wrong? That I loved it? That I was thankful to Sharp for it?”

“No, Avarice, it wasn’t wrong.” I said. “Some people like it, but I’m not one of them.”

“I-I can be gentle! Just please….” She pleaded, putting her hands gently on my shoulders and wanting to close distance, but holding herself back.

“Avarice, you know what’ll happen if I say yes.” I said. “You’re in heat, and my herd is plenty large as it is.”

She choked quietly on a sob, and sniffled as she put her face into my shoulder, her horn braced in the crook of my neck. “I don’t care...I just...damn it...why do I do this? Why do I just keep putting myself out on the ledge? I want a foal so bad right now, but I don’t know if it’s the heat or me, or one of my other mes who want it. I want you, so bad. I know you, I trust you, I want you...it’s not fair...to either of us...is this how Demir feels about me? Is this the torture I put her through by friend-zoning her?”

“I don’t know, buddy. Maybe.” I said. “But trust me, just going for it without permission is not the way. Nor is even doing it with permission right now. I called you for some help, and right now I need you to be calm and not wanting the D so you can help.” I insisted, and patted her on the back of her neck, rubbing a bit and getting a groan of appreciation at the tension leaving the tight corded muscles. My mares all got all squishy and pliable like putty when I massaged them, so why wouldn’t the same apply here?

“*sigh* Alright. Let me force my hormones down now that I’m not about to jump your bones and can focus.” Avarice said, but backed off and smirked as I jumped at her suddenly grabbing my butt and I had to blush at how she could grab my whole butt with both claws and she grinned. “Still man, nice ass. This buggy changeling form of yours is a good one.” She joked before letting me go and sitting back, sitting cross-legged in the water, only her lower belly and legs being hidden in the water, her gigantic melons deliciously hanging just over her lap, her cream and black fur pattern making me think of cows. Oh gog I’d do her if I wasn’t already committed to so many super sexy loves. But damn, ten-outta-ten.

GAH. Freaking changeling-ness! Stop drifting there every three freaking seconds! Even if she is sexier than sin with tits like Tia’s and an ass like Lulu’s-UGH! No! Bad brain! Do it again and I’m shifting back to my normal form!.... But that’d make me so much smaller than her. She could even hold me in her br- OKAY, THAT’S IT! SHIFTING TO NORMAL NOW!

“Okay. I’m calm...really calm. Nice….” Ava cooed, feeling exquisitely at peace before she blinked lazily at me. “Hey...why’d you go for the munchkin look?” She asked as...shit, why’s she getting bigger? Does staying small take effort for her and she’s all relaxed now, so she’s letting loose? Now not even half her thighs are covered by the water.

“Shut up! I’m average-height in this form! Everyone else is just freakishly tall!” I shouted, having an Edward Elric moment, but I couldn’t help but wish my buggy-brain wasn’t right when she casually picked me up like a toddler and put me on top of her giant shelf of growing even-bigger boobs, making me blush brightly.

“Well, if you’re going to be small, I need you up here. Too tired to speak up or listen hard.” She lazily said as she hummed in content, and I shifted around to not fall into the glorious canyon of softness.

“Listen, Blue needs some-” I started, only to remember Bluebelle and Lulu being smacked aside by the heat-crazed Ava that I originally summoned. “OH SHIT! BLUE! LULU! We need to check to see if they’re okay!” Unfortunately, after that freak out, I fell into the crevasse that was the tight gap between Ava’s humongous tits. I could lie, but fucking hell, it was one of the hottest things that ever happened to me, especially as I writhed to try and climb out and she moaned. I would be lying if I said I didn’t get a boner.

“Hey...I can’t hear you from in there.” She reached in, but the distance between the outside and me was increasing, she was still getting bigger. Fuck, that’s right; when Avarice let loose; he was a giant, but now she’s all relaxed, she’s turning into a giantess. I gasped for air as her reaching in let in some precious oxygen, but she moaned again and must’ve pressed her breasts together because it got completely smothering in here. “Dox~...what’re you doing?”

‘I can die happy. In the valley of heaven.’ My air-deprived brain blissfully thought before she must’ve pulled her mams apart and I fell into her crossed legs, and I got a full view of her exposed groin. Oh gog...she is making it so hard to refuse and she’s not even actually trying right now. What is it with me finding accidental seduction better than any effort-made seduction?

“Hey! Can we get to you helping me now?” I called to the giantess, banishing certain…. thoughts from my mind. “Come on! I need your help down here, not up there! And don’t you dare let your mind enter the gutter!”

“What gutter? Dox? I can’t see you.” She reached under her glorious chest bazongas and felt around her legs for me, and I moved into her hand where she easily wrapped her fingers gently around me and lifted me back up to her face. “Why were you down there? I could’ve sworn you were up here a minute ago.”

Whoa...is this what being in the full effect of the water does? Damn, she’s practically stoned. I hope she’s coherent enough to actually help.

“Hey! I kinda need you to shrink down!” I told Ava. “We need to go find Bluebelle and Lulu and see if they’re okay! Then we need to help out Blue. She’s having trouble controlling her aspect and I thought you could help.”

