I Got 682 Problems, But a Lizard Ain't One

Chapters

[DATA EXPUNGED]
[EXPLETIVE DELETED]
Destruction Increased to 33!
It Ain't Rocket Science, Kiddo
Seek n' Destroy
I'MMA BURN THIS SON OF A BITCH!
Well Fuck, Looks Like Someone Has 682 Problems As Well. Too Bad a Lizard IS One.
YOU'RE JUST A VOICE PAL!
YOU DON'T KNOW A DAMN THING ABOUT RACING
This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
FOUNDATION HEARTS
Genesys Pharmaceuticals?
[REDACTED]
◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ ◼︎◼︎◼︎ ◼︎◼︎ ◼︎◼︎◼︎ ◼︎◼︎◼︎

[DATA EXPUNGED]

Or: Carpe Cadavera

Drake woke with a start, immediately regretting his involuntary jolt due to the all encompassing pain he felt.

"Ah shit, this hurts..... Wait a minute... Where am I!?"

Looking around, he noted that he was in a metal room with no apparent lightsource, just a pervasive white glow that seemed to come from the walls themselves. Examining himself as the pain faded to a dull throb, he saw that his clothing was still his same costume from Comic-Con, still a prison uniform. But, as he looked further down, he noticed something strange: his feet were bare, and looked exactly like the false-claw-shoe-cover things he had been wearing to the 'Con. And he promptly did as any sane person would do, and flipped out.

"Ah shit! What the fuck is this!? What happened to my feet!? Wait.... What happened to my hands!? What are these, claws!? Oh god oh god oh god, what else happened!?" He felt along his face, not noticing anything different, until he came across his hair and ears, "Holy shit my hair is longer! And green! My ears! Why are they all pointy!? What the fuck is going on here!? Am I dreaming? No, can't be, I can actually feel pain. Oh man this is real! Aah, what am I gonna do!?"

As Drake went about panicking, a single researcher on the other side of the one way mirror turned to his assistant, "Get Head Researcher Sparkle. Tell her that the new anomalous D-Type is awake."

The younger of the pair saluted and ran off with a hasty, "Yes sir!"

Site 34 Staff Break Room

Twilight Sparkle sighed as she prepared herself a cup of tea. She needed to get her mind off of the new anomalous entity before she went insane and tried to study every last aspect of it like she had tried with AEC 1124, The Never Empty Coffee Machine.

In her zeal to understand the mechanics of the machine and it’s cognitohazardous effects she had completely dismantled it, resulting in an accidental decommission. The rebuilt 1124 showed no anomalous properties other than just really good coffee, so it was left in the break room.

Tea prepared, Twilight sat on one of the more comfy couches in the room and tried to relax with a copy of Equestria Science Daily.

“Prin- I mean, Head Researcher Sparkle! The new anomalous D-Type is awake! He appears to be panicking though.”

Twilight groaned as she rubbed her horn; she had just forgotten her obsessive need to understand things, anomalies in particular and then this rookie scientist had gone and ruined her Zen Thing™ right as she’d finally relaxed into her tea and science magazine.

“Noted. Lead the way.” She rose from her reclined position and gave a last, longing look at her favorite piece of scientific literature before swiftly following the rookie scientist down the twisting corridors and into the depths of the facility, straight into the heart of the area labeled “To Be Classified”.

Five miles outside of Site 34, Canterlot Castle; Throne Room.

Princess Celestia shifted uneasily in her ornate throne. Normally it was quite comfortable, much nicer than most of the rest of the chairs in the kingdom, but something today made her distinctly uncomfortable, nevermind the fact that she was in the middle of a very important meeting about the economy or something. The government largely took care of itself anyway; most of what she did these days was just sign paperwork for big things and raise the sun.

Back on track, Celestia normally never shifted like this, only when something big was about to happen; her deranged- now cured- sister’s return from exile on the moon, Discord’s return, the anomalous insect containment breach over at Site 34 a few years back, Tirek, Chrysalis, Sombra, even the birth of her most faithful student.

“Sister? Is something the matter?”

Luna’s quiet whisper broke Celestia from her light Trance of Ominous Foreboding™ and she whispered back, “It’s nothing. Just an odd feeling.”

Turning back to the meeting at hand, Celestia couldn’t help but to take one last glance out the window, in the exact direction of Site 34. Something told her that not even her considerable magic talents would be of use in the coming storm.

Back at Site 34

AEC 12 “The Gremlin” giggled maliciously as it scurried through the maze of cables and machines that made up the Thaumic Generator room in Site 34.

The tiny Euclid class entity didn’t often find escape routes in its cell, but today the researchers had accidentally left a pen inside of its enclosure.

The Gremlin was nothing if not resourceful, and had quickly destroyed its containment unit and escaped deeper into the facility to where it was now.

The most important room in the entire facility, save for the archive room.

The Thaumic Generator room was singlehandedly responsible for converting the mana in the leylines directly beneath Site 34 into usable electricity and magic. Without it, none of the facility would work; no lights, no doors, no containment, nothing.

And the Gremlin knew exactly where it was.

Twitching its massive, scaly ears, the ugly-as-sin, vaguely reptilian being set to work with a malicious giggle, pulling out wires here, scratching out runes there, kicking fragile glass covers, and generally causing hundreds of work hours worth of repairs; all the while giggling and muttering, “Break! Break! Break!” under its breath.

Meanwhile…

Everybody noticed when the lights went out.

Of course, most people weren’t all too concerned, save for those in the containment facilities; most thought that the emergency power would kick in soon enough.

Of course, it only got worse from there. All over the compound, screams were heard as over a hundred different AECs escaped their containment; some fairly harmless, such as AECs 1-6, as well as AEC 77.

Others, well, not so much.

AEC 66: The Ravenous Swarm was one such example.

The AEC itself was nothing more than a tennis ball sized insectoid being, round and with large, green eyes and four rounded wings.

Of course, it possessed the ability to rapidly consume any and all organic matter and use it to asexually reproduce in massive quantities.

The Swarm, and many, many other AECs rampaged through the facilities, killing nigh indiscriminately, though some of the more harmless ones attempted to help.

And as the remaining humans and Safe class AECs were herded into the Containment pens, one unlucky (Or very lucky) researcher found herself knocking loose the door that held the newly found anomalous D-class human.

Unfortunate in that she had been chased to the cell by AEC 45: The Basilisk. Fortunate in that Drake was a kind soul and the thought of any innocent being hurt really pissed him off.

Drake’s attention was held by the sounds of screaming and slaughter as he sat in his darkened cell. He’d long since gotten over his panic at his new features due to the more pressing concern of his current situation.

Of course, this changed once he heard his door getting knocked open and saw a young woman rush in, a massive, sixty foot long, vaguely draconic snake hot on her heels.

Drake felt a massive rush of adrenalin and rage course through his system; adrenalin due to his fear, rage at the thought of an innocent woman being slaughtered while he was still alive to do anything to change that.

And lo, as his mind was lost to the haze, he roared, giving both newcomers pause, before dropping down to all fours and changing in a rush of tearing cloth and eldritch hissing. And when he finished his change, he leapt at the giant snake, ready to rip and tear!

[EXPLETIVE DELETED]

Or: When Lizards Hunt Snakes and Both Are Gigantic (And Angry)

Assistant Researcher Empty Beaker, PhD, could hardly believe her eyes; she’d stumbled into an unprocessed anomalous entity’s unlocked room with a Celestia-damned Keter class 60-foot long snake with a literal death glare on her heels, and she was still somehow alive.

What made the situation even stranger was the fact that the anomalous entity had gone from a slightly-more-reptilian-than-average D-Type human to a massive, 20-feet long, 10-feet high hulking monstrosity of a lizard. And then it had proceeded to engage in pitched combat with the Basilisk.

Senses overloaded and adrenalin rush fading, she fainted dead away, thankfully falling into a secluded spot right below the cot attached to the wall.

The newly transformed lizard-beast from hell lunged at the marauding snake, not caring that the intruder was thrice its length and was much more agile; while it may not have established a reputation yet, the beast knew that anything that challenged it was either an idiot, or powerful beyond comprehension…. and an idiot.

Thusly, the battle began, 682 latching onto the snake’s spine and biting down as the draconic serpent thrashed in agony; for too long it had ruled the AEC compound under its scaly maw, it was time for a new king to rise.

The snake stopped thrashing wildly and suddenly thrusted its spine outwards, a row of spikes lashing out of its back and digging into the tender mouth-flesh of the armored demon-lizard.

“SKREEEEE” Pained cry that came from 682’s mouth was absolutely deafening, shattering the reinforced glass observational windows and even cracking the concrete walls from the sheer volume.

“HISSS” The snake reeled back, feeling the force of the screech even as its foe dropped to the ground to nurse its injured maw.

The two titanic reptiles circled each other warily, both beasts feeling the urge to rip and shred, but both were wary of any surprises that the other may come up with.

Then, the lizard leapt at the hell-serpent, gouging at its throat as the serpent raised its tail to swat the lizard away; neither impact was completed to their fullest- the lizard was knocked away before it could do more than gouge a deep line into the Basilisk’s scales, and the snake unable to do more than graze the lizard’s dense bone armor.

The Basilisk hissed in irritation, no arrogant little upstart would dare take its throne! Concentrating for but a moment, the Basilisk unleashed the full force of its glare- a glare far removed from the paralyzing curse of its weaker brethren. This glare manifested as a pair of sickly yellow beams of light, scorching the floor as 682 dodged and throwing the scent of ozone and charcoal everywhere. Not long after 682 had climbed up one of the multitude of raised platforms in the room, the twin beams caught up to it, scorching its flesh to the bone and throwing sprays of quickly vaporising black blood.

682 fell, bleeding and yowling under the force of the twin beams. As the beams scorched into it ever more, the lizard’s cries grew fainter and fainter, until it finally stopped moving and it seemingly collapsed into a dead pile of… oddly unscorched flesh?

The Basilisk let up on its assault, clearly thinking that its opponent was dead, before moving to consume the fainted human underneath Drake’s cot. As it neared, it never even noticed 682’s form beginning to shudder and regenerate.

It certainly noticed the lancing pain of fangs and claws and bladed tail in its spine, however. The battle continued, both reptiles once again thrashing around the room, smashing concrete platforms and crushing delicate sensors. The Basilisk raised its dorsal quills once more, flaring open its head crest and pectoral spines to give it an even more intimidating appearance.

SKREEE

HISSSSS

682 itself simply shook out its mane and growled, all four, crimson, cross-pupiled eyes glowing with hatred as the swirling runes printed on its side glowed with a sickly green bioluminescence.

682 roared, sounding less like the 20-foot long beast it was, and sounding more like a demon straight from the depths of the lowest circle of hell, such was its sheer presence. The blades on its tail grew, becoming more wicked and curved, scything outwards as the tip of its tail glowed an angry, fiery red, steam coalescing around the blades.

Both combatants knew that only one would survive the fight.

And with one last, furious charge, they grappled again, the Basilisk biting down and through 682’s armor and injecting the lizard with corrosive venom, only for the snake’s flesh to be shredded and cauterized by a swipe from a now red-hot tail. The snake’s quills shuddered, their owner twisting around and firing them at 682 in a barrage of corrosive missiles, ones that were ignored in favor of scoring more slashes and gouges into the snake’s scaly hide.

At this point, both combatants were looking worse for the wear, but 682 was slowly regenerating and adapting, its plates becoming thicker and its flesh darkening further.

The Basilisk, meanwhile, was covered in cauterized wounds and scratches, it couldn’t go on much further.

Knowing this, the snake opened up its final resort: it fired its eyebeams with enough force to shred its eyes open, blood mixing with the deadly magical plasma and filling the air with deadly vapor.

Unfortunately, the lizard had adapted to both the beams and the venom, and was thus able to reflect the beams back at the snake using only its glossy, blackened hide, shredding through more of the snake even as it emptied up its entire mana reserve in a futile attack.

After thirty seconds of unrelenting laser-fire, the Basilisk collapsed, dead, and 682 bellowed in victory, conveniently blowing away the venomous vapor with the sheer force of its lungs.

All through the compound, every last AEC heard the call, and was filled with unrelenting fear of an unkillable predator. Thus subdued, the insurrection was quickly quelled.

682 took no notice of this, however, too busy feasting on the corpse of its foe, intaking its flesh and essence, causing the runes on its back to extend ever so slightly further, its dorsal spines growing slightly longer, and its eyes tinging a slight yellow for but a fraction of a second.

After finishing its gory meal, 682 wandered back to where it had discovered the scent of a human, pulling Empty Beaker out of her conveniently protected hiding space and curling around her, quickly falling asleep, thus assured of the researcher’s safety.

Destruction Increased to 33!

Or: RRRRAAGHAHGAAHAGHAAGH (Translation: FUCK YOU HUMANS! I HAVE LASERS!)

Meanwhile, while destruction runs rampant in 682’s Equestria…

Don sighed as he stepped into the personal quarters of his fortress, tired from all the war preparations. Can’t believe how much Gnarl likes to talk.

“He certainly does.” Nightmare Moon spoke in his head. “I’m surprised he managed to drag that on so long.”

Don chuckled before he felt a tug of magic, his mind already beginning to work on where it came from. Huh, that’s a new world. And a pretty far one at that. He walked over to his closet, opening it with magic as his armor flew out and wrapped around him with practiced ease.

“Are you sure it is such a good idea to head to a world you know nothing about?” Nightmare chided as he stepped out onto the balcony and turned around. With a bolt of electricity the archway became a portal, soon revealing a scene that would not have seemed out of place in a common depiction of the Biblical Hell.

Moments Prior

682 ran through the Everfree forest. It had been on the run now for nearly a month, constantly killing everything in its path with razor claws and laser maws.

It had just detected the fresh scent of unsuspecting and was now tracking the scent trail ruther and further from the center of the forest.

After a long six minutes of straight sprinting, 682 found himself within a small rural town, recently established not three years ago. The sight of all the humans there filled 682 with an unholy rage, and with it, came a roar so filled with anger and hatred that the mere sound of it collapsed three buildings.

“HHHHHHHHRRRAAAAAAAAAAAACHAHAAARAAAARAAAHHHH”

The crowd scattered as the infernal lizardbeast opened fire with its newfound arsenal, organic rockets, acid, laser beams, and fire spewing everywhere, killing dozens at a time. The rampage continued, 682 not resting until he had killed every single human alive in the town, and even all of the animals.

Then, the creature displayed a rare feat of intelligence, and impaled every corpse it could still use on the town’s defensive structures, removing entrails and organs and layering them around as well. Blood filled the streets. Fire and smoke clogged the air. Corpses surrounded the town, and the sounds of the dying pierced through the roaring of the flames and the rumbles of collapsing buildings.

682 took up position in the center of the town, not noticing the small, broken dagger under its claw, and roaredto the the heavens. The dagger began to glow a deep red, 682 taking a step back as the broken blade shot lightning at a spot on the floor nearby. It watched as a portal opened and new prey stepped through, ready to be torn apart.

Don looked at all the fire and destruction in front of them before shrugging. Not what I was expecting but hey, at least it isn’t a trap set by some hero. He stepped through, Nightmare doing the mental equivalent of rolling her eyes. The moment the portal closed behind him, a roar unlike anything the two had heard rang out. Don turned just in time to see a giant lizard-esque creature slam its tail into him. He went flying back, slamming through several walls before finally stopping, buried by rubble.

682, believing him to be dead, let out a roar of triumph before turning away. As it did though, his ear flicked, hearing a sound. It turned back toward the rubble to see ice forming on the stone chunks. Suddenly the pile exploded and Don stood up. His armor was torn in a few places, showing the purple glow of the markings along his left side. Wings sprouted from his back, the tips of the feathers alight with flame. Don glared at the beast, eyes glowing with the same purple energy, before letting out snarl. “Well? You didn’t think it would be that easy, did ya?”

The lizardbeast glared, shifting into a ready position as it grew rows and rows of poisoned quills.

“˚Ó©˚Í†®Ó√ÔØ˜©ØˆÒÏ∏ÒÎ∏∑Ò˚√Øˆ˜ÎÒ˚ÂÒ˚ÇÒÒÒÍ…˚ÏØˆ√˜˚ÂÍ˚ÔÏ´ÔÒÍÎ˚ÔÏÍÔÒ˚ÍÔÎÏØˆ∑Ó´˜√Ò!!!”

An unintelligible string of hate filled words filled the air between the two, seemingly causing reality to bend under the sheer hatred the words contained.

Don snarled again. “Enough!” He dashed forward at high speed, flame left in his path as he sprinted around to the side of 682 and slammed into him with the force of a truck. By the time it swiped in his direction Don leapt over it, blasting it with cold fire before slamming into its back with both feet.

The quills all over 682 rocketed out, nearly impaling Don as the man leapt from the beast’s back. Undeterred, the lizard merely opened its mouth wide, far wider than any living creature ever should, and filled the air full of acidic hallucinogens stolen from the former AEC 333. Buildings and rubble melted, flesh disintegrating from bones, all while 682 stood unharmed in its cloud of death.

Don flapped his wings above the cloud keeping away from the gaseous death. Once safe, he reeled his head back before shooting flames from his throat, coating 682 in fire. This had little effect as the beast leapt toward him, two of them rocketing across the town before the two landed, a groove being dug out in the dirt. Before 682 could tear into Don, the shadows rose up, slamming in its stomach and knocking him off enough that he could roll into a standing position.

682 growled and pounced at the Overlord, tackling him to the ground and receiving a shadow spear through the stomach for its trouble. It ignored the spear until the weapon was ripped through its body, shearing off a little over half of its lower body. The lizardbeast leapt away from the potentially dangerous prey it was now hunting, wary of losing its other three limbs. 682’s tail and left hind leg splattered to the ground, both connected by a rather large chunk of hip. Behind 682, its intestines flopped to the ground and twisted together to form a rough approximation of a left leg, feces emptying themselves rather messily under the beast’s ragged abdomen.

“Eugh!” Don spoke. “Okay, gross.” He quickly dashed forward, dancing around him and laying down the hurt with a barrage of punches and kicks. 682 was quick to adapt though, sprouting fire all around it. Don leapt over the flames before slamming into the ruby on its head. This seemed to cause the beast some dizziness as Don landed in front of him.

The beast staggered and shook its head, the ruby shifted from its position, “H-help…. Ruby….. get… get OFF!” The Ruby shifted back into place and unleashed tendrils of itself into 682’s skull, the lizardbeast roaring the last word and smacking Don into a pile of freshly impaled and disemboweled corpses.

He got up, the blood and guts on him freezing and snapping off as he emanated cold fire. “Well, that’s something you don’t see everyday.”

“That ruby seems to have put whatever that is into a rage induced rampage.” Nightmare analyzed. “We need to pull it off!”

Why? I’m fine with just ripping him apart some more.

“Don, don’t give in to your blood lust. Besides, this thing is adapting to all of our attacks too quickly. We won’t be able to do any serious damage.”

Don grumbled a moment before sighing. You’re right, as usual. Let’s rip that thing off. 682 fired at Don with its flower-face configuration, forcing him to dart side to side as he slowly got closer. Once he was a few feet away, he took the risk and leapt at the beast’s head, its claws clipping his sides as he grabbed hold of the ruby.

A shower of sparks flew out as Don held the ruby. Why… won’t this… come off?!

“Something… doesn’t fe-” Nightmare suddenly was cut off, Don stumbling a bit at her absence.

Nightmare?! Where did- He felt his mind be enwrapped by the ruby before being dragged inside. His body went limp before slowly getting up. His eyes now glowed red, and his smile screamed murder.

“The true Overlord has returned.”

Meanwhile, the actual Don found himself in an empty city as he pulled himself off the ground. He glanced around in confusion before he heard a groan next to him. He turned to see Nightmare lying there in her human form, looking just as disoriented as he was.

“Wha… what happened?” She muttered as she sat up. Don stood before giving her a hand up.

“Dunno. Last thing I remember we tried to grab that ruby. Think that lizard thing teleported us?”

FOOLISH MORTALS. YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE, IN THE CENTER OF THE APOLLYON RUBY MIND NEXUS. PREPARE TO HAVE YOUR SOULS DEVOURED AND YOUR MINDS ENSLAVED INTO ETERNAL SERVITUDE!

The voice from nowhere shook the entire empty city as seemingly thousands of beings poured out of every open area, each one looking like a half dessicated corpse, each one shambling towards the pair of Nightmare and Don.

TREMBLE AT THE MIGHT OF APOLLYON’S SLAVE ARMY AND PERISH!

Don and Night glanced at each other before they doubled over laughing. “Really?” Don wiped a tear from his eye. “You’re going to pull the whole ‘devour your souls’ thing?”

“And an army of corpses?” Nightmare giggled. “Sounds like the plot of one of those video games Don played on his world.” Once they calmed down, they stood back to back, Nightmare creating a spear and shield for herself as Don’s hands lit up with cold fire.

YOU DARE MOCK APOLLYON!? THEN PERHAPS THIS WILL BE MORE TO YOUR LIKING.

The corpses vanished into the ether as the voice spoke, a massive army of dragons flocking in from the sky, headed by the absolute largest reptile either of them had seen.

And on its head was a glimmer of red.

“Alright.” Don shrugged. “That’s a little less cliche.” The two of them grinned before wings sprouted from both of their backs. They launched into the air, Nightmare slashing through dragons with spear and shield while others were frozen in mid air, smashing into pieces upon hitting the ground.

The dragons gave as good as they got though, hundreds of the smallest ones flocking and turning into biting, shredding, clawing walls of distractions, tearing at the pair and bloodying them. Vision thus obscured, the elder dragons unleashed their breath weapons upon the flying duo, spears of ice, bursts of fire, arcs of lightning, sprays of acid, and countless other attacks rained down on Don and Nightmare, forcing them back to the ground as the most massive dragonreared up, its head easily towering a good two kilometers from the ground.

“Oh fu-”

The words were drowned out as all of the dragons flocked behind the leader as it unleashed an absolutely monstrous attack upon the pair, lighting up the entire city in hellish green fire. Structures melted, stone crumbled, steel warped, glass exploded, even some of the dragons were incinerated just from the heat coming from the beast’s maw, its four cross-pupilled eyes glowing in malevolent glee.

When the flames died down, a black ball was revealed standing where the two once were. It quickly fell apart, Nightmare falling over in exhaustion. Don glared at the giant beast. “Alright. No more playing around.” His hands charged with lightning before being let loose on the giant beast’s head, blinding it. In a flash he flew straight at its head, slamming into its skull and causing the beast to fall back.

He didn’t let up there though. He coated the beast’s head in stygian fire, freezing over his muzzle. As he landed on the disoriented beast’s skull, he noticed the absolutely massive ruby stuck to its forehead, a furious Drake frozen within its polished depths. All activity froze in that moment, the massive dragon melding into the ground and the world shattering into an endless field of floating boulders backed by a sickly purple cloud cover.

In front of Don rose a figure, armored like the hellbeast he’d been fighting earlier, though this one was noticeably humanoid. “So, you have found my center, mortal. I commend you, none has ever gotten this far… and lived to tell the tale. Let us see if you shall be the first!”

And with that, the armored figure lashed out at Don with its glowing tail with such speed that Don nearly lost his other leg while he dodged. As he did so, he could not help but think ‘Wait, if we’re here, than what’s going on with my body?’

Meanwhile, in the real world, things were much more bleak. The Overlord personality had taken over Don’s body and, though it could not move more than ten feet from the lizardbeast it was currently straddling, was causing untold amounts of destruction in the city formerly known as Hoofington. The pair of walking WMDs rampaged around in the streets, Overlord mounted on the back of 682 wielding a stop sign like a battleaxe, both of them firing all their projectile attacks in every direction, mauling people in droves and destroying building after building.

‘Eh, I guess it can’t be that bad.’ Don dodged another slash of the creature’s tail, grabbing it as it passed. He heaved the man over his head, slamming him into various floating stones nearby.

The figure flew back at Don, catching him in the stomach and slamming him through three of the miniature islands and into a fourth one. On top of the island, Nightmare briefly awoke to see Don’s predicament. His hands glowed white hot with flames before grabbing his opponent around the throat, trying to push him off.

“And here I thought that you would be able to give me an adequate challenge! Was I wrong?”

Don gritted his teeth in anger before grinning and chuckling. “You do realize that this overlord comes with twice the firepower?” The man looked at Don in confusion before a claw of shadow grabbed him and ripped him away, throwing him into a floating boulder. As he pulled himself from the crater, a barrage of swords imbedded him into the stone. Nightmare floated down next to him, her arms coated in shadow.

“Don’t tell me you forgot I was here.” she smirked.

“Tch. So what if you have another fighter? Apollyon does not submit so easily!”

The manbeast rushed in once more, this time attacking Nightmare with energy beams from his eyes. The shadows wrapped around her arm became dual shields, reflecting the beams in various directions. Undeterred, Apollyon fired his poisonous quills, scattering thousands of them in every direction at supersonic speeds. Nightmare’s shields formed into one, weathering through the barrage though noticeable cracks began to form.

Lucky for her, a white winged Don slammed into Apollyon from above, Don’s hands coursing with electricity as the two fell in battle. “Would you,” Don slammed a fist into Apollyon’s jaw. “Just fucking,” a knee to the stomach. “DIE!” He brought both hands down on Apollyon’s exposed back, sending him careening downward. Don and Nightmare watched him fall, though they kept ready for him to leap up again.

Apollyon never resurfaced, however. Instead, he slammed into the ruby shell encasing Drake’s form, cracking the surface and causing the entire world to shake. Apollyon’s avatar disappeared into the shell, quickly healing over the damage. Unfortunately for him, Don was quick to capitalize on that one moment of weakness and punched the ruby dead on one of the more prominent cracks, shattering the ruby down to its core, and waking up the furious Drake.

The ruby cracked and shattered into trillions of tiny shards, exploding in a shockwave of furious red energy and releasing not one, but three figures: two 682s, one sleeker and more streamlined than the other, and Drake, who collapsed into the side of the smaller lizardbeast.

The world around them also cracked into a hellish red miasma of energy, expelling the three humans back into the real world in an even more hellish landscape: The ruins of Hoofington, and a veritable army of AEC Foundation Personnel and Royal Guards. Twin clouds of energy from the remains of the ruby slammed into the Overlord, throwing him off 682 as he shrunk down into his human form. Soon all that was left of the duo of destruction was two guys unconscious in the middle of the street, leaving all the personnel surrounding them to wonder just what the hell happened.

Item #: AEC-682

Object Class: Safe (Pending Euclid) (Occasionally Keter)

Special Containment Procedures: Stay away when he rampages, then retrieve when sane. Otherwise leave to his own devices.

Description: Subject is a lanky young adult, approximately twenty three years of age. Subject possesses black hair with green highlights and long, pointed ears. Subject’s ears are pierced with four small metallic rings in each ear. Subject has red eyes similar to those of a vampire, though the pupils are cross shaped. Subject’s eyes have four red lines descending to his cheeks from each lower eyelid. Subject also has decorative tattoos marking its mouth, they appear as stitches at the corner of each lip, extending the subject’s smile by approximately three inches in both directions. Subject also has four red lines running from lower lip to chin. Subject displays many of the same traits as most D-type humans, though they are more prominent than most can proclaim. The subject is usually docile unless under corruptive influences or if he witnesses the harm of innocents. Subject has two notable forms to shift into, as recorded. The first, classified as AEC 682, is a large, panther-like reptile, built for speed and lacking many of the more obvious weaponry that its other form possesses. This form is inherently protective, never harming those it does not intend to, save for unfortunate accidents. The second form, referred to as ‘SCP’ 682 is a large, almost gorilla-like reptile, with massive arms and slightly thinner legs. Despite the seeming disparity in muscle mass distribution, this form is also incredibly fast, though it is more built for direct combat, being more heavily armored and armed than its more protective counterpart. This form is also heavily genocidal, not hesitating to slaughter, mutilate, and desecrate any organic being it goes near.

Item #: AEC-9924

Object Class: Keter (Pending Euclid)

Special Containment Procedures: Undecided

Description: Subject is a male who appears to be in his early twenties. Subject has short black hair and was wearing a kind of leather armor with metal plates made of [REDACTED] weaved into it. Subject’s right leg has been removed though how is unknown. It has been replaced by a replica made of [REDACTED], similar to his armor. The left side of the subject’s body has string-like markings that glow a faint purple when no magical restraint is in place. Simple examinations have shown the subject’s mind has three times the activity of a normal human brain, as well as various differences in his bodies functions such as increase in white blood cell count, increased speed at which any kind of wound heals, as well as increased resilience to damage.

Where the subject came from is unknown. He was first discovered riding the back of AEC-682 during his mayhem under the influence of AEC-747. Subject was primarily seen aiding 682 in destroying everything in its path, though when 747 suddenly shattered in Hoofington, many personnel noted energy from the ruby entering the subject. It is not known if the subject had a connection to 747 or if he was simply a victim of its power.

The man seems capable of many things, ranging from using magic on both temperature extremes, shadow manipulation, martial skill with various weapons, the ability to sprout wings, and can move faster and strike harder than what should be humanly possible for someone of his size and physicality. Should the subject turn out to require containment, it is advised that they be sealed in a brightly lit room shielded against all temperature variants and reinforced to withstand blows up to one thousand tons of force.

Drake and Don awoke in cells across from each other, Drake’s noticeably more cozy than Don’s. Don was also in chains, though both knew that the chains wouldn’t hold Don worth a damn if he was really desperate. Which he quickly became as he realized the situation he was in.

“Alright, I’m getting out!” He stated flatly despite the slight worry on his face as he ripped the chains out of the walls.

“Don? What’s wrong with you?” Nightmare asked, the two of them of one body again.

“We’re in a fucking cell, that’s what’s wrong!” He yelled out loud, not making him looking any less crazy to Drake.

“Dude, calm your tits, these cells are just the holding cells in the Site Brig. We’ll be fine… actually, this is just a row of cages in the room I used to be housed in… If you look closely, you can see all the scorch marks from all the laser fire I had to tank through to kill a basilisk!” Drake was nearly giddy, the room’s nostalgia coming hard despite him only having left it a few months prior.

“Don’t care. I can’t stand being locked up!” Don moved to tear the bars off before his body stiffened, Nightmare holding him.

“You break out, and the personnel that put us here are going to shoot you on sight. After all, the last thing they all met was your other half.” Don growled for a moment before pacing back and forth, clearly irritated though the worry never left his face.

Drake, meanwhile, pushed his cell door open, coming right up to the bars of Don’s cell. “Thank god I was classified Safe or else I’d never be able to do that. Something about the magic in the classification spells being tied to the locks and stuff. But, while we’re here, I might as well keep you company, yeah?”

Don took a few deep breaths before turning to him. “I guess… you the crazy lizard thing? I’ll admit there are some similarities.”

“Yeah, though, I don’t know how I remember all those things I did; first time I woke up after a transformation, I couldn’t remember anything. Maybe the Ruby had something to do with it?”

Don shrugged. “Don’t know. I, or rather we, just smashed the thing when it seemed to shake you from the crazy state you were in.”

Drake blinked twice, nictitating membranes sliding into place. “Well then. That’s one thing I’ll never have to worry about again. Next thing is…. Oh shit I must have killed hundreds of people holy shit oh god I think I’m gonna be si-” He leaned over and vomited, the stream just barely missing the barred door of Don’s cell.

