Equestria Digital

Chapters

Aren't Digimon Genderless?
Digivolution
Big House
Meet the Parents
School Days
Wild Weasel
Guilt
Watch How Good I'll Fake It
Nightmare Soldiers
The Return
Xenobiology, Xenoarchaeology
Through the Looking Glass
And What I Found There
Worth Two in the Bush
Unpacking
Ant, Boot.
Persona non Grata
Fancy Pants Adventure
Something Wrong
Dangers From Afar

Aren't Digimon Genderless?

I’m an idiot. I should have seen that coming when I specified Antylamon and not Andiramon. Dub versus sub, female voice actor in both but in the original Japanese Antylamon is supposed to be male. When it was dubbed into english they couldn’t tell because the lines were written to use old gender neutral pronouns so they made Antylamon female based on the voice pitch. When I said Antylamon that meant dub and so now I’m a girl.

Oddly I didn’t feel like a girl, but that could be written off as being a giant rabbit. I stood back up and winced at the pain now I really needed to find that creek or stream or whatever it was. A nice soak in cold water and the pain would clear right up. When I finally found the water it turned out to be a decent sized creek with a couple of trees on the close bank.

It was easy enough to remove my scarf but the rest of my clothing took some examining. The collar and pauldrons were actually one piece and were kept on by a latch beneath my arms. Once I slipped it over my head I was able to examine it properly. It was made from basic Chrome Digizoid, a strange and rare metal which came in several forms most notably blue, red, and gold. Blue is supposed to be the light-weight type and allows a Digimon to move at high speed. Red is even stronger than normal Chrome and gives a Digimon very high defense. Last is Gold Digizoid which is supposed to maximize offensive strength.

Knowing what they do is nice, but I just wished I knew how they did it. Anyway, the collar and pauldrons were made from standard Chrome with a Gold trim around the edge and underneath. I thought the collar and pauldrons were also attached to the Red Digizoid armor covering my chest and back. I looking down I realized that it was actually a cuirass and held up by straps on my shoulders that the pauldrons had hidden.

After undoing the straps I tested the cuirass and was delighted to find that it wasn’t made of a series of solid plates but from numerous scales connected to an elastic like material. It was easy enough to slip it off now that I knew how it worked. The pants were ended up being made of a similarly stretchy material but under close scrutiny it was possible to see a slight glint when the light hit it, so it was likely interlaced with Blue and Red at odd intervals to give it a thistle color.

I folded up my pants and set them beneath the tree, the cuirass, collar-pauldrons, and scarf lay atop it with my backpack off to the side. I smiled when I saw my feet bigger and wider than ever, I never liked shoes at home and it somehow made my feet wide. My legs and feet were covered in the same pale brown fur as my hands and arms. It lightened to tan were it covered my chest. As I ran my hands carefully through it I discovered a source of further confusion in the form of a pair of nipples.

This just kept getting better and better, somewhere Zhuqiaomon was laughing at me, the feathered human hating bastard. In Tamers Renamon had said Digimon didn’t have genders. No, no! thoughts and actions for another time and place, not here where I’m out in the open. I turned back to the creek. It was about five feet deep, ten feet wide, and crystal clear. I could see fish swimming under the surface, what I recognized as watercress was growing near both banks. With its slow flow the water was just reflective enough to get a look at myself. The fur on my face was divided into thirds, pale brown on the left and right reaching completely around my head, and white in the center including my horns. My eyes were red and just like in the show it was two shades. Right in the middle of my face was a small triangular black nose.

I stepped into the creek, which turned out to be chilly, wading slowly out to mid stream I sat down and enjoyed the cool water as it washed over my fur. Just like Running Camp, a good run in the morning and if your group is in the right place a nice soak before heading back for lunch. My stomach rumbled reminding me that I hadn’t eaten for unknown period of time. I dug up the watercress and made a small meal of it while I soaked, when I was done the water had turned muddy brown.

I moved further upstream where the water was clearer and washed the dirt out of my fur. I stepped out and sat down next to my things under the tree. I had no intention of finding out if wet fur causes chafing on my first day out. I closed my eyes content to sit and wait for my fur to dry.

“So you’re what Iron Will saw blast past him.”

I cracked open an eye and suppressed a groan. What I saw was blue grey minotaur. He had a blue mow-hawk and beard with silvery horns, matching nose ring, and black tie. I guess I had seen Iron Will when I was running. Maybe if I just stayed quiet he would leave me alone.

“Iron Will has been all over the world and has never seen a creature like you before.” or maybe not

“I’m not surprised by that.” I said, wow I even sound like her.

I could practically hear the gears turning in his head as he looked from my clothes, to me, back to the clothes, and back to me a second time. He went bright red through his fur and spun on his hoof so his back was to me.

“Iron Will apologizes, Iron Will didn’t realize he was in the presence of an undressed woman!”

“It's quite alright,” I laughed “when I ran by you I was moving so fast I only saw a splotch of color out of the corner of my eye. I’m lucky you came after me, you see I’m a bit out of the loop can you tell me what has happened recently?”

“Iron Will would be happy to...as soon as you are properly attired that is.”

I stood up and was surprised to find that in the hour or so I had been sitting my legs had gotten very stiff. I took a minute to stretch before putting my armored clothing on. Iron Will still had his back to me, reaching out I tapped him on the shoulder.

“You can turn around now. My first question how long ago did I run past you?”

“That was at 2:15 yesterday afternoon.”

Great so I slept for a day “What time is it now?”

“12:36”

“Where are we?”

“In Equestria, about two days travel East from Trottingham. Well two days for a normal person, you could probably make the trip in a few hours. Iron Will is headed to Ponyville to give one of his Assertiveness Seminars.”

My stomach rumbled “Do you have any food you can spare? I...I don’t have any money.”

“Iron Will would be happy to share some of his supplies with you.”

He clapped his hands and his goat aids appeared from the other side of the tree wearing heavily laden packs. I could see various bits of equipment sticking out of them, a pan here, a speaker there. I even saw a sleeping bag stuffed into the back of one bag, why did they even need that? They bleated back and fore at each other before the white goat reached back and undid a strap.

Iron Will reached inside and pulled out pineapple slices, a few apples, and a peach. My stomach rumbled again at the sight of some of my favorite fruits. He handed them to me and turned around to pull out some more food. By the time he turned back I had eaten both apples, all the pineapple slices and was almost finished with the peach. He blinked a few times before shrugging and munching on what looked suspiciously like a tin can. I was beginning to think he was truly a nice person when I noticed one of his goats walking over to my bag. When the goat went to bite it I picked up my bag.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked

“You told Iron Will that you had no money so Iron Will was going to take your bag as collateral.”

“No...I don’t think so. You said you would be happy to share some of your supplies with me.”
“And Iron Will is,” he smiled “for a fee of course.”

“That’s not how it works,” I placed my bag safely out of reach in the tree “you’re supposed to tell people there is a fee before you give them something.”

“Never apologize, when you can criticize.”

“Iron Will, I am not someone you want to anger. You will not take my bag from me.”

He took a fighting stance “When somepony tries to block, show them that you rock!”

He charged at me, bad move. I placed my right arm across my front and waited till just the right moment. CRACK. With a vicious backhand I sent him tumbling end over end ten, twenty, thirty feet. With a small leap I was behind him as he sat up and looked around. Let’s hope this is the right command for it.

“Bǎo Fǔ.” with a snapping sound my hands turned into giant double bladed axes, bringing one around under his neck I spoke again. “I am not a killer, please don’t make me one. I don’t know how the laws work here, but where I’m from you have to inform people if you intend to charge them a fee, before you make an offer.”

Do you think Iron Will is going to die?

Digivolution

After making Iron Will promise, under penalty of beating him to within an inch death, to never extort another person again and getting proper directions to Trottingham, I set off again. He hadn’t been lying about how fast I could get there. Within two hours I could see the city’s massive wall; it reminded me of something…how did that song go again? Oh yeah...

I dig my hole you build a wall
I dig my hole you build a wall
One day that wall is gonna fall

Gon' build that city on a hill
Gon' build that city on a hill
Someday those tears are gonna spill

So build that wall and build it strong cause
We'll be there before too long

Gon' build that wall up to the sky
Gon' build that wall up to the sky
Someday your bird is gonna fly

Gon' build that wall until it's done
Gon' build that wall until it's done
But now you've got nowhere to run

So build that wall and build it strong cause
We'll be there before too long

Zia’s song, hopefully no one had made threats to this city. I stopped when I reached the wall, it was a truly awe inspiring sight. By pony standards I was a giant, but my height was dwarfed twice over by the walls. If I needed to I could jump over it with ease, I just had to hope it never came to that. Just from looking at the walls I could tell that the city had been built to be keep the people safe, after all walls are usually built to keep something out.

If Bridle Gossip was anything to go by the inhabitants of the city would react very badly to a giant armored talking rabbit. I set my backpack on the ground, according to our agreement I should be able to turn into Lopmon and back into Antylamon at will, so it should be as simple as making the decision to digivolve into Lopmon. I saw white and felt my body tingling when my sight cleared I was staring over the top of my backpack and I felt distinctly flushed. That answers another question, which I would likely explore at a later time.

My giant brown pink tipped ears were surprisingly easy to move, lift left, and point it straight up, do the same with the right, now down. The grass between my pink furred toes felt cool and crisp in the afternoon warmth. Now I was faced with the problem of what to do with my backpack. I could leave it there but something could happen to. In the end I wrapped it in my three foot ears and carried it on my head.

It took me almost thirty minutes to find the gate where a rather bored looking guard sat perusing a magazine in a kiosk just inside the wall marked “Information and Tourism”. He was a unicorn guard who had yellow fur, purple mane and tail, and wore a faded green beret and a pocketed khaki shirt with The Marshals stitched in black on the sleeves. Poor guy must have been out here for hours, and if Equestria’s population was only in the low millions he probably had very little to do when on duty. Without even looking up he floated out a book, quill and ink.

“Caravan, citizen, pilgrim, or…?”

“Courier.” I replied

“Just need something for the log book, keeping tabs on traffic through the gate…although mostly just in, not out these days.” He said

“Has there been a lot of gate traffic today then?”

“No, it’s slowed down for now. The Dragon Migration is taking place this year so some people are moving to safety now, rather than wait and run the risk of being attacked.”

“Did you just say some people and not someponies?”

“I did,” he nodded “We get creatures of all kinds when disasters happen. The main fields just inside the walls have plenty of space for temporary housing in emergency situations. As a result of our location disasters are more common than you might think, freak storms from the Everfree, volcanic and seismic events from the wastes, stuff like that.”

“Oh, how”

“Often?” he finished my question“Between six and ten times a year. Now here is your complimentary tourism guide and map of the city and the surrounding area as well as a list of all major city and national laws. Please enjoy your time in the city of Trottingham.”

I took the levitated brochures in my pink furred hand paws as I thanked him and took my first steps into the city. I was greeted by the sight of a massive lush field and in the distance I could see shapes I recognized as canvas tents. It took me ten minutes to reach the evacuees’ bustling tent village. There were ponies everywhere I looked; Unicorn, Pegasi, and Earth Ponies walking or flying around talking to one another. Booths and tables had been set up somewhere to form a sort of impromptu marketplace, I could hear it but I couldn’t see it. At all of two feet tall I was shorter than the average foal and had to be careful not to get stepped on by the adults who where crossing the main road. Those who did see me swerved to avoid my path and avoided my gaze.

I knew they had never seen a Digimon before, but aren’t ponies supposed to be nice to everyone? On a few occasions somepony bumped into me and didn’t even bother to apologize before walking away. As I stood there in the midst of the hustle and bustle outside the city proper I started to think that maybe I had made a mistake in thinking Equestria was a paradise.

Just like with Bastion, in Trottingham things are not always what they seem.

Big House

I continued to follow the path weaving between ponies and the occasional cart as I went. The traffic started to get thicker and thicker the closer I got to the city proper. It was strange that I only saw ponies; I knew the world was populated by a multitude of races, so where were they? With my head down I bumped bag first into a lavender furred unicorn filly. She blinked her cyan eyes, once, twice.

“Wow, I’ve never, met somepony like you before.” She said, straightening the black hair band in her rose colored mane, she had the same mane and tail style as the spa ponies.

I smiled “Of course you haven’t met anypony like me before. I’m a Lopmon, not a pony.”

She giggled “I’m Amethyst Rose, but my friends call me Rosy. What’s your name?”

I thought quickly and decided to just go with one from a legend “Inaba.”I offered my paw

“It’s a nice to meet you Inaba.” As she shook it my stomach rumbled making her giggle again “Sounds like somebody is hungry.”

“I haven’t had much to eat today.” I said sheepishly

“How about you come to my house and we can have a snack, then you can stay for dinner!”

“But, won’t your parents get upset if you just invite a random creature to dinner?”

“Nah, Mom won’t mind, and Grandma and Grandpa will just want to ask a couple a questions and then try to talk your ears off.”

She led the way through the bustle of the temporary housing area and the open field was slowly replaced by large fenced in estates. We went down the front path of what was clearly one of the oldest estates in the city. There, was a small hill which was topped with a massive oak tree. The main house was constructed of white stone, probably marble; parts of it had been allowed to become covered in leafy green ivy. The front was also adorned with eight large bay windows. The front door was made of cherry and was opened for us by a large grey Earth Pony in a black tailcoat and red bowtie, clearly a butler.

“Welcome back Ms. Rose.” He said with a bow

“Thanks Grey Main. Could you go to the kitchen and get us some snacks?”

“Of course Ms. Rose, your mother is in the study.”

“Thank you.”

With another bow Grey Main headed left and Rosy made a right. The interior of the building was beautiful without being overly lavish. The floors were made of a polished stone I didn’t recognize and long rugs had been placed to better trap heat in the chilly winter months. There were chairs or cushions here and there for ponies to sit on, various tables with arrays of brightly colored flowers in vases. We passed three of the bay windows before turning left in front of the fourth and final one on the front of the mansion.

We traveled past another two doors before we reached the study and what a study it was. As it turned out the study was a three story private library with a large window facing the inner courtyard opposite the door. While I had probably seen more books in my life I had never seen a private collection of this size before. I read some of the titles in passing and was shocked to discover that the topics ranged from children’s stories to what was basically quantum theory.

In the center of the room was a beautiful chess board. The white squares were made from white beech and black squares were made from ebony. These squares were set into a teak base and the entire thing was bordered in a mother of pearl inlay around the edges. The strange thing about it was the pieces or lack thereof in this case, but even the ones that were there were strange.

The White King had been carved asleep in a bed and his rook was a rearing white pony. What caught my eye though was the White Queen. She was clearly an Earth Pony filly. Her blonde mane reached just past her shoulder and was neat and tidy beneath her golden crown. She wore a blue dress and a white pinafore trimmed in red. In her mouth she held a mirror. Just as she was strange, so to was her rook because it was me. Well not human me, but Antylamon me.

There were various other strange chess pieces on the board as well. A Griffin here, a Diamond Dog there, a cow, several changelings, and various other things I didn’t recognize, each on a white platform. But all of them seemed to be placed at random. Only the White Queen, King and their rooks were in their proper starting positions. What the hell was I looking at here?

“Mom! I’m home!” Rosy said

“Just a minute Rosy,” a muffled reply from a clutter desk “Mommy just has to mark her place…and….done!”

From behind the desk came a teal furred unicorn. Her aqua tail and mane were streaked with sandy brown. Her mane was cut longer in the front while here tail was reminded me of a short messy straw broom. Her Cutie Mark showed a watery mirror with a G-clef super-imposed in front of it.

“Now what are you doing home so early I thought you would be out for a few… more…hours.” she trailed off her chestnut eyes going large as she saw me. She crossed the room and pulled me into a tight hug and making me drop my bag “Aren’t you just the cutest little thing!” she squealed

I wasn’t really sure how to respond “Um…thank you?”

“Your fur is so soft,” she nuzzled me “what’s your secret?”

“Um, lot’s of sunshine?”

“Hmm, I’ll have to try that.” She set me down “I’m Blue Serenade, call me Blue.” She offered her hoof

“Inaba.” As I took her hoof something seemed to flash in her eyes and she let out a little oh.

“You look familiar, have we met somewhere before?”

“No, at least, not as far as I know. I haven’t been in Equestria very long. This is very impressive private library you have here. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many books in a private collection before.”

She laughed “It’s not actually mine, it belongs to my parents. I know, I know 35, a foal of my own and I’m still living at home, so there must be something wrong with me right?”

“Not at all, until a few days ago I still lived with my parents. Besides, with a house and library this impressive I can’t say I blame you.”

The door opened and Grey Main walked in balancing a tray what I assumed to be fruit pastries on his back. I hadn’t been paying attention before so I took the opportunity to look him over. From what I could see his cutie mark was a grey napkin neatly folded atop what looked like a silvery serving tray. His mane was styled like Fancypants from Sweet and Elite and his tail was cropped even and short. As he moved I could see his body was rippling with lean dense muscle tissue and made a note not to piss him off. He set the tray down on a clear corner of the desk and pulled a feather duster from his coat pocket and began dusting the upper shelves.

Blue sighed “That’s Grey for you, the ever practical butler. He’s always looking to make things easier for our family. He’s practically a member of the family himself.”

She levitated a pastry into my empty paws. I took a bite and the sweet taste of raspberry filled my mouth. It was the best fruit pasty I’ve ever eaten, and I eat a lot of homemade foods. The flakey crust was lightly covered in sugar and tasted wonderful. I finished the pastry quickly and found another floating at eye level; taking a bite I found this one to be lemon. After eating another three I brushed the crumbs off my fur and found a glass of water waiting for me and Grey Main dusting a nearby shelf. How did he? When did he? I shook my head. Just like Sebastian, Grey Main was clearly one hell of a butler.

“Um, I don’t mean to be rude but, when I was walking around everypony who noticed me seemed to be. Well, bothered by me, like I had no right to be here.”

Blue let out a huff “Unfortunately most ponies are ignorant of problems outside Equestria and tend to be a little…how can I put this delicately? I guess bigoted would be the most polite term to use. They think they are better than non-ponies. My family has dealt with the strange and unusual for countless generations and as such we are raised to know that being a pony doesn’t make us any better or worse than someone else. To be honest we’re considered to be very weird by pony standards.”

I smiled “Well that’s a relief. Normal is boring.”

I don't like normal. Humans are naturally strange and that is good.

Meet the Parents

“So Mom, can Inaba stay for dinner?” Rosy asked

“You’re new friend can stay for as long as she likes.”

Rosy and I turned around to see a red furred unicorn mare walk into the study. Her mane was pulled back into a tight no-nonsense bun and whether it was natural or a result of age her mane had become the color of fresh snow. Her eyes were what caught my attention though. They were shining metallic silver. She walked past and I saw her cutie mark was grinning cartoon sun.

“I’m Sunny Smiles. Blue, Rosy, would the two of you go and help with the bags?”

“Okay, Granma.” The door closed as they left

“Pretty smooth, getting them to leave like that so you and I could speak alone.”

She grinned “This old mare has more than a few tricks left up her sleeves, not that I have any sleeves at the moment. Just like you, I can see three other shapes around you. Well, I can see one of them and most of a two others.”

“I’m sorry but what do you mean?” I hoped she was joking

She sighed “I know you are very different because these eyes of mine see things no-one else can. Long ago our family was responsible for hunting down shape shifters and criminals who stole certain, dangerous, things from places they shouldn’t have been able to get into. Now those few of us who are left have largely been forgotten, or relegated to Search and Rescue duties.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s alright, S and R is still very important.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, what do you see?”

“The only one I can see clearly looks like the Queen’s Rook on that chess board over there. One of them is just very tall so I can’t all of it, and the other…well it’s really just an outline so I couldn’t tell you what it is, just that its shorter than the rabbit and taller than you are now.”

Everything she said seemed right. She could see me as Antylamon and if I was right the tallest one was Cherubimon. Even though it wasn’t part of the deal I was still a Digimon and as Antylamon could theoretically digivolve to the highest level. So that just left the outline, it was either whatever is supposed to be between Lopmon and Antylamon, or it was a remnant of my human form.

“Do the things you can see ever bother you?”

“Oh they did at first, but after a few months I got used to it and learned how to sort out the dangers from everything else. They, along with this chessboard, were gifts given to my ancestors by the queen of a very bizarre land. Judging by your appearance and presence on the board it’d wager that you are somehow linked to her.”

“I am.” I was about to tell her how I got here when she interrupted me

“You needn’t tell me your story yet. Right now I think it is more important for you to know as much about current events as possible. When Discord had his brief freedom several months ago the first pieces appeared on the board, a Griffin and a Diamond Dog. Soon after word reached my ears that Wethoof’s hydra problem had been solved by the intervention of a strange Diamond Dog. Less than a week later reports and wanted posters came in for one Griffin the Griffin who is wanted for piracy. After that the reports were coming in to quickly to keep track of everything.” She shook her head “I just don’t know what to make of it and with the Dragon Migration fast approaching I cannot spare time to puzzle it out.”

“Sorry to sound rude but, shouldn’t you be retired?”

She gave me a wan smile “I was for a time. When I was young I worked as an Interviewer/Interrogator for The Marshalls. That’s how I met my husband, Cold Front; he was a witness in an important case and had to be placed under protection.”

“And with your special eyes made you the best choice, right?”

“Well, not the best, but under the circumstances yes. We hit it off, the case was finished in a few weeks and within six months we were married. He worked for the Severe Weather Dispersal Unit; they’re in charge of preventing dangerous weather coming from the Everfree Forest. We had Blue Serenade, and when she got old enough for a foal of her own we retired. About two years later I was contacted by The Mancers. The Mancers do research into new technology both magical and non-magical. They also heard about some of the more…interesting things my family has come across through the years and were interested in studying some of them, with supervision of course.”

“Of course, don’t want people, I mean ponies, you don’t know examining family heirlooms without someone to watch them.”

“Exactly, the things we have discovered since then have allowed Trottingham to prosper as a city. Naturally some of the things we have discovered are locked away for various reasons. Other things we have left untouched out of fear for what they might be capable of. Over the years I’ve worked my way up the ranks and I’m currently in the head of The Mancers, and though most of them are retired I still have friends who work for or with The Marshalls.”

“Maybe I could help ya’ll identify some of the things you’re unsure about, tell you what is and isn’t truly dangerous.”

She nodded “That would nice; sometimes a new perspective is all you need to solve a problem.”

“What would be nice dear?” asked bass voice asked

While we talked we had moved and sat down next to the chessboard with door at our backs. I looked over my shoulder and saw the Pegasus that must be Cold Front. When he was young he would have been in excellent shape and even in old age he was still covered in thick muscles. His coat was storm cloud grey and his cutie mark was a blue line with triangles pointing towards his head. His mane was either cut incredibly short or had all fallen out and though his tail had mostly faded to grayish white there were still streaks of sky blue in it.

“Inaba is interested in helping me with work.” She nuzzled him as he sat next to her

“Is at so? Well, maybe you can discover something that no pony has ever discovered before.”

Rosy hadn’t been lying when she said her Grandparents would talk my ears off. I learned a lot about the city’s history just from listening to them. It was the second oldest city left in Equestria and currently the second most populous. The city had been many things in its lifetime, military base, trade hub, tourist trap, you name it. It was when they were explaining the finer points of the city’s infrastructure that I realized I had been in this world for more than twenty four hours and not once been to the bathroom, despite eating two small meals and having several glasses of water. As if it was some kind of evil trigger phrase I suddenly found myself desperately having to pee.

“Um, sorry to interrupt, but I need to use the bathroom.”

“Have you been given a full tour of the house yet?” Cold Front asked

“No, Rosy and I came straight back here to the study.”

“Well then,” he stood up “we’ll just have to make the bathroom the first stop then won’t we.”

After using the bathroom and finishing the tour it was time for dinner. I don’t know what I was expecting for dinner but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was salad; romaine lettuce, fruits, sunflower seeds, and most surprising of all hardboiled egg. After using a fork to eat salad for twenty years it was very strange to eat it with my fingers, and without any sort of dressing. Rosy was talking about her school day and how some of her classmates were picking on her because she had yet to earn her cutie mark. I had plenty of experience with being bullied and decided to give her some advice.

“The easiest way to throw them off is to take it as compliment.” I told her “For a long time I was picked on for various reasons. After a while I realized if they were normal and being normal meant I had to be truly mean to people I either didn’t know or barely knew. Then I’d rather be weird, because it was more fun, I could be relatively nice to people, and most importantly I could be myself. If people couldn’t accept me for who I really was, then they weren’t real friends.”

There was silence for a few seconds “That’s pretty deep to be coming from a child.” Cold Front said

Before I could respond Grey Main walked and bee lined for Blue Serenade, with my strong ears I was able to hear what they whispered about.

“Ms. Blue, he is back again and is refusing to leave without first speaking to you. I have so far been able to prevent him from forcing his way in.”

She huffed “Fine, I’ll go deal with him.” She stood up “Excuse me everyone but I have to take care of something.”

She left heading in the direction of the front door. Everyone resumed eating and talking as Grey Main cleared away her dishes. If I strained I could barely make out the sound of talking in the front of the house. When nopony was looking I slipped out of the room following the sound of talking to reach the front door. Blue was talking to a unicorn stallion with arctic blue eyes and an amber mane. He wore a black collar with gold buttons and a blue bowtie. It took moment to before I realized it was Prince Blueblood.

“I’m telling you Blue, I’ve changed!” He said “I’ll buy you anything, anything you want or ever could want!”

She shook her head “You haven’t changed at all if you think money can buy love. Now that you’ve seen me it’s time for you to leave.”

“Please Blue, I’m just asking you for one more chance! I’m on my knees begging you!” and he was to

She groaned “No, you used up your last chance ten years ago when you found out I was pregnant and tried to talk me into getting rid of the foal instead of doing the proper thing.”

I decided now would be a good time to interject. They had decided I was a kid so I went with that. I let my ears drag on the ground behind me and put on a look that clearly said “help me I’m lost”. Just ask anyone who buys a puppy or kitten, cuteness can be used as a powerful weapon. I walked out from behind the corner and into Prince Blueblood’s view; he was so busy looking at Blue that he failed to notice me.

I spoke timidly “Ms. Blue?”

She turned around and her look softened “Inaba, I told you just call me Blue, is something wrong?”

I tilted my head and put a claw to my lip “Who are you talking to?”

She interrupted him before he could speak “This is Prince Blueblood.”

Blink twice “That’s nice, is he somepony important?”

“Not really, he is well connected but as far as I know he doesn’t do anything. Did you hear us talking and come up here?”

“I’m standing right here you know!”

We ignored him “No, ma’am, you haven’t told me where I’m sleeping yet.” not truly a lie but not really the truth

“Blue, what- I mean; who,” he hastily corrected “is this?” he seemed to be repulsed by me, racist then.

She smiled and levitated me onto her back “This is Inaba, she’s an evacuee who will be staying with here until she can find or afford a place of her own. I thought it would be a good idea to have you sleep in Rosy’s room. It’ll be just like a sleepover.”

“Blue, I’ll be in town for at least the next week. I’m staying at the best hotel in town, you know the one. If you don’t come see me I’ll be by again tomorrow with a gift for you.”

We headed back to the dining room. “So, since when are such a needy little child.” Blue teased

“That’s called acting children!” I said in a deep voice “I’ve always wanted to say that even though I can’t remember what it’s from.”

“You looked so adorably cute when I turned around. Promise me you won’t teach that trick to Rosy.”

I smiled “Promise.”

We walked in silence to the back of the mansion where the bedrooms where. Rosy’s room was right in the middle with Blue’s on the left. As we neared the door I could hear the slow even breathing of somepony sleeping. Blue opened the door carefully as I got down. Grey Main had set up a large green cushion and a lightweight pink blanket for me to use as a bed. Truthfully, I would have been happy on the rug with the Mexican Blanket I had in my bag. In the corner I could see light reflecting off of a full length mirror. I curled up on the cushion with blanket draped lightly over me.

“Goodnight Blue and thank you for everything.”

I closed my eyes and heard the door close; as I was falling asleep I thought I felt a hand touch my head. I had been hoping for a nice night with no strange dreams. Unfortunately that was not to be the case. My dreams that night were filled with reflective surfaces and that I sank into and out of and the sound of a bustling city as I chased the white queen from the chessboard in the study. I nearly caught her by her hair band but it turned into a ribbon and she slipped out of my paws.

If you know what that acting line is from please tell me.
I think it was a cartoon.

School Days

Friday morning dawned brightly with the sun shining brightly and Amethyst Rose saying something about school. It was Friday; I didn’t have any classes scheduled on Friday. Actually, I don’t think my college even offered Friday classes, my networking professor said something about no one being able to focus. I simply groaned and rolled over burying my face into the pillow to blot out the light. The blanket was pulled from atop me as the pillow yanked from under my head. I blinked blearily as my eyes caught sight of what my right paw held. It was a hair ribbon made of black silk and long enough that I could use it to style my ears. Well, not the weirdest thing to happen to me in the last seventy-two hours.

They thought I was a child and I had reinforced that idea with my actions, so it only made sense for me to go to school like all the other children. I rolled off of the cushion and made it up the way it was when I came in the previous night. I put my bag in a corner of the room and examined myself in the mirror. I stuck my ears back and then pulled them into something resembling an upside down top knot which I tied off with the ribbon. I smoothed down the messy patches of my fur and followed Rosy to the dining room.

It was just the two of us as Grey Main served oat pancakes with thick syrup for breakfast; thankfully there were forks. We had to eat quickly because apparently I had slept in a bit too much. We were each given a cloth bag with an assortment of foods and a sealed bottle for our lunches. I opted to carry mine rather than have Rosy stuff it into her surprisingly full saddle bags. As we were leaving he gave me a note for the teacher explaining that I would be joining the class.

It took us twenty minutes of quick jogging/trotting to make it to the school building. The school was actually comprised of five buildings constructed from bright red bricks. We made our way to the fifth building and went down the main hall. Our classroom ended up being the third left. It was a pretty basic room about thirty desks, five or six windows, blackboard and teacher’s desk at the front where we came in. The teacher was a young, purple eyed, earth pony mare whose fur and mane were a bright orange. Her cutie mark showed a blue addition, subtraction and division symbol arranged in a neat square. I handed her the note and she introduced herself as Highlighter and told me just to sit where there was space.

I snagged the desk to Rosy’s left and set my sack lunch carefully on the floor beneath me. This was definitely elementary school. The letters of the alphabet bordered the wall just below the ceiling. A red trimmed bulletin board on the wall opposite the windows had a few book reports tacked to it, likely the best ones from the class. I didn’t have much time to think about it before a bell rang and fillies and colts flooded into the room. We ended up having almost fifty ponies in the room.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

I turned to the source of the snobby voice and was unsurprised by what I saw there. The voice had come from an earth pony filly with a pure white coat. Her blonde mane and tail were both done up in a series of stylish curls. Her cutie mark was a jewel encrusted egg of some sort. She glared at me, her blue eyes a mixture of shock and disgust as I sat there in what I now assumed to be “her” seat. It was clearly time to put my higher intellect to good use, trololo.

“I’m sitting.”

“I can see that,” she practically seethed at me “why are you sitting there. You should be on the floor with the rest of the…visitors.”

“I have a preference for chairs as opposed to the ground, but you’re welcome to assemble there. Incidentally I am not a visitor; I’m living in the company of Amethyst Rose and her relations until such an opportunity arises that I may find a domical within which to dwell alone and manner in which to raise sufficient currency with which to provide for myself. As such I am technically a new occupant to their domical.”

I could practically hear the gears turning in her head as she tried to make sense of what I just said.

I was rewarded with a rather satisfying response of “Huh? What did you just say to me?”

Maybe this could be fun “It has now been made abundantly palpable to me that your skills of deduction, in conjunction with your terminology, are at a deficit when compared to mine.”

“Oh yeah? Well you’re…you’re a rabbit!”

