Equestria Girls: Symbol Of Undying Love

Chapters

Game mechanics
Tutorial 1: Basics
I feel like this is how most horror games, or what not, start
Getting settled in the new world
First objective
End of prologue
First meeting
This shouldn't be a surprise, it's not like they're from that world
A warning from an unlikely source, and planning for the future
So…I guess this is happening now
Defense mechanism
Red flags
Bizarre Pull
Tutorial Mid-Boss
Morally gray
Delta Rune
Hair trigger
A reluctant agreement
How come it's fine when Sunset talks to herself, but it's weird when I do it?
Hospital time, and girl time
First Monday of school-Manny
Shot through the heart, and you're to blame~ You give L.O.V.E, a bad name~
Name the fallen monster
Whoever was on guard duty should be fired.

Game mechanics

3rd POV

They both just sit there in silence, taking in the others appearance. Manny goes to scratch an itch on his head, but jumps a little in shock when he hits one of his new horns. Noticing his confusion and distraction, Sunset slowly and quietly snuck away. By the time Manny noticed, she was already out of sight. Not caring about the strange girl, he looked for the nearest reflective object. Noticing a powered down computer on a nearby table, he walks over and looks at his reflection in the dark screen. And low and behold, he saw the small goat horns.

"…That's all of the changes? He made it sound like I wouldn't look remotely close to how I did in that void. This, I can work with, just need something to cover them." Manny said with a smile and putting his hands in his pockets. He then noticed his hand hit something in his pocket. Taking whatever it was out of his pocket, he saw it was a letter.

Dear Manny

As I'm sure you've noticed, your appearance barely changed at all. That's because I decided that keeping your appearance as close to human as possible would allow you to adjust easier to that world. That being said, it might change over time, depending on what you do. As for your new magic. It's simple in concept, but hard in practice. You see, your SOUL is located in your chest. Try to feel it, the very culmination of your being. Feel it resonate with your will, but don't force it. Let it guide your magic into the proper form, it knows you better than you know yourself. Every Monster has an affinity for certain types of magic. You may be able to use forms of magic that you don't have an affinity for, but it's best to consult the SOUL on which path is the best starting point for you.

☝︎♋︎⬧︎⧫︎♏︎❒︎

'…I'm flattered that he thinks I'm smart enough to actually understand any of this, shame that's not the case. Oh well, I think I can do this without understanding this. I mean, how hard could it actually be to use your SOUL?' I think with a shrug, pocketing the piece of paper. 'But how to do it? Maybe if I stretch out my hand and picture something?' I bring my left open hand to my right shoulder, then quickly swing it to my left in a dramatic fashion. All that motion resulted in…nothing happening, not even a spark or flash. "…Ok…I guess it's not that easy, because of course not." I moan with a face palm.

Sunset was watching him from the shadows, trying to find an escape route. As she watched Manny, she tilted her head in confusion. "What is he doing? Is that some kinda human dance?" She wondered aloud before realizing her mistake, and quickly covered her mouth. Manny's head then shot to her direction, causing Sunset's heart to start pounding in panic. Manny then started walking in the direction he heard Sunset in, the girl in question quietly snuck away in hopes that he wouldn't find her. After about five minutes of playing hide and seek, Manny made his exasperation known.

"Can you come out already? I'm not going to hurt you, I just want to talk." He said, looking around. He got no response, much to his displeasure. He was about to call for her again when he heard another noise, it came from behind him, specifically from behind a bookshelf. Slowly walking towards it so to not scare her, he checked behind the bookshelf and found a yellow walkie-talkie with strange red symbols and markings on it. While he was distracted, Sunset snuck onto the top floor. Her heart was pounding because of the stunt she pulled, it didn't help that she accidentally dropped the walkie-talkie. She was fortunate that the stranger didn't rush to her old location, she doesn't even wanna think about what would have happened if he chose to run. Especially since her magic doesn't seem to be working right now, this would be so much easier if it was. Once she felt like she got far enough into the second floor area, she used the device.

