Redefining the Status Quo

by Harquebus

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Princess Cadance, Dark, Spike, Comedy, Adventure, Shining Armor, King Sombra, Human
Length: 17192

After his humiliating defeat at the hands of Spike the Dragon, Sombra decides to call in some help from another world. This help being a history buff with a love of trench coats and seemingly photographic knowledge of history.

After being defeated almost as soon as he returned thanks largely in part to Spike the Dragon, Sombra calls in a little extradimensional help. This comes in the form of our main character Richard, a history buff with a love for trench coats. Will he be able to drag Sombra back into the physical world or will Sombra get frustrated and kill him? Most importantly, can he ever return home? Nopony knows this for sure, but they can all agree upon one thing. This will go down in history.

Inspired by Puppets of Tragedy and similar stories.

Hey! Check out the new cover art done by me and my crappy skills with Photoshop knockoffs!

Published 2015-04-05 22:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2015-05-16 23:13:48 UTC

Hasty introductions (fixed)

Hasty introductions

Almost as soon as I had begun my journey to the distant empire, a horrible snowstorm began to appear.

A flurry of snow now constantly buffeted my body, never giving way in its relentless assault. My trench coat billowed in the wind, twisting and bending in every conceivable direction while my boots sank into the white blanket upon the ground all the way up to my ankles. The pants I was wearing did seem to effectively block out the wind chill, but I was still at the mercy of the bone chilling temperatures. It became slightly hard to breath with snow constantly clogging up the gas mask’s filter, but taking it off would expose my vulnerable skin to the elements.

A few miles away in the distance, I could barley make out the magnificent city I saw earlier. My field of vision had been effectively rendered near useless due to the constant barrage of snowflakes. I had tried to hide my injured wrist inside my coat but because of its constant movements, and the fact that my hand was now effectively replaced with crystal, did this have no effect as my crystal hand was ice cold if not more so. Peeking down a slit in my coat, I saw that the afflicted area had taking on a light blue color.  Thankfully, my wrist was numb enough to halt any pain, but if I wanted to keep any part of my lower right arm, I needed to get to the city faster.

Unfortunately for me, I saw no other option other than to run quickly. Easier said than done when all your limbs become so cold and numb they feel like, well, like crystal!

DOWN HERE WEAKLING

And there was the catalyst of all this madness, the smoke monster. I was only able to make out its figure in the blizzard due to a faint glow it seemed to be emanating. It also seemed to be beckoning me towards what appeared to be a small crevice in the ground. I was reluctant; the last time I listened to that thing I got grade A hallucinations.

“N-n-n-n-no! I  r-refuse!”

SO YOU WANT TO FREEZE TO DEATH DO YOU? WHAT A VERY UNORTHODOX WAY TO, OH, I DON’T KNOW, TAKE OVER AN EMPIRE!

Apparently sensing my hesitation, it quickly added,

ITS WARM DOWN HERE…

That sold it for me. Warmth was something that my body greatly desired right about now.

After a little stuttering, I abjectly replied, “F-f-f-f-f-fine.”

I shakily began walking towards the crevice. Upon reaching the opening, I gazed down into its depths. It must have been at least a few miles deep. Or just dark. Probably just dark.

Ever the cautious one, I asked, “H-h-how a-am I s-s-s-supposed to g-get down there?”

FALL

“F-f-f-fall? W-w-what d-do you m-mean fa-AHH!”

I honestly should’ve seen that coming. But with the thing being made of smoke and all, I figured it couldn’t push me. Boy was I wrong. Twice actually, it turns out that the crevice was just really dark.

“Y-y-you j-jerk…” I spat while pushing myself back up to my feet.

YOU LIVED, DID YOU NOT?

I suppose I did. Thanks in part to a small cushion of snow that had managed to float past the crevice and come to rest upon the rocky floor. The crevice seemed to be much larger on the inside, more like a cavern instead. There were several objects in the distance that seemed to produce a sliver of light, but aside from that, the cave was pitch black. Looking around, the only other discernable source of light came from the smoky figure as it descended into the cavern.

“That’s not the point! Come on man! Any successful partnership and or alliance needs trust! If I can’t trust you, how am I supposed to meet your outrageous demands?”

At this point, I realized it was probably being serious about the whole, ‘no body’ thing, but everything else still seemed improbable. Like taking over an empire, whatever that meant.

NOT MY PROBLEM. ALSO, THERE IS NO NEED FOR TRUST, I OWN YOU. YOU WILL DO AS I COMMAND WITHOUT QUESTION

Figures that it would respond that way. It obviously put forth little thought or long-term planning into this… escape attempt I suppose. I really couldn’t see this as anything else. Perhaps it was pressed for time and needed to get help from someone on the fly. At this point however, I was pretty convinced that a drugged out lunatic with some bad surgical skills and an obsession with crystals had kidnapped me, skinned my hand and dunked it in a bowl of rock candy syrup for a few hours until it covered the entirety of my hand. Well, at least I hoped, because that’s the only somewhat logical explanation as to why I could still move my hand around. In a sense this was kind of fun, painful sensations aside.

It reminded me of why I played paintball, for the thrill of the moment. Not knowing from where or when you could come under attack, the racing of your heart as your mind creates false outcomes, further delving you into the adrenaline rush. My heart was certainly racing right now; the fear of dying alone and in the cold not really thrilling, but still produced the same ‘rush’ I had grown so accustomed to. Since roleplaying was my thing, I decided to go along with the dream.

“I’d be much more inclined to listen if you could at least give me a realistic explanation of what you want. Like what the hell a crystal pony is?”

ALL IN GOOD TIME SLAVE. NOW FOLLOW ME

Once again, figures it would respond that way. On the bright side, this was certainly a new experience for me as I’d never been a slave before in my previous dreams. The closest thing to this was when I dreamed of fighting in the American civil war as a Confederate solider with two of my own genetically altered, loyal slaves fighting alongside me in the quest for world domination. If I recall correctly, that’s also the last time I went out late night drinking.

Shaking myself out of my memories, I put forth another question,

“Well could I at least have your name?”

I SUPPOSE THAT IS A RESONALBLE REQUEST… VERY WELL. YOU MAY REFERE TO ME AS KING SOMBRA

I stumbled back a little when he said that last part. He seemed to make the entire ground shake and gave his voice an echo effect upon saying that. While cool, I’ll say it again, classic narcissist.

A little shaken up and annoyed from the sudden audio affects, I muttered, “Heh, some king, doesn’t even have any followers…”

It suddenly got very quiet. I couldn’t even hear the howling of the wind as it snaked its way inside the cavern anymore. The only sound was my boots stomping along the cold, hard floor. I stood still for a moment, Sombra seemed to have disappeared from my line of sight and taken the light with him. I then did what any sensible person would do, took a deep breath and turned around slowly. Nothing was there. Releasing the breath I was holding with an audible sigh, I turned back around.

WHAT WAS THAT?

“GAH!” Not only was he all up in my face, the smoke that made up Sombra’s body seemed to be swirling around a lot quicker. Then a really creepy thing happened, I think his head popped out of the smoke. He had deep red horn with a slight curvature, which definitely meant he was a unicorn. His eyes were either a sight to behold or a thing of nightmares. The whites of his eyes had been replaced with green and the irises were red. I’m not sure whether or not it was a good thing that his pupils remained black as they seemed empty, devoid of any emotion. Oh, and they were smoking purple. Probably not normal but hey, this whole situation isn’t normal.

YOU DARE INSULT YOUR MASTER? CUR, YOU WOULD DO WELL TO LEARN YOUR PLACE!

With that, he somehow picked me up and flew through the caverns at a high speed, deliberately doing flips, twists and nearly running into walls, only to jerk away at the last second. He continued this for what seemed like several minutes. I could no longer tell if the cavern was just really big, or if he was purposely looping back around in order to further my torment.

It appeared that we had reached whatever destination he saw fit, as he dropped me to the ground unceremoniously. I attempted to stand up on my legs, but was unable and promptly fell back down on my ass. His laughter now reverberated around the walls, causing my head to spin even more.

HAHAHAHAHAH! THAT WAS THE MOST FUN I’VE HAD IN AGES, I CAN”T EVEN REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I GOT TO PERSONALLY TORTURE SOMEONE!

Yep, defiantly crazy. This bastard seemed to enjoy torturing people. I was unsure of why I didn’t notice this before, but his voice sounded evil and very deep. Like a demon got a sore throat and became pissed off at the pharmacy for not having cough drops kind of deep. I was probably too preoccupied with the pain from earlier to notice.

WELL, I THINK THAT’S A GOOD LESSON ON WHY YOU NEVER INSULT YOUR MASTER

Even though everything was spinning, I managed to get a basic understanding of my new surroundings. I was still in a cave that’s for sure, but this part seemed to be… developed, for lack of a better word. There were a more than a couple wooden supports inside tunnels that branched off from the large central room I stood in now. I wasn’t sure how high this room was, but the light coming off of Sombra didn’t seem to reach the top, which remained as black as night. There were also a few old looking oil lanterns placed around the room radiating a faint orange glow. The walls seemed to be mostly plain old rock and some clay but behind Sombra’s smoky haze of a body, I managed to make out a large cluster of black crystals that seemed to jut out of the wall at unpredictable angles.

I couldn’t tell if I was just dizzy, or if he was doing figure 8’s from within his smoky prison. Thankfully, I had my back to the wall, and once again trying to pull myself up, managed to do so by balancing myself upon the wall.

“N-not cool man, not cool.”

I DO NOT CARE IF I AM AS YOU SAY, “NOT COOL”. ALL I CARE FOR IS THE RESTORATION OF MY BODY AND REINSTATEMENT OF MY RULE

“I gathered that, but I need a little more to go on other than ‘that’s up to you’. Seriously, like, how many people am I going up against?” I already had a bad feeling in my stomach considering that he was a unicorn and I had hallucinated about ponies earlier.

HAHAHAHAHAH!

And here we go again with the laughing. I was pretty sure that any dog within a fifty-foot radius of him would be backing away in terror from that god-awful sound. Like a cheese grater trying to shred a brick of solid iron.

PEOPLE? YOU STUPID INSECT, THERE ARE NO PEOPLE HERE

“No people? Then who the hell lives in that giant city I saw before? Where the hell are we?”

