With a flash of light, Starlight suddenly found herself standing on solid ground; a sensation that she hadn’t felt since she left the Friendship Castle. It’s felt like forever since then.
Opening her eyes, the familiar sight of her soundly beating Fuck Box Geoff at Golden Axe, was replaced with a sight that she had recently come to associate with pure, unadulterated terror and the associated image of her greatest mistake. A sight that she never thought she would ever actually see again: a big, grey, puffy face, which was right in front of her own, taking up her whole view, with those plain, unblinking eyes that felt like they were staring into her very soul.
“Aaaaggghhhh!” She screamed as she stumbled back a few steps, in shock. “D-Dumplin?” She stuttered out. Taking the time to look around at where she was more closely, she seemed to be in some sort of futuristic city, with what looked like an impossibly long dragon looping around it. Still confused, she asked, “Where am I? What’s going on? How did I get her?”
“Meh,” the Demon God said, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I was bored, and Xenoverse 2 isn’t out for another month. Say, you got any techniques that I could learn from you?”
“Uhhmm, I’m not… sure.” She didn’t quite know how to respond to that. However, before she could finish, the entire area suddenly started shaking, like there was an earthquake was going on.
“Huh, that’s weird,” Dumplin spoke up, not looking concerned in the least. “Is my cousin Bork visiting?”
“Dumplin!” The two of them suddenly heard Trunks’ voice. Looking over in the direction that they heard him, noticing several Time Patrollers running around in a panic, they saw Trunks running towards them, waving at Dumplin with one hand to get his attention, through the sea of panicking (and useless) Time Patrollers, with a scroll in his other hand, which was currently emanating wisps of dark energy.
“You need to take a look at this,” Trunks said upon reaching him, urgency in his voice, holding the scroll out towards him to take a look.
Simply taking the scroll in hand, Dumplin unfurled it to see what was going on, and his eyes immediately widened at what he saw.
The scroll’s vision showed a bombed-out wasteland, where everything was a dead-looking brown and grey, with no green in sight. There were two figures standing across from each other. The first was an umber skinned man, with a bleached, twisty moustache and beard combo. He wore a loincloth around his waist, with two pieces of metal welded on to his shoulders. He also had a pair of wraparound goggles covering his eyes, a tricorn hat on his head, and what looked like the claw of a ferocious animal on his right hand.
The one standing across from him was a female, dressed in a black suit and matching hat. At her side, she held a small, black firearm in her right hand. She was also radiating a dark aura, and her eyes were glowing red. For several seconds, the two of them simply stared back at each other in silence until the woman’s stoic expression turned into a sadistic smile.
The man seemed confused at this sudden change, and in that split second of confusion, the cloaked female suddenly disappeared from where she stood and reappeared behind him. She quickly raised her firearm up and fired, but the man had just enough time to spin around and knock against her with his claw weapon. The collision caused the gun to dip slightly, and the bullet merely grazed his cheek. However, the woman didn’t waste any time as she then quickly grabbed him with her other arm, and with a surprising amount of strength for her size, threw him over her shoulder. Spinning around quickly, she then shot a single bullet at him, and before it impacted, she teleported again.
The barbarian man landed on his two feet, and before the bullet hit him, he supposedly cut it out of the air with a claw attack at high speed. However, the second he did this, the shrouded woman appeared behind him once again, grabbed his right arm to hold him back, and then placed her gun squarely against his back and fired point blank.
The bullet ripped right through his chest, and the force of the attack knocked him forward. As he was sent flying, several weapons fell out of him, including a small handgun, a sword, and even a large missile launcher. Jumping forward quickly after him, the woman grabbed the handgun out of the air, replacing the gun that she was already using. She then planted a hard kick against his back, which knocked him even further forward, on to his face.
“Hey Blue,” she said, before she again teleported and appeared right in front of him. As the man picked his head up, he only had enough time to see the woman place the gun to his forehead. “Consider this a divorce.” She then pulled the trigger.
The large calibre of the bullet going off so close to its target caused the man’s head to explode into viscera, and with the missing weight at the top, his body collapsed on to the ground, dead. With her opponent dead, the woman, through the dark aura and glowing red eyes, simply smirked to herself.
Seeing the events in the scroll take place, Dumplin’s mouth hung open as he couldn’t believe what he just saw. “That’s impossible. The Captain’s not supposed to die yet.” Quickly, his shock started to dissipate, being replaced with anger, as he gripped the edges of the scroll tightly. “That’s it; somebody’s taking a trip to the Fuck Box, and I…” However, before he could finish speaking, he suddenly felt a tingling sensation, starting in his hands and quickly spread all over his body. The next thing he noticed was that the scroll had slipped from his grasp, falling to the floor with a loud clang.
“What the…” was all he managed to get out before he realised that his hand – and entire body – had become see-through. “What’s going on?” He said quietly, with Starlight and Trunks simply staring back him, just as confused, although Trunks seemed to notice something familiar about how he looked right now. “What the…” Dumplin screamed out, but before he could finish, he suddenly disappeared in a flash of light.
“Dumplin!” Trunks called, with his hand outstretched towards the spot the Demon God had stood just a moment ago. With his mouth hanging open in confusion, he slowly lowered it again.
Starlight stared at the spot where Dumplin had disappeared also, just as confused. She wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about it, though, since Dumplin was the one who ruined her plans, though with everything that was happening and judging by their reactions and what was going on at the moment, this could possibly be much worse than she thought. Turning towards Trunks, she asked, “What just happened?”
Trunks turned to face her after he kneeled down and picked up the Scroll of Eternity, with a worried look on his face. Glancing at the scroll in his hand for a moment, which was still emanating dark wisps, he tried to organise his jumbled thoughts into a proper response. “This is bad.” He started. “Really bad. Captain Ravager is the progenitor of the Dumple Legacy, of which Dumplin is the last and greatest.” He explained. He then tightened his hand into a fist. “But if someone messed with time and killed him before he could start it, then Dumplin would never exist.” He swallowed a lump in his throat before he continued. “… and if Dumplin never existed, and never joined the Time Patrol and helped us out so much, then…” The rumbling around them suddenly intensified, though Trunks barely seemed to notice, apparently thinking about something much worse. He then looked up. “Time itself would collapse.” He exclaimed.
Starlight suddenly took a step back, though she didn’t know if it was because of the rumbling or in shock.
Looking down, Trunks grit his teeth in irritation. “But I don’t understand. Who would be capable of doing…” However, his thoughts were cut off by the sound of a soft, maniacal laughter coming from directly above him. His eyes suddenly snapped open as he recognised the laugh. Slowly turning his head around and looking up, his pupil’s shrank at the sight of the pale white, blue clothed, red haired, familiar figure above him, with an eerily calm laughter, which continued to rise in volume.
“Surprise, bitch. Bet you thought you’d seen the last of me!” The figure announced.
“D-Demigra?” Trunks uttered in shock, unconsciously taking a step backwards. “T-that’s impossible. Dumplin destroyed you,” he tried to reason.
Demigra held a completely calm expression on his face as he responded. “Yes, you’re right. It’s strange,” he continued as he lifted his left hand up to his face as he spoke, while his right held his staff. “As a God, up until the moment where I was destroyed, I never even considered the possibility that I would be defeated. In that split second, however, I sent time energy back in time to interfere with history.” He then grinned even more maliciously as he tightened his free hand into a fist. “If I could kill Captain Richard Ravager III before he began the Dumple Legacy, then it would erase Dumplin from history, and he wouldn’t be around to interfere with my plans.” He then threw his arms out at his sides. “There can be only one Demon God – and it is Demigra!”
Trunks bit down hard and tightened his grip in response. When he did so, his attention was brought back to the scroll in his grasp. Looking back at it now, the dark wisps emanating from it showing a distortion in history that shouldn’t be, he knew what he had to do; there was no other option.
Quickly putting on a look of determination, he turned towards Starlight Glimmer and held it out towards her. “Take the scroll; go back in time and save the Captain! I’ll stay here and hold off Demigra!”
Starlight was a bit taken aback by his request. From what she gathered from what was going on, it was certainly asking a lot. If she went back and saved this guy from the cloaked woman, then that would mean that Dumplin would come back. If she didn’t, however, and she did nothing, then Dumplin would never exist and wouldn’t around to interfere with her plans… but would also cause the end of time itself. She didn’t want that. For her last plan, she only wanted to get back at Twilight; she didn’t want to destroy the world.
Accepting what she needed to do, she matched Trunks’ expression of determination with one of her own, and held out her hoof to grasp the scroll. As soon as she did, and the scroll passed from Trunks to her, she was engulfed in a bright light as she was transported through time.
When she was gone, Trunks smiled, but then quickly shifted expression yet again when he turned back to face Demigra. The once-again Demon God simply sneered down at the meddlesome Saiyan. “You still think that you can defeat me?” He asked.
Without saying anything, Trunks just turned Super Saiyan and charged straight at Demigra.
The Captain worked at his weapon workshop at the Red Rocket Station, modifying one of his guns. The Captain was more of a savant than a gun nut, so there wasn’t much that he could do to weapons that weren’t melee. As he was adding a modification to make the gun a bit more powerful, he reached over to the side with one hand, grabbed a severed arm and took a small bite out of it, like it was a turkey leg, and then threw it away again.
When he was finished with the modification, he stepped back to admire his handiwork. After looking over the pipe pistol for a few seconds, he suddenly decided that this was pointless and just threw it away.
With that done, the Captain didn’t have anything else to do right now, since Horatio had left to go scavenging in Concord and would be gone for a while, so he decided to walk outside and inspect his base, to make sure that everything was running ‘ship shape’ as his friend Ironsides would say. However, while he was surveying the truck stop that served as his home, he suddenly did a double take when he noticed that all of the turrets had been destroyed. Confused, he made his way over to the destroyed turrets and knelt down beside them to investigate, but he was then cut off from properly investigating when he heard a voice behind him.
“Blue, we need to talk.”
The Captain recognised the voice immediately. Standing back up but not turning around, he simply smiled. “It’s been a long time, Piper.”