“Wait, hold up.” Don put a hand to his forehead. “You’re saying that you are an unstoppable, tank of a creature that can literally survive any blow and adapts to attacks as they hit you… and you just somehow haven’t killed anyone?” He snorted. “Well you were doing better than most Displaced, I’ll give you that.”

Drake recovered and wiped away the potent acid dripping from his mouth. “Shut up! I’ve only been on this planet for a little over a month, and most of it was when I wasn’t even in control of myself! Wait… Displaced?”

“Ya Displaced. You know, the whole ‘random humans sent to random Equestria’s’ people. Don’t tell me I have to be the one to explain this… and in a Faust damned cell?!”

“Dude, for almost all the time I’ve been here, I’ve been passed out, with one of two different lizard brains in control for 99% of my experience. Help a guy out, dammit.”

Don growled before sighing. “Fine, sorry. Being locked up on top of having all of my stuff taken and dealing with my other half’s anger issues kind of weighs on a guy.” He sat against the wall, near the cell. “What do you wanna know? I’ll answer what I can but I’ve only been piecing things together based on what others have said.”

“Well, for starters, what the fuck is a Displaced?”

“People like you and me that somehow ended up in Equestria’s across the multiverse, though how you got here I wouldn’t have a clue. I can’t remember the first thousand years of my romp in Equestria plus a lot of holes in my human memories as well.” Don ignored the weird look Drake gave him before waving a hand. “Well? Next question. Before I realize I’m in a cell again and lose it.”

“Okay then… well actually, that answered what I wanted to know about Displaced… But how the hell did you even get here?”

Don shrugged. “Something activated my totem. A broken dagger. Basically it called me here from my universe, though when I showed up all I got was a lizard in my face.”

“This is why we shouldn’t visit random universes without being properly prepared.” Nightmare scolded in his mind.

“Hey, wasn’t like you weren’t begging for an escape from Gnarl’s incessant nagging just like I was.” Don spoke aloud.

Drake cocked his head, “Who the fuck’re you talking to?”

Don rose an eyebrow at him before facepalming. “Fuck. Right, sometimes I forget I’m the only one who can hear her. I’ve got crazy split personality nonsense where one is a psycho killer and the other is female and not even related to me.”

“If I was related to you I’d probably be your mother.” Nightmare spoke through Don’s mouth, his voice being distorted as a woman’s voice seemed to speak over it. “I tend to keep you out of trouble enough.”

Don rolled his eyes before muttering to Drake. “Women, am I right?” This was followed by him slapping himself in the face. “Ow! Nightmare, it was a joke! Chill out!”

“Well then. If I couldn’t feel the two personalities in my head, I’d probably think you a lot crazier than you look. Funny thing is, my situation is just like yours, except for the female thing. But one is genocidal, and the other is overprotective, so there’s that.” Drake shrugged, accepting his new lot in life.

“I am not overprotective.” Nightmare spoke. “Don here just does way too much, as you two would call, ‘stupid shit’.” Don’s only response when he regained control was to smirk before fiddling with the chains attached to his wrists. The metal quickly froze at his touch before shattering, him rubbing his wrists where they once were.

“Think someone’s going to show up soon? You’d think the two most destructive forces in Equestria waking up would attract some attention. Especially in a facility I’d assume has technology, and ergo, cameras.” He tapped the bar closest to him with a finger, immediately causing a shock of white magic to zap him like a static shock. “That and the longer I sit here, the more my psycho half is sounding reasonable.”

Drake shook his head, “Nope, cams are still out from my rampage in here. I broke… a lot of stuff.” He stood up looked around, “Hey, you wanna get outta here?”

“Can you open this door?” Don asked skeptically. “Cause I bet they didn’t ‘classify me as safe’ or whatever it was they do. Especially since the only thing I’ve done so far in this world is wreck shit. At least bodily.” He thought for a moment before adding “I guess mentally too.”

Drake smirked. “Open? Who said anything about that?” He twisted and, in one fluid motion, sliced straight through the bars giving the cage a lid. A few seconds later, the entire top half of the cell slid off onto the ground, the bars cut cleanly through in an angle.

“Tada~ I picked a few memories up on some of my more minor abilities in my lizard forms. Whaddya think?”

Don leapt out of the remains of the cage, the lines on his left side beginning to glow with energy beneath the prisoner jumpsuit he was now wearing. “I think that out here is a hell of a lot better than in there.”

“That it is, that it is. Come on, let’s get you to the cafeteria… word of advice, don’t take the mystery meat. It’ll kill you.” Drake walked out of the room, Don tailing him.

The two of them wandered the halls, passing by several construction areas as well as various other AEC’s. Don rose an eyebrow before glancing at the jumpsuit he was wearing. “What the hell is AEC and why am I 9924?”

“Well, AEC stands for Anomalous Entity Containment, that’s the name of the Foundation whose Site we’re in. You’re numbered as 9924 because it was the only number currently available. The previous owner of the number must have died recently, I think.” Drake shrugged, turning a corner.

“So… what, we’re a bunch of lab experiments? Cause I already got my fill of being poked and prodded by a crazy bookworm from Ponyville.”

“Nah, if you’re sentient you don’t get experimented on unless you give permission, thankfully. Mostly we’re just stuck in here to keep us from accidentally squishing the normal people… Like when I broke out, went on the run for a month, and ended up slaughtering a town while I was possessed by an evil ruby.”

Don chuckled. “Well at least this venture left you with all of your limbs.” He glanced around, realizing some people were staring. “Uh… am I really supposed to be out of the cage? I mean, not that I’m complaining for my sanity’s sake, but based on some of the looks we’re getting I’m gonna say no.”

Drake glanced around, seeing some of the more suspicious stares sent their way. “Eh, not like they can stop us. As long as we don’t cause a disturbance, anyway. Come on, lemme get you some food.” He summarily flipped off as many of the onlookers as possible, shifting his tail slightly to give him a third arm for the job as he walked into the open cafeteria.

“682! 9924!” Drake looked at who called while Don was still unused to be calling a number and didn’t realize as he was looking about the room. Turns out it was Twilight briskly walking toward the duo. “I’m glad to see you are awake, though a shame 747 was destroyed.”

Drake shrugged, “Eh, the girls told me you hated the thing anyway. Rarity hated it too because it was all tacky and weird, but whatever. The world is better off without it, anyway.”

Twilight sighed and shook her head, “I suppose so, but we lost a lot of research material. Anyway, what are you two doing out of your cells?”

“Gettin’ food.”

“Of course you are.” Twilight groaned, facepalming and pinching the bridge of her nose. Don finally noticed her standing there, his eyes opening in shock for a moment.

“Well, here I thought Chrysalis and Nightmare were the only two ponies that could turn human.”

Twilight cocked her head, “Ponies? What the heck are you talking about? I’m human!”

Don rose an eyebrow at her. “Quick check. This place is called Equestria, yes?”

“Yes, why?”

“And you’re from Ponyville, correct?”

“No, I’m from Canterlot, though I did study abroad in Ponyville for a few years.”

“Uh huh.” Don shook his head. “Just checking. Ignore what I said about ponies, I’m crazy.”

“Well, Equestria is named for the massive amounts of horses and other equines. It’s rather odd how many there are.” Don snorted behind a hand, trying to hold back laughter. “What’s so funny?”

“Wha? Oh, sorry. Still crazy.” Don gave Twilight a simple smile along with this statement.

“...”

Drake interjected hastily, “So, you were talking to us about something?”

Twilight twitched, turning to face the lizardman, “Oh! Right! Well, Drake, the board has, unfortunately, just approved your Euclid status as of two minutes ago, same with your friend here. Thankfully, you two are on the lower end of Euclid so long as you don’t go insane again. You both get a second chance, 9924 moreso because he’s a visitor, as far as we know.” She turned to Don, “You are a visitor, yes?”

“Well I’m definitely not staying here forever. Cells freak me out.” A shiver went down Don’s spine. “Besides, I’ve got things to do back in my world. I just need my stuff back before I head out.”

She nodded, “I see, well, I’ll let you two have your lunch, then I’ll be back to discuss things further. Drake, you know where Common Room 12 is, right?”

“Yup.”

“Meet me there when you’re done, and we’ll go over the rest of what I need to tell you then, alright?” Without waiting for an answer, she spun on her heel and jogged off, most likely to do some form of research or another.

Drake shrugged and turned to Don, “So, I think you told me something about a broken dagger?”

“What, my totem? Ya, basically since I can’t find other universes on my own, I throw something full of my energy into the void and it just appears in various other places. Why do you wanna know?”

“Because…. well, I love this place honestly, it’s got good food… mostly…. good people… that I may have injured a month or so ago…. and internet. Oh, and a bunch of other stuff. But that’s not the point. Point is, I’d like to just go somewhere I’ve never been and just take a vacation or something. Problem is, can’t do that here, since I’d be retrieved in less than a week.”

“Ah, you want a back door out of your prison. Guess you could make your own then.” Don glanced around a moment before holding his hand out, a small tear in reality appearing. “Just toss it in here.”

“So… does it have to be like… anything specific?”

Don shrugged. “I use a broken weapon. Others I’ve seen are gems, technology, human body parts and clothing… really, just take your pick.”

“Huh…” Drake frowned in thought, then snapped his fingers and shouted, “Aha!” He reached back, grabbed his tail, and in one swift motion, pulled off the entire leaf shaped blade on the end in a massive eruption of blood. “Oh shit why did I think that was a good idea!?” Nevertheless, the damage healed over in seconds, a new blade sprouting in to fill the gap in his tail. Chuckling to himself, Drake spoke to the slightly bloodied chunk of leaf-shaped, razor sharp bone. “When the chips are down, and all seems lost, call me, and SCP 682 will be ready to RIP AND TEAR!” Declaration thus finished, he threw the chunk of bone into the portal, the bone vanishing into the Void and spreading throughout all of existence.

He then turned to Don, “So, wanna get some lunch? I think it’s Taco Tuesday!”

Don shrugged, closing the tear he made. “Sure. Is there actually meat in them or are these humans vegetarian like their pony counterparts?”

“Nope, pure, 100%, high quality, Grade A steak.” The two walked toward the food, Don muttering.

“Faust has a bit of mercy after all.”

Lunch thus finished about an hour later, the pair of AECs made their way to Common Room 12, ready to discuss whatever Twilight had wanted them to.

“Ah! Excellent, you’re both here. Come in, sit down, let’s talk.” Twilight was lounging on one of the many sofas, a cup of tea in one hand, and a large clipboard in another.

The two sat across from her in a pair of surprisingly comfortable armchairs, ready to begin.

“Now, 9924, what is your preferred name? The board, as well as I, would very much like to know so we can complete our files a bit more.”

“Well… that depends on who you are talking to.”

She blinked, “Explain.”

“There’s technically three people in this body. I’m Don.” His brown eyes changed to a sapphire color as the strange woman’s voice returned. “I am Nightmare Moon.” His eyes turned back to brown. “And the third guy is the one who was running around destroying things. What his name is I wouldn’t know, nor care.”

“I… see… well, Don, you’ve been given Euclid status for as long as you remain in this Universe, however, if you leave, you will be placed into an honorary ‘Safe’ status. If you do ever come back, your status will remain as Safe until you deliberately harm anyone.” She set down her tea and flipped through her clipboard’s contents. “Now, if you were planning on staying for any amount of time, would you like to give an estimation of where you would like to stay, or would you just prefer to stay here until you leave?”

Don shrugged. “So far this world hasn’t been too bad so I might visit again. If you wanna give me a room then I won’t say no. Just don’t expect me to always announce myself every time I enter or leave this universe.”

She nodded, “That’s fair, though if you do visit, we all expect you to at least check in with either Drake or I after you arrive, should you stay in this Site. Now, that’s your part. Drake, I’m afraid we’re transferring you over to Site 63, up in the mountains.”

“Wait, WHAT!?”

“I’m sorry, Drake, but there’s just too high a concentration of mind altering beings in this Site, so it wouldn’t be even remotely safe for you to stay here for any amount of time. Don’t worry though, you’re still allowed to visit.”

Drake slouched and pouted, he liked Site 34 for chrissake!

“Wait, you’ve got multiple places like this?” Don cocked his head. “How much crazy stuff appears in this world?”

Twilight paused, thinking things over, “Well… the Foundation has over seven hundred different Sites scattered all over Equus, most of them concentrated in the more uninhabited areas of the world. This site is one of the exceptions, since many of the Keter class entities here are either inanimate objects, or are easily subdued with large amounts of weaponry. That’s why we’re located only six miles outside Canterlot proper.”

Don snorted. “Can’t imagine the nobles like having creatures and other nonsense so close by.”

“If we listened to the nobles, all of the AECs in the Universe would be thrown into the Rift Between Worlds and forgotten. Bunch of idiotic, ass backwards, unscientific heathens.”

Don smirked. “Alright, this place just got even better.”

“Anyway, so, Drake, you’re leaving in four hours. Bring everything you ow- Oh… wait… all you own is that enchanted uniform…. sorry.”

He snorted and leaned back, “It’s fine. So, I’m leaving here, then? What about Don? What if he wants to see me?”

“We’re giving him a bunk up in Site 63 too.”

“Oh, that’s cool. Hey Don, you wanna come with me?”

Don shrugged. “I guess I can come with you to the site, but after that I think I’ve spent a bit too much time away from my world.” He turned to Twilight. “Can I get my armor?”

She nodded and stood, “Follow me, we’ll get you your effects back. Drake, do whatever for now, and meet us by the east gate in four hours, alright?”

“Mhmm” With that, Drake leapt over the back of his chair, jogging out of the room to finish his copy of Zone Fighter 4.

Don got up and stretched before waving a hand to the door. “Lead the way.”

Twilight stood, heading for the door. “While we walk, I was wondering…”

Four hours later, Drake and Don stood at the East Gate of Site 34, a large armored personnel carrier open and waiting for them.

Drake turned to Twilight, “So, Twilight, I guess this is goodbye for now?”

“Mhmm, if you plan on visiting, make sure you get at least a day pass, and plan your trip at least two weeks in advance.”

“Will do, Twilight, will do. So, Don, ready to go?” Don fiddled with the glove of his armor a bit more before nodding in his direction.

Drake climbed into the back of the carrier, taking a seat near the driver station, “Alright then, let’s go! Goodbye for now, Site 34! I’ll miss you!” Don stepped in and shut the door, the vehicle beginning to move soon after.

Five hours of bumpy road and uncomfortable check in processes later, Drake and Don had settled into their new room, a large, mostly barren affair with a bunk bed and a bathroom.

“Well, it’s not much but… well, it’s my home now. So, what about you? You about to hit the road?”

“Yep.” Don built up some energy in his hands, glowing bright before his totem appeared in it. “Here, in case you touch anymore cursed rubies.” He tossed it to Drake who caught it and put it inside his end table, shuffling awkwardly.

“Ah, not used to goodbyes, so… I guess I’ll see you around?”

“We’ll see. There’s something big happening in my world soon and I’m at the head of it. If I come out of it alive and mobile though I’ll see about visiting.” The wall suddenly tore open, revealing the same balcony Don had left at the beginning of all of this. He stepped through the newly made portal before turning his head back. “Take it easy, and… try not to kill too many people. It starts to eat at you.” Before Drake could ask what he meant the portal closed, cutting the two worlds apart.

“Well that was a thing.”

It Ain't Rocket Science, Kiddo

Or: Oh Shit, Not Again

And now, for something completely different

Many, many years before the Nightmare Moon incident of 63

SIlence filled the night over the town of Roanikstead. The town was quiet, all citizens asleep in their homes.

Such silence never lasts, however, and the silence was filled with the shrieking of reality being torn asunder as a massive, hellish portal dyed the night sky blood red. A figure smashed into the ground in the center of Roanikstead, the impact destroying the closest huts and filling the night with the flames of combusting bodies.

Strange ooze covered the ground around some of the ruins, flaming corpses falling from others. Then the figure awoke, screaming out in agony, and the town of Roanikstead was flattened by the woman’s sheer presence.

Miles away, deep in the Everfree forest, two princesses awoke in a cold sweat.

“Did you sense it?” Celestia asked as she moved into Luna’s room, already dressed for combat.

“Of course I did, it would be impossible to ignore, “ Luna scuffed as she pulled on the last of her armor. ”Quickly, we must make haste,” she moved out onto her balcony, both princesses taking flight towards Roanikstead, swords drawn and and shields raised.

The destruction continued.

The woman was destroying nearly everything within her line of sight, all the animals in the area either torn apart or horribly mutated. The town was a complete loss. Not one single human was left alive, and the town itself had been flattened into the ground from the woman’s scream.

The scene the Princesses came upon not five minutes later was nothing short of hellish, a town consumed in fire, a drove of mutated animals wandering around the ruins, fire everywhere. In the epicenter, a massive crater with the collapsed and twitching form of the mysterious woman.

The Princesses descended upon the destroyed town and approached the woman carefully, not sure of what to expect. Then the woman exploded into a fountain of disgusting orange ooze, the slime from around the town congregating upon the mass and shifting into a new form, a pale skinned, red clad, four horned woman with no legs, only a massive black tail, and grossly oversized hands.

The new entity reared back and cackled maniacally, tears streaming down her face, which was set into a rictus of agony and fear.

“I’m so hot! Make it stop!” she roared, slashing at the pair. The Princesses dodged, only to be set upon by a barrage of inexplicably appearing energy beams. The animals around town also attacked, biting and clawing until the Luna cut them down with a well placed crescent of energy.

Celestia hung back, preparing a spell in her hands, leaving her more violently inclined sister to press the melee advantage. Luna, taking her cue, rushed at the levitating creature, slashing her swords at the figure’s torso. Much to her chagrin, the blades merely passed through the being, and she was knocked back with a forceful backhand to the torso.

“Please make it stop!” the figure screamed, her eyes glowing green. Several rats around the area started to mutate, growing in size, transforming into monstrosities the size of dogs, with an overall air of necrosis, and a strange, three pronged tail.

The rats charged, tails spitting fireballs and teeth gnashing in blind, animalistic fury. Celestia dodged in front of her sister, taking the fireballs with no harm due to her immunity to fire, and leapt away, still charging her spell, hands now glowing the color of molten gold.

Luna merely cut the rats down as they approached, freezing some, slicing apart the rest. She stepped behind her sister, and they rose into the air, the moon becoming full under Luna’s influence and framing them in cold, white light. And then the sun appeared in the middle of the night, directly behind the moon, and causing the most magnificent solar eclipse that the world had never seen.

Luna charged her own, considerably less draining spell, and at the same time, the sisters released their fury upon the shrieking figure down below.

“SOLAR FLARE!”

“ECLIPSE PIERCER!”

And the sky lit up in holy fire, a massive beam of golden energy piercing through the moon and acquiring a sheathe of midnight blue, spiraling energy. The combined attack slammed into the woman, driving her deep into the earth, then exploding with enough force to dig a six mile wide crater, the target lying at the bottom of the crater, a mile and a half below the surface.

Celestia and Luna landed near the unconscious woman, preparing their magic for another round. But the woman only stared weakly up at them and whispered, “P-please… ma… make it… stop…” before falling unconscious once more.

“Sister? What should we do?” Luna asked, glancing at her frowning sister. Celestia put a hand to her chin, golden armor clanking with every movement.

“If we leave her as she is…. she will cause untold amounts of destruction. But, ending a life so callously, especially for one so young… that would be even worse.” She stared resolutely down at the unconscious woman, hands flaring with power. “We must seal her away, if only for her own good.”

“Sister!?” Luna was shocked, she hadn’t had to seal anyone away since Discord, and that was nearly a hundred years ago.

“It must be done, Luna. You know this as much as I do.”

“If we must…”

The sisters prepared their energies, pooling them together and releasing them with a loud shout, the world flashing white and gold and blue for an instant that seemed to last forever.

When all was said and done, Roanikstead was a flaming crater in the ground, the Everfree had a massive new clearing, the strange woman was sealed into a gramophone with a can impaled into its speaker, and the Princesses were beyond exhausted.

They buried the item deep into the ground, where it wouldn’t be found for over a thousand years. When it was dug up and polished off, it gained the name AEC 1313: Sealed Eve in a Can, from the label on the impaling can.

In the Present

After Drake had been freed from his mind control, and the Ruby was smashed into inert shards of crystal, he’d been moved to AEC Foundation Site 63, up in the mountains near Griffonia. He’d been there as a ward of the Site, since he was still registered as a Safe Class entity when unprovoked and Site 63 had no mind altering AECs.

That they knew of, that is.

A week after he’d arrived, Drake was lounging in his specially constructed room when he heard a faint noise in his head.

‘Help me’

“What was that!?”

‘My name is Elizabeth…. please… help me’

The voice fell silent immediately after, and Drake put it out of his mind. He wasn’t even allowed to do anything in the first place, since him making any suspicious moves would end with him being sealed into a toilet seat in a restroom at a Mexicoltan restaurant.

Those had been the literal words of a distinctly unamused Princess Celestia.

Thus, Drake ignored the call on the first week.

The second week was the same, but he felt that the voice was becoming stronger, and he didn’t know if his mind would be able stand under the assault of Elizabeth’s telepathic call; not with his mental defences still shredded by the LSD Flytrap’s drugs and the Ruby’s interference.

Thus, he reported the voice to the site telepath, a wonderful woman named Calm Mind, who attempted to trace the signal to its source.

Unfortunately, Elizabeth picked that moment to reappear, and the psychiatrist’s mind was crushed under her raging presence, small though it may have been.

Drake was also rendered unconscious in the assault, though his shattered mental defences also meant that he was protected in another way: His two alternate personas.

Both 682, one was a maddened killing machine, the other a raging “Papa Wolf” that sought to protect others.

Both had been the dominant personality at one point, AEC 682 appearing to destroy the Basilisk, SCP 682 appearing under the influence of the now destroyed Ruby of Apollyon.

These two personas shielded Drake’s fragile human presence from Elizabeth’s onslaught, though in the process, even they were weakened, thus leading to the events of Week Three.

Week Three saw Drake waking up in a haze, unable to clear his mind of his lethargy. He stumbled around the complex in a daze, barely coherent and suffering from migraines under the screaming of Elizabeth’s voice.

‘SAVE ME DRAKE. SAVE ME. HELP ME. FREE ME!’

‘DRAKE PLEASE! HELP ME! I NEED YOU!’

The screams only grew louder as the week progressed, Drake going from a hazy lethargy to crippling pain.

‘SAVE ME’

Until finally, on an unfortunate friday morning, one final, earsplitting, nose-bloodying, eye-vessel-popping scream ripped through Drake like the impact of a railgun, shattering his thinned mental defences and blowing away the human and the lizard personas, leaving only AEC 682 in charge.

The reptilian beast grew, shredding Drake’s uniform into its specially enchanted armband form. Flesh bulged, limbs expanded, growls and screams filled the air. And when the transformation finished, AEC 682 stood, markedly different from its first iteration.

The beast was smaller, sleeker, its body more lightly armored with fewer spines. Its tail had no blades, only a large fin. Smaller claws, thinner profile, this was a beast made for speed, not strength. And as the beast’s four eyes glowed blue, it rocketed down the hall at mach 1, blowing away all personnel in its path, thankfully without major injury.

Down the halls AEC 682 went, sometimes running along walls or even on the ceiling in its mad dash to reach the source of the call. Finally, the beast slid to a halt in front of a large door marked ‘AEC 1313: Sealed Eve in a Can’.

The door was obscured under various warning labels, many of them warning to never pulse magic through the object contained within, some marking the object as Keter class.

682 paid these signs no notice as it barreled through, coming to a halt in front of a small, mangled gramophone, one with a metal can impaled halfway through the speaker function.

‘Destroy the pedestal! Please! It’s your only chance!’

The voice was pleading intensely, sounding more and more like a distressed woman wailing in pain. 682 heeded the voice, shifting its flesh, eyes disappearing, and releasing a massive beam of energy from its maw, tearing through the pedestal and the compound behind it until it hit the open air. The gramophone fell into 682’s waiting maw, where it bit down and shattered the object, piercing the can as well.

A millenium old seal shattered, glowing with golden and midnight blue magic before releasing the unconscious form of a young woman in a red opera singer dress. 682 gently picked up the woman and wrapped her in his mane, hiding her within its furry depths.

The lizard beast then ran through the holes it had made, not noticing that some of the people and beings it past spontaneously combusting or melting into orange ooze. Leaping out of the hole and out into a sixty thousand foot drop out of the side of a cliff, 682’s runes glowed vivid blue and the formidable beast grew a massive pair of leathery wings, soaring into the unexplored depths of the nameless mountains on the border of Griffonia and Equestria.

A pair of light brown eyes awoke in a cave. Their owner, the so-called Elizabeth, curiously noted the warmth surrounding her, and her own lack of ability to move in any significant direction. Looking around as much as possible, she saw the form of a massive draconic reptile curled around her, she herself packed snugly under one of its massive wings.

“Hello?” she asked softly, her voice soft and musical.

There was no reply, but the creature she was tucked against shifted a tiny bit, revealing that her being pressed against it had caused it to start melting ever so slightly, though it appeared to stop at nothing more than a slight distortion in the tissue, no worse than a light burn scar, really.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” she said, pulling away from it.

The creature growled comfortingly, damage healing over in seconds, and patted her on the head with its massive hand, all four eyes now open and glowing a comforting icy blue.

“Do… not… worry… little one… I am… fine” The creature growled out, apparently having difficulty forming human words with its reptilian mouth. The beast stood, Elizabeth landing softly on the floor of the cave, and shifted. When the transformation finished, Elizabeth felt slightly ill at the brutality of the transformation, and there was an unconscious human on the ground. A human with reptilian features, and long, shaggy, black-and-green hair.

“Are you alright?” she asked moving over to him. She focused, managing to touch his cheek without hurting him.

The unconscious man grunted and pushed himself up, rubbing his head. Blood dripped from his nose and tear ducts from the movement.

“Aww shit… where the hell am I this time!?” He muttered, not noticing the woman beside him.

“Please, let me help,” she placed her hand on his cheek, their eyes flashing green as she healed up his wounds.

Red eyes shot open in surprise as Drake jerked back to full consciousness.

“Oh shit!”

He fell backwards and tripped over his tail, landing rather painfully on a rock. As he rubbed away the pain, he then took notice of the sound of the woman’s voice.

“Hey, wait a minute…. you… you’re the one that’s been calling to me for the last three weeks! You fucked up my mental defences even worse than they were before!” He yelled, and then clutched his head, the sudden burst of emotion not helping his predicament. Thankfully, the regeneration bestowed upon his form also applied to his mindscape, so his brief jaunt as 682 had done more to shore up his mind than a month of lazing around ever managed to do.

“I... don’t remember any of that sorry,” she said shaking her head.

He shook his head, mind now mostly healed. “It’s fine, you seemed like you were in a lot of pain before I broke that… whatever it was you were sealed into. It’s all a bit hazy though, what’s your name again?” He stared up at her worried face, smiling a tiny bit.

She went quiet, staring into her lap. “It used to be Elizabeth...” she said, closing her eyes, tearing up.

“Elizabeth… Elizabeth…. I used to know an Elizabeth…. My name’s Drake. Drake Long, the omnicidal, overprotective, twenty foot long, immortal lizardbeast. At your service.” He bowed jokingly, trying to lighten the situation.

“Drake!? I haven’t seen you in years! It’s me, Elizabeth Mason!” She tackled him into a hug, sending them both to the ground in a sprawl of limbs.

“Aww man… I remember you doing that to me a lot too….” groaned Drake, pinned under the surprisingly heavy mass of his old highschool friend. “The eyes and hair are new though… didn’t you used to be blonde?”

She giggled, “Didn’t your eyes used to be brown?”

“Oh yeah… that. So, what the hell happened to get you to fucking Equestria of all places?”

“Equestria? You're telling me we’re in a place called Equestria?” she asked, raising her eyebrow.

“Guilty. But, hey, it could be worse. The nation’s only named like that since there’s so many goddamn horses. There’s a horse farm like… every two miles. Not that I’ve seen them. Been locked away by this Universe’s version of the SCP Foundation for the last… two, three? months. At least there’s maps and internet….” He trailed off, not sure how to reconnect with his former best friend. “So… uh, how’d you even get here? I mean, I was dressed like 682 in a ‘Con and got a neat sew-on patch… what’s your story?”

“I went to a con to but I was dressed as Mitochondrial Eve,” she gestured to herself, “I bought some contact lenses and when I put them on it felt like I was on fire.” she whimpered, clutching her dress. “Oh god Drake, I killed all those people...”

His face fell, as he wrapped his arms around her, hugging her to his chest. “Hey, hey. It’s fine. It’s gonna be okay… it was a long time ago, as far as I know. The room you were in, 1313, said it was found over a thousand years ago. I know I was panicking after I killed my first person, though that was under the influence of mind control… and I’m not helping, am I?”

“Thats not the point!” she shouted, her eyes flashing again, Drake suddenly found himself getting rather hot.

“Then what is!?” He shouted back, drawing her to arms length and shaking her.

“You see this?”she asked, pointing to her eyes, which were now glowing green.

“Yeah?” Drake was more confused than anything, just wanting his old friend to get over whatever problems she had and be happy again.

“Drake, I’m not human anymore, this body is, but I’m not,” she said, shaking her head.

“...” Drake narrowed his eyes and bopped her over the head lightly. “So? I’m not human either. This body is… by this Universe’s standards… but my real form? I have two and they’re both locked behind alternate personas that either want to start a genocide or are just hella overprotective, respectively. No one in this goddamn world cares if you aren’t human. We have sentient robots with all the rights of organic beings, we have gods dating humans, hell even the ghosts can still legally own property!” He was bopping her head with each statement, ending his sentence by grabbing her head and pulling her into a bearhug.

“I’m sentient mitochondria...” she said in a low voice, hugging him back.

“.... AEC 420 is a sentient, humanoid mass of marijuana that acts and sounds like Snoop Dogg. He owns a pharmacy down in Baltimare. AEC 65 is a sentient mass of viral cells shaped like a gorilla. It’s a fucking doctor. Being a sentient mass of things that aren’t usually sentient is fine, Beth. Jesus, at my worst I’m a sentient pile of slowly recuperating ooze.”

“Yes but can you make people combust or melt into goo by commanding their mitochondria to do so?”

Drake blinked twice before coming to a realization. “Oh yeah! You always did like Parasite Eve… But no, I can’t. But AEC 100, Lilith-she’s kinda a bitch, btw- can melt people just by, inverting their souls or something… and her effective range is like... hundreds of miles. And then there’s AEC 9292, who can make people… and everything else he touches… explode by overcharging it with kinetic energy. It’s theorized that he could destroy the planet just by getting pissed off enough. I really don’t see what your problem is. This place, no matter how bad you think you are, has seen a lot, lot worse.” He pat her on the head and ruffled her hair, which was now much longer than it had been the last time he saw her.

“You also know how to make a girl feel better,” she said, planting a kiss on his cheek.

Drake laughed, scratching the back of his head, “I guess I do, huh?” He looked around again. “Hey… where the hell are we anyway? Shit did I take us to some cave in the middle of who-the-fuck knows where!?”

“We’re going to be in a lot of trouble aren’t we?” she asked, sighing a little.

