The Equestria Diaries

by Istaran

Rating: teen
Tags: Self Insert, Adventure, Princess Celestia, Crossover, Sex, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Human, Princess Luna, Changelings, Original Character, Science Fiction
Length: 55180

Twelve humans enter Equestria to play a "Survival Game". Will anything survive?

A mysterious force sends a group of human strangers to Equestria, grants each of them any one item of their choice, and tells them it's a "Survival Game". Will they find the magic of friendship with the ponies? Each other? or will they opt to kill each other in order to be the last man standing?

Story map:

This is a Prequel to Itinerant Kingdom and Friends Like These .

Published 2015-03-21 03:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2015-04-14 05:34:54 UTC

Prelude: A ride in the dark

Author's Note

For this story, any words in English will be denoted by angled brackets <>. Words without such are in Equestrian. The beginning will be very heavy in English, but later chapters will not be.
Squared brackets [ ] indicate mental communication, such as telepathy.

Inspirations for this story include but are not necessarily limited to:
MLP:FIM
Clueless in Equestria
The Future Diaries (both anime and live action versions, for extra schizo inspiration)

Prelude: A ride in the dark

The rain pattered off of my jacket lightly as I idly played on my smart phone, waiting for my bus to arrive. Another day of work concluded, it was time to return home and enjoy a bit of rest and relaxation. There was nothing unusual about today, aside from perhaps being even less unusual than usual. Nothing dramatic had happened. I hadn't learned anything, interesting or otherwise. No deadlines were looming nor recently passed. The day was freakishly normal.

I got onto the bus along with a few other strangers, people I had ignored day after day. And aside from the driver idly observing the beep of my bus pass, they completely ignored me as well, and for the most part each other. They were all just as eager to get home to the people they actually did care about.
Miles rolled by. The bus stopped and started, letting people on and off. We were starting to get close to my stop, so I put the phone away and looked out at the passing scenery. It was all so normal. Right up until the point where it wasn't. The first sign of anything being less than normal was the shadows under a bridge. The underpass looked dark as night, despite well lit carpet of dreary grey daytime above. Perhaps this should have alarmed me more than it did, though I doubt I could have done anything about it. Perhaps it should have alarmed the driver, but if it did he did nothing to show it. As we drove into the darkness, it quickly got deeper, darker. We should have been out the other side in seconds, but instead the darkness just kept going. The ride became impossibly smooth, and I looked over to where the driver should have been, only to find the seat empty.

I looked around the bus quickly, counting the passengers as I took in their reaction. Twelve, including myself but not the mysteriously disappeared driver. The number made me feel uneasy, though I couldn't place why at the time. Everyone looked like they were slowly working their way into a panic in their seats. And then it all disappeared.

The interior lights of the bus had been lighting the scene up until now, but that light was suddenly gone. The seat underneath me was gone as well, and so was gravity, apparently. I was just floating in a pure black void. The murmur of the other passengers was gone as well, meeting me with only silence.

"" The words appeared in the void before me, in a red flowing script of light. I stared at it for a moment, dumbfounded. It reminded me of some random fanfics I head read, so my first thought was "" After a bit more thought I answered "" As I started to add "" for clarification, the script rewrote itself.

""

While I took a moment to process this, the text continued. ""

It didn't take me long to answer: I was careful not to even think anything other than the one thing I wanted. A fictional invention of a fictional character of mine, a virtual Deus ex machina if ever there was one. If the text could apparently read my mind and send me to fictional places, surely it could grant this wish. "" I said.

The text faded away and there was a pause, as if considering. "" the text finally replied.

I thought for a moment before going with my fallback answer. "" One to wish for the fractal spider. Perhaps a second to wish myself out of Equestria and into someplace more appealling. Like Risa. And I would still have a third wish.
""

And with that, gravity suddenly reasserted itself, dim light flooded into my eyes, and the sounds of restless nature assaulted my ears.

Wait, what? Survival game? That was why the number 12 had made me nervous.

Chapter 1: Starting positions

I was just standing there, right hand out, palm up, blinking and looking around disoriented. My hand appeared to empty, but the fractal spider should by about the size of a single cell, so maybe it could have been there. Or the text was just jerking me around. Of course, there was also the distinct possibility the spider was there and would not recognize me as its owner, and would be useless to me.. or possibly fatal. No sense worrying about it now; the time for worrying had come and gone with the text.

Looking around, I tried to take in my surroundings. Particularly wild-looking trees loomed over me in every direction, their leaves blocking out all but a trickle of sunlight. Vines draped from branch to branch and undergrowth was everywhere. If this was Equestria, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting.

I wasn't exactly what you would call a "". I styled myself more as a "". I had only managed to take in a single episode of the show, but I had enjoyed quite a lot of various fan works derived from it. So I didn't consider myself an expert on Equestria by any stretch. But shouldn't it be more.. open? This was some kind of jungle, and a foreboding looking one at that.

I started walking forward, with no particular destination in mind, winding my way between the trees as best I could. There were no clear paths here, not even animal trails, so the going was rough. A machete would have been welcome, but perhaps the noise would have been a problem. I moved as quietly as I could, under the circumstances, but the birds kept fleeing my approach, leaving me in pockets of silence where my footfalls seemed impossibly loud to me.

I came upon an old, ruined castle. I was sure it should seem familiar, but there was some unnatural fog in my mind that refused to let the memory surface. Breaking my silence at last, I called out, announcing my presence to anyone there before slowly making my way inside. Nothing answered me, not even an echo of my own voice. It was unnerving, but I felt that the shelter was better than staying out in the wild.
I began picking my way through the ruins. Stained glass windows depicted equine faces looming over me, those that were still intact that is. A black horse and a white horse.. my mind flailed at the impenetrible fog, but alas I could not recall who or what they were supposed to be. Sitting to think about it, I realized that the Text must have somehow removed any detailed knowledge I had about the show. Presumably the other riders had been given the same limitation. It was going to be weird enough for the ponies when a dozen alien bipeds arrive unannounced, it would have been even weirder if we were all sporting an improbably knowledge of the lives of several of their citizens.

My thoughts were interrupted by a sudden vibration in my pocket. Drawing out my phone, I looked and beheld a text message, magically present despite the absence of any signal:

""

Ouch.. a very powerful item, paired with a ridiculously dangerous starting location. He would have needed some time to learn how to use the device effectively, and a dragon probably wouldn't be very cooperative in that regard. I looked around nervously for a moment.. the Text obviously recognized the danger of my own item choice, and I would need even more time before it was even remotely usable. Just how dangerous of a location had I been started in?

My vision blurred, white and black stained glass horses blending into one another like a blobby yin yang. I tried to blink it away, but just got dizzy. Luckily I was already sitting down. I thought I should lie down before I pass out, but didn't have time to actually do so.

In my dreams, I had a nice, hefty wrench in hand and was using it to tighten a bolt on a zombie cyborg velociraptor. It made sense at the time, and was quite pleasantly cathartic. I felt a presence behind me, and turned to see the black mare from the stained glass, glaring down at me.

"Who art though, interloper, and what dost though in my domain?" she demanded. I didn't recognize a word she said, but in my dream I understood her meaning perfectly.

"" I retorted in annoyance. Apparantly in my dream I had become my avatar.

"No, this is a dream. You are in -my- castle!" she responded.

I blinked, and the events of the prior day refocused in my mind, my identity returning to myself. ""

She snorted in annoyance at the joke she must have heard thousands of times before. "We are Princess Luna, almighty ruler of the night, and thou shalt address us with the proper respect! Now: What art thou and why hast thou intruded upon our domain?"

""
She blinked in confusion. "Can you reword that, we are certain that did not translate properly. Thou was sent by a 'block of text'?"

I nodded. ""
"What did that text say to thee?" she asked, looking troubled.

""

"Discord." She said to herself, before vanishing into the shadows of my dream. At the time, I didn't recognize it as a name, much less remember who it belonged to. I assumed she meant something about the discord that would be generated by this scenario. A dozen humans told they are in a "" together: it's inevitable at least some of them will conclude they need to kill the others to win, or die themselves. Those that don't reach that conclussion are likely to get picked off by the others, even if it isn't true. And a bunch of bloodthirsty humans hunting each other, at least some of us with superpowered items drawn from our rich and bloody supply of violent fantasy fiction, is sure to cause disruption in an idyllic world like this one. Discord indeed.

When I awoke, I was on my back on a fuzzy bed of some kind. My clothing was missing, but I was covered in cool damp strips of cloth. I shivered a bit as I opened my eyes, looking up at a thatched roof.

A zebra approached me, asking something incomprehensible in metered rhyme. "" I replied groggily?

She continued rhyming, trying a somewhat different tack. I sat up, stared at her blankly, and then finally explained unhelpfully. "" She replied with one more verse before turning away and going about her business. She never had both eyes off of me for long, and she talked to herself occassionally, but she gave me my space. Which was good, because I was going to need it.

[]

The voice in my head startled me, but I managed to avoid outright jumping. There it was. The fractal spider had finally multiplied itself enough in my bloodstream to achieve a passable level of intelligence and connect to my mind. []

[]

[]

[]

The zebra broke me out of my reverie with an offering of stew. I thanked her profusely, and began to eat ravenously. I then started to question her about things as simply as I could, picking up or pointing at options and asking "" over and over again. It made it harder that she had to rhyme every single sentance. I hoped that wasn't an actual rule of the language.

The next day I was speaking with enough diction to get my point across and got her to share some books from her shelf with me, and teach me how to read. By the third I was conversing almost fluently. My fever was completely gone by then, as the fractal spiders had wiped out every trace of my body's original immune system, replacing them with an artificial equivalent. I was up and about, feeling healthier than I ever had.
"Zecora." I said, addressing the zebra "What can I do to repay you? I feel I should be going soon, but I do not want to leave with my debt unpaid."

"If your debt you would repay, a few more days you yet must stay.
In the woods your payment find, though I will not be far behind.
Mushrooms green and purple too, with stripes aplenty, not a few.
And leaves fourfold, not green but yellow, whose scent is pungent, not too mellow.
Seek with caution, humble debtor, for there are dangers beyond the weather."

I nodded to her, pulling on my coat before heading outside. I made it out of her small hut and out into Everfree before pulling out my phone for a quick check. A second notification had come in sometime while I was unconscious:

""

I was almost surprised so few had perished yet. And yet another powerful item. I assumed he didn't know the notes to work the thing. Would whoever acquired it be able to make use of it? That was a concern for another day. Right now I had mushrooms and leaves to find.

I spent hours combing the forest, cautiously. Zecora had made it clear she expected this to take days, and I would not be kicked out of her shelter in the meantime. I could occasionally spot the black and white stripes as she followed me from a distance while performing her own foraging. I had filled my pockets with the purple and green striped mushrooms, but I was having a hard time finding the leaves in the forest. Too many other leaves making it hard to spot the right ones. I was just approaching a large, leafy bush to see if it had the pungent scent to go with the shape and color, when suddenly the leaves exploded into the air as a massive form burst forth!

This was it. Time to see if I would be the third player eliminated.

Author's Note

So: what the hay is a Fractal Spider? I don't anticipate a proper explanation fitting into the narrative itself, as our protagonist (and the Text) already understand what they are, and are unlikely to share that knowledge anytime soon.

A fractal spider's most basic component is a magically-empowered nano-machine. It is a spider-shaped robot the size of a human cell, consisting of a single, very complex molecule. Each nano-spider can reshape matter at a subatomic level, including changing one type of atom into another. (It cannot create or destroy matter, but can move protons/electrons/neutrons from one atom to another. Creating/breaking molecular bonds is much easier.) A nano-spider can build copies of itself, and if left alone that is normally what it will do by default. It can function as a basic computer processor with about a kilobyte of "RAM" and about a megabyte of more permanent memory woven into its molecular structure in an interior section that looks like an abacus made of DNA.

The nano-spiders can interconnect to others to create a larger structure. These connections allow a nanospider to fill roles similar to a neuron in a brain by passing signals along the connection, and similar to a muscle by pulling on one another. When grouped together, they normally assemble into a spider-like shape composed of smaller spider-like shapes, composed of smaller spider-like shapes, etc. until you get down to the cellular level: hence the name "fractal spider". The larger the fractal spider, the stronger and smarter it is. However, their intelligence is excessively logical. It lacks creativity, but this can sometimes be masked by an ability to brute-force problem solving. However, they completely lack native motivation, and only work to accomplish goals that are imparted to them by beings they consider authorized users.

A population of nano-spiders can also live within a living creature. In this role, they replace the organic immune system (which otherwise would not tolerate them) and form a connection to the mind of the organism. Such a population is used to allow an authorized user to communicate remotely with one or more fractal spiders, as well as the immediate health and mental-processing abilities. (Mental health is probably doomed.)

Chapter 2: Adrenaline rush

I tried to leap back away from the oncoming monster, but succeeded only in getting off the ground so that the swipe of its massive feline paw could send me flying through the air. All things considered, maybe that was for the best. It took several seconds for it to close the distance again, time enough to clamber hastily to my feet and see just what had assaulted me.

It was like a gigantic lion, large enough to take me bodily into his mouth if given the chance, but with large leathery wings like a bat or dragon, and a firey red mane.

[]

[]

I furrowed my brow and braced myself as the manticore charged forward.

[] I felt the machine's reluctance even if it didn't put it into words, but it seemed to obey my request. Time seemed to crawl to a near stop as I saw the beast barrel toward me. I lept higher than I had ever lept before.. about a foot in all, but barely enough to line up my attack. I punched the manticore dead in the nose with all of my adrenaline-fueled might. I sickening crunch rang out as I made contact. The beasts charge was brought short, and it actually backed away from me!

Before I could celebrate, the beast bowed low, a giant scropion-like stinger thrusting forward at me over its back! I caught the stinger in my left hand and squeezed hard, eliciting a yelp as the exoskeleton started to crack! This was incredible! Mwa ha ha ha! I.. can't remember if I actually laughed like that at the time.

The beast pulled its tail back, but only proceeded to raise a clawed paw once again. He stopped in his tracks, however, when a small, high but commanding voice rang out from the forest to my left.

"Hey! What have I told you!? Don't attack anypony ever again! Well? What do you have to say for yourself?!" A butter yellow pegasus with pink mane and wings strode onto the sing, making fearless demands of the massive predator. And it seemed to be cowed by her, somehow. It made a tummy rumbling sound and licked its lips, apparently by way of explanation. "Aww. You're hungry? I understand, but that's no excuse for eating somepony. Go! Go hunt a proper prey animal." The manticore turned and did as it was told, wandering off into the bushes.

While she was talking to him, I looked down at myself, taking stalk of my own situation. Three massive red stripes crossed my chest and belly. A large red circle formed just under my ribcage, and through the torn cloth I could see the flesh around it turning a sickly green. My right arm looked like a train that had hit a mountian headlong at full speed. I didn't think my arm was designed with crumple zones..

The pegasus turned to look toward me, obvious concern in her eyes. She said something, but I didn't really hear her. The adrenaline wore off much more swiftly than I had thought possible, and before I could even manage to scream as the pain suddenly hit me, I passed out.

I woke to the now-familiar sight of Zecora, the zebra mare who had taught me Equestrian. She was sitting in a chair across the room from the bed I was in. The bed itself and the room were unfamiliar. The house we were in was humble looking enough, but a big step up from the shack she called home. I could hear and smell a wide array of animals in another room in the structure. The smells and sounds were an incomprehensible mix, but Deus sated my idle curiousity with a full listing of the animals in question with mechanical efficiency.

"Consider your debt absolved, consider yourself now free,
You shall hunt no more for mushrooms, within the Everfree.
Your bravery is doubtless, your constitution seen,
But for your death I am most assuredly not keen." The zebra greeted me with her typical rhyming verse. I nodded weakly in response, injured enough for my pride to yield to her generosity.

Her words caught the attention of the yellow and pink pegasus, and she came into the room to check on me. She seemed to have trouble meeting my eyes, and strangely less trouble looking at my bloodsoaked bandages covering my torso. "H-hello.. my name is Fluttershy. You are a human, like Frank, right? I'm sorry this is the best I could do for you.. please be okay." It took me a moment to make out what she said, as I had to ask Deus to replay it in my mind at a higher volume in addition to translating.

"Thank you, Fluttershy. You saved my life, I can't ask for much more. Is this your home?"

"Yes, it is." She said, to the ground halfway between us. "I did my best to bandage you, if that's okay."

I was about to ask why it wouldn't be okay, when I realized my clothing was missing. While she was stark naked herself, I vaguely remembered Equestria being 'clothing optional' in the show. Still, she had apparently met another human and might be aware of our discomft with nudity, or perhaps just knew it was polite to ask before removing anyone's possessions in general.

"It's okay, Fluttershy. You did a great job.. so good I feel like I'm starting to recover already." It was sort of true. The bandages didn't do much more but keep my insides from spilling out, but that bought Deus plenty of time to rebuild my damaged flesh. "My name is Daniel, by the way. You said you knew a human named Frank? Is here nearby?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "He is staying in town with my friend Pinkie Pie. I'm sure they'd both like to meet you! Shall I arrange for them to stop by?"

I tensed for a bit, despite trying not to. "Yes, bring them both. I'd like to meet this Frank. Has he been here long?"

"No. He suddenly appeared in Twilight's library just a few days ago while she was trying to devise new spell. Why do you ask?"

I had a feeling I should be recognizing more of these names for some reason, but shrugged it off. "Just curious. I have only been in Equestria for a few days myself. I didn't know if anyone else had been here much longer."

"Oh, that makes sense. You should lay down now, and get some more rest. I'll bring you some food in a bit, and then go see if Frank wants to visit."

"Excellent. I look forward to your continued gracious hospitality." I was a bit nervous about what the food would consist of, but Deus was confident in its ability to process any form of organic matter for me, so I was only really worried about the taste.

Zecora kept me company for a while longer before taking her leave to return home, trusting that I was in good hooves and unlikely to perish. Fluttershy mostly kept her distance unless there was something to do like delivering her homemade barley vegetable stew or changing my bandages. So I had a lot of time by myself to introspect.

While I lie inconspicuously on the bed, I was learning to control my one Item. Some of the other players had managed to die with very potent but hard to use Items in their possession: a wristwatch that could transform the user into any of several powerful alien forms, and a musical instrament that could unwind time itself if I was not mistaken. The Fractal Spider was at least as powerful in its own right, and the ability to recover more quickly and thoroughly from devastating wounds was already coming in handy. But if I was going to survive the dangers of this world, to thrive in it even, I was going to need to learn how to use it more proactively.
With my eyes closed, I concentrated on Deus, and the connection between our minds grew. At my direction, nanospiders began to creep out of my pores and assemble into barely visible spider-like forms. These tiny fractal spiders jumped off and began exploring the room. I closed my eyes and let myself see through their senses instead. It was incredible. My mind couldn't handle all of the input at once, but somehow Deus was able to take care of some of the work and keep me from being overwhelmed. I settled back onto the bed with a smug smile, feeling proud of myself for the accomplishment.

I sat bolt upright a moment later as I had the experience of being accidently crushed to death by a gigantic yellow hoof! Fluttershy began apologizing profusely, if vaguely. It took me a moment to realize what had happened, and a few more to realize she hadn't. She was just apologizing for waking me, unaware of the mechanical debris that was even now digging out of view into the wood floor beneath her hoof.

"No, no, Fluttershy! It's alright. I'm just a light sleeper, and being in an unfamiliar environment just made it a bit worse."

"Oh.. okay. Sorry. I was just going to go see my friends and see if Frank wanted to visit, if that's okay."
"Yes, please! Send him over. I'd love to speak with him. And I'm feeling mostly better. I will be okay while you are out, I promise."

Fluttershy nodded timidly before taking her leave. I waited until her front door was shut before finally resuming my training.. this time being more careful to look up on occasion.

Chapter 3: Poor poker faces

I was left alone for a few hours, which suited me just fine under the circumstances. I was still healing from the manticore attack, but mostly I was just playing with my spiders. I had dreamed of this day, but actually living the reality was incredible. I soon had a handful of small spiders parked around the outside of the small house, watching for Fluttershy's return, while the others roamed about, doing random things. I used the dust in her house as raw material to make more spiders, and tried combining them up to various sizes. As I expected, the larger spiders could handle more complex orders on their own, while the tiny ones needed constant micromanagement. Deus handled most of that on his own, but even he lacked initiative of his own.

It was very obviously strange percieving things as a collection of independant bodies scattered about the room, but when I thought about it it was much more profoundly but subtly strange sharing Deus' mind. Mathematics had become trivial, memorization (once my greatest bane) was instant and inevitable. When I concentrated, I could feel many of my thoughts drift from my brain to his. I would start thinking about what I wanted to do, and he would pull the thought-train from my mind and start filling in the details of how to do it. It was surreal to a degree I could barely comprehend.

One of the little watch-spiders on the roof got eaten by a bird. It was strange and a bit painful to experience, but ultimately harmless to me. Deus had some rather.. unkind suggestions for how to deal with the bird, ranging from converting its mass to more spiders to enslaving it by hijacking its mind. I cringed at all of them, and instead ordered Deus to convert as much of its mass in the bird as it could to nutrious proteins and such the bird could digest. Deus obeyed, but I could sense his discomfort with my choice. []

I tried to distract myself from going down that dark path for now. I ordered Deus to build me some lasers. Nothing big or fancy, just some spider-mounted laser-pointers. They could be fun, possibly useful, and more importantly it was an interesting diversion. [] he replied, leaving me speechless for a moment. Until now, Deus had been able to sort out the how of anything I'd wanted him to do with no trouble.

[]

[]

[]

[]

[]

[]

I put that thought aside, as someone was coming. The yellow wings pulled tight against a buttery flank was easily recognizable as Fluttershy. A white furred, purple maned pony with a small white horn protruding from her forehead tugged at my memory. I felt like she should have been familiar, but I couldn't place her for the life of me. She carried heavy laden saddlebags, and seemed to be quite eager about something. The third and final figure of their group was a human. I vaguely recognized him from the bus ride.. a stocky and well muscled man in his 30s or 40s, he looked like a stereotypical lumberjack to me, but he had a broad, friendly grin and an overly colorful flannel shirt and overalls. Somehow his clothing felt.. more at place here than in the dreary gray world we had both come from.

As they approached, I hid my spiders from view. But what I failed to hide was the unnatural cleanliness of the place. I didn't notice until the ponies entered and exclaimed about it. As clean as the place was now, it literally sparkled. Somehow, the spiders couldn't perceive it, but looking around with my own eyes it was glaringly obvious. It felt like.. cartoon logic on display, for lack of a better term. When my visitors came into the room where I was sitting on the bed, Fluttershy was on me in a moment.

"Oh, mister Daniel, did you clean my house? That was very thoughtful of you, but you really should be resting. You're too hurt to be doing housework!"

"Oh, umm. It was no trouble." I thought as quickly as I could, before pulling out a fist-sized spider from my pocket. "My robot here did all the work."

"Oh! Well then thank you mister.. umm, what's his name?" Fluttershy didn't seem the least phased by the spider, but I could tell the unicorn was cringing a bit, and Frank's smile was looking.. a bit more faked.

"," I said without thinking, before cringing. While, predictably, the ponies simply took it as a name, Frank clearly recognized what the word meant. ''. It was going to make it a lot harder to downplay its capabilities, especially to him. I wasn't yet convinced that honesty was the best policy, at least in our situation.

"Oh, well then thank you very much, Mister , I'm glad to meet you!" Deus returned her greeting by waving a single leg at her, which elicited a few excited giggles.

"So, that's the item you chose to bring with you? All I asked for was a Swiss Army knife." Frank said, drawing out the item in question from his pocket to show it off. "Nothing too fancy, but it has plenty of uses."

"Indeed, Frank here has been making himself quite handy all around town since he arrived here. I do so hope you will be as welcome of an arrival." The unicorn said. As I turned to her, she blushed a bit, realizing she'd forgotten something. "Oh! Forgive me for not introducing myself sooner. My name is Rarity, clothier extraordinaire. If you will allow me the opportunity, I would love to provide you with some replacements for your old, torn clothing. You can see my prior work on display on mister Frank here."

"That's quite generous of you, Rarity. I hope I will be able to repay your kindness before long." A thought struck me and I turned to the other human in the room. "Frank, how did you learn to speak Equestrian so quickly?"

"Oh, uh, Twilight used some kind of translation spell on me." He said, waving dismissively. "It was quite convenient that I happened to appear before a unicorn with a knack for magic like that. Why, how did you learn?"

"I had to take a crash course in it from a zebra.. just be glad I didn't pick up her tendancy to rhyme everything. I'm just glad she had the patience to keep talking all day to make use of the old 'immersion' technique." I grinned fakely, and he nodded back just as unconvincingly. []

[]

I realized my eyes had gone a bit out of focus as I was having my mental exchange, though the ponies at least didn't seem to notice anything was amiss. "I suppose Rarity will need to measure me for my clothing. I'm feeling much better now, and I think I'm up for it if you brought what you need?" I stood up, keeping the sheets around me as a measure of modesty, showing I was well enough for such activities.

"Alright, but we should talk later, in private, if you don't mind." Frank said, a hint of nervousness creeping in his voice despite his best poker face. I nodded in return.

"Be careful not to overexert yourself, if you don't mind." Fluttershy said before taking her leave.

I was left alone with Rarity then. Unsurprisingly, her saddlebags were full of measuring equipment, fabrics, and other tools of her trade. I blushed as she telekenetically pulled my sheets away, and started measuring my various proportions. She had a delicate touch, being especially careful around the scabbed over remains of my wounds. She was quite professional about the whole thing, and kept me distracted as best she could with conversation, mostly discussing clothing options.

We were at odds almost immediately, as I wanted a simple pair of black pants and a grey shirt, as simple and forgettable as possible. But simple and forgettable were anathema to her, and grey was practically sacriledge. At one point she tried to suggest a rather nice-looking suit: I wondered how a pony had gotten the idea of a tuxedo nailed down so perfectly. But I insisted on something easier to move in. We finally compromised on a pair of black pants with navy blue highlights and a navy blue pressed shirt with black highlights.

When we were done, I settled back under my blankets eagerly awaiting fresh clothing. But before I would have those, I had another visit from Frank.

Chapter 4: Knife and spider

"You have some good friends here." I stated idly, as Frank entered the room alone. He seemed a little nervous, but I chalked that up to the situation we were thrust into. If this really was a survival game, only one of us would be able to win. Presumably, that meant only one of us would be alive at the end.

"Yeah. They're really great mares. They have been incredibly kind to me since I arrived." I thought I saw the shimmer of barely restrained tears in his eyes, but he managed to keep his voice level. "I'll miss them when I'm gone. But I have a wife and son back home. I have to get back to them somehow. Do you have a family?"

"No. I mean, not like that. My mom and siblings are all scattered across the country, and I don't really keep in touch." I smiled wryly. "It will probably be a while before they realize I'm gone." In retrospect, that was probably the worst thing I could have said at that moment. I think it was at that point that he started to calm down, and eerily so.

He went on about his wife and child for a while. Apparently he had another one on the way as well. I paid just enough attention to play the part of a listener. I didn't think I would ever meet these people, no matter how things played out.

For my own part I didn't feel like I had too much to say. Back home I had been alone and lonely. I had friends but none that I would really call close friends. I had struggled with depression for a while, before roleplaying games had gotten me a few ties close enough to keep me sane. I realized while we talking that I hadn't really taken a moment to think about things since I got here. I was always too busy learning new languages, or skills, or such to really stop and reflect on just how disconnected I had become. Frank here not only had his family back home, but also his new friends here.

When I was finished, he leaned in close and gave me a nice big hug. I stiffened a little, as this was a bit more friendly contact that I was really comfortable with, particularly from another man. I needn't have worried about it being too friendly though. Before long, a sharp pain in my neck alerted me to his true intention. [] Deus helpfully informed me. [] I replied quickly.

Shifting his grip, Frank did his best to ensure the job was done. If I hadn't had Deus cheating death on my behalf, there is no doubt how it would have ended. Stumbling back, he looked at me like a man haunted. All that talk about his family, and about my relative lack of connections.. he had been steeling himself for this moment. Taking me out while I was injured and unsuspecting.. it was a sound strategy. I looked at him with glassy eyes, trying to play dead as I watched his resolve shatter after the fact.

Dozens of animals in another room became agitated, filling the air with a cacophony of alarmed sounds as the smell of fresh blood reached their noses. This shook Frank out of his reverie. He grabbed the robotic spider off my bed and made a run for it, slipping out of the house while the ponies were distracted. Running from the scene of the crime. Running from me. Running from his pony friends. Running from himself.

With a sigh, I slumped back against the wall, holding my neck to slow the flow of blood. The wound was only an inch or so deep, but it had bled profusely and made an awful mess. Deus was keeping my brain supplied as best he could, but with the interrupted flow, he could keep me alive but not conscious. I faded out before Fluttershy could find me. I didn't wake up even when she screamed.

It took some time to recover enough to even dream, but eventually I did. In my dream, I was standing atop a building, laughing maniacally, while my horrific doom machine rained kittens down upon the poor hapless ponies of the realm. Each kitten would find a pony, rub against them, purr at them, melt their hearts with adorable lovingness.. and then die, leaving the ponies shellshocked with horror. In my dreams, I was a very, very strange villain.

Luna appeared, putting an end to it with a swift kick to the machine. It flew off into the air, exploding into a cloud of confetti. The day was saved!

"" I said, as I turned toward the princess.

Luna took a moment to decide how to respond. "Bloody human," she began. I thought for a moment she was using a British expression. "Several of my ponies have had nightmares this night about your horrific murder. How then do you still dream?"

I thought for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain to someone without a concept of nanomachines. "" Good enough.

