Illuminating Aegis: Tales of the Changeling King

Nikolaus frowned a little as he strode through the halls of the castle, it pained him to see others stripped of their desires... for such chaos was the spice of life... as it was, he needed obedient soldiers. Each griffon, male or female hadn't mattered at the time, who was in the Griffonian military received personal training under the Darksider to handle the blaster weapons he had local smiths and scientists engineering. He scowled a little as he thought about the weapons, "Such random and clumsy pieces of hardware..." he looked to his saber, "... only someone who is Force-Sensitive though would be able to wield such a blade as deftly as I can..." He took a deep breath and sighed.

He stopped as he noticed a small... token... object on the floor in front of him. Using the Force he brought it up to his hands. As he turned it over he gave a small huff of curiosity as he heard the summoning-object's message play for him. "A fellow Dungeon Master... This may be worth taking a look into..." He turned the flat heart over in his claw a few times. "But for a later time..." He muttered as he stowed the token, letting his robe flow a little ominously as he continued down the hall to meet with his princess.

Opening the door to her chambers he smiled as he noticed that she had yet to get up for the day. "Training begins now..." He mentally chuckled as he extended a claw out to lift her off the bed without waking her. The faucet in her private bathroom was turned on for about a minute before turning off again with a small ball of water floating out of the open doorway as evidence of why the sink had turned on in the first place. The blanket that was covering fell away to reveal her naked form, which forced Nick to use a bit of willpower to keep himself from laughing, before the sphere of water rocketed towards the sleeping griffon, dousing her in cold water.

Lorna gave an undignified squawk of surprise as the ice-cold water splashed onto her bare stomach. After a bit of spluttering and flailing she noticed the slightly-smirking Darksider that she married. "What the hell did you do that for?!" She shouted as she tried to get over to him, only to notice she was suspended in that same telekinesis that those Equestrian ponies seemed to use.

"Training begins today... Your first lesson is simple... learn to sense The Force." He replies with a smirk as he drops her on the bed. "Get dried off and get ready for training."

|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|

Nikolaus watched idly as Lorna sat cross-legged in the garden, scrunching her face up while trying to focus. “You need to focus while relaxing Lorna…”

“You keep telling me that but it makes no damn sense!” The princess snapped as she opened one eye to glare at him.

“When you relax, you can feel The Force… when you feel the force you can focus on it, relax and you’ll be able to feel The Force.” Nikolaus explained as he circled around her, pulling out the token he found earlier. “Take a look at this token for instance…” He started, gaining the griffon’s attention. “... it radiates the Dark Side, let your mind wander a little… bring it towards the token.”

Lorna shivered a little as she tried doing as he asked, closing her eyes and suddenly feeling a small cold feeling emanating from the object in his hand. “I… I can feel it... “

“Good… for now you will practice the Sense discipline, once you are competent with that we will move onto the next discipline.” He lectured as he makes his way over to a free spot in the garden. “I will show an example of the Alter discipline.”

Wisely, Lorna decided to move back as she watched her husband send electricity through his arms and into the token before it began to float into the air and radiate the Dark Side a bit more.

The ground cracked and split open into a seemingly bottomless pit as four large crystal pillars rose up around it. Soon two quadrupedal ponies in black skeletal-looking armor came out followed by a giant monster with sharp teeth and black, scaly hide. It wore some tattered pants and had large hooks and chains on its belt. Lastly was a fox with nine tails. That was the last one before the hole in the ground closed up without leaving a mark.

“Hello.” The fox said as she looked around but stopped on Nikolaus. “Oh, a fellow darkness user. Nice to make your acquaintance, my name is Rin.”

The dark-colored griffon nodded before giving a slight bow. “It is good to meet you Rin, my name is Nikolaus, though you may call me Nick. It is also a pleasure to know that there are other Dungeon Masters out in this multiverse.” He greets with a small smirk. He steps to the side a little to show the brown-colored female griffon next to him. “This is my wife… Princess Lorna.”

The darksider apprentice bowed a little and smiled. “Hello.” She says quickly before straightening herself.

Nikolaus gestured to the others that had emerged with the fox. “Who might they be?”

“The ponies are my bodyguards Swift and Unyielding Blade. They are strong warriors, trained since they were tiny tots. The big guy’s name is Table Top, a corpse collector I made to find me large dead bodies for my necromancy as well as fight.” She said as she gestured to each one. The corpse collector looked around disappointedly.

“This looks quiet. Does this mean we aren’t here to fight?” He asked with a slightly depressed tone.