Drake slumped onto her, sighing. “...Fuck, and my month was going so well. Thank you, Elizabeth, for making me destroy another AEC Foundation Site. I was just dying to add another one to my tally. At least no one died this time… that I know of…”

He sighed again. “Well, we might as well make the most of the time we have until they retrieve us. I suppose I should learn how to shift without going insane… and using my powers in my human form would be nice. My 682 forms have laser cannons for godsake! Oh, and you should probably learn to not accidentally kill people when you get mad. I had to keep cycling through mitochondrial mutations to keep you from exploding me into a mass of ooze for the third time in my life.”

“Sorry...” she said looking away with a blush on her face, “I’ll um... work on that...”

“It’s fine. It’s just, if you ever actually do explode me, don’t use the ooze to do anything… the last time they tried to feed the ooze to an assimilator… it was… gory. Oh, and I’ll regenerate enough to look sorta alive within half an hour, anyway.” The pair were now at the entrance of the cave, overlooking a massive canyon that had somehow been missed by all of the rest of the world.

“Wow… I actually did not know that was there….” Drake gazed around the canyon in wonder, eyes lighting up at all the strange animals that could just barely be seen moving below. “Now, I wonder how we’d get down there…” He looked down only to see a massive, four hundred foot drop. A quick glance to either side revealed the same.

“Allow me,” she said, putting her arms around his waist. The two of them started to float, going down into the canyon.

Drake stared at Elizabeth, now confused again. “What the hell kinda bullshit science lets you fly!? I mean, 682 is bullshit too, but at least I need wings!” He gripped tightly to her dress, somehow not feeling gravity as strongly as he should have.

“I have no idea, all I know is that I can do weird stuff thanks to mitochondria,” she said with a shrug. “Here,” she said as they reached the ground.

“Well, that’s convenient, but I don’t think I want to rely on you all the time for a lift… I did enough of that back in junior year, anyway.” He mused, thinking back to all the times he’d begged her for a ride home whenever it rained. “Anyway, I’m gonna try something that’ll maybe end up with me learning how to fly… if not, well, at least I’m basically immortal.”

With that, Drake rushed up a nearby tree, the canyon being filled with hundreds of massive sequoias for some reason. As he reached the top, he concentrated and leapt from the very tip of the tree, ignoring Elizabeth’s worried scream. As he descended through the canopy, his shirt ripped along his back and a massive pair of draconic wings burst out, spraying little droplets of blood from where they emerged from, and slowed his fall down enough so that he landed with barely a sound.

“Oh shit yeah! I got wings!... I hope I can actually use them…” He flapped them experimentally and made his way back to the now furious Elizabeth.

“Seriously?!” she berated, her eyes glowing, “Why the hell would you worry me like that?!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Drake wilted under her verbal assault, “I told you I’m immortal, remember!”

“Thats not the point!” she screamed, several small creatures burst into flames around them.

“Merp…” He fell to the ground, paralyzed, as his wings retracted into his quickly regenerating shirt.

“Drake!” she shouted, moving over to him, “Are you alright!?”

“Please never do that again. I nearly had a heart attack. You’re hella scary now… also, I had to change my mitochondria twice during that…. we’re really gonna need to work on our abilities aren’t we?” He slowly stood, looking around at the forested canyon they now stood in. “I wonder if either of us actually needs to eat… you’re a mass of mitochondria possessing your own body… and I’m an immortal thing that constantly adapts to anything I need to.”

“Heh, that’d be the one good thing out of all of this,” she said, sighing, “And I thought my anger was a problem before...”

“We’ll manage. So, wanna try practicing right now? I mean, I’m immortal, and there’s no humans around for miles.. so…” Drake trailed off, “I guess my powers are easier to train though… yours are just a matter of control, I think. I just gotta figure out how to work with a genocidal maniac and an overprotective beast… wait…”

“Wait?” she asked, blinking a few times.

“I think my job is harder now. Both of the personas in my head are telling me that I need to fight them for me to gain all my shit… you, I think, just need to separate your powers from your emotions… and maybe train them afterwards.” Drake paled and sat down on a convenient boulder. “Shit… I need to fight and kill two immortal hellbeasts… granted, I’ll also be a hellbeast, but I don’t have the instincts or the experience. I’m dead. Beth, when I die, please hope that it’s the AEC that pops out instead of the SCP, because I don’t know if the SCP will see you as human enough to kill and assimilate.”

He took a calming breath. “Okay, battle in the center of the mind… easy. Beth, wish me luck, I’m going in now!” And then he collapsed to the floor.

“Well,” she said, looking at the limp man, “I best practice myself,” she said taking a breath, her eyes glowing.

In Drake’s mind, a massive, shattered jungle formed a mindscape of nearly incomprehensible depth. In the center, where Drake stood, there was a massive pit leading to a simple wooden trapdoor that concealed his true mind. Three weeks prior, the pit hadn’t been there. Three weeks ago, the jungle had been pristine, concealing the forms of the two massive predators in front of him.

If the pair had to be compared to a pair of ‘60s era gangsters, SCP 682 would be the large one that held you by your ankle and over the edge of a skyscraper. AEC 682 would be the thin, devious one that would just as soon shank you as shake your hand. Of course, neither label truly fit the pair of car sized reptiles, but they were about the closest ones that fit.

AEC 682 spoke first, purring out words in a throaty growl, “You know what you want, correct?”

SCP 682 picked up, a harsh rasping coming from its mouth, “You wish for control. You wish for our power.”

“Be warned, hatchling, your trials shall not be easy.”

“Falter, and die. Stand strong, and succeed. That is all.”

“But, we are not heartless. My brother, yes, but not we-”

“I resemble that remark.”

“-thus, we shall not use our full power. Neither of us shall. Instead, you must only prove yourself worthy of using your own power.”

“Shall we begin?”

Drake gulped and shifted into a mix of AEC and SCP, large, but sleek. Armored, but quick. Armed, but in moderation. His words came out sounding hollow and double-toned, “If we have to, then let’s.”

“VERY WELL! THEN LET US FIGHT!”

And the battle for Drake’s power began, all two lizards against one in an all or nothing battle for total control of one man’s mind and body.

Meanwhile with Elizabeth, she was currently sitting under a tree, her hands in her lap, eyes glowing brightly. Around her floated a thing ring of orange goo, coming from a few of her more unsuccessful attempts at controlling her power. To make things worse, the ring periodically pulsed with fire every time she lost her grip on her extreme power. The comatose body of her friend lay curled around her, unconsciously gravitating towards her presence even when in a fierce battle for his own power. The man was shifted halfway between his human and lizard forms, still recognizably Drake, but with most of the body of 682. The body had been melting and catching fire as well, though less frequently, as it adapted faster than her mitochondria could communicate.

She paused for a moment, reaching down to stroke Drake’s cheek. “Oh Drake, I know you can’t hear this… but I like you a lot… more than like, really...I’m just rambling now,” she sigh a little closing her eyes. This time instead of trying to do anything with her powers, she merely opened herself up, listening to all the mitochondria around her. There were an uncountable number of them, all speaking to her in chorus.

The chorus crescendoed, washing over her like the most beautiful symphony never heard, bathing her in the voices of trillions of tiny little powerhouses. Unconsciously, she had shifted forms, slightly heating the air around her as her dress and her skin melded together, leaving her with four horns, massive clawed hands, white skin and a short black tail. She began to levitate, taking Drake and the ooze with her as her mind adjusted to her new form.

“I do hope I can change back,” she muttered to herself as she looked over the giant mitts that used to be hands. She smirked before summoning up two green beams of energy, cutting through some trees, “Well, hopefully now I won’t just kill everyone...”

And then the ring around Eve caught fire and exploded outwards, circling back in and forming a massive halo behind her back.

“....What?” she muttered, confused at the turn of events. She shook it off, looking at Drake, “I hope you wake up soon...”

Both 682s slashed at Drake, who nimbly dodged before launching a barrage of lasers at the nearly unstoppable pair. The lizards dodged, SCP melting into a forward facing cone shape and growing hundreds of eyes on its forward surface. AEC, meanwhile, grew wings and took to the air, wielding 682 like a massive laser cannon.

Drake frantically dodged, trying not to be incinerated by the massive beams coming from the even more heavily mutated than normal lizard.

‘Who was the dumb fuck that decided laserbeam tag was a good test!?’

‘I did, hatchling.’

He facepalmed as he dove for cover, spitting curses as he realized that none of his thoughts would be private in his mindscape.

His mindscape had changed from the torn up jungle it had been earlier, instead, it was now a ruined city, with rubble and broken machinery everywhere to provide cover. Not that the items could stand up against the might of any of the three lizards for more than a few seconds.

“COME ON HATCHLING, SHOW US THAT YOU HAVE THE ABILITY AND STOP HIDING!”

“DO IT OR I EAT YOUR FACE!”

“Shut up, you.”

While both were distracted, Drake had taken to the air and snuck up behind the two bickering lizards, blasting them both in the eyes that took the place of sensors.

“AARGH!”

The mindscape shattered and reformed, coming back together in a nearly healed over jungle, only the slightest of craters marring the surface. Both 682s stood side by side, facing Drake, now back in his human form.

“You won-”

“-You used your abilities with creativity-”

“-Followed your instincts-”

“-Persevered against nearly impossible odds-”

“And never once lost your intelligence.”

“For that, you earn my share of your power.”

“And mine.”

“I do not think he cares about your side.”

“You soft-shelled son of a lizard whore, come here!”

Drake merely accepted his new power and left, leaving the pair of squabbling lizards to their fight.

“God I hope that’s not going to be a regular thing.”

Drake awoke in midair in his human form next to a floating woman with a flaming halo behind her back.

“... Oh god my head…. Elizabeth, that still you?”

“Yup, I um... mutated I guess,” she said, gesturing to herself.

“Oh. Cool….uh, why are we floating?” He looked down, wiggling his tail back and forth in a vain effort to latch onto one of the nearby trees.

“Oh um... That would be me... my legs are kinda gone at the moment…” she said, giving him a sheepish smile.

He looked down and saw her tail, “Huh. So they are… think you can still change back from that?”

“I hope so... I’m rather afraid to find out...” she admitted quietly. She lowered him to the ground, patting his head.

“Oi! I’m not a cat… even if my lizard form can purr and make disturbing cat ears!” He stuck his tongue out at his currently taller than him childhood friend

“You’re so cute!” she teased, cupping his face, giggling a little.

“....” Drake blushed and looked away, desperately trying to ignore the fact that Elizabeth’s rather sizeable assets were right in front of his cross-pupiled eyes. “Seriously, can you change back? It’d kinda suck if you were stuck like that…. you’d never be able to pick anything up…”

“Ok let me try,” she said focusing her powers. She shifted into orange goo, reforming into her human form, “Well that answers that!” she said happily.

Drake looked down at her and smiled slightly, hugging her head to his chest. “Sure does. Well, now that we both have some semblance of control over our immensely powerful powers, how about we go explore the forest until the Foundation finds us?”

“That sounds like fun,” she said, looking up at him with a smile.

The pair descended into the massive forest, taking in the sights and sounds of the strangely wooded area in the middle of nowhere, completely oblivious to the squadron of Foundation helicopters searching for them far above.

Seek n' Destroy

Or: How to Meet a Total Bitch

All was peaceful this day in Canterlot, everybody was out and about. Nobles trotted around with their noses high in the air and metaphorical sticks up their arse. The working class were making good profits as tourists walked and shopped along the streets. Even the soldiers of the Royal Guard scouted about with little smiles on their faces.

All in all, it was a beautiful day.

Had it only stayed that way.

The peace of the beautiful city was instantly ripped apart, literally, when a portal opened right in the middle of the town square. People began to run off in cowardice, screaming their lungs out. Out of the rift, a young girls came flying out with an explosion following. She toppled onto the ground, rolling to face the portal.

“Everyone get back!” she screamed as guardsmen began to approach.

“You are under arrest for--”

“Stow it for someone who cares and get out of here, crétin! If you stay, you’ll die!” A loud marching sound started to come from the rift. “Merde. Move!”

Unfortunately for those guards, they did not move. Several bolts came flying from the portal, striking each of the guards and electrocuting them to death instantly.

Miles away, Elizabeth, or as she was now known, Eve, shot bolt upright, startling Drake from his doze upon her shoulder.

“Drake! Something bad is happening in Canterlot!” she cried, already heading for the door.

“The hell are we supposed to do about it, Beth? We’re AECs, remember? We’re not really allowed into the public unless we’re declared fully Safe. And we’re both still stuck at Euclid!” Drake itched to do something as well, but he was bound by the rules of the Foundation, stupid as he might consider them.

“To hell with the rules, Drake, we need to go now!” Eve was already down the hall, Drake futilely trying to bring her back into the room.

“Goddammit goddammit goddammit…. Fine, we’ll do it your way! As the saying goes, it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission….” Thus, both AECs rushed from the compound, storming past the startled gate guards and taking to the air at near supersonic speeds, Drake shifting into his AEC 682 form in preparation for battle.

Back at Canterlot, an army of metal men marched through the portal, left arms standing straight out. The girl stood at the ready, a sword in her hand and not a fear in her eyes.

“I won’t let you take this planet!” she shouted at the Cybermen. “These people will not be harmed by the likes of you!”

“Negative,” one droned out in the lead. “This world and its populace are perfect to be upgraded. They will join the Cybermen in our perfection.”

“You got a funny definition of perfection, cyber freak!”

“If you will not join in being upgraded to perfection, then you will be deleted.” It fired a bolt right at the girl.

She sliced right through the bolt with her sword. She looked off to the side, seeing more guards heading their way. “Merde, I can’t let them kill any more. There has to be some way to stop them here and now. Preferably without me having to pay for property damages… again.”

Just then she spotted two figures in the sky, one a woman in a red dress, the other a rather tiny dragon-thing. The pair came in for a harsh landing, throwing up a massive dust cloud. A melodic voice rang out from the cloud, “Drake, you see anything? I can only sense one other being here that’s still alive, and a whole bunch of…. oh my god.”

Another voice growled out, “Can’t sense much, I can smell a lot of metal and ozone though… oh god what is that smell!? It smells like desecrated human flesh!”

“How do you even know what that smells like!?”

“.... I went insane once and went on a month long rampage. I know because… well.. yeah.”

The dust cloud cleared, revealing the forms of AEC 682 and Eve, the girl just stared at the odd couple for a moment before shaking her head. “What are you doing, you crétins?! Get the putain out of here!”

“Oi, we’re here to help, bitch! Don’t make me spontaneously combust your pretty blond ass!” The female yelled, hands twisting into large claws while the lizard started growling at the approaching Cybermen.

“Ladies, fight later. Weird flesh-smelling robot things to deal with now.” 682 chided, opening up the fight with a barrage of laserbeams from his eyes.

It struck a few Cybermen, though it only made them stagger.

The girl muttered to herself, though Eve and 682 couldn’t understand a lick of it since it was in French. “I don’t know who or what you are, but you need to get out of here! It’s not safe! If you want to be useful, then get to the population out of here while I deal with the Cybermen!”

“Listen, woman, I don’t care who the hell you think you are, but if you think that a few measly robots are going to stop AEC 682, then you have another thing coming! COME ON, TIN HEADS, LET’S SEE HOW YOU DEAL WITH SCP 682!”

The lizardbeast shriveled into itself and grew outwards, becoming bulkier, less suited to speed and more suited to direct combat. The wings stayed, and using them, the newly named SCP 682 rose into the air. Once directly over the gaggle of Cybermen, its face changed, opening into five petals that quickly shifted over and over until 682 was nothing but a spiky mass of quintuple-petals with wings aimed toward the ground. Then came the scream.

“SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”

Windows shattered and eardrums burst as an unholy beam of red light descended from the heavens and slammed into the Cybermen, digging a perfect hole into the ground, sixteen meters across and nearly a mile deep.

The girl was aghast, taking a step back. “Y-You killed them… YOU. KILLED THEM!! What the putain is wrong with you?!”

Eve cocked her head at Kat, “You mean we weren’t supposed to kill the incredibly hostile Cybermen invading our Universe from another dimension?”

She put a hand to her head, clearly trying to hold back from screaming at them again. “No...because now I have to find every last scrap and get it off world before the rest of them come.”

“... Oh… Whoops.”

Meanwhile, 682 descended back to the ground, stopping at a hover before shifting back into its normal form, and the changing into a reptilian human of all things.

“I think I got them all, Eve. So, that was it, yeah? Oh, and uh… sorry about the rude attitude, whoever you are. My alternate forms are a little more… instinctual than I am. I’m Drake, Drake Long. Also known as either SCP or AEC 682.” He gave both ladies a tiny smirk before noticing Kat’s angry face and Eve’s slightly worried one. “Uh… what’d I miss?”

“You just made my job that much harder, ya dang gecko,” the girl angrily hissed. “You have no idea what you’ve just done. If I can’t find every last bit of those Cybermen, then this entire planet’s population is doomed.” She marched passed them, rudely shoving against 682’s shoulder as she walked into the crater.

“Well jeez, what crawled up your ass and died? Besides, my laser didn’t do anything but cut a mile deep hole in the ground and melt… and sorta incinerate… the ‘bots. You should be fine… I think.” Drake glanced at Eve, “Hey Beth, you see anything fly out of the blast?”

“Not that I noticed.”

“See? Fine.”

The girl about faced, getting right in 682’s face. “If even a single, itty bitty, teeny tiny piece of Cyberman survives, they can repopulate like that,” she snapped her fingers. “And then, they will go on to convert the entire population of this planet into them. Another world for their army. Which by the way, is waiting just on the other side of that rife to invade and conquer. And right now, I’m the only reason they’re staying where they are. So if you don’t mind, shut up and stay out of my way.” She did a one eighty again and marched into the crater, checking everything for any sign of metal.

Drake whispered into Eve’s ear, “I don’t think she exactly knows how good this world is at stopping assimilation apocalypses… or any apocalypses really.”

She gave him a sneaky look, “Think we should tell her how many plots like that the foundation has had to stop in the last six months?”

“Nah, let her figure it out on her own. Hey goldy! You alright down there?”

She glared up at them. “Look, I don’t have any time for your Displaced nonsense right now. I’m trying to stop an intergalactic war, so if you wanna shut up? M’kay? Thanks.” She got right back to it.

“Touchy, ain’t she?”

“Mhmm”

“Well, if you’re gonna be like that, I suppose we’ll just have to stick around until you finally give in and tell us just what the hell you’re babbling about.” Drake nodded resolutely, hanging off of the girl’s frame as if she was a wall.

She sighed angrily. “What did I just say? I don’t have time for you and your weird problems. I’m busy!” In a second, she teleported to the other side of the crater, still searching.

“Well that was rude. Besides, we’re helpful! Though, I think Eve is much better at the whole ‘Keep the Cybermen in Relatively One Piece’ kinda thing. Sorry about that, Eve.”

She shrugged, “It’s fine. I’ll just get rid of the next ones.”

“I highly doubt you could be helpful,” she said, levitating over a melted boulder to check underneath it. “You’re obviously not intelligent.”

“.... Wow. Bitch.”

“Drake! Stop harassing the girl, she’s obviously distressed!”

“Oh come on, you can’t deny that she’s being a bitch!”

“Be that as it may, you shouldn’t just call her that!”

The pair argued like an old married couple, neither noticing the tiny shard of silver peeking from one of the seams of Eve’s dress.

The girl pulled out a silver cylindrical device with four prongs at the end. She started pointing it around, a green light and strange noise being emitted. She put it near her ear. “Satané! I knew something survived! But where, satané, where?!”

The bickering pair didn’t even notice the girl’s exclamation. The arguing only got more and more intense until the pair of them broke down into helpless laughter, leaning on each other until they both collapsed to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Again neither noticed the glimmer of silver in Eve’s dress.

Though, the girl did. “You!” she pointed the device at Eve. “Don’t. Move!”

As most people do when confronted with such a declaration, both moved, leaping up to their feet and assuming vaguely hostile positions. “What now!?” Drake cried, throwing his hands up in frustration.

“Her!” The girl moved towards her, the device still glowing. She put it in Eve’s face, the sound stuttering slightly, growing slightly as she went down her dress.

“Hey! Where do you think you’re pointing that!?” Eve backed away slightly, a tiny shard of metal falling from her sleeve and tinkling onto the ground.

“Aha!” The shard started to float in the air, wires trying to whip out at the girl. “No, no, no, no,” she kept muttering as she pulled a jar out of nowhere and sealed the shard inside. “Haha! Gotcha ya little salope! Now, you see this?” She put the jar in Eve’s face. “If this had gotten any closer to your face, you would have been converted into a emotionless, robotic being bent on deleting any imperfections in existence. Loosely translated: anything not made by Cybermen. You’re welcome.”

“Eh, I don’t think I woulda been too bad off. My mind isn’t in my brain, after all… it’s in my mitochondria. Elizabeth Mason, the Parasite Eve, at your service.” Eve bowed and showed the girl her hands, “See this?” Her hands melted into orange goo, reforming back into normal, human hands. “That’s why it wouldn’t have worked. Wouldn’t have worked on Drake either, his mental defences will tear any influence apart, and he’s too hardheaded for a lobotomy to do anything.”

“Hey!”

She got in Eve’s face. “Never. Doubt. The Cybermen. These monsters have killed trillions and you would be no difference.”

Eve and Drake snickered “I don’t think there’s anything Cybermen can do to kill something like either of us, lady.” Drake grinned, shooting Eve another sneaky look. “Besides, do you have any idea how much experience this world has with getting rid of assimilators like Cybermen? Hell, according to the records, Equestria’s actually defeated this Universe’s Cybermen already. Twice actually, considering the weird time shenanigans that happen here.”

She just looked at him like he was the biggest moron in existence. “Uh huh, cute story.” She turned around and rolled her eyes. “Crétins,” she muttered. “Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta send this little guy back through the rift and close it.”

“Wow, bitchy, ain’t she. Well, I got a little thing that’ll help validate our story a bit. 123! 123! 123!” Drake shouted into the air, ignoring Eve’s dawning look of horror.

“Drake, no! That guy is a jerk! Why are you summoning him!?”

A new voice rang out, “Because I’m the best at what I do, babe.” An evil looking clown appeared out of nowhere, holding a dented, battered, scorched, acid burned, but still recognizable Cyberman Head. “Here it is, Drakey boy, straight from the Foundation’s trophy room. I even brought the plaque!” The tiny plaque on the Cyberman’s head read:

“This Trophy was retrieved in the year 6 AFE (After Foundation Establishment)”

Drake pointed at the object with a smug grin, “See? I told the truth.”

The girl actually burst out laughing. “A-are you serious?” She continued laughing as she grabbed the helmet from him. “This piece of merde?” She tossed it behind her and through the rift. “Worthless. Old fashioned, out-dated, piece. Of. Merde. This!” She held up the shard. “Evolved fourteen hundred thousand years later!” She threw it through as well and closed the portal. “Don’t overestimate yourselves. It’s a sad little trope.”

“..... If your Cybermen are so bad, why can I take out a platoon in a single shot?”

“Have you ever heard how zombies always win?” she asked, continuing to point the device at where the portal was. “It’s not about their strength. It’s about their numbers. Doesn’t matter if they’re weak, they can overrun you easily.”

Eve spoke up, “I don’t think zombies are the best example…. There’s been sixteen zombie insurgencies in the last thirty years, and all of them were stopped pretty easily.”

“Uh huh, cute story.” Didn’t even sound like she heard a single word. She turned around to look at 682 and Eve. “Now, take me to your leader. Celestia? Luna? Whoever, I just need to see them. Enfer, I don’t care if it’s putain Twilight Sparkle, just take me to them.”

Drake and Eve stumbled a little. “Ah… aheh… we uh, we don’t exactly have the authority to do that… Actually, we’re probably in huge amounts of trouble right now since we left the Foundation Site without permi-”

“AEC 682! AEC 1313! WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING OUTSIDE OF YOUR FOUNDATION ISSUED ROOMS!?”

“-...Shit”

“Hey!” the girl shouted at the human who looked like Twilight. “I don’t need your sass right now, Twilight. Don’t make me call you Snooty, don’t make me do it. Now, uhp uhp uhp, I’m talking, you, shush. I need these Displaced to take me to the leaders of Equestria. Then, and only then, can you have them back. Okie dokie? Okie dokie!” She turned back to 682 and Eve. “Now then, shall we be off? Places to be, things to do, lives to save.”

“682, 1313, who is this woman and why does she assume that you have any sort of authority whatsoever?” Twilight came in for a slightly stumbled landing, labcoat and hair in slight disarray and glasses a bit askew. She smacked both of them with her clipboard, turning to Kat as she did so. “The Princesses will be here in a moment, ma’am. Now, why don’t you talk to the fourth highest ranking person in Equestria, and tell me just what is happening on MY planet!?”

The girl looked at Twilight with a smile. “Finally! A higher up, I hope you’re more intelligent than those two,” she pointed at 682 and Eve. “As defenders of the planet, they’re kind of on the dense side, if you ask me. Now, I am Kat Shifter, the Gravity Queen. Long story short, your planet is about to invaded by the Cybermen… again. But this time, you’re pretty much boned.”

Twilight nodded along with Kat until one particular piece of information stuck out, “Wait… defenders of the planet!? 682 and 1313!? What have you two been telling this woman!?” She rounded on them and assaulted the two with her clipboard until it shattered, then she grabbed them by the ears and threw them in the general direction of Site 34. “Go on, get outta here! I don’t want you out of the Site without permission again, you hear!? I don’t care even if you’re change to Safe class was approved!”

Twilight turned back to Kat, “Now then, where were we?”

Kat snapped her fingers. “That was very rude. You shouldn’t treat your Displaced like that. Trust me, you’ll need them in the future. They always do. But, on to the invasion. The Cybermen are coming and, here’s the catch that’s doomed you all, they are immune to magic.” Kat twirled around her, like a wild girl. “Yep, they’re evolved and upgraded since the last time. And since I just moronically sent through an old piece of their tech that’s been absorbing the abundant magic in the air for centuries, I think I just boned you over even more, savvy? Oh, and I do hope you won’t be missing that trophy, since it’s never coming back.”

“DRAAAAAAAKE! What did I tell you about calling AEC 123 for things in the trophy room! You know that the Archiver Clown is only to be used to retrieve important documents!”

“But he’s so useful!” Drake whined, neither of the two Displaced having moved from where they landed.

“Anyway, what was that about Displaced? Oh, and don’t worry. We have ways of getting around magic resistance.” Twilight chuckled, thinking back to AEC 779, the Hyper-Disintegrator Cannon.

“That’s what the last planet said,” Kat whispered to herself. “Displaced, human sent to Equestria with dangerous powers and abilities that put themselves and others at risk. Either a villain, a hero, or for all intents and purposes neutral in all matters not concerning themselves. Your ‘682’ and ‘1313’ are Displaced. Meaning,” Kat got right in Twilight’s face, “They are not of this world,” Kat whispered.

Twilight stared back at her with a deadpan expression, “If I tried to count the amount of AECs that aren’t from this planet, I’d say a good 96% are from either another planet, another galaxy, or even another Universe. Heck at least 20 AECs aren’t even on this planet anymore, they all left to go back to their homeworlds! Our most recent one was AEC 9924, who nearly destroyed Hoofington while 682 was under mind control.”

Kat smiled. “Well, isn’t that just interesting. Can’t say I’ve come across an Equestria like yours just yet. Fascinating, but where was I? Oh, right! The Displaced curse upon your world. You see, 682 and 1313 coming here has endangered your planet more than you realize. It’s opened the gateway,” Kat began to open portal after portal, showing visuals of other Displaced throughout the multiverse. “A gateway to alternate Equestrias where other Displaced live, breathe, eat, cause destruction, peace, anything really. And now yours has joined the fray, meaning these dangerous humans can come here and do as they please until it is fixed. And you may feel safe with your little monsters and gadgets, but these Displaced put them all. To. Shame. Ever heard of being OP? Well, they’re OPer than OP! OPP! No, that sounds stupid. OOP? No, that spells ‘oop’, well could work. It’s like ‘oops’, I’m on a tangent again, aren’t I? Satané, the Doctor speak is contagious. Anyway, you’re being invaded, your world is doomed, everyone’s going to die. It’ll be fun!”

Twilight started chuckling. “Monsters and gadgets are only the tip of the iceberg, ma’am. We have gods under our employ, and I don’t think that any invasion will be able to overrun a planet that’s had to avert a Universal apocalypse over seventy times in the last one hundred and fifty years.”

“Uh huh,” Kat said, looking unimpressed. “And… could you stop me?” She snapped her fingers and the entire planet’s gravity suddenly shifted to ten times it’s normal. Twilight and just about every other human collapsed, save for the most rugged and powerful.

Drake and Eve stood tall, him adapting nigh instantly to the gravity field, and she simply willing herself to stand tall, though she was adapting much worse.

“Hey, quick learners. I like you, but I don’t like you. Is that weird? I find it weird. You should find it weird. It’s weird.” Kat teleported behind 682. “Adaptability to the extreme, ooh that’s rare.” She looked Eve. “And cellular control, ooh that’s new. Or is it? I think so. No, it’s not new.” She ported in front of them. “You two will do perfect to protect this world. And possibly others if you end up there. Don’t unbelieve that (is that a word? Oh well, is now) it happens whether you like it or not. Stuff happens. Merde happens. Fun stuff, sad stuff, weird merde, crazy merde. You have a fun future ahead.”

Drake lashed his tail out, “Well, Eve was planning for us to do the protecting thing anyway, so.. sure. I could use a little more spice in my life.”

Eve stood a little taller, mitochondria now powered at full capacity. “Yes, well, miss, could you let up on that gravity? I think you’re crushing…. everything, really.”

“Good, teaches them a lesson. Now, uhp, uhp, don’t look at the dying Twilight, look at me. I demand your attention at the moment.” Kat reached into her jacket and pulled out a folder. “Here you go. Could be useful. Wondering what it is? Instructions. Now don’t just skim. You can’t skim these instructions. Well, you could, but that wouldn’t be beneficial.”

“Uhuh… right, well, while you assassinate basically everyone on the planet-nice going, you genocidal maniac-”

“Not the first time I’ve done it,” Kat interrupted. “Continue, continue.”

“Well, you’ve so far done better than 682 ever has. I count… six thousand dead and still more dying. Children, women, adults, everyone, really. Quite a body count you’ve gotten there.” Eve scanned her fingers, not showing the horrible disgust she had for Kat. Drake simply shut his mouth and started scanning the instructions.

Eve then booted Twilight in the side, mutating her cell structure enough so that she wouldn’t be crushed to death. “Anyway, Drake, be a dear and eat my arm, would you? I think your power levels would be much better for fixing the cell structure of… everything on the planet.”

Drake looked up. “Nope. The last time I tried that I ended up turning half the people in the Site into orange goop. Never had to reject a DNA sample before, but seriously, Beth, you and me mixing genetics is bad thing for everyone on the planet.”

“I put them back to normal!”

“They still got gooped.”

Eve crossed her arms and pouted, mutating everything within her range as she did so.

Kat ignored their conversation. “Those instructions will do one of two things. One, lock you here forever and protect you from invading Displaced. Or Two, and this is the one that most consider: they can send you back home.” Drak and Eve both looked at her in shock. “That’s right, send you right back, no powers, no totems, no more Equestria. Just Earth, good ol’ lovely Earth. Your choice.”

Drake shook his head, “Yeah, fuck that. I like being able to adapt to anything and everything. Eve?”

