Shadows of Dawn

Chapters

In For a Penny, Out For a Pound
New allies
Veni, Vidi, et liberavi
Unbound
New allies, and sad farewells
Libertatem Chao / Duality is my new favorite!
Strange celebrations, and stranger meetings.
Star children
Star children part two
A chilly reception
Gaze of pity
Gaze of boreas
Perverted gaze
End Gaze
War begins [Part one]
Return to your roots
Redoing this premise with changes

In For a Penny, Out For a Pound

It was a warm saturday morning, the birds were chirping,flowers blooming, bugs flying into my windshield, a pretty nice day. I was driving over to the mall for an important deal, a custom helmet from the series that defined my life, Lord of the rings, from Shadow of War, specifically. it was supposed to be a combination of Destiny SIVA infused Ranger armor, and Talions Nazgul armor.

I already had the rest of the suit made from the same guy, plus a custom made sword and hammer made to look like a mix of the Willtaker sword from The Taken King with Bits of SIVA in it for the sword, and a cross of the Hammer of Sol from Destiny 1 and the Nazgul hammer. we’ve been setting up an installment plan over the last few months, I would pay him the cash, he’d make the part of the outfit, or a weapon, and I’d come to pick it up, rinse and repeat.

“Hope this is enough to get by the dress code…” I hear my little sister Roxanne say a few feet behind me, possibly adjusting her cosplay just a bit. She wasn’t a little little sister, just a year younger than me and she nearly equaled me in height. In fact, she’s undergoing a growth spurt, she might over take me sooner rather than later.

I chuckled “You know, I could try to have Hank look for something more...covering, for you.”

She walks up to my vision. “Yeah, I guess. There's only so much a cloak can do.” She says, adjusting her dark grey cloak as it was bothering her hair.

She had been dedicated to her cosplay this time, more than usual, and had grown out her hair to outrageous proportions, the hair now extremely long and dyed black, dropping to floor-level; towards the bottom and is plaited into big braids that are tied off by a bandage-like band. Her hair-strands curve towards the left-side of her face and she has mid-length hair which is plaited and tied by a smaller bandage-band resting on her left shoulder.

“This going to be pain for the barber…” She says with a sigh, blinking her slightly irritated eyes. “I can’t stand these contacts, how do they not tear up every second?!” The source of her irritation was a pair of Golden Yellow with just a tint of harvest orange contacts she placed. “Least I’m not so hot anymore…”

Her clothes were rather...showy, consisting of a revealing ruby-red corset which reveals her midriff and the top half of her breasts. The red corset has an insignia visible below the belt which it hinders below. The same belt rests of her hip and above her torn, black jean trousers, which now look like shorts. The jean trouser has a chain, multiple belts wrapped around her right leg and a few which spiral towards the lower half of her left. Over her corset, she wears a black jacket in the form of a robe with red-velvet lacing; the jacket is ripped towards the bottom and is tightened towards her chest by the belt.

She wears a replica of the protective armour on her footwear as well as one extra armour plate on her right shin. She wears the same armour in the form of an arm protective gauntlet which rests above the same material as her coat; the material arches its way up to and wraps around her middle finger, highlighted by a rhombus-shaped piecing. The same gauntlet is where she would rest her lance-blade in battle. Her left arm is wrapped and bandaged up.

I then turned into the malls highway exit and parked the car outside, following the instructions on my phone, as the place was hell to find, one of those specialty corner shops. With sister in tow, I headed to the store in question, finding a younger irish gentleman in a red business suit and black shoes, with a fedora neatly placed on his head. He was sitting back in a wooden chair, his sleeves rolled up, and a chaos star tattooed on the back and front of each hand. A cane leaned against the wall next to him, with strange markings running down it, etched into the bark, and shining as if it was waxed quite recently. “Hey there, Simon! Here for those last pieces of yer ensemble?”

I nodded happily “Yeah, Hank, and don’t worry, you’ve won a return customer in me, I’ll probably come back for additions and such.”

Hank nodded before he got what looked like a fur cloak, grieves, and a cuirass, all of which following a style resembling a ringwraiths clothing style, as well as the two rings used in Shadow of War, and an action figure of my favorite Original Olog for Shadow of war, Az-Barko the Hellion. I don’t care if the guy didn’t show up in game, he is a boss! Man is an Olog commander with fire weapons and a dragonfire cannon, he is also from the Warmonger tribe, so he is a tough as nails kinda guy.

Hank looked to me sadly for a moment before he sighed, I could tell something was bugging him as he handed me the figurine of Az-Barko the Hellion before I put it on. “Nah, ye won’t… I’m sorry, but this is yer last time visiting me... A shame... I truly enjoyed yer company...”

He then tapped his cane on the ground and I blacked out, the last thing I saw being a flash of brilliant green fire and a red glow to his eyes piercing the green.

“Master! Master, wake up! It is time to get up!”

Guh… Did I leave my PS4 on? Wait… when did I get home? And why is the floor so damn itchy? I opened my eyes, only to see Az-Barko, a life size Az-Barko the Hellion, Looking down at me “...What the hell?”

Az-Barko frowned “Master, what is wrong? Did you plan to sleep longer? We are wasting daylight, and we must make our way to the Castle in the distance before nightfall.”

I rubbed my head before looking to my surroundings, the forest feeling oddly familiar. I then saw Roxeanne and smiled as I walked over to her “Roxy, Sis!”

She growls in irritation, her voice sounding different from what I can tell. “What?” She says with a single eye opening, openingly glaring a bit. I could tell her voice was much different now, due to the coldness and slightly rough edge to it.

I smiled “We didn’t die, so I think we should see what’s up, plus…” I gestured to Az-Barko “It’s freaking Olog MVP! Az-Barko is real now!”

Az-Barko bowed his head reverently “It is pleasure to meet mistress, Long have I awaited day of meeting both of you.” He then looked to me “I would like to protect mistress, be bodyguard, is this okay?”

I frowned thoughtfully “Is that okay with you, sis? We probably will need him to watch your back, I don’t know about Therions, but Wraiths cannot die, er… well, die and stay dead, and I am definitely a wraith now.”

“...Yeah, sure.” The now turned Therion says with a nod, accepting the offer while glancing at the wraith that I had become.

Az-Barko smiled and nodded as he hefted his massive mace over his shoulder “No one shall touch mistress, No one!” He then smiled as he grabbed something from his satchel at his side, it was a cooked animal haunch. “Hungry? Good bodyguard gets food for charge, unless like master, then just keep safe and keep happy. Old job entailed keeping belly full of grog, but think company work better for menfolk.”

She looks at him with a nod. “Yeah, go ahead with the food thing. I am feeling a bit peckish.” Roxy says.

As Az-Barko hands her a hefty chunk of charred...something. I looked to Az-Barko and frowned as I saw that he was injured “Az-Barko, where did you get those wounds?”

Az-Barko frowned “Killed big lion thing. Had sharp bug tail and bat wings… stinger tail hurt shoulder, but Az-Barko can take it-”

I took out my backpack, which had somehow become a Lord of the rings style satchel, and pulled out some rubbing alcohol and sewing tools “I’m gonna patch you up before we head out, okay? I won’t lie, you are not going to have fun, Disinfecting and stitching a wound like this will hurt like hell.”

Az-Barko looked to me curiously “Why care about Az-Barko so much? Just one Olog.”

I frowned “Before I became this, I was a doctor, it was my job to help people. I don’t care if you feel odd about me caring, I refuse to let anyone suffer when they tried to help me or my kin.”

Az-Barko frowned “New Master better man than old master. Not as cruel to soldiers. Good leader trait.” He then sat down and offered me his shoulder “Az-Barko is ready!”

I gave him a large piece of leather I had just stripped from my old jacket from my bag “Bite into this, we don’t want you to bite your tongue off.” As Az-Barko complied, I got to work.

??? POV

“AAAAAAUGH! AAAAAARRRRGH!”

The voice shouted from the Everfree shouted as I looked to Spike, my number one assistant. “That sounds like…”

Spike nodded “One of the Olog-hai. But I thought they all either lived in the badlands or served in the millitary? What could it be, Twilight?”

I frowned “I don’t know, but we are going to find out, get the girls, okay?”

Spike nodded and began five identical letters to Twilight's friends.

“Come to the Library, ASAP!

-Twilight and Spike”

Simons POV

I looked to Az-Barko and smiled reassuringly “Okay, the wound has been disinfected, and sewn shut, just gotta hope we don’t have to strain you too much, right?”

Az-Barko looked to me and saw that I had been crying throughout the treatment “Why tears? Thought doctor, shouldn’t master be used to screaming?”

I shook my head “I usually knock out the subject first, but I don’t know how you guys work too well, for all i know, your body might only go unconscious when sleeping, or dead. I didn’t want to risk it.”

Az-Barko frowned more “Why care so much about Olog? Only soldier.”

I frowned “No, you are our friend now, my army is going to be close, nothing like the armies you knew. Ologs and Uruks will be able to trust each other, they will be friends, family even. You have already proven to me you deserve it, you cared enough to keep us safe as we slept, and to get us food. You are my friend Az-Barko, and I will not stop caring about your wellbeing.”

Roxiana just nods a bit. “Yeah, what he said.” She says with a tilt of her head.

I smile as Az-Barko looks to us both in confusion, only for me to hear a rustling in the bushes as I looked to the side, only for me to see six odd women, Mages maybe? Anyway, I saw them come out of the bushes and look to us curiously “Ummm… Hello?”

Roxy however seemed to tense a bit, her caution rising.

The six of them looked to each other as i waved awkwardly, only to frown as I saw Roxy tensing “Ummm… why are you here with an Olog, and how come he is not attacking you?”

Az-Barko smiled proudly “Master Az-Barkos friend! Master kind to Az-Barko! Healed Az-Barko when odd lion hurt him!”

I frowned as they looked to each other with uncertainty, the yellow one looking like she wanted to hide or flee.

I smiled kindly, hoping to smooth things out “So… um… How about we go somewhere where there are more civilised environments? Less likely to be attacked, and such.”

The yellow one nodded slowly “Um… yes please.”

“Not with the Olog!” The Rainbow haired one interrupts though, openingly glaring at the big guy.
Az-Barko growls before wincing as he clutched at his shoulder. I looked to the rainbow Haired one before I grunted “And you think I care what racist bigots like you have to say? With the way you said Olog, you’d think he was a rodent. He protected us as we slept and got us food for if we needed it, he is my friend. So either you let us into a HOSPITAL so we can treat any possible poisoning he could of suffered, or I break in and steal the needed supplies, plus whatever else we can take, understand?”

The yellow one meeped as she murmured something about bandits. Oh great, I must of sounded like a bandit…

“Nice.” My sister says, unamused and looking rather bored at the same time.

“Sorry deary, but we cannot allow a Brute into the town...I suppose we could lend you the supplies….” The white horned one says

“But how can we trust you?” The purple horned one says.

I frowned “You do realise that your stealth skills are terrible, yes? I could of killed you from miles away, but no, I decided to see who you were. Besides, Would you blame your winged friends for flying too much? No, they were made for that. Ologs were made to be living siege tanks, the fact that he has not tried to rip your heads off like bottle caps is testament to him NOT being beyond socializing.”

Az-Barko nodded “Az-Barko may be good at smashing, but also want to make friends. Not want be stereotype of old times. Az-Barko want learn to smith, and be arcanist.” He then looked to me “Unless if master not want.”

I smiled “It’s fine with me, I just hope the next town is not full of bigoted assholes.”

“Even if we do trust you, how’d you think the towns going to react?” Rainbow says before glancing somewhere. “Where’s your girlfriend going?” She says, pointing a finger to Roxy, who was walking deeper into the forest.

Ew. EEEEEEW. “That, you ignorant swine, is my sister. And honestly, I think she has the right idea, getting far away from you horrid people. I should of done the world a favor and blown you to bits with a well charged hammer toss.”

“Going hunting, you seven can argue if you want.” My sister says with a unnerving amount of cold uncaringness. “But I warn you, hurt my brother and I’ll eat you.” She leaves off the warning like it was a casual statement.

“E-eat!?” The White Unicorn squeaks a bit.

The pink one looked queasy “Ooogh… still nauseous from the baked bads… that’s not helping…”

The orange one looked to me angrily “Now y’all mind telling me where you stand telling us we are so terrible?”

I looked her straight in the eyes. “Because judging someone by how they look is an ignorant, disgusting thing to do. And I will NOT stand for you staying here and insulting my friend. So either apologize, OR GET OUT!” At this, my rings glowed a brilliant red and blue as my body was enveloped in an aura of light.

Rainbow gets into a aggressive stand but the purple one grabs her by the magic before looking at their walking lie detector. “Applejack?” She says with a silent question.

Applejack nods to her “They are really friends, Twi, Az-Barko believes it, and so does this feller. And… Ah really think we should take one of his offers, not fight him… I get the feeling he could really hurt us if he wanted.”

“But!” Rainbow’s mouth is silenced by whitey.

Twilight makes a slow nod. “Alright, thank you Applejack.” She says with a smile before nodding her head to the Olog. “We’re sorry we missed judged you, its just really bad experiences.” She says with a gentle smile while Rainbow just groans and stops flying.

Az-Barko nods “Can feel brothers living in fear. Not of master. Think they would welcome a change if given chance. But… fear makes even Olog do things they not want do.”

I looked to Az-Barko and frowned “I promise I will free as many of your people as I can, friend.”

Az-Barko nods “Know you will, you nice person, rare towards Uruk, even rarer to Olog.” He then looked to Twilight again “Thank you for saying sorry, take big person.”

She nods a bit before looking at me. “Is your sister going to be okay out there?” Twilight says, looking towards the path Roxy took.

I frowned “I’ll go check. You good to head to town, Azzy?”

Azzy tilts his head “Azzy?”

I nod “Friends use nicknames for each other, you can call me Si, if you want!” I then looked to the equines “You six call me Simon. While I am not AS angry, I am still not happy with you.”

Applejack nods “Ah hope y’all can see to forgive us, we’ll keep the townsfolk under control, you get your kin, kay partner?”

“You don’t have to worry about me.” They hear Roxiana say as she enters the camp...dragging some kind of flailing giant snake with its eyes being covered. “Anyone have any books about ‘How to cook a Basilisk’?” She asks, yanking on the tail and making the cursed beast hiss loudly and snap in the wrong direction, ramming it’s head into a branch and knocking it out.

Azzy nodded “There library in town, saw when Magi hiding from striped one.” He then rubbed his chin “Should kill first, don’t want cursed eyes to kill Magi. At least destroy eyes.”

“Got it.” She says, flexing her arm and making her blade unshealth from the gauntlet. “Anyone got any weak stomachs?” She asks the others.

All of them but The Rainbow haired one raised their hands before Azzy smiled as he got what was going on “Turn around little Magi, will be grizzly.” They turned around, and Twilight turned the rainbow haired one around with her magic, much to her irritation.

I looked to the snake as Azzy smiled, him eager to see what one of the two of us can do.

Timeskip

The six women walked with Azzy, Roxy and I as we made our way to the main square, the Magi looking to Azzy fearfully, that is until he tried to sit on a bench and promptly fell on his rump, causing them to crack up before going about their days. Azzy smiled “Sometimes good laugh all needed.”

Pinkie Pie smiled and nodded as she bounced around “Yeah! That’s super true!Wait a minute... How come you know so much about friendship already?”

Azzy grinned “Must keep brothers calm, need to be good companion.”

Twilight smiles a bit at him while Rainbow just grunts a bit, glancing at Roxy a couple of times.

I frown at Rainbow hair as I grunt. “What exactly is your problem? Azzy did nothing to you. Hell, he had plenty of reason to hurt you, you were VERY rude to him. And from what I know of Olog culture, a personal slight against someone is a definite call for a spar.”

Azzy nods slowly “Yes, Ologs spar often. Az-barko often have to bruise skin and bone, never hurt forever though.” He then looked to rainbow Dash “Only reason Az-Barko not make spar, he not know if Magi tough like Olog.”

I frown, seems that the Olog-hai of Equestria aren’t as bloodthirsty as their middle-earth counterparts… I wonder if Uruk-hai are the same… I then looked to everyone but Rainbow. “I hope that you can come to be friends with us. Except…” I look to Rainbow Dash “I doubt some of you will.”

“Feelings mutual.” She says, flying ahead a bit while not looking at him.

I then sensed a strange presence, something… wrong, it was coming fast, straight for Rainbow, I sighed and ran to her, shoving her out of the way right as a strange, purple glowing monstrosity that resembled a dead Uruk appeared.

I grabbed him by the head as he stabbed me through the shoulder. “I SHALL SUP ON THY SOUL, LIFELING!”

I growled as Azzy ripped him off of me, throwing him into a tree as I leapt after it, slamming my ringed palms against his hands, letting my aura of light turn blinding as I felt my will form words as they left my lips before I could even know what was happening. “Thy bonds to this realm are cleft in twain, never shall thee rise again! Now fear the Lord of Dawn, protector of good forever on!”

As my light burned the creature away to nothing, I could feel the… unlife, that made him stay leave his body and be destroyed, his body falling apart on the breeze like so many ashes. I then sighed as my wound healed itself with the light “I think… I think I just killed a wight.”

“Yes, yes you did and I want to know how!” Twilight says, seeming eager. Rainbow was grumbling to herself, but by the tone it wasn’t anything malicious or anything negative.

I frowned as I walked back to them as Azzy looked to me with worry “What is ‘Lord of Dawn’ And why say protect good?”

I frown “I don’t know, I just...I said it before I even knew what I was saying…”

Fluttershy frowned thoughtfully “That… that sounds familiar…”

Applejack frowned as well. “Yeah Shy, Ah remember Granny talking about him on her good days.”

“Bet I’m the Lord of Calamity…” I just barely hear Roxy mumble under her breath with some mirth in it.

As They looked to Roxy with barely contained curiosity as Spike spoke up “Did… did those titles just come to you?”

I nodded “Yeah, I don’t know where they came from…”

Spike gulped as he looked to Twilight, then to me “The Lord of Dawn is supposed to be the bringer of good via the powers of evil, the last one was Starswirl the Bearded, and the last lord of Calamity was Discord before he went mad…” He shakily looked to us “If you are really new here, and you just came up with those titles after being exposed to potent magic, like yours, then… it’s very likely you are the next ones to ‘bring forth the tides of change.’ Last time that happened,the first Almighties were born...”

“Don’t worry about the Lord Of Calamity, I won’t go Kalameet on you.” The women tells them while waving a hand and later adjusting her top.

Spike seemed to grow uneasy at this, as if he was...scared, on a primal level. “That was… odd…”

I looked to him before shrugging. I then looked to Rainbow Dash “You okay, Rainbow fro?”

Pink one giggled “Fro? What does that mean?”

I shrugged “It means a hairstyle, and no one I know of has polychromatic hair.”

She grumbles a bit. “Thank you.” The girl shoots, scrunching her nose up. “For saving me, I mean. Don’t get used to it!”

I shrugged “Hey, the best thank you would be you trying to get to know Azzy before judging him. I mean, he did help save your life.”

Azzy shrugged “Just happy to help. Hope rainbow ok.”

Fluttershy looked to Azzy curiously as we reached what looked like civilization. “Why do you care so much about Rainbow Dash, when she was so mean to you?”

Azzy looked saddened by something “Remind Az-Barko of sister. Before Dragons eat her.” He sighed “Az-Barko swear never let anyone he like get hurt after. That include friends get sad.” He then gestured to Rainbow “She may not be friend yet, but hope can be. Az-Barko want make friends. Last of clan, so need to make new clan ties, hope to rebuild, maybe find nice Olog girl.”

So… there are female Ologs and Uruks then here. Good to know.

“...Don’t think about it, Don’t think about it, Don’t think about it, Don’t think about it…” Only I managed to catch Roxy’s brief chant.

Pinkie pie then cried out “Ohmygosh! What would a baby Olog look like?! They must be soooo cute!”

“Nope, nope, nope…” My sister continues, trying to act like nothing was bothering her.

Az-barko then sigh “Az-Barko smell female Ologs, why?”

Pinkie Pie smiled “Oh, we have some Olog citizens in the local militia, silly! We just have bad experiences with Everfree Ologs.” She then waved to a passing furry Olog with a more feminine frame, to which Az-Barko suddenly turned sheepish “Hiya, Al-Maru! How are you today?”

The Olog smiled “Good, Pinkie, Who is this Olog? He smells...odd.”

Az-Barku stuttered “Az-Barku f-from Badlands! N-nice meeting Al-Maru!”

“Don’t be shy darling.” Rarity says quietly so only the male Olog can hear.

Az-Barku took a deep breath “You… pretty… want have meat sometime?”

Al-Maru looked to him for a moment “Sure, you seem kind. Your speech is labored though, tell me, do you do better with Black speech?”

Az-Barku nodded “[Yes, it is my mother tongue.]”

She smiled as I looked to the six women and Roxy, who looked confused, seems only I know black speech. “[I would love to eat with you, I can tell you are a kind soul.]”

Azzy smiled “[This is a joyous day! I rarely get to speak with others in my mother tongue, even rarer such an attractive one!]” He then blushed “[S-sorry if that was too forward.]”

I then smiled “[You have fun, Azzy. i’m going to go to the local library, try to learn some history. I don’t like being ignorant as to what is going on.]”

Azzy nodded “[Yes master, read well!]”

Al-Maru frowned “[Master? You are beholden to him?]”

Azzy shook his head “[No, I owe my master my life, he saved me from being auctioned into slavery, and treats me as his equal.]”

Pinkie Pie smiled. “[He really does seem nice!]”

Applejack frowned “Since when do you speak black speech, Pinkie?”

She shrugged “I dunno, but I definately speak in brackets!”

“Leave the wall alone Pinks.” Roxy says, still walking ahead.

She frowns “But I’m so good at it!” She then looks to Azzy and smiles as they walk towards the nearest park, Azzy offering her a chunk of Manticore meat. “Aaaw~ They are so cute together!”

I chuckled and nodded “Little Olog fluffballs are in our future, hopefully!”

“Nope, all nope! Begone bad thoughts!” Roxy said

New allies

It was about three hours later with me back in the everfree, at what the Magi, as I learned they were called,referred to as the old castle of the two sisters. I sighed as I looked up before I finally decided to relax, and thus let all of the events of the last few hours finally take root.

...It was not pretty, luckily Roxy was waiting back in the town for Azzy to return from his date. “GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!” I punched a wall hard enough with my gauntlet covered fist to leave a sizeable crater. I gripped my head as I curled into the fetal position. “All of it… it’s gone… no more working at the hospital… no more healing people...I lost it, everything...and why? Because I made a deal with some guy for custom cosplay stuff?!” I pounded the wall again before something landed in front of me.

It looked like some sort of sword with a leather wrapped handle, I noticed symbols within the emblem that was ingrained in the sword’s cross-guards. It kind of reminded me of those old swords that Knights used, although why does this have a sun and moon insignia? I reached out to the sword so I could inspect it further, wondering where the hell it came from.

Suddenly, a deep voice spoke from out of the sword. "This is merely a recording, tis a wonder how this power even works but tis not the craziest thus far. Would ye be man, pony, beast, nor any matter of creature. I pray tis within good terms. Speak the old code and we shall see if ye are a good being, break the code and the summon shall be undone.” it said.

"I, then speak thy name, choose the Old Code as my own. I am hereby sworn to valour, to speak only the truth, to use arms to defend the helpless, to use might to uphold the weak. My heart knows only virtue. My wrath will undo the wicked."

“Huh… weird, answering machine sword…” I shrugged and spoke aloud the code, feeling my own power surge into my words as I said them, the words now feeling as if they were unlocking a door of some sort. A rush of fire started to bloom from the sword, shooting into the sky and creating a swirling inferno, suddenly something big, scalie, and draconic dropped from above and landed in front of me, causing me to fall over due to its weight. Despite the blazing portal, I noticed that nothing was being burnt… fortunate, as the last thing I needed was smokers lung.

I looked to the dragon, as I quickly realized that it was, indeed, a dragon. “So… I can summon dragons now? Huh… weird. Thought I’d have to at least dominate one before that could happen… wait… did I just brand a passing dragon?” I looked up to the dragon in question, looking him over for any mark of domination, or a blue glow to his eyes. “Huh… no glow, no mark… guess he is free? That’s good...ish...maybe bad. Should ask if he is a man eater.”

I cleared my throat “Umm… Hi?”

“Ye don’t see many talking dragons, eh?” The dragon asked with an amused chuckle. His scales were the color of bronze with his face being a darker colorization, he had multiple horns growing on the back of his head, mostly pointing backwards, I count each one, ending with a total of eight, four on each side of the head. The dragon's’ eyes were a bright orange, last I noticed were the spikes growing along his spine and down along his tail, its tip looking like a spear, but no blades or sharp edges? “Maybe it’s dull?”

I nodded cautiously “The only books I could find on you were written by Magi, who were very detailed in how you were not a people to be trifled with. Although, with how they treat Ologs, I doubt the tales were anywhere near accurate.” I chuckled “Xenophobic fools. Fear and hate anything not a pony.”

“So, mine kind is looked at with ill thoughts in this world.” The dragon said, yet he didn’t seem phased.

I shrugged “They have stereotypes for anything not a pony. I’m actually thinking, maybe I should leave equestria. These Magi… they make me really angry. Xenophobia is not ok, and I can sense something in this forest, something dark. Az-Barko, my Olog friend, he says he feels it too… something is binding his people into servitude, even after death… I was going to go and help handle the issue… after I calmed down.”

The dragon rose his head to look around. “Then it would be best they not see me, even if I don’t look like thy dragons. So, what matter of creature are ye and what would ye name be?” he asked.

I thought a moment “I’m Simon, and I’d say I am a SIVA infused Wraith. I mean, I feel like I’m still me, still human, even, but… I have these odd powers now…” I held my hand out so that my palm faced upwards, the energy forming in my hand a mix of Wraith fire and small cores of SIVA, orbiting around and through the flames.

“Then… ye are like me then, a Displaced..” The dragon said with relief in his voice

“Probably relieved that he has finally met another who was once human. Don’t know how I’d handle all of this without Roxy.” I smiled before I walked over to the Dragon and patted his...foot. Hey! Guy is huge! “You know, you got me as a friend, if you ever need to vent. I… have felt the panic of this change, quite recently, in fact.”

“Tis no need, I am just glad to meet another, I had mine doubts despite what that cloaked man said when told me about everything such as the Displaced, the multiverse, the void. Tis hard to believe that such a thing exists beyond the realm of earth.” The dragon said as he shook his head of his thoughts. “Forgive me, I forgot to introduce myself, my name is Ladon.”

I grinned as I chuckled. “Welp, I’d bet that I’m going to be meeting the guy in charge soon, I asked Az-Barko and Al-Maru to investigate the forest, find his lair and such, then tell me where.” I looked to my rings and smirked “Let’s see how I do in a scrap, huh? Will be my first time doing harm.”

Just then, Az-Barko and Al-Maru came into the castle, onl to see me chatting with Ladon. Azzy looked up to Ladon and stood protectively in front of Maru. “[ By the hammer of Or-Assik, you shall not harm those dear to me again, dragon!]”

I stepped in between them “Hey, Hey! Ladon is not like the feral dragons of the badlands! He won’t eat anyone, ok? He is a good soul, I can tell!”

Maru looked to Azzy and smiled as she gently caressed his back, affection in her eyes. “[I am honored that you would fight a dragon to protect me, though, my love.]”

Ladon raised an eyeridge, he looks like he has never seen those creatures before.”Friends of thee?” he asked.

I nodded “Very close friends, these are two of the best Ologs you could hope to meet. Az-Barko here just… well, he lost someone to a feral dragon attack, it kinda haunts him.”

Az-Barko sighed as he slouched, of which I quickly knew he felt he should apologize. “Az-barko apologize for assuming, know prejudice not fun.”

Al-Maru smiled as her fluffy dimples showed “Thank you, my love, you are sweet.” as she kissed his cheek, I could hear him mumbling out a thanks in Black speech before blushing fiercely.

“Tis quite alright, Az-Barko. Tis valiant to protect the ones ye love, but ye best pick thy fights wisely, I don’t think ye would survive in a fight against mine power.” Ladon said with a small warning.

Az-Barko looked to Al-Maru before he nodded slowly, “Not care, if was going to hurt Al-Maru, would rather die so she and master can run.”

I looked to Azzy and frowned as I walked over to him “You know that I am your friend right?”

Azzy nodded “You best friend ever had.”

I nod as well “Well, as your friend, I say… KNOCK THAT STUPID SHIT OFF!”

Maru nods “I would rather we all get hurt fleeing, than you get killed ensuring our escape.”

Ladon frowned at that. “However, there are times fleeing may not be an option”

Az-Barko sighs as he looks to me, a certain emptiness in his voice, and eyes “Already lost last beloved to Feral dragons, and clan as well. Not going to lose new family to same, not care if stupid. Happy that not going to happen...cannot take losing all again. Better have sad memory in head, than no head.” He then looked to Ladon “Az-Barko know Olog could never outrun. So would try buy time for master and beloved to get away.”

“Honorable. However, that may change now if we become friends, the tide of battle will tilt in our favor with mineself around.” Ladon said with a smile.

Az-barko grinned and nodded “Az-Barko would be glad to call Ladon Brother in arms!”

“As long as Simon holds that sword, I will answer to his call when I have time, all he need to do, is speak the old code.” Ladon said as he gesture with a claw-hand toward the weapon in my hand.

I frown “Although… until I get the blessing from the rulers of this land, of whom I recognize this symbol belonging to, saw it on some guards armor, I should get this wrapped up in cloth, maybe. I don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea, they seem quick to assume the worst of me.”

“Would this have anything to do with the ‘Xenophobic’ comment ye made earlier?” Ladon asked as he lays down on his belly.

“Good, this will give my neck a rest.” I then looked straight into his eyes. “They are extremely wary of anything that is different, I would not even call it Xenophobic at this point, because they are even scared of me.”

“They’d best rid of their paranoia for I am not the only one who will end up in thee world. There are things known as Tokens such as the sword I obtained from the royal sisters, it is a void duplicate sent across the multi-verse to other Displaced. They cannot force their way in but they can be summoned, each one has a different message and method of doing so.” Ladon explained to everyone.

I nodded slowly “Could you describe how you made this token? I would like the chance to make my own.”

“Certainly, but will ye channel thee energy into an item ye own or will thou try to go beyond that and create it with only your energy?” Ladon asked.

I thought a moment before I had an idea. I grabbed the hammer from my side and began to let the SIVA in my system go to work, making a small scale replica of my unique hammer, the SIVA making A loop of SIVA thread before making a solid hammer, made entirely of Crystallized SIVA. I then focused and channelled my Wraith power into it, turning the crystal from crimson red to a luxurious dark purple, flame dancing within the crystal hammer. “Ok, how do I make it my token?”

“Give it a message, something it will say when another Displaced touches it, ye can also give it other effects but thou will have to channel more energy into it, I’ve made my token send me back the moment my summoner breaks the code, I wouldn’t want friends that plan to stab me in the back.” Ladon said.

I nodded slowly before an idea struck me and I grinned “Let’s make it a smithies hammer too.” I focused, and the hammer gained the ability to become a smith's hammer, similar to Celebrimbor's, but empowered with the Wraith magic and SIVA. Whomever would make something with this hammer would make quite an impressive piece indeed! I then thought on a message, before my voice again left my throat without my consent.

“Thou speaketh to the lord of Dawn, lord and friend to the Olog and Uruk people! If thy wish is power, than thou hast found thy aim! If thou desire is domination of mine allies? Then may the gods have mercy on thy soul! Hold my Hammer aloft and strike it upon stone with intent twice, and thy call shalt be heard!”

Ladon chuckled in amusement. “Nice use of the ye olde english.”

I staggered as I felt my token disappear, feeling extremely drained before I felt a hand steady me, I looked behind me to see Az-Barko and Al-Maru glowing with an odd energy as the power returned to me. “What did you do? I never saw an Olog heal someone before.”

Az-Barko smiled “Learned from lover, she paladin.”

Al-Maru nodded “I can’t do it too much, sadly, but I am skilled enough to rejuvenate someone who has magically exhausted themselves.”

I smiled before I looked to Ladon before pointing towards the forest with my blade “Let’s see how we do against whatever has been binding the Uruks.”

Az-Barko nodded with a grin before holding his fiery mace aloft across mine “Will free brothers, too! No more Olog slaves!”

Al-Maru chuckles as she raises her hammer to cross with Az-Barkos and mine. “Leave any undead to me, Trivac’s light shall cleanse their corruption!”

“Slicing their head off can work too.” Ladon said as he moved his tail to the front of him, the spear-tip suddenly splits revealing a hidden edge akin to that of a switchblade. “Just give their neck a clean slice.”

Al-maru looks to Ladon sadly “While that does indeed work, i’d almost rather you burn them, then, at least, their souls will find release. If their body is ruined while still bound, then they will simply become a magical energy boost for the lich that bound them, not only making the fight harder, but forever damn the souls merged with the Liches own to damnation.”

“Ah, flames it is then, as long as my hearth burns.” Ladon said as the blades sinked back into his tail.

I nodded as we made our way out of the castle, only for me to sense a portal open up behind me, and Twilight come out of it “Wait! You have to stay in the castle until Celestia comes here!”

I turned to her and frowned “You would have me stay here as my people are bound beyond death? I may not be acknowledged yet, but I WILL be the king these people need, acceptance of your people or not.” Right as I said this, I realized that I meant it, I knew these poor souls needed a home, a place to be safe, to live normal lives, free of the hatred of these magi.

Al-Maru froze as a strange, tall woman in white clothing materialized behind Twilight, her looking less than pleased. “You would disobey a direct order from your princess?”

I frowned. So this was Celestia? huh... expected more. “Huh. You sure about that? I don’t remember signing any papers that made me one of your people, nor was I born into this nation. As far as I could be concerned, you are enforcing your rules on someone who you have no power over.” I then gestured to Al-Maru and Az-Barko “And anyone who treats those who should be considered equals as less than is despicable. Speaking of which many of your people have done so, and you have done nothing to stop it. Due to this fact, I think I will be making a little… detour… into the badlands, maybe make a deal with the dragon lord, get some land and ore from him. I have read about the many mines and such of the his that lay untapped, as they only care for gems, I am sure I could convince him of the value of an alliance, especially once he know that the magus people have been STEALING dragon eggs. Yes, I do know about Spike, I asked around about him, and did some digging.”

“Ye best listen to his wishes, Princess Celestia, lest ye feel the wrath of a warrior’s heart. Tis not a threat, but merely a warning.” Ladon said in kind to back up my words, he spoke in that low
voice of his.

Celestia seemed to pale as I spoke, her normally tan face losing almost all color. “Y-you… how did you learn all of this?!”

I smiled as I recalled exactly how I got that information.

flashback, two hours ago

I was walking back towards the Everfree forest as I heard what sounded like a distressed child's voice. “P-please, mister! S-stop! It hurts!” I quickly walked toward the child's voice as I heard a grown man laughing.

“Well, it is what you get for getting in my way, you Uruk filth!” I looked to the man in question from the shadows, seeing that he was beating an Uruk child, a doll that presumably belonged to the child being used to beat her. I leapt down behind him, flooring him quickly and restraining him as I handed the child a bag of coins from the nobles belt and her doll before waving her away.

I then slammed my palms onto his face as I shouted with rage “Thy secrets are mine!” As I pored through the memories of all that he had been doing behind the scenes, I grew sick at seeing this living skid-mark, and sighed as I reluctantly sheath my sword. I then headbutt him and leave him by a dumpster for someone to find before I walk over to the Everfree, a valuable haul of knowledge about the magi societies dark underbelly now stored in my mind.

back to normal time

“Oh, a noble ambassador was visiting, I slipped up behind him and stopped him from beating and possibly killing an innocent child. He was very... stubborn, before I used my magic. Oh, and did anyone here know that the Harpies have been suffering from raids by ‘rebel’ Magi, who have stolen all their supplies for years. Heck, apparently there are harpies that are starving to death in the streets.”

I smiled at the tan bitch before I looked to twilight “Oh, and the plans this woman has for you, mind boggling! But i’ll leave that to her explanation. Now How about we-” Celestia’s magical aura flared to life before I turned to her, stopping her fist cold in my palm as my SIVA wraithfire aura dwarfed hers. My body was enveloped in the purple auras light as I spoke “YOU! SHALL! NOT! TOUCH ME!”

She tried to back hand me before I threw her into a wall hard enough to topple it “I shall warn thee once, I will NOT allow thy blood tainted hands to strike me, attempt this again, and I shall wage a war the likes of which Sombras rebellion will seem like a love tap!” I grinned as she stammered “Yes, I do know of Sombra, of how he fought to keep your kingdom from overtaking his! Of how, in desperation, he made a pact with dark gods to keep your armies at bay! And of how you wiped your fault entirely from the records of his fall!”

Ladon looked between the furious Princess and me, the dragon was silent for a moment. “Let's proceed to our destination without further conflict. As for you, Princess and please forgive me of my words, but it would be best not to continue this before it becomes bloodshed, ye have a kingdom to protect and I’d hate to see it fall into shambles due to your actions.” He said.

Al-Maru was the first to leave, her removing the patches of Celestia’s army from her armor, before spitting in her direction “To think, I once idolized her.”

Az-Barko grunted “[I knew she was cruel when pushed too far, but this level of evil and depravity? I am quite surprised, and ashamed to say I thought of joining her army.]” He walked after Al-Maru.

I waited for Ladon, not wanting to leave him with this evil woman, not trusting her to not take things further.

The dragon turned half away, but hesitated, he turns to look at Celestia on the ground and… did something unexpected, he was offering his paw to help her up? I looked to her and frowned, daring her to try me, only she did not get the message as she smacked his hand away “Don’t touch me, you filthy, disgusting creature!” The dragon snorted in reaction at her response.

“I respect ye as the princess, but I suggest thou change thy outlook. Peace cannot be achieved by force.” Ladon said as he turned around, the sound of jingling chains heard coming from around his neck, the dragon quickly grabs hold of it to prevent his sword’s appearance being revealed to her. He kept his back turned. “Peace was created long ago by the three tribes who created the Fire of Friendship.” were his last words to Celestia before he walked over to my side.

As I turned my back to her, I grunted in anger “To think the Magi would believe such garbage about their ruler…”

“Hopefully she’ll heed my words, lest she wants more war on her hands, she’ll end up being Equestria’s downfall at the rate she’s going.” Ladon said with a snort.

I frowned as we got out of sight and earshot “I may have to dethrone her, actually. Grant her powers to one more… suitable for the role.” I thought of Twilight, thinking of her potential as a solar avatar. Luna, apparently, has been trying to help those her sister has wronged, even after her banishment, which was due to her rebelling against her for the same reason.

I grunted as we walked, feeling another's presence nearing us. It was primal, skilled in nature. I could tell it was a druid and a hunter from the get go, I turned towards its source to see an Uruk appear in front of me in a swirl of leaves and magic. When Ladon noticed me turning around, he turned as well, only for his tail to raise and push out its blades.

“I have heard you call out The tyrant of the sun, undead one. You are brave, strong and virtuous, I offer thee mine blade.” The Uruk before me was in a ragged cloak made from leather and covered in vines, as well as various animal bones made into charms, the Ivy threading through them, holding them too him and covered in flowing, glowing white runes. He was armed with a strange combination of staff and spear, the Staff having various knotholes filled with amber containing gemstones, and the top of the staff adorned with four spear heads, forming a large tip on the staffs top, a green flame that seemed to blaze with life energy from between the gaps of the four spear heads.

I nodded slowly “Your name, my friend?”

He smiled, his teeth strong and feral looking, and his eyes a potent green. “I am known as Orvok wooden heart.” I raised my brow at this, gesturing for him to elaborate “My heart was ripped from my chest by a timberwolf when I was but a child, the shaman of my tribe saved my life by putting the heartwood of a tree, carved into a replacement, into my chest and sealing the wound. I have had a tie to the earth from that day. I shall serve thee well in the badlands, making plants grow where none would normally.”

I smiled “Well, we are going to slay a lich first, would you join us in the battle?”

Orvok nodded “Gladly, the thrice damned bastard slew and bound my tribe after all, my battle-staff yearns for his blood!”

“Tell me Simon, who would this lich be?” Ladon asked with curiosity.

I sighed “It was an ancient servant of Discords, before he went mad. When he did, he cursed the poor mage with undeath, for trying to save his family from his wrath, the centuries as an undead has rotted his mind, there is very little of him left now. You should also know, he has claimed a dragon as well, one that long has had it’s bones slumber beneath this forest.”

“That reminds of something..” The dragon started clicking his claws nails together. “Would his name be Arthas Menethil?” Ladon asked.

I shook my head “No, apparently his name was… let’s see if I can even pronounce this… Thoshkir”

“Ah, I was thinking of a different Lich King, it would of been surprising yet amusing to see, there are quite a large number of possibilities and universes when it comes to the Displaced.” Ladon explained.

I nod as I look to Orvok “Tell me, will you be able to negate his hold over plants and animals?”

Orvok snorts with laughter before he smiles “Indeed, my lord. The forests of this world shall not harm thee. Thy truer concerns should be his illusions, and umbramancy, as well as his small legion of undead.”

“Is there anything else he can do?” Ladon asked, I could see it in the dragon’s eyes he wanted to be prepared.

I chuckled darkly “The umbramancy is the real threat, make a hostile copy of you that knows all your tricks? Yeah, not gonna be fun. Let alone the illusions, who knows if he can combine the two, mess up your perceptions of what is real...”

The dragon tapped his chin. “So it can copy me, but can it speak? Anything I can use to overcome this trickery or at least something so ye don’t confuse them for me?” Ladon asked.

I smiled “The shadow will look like an all ink black version of you. Like literally a shadow made into your shape, only difference will be that it will have his magic aura for eyes, luckily he isn’t exactly going to be flush with mana, so he can’t fight and cast illusions at once.”

“Excellent, the fool will be in for a surprise when or if we confront him.” Ladon said with confidence in his voice.

Orvok nodded “The everfree itself shall deny him respite if he flees.” He then whistled and a wolf made of wood materialized next to him, large enough for him to ride.

Az-barko grinned “[My flames shall free my brothers of his fell taint!]”

Al-Maru nodded “And may he light of Trivac purify their remains!”

“My fire shall burn him while my ice will freeze. He won’t be expecting me from the shadows either.” Ladon said with a draconic grin, I could tell he was looking forward to the thrill of battle.

I then sensed the fell taint of corrupted undeath, I grunted as we drew closer, him seeming to be mid chant as hundreds of voices filled my head, I looked to my friends to see that the others heard them, as well. “Hurts… free us… not supposed to be like this… the chains… they cut at us… please… can’t take it! Can’t take it, kill us, kill us, kill us, kill kill, kill you! It will end if we KILL YOU!”

Orvok growled as he readied his battlestaff, as Azzy readied his dragonfire cannon, and Maru began to chant a prayer “My people! I have found help to free you!”

The voices spoke as the litch turned to us. “Orvok… you left us to rot… you abandoned us… your heart may as well be rusted iron...Orvok the cur, Orvok the coward! Orvok the DEAD!”

The remains of the village around us suddenly rose up, the dragon apparently having been among them as it also rose from the earth, our shadows leaping to the massive undead dragon, reinforcing it and making it look like a dread aberration of bones, flesh, and pulsating darkness. “I see you hath brought a dragon. Child, do you not see? There is no hope for you, nor for us, the countless dead of this village shall never know peace, nor shall you… the hunger mu...must be sated… COME! SO WE MAY FEAST LIKE DAYS OF YORE, BACK WHEN WE HAD HOPE, AND FLESH!”

A chuckle came from deep within Ladon’s threat. “Ye of little mind, it's quite obvious you’ve never heard of heaven, thou shalt have it if ye give up thee hold on thy life.” Ladon said as his tail blade flashed out.

The dracolich froze and twitched “Thy speaketh true… want to stop, bound… burn me! Destroy me so that I may know peace! My soul… my bones… they ache… the pain, the hurt never ends… KILL ME! PLEASE!”

“And ye shalt have it!” Ladon said before suddenly exhaling a mighty breath of fire that soon was joined with Orvoks green flames, Azzy’s yellow ones, and Marus holy light, I quickly added my SIVA enhanced wraith flames, them washing over the army, leaving nought but the litch and charred corpses, the souls rising skyward in a deluge of smoke, their voices speaking as one “Thank you, may you win against the poor wretch that bound us, he struggles still, fighting to regain himself… free the poor soul from his eons of torture…”

“May ye find peace among the stars.” Ladon said as he looked toward the sky.

The litch roared in a feral manner as the remaining bones, shattered and sharp as they were, quickly launched at us as I heard a small, faint voice, quickly overshadowed by a much louder one “I want… to rest… please... help me... AHAHAH! THE PUPPETS HAVE BROKEN! TIME TO FIND SOME MORE! LOOKS LIKE I HAVE SOME TOUGH CANDIDATES, SO LET’S PLAY!”

Reacting to the flying bones, Ladon breathed out his flames again in an attempt to burn the flying bone remains. As he did so, the shadows all leapt from the bones and left them to become ash, the shadows wrapping around Ladons mouth, holding it shut like a muzzle while I could see a second shadow enter and fill his mouth. “ Please, end me… end my suffering… so cold... What marvelous toys you shall all make!” Ladon reached up with his paws and attempted to pull the shadows off of his muzzle, he growled deeply and threateningly as he struggled, pulling with all his draconic might. The Litch chuckled “ No… stop... you will only hurt yourself! AHAHA! DO IT! RIP YOUR PATHETIC MUZZLE CLEAN OFF! IT WILL BE SO DELICIOUSLY AMUSING!”

Ladon growled in annoyance, he reaches up and plugs up one of his nostrils, with a quick breath he shoots fire out of his nose at the shadows, quickly dispelling them. The dragon coughed and spat out the bad taste in his mouth. “Tasted like rotten carrion!” he commented.

The Litch shouted in anger, throwing a childish tantrum. “That was… odd… but please, keep fighting!WHAT KIND OF DRAGON DOES THAT RIDICULOUS TRICK?!” He then stamped his foot in anger before he started to chant.

I felt the forest around me wither and die, it was as if he was draining everything around him of life, I then saw that he was feeding the lifeforce around him into a massive spell, a giant ball of shadows forming frigid, dark flames and hardened bone ash forming a massive meteorite like boulder!

Orvok grunted, falling to one knee in a forced kneel before he launched a petrified branch into the litchs kneecap, wedging it between the bones of his legs, the litch ignoring it as he kept chanting, Azzy and Maru collapsing as they began to feel the drain of the spell in full “Hit the branch, cripple him! We have to stop the spell!”

I grunted, the flame forming a barrier around him as well. “I can’t get close enough!” I then had an ide that was so insane, it might work! Or it would get me killed. Meh. “Ladon, a little lift, eh?”

“With pleasure!” Ladon said as he quickly picked me up with his right hand-paw, making me realized how big it was since it covered a corner of his body. Pulling his arm back, he chucked me skyward.

I grunt, focusing my strength my hammer as I flip in mid air, landing feet first on his tail as ladon finishes a spin, adding momentum to a flick of his tail before I leap from his tail like a springboard, flying with ease through the flames, unharmed and at high speed before I rammed the head of my hammer, now alight with my SIVA wraithfire, right into the branch, breaking his kneecap and forcing him to kneel, interrupting his chanting and his focus, saving my allies before slamming my palms on either side of his head before I headbut him “Thou bonds shall be spurned, thy yoke to chaos lifted, may thy pain be returned, to the one who madness shifted!”

As my power freed the litch, I heard the voice speak to me in a faint whisper “ Thank you… may the elders see your kingdom flourish... great and mighty Lord of Dawn... Thank you… Thank you...”

“I’m going to need to wash mine mouth out when we get to a water source.” Ladon commented as he started breathing a gentle flame to see if he could burn the taste away.

Orvok walked up to me as Azzy and Maru healed each other “Ye have done me a kindness long refused to mine people. I shall forever be in thine debt-”

I laughed “No, you are a friend, Orvok. I have fought alongside you, and seen your valor. I want you to stand with me as an equal. We have two Ologs, Two Displaced, now we have an Uruk, do you know of anyone else who would join us that is worthy to lead?”

I smiled as he put together the dots. “You mean… you do not want to rule alone?”

I shook my head “No, I wish for there to be a council, two representatives for each race in our land.” I grinned “I already have two dragons in mind.”

Author's Note

Where was Roxy during all this? Simple. Pinkie's party.

Ladon belongs to this awesome guy!...but his story en't ready yet

A list of LoD's gods, constantly updated, so check frequently!

Also, a little heads up, SPIKE IS NOT RELATED TO EMBER AT ALL IN THIS!

Veni, Vidi, et liberavi

Shortly after Ladon explained to me how to send him back and he went to his Equestria, not wanting to cause a panic among the magi. After that, we began heading back to the library, Golden oaks, I think it was called. Orvok looked uncomfortable as we drew close, I took him aside as Azzy and Maru kept going “What’s wrong, Orvok? You don’t seem… comfortable here.”

Orvok sighed “I had come here to request aide of the local Magi guild, they sent me away with quite a few bruises. I am quite bitter at these Magi for leaving their neighbors to the fate of undead servitude.”

I nodded understandably “In less than three hours, I have seen some serious shit in this town... So, how about this? We go and get my sister, and we leave for the Badlands, post haste?”

“Alright, I’m right behind you.” My sister’s recognisable voice says dully, behind and slightly above.

I smiled and waved to Azzy and Maru “C’mon guys, Roxy was in a tree, no need to have anything more to do with these bastards.”

Azzy and Maru catch back up and sigh in relief, Maru the first to speak “I cannot believe I am saying this, but I am glad to leave this chapter of my life behind.”

Azzy nodded “Terrible Magi...wish could show what doing wrong.”

I sighed “Whelp. Let’s get going, eh? Got a long road ahead of us.”

Orvok cleared his throat “Er… actually, there is an old cullis gate near here that leads right to the border between the Everfree and the Badlands. I can open it up, if you would like.”

Roxy jumps from the tree. “What's this about a Magi guild? Sounds really speciesist. Like, KKK levels of messed up.” She asks, seeming to have just woken up from a nap.