"We were mislead by a human we thought to be a good pony. You have more troubling dreams than he, though that is not truly a crime. Will you submit to incarceration? It is perhaps a safer place for you than anywhere you might meet your kind. And it will help limit the chaos your presence sows within my kingdom."

"" I spun, arms wide, and the wind swept through to dramatically ruffle my hair and billow my clothes. "" I held out a hand in invitation, grinning madly at her.

She bristled, in response, pulling back, and then pulling out of the dream entirely. The whole dream collapsed without her, and I awoke.

Fluttershy was slumped over the bed, head buried in her forearms, sobbing. She didn't know me that well, but I suppose she was the kind to mourn anyone's death. And, I felt she was mourning the loss of the friend she thought she knew Frank to be.

I gently placed a hand on her shoulder and she sat bolt upright, startled. As she stared at me, I whispered to her, as well as I could. "Tell Rarity.. I am going to need.. a scarf.."

Chapter 5: Reconsidering and reloading

It was great to finally get outside. Rarity had done a great job with my new clothes. They felt like silk against my skin, and the scarf did a great job hiding my most recent injury. It was also really great at billowing dramatically in the wind. It kind of felt like it had a way of summoning extra wind just to billow in. But that was probably just my imagination.

I was suprised Rarity hadn't lost any time working on my wardrobe. Apparently she had spent some time working under the assumption it was to be my funeral attire. A bit morbidly, I thought that might still be the case when it was all said and done. Fortunately, the scarf was simple to make from a bolt of cloth she had already, so the outfit was complete in no time.

Fluttershy was quite glad I had miraculously recovered, but she was still more than a little shellshocked from the whole thing. I didn't know what to say to help her out of her funk, but I did make one request of her before I left her home. "Forgive him. For me."

I decided to make my way to the Ponyville library, where Frank had first appeared. He had chosen such an unimpressive item, I figured his starting location was the most favorable there was. So it was definitely worth checking out. Along the way I took some time to sync up with Deus.

[]

[]

I thought long and hard before answering. []

Deus took a while to respond, the relative silence making the wind blowing my scarf around seem deafening. []

[]

Before Deus could respond, an orange-coated mare siddled up to me. "Howdy. You seem to be doing remarkably well today. Considering." Her countenance grew dark with the last word.

"It's this scarf Rarity made for me. Really does wonders. Did you know Frank?"

"I thought I did. Seemed like a right nice feller until.. tell me, honestly, what do you intend to do about him?"

"You mean to him? .. Let me ask you this first. What would you do if you and some other ponies.. let's say ones you hadn't met before, were put in an unfamiliar place and told you had to play in a 'survival game'? What would that mean to you?"

"That's a right odd question.. well, a 'survival game' is the sort of thing Discord or the like might force somepony to play. So we'd have to team up right quick and find the way to win before somepony got hurt! Why do you ask?"

I stopped in my tracks. I had meant the question rhetorically, but that wasn't the answer I had expected. "So in a 'survival game', you work together to survive.. that's what the term means in Equestria.. the place where the game is taking place.." I said, half to myself.

"That's right. You still haven't said why? Or answered my original question."

"Where Frank and I come from, the term means something very different. It means only one of the participants can 'win'. Only one will survive."

"Oh." She said before things really sunk in. "Oh, my!"

"I don't blame Frank. He was only thinking about getting home to his family. And now, thanks to you, I at least have hope that we can both win at the end of this. I'd like to help him get home to his wife and son if I can. That said.. I have no intention of dying. If you can find it in your hearts to forgive him.. he's on the road heading south out of town. I think it would be better if you can convince him to return and stay here in Ponyville. I won't be here that much longer."

She placed a hoof on my forearm. "You're a very kind pony. I hope you find a way to both win too." With that we parted ways.

"Aaaaah!" a pink pony with balloons tattooed on her flank screamed at me unexpectedly.

"Aaaaah!?" I responded, startled.

"Aaaaarghh!" She expressed in frustration, while drawing out a ridiculously oversized bazooka from somewhere. Hammerspace?

"Aaaaaah!" I exclaimed in fright, not at all confident of my ability to regenerate from such heavy ordinance.

"Ah!" She answered, aiming a bit high before pulling the trigger. Black and grey streamers and balloons floated down at me, as several black-clothed tables fell all around me, bearing tasteful miniature sandwiches.

"Aaah hah hah!?" I reacted, in utter incomprehension.

"Time to reload! And this time you better stay non-dead!" The pink pony demanded before running off.

"Time to run away!" I said to no one in particular as I beat a hasty retreat, hustling to get away from this madness and find the library at last.

When I arrived at last, the doors were wide open. This was a public library, so I didn't think anything particularly strange about that, and strolled inside. Not seeing anyone at first, started perusing the titles of books. I could see already that my Equestrian vocabulary was going to be stretched to the breaking point here. Concentrating on Deus, I started to let loose thousands of tiny mechanical spiders: each was charged with crawling into one of the books and making its way up and down every page, while Deus sorted and recorded the symbols they found. I had no idea which of these books would prove to be the critical clue, much less a life-saving piece of general knowledge.

"Ah ha!" a voice said from an overhanging room. Looking up, I saw a lavender unicorn looking down at me, with a strange glow in her eyes. "You really do have magic blood. And, what's that all over my books? Are you magicking my books without permission?!"

"Oh, um, yes. I am just reading them. Is that not permissible? Do I need a library card first?"

"Oh, I guess that's fine, as long as you don't harm any of the books. But while you are doing that, can I study your magic blood?" She descended from her perch, picking up a terrifyingly massive hypodermic needle in her lavender telekinetic grip.

A funny thing about phobias. They are called 'irrational fears' for a reason. Logically I knew that a little blood donation wasn't going to kill me. Despite the comically exaggerated size of the needle, I knew logically that I had lost a lot more blood than that from each of my recent injuries, and with Deus to help me I was going to get through it just fine. As it was, I was out the front door before she could reach the ground floor. It took all my willpower to stop and hide beside the door frame and call back to her. "Perhaps we can find a less invasive way to study it?"

"Oh, eheh. Sorry, I guess you are afraid of needles?"

"They are the bane of my magic blood." Deus promptly chided me for projecting my own weaknesses onto him. I chided him for letting his name go to his head.

"Okay. I've put the needle away. Can you come back in? I can just do a magical analysis of the blood while it is still in your system," she offered.

"That sounds a lot more reasonable." In the distance I thought I saw pink-colored movement. Now seemed like a good time to be back inside the library.

"Here, just take a seat and I'll get started. Let's see.. I'll need Starswirl's Guide to Magical Analytics... here it is. Oh, your magic is still on it.. do you mind?"

"I'll just, get back to that one a little later," I offered, as I moved the spider out of that book and into the next. I was having a hard time making any practical sense of that book anyways, or any of the books on magic. I could memorize the words and diagrams, but without the basic understanding of a wizard, I couldn't really make sense of them. They assumed an underlying education I simply didn't have. And that's before considering the sheer data-overload of reading an entire library in parallel. I wasn't really processing the information yet, just storing it for later.

As I took my seat, Twilight flipped through the pages, finally settling on what she needed. She took a few minutes to review the information before turning her horn on me. "Here goes nothing!" she said before her horn began to glow brightly. I was bathed in a haze of lavender lights, and saw what looked like a variety of text showing up in the air around me, at an angle that was impossible to read. I noticed the spiders were completely unaware of the magical light, so I couldn't even use their alternate perspectives to try and read it. In Twilight's magic, my blood lit up brightly, looking like a diagram of the human circulatory system.

"This is amazing" she said, before spouting off a chain of what I can only assume was Equestrian technobabble. Magibabble? Arcanobabble? The term 'arcane' seemed particularly appropriate at the moment.

"So, how did you get magic blood? I thought there wasn't any magic in your world. Or did you get it after you arrived?" I realized she was actually asking questions I could understand again.

"In the process of coming here, we had a chance to get one item of our choice. I chose this." I gestured at my glowing body. "It was an idea I had had sometime back, though I can't claim it was 100% original. A particular refinement of more well known ideas. I was lucky it worked out as well as it did. It was definitely an opportunity for one of those 'be careful what you wish for' scenarios. Stories of this sort of thing going horribly, horribly wrong are more common than stories of it going even remotely right. But I figure that's more a question of what works well for stories than any sense of realism. If everything goes right, where is the tension and the drama?"

"So what all can your magic blood do?" she asked.

I tensed up, looking away uncomfortable. I really didn't want her knowing the full extent of my capabilities. The worst case was far outside the realm of anything I would ever chose. One nanospider, with the right order, could convert its entire environment into more and more nanospiders, ultimately converting the entire world. Even that was only a convenient stopping point, not the limit of its destructive potential. The bigger it got, the smarter, and it would be trivial for a planet-sized fractal spider to launch little clusters of nanospiders at other worlds to convert them as well. It could even launch them out into deep space, calculating the paths of distant suns and planets and the gravity wells along the way to eventually hit worlds lightyears away and convert them as well. The 'grey goo' scenario was within my physical capabilities, and that was terrifying to even know, much less share with others. While I had complete trust in myself to never chose to end the world, why would strangers be willing to trust me with such power? And if they knew, would their fear push them to push me into a corner, where ending the world might seem like less and less bad of an idea?

Fortunately, there was a -lot- of room between the minimalist use I had been making of Deus so far and all out apocalypse. And plenty of uses I could admit to without going into his full capabilities. And also Twilight wasn't the best at distinguishing partial honesty from full disclosure.

"I'm still learning how to make full use of it, but it has quite a few handy uses. The best so far is that it can keep me alive through some degree of otherwise fatal injury, and help me recover more fully and quickly."

"Our own medical magic can do something like that, but I can see how it would be handy to have it already in your blood, in case nopony can get you to a hospital in time."

I nodded before continuing. "It also allows me to send out little spiders to perceive my environment from different angles, or even do physical tasks for me at a distance." I demonstrated by assembling another fist-sized spider within my hands and let it start roaming. I had it pick up a small hand-broom and start sweeping up, slowly and awkwardly since the broom was a bit big for it to wield.

"Oh, that's how you cleaned up Fluttershy's place, even though you were so hurt?"

"Yes" I oversimplified. "It also can help me remember things, and in some ways think them through. For example, it helped me learn Equestrian more quickly, and now it's memorizing as many of your b-" I cut myself off mid-word to stroll over to one of the bookshelves and pull a book off the shelf. Placing it on the table, I opened it up to the page my spider had discovered. The book looked ancient, with old yellowing pages. But there, halfway through the book was a set of seemingly random black and white blocks, with a telltale set of squares within squares in three of the corners. It was a QR code. While there was no plausible explanation of how it could be here, it was definitely there. "Twilight.. does this look at all familiar to you?"

"Well, yes and no. I mean, I've seen it before in this book as part of reading through the library, but I've never seen anything else like it and there is no other explanation within the book. Why? Is it familiar to you?"

I took out my phone, only belatedly realizing it still had a charge despite all reason to the contrary. Actually, the battery icon wasn't even being displayed, which was quite strange. While Deus could easily memorize the QR code (but not decipher it. I had no idea how QR codes were interpreted, so he didn't either), I figured it might be valuable to show someone else. So I snapped a picture of it. "Back in our world, we call these QR codes. They're a way of presenting a block of information that anyone with the right reader can access. Usually just a pointer to someplace with more information."

To my surprise, the phone automatically responded to the QR code. A window popped up showing the code overlayed with the word ''. It took up only about a sixth of the screen, with five empty boxes of about the same size on screen as well. There was an '' button under it within its box, but the button was grayed out and unresponsive.

"What was that?" Twilight asked, looking over my shoulder.

"A piece of the puzzle. Do you happen to know of a set of six things.. concepts or what have you, one of which is 'magic'?" I asked.

She gave me the blankest of blank looks, normally reserved for when a grown man asks you what color the sky is, or what's the opposite of up.

Chapter 6: Recap and review

"So to review", Twilight began, "what do we know so far about this 'survival game'."

"We know there are twelve humans that were forced into as players. The phones apparently alert us to when one is eliminated, so we are down to ten. The phones also apparently need to be used to collect these QR codes. One was here in your library, which apparently has something to do with 'magic'. We know there are six altogether, so we are guessing they are connected to your Elements of Harmony. That would make the others 'honesty', 'kindness', 'loyalty', 'generosity' and 'laughter'. We know that phone reports starting locations of players that are eliminated, and one of the QR codes was in a player's starting location, so it's a good guess that all of the QR codes are in starting locations. There are twice as many humans as QR codes, so either there are duplicates out there or not every starting location has one. And lastly: if the 'survival game' follows human culture's meaning of the term, one player will need to get all six QR codes to win, and the rest are doomed. But if it follows Equestrian culture's meaning, then it will probably need at least six of us, each with a distinct QR code to somehow work together and activate them all."

Twilight nodded as I finished my recap. "Right. So.. what will you do now?"

"I'm going to head to the badlands. My 'magic blood' should give me the protection I need, hopefully, and it sounds like a good place to do a little.. aggressive experimentation. I'll see what I can learn about Robert's fate, and look for a QR code in the area. I'll need to check out the dragon's lair eventually as well, but it sounds like there's more than one of those about and none of them are as easy to find on a map as the badlands is. Also, I feel like I have a long way to go before I'm ready to face off against a dragon in its own lair."

"Why would you need to face off against him? Or her?" Spike chimed in. "I mean, how would you feel if someone invaded your home just to attack you? Violence doesn't have to be the answer."

"That.. is a very relevant point. And probably points to Ben's failing as well. He probably felt he could take on the dragon, when that was the last thing he should have been even trying. I'll try to sort out a more.. diplomatic approach. Once I know which dragon and where its lair is, that is. In the meantime.. I need you and your friends to find Frank and bring him back here. I know things will be strained, but he needs friends now more than ever. And I may need him some day to activate one of these codes. Show him the one in the book when he gets here. Oh, and keep an ear out for word of any other humans. We should stand out enough to cause rumors to spread, I would hope. I don't suppose you have any magical way of reaching me?"

"I can send you letters with my breath" offered Spike, helpfully. I looked at him with a raised brow. That just didn't make any damn sense. "I can!" he insisted.

"Okay. Tell me what you learn. I can also communicate through the spider Frank took, at least when it's in range. I'll send word that way when I have updates. And now.. I really should get going."

"Alright, Daniel. Be safe!" Twilight bid me as I made for the door.

When I opened the door, however, a certain pink pony was waiting to ambush me. I ducked and covered as the bazooka was aimed in my direction. Colorful streamers bounced harmlessly off my back as the sounds of kazoos summoned a herd of technicolor equines. "Happy So-Glad-You-Miraculously-Didn't-Die Party, Daniel!" Pinkie shouted at the top of her lungs. Everypony cheered. In all fairness, I was quite happy about not dying.

"I am afraid I must amend the subject of the party, however."

"You wouldn't dare!" Threatened Pinkie.

"But I must, as this must also serve as my going away party." I cringed under her stare. "Until later when I come back and have a welcome back?"

"YAY!" I was quite relieved that she accepted it so easily, and also that there was a generous buffet to prepare me for my journey. I was a bit surprised to see that the bouquets on the table were apparently part of the buffet rather than the centerpieces I had mistaken them for. Fortunately, the ponies took no offense at my passing over that particular delicacy, and focussing on things like apples.

"So.. what was all that earlier with the black and grey decorations?" I asked when I had had a bit to eat and had gathered my nerves.

"Oh, that was for your funeral party. I just had to get them out of the Party Cannon to load up more appropriate decorations, of course."

"Of course."

The party was nice enough, but I had never been a big fan of parties and barely knew anypony there. So when I had eaten my fill, I thanked Pinkie, said my goodbyes to Fluttershy, Rarity and Twilight, and took my leave. I noted idly that Applejack was nowhere to be seen.

The open road was lonely, but it gave a lot of time for introspection. And reading. I had an entire library in my head, or more accurately my blood, and finally had time to try to internalize the information. The information on history was interesting and informative, but most of it had questionable application to me at best. The few mentions of past 'survival games' in Equestria were brutal despite the authors' attempts to describe them as vaguely as possible. Apparently they were used by despots on occasion as a matter of sport, challenging groups of ponies to survive impossible odds together. They often liked to through in individuals with existing feuds against one another to mix things up and make teamwork that much more challenging.

The information on magic was incredibly interesting. Tantalizing, but quite frustrating. It was written by unicorns, for unicorns, and it showed. The few works that even tried to go 'back to basics' in even side notes always did so by referencing the horn. You should push more power into the outside of the horn for this spell, less for that, or vary it to achieve different effects with this other spell. Without the experience of actually having a horn, there was no way to begin to apply the knowledge. That said, reading through it did give a good idea of what pony magic could and could not do. It started to feel less like an all-purpose handwave and more like a well defined aspect of reality. Or 'sufficiently advanced technology'.

[] I thought.

[] Deus replied.

[]

[]

[]

[]

With my thoughts occupied, I barely registered an earth pony approaching along the road ahead. His eyes were shadowed under a broad brimmed hat which kept me from seeing his face from my tall vantage point, but he didn't give any obvious reaction on my approach. The moment I was passed him, however, he made it very clear that he had noticed me. A powerful pair of hind hooves slammed into my back, sending me flying forward. I tried to land on all fours, but underestimated my momentum and skidded painfully along the ground. As I turned and pulled myself up, I caught a green glint in the eyes of my assailant as he appraised me. He had no words for me as he charged in to follow up on his first attack.

Adrenaline surging through my system, this time at a more manageable level than when I had faced the Manticore, I rushed forward, then spun off to the side as he reared up and tried to lash at me with his fore hooves. A kick of my own landed squarely in his side, knocking him over but not looking like it had done much damage. Not believing he deserved any particular 'fair play' considerations after his unprovoked attack, I rushed in to try to kick him while he was down.

Green light flooded my vision, blinding me momentarily, followed by a thick cloud of dust. I covered my eyes, trying to keep aware of my situation as best I could. Flapping wings and disturbed air.. followed by a sharp hoof to the head. I was down on the ground, bleeding from a gash on my temple before I caught sight of him again. Somehow he had grown wings! This was no ordinary pony.. a changeling? Funny. I guess they were non-specific enough to retain my memories about the show. But why the unsubtle hostility?

"Why are you attacking me?" If he could be unsubtle, so could I.

"This is for our Queen!" He said as he winded me with a hoof to the gut. "This is for our hive!" he said as he shoved me against a tree. "And this is for my brother!" he said as he brought a pair of hooves down on my head. At least I got him to talk. Too bad I was too out of it to continue the conversation.

Chapter 7: Self and self

I was floating in an inky darkness. It reminded me a lot of when the Text had spoken to me, but I could tell it was different somehow. It had a sort of unreal quality to it, like a dream. Before me, visible clearly despite the lack of any discernable light source, was another me. He looked at me with coldly appraising eyes, and an amused grin that somehow felt dangerous. It took me a moment to recognize him. My avatar. Istaran.

"Tag out," he said, holding up an arm to me.

I hesitated. I knew him well. I had dreamed him up. He was me, but not me. He had quite a few quirks and flaws that I lacked. Not the least of which was an explicit desire to be known as a villain. But he also had the confidence I lacked. Fearlessness. And when it suited him, ruthlessness. I was worried about what he might do, but honestly I was tired of being a punching bag.

I grasped his hand in mine, and the dream ended.

He awoke, but didn't stir. Eyes closed, he listened as his spiders began to spread out into the area around him. The changeling was talking into some kind of crystal. He was smart enough, at least, to keep facing towards his prisoner. He had hog-tied his prisoner quite securely, but it wasn't anything a few spiders couldn't fix.

"This one's different then the heartless drones we fought. I think it must be one of their Queens. It seemed pretty defenseless, but that is probably because I caught it off guard," the drone explained to the crystal.

Istaran didn't take kindly to being referred to as defenseless. But he managed to bide his time. He would dispel that myth momentarily. Key segments of the ropes that bound him had been replaced by spiders, waiting to disconnect from one another on command and leave the rope in shreds. Others had reproduced quietly under the ground, and now snaked up around the changeling's feet, forming manacles around his legs just loose enough to avoid setting off his sense of touch.

Suddenly, Istaran was climbing to his feet, rushing the changeling. Spiders reinforced his left arm, adding mass to an adrenaline fueled punch to the gut that knocked the changeling over, while others rapidly constructed a long, sharp dagger in his right hand. The manacles tightened around the creature's rear legs, while more spiders burst from the ground to secure his forehooves where they landed. A fist-sized spider picked up the crystal and brought it closer. From this angle, Istaran could see the face of a rather alarmed, undisguised changeling on the other end. It looked.. different. Feminine? Queen.

With the dagger pressed to the drone's throat, Istaran turned to the crystal. "This drone is lost to you. If you give it to me, I will consider it due compensation and consider allying with you against the other human. At the very least you won't have gained my enmity. Otherwise.. I will leave this place, and the drone will not. And the only thing protecting you from me will be whatever degree of inconvenience it is to me to pursue you. Do you understand?"

She took a moment to consider the turn of events and her options. "Very well. He is yours." The drone flinched a bit at her words, then looked up at Istaran with a bit of confusion. He could feel.. something from the human. It was like love but different. Colder. After a moment he recognized it for what it was. It was the love a dragon has for his hoard. Fiercely protective, but not exactly born of kindness. Though the amount of trust he felt was surely unearned.

"Shall we arrange to discuss terms of alliance then?" the queen continued.

"Tomorrow." Istaran said dismissively. "Now, how do I turn this off?" he asked the drone.

Once the call was ended, Istaran sat back a bit, still straddling the defeated changeling. He looked down on him and grinned. "Now, it's time to make you mine," he said.

"If you must, but please at least let me be a female for that." He said before a wave of green light replaced his features with more feminine ones. "You can still use the tailhole if you insist."

Istaran blinked. "No! Nothing like that! Here.. " he nicked his thumb with the tip of his dagger, drawing a small drop of blood. "Lick it," he said, offering the wounded digit.

The changeling hesitated before giving it a lick, confusion etched on his face. "That's.. it?"

Istaran nodded. "There is a second part to the ritual, after you next awaken. But for now, we should resume our journey. You have slowed me down enough as it is." With that he climbed to his feet and started walking down the road again. The spiders binding the changeling melted away, following in the form of a barely visible ripple on the surface of the ground. Staggering to his feet the changeling began to follow.

"I am Istaran. The weak one is Daniel.. you'll know who I mean soon enough. What is your name, changeling?"

"We don't really have names, outside of our disguises. This form is called Wind Chaser," she said, still bearing the form of a pegasus mare.

"Very well, Wind Chaser it is. Now tell me, Chaser. What do you know of the humans your people have been fighting?"

The humans Wind Chaser described were, to put it simply, unreal. The were completely identical, at least within a handful of distinct types. The most common type, by far, carried weapons I recognized as some form of automatic assault rifle, but their danger was.. different. Apparently being shot by one caused no clear, physical injury, only a mounting sense of dread. But after being hit a few times, a changeling or pony would simply drop dead, suddenly sporting a smattering of lethal wounds. The 'human drones' themselves followed a similar pattern when attacked: no blow could cripple them, phase them, or even knock them back, but enough damage could cause them to suddenly drop dead in a pile of blood before fading from existence.

Honestly, they sounded like video game characters. No. Characters was too strong a word. They sounded like video game mooks.

The changelings, being the intelligence loving sorts they were, had even had time to observe their behavior outside of combat. Mostly they just stood around, often in squads, repeating the same handful of precisely identical gestures at intervals. They also would say one of a small handful of phrases in their own language immediately before changing their course of action, such as beginning to walk toward a new destination.

Interestingly, they mostly ignored any changeling disguised as one of them, no matter how differently they behaved from the other drones. On rare occasions, one would speak one of those telltale phrases and then start attacking the infiltrator, but that was only a minor hazard of the job. The real threat was the dogs. Wind Chaser shuddered in terror even trying to describe them. They somehow could pick out a changeling from a great distance, and would immediately run to attack them. Unlike the guns, a single touch of the paw from a dog was instant death! There had been very few dogs in the human forces originally, but as contact with the changelings had continued the dogs had become an ever-present threat. Dogs that detected spies and killed them in one hit.. that sounded familiar as well.

Wind Chaser got around to starting to describe her more personal experiences with the 'human drones', starting into a story about the drone she referred to as her 'brother', when Istaran abruptly tagged back out, and Wind Chaser suddenly stopped talking. I had continued walking, with no obvious change in my physical demeanor, but somehow she could just tell something had changed.

"Daniel?" she asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "How could you tell."

"Your.. love? That feels too strong a word. It feels kinder, gentler.. less like a dragon. I'm surprised there's any there at all though. I'm guessing you are the one I beat up?"

I hung my head for a moment in shame at the memory. "Don't get the wrong idea. It's not like.. or anything." I realized as I said it I had no idea how to translate that to Equestrian. "But regardless of how we met, you are one of my only companions in this world right now, and I am not so eager to give up on you. You've had miles to prove yourself unworthy of my trust, and only a short while longer before you can't."

"That's.. pretty ominous. Wait, what's going on. Is this about that ritual thing? What exactly does scary-you have in mind?"

I started looking for a suitable place to rest. I saw a lone apple tree a fair bit off the road in the distance, and started tacking toward it. "You are going to develop a fever soon, if it hasn't started already. It will grow intense enough that you will pass out from it. When you awaken, there will be an unfamiliar voice in your head. That is , or a fragment of him. will bind you to me, and.. " I cringed a bit for going down this route, "copy your memories to me. Everything, from what it's like growing up in a hive, to what it feels like to change your shape. You were given to me, and I will have all you have to offer."

She nuzzled my hand, calming me down a bit. Of course, she could sense the clash of emotions within me, and I think it made her feel a little better knowing I cared enough to be bothered by what I had planned for her. "You are my new Queen. Anything I can do to help you survive and thrive, I will gladly do." I stroked her mane gently, nodding, wondering if her show of loyalty was just an act. It didn't matter. Deus would make her genuinely loyal soon enough. Istaran had seen to that. And Deus ranked his orders above my own.

"The word is 'King'" I corrected.

Author's Note

My apologies to any who were hoping for more from the inclusion of the 'sex' tag.

Chapter 8: Wind and change

When the fever broke and Wind Chaser awoke, Istaran was sitting by her side, back against the apple tree, looking up at the night sky. "I told Luna I was the wind," he mused. He looked back down at the false pegasus. "That's why we will stick with Wind Chaser, as the name of my first new Henchman. I've taken the liberty of naming your sub-net 'Turbine'."

Wind Chaser opened her mouth to question his last statement, then closed it as Turbine made her aware of his meaning, as well as its own presence. They sat in silence for a few minutes as Wind Chaser became familiar with her new partner. Her new jailor. She couldn't help but be happy about its presence, which terrified her. "What do you want from me?" she finally asked.

"For starters, I want to watch you change shapes. Do so as slowly and carefully as you can, really focus on every detail of what you are doing. Male and female versions of each pony tribe, your own natural form, and human if you can. End back in your current form, but otherwise the order is up to you. Can you do clothing as part of the change?" She nodded. "Good, then include a wardrobe change in each transition."

"Okay... why am I doing this though? What do you hope to gain from it?" She asked as she began to transition to an earth pony mare.

"I suppose the fever has made you forget? I need to be more familiar with your capabilities, ideally to the point of being able to emulate them. I sincerely doubt I will be able to match a changeling's talent, but being able to pass as a pony will be an incredible asset in this land."

"Do you honestly think you'll be able to learn changeling magic just from watching me?" the unicorn stallion asked.

"I think it is a necessary piece of information, though I do not yet know if it is sufficient. I expect learning to accomplish any single magical task will be quite difficult for me, but once I have mastered one.. I have a lot of data that I cannot yet translate. You shall be my . One spell will open the door to more."

The human soldier looked at him quietly for a moment, shouldering his assault rifle. "My Queen gave me up too easily. You have no army, you would be no help against the other humans even if you did join our fight against them."

"Your Queen fights against them now? Your army? Why were you on the road then?" Istaran asked rhetorically.

"I don't have to answer that," the changeling evaded.

"Of course you don't. Turbine has already provided your memories to me. Your people are on the run. They have lost the will to fight, and switched to flight. You were just one of the forward scouts, making sure your Queen and others passed as safely as possible as you fled. Your Queen didn't have the time or the will to fight to reclaim you, especially against such an unknown. You've already lost against one human, you didn't need to try your luck against another."

"It wasn't just one human, it was armies of them! And dogs! And they had siege weapons backing them!" the unicorn mare objected.

"It was one human, and you, masters of infiltration, haven't even gotten close enough to see his face. Those 'drones' you faced? The dogs? The siege engines? Those are just manifestations of his power. That's why they don't act like people. Why you can't sense their emotions. Why their weapons don't work like real weapons. That is his power, as this is mine!" Massive spiders assembled themselves out of the ground behind him, towering over the earth pony stallion for a moment before melting back away. "And this is mine!" A crawling sensation made the pony shudder as he became intimately aware of the nanospiders throughout his blood stream. "And this is mine!" He cried out dramatically as green light traced along his circulatory system before enveloping him completely. It was an incredibly painful sensation, like being torn apart and rebuilt, cell by cell, but only an insane grin showed his pain visibly. Slowly, his legs swelled as his feet retracted, settling into the form of hooves, over-sized to bare his upright weight more easily. His face extended out into a snout, while his ears drifted upwards and became more pointed and flexible. His hair stretched and thinned, extending down his back into a mane, while his skin grew fur to cover it all over. The light faded for a moment as he stood there as a human/pony hybrid before lurching forward onto all fours, a second wave of light focusing on joints and hooves to reshape him into a more normal quadruped form.

The changeling was speechless for a moment, even after he was done changing. "It's not supposed to hurt," he finally pointed out.

"You make a compelling argument. I will work with to optimize the parameters better." Istaran slumped to the ground. "We will rest before resuming our journey. We must reach the badlands before the human's armies have secured too much of it."