This caused her to suddenly step forward. “That name no longer has any meaning for me.”
“It is the name of your true self. You’ve only forgotten.” He said, turning around to face her. “I know there is good in you. The Shroud hasn’t driven it from you fully.” He tried appealing to her, holding his hand out towards her. He was really just quoting Star Wars at her, but she didn’t know that.
“You mean the good to massacre an entire vault over a kickball?” She responded sarcastically. Another moment later, she simply scoffed. “Forget it, Blue. Piper Wright no longer exists. I’ve seen what I need to become to stop people like you… and I’ve long since made my choice.” She seemed to look away after saying that, almost looking introspective. After a moment, however, she simply smiled. “I figured that it was time for our final battle.” She then withdrew a small, black gun from inside her cloak.
Seeing the gun that she took out, the Captain also smiled. “That’s my old crippling 10mm pistol, isn’t it? That gun’s legendary.”
~~Piper~~ The Silver Shroud responded with a playful smile of her own, as she lifted the gun up as if to inspect it. “Yes, well I figured it was the perfect weapon to use against a guy who fights with melee weapons.” She then held the gun out, pointing it right at him.
“You’re pointing a gun at me, Shroud?” The Captain asked rhetorically, with an eyebrow raised. “Have you not heard the legend? Everyone who points a gun at me dies.”
At that, the Shroud’s smile disappeared and she became completely serious. “I’m not afraid of you, Blue. Not anymore. I’m going to kill you… and your little dog too.”
*Snap* (That was the Captain’s patience.)
“Bitch, what’d you just say about Horatio?!” The Captain exclaimed, raising his claw up to meet her challenge. After matching her serious expression with his own for about five seconds, the Captain then suddenly started smiling again. “Well then, Shroud,” he began as he slowly reached behind his back. “I think that it’s time for you…” He then quickly pulled out a strange, futuristic weapon. “…to get dildo’d!” He then pulled the trigger, but nothing happened, as he had run out of ammo for it a while ago.
The Shroud’s only response to that was simply to lower her outstretched weapon, as well as her serious expression. All she could say was, “…really?”
Dropping the Standard Dildo+ since it was useless to him now, the Captain instead raised his right arm again, which housed the legendary Fisters sister claw or jus. “Then get ready, my arch nemesis. SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” The Raptor screeched as he launched himself forward, towards her.
In Hell, Kellogg watched the battle unfolding from a portal. “Seriously? She’s his arch nemesis?” He said to no one in particular. “Oh, I swear, once I get out of here, I am going to…” However, he suddenly stopped his soliloquy when his ears perked up and he heard something behind him. Turning to see what it was, he spotted an armored marine running this way.
“Oh, crap, it’s Doomguy” he said. “Well, unlike the rest of these mindless demons, I know when I’m beat.” Closing the portal that he was watching the fight through with a wave of his hand, he turned back around and jumped away to avoid the demon slayer coming this way. Let’s just hope that that bitch does her job soon. I need to get out of here. He thought to himself as he jumped away.
After punching a Possessed to death, Doomguy suddenly noticed a demon in the distance that seemed to be retreating from him. He simply shook his head in response. “Fucking Imps,” the armored soldier said before continuing on.
As the Captain was coming towards her at the speed of Blitz, the Shroud was prepared for him, being familiar with his tactics by now, and teleported out of the way just in time. She immediately reappeared ten feet behind him and fired at him, aiming for his right arm, so as to disable the Fisters sister claw or jus.
The Captain, however, also being familiar with the Shroud’s teleportation powers, spun around in time so that she was in his sights, quickly slid into V.A.T.S, targeted the incoming bullet, and quickly slashed it out of the air. He then targeted the Shroud as his second target and instantly closed the gap between them. The Shroud was able to pull back just in time to avoid having her entire head ripped off and instead suffered only a small scratch. The Captain then tried a third follow-up attack, but when he raised the Fisters sister claw or jus, the Shroud positioned her 10mm pistol to intercept the attack, and then used the slight distraction to teleport to the other side of the fighting area.
When she reappeared, she fell down on one knee, panting hard. It seems that she had underestimated the Captain, as even with her Shroud powers, he was still just too good for her. When the Captain turned back around to look at her, the Shroud simply met his look with a stare of her own, which told him that she would not back down, and she stood back up on two legs again. “I won’t back down, Blue. You’re a monster and you need to be stopped.”
All of a sudden, the Silver Shroud became surrounded in a dark, purple aura, and her eyes turned a bright, glowing red. All emotion vanished from her face, turning her expression into one of cold emptiness. This sudden change caught the Captain off guard for a second, and that second was all that the Shroud needed in order to teleport behind him and shoot him right in the head. The Captain managed to turn around just in time for the bullet to hit off of his wraparound goggles, knocking them off, but saving his life.
Staggering back a step, the Captain reacted blindly by swinging out with his clauntlet; however, in a surprising bout of sudden strength, the Shroud was able to block it with her bare hand. She then immediately kneed him in the stomach to knock him even further off balance, and then one final kick to send him flying backwards.
The Captain landed on the ground, not understanding how the Shroud was hitting this hard. In the distant past, back when they were allies, he was the brawn to her brains. Even after acquiring her Shroud powers, she wasn’t this strong; so what was going on?
Raising his head up to look at her, she was already in position to shoot him again. Without stopping to make a quip or enjoy her soon-to-be-victory, she simply pulled the trigger and fired. The Captain was in no position to move out of the way in time, and just before the bullet impacted with his forehead, suddenly his whole life flashed before his eyes.
…
…
No, wait, that’s not what happened.
While there was indeed a flash, instead of his life appearing before his eyes, a small, purple unicorn suddenly appeared, standing between him and the Shroud, with a shield conjured in front of her to deflect the bullet. When the unicorn turned her head around to look at him, it was now the Captain’s turn to be completely dumbfounded. The only thing that he could say to this was, “What… the fuck?”
“Don’t worry, I’m here to help you,” Starlight said in response, to reassure him.
While the Captain was slowly getting back up on to his feet, the Shroud was similarly confused by this unicorn’s arrival and didn’t move to attack immediately, giving him the time he needed. Looking down at Starlight himself for a moment, then up at the Shroud again, the Captain merely said, “Alright, just one thing first.” He then reach behind him, pulled out a syringe and stuck himself with it. “FUCKING KILL!” He shouted out suddenly, causing Starlight to step back in shock. Taking the syringe out and tossing it aside, he then faced forward and raised the Fisters sister claw or jus. “Okay, I’m ready.”
With the Captain ready for the battle, Starlight also faced forward, ready for another fight. She was still a bit nervous and unsure, but considering the stakes of this battle, she couldn’t afford to lose.
“SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” The Raptor screamed as he launched himself forward, wanting to claim the first attack. The Shroud, however, didn’t even blink, as she simply teleported out of the way when the tip of the claw was only inches from her face. Appearing right behind him, she then shot him in the back of the head; however, it just did a bit of damage instead of killing him.
With her back exposed and focusing completely on the Captain, Starlight took the initiative and fired a beam of magic at the Silver Shroud and knocked her back. She then quickly wrapped her entire body in her levitation magic, making herself weightless, and used that to launch herself forward. When she was just behind the cloaked woman, she cancelled her magic and dropped on to her two front hooves, quickly spun around and bucked at the woman with her two back hooves, knocking her back even further.
Regaining his balance after being shot, the Captain turned back around and noticed his arch enemy currently knocked off balance as well, courtesy of this weird horse-thing. Not wasting the opportunity, he lashed out with his clawed weapon and slashed her, knocking her back again. Starlight then quickly fired off another beam attack from her horn, knocking her back towards the Captain again.
Getting tired of this improvised game of ping pong, with herself as the ball, the Silver Shroud teleported again, to the other side of the fighting area. When she reappeared, she quickly took aim and fired once, before teleporting once again, just a few feet away, and repeating. She did this several times, both to hit her opponents easily, as well as to keep them knocked off balance and making it harder for them to target her, knowing how dangerous the Captain could be in close range, and this unicorn was an unknown variable.
Starlight, as the one who had her back to the Shroud at the time, took a bullet to the back from her first attack, while the Captain was able to use his agility and V.A.T.S. to dodge, and his endurance to withstand most of the attacks, though he was still taking damage himself. Once Starlight took that that first hit, she reflexively jumped to the side in order to avoid a follow-up attack, and quickly turned around to face their opponent. When she had her in her sights, seeing her queue up several more attacks, Starlight quickly put up another small shield to protect herself.
The two heroes were both doing alright, but at the moment, it was all they could do just to hold off the Shroud’s relentless attacks, and they couldn’t find an opening to attack back. The Captain was dodging pretty well and avoiding most of the damage, but he was still getting tired and couldn’t keep it up for much longer, while the Shroud didn’t look like she was slowing down at all. Starlight’s shield meanwhile was blocking all incoming attacks, (it did hold off a Last Blast, after all) but after a while, cracks were starting to form from each bullet that struck it. They wouldn’t last much longer at this rate, and she knew what the consequences for losing this battle were. They needed a solution and they needed one now.
A larger crack appeared in her shield, but it still deflected the small projectile. It then ricocheted across the street, striking a ruined car, causing it to explode on impact, in a miniature explosion. The Shroud paid no attention to it and simply continued in her pattern of teleport, shoot and repeat. Starlight, however, took note of it and began quickly formulating a plan of how to use it.
The Shroud fired off another shot, impacting the shield, causing it to shatter like glass. However, instead of being worried that she was now vulnerable, Starlight immediately turned to face her ally. “Captain, move to the left and attack on my mark. I have an idea.” She announced. Captain Ravager was usually the one to give orders instead of taking them, (it’s how he became a Captain in the first place) but at the moment, his body was mostly moving on instinct in order to avoid dying.
With him at the ready, Starlight turned back to face the Shroud again, and like her opponent, she teleported over to her to give her no time to react. As soon as she reappeared, inches from the cloaked female, Starlight immediately fired a beam of magic from her horn, right at her. However, the Shroud, while apparently confused that she could teleport as well, still managed to react in time and teleport out of the way.
