The Equestrian Double Gamble

~FC~

I woke up from a rather bad dream in cold sweat. It was a memory I had of a rather rattling experience when I was human, a car crash to be specific. I’d rather not retell the experience... I looked down at myself and saw the markings the experience had left, an emotionally painful reminder. I had a blood red line going diagonally across my torso, from my left shoulder down to my right hip, and another going across my waist, these being caused by the seatbelt saving my life, but could have caused some internal damage because I didn’t have a lot of meat on my bones. That was the thing about me when I was human, I used to be six feet tall but I was 148 pounds, underweight for that height. I was kind of a skeleton with skin back then. I looked at my right foreleg and it was covered in cuts from the airbag going off. Both of my knees were bruised up because they had hit the dash underneath the wheel.

I got up and went to the bathroom, because I needed a shower to get rid of the pain I was feeling. The markings were not scars, but it seemed that reliving that memory had caused some sort of flesh memory to happen. I didn’t want to wake up Summer, so one of the precautions I had took was putting a ward on the walls of our rooms that would not only block out sound. I just realized I didn’t know any anti-emotional wards, so she would probably be feeling the fear and pain I felt and suffering from Negative Emotion Poisoning. Yeah, I have read my friend’s stories, and since we were every instance of our characters, that probably meant NEP was real too.

Of course she came in shortly after, clearly concerned for me. “FC? What’s wrong?” she asked, getting straight to the point.

“Car crash memory came up in my dream. Remember when I told you about it? Well, apparently flesh memory is a thing, because the pain and wounds I received that day came back. I am just surprised Luna didn’t sense it in the dreamscape.” I said, anxiety clearly in my voice. I guess that was one thing about me, I don’t tend to get desensitized to things, except sour foods.  I wasn’t desensitized to violence, rape, or other inhumane actions.  I usually got sick seeing some of the newer Mortal Kombat fatalities and brutalities. Summer is lucky in that regard… but I’m getting off track.

Summer seemed a bit confused about the flesh memory thing, but she understood about Luna not interfering.

“She probably prioritized many other ponies over us. Like Twilight, who probably got a nightmare about changelings after seeing me.” She replied. Personally I thought Twilight would be having a nightmare about quesadillas, considering the fact she is afraid of how cheesy they are. Though I was a little surprised she was still in disguise… I thought by now she would be Magic Nulled by NEP.

“I thought you wouldn’t be in disguise anymore because of NEP?” I said as I came out of the shower, the wounds still there. Hopefully, she wouldn’t make any innuendos about the shower thing.

“I’m a Queen, I’ve got a much higher tolerance.” Summer replied. That bit of info was surprising to me, because I didn’t know about the Queen thing. Must have been from the RP we were in once, as I remembered she was changeling royalty in that one.

“Huh, makes sense actually. I feel like I could use a hug right now.” I said, telling the truth. Usually simple things like hugs helped me feel better.

Summer smiled and sprung like a cat towards me, wrapping me up into a tight hug. “Here you go!” I wrapped my forelegs around Summer, happy for the embrace. Another thing about me is my respect of the female gender. Most guys would have used this hug as an opportunity to grab a girl’s butt. Seriously, I respect people’s boundaries, and I always hated the jock types. I felt something happening to my body. The pain was going away and I looked down, and the wounds were closing up. My healing factor didn’t work before on these, so I guess this hug had somehow healed me.

“Um, Summer, do you feel drained at all? Because I just healed from hugging you, and I don’t know if it was empathy or caring being used.” I asked Summer, worried that I may be hurting my friend somehow.

“I feel fine… Why should I be worried though? You healed.” she said, completely shrugging it off.

“Okay, then I should probably let up on worrying. I think today we might need to get some furniture, and since the kitchen isn’t quite set up, why don’t we go down to Sugarcube Corner for breakfast.” I said, really wanting cinnamon rolls. Mmm, cinnamon rolls…

“Sure, let’s go.” Summer agreed.

I left the bathroom so Summer could take her shower. Like I said, I was not going to take advantage of the situation. Rather than use it though, she just seemed to completely ignore the shower’s existence. It confused me for a moment, before she was just consumed by a raging fire for a full three seconds. Out of it came Summer wearing a Janitor’s uniform with a sweep and dustpan, sweeping ashes off the floor where she stood.

“What the heck did you do?” I asked, surprised at what I just witnessed.