*What do you want?* She asked, quietly enough to not give away her position.

*Well, I was hoping we could talk face to face.* He answered with a smile.

*Let me tell you something someone told me once. "It's fine to have hope, but sometimes you need to face reality". Basically, no, that's not happening.* she stated firmly.

*Well you're just a bundle of sunshine, aren't you?* He asked with an eye roll. *Why not?*

*…Do I seriously need to sit here and explain to you why I don't think it would be a smart move to show myself to a stranger, especially since it's night and we're in an empty library with no witnesses!?* She asked in bewilderment.

*………Fair point.* He groaned in acceptance, unable to think of a sound counter argument.

*so?* She asked, expectantly.

*Right-right, back to the topic. What would it take for you to trust me?* He asked.

*I want to know who you are and what you are. Because I didn't feel a pulse or any bones when you were sleeping, so I know you're not a human.* She stated with an unseen glare.

*…You found a person in a library that you thought was dead, and instead of notifying an adult, you chose to lay on the corpse!? And before you try to deny it, I felt you laying on me when I woke up.* He said with a shocked expression, she went wide eyed when he said that.

*H-h-hey don't get the wrong idea, I didn't think you were a corpse, I thought you were a plushy! I mean, you didn't have a pulse or any bones and you didn't smell like something died!* She said frantically, he rolls his eyes at her.

*Anyway, to answer your questions. My name is Manny, though I doubt you'll believe what I am, it's pretty out there.* He stated.

*Try me.* She urged, crossing her arms.

*I'm a Monster, a creature made mostly out of magic and some mass.* he answers with a face palm. 'She's going to think I'm crazy.' He thought with a sigh.

*…What were the names of the King and Queen of Monsters?* She suddenly asked, he blinked at that.

*…Asgore and Toriel Dreemurr?* He guesses, it's a different universe, so its possible that those two weren't the rulers.

*…Well you got the Dreemurr part right, and it doesn't say that name in any of the books I've read here. Alright, we can talk face to face. Don't do anything stupid alright? I'll buck you into next week if you do!* She threatened with a growl.

*I'm sorry, did you say you'll buck me into next week?* I question with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, I'll explain why when I feel like I can truly trust you enough to actually tell you." She said, coming out of hiding. She still kept some distance between them, she was even holding a metal pipe. 'If this turns ugly, I can always use my makeshift smoke bomb to get away, after landing a few hits of course.' She thinks, mentally chuckling. She had a few at the ready in her back pocket.

'If her noodle arms are anything to go by, I doubt she'll put up much of a fight if things go south. Plus she said "buck" and let it slip that that's not the norm here, so she's probably hiding something pretty important to her.' He thinks, trying to figure her out.

As the two sized each other up, something strange to Sunset, but familiar to Manny, happened. The area around them darkened, in fact everything, save for them, faded into a black void. All the colors faded from them both, leaving them black and white. Just then a red heart that was glowing cyan suddenly appeared in front of Sunset, and a large white square suddenly spawned around them. Then two screens suddenly appeared in front of them, their respective screens showing different texts.

Ex Solar Prodigy Sunset Shimmer blocks your path.

Manny Osric blocks your path.

Author's Note

To clarify for anyone who haven’t played/watched Undertale or just simply forgot (like I did) since it’s explained so early in the game, this will be called a FIGHT as Toriel put it. And this will only happen in certain situations, there can still be fighting, but a FIGHT won't trigger unless it's a vital moment. And as for Manny not understanding the note: Most kids don't have the patience to figure out the meaning of something and just try to rush it (he's 13), at the moment, he's thinks that since he's a Monster now, it's just going to work if he try's enough times. I don't mean practice, I mean attempting enough times until it suddenly works.