When the woman reappeared, she wore a slightly sly smirk on her face, from having evaded her opponent’s apparent plan. However, her smirk disappeared just as quickly as it had formed when she noticed that the unicorn was smirking also. A second later, she also noticed that her horn was glowing a turquoise aura, and the same colour aura was also slowing encompassing the ruined car behind her.
“Captain, now!” Starlight called out, and the Shroud barely had enough time to turn around and see her arch nemesis coming right her.
“SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” The Raptor again yelled as he rushed towards her, swinging his claw. However, the Shroud was still fast enough and teleported behind him before the attack connected. She then raised her crippling 10mm again and aimed at his exposed head, ready to take the shot when she suddenly noticed that the Sun above her had suddenly been blocked out. Looking up, her eyes widened for the first time in the fight when she saw a car flying right at her.
Instead of teleporting, she instead reacted on instinct and jumped backwards, landing just out of reach of the car’s trajectory, with it plunging into the ground, bumper first, sticking up in the air.
At the second stage of the plan also apparently failing, she smirked again and looked over at the purple unicorn, but again, she was confused as the she was still smirking herself.
“Captain, again!” She called out.
“SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” The Raptor again screamed out. The Shroud quickly turned around, expecting the Captain to attack from behind, but when she did, she saw nothing but the wasteland beyond the Red Rocket Station, and when she instead heard the sound of claw scraping against metal, she realised in that split second what the unicorn’s plan had actually been all along, before the nuclear engine in the car exploded right in her face.
Being at the epicentre of a small, nuclear explosion was a lot of damage to take, even in her enhanced state, and it also left her open enough for the Captain to quickly grab her by her cloak so that she couldn’t teleport away, and slashed her squarely across the chest with the Fisters sister claw or jus.
He let go of her after the attack connected, and the momentum of the strike sent her flying backwards. Her mind full of pain and unable to think clearly at the moment, the dark aura surrounding her also thinning just a bit, the Silver Shroud reacted on pure instinct and teleported to the roof of the Red Rocket Station. Reappearing again, she clutched at the wound across her chest, as she looked down at the battlefield below, with her two opponents looking up at her from opposite ends of the battlefield.
With the red of her eyes returning, she smirked again and said, “You can’t beat me now, Blue. I have the high grou…” However, before she could finish, she felt a hand on her shoulder, and when she turned around, she saw the Captain standing right behind her. “Fucking Blitz,” she deadpanned, as the red glow disappeared from her eyes once again.
The next moment, the Captain slashed at her again, knocking her off the roof of the Red Rocket, her body rolling as it hit the ground. The fall aggravated her now-two chest wounds, so she gripped her chest tightly as she struggled to stand back up. “Blue, you turned Nick against me,” she said through gritted teeth, her anger starting to break through her previous cold indifference, over having lost control of the situation. She looked back up to face him again, however, her eyes immediately widened and things went from bad to worse for her when she saw him with a loaded Fat Man in his grasp.
The sight made her wince. With an uncharacteristically stoic expression on his face, and not even taking the time to make a quip, the Captain simply pulled the trigger, launching the football sized nuke hurtling towards her. The Shroud attempted to teleport out of the way, but when she did, she suddenly found herself still tangible. Quickly examining her body, wondering why she couldn’t teleport, she saw that her whole body was surrounding by a turquoise aura. In the span of just a split second, she looked over at Starlight, whose horn was glowing in the same colour aura once again.
“Sorry, but you’re not going anywhere,” Starlight snapped back, using her own teleportation magic to cancel out the Shroud’s.
After hearing what she had just said, along with the fact that they could both teleport but now she couldn’t, the Silver Shroud had only a split second to realise what was going on before the Captain’s nuke finally hit her.
When the nuke went off, with the Silver Shroud as the epicentre, Starlight had just enough time to teleport up to the Captain. The explosion kicked up a lot of dust and released its signature mushroom cloud into the air, but the two of them were safe from the blast up on the roof of the Red Rocket Station.
When the blast finally subsided, Starlight looked back down at where it had gone off, expecting to see nothing but a scorch mark after witnessing the destructive power of the mini nuke, and was surprised to see the Silver Shroud still in one piece. However, despite that, she could see that the woman had still taken a lot of damage from the blast. She was now kneeling down on one knee, with several deep cuts and bruises, and most clearly, the dark aura surrounding her had completely vanished.
Craning her neck upwards, to stare up at the Captain, standing on high, now showing much more emotion now that she was free of the dark corruption, the Silver Shroud simply sneered at him through the pain. “This isn’t over, Blue.” She said before she disappeared in a flash.
Starlight was about to comment on how she had gotten away, but before she could, there was suddenly another flash – this a bright one – on the roof next to her.
“…Hell!” Dumplin suddenly shouted out upon reappearing. As soon as he had, he quickly noticed that he wasn’t in the Time Nest, like he had been just a moment ago. Seeing Starlight first, he focused on her. “Alright, just what’s going on…” He suddenly trailed off when he noticed the person standing next to her. In a rare occurrence for the once-again Demon God, his eyes widened in awe, for he was currently in the presence of one of the few entities in existence that he could respect.
“It’s… It’s you.” He started, his lips forming into a smile. “Mr. Mrs. Sir Knight Lord Lady Fairy-Prince Kentucky-Fried Flying Rocket Rocketeering Ravishing Beastmaster Monk Super Silver One-Punch President Mayor Doctor Chef Parkour Master Champion Coach Professor General Honorary Lieutenant Bachelor Barbarian Pirate Ex-Husband and Former Father Captain Richard “Raptor” Ravager III Stilskin.”
Starlight meanwhile was starting to feel dizzy from all the titles that he had listed off.
The Captain, in response, smiled back. “Well, I’m not sure where the ‘Stilskin’ part came from, but yeah, that’s me. It’s always good to run into people who respect my many titles. I worked hard for them, dammit!” Crouching down so that he was at eye level with the Demon God, he then asked, “So what are you supposed to be? Some sort of deformed Super Mutant?”
Raising his hand, with his index finger extended, Dumplin was about to retort, but quickly cut himself off. “You know, given who you are, I’m gonna give you a pass this time.”
After that, the three of them simply stood around silently for several seconds, not knowing what to say next. “So…” Dumplin was the first to speak up again. “What’s next for you?” He asked the Captain.
In response, the Captain merely shrugged. “Eh, I don’t know. I’ve pretty much done everything there is to do in the Commonwealth by now, and I am starting to get old. To be honest, my battles with the Silver Shroud are about the only things that I really look forward to now, but I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it up. It may be my imagination, but I don’t think she’s aging like I am. I don’t really have anything else to do in my life to focus on anymore.”
“Really?” Starlight asked him, honestly sounding concerned at how he had said that.
“Well, I do have plans for a cloning program to create a successor to replace my son, but to be honest, I’m not really sure if I can actually do it. I’m a savant, not genius.”
“Don’t say that,” Dumplin cut in. “Of course you can do it. You’re the Captain Richard Ravager III.” He then held his arms out wide. “You’re like a brilliant scientist.”
At that, the Captain brought a hand to his chin, in thought. “Well I did build a teleporter all by myself.” A moment later, a smile started forming on his lips. “You’re right. I can’t just give up now.” Suddenly, he turned around towards the edge of the Red Rocket, squatted down, and jumped off the roof. “Horatio!” He yelled out as he fell. When he touched the ground, a German Shepard, wearing a suit of dog armor and welding goggles appeared, running up to the Captain, happy to see him.
“Horatio, bring me a military grade circuit board, a biometric scanner, the synth Shaun, five shots of Psycho and a kickball, and meet me at the USS Constitution. We’re going to need Ironsides’ help with this one.”
“Ruff, ruff,” Horatio responded.
The two of them then headed off, around the Red Rocket Station, into the wilds of the wasteland.
“Well, looks like history’s back on track.” Dumplin remarked, as he watched the man and his dog disappeared into the distance.
“Yeah,” Starlight responded, though a moment later, she looked down. “Although, the Silver Shroud managed to get away, so…”
“Don’t worry about it.” Dumplin interrupted her. “According to history, the Silver Shroud is the one who eventually kills the Captain, but not now. Years from now, after he completes his cloning project and sends his true son off to another world; when he’s an old man, has done everything there is, and has nothing left to live for. Even so, he still went out fighting – as good as any Dumple.”
Dumplin’s usual perpetual smile had morphed into a more sincere one as he spoke, and Starlight couldn’t help but follow suit listening to him. She and Dumplin were now all alone, with the timeline restored, and it was technically because of her. Since she had now helped save the timeline after inadvertently harming it, this was probably as good a time as any to ask Dumplin if he would let her go now.
“By the way, Dumplin. I wanted to ask if…”
“Oh, that reminds me.” Dumplin suddenly spoke up, snapping his fingers as he did.
“Oh, yeah. “What’s th…”
Faster than she could finish speaking, however, Dumplin quickly spun around, with a ball of yellow energy building between his hands. “Get in the Fuck Box!” He yelled as he released a Last Blast right in her face.
Meanwhile, over at Sanctuary, Nick Valentine noticed a strange light distortion to the south. “Huh, circuits must be getting a little finicky. What do you think?” He asked his friend: an alpha deathclaw, standing next to him, simply staring down at the ~~dirty~~ synth, breathing heavily.
With a flash of light, Dumplin reappeared in the Time Nest. “I’m back, bitches!” He announced. Noticing that he wasn’t being swarmed by said bitches, he looked around and saw that the only one in the area was Trunks, in his base form once again, with his hands on his knees, panting hard.
Hearing his friend’s voice, Trunks looked up and saw Dumplin across from him. “Dumplin, you’re back.” Trunks said, standing back up straight and facing him, with a relieved smile on his face. “I’m glad. I should have known everything must have turned out fine when Demigra disappeared.” Suddenly noticing that someone seemed to be missing, he looked around for a second before asking, “Hey, where’s that Starlight Glimmer pony?”
Looking up to meet Trunks’ gaze, the Demon God Dumplin responded with only two words: “Fuck. Box.”
