Chapters ~a thousand years before Twilight's ascension
Position of View: Jack Frost(Everfree-castle, library)
and then, Fly left and was never seen again... I closed the book I was reading, Pre-equestrian myths and tales . Just as I expected, several stories were missing, including the myths of Zauberer , Morte , Wojna and mine.
This was going to make things a lot harder, but I already suspected so, seeing as nobody but the old guy was able to see me, and the old guy not really see either.
It was then that I heard a noise. If I had to make a guess, I would say it was originating from the castle of the 2 sisters, but I didn't really care back then. I looked out of the window, I looked at the forest surrounding Everfree-castle.
The castle was called Everfree because it was supposed to be free forever, not bound by any shackles, and the forest was slowly getting smaller and smaller, being consumed by the city like a host gets consumed by some parasites.
I thought about my past, all the years I have been in the ice-shard, and what I can remember from this time, ignoring the sounds of magic in the background, ignoring that I slowly freezed the book into a solid ice-block.
I remembered one of the many times I tried to be the goalkeeper while we trained football-penalties, it was 1 of the times we were training in the garden of my old house.
"So, are you ready?" Phillip, an old friend of me and my brother, asked, going back a few steps so he could gather speed before kicking the ball.
"I'm as ready as I'll ever be" I told him, trying to predict where he will shoot the ball to get a goal, to the left or to the right, high or down?
Phillip started to run, stopped on one foot to get his momentum into the other, causing him to kick the ball very hard...
I was too slow to react to even attempt to move or block the ball, causing the ball that was aimed straight to my head to land in my face. I was caught unprepared, and because I was a whiny pussy, I fell down and tried to hold back the tears of pain, but I didn't succeed.
"Hey, are you okay?" my brother asked me. Philipp ran the short distance to me, wanting to make sure it was nothing really bad. He, too ,asked: "Hey are you okay? Look, I didn't want to hit you in the face. I was actually aiming for your nuts... wait, I am not making this any better, am I?"
'But that same statement, that he was aiming for something much worse, made me laugh. I remembered.
It was then, that I heard a loud crash happening, destroying the building next to the library and leaving behind only a crater.
How I knew that? That same building once was the only thing next to the forest you could see from the library, now there is only the forest.
I looked to what once was a book, and decided that I should better bring the ice-block back where it came from, lest someone could get suspicious.
After that I should get back to the old man, after all I owe him my freedom, kind of.
A few moments before
Change of Position of View: Nearby in the Everfree-Forest
"Oww, my head" I said, before looking around. I seemed to be in a rather normal oak-forest, next to a town seemingly using fireworks, seeing as how the sky seemed to explode now and then.
Seeing as I had nothing better to do, I decided to go to the town., it seemed rather... middle-aged, not the pre-historian buildings I had to endure for so long.
I thought about how I got here, just to see I had no memories about it. Dafuq? , I thought, it's definitely not because of alcohol, I never drank alcohol. The last thing I remember is going to sleep in that cave... it was somewhere around a chain of especially high-reaching mountains, I think.
Seeing as how I reached the outskirts of the town, I turned to the next building. It seemed like the house of some rich snob, seeing as how it has the over-reaching 2nd floor and takes more space inside it than normal houses from the middleage.
Politely as I was, I went to the door and knocked at the door.
I don't know what I expected, probably something like 1 of those rabbit-like things I met in the equivalent of the stone-age in this universe opening the door, maybe even a ghost, but what I never would have thought to happen happened:
The damn house exploded right in front of me.
Realising that they did NOT used fireworks, but rather seemed to have a battle between 2 sorcerors, I decided to go to the next village instead.
It's not like I had to eat anything anyways.
Some time later
Change of Position of View: Jack Frost(Everfree-castle,mainstreet)
"Hey, old guy" I said "I'm back."
"Ah, and here I was, thinking you had left me already." the old stallion said, moving his head into the direction of Jack Frost's voice while having his eyes closed, like the last time I spoke with him.
I laughed, before I realised he wasn't joking.
"What? You seriously thought I would leave you forever right after you get me out of the damned ice-shard?" I asked him, not believing what he said.
He sighed, before telling me: "Nobody cares for a blind, old stallion. They all just come, take a look, say: 'Oh my, you poor dear' and leave. You didn't introduce yourself either."
"I didn't? Well then, my name's Jack Frost. I am an ancient spirit of ice." I said "and actually, I want to do something useful. Do you know something I could do? Oh, look, now they end the spellwork with a giant rainbow! That's rather cool." I said, excited about the rainbow.
He really did think about something I could do, before saying: "Well, since they did a spellwork they probably have to clean up some things tomorrow. You could try to help some of the guards."
I smirked, before thinking about it and realising that I really could try that. "Thanks, I'll try that. I'll see you later,k?" I said, before running off, knowing I'd have to wake up early and near the castle to follow some guards on their duty.
Unknown to me, the 'blind' old stallion opened his eyes, revealing that they are normal and looked at where I went off to.
"Now that's done. On to the next task." he muttered to himself.
As Winter brings the Ice...
"Why am I doing this again?" I asked myself silently. I honestly don't know how the old stallion did it, but somehow he made me believe Guards had cleanup-duty...
I thought back to him, and realised I couldn't remember how he looked, or how his voice sounded. All I know is that he looked unordinairy, and that his voice sounded hypnotising. The only thing I have heard about similar to that are the old shaman-identity-hiders...
ancient puppets pumped with enough magic to put ten combined nukes to shame.
I looked at the scene, all those guards trying to hold back civilians seemed pretty funny for me, especially with that beautiful sunsif they would just...
speaking of the devil, they had yet again a problem with civilists wanting to look at the only house destroyed when the spells were woven through the air.
I didn't quite understand how half entirety of the Everfree-Guard was unable to keep the public away while the other half seals up the soon-to-be-construction-side, but I tried to think of yet another way how to get the attention of the Guard to let them see the intruders, without telling right away that there was a frosty-human-ghost in the middle of them.
I groaned, and thought about the good ol' days...
Sor'Gat, the shaman of the Geror'-Clan, which consisted out of giant rabbits with fangs that would put a mammoth to shame... in relative size, looked over to me, and asked:
"Whatcha there? There'n ghostey?"
I loved those bunnymen, well, rabbitmen, they always spoke with a funny accent and wrong grammar, and at the same time were able to say words of greater wisdom than I heard ever before.
I laughed, and told him: "Yeah, there's a ghostey, a friendly ghostey. Non-eating-ghostey, you know?"
He then looked over me in such a weird way, with mischievousness in his eyes, and said: "No-atng-ghosteys worse, life'n unshiny. Prepar'n for catastroph'n."
I never figured out how they said atng, but I know I did have pretty rough times.
I was about to answer, I remember, when he left. I realised that that was the usual behavior of the shamans, they often went away in the middle of a conversation to get something. Most of the time it was something the other one needed, so I waited patiently for him to return.
When he did return, he gave me a small puppet looking like him: "Needcha ever help, call'n through void'n. Help'n much others before, help'n much other after."
I cringed a bit about his wrong use of 'many' and 'much', but thanked him nonetheless.
He then looked at me in this strange way only shamans do, and continued his speech, now speaking completely fine: "You will find that others are more willing to help when you are offering to help them in exchange. Fill something with your essence like I did with the puppet, and you will be called, but will be also more qualified for calling for help."
He then spoke 'normal' again, before leaving me more confused than ever before, but not ever after.
I heard his voice still, even after he left, in my head when I held the puppet:
If'n need help'cha can be'n shout'n me.
I was thrown out of my memories by a loud shout of a guard.
Seems like I didn't have to even make them realise there was someone inside the 'construction'-side. Snickering, I realised something felt oddly familiar... as if a known essence was here at most two days ago...
I put my bag down, before going into meditation-stance, folded my left leg vertical towards my right leg, and opened my mind for the sight of the essence.
As I entered the realm of souls, essence or magic, however you call it, I felt a pitchblack presence, causing my whole body to shiver, something was evil enough to do that to a frost-spirit.
When I started to construct my mental defenses, I felt it fading, fleeing. It would have been interesting to see what that was... , I thought, before re-focussing my mind to the task at hand: The familiar essence.
Sensing around, there is no better word to describe what you do in the essence-realm when searching for an essence, I quickly spotted my target, an essence of a dull gray, but with black to end all blacks woven into it, it was not a colour you get for being evil, but rather for being him...
Pitch , currently incarnated by Albert Rose, the Nightmare King, the Boogeyman (in this universe more well known as Boogeymane) and also...
my brother, having visited the Comic-Convention all those years before, where he bought that Onyx...
POV-Change: Pitch
Was there no end to this forest?
I feel like I have been wandering in here for an eternity, even though I am pretty sure it was not even a day since I woke up at the edge of that blow-town... considering the night has risen already.
I get the feeling somebody is thinking of me, how sweet...
"After all, I can't get forgotten now, can I?", I asked myself, pondering about that dreadful possibility, "Being forgotten without knowing even where I am, now I can't let that happen..."
"You could, but it wouldn't be your wisest choice..."
"WHERE ARE YOU?" I screamed, looking around for a while, until I finally managed to calm myself. "Calm down, Albert. You are even hearing things now, how bad can this day become?"
"Much worse than it already has, dear Pitch, Nightmare King, also known as Boogeymane..." the voice said.
I smiled, knowing I had the upper hand over... myself? Argh, anyways, I then told myself: "That may be true, but then tell me why there is nothing you talk from?"
I would swear I heard a chuckle, before the voice said: "There is something. Look above you, and your question answers itself."
I wondered what the voice meant, then I shrugged and looked into the nightsky.
I wasn't prepared to see the moon having already risen to its primetime.
I wasn't prepared to see the stars forming a big hole around the moon.
And I definitely wasn't prepared to see a freaking huge formation on the moon that looked like a FREAKING UNICORN!
All of my surprise, and anti-amazement could only be worded by one sentence:
"You got to be kidding me..."
"As much as I would love to, I am not kidding you. You have brought my twin to life, and my twin me. You paid for it, she didn't. There is currently for me just one way to fight here... by teaching you how to use your shadowbending abilities you haven't used for centuries." the voice... the unicorn on the moon said...
Wait a minute...
"What do you mean with that? I've never used shadow-magic before, I mean, I always wanted to, but never could because there is no magic!" I shouted, stunned with surprise about everything that has happened, and silently praying that I truly can use shadow-magic.
"Excuse me... we have forgotten my twin did encage your mind immediately after you animated her..." Ooni... Moon-Unicorn? Ah, forget it. Now that I think about it, I do look like Pitch from 'Rise of the Guardians'... so that is probably a parody of the man in the moon, probably mare in the moon or something like that.
Well, anyways, the moonspirit said that, and then I fell on my face of excitement.
When I first tried to stand back up, I was hit in the back by an object, causing me to fall down again...
Learning from this, I now tried to turn around, and saw a figure looking like Jack Frost fly above me.
"Huh, that was close..." I said, just now realising I cloaked myself in darkness...
Must be an instinctual thing... and now that I realise it, I knew without knowing that I did not need food...
"You should probably look and find out what that thing was..." the mare in the moon told me, seemingly having problems to keep her emotions under control, and was... happy?
I picked up the object, seeing now that it was a puppet halftrapped in ice...
It was then that I heard the voice... no, scratch that, voices:
If'n need supporters to can be'n just call me.
The mare in the moo... scratch that, I should be allowed to call her she now, she then said: "It is an essence-container... you should add your own taint of essence and call your own line..."
Since she promised to teach me shadow-magic, I was suddenly very obedient to her, so I focused my soul and poured it into the ice, turning half of it into shadows...
"You get something if I get something."
Then suddenly the essence-container imploded, blinding me for a few seconds.
And that is how I learned not to overpour essence-containers. You don't know where they might land.
It also brings the darkness....
-----POV: Jack Frost-----
I felt a pain sting in my eye, right before I lost the connection to the realm of essences, indicating that my catalysator is gone.