PERHAPS THIS WILL ENLIGHTEN YOUR FEEBLE MIND

With that said, he moved away from the wall and shrank his ginormous size to that of mine and floated alongside me. The large wall of crystals he was blocking had a very smooth, long crystal in the very center that stood in an upward position. It looked similar to that of a television screen except for the fact that it was huge.

APPROACH

Doing as bidden, I walked closer to the ‘screen’, which seemed to glow a bit before an image materialized on the screen.

It was an aerial view of a bustling street that zoomed in on anything that I happened to be focusing on. Every single color was vibrant beyond what could be considered the norm and everything looked pristine. Street vendors in carts hawked their wares at passerby and were promptly brushed of by offended aristocrats in fancy suits that couldn’t be bothered to have their time wasted. Other, more sociable types, gazed down upon an assortment of strange fruits and vegetables, various drinks and the occasional craft/novelty stand. A small park area was off to the side with little children happily playing tag or attempting to climb up a tree, much to the disapproving glares and shouts of concerned mothers while the fathers played catch with the rest. In short, a perfectly idyllic community. On the other side of the park, a few floats lumbered down the street as walking musicians played a catchy tune, much to the merriment of onlookers. There was only one problem; the people, were ponies. Shiny ponies.

The street vendors were mostly unicorns that would somehow grab a pedestrian without touching them and haul them in front of their stand. The victims of this just shrugged it off as if it was nothing while if I tried that at home, I would probably get arrested. The park area was full of adventurous kids as stated before, but the upset mothers would either lift their kids out of the tree, without touching them, or some actually flew up the tree to pick them up. I’m not sure how these floats moved as they seemed to be highly decorative floating platforms with only air underneath them. On top of the lead float, I recognized two faces. It was that pink pegacorn and white/blue unicorn from the hallucination! They waved at the crowd, occasionally ‘throwing’ kisses towards them, beaming pride and other emotions. The screen slowly faded away after zooming in on a couple holding what I hoped was their child close and laughing contentedly.

I was pretty sure that the head of Sombra was looking at me with a crazy smile on his face, relishing every second of my confusion.

“B-b-b wha-wa- what is th-this?” I had a sickening feeling in my stomach that this was much more real than I had previously believed.

I slowly raised my crystal appendage up to my face, the wrist had regained some color but was still dripping blood and a few other fluids. But that wasn’t what I was concerned about at the moment. My hand had been cut off. For real. It had been replaced by a cheap crystal knock-off. For real. I was being held hostage by a psychopathic monster that claimed to own my soul and had dreams of conquest floating around his head. For real. I just stood there gawking at my new appendage and occasionally moved a crystal finger around.

LIKE IT DO YOU? I PUT MOST OF MY MAGIC INTO TURNING YOUR PREVIOUS APPENDAGE INTO SOMTHIN MUCH MORE, USEFUL

“Wh-what have you done to me...?”

MADE IMPROVEMENTS I’D SAY. YOUR WORTHLESS FLESH BODY IS EAISILY HARMED. I WAS UNABLE TO COMPLETELY CHANGE YOU INTO CRYSTAL BUT I DID MANAGE TO FIX YOUR HAND

“Fixed? What part of this is fixed? You only succeeded in cutting off my hand.”

PLEASE, IT LOOKS MUCH BETTER NOW. THAT PREVIOUS THING YOU REFERED TO AS A FACE WAS HIDEOUS. NOW I DON’T EVEN HAVE TO LOOK AT ANY PART OF IT.

“WHAT!?” Running over to the crystal screen, I could see what he was talking about. The gas mask I was wearing had replaced the eyeholes  with these really dark circles with small purple dot for pupils. These effectively were my pupils as they traveled wherever I looked. In a panic, I ripped off the gas mask at such a speed that my helmet had flown off my head and slapped Sombra right in the face. He didn’t notice or didn’t care because he wasn’t even seem fazed at this. After waiting impatiently for my eyes to adjust to the low light I learned something.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with my face. Looked the same as always with the exception of a few bags under my eyes due to all this stress. He was bluffing.

PLEASE REFRAIN FROM THROWING YOUR HEADGEAR AT ME LEST I NEED TO CUT OFF YOUR OTHER HAND AS WELL. BY THE WAY, YOU MIGHT WANT TO PUT YOUR MASK BACK ON. YOUR FACE LOOKS MUCH BETTER THAT WAY

“B-but I thought you like, cut off my face or something...”

UNFORTUNATLY, I COULD NOT DIVULGE IN THAT PLEASURE, AS I WAS LOW ON MAGIC AT THE TIME. SHOULD YOU FAIL ME HOWEVER…

“O-okay man, chill. I’m sure we can reach an agreement.” At this point, I was willing to do anything to get back home and have my life back, which he would do so long as I did whatever he demanded. But I wanted a few other things if I had to go through with this.

NEVER TELL ME TO ‘CHILL’ MONGREL! I HAVE BEEN TRAPPED IN THESE ICY WASTLANDS FOR MILLENIA CONSTANTLY BEING CHILL! AND TAKE THIS TRASH BACK!

The sheer volume of that bellow hurtled me back into the crystal screen. Just to add insult to injury, he flung the helmet toward me at such an incredible force, I think he managed to bruise my stomach. Hastily, I threw the gas mask back on and re-attached the helmet on the off chance that he might try to choke me with his body.

His body now seemed to be moving around at about the speed of a twister. After a bit of heavy breathing on his part, he thankfully seemed to calm down a bit and with that, so did his body.

SINCE YOU INSIST ON MAKING THIS DIFFICULT, HOW ABOUT I THROW IN A LITTLE MORE FOR YOU?

“Go on.” He remembered that pain wasn’t the way to win my favor. Obviously, he had a temper that could render him a madman incapable of making logical decisions but when calm, was a likely a master manipulator.

HOW ABOUT POWER?

“Power?” almost as soon as those words had left my mouth, he immediately began circling me like a clichéd villain does to the hero once they firmly believe they have the upper hand or an irresistible urge to monologue.

OH YES, AS SOON AS MY RULE CAN BE RESTORED, I’M SURE I COULD FIND A TERRITORY IN WHICH YOU MAY DO AS YOU PLEASE

While this did sound really tempting, the humanity in me refused the offer.

“But what about all my friends back home? My games of paintball and crappy rental rates? And what about cheeseburgers?!” I wasn’t an expert in animals or anything, but I knew that horses and ponies didn’t eat meat.

WHAT IS THIS ‘CHEESEBURGER’ YOU SPEAK OF? IS IT A WEAPON?

Were it not for the situation I was in, I would have face-palmed right there.

“Never mind that! What about my life?”

I’LL GIVE YOU SOME TIME TO CONSIDER MY PROPOSAL. UNTIL THEN, I GIVE YOU THIS!

I’m not sure how he did it, but he materialized a long spear with a metal head and long wooden shaft from his smoky figure (notapenis) and chucked it right at my wrist, once again piercing my arm.

“Argh! God man, what is with you and mutilating my right arm?! Why d-” my personal space was once again invaded by his face.

IF I WERE YOU, I’D BE RUNNING AWAY NOW.

For once, I agreed with him. Immediately pivoting around on the spot, I ran down the closest tunnel and kept going, trying to keep my wrist still so as to not kill my wrist anymore than it already was.

I could thankfully see a light up ahead that didn’t come from king dickhead and put on an extra burst of speed to reach it.

BE SURE TO MAKE A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION!

I didn’t grasp the meaning of that until I burst through the light. I shot straight up and landed on my back, my left hand grabbing the spear to stop it from digging farther in to my skin.

I heard a large collection of gasps and a few children crying as the music cut of abruptly except for a lone trumpeter who lost his pacing after the accompanying music stopped as well.

I slowly opened my eyes and saw myself in the middle of a cobblestone street with a floating platform a few feet away from my position. The pink pegacorn thing stared at me curiously from behind the neck of the unicorn, who stood protectively in front of her.

This is what he meant by make a good first impression. He wasn’t even giving me anytime to plan a fucking invasion? What kind of idiot was I working for?

From behind the two on the float, another two ponies emerged both carrying spears that looked an awful lot like the one in my arm. I needed to formulate a plan that wouldn’t get me killed immediately as well as one that could confuse the public into not attacking me themselves.

Jumping back up to my feet, I immediately got down an both knees and looked up towards the two and the float while making a point of holding out my wounded wrist to them.

“Please! No more! We surrender! Put an end to this senseless fighting! You can take anything you want! Just stop slaughtering our families!”

Judging by the shocked looks on the faces of the pedestrians and even the faces of the two on the float, I had made a pretty good first impression.

Step one: Start a riot (fixed)

Step one: Start a riot

Greeting my sudden and unexpected appearance was mixed expressions from the populace mainly being, shocked, confused, fearful, this one wrinkly old lady who just kept smiling, and horrified.  Most of those who I assumed to be guards seemed ready to jump when they first saw me, but went on the defensive once they heard me say “we surrender”.  Not a good idea on my part. I had absolutely no reason for surrendering other than a ‘heat of the moment’ type deal.

I placed most of the blame on my inner paintballer and my propensity for making a scene before I “died”.  In an effort to keep with the ‘war’ roleplaying aspect of our paintball games, instead of just shooting everybody in the face, you could actually take prisoners.  It kinda became almost ritualistic to go out in the most outlandish way possible weather you were surrendering or dying because reasons.  So this one time, I was hiding in a bush with my super stealthy trashcan armor on.  Unfortunately for me, about fifteen guys with guns surrounded said bush after somehow spotting me.  I have no idea what gave me away, but they seemed pretty annoyed.  One of them said that if I came out with my hands up, they wouldn’t shoot and in effort to uphold the tradition of outlandish surrenders, I decided to go out with a bang by jumping out of the bushes with my hands above my head whilst screaming, “I surrender!”  For some other reason I can’t comprehend, they promptly shot me from about five different directions.  Some people have no sense of honor.

Either way, I couldn’t pass my outburst off as a joke because I’m sure they didn’t allow takesy backsies here.  I needed to invent some form of excuse to cover up my blunder.

“Maybe, yes… yes, that might just work…” I muttered

My brain, apparently working at twice its normal capacity thanks to the pressure, fabricated a semi-logical plan and a not so logical plan in about two seconds flat.