Tutorial 1: Basics

"Ex Solar Prodigy Sunset Shimmer?" Manny asked aloud, scratching his head in confusion and missing Sunset stiffening. 'Is Solar something important? Maybe it’s a part of a family crest.' He muses to himself.

"What did you just say?" Sunset asked suddenly, her face completely blank. Manny jumps a little at her sudden question.

"I'm sorry?" Manny ask her.

"'What.did you.just say?' Repeat what you just said." She repeated, her face gaining an angry look.

"…uh…Ex Solar Prod-AHHH!" He started to say before she swung the pipe.

*[ATTACK]*

*MISS*

Manny had just managed to dodge her attack in time. He then held up his hands in a calming gesture.

"N-now calm down." He said, a little shocked by her sudden attack.

"Excuse me!?!" She asked, eyes widening as her anger flared. "Don't tell me to calm down, you bum."

"Bum!? What makes you think I'm a bum?" He asked, feeling insulted for obvious reasons.

"You were passed out in an empty library. And if you weren't a bum, you would have either passed out in your house, or at the very least passed out in a hotel or motel. Not to mention the fact that you're here with no faculty members around." She answered with a glare.

"I'm 13! How about you? You look like you belong in Elementary school, yet here you are, in what appears to be a high school! Care to explain that?" He asked meeting her glare with his own.

"Oh please, this school would be lucky to have someone on my level attend it." She says, rolling her eyes.

"That didn't answer my question." Manny said with a deadpan look before smirking. "I guess stuff like that is way you're an Ex prodigy." Sunset's left eye twitched at that. "Can't really call someone who can't answer a simple question a prodigy." Saying that caused her Atk to go up.

*[ATTACK]*

*62*

"AHH!" Manny yells as the pipe hits him in the face, surprised by how much it hurt. 'Jesus that hurt! In retrospect, mocking her may not have been smart given my new body. I gotta end this before she dusts me!' He concludes with a glare. His glare intimidates her, given the fact that the story mentioned Monsters ability to absorb SOULs. Her Atk goes down from his glare.

"Ok that…might've been uncalled for……you wouldn't hit a little girl, would you?" She asked, trying to back track. 'I can't use magic here for some reason, I don't know if he's in the same boat.' Manny paused at that, Sunset had a point. She is a little kid, kind of a brat, sure, but she's still a little girl. At the same time, she seemed way too arrogant to play that card.

'Way the sudden attitude change?' He pondered before speaking. "What happened to your 'tough girl' stick? A few moments ago you were more then willing to make this a fight." He asked, folding his arms.

"…I just remembered……I can't use my magic, but I don't know if it's the same with you. And before you ask, I showed myself because I could use your-or some other monster's-help." She said, ready to run if he makes any sudden movements. He just deadpans at her.

"Wow, amazing job so far in getting my help, I feel so moved. Here, let me take your coat and hang it up for you." He said, his voice oozing with sarcasm.

"Look the whole 'Solar prodigy' thing is a sore topic for me, ok?" She stated.

"Why's that?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I'd rather not talk about it." She said with a glare, but it wasn't directed towards him. Suddenly two screens pop up.

Manny:

This line of questioning seems to be going nowhere
Maybe a gentler approach would bear more fruit

Manny nodded in agreement, then tried to think of a better topic. 'Maybe I can form a pact with her. As we work to achieve whatever she's after, I could get her to open up.' He thinks with a smile, not noticing what was going on with her at that moment.

Sunset:

This conversation is going nowhere.
The book said that Monsters are made with positive emotions.
Maybe befriending him would make this easier.

Sunset rolled her eyes at the befriending part, but she did need his help. 'I don't need to actually like him, I just need his help. It's worth a shot since I don't have any better ideas. Who knows, maybe I'll actually like hanging out with him, though that's a big maybe.' She thinks with a smirk.

"Whatever your reasons are for being here, their not my business. Why don't we start over? I'm Manny He says with a smile, holding out his hand. A screen pops up in front of Sunset.