Trunks merely blinked a few times in response. “Of course,” he deadpanned. “Still, I’m glad to see that everything turned out alright.” However, a moment later, Trunks put his hand to his chin in contemplation. “Although, there is something that troubles me.” He said in a worried tone, which got Dumplin to stop and really look at him. “Demigra managed to set this all up in just a split second, but how would he have already known about your connection to the Captain?”
Equally confused, Dumplin’s eyes widened for a moment, and he also put his hand to his chin in thought. Dumplin’s legacy was known only to a select few, so how did Demigra know about it too? It was a tough question and unfortunately, one he did not have the answer for.
With a flash, a familiar feeling of weightless overcame Starlight and the solid ground beneath her hooves disappeared once again. Without opening her eyes, she already knew where she was.
“Hey Starlight, you’re back,” she recognised Geoff’s voice. “So, you ready for another game of Golden Axe?” He asked, holding a controller out towards her.
“Fuck Box. Fuck Box Banana,” a shiny, black-chrome banana, with arms and legs spoke at Geoff, in what sounded like a whining tone.
“No, Fuck Box Banana. You had your go. Besides, she’s the Golden Axe champion around here; she gets priority. So, you up for another game?” He said, focusing on Starlight again.
Turning to face Geoff again, after just a moment’s hesitation, Starlight simply smirked at him. “I don’t know, are you ready to lose again?”
The Supreme Kai of Time was in the Time Vault, organising all of the different scrolls which corresponded to different moments in history along different timelines. With several scrolls in one hand, she carefully traced the shelves with the index finger of the other, looking for very specific scrolls… with a bored look on her face. Closing her eyes briefly, she let out a sigh. “So many scrolls, so little time.”
When she opened her eyes again, her free hand had reached a scroll which was currently emanating wisps of dark energy, indicating a disruption in time. “What have we here?” She spoke to herself, in the same bored tone, though now with a raised eyebrow in curiosity.
Taking the corrupted scroll in one hand and opening it up, she began reading it to view the vision of what was causing the disruption. At first, she viewed it with the same bored look on her face; however, after a few seconds, her eyes widened a little, turning to face it completely. After ten, her look of intrigue had turned to that of panic.
Quickly grabbing the scroll with both hands in order to read it more closely, dropping the pile of others in the process, the Supreme Kai of Time’s expression only got worse the more she read. “Oh no, this is bad. Really bad,” she whispered to herself. When the vision had ended, she immediately left to go warn a very specific Time Patroller.
“And so I says to the guy, ‘Get Dumped’,” Dumplin concluded his story. “Hahahaha… so you doing anything later?”
The male Saiyan that he had been talking to simply gave him a flat look. “Uhhmm, Dumplin? I’m a guy.”
“OMNI. SEXUAL.” Was all Dumplin retorted with, jerking his thumb towards himself and punctuating each part for emphasis. “…still didn’t answer my question.”
“Dumplin!” The Demon God suddenly heard Time Kai calling him. With an exasperated look on his face, he turned in her direction to see her running towards him. The first thing that he noticed was her waving in his direction to get his attention. Second, the scroll she held in her hand, emanating wisps of dark energy, and he could already see where this was going.
“Not now, I’m trying to get laid.”
By the time the Supreme Kai of Time had reached him, she was already out of breath from running for so long in her small body. “This is way more important,” she began, still trying to catch her breath. She then held the scroll out towards him. “Something’s going on and you need to see…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dumplin said, snatching the scroll from her before she could finish, with a bored tone in his voice. “I know how this goes by now.”
In spite of the dire circumstances, the Supreme Kai of Time still puffed up her cheeks in annoyance. Ignoring her, Dumplin opened the scroll and started reading.
The vision in the scroll showed a field of flowers at night, beneath a full moon, whilst a burning building raged in the background. In the field, there were two men who looked like they had been fighting. The first one was a very wrinkly old man with greying hair, so dead-looking that he looked like a walking corpse that had simply forgotten to die. He wore a black suit and cloak, with a top hat on his head, and an enormous scythe in his hands. The other one, in contrast, looked aged but still full of life, with a convex face, and a very pronounced chin and nose, wearing a very regal-looking purple dress. He had blue skin, with bright red hair, yellow beard, and a pair of googles covering his eyes.
The older one was currently surrounded by a dark aura, and had the younger one pinned down beneath his massive scythe. Lifting up his head, revealing his glowing red eyes, he then raised his scythe so that it was cutting into the younger man’s throat. “Now, raise your head and prepare to die,” he uttered, in a withered yet eerily calm tone of voice.
With his neck cut open and coughing up bits of blood, which caused the scythe’s blade to cut into his neck even more, the younger of the two men summoned up all of his remaining strength and simply said, “…you totally stole that line from Bleach.”
For a brief second, the older man’s eyes all of a sudden lost their red glow and his left one started twitching slightly. With just a twinge of emotion coming off of his previously stoic expression, he then suddenly raised his scythe up quickly and cut the younger man’s head clean off, spraying the white flowers around them red with his blood.
His task done, the older man then looked up at the full moon and simply said, to no one in particular, “We are born by the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood.” Reaching up with his hand as if to grasp the moon, he then added, “Mother, my task to you is now done. Once more, and for the final time, Gehrman retires from the hunt.”
“Dumplstilskin! NO!” Dumplin yelled into the scroll. Before he could say anything else, however, he suddenly felt a familiar tingling sensation in his fingers, which quickly spread across his entire body, and the next thing he knew, his body was once again see-through, and the scroll fell from his grasp. “Oh no, not again.”
Reacting quickly, he held his hand out to the side, and with a flash of light, he once again summoned Starlight Glimmer from the Fuck Box. As soon as her hooves touched solid ground, she immediately started looking around, confused, and trying to get her bearings. The Fuck Box really messes with your sense of direction.
“Wh-what?” She stuttered out.
“Don’t fuck up.” Dumplin said to her before disappearing in another flash of light.
Noticing Starlight’s confusion, and having heard about her from Trunks, the Supreme Kai of Time started to explain the situation, stopping first to pick up the scroll. “We have another time distortion along a pivotal moment in Dumplin’s timeline,” she explained. “If the Dumple Legacy is disrupted, it could once again prevent Dumplin from existing, which could once again undo Demigra’s destruction and lead to the destruction of time itself.”
“Ahahahahahahahahaha,” the Supreme Kai of Time suddenly heard a maniacal laughter from directly above her. “That’s right, Chronoa,” Demigra spoke to her as soon as he had fully reformed once again. “Now that I have once again disrupted the Dumple Legacy and prevented my own destruction, I can…”
“Quickly, take the scroll – go help Dumplstilskin!” The Supreme Kai of Time shouted towards Starlight Glimmer, throwing the scroll to her, completely ignoring Demigra’s monologue.
Starlight caught the scroll, with a strong and determined expression on her face, and with a bright flash, she was immediately transported through time.
Demigra’s eyebrow twitched from the not-believing-this-shit. “Seriously, let me finish a goddamn sentence.”
Looking back up at Demigra, the Supreme Kai of Time put on a completely serious look and got into a fighting position.
Looking down at her from on high, Demigra once again couldn’t believe this shit. “You’re kidding, right? You’re going to fight me?” He spoke, his words dripping with sarcasm.
The Supreme Kai of Time, however, merely hardened her resolve. “I’m going to beat you, Demigra; just like I did before!”
This exclamation actually got Demigra to smirk sadistically. He then swept his arm out, twirling his staff around between his fingers as he did so, getting into a battle stance himself. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.”
Gehrman swung his scythe at Dumplstilskin once again, but the not-so-pale-blood-anymore simply rolled out of the way of the attack. “Now I know y’all be lovin’ this shit right here. Keep rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ rollin’. Keep rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ rollin’.” Dumplstilskin continued to sing as he repeatedly rolled to dodge Gehrman’s attacks.
Dumplstilskin’s antics were now really starting to get to the old hunter, and he was fuming. “I am trying to kill you and save the world from the monster you have become.” He said in an eerily quiet tone. “Will you please be serious?!” He suddenly shouted at him.
“Make me,” was all Dumplstilskin responded with, in a childish tone, which, of course only served to aggravate the old hunter even more.
Gehrman gripped the hilt of his scythe even tighter in anger, and unbeknownst to him, he suddenly started radiating a dark aura and his eyes began glowing red. Dumplstilskin noticed this when he came out of his last dodge roll, and found this sudden change confusing. Gehrman used that slight moment of confusion on his opponent’s part and launched himself forward, now moving much faster instead of his slow lumbering from before, striking at the Dumple with his massive scythe, knocking him down. Grinning in satisfaction at having finally hit him, he then raised his scythe up above his head for one final attack. As he brought it back down, however, there was suddenly a bright flash of light, and the next thing he noticed was that his scythe had impacted on something harder than his opponent’s supple flesh. When the light faded, what he saw instead was a small, purple unicorn, projecting a shield between the hunter and his prey.
Now, living in the fucked-up world of Yharnam for as long as he had, Gehrman was certainly no stranger to… well, strange sights, but the appearance of a small, cartoon unicorn was a little too strange, even for him.
After successfully blocking the attack upon arrival, Starlight then focused energy into her horn, pushing her shield outwards, forcing her opponent back a few steps while he was surprised by her sudden appearance. Turning to the side to see Dumplstilskin picking himself up, she started to explain. “I’m here to help you. Now I know that I might look strange to you, but…”
“Nah, I’ve seen weirder shit,” he responded, picking himself back up. Grabbing his huge broadsword and hefting it over his shoulder, he then faced forward, towards Gehrman again. “So… you said you’re here to help me?” addressing Starlight Glimmer, but still not facing her, keeping his eyes on Gehrman as he regained his balance.
“That’s right.” Starlight responded, her eyes narrowing a little. “I literally just said that.” She deadpanned. Looking back at him as she responded, a small thought that popped into her head was that she could swear that she had seen his goggles somewhere before, but for the life of her, she just couldn’t place them.