"What the..." I muttered, before looking into my bag. I then doublechecked the bag, and it was true:
The catalysator, a gift from my old master, is gone. It wasn't that much of a material loss, I could create my own catalysator anytime, but it meant much to me.
It was the last thing, besides the usage of the essence-realm, left from what Sor'Gat gave me, the only thing he gave me I still had to remember him. I stared at my bag, an old, brown bag to hang around your shoulder. I looked again, just to make sure. Inside the superdimensional bag was my knife, the old firestone, the black sand and the lizard's egg, but the puppet was gone. The voodoo-puppet Sor'Gat gave me back then, not just as a sign of friendship, as a barrier from evil, but also as a promise. A promise that whatever happens, we would meet again.
I didn't realise it really until now, but for all I know Sor'Gat is long since dead...
I fell to my knees, still floating over the forest, and stared around in utter shock about my realisation.
There was something on my cheek, something cold... I cried. I cried realising my mentor was dead, and all I had left to remember him were the technique's he gave me, useful for tracking, but I never really learned how to use them to fight...
It was then that my floating stopped and I fell like my tears.
-----POV:Sor'Gat-----
"Third'n valkji?" I shouted, having felt the distortion of one of my waymarks. "Can'cha comes here?" It was unnerving, it felt like 2 other people used my waymark as theirs too, causing it to vanish. This is a case happening very rarely, seeing how rabbits doing that usually die quicker than others.
Seriously, who would do that on purpose? The last time I remember someone else pouring essebce into one of my waymark as their own was with that ghostey...
A ghostey which I felt return a day ago. "He couldn't've don' it? Couldche?"
"What is it, Shaman?" the third Valkyrie, Lightning Dust, of Flight-ring, the last fortress of and for valkyries, asked, after entering the Inner Sanctum, my meditationchamber.
The Inner Sanctum is a circle with roughly 5 metre radius, and with pillars all 60°'s 1 metre away from the outer walls. The whole thing is built out of marble, a huge waste of ressources if you ask me.
Lightning Dust wore the usual grey valkyrie-armour with built-in saddlebags, with decorations all over it. It reminds me of the armour in the Crystal Empire... those were funny times.
A valkyrie is basically a pegasus, but with much higher speed and a natural way to boost said over natural limits without feeling backlashes, and they also have a natural talent with swords, going back to their blessing by the Old Gods. They reincarnate at the pillars of the Old Gods, if the last one would be destroyed they would lose their memories and be reborn the usually way... through real birth, one of the reasons Flight-Ring is that as good defended as possible.
"Need'n material for'n waymark" I told her, causing her to sigh.
"You always need ingredients for some crazy essence-thing, why can't you let us live one day without you wanting something?" she asked, shooting an angry glare at me before turning around and walking outside.
Really, who was he to order them around like that?, Lightning Dust thought, after leaving the Inner Sanctum, and went down the corridor.
She then turned around the corner, and after entering the Great Hall she encountered the Second Valkyrie. Spear clung in her wing, her head with rainbow-hair held up she sat there, guarding the Great Hall from within. Lightning Dust never really liked Rainbow Dash.
"He wants something again, doesn't he?" Rainbow sighed. That was one of the few things they agreed on, what does Sor'Gat need those things for anyways? Lightning chuckled, before answering: "Yeah, he does. It's still a mystery why he was selected as Prime Guardian by the last of the Pillars, the Pillar of Recreation.
As long as a Pillar still stands, they have hope to rebuild the others, for the might of the Old Gods can spread again as long as there still is some.
"Anyways, I've got to get the things he wanted now." Lightning told Rainbow, just for Rainbow to ask what he actually wanted. "He wanted the materials for a waymark, wait...", she said, while searching for the list of materials needed for a waymark, so she could shave the list into Rainbow's face. "Here, that's what we need. Now sorry if I can't do smalltalk, but I have work to do."
-----POV:Unknown-----
He smiled while watching the scene's unfold in his crystal-balls.
Jack Frost, deeming his master long dead since, was crying, but that wouldn't last long. He didn't think so, he knew so. After all, why should he use emotional wrecks for his creation?
Pitch Black, overeager to learn and improve his shadow-powers, unknowing that he had used them often and much more skilled before, was ignoring any safety-measures and wrecking havoc to his surroundings.
And then there was Sor'gat... he was a threat. And he had his ways of eliminating threats before the time comes. It's good he has so much time left before Sor'Gat has to have vanished. He could watch him for a while longer, who knows? Maybe his powers could be integrated too...
"Master, it has started." a silhouette vaguely resembling a pony said, right before stepping into the light and revealing its real shape and colours:
With a tail like a squirrel, hooves like a goat and horns like a minotaur, it looks disgusting with its neonblue body, pulsing like its whole body is a heart, and darkgreen hair, seemingly flowing down like slime all the time and yet not moving at all. He looked into its eyes, crimson eyes without any signs of something else but crimson existing, yet somehow hypnotising so you can't help but stare inside its eyes. This effect is probably stronger because the rest of its body looks so disgusting, but the point still stands.
He chuckled, then said: "This Jack Frost... he might prove useful later, Creeping Madness, if he is strong enough..."
"What do you mean, Master?" Madness asked, without showing any signs of curiosity, disinterest or other emotions.
"Send Citrine , tell her to kill him." he told her.
Madness stepped back into the darkness surrounding him . He looked around, nothing is really visible but shadows, nothing but his windows... windows allowing him to watch anything he wants to watch.
"There is more to you than that..." he muttered while making the window showing Jack come closer, and zooming in Jack. "...some secret you must be hiding... you couldn't have survived back then without it."
He remembered it still, how it seemed hopeless for them, but suddenly his forces were beaten... he fought Jack, the only one who could have done that, and yet... yet his troops were still being beaten by something...
Suddenly, a transdimensional interruption made his window go black for a few seconds, then it was showing Jack again.
Who was looking at some kind of red device thing, looking like a gear with yellow teeth on it with something even he couldn't identify. He got excited when Jack opened his mouth, finally he would know the secret:
"What is this piece of..." he muttered. 'Oh' he thought 'so that is not his secret... I should probably look how my plans are going now... can't let them go unsupervised, can I?'
'In a week' I thought, watching the other members discuss my plan, 'In a week I am going to have my revenge on her.'
-----POV:Jack Frost-----
I didn't know what to make out of it. This... thing just came out of a portal. I remember looking into it, and I remember that I saw hundreds of things at once. Thousands of me's, thousands of warriors in a metal armour, thousands of mages, thousands of all kinds of creatures. I remember seeing everything at once, and yet I don't. I know what I did see, but I can't remember any pictures about it.
That... portal was mindblowing. I just hope it was the only of its kind... wait, I didn't mean it like that! I didn't want...
*Zap*
...to jinx it. I didn't bother to turn around this time, waiting for the portal to close. I heard objects hitting the ground behind me, but I didn't turn around.
And then, with the sound of air rushing in a vacuum, it disappeared. I turned around, and looked at the objects that just came.
I wondered if they would have voices too, like the gear. It would be funny if that portal would give away essence-containers. The gear's voice said:
"My name is Jacob, but you may know me better as Iron Man. I am a prankster, a warrior, an inventor, as well as a pal. If your intentions are good and you hold love in your hearts, I will be there to help you. If you need a shoulder to cry on, a partner in a mission, someone to talk to, or an ally in battle, just clutch this gear and call for my aid!"
I remember reading about Iron Man in my childhood... he had some kind of super-armour.
But back to the NEW objects, there was a three-coloured ball, the upper half was red, the lower half was white. The line between was black, with a ring at one point, surrounding a white circle. I held it up, and there really WAS a voice:
"Hear me now, those of you who have been Displaced across the universe! Those who desire strength unparalleled, and ferocity in battle like no other, simply call out for me! I am Geo, the Flame Pokémon! For those who want to roast the heavens and scorch the earth, call upon me with this, and know VICTORY!"
Huh, if he could back that up he could come in handy someday. Geo, the Flame Pokemon? I remember that show, I never was really into it, that's probably why I didn't recognise the Pokeball instantly. A pokemon called Geo? Tch, they didn't even bother to invent names, they just took already existing words if that name is anything to go by. It's not called Geology without reason...
I looked to the next object, a wide black disc with some kind of helmet ingraved into it. I put the Pokeball into my bag, and then I grabbed the... coin, and turned it. Oh, no coin, it's the helmet on both sides. Suddenly a voice boomed through my head, and I held my hands against my ears to silence it, but it was no use:
“I am the Overlord! Scourge of Equestria! Corrupter of innocence! If you seek to dominate the weak. If you wish to destroy all who oppose you. If you are willing to pay the price, then you may call upon my aid!”
I slowly reached a tree, tripping and falling, right before the voice stopped. Baffled, I looked at the coin, and thought: "That shouldn't get into the wrong hands..." before putting it into my bag, beneath everything else.
I looked at the last essence-container and... OH MY GOD! Is that sandman-sand? I looked at the miniature-statue of Sor'Gat, and grabbed it shortly after. "Guardian of the Lost" I heard, by seemingly hundreds of quiet voices echoed. 'That's not sandman's voice...' I thought, before shrugging and placing it into my bag too.
Pitch Black
I stared at the things lying before me:
A short metal stick with a single button on it, spreading the following message around it: This is Rocket. You need help out there? Me and Groot will come help you if your intentions are good. Need help with bandits, a couple of extra hands with a plan to rescue slaves, help assassinating a corrupt politician? Me and Groot will be there, and if you're one of those people who don't like killing, don't worry, we come with stun settings. And for those of you who would bring destruction upon the innocent, if you dare to call on us, prepare to battle. Don't even try it."
Then there was also a diamond, its inner powers calling to him, telling him of yet another person out there:
"I am the protector of the innocent, warrior of the weak, call upon me for assistance and I shall come. Call for the Gravity Shifter and I will make those who harm others beg for mercy as they are crushed at my feet. Hold this gem close to thine heart and I shall be at your side as a fellow warrior!"
I tried hard not to laugh, and failed. I mean, seriously? I was scared of having done something bad when overpouring the container, and it seems like others did the same thing!
Why did I ever doubt that? I had no idea. But I knew that I had to keep those things somehow, just for laughs and memories.
I started channeling the shadow-space-ability, so I could keep them in there...
Sorgat
I looked upon the cursed object, somebody really overpoured my essence-container. The side-effect, that you would get a strange essence-container seemingly from another plane of existence... it has come true.
It kind of reminded me of Jack, it being an eight-pointed-snowflake with a five-pointed-magicstar infused into it...
I didn't bother listening to the voice of madness coming from it, but rather just picked it up. Then I walked out of the Inner Sanctum, just to bump into Lightning Dust in the hallway.
"Ouch" Lightning muttered "What is it now, Sor?"
"I'm look'n for objec's now. Thanks for'che material'n." I told her, before taking her saddlebag off her back and proceed my just started journey.
I was cursed now, so I should gather the cursed objects of the Forbidden Temples to maximise my chances of survival, not that it will help very much.
I sighed, this is going to be so much trouble... Cursed Ones always live an interesting life...
And neither has to be bad.
Citrine was bored.
She was in the Great Caverns beneath The Mountain, as were all other dragons enslaved by the one known only as "Master".
"Master"... what a pity he never fought her head on. He only sent the already enslaved dragons... he knew he had no chance to beat one of the proud quartz-dragons. After all, how could he, a mere mortal, hope to beat them? Especially her, under the protection of her father, the greatest dragon of all.
Noone could beat her father... and yet somehow he ended up down here too... she never knew if it was for her, or not. She never could tell when it comes to her father.
"Citrine" the hated 'Omniwatch' Creeping Madness said "you have a job to do."
Citrine sighed, before rolling over to her other side. It was such a pity she was unable to do a thing, chained down to the ground by those chains, only getting set free for when the "Master" needs her...
Her hate couldn't be described by mere words, and yet... yet somehow noone ever has beaten the "Master". She never fought him, and never planned to do so. She focused back on the reality, before Madness takes her silence as a sign of disobeyance.
Nodrake ever escaped, and nodrake ever was seen again after disobeyance.