Manny is sparing you.

She thinks it over for a minute before grabbing his hand.

*[Marcy] - Spare*

"…Sunset. She says simply, still wary about him. With an enthusiastic shake from Manny and a halfhearted shake from Sunset, everything turns back to normal. The white box around them vanished, the colors returned to them and the black void changed back into the library. As Many rubbed his the area he was hit, two screens popped up, both saying the same thing.

You won
You earned 0 XP!

"…You know what? I don't want to deal with this right now." Sunset said, now just done trying to figure this out.

"Uh, Sunset? You shouldn't really brush off something this strange." Manny advised. Sunset gave him a look.

"Then you deal with it, because I don't feel like it right now. It's way too early for this." She said, crossing her arms.

‘I thought you were here to achieve something? That screen said we didn't earn anything, it still hints that something could have been earned…actually on second thought, this is honestly better considering what XP stands for.' He thinks before grimacing, the facial movement causing a spike of pain. 'Damn this hurts! Did she really have to hit me in the face!? I really wish I could heal this!' He thinks with a groan before noticing green smoke coming from the hand pressed up against his face. To his shock and relief, the pain suddenly vanishes as if it was never there. As Manny celebrates his tiny victory, Sunset's eyes turn into pinpricks.

"So you can use magic." She says in minor shock. 'This could pose a problem for me in the future. I don't exactly know enough about the guy to trust him. Better to keep him close in case I need his help, but not too close.' She thinks, slightly on edge.

"Sweet!" He exclaimed. "How did I do that?" He questioned, much to Sunset's confusion.

"What do you mean 'how'? You used your magic, you know, that green aura around your hand?" She asked. 'Maybe I hit him harder than I thought, I really hope it's not permanent.'

"I know, I've just never used magic before." He says with a shrug. '…Didn't he say he was 13? I know a full spell is hard for upstarts, but the stories about Monsters say that healing magic is as simple for Monsters as a telekinesis spell is for a unicorn. I don't understand why he's so happy.' She thought with a confused look before what he said registered.

"Wait, you've never used magic?…did you lose some memories from magic kindergarten?" She asked. 'He either has minor amnesia, or he's just an idiot.'

"Why would I need to go to magic kindergarten? Can't you just buy a book and read it? I didn't think it was that complicated." He says, scratching his head. Sunset sighs in relief at that.

'Good, he's just an idiot. Well I guess I'll have to give him pointers. By the looks of it, Monster magic and unicorn magic seems to be pretty similar. Can't be that hard to teach him, I mean, the princess seemed to have a pretty easy time teaching somepony younger than her. So teaching someone older than me should be even easier.' She thought with a confident smile.

Author's Note

To explain how Manny is still alive despite him being a new Boss Monster and Sunset hitting him hard in the face. While Sunset is more prone to violence then the average pony, she's still a pony. Ponies aren't hatful towards Monsters, they are fearful, though spikes of anger can make up for that. Sunset hasn't been influenced by human culture yet, she's still operating on an Equestrain mindset (to a point that is). If Manny had been hit by someone who has already been influenced by human culture, the he would have definitely been turned to dust (the only reason he's considered a boss Monster, albeit loosely, is because his SOUL is still technically human, just replacing most of his determination with Monster magic. If not for that one fact, his body would be as durable as a Froggit's).

I feel like this is how most horror games, or what not, start

???'s POV - Unknown Location

BANG-BANG

Pain

FWOOSH

Hot

BANG

Cold

"AHHHHHH!"

My eyes shoot open after hearing a familiar sounding women's scream, which is replaced by a rapid beeping sound. My head is pounding, and I feel a sharp pain in my neck. Looking around the dark room, I noticed I was wearing what looks like a hospital gown. I then noticed I was restrained with straps connected to the bed I was laying on. One strap went over my chest, one strap covered my pelvis and wrists, and one covered my ankles. Wiggling a bit, I'm barely able to squeeze one of my hands free, though I accidentally cut my wrist a bit. Taking a moment to acknowledge how old school these types of restraints are, I continue my struggling. Reaching my hand over to the top clamp, I release the strap covering my chest. After taking a much desired deep breath, I undid the remaining straps.