Dumplstilskin was about to retort that he didn’t need any help, as he had already defeated who-knows-how-many powerful foes at this point all by himself, without help from anyone. However, still not breaking his stare at Gehrman, he couldn’t not notice that dark aura surrounding him and how much stronger it had made him. While death was really nothing more than a shot to the brain to him, he still didn’t want to give this guy the satisfaction of killing him now.
Also, if this was truly to be his final battle, then he may as well accept help and fight with a partner at least once, if for no other reason than to see what it was like.
“Alright then,” Dumplstilskin responded with. The two of them then faced Gehrman together, ready for a battle.
Gehrman was the first to move and launched himself forward quickly, instead of lumbering towards them slowly. Dumplstilskin was able to react in time and used his mad skills to roll out of the way in time. When the old hunter’s scythe came down and met with nought but the earth, Starlight Glimmer then rammed into his exposed back, horn first. The back attack caused the old hunter to lose his balance for a moment, allowing Dumplstilskin to follow up with a three-strike combo with his giant sword.
As soon as Dumplstilskin’s last attack ended, Gehrman suddenly gripped his scythe tightly in both hands and raised it skyward, and the dark aura surrounding him suddenly released a wave of dark energy outwards, with him as the epicentre, knocking both of his opponents back and off balance. Gehrman then used that opportunity to launch himself forward, towards Dumplstilskin, focusing on him, and hit him with his own three-hit combo. When the first combo ended, he tried launching into another one instantly, but the junior hunter managed to roll out of the way just in time, and quickly stuck himself with a blood vile to heal; he needed it after just one combo from his opponent in his enhanced state.
Gehrman turned to face him immediately and moved to attack him while he was healing, but Starlight managed to hit him while he was distracted instead. This caused him to spin around instinctively, to try and strike at his other opponent, but she had similarly moved on instinct and got around him while he did that and hit him from behind again. She then immediately raised another shield to block when he once again spun around quickly, and brought his scythe down, again hitting her shield instead of her.
Dumplstilskin then suddenly jumped over the small unicorn between himself and his opponent, and using her still-intact shield as a step, brought his huge sword down on top of his opponent from above, smashing his face into the dirt.
Starlight was about to fire off another magic beam when suddenly another wave of dark energy blew outwards from Gehrman, knocking the two of them back. With them off balance, he then quickly swung out with his scythe; it’s size making it possible to hit both of them at once. After knocking them both back from his one attack, and before they even touched the ground again, Gehrman launched himself forward, towards Dumplstilskin, focusing on him, and slashed at him again.
Starlight Glimmer hit the ground first since she was only hit once, and she regained her balance quickly; something she had learned to do quite well ever since her battle with Dumplin. That one attack was enough to seriously damage her, so she needed to stop and think of how she could fight. She wasn’t Dumplin – she couldn’t just charge in and overwhelm her opponent with superior power and risk taking more damage. She needed to fight strategically, hold back and provide support where she could, just like she had with the Captain.
Turning around to focus on Dumplstilskin and Gehrman, she could see the old hunter was using his superior speed and his opponent’s loss of balance to attack relentlessly, keeping him juggled, not giving him the chance to dodge his attacks. Instead of charging in to attack him from behind, Starlight instead quickly enveloped Dumplstilskin with her levitation magic and moved him to the side, enough to get him out of the way of Gehrman’s relentless attacks. Confused as to what exactly happened, but not focusing on it in the heat of battle, Dumplstilskin unleashed another sword combo into his opponent’s side.
After his attack on the old hunter, Dumplstilskin tried to immediately follow up with another one, but he was once again pushed back by a wave of dark energy. Gehrman was also about to repeat his earlier strategy and quickly attack him while he was off balance, but Starlight also repeated her earlier actions and grabbed Dumplstilskin with her magic to help him dodge out of the way. Dumplstilskin then once again followed up with his own repeated action and hit Gehrman in another three sword slice combo.
It would forever be known as the round of repeated actions.
Anticipating that his opponent would release another dark energy wave to push him back again – which he did – Dumplstilskin instead rolled backwards, out of the way, and jabbed himself with another two blood vials to heal himself. While he was doing that, Starlight quickly enveloped herself in her levitation magic and used her weightlessness to launch herself forward, towards Gehrman, and rammed into his back, horn first, preventing him from using that moment to attack Dumplstilskin while he was healing. She then immediately sped away again before he could react, and not risk getting hurt again. He did turn around, though, and that was just enough of a distraction for Dumplstilskin to hit him from behind again.
Starlight and Dumplstilskin kept up this strategy for a while, alternating their attacks and using hit and run tactics, witling Gehrman down little by little. The attacks from both sides were now really starting to get to the old hunter. Even with his enhanced speed, he still couldn’t hit them.
Gritting his teeth and gripping his scythe even tighter, the dark aura surrounding him grew even more intense. Starlight and Dumplstilskin both braced themselves for what was coming next, but instead of releasing it out into a wave, however, the hunter was instead lifted up into the air by some unseen force. The dark energy continued building up until it began to coalesce into a ball of energy above his head.
Sparing just a quick glance above him to inspect the object of his next attack, Gehrman looked down at his opponents beneath him, with a triumphant smirk on his face. “Die.” He said, as he readied the death ball to strike.
That ball of energy looked like bad news to Starlight. With how much power he seemed to be pumping into it, she wasn’t sure if they would survive being hit by it. With the attack coming and no time to properly formulate a plan, she reacted purely on instinct and did the first thing that popped into her mind. Quickly lighting up her horn, she disappeared from the spot she had been standing, and upon reappearing, she quickly opened her hooves wide and grabbed Gehrman around the neck in a choke hold.
She can teleport? The old hunter thought, caught completely off guard by her abilities. He then started losing focus on his death ball as he tried to reach around and swat her off his back.
While the old hunter was distracted, Dumplstilskin took the opportunity to take aim at him with his blunderbuss, and with the last bullet that he had left in the chamber, fired at him. Gehrman was knocked down to the ground by the shot, while Starlight was thrown further away, but she remained unscathed.
Gehrman grit his teeth in irritation as he pushed his hands against the ground to stand back up. When he lifted his head, however, Dumplstilskin had already closed the gap between them, with his giant greatsword reared behind his back, ready to strike. “Cast!” The younger hunter began. “In the name of God! Ye not Guilty!” He yelled, slamming the full weight of his sword against his opponent all at once in one powerful strike.
The force of the attack knocked Gehrman, who was already lying face down, back several feet, and caused him to do a complete 360 degree flip through the air, landing belly-down against the ground again. When he hit the ground again, the dark aura surrounding him completely dissipated.
While Dumplstilskin simply stared back at his opponent, knowing that he was defeated, Starlight picked herself back up and moved to stand next to the blue skinned hunter.
Gehrman struggled to stand back up, waving about on his feet as he did so. Dumplstilskin merely eyed him carefully at the moment, with his weapon at the ready. With the dark aura gone, he now no longer had the strength to lift his massive scythe and dropped it at his feet, staggering back a few steps in defeat. Looking up at his two opponents, as he gripped at his chest with one hand, he then turned his gaze skywards and held up his other hand, outstretched, as if to call the Moon itself. “Mo…ther.” He stuttered out.
Starlight was confused by this one word. Looking up in the same direction that he was, her eyes immediately widened when she saw some… thing descending from the sky. It was as black as the darkest void, and rather top-heavy, with a massive head of writhing tentacles, and a thin body with exposed ribs and elongated limbs and tail – vaguely looking like a bunch of different creatures were pulled inside out by their buttholes and stapled together.
As the creature descended, Gehrman had a bright smile on his face, as he gazed longingly at it, with his arms outstretched to embrace it. When the thing landed in front of him, it also reached his giant arms around him, pulling him into an embrace. The old hunter then suddenly started sinking into the creature, being absorbed by it, all the while his smile never faded.
Starlight Glimmer and Dumplstilskin just stared ahead as this was happening, neither knowing what was going on. After Gehrman had been fully absorbed, the strange creature then turned to face them, standing upright on its two legs, looming over the two of them. It then started radiating the same dark aura that Gehrman had before, standing over the two of them, as intimidating as the presence of the moon itself.
This made Starlight worried; it looked like her job here still wasn’t done.
The creature stared down at both of them, focusing more intently on Dumplstilskin, though. However, once its gaze fell upon Starlight Glimmer, even though this creature didn’t have a proper face, it still almost looked like it was glaring at her.
Starlight didn’t have time to think about that, however, as beside this new creature, another entity was also descending from the sky – one that Starlight had seen twice before, but was permanently engraved into her memory.
“Demigra?” Starlight uttered in shock.
The once-again Demon God didn’t say anything in response, but merely stared back down at her, in complete silence, with a smug grin on his face. Suddenly noticing the entity next to him, trailing only his eyes over towards it while keeping his head facing towards Starlight, his grin then hardened as he returned his full attention to the purple unicorn, and he gestured his left hand towards the tentacle creature next to him. “Well, Piper,” Demigra began. Starlight eyes immediately widened in response. “I promised you the Captain’s life and you got it. Now you can have his son, as well.”
Starlight’s eyes kept getting wider the more he spoke. “Piper?” She said to herself. “The Silver Shroud?” She added. She then turned to look over at the tentacle creature that he was gesturing towards while he spoke. “That thing?!”
Dumplstilskin turned on his side to look at Starlight as she said that. “Piper?” He took his time to speak that name, as if he had heard it before from an unpleasant story. “The Silver Shroud?” He added, more familiar with that name, turning to look at the tentacle monster before him. As soon as he got a good look at it, now that he knew who it was, he bit down hard as he tried to supress to urge to scream out his next words. “The one who killed the Captain? My father!” He then tightened his grip on his sword as he was now visibly shaking with anger.
“Pony.” He suddenly spoke up, a bit louder than before, clearly intending to be heard now. “You take that white guy. Leave the big one to me.” He spoke in an eerily soft, tranquil fury.
“But I…”
“Help me out if I’m about to die, but don’t you dare interfere for anything less!” He yelled at her, but not for a moment averting his gaze from the entity right in front of him. “She. Is. Mine.” He punctuated each word for emphasis.