“Technically factual but by the same vein it is also partially invalid. My characteristics originate mutually from canidaes and lagomorphs. Not that I can plausibly infer that you presently comprehend the preponderance of the plethora of words I’m using.”

“Spuh?” was her rather intelligent response

“Golden Wonder, you chose to come in when you did with this many ponies in class the desks are first come first served. Now stop bothering Inaba and take your seat on the floor.” Highlighter said

Golden Wonder muttered under her breath as she sat down by somepony and shot a glare over at me. The lesson started and I quickly became bored. As it turned out the desk was a lift top style and inside I found quill, ink, and paper which I pulled out. I began crunching rough estimates for my speed as Antylamon, the numbers I came up with were a little shocking especially if my idea of the distances were correct. I crunched the numbers again and got the same result. Someone cleared their throat and I looked up to see Highlighter staring at me expectantly. I glanced at the board and saw a basic algebra problem of solve for x, it was easy.

“X is 2.”

“Huh?”

“That’s the answer…you did want me to answer the question right?”

“Yes, for a moment there I thought you weren’t paying attention.”

From math we moved on to language arts, specifically grammar. Yuck, I hate grammar. Luckily the rules were all the same so it was more boring stuff. We were given worksheets to fill out as homework at the start of the grammar lesson. While Highlighter went over the lesson I went ahead and filled in everything on the sheet with correct answers. I folded up the completed worksheet and put it between the ribbon and my ears, then pulled out another blank sheet and began to doodle. I was never much of an artist; everything I drew ended up looking blocky and never came out the way I wanted it to. But this it was like someone else was drawing through me.

The creature I drew had long arms that would reach nearly reach the ground if it hunched its back. The forearms were thick and curved back past the elbow a bit. Its hands had two large fingers and a thumb all tipped by a short claw. Its feet split into a pair of clawed toes with a third toe at the back of the foot. The legs resembled the hind legs of a dog. It had a fox like head, short muzzle with a mouth full of sharp teeth, almond shaped eyes, and large ears. It had a thin waist and something that resembled small featureless breasts. It had a long bushy stream of hair pulled and tied back into a massive bushy pony tail by a black ribbon. Its tail was equally bushy but lacked any sort of tying.

It was looking into an ornate mirror where the blurred image of what I recognized as a human girl could be seen. There was something scrawled across the top of the mirror. It took a few minutes before I could make out that the word was Jabberwocky. That meant the girl would have to be Alice. The picture gave me an odd feeling, one I couldn’t place, like a mixture of hope, anxiety, despair, and happiness. I put it with the worksheet as the bell rang dismissing us for lunch.

“Inaba, please stay. I’d like to speak to you for a moment.”

Golden Wonder smirked at me as she left the room. I stopped next at Highlighter’s desk and waited for her to speak.

Highlighter smiled “Don’t worry you’re not in any trouble. You solved that math problem very quickly and don’t think I missed you finishing the grammar homework before we were even five minutes into the lesson. Can I see your picture?” I opened for her to inspect “Wow, if you were a pony your cutie mark would definitely be something art related.”

I shook my head “No, my paws may have drawn it but it wasn’t me actually doing the drawing.”

She winked “Don’t count yourself out. I never thought I’d ever become a teacher and look at me now, teacher of the year four years and counting. Now, about the other reason I wanted to speak to you.” Her expression became serious “Be careful of around Golden Wonder. Her family own one of the most important potato farms in the country and her mother, Home Guard, has a place on the city council and could make things very difficult for you.”

I put the drawing away “Thank you for the warning. I’ll be certain to keep it in mind should I need to…take action against her again.”

“Good, now I’ve taken enough of your time, go out and enjoy your lunch.”

It was easy enough for me to find Rosy once I was outside. Just about everypony seemed to be avoiding her, except for one. She was a pegasus pony. Her periwinkle mane and tail were both cropped boyishly short and the color was just different enough to tell them from her powder blue fur. Her cutie mark was two red comas separated by a small space. Her green eyes looked up as Rosy shouted for me to join them.

She was introduced to me as Mist Wing, the only student willing to be friends with a pony who hadn’t earned their cutie mark. At first she seemed a little leery of me. I soon learned that her recently discovered special talent was making drizzle, mist, and other forms of light rain. She didn’t seem extremely thrilled by it, saying it wasn’t as flashy as she had hoped for. She warmed up to me after I told her I liked drizzle better than thunderstorms because I could go out and play in it when the weather was warm.

We had only been given about thirty minutes to eat lunch. Almost like high school except at my high school you only had twenty minutes to eat. If you brought your lunch you’d be okay, otherwise you’d likely spend ten minutes waiting in line for your food. We got back to the classroom early and were able to get seats near each other. While we waited I helped Rosy and Mist Wing make sense of the grammar worksheet’s problems.

They managed to finish about half of it before lunch ended and everypony came back in. As class continued I learned that Mist was supposed to be sleeping over tonight and that it had been planned out earlier in the week. Over the course of the next few hours we were given three more worksheets to do as homework before the bell finally rang for dismissal. We had made it about halfway to the house before I finally figured out we were being followed by Prince Blueblood. His guards made him hard to miss as he tried to hide behind a corner.

“You two go ahead to the house. I’ll meet you there, okay.”

“You sure Inaba? You might get lost.” Mist said

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’ve got a good memory.”

“Alright, but if you’re not there in an hour we’ll come looking for you.”

I nodded “Fair enough.”

After they were out of ear shot I spoke up “I see you hiding there Blueblood.” I heard a scuffling noise “I can hear you to. Why don’t you come out here so we can talk to each other face to face?”

“Very well, I suppose I can oblige your request. My orders are simple; you will not go near my little filly or my family ever again. In exchange you will be given a generous weekly stipend of 200 bits with which to meet your personal needs. If you refuse”

“I do,” I cut him off “you have neither the right nor the privilege to demand any such thing from me. From what I heard last night they aren’t yours in any way shape or form.” I did my best to look menacing “Know that I am much more than I appear. Even as I am now I could easily kill you, not that I want to. But if you try and have me arrested on trumped up charges, I won’t go quietly. If you want what’s best for them you should try being a better pony than you were at last year’s Grand Galloping Gala, the way you treated that unicorn was selfish and bordering on the criminally cruel.”

“H…how do you know about that?!”

I tapped my ears “I hear things and you yourself just confirmed it.”

His guards took a fighting stance “You will keep that knowledge to yourself commoner.”

“What seems to be the problem here?” from my left came five ponies, all members of The Marshalls.

“No officers,” Blueblood quickly replied “this commoner was just about to apologize for slandering my good name.”

Their leader arched a brow “From what I heard you should be the one apologizing. After all you were just threatening a member of The Mancers.”

Blueblood and his guards paled before beginning to apologize profusely as they beat a rather hasty retreat. They were barely out of sight before I started giggling at their antics. When I was sure they couldn’t hear me I started laughing in earnest. It took a few minutes for me to calm down enough to catch my breath. The Marshalls explained to me that I had actually been made a member of The Mancers by Sunny Smiles and the paperwork was already finished. They had sent them to keep an eye Prince Blueblood in case he tried to do something stupid, which he did. I took note of their names so I could recommend them for some sort of commendation or something.

Grey Main opened the door to the house as I got there and directed me to the study where Rosy and Mist where waiting for me. He said he would be along shortly with snacks and also congratulated me on being made a member of the prestigious group known as The Mancers. Honestly did all the adults know and just forget to tell me or something?

Next chapter we get to see The Mancer's vault which is full of strange, wonderful, and very dangerous things that have not been classified as more dangerous than Discord. Though a few of the things probably should be.

Wild Weasel

I slept well after taking several hours to recount the storyline of Dead Money. No strange dreams, no nightmares, it was probably about midnight when I fell asleep and Rosy and Mist were still shivering with fear form the story. I’d make it up to them later with another video game story, maybe Old World Blues it was hammy enough to upset when its storyline finally ended. When I woke up it was probably around 8 o’clock, the time my internal clock always wakes me up. Mist and Rosy were still asleep. As I rolled out of bed I realized I hadn’t bathed in a few days so I made my way to the bathroom.

I used my ears to turn on the water for the shower. After waiting for it to heat up I stepped in and carefully began scrubbing myself with shampoo. I used to be able to shower quickly but it took me at least twenty minutes to finish washing and make sure there wasn’t any soap left in my fur. I shut off the water and grabbed my towel when I was dry, well drier; my fur fluffed itself up making me seem much fluffier than I actually was. Even though it made me look stupid it certainly helped my fur dry quicker. I smoothed it down and grabbed my new bag, making sure my copy of Pocket Ref was inside, and I made my way to the study.

I sat down at a desk with some paper and pulled out my pencil to begin sketching out designs for a battle saddles. Though there were hundreds of guns there were only five or six different ones. The saddle I was sketching now was for the favorite gem I found amongst the weapons. Ten Barrett M107A1s, forty Browning M2s and several hundred thousand rounds each of Mk211, AP, API, and standard ammunition. Get those M107A1s on the stable platform the pony body provides and teach them to shoot accurately and we’d have the perfect anti, well, everything. The hard part would be adjusting the scopes but for now I was more worried about getting a working design done.

After several failed sketches I managed to make one that I thought might work for the M107s. I had other plans for the M2s, as in mount them on the walls if we came under attack. I sketched out some basic designs for the M240s I had seen listed, ammo box on the left side across the back and into the gun on the right, hurray for belt fed. I heard somepony walking down the hallway and the almost inaudible slosh of liquid in a glass meant it was probably Grey Main.

He walked in carrying a tray of freshly sliced fruit and a glass of water. I folded up my sketches and put them in the bag with my pencil. It’s not that I didn’t trust Grey Main; it’s just that I don’t truly trust anyone I don’t know as well as the back of my paw.

“When I saw you weren’t in bed I decided to make you some breakfast.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“Two days ago you showed a great deal of interest in this room so I decided to check here first.”

“I like reading and I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an impressive private collection.”

He set the tray down “It is isn’t it. I remember when some of the upper shelves hadn’t been filled. Since you are living with us now, I was wondering if you would help me with the grocery shopping today. I’m not entirely sure what foods you like or even what range of foods you can eat.”

“I’d be happy to help,” my stomach growled “just as soon as I finish this breakfast you made me.”

I ate quickly and scribbled a note for everypony so they would know where I had gone. As we walked I realized I knew very little about Grey Main. He was a butler. He had lived or served in the same house for a while if his comment in the study was anything to go by. God, well gods I guess, I hate making small talk.

“So,” I hesitated “how long have you known Blue’s family?”

He spoke less formally now “Believe it or not Blue and I grew up together. I spent a lot of time at her house. We were very close especially in the months before I joined Princess Celestia’s Royal Guard. I served for five years as on officer’s aide before I came back here.”

“So then how did you become their butler?”

“When I came back Blue’s family needed somepony to help them. I was shocked to learn that Blue had had a foal while I was gone. Rosy was about five and I think she is what made me decide to take Sunny up on her offer to work for them.”

“Do you know who her father is?”

He scowled and shook his head “Based on who visited the other night I have my suspicions but I don’t know for sure.”

“For her sake I hope you’re wrong about it being him. Could you imagine if he somehow got custody and was responsible for raising her? I think I’d rather walk unarmed into Dead Wind cavern with an air horn.”

“I take it doing that would be suicide?”

“With a capital S.”

The town market was packed with ponies shopping for food, pottery, and all manner of things. We went from stall to stall carefully examining the food before picking anything. I offered to help carry everything but Grey Main wouldn’t hear of it. In the end he relented and let me carry a small bag of seasonings. On our way out of the market we passed by a street were a crowd had formed around something.

“Everypony stay back. This is official business of The Marshals.”

We headed towards the crowd and heard whispers of what happened, who did this, why would somepony do this, and other things in that vein. It was quieter on this street, even with the rubberneckers talking. I could hear a faint buzzing that sounded like insects. I’d seen enough shows to know what that meant. Before I even realized what I was doing I was pushing my way through the ponies. The Marshals took one look at my bag glanced at each other and decided I could pass.

What I saw was one of Prince Blueblood’s guards or at least what was left of him. The sight wasn’t what bothered me, lots of M games and CSI style shows tends to make it a bit less shocking. I picked up a nearby stick and began using it to lift some flaps of skin and muscle here and there.

“What do you think? A griffin?” one asked me

“No,” I pointed to three small nubs in the armor “ Half right though, some kind of bird did this. Had to be pretty big and it lacks dexterity. A griffin could’ve removed the armor and probably wouldn’t have left the body behind either. The bones are still mostly intact from what I can see so that rules out anything with teeth because they would’ve cracked open the bones for the marrow.”

“You can tell all that just from a quick glance?”

“I’ve seen lots of stuff.”

“I’m surprised you’ve been able to look at this thing for so long. We’ve had to change officers several times while we wait for the corner to arrive. It just…just looks so gruesome.”

“Yeah, it is.” I stood up “Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go throw up.”

He smirked “So you really COULDN’T take the sight then.”

“No, it’s the smell.” seriously its only reason I hate roadkill

I dropped the stick and found a discreet corner. When I turned around a unicorn offered me a towel and some water. I thanked her and used them to clean myself up. I asked a few more questions like if the sky could be kept could free for a few nights. How clear was the sky last night? About how long ago do you think this happened? Stuff like that, I made a few recommendations for public safety and then went back over to Grey.

We walked back to the house in silence though neither of us would say it we were worried about the ponies we lived with. I made a snap decision, stuffing the bag of spices into Grey’s saddle bag I took off for the factory. At a full run I made it there in just less than ten minutes. Forgoing the stairs I jumped down and landed with a roll. Note to self get rope installed.

I used one of my ears to push the button. When the door opened at the bottom I was happy to see that the secretary was the same pony from before, more importantly she was talking to Sunny. They both looked up as I stepped out. I was barely winded despite my short legs and swift run.

“We have a problem.”

“So there’s a giant carnivorous bird somewhere in or near the city and it already killed somepony.”

I pulled out my sketches “That’s about the gist of it. I don’t know if we have an official R&D department if we outsource it to some local company. I had hoped these could be on the backburner for a little while but with this development I think it needs to be a top priority. They’re called battle saddles; I’ve only sketched basic designs to be used for two of the guns so far but from these I hope we can have somepony else design some better ones.”

“All things considered these are quite good.” She passed them to an aide “We’ll have the fabrication department get to work immediately. In the meantime what do you suggest we do about our mysterious avian friend?”

“We aren’t doing anything. I’m going to spend the night outside playing a game.”

I hadn’t been expecting a prototype for at least three days. They had one in three hours. They had even set up a firing range in an unused section of HQ for testing. For the first time in who knew how long at least some of these guns would finally see use again. But before that I had to teach them about firearm maintenance so they could teach it to the ponies the finished saddles would be issued to. That took several hours for two reasons. One, I wanted to make sure they knew how to do it properly. And two, I was unfamiliar with the exact method used to field-strip these weapons. Next I taught them basic firearm safety. Then the testing began.

“I think they’re great so far.” I said

“Oh there’s plenty of room for improvement.” A tan mare spoke up “We can increase the saddles durability and stability while still keeping it easy and quick to don.”

“It needs to be kept small enough and light enough to not be unwieldy. The wearer needs to be as nimble and accurate as possible in battle.”

“But they’re just so…so ugly” another mare said “we can definitely make them look so much cuter. Paint them a nice bright color”

I rounded on her “No!” she flinched “Let me explain something very very important. These are weapons of war; they are design to kill the enemy. Look at this M107A1. There is not a single decorative, ornate, or unnecessary line used in its construction. It is all function and no fashion. That’s how the saddles are going to be done. If the user doesn’t like its natural brown then they can have it in any color they want as long as it’s black.”

“Oh…” she said sadly

I thought for a few minutes “Actually, there is a project you could work on. We have body armor and I need it redesigned to fit ponies. When it’s done I want it to be as indistinguishable as possible from a regular, albeit less bulky, uniform. Think you can do that for me?”

She perked up “Yes ma’am!”

“Good, make sure you get current information on the saddles. If it’s possible to have them worn together without compromising their functions or pony mobility then that’s what I want.”

We ate lunch as we worked. Before we knew what happened I had started almost a dozen new projects. I had expected everypony to upset about being given extra work. I couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Most of them were delighted by the prospect of having new and innovative work to do. After lunch work began on the battle saddle’s second prototypes so I had the range all to myself.

This was good since I needed to learn how to use my attacks. But, more importantly I wanted to see if I could use them without having to say them. With some practice I found that it WAS possible, but it was a lot hard to do. I also learned a neat trick with Blazing Ice, rather than a barrage of small pellets I could make a single shaped one, granted it was still small but being able to shape it opened up some new possibilities.

When night finally came it was time to put my brilliant plan into action. But first I had to wait for Rosy to fall asleep, and then I had to make sure she actually was asleep before slipping out of the room. Once outside I started wandering around looking for a place to hide. I ended up in a nice park, some good sized trees, plenty of bushes, and it was relatively quiet. I crawled into one of the bushes and sat down to wait and listening for the tell tale sound of wing beats. I sat there for hours but when I finally heard something it made the bottom drop out of my stomach.

“I’m telling you your weird new friend is around here somewhere.” That was Golden Wonder

“But why would she be out here in the middle of night?” and that was Rosy

“She’s YOUR weirdo friend you tell me.”

It looked like I would have to scrap the mission and try again later. I crawled out of my hiding place and walked over to them. The crickets were chirping pleasantly. That was a good sign if ever I heard one.

“Inaba what are you doing out here? We should be at home, asleep!”

“Where are those Marshals? They should be here by now.” Golden muttered to herself

“I wasn’t aware that I was doing anything wrong.”

“The Marshals declared a curfew until further notice. YOU’RE going to get in SO much trouble when they get here.” She was grinning

“You mean we.”

“What.” Her smile was gone, replaced with a frown and a glare

“A curfew applies to everyone and everypony.”

“What does that have to do anything?”

“You’re out after curfew just like me so you’ll be in just as much trouble.”

“My mommy can get me out of anything they try to do. You on the other hoof don”

“Ssshhh!”

“Did you just”

“Sssshhh!" it had gone silent "Do you hear that?”

She looked around “I don’t hear anything.”

“No crickets, no bugs, nothing.” Rosy said

They couldn’t hear it but I could, the flapping of giant wings.

“Stay behind me.” Above somewhere, which direction?

“Like I’m going to listen to you.”

“If you don’t there’s a good chance that you’ll die.”

I took a deep breath, in through the nose, condense the pellets into a single one, picture the shape and breathe out. There was a crack as the Sears-Haak body shaped ice pellet passed from transonic to supersonic speed. The few clouds overhead were shredded as it passed near them. There was a squawk of pain and spray of blood as my shot clipped whatever kind of raptor was in the sky.

“What in Tartarus did you just do!?” Golden Wonder shrieked

“It must have black feathers.” I mumbled

“What has black feathers?” Rosy asked

“Whatever the hell it is up there.”

The sounds changed, it was heading straight for us, no time to debate this with myself. In a flash I was Antylamon and I learned I had night vision. It was a giant bird with a cruel curved beak. So called it hooray for nature documentaries teaching me everything. I was also right about it being big, as in the same size as me big. My foot shot up in a roundhouse kick hitting it in the face, as I pivoted it was sent sprawling across the ground. Unfortunately I couldn’t go after it like I originally planned to since I now had to guard to two fillies. So rather than fighting I’m defending.

“Bunny Blades,” snap, language is non-issue apparently “stay behind me girls.”

It took to the sky again quickly gaining altitude. It began circling looking for an opening but I turned with it keeping the fillies at my back. It took a steep angle and dove at us. I swung with my left axe and landed a solid slash across its head knocking it off balance. I brought my right axe straight up cutting clean through its wing, bone and all.

With its balance wrecked it tilted to the left and plowed head first into the ground. Now we were on a more even playing field. It stood unsteadily on its taloned feet wobbling as it tried to find its balance, the fact that it was bleeding heavily wasn’t helping it either. It was now more angry than hungry because it lunged at me trying to gouge out my side with its beak. There was the unpleasant sound of breaking bone as it splintered against my Red Chrome cuirass. I swung low cutting one of its legs out from under it. As it fell I struck the killing blow using both axes to cut its head off.

I let my hands change back as I caught my breath. That was the first time I had ever really killed anything. Sure I’d squished my fair share of bugs but I don’t think anyone really counts them. Looking down at myself I could tell I was splattered in blood, even if I could see its color, stupid rod cells. I looked behind me to check on the girls. Golden Wonder had fainted, no surprise.

Rosy on the other hand was staring at me with wide eyes. I heard ponies coming galloping in our direction. That must be The Marshals, well better late than never. At least that’s how the saying goes.

A Sears-Haak body is a type of aerodynamic shape, its VERY cool.Rod cells are the simpler cells that make up the retina, they let you see in the dark/low light and are also the cause of peripheral(sp?) vision more info here. Yes rabbits can see in the dark and do often hear their predators coming, those big ol ears ain't just for show folks.

Guilt

I knew I was in shock over what I had done. I had cried when my dad had to kill a rabbit that was still alive after we’d hit it. That had felt bad, but this, this felt even worse because I had to do it. There hadn’t been any choice; if it had lived more ponies would have died. I felt myself tearing up and tried to hold it together. I needed to give a report to The Marshals, to explain what happened. Then when I’d made sure Rosy was physically unhurt I could have my breakdown, not before.

“I’m sorry.” I whispered to the corpse “I’m so, so very sorry. I had to. If…if I didn’t you would have killed them. I had to do it, to protect them.” I kept repeating it till one of The Marshals tapped my leg.

“We were told to expect you but...I didn’t think you’d be so…tall.” It was Ironclad, I recognized him from Friday. “I can tell you’re a little shaken up but could speak Equestrian for me? I don’t speak…um…whatever language it is you’re speaking.” He smiled sheepishly

I blinked “I am.” That didn’t sound right “Testing one, two, three? What? Shut up.”

Not English, Japanese. I tried again, Swahili. I cycled through Spanish, Italian, German, and six other languages before I finally started speaking English again. It made sense in a bizarre way. When you panic, which is what I was essentially doing, you lose some of your reasoning ability. Somehow that made me start speaking languages that I knew little to nothing about. The reason that part made some sense was because Digimon are digital data given new form and life and while all that was interesting it only briefly distracted me.

“Rosy and Golden Wonder are they alright?

“Physically, yes, psychologically? I don’t know. What about you?”

I felt the first tears roll down my face and I sniffed “I’m fine for now.”

He raised an eyebrow “Are you sure?”

I sniffed again as I started crying “Maybe, sniff, maybe I’m not completely okay. B…but I d…don’t want Rosy see me c…crying.”

I saw Rosy hug my left leg “It…its o…okay Inaba, you c…can cry t…to.”

I guess the cat was out of the bag at that point. I still tried not to cry with partial success, as in crying silently. I don’t want to kill anything; I’m fine with beating it into submission so long as I don’t kill it unless I absolutely have to and even then I’d still rather not. I don’t know how long we stood there, me mourning the death of something that had killed one pony and had tried to kill two more. Rosy, because she knew she could have died and instead had bear witness to the rather gruesome death of another creature. Our group made its way to one of The Marshals local dispatch buildings where I was lucky to find a hose so I could clean myself up.

“Um, we have a slight problem.” Ironclad said

I took a deep breath “Just give me a sec to make sure I’ve cleaned all the blood off and check for damage.”

I started taking off my armor “Wait! Warn somepony before you start stripping.”

He had turned bright red as a spun an about face “Sorry, where I’m from nudity isn’t as common so I thought nopony would mind if I just, you know took if off.”

Rosy seemed fascinated by the fact that my armor was NOT part of my natural body. After removing everything I checked my pants and cuirass for any damage. The pants had some feather fluff stuck to the one leg but that was it. The cuirass was, unsurprisingly, completely undamaged. Not even the tiniest of scratches, at least that I could tell. I redressed and with a thought became Lopmon again. Rosy’s eyes became huge, I owed her a lot of answers, but they’d have to wait until I didn’t feel like a piece of shit.

“You can turn around now.”

“Wha? Bu? How?” the look on his face, priceless

I smiled, normally I would’ve laughed but again I felt like shit. “Sorry Guns, its classified.”

“Okay?”

The inside looked exactly how you would expect a police station to. Officer at a desk in the front, The Marshals painted on the front of it. Visitor’s bathrooms on one side, a door on the opposite wall lead us into the offices. Ten desks and ten filing cabinets and a door on the right side with a glass window marked as Captain. The place was lit with same lighting as The Mancers HQ so it was nice and bright. As we neared the Captains office I heard voices.

“So we’re just gonna let the parents handle them, but you’ll have to deal with your operative.”

“I understand. But you know it’s really none of our faults.” That was Sunny Smiles

A sigh “Yeah, I know. It’s the damn city council and their stupid ‘official procedure’.” I could almost hear the air quotes “I swear it’s like trying to get a bill onto the agenda of The Barn of Lords sometimes.”

“I know Wilily.” She sighed “I know.”

Ironclad knocked as he opened the door to Wilily’s office. “I’ve brought them sir.”

Wilily was a middle aged stallion with hazard orange fur. He had a crew cut brown mane and a beard that reminded me of Gordon Freeman. His desk was plain with a few framed pictures of friends and family. His green eyes and smirk put me a little more at ease.

“The other filly is being taken home?” he asked

“Yes, sir. She had passed out so Bastion is carrying her.”

A nod “Thank you Sergeant. Go ahead and get started on your report.”

With a quick salute the door closed behind us. "My name is Wild E, I'm Commissioner or the Marshals and most folks just call me Wilily instead of Wild E"

"Can I just call you Commissioner?" I asked

"If you want."

“Alright then Commissioner, are we in trouble?”

He paused“Hmm, yes and no. Blue will deal with punishing her daughter and Sunny is in charge of yours. But before I send you off I want some answers from you.”

“Ask away sir.” I wiped my nose

He hesitated “Have you been crying?”

“Yes.”

He blinked, guess he was expecting a lie “Why?”

“I killed a living creature. I’ve never killed a living a creature. Do you have any idea how horrible I feel right now. I know in my head that it had to be done but. But in my heart I still wish it didn’t have to be done by anyone, least of all by me. My brother is the one who went through BCT, not me.”

“Sunny, you can take your granddaughter home; I’d like to speak with Ms. Inaba alone.”

She blinked but didn’t protest as she dragged Rosy out of the room. I listened carefully; they didn’t leave, just stopped next to the door to the front of the station. I looked down at my feet. I guess he wanted to punish me or something. I was expecting, well, I don’t really know what, maybe to be hit or something. I was surprised when I felt a hoof gentle place itself on my head.

“Inaba, look at me.”

I had started crying again, this always happens. I try to do something good and get screwed over by it.

“Please.” I did, he had a sad smile on his face “What you did tonight was incredibly brave. A bit reckless maybe but undoubtedly one of the bravest things I think I’ve ever heard of. Sunny’s filled me on the important bits about you and I gotta say I’m impressed.” He sighed “You’d have made one hell of a Marshal with instincts like those. Almost makes me sad The Mancers snatched you up first.” His smile was happy now “But from what she’s told me you’ve probably done more good in a day working for them than you could’ve done in a year working for us. Now then, I doubt Sunny’ll punish you but I’m going to.”

“Right, I’ll spend the night behind bars.” I said dismally

He laughed “For breaking a curfew? No, at least not under the circumstances, I just want two things from you; an incident report on your encounter with that...thing and I don’t want you to keep beating yourself up about this. I know it’s hard to believe but eventually you’ll feel better.”

He went back and rummaged through his desk returning with a sack of clinking bits.

“I know you’re not on the force, but I think you’ve earned this.” He hoofed it to me. “200 bits, we had a pool going on as to whether or not your little speech to Blueblood had any truth to it. The money was to go to whoever could prove it one way or the other within the confines of the law.”

I shook my head “Speaking of, I haven’t had time to familiarize myself with the laws.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure nopony can drag you in on trumped up or false charges.”

“What about at the national level.”

His smile turned into a smirk “We have primary jurisdiction here because there is no Guard detachment. So I can make sure they get bogged down in so much red tape that it’s less trouble just to forget the orders and drop the charges. The only way they could really take you in would be on an order from one of the Princesses and even then I could still pull out some red tape to slow them down, if only long enough to warn you.”

“Good, I get the feeling Blueblood might try to pin the death of his guard on me. Gods I wish I could go run.”

“Why?”

“I am, well was, an athlete. Long distance running was my sport. Whenever I felt upset I usually went for a run to clear my head. I would push myself and run this loop I had as fast as I could.”

“Wanderlust eh? Sunny was in here talking about a ‘ping’ she got, ask her about.”

“I will, and I’ll get that report written ASAP.”

“Just make sure I get it before next Wednesday.”

I exited the office and joined Sunny and Rosy. We left the building and made it most of the way home in silence. Rosy kept glancing over at me as I walked on Sunny’s opposite side. Finally she couldn’t seem to contain herself anymore.

“Are you really an alien?” she blurted out

“Rosy, that’s rude.”

I shrugged “Its fine. Yes, I’m from a planet called Earth.”

“Are you really twenty years old?”

“Yes,” she seemed crestfallen at my answer “but don’t think I didn’t enjoy the sleepover. I haven’t been able to be a kid for about ten years, that’s when I started middle school and my parents told me I had to ‘grow up’ and stop being so childish. Oh, Sunny, I was told to ask you about some sort of ping you got.”

She smiled broadly “Yes, we’ve had reports of strange break-ins in Ponyville coupled with somepony saying that they could get into any building or storage facility in the town.”

THAT perked my interest “You think they’re using something that came through from somewhere else.”

“I do, is there anything you can think of that might allow that?”

“Maybe, is there any sign of forced entry?”

“No, all the locks have been picked but no damage was done to the windows or doors.”

“Then, there are a few things it could be. One of which I really hope it isn’t for reasons I’d rather keep to myself.”

“Can you at least give me a hint about it?”

“It’s called the Skeleton Key. It belongs to a god like being known as a daedra. Specifically it belongs to Nocturnal one of the Daedric Princes. The less you know about The Key, the better.”

“Is it really that dangerous?”

“No, but its potential is.”

We reached the house and were shepherded to bed. I slept badly that night, dreams of giant birds and blood. They were chased off by the same girl from my last dream. When I woke up I wrote the report as quickly and thoroughly as possible. I had stuck the sack of bits in my Mancers bag when I did my ears. In the study I digivolved into Antylamon and back as an experiment. My ribbon stayed put, more importantly it was undamaged and hadn’t been on me when I was Antylamon. At least I wouldn’t have to hold my bag when I ran.

I was given a stipend to cover travel, food, and lodging expenses. I was allowed to keep whatever I didn’t spend which would probably be most of it. Normally they would’ve told me not to make myself noticeable but since nopony there had ever seen a Lopmon before going unnoticed would be impossible. I would have to avoid Pinkie Pie, parties are nice but they’re not my thing.

Rosy insisted on walking to the south gate with me. I had my Mancers bag on. Inside were both bags of bits, duck tape, my mechanical pencil, my moleskine, my iPod, headphones, and some sandwiches Grey Main had made for me to snack on in an emergency. Rosy wasn’t allowed to go outside the gate so we stopped for a bit.

“Thank you for guiding me to the gate. I don’t think I could’ve found it so quickly on my own.”

I was suddenly swallowed up into a tight hug “Thank you, for saving me. I didn’t say it last night. I was so scared, even when we got home and I knew I would be safe. Those blades they”

I wrapped my ears around her neck hugging her back “Shh, its okay. I’d never use them to hurt you or anyone else I care about. If I can manage to then I don’t want to kill anything ever again.”

She sniffed “Promise?”

“Promise. Remember even if I don’t look the same on the outside, I’ll still be me on the inside.”

“How will I know?”

“A sign of friendship.”

On that cryptic note I gave a gentle squeeze with my ears before I let go. The train station was twenty minutes walk outside the gate. I was supposed to pick up the earliest train they had to Ponyville. The schedule said it would take three days for the train to arrive in Ponyville and when I asked about ticket prices the clerk gave a rather convoluted answer that basically meant he wouldn’t sell me a ticket unless I paid three times the normal price of a first class ticket for one in the lowest class. Being a usually frugal person I told him no. It looked like I was going to get my run after all.