Orvok looked confused “I have no idea what three k’s makes so bad, but the Magi guilds are groupings of the strongest magi in a region. Ponyville has one of the strongest near the Everfree, so I was hoping they could help defend the village before a Lich attacked. Fat lot of good that did.”

Orvok smiled at Roxy and conjured up a rose, before giving it to her “So what brings such a beauty to Equestria? Rare for a beautiful, open minded woman to show up in these lands.”

She raises an eyebrow. “My business, but it's nothing grand.” She says, shifting her weight.

Orvok smiled and nodded “Would you like anything? I can grow nigh anything I wish. Except for Poison joke, I steer far away from that stuff. Even more so the subspecies cruel joke… Stuff makes misery aplenty.”

“I’m fine as of now, but I’ll keep that in mind.” She says with a nod with a hint of curiosity in her eyes.

Orvok smiled as he looked to me “So, how about the cullis gate? We should stop by Comraich. Especially if you truly want to be a king to us, it’s the last standing home to the Olog/Uruk people that is independent of Equestrian Rule.”

Azzy smiled “Eager to see home. Been too long.” He then walked with me and whispered so that only I could hear. “[I remember being an odd doll, master. You may not know, but I was a mercenary before then, and that… Hank, individual… he made a deal when my employer left me for dead. I took it, and you were who I was bound to… I just want to say, I am grateful you are not like the other magi...thank you for being a good man.]”

We then drew close to a wooden archway, with crystal hidden within the wood, runes etched into the wood and glowing in many brilliant hues. Orvok aimed his battlestaff at the Portcullis and launched a green fireball at the inside of the archway, creating a sort of thin veil of green flame forming, sort of like a stargate, now that I think of it, but with fire instead of water. “Come on then, let’s go!” Orvok said as he walked through the flame and disappeared.

Azzy grinned and was the next to cross, with a cry of “[Home at last!]”

Roxy glances around the place, admittedly curious but keeping herself in check. Maru looked to Rose and smiled, holding out her hand “Well, since Azzy sees your brother as family… would you like to be sisters? I do not mean to be pushy, I just haven’t had time away from Azzy to ask. You do not have to answer any time soon, just pass me a note when you decide, ok?”

I smiled at this, my heart warming at the kindness that Maru was showing. I had a feeling that Roxy was feeling the same, but kept up her passive facade.

Maru gently patted Roxy’s back, careful not to hurt her, before gently walking through the flames, leaving just me and Roxy, I smiled “We have quite the family now, eh? And i saw how Orvok looks at you, methinks he is smitten.” I chuckled as I walked to the flames and walked through, seeing the Badlands in the distance. “Well, where is this Comraich? I haven’t exactly seen any maps as of late.”

Orvak grunted as he held his hand out to the portcullis. His runes were glowing brighter, and his eyes glowing green.“I kinda have to keep the portal open until Foxy Roxy passes through, boss. Don’t wanna strand her across the forest.”

My sister couldn’t quite hide the noise of her choking down her laughter. “Foxy Roxy?” She repeats, trying to compose herself slowly, a clenched hand in her mouth.

Orvok blushes a deep crimson “Err... sorry, didn’t mean to offend, I heard that attractive humans are called Foxy by those who wish to court them…umm… I-I’ll stop.” he then closed the portal and pointed to our right “C-comraich is just a few miles that way, sh-should see it when we break through the t-tree line.”

This time she lets out a small and short amused laugh. “I happen to like Foxes.” She says offhandedly, letting him know it was fine.

Orvok sighed in relief, the worry that he messed up evaporating quickly. He then walked with us as he cleared his throat. “The guy who’s been keeping Comraich standing has probably heard of us, he has dealings with the Changelings, and they spy on the Magi in exchange for medicine, which I have been supplying them in droves.” I looked to him curiously, us breaking the treeline before he caught on “What? Uruks gotta band together, Ologs too, The magi ain’t doing us any favors, and I’ll be damned if my birthplace surrenders to Equestrian rule.”

I nodded as we drew closer. “So, what are the chances of him accepting our idea?”

A loud voice guffawed as we reached the front gate “Oh, I’d say they were bloody fantastic! Avenging my blood brothers tribe, teaching Celestia a lesson, AND saving an Uruk child from a beating? Yer a blessing from Or-Assik hisself fer sure, lad!” he ordered the gates lowered, showing that while the outer walls were fortified to hell and back with steel plating and iron spikes, as well as what looked like fire geysers that reeked of poison, the inside of the fort was definitely in far worse condition, whatever shacks could be built from scrap were being used as homes, craters in the ground from what looked like explosives, there were even rats fighting over what looked like a hunk of jerky.

There was a grunt as the voices owner, a large uruk armed with a brutal looking hatchet and covered in a hooded robe, leapt down from the tall wall, sticking the landing, impressively enough. “A disgrace, is wot it is. The ancestral home of both the Ologs and the Uruks, reduced ta this. Used ta be, we had tha greatest stretch of land and and arny that’d make the dragon lord weep fer ‘is ma… now we can barely defend our arses from ‘bandits’ that we all know work for the sun bitch.” he sighed as he looked to me, looking like he was far older than just a few moments ago. “Ye wanna make us something tae respect again? Than ye have my blade, Grimgor Ironwill, at yer service.” He then ripped off his robe and stuck his hatchet in the ground through it, kneeling to me before standing up again. He had a mechanical look about him, a purple lighted camera lens like thing replacing one of his eyes with metal plating around the skull and some sort of magical-mechanical implants replacing his right limbs.

He had a bronze and black leather gauntlet with some red metal wiring at the back of the hand, the fingers sharpened into cruel, deadly claws. The gauntlets and the gloves are riddled with bronze bolts and had a metal piston connecting from the metal below the elbow and to the metal above, the elbow itself free of anything minus some black cloth. Some black and red straps held it call together but weren't obvious at first glance. The Bronze metal was polished and very well maintained as well, in spite of the scratches, burns, and dents in the metal. Magical lettering and runes were inscribed in the metal along the wrist and up to the elbow in neat order, each glowing a deep blue and humming slightly.

His leg, similar to the arm, had the same construction, yet was inscribed with fiery crimson runes, and his foot was edited into an odd sort of grabbing mechanism, as if made to allow running up steep inclines.

His armor was as close to power armor as one could get in a medieval fantasy world such as this, paired with the intricacy of his implants that I could just feel were his handiwork, what with the care he treated them with.

Orvok frowned as he looked to Grimgors leg “Lost another limb, eh, brother?”

Grimgor nodded sadly “Yeah, lost it fighting off the last raid. We know where the buggers are coming from, finally, but there’s bloody little we can do.”

“Do they invade often?” Roxy steps forwards a little bit.

He nodded as Orvok began healing as many of the wounded as he could. “If it weren’t fer the changelings spy network, and Orvoks poisons and medicine? We’d be a smoking crater today.” He sighed “We just sent them packing a few minutes afore ye arrived through the portcullis. Iffin ye went a little further north, ye’d of walked intae them.” He growled with anger “They took our entire mining crew… who knows wot the poor sods are goin threw.”

I thought a moment “We'll need that mining crew, not to mention, I refuse to let celestia hurt any of my people.” My sister openingly smiled in pride at my statement.

Azzy and Maru frowned to each other, before Maru looked to me “We should stay back, defend from any other possible invasions. Who know if Celestia will send more to attack. I mean, we are extremely weakened in a personnel sense.”

I nodded “Smart, we should leave half of us here to defend Comraich, in case if Celestia decides to send another band of raiders.” I looked to Roxy and Orvok, who had just finished his healing “Roxy, Orvok, come with me.”

Orvok nodded, his staff at the ready “Good idea, there is both a healing capable unit, and a brawler unit on each squad.” He then gestured to me and Grimgor “Plus some advanced units.”

“Count me into the brawler route.” My sister says, taking a step forward.

Orvok nodded with a smile.“I pegged you for one, all that muscle would be wasted on another path.” He then nodded to me “I don’t know what your brother would be, maybe a magic-knight/Rogue? Those born into dual classes are rare, but not unheard of. The magics do react oddly though.” He then pointed to Grimgor “I’ll leave it to grimgor to explain his class. Makes my head hurt.”

As he says this, my sister adopts a pondering look. “...Wonder if I count as a berserker class too…” Only I managed to catch it as she examines her bandaged arm.

Orvak smiles as we make our way out the gate “Can’t wait to work my magic on those bastards. Maybe I’ll use them for an herb garden. Some Bloodroot always makes for a good trade with Changelings.” He shrugged after thinking a moment as I looked to him in horror. He eventually caught on “What? Bloodroot makes for a great salve!”

I then lost all my horror. “Oh… I thought… like… you ate it.”

He gagged “Naw, stuff tastes worse than moldy cheese on a soggy cracker.” He then looked to Roxy with concern “You sure you should be going into battle with your arm hurt? I don’t want you to aggravate your wound.”

“It's not a injury.” Roxy clarifies. “Just hiding something.” She tells him.

Orvok looks like he wanted to say something, then mumbled. “If it’s scars, so help me I’ll gut the bugger who gave them.”

“It's more a gift.”She says while surprising him with her hearing, clenching her bandaged hand. “You’ll see, in a fight.”

He nodded slowly as we approached what looked like a massive hole in the ground, the lift to the hideout all the way at the bottom, with no visible way to retrieve it. Orvok rubbed his chin for a moment before he snapped his finger and brought out a single acorn, jamming it into the ground at the edge of the hole before blasting it with his green flame, causing it to grow at an exponential rate, the roots forming a spiral staircase to the hideaway before he stopped, shaky on his feet “Phew… that was… whew… I think I need a mana draught… deeper than I thought...”

He took out a strange amber bottle of what looked like pure liquid light, and drank the whole thing, before the light seemed to pulse through him, visibly rejuvenating his body. He then made a gesture for Roxy to go first into the hideout. “Beauty first, eh? You should get first claim to warriors honor.”

“Might as well...I need some target practise.” She says with a slightly...concerning edge of enthusiasm, clenching her other hand and extending her hidden blade in her gauntlet, its wicked and slightly claw shaped edge gleaming with red and white paint. There was some more clicking a metal against metal, signifying her blades in her boots extending from the bottoms.

Orvok smiled as he cast a strange spell on us, me feeling as if I had just taken ten gallons of coffee made with redbull instead of water! “Dayum! That spell is amazing! What’d it do?!”

Orvok chuckled “I basically enhanced all your abilities for the next hour, it’s going to take awhile to get all these bandits cleared out, but with the three of us, we should manage. Let’s just hope the spell doesn’t wear off when we are in a tough fight… I don’t know if I can keep casting huge spells like this in rapid succession...” He then mumbled quietly, almost as if he was embarrassed. “Anything to keep you two safe though…”

My sister hums in amusement, catching it again. “Then we better not waste it.” She told us, seeming to be getting impatient despite the facade she was trying to hold up. A second later, she starts the descent, a small eager grin on her face.

I was the next to descend, with Orvok covering the rear as he made sure that the spiral tree staircase...spiral treecase? Anyway, he made sure what we were walking down stayed steady and strong. When we eventually reached the base, what I saw invoked a feeling in me that I could not give justice with the title of rage.

I saw the miners of Comraich, yes, but humanoid dogs and odd, masked people as well, them all working on the mines, digging with bloodied hands and beaten bodies, their backs raw from their magi taskmasters whips, some of the younger of the canines were laying dead in the far corners of the mine, their scent of rot filling my nose... The sheer amount of negative intent I had for these Magi… it defied words. I did not want them to die, to meet a quick, painless end… I wanted them to suffer... “New plan, guys. Knock them out. I have plans for this scum.”

“No promises.” My sister replies bluntly, her bandaged hand twitching almost ferally, yet with a certain subtly.

Orvok grunted as he snarled at the Magi now surrounding us “I wondered where the Masked and the Diamond dogs went off to… Grimgor had been worried they got wiped out, but it seems that the magi put them to work.” he quickly took out what looked like seeds and tossed them at the feet of the Magi, disappearing in a swirl of leaves before green fireballs fired from a stalactite at the ceiling landed at their feet, causing vines to hold them in place as he appeared at the roof of the cave, hanging from the same stalactite that the fireballs came from before he leapt past them “I’ll free the slaves, get them to Comraich, you take care of the trash!”

“Don’t need to tell me!” Roxina yells, launching forward and immediately striking down four and three quick moves, two were kicks and one was a stab.

The two kicks struck home, knocking the wind out of one bandit and crushing the jewels of another, with the stab piercing the third bandits chest and ripping out his heart, I then grabbed the two that were… indisposed, and threw them over my shoulders, I felt something rip out of my back and tie down the two of them so that they couldn’t move. I looked behind me and saw SIVA chords were responsible, I’d of questioned why my SIVA was just now helping, but this was not the time. I nodded to Roxy, sending some SIVA out to form ropes “Tie em up, we’ll get some use out of these bastards yet!”

Orvok, who had a child in his arms and was leading the last of the canines and masked people out, quickly handed the child to the canine before leaping behind Roxy, right as one of the bandits let fly with a spear, him catching it and sending it back after sprinkling it with seeds and dirt, letting a green fireball follow, the despicable bastard getting absorbed by plants that grew from inside him before he took out a familiar looking wicker ball with a fuse, it was a firebomb. “Get away from my new family! No one will hurt them, not this time!” He then lit the fuse and threw it at the vile tree like body of the still living bandit, the bandit screaming in agony as he burned away to nothing.

“Out of my way!” Roxian says as she viciously knocks over and kills a few bandits that try to pincer attack her. “Orvok, you alright?” She asks, easily parrying and striking down a larger bandit.

He grunts as he launches some twigs at the last two bandits on their side, crippling their knees, me knocking out my last two as well.“Who gives a shit about me?! Are you okay?!” He looked to me and I could tell in that moment that we were irreplaceable to him, and that I would never have to worry about his loyalty.

“I’ll be fine!” Roxy says, kicking another bandit away as some more start to surround her. “Move, or I’ll eat you!” She roars to them. “BreakSoul: DEVOUR!” She swings her bandaged arm at the group, her daemon arm unleashing and cleaving one into four pieces while knocking the rest away.

I suddenly feel a stabbing pain in my chest, I look down and see no damage done, but the pain still grows. “G-guys! I th-think something’s going on! Go get the others to safety! I th-think The SIVA’s waking up!” I then looked to the bandit to my right, who was charging at me. I quickly raised my arm and there was a swarm of red dots as he was quickly consumed, becoming naught but more of the swarm as I felt the pain spread when the SIVA entered my body. “G-Gaugh! Guys… RUN! C-can’t... HOLD IT!”

I saw some sort of code flashing before my eyes, a text filling my vision as a voice filled my head.

Consume…

Enhance…

Replicate…

Override orders? Y/N…..Y...

...Additional orders included...

Consume...

Enhance…

Replicate…

Embody…

I looked to my sister with my now glowing red eyes as Orvok led her up the stairs, practically dragging her the whole way.

“Follow..sister...not… abandon...never...alone…”

[Orvok POV]

“Whats going on, what happened to Simon?!” Roxy demands, unaware of her Daemon arm still active and unleashed.

I looked to her “We need to get to Comraich, and get Grimgor, he’s the only one who knows how to deal with Godsblood when it’s that concentrated! We need to try to get him over here, we gotta help him, he’s not in control of the swarm like that, and I refuse to repay my debt to him by letting him live with the guilt of eating you!” I then felt the ground shake as I heard a voice that shook me to my core “Oh, Or-Assik...please, help my friend…”

“Siiiiiis….teeeeeeerrrrr…. Nooooooot…. Aloooooone…..Faaaamiiiily” He then appeared at the top of the spiral staircase, looking to her and smiling weakly, his right arm much larger and made into a sickly set of claws that he clutched at his head with, while his left was shriveled and small. “ Noooo…. Nooooot… consuuuuume….Proootect…. ”

“Uhm…” Roxy says with interest. “I think I got that.” She says, crossing her arms before noticing her daemon arm and deactivating it, the bandages seeming like nothing just exploded from them.

Right as she deactivated her arm, Simon roared in pain, clutching at his head until Blood seeped from his head “N-noooooo…. Consuuuuume…. Noooooooo….. Ruuuuun…. Awaaaaaay…… run awaaaaay…. RUN AWAY!” He then made to slap her away, only for me to take her place, shoving her to safety as he backhanded me clear across the wastes and straight into the walls of Comraich, only surviving due to my bond to the land.

She quickly reactivates her gauntlet, grabbing me and jumping a few feet away, a large ball of fire collecting in her palm.

As I looked to Simon I desperately offered prayer after prayer to the one god that could help us, hoping against hope that my friend… my brother would be saved… Roxy keeps a close eye on him, snarling a little in frustration as she places me down, drawing her gauntlet blade and boot blades.

And then everything stopped… I looked from my frozen body towards where Simon was… and so was he… Or-Assik has answered my prayer.

[Simon POV]

What… what’s happening? The pain stopped, but… so did I…

“I heard you needed help. My SIVA was causing you trouble, hmm? Seems the pain of shifting got you a little unhinged. Don’t worry, You’re going to be fine.” I looked to the voice’s source and saw a Golem like creature with metal textured to be like rocks with a red flag with a golden shield crest with some sort of plant acting as a loincloth. He has armor plating on his shoulders, almost thin and alien like, made of some kind of Bronze or bronze like in texture and hued with matching gauntlets that do not go pass the back of the hand. A red crystal could be seen through the hole just in the middle of his rib cage, if he had bones, and had gear like devices close to the collarbone. Metal bolts seemed to act as joints for him, and he had a sash on his torso that held various tools, as well as what looked like a red hot anvil tied to his hip. The only weapon he seemed to have was a hammer, made similar to elvish smiths hammers from Lord of the Rings, but with the metal pure red, and crackling with energy. He reached out with his hand, and my pain became a distant memory…

He smiled “Your body has become pure SIVA, modified to accommodate your unique powers, of course. And, be careful… You will gradually generate SIVA with your powers overtime. I left a gift at Comraich to help you make the most of this… I must say, I am quite proud of my handiwork.”

Everything unfroze, and I collapsed, not just with my body to the floor, my body became a puddle on the floor. I slowly tried to get up after a few moments, only to find myself reform into my full body, but with only the sword Ladon gave me laying on the ground, I grabbed it, feeling myself spread around the handle it before I realized that he was right… I was SIVA.

I generated a new sword and dagger from my SIVA, having spare from absorbing the bandits I had tried to capture. I then walked unsteadily on my new legs towards Roxy.

“Simon?” I heard my sister say cautiously.

I looked to her and nodded before I opened my mouth to speak, only… nothing came, I had forgotten to make myself vocal chords. After a quick runthrough of everything I now needed, I looked back to her and smiled “Yeah, it… it’s me.” I looked to Orvok and frowned “Are… Are you ok?”

Orvok grinned “Meh, who gives two craps about a busted rib? All that matters is that You have been saved!” He then took out a bit of salve and rubbed it into his ribcage before wincing “Ahhh… yup… burning means it’s working… pain is a good thing here… ahhh… ok, rib’s fixed.”

“Saved from what is what I want to know.” Roxy says with a look of impatience.

I shrugged “Who knows? I thought I was a goner, once the SIVA swarm takes you over like that, you're usually a dead thing walking.”

Orvok sighed “You should of told me the God's Blood was inside you, brother… I could of slowed it, maybe even reversed it. You are very lucky that Or-assik decided you were worthy of his blessing.” He shuddered “I would hate to think of what I’d of had to do otherwise…”

Grimgor quickly ran out to us, his face one of absolute awe. “DID YOU SEE THAT?! Hahaha! First time in centuries he’s shown up, and it’s fer our newest leader! Atsa great sign!”

“Ehm.” My sister tries to play it off, but everyone could she her relief. I do, I also see her bandaged arm bleeding a little bit, yet she doesn’t notice.

Orvok responds before I could “Hey, Roxy, how about we take a look at you? Your arm is bleeding, can’t be good.”

I looked to the center of town to see that it now has a strange platform, with what looks like a chair with various syringes hooked up to it and feeding into various tubes, which in turn attached to three machines in the town square. I wonder what they did?

“Its fine, its not a injur- well, technically, but its unavoidable.” Roxy says, activating her daemon arm and letting them see it for a few seconds before deactivating it.

Orvok looked doubtful, showing great concern for her health “Most transformation magics come at some cost… Are you sure you are ok?”

Grimgor grunted “Yeah, it’s ok to lean on yer comrades, lass.”

“It’ll heal and trust me, I’ve already paid the price for my Beastclaw.” She assures them calmingly, the blood flow stopping. “...I need to get a test subject…” She mumbles to herself quietly.

Orvok hears this and smiles “If you want, I could catch you an animal, i really don’t mind!” He blushed and rubbed the back of his head “I just want to help you smile… you’re pretty when you smile…”

As they spoke, I walked to the three machines, reading their plaques from left to right. “Weapons, Structures, Armor…”

I walked to the chair and sat in it before I felt three large pinches, the SIVA in me flowing through the tubes and into the machine, the Armor and weapon machines making some armor for Az-Barko, as well as a mace he walked over to it and grabbed the mace, smiling as he seemed to jolt upwards “Feel stronger! New weapon is good!” he then replaced his previous armor for armor similar to that of a SIVA corrupted Titans.

Roxy just follows behind, watching our backs.

Az-Barko looks at me after putting on his new armor. “Feel much stronger master! Thanks!”

I nodded as I got up from the chair, right as the Siva machine labeled ‘Structures’ fired an orb at the rubble that looked to be a living quarters at one point, the SIVA constructing an entire new Residential District.

I was suddenly giddy as I smiled feeling some sort of a pull, I quickly remembered that this was quite similar to the feeling I got when calling Ladon, but sort of... reversed “Be right back, I think… I think I need to help someone.”

“What are you talking about?” Roxy asks me, stepping up to me.

I chuckle “I’ll explain later, seeya soon!” And like that, I was gone.

“Simon!” I hear her yelling, only for me to chuckle with worry. Seems I was getting an earful when I got home.

Author's Note

Az-Barko's armor is based off of this

Simons sword

His dagger

Unbound

??? POV

I awoke in a lonely, dark room, with a single chair on a rail to my right with a sign requesting that I sit in it. l looked over myself, finding that I was dressed in casual clothing, before looking over to the chair, seeing nothing dangerous on it.Why not?I thought to myself.Clearly won’t hold me, and whoever brought me here while I was drunk was obviously looking out for me,I told myself. Upon sitting in the chair, I was suddenly strapped in, causing me to jolt in surprise, and quickly sent along rail that appeared out of nowhere into what looked like an old arena’s nobles’ seating area. In the...throne, opposite me, was a man in strange armor.Well, maybe I was wrong. Then again, where did these bindings come from?

He was armored from head to toe, with a common-sized helm in the design of a human skull with the back of the head warped from an unseen heat into the shape of a crown almost, the metal warped from rust, overuse and the same unseen heat. Below that there was a somewhat standardised full medium shoulder plate and grieves. His gauntlets and boots were light enough to walk in, thick enough to take several blows and also seemed warped, having seen heavy use with the strange metal plate and chain armor for the torso that was covered by a raggedy dark grey cloak that only went as far as the elbows and a bit further down the back, holes riddling it. The ends flayed out like sad, decrepit streamers. It went up, covering and wrapped around the neck area. There was something about it that was similar to a sort of skirt, going below the knees, one side going further and the ends seeming to be almost like a pale fur. Several belts were at the waist, mostly chain and loop hooks.

In his hand was a weapon about the length of a long sword, maybe a bit longer, and seemed to be similar to a duel lance because of the spiral-like blades, but it was too small to be so, the blade at the pommel shorter, by about a half of the blade or so. The hand guards were circular, as if for a rapier or cutlass and a similar handle guard shaped similarly to the coiled blades.

He smiled at me from under his helm, and chuckled “Seems I have another soul to displace. A shame, I would of so loved to see thy world a bit longer.”

I raised an eyebrow, before slowly recognizing him. “Wait a second… you’re that bartender that gave out those drinks!”

He nodded with a wry smile. “Indeed, and you art the one who danced naked with my barstools, twerking, I believe it was called?”

I huffed. “Not my fault you had a strong drink, and I got a weak resistance to alcohol. Seriously, what possessed you to give that stuff out for free?”

He grinned. “That stuff made thy inhibitions utterly disappear, without relaxing thy muscles at all. Think of it like a way to check on another’s darker impulses. Thy darkest impulse was nary a trifle compared to the others, and thy soul the most virtuous. Therefore, thy reward is a new life, in a new world, with a certain… boon.” He then brought us to a dragon that seemed to be nothing but bones. “This poor creature is one of the few foolish enough to assault my arena. He hath been duly punished, and now I release his soul unto you.” He then drew his weird weapon and plunged it straight into the dragon's skull! Odd beams of magic passing into my body, not changing anything, but a certain warmth now existing in my chest.

“...I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS RIGHT NOW!” I shouted in bewilderment, beginning to freak out a bit.

He deadpanned at me. “You got drunk, and the alcohol-induced idiocy around thee brought thy death. I am giving you, the least offensive patron I have had the pleasure of meeting that night, a second chance at life.” He then thought a moment. “Although… I do suppose I should send thee a mentor as well…”

“Firstly, I know that part besides the death bit. Secondly, what world is this that has dragons? Finally, what the fuck was that? Even drunk people would question what they saw just now!”

He shrugged. “You are in my pocket dimension, consisting of an arena and about five hundred miles of surrounding wildlands, and you are now what I think some would call dragonborn. You're also displaced, which means you're able to traverse the multiverse.”

I blinked.Note to self then: If this turns out to be shit, avoid bars for the rest of your next life, and never take a free drink. Even if it’s a guy who’s giving drinks for the bar, and putting it on his house.

He then gestured to my right as another portal opened up, an armored individual in red and black metal plate with a hood showed up. He had a dagger and a sword made of the same strange material. He looked to me, then to the huntsman. “So… who is this guy? I assume he is the one that you want me to mentor and shit, but... what is he? Please don’t be a freaking man-spider thing. I hate spiders.”

Well, this is going to be one helluva second life, if I’m going to be trained to fight before I step outside.“Well if I recall correctly,” I started off, getting his attention. “I’m a dude who’s supposed to gain power from killing dragons, but that’s all I know of whatever I just became!”

He just shrugged. “Hey, ain’t my fault. From what I just heard, you are lucky. You are just one thing, and it doesn’t sound like you will wind up suffering from it, unless the leader of your dimension’s Equestria is a bitch like mine...” He then looked to the guy that brought me here. “So, I assume that this is what I have to do to get the Graug, yeah?”

He nodded. “Yes, I can allow no less than you fighting something, or teaching another displaced the ways of battle, to be capable of granting thee a beast.”

The weird guy in red nodded “Okay… Welp, I’ll go with him to his Equestria then.”

“I'm going to guess this place has a fandom back on Earth, considering how good that name is for a fantasy novel or something?"

Same guy shrugged. “I have no idea, was not a thing back on my world. Now… let’s see… you’re Dovahkiin, so… sword, dagger, and crossbow?”

Probably another name for this dragonborn thing I got shoved into.“Well I need something to defend myself with so… anything works? As long as it’s not a bad weapon.”

He nods thoughtfully before taking a stance as a red mist rose from his hands, solidifying into a large crossbow, a sword, and ten throwing knives. “Ok, you have a long distance weapon, a melee one, and something for stealthy situations. Mind if I take a bit of your blood? I should probably bind these weapons to ya.”

Bound weapons? ...Doesn’t sound like a good idea.“Nah. If there’s better weapons around, the things you give me will just become a burden. Bound weapons should be for extremely powerful or versatile pieces of gear.”

He sighed in exasperation. “I am giving you potent weapons here, kiddo. These things can cut through steel like butter fresh from a microwave, plus, the throwing knives return to you, the crossbow has limitless ammo reserves, and if I bind them to you, not only will only you even be able carry it, but you can also hold it all in a wristband I was going to make ya.”

Well shit… there’s a reason to bind them now. Guess whatever that’s going to be happening won’t be too bad. Just gotta improve my combat skills.“I guess I’ll go with this whole binding thing then, seeing as they’re already pretty powerful now.” He nodded, and took out a small red needle, before jamming it into my hand, causing me to yell in pain. “JESUS CHRIST DUDE, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!”

He deadpanned. “Would you rather I went slow with the needle? I need some blood to bind the Nanites that make these weapons to you.” He then squeezed my hand over the weapons, squirting my blood all over them before they became a dull grey with hints of gold. “There, as you get tougher, so will the weapons. Think of it as me setting some limits on you. Wouldn’t want to give nuke codes to a teenager, you know?”

I liked this guy at first, but now he’s a complete ass. Who just promises great power, jams needles instead of nicking a little bit, and then goes back on it?!I sighed in frustration.At least I can get that power by just getting myself stronger. This whole dragonborn thing has something to do with dragons after all doesn’t it? Dragons are powerful, so maybe kill a few like the fiery dude did.

He then shuddered and made the bracelet, the weapons disappearing as he let the mist they became go into the armband, which had 3 buttons on it. He then handed it to me and smiled “I will make sure you get tougher, just making sure you don’t wind up hurting yourself by trying something you can’t handle. Trust me, nothing is more embarrassing than someone asking about a scar, and it’s from you being dumb with a dagger.”

“Well I’d like to train but…” I then looked at the bindings, as if to make a point.

The guy in fiery armor nodded and my restraints vanished, right as we wound up in a clearing, it being just me and the guy in red, who seemed to be looking around before he found a large tree. “Okay, let’s practice on this tree.”

Ten out of ten, best life ever,I sarcastically thought as I pointed the sword with both hands, ready to hit a tree over and over. “I’m ready.”

He nodded and made the red mist again, this time turning the tree into what looked like several mannequins made of wood. “Train with these, I want to see your form, try focusing on how you keep your attacks from being telegraphed, also, Jesus Christ, that’s a short sword, one hand only for that.”

“Oh,” I held the sword with just my right hand. “Got it.”

He nodded and sat on a nearby rock. “Go on, don’t wait for someone to attack first, when it seems that a fight is the only answer, damn well answer first. ‘Cause the first one to land a hit often wins.”

I lunged forth with the sword, aiming for the stomach, and successfully landing the hit in the center. I then pulled out the sword, spinning in a 360 and slicing the mannequin in half. The upper half of the wooden construct fell to the floor.

The guy in red nodded slowly. “Good form, for a start. Although, you should try to keep your foundation sturdy, prevent being legswept. Lastly, don’t be afraid to fight dirty, or cruel. One thing I have learned, mercy is NOT something your foe will practice.” He then smiled. “I also recommend you aim for either the point where you can render the enemy harmless, or the enemy’s vitals. If they survive to face you again, then you have made a particularly determined enemy.”

Or they are a warrior’s spirit, but I digress.

He then gestured to the other wooden dummies. “A tip, those daggers I gave you? They can animate lesser structures, so suits of armor, corpses, that kind of thing? Go crazy.” He then made a dagger identical to the ones he gave me and made one of the wooden dummies come to life! It looked kind of pissed off. “Yep, he killed your brother, you gonna take that, toothpick?”

“Now hold on now,” I said slowly, getting ready to dodge. “You do know that you’re a mannequin right? If mannequins can’t have babies, how can you have a brother?”

The mannequin bum rushed me, its stump-like fist ready to beat me senseless. I stepped to the side, raising my sword arm to cut the stump off. The sound of wood being chopped was known as the blade hit. Not wasting any time, I pulled my sword arm up and cut the head off. I stood there for a moment, thinking that I had won, when I suddenly realized that it’s just a mannequin, and that it didn’t need a brain to fight.

The guy in red then stepped in. “That’s good for now. I’ll handle humpty stumpty.” He then drew his sword, a much brighter looking sword of a bright red. He swung it at the wooden dummy, an ark of red mist sailing at it before the dummy was consumed by the red mist, which then flew into his blade. “There we go, now, how about we go to town? I could use some food, even if it’s intheircompany.”

“Is there a group of obnoxious people that I should watch out for in this Equestria I’m going to? Because it sounds like it.” I asked wondering what had him a little peeved. “Regardless, I could use a bite to eat. Especially given all the shit that went down.”And also to learn who to stick around with.

He sighed. “By them, I mean the ponies, or whatever this world calls them, bunch of xenophobic jerks in my world, hope you have better luck.”

Well, everybody's a little bit racist sometimes. Maybe he just struck a chord with the wrong people? Either way, I hope he’s right too.

As we walked towards the town in the distance, I heard a sigh come from the guy in front of me. “My name is Simon, by the way, and...don’t freak out at the ponies, they are… anthropomorphic.”

I shrugged. “Jaxson, and I already accepted this whole second life thing, so I’m pretty ready for what’s to come. It’s not like the average filly has C-cup breasts now will it?”

He shook his head. “No, but…” He blushed. “Once they mature, the breasts mature quite well, from what I can see.” He handed me a visor that he made from the red mist. “This’ll let you see one of their… smaller endowed girls, currently napping on a cloud overhead.”

I looked at the rainbow tail peeking from the cloud.Well it can’t be- wait. Would they still maintain that animalistic trait of being naked all the time? I hadn’t thought of that.Hesitantly, I put on the visor, allowing me to get a closer look at the prismatic girl. Sure enough, she laid on the cloud, bare as she took in the sun. From what I could tell from where I was standing, she had a well toned body, D-cup breasts with a pink areola and nipple. She had a blue pair of wings on her back, along with a beautiful looking pair of otherworldly pink eyes.

As soon as I finished taking in her form, I flung the visor back at him. “Nudist colony… well I have to say I didn’t expect that.”

He was oddly silent. “Ok, stored those in my memory. Good for now. Care to go into town?” Just then, I felt a chill run down my spine as the a rainbow blur rammed into Simon, leaving a note before flying off towards what looked like a house made of clouds. He opened the letter and read it aloud, “Don’t leave town, I’m going to beat you senseless once I’m dressed!” He then looked to me. “Not a nudist colony.”

Note to self: Don’t watch the skies unless you actually hear something bad up there.“So given her speed… should we hide?” I asked as we went.

He then kept on walking with me as he whistled, not a care in the world. “Nah, you probably should, I can handle her. Want me to ask her out for ya? I saw the blush on yer cheeks.”

“I think I’ll just hide thank you.” I said, moving to run into the town in search of a place to hide, before Simon grabbed me and dragged me into a hollow tree, full of toy balls for some reason.

“Lucky that she kept them full of the same stuff. One sec.” I watched as he absorbed the balls and flung me into the hollow tree, shutting me inside with the visor, now with headphones.

I can’t help but feel as if this is some kind of trap instead…I nervously thought to myself. I looked at the things he left me with, seeing if there was anything I could do with them, only to see the visor and the headphones turn on.Maybe I should just put them on anyways?I put the headphones on with my right hand, picking up the visor with my left as I did so.

I was suddenly seeing everything from Simon’s eyes, him walking into town square idly before he sat in a chair, pulling out his own weapons and sharpening his sword with a knife. He then looked up and I saw a rainbow blur heading straight for us. He smiled and waved. “Heya, skittles. Mind slowing down? Don’t want to wind up crashing now do we?

The rainbow-maned mare grunted and kicked him in the head as she landed, only for it to come clean off! As she began to freak out, his body walked over to his head, from which I was watching, and picked it up, twisting it back into place. “Really should look before you leap.”

One embarrassingly one-sided fight later

After a few minutes of waiting, Simon came back for me with a bag of food and a drink in his hands, opening up a large enough hole in the tree so that I could get out. I walked out of the tree, with a newfound grudging respect for Simon as I took the food and drink from him. “You know, despite the shit you put me through, I can see that I have a lot more to learn, if I plan on being strong enough to live here. Thanks for taking the fire for me on that one.”

He shrugged. “Meh, I’ve already gotten the Equestrian people as enemies back home, so I might as well get them to hate me here too.”

The rainbow-maned one then touched down near us and frowned. “Why’d you hold back? I was-” She stopped, suddenly noticing me. I instantly froze up, my mind racing to make sure I don’t make any hints that I was the one who peeked at her.

He chuckled. “I hate bullies, and it was pretty obvious that I could beat the tar out of you. Besides, you weren’t out to kill me, and most of my moves are lethal.” He then sighed as he saw a wound on her shoulder “C’mon, I’ll fix those wounds. Gotta make sure it doesn’t get infected.”

She looked to us in confusion. “Why are you being so nice?”

He grinned. “Well, I feel that I embarrassed the great Rainbow Dash enough, so I shouldn’t let her wounds get worse.” He then nudged me. “Besides, his little crush on you would make it weird for me to train him if I let you get hurt.”

I suddenly snapped out of my fear-filled stupor, sending a spiteful glare at him.That's not cool dude. Not my fault the moment I saw her she was naked.

He then chuckled. “Oh, do you prefer to be the roses on her doorstep kinda guy? Sorry, she lives in a cloud house.” He then nudged me and whispered so that only I could hear. “She has a serious ego, trying to butter her up.”

“I really don’t think saying I have a crush on her is the right way to go,” I muttered at the same volume.

Rainbow dash seemed to be frozen on the spot, a huge blush on her face. “Uh… You sure you aren’t thinking of my friends, are you? I mean, I am not exactly… hot stuff.” She then looked to me and mumbled out. “I don’t even know you… Geez...”

I looked back to Rainbow Dash, getting my composure back together having forgotten that I saw her naked. “You’ll have to excuse my friend here, total troll the guy is. That being said, you’re not half bad. In fact, I kind of prefer that size.” I suddenly realized the grave I was digging. “I mean… I really don’t care for the big ones. Ones of those size seem perfectly proportionate to the body y’know?” I said my half truth, half lie.

Rainbow looked blankly to me, before grabbing me, and giving me a smooch before flying off. Only one thing ran through my mind after this happened.

Oh fuck I may have started a relationship.I turned to look at him. “You know, I will find a way to get back at you for this right?”

He chuckles. “Good luck, I’m gay.”

“Doesn’t necessarily mean I was going to hook you up with a girl,” I shot back.

He smiled, before handing me an elven hammer. “If you ever require my aid, or any training, hit this hammer upon stone twice.” A fiery portal then opened up behind him. “I wish you good luck in Equestria. Remember to stop by the castle in town, as it has a library where you can learn of the beasts within the realm, and remember to keep your eyes and ears open about this place. If you’re going to ask if there are others, I can’t really think of a few other than that.”

I nodded. “Will do. I’ll see you next time, Simon.” I watched as he went into the portal, presumably back to the fiery dude.

“...Never caught the fiery guy’s name now that I think about it.”

Just before the portal fully closed, it reopened as Simon walked back through. “Oh, and the Huntsman wishes that you use this key upon any door, in case you wish for a good fight in his arena.” He then threw the key at me, and I caught it with my right hand as he walked back into the portal, it fully closing this time.

“Huntsman. Got it.”I also got the fact that I'll never drink another beer again. Alcohol is most definitely lethal.

New allies, and sad farewells

Author's Note

Read ch. 1 and 3 for any idea what's happening here

New allies, and sad farewells

Simon POV

As I walked through the door, I was greeted by a furious Roxy, who promptly slapped me in the face “Where were you?! You disappeared for half an hour!”

Orvok looked me over slowly before grunting “Seems you’ve been gone for longer than half an hour on your end, how long has it been for you?”

I laughed uneasily “Three months, after a half an hour, I discovered that I can pause time here while I am gone. I...have been gathering intel, and allies.”

“Hey, what’s up, havin a good day?” The man dressed in bug armor said as he walked past me. “Good, gonna find a bed and lay on it, see you later.”

Grimgor looked at the man in bug armor before he chuckled at me “Ye’ve been right busy, aven’t ya?”

“Yeah, y’know.” The man said in his tired daze, not actually paying attention to what Grimgor said. “Just got a pillar thrown at me, everyday stuff that gives you one hell of a adrenaline rush. Had my first month been one hell of a mess too, at least for me it was.”

A thunderous rumble could then be heard as two familiar Ologs came into view, one being Az-Barko, and the other being Al-Maru. “Master! Az-Barko missed you! Was worried sick!” The man turned to face Az-barko, before turning back to me.

“...Ok, I know you said I’d be seeing LoTR stuff here, but I do NOT recall him being a thing. Is he a new addition?”

I nodded “Yeah, he’s an Olog, sort of a lesser known race of middle earth.” I then smiled at the two of them “I bet Ugorn would get along well with Azzy, here, where is the guy?”

Ugorn then cleared his throat behind me “I am right here, I was waiting until the reunion finished. I did not wish to intrude.”

Azzy looked to Ugorn, then to me “Is he friend of master?” I nodded, to which Ugorn grinned “Then he is friend of mine!” He got out some ale from a drinking skin and handed it to Ugorn and the bug armored man “Drink! Be merry! New friends reason to celebrate!”

The man in bug armor perked up at the mention of a drink, turning to face Az-barko with intrigue. “Well while I promised myself to never drink again… fuck it, I need something to relax me.”

Orvok and Grimgor laughed “yeah, we could use some time to loosen up, too!” Grimgor then walked off and brought back a massive keg with the help of Al-Maru “Forget that drinking skein! Drink from the reserve! This stuff has been aging since Comraich was founded! I cannae think of a more fitting reason tae crack er open, than the rebirth of the Kin’s kingdom! To new beginnings, aye?!”

“New beginning’s indeed.” The bug man said. “This multiverse is crazy.”

Grimgor grinned as he draped his arm over the bug man “So wot’s yer name then? Can’t go round calling ye bug man, might offend the changelings when they visit.”

“The name is Jaxson, or just Jax for short.” Jaxson said before taking a sip out of his flagon. “Now let’s hope alcohol doesn’t kill me for like, the second time now.”

I smiled “Well, I haven’t been gone doing nothing, and I have quite a bit of SIVA stored up, I should drain it for the towns defences while I remember.” He then paused “And when the hell am I supposed to get-”

BOOOOM!

Right as I said that, a massive pit appeared outside the eating area, in what looked to once have been a kennel for giant dogs, there was now a massive creature covered in SIVA metallic plating, with chords of SIVA wrapped around it’s horns to give the appearance of a demon, with SIVa pyramids jutting out of the armor like spikes, and there was a dull red glow to the Creature, this, once a Fiery Graug, was now mutated beyond recognition by SIVA, it was now something new, a Stygian Graug!

The Graug made a snuffling sound as it looked to me, it actually looked… relaxed. Huh, must be tamed and loyal to us. Just then, I noticed that an Olog child had gone down to the Graug and was looking up at it curiously, Grimgor quickly noticing after. “Undzog! Run! That’s a Graug!”

As grimgor spoke, the olog child froze in fear as the massive Graug gently hoisted up the child, only to give him a nose butt, make a snuffling noise, and gently help the child get back out. Undzog looked to the Graug in wonder before jumping in place and running off before returning with some meat that looked to be made by him, judging from the odd cuts and burns on his hands. “Here you go mr. Snuffles! Thank you for helping!” The graug gently took the meat and ate it before giving the child a loving lick before it sat on its butt.

Jaxson looked on at the scene in awe. “Giant ogre thing being nice to something five times less its size… I really hope this doesn’t leave the memory after I get drunk. Eh, whatever, it’s a reason to keep drinking and not fight.”

Grimgor, however, had set down his flagon and was visibly crying “Tha’s bloody beautiful! Never thought I’d see something so heartwarming in me life!”

Orvok smiled “Normally, graugs are only this calm when around their young, this is truly a rare sight.”

I grinned “Welp, say hello to our newest defence! This graug will fight anyone who besieges Comraich, isn’t that right, snuffles?”

Snuffles nodded and pounded its chest before it looked to me and Undzog with clear affection.

I grinned “And now, it’s time to drain that SIVA! Damn this will hurt…” I walked to the SIVA siphon and put my arms into them as Grimgor activated the machine, The SIVA flowing to the walls and enveloping them in SIVA chord, the stone being absorbed and replaced with SIVA plating on the outside of the chord barrier, the wall having several turrets on each side, so as to deter invaders. Lastly, something akin to a SIVA pod appeared in the center of town, the pod seemed to be empty, but I had no clue what it was for, so I think I’ll leave it alone for now.

Jaxson, however, decided to get closer to the machine out of curiosity. “Looks like something akin to a incubator...”

Roxy smirked “Would take one hell of an egg.”

Jaxson turned to Roxy. “I said akin for a reason. This machine, while not exactly like it, looks like it could create things similar to Simon. Could be other humans, maybe even alter one’s form, but it’s just a theory mainly derived from speculation of weird shit I’ve seen in the multiverse, and from someone having a small amount of experience with making incubators. I’m leaning on creating living people here, as the weirdest thing not Pinkie Pie related that I’ve seen, is a dragon that’s about up to my knees burping out armor my size.” Jaxson then took a sip out of his ale. “Then again, I’ve only been here for a month, and only did training for the majority of the stay. For all I know, there’s a dimension where everybody is a spaghetti monster.”

I shuddered in equal parts discomfort and horror “Spaghetti Pinkie… Nope, all the nope.”

Roxy shuddered as well “Definitely not.”

Az-Barko, Grimgor and Orvok looked to me and Roxy in a curious manner before shrugging and going back to drinking ale. Ugorn smiled and walked to me “Would you be capable of sparring some time? I feel it would be quite interesting, if not a great opportunity for Jaxson to learn how to better combine our teachings.”

I grinned and nodded before pausing, sensing several thousand speedily approaching life forces “In a bit, something tells me that the party is going to get crashed soon.”

Jaxson looked up from his ale. “Battle time again? Holy shit, this multiverse is crazy.” He summoned his crossbow, dropping his ale on the ground, surprisingly not shattering and just spilling the ale’s contents. “Welp, time to spill blood. Hopefully I’m not THAT drunk yet...”

I shook my head “We always let them attack first. The walls can repair themselves, and we have a protocol for civilians to hide indoors.” As I said this, I nodded to Grimgor, who set about ordering the civvies inside. “Besides, these feel different from Magi, more insect like, and less aggressive towards the outpost, more wary. Last thing we need is to make more enemies right now.”

“Insect like?” Jaxson said, dematerializing his crossbow. “...I think those might be changelings then, if I recall correctly from the books back at my dimension. Maybe they’re not the dumb ones I have back home, if they don’t plan on doing an outright assault.”

I nodded “Grimgor mentioned that the changelings have good trade relations with us, in exchange for their spy network, we give them love and bloodroot, which sustains them and heals their wounds when made into a salve.”

Grimgor took out a telescope after the civilians got inside and looked to me “Where are they coming from?”

I pointed east “About twenty miles outside city limits.”

He nodded and leapt up to the eastern watchtower before anchoring himself to it and looking through the scope. “Guys! We got some right bloody bigwigs coming! The queen and her two closest siblings are in tha’ swarm!”

I nodded, and began to make accommodations for their stay. “If they were bringing their royalty, then the Magi have done something to their Hive. Let’s make sure they can find shelter here.”

[This is what she looks like, guys.]

As I began forming something akin to what I heard the Hive was like, mostly from Grimgor’s intricately detailed reports, I saw that Chrysalis was badly hurt, gashes and cuts all over her body as she was carried by her assumed sons, her clothes in tatters. I grunted and made a subterranean complex under Comraich that the changelings could stay in, staggering slightly as I finished. “Phew… that… that took a lot…” I turned to Chrysalis and smiled “Welcome to Comraich, your majesty, I have just finished making some... living arrangements for you and your people… Mayhaps you would like to rest before we speak? I am rather drained from making the secondary Hive, myself…”

Jaxson, who watched the whole thing unfold by spotting the occasional hole sprouting out of the ground, turned to face me. “I know that you understand your whole nanite thing, but make sure you don’t abuse it alright? Sounds like you pushed a bit too hard right there.”

I chuckled, unaware of Chrysalis eying me, as well as her brothers Thorax and Pharynx “If they are allies of my people, I will make sure they can...guh… b-be safe here…” I swooned, as Jaxson looked at me with a bemused expression.

“I’m sure the queen could’ve waited a bit for proper shelter. It’s not like things have to be done immediately.” He then turned to face Chrysalis, who was looking at me with an odd expression, and a slight blush. “Sorry, just felt the need to show some concern for my combat instructor. You two can go back to talking.”

Chrysalis nodded after he stopped talking to her, looking to me “I… er… I appreciate the kindness you did to us, what is it you would like in return?”

I shrugged “I really didn’t want anything, I have just heard how you have been helping the Orcs and Olog, and I wanted to repay the kindness. I know you have faced great cruelty at the hands of the Magi as well, I am sorry your people have suffered.”

The green one, whom I later learned was named Thorax looked to me confusedly “You… don’t want anything?”

The red one, whom was Pharynx, raised a brow. “This feels fishy. What’s in it for you?”

I smiled “I get to feel that I helped those responsible for Comraich standing until I got here. You helped some of my best friends in this world, in my book, friends are the family you choose, and...and your people are friends, big time…” It was then that I promptly collapsed, Az-barko catching me and calling for help as his voice grew distant. “Huh...suddenly, I feel tired…”

Jaxson’s POV

I watched as Az-barko carried Simon off to the hospital, Roxy following him. “I swear, if he dies off from something as simple as that, I’ll find a way to resurrect him IN a spaghetti monster realm.” I then turned to face the bug queen once more. “Well, since he’s off recovering, my name’s Jaxson. I’m new around these parts, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing I can’t do to help out, or just answer a few questions about that nanite stuff I mentioned.

The bug queen nodded. “Chrysalis, and yes, I actually am a bit curious as to this nanite stuff. You and that girl are also different from the rest of these Orcs and Ologs too, so-”

I chuckled. “Glad you’re at least curious about it. Me and Roxy are called humans, we’re not too different from the Orcs. Roxy has most likely been here longer than me, while I just came from my dimension to here.”

The green one raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, dimension?”

“How else do you think I’m new? After all, it’s not as if there’s a race of humans walking about.” I said nonchalantly, as I looked at the wristband, deciding which weapon to show off. “Anyways, I’ll also be able to get anyone who thinks it’s actually a successful invasion to not be dumb in whatever way that may offend you. As my weapons are made quite literally from Simon himself,” I then selected the sword, having no idea what else to show as it materialized in my hand. “They’ll be able to recognize you’re not a threat in case word doesn’t spread fast enough.”