"What kind of job?" Citrine asked. Madness turned around, before saying: "He will send a picture of a spirit into your head. Kill the spirit."
"I will do it." she said, causing Madness to chuckle:
"You have no choice, we both know that. Nothing has a choice." Madness then left.
'Who does that Madness think she is?' Citrine growled quietly. Already she could feel the chains trapping her wings weakening, allowing her to break 'free'. 'Whatever we hope to get, 'freedom' is just a dream for us', she thought to herself.
A picture started to form in her head... a bipedal figure wearing brown leggins and a blue hoodie with white hair was shown by it. Its skin seemed quite pale, indicating a frost-spirit. Citrine chuckled weakly, before thinking: 'Atleast I am not fighting something I can't beat... but where have I seen that face before?'
The walls of her prison crumbled away, leaving not even dust. Everything was black, the blackness of The Mountain.
The blackness of The Prison, the blackness of CJGKL.
It crept from everywhere onto her, seemingly dissolving her until nothing was left.
-----POV: Jack Frost-----
"You should feel honored" a voice suddenly said behind me. I jumped up, turning around in my flight, only to be blessed by the sight of a dragon in front of me. A ten metre tall dragon, covered in not scales but seemingly one single surface, a golden surface making you think you could see through it. Two horns were tipping out of the back of its head, made out of the same material like the skin of the dragon. It's eyes were a bright green.
It was roughly two times long its height. Its frontlegs had paws, its hindlegs claws.
"Not many have a dragoness, especially a dragoness of the quartz-family, sent after their head." it... she said, while lowering her head so it's directly in front of me. "You have the honor of being defeated by Citrine the Fourth, Twenty-Sixth battleflyer of the sixth legion. Now, what is your name, Spirit?"
I felt a sudden cold running through my veins, her whole appearance screamed P2 (pure power), so I only managed to stutter: "Jack... Jack Frost."
Paralysed of fear, I could only watch as she chuckled, lifted her right front-paw, and swiped at me. "You better run, spirit. The likes of you are nothing compared to us." she screamed after me, while I was sent flying through the air. Somehow, only the device-thingy of Iron Man fell out of my bag. It activated, showing an hologram of what I remember to be him, his whole armour visible, saying the same phrase I heard when holding it. 'Huh', I thought, 'seems like I can hear audio-messages without hearing them.'
I was quickly thrown out of my thoughts by a tree flying directly at me, stopping at an ice-wall directly in front of me. I grabbed the hologram-projector, shouted at it, "I HOPE YOU CAN SWITCH TO GRENADE-MODE!" before throwing it over the wall to the dragoness. And then I witnessed a beautiful sight.
-----POV: Iron man-----
...
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I am so freaking bored! I Have been walking for a couple of hours while trying to find the problem in my boot jets, and I had nothing else to do. Oh wait, here's the problem, one of the boots needs rebooting. (Ha) I wonder if I can bug someone with these glov- then I heard a voice in my head. "I HOPE YOU CAN SWITCH TO GRENADE-MODE!" That was a surprising response, but as a friend of mine once said, 'You must find a positive light in anything so you can find your true enemies.' With a sad smile I ordered, "Jarvis, activate the dimensional portal beams." As soon as I said this, the two red gauntlets that I had on fired a misty particle beam that opened a portal about the size of me opened. I dove in and yelled, "Banzai!"
After a while, I started to feel the effect of gravity as I was falling onto a hill. I activated my thrusters and took a look at the situation I found myself in. A large, golden dragoness was slowly walking towards an ice wall while breathing fire on it. The only reason that the ice wall was still solid was because a pale, white-haired, boy with a long oak staff was keeping it frozen. Even though this looked awesome, I couldn't help but notice that the Ice wall was weakening.
I decided to do the thing that I do to all enemies that could easily tear me to pieces, annoy. I fired a repulsar beam, which reflected off of the drake but did manage to get her attention. "Another one? "Who dares to interrupt Citrine the Fourth, Twenty-Sixth battleflyer of the sixth legion from finishing her kill?!" said a loud and deep voice that was trying too hard to scare me.
I then proceeded to do the last thing that she would expect me to do. I landed on a nearby hill and erupted a deep belly laugh that just seemed to piss her off. "Okay lady, I'll give you my name. I am: the student of Surprise Pie, ace pie thrower, inventor of the party bomb, traveler of universes, adventurer, the Iron Man, to a certain abridged vampire, I am known as Michele McDoesn'texist, and I am also the guy who is going to beat the crap out of you, but you may call me Jacob. Now let's fight."
I fired a few more lasers until I realized that they would do me no good. I then said "Jarvis, got any options?"
After a few minutes I heard the familiar voice say, "Well sir, because the lasers are not working and I doubt that bullets will work either, I recommend changing into the hulk buster armor to use brute force."
"Thank you Jarvis. I just hope that this still works" While I was talking, Citrine was flying up and bearing her fangs. I then stood completely still as I started the transformation process was working it's magic on me. The armor increased in both size and density while the helmet widened and the rocket boots turned into hyper jump boots.
I then shifted my body and jumped right at the dragon. I then connected my head into her face which broke her jaw and also stunned her. I the jumped off the hard foot that I had landed on and jumped up again, this time slamming right into her armor. This broke a small hole in the armor which I stuffed a tear gas bomb as well as 10 flash bangs into. I then walked away slowly as she engulfed me in fire. While I was walking, the tear glass and flash bangs went off and took out its sight, hearing and sence of smell.
My bunker buster on my shoulder came out and was aimed at her. I then proceeded to chuckle darkly, "Do you know the new sensation sweeping the nation? Bitches love cannons!" I then blew her back with enough force to push her into my dragon party bomb trap with indestructible streamers which tied her up with the streamers.
Seeing that the threat was eliminated, I walked over to the ice wall to find someone passed out on the ground. I turned my armor back to the original and poked him. "Hey, wake up." I said in a firm yet quiet voice. The young looking one woke up as I said, "So, what's your name?"
"My name is Jack, Jack Frost, but you can call me Solveik [Solwei]. Thanks for the safe there, but... where DID you come from?" he asked, before continuing, "Oh well, I don't even know WHY she attacked me there. Said something about quartz and stuff like that, bit creepy. Is this yours?" he then walked over to the hologram-projector and held it out to me. Behind us, the dragon was engulfed in darkness and vanished.
I started at the device for a good minute before coming to the conclusion that my theory of things not staying in the void forever worked and that there were more universes that had received this. I then relaxed and said in my most calm and happy voice, "Well Solveik, my name is Jacob, but you may call me Iron Man if you want to. As for your questions, I will answer them in order. I originally came from either the same Earth or one similar to it, and was sent to an Equestria different from this one."
I took a moment to get my thoughts together. "As for the other ones, she was most likely paid to do it as a Mercenary or as a distraction, but I don't know enough about this world to know who sent her or why she would be a distraction. Now about the divide. What you are holding is basically a telepathic cell phone. It can send a mental message to someone in this universe that you have previously met, or me. This also has a hologram recorder as well as a super computer. It also can act as a beacon for me or a rope for you so denominational travel is possible. This is also useful for defence, it contains a micro energy field that absorbs attacks that involve kinetic energy. This used to be mine, but I can see that it is in good hands, so keep it."
"Wait, so... you can travel to these devices? Huh, sounds like an improved essence-container." Jack said, seemingly lost in thought. "If you can improve essence-containers like that... I wonder what else is possible. Maybe I can give a bit of my power into one?" He then closed his eyes, breathed deeply a few times and then a small box out of ice appeared in front of him, containing 3 shards of ice. "I can't say how great it is you showed her who's the boss, but take this. These shards... if you break them, they will freeze everything they touch and the air in ten metres... seeing how you can break things at a distance, that shouldn't be a problem for you. Welp, is there anything else I should know?" he asked. He then added after a short amount of time, "Oh, and are there more people like you? That would be great, and it would explain those weird messages..."
I took a moment to look at the shards before thinking, "I could use these." I then straightened myself and cleared my throughout. "In fact, I do have something to say to you. If you come across a mare with the last name of Pie, sing a duet with her before introducing yourself and she will recognize you as a family friend. Also, thanks for the shards, I will use them wisely." I then thought back to the gauntlets. "There are also more people, like yourself, who have been sent to Equestria with the powers of whatever the hell you were wearing. If you happen to have a pair of gloves that belong to a Mr. Gilgamesh, use them as well. He seemed nice, even if I never met him." I then straightened my back and asked, "So, what is this world like?"
Jack then started to laugh, before telling me, "To be honest? I have no idea. I've been stuck in a shard like these for seemingly a millennia, and all the rabbit men are extinct. Whelp, I do know that his is a 3-layer-universe, first the physical-layer, the essence-layer and the code-layer. Huh, there are ponies here inhabiting the world now... let me think... oh, right! Their guards are doing clean-up duty after some sort of battle between wizards, can you believe it? As if it wouldn't be bad enough they shaped a formation looking like them on the moon..." he mumbled, seemingly angered by the whole idea of changing the moon.
Rabbit men? Meh, I've seen weirder. "Oh, that's were you are. Well then, I can honestly give you three pieces of advice. On the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration, keep watch on the Castle of the Two sister located in the Everfree, if you observe but don't interfere, then you shouldn't have to deal with the moon being messed up. If you meet Celestia, do not mess with her cake. And if you see a magenta unicorn mare flying on a chariot with a baby dragon, keep tabs on her." I decided that I should be as vague as possible so he could figure out more on his own. " Also, whenever you think that I have been staying in your hair for too long, just say, "Our contract is complete. Earlier you mentioned that people were rebuilding something, and you have a look in your eyes says that you want to go somewhere. It doesn't take a genius to know that you want to go help, that being said, mind if I help?"
He gave me this weird look, before saying: "Sure you can help, just... they're going to freak out. You know, I got the powers of Jack Frost including the not-being-seen-rule, so... they never saw something like you before. The reconstruction-site is this way." and then he threw me out lead me to the forest, I could swear I have seen something rustling in the bushes during the walk, until we reached a town... so we are in the Everfree? "It's just down this street" he said while pointing through the walled gate "the third house to the right."
"Ok, I also have a plan about the being scary part." I then shouted in a dramatic pose, "JARVIS, activate stealth mode!" As I was saying this, my armor began to shrink and darken while my ark reactor went from blue to red.
Solveik then started to say, "How is the costume change supposed to prevent ponies from seeing you?" I then chuckled as said, "like this." I then turned invisible and then walked right next to Jack and said, "I think that that solves that."
"...it does..." he admitted. "And here I was, hoping I would see people freaking out... never saw people freaking out like... ever! Huh, now that I think about it... I probably should visit the surviving wizard later..." he then motioned me to follow him, and went down the street. "Oh" he said "they have finally managed to disperse the crowd?"
"If them freaking out, but not causing chaos is what you want, then I think I might have a way to get them back." Before he asked me to explain, I used my teachings from Surprise and I pulled two party bombs out of nowhere, threw them up, set up twenty firework launchers in an instant, then I turned visible right when the bombs landed. I was also holding a cardboard sign with the words "Iron man" written in blue crayon. He then processed what the heck was going on and tried to stop me, but I was on a roll. I then shouted, "Hello party ponies, I mean you no harm!" This resulted in about half of the ponies running away in terror and the rest just stood there with "what the hell" faces on them.
He seemed on the edge on a panic, until he realised exactly what happened. He then laughed harder than I would have thought possible for him, while the ponies started to party, all the while singing a song about partying and building up a house. There was a lightgrey mare with hair the same colour, and a rock as a cutie-mark, who looked around, and seemed to think after a few seconds: "Eh, why not.", grabbed me and got the crowd to cheer: "Iron man! Iron man! Iron man!"
I then heard a voice say: "We did not expect to see something like this a night after the battle..." and when I turned around, I realised two things:
Celestia has come here in this short amount of time
Celestia back then used the royal 'we' too.
She turned her head and looked at Solveik, then back at me, and asked, "What exactly ARE you doing here?" While the ponies threw me up yet another time (ponies are super-strong!)...