Nick frowned a little at the mention of necromancy, though his small smirk returned shortly afterwards. “Sadly, this isn’t a time to fight. I simply wished to speak with the Displaced that had created the first activated Displaced token in this world.” He explained sweetly. “If we can reach an arrangement then it is quite possible that you will be able to join in battle.” The giant undead smiled at this.

“Well I’m here now so what would you like to talk about?” Rin asked.

“One thing that I would be interested in knowing would be what sort of mission types you tend to assign those that have your token.” He says with a musing tone.

“So far I only summoned other displaced if I needed immediate help or for a party. Well there was this one time to play a little D&D. My power as a Dungeon Keeper means I have minions including a large amount of the mindless and soulless undead like skeletons and flesh golems just in case I run into a problem that would get them killed. It's always good to have sacrificial pawns that are just moving shells to keep the others as safe as you can on the battle field.” Rin answered as she conjured some sofas for them to sit on while they talk.

“Hm, D&D eh…” Nick chuckles. “You’d probably fit right into my group then, we were a group of RPG players before coming to Equestria.” He takes a seat with Lorna and lets an arm wrap around her shoulders. “Perhaps once my friends and the other two displaced on this world come together we can spend a night slaying some dragons and killing princesses before saving the monsters.” He says with a small grin.

“Oh you will like my games. You see I’m skilled at making dark or cursed artifacts and I use this book that works with dreams. The book holder is the DM and can pull dreamers into a unified dream in the book holders imagination so it would be like being sucked into the D&D world. The book even makes a copy of the story created from the game to read later.” Rin said as she summoned a book. “Here is a copy of the game if you want to read it later.” She said as she hands it over.

He takes the book with a curious look before setting it down beside him. “I’ll certainly take a look at it later, I do quite like the way you play your games though… an RTS fan before you arrived to whatever Con that got you transported here?” He asks. “I was a wargame player myself, with Warhammer being my personal favorite.”

“Afraid I haven’t played. I have played many MMOs but mostly I liked RTS games.” She answered.

“On a slightly related note, how familiar are you with Star Wars?” Nick asked as he leaned back on his seat. Lorna decided to get up and move back over to where she was meditating once more.

“I’ve seen all of the movies and played some of the games but didn’t go full fan on it so more than likely I forgot a good deal of it. I was more into fantasy myself.” She said before she looked over at Lorna. “What’s she working on?”

Nick follows her gaze before turning back. “She’s working on the first discipline of The Force… Sense, to be able to do anything you must be able to sense the power that you are working with. She has quite a bit of potential, training is slow though.” He pursed the edges of his beak as he began to rub his chin in thought. “I would believe that at some point I could send apprentices of mine to you for training if you are in combat as much as your larger minion seems to allude to. In my personal experience it’s a fairly good idea to have a lightsaber that can cut through most materials.”

Rin just sighed. “I’ve fought in a few battles including on another world, really sick individuals in that one, all of their troops had soul cages that stole the souls of every innocent they killed and even their own if they fell in battle. As for real experience... I learned a spell that’s used in comic books that will quite literally suck you into the story. I used it to create a board game for training my minions.” She paused with a slightly thoughtful look. “Tell me, have you ever heard of Jumanji?” She questioned before smiling a little. “A friend of mine has already asked if I could make him one so I guess I can make you one as well. You can’t die in the game just get a game over and everything in that forest will attack the players including the immortal hunter Vanpelt.”

“Heard of it…” Nick said as he began to look up. “...Have you had to take control of your world yet?” He asked with a slight frown as his posture seems to switch from curious to ‘slumping onto your bed after a long day of work’.

Rin’s eye twitched at the question. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She said.

“Please forgive princess Rin but she was literally dragged kicking and screaming through her coronation and made a princess against her will. It took a bribe from princess Celestia and princess Luna to get her to talk to them again after they made her do that.” One of Rin’s guards said to him.

“Not like that…” Nick replied as his frown seemed to deepen. He shuffled his shoulders a little before sitting forward. Off to the side, Lorna’s wings seemed to sag a little, indicating she was listening. He took a small breath. “I came to this world… and every bit of it is rotting from the inside out…” He explained as he slowly brought his saber up for them to see, its cross-shape making it look like something a priest would carry around. “...Bureaucracy is poisoning this world as the upper class continue to step on those lower than them.” The darksider began to sit back once more. “It’s going to start with Griffonia… but this world will see an age of strength under me. The first two displaced to this world let it get into the terrible condition that it is in now.”