As I returned to myself, Wind Chaser returned to her pegasus form and snuggled up against my side. "I underestimated you. Twice. I won't do it again, I promise. Just don't let scary-you get me."

I blushed a bit, at her touch, and at the memory of her response when Istaran had said he would 'make her his own'. I blushed harder as I realized the changeling could sense my own conflicting feelings. But even with all of her memories laid bare by technological expedience, I still felt like I barely knew her. So I snuggled a little closer and left it at that, as my thoughts turned inward.

I wasn't half the inventor Istaran was, for lack of confidence if nothing else, but I could point Deus in the directions I wanted, and he did much of the data crunching on his own anyways. That little magic trick was a lot more involved than Wind Chaser likely realized. It wasn't a matter of simply copying exactly what she did. It was a complex process of converting those natural, instinctive magical acts into a collection of microscopic crystal magical foci, each of which had the power to transform only a small chunk of flesh near itself. Twilight's books had included instructions on transcribing unicorn magic into crystal foci to create a sort of single-use spell that anypony could activate, but converting changeling magic to crystal foci without ever learning unicorn magic in between. In truth it had been more than a little guesswork, paired with a suicidal level of gutsiness, driven solely by the urgency of finishing a dramatic speech to a captive audience. In other words, it had been a literally insane risk.

But now that it had been done, now that it had -worked-, it was left to Deus and I to tweak it until it could be done quickly, smoothly, and without the horrific pain. I woke up every hour or so through the night, checking on Deus' progress and adjusting his priorities, while the machine worked tirelessly through the night to achieve my ends.

"You're afraid," Wind Chaser said to me as we had our breakfast of fresh-picked apples. "Of him. Scary-you."

"Why shouldn't I be? He nearly killed me yesterday to make a point. He can very quickly and irreversibly destroy any relationship I hope to foster with, well, anyone. I think he is working toward my objectives, but honestly that feels out of character for him, so I suspect he has or will develop his own agenda, possibly incompatible with mine. And.. more terrifying still, he -is- me. Anything he does I have to live with the guilt of having done, because I did it."

Wind Chaser chewed for a moment before swallowing and answering. "Makes sense. So.. what is he, anyways? I mean, he's not like Turbine.. yours is called Deus, right? So what? Is it some weird human thing?"

I shook my head. "Sort of. It's.. hard enough to explain to some humans, but.. maybe as a changeling it'd be easier for you to understand. I'm sure you've had occasion to mimic some particular pony, but do you ever just.. become a pony that never existed before? Not just surface features but.. make up the story of who they are, where they came from, and so forth. Invent a whole new person to become."

"Of course. I mean, that's one of the very basic things we do. There was no other 'Wind Chaser' before I was her."

"And does she have a history, a backstory? Things that happened to her that shape who she is and why she does things, even though they never really happened?"

Wind Chaser had to think about it a moment, before finally nodding. "Yes. I don't think about it much anymore, but I did more when I took her form for the first time, and had to convince ponies she was a real mare. I still make up new bits as I go along, to answer questions and fill in the blanks of course. But before anyone asked I knew I needed to know why she was moving into town, where she was coming from, and what she hoped to accomplish. That way everything she did, everything I did, would be consistent with who I was trying to be."

"Istaran is like your Wind Chaser then. I mean, the persona. He was a fictional character I made up, to play a role in a story. Occasionally, I would 'be' him in various games, playing out a story with other people. But yesterday was the first time he was ever real in any sense, the first time I really 'was' him. When you beat me up.. my third resounding defeat in physical combat in a row, I realized I couldn't keep being.. me. I had to be someone who could win. Someone who could stop being afraid of hurting my opponents."

"How does someone end up afraid of hurting their enemies?" she asked, curiously.

"I had a sister. Six years younger than me, and loved to pick fights with me. Mostly out of boredom and loneliness, I think? My preference in pastimes had diverged from hers, and had started to include solo activities, like reading books. So she lashed out at me. But every time we fought, it would continue until she got hurt, and would run off crying. That.. hurt me." I gripped my heart. "Far more than any of her kicks and bites. I'm not fond of being physically hurt myself, but I can generally bear it. But the pain of causing someone else pain.." I shook my head. "Anyways.. I've found something new and exciting to be afraid of for today."

"Oh? What's that?"

Green light flashed along my back, and a pair of wings sprung forth, while my body shrunk down noticeably, becoming lighter and leaner. "You're going to teach me how to fly!"

"Haha. I really didn't expect this level of foal-sitting! Honestly, we'll probably get to the badlands faster walking than giving you a crash-course in getting airborne."

"I'll take that chance. Now, let's get started!"

Chapter 9: Cardboard cowboy

It turns out, pegasi have antigravity magic. Changelings do too, but only while in a form with wings. The wings serve not only for their physical aerodynamics, but also as a sort of focus for their magic to lift them off the ground, or propel them forward. It's commonly used just to augment the effects of their physical wing beats, but they can use it in a few other modes, such as to drift lazily upside down with only occasional flaps to keep the magic going, or give physics the middle finger in a wide variety of interesting ways. Without that magic, pegasi wings are simply too small to lift their bodies aloft.

I actually had it a little worse off. Walking around I didn't really notice, but Deus was dense. I hadn't gained any size, and had actually trimmed down quite a bit since arriving in this world between injury repair, a near starvation diet, and low level optimization from the nanomachines in my blood. Nevertheless, I was a good 23% heavier than I started in my human form, solely from Deus' extremely heavy molecules. Switching to pegasus form, I ended up smaller and lighter, but the nanospiders in my bloodstream merely changed their layout. Being extra dense is the last thing a flier needs, so I was fighting an even steeper uphill battle trying to get off the ground.

Despite her attempted cooperation, Wind Chaser wasn't anywhere near as helpful with flight magic as she had been with shapechanging. While changing forms was a necessarily very conscious effort, flight was at its core a very natural and instinctive thing. The wing beats and maneuvers took thought, but the magic just kind of.. happened for them. And for that matter, while unicorn telekinesis and changeling shapeshifting had auras that were visibly obvious to my eyes, flight magic just wasn't obvious outside the fact of, you know, being airborne. So we ended up with me walking, after all, while Wind Chaser flew circles around me lazily.

It got us practicing a few other techniques, though. We shouted back and forth various inanities, as she helped me practice talking like a pony, while we both developed our skills communicating through our spider networks. Thinking messages back and forth was easy enough unless you were trying to have an unrelated verbal conversation at the same time. Viewing through another's senses was completely new to her, and still a little jarring for me when those senses were being controlled by an independent will. A lifetime of TV and movies made it a lot easier for me to adapt to of course, and changelings are nothing if not adaptable.

Meanwhile, despite being grounded, I was still a pegasus. Trotting was rather disturbingly easy, which Wind Chaser attributed to the magic. She had had no trouble walking as a human the first time she tried mimicking one of the enemy soldiers, and she had never attempted bipedal locomotion before that. Meanwhile, Deus was trying all kinds of experiments within my wings to try to emulate the flight magic. At one point he managed to flip me over with a sudden burst from one wing, but sadly nothing useful came out of it.

As the sun drifted lower, Wind Chaser spotted an orchard of cherry trees extending down the far side of the hill I was climbing. The buildings beyond were the nearest of a small town. I quickly unmade my wings before any of the locals had a chance to question a flightless pegasus, returning to the bulkier build of my earth pony form, while Wind Chaser dropped to the ground beside me. We passed the cherry orchard without incident before entering Dodge Junction, proper.

The old western theme was uncanny. While I couldn't name them for the life of me, there were specific reasons for every aspect of why the old west was the way it was on Earth, and there was no way all of them could be applicable here, in equal measure, on this alien world full of creatures that were completely inhuman, in shape if nothing else. There were even watering troughs outside here, though there were of course no horses tied to them. Civilized ponies drank from glasses, after all. (Though the dust of the road made the trough seem fairly attractive to me. I didn't want to make a bad first impression though, even if we were just passing through.)

As we approached the town square, we saw an unexpected figure. A human leaned against the wall beside the swinging doors of the saloon. It was a man, wearing a cowboy outfit that reminded me of 'Clint Eastwood' in Back to the Future III: far too bright and cheery for the real old west, but it fit in absolutely here with his surroundings: if anything it was his tanned and 'realistically' colored skin and hair that felt out of place, like in those old animated films with a green-screened human edited in, but with the wardrobe also cartoonified. His right hip had a holster, a dull grey fabric square that seemed as out of place as he did, far too blocky to hold the likes of a gun. Its flap was closed, concealing whatever might have been contained within. He looked out at us from under the brim of a remarkably familiar looking stetson hat before checking his cell phone with a frown. Whoever he was, this man was a jumble of jarring juxtaposition.

Wind Chaser and I neared him on our path into the saloon. I knew I was going to need to talk to him at some point, to get him on our side, but I wasn't eager to reveal to anyone my possession of changeling magic, much less that of my companion. So I had been hoping to deal with him later, perhaps on my way back out from the badlands. But he stopped us as we approached the door.

"Pardon me, lady and gent." He said, in a poorly forced accent, all the more reminding me of Marty. "My name's Ezekiel, but you can call me Zeke if you like. I was just wondering if you had seen someone of my, shall we say, 'tribe' coming up the road behind you. I have good reason to believe they should have been right behind you, if not in your midst, but I can see neither hide nor hair of them."

"I haven't seen another looking like you in at least a day," Wind Chaser replied, being more accurate than I would have liked. "Did you arrange for a meeting?"

"Well, no, not exactly per se, but I rather think a meeting is in order. I think you for your-" He was interrupted by a buzz from both of our phones at once. His phone was in his hand, and lighted up to display a message to him; another player elimination message I feared, though I couldn't see it from this angle. My own phone was in my pants pocket. While being a fully clothed pony was uncommon, it was nothing too far fetched, and I had been able to shift Rarity's handiwork easily enough with my changeling magic to keep my pants on, literally enough.

With a dramatic flair best reserved for ludicrous shows like Yugioh (and only Yugioh. Why would there ever be another like it. Why?!) he drew a deck of cards from his holster, and ominously brandished a hand of seven. They were Magic cards. Of course they were. His demeanor suggested they would work here, and I had little reason to doubt it. "Tell me, pardner.. where did you get that phone?"

"T-Mobile," I answered. "But what ought to be more important to you is, what do I plan to do with it? Do you even know what kind of game we're in?"

"A survival game.. and one I intend to win. Lucky for me, I hold all the cards!" With that a pair of cards vanished from his hand, one after the other. As the first vanished, a glowing red orb appeared in the air beside him before dimming as small horde of ugly green humanoids appeared between us. The goblins rushed forth, charging hastily, while Wind Chaser stepped in to fight them off. There was no contest here: even outnumbered a dozen to one, Wind Chaser dispatched them without breaking a sweat, only for their battered and broken bodies to vanish into the thin air from whence they had come.

"You'll never win if you don't understand the rules of the game! Follow me if you dare to know the truth." With that, I turned and fled, running for the edge of town with Wind Chaser on my heels. The last thing I wanted was to turn this into a public scene. Meanwhile, I left a trail of spiders burrowing into the ground in my wake. There was no guarantee I could end this peacefully, after all, especially without a show of force.

Zeke followed after me, continuing to draw and play cards as he followed, though for whatever reason he held back his attacks for the moment. I got around a rock outcropping, beyond the prying eyes and ears of townsfolk, and changed back to my natural form, assembling more and larger spiders as fast as I could. When Zeke came around the corner, he had a veritable army of goblins of his own, some brandishing primitive looking shamanistic staves amidst the various blade wielders. A brightly burning fire elemental by his side kept the scene well lit as the sun finally dipped below the horizon.

"I see you have more than just the one blocker," he noted, seeming to be pleased by the challenge, "this might be a real contest after all."

"You have two, very serious problems to contend with here, Zeke. The first is that I have you outflanked." With a glance, he finally noticed the army of spiders that had grown out of the ground behind him, bringing up the rear. That got his attention enough to give him pause. "The second.. is that you're going PVP in a cooperative game. Do I really have to tell you how well that is going to work?"

"Cooperative.. do you think I don't know what a Survival Game is? Or what you were doing trying to sneak up on me?"

"Were you thinking something like this?" I asked, pulling aside the scarf to show the scar from Frank's betrayal. "Zeke. You know what a is but you don't understand what a Survival Game is. And it's that all too common misunderstanding that is going to make us all lose. We cooperate or we don't survive."

"What makes you so sure your understanding is the right one?" he demanded. He wasn't sold, but at least he wasn't attacking. Progress! "What evidence do you have?"

I dug out my cell phone, looking for the QR code from Twilight's library in the photo gallery. "A few things. For one, our introduction. What destination did you give ?"

He laughed a bit at my name for the mysterious force that had brought us here. "What makes you so sure our arrival process was the same, huh? Anyways.. yeah, as you call it asked me where I wanted to go, and I told it , but it sent me here anyways."

"So it sent you to Equestria, regardless of where you wanted to go. It's a Survival Game in Equestria, not an that happens to be in Equestria. That was our first clue, but there's more. Even telling us it was a Survival Game was a part of the game: in Equestrian Survival Games the host often takes some steps to ensure the players will have a hard time cooperating.. and that line of text was enough to get some of us at each other's throats, literally, and ensure we couldn't trust each other easily. But there's also this. What does your phone make of it?" I showed him the QR code.

"It's a QR code." He said blankly. After I returned his blank look, he remembered what I had just said and scanned the code. He got a nearly identical interface on his screen, except that the Activate button under Magic was enabled. "Should I activate it?"

"What? Hmm. We should maybe wait on that. I'm curious why it's enabled for you, and not me."

"Do you really have to ask?" He waved his handful of Magic cards in my general direction.

"Yes." I said as I turned into a unicorn in a flash of green light.

He blinked at me a few times, before chuckling and putting his cards away. The monsters he had summoned turned into a red light and dissipated. "So.. is that some kind of power of the item he gave you? Or is that really, you know, you doing it?"

"It's.. even more indirect than that, but yeah, let's call it the item. Why?"

He held up his left hand, electricity crackling up and down between his fingers. "It isn't much but I can do a little magic myself. When I'm using the cards, it's like they pour power into me and direct it, but.. after enough practice I was able to muster a little bit of it myself. Just the barest echoes, to be sure, but it's something."

"Wow.. Call me impressed. So that's one down, at least potentially. My working theory is that we need six people to each activate a different one of these QR codes to win. I could be wrong, but at least it's a theory. That one was at one of the safer starting locations, so I'm trying to check out other starting locations for more of them. There might be duplicates around, otherwise half our starting locations are duds."

"So, should I go with you then? Get a nice little party going?"

I shook my head. "Was your starting point nearby? You should check there for a code.. it will likely be well hidden if it's there at all. Take one of my spiders with you." I tossed him a fist size one that he let settle on his shoulder. "It can help you search, and help you keep in contact. After you search, I'd like you to head to Ponyville to check in and check on Frank. Let's call the library there our alpha meeting site going forward. We need to gather more people and more codes, as quickly as we can."

"That makes sense, but what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to search the badlands for signs of Robert's fate, and any QR codes in the area. I'm also.. concerned I may need to intervene against one of the other players. Someone's been going xenocidal against the locals, and I only hope we can turn things peaceful as easily as you and I have." Wind Chaser bristled a bit at the suggestion of a peaceful ending. Zeke obviously noticed but didn't derail the conversation. "Hey, how did you know I was coming, anyways?"

"Don't you have a Locate Players app on your phone?" he asked, a bit surprised. I took a look at the apps on my phone and found an unfamiliar icon with a radar-screen icon. Opening it, I got a list of numbers from 2-12, each paired with a distance in kilometers. Zeke showed as merely ''. There were a couple numbers in the single digits, and those over 10km included a direction. With a tool like this, hiding out from your fellow players indefinitely was an impossibility, though stealth could still be an asset in a tactical sense. It could make either cooperating or hunting each other down much easier. Players 3, 4 and 10 didn't have distance indicators, saying instead ''.

"That's going to help a lot.. which honestly worries me. I don't think would make things that easy unless it was confident we would be quite adequately challenged."

"I'm chalking it up as part of the challenge, honestly. Who's to say it won't get half of us killed before you can convince the rest of us to cooperate? We're well on the way already."

"Right.. so we'd better hurry. Be safe!" I turned and started to walk away, Wind Chaser in tow, while Zeke made his way back into town. Three players down, and three on the path to cooperation, if I dared to count Frank. It was a start, if a daunting one.

Chapter 10: Frank and beans

To Frank, the most important rule of avoiding being followed was to take a circuitous route. Want to go north, to Canterlot, for example? Start by leaving town on the south road. That way only those actually dedicated to following you will succeed, and you are likely to make them waste time figuring out your ploy.

If that was rule #1, rule #0 ought to have been 'Don't carry around a transmitter that periodically announces your position and activities to the exact person you most want to avoid being followed by.' And yet, the fractal spider 'Deus Jr.' sat comfortably in his backpack doing just that as he climbed the steep mountain trail to the land's capital. The backpack itself was a bit awkwardly designed. While Rarity had Frank's original clothing as a template to gain a quick understanding of how human clothes were supposed to fit together, she hadn't had a backpack to use as a model. So she had done her best to combine Frank's vague description of the concept with her own familiarity with saddlebags. The result was something that technically worked, but had its storage divided into two separate main bags, one on the left and the other on the right, bending around toward Frank's sides much more so than a human-made backpack would have. Still, his scant possessions fit into it well enough, including the purloined robot.

Frank wore a strained, faked smile as he passed by ponies going in the other direction, easily earning more sincere smiles in return. The vertical climb up into the lower reaches of the city was a challenging one, but Frank had been physically fit before coming to Equestria, where the absence of many modern conveniences had only made him more lean. He was a bit out of breath when he reached the guard checkpoint, expecting more of a challenge to enter the capital, but the guard merely waved him on in with a smile.

As he strolled the streets, Frank checked his phone. The app no longer showed his quarry's direction, but merely ''. The final bit of searching was going to have to be done the hard way. Or perhaps just the friendly way. To his surprise, simply asking the first random pony he happened across on the street got him directions directly to the other human's whereabouts.

The reason for this soon became apparent. Frank found a spot across the street to observe while trying to go unnoticed. While he stood out like a sore thumb in a city of ponies, the other man was completely oblivious to his presence, too preoccupied with his work, such as it was. The other man was a horribly unkempt man, with a massive, unruly beard and expanse of hair, both bright red, both straining against the bonds of hair nets. He was an older man, and aside from the vibrancy of his hair color, age had not been kind to him. He was visible within the kitchen of a dining establishment informatively entitled 'Soups', and he seemed to be fulfilling the name's promise by pouring bowl after bowl of soup from a can before providing them to an earth pony waiter for distribution. Curiously, the can of soup in question never ran out despite filling dozens of bowls, each at least as large as the can. It also seemed to produce several varieties of soups, though a particular soup sporting a variety of beans seemed to be the most popular at the moment.

Whenever there was a lull in the orders to fulfill, the man strolled to a back door, can in hand, and stepped outside for a few minutes. After the third or fourth such visit, Frank got curious and moved to get a look. He half expected to catch the man indulging in a smoking break or the like. However, when he got to where he could peek around a corner into the back alley, he found a number of dirty, disheveled looking ponies, including a disturbing number of children. They looked like they didn't have two bits to rub together between the lot of them. And there, behind the restaurant that was doing brisk business, the man in the hairnets poured out more soup, into bowls that were obviously quite overdo for a proper scrubbing.

Frank palmed his knife and began filling himself with memories of his wife and child. He recognized the other man now, vaguely. Some hobo who rode the bus every now and then, surely abusing the taxpayers' dollars. He tried to fill his mind with every disparaging lie he could come up with about the man, every reason why he was more worthy to win the game. He convinced himself that if the other man had spotted him first, he would surely do the same.

He forced a fake smile as he approached the man from behind, in hopes of keeping any ponies that looked up from realizing anything was amiss. He strolled forward as evenly and silently as he could, the din of dining ponies easily masking the sounds of his footfalls. He was nearly within striking distance, a bit of sweat rolling down the length of his blade, over the crimson scab of dried blood, when he was interrupted.

Both of their cell phones vibrated at once. Frank froze, expecting to be discovered by the second buzz, but the other man didn't seem to have noticed. He pulled out his own phone and looked at the update. "Aww, man. We lost another one," he said sadly. The nearest ponies reached up to comfort him as best they could while others offered their condolences. Frank dropped his knife.

The clatter brought eyes to him, and the other man's face lit up to see him. "Oh, hey! Someone else finally made it here! Come here, come in! Are you hungry? I can get you some soup, on the house!" Frank was in a daze as he was ushered in, given a seat, and before long a steaming hot bowl of hearty bean chili. "My name is Scott, by the way. I'm glad we could finally meet. I'm in the middle of my shift right now, but if you can stick around until closing I'd love to talk more."

"Frank," Frank managed to reply, but was otherwise too busy reeling to say much. He ate the chili, half hoping it was poisoned somehow so that he could die with his freshly-shattered worldview restored. But instead it was delicious and nutritious, invigorating his body as it crushed his soul with guilt. Here he was, a cold blooded murderer being treated as a welcome friend by his intended next victim. He just couldn't any more. He just couldn't.

The hours passed quickly as Frank sat quietly, eating three servings altogether. He had plenty of time to say goodbye to his hope of ever seeing his family again. Faced with someone who so clearly mourned the loss of his opposition, Frank couldn't muster the will to be the cold blooded killer he needed to be to win. Perhaps it was for the best. His family didn't really need to get a murderer back in place of their husband and father.

As the last customers left, the pony waiter clicked the door lock with his teeth and joined Scott and Frank at the table, along with an evening meal for the two workers. The hairnets finally came off, showing just how unreasonably unruly Scott's hair could truly be. The pony had a bowl of minestrone before him, while Scott had a classic chicken noodle.

"This can is amazing," Scott beamed showing off the label-less, nondescript soup can. "I asked for a can of soup that never runs out and is always ready to eat. I figured, strange new land, better make sure I have something to eat and keep me hydrated. Never would have guessed it could do different kind of soups too. I would have been happy with just one, any one really."

"That's true, though I don't think the restaurant would have worked out with only a single kind of soup. Even down here in the lower reaches," his pony companion countered. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Welcome Smile," he flashed his namesake at Frank, "you already met my partner Scott. What was your name?"

"I'm Frank. Thanks for your hospitality. I don't really think I deserve it, but.. I'll do my best to repay you. I have a few bits.." Welcome waved them off quickly.

"You sound really bummed, man," Scott cut in. "Did you know her?"

"Know who?" Frank said, blinking.

"Rebecca. The one who died today. Same last name as that Robert fellow.. I wonder if it was the mother and son from the front of the bus or the father and daughter from the back."

Frank shook his head. "No, I didn't know anyone else on the bus, really. I admit I didn't really pay any attention to my fellow riders. Did you?"

Scott shrugged. "I try to do everyone the courtesy of noticing, but most don't care to talk to a dirty old man. Perhaps afraid I'm a 'dirty' old man, or something. But you know, now that we're here we really ought to all get to know each other, right? I mean, the ponies are great, but they're like, a whole other civilization, you know? And like that saying goes.. no man is an island.. each man's loss diminishes me, and all that. Women too, doubly even. And children. Triple for little girls, you know?"

Frank fidgeted under the pure innocence of the dirty old man. "So... what do you think we need to do to, uh, you know.. win?" he asked hesitantly.

Scott grinned and gestured to the shop around them. "I can't speak for you, but I am winning, man. I was able to revitalize Welcome's shop here, help some ponies who are as needy as I used to be, and have enough bits left over to live comfortably. What more could you want?"

Frank frowned. "I want to go home. To my wife and son."

Scott sobered sharply. "Oh, man. I feel you. My wife left me a long time ago, so they won't even notice I'm missing. I hope they'll be okay till you find a way back."

The spider, Deus Jr, took that opportunity to climb out of Frank's backpack and out onto the table. Welcome Smile jumped back from the thing, while Scott just got wide eyed with amazement and Frank frowned. Ignoring them, the spider began carving something quickly into the table with a few of its limbs, finally stopping when it had reproduced the QR code from Twilight's laboratory.

"It's one of those funky barcode thingies," Scott said. "Wonder what it's for.." he reached out to try petting the spider, getting no response from the robot.

Frank took out his phone and snapped a picture of it, looking confused as the grid popped up with Magic in place, the activation button disabled. "That's weird. Six spots.. I don't suppose you know where any more of these codes are."

"Oh, well there's one in the alley were I first popped up. Found it carved into the cornerstone of the courthouse building. Maybe we should go snap a pic of that one too?"

"It's as good an objective as any," Frank answered, as he scooped the little Deus Ex Machina into his backpack.

"Nice choice of item, by the way. Not as good as an endless can of soup, but it's definitely neat," Scott complimented. Frank declined to answer.

Chapter 11: Death by half-truth

Dust Bowl watched quietly, in a silence broken only by the clickety-clack of the train rolling down the tracks. On the table between them, his companion sorted through piles of colorful little cards, thoughtfully picking some out and putting others back with the occasional "hmm".

"What are you doing, Zeke?" the brown unicorn finally asked, when the silence had dragged on too long.

"I'm making a new deck, Dust," the human replied without looking up.

"I can see that. But why? Your other deck seemed to be working fine." The two had been companions for the last few weeks, and Dust Bowl had had an exciting time helping the human learn how is newly empowered artifact worked. Some parts he picked up trivially, probably by simply applying his knowledge of the game it was apparently made from, while some bits harder. Once he figured out how to aim his Lightning Bolt, for example, he had no trouble aiming a Fireblast. Fireballs, for some reason were a nightmare to master. While the destructive nature of his spells was quite frightening, it also brought out the thrill of the taboo. Also, it had saved their little town a few times in a few weeks, so a lot could be forgiven.

"My last deck was all offense, designed to win before my opponent has a chance to. It made sense when I thought I would have to.." Zeke shook his head, unwilling to finish the thought. But Dust knew.. they'd had that conversation before, and Zeke was quite enthusiastic to tell him about it when he and Daniel had parted ways and left him with a new understanding. "When I outed Daniel, he didn't fight to beat me, he maneuvered and stalled for time until he could win me over. If I run into another human who is still thinking PVP, I need a way to protect myself until I can convince them otherwise. I need damage prevention, healing, counters.. a white blue deck is the way to go. I won't be completely without offense, in case something comes up that I do need to beat down, but even that will be measured and controlled. It's a different kind of deck to suit a different kind of objective. And heck, I'll still have my red deck in my backpack if I need to take the time to swap out."

The human finished what he was doing, shuffling a pile of white and blue cards and slipping them into the holster at his hip, before putting the rest into a box and sliding it into his backpack.

"Also," Zeke continued, grinning, "maybe I can put these white healing cards to good use treating the injured or something? It'd be good to have them on hand for just such a purpose."

Dust Bowl shrugged, uncertain. Zeke had tried using them previously, but the only thing they had seemed to be able to cure was that weird sense of dread ponies got from fighting those unnatural human soldiers that had come up from the badlands a few times. That was useful enough, as no conventional healing magic seemed to make a dent in it, but it was still a distinctly limited niche.

"We still have a few hours until Ponyville. You should get some shut-eye while you can, partner." Zeke agreed with the suggestion, and soon the clickety-clack of the tracks was accompanied by gentle, rhythmic snoring.

When Zeke got off the train, he spotted another man walking down the road past the station. The man was in his mid twenties, lean and well toned. He wore all green, with a floppy green pointed hat, a long sword and wooden shield sheathed at his back along with a bow, and a handful of oddly stuffed pouches. If he'd had pointed ears, he would have been the spitting image of Link from the Legend of Zelda games, or at least a well done cosplay.

"Frank?" Zeke asked.

The other man shook his head. "I'm Robert, actually. And you're Zeke, and your friend is Dust Bowl."

Zeke started to ask the obvious questions when he was interrupted by a ball of boundless pink energy popping up between them shouting "Aha! I knew there would be extra special guests of great relevance at the train station and here you are. Come on, you're almost late for the funeral party!"

Both humans were rendered speechless, trading looks of bewilderment as Pinkie Pie shoved them bodily down the road, Dust Bowl trotting swiftly to keep up. They approached a clearing surrounded by black-clothed tables sporting tasteful sandwiches, with black streamers hanging from nearby tree limbs and black and grey party balloons hovering about. A few dozen random ponies attended, listening quietly as a unicorn gave her speech. Robert got pale when he saw who it was, his look of dread only growing as he listened.

"When Trixie arrived with her yesterday morning, she was so full of life, so determined to take on the world. Trixie was glad to know her as a friend, as Trixie shares these virtues. But when Trixie saw her again at noon, already she looked dead in her eyes. Already Trixie could see no life left in her, no spirit. Trixie was very worried, but she would not talk to Trixie." The blue unicorn had to stop a moment to sob, the experience still fresh in her mind. "Trixie left her alone, like she asked. Trixie is very sorry for this. Trixie's home has become place of death because of this..."

Wordlessly, Robert had crept up to the open casket during the speech and peered within. After a few seconds, he collapsed to his knees sobbing quietly, the word "mom" escaping his lips more than once, in various forms. Zeke wrapped an arm around him, and pulled him back to take a seat nearby, letting him cry it out, sparing him the questions for now. Seeing this, Trixie was unable to finish her speech and came down, trying to comfort Robert as best she could.

The silence started to make everyone else uncomfortable, so Applejack took her place at the podium. "Hi, y'all. I didn't know the departed all that long or all that well. But I did meet her once, and I'm afraid it might have had somethin ta do with her passing." AJ cringed as she got the attention her comment commanded. "Y'see another of these human fellers stopped by here not long ago, and talked to me about 'Survival Games'. He said there was some mixup, and that he and the others had been fooled inta thinkin they were competitive, rather than cooperative. He asked me to spread the word if I had a chance, and sure as the sun comes up, I did when I had the chance."