I then turned to the Orcs and Ologs who were still here. “You guys got that? Make sure the rest of the townsfolk know, I don’t want anything unnecessary to happen to these guys. Simon said they’re friends, we make sure everyone knows they’re friends.” The Ologs and Orcs nodded, moving about the place to let the townsfolk know. I looked back to Chrysalis. “Should probably get moving to the hospital then? Unless you’re fine with all those wounds on you.”

Chrysalis released a grunt of both pain and acknowledgement, as we followed Az-barko, Simon, and Roxy to the hospital.

As we drew closer, we could hear what sounded like Orvok, but decidedly less calm than I remembered… “-osing him! Come on, Si, don’t give up on us just yet!”

I widened my eyes, but then narrowed them. “Simon, I SWEAR if you die, I will resurrect you in a spaghetti monster realm.”

There was then what sounded like a loud feminine cry “Simon! Don’t go! Don’t leave me here!” as we entered the hospital room, we saw Roxy holding his hand, her face wet with tears as she gripped his hand, his body seeming to fade on an unseen breeze.

I watched on, trying my best to keep a neutral face, as I burned with both sorrow and anger inside.

Simon looked to me weakly and frowned “S-sorry, man, guess you ain’t getting to repay the favor, huh? At least I made Comraich stable… maybe they’ll do better without me? I… I don’t want to go yet… but I feel so tired…” He then collapsed, the light leaving his being as he died.

YOU MOTHERFUCKING CUCK! NOW I’LL HAVE TO DO IT! …Somehow anyways! Actually, how long would it take? I mean, fuck, how many dimensions will I have to go through just to resurrect one dude? WHATEVER, I’LL DO IT ANYWAYS! Unbeknownst as I yelled internally, Chrysalis and the changelings at her side were wondering what the incredibly loud, incoherent, and angry mumbling noises I was making were for.

As I went on yelling like a madman inside, I didn’t notice Simon flashing a brilliant crimson as he was reduced to what looked like a SIVA covered diamond shaped drone, which quickly began to open up and speak with a voice that sounded like Simons but highly synthesized.

“Phoenix protocol.exe initiating…

Resurrection pending, searching for rebirth capsule…

1 capsule found, uploading SIVA AI protocol “Simon”...

Upload successful. Additional power found within AI protocol, designation “Wraith soul”, utilize? Y/N

Commencing boot up…

Boot up complete, follow this unit to new swarm formation.”

The drone then sped off towards the capsule, with Roxy, Az-barko, Grimgor, and Orvok in tow. The green changeling tapped the back of my head, startling me. “You ok dude?”

“Yes, I’m fine. We should- wait where’d they go?” I sighed in frustration. “Not even an hour in, and I seriously need a break from all this randomness. Let’s get to the hospital.”

“You do that,” The red changeling said, motioning for me to hold her in his stead. “I’m going to go follow them.”

I stared at the changeling for a bit, before shrugging, taking his place as we moved to the hospital without Pharynx.

Simon POV

I gasped as I fell out of the capsule in the town square, my body feeling oddly different as I felt new limbs coming out of my back, I felt no weapon on me, unlike before. I looked behind myself to see that I definitely had new limbs, the limbs in question being highly demonic SIVA formed wings that pulsed with power and light. I also had claws, literal claws, covered in razor sharp SIVA plate, with the most notable part of my new body being the razor sharp, multi tipped demonic rams horns, as well as my sharp, vampire like teeth and metal plated boots and greaves. I then grunted as I felt Roxy behind me.

I looked back to her and saw that she was absolutely livid “NEVER SCARE ME LIKE THAT AGAIN!” It was shortly after she started wailing on me that she noticed my big change. “What in the name of all that is good and just, just happened to you?”

Az-Barko looked to me in awe as he approached “Master looks amazing! Will strike terror in hearts of enemies!”

“He’s looking pretty right on that too.” I heard the voice of Pharynx say, walking up behind the group. “Chrysalis is in the hospital. I parted off to see what was going on with that thing which came out of your old body, thanks to Jaxson and my brother Thorax carrying her there.” He eyed me curiously as he took in my new form. “What are you now anyways? Judging from this whole dimension thing I’ve heard about, this is a form from another dimension or something?”

Now that I was actually able to focus, I was able to get a better look at what Pharynx was. Pharnyx had a red mane, with purple chitin armor. He was roughly 6 feet in size, with a broad frame. He held a short sword in his right hand, and had carried Chrysalis on his left. His eyes and wings had a purple coloring to them.

I nodded slowly “Umm… yeah, I think I’m a demon of some sort? I am not sure though…”

Pharnyx shrugged. “Yeah, that is pretty much your new look, no offense. Wonder why the thing decided turn you into that though?”

I shrugged “Maybe the fact that I’ve been fighting a lot prompted a shift to a more combat ready form?”

“Or maybe it’s the fact you’re going up against Celestia, who has dominated all of Equestria.” Pharynx said as he turned back. “But who knows? Maybe it is the case.”

I shrugged “Well, I guess I should go and see Chrysalis, huh? I am the most familiar with doctors work here, that is, without magic.” I then looked to Orvok and smiled “You mind supplying the healing magic, brother?”

He grinned “As sure as Roxy is foxy.”

Roxy sniggered as she nudged Orvok, giving him a peck on the cheek before she walked off. “I’m going to go and patrol the area, see you soon, okay?”

Jaxson's POV

“-and that’s pretty much what Earth is, along with the people on it. I’d show you a well made video on it’s history, but I lack a way back as well as the electronics I’ve carried.”

Chrysalis merely shook her head. “Sounds like your country was the worst of the bunch. Going against nature itself? We changelings would sooner be eaten by the dragons before we consider that.”

I sighed in sadness. “I just wish people paid more attention to their health. If it just became common knowledge, then doctors wouldn’t have a need to work their already underpaid jobs. There’s already plenty of other jobs we could’ve taken to help others.” I then chuckled. “Hell, I admit, I wanted to be just a surgeon! But now there’s all these drugs I have to look out for that may or may not have bad side effects. So to quell my sorrow, I ended up going to a pub with free drinks and… well I died and got sent here to put it simply.” I then looked over to Thorax. “So what do you thi-”

My voice caught itself in my throat as Chrysalis and I stared at Thorax, who was unmoving. His eyes were closed with a smile on his face, his body slightly burning away from the green fire he had, not powerful enough to set the hospital bed on fire, but enough to make him decay before our eyes. For the second time in this universe, I saw someone die before my eyes, unable to save them when they were right next to me.

Just war I guess… I reasoned with myself as to keep me from breaking down.

The next thing I heard, was not the weeping of Chrysalis, who had lost her youngest sibling, but of a familiar voice, now hollow with anger. “Celestia’s gone too far.”

In a instant, I spun back to Chrysalis, putting my hand on her abdomen to prevent her from moving. Sure enough, I saw her beginning to stand up, but unable to continue further as my hand kept her down. I stared at her dead in the eyes, my voice shaky, but with authority. “Unless you plan on failing your brother already, you’d take my advice and recover.” I quickly snapped my eyes around, looking for any tranquilizers that I could use to calm her down.

I then heard a grunt as Chrysalis went limp, I looked to her and saw that someone was behind her, his hand having just chopped her in the shoulder and knocked her out. “She can’t go against Celestia. Chrysalis is a cursed daughter of Amorose… The goddess of love…” he turned to me and smiled “Hiya, names Zmatok, Simon knows me as Hank. I’m taking a sec to talk to you, because I need a favor.”
“I hope you didn’t just break her shoulder...” I said warningly.

He gestured to Chrysalis, the shoulder where she was hit looking no different. “I would never kill one of my Grandchildren...” He smiled “I paused time for the two of us, so that I have all the time we need to iron everything out. So first, what I need from you. I need you to help me get Simon and Chryssi together, I have seen the thread where they get together, and it ends the best… for everyone involved.” He then was enveloped by static for a second, not like it encapsulated him, but as if his very existence was an image on a screen, and getting horrible amounts of signal interference, only for him to turn to normal a second later, seemingly by force of will. “Urk! Guh… Now, any questions? I may have time paused, but… grk!” He flashed with static again. “Damn Solaris is trying to kick me outta this realm! I need you to *Pshhh!* tell Simon, to get Discord free! My son is the only- *pshhh!*-an stop Celestia, And- *Pshh!* -damn mad god of a daddy!” He grunted as he doubled over in pain as he started to faze in and out of focus, along with the static, Bright neon red liquid dripping from his nose. “Come on, kid! Snap out of it and tell me, do you understand?!”

I stood still in a state of utter shock, able to understand everything he’s saying, but unable to move out of sheer fear and confusion. I began breathing heavily, beginning my path to hyperventilation . W-what the hell?! Am I actually going crazy?!

Suddenly, I felt as if I was smacked lightly upside the head “Snap out of it kid! Do, you, understand, me?!”

I managed a small nod, but the breathing only increased as a result of the slap, as he began to faze in and out of focus faster. “Tell Simon I’m in his corner… eh?” He then disappeared completely, and time resumed. My breathing had not calmed in the slightest, and I stood there, as if expecting him to suddenly return, before getting my thoughts together. I prepared my mental exercise to calm myself.

Count to three… inhale… count to four… exhale… I went through this over and over again, slowly calming down. As I did this, I felt on edge, like anything could just walk in this room and cause me to react irrationally, attack or charge out of the room in a crazed daze. Even if it was something innocuous, like a cat or dog, I would scream, run past them, and out the door. Eventually, I managed to calm down, but the look in my eyes refused to go away.

My mind swarmed itself with various thoughts of what happened, every part of my brain trying to rationalize the static, the man fazing in and out, the neon red blood, everything from that exact moment to now… and I felt as if I was going to puke.

Shakily, I moved over to the window, not even sparing a glance at Chrysalis. I opened it, thinking that some fresh air would allow me to calm myself down even further. I breathed in the air, repeating the same exercise, and only then remembering the Changeling ashes after promptly breathing in a lungful of the stuff. It was after this that I turned to where Thorax was, and noticed a green crystal in the pile of ashes. I paid no attention to it, seeing no reason to disturb his remains. More than I just did anyways.

I shook my head. No, mind off that. I need to get out of here. I need to tell Simon what I saw, and I swear to whatever god watching me right now, if I don’t find a goddamn bed soon, I’m going to snap!

There was then the sound of a door opening as a goddamn demon came into the hospital room. “Oh, hey Jax, sup?” He then looked around as Chrysalis sat in her chair, just starting to stir from unconsciousness, and the pile of ashes “What the actual fuck?”

That’s when the dam bursted.

I didn’t even notice that I had the sword in my hand, until I was already charging at the demon, a manic shout coming from me as my body went on autopilot.

The Demon grabbed the sword and disarmed me in a single fell swoop, before butting me in the gut with the pommel. “What the fuck man?! Can’t you recognize my voice?! It’s Simon, fucker!”

I wasn’t able to stop. My fight or flight response had all but gone into overdrive, as my free hand curled into a fist, and hit one of his eyes, causing him to stumble back. Once more I charged forth, unable to stop myself in my mania.

Ugorn then came into the room and helped the demon! As did Roxy, and Grimgor, all of them grabbing onto me, and restraining me as the demon started to try to talk me down. “Come on man, just tell me what happened, I’m not mad, just let me in! I know you wouldn’t just go and knock out a pretty lady and kill her baby brother!”

Roxy managed to get a glimpse of my eyes, seeing the crazed look inside of them. “He must’ve saw something that scared him into doing this! Look at the eyes!”

The demon looked into my eyes, and sighed. “Okay, let’s see if Orvok’s lessons work on people.” He held out his hand towards me and let blue fire fill it, it eventually turning green as he focused, the fires light soothing me on an instinctive level, the adrenaline fading from my system enmass as I was able to control myself. “Okay, Druidic calming spell done… aaaand the weird pins and needles are there, okay, that’s not fun… numb arm…but spell worked!” he looked to me and smiled “Okay, Jax, you alright upstairs now?”

I took a breath in, before nodding, everyone letting me go. “Sorry for the eye but… we need to talk about that Solaris thing you’ve mentioned.”

Simons mood darkened “Did Solaris do this? Damnit, i knew we should of strengthened the wards!” He sighed “Okay, tell me what happened?”

“Solaris didn’t do anything to me. As for what happened… I was talking in the room with Chrysalis for a while, and I eventually turned to look at Thorax only to find him dead. Chrysalis was about to freak out, so I restrained her in order to prevent her from pushing herself, and look for a tranquilizer. Then that… man came out of nowhere. He said Chrysalis was his granddaughter, and that he stopped time so the two of us could talk. Then it was as if I wired up to some kind of machine, static appearing all over my vision with the man going in and out of focus.”

Simon listened calmly for all of this before turning to Grimgor “Go and prepare a changeling memorial for Thorax. I need to talk to Chrysalis.” he grabbed the green crystal and handed it to Grimgor “Remember, the crystal can’t get damaged, else the memories get warped.”

Chrysalis then woke up and looked around, mumbling softly “I swear I just talked to Grandfather while I slept…”

Grimgor paled “If he was talking to both of you at once, than we can know for damn sure that this is important. Zmatok rarely goes against Solaris directly nowadays… Not since Discord got corrupted by Solaris.”

“He mentioned him actually.” I quickly cut in, grabbing everyone’s attention. “Something about him being the only thing to stop something. I think I heard him say Celestia if it helps. He also said that Chrysalis and Simon needed to work together. Probably to bring down this Solaris guy, probably to deal with the rest of ponykind, who the fuck knows?”I then walked past the newly formed Simon, intent on only one thing. “All I can say is, fuck this, I’m going to bed.”

Simon nodded grimly “I think that’s for the best, maybe you should head home with Ugorn, actually, I think things are going to get really busy now.”

I used the key the Huntsman gave me on a nearby door, the familiar arena opening before my eyes. “I’m pretty sure there’s no reason for Solaris to give a damn, about some guy who just wanted a bed in the first place. Hell, if there’s anything my dad taught me, it’s to not stick my dick in crazy shit. And you know what?” I said before getting on the other side of the door and grabbing the handle. “This is crazy shit.” I then closed the door, proceeding to talk with the Huntsman about getting back. He then sent me back to my Equestria, where I immediately made way to Rainbow’s ground home, went to the bedroom, and passed out on the bed.

Libertatem Chao / Duality is my new favorite!

Secundus’s P.O.V.

With a slight rush, and a flash of light, I popped back into existence. I stretched happily, then wondered why I couldn’t feel my tails. I looked down at my paw, and noticed that it wasn’t a paw any longer. It was mostly hairless, a pink you can’t replicate with crayons, and had five fingers instead of four. The arm it was attached to was much skinnier than normal, and covered in a thin coat of hair instead of fur.

“I’m human?!” I asked in shock. I mentally sighed in relief when my voice sounded normal, which is to say that it sounded like two voices slightly out of sync instead of one voice. However, that was about the only thing still the same.

I had been human most of my life, but for the past two years, it had been a different story. From my perspective, I went to bed human one night, and woke up the next morning as a powerless Draconequus. I was normally about eight feet tall, and one half of my body was made of predatory animals, and the other out of prey animals, with two tails (cheetah and kangaroo) rather than just one. Even my face was split in half color-wise, blue and yellow, with my bat ears being the opposite color to the side of my face they were on top of.

After a series of misadventures (including driving Twilight Sparkle to the brink of insanity via my personality), and adapting to my new life, Twilight had one of her ideas that was either a stroke of genius, or madness, it was hard to tell. Most of her ideas were like that. She thought that I should try to combine the usual Harmony Magic that was natural to Equestria, with the Chaos magic that Discord used. Surprisingly, it worked, and I was able to use magic at long last.

Not only that, but I finally became a fully-fledged Draconequus, my new name was Secundus, the Spirit of Duality. I went from simply combining two types of magic to my own “brand” of magic, wherein I simply edited a duality, until I didn’t have to consciously think of it anymore. It was honestly pretty cool. Being a Draconequus came with responsibilities, I was supposed to fix any issues with duality throughout a collection of universes that the Draconequui managed for the gods, our employers.

Before becoming a Spirit, I had met Thorax, King of the Changeling Hive. After a very awkward thirty-second first meeting, Twilight and her sister-in-law Cadence managed to trick Thorax and I into a blind date.

To cut a long story short (and leave out an exciting climax) Thorax and I fell in love, and were now happily married. I’d been taking him on a short vacation to another universe, but something had gone wrong somewhere.

Whenever I visited another planet, I automatically changed forms to blend in, to the point I didn’t have to think about it, and couldn’t even control it. I had wanted to go home, but if we were home, I’d look like my normal noodle self, not a human.

Do I still have magic? I wondered. Experimentally, I snapped my fingers. A mirror appeared in my hand. Whew! I thought. I looked in the mirror. I looked almost exactly the same as I had when I was human (not much) but there were some minor differences. My eyes were like my normal Draconequus eyes, with pitch-black sclera, and glowing blue irises. My hair was also longer than its usual short cut, half of it was black, half was white. I was dressed in a very tacky Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. Ohmigod! Where’s Thorax?!! I thought in a panic. I heard a throat being cleared behind me.

I turned, and saw a human behind me, with an unamused expression. He was shorter than me, with tan skin, purple eyes, and spiky green hair that was dyed orange at the tips. He was also dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, with several leis around his neck. However, he was slightly more practical, and was wearing jeans, and heavy shoes.

“Thorax?” I asked. With all the shape-changing we did, sometimes I had to ask.

He nodded. “I thought you were taking us home?!” he snapped, gesturing at the body he was currently stuck with.

“I did! I specifically said ‘Equestria!’ You think I don’t know how to teleport anymore?!” I sniffed. “Hold on a minute. This is Equestria, it’s just not our Equestria. It smells the same, but more red-orange than ours does.” Thorax rolled his eyes, but knew better than to question my synesthesia. “We must be in a parallel to our universe. I could get into so much trouble for interfering in a universe outside my jurisdiction.” I then thought about it. “Come on then, might as well explore it.”

There was suddenly a rustling in the bushes as what looked like an Uruk from Lord Of The Rings, yet he had a much more… natural, look. He was in a ragged cloak made from leather and covered in vines, as well as various animal bones made into charms, the Ivy threading through them, holding them too him and covered in flowing, glowing white runes. He was armed with a strange combination of staff and spear, the Staff having various knotholes filled with amber containing gemstones, and the top of the staff adorned with four spear heads, forming a large tip on the staffs top, a green flame that seemed to blaze with life energy from between the gaps of the four spear heads. He also had what looked like Red tendrils and threads coursing through his clothing, with a red metal plate over his vitals, and a Pyramid of Red crystal in the empty space of the staff that seemed to feed the staff greater levels of power. “What in the… A Draqon? And… a changeling king… Let me guess, another world? I don’t think I’d ever find a Draqon and a Changeling being mates, not in my world, at least.” He grunted as he looked to his left slightly, as if listening to something before he began to walk towards what looked like a large fort in the badlands. “Come on, Simon wants to meet you.”

“Who’s Simon?” whispered Thorax.

I shrugged. “How am I supposed to know? I can only fit so many universes in my head. He could be the King of Equestria for all I know.” I looked at the Uruk with interest. “So, somebody crossed Equestria with Lord of the Rings. That’s interesting. Alrighty then. I guess it couldn’t hurt to meet Simon.” The Uruk started leading the way. As we walked, I asked, “You knew Thorax was a Changeling, and a King, but you called me a Draqon. Are there Draconequui in this universe? We do tend to get around, even if it is by accident.”

He shrugged “Apparently, other universes have Draconequui. We Have Draqon. Our dimension seems to have been in dispute with how Spirits and gods worked things, so we began worshipping other gods. Some good, some not so good. And before you ask, I worship Quathak, Queen of the Wildlands. If it works like the Everfree, she did it here.” He then smiled as we neared the fort “Man, to think I’ve gotten to meet someone related to Discord, at least by species… Oh, I should tell you, in this world, Celestia is a Tyrant, and mistreats all non magi...er… our dimensions ponies...” He grumbled “Man that’s weird… our food here is a sapient species there…” He then cleared his throat awkwardly “Discord is the one who saved us, before he went nuts. Apparently some dark god jammed a bunch of insanity in his skull for tipping the scales towards us to much.”

“Oh,” I said. “In my universe, Discord started off slightly evil, and was then reformed to good. I don’t know if he was actually evil to start with, I think he was just lonely. It helped his reformation that he fell in love. He’s still insane, but … in a different way.

“Between that and your Celestia being a tyrant, part of me wonders if yours is a mirror universe of mine. I have no idea.”

There was then a loud laugh as we reached the gate, an Uruk that had strange prosthetics made of the same red materials and had a large hatchet made seemingly from a mix of the red materials, and a large dragon's tooth was keeping watch. He blinked at us and grinned “Orvok! You bally bastard! Ye got a Draqon tae visit?! That’s bally marvelous, let me get tha gate! Simons gonna be thrilled!”

“Why am I suddenly nervous?” I muttered. “People aren’t usually that happy to see me.” We walked in, and were ushered into Simon’s presence. “Oh, he’s a demonic ringwraith,” I said in awe. I walked over, and stuck out a hand. Most people wouldn’t have been able to visibly discern it, but I could tell I wasn’t dealing with a solid form, what with the highly demonic nanite formed wings that pulsed with power and light with claws, literal claws, covered in razor sharp nanite plate, with the most notable part of his body being the razor sharp, multi tipped demonic rams horns, as well as his sharp, vampire like teeth and metal plated boots and greaves. I pulled a piece of him off, examining the nanites with interest.

“Sec! What have I told you about personal boundaries!” shouted Thorax.

“Oh, sorry sir.” I let the handful of nanites I’d pulled out drift back into him. “I’ve just never seen anything like that on any planet I’ve been to.”

Thorax sighed. “You’ll have to forgive my mate. When he finds something interesting, his manners tend to go out the window until he’s done analyzing it. He’s … not good with people.”

I turned to Thorax with a broad grin. “Do you know what this means?! He’s alive, and he’s dead at the same time! He’s also technology, and magic! I’ve never seen that perfect a blend before! He’s a perfect duality!”

Thorax sighed again. “I love you, but could you please stop geeking out long enough for us to figure out what we’re doing here? Why we’re dealing with something that looks like one of your sketches. Only cooler.”

I nodded, and said to Simon, “Your … cells have interesting thoughts. It’s mostly just variations of ‘Consume,’ and ‘Replicate,’ but that isn’t very different from most cells. I don’t think I’d taste good to them though, I’m a lot bigger than I look.” I peered at him with interest. “Were you human up until very recently? Humanity tends to leave traces in a person’s soul. I’m very sorry about how I’m acting, I’m just excited. Pleasure to meet you. I’m Secundus, the Spirit of Duality, and my conscience over there is my husband Thorax. I take it that you’re the Simon who will be excited to see us?”

He frowned and nodded “Yeah, I am, It’s good to see that I’m not the only one who respects a good Duality! Not to mention a Draqon. Though it is odd to see you aren’t… well, wearing clothes to represent your concept… Umm, you might want to use a different name, Thorax, our Thorax… well, he’s dead.” He then let out a little bit of his nanites, which took a bit of each of our hair before it carried it off towards what looked like large turrets. “Sorry bout that, just telling the security you are ok.” He then sighed as he walked “Oh, and don’t worry about the SIVA, it obeys me mostly, and once I make it into something for a friend, I mostly keep it dormant, unless asked otherwise… Play natural, we do not want them to know another Thorax is here, it will get VERY awkward, as we just had the funeral last week.” He then nods to the Uruk at the gate “Looking Good Grimgor! Let me know if the new limbs get you any trouble!”

“Dead?” I asked in shock. Thorax, my Thorax looked even more upset than I did. “OK, that’s not you, but … still. I can’t quite grasp the fact that any version of you is dead. If you need to use another name here…” I thought for a minute. “How about ‘Oberon?’”

Thorax raised an eyebrow. “The King of the Faeries? Seriously Sec?! That’s the best you could come up with?”

I sighed. “Well, yes. You are King of the Changelings, and you do a lot more of the reigning than I do. It’s just for a short while.”

A Large Olog in armor made of SIVA smiled at us before approaching “Az-Barko happy to see another Draqon. Maybe help us free Discord from Celestia’s hold?”

Simon facepalmed “I was trying to build up to that gradually…” he sighed “We are trying to free our discord from his stone prison, as well as remove the corruption in his soul. It would do wonders for morale around here to have an ancient hero living with us… Celestias been organizing more bandits against us, and something's been stealing our dead from their graves. We thought it was scavengers getting a little too bold at first, but then we found one of our Diamond Dog citizens attacking his family... He had been dead for a week.” He grumbled “If it weren’t for Celestias hate of undead rivaling her hate of Non- Magi… I’d say it was her.” He then looked to me with a fierce look in his eyes “I will do anything, anything, for you to give my people hope for tomorrow. You may have a husband, but do you have kids? Well, let me tell you, this town, and its people? They are my Family. I see the children as my own, the people are my siblings.”

The Uruk cyborg, apparently named Grimgor chuckled uncomfortably “Yeah, speaking of which, yer sister aint too chuffed wit ye... Oi’d leave er be fer now.”

I considered the implications of his request, and chuckled nervously. “Uh, … well … I’m really not supposed to interfere in other worlds unless I’m doing my job. The gods I work for a very nice individuals usually, but if you break the rules, they can get a bit … trigger happy. I’m most likely in trouble already for just being here.” I then thought about it. “I can visit other universes, but a parallel of my own universe? That should be impossible, even for me. The only thing that can do that would be … a … god.” My voices trailed off.

“Maybe I’m not here by accident, even I’m not that unlucky. I guess a god brought me here for some reason. I really wish they would consult me about these things instead of just dragging me to places and changing my species without even telling me. So! Bad news first: I can’t just snap my fingers, and cure Discord. It’s more complicated than that. I’d need something that can work with the type of magic that imprisoned him, preferably its exact magical opposite, since I work with opposites best. If I had that, I could free him, but … I don’t know what I can do for his mental state, Oberon is the family psychologist.”

“Good news: If I don’t directly interfere in the development of your world too much, I should be able to help you. Yes, the Draconequui in my world do the whole ‘Prime Directive’ thing from Star Trek, but it’s for good reason.” I smiled, and nudged Thorax. “We get to go on a Quest!” I said, capitalizing the letter. “I’ve never been on a quest before!”

Oberon sighed. “They’re not as fun as you think they are, trust me on that.” He then looked at his clothes. “Why, in the name of sanity, are we dressed like this?!”

I shrugged. “We were just on vacation. These are vacation clothes.” I snapped my fingers, and Oberon was dressed in a green cloak, with a chainmail shirt, long brown pants, and heavy boots. I turned to Simon. “I’m just assuming we need armor, weapons, that kind of thing?” I then turned back to Thorax. “What’s your fancy?”

Oberon folded his arms, and sighed. “I’m used to it after traveling with you, but I still don’t like being bipedal, I feel like I’m going to fall over. I don’t think I could exactly fight like this.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, you aren’t exactly a berserker class. Hmmm. Well, you’re usually fast, and light.” I handed him two daggers. “I think you could work with this, maybe.” Oberon sighed, and took the daggers.

I looked down at myself. I snapped my fingers. Nothing happened. “Dammit, I fight so much better when I’m in my own shape!” I sighed. “I’ll … figure something out. I’m not sure how I’d fight in this setting.” I was able to change my beach-bum outfit to a grey cloak with a chainmail shirt, long pants, and sneakers. Catching Simon’s expression, I sighed, and said, “I hate shoes, these are usually all I can handle. I’ve got an amazing healing rate, I’ll be fine.”

Simon shrugged “Actually, I was about to offer you some spare SIVA steel armor, stuff is similar to Mythril, tougher than steel, but super light. Plus, when you wear it, I’d be able to broadcast my thoughts to you, link you up to the rest of the armies… well… I’d say hive mind, but that’s not accurate, more like an internet where everyone can see through your eyes, and hear with your ears, but no one influences your thoughts.” He then looked to Orvok “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

Orvok paled “I sure hope not…”

He smiled “It’s time for me to inhabit mr. Snuffles!” He then hummed thoughtfully before he turned to us again “What better way to get you to the fortress they hid Discord away in, than on one of the most feared animals of my dimension? Especially when I’m behind the wheel. The species was originally a fiery graug, before it was mutated with SIVA. I think I’ll call this a Stygian Graug, maybe?” he then led us to what looked like a massive horrifying monster of some sort. It had red cords and pyramids growing out of it, and looked like it had Deathclaw like horns made out of the material comprised of the same nanites forming Simon… was this SIVA?

He then disappeared as he became a red cloud of what I assumed to be nanomachines, which flowed into the monster before it began spasming erratically. Before long, it steadied itself and looked to us, waving slightly before pointing to our left with one of it’s huge clawed fingers. It was pointing at the Armory…

Orvok nodded as if he heard someone and looked to us “Simon would really like it if you at least had some piece of SIVA gear, it’ll help keep us all in touch for this.”

Grimgor then chuckled “Cannae wait till those blasted bandits come back, gonnae give em a roight hiding wit the upgrades I made fer tha lancer turrets, they now have a little… boom, to em!” He chuckled “This Godsblood-er… SIVA… It is bloody useful! Oi can see why Celestia legalized farming us fer the little we had...don’t mean oi like, or will evah fergive it, but oi can cer’ainly see why she wants it so bloody bad.”

“I can just imagine,” I said. Oberon was looking a little pale. It took me a minute to pick up what was wrong. I sighed, and detached my arm, waving it with the other in his direction. “So, that doesn’t freak you out,” I said as I reattached the arm, “but the nanite-possessed monster does?”

Oberon nodded. I sighed. “You do know that I’m not in technical terms, strictly speaking alive either, right?” Oberon’s head tilted to the side. “Living things don’t usually walk through space with no ill effects,” I pointed out.

“Oh,” Oberon said. “But that’s just using magic!”

I chuckled. “No, there’s more to it than that. It’s partly biological.” I glanced at Orvok. “I honestly can’t think of a weapon that fits my fighting style, unless you can give me claws and fangs or something. That armor does sound like a really good idea, though, thank you. I’m … not exactly comfortable with someone else in my head, more for their sake than mine. It’s a little … weird in here sometimes,” I said, tapping my temple. “If you don’t actually read my mind you should be fine.”

“Does anyone here know how Celestia sealed Discord away? I doubt she used the Elements of Harmony, and the more I know about it, the easier it is to reverse. I don’t know what I’m going to do about a dark god scrambling his brain, I can’t exactly go up against a god, but…” I shrugged. “If this Discord is anything like mine, I think he can handle himself. I just don’t want to be there when he wakes up. Oh, I’m the one waking him up. Well, that ought to go over well,” I muttered. “An insane Lord of Chaos who wakes up cranky when he’s nice.”

Everyone froze then, not like they were shocked though, like, everything was frozen, even the birds overhead. I looked around until I heard a voice behind me “Oi, ye have nay checked this way yet.” I then turned, only to see an oddly dressed Irishman. Upon closer inspection, he was a younger irish gentleman in a red business suit and black shoes, with a fedora neatly placed on his head. He was smiling mischievously, his sleeves rolled up, and a chaos star tattooed on the back and front of each hand. An odd cane was in his hand, him leaning on it with all his weight, literally, he was in mid air, him using the cane like a tall chair. The cane had strange markings running down it, etched into the bark, and shining dully, as if it was waxed a while back. “Hiya there, lad. Name’s Hank, er… well, that’s wot yer friend Simon would remember me as, me real name is Cru-rukna. Oi’m an Orcish god of chaos, an’ most importantly, Oi’m this dimensions father of lil Dizzy-er...Discord.”

He sighed “Oi should tell ye, spirits here aint loike yer dimensions. Fer one, there all humanoid, tae some degree, and fer two, their a god’s kid.” he sighed “Used tae be we gods had many spirits, allae whom we loved dearly. Then tha’... bloody bastard son of a boggarts behind Solaris had Celly, we all though’ she’d be a real sweet’eart… we though’ wrong.” He growled as his hair began to smoulder with chaotic fire. “She wiped out our children… sapped their power intae the elements of harmony till nuttin was left of em… Me boy was all that was left of tha spirits… the last of our children… and she decided he would ruin her precious harmony. So she turned him tae stone, and made ‘im out as a tyrant… Oi brough ye here, Sec. Oi ‘ave an offer fer ye. Oi’ll let ye have Simon here’s token, ye’ll be able tae ask im fer help anytoime.” He then looked to me “An ye’ll ave a god in yer corner, one eager tae elp ye out anytime.” he then looked to me hopefully “In exchange ye let me son get vengence on tha’ bitch. She killed our kids, and had the god of the Sun corrupt me boy intae a madman… Oi need ye ta help me boy get roight in the head, and help Simon punish her. We go’ a deal?”

I grinned. “He and I may not have met yet, but after all that my universe’s version did for me, any version of Discord is family. Deal. I think I might actually enjoy this. Oh, and,” I grinned wider. “You might want to ease up on pretending to be Irish. You’re trying too hard. Pleasure doing business with you,” I said, tipping a hat I summoned up.

He smiled in relief “Thanks, It’s hard to have just one voice at a time, hell, it’s hard staying in one perceivable form, It’s like trying to hold an ocean in a water balloon. I don’t know how my son does it so well!” He then looked to me and smiled “Oh, and tell your discord this, that whatever version of me exists in his equestria, whomever he looked up to, or who helped him, he is definitely proud of him. I… I have my ways of knowing.”

I nodded. “You have my word, and I never give that lightly. So! Let’s go kick a Princess out of her castle!”

He shook his head “NO! She will refuse to lower the sun if she loses her seat of power, I know that brat too well! We need to just free Discord, and because of the wards in place we have to get to him on foot, er...Graug. When my son is free, he can take over her job, even remove her from her post as a solar avatar. We need Discord before they can move on Celestia.”

I nodded. “Makes sense, I just don’t really know how things work here. That, and there’s something about Celestia, even in my universe that just screams ‘superiority complex.’ Even if she is mostly benevolent. Since you’re a god, and his father, I don’t suppose you could point us in his general direction? I’m assuming you’ve kept an eye on him.”

He nodded “Poor kids in deep, deep shit. He’s being wheeled to a stone quarry in the fort due west of here, thank you superiority complex, since she thinks we are no real threat, she’ll probably have little by means of guards. Sorry for being indefinite, I’m pure chaos, so this is really… unpleasant for me. But I’ll do anything to see my boy safe.” He then mumbled to himself “Just gotta think of the splits in reality… alternate ones, other possibilities, keep the pain down.”

I nodded. “I have a son. If anything happened to him, well, let’s just say I’d tear down reality to fix it. If I remember right, that fortress, is it by...” I tried to remember where I was, “Oh, there should be a large mountain, and a Timberwolf pack’s territory borders it? It’s a bit of a wasteland, so I hate to see what your Celestia did with the place,” my voices trailed off.

He grumbled “Mostly it’s a forced work camp for our worshippers, the Ologs and Uruks… Oh, And tell Simon that I’ll take any fallout from the gods he may get for making it hurt… as much as possible please.”

“Yeesh. I hate people who hate others just because they’re different. So, I know where we’re going, any advice on how to get him out of the statue? I’ll be sure to tell Simon your message.”

He seemed to go out of focus for a second, the sound of TV static filling my ears before he came back into focus “Ghhh! Awww, that hurts… Ha! As if, Solaris, you brought this on yourself!” he then looked to me, his eyes and nose bleeding profusely “Think of the opposite of a stars warmth, the cold blackness of space, and the opposite of stagnation, change… Think of Outer space and change, hell, the big fucking bang, I don’t know, I got to go, Solaris is getting pissed, He’s going to try to pull something if I help more, by the first concept I detest him!.”

I nodded. “Go. Thank you for all your help.” he faded out. I sighed. I remember from all those books I read when I was a kid, that when gods start fighting, it’s everyone else who loses…

I looked at the Graug, as everyone else unfroze. “Simon, I finally have some good news, I know where we’re going, and what to do. We’re heading west, about twenty miles, but it has to be on foot.” I looked down. “I’ve got to get better walking shoes,” I muttered. “Anyway! Once we’re there, I know what kind of magic will get Discord out of the statue, at about which time, if we’re lucky, all hell should hopefully break loose. The hard part is going to be getting in there long enough to do anything without ending up full of holes, or burnt to a crisp or something. Could you all buy me some time?” Except that never ends well…I thought darkly. I then sighed, and changed my sneakers to a pair of hiking boots.

Graug Simon nods, before grunting, looking at Orvok, who smiled “He says yes, but you should get that armor on, as he can’t really talk to you in this body without you wearing some, think of it like a telepathic network, er… he said a brain telephone? What the hell is a Telephone?” Graug-simon grunted “Oh, human tech, ok.”

Grimgor then came back to us after walking to the armory while i was talking “Ok, so we’ve got mallets, big arse ones at that, some armor, and… daggers for the Changeling who is oddly colorful and tan.”

I smirked. “You should see the way he looks back home.” I handed Oberon his daggers, and a SIVA shirt, which he pulled on.

Oberon clutched his head. “Oog. That’s strange,” he muttered. He then looked at Graug-Simon. “That’s really what I look like from the back?” There was an unheard reply. “Alrighty then,” he said, blushing. He looked at me. “You might want to … actually, you’ll find this ‘Awesome,’” he said, using finger quotes.

I glared at him. “You’ve never had fingers before, and you’ve already figured out finger quotes. I hate you.”

Oberon grinned. “I’m a fast learner.”

[Changed his love interest to Chryssi, gonna have to change this, sadly]

I sighed, and pulled on the shirt. The room spun for a second as I connected with everyone else. Then hearing “-ish Chrysalis here liked me. She’s beautiful. You got the crap end of the stick, having a bad Chryssi- OH MY GOD HE PUT ON THE SHIRT FORGET WHAT I WAS SAYING!”

I clenched my teeth. I knew that the Chrysalis from this universe was different from the Chrysalis in my universe, but … still. I hadn’t been looking forward to meeting any version of her after what she’d done to Thorax and the Changelings back in my universe. OK, parallel universe, parallel universe, I thought to keep my emotions in check. You’re the one who tries to give others a second chance, the least you can do is not judge her before you meet her.

Oberon grinned. ““I know how you feel about Chrysalis back home, believe me, I feel the same way. You didn’t see some of the images Simon showed me before you so politely cut into our conversation. I actually think that the two of them from this universe might work together, so could you please not freak out on her when you meet her?”

I nodded. “For you, yes. I can.”

Simon then sighed “If you want, I could send you the images I sent Oberon. Maybe give you a feel for just how great this Chrysalis is. Mind you, she is a cursed daughter of a love god, a curse similar to the one from Beauty and the Beast, with how it morphed her. But now she needs love to survive, she mostly gets by with her childrens love, but to break the curse, she needs someone to not only love her, but to help her love herself again....”

I shrugged. “Makes sense. I’d like to review the images if I could. You should see what I look like when there’s no one watching. Not even Th - Oberon’s seen it, it’s pretty freaky, so I’m not qualified to judge on appearance.” I then grinned. “I wasn’t expecting this universe to run on ‘True Love’s Kiss’ Laws, but if I can help, I will.”

Simon smiled and began sending the images, of Chrysalis weeping for her Thorax, of her helping to reinforce the walls, of her working to feed the people of the city, even working in the fields to help, and laughing alongside the orcs. Of her helping heal their wounded, even of her fighting to defend the city alongside the soldiers. The last image was of her sleeping as she held an Uruk child, having been rocking the poor child to sleep as her parents patrolled the walls. “This is the Chrysalis I know, the one I love, and hope to free from Solaris’s curse.”

In a quiet voice, I said, “She’s actually pretty awesome. I can see why you admire her so much. First thing I’m doing when I get home is asking my Council if this universe is a mirror of mine.” My hair then stood on end in fright. If this universe had Draqons, and a version of Discord, then that might mean … Aloud, I said, “Oh, gods, do not let there be an evil version of me running around in here somewhere.” I turned to Oberon. My irises turned yellow for a second as I said, “You do not want to know what I would be like if I went down that path.”

Simon chuckled “Unlikely, she has drained the essence of every being of power that walks this earth. The only two left that aren’t gods, are Tirek and Discord, and no one knows where the hell Tirek is. I believe that there are Elements of Harmony that naturally appeared in your world? Ours has the synthetic touch of Celestia and Solaris. They are a single artifact, known as the solar judgement.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. On the one hand, I was outraged at what Celestia had done, and wanted justice, but on the other … I’d fought myself before, not in quite that way, but I had, and I usually lost. I nodded. “I think the Ancient Ponies forged them somehow, but they are intimately connected to the balance of the natural world. Makes my job easier.” I snickered. “Why do villains always have to come up with cool names for their weapons of mass destruction? I don’t know. Any idea where that would be? I don’t think I could get Solaris’s taint out of it, but I might be able to break his connection to it for a short while, and I could easily get Celestia’s hooks out of it. Seeing as this universe is a bit like Lord of the Rings, I’m assuming that the Solar Judgement will be in some impossible to get to, heavily guarded location that spells certain doom. Fun, fun, fun.”

Simon laughed “I wish, it is Celestia's weapon of choice. That spear is a nightmare that haunts all our dreams. Thing starts to eat your soul the second it pierces you. Thing is an abomination. Supposed to be Solaris’ answer to Tirek… bastard.”

I winced. I wasn’t overly fond of my universe’s version of Tirek, but … no one deserved that. I sighed. “Makes sense that she would always keep it on her person, that means some unexpected hero can’t toss it into a handy volcano. I don’t think I’d have a lot of soul it could eat, but … yeesh.”

Simon nodded “You’re lucky, that thing is one of the few legitimate threats to me in this world. No soul, no phoenix protocol, no reincarnation in the rebirth pod.”

I smirked. “Oh, it could eat me, don’t worry. I meant that it would work through me in seconds flat. I don’t have much of a soul left.” Oberon rolled his eyes. “I might survive that, but I’m a Spirit. My soul is my essence too. It wouldn’t be pretty.”

Simon then chuckled as he pulled out a picture he found, handing it to me “A pic of Chryssi before her curse. Now that’s pretty.” In the picture was an alicorn with a pure golden blonde coat and rose colored mane, she had beautiful violet eyes and smiled at the photographer.

There was suddenly an outcry along the mental links of “Who got a hold of my baby pics?! I thought I told Pharynx to burn them when I moved here! I just put on my armor and turn on the link for the day, and I find this?! Come on, Guys! Not okay!”

There was then a surge in the net as I think Chrysalis was muted and deafened by Simon. “Please tell her none of this, I am not sure she likes me… like that… I’m scared she might avoid me if I tell her.”

As the muting and deafening was removed, a woman who looked like a decidedly more insect like version of the mare in the picture with full SIVA armor, and what looked like a heavy axe made of the stuff. She looked to graug Simon and huffed “So what’s up, boss? We taking the fight to-” he saw Thorax and paused “You know, he looks a lot like Thorax, but… much more colorful…. Nah, couldn’t be… he… he couldn’t be...”

I chose my words, carefully. “This is my husband, Oberon. Oberon, Chrysalis. Chrysalis, Oberon. I’m Secundus, but that’s not important.”

Chrysalis smiled “It is good to see my people are accepted somewhere… I am happy to see you escaped the hive’s destruction, Oberon.” She bowed to him respectfully before she grinned mischievously “And I can smell that you have become mates, my congratulations. May you have many years full of joy.”

I blushed at the fact we smelled like each-other, I’d forgotten that. I looked at Oberon with concern. I didn’t need a SIVA link to guess what he was thinking. I privately told him, We’ll set it right somehow, I promise. Aloud, I said, “Thank you. They’ve been very joyful so far.”

Chrysalis smiled in joy “Have you met Simon? He welcomed me, my children, and my brothers with open arms, and we established a trade of Red-leaf, which makes for a great love substitute, and in exchange we spy on Magi. Helps them to know where enemy raids are coming from, and when they are coming. Simon then suggested we move our hive here, said he could keep us safe easier so we are doing so with their help. I trust him, so he’s fine by my hive, apparently… I often worry that they are not open enough with me... My only real complaint though is that he is obviously crushing pretty hard on someone here, and he will never tell me. Guy thinks I’ll get weirded out, as if. He should nut up and tell me, so I can help him get with her, owe him that much at least.”

My inability to lie was infamous in my universe. It was so bad that I couldn’t even make my face lie. Oberon very gently punched me to change my expression. “Um, right.” I muttered. “I think I’ll … just let the two of you deal with that. I’m shocked at what happened to the hive here, I’m from a different universe, and the hive there is my adoptive family. I can’t imagine losing that.”

Chrysalis smiled sadly “Let me guess, I am a villain in that world? I could sense your discomfort around me… I suppose it would be a bad idea for me to visit the hive there… I would hate to cause trouble...I just wish I could see Thorax again… My poor baby brother…”

I shrugged. “It might work, you’d be amazed how judgement-free it is. Yes … you were a villain. On the planet I come from, there’s a saying that ‘The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.’ I’ve always believed that ‘I was just trying to help’ is the largest paving stone on that road, and you were genuinely trying to help your subjects, you just didn’t go about it the right way.” I looked at Oberon carefully. “I’ve always believed that the ones we love are always very close by, even if it’s not in ways we expect.” Damn it, I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut.I thought angrily.

Chrysalis smiled and hugged me “Thank you, Secundas, you are a kind soul, you deserve every bit of happiness you get.” She then smiled even more, the sadness gradually leaving her face

I then walked over to the large mallets that Grimgor had set up. I picked one up, and swung it in a clumsy circle. I then very carefully set it on the floor, and facepalmed. “Why, why, am I always klutzy?!” I muttered. I thought to Simon, Would it be alright if I customized this before I accidentally take someone’s head off?

Sure, Simon thought back, his interest showing through the thought.

I concentrated, and fed my magic into the mallet. It slowly shrank into a small, double-headed hammer. I added one or two final spells to make sure it would work. I then conjured up a straw dummy, and sent the hammer flying forward. It tore straight through the dummy, before flying back into my hand.

I chuckled at a mental image of a blonde superhero in a red cape surrounded by lightning that came from Simon. Well, I started reading the myths when I was a kid, but I did love the older comics, yes. No, this hammer doesn’t summon lightning, it just throws accurately, and returns. Besides, I’m way more like Loki than like Thor, I thought with a mental grin. I then broadcast to the group, We’d better get going soon, we’re burning daylight, and it’s a long walk.

“Can you be any noisier?” A familiar dry voice says, holding up the head of the dummy that was launched clear away.

Graug simon rubbed the back of its horned head awkwardly H-hey there, Roxy… You still mad at me for vanishing on you?

“Yes.” She answers bluntly but didn’t seem all too angry.

He nodded before gesturing to me and Thorax. “Well, Some people from another dimension have come to help us, I think we have a shot at saving Discord now!”

Her cold eyes glanced at us. “And who are they?” There was a edge to her tone, but showed little else in terms of hostility.

He gestured to us A Draqon of duality and what looks like an extremely colorful Changeling royal.

She nodded slowly “So, you think this will work?”

Simon nodded eagerly, which looked odd on his graug body Definitely!

Roxy smirked “Well, here’s hoping. Not like we’ll get any retries on this.”

My head tilted back and forth the way it did whenever I was trying to work something out or was confused. Reading people of any species had never been my forte. It was blatantly obvious, even to me that Roxy didn’t like me, but she seemed willing to put up with me, and not put a sword through my annoying face. I would have to watch my step and my mouth around her. “Sorry for being loud, I tend to motor-mouth when I’m nervous or excited. I - um - yeah. I’m here to help free your version of Discord, which I’m pretty sure I can do, and I think at that point Thorax and I will wind up going home, whether we want to or not. It’s not a good idea to stay in universes you don’t belong in, believe me, I’ve tried.”

I privately “messaged” Simon, I’m not a god, but if you’d like, I could show you the Equestria I’m from when we’re done with this. It’d be nice to show off a non-apocalyptic, non-tyrannical world. I don’t know how long I could take you there for, I’m pretty powerful in my multiverse, but I’m not omnipotent. I could still take you though. You interested?

Simon chuckled If it’s anything like what your making it sound, gladly.

I then said to Roxy, “I have to be in physical contact with Discord’s statue while I break him out. Celestia’s forces will be trying to kill me the whole time, obviously. I can’t actually die, but being hit by meteors, lasers, stray spells, or bullets or whatever hurts like hell, is pretty distracting, and it’s not a good idea to mess with a Draconequus, sorry Draqon in the middle of a complicated spell like that. I could wind up hurting Discord, and he wouldn’t forgive me for that. We’d better get going as soon as we can.”

After I said that, two large troll like creatures came up to Graug Simon and smiled, the non-fuzzy male pulled out a flaming mace and hoisted it “Olog follow! We protect family, or die trying!”

Simon the Graug frowned Azzy, Maru, I don’t want you getting reckless, I’ll need you to guard our Draqon friend, Secundas. Just try to keep him out of the line of fire.

The male grinned even wider “Az-Barko happy to serve! No one touches new friend! Will char enemy to cinders!”

The Female smiled as well “And I, Al-Maru, shall keep hostile magics at bay, I will crush the magi under my heel if they try to stop us.”

Simon nodded and opened the gate to outside Comraich, walking with Orvok, Roxy, Az-barko, Grimgor, and Al-Maru taking up position around us. I wish that the Magi had seen the madness that they were unleashing upon themselves… But honestly, after learning of what they did to get the SIVA from my peoples blood… I have no mercy left to give.

As we stepped outside, I sniffed the air once or twice. I pointed to my right. “Right, I think it’s…”
Oberon grabbed my arm, and gently pushed it so that I was pointing to my left. “That way,” he finished for me.

“Thank you,” I mumbled, my ears burning with embarrassment.

Chrysalis snickered. “No sense of direction, right?” I nodded. Chrysalis then stared at Oberon for a few seconds. “You remind me of someone close to me,” she said finally.

Oberon shrugged. “I’m a Changeling. I just have one of those faces, I guess.”

I tried to work out a mental map in my head. I facepalmed. “Oh, great. We get to cut through what should be the Everfree. Which back home is terrifying enough. I can’t wait to see what it’s like here. Everyone still here? Right. Let’s get going.” I started humming under my breath. Oberon lightly smacked the back of my head. “What?! Was it that annoying?”