“I hope bureaumancy isn’t a thing here. I was surprised when I found out about it on my world. It’s the only form of dark magic with a worse rep than necromancy. As for your question no my world is for the most part peaceful. I showed up there before Celestia and Luna were even born and I took advantage of how new they were and taught them a few things. There is discrimination still but the higher ups can’t hurt the lower class. In fact Celly and Lulu somehow managed to set up the law so they must help the lower class to get more wealth and power for themselves. No one goes hungry, economy is good and you will be hard pressed to find an orphanage with more than two orphans in my world. I showed their parents and them how things could be early on so they were able to make the right plans by learning from human mistakes.” She answered with a proud smile.

He gives a shallow nod. “Not all worlds can be so peaceful… Celestia and Luna let their nations go… I wish that the ones in my world thought like the displaced that they are.” He makes a sour face as it seems like he’s about to spit off to the side before he thinks better of it and simply frowns. “...They let their world fall to the exact same problems that their original had.”

“I see...Just out of curiosity how are you planning to take over the world?” Rin asked with a small frown before looking off as if looking at something before opening a portal and letting a new pony in. A blue unicorn in a magician's get up covered in slime.

“You need to get your dog obedience training. Trixie has no interest in being inside her mouth.” She growled angrily as she pointed a hoof at Rin that was dripping with large globs of dog drool.

“Dog?” Nick asked with a raised brow. “As much as I do know that the Kitsune is an immortal trickster that gets more powerful with every tail they grow… How would a canine still keep a dog as a pet?”

“Easily, I feed her, play with her, take care of her and clean up after her. It’s not a question of species but intelligence. Would you like to meet my puppy?” She asked getting an alarmed look from the unicorn.

“no! Not while Trixie is here!” The ice-blue mare shouted with wide eyes before getting a slightly sheepish look. “Oh and Trixie should probably mention that the dog also buried Vinyl.” Trixie said as an afterthought causing Rin to groan.

“Excuse me a moment...” Rin said as she vanished into another portal only to return a little later. “Sorry, you can’t meet her, I had to dig up one of my employees and rub my puppy’s nose in the hole and put her in time out.”

Nick chuckled a little. “It’s not a big deal…” he started before fixing his eyes on Trixie. “I can sense quite a bit of potential with her… are you training her to be a darksider as well?”

Rin shook her head. “No the normal brand. I’m afraid the darkness just isn’t for her. But I am training her. At the moment shes working on focus, Trixie show him how far you are.” Trixie nodded before lighting up her horn. A good chunk of water came over from the fountain before taking the form of a foal and started playing on the ground. “Its a training exercise I invented called elemental puppet. Its just basic telekinesis but you need to concentrate on every moving part and shape to keep it perfect.”

Nikolaus lifted a claw towards the puppet, letting his influence spread over the water slowly to give the mare time to let go. She jerked back in surprise before letting it go and giving him an irritated look.The puppet shudders as he lets his hand drop, allowing him to turn his gaze back to Rin as the puppet started to change. “To answer your earlier question…” He began as the puppet seemed to writhe as the pony began to warp and distort, growing tentacles and spikes… going so far as to become barely a pony anymore. “...I will have the world follow me by choice. Any who won’t follow the Changeling King who emerged on this world will be under my rule. I will lead by example, much as my rival will. He will offer peace by understanding, I will offer peace by strength.”

Eerily, the once pony-like water construct looks at its previous master with an angry glare. It opens its fanged mouth wide as if preparing to lunge before shaking and falling to the ground with a wet splash as the disappearance of the dark energy in the air seemed to lift a previously-unnoticed weight from everyone’s shoulders. “I favored the side of chaos when I played Forty-K.”

Nick gave Trixie a small, pensive look. “Perhaps I could teach her… she certainly does have a bit of potential, but she needs the guiding hand of someone who succeeded in using the Dark Side to be able to pass through all three disciplines unscathed.”

“Trixie will stay with her current teacher.” Trixie said as she scooted closer to Rin, obviously not liking the proposal.

“That is fine for your current training, the offer will remain open should you decide you would like to learn our ways and not fall victim to the more sinister temptations.” Nick replied before turning the edge of his beak up in a smirk. “What did you think of the power you sensed though?”

“It was ok... Trixie guesses. But Trixie still thinks she will stick with princess Rin. Trixie likes her power more.” She replied.

Nick raised a curious, yet entertained, brow as he listened to the mare. The smirk on his face began to fade to a more genuine smile. “What about her power has you drawn to it? So far as I can tell she and I both use the same, if not similar, sources for our power.”

“You both use darkness but your power is more focused on destruction and domination as far as Trixie can detect. Though Rin has such powers they are more focused on protecting and healing. Trixie once witnessed Rin get disemboweled and she was able to put herself back together and heal herself without leaving a mark. She learned those skills in necromancy to help others. Its darkness yes but it’s the way she uses it that tells Trixie what kind of pon-… person she is and what kind of power she can offer. Trixie doesn't want power to destroy, she wants power to create and to mend and to be loved for it.” Trixie answered with conviction.