“Oh, I just burned the grime off. Pretty much bypassed the need for a shower.” she casually replied as she dumped the ash into the trash.

“I did not expect that. I think you might be slightly corrupting my mind, considering some of the things you could have used the shower for other things. And before you ask, I was talking about sex in the shower type stuff. There were a lot of those in ‘Shifting Melodies’.” I simply said.

“Oh. So you’re saying you want to have sex in the shower?” She asked with… I dearly hoped that confusion was fake.

“No, but considering all the stuff I have read in your stories, I thought you would have at least had that thought of it happening. And I have too much respect for you as my friend, and having sex would just make things...awkward later.” I said, with a little bit of embarrassment.

“Awkward? Nah… Maybe weird, and good for shocking ponies with random facts, but I hardly think it would be awkward.” She replied with hardly a shred of shame. That was one thing I definitely knew about Summer, she had no shame when it came to that kind of stuff. I guess me and her were different when it came to things, covering each other weaknesses, but we still had some things in common.

“That is one thing about all those TV shows that indicate sexual relations, they never really show the more real world stuff. We will cross that bridge when we come to it, trying to plan things out ahead of time don’t often work out for me.” I simply said, as I left the house, Summer following me.

“Meh. I don’t really watch TV shows. At least nothing I don’t end up catching my mom watching. I have taken a liking to Lucifer though.” Summer contemplatively rambled.

“The shows that I watch with my parents are Bones, NCIS, NCIS Los Angeles, NCIS New Orleans, Rizzoli and Isles, Monk, and my personal favorite, Castle.” I said. My parents definitely liked crime fighting shows.

“Ah. They might have liked Lucifer then. Basically the Devil himself falling in love with a cop, and the two going and solving cases together.” Summer said with a chuckle.

“I don’t think they would have liked it. All these shows still had a lot of facts in them so they had none of the parts of the supernatural in them. Heck, Castle had two episodes, both dealing with fandoms based around monsters. One episode dealing with werewolves and vampires, and no, this wasn’t the Twilight fandom, and the other one dealing with a zombie fandom. Heck, I didn’t even know there was a drug that caused you to go into a zombie mindstate.” I replied.

“The only supernatural parts of it is Lucifer passively influencing people to tell him the truth, the way Lucifer punishes those he deems guilty and the occasional conflict with his angel brother.” Summer argued. “...At least as far as I know.”

“Personally, I would like it, but my parents still wouldn’t. I guess that was one thing that set me apart.” We arrived at Sugarcube Corner, and I could smell the breakfast goods inside.

Summer sniffed the air deeply, but for a different reason. “Mmmmmm…. So much happiness… And the Cake’s pride definitely helps.” she practically moaned in delight.

“Let’s just hope you don’t have an orgasm in the middle of the shop, that might be hard to explain the liquids on the floor.” I said jokingly to Summer.

“I dunno, I might have a blast watching them blush.” Summer joked back with a big grin. Sure, I normally wouldn’t joke about this with Summer, but the fact we were going to be roommates changed that. I was just worried when spring rolled around, considering that would be considered mating season, and the fact that mares far outnumbered stallions in Ponyville. I walked in, putting the thought to the back of my head, going up to Pinkie Pie at the counter.

“Hey Pinkie, got anything good for breakfast food, like cinnamon rolls?” I asked.

“Yepperooni. And considering how much you ate yesterday, I decided to make something for you.” With that, Pinkie Pie pulled out a cinnamon roll the size of a pie. It looked like it had three flavor icing, made up of standard, peanut butter, and chocolate. “I call it the Sweet Rising.”

Part of me went primal, because my teeth went full draconic, and my tongue went full out, being a good foot and a half out of my mouth and looking like something that would definitely belong to a dragon or Nightmare Foxy. I expected Summer to make an innuendo about my tongue, considering all the fetishes she has. But I could definitely tell that many ponies were unnerved by my tongue and teeth, mostly from instinctual fear of predators.

Summer started with a bit of fear clear in her eyes… but yet she spoke up with a joke nonetheless. “Wow. I didn’t think anyone I knew would spend so much to replace all their teeth with jewels. I’m surprised a bat pony hasn’t tried stealing them.”

I snapped back to reality. “Yeah, I guess I forgot to mention my dialcium skeleton.”

“Wait, what’s dialcium?” Pinkie Pie asked. I gladly answered her question.