The semi-logical plan was to pose as a foreign ambassador from America and then preach freedom and apple pies to the populace, providing that they didn’t already have an Americanesque government, while convincing them that Sombra was a stand-up, for the people kind of guy.  The less-logical plan was to get the public to protect me by perhaps convincing them to distrust the authorities.  Like, instantly.  I sincerely hoped that my words had inspired them to defend me right then and there.  I could probably use a meat shield right about now but hey, I only had two seconds and the vague hope that these ponies were the most benevolent creatures in the land.  One of the guards on the road seemed to be rearing for action however, and immediately threw a spear at me. Without touching it. I really needed to figure out how they managed that.  But I still upheld the sacred paintball rule of dying in style, so I put on the best act I could.

“AAAARRRGGGGHHH!” I raised my crystal appendage high in the air, forming it into a fist and shaking it angrily. My other hand was air pumping a middle finger but that was just for dramatic effect. As the projectile cut through the air at lightning speeds, my air pumping and fist shaking increased in speed as well in a strange act of defiance. As it was almost upon me, I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable. After three seconds of my continued breathing, I became perplexed as to my situation.

Slowly, I opened my eyes once again and saw the spear literally floating a few inches away from my face.  A pink aura seemed to encompass the entirety of the object.  It retracted itself from my face and slowly floated up towards the pink pegacorn and the white unicorn sitting atop the float.  Time stood still on the ground.  The pink one whispered something into the white ones ear, who shook his head vigorously afterwards.  Clearly he didn’t approve of whatever she said. In response though, she merely rolled her eyes and flared her wings.  In one flap, she managed to push herself off the platform and slowly glide down to the ground, punching physics in the face along the way.  Seriously, how did she manage to achieve liftoff?  Her wings were much smaller than the rest of her body but that was nowhere near the weirdest thing to happen today.

She landed in front of me in a rather graceful manner, and I made several new observations about her up close.  First off, she appeared to be slightly taller than others in the crowd, but not by much.  She had little silver horseshoes on that seemed to arc upwards at the edge, like a regular shoe an all her hoofs.  Atop her head just behind her long pink horn was a small golden tiara studded with tiny gems that reflected light in such a way, they seemed to be perpetually shiny.  This indicated that she was probably the ‘leader’ so to speak or at least a figurehead.  On the subject of her face, dem eyes doh.  Good god, they were bigger than Sombra’s, her turquoise eyes were moving quickly over my body, taking in all that they could about the strange creature in front of her.

They finally came to a rest upon seeing my right arm.  At first, her face crossed with fear when she saw my hand but this soon shifted to a look of worry and concern upon seeing my wrist. She reached out towards my wrist but I pulled it back before she could touch it. This was my chance.

She managed to get the first words out, “Uh, um… h-hello?”

Wow. Was she seriously supposed to be in charge around here? I was beginning to think that she was just a figurehead.

Nevertheless, I bowed my head and spoke in what I hoped sounded like a sad voice.

“N-no more. Please no more. W-we surrender!” I raised my voice to a shout at the end, unfortunately causing some guards to edge much closer to us.

She motioned for them to step back with a flick of her wing and surprisingly, they obeyed albeit reluctantly.

She continued, “Oh! So you are intelligent, I knew I heard you talk!” her eyes lit up in excitement, “Just wait until my niece gets here! She’ll be so excited!” She hopped up and down in place like a small child getting an ice-cream cone.

Meanwhile I was just still kneeling on the ground with an incredulous look on my face.  I began to think that Sombra was less competent than what he made himself out to be. I could probably distract her with some glitter glue and then take her out with a baseball bat.  How was it possible that these ponies overthrew his empire?

“Uh, dear? Strange creature, remember?” from behind her, the white unicorn came out also sporting an incredulous look while motioning for the guards to surround me.  How he got to the ground was anyone’s guess.

HIS NAME IS SHINING ARMOR

Normally, I’d question a voice in my head giving me information, but I had a feeling that this was going to become quite common.

Standing up, I pointed my crystal hand at his face, accidentally slapping a guard who got to close with the butt of the spear sticking out of my wrist.

Still backpedalling, I stuttered, “Y-your Shining Armor!”

CAPTAIN OF THE ROYAL GUARD

“Shining Armor, the captain of the royal guard!” I quickly added.

He gave me an annoyed glance, obviously getting tired of my incessant stuttering. “Yes I am.  Now I want you to get on your knees and raise your… hands, above your head!” He shouted.

The crowd still seemed shocked by the events transpiring but appeared to ease up when the other guards moved in again.

“But Shiney! Can’t you see it’s wounded?” The pink one pleaded, while pointing a gilded hoof at my wrist.

The guards backed up and some of the ponies closer to the crowd looked at my wrist, noticing that I was indeed hurt. They probably couldn’t have cared less if they tried.

He looked towards where she was pointing but found himself more entranced by my hand than my wrist.  Pulling a saber out of his ass, he pushed its edge against my throat. Seriously, where do these ponies hide this crap?

This got the crowd going, everybody present looked horrified or really angry.

Even though it looked rather awkward due to my gas mask’s nozzle blocking the front of my neck, I was all too aware of the danger.

“Look at it’s hand Candace,” so that was her name, “doesn’t that look familiar to you?”

Well shit.  Sombra apparently had a trademark calling card. Black crystal.  She took one glance at my hand and said,

“So what? Crystal can be black. Just because something seems threatening doesn’t mean we kill it.”

Several ponies in the crowd shook their heads in agreement while others actually seemed offended by this.

Shining glanced over at her and his ears suddenly drooped plus the sword was lowered. I took in a deep breath of air while simultaneously looking at Candace. I was about to mutter some form of thanks, but I now saw why Shining had backed off. Her demeanor had shifted considerably.

The pink wings, which once rested against her side, were flared to full height, giving the impression of authority. Her expression had also shifted from concerned to condescending, her eyes slanted slightly downwards while holding her head slightly upwards, looking rather pissed at his choice of actions. As quickly as the expression came, it disappeared and her features shifted back to normal. Wings tucked in with head and eyes leveled out.

“I’m very sorry about my husbands little display but he can be very protective sometimes. How about we try this again, can you please come with us so we can help you?” she pleaded while tilting her head and batting her eyelashes.

If she thought I was going to come with her just because she did a cute then she was sorely mistaken. Just based upon the little demeanor change she had, she probably just stopped him because she didn’t like to kill people in the streets and instead enjoyed doing so in a dark and isolated dungeon.  Unfortunately, I still needed to blame this wound on someone other than Sombra because they clearly knew him.

“No! I will negotiate our terms of surrender in an open, public place only.” I clearly stated, the role-player in me coming to life.

Shining decided to step back into the conversation again, rather aggressively and asking/stating, “Not only do you have no right to make demands, what do you mean by our surrender? Where are the rest of you?!”

He was rapidlygetting the upper hand in the situation aI switched up my tactics; clearly, Shining didn’t like others trying to assert themselves to him judging by how he lashed out when I tried.

I raised my hands up in a placating gesture, ignoring my wrists protests to the slow, yet painful movements and pretended to slip, falling on my ass but continued to still push myself away.

“Uh, I-I-I mean, we uhh, I…”

“Shining, just hold on a second! You’re scaring the poor thing to death!” Candace pleaded, attempting to push herself in between him and me.

This really set him off though, “GET AWAY FROM THAT THING!” he shouted before his horn glowed a slightly transparent blue along with the spear lodged in my arm.

Without warning, said spear was ripped from my arm, leaving a gaping hole in its wake. I was about to expel some form of comment along the lines of ‘da fuq man’ or just plain old screaming in pain but before I could, the spear that had just been unceremoniously removed from my arm pivoted in the air and smacked me upside the head with its butt.  I got knocked flat on my back and saw the flying weapon turned its bloody point at my neck.

“Say goodbye monster!” he roared as the spear rapidly descended upon my exposed throat.

The spear stopped just short of its final destination.  Deciding the risk was worth it, I craned my neck forward in an effort to see what had happened to Shining. He was still almost on top of me but now rapidly moved his head from side to side, trying to glance at both sides of the street at the same time.

Moving my head so I could see what all the commotion was about, I saw several ponies faces twisted into anger while others seemed terrified.  On the sidewalks, mothers tried to hide their children’s eyes with a spare hoof while the fathers put their entire body into blocking their view. Some children seemed all to happy to welcome the darkness while others kept trying to wriggle their heads free of their mothers grip, curious to see what happens.  Other ponies who had no apparent family in sight, were booing Shining armor and berating him, some worse that others.

“Boo!” several children bellowed before being swallowed up by their mothers’ arms.

“What the heck do you think your doing!?” an older stallion with a grey mane exclaimed.

“You can’t just do that to an innocent creature!” a young mare protested.

“There are children out here you psychopath!” a mother cried.

Dripping with sarcasm, a young shopkeeper announced, “Oh, so now were killing things, great, just what this city needed!”

After several more protests, somebody got the bright idea that confectionery could be used as a projectile and started lobbing food at him.

I couldn’t help but smirk from under my mask at Shining’s predicament. Not only was that asshole getting his just desserts, but when you see a donut land perfectly on a unicorn’s horn, you just have to admire the marksmanship.  At first, it was just small baked goods like donuts and éclairs that were thrown, but was soon followed by cakes, tomatoes, cabbages, pretty much any food ponies could grab off the market stalls.  He managed to dodge a few projectiles but as the old saying goes, monkey see monkey do, because pretty soon every pony on the street was chucking food at him.  Now that’s not to say this was a large amount because most had fled the scene as soon as the cabbages started to land a little to close for comfort.  Those who remained continued assaulting him with any sort of food they could get their hooves on before the rest of the guards slipped into action.

After snapping out of their apparent daze at this sudden change of events, the guards immediately began to subdue the crowd.  I managed to glimpse Candace trying to reach Shining, only to be pulled away by a few guards.  Shining was still standing, slapping éclairs out of the sky with the spear while trying to clean cake icing out of his eyes.  The stallion with the grey mane that had previously protested my impromptu execution, came rushing forward with what appeared to be a long stick of celery and proceeded to slap the shit out of Shining with it. Had I not been in so much pain at the time, I would have laughed at the sight.