Nick began to chuckle as he started to stand. Not a harsh or evil chuckle… but a happy one, one that seemed… so much lighter than the tone the meeting of super powers had taken. “Rin, your apprentice may be better learned in the discipline of Sense than I first thought, while she does lack in Alter, she has a good idea for what she wants.” His chuckles slowly began to die down as he started walking over to the unicorn mare. “The thing is… true manipulation of the Dark Side… as I’m sure your teacher will tell you… Is as much about understanding as it is control.”

He starts to pace in front of them, noticing that Lorna had subtly moved her position so that she could watch them while acting like she was meditating. He took a deep breath. “I hope you guys like learning… this could take a while…” He says to the extras that had been brought in. “If not I could send for something you could all eat or enjoy while I speak with Rin and miss Trixie.” He offers.

             The two knights shook their heads while one spoke. “Not while on duty.”

The corpse collector also shook his head. “Don’t eat, I’m dead. Got my brain eaten by a worm displaced.”

“Fair enough…” Nick replied before turning once more to Trixie. “You see, one who uses The Dark Side must learn a true balance between many things or else fall to the darkness itself.” He starts as he begins pacing again. “You wish to heal, but to learn to heal you must also know how to harm… you need to understand how damage is done if you are to learn how it can be reversed.” He looks over to Rin. “With your example earlier Trixie, it would be a small trifle to assume that Rin here knows how to easily cause such a wound… am I correct?” he asks Rin.

            “Trixie’s point still stands. She will stay with Rin. But what of you? Trixie knows you can disembowel but do you hold the reverse knowledge?” Trixie countered. She was right up leaning next to Rin now.

Nick gave a light laugh. “Of course, an understanding of The Force allows one to heal as much as they can harm… with enough will a very powerful practitioner could reverse death itself... “ He frowns and starts to grimace a little as he gets to the end. “Though… to bring someone back from the dead after they have been deceased for quite some time angers The Force… it is blasphemy for the light and dark side… Recently dead may be saved if you are lucky, but the backlash from the long-dead could kill you as a replacement.” He lets out a sigh as he looks to the sky again. “you say that I focus on control and destruction… yet it is only one small facet that you have seen… Within this very city I have simply opened my embrace to those who would like to be strong, the soldiers you can see around the castle welcomed my power to help bring them into a new, true, golden age… I can heal as well, if not better, than any tribal shaman or hospital in this kingdom. Yet who am I to say who should and should not be saved? When given power, responsibility and patience become as key as any other facet of study. Focusing on one element leaves you with with too many weaknesses. To become a darksider, you must balance all the disciplines. Your power would come from the force of your emotions… but you would have to learn how to sense what was right for the situation, control your emotions and alter the world around you to make it suit your needs.”

“Yes, I am powerful when it comes to control and destruction… but I do not focus solely on those two traits.”

            “Weren't you paying attention? Rin isn’t teaching Trixie darkness. Trixie doesn’t want darkness. Trixie is happy with the everyday variety she just needs to be taught how to master it. And even if Trixie did your speech just proves that Rin also knows the opposite side to get where she is so there will be no need to go to you and leave the place she has now.” Trixie said with a scowl.

Nick sighed. “Oh well… at least your world has a dungeon master to keep it in line eventually. I never stated that you would have to leave Rin’s service, simply that if you were curious, it would take dedication and that I have a spot welcome for visitors.” He turned to Rin with a slight chuckle. “Sorry about the speech though, it’s not often I get to talk to others about the power that I have to control… It gets to be a bit much at times.” He apologized. “Hopefully soon my old friends will be able to converse with me again.”

“Its ok, I’m happy with Trixie’s choice when tempted. I’m proud of how far she has come. When she first showed up she probably would have dived head first into darkness without a thought and you know how that would have turned out.” Rin said as she patted Trixie on the back.

“Then it’s quite possible that she may want to speak with my friend Phillip… although these days he tends to go by Namiro.” Nick offered. “He’s currently helping feed a changeling hive and is learning to become truly one with The Force without needing to die first.”

The griffon princess slowly walked over with a slightly confused expression. “How… how could you possibly know this?”

“The Force gave me a vision… one that I believe is completely true, it also means that I must head to the Crystal Empire soon.” Nikolaus replied.

Lorna narrowed her eyes a little. “But… The crystal empire is a myth, cooked up by those pony princesses as a way to stroke their own ego.”