After the ponies set me down as I was moving towards Celestia, I took a bow and said, "Simple Celestia, I am throwing a party. Would you like to join?" I stood there for a while until Solveik pulled me aside and said, "What are you doing? She meant to ask what we plan on doing here, she probably did notice that we are clearly out of place."
I then said "Oh, um, sorry then." I then turned to Celestia and said in my calmest voice that I could muster, "Celestia, My new friend and I wish no harm to anyone in your fair kingdom. I can't speak for him, but I am traveler from a far away land, spreading cheer, and hell to my enemies, wherever I go." I then stood up and shoved a random cupcake in Celestia's mouth before she could ask where the aforementioned faraway land was.
She calmly chewed the cupcake, and then said: "That is fine with me, but you still should have come to me immediately, I'll have to speak about politics with the rulers of your country as soon as possible..."
Solveik rubbed the back of his head, and said: "That could be a problem, you see... my friend here comes from too far away to play politics already... right, Jacob?"
"My apologies fair princess." I said in a faked noble' s accent "but due to the circumstances of my arrival, the last thing on my mind was to go see you." Celestia then got an inquisitive look on her face. "What were these circumstances that you speak of?" I could tell that she could tell that I had a smirk on my face. It was almost like she could see through my helmet. "My friend and I were fighting a large crystal dragon." Celestia then raised an eyebrow while everyone else gasped.
"Really? Because the only dragon we could see in the past week was a quartzdragon... Citrine, the daughter of Physics to be exact." she answered while trying to hold back a smirk. "So your arrival was today? That is an explanation we can live with."
I gave a quick sigh of relief, "Thank you for understanding Celestia. I would have explained more, but due to the content, I would prefer it to be in private." Celestia then said, "Okay then, Perhaps later we may hear of this. As for now, we see no reason to keep you here, so be gone. I reverted back to base form and walked to the nearest pony, who happened to be the one who grabbed me earlier. I looked down to her and said, "You know we're I can find some cider?"
---POV: Solveik----
"You know where I can find some cider?" Jacob said, while I was complete and utterly confused. I heard a voice answer: "Cider? What is that?" before a thought settled in: There was someone... some dragon out there called Physics??? Sounds a bit arrogant to me... I mean, it's not like somebody could control the physics, right?
"So that dragon... Physics, wasn't it?" I asked "Why exactly is he called Physics?" Celestia, who was about to leave, stopped for a moment, and answered: "The records say, he can move faster than anything else, and weigh in one moment one pound, and in the next a couple of trillions. It's even said that he can create huge explosions without moving at all with him in the center, and surviving it without even so much as a scratch. There are several more feats, that earned him that name, but the main reason is, that he said himself he doesn't obey physics, physics obey him."
I watched her leave, before muttering: "Wow, that IS kind of a super-powered dragon... Hey, Iron, you have to show me how you got those firework-rockets... I've been trying to get a hold on them for a millenia!"
He then started to think for a while before telling me, "I actually prepared a song for this." Well, this is either going to be really good or really bad. He then preceded to fly up and clear his throat and say in a peppy voice.
"First you take a cup of blasting powder add it to the mix,
Then you pour some hydrochloric acid not a lot just a pinch.
Making these fireworks is such a cinch, just be sure to add some color.
Work it a little more, don't you dare snore or else you'll start a fire,
FIREWORKS!
So colourful and crazy,
FIREWORKS!
Don't be too lazy,
FIREWORKS, FIREWORKS, FIREWORKS!"
He the concluded his song with a series of fire works and fresh cupcakes falling from them. I could only stare and wonder if he ever frowned when a cupcake fell in my hand. He then descended and said, "He sound a lot like Discord. In fact, I think that if you use his ego against him, you could probably best the dragon.
"Eh, sure?" I said, before realising something: "Wait wait wait, DISCORD? The guy who terrorised the Sercor-, Jrio- and Vrosh-tribes? The guy who could create anything out of nothing? But that guy's a myth!" before I stopped myself "Wait, if somebody like Physics exists then its possible Discord exists too... wow, I'm in a weird, weird world."
The lightgrey mare, I later found out she was called Rock Pipe, grabbed us and pulled us back into the party. I remember eating tons of cupcakes, even some cupcapes, playing games, but not exactly WHAT happened. Seems like Jacob introduced cider to my world, there goes my promise to never get drunk.
-----The next morning-----
I woke up, and looked around. Everywhere were partystreamers, and ponies were asleep all around me. I looked around, but Jacob... Iron Man was nowhere to be found. "Seems like he has gone home already..." I muttered to myself.
"Indeed, he has", a voice sounding like my own was to be heard from behind me, "before you wonder why I sound like you, that is because I was you... this universe has strange Displaced."
I blinked, before turning around: The 'me' talking still had my blond hair, but he let it grow so it's a huge mess, wore a black jeans with red lines on the site, and a green t-shirt with the Fnatic-symbol:
He also had some sort of smartphone in his hand, but I had no idea what version or from what brand it is, I never had one.
"Who are you?" I said "I mean, you already said you are me, but..."
He interrupted me, chuckled and said: "You mean to ask after what I represent. You see, I don't know it myself... there was no show telling about what I am. But call me Solveik 5.0. I only came here to tell you something:
The root of the problem is unreachable for you.
What it caused is what you have to undo.
See you in a thousand years! Perhaps..."
He then tipped around on his smartphone, and vanished. I then realised something: Rock Pipe (HOW DID I KNEW HER NAME???) was able to see me... this is either really good or really bad...
...wait, their leader knows about me...
...I hope they don't decide to tatoo a unicorn on my butt like they did with the moon...
-----POV : Sor’Gat-----
I looked at the entrance of the Forbidden Temple, at the bottom of the Frozen Mountains. This specific one was made out of granite, and had runes of his clan, the Geror’-Clan. They said:
“This place holds a cursed object. It can destroy our world if taken away, and it will not bend to your will. If you seek this object for your evil plans, then think twice. The object has its own will, it will not take kindly to your meddling. Do not come closer than ten metres. Do not enter. Do not take the object. Do not use it. Do not attempt to manipulate it.”
They started with a simple sentence, told a bit about why you mustn’t do the things that then you are told NOT to do. I smiled sadly at the old runes of my home, they would be the closest thing to remind me of it.
A home, whose warnings, meant to protect the traveller, I have to ignore. While I was in the last fortress of the Valkyrie, I didn’t feel it. I didn’t realise how… corrupt the world has become. No matter where I am, besides the fortress, there are no places I don’t feel the greed, the evil, the need.
‘It’chn comes from’s creechure’, I thought to myself. There are many things I didn’t know about the cursed ones, things I didn’t want to know. But now, I realised you should, and have cared about such things. To protect others, to minimise the risk for the cursed.
I now knew it, but now it was too late. I had to gain the knowledge, for the ghostey, for the future generations, as saying sorry for ignoring the other cursed. As saying sorry for ignoring the whole world the last thousand years. As saying sorry for everything.
I entered the temple, the huge gate used as its entrance long since crumbled down. The hallway was depicted with the same message like the entrance, in different languages and with different runes. When I finally reached the end, there was another message on its door, in thousands of languages:
“Go away, or we will have to make you.”
I sighed, as I remembered the old defense-mechanism. It wasn’t much, it was designed pretty poorly. Everyone who is smart enough to not place his foot on a 3 centimetre-thick rope directly in front of a door would be able to steal the object. I opened the door, and carefully stepped over the rope.
There it was, the next cursed object. I had thought long, and decided that after my death those objects should be used to defend the last fortress, for it is what I dedicated my life to.
I came closer to it, its being on a podest in the middle of the circle-shaped room…
A room whose size you wouldn’t expect after the huge entrance. As I grabbed it, I again simply ignored the voice of madness. After all, why should I listen to madness, when I have to fight it?
As I opened the saddlebags I took from Lightning Dust, I figured I should finally make my new wayward. Inside the saddlebags were not only what I needed to make a wayward, and it was then I realised something:
I stole Lightning Dust’s things…
‘Don’t matta now’ I thought. I looked at what I had, and made a mental checklist:
-3 apples
-5 vases with water
-a voodolike puppet for my wayward
-six crystals to enhance my wayward according to situation
-a sleeping bag, made out of rather primitive fabric
-a useless statue, probably something mentally
I threw the statue away, and began my work at my wayward, but then I heard a thump behind me.
-----POV : Blood Cleaver-----
I was resting on an old bedframe in a version of the pony sisters castle. I had not had any luck with this universe, it seemed to have been one where Pinkie had never been born at all. I sighed an looked throught the hole in the ceiling at the moon. It still had the mare in the moon on it. Looked quite different from it had on my home world.
I wasn’t tired, I had eaten a senzu bean not to long ago and was now kept wawake by the energy boost. I was thinking about maybe shooting a few ki-blasts to get rid of excess enegry, but as I got up from the bed I got a strange feeling, someone had found my token!
I was excited. No one had found my token before this, I had randomly been jumping between universes relying on reversed summons and random portals. I had been stuck in this universe for a week and had avoided forcing my way out as there was something else lurking outside this universe, ready to attack anything trying to leave by cutting open a rift.
I consentrated on the signal of my token, It was quite a few universes away, but not out of my leauge. I sstarted chanting a stableizing spell to make sure I didn’t miss the universe I could my token from. And as I felt my energy connect I smile. “Later universe that is totally screwed when Nightmare Moon comes back!” I said as a portal opened up under me and I jumped in.
I had never experienced a worse landing. Somehow during my journey through the void I had switched position and ended up leaving the portal head first, right into a stone wall. A loud *thump* like noise could be heard as I hit it.
Quickly getting up and dusting off my clothes I inspected my surroundings, I seemed to be in some kind of ruin. The room I was now in seemed to be underground as there were no windows and the air was heavy with dust. The walls were of solid stone and created a half sphere around the middle of the room where there now stood an empty pedastal.
But what caught my attention was the fact that I wasn’t alone in my room. There, on the other side of the pedastal, on it’s way out of the room was a thing? I wasn’t sure, but just looking at it I knew it was intelligent. And seeing how most universes I had visited so far everyone had spoken Equestrian I decided to try and talk to it.
“Hello, my name is Blood Cleaver. May I ask where I am? Or when? I’m kinda new around here… I guess.” I asked the creature that was looking at me.
-----POV: Third Person-----
Sor’Gat raised his eyebrow. Normally people stuck in such temples aren’t very nice… but then again, if she would have been stuck in here for so long, he would have found atleast traces of there being a room she came from. “Yur locashn’s ‘Equestria’, Frozn North’n be exact.
You’re’n 876 yeers, 4 monws ‘n’ 7 deis past fall of civilisation, pony-time 3 yeers later Discord. Could’n be this yours?” he asked, while taking the essence-container back out. He looked at it more closely, it looked like regular Kitchen knife made out of a black metal, a red handle made of wood and an edge slightly red tinted, compared to the regular metal. There was also a crimson rune on both sides of the blade itself.
“And what’cha doin’ in this forbidden place’n?”
“Forbidden?” The girl asked looking around once more. “What’s so forbidden about this place? It looks more like a ruin than anything. Besides, I didn’t choose to come here specifically. I just followed the signal of my token.” She said, pointing at the knife Sor’Gat was holding.
“So this’n yours…”, he mumbled, looking over the essence-container / token another time, “I need’n against troubles, ‘n’ help’n collecting forbidden objects. These ‘tokn’s whatcha forbidd’n ‘bout here. This’n ruin, has been for late 876 yeers. Shoulda expect’n yours to been caged as all. Wanna hav’n back, young Bloody?”, he asked while holding out the token, “or wanna go out first?”
“Sure, I’m not much for old ruins. Besides, what did you mean when you spoke about fall of civilisation?” Blood asked him while taking his hand, not quite able to see the full form of Sor’Gat because of the darkness.
Sor’Gat chuckled, before telling her: “My peopl’ reap’n. I’m last of called ‘Rabbitmen’. So’n guy call’d Discord terrorised ‘n’ weaken us, lead’n to fall. Had powers like’n Great Dragon.”