“Dialcium is an organic compound of carbon and calcium. Basically, I have a much higher concentration of carbon in my bones, enough to the point it has crystallized into diamond. Basically it would take a lot of force to break any bones or teeth.” I explained.

“So…. basically a tougher version of Wolverine. I wonder if a High Frequency blade can cut through it…” Summer thought out loud.

“I say it most likely would.” I said before turning back to Pinkie Pie. I took out an emerald and gave it to Pinkie. I got the Sweet Rising and sat down at a nearby table, waiting for Summer to get her food. I remembered that Summer didn’t have a way to pay, so I went back so I could help pay for her food.

“I think I’ll have the happiest treat you have. And please, if you can, could you add Pride?” Summer requested. With that, Pinkie went back into the kitchen and quickly made Summer a chocolate muffin with strawberry bits in it and a slightly blue drink, which Pinkie called Liquid Pride. I silently chuckled at that. It was probably made with Pinkie’s tears of pride. I helped pay for her food and we went back to the table. I went face first into my Sweet Rising, making the same sound of Heavy eating a Sandvich. Oh my god, it was so delicious!

“Holy fuck, these salty tears…” Summer recoiled from the glass she just took a sip from… before slumping over, looking slightly out of it.

“Um, Summer, are you alright?” I asked as I put my claw over the glass, my claw glowing blue as I worked some elemental water magic to remove the salt. All the salt became a small salt cube on the end of my claw. I had removed all the salt and took the cube off my claw and set it on the table. As I did though, I remembered something about horses and Salt... Summer must have just gotten slightly buzzed from it like drinking alcohol.

Summer’s eyes widened back to normal as she saw that, and turned to me. “Holy shit, Deja vu. I had a dream about this a few weeks ago… It was shortly followed by-”

Twilight burst into the restaurant. I wondered what could have caused such a violent outburst from the Princess of Friendship. I hoped it wasn’t Discord trolling her again.

“Summer, FC! I think one of those threats of yours is attacking!” She shouted. Summer stood up right away.

“Lemme guess, a black skeleton that looks like it’s glitching in and out of reality?” Summer asked. Twilight nodded, looking like she wanted to question how Summer knew, but it was clear she didn’t have time.

“It… It took control of Rainbow with these weird blue strings. It almost got me too.” She replied.

“Oh come on! I was hoping to get furniture for the house today, and Error!Sans has to attack!” I yelled before opening up my mouth and grabbing the rest of my food with my tongue before pulling it into my mouth. “Seriously, we got attacked in the middle of breakfast. Summer, you have a lot to tell me why Error!Sans is here.”

“Two possibilities. Either the real Displaced Error Sans took notice of this timeline, or the one my coauthor and I planned for Time Vigilante manifested. We’ll have to see if Flowey’s attached to him or not though.” Summer replied as she drew Crescent Rose. I sighed, my frustration already rising. I just hoped it was the second option, because I knew Error!Sans usually only paid attention to Undertale timelines, since he didn’t like the AUs like Underswap and Underfell. Today was going to be a long day.

~Summer~

I kept my breath steady as I followed Twilight. I really, seriously hoped it wasn’t the Displaced Error Sans. I doubted he would take kindly to the deal I made… It’s actively producing Glitches after all. He’s been having enough trouble dealing with them in his own Equestria, he doesn’t need to deal with my problems too. I sighed, thanking Marx that I saw Flowey’s vines curled in and around the glitching skeleton we found.

“Sweet mercy, it’s Scenario B! Okay, that means we can kill it!” I cheered. Error Sans chuckled with that glitchy voice of his.

“Y-y-y-you know you can’t w-w-w-win, Summer. Eve-ve-ven as strong as strong as you ar-r-r-re here, even with that dr-dr-dr-dragon boy with you, you know I-I-I-I’m just too strong.” he taunted.

“Sorry, bud. But not even I know the extent of FC’s power. I might have planned to beat you with a lucky shot in my story, but this fight’s gonna be pure skill.” I taunted right back. I saw FC walk out of Sugarcube Corner, clearly sensing his frustration of how we had to fight something this early in the morning.

“Let’s get this over with. Couldn’t you have waited until we have finished with breakfast first.” FC said.

Error Sans chuckled and shrugged. The Flowey attached to him answered. “Sorry, Scaley Trashbag. We have our own schedule.” he taunted with the Demonic face.