Applejack paused a moment, taking a swig of water from a glass. "Well this Rebecca lady, I thought she would be pleased as punch to hear about it, but instead she gets this awful, haunted look to her when I tell her. She started going on about how her 'baby didn't have to die' or something. I tried ta talk some sense inta her, but she jus stumbled off, like she was dead to the world. I still don't understand what got into her, but I do feel dreadful sorry for anything I might have done to lead her to.. this."

Zeke turned from Applejack as she finished her speech, noticing the Robert had something in his hands now. A cell phone, the screen coated in a spiderweb of cracks, the damage in the middle deep enough to see broken circuit-board underneath. Slowly he pieced the clues together.

Robert had been the second player eliminated from the Game. But he hadn't been killed, his cell phone had merely been destroyed. That meant he couldn't scan the QR codes, or activate one. He was eliminated as a player. That also meant he could move without being tracked by the other players, giving him a potent advantage if he wanted to use it to sneak up on someone.

His mother had seen the elimination message, and simply accepted it. Perhaps it had even been a relief. If only one person could survive the Game, she would have dreaded coming down to the end and having to kill her own son, or let him finish her off to win. Her mind must have shoved the loss into some deep dark corner, ignoring it until she could win the Game and then allow herself time to grieve. But Applejack's pronouncement had reframed her situation, and it had reframed her loss. The dam had broken, and her sorrows had drowned her.

The results were horrible to behold. She had apparently committed suicide by emptying every flask in Trixie's travelling sideshow wagon, and a wide variety of magics had waged war inside her body. But there was still enough of her original features to recognize her by. And if there hadn't been, the elimination message on Zeke's phone was enough to confirm.

When Robert recovered enough to talk, Zeke was still sitting by his side. He pulled out a round piece of stone with several holes in it. An ocarina. The Ocarina.

"You know.. this isn't the first time I've lost her. But.. I think this time I can't just go back and fix it. It was my action that did this.. normally I could just make my way to Ponyville and meet up with her when she arrived, once I had learned that was what she normally did in the beginning. But, this time I wanted to try something different, something desperate. A new gambit to beat the 'army man'. I didn't.. I didn't think it would end like this. And if I play the song again, and go back to the beginning.. my possessions don't change, they don't reset like everything else. My phone will still be broken, and I'll be eliminated immediately, and she'll go through this all over again.

"How.. how many times have you used that song of yours?"

"I lost track but.. to give you some idea. I was ten when we started this stupid Game the first time. Sometimes it drags on for a few years, other times I have to cut back to the beginning after just a few days. But we've never won.. not yet at least."

"So.. can you at least confirm we're doing it right? I mean, that it's really a cooperative game."

"You're on the right track. But one of the players can't be convinced to join the cause. He builds up an army and sends them out against.. everyone. He hunts us down, but also fights all of the natives. No one has been able to beat him, or even get to him, or talk to him. I'm not even sure what his name is.. I just know he was sitting in the very back of the bus. I think he started on the area with the only QR code for Laughter."

"There's no duplicates then? Dang.."

"There are, for everything but Laughter. There was no QR code in my starting area. I've spent hundreds of hours scouring that wasteland, there's nothing."

"Double dang. Daniel's out there now, searching for it himself."

"What, why? He's normally in Canterlot by now."

"He was checking out your starting point, based on the elimination message. After he found Magic here, he suspected all of the starting points had them."

"Is there any way you can reach him quickly? We need to warn him. The 'army man' started just a small distance north of me. He could get spotted any time now, and he won't survive the onslaught."

Zeke dug in his backpack and pulled out the spider Daniel had left him with. "It helped me find the Honesty code etched into the bottom of one of the floorboards in the saloon I started in. It's also supposed to be able to convey messages to him. Alright.. umm.. Spider: tell Daniel to watch out for the 'army man'." Zeke frowned, unsure if it was working.

Daniel's voice crackled through the spider as if on an unclear radio connection. "Thanks Zeke. I'll be on the lookout. And thanks Robert for the info. Sorry about your mom.. but I don't think we can really spend a lot of time dwelling on it right now. Can you point us to the rest of the QR codes? Given what you've said, I don't want to give up looking out here too easily. Coming up one short again doesn't sound like victory to me."

Robert nodded. "Yeah, I know where all the rest are. There was a flask in Trixie's wagon with the code for Magic, but we can get that here from Twilight's library if you haven't gotten it already. Kindness is carved into a tree in the Everfree, near where Daniel started, which may be safer to get than the copy in the dragon's lair where Ben started. Generosity is somewhere in Manehattan.. I actually haven't seen the spot, but Joshua usually gets it before he goes to find his daughter, so I wouldn't worry about that. Just make sure to link up with players 8 and 9 when you can. And the easiest place to find Loyalty is the cornerstone of the courthouse in lower Canterlot. Simple enough."

Daniel's voice crackled through again. "Alright, why don't you two grab Kindness and then head up to Canterlot to join up with Frank and Scott. I'm going to start putting together a little surprise for your 'army man'. I think maybe it's time he learned the truth about exponents."

Robert frowned. "Good luck. And remember.. you can't win if you're dead."

Chapter 12: The truth about exponents

By the time I finished talking to Zeke, I had already slipped back into the recess of my mind, trading places with Istaran. Wind Chaser didn't miss the transition, reflexively nuzzling his arm a bit before backing off a bit embarrassed.

"I thought you were afraid of me," he said, a bit amused.

"I still am, but at least you have some kind of love for me. I was.. getting hungry," the changeling answered.

Istaran smirked at her, before heading out deeper into the desert. "Come, we have work to do."

They travelled in silence, as the mounting tide of spiders grew behind them, devouring the terrain. The sand proved very easy to convert to spiders, while the bedrock was more time consuming, and so he had the spiders avoid it, eating around it. As they got out farther from town, a massive spider emerged from the sand beneath them, lifting them both high into the air as Istaran sat down, cross-legged. Wind Chaser stared in awe and wonder, then closed her eyes, focusing on the subnet within her, and letting it tell her what was going on with senses that defy description.

As the spiders grew in number and interconnectedness, their mental capabilities grew. Istaran tapped Wind Chaser into it, letting her revel with him in the sheer joy of it. smaller spiders settled down to begin experimenting, generating a wide variety of physical materials to experiment on as well as various crystal magic foci. Even with Turbine's help, Wind was still getting dizzy from all of the wide variety of things going on at once.

"What are we doing here, my King? I mean.. big picture."

"Multitasking. More particularly, while we build up a massive army capable of overwhelming our adversary and tearing apart his soldiers, we are doing research to be able to construct more physical and magical tools and weapons to achieve effects the spiders are poorly suited to directly achieving. For example, flight. Or lasers. Flying spiders with destructively powerful lasers have strategic, tactical and practical applications that ordinary spiders lack. Don't you agree?"

"Okay, so what can I do to help?"

"The spiders can process data very quickly, but they have no independent will. Here.. I'm shifting some of them over to your subnet, I need you to sort through the experimental results and identify things that seem like they could be expanded into interesting directions. Use your own discretion as to what constitutes 'interesting'. You and I will settle on different avenues to explore, which will give us more strategic options."

Wind Chaser nodded, basking in the growing sense of affection Istaran felt for her. As before, it was a possessive sort of affection, like someone holds for a treasured tool or work-animal. But it was something and she savored it while she worked. She would have to find a way to forge a bond with Daniel if she was going to be well fed, or at least get some free time to hunt.

After a few hours, a massive chunk of the desert had been converted, and the science was well under way. Istaran and Wind Chaser were making copies of some of the more promising findings within the nanospiders in their blood, when an altercation broke out on the northern edge. At first it was a handful of identical looking human soldiers with assault rifles, opening fire at them reflexively. Their aim was flawless, and their attacks deadly against the smaller spiders, defying physics and simply 'killing' the machines. The smaller spiders proved completely ineffectual against them, unable to pierce their skin which proved to be a single, contiguous surface. The larger spiders were able to strike hard enough to damage the soldiers, and eventually take them out.

Then the tanks came. And soldiers with flamethrowers. And bombers. Istaran and Wind Chaser pulled back to the far edge of their swarm, abandoning their experiments and focusing on combat and manufacturing. The tide began to shift, favoring the spiders: they were able to grow their numbers faster than they were cut down, and used that edge to grow their numbers even faster. Victory was beginning to look distant but inevitable.

Then they spotted them, in the distance. A dozen metal cylinders flew straight up into the sky in the distance. Realizing what was coming, Istaran quickly jumped onto Wind Chaser's back, urging her into the air. The changeling, still in pegasus form, struggled to get airborne with the extra weight. Both shed a fair portion of the nanospiders from within to lighten their load, losing much of the data they had acquired, but gaining altitude and speed.

Looking back, Istaran blinked in surprise, quickly drawing his cell phone and snapping a picture. With the sand removed, the bedrock of the desert formed a massive grid of blocks with a familiar arrangement. 'Laughter' the phone identified the QR code as. But it wouldn't be visible for long.
Several blinding blue-white lights cut down through the sky, cutting through the larger spiders to devastating effect, while the dozen metal cylinders from before rapidly descended on the battlefield. Thinking quickly, Istaran shifted to pegasus form himself, gripping Wind Chaser tightly, and filling his wings with a set of foci from the experiment. With a sharp flick of his wings, he pushed them forward, blacking them both out from the acceleration.

Deus remained conscious, and would later report of the absolute destruction that rained down on the spider army. It would mention the spearhead of enemy tanks, suddenly growing red and seemingly invulnerable as the ion blasts, scuds and nukes rained down. It would mention how they swept through the desert, removing every last nanospider with their impossibly accurate assault.

The truth about exponents, I would later remember, is that they need some time to get started before they can outpace a linear growth, especially one with a head start.

Chapter 13: Royal convergeance

Frank and Scott were enjoying a lunch break and a bit of light conversation outside of the restaurant, when a massive migration of ponies began to pass them. The road they were on connected the gates at the bottom of the lower reaches to the roadway up to the finer upper districts, so it was normally well traveled, but this was different. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of ponies traveled together in a massive throng. Most were clearly tired but determined, wearing little clothing and certainly no finery. Yet in the center of the throng was a palanquin, showing the silhouette of a unicorn mare within.

The ponies toward the outskirts took notice of the humans and scowled and bristled, as if wrestling against the urge to assault them outright. Both humans were a bit alarmed by this, not only from their numbers but also the sheer novelty of seeing ponies with such naked aggression. Celestia's subjects had always been so much kinder in disposition. But despite their looks, no assault was forthcoming.

The migration halted to turn and stare, along with everypony else in the city, as the southern sky erupted into an outpouring of blinding light. In the distance, columns of light tore from sky to earth, while several bright flashes heralded to appearance of rapidly expanding clouds, billowing upward in a broad round cap with a narrower column to support them, looking distinctly like mushrooms. They looked tiny from here, but the realization of just how far away they were hit home how massive they must truly have been. Smaller, sickly looking green clouds could be seen billowing around their bases as the columns of light finally faded away.

Before the clouds had time to disperse, the massive herd of ponies had started moving again, much faster now. They cleared the streets of lower Canterlot, leaving a temporary void in their wake before life slowly began to reassert itself.

Just before closing time, a pair of unicorns wearing the armor of solar guards strolled into the restaurant. They quickly headed into the back where Frank was washing dishes and Scott was filling bowls. With a light cough, one of them drew the humans' attention before saying politely "Come with us, please. The princesses wish to have a word with you both." While the tone was polite, it was also stern, and the two men showed their hands in the human gesture of surrender as they came along quietly, leaving all of their possessions behind. Welcome Smile frowned, and began closing up shop early.

In upper Canterlot, the humans got a lot more stares and traded whispers from the pony elite. It was hard to tell if it was from being human, or escorted by the guards, or simply the fact that their wardrobe was so clearly out of place. Perhaps it was all three. The attention seemed to run off Scott like water off a duck's back, but Frank was beet red from embarrassment and cringed constantly.

When they arrived at the castle, they were made to wait just outside a massive pair of closed doors, in a sort of open-air lobby. Night fell, in the sudden way it did here, and the sudden darkness did nothing to calm Frank's nerves. Had he known the rulers of this land literally control the sun and moon, and that the transition was a hand off of the reigns to the more warlike of the two diarchs prior to their interview, he might have passed out entirely. The changing of the guard, from the gold armored and white furred unicorns that had brought them here to a pair of bat-winged, fanged lunar pegasi certainly didn't help. Fortunately, they did not have much time to wait after that.

The pair of pegasi opened the massive doors and led their 'guests' down into the main stage area of a massive amphitheater. A scattering of well dressed ponies, mostly unicorns, were in the audience. The room was quiet and reeked of tension. At the front, a pair of massive ponies, perhaps better described as horses, sat watching the humans' progress with great interest. One black furred, the other white, both with dazzlingly unnatural manes and bearing both unicorn horns and pegasus wings along with an earth pony's more powerful build, the alicorns easily stood out from the rest of their subjects.

A few feet to side of the alicorns, and mere steps in front of her palanquin, a smaller unicorn stood watching the humans impatiently. The crown of gem-lined gold proclaimed her royal status more blatantly and less effectively than the alicorns' regal form, but the look from her eyes was no less imposing. Her fur was pink, the mane a deeper shade of pink, and her flanks marked with a simple red heart, making the daunting stare all that much more jarring.

The white alicorn stood and welcomed the new arrivals. "Welcome, humans. I am Princess Celestia, and this is my sister Princess Luna. To our left is the visiting Queen All Heart of the.. ermm.. 'Southern tribes'. Would you be so kind as to begin by introducing yourselves and telling us how you came to be in our fair city?"

Frank easily picked up on Celestia's uncomfortable attempt at deception, wondering what game she was playing, so Scott used the opening to go ahead and go first. "Greetings your majesties. I am Scott Jones, a humble traveler from the fair state of Washington. I cannot explain how I came to be in your fair city. I was merely riding a bus home from the hospital in my own city when I came unexpectedly to a very dark place. A strange red text then appeared before me, asking me where I would like to go, and informing me I would come here instead. It asked what I would like to bring with me and I asked for a can of soup that was always ready to eat and would not run out. I figured at least then I wouldn't have to worry about being hungry. The Text agreed, and even made it so the can could produce more than one flavor of soup. Then it spit me out here in Canterlot. I found some ponies that were as hungry as I had ever been, and shared my soup with them. Then I met a nice stallion whose restaurant was losing money, and worked together to feed as many ponies as we could while earning enough bits to keep a roof over our heads. And that's pretty much all I've been doing since I arrived."

After hearing out Scott's tale, the Princesses turned to the Queen expectantly. She waved a hoof dismissively. "This one seems harmless enough, and I believe he speaks true. I still think you should take him into custody for his safety as well as your own. But I see no reason to press the issue if you insist on letting him run loose. Be warned though, humans can be a deceptive lot, and I cannot promise he is merely what he seems."

Luna snorted. "Enough. We have seen Scott's dreams and-"

Scott interrupted, his face brightening "I knew it! I knew you were the mare of my dreams. I didn't say it because it sounds so weird and I thought I was just, you know, dreaming."

Luna pawed the ground a moment, regaining her composure. "Quite. We believe Scott to be more boon than bane to our little ponies. We suggest he be allowed to return to his work feeding lower Canterlot. And we recommend posting a small contingent to protect him from undue harm. Should war come, as Queen All Heart suggests, then we should find his services most helpful in attending our civilians' needs."

Celestia nodded her agreement. "It shall be as my sister says. I shall appoint two of my guards to look after him during the day, and Luna shall chose two of her night guards to keep an eye on him in the night. We thank you for being a model citizen, Scott, and welcome you to our realm."

Scott nodded and took his seat, smiling at Frank and gesturing him to go on and introduce himself. Frank nervously stepped forward, taking a deep breath to calm himself before beginning. "Hi, I am Frank Cobbler, and I was on the same bus as Scott, and went through pretty much the same thing when I arrived. I didn't get as fancy when it came to asking for an item, just asked for a good old fashioned Swiss Army knife." Frank cringed as he said the name, realizing suddenly that the ponies would have no reason to think Swiss armies any more harmless than any ravaging horde. "The Text left me in a library, in Ponyville, where I met Twilight Sparkle and her friends. I believe they are familiar to you?" he eyed Celestia as he said that, receiving a nod for his trouble. "Anyways, I did my best to help out around Ponyville for a time, before I got the idea to umm.. come up here to Canterlot and check out the city."

Frank was getting increasingly nervous as he quickly tried to lay out a plausible version of events that made no mention of his bloody encounter with Daniel. All Heart was glaring daggers at him, Scott was furrowing his brows a bit, apparently deep in thought, while Luna frowned. Celestia finally prodded him for more detail. "What prompted you to come up to the capital, Mister Cobbler? Was there something you needed that was not available in Ponyville?"

[Yeah, a clean getaway,] he thought. "I had a, umm, an encounter. With. With another man. David or something. Daniel!"

"And what did this 'Daniel' do to you in your encounter?" All Heart asked, her tone shifting subtly from adversarial to almost conspiratorial. She looked eager to hear his answer for once, rather than accusatory. This just confused Frank and made him all the more nervous.

"I, he.. nothing. He just, he just spoke to me and we.. umm.. well." Frank was near his breaking point.

"Does this have to do with your bloody nightmares?" Luna asked, accidentally using her Royal Canterlot Voice at full volume instead of the more soothing tone she had intended.

"Yes! Oh God, yes!" Frank fell to his knees sobbing. "I did it! I did it! I confess! All he wanted to do was talk, and I murdered him for it! I just, I wanted to go home, to my wife and children, and he had none of that!" Everyone in the room was stunned into silence as he babbled on, all the guilt and pain from the last few days exploding out into this moment.

Scott starting poking at his cell phone, frowning. "When did you kill him?" he asked, genuinely puzzled.

"Five days ago, I think.. before I came to Canterlot. I was.. running from Twilight and her friends. I couldn't stand to face them after what I had done," Frank sobbed.

"It cannot be, for my scout encountered your King Daniel only three days past," Queen All Heart stammered.

"No Daniels dead, unless he gave you a false name," Scott announced. "But Ben and Robert passed weeks ago, and you were with me when Rebecca passed."

"He's.. not dead?!" Frank said with an awkward mix of relief and sheer terror, the memory of Daniel's horrific neck-wound springing back into his mind. How could someone survive something like that? He had to be inhuman!

"Nevertheless, you confess to having attempted to murder another pony, err, human. We shall take Queen All Heart's earlier advice in this matter, and detain you for all of our safety," Celestia decreed. Luna nodded her consent, and motioned some of her guards forward. "We shall meet with you periodically to see what might be done to rehabilitate you, but for now we shall make accommodations for you to stay here under guard. Do you consent to that?"

Frank nodded wordlessly, still a bit in shock from it all.

"So, that was Daniel's spider robot thingy you had?" Scott asked Frank.

While Frank nodded, All Heart chimed in "Yes, surely, one of the minions of the spider king I told you of."

"Where is the spider now? We would study it carefully and learn more of this king," Luna inquired.

"Its back at the restaurant, in my backpack. It's name is ," Frank recalled.

"'God'? How presumptuous for an insect." Luna snorted as her magic translated the word.

All Heart shot her a momentary sharp look before moving on. "Now that that matter is settled, shall we resume discussion of our sanctuary here, and alliance?"

The humans were escorted away to their various destinations as the royal trio resumed their diplomacy afresh.

Chapter 15: Everfree groundhogs

"Let's keep a move on," Zeke insisted. "I don't know what will happen if I draw out my deck.." He drew another card into his hand, and then an 'Island' card vanished, a blue orb shimmering into existance by his side, floating with a half-dozen other pearl and blue orbs.

"I do," Robert commented off hand, before adding in an exaggeratedly spooky tone, "you die!!!"

Zeke cringed. "Tell me you're joking."

Robert shrugged. "Actually, your cards just stop working for about an hour, same as when you dismiss your power. Though.. honestly, in all my loops through time.. you don't draw out that often without it proving fatal. But that's because you don't generally pull out your cards unless there's something dangerous you need to fend off."

"Good to know, I guess.." Zeke eyed the woods around himself nervously, while summoning another blue-robed sorcerer into existence, adding to his entourage.

"Anyways, I know the way well enough to get us in and out before you deck yourself. I've done this plenty of times, remember? And aside from the dangers of the forest, this one is one of the easiest to find." Robert had his sword in hand, but seemed to be more.. threatening the plants into pulling out of the way, than actually hacking a path. He insisted it wasn't The Master Sword, but it sure had an uncanny resemblance. Intentional, but purely superficial Robert had insisted.

"So.. is it the same every time then? Like some kind of Groundhog's Day camping trip?"

"Well, yes and no. When I reset time, I'm the only one that changes, so in some sense the Groundhog's Day reference holds. And no, I haven't seen the movie. Before my time. But I have had this discussion enough times to know what you're referring to. Pretty much all of the other players except Relena make the same reference."

"Who's Relena?" Dust Bowl asked, the unicorn chiming in from between the humans.

"She's a little girl, she was sitting toward the back of the bus with her father when we came here. Her starting point is way off in Gryphonia. Sadly, she rarely makes it to Equestria, though she rarely gets eliminated early. She's just kind of.. off in her own little corner. She's a nice kid.. with the kind of innocence that would suit this place well, if the rest of us weren't here and she could just, you know, be."

"Yeah.. I think I saw her, just a few seats in front of me," Zeke remembered.

They walked on in silence for a bit. Howls rang out as a mob of timberwolves descended on them, but a few blasts of magic from Zeke's sorcerers and faeries convinced them to seek out easier prey elsewhere. Later a massive starry-hided bear roared out a challenge to them, only to vanish in a puff of magic as Zeke tried out his Unsummon card on it. A confused sounding roar in the distance verified the results of the spell for them, merely forcing it back to its home, but the bear never bothered to appear again during their trip.

As they reached the code carved into a tree, Zeke scanned it quickly before taking a seat and busting out a canteen of water. "I don't suppose you have a shortcut back out of here?"

Robert patted the pouch with his ocarina in it and smirked. "I do, but it only works for me. I won't leave you behind in a place like this."

"What, really?"

"It turns out the theme song from the show warps me back to Ponyville, into the library to be more specific. There's probably more such songs, but I haven't figured them out yet. Unlike the video games, there aren't any helpful NPCs just waiting to teach me the notes."

Zeke laughed. "I guess that makes as much sense as anything."

Dust Bowl coughed lightly to get their attention. "You know, you could just ask the unicorn."

"You know the notes to warp somewhere? Like where, Dodge Junction?"

Dust Bowl shook his head, before deciding to just show them. His horn glew brightly and a massive chunk of earth broke free underneath them, levitating them up into the sky, past the canopy of leaves and branches. Zeke's faeries followed them, while the sorcerers stood around idly, left behind. "I know a shortcut back to Ponyville for all of us."

Zeke grinned, looking out over the edge of the flying pile of dirt and rock before deciding that maybe sitting in the middle was a little wiser. "I didn't realize you could move this much at once. Call me impressed. I thought only alicorns and crazy powerful unicorns could lift this much."

Dust Bowl showed a little strain as he smiled, "Well ordinarily, yes, but moving earth is my special talent, so.. we ponies are always better than you might expect at the one thing that really clicks for us." They started moving swiftly, skimming over the treetops toward Ponyville. The humans got really quiet, which suited Dust Bowl just fine at first, as he was concentrating on moving the heavy mass of earth along. Then he frowned as he noticed how pale they were looking, intently staring past him, toward the south. "What's wr-" he looked where they were looking "What's that?!"

There were some rather disturbing cloud formations down where Dodge Junction ought to be, visible even from this distance. Squinting, he could barely make out that the clouds were a bit further south, though a few of the sickly green ones were blowing in among the outlying buildings and orchards.

"Check your phone" Robert quietly ordered Zeke.

"Hmm? what, oh." Zeke dug out his phone and took a look. No player elimination message, that was good. Checking the player locator app, Player 1 was now far off to the East, a few hundred kilometers. I quick glance confirmed he was not far from Player 9. "How?"

Robert shrugged. "Looks like he made it clear to Gryphonia somehow. Try the spider."

Zeke dug out the mechanical spider from his pack and tried questioning it, poking it, shaking it. It adjusted its footing a bit but otherwise made no reply.

Robert shook his head. "He's not responding.. I'm not sure if there's a range limit on these things, or if he's unconscious or something. We'll just have to trust him to make contact again when he can. In the meantime, we have some other players to meet up with. Remember, we need six active players to finish this game, and 'army man' isn't likely to join our side."

Dust Bowl landed their rocky ride on a patch of grass just past the edge of the forest, panting heavily as he dug some cherries out of his saddle bag and started eating. "Do you think.. do you think Dodge Junction is going to be okay?"

Zeke looked at him quietly, while Robert shook his head. "Most of your neighbors should have the good sense to evacuate. But the town itself is going to be overrun shortly. I hate to break it to you but.. a war is coming, and Equestria isn't going to fare so well."

Dust Bowl held back his tears as best he could, envisioning his home going up in flames while his neighbors fled. "Don't just give up like that! I reckon there has to be something we can do. Alert the Princesses! Gather a posse!"

Robert frowned. "The changelings will have alerted the Princesses by now. 'Army man' started near their hive, and went to war with them on the day we arrived. Their Queen will be negotiating sanctuary for her people, and terms of an alliance to fight off his forces when they start heading north. We should, actually, get in touch with Twilight Sparkle and Applejack before we go. We can let them know we are on their side, so they don't mistake us for enemies.. AJ can vouch for our honesty in the matter, and Twilight can send Celestia a note. That always helps keep things smooth when we get to Canterlot."

"Alright, but what about fighting back? Shouldn't we be launching a counterattack or something?" Zeke said.

"Fight back? Counterattack?! Did you not see the mushroom clouds? It only takes five minutes for some of those super-weapons to come back online after firing, within ten he has the full suite back and he can fire them off at any location his troops have ever seen. Now.. I'm not saying he's going to nuke you at the first signs of resistance. No, that's what you get to work your way up to. And yes, I know you can pull some great tricks with your little Circles of Protection and such, but trust me when I say even you can't survive being the focus of his attention."

"So.. what then? What's our strategy? You've been at this for longer than anyone, how do we win?"

"We win by collecting the codes and going home. If we can somehow manage to get Laughter, we have a shot at activating them all before he can kill enough of us to give us the Game Over. A shot. That's all I can promise."

"Okay, wait, but then what? What about the ponies? Do we just leave them to 'army man's tender mercies? Or do you think winning is somehow going to stop him?"

"I don't know. I really don't. We've never won! In all these years of trying, we've never won once. But I am not passing up our ticket out of Armageddon in some vain hope of winning this war."

"So.. we is there really nothing that can beat him? That seems messed up. Why is his item so much more powerful than the rest of ours.. even combined?"

Robert looked away uncomfortable for a few minutes before Zeke pressed him further. "What do you know? Spill it!"

"Okay.. look. Daniel, umm. He can win in a straight up fight against the 'army man'. It's certainly not guaranteed but.. here's the thing. It makes things worse. A lot worse, every time I've seen it."

"Why would that make things worse? Daniel seems like a nice guy, and he's on our side."

"Well, normally he's too.. constrained. He won't use his Item to its full potential, tries to keep it bottled up and just using it carefully, surgically. It's not enough, not for a fight like this. But sometimes he just, I don't know. He cracks. Like flipping a switch. And when he does, he isn't careful anymore. When he goes full bore, his spiders just.. rip up the world. When he does win, when he beats the 'army guy', the few times I've seen it.. he doesn't stop. The things he does when he gets like that.." Robert shuddered at the memories. "At least 'army guy' just kills ponies."

The three strolled into Ponyville in somber silence.

Chapter 16: Royal councelling

The guards led Frank out of his cell. He was glad they didn't have him in iron chains or the like. Truth be told, his cell had been a bit more comfortable than he would have expected, aside from the lack of any kind of seat with back support. He had to make due with cushions on the ground to sit and sleep on, and the toilet was a literal hole in the ground.

They led him into a lovely looking arboretum, where Princess Celestia was seated next to a small table. Frank sighed quietly as he noticed the fluffy pink cushion opposite the solar diarch that was no doubt his intended seat. There was even a dainty little tea cup set out for him, steam already wafting off the delicious smelling brew. When the guards stopped and saluted their princess, he took a seat and sipped quietly.

"Do you know why I have asked you here today, Frank?" Celestia asked.

"No ma'am. Your majesty. Ma'am." Frank answered, nervously, setting the cup down with a slight jingle.

"I want to know why you did what you did. I know you are sorry for what you did, but I need to know more if I am to help you reform. I need to know why you did it this time so I can help you ensure you never do so again. Do I have your cooperation?"

Frank drew in a deep breath, staring at the tea for a moment before meeting Celestia's eyes and letting his breath out slowly. "Alright. I'll do my best. I guess I should start from the beginning, hmm?"

"That would be best, yes."

"About three years ago, I met a woman. Elizabeth.. a umm.. professional matchmaking service introduced us, initially, but we really hit it off when we met. It's.. " he smiled at the memory, "it's funny: she used to say 'sorry if I'm scaring you off' right before telling me something about herself that was exactly what I was looking for. Like, that she was looking to marry, hoping to have children, that she didn't want to even consider divorce an option. Commitment.. it's really sad how unpopular it seems to be these days, but it was what we both were really yearning for."

Celestia waited a few moments as Frank paused, lost in his reminiscing before beginning. "I really don't see what this has to do with.."

"I'll get to it, I promise. A little over a year ago we had our first child, a son. He's so sweet. And it's just an incredible joy watching him learn and grow. He just started walking." Frank was tearing up, while Celestia restrained herself from commenting on the idea of a yearling just learning to walk. "We have another one on the way. It's too soon to know if it's a boy or a girl yet."