Getting up from the bed, I shudder as my feet touched the cold floor. Feeling around the wall, my hand touched what felt like a light switch. Switching it on, my vision goes blinding white before my eyes adjust. The room I'm in looks like a standard hospital room, except it feels a little…off. As I'm looking around, the adrenaline keeping me moving subsides, causing me to fall down. Now forced to crawl, I noticed some weird tubes in various parts of my body, pushing some clear liquid into my body. I'm not sure what chemical is being injected into me, but whatever it was, was making me sleepy. Taking the needles out, I feel some strength come back much faster than should be possible, it should have taken an hour at the least for that to happen. It wasn't much, but I could at least wobbly stand up. Continuing my investigation of the room, I see a mirror.

Looking into the mirror, I take in my appearance. I have long messy black hair with blunt bangs, my skin is sickly pale, and my eyes were gray. My height is 4'8 and I appear unhealthily thin, as if I hadn't eaten in months. As I take my appearance in, I hear what sounds like someone running in this direction. Cutting off the light, I quickly go to the other side of the bed and crouch, as I noticed a door on this side of said bed. Sure enough, an unknown figure enters the room, sadly I'm unable to make anything out, except for the night vision goggles. Suddenly I heard a small beeping sound again, this one sounding much closer and quieter than the last. The figure suddenly turned to my direction, getting into a combative stance. Readying what was most likely a gun, the figure walks towards me.

'Ok, calm down. Maybe I can talk whoever that is down, and maybe figure out what's going on.' I think before something shifts. Suddenly I can see clearly, not like the green night vision, but actually clearly. It was as if the lights were on, but not as blindingly bright as it was before. When the, now fully visible, man in SWAT clothing looked away, I crawled behind him as quickly and quietly as possible, which was odd since I wanted to talk to him. It was if some sixth sense was telling me that talking to him was a very bad idea. When I finally got behind him, something shifted again. Now instead of seeing clearly, everything except the man, changed back to how it was before, if not a little darker. The man turned into a pure white silhouette, and a strange purple heart appeared in the center of his upper back. As he turned around, I remained motionless, transfixed on the heart. Once he was fully facing me, I lunged at the heart that was now on his chest.

Catching him by surprise, I tackle him to the ground before he can ready his gun. As we were falling, six white chains shot out of my body, without ripping my gown. They all wrapped around him before we even hit the ground, though none of then covered the strange heart. He squirmed for a few seconds before suddenly stopping, as if all his energy had suddenly vanished. Oddly enough, I felt a spike of energy at the exact same time, I felt like I could run a marathon. A few seconds later, the heart exited his chest and flouts about 5-10 inches above him. My mouth then opens on its own and I inhale uncontrollably without actually taking in air. A stream of purple smoke seeps out of the heart and into my mouth. As more of the weird smoke leaves the heart, the heart becomes more and more see through. In a matter of moments, all that's left is a purple outline in the shape of a heart. There's another shift, the man's colors changed back to how they were when he entered, if not a little darker. I sat there, just staring at the heart, as if evaluating it. Then without warning, I chomp down, seemingly eating it in one bite. My vision suddenly gets blurry, and I collapsed.

Cold Traffic's POV - memory

"Mr.…Traffic was it?" The boss asked, facing away from me. Not many people knew what he actually looked like, and the voice filter didn't exactly give any hints to who he might be. Unfortunately, E-Class 'peasants' like me weren't 'privileged' enough to know something like who he was or what he actually sounded like. For all we knew, the dude could actually be a chick.

"Yes sir." I answered without hesitation.

"What is with people these days and having on-the-nose names!?" He asked in bewilderment.