She also shook her head, “Dead end job, not a lot of money, no real comfort other than video games. Earth sucked. Never going back.”

“Like I said your choice, now,” Kat sat down on Twilight’s back, crushing her back to the ground. “Here’s the deal: you both promise to protect this planet and it’s inhabitants, all of them mind you, from evil. Even if that evil is you or your own kind. In exchange, I leave, undoing all of my damage and I keep the Cybermen, the Daleks, and whatever else I can away from here. Turn me down, however, well, I’m afraid you don’t have that option.”

Drake eyed her warily, still unaffected by the gravity change, even when Eve collapsed, unable to levitate herself faster than gravity pulled her down.

“Y’know, you’re starting to sound even more like an evil bitch than I thought. You sure you’re not just a genocidal maniac with delusions of grandeur? But whatever, we accept. Now get the hell off my planet. Don’t make me mutate myself enough to fire solar plasma at you!”

Kat smiled, getting off of Twilight as she corrected the gravity and sent out health crystals to all the dead, bringing them back. “Oh, poor little thing, thinks he can kill me.” She put her hand on Drake’s face, giving it a comforting pat. “Such delusions.” She snapped her fingers, a black as night diamond appearing in Drake’s hand. “If you ever need anything,” she tapped the gem, “just give me a ring.” She moved off and away from them. “TTFN: Ta ta for now!” She snapped her fingers, disappearing before them.

Drake turned to Eve and shrugged, “Well, that was a thing.”

She slowly picked herself up off of the ground, recuperating from her exhaustion. “Yes, yes it was.”

“Wanna go get some drinks?”

“Yup”

Unfortunately, it was not to be had, as both AECs felt an ominous chill down their spines.

“You two……”

Twilight rose up behind them like an unholy specter of death. Drake and Eve clung to each other, desperately praying for survival.

“Eve?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re boned.”

“Yup”

As Kat appeared within her cave, she let out a loud laugh. She laughed so hard, she was slapping her knee.

“Welcome home, your highness,” a changeling bowed before her.

“Yeah, yeah,” Kat said as she wiped a tear from her eye.

“Did your mission go successful, my queen?”

“Oh it went perfect!” Kat said as twirled herself around her throne. “Another Displaced disturbed, another world threatened. I even killed a few thousand people in the process! Oh it was glorious!”

“I am happy your mission went well. Would you care for a beverage?”

“Oh most certainly. And make it strong, I feel like celebrating.” The changeling bowed, exiting out the room, leaving Kat in her glee. “Ohoho, such fun this ‘Displaced’ thing is. I really should thank that worthless duplicate for coming here. I never would have even bothered learning of other worlds if she hadn’t arrived.”

She sighed happily as she sank into her throne. She looked at the sonic screwdriver in her hand and crushed it. “What a perfect replica. It did so much to real in the act. I lost a fair amount of drones, but at least it was a good deception. I can always breed more. They should have moved out of the way in the first place, anyway. Form shift does not make them invincible.”

“And learning all that French!” She whined, floating about. “And all that fast talking nonsense. Oh, good thing I’m the master manipulator. Too easy, these humans are too easy to fool!”

The changeling returned, setting down a glass and a bottle of wine. She dismissed the bug, taking the bottle and took a swing as she looked out at her growing empire. “Someday I’ll thank you for these opportunities, Kat. While I stand over your broken body that is!” She let out another dark laugh before moving over to a large map of Equestria. “So much to conquer, so little time. Just you wait Kat and Raven. I’m coming for you, and I’ll make your powers… mine!”

I'MMA BURN THIS SON OF A BITCH!

Or: 10 Against 682

“Ugh, where am I?” Ben asked as he sat up. He rubbed his head, trying to draw on the memories of what happened. “Aw man, Power what kind of trouble did you get me into this time?” He looked around at his surroundings and groaned. “Oh great, I’m in jail… again.” He facepalmed, getting up to look around the room.

Ben touched and inspected the walls, noting the different runes placed about. “Rune magic. That’s ancient right there, even before my time.” He lightly tapped his fist against the wall. “Solidly constructed. This place is built for serious prisoners.”

A voice crackled over the intercom, “That it is, AEC 10000, built to contain even that strange white creature you were transformed into. Now that you’re awake, please look to your left.”

As Ben turned, he noticed a small section of the slightly glowing wall flicker and turn blue, projecting a woman’s face.

He blinked for a minute before sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look, I don’t know what Power did to tick you guys off, but whatever it was I swear I’ll pay for the damages. Can you just let me go now? I need to contact Discord.”

“AEC 10000, I’m afraid that until the Foundation Board clears your Safe class status, you won’t be going anywhere. I’m not sure what you want with AEC 1024, but you won’t be seeing him until I get a very good explanation.”

“Look lady, I need to get back home. And another thing, my name is Ben, not AEC 10000, and I’m human in case you couldn’t tell. Now as a prince of Equestria, I am ordering you to let me out of here.”

“File is now updated, AEC 10000, alias: Ben. I’m sorry Ben, but as much as you say you’re Safe, I can’t chance the safety of the staff here just on your word. And I don’t know where you’re from, but if you’re a Prince in that Universe, you sure as hell aren’t one here. Look, just sit tight for the next hour, alright? I’ll try to get your classification through as quickly as possible… to be honest, none of us really want you here, but regulations and such. Oh, and by the way, I am Head Researcher Stable Mind of the Anomalous Entity Containment Foundation. Welcome to Site 63.”

Ben clenched his fist, his anger rising phenomenally. “Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. “You get one hour to let me out of here. But you listen and you listen good, if I’m here any longer, I will get out of here. And when I do… I’m coming for you.” He pointed right at Stable, fury in his eyes. “And you’ll find out why where I come from, I’m Public Enemy numbers One through Ten. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, I do. But if you intend to kill me, Ben, I must warn you: I may not be the best person on the planet, but this entire Site’s collection of entities is under my command, and I know of one that will defend any personnel against any threat. His name is 682. Oh, and he’s standing here with me.”

The camera moved, zooming out and revealing the absolutely massive reptile curled up behind the woman. The beast was built like a tank and felt deadly even through the video feed.

“So, food for thought-” The woman’s console bleeped, startling the woman, “-Oh would you look at that, the board has seen fit to grant you provisional Safe class status. Please head through the door to your right.”

A door hissed open, revealing a hallway connected to the very room Stable Mind and 682 had been in. Ben walked out, stopping for a moment to place his hand on the wall. Ben whispered to the Omnitrix, “Scan these runes, run all preventive functions, but keep it quiet.” The watch beeped in response. A moment later, Ben was walking down the corridor and into that very room.

“Hello AEC 10000--” Ben decked her to the ground, causing the entire room to go silent.

“Never. Imprison me. Again. Got it?” Ben asked, his tone forceful and commanding. He looked over and saw ‘682’ along with a woman standing near him.

“So…. any reason why you just decked the seventeenth most important person in Equestria?” The lizard shifted into a distinctly reptilian human as it spoke, crossing its arms and glaring.

“Maybe he’s just a jerk?” the other woman suggested, patting her companions head.

“The one thing you never do to me, is hold me against my will,” Ben said, calming down significantly. “I don’t care how your world works, but in mine we treat diplomats and ambassadors with respect and hospitality.”

The reptile stared, “When the Foundation found you, you were destroying Canterlot. Thanks to you, at least five thousand people died. Not exactly diplomat material from where I stand, asshole.”

“Language,” Ben chided. “And good thing that wasn’t me, then.” He smiled, swiping a sandwich off the console, no doubt belonging to the woman who was still trying to get up off the floor. “Ooh, this is good. Turkey? Haven’t had turkey in a while.”

The other woman rolled her eyes before taking on a perplexed look, “Your mitochondria are rather strange...” she spoke, her eyes glowing.

“My what?”

The only other male in the room finally grunted in frustration, “Okay, let’s start this over! Hello, my name is Drake Long, this is my friend Elizabeth Mason. The woman you just decked- Doc, you okay?” “Yes” “Good. The woman you just decked is Stable Mind, one of the smartest people I know… though she’s kinda a bitch sometimes-” “Hey!” “-Calling it like I see it, Doc. Anyway, welcome to Equestria. What’s your name?”

“Name’s Ben. Ben Ten. Older brother to the Princess Sisters and personal friend of Princess Twilight and the Council of Friendship. I suppose it’s nice to meet you both as well.” Ben took the last bite of the sandwich, enjoying the familiar taste. “I’ll tell you what, she may be a jerk, but she’s got a good taste in meat.”

Drake twitched, tail carving a small groove into the floor, “Well… you know Doc Twilight then… I guess the Council of Friendship would be the Elements of Harmony, which constitutes AECs 1-6. And yeah, I guess turkey’s pretty cool. I like beef better, though…”

Elizabeth looked at him, confused, “I thought you said you liked pork?”

“I like both!”

Ben drooled a bit. “Oh pork. How much I miss bacon. It’s been so long since I’ve had that delicious, juicy, crunchy food of the gods. And don’t diss me on that, I know it’s the food of the gods. They keep a plate of unlimited bacon up on Olympus.”

“Olympus is a thing? Oh wait, of course it’s a thing. Multiverse, duh. Anyway, we don’t have bacon in the cafeteria… cheap asshats… but there’s a great diner a few miles from here. I suppose we could take you there…”

“Unfortunately, I can’t stay. I gotta get in contact with Discord and get back home. I’m only here because I had to let Power out and asked Discord to send me somewhere I wouldn’t harm my friends.”

“I don’t know any Discord’s sorry,” Elizabeth said with a shake of her head.

“Not here!” Ben said with a sigh. “My watch has a communicator built into it.” He tapped the watch and started to talk into it. “Hey. Hey! Discord, can ya hear me?”

There was only static for a moment, but then, “Ah! There you are Bennyboy! Was wondering when you’d finally snap back to normal. I bet you’re wanting to come home aren’t you?”

“Uh, duh.” Then Ben stopped for a moment. “Oh don’t tell me!”

“Yeah, sorry, but it’s taking some time trying to find which world I dropped you into. Shouldn’t be more than a few hours at most. Then we’ll have right home in time for tea! Just sit tight! TTFN: Ta ta for now!” There was a beep, indicating the end of the call.

“Wait! Discord! Urgh, ack, guh!” Ben stuttered angrily. “Gah! That stupid little...ugh, he’s more annoying now than he was five thousand years ago!”

“Hm... maybe that watch is why your mitochondria are so weird,” Elizabeth said, leaning closer to inspect it.

“Oi!” Ben said, pulling the watch back. “No touch. It’s a dangerous device.”

“Heh, I’m dangerous too ya know,” she said with a giggle, “If I wasn’t I wouldn’t be here.”

“Don’t care,” Ben practically growled at her. “You are not going anywhere the only thing that keeps me sane, any of you!” He shouted, pointing at everyone present.

“Just relax,” she said putting her hands up, “I assure you, we won’t harm you, as long as you don’t cause any trouble.”

“I’m not the one you should be worried about,” he replied with a dark smirk.

“Eh, I’m pretty sure you can’t kill me,” she said shrugging her shoulders.

“I don’t kill,” Ben said simply as he began to toy with the watch. “Spin that, type in this, punch here and there, and… done! Ha, well, I thought that would be harder.”

“Hm?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Ben said mockingly.

“Not really, I’m still working on your mitochondria,” she said shrugging, “They’re fascinating really,” she spoke softly, her eyes still glowing.

“Uh… thanks, I guess? Whatever they are.”

“They’re the parts of your cells that produce energy. I’m communicating with them,” she explained, watching him intently.

“That’s… really creepy.”

“I could tell them to make you combust or just melt you into goo...”

Ben’s eyes went wide, stepping away from her. “Omnitrix, keep Alien X on standby. Any cellular anomalies, activate said transformation.” The watch beeped in confirmation.

“Oh relax, I’m not going to do it,” she rolled her eyes, “I’m not a monster.”

“Not gonna take your word on it,” Ben shook his head. “Not taking that risk.”

“Jerk,” she said with a pout.

Drake stepped in, “Now now, Beth, don’t bother the man with a reality warping alien on speed dial…. you are referring to the Ben 10 alien, right? I mean, what with the name and the alien…. Your hair isn’t exactly tame enough for the show’s Ben… but the way you introduced yourself as ‘Ten’ instead of Tennyson… are you a Displaced?”

“Yep, that’s me. I’m not Tennyson, would like to meet him someday, though.”

“I see. Well, since you’re going to be here for a while… bacon. Yes or no?”

“Oh, might as well,” Ben moaned. “Lead the way.”

“Right then, come on, it’s just a quick flight over. Don’t worry about authorization, Doc Mind’ll give us the go ahead, right?” Drake looked expectantly at the recovering woman.

“...”

“Yes?”

“...”

“Yes.”

“..........”

“Come ooooonnnn…”

“....”

“I’ll bring you back your normal order of coffee if you let us go~”

“....Fine. You three are cleared. Now get out of my way, I need an icepack and some pain killers.” She shoved the three from the room and stormed off, searching for her aforementioned objects.

Ben snorted amused. “Heh, wimp. That wouldn’t have done anything to a pony.”

“We’re humans, asshat. Most of these people are scientists and don’t have any resistance to being injured other than the natural anti-mauling enchantments. If you’re gonna be a douche about all the people here, man, do it where none of us can hear it, please.”

“Fine, but you’re not making your case any better,” Ben said as he strutted through the exit door. “After all, I hate humans. Now come on! I’m hungry!”

Drake looked at Elizabeth, “This fucker would get along great with SCP 682 when he isn’t in one of his bloodrages…”

“Well I’m not actually human,” Elizabeth stated, locking arms with Drake.

“Don’t really care, now do I?” Ben said. “I’m just stuck here, so it doesn’t really matter to me if you are or aren’t.”

“....Asshat.” The nonhuman pair strode over to a window overlooking a massive chasm, Drake slicing through it and jumping out in a massive unfurling of leathery wings, Elizabeth floating out gracefully with glowing eyes.

Ben sighed, activating the Omnitrix. He wheeled through a few before selecting one. He slapped it down, transforming into a big, red and yellow creature with glider like wings and long,skinny tail. “Jetray!” he shouted as he jumped into the air, immediately catching up to them. “Why was that place built on a cliff?”

Drake stared, now in his more sleek, draconic form, “Because a lot of the things there can be neutralized by dropping them into the massive lava pit at the bottom of the chasm. Oh, and because one of the board members- fucking Reggie- complained about the lack of, and I quote, “Awesome Cliffside Lairs”.”

“Stupid,” Ben muttered. “Now where can we get a bite to eat before that draconequus can get me home?”

“Just down there, see that sign that says “420 Crave It”? That’s AEC 420’s pharmacy and diner. Don’t ask why the guy made a pharmacy and combined it with a diner. Just… don’t.”

“Whatever,” Ben said as he flew down, transforming back to himself. “Let’s just get some food.”

“Yeah yeah.” Drake landed and shifted back as well, pushing the double doors open and calling out, “Yo Snoopy! I’m back!”

And then a large, humanoid mass of vegetation came out of a door marked ‘Employees Only’, looking suspiciously like Snoop Dogg and wearing a large apron that read “Blaze the Cook”.

“Aww shit homie, you be rizzle for the Snoop-dizzle?”

“Hey!” Elizabeth said with a wave, “Long time no see!”

Ben saw the humanoid and just about turned and walked out. He pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “I-I-I don’t even wanna know. Let’s just get the food and get gone.”

“Aw’right ma’ homies, I gotta 682 special for my D-rizzle here, and a Eve-y blaze for my lovely lady. Take a look at the menu, homes, tell the Doggy Dogg whatcha’ll want.”

“Bacon,” Ben handed the menu back, sighing deeply and trying to hold off the oncoming headache. “Just bacon, please.”

“Sure thing, brotha’. Got a order of the b-sizzle comin’ up on my grizzle right now. Sit tight, Snoop Doggy Dogg about to drop a phat mizzle.” The sentient mass of marijuana turned back to the grill, cooking like a pro while taking care not to drop any of its leaves into the food.

Ben took a seat at one of the tables, sighing deeply. Drake sat next to him and leaned back, arms behind his head, “Yeah, most people are like this the first time they see Snoop. Don’t worry, he’s perfectly nice… though why a sentient mass of marijuana looks and sounds like Snoop Dogg is beyond me.”

“He’s rather charming though,” Elizabeth said with a smile.

“He also sells a bunch of medical marijuana next door. I mean, I guess it makes sense?”

Ben was not amused. “I am getting very tired of this.”

“Wow, way to be a fucking downer, Ben. Just enjoy the hilarity of a Snoop Dogg made of weed. Yo, Snoopy, how’s the food?”

“Ii’s good homie, ii’s good.”

“I don’t even know who that is.”

Drake blinked, “Really? Huh. To each their own, I guess.”

“Look, I’m sorry if I’m being harsh, but I am getting sick and tired of all this Displaced nonsense. I don’t know why I’m getting dragged into it now, but I hate it. I keep ending up around the species who made my life a living nightmare. I just want to stay around my ponies.”

“If it helps, I’m not human, Eve’s not human, Snoopy ain’t human-” “And proud of it, son” “-Actually, no one in this town is a human, even if they look like it. We’re all AECs that have been classified as Safe. Hell, we have a sentient shadow that sells blinds and awnings and curtains a few streets over.”

“But you two,” he pointed at Drake and Eve, “Were born human. That’s enough for me.”

“.... Wow, that’s…. goddamn. You’re like a fucking Nazi, Hitler.”

Ben slammed his hands on the table, glaring at him. “Humans are the most despicable race I’ve ever met! I’ve met war-like griffons, tribal zebras, gladiatorial minotaurs, and peaceful ponies, and they are all better than my species. Humans destroyed my life, so I’m pretty sure I have enough leeway to say they are despicable.”

“Aw shit ma’ niggas, this betta not be some fighting I hear in ma’ diner. If’y’ wanna fight, take it outside, homie.” AEC 420 broke the tension, bearing plates piled high with food.

“Only if they start it,” Ben said as the plate was put in front of him. He took a piece and devoured it before they could blink.

Drake and Eve shrugged, “Hey, that’s fine by me. I get into enough fights on a daily basis. Well, fight’s done, let’s eat.” The two dug in, and for a long time, the diner was silent save for the sounds of eating, cooking, and other customers.

In less than two minutes Ben’s plate was devoid of food. “Well, it was okay.”

Drake shrugged, polishing off his massive burger, “Hey, never said it was the best. But it’s still damn good, yeah?”

“I suppose,” Ben admitted.

“So…. what do you wanna do now?”

“Besides go home?”

“Besides that, yes.”

“I don’t know. There’s pretty much nothing for me to do here.”

The lizardman frowned, trying to think of something to do, “Well, what do you normally like to do?”

“Uh...nothing. I don’t do much but help out the Elements every now and then. Can’t really go out as a human, after all.”

“Well then my self hating friend, allow ol’ cousin 682 to educate you on the finer aspects of the town of Aceville! Come on! Let’s go~” Drake grabbed ben and ran off, throwing a few bills on the table to pay for the meal, “Eve, hurry up!”

“You go on ahead, I’ll catch up.”

“I don’t hate myself,” Ben muttered. He looked at 682. “So...what now?”

“Hmm… well, there’s Sparky’s arcade… the self sorting library… the Movie Theater of All Space and Time….” Drake rubbed his chin in thought, “Eh, can’t remember them all. Usually I just fly in and do whatever looks most fun.”

“Eh, that’s not really my sort of fun,” Ben said as the two began to walk.

“So what is?”

“I adventure, actually. Before I left Earth, I traveled all over the world.”

“Plenty of things to do in this world. We got a looooot of things to explore. Ruins, temples, ancient cities, forests, islands, you name it, we probably have an adventure for it.”

“I’ve only got a couple hours,” Ben reminded him.

“Shit.” Drake muttered, rubbing his chin again, “Hey, I know! Follow me!” He turned and ran off, Ben staying with him for some odd reason. The pair ran around the fairly large town, spinning around corners and cutting across roads until they finally came across a shop titled “AEC 606: The Time Dilation VR Shoppe”.

“Ahh, good old 606, for when you wanna burn a few hours but make it seem like years of fun.”

“I’m both curious and suspicious.”

“Sup?” Elizabeth said, popping her head between the two.

“Gah motherfuck! Dammit Beth! Don’t do that!”

She just smirked, giving him a hug.

“Well, come on, we can burn a few hours in time dilated virtual reality adventure sims. Let’s go, I heard that 606 released a new copy of Skyrim in multiplayer!”

“Lets go!” she shouted, rushing inside.

“Woooo!” Drake followed, dragging Ben behind him.

“Wait!” Ben said as he was dragged. “What the heck is Skyrim?!”

“Only the best looking Elder Scrolls game,” she started, “Oblivion has better quests but it just looks horrible,” she said with a shudder.

“All I’m hearing is gibberish!”

Drake placed his hand on Ben’s shoulder in sympathy, “It’s just a good videogame. You really need to experience it to believe it, though. Trust me.”

“But I’ve never played video games,” Ben whined. “The real world was much better! Especially when you could do whatever you want!”

“We’ll guide you through. Don’t worry, it’ll be fun… I think. It’s normally fun to most of the people that play it, so…”

“Ugh, I’m gonna regret this, I just know it,” he whined, silently wishing Discord would hurry up with that portal.

Four hours of real time and seventeen weeks of dilated time later, the three walked out of AEC 606, sixty bits lighter and a whole lot more entertained.

“Dammit Beth, I can’t believe you stole my kill! I told you guys I called dibs on Alduin, remember!?” Drake complained, whining at a slyly grinning Elizabeth.

“Oh you're just a sore loser,” she said laughing her ass off.

Ben walked behind them, not sure what just happened. “That was weird. What was the point of doing that again?”

“For fun,” Beth said with a smile.

“That was fun? We have a completely different definition of fun.”

Drake pouted, “You suck. That was awesome!” She just giggled, patting his head.

Ben shook his head. “I’ll never understand people and video games. They just aren’t fun.”

“Oh come on, you enjoyed using Lightning Storm and I know it! I saw that tiny little smirk on your face when you incinerated that Blood Dragon!” Drake pointed an accusing finger at Ben.

“Because lightning! I don’t have anything that can use lightning yet!”

“I knew you had fun!” Drake smiled triumphantly at Ben.

“How could I have fun when I had to kill? I don’t kill, that’s just... just wrong.”

“Oh come on, you literally hit the thing for half a second and most of your blast skimmed off. If anything, I killed it, ya cryba-” An ominous roar cut through the sky and interrupted Drake. The sound was intimately familiar to all three, having just walked out of the place where they’d had to fight the exact being that made the roar over a hundred times.

“-... Oh jesus, don’t tell me…..” Drake mumbled, scanning the sky above.

“Drake...” Elizabeth started, looking rather unnerved.

High above, a massive thing descended, slamming into the ground with all the force of a meteor. It appeared to be a dragon, though half rotted and bleeding potent acid. It’s smell filled the air around, causing nearly every AEC to run in fear.

“Oh son of a bitch!” Drake yelled, throwing himself back, already shifting into his AEC form.

“Well, that’s different.” Ben looked at Drake, an eyebrow raised. “You’re going to fight, I take it?”

Drake stared back, “Of course I am, all the other AECs in this town have next to zero combat training!” He leapt at the colossal dragon, slashing at its fifty meter long frame to no avail, any wounds healing in seconds in a flash of… orange goo? “A little help here!?”

Ben looked at Beth and pointed at Drake with his thumb. “You should probably help him.” Without another word, he moved over to a nearby and leaned against it, looking highly disinterested in the fight occurring practically right in front of him.

“OH COME ON, ASSHOLE! REALLY!?”

Ben shrugged, getting comfortable against the wall. “Not my world, not my problem.”

Drake turned to reply but was slammed by the dragon’s tail, smashing into the wall of 606, somehow not leaving so much as a scratch. As he stood up again, he shifted, becoming bulkier and more heavily armed.

“You fucking son of a soft-shelled LIZARD WHORE!” He yelled, voice raspy and echoing. Drake picked up the undiplomatic diplomat by the scruff of his jacket and, before Ben could react well enough to break free, performed a fastball special and threw Ben into the maw of the undead dragon.

“EAT THIS YOU FUCKING WASTE OF REPTILIAN GENETICS!” As the jaw clamped, a green light went off. There was a moment of silence, believing that Ben had been eaten. Until 682 saw a little metal bug fly into his face.

“Not cool, dude. Not cool,” it said to him in a high voice. It flew off back to the wall and turned back into Ben. “Jerk.”

“You had the chance to turn into fucking WAY BIG inside of a one hundred plus foot long dragon and you didn’t take it!? You fucking waste of….. GRAAAAAAARGH.” With that elegant reply, the hulking form of SCP 682 charged back into the fray, blasting at the seemingly unkillable dragon with its organic rockets.

“Burn!” Elizabeth screamed, igniting the beasts mitochondria. “Get the stupid thing!”

“Woo, go Drake and Eve,” Ben said with a clap of his hands. “Go get him.” There was obviously no effort in his “cheering”.

“BEN YOU SUCK AT EVERYTHING!” Drake yelled, struggling against the beast’s flames, trying to match them with his own and forgetting one vital thing: As the water content in the acid evaporated, it became very, very flammable. “Oh son of a bitch OH GOD IT’S IN MY EYES!” The semi-blinded lizard stumbled back and tried to recover from his own acid as Eve took to the frontlines.

She snarled, mutating into her more monstrous form. She fired off some lasers, staying out of its reach. As Drake recovered, he leapt forwards, swiping at the dragon with a freshly mutated hammer of a paw, destroying its head and splattering orange ooze all over the square.

“Wait a minute… orange ooze…? Beth, look at this!” Drake called Elizabeth over, both examining the remains of the dragon’s head. Neither noticed the rest of the dragon melt and slowly move towards the splatterings already on the ground.

“You two may want to look out,” Ben suggested, still staying in place.

“Huh? ….. Ohshi- AGH!” Drake was blown away by the newly reformed dragon, it swiping him across the entire town with one swing of its massive arms.

Ben whistled, slightly impressed with how far he went. “Not bad, I give it a seven point three.”

Elizabeth’s eyes glowed brighter, intensifying the flames. “I’ll burn you to ash!” she screamed, slashing at the creature with her claws. She moved back as it slashed at her, firing off some lasers into its chest, knocking it back.

“Where’s Discord with the popcorn when you need him?” Ben quipped as he watched.

“Shut up!” she commanded with a glare, and Ben found himself getting incredibly hot.

“Host cells under attack,” the Omnitrix sounded out. “Activating cellular adjustments. Canceling outward interference in thirty seconds.”

“Not cool, girl,” Ben said, wiping the sweat from his brow.

She snarled, starting to mutate again, this time into a large and twisted mass of flesh. She held out her hand, spraying yellow energy needles at the down dragon, relishing in its pain.

“Now that’s a neat trick. Need to remember that for a few of my aliens,” Ben muttered.

Miles away, all the way across town, Drake slowly crawled out of a massive crater in the ground, regrowing half of his entire body as he moved. Closer examination would reveal that the half he was missing had melted into the orange sludge filling the bottom of the crater.

“Oh son of a BITCH….. fucker got my good half….”

He looked around, noticing the flames rising up in the distance, and shifted again, losing his arms and legs and reabsorbing the sludge in the crater. When the transformation finished, he resembled the basilisk he had killed on his first day in Equestria, with wings.

A few experimental flaps later, Drake took off, blasting towards the corpse dragon at mach 3.

Back near the center of town, Elizabeth wasn’t faring as well as she’d expected. The dragon had proved to be resistant to melting and setting it on fire only engulfed the town in it as well. Plus there was the matter of all the flailing limbs and the blasts of fire that lit up the town like a witch trial in 1692.

“Why don’t you die!?” she screamed, trying to will its mitochondria to liquify it, to no avail.

“Having fun?” Ben asked with a mischievous smirk.

She ignored him, flying into the air, mutating once again, this time taking on a more humanoid and rather naked form. She had strange rib like structures going down her legs. Her forearms were now larger and blue and her hair had grown into a large set of wing-like red arms, each one tipped with a black hand. Her spine had grown and split into seven blue tails, six short and one long with rib-like spines.

This was the scene that Drake came upon, smashing into the dragon with all the force of a sledgehammer on a water balloon, splattering goo everywhere. Before the dragon could fully reform from the ooze it now was, the snake/dragon/lizardbeast lapped up some of the disgusting substance and assimilated it, the runes on its back glowing and extending further for the first time in months.

And then Drake caught fire, expanding into a corona of hellish plasma as he expelled flammable gasses from every pore on his snakey body, appearing as though he was a demon from the deepest pits of hell.

Flaring his now burning wings, Drake screamed a challenge at the marauding dragon, how dare this soft-skinned son of an amphibious toad challenge the HIGH KING OF REPTILES!?

The sheer force of Drake’s challenge staggered the living corpse as it pulled itself together. Already it was starting to give into its instinct to flee from what was obviously an alpha predator. Then, its eyes changed, flashing gold, its pupils reflecting a tiny ‘G’ in their centers. The dragon roared back, unafraid, unable to think of anything other than its urge to rip and tear the flesh from 682’s snakey bones.

Elizabeth darted forward, using her longer arms to grab its head, holding it in place. She her humans hands onto it, focusing her rage into it, “I AM EVE! YOU WILL OBEY ME!” she screamed, the beasts cells starting to die off under her onslaught.

Then something rippled, and the entire beast glowed gold, cells rejuvenating even as it blasted Eve into and through a building.

“Japan would love this,” Ben said as he shook his head smiling.

The two massive beasts squared off in the burning wreckage of Aceville, the dragon somehow having grown to an even one hundred and fifty feet tall at the shoulder, the hellbeast that was Drake having grown as well, the flames around him flowing into green, giving the entire area a sickly tinge.

Then they both took off, rising into the sky and engaging in an aerial dogfight the likes of which the world had previously never seen. Bladed wings scored lines through rotted scales, decaying claws found purchase in obsidian scales. Both beasts were enveloped in roiling plumes of deadly plasma, the corpse burning sickly green and the snake flaring violent orange. The clouds above the town were shredded into wisps and vaporized by the violent motions, the sky was rent apart with furious reptilian screams.

It was a scene that left every onlooker desperately wishing for a camera.

There was an explosion high above, a roiling mass of green and orange plumes of fire that left the sky obscured and onlookers blinded by its majesty. Then one of the competitors slammed into the ground in a smoky cloud of dust, obscuring the view even more.

When the dust cleared, the corpse dragon stood tall over a battered and seemingly defeated basilisk, roaring in triumph even as it healed fully and returned to life, now a vibrant, shining gold.

Ben whistled in awe of the fight. “Wow, you guys really know how to have fun!” He laughed a little as he watched the battle. “Hoo, haven’t seen a monster fight in--” Ben stopped as a familiar feeling probed the back of his mind. He instinctively put a hand to his head, grunting in pain. “Urk, so you’re still not done, eh?” Ben said to himself before smirking. “Well alright, this should be interesting.”

A bright flash of light caught the dragon’s attention, a little white creature standing where Ben once did. The creature flexed his arms a bit, releasing the tension in his muscles. It looked at the dragon and smirked. “Hey, you!” it shouted, its voice sounding like it came from a synthesizer, and pointed at the dragon. “The name is Echo Echo! And I’m gonna kick your undead, scaly ass!”