"I can see your family is very important to you. But.. what does this have to do with the stallion, err, man you assaulted?"

"It was just a few weeks ago. We were just riding a bus home after work, same as any other day. When suddenly, the light disappeared. I was left standing in a very dark place, with no sign of the bus anywhere, or the rest of the world for that matter. Some writing appeared, red letters floating in the darkness. It asked me where I wanted to go. Anywhere, real or fictional, it claimed. So I picked the only place I wanted to go. I said home. But it didn't let me go there. It told me it was taking me here instead, to Equestria. It then asked me to pick one item to bring with me. So I asked for something simple, but useful. A Swiss Army knife. I.. lost it somewhere, but it's a tool. It has a dozen pieces that fold out to be able to do different things. It can cut like a knife, has a tiny pair of scissors, heads for turning screws.. I didn't know what I would find here in Equestria, and figured I could use it to deal with whatever problems I faced. I was more anticipating the need to make shelter in a wild untamed wilderness, but it turns out there were plenty of little things that needed repairs around Ponyville. So I still think I made a good choice."

"This 'Swiss Army knife'. It is made of a silvery metal, with red sides and a white symbol?"

"Yes. You've seen it?" Frank asked a bit enthusiastic before he remembered the state it was last in.

"My guards found it in a back alley, covered in dried blood. We would have much to suspect if you had not already confessed."

Frank put his head in his hands. "I was so despondent afterwards.. I never even took the time to clean the blade off. It's probably ruined by now.. which is just as well. I doubt I could bring myself to use it again anyways, even for good uses."

"Your regret gives us hope for your reform, but you still have not brought us to your reasons."

"Right. Well. After I chose my item, the words had just one more thing to say. They told me that 'the survival game begins now'. And with that I was dropped into your world. Your student's library, more particularly."

"If you were in a survival game, then surely sticking together was paramount. What did that man do to earn your ire?"

"You don't understand. Or rather.. I'm the one who misunderstood. On our world, that term means something different. It means a game of elimination, where only one winner will be left in the end. In real survival games, it's normally all fake. Players are eliminated from the game, not really killed. But in fiction.. there are all kinds of stories of people forced to fight to the death until only one survives. I thought.. I thought that was what kind of game we were forced into. I just.. I just wanted to survive, to get home to my wife and my children. I would do... I would do anything to get home to them, to see them again. Or at least.. I thought I would."

Frank was in tears as he continued. "When I talked to Daniel.. he didn't have any of what I had. He had no wife, no children. He barely even kept in touch with his parents. He said it himself.. it would take months before they even noticed he was gone. I knew.. thought I knew.. that only one of us would be going home, and that there was no reason for it to be him, no reason he was more worthy than me. More needed. It was hard, still, to steel myself. But I did. And. I stabbed him, when he thought I was going for a hug, I stabbed him right in the" Celestia cut him off from reliving the grisly scene with a silent but stern hoof placed on his knee.

"I see now why you did what you did, and why you are your people's Element of Loyalty."

"What.. Element? What do you mean?"

Celestia called forth one of her guards, who presented his cell phone to them. The QR Code display was active, with Magic and Loyalty present. Loyalty had the Activate button enabled, waiting to be pressed.

"We do not fully understand the workings of this device, but we recognize the connection to the Elements of Harmony easily. Your loyalty to your family drives you, but now I need you to swear that same loyalty to the other humans, to work together with them to survive your 'game' and return home. I have received word of two other humans on the way here from Ponyville to join you. They claim your Daniel to be an ally, alive and well, but working on another task presently. He sent them to assist you, and to convey his forgiveness."

"He forgives me? I can scarcely believe he is even alive, why would he forgive so easily? I haven't even apologized to him yet.."

"That I do not know. You should ask him once you have had a chance to give that apology. In the mean time, I do think that the palace is the best place for you to see. I am sorry, but times are growing more dangerous. Our neighbors to the south have brought word of an army of humans with powerful war machines. They seem to have a certain unnatural.. falseness to them. But the danger they pose is very real, and I fear my little ponies will be next to suffer their unprovoked attacks. If that happens, I fear I cannot long protect you from my ponies' fearful reactions."

"I understand, and.. I agree. Your hospitality here has been more than I deserve. And, even if he does forgive me, I am not really ready to forgive myself yet. Still.. if there is anything I can help you with, I will do my best."

"Yes, you will. Now finish your tea."

Meanwhile, another Princess made contact with another human. This time Luna found Istaran sitting atop a massive draconic figure, made of steel plating and copper wiring. An artificial monster as before, but with none of the necromantic aspects. A pure and simple engine of destruction. Some panels were open and the man was tinkering inside.

"What are you doing, Sir Wind? Building a dragon?"

"Preparing for war." He looked at Luna, and blinked a few times, before going back to his work with less interest. "Or rather dreaming of it, it would seem. I need to do so in the waking world, though, and you should too. A powerful foe is coming. If you can, crush him swiftly and without mercy. Can you slay him in his dreams? Would that end his threat?"

"Death within a dream merely causes waking, nothing more. Besides, I do not believe I have found that ones dreams yet. For that matter, I search also for King Daniel's dreams. Do you know him?"

Istaran looked at her thoughtfully, putting his tools aside. With a sly grin he dropped to the floor before her. "No, I have not yet met King Daniel, but I hope to soon. I hope to real soon. In the meantime.. would you do me the honor of a sparring match? It will be a fun workout, and you did say death in a dream merely leads to waking.

"Very well. Come to Canterlot when you wake. We would meet you in person, and introduce you to the other humans."

Istaran bowed to her. "I will, in due time, now.. en guarde!" Blue light flashed from Istaran's hand as he conjured a weapon, a segmented blade somewhere between a sword and a whip, whose pieces pulled together or pushed apart based on little electromagnets embedded in them. The weapon was able to twist and turn, attacking from unexpected angles, but it could not get past Luna's defenses, blocking with various discarded tools while attempting to brain Istaran with others.

The fight carried on for some time, hectically, as Istaran conjured more weapons and Luna deflected them while firing back with magical blasts. However, all good things must come to an end, and Luna managed to end it by dropping the mechanical dragon onto Istaran's head with a loud crash that shattered the dreamworld entirely.

I woke with a gasp, looking around the unfamiliar bedroom blearily. A weight on my arm, no.. foreleg, alerted me to Wind Chaser's presence, and her rapid motion as she sat up, looked at me briefly, and pulled me into a deep kiss. We were going to have to talk about this.. later. I don't know if it was because I was in the form of a pegasus myself, but pony kissing was a lot more pleasant than I would have anticipated.

Chapter 17: Overdue conversation

Author's Note

The spoiler block below may be safely summarized as "And then we had sex." While it is not entirely explicit, and there are some details which I feel add to characterization and such, I respect the desire of those who wish to not read about such things.

Chapter 17: Overdue conversation

I broke off from the kiss, and couldn't meet her eyes. I was ashamed of myself for what I had done to her. She tried to kill me, unprovoked from my perspective, but did that really justify enslaving her, ripping her loyalty from her queen, from her people? It was a very Istaran thing to do, but I was different. If I was in control, I would have incapacitated her and left her to recover when I was gone, or maybe even escaped without hurting her. Who am I kidding? If I had been in control, I would still be a prisoner, or maybe dead.

"Hey, don't give me this crap!" Wind Chaser grab my muzzle and pulled me around to look her in the eyes. They were fierce. Powerful. Not the eyes of a slave. Worse. They were the eyes of someone wholly, sincerely devoted. Was this the depths of what Istaran had done to her mind, what I had done to her?

A fierce hoof smack to the face broke me from my reverie. That didn't seem like it should have been possible. I blinked looking at her in surprise. "Ow. What?"

"I won't have you wallowing in shame and self doubt, least of all over me. You are my king, and I am your loyal subject. I know you worry about what Turbine did to me, what scary-you did to me. But it really wasn't that much. When my queen gave me over, I was yours in fact and in mind. But my heart was torn; my instincts still screamed to follow the queen I had followed since my hatching. Turbine freed me from that, by making you my queen.. err, king."

"So, what all does that mean? How far does it go?"

"It has nothing to do with kissing you, if that's what you are wondering. I will follow your orders, whatever they are, and aside from that I will fight to the death to protect you. That's all. At least, that's all that was ever forced upon me. My affection for you runs much deeper than that, though, and broader. You are a kind hearted soul, I've seen that.. felt it.. tasted it." It was her turn to blush. "but you've also given me so much. I feel like you take it for granted, or even fear it, but.. I understand now why you named yours 'Deus Machina'. Here.. let me show you what I've been doing while you where out."

I followed her to a window, and she opened the wooden shutters, revealing that we were in a low tower, overlooking a vibrant looking field of vegetables and something that looked like wheat. As I looked out, I perceived another image, the same view of the same field just a few days earlier, when we had arrived. The plants looked limp, withered, on the verge of death.

"The plants were malnourished. The griffons are not the best farmers, and didn't know about crop rotation, and nitrogen fixing. They had been overwatered by the rain, and in their weakened state, disease and pests were overtaking the plants. While I played at being a weather pony, Turbine was able to heal the plants, and even make them thrive in just a few days. Deus Ex Machina indeed. It just solves every damn problem!"

I sat back down on the bed. "Yeah.. except the problems I actually have."

"What do you mean?"

"It allowed me to survive the manticore attack back at the beginning, but if I had chosen something less combat-ready I wouldn't have been in such a dangerous starting place. Wielding such a deadly weapon doesn't help me convince the others to cooperate instead of killing each other. How much does it really help with finding the QR Codes? Are they actually hidden in harder locations because of my power?"

"You give yourself too little credit. You know as well as I do what your potential is. And I want to help you realize it. But first.. we do need to talk more about.. us. And about my needs." She moved back over to the bed, pushing me firmly onto the bed before sitting on top of me. "You know what I am, I know. Surely Deus has told you all about my kind by now? What we eat?"

I blushed. It didn't feel very royal to be turned on by a dominant partner like this, but I couldn't help it. She smelled so good just then. "You live on love. There's different kinds that can sustain you.. you've mentioned the possessive kind Istaran feels for you. I take it you're looking for something more.. intimate from me?"

She nuzzled me gently. "Yes. You don't have to if you don't want to. I know.. this isn't your natural form, and maybe it's not attractive to you. I can try to become a for you, if you need me to. But I don't need sex. I need your love. Or I need you to let me loose, to hunt for love I can steal from others."

I rolled her onto her back, kissing her with growing confidence. "You don't need sex.. but do you want it? Do you want me that way?"

She nodded, and I kissed her before pausing. "I want our first time to be in our natural forms." I took a moment to close the shutters and make sure the door was locked before returning to human form, crouching a bit to keep below the low ceiling. Green light played over Wind Chaser's form as she dispelled her own transformation, showing me her true form for the first time.

I admit.. it wasn't what I would generally consider the sexiest of bodies. Her smooth black carapace was broken up by strange holes that passed right through to the other side, and I quickly discovered were both sensitive to the touch and a little ticklish. Her ribs were showing, giving her a decidedly hungry look. Her translucent green wings looked impossibly fragile. I had also forgotten her claim, long ago to be 'male'. The truth was not so simple, as she had the parts of both genders. My hands proved quite adequate for her male bits as we consummated out relationship slowly, and more than a little awkwardly. She kept her voice low as we did, as it had a distinctive dissonance to it, like a masculine and feminine voice speaking in out-of-key unison.

As we cuddled afterwards, I noticed she looked a bit more healthy, a few of the smaller holes nearly closed while her ribs were less pronounced. It was tempting to think of this as a sign of my awesome virility, but I knew enough about changelings and human psychology to know the truth. Our physical bonding had helped me to open my heart to her, to give her the sustenance she needed.

When I began to recover from our first round, she shifted back into her familiar pegasus guise, and I did the same, eager to try something different. Abusing Deus' abilities, we were able to bypass some of the natural biological limits of the male form, and go at it for most of the day. We tried out every combination of the pony tribes' forms, as well as a wide variety of positions. In her former life as a changeling scout, she had picked up quite a few tricks that various ponies thought they were sharing with their spouses. I tried not to dwell on where these ideas were coming from and simply enjoy the benefits.

Somewhere along the way we heard steps approaching, claws scraping lightly on stone, and quickly shifted back to a pair of pegasi without breaking pace. A stifled giggle answered our passionate noises before the steps receded again. It was practically a honeymoon, and probably taken as such.

It still bothered me a little, taking Wind Chaser like this. She was my subordinate, and in my culture that made our relationship an abuse of power on my part. But the truth was, I wanted to connect with her, to be affectionate with her.. to make her mine in more intimate ways than just king and subject. It suddenly occurred to me that I didn't know the first thing about physical affection in pony form. Aside from the obvious. You couldn't exactly.. hold hands, right? At least I had pushed through my own hangups. I knew now that at least her heart was free, that she chose to be more than just my loyal drone.

Wind Chaser was practically glowing with joy as we finally left our room, heading down to join our hosts for dinner. Her hunger was truly sated for the first time in years, while I was in desperate need of sustenance. Smelling meat being cooked, I was ready to cry for joy myself.

Our hosts were a family of griffons; a couple of farmers, their two daughters and a son, and the mother's father. We had arrived in Gryphonia by slamming bodily into one of their storage sheds, collapsing the stone building in on top of us, and leaving a massive rip in the ground leading up into it. Somehow, I had managed to position myself to take the brunt of it, and Wind Chaser had been able to dig us out. The country doctor had declared me a lost cause, but Wind Chaser's insistence had gotten me into a bed where I could recover on my own.

Wind Chaser had simply declined to provide any sort of believable story as to how we had crash landed so hard and fast. The truth, that we had travelled hundreds of kilometers in a single wing-beat, was something we certainly were not about to share. Given the impact, a bit of lost memory and inexplicable mystery were a lot more plausible than the truth.

"Wind Chaser, good to see you again. And South Wind! I'm amazed and overjoyed to see you so thoroughly recovered," the female griffon said with a wink and a grin. Apparently my alias of the day was South Wind.

"I have magic blood," I declared without thinking. It was my perfect all purpose excuse. Truthy, without digging into the details of nanotechnology. "It takes a lot more than a crash landing to keep me down, or away from my beautiful mare."

The griffons looked at me silently for a moment, while Wind Chaser looked at me, aghast at just how poor of a liar I was.

"So that's why she was so certain you would recover? I guess that makes sense then," the husband said, uncertainly.

I nodded, taking a seat at the table next to Wind Chaser, glancing at the children with amusement as they snuck behind me and started poking and prodding at me. "I haven't caught your names, though you clearly know mine already. Would you be so kind as to introduce yourselves?"

"Oh, how rude of us!" the female declared. "I am Addula Swiftwing, and this is my husband Raymond and our children, Addy," she gestured to the boy, "Eberta, and Bera," she gestured to the daughters in turn. "And this is my father, Bardrick Longclaw." She gestured to the elder male, who nodded quietly.

I smiled to each in turn, quietly smiling to them and repeating their names as I committed them to memory. "Thank you Addula, and thank you for your hospitality while I recovered. I seem to have had quite the crash landing. I hope I didn't cause you too much trouble."

"You took out one of our storage sheds," Bardrick commented matter-of-factly. "To say nothing of the gash you left in our field. It's hard to imagine how fast you must have been going. Whatever led you to such a spectacular feat of recklessness?"

I blinked a few times before bowing my head. "I will repair the structure as soon as I have a chance. It's the least I can do. As for how.. well. It's embarrassing at my age, but the truth is I am still learning how to fly. I have more wing strength than self control, it seems, and I was startled by some bright lights coming down from the sky. I don't really remember what happened after that." I rubbed my head. "Probably hit my head too hard crashing.."

"That's quite kind of you," Raymond said, "though your mare has already done so much for us we feel like we should be repaying the two of you. I don't know how she did it, but she worked wonders out in our fields while you were recovering."

"I saw," I nodded. "She is quite a treasure." Wind Chaser turned her head and blushed.

Addula served dinner then, a finely prepared mutton, with a few vegetables on the side, looking to be more for flavor than anything. Wind Chaser took a small helping of vegetables, more to keep up appearances than anything, while I ate as well as the griffons.. drawing a bit of unplanned attention from the adults, as it slipped my mind that pegasi were pretty much herbivores. Feeling their eyes on me, I looked about for an obvious distraction, and found it in the form of a spear hanging on the wall. It looked to be well used but also well maintained, as far as I could judge such things, but there was also a thin layer of dust on it, demonstrating its current status as mere ornamentation.

"Is that your spear, Raymond? Were you a warrior before becoming a farmer?" I enquired.

"No on both accounts. I was actually a brewer, but the materials were getting too expensive, so I thought to try my claw at growing them myself. It seemed like a wise idea at the time, but if not for Wind Chaser's intervention, it was well on its way to proving disastrous."

"The spear is mine," Bardrick said. "I was a former captain in the steel wings, before young upstarts displaced me, as they always do. Why do you ask?"

I bowed to him respectfully. "I know you don't owe me anything, but I must ask. Can you train me to fight?"

Bardrick considered it. "If you pass my tests, and my daughter is willing to put up with you for a few years, I suppose."

I cut him off before he could go further. "I apologize for any confusion, but I am afraid I must hold to a shorter timeframe than that. I can spare.. probably about a week. I know that wouldn't be enough time to train me to be an elite warrior, but I'd settle for 'basic grunt'. Honestly, what I need most is help breaking through the mental blocks that keep me from, well.. being willing to hurt my enemies."

Bardrick harrumphed. "You ask for the impossible, the absurd. What value would a week of training even have? So you can run out and get yourself killed in some fools errand? Take the time to learn properly or leave the fighting to those who have the patience."

"I mentioned my magic blood already. Because of it, I am one of the few who can stand up to.. the warlord who is invading Equestria from the south, even as we speak. If I wait a few years, Equestria will be crushed, and Gryphonia may well be under assault as well. But if I go after him as I am now.. " I shuddered, knowing too well I would give myself over to Istaran in a desperate gambit to win. Victory in that case could well be worse than defeat. I pictured the ocean turned to a sea of spiders, a tidal wave of destruction washing over the enemy, and leaving the world a dried out husk in their wake. "It would be even more of a fools errand. I am a quick study, and there is less need to train my body than my mind. Teach me how to think like a warrior, a soldier, a captain. Teach me the art of war. Do your best, that's all I ask."

"No."

Chapter 18: Wing and spear

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 19: Lunar perspective

"Thank you for seeing us, your majesty," Zeke greeted with a bow, as he and Robert entered the halls of the night court, strolling toward the front where Luna awaited.

She had a cell phone in front of her, with the player locator app running. Her eyes were closed, and she had a look of concentration on her face that no one else had dared to interrupt. Zeke merely failed at interrupting.

When she finally opened her eyes, she frowned and commented more to herself than anything else. "The ocean is taking on such an unnatural hue.. what new threat is this?.. Oh! More humans have arrived?" she glanced at the app before frowning. "So which of you is a simulacrum?"

"Simulacrum?" Zeke asked, puzzled.

"Not a simulacrum," Robert said as he pulled out his cracked phone to show her. "Just eliminated. I was ''."

Luna nodded, relaxing a bit. "Thou art Robert, then. And thou wouldst be Zeke? We were expecting your presence. We apologize for not greeting you promptly, but we were looking at a troubling new phenomena."

"Does it have something to do with one of us?" Robert inquired, nodding at the phone before the lunar diarch.

"Verily. The strangeness seems to be occurring near the one labelled 'Player 1'."

"Daniel," Robert clarified, a look of concern on his face.

"It is King Daniel's doing? Should we be putting a stop to him?" It was Luna's turn to look concerned.

"King?" Robert shook his head. "We don't really have any kings.." Robert simplified, "where did you hear that title?"

"Our newfound ally, Queen All Heart, said he was a king. That she had heard such from one of her scouts before she lost contact with him. You are saying she was mistaken?"

Zeke shrugged, "He might have lied to her scout or something. Our country hasn't had a king in over two hundred years. He certainly isn't our king. I guess he could be making some kind of dramatic pseudonym for himself. 'King of the Spiders' or something like that."

"In any event, we think he must be stopped from further breaking the ocean," Luna said. "Should I send you two do deal with him? Or a contingent of my own?"

Robert shook his head. "He's in Gryphonia, right? I think Zeke and I need to go up to Vanhoover to find one of our wayward lady-folk and bring her into the fold. There should be another down in Appleoosa, but perhaps you could bring her here as part of evacuating. It's much too close to the badlands, and it won't be safe from trouble for long."

"You suggest we flee our homes? Even now we are preparing our forces for a counterattack."

"Do what you can, but you should get the civilians out as safely as you can. Not all of your people are warriors. Though, speaking of which.. would you introduce me to Captain Shining Armor? I have a fair bit of intelligence about the enemy's capabilities that he's going to need to know. He has.. a fairly extensive bag of tricks, but it is limited. Unlike Daniel, who comes up with new surprises all the time.. like breaking the ocean. I don't think I even want to know.."

"Mind if I sit in on that meeting, Rob? I'd like to know what you know, or at least as much as you can warn me. I might need to tune my deck, after all."

"We will have our guards arrange quarters for you for the night, and arrange a meeting when the captain awakens," Luna stated, waving over a lunar pegasus to take on the task. "In the meantime, we shall arrange a contingent to find Daniel so-called King and put a stop to him before he breaks any more of the world!"

Teleporting was rather a new experience for Frank. He was ultimately quite glad he hadn't had breakfast yet. It was almost alarming how quickly it was done, and suddenly he and his two guards were in a marina just outside of a massive city, with a skyline more reminiscent of New York City than anything that had any place in this world. Luna supplied one of his guards with a bag of bits, and the other with a royally sealed missive before looking southward with a bit of alarm and excusing herself with a flash of deep blue magic.

The three of them looked expectantly at each other for a moment before one of the guards looked up at him and said, "it's your mission now, lead the way."

"Umm, sure thing, Black Rose," Frank said after a quick check of her cutie mark. The mare was easy to remember, as her cutie mark matched her name. Apparently her talent was cultivating unusual flora. The other guard, a stallion, bore a pair of crossed rapiers on his flank which apparently spoke of a talent at repelling danger. He had nicknamed him 'parry' in his mind, but remembered his name was 'Cross Guard'. Frank thought the name ironic, as he had never seen that particular guard get cross with anyone.

Searching for a boat for immediate rent at night was not the easiest. There were a few options that Frank set aside as the boats were too big or otherwise looked unsuitable, but with limited options available at this hour he might have to compromise. But then he spotted a nice, small, fast looking boat up ahead. It looked a bit luxurious, like a yacht, and even had what looked to be a pair of motors on the back, rare in this world but not quite unique in the harbor. There was even signs of movement from within the cabin, promising at least a chance to speak with the captain.

Frank hailed the ship as he strolled up the pier it was docked to. His call was answered by a loud thump as the ship's occupant apparently tried to stand in a too-short space, followed by a string of curses that, ironically, seemed much too tame to be coming from a sailor. Finally, a man in a nicely tailored business suit stepped out of the cabin, still rubbing his sore head as he locked eyes with Frank.

When she got tired of the silence, Black Rose spoke up. "We are looking to charter a boat to go to Gryphonia. Are you available for hire?"

"Sure thing. Come on board. But don't try anything stupid," he said, looking Frank in the eyes, "or my well-hidden associate will buck you into the sea faster than you can blink."

"I don't see any associate.." Cross Guard began before the others shut him up with their looks. "Oh, right.. 'well-hidden'."

"We don't want any trouble," Frank said, "but we need to go find and talk to someone. Another human, like you and I. Specifically, 'Player 1'. Or Daniel, if you've met him." Frank climbed onto the boat. "Oh, almost forgot. I'm Frank. Frank Cobbler, and my escorts here are Black Rose and Cross Guard."

There was a cardboard box on the deck of the ship. It looked decidedly like the boxes from the Metal Gear series, even down to having a hand-hold hole that Frank thought he saw eyes looking out from. 'Well-hidden', huh? Frank stood near the box, pretending to ignore it for now.

"I'm Joshua Swift. And this is my boat, the Mighty Minotaur. No, I didn't name it, and haven't had time to rechristen it. I was just planning to head out toward Gryphonia myself or you would be out of luck. But it turns out it's my lucky day. A hundred bits for each of you, payable up front, and each dawn and dusk until you're off my ship. I promise not to putter around or waste your time, but you're going to pay me if you want me wasting mine."

"What? That's outrageous! And how'd you even get a hold of a ship like this? You can't have been here that long," Cross Guard objected, while Black Rose idly surveyed the marina for other possible ships and Frank started to poke at the box.

"Day trading!" shouted a voice from the one spot directly behind Frank and both of his escorts, startling them so much that they all ended up sprawled on the deck. The pink pony with a red mane that had startled them, giggled with infuriating cuteness at them. On her flank was a cutie mark depicting what looked to be the back of a pony's head with an exclamation mark over it.

"What my associate, miss Sudden Surprise, says is correct." Josh grabbed a briefcase and pulled out the deed to the boat, clearly signed over to him. "She was kind enough to lend me a hundred bits, which I have repaid ten fold in addition to purchase of this vessel and the supplies for our journey. Supplies which, I should add, did not account for three extra travelling companions or a longer journey. If you'll be so kind as to hand over the initial down payment, we'll get enough food to ensure a safe crossing and then be on our way."

Black Rose quietly handed over the coins, which Sudden Surprise then absconded with. In an entirely unreasonably short time, she returned with a second cardboard box and placed it next to the first, and they set off out onto the ocean.

The lunar perspective didn't always make it easy to make out fine details. She could, if she tried, focus down onto anything the moon's light touched, but she had to be aware of the need to focus before she could do so. One pony, or a few, could generally move without her noticing. An army, however, could not.

Luna returned to Canterlot in a hurry, and quickly began mustering as many of her forces as she could. She left a few guards, ones she knew she could trust with a simple task but were not her best in a fight, to tell Celestia and the day guard what was going on if she did not return in a timely fashion. The bulk of her forces took wing, along with a contingent of changeling volunteers disguised to appear as her own lunar pegasi, to the south, toward the fortress known as the Alamare.

A smaller contingent of her best elites converged on her and were included in her teleport. The jaunt was exhausting, but her soldiers were at least fresh when they arrived, and immediately took to the sky. Each bore a magically-augmented repeating crossbow, which they shouldered, sighting the oncoming enemy forces. Meanwhile, Luna began rousing the forts' own contingent, warning them of what was coming.

The first waves approached; human soldiers bearing some kind of black device. From their bearing, she guessed them to be similar to crossbows, but they lacked the arms on the sides that were part of a crossbow's function. There were a half dozen variations among them, each cloned a hundred times over, differing mostly in terms of their uniforms. The soldiers marched toward the fortress obliviously as bolts rained down on them, ignoring the flying adversaries as they were cut down, row by row.

The next wave was tight on their heels, however, a mix of heavy, metallic vehicles. Some small, boxy ones seemed to move in starts and stops, clearly faster than the others around them but unwilling to get out ahead of their heavier brethren. The heaviest were massive, walking, mechanical monstrosities, resembling gigantic ponies whose backs bristled with weaponry. Large boxy contraptions on treads matched pace with them, each with a pair of tubes that pointed steadfastly at the fortress while protrusions on the side of their turrets fired out missiles that arced up into the sky to strike down the airborne defenders.

By the time the shelling of the fortress began, Luna had recovered from her trip and reached out with her magic. Picking up one of the mammoth treaded monstrosities, she wielded it like a hammer, pounding the pony-shaped walkers into oblivion. Her makeshift hammer only survived a few such assaults before she had to pick another, but that suited her just fine. Other unicorns joined her defense, some projecting shields to block the incoming fire, others blasting the oncoming forces with fire, lightning, or just pure blasts of magic.

While the heavy armor were absorbing the blunt of the ponies' reprisal, the smaller, boxy vehicles opened their back doors, letting out a variety of new soldiers onto the battlefield. Some pointed large round tubes into the air, causing black clouds to erupt among the lunar pegasi, quickly mounting casualties among them. Others vanished from sight in an instant, and were soon spotted fading back in within the fortress. The more melee oriented earth pony guards quickly set to work on them, taking some out even before they could finish materializing.

A voice rang out in Luna's head, suggesting she buck the unicorn next to her to death. She shrugged it off, but a quick glance showed that some of her allies were succumbing to similar suggestions. Looking back onto the field she saw the source. "Kill the bald ones, qui-!" she shouted to her remaining night guards. But her order was cut off as a beam of blue energy from one of the materialized soldiers struck her, and she began to fade out of existence even as he had faded in.

A quick thinking sergeant rushed to buck the enemy out of commission, only to get second thoughts a moment later, and buck one of his subordinates instead. The younger soldier was not as cool-headed, and succumbed to the chaos of the battle, counterattacking against his own commanding officer rather than carry out his mission. A unicorn spotted what was happening, and started to assault the offending soldier, only to be distracted for a moment by a bright red light shining into his eyes before suddenly dropping dead.

A spinning cone of metal emerged from the ground inside the fortress, the tube behind it leveling off before opening and releasing several more of the teleporting soldiers. As one, they struck Luna's fading form with more beams, before the first soldier finally succumbed to a volley of crossbow bolts. Shouts echoing across the battlefield drew a volley of fireballs and other large area attacks down onto this latest incursion, finally eliminating the soldiers even as the tube burrowed back down into the ground.

Unfortunately, Luna was nowhere to be found.

Chapter 20: Sharing intelligence

Zeke and Robert awoke before the sun rose. It felt like it was overdue, like when a winter morning drags on in darkness before the sun finally takes its place well after the day has begun. They were awaiting a summons to talk with Shining Armor and give him vital intelligence about the war in the south, but since they were no longer sleeping, they got to speaking.