You shouldn't dwell on the past, but you should learn from it.

Watch How Good I'll Fake It

I made sure I was out of sight before I digivolved into Antylamon. Why try to find my way when the train tracks ran non-stop to Ponyville? I heard the train whistle as it left the station. I stretched for a few minutes, this was going to be a long run and I didn’t want to injure myself. Two days non-stop for the train at who knew how fast, yeah I could probably beat it. I started off at a walk then gradually picked up my pace. Soon enough I was running, not at the slow steady pace of a few days earlier but a much harder and faster pace. I caught and out striped the train in less than a minute.

Soon it was so far behind me that I could neither feel the ground shaking nor hear the engine’s roar. When I run I either day dream or think. I didn’t feel like day dreaming so I thought. I thought about the monster, because that’s exactly what it was, I had killed last night. I thought about it and wrapped my head around it from every possible angle. No matter how I thought about it I had made the right choice. I remembered something my brother said when we saw him on Family Day at the end of BCT.

He said “The people who are alright when they get shipped out are usually alright when they come back. Maybe a little shook up, but not weird. If they’re weird when they get shipped out, then they’re usually weirder when they come back.”

I like to think that I was weird as in ‘I like to do my own thing’ but not weird like some of the people he told me about from his platoon, but even knowing that I didn’t feel much better about what I had done. Around noon I stopped to eat and digivolved into Lopmon. What I had previously thought to be just bagged sandwiches turned out to be small meals; they even included a canned drink. Grey Main must have prophetic visions or something to see this coming. I ate quickly and listened to some songs before deciding to try something. I digivolved back and draped the headphones near my ears with some testing I was able to get my iPod to stay put in one of scarf’s creases as I ran.

I wasn’t expecting the battery to last more than three hours; I was surprised when I stopped for a break after three and a half to find that it had lost barely any charge. Maybe it was because of my new physiology or something. After another hour of running I was able to see apple trees on the horizon and slowed down. I changed course heading toward Sweet Apple Acres where I knew there was a path/road to follow. After all, it would look sketchy if someone came to town walking next to the railroad tracks.

Standing outside the gate to Sweet Apple Acres was no other than the Element of Honesty herself, Applejack. I needed to find a place to stay and since she had lived here all her life she would know of any cheap places. I had my headphones wrapped around my ears so they would stay put. I loved that I didn’t have to have the volume very high to drown most stuff out. As I drew closer AJ’s ears perked up and she turned to look at me. I turned down the volume so I would be able to hear her.

“Good afternoon ma’am. My name is Inaba.” I stuck my paw out and she tentatively shook it.

“I’m Applejack. Pardon me if I’m bein rude but you’re not from Equestria are you.”

“Not at all, it’s a difficult question I’d rather not get into because it depends entirely on the semantics of how I interpret it.”

“Is that a yes or no?”

“It’s a sort of and I don’t want to talk about it. I’m in town on business and I’m looking for an inexpensive place to stay while I’m here.”

She huffed “I guess I’m not gonna get a straight answer out of ya. I know a couple a places that might be what you’re lookin for. Follow me; I was goin into town anyway.”

“Thank you.” We set off for town “I heard that you never lie, is that true?”

“Darn tootin it is. That’s why I’m the Element of Honesty. If you want a truly honest answer I’m the mare to ask. So, what’s on your mind sugar cube?”

This would probably be my one chance to actually get a real answer about my actions. “It’s…it’s complicated. Still want me to ask?”

“Go for it, I’ll try an give ya the best answer I can.”

I took a deep breath “If you had no-other choice but to kill in order to protect those you hold closest would you do it? We’re talking literally no other choice. If you don’t kill whatever it is that’s attacking your friends, it WILL kill them.”

She sighed “Shoulda known it would be something like that. You’re right it’s a mighty tricky question.”

“Take your time answering; I’d rather have a good answer than a quick one.”

We walked in silence while she thought “If there really is no other way to save ‘em then, I suppose you’d have to kill the attacker. Personally I’d rather find a way to avoid it but if it couldn’t be done, I’d still feel bad about havin to kill something.”

I let out my breath “You have no idea, how much better that answer makes me feel.”

She raised an eyebrow “So it was a question from personal experience?”

“Yes. My friend was attacked by a giant bird and I didn’t have more than a few seconds to think.”

“And what did your friend say about what you did?”

“She thanked me for saving her.”

“Then it sounds like she forgives ya for it.”

“But how do I forgive myself?”

“Sorry but that’s one question I can’t answer. Only you can find the answer to THAT one.”

I smiled weakly “You’re probably right. Thank you.”

She led me to a Bed and Breakfast near the center of town. It was eight bits a night and included three meals a day at eight, noon, and five. I was early enough that I could get the five o’clock meal after I paid for two nights. After eating it was time to gather information. So I stashed my stuff under the bed in my room and went for a walk through town. First stop was the town square where ponies were milling around now that the work day was largely over. All I learned there were a few rumors about local figures, but nothing that was relevant to my search.

From there I went through the market where most ponies had already closed shop for the day and were leaving. Their conversations ranged from prices to bets on when and what the next monster attack would be. I put ten bits down on a rampaging pegasus. If I was right, which I already knew I was, I would get a sizeable payout. I hit the major public areas in under thirty minutes and then headed for the somepony I knew I was a gossip. Carousel Boutique was closed, so she must be at Golden Oaks Library.

I could hear them before I even reached the door, six voices, seven. I recognized all of them as the mane six and Spike discussing what sounded like me. Mostly unimportant but they seemed happy that I didn’t seem likely to go on a murdering rampage like some of the other chess pieces. I knocked on the door and waited for it to open. When it did I was greeted by none other than Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic, herself. I don’t know who was more shocked her at seeing me after just talking about me, or me at seeing Noctural’s Skeleton Key on the table in the center of the room.

“May I please come in?”

“Um, actually we’re kind of” Twilight began

“Thank you.” I pushed past her and walked up to the table “This Key, I’ve been looking for it.”

“You have?”

“Yes, it was stolen from a temple dedicated to a deity known as the Night Mistress. I need to find a way to return it.”

I felt a hoof snag my ear and drag me “Sorry Twilight need to barrow the basement for a few minutes ‘kay? Thanks!” Pinkie Pie babbled

She rushed us downstairs and quickly closed the door “Who sent you? Is Luna trying to horde articles? Are you working for some foreign power?” she was literally shining a spotlight on me “Talk!”

This was a vastly different Pinkie Pie “In order? The Mancers, I don’t know, no, and woof.”

She blinked “Oh, I didn’t expect you to answer so easily. The Mancers huh? I’d been told that they were just a local bureau in Trottingham now.”

“By who?”

“Princess Celestia of course, I report directly to her.”

I sighed “Then it’s likely she won’t get the letter concerning the nuke. Can you put me in touch with her?”

She scratched her chin “Mayyyyyyyybbbbbbbe. Depends what you want that Key for.”

“All I want to do is return it. The kind of power it has…it’s not something that was ever meant to leave its place in the temple.”

“What is its power anyway?”

“What do keys do?”

“Unlock things duh.”

“So what do you think a Key that belongs to a deity whose sphere is night, darkness, and luck, especially thieves’ luck, would do?”

“Well, unlock anything I guess, why?”

“Specify anything.”

“What?” she thought for a second then her eyes went wide “Dear sweet Celestia you don’t mean?”

“Yes, anything. Any lock, any device, truly anything, even none tangible or metaphysical things like a person’s maximum potential or the ability to die for those who normally can’t. I think you understand what that means.”

“Yeah, okay when we go back up there we’ll get Spike to send a letter to the Princess for you and then you can take that Key and try to find a way to get it back to its proper place. But before you leave and after the Princess does I have to throw a ‘Hope You Had A Good Time in Ponyville’ party for you.”

“I’m not much of a party person. But by all means HAVE the party, just, just don’t expect me to stay the whole time, or be very social. Okay?”

“Okie dokie lokie.”

We went back upstairs and I finally got to have nice long look at the Skeleton Key. The top was a sphere divided into several sections each adorned with a nautilus shell like blue green design with the openings facing down the handle with a stream of like colored dots. The handle was made of what looked like oil rubbed bronze. Beneath the handle was a ring with four prongs sticking downward from it that were attached to struts. At the end of the shaft was the key’s oddly shaped teeth. It didn’t weigh anything, ignoring everyponies protests I retied my bow around it.

“What do you mean she’s taking it!?” Rainbow Dash shouted

“We talked it over and she convinced me that she’s the best person to hold onto it.”

“That’s all well and good dear,” Rarity said “but how do we know she’s trustworthy?”

“All I want really want to do with this Key is return it to its proper place. Cross my heart and hope to fly stick a cupcake in my eye.” They stared at me “What?”

“Well, that answers two questions.” Twilight said

“Good, now I need to send a letter to one of the Princesses. It doesn’t matter which they’ll both probably end up reading it.”

I was given quill, ink and paper to right my letter on and was closely watched as I penned it.

Dear Princesses,

My name is Inaba. It has recently come to my attention that you believe the more secretive aspects of The Mancers is no longer in existence. It is. While doing inventory I came across a thermonuclear weapon and I would like your help sending somewhere far away, like deep into the cold vacuum of space. For the time being we are taking the necessary precautions to protect against radiation leakage by encasing it in lead. I hope to receive a swift reply.

Sincerely,
Inaba

PS-Yes I am in Ponyville currently and when I leave the Key is going with me.

I folded it into quarters and addressed “Spike would you please send this to the Princess immediately?”

“Um…”

“It’s okay Spike, you can send it.”

With a burst of flame it was gone. Now I was at the mercy of questioning. Luckily for me some of the questions had already been answered. Either by my actions or by the conversation I had had with Applejack. After thirty minutes Rarity was taking measurements so she could make me a dress which I insisted that I pay for and it could be no more elegant than a sundress. We had just finished working out a price when a reply came.

Dear Inaba,

Stay put one of us will arrive later to speak to you.

Celestia
Luna

That…wasn’t the kind of response I was expecting.

Sorry it took so long. Writers block and BL2 just came out.

Nightmare Soldiers

After I read the letter everypony seemed to find something to do. Pinkie Pie went to the kitchen to cook something. Rarity went home to start work on my dresses. Rainbow Dash went home to do something. Fluttershy left to check on all the animals and get them ready for bed. Applejack made herself busy doing something with quill and paper. Twilight and Spike started checking through the books they had for any information on the Key. I took a similar root and started reading up on Equestrian history.

I started with a book on pre-Equestria history titled Ancient Unicornia: An Approved History, the author’s name sounded like a unicorn's and the title of the book sounded like propaganda. It was, luckily it was poorly written and seemed to spout nonsense at the seams. I put it down after the third chapter and picked up another book on the subject, this time written by an earth pony. It was far more informative and written like a college thesis paper that had been published. It was informative, but dry and boring.

The sun set and I was about halfway through it. Pinkie Pie had finished baking cupcakes and I munched on a few as I kept reading. Even with the added sugar I felt myself dozing off. A stressful time the night before coupled with the longest run I had ever done created a lot of fatigue. I must have dozed off because before I knew it I was having another nightmare.

It quickly became obvious to me that this was not a normal nightmare. Nightmares usually involve fire and turtle stepping stones and make absolutely no sense what so ever. This was far too ordered mostly because I found myself in the middle of a shining city facing the virus version of Antylamon. The differences were subtle, lighter brown fur, no scarf, diamond symbol instead of a language character. It was what I didn’t want to become, a destructive creature.

It attacked me lashing out with its arms and sending a wave of energy at me, I ran to hide behind an empty bus. By the gods I hate cities. I sprinted for the next piece of cover trying to put distance between us. It attacked again and I was sent sprawling as the wave smashed into the ground where I had been half a second before. I felt my back get peppered by bits of asphalt as I hit the ground and it hurt. That was clue number two that this was not a normal nightmare.

The only things that made any sense at this point was that I was being attacked and someone had somehow hijacked my dreams. I felt my back; if there had been wounds there they had already healed. I scrambled to my feet and moved just quickly enough to dodge another blast wave. I felt the stinging bite as it kicked up more shrapnel. I heard the whistling of air and a thump as it jumped and landed on the ground in front of me. This was getting me nowhere. Dreams, what did I know about the formation of dreams?

They’re controlled and created, or at least tied to, the unconscious mind unless it’s a lucid dream. This could qualify as a lucid dream. I ducked as it swung one of its massive hands. This was getting ridiculous. It was half the size of the real Antylamon but every bit as fast and strong. If I was ever going to get any breathing room I’d need something to keep it busy. As it brought its hand down to try to crush me a large blue thing rammed into it and they both smashed through the front of a nearby building. Another dropped out of the sky right in front of me turning the ground into a crater. Fifteen feet and five and quarter tons of bluish armor, green tubes, and giant orange worms, spikes flared up and out in a show of aggression. Hunters, I had somehow generated a pair of Hunters, yeah that should buy me about twenty minutes. The one that had rammed the virus type flew out of the hole and landed on its back with a grunt.

I turned and ran, with that little display I cut my time estimate in half. Hunters were strong but Antylamon was stronger sooner rather than later it would win and I’d have to think of something else to distract it. I zigzagged through the streets turning right then left to eliminate any possible straight line of sight and put the most distance between us. As I ran I noticed that something felt off about the way my weight was distributed. Before I had time to think about it I was grabbed by the wrist. Before I knew what I was doing my hand snapped down to grab the offending limb, I pivoted and threw the creature into the building on the opposite side of the street.

I was shocked for two reasons. One that shouldn’t have possible; until I became Antylamon I’d NEVER been anywhere near that strong. I could run fourteen miles and be good to go again in a few hours but I was lucky if I could manage ten pull-ups. Two, I had just hurled Princess Luna into a building with enough force to create a shockwave that destroyed half the windows on the front side of the building. I rushed over making the glass disappear with a thought as I helped her back to her hooves.

“Dear God, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to, my body just reacted. I shouldn’t even be strong enough to lift you let alone throw you.” My voice was higher pitched then I remembered.

She had some cuts and bruises but that was it “Worry not strange female we shall be fine. What about thee, sorry I mean you?”

I blinked and looked down at myself. Breasts, I had breasts. I growled “If I ever get my hands on that stupid bird I’m gonna rip out every last one of his STUPID! FUCKING! FEATHERS! BEFORE I smash his stupid face in!” she looked at me and I smiled sheepishly “Sorry I guess I have some issues to work through.” I felt a twinge as the Hunters died “Shit, gotta think of something else. Um…Oh! That will work quite nicely, at least for a little bit.”

There was a blast of heat and a bellowing roar. “What was that?”

“Balrog of Morgoth. Big flaming shadow-y thing, very hard to kill. Should give us about an hour.” I winced as a building collapsed “Maybe half.”

The world shifted and we were now in front of a library. I could see the city off in the distance. I looked behind me and saw Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Twilight standing there slack jawed. There was a massive blast of heat and I turned to see the city engulfed in flames. Okay maybe the Balrog could buy us an hour.

“How did ya’ll get into my dream?” I asked

“That was our doing.” Princess Luna said “When you would not wake thy, I mean, your friends began to worry. So I used a spell to bring our minds into your dream.”

“That’s how we got in but how the hay did we get way out here when we were way over yonder?” Applejack asked

That was a good question “I didn’t bring us here, which means one of two things. Either the person doing this sent us here or my sub-conscious dragged us here for some reason.”

“Both are correct.”

The voice belonged to a little girl. She wore a blue dress, white pinafore, black shoes, and striped stockings. Atop her blonde hair was a simple golden crown and in her right hand she held a plain looking wooden scepter. Her blue green eyes seemed to shine with laughter.

“Hail Queen Alice.” I bowed

“Please rise, this is no time for formalities.” I stood “Whoever has done this is looking for information as well as trying to retrieve a physical item in the real world.”

“You are violating the rules by being here.” Luna said

Alice smiled “My world is different from all others in existence. Even the rules and physics of the realm of the draconequus are simple by comparison.”

Luna got right up into her face “As a Game Master you are forbidden to intervene this way. You should leave before your piece is”

SMACK! Alice’s smile had become a scowl “Do not presume to speak to me about rules. I am bound by laws far older and more powerful than even you can possibly imagine.”

“Enough!” Twilight snapped “We need to stop whoever is doing this so we can all leave.”

“They’re probably after the Key.” Pinkie said

I nodded “Yeah, and anything and everything I know about it. The question is how do we stop him?”

“What makes you so sure it’s a stallion?” Twilight asked

“Because the last time it was stolen it was stolen by a stallion and history has a nasty habit of repeating itself.” The city was suddenly extinguished

“We have even less time than I thought.” Alice said “The intruder is using the virus type’s form to manifest their will. They cannot be destroyed as they are in control of the spell. Your mind brought us here because this is where your memories are. Something in there will help us wrest control of the spell from its caster.”

“Why does it look like that?” Twilight asked

“Because it’s what I don’t want to become.” She looked at me “Antylamon comes in two types; a data type, which is the real one and a member of The Devas, and a virus type doppelganger which shares its physical strength and a similar appearance but has different attacks. The virus type digivolved from a form that was created from hatred and anger, something it shares but is much better at hiding.”

“Oh. That’s…sorry I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s alright,” I stood in front of the doorway “ We have work to do though so Luna, Alice you stay here and guard the entrance. Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Applejack ya’ll are coming inside with me. I’m going to give you all the help I can before we start looking.” The ground shook and we were suddenly up in the air “Oh and I’m leaving this thing here to give you combat support.”

From behind the library stepped a fifty foot creature. It was grayish silver, with a blue four ended scarf. Its feet were like giant pointy triangles. Its massive shoulders were the same and reach out farther. A giant zipper ran up the center of its body and its face was adorned with an inverted heart tipped by a spike cross.

“In theory Nobodies can only be destroyed by a keyblade or a similar weapon. The Twilight Thorn is strong enough to put up a decent fight without being too much of a hindrance. I would have used a Darkside but I doubt a Heartless would listen very well.” I looked up at its face “Protect this building and the two of them.”

It nodded and we went inside the doors closing behind us. With a thought a mass of complicated locks appeared on the door. It wouldn’t do much but it would hopefully provide some added protection. The inside was filled with bookshelves. But only half of it was filled with books, dioramas, toys, and other nick-knacks. But most of the stuff was all over the floor in cluttered little piles.

“Shit fuck, this could take awhile. Okay, let’s be methodical about this. Twilight you start with that stack, Applejack you take that one and I’ll take this one.”

We started searching and organizing everything. We made it through about half the things on the floor before I started to get impatient. This was taking too long. If this kept going on for much longer we would have a problem. I didn’t know if the Balrog was still alive when the fire went out if that meant it was dead. Either way we couldn’t do this forever, eventually the intruder would overcome it and move on. On the plus side if we survived this I would have about thirty new projects to start when I got back to Trottingham.

“What’s this thing?” Twilight asked

I looked over and saw her levitating a miniature robot. Blue with flames painted on the legs and chest and a flaming eye and eight ball on its arms. There was a little red convertible sports car where its head should have been. I smiled.

“That’s Megas. It’s a giant robot that Coop, a fat gamer from Jersey, supped up after he bought it for two bucks. He then proceeded to destroy his home town on an almost weekly basis with his friends Jamie and Kiva, a red haired chick from the future, as they also saved the world at the same time.”

“Well holding it makes me feel strange and I keep hearing this song.”

“So put it down. Fer Celestia’s sake Twilight I thought you had more sense.”

“Okay okay but why was it next to this thing?” she pointed to something on the floor

“That’s…” it was a beat up red shoe with white laces and an iconic white swoosh “that’s one Pre’s shoes. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most important runners who helped start the 1970s running boom. He ran for the University of Oregan and ran under Coach Bill Bowerman who would later found Blue Ribbon Sports which became,” I pointed at the swoosh “Nike, named for the Greek goddess of victory.”

“So what? Is this shoe like everything you know about the company and this Pre person?”

“No, I found those over here.” Applejack said

I picked up the shoe and the room was filled with sound “Is that a heartbeat?” Twilight asked

“Yes, and I think I know why this was with Megas.” A screen appeared on the far wall “watch and listen.”

“Wow, I feel” Twilight said “I feel inspired. Like I could gallop out and do something amazing.”

I smiled “That’s how I felt the first time I saw it. ‘Passion, has a funny way of trumping logic’ Coop had no idea what the hell he was doing but he always came out on top because he had enthusiasm. But he always did it by being himself, not by trying to be a hero.”

“What do you mean?”

“In the first episode Kiva’s enemies follow her into the past and she tells Coop he’s the only one who can save the Earth he says ‘Look, red, I’m no hero. I’m just a guy from Jersey, alright?’ and he solves most problems the way any normal person would. He doesn’t try and protect everything he just goes out there and wings it. Shit gets smashed and at the end of the day collateral aside the world’s safe from the threat of the week. Life goes on and Coop does it all again the next week.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I’ve been trying to be a hero, even if I didn’t realize it at first. THAT’S why I’m so shook up about killing that bird monster, not because I’m a kind and caring person…well no that’s still a part of it. I’m not gonna try and play the hero anymore. I think I know how to make the caster lose control over the spell.”

“Oo! Tell me! Tell Me!” Pinkie said

“By being me.”

The walls, windows and door all vanished just in time for me to watch Alice block an energy wave with a massive two handed sword. I caught a glimpse of the sparkles that signaled the destruction of a Nobody. With a thought the rest of the library vanished and all of us, intruder included, where in the middle of a giant flat field.

“This is where I’ve decided to manifest certain…things.” I reached over and grabbed a black and orange ray gun “Like this.”

ZAP the intruder had been turned into a cartoony white sheep. After a few seconds he changed back and went to move towards me. A mass of stick figures with strange heads fell from the sky and buried it in a heap. They were all grumbling and saying things, some even had captions stuck to their chests. They started running around making noise and generally being funny.

He stood slowly unbalanced from being buried under the rage faces. Owls, lots of owls with funny hats and mustaches and all manner of decorations and captions swooped down into his face and started peppering him with statements and questions. Then came the swarm of awesome faces. I threw every meme and bizarre thing I could think of at him.

“Pinkie?” Twilight asked worriedly

“What? Even I can’t make sense out of half this stuff.”

He was disoriented I jumped at him. Did a hand stand on his head and as I started to lean and fall off, grabbed him by the ears. I landed smoothly on both feet and yanked forward hard slamming him face first into the ground. He flickered; time to finish this, Seth McFarlane style.

“What was all that?” Twilight asked me

“What was that? No-one’s asked me that since the time I survived being crushed by a tank 37 times in Halo.”

We were in Sandbox. A tank fell from the sky and landed on top of the intruder sending him flying out into the death field. Before the towers could fire we were back in the field. The intruder was lying in a heap in front of me. Alice was giggling but everyone else seemed confused.

“How did you do that? Can you teach me? Can ya?! Can ya?! Can ya?!” Pinkie asked

“Can I teach you? No-one’s asked me that since I tried to teach New Guy how to solo Crawmerax the Invincible.”

We were at the bottom of a cave in front of an elevator shaft. The elevator stopped moving up and there was an all mighty roar. We were lifted a foot in the air as something massive slammed into the ground. There was a flash of light at the end of the tunnel and the intruder appeared. Then we were back in the field and Alice was laughing outright. The intruder flickered and turned into a gold unicorn stallion.

“Please, no more!” he clutched his head. His cutie mark was a hypnotic spiral

“Since I can see what you really look like I’m gonna guess that you’ve lost control of the spell now.”

“I think he lost control when you dropped the tank on him.” Alice was trying very hard to get her laughing under control. “I haven’t been that entertained in quite some time.”

I lifted him by his mane “Now then, I have some questions and you are going to answer them. Now that I’m in complete control you won’t be able to lie. First question, who are you?”

“L, Lord Clear Psyche. I am a member of The Barn of Lords.”

I scowled “Do you support the reform of Unicornia?”

“Indeed I do, the problems that led to Hearth’s Warming were caused by pegasi and earth ponies not knowing there proper place in the world.”

I held up a hand to silence any comments “How far are ya’ll willing to go to bring back Unicornia?”

“As far as we must.”

“I see,” a book appeared in my left hand, a thin dusty and battered journal “I have something VERY important for you to read here.” I opened it and pushed him into it before closing it. “I’ll leave him there for a few minutes.”

“I don’t like this one bit.” Applejack said “the deep freeze from before Hearth's Warming was caused by everypony being neglectful and selfish.”

The book started to squirm “For fuck’s sake.”

I opened it and shook it making the world change. We now stood in front of a metal gate. It was a simple gate and there was a sign above it. It read Arbeit Macht Frei. Behind the gate stood a horrified Lord Clear Psyche.

“What is this place?” he whispered sounding hollow

“What does that sign mean?” Twilight asked

All trace of anger had left me and Alice looked extremely somber “The sign is German; the literal translation is ‘labor sets you free’. As for this place, we are standing at the front gate of a place called Auschwitz. I will ask you this only once. You said you’re group would go are far as they must. Would they be willing to do things like this?”

He gave a shuddering gulp “I…I think there are some among our number who would.”

“What about you?”

“Never, I would never condone anything like this. I would destroy my own horn first. How could the people of this nation have let this happen?”

“The majority of them didn’t even know what these places really were.”

He shuddered. With a wave of my hand we were in the field again and the battered journal was closed. I let it disappear and sighed. So many terrible things had happened in those places. But without knowing no-one could ever learn from the horrors of it.

“That little journal contains all of my knowledge on an event known as The Holocaust. It was started by a man named Adolf Hitler, who believed that people with blonde hair and blues were superior to everyone else, especially people of Jewish descent. Approximately six million Jews were murdered in The Holocaust. That was roughly two thirds of Europe’s Jewish population at the time. All because he wanted to bring Germany back to its former glory. Even with the things he was willing to do, he failed and committed suicide when the Allied Powers had him surround in the capital city of Berlin.” That was a very abridged version but it would be enough.

“That’s terrible,” I looked at Luna

“It is. Also, before I forget, I have reason to believe your transformation into Nightmare Moon, was not entirely voluntary on your part.”

Clear Psyche sighed “I think I will withdraw my support from the Eden Initiative. That’s what they call themselves. Princess Luna I will tell you everything I know, under an honesty spell, when we return to Canterlot.”

“Very well, we shall depart in the morning as I have important things to discuss with Ms. Inaba tonight.”

Alice raised an eyebrow “Interesting name choice.” She said to me

“I needed a name quickly and it just popped into my head. I trust I’ll see you later?”

“You shall.”

“Alright everyone I think it’s time for us all to wake up.”

One by one the ponies began to vanish. Last to disappear was Alice. She was smiling like the cat that ate the canary. Everything slowly disappeared until there was nothing.

Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.
Just made a minor edit to some wording-9/29

The Return

When I started seeing again I was pleased to find that I was in Golden Oaks library in Ponyville. What didn’t please me was that my head felt like it was about to split in half. This was without a doubt the worst headache I’d ever had in my entire life. Lord Clear Psyche was on the ground in front of me and winced as he sat up.

“Headache?” I asked humorlessly

He nodded “Side effect caused by you taking over the spell. They’ll clear up in a few minutes.” He stared at me

“What?”

“I’m sorry, it’s just…you’re very different from what I imagined you’d be. I’ve never met one of the quote unquote ‘visitors’ before from what I’d heard some of the most notable ones are extremely violent. But rather than fight you ran.”

“It’s called disengagement by acceleration. It is a valid and useful military tactic.”

He nodded “I’ll remember that. So long as you remember that there are some enemies you won’t be able to simply run away from.”

“Thanks for the advice.” There was an awkward pause “So…how did you get involved in the…what did you call it again?”

“The Eden Initiative.”

“Yes, that.”

“It wasn’t really my choice. My family has been part of it for several generations now. To be completely honest I’ve been considering withdrawal for several months now. I’ve just been too much of coward to make the decision until now. So thank you, for giving me the push I needed to make the right decision.” He offered his hoof which I took.

I smiled “You’re welcome, and thank you. If you hadn’t used that spell a lot of useful and helpful information would have remained buried in my memories for who knows how long. Now would you please wait outside or something? I don’t mean to be rude but I have confidential matters to discuss with Princess Luna.”

He gave me paw a friendly shake “I understand, if you’re ever in Canterlot please come and stay at my family’s villa. We have several bedrooms that are currently going unused.”

With that he exited the library; he would probably be outside the entire time we talked. Princess Luna can in from the kitchen followed by Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Twilight and last a slightly battered Spike. He must have tried to keep Clear Psyche out of the library. I would have to try to find a way to thank him. Princess Luna opened her mouth to speak but I cut her off.

“Before we start can you cast a spell to keep anyone from hearing what we’re discussing in here? I’d rather be safe than sorry, especially with this information.”

“But didn’t he tell us that.”

“I know what he said. But I still don’t want to take any chances. There might be other ponies listening in.”

“I think you’re being just a little paranoid.” Twilight said

“Considering what has happened tonight I believe a little paranoia may be in our best interests.” Her horn glowed “Anypony attempting to eavesdrop, whether by scrying or listening, will see and hear nothing.”

“Good, I want you all to Pinkie promise that what I’m about to tell you will only to be repeated to Princess Celestia and no one else.”

It took a few minutes for all everypony to agree, mostly because of Twilight. In the end her scholarly curiosity got the better of her and she agreed. I gave a brief explanation about who I was and how I had come to be part of The Mancers. Then what happened with the bird monster and finally my arrival in Ponyville.

“I think I’ll have to speak with Prince Blueblood when he returns to Canterlot.” Luna said

“It’s fine; if he tries to cause me any trouble then I’ll deal with him. Now onto the real reason I’m here, the thermonuclear warhead The Mancers have in their possession. Right now it’s being incased in lead shielding, I don’t think its leaking radiation but I’d rather not risk anyone’s safety by leaving as is.”

“What is exactly is this device you’re talking about?” Twilight asked “I mean, I understand that whatever it is its dangerous but what is it supposed to do?”

“Destroy things.”

“And?” she smiled, an expectant look on her face

I scowled “Why is it that everyone I meet seems to think that if an object worries me it’s safe. I wouldn’t worry about something that’s relatively safe or harmless. It’s a weapon of mass destruction. Its only purpose is to destroy anything and everything within a very large area and that’s just the initial blast. What follows is a poisonous cloud of hot air and material that leaves an even larger area uninhabitable for decades, depending on the wind it can be spread over hundreds of miles. That’s your and. Princess Luna; do you have any way to do what I asked in my letter?”

“Before I left for Ponyville my sister and I checked for any spells or devices that may have the potential you are looking for. I regret to inform you that we could not find anything that would do it safely.”

I sighed “Then I’ll just have to try and find a safer place to store it until we find a way to get rid of it.” I stood up “I’m sorry to have dragged you out here for ended up being nothing. Applejack, would you please lead me back to the B&B? I don’t think I can find my way in the dark.”

“Sure, after everything you’ve been through you could use a good night’s sleep.”

“Not just yet,” Luna said “there is still the matter of the Key. You-”

“Don’t,” I interrupted her “just don’t. The Key is going with me so I can try to find a way to return it to its rightful owner.” I stepped outside “I’ve been thinking and I’ve finally placed most of the important ponies and villains into power categories. At the Ultimate level is the Elements of Harmony in about the middle of the tier. Next is the Perfect level at the top is Discord, below him is Nightmare Moon, I’d probably fall at about the same level as her. At the bottom of the Perfect level is where you and Celestia sit,” I glared at her “powerful but not nearly as strong as me. Next is the Adult level which is where full grown dragons sit. Below that is Child level where normal ponies like Twilight and her friends sit. There are two actual levels below that but they aren’t even worth mentioning because they’re strength is so low.”

Luna took a fighting stance “Are you threatening me?”