The sudden assault caused him to smear the icing over his eyes even more, effectively blinding him.  He desperately swung out with his spear, attempting to counter his assailant.  Unfortunately for him, one of the éclairs that he slapped down on the ground came back for round two. As he stumbled around while franticly swinging the spear, the confection managed to find its way underneath one of his hoofs, causing him to slip.  The spear flew out of his grasp and landed a few feet away from me and as I bent down to pick it up, I noticed that his previously white coat was almost unrecognizable now; pink, brown and yellow splotches decorated his body, creating a terrible camouflage pattern.  Now utterly helpless and with his belly exposed, the old stallion went in for the kill.  Dashing over fallen éclairs, donuts and occasional fruit/vegetable, he skidded to a halt right in front of Shining and began his merciless attack. First, he began by swatting his squirming limbs with the celery, whacking the soles whenever they got too close to his face. For some reason, the celery was unable to subdue Shining who continued to flail about in the icing coated street.  He attempted to stand up but was slapped o=upon the head by the celery wielding warrior.

“OW!” he shouted while raising his hoofs up to protect his exposed forehead.

It was all for naught however. The warrior had found Shining’s Achilles heel, his head.  A small smile played on the edges of his face as he swooped in with gusto. Each swing unforgiving, never missing its mark as blow after blow connected to a rather peeved Shining Armor.  He tried to stand up once again but was pushed back down by the stallion, who was clearly not finished.  Shining seemed to realize that he was physically unable to stand now that his hoofs were coated in icing and simply curled his head under his body while once again raising his hoofs above his head.

“Hey! Cut th-OW! Did you just hit me with a stick of celery?” I am Captain Shining Armor, and I will not stand for this i-OW!” Quit it!”

THWACK

“Ow!” Stop th-”

THWACK

“Ouch!” I said s-”

THWACK

“OW! CANDACE! HELP M-”

THWACK

“ARRRGH!”

THWACK

Fortunately for him, the other guards heard his pleas and ran over to detach the angry stallion from their commander who was little more than a pitiful mass of sticky fur lying in the road now.  Only one came up to Shining while the rest stayed back to watch the proceedings.  The old colt wasn’t having any of that shit though, and started to slap the guard coming to rescue his commander.  He managed whap the guard’s head but because of his helmet, was effectively impervious to the celery swipes.  What I found odd was that when he hit the helmet, a resounding clang echoed around the streets above the noise of the few remaining stragglers who were struggling with the guards.

Anyways, the old one seemed to grasp the concept of helmets and started hitting his exposed eyes and mouth.  At first, the guard just stood there looking at the old colt like he was insane before he slapped the guard on the teeth when he opened his mouth to speak.  The guard stumbled back in pain while holding a hoof to his mouth.  The éclairs weren’t out of the game yet because, like Shining, he slipped on one and fell to the ground.  As his helmet rolled off his head, the old colt seized the opportunity to attempt to slap him at the base of the skull.  Fortunately for the guard, his buddies seemed to now understand that the old coot was more capable that they previously imagined and five or six guards leapt on top of him before he could reach their friend and quickly disarmed the celery-wielding maniac.

I just stood there wide-eyed. I had just witnessed what appeared to be an old man with a stick of celery take out a military commander and another soldier.  Either they were the most pathetic creatures ever to grace the military or that old colt had some secret powers I was unaware of.

BWAHAHAHAHAH!

Well at least Sombra found this to be incredibly amusing because everybody else didn’t.  Or, more than likely they did, but kept their mouths shut because Shining could probably make their lives a living hell if he tried hard enough.  I looked around the street and took in the new renovations.

The cobblestone streets ware now littered with all manner of foodstuffs.  Pastries dominated the battlefield closely followed by tomatoes and cabbages.  I occasionally spotted a stray churro but that was beside the point.  The original grey of the stone wasn’t even visible in some spots.  Somehow, all the shops that lined the edge of the sidewalk were fine but the same could not be said for the carts. Most, in addition to being painted in icing, were completely void of food, the ponies choice of ammunition apparently depleted fast.

“Hey!” a feminine voice called

I snapped out of my stupor and replied, “Wat?”

Directing my gaze back in front of me, I was not all that surprised to see, guess what, more spears.  God, a little weapon diversity would be nice.

The pegacorn now know as Candace approached me with a badly concealed smile, but quickly got herself under control.  Surrounding her on all sides with guards armed with even more spears.  Now that we were both standing next to each other rather than me sitting while she towers over me, I discovered we where about the same height.  This meant that she was about 5’10 or so.  Either way, she looked at me and then at my hand.

“Well?” she said her head cocked slightly to the side.

“Mimicking her movements, I asked “Well, what?”

She sighed, “You are capable of hearing correct?”

She seemed incredibly exasperated but then again, I did somehow cause a small-scale riot.  And the anger wasn’t even directed at me!  I guess my less-logical plan did work, kinda.

“Ahem!”

“Oh yes! Sorry could you repeat that, I was a little distracted by all the… ah, fighting.” I said, hoping that I kept the amusement out of my voice.

Instead of repeating anything, she and about every guard present simply looked down at my hand.  Looking down as well, I saw the problem.  I was still holding the spear that Sombra had thrown into my wrist and I was pretty sure that holding a weapon in front of leaders was considered bad here.

Realizing how stupid I was being, I raised my crystal hand up in the air while slowly lowering my other hand to the ground and dropped the spear and then raising that hand above my head as well.

“Okay, lets all calm down, I just came here to hold a peace meeting with you.” I spoke as calmly as I could, trying to hide the nervousness in my voice.

“Ha! Yeah right. Says he wants peace and then causes a riot, very peaceful indeed…” a dejected shining armor mumbled as he was helped to his hoofs by about three spare guards.

Candace wasn’t even fazed by this and asked, “First off, what do you mean by peace?  You jump out of a ponyhole in the road, screaming ‘we surrender’ and then a riot broke out. I’m sorry, but your case isn’t looking good right now.”

Manhole, my brain automatically corrected for me.  So the language here was different.  I might need to adjust my speaking skills.  Another thing I noted is that she was glaring at me which meant I was probably about one minute from the fun dungeons.

“I didn’t expect any of this to happen! I just wanted to enter your city but tone of your guards attacked me!” I said while pointing a finger at the spear that was lodged in my wrist.

“Sir,” a guard spoke up, “are you implying that we attacked you without provocation?  That is completely slanderous! We gaurdsponies would never attack without reason!”

Several other guards also nodded in agreement as well as Shining, who came back to the group with the addition of a bandage atop his head.  I just stood there staring at them.  Many diverted their gaze whenever my eyes came to rest upon them.  I suppose that having small purple dots for eyes has that effect.

“Well, if there was ever any proof of unprovoked attacks on others, then look no further than your captain.” I said.

“You interrupted an official public event and started a riot in the middle of our city!  How is that unprovoked?!” Shining spat, his face twisted in anger.

“Shining!  You nearly killed him for surrendering!” Candace gasped.

“Surrendering for WHAT!?” He screeched. “This thing has been here for like, five minutes and in that time, managed to interrupt our wedding parade, cause a riot, and effectively destroy all the pastries within a one mile radius!”

She apparently still thought differently. “That doesn’t mean that you can kill him! What has he done to you? Before five minuets ago? She quickly added.

“Candace dear, I don’t need to add that thing to my list of problems, not with the Gryphons being as jumpy as they have been recently.”

I made another mental note. Gryphons are among this worlds inhabitants which means that I could reasonably be considered a species of prey. I think I recalled Gryphons being large in mythology but I wasn’t to sure.

YOU WORTHLESS IMBECIL! WHY DID I EVER BELIEVE THAT A CREATURE FROM ANTHER WORLD WOULD SUFICE FOR MY PLANS? I WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER OFF TRICKING THE GRYPHON KINGDOM INTO INVADING AND THEN CONCOUR THEM!

“Enough of this!” Shining shouted. “You have exactly ten seconds to explain your actions thus far or be thrown into the dungeons. Start talking.”

My mind raced as it was processing all the information it was given. Shining was having some form of issue with the Gryphons, who, judging by how he and Sombra spoke of them, were likely another world power. Based on Sombra’s rant about my performance thus far, tensions had to be pretty high in order for him to even rationalize the thought that he could trick one nation into going to war with another. He could only accomplish that with absolute mind control and if TV has taught me one thing, than its that absolute control is unobtainable. In order to not get my head chopped off, I would need a scapegoat. I then voiced my thought out reply to the Shining and co. who listened intently.

“Unless my maps pointed me in the wrong direction, I was under the assumption that this was where the Gryphon Kingdom was located. I traveled here, as an ambassador of my people; to implore you to stop the war you have been forcing upon us. Me and a few other men attempted to contact their commander, but he ordered his troops to slaughter anyone who tried to surrender, claiming that those who give up don’t deserve to live. I managed to crawl away from them when-”

“I KNEW IT!” Shining yelled, smiling like a maniac. “You see Candace, he is perfect proof that the Gryphons are preparing for war!” He sided up right next to me, a look of satisfaction on his face.”

“Shining,” Candace began, her smile dissipating rapidly, “just a second ago you were ready to kill it, now your trying to defend it? It could just be saying things to save itself you know.”

It appeared as if the tables had turned almost literally as now Shining was defending me and Candace was fighting me. Not only that, but they must have been arguing about this for awile. Shining was beginning to call me ‘he’ and Candace had started calling me ‘it’. She was obviously upset by my new excuse and had started distancing herself from me with the new terminology whilst Shining did the opposite.

“Candace, he is perfect proof of the Gryphons’ intentions, an attack!” Shining pleaded while some of the guards murmured amongst themselves.

Candace seemed even more skeptical than ever and was now visibly concerned.

“Shiney, maybe we shouldn’t discuss this out in the open, or at all.” She softly spoke.

He replied with the cryptic message, “We can’t avoid the inevitable forever dear. We’ll have to face the facts soon.”

“Shining, don’t talk like that,” she pleaded, “I’m telling you that this thing will simply blow over and resolve itself.”

I stood up from my ground and wiped some frosting off my legs. “On second thought, I can clearly see that this was the wrong location, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.” I reached out my hand to form a hand-to-hoof shake with Candace.

“He’s attacking the Princess!” A young guard shouted.

“Wait, what?! I’m not-”

Further talk was cancelled as about ten guards dog piled onto my unfortunate body.

Shining interjected in what I perceived to be an attempt to free me, “Hold it men! He was just reaching out tw-”

“Take him to the dungeons immediately!” Candace’s voice rang out.

“Candace? What are you doing?” Shining asked, dumbfounded at the sudden mood swing.

“We’ll discuss this later in privacy, until then, it shall be taken to the dungeons until I see fit to release him.”

He opened his mouth as if to argue but thought the better of it and nodded.

“Take him away.” He said.