“I see, Discord used to be a jerk in my world as well, but he reformed after being befriending my friend Fluttershy. He now uses his powers for good, sorry about your family. Don’t think we had Rabbitmen in my world…” Blood said, a bit saddened to learn she was talking to someone who was the last one of his race.
“Careful’n at door, rope’n for trap ‘s’ there.”, Sor’Gat told her.
“Rope? I see no-”, Blood said before stumbling over a rope as she exited the room following Sor’Gat. “Oops, that wasn’t important, was it?” She asked as the rope was cut in half by her walking through it.
Sor’Gat sighed, stepped to the side as a brick shot out of the wall at him, and said: “‘n clumsy like the ghostey. ‘Nother temple lost.”
Then all bricks began to fly, letting the snow and ice stored over and next to them start falling into the room. “Should be runnin’”, he screamed at Blood, before hopping away.
“Nah, I got this..” Blood said as she suddenly stood next to Sor’Gat, taking a stance, a fire like aura enveloping her and blasting away everything falling towards them in a great explosion, leaving Blood and Sor’Gat un scratched.
“Those’n younglings always want’n destrucshn, good’n didn’t teach ghostey ‘bout destructive. Nice weaponisal there, unique.”, he said, seemingly saddened by having the temple destroyed.
“Huh, I expected the temple to have been enchanted or something. You want me to restore it?” Blood asked seeing how Sor’Gat reacted to her vaporizing both stone and snow altogether with her aura that had now died down.
“‘nuff temples elsewhere. No enchantments, essence-containers dangerous ‘nuff without defenses. No need’n them.”, he told her, before pointing in a direction. “Ponycity’s there. With next’n temple. Wanna come?”
“Sure, I like helping people when I’m not looking for my sister. Ponies, huh? This world to then. In my world we’re all humans instead of ponies, imagine my surprise when I found out that I would have been a pony in most of the other universes.” Blood said, starting up smalltalk.
“Cursed ‘ways say most we’d be fishes, whales’n be exact. Pony-shape would be fit’n better, how oldcha?” Sor’Gat answered, not willing to ignore someone wanting to do smalltalk.
“Asking a woman her age?” Blood asked back, a teasing smile creeping up her face.
He grinned, before telling her: “So’n just born? Not wonder you did’n tell yourself.”
Blood lost her smile, realizing her little ‘trap’ didn’t work. “I’m twenty seven, if you have to know. What about yourself?” She asked.
“You’n really young… my age’n 954 yeers, 5 months ‘n’ 28 days.” Sor’Gat told her, still grinning, exposing his already sticking out long fangs.
“Really? So just about under a thousand years, huh. Wonder if I’ll ever get that old? Remember Pan saying something about some Displaced becoming immortal by default… Oh well. So how far is it to that village?” Blood asked.
“Not far, jus’n few kilometres. Three’n be exact.”, he said, ”but what’cha Displaced?”
“You don’t know about Displaced? Thought you’d know about them, since you know about tokens, or essence containers as you call them. Well, Displaced is what we refer to people like me. Someone who in some way has gotten powers in a way involved with something out of their own universe. Most Displaced are humans from a planet called Earth. But I myself am from Equestria and got my powers by asorbing a Displaced, becoming one myself. Displaced are also the ones creating tokens with the intention of meeting other Displaced by sending them to other Equestrias. By finding someones token you can call them, most tokens also have a message assigend to them and-” Blood said, but then got interrupted by Sor’Gat:
“I’ know’n ‘but essence-containers, taught’n to us by Drag’n. We don’t like’n having token thrown out, call’n Cursed those whose’n thrown out of universe. Displaced sound’n like the ghostey.”
“Huh, maybe they’re the same then?”
“Power’n as before after. Just’n gett’n draggd out universe. If none drag’n found out through un-universal way’n, we no Displaced. But we’n lock’n Displaced token away, powerful. Powerful ‘nuff to destroy everything. Essence-container in-universe to transport, teleportashn ‘n’ back. Us’n ‘nother layer of us universe.”, Sor’Gat explained, “We’n arrived.”
Blood looked at the village they had arrived at. Unable to recognize it as she herself had lived about a thousand years into the future in her own universe. Still she smiled as she could see different ponies all around the village, she always found them so cute!
Blood looked at Sor’Gat. “You know any of the Ponies here? I would like to find a certain pony family if possible, ever heard of the Pie family?”
He returned the gaze, and replied: “Not’n know’n much ponies. Only valkyr’n, was most ‘n home.”, then turned to the next pony, one with citrusyellow fur, crimsonred mane, orange eyes and a scroll as cutiemark, and asked: “Have you’n heard ‘bout ponies call’n Pie?”
“Don’t you know it is rude not to introduce oneself? Let me show you how its done: My name is Writing Step. And no, I have not heard about the Pie-family, but my sister always talks about the Pipe-dynasty near Everfree-castle. So, pray, tell me, what is your name?”, the pony, Step, said.
“I’m Sor’Gat, my companion’s called-”, he begun, but was interrupted by Blood Cleaver.
“I’m Blood Cleaver, nice to make your acquaintance.” Blood introduced herself. Making sure she was the one to introduce herself. She didn’t wan’t anypony to think she was the silent type.
“I am pleased to meet you. Are you just coming through our fine little town, or are you planning to stay? Either way, I can only recommend the bar ‘To the unmaned Changeling’. It’s just down the street, third house to the right.”
“Thank, but’n no need’n drink. We’s coming through’n, but’ll remember’n later.”, Sor’Gat told him, before telling Blood: “Com’n with to Forbidd’n Temple? ‘s not far ‘way.”
“Sure, I already said I have nothing better to do. I’ll make sure not to spring any traps this time.” Blood says showing of exactly how she planned to do that by llifting herself of the ground and hover in place for a while. “I won’t be triggering anything like that again.”
-----POV-Change-----
I watched those two… things leave. Writing Step was too nice to strangers… all it would take was one rivalling faction, and he would die…
I sighed, and turned from the mainstreet into a side street. After maneuvering through the town, I find myself in front of the most popular bar of the town.
It was also the place where I was supposed to tell about interesting things. After entering the bar, I look around, searching for my employer.
The bar stank, like alcohol, like sweat, like piss. I have no idea how it became that popular, seeing how it is that bad. In the corner of my eye I saw broken stools, broken tables and unconcious ponies… and even a griffon. Another reason as to why the bar shouldn’t be as popular, who would let a griffon in? That’s as stupid as letting a minotaur, or a zebra in, even though the latter atleast could disguise themselves.
Around the broken tables, I could see the griffon engaging into a fight with even more ponies. I finally spotted my employer, a pony with crimson coat, emeraldgreen mane, black eyes and a cutiemark resembling a shadow.
I began walking over to him, and when I arrived, I sat down at his, luckily still intact, table, and whispered: “Code Gray.”
He looked up, saw me, and whispered back: “Shape, Gender, Ability?”
“There are two of them, for starters, from two different races. The first one walks like a minotaur, has a ruffled up gray-coat, mumbles because of two giant fangs sticking out of his mouth, has a tail like a rabbit and feet like one. I would say he is a hybrid between minotaur and rabbit, male, and no abilities were shown yet. Possibly a bit rude.
As to the second one is female by the sound of the voice. Walks upright like a minotaur but has neither tail or fur. She was clad all in black clothes, seemingly out of… leather. Her mane seemingly perfectly brushed and silk smooth running down the sides of her body, only stopping at what I would call knees. Her hair was both a black and pink color, black from the top of her head down to the shoulders where it changed into a pink color. She had light blue eyes and wore some kind of saddlebag on her back. She showed no abnormal abilities besides being able to stand upright without a tail. She seems to be a straight forward individual.”, I told him.
He snickered, before replying: “I will tell the boss, as for you… you will get your payment soon. Go now, don’t tell anyone what you told me.”
-----POV : Third person-----
Meanwhile, at one of the greater Hidden Temples…
“This’n bigger temple than last’n… probably secur’n stronger essence-contain’r.”, Sor’Gat told her, looking over the small entrance. It was positioned next to a waterfall, which in turn was in a forest, an oakwood-forest. The region was called Neighagra Falls for those waterfalls, and Sor’Gat translated the message on the entrance for Blood Cleaver:
“Leave. There is nothing from worth here. If you are an evildoer or traveller, seeking protection from the elements, downwards the river is a shelter. The things contained within this temple are dangerous, and only those authorised, perhaps not even them, should be able to get them. Should you ignore all our warnings, and proceed… then good luck. May Physics have mercy upon your soul, for we would not.
Is’n after-’rival text. Didn’t think they still’d build’n expand temples.”
“So… Physics huh? Not a problem for me.” Blood Cleaver stated with a smile on her face.
Sor’Gat turned around to look at her, and laughed: “Physics was’n religion after while. Don’t think’n really exist’n.”
“Yeah, want some cake before we enter?” Blood Cleaver asked, suddenly holding a plate with a chocolate cake on it, already cut neatly into equally big pieces.
“Want’n always cake. Why’tche think’n wouldn’t?”, Sor’Gat told her, smiling… creepily with his fangs.
“Believe me, there are such people out there, and they’re not happy people I tell ya.” Blood Cleaver said.
Sor’Gat snatched a piece of cake from the plate, and answered while chewing: “How’che think’n they could be’n happy without cake?” The cake was all over his fangs.
“I know, right? And when I asked them again they just looked at me like I’m the odd one.”
“Yes, you’ll eat’n that still? I rememb’n… wait, not’n rememb’n… forgot tell’n ghostey to love cake.”
“Yeah, I’m eating some myself.” Blood answered while taking a piece herself and seemingly inhale it. “But who’s this ghostey you keep talking about?” She asked after there were no evidence left that she’d been holding a piece och sticky chocolate cake.
“He’s who’s been trained by me in the art’n of soul-plane.”, he replied, “Look’d like you’n, just’n paler, whiter hair ‘n’ staff, invisible too. Haven’t seen in 1000 years.”
“You said he looked similar to me? A human then? Maybe I should stop by him and have a chat, humans tend to find human company calming.” Blood mused to herself.
“Oh, so know’n not want’n listnin’ to me?”, Sor’Gat replied amused, having overheard her talking to herself, “Don’t’n worry, won’t hold’n against you fleein’ scared.”
Blood Cleaver chuckled at the humor of Sor’Gat. “Don’t worry, you’re great company. Besides, I said I would help you, didn’t I? I’m one who keeps to her word. Also, I’m not worried about anything injuring me. I had quite the harsh training, worked in over hundred G forces at the end of my training. I can handle most dangers. And if I do get injured I always have senzu beans!” Blood Cleaver told Sor’Gat.
“Sound’n ‘pressive. What’cha mean by G-forces ‘n’ sneesu beans?”, Sor’Gat asked back.
“Well, G-forces are another word for gravity, and with a hundred G-forces it means everything is a hundred times heavier, including ones own body. It was part of my training. As to senzu beans, they’re a special bean that’s quite hard to cultivate, but it stores amazing amounts of energy, eating one allows one to go ten days before getting hungry again. And if the one eating it is injured the bean’s extra energy allows the body to heal almost any wound instantly. They’re great as rations and useful in emergencies. Here, try one.” She said, holding up a pouch filled with small beans.
Sor’Gat eyeballed the bean, before carefully taking one of those ‘wonder beans’ out of the pouch. He looked at it again from all sides, before eating it in one go.
After eating the bean, he could suddenly feel and use the soul-plane again… even though his waymark still being incomplete. He said: “Nice taste’n. Where’d you get them?”
“I grew these ones myself, but I originally got them from my teacher Pan. She got them as she became a Displaced and we figured out how to grow them, takes some time for them to grow though.” Blood replied in a cheery voice.
“Want’n go into the Temple now, or are’s gonna talk ‘till night’n?”, Sor’Gat chuckled, realising how long they had been talking.
“Either way is fine by me.” Blood said shrugging her shoulders but still with a smile on her face. “After you.” She said gesturing towards the entrance.