“Though she doesn't like how she said it shes right. Such a place can’t exist right?” Trixie asked as she looked up at Rin.

“Actually it’s the next big event to happen in our world so I should make some preparations when we get back.” Rin said as she looked up in thought causing Trixie’s jaw to drop.

Nick gave another lighthearted chuckle. “Don’t be so surprised Trixie, The Dungeon Master is supposed to know at least a little bit of the script ahead of time. That way they can prepare the heroes to meet the villain.” He paused a moment before looking towards the northwest. “It’ll also be the perfect area to find saber crystals once it reappears, I could certainly use a supply for when I start to train acolytes.”

“I must admit I’m a little curious about the physics behind the light saber. Despite similarities I was displaced as a dungeon keeper which has nothing to do with star wars.” Rin said as she scratched her head.

“Fortunately, I have the base design blueprints on me. The sabers themselves can be constructed by anyone, although they are best left to the hands of the Force Sensitive since it takes a certain understanding of The Force to wield one effectively and not risk slicing off a limb.” The dark griffon replied. “There are several parts needed for it; the power cell, the hand grip, an activation plate, a safety, belt ring… a blade length adjuster for models you’d like to switch up the blade size on, although that tends to be more for dueling blades… the emitter matrix, a recharge socket, a setup of lenses that would focus the energy, the power conduit itself and the crystals that would go in the saber. The crystals can be any number from a single crystal to three crystals although you really only need one.” He lists off. “Typically The Force would give a vision to the apprentice about what style of blade they would need for their preferred method of combat.”

“Different worlds run on different rules. It’s not called the force in mine and it doesn't give visions like that unfortunately.” Rin said with a shrug.

“Does your world not have ‘seers’? Nick asked. “Beings who, truthfully or not, claim to see the future through visions and divinations?”

“Oh you misunderstand what I meant is it doesn't give visions on how to make anything. We do get predictions of the future they just need a little deciphering first as they are given in riddles. It makes those who see it work for each one.” Rin answered.

“Well, either way… To create a saber, one would have to meditate with the crystals they would like to use, tuning themselves and the crystals with their source of power. This can be anywhere from three days to a whole month spent in meditiation, though the vision is usually caused by the unwavering focus.” Nick explained as he sat back down on the couch he had sat on earlier, letting his wing out to embrace the princess that he had married as she sat down with a frustrated sigh.

“Are you guys done yet? I don’t think I even paid this much attention in the private courses my father was paying for while I was growing up…” The female griffon groaned.

Nick laughed a little. “In time you might get to be as talkative as us… oh well…” He sighs before turning to Rin. “Once I finally begin training Acolytes I may seek to send them to you for combat experience… would you have any problems with that?”

“Not so long as you don’t send me any troubled students. I’m afraid I don’t have time for those between being a dungeon keeper and an Equestrian princess. But I am working on a little project that might work well with that. I’m calling it The Arcade and it uses the comic book magic I mentioned I used to create Jumanji on a larger scale. I’m trying to cram as many environments and enemies to make it like the X-men’s danger room so there is something to work on everything. Though admittedly it will take some time to build such a thing.” Rin sighed as her shoulders slumped.

“Of course, I would expect nothing less than perfect discipline from my Acolytes once they are able to arrive. We will have to end our chat here though, as there is some news coming in from one of my border agents, it appears that Luna has found out about my friend. Perhaps we could arrange a playdate between him and Trixie the next time you’re in town?” Nick chuckled.

“I’m sure that would be nice. But before you send any of your Acolytes my way make sure they don't take the fact that my home is full of the undead negatively and do anything negative. Yes, I even have undead in my employ even older than the princesses but they came about naturally. I attracted ghosts and vampires that already existed in the land of the living and none of them have ever seen the afterlife by their own will. I help the ones that get trapped move on and employ the ones that want to stay.” Rin said in a lecturing tone.

Nick waved a claw. “Thats fine, as long as you’re not trying to resurrect someone then my acolytes will simply follow orders. They may not get along well with the undead you have but they won’t be hostile.” He explained as the portal began energizing to life once more.

With a nod rin shouted out. “Alright, it’s time to go home.” Rin called out causing the corpse collector to groan as he lifted himself up and then hopped into the hole in the floor followed by Trixie, Rin and finally the two knights before the hole in the ground sealed shut leaving no sign that it had ever been there.

Nick took a deep breath as he got up from the seat he was in. “Oh darn… I forgot to give her a holocron… oh well, looks like she’ll have to get the saber blueprints next time.” He laughed as he flared his wings, getting his bride to run her claws across the broad feathers. He shivered a little before growling playfully. “In a bit love… you still have a bit more training to do after lunch.”