It was in that moment that Starlight knew that any further words from her would be useless, and from the look in his eyes, he might even start attacking her if she did interfere. Besides, like he said, she could still help him out if he needed it. She also had her own opponent to worry about right now.
“Alright,” she responded simply. She then also faced forward again, at their new opponents.
However, before anyone could say anything or start monologuing, Dumplstilskin immediately launched himself forward at high speeds, slamming his greatsword into what was once a human named Piper Wright, knocking the both of them back and away from Starlight and Demigra, continuing their own battle away from the two of them.
With just an offside glance at the two of them as they left, Demigra quickly returned his attention to the pony in front of him. “So, I finally get to meet the one who’s been ruining my plans, which I had to set up from outside of existence, with my own existence on the line… and it turns out that they’re just a little pony.” He then hardened his gaze so that his stare was now a glare.
Starlight gritted her teeth in response. “And here’s the guy who’s behind everything that’s happened to me lately,” she responded in a similar tone. “But why? Your actions would lead to the destruction of all of time and everything else. What do you stand to gain from all of this?”
In response to her question, Demigra returned to his smug grin again. “Don’t you get it yet? I am the Demon God Demigra. This entire universe belongs to me, and is mine to do with and shape to my will. And if I have to destroy all of time first in order to do that, then so be it.”
“I won’t let you do that,” Starlight barked back at him, her newfound resolve filling her with determination.
“Oh, that’s rich coming from you. I know all about you, Starlight Glimmer. You tried messing with time in order to get what you wanted as well. How is that any different?”
“I didn’t want this. I wanted equality; I wanted peace.”
“What you want is impossible!” Demigra barked back at her, his calm demeanour slipping a bit. “Don’t you know? No matter who you are, in this world or any other, there are only two things that a person fights for:” He extended two fingers as he spoke. “Revenge and self-gratification.” His smug smile then returned once again. “So tell me, Starlight Glimmer: are you fighting me now because you want revenge on me for doing what you couldn’t, or for the glory of defeating the Demon God?”
In response, Starlight didn’t blink or shift expression even slightly. “I’m going to beat you to save everyone and everything.” She stated simply.
For a single moment, Demigra’s smug expression dropped, but was back again in no time. “So you want everyone and everything indebted to you for saving them?” he said, with his eyes closed and smiling, looking down at the ground. “So, self-gratification it is.” Opening his eyes and looking up again, he then started getting into a battle position, spinning his staff between his fingers. “Then let’s do this. I still have plenty of time to defeat you and get back to the Crack of Time… err, in time, to save myself.”
Without wasting a moment, Starlight quickly wrapped herself in her telekinetic aura, becoming weightless, and launched herself up at Demigra. However, the Demon God merely swatted her away with his hand. Since she never dropped her telekinesis, she was able to steady herself in the air quickly enough, to see Demigra quickly create a large ball of red energy and fired it towards her.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” Starlight repeated, with her eyes widening. She then threw herself backwards, but the ball of energy continued to follow her. The ball of energy was relentless, as no matter how far she flew to avoid it, it kept following her, all the while Demigra hadn’t moved from that spot, with that same smug look on his face as he directed the attack.
While she was in the middle of avoiding her possible death – while accidently intercepting one of the Moon Presence’s attacks on Dumplstilskin, giving him a chance to attack back – Starlight ended up flying right up against a wall. Stopping in her tracks, she looked back to see the ball of energy approaching fast. With no time to move to either side to avoid it in time, she was about to consider that this might be the end for her when she suddenly realised something: she could fly.
Mentally slapping herself, wondering why she didn’t think of that first, she took to the sky. With less obstructions in the air than on the ground, she was able move and weave around much faster. With a sharp turn, the ball of energy shot passed her, into the cloud of smoke from the burning building, giving her a moment to think. Looking down, she saw Dumplstilskin fighting the Moon Presence and seemed to be holding out alright so far. On the other side of the battlefield, Demigra stood, staring back at her, silently mocking her.
Suddenly, the ball of energy emerged from the smoke cloud, and she had just enough time to avoid it before it began circling back around towards her again… and that gave her an idea.
Looking back down at Demigra again, Starlight put on a look of determination before charging down at full speed towards him, with the ball of energy close behind her. Seeing her coming at him, with the ball of energy so close behind her, Demigra could already guess what her plan was. “Ha! Do you really think that I’m going to fall for that stupid, million year old trick? Really, of all the stupid, asinine, idiotic…”
Suddenly, Starlight’s horn lit up and she fired a quick magic blast at the ground in front of him, and with the speed that she was moving at, the magic blast travelled even faster, kicking up a cloud of dust as soon as it made contact with the ground. “Oh, Medammit,” Demigra said, his eyes widening, raising his arm to shield his eyes from the dust kicked up by the magic bullet. He then quickly launched himself straight up into the air so that he wasn’t accidentally hit by his own attack. “Okay, I’ll admit, that was actually pretty good, but…”
However, he was cut off as Starlight’s hoof suddenly slammed right into his cheek. Now, Demigra may be a God, but taking a horse’s (or pony’s) hoof, travelling over fifty miles an hour, straight to the face would hurt anyone. The force of the blow sent him flying back down to the ground, causing him to land face first in the dirt, creating a small crater amidst the grass and white flowers.
Picking himself back up, he put his hand to his chin to pop his jaw back into place. He then turned to face Starlight Glimmer, who touched back down to the ground, wearing an expression of determination on her face as she met his gaze. “Not bad. I actually felt that,” Demigra said, falling back into his relaxed, smug attitude as he continued. “Tell me, where did a little pony find this kind of strength?”
“I’m not about to tell you,” Starlight responded, her newfound determination helping to remain calm despite the situation.
“Cute,” Demigra deadpanned. “However,” he began, the smirk returning to his face. “You don’t need to tell me; it will be mine either way.” He then held his hand out towards her, which started glowing in a dark, purple aura. Starlight didn’t even have time to process what exactly he meant by that or what he was doing, as she suddenly felt an intense pain shoot through both her body and her soul, causing her to clutch at her heart in response. Through her pain, Demigra’s smirk deepened. “You’ll be my newest puppet.”
Starlight felt as if her sense of self was slowly slipping away, moment by moment. It took everything she had to resist it. Despite the pain, she couldn’t help but wonder if this is what it felt like for all the ponies in her village when she took their cutie marks. Had what she done to them really been as bad as this? Maybe she really was more like Demigra than she thought.
With Demigra’s full attention focused on Starlight, he failed to notice a small twinkle of light in the distance behind him, which after appearing, closed the distance between them in an instant. Snapping to attention suddenly, sensing the new energy at the last second, Demigra turned around but was immediately knocked to the side as it zoomed passed him, breaking his connection with Starlight. Now that he had tried corrupting her and failed, he wouldn’t be able to do it again. Irritated, he turned back around to see Trunks, in his Super Saiyan form, interposed between him and Starlight.
“Are you alright?” Trunks asked Starlight, looking back at her.
With the connection broken, Starlight was freed from Demigra’s corruption, and she heaved a sigh of relief, as well as a way to catch her breath. “Yeah… thanks,” she said in reply.
“Good, I’m glad,” he said with a relieved smile. He then quickly swapped back to his determined expression, turning back to face Demigra again. “The Supreme Kai of Time is safe,” he continued, still addressing Starlight. “All we have to do now is correct history and Demigra will disappear and everything will go back to the way it should be.”
“I won’t let you do that,” Demigra said, in an eerily calm tone of voice. Holding both arms out to the sides, he suddenly started radiating a dark aura of his own. “I will erase you from history! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!” He yelled out as he charged to two of them.
Bracing themselves, Starlight and Trunks both put on determined expressions. With that, the fighters on both sides charged towards each other to continue the battle.
Over on the other side of the battlefield, Dumplstilskin was battling with the entity which had once been Piper Wright, but was now known as the Moon Presence. She was a formidable foe already, and Demigra’s power had made her even faster and stronger, but Dumplstilskin was more determined right now than he had ever been in his life, and his mad dodging skills allowed him to avoid her attacks even now.
The Moon Presence slammed its giant hand down, shaking the earth on impact, but met only ground as Dumplstilskin rolled out of the way in time. With the momentary distraction, Dumplstilskin jumped forward and swung out with his large sword, slashing the creature across the face, making it bleed, causing it to stagger back a step.
Putting one hand up to its face to stop the bleeding, but swiping out with the other one to stop the hunter from unleashing another attack, the Moon Presence was able to recover from the strike fairly quickly.
“Impressive,” she said, even though she didn’t have a mouth. “You show much promise even though you’re still mostly human.” Dumplstilskin, however, didn’t respond to that. “I used to be human too, you know,” she continued, lowering her hand from her face again so that she could stare down at him properly. “Back when I travelled with your father.” The mention of his father caused Dumplstilskin to grip his broadsword tighter. He had never known his father personally, but he had heard stories about him from Captain Ironsides growing up, as well as stories of the woman that once travelled alongside him and later became his greatest enemy and eventually killed him. Knowing that that entity was standing before him now only served to increase his boiling rage even further.
The Moon presence continued speaking. “Long ago, back before I knew the monster that he really was…”
“Really?!” Dumplstilskin suddenly barked back, interrupting her. “That’s cheap, coming from you. Have you looked in the mirror lately?”
The Moon Presence stood up taller in response to that, as if as a literal way to stand its ground. “I knew what I had to become in order to stop someone like him. I knew that as I was back then, I wouldn’t stand a chance of putting him down. Then – after the Vault 81 Massacre – I was contacted by Demigra, who offered me the power I would need to put him down for good. In exchange for my soul, I was granted powers like you couldn’t imagine. Immortality, agelessness, actual teleportation.” She listed off. “And now, I’m on my way to becoming the new Demon Goddess.”
“You can still bleed.” Dumplstilskin deadpanned, which then turned into a sly smirk. “And in my experience, anything that can bleed can be killed. Even if you are a God, I’ve killed plenty of Gods already. I’m going to succeed where the Captain – where my father – failed, and put you down once and for all!” He announced, raising his broadsword up above his head.