Sor’Gat just smiled, and fiddled around at the entrance. After few seconds, the door sank into the ground, only the sudden line of dust- no dust showing there ever was one. He then hopped inside the temple-ruins.
Blood followed his lead and went inside the ruins, expecting a fun little adventure just like in the Daring Doo novels. Although she knew the stories in those novels were actual adventures and that Daring Doo was as real as herself. She had met her herself.
The Forbidden Temple had a simple layout: First, there was a small hallway from the entrance, leading deeper underground.
Then, after a certain depth is reached, it would open into a very big, circular room. This room had holes in the wall, seemingly following no pattern. Each of those holes was shaped like a cube cut in half, reaching half of its height and breadth into the surrounding stone. Inside those holes were statues in different poses, and shapes. There were quadrupedal with claws instead of hooves, bipedals with neither, and tripedals. In the middle of said room, was a trapdoor. A trapdoor with a simple lock on it, its key being around the neck of a statue bigger than all others, hanging high above the trapdoor.
Sor’Gat and Blood Cleaver entered said room, the former looking around, until his gaze locked on the big statue.
“So, I’d give five bits that statue is gonna move. So, you wanna do the honors or can I do it?” She asked pointing at the biggest statue.
“You can’ be do’n it.”, Sor’Gat replied, turning his gaze to the trapdoor.
“Thank you.” Blood Cleaver said, as a clinging sound of chain links rattling against each other, her standing there with the key already in hand. Looking towards the biggest statue to see if it would indeed come to life. The partially good news: It didn’t. The bad news? All other statues did.
“Aww , I thought Gruffy would come to life, guess you can’t have everything.” She said as she started running around the room, pulverising the limbs of the statues to imobilize them.
Sor’Gat ignored the statues, and instead just walked over to the trapdoor. “Would’cha look at’n that… tot’lly rusty.”, before he shouted: “Com’n!” And wanted to join, but saw Blood Cleaver and a few piles of rubble. (Including Gruffy as she had named him.)
Sor’Gat looked at the hand Blood had held the key in, then to his. He shrugged, and let the key fall onto the lock, not caring if it actually hit. As the key hit the lock, it fell apart, the rust already having weakened it so far it couldn’t withstand the pressure of the key falling onto it.
“Wow, talk about not brushing your teeth.” Blood said after seeing what happened to the lock.
Sor’Gat looked at her in a weird way, before telling her: “What’cha mean by not brushing teeth? Locks’n don’t have teeth.”
“No, but key’s do, and keys and locks are a pair, you try to come up with something better.” She said, frowning a bit.
He grinned, before replying: “Talk’n ‘bout bad maint’nance.”
“Whatever, let’s see what’s on the other side, shall we?” She replied, changing the topic.
Sor’gat took hold of one side of the trapdoor, and threw it into the air, having expected it to weigh more. Thanks to its wood being rotten and hollow, and its hinges having rusted away too, it weighed nearly nothing. As he looked through the new hole in the ground, he saw a disappointingly small hole, containing two gloves.
“Thought’n be bigger’n hole…”, he sighed. Blood however gasped.
“A-are those what I think they are?” She asked noone in particular before picking up the gloves and hearing their message. “They are!” She exclaimed. Sor’Gat wondering what she was talking about.
Blood saw his questioning look and seemed to blush a little. “Sorry, it’s just that I’ve heard about the Displaced these belong to. He’s a warrior who challenges people to fights to earn glory, but he’s apparently a really great guy and will help one out if ones intentions are pure. I was surprised to see them here.” She explained away her surprise at finding them.
“I must ask you, how did these tokens even appear here? Tokens usually appear in front of someone worthy of them or one who needs them. But these don’t just appear to anyone. It makes one wonder who found them and what happened to them.” She asked Sor’Gat.
“‘ssence-container’n always had’n appear b’fore Cursed. Who sent out their own contain’r. All known died shortly after’n. Most found’n one, after death’n put in here. Noone’s said to have survived yet. Most have’n ‘interesting’ life.”, he told her, seemingly not touched by the fate of them in the slightest: “Overpoured contain’r themselves. Noone ever us’d any.”
“You mean they were exposed to too much Void energy?” Blood asked, feeling it was the most likely cause.
Sor’Gat gave her a weird look, before saying: “Not that’n know. One was’n ate by dragon, other shocked by griffon. Some haven’t stand’n it ‘n’ suicide. Most died differ’ntly.”
Blood winced at the thought of Displaced taking their own lives, and dying in general. ”I see.” She simply replied, wanting to avoid such a topic as it made her uncomfortable.
Sor’Gat looked up for a while, before asking: “Have’n still cake?”
Blood perked up at the mention of cake. “Sure do!” She said, once again holding up a cake, a complete one at that.
He once again snatched a piece of cake, before telling Blood that all the dust in the ruin is not doing any good for the cake.
“Yeah, I guess it’s really ‘ruining’ the cake, isn’t it?” She asked with a smile.
Sor’gat laughed, before taking another piece of cake, without having eaten even his first and went out of the room.
Suddenly a sound close to how bells ring sounded throught the ruin. At this Blood stopped and put away the cake. “Sorry, forgot to leave it on vibrate.” She said before taking out a small device she had carried in her pocket and flipped it open.
“Huh, seems I’ve been invited to some kind of meeting. I think it’s important. You’ll be alright without me, won’t you? I might not be able to return for quite some time…” Blood asked Sor’Gat, as she looked up from her device.
Said rabbitman went back round the corner, and replied: “Got ‘som’more beans? Might becom’ useful. ‘n’ I’m not helpless, y’know?”
“Sure, here.” She said throwing him a smaller pouch than before. “That should last you for a while. I don’t have time to instruct you on how to farm them, but maybe you can figure it out yourself?” She asked him, before her device sounded again.
*pouch with 7 senzu beans added to saddlebags*
“Oh, I really gotta go. It was nice meting you Sor’Gat.” She said as she waved goodbye and suddenly dissapered in a flash of light and a mighty sounding *POP*.
“These teenies… don’t have’n time to let’n old rabbit say goodbye… always’n chasing destruction ‘n’ adventure…”, Sor’Gat mumbled to himself.
POV : Jack Frost
I sighed, it wouldn’t be that bad that their leader knows about me, I’m sure of it. So…
Right, I remember now what I was doing! Before the party I was hanging out with Iron Man AKA Jacob, and before that I was fighting a dragon, which came while I was… searching for my brother! That was it…
I once again started to delve into the Essence Realm to look for any remaining traces of him… only to find that I couldn’t.
“Oh com’on! Why can’t I… wait, now I remember! My catalysator… OH COME ON!”, I mumbled, well, more like shouted, to myself. All around me ponies were still unconcious… it’s really creepy Jacob managed that.
Some of them woke up from my shouting, some flinched or jumped away in shock. They started muttering to themselves after that too, one of them mumbled something like: “Drink of Tartarus…”
I sighed, before running down the streets into the forest.
Because of that, I missed ‘me’ walking back out of a portal.
“This was the time I think… can’t let it happen now, can I?”, he smiled to himself mischievously, “Wouldn’t be good for my reputation…
“Wait, I was at this time before, wasn’t I? How did I miss the signs…”
Third person POV
A sudden ripple could be seen, heard and felt in the air as it violently exploded inwards and got consumed by a black nothingness. Yet out of this nothingness stepped out someone very familiar, yet very unknown. Black Frost was on the scene.
As soon as Black had entered the new world that had drawn him in, he looked around and summoned his staff. He was not going to repeat his past mistakes and underestimate his enemies. This time he would have his full power at his disposal and he would not play any silly games with the Displaced. He would crush them!
Unfortunately there was one thing that always rang true for him. He was worthless at finding other Displaced. Deciding that stirring up some trouble would be enough to lure a Displaced out he called the wind and flew around, trying to spot any familiar ground. He would be looking for a long time.
“So… how did I get back here again?”, Jack asked himself, “I mean, I ran into the forest… and straight forward… and I end up where I started? Seriously?”
He looked around. “Everything is just like when I started running… there is still the house… there are even some ponies unconcious still! Argh, sometimes I really wish this wouldn’t happen…”, he waited for a short time, thinking, before exclaiming: “I can’t be that bad at navigating, can I?”
He sighed, and started to walk towards the castle. Perhaps the Cela… Celestia could help him find his way. It almost felt as if the wind was curling up over his skin, giving his incorporeal body a freeze on purpose. But that couldn’t be it, after all you can’t freeze an incorporeal body…
He went through the street, passing the still unconcious ponies…
The wind seemed to become stronger, and colder. When he reached the castle, he guessed that’s where she lived, maybe she told him, he didn’t remember, it almost took it with him. Somehow all the ponies who were awake this early, there weren’t that many, seemed uneffected. “Com’on, it’s just your imagination…”, he told himself while clinging to his staff. He didn’t even realise he automatically hid inside the castle, unconciously hoping it would keep the wind out.
Just as it seemed like the wind would really take him with it, it stopped, stopped to seemingly pierce his skin and cut his venes. Instead, his blood itself began to feel even colder, and with it came an instinct to run. But run from what? He couldn’t see anything.
A scream pierced his thoughts, followed by another, and another, and another. Shortly, a chorus of screams made a horrifying cacophony.
A loud *boom* could suddenly be heard from the middle of the town. The screams restarted and a horrible laughter following soon after.
“Is it me or is it getting cold in here?”, Jack muttered to himself, walking back out of the castle. Looking around, he could see a… darker version of himself? Seriously? What is this, Evil-Twin-Day? Huh, that would be quite a neat day indeed…
Sighing, he asked: “Hey, wind! Could you atleast bring me onto the next house?”, but got no response. Sighing, he resumed walking towards the source, when his dark doppleganger seemed to have taken notice of him, by throwing an iceblock as huge as a truck at him.
As the iceblock was nearing, the wind finally decided to listen to his earlier question, and took him onto a house far away enough. “That’s completely not cool!”, Jack shouted to the doppelganger.
“Heh, says my impersonator. You know, I really was surprised to see another Displaced like me. So, how long you been living away from earth?” The other Jack asked as he shot a beam of frost towards the place where Jack stood.
Jack jumped back, just for his ‘fake’ to re-aim his beam. Thinking quickly, Jack thrust his hands at the floor, and made an ice-wall like back against the dragon. He took of his bag, and fumbled with one hand for tokens while the other held up the wall.
While he was searching his bag, the ‘fake’ simply walked around the wall, no longer floating above the ground. As he looked at Jack for a while, contemplating how to kill him, a spear of black sand came thrusting from behind the dark twin, just for said to sidestep it.
“What do you think you’re doing?”, Pitch, who had heard the noises, asked.
Turning around to face the new arrival he simply smirked. “Oh, wonderful. A combo, or did this dofus perhaps summon you?” The evil twin asked pointing a thumb towards Jack.
Said ice-user took out Jacob’s supercomputer- multitool- device, and opened his mouth to call for help when...
“No you don’t.” His twin simply stated and moved his staff just a little bit back, hitting the multitool with ray of intense frost magic, freezing Jack’s entire hand and tool.
Jack stared at this slackjawed, before regaining his mind: “Seriously, what’s your problem?”, he asked staring at his twin, “You come in here, wreck my town, wrec… Oh, hey Pitch! Long time no see! Even though I guess you wouldn’t remember the last time…”
Pitch just continued to throw black sandspears at the twin, still not hitting a single one, but he was getting closer. “A better question is, where did he come from? A dark version of someone doesn’t simply start existing for no reason.”
“Of course not. I came from another universe. The fact I happened to meet another one looking like me is pure coincidence… or actually, that was a lie. I felt like this world was calling me, so I came over for a look. The last world I visited didn’t take kindly to challenging their Displaced for the right to destroy everything. So this time I decided to just do what I please from the beginning at full power. Also, to answer your question to why I’m not like you, I actually used to be nice, caring and all that. But that doesn’t get you anywhere and won’t let you protect anyone. So, when my worlds Discord deided it was a good Idea to corrupt me, I kicked his ass. Now I’m traveling the void as practice before I return to my own world and bring it down to it knees so I won’t have any more trouble with it. But seeing as I’m striving for perfection, I want to have a little practice first! Also, I no longer go by the name Jack Frost, It’s Black Frost now!” Black Frost said while he continued dodging the black sand spears.