The small guest room they had been granted had a bed, a couch and a small table. Zeke had slept on the couch, giving up the bed to the one who had all the vital intelligence, but now they both sat on the couch, with Zeke's feet resting on the table, next to their bags and the inert spider. Both could do with a shower and fresh clothing, but their suite didn't have the facilities, much less a suitable wardrobe.

"So who are we going to Vanhoover to hook up with?" Zeke started the conversation.

"Her name is Angelica, and I can't promise you'll hook up with her, but I can't promise you won't," Robert replied with a wink.

"Oh? Is she as beautiful as her name implies?" Zeke grinned.

"I can promise you'll like what you see."

"Nice.~ So.. what's her Item then?"

"A working internet connection," Robert answered with a shrug.

"What? Really? How's that work?"

"How's your little pieces of cardboard make real magic? I don't know. She has a little wireless router thing that somehow gives a wifi connection to Earth. Doesn't have to be plugged into anything either. Pretty good speeds, too, or so you guys say. Any of our phones can connect if you have her password. And I can get it within three tries 90% of the time, if we don't ask. If we ask and she says no, she always changes it to some random garbage."

"So.. what, we could talk to our friends and family back home?" Zeke asked, excitedly.

Robert shrugged dismissively.

"How can you be so nonchalant about something like that. It's awesome!"

"For you maybe. My friends back home kept asking the same questions every time, until I just stopped trying. And the only family I care about is he-..." Robert trailed off and his face darkened as he remembered his mother's recent change of fate.

They sat in silence for a while before Zeke piped up with an idea. "Hey, why don't you teach me how to use your ocarina thing? At least the reset song."

"The Song of Time? I'm not sure if it will even work for anyone other than me.."

"Well? It'd be worth a try, I mean.. if something happens to you. Maybe if someone else plays it you'll get your phone back in the reset?"

"Or I'll still be the only one changed, only now I'll be dead, or whatever? Or worse.."

"What's worse than dead?"

"Well.. I have thought about this a few times but.. well, what if it resets me back to how I started, and then everything goes the same way as the first time, and this whole thing just becomes one giant loop? At least as long as I change every time, I know there is something distinctly different, a fixed progression of some kind. That helps me to have hope that some day we'll manage to do it right."

"That's.. yeah, that's pretty deep. I still think you should at least teach me the notes. As long as your okay, I'll leave it be, but if something does happen to you.. desperate gamble time, agreed? I mean.. even if it is an endless loop.. if we don't try and you just never get to reset, this is our last run anyways. Right?"

Robert thought about it quietly for a while, before digging into his possessions for a pair of ocarinas. He passed one to Zeke and kept one for himself. "Alright, let me start by teaching you this song. Repeat after me.." He showed Zeke how to play a short sequence of notes that repeated itself. A simple little ditty with an upbeat sound.

After a couple tries, Zeke played it on his ocarina, only to find himself caught up in the song, dragged into a longer melody that expanded out from the notes. As the song completed, he was a bit disoriented to see that Robert had moved back to sit on the couch, and was talking to Dust Bowl, who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. "What.. what just happened?"

Dust Bowl jumped in surprise, falling on his tail end before calling Zeke's name in joyous surprise.

"Dawn just happened," Robert replied, and reached out to swap ocarinas. "That song rips you forward in time until the next dawn or dusk, whichever comes first. It can be a good way to lay low for a while, but it can also leave you vulnerable to an ambush, especially if your enemy knows what you can do. Don't worry, you've only been gone a few minutes. Your friend just stopped by to see if we wanted to go get some breakfast."

"Well, I guess now we know the instrument will work for me. Alright, now teach me that reset song, and we can be on our way."

They passed the non-magical ocarina back and forth a few times, as Zeke got the handle of the notes, committing them to memory. Dust Bowl and the spider watched quietly until they were done.

When they walked out into the halls, there was chaos everywhere. Guards and other ponies were scrambling about, the guards notably more armed than usual, quite a few carrying stacks of weapons to equip the others. The trio did their best to avoid being trampled as they sought out someone who might be able to tell them what was going on. They spotted Shining Armor in a courtyard, and Robert led the way up to him, waiting for him to finish ordering one of his subordinates before trying to gain his attention.

"Captain Shining Armor, sir!" Robert began. "I can see you are busy, but we have vital intelligence about the capabilities of the enemy to the south which you need to hear, sir! We had expected to hear from you about a meeting this morning to discuss it."

"I'm afraid I know all too well what the enemy is capable of. I'm guessing you didn't get the news then."

"No sir, what news?"

"The enemy moved on our southernmost fortress, the Alamare, last night. Princess Luna and Queen All Heart took a contingent to drive them off, but it didn't end well. Queen All Heart perished in the battle, along with all of the fort's defenders and most of the night guard. Princess Luna returned, alive, but so exhausted that she had to get Princess Celestia to lower the moon for her."

"That's.. that's horrible!" Zeke responded, before noticing that Robert had taken off running. Trading a look with Shining Armor and Dust Bowl, they all quickly moved to follow.

Rounding the corner, Robert drew his blade with a guttural war cry as he lunged at Princess Luna, aiming a leaping overhead slash toward her neck. As Luna's green magic trapped him in midair, Celestia rounded on him with fury and disbelief.

"What is the meaning of this?!" the solar diarch asked, barely refraining from a deadly counterattack of her own.

"Luna's.. magic.. isn't.. green!" Robert managed to get out, despite the crushing grip.

"Green? What are you talking about?" Shining Armor asked as Zeke drew his cards, summoning a pair of lions that growled at Luna's flank, preparing to pounce.

Celestia cast quickly, opening her eyes to the magic around her, and then rounded on her 'sister'. "You're right, Lulu's magic is deep blue." Her own bright magical aura wrapped around the imposter, held at bay by a wall of green. "We trusted you, and you betrayed us? Why? Was it all a ruse from the beginning, Queen 'All Heart'? Guards!"

From all around, a wave of guards closed in to subdue the Queen, only to in turn be subdued and disarmed by a second wave of guards from behind them. The lions joined the fray, dispatching one of the traitorous guards, while another vanished from sight in a flash of blue magic. The queen took flight, green flames washing over her as she reverted to her natural form. Holding off Celestia's attack was taking too much of her focus, and Robert dropped to the ground, quickly sheathing his sword and drawing his bow.

"Why? It was simply too good of an opportunity to pass up. To dine on one Princess' love for the other? Priceless! I never expected to be revealed so quickly by some leaf-clad simian, however. So now I guess it's the time for ultimatums."

Celestia stomped the ground. "Fine. Surrender and we'll let you live in our dungeons. Simple enough ultimatum for you?"

"You overestimate your position here, Tia. I've had most of the night to prepare for this. Your guards are almost all in the dungeons already." As if to confirm this, the sounds of dozens of crossbows being brought to bear resounded from around the courtyard, where another, larger wave of 'guards' had arrived. The angle they were aiming was clear; the flying Queen was well above their line of fire. Celestia, Shining Armor, Zeke, Robert and Dust Bowl, were not.

"Think this through, Queen," Robert hissed. "You need Celestia if you want to have any hope of fighting off the armies that are coming for us. You can't control the moon, much less the sun. And you already know your forces aren't enough without the Equestrian guards assisting you, that's why you came here in the first place. Back off now, tell us what you did with Luna, and maybe we can still work together to all survive this war."

"What I did to Luna? Why, all I did was lie about having gone with her. The poor dear charged off on her own, even dragging a thousand of my loyal drones to their doom! By the time my forces and the bulk of the night guard reached the fortress, poor Luna was nowhere to be found, and the fortress was overrun. Dear Lulu may still be out there, somewhere, but I wouldn't count on it. Those the enemy kills fade from this world quickly enough, the lack of a body to bring home offers only dim hope."

"Enough!" Celestia declared. "Will you stand with us and avenge my sister and your home? Or tear us apart with in fighting so the enemy has little left to mop up? Your treachery is not forgiven, but we cannot afford to be divided at a time like this!"

Queen 'All Heart' flittered to the ground, somberly. "We will stand, as we have stood, as we entreated yourselves to stand. We will take Luna's place guarding the night, and fight by your side as we promised. I am sorry for.. endangering our alliance. It was reckless of me, as reckless as your dear departed sister and her ill fated heroism. Drones! Release the guards. We are done."

As the tension slowly began to defuse, Shining Armor turned to Robert. "I think it's time for that intelligence report of yours. If the Princess and Queen would join us?" he said, still eyeing the Queen warily, like he wanted her there more to keep her from being out of sight than to share.

Dopple had been in a pretty good spot. The day guard's spear had been wrested free and pointed at his own neck, while Dopple's own crossbow, primed and loaded, was at the back of his head. The pony's fight had fled him, and Dopple had nothing to do but keep up the threatening pose while keeping an eye out for any threats that might turn toward him. The solar princess was tied up with his Queen, and unlikely to spare him a thought. One human was helpless in midair, and the other.. was playing card games? And what were those lions doing here?

A dull, pearly white orb floating near the human had lit up, then a second bluish orb joined it, appearing out of nowhere. The blue orb dimmed for a moment, and then the entire world turned blue. When the light faded and he blinked away the jarring transition from daylight to spell-light to darkness, he found that he was home. [FUCK!]

What had been a good position was suddenly the worst position imaginable. Or thereabouts. He was suddenly hundreds of kilometers away from his soon to be victorious Queen, in the very tunnels his people had recently abandoned. Directly ahead, barely visible in the darkness, was one of those freakishly deadly dogs of war. It hadn't noticed him yet, but he estimated a few steps forward would be enough to seal his fate. It was a curious thing about these dogs: they could stare right at you, but if you were even one hoof too far away they wouldn't know you were there. Get too close though and they would rush in for the kill, no matter what you disguised yourself as.

The solar guard was gone, or rather left behind, but Dopple still had his spear, his loaded crossbow and a quiver of bolts. That was something at least. He dropped the spear, levelled his crossbow at the dog, and froze in indecision. Once the first quarrel was loose, the dog would be coming for him, he knew that much. Was his aim true? Would he be able to reload quickly enough to finish the dog before it reached him? How many hits would it take to go down? Would others notice his attack and converge? He briefly considered just letting that standoff go on indefinitely. Finally he decided living in terror until he starved to death was a fate worse than the dog would give him.

The first bolt hit true. The second as well. There wasn't time for a third, so he hastily dropped his crossbow and stabbed with the spear. The dog fell in a blood mess, which faded from reality as he caught his breath. One down. That wasn't so hard. He didn't see any more dogs, and he didn't hear the telltale bark when their unseen master gave them orders. Dopple collected his spent bolts and carefully began to search the tunnels ahead.

Chapter 21: Itinerant Kingdom

"Wind Chaser," I said, with the force of an order. [Go up there and check it out.]

[Why don't you check it out? You did it!] She objected silently, even as she took flight.

"What? You're risking your own mare? What if it's dangerous?!" Bardrick berated me.

"It's because it might be dangerous that I have to risk my own. I don't have a sense for magic, she does. I was flying around all night in.. that.. and didn't notice a thing." I watched my loyal drone flying up toward the broken sky, frowning as I realized how impossible it was to tell where the actual break started. It was obvious a three-dimensional zone of some kind in the sky, but you could only see it by its effects on the far distance.

But she was able to find it, in much the same way a bird finds a well-cleaned window. And with far too similar of a result. [Help!] she called to me, as I was already getting up to intercept her falling form. A single powerful beat of my wings launched me toward her, while Bardrick moved to stare at the ground where I had just been. I caught her before she hit the water, and slowed to a graceful glide, lightly arcing my way back around toward the shore.

"What happened?" I inquired. [Tell me everything.]

"I suddenly lost my wing strength, and couldn't hold myself aloft." [It felt like, the closest I can come is the sky there felt like a person whose love has been forceably drained dry. When I fly into it, the magic in my wings failed and I couldn't stay aloft. What did you do?]

"I've got you now, just relax." [I'm not sure, other than using my own flight magic a lot. I think the crystal foci in my wings must be sucking the magic out of the world around me to get their power. The shapeshifting probably has the same problem, but I don't use it often enough to create any obvious side effects. I guess staying changed isn't a problem, but if I tried shifting rapidly I might create the same effect.]

"It looks like you broke the ground over here," Bardrick called out. Ducking low, he looked up at me through the distortion next to him. "But I guess it's just the air here. Already it's starting to fade though."

"Good," I replied as I came to a landing and let Wind Chaser down gently. "The rest of the sky should recover on its own, over time.. I hope. I think I'm done practicing flying though."

"I think you should be done flying, period. You're a hazard to those around you!"

"You're right," I said, before retracting my wings, redistributing the mass into the stouter form of an earth pony. "I've learned what I need to, should an emergency require it of me, but until then I should stay grounded."

Bardrick stared at me, mouth agape.

"Great, now you broke Bardrick. Maybe we should go before you break anything else." I nodded my agreement, and began to lead the way out toward the nearest road.

"Wait," Bardrick called out. We didn't wait, but by the time we reached the road he rejoined us, with loaded saddlebags and his spear slung over his back. "If I don't stick around to talk some common sense into you, who knows what you'll break next?"

"What about your family?" I asked.

"They'll be fine, they've got a full harvest to attend to, thanks to that mare of yours."

"It will be dangerous. Maybe not right away, but eventually." I fished in my pocket and pulled out my phone. Accursed lock screen! How does one type a password on such a small screen with hooves? Even above the lock I could see part of the last message, from days ago: "" I remembered the buzz, back when I met Zeke, and wondered how he was faring. I remembered he had one of my spiders with him, but I didn't seem to be able to make contact with it from here. At least I was fairly certain he was alive.

"I'm a retired soldier. That means I know how to deal with danger, and if it gets the better of me, no one will miss me," Bardrick retorted.

"See previous question." I shifted my left hoove into a hand and poked at the controls for a bit, bringing up the Player Locator app before returning my hand to a hoof. Player 9 was nearby, a mere 5 km. I'd need to travel a bit to get a bearing on which direction, as it was too close to be displayed. Players 5 and 8 were also getting close, 9 km, just under the limit. As I watched they both clicked down to 8 km, suggesting they were moving together, closing on my location. It was tempting just to wait, but I didn't want to drag the other griffons into this, especially if any of these unknowns proved hostile. If Bardrick got dragged in at this point, it was his own fault.

"They could use a break from dealing with me. Besides, they're not that lucky. I'll be back before they finish enjoying my abscence and start to miss me!"

"Fine. Welcome to the Itinerant Kingdom. Watch your step, as the ride can and will get bumpy," I joked as we started down the road to the north.

Frank looked up from his phone, and out over the water. "We're getting close, but I don't see any sign of this 'broken ocean' Luna mentioned."

Cross Guard yawned, unaccustomed to staying up so late into the day. He had taken the first watch, while Black Rose got some sleep. Blinking, he came up with his answer. "You're looking the wrong way."

Frank and Josh looked to see where Cross Guard was looking, then looked up and saw the state of the sky. They exchanged knowing looks, realizing just how familiar the hues looked.

"Was this Luna looking down from above? Maybe that means it doesn't go all the way up?" Frank questioned.

"She said she had a view from the moon, or something," Frank answered. "So I guess it could go all the way up."

"I can see why we need to put a stop to it." Cross Guard confirmed, before waking his slumbering partner.

Frank pointed at the little stone tower overlooking the nearby fields on the shore. "This looks to be about where the locator was pointing earlier. Whoever lives there might have some information. It looks like he's moving away now, but I can't tell which direction. Let's go ashore and start asking around."

"Do you plan to pay me to wait around for you, or am I free to go?" Josh inquired as he brought the boat toward a stretch of beach.

"You've taken enough of our money," Cross Guard said grumpily. "Thank your for your service to the crown," he added insincerely.

"Always a pleasure doing business," Josh replied, leaving off the traditional 'with you'.

As soon as the passengers had disembarked, Josh sped away to the north, with Sudden Surprise waving a friendly goodbye from the back of the boat.

The Swiftwings were cooperative enough, when Frank and his escorts approached them, but they honestly had never seen a human before. They had seen a pair of pegasi, who left with Addula's father heading north, which was as much of a lead as anything, especially after little Addy threw in that the stallion had 'magic blood'. So, with Frank keeping an eye on his phone, they set off to the north.

"Go away!" a feminine voice rang out from beyond the treeline to our right, followed by a piercing scream. It sounded like a little girl to me, though I expected it was probably a young griffon. That wasn't reason not to help, though, so I broke into a run while my companions took flight. I saw her through Wind Chaser's eyes while my own line of sight was still blocked by trees: a young human girl, perhaps seven or eight years of age, with a torn dress and a bright yellow hard hat, capped in Mickey Mouse ears of all things. She was standing on top of an old stone tower, being harrassed by a trio of griffons, adolescent males Wind claimed.

As we approached, she managed to stun one of them with with a headbutt, before another ripped the helmet off of her head by those ridiculous appendages. Wind and Bardrick called out challenges as they closed to attack, drawing attention from only one of the griffons, while a second managed a fierce kick to the girl's midsection that sent her off balance. She teetered a moment on the edge as I quickly regrew my wings, before tumbling to the ground while I gave them a sharp flick.

Despite my efforts, I was a second too late, and maybe even made things worse. She struck the ground under me, bounced up and off of my underside before slamming back into the ground, as I crashed through the rock of the tower wall, skidding painfully within before crashing to a stop against the far wall. Before I could recover, my worst fears were realized as my phone vibrated in my pocket, no doubt announcing another player elimination.

The ruffians fled as I walked back toward the little girl slowly, drawn by morbid curiousity to see what I could learn about the innocent I couldn't save. It didn't take them long to recognize the threat of two experienced warriors bearing down on them. They were bullies themselves, not warriors. As I got to the rubble-covered girl, I started to notice a distinct and unnatural lack of blood at the scene. I had never seen such a fall take place, but I was pretty sure there would be a mess. The second thing I noticed was the girl lunge to a sitting position, grab my in a painfully strong embrace and shout out "Pony!"

"umm, yes. Sort of. Close enough? What?.. how?" Did whatever magic brought us here simply refuse to let a little girl die? If any place would render a little girl invulnerable, it would be Equestria. Technically we were in Gryphonia, which struck me as a more.. boyish place, but that was being too picky.

The little girl rubbed her face in my chest fur for a little while before backing off, and looking embarrassed. "I'm sorry, I should introduce myself first! I'm Relena Swift!" She offered me a hand, which I awkwardly met with a hoof to shake.

"I'm.. " I blanked for a moment. "You can call me South Wind. And these are Wind Chaser and Bardrick," I introduced my companions as they landed and approached. "Can I.. can I see your phone?" I asked, hoping it wouldn't occur to her to question how I knew about it.

"That's a rather odd request.." she commented, handing it over anyways.

I gave it a quick physical check, finding no obvious cracking. It powered on easily enough, and even with a hoof I could manage a generic swipe to unlock. No password, convenient. I saw the message declaring the recently eliminated player:

""

'Swift'? That was going to be a problem. The timing seemed too spot on to be coincidence. I had a suspicion as to just what this 'skull totem' did, but I didn't voice it as I handed back the phone while giving a generic apology. She seemed about to deflect it when she saw the message still on the screen and nodded her acceptance.

"The girl seems as unbreakable as you, South, does she have magic blood as well?" Bardrick asked, a bit obliviously. Wind Chaser elbowed him in the gut, leaving him confused for a moment until he realized the tone the scene had taken.

"No," I answered, "she had a guadian . But he has done what he could, and now it is up to us to protect her the rest of the way."

"I see.. he protected me somehow, didn't he? And now he's.. " she trembled a little, fighting back tears. "I should have been more careful. It's all my fault.."

I dragged her into a hug, letting her tears spill down on my shoulder. "It's okay to cry. But it's not okay to blame yourself. The one thing he wanted more than anything else in the world was to protect you, and he has. We'll take it the rest of the way. We'll get you somewhere safe, were there are a lot of nice ponies. And then we will get you home. Okay?"

It was obviously too soon to be getting back on the road, so we spent the night in the tower. It looked to have been abandoned many years ago, but more recently patched up an impressive degree. Relena introduced us to her item, a weird flying disk with two smaller disks protruding from the top.. it looked like a 'Mickey Mouse' shaped video screen that was impossibly flexible. It often showed an alien looking smiling face. When asked, 'Toodles' would display a menu of tools apparently re-chosen each day, and could make them appear from thin air. According to Relena he had a distinct knack for knowing in advance exactly which tools she would need that day, and the tools themselves would vanish whenever she stopped paying attention to them. They were generally pretty mundane items, but often with a cartoonish twist: for example, she often got a fishing rod with a glove-like hand at the end that could grab fish or other objects for her to real in, instead of a child-unfriendly fishing hook.

Relena told us about her father that night, about how he worked too much most of the time, but how he would take her to their cabin in the woods every chance he got, and taught her all kinds of survival tricks. How going off to work seemed to fill him with a manic edge, but going off to the woods with her always seemed like a joyous relief. The results of his teaching spoke for itself, as we could see around her makeshift home. She even had reserves of preserved fish, enough to feed us all for the night. Given her age I was really impressed. Though.. I was honestly a bit bothered by how quickly she seemed to be recovering from her grief. Maybe it just hadn't become 'real' for her yet?

"Relena.. you had a lot to say about your father, but you haven't really mentioned your mother yet. Is she..?" I didn't really no how to finish that question.

"Mommy passed away a few years ago," she said quietly. "She had cancer, and kept getting sicker and sicker. It was.. kind of a relief when she finally passed. We had all had time to grieve her loss with her, and we didn't want to see her suffer any more." I was getting a little teary-eyed just hearing about it, but she was quite level and calm. "I don't know where I'm going to go if you do get me home. I wish I could just go to our cabin and live there. But I'm sure it will become a whole big thing. Maybe I'll go live with Uncle Louie. Or maybe I could just stay with the ponies."

"Maybe... " [I hate this game!] I informed Wind Chaser. [We need to win, and we need to win fast. No more of this bullshit! No more death!]

[Sure thing, my king, but how? You're.. not going to go all scary-you again, are you? I was just getting to like lovey-you.~]

[No.. no! I can't use 'him' as a crutch anymore. If there's an obstacle, I'll overcome it myself. We got the Laughter code, the one Robert said they never got before. They're getting the other codes. We just need to gather enough players. Eight remaining.. and 'army man' is a write-off. If we lose two more it's over. We have to win before that!]

We settled in for the night, Bardrick taking first watch on the tower top, while Relena took the one bed, and I did my best to satisfy Wind Chaser with a little affectionate snuggling in the middle of the floor. The tower was awfully drafty, with the new entrance I had accidently added, but it was better than nothing.

Author's Note

Toodles is copyright Walt Disney Corp.

Chapter 22: Exposition and recap

When we awoke, there was smoke coming from the beach, just on the other side of the woods from us, and I decided we should investigate. From the treeline, we could see a beached yacht, but it wasn't the source of the smoke. Nearby, three ponies and a human stood around a rather large fire bonfire. Looking closer, I realized it was actually a funeral pyre.

"Daddy!" Relena cried out, as she immediately realized whose pyre it must be. So much for stealth. We followed her toward the others, trailing behind as she ran as fast as she could, but ready to close the distance if anyone threatened our new ward. Fortunately the others weren't hostile. I recognized Frank, but I didn't know the earth pony with him, nor the strange bat-winged pegasi. Lunar pegasi, I remembered from the show.

Frank offered his condolences as she approached the pyre, as close as safety would allow. Her father was well dressed, a lucky coincidence no doubt. But he looked.. crushed. Like he had fallen off a building, only to have rubble fall on him. In other words, exactly as I would have expected Relena to look after her tumble. Any doubts I had as to his 'skull totem's function were gone. I mourned his loss all the more, seeing such proof of what kind of man he had been.

Black Rose studied us as we approached. She looked at me and asked. "I take it you are the pegasus with the 'magic blood'. We have some questions for you."

Frank looked at me for a bit before his face lit up. "Daniel?!"

"Guilty on both counts," I confessed. As I walked toward them I pulled back onto my hind legs, subtely shifting my hips to support the stance better, then shifted my upright form into a human without breaking stride. "How did you recognize me?" I asked Frank.

"I would recognized Rarity's workmanship anywhere," he commented.

I laughed. I had been wearing the same outfit since I left Ponyville, my changeling magic reshaping it with me, and Deus carefully cleaning and repairing it as I went. I even still had the scarf around my neck, hiding where the scar had long since faded. I patted him on the shoulder, pulling back when I saw him recoil fearfully.

"Hey, can you teach me how to do that?" Relena asked excitedly.

"Not without.. unacceptable side effects," I said as I shook my head.

"Like breaking the sky?" Frank asked, pointedly.

"Ehehe.. that was more from flying, but yeah.. the transformation has the same side effect, just not enough to be noticeable."

"You somehow make a portal back to our world?" he asked. "That's what it looked like anyways."

"No such luck. It's more of a low-magic zone. Which.. would explain the similarity to our world's sky."

"Your world?" Bardrick asked. "I knew you were hiding things from me, but.. care to enlighten me, mister 'magic blood'?"

"Magic blood? Is that your Item? Cause I thought it was that spider thing. And is that how you managed to survive, umm, well, you know?" Frank inquired.

I held my hands up to stop the questions, or at least slow them down. "In reverse order.. Yes, it's how I survived. The magic blood and the spider thing are kind of one and the same, and yes they are my item.. or the creations of my item. It's kind of.. self replicating." I shifted my focus to Bardrick. "Frank, Relena, myself and nine others of our kind crossed over to your world against our will a few days back. We were each given one item of our choice, with pretty broad liniency as to what, and challenged to a Survival Game."

"Like Minecraft!" Relena supplied helpfully.

I chuckled. It was a much better interpretation than what some of us had come up with, and explained why she didn't seem instantly suspicious of other humans. "Some of us have been, shall we say, playing the game wrong. Including one of us who seems intent on 'winning' by conquering the world. But meanwhile we need to find some hidden markers scattered around the world. Speaking of which, I hope you didn't put Mr. Swift's phone on that pyre. He should have the code for Generosity."

Cross Guard handed over the phone, but it was password locked. Relena helpfully volunteered the password, and we were able to find the code in his photo gallery pretty easily. In a few minutes, we all had Magic, Laughter, Generosity, and Loyalty lit up on our phones. "If all went as planned, Zeke should have Honesty and Kindness when we get a chance to link up with him. So we just need the three of us, Zeke, Scott and one more player together, and we have a chance."

I was a little annoyed that magic still wouldn't Activate for me. Loyalty did, though, so that was something, but Frank had Loyalty as well. And none of them would activate for Relena. "I wonder if I could have activated Laughter, if daddy was still here?" she wondered aloud. Yeah.. a funeral wasn't the time to be laughing.

"You've met Scott?" Frank asked.

"You introduced my spider to him," I replied.

"You still owe us some explanations," Black Rose cut in. "About your 'magic blood', these spiders everyone keeps mentioning, and that low magic zone in the sky."

I sighed and sat down, since I had been towering over everyone but Frank, and held my palm out where everone could see. At my urging, tiny spiders began to crawl up through my pores on my palm, and combine with each other until they formed into a spider the size of my fist. "This is a small piece of my primary fractal spider, ''. His name means 'God machine', and is a reference to , the literary technique of having problems just miraculously solved by divine intervention rather than the characters having to work for it. When I first acquired it, I assumed it would just solve anything and everything, though reality has been.. a lot more nuanced. It is, however, a very versatile tool."

I took a breath before continuing. "Within my blood, it can allow me to survive some otherwise fatal problems, heal me more quickly, and even optimize my body a bit. It can also create crystals capable of copying magical effects, such as changeling shapeshifting, or pegasus flight, but it takes a lot of work to get each new effect working the first time. And, I need to copy the experiences of someone who has such magic, such as Wind Chaser here."

"You're a changeling?" Relena asked Wind Chaser, realizing the implications faster than anyone else. "Show me!"

Wind Chaser cringed at being outted, but at my nod she reverted to her original form for a few seconds before changing back, with a glance up and down the beach to see if anyone outside our huddle had spotted her. She looked at the lunar pegasi. "You're not alarmed?"

"Your Queen has formed an alliance with our princesses. She mentioned losing a drone in a confrontation with 'king Daniel', I'm guessing that was you?" Black Rose returned.

Wind Chaser nodded. "She gave me over to my new King, in return for consideration for a future alliance," she said, leaving out the details of her precarious position at the time.

"So you're a king now?" Frank asked, mockingly.

"The itinerant king!" I declared jokingly. "My kingdom is admittedly small, but quite portable."

"So you just declared yourself king then?" Frank asked.

"Only after Wind Chaser tried to declare me Queen," I answered.

"Wonderful. Now, back to the spiders, if you would?" Black Rose cut in.

"Right. So, outside my body they can become a force to be reckoned with," I continued. "They can basically 'eat' anything, and turn it into more of their own. They can combine into larger and larger spiders, gaining both strength and intelligence as they do. Within a substantial range, I can control them remotely, though even beyond that range I could give the larger spiders complex tasks and trust them to think through the details. They lack self motivation and emotions, but they have sharp, methodical minds. I tried using that to stop the one Robert calls the 'army man' in the desert near Dodge Junction, but despite tearing up the entire region to make more spiders, he was able to overwhelm me with his 'super weapons'. It's still a possibility, if I'm willing to go that route, to basically destroy the land to save it. But I'd rather go for something a little more subtle than that."

"Yes, please avoid breaking the world any more than you have already. At least not as a first resort," Black Rose replied.

"Right. I'm trying to think of a less cataclysmic way to solve the problem. I actually have an idea, but I'd need, well.. probably need most of Canterlot's guard forces to volunteer for, well... radical alterations."

"What are you thinking?" Cross Guard asked, a bit nervously.