Oberon sighed. “You need to watch where you’re going. You nearly stepped into a bear-trap.”

I glanced down. “Uhlp. Thank you. Maybe you should navigate?”

Oberon chuckled. “Gladly. It’s this way everyling, we just have to follow the river for about two miles.” He glanced down. “Riverbed,” he corrected. “This is going to take some getting used to.”

Simon nodded Yeah, Celestia diverted all the rivers from Comraich, luckily we have a couple wells and water farms… But it’s still hard.

[At the quarry work camp. Simons POV]

I frowned as he looked to the camp “I sense a lot of Magi, but I can’t see them, they might be using stealth magic. Damn magi are crafty.”

Sec tilted his head to the side, and listened for a few seconds. “I hear about twenty hearts beating inside there, but I can’t narrow it down exactly. They’re on the opposite side of the camp at least.”

“I hate when you do that,” Oberon muttered. He looked at me, and said, “That’s the beating hearts, didn’t you say that Celestia might be using undead?”

I nodded “I can sense those easy, they are all over the place, but they can be stopped pretty easy, break their bindings, and we have some temporary allies, at least until the necromantic part of the magic wears off. They are being forced to do what their master wants, against their will. They’re held captive by a necromantic focus, big magical thing covered in bones and rotting flesh, along with some crystal hanging off it.” I chuckled, now out of the graug, who was currently growling at the gate. “Celestia must be desperate, the only thing she hates nearly as much as us is the undead. Prefers those she killed to stay dead, y’know?”

Sec smirked. “I have an associate I work with who has one or two choice words to say about necromancy. It makes him go berserk, since it’s messing with his concept. Normally, he’s a very nice, kind individual, but he thinks the undead are ‘cheating.’ Saving your presence, Simon. I think he’d like you.”

I then sent Sec a message Love to meet him when this is over, if you are sure he won’t make me die...again.

Azzy then grunted “Az-Barko will keep the undead in check, make sure we don’t add to their number.”

Al-Maru nodded “And I will keep us as hearty as possible, minimise our wounds, maximise our adrenaline, that sort of thing.”

Orvok then grunted as he and Grimgor began to set something up, piquing my interest after a bit “What are you two doing?”

Orvok grinned “Me and Grimgor have a totem of our own, it’ll let Grimgor and me be a bit tougher. Need it if Chryssis intel is right.”

Chrysalis nodded “I told them while we were walking here, but one of my spies discovered that Celestia may be here personally. Stay on guard.”

“Oh, good. Taking on the insane daughter of an equally insane god was item number one on my list of chores this morning,” Sec grumbled.

Oberon laughed. “Look at it this way,” he said in a sly tone, “This’ll be payback for all of those unending reports she makes us do.”

Sec laughed. “OK, that’s our Celestia, and this is a different Celestia, but…” I hefted my hammer and grinned “Somehow, that works!”

Roxy nodded “I’ll watch your back, brother. Don’t die.”

I grinned at her, then to Orvok and Grimgor, who had finished their odd totem, a dragon’s tooth hollowed out and filled with clockwork, and several bones fastened to it by metallic ivy. Grimgor flipped a switch on it, and it began to float as I sensed their power skyrocket. “Let’s DO THIS!”

Snuffles roared and charged the front gate, quickly bashing it to splinters before a massive undead graug came out to deal with him “Oh goody!” I shouted “Target practice! Sick em snuffles!” Snuffles nodded and ran for the rotting wretched graug as Orvok and grimgor entered the fray, Grimgor slowly moving, but laying siege on the Magi as if they were made of tissue paper.

Orvok, well, he was keeping any reinforcements from helping, using giant roots and branch shrapnel to wound anyone who came close that was a magi.

Chrysalis was whipping about the battlefield, poetry in motion as she disarmed and disabled the Magi, breaking their horns if they were Horned ones, dislocating the wings of the fliers, and breaking the joints of the burly ones.

I was scanning for the necromantic totem, using my SIVA enhanced wraith vision to scan the fortress like quarry until I found the totem. It was hooked up to Discords statue, siphoning his power for it’s evil magic. That couldn’t feel good… I looked to Sec and smiled “You focus on the statue, I’ll handle the litch and the totem!”

[Sec’s POV]

I was casually swinging my hammer as I walked towards Discord’s frozen form. I was very grateful that the hammer even aimed for me, because I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. I wasn’t even focused on what the hammer was doing as it was thrown and returned, I was too busy looking at Discord with a growing sense of horror.
I lived in a very friendly version of Equestria. I’d wholeheartedly recommend it to tourists. However, since I was a fan of the show, and wound up being a Draconequus, I was terrified when I first arrived that Celestia would turn me to stone on sight. She hadn’t, but once in a while I still had nightmares about being turned to stone.

I hadn’t seen Discord’s statue in person, only as part of a shot in a show. Nothing could have prepared me for this, and it did not help that this version of Discord was human-shaped. He was slightly hunched over, one arm raised to protect himself futilely. His mouth was frozen in a horrifying scream. To make matters even worse, I actually could hear him screaming, it just wasn’t with my ears. It was very quiet, and in the back of my mind, but it was horrible. I think only another Draconequus or Draqon would have been able to hear it.

I looked at Simon. “Right, first thing I need is for him to stop being a damn battery. Can you get that thing off of him?”

Simon nodded “Good as done.” Simon grabbed the totem and all of the aura in a grip made of SIVA and blue and green wraithfire as he began to draw deep from the well of his power. “Brother cast in stone, may your worth be shown, the evil that binds thee shall begone, so sayeth the lord of dawn!” He then literally absorbed and burned the totem, it’s power returning to the statue, as the power used to enslave the zombies backlashes to the Lich, who had been fighting with Roxy, and then promptly let loose with a blood curdling scream as it burned to ash.

“Thanks. Nice job on the spell-poetry.” I walked up to Discord, and climbed onto the pedestal holding him up. I remembered that he couldn’t see anything, but he could hear everything around him. I cleared my throat. “Hi! You don’t know me, but in another universe, you and I are very close friends. I was brought here by your father to help get you out of here.”

I then heard a voice, Discord’s voice, ever so slightly… “Father... he cares...never left… always… always worked...to help...even when it hurt… oh by the first gods his shouts of pain… they ripped into me...Solaris used his pain, his own voice, to form my shackles with his magic… Chaos, and a seething inferno… Brother, the magic is of anarchy! It tears at my core, please, undo the magic shackling my mind first! I cannot bear to harm anyone again!”

By that point, my heart was breaking. I nodded. “As you wish.” I brought a hand up, and gently placed my fingers on Discord’s temple. “My mind to your mind…” I joked. I cleared my throat. “Sorry, not relevant, just thought you might get it.” I closed my eyes, blocked out everything around me, and set up a link between my mind and Discord’s.

It was dark,and cold, so very, very cold, as if the warmth of the sun was a distant memory here, the darkness scratched and bit at me like some feral animal, I could feel my being under assault, as if the magic designed to madden and subjugate Discord was trying futilely to take me under its sway as well, this magic was not harmonious, like in my world, it was a magic of evil, of hate. Whoever did this, they wanted nothing more than to make Discord suffer. He was in the middle of the room, chained to the floor, his entire body practically encased in frozen chains, his body riddled with bruises, scratches, and gouges He looked to me and wept “Hurry… Release me before it comes again! I cannot bear to see what it made me do again! I HATE hurting people! It is against my nature, I help, never harm! I… I hurt so many of the Uruks and Olog people.. The kin, they were called, when the kingdom was strong… I brought it to its knees before I managed to turn against the Magi… They… made me kill so many innocent people… so many lives cut short, so many lives that could have been, never to see the light of day…” He wept even more, the tears streaming down his face “I swear to you, I WILL depose Celestia if I break free! I will take her precious sun from her, her seat as the Sun’s avatar will be forfeit, and We, the truly good will have a turn to shine!”

I nodded. “I understand better than you might think.” As I walked over to Discord, one of his chains broke off from the group, and latched onto my wrist, the cold burning unbearably. I glared at it. My irises turned yellow. “Oh, just try it!” I snarled dangerously. Part of my mind leapt forward and attacked, and the chain broke off of me. “You know what your problem is?” I asked the chains. “You’ve been dealing with the same kind of prisoner too long. I’m chaos, and order, day and night, good and evil, all of it! Try dealing with everything at once you bastards!”

I grabbed Discord’s chains, which tried to latch onto me, and imprison me as well. I fought them off, and started picturing all of the dualities I could. In a very short time, I’d gotten to be very, VERY good at dealing with my concept. I could break an entire universe into dualites in my mind, analyze them, and get the result I wanted, because everything could be considered by its opposite.

Since the prison here was void, dark, cold, and hateful, I fed magic based on their opposites into the room. The chains hissed in pain, so I kept going. I then pictured all that chaos could do: bring heat, life, madness, love, grief, joy, anything. I pictured an entire universe made out of all the random things I could think of, and then I forced it to work. The chains started breaking apart, and I said, “And … for my final trick!” I then turned my mind inside out, so that the universe I was picturing wasn’t in my mind anymore. There was an enormous explosion, and the gods said, “Let there be light!”

I then felt something shove my body as I saw the last of the chains snap, Discords mind breaking free at long last! As I came to, I saw a spear made out of white steel and gold that seemed… wrong, on a fundamental level, like thousands of spirits were trapped within, forced to empower and embolden their wielder.

I looked to who shoved me out of the way, it was Roxy, she shoved me aside, taking the Spear right through the heart as I heard Laughter, laughter similar to Celestias, but far more sinister. Simon turned to me and saw Roxy, his eyes widening as he was at her side in an instant “Roxy!” He ripped out the spear and tried to heal her with his SIVA, only, she was already gone, the spear had taken her soul… Simon realised this shortly after Celestia looked to him in amusement.

“So, this is the mighty lord of Dawn? Ha! To think I was worried! You are nothing! And I crush you beneath my heel like the pest you are! Prepa-” She could not finish that sentence, because Simon was airborne and ramming into her at speeds that would make Rainbow jealous.

Simon grabbed her wings and began to pull as he dislocated them, forcing her to fall to the ground as the spear magically flew back into her hand and she used its magic to float safely down. Only for Orvok to slam her down into the dirt with a giant root “I saw what you did to her, and I will make you suffer for it after Discord is free! No forest shall yield its succor to you! You are Forever banned from the sustenence of the land and skies! ”

The second she landed Simon was on her, sword and dagger in hand as he parried her spear every time she tried to hit him, furiously slashing at her as he whittled away at her defenses, every slash leaving SIVA on her that ate away at her at a slow, agonizing pace, until it reached her nervous system, paralyzing her…

“You have gone too far! You could of attacked me, and it would of just been you defending your title! But you hurt my friends!” He swept her legs out from under her “You hurt my Family!” He then stabbed her in between the wings as he hammered her into the ground, leaving the dagger there as she tried to remove it and the SIVA ate her wings down toskin, then muscle, then bone, then simply nothing. “YOU HAVE TAKEN SOMETHING FROM ME THAT I WILL NEVER GET BACK!”

He then used her horn as a grip as he rammed her head into the nearest rock until her nose broke, he then snapped off her horn at the base and covered it in SIVA before Stabbing it into her neck, the SIVA filling her body now, eating her from the inside until she was devoid of any trait of a pony...er../ Magi tribe “And now, i have taken your power from you! No longer are you an Archon, you are nothing! You have no magic, no strength, and no wings! I have taken everything from you, and I banish thee from death! No matter what, you shall be without the only thing you treasure, power! You have nothing, are nothing! AND DEATH WILL BE NO RELIEF TO THEE! THY SINS ARE SO GREAT THAT NO GOD NOR FIEND SHALL TAKE THEE!”

He then walked to the spear and grabbed it, growling as he Channelled his SIVA into it, weakening the magic of the spear until he snapped it with his hands, sending the spirits trapped within to the hereafter. Orvok, who had landed by Simon after, took a shaky sigh as he took her corpse in his hand “Please… please work…’ He grew a wooden heart and placed it where Roxy’s heart belonged, sealing the wounds around it with magic as he began praying “Quathak, please, i have not requested your aid before, and I have been generous with my offerings, please, just let her stay with me… I can’t… I can’t lose her! PLEASE, my queen! I cannot bear to lose her, I love her! I cannot take it, the very thought rips me to my core!”

Everything stopped, except for me and Orvok, as a woman made from millions of different plants and trees interwoven with each other making the form of a humanoid dragoness with a headdress made from vines, with bones hanging from them. She took one of the millions of souls and smiled at Orvok “Like I could say no to you, my child. You have been nothing but faithful in my teachings, have been dutiful in your offerings, and, most of all, you truly love her.” She smiled and placed the soul mote into Roxies chest before turning to me “Now, let’s talk, just us, hmm?”

Orvok nodded “Of course my queen, I understand.” He then froze as well.

Quathak smiled “My brother Zmatok sends his thanks for helping his son, He should be free shortly, now that Celestias power is gone.” She smiled at Orvok warmly, if not with some sadness “You know, I was not just being kind, when I called him my child. I may have spent a stint disguised as an Uruk medicine woman, that may have fallen for a charming young Uruk hunter. I… was happy, with them. I miss those times, and would often revisit them as a passing bird, or a breeze in the trees…” She teared up before sighing unsteadily. “Never mind about that though, and please, keep that to yourself… I am not ready to tell Orvok of his unique heritage yet.”

She smiled as she shimmered a little “Oh, alright, Zmatok, I’ll tell him. Now that Celestia has been crippled, Solaris’s link to this realm is as well, Celestia was the only one who actively worshipped him, after all.” She smiled to me “Zmatok is busy setting up a cleanse of the Magi, freeing them from Solaris and Celestia’s corrupt teachings. But he also sent me to ask, may Comraich temporarily visit your realm? This will by no means be permanent, but just until things stabilize here.”

I blinked in surprise. “Um … how many people are we talking about here? My Realm only has forty-two guest rooms, which is ironic for how anti-social I am, but it also only has ten bathrooms. Including the master. So, the math didn’t really work out.”

Quathak smiled “There is an empty region of the badlands, where that realms Everfree Forest borders it, plentiful hunting and little other inhabitants. The city of Comraich has its own living quarters for all who live there.. It will simply be that the city will be in your realm for a brief period of time.”

I turned back to Discord’s statue. “Wakey, wakey! There’s a whole world out here that needs you help.”

Discord stood up, stone and cement flaking off of him. “You have a very strange way of looking at the world,” he commented with a smile. “I like it, reminds me of my family. We were...all quite odd.” He sighed “Well, seems I have some work to do, being the new head demigod is going to take some getting used to… hopefully with that spear destroyed, some of my family will re form...”

Quathak nodded with a warm, motherly smile. “Greetings nephew, I hope you recover with little trouble.”

He grinned hollowly, as if it hurt him to smile. “I… I hope so too.”

I shrugged. “I see everything in black and white and grey. It goes with the territory.” Discord looked and sounded better now, since he wasn’t in unendurable agony any more. I know it would still be a long road to his recovery, mental scars like that didn’t heal overnight. “Would … would you like to come with us? I know the version of you in my universe would love to meet another version of himself. It might help.”

Discord smiled and nodded as Quathak left, unpausing time. “It would be best for me to disappear until the records set straight any way, less chance of reprisals from Celestias former lackies.” He looked to Celestia, who was now a pitiful looking creature with a thin frame, and no powers whatsoever, like a human from my world, but without the creativity… or any time in the sun, or much food… Damn she looked awful. “I pity her, the wrath of a druid is something very dangerous… and she just tried to kill an Uruk druids desired mate.”
I shuddered. “If someone tried to kill my husband, I … Crap!” My eyes grew wide. “Where’s Thorax?!” I yelled, forgetting to use his pseudonym. “THORAX!!!” I ran over to him, and found him curled up on the ground, breathing heavily. “Hey, you’re OK, you’re OK, I’ve got you…” I didn’t know if I was trying to reassure him or me. I bent down, and fed him some healing magic and love. In a few minutes, he sat up, looking recovered.

“Let’s … take tomorrow off…” Thorax joked in a weak voice.

The armored troll looked to Thorax “Is Changeling king ok? Saw fall down, kept enemies away, so they not kill.” He was covered in cuts, burns, and had several bruises that looked quite painful, Simon looked to him and frowned, only for him to wave off his concern “Az-Barko wears these wounds proudly, used to protect new brother in arms!”

Chrysalis looked to Thorax sadly, having likely heard my slip-up “I knew you were him… I just wish you were MY him…”

Thorax rested his head against my chest. “I know. I’m sorry I can’t be. Don’t worry, I’m well taken care of,” he said, giving me an affectionate pat. “And … I think someone you know might be willing to take care of you as well,” he grinned. “You’ll have to work out who for yourself.”

She walked over to us and wryly smiled “It is Simon, yes? I have a feeling that he likes me… I just… I am unsure I am the right kind of woman for him… I am still… this. I give love, but never change back… The spell that changes my form is far stronger on me.” She sighed, eying Simon, who was making sure Roxy was recovering well, while Orvok jabbed what looked like an acorn into her chest, the acorn phasing into her with green fire.

Az-Barko smiled warmly “Simon does not care about looks, sister. He only cares about you. Not pushing, just letting know.”

There was then a note that appeared in my hand, me not remembering having grabbed it.

Do you, a resident of “Equestria” Universe Number “538” Timeline “1”, grant asylum to “Comraich” native to “Equestria” Universe Number “539” Timeline “2”?

Yes/No ←Circle one

I chuckled. “Well, my Celestia isn’t going to be exactly thrilled about this, but … I know how to bribe her!” I grinned. I traced my finger around the answer “Yes,” feeding some of my magic into it. The letter disappeared back to wherever it had come from. I looked at everyone, and said, “So, I guess you’ll be living with us for a while. There’s enough room in the Badlands for a large city, and thankfully the Changelings are all pretty friendly. Oh!” I remembered something. “My universe has some sort of camouflage law built into it, so … odds are you’ll all be different species while you’re there. You get used to it pretty quickly, it’s just odd at first. I wouldn’t mind placing bets on what species you’ll be, but … another time, maybe.”

Just as I said that, we were suddenly all in The city we met Simon in, except for Celestia, and were swept up in a bright light, seems we were going now!

Author's Note

Check dis guy out for the awesome story of Secundus!

Strange celebrations, and stranger meetings.

Secundus’s P.O.V.

Inter-universal travel always made me a bit dizzy, and that was when I was the one doing the driving. So, when we popped into existence in the middle of Mane Street, Ponyville it took me a few seconds to come to. I noticed with relief that I was back in the noodley body I was used to. “Hi, tails! I missed you!” I said, sounding like I was drunk. I looked around, noticed where I was, and sobered up instantly. “I specifically said, ‘Hive, Badlands,’ and I’m in Ponyville. First thing I’m doing tomorrow is practicing my long-range teleporting.”

I felt like something was working its way up my stomach and esophagus, with claws, which could only mean one thing. I pulled out a handkerchief. “KAH-CHOO!” Six scrolls shot out of my mouth. I picked them up, and read the seals. “Let’s see, Twilight, Celestia, Pharynx, Tempus, Discord, and an advert for a ‘Cheese of the Decade’ Club. No thanks. I’m guessing this means that everypony noticed the huge city popping up right next to the Hive. Better read Pharynx’s first.” I did, and chuckled. “Pharynx says we’ve been invaded. By yetis.” I thought for a second. “Isn’t a yeti a type of troll? That … eats ponies …” I said with growing horror. “Orvok did say that ponies were a food source in that universe. That could go wrong very quickly.”

I quickly scrawled a reply to Pharynx, telling him and the other Changelings not to panic, and that I would explain when I got home. I then scanned the other scrolls in a few seconds, and sent a “Reply All” response.

I looked behind me. Thorax was back to being his usual adorable Technicolor bug-moose self, he just had a few bandages, but didn’t look the worse for wear. Next to him was a satyr with reddish-grey hair and leg fur, long horns, red eyes, and a type of canister that looked like a giant urn strapped to his back. I could feel the SIVA humming in the canister so I assumed that this was Simon. Next to him was a green-furred yeti that had to be Az-Barko. Next to Az-Barko was a significantly smaller pair of yetis, who must have been Orvok and Grimgor, judging by their apparel, and the fact that Grimgors prosthetics were still there, by Orvok was Roxy, who seemed to be a strange hybrid of Faun and Dryad.

And next to Roxy was … crap! Chrysalis looked exactly like OUR Chrysalis!

I ran over to Chrysalis racking my brains. I then snapped my fingers. Chrysalis’s form morphed into an image based of the Alicorn she had been in the photo Simon had shown me. I quickly explained, “Don’t worry, it’s just an illusion spell. I thought actually changing your form would be a violation. The reason I did it is that you look exactly like the villian version of you from this universe, and if Twilight and her friends see you walking down the street, they’ll ‘Friend’ you to death. Literally. I’m very sorry about that. Of course, Twilight is good enough at magic that on a subconscious level, she’ll think something is ‘off’ about you. It’s the best I could do. We’ll deal with that when it happens.”

I spread my paws, and beamed, “Welcome to Ponyville, otherwise known as the party capital of Equestria! The residents are some of the friendliest ponies you could ever want to meet, just don’t refuse if they offer to throw you a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party, it breaks their hearts. You do not want to see a sad pony, it’s heartbreaking. It’s a little pastel, but you get used to it. So, any questions?”

Az-Barko raised his large hand “Why is Az-Barko fluffy? Az-barko is not supposed to be fluffy, his mate is.”

Orvok raised his hand as well “Yeah, and what animals are okay to hunt here? I don’t want to wind up murdering someone out of ignorance, but I need to make an offering to Quathak in thanks.”

Simon then raised his hand shakily, before pointing to his lower torso. “THE FUCK HAPPENED TO MY LEGS?!”

I couldn’t help but snicker. “Sorry. You don’t exactly get to choose what you look like when you wind up on another world. I’ve had some fairly freaky forms I got stuck with. Once, I was a writhing mass of eyes, teeth, and tentacles. In a bow tie. At least the bowtie was cool. Az-Barko, you are fluffy because yetis live in cold conditions, and need a thick coat of fur. Your mate is probably still every bit as fluffy as you are. Simon, humans and ringwraiths don’t exist in this version of Equestria, so you got the closest thing it could find: a satyr, like from Greek mythology. I think you look fine. Orvok, you can hunt most things in the Everfree Forest, since they’re not sentient, but try not to do it in front of a pony, they’d freak out. I would warn you about the monsters in there, but I kind of feel sorry for the monsters at this point. Anything else about your forms need explaining?”

Chrysalis raised her hoof sadly “Would you be capable of breaking Solaris’ curse on me? I… miss looking like this.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so, it’s hard for even a Draconequus to go up against a god. It was my understanding that your curse does have a condition that breaks it? Maybe you could find a way to make that work,” I said, giving Simon a meaningful look. “Right! Well I suppose I could give you all a tour or something, I lived here for almost a year.”

Chrysalis smiled warmly as Simon nodded “As long as no one tries to take my Canister, I would love to take you up on that tour, how about you, er…” He looked to Chrysalis, not wanting to break her cover.

Chrysalis smiled “Call me Lilly. That was my name when I had this body.” She then looked to me “I heard that you have a child, wouldn’t they like to see his father has come back?”

My eyes widened. I sniffed the air once or twice. “OK, the air smells blue-green, so it’s Wednesday,” I looked at the clocktower in the center of town. “Three-fifteen… CRAP! ALBERT!!” I yelled.

Rather than using my common sense and just teleporting, I got down on all fours and ran in the direction of the school that Albert attended, Simon and company following me with worry. Please, please don’t let me be late! I skidded around a corner in the path, and came across the very hybrid I was looking for. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Albert was very unusual looking, even for someone from Equestria. He looked like a mix of pony and Changeling from the front, with a dark grey mix of fur and chitin, hooves, a muzzle, and a spiky black mane. His eyes were a blend of mine and Thorax’s: he had black sclera like me, and his irises were the same color purple as Thorax’s. From the back, he was a long boa constrictor with bright yellow and blue scales. He slithered so that his pony half was upright like mine, and used his tail for locomotion instead of his front hooves.

“Uh, hi Dad. Are you picking me up from school today? I’m more than capable of making it back on my own.” I was so happy Albert was his usual snarky self.

“I just wanted to make sure that you’re OK. I was … away for awhile, but it looks like I got back on the same day I was supposed to. I’m glad you’re alright. How was school?”

Albert shrugged. “About the same as it always is. We learned about Fillydelphia in geography and history. That was kind of cool. Why does Papa have bandages?” Albert asked, looking behind me.

I chuckled, “It’s a long story.”

Albert then noticed the rest of the group behind me. “Who are they?”

“Some friends I made in another universe. This is Simon, Roxy, Grimgor, Az-Barko, Orvok, and Chrysalis,” I said, pointing each of them out. “This is Chrysalis from another universe, and she’s very friendly, so don’t worry.”

Albert slithered over to them and regarded them with interest. He stuck out a hoof. “Hi, I’m Albert. I guess my dads went adventuring with you?” He then sniffed a few times, and then leaned over and smelled Simon. He broke into a broad smile that highlighted his fangs. Most ponies were unnerved by it, but he was just happy. “Ohmigosh! You’re a human!!! I’ve never met another human besides Dad! What was it like?! Did you drive a car or have a job? What were your favorite things to do? Did you like pizza?” Albert carried on like that for about ten minutes, barely pausing for breath.

I chuckled. “Albert, give him a minute, he just got here, and is still getting used to it.” I glanced at Simon. “Sorry about that, he’s … kind of obsessed with humans. My fault,” I said with a cough. “How could you even tell he was human?” I asked Albert.

Albert shrugged. “I could just smell it on him, I don’t know.”

Simon shrugged “I’m really not affected by fast speech, I had a friend who was an auctioneer. So, as for your questions. No, I rode a bike, as It was far cooler in my opinion, to get awesome muscular legs, especially since I liked kickboxing, and I did have a job, I was a computer technician and an EMT. And my favorite things to do were video games, three in particular, actually; Warframe, Destiny, and Shadow of War.” He then grinned “And anyone who doesn’t like pizza is a sorry excuse for a human,” He then paused thoughtfully. “Or Vegan.”

I laughed. “Actually, vegan pizza was my favorite. Oh. Uh …. No one here except griffons eats meat. If you do eat meat in front of ponies, they … uh … well, they … it isn’t pretty. I got used to it pretty quickly, but it’s hard to adapt to an all veggie diet. Thankfully, you won’t have to eat hay. I tried it once, I can’t see how ponies even eat that stuff.”

Orvok shrugged “Most animals avoid the badlands, so I had to hunt in the Everfree for offerings, anyway. And the people of Comraich are used to Bloodroot, potatoes, and cabbage, a watermelon if we splurge.”

I smiled. “Well, they’re going to have much better food to look forward to here, trust me. I’m glad.”

Az- Barko smiled as he sniffed the air “Smell mate nearing us, must have been sent further away.” He knelt down and looked to Albert “Wanna see momma Yeti belly?” Albert nodded.

I blinked. “Oh. Albert has a portal he uses to get from the Hive to Ponyville for school. She must be using that. I guess Pharynx showed her where it was. I do have to admit, he’s good at adapting, even if it is just to get a tactical advantage.”

Az-Barko offered a hand to Albert “Pig back? Sorry, not speak good common.”

Albert opened his mouth. “[Thank you for the offer, that would be great! Your common is very good for being a second language] ” I had no idea what language he was speaking, but Az-Barko seemed to understand it.

Az-Barko paused “You no have to speak home tongue for Az-Barko sake, father should understand son. It worries.”

I tilted my head for a second. “[Is this what you were speaking, Albert? I see you got my talent for languages.]” I shrugged. “Multi-versal translator. It’s a lifesaver sometimes.”

Az-Barko grinned “[Good, we can speak Black speech if we need to discuss sensitive matters.]

Simon nodded as He heard a pony scream girlishly“I think Al-Maru found Ponyville. We should move.”

Orvok sighed “Now I wish the squirt didn’t know Black speech, I feel the need to curse up a storm…”

I glared. “He’s picked up enough swear words in common Equestrian. Don’t you dare…”

Orvok deadpanned as we walked to the town square. “I would never swear when a kid could understand me, that’s just gross. Now, if the kid has no clue what you are saying, that’s a different story. For example, if I were to walk up to a mare, and say in Black speech “[Your face looks like something a timberwolf coughed up.]” But followed up with a thumbs up and acting like it was a compliment, they’d act like I complimented them.”

I commented, “Well, Pinkie Pie is probably fluent in Black Speech, knowing how random and talented she is, and Twilight knows when you insult her in any language. That’s experience talking, of course,” I grinned.

Orvok shrugged as he came across the ponies and Al-maru, who was trying to reason with a royal guard who had come to investigate. “I swear, I never even touched the impudent little worm! He just screamed and began throwing things at me!”

I walked over to the Prince, and gave my best withering glare. “Blueblood,” I growled.

“Oh, no. What are you doing here?!” Blueblood cried in exasperation.

“I get around, don’t you know that? If you don’t apologize to her, I swear I will sic Pharynx on you.”

Blueblood’s eyes widened in terror. “You wouldn’t!” he squeaked.

Simon smiled angrily as his SIVA canister glowed eerily. “Is someone antagonizing one of my royal guard? My, how scandalous, does he not know that assaulting a bodyguard to a king is a capital offence? Mayhaps I should discuss this with Celestia, I mean, she would not want a criminal among her nobility, would she?”

Blueblood drew himself up to his full height, and puffed out his chest, “Young stallion, I assure you, I-”

I interrupted. “Blueblood, you’re an amazing diplomat, but a lousy prince and brother-in-law. When I count to three, you are going to go home, and wait for a letter from Pharynx. Three,” I growled. Blueblood disappeared back to Canterlot in a flash of light.

Simon sighed “Wish I could've taught that braggart a lesson. Ah well.”

I smirked. “Oh, don’t worry, he’ll get a lesson. On occasion, that jerk dates my brother-in-law, who is the only being in Equestria that can lecture him and get away with it. Bonus is, he usually listens as well.”

Simon then looked to Al-Maru “Are you okay? I would of never taken you to combat if I knew you were with child.”

Az-barko withered under her glare before she sighed when she caught sight of Albert “You wanted to let him see my belly, hmmm? Well, I suppose I can forgive you. But you are making dinner tonight.”

Az-barko grinned “Love you. Make soup?”

She nodded “Sounds lovely. Now,” she sat on the floor, her armor covering her belly coming off, and her big, pregnant belly now free, with the rest of her still covered up, thankfully. She seemed, by my uneducated appraisal, to be quite far along. “Anyone want to feel young Az- Maloch kicking? He is very excited by all this attention, little gloryhound.~”

Az-barko grinned even more happily. “Az-Barko already good influence on child!”

Albert took off his book bag, and set it to the side. He very hesitantly reached out, and touched Al-Maru’s belly. He jumped a bit when he felt Az-Maloch kick. “Woah! Did I do that?”

I shrugged. “You were only in me for about four hours, and then you were an egg. While you were in me, you were quite impish though, yes.” I noticed the way everyone was staring, and gave a nervous cough, my cheeks burning. “Yes, I’m technically Albert’s mother. Don’t read too much into it.”

Simon shrugged “Hey, Draqons, er… Draqonequii are odd in my world too. Remind me to tell you about the trickster Draqon Frolir, brother to my worlds Discord.” he chuckled “Dude puts Loki to shame, Like, Loki went from male to a female once, and he gave a conventional birth. Frolir became a female and laid an egg twice his size, so as to have a child capable containing Celestias magic if she became evil. Sadly, poor old Tirek got locked in Tartarus along with Frolir...” he sighed “Another fatal cruelty on her part. Frolir was a free being, being confined like that killed him.”

Az-barko looked to the group, who were now looking sombre. “Why sad? Evil defeated today, celebrate! We free Tirek soon, just like Discord! We save everyone our Celestia hurt!”

Al-maru smiled softly “I will be keeping little Az-Maloch safe during that, as well as organizing a militia to defend Comraich.”

Grimgor then chuckled sadly as he looked to Albert “Ye know what, little squirt? Yer not half bad! Remind me of an old friend I had, back when the Comraich empire reached far and wide, further than the eye could see… He had his own littlun… Ach, I miss em.” He wiped at his eyes with his one biological arm.

Simon sighed as he looked to him “Really need to find a psychiatrist for my people, maybe five… We’ve been through some serious crap.”

Az-Barko frowned more “No need be sad, brother, let out. Az-barko know loss well.”

Grimgor teared up again and rubbed at his eyes “Naw, like ye said, now’s nary the time tae sulk!” He smiled at us “Now, I need a party set up. Who do I talk tae?”

I grinned. “Well, technically, you could ask half the ponies in Ponyville, but if you want a party expert, there’s only one mare for the job. This way!” I headed down the street, towards a building shaped like a giant gingerbread house.

As I walked in, the shop bell tinkled. Pinkie Pie looked up from behind the counter. She held out a large glass. “Oh! Hiya Sec! I’ve got your peanut butter malt all ready to go!”

“How did you know I was even com- Never mind. I don’t want to know. Thank you,” I said, setting some bits on the counter. I pointed at the group behind me, and between slurps said, “These fine people just saved their planet, and wanted to throw a party. I figured they should talk to a professional.”

Pinkie looked to Grimgor and gasped “Yowie zowie! I knew a doozie of a party was needed today, but I never knew it would be that big a party! You have got to follow me, I never met you, but this has to be the perfect party for everyone! Come-on-follow-me!”

Grimgor was grabbed by the prosthetic hand by Pinkie, and began to be dragged away “Wait, ye crazy mare! Tha’ arm has nae been tightened recently!”

Pinkie let out a “Huh?” at this, right as she pulled out his hand.

to this he sighed and prepared to calm down the ponies around us. “Sorry fer that, everyone, I lost most o me limbs a while back, had tae make some new ones fer meself, luckily I lost me leg first, else I wounld nary have the arms tae make the rest, but I’ve got a spare fer everythin back home.”

Pinkie looked to Grimgor slowly “W-why would you have to replace your arms and legs?”

Grimgor looked to me uncomfortably, as if asking if it was okay to tell her. I sighed, and nodded, before saying, “They’re from Equestria, just not this Equestria. It’s a long story. To sum it up, their Equestria is kind of an apocalyptic wasteland. I’ll let Simon and Grimgor tell the rest, they know it better. Come on, Thorax, there’s a booth over here.” I walked my husband over to the booth and sat down.

Simon and Grimgor explained their situation to Pinkie, and Pinkie then gave them a huge hug, promising to throw them her best party ever. Meanwhile, Al-Maru walked over to us and smiled “If possible, I was wondering, would you two like to be Az-Malochs godfathers? I know many who would like the honor, but… I felt I should ask you two first. You did save our world, basically.”

“You guys saved it yourselves, I just did the heavy lifting,” I said with a smile. “I would be honored, but … I think once things cool off in your Equestria, you’ll go back, and … I don’t know if I’d be able to go back. Travel between parallel worlds is supposed to be impossible, it took a god to get me there in the first place.”

A hideous, fluffy bird perched on the branch outside the window, and stared at me malevolently with its beady eyes. “Tweet, tweet!” the bird said in a cheery tone. At that point, I recognized the bird’s color scheme.

“Hello, Discord!” I said.

The bird disappeared in a flash of light, and then Discord was squishing me against the wall in the booth. “Morning, cousin!” Discord said in a bright voice. “And I am not hideous,” he said, casually breaking the fourth wall.

“What are you doing in Ponyville?” I asked.

“I live here, remember?” Discord looked at me with concern. He put on a stethoscope, and listened to my hearts. He then stuck a tongue depressor in my mouth. “Say ‘Aah!’”

“Gaack!” I spat it out. “Sorry, I’ve been a little busy these days.”

Discord grinned. “I know, you’ve got a serious case of Post-Adventure Syndrome.”

I could feel another letter working its way up my throat. “Not again!” I begged. I coughed it up.

It was addressed to Discord, who casually picked it up and began to read it aloud. “Dearest Discord, this may come as a surprise to you, but this letter has traveled across the void to reach you. I am currently writing this, in order to let you know, that no matter what version of my son you are, you are still my son to me, and not only do I love you with all my heart, but I am eternally proud of you. Please treat the enclosed crystal with care, it was specifically designed to feed you chaos, if ever you needed to act un chaotic for any period of time… Yes, I know how you acted for Fluttershy~ Go get em, your cross dimensional dad, Zmatok.”

Discord’s eyes lit up. “I have a dad!” he said in an excited tone. He was like a little kid on his birthday.

I noticed Simon’s expression, and said, “In this universe, Draconequui just sort of happen. I’m actually the first parent of my species.” I punched Discord’s arm playfully. “Good for you! I’m happy both of you got a happy ending.”

Discord took out the cyrstal, and swallowed it whole, to which Simon looked at him oddly. “What? I’m saving it for later.”

Orvok looked to Discord and smiled, having heard the letter “Good for you, Chaos king! So, who is this Fluttershy lady? Hmmm~? Is she maybe going to be cause of Little Diddy Discords?” Discord blushed as he chuckled “But seriously, have fun, as much as I wish our worlds Discord could of came, I am pretty sure he has to help Zmatok with our worlds cleanse of dark magic. So… you gotta have a blast as proxy!” He then pulled out what looked like a carved wooden totem. “Oh, and as a little gift from me to you, have this, should let you have a little fun if Timberwolves ever give you trouble. You smell like the Everfree is near where you live. Should let whoever holds it talk to them.”

Discord nodded. “It’s right next to our cottage. I can handle Timberwolves just fine,” he said, flexing his arms, “But thank you very much, Fluttershy would love the chance to talk to Timberwolves” he said, taking the totem. He then smiled, and said, “So, I hear you kids are having a party? I am an expert on fun!” He held out a piece of paper which gave him a degree in fun.

“Only a Master’s?” I teased playfully.

Discord shrugged. “I couldn’t afford the night classes.”

Grimgor then came back, and saw Discord, promptly kneeling to him before Simon dragged him up by the collar. “Sorry, Discord, you are kinda famous among my people, While I don’t think the full story should be heard by the ponies, especially with three young ones in the building, feel free to read my mind for the gist, I studied the records and had talked to the refugees.”

Grimgor blushed “S-sorry, sir, reflex, the kin honor ye a great deal…but I agree wit Simon, read his mind iff’n ye want the specifics, some things should nary be said in such pleasant company.”

Discord nodded, and began to get the story from Simon’s mind. His face went through a string of expressions so fast I think only I would have noticed. When he was done, he cleared his throat, and said. “Wow. I always knew Sunbutt was a grim stick in the mud, but that’s … on a whole new level. I never thought that that could have happened in Equestria. Cantok Seven, maybe, but not Equestria.”

Orvok frowned grimly as well “I may of gone overboard in reaction to Roxy… after Simon was finished, I gave her a very old Druidic curse, one that I don’t really know how I pulled it off… She will grow a tree gradually, living in agony as she is absorbed by it, then spread through it.” He sighed “I think I should go and see how Roxy is doing, she can’t be taking dying that well. Quathak knows I didn’t.”

As Orvok walked off, Simon smiled to me, the party almost fully planned, and just needing the set up as he saw the rest of the elements come in. he winced as he saw Twilight, as if remembering something. “Going to have to apologize to my worlds Twily, if it’ll even be accepted…” Simon looked to me and Discord and smiled “Might as well greet her!” As he walked to her, he smiled his best, and bowed. “It is my pleasure to meet the princess of Friendship, I am Simon, King of the Kin. Who in this world have been morphed into Yetis, for some reason.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Uh, … Secundus?”

I nodded. “They’re with me, don’t worry. It’s kind of a funny story. They’re harmless. I think. Mostly.” Twilight didn’t look remotely reassured, but she never did with me anyway, so I didn’t worry.

King Sombra walked in after the elements, and looked around the room with interest. “Good heavens,” he said in an amused tone. “We’ve been invaded by Yetis and a satyr. Should I be worried? I take it this is your doing?”

Discord pointed at me. “Actually, this is his fault for once.” I huffed, but let it slide since he was right.

Sombra examined Simon’s canister with interest. His horn lit up. “Hmm. Interesting. I’ve never seen magic and technology combined quite this well. Of course, in my day, we didn’t have all of these fancy gadgets, and we had to clear a path through fifteen feet of snow just to get vegetables in,” he said in a great impression of an old geezer.

Twilight rolled her eyes at Sombra’s comment. Twilight then cleared her throat, professionalism taking over. “Greetings, King Simon, I welcome you to Equestria.” She extended a hoof in greeting. “I’ve never met a satyr before.”

Simon shrugged and shook her hand “Never been a satyr before, usually have a different body, or a mass of bodies I guess you’d call it. But closest thing here that I have is this canister full of SIVA, er… Nanomachines.” he then looked to Sombra and smiled “It is good to see this world’s Sombra is free of darkness’s clutches. It was… disheartening, hearing my world’s reports on your fall. Rest assured, you were a hero to your people, in my world, who sacrificed himself body and soul to keep a tyrant at bay.”

Sombra looked disheartened at that, but he shrugged it off. “I am … sorry to hear that. I’m quite attached to my life, I’ve cheated death … twice. I think, it’s a little hazy. You’ve got the half-’n-half noodle to thank for my reformation.”

I groaned. “Sombra, you did most of it on your own, I just had the crazy idea and kept you company.” I looked at Simon. “It’s a long story. Lots of biting and shouting. Kind of worth it, though, I’ve got a new friend to annoy, and one I connect pretty well with.”

Simon nodded “Yeah, I know what it’s like when dark magic takes a hold of an uruk, can only imagine what it’s like for a unicorn, who is attuned way more to all magics.” He shuddered “That darn magi thought he could reverse millennia of freedom from dark magic, not on my watch.”

As Simon replied, my eighth sense started tingling. That meant another Draconequus was around, and it wasn’t Discord setting it off. The shop door banged open, and a tall, thin unicorn stallion walked in. He was chalk white with an long inky black mane and pale grey eyes. He was wearing a black cloak that looked like it had been woven from shadow, and I noticed that under the cloak, his cutie mark was a scythe and hourglass. He walked up to the counter casually. “One death by chocolate shake, please.”

“Comin’ right up!” Pinkie called. Her hooves blurred, and she held out the shake. The stallion smiled, and took it, setting some bits on the counter. His hoof brushed Pinkie’s and she shuddered. “Oooh! I feel like somepony walked over my grave!” He gave an amused snort.

The stallion then spotted us, and swept over. “Discord, Secundus,” he greeted.

“Hello, Encore,” I said with a grin. “I see you’re trying to blend in today, you’ve even got an almost normal voice.”

Encore, the Spirit of Death and Entropy shrugged, taking a sip of his shake. “If I walked down the street the way I normally look, ponies would have heart failure, and I don’t need any extra work.” He did have a point, normally Encore looked like a Draconequus skeleton with a cat’s skull and a bony blade on the end of his tail. He also had a voice that went straight to your brain without passing through your ears first.

Encore looked at me, and grinned. “A little bird tells me that you and your husband have been busy.” He peered at Simon, and seemed to almost glare at him. “I never really like the undead, I always feel like I’m being personally cheated. On the other talon, you did help a large number of undead and trapped souls in your universe find peace, so I suppose I can let it slide.” He was looking more friendly at that point. “Besides,” he said with a grin, “I’m going to get you eventually, it’s just a matter of patience, and I’ve got all Eternity.”

“Encore, don’t scare him, he’s just had a horrible day.”

Simon shrugged “Actually, as long as my people are well taken care of first, I really don’t care. It’s just…one, tiny little thing that’s nagging at me.” He smiled “I doubt you have sway over my world, from what Secundas has said in my presence, you are bound to one universe, unless he was wrong, and Draqonequii can travel the multiverse freely, with the permission of the local gods? If so, I’d love to try to get it so he can visit sometimes. Guy deserves a good bit of vacation time with the people he helped liberate and such.” He then sat back in his booth “Besides, I didn’t make myself undead, that was the guy who ripped me from my home world and slapped me in my body.” He then looked thoughtful “Actually, does being banished from death count as undead? When I had a heart, in my world, it beated, and Now that I have one again, it beats… huh… welp, disturbing thoughts to haunt my dreams later.”

He then looked to Pinkie “Oh, and his milkshake was kind of a pun, since he is death incarnate. Er.. a spreader of death? Does death happen because you exist? The workings of Draqonequii confuse me. Oh, and my universes Discord would probably want me to say hi. So hello to Pinkie and Encore from Discord.”

“Thanks!” said Pinkie.

Encore smiled. “I don’t spread death exactly, nor am I a reaper, I just … keep it tidy, and in control. If there is a problem with death or undeath, I get called in. I can go to your universe, simply because there is a problem with undeath there. Was.” He corrected. “Different Draconequii have different universes in their jurisdiction depending on if the problem falls into their territory. Besides, Sec’s a tenderfoot, so the gods aren’t exactly going to let him run wild.”

“Thanks,” I huffed.

Encore then said, “While the pun is delightful, I just enjoy chocolate. It’s quite good.” He glanced at Sombra. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Sombra shrugged. Encore’s watch, which he hadn’t been wearing a second ago, beeped. “Blast! Well, duty calls. Have fun, all.” He quickly faded out.

I chuckled. “He’s actually the least strange member of the family, believe it or not.”

Simon shrugged as he sat in his booth, only for Lily to walk up and smack him, “Don’t take your death so easily!”

Simon raised his brows in confusion “Why not? I mean, aside from-”

Lily smacked him again “You are surrounded by people who love you dearly! Don’t treat our feelings like they don’t matter! I can’t… I can’t lose you too.”

She then walked off angrily, Simon barely noticing the tears in her eyes as grimgor grunted “I’ll Never get the fairer sex. Bloody confusing… And I work with magical science!”

Simon nodded slowly and got up “I’m going to check on her.”

Grimgor then smiled before reaching into his pouch at his belt and opening a locket… he looked longingly into the picture inside, touching it gingerly through the glass.

I noticed the look that Thorax and Albert were giving me, and sighed. “All right my empathic brood, what’s up?”

“Oh.” Thorax said. He chuckled. “I sometimes forget that you can’t sense what someling else is feeling. It’s just …” He chuckled again. “That’s going to be an interesting relationship. Who is she?” Thorax asked Grimgor.

Grimgor took a shaky breath “Was me daughter, part o the reason I’m missing me limbs is I went a little crazy when the magi got her… I went ta a millitary outpost, and jes started fightin, tryin ta save her… I made it ta her cell… she wern’t breathin.” He grunted as he wiped his tears away “Tha was the day I learned our Celly was harvesting Uruks and Ologs fer the SIVA in our veins...” He looked to me, staring me dead in the eyes “I dinnae care who she was tae the Magi, ta us, she was a monster that destroyed families.” Grimgor grunted “She was the tyrant tha’ Simon talked bout…”

Sombra said, “I … know a lot about tyrants. Trust me. I … used to be one. I was out of my head and drunk on Dark Magic, but … sometimes I can remember everything I did,” he said in a small voice. “I’m sorry to hear about your daughter. I … let my wife die, after keeping her alive longer than I had a right to. She’s been dead for over a thousand years. I forget it’s been that long, but at least I made the history books,” he said with a grin. “I never really liked Celestia, she was too proud, but your universe’s version sounds like a nightmare I’d give somepony in the old days.”

Grimgor nodded “Let me tell ye, once the SIVA is out of an Uruk, or an Olog, a nightmare is putting it lightly. All the darkness that the SIVA in us let us resist floods in, and we become feral monsters… I had tae put me own baby girl down like a dog, just so that she wouldn’t kill anyone. Lost a chunk outta me shoulder trying tae stop her first…”

I winced. “Well … I don’t think your Celestia’s going to hurt anyone else again. If she does, I’m pretty sure you can take her down again. I kind of have to wonder what would turn a person into … that.” Discord leaned over and whispered in my ear for about two minutes. “Really? Really?! Wow. OK. No, I can see that, it’s just …. I don’t know. It’s probably none of my business. I think we should probably celebrate our victory as well as remember our losses. You may not have all your limbs, but I’m guessing you can dance,” I said with a grin. “If you can’t dance, you’ll have to anyways, the ponies just sort of pull you in. Even I can’t stop it.”

Grimgor chuckled “Sounds like business as usual, then, Except this time, there's a helluva lot more to celebrate than usual, and a whole helluva lot less tae remember.” He then winced as he actually did remember something “Oh, uhh… keep our recently morphed changeling friend away from alcohol, I don’t know a bloody thing about the Changeling Queen here, but...well, our Chryssi gets a little weird when she gets tipsy.” He then smirked “Although, apparently she is the reason karaoke got so popular in our free time.”

I snickered. “Will do. Thankfully there isn’t very much alcohol in this universe, otherwise Thorax might have got me drunk on our first date.”

Thorax’s eyes went wide. “I wouldn’t have done that! Besides, you’d be scary if you were drunk. You’re scary enough when you’re sober.”

I hugged him. “Aww, thank you!”

Albert asked, “So is Chrysalis my grandmother from some alternate universe?”

I shrugged. “I think in that universe, she’s your … aunt? Thorax’s sister, I think, not his mother.”

“How does that work?” Albert asked.

I shrugged again. “I don’t know, it’s the first alternate universe I’ve been too. I didn’t exist there, so you didn’t either. Technically, Thorax didn’t either. I think relationships are up to the individual writer.”

Discord smirked. “Nice job. I thought you hated admitting there’s a wall there.”

I sighed. “Well, I may have all Eternity, but even I can’t stay in denial that long. I’m getting there, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to enjoy it as much as you and Pinkie.”

“What wall?” asked Thorax.

“It’s … not that important. It doesn’t affect too much. (I hope.) Want to dance?” Thorax nodded. “Would you all excuse us? Enjoy the party while it’s still here!” I swept my husband off to the dancefloor.

[Simon’s Pov]

I was walking after Chrysalis after she walked off, wondering how to make her feel better, or at least get my point across without compounding the problem… “Come on, Lilly, let me at least talk this out with you…Please?”