“Fuck you, you Rafflesia smelling, shit talking, patricidal, weed variety, spawn of a treefyd.” FC said. I saw that Flowey was speechless. I didn’t even know that FC could name call like the Sniper from TF2. Then Flowey laughed.

“Nice! Too bad I can’t care. I hope you’re proud of that rant, because it’s the last one you’re going to have!” He laughed. Error Sans raised a hand with blue strings attached to each finger, all of them going straight up.

“Hey Summer, are these guys forged from Nightmare Fragments?” FC asked.

“NOTIMETOTALK!” I replied as I leaped to the side. Rainbow Dash landed right where I had just been standing.

“Just answer yes or no.” FC said as he grabbed Rainbow Dash, trying to knock her out. This wasn’t like how he usually was. I guess he wasn’t going to drag this fight out like he normally did.

“Yes, he is.” I replied. “But this Nightmare’s just a Glitch.”

“Hm, so should I let Night Terror out, or should I do it some other way?” FC asked himself as he laid Rainbow down after knocking her unconscious.  He then proceeded to cut the strings attached to her.

Error Sans chuckled. “Welp. It was worth a try. I knew-ew-ew-ew she wouldn’t last though-ough-ough-ough-ough.” He then looked at me, twisting his hand slightly. “But, she-e-e-e wasn’t exactly my trump card.” FC tensed at that, and I could tell what he was thinking without using a mental connection. That was one good thing about FC, he was extremely loyal to his friends, but that also kind of made him quick to react. I didn’t even see him move and he had already got his claw around Error’s throat, even if it wouldn’t do that much good since he was a skeleton.

“If you plan on using my friend against me, I swear I won’t kill you, but I will make you wish you were dead. Personally, killing someone doesn’t make them learn lessons.” All the kindness had left FC’s voice, being replaced with something sadistic and angry.

Error Sans just grinned wider. “I’d like to see you try.” He stated simply. Before FC could even twitch, Error had glitched out of sight. In a frenzied panic, I tried to look around and find him before he could get his strings on me, but before I could find him, I felt my every muscle lock up.

“...Shit.”

Then something exploded. The energies felt very dark, darker than anything. I looked and saw FC. He was wrapped in dark energy, but it didn’t feel like it. It felt old, older than Celestia.  It felt...Eldritch.

~FC~

I had lost it when Error got his strings around Summer. I had already lost one changeling friend before. I remembered how Shade had been taken by something dark, and I could do nothing about it. Hence the reason why I had FC become friends with the Eldritch. I was not about to lose another friend to something that I couldn’t stop. Error was like Cthulhu, he wasn’t supposed to be killed, but I held true to my promise. The Eldritch energy had melted off my flesh, but I didn’t feel the pain. My diamond blue bones had turned to pure void black. My eyes went from the same color to ender pearl green.

Before Error could teleport out of my grasp, I locked his ability to teleport, use his strings, bones, and gaster blasters. Or so I thought… A glitch portal opened behind him, and he glitched behind it, making it close behind him. His strings vanished from plain sight then, but Summer was still under his control. The anger inside me grew even more. I had enough of this fucking bullshit! Personally, this guy was supposed to be later on. We couldn’t even get properly settled down without fighting some big baddie. Let’s see how well he controls while missing an arm! But first, I had to get Summer to safety first.

==I told you not to mess with my friend!== I said in Eldritch tongue, my voice reverberating with an otherworldly quality. My breath wasted precious time though, and he’d forced Summer to take advantage of that. A dome of ice surrounded me, and faded images of Summer came from the walls to strike at me, each image dealing physical strikes against me in rapid succession.

But I didn’t even flinch or feel pain. I needed to end this quickly, otherwise I could kiss my sense of self goodbye. This form actually ate away at me, and if I used this form too long, all that would be left would be an unstoppable creature of Eldritch Energy. Basically Cthulhu and Yog Sothoth unstoppable. This form was too risky of a gamble, basically a last ditch effort. I couldn’t bring myself to hurt Summer though, but this was going on too long. I ended Eldritch form, going back to normal. I decided to do the only thing I could. I went meat shield. I took all the hits, not even bothering the dodge them. I just gave up. I didn’t want to release a monster into this world, but I couldn’t bring myself to hurt Summer.

“You win Error. I didn’t want to release the monster of Eldritch form on this place, but I can’t bring myself to hurt my friend. But that doesn’t mean someone else can’t.”

I heard Night Terror ask.