WORTHLESS IMBECIL

Making history (under major construction)

Making history

It was just another normal day in one of Georgia's forests.Tall pine trees loomed over the land, providing sanctuary from unforgiving weather, intense summer heat, or just as a pit stop for migrating creatures. The sun shined its warming light through the rich green needles, scattering patterns across the forest floor, creating a calming atmosphere. A cool breeze would gently shake through the canopy of the pine forest, occasionally knocking a pinecone loose which would then fall to the ground, startling a flock of birds on the way. A curious squirrel would approach cautiously, grab the cone in his mouth and then bolt up a tree and then navigate back into it's home for a mid-day nap. The forest was truly a tranquil place. The perfect camping location for families. Well, before the fighting started anyway. That and the screams.

Cries of pain and surprise now rang about the forest in place of cicadas and birdsong. The dense brown and green underbrush hiding the danger that lurked within. Clouds blotted out the sun, making the day slightly overcast and left the already depressing mood even damper. I watched men fall left and right, shades of red now decorating they're once pristine uniforms. A permanent medal so to speak. A medal I had the honor of giving.

The shots of my comrades and I were some of the more dominant sounds aside from screams. My cartridge seemed to be half empty. This however was no hindrance as I fired in short, controlled bursts to maintain ammo conserving accuracy.

Retreating enemies ran back in the direction they had formerly chased us in, the forest green contrasting with their yellow uniforms. For this reason, spotting was not an issue for us but it was for them. Instead of team uniforms consisting of a single color, my teammates were expected to gather their own uniforms or make them. Anything that wasn't yellow was considered friendly. Survival depended upon your own ingenuity. When I first joined I had trashcan armor and a pot hat. Something is better than nothing I suppose. Unfortunately, the shine of my armor had made me easy to spot at a distance and let me tell you, getting shot hurts.

I had learned from my mistakes however, and now owned a long brown western duster with more pockets that what would seem practical, complimented by a plain black tee. With these, came some cargo pants holding even more pockets and combat boots. To top it all off, I had a camo cap as well. The brown and black combo blended into the trees and shrubs that were acting as my cover.

Just then, a flash of yellow entered my vision, breaking me out of my reminiscent mood. Ducking behind a pine tree, he peaked out from the rough, sappy bark, gun at the ready, frantically searching for his pursuers. Someone else had a bead on him however, as a few shots peppered the tree he was hiding behind. Startled from the sudden fire, he bolted from cover and made a mad dash for the rest of his scattering team. I took aim at his leg; easier to shoot someone on the ground rather than running around.

"ClickClickClick"

'Damn it, my cartridge is empty.' I thought

Glancing up, I saw several men who were now in my sight manage to escape. But no matter. I smiled as I saw where they were going. I could end this whole thing in a matter of seconds.

Searching around in my pocket, I felt the oval object that I was searching for. Pulling said item into view I gripped the pin in my teeth, pulled and hurled it as hard as I could towards their supposed cover. Taking a deep breath, I shouted at the top of my lungs,

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

ENEMY COMMANDER'S PERSPECTIVE

Today was not a good day for me or my team, as we were losing more men than usual. Friend after friend fell to their unforgiving forces, an unusual turn of events. We had fought this group before, The Alliance, they called themselves. A group of several factions who had decided to combine their forces into a larger battalion.

Typically we would be able to stave off their unorganized assaults from our fort, until they called for retreat or defeated enough of their men that the rest fled for the hills. The only real reason that they banded together, was to defeat us and still acted as separate forces. Today however, they were especially resilient and aggressive, employing actual strategy into their assault.

The day started out calm and peaceful. Robins were perched in their nests up high in the pine, just now waking up other forest residents with their song. Cicadas chirped, bees buzzed and dandelions floated along the breeze. Our fort was the center of it all, a tall yellow flag hoisted high in the air, as a message to all who dared oppose us.

Tall stone walls surrounded the inside encampment and flagpole, the outside walls stained and chipped from previous battles against The Alliance. Ramparts jutted along the top, providing cover for our troops during attacks. Stone pathways alongside the ramparts had iron railings to prevent men from falling to the ground. A plain green expanse coated the courtyard, with a fire pit for cookouts and a few chairs.

In the middle of the yard was a humble wooden house, only big enough for about a dozen people due to all the supplies inside. Food, extra guns and armor, surplus ammo, we had it all.

Resting alongside the western wall, were hastily built barracks to house others. During a storm, we realised that the storage house was our only cover from the rain and could not house all our men. We had gathered planks and nails and hastily threw them together to create that mess. It didn't look pretty, but it got the job done.

It had been a calm day so far,  me and a few others were checking our food storage in order to determine if we needed to restock. As soon as we determined that our supply of tortilla chips was unacceptably low, our sentry sounded the alarm from his post on the ramparts. Running out of the shack, I saw that my men had already taken position upon the ramparts and were in position to fire upon the enemies. Sprinting up the stairs, I called upon a soldier at random.

"You there, whose attacking us!?"

He turned to face me and snapped a salute. "Sir, it's the Alliance again, Sir!"

I immediately recognized his face, a new member of our group. Robinson, I think.

"The Alliance again? Ha! This'll be over within the hour! At ease solider!" I heartily exclaimed.

But Robinson thought otherwise, " Sir, I'm not so sure, they seem organised this ti-ghk!" A sudden shot hit his helmet, knocking him off balance. He fell to the side and whacked his head upon the iron railing before slumping to his knees, out cold.

"ROBINSON! Return fire, return fire now!"

After seeing Robinson go down, my men were all to happy to oblige, spraying down on the few foolish enough to attack the main gate. This was when I made the mistake that would push us to the limit.

The Alliance had called a retreat after only a few men fell, and I made a terrible mistake. My ego, having been boosted after our swift "victory", ordered most of my troops to pursue the retreating forces so they couldn't launch a second assault later in the day. Running foolishly out into the woods, I realized the flaw in my plan to late. Our uniforms were yellow while the Alliance used whatever they could find, which was mostly dark jackets. You could probably see the issue. Literally.

The fleeing attackers jumped behind a fallen tree on a collapsed hill, a small crawlspace underneath it. I assumed that they were using it to hide, as we didn't see them continue running. I had used crawlspace before as cover from rain so I was aware of its location.

I notified my men of this fact,

"There's a depression down there that I think they're hiding behind. Be careful."

My warning went unheard by some of them as about a dozen of my men raced to the log before me, vaulted over it, but pulled a twist in the air, causing them to land facing the crawlspace with guns at the ready. I heard a shout followed by a large amount of gunfire, more than just a dozen guys. Creeping up, I cautiously peering over log and saw the dozen or so men who had vaulted over all lying on the ground as a score of the Alliance stepped out from under the log, not bothering to look up and see us glaring down upon them.

While surprised at the use of an ambush, I kept a level head and motioned for my men to stay quiet and take aim. Just as I was about to give the order to fire, six Alliance soliders stepped out from the woods on both our sides and opened fire. The ambush wasn't over yet. My men managed to retaliate, returning fire to their respective offenders. Unfortunately, we forgot about the score of soldiers below us, as they climbed up the hill while we were distracted and began firing as well. At least another dozen men fell until I realized this was one fight we couldn't win and called for retreat.

So here we are, running for our lives, well, the few remaining men who still had them anyway, all because of a stupid mistake by an overzealous commander. Among the screams of others, I barked an order, well, more a request really, to my remaining men.

“We need to get out this area and find cover! They’re picking our men off one by one from the cover of the trees!"

"Sir, what about that ditch?" one shouted.

It was a fairly good idea, a few yards away was an old riverbed long since dried up. The remaining trench appeared deep that you could almost stand in it and be safe from fire.

"Excellent idea Tomas! When we get out of this mess, remind me to promote you! All men, get to the trench!"

"If we get out of this mess..."

"Hey, don't talk like that solider! Now get your ass in that ditch!"

"Yes sir!" Snapping a quick salute, he dove into the riverbed along with a few others, myself included.

After our heads were down and my men were crowded around me, I asked for some much needed intel.

“Quickly, how many men are-

A voice rang out over my own,

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

Jerking my head skyward, I saw a small rock or something barrel towards our position. My eyes widened in realization. That was no rock. Shouting soon broke out among the remaining men.

“GRENADE!”

“INCOMING!”

“TAKE COVER!”

"WHAT COVER?! WE'RE IN A FUCKING DITCH!"

The grenade landed in the midst of our numbers. A few tried to climb out but we're promptly shot, falling back into the ditch with a thud. One man however, didn't seem to notice that the grenade was right in front of him.

“Joey, get away from that!”

“Get away from wa- Argh! It hit me! Oh god, I can't see, I can't see!” he cried.

I waited a second, expecting another man to go help him, but no assistance came. All around me were my men, every single last one of them. Lying in front of my feet was a single solider, his chest covered in red. He had jumped in front and shielded me from the blast.

The one known as Joey, was laying on the ground clutching his face. His body went limp soon after. Replacing the sadness of lost lives around me with the hope of saving one, I immediately made my way towards him.

“No, Joey! I’m coming, hang in there!"

I ran over to where he was laying, jumping over large rocks and traversing the occasional shrub before reaching his limp body. Grabbing his shoulder, I began to pull him to his feet.

"Come on man, move! Your not done yet!"

Using the last of my strength, I hauled him up to his feet and threw his arm around my shoulder.

"Let's get you home solider." a groan was the only reply I received.

"Sorry, but I can't let that happen."

Looking up, I saw an Alliance member with a brown trench coat, cargo pants and a camo cap pointing the barrel of a gun at my chest, a crazy smile on his face.

RICHARD'S POV

The look of surprise on his face was priceless, I could barely hold back my laughter. Aiming at his chest with a stupid smile on my face, I pulled the trigger and watched him gasp, shocked at the abruptness of it all. Still smiling, I turned my attention to the wounded solider he was so heroically trying to save, he was still moving, making him the last enemy still standing. Well, not standing, more like wriggling. Pointing the gun at his head, I shot a single round towards his helmet.

SPLAT

"OW! Jesus man, I'm dead! You don't shoot dead people!" he exclaimed, hands scrambling to wipe the paint off his goggles in order to regain vision.

"And what the hell was with that 'I can't let you do that' act? Jonathan questioned, now getting up and clutching his chest where I had shot him, an annoyed look on his face.