Catching the giant sword in her own giant hand, the Moon Presence simply held it in place. “Oh, if I still had a mouth, I would be grinning so hard right now.” With a quick shove, she flung the hunter backwards, though he managed to stab his sword into the ground to steady himself and keep his balance. “I’m going to enjoy this. My plan to kill you and end your father’s legacy for good has been a long time in the making, and I will finally accomplish it this day.”
Quickly launching himself forward, while she was still monologuing, to catch her off guard, Dumplstilskin swung at her, drawing blood, though not doing much damage as she apparently didn’t even feel it. He then quickly jumped backwards in order to avoid her follow-up attempt at squashing him under her misshapen claw.
“What are you talking about?” Dumplstilskin asked, readying his sword for another attack. “You don’t know anything about me.”
The Moon Presence simply grabbed his sword, however, stopping his attack. “Oh, I know more about you than you know. Have you never considered how strange your arrival here was?” She began, as she looked down at him. “That the ship that was carrying you just happened to crash in the place where my son just happened to be waiting for you?”
Dumplstilskin tried – unsuccessfully – to pull away from the Moon Presence’s grasp, though only with half of his strength, as he was caught off guard by her questioning. “What?” He wondered.
The Moon Presence leaned forward a little bit, approximating a smirk. “I knew where you were and where you were heading from the very beginning. By that point, my teleportation powers had grown far beyond what they once were, so I teleported Gehrman ahead of you first so that he would be there to deal with you. And the incident which caused you to crash here…” she then leaned in so that her face was right up against his. “…was caused by none other than yours truly.”
Time almost seemed to stop for Dumplstilskin upon hearing those words. He remembered the day of the crash even now, even after everything that he had been through since. It had started as just another ordinary day – he was below deck, playing with his kickball, then all of a sudden, the entire boat shook, and in just a split second, everything went dark. When he awoke, he was lying in the wreckage of the ship, and he was the sole survivor; everyone else was dead.
Captain Ironsides. Bosun. Mr. Navigator. And the rest of the crew. Everyone that he had ever known was dead, and he was all alone in a hostile, alien world, where everything wanted to kill him. He was just so angry after losing everything, that he wanted to kill everything around him, to try and vent his unyielding rage, and why he had his ‘Kill Everything’ mentality.
And now, learning that all of it was because of her… the entity standing right in front of him… the same entity that had killed his father.
Lifting his head suddenly, Dumplstilskin kicked against her with all of his rage-fuelled strength, freeing his sword from her grasp, forcing her skidding back a few feet, even in her enhanced state. “It’s all your fault.” He began as he started walking slowly towards her, with his sword swung over his shoulder, his voice eerily low. “You’re the reason I’m here.” He continued, his voice slowly rising. “You’re the one… who killed Ironsides.” Stopping just in front of her, he suddenly screamed, “I’m gonna kill you!” at the top of his lungs, swinging out with his broadsword with all of his strength.
The Moon Presence lifted her hand to try and block, but Dumplstilskin put so much force behind the attack, that he sliced her palm wide open, spraying blood everywhere. Without letting up, he continued in his relentless attacks like a berserker, slicing her here and there, this way and that, never letting up until he was practically drowning in her blood.
“Enough!” Piper Wright/The Silver Shroud/The Moon Presence bellowed out. Charging in close to him, with Dumplstilskin’s sword coming at her straight on, instead of trying to dodge or block his attack, she instead chose to take it head on, his sword piercing right into where her face would be. Blood poured from the deep wound, scattering all over the grass beneath them, but she didn’t mind at all; she now had him right where she wanted him. Rearing back her giant hand, with his six foot sword lodged deep inside her and him unable to pull out in time, she slammed it down on him hard with all the force she could muster with her two tonne Demon body, pinning him down and crushing every bone on the right side of his body. No amount of blood vials would be able to fix that.
“Dumplstilskin!” Starlight called out after seeing him take that last attack. However, that one moment of slipped focus was all her opponent needed, as Demigra slugged her right in the face, knocking her to the ground.
“Starlight!” Trunks called out, charging in to help her. However, Demigra quickly caught him and punched him hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him and quickly put a stop to his little rescue. He then picked up the two of them and slammed them into each other, grinning with pride all the while.
The Moon Presence, meanwhile, continued applying as much pressure as possible to the hunter beneath her claw, trying to break as many bones as possible, so as not to risk the chance of him getting up again. “Finally,” she began. “After so long, it will all come to an end. The Captain is gone, all of the synths are gone. Now with your death, I will finally end his line once and for all.”
She lifted her hand up, leaving a completely broken hunter in a patch of dead grass and drenched in blood. Raising her hand up high, she flexed each individual finger in anticipation, preparing for the strike that would end his life, the Dumple Legacy, and ultimately, all of time.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggghhhhhhh!” The Moon Presence unleashed the guttural roar of a ravenous beast as it brought down its giant claw with all of its remaining strength.
BLAM!
The sound of a gunshot echoed out of seemingly nowhere, and the next moment, the Moon Presence’s attack was knocked off course courtesy of the bullet that had planted itself in the side of her head, with the momentum of her attack sending her crashing face first into the ground just off to the side.
With his death no longer literally looming over him for now, Dumplstilskin weakly cracked open an eye to try and discover the reason, and out in the distance, in the open window of the burning church, sitting in a wheelchair, he saw him: an old man, even more ancient-looking than Gehrman, with skin so thin his skeleton was almost visible, and so pale he likely hadn’t seen the Sun in over two hundred years, at least. His dirty black hair had grown out so much that the face behind it was almost completely hidden, except for this moment, which showed a hard expression, as he clutched a blunderbuss in his hands.
“Hands off my grandson.”
Still able to move the left side of his body, Dumplstilskin weakly lifted his left hand, and gave a thumbs up. “Thanks Grandpa.”
The sight brought a smile to the ancient hunter’s face, but it faded once again when he saw the Moon Presence stir. The blunderbuss was no good at this range; the next attack had to come from up close. Opening up the barrel of his gun, there was one bullet left. Taking it out, he looked back up at Dumplstilskin, clutching the bullet tightly. “Dumple, my boy. Catch!” He said as he reared back and threw the bullet as hard as he could.
This bullet would end it.
Knowing that that bullet was his only chance right now, Dumplstilskin weakly reached up and out with his one good arm to try and grab it. Seeing this, the Moon Presence simply re-applied the pressure she was applying to the young hunter and crushed him further beneath her misshapen claw. This caused Dumplstilskin to cry out in pain.
Hearing her ally’s cry, Starlight turned away from Demigra, towards him. Noticing the glistening light from the bullet, even from a distance, she mentally traced its trajectory and quickly realised that it wouldn’t go far enough to reach Dumplstilskin. Reacting on instinct, she broke away from her own fight and ran towards it.
Noticing Starlight leaving their battle, Demigra merely smirked and raised his outstretched hand in her direction, readying an energy blast to shoot at her; however, Trunks rammed into him, breaking his concentration.
When Starlight got closer and she was able to make out the bullet more clearly, she lit up her horn in its turquoise aura and mentally grabbed on to the bullet and levitated it over to Dumplstilskin, dropping it right in front of him.
Using all of the remaining energy that he had in the left side of his body, Dumplstilskin eventually managed to wriggle his arm free from beneath the Moon Presence’s large bulk. Grabbing the bullet in front of him, he managed to quickly insert it into his blunderbuss.
Seeing his move, the Moon Presence simply applied more pressure on to the hunter beneath her, with both hands this time, to try and get him to drop the weapon and give up. She wanted to break him mentally and physically. Under the weight of her blow, even more bones began to snap. “Die! Die! Die!” The Moon Presence repeated; what was left of her own sanity slipping away even faster than Dumplstilskin’s bone structure integrity.
At this point, Dumplstilskin’s body was running on nothing but adrenaline. If he didn’t do this quickly then he was dead. No matter how this turned out, one way or another, this would be his final battle.
With his grip still firmly on the blunderbuss, which he absolutely refused to let go of, he slowly turned his head around, his eyes locked on where Piper’s used to be. Steadying the blunderbuss on his target, he moved it as close to her face as he possibly could and pulled the trigger. The firearm exploded right in her face, the force of the blast ripping it completely open, causing the beast to release its grip on the young hunter and stumble backwards.
“Thanks for the Family Bullet, Grandpa,” Dumplstilskin whispered to himself.
In the distance, in the remains of the burning building, Grandpa simply gave one last contented smile before he was crushed by a piece of rubble.
Now that he was free, Dumplstilskin knew that every bone in his body, except for his left arm was completely broken. He had to end this now. With the fiercest scowl of his entire life now etched on to his face, he used his arm to push himself up. As the Moon Presence finished recoiling from the explosive shot, she instinctively drifted back towards Dumplstilskin. At the same time, Dumplstilskin pushed himself towards her, and reaching out with his arm, pushed it into her open face wound, grabbing her very insides.
The Moon Presence howled in pain at Dumplstilskin gripping her insides, and in response, the hunter simply tightened his grip in order to maximise the amount of pain that he could cause her. As he tightened his grip, blood started to spout from her face, on to his. Dumplstilskin now started to sink deeper inside of her as he reached further, all the while he couldn’t help but smile in satisfaction as he did so, his smile becoming more manic the further he went.
This was almost as satisfying as when he killed Ludwig.
Almost.
As he continued to reach deeper inside of her, he suddenly felt himself grasp something other than blood and viscera. It felt smooth, clean, and majestic, in contrast to everything else about her. Instinctively, he tightened his grip in response and began pulling out. When he got a closer look, he saw that it was a bright, spherical transcendent light, that somehow had physical form, and somehow, on some level, he knew that this was divine energy that Demigra had given to her so long ago – energy that she currently needed to live.
Knowing that this was his chance to end this – and her – once and for all, Dumplstilskin put every last ounce of strength he had left into tugging at her source of divine energy, pulling it out of her and towards him. The Moon Presence screamed in pain as he did so, but that just caused him to pull even harder. Once the transcendent light was outside of her body, he gave one final tug, and completely separated it from the no-longer-a-demon-goddess.