I shook my head “I’m not threatening anyone. All I’m saying is that if you want The Key you’ll have to take it by force and that will put everyone in Ponyville at risk. It’s unlikely I’ll be able to kill you, but I can injure you to the point that you’ll be stuck in a hospital for a long time. Please, don’t make me do that.”

“You’re lyin.” Applejack said

“About?”

She scowled “Not being able to the kill the Princess. Your talk with Pinkie Pie was in one of the piles I went through. I might not have understood all of it but if that Key really does work the way you said it does then you could kill everypony here and you’d barely need to lift a hoof to do it.”

I nodded “I could, but I wouldn’t. Not unless it was to save the world or something and even then I’d exhaust myself trying to find another answer before I did that.”

She nodded “You don’t want to kill anything.”

“I don’t really even want to fight anything if it can be avoided, having said that if it can’t be avoided I’m not afraid to kick my opponent’s ass so hard that they never pick a fight again. All I want to do with the Key is return to its owner and if I can’t do that then I’ll figure something else out.”

AJ stared at me for a minute before she nodded “I believe ya. I don’t really want you take it but I think you’re tha best person to keep that thing safe.”

Luna huffed “I suppose I really have no choice in the matter do I.” she relaxed “Celestia will not be happy about this. I must return to Canterlot, Lord Clear Psyche and I have much to discuss.”

The walk back to the B&B was quiet and uneventful. A welcome change from what seemed to have become my regular life since arriving in Equestria. I said good night to AJ and went to my room. I spent the next twenty minutes writing down all the important things I had remembered and the new ideas they had helped me come up with. After that I went back to sleep and this time there were no dreams.

I woke up just after sunrise; my legs ached from my run the day before. The only time they hurt that much was after the first race of the season. I limped my way down to a breakfast of fresh fruit and vegetables. One of the ponies at the table saw me limping and asked if I was okay. It was a kind and appreciated, if unnecessary, gesture.

After breakfast I went back upstairs to my room and got my bag before heading out. My first and only planned stop was Carousel Boutique to visit Rarity. The weather was nice with just a few puffy clouds in the sky. Imagine my surprise when I found Pinkie Pie there telling Rarity about the incident with Clear Psyche. More importantly she was telling her some of the things she had learned about me while we were sorting my memories, including the fact that I had been a guy.

“Pinkamena Diane Pie!” they both looked at me, I was probably blushing through my fur “I shouldn’t have to tell you that anything you learned about me last night shouldn’t be repeated to anyone.”

“But-”

“No, no buts! I thought it was implied that I didn’t want anything you learned about me repeated.”

Rarity spoke up “It’s alright darling. She didn’t say anything embarrassing. Unless you find your preference for laying a sunny rock over a lounge chair is embarrassing.”

“Oh…is that all she told you?”

“No, all she really had time to tell me was that that you hadn’t been born…like this. All things considered you seem to have taken your change rather well. Would you be willing to tell me more about it while I do the final fitting for your dresses?”

“…Ya’ll Pinkie Promise not to tell anypony, anyone, or anything?”

They smiled “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

I sighed “Well since you promised I’ll tell you.”

I stood on a platform and Rarity levitated the dresses over so we could get started. I spent the next few hours telling them a little about my life. I told them about where I lived, what I did, and my family. They seemed genuinely interested about everything I told them. Then I got the part about the fight with my mom that sent me to the mall and ultimately to Equestria.

“It sounds like you had a pretty good life back home.” Pinkie said

I frowned “Yeah…I…I guess I did.” I was quiet for a bit “I guess…finding a way to go home, at least for a visit, is now a priority.”

Rarity finished pulled the last pin out of the final yellow dress. She gave me a one legged hug “Oh don’t worry, I’m sure if anyone can do it, it’ll be you, especially with that Key.”

I put the finished dresses in my bag and took out my sack of bits “I’m not going to use the Key if I can help it. But if it works I might be able to help some of the other people who came here. Where do you want me to put the money?”

She sighed as she levitated the agreed upon amount out of my paw “I still can’t believe you managed to talk me out of giving these dresses for free.”

I laughed “Free stuff is nice but I know there are a lot of costs involved in owning and running a retail business. Besides, even if you’d given it to me for free I’d still have found a way to get the money to you.”

“Why are you limping?”

“I made the trip here from Trottingham in several hours, on foot. I’m just a little sore that’s all.” Before I could reach the door I felt magic tugging on me.

“Oh no you don’t, you're going to the Spa so you can get some help with those sore muscles. You are going to make the trip back to Trottingham on foot aren’t yes? Then you’ll need to have your muscles relaxed and recovered before you leave.”

“Fine, but I’m only getting a massage.” She smiled “But I’m paying for it myself.” She sighed

“Oh fine.”

After several hours at the Spa I got I was finished and went back to the B&B for lunch. After that I went for a walk and took note of all the important landmarks around town. I sat down at a statue and started working out the details on a few of my ideas from the night before. The main problem that Equestria seemed to have was a lack of high speed transit. With my memory straightened out I had identified a few more things that The Mancers had in storage, things that might prove useful if we could find a way to power them.

With my sketches finished I re-packed my bag and lay down on the sun warmed statue base. I removed the Key from the bow and admired it in the afternoon sunlight. There was absolutely zero reason for Nocturnal’s artifact to be here, which also meant there probably wasn't a way for me to return it to her. That also meant I wouldn’t find any information about a location for The Ebonmere were the key would belong. I really didn’t want to use the Key, with my understanding of semantics its potential abilities were only limited by what I was willing to risk.

“Nothing ventured…” I touched it to my horns as I formed my thoughts “nothing gained.” I turned it “…damn it”

Nothing, I got absolutely nothing from using the Key. This could mean one of several different things. First, and most likely, there wasn’t a way for me to return it in this world. Second, the Key may not work for information. Third, it may only work for something you have the potential for. I could think of a way to test that possibility right now. I tried again wanting to know about the nuke we had. It was safe, no leaks, no damage, and not armed.

I wanted to try something else so I rearranged my thoughts for what I wanted to know and tried again. It was possible for me to return to the human world. I just had to travel through the Looking Glass Kingdom and then the Digital World, not hard at all. I even knew how to enter the Looking Glass Kingdom. I fought the urge to use the Key again and put it back in my bow as I sat up.

“I thought you weren’t going to use it.” Pinkie Pie was smiling at me

“I said I’d avoid using it if I could. But I didn’t know of any way to return it and no, I’m not telling you what I learned.”

“But you turned it three times! Will you at least tell me what you used it for?”

“To learn how to return it, the status of the…’device’, and” I smiled sheepishly “how to visit home.”

“Oh…”she blinked “I didn’t actually think you would tell me.”

I tilted my head “Why not?”

“Well, after this morning I thought…”

I giggled “Oh that. Well you have information that is extremely personal, the kind of stuff that I don't want shared with anyone. So, I’m gonna guess that it’s time for the party.”

“Thaaaaaaaaaaaat’s right!”

I stood up “Lead on then.”

The party was fun…sort of, like I told Pinkie before parties aren’t really my thing. I did enjoy getting to meet new people for a little while. I’d be lucky if I managed to remember even four of their names. I caught myself giggling and laughing for what seemed like no reason at several points. After about the tenth time I decided I’d partied enough and slipped out when no one was paying attention. I had dinner at the B&B and went to bed early I had a long run ahead of me tomorrow.

I woke up early and told the owners I would be leaving within the hour. They were nice enough to give me some food for the road which I insisted on paying for. The walk to Sweet Apple Acres felt shorter than the walk into town. The run back took a little longer but I stopped at about the same places to eat and rest. It had now been about a week since my arrival in Equestria.

Hopefully that meant it would be only a day or two before Prince Blueblood went back to Canterlot. I slowed down as I neared the train station there seemed to be an argument going on. I approached the station without digivolving, if there was a problem a certain level of intimidation could be helpful. The voices got loud enough that I could make out what they were saying.

“It’s for her own good. She needs to grow up surrounded by a positive influence.” That sounded like Blueblood, I picked up my pace

“She isn’t going with you. She doesn’t even like you!” that was Blue Serenade

“Mom, I can’t go to Canterlot! Inaba still hasn’t come back yet!” Rosy they were on the other end of the building

“Hopefully that thing won’t ever be coming back.” I jumped

“She’s not a thing! She’s a Lopmon and my friend!”

THUMP! I bent my knees as I landed behind Rosy who was behind Blueblood and his remaining guard. Rosy squealed as I swiftly pulled her into a light one armed hug. Before she could react I placed her safely between my ears. As I stood up I felt her hug one of my ears tightly. I brought a smile to my face as I looked down at the startled ponies before me.

“Monster!” Blueblood yelled

“Half right. Now, what exactly am I interrupting? It looks and sounds like a foalnapping in progress.”

“That’s exactly what it is Inaba!” Rosy pointed at Blueblood “Bluebutt was trying to take me to Canterlot! He keeps saying weird stuff like ‘I need to be raised like a proper noble’ and ‘you need to spend time with your father.’ He.is.not.my.father! There is no way I’m related to a pony like him!”

I frowned “I see. Well, it doesn’t matter if wants to take you he’ll have to go through me first. Blue can you make sure Grey Main has enough food for me at dinner tonight?”

“I challenge you to a duel!” Blueblood immediately looked like he regretted saying it.

“Blue a little help? The only duels I’m familiar with are pistols at ten paces and swords to the death.”

She smiled “Swords to the death huh? That’s old, very old. Um, as far as I know since he challenged you, you get to set the rules, time, and place for the duel.”

“Oh…hm…right here and now. Listen up Blueblood if I win then you have to leave Blue Serenade, her family, friends, and anyone else she holds dear, you have to leave them all alone. No legal action, no more harassment, no sort of covert actions nothing. If you do, I’ll snap your spine and paralyze you from the neck down.” I wouldn’t actually do that

“And if I win, you leave Equestria forever.”

“Fair enough, I’m thinking of a number. You can pick any number between one and ten. You have nine tries to get it right. Go.”

He smirked “Seven, it’s the most common number.”

“Nope, that’s strike one.”

“Then it’s one because you must think yourself my better.”

“Half right, I know I’m better than you. But the number is wrong.”

“Eight?”

“No.”

“Ten.”

“Ugh no.”

His smirked slipped “Three?”

“No.”

“Four?”

I raised an eyebrow “Not even close.”

He frowned “Five?”

“Now you’re just reaching.”

“Two?”

“Strange that’s how many tries you had left, now it’s one.”

“Six! It must be six!”

“Beep! Beeeeeep! Nope, and that’s game.” I couldn’t see it but I had the same Cheshire grin as Alice from two nights before

He was furious “You cheat! You must have changed your number!”

“I didn’t cheat. I picked a number; I never said my number was between one and ten just that those were the numbers you were restricted to.”

“Guard!” the Pegasus looked at him “deal with this…this thing.”

The guard looked at me nervously “But, sir she is correct. As far as I know the laws concerning duels don’t account for something like this.”

“How about Global Thermonuclear War.”

“What?"

“Where I’m from it’s a game. There is only one way for anyone in the world to win, even those who aren’t eligible to play, is if no one plays at all. Now if you’ll excuse us I need to go see a pony about a memory altering jellyfish monster.”

With Rosy still on my head I walked away from Blueblood and his guard, after a few seconds I heard Blue follow behind me. The Prince and his Pegasus guard stood there sputtering as we walked away. We made it halfway to the South Gate before somepony finally spoke up. As it turned out it was Rosy.

“What’s a jellyfish?”

Wanna thank my new beta-reader Flamester for his help.
Also I'm gonna be SUPER busy this month, White 2, Dishonored, and Forza: Horizon are all out this month.

Oh and I have mid-terms and I'm starting a new job but who cares about that.
New video games WOOOOO!

Xenobiology, Xenoarchaeology

Prince Blueblood followed us into the city. He kept trying to levitate Rosy back to him. It was funny the first three times I shattered his magical field with a small tug on her body. After the fifth time I got annoyed and lightly pinned Rosy to my chest with my left arm, after that every time he tried the field was immediately shattered when I took my next step. We where halfway to headquarters when we ran into Sunny Smiles and a dozen members of The Marshalls. Accompanying them were two ponies I recognized as members of the fabrication department. They were both wearing what I would later learn was the final model of the M240 battle saddle.

“Oh, hey Sunny it’s nice to see somepony who can help us with this little legal matter.”

It took her a few seconds to realize who I was “Inaba…what legal matter?”

“Blueblood lost a duel to me and is refusing to uphold the agreed upon terms for his loss.”

“I see…” she nodded to The Marshalls who moved to surround Blueblood “in that case we now have additional charges on which to arrest him. We already have breaking and entering, harassment, foalnapping, attempted foalnapping, and now we have breach of contract.”

“I can act as a witness for the attempted foalnapping. He has already made more than a dozen additional attempts since he lost the duel.”

“Get away from me you commoners! I am a noble! No, not just a noble a direct blood relative of the Princesses them-”

Before I realized what I had done my arm had swung down and I had smashed the obnoxious bastard under my hand. I lifted it slowly he would be severely injured but he would recover and it was so worth it.

“Don’t talk to me about being royalty. I am Inaba of the House of Stuart, Duchess of Inverness, daughter of Princess Catherine, granddaughter of the Queen Mother of Scotland and tenth in line for the throne. So what if you’re descended from the Princesses, because your line started over a thousand years ago the relationship is so distant it wouldn’t even be worth calculating let alone boasting about.”

Well that might be stretching the truth…okay it was mostly an outright lie; but Charles Edward Stuart was like my several times great second cousin. I was way closer to being royalty than he was to the Princesses.

Sunny was beaming “And now we have assaulting a foreign dignitary. Take him in, the two of you go with them, if the culprit tries to flee…well you know what to do.”

“You can’t do this!”

“Your status as a noble means nothing in Trottingham. We have our own legal system and unlike the courts in Canterlot we don’t give preferential treatment to anypony.”

“What of her?!” he pointed at me “She assaulted an Equestrian noble!”

Sunny looked rather smug “She is apparently a foreign dignitary and as such has diplomatic immunity.”

The Marshalls snapped a bronze colored ring around Blueblood’s horn as he struggled to get away. He didn’t make it very far before the thunderous crack of a 7.62 millimeter round being fired. He screamed and staggered as the round passed through the lower part of his right hind leg. The ground ahead of him exploded as the round buried itself into it. It was clean and through shot and both entry and exit wounds were small due to the close range. One of The Marshalls came forward and bandaged the wound before heaving the injured noble onto his back. With a curt nod the law enforcement group left for their main headquarters.

I looked at the pony that shot “You’re cleaning that weapon when we get back and don’t leave that casing behind either.”

“So, when are you royalty?” Sunny asked

I started walking “I’ll explain when we get to HQ. I want to do something that might be extremely stupid. I’m going to talk to the Scyphozoa.”

“What?!” She squeaked as she kept up “I thought you said it was used to brainwash people and because its master is dead you didn’t know what it would or even could do.”

“I did and I don’t. But, I have the Key so that significantly improves my chance to succeed in making it work for us. It was probably the most intelligent monster XANA ever created. I think Kolossus might be close to it in durability but he WAS able to be killed, something that was never achieved with the Scyphozoa.”

“I think Blueblood’s actions may have made you a bit unhinged.”

“No, but shooting him in the leg has me shook up. The guns are only to be used to defend the city and its people from attack. Obnoxious nobles stealing your granddaughter don’t count. Now if the noble was leading a group of ponies in an attack to steal her with no regard for who and what they destroyed along the way then the use of guns would be okay to subdue but not to kill. On the other hand, if they were just attacking the city then shoot to kill would be acceptable but not preferable.”

I took note of the massive emerald sitting in the middle of town square and filed it away under ‘later investigation’.

“They weren’t actually supposed to hit him. Just shoot near him. Blitz and Luger are the most precise shooters we right now but even they miss sometimes.”

I sighed “I’ll give you that point. Even the best shooters don’t always hit their mark.”

“I assume you have a plan.”

“If you want to call it that, I’m gonna use the Key so everyone can understand it. Then I’m going to try and convince it of the truth and get it to work for us. If it doesn’t believe me about the truth then I’ll use the Key so it knows I’m not lying.”

“Why not use the Key to make it obey you?”

“Several reasons but mostly because it’s wrong. Secondly it might impair its reasoning skills. The last reason I’m going to list is that it would make its usefulness very limited if I’m the only one it will listen to.”

She nodded “You have a Plan B right?”

“Yes, I’ll give you the details after I change back.”

A flash of light, a short elevator ride, and several explanations later had me in Lopmon form riding on Sunny’s back. She perused the information I had written down while in Ponyville. We gathered a large group as we made our way to the organism storage area. We split them into smaller groups as we made it to the Scyphozoa itself. I made sure that strong ropes were distributed amongst the smaller groups. The ropes where gently tied around its tentacles and three were wrapped around its body. As it thawed the ropes were slowly tightened to keep it from attacking us. I stood directly in front of it and with a touch of the Key made it possible for everyone to understand it.

As it thawed completely it began thrashing “Where am I? What is going on?!”

I held up my paws in a placating gesture “Just calm down, I’ll explain everything.”

It didn’t work the Scyphozoa kept thrashing, the groups were starting to struggle and I was lost my patience I barked a simple command “STOP!”

When I shouted the Scyphozoa went limp, the ponies holding the ropes dropped them, and everyone else who was working in the area slumped into a sitting position. It was weird but effective. Hopefully I could figure out how to do that without shouting…or affecting everyone in a room.

“You are on a different in planet, in another dimension. XANA has been destroyed. The Lyoko Warrior’s have won and your side has lost. Do you understand what that means?” He gave a bob which I took to mean yes “Good, now you have a few options open to you. One, you can help us willingly. Two, I can force you to help us…well let’s call that option three instead. So, old option three that’s now option two you can choose to fight us and we’ll just refreeze you and let you rot down here for the rest of eternity.”

“I see…I cannot feel the presence of XANA. You are telling me the truth. I shall join you in your endeavors. What would you have me do?”

I blinked “Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

I scratched the back of my head “Huh…honestly I didn’t expect you to agree so easily. Um…okay let’s get those ropes off you and…um…Sunny how soon can you get ponies started on Plan B?”

“It’ll take about a day or so to get the proper paperwork filed and then The Mason’s will get to work excavating the edges of the wall. As to the question of how old the walls are they were here before the city was founded. In fact the city was built here BECAUSE of the walls.”

I turned back the Scyphazoa “ Scyphozoa is a bit of a mouthful to say, can I just call you Scipio instead?”

“Scipio…that name is acceptable.”

“Okay Scipio my plan is riding on the assumption that you know how to construct or program the creation of a one of XANA’s Towers.”

“I can do you one better than simply answering your question.” He moved swiftly wrapping two of his tentacles around my waist. I gestured for everyone to remain still. He lifted me slowly and put one on either side of my head and against my horns. My head was encased in a green aura and suddenly I saw the Library in my mind and a special shelf was created with anything and everything I ever wanted to know about the Towers. It filled quickly as Scipio copied the data from his own mind. It was over in a few seconds. He removed his limbs and gently set my down.

I waved away my concerned friends “I’m fine. Just…just give me a minute. Woo. That…that felt weird one second nothing and then the next…just wow.” I took a deep breath “Okay, next step, we need item 12X from shelf…37A, aisle Roanoke. I would like for it to be brought to the center HQ.”

“We could never figure out how to make it work. Whatever its power supply was we couldn’t find it.”

“I remembered what it is and I think I know how to turn it on. But before I turn it on we need to clear out some space.”

Once we got there it took about twenty minutes to clear everything out of the way so the Tower would have enough space to sit. The ceiling here was higher and the tower would have about five feet of height clearance, plenty of space for maintenance to go up and change light bulbs. After that we waited half an hour for the item to arrive I had it set up right at the edge of the cleared space. It was a large burgundy box about five feet tall, two feet wide, and two feet long it had a screen on one side which was facing into the aisle. After several minutes of examining it I popped a hatch off the side and re-inserted its power core which had come loose. I spent the next hour working through its programming and entering the data it would need to digistruct a Tower.

Programming finished I stepped away from it “This is what’s known as a Catch-a-Ride Station. I didn’t recognize it before because this is a newer model and it was turned off. What it does is somehow reconstruct an object or in some cases person through a method that’s has never been explained but works perfectly fine. It’s been assumed to be some sort of hard light. The process is called digistruct and that’s how I’m going to build a Tower.” I pushed the activation key.

The machine projected a light blue hologram of the Tower appeared, complete with the knobby base. It quickly solidified and filled in with color. Most of the Tower became the familiar light tan. The base became mostly dark brown and the large wires took on their grey color. With its form completed a white aura enveloped the top and the light from the machine vanished. We now stood facing a solid and very real Tower.

“You never explained why you were doing this.” Sunny said

“A few reasons but the important one is a low occupancy long range rapid transit. In order for that to work I need to digistruct a second Tower.”

“The coast is just a few hours from the West Gate. When you get there head north along the beach there’s a cave who’s entrance is blocked at high tide there’s enough space inside for the Tower.”

I gripped the Catch-a-ride and digivolved “I’m a little big now can somepony open one of those large external hatches for me?”

Twenty minutes of walking later and we stood in front of a section of floor that gently sloped upward. A team of six worked a system of levers and the ceiling over it slowly lifted. I had to crouch a bit to get out from under it as I stepped into the evening sunlight. I was given directions to both the West Gate and the quickest route to the coast and its special hidden cave. I made it to the beach in about fifteen minutes, I would’ve been faster but I had to walk through town. It took awhile to find the cave entrance because the tide was still going out. I sat on the beach watching the sun set over the ocean as I waited for the flooded entrance to be accessible.

The entrance was large enough that I only had to duck my head to avoid scrapping it on the ceiling. A minute or so of walking and I stepped out into a massive circular cavern. It was easily fifty feet in diameter and the ceiling was twenty feet above my head putting it around forty feet high. There were patches of luminescent lichen growing all across the walls, floor and even the ceiling. It provided a dim and almost calming light to the large cavern giving it a comforting feel.

I stood at about twenty feet, digivolved into Lopmon and digistructed the new Tower. I stepped back changed, put my hands on the machine and changed again. With transporting the machine a non-issue I walked up to the Tower. I lightly put my paw on it and found it was cool and unyielding to the touch. I pushed a little harder and the surface yielded with a low note releasing a series of white ripples. I passed through the wall and into the tower, it felt like walking through a sheet of ice water and coming out completely dry.

The inside of the Tower was beautiful. The single circular wall was comprised of hundreds and hundreds of transparent bluish screens over which coding streamed. The inside of the Tower was perfectly cool; it was a sharp contrast to the warm humid cave outside it. XANA’s symbol lit up with a pinging noise, ring by ring as I stepped forward, I’d have to program that out before I digistructed anymore. Oh well, no rest for the wicked. I walked to the edge of the platform, closed my eyes, held my arms out and took a deep breath before letting myself fall.

After A few seconds I felt like I was traveling up and then I felt my feet touchdown on a platform as it pinged. I opened my eyes, I had no way of knowing if I was in the same tower or not. Everything looked the same blue screens streaming code made up the walls. The temperature was just as pleasant as before. I walked over to the wall and blinked as I passed through it. I stumbled and would have fallen on my face if Scipio hadn’t caught me.

“Thank you.”

“I would be failing in my duties if you became injured when I could have prevented it.”

I smiled sheepishly “The only thing that would have been hurt is my pride.”

“It seems that the Way Towers are functioning properly.”

“You didn’t know if it would work?” Sunny asked

“No, not really. What you have to understand is there were two types of Tower I could have programmed. There are the regular Towers which take you to another tower in the same sector. But what I programmed were the Way Towers which are used for traveling between sectors. But the Towers originally served as a terminal of sorts to allow someone to draw on the power of a quantum computer, the Towers themselves where in a virtual world inside the computer itself. Without them being in the virtual world there was no way of knowing if they would do anything at all.”

“Oh…so what now?”

“Before we erect anymore Towers I want to make a minor cosmetic change to the platforms inside them. But before that, I…I want to go home.”

Sorry it took so long to get out. My new job is full time but they're letting me leave early on the days I have class.None the less I still have free little free time as a result. On the plus side during some of my down time I was able to rough out the major details of the next three chapters so that might help cut down on time. Also Halo 4 comes out in 12 days and once its out I'll be busy with that for a while.

Through the Looking Glass

“I don’t understand.” Sunny said.

“I just want my family to know I’m alright.” I flipped through an archive book.

“You didn’t tell them you were leaving?”

“I didn’t have the chance to see them before I was dropped in Equestria.” Flip “Besides, they were part of the reason why I left. I’d gotten into a fight with my mom about some stuff. How they didn’t listen to me when I was trying to tell them stuff and it gave them no right to be mad when I did the same, stuff like that.” I started walking down an aisle.

She frowned as she followed “That makes you different from the others whose stories I’ve heard. For them this was a chance to start over and reinvent themselves. Some had terrible home lives; others just had no reason to stay. But you could have chosen not to come here. So why did you?”

“Like I said one part of it was the fight I had with my rents. Another was that I thought this place would be more peaceful or nicer, something like that. But probably the main reason is Earth is fully explored, except the oceans, and exploration is something I really wanted to do. To go out and discover new places that no one else has ever seen or heard of. We knew so little about Equestria and this world that I figured I could explore and help fill in the map. Ah here we are.” I stopped to consult a map on the end of the aisle’s shelves before making a left.

I walked quickly down the new aisle Sunny agitatedly following behind as Scipio floated calmly along behind us. I kept my eyes on the shelves looking for a maple framed mantle mirror. It took a while to find it amongst the clutter of stuff, organization just got a little higher on the to-do list. On the plus side I found not one but three Holy Grenades of Antioch, they would need to be moved, a can of Spam from 1937, and what looked like a can of worms that would need to be marked as either ‘do not open’ or have it welded shut.

Sunny stood next to it with a nostalgic look on her face “This used to be in the main dining room. My cousins and I used to practice magic by throwing paper balls at it. I’ll never forget the time it threw a rubber one back,” she chuckled “hit poor Crystal right on the nose. I think we have that ball here somewhere too.”

I nodded “That confirms what I already know then. This mirror is a gateway between this world and the Looking Glass Kingdom. God that’s a mouthful, I’m just gonna call it the Mirror Kingdom from now on ok?”

“That’s fine, just make sure that you note it in any related reports.”

A quick double digivolvution later and the Catch-a-Ride was sitting next to me “Scipio, while I’m gone I want you to start plotting out the best locations for me to digistruct more Towers. I’d like to put one in each major city but you know their mechanics best so I’ll leave that choice up to you.”

“Understood Mistress.”

I walked up to the mirror and took a deep breath. The Key had given me the knowledge of how to pass through it, but that didn’t make me any less nervous. What I was about to do hadn’t been done in over 141 years, at least not as far as I was aware. The simple process of imagining the mirror’s surface softening and becoming mist is all it takes to make an entrance but if you don’t believe it will be easy to pass through then it won’t be. I stepped through the seemingly empty frame.

I looked over my shoulder to see nothing in my place, but I did see the look of disbelief on Sunny’s face. I gave her a smile, filled with more confidence than I felt, before taking a right to head the center of the mirror HQ. When I got there, there was a replica of the Tower, markings reversed, right where it should be. Alice stood fidgeting next to it as I approached.

I blinked and found myself swept up into a tight hug “Who’s a cute little rabbit-dog? You are! You are!”

“Um…Alice?”

She held me at arm’s length “Sorry, but I am technically an immortal seven and a half year old child monarch. Just because I’ve lived almost 150 years doesn’t mean I can always control myself.”

I nodded “I do the same thing sometimes. Just try not to hurt me while you get it out of your system. Okay?”

She squealed and tightened her hug “Your fur is so soft.”

“So I’ve been told.”

She held me for a good ten minutes before she reluctantly put me down “Alright, before I send you off to the Digital World I should give you an explanation for why we, The Sovereigns and I, are participating in the so called Chess Game of the Gods.”

“Ya’ll want to win.”

She looked shocked “What ew! No, hell no, we couldn’t care less about winning. We’re participating because there are things sealed within Tartarus that we have to take responsibility for.”

“I don’t understand, none of you have been around for more than a few hundred years how could you be responsible for things that have been sealed up for...I don’t even know how long.”

She gave me a sad smile “The Sovereigns have existed in some form or other for over 6000 years. They’ve only ruled over the Digital World for about the last seventy. As for myself…well I’m not going to say. As for what we are taking responsibility for, that’s a bit complicated. The short version is that humanity tried to solve our problem before we could act on it. Their solution, while inventive, was a temporary fix at best and a dimensional disaster at worst.”

“Did we really screw up that badly?”

She sighed “It’s complicated.”

“Simplify it.”

“There was a plan and humanity acted before we did so we had to shelve it.”

“So now the plan is being dusted off.”

“So much has changed since then and most of the plan has become useless. We can salvage maybe three percent of the original plan. All of which are unfortunately minor pieces.”

“Then what’s the new plan.”

“We wait.”

I groaned “I gathered that was part of it, how long are we waiting?”

“Around two years, give or take.”

I frowned “Why have I been picked so if there’s two years before I can really act?”

She raised an eyebrow “Would you have preferred to have been thrown in with no time to get stronger, practice, or plan?” my retort died on my lips as she smirked “Thought not. Anyway if you want to avoid collateral damage to the world your best bet is to try and drag it into one of the adjacent battle dimensions and you have no idea what those are do you?”

“I can take a guess; the question is how do I reach them?”

She motioned to the Tower “You’ve already taken a great step in the right direction. The Towers will allow you to manipulate many things. With enough of them opening gateways between dimensions will be child’s play.”

I nodded “Digistruction is on my to-do list. But…you already knew that, didn’t you.”

She smirked “And this is the part where you remember the way memory works for those born in the Looking Glass Kingdom. You had fun establishing the network for the Towers and your use of their properties was…interesting to say the least. I was VERY impressed by your restraint; most of the other pieces and gamemasters wouldn’t have the will power to do what you did.”

“Don’t tell me. First rule of time travel and memory related to it no spoilers.”

She clapped “Right you are. Now, just step into the Tower and it’s off to the Digital World you go.”

I walked up to the base and looked at her over my shoulder “I’ll see you again.”

We both knew it wasn’t a question. There was a lot she wouldn’t or couldn’t tell me yet. So we’d inevitably meet again in the future. The interior of this Tower was identical to the ones in Equestria except for the inverted symbol on the platform. I walked into the center of the platform and let myself float up to the second platform. An interface screen appeared and I placed my hand on it. It displayed my name, my real name, which faded after a second to be replaced by a screen that said CODE, below it slowly typed out the letters I-N-A-B-A.

The interior of the Tower glowed a bright white and with a flash I was standing on a small circular platform in the middle of an equally round reflecting pool. I looked up and saw a blue sky studded with fluffy white clouds. The sun was to my left so I was facing south.

“Hello!?” I shouted

The clouds began to thicken and grow darker the more I shouted. There was a distant peal of thunder somewhere to the east. The south seemed to glow as if there was a large fire. The ground began to tremble in a slow steady rhythm originating from the north. From the west I heard the distinctive sound of a tiger snarling.

Soon enough I could see them. From the south flew a giant bird the leading edges of its four wing pairs were yellow, fading to a jagged orange then into a fiery red. Six red spheres floated in a circle around its grey feathered neck and six more around the end of its red tail. Four red eyes set in a red feathered and red beaked head stared down at me. Zhuqiamon, ruler of the southern quadrant and the Vermilion Bird of the South.

From the west walked a giant tiger, white with blue purple stripes. Each of its paws had three massive claws. It wore armor, a flat topped helmet with a reversing of the stripes and fur color. Protecting its front paws was a pair of shaped metal plates emblazoned with a Japanese character. Its tail and back ankles had a studded metal collar around them and twelve yellow orbs rotated in a circle around the center of its body as its four orange eyes sized me up. Baihumon, ruler of the western quadrant and the White Tiger of the West.