The dragon merely roared at Echo Echo, rearing up and mutating. Hind legs became shorter, arms disappeared and became new heads. The beast grew and its tail split. It now towered over the town of Aceville, a good four hundred feet tall. It cried out with a voice like a bell, foregoing flames in favor of lasers, destroying even more of the town while hundreds of Safe class AECs cowered in their bunkers.

Echo smirked. “Now, you’re actually worth fighting! Bring it on, monster!”

The monster roared out again, shaking the ground and causing buildings to collapse. With fury, the three heads all lashed out at Echo Echo, blasting the area where he stood with concentrated firepower, scorching furrows into the earth and setting even more of the rubble of Aceville ablaze with golden fire.

“Hey ugly!” The monster reared behind itself to see Echo standing there. “Ya missed me, mutha fucka!” Instantly, many, many more Echo’s split from the middle. They all took in a big breath… and let out a massive scream, piercing ears and shattering every window for miles.

The beast was totally unaffected by the scream, its ears too high up and too insensitive to hear the tiny Sonorosian’s attack.

Echo canceled his attack, rethinking his strategy. “Hrm, gonna need some altitude. Which means…” He looked over at the unconscious 682, getting an idea. “You all,” he pointed to the clones, “keep it distracted. I’m goin’ for the trump card.” As he ran off for Drake, the other Echo Echo’s ran to the monster, pounding on it however they could.

When Echo Echo reached Drake, he let out a high pitch scream in his ear. The massive snake form of the man woke instantly, shrieking in a frequency exactly two times higher so as to hyper-resonate and crack the ground for miles.

With the returned consciousness of Drake came the sickly green light of a flaming, wing basilisk. Upon seeing his foes’ new size, Drake utilized every last scrap of hatred he had for the monster and grew, becoming even taller than the beast he was fighting. He grew to a length of over one thousand feet, nearly a full third of him reaching up to see eye level with the three headed being. And as the colossal monsters stared each other down, Drake utilized a power that he’d had for months but never used: The genetically ingrained petrifaction stare of the Greater Mountainous Basilisk.

With a vicious roar, the three headed beast’s middle head turned to stone, crumbling off of its flailing necks and shattering of the ground far below. This time, it didn’t regenerate; the wound had already been sealed by the unique process of the stare. The snake roared, slithering around its flailing foe in smug condescension. Only for several piercing screams to ram it against a nearby wall.

“That was my kill, you bastard!” the Echo Echos shouted in unison.

Unfortunately for all of the copies, the one in charge wasn’t Drake anymore, not after he’d lost consciousness in the dogfight. No, this was both AEC and SCP, and both were happy to take on the challenge.

“YOU WANT A SCREAM FIGHT!? I’LL GIVE YOU A SCREAM FIGHT!”

And the basilisk screamed the sound shattering the mountain that Aceville lay upon, reducing a good majority of it to rubble and conveniently blasting away any and all bystanders. Fortunately for Echo Echo, he had enough copies stored away in hiding spots to make a jump on the monster.

“Think you can best me, eh? Let’s see how you like this! Echo Chamber!” The Echo Echo’s surrounded 682 on all sides and let out a massive and constant shriek. There was no escape for 682 as Echo Echo just kept letting out more and more power into his screams.

Angered and hurt, it screamed right back, matching the frequency and lacing its voice with magic, a tactic it had gained when it ate AECs 927-929. The Echo Chamber began to come apart under the internal assault, 682 more than a match against the tiny aliens. And with an earth shattering kaboom, all of the Echo Echos around 682 were blown away, though 682 still took the brunt of the blast. The dragon had merely gone unconscious from 682’s first scream, though it was slowly recovering.

Only one Echo Echo remained after that devastating blast, slowly getting himself off the ground and growling at 682. “So you want a fight, eh beastie? Then you’ve forced my hand.” He put his hand on the Omnitrix symbol on his chest, causing the core to pop out. He raised his hand up and slammed it down… or tried to. At the last second, his hand stopped just above the core. “What the?” He tried again and again, constantly trying to push down. Then he stopped. “Ben… should have known you’d interfere.”

You can’t use the Ultimates Power. We all made a pact on that. If you let it out then it can’t be stopped.

“I never wanted any part of that blasted ‘pact’ of yours,” Echo said through grit teeth. “This the greatest power we could ask for. We should use it!”

We will stop you before you can. They are never to be used, not even as a last resort. Stop this now, Power!

Echo clenched his fists, but sighed in defeat. “Fine. I’ll abide by you this time, Ten. But don’t think this means you have any control over me.”

I never would think so.

He looked back to 682 with a smirk. “So I may not have my trump, but I can still fight, dammit! You can’t beat me! I’m Power incarnate, baby!”

“YOU ARE A ONE FOOT TALL LIVING LOUDSPEAKER THAT CAN CLONE ITSELF. WE ARE NOT IMPRESSED.”

“What did you just call me you oversized shitty handbag?!”

“I CALLED YOU A ONE FOOT TALL LIVING LOUDSPEAKER THAT CAN CLONE ITSELF! ARE YOU DEAF AS WELL OR DID YOUR OWN SHITTY SCREAMING FUCK UP YOUR TINY FUCKING EARS YOU LITTLE MICROBOT!?”

“Oh now you’ve gone and ticked me off!” Echo Echo felt a new rush of anger and power rush through him and he split into several thousand clones that encompassed 682 on all sides. “Sonic Execution!!” They all screamed louder and stronger than ever, pounding 682 with extreme force.

682 screamed back with even more force, adapting to the sonic barrage even as it flicked out a whiplike tongue (Acquired from the former AEC 22222) and assimilated one of the Echo Echo clones.

“Oh my god, will you two just shut the hell up?” Elizabeth asked, having finally returned from her mutations, in human form once more.

682 let up his screaming, now simply content to endure the barrage of soundwaves thanks to the abilities it gained from Echo Echo. After naught but a few moments, he grew hundreds of cross-pupiled eyes down the length of his body and let out a laser barrage so dense it seemed to be a single massive pulse of plasma. One after another, the Echo Echos were blasted into nothingness. Though, thankfully, one Echo Echo was smart to be hidden away, crawling out from his underground hideaway once the barrage was over.

“Well… that didn’t go according to plan,” he said, leaning against Eve.

682 merely snorted and turned away, using his hundreds of eyes to slash away at the dragon as much as possible before it woke up, scoring hundreds of thousands of rents into its flesh and sealing the wounds as it burned through.

“Can we please just kill the stupid dragon?” Elizabeth asked, looking rather exhausted. “I just want to go to bed...”

The massive kaiju sized snake with wings twitched and yawned, shaking its head in realization when it saw what happened.

“Alright, let’s do this…. I’MMA BURN THIS SON OF A BITCH!!”

The massive reptile sped forward, curling around the dragon and using all of its power to assimilate it. as the creature was absorbed little by little, all of the hundreds of eyes on Drake’s body converged and started carving through the golden beast until the beam finally pierced through its heart and out the other side. A few minutes later, the corpse was assimilated and Drake was now back to his normal beast size, though the slightly cracked ground at his feet belied an unfortunate change in density.

“Ugh… can’t shift back… too dense already…. Beth, help…”

“You’re taking me to the spa for this,” she said with a sigh, putting her hand on his side, using her powers to help him revert to his normal form, absorbing the undifferentiated mass of organic goo into herself.

“Ugh, thanks. Sorry ‘bout that, but you know I can’t absorb all that material without repercussions… how you manage it is beyond me.”

“Just take me home,” she said, closing her eyes, leaning on him for support.

“Righty o’ then milady. Oi, short stuff, you still there?”

“Don’t go pickin’ a fight with me, lizard breath,” Echo retorted, not taking the short joke well. “Just because you can pick around with Ben doesn’t mean you can do the same with me.”

“Whatever. Jesus, how long until we get the normal asshat back?”

“Ignore him...” Beth said with a yawn, “Carry me...”

“You’re stuck with me for another five minutes, jackass,” Echo retorted back.

“Fun. Alright, short and angry, what’re you gonna do now? Town’s destroyed, occupants are scattered to the five winds, and there’s a massive crumbling dragon head I need to melt.” Drake picked up Elizabeth in a bridal carry, then shifted her to his back to a second set of arms.

Echo ignored him and moved to the dragon’s head, smirking. He let one massive shriek, causing it to completely disintegrate. He looked back at Drake and Eve, still smirking. “You vibrate any sort of substance to the right degree, and they just go away. Don’t mess with best, bitch.”

“...” Drake stared for a moment and then spat an acid bullet (AEC 6677) into the ground at Echo Echo’s feet, the mere fumes of it melting the nearby rubble to slag. “Yeah, I doubt you’re the real best.”

“I am Power incarnate, dammit!” he shouted, nearly toppling the two from the intensity. “That is literally who I am.”

Elizabeth was thankfully still passed out, thanks to a pair of hastily generated fleshy (And quite disturbing) earmuffs. Drake glared at the tiny white alien. “Keep telling yourself that and one day I might think you were the incarnation of blowing hot air out of your ass. Now, this trip hasn’t been all that great, but I still had fun. Go fuck yourself Echo Echo.” And with that, he spun around and left, ascending in dragon form at mach 3, blowing Echo Echo back a few feet.

Echo huffed as he got back on his feet, brushing the dirt off. “Who does that runt think he is talking to me like that? I’m the best there ever was, is, or will be. That’s a matter of fact. Now,” he looked around the damaged town with a frown, “what the hell am I supposed to do for the next three minutes? I’ve already killed a bunch of people when I first got here, now I’ve destroyed and fought some monsters and wrecked a town. There’s gotta be something I can do to pass the time.” Echo thought on it for a moment before sighing. “Ah to fuck with it.” He tapped the Omnitrix, instantly reverting back to Ben.

“Whoa!” Ben said as returned to normal. “That’s a first, usually Power always finds something to do.” He took one look around and whistled loudly. “Dang, they wrecked this place. Hey wait!” Ben looked all over for a moment before, “They left me here! Oh that’s so not cool! I knew it! Ya can’t trust humans in any universe! Well ya know what? Screw them. And screw this noise.” He tapped the watch. “Yo Discord, ya got that portal ready yet?”

“Perfect timing! Just found you! Now… this might hurt…”

“Might hurt?” Ben parroted. “What do you mean--” He was cut off as a hole in reality was ripped open and a lion’s paw grabbed him by the back of his jacket. “Whoah!” Ben shouted as it pulled him through, closing up like a zipper a moment later.

“Hey Doc, I think Ben left. Uhh… we also wrecked Aceville because of a dragon attack that went giant monster battle. It was….. terrible. Anyway, yeah.”

“...”

“You okay there, Doc? You’re looking kinda red…”

“YOU DID WHAT!?”

Beth didn’t hear the argument, instead she was rather content to just curl up in Drake’s mane, a smile on her face.

Well Fuck, Looks Like Someone Has 682 Problems As Well. Too Bad a Lizard IS One.

Not Drake's Universe

Jason sighed, looking out at the village that had sprung up around the castle.

“Are you sure it was a good idea to hire Trixie?” Rarity asked, joining him out on the balcony. She adjusted her wings, looking up at her husband with a hesitant look.

“I think it’ll be good for her. She’ll be able to get used to her new body here and not some place where people will judge her.”

“I suppose you're right,” Rarity said, noting a twinkling in the distance. “Hmm..I wonder what that is.” She spread her wings, buzzing out toward the object. She returned a moment later, holding that strange scale from before.

“That thing was still out there?” Jason asked, taking it from her. “I wonder what this thing came from anyway?”

“Perhaps its a Displaced token?” Rarity suggested, fixing up her mane.

“If it is, I’m not getting a message from it,” Jason said, turning it this way and that in his hands.

Several Universes over, Drake stood in lizard form over the corpse of a particularly uppity Keter Class AEC that had to choose that day to try and escape confinement. The lizard snorted, blowing tiny droplets of blood off his muzzle in the process. The AEC’s sole talent was causing heart attacks on contact - nothing even remotely worth assimilating. As he proceeded to desecrate the remains further, he felt a most curious tugging sensation behind his navel.

With a last confused glance at his stomach, he disappeared in a flash of light.

“I suppose it’s just a weird scale,” Rarity said after a few moments of nothing. “I’ll be heading to bed, Chrysalis is already waiting for us.” She gave him a wink, quickly trotting back into their room.

“I’ll be right there, babe!” Jason called with a grin on his face. He turned on his heel, starting to head inside.

He was interrupted, however by a sudden flash of light and the curious feeling of something large and scaly smashing him into the floor with a strangely distorted, “Oh fuck!” issuing from, presumably, its mouth.

“Get the fuck off me!” Jason hissed, pushing at whatever the hell it was.

The thing obliged, rolling off and revealing a demonic - and quite nauseous - looking giant lizard-beast that promptly regurgitated an improbable amount of blood and acid onto the balcony, melting a hole straight through. It shook its head and squinted at Jason, “Oi... where the HELL am I?”

“My castle. I take it this is your scale?” Jason asked, holding it up.

“Yeah. So, who’re you?”

“I’m Jason Hughes, and you are?” Jason raised his eyebrow, looking the creature over.

The creature impossibly shifted into a human being with several reptilian features, including a swishing tail with wicked looking scale-shaped blades.

“I’m Drake Long, nice to meet you.” Drake went in for a handshake, stepping carefully around the puddle of vomit melting through the floor.

“Okay... may I ask what the fuck you are?” Jason asked, eyeing the man’s hand warily.

Drake shrugged, “Human... ish. I just have some... very interesting DNA that just so happens to be more reptilian than anything else. Or at least, that’s what the doctors told me. Don’t worry, I’m not about to give you some weird disease or anything. Even though I can spit clouds of hallucinogenic chemicals...” Though Drake whispered the last part to himself, Jason still heard it.

“Yeah, don’t do that,” Jason said glaring at him. “I take it you didn’t even know you had a token?”

“Huh? No, I did... uh, you heard the message right? Sometimes it doesn’t play, I think... I think I messed it up a little when I made it. I think the message only plays once, so... yeah.” More shrugs, this time with an additional tail flick that carved a small gouge into the stone floor.

“You know, you picked a great time to show up,” Jason sighed, running a hand down his face.

“What’s happening?” Drake wondered, idly gouging patterns with his tail and toe claws.

“My wives are inside waiting for me,” Jason deadpanned with a glare.

“Oh. Uh... I have no idea what to say to that. Sorry.” Drake was already halfway to the railing, planning on finding someone else to bother. “I’ll uh... I think I’ll just leave for now.”

“Hey, I’m not letting you out of my sight lizard boy.”

Drake glared, “Look man, you got multiple women waiting for your scruffy ass. I am notabout to intrude into someone else’s sexytime like that. Other than being incredibly awkward, I am also in a relationship with someone who can set me on fire from the inside out. Ergo, good day, have your sex, I’m going to go find someone else to talk to.” With that, Drake leapt from the balcony, sprouting a pair of wings and taking off into the sky with the resounding thunderclap of Mach 3 flight.

“Oh hell no!” Jason said, jumping off the balcony, shifting into Slipstream. He put it into high gear, following after him.

Drake noted the pegasus following him and, after slowing down to properly process the fact that a small gray pony was catching up to Mach 3 flight, shifted and grew, growing to just shy of a thousand feet long and becoming a massive, winged snake flying at Mach 4.

“I said I’m not letting you out of my sight!” Jason shouted, still keeping up with him.

***“You asshat! Aren’t your wives waiting on your stupid ass!?”*** Drake took things up a notch once more, vents opening up along his sides as his serpentine form grew a rainbow colored crest. ***“Let’s see how you deal with speeds like this!”***

An earth shattering roar erupted from Drake’s position, flames blasting from the vents and the edges of his wings, as the massive snake blasted from Mach 4 straight to Mach 10, leaving behind a crimson shockwave and a massive trail of smoke.

“Oh come on!” Jason sneered, glaring, “Ok think... um... Omnitrix, XLR8!” He dropped to the ground as he shifted, starting to race after the beast. “Hey! I’m not leaving you alone!” he shouted up at him, still able to keep up.

***“Tch. He won’t leave me alone, fine. Then how about....”*** Without warning, Drake dove, wings disappearing and flames sputtering out. Shrieking out of the sky, the massive snake managed to accelerate a tiny bit further and thus slammed into Jason ten seconds later with all the force of 61869999300 Newtons, destroying the ground and Everfree forest for almost a mile in every direction due to the shockwave.

XLR8 was gone at that point, though there was a strange green substance in the crater. It sloshed together, raising up to form Goop. “Oh thank Yggdrasil for the quick change.”

The basilisk was gone as well, though the bottom of the crater was filled with disgustingly foul reddish orange slime. As Goop looked on, the small lake of slime roiled and quivered, compressing back into the giant winged snake he had been chasing.

Except this time it was on fire.

“Seriously bro?” Jason asked with a sigh, looking at him.

***“SERIOUSLY.”*** Crackling flames only added to the ominous quality of Drake’s triple-toned hiss.

“I could just send you home ya know,” Jason said, watching him closely.

***“HOME IS FULL OF BOREDOM. MY GIRLFRIEND IS ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE PLANET FROM WHERE I WAS, I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF A BASE CAMP WITH NOTHING TO DO OTHER THAN GUARD A STUPID TIGER THAT GAVE PEOPLE HEART ATTACKS, AND I JUST KILLED IT A FEW MINUTES AFTER IT BROKE OUT OF ITS CAGE AND KILLED ALL MY TEAMMATES.”***The quetzalcoatl shook itself and compressed back into Drake.

“So if you could kindly step off and get back to your spousal duty, I’m gonna go find something to eat. You guys have donuts on this planet?”

“I am not letting you roam free in my world,” Jason said, reverting to normal. He clenched his fist, starting to conjure up an Ultima spell. “What about that do you not understand?”

“And I’m perfectly safe as long as nothing tries to kill me. Have some faith in the shape shifting lizardman, why don’t you? C’mon man, you got wiveswaiting for you.” Drake ignored the Ultima and strode off, ignoring the tiny chunk of biomass calling to him from under a rock.

“I said no,” Jason repeated, holding his arm out, “Don’t make me force you to leave.”

“Oh please, that ain’t gonna do jack shit against me, pal. But whatever. It’s your world, ne?” Drake shoved his hands into his bright orange jumpsuit pockets, idly scratching at his neck with his tail.

‘I think I should get more outfits than just this stupid jumpsuit... maybe Rarity could help with that... haven’t seen her in a few weeks, but that should be fine enough...’

“Yeah, I doubt this won’t hurt you. Ultima packs a hell of a punch.”

Drake shrugged and meandered toward the edge of the crater, noting the wave of destruction stretching from the impact point, “Holy shit... I knew Isaac Newton was the deadliest son of a bitch in space... but damn, even planetside he’s deadly.”

“And I’m going to have to clean it up, thanks a lot asshole,” Jason growled at him.

“Hey, you’re the one who followed the guy that just wanted to explore the planet for a few hours. Granted, I coulda handled that better... stupid short temper... but still. You don’t just leave your spousal duty to follow one dude.” Drake paused, hand on his chin, “At least... I think that’s how it goes...”

“Crap like this happens more often than you know,” Jason said with a sigh, “I can’t in all good conscience let you just run around unsupervised.”

The lizardman stopped and stared, “Ho- are you one of those hero types!?” The expression on his face was a mixture of surprise and a tiny bit of respect.

“Depends on who you ask really,” Jason shrug, “Why do you ask?” he looked the lizardman over, frowning a little.

“Not a lot of people like that back home. Most of the planet’s stuck in pragmatism and anti-heroism. Me n’ Eve are about the only heroes we got... and I’m not exactly a hero considering how many people I kill due to collateral.” Drake muttered.

“Jason if you had to deal with a Displaced you could have just said so,” Rarity said landing next to him, looking at Drake, “Hello there, my name is Rarity, a pleasure.”

Drake stared at the pony with wings, uncomfortably noting the familiar hairstyle. “Uh... hey, I’m Drake. Drake Long, shape shifting lizardman and occasional hero of the day; at your service.” He bowed theatrically, arms sweeping out and tail lashing.

“Quite the gentlecolt,” Rarity said with a giggle.

“You act like you’ve never seen a pony before,” Jason chuckled.

Drake scratched the back of his neck sheepishly, “Ah heh, that’s because I haven’t. Everyone back home was just a human with tacked on parts like mine... except more unicorn horns and feathery wings... some of the D-Types had horns too... and the Princesses... and Doc Twilight... had wings and a horn... there were tails too, but none as amazing as mine.”

“I never want to go to your world,” Jason said with a shudder, “That’s way too close to the uncanny valley,”

“To each their own... so, back to my other question, do you guys... *have donuts?*”

“Of course we have donuts you fool, why the hell wouldn’t we?”

“Jeez, just asking, jerk.” Drake folded his arms, “Ah, Rarity, please don’t call me a gentlem- colt... I’m not. I’m just very... how did the on-site psychiatrist put it before her mind broke under the strain...?” He tapped his chin and trailed off, lightly slapping the back of Jason’s head with the flat side of his tail.

“Stop that,” Jason said, slapping the tail away. The Omnitrix chirped, taking a sample from Drake’s tail.

“Uh... what was that? What was that noise?” Drake twitched, slightly paranoid about strange noises.

“The Omnitrix took a sample of your DNA,” Jason said, popping the dial of the Omnitrix up, browsing through the selection for the new form.

“Oh shit. If you’re doing what I think you’re doing... uhh...” Drake seemed inordinately nervous as Jason scrolled through the forms, subtly stepping between Jason and Rarity.

“And what do you think I’m doing?” Jason asked, not looking up from the watch. “Ah here we go, my sample of whatever the hell you are.” Jason peered down at the silhouette, which was reptilian.

“Well... it looks like you’re planning on trying to do something with that sample. Uh... my DNA doesn’t exactly... play nicely though...”

Jason just smirked, pressing down on the dial. He shifted forms, this time into a large Komodo Dragon-like armored lizard with an electric blue mane. “Well, I certainly feel stronger.”

“Ohhhh dear. Better hope your mental defences are up to par... My... species... I guess? has a four way split consciousness and three of them are going to be actively fighting you for control for a while until you stabilize....” Drake warned, slowly backing off with Rarity behind him.

“I already have two other personalities in my head,” Jason just rolled his eyes, “I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine.”

“No fourth? Oh man you’re screwed... if you don’t have a fourth... it automatically locks into an insane bloodrage. And that fourth part is always the strongest part.” Drake backed up further, “Rarity, you might want to run, because if Jason loses control, I’m the only one who can stop him.”

“I have confidence in him, he’s had a history of... bloodrages after all,” Rarity said, shaking her head.

“Does that include a maddening desire to kill and devour every sentient being in the Universe?”

“Erm, perhaps not...” Rarity said with a nervous chuckle.

“We’re boned,” Drake muttered. “Okay, Jason, you’re gonna wanna stay calm, because the bloodrage is gonna hit hard and hit fast. It’s most likely gonna latch onto Split 3, the predator instincts. One of your personalities was probably funneled in there, so be wary if he/she starts acting more homicidal than normal.”

“Bah! As if simple blood rage would take me,”Hughes spoke through Jason, sounding rather confident.

“Hey, who’s that new guy? The lizardy one with the red eyes.... oh dear. Best wish us luck readers, this won’t end well at all.”Hodgepodge spoke next before Jason howled in pain, shaking his head.

“And there it is, folks. Rarity, you may want to run and/or fly as fast as you can. And I mean haul ass. Your life may literally depend on it.” Drake never took his eyes off of the new lizard, hands already lengthening into the talons of 682.

“Do try not to hurt my husband,” Rarity said before taking to the air, flying back to the hive.

“Tch. We’re annoyingly resilient, us S’xeituus. He’ll be fine.”

Jason growled flickering his tail, his eyes pure red.

“Oh fuck... red eyes, check. Cross shaped pupils... thankfully not yet...” Drake muttered, shifting into full lizard form, standing a good two feet taller than Jason. “Thank God we’re already in a destroyed crater...”

Jason roared before barreling at Drake, biting into his forearm. He shook his head much like a dog to maximize damage. Drake roared in annoyance, blasting Jason and carving massive trenches into the blue lizard’s armor. Shaking off the bleeding, Drake ceded control over to SCP 682, eyes changing from emerald green to blazing orange and body growing more powerful.

Jason got to his feet, snarling in rage. He let out a roar, causing a blast of intense wind to smack into the the larger lizard.

“Tch. You’ll need to do better than that to best me, whelp!” Out came the organic rockets, explosive shards of bone firing from 682’s open shoulders and smashing Jason through whatever rubble lay in the area, improbably arcing around to blast the berserk reptile from multiple directions.

Jason howled before shielding himself with a dome of ice. He burst out of it a moment later, pouncing on 682, ripping into his neck and tearing large chunks of flesh and muscle out.

“WAHAHAHA! MUCH BETTER! THAT’S IT! FIGHT LIKE THE BEAST YOU ARE, YOU BLOODRAGE FILLED WASTE OF REPTILIAN GENETICS SIRED BY THE FILTHIEST LIZARD WHORE IN THE SLIMIEST BROTHELS OF LIZARD-TOPIA!” 682 gave as good as he got, the crater running red and green from the strange mix of blood and acid each carried in their veins.

Jason bit into the elder’s stomach, 682’s innards starting to freeze and shatter like they had been exposed to liquid nitrogen. 682 roared in pain as blue and orange liquid spurted from the wound, unfreezing the organs as they regenerated. The oddly colored antifreeze dyed the ground further, now making the crater seem like a crude(r) rendition of Jackson Pollock’s distinctive art style.

Jason hissed, letting out a roar that shook the very ground from the sheer force.

“You call that a roar!? THIS IS A ROAR YOU INSOLENT BASTARD CHILD OF A DISGRACED GECKO WHORE!” What followed wasn’t so much a sound so much as it was a lethal application of force in a radial area that forced all the air for a several hundred meter radius away, creating a temporary vacuum. Such was the volume that even the far away Ponyville heard it, all of its inhabitants wondering what that terrifying sound was.

Jason got to his feet, snarling in anger. He pounced again, wrapping his tail around 682’s neck, slashing his face with his claws. SCP 682 just laughed, easily ripping through the un-bladed, finned tail with his own red hot tail blades and leapt into the air, wings ripping from his sides as he ceded control to AEC 682 and shifted into a far more agile, though now slightly smaller than Jason, size.

Jason recovered quickly, his tail healing almost instantly. “Ok let me try something,”Hodgepodge said, worming his way into the drivers seat. Jason’s eyes turned plaid, as did his mane. “Oh goody it worked, but the body still needs some work... hmm...”

*“Plaid? Really? What a horrible choice of colors.”*AEC muttered, still wary but not exactly prepared to attack.

“Oh hush you, don’t question me, I’m not all there,”Hodgepodge thought for a moment before their body shifted, taking on the characteristics of various dinosaurs. “There! Much better~!”

‘AEC, tell Jason that his other voices are insane, will you?’Drake muttered from inside his mindscape.

***‘You do it, hatchling.’***

With that, Drake found himself back in the driver’s seat, body shifting to a well balanced mix of power and speed. “Okay seriously, that has got to be the* weirdest *damn S’xeituu form I’ve ever seen. And I can turn inorganic at will, so that’s saying something.”

“What? Not a fan of dinosaurs? I thought it was appropriate as Jason wanted to be a paleontologist before coming here.”

“I like dinosaurs just fine. They taste great when they’re still futilely trying to claw your throat out. I ate the last dinosaur alive three weeks ago after it thought it could take on the Emperor of Reptiles, a.k.a. ME.” Cue proud pose.

“Meh, thats Godzilla’s title.”

“Like hell it is! Godzilla’s King of the Monsters!”Drake yelled.

“I’ve heard it both ways,”Hodgepodge taunted with a smirk.

“Che! Don’t make me laser-eyes you into extinction, Triassic Man.”

“Oh please, if I were in my true form I’d turn you into a chihuahua, so you can bark all you want doggy.”

“Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!”With one last huff, Drake dropped back to the ground, back in his human form. “You gonna change back now?”

“Nah, I want to stretch my legs. Yes, screw you too Hughes. Omnitrix, Hodgepodge.”he ordered, shifting into his corresponding form. “There we go! Wait, the italics are still on give me a moment.” He looked up, commandeering his author’s mouse cursor. He moved it up, clicking off the italics button. “Testing, testing. Ah there we go, normal text!”

“... okay then. So, donuts? I don’t have any cash though, so... wanna help a brother out?” Drake asked, looking up at the draconequus.

“Sure! But first,” he snapped his fingers, fixing the crater, though it kept all the weird colors. “There, soo... Donut Joe’s it is!” A moment later they were in said establishment, startling the patrons. “Well? Order your donuts already.”

“Lesseeeeee... Three chocolate, two glazed, one pink frosted sprinkled donut... and whatever the hell a cronut is.” Drake ordered, tail wagging back and forth.

“You got it!” Joe said, quickly gathering up the donuts, bagging them. “Here ya go, that’ll be five bits.”

“Huh. Lot cheaper than they’d have been back home... Oh wait, shit,” Drake turned to Hodgepodge, “Uhhh you’re paying for this right?”

Hodgepodge rolled his eyes, pulling the bits from behind Drake’s ear. “Here you go, kind sir,” he said placing them on the counter. “Come on, let’s get back to the village.” He snapped his fingers, teleporting them back to the Everfree village. “Well, ready to go home?”

“Nah, I kinda still need to talk to Jason about that S’xeituu DNA he scanned. Know the dangers and such, y’know?” Drake stuffed a donut into his mouth, rapidly consuming the donut by unhinging his jaw and swallowing it whole.

“Oh fine, also, thats a really lame name,” Hodgepodge said, tapping the Omnitrix, switching back to Jason.

“Okay... my head hurts a lot...” Jason said with a groan.

“Serves your fool head right for selecting that damn sample in your fancy watch, idiot.” Drake slapped the back of Jason’s head again, this time with more force.

“Shut it,” Jason said, growling at him.

“Honestly, not even asking about the dangers of transforming into an unknown race? That’s just stupid.” Drake sighed, “Well, might as well get comfortable, because this is gonna be a longtalk about your new form.”

“Turning into unknown races is kinda my thing,” Jason said with a laugh, “Besides, I’m Jotun, I can handle it.”

“If you turned into a S’xeituu where there were more sentient beings than just me and Rarity, you would have fallen even faster and the streets woulda run red with chunky pony salsa. Look man, us S’xeituu? And believe me, it’s just us. Thank god. Anyway, from what I know about myself and my... race, I guess... well, you know the four way split consciousness thing... I guess I should start at the beginning... Okay, this is gonna sound insane, but I’m actually not the first mind to inhabit this body. SCP is; he’s the Predator Instinct part of my split. He came first, back when the S’xeituu were an actual race in some Universe. Then came AEC, the Paternal Instinct. The Bloodrage manifested after a particularly intense bout of emotion. Unfortunately, the Sapient Mind, me, didn’t naturally manifest, since those only manifested upon adulthood and the moment this body reached adulthood, the Universe ended on SCP. Flash forward an indeterminable amount of time, and we get this one guy who seals the quantum mess that is the body of a S’xeituu into a patch of fabric. The same one sewn to the back of my shirt. I buy that patch, I get sent to Equestria, and I get turned into the main facet of the mind of a beast that literally survived the end of a Universe. That’s my start, so that’s how I know about my race. You with me so far?”