"I'm sorry?" I asked in confusion. 'How is Cold Traffic an 'on-the-nose name? Gees, I helped get that human here, the least he could do is be polite!' I think, a little offended.

"Not important, as far as you're concerned anyway." He brushed off. "How is the subject?"

"It seems to be doing well, as well as the experiment can allow at least." I answered. He had suggested me and six other people refer to the test subject as an 'it' in order to not get attached or feel any sympathy. Not sure why I would get attached to merchandise, as long as I'm getting paid properly, I don't see a reason to actually be concerned about it.

"Good." He said simply.

"If I may ask, why are you concerned about it's well being? Isn't it just another tool for future use?" I asked, more then a little curious. Suddenly the temperature seemed to plummet, after a few moments, it returned to normal room temperature. 'Must be faulty wiring, gonna have to get Rewire to fix that, gonna be a pain to get in touch with someone from B-Class though.' I think with a quiet sigh.

"Simple, it's not 'just another tool', it's incredibly invaluable to many of my future plans." He stated firmly, giving me immense amounts of confusion.

"If that's true, why is an E-Class like me, guarding and monitoring it? Shouldn't something like that be handled by an SO-Class, or at least An S-Class?" I asked, going wide eyed.

"Why indeed. Who knows? Maybe I'm giving you a chance to prove yourself? This could be your chance to rise in the ranks." He said with a chuckle. Something about this doesn't feel right, he's never used something this important as a test for an E-Class before. But on the other hand, if this is actually a genuine test, I could get a really big pay raise if I passed.

"Alright, I won't let you down sir." I finally say.

"Oh I know you won't, in fact, I'm 100% certain you'll accomplish exactly what I need you too." He says with a chuckle. "As for the one observing, check the drawer near the door Traffic entered, I'm sure you'll find it's contents very interesting. Though I suggest getting some rest so your body can adapt to the substance you've just consumed." I looked at the door I entered, but was confused when I didn't see any drawers near the door.

"Uh sir? There's no drawers there." I pointed out.

"Oh don't worry about that. Now head back to your post. I'm sure you know the drill." He said. I go over it in my head. 'Yeah, take and use the night vision goggles if I don't see it on the bed, don't cut on the light (not sure why), and cut on the tracking device.'

"Yes sir." I say before walking out.

???'s POV - after the memory ended

I stare wide eyed at what I saw. That man, if it was even a man, knew I was somehow watching them talk. I wish I could have seen who he was, but every time I tried to make out any features, he would become so blurry that I couldn't even make any colors out. Scratching my head in confusion, I noticed some black stuff getting stuck on my fingers, hinting that I might not actually have black hair. Deciding to wash it off (there was another door in this room that lead to a bathroom according to the sign next to it) after I slept, two questions were at the center of my mind.

"Where am I? Why can't I remember anything?" I asked aloud before going to sleep on the now strapless bed.

Author's Note

I wonder if anyone can correctly guess who this is before I reveal who they are. Yes I'm keeping their gender a secret until I tell you who it is.

Getting settled in the new world

Manny and Sunset woke up in their respective beds, last night's events fresh in their minds.

Last night

"How can a 13 year old be this stupid!?" Sunset groaned with her head on the table, having spent the past 30 minutes trying to get Manny to understand the basics of magic. Manny looked at her with a frown.

"How can a supposed 'genius' struggle this hard at teaching someone?" Manny shot back. Sunset glared daggers at him, though the size difference just made it look cute.

"Hey! It's not my fault you can't understand something kids younger then me have already got down pat!" She countered.

"Last time I checked, you're teaching me. And while I can't do it on command, I have shown I actually can do it, so it's not my fault! You're just not a good teacher. Student? According to that screen, you're a great student. Teacher? Well if you were a good teacher, we wouldn't be having this argument." He countered right back.

"I don't have to help you, you know. I could just let you figure it out yourself!" She yelled, a little red in the face. He deadpans.