Plodding slowly from the north was a two headed tortoise. Its eyes were red and gentle in nature and its necks were covered in yellow snake like scales. Its massive feet were tipped with three white nails. An enormous tree grew from the back of its shell and was topped with lush green leaves. Just like Baihumon it was circled by twelve yellow orbs located around the center of base of the tree trunk. Xuanwumon, ruler of the north quadrant and the Black Tortoise of the North.

From the east came Azulongmon, ruler of the eastern quadrant and the Azure Dragon of the East. His long silver beard and mustache were trailing in the wind. His translucent blue body wrapped in heavy silver chains. Several sets of white wings sprouted from his back and grew progressively smaller as the traveled towards his tail. There were three blue orbs around each of his four legs. His head had a jagged blue horn extending up from his blue and yellow striped head.

“I count four but isn’t there sometimes a fifth?”

“Huanglongmon is occupied with other matters.” One of Xuanwumon’s heads answered.

Remember be respectful, they’re your sponsors and they can destroy me in a heartbeat “Thank you for answering my question Lord Xuanwumon. I apologize if I seem rude but it looks as if I was expected. Do ya’ll know why I’m here?”

Zhuqiamon answered me this time “Alice is a remarkable being. There are things about herself she refuses to share but her ability to predict an event down to a few minutes of occurrence is amazing. We were supposed to be here before you. But” he preened a bit “I think our timely arrival had the same effect.”

“It did indeed Lord Zhuqiamon.”

Baihumon snorted “Let us dispense with these useless formalities.” The others gave sounds of agreement “Right, obviously we all know each other so let’s get to the reason you’re here. You want to visit Earth for a little while. We cannot send you straight there. As it turns out time on Earth moves about eight times faster than it does in Equestria.”

“Shit,” I slapped my paws over my mouth “Sorry! I shouldn’t use language like that in front of ya’ll.”

Zhuqiamon chuckled “I had my doubts about you but if you’re willing to default to language like that I think I’ll have less of a problem with you.”

I gulped, and then remember it was Zhuqiamon “This is your fault!” I shouted at him “It’s your fault I’m a girl and can’t control my impulses properly anymore!”

He blinked then narrowed his eyes “Say again?”

I was suddenly rather nervous “Um…I said that, you turned me into a girl and I can’t properly control my impulses anymore?”

“Fuck.” He looked at the other Sovereigns “I think we will need to have a word with Alice the next time we speak. You were only supposed to have a female voice. I take it that’s not the case?”

“You take it right, full on female, anatomically and everything.”

“That changes things.” Azulongmon said.

“What do you mean?”

He sighed “It is likely your original body no longer exists. A new one will have to be created for you.”

I felt like the bottom had dropped out of my stomach “What happened to it?”

“Impossible to say, it’s likely that it simply ceased to be. Rest assured that we will create you a new body as quickly as we can just know that whatever it is that made you female will do the same to your new body.”

“So you how long will it take for you to make this new body?”

“A few hours, all we’re doing is making a modification for your data, specifically your Ultimate level. Your own mind and memories will supply most of the data for its formation. Though it will be smaller keep in mind that its strength and speed will be on par or even greater than your body as Antylamon.”

“On that same note I seem to have battle instincts of some sort. I do some really cool thing with them but only if I’m a in a fight. Would it be possible to have someone teach me how to use them without that restriction?”

“That’ll have to wait till a later date. If you would please relax we can get started.” As I started to relax I also started to lose consciousness.

Just like when I became Antylamon my senses returned slowly starting with my hearing. I had expected my senses to be muted compared to what I had become used to. To my surprise they weren’t. This time I made sure to get up extremely slowly to keep from getting disoriented. I walked to the edge of the platform so I could look at myself.

I was attractive, most would probably say beautiful with fair skin. I had an hourglass figure; my bust was either a large B or small C cup, checking for the other bits could wait. I had long slender arms, legs, and fingers. My face was heart shaped; my hair was light pink, almost white in some place. It was styled into a pair of rabbit ear like pony tails reaching halfway down my back and bound with a pair of Holy Rings. The only unsettling thing about my appearance was my eyes; they were perfectly human except for the red irises.

My new form came with clothes and just like my armor it was so comfortable I didn’t even realize I had it. I had on a long sleeve shirt made from Red Digizoid in a fabric form. On top of it I had a high collared zip vest made of Blue Digizoid fabric. My legs were covered by a pair of sweatpants that were identical to those I wore as Antylamon, a mix of Blue and Red Digizoid, except these didn’t have the suit tails that trailed from the back. My shoes were the same material mix as my pants and were styled after the Nike Vomero 5s I had worn for so long. Best of all I now had four pockets.

“Glad to see you’re awake.”

I blushed as I turned around to face Zhuqiamon “I apologize I was ignoring you Lord Zhuquiamon. Ya’ll have done an excellent job with this form.”

He chuckled “We did very little. Your mind did most of the work for us.”

“Oh.”

“We were surprised when you generated two Modes.”

After a moment’s thought I knew all about the Modes “This must be Travel Mode. I guess it’s my default form at this level. Which means the other is Battle Mode. I’ll have to do some testing with them later.”

He nodded “It’s your choice.” His eyes became determined “I’m only going to ask this once, are you absolutely sure you want to visit your Earth family?”

I sighed “No, but they need to know I’m alright.”

He nodded “Alright,” the platform glowed “this might sting a little.”

There was a blinding light, a deafening burst of sound and then nothing.

Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out. My fall classes are winding down and I've got a big project I need to make sure is finished. My new job is cutting into my writing but what really got me with this chapter was a bad case of writers block.

Also in case ya'll want to see pictures of them here is Zhuqiaomon, Baihumon, Xuanwumon, and Azulongmon(its his dub name).

Later ya'll and don't forget to up vote if you like and haven't already.

And What I Found There

Sensory overload, I had forgotten that with normal hearing alarms were loud. With my current, more advanced hearing the sudden and deafening return of sound was very disorienting. After about a minute I was able to start picking out sounds other than the alarm. I couldn’t yet identify most of them but what did stand out was the sound of police sirens. There was some shouting and the alarm stopped. I heard the thumping of boots, whispers I was still to dazed to understand, then the rattling sound of a gate being lifted.

I pulled my knees up under me and started to push myself up as the cops slowly entered the store. I pushed a little too hard and with a startled yelp smashed through a shoe rack and the wall behind it. I think the only reason they didn’t shoot was because they were in just as much shock as I was. I landed on my back, so instead of risking further structural damage I just held up my arms. It took almost a minute for one of them to shake off the shock and help me up, handcuffing me while he did so.

“Sorry about the wall.” I said

He blinked “I’m sorry ma’am but I can’t understand you.” He spoke into his radio “We’re going to need a translator.”

“Cu.” Gaelic should’ve known, I focused for a few seconds and tried again “Hound. English, much better now we don’t need a translator. Since you’re arresting and or bring me in for questioning you’re required by law to read me my rights.”

He sighed “Since you know that much you probably already know what they are.”

“I can’t waive them if you don’t read them and it is required since I’m being taken in.”

He sighed “I will now read you your rights so that we can take you in for questioning.” He pulled out what looked like a business card “This is to make sure we make no mistakes, you’ll have to sign it as proof.”

“Okay.”

He took a deep breath “You have the right to remain silent, anything you sat can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you at interrogation time and in court.” We walked out of the mall “Do you understand the rights I have just read you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me or make a statement?”

Cobb County Police was written on the side of his squad car “Thank the gods you’re the county police and not Kennesaw Police.”

I signed the card and was made to sit in the back seat. He got in and started doing something with his computer. While he worked I closed my eyes and sat still working to pick out all the different sounds I could identify. It wasn’t as easy as I had hoped it would be. It took me almost a minute to identify the source of the problem. It was a sort of roar and howl sound, then it took me almost a minute to identify that as the sound of cars on the interstate, about a half mile east of where we were parked. I opened my eyes when he started speaking to the dispatcher, they talked for a few minutes and then he started the car. It wasn’t as bad as the alarm, but it was still loud enough to me that he would have to shout if he wanted me to hear him.

At first we rode in silence but after about thirty seconds he tried to talk to me, I could only really tell because of the rear view mirror, and sure enough I could barely hear him. It was like when my brother and I tried talking normally to each other next to a waterfall we hiked up to in the north Georgia Mountains. I had to strain myself to hear him and even then you could barely make out every other word. When he finished I pointed to my ears and shook my head. At his look of confusion I told him I had enhanced hearing and the noise from the car made it almost impossible for me to hear him. Even though it was completely true I don’t think he actually believed me.

It only took about ten minutes for us to get to the local precinct on Highway 41. I had driven past the back of it so many times that I never actually realized what it was. We pulled into the lot and he hurried me inside, giving brief greetings to people he knew as we passed them and went straight to an interrogation room. I was still handcuffed when he left after sitting me down in the chair facing what I knew was a one-way mirror. It was much quieter sitting in the interrogation room, everything outside it sounded somewhat muted; then again the room was probably sound proofed. I looked over when I heard a door open and was annoyed to learn it wasn’t the one in my room which meant the glass wasn’t sound proof, just sound dampening.

It sounded like four sets of feet. I frowned, who would they be bringing in to watch an active interrogation? Probably the officer who brought me, but that still left three unknowns. Before I could think about it any further the door to my room opened and two women walked in. One was tall with black hair and a file in her hands. As she sat in the chair opposite me she set the file down on the table. Her partner had brown hair, was about average height and stood next to her with her arms crossed.

The black haired one spoke first “My name is Agent White and this is Agent White, no relation. We’re with the FBI. Do you know why you’re here?”

I didn’t see a lawyer and while having one would slow things down I didn’t like the way this woman was talking to me “Where’s my lawyer?”

“You can speak with your lawyer after we’re done.”

I shook my head “I want a lawyer.” According to law that was all I had to say until one arrived.

“You don’t seem to understand how this is going to work. You’re lawyer is already here, but the officer that’s supposed to guide him here is having a little trouble remembering which room you’re in or even if you’re still at this building. After all you are here to be questioned about the disappearance of several people, including a local man whose information you used.”

I sighed; somehow I should have expected that they would want to play the hard way. I was getting tired of wearing handcuffs anyway. I held up my hands so everyone could see them before slowly pulling my arms apart. At first the FBI agents seemed confused by what I was doing, until they saw the metal links begin to distort as the metal approached its breaking point. There was a click as one of the links failed; that my arm movement wasn’t restricted I was able to slide a few fingers between the metal and my wrists. A sharp upward tug and I had ripped right through what was left of the handcuffs.

“That’s better, now what were you saying about denying me the right to a lawyer?”

In hindsight it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do but it didn’t really matter to me. The FBI, CIA, or even just the normal police doing this was stuff I thought only happened in TV shows and movies not real life. At least it wasn’t supposed to anymore. Did these two, completely normal, humans really think they could dictate whatever they wanted to me? I was an Ultimate level Digimon, I could flick them thru a wall and. I stopped and took a few deep breaths to call myself. Regardless of how this form looked on the outside its code was still based on Cherubimon’s which meant I had to be careful with thoughts like that or I’d end up turning into a monster.

Before the situation could escalate the door opened again and my rather angry lawyer walked in. The officer standing behind him had the decency to look at least a little sheepish for what was an immoral and illegal action that would definitely be enough to damage any court case they tried to bring against me. The attorney sat in the seat next to me with a huff as he reigned in his anger and brought his professionalism to bear. An act ruined when he groaned after the Agents reintroduced themselves. All I would need him to do is make sure my parents hear what I have to tell them because with how things were going I was almost ready to say fuck it and just go back to Equestria.

“Guess we aren’t getting any answers now.” That sounded like my mom, did my parents actual come to the police station?

“There’s no way she can be Cody. She doesn’t look a thing like him.” Dad

“Mom, Dad, I know you guys can hear me in there. I know you probably won’t believe me but I can prove I’m me and I can explain everything. Well almost everything.”

“I guess he wasn’t joking about her claim to super hearing.”

“I don’t have super hearing, it’s enhanced and so are my senses of sight and smell.”

“Ma’am as your lawyer I have to advise you against saying anything, especially since you seem to be addressing people who aren’t here.”My lawyer finally said.

“They’re on the other side of the glass.”

“Then I must insist that you stop speaking to them.”

I ignored him. First I had to convince them I was me; I spoke about things only I could have known. I spoke about birthdays and Christmases, about road trips, and vacations. How I cut my eyebrow on the stairs outside the church. When I got cut by an axe the Friday before sixth grade and how mom didn’t find out until Sunday. I talked about family traditions, even the little things and listed the things that I had to do that annoyed me. Things like putting up decorations at the various holiday times just take them down in a few weeks. How they always have the worst sense of timing and call me to do something when I’m the middle of or have just started a game.

“Great now it seems like my client is a stalker. Why can I never get the good cases?”

I ignored his groaning and started talking about what had happened to me. First I told them about the 1:8 ratio for the time difference. I explained how on day one I met Azulongmon in the mall and how he offered me a chance to go to Equestria. I told them about my choice to be Antylamon and Lopmon, about waking in the forest, running, sleeping, and meeting Iron Will. I recounted my first day in Trottingham, meeting Amethyst Rose and her family, how welcome they made me feel and how I started helping The Mancers, saving Rosy’s life, going to Ponyville. The invaded dream and how I realized I shouldn’t have been so hasty, my return, the problem with Blueblood, befriending the Scyphozoa and the Towers. Finally I told them about the trip through the looking glass, my talk with Alice, and then getting my new form from the Sovereigns.

“I’d like to go ahead and register for an insanity plea. My client is very clearly not in her right mind.”

There was silence on the other side of the window. Then my parents started debating with each other about the likely hood of my story. Dad thought it might be at least partially true, it was too fantastic a tale to have been made up and why else would I have allowed myself to be brought in? Mom was less rational about it thinking I was, like the lawyer said, a crazy stalker who somehow knew impossible things. The worst part was, Dad started to believe her.

I stood up “This was a mistake. Why did I ever think this was a good idea?”

“Ma’am please sit back down.”

“It’s like when I let Blake talk me into running the Atlanta Half. It seemed like a good solid plan before the actual race.”

“I won’t tell you again sit down.”

I sighed and grabbed hold of the table. With a sharp tug I ripped it free from the bolts fastening it to the floor. I held it for a few seconds before dropping it making everyone wince at the noise. I wasn’t really angry; I was more exasperated than anything else. They were my parents; they were supposed to believe me.

That's when I facepalmed, they were my parents. My mom who doesn’t always finish her thoughts. My mom, who sometimes calls me the wrong name and has a problem with me playing games that have a female as the main PC. Then there’s my dad, stoic and confusing, mad for strange reasons and has a double standard for being snapped at by me.

I leaned on the table “No, I won’t sit down. I’m not even going to stay in this room. I’m going home and then I’m going back to the Digital World, back to the Mirror Kingdom and back to Trottingham, Equestria.”

She stood “I will place you under arrest if I have to.”

I laughed “You don’t have any way to hold me against my will. As you’ve seen I can break steel with minimal effort. Stop bullying the dragon before it decides to fight back. Mom, Dad…tell…tell everyone I love them. Okay?”

Ignoring further protest I stepped up to the door. A good shove on the edges was enough to break the hinges, tear the lock from the frame and put the door into the hallway. I followed the signs to the nearest exit. As I reached for the handle there was a bang, a pain like an airsoft pellet in my lower back and I staggered forward. It took a second for me to realize I had been shot and it did absolutely nothing to me. I braced against the door just in time for about nine more bullets to hit me.

I broke open the exit and found myself in the back parking lot. I cleared the fence with no trouble and started running only to stop when I hit Barrett Parkway after about three seconds. I didn’t think it was possible to move so fast. I took a few seconds to experiment and decide that since I couldn’t figure out how to fly jumping would have to do.

Since I wasn’t likely to return I wanted to bring some things with me. Stuff I was unlikely to get in Equestria, like chicken soup, books on advanced math and science, gas, diesel, jet fuel and engines, det cord, stuff like that. I made liberal use of the hammerspace created by my digivolutions to carry everything. After about ten minutes I finally made it to my parent’s house.

I carefully used the key pad to open the garage door being mindful of the new code and my new strength. Mom’s car was still gone so I beat them back. I opened the door into the mud room and walked into the kitchen to be greeted by the family dog looking over the back of the couch. Pre, short for Prefontaine after the runner was a black lab hound mix with white socks on his front paws. He came straight over, no barking, and tried to lick my face off. It was good to know at least one person in my family still recognized me. A few careful pets and some feather light pushing got him off me and following me around.

I moved the pet gate and went up stairs. I passed by my room and went to the attic to grab a suitcase. In the bottom I put my blankets from when I was little along with some of my favorite clothes. In the middle layer I put my Marlin Model 39A that my grandfather left to me. I also put in about 2,000 rounds of .22LR of various types in various small boxes into the suitcase. I finished filling it with cold weather clothes: sweatshirts, sweatpants, running pants, jacket, shorts, and finally added my peacoat on the top most layer. With a little work I was able to get it closed and two digivolutions later it was safely in hammerspace.

The last three things I wanted I would wear. I slipped on my class ring and was happy to find it was only slightly loose. I put on my staurolite necklace and tightened the thin leather cord around my neck. Lastly I put my grandfather’s silver pocket watch in my right pant pocket. I snagged my bone shaped pillow, put it into my favorite flannel fishing pillow case and stored it hammerspace as an afterthought.

I went back down stairs and turned on mom’s computer. The police sirens I had started to hear earlier were blaring as they pulled in front of the house. A few short seconds on the computer and I had my way back to the Digital World set. I sighed as took a last look around the family room. Pre walked up to me and squeaked his favorite toy, large brown cartoony hedgehog with thick tube like bristles. I started to silently cry as I pet him for what was likely to be the last time. I had picked him out from the shelter after seeing two of his sisters at a Pets Mart one weekend. He dropped the toy but when I picked it up and went to throw it he nudged my hand.

I swallowed hard “Pre, you stupid smart dog. You know I'm probably not coming back. This is your favorite toy, do you really want me to take it?”

His response was to nudge my hand again and lick some of the tears from my face. I gave him one last hug before I put the hedgehog in my vest pocket and gave it a squeak. He wagged his tail once and went to the basement to hide. The cops said something but I ignored them. I faced the computer and held up my hand like I would if I had a Digivice.

“Digital Gate open!”

Author's Note

New place to type in interesting. This one took a while because I debated whether or not to use real places or try and fabricate some. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Worth Two in the Bush

I emerged from the light of the gate to see a small ocean, a vast lake, or an inland sea. The water was clear, calm, and looked rather shallow. The air was warm and the blue sky above was dotted with large puffy white clouds. In the distance I could hear something running across the water’s surface, it made the distinct slapping noise of a foot in a shallow puddle. I turned around to deal with the gate on this side, a small black cathode ray tube TV. It sat on an island of hexagonal stone that I recognized as basalt. I flipped the TV so it was resting gently on its blank screen, while I did that I got a look at my feet. I wasn’t standing on the island; I was standing on the WATER. As soon as I processed that thought I started o sink, then panic and sink faster. Before the water could pass mid thigh a large brown furred hand gently grabbed my right arm and pulled me up.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you.” Deep voice, definitely male “The trick to not sinking is to ignore that its water, just pretend its solid ground and you’ll be fine.” I’m slowly lowered to the surface my feet coming to rest solidly on it. “That’s it, took me a week to get that trick right and even then I still fell in a few times, you’re quick learner.”

I turned around and found myself looking up into what I had come to know as my own face. His forehead had three horns. His face had white fur in the center of the face, brown around the rest, pink tipped ears and red eyes. He wore the same scarf, pauldron collar, cuirass, and pants that I had. I was looking at the Andiramon, the Rabbit Deva whose form I could take. He was smiling in an amused manner, whether at my sinking or quick learning I would never know. It quickly became a look of concern.

“Are you alright, did you get something in your eyes?”

I sighed, my eyes must have been bloodshot or something “No, no I am not alright. I could’ve lied and said yes but at this point I’m beyond caring about whether or not I look tough. I made a bit of hasty choice and became a piece in a cosmic chess game. I thought that of everyone I knew I would be able to handle this kind of situation pretty well. Of course I’m wrong again; I can handle fiction and legends being true. I have no problem with the fact that most deities DO actually exist. I don’t even have a problem with being a girl. No, what’s wrong is that people will ignore the truth simply because they don’t want to believe it even when there’s hard evidence staring them right in the face.”

“The same can be said of any sentient creature.”

“What do you mean?”

“Deception is both the greatest gift and the greatest curse of being sentient. As such it is also said that the best lies are things that are at least partially or wholly true. If a sentient creature repeats the same lie enough times then it will forget that it is untrue.”

“That seems rather pessimistic, informative and probably true but still rather pessimistic.”

He chuckled “After you’ve lived through your first century we’ll compare notes on the nature of such things. If you don’t understand after that then you probably won’t.”

“I pray that you’re joking and if you’re not that it’s long life and NOT immortality.”

He nodded sagely “Living forever is a terrible thing if you have no one to share your time with. But we have spoken enough of these depressing subjects. Come, I’ll lead you to where Lord Zhuiqomon is waiting for us.”

I pushed my sadness down and gave him few seconds head start so I wouldn’t be right on his heels. It took a few minutes for me to get the proper feel for regulating my pace. It just felt so slow to me, like I was jogging just barely above the pace of speed walking. It would have been more annoying if I weren’t trying to catch a glimpse of every single thing we ran past. I could probably spend a lifetime exploring the Digital World and never get any closer to seeing all of it.

From the shallow ocean we made our way into a thick jungle. It was clearly well traveled as there were numerous well maintained paths and at one point we passed through the center of a large village where all the buildings stood on stilts. The jungle thinned out into barren rocky lands dotted here and there with small bushes, trees, and scrub vegetation. High up on a hill was what looked distinctly like an evil castle straight out of a fairy tale, dark stone, ominous clouds and all. But what really caught my attention was that there were hundreds of Digimon everywhere.

The numbers began to thin as the land grew less and less friendly before finally become an empty endless plain made of some dark hard stone. The farther we traveled the thicker the clouds overhead became till they were a solid mass of dark storm clouds. The thick overhead coverage made the afternoon as dark as late evening. Up ahead in the distance I saw a shimmering light. As we got closer the hazy light resolved itself into the massive form of Zhuqiamon. We stopped about 200 feet in front of him, Andiramon dropping to one knee.

“My Lord, I have done as you commanded and brought your champion before you.”

“You may leave Andiramon. I shall call you again when we have need of you.”

Andiramon stood up and gave a simple nod in response. As he walked past he stopped to pat me on the head. Rather than be annoyed by it I almost felt a sort of comfort, like when my brother and I were little and I could tell him anything. It took about a minute for him to get out of my hearing range. The entire time I just stood there silently waiting to be addressed.

“If I’m your Champion I insist on being called El Cid Campeador.”I spoke without any enthusiasm what so ever.

“Bad day?” he asked

My only answer was to give him a shrug.

“I told them it was a bad idea to let you go.” He sighed and started slowly preening “I had no problems with giving you a new digivolution but I had a feeling letting you go to the human world would only end in disappointment. “Silence “For whatever its worth to you, know that I am sorry for the pain you must be feeling right now, physical and emotional. I’d also like to apologize, it’s our fault they won’t completely believe you, no matter how much they want to.”

I narrowed my eyes “Explain.”

“We, that is to say we the Sovereigns, are always using a portion of our power to keep you hidden from notice and detection. Princess Luna would never have truly known you are a game piece if Alice hadn't shown up. Also, if someone is actively seeking to find you but doesn’t who you are or that you are you then it will be impossible for them to truly find you or believe that you were the human you know you once were.”

Lighting flashed and thunder rumbled overhead “So it is your fault.”

He hesitated for a second “Yes, it is.”

I needed to be stronger if I was really going to hurt him. I probably wouldn’t be able to killhim but I could probably do some serious damage to him before he finally got fed up and killed me. The lightning flashes became more frequent and the peals of thundered grew louder as the center of the storm shifted. It was time to try out Battle Mode. I felt a massive surge of power rush through my body. I felt my clothes change, pants and shirt becoming a tight bodysuit of Blue Digizoid fabric, except around the neck where it became Red.

My vest changed to Red Digizoid plating which also appeared on my arms and legs over top of the body suit. Gauntlets made from Gold Digizoid plates attached to Red Digizoid fabric appeared on my hands. Where the gauntlets covered the backs of my hands there was a pair of bolt like studs. Plates of Gold Digizoid also covered the outer of my arms, elbows, the front of my knees, down my shins, encased my shoes, and covered my shoulders. Red Digizoid plates covered the underside of my arms and my inner thighs. My Holy Rings snapped in place on my right and left wrist as my hair shortened and a simple open faced Red Digizoid helmet dropped onto my head. It was decorated with a pair of ear like tassels.

Before Zhuqiamon could even blink my fist had connected with tip of his beak creating a hairline fracture in it, there was also a loud crack as my fist passed though the sound barrier, and the hit sent him hurtling through the air. He managed to right himself and hovered in the air a smirk on his face. He seemed to enjoy being hit.

“Tell me why you hit me.”

“If you knew it would be a bad idea you should have tried harder to tell me! Instead you let me go out and make an idiot of myself. I’m all for acting silly but not for doing stupid things!” I hit him again this time dropping down from left side.

This time he did smash into the ground the force of his impact pulverizing the rock around him “You can’t go back to Equestria, not like this.”

Cherubimon, think. I raised a hand to the sky “Heaven’s Judgement.” Hundreds of bolts of blue-white lightning struck the ground most of them missing Zhuqiamon. At over 53 and a half thousand degrees Fahrenheit the lightning was several magnitudes hotter than the ground would ever be able to bear. Whatever didn’t sublimate was quickly turned into an enormous vitrified mass. The fact that the Sovereigns were in a league of their own was soundly reinforced when Zhuqimon took to the air again without a single black mark.

“You do know you’re flying right?” he asked me.

“Why can’t I go back?”

“You’re wound up so tight I’m surprised your head hasn’t come off yet. For a normal human bottling up your emotions for several years can be a bad thing. As a Digimon the length of time is even shorter and on Equis emotions are often amplified. If you go back in your current emotional state…well it’d be cataclysmic.”

I hung my head as I looked at the damaged landscape and knew that he was right.

“So get it out of your system!”

My head snapped up fast enough to hurt “What?”

He rolled his eyes, all six of them “Attack me, scream, shout, cry, yell about everything that is causing you pain, whatever. You don’t need quiet therapy you need something active.”

I blinked.

He spread his wings “Now hit me again! Tell me why you’re upset, why you hurt.”

I couldn’t believe it. Zhuqiamon, who dislikes humans and has no sympathy for the weak, was offering himself up as my personal punching bag and shoulder to cry on. I took a shuddering breath and let myself go. Anger, depression, grief, sorrow, all of it, I let it all jump out of the places it was being forced into. I had to work very hard to keep myself from losing control and turning into an evil version of myself.

I attacked again and again and again. All the while I told him things. Stuff I’d never told anyone, not even the therapist my parents and I went to to help me deal with my Asperger’s syndrome when we still thought it was ADD and ADHD. I told him about Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Elementary, Middle, and High School. I told him about my failure the first year out of high school and the death of both of my grandfathers.

At about hour four into the battle the clouds finally started to rain throwing up clouds of steam from the molten parts of the landscape. At hour five Zhuqiamon had started lightly fighting back, a wing hit here, a small flame burst there. Finally at hour seven I collapsed on a sand pile that had once been a small hill before I missed a punch. I was sobbing and hiccupping, my tears having long since run out and the rain continued to fall. I curled up physically and emotionally spent having just bared my soul before someone who was probably the most ruthless and Darwinistic of the Sovereigns. There was a crunch as he landed, I closed my eyes and waited for the killing blow. It never came, instead the rain suddenly stop falling on me, the cold was replaced by a steady warmth and I saw a gentle light though my eyelids.

“Sleep.” He gently commanded

Falling asleep that close to him was probably something I shouldn’t do but I was far to exhausted to care. I don’t know how long I was asleep but I woke feeling…different. I hadn’t transformed or anything in my sleep, no extra limbs, eyes or organs either. I lay there on the ground staring up at the cloudy sky trying to identify what I was feeling. I got sidetracked thinking about how peaceful the grey clouds and the newly pond dotted landscape looked. That’s when I realized what it was, for the first time in my life, that I could remember, I was truly at peace.

A voice came from my left “Glad to see you are awake.”

I recognized Andiramon’s voice and lazily rolled over to look at him, a small smile of contentment on my face. In the distance I could see Zhuqiamon as a large reddish smudge facing an even smaller blackish speck. If I wanted to I could probably listen in on their conversation but I decided to let them have their privacy. If it was relevant to me someone would tell me about eventually.

“If I was a dog my tail would be wagging in happiness right now. I’ve never felt so good before.”

His lips twitched with an almost smile “Inner peace will do that to you. I’ll teach you how to maintain and return to it later.” He sat down “Starting today I’ll be teaching you how to fight. I was told you have something you’re calling ‘Battle Instincts’. I’m afraid I don’t really understand what you mean by that. Would you be willing to explain it to me?”

I rolled over onto my stomach arms stretched out toward him “You have instincts right? This smells good so it probably, this thing causes pain so it’s probably bad, stuff like that.” A nod “Well this is kinda like that and kinda like muscle memory. When I fight my body seems to know what to do and I just follow the impulses. But I can’t control them or use them outside of battle. As a side note I’m also having more trouble controlling my other impulses.”

He pulled on one of his ears “The second problem is easy enough either ignore them or regulate your power if you do act on it.” He nibbled the tip “The first problem is a little harder. It sounds like someone has given you the ability to fight and do those other things but not the knowledge. A few weeks going through proper forms and a little practice should fix that.”

“She’ll also need some weapons training.”

Spooked I suddenly found myself sixty feet in the air and thirty feet to the left of where I had been laying. I was about ten feet above the new comer’s head putting his height at about fifty feet. His armor was purplish black in color. His feet had three claws extending from the front of his boots. He stood with his arms crossed in front of his broad chest. His red eyes seemed amused by my reaction. The rest of his head was concealed beneath his helmet which looked like an oddly shaped skull but for some reason I thought it also looked like it was crossed with a grinning baleen whale. This was Craniummon, one of the thirteen Royal Knights who guarded the security of the Digital World.

He laughed the sound coming from deep in his chest “Ahahahaha! I’ve never been compared to a whale before but I think I find it quite endearing. We’ll have to add empath and flight training to the list as well and of course you’ll also be receiving magic training as well.” At my confusion he elaborated “You’re an empath now you can sense people’s feelings. But its two way street, I don’t know what kind of whale you were thinking of just that it had some sort of connection to me. With proper training you can keep stuff like that to yourself and influencing another person's mood without being them being able to do the opposite.”

“What about the magic?” I asked

“We can work on that right now. But first you might want to land.”

The nice thing about the Digital World was that you didn’t have to eat, sleep, or drink unless you wanted to. Periodic breaks were necessary to help prevent eventual exhaustion but sleep itself was unnecessary. Magic was…interesting to say the least and as it turned out Digimon attacks were magic. All magic was based on command and intent, being an instant polyglot certainly helped a little. It wasn’t enough to just speak the words you had to understand what they meant on your own. As I learned I we discovered that the older the spoken language the stronger the potential spell. While most pieces would probably go with Latin I decided to use Gaelic A) because it was older and B) I knew like five words in Latin.

He ended up calling in Duftmon when I showed him I could use my attacks without having to shout out the name. To say Duftmon was curious and delighted is like saying the SR-71 was a little fast, huge understatement. I probably learned as much from him as he did from me. When actually got to the point that I could fight without relying on impulse and instinct we had to call in Sleipmon to be my sparring partner so I could learn to control just how much power I put into each hit. The one time Craniummon sparred with me I almost put hole straight through his shoulder. I was also able to get my flight training done at the same time because Sleipmon had the greatest mobility and flight experience of all the Knights.