“Yeah, I got ya,” Jason said with a nod.

Drake nodded as well and continued, “Right well, the S’xeituu are nota natural species. We’re too good at unconsciously adapting to everything to even remotely resemble anything living. Hell, we can actually switch between being organic and inorganic. I literally adapted to a laser by turning to glass once.”

“Sounds like my race. The first Jotun, Ymir was the first being in this universe. The Jotun have been around for so long that we laugh in the face of biology.”

“Huh. That’s actually pretty cool. Anyway, the creators of the S’xeituu were the ones known as the Aosif. Brilliant geneticists, the lot of them, S’xeituus wiped them out for being horrifyingly cruel slavers, warmongers, and bioweapon manufacturers. The S’xeituu were an old race. Billions of years of evolutionary stagnation, since they were already at the top of the ladder. Thing is, nothing can kill a S’xeituu without complete disintegration of all of its cells. Yes, even the dead ones that flake off every second. As for why this is a problem, the consciousness of a S’xeituu is spread out through its cells, with a connection that transcends spacetime. Ergo, if almost all of a S’xeituu is destroyed, the largest clump of dead cells will reanimate and start consuming raw materials until it regrows its body in full.” Drake toyed with a random twig, waving it around as if it were a lecture pointer.

“Go on...”

“Right. So, after that first transformation, you should be fine. The Bloodrage only really manifests upon the first transformation; after that, it’s only if your mental defences are shattered while you’re pissed off. Uh, be warned though, S’xeituu DNA is notoriously expressive, so you may end up gaining another voice in your head.” More donuts were consumed as Drake spoke. “The abilities I have are exclusive to me, due to the runic system carved into my lizard form. Those mess with my DNA and store the DNA of the things I choose to assimilate, allowing me to use their abilities. They’re carved into my soul, apparently, so unless you copy them exactly onto your soul, you’re not gonna get anything beyond the standard reactive adaptation and immortality.”

“I’m already sorta immortal,” Jason said, leaning against a tree.

“Oh, well, being a S’xeituu would make you even more immortal, probably. So... I’m pretty sure that’s about all you need to know about the S’xeituu... unless you want to know culture and stuff. For a race of immortal beings with anger problems, there was a surprisingly rich culture, even without a lot of the cultural items present in most societies.”

“Uh huh... whatever you say lizardman, all I know is you gave me yet another voice in my head.” Jason sighed, hanging his head.

“Maybe you just shouldn’t have scanned me, then,” Drake muttered, looking around at the village. “So what else is there to do around here?”

“This is normal Equestria, not your weird human place, what do you think?”

“I’m gonna guess that there aren’t video games or anything present in twenty first century earth.” More mutters as the lizardman drew patterns in the dirt.

“Well... there are but they’re all mine,” Jason said, watching him, with a raised eyebrow.

“What do you have?”

“A PS3.”

“Damn. Haven’t had one of those in a long time...”

“Meh, not a whole lotta power out here.”

“So, what games? Anything good?”

“My whole collection. I went home and cleared my room out.”

A quick facepalm from Drake. “That’s not saying much.”

“Or is it?”

Flat stare. “Nope.” Drake sighed and dropped his face into his hands, “If you’re not gonna let me game, then I guess I’ll just... go home. Ugh. Snow and corpses, here I fucking come.”

Drake looked up, “Uh... how the fuck do I get home again?”

“Drake, our contract is complete,” Jason said simply.

“The fuck was that suppo-Ohhhhhhh shiiiiiiiiii......” And thus the lizardman disappeared into a swirling portal of madness, spewing obscenities the whole way down.

Drake fell out of a swirling portal and directly into a frozen wasteland in the middle of Fuck-All Nowhere, and straight into a frozen pile of dismembered tiger entrails and human corpses.

"....Son.... Of.... A.... BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITCH!"

Thusly spent, Drake flopped into the entrails, set himself on fire to keep the cold away, melted the corpses with acid, and waited for the tracking beacon in his shirt logo to activate.

"Fuck this shit, I wanna go hooome..."

YOU'RE JUST A VOICE PAL!

Or: Plot significance~

Drake and Eve were lounging in Site 63’s Common Room Number 6 and playing a fighting game, Drake furiously mashing buttons while Eve merely tapped out precise sequences of moves.

“Son of a bitch! How are you already so good at this game!? This is your first time playing!”

“I’m the wizard yo,”she said with a smirk, “California,” she said with a giggle to complete the reference.

“I… I don’t get that reference…” He muttered, tossing his controller away.

“Its from the Wizard, that movie about that Video Game wizard who wants to go to Cali. It had Christian Slater and Fred Savage.”

“... Nope. Never heard of it. If I hear wizard, I think Oz.” He leaned against her and began to play with her hair. “Hey, I had an idea….”

“You finally gonna ask me out?”

He fell into her lap, incredibly shocked, “Wait wha-!?”

She smiled, putting her arms around him. “Oh fuck it,” she grabbed his head, pulling him into a deep kiss. Drake’s eyes widened, then slowly closed as he melted in, shifting positions to better embrace her.

‘I could… I could get used to this….’

‘Hah! You owe me six dollars!’

‘Son of a LIZARD WHORE!’

‘That would be your mother as well.’

‘SHUT THE FUCK UP’

“Heh... that was fun...” she said, pulling away from him.

“What…. was that?” Drake panted, curious but not altogether unpleased.

“A kiss, duh.”

“I…. does…. will…. gah…” The normally talkative lizardman found himself tongue tied, unable to form a proper sentence. “I… I liked that…. wanna… wanna go out?”

She giggled, kissing him again. “Yes I do,”

“Great!... So, about my idea….” He cuddled against her and started to clumsily braid her hair. “I was thinking…. I wanna see how fast I am compared to everyone else here…. think a race would be a good idea?

“A race?”

“Yeah, just think about it! I mean, we can have this massive event! There’d be land speed and airspeed and water speed… I don’t know if that’s the right term…. And there’d have to be size classes too, but still, I think it’d beawesome.”

Drake’s eyes were wide and glowing with excitement, arms waving and tail wagging as he delivered his spiel.

“Thats sounds lame Drake,” she said shaking her head.

“Oh come on, you just don’t wanna see me totally leave you in my dust.” she just laughed, hugging him close to her.

He turned the embrace around, drawing her into his chest, “So, y’think Doc Mind would let this happen?”

“I suppose if you asked nicely,” she said, nodding her head.

“Maybe… probably not, she’s way too uptight for this kinda thing”

One week later...

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! THIS IS YOUR LOVELY ANNOUNCER, DOCTOR STABLE MIND, SPEAKING! ALLOW ME TO WELCOME YOU TO THE FIRST EVER AEC TRANSCONTINENTAL GRAND PRIX!”

“Holy shit that did work.” Drake muttered, still shocked at how much of a racing fanatic the Head Researcher was.

“HERE WE HAVE EIGHT CLASSES! LAND SPEED, AIRSPEED, WATER SPEED, HEAVYWEIGHT, MIDDLEWEIGHT, LIGHTWEIGHT, MICRO WEIGHT AND MULTICHALLENGE! ALL PARTICIPANTS, PLEASE HEAD TO YOUR DESIGNATED STARTING POINT!”

“Hey Beth, it says here you got into Middleweight/Airspeed. You should probably get going. See y’round, love.” Drake gave his new girlfriend a kiss on the cheek as she left, glancing down at his own classification of Heavyweight/Multichallenge.

“The hell is Multichallenge, anyway?” he muttered, making his way through the assembled crowd.

“MULTICHALLENGE RACERS! YOUR GOAL IS TO DEFEAT ALL OTHER COMPETITORS, NOT JUST ON LAND, BUT IN THE AIR AND IN THE WATER AS WELL! WE WISH YOU POOR SODS LUCK; WE ALSO SPICED UP THE HEAVYWEIGHT CLASS ROAD WITH TRAPS!”

“Oh son of a-”

Meanwhile, with Elizabeth, things were considerably more calm. “Why did I get my self dragged into this...?” she asked with a sigh, shaking her head.

“Trouble in paradise?” a voice asked. Elizabeth looked over and spotted a girl with rainbow hair stretching out her wings in preparation.

“I don’t think we’ve met yet,” she said shaking her head, “I’m Elizabeth.”

“Name’s Rainbow Dash, AEC 1, at your service. So, your boyfriend drag you into this?”

“Yeah... Drake’s idea of fun,” she said with a sigh.

“Drake’s your boyfriend!? The last time I saw him was when he… uh… broke Site 34.” Rainbow shouted, then trailed off.

“So, you’ve had run ins with him before hmm?” Beth asked, moving closer.

“Yeah, he landed in our Site when he first got here… he broke our Site the third day he got here too….” she muttered, “Lotta people died… least they were all kinda the dickish ones…”

“This world has a lot of death ya know,” she said with a sigh, rolling her eyes.

“Still, I had to watch a lot of people die, some of them that I actually knew. But hey, enough of this depressing stuff, yeah?” Rainbow held out her hand, “May the best flier win!”

“Thanks,” she said with a smile, shaking her hand. A second later, pegasus wings sprouted from her back.

“Woah what the!? How’d you do that!?” Rainbow asked, “Those weren’t there a second ago!”

“My little secret.” she said with a wink, heading to the starting line.

Rainbow goggled, then shook herself and took up position beside Elizabeth, shifting into a sprinter’s crouch, “Tch, don’t get cocky there! I’m the fastest flier in all of Equestria!”

“ALRIGHT RACERS! LET’S START US ALL OFF WITH THE MIDDLEWEIGHT AIRSPEED TRIALS! RACERS! ON YOUR MARKS!”

The starting line rose on a massive platform, ascending to nearly a thousand feet above the ground.

“GET SET!”

The gates blocking the path fell open as a massive light descended and flashed red.

“TEAR IT UP!”

A gong sounded and the light flashed green. And with the rippling of over fifty sonic booms at once, the race began, shattering the start platform and bringing the Grand Prix to a wonderful beginning.

“TEAR IT UP!”

Drake watched the race begin, then shifted into his AEC form, optimized for maximum land speed. As the Heavyweight gates opened and his light flashed green, he sped out into the hot, dry Badlands, tearing up dirt as he sprinted at just below mach 1, forcing his way into the middle of the pack.

Up ahead, explosions rang out as the various AECs all competed for first place, using their various abilities to try and slow each other down.

The group of seventy five massive beings thundered down the dusty earth, some creatures only the size of a car, others as large as the massive dragon racing along beside Drake.

“I WILL ADMIT! I NEVER THOUGHT I’D TEST MYSELF LIKE THIS! HOW FUN!”

“You ready to lose, fire-breather!?”

“ARE YOU!?”

“LET’S ROCK!”

And Drake burst forward, organic rockets blazing into existence and driving the SUV sized lizard forward into mach 2, breaking into the second-place gathering of racers.

“Come on, step it up!”

“Can’t catch me!”

“Here we goooo!”

“FUCK YEAH!”

Tensions ran high, muscles strained and feet pounded away at the earth. Then, up behind Drake came the roaring of a massive engine.

“WHAT’S THIS? IT LOOKS LIKE WE HAVE SOMETHING THAT’S NOT QUITE ALLOWED ON THE TRACK! IS THAT AEC 92010 IN HIS TRANS AM!? AH WHAT THE HELL! I’LL ALLOW IT!”

Inside the golden super-car, a man with a massive pompadour scoffed and turned off his radio, tuning out Stable Mind’s announcing.

“Tch, y’think they’d figure out that racing’s in my blood by now. Ah what the hell, you’re just a voice pal, YOU DON’T KNOW A DAMN THING ABOUT RACING!”

The golden car broke the sound barrier again, shooting forward into mach 3 with a barely heard shout of “PLATINUM NITRO CHARGE, BABY!” and a roar of blue flames.

“IS THAT EVEN LEGAL!?”

The amassed group of Heavyweight racers simultaneously sped forward with a mighty roar, all trying to outpace the TransAm on foot.

On an abandoned hillside, not far from the raceway itself, a figure clothed in black sat with a walkie-talkie in one hand and a large rifle propped up in the other.

“HQ, this is Black Adder. Subject is approaching position. Over.”

“Black Adder, hold position for package drop. Over.”

“Sir yes sir.” The figure drawled, dropping his rifle in favor of a large bottle of beer, drawn from a cooler at his feet.

“Shoulda taken guard duty again but nooo, had to have some excitement. Never mind the fact that I’m probably gonna die today….”

The rifle’s logo, a stylized G, glinted in the sun.

Elizabeth sped along at an easy mach 1, drastically outpacing many of her competitors. Up ahead she saw Rainbow Dash flying along on her back, a lazy grin on her face as she flew, taking first place with no effort.

The sight of it irked Elizabeth. It irked her very much. So much so that that she sprouted an extra pair of wings in an effort to catch up.

Mach 2.

Rainbow began generating a rainbow contrail.

Elizabeth started heating up

Mach 3.

Rainbow’s contrail blazed into existence like a solid beam of light.

Elizabeth’s contrail burst into flames.

The race went on, many of the other air racers complaining about the two far in the lead.

Far away, a large package dropped out of the upper atmosphere on a trajectory set not too far from where the mysterious man had set up his little ‘camp’.

As it accelerated, it deployed a parachute, descending on a controlled course and landing with a soft whump next to the man known only as Black Adder.

“Well well well, looks like the package is here. HQ, I’ve received the package. Further orders?”

Black Adder, we have confirmed package drop. Your new orders are as such: Open the package and let whatever happens, happen. HQ out.”

“Hmph. Whatever…” The black clad figure approached the steel, beer keg sized container with slight trepidation. After a moment’s deliberation, he kicked open the container, allowing a disgusting orange-gold ooze to splash out of the pressurized barrel with a disgusting splorch.

“Ew….” he muttered, lightly toeing it with his boot.

A moment of silence.

And then everything went black as the pile of ooze surged upwards and consumed Black Adder, leaving nothing behind but the man’s mirrored aviator sunglasses.

The ooze quivered and squelched, forming into the approximate shape of a horrifically mutated cheetah, consuming the rifle and growing a massive barrel along its spine in the process. A harsh buzz emanated from its throat, static fizzling in and out as it ‘spoke’.

‘Genesis… will… conquer…”

In a shady lab deep underneath the Eastern Ocean, a shadowed figure steepled his hands, leaned back, and grinned, light glinting off of immaculate teeth and a gleaming white suit. Burning orange eyes narrowed in gleeful malevolence.

“Well then, let’s see how our little friends on the surface deal with a new…. Genesis, eh?”

YOU DON'T KNOW A DAMN THING ABOUT RACING

Or: More Plot Significance~

All told, the race had been going rather well for Drake. Sure, he wasn’t exactly the fastest Heavy-weight on the ground, due to his abnormal body density and all, but once he took to the air, none could match his mach 10 performance. Especially since he’d taken out some of the competition just by making his standard crimson shockwave, or as Rainbow liked to call it, “Sonic Bloodboom”.

Drake hated the name, to be honest. It was just so cheesy.

Back to the matter at hand, he was currently in first place, ready to dive straight into the aquatic section of the race. He’d already shifted himself into a more aerodynamic form in preparation for the dive, but just as he began his descent, an object flew out of nowhere, impacted his wing, and exploded, sending him to the ground in a massive spray of gore.

“Aaagh son of a bitch!”

His scaly body impacted the dirt at mach 10, sending up massive plumes of dust. Far above, Elizabeth saw Drake impact the dirt and immediately dove to help him, fear clouding her mind.

“Drake!” She screamed, accelerating as fast as she could.

Just before she reached the ground, something slammed into her and exploded, sending her into another crater not far from Drake’s position.

Far away on a hill, a grotesque figure stood on all fours, tail swaying in the wind and spine mounted cannon smoking.

The mutated feline grinned an all too human grin as its eyes flexed and shifted, glowing a malevolent red. The ‘G’ symbol on its back shone brightly in the summer sun.

“Targets…. found….”

A pair of gigantic, feathered wings sprouted from its back and as it drifted slowly above the smoking craters, it rasped out, “Engaging… targets.”

The wings dissipated into a fine mist and the Deathcat dropped.

Elizabeth awoke from her temporary coma in a haze of dust and smoke, dress singed and hair disheveled, wings tattered and flesh marred. “D-drake?” she asked pulling herself up into a sitting position, brushing some hair out of her face.

From her position, she could faintly hear the sound of something massive shift through rubble not far from her. A low grumbling filled the air, along with a quiet whistling/yowling noise that seemed entirely out of place for Drake.

She focused her powers, healing up her body before staggering over. She grabbed some rocks, starting to move the rubble off him.

“Beth? Y’get the number of the truck that hit me?” Drake mumbled as he shifted out of his quetzalcoatl form and back into his human form, “I wanna find and evi-GRAAAGH!”

His curse was cut short as something fell out of nowhere and began clawing at his unprepared face with each slash feeling as if none of his powers worked.

“Get off him!” she screamed, firing off a laser into whatever it was.

The beast was knocked back and into a convenient boulder, revealing the horrifically twisted form of the Deathcat, bones protruding, mechanical parts strewn across the pus-laced ruin of a body, a horrifyingly human scowl, and a massive cannon shaped object protruding from its spinal column. A bladed tail swished back and forth.

“Targets… Engaged…. Capture... Procedures… initiated.”

The harsh buzz of static coming from the cheetah-like monstrosity was enough to make both AECs step back in disgust, guards falling as the Deathcat prowled a circle around the two.

“Beth, suit up. We don’t know what the hell this fucking thing is, and I don’t want you hurt because we thought we could take it as we are…” Drake muttered to his girlfriend of all of one week, shifting into his base lizard form as he spoke.

“I’m fine Drake really,” she said, shaking her head, “Don’t worry about me okay?”

“Y’know I worry, Beth…” The great beast muttered, warily turning his head towards the zombie-cat-monster-thing. Said beast growled in a rush of gurgling static and pounced forth in a blaze of movement!

The two beasts clashed in a thundering match of claws and teeth, blood and goo flying everywhere. Even as the pair wrestled, Elizabeth couldn’t help but notice that the cat was somehow overpowering Drake. But how?

The answer came in a sudden change in the wind, blowing the scent of ozone over her. Drake’s scream and the hissing crackle of electrical discharge only proved her suspicions, even as Drake flung the catbeast into the crater he himself had made not three minutes prior.

“Fucker tried to taze me!” He yowled, rubbing the scorch mark on his side.

“Heh... gives me a few ideas,” she said, giving him a wink before calling up her powers, firing off more lasers at it.

“Thatgives mea few ideas…” He replied, firing off his own lasers.

Pained yowling filled the air as, bit by bit, the Deathcat was stripped of its flesh, leaving only a partially mechanical skeleton behind. The bones collapsed into the dirt shortly after.

“Huh… didn’t think it’d be that easy…” Drake muttered, ambling up to one of the bone fragments and biting a small chunk out of it, assimilating the material directly after.

“Say, Beth… this thing bled orange goo, just like that dragon a while ago… you think there’s a connection?”

Beth shrugged, “Maybe. It also had a weird logo on it. You think there might be a connection between it and the dragon?”

“Definitely. Same regeneration, same goo… same genetic makeup, too. We should report this to Doc Mind.” Drake’s tail lashed angrily as he spoke, before freezing in an almost comical manner.

“Shit! The race!”

Beth pouted, “Is that really the most pressing concern right now?” Drake’s girlfriend of one week deadpanned and took back to the air. “Fine, fine. I know how important this is to you. Let’s just go for now…”

“Right!” Thusly, Drake took back to the air, building up a great deal of speed before diving into the ocean with a massive spray of water and a quickly muffled sonic boom.

Beth shook her head and took off, quickly regaining her second place spot behind Rainbow Dash.

“Idiot.” She muttered, smiling faintly at Drake’s strange quirks.

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Head Researcher Twilight Sparkle sat at her desk and sipped her mug of coffee as she reviewed the data files on the higher numbered AECs. She knew that 9924 had gone home to his Universe, 9983 was up at Site 701, 9991 was in Site 34 before Drake ate it for his rainbow-crested, winged magnificence (Apparently the Quetzalcoatl had gotten uppity at the rampaging lizard some months ago), and AEC 10000 was… unclassified and missing!?

After a quick panic attack in which Twilight frantically burned through all the paper and digital files available, she had an epiphany: Drake was the last one to have seen AEC 10000, alias Ben, and would thus have the best idea as to where he was. Thus, with a fire lit under her, she picked up her desk phone, dialed Drake’s number, and waited.

“H-hello? Who is this? It’s three in the damn morning and I’m trying to enjoy my and my girlfriend’sbed.”

Twilight waited a moment as the righteous fury built, and as Drake’s complaints grew in incoherence, before unleashing a mighty,

“DRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!”

“GAH, SON OF A BITCH!”

“D’ah wha!? Drake what are you yelling for? And why are you on the phone?”

Sounds of fumbling and thumping that Twilight didn’t really need to know the origins of.

“Are you two finished, 682? 1313?”

“Doc Twi? The hell are you doing calling at three in the fucking morning? Can’t you just wait for Princess Celestia to raise the fucking sun?”

“Would you happen to know where the still unclassified and presumably at large AEC 10000 would be?” Twilight asked in an all too cheerful tone.

“Ten…. thousand? Oh! Ben! Yeah, he’s probably in his Home Universe right now doing something infuriating and being a total racist jerkfucker.”

“Drake that sounds disgusting, but it strangely fits the way he acted.”

“That’s why I said it, Beth. That’s why I said it.”

“Back to business, you two. We need to classify 10000, otherwise nothing’s gonna work on him. Do you have any idea how to get him back here?”

“Nope.”

“Nada.”

“Abso-fucking-lutely nothing.”

“Zilch.”

“Wonderful. Well, I’ll call again in the morning. Go back to bed you two, sorry for the disturbance.”

“Night, Doc.”

“G’night!”

Twilight hung up.

“FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFU-”

SLAM

“Head Researcher Sparkle, are you alright!? We heard screaming earlier!”

“-Uh… I’m fine. Thanks.”

Meanwhile, in the home base of the Society of Evil Ben’s Universe….

Ben slammed his head on the desk he was sitting at. “Ugh, these royals are gonna be the freakin’ death of me,” he groaned. In front of him were several different petitions and requests from all over Equestria. Ever since the Incursions, more and more were jumping on the bandwagon to blame him for it all.

“Don’t worry, honey,” Lyra, his faithful mare, said as she gave him a nice little peck on the cheek. “We’ll get through this, just you see. Once we clear you in court tomorrow, ponies are bound to ease up on you.”

“That’s if we can win the case.” Ben rifled through a few more, weighing his options constantly. “In all fairness, Fear did create the Incursions from my fears and thoughts. So I am partially at fault, but it’s not like I made them attack us. If anything that seemed to be the fault of the nobles for insulting them.”

“We just have to make the jury see it that way too! It may not necessarily be of your peers, but they are promising you a fair trial.”

“Lesson to learn, Lyra, even when a noble says you’ll get a fair trial, keep up your guard. I’ve seen them play this kind of trick in the past and I couldn't’ stand it. They think they’re so much better than everypony else. Ha! The only good ones I’ve met are Fancy Pants and Blue Blood. What’s Rarity’s deal with him again?”

“A misunderstanding, that’s what I heard anyway,” Lyra explained. “I don’t care what we have to do, Ben. I won’t lose you and Scootaloo. I’ve worked too hard to get to this point and I’m not going to let them ruin our family.”

Ben smiled, running his hand gingerly through her mane. “Thatta girl. We’ll fight til the last man. This is our family and they have no right to tear us apart.” He looked back at the paperwork with a sigh. “Why don’t you go on to bed? I’ll join you there in just a bit. I wanna look over just few more of these.”

Lyra seemed conflicted, but relented in the end. “Alright,” she gave him a small kiss on the lips. “But don’t keep me waiting too long. A mare has her needs, after all.”

Ben laughed as she sauntered away, shaking his head of those tantalizing thoughts. “Darn that mare, why did I have to keep seeing her as such a sexy thing. Maybe the watch finally is overwriting my DNA. Aw well, a worry for another day.”

He browsed over some more of the papers, his spirit and will to stay awake diminishing second after second. And soon enough, Ben was out like a light.

Twilight smirked to herself as she strode through the nearly deserted corridors of Site 34. She would retrieve AEC 10000 and hold him long enough for an official classification to push through, never mind what Head Researcher Stable Mind wrote down. It wasn’t listed in his official file, ergo, it wasn’t official.

But she had ways of retrieving a wayward AEC.

Take, for example, AEC 1100, The Locator-Retriever Database Machine (Name Pending). This machine contained a database of every living being that ever stepped foot on the planet, and could retrieve them no matter how far away they were.

The semi-neurotic scientist giggled maniacally as she activated the machine and scrolled through its contents. Finding AEC 10000 on the list was easy, and she thus activated the machine and waited eagerly by the ‘Arrival’ container. A spattering of sparks, a few buzzing sounds, and a great flash of light heralded the arrival of a somehow still asleep Ben 10X.

She took him within her magical field and carted him to an ultra secure holding cell, eagerly awaiting his awakening.

Draining her fifty sixth mug of extra strength coffee (Now in French Roast and with 600ccs of Epinephrin and Blue Sky Crystal Meth per cup!) of the night, she dialed Drake as a precaution. She was neurotic and possibly way too hyped up on illegal drugs, not stupid.

“DrakegetyourscalyandsortasexylizardassdownhererightnowIfoundAEC10000andIneedyouforbackupincaseanythinggoeshorriblywrong!”

“.....The fuck?”

“DRAKE GET YOUR SCALY AND SORTA SE-ahem LIZARD ASS DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW, I FOUND AEC 10000 AND I NEED YOU FOR BACKUP IN CASE THINGS GO HORRIBLY WRONG!”

“Jesus fuck, my ears!”

“Drake, seriously, stop shouting. You’re making the poor guards nervous.”

“Sorry, Beth, I need to go. Doc Twi is doing stupid things again. And is probably on the drug coffee that I sent over as a gag gift…. Stop staring at me like that Beth, it was Snoop’s idea!”

The line went dead as a sonic boom destroyed the room on the other end of the line, a faint red mist arcing out of the speaker on Twilight’s line.

“Heheheheheheheeheheeeee.” Twilight thus proceeded to giggle maniacally as her normally immaculate hair frizzed out and sprung into an untidy, insane mess.

Ben groaned as he awoke from a dreamless sleep. He sat up from his cushiony bed, rubbing the crust from his eyes with a large yawn. “Ah, Lyra must have dragged me to bed last night. Considerate. I don’t even have a lump this time.”

His eyes were barely open as he made his way for the bathroom for his morning routine, only to run into a wall.

“Ack! Ow!” He moaned, now awake and horrified by his surroundings. Once again… he was in jail… a very familiar jail. “Oh gods, please no.”

“Goooood morning AEC 10000!” A screen opened up on the wall in front of him, showing an incredibly manic looking human with a familiar hairstyle, and an incredibly exasperated Drake leaning against a wall behind her.

“Hey Ben, sorry about the Doc here. I think she got into the Blue Sky Meth/Super-Caf coffee. Which is only safe for me… and some other AECs to drink. So… ye-ARGH.”

Drake never noticed the clipboard telekinetically slamming into his groin until it was far too late. The manic woman turned back to the screen, hairs popping out from all over her mess of a hairstyle.

“Oh god… why does it hurt so much….” Drake whimpered.

Ben stared at the image for a moment, their words slowly registering in his mind. In hindsight, they should have prayed they never did. His fists clenched tight as he gritted his teeth almost painfully so. He looked back at Twilight with hate-filled eyes and voice that would send shivers down any sane person’s spine.

“You have thirty seconds to send me home,” he told her with a wickedly low tone. “Thirty. Seconds.”

No effect on the maniacal Twilight Sparkle, who was far too deep into her meth induced haze to do anything but continue along her initial crash vectors.

“I’m sorry AEC 1000, but I’m afraid that I can’t do that until you~ get officially registered on the classification scale~” More manic giggling, along with a middle finger from Drake, still on the floor, and aimed straight at the researcher’s back.

Ben’s entire body was shaking. “Do you have any idea… what your stupid research… has done?!” He glared at Twilight with all the hate he had. “Because of YOU! I’m going to lose my family!! Do you hear me?! My loving mare and daughter are going to be taken away from me because. Of. YOU!!”

“Uuuuuurk…. Doc Twi? Y’think we should let him go?”

“Nope! Not until we get answers.”

“Fuck. Sorry Ben, I can’t do anything that isn’t basically treason here, and I rather like Doc Twi, so unless you break out on your own… Sorry man… oof…. man, this really hurts for some reason…. any way, please ignore the drugged up researcher. I think I’ve eaten enough scientists to know how to work this…. sit tight, man. I think I -SONUVABITCH WHY DO YOU GO FOR THE GROIN YOU DEVIL WOMAN!?”

“Shut up.” Twilight had apparently shifted from manic and drugged up to straight withdrawal in the span of half a second, now surly and red eyed, with limp, messy hair and a perpetual scowl.

“....yes’m”

Ben lifted up his arm, showing the Omnitrix to Twilight. “Do you see this watch, Twilight Sparkle? Remember it, because it is the beginning of your destruction. Omnitrix, run subroutine seven.” The watch beeped and created a computer keyboard hologram in front of him. “Little known fact, many people who have met me claim that I am technophobic. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I am not scared of technology… I’m scared of what I am capable of with it.” With a few quick stroke on the keyboard, the lights in the room Twilight and Drake were in started to flicker and warning sirens started to go off within the entire compound.

“Oh no… bad bad bad bad bad! Ben are you hacking the systems!?” Drake shouted, knocking out Twilight as he rose from the floor. “Dude! If you do the wrong thing you’ll release all the AECs in the compound! That’ll doom all of Canterlot and beyond!”

“That’s where you are wrong, Mr. Long,” Ben’s voice was eerie and had a hint of malice. “I didn’t hack this compound… I hacked every compound. Remember that little motion I did with the Omnitrix the first time I was here? That was when my Omnitrix ransacked your system and allowed me the chance for complete control if need be. Well, you’ve pushed me over the edge! And now… the Foundation… is mine!” Ben pressed a few more keystrokes, and the sounds of locking doors rang out behind Drake.

“.... You’ve killed every single human on this planet, y’know that? There are some AECs that require incredibly precise amounts of current through their systems to keep them docile. And what you just did with the lights? You’ve screwed over eight billion people. You monster.”

“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” Ben said as he sat on the floor of his cell. “Nothing has been released and all systems are still running at max efficiency. All I’ve done is given myself complete access to everything the Foundation has. Weapons, inventions, people, monsters, everything. But as you say, yes, I could doom your entire world with the press of a button. But, if my demands are met, I’m sure we can get out of this without any blood shed. Oh and don’t even think setting up any security to attack me in here.” Ben’s room began to glow green, the runes lining the walls showing themselves. “I’ve altered the runes, no one can get in here without my say so.”

“Goddammit Ben, this is why we can’t have nice things!” Drake slumped against the console, “Okay, the hell you want, watch-boy?”

“I want to be sent home, at the exact moment I was taken. And to never ever be contacted by this world again. I can control these systems even from back home, so don’t tempt me. Now wake up your boss there. You two won’t be getting help anytime soon anyway, not with those doors I locked. And don’t worry, you two are the only ones locked. I’m not going to needlessly endanger lives on a whim. Even if you don’t believe me, I am no monster.”