"Relena just gave me the idea, actually, though Wind Chaser's been a decent prototype for some time. I can put my spiders into someone else, and give them a version of my 'magic blood'. For Wind Chaser I used it to allow us to communicate more easily, and grant me her experiences, but it can also allow her to fast heal, etc. If I allowed it, she could copy my magic crystal trick, and be able to move as fast in the sky as I can. With a few more crystal tricks mastered, we could have an army of super-soldiers, powerful enough to take on the enemy without ripping up the land."

"Are these 'crystal tricks' what ripped up the sky?" Black Rose asked.

"Yeah, but that was non-stop pushing my limits overnight, in a limited area."

"Don't dismiss her complaint so hastily, boy. I saw you in the morning, you ripped up that patch of air when you went for your rescue dive in an instant," Bardrick countered.

"True, but you said yourself it was starting to fade pretty quickly. Ponies armed with my crystal tricks can keep them as reserve maneuvers, using them only when strictly necessary, and sticking to their own power the rest of the time. They'd be able to dodge incoming attacks, even scatter out of range of a , for example. If they use it responsibly, it should be able to recover naturally. If they overuse it.. well, I can only trust that it was necessary to prevent a worse fate."

Wind Chaser cut in. "Well, as much as I hate to volunteer, I really should test out your crystal tricks myself to see if it's even a workable option. You remember what happened when I fly into that low-magic zone, if I'm generating one around myself won't that be a big problem for me?"

I nodded. "Yeah, we definitely need more data. If I can translate horn magic and.. what do earth ponies have? Adding more tricks to my repertoire will allow for a more effective fighting force. Like.. a bunch of mini-alicorns," I grinned.

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but changelings would be a better analogy. We have wing, horn, and might magic by nature, as well as shapeshifting. Though.. I will admit my skill with the horn is pretty limited. If you want to be able to cast spells with your crystals, you'll need to get help from someone else," Wind Chaser responded.

"I'm not really sold on your plan," Cross Guard said, "but I do think you should bring it to the Princesses. They'll want to see you, anyways, and we should bring the child with us as well."

"My name is Relena," the child in question cut in. "And I would love to meet the Princesses. So, take me to your leader," she giggled. At least there was some laughter to be had.

"I can take you back as far as Manehattan," Sudden Surprise offered. "After that.. I don't. I don't really feel up to going with you any further than that." She looked sadly at the smoldering remains of the pyre.

"Thanks," I said, "we'll just have to take it from there." I thought a moment, "Bardrick, I think you should go home. If you come with us, I don't know when or even if you'll be able to see your family again. If you turn back now, they're just down the road."

Bardrick shook his head. "I'm seeing this through. You're little spidery trick.. it can transfer knowledge of how to use magic, right? But can it transfer common sense? I might be able to train you to not be such a fool after all."

I laughed. "Alright then, I'll be glad to have you at my side."

Chapter 23: Belated Briefing

"'Player 12', or as I like to call him, the 'army guy', originally appeared in the badlands, just outside Queen 'All Heart's hive cluster," Robert began. "I don't know all the details, but his Item somehow allows him to build structures and units from a certain game from our world, or rather a series of games. These games were all about building up armies and sending them off to fight each other, so of course that allows him to build up an army and send them against, well, us."

Princess Celestia, Captain Shining Armor, Queen All Heart, and Zeke all paid careful attention, while a smattering of other guard officers and changeling leaders surrounded them, keeping an eye on each other as much as the briefing.

"The things it creates are some kind of magical construct, even those that look like humans or other living creatures. Much like Zeke's summons, they live, die, and kill according to the logic of their game, rather than acting entirely realistic. The one plus side of this is that their weapons can't incapacitate you with injuries; until they do enough damage to outright kill you, the only harm is a mounting sense of dread. On the downside, that can easily lead to your soldiers getting killed, as they push through their fear and take risks they would know not to if they had broken bones and bleeding wounds to slow them down. On the other hand, you can't really slow the enemy down with injuries, either, and it can be hard to judge how effective your attacks are being until they finish your target off."

"Sorry to interrupt," Shining Armor interrupted, "but we know all this. Can you get past the basics?"

"Sure, I just wanted to start with the groundwork. The bulk of his forces are pretty straight forward. The most common troops have projectile weapons that are unable to target anything more than a few pony-heights off the ground. This is mostly a 'game logic' thing. Anything higher than that is considered 'flying', and can only be targetted by his weapons that can target flying things. Don't get me wrong, he has plenty of those, but his basic troops aren't among them and he tends to make a lot of them."

"Why?" Zeke asked, "I doubt he's a total , so why make so many basic troops if they have such obvious weaknesses? Cost efficiency?"

"Extreme cost efficiency. I've had enough chances to scout things out over the iterations to have some idea how he works. He builds and sells buildings, constantly. That produces free basic troops as a consequence. That should be costing him money, on net, and terribly inefficient, but I'm guessing there's some quirk to how his Item works that makes it work out for him. I've also seen him stand his basic troops next to a sandbag wall and make them disappear; according to Angelica's research, that's some secret trick for selling infantry. If his item somehow makes the buildings for free, but not the units, that may be how he finances his whole operation. But unless we can actually ask him, we'll probably never know for sure."

"Any ideas on how to use that to our advantage?" Shining asked.

"If we can wipe out his Construction Yards and similar structures, his whole operation should falter; but that'd be true regardless of how his finances work. But I'm not sure how we do that without straight up overcoming his forces. If we can manage a surgical strike, though, those would be good primary targets. Anyways, let's move on. Beyond his more straightforward combat troops, he has a number of specialized forces you need to be aware of. I wish my phone was still intact so I could show you pictures, but I'll just have to try to describe as best I can. The dogs, you know all too well," he nodded to the changeling queen. "They can detect a disguised enemy nearby, and can flat out murder anyone without adequate protection. Anyone safely inside a vehicle or building, or flying is out fo their reach. But it's hard to do that without being targetted by his other troops. Disguising yourself as one of them fools the other constructs, as long as the player himself doesn't notice you and send an order. But he generally keeps his base well defended with dogs, and will make more if he suspects a threat from disguised changelings. If the dogs can be taken out from a distance or from the air, though, a stealth attack can potentially succeed."

Robert continued, "Speaking of stealth attacks, our 'army guy' has a few nasty stealth options of his own. His spies can take on the appearance of any individual they can catch sight of, allowing them to move about with the appearance of pony. They are basically just spotters, but given how his abilities work, spotters can be a big problem. They become pretty obvious if you try to interact with them, but they can go unnoticed in crowded areas where one more pony walking around quietly is easy to go unnoticed. Stealth tanks can simply make themselves invisible, and have the ability to attack fliers with their missiles. Mirage tanks can disguise themselves as trees when stationary, and can kill a pony in a single shot, two at the worst. He also has a few vehicles that can move underground, and surface unexpectedly: one armed with flamethrowers that can be devastating against clustered troops, and another that can carry groups of soldiers to release onto the battlefield. Canterlot itself should be safe from those, as they can't dig through solid rock, but the soft earth throughout most of Equestria allows them to pop up almost anywhere."

No one interrupted, so Robert went on. "In addition to the stealth options, he has a few other specialized troops you need to be especially concerned with. The bald men, also known as 'Yuri's, can take over the mind of almost anypony close enough, as long as they aren't flying. Each Yuri can only control a single pony at a time, but if you subdue the controlled pony, the Yuri can simply chose another pony to control. The strongest willed ponies, such as the Princesses, can resist easily enough, but when your allies are turning on you, the battlefield can get very chaotic very quickly. Kill them with extreme prejudice. In addition, he has soldiers known as 'Chrono Troopers' that have a very unconventional combat style, even by his standards. When moving long distances, they teleport, taking time to fade in at their destination based on the distance travelled. If you spot them fading in, kill them quickly while they are vulnerable. Once fully materialized, they can teleport away freely if they are sufficiently threatened. Their weapon freezes a target, preventing them from experiencing any time. They have to keep locked onto a target to keep them frozen, but after they've been frozen long enough, they'll vanish without a trace."

"That's what the survivors from Alamare said happened to Princess Luna," Queen All Heart volunteered. "They said a bunch of them ganged up on her."

Robert nodded, "That makes sense. Someone like Luna takes longer than normal to disappear, but they can make it faster by concentrating their fire."

"This intelligence would have been much more valuable yesterday, before the battle," Shining Armor said, frustration tinging his voice.

"I'm sorry, it was night when we arrived. Perhaps we should have awoken you, or even given Luna a private briefing on the spot."

"Thank you for taking the time now, at least we'll be better prepared to keep the rest of the royalty safe," Shining replied.

"Moving on.. the enemy has a substantial and dangerous flying contingent of their own, in addition to their ground forces. The fliers fall mainly into two categories: fast moving strike fighters which can get in quickly and deliver deadly payloads, but need to return to base to reload, and slower moving sustained-engagement aircraft, that can either reload themselves in midair or have no need to reload. For the most part, his military is much tougher and more dangerous on the ground than in the air, but I don't have to tell you how effective the added manueverability of airborn forces can be."

The pegasi in attendance, as well as the changelings, nodded their agreement.

"And finally, 'Super-weapons'. The little light show in the sky the other day was a collection of them being used against what I assume was an attempted assault by Daniel and his spiders. The most obvious threat is an array of high power attacks that can be launched directly from his base of operations against anywhere he has gotten one of his spotters. It's worth mentioning that he doesn't have to have a spotter still there to launch the attack; once one of his spies has been in Canterlot, he'll be able to drop his right here, even if the spy has been eliminated. He has high powered energy beam weapons that strike from the sky, called 'Ion cannons', massive missiles capable of devastating a large area, and the Scud Storm, which fires a barrage of missiles that leave behind clouds of deadly toxins. Each of these weapons is unusable for several minutes after firing, but he has enough of them to devastate an army every few minutes. The best defense is to not be clustered. Spotters should keep an eye on the horizon to see the missiles flying up from their launchers and scatter your forces as widely as you can. At a certain altitude, the missiles will vanish, and reappear over their target, giving a very limited time to try to get out of the area of effect."

Robert swallowed, taking a moment before continuing, "Ion cannons are basically unavoidable, but don't hit as wide of an area.. they will generally be called down to hit high priority targets. If you can shield yourselves, you may have enough time to get out of the beam before it kills you. In addition, he has the Chronosphere, which can teleport a tightly clustered strike force to wherever his spotters have revealed, and the Iron Curtain, which can render a strike force temporarily invulnerable. The latter's use is identifiable by a rusty-red look enveloping the beneficiaries. Luckily, the Iron Curtain only works on vehicles, not infantry, so it can't protect some of the more troublesome enemies we already discussed."

"You've talked a lot about the enemy's strengths.. what about weaknesses? Are there any vulnerabilities we can exploit?"

Robert nodded. "Yes, though not as much as you might like. Above all, his limitation is that he has a fixed and finite bag of tricks. There are a lot of nasty tricks in that bag, but he has no way to come up with something new. Second, he is, ultimately, just one person. His forces can act on their own, but only in very limited, predictable ways, such as attacking someone who wanders into range, or pursuing an attacker. If you attack several areas at once, he will have a hard time giving orders, and you'll be able to exploit his forces' default behaviors. And at some point he has to sleep, and rely entirely on those defaults. He tends to stay up late into the night, and wake in the afternoon, though if you rely on that, he may switch his sleep schedule to counter. There's nothing he can do against you attacking around the clock though."

"We could take shifts, with solar guards harassing him in the day, and your changelings attacking at night," Celestia suggested to the Queen, receiving a nod in return.

Robert continued. "The majority of his arsenal does not function against airborne targets, and most can't keep pace with your pegasi, so you can use them for hit and run assaults, perhaps with unicorns to back them up and take out pursuing fliers. Also, if you can get on the offensive.. he has a nasty array of stationary weapons that make attacking his base very dangerous, but they rely on various 'power plant' structures. If you take out enough power plants, his entire defense network will shut off temporarily, and he'll need to take the time to unplug his buildings one by one to regain functionality. Hard to do in his sleep, and distracting even if he's awake. The power plants are among the weakest of his buildings, as well, and will crumble quickly under heavy fire. Their loss will also slow his production and disable his super weapons. But.. " Robert hesitated.

"But what?" Shining pressed.

"All this info will go a long way toward helping your odds, but well. The way I got it was by looping through time repeatedly. I've seen this war play out a lot of ways, none of them with victory on your side. Allying with the changelings is a good start, but it happens almost every time. Losing Luna so early is a major loss, and one that doesn't happen often. You need to do more. Gather more allies from surrounding nations, dig out more dangerous spells from your libraries, and take some pretty extreme risks. I don't know what will bring success, but I know being timid will lead to failure."

"Thank you, Robert. We are most grateful for your report, and your advice. We will see what we can do to even the odds. In your 'looping', did you see the enemy launch attacks on other nations? Perhaps that could be used to incentivize an alliance," Celestia inquired.

Robert nodded, looking a bit embarrassed. "There have been a number of times that I have.. decided to take a break, as it were, and fled Equestria at the start of a loop. It takes years for him to expand his operations, but he doesn't really stop. He seems to gain a lot of traction when he reaches the remains of the Crystal Empire to the north. Having an ocean between him and you serves to delay his assault, but when he does make his move, he does so decisively."

"Do you think you can stay with me, and serve as a witness to such? I will need all the help I can get to convince other nations to risk their own in what they will view as our fight," Celestia continued.

Robert sighed, "I can, but I need to ask you for your help. I had asked it of Luna, but, well, she obviously cannot help any longer. There are two more of our kind, females, that need to be located and brought here. One is a blue haired woman named Angelica, who should be in the Vanhoover area. I think it best to send Zeke to retrieve her. The other is a black haired woman named Monique who was in the Appleoosa area. If possible, she should be brought here, along with any civilians in that area."

"I will do what I can, but the Alamare was very close to Appleoosa. Given my sister's fate, I cannot risk going on the errand myself, and there are few others who can teleport such a distance. I will send word to the mayor to begin an evacuation immediately, and do her best to ensure your Monique makes it back here safely," Celestia offered. "As for Zeke, I will arrange a small stipend for him. The trains are still running, and he should be able to reach Vanhoover within the day."

"Thanks, Princess."

Player 12's item, the magic MCV:
Player 12's item of choice was "An MCV capable of building every structure and unit from all of the Command And Conquer games, with unlimited resources." Some minor limitations were built into it by the Text, but overall it remains gratuitously powerful.
The original MCV itself can be entered and controlled by a keyboard and mouse interface, that includes control over everything created from the MCV. A control panel allows it to be switched between the various MCV permutations from the different games, including GDI, Nod, Scrin, Allied, Soviet, Imperial, USA, PLA, and GLA variations. There is a monetary account for each of the three game series (Tiberium, Red Alert, and Generals) which all start at zero and can be filled by either harvesting appropriate resources or selling units or structures. The magic MCV itself can build structures for free, but any units cost resources, as well as buildings made from additional MCVs. As such, the biggest bottleneck is the need to perpetually build excess buildings to sell for funds to generate units. Tiberium itself is nonexistent within Equestria, and gold and gems in the necessary concentrations to harvest are hard to come by, but curiously the General's factions can be funded by collecting any form of boxes, making civilian settlements a valuable target. The translation magic that allows the game constructs to function in the real world translates any non-empty box into the generic 'supplies' used in that game's economy.

So far, no one has been able to get past Player 12's defenses to ask him his name, nor deliver a well deserved hoof to the head.

Chapter 24: New and old connections

Frank was getting sea-sick by the time Bardrick's fever broke. Wind Chaser and I had taken on earth pony forms and were rocking the boat quite a bit with our sparring. Wind Chaser was a better fighter to begin with, and had earth pony might magic to back it up, but I could take the punishment, and needed to learn both the skill and the magical data. It was really hard to catch anything going on other than her simply being strong and tough, and I new some of that came from mere bulk. But I had the bulk to match, a bit more even as a stallion, and couldn't come close to her might.

I actually couldn't see it until we stopped to take a break. With the magical equivalent of adrenaline draining out of her body, I finally recognized the power for its absence. And with that the painful process of working with the crude initial prototypes began. It reminded me of my first fight with the manticore, when my hastily conceived adrenaline surge let me smash my own arm against his thick bony skull. And that memory reminded me that I had more than just magic to work with.. pony biochemistry was different, but it had its own analog to adrenaline, with very similar effects. And working with molecules was what the fractal spiders were made for.

As Bardrick awoke, his newly minted subnet, 'Phoenix', quickly enquired about my progress, and started sifting through our recent memories, critiquing both of our fighting techniques as well as my newly minted crystal designs. "And how are you feeling, Bardrick?" I inquired, while the spiders conversed.

The elder griffon stood up, stretch his wings, feeling them out before stretching every other inch of his body, and then declaring. "Fit and fine and ready for action! I feel a dozen, no three dozen years younger. Why didn't you tell me it would be like this?!" In a fit of impulsiveness, he leapt into the air and took flight, flying circles around us.

"It appears he took to your 'magic blood' well," Black Rose commented, her eyes heavy from being awake so late into the day. "But aside from a few of our veterans and retirees, we would need more than renewed youth to justify your proposal."

I nodded to Black Rose tossed Bardrick his spear, and exuded my own. "I'm overdue for a spear-fighting lesson as it is," I said with a wink. As a pegasus, I took flight once again, meeting Bardrick in the air.

Our own sparring match was a learning experience for both of us. He was a much more experienced fighter, and more experienced in the air in general, but the high speed maneuvers as we both made use of the flight crystals were something I was more adjusted to, especially the blending of my mind with my spiders' that allowed them to calculate all the locations, trajectories, and accelerations for me. He got the hang of it quickly, to his credit, but he refused to copy my electromagnet trick, leaving me with an advantage at a range. He did opt to copy my might-magic crystals, combining them with his own natural griffon might magic to make him a serious threat at close range.

When I was roughly slammed into the water a fifth time, and the splash looked like it threatened to capsize the small vessel, we finally called it a day. Cross Guard was quite upset with us, having been roused from his sleep by a face full of seawater from the incident, and I apologized to him repeatedly as we cracked open the last of the supplies for a much needed meal.

"I will admit, you have my attention now. However, given the potential side effects you mentioned, I cannot accept your augmentation until I consult with Princess Luna. Your own followers will have to suffice as demonstration of your abilities until you can convince them of the wisdom of your plan," Black Rose conceded as we ate.

As we finished, before we could get up to anything more troublesome, Deus regained contact with the spider in Zeke's backpack. I produced another to set on the empty cardboard box, as I sifted through the memories of the one in Canterlot. By luck, it was in a meeting with Robert and several high ranking Equestrians, so I had it get Zeke's attention quietly, and wait for an opportune time to take center stage.

When Robert finally finished fielding questions from his briefing, before Shining Armor or the royals could take their leave, Zeke coughed to get their attention as he approached the middle, a fist-sized metallic spider in hand. He held it up, and my voice crackled through. "Hello? Princess Celestia? Queen All Heart? Captain Shining Armor? This is Daniel. I have Frank, Relena, and a handful of ponies with me, on our way back to Manehattan. It's good to finally get in contact with you all. Can you spare the time to discuss some important matters?"

"We have been waiting to hear from you for some time, Daniel. How did you come to have Frank with you? Last we knew he was our guest in the castle, under observation."

Cross Guard cut in, as the spider on our side was also serving as a makeshift radio, "your majesty, Cross Guard of the lunar guard here. Princess Luna sent Frank, Black Rose and myself on a quest to find Daniel, and get him to stop conducting experiments which were producing.. severe thaumaturgical damage off the coast of Gryphonia. However, we now have reason to believe the results of the experiment may help turn the tide of our war. If you or your sister could recover us from Manehattan when we dock in about an hour, we could share our findings with you in person."

"I hate to break it to you, " Zeke answered, "but I'm afraid Luna is on the casualty list for the war already, along with a large chunk of the night guard and quite a few changelings. I hope your new idea doesn't hinge on the night Princess in particular."

"It doesn't," I replied, "not specifically. But losing any large chunk of troops will make it much less effective. Though.. if you can get civilian volunteers, my idea could help them get up to fighting form very quickly. The more the better."

"I will not have my civilians dragged into the perils of war if I can avoid it, human. Make your suggestion. I promise only to hear you out," Celestia said.

"Alright, I'll try to explain. I've developed a technique to integrate my spiders into the body of a living person. I have two here with me who have undergone the conversion, not counting myself. The spiders make them heartier, heal them faster, and can even reverse some of the effects of aging or other forms of poor health. They allow for faster thought, direct communication between minds, and now certain forms of magic. I can give anypony a changeling's shapeshifting ability, a pegasus' flight including speed bursts that few can compete with, and an earth pony's brawn. I haven't had a chance to study unicorn horn magic yet, but with it we would be able to make every one of your soldiers capable of airborne ranged combat. Even without it, I've been able to work out a few methods of attack that could work. In short, my proposal is to make as many of your guards as are willing to volunteer into a sort of super-soldiers."

"What about side effects?" Celestia countered, "including this thamaturgical damage the guard mentioned? We would know what we are proposing before we ask for volunteers."

"In the short run, it takes several hours to integrate into a pony, and the last few hours they will be passed out from a fever. Once that passes, they should be good to go, however. The thaumaturgical damage is a side effect of the granted magic, and only really causes problems when it is heavily used for a sustained time. The effects create a temporary, localized, low-magic zone that can interfere with ordinary Equestrian magic such as pegasus flight. The.. well, the worst side effect is that you'll have to trust me. I umm.. I have considerable power over anyone who has my spiders in them, and they can't ever be safely removed. While I can put in some blocks to make it harder for me to abuse that power, I literally can't lock myself out entirely. At best, I can give you my word not to betray your trust."

There was silence on both sides for a minute, as Celestia processed the information I had given her. Finally, she returned with "I thank you for your proposal, Daniel, and we will take it into careful consideration. I hope you have a safe journey, but I am afraid you will need to arrive here on your own. I recommend the train from Manehattan, once you reach that point."

Chapter 25: Being railroaded

The conductor, an earth pony mare named Full Throttle, looked nervously at the trees up ahead. Maybe it was just the night, and the moonlight, making the overhanging branches seem extra ominous, but she was pretty sure there wasn't supposed to be anywhere near that many trees in this part of the tracks. Still, it was a straight shot here, and all trains heading the opposite direction had been cancelled. She decided to live up to her namesake, and just go ahead and crank up the engine to full steam, at least until she neared the next corner. That decision would prove critical.

A beam of impossibly bright light cut down from heaven to earth, ripping through the coal car behind her like a hot katana through pre-melted butter. The next car or two rolled into the beam to the sound of shortlived screams before their momentum finally slowed enough to allow the ponies within the cars time to react and flee, literally diving out the windows. But those that did didn't fair much better. Bright flashing muzzle flares disrupted the illusions for a moment at a time, as the suspicious trees revealed their true nature.

The conductor had been planning to reach for the brake, to go back and help, but from here she could see she would be no help. The soft chuff of dozens of flying machines approached from behind the train, searing red beams of light already starting to tear up the caboose. No, now wasn't the time for the brake. Without the weight of the rest of the train, the little engine was picking up speed, and would continue to do so until the lack of coal to fuel it caught up with her. She only hoped she was far enough by then to escape the massacre undetected.

She saw one of the flying machines continue forward past the train cars, and saw an upcoming copse of trees she did recognize. Betting her life on a desperate gamble, she lept from the speeding engine, rolling into the underbrush, where she hid as best she could. It worked! The cruel machine chased after her engine, lancing it with bright red beams until the faithful chugger exploded, before turning back and rejoining the others at the remains of the car.

She sat in the undergrowth, shuddering and crying as the reality of what she had just witnessed, what she had just survived, ran through her. The trouble with surviving something like this was that afterwards.. you had to live with it. She hadn't even dared to blink yet, and already it was giving her nightmares. Then one of those nightmares became reality. The illusionary trees all vanished, the metal monstrosities that had generated them were on the move, following the tracks right toward her! For a moment, her hooves were too heavy with fear to move, the next moment they were light as air, as she broke cover and ran like the wind.

She needed to warn somepony, anypony, everypony! More importantly, she needed to not be there anymore!

An hour earlier..

The sleeper cars in the train finally gave Wind Chaser and I some well-needed privacy. We ended up sharing a cabin with Bardrick and Relena, the entire Itinerant Kingdom gathered together for the night, while our other travelling companions had the cabin across from us. Fortunately, Relena had the good sense to find an excuse to go explore the other cars, and dragged the apparently oblivious Bardrick along as 'protection'. I'm sure it said something horrible about our civilization that an eight year old had a better sense for adult needs than a grandfather from this world. Or maybe it just said something about her father's former lifestyle, I didn't really dig. We were careful to keep the volume down, and be done and presentable by the time they returned. It was amusing to watch Bardrick's face, though, as the lingering smells were aparently his first clue as to what had transpired.

I was pleased to see that Wind Chaser was looking healthier, more well-fed in her natural form. I didn't feel any particular drain on myself, though I wondered if it was the same lack of sense that prevented me from feeling the damage I had done to the sky. I would really need to find a way to detect these things. Or maybe it was just that willingly giving her my affection wasn't draining like having it stolen would have been?

When the others returned, I was back in my human form, which still felt.. almost unnatural to me already. Wind Chaser lay across my lap, receiving gentle pets and scritches while one of her wings wrapped around my back.

"You two make a cute couple," Relena commented. "How long have you two been together?"

"Not long. It was a few days after the uh, bus ride that I met her. We've travelled together since then, but only really gotten close the last couple days."

Relena thought about it a moment, "I guess it makes sense that a changeling would move quickly.. you probably get used to it from impersonating different people. I'm sure you can't always afford to let your heart catch up first."

Wind Chaser shuffled uncomfortably under the analysis, "Yes, well this isn't like that. He knows full well who and what I am, and I am loyally devoted to him for life. My king has all of my love, and I am happy to have his love in return."

"Sex is not love," Relena replied, matter-of-factly.

I chuckled as Wind Chaser squirmed, replying "true, but we can share both. They compliment one another."

Relena sat quietly a moment, contemplating that as if it were a novel revelation of dubious truthfulness. Bardrick shook his head, and adjusted himself in his seat.

"Something wrong, Bardrick?" I asked.

"I just don't feel like this is the sort of topic suitable for hatchlings. But then she seems more comfortable with it than I am, so perhaps it's just unsuitable for an old bird like me," he answered.

"Don't sell yourself short," Wind Chaser winked. "You're looking more and more vigorous by the hour, I'd be honestly shocked if you manage to remain unmarried for more than.. a year, two tops." She seemed extra pleased at his reaction, before he settled down to stare out the window at the passing trees.

A column of light in the distance caught our eye, stark against the darkness of night. Seconds later, our phones buzzed. I couldn't bear to look, but Relena read it off for me.

""

"There's no margin left. If one more dies, our only chance would be to somehow drag 'army guy' over to our side, but I'm not sure I'd even be willing to forgive him at this point," I said.

"So, what's our strategy then, 'king'?" Bardrick locked eyes with me, suddenly very serious. "Even if you get the other one, Angellica was it? You have all the QR Codes, and let's assume you can figure out how to activate them all, or that having two Loyalties doesn't matter. What then? Do you even know what winning will do?"

"I don't, honestly. My assumption is it would let us go home," I answered.

"Let you? or force you? Because unless he gets shoved through a portal," Bardrick gestured to the southwest, toward where the light had come from. "You'll be abandoning Equestria to his tender mercies. To say nothing of Gryphonia and your own precious 'Itinerant Kingdom'. Maybe Wind Chaser comes with you and learns to play act as a human, but you know I wouldn't be following you. Not with my world in this kind of peril."

"Maybe winning will disable our Items, and make 'army man's army disappear," I said, though I knew it wasn't a happy idea for any of us. The spiders in our bloodstream had disabled our immune systems, and taken over their function. If they just vanished, or worse yet simply became inert dead weight in our bodies, we were doomed. Relena was oblivous on that point, but quickly noted the looks on our faces. She probably couldn't guess the details, but she obviously guessed the punchline.

"That's why you won't make me a pony," she said, in her blunt, matter-of-fact way. I nodded. Close enough.

"Assuming they don't disappear.. I really don't think I belong on my own world anymore. Even in this form, I'm not really human anymore. A cyborg, I guess? I could pass as a human, most of the time, but I could pass as easily as a pony, or at worst a changeling here. Here I would be judged by my own actions, there I would be feared for what I theoretically could do. And that's even before considering the idea of being the only magic user in the world. Well, aside from Zeke. So, maybe the solution is that when the portal opens, I stay behind to finish the fight with 'army man'."

"If you do that.. Toodles should stay with you," Relena suggested. "I'll miss him, but you'll need him more than me. He.. doesn't belong in the real world, either."

Wind Chaser huffed. I figured it was because of the 'real' comment, but I decided to follow up on my own thoughts rather than get into that argument. "I'm sure Wind Chaser would love to visit our world, but she wouldn't belong there any more than I would. And I wouldn't dream of giving her up now." I smiled at her as she melted into my lap contentedly. I was glad I was sincere.. dating a changeling meant they knew when you were just going through the motions.

"If you're going to see the fight through to its end anyways, shouldn't that be higher priority than 'winning' your little game then?" Bardrick asked, bringing the discussion back around.

"No. It may be more important in the end, but the game has more urgency. We've lost a lot of players already, almost to the point of being unable to win. We need to make our play now, before it's too late. You saw that column of light.. I'm willing to bet 'army man' was taking out another player intentionally. With the Player Locator apps on our phones, we can't keep him from locating us at least approximately and sending a force, or even . We need to win quickly before he can do that." I suddenly got a bit nervous. "We have three of us here, moving in a tight group, on a predictable route.. and another two stationary at our destination."

"Easy targets," Bardrick said grimly.

" bait," I concurred. "Relena, get on Wind Chaser's back," I said as I dumped the changeling on the floor and rushed across the hallway to the other cabin.