“She can’t hear you, not clearly.” I jumped in Ava’s gentle grip as a me-sized purple-haired and gold-eyed Ava seamlessly melted out of her wrist and sighed as she straddled the wrist and folded her arms under her giant breasts. “Whatever this water is, she’s in complete la-la land. She’s just about to nod off.” She warned, pointing to the giantess who seemed to have stopped growing, and was almost snout-deep into her own cleavage, her eyes shut as her arm gently started lowering down. “So how about we let her rest and I and Sharp help you out?”

“And which one are you?” I asked as Ava’s hand finished sinking to the pool and I got out of her limp grip as she hovered over the water with her wings. “I’m gonna make a guess and say Crescent, correct? Or is Crescent in the giant body, and you’re Avarice?”

“We’re ALL Avarice, but Ava’s sleeping, I’m hosting both Crescent and Sharp; the new girl. But I personally am Crescent. I know; confusing. Having a hive-mind is frustrating. How the changelings of some worlds do it with so many I have no clue.” She griped before sighing and then seamlessly transforming into a genderless body, no genitals and rather androgynous with it’s lithe and either/or body shape. “There, just call us CS or something. Told ya we should’ve gone separately idiot. And that was Sharp, she’s a bitch. Fuck off.”

“Wow. You two make the hive mind a stranger concept than it really is.” I said. “Anyways, you gonna help me find Blue and Lu-?”

“Oh Faust she’s hot!” Oh, answer provided. ‘I swear, this happens TOO often.’ Blue and Luna were standing nearby, the area having been lit up and hundreds of Lunar Guards all around the walls of the enormous chamber ‘turning up’ the ambient silver-blue lights that were along the walls and ceiling that were at a dim almost-off tone before, but now lit the chamber in a tinge of silver-blue. “She’s so...BIG! I want to climb her!” Blue shouted as she waded into the pool, Luna lifting into the air to fly over to me with her wings.

“Art thou alright Dox? We heard the combat was fierce, so we fetched our ceremonial guard contingent in case thou needed more help than we could provide.” Luna explained as she landed in front of me, and turned to CS with perplexity. “What sort of being art thou? We hast not met a creature with no genitalia that was not an atronach or golem of sorts.”

“Not explaining. Sharp. No. It’s only polite. Fuck ‘em, I’m not wasting time with flapping my lips, what does he want, then we can head back and you can introduce me to the rest of the herd or whatever. Sharp, I know you’ve had a hard time-. I WAS A FUCKING BROODMOTHER!” Sharp screamed angrily, and CS huffed and puffed, seeming split between crying, screaming in rage, and pity. “Just...just tell us what you want, we’ll do it, then send us home.”

“Oh my gosh this is so hot!” We looked up at Blue’s voice to see her straddling one of Ava’s ridiculously huge nipples and leaning back on the areola of her breast as the giantess was drowsily blinking and leaning back to try and see the outerloper on her body. “I can only IMAGINE what being this big is like!”

“THAT.” I declared, pointing at Bluebelle. “I need help with that. She’s going nuts because of her aspect. Honestly, as much as it’s nice to have you here, Crescent, and you too, Sharp, I need Avarice. He’s the one who’s had the most experience with turning into a god of fertility.” I saw SC about to speak up. “Don’t you start on me. You know it’s true, so don’t deny it. I need Avarice, and I need him coherent and awake, so we can start with that. Alright?”

“Dox.” The masculine and firm voice from SC kinda stunned me, especially when it folded it’s arms and leered at me. “Do not belittle my soul-shared mates. Lest thou have me make thee INfertile.”

“Well hello to you, too.” I said. “And I wasn’t belittling them. I was just pointing out a fact. And hey, it got you out here, didn’t it? Now, could you please-”

“Dox! I have an idea!” Blue shouted down to us. No! Not now, not one of her ‘ideas’, those always end up with something ending up in some hole. “Make me like sis here! I mean, able to change my body! She’s all calm right now and I wasn’t THIS calm when I was in the water myself.”

“She’s right, my main body is currently actively suppressing the sections of the brain that translate hormones into sexual needs and thoughts. If I made her like me; she could also suppress her desires through sheer will. I nearly ended up sending a whole city square into a rutting frenzy, but when I toned the hormones down, it instantly broke the influence. Oh, right; she’s going to be making EVERYONE around her horny as hell soon too, so...it’d be a good idea to do that now.” Avarice warned as he continued to hover with his wings, SC’s body becoming more masculine in musculature just from him being there I’m guessing.

“Well, as much as the idea of a shapeshifting lover sounds good, I’m gonna have to say that I’m opposed to it.” I said.

“What’s the matter hun? Afraid to lose your specialization in bed?” Blue called down, getting me to blush. That was a very, VERY small part of it, but she could make all kinds of hell if she had Avarice’s Shifter power…. Let alone… THAT.

“Listen, it’s only part of it.” I explained to Blue. “I’d just rather not mutate another one of my fiances… among things.”