“Hmph, well, at least no one’s died yet. I suppose I can appreciate that fact.” Drake kicked Twilight in the side and sprayed her with a thin mist of unidentifiable chemicals. “Yo, Doc, you sober yet?”

“Uuughhh… Drake? Why are you here? And where are we? I can’t remember anything past… Gods it must have been four in the morning….”

“Take that as a yes. Long story short, you fucked up, stole AEC 10000 from his home world, and now he’s threatening to murder the world because he hacked all the Sites. Good job, Twi. Way to drink the drugs coffee.”

Cue minor panic attack. “I DID WHAT!?”

Ben crossed his arms, tapping them impatiently. “I’m waiting~. I’ve got a court case to get back to. If I have to wait an extra minute before you give me a counter offer or agree to my demands, say goodbye to Site 76.”

“The one full of the cloning corgi puppies!?” Twilight cried, eyes bolting straight open and hair straightening out with a quiet snap. “You monster!”

“No, Twilight. You’re the monster,” Ben countered, leveling his glare at her. “Your little OCD has destroyed a family, did you know that? By taking me last night, I’ve missed the very court case I needed to win to keep my family together. Now my child will be taken back into the system and I’ll never get to see her again.”

“....Wow, dude, that’s… damn… what do I even say to that?” Drake leaned back against the wall, allowing Twilight to take the semi-useless console.

“Look, I’m sorry for what I did while drugged up on more drugs and coffee than should be humanly possible, but with you controlling everything, I don’t exactly have anything that can aid you in your return,” Twilight said, “If you just gave me control over a few systems, I could get you some of our more useful AECs to help.”

“Not until I have your word that you will send me back to the exact moment you stole me away. Forty-five seconds.” His finger hovered above a key.

“Do it, Twi, don’t let Equus (Still think that’s a shitty name) die because of research.”

“Of course I won’t, Drake, who do you think I am? The drugged up, neurotic mess that is me whenever I’m… well… drugged up?” Twilight retorted, turning back to the screen and delivering a curt, “You have our words.”

Ben lifted his finger away and gave a genuine smile. “Thank you, Twilight Sparkle.” He punched in a few commands. “I will be watching your every move. If something looks off, Sites 1-6 will be unleashed freely. I’ll reopen communications then. Don’t make the wrong choice.” He pressed a button, shutting off the screen in front of Twilight and Drake.

“Well shit, Twi. What. A. Mess. And to think all this came about from you drinking the wrong type of coffee. You actually somehow had seventeen thousand cups of coffee…. in the space of six hours. Bra-fucking-vo.”

“Shut up Drake and help me find out where the Paradox Man is.”

“If he’s anything like his name, he should be here in… a few seconds ago, probably.”

“That’s a-” “Quite correct, young man. How did you deduce that? Oh what am I saying, I’m predictable like that aren’t I? Too bad, that. Anyway, I see you’ve gotten yourself into quite the pickle here, eh? So, as it just so happens, my next vacation spot was this angry young fellow’s home Universe! His far, far past, at least. I suppose I could make a detour to drop him off, but y’know how the Void is these days, all full of turbulence. I think our local Administrator might have left or something- certainly wasn’t like this some time ago- or was it not like that now? Or was it that it’ll be turbulent in the future? Or-” “Seriously, dude, just help.” Drake cut off the rambling, oddly dressed man. The jump-suited man twitched and smiled, sliding a pair of aviation goggles over his eyes and donning a fedora with a rather large pocket watch set into the side.

“Of course, Drake. Always a pleasure.”

And with that, the strange man disappeared and reappeared in front of Ben with a jaunty wave and a quick, “Top o’ the mornin’!”

Ben regarded him with only a raised eyebrow. “Impressive you got past the runes. Now who or what are you before I doom Zebrica?”

“Now now, young Ben, don’t be so hasty. I’m merely your ride home~ You should be thanking me- after all, I am taking a detour on my own trip to see your version of the dinosaurs just to drop you off in your boring, regular castle.”

“Yeah… I don’t think so. Buh bye!” Ben quickly typed a few commands and Paradox Man was zapped out of the room. He opened communications with Twilight again. “Now… I’m not going to punish you because it was my own fault for not specifying. There will be no creatures sending me home. You have gadgets and gizmos galore now use one of them to get me home! Because believe or not… I can make this a whole lot worse.”

On the other side of the screen, Twilight groaned and Drake blasted a random piece of equipment in annoyance.

“Drake! Seriously!? Did you have to blow up the decorative abacus!?”

“... No, but now I feel a lot better. Say, does this site even have devices that can cross time and space?”

“....Unfortunately, no. This is a creature-site only. The ruby was technically a creature considering that we found brain waves emanating from it. Also because it had a sort of heart beat.”

“Fuck. Ben? What do you want us to do now?”

Ben looked at them, taking a deep breath so he didn’t completely go off the deep end. “What site do you need access to?” he asked simply.

“Doc?”

“334 is for time manipulating artifacts, 443 is for space. There’s two AECs that complement each other- one in either site. Fortunately, they’re not far from here. Just a few miles. Drake can make it there and back within five or so minutes, can’t you?”

“Few miles is nothing at mach 10. Yeah, I can make it. Ben?”

Ben snapped his fingers and two portals appeared in the room. “334 is on the left. 443 is on the right. I will be watching, so no funny business or I’ll… ‘upgrade’ your system, and not for the better.” He noticed they were just staring at the portals. “If you’re wondering how I did that, well, it’s a special power I have, not being fully human.”

“I’m not even going to ask how you did that.”

“Thanks Ben.”

Drake disappeared through one portal. a few minutes later, he came back through the other portal bearing two strange masks, both gold in color. One of them seemed to just be a covering for the mouth and the other one seemed to be a full face helmet with strange protrusions on the side.

“Okay, AECs 404 and 2808 secured. Now what?”

“Don’t look at me. That’s what your Twilight is for.” Ben then looked at his wrist with annoyance. “I knew something was missing. Skurd, you lazy snot blob, wake up!”

Something slithered out from Ben’s sleeve, black eyes looking about lazily. “Hmm? What? Oh!” His eyes widened at their situation. “Well, this another fine mess we’ve gotten into.”

“‘Bout time ya dang snot rocket.”

“Must you always be so testy?”

“Shut it.”

“Seriously, Ben, these things need me to be in there with you otherwise I can’t send you home.”

“Who is this ‘I’, Drake?”

“Well I figure since you’re the one who fucked up, I should be the one to fix it so that you don’t get your head sent to Canterlot via express air mail.”

“One moment,” Ben sighed before snapping his fingers. In a second, he was in the same room as Twilight and Drake. “Does this work better to your advantage?”

“Eyup. Okay, Twi, I’ll… I’ll probably be back soon. Uh… If I’m not, use that stupid machine that brought us into this mess. Okay, Ben… this may be bumpy.” Drake steeled himself and placed both masks on his face, the mouth guard under the helmet, before shouting, “Vahi! Olmak!” And without warning, a glowing, rippling portal appeared in the room.

Drake shuddered, “Ugh, these masks smell like grease and dust. Anyway, that should be your ride home. However, I’m gonna go in first to see if it’s safe or not. Because I’m pretty sure I can survive a lot more than you can. Maybe.” And with that, he jumped through and vanished in a light buzz of static and a brief flash of light. The portal wavered but held strong.

This however, left Ben with Twilight, whom he was still more than ticked with. He glared over in her direction, Skurd looking back and forth between them.

“Well… this is awkward,” the slimebiote commented.

Twilight toed the ground and fluttered her wings in embarrassment, hands wringing themselves behind her back, “Eh… eheh… sorry about this mess….”

“Sorry?” Ben parroted, fury rising in his gut. “You’ve destroyed my family and all you have to say is ‘sorry’?!” He marched over and poked her hard in the chest. “Be glad that I’m not a monster like the ones in my head, or I would kill you right here and now.”

Twilight said nothing, only shrinking away. Tears formed in her eyes as she sat against the console and fiddled with her hair.

“Don’t you think that is more than a little harsh, dear boy?” Skurd asked. “She did not know your situation. Miss Sparkle does have some more… neurotic tendencies after all. Can you not at least be kind to the poor girl?”

Ben looked back at Twilight, no sign of any emotional change in his eyes. “...what do you want to know?”

“I… I just wanted to make a basic information dossier… get an official status classification…. I… I didn’t mean to do anything like this…” She whimpered, trailing off into a teary whisper.

He was silent as he moved over to the console and took a seat, “If it will mean you leave me alone, then… fine.” Ben sighed, keeping his anger under control lest it manifest as the monster within. “What do you want to know?”

She sniffled and brought up a clipboard and a pen. “N-name?”

“Ben 10X. Real last name is a personal secret.”

“Skurd, the slimebiote,” the blob said with a bow.

Scribbling the information down, Twilight dried her eyes and continued, “Approximate age?”

“Five thousand, one hundred and twenty-three.”

“.... Wow.” More scribbles. “Uh… general overview of abilities?”

“Transformations via the Omnitrix. And basic control over time and space, due to the other half of my DNA.”

“I see…. speaking of DNA… I wonder what Drake’s doing?”

Meanwhile…

“Oh where the hell am I? This doesn’t look right… why the hell is there so much lava?” Drake wondered, idly drifting on thermals.

“Eh, let’s see… shift again!”

Another portal appeared and Drake disappeared from Hell, leaving behind a bunch of frightened lower demons.

“Eh, can’t be that important. Final question: Would you, in any capacity, wish to destroy this planet during your normal emotional state?”

Ben thought on that for a moment before glancing at her. “Normally? No, no I would not. I don’t mess with other worlds as long as they don’t mess with mine. If it’s not my world, then it is not my problem.”

“That’s good. Your official classification is a Safe Class AEC, but please… don’t ever deliberately cause any property damage.”

Before the scene could become any more awkward, Drake tumbled out of a portal, singed and covered in odd bruises.

“Owwwwww…. why do they always go for the crotch?” He whimpered, holding onto his much abused bait and tackle. After a few minutes of frankly pathetic whining, Drake stood shakily, and created another portal. “Okay, I found your home Universe… I think, but there’s a green unicorn wielding a chandelier on the other side. Chandeliers really hurt, must be the crystals. Anyway, I also found Hell, so… there’s also that. It was hot as balls. I nearly got incinerated in a lava geyser. Make of that what you will.”

“A green unicorn wielding a chandelier? Did you catch her cutie mark?”

“I think it was a golden harp or something. She was shouting at me and asking where her “Benny” was, so I assumed it was you.”

“Oh, you pissed off Lyra. Yeah, you’re not gonna be safe in Twilight’s castle for a long time.”

“....Well shit. I guess I fucked up when I fell out directly onto her bed. Fucking mask, so weird. It’s also like… the middle of the night over there, so… that’s good, yeah?”

“Sounds about right.” Ben typed a few commands in and the lights flickered again. “There, all control has been restored to their proper places.”

“Thank you for that, by the way. Woulda been a bitch to try and reset the systems. So… portal’s open. I… guess seeya?” Drake shrugged, masks still in place.

“I trust you have everything you need, Twilight?” Ben asked as he stepped in front of the portal.

“Yes, thank you for not killing everyone on this planet in horrific and brutal manners.”

Ben nodded, but stopped before going through. “Just remember, if this happens again, I won’t be so lenient.” His left arm changed, becoming black and covered in stars, his hand emitting powerful energy. “Celestialsapiens do not take too kindly to being kidnapped.”

Twilight stared and mumbled to herself, “No… note to self: never let 682 ingest AEC 10000’s blood sample.”

“What was that, Doc?”

“Nothing!”

“....Right.” Drake shrugged again, pretending not to notice Twilight shoving a blood filled tube into her pocket, “So… bye Ben. Sorry about the mess.”

“Dear boy!” Skurd shouted.

“Hmm?” Ben lifted up his wrist and the slime whispered something into his ear. “I thought you said to forgive her.”

“Forgiveness doesn’t mean there should not be punishment, of course.”

Ben smirked evilly. “Of course.”

“Ben… what are you doing?” Cue frightened lizard slowly backing away. Cue purple haired scientist trying to sneak out the door.

Ben turned just before she could make it out and fired celestial energy at her. In a flash, Twilight had been turned into her pony self, hooves and all. “One full week as a pony for you, Dr. Sparkle. Have fun! Geronimo!” He sprinted through the portal, his and Skurd’s laughter being heard before disappearing.

Drake started snickering and picked up the violet alicorn, setting her on top of his head. “Well, it coulda been worse…”

“Drake?”

“Yeah?”

She fluttered off his head and hovered around the suddenly very nervous lizard man’s groin. Holding him in place with her magic, she spun in midair and slammed both hooves home straight into his crotch.

“Shut up!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.”

FOUNDATION HEARTS

Drake awoke strapped to a table. Over him stood the maniacally grinning form of a still ponified Twilight Sparkle.

“Uuhhh… Doc? Mind telling me why I’m strapped to a table and not currently in bed with my lovely girlfriend?”

Twilight’s grin grew wider. “Time for testing, Drake~”

A horrifying robotic mass of tools and devices wheeled into view, bearing hundreds of sharp, deadly blades.

“First test… EMASCULATION!”

“OHGODNOTTHENUTS NOOOOOO-!”

“-OOOooooooohh god it was just a fucking nightmare…” Drake sat up in bed, thanking the fact that Elizabeth had bought earplugs. “I swear, if I knew I was gonna get emasculation nightmares from just getting hit in the nuts twice… Ugh.”

As the lizardman calmed himself down and settled back against his oh-so delightfully warm girlfriend, he thought back to his second meeting with Ben, and how Twilight had turned into an Alicorn. “Keh… still funny.”

Just before he drifted back to sleep, alarms rang out through the compound, startling Drake into annoyed wakefulness and jostling Elizabeth awake.

“Oh come on...” she whined, cracking an eye open, “Drake just got the whipped cream...”

“...” Drake stared at his half asleep girlfriend, “Beth, we got alarms going off everywhere. Shake off the dirty dreams, we can get to that later… as soon as I can find some whipped cream, kay?”

“We better be doing real dirty things with that whipped cream...” she said sitting up, stretching her limbs out with a satisfying pop.

“Considering the freaky things the both of us can do? You best bet your pretty little head, babe.” Drake smirked and waggled his two foot long tongue, “Anyway, alarms are ringing, wanna get outta here and see what’s up?”

“Do we have to?” she asked, snuggling up against him.

Drake resisted valiantly, “C’mon, Beth… y’know Doc Mind will have our heads if we’re not there soon… and Doc Twi will be even worse…”

“Ugh fine but you’re being my body pillow again, got that lizard boy?” she asked, getting out of bed, giving him a nice view of her rear.

Drake hugged Elizabeth from behind, “Of course I do, Beth. Now c’mon, we gotta go.” Drake stood and pulled on a shirt and a pair of pants, waiting for his girlfriend to change.

She sighed, pulling her clothes on, yawning. “Come on, let’s get going... I wanna get to the sexy times...” she moved toward the door, peeking outside.

Outside was a frantic rush of people, shouted orders, and the occasional spilled coffee cup. Drake winced. Coffee stains were so difficult to scrub from his scales. “Well… once more into the breach, eh luv?”

“AEC 1313 AND 682: REPORT TO THE MAIN COMMAND ROOM ASAP.”

“That’s our signal, luv. Let’s go!” Drake rushed out into the throng of the people, scuttling along the ceiling and into the vents, scaling his way to Site 63’s main command room.

“I really hate this place...” Elizabeth groaned before floating off toward the command room.

Five minutes later, the pair stood in the command room, Drake covered in dust and scratches and munching on an absolutely colossal spider, Elizabeth vaguely disgusted at Drake’s eating habits.

“So, what’s up Doc?” Drake asked between crunches.

Head Researcher Stable Mind facepalmed and switched on a communication screen, showing the grim– and adorable– visage of Head Researcher Twilight Sparkle, still an alicorn.

“Drake, Elizabeth, there’s a situation approximately six miles south by southeast of you. Our local scouting teams have found a massive portal of eldritch energy there. Given your experience with potentially hostile visitors, you two are going as our welcoming committee and, if necessary, first and hopefully only line of defense. Got that?” Twilight’s static covered muzzle glared harshly at Drake, as if daring him to step out of line again.

“You’re still so adorable like that Twi,” Elizabeth said with a grin, “We’ll do our best, won’t we Drake?” she asked, kissing his cheek.

Drake finished shoving the remnants of the late spider down his gullet and gave a cocky smile, hugging Elizabeth to his side, “Of course we will, Beth. You can count on us, Doc Twi, Doc Mind!” He threw out a jaunty salute and led Elisabeth out into the throngs of people once more, steering them towards the nearest transport.

At the helipad, the pair was directed to a black helicopter, unarmed and built with auto-returning technology, with a white ‘1313/682’ marked upon the side, a snarling lizard head within a circle painted upon the other.

Drake activated the helicopter, turning to Elizabeth with a pair of headphones in hand, “Hey Beth, ready for this?”

“Of course I am, I got you don’t I?” she asked, moving into his lap, getting comfy.

Com chatter filled the both of their ears as they affixed the specially made headphones over their ears, one channel coming through clearly. “Transport 1313-682, this is Control. You are clear for take-off on route sixteen-thirty two. Safe flight you two. Over.”

“Control, this is Transport 1313-682, we read you loud and clear. Heading out to route 16-32 now. Over.” Drake took the controls, easing the helicopter into the air with a harsh whir of blades. He smiled– it wasn’t exactly often that he’d gotten to fly the thing after all. Not when most of his days were spent in the site proper.

Over the mountains they flew, nearing the anomaly with a good amount of speed. Said anomaly was visible even from the air, a light glow coming from the ground and dark clouds directly above. As they reached the site of the anomaly, Drake activated the auto-return, shifting Elizabeth from his lap and into the seat next to him. “Ready to drop, luv?” he asked, already at the door and notifying the ground crew of their presence with a flare.

“Of course,” she said with a smile before jumping out of the chopper, gently gliding down to the ground. Drake shook his head and smiled, replacing his headphones on their hook and leaping out into the open air, slamming into the ground with an audible THUD and a small cloud of dust. Overhead, the helicopter turned and retreated back to base.

The portal hovered in midair rather ominously, a swirling ring of white filled with a sort of shimmering, not-quite-there grey, tinged with little swirls and eddies of black.

“So... what do you think made that?” she asked, looking up at the vortex, raising her eyebrow.

Drake shrugged, taking a clipboard from one of the scattered, hazmat-suited workers. “Beats me. Maybe it was another Displaced, like that Kat bitch. They are rather fond of portals…”

A meteor shrieked out of the vortex, slamming into the ground nearby. It exploded outward into a black cloud before reforming into a tan skinned man in a black coat, his eyes a sickly yellow and his hair a silverish white.

“Jesus fuck!” Drake leapt back, already beginning his battle preparations, this time covering his back and limbs with scales, not unlike a pangolin. He circled the man warily, sprouting more and more scale-like blades as he went, until his back and limbs and part of his face resembled an unholy mix of porcupine and pangolin.

“Drake...” Liz said with a bit of worry, “That guy uh... I-I don’t think he’s biological.”

Drake stared, “What do you mean ‘not biological’?” He took a few step back mindful of the workers rushing around to secure a perimeter around the area.

“What she means is,” the man spoke, moving closer to Drake, his voice cold with an underlying current of malice, “Is that I am not flesh and blood.”

“.... I don’t exactly know how that’s possible…” Drake stood straight, tail lashing nervously behind him. “My name is Drake, current spokesperson and/or first line of defense for the AEC Foundation. Welcome to Equestria… er, what’s your name?”

The man smirked, much like a predator. “I am Ansem! Seeker Of Darkness!” he declared, throwing his hands out. Dark pools started to form from the nearby shadows, out of them raising small black creatures with antenna and yellow eyes.

“Oh jesus fuck it’s Kingdom Hearts all over again,” Drake muttered, motioning for the ground crew to run for their lives. “Beth, you think we can kill these guys? You knew more about the series than I did.”

“Oh we are so boned!” Liz said, her eye wide, “I can’t burn heartless and you can’t adapt to freaking shadows!” she jumped back as a shadow swiped at her.

“Oh fuck.” Drake leapt back, dodging the tide of oncoming Heartless and blasting at them to no avail.

“Your efforts are futile my scaled friend,” Ansem said as he appeared behind Drake, grabbing him by the tail and hurtling him some distance away, “Your world has nothing that can stop me from devouring it.”

Drake slammed into the ground, rolling to a stop in a mess of broken scales and lightly abraded skin. As he stood, he growled, “Dammit! How the hell am I supposed to protect this damn planet if I can’t even kill a few pathetic shadows!?” He slammed a fist into the ground, spraying acid bolts at the shadows, once again, to no avail.

“You just need a little help is all!” a young voice called out before an object hurled into the shadows, making them all explode into wisps. Said object moved back to its owner, a girl of around fourteen with black hair and blue eyes, wearing a black cloak.

“.... I… I want to ask how the hell you did that, but I’m pretty sure I’ll just receive a stupid answer.” Drake stood tall and cracked his neck, retracting his spines and defaulting to base human form. He walked up to the girl and asked, “So, you are?”

“Name’s Alex,” she said, hefting a large key looking sword over her shoulder, “Sorry about shadow man other there. Asshole jumped us in one of the Corridors and knocked us into your world.”

“It’s cool. We’re used to weird shit. So, that asshole… he said his name was Ansem, I think. any weaknesses?” Drake was back at Elizabeth’s side by now, his girlfriend hugged to his side even as he moved the pair back over to the newly named Alex.

“This,” Alex said, holding up the sword.

“Oh good, a keyblade, chuck it at his head already,” Liz said, crossing her arms, “I rather like my world and don’t want it getting eaten.”

“You know it’s not really that simple,” Alex huffed, “The guy’s basically the god of darkness, just chucking a keyblade at him isn’t going to kill him.”

Drake cursed under his breath, thanking the fact that all the extraneous personnel had already headed for the hills. “Great. Just fucking great. Anything else?”

“Not much, just keep an eye out for my boss, he looks like Ansem but with a coat like mine,” Alex said, gesturing to herself.

Drake snorted, “So a little more fruity and anime than the other dude. Got it.” He let go of Elizabeth, launching a few more idle bone spikes at the gathered shadows and their master. “Hey, if you’re gonna attack him, that’d be nice.”

“Did you just call me fruity?” Alex asked before whacking him upside the head with the keyblade, “I didn’t ask to be this gender ya know!”

Drake rubbed his smarting skull, “No, I just realize that if your master is who I think it is, he’s got a slightly more fruity and anime hairstyle than Mr. Tall-tan-and-bastard over there. I have played Kingdom Hearts… and then watched as Elizabeth took over after I died on like… the first levels….”

“My hairstyle is just fine thank you very much,” a new, slightly monotone voice said, from behind them, “I don’t see a need to start our relationship off with insults.”

“I never said fruity was bad,” Drake said, motioning at his own swept back, green and black, shaggy mess of spikes, “I mean, look at my hair.”

“You look stupid,” Alex pointed out.

“Says the anime character,” Liz retorted, glaring at her.

“Oi, don’t start with me miss ‘breaks all rules of biology’,” Alex countered, glaring back.

Drake stepped in, patting the both of them on the head. “Ladies, ladies. Priorities first. Ansem is over there and trying to eat my planet… which isn’t much of a good idea considering the seriously fucked up shit happening here. Catfight comes later… maybe in pudding and biki-OW GODDAMMIT BETH IT WAS A JOKE.”

“Dude I’m stuck at fourteen,” Alex said, looking at him with a bit of disgust.

“And I’m a shapeshifting lizardman with a homicidal streak. And really, physical age does not matter… also I’m happily taken, so there’s that.” Drake pointed out the obvious, idly patting down his flaming skull. “Honestly Beth, if you want to hurt me for saying stupid things, you shouldn’t set my skull on fire. It only hurts for the initial combustion, y’know.”

“Can we get on topic please?” Xemnas asked with a long sigh, hand on his face.

“Right. God of Darkness trying to eat the planet. Beth, you got the radio, mind calling base for a sit-rep?” Said radio was currently lying on the ground near an overturned truck, idle radio chatter still coming through.

“Unless he gets his hands on your crystal heart, he’s mostly just bluffing,” Xemnas said, looking over at Ansem, “Keep in mind, we just have to get him back through the vortex.”

“Oh yeah… that vortex is still open…” Drake eyed the flashing portal suspiciously, not at all trusting it to not just disappear and screw over the entire planet. “Shouldn’t be… too difficult… unless he has intangibility.”

“He has that annoying ass guardian which is invulnerable,” Alex piped up.

“....I’m afraid I don’t remember that part. Beth?” Drake was already on his way over to the fallen radio, clicking through the stations while everyone stood around. Even Ansem had stopped and decided to wait.

Rather like a poorly written cutscene, really.

“Oh for the love of,” Alex said before hurling her keyblade at Ansem’s face.

“Come guardian!” Ansem declared, his shadow forming into a horrible shadow monster, knocking the key away.

“God I hated that thing,” Liz groaned, shaking her head, “We can’t hurt him when it’s in front of him.”

“.... Indestructible, you said?” Drake asked, a slow grin crawling up his face. “Yeah, I can handle that.” With that, he leapt back into the fray, lashing out at the shadow monster with all that he had, shifting into his standard lizardbeast form.

He had absolutely no effect at all and the shadow guardian just slapped him away.

“..... Okay then… New tactic.” Drake brushed himself off and transformed with a mighty roar, stretching into the heavens as a kaiju sized quetzalcoatl and slamming his entire bulk down onto Ansem and his guardian.

“Begone with you!” Ansem shouted, sending Drake into the air with a blast of darkness, only to cry out in pain as Alex slashed at him with her keyblade, “Insolent whelp!” he hissed, his guardian swiping out her, barely missing it’s mark.

Drake groaned and rolled over, crushing a few unlucky trucks as he shrunk back down to normal. “Okay, seriously? This sucks ass.”

“Oh suck it up!” Alex said with a grunt, blocking one of Ansem’s attacks as Xemnas moved in, summoning up two red lasers, using them as swords.

“Oh that’s easy for you to say! I can’t do jack shit against this guy because I’m not a fucking mage! Nor do I own a fucking Keyblade!” Drake let out a barrage of lasers to prove his point, doing exactly nothing against Ansem’s guardian.

“Your whining is not helping matters,” Xemnas said, jumping away from Ansem’s reach, “Try to actually think of a way to help.”

“Like fucking what!?” He joined the fight against Ansem, slashing at the god of darkness from behind with superheated tailblades coated in acid and sparking with lightning. “Beth, some support would be really nice right now!”

“I’ll try my best,”Liz said, firing off a few lasers at Ansem, who just laughed before getting hit by the keyblade again.

“You insect are starting to annoy me,” Ansem growled, conjuring up some more dark pools, Neo-shadows emerging from them.

Drake growled and slashed at the new Heartless, annoyed at not being able to do more than distract and absorb damage. He opened up a barrage of lasers at the shadows, surprised that he could actually punch through and destroy the things. “Huh. That’s useful. I guess I just aimed at the wrong thing.”

“Oh good, now be useful!” Alex hissed at him.

“Snippy woman.” Drake brushed off the annoying Keyblade wielder and continued blasting the myriad of heartless with his laser eyes, even shifting to lizard form and growing hundreds of eyes for the express purpose of killing heartless even faster. “Hey Beth! Come help us! This is great!”

“Uh guys...” Liz said pointing at Ansem, who had risen high into the sky.

“All of you, sink into darkness!” Ansem shouted, drawing in all of the shadows within several miles, forming a massive pool of darkness below him.

Drake took to the air casually, picking up Xemnas and leaving Liz to pick up Alex. “Seriously, that has got to be the most useless thing I’ve seen all day. There’s four of us here and two of us can fly with barely any weight limits.”

“Oh? Is it really useless?” Ansem asked as a gigantic shape rose out of the pool, taking shape, “Behold! The Groundshaker!”

“.....” Drake took a single look at the massive form… and kept on looking. “That… is just so uncool.”

“Seriously?” Alex asked letting out a groan, “Why did he have to summon up that thing?”

Drake shrugged, a grin splitting his face. “Xemnas, climb onto my back. And whatever you do, do not let go. This will be… interesting.”

“I don’t really need to,” Xemnas said, summoning up a rather demonic looking keyblade. He brought his fist against his left arm, becoming clad in armor. He tossed his keyblade into the air, watching as it shifted forms, attaching to the armor’s back like a jetpack.

“... Cool.” Drake shook his head, concentrating as his flesh bubbled and sprouted, new growths spiralling out in fleshy tendrils and bony spears, melting down Drake’s human form even as his wings expanded to a massive span, the massive flesh construct mutating and stretching until it became a one thousand foot long snake with wings, bone armor, and a magnificently-crested draconic head with four balefully glowing red eyes. “LET’S RIP AND TEAR, MOTHERFUCKERS!” he roared, challenging the massive Heartless without a single fear in his heart.

It charged at him, aiming to bite into his neck.

“Ok...that’s just insane,” Alex said, watching the two with wide eyes.

“I’ve seen weirder,” Xemnas said before flying at Ansem, the two locked in combat high above the two beasts.

The two beasts tangled in furious combat, flesh and blood against darkened hearts, claws and spells and laser fire scoring the land for miles around. Drake gave as good as he got, tearing massive rents into the Groundshaker’s hide with concentrated laser fire, blocking and constricting its movements with his much larger body, currents of wind blasting the other combatants with every movement of his titanic wings.

Such are the battles of giant monsters.

The Groundshaker stood its ground shaking off damage as well as it could, slashing massive gashes into Drake’s scaly hide. The titanic beasts shook the ground as they battled, until finally the Groundshaker managed to throw Drake into a mountainside, whereupon the serpent shuddered and collapsed, going limp and losing its rainbow crest.

Though, somehow, the Heart did not appear.

Instead, with a gurgling, raspy roar of defiance, the serpent bubbled and shifted, shrinking down into itself to become a much smaller, though no less titanic reptilian thing, with Eyes glowing a baleful orange and body covered in thick bone armor. A superheated tailblade danced through the air, causing it to shimmer and generate updrafts. The two hundred foot tall beast stared up at the Groundshaker and roared with an intensity so powerful that it nearly knocked all the airborne combatants out of the air. The two beasts leapt at each other once again, this time with SCP 682 taking the advantage in speed, evading the slower Heartless’ blows and spells with lethal results.

As the two beasts tore into each other, Elizabeth joined Xemnas in the sky, throwing their all at Ansem. The master heartless kept them at bay easily, his guardian soaking up most of the damage.

“This is pointless,” Xemnas said, floating back away from his brother, panting a little.

“You got any better ideas? Liz asked, hitting Ansem with another laser blast.

“Yes,” he said before diving down to Drake, “Hurl the Groundshaker into Ansem and aim for the vortex,” he shouted, hoping the monster could hear.

SCP 682 gave no inclination that he heard, save for the flash of light that signaled AEC 682 coming into the fray, shifting forms once again into a serpent, this time much larger and without wings. The two thousand foot long snake wrapped its tail around the Groundshaker’s legs and, with all its might, threw the colossal heartless straight into Ansem’s back, slamming the both of them down on top of the still sparking portal.

“Fucker!” Ansem shouted as he and the giant heartless where sucked into the portal. With their master gone, the lesser heartless melted into back into mere shadows.