My voice had apparently reached her, because she came out from wherever she was hiding to tap me on the shoulder from behind. Never could quite get how she could be so darn stealthy. I turned to her and frowned as I saw that she had been crying “Oh man… ummm... look, I am so sorry I was so insensitive… It was wrong of me to say that stuff, I was honestly just saying what came naturally, it may of been ugly, but it was the truth… If comraich, that means you, your people, and mine, are well taken care of, then I am completely content. I mean, I would like to maybe live a long while, but… I just wanted him to know that I will fight death tooth and nail until everyone dear to me is well cared for.”

Lilly... Ah screw it, Chryssi blushed a bright green “Y-you… you actually care about me and my people?”

I frowned “When I said that I was bringing you into comraich, I wasn’t spouting a crock of crap. You are a part of the family now, and I would fight just as hard to protect a changeling as I would any Uruk or Olog.”

She blushed and smiled bashfully “Umm… thanks… I never had anyone actually care that much about me or my subjects before…”

I smiled “How about we go and see how the party is going? I bet Grimgor and Az-Barko are playing music by now.”

Chryssi frowned curiously “Wait, Az-Barko is a musician?”

I nodded “Yep, He plays a mean set of drums, and Grimgor kills on the Hurdy Gurdy. Oddly enough, Orvok can’t play music to save his life, but can do a little something called Kindle Heart, something that, as far as I know from the records, is a talent unique to his tribe. I bet that if i can move the party outside, he’d be glad to show everyone.”

She looked to me quizzically “What exactly is Kindle Heart? Sounds like some strange spell or something.”

I grinned, happy to have cheered her up, or at least caused her to focus elsewhere. The world seemed… brighter, when she smiled. “He can make fire and smoke dance like a person, as well as tell a story with it.”

She smiled, making my mood soar. “Now this I have to see!”

As we returned, we saw Pinkie come from downstairs with, believe it or not, all the instruments that they needed, including some tools for starting a fire. “So… we taking the party outside, or is this place fireproof?”

Pinkie shrugged. “I’ve nearly burned it down one or two teensy little times, so Mr. and Mrs. Cake asked me to do fire parties outside. Come on! I’ve never seen fire magic before!”

Orvok smiled at Pinkie “Well, you are in for a treat, as a kindle heart, I was particularly skilled!”

Az-Barko grinned, his teeth showing as Al-Maru watched on with a grin “Never had so happy occasion for playing! Glad get to play drums for friends and family!”

I grinned at Orvok as he and the others took their respective instruments. “So, what’d they do to convince you to do it?”

Orvok grumbled “They made pouty faces at me… damn ponies are way too adorable….” As we got outside, he set up a large fire pit and signalled Grimgor and Az-Barko to start playing.

As the music began to play, So too did Orvok begin to move, and sway as if his body was suddenly alive, the fire he had started as a small ember in the wood beginning to pulse and sway with him as he had it start to form shapes of fire and smoke, shapes of Uruks and Ologs, all dancing and celebrating, as he had them join in his performance, the spectres of smoke and flame began to chant as he sang in an old tongue of Black speech, used only by the eldest of tribes, me translating for the ponies. “[May the flames of war be snuffed, and the smoke of it’s hate be quenched, may the fires of youth burn bright, tonight! The ancestors see our celebration, our triumph, and they celebrate with us as well! There is no loss tonight, only the embers of those we love dancing in the winds of time!]”

He then stomped once toward the fire pit, and the pyre erupted skyward with a seething inferno momentarily, only for the fire and smoke people to begin dancing all around us in the air, until he held a hand skywards and said what I knew was quite the blessing for him to give, which I again translated. “[Bless these people with your strength, your courage! May they have as many heirs as there are fangs in the Old Frost’s maw! May their stories never be forgotten, they are our kith, our kin! We embrace them this night as brothers and sisters in arms! May the forces of darkness never reclaim us, nor may they ever darken their hearths!]”

Orvok then took a long pull from a water skin and spat it into the fire as he put it out, having the smoke form what looked like an old Uruk dressed in scholars clothes, with what looked like several clocks floating around him, as well as crystal prismsfloating around an Uruk in a noble's clothes. . “[Praise be to the light father and the change bringer, freedom bringers to our people! May their memory never fade, and may his blessings reach us all!]”

I noticed Secundus had been “sitting” next to his husband. He was sitting cross legged on empty air, his tails wrapped around him. He was also upside down. Discord was floating next to him, I wondered if Draqons just hated gravity. When the story was done, Secundus turned himself right side up, and snapped his fingers. A replica of the Northern Lights filled the air above us, the ribbons weaving and changing colors. Secundus shrugged. “Every time I do fire magic, I nearly burn down the Hive. We can’t fit a disco ball out here, so I thought this would be my contribution.”

Al-Maru looked to her husband and smiled “You played wonderfully, my love. I love hearing you play.”

Az-barko bashfully hugged Al-Maru before he looked to Sombra “Any questions about us, just ask, happy to tell. Orvok know most stories about our gods, me and Maru know military stories, and grimgor is good for funny stories of Comraich.”

Grimgor chuckled “My favorite was when we tried mixing blood root extract with grog. Medical wing was a fun place for once then, people dancing naked in the halls. Talking bout fairies and funny lights. I found one guy trying to dance with a very confused Graug.”

Sombra looked at his marefriend and grinned. “Right, you take mythology, I’ll take military, then we’ll meet up for funny stories.” Sombra stood on his hind legs, and cupped his front hooves around his mouth. “Sec! Twily and I need a lot of parchment over here!” Secundus snapped his fingers, and Sombra was buried in parchment, about a dozen quills floated down, and four bottles of ink fell down, miraculously not breaking. Sombra stuck his head out of the pile. “Thank you!” he called with a wave.

I smiled as I walked with Orvok and Twilight, eager to hear Orvoks famous storytelling. Orvok cleared his throat “Okay, i think we’ll start with the creation myth and the jobs of our gods, so that Your...Boyfriend? Husband? Well, Sombra can get some of his military information, I think he’d like to hear how we fell to the darkness. That okay, Twilight?”

Twilight nodded, “Yes, that makes sense. I think he’d like that too. He’s not my husband,” she mumbled, a blush showing through her fur. “He’s just my coltfriend. We aren’t planning to get married right away. Secundus keeps saying it’s been five years, but not everypony can find their soulmate instantly,” she said with a laugh. “I swear, I knew those two were perfect when I saw how embarrassed they were.”

Orvok shrugged “I can’t really relate, The Kin move fast, kinda required when you live like we did. But anyway, I am sorry for assuming, that was rude and intrusive of me. Anyway, creation myth.”

Orvok cleared his throat “Originally, there was naught but shadows and fear, the souls of our people in the world were in constant torment and panic, everything was pure anarchy, not even chaos, just pure, total anarchy. Then, the lightbringer Trovin and his siblings happened upon our realm. He brought light to the darkness, iluminating the world, creating the moon, the stars, the sun, and time, he then looked to our world, and saw it was barren and desolate, so he called upon Quathak, mother of the wild hunt, she made our forests, our plains, our prey, and as she was ought to do, made our predators as well. Some may see this as cruel, but we, the kin knew, she loved us so much, that she wanted us to grow strong. She could not bear to see us grow complacent like so many other worlds had.”

He smiled “Then, Rovirn, lord of the high seas and all creatures thereign let his beloved ocean run into our world from his realm, and had his springs bubble forth into existence, giving us our streams and drinking water. He also gave us our unnatural cunning, you will be hard pressed to see as tactical a creature as an Uruk or an Olog.”

Twilight smirked. “You haven’t met a griffon or a dragon from this Equestria. They’re as cunning as the come.”

He laughed “Then, there came Or-Assik and Frolir, they saw that our bodies that had formed were not as magically potent as the bodies made for the other gods peoples, nor were they blessed with fangs, claws or talons, so they gave us a boon as well, we were given brothers who were masters of the forge, the most innovative of peoples in our world, the Olog-Hai. They made weapons so mighty that none could assail upon us, the dragons feared us, the harpies envied us, the magi… the magi hated us.”

He then made an arcane gesture while holding a pouch of dirt, a seedling quickly growing from it. “The gift that Frolir gave us was equally as great, he gifted us with the arcane arts, made us able to open our minds to the mystical energies all around us… He gave us the ability to counter the Magi when they tried to dominate us with magic, let us learn how to etch and imbue magic into everything we saw and beyond, not to mention, his antics often gave us something to laugh at, remind me to tell of the time Frolir taught our worlds Discord how Chaos was neutral. He made a party that lasted weeks on end, without us losing a single days worth of progress. Frolir was… an odd god. He could interfere in other gods domains without repercussion… He could make the forests dance, and the oceans sing if he wished... We all miss him dearly.”

He then turned grim “And that was the problem that led to our fall by the third era, in our hubris, we thought we could slay the being that had tortured our ancestors, as we had already become the global superpower that was equal in greatness to The Magi nation. Between the two of us, we owned equal halves of the world in our empires, the dragons had joined us, and the harpies had joined the Magi… It was not enough. The being, known as Srotha, was the heart of darkness of our world… You may wish to bring in Sombra now.”

Twilight nodded, and gave a piercing whistle, like the kind you would call a sheepdog with. Sombra excused himself, and trotted over to us.

Orvok nodded soberly “We were just about to discuss my peoples fall from grace, and the long, long descent into darkness, ending with my people alienating every ally they had made, and unmade our dominion…”

He took a shaky sigh “As we were not a normal race during our enlightened era, we were granted the ability to reincarnate as the same basic person, with the same magical potency and rate of growth, hell, even our memories… We remembered the horrors that Srotha visited upon our souls for so long before our gods saved us. We hated him so deeply, that we gave up the safety of our realm to venture after him, we fought our way to him alongside the many Draqons of the realm, our worlds demigods, known in this realm as a Draconequus… We fought so many horrors, so many abominations, that many of us went mad by the time we reached him, driven on by the soul goal of killing him. Making him pay… it consumed us. Little did we know, that was his darkness beginning to take root… and it only grew as we climbed his tower… by the time we had reached the top, the light in us was all but snuffed. Our Light father, Trovin himself… He called us back right as the last glimmer of light was destroyed in our souls...We were made into something dark, something cruel… The Umbruk, the dark Orcs, and the Ologlaria, the wild Trolls.”

He sighed “The things we did truly were abhorrent, we slaughtered families in cold blood, not for anything more than sport, strangled babes in their cribs… ate our own people, nothing was beneath us, then Zmatok came… He brought a change unlike any the world had ever seen, He redeemed us. Brought the light back when all the other gods had given up hope. The light he gave us burned the taint away, it was agonizing… but beautiful...we were no longer the horrible monsters that lurked in others nightmares, we were able to control ourselves again, and not be puppets to Srothas wil. The demons that wore us were purged, but their power and influence left marks, we were no longer the dominion we were. We barely held a nation, and by the time that Simon came, the retribution from other nations, our version of Equestria in particular… they reduced us to a single city. The rest of us, those who did not live in the city, were slaves, dead, or just simple tribes like my own. We still remember what he made us do over our many lives in his clutches… It is like a knife to the heart.” he sighed “There are some, like Az-barko, who believe redemption is in the near future if we are good to others enough, but me? I say, we need to recover our identity as a people first. We need our gods to return, reincarnate, and be freed, before we can ever hope to get back to what we once were.” He smiled “I had just found out where to find Frolirs corpse when we went to fight our worlds Celestia. Turns out his body is trapped in a mana leeching bubble, right next to our worlds Tirek, who is actually a stand up guy where we are from. If a bit vindictive, and dark... and quite a lot of anger to him, but hey, you’d be too if you were forced into a cramped cell and had nothing to look at but your father's corpse and a few crazed lunatics for a few millennia. We are trying to figure out how to break their bonds without, well, killing them.”

“I’d suggest finding their hearts before you do anything. A god without a heart is just an echo,” said Secundus from behind Twilight. “You’d need someone who knows what to look for, a local Draqon of chaos might help.”

Twilight had nearly jumped out of her skin when Secundus spoke. “Do you have to do that every single time?!!”

“Yes,” Secundus replied with a straight face.

“Were you eavesdropping?” asked Sombra.

Secundus shrugged. “I can hear what you’re saying from thirty feet away, and I can’t tune it out. I don’t mean to, but yes, I eavesdrop. I don’t really have a choice. That was a … horrific tale. I … hold on a second.” Secundus disappeared and then reappeared with Albert in tow. “If you were going to free a god from chains designed specifically for them, how would you do it?” Secundus caught Twilight’s expression. “Ok, Ok. I was going to tell you, Albert … just knows things sometimes. Lots of things. Like, omniscient level knowing things, it just lasts for only a minute, and we never know when it’s coming or going. Noling or Draconequus has any idea how he does it.”

Albert thought about it. “Change the scent,” he said simply. “Discord’s chains only focused on Chaos, you blasted them with everything, and they broke. Find a way to get the chains to not focus on the god.” Albert shuddered. “I hope nobody chains me.” Albert blinked. “Sorry, did you want to talk about something, Dad?”

Secundus chuckled. “Annndd, we’re back to normal.” He started counting under his breath. “Three … two…” Albet collapsed into a stringy heap, and started snoring loudly. Secundus picked him up and wrapped him around his neck, like an oversized scarf. “He’ll be fine in about an hour. Having the whole omniverse in your mind really takes it out of you, even if you can’t remember it.” Secundus snickered. “I love my family dearly, but we can be a little strange sometimes…”

Sombra snickered and said to me, “I wouldn’t recommend messing with his family. I tried to do that once, and he nearly wiped me from history.”

“I SAID I was sorry!!” Secundus exploded.

I grinned as I looked to Secundas “I don’t think he has to worry about that from us. He’s a national hero, anyone tries to mess with him, I pity the bastard.” I chuckled “You should see when Celly sent some assassins after me, Az-Barko pummelled the first guy into a red paste, then forcefed that paste to the other assassin she sent.”

Az-Barko shrugged “Az-Barko protective friend, they try to kill guard friends and king friend, not just take that lying down.”

Secundus nodded. “I can relate to that.” He sighed. “First I unintentionally become a king by marrying one, now I’m a national hero.” He threw his paws up. “What’s next, godhood?!”

“Nope,” Albert muttered sleepily from around Secundus’s neck.

Secundus chuckled. “Hey, it’s alive! How are you? Feeling better?” Albert nodded. “Want me to stop using you as a fashion accessory?” Secundus asked.

Albert buried himself further in Secundus’s fur. “Nope. You’re warm.”

There was then a surge of chaotic energy in the area. It was like Discords energy, but both infinitely more intense and more refined at the same time. “Well Hello there!” I turned around to see someone who looked like the spitting image of Hank from earth, but… he was almost radiating pure chaos. Before I could even open my mouth he chuckled “Sorry, Simon, I am not the Zmatok you or Sec know, I am Zmatok Alpha-Beta-5140, basically I am a much lower tier Zmatok than the one you two have been meeting with, from a much less chaotic and far more boring Equestria. The reason I am here is to deliver a message to all of you.”

He took out a letter from mid air and let some readers materialize over his eyes. “Let’s see… The council of chaos has agreed that they will allow Secundas free travel to and from the realm of Zmatok Alpha-0002, or Simon’s home realm Equestria, and have already spoken to the gods of this realm to allow such, as so long as he doesn’t do any more dramatic changes without a Zmatok visiting the gods of Secundus’s realm to ask for their direct approval.” he grinned “Here’s hoping I get chosen for that job, things are dreadfully boring in my realm.”

I then looked to Secundas and smiled as this Zmatok resumed. “To Discord, you also are free to visit Simon’s realm, but will be under close inspection while visiting by your dimensional counterpart, no worries, you will keep your noodle like form you are so fond of when visiting. We have ironed out that error that afflicted Secundas and Thorax.” He then turned the note over as if he was directed to “And lastly, This zmatok unit is to not only return the visiting life forms here, but to explain why there are multiple versions of Zmatok prime running about, not to mention why he zmatok Alpha- 0002 did not come in person…”

The Zmatok sighed “Ok, let’s see…. As per the laws of chance and chaos, there are infinitely many realities, and in some fraction of that infinity, is a group of realms where we zmatoks are worshipped as gods, or acting as gods. When one such world dies, the Zmatoks take the power from that realm and add it to the next strongest zmatok, The stronger the zmatok, the lower the number of the rank, ranging from Alpha-0001 all the way to Omega- Theta- 9999. There are more Zmatoks than that. But the weaker ones than that are simply unranked.”

Secundus chuckled. “I’d really, really rather not meet another version of myself. One of me is hard enough to live with. Some days, even I don’t want to be around myself. Heh. There’s probably an evil version of me out there wrecking planets. Anyway, I’m glad we’ll get to visit!” He turned to me and grinned. “Looking forward to more quests! Hopefully we’ll survive them, and it’ll be for less horrific reasons.” He turned to Zmatok. “Thank you. It’s a nice gift. Hope we don’t disappoint!”

Zmatok nodded and waved an arm as a portal opened in the middle of the room, just large enough for Az-Barko to fit through. “Sorry guys, but it’s time you were off, My regards to you all, the paperwork for this is going to be grisly…” He then yawned “Welp, after this job, I think it’s going to be time to feed on some change, recharge the old batteries.” He then looked to Me and Chryssi, us being the last of the visitors to go through “Go on, you crazy kids, go into the swirling hole in space time!”

I looked to Sec and smiled as Chryssi went through “Hope I see you later, oh noodly brother in arms of mine.”

Secundus nodded and waved. When we were gone, he looked to Thorax and Albert, grinned, and said, “Come on, my crazy family. Let’s go home.”

Star children

Author's Note

A heads up, this is two months after they returned.

Star children

[??? POV]

“Operator, I have *BZZT* DISCOVERED THE DEMON *BZZT* found the person who’s energy signature matches the hammer you found,” Ordis’s voice rang out through the the ship.

I stopped meditating and stood up, stretching slightly to get the kinks out, and, with a few *pops* I was satisfied. “Ordis, can you take us to the person that made this hammer?”

Ordis’s voice rang out once again, “Of course I can, are you *SURE YOU WISH TO GO WHERE YOU MAY NOT RETURN?* Sorry Operator, I will need to look into these glitches sometime.”

“It’s fine Ordis, and yes, I am sure, but as a precaution I’m leaving my Mirage warframe here so that we can find our way back,” I said, though in truth, the constant personality shifts were beginning to get a bit annoying. “Let me know when we arrive in their atmosphere, I’m going to try to think of a name for this new Focus school that I’ve discovered.”

“Of course Operator.” Ordis said, the ship smoothly accelerating out of the planet’s atmosphere I watched somewhat in awe as the ship slipped into the Void, which, despite its name, was not black, but white, with pale blue energy swirling around aimlessly. I tore my eyes from the amazing view, and went back to thinking of the name. As we were in the Void, I thought of what had happened with Lua in game, and then what was revealed earlier this year, that I would sadly never see.

“Ordis, I’ve thought of a name for the new school.” I said proudly, thinking of how perfectly it fit with the school’s attributes, on top of being a nod to something that seemed would be great.

“Operator, *BZZT* WHAT DID YOU DECIDE TO NAME IT *BZZT*, sorry again, this seems to be getting worse,” Ordis said, with a seemingly sad tone to his voice. I let the HUD be enabled again at the end of his response, and what I saw surprised me. In game, Ordis is a glass cube that has a corner cracked, but here, there was a single long crack that went from the top of his casing to the bottom, skirting around the center by a hair’s breadth.

“I have decided to christen it ‘Umbra’, after the lost class of frames that are supposedly on par with the Primes,” I said, going back to meditating, and trying to come up with ways to use this new school to go with my assorted loadouts. Currently I was using Ivara, with the Daikyu as the primary weapon, the Spira Prime as the secondaries, and the Karyst dagger as the melee weapon.

I was thinking on what abilities to start unlocking in this focus tree, when Ordis’s voice snapped me back to reality, Ordis saying, “Operator, we have arrived, but there seems to be odd energy readings surrounding the planet, not unlike from Equus, where we just left.”

I shrugged, and said, “You might as well take us down, it shouldn’t be the same planet in any case as we wouldn’t have had to go through the Void to get here otherwise, though I will want you to keep the Liset cloaked and drop me with my Archwing.”

“Of course Operator, be *BZZT* TEAR ANY WHO ATTACK APART *BZZT* careful. Operator, this is odd, the frequency at which glitches are occurring is far higher than normal.” I nodded, and stepped to the back of the ship, where the drop point was, along with my Archwing. I got in to the human shaped opening, and it rolled, dumping me into the thin upper atmosphere of the planet.

My Itzal roared out from the ship and attached itself to my lower back, giving me full maneuverability both in and out of atmosphere. I aimed down at the planet’s surface, opening the throttle all the way, and was surprised to break the sound barrier on the way down to the planet’s surface. When I was about a hundred feet off the ground I pulled up, heading towards where I believed Ponyville would be.

I slowed to a stop at the outskirts of Ponyville, and dropped from the Archwing, and it flew back to the Liset, which was quite close behind me apparently. I walked up the dirt path into Ponyville. There didn’t seem to be anything too different in this world’s Ponyville, but something that I took note of was that most of the ‘ponies’ looked like humans with weird skin colors. I realized that this was an alternate world when I saw a woman that was the spitting image of Twilight from my world, except she looked particularly depressed.

I then sheard what sounded oddly like Discord, who was… trying to comfort her? I used Prowl to become invisible and get closer, to see what was going on. Only, what I saw looked nothing like what I was told looked like Discord, he was wearing a rusty red suit with a pink kerchief and had what looked like a metal arm made to resemble an eagles talon, but with five fingers. He had the telltale horns coming out of a greying red hair, but also had an odd cane and necklace that I could feel an odd power emanating from, as well as his tail, but ending in a stub, as if the end of his tail was cut off. “Twilight, you were not in the wrong, no matter how cruel Celestia was, you have only been kind, I can tell.”

She sobbed “But… why are you being so nice?! I was the student of the woman who tortured you, killed your people! Made over ninety percent of your family either leave Equus, or just plain stop existing! Why, Why would you be kind to me?!”

Discord smiled warmly “Because that was not you. You freed her sister from the curse that she put on her, saved the planet from dying, and had NOTHING to do with her cruelties.” he held her by the shoulders “Twilight, look at me. Everything the Magi did, both to me, and my people, hell, even to The Kin was taught behavior from Celestia, or magically implanted into them by Solaris.” He smiled at her and hugged her “Now, I think you need a new teacher, no? One who actually knows what friendship is. Why not me?”

He then turned straight towards me after Twilight nodded slowly, and he ushered her inside. “Why don’t you come out now, Void child. I promise, I mean you no harm.”

“The version of you on my world has different ideas than you, it seems,” I said, as I deactivated Prowl. I handed him twenty bits, and continued, “If you don’t mind, could you give these back to Twilight? The ability I was using kind of automatically steals from everyone in a set radius around me, and I didn’t know how to return them politely.”

He smiled kindly and nodded “I will let her know she dropped them. Her pocket will have a mysterious hole.”

“Thanks man, stealing when you don’t need it isn’t really my thing, but it wasn’t something I’ve figured out how to control with this warframe yet.” I said, smiling back, even though he could not see my face as I was in a warframe at the moment.

Discord pointed with his cane to my left, a door unfolding out of thin air into my path. “I have friends in the city through that door, just say that Discord sent you. They will let you in. Just… don’t judge them on appearances, okay? They have had a rough time.”

“It should be fine, as long as they don’t look like demons or some shit.” I said, cracking a grin, thinking about how unlikely it would be for them to be demons.

Discord laughed gently, “Actually, there is one who does look like one. He is their king, and a doctor.”

“Alright, thanks for warning me, though I don’t really do the best at respecting royalty, but at least I’ll know who this ‘Lord of Dawn’ is.” I said, surprised to hear that someone who looked like a demon was a king. I stepped up to the door and opened it, looking upon a city that looked like it came straight from Shadow of War, except it had a ton of technologically advanced areas, and the whole thing was blood red, but where the light hit it it shone incandescent white.

I walked up to the gatehouse and was surprised to see that it was manned by a few Uruk and an Olog, straight from Shadow of War, just with better armor and weapons.

They looked to me, then to the door behind me, and smiled in a friendly manner, “I assume Disord sent you?”

“Yeah, he said some friends of his might want to meet me? Something about a guy that looked like a demon, if I remember correctly.” I said, somewhat surprised at how well spoken the Uruk were, whereas in the game, only the Captains were consistently coherent.

They nodded and their armor glowed red as the gate started to open, them smiling at me “Any friend of Discords is a friend to Comraich. Just make sure to go to the town square, Simon is draining at the moment, I’m really excited to see what he comes up with next! Last time, he made the guard towers actually decent! Plus some barracks for us!”

The other guard nods “I hope he takes the time to make himself a home personally, doesn’t feel right, our king sleeping on the streets like a bum, just so we get homes sooner...”

“Your king sounds like an interesting person, I think I will go meet him. Also, do you guys have any problem with me flying there?” I asked, genuinely curious to meet this supposed demon king, who slept on the streets to provide homes for his people.

They looked to each other hesitantly, “I wouldn’t if I were you, ma’am, the people are still jumpy from the Magi attacks, they may have stopped, but… bad memories, y’know? They might think the magi are bombing us again…”

The other guard nodded, “You seem like a good person, so we don’t want your visit to be hectic.”

“Would parkour be any better, or would that just seem like I was running from something, and open a different can of worms?” I asked, thinking how long this may end up taking, with my fastest form of travel out of the way.

They shook their heads “Nah, go ahead! Orvok and Grimgor hold races all over the walls for the kids, helps keep up morale!”

“Ah, cool, well then, maybe I’ll see you again while I’m here, but, other than that, see ya!” I ran through the gate, bullet jumping onto the roof of a nearby building, and quickly running and jumping my way deeper into the city. Eventually I reached a large open area with stalls all around and an impressive garden of what looked to be healing herbs, as well as flowers used in medicine. The stalls were stocked with various goods, from something called “Golem pets” to what looked like watermelons, to armor and weapons, to a plain clothes stall. In the center, however, was what looked like a throne with three tubes feeding into hoses that fed into what was most likely an underground part of the city. The tubes had huge needles in them, they looked like they would hurt like a bitch going in, and coming out.

There was then a clearing of a throat as I turned to see what definitely looked like a demon, he smiled warmly to me, careful not to show his teeth. “I heard from Muz and Guz that a friend of Discords was coming! I hurried up the draining to make sure you didn’t have to see, luckily, I had enough SIVA to finish the market area, next up… hmmm… What do you think? I was thinking a theater, or maybe a better school building? Those are the only buildings left, aside from the castle…” He then stage whispered to me, “ I really don’t care about the castle, but they insist I build myself one, apparently they want me to live like some spoiled noble, heh!”

“Hmmm… I’d say maybe make the school and theater parts of the castle, maybe the center wing the main castle, the right wing a school, and the left wing your castle? That way you wouldn’t really be living like a spoiled noble, and you could teach the children about politics as well, have them come visit the main portion of the castle as a pseudo field trip.” I said, trying to think of a good way to make the buildings as convenient as possible, while still respecting his wishes and making the maximum conservation of space.

The kind king demon smiled “Yes! And I can convert the underground cellar to a theater, with some excavation! And then we can link the new Hive for Chryssi to the castle, with her favorite part of her culture connecting hers to the castle, also known as the hub of our culture! Perfect!”

He held out his hand to me “Names Simon, it’s a pleasure to meet you! How may I repay you! Since you are in a Warframe, maybe I could try making you one, or maybe repair the Ordis you were probably sent here with? I was always annoyed in the game by his glitches, myself.”

He then gasped “Oh! You should meet the rest of the ruling council!”

“Sounds nice to me, but on the note of Ordis’s glitches, my Ordis has them far worse than the one in the game did. The cracks that game Ordis has aren’t there, but instead there is a huge crack nearly bisecting him.” I stepped out of the warframe by using transference and shook his hand, introducing myself, “I’m Mirage by the way, and before you ask, I don’t remember what my real name is, since I was put in stone for a thousand years. Kinda makes the memory foggy, ya know?”

Simon nodded “I understand, makes sense,” he then thought a moment “Could you get your Cephalon to try to come over here? I’d like to try making him a new casing. That should fix the glitches, as well as make him more capable, and restore his memory, if you wish.”

“Sounds good, let me just step back in my warframe and send a transmission to him,” I said, using transference to get back into my Ivara. I sent a transmission to Ordis, saying, “I found someone who may be able to repair you, fly on down and land in the square, you should be able to eject your casing right?”

“Of course Operator, but *BZZT* WILL HE TRY TO DELETE US *BZZT* Oh dear, I really need this, this is becoming very annoying.” The Liset landed in the largest empty area in the square, uncloaking so that all could see it. The ramp at the tail end of the ship came down, and I led Simon up into it.

“Ordis’s casing is probably up by the navigation console, follow me, but after he’s fixed, feel free to look around the ship.” I said, nodding to Simon.

He nodded back and smiled as he walked in “Always wanted to stand in one of these babies…” he sighed “Anyway, let’s get to work!” he walked up to where Ordis was, seeming to have the ship interior memorized as he bowed to the Cephalon “From one AI to another, it is a pleasure to meet you, Ordis! Now, may you enter sleep mode? I’d rather not hurt you, if this is indeed painful. I will be honest, never made a cephalon shell before, shouldn’t be more complicated than making a lifeform that’s completely alive and semi organic, though.”

“Operator, permission to enter Sleep mode?” Ordis asked.

“Of course, though I’d say set it to wake up in twelve hours, that should be more than enough time, right Simon?” I said, directing the last bit at the demon standing next to me.

Simon shrugged “I will have it built and ready to interface in, like, two minutes, depends on if Ordis needs to have time to transfer shells. Never learned much about Cephalons…” He then seemed to have a thought “You know, I could make a sort of semi warframe for you, Ordis, let you take the companion slot for your operator.”

“That might be nice, then I could help *BZZT* TEAR THE OPERATOR’S ENEMIES TO PIECES *BZZT* Sorry for the interruption, but then I could properly help the Operator fight and protect them.” Ordis said, a sheepish tone entering his voice at the latest glitch.

Simon frowned “Oh, that can’t be comfy. Let me help ya, big guy.” he then had a glow enter his eyes as he scanned Ordis “Okay, that’s how the shell works… amplifies power, and protects information… ok. Got it…” he then began to let red mist flow from his hands, creating a red crystal version of Ordis’s shell, sans the damage, and then let some blue fire into it, turning it purple. “There, gave it my all to make Ordis’s new shell combat ready, tougher than steel and telluriums bastard kid, and given a regenerative ability… Now, Ordis, try going in it. I wanna see if there is anything that feels off. It shouldn’t, I made the protocols for this SIVA be to simply asist the AI in its core...as well as speed up foundry tasks, and give new weapons a serious buncha oomph.”

Ordis started transferring his data into the new shell, making the color lighten further as his blue light filled it. After a few seconds of transferring into it, his old shell was nothing but a hunk of crystal, and Ordis said, “It seems that the errors are fixed, and this shell is compatible, but I will need at the least a few hours of being unable to do anything as I run diagnostics on the performance levels and start resyncing to everything in the Liset.”

Simon hummed “A shame, I would of loved to let you experience the city with us in the body I was gonna make for you...oh! What if you used your new Shell to absorb the old one? Would that speed it up?”

“As long as the old shell retains the connections to the assorted parts of the ship, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.” A red tendril reached out of Ordis’s new shell and wrapped around the old one, rapidly breaking it down and absorbing it. Ordis flashed a couple of times, and then said, “Well, it seems that your idea worked, but I do still have to run diagnostics, but that will only take a few minutes, if you don’t mind waiting.”

Simon smiled happily “No problem, it will give me time to give your operator her gift, a brand spanking new warframe!”

“Uh, not sure if that would work extremely well, since the warframes are made out of infested flesh, metal, and void energy, and I think you might have trouble re-creating Void energy.

Simon grinned “But you don’t, you can give it the void energy, And part of your ship is infested, remember Helminth? He’s a strain of infestation!” he then chuckled “And SIVA is metal and then some!”

“Eh, fuck it, might as well give it a shot.” I said, his optimism infectious. I started walking toward the door that Helminth was behind, then remembered something. “Wait, let me equip Nidus real quick,” I stepped up to the arsenal and switched the loadout from Ivara to Nidus, and walked down to the door Helminth was behind, with it immediately opening. I turned to Simon, and said, “Come on in, I’m sure Helminth wouldn’t mind sparing the pound of proverbial flesh.”

Simon nodded, before walking in, and smiling to Helminth “Hi there, I am trying to make a new warframe for your master, it would share the power of Nidus, as well as the power of my SIVA. Would you allow us to take some Infested tissue?”

An echoing voice rang out through the ship, both completely unintelligible and perfectly understood, “Of course, though it has been many years since I’ve seen the master, it’s nice to know that he’s fine.” Helminth reached out a tendril from the floor, and it took a square shape, “This will respond to any attempts to manipulate it, so let me see what you manage to create when you are finished.”

Simon nodded as he took the chunk of Helminth infestation. He then began fusing it with his SIVA into something amazing, it was somewhat Satyr like in the legs, with a large, strong pair of arms and thin, light frame, both working together like a piece of art as they complemented the noble, powerful looking body. The infested flesh seemed to be made into the inner part of the frame, with the outer parts, sort of forming a SIVA carapace, it had a strange diadem that looked like a purple crystal dodecahedron made of SIVA with an infested core floating in its left hand, and it had a powerful looking one handed mix of pickaxe and hammer in the right. Lastly, it had a familiar looking gun on its back, a Soma rifle that had a full circle clip, made entirely of SIVA., with gold finish, and red plating, as well as threads of Helminth flesh lining the Barrel,

Simon smiled “Meet Archimedes. This guy is the penultimate offence frame, his SIVA crystal diadem can fire lasers of pure wraith energy at foes, his weapon, which I call the Somava, can ressurect killed foes temporarily as allies, and the pickhammer will either bludgeon or pierce the enemies to high hell, then leave SIVA in their wounds to kill em over time.”

“Sounds pretty good, doesn’t seem to be bullshit, now let’s try to use transference on it,” I said. I gathered Void energy into my palm, and placed it into the chest of the warframe. It shuddered a little, and I used transference to enter it. It didn’t feel any different than any of my other frames, and I figured I’d just leave it be and experiment with it later. I used transference again, and stepped back out, “It works just fine, moves just fine, and it seems to be in perfect working order, so I guess that’s a new warframe made.”

Simon grinned “Whaddya think, Helminth? Is it a winner?” He then turned to me quickly “Oh! And before I forget, it has no shields, but regens health like Nidus.”

“It appears that you have made something I have never seen, it was worth the tissue to see this.” Helminth responded, a satisfied sounding growl coming from the room.

Simon grinned “Nice to meet you, Helminth, may you be complete someday.” He then walked with me to the main room of the ship “Okay, what kind of combat body do you think Ordis would like?”

“Maybe something like Zanuka, highly mobile, and very powerful.”I said thinking of how Ordis could help with a body like Zanuka’s.

Simon, instead of making it straight away, began pulling out some blank paper. “I only have enough spare SIVA left for you to make one body, I want to make sure you and Ordis like it before I make it.” he began drawing out blueprints as he mumbled, it was about twelve minutes later when he finished “Okay, with this body, he should be capable of piloting the orbiter and the new body at once, as well as have several weapon systems, along with increased mobility and durability over the Zanuka models, even factoring the inferior materials Zanuka was made with, I mean really, aside from the Warframe parts, thing was basically scrap metal, now, it has all the badassery of Zanuka, plus a grenade launcher, singularity gun, and hmmm… should I give him an arc gun, or a flame thrower…”

“I’d say arc gun if it works anything like the Amprex, less chance of collateral damage.” I said, thinking of the possibilities.

Simon thought a moment “Was thinking of making it more like exploding ball lightning, but yeah, that sounds better.”

“Cool, so how long do you think it will take you to make it?” I asked, thinking that since it only took a minute or so for the casing it would probably only take a few minutes for this.

Simon hummed “Well, once Ordis finishes his diagnostics, I need to get the dimensions of his shell, so I can make the insertion bay for it, and I need to run it by Ordis, as this will be something he will be fighting in… so I’d say, oh... ten minutes tops?”

“Alright, that sounds good, though there was something I wanted to ask you about.” I said, remembering the odd hammer with the voice recording that played when it was held. “You know that red hammer? What was it, and how did I get it, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Simon smiled “It was my token, it basically is how you get your existence known by other Displaced, or people who have been sent through the void into another world.” He made another red hammer and smiled “They basically let you meet others in a similar situation, some good, some not so good, but they all are changed in some way.”

“I’m assuming you were human then, before all of this,” I gestured at his body, “happened to you?”

Simon nodded, chuckling “I was a doctor, had some serious love for Destiny, and Shadow of War, so I made a cosplay for it, and had a guy I met make the more… intricate parts. Turns out he was a primordial chaos god from another world. Who knew.”

“Ah, for me, I was heading to Tennocon and while walking there I saw a window display of an amp that looked exactly like the one that I had in-game, but when I bought it, I got sent to Equestria. Technically speaking, I’m a thousand and twenty something years old, if you include the time that I was a statue.” I said, reminiscing on the past.

Simon chuckled “And I’m technically incapable of staying dead. So if you count from my latest death… I’m only a few months old.” He chuckled “Goo-goo, I guess.”

“Eh, I’d just count the collective time, though that reminds me, I have no clue if I can actually die or not, because in-game, no matter what, you just ended up back on the Liset, so I don’t want to test that.” I thought aloud, curious about my so-called immortal friend.

He then wondered aloud to himself “I wonder… can I have kids? Because… I always wanted to be a dad, when I was human… but I dunno if Chryssi would even want to date, let alone… do that.” He sighed “Sorry, just thinking aloud. But yeah, I would not try it, dying is painful, trust me.” He then looked behind me. “Hey! You alright, Ordis?”

“Of course, the diagnostics are nearly complete, so I should be ready to go in another minute or so. Though, if I may ask, shouldn’t you already know the dimensions of my shell since you are the one who made it?” Ordis’s voice buzzed out of the loudspeakers.

Simon shook his head “No, The SIVA shell is bigger than the last one, I put in some extra to make sure your shell was well fortified. I need to make sure I get the size Perfect, else it will either risk falling out, or not fitting in right.”

“Operator, my diagnostics are complete, so we can now take the measurements for my new body.” Ordis popped the compartment that he was in open, allowing easy access to his shell. “We might as well do this now, Simon,”

Simon nodded and a red light came out of his eyes again, scanning the shell until he eventually handed Ordis to me and began making the body for Ordis “Now, Ordis, I am making it so that you can control both this body and the ship at once, the broadcasting device for your inputs may feel a little… disorienting at first. Just give yourself time to adjust, okay? No need to rush. This is going to be your first body in a long time, and you will get excited most likely, but again, you need to get used to the broadcast equipment, lest you ram this fine ship right through the city walls.”

“I’ll most likely choose to operate either one or the other, but I can definitely see the merits of being able to operate both. While I am curious to know how you knew that the Cephalons used to be living beings, I don’t remember much from that time, so this will largely be a new experience for me.” Ordis said, a slight note of impatience entering his voice.

Simon nodded as he finished the last fine details on Ordis’s body, namely some odd decals that looked like runes “These runes are a gift from the Kin, supposed to be good luck, who knows, might help.” he then held his hands out to me “Time to see if any calibrations are needed, I set it to instantly link up to whatever the first Cephalon was to link to it, but… we’ll see.”

I placed the shell containing Ordis into his hands. “You may have the honors, as you are the creator of this pseudo Zanuka,”

Simon nodded as he gently placed Ordis into the chassis, pushing him in with a satisfactory click before the protective shell enclosed him, it now looking like a far deadlier Zanuka, albeit somewhat sleeker in shape. He then scanned it for a moment and hummed “The entire body accepts Ordis as it’s primary governing AI. Now, Ordis, you should try to power on your body, should be easier than turning on the lights.”

Ordis was silent for a second, then a light whirring noise was heard, with two lights on the head of the body turning on. “It seems to work perfectly, though I will wait until later to test out the other functions, along with piloting both this and the ship at once. I believe earlier you were talking about showing us around the place, and meeting some of the ruling members of the area?”

Simon nodded and walked to the exit, waving excitedly for us to follow. “I tell ya, you’re going to love Az-Maloch, he’s the child of the two leaders of the Olog-hai.” He smiled “Little guy is so cute, he could give Ordis diabetes, I don’t even care if that’s impossible, it’s accurate.”

Ordis and I followed him out of the exit and back into the square. “As much as I doubt what you said is the case, I’ll have to take your word for it, Simon,” Ordis enunciated, a slight touch of doubt entering his voice.

“Well, let’s get going, daylight’s a’ burnin’, ya know?” I said, somewhat sarcastically, as it was only around three in the afternoon.

There were then two massive Ologs that came up to us, one in hefty SIVA armor, the other in a simple dress and looking surprisingly feminine. She smiled warmly to Simon as a still massive baby crawled behind her, it seeing me and cooing with delight, its body like a giant fluff ball, he crawled quickly over to me halfway, before standing up in a wobbly fashion and toddling over to me, it about up to my hip in height, but quite wide. It looked to Ordis curiously before saying, ”Oof, oof! Doggy!” He pointed to Ordis and looked to the feminine and fluffy Olog “It a Doggy momma!”

“Young one, I happen to be a highly advanced Cephalon A.I. tasked with protecting and supporting the Operator. I am NOT a ‘doggy’ as you so kindly put it,” Ordis said indignantly, with his voice taking on a kind of theatrical bravado.

The young Olog looked confused, “Cef...Cepha...Cephy-lon? You cephy-lon? Want pway? Know lots a games!” At this the young ologs face brightened as he bounced in place “Wanna be cephy-lon fwiend!”

Ordis sighed in defeat, which is odd since he doesn’t breathe, and he said, “Very well, I guess I will be your friend.”

The mother smiled as she picked up her son “Thank you, he has been rather excited to meet you, since we saw the ship, and Simon went in. He was certain that ‘new friends’ were in there, and wanted to go and say hi.”

I shrugged, “Kids will be kids I suppose,” I smirked at Simon, “So, how about we go meet this ‘Chryssi’ of yours, eh?”

Simon blushed, “U-ummm… ok…”

Maloch giggled, “Sy-mo like kwissi!”

Simon blushed even harder before he got walking, taking me by the hand as Ordis followed, and brought us to what looked like a massive Hive made of SIVA. “C-come on, you can meet Chryssi in her hive, she should be talking about farming plans with Orvok about now.”

We followed him into the hive, eventually reaching a large room with a sleek, pitch black woman with green undertones and teal hair speaking to an Uruk dressed in what looked like a cuirass made of SIVA, with various bone charms hanging off of him from SIVA cord and an odd looking staff tipped with green flame, and riddled with SIVA nodes. He had several pouches full of seeds on a table next to him, and was grinning joyfully as he turned to see Simon. “Brother! It is a great joy to see you! Chrysalis and I have finished the plans for our farms, no more potatoes, cabbage and roots for supper! We’ll be feasting like our people deserve!”

The sleek black woman smiled happily, “I am quite happy we managed to help! It has been hard to see your people have to eat so little, when you have supplied us with so much love, it… it felt unfair.”

Simon blushed and nodded, “Ummm… Chryssi, Th-these are Mirage and O-ordis, new visitors to this world…”

She looked to us and grinned, “I suppose you already made them feel welcome, and it’s my turn to show my hospitality? Come, friends, I shall give you gifts as well!”

“I’ll have to decline, as Simon has already given us plenty. Before his generosity, Ordis had a fractured personality and was confined to a ship, and now his personality issue is fixed and he can move around freely. I couldn’t accept further gifts from our hosts, though I must say, Simon speaks very highly of you, Lady Chrysalis,” I smirked slightly in Simon’s direction, trying to gauge his reaction to what I said.

Simon was so red, he made beets look blue. He couldn’t look at Chrysalis, who was also blushing, but green, he looked to her eventually and smiled shyly, “U-um… w-would you… like to have dinner, lady Chrysalis?”

Chrysalis nodded, before he finished, and she huffed, “Like you have any need to be so formal! You avenged my brother and saved my people! You are a hero, you can refer to me by name!” She then blushed even harder. “Th-that is… if you would care to.”

I then felt a hand on my shoulder as an Uruk in full body armor that looked highly advanced, and echoed with magic spun me around and shook my hand. He smiled, “Name’s Grimgor, lass! It’s a pleasure tae meet ye! Now, would ye mind giving them some privacy, and followin’ me? Ye kinda just took a bally sledge ‘ammer tae the awkward silence they had since they developed feelin’s fer each other.” He chuckled for a moment, “Cheers fer that, by the way.”

“Eh, I was going to clear out and maybe wander the city a bit before you got my attention, kinda not my place to intrude, though I felt I’d give them a ‘gentle’ helping hand through the awkward stage, since they didn’t really seem to be getting anywhere fast.” I said as I followed him out the door. I used transference to equip my Ivara again, and thought of something to do. “You got any training grounds that I could spar with someone at? Maybe one of them Olog-hai?”

Grimgor checked the time at the towns clocktower and grinned, “Yer in luck, kiddo. Az-Barko goes tae the arena every day round this time, he’s our best fighter. Really earns ‘is place as the leader of the Olog people.”

“Mind guiding me over there then, my friend? I have a feeling that this will be entertaining.” I said, thinking of potential strategies against an Olog. “Oh, will you have healers on standby? I’m assuming you will, or you use blunt weapons, but either way there’ll probably be a need for healers.”

Grimgor chuckled “Nary a need, the training grounds enchanted, no damage there is permanent, came up with tha’ spell when Simon told me a story bout a place called Valhalla. Most that’ll happen is ye get knocked out, and then a bucket of ice water fixes it.”

“Are ranged weapons good, or is it melee only?” I asked, because if ranged weapons are out I’m out two-thirds of my firepower.

Grimgor nodded, as he walked through the town square with me, heading east, “As long as it has ammunition, we nae supply ye any, if ye lose the arrows er the bullets, it’s yer loss.”

“Ah, good, I have a bow with a 450 pound draw that I’ve been needing to test for a while.” I chuckled. This was going to be interesting.

Grimgor smiled as we entered what looked like an arena that looked exactly like the one players found Bruz in. as we entered, we saw the same male Olog I saw with the mother and baby, now wearing full body armor, and armed with a SIVA mace that would make Sauron weep. Specifically because it was on fire, and seemed to be causing whatever he hit with it to blow up. He was fighting what looked like an Olog that had runes tattooed all over his body. The Ologs were pretty evenly matched, until Az-Barko pulled out what looked like the flamethrower some of them had, but a little… off. He shot not a gout of flame, but a massive ball of fire at his foe, before rushing him, as the fireball exploded, Az-Barko reached his now off balance enemy before ramming him into the fence and clouting him with his mace, the explosion, which should of beheaded or killed him, simply knocking him out, just like Grimgor said. Az-Barko raised his hands in triumph and the crowd cheered, “Az-Barko champion! Haha! Mead on Az-Barko, it special brew! Learned from home village!”

“AZ-BARKO! YOU ARE THE CHAMPION, BUT WILL YOU DEFEND YOUR TITLE AGAINST ME?? I CHALLENGE YOU TO A SPARRING MATCH, FIRST TO BE KNOCKED OUT LOSES! DO YOU ACCEPT THESE TERMS?” I shouted as I stepped into the arena.

Az-Barko nodded, a grin on his face “Accept challenge! Any weapon, or no gun?”

“Any weapon, of course! Any less would be a dishonor to warriors, unless it was two who fought using the same style!” I responded theatrically, intent on putting on a show.

Az-Barko nodded again, before drawing his mace and taking out a pouch at his side, “Give all this fight, you no new recruit, can tell!” He then took out a large crystal from the pouch and inserted it into the mace head, the mace now glowing slightly. “Az-Barko leader for reason, strong, yes, but smart too! Good with mage craft, SIVA from master make even better!” He then pointed his mace at me in an equally theatrical manner. “Ready? FIGHT!” He then twirled in place before swinging in my direction, releasing a massive shockwave of magical energy straight for me!

I blocked the majority of the attack with my Karyst, taking two hundred damage to my shields, and counter-attacked by shooting him in the leg with my Daikyu. It was largely stopped by the SIVA armor he was wearing, but it definitely hurt, along with proccing Corrosive, which turned the outer quarter of his armor to dust.

Az-Barko chuckled, “Good, armor weigh down anyway!” He then charged me, uppercutting me into the air before slamming me down into the dirt with his mace, faster than I thought possible for an Olog, it was then that I remembered what I saw his mace do to his previous foe, and cursed as I was blasted by a SIVA burst. I quickly got to my feet and started laying out Dashwires, ziplines fired from Ivara’s Artemis Bow, and activated Prowl and hopped onto one of them. I fired on his back with my Spira Prime, drawing blood in a couple of places where the Spira dug through his armor.

Az-Barko grinned and began to rear back with his mace, before slamming it on the ground, creating a massive blast around him that caught me up in it and sent me fling, only for him to pull out his explosive gun like weapon and blast a fireball at where I landed. I quickly dodged out of the way, and seeing no alternative, conjured the Artemis Bow. I deactivated Prowl and fired a rapid volley of arrows at him, each shot firing seven arrows in a straight vertical line, all of them hitting him, with over half of them sinking deep into his flesh. More of his armor turned to dust, along with blood spurting profusely from the areas around the arrows.

Az-barko laughed happily “Good fighting! Not over yet! Want more!” He then ran at me again, this time stopping right at me and knocking me skyward with a golf swing from his mace, again the mace causing an explosion, but with me in mid air, I had nowhere to dodge as it went off, me being sent further skyward by the blast, only for his fireball launcher to hit me in center mass as the first blast cleared. I blocked a portion of blast from the launcher with my Karyst and quickly fired a sleep arrow right at Az-Barko’s head, hitting him directly. He began to swoon, and then collapsed onto his knees, out cold.

Grimgor whistled, “Yer the first tae win a match with ‘im, lass. He’ll be quite chuffed, means he still has somethin’ tae strive fer.”

He then beckoned a small Uruk boy over, who nodded and walked over to Azzy as his wounds and armor were restored nigh instantly, and promptly flung ice water into his face. To which he sputtered loudly before getting up, he looked to me and laughed heartily “Metal person strong! Happy to call better fighter! Will try to get stronger, so can fight again!”