“Well balls to that! I want it, and I’m my own mare. Significant other or not, I don’t need your approval for something I do with my body!” Blue shouted down imperiously, okay, yeah, crossed a line of hers. Don’t Fuck With My Personal Decisions is one of her stipulations of our relationship, but I’d still rather not have her go through with it. She doesn’t know of the full consequences.

“Listen, Blue. If you could just let me tell you what it all entails, I’d gladly-.”

“You’ll essentially become a clone of me.” Avarice intoned. “For what you want, I’d need to basically give you the full package, rather than a pick-and-choose. That’s a lot of genetic memory. That’s a lot of potential instincts, thoughts, and forms available to you. You’d have all my powers, though on your own level you already do.” Avarice looked up at her, and she stonily looked back. “She won’t be swayed Dox. I know that look too well.”

“I don’t care. There must be another way!” I said. “I don’t want Blue going through that. She may not know all that being an essential clone of you entails, but I do, Avarice. I’ve seen what you are. She hasn’t.” Avarice then let SC turn into a formless black blob, and fall to the water, writhing about, and I pointed at it. “See Blue? That, is what you would be, at your very base, you’d be a complete shapeshifter.”

“So?” What? “I’d still be me, right?” Blue asked sharply, not at all impacted by the formless flesh.

“Yes.” Ava intoned from above us all, and she lifted her breast so the mare sitting on her nipple could be more easily seen. “You would be. You’re a strong person. You wouldn’t lose yourself...like I have....” That didn’t sound too reassuring....

“Then do it. What needs done?” Ava’s eyes began glowing red! Blue’s too! No!

“Then you desire all my powers...what will you give in return?”

“My...eternal gratitude?” Blue answered, not really knowing what could be worth that, but Ava smiled softly.

“Siblings then.” No! Stop! Ava was bringing her nipple, and by extension; Blue, up to her face, and her tongue turned thin and whip-like with a stinger on the end as she neared! NO!

I teleported right in front of it and got stabbed in my left shoulder. It didn’t inject me, though. Instead it kept pressing into my shoulder, attempting to reach Blue who was shouting something at me…. No… I can stop this.

“AVARICE!” I yelled at my currently deal making Merchant friend. “I have new terms! Don’t mutate Blue! Don’t mutate my fiance! I care too much for her to go through with that! You already did it for Arbok, but that was a limited change, this is something akin to completely changing species!”

“Well SOMEONE is getting this contract! Thankfully, Shifter siblings can still mate without trouble. Sorry, once the thing’s in...can’t exactly take it...infect...INFECT!” Ava’s face became sadistically gleeful, and the tendril began actually bulging with mutagen, making my eyes widen in fear, true fear, something I haven’t felt in a long time. “Ah~! I’m spreading my kind! Oh it’s wrong, I know it, but oh~!”

“GAAAH!” I screamed in pain as the utterly massive amounts of fluid mutagen flooded into my body in places fluids weren’t meant to be. It may have been pleasurable to Avarice, but to me, it was one of the most agonizing things I had felt since I had been abducted by the Die Leucht. I swear, during the entire process, I could feel parts of my body start changing, albeit slowly and EXTREMELY painfully to my perception, when to the outside world I seemed to be melting within seconds, my clothes falling off and into the water down below since they couldn’t cling to me anymore.

I shortly fell off the stinger, and plopped as fleshy white goo into the giantess goddess’ cleavage, the pain gone, nothing but blindness, deafness greeted me, aside from the utterly pleasurable sensation of my body sliding down something incredibly soft, before suddenly everything seemed to change.

Anger. Something I was told I could lose myself in, now felt detached, and cold as my goopy form began solidifying into something I couldn’t really identify, my vision filled with hues of the rainbow.

Dox! Damn it, no! Keep calm, don’t panic. Just listen to me, follow my instructions, and everything will be fine.

‘What? The hell is going on?! Why do I feel strange?! What am I?! Where am I?! Why can’t I see properly?! Somebody help me!’

Dox! Just calm down! You’re going to be fine. Just calm down. You’ve been injected with mutagen and-

‘WHAT?! Who did this?! Why did they do this?! TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON! I JUST WANT TO GO HOME AND SPEND TIME WITH MY FIANCES!’

Dox, you’re acting irrationally! Just calm down and-

‘NO! SHUT UP, YOU! I’M DONE LISTENING TO YOU! I….. I….’

[3rd PoV]

Ava screamed in pain as something launched her breasts apart painfully, launching a screaming Blue into the air where she was caught by several guards, and something splashed into the water in the center of the huge chamber a bit away from Ava and everyone, Luna and CS having flown up, with CS now being back to androgyny in response to the sudden turn.

The water rippled as everything went silent save Ava wincing as she cupped her mams to soothe the rough treatment they’d just been subjected to. Then, the water slowly parted, as rising up from it was...Bluebelle? Her eyes opened, rainbow-hued and solid, before she grit her sharpening teeth in anger.

“I’m done being everyone’s toy.”