I think I enjoyed my empathy training the most. It mainly consisted of lying around doing nothing and just feeling the world around me. The fact that it was done with me laying on top of the tree on Xuanwumon’s back was just a bonus. While the Knights made no attempt to mask their strength with Xuanwumon I had no idea just how strong he was until the first day of training. I could feel his heavily restrained power when I touched the top most leaves. If the Royal Knights were supposed to be high class infantry that made the Sovereigns something like tanks, artillery, or close air-support. As strong as the Knights were unless they all went after one of the Sovereigns they would lose.

Before I knew it eight weeks had passed and the training was done. Not once during that time did I lose the amazing feeling of being at piece. The last hours of my training were spent with Andiramon teaching me how to maintain that state and reach that state should I ever lose it. We were at the reflecting pool where I had first arrived and everyone else was there. They all gave me some last minute advice as we said our goodbyes. If I ever tired of Equestria, the Digital World would be a place I could always call home. With that happy thought I stepped through the portal and back to Equestria.

Author's Note

Sorry that its taken so long to get this out. Real Life, Starcraft II, PC Skyrim, and my job have been getting in the way.

Sublimation- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimation_%28phase_transition%29
Vitrification- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitrification

Craniummon- http://wikimon.net/Craniummon
Duftmon- http://wikimon.net/Duftmon
Sleipmon- http://wikimon.net/Sleipmon
The Royal Knights- http://wikimon.net/Royal_Knights
Xuanwumon- http://wikimon.net/Xuanwumon

Questions and comments are welcome.

Unpacking

I immediately knew I was in the wrong place for several reasons. First, the room was full of stuffily dressed and extremely panicked ponies, in Trottingham there would’ve been shock then indifference. Second, there were about two dozen members of the Royal Guard spread around the room who were taking up defensive positions. Third, the room was made of white marble. Lastly, a slightly confused and generally angry looking Princess Celestia was looking right at me. Somehow I had ended up several hundred miles from where I was supposed to be.

Before I could really think I needed to do something about all the noise the petitioners were making. I’d never worked on such a large group before but a few seconds of giving off calm, safe and harmless had them much calmer. It helped that I was in my less threatening Travel Mode. A few nobles had some form of resistance but calmed down on their own once they realized what was going on. The guards had a greater resistance but once I started focusing on them I was able to get thru. Celestia, well I didn’t even try it on her since I probably wouldn’t get anywhere. She had gone from angry to wary in the few seconds it took me to calm the room.

I took the hedgehog squeaky toy out of my vest pocket and locked eyes with him. “Mr. Prickles, why are we so far off course?” a shrug “Whaddya mean ‘you don’t know’? You were the helmsman that means you were supposed to steer and keep us on course!” I frowned “No, Mr. Bubbles is the boatswain, he only has one hand so he wouldn’t be able to steer. That’s why I made you the helmsman instead.” pause “’He could use his drill to turn the wheel’, really? That’s the best you can come up with? The drill would break the spokes and then nobody would be able to keep us on course.” I pretended to be angry “No! Do not say that joke. IT wasn’t funny 3000 years ago and it isn’t funny now.”

Celestia’s look had morphed into one of concern “Are you alright?” she asked stepping down from the throne “And I think you can stop projecting on everypony now.”

I looked at her and eased up; the guards snapped themselves out of it. “Shush, can’t you see I’m having an important one sided conversation with myself?” she opened her month, I looked at Mr. Prickles again and started shaking him “Don’t take her side you jackass! I can be as strange as I want to, it’s not like there’s anyone here I have to obey or listen to. Whatever, we need to be going anyway. Since we’re on the wrong side of the country the sooner we leave the better.”

As I started to walk away a pink barrier appeared around me. I looked over my shoulder to see who put it up. It took a few seconds for me to realize it was Shining Armor, Captain of the Royal Guard and older brother of Twilight Sparkle. He looked more than a little angry. Then again considering I had basically made fools of him and the other “elite” guards his anger was understandable.

“Just so you know this barrier won’t be able to hold me. Right now I’m leaving it up solely to humor you.”

“I am Shining Armor, Captain of Celestia’s Royal Guard. Who are, what are you, and how did you get here?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, digital monster, and a magical portal which was supposed to put me on the other side of the country. Since it didn’t we must have forgotten to account for something. My money is on it being some minute but highly important mathematical detail…or we might’ve forgotten to carry a one or something simple, which is probably more likely than the former.”

“This room is protected by some of the strongest magic known to ponies. The fact that you were able to bypass it makes you a threat to the safety of both Princesses’. Once we’ve escorted the nobles to safety you will be questioned about the spell that you used to travel through the barriers.”

I zipped Mr. Pickles safely inside my vest pocket “No, I don’t think so.”

“It wasn’t a request.”

A solid tap and the barrier shattered “You cannot and do not command me. Besides, I don’t know how the spell works because somebody else cast it. So even if I wanted to tell you how it worked, which I don’t, I wouldn’t be able to. Now, I’m late and must be going, good day.”

I don’t know which was better, the look on their faces when I broke the barrier or the one they had when I jumped through the window. Fun fact window glass is actually very hard to break and whenever you see someone jump through it in a movie they’re actually breaking a special kind made just for that purpose. Obviously this didn’t apply here for two reasons. One, I was strong enough that it didn’t matter and two, certain things that usually only worked in fiction worked perfectly fine in Equestria. That was something I could use to my advantage.

Once I had gotten the hang of it flying quickly became one of my favorite things to do. I didn’t have to watch my footing or worry about getting bugs in my eyes and stuff like I did when I was running. If I really wanted to I could push my speed up to about mach 6 putting me nicely in the hypersonic speed range. One of the first things I did when I learned how fast I could go was the key to eliminate the creation of a Sonic Rainboom when I hit mach 1 and any other odd things that might happen at each consecutive mach number. I might not look as cool but stealth was something I liked better than leaving behind a rainbow colored streak or plasma or something. Besides, it was useless at a cruising altitude of about 86,000 feet.

The North Pole might be called the top of the world but that was really only in a physical sense. 86,000 feet was what really looked like the top of the world. I could see stars twinkling above me and an endless sea of white and green below. Ahead I could see the gentle curve of the planet starting as a white gray, progressing through blue and finally becoming the black of the night sky. I doubt I had ever or would ever see a more beautiful sight for however long I would end up living.

My only concern about flying so high and so fast was overshooting my target destination and not realizing it. At the speed I was going it was very hard (read impossible) to hear anything at all. I was completely dependent on sight and without a scope I wouldn’t be able to see anything on the ground. With that in mind I slowed down to mach 3 and dropped my altitude to about 82,000 feet. I glanced back to admire the twin contrails created by my hands and back-swept arms. I tried to feel the data that the Towers were giving off, if I could manage that I could use it to find my way.

That had been a wonderful and unexpected discovery I had made during a break in training with Xuanwumon. The Towers were also wide area, high power sensors that were constantly collecting every kind of information you could think of from current temperature to the average amount of background radiation in its area. If there were multiple Towers they would even transmit the data from one to another and absorb all the information along the way and it could be accessed from one single Tower. If you put them in the right places you could theoretically have data that was accurate up to the second. As the system administrator I alone had remote had access, meaning I could access that data without having to be in a Tower. The instructions for how to do that were…vague at best, guess XANA didn’t have proper admin access.

I finally managed it on my third try and almost fell out of the air from all the information I received. The only thing I managed to learn was that I was still out of range of the Tower in Trottingham. I could only stay connected for a few seconds at a time without being overwhelmed; there was just so much information. If I was going to use it effectively I would need to take a shortcut so I could understand it all, or at least immediately identify the most important stuff. I checked back every ten seconds or so until I finally found myself in range. By focusing on the Tower itself and nothing else I was able to pinpoint the middle of the city and land with only minor problems.

I stood in the middle of the town center and took note as one of The Marshals spoke into a radio, no doubt calling in help, before he stepped forward. After introductions and a short explanation he radioed again, this time for Sunny Smiles and her family, before he sat down to wait patiently. I, on the other hand…hoof…appendage, had something I wanted to examine. The giant emerald that was sitting right in front of me and may or may not contain what was basically a god. It was not the Master Emerald which was both a relief and a disappointment for various different reasons.

That aside the gem was far from natural due to the fact that it was completely flawless right down to the sub-atomic level. Even under laboratory conditions’ producing something like this on a much smaller scale was next to impossible, you could get ballpark estimate close but not spot on. Whoever had made it and whatever process they used must have been truly amazing. With a gentle push of energy I learned just how much power it could hold, even if I drained myself five times over I would barely fill a portion of it. Why would something like this ever have to be used, for what purpose and to what end?

I put such questions aside and worked to carefully balance it on its tip and myself in the lotus position on top. I put my hands on my knees and closed my eyes, if this thing was ever going to be of any use I would need to start charging it now, hopefully we wouldn’t need it for offense but there were other things we could definitely use it for. I had to be very careful when charging an object. The first several attempts during training ended up with me covered in dust from the object when it shattered. It wasn’t that I was forcing too much energy into them so much as it was the energy being siphoned into it too fast. I didn’t want to drain myself completely today; I still had a lot to do.

I don’t know how long I sat there, eyes closed and mind focused, before the familiar scent of Amethyst Rose started flowing in on the breeze. I cracked an eye and was surprised to find that everypony was bowing in my direction; luckily Rosy’s scent was coming from behind me anyway. Behind me stood Sunny Smiles, Ameythst Rose, Cold Front, Blue Serenade, and Grey Main all looking a bit surprised. Farther back I could see a bound and gagged Prince Blueblood and standing between me and my friends was a softly smiling Princes Luna. I had no way of knowing if she recognized me but I was more curious about why she was here.

“Rise my little ponies, please go about your business as usual.” Most did as she ordered but two or three stayed behind “It is good to see you again Your Grace. How have you fared since last we met?”

So she did recognize me “I was unwell for a bit, things did not go as I had hoped. But I am much better now, far better than I have ever been.” Before anyone could blink I had swept Rosy up into my lap and had her in a light hug. “How have you been Princess of the Moon, Stars, and Sacred Darkness of the night?”

“Well enough, the nobles have become far pettier than they once were and many seem to become worse by the day.” She glanced at Blueblood “If my sister would let me I would have disciplined them all rather severely by now and there are a great many whom I would also have stripped of lands and titles.” She frowned “I do not understand why we must indulge them.”

Rosy lay her head on my thigh and I stroked her mane “Were the decision mine I would have the worst of them strung up by their entrails and paraded through the city. But ultimately that choice is not up to me. Now that we have the pleasantries out of the way I would like to know why you are here, when you will be leaving, and what you plan to do with him.” Surprisingly no pony flinched at my idea.

“I am here to deal with this wayward relative as for punishment. First I think revocation of his private airship is a good place to start. I think Tia might listen when I suggest suspending his vote in the Barn of Lords and freezing most of his financial assets and removing most of the privileges he seems to enjoy flaunting so much. Hopefully that will teach him some humility and if it doesn’t” she shrugged “exile is always an option.”

“So is execution, I think one of the books I brought back has a proper diagram of the guillotine in it somewhere.”

She shook her head “As for how long I will be staying. I was going to leave today but I think we shall stay for one more night. That is assuming Mrs. Smiles doesn’t mind housing me for another evening. It’s not an order; I can stay at a hotel if I’m imposing.”

Sunny laughed “It’s fine, its fine. The house hasn’t been this lively since I was a filly. I see Grey has already left to get more food. Inaba, you’ll be happy to know Phase One is well underway since you left last week and Phase Two should begin before the weekend is over.”

I nodded “It’s just as well I’ve brought back a few things that are too big to be kept at HQ anyway. We’ll need to build a special building for one of the things. Does anypony know what sheet metal is? As for temporary coverage we can use tarps but they’ll need to be stitched together to make one big enough.” A few ponies in the crowd cheered before quickly leaving “Where’s Scipio?”

Sunny grinned “He’s archiving, just like he’s done every day since you left. I’ll explain on the way. Somepony put this stallion back in his cell, please and thank you.”

I slide off the emerald and draped Rosy around my neck like n excitedly squirming feather boa. I knew exactly where I wanted to go, the concealed entry ramp on the west side of town. There was really only one thing that couldn’t properly fit inside HQ but it was loaded up with little things I wanted to bring back which would fit. Hopefully once Phase 2 was in full swing the technology I brought back could be reverse engineered more quickly. The only danger was making sure it didn’t get analyzed, used, or reproduced by the wrong people, like anyone who supported the Eden Initiative. I was happy to find the ramp open and Scipio patiently floating at the top of it waiting for us.

“Scipio, progress report.” I said.

He floated over “Everything is proceeding within the acceptable time frame. A new schedule will be produced once everything you recovered is logged. Magically charged gem drives have proven an acceptable substitute for traditional electricity generation methods. The records are now fully electronic and there are numerous remote access terminals within HQ to facilitate more rapid inventory logging.”

I set Rosy down and nodded “Good. Princess Luna, your mouth is open. I need everyone to stay over here as the main object is rather large.”

I put about 100 feet between us and stood with the ramp on my left and my right arm sticking straight out to the side. A brief flash of later and I was Lopmon, my right paw resting against the cold aluminum of a large aircraft. The one wing reached over half the distance to everyone, was taller than Scipio, and the craft itself was just less than one hundred feet long. I walked out from under the wing and made my way to the open loading ramp at the back. The inside was tightly and carefully packed full of stuff from books, to detcord, to cans of soup and MREs. I had spent about two days carefully getting everything to sit for unloading. There were a few other things I was carrying as Antylamon but the bulk of what I brought was here.

Scipio quickly swept me up so he could update his knowledge with what I had brought. Rather than bookshelves appearing in my library he did and made a beeline for the newest books which he then carefully copied one page at a time. The finished copies he placed into an opening hidden at his front. As he started to float out I thought about making a backup of my memories and finding a way to strengthen my mental defense. In response he held up a tendril and nodded it meaning yes, he would help me.

With my return to normal senses I saw Princess Luna had become quite agitated when Scipio was holding me. The only reason she probably didn’t act was because she had no idea what to do. It probably helped that nopony else was visibly bothered by it. She was worried about my safety, how cute. As she approached Sunny was continually assuring her that what happened was completely harmless. I cleared my throat and all attention turned to me.

“This is a Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules. Where I’m from airships have been out of style for around fifty years for a number of complex reasons I won’t go into. As an alternative we put more emphasis on winged aircraft. This particular model plane is for transporting cargo it has a flight range of just over 3600 miles and cruises at about 400mph.”

“Some of our military airships can move pretty fast but nowhere near that speed. How can you manage it with those propellers?” Luna asked.

“Ah now we’re getting into the technical area I don’t know as well. First the prop isn’t what produces most of the thrust, the engine it’s attached to does. These are Rolls-Royce AE 2100 turboprop jet engines. Before you ask a jet engine works by compressing and igniting its fuel. The force from the combustion exits the back of the engine and produces forward momentum. Turboprop engines have a turbine inside which is what spins the propeller. It’s not as fast or powerful as a turbofan engine but it’s more fuel efficient.”

“So, why did you bring it? I doubt we have anyway to fuel it.”

‘I brought back samples of the most important fuels we use, including jet fuel. All we need to do is find a way to make a synthetic version of it and we’ll be set. I’m also hoping we can create some magic spell or device to burn the fuel more efficiently or reduce it pollution. Whichever works best.”

Sunny nodded “We’ll see if we can get a team working on it. If it’s going to be of any help to anyone we’ll need to produce more of these ‘jet engines’.”

“I thought of that to, snagged a set of repair manuals for the C-130. I also brought back a single much larger turbofan engine for study. I figure if you’re trying to see how something works a larger model would make it easier. I’d also like to return it eventually so please, try to make sure no one breaks it because it’s like seven million dollars to replace it and I’ve already taken one.”

“I can’t promise anything but we can at least try.”

A quick double transformation later and the behemoth GE CF6 Turbofan engine was safely stored in a mobile clean room for transport further into HQ. The various fuel samples were taken to their own area that dealt with liquids to be studied. Scipio quickly took charge of the unloading process for the C-130 and within an hour everything was shelved and cataloged. Except the food that was all for me, unless ponies suddenly decided to become omnivores. The food was loaded up onto carts and taken to Sunny’s house to be kept in an unused room for me to eat at my leisure.

We had an early lunch at a quaint café and grocery store just inside the west wall. I would have preferred to put off telling them about my trip until Luna, as she insisted we call her, was gone but Rosy twisted my arm. I left out almost everything Alice told me about WHY I was here and also left out what Zhuqiamon said about being found. Everyone except Scipio was intrigued by Earth, after half an hour of questions I finally managed to guide it back so I could finish my story. When I got to the part about my parents they all gave some form of solace, even Scipio draped a tentacle around my shoulders in a sort of half hug.

By this point we had finished eating and we had gone outside the walls as I continued to talk. About a quarter of a mile outside the city large pit had begun to form with canvas tents erected a safe distance from the edge. Phase 1 involved looking to see if Trottingham was connected to Caelondia in way other than strange similarities. If it was we’d use one version of Phase 2. If it wasn’t we’d use the other version.

The dig was being led by an elderly earth pony named Doctor Blue Jay, who insisted on being called Doctor Jay citing his lack of blue as the reason. He was very excited when I was introduced as the Head of Research, Acquisition and Development for The Mancer, Sunny and I were going to have a long talk about that. He showed me a number of artifacts they had already uncovered and begun to study. He said they were the oldest artifact ever found to date. I almost couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw them, a Bullhead Shield and several totems including one for Pyth the Bull, Caelondian god of order and chaos. I looked at the sky, at the beautiful green plants, and at the walls of Trottingham. They were the Rippling Walls or at least what was left of them after The Calamity.

I sat down completely stunned “Shit.”

The response anypony may have had was drowned by shouts of “Dragon!”

Author's Note

Another chapter down. Dead Space 3 is fun. Also finally got my hands on a copy of Digimon World Dawn and it is sooooo good!

Ant, Boot.

Contrary to popular belief dragons are actually quite reasonable, when they’re not busy being total fuckwads. If they’re already occupied doing that you have two options to choose from. Option one, you can do the immediately easy thing and bribe it with lots of gold and jewels. Option two; you can do the more immediately hard thing and beat the shit out of it until it surrenders and will agree to whatever you demand jut to make the pain stop. Long term, option two is the better choice. If you go with option one you’re submitting and the dragon will keep coming back for more stuff.

The dragon that now stood between us and the city probably had a wingspan of about 120 feet. Both his neck and tail were long and snake like. His head was triangular in shape and vaguely reminded me of a big cat with its slit pupils and lips pulled back exposing his teeth. The afternoon sun shone down on his burgundy scales as he tried to menace us.

“I am Regius and I demand sustenance!” he bellowed

Luna, Scipio and I were the only ones who didn’t flinch, I stepped forward “I am Inaba, Duchess of Inverness. There is no food for you here, leave peacefully or be forced to.”

He roared with laughter “I don’t take orders from such tiny creatures as you. Perhaps you shall serve as an entertaining morsel before I swallow you.”

“Luna, keep everyone safe while I deal with this…inconvenience. I won’t need your help and I would feel a lot better if I didn’t have to worry about everyone’s safety.”

Without even waiting for response I started walking towards him. He bunched himself up like a cat his eyes locked on me his tail even swished a little. He batted at me with his claw only for it to stop when I turned into Antylamon and caught it by the sides. I gave it a hard quick twist and was rewarded with a sharp snap and a roar of pin as his wrist broke. I let go of it and ran up to his elbow, axe’s appearing with a snap.

Before I could manage to take a proper swing he pushed off the ground and started hovering overhead. He looked smug thinking he was safely out of my reach so long as he stayed in the air; I’d have to fix that. With a running start I lept into the air and cut a deep gash across his shoulder as I went up. He dropped a little as I landed on the small of his back. I went after his hip my axes’ impossibly sharp edge slipping between the scales and slicing them off as I dragged it towards his head. He rolled trying and failing to throw me off as I ran counter to it, my blades leaving a twin pair of lacerations as the trailed over his side and up his chest.

My hands changed back and with a quick twist delivered a driving blow to where I thought, correctly, his solar plexus was. The air rushed out of his lungs with a wheeze and we dropped the remaining thirty or so feet to the ground. I jumped off and sprinted up to his head as he rolled onto his side gasping and spluttering as he tried to regain his breath. His tail swung forward tripping me; hands again, land on them, push off, land on my feet, axes again, kept running. As he finally regained his breath I struck out leaving a small gash on his neck with one axe and the other coming to rest firmly on his trachea. He shifted as if to throw me off, felt the blade begin to bite into his neck and instantly went still.

I had hoped that would be the end of it but that damn tail of his whipped around and knocked me to the ground. He scrambled back and continued to lash out with his tail. I was forced to either dodge or be knocked to the ground. He never once took his eyes off me. After putting about fifty feet between us he inhaled deeply and let out a blast of flame. I stretched out a hand, it was time to take this more seriously.

I whisper “Bog.” I didn't need to speak for the spells to work but it was considered common courtesy. The air became super saturated with water and the flames fizzled out about a dozen feet away. “Ceò mòr.” Fog, thick and blinding, spread over the area. I move, light on my feet guided by my sharp hearing. “Slabhra mòr dubh.” Huge chains shot out of my hands, into and out of the ground and tightly binding Regius and preventing him from moving. When the fog cleared I was ten feet from his left cheek.

“Struggle all you want those chains have held someone much larger and stronger than you can ever hope to be.” I leaned against his jaw “Now I’m left with a difficult problem, what should I do with you? I can’t leave you tied up forever, it’s not practical, and I’m rather averse to killing anyone myself. However, I am perfectly willing to let you go so long as you swear to never bother this city again.”

“And should I refuse?”

“Then I break your limbs, drop you off in the middle of nowhere and leave you to survive or die of natural causes, like drowning because you can’t lift your head away from the ocean as the tide rises.”

He paused for a moment “I know things, perhaps I can trade you information for my freedom?”

“What kind of information?”

“I’ve seen strange brown creatures, fifty feet tall easily. I don’t know how they can walk on only three legs.”

“Are there small stocky blue ones with them?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“Scipio get over here, I want everything he has about them, location, direction of travel, smell, everything.”

Scipio worked without a sound pulling the information from Regius and implanting it in me. I was satisfied that they wouldn’t be causing too much trouble and would be easy enough to track down. I’d have to check for Combine weaponry before I went anywhere near them. If we had any this could be bad, but this might be a first time occurrence. After I loosened the chains Regius made it about three feet before I rebound him.

“We had a deal!”

“We did, I gave you your freedom and then captured you again. Not my fault you didn’t specify how long you got to be free or whether or not I could recapture you.” Loopholes are great when you’re the one using them.

He sagged “Fine, I swear on my mother’s egg that I will never return to this city.”

“Or attack anyone or anything I care about.” He repeated the line and I let the chains vanish. “Right off you go then.” He blinked “Shoo, scoot, skedaddle, get lost, GTFO.”

Thoroughly humiliated and confused he did just that. Awkwardly taking to the air and flying off high and to the northeast. Hopefully word would spread and dragons would give the city a nice wide berth. Then again they might flock here looking for a fight and or honorable death. We’d have to take steps to prevent that.

The rest of the day was thankfully free of incident with Rosy spending the time atop my head. As we walked around everyone who noticed me either waved or nodded, beside me Luna practically went ignored. It didn’t seem to bother her very much, almost like she preferred being treated as an equal instead of a monarch. Then again from what I’ve seen and heard being a monarch here really sucks. Dinner was an extravagant affair with various locally important ponies attending. I had some of the salad but found eating spaghetti with meat sauce MREs worked as an effective deterrent for questions while I was in travel mode.

It probably helped that ponies considered wearing clothes to be sexy. That combined with my physical appearance probably kept most of the stallions and open minded mares away. None the less I would have felt embarrassed about being nude in this form with such a large crowd. A dozen or fewer and I was fine, anymore and I would start to feel self-conscious about it. That was a remnant of my old human habits that stubbornly refused to truly break. So I had to ease into it, like I was doing tonight, by wearing only my underwear of sports bra and panties made from Red Digizoid fabric.

I kept myself open to the emotions within the room, almost everyone was happy or pleased and it made the room feel a little warmer. The exception was the two approaching spots that alternated between cold stoicism, roiling jealousy, and something else. It took me a minute to place it as pure and baseless hatred being directed directly at me. I turned to see a mare and her filly, both with white fur and blonde manes, walking directly toward me. A second or two searching my memory placed the filly as Golden Wonder, which would make the equally haughty mare her mother Home Guard. They stopped just beyond the reach of my arms and stood there noses up eying me with distaste.

After several seconds of trying to unnerve me Home Guard spoke “Good evening.”

“…Good evening…Infidel.”

Assuming the term was a compliment she continued "I should have expected Blue Serenade`s guest of honor to be attired and as a hussy no less, unsurprising but still."

I smiled "Blue and orange, in my culture not wearing clothes is considered extremely rude and will get you arrested in almost every civilized country. Even what I'm wearing now would be considered insufficient in many places. I'm still shy about being nude in front of large groups so I'm working into it slowly. Now, is there something I can help you with Mrs?"

"Home Guard and it's Miss actually. Once I had my daughter my husband became rather useless so I divorced him and left him out in the cold. She is my heir and I trust Equestria's safety enough that we are all the other shall need."

There was something wrong here. They had the same fur, same mane, same eyes, I took a quiet sniff. They even had the same scent! If she had the same cutie Mark she would be a clone. But then again it's your experiences that make you who you are. This would be something to look into later. Before they could blink I had ruffled Golden Wonder's carefully arranged curls into a mess.

"So you're mama's little filly huh? I can think of worse role models." Most of them ended up being assassinated, imprisoned, or committed suicide "I think they would have liked your mom."

Golden may have thought I was giving compliments, which was half right, but her mother could hear the hidden insults. I continued to stand there with a small smile on my face and mischief twinkling in my eyes as I contemplated my next move. It would largely depend on how Home Guard chose to react. If she decided to use more verbal insults she would have to have cautious to avoid offending the hosts, not that she cared. Whatever she was going to say died on her lips as they sank into identical bows.

"Princess Luna, we are honored that you have deigned to grace us with your presence this evening."

"Good evening my little ponies." She smiled at me " Hello Your Grace, I mean, Inaba."

"Evening Luna, enjoying the party? I know it's not a Pinkie Pie Party but I hope you're not to disappointed by that."

"It is fine, Grey Main has done an excellent job considering how short notice this was. I noticed that you only had a little of the fine foods he prepared but three of those meals’ instantly ready. I’m almost afraid to ask this but, what was in it?”

I giggled “First, they’re meals ready to eat, hence MRE, and they were spaghetti with meat sauce. The meat was probably beef from cows, non-sentient, raised solely for that purpose.”

The others looked disgusted and shocked but Luna gave a thoughtful nod “I have heard of lands that raise animals in this manner before but have had little chance to learn of the process. Though it does make me a bit squeamish to think about I am interested in learning about some of it, like how they prevent disease from ruining everything.”

I shook my head “I’ve never worked in that industry myself so my knowledge is limited and second hand. If you’re sure I’ll tell you what I can about it, meaning stuff I know is accurate.”

After about the second minute Home Guard made an excuse so she and Golden Wonder could leave without being rude. Luna only gave them a vague sign of recognition as they left before allowing herself to fall into the excitement she had for knowledge. Our conversation soon moved on to other topics like medicine, pop culture, human history, and space travel. She squealed with delight as I told her everything I could remember about the Apollo Program that put man on the moon. That brought us into the discussion of Science Fiction and I told her about Star Trek, Star Wars, Starcraft, Halo, Predator and Alien. After about two hours of me talking most of the guests had said their thank you and departed. There was a peal of thunder from the storm that had been assembled for the night.

“You have told me much about your world. But I still know very little about you as a person.”

I shrugged “Not much to tell, until I can here I was an average person and was content to live an average life.”

“Stop doing that.”

I raised an eyebrow “Stop doing what? I wasn’t aware that I was doing anything except talking to you and answering your questions.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Stop giving evasive answers, I understand there are things you don’t know or don’t want to talk about. If you would just say so, it’s better than the half answers like ‘an average person’. I don’t know anything about an average person, I know plenty about an average pony but that is completely different.”

I sighed “You’re starting to sound like my mother ‘How was school today? What do you mean fine? What did you do in class?’ It isn’t that I’m being intentionally evasive, it’s that there isn’t any reason to talk about it because it’s something that happened constantly or just isn’t that interesting. Would you want to repeat the detail of every monotonous petition and trial brought before you in court to another who has experienced the same things?”

She thought for a moment “No, my sister is the only one to whom I would repeat such things and I know how much she dislikes holding court. I suppose I can see your point now, the everyday things that have already been experienced countless times do become rather droll. Even the fantastic becomes ordinary when placed within a constant routine.”

Further conversation was interrupted by a peal of thunder. The few remaining guests made hurried excuses so they could leave before the start of the heavy storm the weather teams had scheduled for tonight. I excused myself citing the need to unpack additional things in my room. It was the truth; the clothes I brought back with me were stored in the suitcases which I was carrying in Battle Mode. I just had to dress and digivolve, and then I could start unpacking later.

I put the suitcases in a corner of the room and examined the bed Grey Main had commissioned and received for me to sleep in. It was a simple king sized bed, made of white oak, given a nice light stain, and fit easily into Rosy's spacious room. The matters was rather plush and had been covered with light green cotton sheets. I unpacked my pillows and placed them against the headboard on one side as Rosy walked in from brushing her teeth and climbed into her bed. She jumped as another, louder, rumble of thunder shook the house.

“Are you afraid of the thunder?”

She nodded “Yes.”

“Don’t worry Rosy; it’s just the angel’s bowling.”

“What?”

“It’s something my Nonnie taught me. Thunder storms are caused by angels going bowling. The lightning I when the ball hits the lane and the thunder is when it hits the pins.” She didn’t look reassured “Fine, if you get really scared you can climb in bed with me. But only if you get really truly scared out of your fur okay?” she nodded and climbed under her sheets as I took off my clothes and did the same. “Alright, good night sleep tight; don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

With a flick of my fingers the lights shut off and I curled up to go to sleep, well aware of the fact that there was a dream walker within the same home. As I fell asleep I could feel her pushing at the edges of my dreaming mind, I could either let her in and keep her at arm’s length and prevent her from injuring herself or I could let her try and brute force and get hurt by my new defenses. On the one hand I liked Luna; she was fun and very humble when you got down to the fundamentals of everything. On the other hand what she was doing was also considered to be extremely rude. In the end I decided to let her in and keep her in the “lobby area”.

She was standing on a small section of black and white checkered ground that looked like had been literally ripped from the concrete, it even had a portion still hanging beneath it. The walls were constantly shifting through various dark colors and combinations giving the impression of restlessness while the points of light made you think of stars.

I was standing on a section of beach, complete with gently lapping waves. It wasn't a normal beech though, the water was a dark inky blue color and the sand was gray, almost black, in color. A jagged chunk of black rock stood next to me like a silent monolith. My appearance here had changed since the last time she had seen it. Instead of jeans and a t-shirt I was now dressed in my Battle Mode armor as I looked up at her. Well, down since from her perspective the entirety of the beach, myself included, were upside down.

"Is there something I can help you with Luna or have you become the rougeish type now, breaking and entering and all that?"

The look on her face "I was just curious about what you may have been dreaming about this night." She blushed as though curiosity was some kind of horribly embarrassing act.

"Maybe you can stop by some other night, when I'm actually fully asleep before you try entering and the renovations to my mind scape are finished. Right now it's not really safe for for others to be here. But like I said maybe in a week or so it'll be ready for others to visit. I'll see you in the morning, good night Luna." Before she could blink I had forced her out and locked it down tight, thank you Tapirmon and Bakumon.

With that dealt with I woke up to find that it was still dark outside. A quick check with the Tower told me it was just after midnight local time and I could still hear the storm raging outside, inch and half already meant there might be flash flood warnings. I was lying on my side and something warm and furry was pressed up against my belly and buried next to my chest. Rosy had apparently taken me up on my offer to share the bed if she got to scared. I sighed, kids are supposed to seek shelter with their parents, not their friends. Unless they were a certain kind of friend which we most certainly were not and certainly never would be. I closed my eyes and within minutes had fallen into true sleep with no funky dreams or anything.