“Oh hey... you fixed the thing,” Alex said, panting heavily.

The serpent shrunk down into a slightly wobbly Drake, the lizardman slightly out of breath for once in his new life. “Whoo…. Hokay… did we do the thing? It feels like we did the thing.” He collapsed face first into the dirt with a, “Okay I’m just gonna lay here for a while. I’m really hungry now....”

“We should take our leave,” Xemnas said, landing and dismissing his armor and weapon, “I am sorry we caused this mess.”

Drake waved him off from where he stood, also motioning for someone to pick him up. “Nah nah, it’s cool… we’re in a mountainous region so nothing important got blown up or crushed, and the Foundation’s dealt with weirder.

“Still, sorry for almost getting our world eaten,” Alex said, brushing her cloak off. “Um... nice meeting you?” she asked as Xemnas conjuring up a portal of darkness.

Drake finally wobbled to his feet, leaning on Elizabeth for support. “Yeah, yeah. Hey, uh, you guys got any way to contact you? I mean, me and Beth mostly have things covered, but a little extra help is always welcome.”

They nodded, with Alex tossing Drake a seashell and Xemna tossing him a strange emblem. “Until next time.” Xemnas turned the two of them vanishing into the portal, which closed after them.

“Until next time…” Drake muttered, finally passing out on top of Elizabeth. Even his natural regeneration couldn’t keep up with the strain of so many form shifts.

Genesys Pharmaceuticals?

As much as it is cliché, the phrase “It was a dark and stormy night” applied most well to the scene at hand. Massive waves tore across the ocean as rain poured down in sheets. Gales howled and stirred the waters into an even higher frenzy. Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the blackness for brief moments before the darkness returned and thunder ripped into existence.

Miles beneath the surface of the ocean, a complex sat, large and intimidating in its construction. Within its shaded halls and quiet bustle of activity, one would find a series of laboratories stretching from one end of the complex to the other. Within most were strange creatures, some looking half decayed, others barely formed, even fewer appearing whole and healthy. All of them were alive though, and every single one exuded a predatory aura that drove fear into the minds of everyone nearby. Further in, much deeper into the depths of this strange building, sat a single room. Grandly furnished and opulent in the extreme, this room, this office hosted a single occupant.

“Ms. File, if you’d be so kind as to inform our public face of our new plan of action?” A single, immaculately manicured finger pressed an intercom button, a deep, faintly English-accented voice echoing through the vast office.

Sitting back, the mysterious man swept a hand through his short, immaculately styled hair and chuckled, “Step one, complete. Now… let’s see what our dear little dragon is up to, shall we?”

Dark chuckling swept through the office, the man’s burning orange eyes just visible under the curtain of shadows draped over the room.

Hundreds of miles away and in considerably better weather, a certain young man stood on a secluded beach in the middle of Nowhere, Equestria with his girlfriend. Crimson eyes scanned the water’s surface, minute shifts in biology providing detailed analysis of temperature, salinity, contamination, even the average amount of microscopic life found per liter of ocean water.

Apparently satisfied with his examinations, Drake dropped to all fours and changed, taking on the reptilian body of his standard lizard form. From deep within his body, undifferentiated biomass poured out of a pocket dimension and gave mass to the lizard, allowing it to mutate further and extend a series of tubes from its spine. Placing the tubes into the salty water, Drake flexed a series of freshly created muscles and began pumping and filtering water, filling a slowly expanding reservoir tucked firmly underneath the armor of his spine.

Minutes passed until Drake’s back had swelled into a semi-translucent, armored bubble approximately the size of a small car. He rumbled approvingly, turning and waddling away from the beach and into the nearby forest. As he crunched through the underbrush and around the trees, he came upon a clearing with a pre-dug hole in it, just deep enough so that the top of the bubble on his spine would reach above the lip of the hole. Without a second thought, the lizardbeast jumped into the hole, flesh warping and shifting as he fell.

Within seconds, the hole was filled and the edges sealed by a strange, bony substance. The top of the armored bubble opened up and the excess flesh melted into a series of decorative plates and spines around the edge of the pure, steaming pool of freshwater. The bottom of the six foot deep pool bubbled and swelled, forming a small pustule of flesh that quickly reshaped into the form of Drake himself, though his tail was replaced by a fleshy tendril connecting him to the rest of his body. Under the surface of the water, the pool finished taking shape, a ledge growing out and small holes opening here and there. Once finished, Drake rose his puppet body from the water and shouted, “Hey Beth! Bath’s ready!”

An immediate reply came in the form of his girlfriend flying into the clearing and splashing down into the pool, spraying water into the air and splashing Drake’s puppet body. Elizabeth Mason, or as she was now called, Eve sank into the water with a happy groan, allowing her body to relax under the careful pulses and massages of her boyfriend’s highly mutable flesh. Drake’s puppet body dispelled and shifted into a mass of fleshy tendrils, one retrieving a basket of bathing supplies while the rest cradled Eve’s body and massaged it gently, exfoliating and rejuvenating, producing compounds to aid in relaxation and health and filling the water with a calming, light green tint.

Eve smiled and began washing herself down, rubbing shampoo into her hair as Drake’s tendrils continued their gentle ministrations. A thought struck her as she lathered, causing her to chuckle and speak out into the open air, “You know, Drake, isn’t it cheating if I have a hot bath in the middle of a camping trip where we’re supposed to be, and I quote, ‘Roughing it’?”

The pool quivered as Drake’s head formed out of a pile of shifting plates and spines, fixing Eve with an amused look. “Well, y’know, I only ever took that to mean that we wouldn’t have tech more fancy than a flashlight and a gas stove… not that we need those two either.”

Eve chuckled and patted Drake’s head with an unoccupied hand, the other receiving a professional level manicure from more tendrils. “Well, if you put it like that…” She hugged Drake’s disembodied head to her chest, squeezing gently. “Thanks for taking me out here, Drake.”

“Not a problem, Beth. Anything for you, remember?” Drake’s voice came unhindered, its source coming from a raised, almost speaker-like portion of the surrounding plates.

Drake continued massaging his girlfriend as she bathed, taking care to be as thorough as possible. Hours passed, the two engaging in smalltalk and light banter, until finally the sun set and stars filled the night sky. Eve rose from the pool, a last sweep of Drake’s tentacles absorbing the last of the excess water and eliminating the need for towels. As she dressed, Drake’s body dissolved into thick orange slime, absorbing the water and allowing him to reform a few feet away, already clothed. Once he had regained full functionality, he slung an arm over his girlfriend’s shoulders and pulled her in for a hug and a kiss, wrapping around her in a comforting and protective embrace. Smiling at each other, Eve and Drake fell into a contented half-doze, merely sitting and basking in their other’s presence.

No words were needed between them, not when both of them knew exactly how to manipulate their cells to pass on messages in their own special way. Drake often felt that it made the two of them closer than most other couples could ever think about.

At this point, Drake and Eve both felt that there was nothing that could go wrong with their moment, their camping trip.

“Doctor Code, if you’d be so kind as to release test subject, oh let’s say…. 393 out for a little test run, that would be wonderful.”

“Yes sir! You heard the boss! Release 393!”

But then again, when had anything ever gone right for the bio-manipulating couple? As a single, fleeting strand of paranoia flashed through Drake’s neurons, a minute hiss of air and an unnoticeable whine signaled the movement of a patch of grass some thirty meters behind the cuddling lovebirds. Metal plates retracted in an iris pattern, grass and disturbed soil falling into the depths of an absurdly deep and dark tunnel.

Within the blackness, a pair of glowing orange eyes lit up as their owner awoke and began growling. Immediately, it caught the scent of Drake and Eve, their entwined aromas enticing a massive worm-like creature to slither from its holding cell and out into the open night air. Slimy, soft flesh compressed and squeezed out from a too-small opening, bringing a seemingly impossible length of heavily mutated and genetically engineered flesh and blood from underground. What was currently exposed already showed a length exceeding a hundred meters, segmented with soft, stubby legs akin to those of a salamander. Hundreds of legs worked at the soil, digging in with strangely sharp claws and hauling the worm to freedom. It swung its centipede-esque head around, six eyes gleaming and jaws scything through the air. Long, feathery antennae scented the air and gave it direction. And with a quiet hiss of hunger and sadism, it dove underground, all six hundred feet of worm sliding underground at frankly ludicrous speeds.

Drake and Eve, however, had not noticed the creature, so engrossed were they in the subjective majesty of the other’s presence. At some point, their clothes had been abandoned, though they simply clung to each other. Sex, for the both of them, was something that neither of them needed no matter how amazing it was. For now, it was just the two of them.

That is, until the ground erupted in front of them and the centipede-worm launched from the earth and coiled around, head raised in an intimidating gesture. Both Drake and Eve immediately sprung to a stand, Drake’s tail glowing with blinding heat and Eve’s hands glowing with charging laser beams. The worm itself sized the pair up before previously unseen slits along its sides opened and a quiet hiss of escaping gas filled the air.

Drake’s eyes immediately widened and he slammed his hand over Eve’s mouth, flesh warping and twisting to form a crude gas mask even as he melted his flesh down and removed his nose and mouth, lungs quietly dissolving inside him as he shifted his body’s structure to become anaerobic and chemosynthetic. With a single reverberating growl from deep within his chest, the lizard-man leapt into the air and swung his tail down into the worm’s head, eliciting a screech of pain as it flailed. Steaming orange liquid poured from the gash upon the flailing beast’s head, dousing the ground and causing grass to wither and dissolve. The air filled with hissing, from the ground, from the worm, even from Drake.

The worm continued flailing, limbs catching its own hide as it slashed itself open in a bizarre ritual of self mutilation, bleeding acid and spraying the corrosive droplets through the air. Drake caught the tail end of one spray and immediately his lungs came back as his mouth tore itself open, allowing him to scream in horrific agony.

Where the acid had struck, Drake’s flesh had blackened and decayed, even with his regenerative ability, the necrotic flesh kept expanding in area, slowly covering his limbs and abdomen with spots of black. As he writhed on the ground, he had the good sense to fall away from the slowly expanding pool of orange, viscous acid, instead using his tail to drag himself away from the scene of devastation while jettisoning whole chunks of flesh as the acid ate through them. The worm kept up its self-mutilation, expanding the acid pool around it even as its wounds hissed closed and continually reopened. Around the worm was a discolored patch of air, nearly twenty feet in diameter and growing. What it did, not even Drake could tell. Eve remained in the background, scanning the worm’s mitochondria to see just what it could do.

No such luck. She soon had to press a hand to her head and reorder her own cells to stave off the utter headache that came from trying to read constantly shifting mitochondria. In some areas, it was a direct mirror to… Drake’s… mito….

“Shit! Drake! I think this thing knows how to change its DNA just like you do!” she shouted, barely getting the sound through the gas mask that Drake had so roughly clamped to her face. From where he lay recuperating from the acid, Drake looked at the worm with narrowed eyes, pupils shifting and retinas moving aside as his eyes changed their internal structures to suit his needs. Twin pinpricks of light grew from the depths of his crimson orbs and lanced out across the space between Drake and the worm, the initial flash paving the way for the absolutely massive arcs of light flashing from Drake’s eyes.

Both beams struck the worm and tore through it the same way they tore through most everything else: messily and with the stench of smoke and ozone. When the lasers finally died down, the worm’s headless, charred corpse flopped into the pool of acid it had generated, twitched a few times, and lay still.

Drake sighed and ran a hand through his hair as he stood. He groaned aloud and turned to Eve, “Beth, looks like we’re gonna have to cut this trip short. We’d… we’d better re… re….” Drake trailed off as he collapsed to his knees, blood dripping from his nose and eyes unfocused. He stared down at his hands as they erupted into a frenzy of tendrils and whips, trying in vain to fight off the strange chemicals racing through his body. Drake’s world went numb, colors fading and sounds blurring together into a constant droning whine. Eve screamed and rushed over to him as the gas mask over her face fell to the ground and dissolved. She cradled his head in her lap as she tried furiously to burn the chemical out via controlled cell detonation. Behind her, the worm’s corpse gave a final hiss as the pores along its body dilated open and released a cloud of gas that completely enveloped the surrounding area.

Eve rubbed her eyes, confused as to why the world was spinning and blurring around her. She tried to stand and carry Drake, but the world fell out from under her and the pair collapsed to the ground in a tangle of insensate limbs. Her last sight before the world went dark was the flashing of something within the corpse of the massive worm, even as its body started dissolving into the acid that filled and sustained it.

With a last, dizzy utterance of confusion, Eve fell into the darkness.

“Miss File, how go things along the public front?”

“Just fine, sir. The evening news should be on pronouncing our newest success.”

“Excellent work, Miss File. In fact, you may have tomorrow off. I know you’ve not had enough time with your children lately, and have taken to simply leaving them in the daycare area. Go and spend tomorrow with the children, Miss File.”

“Y-are you sure, sir? I mean, I’m grateful, but… there’s a lot of work to be done…”

“Nonsense. Just take your leave, Miss File. You’ve earned it.”

“T-thank you sir!”

“Of course, my dear.”

A well manicured hand reached out and withdrew a slim remote from the confines of a desk drawer, pointing it to the wall behind the shadowy figure and turning on the massive screen installed there.

“Now, let’s see what’s on the evening news…”

“Good evening Equestria, I’m your host, Honest Press and I’m here with you today to discuss Genesys Pharmaceutical’s latest product: The Vitality Pill.”

The pretty, silver haired E-type woman on screen caught Twilight’s attention as she wound down after a long day of paperwork and research. “Vitality Pill, hmm? This bears investigation…”

“Yes folks, this little pill supposedly grants the user a slow, but noticeable increase in physical capability, stamina, mental strength, and even magical prowess when taken in the prescribed doses! I’m here with one of the first testers, a Mr. Long Shot, to see if this little pill really works. Mr. Long Shot? What’s your opinion on this so-called ‘Vitality Pill’?”

The focus shifted to a young U-type fiddling over a compound bow. “Well, as far as I can tell, the pill works. I mean, I got caught up in a real bad case of pneumonia a few weeks ago, and recovery was pretty hard, but I took a couple of the pills and now I’m almost back to normal, really.”

Twilight ignored the rest of the news report, already typing out an email to the investigative teams to see just what this pill could do.

[REDACTED]

Or: How I learned to stop worrying and slaughter the world

Once upon a tiny blue dot in space, there lived a man. A rather ordinary man. Barely even a man, really. More of a boy.

This person was a man known as Drake Long. Five feet eleven inches tall, pale, long haired, fiery tempered, and also a decent fighter.

And on a tangent, Chinese.

Drake himself was an avid fan of many, many things. One of which was a little known website called:

The SCP Foundation.

Anything that was on the website, he could either find nigh instantly, or knew by heart. And among all of the terrifying and sometimes humorous objects and entities described on this website, he had one favorite. One entity that he personally felt he resonated with:

SCP 682, the Hard To Kill Reptile.

A Keter class omnicidal killing machine with a nigh infinite ability to adapt to anything trying to kill it. Including, but not limited to: Artery clogging, industrial cutting lasers, mental takeover, SCP 173, SCP 162, high altitude impact, the sun, SCP 999, a toothbrush that eradicates all organic material in contact with it, what was heavily implied to beGod, and more.

Small wonder why Drake had SCP 682 as a favorite.

But that’s beside the point. What is the point, is the fact that Drake had decided to cosplay as a humanized SCP 682. Simple enough; an orange prison outfit, a fake prisoner number, some modifications, a pair of clawed gloves, a wig, some colored contacts, and a fake tail. Easy.

Thus kitted out, Drake went to the San Diego Comic-Con of 20XX.

The day had started normally enough; get to the ‘Con, wander around, purchase things, goggle at the sheer amount of brilliant costumes, feel bad for such a plain costume, be asked about his costume, business as usual.

Then things got odd.

It started with a small prop shop in one of the back corners of the convention center. The shopkeeper was a decidedly unnerving character dressed as SCP 049 and was reading some manga or another.

Pushing it out of his mind, Drake found something that immediately caught his eye: a large sew-on patch shaped like the SCP Foundation’s logo.

“Hey, how much for this patch?” Drake asked, pointing at the aforementioned object.

“Two dollars,” replied the creepy shopkeeper, not looking up from his manga and sounding decidedly bored.

“Hey sweet!” With that, Drake promptly snatched up the patch and retreated to a secluded alcove to sew the rather large patch to the back of his uniform.

And in case you were wondering, he had a sewing kit in the backpack he was wearing.

As soon as he’d sewn on the patch and donned his shirt again, Drake felt a most curious sensation; one that felt like swirling and tingling and poking and stabbing and burning and shocking and drowning and being torn to pieces all at once.

To the rest of the convention, everyone within seeing distance had just seen a random guy rise into the air and explode into a ball of rainbow lightning and fire. That promptly turned and collapsed in on itself.

Planet: Equus. Country: Equestria. City: Canterlot. Location: Anomalous Entity Containment Foundation Site 34.

It was a quiet day at Site 34, thought Head Researcher Twilight Sparkle. Of course, such days usually ended with containment breaches that led to either massive amounts of deaths from the D-classes or spontaneous parties. Normally the latter, but sometimes 173 liked to wander, and she was very clumsy. A deadly combination considering that deadly touch of hers.

“Oi Egghead! Are we gonna go get some flying practice or what?”

AEC 1-RD, Codenamed: Rainbow Dash. An otherwise completely normal P-Type human being, save for the factshe was often observed breaking the sound barrier when average max speed was about two hundred miles. Classified Safe, enough to be allowed to wander around without restraints, though prefers to be in the presence of Head Researcher Sparkle, just like AEC’s 2-6 and recently AEC 77, Sunset Shimmer.

On a side note:

AEC 2-PP is a minor level reality warper, capable of defying the laws of physics in a manner suited solely to comedy. This despite outwardly seeming to be nothing but a normal E-Type human. Classified Safe.

AEC 3-AJ is noted as anomalously strong and at times, anomalously dense. Capable of reinforcing strikes and other such momentum transferring actions via the subconscious manipulation of dark matter. Again, seemingly a normal E-Type human. Also Safe.

AEC 4-FS is a seemingly normal P-Type human, though expresses a potent memetic hazard in the form of her Stare. Incredibly shy, secondary characteristics include the ability to spontaneously induce low level diabetic shock in nearly anyone. Safe.

AEC 5-RT is capable of manifesting a high quality psychiatrist's couch, commonly referred to as a "Fainting Couch", whenever under duress. Also possesses a memetic hazard in the form of incredibly persuasive and painful whining. Is otherwise a standard U-Type human.

AEC 6-SP, an ordinary D-Type human, with the ability to use his Type's standard firebreath as a long range teleportation medium. Appears as an adolescent. Is attracted to AEC 5-RT. A lot.

AEC 77-SS, a U-Type Human with the ability to cross between this world and one without magic, can also shift into a more demonic form when containing enough power. Formerly considered Euclid, shifted to Keter when first transformed, now considered Safe.

“Not right now, Rainbow. I still need to make my rounds. Maybe later.”

“Tch. Egghead. Well, later Twi! I’m going to the gym.”

“Have fun, Rainbow.”

As the rainbow-haired woman left, Head Researcher Sparkle turned away and did her rounds, checking in on each anomalous entity, making sure that each was securely contained. She then made her way to the large courtyard of Site 34, planning on using the area to practice her higher level magic; magic that had gone long unused due to her position.

And then the sky rent itself apart in a blaze of lightning and strange colors, depositing what appeared to be an unconscious feral-class D-Type human.

“AEC med teams! We have a situation in the courtyard! Bring containment field generators too!”

And the alarms started.

◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ ◼︎◼︎◼︎ ◼︎◼︎ ◼︎◼︎◼︎ ◼︎◼︎◼︎

Or: Screw the Rules! I’m an Immortal Lizard-Beast From Hell!

Drake awoke in chains, groggy and disoriented, and absolutely covered in blood. He was also naked, the shreds of his previous outfit lying on the floor some few meters away. Thankfully, he had a blanket to protect his modesty from any prying eyes.

He groaned, silently wondering just what the hell had happened to him. Hell, even his tail hurt for some reason.

‘Tail? Oh… right…. I got…. right...’

He mumbled to himself, still faintly incoherent, though recovering swiftly. After a good thirty seconds, he was awake enough to observe his surroundings.

The same room he’d been in, with a massive, brutalized corpse stinking up the corner near the door. Same platforms, same concrete floor, though a lot of the room was shattered in areas, including the observation windows. Steel chains on his wrists, attaching him to his cot. And finally, a layer of blood so thick so as to completely obscure most of flesh crusted over his arms, torso, and judging by the smell and feel, his face as well. And strangely enough, his tail.

Looking around further, he noticed the swarm of people running around, trying desperately to fix the strange amount of damages that had happened to his room. Finally fed up with the amount of questions he had, Drake hissed in irritation, blinking his six eyelids in irritation before shouting, “Hey, anyone wanna tell me just what the FUCK happened in here!?”

All activity froze in an instant, with the sole exception of one person hastily whispering something he couldn’t make out into a walkie talkie.

“Shit, the anomaly is awake! Everyone, containment positions!” Some scientist shouted, a frenzy of activity following as each and every person, from the armored guards to the hazmat outfitted janitors, moving into predefined positions.

“Alright everyone, hold out until the Head Researcher arrives; I’m going to initiate first contact. Guards, cover me.” The scientist strode forward, examining a clipboard as he walked, wings fluttering slightly and a thin sheen of sweat forming.

Drake did nothing but stare, his forked, blue tongue flickering in and out of his mouth and tasting the unlucky scientist’s scent.

‘This guy smells… like formaldehyde and blood. There’s also an underlying scent that says… truthfulness? What the fuck?’

He kept his opinion to himself as the doctor drew near, only huffing out an irritated, “So, you gonna tell me what the hell happened and why I’m naked and covered in blood?”

The man’s wings ruffled as he gulped, clearly intimidated by the blood smeared youth in front of him. “A-ah… as far as we can tell, from what one witness managed to report… you… you transformed into some kind of large beast and killed the AEC that was chasing our witness. We found you curled up naked around her, both of you were unconscious, however….”

“I was WHAT!?” The scream that came out of Drake’s mouth was more akin to a screeching roar, such was its volume. It even managed to blow the scientist back a few steps.

“Ease up there, pardner. Ain’t nobody sayin’ ya did nothin’ too bad.” A new voice cut into the conversation, the rookie scientist scampering away while a new person walked into the room, outfitted in farm clothes and a lasso.

“... Who are you?” Drake asked, confused at the seemingly out of place woman in front of him.

“Ah’m Applejack, but you can call me AEC 3. Now don’t you be messin’ with any’a the fine people round here, ‘r I’m gonna hafta take exception t’that.” The smile never left Applejack’s face, not even when she threateningly cracked her knuckles in Drake’s face.

He leaned back slightly, even though some instinct inside of him was telling him to rip off her pretty little face, and hissed, third eyelids forming protective shells over his eyes.

“What’n the-!?”

“Fascinating!” Another voice broke in, this time a considerably more at ease scientist, who knocked away the scary farm girl and proceeded to invade Drake’s personal space while everyone else in the room shifted awkwardly.

“Gah!” Obviously, Drake was rather uncomfortable with the situation, as evidenced by his toes clawing gouges into the floor, his fingers clawing into his cot, and his tail slicing deeply into the wall behind him. Oh, and the hiss involuntarily emanating from his throat, as well as the rapid blinking of his nictitating membrane, along with the rapid flickering of his tongue.

Twilight was manic, examining every last feature of the anomalous D-type being, from his curiously long, forked tongue, to his nictitating membranes, even to the blade on his tail.

After a long five minutes of examination, all of which Drake spent furiously hissing and twitching, Twilight finally stood straight and addressed the room at large, “Well, everyone, I have good news! This anomaly is safe enough to not confine to a single cell!”

Not many of the various personnel thought it much of a good thing.

“So, Mr. Anomaly, what is your name?”

Said anomaly narrowed his eyes and pouted, crossing his arms and using his tail blades to scratch at the four red lines under his left eye.

“My name? Drake…. I’m Drake Long. Please never touch me like that ever again,” He half spat, half whimpered, emotions shifting across his face rapidly.

Twilight’s slightly manic smile never wavered as she unlocked the poor SCP’s manacles and dragged him out the door, waving off the concerned guards and leading Drake on a ‘Tour’ of the facilities, wrecked as they were.

“I suppose we should start with the AECs wandering the halls, yes? Well, the walking statue is Mason Chisel, AEC 222, he turned to living stone six years ago and has been here ever since. Let’s see… the flying serpent out that window over there is Amber River, AEC 88, he’s a spirit dragon from somewhere in the east. The only one he ever interacts with is AEC 1000, she’s riding on his back now, actually.” She pointed out the window, where a massive congregation of humans and AECs was gathered, repairing the damages to the building. “Over there is AEC 26, the giant robot with the S on its chest. There’s also AEC 626, the tiny blue one holding up that I-beam. And then there’s AEC 6, my personal assistant and adopted little brother, teleporting the rubble away.”

Drake stared down at the multitude of AECs, some of them waving up at him despite his position, and noticed the pubescent boy seemingly disintegrating rubble with green fire. As he contemplated the strangeness of the phenomenon, he never noticed Twilight dragging him further into the compound to meet some of the other AECs.

After a good three hours of touring, the pair hastily fled to the requisitions office after noticing that Drake had been clothed in nothing more than a slightly ragged bedsheet around his waist like it was a kilt.

Now dressed in a more standard set of t-shirt and jeans, modified to make room for his extra assets and proudly sporting his SCP number and logo, Drake sat in the cafeteria, eating some form of mystery meat while waiting for his escorts to arrive.

‘This meat…. what the fuck is this? It feels like meat…. smells like meat… but I literally cannot tell what it is! It also tastes like shit. Never eating this ever again.’

Thusly fed up with the fact that mass produced cafeteria food is crap no matter where one is, Drake shoved his tray across the table with an annoyed hiss and an intimidating growl, where it was stopped by a pale and well manicured hand.

“Darling, whatever did this pile of disgusting slop do to you?” The owner of the voice, a slender, supermodel-esque woman with delicately curled, purple hair and an elegant blouse and skirt combo with a diamond pattern inked in, asked. “Then again, it is a disgusting pile of slop disguised as edible meat…”

“Got that right. I swear, that stuff is gonna kill me if I keep eating it.”

A new voice cut in, this time belonging to a rainbow haired tomboy-looking girl with blue wings, “Of course it is, it’s cafeteria food. What’d you expect, a five star meal?” The girl was perched on the back of Drake’s chair, somehow staying balanced despite the awkward positioning.

“And who are you two, anyway?” Drake asked, standing up and letting Rainbow fall over with the chair.

“Ah! Dude! Not cool! Eh, I’m “AEC 1”, call me Rainbow Dash. Fastest thing alive, at your service.” She punctuated her declaration with a quick pose and teasing wink.

“Uh… okay…. Well, you both know who I am, but… I guess I’m AEC 682, Drake Long. Transforming lizard man, at your service.” He bowed shallowly, then turned to the only unintroduced person at the table. “So, who’re you?”

She pressed a hand to her chest and struck a fabulous pose.

“Moi? I am AEC 5, Rarity! World class fashionista and former owner of the Carousel Boutique!” Each sentence was punctuated by another pose, along with strange backlighting and drifting flower petals, both provided, respectively, by a glowing ferret-thing and a scientist with a fan and a sack of the aforementioned petals.

Both women stood together, finishing with one final pose before finishing with a flourish and a declaration, “We’re your tour guides for the rest of the day!”

The lizardman only stared in dumbfounded silence. Shaking himself from his stupor, he turned to a nearby staff member and whispered, “Are they always like this?”

“Unfortunately yes. You get used to it. Eventually.” The man’s gruff reply only sunk Drake’s spirits as the stranger returned back to his data tablet and coffee.

Such thoughts were then left in the dust as the fashionista and the speedster dragged him away, both bickering about where to take their poor captive.

Five hours later (9:00 pm)

The trio had made their way across almost all of the entire compound, with only two containment cells left to tour.

The Euclid Class AEC 333: The LSD Flytrap, and the Keter Class AEC 747: The Ruby of Apollyon.

AEC 333 was a six foot tall, sapient, four-lobed venus flytrap that, whenever it was in a bad mood, sprayed a cloud of gaseous hallucinogenics from its quad-hinged mouth area at the nearest organic object. Which it then attempted to consume (It really never consumed anything unless it directly blundered into the mouth, though).

AEC 747 was a fist sized ruby that glowed dark red in low light. It latches on to whatever organic material it can get and awakens the being’s most primal instincts. Normally this only lead to caveman-like behaviour, though no one was keen on testing it on some of the AECs that were decidedly inhuman.

Thus began the beginning of the end when, as the trio entered viewing range of the cell containing 333, a scientist informed them that it was in a good mood and was thus receptive to visitors. The trio entered, thinking that the flytrap wouldn’t attack.

Of course, such things always happen anyway, this instance was no different.

As soon as Drake got within five feet of the massive flora, he was sprayed with a potent cloud of hallucinogenic gas, one far more powerful than had ever been recorded before. The gas was also mixed with enough acid to completely destroy whatever it touched.

Thankfully, Rainbow Dash and Rarity had stayed far enough to dodge the cloud, though they were quickly pushed aside by Drake, who was clawing at his eyes, screaming, giggling, shrieking and stumbling around in a frenzy that likely would not stop until his heart did.

And then he stumbled into 747’s containment unit and slammed forehead first into the small gem. The room exploded into a torrent of swirling, red magic, everyones’ screams drowned out by the pained roars blaring from the ruined entrance of the containment unit.

Then, the mass of magic swirled back into its epicenter and all went silent. For a few moments, everyone wondered whether or not to try to recover the likely dead lizardman from the room.

Then the growling started.

682 burst out of the room, tail glowing red hot and eyes burning yellow. It rushed through the hallways, disemboweling any poor sap that got in its way, before blasting into the room of AEC 71: The Cyclops and tearing the mutated human apart, consuming its energy releasing eye and feasting on its energy conversion organs.

The runes on its back glowed again, extending nearly to its hips by now. 682 leapt from the room and continued its trail of destruction, consuming nearly fifty AECs of various abilities, its runes extending to its tail, and now swirling inwards to create fractal patterns.

Several staff members tried valiantly to limit the destruction, but the beast proved to be too powerful, tearing through their ranks like a Dillon M134 Gatling Gun through rice paper.

The more powerful Safe Class AECs fared better, though they still sustained heavy losses, including AEC 31: The Assimilator Cat.

As one can imagine, a being that can assimilate the traits of whatever it consumes eating a being that can absorb and assimilate anything organic and smaller than it via touch would be a Very Bad Thing™.

Thankfully, the inorganic AECs managed to corner 682 in a courtyard without much more loss. Unfortunately, this only served to anger the lizard, its facial features rearranging and twisting into a bizarre, five petaled open maw with its four eyes orbiting the ruby in the center of the headless flower-mouth.

682 shrieked in rage, the sound destroying all eardrums within a 100 foot radius, before unleashing an absolutely massive beam of destruction from the five red orbs in its maw, the beams converging and strengthening, until it impacted one wall, went through, and proceeded to pierce a hole through five more magically reinforced walls until it pierced through to the open air of the Everfree forest.

While everything within viewing stared in shock, 682 escaped into the wilderness, roaring and shrieking the whole way.