Nonchalantly, I replied, "Dude, if your dead, then don't squirm around and as for my 'act', when my Co2 cartridge ran out, I chucked a grenade in the ditch expecting to hit everybody in that tangled mess of people, but when I saw that the enemy commander, a.k.a. you, weren't hit, I just went Space Odyssey on both of ya." I replied, a stupid grin plastered on my face.

"Yeah, we can see that Mr. Hal 9, but that doesn't explain why you shot Joey in the head for trying to get comfortable! I mean, if I died and wasn't comfortable, I would move around too." Jonathan replied, obviously not getting my sense of humor.

"Dude, it's just a paintball! It's not like I was actually shooting him or anything. Plus, if you actually died, you wouldn't be moving." I replied

"You know what he meant. Besides, it still hurts when you get hit. A little distance would've been nice. I mean, my head's gonna be ringing for awhile and Jonathan's gotta have a nasty bruise by now." Joey had pulled himself off the ground, and was looking at me rather irritably. Or at least trying. His goggles still had paint smeared all over them and gave off a 'crazy artist' kind of vibe.

"Yeah man," Jonathan piped up, "and how the hell am I supposed to get all this paint off my shirt in time? I need this for a clam bake with my family tonight!"

"Okay," Joey re-took the stage, "first off, this is paintball, and the first rule of paintball other than wear eye protection is don't wear anything you don't want ruined, second-"

I interrupted, "I thought the first rule of paintball was, don't talk about paintball?" Jonathan snickered at that.

"Second," he continued as if nothing had happened, "is that your shirt is YELLOW," he leaned in for emphasis, "and you were hit by a YELLOW paintball." This time, I snickered at Jonathans expense.

"Third, you modelled our team uniforms after your ugly ass yellow polo shirt?" He questioned.

Jonathan seemed to shy away from this question, averting his gaze from our own.

"Well, my girlfriend might have, I mean it's not like it was my idea or anything..."

Me and Joey just started at him with our mouths hanging open while he sheepishly rubbed his shoulder. Then we burst out laughing.

Between laughs, I managed to spit out,

"Y-y-your gi-girlfriend m-made your tea-hahaha, your team's uniforms?"

Joey said nothing as he was busy clutching his side while shaking with laughter, tears rolling down his face.

Cheeks puffing up indignantly, and blushing slightly in embarrassment, Jonathan spluttered out, "S'not funny!"

"Oh yeah, it is." Looking up, I saw an opposing team member, painted in several colors of the rainbow, holding his hand out.

"Need some help there guys?"

Graciously, we took took his hand and after three trips, managed to get all of us out. Now out of the ditch, we looked around at the newly painted forest. The trees were splattered with blue, yellow, red and green paint, the original brown completely absent in some areas. Emerging from the woods, I saw both multicolored friend and enemy alike clamor around us, either telling Jonathan his team did the best they could, or congratulating me for ending the game.

"Awww, yeah!"

"We did it, we won!"

"Sorry that you couldn't handle our overwhelming awesomeness!"

"You guys just got lucky."

"We don't got no luck man, we got skillzzz."

"Pffht, whatever dude.

"U jelly bro?"

"Go shove your stupid jelly up your ass."

"Never mind, he ain't jelly guys, he's butthurt!"

"OHHHHHHH!"

After the talking had sufficiently quieted down, Jonathan managed to voice the question on everyone's mind.

"Hey Richard?" Jonathan asked.

The talking immediately came to a halt on the his side, while my team stood still, boastful grins etched upon their faces.

"Watchya need?" I replied, knowing full well what the question was.

"In that battle, how did you manage to beat us? I mean, usually you just come up to our fort and start shooting. Today though, you seemed to have a strategy. What's with that?"

I opened my mouth to speak but one of my teammates spoke for me.

"Well you see," god he sounded so full of himself, "after Richard here gave a riveting speech about us being too white for our own good and how you guys were all redheads, we decided that what we needed was a leader, and we all elected Richard to fill the role, right guys?" Loud agreements followed his question as my team cheered for their victory again.

Jonathan and his team turned to face me and asked, "Okay, what really happened?"

Rubbing the back of my head, I said, "Well they were kinda close, I had compared our team to the White army and your team to the Red army."

Obviously confused, Jonathan intelligently asked, "Da fuq is dat biotch?" followed by laughter from both teams.

Sighing, I asked, "You know about the Russian revolution right?" Blank faces meet my question.

"Oh my g-, you know what? Fine. Time for a history lesson!" I said while clapping my hands together

"Aww, come on man! You do this all the tim-

"Shut up and listen!"

"Fine..."

"WWI," I began,"a new era of warfare involving all of the earth's superpowers. Near the end however, Russia was going through some tough times. See, the people wanted more political power, but Russia's Czar-"

"What a Cesar?" One asked, raising his hand.

"Dude, this isn't school, you don't have to raise you hand and to answer you question, the czar, is like their leader." I blankly stated.

"Ohhhh..." Several others nodded in understanding. Seriously, how did these people pass the tenth grade?

"So it's not a salad?" suppressed laughter rang throughout the congregation.

Slightly annoyed, I continued my lecture, "As I was saying, the Czar wanted all the power to himself. After ordering his guards to fire upon unarmed protesters outside his palace, the people decided that more drastic actions needed to be taken.

The Bolsheviks, answered the call. A group of radical revolutionaries, they embraced this idea as a go-to strategy, using war too achieve their goals. Many people supported the Bolsheviks and wanted them to win with the belief that their rule would bring the country to its former glory. They took over a large population of other rebels who called themselves the Soviets,"

"The commies are in on this?!" Several of them gasped in horror and I noticed more than a few people raise their weapons just a little higher, their American spirits detecting a threat to democracy.

"Eventually," I continued while glaring at several off them, " with their bolstered numbers, they stormed the Czar's palace and forced him to abdicate the throne.

"After a while, the people became upset once again. The Soviets didn't have enough resources make all the changes they promised, and the people once again wanted a new government. An extremely large amount of Russians who banded together became known as the White army and tried to fight off the Bolsheviks, who took up the name of the Red army, by attacking the palace where they had taken up residence. The White army should've won, they had a few hundred thousand men vs. a few thousand on the side of the Red army. The Bolsheviks still won because they were united and worked as a team. The White army was often fighting themselves instead of the Red army because of different ideas on who should take over after they overthrew the Bolsheviks. In fact, at one point, there were three separate White armies all throughout Russia."

"And that's why I compared you guys to the Red army and us, the Whites. We had strength in numbers but didn't cooperate, while you had a plan. You always won from the safety of your precious fort, so we lured you all out." I took a deep breath, my long speech now over.

"Which by the way, is our fort now." someone added matter-of-factly.

"Damn... I was hoping you would forget about that." Jonathan murmured.

So, a little background on our game, we play paintball at Jonathan's father's ranch, which is 10 or so acres. He claims that the stone fort was there when he purchased it, and has no idea why. But hey, never look a gift horse in the mouth right? He lets us play paintball on the place as long as we scrub it down once a month. It started off as only 4 people, but eventually expanded to almost a hundred due to the rules, popular location and Jonathan marketing the place off as an intuitive and immersive role-playing paintball experience for the low low price of twenty dollars!

Several teams fight for control of the fort. The idea was to storm it and replace the occupying team's flag with your own or 'kill' off most of the other team to gain control. After Jonathan's forces managed to hold it for more than a month, a few other teams combined to form the Alliance with the idea of gaining control of the fort.

"Well," Jonathan started, "you can have it next Saturday cause it's getting dark and I'm hungry." Some of us glanced up at the sky, coated in purple-pink hues with the cloud lines tinted orange while the sun itself watched over the proceedings. Others glanced down at their gurgling stomachs, realizing that they were indeed hungry.

"LAST ONE TO GOLDEN CORRAL HAS TO PAY!"

Casting my gaze forward once again, I looked around to see only dust trails in the distance as everyone raced back to the town, eager for food.

"Well so much for that..." I muttered.

It's not like it mattered, I had better things to do anyway. Making my way back to the fort, I stripped nearby pine trees of their bark as I passed, replacing the colored bark with the original brown. I decided to stay in the forest for awhile and look around for the treasure.

Jonathan's father's uncle had visited the ranch once and struck up a conversation with me due to our mutual interest in history. I'm a huge history buff and despite my friends' opinion that history wasn't important, I always disagreed with them. History is like a big book of ideas, allowing us see past mistakes so we can take steps to ensure that that the bad stuff doesn't repeat itself, or remember how to do the good stuff, should we need it again.

Aside from our mutual love of history, I wasn't sure what to think of his father's uncle. He was polite but I was unsure about his mental condition. He was a veteran from WWII and even took part in the invasion of Normandy, so I chalked up his delusions to post-traumatic stress disorder. After the war ended, he purchased this plot of land and was strolling through the property. On the very first night, he claimed to have seen a Heinkel He 111 crash into the ground, even though the war was over. He ran to the crash site but was unable to find any remains or evidence of a plane crash, but still swears that it happened.

While I was highly doubtful of this story, the prospect of finding relics from the war always made me check around the area just to be sure. I had been scavenging around with the aid of some friends for a few months, telling them friends that we would become famous for finding a plane wreck. As of last week however, all had given up hope for lack of my promised publicity. I decided to would give it one last search, items of historical significance were out there and needed to be saved. First however, I needed to get out of my outfit and put away my stuff. I never left my paintball gear at home after I broke some ammo bottles. My carpet was ruined after that.

On my way to the fort however, I started to hear some noises coming from the woods. Growling to be precise. I didn't think that bears lived around here, but I defied the horror movie stereotype and backed away from the sound.

'Oh well, I'll just drop my stuff off at the old fort.' I thought optimistically.

My old fort however, was an old outhouse some guys had built when Jonathan got mad about stepping in... stuff, while chasing down other paintballers. No one ever got around to using it though, as someone else happened to work part-time with a construction company and 'borrowed' a few port-a-potties, scattering them throughout the forest. I decided to not let the outhouse go to waste however, and threw a coat rack up in the ceiling plus a single shelf so I needn't take my stuff home.

Walking away from the bears general direction, I doubled back after a few minutes, taking a big arc away from my original path. I noticed that it was getting very dark very quickly. Too quickly. Glancing around, I also noticed that the trees weren't multicolored anymore. It appeared as if the large paintball game hadn't even occurred. The growling also returned but this time, I didn't think it was a bear.

hhchhrhhyhhshhthhahhlhhs

"Who the hells there?" I swirled around, paintball gun at the ready and saw a large, shiny black rock that was eager to meet the rest of my face.