I spent the next week doing several things. Rosy and I would wake up around 8; shower, brush our teeth, and eat breakfast. Scipio would meet us outside and we’d walk Rosy to school. From there I would spend the next several hours charging the emerald and then I would fly around digistructing a few Towers before picking up Rosy for an afternoon of relaxation and study. While she worked on her homework Scipio and I would go through my mind, shoring up my mental defenses and preparing a set of counter measures in case someone DID actually get through my defenses. I knew a lot of stuff and we weren’t taking any chances with that knowledge, if it fell into the hands of the wrong creatures…well, best not to think about it.

The Dragon Migration finished on Thursday without another incident and most of the refugees began packing up and started heading back to their homes. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and this end happened to involve another fight. I had just finished Tower number thirty eight and was thinking about the dilemmas we were facing with numbers thirty nine and forty. One was going to be placed near Canterlot so I had to find a semi isolated area for it that could be reached without having to fly. Forty was much harder, Scipio insisted that it had to be placed on the fucking moon so we could monitor everything on the satellite and the planet, which meant it had to go on the dark side of the moon.

The sound of someone flying broke me out of my thoughts and I degenerated from Antylamon to Lopmon to hide the digistruct machine before my unexpected guest could see me. It was almost five minutes before he landed in the forest clearing Scipio had chosen as the site for this Tower. At first glance I thought he was a human, but a few seconds of careful scrutiny and I was able to tell that it was actually a gorilla with tan fur dressed in a red leotard. He struck a pose that he thought looked heroic and I thought looked ridiculous.

"Halt evil doer!" I looked around "Yes, you! Rabbit creature don't think you can play me for a fool I know all about your evil plot!"

"Well I don't, so please, enlighten me about this 'evil' I'm supposed to be committing."

"I told playing the fool will not help you. Not against I,Saymos the Champion of Hero's! My mission comes from the Nobles representing the good ponies of this world! You shall come with me to The Barn of Lords to face justice!"

That explained SO much "Listen I think there has been a mistake. I am a foreign dignitary with diplomatic immunity so I'm not sure what crimes you think I may have committed but I probably didn't do it."

"If you will not come with me willingly then I shall bring you by force!"

He lept at me and I just finished digivolving to Travel Mode when he hit me with a solid jab across my jaw one of his claws making a scratch on my cheek. I took a step back and brought a hand up to my cheek to feel it, he had actually scratched me. I stared at the blood on my fingers in equal parts confusion and shock, the only ones who had been strong enough to do that were the Royal Knights and Zhuqiamon, and even then there wasn't any blood. I looked up at his horrified face, how strong was he?

"A woman?!" he squeaked

"You scratched me."

He started stammering "I'm so sorry. I didn't know you were a woman! Please I will ask one more time, will you come with me willingly?"

I schooled my face to neutrality "You. Scrarched. Me. That is not an easy thing to do. It means that you are very strong, strong enough that I won’t hold back if you make me fight you. Now I will ask you this once,” I projected trusting emotions down on him “will you believe me if I tell you my side of the story?”

He hesitated, massive confusion and slight sense of betrayal “I might consider it but only if you did so in The Barn of Lords.”

I sighed, he meant well but he was to willing to believe what those in power told him. So he was either young, stupid, or personally indebted to someone important. I stopped projecting as I digivolved to Battle Mode. He was fast, strong, and flight capable, not really enough information to work with so the safe thing would be to put as much distance between us as possible and attack from long range. He seemed nice enough so I'd have to be careful not to kill him, he could be useful later.

It took me half a second to compose myself before I shot straight up into the air. Zero to Mach five in two seconds creates a very impressive and very massive shock wave. Most of the ground in my immediate area was torn apart leaving a decent sized crater behind and the trees for a quarter mile around were knocked over or scattered like twigs. I stopped at about ten thousand feet and looked back just in time to see the pressure wave shred the clouds.

When I was training in the Digital World we discovered that I could not only use magic, like everyone else, but I could also create new attacks. This was a trait that wasn't necessarily rare just uncommon, and if Duftmon was to be believed, also considered extremely desirable in a potential mate/partner/whatever. I drew out the energy for Heaven's Judgement and carefully formed the hundreds of bolts into about fifty roiling spheres of plasma. This was the only one I had had time to create and it was far from perfect but it had more precision and that's what I needed right now.

Spotting my enemy I yelled at him "STAY BACK!"

He ignored me and continued to fly towards me at a decent speed. I really didn't want to hurt him, squeezing my eyes shut I relied on my other senses and attacked with a sweep of my arm "Rolling Thunder." The increased precision came at the cost of some the attacks speed and power, but even a near miss would still have enough power to cause severe burns if it didn't outright kill. He easily dodged the first few shots because I was aiming to scare or stun him so he would reconsider. By shot ten I abandoned that strategy and aimed to actually hit him. This time I was met with success as it clipped his left leg and he screamed, dropping from the sky as he lost his focus. I caught him with about a thousand feet to spare before the ground.

I carefully set him on patch of soft stable ground, my ears told me he was still breathing and his heart was still beating regularly. He was extremely lucky he had only passed out. All the fur on his left leg had been burned off and the point where I had grazed him was covered in third degree burns. I wouldn't, couldn't, leave him like this all he had done was try to do what he thought was right. I carefully dispersed me remaining shots and placed my hand above the worst of the burns. I concentrated on how his leg should look and muttered a single word.

"Cáradh.”

Slowly the charred flesh began to recover growing back over exposed muscle and lightening back to its natural color as it thickened properly. I didn’t heal him completely; just enough that the third degree burns became low second. I didn’t even try to do anything with his fur, mostly because I wasn’t sure if I could make it grow back. I would have to have words with Alice, if I could bleed actual blood, which my senses were telling me I did, then my body wasn’t made of false proteins like a bio-emerged Digimon. Which just left the question, what or who was it made from instead?

Author's Note

Finally got this finished. I'm so sorry that it took so long but I got writers block after the conversation with Home Guard.
I do have some portions planned for future chapters.
Your patience with me is extremely appreciated.
SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY...

Edit: Forgot this last night, bonus points to anyone who can figure out what Rolling Thunder is from.

Persona non Grata

I stepped out of the Tower and, still in Battle Mode, made a beeline for Alice’s mirror practically ignoring everyone I passed. When I got there I saw that I was floating about foot off the ground. How could I have failed to notice something like that, was bleeding really so strange that it had caused the lapse in awareness? I looked around, I could her ponies talking in hushed tones, and they were worried about me. I clamped down on my emotions and immediately stopped projecting confusion. I landed silently and quickly crossed into the Mirror Kingdom. It only took a few seconds for me to find Alice; she was speaking excitedly to a toaster oven. After a few minutes of waiting the toaster oven interrupted her.

“As enjoyable as this conversation is your Majesty,” he sounded like he was speaking through a wide metal pipe “you have more pressing issues to discus with your newest rook.”

She paled as she nervously looked up at me “Oh…right, I had um…forgotten about that.”

The toaster scoffed “Forgotten my hinges. You’ve been sitting there talking my door off for a solid week to try and avoid this. You knew it was unavoidable so why not just get it over and done with eh?” two pats of butter attached to a croissant fluttered past “Excuse me, that is to tasty to pass up.”

A pair of stubby wings sprouted from the toaster’s sides and flew off in pursuit. Alice sat on the grass fidgeting with her crown s I looked at her. Even if the toaster had stayed silent we both knew why I was there. What I didn’t know was why she had supposedly been trying to avoid this meeting. Whatever the case I was long overdue for some important answers.

“Let’s start with something simple. Why am I a girl?”

She twitched “You guessed correctly, it’s a side effect of the magic used to transform you because of who you specified you as your form.”

“I thought the Sovereigns were the ones who changed me.”

“No, I did. I’m your Chess Master, they’re…I guess corporate sponsors would be the best way to put it. They can give you things like equipment or coaches but can’t actually step out into play themselves. I’m not supposed to be able to do anything but because of laws and magic older than you can comprehend I’ve got a lot of wiggle room.”

“These Ancient laws have a superiority clause in them.”

She nodded “I have to honor new laws and agreements unless they interfere with the ancient laws, in which case I can ignore the new stuff. It’s extremely complex and hard enough to keep track of and practically impossible to explain so I won’t elaborate on it but.”

I cut her off “You’re stuck here.” She blinked “It explains why you act the way you do around me. It’s also why you need me to be strong piece. The Sovereigns have a loose end to clean up, buy you’re in it to win it. Every chess tournament has to have a winner and winners get something; a trophy, bragging rights, prize money, something!” bleeding seemed like a minor thing, poor Alice was practically in tears “…so if you win…what do you get?”

She sniffled as her first tears leaked out “Strength, strength enough to leave this endless retched world! It used to be fun, years of strange entertaining fun. But, I’m trapped stuck in a never ending cycle. I don’t want to play anymore, but if I don’t play I’ll disappear!” she was crying in earnest now and I couldn’t blame her.

I could feel that this wasn’t a show of crocodile tears and good acting; she was telling the truth and was in so much despair. It suddenly hit me that she may have lived and for a few hundred years and learned how to act mature but underneath that she was exactly what she appeared to be. She was a seven and a half year old child stuck in a strange world, a perfect reflection of who and what Alice was when she entered the Mirror Kingdom. I degenerated into Travel Mode and carefully pulled her into a comforting hug as she cried out years of sorrow and frustration.

When she finally stopped I asked her about my bleeding cheek and was greeted with mixed news and a lot of technobabble. From what I could understand I could be at ground zero for a MOAB without an inch of clothing and come away without much of a bruise. It would hurt like hell but wouldn’t do much else. If it was infused with some sort of special energy found in magic and Digimon attacks then it would mess me up pretty badly, but on the bright side no broken bones since I technically didn’t have any. But my durability was proportional to my form; meaning my lower digivolutions were less durable. The blood was some sort of technical thing; my actual transformation was done in the Mirror Kingdom an organic world and set my default existence to organic, but I was still as physically powerful and resilient as I would be if I had been transformed in the Digital World. All I had to do to was be in a digital field and I would be digital again instead of organic since. The exception was my Digicore, the very center of my existence, basically my soul. It was constantly switching between the two states. On an unrelated note I learned I could enter and leave the Mirror Kingdom through any reflective surface of sufficient size and could exit any object anywhere in existence if it met the same requirements.

“So, any ideas on how I can get to Luna’s moon?” I had degenerated into my default form of Antylamon and Alice was lying on her stomach between my ears.

“Ask about backup sites and the original elevator, it’ll give you a good place to start. You’ll have to make more use of that Key so if you think you need to use don’t hesitate or it could end badly. Before you ask, no it can’t help me. I know because the one you have is the one that appeared in this world when someone examined the original in front of a reflective surface. I found it and gave it a try even though I remembered it wouldn’t work.”

“So did you put it into Equestria?”

She shook her head “No, it fell into Equestria because its walls are weakening. It’s happened in previous games, or so I’m told, because of the power of all the Chess Masters who participate. They're…well, siting on the wall or leaning against it so they can watch. The barriers between dimensions are strong but even they have their limits. There is a natural phenomenon that is similar, dimensional soft spots occasionally form and something from one dimension sort of slides into an adjacent one and the soft spot collapses and solidifies behind it. Equestria was full of them before but it’s starting to get out of hand. The Key can do something about that problem.”

“Is that how most of the pieces are getting there?”

She snorted “It is now. This place is the only truly stable path that can be used to travel safely between dimensions. After the first two dozen Chess Masters trampled through here smashing everything up I shut them all out, only those given permission can enter and leave now. So yes Chess Masters are creating artificial soft spots by forcing their pieces onto the board. The Key won’t be able to stop that but it should be able to keep Equestria from collapsing in on itself because of collective stupidity. I know it could be avoided if I let them through but like I said they were destroying everything.”

I leaned my head back forcing her to grab my ears or hit the ground. She slid almost to the ends and I whipped forward and caught her in my cupped hands.

"I'd better get going. People are probably worried because of how I was acting. If there's one thing I've learned it's that most ponies seem to enjoy panicking over little things."

I set her down "Just so you know Celestia doesn't really like you very much right now. It has everything to do with you brushing her off right in front of several nobles. Informality is one thing but you completely ignored her authority."

"I had already explained that I was there by mistake and that a proper explanation would have to wait until a latter time. It's not my fault they didn't want to listen to me."

"True but you'll have to deal with her in a few weeks, so try not to make a complete ads of yourself when you do. Be careful she is very strong and resilient so don't be afraid to actually lash out with your spear...without any rings...just to be safe."

"That's still a lot of power. Not that I mind fighting her I just hope that whatever our issue is we at least try to talk it out first."

"I know and you do. But the Nanoha method will work wonders for the two of you. Just remember that it doesn't always work so it's important to have good communication skills. Okay?"

I nodded; while we spoke we had made our way to a reflective lake so I could leave. Water walking here was just as easy in this place as it had been in the Digital World. Even though I passed through the water feet first my head was the first thing to emerge on the other side. After looking around for a few seconds I realized I was at the bottom of a large rain barrel, the cloud scattered sky above his perfect match of the one below.

With a short bound I was atop the rim and saw potatoes fields reaching for several miles around. Now that I knew my location it took only a few careful bounds to be outside the planted fields and onto the grass. It was easy enough to make my way back to Trotingham once I spotted the Rippling Walls. Dimensional soft spots explained how everything non-Equis arrived and why thing would continue to do so. I jumped over the Walls when I was close enough, startling a few tourists who had just come into town. I carefully made my way home nodding and waving to Anthony who recognized me, despite the fact that I could remember three of them.

Grey Main greeted me when I opened the door before I degenerated to fit through it. Either I was gone longer than I thought or word traveled much faster, either way I had to reassure him that I was alright. I made quick use of the Key to reinforce the walls of the world; I had to trust that it would work since there was no way to tell. With the possibility of a dimensional collapse averted it was time to focus on a more immediate problem. The Mancers had a leak and it needed to be patched and damage control needed to be run.

"Ya'll are probably wondering why I've gathered everyone here." My yellow sun dress squished as I paced across the stage in the meeting room of The Mancers public HQ in front of about 600 ponies "If you are not it's either because I've told you or for a far less savory reason. I'll be blunt someone or a group of someone's is leaking information, in this case it was to a Unicorn supremacy group with powerful political connections." This was greeted by worried muttering which I quickly silenced "Who it was leaked to is only part of the issue, I'm going to give y'all a chance, if the people responsible will step forward I promise that we will be lenient. You have ten minutes to come forward, starting...now."

When the time ran out a single unicorn mare, leaf green with a long fire engine red mane, was the only one who stood on the stage with me. I was surprised; I hadn't expected anyone to step forward. Even still she might be a scapegoat or something so I wasn't going to take any chances. Scipio was waiting in the next room and he would be my insurance. The mate's name was Anemone and she was a botanist specializing in strengthening plants. I had her escorted to a different side room.

"Only one, thank God." several seemed to relax "How fucking stupid do you think I am?!" they all flinched "The specific information is something she wouldn't have had access to. Since the remaining perpetrators have not come forward we're going to have to do some digging. Now, as I said before who the information went to is only part of the issue. The other part is that leaking it is a breach of the non-disclosure agreement that each and every one of you has signed. When your name is called please proceed into the next room for questioning, The Marshals will ensure none of you...misbehave while I'm gone."

Scipio would try to be as gentle as possible while still being through when he searched their memories. If all went well everypony could be home before 10 o'clock, if they were innocent. If they weren't they'd be having a long talk with The Marshals and would find themselves looking for a new job. I sat down to wait at a table in the next room; Anemone had to be examined by Scipio first to see if she knew of any other moles. A door leading to a back hallway opened and a shaking Anemone was led in.

"I thought you might use him, anypony can lie but it's pointless if someone can pull the information directly from your brain." She shuddered and made to continue but she seemed weak kneed.

"Please," I gestured to a cushion beside me "have a seat. I wish I could've just taken your word for it but I'd rather be safe than sorry. You wouldn't have been brought back here if you had known about other informants and refused to tell me earlier so you're mostly in the clear. We'll still have to take punitive measures but I can get them reduced because you came forward willingly and you were honest about how much you know."

She sighed as she flopped down "Thank you, this is the first good thing to happen to me in months. I should've known that invitation to give a seminar on my research in Canterlot was to good to be true."

"Forgive my ignorance but what are you researching, you said you said you were in the Botany Department but other than identifying some inter-planer specimens I've had little contact with that area so a little enlightenment would be welcome."

She smiled "My research is about magically stimulating botanical growth, specifically understanding and attempting to mimic or enhance the effect without causing instability."

I blinked "So...Earth Pony magic and how to do it or make it stronger without killing the plants?"

She giggled "That's simplifying it a bit but yes. Most ponies don't find it terribly interesting but one of the higher ups in the EI apparently did. I had no idea what they would want my research for but I think I do now and it has me worried." She jumped as I uninvolved to Travel Mode and gestured for her to continue "Now that I know what their final goal is I think they're going to use my research to do something to Earth Ponies that will force them under their hoof."

"Tell me everything bout you're research and your seminar in Canterlot."

"I don't think you'll understand most of it."

"That's fine; If I get confused I've got an expert right here. Please, I want to know what your plans and goals for it are." I also wanted to make see if she was acting or not.

While my understanding of pony magic was less than perfect I had no trouble grasping the science behind what she was doing. When she realized that she hit her stride, the joy she felt at explaining it to someone who was genuinely interested felt like it could warm the room. I had to ask her to explain something every few minutes but by the time she began telling me about her trip I was confident that she had only been sharing her research because she was under some form of duress. She was focusing on the domestic and infrastructural possibilities; growing bridges, self repairing homes, stuff like that. I raised a few questions about military applications which she was able to shoot down as being ineffective.

“Princess Luna asked many of the same questions.” She saddened “I hope she doesn’t support them.”

“I can tell you with a fair amount of certainty that she opposes them. When I was in Ponyville we managed to turn one of their more reluctant followers to our side.” A Marshal came in to give me a folder ‘You still haven’t told me why you started sending them information.” I started skimming

“That’s…complicated, part of it deals with personal finance and the other is well, just personal.”

“Student loans right? College is expensive Dr. Anemone Ph.Ds. I’m guessing they said they’ll help or hinder based on your actions. How’s your father doing in the hospice facility?”

“He was doing alright the last time I saw him, but he barely remembers me any…is that my personnel record and background check?”

“Maaaaaybe.” I pressed on “I know what’s wrong with your father and I THINK we might have a way to return his memory to normal.”

She sagged “It’s Second Foalhoad Syndrome.”

“Where I’m from its called Alzheimer’s Disease. I know patients don’t recover from it they just have good days and bad days. It’s a cruel, sick, vicious disease with no universally known cause and it tears families apart. My Grandpa had it and one of my Dad’s good friends has it in its early onset form. But Scipio might be able to restore your father’s memory to working order. I don’t know much about how it works but isn’t a chance better than none at all?” I snapped the folder shut.

She thought about it for a few minutes “what about my loans, unless they can be paid off all at once the EI will use them to make my life a living Tartarus”

“We’ll let legal work it out if it becomes an issue. If they encounter too much trouble I’ll see if I can’t call in one of the favors I’m owed.”

“What do you want from me in exchange for all this?”

“Well hopefully you’ll be moving into a new office on Monday.”

“Another new project, what will I be doing?”

“Leading it.”

“I…I don’t understand, why me?”

“Because it’ll be using your research. The new position will come with a large paycheck, but more importantly access to certain things that can help accelerate research and improve the already amazing results. You also have a Ph. D in Architectural Engineering and a Masters in logistics. Tonight I’ll leave for Canterlot and I’ll pitch my idea to the powers that be, if they’ll approve it we can get started sooner rather than later.” I stood up indicating we were done.

“That’s not the only reason you’re going is it?” it was a statement not a question.

I hesitated, reminding myself she had been proven trustworthy “No, but it does give me a legitimate excuse to make the trip. Something bad is supposed to happen in that city and I’d rather not get caught up in it until I’ve got some monster power that I can throw around.”

I opened the door indicating a refusal to elaborate further. Unlike most of the openly secret projects we had this one’s existence was on a need to know basis, read Scipio and I. Reprogramming XANA’s monsters to serve someone else was hard, even with Scipio’s encyclopedic knowledge of their code and how to manipulate it. So far we’d only managed to get the Kankrelats working properly and while Zerg rushing is an effective tactic it’s also very limited. I wanted to at least have Hornets before I tried openly using the monsters for anything; I also wanted to add those Combine Striders and Hunters to my line-up if I could.

We had spent almost three hours talking and Scipio had now gone through most of the personnel and all of the senior and executive staff. I tracked down Sunny and told her the good news about finding a director and method to make the interstate project feasible. She agreed with my choice and told me her letter should have reached the Princesses by now and they had likely read it. My plan to visit them would save time by cutting out the need for a pair of response letters. She wrote me a brief letter of introduction which would get me an immediate audience with one or both of the Princesses.

The night sky was breathtakingly beautiful, the moon was a tiny waxing crescent and what was clearly the Milky Way stretched across the center of the night sky. I flew upside down admiring its beauty as I flew at supersonic speed towards Canterlot going over my mental checklist of dos and don’ts. The Royal Wedding would probably be held soon and I didn’t want to be involved in that incident if I could avoid it. I would arrive, meet with Luna, get the project approved (hopefully), find Clear Psyche and say hello/crash while I found a good place for Tower 40. Once the main two were completed I’d warn him not to attend the wedding and GTFO at Ludicrous Speed.

All too soon Canterlot came into view and, unfortunately for me, it was encased in a giant magenta bubble barrier. I flew over towards a pegasi patrol and managed to get their attention so I could land and present my letter and be allowed in. They didn’t even bother to open it, as soon as they saw The Mancers’ emblem they had a ground crew open the barrier for me and called a guide to bring me to a room where Luna would meet with me in private per HER request. My guide was surprised with how easily I kept up with him since I had degenerated into Lopmon immediately upon landing. Even with the city on lock down ponies still filled the nighttime streets as though everything were normal, eavesdropping on a few conversations revealed that the citizens thought it was all just a drill because of Sunday’s impending wedding. It took a while for us to reach the castle gates and pass through another security checkpoint to enter the castle proper.

Palace would probably have been a better term for it than castle. The halls were very wide with high arched ceilings; I could easily have walked around as Antylamon without my ears brushing against anything. It was all made of gleaming polished marble and massive windows of plain and stained glass. The hallway’s width was divided into thirds by large columns set about ten feet apart; they would be perfect for hiding behind. In short it was a defender’s nightmare; enemies would swarm down the halls with ease and efficiency.

Thankfully the meeting room was far more practical for the “castle” than the hallways were and probably ever would be. The room was circular and probably about thirty feet in diameter with two normal sized doors. There were symbols etched into the marble walls, possibly as some sort of magical soundproofing or something, the floor was also had a soft thick rug to help mute any echoes. In the center of the room there was a low table with a small assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables to snack on. I sat down on one of the cushions, careful not to rumple my dress, and waited for Luna to arrive. I had enough time to eat one of the peaches from the bowl before Luna entered from the opposite door and I had to stand.

I gave my best curtsey; this was not a social call “Good evening your majesty. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice during this difficult time. I hope I will not distract you from your duties for too long.”

She smiled and lay down on one of the largest cushions “Hopefully long enough for a much needed snack. While I appreciate the formality of your greeting a simple hello would have been fine. We are, after all, friends are we not?” she bit into an apple as I sat again.

“If you so say. I never made friends this quickly when I was human; maybe it’s a Digimon thing or just something to do with this world. Anyway, I’m here about the Interstate System Project that Sunny told you about in her letter.”

"Yes!" Linda's eyes sparkled "Many members of the Barn of Lords were extremely displeased at having portions of 'their' property repossessed, never mind the fact that the land is actually on perpetual , and currently unpaid, lease to them from Celestia and I. I wonder how they would react if we chose to have them pay for all those years the lands have been under their jurisdiction?"

I smiled "I'd guess that about ninety percent of them would be completely bankrupt, if the didn't die of cardiac arrest first. They all seem to be interested in spending money only on themselves instead of aiding the people."

She frowned "Please refrain from making such generalizations about ponies you don't know." She started on a second apple "The actual number is somewhere just over the majority. Many of the Nobles keep their wealth, and vote, directed solely at their own interests or the advancement of the nobility. It makes it hard for the government to be productive when those running it only do so for personal gain. But that is a matter for another time, who have you chosen to head the project?"

"Dr. Anemone, she's."

"A botanist yes, I remember the seminar she gave a few months ago. a truly fascinating subject matter and an interesting choice, Clear Psyche listed her as an informant of the EI."

"Not anymore, she was being coerced through financial threats. Her father has SFS and she has some rather sizable student loans to pay. If our legal department can't deal with it I as hoping you might be able to help."

She started on a second bowl with a nod "I would be happy to. Psyche can provide a list of banks and employees who are under the EI's hoof so that they can be...dealt with."

Her small smokeless me shiver "So...how go the wedding preparations?"

"Twilight Sparkle and the other Elements of Harmony will be arriving in the morning to help finalize everything before the events the next day. Do you...?"

"Yes I know about the attack. No, I can't tell you anything and I don't intend to be here when it occurs. If I were to participate it would be in a support capacity; protecting citizens, assisting in evacuation, et cetera, et cetera. If I took the offensive, then in a worst case scenario the city, and everything in it, would likely be severely or completely destroyed."

"While rebuilding is time consuming it is not impossible."

I shook my head "You don't understand. I don't mean destroyed as in ruins, I mean destroyed as in gone, with the only signs that it was ever here being memories, vitrified ground, and the tears I would shed for allowing myself to do something so terrible."

"That was not an attempt at humor was it."

"No, you know I wouldn't joke about something like this...okay maybe I would but not under the current circumstances."

She sighed "Inaba, just how strong are you?"

"Honestly? I don't know. The only way to really measure my strength is against other Digimon and even then it's skewed because Alice did something to increase my strength. Even if she hasn't I would still be very strong." I gave her a brief summary of everything Digimon and my right weeks of training "When they saw how much destruction I could cause they took me to see the real Cherubimon who said I'm at least thirty percent stronger than he is."

"How much of an increase do those five you?"

"I don't know, I don't think anyone really does, but it is by a significant degree. Now, I have some questions for you that might be a little...personal."

She was silent for a moment "I have moved on, the past is the past. Please ask your questions."

I nodded " Listen closely, were you banished to the moon or into it?"

She frowned "Into it, I could neither see more hear. I was only aware of the passage of time."

"If you had the chance to go to the moon and return here at anytime, would you be willing to?"

"Perhaps, as long as I was not being imprisoned again.I have always wanted to see Equis from there." She finished the last of the food "If there's nothing else, then I must return to watching over the city."

"Of course, thank you for your time Luna."

Both doors opened and a guard led me back down into the main hallways where we were intercepted by another guard. It seems I had not gone as unnoticed as I had hoped I would. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza had ordered that I be brought before her immediately for a private audience. The newcomer told me that because it was an order from the one of the Princesses I was not allowed to refuse. Rather than waste time explaining that I wasn't a citizen and therefore exempt from having to follow royal edicts since I had been dubbed a diplomat, I just decided to follow him after my original guide agreed to locate Clear Psyche and have him meet me at the castle gates. After being led down another series of hallways the guard brought me to a second meeting room. Inside Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, AKA Queen Chrysalis in disguise, sat on a cushion looking haughtily down her muzzle at us.

"Thank you guard, you may leave now." the door snapped shut "I don't know who, or even what, you are but you must have some influence of you can get a private meeting with Princess Luna during such a heavy security lock down. I don't want any interruptions during my wedding so whatever urgent news you brought will have to wait a few days. So sorry."

She didn't sound it in the least "I was stopping by to get final approval on a civil work's project we submitted a few weeks ago. I have it now and plan to leave as soon as I finish some other business. So if you would please excuse me, I deal with that business and hopefully be gone by tomorrow night." I made to leave.

"What is this 'other business'?"

Now it was my turn to sound insincere "My deepest apologies but that information is need to know. Good night." as I turned my back I was enveloped in a green aura, spun around and yanked before her.

"Do you know who I am? I am a Princess of Equestria and you will tell me what this other business is."

Fuck subtlety, Chrysalis suddenly found herself dangling a foot off the ground as I held her by the throat and projected that she should be terrified of me "See, that's the problem, I know exactly who you are. I have no intention of interfering with your plan and frankly would rather not be here when it starts. So, you stay out of my business, I stay out of yous, and you don't turn into a green smear on the top of the barrier." I gave a light squeeze "Understand?" She nodded and I degenerated "Good, have a pleasant rest of the night Princess."

With that I opened the door and was led back to the main entrance and my first guide calmly stood chatting to somepony. With a nod the pegasus took off, the guards exchanged greetings and I was led out of the castle and back into town. We made our way to a nearby cafe and got a table to wait for the runner to return with Clear Psyche. While the guard received only the occasional look nopony seemed able to pass up the opportunity to stare or, in some cases, glare at me. We only had to wait about ten minutes for them to arrive, I was lucky Clear Psyche was already in the area getting an obscure dish of leeks and beets to bring home to his wife. Missions completed the guard and runner headed back to the castle and their normal routines.

I stood and gave a curtsey "Lord Clear Psyche, I'm glad to see you well."

He bowed "And I you, your Grace."

"You don't need to call me that."

He grinned "Very well so long as you agree to call me Psyche, I've stopped using my title except in very formal occasions."

"Alright."

"Now that we have that out of the way, what business brings you to Canterlot this evening?"

"A Mancers project that we needed to get final approval for."

"Ah, the Interstate and Defensive Highway System, it caused quite a stir in the Barn when both Princesses announced it. The funny thing is most of the land they are taking is currently going unused and unoccupied, the nobles are more upset about the fact that the unused plots are being taken from them despite the fact that they're squandering it by letting it remain unused."

"So I heard."

"I take it you will be staying for the Royal Wedding, I mean why else would wait till now to come to Canterlot."

I shook my head "It is coincidence, nothing more. I'd rather not be here during this time but I didn't know exactly when the wedding was being held. I suggest that you and your wife leave when I do."

"Why, does this have something to do with these rumors about the city being in danger?"

"They aren't rumors. The city will be attacked during the wedding, b but everything will turn out alright in the end...at least for the Mane Six but I don't know how it turns out for anyone else. So better safe than sorry right?" he gulped "If I haven't finished my other reason for being here by the time of the attack I'll protect y'all."

We made good time as we walked through the city, bypassing the residential district favored by most of the nobles. Psyche explained that they had sold his family's old manor and purchased a home big enough that they could continue to employ the servants who's families had served his for generations. They were as much family to him as his wife was and his parents had been before they passed. When we entered the equivalent of a large middle class neighborhood ponies started to greet us more warmly, apparently Psyche had endeared himself to many living here by providing financial advice. He said it's was tradition for the stallion of the house to handle any financial investments without bringing in outside help, something about rival nobles trying to cheat them or something.

The house was still quite large, easily marking it as one of upper-middle class. Psyche said it was less than a quarter the size of the old manor and they still had more space than any of them knew what to do with. The building itself was built of plain stone bricks and the front side was filled with windows, the front door was glass paned and painted a deep shade of green. The front yard was fairly small but was extremely well kept by a pegasus, surprisingly enough. Once inside I was introduced to about a dozen different ponies and their families, far to many names for me to keep track of at once. He wouldn't be able to leave the city quickly enough, not with so many ponies who would need a better explanation than just "the city is going to be attacked" and there was no way he would leave without them.

"You must be Inaba, thank you for talking some sense into my husband." The speaker was a heavily pregnant earth pony with deep red fur and dark purple mane. As she turned I could see that she had an open book for her Cutie Mark.

Psyche walked over and muzzled her "Yes she is. Inaba, this is my wife, Romance Dawn."

I made to curtsey but was quickly snapped up into a bone crushing hug "There's no need for such formality you've done us all a great service."