"Ok? What's your point? You're the one asking for my help. Admittedly that's only because I can actually use magic, but my point still stands." He said, folding his arms and giving her an expectant look. Sunset isn't able to answer that right away. 'You may be a hell of a lot smarter than me, but you're still a little kid. I have a lot more experience in arguing then you do.' He thinks with a smug look, which disappeared when Sunset gave her own smug look.

"Last time I checked, a Monster's body is extremely weak against humans. You could go out there without learning magic, but I highly doubt you'll get far in a one on one fight, and that's only if you're lucky. If the people here are anything like the folks back home, one look at those horns, and you'll have to deal with a mob." She retorted. 'It pays to have intelligence on your side.' He rolled his eyes.

"Good point, if only there were some sort of object that could possibly help hide these tiny horns. Like some sort of cloth based item that could cover the top part of my head…though I doubt in invention that complex could possibly exist." He sighed in mock defeat. Sunset rolled her eyes.

"Cute. We can argue about this later, right now we should get some rest. Let's see if there's anywhere close by that'll take in a little girl and a bum." She said, Manny huffed at being called a bum.

"More like little brat if you ask me, drop the attitude and it shouldn't be a problem. I don't suppose you have this world's currency, do you?" He asked. While they were trying to figure out how Manny used magic, Sunset had accidentally let it slip that she's from another world. Seeing no reason to keep it a secret, Manny had told her that he was in the same situation.

"No, this world (or rather this country) uses a certain type of paper called dollars, I only have a few bits on me." She sighed.

"I'm familiar with that type of money, though I doubt mine have the right type of look to it, if I actually had some on me." He says with a shrug before giving her a questioning look. "Also, what's a bit?

"This is a bit, I only have like three or four on me though. I didn't bother bringing much since I needed to travel light and this world might not even use them." She answered while showing him a bit, which was in fact a gold coin. "Turns out I was correct, there completely useless." She sigh. Manny is slack jawed.

"That's a gold coin." He says, his left eye twitching.

After Manny calmed down (at least on the outside), the two went out and asked around for directions to a pawnshop. They had managed to convince everyone they talked to, that Manny liked wearing fake horns and that Sunset was just a small adult rather easily. After all, how many Elementary schoolers can accurately explain things like the relationship between gravity and time while acknowledging how movement can alter both of them, let alone better then the University students they talked to?

They found the place they were looking for soon enough. After showing the owner the bit, they left with $250, unaware that since Equestria gold was more valuable than they realized at the time. They managed to find a motel to stay in for the moment, well Manny did, Sunset was too sleepy because of how late it was, so Manny had carried her to said Motel. Though Manny had to wake Sunset up for a bit, so they could use their 'Sunset is a little adult' story to get past the front desk, and get a room to sleep in.

Present

"Well…got any ideas for today?" Sunset asked simply.

"Find a way to make money." Manny answered with a shrug. Sunset raised a brow.

"Really? I would think that you'd want to try learning magic again." She says.

"We need money to pay for things like rent, food, water, and a bunch of other things. You only have 3 'bits' left, that's not going to last long, especially for two people. We also have another problem, we don't exist as far as this world is concerned, we're essentially illegal immigrants in this country. So getting a good job isn't gonna be easy, not to mention out of the two of us, I'm the oldest, and I'm only 13. I might be forgetting about a lot of things, but those are the biggest problems I can see at the moment." Manny points out.

"Well…maybe not." Sunset says optimistically. Seeing Manny's confused look, Sunset explained. "If I remember right, some old dude who's name you can't seem to say, sent you here from across the void." She began.

She is quite a rude child, but that is accurate enough I suppose.

Manny jumped at that, before turning to the source of the familiar voice, much to Sunset's confusion and the scientist's surprise.

"☝︎♋︎⬧︎⧫︎♏︎❒︎!?" Manny asked in shock.

You can see and hear me!?