Without warning, the rock shot out a jagged spear aimed for my leg. My survival instinct kicked in and I managed to jump over the projectile and land gracefully on my face. Scrambling to get up, I was hit by the side of the spear as it swung back around, sending me a few feet away and into a tree. I was fairly certain that I had cracked a rib due to a recurring pain whenever I took a breath. Once again aiming my gun, I fired off paintball after paintball, managing to coat the large rock thing a few shades of blue and yellow.

Unfortunately, this appeared to do little else other than aggravate the creature, as it slashed it's jagged spear back at me. I prepared myself for another hit to the abdomen, but only noticed that I had stopped firing. I looked down at my gun and saw it lying on the ground next to my leg and a severed hand. Glancing back at my right arm, I noticed that the area where my hand was, had been replaced by nothing and my wrist was bleeding profusely. I opened my mouth to scream, but was interrupted by the rock creature. This time, the jagged spear lunged straight for my chest but broke off into separate pieces on the way. The sharp end piece went straight for my nub, piercing into the bone. Blood and bone fragments oozed out from the wound, my pants coated in a new shade red while the ground eagerly sucked up the leftovers, erasing any trace of blood with the exception of a darker patch of dirt. Blood wasn't gushing out anymore as the rock was blocking some of the flow, so I probably wouldn't bleed to death.

I once again opened my mouth to scream, but only managed a few gurgling sounds.

The pain was horrible. It was like someone had broke my arm, then saw fit to beat it with a baseball bat for a few hours. I looked up just in time to see the other half of the spear careen toward my face.

SMACK

I knew that fucking thing wanted to meet my face. Instincts once again took over and I enacted the oldest known tactic for evading threats. Playing dead. I rolled over onto my back and my eyes fell almost to the point serves couldn't see. I forced them back open, if the creature didn't care that I was dead, then I needed to know when to run. My vision seemed off however, everything looked slightly distorted and my peripheral vision was blocked by black circles.

'Is this what a concussion feels like?'

I didn't have time to delve into the subject much more, the rock monster had raised its arm up high, and was poised to strike. Now was my chance, if I had any hopes of getting away, I needed to act while it was distracted.

I got to my feet and was promptly bludgeoned across the head by the creature's spear whereupon I thought I heard a demon-like voice before blacking out,

SOON...

Pain.

That could best describe how I feel. My wrist burned with a fiery passion but I couldn't seem to suck in enough oxygen to sufficiently scream. I was aware of lying on something lumpy and couldn't care less due to the amount of pain I was in. Blankly staring straight ahead, I could only make out a smidgen of light that seemed to be a mile away and everything else was just darkness.  I tried to call out but nothing escaped my lips except for a muffled groan. I moved myself around in an attempt to get comfortable, realizing that I was enclosed in a small, cramped space and that Jonathan and Joey were right.

Hands.

The very thought of those appendages brought me back to reality as I cringed at the burning sensation. But then a thought struck me, my hand had been cut off by the strange rock creature, so why was I feeling pain where my hand used to be?

Moving my left hand over to my right arm, I traced its figure down to where my hand was. At the the spot of my wrist, I felt a large, painful bulge of skin encircling what appeared to be a lumpy object with a smooth finish.

'Oh yeah, the rock spear.'

I should probably be panicking in a situation like this, realizing that that something was impaling my arm, but I was just happy to be alive, the spear perfect evidence of this.  Unfortunately after a few minutes passed, I realized that help might not be coming anytime soon and while the spear had stopped some of it, blood still seeped out of the wound and bleeding out was a very real possibility. I needed to man the fuck up and try to find help or just keep writhing in agony until help found me.

Attempting to push myself up proved futile, as my left hand sunk into whatever I was laying on with a clinking sound as I felt something sharp pierce my skin and lodge in place. Ripping my hand out of the floor, I felt a strong stream of warm liquid run down my arm. With no foreseeable escape, and what I assumed was a large open wound leaking blood on my left hand and the stub of my right hand bleeding as well, I just sat there, unmoving, waiting for the end.

"I never thought I would die alone, much less by bleeding to death, but I guess I've got to go somehow." I get philosophic when in danger.

I noticed that my voice sounded odd though, like I was covering my mouth with a cloth. I tried to stand up in my dark prison, but instead felt something bang against my head. Reaching up with my left hand, I discovered that I was wearing a metal helmet of some kind. Moving my hand down said helmet and grunting in pain when the new hole in my hand got caught on the lip of the helmet, I felt large mass of what appeared to be rubber. Dragging my hand around my face, I predicted that I was wearing an old gas mask with large, separate holes for the eyes that appeared to be missing the glass coverings as I accidentally poked my one while feeling around. It also had a single, large metal nozzle that connected to a filter that ran down from the middle, indicating it's age. Gas masks of this type aren't very common anymore. I couldn't manage pry the mask off what with my hand being injured and all. Reaching up with my other hand to help grasp the mask, I attempted to pull it of before recalling that my right hand had been cut off.

"What the h-"

MOVE  YOU PATHETIC SLAVE! YOU HAVE NOT YET FUFFILED YOUR ROLE IN THE SLIGHTEST!

The sound of an unknown voice booming right above my head coupled with the desire not to meet whomever the voice came from, re-solidified my cracking resolution as I flung the entirety of my weight towards the light.

Well, actually that voice scared me so shitless, I wouldn’t put it past my bodily capabilities if I propelled myself forward by emptying my bowels at subsonic speeds.

I was surprised to find that instead of the light being miles away as previously predicted, it was actually just a few inches away. I managed to burst through a lid or cover of some sort. Well, half of my body anyway. I was left hanging over an edge with the floor only a few inches away. The ground was littered with trash, decomposing food scraps and appeared to be made of dirt. Realizing that I had been holding my breath, I took a long gulp of the air. I was somewhat surprised that I didn't smell any of the food scraps.

'Oh yeah, gas mask.' Reality reared it ugly face through the door.

"Oh shit! Gas mask, scary monster, my hands, Communism! NOOO!"

Both hands shot up to my face instinctively. Unfortunately, this shifted my balance and I fell to the ground face first.Groaning, I lifted my face up off the ground and looked behind me. I saw my crotch kissing a sheet of blue metal that looked like it had seen better days as it was rusted and covered in graffiti. I immediately broke up the non-intimate moment, pulled myself up and turned around. I'd been laying in a fucking dumpster and the lumpy surface that my hand sunk into was presumably a trash bag.

Looking down at my right hand, I was deeply disturbed by what I saw. Instead of having a black spear lodged in where my hand should be, the black spear WAS my hand. It had formed a replica of my old hand and despite being very lumpy, appeared to have a polished finish. Defrauding from the palm, were five digits of varying length closely resembling fingers, the only difference being the sharpened point tat the ends. Experimentally flexing this appendage proved that it was indeed connected to me. I then moved the base of my hand around but stopped after experiencing an intense pain. Pulling the bloody sleeve of my trench coat down, I saw the issue. The 'painful bulge' I felt earlier looked much worse than it felt.

The bulge was a large area of what appeared to be infected skin. Several lumps stretched the skin more in some areas, but the ever prevalent color of red etched across it no matter the area. Poking one of the smaller lumps caused a mass underneath to move away. Based on this, I concluded that this was an extremely large infection, with puss manifesting in the worse off areas.

I needed to find a doctor to not only remove the puss safely, but to possibly amputate my new appendage. I wasn't an anatomy expert as I stuck to history for most of my studies, but I knew for a fact that hands shouldn't turn black and take on the appearance of badly cut glass.

NOT GLASS! Never insult my precious crystals...

"Wa-what? Who's there?!"

JUST YOUR SAVIOR.

NOW OBSERVE YOUR OTHER HAND PUPPET...

Deciding to do as bidden rather than risk upsetting a crazed maniac with some speakers, I brought the hand into vision.

NOW PLACE YOUR flesh HAND IN THE PALM OF YOUR CRYSTAL HAND...

"But, if I move my wrist I mi-"

DO IT!

Immediately obeying, I turned my hand, now apparently made of crystal, over and placed my other hand in it's palm. As soon as I saw the wound, I began thinking about what could have been sharp enough to pierce straight through my hand to the other side.

Then, I felt a tingling sensation run through the cut. What was peculiar however, is that it didn't hurt anymore. That, and the fact that my hand was now smoking as well. The smoke was a thick black and I couldn't see through any of it. Emanating from the crystal appendage, it wound it's way up and around my other hand, flowing through the cut from one side, and coming out the other. A small glass shard fell out of the gash, falling to the ground and shattering into several smaller, bloody pieces. The gash then began to seal, both sides of the cut being pulled towards the center before glowing purple and disappearing altogether.

I started at my right hand in wonderment, the pain in my wrist forgotten as I tentatively flexed the appendage. No scar or mark of any kind remained, no proof it ever existed.

GOOD, YOU ARE CAPABLE OF LISTENING, I FEARED I HAD WASTED ALL MY MAGIC RESERVES SUMMONING A WORTHLESS CORPSE!

Magic? Summoning? Obviously this man was crazy. What was worse though was that I was at his mercy.

"Wha-what do you want from me?"

MANY THINGS MORTAL, MANY THINGS. I SUPPOSE THAT WHAT I DESIRE MOST IS WHAT YOU HAVE, A PHYSICAL BODY

"A what? What does that mean? How can you not have a body?" I felt my body temperature rise in anger, he wasn't giving me any realistic answers and was probably incapable of doing so.

I OWN YOUR SOUL MORTAL, AND I CHOSE TO SAVE YOUR PITIFUL BODY FROM DEATH, SO DON'T ASK ANY QUESTIONS!

"Yo-your bluffing! No one can own another's soul!"

REALLY? HOW'S THIS FOR PROOF?

"What? What are you going to d-AHH!"

Looking down at my right arm, I discovered that my new hand was slowly crystallizing the rest of my arm. Very painfully. Crystals seemed to rise right out of my skin and connect with the hand, purple lightning arcing between them. Blood and yellow fluids began to ooze out of my wrist, causing the previous burning sensation to return.

"I-I-I get it! You got me! I'll stop questioning you!" I managed to squeak out.

ARE YOU SURE? I WANTED TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN IT REACHED YOUR TORSO...

I then realized that whatever the hell this thing was, it wanted to cause me pain. For the sake of survival, I needed to adjust my approach. Maybe instead of trying to defy it, I should appeal to it.