“Perhaps, my Olog friend, though I will most likely try out different frames and tactics against you. This frame, while powerful, is rather weak in close combat and is more suited to infiltration and assassination types, not one-on-one close combat.” I said, stepping out of the warframe and bowing my head to him.

Azzy smiled, “No need bow, equals!” he then patted my back, careful not to hurt me, as his son and wife came over to me.

The wife smiled kindly, “Thank you, you gave my husband a goal, he had been growing bored, with the peace. He has needed something to get his blood flowing.”

“Of course, I also needed to test a couple of things with this particular frame, so it was no problem at all. I believe we could head back to where Simon is now, he should have had plenty of time to speak with Chrysalis about their relationship status.” I said, starting to head back out of the arena and into the streets. This day had been interesting, and I was looking forward to staying here a bit longer.

Star children part two

We left the arena to head back towards the castle, where Simon and Chrysalis should still be around. Considering the general mood when we left them to it, it might be getting a little ‘hot and heavy’ in there. I chuckled slightly at the thought, then turned to Az-Barko, asking him, “So, how much SIVA does Simon generate in a day? ‘Cause so far, all the stuff he’s done with it seems like it should’ve taken anywhere from months to years, but I get the impression that he hasn’t been on here for even a year yet.”

Az-Barko smiled, “Depends, if we can find metal, he can change to SIVA. But he naturally makes about enough to outfit ten soldiers a day. So I’d say… Two hundred pounds of SIVA?” He looked to Grimgor, and nudged him, “You better at math, me more military. What you say?”

Grimgor nodded, “He makes two hundred pounds a day naturally, if he eats well and is healthy. Not to mention he can make the SIVA replicate by absorbing inorganic matter, which he has done for most of the buildings here. Luckily, we are surrounded by viable mines and quarries, from which he can make more.”

I nodded at this, contemplating. “All right then, so he just absorbs the SIVA and then uses it to make the assorted buildings and such? That’s pretty interesting, though I have to say, wouldn’t it be more efficient to build the framework of a building, then have him fill it out with SIVA?” I questioned, trying to think of an explanation for the buildings to have been completed so rapidly.

Grimgor shook his head, “Nay, once he gets all the SIVA together, we just draw up the plans, and he builds it. Takes all the raw materials and absorbs them, then drops a SIVA core to regulate the building.”

“I guess that would work pretty well. Oh, the castle’s just ahead, hmm, I wonder what Chrysalis and Simon are getting up to?” I said, noticing that we were only a couple of streets down from the castle, and that there were less Ologs out and about now that it was approaching evening.

Az-Barko smiled and let loose a slight chuckle, “Simon will be happy… Chryssi like Simon lots, heard her talk about him at tavern, when Simon not with us.”

Grimgor snickered “Yeah, although I’ll miss teasing her about her crush on the bossman, I’m right happy fer the two of ‘em.”

As we were making our way to the castle, we saw a large object streak across the sky. It landed somewhere to the north of the city, with a resounding crash that shook the very ground beneath our feet. Az-Barko frowned as he seemingly listened to what I assumed to be orders from Simon. “We go see what happened. Simon going with Orvok and Chryssi. Meet up at crash site.” He then looked down at me and smiled, “Ready meet E.T?”

“See ya there.” I said, placing down an Archwing Launcher. Within seconds the aerospace apparatus landed, and I took off to the north on my Itzal. It was a sleek purple set of wings, and I was covering the ground at a rate of about ninety miles an hour. It was nowhere near as fast as it could go out of atmosphere, but really, that’s because friction is a bitch. I came up on the smoking crash site rapidly and deactivated the Archwing, sending it back to the landing craft. It appeared to have been a satellite, about the size of a four door car. It was around six miles away from the city, and the valley it had fallen in was now gray and dusty. The satellite itself was in a crater about thirty feet deep, which was still hot, but not hot enough to damage Ivara’s shields.

I drew my bow and kept an arrow at the ready as I made my way around it cautiously, keeping an eye out for loose rocks so I wouldn’t lose my footing. The satellite was covered in hexagonal plates, and there was a glass bulb just visible beyond them. It was remarkably undamaged from a drop from orbit, though that may have just been the materials it was made from. I headed back up to the edge of the crater and pulled out a scanner, scanning the satellite, before sitting down to wait for Simon and co.’s arrival.

Simon and co. reached me in a surprisingly short amount of time, and I was about to ask how they got here so fast, until I heard what sounded like a loud snuffling sound. I backflipped onto my feet to show off a little and turned around, finding a massive Graug covered in red crystal and what looked like crimson metal plates connected together with red cables. Simon smiled in response to my confusion, which was odd since my face couldn’t express emotion, given I was in a warframe. “Oh, meet Snuffles, the Stygian Graug, he is our… I guess you could say guard dog. We feed him cows. He also is quite partial to snuggling, if you want to pet him.” He then looked around and clicked his tongue in annoyance, “This is going to be fun, isn’t it?”

“Why is it going to be fun, if I may ask?” I asked curiously. Really, the lack of expressions on a warframe makes the subtleties of communication just fall flat.

Simon gestured to the satellite in the crater, “Because that is a WARSAT from the Destiny universe. If the WARSAT’s are here, then so can so many, many other bad things.” he then looked at the WARSAT for a moment, his eyes glowing as he seemed to start looking for something. He then smiled, “Although, this WARSAT has a few goodies for us… Namely a copy of the Valkyrie protocol, and what looks like...no...no that’s not…” he leapt down onto the WARSAT, turning into a nanomachine mist and seeping between the cracks and through the plating.

He kicked the uppermost plate of the satellite out a few seconds later, jumping out with what looked like a humanoid robot wearing space age clothing in his arms and what seemed to be a core of some sort in his free hand. “Ladies and gentlemen… we have a Beta version of RASPUTIN.”

Grimgor frowned, “Tha’ name… it sounds bloody familiar…”

“Well, I have no idea who this RASPUTIN is, but given that this satellite is from Destiny, I’m assuming from there.” I said, nodding in thought. I Transferred out of the warframe since it didn’t seem like there was any immediate, pressing danger.

Orvok was silent as he stared at the WARSAT, but upon hearing the name RASPUTIN, he snapped out of his revery. “Th-that is the name of Zmatok before he fully ascended! He spoke of a land beyond our stars, but… we always thought he meant the world of the gods… If the god of Chaos was actually a being from another world… Then… we were all saved by a dimension hopper. That is a helluva lot to take in…”

Az-Barko nodded, “Not really care who save people, just happy people save-” The world around us suddenly halted, Az-Barko stopping mid-sentence. The entire world turned a shade of gray, almost as if light had stopped moving. I turned towards Simon, who was also able to move, and was looking around curiously.

“So… What’s this?” I asked him, gesturing at the now gray world.

“Why, I just figured we could have a little chat, just the three of us.” A masculine voice said from behind me, then I felt a tap on my left shoulder. “Yeah, you Tenno have weird powers… Gotta be strange, having all that void in you… anyway, I needed to talk to Simon, and I figured that I’d talk to you as well, as you are his guest.” I turned around to see a younger white gentleman in a red business suit and black shoes, with a fedora neatly placed on his head. He had his sleeves rolled up, and a chaos star tattooed on the back and front of each hand. A cane was in his hand, with runic markings running down it, etched into the wood, shining as if it was waxed recently.

Simon was staring at him incredulously. “Hank?! What the hell man, I thought-”

The man chuckled, “My name isn’t Hank, kiddo, not really. My name is Zmatok, and I am the reason your pal Secundus was able to come here and help you, as well as my son.” he smiled and leaned back in mid-air. “It’s a good thing I pulled a few strings, too. You were scheduled to die by your local death entity for the next day. Anyway, I’m here to give you both a few pointers, and maybe even a boon.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked, looking him up and down suspiciously. Given that Simon already knew him, and it seemed as if he hadn’t held up his end of some type of deal, I was cautious about what he was saying. Granted, the time stopping was a factor in that as well, but anyhow.

Simon eyed Zmatok critically. “Start talking, why did you displace me and my sister?”

Zmatoks smile grew a little strained. “I wasn’t planning on your sister coming that day… I am truly sorry to put her in the danger you will be facing, but… I knew you were what the kin needed, bud. I needed someone who cared about others more than himself to lead them, to get my blessing. So… I kinda planted a few mental seeds of what you’d want to cosplay as, maybe talked with a few void dwellers and had them make some gear for you...then definitely gave you the set once the ball got rolling.” he sighed “Trust me kid, this whole mess is worse than you could even imagine. The Hive are trying to get here, as are the Vex. I can’t get a lock on them, even, and I’m supposed to know all possibilities. It’s frightening to think that my people, my children and grandchildren… that they are in such danger.” He looked to Simon, “If you had to anger and hurt people to save Roxies life, or maybe the life of her child, what would you do?”

“So… Why am I here exactly? So far this seems like Simon’s stuff, not mine.” I asked, looking at Zmatok, who was looking at Simon.

He smiled at me “I may have seen a few… threads of yours. And I may or may not have seen that you could use a hand in the future. So, I made a… what was it called… Umbra warframe?… pulled him out of a dead ‘verse, fully enhanced too… changed how his Formas work, so you can just edit your brains out.”

“Excalibur Umbra? Huh, nice.” I said nodding. The warframe he summoned looked exactly how I thought I would have changed the colors, namely purple and gray, with gold accents. I transferred into it, flexing my fingers. I drew the katana at my hip, the Skiajati I believed it was called, and examined the golden blade. Sheathing it, I turned to Zmatok, “Thanks, this’ll definitely be a large help.” I turned back towards where my Ivara was, and noted that it was gone. ‘Oh well.’ I thought to myself. ‘Can’t have multiple warframes out at once.’

Simon then looked to Zmatok, “What boon do you have for me? I doubt I need any new weapons.”

Zmatok grinned and walked over to Simon, tapping right at his center mass as the core from earlier was absorbed by the SIVA. “Well, bucko, I am giving you two, to try and make us even. I just upgraded your SIVA with the Valkyrie protocol, so those fancy Javelins from back home are yours to summon and use at will. As for gift number two...” He smiled “How about I make it so you have the same powers as my grandbaby Chryssi? You’ll be able to be anything, anyone, that you want.”

Simon frowned, then nodded. “Okay, deal.” Zmatok nodded and shook his hand before disappearing in a flash, the world slowly turning colorful again as time resumed.

“-d,” Az-Barko finished his statement, then blinked in surprise as he saw me in Excalibur Umbra, and Simon looking largely unchanged, other than standing in a different spot. Az-Barko looked around, before sighing in frustration. “Time magic?”

“Eh… More like a global time stop by a deity.” I said, looking at the now empty space where Zmatok had stood before he left.

Simon nodded, “Seems Zmatok knows what’s going on, and gave us a bit of a boost.” He then smiled at me warmly. “Well, I think it’s time we all head home, huh? Shouldn’t keep your worlds people in the lurch, eh?”

Chrysalis pouted, “Aww…. your heading home already? I was hoping for some girl talk…”

“Uhh… Yeah, totally a girl, not at all androgynous. BYE!!” I shouted before taking off with my Itzal once more. After a few minutes of flying south, and noting that the entire desert that the city was built on was barren, landed next to my landing craft. I entered it, telling Ordis to take off, and we slipped into the Void a few minutes later.

We came out of the Void over Canterlot just in time to find a pink shield shatter under the force of what seemed to be several thousand black insectoid ponies, who started to dive bomb the ground, green cones forming in front of them. The ponies on the street were panicking, and there were some of what I now recognized as Changelings change form from ponies into their natural forms. “Ordis… Prep my Atomos, Amprex, and Jat Kittag.” I grabbed my weapons from the arsenal and jumped out of the still moving ship, landing in the middle of a group of them.

“Now, you’re all going to die…”

A chilly reception

Author's Note

A crossover with this story, might have more content on his side, as I cut off after Simon left

A chilly reception

??? POV

I yawn as I get up out of my bed again. Even though I was tired, my team and I were excited for today. Not only because of the new magic I got from Lex, but because it was Winter Wrap up time. I decided to tell Twi before hand that she would be the best for organizing everything, since I really didn’t want her to get worried about not finding what she was good at. Even though I was worried about breaking the timeline a little bit, I felt that Twi didn’t need to go through all that.

“You know, you have been thinking about that a lot since the party. I wonder how much you are going to tell her.” I hear Sora state as I get ready for today. I just roll my eyes at this. She and the others have been talking and borderline teasing me and Twi about our dance since the party.

“You know that will get old really fast right?” I say to her, grabbing my sweater. I go out into the main room to find Chance reading in the living room, and Selene helping Spike with breakfast.

“Morning guys.” I say to them, getting three different greetings in response.

“Hey Spike, where is Twilight?” I ask, sitting at the kitchen table.

“Oh, she went to town hall early to talk to the mayor about how things are going to be organized. I am still surprised that none of us thought about asking Twilight organizing this.” Spike says, grabbing some pancakes for himself and I.

“I wonder how this is going to go today. I mean, ‘cleaning up winter’? That sounds ridiculous to me.” I look and see as Topaz walks out of the washroom with a towel around herself.

“Maybe for people like us Topaz, but that is how things work here in Equestria. Remember that the weather is controlled by Pegasi and that the agriculture is controlled by earth ponies.” I say to her as she puts her towel into one of the hampers. Chance looks up from his book and walks over.

“Yeah, speaking of, we still need to talk to the flower trio about growing these berries from Lex.” He says, taking a bite out of a pancake on his own plate.

“Oh yeah! Well how about when we go with Twilight to go over everything, we find them and ask if they can start growing them after the wrap up is done.” I say, taking another bite out of my syrupy goodness. All of my Pokemon nod at this idea.

After about an hour, me, Spike and Topaz grab our gear for the day and we all head out of the library to town hall to get our assignments for the day. I was really excited for this, wondering what I would be doing to help with this event. Even though we gained these new types of magic, Twi and I haven’t tried using them yet. Twilight is both excited and hesitant to use Solid Script Magic. I haven’t told her that she can use Heavenly Body magic, because it is a type of Dark Magic. Even with how much Celestia loves her like a daughter, I worry about how she would react to Twilight knowing dark magic.

I just walk alongside my friends to town hall where the town would be meeting up to get our assignments for the day. I dunno why, but I had a weird feeling something odd was going to happen, and with my track record…

After a couple minutes of silent walking, we arrive at the town hall building. Going in, we see about two thirds of the town is already here. I look around and spot the rest of the main six minus Twilight. Walking over, our group just talks to one another for another couple of minutes before Mayor Mare and Twilight walk out and onto the stage.

“Hello everypony. Thank you all for coming here so quickly. Now, I will not waste time here. Twilight has put together a schedule and had written down who gets what assignment for today, so I will pass it over to her.” She says before stepping back, allowing Twilight to step up with her clipboard.

“Alright everypony. I have organized which Pegasi will be working under Rainbow Dash today to take care of the weather for town. Applejack and Big Mac will be in charge of clearing the snow with the ponies I have written down on the sheets. Pinkie Pie will be in charge of handling cutting up the ice on the lakes and Fluttershy will be in charge of waking up the animals. Lastly, Rarity will be in charge of setting up the nests for the returning birds alongside Sparkler.”

Twilight lights up her horn and summons some sheets of paper before attaching them to the tables where each of the teams vests are located. All of the ponies begin to look at the lists, finding their names and grabbing their vests for the day. After a couple minutes I get to the tables and look around the lists, only to get confused as I don’t see my name or that of my teams anywhere on any of the lists.

“Um, Twilight?” I call to her. Twilight appears next to me in a second, but not through pony teleportation.

“Yes Nat?” I look to her with a raised brow before shaking my head.

“Hey, where is my name? I can’t seem to find it.” She looks over my shoulder before gaining a slightly mischievous smirk. She lights up her horn again and summons a purple vest.

“That is because you aren’t on any of those lists. Spike is working with the CMC today at the lake, so today, you and your team will be working as my assistants.” She says, handing me the vest and summoning three more for Topaz, Selene and Chance. I look to my vest for a second before smiling and putting it on over my jacket. Topaz puts hers on as well before helping Chance and Selene with theirs.

“Well then, let’s get to work.” I say with a smile, my teammates standing next to me with their own smiles. After that the five/six of us head out to Sweet Apple Acres first to check in with AJ and Big Mac about the snow clearing. As we are walking through the entrance I get a really bad feeling and stop. The others look to me with confusion, then worry as Sora appear next to me.

“What is it? Something wrong?” Selene asks, looking around. I go to answer, before I something hits me hard in the head.

“Nyu!” I fall face first in the snow.

“Nat!” Twilight quickly rushes over to me, checking my head. Thank Celestia and Luna Diclonius have some serious durability, cause that would be a concussion to a human or pony.

“Urg, what hit me?” I ask, lifting myself off the ground. I look to the side and see Sora looking at something on the ground before going over to pick it up. I see it is some kind of a hammer or a club? It looks pretty dangerous as well. Maybe another token?

“What the heck is this thing?” She asks before grabbing it with our Vectors and we get a headache, signifying the creed from a token.

“Holy crap that was one heck of a creed.” Sora says as she keeps a hold of the token. I raise a brow at it, and barely notice as some ponies are going by with some shovels for the snow. I think I saw Fluttershy as well. I take control of our Vectors and get a proper hand on the token. I think for a minute before turning to Twilight.

“Hey Twi, do you mind if I summon this guy? I think maybe we could use a hand if something happens.” I ask. Twilight looks at the object in my hand before nodding and stepping a few feet away, some of the ponies nearby stopping after hearing me.

I lift the hammer above my head and strike it against the ground twice, two loud clunks going out.

A large portal then opened up as, what looked like, a male demon walked through the portal, he looked around before nodding and whistling, a large behemoth of a creature covered in red crystal spikes and having massive horns made of the same stuff walking out shortly after. The demon smiled and was about to speak before the first pony screamed.

“What the buck is that!?!??!” The pony screamed in fear.

“Holy buck!” I scream as I jump back with my team, along with Twilight who teleported back.

The large creature, seeming to sense hostility, hunkered down around the demon protectively as it made a soft snuffling sound.

“What the bucking buck?!” Sora yells as well. I make sure to keep everypony back as I rise into the air with my new magic. Time to test this out!

“Ok maybe this was a bad idea. Looking like I will have to fix it! Go, Storm Mail!” I yell, using my new magic and wrapping myself in a barrier of powerful wind.

There was a red mist seeping out of the Creatures arms, which then solidified into the Demon. He frowned somewhat tersely. “Hey! Snuffles didn’t hurt anyone!”

I look to the new duo and have a weird feeling he was not really a threat, but I can tell the ponies don’t believe it. I keep my Storm Mail on but I hover down to the ground, a glare present on my face.

“So, you’re not here to fight?” I ask with trepidation.

The demon shook his head “Nah, I made my hammer only go to the realms of friendlies. Although I might need to fine tune its targeting more...Anyway, The names Simon, and I’m pretty much only interested in making allies at the moment, some big stuff is starting in my realm… Big baddies working some stuff behind the scenes.”

I look him in the eye, using my Vectors to keep a magic eye on the area, not finding anything wrong. I nod and go to dispel my magic before someone yells out.

“What the buck is happening here?!?” I look up to see Rainbow and her team flying by, struggling in my wind. She spots Simon and ‘Snuffles’ and immediately goes to attack.

“Rainbow wait!” I try to warn.

Simon leapt in the way to stop Rainbow, becoming a swarm of red stuff I did not recognize that literally built a wall instantly between Snuffles and Rainbow Dash before Simon materialized in front of it, arms spread wide “Go on! Attack me! Be a bully! Just cause I look different I must be bad, yeah? Real tolerant there!”

Rainbow doesn’t seem to care as she goes to hit Simon in the face, but I can’t allow that. I dispel my armor from around myself and wrap it around Rainbow, the pegasus falling to the ground as I focus the wind downwards.

“Hey! What the buck Nat?!” She yells over my wind.

“You need to stop Rainbow. Remember when I summoned Loki? He was nice and he was literally a draconequus with a pet Wendigo.” I tell her, releasing my wind, but keeping her wings pinned with my Vectors. She gets up and glares at me, then Simon and his pet.

I go to talk again before I hear what almost sounds like a snuffling laugh. Looking to the new behemoth, I go wide eyed as I see Selene jumping on his head and Fluttershy standing right in front of it, seeming completely calm.

“Fluttershy? What are you doing?”

Right as Sora said that, the creature placed a hand on the ground, making a miniature red crystal statue of itself and the ponies form, them all having fun, Snuffles then tilted its head as if asking a question.

I raise a brow and walk up to it, before getting an idea. I tap my wrist with two of my fingers, a pink aura covering it, before the aura sends out a beam and connects with the creatures own wrist. It stings for a second, the creature whining like a puppy, before it turns into a bracelet made of energy with a heart in a circle at the forefront.

I focus on the Sensory Link and feel it. This creatures playful nature, it’s desire to help, it’s protective instinct. It’s kind of like me and Sora in that last department. The creature then looked at the bracelet curiously ‘why have arm collar? Is so ponies be nice?”

I go wide eyed as I hear that. I look to Sora to see her equally shocked face before smiling back at the behemoth in front of us.

“Sort of. The bracelet let’s me feel what you do, your sensations, your emotions, and apparently your thoughts.” I explain to him. I look around and see that many of the ponies still look scared, while a few just look curious.

‘Can magic pony persons translate spell Snuffles? Want talk to ponies… only sound like name though’

I nod and turn to Twilight. “Hey Twi, can you cast a translation spell on Snuffles here?” I ask. Twilight looks to me like I grew a second head for a second before looking to my pokemon that were around him and nodding. She walks up to Snuffles and motions for the behemoth to crouch down. He does so after gently helping the pokemon playing on him off, and Twi focuses on the spell. After a couple seconds, the stream of the spell appears, connecting to the behemoth.

We wait with slightly baited breath for a couple seconds before the stream evaporates and Twilight nods with a smile.

“Done.” She says, stepping back from the big lug. I smile and nod to him to start.

Snuffles rubs his snout “Magic smell funny.” He then looks to my team “Little ones nice, though. Nicer than animals at home… not like having to fight other Graugs...but they usually mean to people, and try to nom. Not like Snuffles, snuffles nom rocks!”

“So you are like a Goron?” I ask with a raised brow before Simon steps next to me.

Simon then smiles “Big guy is basically a walking siege engine, he loves to help around Comraich, but he also gets really protective of the children, you should of seen the time a bugbear attacked, poor thing probably forgot what day it was.”

I laugh at that and remember our own fight with a bugbear all those months ago. “It seems we both have had to deal with those creatures, though my team were more strategic about how we beat it.” I say with a smirk before something comes to mind.

“Wow, I just realized we never actually introduced ourselves.” I say with a sheepish grin. My team all run up to stand beside me as Sora floats next to me in a sitting position.

“Hi Simon, my name is Natali Basatin, this is my sister Sorano, and my partners, Selene, Topaz and Chance.” I introduce us all. He smiles before looking at Sora with a raised brow.

“How are you doing that?” He asks.

“Astral form. Only one of us can be in control of our body at a time.” Sora explains.

Simon nods slowly “Okay, heads up, my body automatically consumes and assimilates any magic that touches it, so… don’t touch me, I don’t want another death on my conscience, especially someone nice like you.”

I can barely see as Sora blushes behind her hair at that comment. Not many say things like that to Sora so she can dish out the compliments, but she can’t really take them. Though, his absorption ability got my attention. I raise a brow before snapping my fingers and summoning one of my swords.

Simon sighed in an amused fashion “Let me guess, you either want a spar, or you want me to try absorbing your summoned sword? For a brawl, I recommend coming over to my towns fighting pits, enchanted to make death impossible.”

“Maybe I’ll take you up on the latter later. I just want to see if you can get Maguilty Sense.” I say, hovering the sword over to him, hilt first.

Simon shrugs “No idea what that is, but lets see.” He grabbed the sword and his hand seemed to blur as the sword started to sink into him. Eventually, the tip of the blade sunk into his palm. “Huh…. Maybe I could summon Valkyrie protocol javelins now…” He leapt up and summoned what looked like a huge flaming spear made of red crystal, which he smirked at before he dismissed it and flew back down. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” I say with a smile before summoning a sword again.

“Anyways, just so you know about the magic you just gained. Maguilty sense lets you summon weapons that actually stimulate a targets pain receptors when they strike, even if they are normally immune to physical attacks. You can also do what I did earlier and use Sensory Link to connect with someone, sharing their emotions and sensation, including pain.” I explain.

Simon smiled “Well, thanks for the gift, you and your sister seem real nice. Let me think a bit on what to do to even the score…” He looked me over for a few seconds “You are a Diclonius, so… maybe something to give your vectors some oomph?”

I raise a brow and look to him with skepticism. “If you can manage that, then by all means, I’m game.”

He nods and holds his hands together as if they were holding an orb the size of a bowling ball, the same red mist forming what looked like an arm band made from red crystal and gray metal. He looked it over and began etching runes into it without even touching it, before long there was a flash, and the armband, once looking plain and clunky, now resembled a piece of art, the red crystal and gray metal flowing together to make a beautiful flower shape. “There ya go, an armband designed by yours truly, just think of an element, fire, water, ice, etcetera, and will your vectors to take on that element, then baboosky, ya got elemental vectors.”

I go wide eyed as he hands it to me. I look it over in my hands before attaching it to my right wrist. I can just feel the magic power in it. I think about how to test it before thinking of the element of fire and summoning a Vector. Instantly the vector gets covered in flames, becoming visible and I wave it over the snow, the result being some slushy water.

I smile at this and turn to Simon. “Thank you Simon. This is great.”

He shrugs “Hey, you remind me of a friend before I became all I am now. I actually wanted to ask her out, but hey, life sucks sometimes. Besides, I’m unsure if the Chryssi back home would be stoked to share so soon.”

My eyes go wide again and I speak quietly, thankful that Twilight and the others are distracted by Snuffles. “You know Chrysalis?!”

He frowned “Back in my dimension, the morality is switched. Sombra, Discord, Tirek and Chryssi were good people forced to be prosecuted by a tyrant that banished her sister for trying to reason with her. Chrysalis back in my world is the way she was because of a godly curse made by Celestia’s father, Solaris. Sort of a beauty and the beast thing, with the addendum that she has to like herself again too.”

At this point I feel like my eyes are literally going to fall out of my sockets, so Sora takes control of our body so the others don’t get suspicios.

“Alright, but can you not bring them up while you are here. We just got finished with Hearths Warming and we are trying to keep the future as much as a secret as possible.” Sora stresses.

He thought a moment, before sighing. “Okay, but if the changelings are acting out of desperation for food in this dimension… please call me? My world has a crop that is not only a viable love substitute, but plentiful as well… I know better than most, hunger is a painful thing to suffer through. And so is losing those you love.”

Sora looks to him with a blank expression before nodding our head and letting me take over again. “We promise.”

Simon smiles “Cool, so, anyone else I should not mention? Timelines differ between dimensions.”

I think for a moment, remembering how the princesses know about Lex’s Sombra and nodding.

“At the very least, don’t talk about Sombra or Tirek. Those two I am not a hundred percent on since we met a Sombra from another dimension already. Also, no Alicorn Twilight.” I say.

He nodded, then paused as he saw how I mentioned Twilight, before smiling knowingly. “Ah, I see.”

I raise a brow at him. “See what?”

He looked to me like I was an idiot before looking at my sister, who looked the same. “Seriously?”

“What?” I ask again.

He shrugged “Oh, just contemplating if I should try hooking up this worlds Twilight with a main squeeze.”

I honestly don’t know what came over me, but the next thing I know, I have Simon completely surrounded by my Vectors, each of the twelve being a different element. “Don’t even think about it.”

He smiled knowingly. “Think about how you are feeling right now. How you are feeling at the thought of Twilight dating someone else. Now, Imagine if, say, it was you, instead.”

I look to him with a blank expression before looking at my Vectors, barely noticing the others staring at me.

“It won’t happen.” I say with mild annoyance, retracting my Vectors

He smiled even warmer “I would not say so, perks of my love life, I’ve gotten the ability to sense the flow of love. You and Twilight, well, let’s say the flow is two way.”

I look to him for a minute before sighing and looking to the ground. “That is why it won’t happen. I know Twi doesn’t swing that way. Honestly I am not sure if I do.”

He took a deep breath “Okay, I tried being subtle, now for blunt. She likes you, romantically, she is not sure of her feelings, but neither are you. And not trying will only lead to bitter regret and, potentially, dying sad and alone.”

I remain quiet, just thinking, before I do something I have never actually done before. I forced Sora in control and locked myself within my mind.

“What the?! Hey Nat! Get out here!” She yells, I don’t respond. Twilight sees Sora in control and gets worried.

“Sora? Is everything alright?” She asks, walking over. Sora looks to Twilight before sighing and shrugging.

“Maybe. Nat is just being stupid about something right now.” She says in an attempted relaxed tone. Twi raises a brow before looking to Simon.

“What happened?” She asks.

Simon sighs “Well, I may have noted that I picked up on your latent emotions for each other.”

Twilight raises a brow before remembering all the comments Rainbow and Lex were throwing out at the party and blushing.

“YOU DID WHAT?!” She yells.

He shrugged “Hey, better that she comes to terms with her sexuality than hides it, as a doctor, I’ve seen the psychological trauma that can deal firsthand.”

Twilight continues to blush before looking to Sora, trying to see me, but can’t. She sighs to herself before glaring at Simon.

“I swear if this ends up hurting her, I will make Lucy look like a pacifist in comparison.” She says, poking his chest.

Simon smirked “So, you do care, step up to plate, and tell her. I have seen just how quickly a life can go kaput, my own sister was almost killed, and the man who loved her, a man I call brother now, saved her life. He literally ripped out part of his druidic plant heart to save her. I have seen love do some crazy shit. So… do you want to deny that to both yourself and someone who cares deeply about you, deeply enough to hide like this in fear of you rejecting them, and probably deeply enough to question their entire sexuality, judging from the way she’s acting. Besides, you’d be pretty hard pushed to go past what I have seen my own people go through. ”

Twilight just looks to him with wide eyes, trying and failing to come up with a response, before groaning and looking to Sora.

“Sora, can you get her out here?” She asks, earning a shrug.

“Maybe, eventually. Natali has always had better control over her mind than I have.” She says before closing her eyes and entering our mindscape.

Sora looks around for the void where our minds resided before spotting me sitting on the ‘ground’, my imaginary headphones on and she can hear my music.

“What the hell are you doing Nat?” She asks, getting no response. “I know you can hear me sis, it is literally impossible not to when we are both in here.”

I just look down at the mental floor. Sora sighs and tires to force herself into ‘my side’ representing my mind. She immediately gets pushed back.

“Nat you can’t just keep me out. I will get through and then you and Twi are going to have a little heart to heart.” Sora says, trying to force her way in again.

“Why would she like me?” I ask quietly, Sora stopping to look at me.

“I am nobody. Just a random girl that ended up being tricked by a dimensional merchant. Why would the princesses protege, the element of magic, like me.” I couldn’t see it, but the more I talked, the darker my area became.

Sora looked at my darkening mind with fear and worry.

“NAT! Snap out of it! Something is wrong!” I can’t hear her. I hear nothing.

Sora suddenly opens our eyes with a panicked expression, one Twilight instantly gets worried about.

“Sora?”

“Something’s wrong! Something is happening to Nat! I can’t get into her mind and it is getting darker by the second!” She yells in panic.

Simon let his hands start glowing with light white-blue fire, before using the newly acquired sensory link with it to turn his body into a bridge into a link between my mind and Twilights. “Hurry please, really hurts!”

Sora nods and uses three pronged Sensory Link, connecting all of them together. All their vision goes black before they appear in Sora’s mindscape.

“W-where are we?” Twilight asks, getting to her hooves.

“We’re in my mindscape, basically the area in the mind that we can interact with. C’mon, Nat is this way!” She says before rushing into the void, Twilight and Simon directly behind her, Simon a little slower as he was slightly limping.

They run for who knows how long before they see a veritable wall of shadow. Looking into it, they can barely see me as I am in the same spot as before, darkness all around me, but I don’t really care.

“NATALI!” Sora calls out, before running into the wall of shadow. “What even is this?!”

Twilight walks up and bangs on the wall herself. “Come on, let us through!” She says, before stepping back and trying her own magic.

“Solid Script: Light!” The word appears and gives off a blinding flash...that only pushes the shadows back a couple feet.

Simon frowns “Twilight, could this be a kind of magic? Please by the gods say yes.”

Twilight looks at the shadows closely, before lighting up her horn and trying a magic scan. She flinches back and holds the area behind her horn.

“It is definitely magic in nature, but I don’t actually know what it is.” She says. Before they can respond, they hear something.

Whispers. The words telling me I am not good enough, not enough for her. I need to fight, to infect. Sora’s eyes widen as she hears the voice.

“The DNA Voice! It must have gained this new power from all the magic we gained since we arrived here in Equestria!”

Simon growled bestially “I don’t care if it’s the voice of the multiverse fucking incarnate! It’s the reason she feels so shitty, so I’m sucking that magic crap out!” He walked to the wall and slammed his palms on the barrier, grunting and growling in pain as he began absorbing the shadows little by little. “Hey! Keep on the light, and try making her feel better, do anything to oppose this DNA bitch!”

The duo nods and Sora summons a dozen Vectors making them all shine with light, the shadow pushing back as she launches them forwards.

“Sora! Make a path!” Twilight yells. Sora nods and focuses her Vectors into making a path to me as I continue to just sit there, some of the shadows climbing my arms and legs. Twilight casts another light spell, making a clear path before running in.

“Be careful Twilight!” Sora yells, Simon still absorbing and not being able to comment, his eyes and nose bleeding as he fought the urge to vomit. Twilight runs through the path, stopping right in front of me as the shadows continue to try and take me. She says nothing for a while.

“Why?” I look up to Twilight, my eyes dulled, barely seeing her. “Why do you think so little of yourself?”

I look down to the ground, my hands having turned black.

“You have so much in your future. One of the saviours of an empire. One who would defeat impossible evil after impossible evil. I can’t do anything like that.” I say mostly to myself. Twilight shakes her head and holds one of my hands.

“I know what you’re talking about.” I look to her with wide eyes, seeing her grin. “We both have a bad habit of saying our thoughts out loud.” I look down again.

“Alicorn Twilight huh? Talk about a lot.” She says, taking my hand in both of hers. “But, who is to say it will happen?” I look to her, confusion evident on my face as a shadow crawls up my back.

“But, you know. There is an old saying I heard a while back that really blows all this fear out of the water.” She looks me in the eyes and places a hand on my cheek. “The future isn’t set in stone.”

I can feel my eyes widen again as the shadows seem to try harder to cover me, somehow being pushed back by Twilight’s mere presence.

Twilight...the mare I like.

Simon roared in pain as he began to walk slowly towards us through the dark, ignoring it cutting and biting at him. “We… we gotta go! Something’s up, too much dark magic in me!

Twilight looks to Simon in worry before turning to me again, the shadow crawling up to my eye. She gained a determined expression and grabbed both my hand and threw my arms around her, making me hug her and she hugs me.

“You say that you are not good enough, that I can’t like you, but you are wrong. No matter what happened, ever since we met you have been there. You helped me get the girls back together when Discord inverted them. You helped me with my studies into Pokemon and Diclonius, you stopped me from causing problems and making me realize I was being stupid over nothing, you helped me save Rainbow after that rockslide.” She pulls back and looks me in the eyes, her own eyes full of tears.

“And it isn’t just me. You saved Derpy on Nightmare Night, you made Applejack and Rarity rethink about how they think about Blueblood, you made Sombra and Lex laugh and have fun during the party, and you gave Adam the courage to ask Penny to dance! You have helped so many people, and I say any of us would be damn lucky to have you!” She says before blushing and laying her forehead against mine.

“You helped all of us and that is why...I love you so much.” She says. I can feel the breath being caught in my throat. The darkness stops and begins to shake, seeming afraid. I reach forward and hold Twilight’s face in my hand, the darkness gone from it.

She looks to me again as tears fall from my eyes as well. “I love you too.” I say quietly, bringing her in for another hug. The darkness around seems to be in pain by this, beginning to evaporate like a Grimm or something. But I don’t care. All that matters right now, is the purple mare in my arms.

Simon grunts tersely as he struggles to his feet. “I can’t hold it... any longer…” he then releases us from the mental link.

I look around while holding my head, feeling like I just tried to solves a dozen algebra equations at once with only my mind.

“Urg, what happened?” I say, before everything came back to me. I growl as I remember what that damn voice just did to me. I can feel as Sora is tired from the mental fight against it, and can tell that it is still there, just severely weakened. I look to Simon and Twilight, the duo looking tired. I sit cross legged with a determined expression.

“Be right back.” I close my eyes and enter my mind, seeing what used to be the overpowering darkness, seeming to cower in the corner, now in the shape of something I easily recognize. The DNA voice, in the shape of a Diclonius with bandages all around it’s head. I frown and raise my hand above my head.

“Please, stop. You need me...I am your purpose.” It says weakly. I just look to it with the same glare Lucy would.

“That is where you are wrong, parasite. You are nothing, and that is where you shall return to! Maguilty Rays!” Several yellow swords appear around me before being launched at the voice, who tries to dodge, only for two of them to impale its legs. It screams in pain, but I don’t care. I look to it like it is nothing more that an insect, which it was to me.

“No...I can’t...be destroyed.” It says, trying to crawl to Sora’s side. I walk forward and stand before it. I summon a single Vector and sword, and focus on light and my feeling for Twi and the girls. My Vector shines bright before the light is seemingly absorbed by my sword. The Voice looks to me with something it never thought it could experience. Fear.

“Begone. Maguilty Shine!” I slash down at the voice, cutting it from the top of the head to the bottom of it’s waist, the slash shining bright as it screams in pain. It becomes a blinding light, but as it dies down, all that remains, is a single scrap of a bandage. I smile as it is gone, and place a hand on my heart.

“Simon, Twilight, Sora. Thank you.” With that I open my eyes and regain control of my body as I sense Sora falling asleep.

Simon grunted once before collapsing into the snow as I looked to him, his body oozing with a black liquid.

“Simon!” Twi and I rush to him, Snuffles coming over at sensing something is wrong with him.

“Jesus Christ, how much dark magic did you absorb?!” I shout in panic, seeing all the darkness oozing out of him.

Simon mumbled “Worth it… helped a friend…” me and Twi look to him with frowns, a couple of the ponies nearby seeing Simon’s state and going to get help.

“You are an idiot, through and through.” I say before smiling at him. “And Chrysalis is lucky to have you.” I say the last part quietly so only he could hear.

Simon chuckled weakly before trying to force himself up “Can’t go to the hospital, need… need metal… gotta heal.”

I think for a second before nodding. “Would iron work?”

He nods “Any metal, rock even if no other choice… Just need to make more SIVA.”

I nod and look to Twilight. “Solid Script him some iron.” I say and she nods. Twilight quickly casts the spell a couple times, four words made of iron appearing before landing next to him.

Simon quickly became a pure mist and began absorbing, no, eating the iron. When the iron was all gone, he reformed into his demon form, and forced the darkness into a bow shape, then bound it into that shape with the extra SIVA by making it a crystal construct. “That… that felt terrible.”

Snuffles then smacked Simon into a tree, him returning shortly after with a questioning glance to Snuffles. “No scare again! Worry about poppa!”

“Yeah you deserved that one.” Twilight comments. The three of us are silent for a bit before we all burst into laughter.

“Simon, I can’t thank you enough for helping me. I doubt I could have made out on my own. I guess I owe you one now, so…” I grab my AR from my purse and toss it to the demon, another appearing on my head. “If you ever need anything, don’t even hesitate for a second.”

He smiled “I won’t, oh, and you can write me messages with the bottom of the hammer, it acts like a pen. So feel free to message me if you want to visit Comraich, I’ll make sure to keep Grimgor outta the kitchen. Man can tinker the best magical tech anywhere, but his cooking is worse than a mouthful of sewage.”

I smile at him and nod. “Good, just to let you know, the AR also doubles as, well, its namesake. It lets you view someone’s soul so you can see if they are corrupted or are being controlled.”

He nods “Well, I had best get going, unless you think there’ll be trouble that you need a hand with?”

I look to him then to Twilight and smile. “No, I think we can handle things from here. Our business is finished.” After I say this, another portal like the one he arrived in opened up.

Simon grins as Snuffles steps through, waving goodbye as he says one last smartass comment “I better get an invite to the wedding!”

Both me and Twilight erupt into large blushes. “Shut up jackass!” We yell together. He just laughs and leaves through the portal.

Gaze of pity

Author's Note

this four parter is the last crossover on this fic for a while, Crossover with Rozonrozarks pony gaze

Gaze of pity

I trekked across the field of flowers and grass. I had no idea how long I had been here. Days, weeks, probably just a few hours. God I was lonely, no one to talk to, it was maddening. I had got a few moment to practice my new Alchemy skills. But I still need people!

I had tried talking to Comet but that had been a dead end. Sense I had nothing to fight the chains had run out and left me alone again. I had tossed around the idea of using Ed’s tolkien to talk to him but he was probably busy and I had a few things to try.

“Ow!” My foot hit a solid red hammer, it looked kind of familiar, where had I seen it before? Picking it up I felt something enter my mind.

Well what are the chances. By the way... Olog and Uruk if I was right then this was going to be great! “Lord of Dawn, I am Oz the Demon Gazer, I call you forth!” I saw the portal open up before me. I held my breath as a Pale white skinned humanoid demon appeared, with red, pulsing demon wings and a sharp, spaded tail. “Well that definitely wasn’t in the films.” I muttered lamely taking in the thing before me.

He looked around, seeming to see me but instantly dismiss me before he looked back towards the portal “Hey, Orvok, your turn to get some training in. We gotta be prepared for anything, and your magic might help.”

“Yeah and don’t worry about breaking anything.” No idea who he was talking to but after being alone for maybe two days I’ll take anything that can talk. “This is a pretty empty dimension. So hey no property damage.”

Just as I finished talking, a tall Uruk dressed in vines, red thread, and red crystal over animal pelts plated with gray metal came through the portal, armed with a very fierce looking druidic staff. I don’t want to say it but I’m pretty sure that guy could kick my ass and still be in time to worship his gods. Dude looked scary so I had better watch my mouth.

“Oh good a plant expert, can you tell me if I’ll cough up my lungs if I eat these flowers, I’m rather attached to them staying in my body and don’t want them escaping again.” Damn you mouth!

The Uruk and the Demon turned to me before the Uruk smiled warmly. “They seem to be alright for eating, although, I sense some trees about twenty minutes in the way you are headed, they seem to have fruit that is safe to eat that would likely taste better.”

Well it was good that I hadn’t killed my first impression yet so time for talk. “Thanks I’ve just been eating what I have stored in my item bag. Like I said this dimension is almost empty. Besides the plants I think we’re the only living things here.” It was true I had used Comet to search for things to kill and the magic Demon had said that there was no life in the area.

The demon frowned “So, I assume you are trapped here?”

“No it seemed like a lovely spot for a vacation. I mean who doesn’t want to spend the rest of their lives trapped in an empty realm after killing the dark half of some Moon Demigod?” Thank you mouth we appreciate your contribution.

The demon looked to the Uruk and smiled “This guy has balls. I like him.”

The Uruk nodded. “Most people freak out at seeing you, but he seems to be keeping relatively calm.”

The demon then facepalmed. “We forgot to introduce ourselves…”

The Uruk broke out laughing. “Wondered when you’d figure that out, brother. Okay, let’s see...I’ll go first, I’m Orvok Wooden-heart, and this is my brother, the king of comraich, Simon SIVA-master.”

Simon gently smacked Orvok upside the back of his head. “You know I hate that honorific.”

“Well guess it’s my turn. My name is Oz the Demon Gazer.” I waited a bit before going on. “And well I summoned you here to maybe get your help escaping this place been trapped here to long already.” Seeing them still look at me I sealed the deal. “If you help me I will award you with this!” Reaching back I pulled out a bottle glowed a rainbow of colors. Information about this item flowed through me. “Behold God’s Hand an item that summons forth a miracle from the gods themselves. Results may vary depending on which god you ask for help from.” Hey who knows how this thing works now that it was in reality. I had tried to connect to Aris to get her power to summon miracles but… well she was too powerful and almost destroyed my soul so that was off the bored. But I was strong enough for Mars and Chronos. Sorry went off on a train of thought. “So what do you say deal or no deal?”

“Do you mind if I have a look at it for a second.” Simon asked holding out a hand. Not seeing anything wrong with it I handed it over to him.

Simon eyeballed it for a second, a red light going from his eyes as if he were scanning it somehow… He then smiled “This can call up void dwellers too? Nice.”

“...Yes?” I didn’t know that and I was the one who owned it! How did he know that?

He then smiled to me “I recently met a friendly void being who was actually responsible for my displacement, he could probably send us three to your home dimension. Well, the one that is your new home.”

“Well that would be nice. Good thing I got like four more of these things to use.” I pulled out a similar bottle. “So lame question how do I use this?”

He grinned and grabbed the cork “Think of the being, then pull the cork! It’s kinda like a genie bottle, but no rubbing the side.” Doh! Now I feel kinda dumb...

He then pulled out a black, heat warped key with what looked like a fire made from the night sky sealed in the space of its handle, with a coiled length leading to three teeth. He held it in the same hand as the cork and pulled, the bottle releasing a blinding light as a door appeared in front of us “...that’s it? A door leading nowhere?” I said, somehow expecting more.

Simon held up a hand to shush me, and inserted the key, the door then opened to show, through its frame, a massive fortress like stone complex. “Say hello to the realm of the Huntsman.”

“I get to meet RWBY characters? Or is this like Norse mythology?” I needed to know! How snarky could I be and not run the risk of leaving only a dust stain.

There was then the clearing of a throat as I looked around to find we were suddenly inside “Thou art a guest of sir Simon? Good, look upon me, man child, as I look upon thee.”

He was in head to toe plate armor, with a helm in the design of a human skull, with the back of the head seemingly warped from an unseen heat into the something analogous to the shape of a crown, the metal appearing to be warped from rust, overuse and that same unseen heat. Below that there was a more or less standardised full medium shoulder plate and greaves. His gauntlets and boots were light enough to walk in, thick enough to take several blows and also seemed warped, having seen heavy use.

The strange metal plate and chainmail on his torso was covered by a raggedy dark grey cloak that went down as far as the elbows, and a bit further down along the back, holes riddling it throughout. The ends flayed out like sad, decrepit streamers, dancing in an unseen wind. It went up, covering and wrapped around the neck area, and there was something about it that was similar to a sort of skirt, going below the knees. One side went further down than the other, and the ends seeming to be almost like a pale fur of an unknown animal. Several belts were at the waist, mostly chains and loop hooks.

In his right hand was a weapon about the length of a longsword, maybe a bit longer, but seemed to be more similar to a dueling lance due to the spiral-like blades, though it was too small to be so. The blade at the pommel was shorter, half the size of the longer one, and the hand guards were circular baskets, as if made for a rapier or cutlass rather than a lance.

Within the cracks, crevices, and visible empty spaces in the armor, a dark aura wafted off gently, yet menacingly, similar in appearance to the cold night sky. Flecks of small dying cinders and embers jumped out and faded away as they floated gently away on an unseen breeze. The ‘sword’ was the same, the space between the twin spirals seeming to generate the malevolent aura in a similar way to the armor. It was like a blazing inferno being contained by an unseen force, as if he was willing it into containment.

Well guess who I wasn’t going to piss of, got that mouth! “So are you from Vale or Atlas?” God damn it! Maybe literally, I felt Terra groan inside of me.

The Huntsman chuckled, a deep resonant laugh that almost seemed to sound from inside my head. “I am of the void, child of man, bound to demon of the dark sun. Thou art quite fortunate that thy visit was alongside Simon, lest I mistook thee for another intruder upon mine home.”

How the hell did he know about Sol! Or for that matter Terra! I could feel him shift from within me. “Well guess my luck had to kick in eventually.”

Simon smiled as Orvok busied himself with carving some sort of bone charm. “We were wondering if you could help us get back to Oz’s new home, as of his Displacement?”

The Huntsman smiled “It shall be done, but first, hast thou improved his equipment with thy power? We would like to do so as well, but thy SIVA is one of few materials that can contain my power.”

“Wait hate to but in here but Siva, as in nanomachines? Second do I have to pay for this cause I’m kinda, very, broke. I got some artifacts if you want.” I hated handouts so they are taking something if its the last thing I do.

Simon and the Huntsman grinned. “Nah, free of charge, really, although I won’t refuse new magic. And yes, my body is made of SIVA, in fact, I am a living swarm of the stuff.” That made so much more sense, in that I knew nothing.

“Well you accept Mana Regen? Or something that will let you double cast?” I should still have spares laying around somewhere.

Simon nods “Should let me use my Javelins more effectively, so sure. Oh, and I don’t think The Huntsman needs anything.”

He shook his head “Nay, the first favor must always be free, as are the rules of my existence.”

Well if he was offering, “Any chance you could do something about the soul I captured a couple days ago. She’s a very bad guest, I’ll kill something for you if you give her back trapped in a key.” Hey long shot but if it got Nightmare Moon out of my head I’ll take it!

The Huntsman nodded. “It shall be done, would thou prefer a cyclops, a trio of elementals, or a SIVA infected Hive Ogre?”

“Um…” Damn it backed into a corner. “Any quests you need solved?”

Simon raised his hand, “As per the rule of Mentorship, I take the weight of his challenge doubled unto myself.” Well someone is getting a full revival item and both of the artifacts he asked for.

The Huntsman nodded “Good, we were about to regret not telling him all the rules we are bound by. T’would have been quite a shame to have to fight him as an intruder.” Aw, I think he likes me. Despite my smartass responses.

Simon nodded “Yeah, the smell of burning flesh and boiling blood is not fun. Anyway, let’s do this, I choose the two Hive Ogres.” Well if he’s going to be fighting might as well make small talk with his friend who he brought along. What, I can tell when someone is about to mop the floor with weaklings!

Shuffling over to the stands of the arena like area, I saw Orvok and The Huntsman sitting next to each other as if they had been for a few minutes. Orvok looked to me and my confused face and smiled. “Oh, you seem confused, never visited the realm of a majorly powerful being? The Huntsman is a powerful being born of a prison for eldritch beings that pose a threat to the multiverse.”