"Umm..."

"Psyche has told me everything about you, you're very brave for coming to this world." She whispered in my ear.

"I'd call it cowardly or stupid personally." I whispered back.

She let go " But were are our manners, have you eaten anything? I'm sure we could whip something up for you how about a strawberry tart? Or ooh!" she stumbled and everypony flinched "I'm alright, still a few days to go just yet. Well come along everyone to the kitchen we go!"

As most of the group followed after her I turned to Psyche "She usually like this?"

He sighed "Yes and that's why I love her she's always trying to find something to do. She writes adventure fantasy novels and devours them quicker than a parasprite."

"Do any of her works include crazy pirates and the high seas?"

"A few why?"

I shrugged "No reason."

As it turned out the kitchen pulled double duty as the dining room with a single large table dominating the majority of the floor space and surrounded by an array of mismatched chairs. Dawn was unhappily seated at the table and her every attempt to help was given a kind but firm refusal followed by insistence that she continue to rest. A meal was quickly scraped together, mostly from desserts, as the guest of honor I ended up being seated to Psyche' s right. As we ate discussion topics ranged from the upcoming wedding to which mare had the best hooficure, the entire thing would've felt surreal if it weren't for the simple fact that I could do nonsense and weirdness, hell I could live and breath that shit. I hated having to restrain my actions on Earth and never being aloud to act on my strange whims. Everyone took the news that the impending attack was real in different manners but there was, surprisingly, not a single pony who panicked.

"Which brings me to the second reason I'm here. I need to find an out of the way place to put up a twenty foot tower. It needs to be off the beaten path but still easy to reach in an emergency." I scratched my head "That didn't make any sense did it?"

There were a few chuckles before Psyche responded "No but we understood what you meant and THAT'S the important thing. I can't say that I know of anyplace that fits what you're looking for. But, I have a friend coming over in the morning who might, is this something you can tell us about or...?"

I nodded "You prove that I can trust you so I have no reason to hide it from y'all." a brief explanation and a set of hanging jaws later "And that's why I need it to be out of the way, don't want to have any old random person stumbling upon it and winding up at Mancers HQ or one of the Towers that's literally in the middle of nowhere."

There were nod of agreement all around "It's decided then." Dawn said "We'll speak to Fancy Pants tomorrow morning and everypony else will make discreet inquires when they go about town, the more potential locations the better her options are. Any questions?"

"No." everypony said in unison

Dawn clapped her hooves "Then off to bed everyone busy weekend ahead of us."

With that everything got up and started to clean or make their way to bed excitedly discussing what promises to be a truly unique weekend.

Author's Note

FINALLY managed to finish this chapter.
I'm sorry it took so long but real life kept bogging me down with stuff.
I hope to have the next one out in a far more timely manner.

Fancy Pants Adventure

I ended up sleeping in that morning and eventually one of the foals was sent to wake me up so I wouldn't sleep the day away. Breakfast was a simple meal of toast and fruit as I was rushed into the foyer to meet with Psyche and Fancy Pants. Most of the family had departed on the pretense of having errands to run, which was true, but they were also using it as an excuse to speak to their friends about possible locations for the Tower. Fancy Pants was dressed in his customary black suit and bowtie, monocle currently being wiped against a cleaning cloth. He returned both objects to their proper places as Psyche motioned towards me standing in the doorway.

"Inaba, this is my good friend Fancy Pants." I curtsied "Fancy Pants, this is Lady Inaba, the Duchess of Inverness."

Fancy Pants gave a deep bow "I apologize if I'm undressed Your Grace, I had no idea that there would be a foreign noble present."

I waved him off "It's fine, Psyche didn't even know I was going to be here till last night and please no formalities they're obnoxious and time is short. I hope I haven't kept y'all waiting too long, I slept in on accident usually I'm up by eight thirty."

"Not long at all we had just finished catching up with one another when you came in." I sat on an offered cushion "Now that we are all here we can proceed with business. Psyche has explained your dilemma to me and I know a place that will likely suit your needs. It may be a bit too close to the financial district but that's the main reason the park is so underutilized. It wouldn't surprise me if most ponies don't even realize it's there."

"Amity Park, isn't it supposed to be haunted?" Psyche asked.

"Come now my friend I think ghosts are the least of Inaba's worries." Psyche looked at me.

I shrugged "I couldn't care less about them. As long as they aren't fool enough to impede me they can be ignored. If they stand, float or whatever they do and become a problem because of it then they'll be dealt with." I got up "Lead on Fancy Pants."

Fancy Pants was right it was to close to the financial district for my liking. The park itself was great slightly out of the way, lots of trees, a plethora of trails that lead in circles and loops. But that was part of the problem; it was way to open and would be difficult to defend if we had to fallback to it. It was a small flaw that could be worked around if a more suitable location could not be found. After all XANA had left several of the Towers in wide open areas and just left monsters behind to protect them...then again when the show was all said and done he had also been destroyed, best not to repeat obvious mistakes.

"Uncle! Uncle!" I turned around just in time to see a mocha earth pony trip and go sprawling, only a quick jump saved me from being landed on "Sorry about that." he stood up and adjusted his spiral adorned glasses.

"You alright Mesmer?" Psyche asked.

He tossed his head to get his chalk white mane out his face "Yes Uncle, Wither has found a spot a great spot for the 'you know what'" he waggled his eyebrows conspiratorially "and I was sent to fetch everypony, excuse me, I mean everybody."

I nodded "We might as well see it, If that's alright with everyone else?" there was a round of nods "Well then, lead on Mesmer."

We ended up having to go halfway across town to meet up with Wither and be led the remaining half mile and almost to the edge of the cliff that part of Canterlot hung off of. From there we were led to a trail head that had been hidden by the growth of several large bushes and small trees. A quick bit of pruning and we had a clear, if slightly overgrown pathway to follow. The trail led us downward toward the cliff and wherever there was a break in the foliage we had a stunning view of the countryside below. After a few minutes the path made a sharp right, back towards the city, and began to clear as it leveled out. It opened up into a large clearing backed up by a sheer cliff, wooded on the right and an open view to the left. There was plenty of space for the Tower and it was pretty easy to get to if you knew where it was.

It was the perfect place to put the Tower; I was very surprised to learn that places like this existed all over the city if you just knew where to look. I filed that little gem of information away for later; never knew when you were going to need to find a safe haven. We spent the next three hours visiting other sites but none where as good as the first cliff side clearing or even Amity Park. In the end I chose the clearing over the park based on the defensive value of the cliff side. Fancy Pants wasn’t bothered in the least that I had chosen the clearing sighting that it had a beauty Amity Park was lacking.

“So, now that you have a location when will construction start?” Fancy Pants asked

I smiled “Immediately,” I digivolved into Antylamon and set down the Catch-a-Ride as he picked his jaw off the ground “I should have given you a warning but I was under the impression that Psyche had filled you in on my abilities. I guess I was mistaken, this device is how we shall construct the Tower.”

I explained the machine and its basic operations and functions, answering many questions about it and myself for him as we went along. Apparently Psyche had deliberately left out information when he briefed Fancy Pants about me and the reason for the location search. I let the Tower digistruct while we continued to speak and I confirmed that yes the city was going to be attacked and that all this was not a drill or convoluted prank thought up by the Princesses. He seemed to take it all rather well, if sitting in silence with a thoughtful look could be considered that. He had one last question for me and it was one I had been expecting much earlier in our conversation.

"How do you know all of this?"

"I'm an extra-dimensional creature and your world is part of a well known series of shows and toys of which yours is the current, and most popular, incarnation." he started at me "You don't believe me do you? After everything I told you this is what you're having trouble with?"

He cleared his throat "Sorry I know it shouldn't be but..." he sighed "you're right. I just need a moment
to process all of this." he was silent for a moment "What...what do you really look like?"

I gave a small smile "This is my true form...our as close to one as I have. Though it isn't my original form or even species."

"Would you be able to show me what looks like?"

I hesitated "I can but I'd rather not, lately I've developed the habit of using it more often than I probably should. When the city is attacked I might be forced to use it, until then I'd rather not."

He nodded "I understand, thank you for putting up with my rather intrusive questioning."

"It's fine, everyone is allowed to ask questions. You just don't always get the answers you're looking for." he blinked "Now, why don't we get some lunch?"

Lunch reminded me of my family's annual beach trip as everyone had returned to the house. Dawn was having an animated conversation with Fleur about a trip they were planning to take with the baby once it was born. Lunch consisted of do it yourself sandwiches, fresh fruit, and potato chips or hat fries. Rather than all easy in the kitchen we ate in the family room and conversations were started about everything from who the best Wonderbolt is to who they had agreed needed to be warned about the validity of the impending attack. The long and short of the latter issue was simplified to everyone outside the EI who wouldn't tell those they knew to be in the EI. It certainly made for an interesting, if somewhat eclectic list, for some reason I didn't sound that the EI would remain in the dark.

After lunch Dawn, Fleur, and two of the other mares dragged me and some of the fillies out to go shopping. I didn’t have a terrible time when we were out but shopping wasn’t really my thing, I didn’t hate it but I never really enjoyed it either. They seemed to have a lot of fun; Fleur in particular seemed to enjoy picking outfits for the others to try on while she supervised. I mostly sat round but I did find a few hats that I ended up getting and ordering another large enough for me to wear as Antylamon. As we shopped we discreetly spread a warning about the impending attack which was met with…mixed results. I was surprised by how many believed us, most accepted it well enough usually commenting that it made sense.

Around five we went back to the house to drop off our purchases and gather everyone so we could all go out to eat. Rather than an upscale ultra-fancy place we went to a nice local diner and most of us ended up eating breakfast for dinner. They easily had some of the best hash browns I’d ever eaten, even if I couldn’t get ham or bacon or really any meat at all. The more time I spent around them the better I liked them, if there was any possibility that I could get them to move to Trottingham I’d do it in a heartbeat. When I broached the subject I learned that it would be very difficult, he’d basically have to be appointed as Trottingham’s land lord which was very unlikely because of the way things were set up for the city-state.

I opted to sleep on the couch that night so Fleur and Fancy Pants could use the main guest room. I didn't know if the Changelings had replaced anyone else and none of us saw any point in taking unnecessary risks. I fell asleep quickly, knowing that tomorrow would be a very difficult day.

Author's Note

Just a short chapter today to celebrate the one year mark for my story.
More to follow as next up is the Battle of Canterlot.

Something Wrong

How many of you have had your species change? Let me venture a guess as to the cause, someone offered you a chance to go to Equestria and,like me, you accepted. Likely with some conditions such as memory retention or choosing your form or something. I think I got off lucky in that regard most cases I’ve read about got between five seconds and five minutes to decide. I was given about an hour to think about my choice and finalize my decision.

I was doing something very strange for me, I was going to the mall. I don't even like the mall, well except for the soft pretzels. My idea of a good day is eight plus uninterrupted hours on Xbox live playing with and talking to my friends who live all over the country. Part of it might have been that my mom was becoming unbearable. I was twenty, attending a local multi-campus college after my first year at college away from home didn't work out to well. Living at home was nice no room and board, no annoying people on the floor above me, no having to worry about someone stealing my stuff. But my parents could become problematic at times.

I brought my backpack with me, it had a few spiral notebooks, a mechanical pencil, lots of extra lead, my networking textbook, my laptop and charger, and a few other random things. I made my way to the food court for some Subway. There was only one other person in line when I got there. He was an old man with a very large silver grey mustache and a beard that nearly reached the floor. He was dressed in a bright blue and yellow suit with a matching top hat. My sub was ready to go, the cashier was just waiting on him.

The old man was fumbling around for his wallet. He searched his pants pockets, his jacket pockets, the pocket on his shirt, even the inside of his shoe. It seemed like he had either lost it or left it at home. With a sigh I stepped up next to him.

"Here, I'll pay for his to." I handed the cashier my debit card

"Oh thank you so very much young man."

"It's alright, I only use this thing about five times a year. Sometimes its nice to have a job and nothing to spend your money on." I shrugged

We sat down at the same small table and started eating in companionable silence. I finished first and pulled out my laptop and textbook. I powered it up and logged on, I was going to take an online quiz but then I realized there was no Wi-Fi. I sighed and put my textbook away before pulling up my files to do what my parents hate, trying to watch two shows at once. I launched an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic in one window and Digimon Tamers in another.

"Interesting choices." the old man said

I flushed "Yeah, sorry I shouldn't be doing this when I've got a living person in front of me to talk to." I said going to close them

"No, you misunderstand," he said "oh does my beard really look like that?"

I looked at the paused screen which showed a good view of Azulongmon, I did a double take. "No, way."

He smiled "Way." he said as he sat back down

There were so many questions buzzing around in my head now all I could manage was an intelligent "Oh."

"You have shown me kindness so I have a proposition for you." He steepled his fingers and leaned back "As you have worked out my identity I would like to inform you that I am acting as the representative for the Digimon Sovereigns. We in turn were contacted about this opportunity by the Queen of the Looking Glass Kingdom. I wish to extend to you a chance to visit the world of Equestria in any form but human or pony, you may take anything you want with you, and you may keep your memories if so choose to." I opened my mouth to speak but he motioned me to silence " Please, don't accept right away, this is a very important decision and you should think carefully before you make a decision."

We sat in silence for a while as I thought finally I had my answer.

"I want to become a Digimon, specifically Antylamon. I want to have the ability to digivolve into Lopmon and back whenever I want to, after all being a giant rabbit isn’t always a good thing. I want to keep my backpack and everything in it when I go to Equestria and I want to have a proper topographic map of the world its in." I told him

He smiled "Very well." there was a flash of light and then nothingness.

My first sense to return was hearing, the irregular dripping of water falling from leaves as they dried from a fresh shower. The chirping of birds as they greeted the sun. It was strange, my hearing had always been good but now it was on a whole new level. I stayed still for several minutes as I acclimated myself to my stronger ears. It was strange to be able to hear so much.

Smell was the second thing to return. The smell of flowers and pine sap, of sun warmed fur and damp grass. My sense of touch was coming back and I could feel the warmth of the sunshine on my face and arms, that’s not good. I gave all my limbs a test to make sure they were attached and the proper length. Okay, my fingers are tapping my leg at about the ankle, and is that...cloth? Yes it is, so my arms are long enough, hips, knees, ankles, toes, elbows, shoulders...yeah everything is there. That means I’m wearing...armor probably, after all Antylamon was a warrior.

The red I was seeing told me my eyes were working fine I just had to open them. In doing so I was greeted by an azure sky dotted with numerous large puffy white clouds. A bird flitted across my vision landing in a tree to my right. I sat up slowly, one thing I always hate is when I get up to fast and it makes me dizzy. Of course that’s exactly what ended up happening. I put one of my hands to my head, being mindful of the three little horns I had on my forehead.

Before my hands had been big, runs in the family. Now they were absolutely massive each hand was easily two feet wide, probably about right if I remembered Digimon Tamers correctly. As much as I hate math it was time for me to crunch some numbers. If I was about twenty feet tall and my arms reach to my ankles, then... they’re about sixteen feet long, my legs must be about twelve feet, so five feet of torso, and about a foot of head height, ears against hands, hmm...about four long.

I stood up very slowly, conscious of the fact that if I stood to quickly I’d get dizzy again. At my full height the bend in my ears brushed the bottom of the leafy tree canopy. I took a minute to stand still, it didn’t feel any different despite an obviously higher center of gravity. I spotted my backpack on the ground at my feet it was easy to pick it up and with my new size it fit nicely in my left hand. Of course that also meant there was probably no way I would be able to open it and get out the map that should now be inside it.

Oh well, I closed my hand around it, might not be able to open it now but it would be a simple chore as Lopmon. It took me a second to find the sun hanging over a deeper part of the forest. I turned my back to it and started walking out of the forest. With my long strides it took less than a minute to be out and onto a vast grassy plain.

So it was easy to walk, let’s see if can still do what I consider my one and only talent. I slid my left foot back and bent forward putting my arms in the ready position. With an imagined gunshot I was off and running full speed across the seemingly endless plain.

I was fast before, fifth man my senior year on the Cross Country team, 17 flat at the State Meet, and sub-16 for the 5k two years after that. Mind you that’s nothing compared to my Bro, HE was a D1 scholar-athlete at a highly competitive and prestigious school back in GA. I could run most people into the ground in a distance event but he would bury me if we truly raced...well if I was still human.

No way he would have been able to keep up with me now. In the anime Antylamon was fast enough to cover what was probably several miles in a matter of minutes, but she got tired out pretty quickly after that and several minutes of jumping, put me on a nice trail with good weather and some tunes and I could run for hours if I really felt like it. A family friend of ours calls it “cruising” when I do that, likely because I ignore everyone around me and it takes something like a deer or turkey next to the trail to snap me out of it.

I sprinted past a large grey horned something that had a white and grey splotch beneath it, could be Iron Will and his goats. I could hear a stream nearby so I angled toward it, with any luck it would be slow enough that I could see my reflection. I still couldn’t believe everything that had happened so far. I was in Equestria, I was a Digimon, and I was moving fast enough to put a Le Mans Prototype to shame. I decided to try something bold, I had always wanted to try gymnastics. I pushed lightly off the ground springing a good thirty some odd feet into the air, I tried to do a front flip...and landed flat on my ass.

When I did I let out what was definitely a feminine sound. That reminded me whenever you make a wish or get one granted there’s always something that goes wrong.

I got my size measurements by watching episode 33 of Digimon Tamers and assuming that Suzie is four feet tall
You can watch it here skip ahead to about nine minutes for when Suzie meets Antylamon.
Please note it is the english dub.
As for who The Queen of the Looking Glass Kingdom is, I suggest looking up British children's stories as a starting place.

Dangers From Afar

When I reached Rosy’s room I found two new beds had been set up and my bag had been placed on one of them and Mist’s bag was on the other. I undid my ears and put the ribbon and worksheets on my bed next to a new bag I hadn’t noticed. It was a black messenger bag trimmed in red and modeled after my larger blue and grey one. Its flap was emblazoned with a blue-grey six toothed gear flanked by 3 pairs of matching wings. It was beautiful and had been perfectly sized for my small frame. There was a neatly written note attached to the bag.

Inaba,

I thought you could use a bag of proper size.
The symbol will allow you to be quickly identified
as a member of The Mancers. If you have not
already been informed I filled out the paperwork
and called in a few favors to have it pushed through.
While we were missing most of your personal information
(age, race, ect.) there was enough for us to work with.
We’ll talk more this evening when I take you to HQ.

Sunny

I put the note and my worksheets inside the new bag and moved my mechanical pencil from my old bag into the new one. With some difficulty I pulled the Mexican blanket out of my bag and draped it over my bed. I ignored my laptop, textbook, charger cable, and well everything else that was in it, except the duck tape, I moved that into my new bag. We played in the courtyard for about an hour before Sunny arrived to take me to The Mancer HQ.

“Sunny, will you tell me more about The Mancers?”

She smiled “The Mancers have a long and important history, in both Equestria and Trottingham. Before the formal organization and construction of the Black Vault in Canterlot many of the articles now classified as more dangerous than Discord were mostly stored in what is now our headquarters. At the time the number and size of the articles was minimal, as a result HQ isn’t as deep underground but it is very vast, like an underground single-floor warehouse. We’ll be going in through the northeast entrance, it’s the closest one to the house and, should you continue to attend, the school.”

“Okay, but what exactly do we do? I mean you said the research new technology, and I’m guessing it involves things your family owns or owned and these dangerous things am I right?”

“Truthfully, yes The Mancers are mostly trying to reverse engineer some of the things. Others are just things we’re trying to learn everything we can about them. The other thing is we’re trying to learn were all of these things are coming from; we have acquisition teams that get sent out whenever something new pops up. But most of us have families we can’t just up and leave for a month to chase something down so SCP usually beats us to it. The general public doesn’t know about any of that, all they know is that The Mancers are the oldest group in the city, work to support its defense, and have friends in very high places both locally and abroad, as well as having an extensive information network.”

“I could probably help with the acquisition thing.”

“How?”

“I’ll explain later but do we have anything, you know, living?”

“A few, most of them are kept frozen for long term storage so we have to keep them in a separated part of headquarters. It requires near constant attention so there’s almost always someone in the area to make sure nothing thaws out. A few of the things look harmless enough but there was an incident in the early days and it’s been a case of better safe than sorry ever since.”

We walked pretty slowly for about fifteen minutes before I caught sight of a large building. It was at least two stories high with a third floor in one place which was probably offices or something at one point. It was obviously an assembly plant of some sort at one point and had only recently been abandoned as the windows still had plenty of glass left in them. We entered on what turned out to be the second floor of the building and had to go down a nearby set of stairs to reach the lower floor.

“This factory was built about eighty years ago and was used to produce carriages, the company moved to a newer facility five years ago and the city took possession of the building and all the land around it. It is actually located next to the eastern wall of HQ so I authorized the expenditure and testing of a few systems we had just finished studying, the elevator for one, a scaled up test of our successful powered dumb-waiter. Unfortunately because it uses a larger power system than the small scale model it isn’t yet feasible to install them in most buildings, they’re just too costly.”

We took the elevator down till it stopped and she opened the button console to reveal a ten digit number pad.

“This is also too expensive for mass distribution, we’ve built a few for banks but that’s about it. We’d been studying this device for ten years before we figured out how to work and then it was a matter of weeks before we made this functional replica. They’re installed at every entrance and everypony picks their own four digit PIN. It’s set up to accept a new code so go ahead and put yours in.

Easy choice “Alf-Layla-Wa-Layla.” I punched in the numbers

“What does that mean?”

I smiled “It’s Arabic and can be translated as ‘a thousand nights and one night’. It’s a portion of the name from a very famous collection of stories. But I doubt you’ve ever heard of it.”

The elevator door opened to reveal another door with three concentric rings acting as a seal. I put my code in a second time to confirm it and the rings spin around till they aligned their hidden tumblers and the door split open with a hiss. I was half expecting to find Jeremie seated in front of the supercomputer terminal typing away and giving instructions. I wasn’t far off, in the sense that there was somepony seated at a terminal giving instructions through a headset. I didn’t realize I was staring at it until Sunny commented on it.

“Something else we haven’t yet been able to successfully replicate. Fortunately we have hundreds of them in storage for when one stops working.”

“I can probably help with that to.”

Everything was brightly lit from the overhead lighting; it looked like the fluorescent lighting you would see in a research lab. Not surprising since that’s what HQ was supposed to double as. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all made from some form of white tile. Whatever the material was it probably made the tiles sound, fire, and water proof. I couldn’t find a speck of dust anywhere as I was taken on a tour I made mental notes about things that would need to be separated and regroup. We had made it halfway to specimen containment when I saw something that made me panic.

“STOP!” I yelled

“What, is something wrong?”

“Yes, this, this big orange thing right here. We need to get rid of it, like NOW.”

The object in question was something I recognized because I had been bored and look up certain things. It was an orange cone, about five feet tall and a foot wide with a black tip. I knew exactly what it was and more importantly how dangerous it was and how to safely get rid of it.

“We need lead, LOTS of lead,” I was panicking “concrete or cement to if we’ve got it.”

“INABA!” Sunny yelled “Calm down and explain, what is this thing and why do we need lead and concrete?”

She was right, deep even breaths “This is a W88 thermonuclear warhead. If it goes off there will be nothing left of this city but a massive crater. But that’s only half of the weapon’s danger. It also creates a very dangerous substance called fallout, its radioactive dust and ash that falls from the sky after detonation. It can’t really explain what radioactive material is but all you need to know is that it is very, very bad.”

“How bad are we talking?”

“Not sure how large the radius would be, but everything in and around it would suffer from burns and an incurable poisoning. The effects would be felt as far away as Canterlot in the form of mutations and birth defects.” The more I talked the more scared everypony seemed to become “That’s why we need to encase this thing in a layer of lead probably a foot thick should be enough. Lead blocks radiation, simple as that. The concrete is for additional protection.”

Sunny nodded “You heard her get to work ponies! After it’s sealed up we can have it sent to The Black Vault.”

“No, even sealed up its still dangerous. All we’re doing is making sure that if there is any radiation leaking it won’t be able to spread. But, I haven’t the slightest idea how to disarm this thing. If we’re going to do anything with it we’ll be lowering it down into a very deep hole where, hopefully, nothing can ever find it.”

“This seems like something the Princesses should be informed about.”

“By all means send them a letter. Just don’t call it a W88 it won’t mean anything to them, the important part of the name is thermonuclear. Make sure the letter asks if they know of a safe way to dispose of it, like sending it to the moon.”

Sunny blinked, looked around, then blinked again “This W88 as you called it has been here for centuries and not once has anypony had even the slightest idea what it is. We had our thoughts that could be a weapon, but as it is the only one we had no desire to test that theory. You see it and not only name it, but vividly describe its supposed effects at only a glance.”

“Sunny Smiles, I promise I will tell you everything about me later. But if this has been here for centuries then identifying other things that are just as dangerous needs to be our top priority right now. Is there some kind of catalogue system used to document everything that’s stored here?”

“I’ll have our most recent log books brought to us in my office.”

“So, who and what are you – Inaba?”

“Not my given name, close enough. Took it from a legend. My real name no longer matters. I’m a foreigner, not only to this country but to this world. Originally I was a creature known as a human, a kind of tall, bipedal, mostly hairless ape. I’m currently a girl, but I was born as a boy.”

She scowled “So I’m letting someone who is mentally a colt spend time very close to my granddaughter.”

“I’m twenty years old. She’s way too young for me. Plus, I…I think I’m starting to see her as a little sister. My only sibling growing up was my older brother. We both always wanted to have a younger sister to be able to protect. Who we could embarrass by threatening destroy her boyfriend if he treated her wrong.”

“How did you know about the, what was it called again?”

I sighed “W88 Thermonuclear Warhead. In my world we have access to almost any information at the press of a few buttons using a device called a computer. As long as it is connected to something called the internet you can probably find an answer to any question.”

“And what is this, internet?”

“That is a question with such a confusing answer I’m better off not even trying to explain it. The basics of it that it is millions of computers connected together and sharing information with each other. That’s the extremely over simplified version of the answer. Anything more and it wouldn’t make sense to you. I know because it barely makes sense to me. Though you may be older, wiser, and smarter than me, when it comes to computers you probably don’t know anything.”

“Back to the topic of what you are.”

“Right, as I said I was human before but when I came here I chose to become a Digimon. I set a few conditions with the group who sent me here. First I would be Antylamon and could digivolve, or transform, into its early form of Lopmon which I am right now. As Antylamon I’m extremely fast so I could quickly get to new things for us. Now as I said early I was boy. Partly by my own fault and probably by the power of a gigantic human intolerant flaming pigeon I now find myself as a girl.”

“Your large rabbit form right and what do you mean by gigantic flaming pigeon?”

I nodded “Okay, according to information in the third season Antylamon was one of twelve warriors known as the Deva who served the four Digimon Sovereigns. The Sovereigns rule the Digital World and have it split into four quadrants, each under the direct control of one. I met Azulongmon, the Azure Dragon of the East, who rules over the eastern quarter of the Digital World. The flaming pigeon is Zhuqiaomon, the Vermillion Bird of the South, he dislikes humans and I could see him taking advantage of my transformation to have good laugh at humanity. Anyway, Azulongmon told me he was acting as the representative of the group and that they had been contacted by the Queen of the Looking Glass Kingdom. I don’t know what her stake in this is but, I have good feeling it’s not for the detriment of this world.”

“Who is this Queen?”

“I don’t know for sure but if I had to guess it would be someone named Alice. There are two main published stories about her. In the second story she travels through a mirror into the Looking Glass Kingdom and is made its queen. What I can’t figure out is how she is still its queen. At the end of the story she returns to her world and learns she was just dreaming, so how can she still be its queen?”

“She may have gone back, or when she left her reflection may have taken over as queen. Out of curiosity how strong are you?”

“There are seven levels in a Digimon’s growth: egg, baby one, baby two, rookie, child, adult, perfect, and ultimate. Right now I’m in my child form and my strength reflects it. That being said I could probably kill a member of the Royal Guard, in armor, with some effort. Not that I would mind you. As Antylamon I doubt that the Guard would even be able to stop me if really started going. A good rule for Digimon strength is it takes one of an equal or greater stage to beat another. But, even still Digimon can vary greatly in power from one another.”

“Could you give an example?”

“I could give you hundreds. But to keep it simple I’ll compare Numemon, an adult level Digimon, to Agumon, a child level. You’d think that because Numemon is a greater level it would mop the floor with Agumon, but the opposite is true. When a Digimon digivolves it isn’t always into something stronger, I don’t know the finer points of the process but I do know that much.” As I finished an earth pony walked in carrying a stack of book.

Sunny smiled at me “We can continue this discussion at a later date. For now though I think you have told me enough.”

I was surprised as I started looking through the books. There was practically everything you could think of in this place; Gou’ld hand device, zamor sphere launchers, a pair of Stargates with DHDs, Xbox 360, enough instruments for fifty heavy metal groups, the remains of a few UFOs, classic cars, a couple of tanks, some mechs, a baseball autographed by Babe Ruth, and yes even a stainless steel kitchen sink being stored on shelf 27-C. They said it was for the new kitchen that was going in. It really was like a giant storage unit for all things miscellaneous. One thing that was strange was the guns, lots and lots of guns and ammo. Plenty of ammunition, body armor, computers, networking equipment, two-way radios, it was like a military shopping list. I spent about an hour making notes and suggestions for proper storage of everything, keep away from fire plenty of space between the areas.

“I’m almost afraid to ask how you got most of this stuff down here.”

“We have a few places with surface access for large objects, but most of it is just carried in.”

Then the book of live specimens arrived. Yes book, singular, as in only one and not more than one. It wasn’t nearly as interesting as the others but it still held a few surprises. Luckily all the books were formatted the same. Each page was devoted to a single item; if they had more than one of the same thing the number was listed. It had acquisition date, location, and time. There were notes about the unidentified objects guessing at their function and even listed a temporary name. When I got near the end I saw something that made me groan.

“What did you find?”

I turned the book toward her “See this giant six tentacled jellyfish thing? It’s called the Scyphozoa. Make sure it never thaws out. In the fiction that it’s from it is able to brainwash people by using its tentacles to alter their mind. There was only one ever shown and I don’t know if it can be killed otherwise I’d suggest that right away. As long as it’s frozen we might be able to shatter it that would probably work.”

“Is there a way to undo the brainwashing?”

I shook my head “I don’t know. In the show they either de-virtualized the affected person, didn’t let it finish the brainwashing, or it wore off after the person had finished whatever they were supposed to do. Problem is the Scyphozoa’s master is supposed to be dead, so there’s no telling what it will do just that it will be bad. Other than that all I can see is keep everything frozen. The stuff I recognize is either dangerous or causes problems.”

“Like what?”

“Rapid movement of glaciers, rapid melting of glaciers, volcanic eruptions, rapid continental drift; do you want me to keep going?”

“No, I believe you’ve made your point. I think we should be getting you back to the house, don’t want the girls to worry about you.”

When we got back to the house Rosy and Mist began peppering me with questions. I told them we went to look at the old factory, not a complete lie but I couldn’t really tell them we went to The Mancer HQ. That reminded me that I need to ask Sunny if we have some sort of public office. We had dinner in Rosy’s room and I ended up with a stomach ache from all the smores I ate. We skipped out on Truth or Dare because I insisted they finish the homework we’d been given. Of course because of how I rationalized it to them they couldn’t really argue. By the time they were done it was dark outside so we turned the lights off and it was time for scary stories.

“And just when the last pony thought she was safe. There standing right behind her just inches away was… the headless horse!”

The lantern flickered off and then back on showing Mist’s head covered by a sheet. Rosy screamed and I laughed

“That’s not very scary.” I said

“Oh yeah, then let’s hear you tell one!”

After providing them with some necessary information I began. “You've heard of the Sierra Madre Casino. We all have, the legend, the curses."

There's gonna start being action soon enough.