With the connection to her divine power severed, Piper howled in pain, as parts of her body immediately started falling off and began crumbling into dust. And then that dust became nothing. As parts of her began disappearing into nothingness, Dumplstilskin silently swore that for a single moment, he could make out the image of a young woman with curled, dark hair, buried beneath a red press cap, wearing a matching red coat.
And she looked very, very… tired.
“N… N… Na… Nat.”
Just ten seconds after being deprived of her divine energy, Piper Wright disappeared completely, and was now nothing more than a memory.
As soon as Piper Wright was no more, a bright light suddenly exploded from around Dumplstilskin, as the divine energy began flowing into him, lifting him up into the air. Demigra, who was currently in the middle of slamming Starlight Glimmer and Trunks into each other again, couldn’t help but notice the light and turned to see what was causing it, and as soon as he saw that the Moon Presence was gone and where the light was coming from, his eyes immediately widened in shock, instinctively dropping Starlight and Trunks as he did so.
“No…” The Demon God began, in a low rumble.
As her body hit the ground, Starlight’s gaze was naturally drawn to the holy light radiating from Dumplstilskin. It began quickly spreading outward, washing over everyone and everything in the area. The light’s touch almost seemed to invigorate her, allowing her to stand back up. As the light surrounding Dumplstilskin continued to glow brighter, Starlight was transfixed, unable to avert her gaze. Both the light and this feeling of tranquillity from the sight only seemed to increase with time, and…
*Pop*
The light faded and a small slug appeared in place of Dumplstilskin.
…
Starlight could only blink in confusion at what she had just seen. “Errr… what?”
“No, no, no, no,” Demigra began shouting. “No, no, no, not again. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” He yelled out before vanishing back into non-existence.
A moment later, there was another flash of light to her immediate left. “I’m back, bitches!” Dumplin announced. “…hey, why am I not being swarmed by said bitches?”
At that remark, Starlight and Trunks both simply exchanged a quick glance between themselves and let out a relieved sigh, before finally being able to smile again.
“It’s good to have you back, Dumplin,” Trunks spoke, stepping towards the once-again-true Demon God.
“I know. What would the universe be without the Demon God Dumplin? Nothin’, that’s what – literally nothin’.”
Starlight couldn’t help but giggle a bit at that. Taking a look around the battlefield, she noticed that the fire from the building had finally died down, signifying a true and final end to the battle. When she then looked over towards Dumplstilskin, or what he seemed to have become, she saw someone new enter the area: a girl, so pale-looking that she looked more like a living doll. She had long, blonde hair, and wore a black robe, with a red scarf wrapped around her neck.
Starlight took a step forward in response, but Trunks simply held his arm out to stop her and gave her a knowing look. Turning back towards the girl, she picked up Dumpl-slug and began caressing him gently. “Oh, good Hunter.” She whispered quietly to him, but still carrying over to the other three in the area. She then turned back around and walked back the way she came, apparently unaware of their presence.
“You don’t have to worry about him,” Starlight heard Dumplin speak up. She turned to face him, but he simply continued staring out ahead of him, at where the girl had taken Dumplstilskin. “Now that Dumplstilskin has become a Slug God, she’ll take care of him until he’s fully mastered his new powers.” Dumplin then smiled. “Then he’ll use his new God powers to create a successor to continue the Dumple Legacy.”
“You know, it’s funny.” Trunks spoke up, cracking a smile. “Demigra originally gave Piper that power in order to defeat the Captain and prevent the Dumple Legacy, but now Dumplstilskin will use that same power to ensure that it continues on after him. In trying to prevent Dumplin’s existence, he instead gave his precursors the means to bring it about.”
“Ha!” Dumplin laughed out loud.
Trunks looked back up again. “Well, anyway, Dumplin’s right,” he spoke up. “The timeline is now back on track. We’ve done our job here.” He then turned to look at Starlight Glimmer and smiled. “Let’s head back.”
Trunks then pulled out the Scroll of Eternity, which was once again free of corruption, and its bright light washed over the three of them, transporting them through time.
With a flash, the pony, the half Saiyan, and the true Demon God reappeared, now standing in the centre of the Time Nest, which still showed damage from Demigra’s recent revival.
“You’re back!” The Supreme Kai of Time called out, noticing their return. She was bent over, hands on her knees, and sporting a few bruises, but otherwise seemed alright, with a relieved smile on her face.
“Supreme Kai of Time!” Trunks called out, in a worried tone, noticing her injuries. “Are you alright?” He asked, running over to her.
“I’m fine,” she responded, standing up straight, giving a confident smile. “I take it from that the fact you’re here means that you’ve once again stopped Demigra?”
“That’s right,” Trunks answered, with a nod. “It was really all thanks to Starlight,” he said, stepping to the side so that she could see here. “I don’t think we could have won today without her.”
With Trunks’ and the Supreme Kai of Time’s gaze on her, Starlight couldn’t help but blush.
“Oh, right, the pony,” Dumplin suddenly spoke up in a tone of realisation, slamming his fist into his palm as he did so. When Starlight turned to face him, he then quickly spun to face her too, with a ball of yellow energy instantly appearing in his hands. “Get in the Fuck…”
“Dumplin, stop!” The Supreme Kai of Time called out to make him stop. Starlight wasn’t even able to process exactly what she had just stopped until she had done so.
Dumplin turned his head to look at Time Kai, his body still facing Starlight, with his ball of energy still charged in his hands, inches from her face. The SKoT held a firm look on her face as she stared at him, while Dumplin simply stared back at her.
He blinked once.
Twice.
Three times.
“Ugghh, fine,” he finally relented, cancelling his energy attack. “I swear we need a new hierarchy system around here. Some sort of… pecking order, if you would?”
Ignoring him, the Supreme Kai of Time turned back towards Starlight and walked towards her, now with a warm smile on her face. “As I was saying, you’ve certainly been a big help to us lately, especially considering the stakes of those battles.”
Starlight Glimmer blushed in embarrassment again. “Well, you know, the fate of all of existence was on the line, so…”
The Supreme Kai of Time’s expression then changed a bit to her earlier firm look. “It’s also been brought to my attention that you at some point threatened the timeline yourself,” she stated, folding her arms.
“Uhhmm,” Starlight stuttered, her blush now one of a different kind. “Well, I, uhhmm…”
“Messing with time is a very serious offense,” she continued. “As the Supreme Kai of Time, only I and my Time Patrollers are officially allowed to control time. Anyone else is therefore breaking a very serious law.”
Starlight gulped nervously. “Uhhh…”
Before she could properly speak up, however, the Supreme Kai of Time’s expression changed again back to her warm smile from before. “But then, you’ve already served a considerable sentence in Dumplin’s… ‘Fuck Box’,” she said in an awkward tone before taking a breath and reaffirming herself. “And you’re assistance in these last two matters shows me that you’re incredibly capable, as well as where your true moral alignment lies, and it would be a shame to waste that kind of potential.”
She then unfolded her arms and took two steps closer to the purple pony. “So I would like to extend to you an invitation to officially join the Time Patrol,” she said, holding her hand out towards her. “What do you say?”
Starlight Glimmer was speechless. Out of all of the different ways that things could have played out, she certainly wasn’t expecting this. She lowered her head in contemplation, so that she could think things over.
As for what she had done to be punished in the first place: technically she had broken a major law of the universe, not to mention several other crimes back in Equestria in order to get her hooves on the time travel spell in order to put her plan into motion; and looking back on it now, her plan did seem kind of petty and excessive. Was she really willing to mess with the natural law of the universe and spend eternity locked in a closed time loop just to mess with the life of one pony who had simply chosen to resist and fight back against a mare that had de-powered and held her and her friends prisoner?
Suddenly, she was looking at everything that had done in an entirely new light.
There was also the fact that her actions back in Equestria had made her a wanted criminal, and her world didn’t recognise the Fuck Box as an official form of sentencing. Even if by some miracle Princess Twilight did let her off the hook, what did she even have in Equestria to go back to? Everypony in her village thought of her as a monster and would never forgive her for essentially brainwashing them for years. Her one and only friend had left her years ago and had completely moved on with his life. And she was an orphan, so she didn’t even have any family. There wasn’t even anything back there that she could really use her abilities for.
As a part of the Time Patrol, however, she could put her exceptional skills to good use and do some real good, as well as try to make up for all the bad things that she had done. Maybe… she could even make some friends here. Trunks seemed friendly enough, and in a way, Dumplin at least recognised her abilities.
Looking back up to look the Supreme Kai of Time in the eye, Starlight Glimmer came to a decision, and nodded her head in affirmation. “Alright, I’m in.”
“Good to hear,” the Supreme Kai of Time nodded back with a similar expression her own face. “Well then, now that you’re officially one of us, the first thing that we…”
However, before she could finish, she was cut off as the ground beneath them suddenly started shaking violently, and the sky above them turned dark with storm clouds. The three Time Patrollers started frantically looking around, trying to spot the source of the disturbance, when suddenly multiple time portals began opening up all around them, each one showing a distortion in time.
As the most seasoned Time Patroller amongst them, Trunks was the most familiar with the different types of time distortions, and he knew instantly that these weren’t another of Demigra’s backup plans.
With an awkward look on his face, he turned towards his little pink boss. “Uhhmm, Supreme Kai of Time, what happened?”
The Supreme Kai of Time nervously scratched at her cheek with a finger. “Uhhmm, well, earlier when I discovered a change in history, I kind of maybe might have dropped a few scrolls.”
After hearing her explanation, Trunks could only let out an exasperated sigh. Quickly regaining his composure, however, he looked over his shoulder at Dumplin and Starlight, who both looked back at him with expressions of resolve and fierce determination on their faces. Seeing the confident looks on his partners faces, gave him confidence, as well.
“Alright then,” the half Saiyan leader of the Time Patrol began as he took a step forward. “Time Patrol,” he continued, unsheathing the sword on his back. “Move out!”