“First off I make it a rule not to intrude on things that could smite me with a bad look. Second… do they share a cell with Cthulhu?” What I’m curious, not every day you get to find out if mindflayers are real.

The Huntsman chuckled “That whelp is nothing compared to what lurks beneath my realms prison. Although, a few beings do call my realm home willingly. Most of those are safe to talk to, as so far as one does not attack them.” Well that was pants shitting scary.

“Quick question, how did these come to be?” I held out the God’s hand. “And what is entitled in the summoned miracle? Asking for a friend.”

The Huntsman shook his head “We are not at liberty to say. There are other beings responsible for thy displacement, and we have agreed with them not to encroach on Knowledge thou should discover on thine own merit.” Great now I have to do work. Speaking of avoiding work I look down and not surprising to see that Simon is cleaning house down there.

“So Orvok, got any family you want to brag about. Do good enough and you might get an artifact that breaks reality.” What they seem to respawn. So I might as well treat them like candy.

Orvok frowned uncomfortably. “Ummm...sorry to say I have none left, my worlds Celestia is different from most...she ordered my village collected, harvested, and given to a local Lich for raising as an army. I was lucky and visiting my blood brother Grimgor at the time… L-let’s change topics, okay? Err… I do have someone I’m looking to propose to, but I worry she might be upset with me.” Wow my foot tasted delicious.

“Well first here’s your prize,” I tossed him a random artifact not really caring about what it was. Searching my brain I looked for a new conversation to work with. Should maybe fact check Celestia, make sure she’s on the up and up. “So hear anything about Balrogs recently? You know fallen angel demon things.” Memory why do you fail me about now! Come on Simon stop playing with the cool toys and finish up!

Orvok thought a moment “One has not been seen for awhile, not since our god of War Guroth was destroyed by Solaris...And what do you mean fallen? The Balrogs were the servants of Guroth, they helped hold our borders for generations before Solaris intervened.” Huh seems like I’m dealing with different historys here. See this is why I need to study more, not that I’m motivated to do so.

As Simon finished the Ogres off, the Huntsman looked to us warmly “After we enhance thy blade, we have found thy world, the nearest place we can place thee is currently under attack, but we shall have Simon and his pet Graug accompany thee.”

“Yeah, but could we do something about the soul thing first, she’s getting kinda restless…” I feel like I overlooked something he said. Oh well, not that important.

The Huntsman nodded and made a key identical to Simons. He then plucked something from my head that looked like an orb of stars, and promptly crushed them together in his hand, forming a new key that seemed to glow with a gentle light. In other news ...OWIE, having a demon soul pulled out of your head freaking hurt! “Thanks, so how do I get back here if I need to do this again?” Knowing my luck it would take about a week.

He chuckled “It is doubtful that thy shall need her soul fully removed a second time from thy being.”

“No I was talking about other demons or souls I capture. Like if my Celestia turns out just as bad and I need her locked in a key for the rest of eternity. You know those crazy things.”

He nodded slowly “Thou saw how Simon used a key similar to this one? The keys I make for you will allow thee to not only call upon their power, like thy demon keys, but also, they will open any door as a pathway directly to mine realm.” Well that was good to know. Should maybe give Simon a God’s liquor for this, full revive items are so useful. Just like him.

Simon was then next to me and smiling “Woo! Feels good to fight something easy for once!” He then looked to me, seeing the key in my hand. “So, you mind if I upgrade your sword with The Huntsman? We are kinda in the business of keeping our friends alive.”

“Well if that’s the game then it’s only fair.” I pulled out a small doll, the Poinee doll. “This doll will take the place of you if you or one of your allies would die. Just to let know you will still be close to death.”

Simon nodded and took the doll before he nodded and put it in what I could only assume to be a portal back home. “So with all the gifts given I’m ready to go back to the world of magic unicorns and talking rainbow haired archers.”

The huntsman had my sword in hand as I said this… wait... when did he take it? A small swarm taken from Simon as well. Orvok looked to me and chuckled “This is The Huntsmans world, kiddo. He can do as he pleases here, he simply has to will it to be.” Was I that easy to read!?

“I can never play poker with you can I?” Did I say that out loud?!

Orvok snickered as Simon and the Huntsman were busy infusing my sword. “Kid, poker would be terribly boring for me, as a Druid, I can tell whenever someone lies to me just by looking at their souls. Kinda defeats the purpose.” Wonder what my soul looks like. Especially given that Demon’s souls are supposed to be infinite.

Orvok then looked to Simon and smiled as he walked over to us, the Huntsman still working on the sword. “My boost is done, your sword can shapeshift and eats enemy magic now.”

“So what forms does it have?” Screw the True Demon Slayer I’m keeping my new shape shifting sword. Wonder if I can access the magic it eats. Thoughts and tests for later.

Simon shrugged “Kind of up to you, although I’d not have it turn into anything alive, weapons turned into life forms don’t have nice temperaments. The Huntsmans power boost, as he said for this one, will be that you can not only imbue your sword with the mystical elements, fire, water, etcetera, but also channel it through the sword into yourself, giving you a temporary power boost.” Hmm… wonder if I can channel demonic energy into it too. On another note no snake swords not only does it go against the Evil Overlord checklist but a Dark sword into a living thing just screams DUMB.

“Thanks, if there's anything I can do for you just let me know.” I felt the key fall toward me but I was ready this time. Reaching up I caught it and held it out to Simon. “I will come running.”

Simon frowned “You think I’m leaving this soon? No dice bud, your still in need of training, and I’m going to do it. Someone seems to have done decently with your magic, from my scans, but your martial mastery is a little low. No adaptability either.”

Was I that obvious! First Ed now him! At least Ed kicked my ass first but now I’m somehow sending out weak vibes… I blame Comet. “I wasn’t sending you off. I’m just a bit forgetful and if I didn’t do this now I might of forgotten to do it.” I said rubbing the back of my head chuckling.

The Huntsman was then to my left and holding out my improved sword, it looked largely the same, except it’s edge was now moving slightly, and it was surrounded by this aura that felt… it felt hungry. Like whatever hit it, it would just swallow whole. Reminds me of my brother after not getting breakfast. Or me after skipping lunch. Simon whistled “Nice work there, Huntsman, you have outdone yourself.”

The Huntsman nodded “He will need this boon, someone has sent a taken Balrog after you, Simon, I smell the ire of Oryx on you.”

You ever get that feeling like you were thrown into a world chalk full of history. That is how I felt right now, could really go for a wiki right now. “Wait what was that about Balrogs and ire? Should I be worried? I’m up to helping.” Hey I might not be that strong but I did have some Demons that were good for fighting.

Simon nodded “Yeah, and when we get to your realm, I’ll have Orvok go back for Snuffles, we’ll need the firepower.” Okay knowing anime tropes, Snuffles is either a badass grandma of Orvok or some killer giant monster. I’m hoping for the grandma angle myself, get some of those early embarrassing stories.

“So shall we be off to go fight giant monsters, then stuff their heads and hang them on your castle walls? You do have a castle right... to scare off intruders?” I said slinging an arm over Simon’s shoulder.

Simon chuckled “Well, yeah, but it’s more due to my people insisting I don’t sleep in the pub anymore. Not my fault those booths are comfy.”

“One, how do they expect you to get breakfast beer now? Two, it is if you made them.” I said nodding my head.

Simon raised a finger, then lowered it. “Damn, you are right, it is my fault… anyway, the castle is supposed to be the center of Comraich, it is designed to oversee every square inch of the place from the tower up top, I’m currently expanding Comraich around the castle.”

I was half listening but was thinking on something else. “Hey Huntsman guy, quick question for you before we leave.”

The Huntsman chuckled “Yes, man child?”

“If I seal the Balrog like I did with Nightmare Moon, could Simon or Orvok take it instead of me? I don’t really need a giant shadow and fire thing.” The thought had been hanging around in my head ever sense remembered the thing.

The Huntsman nodded and flicked my forehead, leaving an arcane mark behind, and a slight welt. “There, now thy sealing can choose a recipient. The mark will fade eventually, but the effect will be permanent.”

“Huh, guess I won’t be coming back here for more demon keys.” I muttered rubbing my head and feeling the mark. “So Simon do you want it or should I give it to the Druid?” I asked walking toward what I hoped was the exit.

Simon grinned “Why not Snuffles? He’ll be needing the boost in power soon.”

“And here I was thinking you wanted to give him a playmate.” I mumbled out.

Simon shook his head “Naw, Snuffles plays with the citizens often.”

“Is it cute?” I asked, “Tell me on the way.” Turns out it was the exit. Then again with how this place works I think the Huntsman was taking pity on me.

Gaze of boreas

We exited on top of a mountain. Now I can say having grown up around mountains that I was not scared of heights… but damn if we weren't high! “Of course it’s in a mountain, why wouldn’t it be.” I muttered turning around to see Simon and Orvok exit the door. Upon closing, the door disappeared leaving no trace. “So any idea where we are?”

Simon formed a small ball and kneed it into the air like a hacky sack, it going a few miles high. Being a soccer player in the past I could tell he had a good kick and form. Hell he could probably give most World Cup players a run for their money. Instead of going down, the ball hovered at the peak of its ascent, then opened like an eye. I looked to Simon and felt ill when I noticed that he had formed that ball from his head.”You okay there best buddy?” I had to ask.

Simon’s body gave a thumbs up before absorbing some of the stone wall beside us, forming a new head. “Yeah, just made a little spy drone, Seems we are near your worlds version of Griffonstone, apparently they are harpies here, just like in mine.”

“Yugioh harpies or wing in the back harpies?” I asked trying to figure out what they looked like.

Simon frowned “err… never watched Yugioh. But…. not outta the back. Wings for arms.”

“Ahh… Yugioh harpies,” I nodded before turning back to look at the town in the distance. “So if they are related to griffons…. I got nothing. What are they like?” I think I failed my knowledge roll.

Simon smiled “They are greedy, but they are loyal friends once you get through to them. It’s hard work getting them to like you, but once you do, it’s a friend for life.”

“So should I try not to smart off too much to them?” I needed to know how much to scream when I say something bad.

Simon nodded. “Don’t compare them to birds or to cats, and we should be fine. Also don’t say any insults regarding feathers.”

“Well time to not think of pink elephants.” I start walking forward only to fall on my face when an earthquake shook the entire mountain. “Ow,” I mumbled from my new bed. I cast a quick Heal over myself. “Think that’s Snuffles new pal?”

Simon nodded as Orvok suddenly disappeared through a portal, a giant looking legendary Graug covered in red crystal appeared. It looked to me and waved “Friend?”

“The best!” I gave a thumbs up while screaming in terror on the inside. They were so much scarier in real life.

The Graug smiled happily “Yay! Friend! Share food when fighting done! Smell bad thing, want hurt poppa!”

“Thank god he meant the Balrog.” When was the last time I had a shower or bath? Note to self get a bath. “Hey Simon,” I whispered, “I smell better then him right?”

Simon shrugged “I have no sense of smell, lost it when I was eaten by SIVA. But Snuffles would tell you if you smelled bad, he’d say you were ‘stinky’ and try to get you to a river.”

I felt a hand slowly pick me up as my stomach dropped. “Which one of us jinxed it?” I yell while my feet left the ground.

Snuffles then set me on his head, a small seat like back pack on him, “Friend ride?”

Oh thank god, “Sure, but if you get tired or need a break just let me know. We need you big guy to beat the bad guy who’s illegally bird hunting.” I think Simon said something about not calling them birds but I forgot.

Snuffles snorted as if he were laughing “Funny! Friend funny! But need not say those funnies.” I’m trying Snuffles, I’m trying!

Snuffles then walked with Simon towards the rapidly approaching city, damn we were moving fast! How Was Simon keeping- oh right he can fly. I should really look into some method of fast travel, I think I can hook up mirrors to transport me across distances. “So do we have a plan? Please don’t say it’s attack.” I pleaded.

Simon laughed as we quickly reached the village, only to find that the Balrog was pounding away at a huge dome of violet magic. Simon frowned “Okay, me and Snuffles will fight the balrog, you try to drain its power and seal it, okay?”

I attached another Demon, since I wouldn’t need Comet. “Come forth Chronos!” The gate opened as a woman covered in armor of silver and black appeared. She had long brown hair that showed through a horned helmet. Hovering over her shoulders were heavy black shields layered on top of each others held together by glowing blue chains. “I order you to protect the barrier!” She said nothing, only giving a nod of acknowledgement before flying over to the wall and blocking one of the hits. “I just need it worn down before I can seal it.” I mentioned while Concentrating.

Simon nodded and flew to the Balrog as he grabbed it’s chain by the burning end, roaring in rage as he absorbed the Balrogs weapon, using it to form several spear like things that floated around him as he pulled out a sinister looking bow with a red string. He drew the spear to the bow like an arrow and fired it straight into the Balrogs center mass.

Meanwhile, Snuffles gently set me down off to the side before the Balrog was sent flying towards him in a massive explosion of SIVA packing solar energy. “Gear Slot Two!” I felt my shield disappear as The Fallen Angel Sword appeared in my hand while the Demon Slayer turned into a crossbow. I felt God’s Arms shift a little but seemed to settle as the SIVA pulled along the bolt. “Terra Bane!” The increased strength of both of the improvement and boost of the other sword caused the bolt to launch out of the crossbow and fliker into three. I felt some joy as it hit the Balrog in both of its eyes, which now glowed not from heat, but Taken energy.

Until, that is, the Balrog looked to me in rage after ripping out the bolts. Before I could even... shout in a super manly fashion, Snuffles was on the big bastard. Grabbing the Balrog from behind and ramming him into the dirt. Snuffles roared and seemed completely different from earlier, now emphasizing every syllable with a blow to the Balrogs body or head. “NO HURT FRIEND! FRIEND IS FRIEND! NO LOSE MORE FRIEND!” That needed looking into and not by me.

“Chronos protect the big guy! Iron Wall 3!” Sheets of metal appeared before all three of us before fading into us. Iron Wall was Chronos’s special ability, it lowered all physical damage you took. The Demon floated over and hovered around Snuffles.

Snuffles, however, was busy breaking the Balrogs horns off. No really, he ripped them off of the bastards head, before breaking its wings by jabbing the horns into them. He then looked to me and took a shaky breath. “Is weak enough now!? No want look at meany!”

I turned my full attention to the broken mass before me. I saw it start thrashing when it looked at me, or more specifically my eye. Blue chains started forming around it pulling it together. The thrashing became more wild as more of it was being pulled in by the chains. “Can someone hold it down for me!?” I yelled while sweat beads started falling down my face. This thing was way stronger then NM.

Snuffles nodded and pounded it three times on the head with both fists, knocking it out cold. The chains were quick to finish their job now as it was fully pulled into the ball of blue chains. Then they lashed out and buried themselves into Snuffles chest as if anchoring themselves. “That was not supposed to happen!” I yelled hoping not to piss of the SIVA king beside me. The chains proceeded to slowly push into Snuffles as his skin parted before them like water. Once the last of it was inside I felt the mark the Huntsman left turn off. I hadn’t even realized that it was going until now, but it did explain a lot.

Snuffles looked to Simon and frowned. “Snuffles sorry, poppa, got too mad again.”

Simon smiled and walked over to Snuffles as the dome lowered “Hey, no worries, bud. You are just a pup, after all, you did me proud though! You took out a freaking Balrog like he was some two bit punk! That deserves some extra jewels back home!” At this, Snuffles cheered happily.

“Yeah hate to break this up…” I said walking up, “But Snuffles do you feel alright? Is the soul causing you any trouble?” Don’t want anything going wrong at this point.

Snuffles shook his head “No hurty, just feeling lots stronger. Feel like can fight better, and… feel like this not only me now.” Snuffles closed his eyes, before long he was a few shades darker in color and had fire coming out of his mouth and nose, with bright white chain marks showing under the skin of his body, mimicking the leylines of his body. He then closed his eyes again, and reverted back, smiling happily. “Now have two me!”

“Okay, glad your doing good big guy.” I patted the side of his arm, the highest I could reach on him. “Just let Simon know if things start to go wrong.” I then turned to Simon, “So what now? Go and throw a party for saving the Kingdom. Which I’m sure is just another Thursday for you two.”

“Did someone say PARTY?!” A voice screamed next to me. I found myself clinging to Snuffles’s arm before realizing who had yelled at me.

Snuffles tilted his head curiously. “Why pink lady yell? It scare friend.” LIES! I wasn’t scared just startled… a lot. I slowly let go of Snuffles arm while dusting myself off. I saw Simon shaking with repressed laughter.

“Oh I’m sorry, and I screamed because Parties are important. Have you ever been to a Party?” Pinkie asked looking up at him with a head tilt. Why could I tell she capitalized the ‘p’s?

Snuffles nodded. “Had party last week before coming this world. Beat mean lady who hurt us, throw party celebrate!”

“And you just beat a meanie thingie!” Pinkie said pointing at Snuffles. “So what do you do after beating meanies? You party!”

“With logic like that, who could beat that?” I asked while looking at Simon. “So how bout it Hero King? Care to join us for what should be an awesome party?”

Simon grinned. “Sure thing. Just let me make a cave for Snuffles to sleep in, don’t want him having to sleep in the town.”

Snuffles nodded sheepishly. “Might squish, roll in sleep.”

“Aww… Do you need a massage too?” A quiet voice asked while patting Snuffles. So Flutter was a Pegasis. “How about some food? Can’t sleep on an empty stomach.”

Snuffles smiled at Fluttershy “Me eat rocks and metal, sometimes jewels if good! Like the blue ones… and am-ee-thist.”

Simon smiled at Fluttershy, “I got his food settled, I can make him a cave pretty easy, and I’ll even be able to seal it after, so no worries there. Snuffles, when do you want me to make the cave, about an hour?”

Snuffles nodded “Yes, poppa, want go to party!”

“Hmm… A party with a hour intermission,” Pinkie said while taking a thinker pose using one of Snuffles foot as a stool. “I can work with that, yeah I can work with that.”

“As nice as this all is. Who are you guys?” A voice butted in as a very familiar wizard said. Dang it memory why do you fail me now!? Twimight? Snarkle? Twiblight? Smatlight? Of course I could remember the others name. But her? Swoosh, gone.

“Yeah,” Rainbow archer said while rushing up to Snuffles. “As awesome as you are we still need to protect this place!” Wow a complement and threat.

“RAINBOW!” Flutters yelled appearing in front of her. “He is a giant teddy bear! Aren’t you?” She turned and started petting him like a dog.

Snuffles turned his head to Fluttershy curiously “What is teddy bear? Is nice? Snuffles nice until try hurt friend.”

“Well you guys have met the giant so how about you two?” Wow, she seemed tired. The shield must have taken a lot out of the purple wizard.

Simon frowned warily. “I’m Simon, I’m from another realm, and the current king of my people. Now, would someone please tell your polychromatic friend to stop giving Snuffles the stink eye? It’s really starting to annoy me. Snuffles is basically my son, so I don’t exactly like people being unkind to him.”

This seemed to get different reactions from the group. Purple people eater waved her hand for Rainbow to stand down while Rainbow hovered down to behind her. Pinkie had already left, talking a mile a minute about some thing to do with streamers. Fluttershy was talking a mile a minute asking questions from how he was born to if he born from an egg.

Well looks like it’s up to me to get things back on track. “You know I’m not sure if I should be hurt that you don’t remember me.” I gave a smile while walking a bit forward relaxed. “How’s it going?”

Twilight turned toward me as if seeing me for the first time. Her eyes widened while her hand raised while pointing a finger at me. “Yeah I know. Where’s Ed? I sent him home after we beat the ‘master’. So no need to worry, I got out.” I saw Rainbow stop flying and fall to the ground as she took on the same shocked expression.

“As much fun as it would be to get an explanation, I feel the need to offer our own thanks.” A harpy dressed in heavy armor said. They had whiteish wings with a few dark spots, like that of an owl, while the armor he wore was pure silver but showed wear and tear with knicks and scratches showing on its surface. “So shall we proceed inside.” Their voice was like gravel on cement with a deep tone in it. “I have quite a few questions to ask you three.”

Well been here for… ten minutes and I haven’t put my foot in my mouth! Wonder how long I can keep this up! “To the bir-” I was quick to bite my tongue. You were not ruining this now mouth. I saw a couple heads turn my way as I quickly started whistling. “What? I was just thinking of a song and forgot the lyrics.” Play it cool Oz, play it cool…

Simon looked to Fluttershy and smiled tensely “I would not know how Graugs are born, I found him near death in the badlands, healed him up with my SIVA, and we’ve been inseparable ever since.”

Snuffles nodded. “Almost go to forever sleep like momma cause hunters hurt for skin and bone.”

“Oh you poor baby!” Fluttershy cooed while trying to hug him. “Did you capture those mean bad hunters?” She asked while looking at Simon.

Simon nodded “The magi responsible are still being hunted to this day. I will not see the hunting of Graugs turn any profit for those disgusting wretches. Someone who would harm a cub is no longer welcome by my people. We are working with the magi to enforce our laws on poaching.”

“Oh so your from another dimension too?” Twilight asked while Fluttershy had pulled a blanket out of somewhere and was trying to put it on Snuffles.

As Snuffles played with the blanket, and laughed with Fluttershy and the ‘fun game’ Simon nodded. “I honestly doubt you would like my dimension, your people, the Magi, are quite cruel to mine, the Kin.”

“Um… guys are we just going to ignore the birdies?” I asked while pointing at the annoyed general. Wait, what did I just say?

Simon facepalmed and walked over to me before smacking me upside the head. “I said not to call them that, and I was about to direct us toward the kind general who was offering his hospitality.” He then turned to the annoyed harpie general. “I for one, if your offer still stands after my friends blunder, would be delighted to enjoy your hospitality.” Well if he didn’t accept I could always get on my hands and knees to ask for forgiveness.

“Yes the offer still stands,” The man said while gesturing for us to follow him. “Come I’m sure that pink menace has already made a party… This would have been her twentieth offence…” Dude sounded resigned to his fate.

Simon smiled wryly. “How about this? You and your people remove the party ban, and I get you your lost Idol? I can do things most individuals can’t, so… Offers open.”

“Wait what Idol?” I hate being confused, or lost. “Hey where is your ruler anyway?” You think the king would have been here by now.

Simon frowned. “If this dimension is like my own, they have no king, mostly just generals who head the village, like a mayor. The last king lost their sacred Idol of Boreas, which was their unifying force.” Wow I was learning so much today.

“Alright I’ll get the whip you grab the hat, and Snuffles provides the wit, we’ll have this thing back by sundown!” I yelled while pointing at the sky.

Simon smirked. “Where are we going then, mister confident?”

“I have no idea!” I said giving my best smile. “But it must be somewhere in Griffinstone!” Behold my deductionary skills. BEHOLD I SAY!

Simon sighes and smacks my head again, this time knocking me face first into a lady Griffons bosom by accident. I would rate them a 6 out of 10 on the comfy scale. Could be the brain damage though.

Simon breaks out laughing. “Good luck with Gilda, man!” TRAITOR! Skills I don’t have don’t fail me now.

“Um… Lovely weather isn’t it?” Nailed it! “So… want to help find an Idol?” Please don’t kill me I have yet to smash my computer and destroy all the porn it contains! Or I could just delete the search history, that TOO!

“You want to make me your idol?” She asked while swaying from side to side. You know I think might be drunk. Lucky me…? “Okay weird monkey thing, you may worship me.” She started to go for her shirt.

“OH GOD SIMON! SAVE ME!” I yelled while grabbing her arms from doing what I think they were doing.

Simon then simply uses his SIVA to dissolve her top. From across the party. Damn he has skills. Not the skills I was hoping for though. But still, many points to him.As I thought this, he dissolved my shirt as well, and made them fall on the ground next to him. All points GONE! Well only one option left. Simon then wolf whistled, and shouted “Kiss, Kiss, KKKIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSS!”

“RETURN DOOR!” A gateway of glowing energy popped up behind me. I was quick to jump in it. I popped up next to Simon only to have my glare interrupted by a sudden weight on my back.

“Where you going?” Her breath reeked of booze and maybe… bread?

“I blame you.” I said while glaring at Simon.

Simon whispered to Gilda. “He’s playing hard to get, guys really shy, just kiss his worries away.” Okay time for option two.

“Snuffles help me!” I yelled looking for my new savior, hopefully. Ah! She’s trying to kiss me! And she’s failing horribly!

Snuffles was too busy, it seems, playing charades with the girls. He had a huge moustache and clothes that screamed peewee herman.

Simon then clocked Gilda in the head smirking. “You owe me a life debt now,” At my confused stare he happily enlightened me, “Harpies mate for life.” Wow, I just dodged a million bullets.

“Your still a virgin.” Terra informed me. Thanks for reminding me asshole.

Simon then chuckles “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He left while I pushed the Harpie off me. I grabbed my shirt, god was I wore this ugly thing under my sweater!, and put it back on. Awkwardly I started putting Gilda’s shirt on while trying to not get sued for sexial harresment.

“What… the… hell?” Rainbow asked while I turned around.

“There is a very good, maybe, reason for this, maybe.” I said while finishing lowering the shirt. “Unless you're jealous, then yes it is.”

She tackled me to the ground. “What are you doing to my ex-friend!” I tried to get up or push her up.

“Hey I’m back… You work fast.” Simon said holding a golden statue, hey that might be the Idol of Boring.

“If it makes me look better then… yes.” I said laying down to accept whatever fate I disserved. Rainbow’s face turned bright red while I saw Simon give Gilda the idol. I saw a fist heading my way as my world descended into darkness.

Perverted gaze

I woke up in a nice hospital. And by nice I mean it was pretty worn down. Now that I thought about most of this city looked pretty beat up. This place really needed some missionary help. I suppose the Balrog might have not helped. As I turned over I saw that I now had a nice shiner around my eye from where Rainbow probably hit me. Huh, even the mirror had cracks in it, and was dirty… kinda wish I had some windex. But on to more pressing matters, like planning my revenge on Rainbow, Gilda, Simon, and Snuffles, in that order. Maybe not Snuffles, he was to pure. But first I still, maybe, needed vengeance on Lightning Dust. I was very up in the air about what to do about her. I’m sure something will come to me.

I felt a Heal work its way through me as the black eye slowly faded away. “Hey Terra did anything happen while I was out?” I asked the Demon who lived inside me and refused to pay rent.

“How should I know? I see what your eyes see, granted my enhanced senses allow me to see better, so when you close them I can’t see.” The demonic general answered back.

“Well your no help.” I shot back mentally trying to shove our connection away. It wasn’t needed since Terra gave an annoyed grunt before I felt him leave. “Time to find the others.” Leaving the, hospital?, he started searching for his, friends? While he neared the exit he went through his mental faculties and found something shocking. He had a second demon slot open. Now the question was what to put in it?

Tracing his fingers over different keys his mind felt smooth almost velvet key. A new key that he had obtained yesterday. Pulling on it he slowly slid it into the slot but it felt weird. Usually when the key went into the slot he would see it like a doll sitting on a shelf with chains wrapped around both it and him. But now he felt like he was handed a character sheet and a new energy flowed from him.

“My we have forgotten how boring the harpie’s home can be.” An articulate voice said beside him. “We know not how this has come to be but it shall be a good place for us to start.” Turning I saw someone around my size with light purple hair that fell down and looked well groomed. She had a pitch black foci crystal with the band hidden behind her hair. She wore light armor of manly light to dark blue that covers the upper part of her body with the lower only having shorts and armored leggings. The bottom of her feet had high heels, so that meant she was actually shorter than him.

“Nightmare Moon?” I asked while feeling the status sheet and wow this will be interesting.

“Indeed it is Us,” Turning they saw me standing and stepped back acting like I was some coiled snake. This caused the mechanical wings behind her to spring out like a bird trying to make itself look bigger. “What thou should have been dust when we are remade!”

“Oh guess you don’t remember me sealing you away?” I asked casually still trying to figure out what happened. “Well you were a threat so instead of killing you I decided that the better solution would be to seal you away, and well to make a long story short. I met a god and with their help turn you into a key. It happens,” I finished with a shrug.

“So what does that mean for me?” Night, you know now that I looked at her ‘sheet’, she didn’t have a really have a name. Huh, should fix that, right now. Okay name time, name time, name… time… Damnit brain why do you fail me now! Sure coming up with snarks, no problem, time to name something? Nope, got nothing.

“Well, first we need to think of a good name for you.” I said while rubbing my chin. I saw her step back with a shock faced.

“Wha-what did thou say?” She said while staring at me. “We have a name if thou have not forgotten!”

“No you called yourself Luna, who you are not. Then again you were also called Nightmare Moon and I’m not calling you that cause that is too much of a mouthful.” I said waving her off while still trying to figure out what to call the girl in front of me.

Simon then took that exact moment to check up on me. He saw Nightmare Moon, and right as I prepared for the worst, he waved at her all friendly like! “Why hello there, what do you call yourself? I don’t feel like referring to you as that certain slur, or as your host.”

“Wait that is a slur? That explains so much!” I yelled trying to get my mind in gear.

“We have told thee we are the true maiden of the moon, Luna! Not that weak puppet who took our name!” The now enraged women yelled.

Simon frowned sadly. “Actually, you two are likely two parts of the same whole. From my...special senses, a certain chunk of your being is missing. Now, either we could try to fuse you two together again, or, we could try to regrow your two individual halves into independent beings.”

“We would prefer to just kill her and be done with all this.” NM said with a pout. “We do not want anything more to do with that… thing that would reject who we were.”

Simon grinned “Well, Stella, if you’ll have that name, I doubt murder would be okay. You must remember, that it is more useful to make allies than enemies.”

“Stella, guess that works,” I said pushing it toward the character sheet in my mind.

“Would you make an ally with someone who denied everything that you stood for? Who took your name and defiled it? Who backed down on everything we stood for? Would you forgive and make allies with them, KING?” She spat at him like she was personally insulted by his question.

Simon placed a hand on her temple in one quick motion, as we both saw...horrible, horrible things, the screams of children being harvested like cattle, of men being beaten for trying to feed their families, of mass clan genocide on horrifying scales, I think I need to hurl. “I have seen these memories from a firsthand perspective, through my people, who I swore to protect with every fiber of my being. Before I was a king? I was a doctor...and my world was sick, so very, very sick. I am still trying to undo these horrors, to cure the ailment, and that is why I MUST be a king. Because while no nation will listen to a single man, they will definitely listen to another nation.”

That was… Well only one thing to say. “Thank you for sharing that. I now need to use the can over there for a few seconds.” I said while walking over to a nice can and proceeded to empty my stomach into it while giving the nice man the bird.

“How, how could you live with those… memories, how can you… forgive.” Stella asked as she fell to her knees while looking up at him.

Simon smiled and helped her up gently. “Because everyone has darkness in them, and as a leader, it has become my job to make the world a safe place for my people, and their children. The only way to ensure that, is to ensure peace, no more hate, no more anger, just… forgiveness... on both sides.”

“Keep going like that and you’ll make King Arthur look inadequate.” I mumbled while getting up. “So now on to how weak we both are. She got downgraded to level one.” I said pointing at Stella who looked like she was trying to reevaluate her whole life using cliff notes.

Simon nodded and took out his bow, creating a much less menacing looking one and handing it to Stella. “Here, we are going to train, the three of us, Snuffles is already there, we are heading to Comraich.” Simon then grins and walks out of the hospital, before running into a stressed out Gilda. She has rainbow hairs in her feathers… oh my~. All the implications~.

“What the hell did you two do!?” She ground out through clenched teeth.

“Me, I did nothing, all on him!” I said before sliding behind my new meat shield.

Simon smiled warmly to Gilda. “I gave the leadership to the most qualified person. You are the one who looked past your own ego to reach out to Rainbow again, even after you, incorrectly mind you, assumed she replaced you. You looked past your greed, and didn’t try to sell the idol for its worth, knowing its importance was greater than your own gain.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “You are the best leader for the Harpy people. Not because you lack flaws, but because you rise above them.”

“If it helps any I think you will make a great, beautiful, and kind leader.” I said from behind Simon while giving her a great thumbs up. “Besides you have the support of the element of… which element was Rainbow again?” I should really write these things down somewhere.

Simon chuckled “Loyalty, she is way different from the RD in my world, at least at first meetings, although… in her defence, she was under the sway of a prideful, conceited bigot of a god.”

“Yes we know where our sisters weaknesses lie. You need not remind us.” Stella said having found the will to walk again. “Now Sir Simon if you would be so kind as to continue on the way.” Wow her ego was huge if she talked to Simon that way, you know like someone talking to a dog you wanted to keep walking but it stopped to smell the garbage on the side of the road.

Simon chuckled “Mind your tongue dear, lest your other teachers try to teach you respect. I will not be your only teacher.”

“Can Snuffles be one of the teachers?” Please say yes, please say yes!

Simon grinned “No.” Damn it!

He then opened a portal to our left and walked us through, him smiling as he saw a HUGE troll and his...family? Walking towards us. Well when in Rome, or new Equestria. “Top of the morning!” I said wishing I had brought a top hat, “how are you doing this most wonderful day. Interdimensional travel really takes it out of one and I wish to hear some good news.” Man my british accent sucked, need to work on it more.

The huge troll looked to his wife, who nodded and covered his sons ears, before looking to Simon and pointing to me “Who this jackass?”

“Names Oz, and thank you for the compliment.” I said with fake cheer.

The troll man looked to me and tilted his head. “Why not talk like used to? Az-Barko could tell accent fake. Really crappy.”

Simon snorted in laughter as I soldiered on. “Thank you for the review I shall work on making it better for the next time we meet.”

Az-Barko, as I assume he was named, patted my shoulder. “Wise ass bad idea if right guessing you here to train. Grimgor tough teacher. So is Simon.” Wonder if I’m right about the name? I mean Simon did mention someone who acted like him.

Simon smirked “Your right, Azzy, we’re going to put these two through the ringer, when we are done with them, they’ll be able to knock out Snuffles in a fight!”

Snuffles, who turned out to be relaxing in a nearby lava pit, must be toasty in there, climbed out and absorbed the leftover heat, letting the lava harden into obsidian armor. “Now why would I knock out that guy, I like him. Plus I love living too.”

Simon smiled to Stella “First of all, recruit, is proper gear, Oz is getting gear after we get you outfitted, because at your current power level, a Ghul pup could kill you.”

“At level one I think a bad look from them could knock her out. You do remember at level one people usually fight ROUS right.” At seeing the blank stares I let out a sigh. “Princess Bride. It stands for Rodents Of Unusual Size.”

Simon shook his head “Nah, the big rodents here? They eat Ghuls. Anyway, a Ghul pup would be a threat to you now, but when we are done, you will be able to beat a Dragon Lord into submission.”

“Alright what are we waiting for hit that Mulan soundtrack and ‘Let’s Get Down To Business~.’” I tried signing.

Az-Barko sighed and smacked me in the back of the head, sending me face first into what I hope was just fragrant mud. Really, really hope. Thank god my mouth was closed, but my nose, too full.

Simon leaned down. “That, was Caragor crap. Now get to a shower so you don’t disturb the other two recruits!” Thank you for confirming it.

“Thank you for the advice. Now if you could get me a map I shall be on my way.” I stood up trying to save whatever pride I had. Who was I kidding that went and threw itself into a bonfire.

Simon simply turned me in a circle, my back was to a huge, highly detailed, yet easy to read map. “And your assuming I will remember that. Hate to say it but half the time I can’t remember anyone's name.” Like that Lightning Bliss chick, or was it Lightning Dust? See what I mean!

Simon simply places my hand on the building on the map, and I was promptly at what sounded like the showers. Ahh, man! I missed a chance do say ‘Beam me up Scotty’. Oh, well shower time. I looked at the building for minutes staring at the two doors, the two unmarked doors… Well fifty fifty chance. I opened the door and slowly made my way inside. “Hello anyone in here, part of facility cleaning.” What I’m shy and don’t like changing in front of others.

“Ohh, is someone there?” A quiet voice asked as I was greeted to a site many man would die to see. Fluttershy totally naked, and man what a rack. I felt some blood make its way up my head and exit out my nose. Looking up I saw her eyes widen before her pupils shrunk down to pin pricks. “AHHH!”

“Fluttershy what happend!” Rainbow yelled charging out of what I assume was the changing room.

“I think she realized the inevitability of death.” I tried, “So if you can excuse me I’m just going to go clean the other bathroom now.” I slowly made my way to the exit.

Rainbow was following me with a calm air about her, the scary kind of calm. “You really think that’s going to fly, perv?”

Damn my pop culture references. “I am no mere pervert I am the legendary SUPER PERVERT OZ!” I said while going through the motions of the dance that goes with it. I think I did good. I saw Rainbow’s eye start twitching as she pulled her bow out of her pile of clothes, oh hey she was just in underwear. She drew back her bow as I threw my hand forward as my shield formed on my arm. The arrow hit my shield pushing me back and threw the wall. I felt a couple bruises form on my back but a quick Heal did away with any damage I had taken. Turning I saw a family stop and take in what happend. Well better explain myself.

“Kid make sure to stay in school or you two will have to clean up shit.” I pulled myself out of the wall and look forward. “Hey crazy arrow chick, you done? I have work to do.” Please buy it.

“Oh, hell no!” She yelled as I saw her draw her bow back to notch another arrow. I need to get close to… no wait I don’t have that restriction anymore. I was quick to dodge out the way of another shot that freezed the building behind me.

“Now, now, no need to be cold.” Feeling my sword change into the desired shape I launched the bolt that was already in it. As it flew I Concentrated while trying to consider what to do next. If this RD was anything like mine than she could pelt me with Elemental Arrows while all I had to attack with was Terra, Mars, and Bolt. So straight up, she would win, not to even mention she had three dimensional movement while all I could do was go up and down the road.

“Nice try but I will win.” And just like that she was in the air just like I knew she would. “There is no escaping me.” Huh, that was a thought. I slipped my hand into my pocket to get ready for my next move.

Simon then intervened, the both of us getting wrapped up in SIVA bindings. “Would someone, please... care to tell me... WHY YOU ARE WRECKING MY PEOPLES CAPITAL?!”

Wow he seemed mad. “Well you see I went to go clean but was then attacked by the streak.” Whelp, I’m going to die.

Simon frowned “That’s a load of shit. What you were actually doing, was disrupting the ladies shower, most likely. Let me guess, heard someone showering and thought you’d get a peek? NO DICE! I have a LOT of patience, but that, is NOT okay. Especially since as a result you two put citizens at risk, I was going to go easy on your training before this, but now? Prepare to be put through the fucking ringer!”

“Well… Yeah I got nothing, I should have thought before needling… god I forgot your name, have we met yet, in this world I mean? Anyway to correct a mistake I walked in on accident, I was not looking which one I was going into. I blame my eyes watering because of the smell.” What a true man owns up to mistakes.

RD frowned. “Okay, granted you do reek, but you are in hot water with me until you apologize to Shy. As for now, I’ll pay to repair the damages from my savings… But you owe me. And I’ll show you the right showers for ya.”

“Oh thank god your paying, I’m so broke ducks throw bread at me. So Simon you going to leave us hanging.” I put on my best smile while looking at him.

Simon smiled warmly. “RD is free, because I’d react the same way if someone peeked on Chryssi, but you? You will hang there and ferment for three hours.”

“You know this is the second time this happened to me?” I asked while still hanging there. “... So do I get any company. I mean beside the voice in my head?”

Simon smiled “Okay, I’ll leave you with… RD, armed with a hose.”

RD smiled “Thanks boss, what’s my punishment though?”

He still smiled “Mandatory confession to Shy. And you two have to go on a double date with me and Chryssi.”

“Oh that sounds lovely, make sure to take pictures to show your kids.” I said trying to get one of my arms free. “Need them embarrassing stories.”

Simon stared at me. “I… doubt you know how much shit you just stepped in with that statement.”

“About as much as I fell into.” I answered honestly.

He shook his head. “More. Now rumors will spread…”

RD frowned curiously “Of what?”

Simon gestured to the two Uruk women off to the side, gossiping like nothing happened. “That Chryssi is expecting.”

“So, she isn’t?” I asked slowly getting one hand out, only for the SIVA to become a full body restraint tying me to the top of the wall.

Simon simply said a few words that rocked me to my core. “She is, and you just endangered my daughter.”

“Huh,” great now I felt like an ass. “...Sorry…” Man I sounded pathetic, probably looked it too. “So are you going to punish your people by leaving a smelly man hanging here?” Good break the ice.

Simon sighed “You have a point, let’s see… Oh, Snuffles!” No.

The familiar big lug came lumbering up to us, “Yes poppa?” No, no, no.

Simon grinned “Dunk him in the lake a few times. Feel free to play with him too.” What god did I anger?! It was the Huntsman, wasn’t it!?

Snuffles nodded and grabbed me, running at high speed to the nearest lake, which had several Uruk women who actually didn’t look half bad. I had all of five seconds to stare before Snuffles punched a hole in the top layer of ice and dunked me the first time. Dear god it was cold. Thank god I had, have, the Vial of Breath. I can’t imagine trying to keep my eyes open without it. Unforntally as I took a breath a goddamn fish went in my mouth! Feeling the big guy pull me out I spat out the fish. “I have brought you the treasure of the sea now please release me oh Great Snuffles!”

Snuffles ate the fish like a junky would pop a pill, then sniffed me. “Still smell like poopie, dunk two more times. Then play! We play fun things!” Oh god it still is freezing, no wait... HOW IS IT MORE COLD NOW!?

End Gaze

Author's Note

This marks the end of my crossovers for a while, gotta do some story on my own for a bit.

End Gaze

“You look like shit.” Stella stated as I flopped down in front of her. Why must she pun now!

“Hey Snuffles you want to play with the nice lady next?” I asked my face still buried in the ground.

Snuffles looked to Stella hopefully. “Play games? Maybe checkers? Snuffles like checkers! And tic tac!” This week had been hell. When Simon said he was going to put me through the ringer I thought he was just exaggerating not that his version of the ringer was made out of demonic SIVA HELL-SPIKES THAT SPIT GREEN FIRE! I mean it didn’t help that my mouth took every chance to snark... but hey I could feel myself becoming stronger along with more skills and Demons open up. Even got some chances to try out my Alchemy skills, need them up to snuff when I see Ed again. I really should thank him next chance I got for the magic canceling shield, it is so helpful especially when combined with the magic eating sword.

Simon smiled “And that’s what you get for saying my wife has a huge ass. I don’t care how spankable it looks, you just don’t say that to a married woman, especially in front of her husband.”

“I only say what is true and you know it!” I muttered trying to eat a worm that dared come close to a hungry me.

Simon smirked, “Oh, only speak the truth, eh? Well, my turn. Truth is, I am going to be giving every recruit but your second helpings of the meals today. Your rations are, again, halved.”

I looked up to see him also dangle my item bag in front of me. Simon had taken it from me during the first day of training when I had pulled some jerky out of it. “Whelp hope they enjoy the extras, I’m just going to lay here a few extra minutes.”

“What about us Sir Simon, will we suffer with this man?” Stella asked.

Simon nodded, “You two, thanks to the Huntsman, are bound by fate. You need to support each other, make up for each others weaknesses and shortcomings. If one of you fail, both of you do, one of you succeed? Both of you succeed.”

“And in other news… Worms don’t taste as great unless cooked.” I said sitting up. “So… anything else going on, I mean besides running a slowly expanding nation?” Already I felt plans form in my head of what to do about the food shortage.

Simon grinned “We are going to finally teach you how to use your special gear, Oz, you got to be the jack of all trades, the middle ground between any other party members that join your group in the future. Stella? You have to make sure that there are no hidden threats, no opportunities missed, you are the groups eye in the dark, am I clear?”

“About as clear as you have always been.” I pointed out, hey I’m not going to complain about having a wise mentor figure who doesn't speak in riddles.

Simon nodded, pleased, “Good, now, Oz, over the last week, I have been imbuing your mind with different basic battle styles for each weapon archetype. Be it an axe, hammer, gauntlet or spear, you will be able to bring the hurt, same with your shield. I also heavily sedated the demon inside you, so he will be so high that he can’t get any of this knowledge. He’s stoned silly.” Well that explains why Terra has been so happy lately.

“So let me guess this is the part where you drag us to the arena to have us fight another one of your commanders and bet on how long we last against them?” I think the longest we did was one and a half minutes against Azzy and his wife. And that was because for half the time I was dodging. I have gotten very good at that.

Simon nodded, “Yes, almost. You two will be facing me.”

“Can I surrender now or at the arena?” What it is a legitimate question.

Simon responded angrily, “No, never surrender, that is to give up your reason for fighting, and to insult anyone with you. You NEVER surrender. Retreat, yes, but only when tactics mandate it. Never let fear rule you.”

“Fine, fine, I guess we’ll give it our best shot. Come on Stella, let's show him what we got.” I made my way to my feet while dusting myself off as best I could.

“Very well if we must face Sir Simon we shall do it together, while enjoying your use as our human shield.” Wow, she is getting better. Last week I was her annoying meat puppet. Simon does good work.

Simon nodded, “Let’s get the commanders as well, they wanted to see this.” Yes let my humiliation be known to all. Well at least I can’t die.

“Well at least it won’t be another husband and wife team.” I said before feeling a dark presence behind me. “I made an oopsie didn’t I?”

Simon smiled, “You know, I actually hold back around my wife. Don’t like scaring her. She’s out doing diplomacy with the Yaks and the dragons.”

Well crap, “Even though I walk through the Valley of Death I shall not fear.” I muttered to myself as I tried to venture forward.

Simon sent out odd looking drones made of SIVA, which I remembered were to lead the newer Commanders that had yet to receive their SIVA gear to the Arena. He smiled, “Seems they’ll be there before us. Let’s go.”

At the Arena

As I entered the Arena I felt so glad that I had unlocked the third Demon Slot as I equip both Hermes and Chronos to the two empty slots getting ready for the battle ahead.

Discord was there, acting as the referee for this match. “Ladies and gentleman, as the magical authority of Comraich, I am glad to say, that this will be a fight to remember! Simon, verses his two star pupils! Let’s see how well Simon has brought out their potential! I for one, am one eager beaver!” He said that as his teeth became beaver like for a moment as he gnawed on a piece of wood, making it into a statue of himself and Twilight. “Ooh! A nice gift for my own star pupil!...once I sanitize it.”

“Don’t forget to varnish it, paint helps too!” I yelled to him.

Discord gave a thumbs up, “Good idea, good buddy! Can’t wait to teach you some magical theory next week!” Oh god he’s going to teach me, should I be happy or worry about what little remains of my sanity?! I’ll do both.

Simon cleared his throat and Discord facepalmed, “Oops, sorry, did it again, hard not to dote on her, she is such a good student!”

“They all say that. Then you find out that they are doing EXTRA CREDIT behind your back! Then they demand that you grade all the books they highlighted! It is a very slippery slope.” I said with a nod.

Simon then sighed “Change of plans, Discord versus Oz.”

“Wait what about Stella?!”

Discord grew very quiet as Simon ushered Stella into the stands. “You… You dare imply that I would not only dirty Twilights learning with underhanded tactics for sex… but that I would care so little for my student as to take advantage of her like that?!”

“...Wait when did I imply that? I just meant that she is a bit of an …overachiever. Though if you are going to date her make sure to make plushies to sell. I’m sure they will do quite well.” Seriously this man needs to get his mind out of the gutter.

Discords eyes suddenly blazed “I would never cheapen her like that! She is like a daughter to me! A-And plushies? Your sick! I’m going to enjoy this!”

“I get shipping is a bit of a weird thing to do but really?” I asked while getting ready for what might come next.

“And making it global? YOU ARE DEAD MEAT!” Well that summarizes this situation too perfectly.

“Wait... one last joke please?” I asked raising my hand. “What has the worst plot ever?... Twilight,” I waited for his response and only got an eye twitch. “That’s the butt of the joke.”

The next few sentences have been expunged by Pinkie Pie and Discord for being too gruesome for even the most mature of audiences. Simon had to convince to revert Oz back from something resembling a picasso painting.

Well that was… interesting... and painful, so very...very painful, yet at the same time so worth it.

Simon sighed “The magic lessons were supposed to be like a vacation, now they’ll be hell for you…”

“What’s the difference?” I asked while feeling Stella approach. “Hope you don’t mind that I stole the limelight.”

“Is thou asking us if we are sorry not to have partaken in the massacure?” Stella asked while poking at me with her glade. “Then the answer is no we are not.” She wore her new favorite bow on her back.

There was then a loud, earth shattering bang as a massive hole in the sky opened up, some weird looking airships coming out of them. Simon cussed loudly and looked to us, “Everybody, get ready! Battlestations!”

Az-Barko nodded and barked an order to his troops, the only regiment of Ologs Simon has made so far, and ordered them to man the outer walls and… something called the Archfiends?

“What is going on?! Who’s attacking?” I asked getting to my feet. I saw Stella mimicking an owl trying to find the enemy.

Simon’s voice was grim. “The first, of many invaders. The Eliksni, the fallen. They were originally beings of good, but they fell from grace, and judging from their ships that are coming in, they are ready for a fight.”

“Well good sir Simon it seems they weren’t the only ones prepared.” Stella said as she saw what I assumed were Archfiends being carried up and bolted down to the towers and battlements alongside the turrets, which were reactivated.

Simon nodded. “Roxy is still recovering, and Chryssi is pregnant with my daughter, I refuse to let them take part in this. With two of our heavy hitters out of the fight, I hope this show of force makes them think twice about us, I mean, a endless ballista armed with SIVA made Javelins the size of Ballista bolts? I wouldn’t want to fight it, and I beat down Celestia.”

“So should I run for cover?” I asked while looking at the ships. “Or should I just get some ear plugs?”

Simon smirked “Get some earmuffs from Grimgor if you need them, but I need you and Stella to make sure every one of the civilians get to the bunker, it’s under the capitol building,” We shared a confused look at him. “er… the castle. Damn it, I hate saying I live in a castle!”

“Hermes!” I yelled as a portal opened behind me. From it appeared a man with long green hair and wearing a bright yellow hunter vest with a tan sweater underneath. “You heard Simon start getting everyone where we need them!”