"Nope, definitely no, you proved your point, and might I add did so magnificently!

I- WHAT?

"Oh yes, to be able to harm another without even touching them? Quite magnificent. I bet you could give Vlad the Impaler a run for his money." I replied in what I hoped was an earnest tone.

WELL, PERHAPS YOU AREN'T COMPLETELY WORTHLESS.

YOU MUST TELL ME MORE ABOUT THIS VLAD THE IMPALER SOMETIME.

"But of course!" I replied, actually enthusiastic,"I could tell you all about history! But, I am most certain that you already know all about our history."

AHAHAHAHA! YOU STUPID MORTAL! YOU HAVE NO IDEA DO YOU?

This troubled me greatly. This... thing, seemed to know something I didn't. The only thing greater than strength, was knowledge. Like in wars for example. Knowing where the enemies troops are positioned is key for flanking manoeuvres or avoiding them. Not knowing something with an entity that could probably kill me if it thought to hard, was very troubling.

"What do you mean?" My question fell on deaf ears. It either didn't care what I had to say, or my question was drowned out by the sound of its laughter. I was starting to get angry. I hate it when others ignore me when I need to know something.

AHAHAHAHA!

"Hey! What don't I know?!" I snapped

TELL ME, WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

I was getting so pissed off at the narcissistic voice, I elected to reply like a true smart ass.

"Planet earth."

INCORRECT

"What do you mean, incorrect? I can't possibly be anywhere else!" I was so angry, I had begun to shout.

"Hey, did you hear something down there?" I heard a voice say

"Let's check it out." another replied

NO! YOU MUST LEAVE! THE GUARDS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO SEE YOU!

Reality then reappeared, "Guards? Not earth? What kind of sick game are you playing? And where the hell are you!?"

"I knew I heard something!"

"Come on, it sounds like a fight."

I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS...

"Oh yeah? Well what the hell are you gonna do? Hurt my hand again? Ooo, I'm really scared!"

I should probably listen to that thing in the future. A large cloud of black smoke emerged from the dumpster I had been laying in and quite quickly, rushed towards me. I turned around and ran towards the voices, figuring that any help would be appreciated. The smoke monster realized what I was going to do and cut off my path before I could reach it.

QUICKLY YOU FOOL! DOWN THESE STAIRS!

This time, I noticed that the voice seemed to be coming from the smoke monster. While I didn't want to listen, it seemed a better alternative than running into the monster. Rounding the corner of another dumpster, I ran down a glass staircase that seemed to go down to unknown depths.

Reality's friend, reason, made a guest appearance and issued a mandate stating that glass stairs shouldn't be in alleyways. I didn't heed the warning however, and continued running and running and running and running and running and running and running and running and runn-

"WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FUCKING STAIRS!?"

Quite suddenly, the stairs came to an abrupt end. A door appeared out of thin air and seemed to float in place, begging to be opened. Reason once again decreed that this was a horrible idea and it was in my best interest to walk back up the stairs. One glance behind me deterred me from this course of action, as the large black cloud of smoke was pursuing me down the stairs.

CRYSTALSSSS...

Chucking reason away with a catapult, I grabbed the door, flung it open, stepped inside, slammed the door behind me, turned around and was met by three strange creatures all huddled around something in the middle of a rather spacious room.

"Wat."

All previous grievances and pains were temporarily forgotten as I, after looking at the creatures for all of a split second, came to the conclusion that these were from the television show My Little Pony.

How did I come to this conclusion you ask? Well the only time I have ever seen a colorful horse with what I assumed were branding marks on their flanks, came from the really loud, colorful commercials that interrupt my Goosebumps montage on the hub network.

I don’t really hate the show, I just choose not to watch it on principal. I avoid that subject like it has the fucking plague because it could ruin several friendships that I had.

Reality and reason agreed for once, both essentially saying “Nope” as I turned to leave the room. This didn’t happen however, as the door was no longer there.

“Crap! I mff-” Shooting both hands up to cover my mouth as there were others in the room, I slowly turned around, preparing my body for one to be right behind me.

Instead, they were all still huddled around something and not moving. They looked weird, like they were frozen in time. Cautiously approaching from the side, my theory proved correct, as they were staring at a large purple and green lizard proudly holding up a glass heart. Without blinking.

'Okay, this shit is really creeping me out now.' I suppose one of the reasons for this was that I hated anything that didn’t blink.

I only recognized the purple unicorn as she was usually at the beginning of the commercials running into a box in order to turn into a toy that looked like a hideous Barbie doll. I already didn’t like Barbie dolls cause they don't blink, they didn’t need to ponify them too and give me more nightmare fuel.

She looked odd however. She was smiling compassionately at a lizard thing holding a sculpture, who was looking very proud of itself. The smile seemed fake though, like she wasn’t really satisfied with the outcome of something.

Next to the purple one was a bright pink, winged unicorn. Seriously, what am I supposed to call that, a pegacorn? Anyway, the pink one had a mane and tail consisting of the colors blue, pink and yellow that came to an end with a weird curl. This one had a glass sculpture of a heart branded onto her side and wore a tiny tiara. She was beaming from ear to ear at the lizard, obviously overjoyed at the creation of a sculpture in the likenesses of the one on her flank.

Standing close to that one with a hoof around her neck, was a white pony with a mane and tail of two different shades of blue and a shield on his flank. Based on his bulkier build, I assumed that this one was a male and was in a relationship with the pink one, who I assumed to be female. That, or they were really good friends. He was looking very proud of the lizard, like a father looking proud of their son for scoring a touchdown in football.

In the center of the circle, was the large purple and green lizard thing holding a carved glass heart out to the three others. He seemed ready to burst, his chest was jutting out so much. If pride could kill literally, he would spontaneously combust on the spot.

I don't know what, but that glass heart just screamed out to me. I needed to touch that heart. I reached out with my crystal appendage, the sharpened digits seemed to radiate a faint purple glow as I drew nearer.

Just as I had the heart in my grasp, the four of them came to life.

"It's Savidicus!" The purple one screamed.

I immediately backed away in surprise. Had I known that these things would wake up, I'd have continued searching for a way out.

A heroic voice sounded off from behind me, "I'll stop him!"

Swirling around, I saw the white unicorn with a glowing blue sword hoisted above his head, ready to slash downwards. How he even got there was anyone's guess.

"Nonono wait!" I sputtered.

He didn't seem to care for my plea and sword slashed down towards my head. I closed my eyes and waited for the end, resigning myself to this fate.

One, two, three, four seconds passed and I was still thinking about how many seconds had passed.

"A-am I dead?"

AS MUCH AS I WISH YOU WERE, NO. YOUR NOT DEAD. NOW OPEN YOUR EYES YOU PATHETIC MONGREL.

I opened my eyes and saw that I was now in a snowy field with a large, glorious city behind me. Tall, slightly transparent spires gutted from the earth in an attempt to reach the heavens. Even from a distance, I could see it's magnificent light radiate safety and warmth, welcoming all travelers. Turning around, I was met by a far less pleasant sight, the smoke monster.

"Why!? Why are you doing this?! What have I ever done to you?" I cried, my mental state collapsing around me as I submitted myself to the idea that this creature wanted nothing more than to cause me misery.

I NEED YOU TO DO SOMETHING FOR ME.

My mental state stopped shattering and I regained some composure. This creature said it needed me. Not wanted me, needed me. I obviously had a bargaining chip now, but was certain that it would still try to 'persuade' me even if this was true. I needed to learn more about it to gain any advantage.

"Why would I do anything you want me to?"

BECAUSE IN EXCHANGE, I SHALL RELINQUISH OWNERSHIP OF YOU AND SEND YOU BACK TO YOUR OWN MUNDANE  WORLD.

Strike one. It was also learning about me. It knew I reacted negatively to pain, as demonstrated from it's earlier attempts to coerce me into obedience. Now, it was bargaining for it.

"What do you mean, my world? Where am I?"

EQUESTRIA, THE CRYSTAL EMPIRE TO BE PRECISE. MY EMPIRE. I USED TO RULE ON HIGH AS KING! BUT THE CRYSTAL PONIES AND THEY'RE BENEVOLENT  RULERS, THE PRINCESSES, BANISHED ME FROM MY LANDS AND CAST ME INTO SHADOW. WITH YOU ON MY SIDE, I CAN FINALLY TAKE BACK WHAT WAS RIGHTFULLY MINE.

Strike two, using the age old trick of sucking up to gain sympathy for its cause and throwing in a short sob story to garner more. Classic.

"Okay, suppose I did help you, what would I need to do?

CATCHING ON QUICKLY I SEE. I LIKE YOU, OBVIOUSLY INTELLIGENT. AS FOR WHAT TO DO, SIMPLY CAUSE GENERAL UNREST AMONGST THE POPULACE, MAKE THEM HATE THE PRINCESSES. OR AT LEAST GET THEM TO SWEAR FEALTY TO ME. ONCE ENOUGH OF THEM HARBOR HATE FOR THE CURRENT RULERS, I SHALL REGAIN MY PHYSICAL FORM...

Strike three. It revealed unto me it's greatest weakness, no form. I could simply agree to it, walk away and get help from one of these 'Princesses' it talked about. They would have to be pretty powerful in order to get rid of a living cloud of smoke that could simply replace lost limbs with crystals.

"And should I refuse?"

BEING STUCK HERE SEEMS PUNISHMENT ENOUGH... BUT KNOW THIS SLAVE, I WILL BREAK YOU SHOULD YOU DECLINE MY GENEROUS OFFER. ALSO, DON'T GET ANY IDEAS OF ASKING THE PRINCESSES FOR HELP, ONLY I CAN SEND YOU HOME. WELL, AT LEAST IN ONE PIECE...

I paled from underneath the gas mask, my seemingly foolproof plan had a man-sized hole in it. If I had any hope of getting home, I needed to give in to its demands.

Sighing, I asked, "How do you want me to do this?"

I LEAVE THAT TO YOU. PRAY YOU DON'T FAIL ME

With that, the smoke simply vanished from my sight and left me alone in the cold, white plain. I turned around and dejectedly started marching towards the city, planning my next move. I still had many unanswered questions such as how I was going to turn an entire city that looked magnificently prosperous against its rulers. Or what he meant by 'crystal ponies'. About what sort of challenges I might face. Or if I left the water running in my sink back home. Well, the only way to answer any of these questions was to head towards civilization and hope for the best.