“*yawn* Who cares? It’s not like you’re gonna get away when I do THIS!”, Jack said and used his other hand to grab another token out of his bag, which was the Pokeball. Once again, he was interrupted by Black Frost freezing his hand and Token. Black then said: “You realise the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results?”
At that Pitch transformed his arm into a blade, having finally reached Black Frost, just to get an elbow into the stomach causing him to back away again. “That wasn’t insanity”, he said then, “The time the slowpoke needed to grab the token was shorter, and it was a different token. Different…” Pitch said only to get hit in the face by Black’s staff.
“You realize I was refering to something? Also, just because the token was different and the fact that he was slightly different, doesn’t change the fact that it wasn’t different enough. Same action, same result.” Black lowered the tip of his staff, frost spreading along the ground as it was touched by the tip.
“That is a lame trick. I can do that too. Wait, where did my staff go?”, Jack asked, looking around while trying to unfreeze his hands.
“You mean this?” Black asked as he held up another staff in his other hand. “Let’s see… If I remember correctly…” He said with an evil smile as he turned towards Jack. “Oops.” Black broke it in two by crushing it with raw strenght, completely closing his palm.
“Isn’t that supposed to by my part?”, Pitch asked, secretly looking through his shadowspace. ‘Nothing here… how hard can it be to find an object hidden in the shadows?’, he thought.
“And another thing… what Jack can do, I could do much earlier.”
“Nope, my turn again.” Black spoke as the previously frosbitten ground turned blue and spikes of ice shot out towards Pitch.
Pitch was thrown off the roof, and impaled on the next. “This reminds me of a video I once saw…”, he muttered, “‘You have proven that you are the best, for you have made a giant hole in my chest’. Pretty funny how true that rings.” He then dissolved into shadows, and came out of the shadow directly under the rooftop.
“I see something you don’t…”, he mocked Black.
“Really?” Black asked. “Give me a moment.” He said as he powered up and fired his most powerful spell in notime, freezing absolutely EVERYTHING around him to absolute zero.
“Yes, I do.”, Pitch said while shadow-shifting onto streets far enough away, “And it’s another token!”, he exclaimed while jumping into the air, catching a snowflake. “Huh, looks like something you would use as token. Unimaginative enough you are after all.”
“Whatever. You know what?” Black asked, letting go of the magic keeping the absolute zero spell going. “I think I’m going to enjoy doing THIS!” Black said, quickly turning around towards Jack who was trying to sneak up on him from behind. “Gotcha!” He exclaimed as he pushed his staff forward “Hell Frost!” He shouted as a wave of orange glowing snow gushed forward, completely covering Jack.
Jack screamed, his skin melting…
Sor’Gat watched the scene unfold, even though he had hurried to the capital he was still too late to prevent the disaster. Yesterday the Essence Realm notified him about the dimensional disturbance, and he still arrived pretty late.
There was nothing he could do as he watched Jack melt, nothing but… he heard a quiet thump. Looking down, he saw Blood Cleavers knife. He grabbed it, and began to chant: “Blood Cleav’r, Blood Cleav’r, Blood Cleav’r, Blood Cleav’r…”
*Beep* “Blood Cleaver can unfortunately not be summoned right now. Please, try again later. If you can not wait however, press the left rune. If you want to leave a message for her, press the right rune.” *Beep*
“Must be brok’n.”, Sor’Gat muttered to himself, before pressing the left rune. He watched while the black sandguy threw different kinds of sandattacks at the other ghostey, just to be hit by stronger and stronger counterspells. “Tak’n long’r than expect’d…”
“Hello?” The voice of Blood Cleaver finally came through. “Is this urgent? I’m in quite a bind over here myself, so please be quick about it.”
Sor’Gat patiently waited for her to finish her sentence, and then rushed out his answer: “Bad’n ghostey’s kill’n good ghostey ‘n’ want’n to’n destroy’n evrything there is’n coming through force’nto the universe and try’n to kill’n Good sandguy too’n…”
But his rush enhanced his accent, making nearly every word undecipherable.
Fortunately for Sor’Gat Blood Cleaver had spoken to him before and was already somewhat used to his way of speaking. “Sor’Gat? is that you? Never mind, the one you mentioned, does he happen to look like a human like me, gray hair, pale gray skin, red eyes and clothed in a black hoodie and lightbrown pants?” She asked him.
Sor’Gat, who had not paid attention to the clothes, quickly looked over Black Frost again, “Sound’n ‘bout right. Just’n got’n first strike hit at him. “ Sor’Gat said before he heard the link go quiet and saw a portal open up above Black.
Black was just about to plant ice mines underground as he heard a portal open up right over his head. A loud yell coming through. “Found you, you bastard!” Blood Cleaver screamed as she dropkicked him in the face.
Meanwhile the last of Jack’s agonizing screams stopped as what was still left of his body fell over, continuing to melt from the unnaturally hot, orange snow.
Pitch shadowstepped over to Jack’s dead body, the upperhalf being almost entirely melted, and said: “Surprisingly, it took him this long to melt… what am I saying? He just died, and I wonder about how long it took him to die… there is definitely something wrong with me.”
“Definitely.” Blood Cleaver spoke as Black was getting up. As soon as he saw who he was facing he-
“Oh shit! Not you again!” He said and quickly boted it out of there, trying to fly away.
This world’s uncooperative wind made itself once again known, by keeping yet another Frost from flying.
“What the?” He exclaimed as he nearly fell flat on his face.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Blood Cleaver provided in responce. Taking on a stance that would to some be a very familliar one.
“Kame-hame-ha!” She shouted as a blue sphere of energy quickly materialized between her hands and was then turned into a beam, directed towards Black who because of his earlier stumble was unable to dodge.
As the blast hit him he went flying without any more additional help, his body however felt as it had been hammered with tank bullets.
As his body once again hit the ground, he groande and tried to get up before Blood Cleaver made her next move. Unfortunately, his rise from the ground was interrupted by a black leather boot, connected to a very angry loking Blood Cleaver.
“Going somewhere?” She asked with a sadistic smile.
“Um... “ Was Black’s response as he tried to stall for time as he gathered as much energy he could muster into his staff. Unfortunately for Black, Blood Cleaver sensed the rise in power level and stomped her other foot onto his wrist, forcing him to let go of the staff.
“No way I’m letting you do that again.” She said, lifting her foot and kicking him in the head as hard as she could, sending him deep into the ground while creating a crater, as if a meteor had landed.
“Wow, I heard legends of you and your methods, but seeing them myself, I have to say, I am impressed.”, Solveik 5.0 says as he calmly walks down the street towards them, “Gotta say, that Dragon Ball Z technique is quite common nowadays. Wanna make a selfie with me?” He held up his phone, it appearing out of nowhere.
“Who is that? / What’cha you?”, Pitch and Sor’Gat asked.
5.0 smirked, and responded: “Oh, noone. Forget me, I am unimportant. You probably wanted to know my name… call me 5.0. And I wouldn’t forget Black Frost over me, Blood.”, he said pointing at Black.
Blood gave him an ‘are you serious’-look as she once again looked at Black Frost who was lying at the bottom of the crater, holding his head as a strim of blood sippered out from underneath his hand.
She fired another Kame-hame-ha at him.
*click*
“Hey, look!”, 5.0 exclaimed, showing his phonescreen to Pitch and Sor’gat, “I got it on screen! I always wanted a picture of a Kamehameha!”
Pitch calmly, but notably angered told him: “You know this isn’t the time to do senseless things like that, there is still Black Frost. That woman may be holding him back for now, but we don’t know for how long.”
“Seriously? This is EXACTLY the time for things like these! ‘That woman’, or Blood Cleaver as is her name…”, 5.0 tried to say.
“WOULD THE TWO OF YOU SHUT THE HELL UP?!”, screamed Blood Cleaver at them as her temper was getting worse. “I’m trying to scan his mid, something that isn’t getting any easier with the two of you! And as we-” She ranted as she suddenly noticed a certain object missing from it’s previous location.
“Horseapples.” She simply said as she looked back to where Frost had been, only to see the tip of his staff disappearing through a closing portal.
“Oh yeah, forgot to mention that. This is the moment he escaped. Rewinded this fifty times to get the photo, and the video of you losing your temper. Thanks for your help!”, 5.0 told her, escaping through his own portal.
The sound of a steaming kettle could be heard as Blood Cleaver stepped right up to where 5.0 had just been and began glaring daggers at the one spot. “Oh no, you dont!” She said as she reached out with one hand and dragged him back out…
Only to feel her own hand grabbing her own shoulder.
She heard laughter from behind her, and 5.0’s voice: “Sorry, couldn’t keep myself contained. Now this rewind can stay! So, what did you want?”
5.0 jumped back, accidentally dropping his phone: “Oh- oh…”
Smirking to herself Blood Cleaver did something that would help her relive stress for the rest of her life. She punched the asshole in the face, not holding back an ounce of power.
As 5.0 flew through the house, he seemed to not be scratched an inch: “It will be sooo expensive to remake that fake-phone! Do you even know how hard it was to get that one?”
“Nope, don’t care!” Blood Cleaver said in a much more happy tone. “Now I gotta go.” She said as she turned around and grabbed a sipper in thin air and unzipped the fabric keeping her from entering the void.
“So, anything before I leave?”
“Yes, can we still do that Selfie?”, 5.0 asked, only to receive a hit on the head from Pitch, who shadowstepped over to him. “What he meant to say was, that it would be nice to have something to remember you by, didn’t you, 5.0?”
Sor’Gat hopped over to Blood Cleaver, and told her: “We should be’n meet’n soon without’n craz’n stuff. Like ruin ‘n’ bad ghostey.”
“Yeah, unfortunately my Author decidedt to cram a shit ton of crossovers for the- Oops, I mean I don’t think I’ll be able to be around that much for a while. But as soon as I can I’ll come over. Also, you might want my token as well.” She said, turning towards Pitch, giving him one of her tokens. Ignoring the hopefull look on 5.0’s face.
“Thanks. I will make sure to use it only when I feel like.”, he told her, thinking about it for a few seconds, before saying: “Eh, you can have mine too. So, just procuring a bit of Nightmaresand, mixing in my essence… making a sexual harrasment joke… done. Here, you can have it.”
The token in question was looking similarly to the Nightmares the original used to invoke, well, nightmares.
Seeing how she was ignoring him, 5.0 pouted and said: “Whatever. It’s not like you were able to call upon me without creating a paradox anyways. And I know, it’s sometimes almost as if your life was a story, and your readers the only good guys, while the author wants you to suffer.”
“Actually, I signed the contract myself, he has some stuff planned that would make it all worth it and- Oh, sorry again. I have my reasosn to keep going… Damn, I will have to re-arrange my memories again. And if you really want to have something, here.” Blood Cleaver said as she threw him a small pink glowing sphere. “Pure energy in condensed form. Just make sure not to damage the shell or it blows.”
Now once again turning towards the portal. “Bye you guys, I’ll visit sometime later.
The last thing she heard before the portal closed behind her, was: “This’ll look great in my shrine! I mean, this will be a good reminder of her.” It sounded like 5.0.
She huddered at that and noted the interesting bits of conversation between authors. Thankfully she would be able to return to enjoy some time with Sor’Gat while 5.0 wasn’t there.
Happy with such an outcome she left to once again find where Black had gone to. Hopefully managing to snap him out of his discorded state.
"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh! I really can't believe this!"
5.0 appeared in his base of operations, holding the sphere in his hand.
"Now, where should I place you... hm...", he looked at his shrine, the token Sor'Gat had gotten and the token Pitch had gotten snatched from the future, lying on a bowl filled with Senzu Beans. "Directly in the middle of the Senzu Beans, with the knives lying on top of it should be fine!"