“Consider it done,” The Demon of Winds said before taking off with a slight trail of wind behind him.

Snuffles was already at the gate, laying down large boulders for the weird siege weapon just by the gate, it looked like some weird air cannon, but with a bunch of odd parts, it honestly made my head hurt thinking of how thought out Simons defences were. I mean, even Snuffles has a means of ranged attack! I could faintly hear Snuffles talking to himself. “If they mean... they go boom!”

“So… we just wait here for them or do you have a Mecha for me? No wait you probably gave that to Chryssy as a birthday present didn’t you?” I asked trying to break the ice and get my mind off the HUGE GUN Snuffles has. Snuffles is great and all but that gun looks like it could wreck me in two seconds flat.

Simon simply pulls out a weird microphone connected to a stranger box, which I was later told was a broadcaster to their ship’s speakers, basically telling the whole ship what he was saying, and in their own language too. “Greetings Eliksni, we mean you no harm, only if you attack us will we fight back. I will warn you though, we are FAR more deadly than any guardian of the light. I, am the lord of Dawn, I walk both in light and darkness, and I WILL defend my people. If you dare try to wage war against us, you will be wiped from this and every world I visit.”

“Well that was a good warning, hopefully they accept it, turn around, leave, and never come back. Am I right?” I asked only to get hit upside the head by Stella.

“No you fool they have traveled this far we doubt a simple warning will suffice.” Hello negative Nancy how are you today?

Simon then looked to Grimgor and Orvok, who had set up their own means of defence, turning the local Caragors into war hounds, and making a pack of lesser stygian graugs with armor. They all considered Snuffles their alpha male, even though he was just a pup, because he simply dwarfed them all. Grimgor gave Snuffles his own, much more threatening armor, and smiled “I look forward to them picking a fight, I really do.”

And just like that, an entire armada of Fallen ships appeared from mid air, dropping spider like tanks and began to advance, with a small army of Eliksni soldiers, even a few weird floating robot eyes. Simon smirked even wider. “They made their choice. Let’s have some fun, eh boys?”

“Uh, ladies first?” I ask Stella, “You see I think Discord forgot to put my lungs in the right place so I might need a minute to catch up and Hermes is still gone so…”

“Get in there!” Stella yelled pushing me forward so I arrived at the front line.

“No need to be pushy. Simon what is the plan, I mean besides kick their assess?”

Simon smiled sadly. “The plan for me and my people? Survive. For you two? Leave the second it looks like you might die, because I won’t be able to finish your training. Even if we manage this battle unscathed, this marks the beginning of a new war for the Kin.”

Upon looking to where Discord was, I saw that he was now sweating profusely, his body looking much older as he seemed to be fighting something. “Gotta… close it… can’t… let more through…”

“Looks like we have our objective Stella, We shall protect the Lord of Chaos!” I said pointing my sword towards him as a wave of Fallen start approaching the immobilized god.

RD and Flutters, as well as the rest of the Mane Six of this dimension, came up to us, Simon looking to them and frowning, before he could say anything, RD interrupted. “No, we are not going to hide in the bunker like cowards, we have friends here, way more than ever in Ponyville, and it’s thanks to you guys that we have that! We’re protecting the inner city, two of us for each quarter of the city!”

Simon paused, then grinned “Looks like my lessons are taking effect, eh? Well, good to know. At your leisure girls, I’ll be going to the enemies front lines, sew a little anarchy along their ranks.”

“Game plan is a go then!” I said before running at the lines of Fallen. “Slash!” Once again I saw reality given the middle finger as my attack started hitting enemies around us. But this time it went farther then one row. Thanks to the improvement of Simon and The Huntsman the Demon Slayer changed into a long range weapon and was able to reach the full length of Slash 3. It made me all kinds of happy!

As I fought on the ground, the Archfiends lat fly at any ship that tried to get close, blowing them into shrapnel. Snuffles would then use his huge ass cannon to suck up waid falling shrapnel and lodge it inside a SIVA boulder within the gun barrel, before launching it at a spider tank.

Everywhere I looked, it was the same, Fallen coming down from the sky, and dying almost instantly. Simon, who looked like he was beyond pissed off, punched his hand through the lens of the robot eyes, which I later learned were servitors, and yanked out a handful of wires before he basically roared a deluge of SIVA into it, the Servitor getting eaten whole. “YOU SHALL DIE HERE, FALLEN SCUM, AS THY JUDGE AND JURY, I DEEM THEE GUILTY! THY PENALTY IS DEATH!”

“Ahh!” Damn that was scary so glad he was on my side. I felt my shield raise up as a blast meant for my head hit it. So glad Ed upgraded it.

“Fool! Don’t take your eyes off this fight!” Stella yelled at me before launching an arrow off at a group of Fallen. When the arrow hit it blasted the enemies in a nice, cozy coating of hellfire.

I looked ahead to find that Pinkie was armed with a set of SIVA throwing knives, that seemed to regenerate a knife each time one was thrown, the knives seeming to brainwash whoever they stabbed into thinking they were on our side, until they fell down dead and exploded, at least. The fact that instead of gore, it was confetti and streamers was… oddly enough it was even more unnerving.

AppleJack, who was buddied up with Pinkie for the northeastern quarter, was adorned in identical gear to the AJ of my world, except hers was coated in SIVA, which seemed to magnify her holy powers, making it so that for every enemy she hurt, she would heal an ally. Basically, this made her an invaluable ally, as she shrugged off most blows and healed her friends with the holy aura, I found myself grabbed by a huge Servitors beam and teleported to the opposite quarter.

“Damn it.” I ground out only to barely raise my shield in time to block another hit. I lashed Demon Slayer out turning it into a whip mid swing. I saw more and more start swarming around me as I wanted to grit my teeth at this point in frustration. “What are you guys that one annoying respawning enemy in games?!”

“Master I have returned!” Hermas said making his way through the mob. Feeling his chain I could tell that it was almost used up but at this point he was more helpful out of his key. I would just have to keep watch for a bit. Though he did seem a bit ruffed up, then again I wasn’t doing much better.

As Hermes and I kept on fighting Fallen, I was greeted by the sight of Rarity and Fluttershy, who were busy keeping their own horde in check, Fluttershy was using a large staff/spear thing similar to Orvoks, and Rarity used an elegant looking wand, both also made of SIVA, I looked to Rarities enemies to see she was literally turning them into gems as Fluttershy summoned animal spirits to shatter them, the spirits then using the crystal to form bodies and temporarily join the fray.

I saw one of the spider tanks turn towards me as my eyes shrank down to pin pricks at what I knew was coming next. “Hermes return to your key!” I managed to get out before experiencing the world like Team Rocket did as I was tossed across the battlefield. “Ow…” I said upon landing, “Now where am I?” I asked while Heal took effect.

Turns out I was knocked straight to the north western quarter, as Twilight and RD were busy using their SIVA weapons to literally make the weather and ambient magic turn on the Eliksni, making massive golems powered by SIVA energy and huge tornadoes that crackled with fire and electricity that basically turned them into baked baddy alamode.

“Well that answers that question.” I said to myself getting to my feet. “Need to get back to Stella and Discord. Hey you two think you can give me a lift or you too busy?” Might as well ask even though I think I pissed them off.

Twilight smiled “Just know that if you peek on my marefriend, or talk about me like that to Discord again? I’ll teleport your manhood into the sun.”

I let out a strangled cough and nodded so hard I think I put bobble heads to shame. “Yes Twilight, sorry Twilight!” Man... is everyone on this world terrifying?

‘Or maybe they’re really nice and you just keep pissing them off!’ Terra yelled in my mind.

‘My dick is your dick! So don’t make us lose my dick! I only have ONE, despite your weird fan art, thank you very much!’ My vision was overtaken by a wave of purple as I felt the spell take effect. ‘Hope we are close by, then again this is magic so who knows?’ Man I suddenly felt bouncy for some reason. Oh Twi must have healed me along with the free lift what a nice girl I should bake her cookies some time~! Still low on chains though so no Demons for awhile.

Spike and an older, grizzled looking dragon were busy fighting in the last quarter, which had the most direct path to the Arena, and they each had what Simon called a Smoulder-Maul, a type of hammer that channelled the fire within the dragons of Simons dimension to devastating effect, these two mauls were also enhanced by SIVA, so that whenever they slammed down, the resulting blast of heat would release smaller, incendiary bombs into the area. Spike and the elder dragon were actually just finishing beating down a massive Servitor and spider tank tag-team, They looked to me and broke out laughing. “Dude, what the hell happened to you?”

“Hmm, whatever do you mean?” I asked trying to rub the back of my head only to flinch back. “When did I get a bald spot?” I looked around to try and find a mirror only to succeed at discovering how vindictive certain unicorns can be. “Gravity Falls was right, Unicorns are not pure of heart, they are full of vengeance.” There was no other way to explain what I was wearing any other way. My once black flat hair was now neon yellow with pink stripes to match the dress. What dress you may ask? Why, the pink frilly atrocity I now wore. Seriously I think half the Disney Princesses would die before wearing this thing, though it might one hit Rarity. But that pales in comparison to my new footwear. I wore a pair of crocs one baby blue and one neon purple, that had the unfortunate luck of having my thigh high sock covered feet in them. My socks were also mismatched with one being covered in puppies and kittens and the other having planets and comets on them. My pants were now shorts for the sole purpose of keeping the plumage that would put a peacock to shame. Well there was only one response to this. I drew in a breath of air and let out my best chicken/duck impresion while waving my arms up and down.

“BGAWK!”...apparently these pants let me lay very big eggs too. “Am I a yoshi now?” I asked picking up the egg. “Only one way to find out!” Now who to throw it at? I felt it start wiggling back and forth in my hand. Soon cracks started appearing on it until a tiny head popped out. “Spike am I drugged? Cause I think this is a dog?” Seriously what is going on?

Spike pounded his fist in his palm as he realized what was going on. “Twilight used her first bit of chaos magic on you! Discord will be so proud!”

“That’s great for her but what do I do with this?” I asked pointing at the dog that was sniffing at my hand. “I am kind of busy at the moment!”

The older dragon smirked. “Congratulations, welcome to being a dad! Now whine about being busy later, we have the enemy withdrawing.”

“Fine!” Picking up the dog/son by the scruff I dropped the egg. “Hold on tight boy!” I said doing my best impression of Kratos. “We have villians to lead to the slaughter. Gear Two!” I felt the shield disappear as my outfit changed. Wait I could have solved it like that, wait is it going to change back when I went back to One!? Well better make a gear Three slot at some point.

The dog nodded and...had a very determined face. I swear I heard ‘Okay, daddy’ In my head. I swear if this dog talks I am naming him Scooby. Or maybe Koromaru. Yeah going with Koromaru, he was a good boy. With that we made our way to the arena with the pupper jumping out of my hands and walking beside me.

Right before I could talk to Simon, he frowned sadly at my battered state. “Okay… I think it’s time you two head home. You did nothing wrong...during the fight that is, but I can no longer guarantee your training in safety here, so… I am satisfied with your assistance, I release you to go home.”

“Wait but I need to show Twilight the new kid she made with me.” I mean it was technically true she did give the chaos magic needed.

Discord punched me straight into the portal that Simon made behind me, Stella coming with shortly after. “WORTH IT!”

The dog’s voice then could be heard in my head as she laughed. “Silly daddy!” Now where the hell was I now? Huh a nice beach... “Well... I guess I deserve this.” I thought as a giant tentacle came up. “Oh for the love of…” Some god hated me and I think his name was Discord.

Or was it CHAUNCEY?!?!?!?!?

War begins [Part one]

It had been three days since the Fallen had basically declared war on us, their assault having ended at around the second day. I was walking along with Roxie in a wheelchair, her distaste of the situation apparent after she insisted she had finally fully recovered from her wounds. I have been catching her up on the situation.”-Oh, and you're going to be an auntie.” Aaand I had just told her the whole entire series of events that transpired while she was healing… Here’s hoping she’s not too mad at me.

Roxie was silent for a rather unbearable amount of time, at least it was to me before she finally spoke up. “...Is she good…?” Her voice, obviously because of the lack of use for three months had turned it rather gravelly and rough. Well, rougher than usual.

I nodded “Chrysalis is wonderful. Although, it took some figuring out… what with how my body is.” I said with a blush. “She is currently using her magic to set up natural camouflage from the air. Only those who know what to look for will be able to find us and not be blown to bits.” I grinned “Well, those who mean us ill, anyway.”

She was looking me directly in the eyes before letting out a sigh, breaking the expression she had. “If you...say so…” Roxie stiffly sits up with her joints loudly popping satisfyingly. Come to think of it, she seemed rather out of it still judging from her rather quick acceptance of Chrysalis.

...No, it's more like she’ll deal with it later... That's more like Roxie.

Orvok was walking up to us from across the street. I grinned and whispered to her. “He spent every free moment he had with you, trying to help you heal. He actually used some of his life force to heal you apparently.”

She only could manage a nod of acknowledgment.

Orvok smiled weakly to her “It is good to see you are well, Foxy Roxy.” he said with a slight shimmer of tears in his eyes. “Er… I actually had to update Simon on the Everfree expansion, we have successfully pushed it back from our borders, but a local, an extremely ancient and powerful one, wants to see us three, she asked for us by name, apparently.”

Again, a simple nod of acknowledgment from my sister. “...Who…?”

Orvok smiled in a restrained manner as if he was forcing himself to do so, instead of a tremble with fear. “Quathak herself. She seems to be… intrigued by us.”

I paled “You mean to tell me… that an ancient, obscenely powerful goddess of Kin worship, has decided to talk to the three of us?” Orvok nodded weakly. “Shit.”

“...Kin…? Like… Family Kin…?” Roxy questions before coughing for a bit. “Also, water...please...”

Orvok was already on top of it, handing her his canteen. “The Kin is the term we have come up with for The Olog, Uruk and Changeling people. Basically, Quathak is the goddess responsible for the Everfree.”

She was listening to this though was a little more focused on drinking her water slowly, occasionally coughing mid-sip ending in her clearing her throat. “I… See…” She says, still weak-voiced.

I looked to Roxy with worry. “If you want, I could try to just go with me and Orvok… If you still need to recover.”

Orvok nodded, concern plain on his face as he looked to Roxy. “Quathak is one of the more understanding members of kin divinity, she’d understand if you still need to heal.”

“Slept… enough. Just need to hydrate and stuff.” She says with a bit more clarity in her voice, shaking her head. “Doubt I’ll be walking any time soon though…”

Orvok nodded. “The legs are the last things to recover after the raising, and that’s for Uruk, who have adapted to heal quickly, I don’t know how fast your race heals… it could take a long while.”

I looked to Orvok and smiled. “So, lead the way?”

Orok nodded warily. “Yes, we should not keep her waiting too long. I doubt that would end well for us.”

As Orvok turned to lead us towards the town cullis gate, a recent addition to assist with the transit between us, and our various allies. I looked to Orvok as i pushed roxy up to it. “So… forest gate?”

He smirked. “Actually, she gave me a special cullis charm, we are going to Greenvale, her realm.” He then took out a charm that was equal parts bone, stone, and plant, all seeming to fuse together seamlessly. It was in the shape of a wolf skull, and had a green glow to it, he calmly set it at the apex of the gate and channelled magic into it, the gate being filled with green and yellow fire. “You two first, I have to close the gate behind us.”

Roxy with semi-blurry eyes watches the gate closely, trying to see past it almost.

I cautiously push Roxy past the gate, getting overtaken with brief pins and needles before finding the three of us in what looked like a forest of sentient trees. The trees looking at us and whispering to each other in an unknown language.

My sis was watching them back without much of an expression, eyes lacking any curiosity or hostility.

Orvok was staring at the trees with equal parts trepidation and scholarly curiosity. “The talking trees… they are said to be the most powerful creatures in Greenvale, second only to Quathak herself… Everyone, be polite and be courteous. Offending the talking trees is a fools decision that will lead to an early death. They are more powerful druids than anything seen on our realm.”

I nodded and pushed Roxy after Orvok once he started walking. He took great pains to answer the trees questions in a manner similar to a fearful servant. By the time we had almost reached what looked like a clearing of some sort, a massive wooden hand stopped us, the tree it belonged to smiling at us. “Tree-mother meets another now, wait til she orders I raise my bough.”

I nodded and waited with Roxy and Orvok, wondering who it was that was taking Quathaks time, fairly certain that whoever it was, they were extremely powerful. Not only from the sheer power emanating from the clearing, but from the feel on the air, the very realm itself shivering with fear at the potential of whoever was just across from this trees bough.

Roxy seemed the denser of the three of us, seeming to not notice or just barely feel the energy permeating around us. That, or she did not give a damn. Both were equally likely, at this point.

Orvok was shivering like a leaf in a windstorm, only for the pressure to instantly recede, as we felt whatever it was that owned this power finally noticed us. “Gah, dang it, Quathak! You should have told me you were having guests! You know how visiting other realms makes me! These poor mortals are probably scared silly!” The masculine voice said as I instantly recognized the voice as Hank. What the hell was he doing here?

A female voice, presumably Quathak, then spoke. “Zmatok, you honestly expect me to wait to finally meet my child, after all this time? For the god of Chaos, you can be quite dense as to a lady, no, a mother’s desires.”

The voice that I thought was Hanks then chuckled. “Ouch, you know where to hit where it hurts, eh? Well, I’ll be off, be sure to think on my request, okay?”

Quathak chuckled and had the talking tree raise his bough. I then saw that it was indeed hank in the clearing, or at least who i knew as Hank. “Well, I’d say a long time no see, Simon, but I’d be a liar, as I haven’t stopped looking after you since you’ve come to Equestria.”

Quathak smiled warmly at Orvok as she gestured for him to come over to her side. “Come, my child, we have much to discuss.”

Zmatok then looked to Roxy and me, before sighing. “I think we should talk too.”

My, not so little sister, gives a firm nod at Zmatok.

I then grunted. “Whatever do you mean? Should we talk about how you used us like pawns, how our entire friendship was based on a lie, or how you took me, a doctor, and made me have to start hurting people? I was a pacifist Hank, I did not BELIEVE in hurting people, and now I can’t go two days without having to kill something or someone! TWO DAYS!”

Zmatok then frowned. “Would you have believed me if I told you the truth? That I was a chaos god of a dying world, and that I needed your help to save it? To remove cancer that was within that self-same world, I’d have to change you, body and soul? I may have done wrong, but at least I am not lying to myself. I have seen the threads where I told you, they ALL led to you avoiding me, and my world dying. I had to risk our friendship, which I honestly came to treasure so that I could save a population five times that of Earth's!” As he spoke, he looked to me in hurt and self loathing, as if what he had done had left him feeling dirty, stained.

I sighed, realizing that he was right. “Okay… okay. I guess you did the right thing, but… Damn if I‘m not still mad at you.”

Zmatok nodded. “It will take time, but I hope you come to forgive me.” he smirked. “Now, I saw that the Eliksni have declared war on your kingdom, while I cannot simply wipe them out, I CAN give advice. You need to discover the other half of your powers, you have been leaning on your SIVA too much, and you need to learn how to use your wraith powers.” He smiled. “It is the only way to weather the coming storm.”

“Anything for me, I hope.” Roxy adds her two cents the second he was done talking, clearing her throat after speaking.

He waved his hand, a red mist going over Roxy. “I’ve healed you, and My advice? Train with Simon, learn to fight alongside him, work off of his moves, you need to be his right hand, his confidant, he will need you just as you will need him. Also, I have talked to Quathak about Orvok for you, she approves~.”

While most of this filed in one by one into her head as she stand up and stretched, that last comment went of her head. “Approves of what?” She asks about popping a shoulder along with her knee.

Zmatok grinned. “Well, let’s see, Orvok is head over heels for you, he has literally given up part of his life force to save you, and he placed a curse that would make even me shudder on the bitch who hurt you.” He grinned. “Momma Quathak wants plenty of grandbabies when the time comes~.”

There was a hint of her flinching with her eyebrows throwing up but she quickly composes herself. Though she could not hide the slight blush forming on her face, she hoped that they would not notice her surprise nor the blush. “I...see.” Was all she said to that, clearing her throat awkwardly.

Orvok then likely heard from Quathak about her… desire for heirs. “WHAT?! YOU SAID WHAT TO THEM?!”

Zmatok then chuckled. “Seems Quathak just spilled what I told you to him as well. Let’s listen in on them, shall we?” He then opened a small portal, letting us hear what Orvok and Quathak were discussing.

Quathak smiled. “What, you do not love her?”

Orvok’s face was beet red, an odd feat for an Uruk. “I-it’s not that! I just, I don’t know if she feels the same way! I mean, what if she resents me for not letting her pass on?! O-or… what if she likes someone else! I can’t just tell her how I feel, without any regards to her feelings! A-and… I don’t know if she even thinks of me that way… Not to mention that my appearance might be repulsive to her for all I know!” He started pacing. “I mean, what if she opposes the idea?! I’d have no choice but to let her go, but… the very thought hurts…” He clutched his head and groaned in frustration. “Gah, I wish I never prayed to you for guidance!”

Roxy’s finger went to her temples, grimaces lightly at the little tangent he went off to before giving Zmatok a ‘was that necessary’ look with a hint of mild irritation.

Zmatok then pointed to the portal, then smirked as Quathak spoke again. “Why don’t you just ask her out on a date? See where it goes? I swear that if it does not work out, I will not push you. But I’ve seen the way you look at her, and I’ve seen how you reacted when she was threatened. It is rare for a druid to feel this strongly, especially one with your… condition.”

Orvok sighed. “Okay, I’ll… I’ll ask her out, but if she says no, I will try to just be her friend! Nothing more… No matter how much I wish otherwise.”

I smiled at this, fairly certain that Orvok stood a chance, but also worried as Zmatok closed the portal. “What condition does he have?”

Zmatok smiled sadly. “His heart is hollow, he took over half the mass of his heart to ensure that Roxy would survive, it’s a small miracle he is not an emotionless husk right now, much less that he is not dead. He is recovering slowly, but yes, he had given much to save you Roxy. Here’s hoping that things go well!”

He then disappeared in a flash of light, and we were standing by ourselves as Quathak and a blushing Orvok came back to our group. Quathak then cleared her throat. “Well, it seems that Simon needs training in wraith magic, so I have been reaching out to my champions to find a suitable teacher. I just wanted you two here to inform you, you have the gods in your corner, as it were.”

I deadpanned “And we have to walk back, don’t we?”

She shook her head. “No, In fact, I have a portal ready for you, just behind you. Plus, I wanted to check up on my son, can’t blame a mother for worrying!”

Return to your roots

Author's Note

Another crossover wit Hythunzas "Suddenly i'm what?"

Return to your roots

Jaxson POV

A month had passed since then, as I got adjusted to my new life in the multiverse. Since then, I spent most of the time training whenever I can, and learning up on herbal skills as well as recipes I can use for my traveling. I eventually managed to let Rainbow Dash down as soft as I could, as I told her I found her as good as she is, because her breast size the largest women could be back at Earth. We then proceeded to hit it off as friends, and despite what Twilight initially thought, was very curious as to what humans were like, and what they’ve made ever since I told her about jets that can easily surpass her speed.

She took her newfound knowledge about what humanity has done, and used it as a reason to push herself even further.

“47! 48! 49! 50!”

*THUD*

Which for me, turned out to be a bad thing, as she pushed me just as hard. I turned away from the weights breathing heavily, facing Rainbow Dash who was still going with her dumbbells . “Rainbow… I know what I said when I wanted strength training, but it seriously feels like you’re trying to kill me.”

She huffed. “Come on Jax! If you’re going off to explore while I’m stuck here in my universe, then I’m sure as hell not going to let you get squished by some monster twice your size!”

“True… but what are the chances of that happening?”

“Infinitely huge is what!” she said as she finished up her reps.

I think I made her too much of a smart ass… but she still stands as my only way of getting stronger so I can hit harder.

“You'd be surprised how many... unspeakable situations it can get you into without it."

We both turned to look at Simon, who had walked in on us during the workout. “Hey Simon. Everything going ok in your universe?”

He grunted. “Still haven’t gotten back, apparently I have an unlimited amount of time, thanks to the huntsman, the key he gave me makes it so that as long as there is nothing interfering with its power, no time passes for my home universe while I’m gone, been doing some travelling, learning and shit. I want to be a good leader when I return.” He then looked to Rainbow Dash.

“So I assume things are okay here between you and the ponies? They aren’t being racist xenophobes, are they?”

“Nah, they’ve been treating me pretty much the same. They kind of see me as one of those elves back on Earth’s fiction.”

Simon nodded slowly. “Good, hate to have to make some more enemies.” He then looked to Rainbow Dash, who looked a little miffed. “Hey, no hard feelings, just being cautious. The ponies back home treat the orcs and trolls I rule like dirt. I literally had to save an orc child from being beaten to death with her own doll by a pony noble.”

Rainbow Dash blanched. “Yeesh… I know what you meant by the multiverse having everything, but to hear that is a bit disgusting…”

“Probably the tip of the iceberg,” I replied half-heartedly. “Anyways, you think I’d be ready for the Huntsman’s arena? It’s been a month now.”

Simons eyes became red as he looked me over, literally scanning me. “Hmmm… you should be able to handle the first challenge if you are careful, but don’t get carried away, each challenge is tougher than the last, and I think you should let me give you a blunt weapon first, been driving me nuts for a month.” He then materialized three weapons, a mace, a single-handed hammer, and a cudgel. “Tell me which you would like, I’ll make whatever one you want look nice.”

I thought about it for a bit, before shrugging. “Mace sounds good. Cool sounding, does a lot of damage, and is probably the middle ground of the three.”

Rainbow turned to look at me. “Since when was combat supposed to be fabulous?” she said, clearly intending to lead me into a joke we knew all too well. I grinned, taking in a breath of air.

“But DAHLIN, everything is supposed to be FABULOUS!”

Rainbow and I laughed gleefully, as Simon smacked himself in the face while he grinned. “No… Never say that in front of me again… my sides hurt now…”

I widened my eyes. “Oh? That’s your weakness? I have to say, it’s a bithumerusthat the mighty Simon’s drawback are words.”

Simon deadpanned “So, should I make jokes about how your father likely bedded a she-dragon? Because most people with your boon need dragon blood in their veins.”

I stared at him, gobsmacked as Rainbow’s laughter increased, causing her to roll on the floor, he then replied, “Oh, and hon? I can tell that you nixed that thing with Dashie, I don’t know why, but let me just give you a heads up, there’s no way home. I was trying to give you someone who would give two shits about you emotionally. Seems it worked either way, but still.”

Well it’s a somewhat good thing I plan on exploring instead of staying here… still it was a nice thought of him, I’ll give him that.

Simon smiled and grabbed his hammer before slamming it on empty air as the shape of an odd mace formed, there being four protrusions from the handle shaped like the outline of the front of a skull when looking from the side. He then turned it into a red mist, sending it into my wristband as the buttons developed a fourth among their number, this one below the other three, and rectangular, instead of round. Simon grinned. “That mace lets you smash apart enchantments that aren’t displaced or void being in origin. Like the sword, it’ll only be able to break enchantments that are of your capability.”

“So the stronger I get, the higher level enchantment I can break?”

He nodded. “Oh, and before you ask, armor’s off limits, I’ve pushed my limits with the SIVA stuff I’ve given you already. I’d be risking getting you infected with SIVA if I did any more, and who knows what the hell that’d do with me not around. And don’t worry, I already bound the mace to ya, had some blood leftover.”

Thank whatever god of luck is out there for that. Not only did I want to have my own looks, but I don't think taking more needle jabs is the way to go with getting stronger.I was about to open my mouth, before Rainbow suddenly cut in.

“The way he summons these is with his own blood?” Rainbow said in concern. “Wouldn’t that cause some bad things to happen in the long run?”

Simon chuckled. “No, it’s not made of his blood, it is more like I used the blood from him to make it so they will only work for him now. If anyone else grabs his weapons, they’ll lash out at them. The sword will literally melt over the hand, and start eating it down to the shoulder. The daggers? They’ll explode with the force of dynamite. And the crossbow will fire its bolts at the thief. This mace will become a snake and bite the thief, before funnelling itself into them, and stopping their heart.”

I can just imagine all the traps I can do with that… wait, why am I thinking traps? Gotta stay away from that mindset Fred Jones has, very unhealthy.

Simon then looked to Dashie. “Also, mind if I ask you something?”

Rainbow shrugged. “Fire away.”

He looked to her dead in the eyes. “What does the name ‘Solaris’ mean to you?”

Rainbow blinked a bit, processing the question for a bit. “While it doesn’t bring up anything, I bet someone with that name would have to do something with Celestia. And having someone who told me what Celestia is like when she has time to goof around, probably would act similar to her.”

Simon chuckled. “Good, he has nothing to do with this world, then.” He looked to me and Dashie. “If you meet some guy named Solaris, claiming he is the god of the sun and holding a banner of a black and blue sun with a red background, get me, I don’t care what time it is, that guy is BAD news. He is from my dimension, my Celestia's father. I have been working for the Huntsman this whole time to get info about him and means to fight him. He drove Discord mad, and killed no less than five gods of my people.”

I stared at him for a bit, taking in everything he said. “While it makes me ponder my significance, I will keep it in mind as the last thing I want to do is to end my journey early. Or at all for that matter.”

“Not surprising considering stuff like that is happening in your universe.” Rainbow said, a little tense from the revelation. “I’ll make sure I’ll let Jax know whenever he comes by, so he can get you to fend him off.”

I then pulled out the key from my pocket. “So how did this thing work again? I just use it on a door, or chant some kind of magic words?”

Simon grinned. “Just use it on a door, Dashie can come with, if you want. Gods know the Huntsman would like the company.”

“And I’d definitely like to see what your skills are like.” Rainbow cut in. “After all, they go great with muscles!”

Simon chuckled “Oh, so you have been admiring his muscles, hmmm?”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “I’m his workout trainer. I have to keep an eye on his muscles.”

Simon shrugs. “Hey, whatever helps explain the flaring in your soul.”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened, while I just looked on in confusion. “Since when could you see souls?” I asked.

He grunted. “After my SIVA ate me whole, the wraith powers have been a lot less… restrained. I have been discovering new stuff about my nature as an undead nano swarm.”

“Huh… neat. Well while I don’t know what the flaring is,” Rainbow Dash fist pumped from out of sight, “I do wanna go test my skills. So let’s get this going.”

Simon chuckled and whispered something to Dashie before making a door form from his nanites. “Normally, this door wouldn’t do jack shit, but thanks to that key, I can take us straight to the Huntsman’s arena.” He then looked to Dashie “You wanna see your big strong eggy work up a sweat?”

“Oh, up yours!” Me and Rainbow responded in unison. I then proceeded to move over to the door, opening it.

“-and I was wondering if you could see what’s-” The new voice stopped, as the door opened fully. The Huntsman, and two displaced I’ve never seen before were looking at the three of us, the Huntsman in joy, and the two displaced in a curious stare. They wore gear similar to what Simon was made of. “Who’s the newcomer?”

I cleared my throat. “I’m Jaxson, though I'd prefer it if you can just call me Jax. I’ve come to test my skills so I can get prepared for the displaced multiverse, maybe get better armor while I’m at it.”

The Huntsman nodded to Dashie. “And is this thy lover at thy side? Her frame is pleasing to the eyes. Thou hast done well!”

I glared at the Huntsman. “You and Simon just love doing interdimensional coupling don’t you guys?”

The armored looking one whistled. “Someone is stuck with an idiot ball.”

“Coming from the idiot himself?” The surprisingly masculine voice coming out of the one with a dress.

The Huntsman paused, a frown visible from under his helm. “I just commented on the fact that thou both came in soaked in sweat, was I incorrect? I apologize for my incorrect assessment. Didst thou just simply spar?”

“No, she’s just my workout trainer. She was helping me get physically ready for your arena, in case you didn’t notice the new improvements I’ve made.” I said while flexing.

The Huntsman smiled. “I honestly know little of mortal forms. But if thy strength hath increased, I will gladly let thee undertake thy first challenge! Now, tell me, what challenge wouldst thou desire?” He summoned a cage of three dragon looking creatures. One, built similar to a wolf, but with a long, barbed tail. The second was a strong looking creature built like a T-rex, but with huge arms and chitinous plating. The third and last one was a draconic humanoid, this one was not in a cage, but sitting at what looked like a table, eating a hearty meal.

The Huntsman smiled. “I have brought to thee three worthy foes! A Dracovian Dreadhound, a Brachydios, and a Dracovian hunter!”

Dracovian? Maybe I’ll get my boon powered up if I kill that thing, though the rest are very similar to dragons…

The Huntsman smiled. “I have painstakingly sought out these beings so that thy boon may grow stronger! Do not worry, the Hunter faces the possibility of death gladly, for the chance of a good battle, be it against thee, or at thy side!”

Yep, best to get as many of them as I can. Though I don’t know what I’ll do afterwards with... whatever I'm supposed to get out of them.“I’ll start off with the Dreadhound, and I might go for the hunter afterwards. Can’t think of any feasible way to beat that tank over there,” I pointed at the Brachydios, which angrily punched the cage. “So I plan on skipping him.”

The Hunter smiled at me from his table. “I look forward to our duel, young kin soul. Know that even if you decide to not grant me mercy if I am bested, I will face my end with honor.”

That guy could probably teach me about my boon given what he just said… maybe it’ll be best if I don’t go off the rails and kill him. If that’s an option.

Simon led Dashie to the empty stands as the Huntsman smiled to me. “I am glad that I have so many visitors this day. Days like these numb the pain of mine isolation.”

The one in the dress turned to the Huntsman. “You know, I’ve always wondered… couldn’t you just make a little building that non-displaced can visit?”

He nodded. “There are four, it is only that I need to link to a displaced token to allow transit between the realms. And if the displaced in question dies, then those here are stranded…” He sighed. “I could not face a soul that I doomed to share my fate… It has been largely fear that has stayed my hand.”

“Ah…” The man in the dress said sadly. “I actually would’ve been fine if you got them stuck in there before the invasion happened. I shudder to think what mad warlock had abducted them for and why.”

The Huntsman nodded. “And if they were in my realm, you could rest assured I would have made their stay pleasant…” He sighed and sat next to Dashie before looking to her. “Tell me, young mortal, what would thy choice be? Should I let their realms connect to mine own?”

Rainbow hummed in thought. “Out of everything that could happen? I’d do it. After all, in case some world ending freak comes by that we can’t stop, I’d run to here too in order to save me and my friends. Better than being dead.”

He nodded slowly. “Alright, I will look for four such individuals who would like to connect their realms to mine own.” He then smiled “But first, let us see the fight!”

As the Huntsman talked, I looked around for the entrance to the battle, before the man in the dress nudged me. “You might wanna consider going down those stairs.” He said, pointing to a staircase down to the arena’s fighting area that appeared from a wall. I walked down the staircase, equipping my crossbow in preparation for the first strike.

After I reached the bottom step and walked through the door, I found that the beast, a Dracovian Dreadhound if I recall its name correctly, was just being released from its cage into the arena. It saw me and raised its lethal tail threateningly, ready to swat away anything I sent its way.

A defensive position… maybe if I recall the sword just as I get close enough, I can get a potshot in.I slowly inched forwards, keeping the crossbow at the ready in case the Dreadhound charged me.

The Dreadhound then charged me just like I had anticipated, its tail tensing in preparation for a strong swipe at my vitals, moving at great speed straight to my side, as if it were planning to roundhouse me with its tail. I instantly fired, dropping the crossbow once the shot was released, and switching to the mace, the crossbow turning into a mist that flew into my wristband right as my mace appeared.

The Dreadhound reached me at a speed that would impress a cheetah, taking the bolt to its shoulder in stride before slamming its tail into me, knocking me into the far wall. I then heard Simon call out to me. “Remember what I taught you! Fight dirty!”

I nodded, pretending to rush at the Dreadhound, switching to a sword as I did so. It rushed back at me, but instead of meeting its charge head-on, I turned just as it charged at me, instead opting to run up the wall at the last second.

The Dreadhound snarled as the Hunter looked on with a wry smile before calling out. “Interesting, I do hope we get to fight, your ingenuity has piqued my interest.”

I paid no attention to the Hunter, focusing entirely on the fight. As the Dreadhound tried to slow to a stop, I grabbed the tail, pulling on it to latch myself onto the Dreadhound, using my legs to keep a firm grip on its body. I then cut the tail off, causing the Dreadhound howled in pain, rolling onto its side in an attempt to get me off as it slashed at me with its claws and bit with its teeth. Flinching from the on-coming assault, I kicked the beast square in the stomach, putting distance between the two of us. I swapped back to the crossbow, acting as if I was readying another shot.

The beast got to its feet slowly, seeming to be dazed by blood loss, before shaking its head slightly and growling at me before it was surrounded in a vortex of freezing cold! It seemed to grow razor sharp claws of ice over its previous dull ones, and it almost seemed to develop a set of armor made of permafrost, its tail wound being frozen solid and the bloody stump morphing into a frosty mace.

You’ve gotta be shitting me! If that thing has the mobility of the previous tail…I shook the thought from my head, narrowing my eyes in focus as I instead swapped to a mace of my own.

The Dreadhound rushed me, a little slower, but now much heavier. The beast flicked its tail at me to throw ice javelins at me. I side-stepped them, waiting for it to get close enough for an uppercut with the mace.

As the beast neared, I saw it open its mouth and spit out freezing cold mist at me, in an attempt at blinding me as it came from my left and rammed me into a wall.

Seeing as baiting him in wouldn’t work anymore, I opted to shoot back, switching to the crossbow and firing at the Dreadhound whenever I could, the SIVA-infused bolts visibly burrowing into the ice with root like growths, stopping inches from the beast’s flesh.If one of those were in its shoulder… damn, these things are tough!

But at the rate things were going, I guessed the Dreadhound’s armor was giving way, and decided to swap to a mace to break the armor apart.

The Dreadhound, smart enough to realize this as well, but apparently incapable of removing the armor already on it to make more, instead made its mace so large that it barely stayed off the ground!If that thing hits me, I’ll be in a world of hurt!

It began swinging its tail around, building up speed so as to hit me when it got close enough, it slowly drawing closer. Noting that there was a small enough gap for me to slide under, I moved back as far as possible while switching to the sword, waiting as it spun around with enough speed to not be able to see its surroundings, before I sprinted forward, getting ready to slide just as I was nearing the beast’s tail.

As it took its fastest swing yet, I slid under and sliced the Dreadhound in half, the armor melting as the tail flung itself into the wall, causing a large crack to form. Battered and exhausted, I smirked in victory, staring at the tail as it melted.

Suddenly, the Huntsman waved his hand over the arena, teleporting me over to the stands as the Dreadhound’s soul was absorbed by me, healing my wounds in the process. “I hath healed thine injuries and restored thine energies, let thy succor be met with the company of thine comrades!”

I looked towards the Huntsman, looking at the audience as I did so. The man in the dress had his helmet off, looking a little annoyed, as he glared at Pinkie Pie, who was cheering loudly while eating popcorn and candy. The armored guy was playing with his phone, giggling to himself as he did so, while Rainbow Dash and Twilight were just applauding excitedly.

Simon was looking at me with pride, and The Huntsman looked like he had won the lottery. “Never hath my arena been so full! This is a most glorious day indeed! What boon doth ye desire, Sir Jax?”

“Armor.” I said without hesitation. “I need armor for my upcoming adventures.”

He nodded before looking me over “ I shan’t give thee more SIVA armor, lest you be endangered with consumption, I doubt thy soul and mind shall survive it like Simon’s did, as thou art without wraith power.”

“He’s not wrong,” the man in the dress said from where he was. “The only reason I’m able to wear this armor is both because of my light, and a AI controlling the SIVA within. Granted I could do it myself, but trust me when I say it’s taxing on the mind anyways.”

Simon nodded “I had to make a minor AI to contain Jax’s SIVA to its pre made forms and not try to eat him. The AI is well within its operating limits, but a full suit of armor would push it a bit further than I am comfortable trying on a friend. On Solaris, maybe, but someone I would not like dead? Not so much.”

“So Simon…” Twilight trailed off for a moment waving her hand to get his attention. Simon turned to face her. “Exactly what’s an AI? And what are you made of that makes you shimmer?”

Simon smiled “I’m made of millions of microscopic machines all bound to work under the instruction of my soul, which is incapable of dying, and freely generates and destroys it, at will. AI is an acronym, it stands for Artificial Intelligence, which can range in complexity from something that exists to fulfill a purpose, like a drone, to a full-fledged living thing. Like me, now, technically. Before you ask, I used to be an undead human, not too different from Jax, except for my clothes, and my heart not beating, but then my SIVA ate me, and here I am. And yes, it hurt very much.”

Twilight nodded, furiously writing it down on her clipboard. “So how does an AI come into-”

*BANG*

I shot my gaze over to the sound to find the armored man holding a strange looking gun aimed directly at Twilight. I looked towards her to find a chip sticking in her head, slowly digging itself in and healing the damage it made as it went inside. Twilight was dead still for the entire thing.

The armored man then stood up. “Relax everyone! It’s just my chip gun, and I loaded it with a knowledge chip so we can skip the unnecessary talk.”

Everyone stared at him for a moment, before Twilight spoke up. “What just happened?”

Simon frowned before gently restraining Rainbow and Pinkie before levelly looking at the armored man “Will it do no harm to her?”

“Other than a small migraine, it’s more beneficial than harmful.” Everyone then looked at the armored man in disbelief. “What?” He held his hands up in defense. “I swear, it’s completely harmless beyond that! It’s literally just migraines,and probably some constipation,but it’s not lethal! In fact, knowledge chips are the only thing I got for this!”

Simon stared at him coldly “If I discover you hurt someone I genuinely enjoyed talking to, I will kick your happy ass so hard I leave boot marks on your colon!”

“You don’t have to do that.” The man in the dress said as he pulled out a even stranger weapon. “Rade?”

A small, diamond shaped robot appeared next to the armored man. “Just get it over with.”

“YOU FUCKING TRAI-” Was all the armored man got out before the armored man was then disintegrated by purple beams that shot out from the weapon.

The diamond shaped robot expanded it’s chassis, revealing blue light within. “Resurrecting in 3...2...1..”

And just like that, the armored man re-appeared out of thin air. “Y’know, I hate how you decided to take the slaps to the next level. Whatever happened to punching?” The duo then descended into an argument regarding their ability to come back from death.

Simon looked to Twilight and the other girls. “You girls okay? Nothing broken?”

The Dracovian ignored this commotion and instead looked to me “As it seems we are to do combat, it is only right we learn each other's names, I am Ugorn, son of Rogsha the crimson, and inheritor of the blade Drushang. If we decide on the battle being to the death, I shall see to it that I make your death as painless as possible, I humbly request you do the same, kinsoul.”

“Jaxson, where’s the reason to not do the same to you when you say that?” I said nonchalantly. “Though I don’t want this to be to the death, as I’m just pushing my skills here. Plus I have a feeling you know something about the boon the Huntsman gave to me.”

Ugorn smiled warmly. “Then may I pose a challenge? Mayhaps we make this interesting, and only use our fists? No wings, breath, blade or claws for me, and no weapons for you. I would wish to approach one who has just completed my peoples right of passage with respect! And a sparring match of pure physical strength sounds perfect!”

Physical strength huh? While I may not be as strong as them, it’s a good thing I’ve watched a lot of WWE. Sure it’s not going to help me a lot, but at least I may have some techniques that I can see coming and use.“Sounds like a deal to me.” I said, dropping the sword, it turning into a mist that went back to the band. “Besides, where I come from men don’t turn down a challenge like that.” I raised my fists up in preparation.
Ugorn smiled even brighter. “Let us be off to the arena then! I look forward to this spar! May it be something worthy of telling to our ancestors!” He then leapt from his seat to the arena, sticking his landing perfectly with his odd looking taloned feet gripping the floor, causing everyone except the Huntsman who was missing, to pay attention.

I went back into the arena before I slowly inched forwards, Ugorn doing the same as we got ready to brawl. Ugorn then opened his guard and smiled once again. “I give you first strike, as a sign of respect from one man to another!”

I smirked. “How nice of you.” I said, before rearing my right fist back for a uppercut, aiming behind the horns on his chin. “But unfortunately for you, I know how to maximize the damage!” I then attacked, successfully hitting the jaw without touching the horns, lightly lifting him off the ground as his head went facing upwards. I then did a roundhouse kick, throwing him to the side.

Ugorn collided roughly with the previously, and once again, cracked wall, now chuckling as he breathed smoke with excitement. “Now this gets the blood flowing! Have at thee, kinsoul! May the winner be granted glory!” He then leapt at me from the wall, using the cracked wall as a launch pad of sorts before landing a solid haymaker straight to my forehead, making me see stars for a moment while he picked me up and threw me back-first into a wall.

I grunted in pain, pushing myself off the wall.Momentum based. Have to prepare myself for that next time.I rushed back over to a moderate distance between me and Ugorn. I lunged forth with a jab aimed at his gut, attempting to knock the wind out of him.

Only, he saw this coming and grabbed my fist. “You telegraphed your move too much, brother! I could see that coming from a mile-”

I then lifted my legs up for a kangaroo kick, using my other arm to keep me up as he held my fist, hitting him square in the gut and causing him to lose his grip on my fist. I then leapt off of him with a grin. “See what coming from a mile away?”

Ugorn chuckles “My respect for you grows with each moment, brother! We shall make a great team!” He then leapt to a pillar and grabbed the base, ripping it from the floor and throwing it at my feet, forcing me to jump over the pillar as it raised dust to blind me.He was already at where I landed and uppercut me straight in the jaw, sending me soaring upward! He then ran to me as I fell and elbow-slammed me in the gut to the dirt, knocking the wind from my lungs and leaving me dazed! He then gasped as he realised he got carried away and looked to me in concern. “Do you yield, brother? I have healing magics that can help, but I may not use them until you yield, lest I bring shame unto you.”

Ok, fuck whatever reward I may get out of this, that was a pillar. Broken ribs or legs are not something I’d want now.I looked at him as I caught my breath, a thumbs up being my only reply.

He nodded and brought out what looked like a bone charm with various animal pelts wrapped around it, with leather strips tied to it and smaller bones dangling from the leather, him chanting in an oddly familiar language [“May the wounds of battle leave your body, and the strength of the wilds fill the void.”]

The huntsman then came in with my armor and looked around in confusion. “Did I miss the duel? Drat! I hath so yearned to see it!” He then sighed and looked us over as he smiled. “Seems that Ugorn has taken a liking to thee, young Jax, Dracovians rarely use their magics on non-family or people outside their own tribe. For him to do this, it means thou hast earned his respect greatly!”

Ugorn nodded. “He fights with a spirit rarely seen, I would be proud to call him brother.”

The fact that someone like him admires the determination I have to push forward is… actually kind of comforting. Maybe I will get to the level of godhood needed to navigate my own way home, if not ensure I’ll have a great adventure in the end.

The man in the dress nodded. “What he said was true. Any normal person would’ve just sat there bug-eyed as the pillar hit them. You on the other hand, clearly don’t intend on losing your second life so early. If it were up to me, I’d make you a horde leader, but I doubt you’d wanna spend the rest of your life as a robot.”

Simon smiled. “You pick them good, Huntsman!”

Rainbow Dash was on the edge of her seat. “That! Was! AWESOME!” She flew to me and hugged me tight, squealing fangirlishly. “You were so amazing! I knew you’d do well, with me training you, but those moves! They were awesome!”

I smirked. “All of that I learned from some of the best of course. That, and I used to fight on the streets in the previous life. Eventually you’d learn how to use a lot of grapples against their owner, when you do that for fun.”

I say that, and I’ve only watched WWE matches. I mean, yeah it’s possible for me to learn something, but I didn’t think I was that good!

Ugorn nodded proudly. “A true warrior! No less than the best for a kinsoul!”

The Huntsman nodded and brought out what looked like a suit of chiton-plated armor, the material looking light but sturdy as I was handed the armor. It also had some strange runes on it, which glowed with an oddly familiar power. When I looked to the Huntsman, he smiled. “This armor is imbued with my essence, once a week you may take on my aspect, taking on an echo of my power as your own. I must warn you however, taking on my power will be draining, and it will fill you with the bloodlust that took me centuries to master, so use it as a last resort!”

Not that I planned on spamming it anyways. Besides, having the power of a god at my disposal this early, may make me think things I shouldn’t with that mastery anyways, so it works out.“I’ll keep it in mind.” I said as walked up the stairs with the armor. “I’m pretty pooped anyways, so I think I’ll go crash somewhere for a bit.”

Simon’s grin widened. “Y’know, I should probably stop by my universe soon, wanna come with?”

I shrugged. “Sure. I mean, knowing what you’ve said about your universe, there’s plenty of things to fight there. That’s for later, of course, but for now I’ll just find a bed and lay on it over there instead.”

Simon nodded and looked to the huntsman. “I’ll tell you when I feel it is safe to link our universes. Last thing we need is for that Solaris bastard to come here.”

The man in the dress chuckled with the armored man. “Let him do so. As soon as we find out, we’ll jump over and infect his ass. Not to mention the fact we still have a planet’s worth of soldiers and allies on standby, which is only going to continue growing.”

Simon nodded “Yeah, but Solaris… I know nothing of his power level. Until I learn more, I don’t feel comfortable letting him anywhere near here. For all I know, he could drive The Huntsman crazy like he did Discord.”
“Oh, so the safety of him and Jax’s dimension.” The armored man said in realization. “Good thought right there, forgot about that.”

Simon nodded grimly “Yeah, I’d rather not risk having to do damage control on that.”

“Can we just go and lie dead on a bed for an hour or so?” I said, the adrenaline I got from the battle beginning to fade away. Simon smiled and nodded to Ugorn and the Huntsman “Let’s get poor Eggy to bed, he seems tired.”

One day, Simon, one day…

Simon then opened a door as the three of us walked through, Rainbow Dash saying that she’d see us later as I went through.

Redoing this premise with changes

Hey, It's the author, I'm, here to tell you that I'm going to redo this story as a SIVA entity mixed with a different source, as well as some more mystical lore, hope your looking forward to it!