Within a minute, we were scattered into the starry night, leaving the train to chug along indifferently. Bardrick and I took the lead, breaking the sky in our wakes. Wind Chaser followed more cautiously, mindful of her passenger, but still outrunning the night guards as Cross Guard struggled to keep Frank aloft.

Chapter 26: Superweapon

I landed first, with Bardrick hot on my heels. The night guard moved to intercept, unsure of our intentions. "I need to speak to the Princess and Queen right away," I said. They hesitated, so I shifted back to my human form, which was enough to get at least one of them moving. Still, Relena and Wind Chaser were able to catch up before the Queen arrived.

"We finally meet in person, 'King' Daniel. I see the drone I gave you is still in one piece."

"Better than ever," Wind Chaser replied, though she earned only a scowl from her former Queen for speaking out of turn.

"Discipline seems to be degraded, but I suppose that can't be helped. I am sure you have very little experience managing drones."

"I've taken the liberty of optimizing her for my own purposes, rather than yours. But, I didn't come here to discuss Wind Chaser with you. You heard my proposal for augmenting your forces. If we are going to do it, we should start immediately. And regardless, we humans shouldn't stay here for long."

"Leaving so soon? Do you know something we don't? I'd hate to be left behind while the rats flee the sinking ship."

"Did you see the lights in the sky to the south? The enemy was targetting one of us explicitly."

"It was more than your kind that perished. We have learned it was an ambush of the last train evacuating civilians from Appleoosa. There were many pony casualties."

"And that's why we need to not stay here, especially clustered like this. It makes Canterlot a target. If we all leave, he'll consider it an obstacle instead of a priority. There's a good chance he'll just go around it."

"And if not, then we buy you more time?" the Queen asked.

The night guards landed with Frank, joining the meeting, as Celestia strolled towards us. She stopped at the ramparts to lower the moon and raise the sun, a sight I wish I was in the frame of mind to properly appreciate. "Dawn has come, and we have new guests and old. Welcome, Daniel, and welcome back Frank. You I do not recognize," she courtsied to Relena. "May I have your acquaintance?"

Relena courtsied in return. "I am Relena Swift, and it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Princess. I only wish we had time to share tea and stories."

"I have considered your proposals, Daniel, but I do not believe we are desperate enough to take such rash measures. Robert's briefing has been most enlightening, and we believe we have gotten the right spells distributed to our royal guards to begin a proper counter-offensive."

In the next moment, Istaran was the only one not surprised. He guessed correctly that the same crystals that allowed wings to create powerful bursts of speed could be used in the legs to create a sort of 'flash step', bursting into position directly in front of Celestia, and placing a hand on her chest before she could react. Her magic quickly levitated him away as she reared back in surprise and alarm, but the spiders were already crawling, unseen, through layers of skin into her blood.

"What is the meaning of this?!" she cried out.

Sorry to interrupt your train of thought, but I just thought I should note it was about this point when Istaran ordered Deus to start compiling this set of memories for you, this 'diary' if you will. I believe this was when the final shape of the plan was coming together, though some of the details were still to come together. Now back to your memory already in progress.

Celestia faltered in pain, dropping Istaran to his feet. The spiders were spreading through her much more aggressively than normal, and for that matter they were intentionally triggering nerves to leave the diarch off balance. Queen Chrysalis, sorry 'All Heart', tried to intervene with a beam of green magic from her horn. Istaran just got.. colder. His unnerving grin grew large, until he laughed out loud.

"If you meant that to stop me, you have no idea what my nature is," he said to the Queen, with a matter-of-factness than would make Relena proud. But apparently that gave the Queen ideas. She replaced the green beam with a rainbow-colored one, and suddenly I surged back to the surface, Istaran driven back as I was filled with a massive surge of what I could only describe as lovingness. I wanted to just.. hug everything. I shook my head, disoriented by the personality whiplash. "Th-thanks, I think. I'm.. myself again."

Celestia's pain subsided, but she could feel the spiders crawling around in her brain. She stormed toward me, justifiably livid. Her magic held me aloft, crushing me a bit. "Is this what you had planned for my little ponies?! Make it stop! Undo it! End this madness before I end you!"

I stared at her, trying to make contact with the subnet within her. I did, but.. she wouldn't be happy with what I found.

"No. Istaran.. my other self, he was out of line in how he acted, but you.. your reticence, your refusal to push the limits.. You were dooming your people. I thought he was going to compel you to go along with our plan, but I know now that you held the key to victory to begin with. And now you will be compelled to use it. I can't stop it now, even if I wanted to. The spiders don't obey me if I contradict his orders."

"What are you talking about? What?! NO!" Celestia's horn sprung to life, and she staggered under the massive amount of power being drawn through her. Crystals within her body became visible through her skin as they glowed, tapping ambient magic and feeding it into the spell. The castle quickly took on a more 'real' look to it, the tones and details suddenly matching our world more so than this one.

The changeling queen moved, as if to intervene, but Wind Chaser blocked her path, shaking her head warningly. The looked into each other's eyes, and it was enough.

I pointed toward the south, and everyone turned to watch. Soon all eyes would turn to see.

In the sky, four massive magical shields sprung into being, massive curvatures centered above the badlands. The upper two were incredibly large, stretching from horizon to horizon. They were transparent, but their surfaces were still enough to bend light, and together the redirected it from the entire worlds' daylight to a single square kilometer, where the other, smaller shields straightened it back out into a single column of light.

At that intensity, the refraction from ordinary air was enough to make a blindingly bright pillar, even seen from so many kilometers away. As it struck ground, it was hot enough to melt rock and steel. Simulated soldiers caught fire and quickly burned away. Vehicles and structures exploded as a desperate gambit was employed.

As soon as it finished materializing, Ryan stumbled out of his MCV into the cool, dark air of the main hall of the changelings' conquered hive cluster. His body was covered in painful blisters already, and the vehicle was too hot to stay in, but it had been enough to shield him from certain death, and carry him as he activated the teleportation powers of his Chronosphere before it, too, succumbed to the devastating fury of the sun.

Later, perhaps, he would rant and rave about how broken that attack was. Perhaps after a nice long swim in a pool of aloe. In the meantime, he stumbled into the lonely, empty cave. The changelings were long gone, defeated by his might. The handful of dogs scattered about would prevent any stragglers from hanging about, so this was as safe a place as any to be.

There was one of his dogs now. He stumbled toward it, thinking that hugging a nice soft fluffy doggy sounded kind of good right now. It was stupid, he knew, to seek comfort from an unfeeling simulation, but it was all he had right now. But hey.. where did that dog get a crossbow from?

As our phones vibrated, the shields vanished from the sky, and daylight was once again distributed equitably to the world. Smoke billowed up from the square kilometer of cooling magma where the enemy's base of operations had been, where the Player Locator app had said Player 12 was. The Queen cocked her head, as if listening to a sound no one else heard.

"His.. his blood is on your hands, not mine, human! You did this!" Celestia shouted at me, trembling with fury as she began to regain control of herself.

Queen 'All Heart' interrupted, "You give him credit which is not his. My drone, Dopple, has reported in the final blow. I will.. give you credit for flushing him out of his hiding place, though. My operative would have needed more time to eliminate him without your help."

Princess Celestia looked at her with disgust, "you argue over which of you can claim his blood on your hooves? You both disgust me! Begone from my palace, all of you, humans and changelings. Canterlot is no home to you monsters!"

With the threat mitigated, we were able to take our time wrapping up. We gathered in Ponyville, where the Elements of Harmony were able to help us sort out how to activate the codes we had gathered. Angelica had managed to miss the entire war, and was by far the most ready to laugh, so she was able to activate Laughter. Frank, whose desire to return to his family underpinned everything he did had no trouble activating Loyalty. Relena, who seemed at times to lack a filter, activated Honesty, and Scott was the very model of Generosity. Zeke, with his feeble little parlor tricks met the bar for Magic. And after being forcefed stolen love from dozens of ponies, I found myself able to activate the code for Kindness.

There were still problems left in our wake. Ryan, as his elimination message identified him, had left quite a few soldiers and combat units scattered about, including a number of camouflaged or outright invisible ones. They still acted autonomously according to their basic AI, which generally meant attacking on sight. However, the pegasi had no trouble wiping out all of the remaining dogs, and the changelings were able to approach safely while disguised as their adversaries, so it was mostly a matter of finding all of them without anypony getting hurt.

The low magic region around Canterlot was massive and slow to fade, leading Celestia to move her court north, to where the Crystal Empire's capital had reappeared. It gave her a great opportunity to forge a new bond with the long-disappeared people, even if it left her farther afield from most of her existing subjects. The former capital was all but abandoned, as it left unicorns without the use of their horns, pegasi flightless, and earth ponies weakened to be within. Surprisingly, however, this made it a popular site for both international diplomacy in something resembling our worlds' UN, and a rash of new sports competitions in which the tribes played on much more equal footing.

But finally we gathered together with our friends to see us off, in front of the Ponyville library. As each of us pressed the Activate button on our respective markers, the other phones buzzed with notifications, and showed maps clearly identifying our exact locations. As more markers showed up, the map also highlighted the point dead center between us. And as I activated the final button, that point burst open into a swirling vortex of colorful magic. Sure enough, there was our portal home.

Frank was the first to go through, rushing headlong to rejoin his family.

Relena called Toodles out, and kissed him goodbye. "We shouldn't bring our Cheat Codes with us to the real world," she said. 'Cheat Codes'. The name felt fitting. She strolled through the portal second, leaving her mouse-eared companion behind.

Angelica grabbed Zeke's hands, and dragged him along, leaving her magic router and his deck of cards behind. Something told me the router belonged here less than it did in our world, but maybe it wouldn't make any difference.

Scott handed over his magic soup can to his long time partner, Welcome Smile, with an admonition to always serve the poor for free. Welcome tearfully agreed as they parted ways.

Robert shook my hand and shook his head. "We won! It was hard earned, and costly, but after all these tries. I can still barely believe it. We won!" Wind Chaser held out her hoof and accepted his ocarina. "Come on, it's time to go home."

I started to follow after him, but paused right before I reached the portal. [Barely scraping by doesn't feel like victory to me,] Istaran's voice echoed out in Wind Chaser's head, [you know what to do. Go get me a perfect score.]

As I stepped through the portal, Wind Chaser quietly broke away from the scene, making her final preparations.

Appendix: Player dossiers

Warning: contains spoilers if you haven't read through the entire story yet.

Player 1: Daniel Holden - age 29
Starting Location: Everfree Forest
Translation type: No bonus; must learn Equestrian the hard way.
Near code for: Kindness (on the far side of the tree directly behind him at start, grown into the bark as lighter/darker patches)
Item: Fractal spider (1 nanospider to start). The nanospider is a nanomachine about the size of a human cell in the form of a single incredibly complex, magic-empowered molecule. The nanospider can self replicate, communicate with others of its kind, and perform simple logical/mathematical operations similar to a general purpose CPU. As more of them interconnect, the resulting network takes on an intelligence to rival or even exceed humans, but lacks self motivation and true creativity. On their own, these networks interconnect into the form of robotic spiders, but they can also connect to the mind of a living being from inside their blood stream. A nanospider infection kills off the host's natural immune system, taking over its function, meaning that once infected someone can never safely be freed of the spiders without becoming extremely vulnerable to illness.
Character notes: Daniel is prone to holding back too much, and being afraid to hurt even his enemies. His villainous fictional avatar, Istaran, is quite free of that problem and is always happy to take over when things need to get done.

Player 2: Rebecca Redcliff - age 32
Starting Location: Trixie's mobile stage
Translation type: starts near a unicorn capable of translation magic
Near code for: Magic (etched into the glass of an ancient potion flask)
Item: Video player preloaded with every episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
She chose this as a way to familiarize herself with the land and its people so she wouldn't be so blindsided. (She knew enough to recognize the name 'Equestria' but was otherwise basically unaware of the series' details.) What she didn't realize in advance was that she was thrust in between seasons 1 and 2, and thus had a device that told how a good chunk of the future would play out.
Character notes: She was riding on the bus with her 10 year old son. Forced with the prospect of only one winner, she planned to do her best to bring him to victory, even if it meant killing herself to get him over the finish line.

Player 3: Robert Redcliff - age: see below
Starting Location: Badlands deep desert
Translation type: No bonus; must learn Equestrian the hard way.
Near code for: Laughter (in the form of blocks of rock in the desert buried under sand; intended to be revealed by playing the Song of Storms on the Ocarina of Time to wash away the sand)
Item: Ocarina of Time. The musical instrument can be used to reset time to the beginning of the game (only the person playing it remains as they were when they played it, along with their inventory. The Ocarina itself will always reset to Robert's possession though if someone else plays that song). Alternatively, it can achieve many other results from the games it was in, such as disappearing until Dusk/Dawn, speeding the flow of distant events, or teleporting. The teleportation songs are not the songs from the games, but instead suitable themes for each of the locations highlighted in the show.
Character notes: Started out 10 years old, but grew to 25 over the course of many loops through the games, including a few instances where he abandoned the game for a while to go live in another country for a time. Tries to live up to the legacy of Link, largely as a matter of pragmatism: Equestria can be a dangerous place, and being proficient in sword and bow is a good idea.

Player 4: Scott Jones - age 57
Starting Location: Lower Canterlot
Translation type: starts near a unicorn capable of translation magic
Near code for: Loyalty (on the cornerstone of the courthouse a block or so away)
Item: Can of infinite soup. It is a generic metal soup can with no label, and one side already opened. If turned sideways or upside down, it pours out hot, ready to eat soup of the type envisioned by the person holding it until it is righted.
Character notes: Was a bum on Earth, skilled at navigating the welfare state to provide his humble needs without actually doing anything for pay. Happy to help anyone who asked for a personal favor within his ability without need for compensation. Anything he can offer he is happy too, just don't expect him to conform to your capitalist notions of responsibility.

Player 5: Frank Cobbler - age 35
Starting Location: Golden Oak Library
Translation type: starts near a unicorn capable of translation magic
Near code for: Magic (on a page on an ancient tome on magic, particularly related to theoretical applications of teleportation magic, in a chapter about theories regarding the existence of other inhabited worlds)
Item: Swiss Army Knife. Can magically fix anything that can be physically manipulated with its tools, even if the problem is magical in nature.
Character notes: All around handyman and loyal family man, Frank just wants to go home.

Player 6: Monique Ashland - age 17
Starting Location: Appleoosa
Translation type: free; the Text replaced her knowledge of English with Equestrian
Near code for: Honesty (on the wall behind a rack of clothes at a local tailor shop)
Item: Infinite Wardrobe, a large suitcase that contains whatever articles of clothing you are looking for.
Character notes: Believes that you should always look your best, especially on an alien world! Always happy to lend a dress, and some clearly much needed fashion advise, you tasteless cretin. Means well, no matter how obnoxious she can come off. Good friend to Angelica.

Player 7: Angelica Ericson - age 17
Starting Location: Vanhoover
Translation type: free; the Text replaced her knowledge of English with Equestrian
Near code for:
Item: Working Internet connection. In the form of a wifi router that doesn't need to be plugged in, it has a high speed connection to Earth's internet from anywhere in the multiverse.

Player 8: Joshua Swift - age 39
Starting Location: Manehattan
Translation type: starts near a unicorn capable of translation magic
Near code for: Generosity (on a briefcase sitting abandoned in the middle of the stock exchange floor for who knows how long)
Item: Skull totem. Any injury that would befall his daughter is instead visited on the bearer of the skull totem. His request was "I just want to be able to protect my daughter".
Character notes: a ruthless and cunning wheeler and dealer. Despite his apparent love of money, he loves his daughter more than anything else.

Player 9: Relena Swift - age 8
Starting Location: Gryphonia wilds
Translation type: free; the Text replaced her knowledge of English with Equestrian
Near code for: Loyalty (on the inside of the top of the treasure chest in the basement of her abandoned fort)
Item: Toodles (tm), from the Mickey Mouse Club. Every day, it picks 2-3 'mouskatools', plus 1 'mystery mouskatool'. These items are fairly normal mundane items, or cartoonish variations, which Toodles manifests when requested. The items last until no one is paying attention to them. Toodles powers include a form of precognition: it just knows what items you will happen to need that day to solve whatever problems arise.
Character notes: Relena is an 8 year old girl, but much more intelligent and capable than most expect from her, having learned a lot from her father, both from his presence and absences. Relena can be brutally honest, often lacking a filter. Mickey Mouse Club isn't her favorite show (anymore) but she recognized the insane usefulness of Toodles as a utility, and didn't know what problems she would face in Equestria.

Player 10: Benjamin Coleman - age 21
Starting Location: Dragon's lair in the Smokey Mountains
Translation type: free; the Text replaced his knowledge of English with Equestrian
Near code for: Kindness (on a coin in the dragon's horde, carefully put up for display since it's an interesting oddity)
Item: The Omnitrix (tm) from Ben 10. While Ben is a bit old for the show, he enjoys it as a bit of a 'guilty pleasure', since the protagonist shares his first name. The Omnitrix vaguely resembles a wrist watch, though it permanently affixes itself to its user's wrist until death, and doesn't actually tell the time. Instead it allows the user to assume the form of any of a wide variety of alien races. Ben's version includes all of the abilities of the later versions from the show, including not only a stupidly large cast of aliens but also the ability to acquire more from exposure to live specimens: for example, it could allow Ben to turn into a dragon, or with a little travel in Equestria proper, any of the pony tribes. It grants all of the forms' natural abilities, but not the knowledge of what those abilities are or how to use them, making it difficult to use effectively without practice.
Character notes: Ben can be as brash as his namesake from the cartoon, and easily overestimates the Omnitrix' abilities. This typically results in an early death by dragon, when he could have survived by talking humbly to the dragon or using a speedster form to run away very fast (without taking anything, as that would have caused the dragon to hunt him down).

Player 11: Zeke Goldstein - age 20
Starting Location: Dodge Junction
Translation type: starts near a unicorn capable of translation magic
Near code for: Honesty (on the bottom of a floorboard in his room at the inn)
Item: Working Magic: the Gathering cards. Whatever deck is in his deck holster will begin functioning when drawn. It must be a legal M:tG deck between 60 and 100 cards. His cards work until he either voluntarily returns them to the holster or loses by drawing out his deck, or dies. While his cards are active, 19 concentric forcefields protect him from harm, representing his 'life'. (The 20th point of life is his physical body.) These forcefields can be replenished by use of certain cards (even exceeding the original 19), or in some cases spent to activate powerful abilities from cards. The cards translate the game concepts into reality, including a translation of time to turns (each turn takes 10 seconds of real time), the mana cards filling him with real magical energy (a unicorn using the cards could use it to power their natural spellcasting, or use their natural magic to pay the costs of cards), and the summon cards summoning simulated creatures into reality. Some cards can end up translated in surprising ways, like Unsummon returning a creature to the place it calls 'home', rather than a non-existant hand.
Character notes: Zeke is a gamer, through and through. While Magic is his passion, he has a broad familiarity with many genre and will happily talk your ear off about anything gaming related.

Player 12: Ryan Smith - age 16
Starting location: Badlands, near changeling hive
Translation type: free, but not applicable. He never exchanged words with a single Equestrian.
Near code for: Laughter (carved into the rock of one of the tunnels leading into the changeling hive)
Item: Magic MCV. Capable of building any structure or (indirectly) unit from any Command & Conquer videogame, including all three branches of the series. The MCV can shift between different variations from different games, including everything from the GLA worker (a fake human that acts by voice control) to the massive Crawlers from C&C4. The standard varieties which unpack into a Construction Yard retain the ability to repack even when emulating games that lacked that option. Except for the Worker variety, there is always a keyboard and mouse setup inside controlling all of the forces (including the MCV) in accordance with the source games' control scheme. A button panel allows switching to different forms.
Any building the MCV can make in its current form is free, but three resource accounts (one for each game series) are maintained, and any units or buildings from other games or factions (if a suitable builder has been built) cost resources. These mostly come from 'selling' buildings, but can also come from harvesting tiberium (nonexistent), gold or gems (hard to find in sufficient quantities where a harvester can reach them), or boxes of supplies (highly available in civilian areas, as anything in a box is magically converted). Selling buildings generally releases a few free basic soldiers, in addition to some cash, making those soldiers more prevalent than Ryan would normally prefer.
Character notes: Ryan was intended to be modelled after the Digimon Emperor from Digimon season 2, but this didn't really come across with the lack of interaction. His playstyle would naturally preclude much dialogue ever occurring. Still, the underlying aspect remains: Ryan views the world he is in as unreal. The Equestrians are as fake to him as the fake human soldiers he sends against them, and the other humans are merely VR projections of themselves into this game, the same as himself. In short, he doesn't believe any of the death in this world to be real. This is all just a game, and he intends to win. With a Conquest victory.

Chapter 14: Friendship is Magic

"How cool would it be to have that for a cutie mark?" the young pegasus asked her friends.

"Cool, if you were actually victoryful at somethin'," replied her earth mare companion.

"That's not a word!" the unicorn filly interjected.

"What are you, a dictionary?" the pegasus retorted.

"Girls!" their teacher, an earth mare, called out, trying to restore order as she shooed them along toward the next statue. "Now this is a really interesting statue. What do you notice about it?"

A blue furred unicorn mare stalked toward them, with a determined glint in her eyes.

"It's got an eagle claw!" noted the earth filly.

"And a lion paw!" pointed out the pegasus filly.

"And a snake tail!" commented the unicorn filly.

"This creature is called a draconequus," the teacher explained as the blue unicorn took a seat next to the statue, waiting patiently for her moment to interject. "He has the head of a pony and a body made up of all sorts of things. What do you suppose that represents?"

"Confusion!" the earth filly claimed.

"Evil!" the unicorn filly suggested.

"Chaos!" the pegasus filly disagreed.

The unicorn seemed annoyed and started to reply. "It's not chaos, you mmmf!" Her mouth was snapped shut by the blue unicorn's magic.

"Ahem. No fighting in the statue garden. Trixie shall allow nothing but perfect harmony here. Neither confusion, nor evil, nor chaos, nor any other disharmony. Now run along and go see the other statues harmoniously."

The cutie mark crusaders wanted to object, but their teacher agreed with Trixie and quickly scooted them along to the next exhibit.

Trixie kept on guard around Discord's statue for the rest of the day, before giving it one more look over. No cracks. Good. She retired to her home on wheels, checked to make sure no one was nearby, closed and locked the doors and windows, and carefully extracted her treasure from beneath a floorboard. Setting it on a stool, she carefully flipped the power switch and waited for the device to boot up. Season 2. Episode 3. Play.

Her otherworldly hitchhiker may have passed on, but the gift she left behind continued to give.

Epilogue: Chasing the wind

That was the last of your memories I could recover. I filled in some other bits of the tale from other sources while we wrapped things up, and put them in as close to chronological order as made sense to me. I don't know if that other timeline still carries on to this day, or what happened when you went back home, or even if the portal was really a portal to your home world or not.

After I snuck away, I made my way back down to the badlands. There was a kilometer wide glass bowl there, sitting atop a layer of black but that isn't what I came for. I came for the sand that hadn't been melted, which we had seen made for the fastest reproduction of spiders. I used your crystal trick to shapeshift, rather than my own ability, as it allowed me to push beyond my normal limits and shift into the form of a massive dragon. Why a dragon? Simple. It let me hold more spiders in my body. It made playing the ocarina a much more ridiculous looking feat, but Turbine was able to grow little tiny hands out of my palms to work the notes.

When the song faded, I was back exactly where I had been when it all started.. ironically within striking distance of the spot where Ryan had finally been killed. The other changelings in the hive reacted with understandable alarm as I was suddenly in the form of a massive dragon, without even the normal fanfare of shapeshifting. The Queen, of course, immediately demanded to know what this was all about.

"I am sorry, Queen Chrysalis, but time is of the essence. I have returned from the future to prevent the destruction of our hive and deaths of our people! I trust this much will please you, however, my loyalty has been sold to another in the exchange; I will save the hive, but I will not be returning to it." I didn't have time to here her response, as she was speechless for a moment, and I had things I needed to do swiftly.

I teleported into the desert, near where Ryan started, but out of his line of sight. As a dragon, I could peek over the rocky outcroppings that separated us, and see his Construction Yard beginning to assemble his base. I sloughed off my excess spiders and set them to reproducing as I shifted down into the form of a slim, well toned human woman, with a pair of white pegasus wings and wrapped in white silk clothing. From your memories of your culture, I figured this would be perfect to gain the trust I needed as quickly as I needed.

No, not from Ryan. Don't be stupid. He deserved a swift hoof to the head, not an angelic rescuer.

I teleported again, leaving a sizeable low-magic zone in my wake, as I appeared before the ill-fated Benjamin. I appeared just as he was about to slap his hand down on some device strapped to his wrist, and the rather peeved looking dragon behind me was drawing in a breath. "Come with me if you want to live!" I quoted as I reached a hand out to him. He was just fast enough to allow us to teleport before the flames caught up with me.

I dropped him off nearby, in this abandoned farmhouse we changelings occasionally use as a safehouse. I made him promise not to kill anyone before I left again.

Frank was next. I found him quietly stumbling about in Twilights library, while the librarian snoozed obliviously. I think I heard her start to awaken just as I disappeared with the confused man. I'm sure the low-magic zone I left behind proved to be an intriguing afternoon's study subject. I set a few spiders lose to locate the QR code, just in case it changed with every reset.

At that point, I stopped back in the desert and set my tidal wave of spiders on him. As his empire crumbled around him, he stumbled out into the open, where I punched him in the face, yelling "Ponies are people too!" Sadly, the message was entirely lost on him at the time. But it was still fun to knock him out. I dumped him in with the others before continuing my collection.

The others went pretty smoothly, until I got to you. I found you asleep here, in this ruined castle, and so I settled in by your side. When Deus was mature enough, Turbine connected to him, and shared your diary with him, so he could share it with you. And that brings us to the present. Wake up soon, my king!

When I awoke, I was pretty confused. Deus had uploaded all of the memories into my mind, though they had an unreal quality to them. Pixelation is the closest analogy I can find to describe it. I knew what had happened in the time before, what Wind Chaser had lived through, but also that it wasn't me who had lived it with her, done those things. I tried to get Deus to erase the very idea of Istaran from my mind, before there was any possibility I could accidentally become him again, but he refused. Even now his loyalty to his fictional master remained a real factor.

I didn't let my confusion keep me down for long, though. We returned to the farmhouse, joining the others and got to talking. I explained what had come before to them, in as vague a way as they would let me. The QR codes hadn't changed, so we were able to load them into our phones swiftly. Activating them took more work.

I got Zeke to lend me his cards and played around with them for a while, putting together a green deck to practice with. It took some time, but I was able to finally get a feel for the magic coursing through me. As I turned myself into a pegasus once again, the Magic code finally became enabled for me.

This time, I didn't say anything about not bringing the artifacts home. This time, I wanted Equestria to be left as pure as it could be. Given the troubles last time, I suggested we go through the portals in reverse player number order, so that Ryan was the first one through. As Player 1, that left me still on the Equestria side as the once-more young boy Robert walked through, hand in hand with his mother.

Side by side, Wind Chaser and I waited, a pair of pegasi watching a swirling portal in a barn until at last it closed.

The world faded to black around me. The text reappeared.

"11 out of 12. Almost a perfect score."

"I don't belong on Earth anymore. 11 out of 12 was perfect."

"You will remain here forever then. It was entertaining to watch you, in all your iterations, but your final act has undone the lessons hard learned by those who returned."

I sat in silence a moment before speaking out again.

"I have a challenge for you."

"You dare to command me?"

"I have no authority of you, but you can, presumably, control yourself. Think of it as a game if you like. See if you can hold to all three parts of the challenge without fail."

"I will hear your challenge."

"One; don't bring anyone to Equestria anymore that doesn't want to be here. It's one thing to bring a brony across, but not someone who would refuse the offer if you asked. Two; no more games: bring them here to live, or not at all. Three; no more artifacts. Let them bring something common, or something they own but no more of these.. Cheat Codes, was Relena's term. Equestria has enough powers of its own without you handing a new arrival the ability to destroy the balance of power singlehandedly."

There was empty silence for a time, punctuated only be a series of dots... when the text had, apparently made up its mind, it wrote to me again. "I will accept your challenge, if you will accept mine. It likewise has three parts. One; do not allow your spiders to live outside of your flesh, and that of your subordinates. Two; do not use your spiders to make focus crystals, work with your own magic or not at all. Three; do not use your spiders to manufacture items for use outside yourself. Do you accept?"

In my heart I had already accepted before I thought it through, but I made sure I considered the implications before I agreed. It worked toward the same purposes as my own challenge; to keep Equestria from being overwhelmed by foreign superpowers. I nodded my accent, only to find myself back in Wind Chaser's presence, nodding without context.

"Hmm?" she asked. I quickly gave her my memories from the conversation with the Text. "Hmm.." she responded. "So.. what do we do now?"

"That should be obvious," I said as I got to my hooves and started to lead the way toward the nearest town. "Go have our, very much belated, first real date."

Links to sequels

Itinerant Kingdom - Continuation from the end of the Epilogue.
King and Kingpin - Continuation from Itinerant Kingdom, following the King and his entourage into Manehattan. Adventure oriented.
Scattered Seeds - Continuation from Itinerant Kingdom, following the rest of the subjects. Slice of Life oriented.
Borderless Kingdom - Coming eventually! Continuation from King and Kingpin, following the Itinerant King beyond Equestria.
Kingdom in Shadows - Timeskipped continuation of Itinerant Kingdom, picking up after the crossover chapters in Silver Stars.

Friends like these - Continuation of the timeline Wind Chaser left behind. What awaits the human survivors who returned home? And what will become of Equestria in their wake?