As he rearranged his shrine, he giggled like mad: "She actually gave me something... rewind 53, you are great!"
As the giggling continued, he got a thought: "Maybe I should print the photo of her doing Kamehameha... it would be a great addition to my shrine!"
"Solveik?"
He almost didn't get any air any more, he was giggling that hard. He finally did it!
"Solveik, what are you... oh no, not again!", Twilight sighed as she reached her basement, "How often did I tell you my underground laboratory is NOT the correct place for your weird shrines! And who are they dedicated to anyways?"
"I told you they were dedicated to void-travelling superheroes! Today, I met one.", 5.0 responded.
"Whatever. Clean this mess up, or I will throw your 'shrines' away."
"Aww, please?"
"No. And that is final.", with these words she turned around, and walked away.
"Why is everyone acting towards me that way?", 5.0 wondered sadly, "Could it be me after all?"
Mein kleiner Bruder, lang vermisst,
In jenem Kampfe, voll Wut und List,
War'n wir zusammen in der Not,
anstatt von mir ist er nun tot.
Schon immer von seltsamen Kräften umgeben,
Nichtmal die bringen ihn wieder zum Leben,
Auf die hoffnungslose Suche werd' ich mich nun machen,
Schon lange hört ich nicht mehr sein, und mein, Lachen.
Thanatos Solveik Imperator Rose
"It looks beautiful. What does it mean?"
"I'm not very good at translating. It means something like:
'My small brother, long since gone,
In that battle filled with Wrath and Deceit,
We were together in the need,
instead of mine, his life is now done.
Always surrounded by a strange power,
not even those revive him,
the hopeless search I will now begin,
Long since I heard his, and mine, laughter.'
It's not that good, I probably did it completely wrong..."
"Can'n seein' heart. Heart'n'Soul put int'n this. Can'n say this'n wrong."
"I didn't even know him for a whole day, but when he stood there with his companion, showing those bright lights and all of that... It made me smile a bit. It's not even long since I had to banish Luna, but it seems an eternity away. Thanks to those distracting action. His Laughter will remain."
"I knew him for his whole life. I cannot say that he has the cleanest record, but one thing was sure: He helped me, he risked his beta-keys so I could try out beta-stuff. He was generous, and didn't care if it would bring him negative effects later on. He always loved to see others smile, his Generosity will not be forgotten."
"Nev'r say'n something 'gainst me. Nev'r making fun out of'y accent. Nev'r lett'n oth'rs get'm down. Always with me'n when needed. He was a loyal pupil. "
"Wait, Shaman, you can talk without your stupid accent?"
"Not know'n whatcha talk'n 'bout. Don'tcha be putt'n stop to spieshs."
"i didn't even know... argh, forget it. I heard about him, about his legends, about his fight against the cultists. I heard he had lost, but I know he had atleast tried to defend his morals. He didn't lie about his morals to save himself. May his Honesty to himself be kept even in the Underworld."
"Rest in Peace, Solveik."
"Did I miss something?"
"NO! / NO! / NO! / Yes, actually... / Yes, we just gave our funeral speeches just like the equestrian traditions tell us to."
"Oh, okay. I guess he will be a pretty decent guy..."
"Will be? He died, how can you talk like that about my brother?"
"Always so serious, Pitch. Calm down, calm down! It's not like I would ever disrespect him! In fact, I even complimented him!"
"The tone you are speaking in alone is disrespectful. And you don't even try to hide it!"
"Gotta go now..."
"Where were we?"
"We were finished, I think..."
White.
Everything was white. Jack didn't know how long he had been here, it felt like an eon.
Why was there nothing? There always was something...
There had to be. Nothing is completely devoid of anything.
Pitch had always said...
Pitch? That was not right... his name was not Pitch...
Then why could he not remember what Pitch's name was? The name was Pitch...
Was it not?
It's cold...
But at the same time hot. Why... why can't I see anything? Why can't I figure out what is going on...
It doesn't matter...
Why doesn't it matter?
What did Pitch say?
For there to be something, there has to be atleast one matter-dimension, if it is length, heigth or depth...
What else?
For something to happen a time-dimension has to exist... for timetravel atleast two...
So what does it mean, you being there and talking to me?
Talk... talking to you? You mean you're not me talking to myself?
Is that really what...
You just said you can talk to yourself. In theory, all words you hear are interpretations of sonicwaves.
What is going on? Why can't I feel myself... why is there only white?
You are interpreting it as white... it actually is energy. Dead energy.
What do you mean? Energy cannot die...
Can spirits die? Can the mass of matter called humans die? There is nothing more to them. Just a bunch of matter, what makes you think a bunch of energy is any different?
Who are you?
What are you?
Human... no, Displaced. A spirit, one of the lesser classes of deities...
Try adjectives.
Adjectives? Why adjectives?
Do you even remember what happened before you came here?
I remember...
Cold... white everywhere. Heat and cold...
This is going to take some time, isn't it?
"Why are you following me?", Pitch asked while keeping his head low, looking at the street., "Is it simply because Sor'Gat told you to help me? Or is it because he wants you to make sure I don't do anything too bad?"
Quick Breeze glared at him, not even looking at her when talking to her: "Would I even tell you when it would be the latter? Are you serious? I mean, come on! What IS it with you and never expressing any emotion? You are just unbelievable!"
Realising he had quickened his pace, she increased hers too and ran past him.
"We have almost reached our next stop", Pitch told her, still looking at the road, "The next village should be behind the next hill." With these words, he turned his head to look at his companion:
Quick Breeze, a crimson mare with a green-orange mane and tail, looking practically like bedhair, and a cutie mark depicting two lines curving at the end, that was his companion.
"You don't have to come with me."
Breeze made a grimace: "And what, missing an epic journey with the most interesting being I've ever met? Stop me if you heard this before, but by tartarus I'm not turning around."
With these words, she sped up and called: "Hey, last at the village is a snail covered in green saliva!"
Pitch looked after her, and slowed down, now walking like you would walk in a park.
'Well, atleast... Atleast my companion shows enough emotion for both of us.', he thought to himself, 'But she shouldn't challenge me like that...'
Meanwhile, Quick Breeze was almost at the village. As she looked at it from above, she noticed the shape of the village, it looked like a sock from above. The houses were built in typical Equestrian style, no surprise there.
She decided to land at the entrance to the village, the same which road Pitch would arrive on. She landed flawless, as always, with the back to the village. She sat down, waiting for Pitch to come into sight. She waited... and waited...
"What are you waiting for?", a voice asked her.
"Well, I came in with someone else, and flew ahead, but no... wait a minute, I know that voice!", she replied as she turned around, "Okay, how did you come here without me noticing you?"
Pitch sighed, leaning against the frame of the door of the first house in the village, and told her: "I entered the village while you were looking over it. We should get started with searching sources of the wanted knowledge."
"Riiiiiiiight... what did you want to know again?"
"That is nothing you have to know."
"How am I supposed to help you with your search then?", Breeze asked smugly, thinking she had won the argument.
Pitch shook his head, before saying: "You aren't. You could go refresh your supplies while I search. That is called effective usage of time."
Breeze stared at him dumbfounded, before smiling: "Did you just use sarcasm? That's the most emotio..."
"I didn't. Sarcasm is saying something, and meaning something else entirely. You should really know the definitions of words you use."
"Ugh, fine! Then you didn't use sarcasm, but yo..."
A bystander, a fine looking unicorn-stallion with orange fur, red mane and tail, a cutiemark of an stove and icy, blue eyes, chose this moment to express his completely not understandable confusion: "Excuse me, miss, but who are you talking to?"
Breeze started a habit out of looking dumbfounded, and replied: "Well, to Pitch there", at this she pointed at him AKA thin air, "Seeing how he's the only one but you near me. I am Quick Breeze by the way!"
The bystander smartly chose not to mention he couldn't see Pitch, and only said: "Ah... I can not see what you mean", while backing away.
The king of nightmares, he should really meet the canon Nightmare Moon and date her, right? Where was I? Ah, right. The king of nightmares chose that moment to remember how he could make himself visible, and walked over to the stallion, wanting to correct his mistake. Pitch tipped the horn of him, invoking horrifying visions of said whatever-he-is. And no, we are not going to call him an abomination.
The bystander, his name is Flaming Anvil by the way, screamed, caught his breath, and screamed again upon seeing Pitch. He ran away, still screaming.
Oh, and that actually is a reeeal interesting story there. You see, he later formed a cult, the cult of the Purifial. It's purpose was to destroy everything like Pitch, things they couldn't understand. I heard that it, at its peak, actually reached ten members!
But back to the story. After the bystander ran away screaming, everyPONY else shook their heads and went on with their days. I capitalised 'pony', because there was that one frog who stared. No need to go into detail, right?
"Was that really necessary?", Breeze asked Pitch, "I mean, it was not doing anything... and neither was him!"
Pitch chose not to answer, and said instead: "Could you search a tavern for today? I would like to be able to concentrate my time on seeking information."
She laughed, yet again earning confused stares, before replying: "What, and miss finding out what you want to find out? Do I even have to tell you?"
"You are attracting attention."
"What?", she asked him, turning around and seeing all the stares, the ponies quickly averted their gazes as to not meet the same fate like Anvil.
As she giggled and focused her gaze back on Pitch, he was gone.
"Damnit! Well, if he wants to be like that... One of us has to be productive, so I should probably really find a tavern..."
"Fhat'sa looking for?", wondered Howling Abyss. Right in front of him, black sand formed out of a shadow, and then turned into a creature. Shadowporting was a rare ability, and even fewer use a specialised version of it. But all of that is not the reason he was confused, no. As practicer of the Dark Arts, noone but him and his closest friends knew of that, mind me, he was used to things which would seem like Discord compared to the normal po... person, with Discord being the things he knew and this strange creature the normal person.
"You can see me?", asked said creature.
Howling, the completely black unicorn he is, simply chuckled, before telling it: "Of course I can! What, did you expect that those who are reading in the sections of the... less morally teachings wouldn't be able to see something as interesting as you? Well, paint this library in all the colours of the rainbow and call it a bakery, I don't think so. So... I assume you did want to get to this part of the library?"
At this the creature smiled, before saying: "If this is the section of the generally thought of as less moral magic, then yes. I was searching for a book..."
This interested Howling, he had never seen anything like this gluttony-demon, that's what it probably was, before. It was rather skinny, like gluttony-demons tend to be, always hungry and neverfilling or growing. It also was made out of an impossible material, this shows it probably was one of the stronger ones. This meant probably...
"You wouldn't be talking about 'Summons, Seals and Bans - A beginner's lecture into working with demons', would you? Or perhaps you seek one of the more advanced and specified, like 'Gluttony-demons - their uses, risks and the rituals needed'. Tell ol' Abyss... What do you need?"
Pitch stared at him for a short moment, during which he adopted a grin: "Is demonology what you specialise in, or is it the current trend? No, I actually am searching books about Necromancy, the art of reviving the dead."
This shocked Abyss, but he quickly regained his composure. "You're... not a demon after all, are you? Sorry, I thought you were one", at this he levitated 'Necromany 101' towards Pitch, "This should help you."
One could think there was a whisper... “That...Is the weirdest token I have ever seen. Uh...Come on out I guess...Whatever kinda rabbit...ice..shadow...guy... you are.”
Pitch thanked him regardless, and tried to grab the book...
Only to get sucked back, the corners of his vision were beginning to get overtaken by blackness...
"I am sorry, madame, but we have got no twopony-rooms left. There is only a single onepony-room left.", the tavernkeeper told her.
Breeze sighed, turning around to leave and look in another tavern, as in front of her the ground withered away, turning from brown to gray to black... and then it came alive, whirling around, until it suddenly rushed back down.
It left back a mossy green couch, including armrests, but that is not what really interested her. No, what interested her was what was ON the couch:
Pitch. Yes, you read right! The same Pitch who asked her to book a room in a tavern! He seemed to be sleeping quite peacefully...
"That onepony-room you mentioned... I think I'll take that."