"Uh Manny? I didn't catch what you said, it sounded too jumbled and warped. What's wrong?" Sunset asked.

"Nothing, I'm just seeing, and apparently talking to, the guy who sent me here. Though he looks different then I remember." Manny replied, before bringing his attention back onto the Monster in question. Gaster now looked like his regular self, from his skeleton body to his black shirt, gray pants, black shoes and white lab coat. Though oddly enough his right eye remained halfway closed, still showing the white dot acting as one of his pupils, while his left eye seemed perfectly fine.

It seems that whenever you say my name, it becomes a warped and jumbled version of my dialect, fascinating. Just refer to me as 'Doctor' or Just 'Doc' for now, for Ms. Shimmer's sake.

"Alright, Sunset? He said to call him Doctor or Doc." Manny repeated.

"Ok?" She questioned, giving Manny a confused look. She shook her head and continued her train of thought. "So this 'Doc' guy sent you across the void, so wherever you came from, must've been pretty far from this world. Am I right?" Manny looked at Gaster for confirmation, seeing him nod, Manny nods as well. "Well my world is connected to this one via mirror, so the two are close enough for that to be possible. So it's possible that this world has some things in common. In Equestria, it's not that hard to get a job as low tier as say, house cleaning or helping out on a farm."

I've seen how farm work is done in Equestria, trust me, she shouldn't go anywhere near a farm in this world at such a young age. She'll be scarred for life, I'll just say that cows and such are sentient and talking beings in her world, and leave it at that.

Manny just nods, acting as if he was agreeing with Sunset, when in reality he was agreeing with Gaster.

"Alright, but first things first, we should learn about this world some more. Any suggestions anyone? At the moment, I don't think any suggestion would be a bad one." Manny says with a frown. Sunset shakes her head while Gaster chuckles.

I have a few suggestions, but I'll have to have your full cooperation for them to work. Don't worry, I'm quite familiar with working through someone else to get something done, but you'll have to do and say exactly what I tell you to.

Manny raised a brow, but decided that a former Royal head scientist could handle this better then he or a little girl could. Filling Sunset in on what Gaster had said, she fully agreed, surprising both Manny and Gaster. Though both suspected that it probably had more to do with the Royal part of his title, then actual trust in Gaster, along with her not being able to think of anything else.

Author's Note

Things like time travel and teleportation (which if I have my facts right, is similar to time travel. But instead of going from one point in time to another, you're going from one point of space to another in much less time then normal) , while seemingly impossible to the average person in this world, it’s entirely possible in mlp if Sweetie Belle teleporting is anything to go by. That’s like us explaining to them how non-magical electricity works. A simple concept for us, unthinkable to them.

Also whenever Gaster talks, I'm sure you noticed the lack of these marks: ( " ), that's intentional. Gaster is still in the void, not physically there. There's a reason that he's able to be with Manny, but that'll be explained later.

First objective

Cold Traffic's POV - memory

As I make my way down the still unfamiliar hallway for the 8th time, or whatever it was, I shudder as my reluctant destination gets closer. Why her? Why out of everyone in this entire company, did I have to visit her?
For some reason, me and five others have to spend time with some crack pot with a superiority complex and anger issues. Once I reach the right door, I absentmindedly open it and walked in.

I walk for a bit before a hand stops me. Looking up to its owner, I’m face to face with the woman in question. She had long black hair in a ponytail and her eyes were red with slit pupils (her eyes seemed to glow a bit). Her skin was pale, almost the actual color white. She was a pretty tall woman, reaching 6,4. I’ve heard rumors that she had an unnatural growth spurt after taking part in an…unethical program a while back, though no one I’ve asked knows what the program was or how long ago it was. She was also wearing a simplistic outfit, she had on black pants, a white shirt, a red overcoat and black combat boots. There was a set uniform your supposed to wear, so she normally tries to go as simple as the dress code allowed. She probably had another outfit on coming here, but was told to change it a little, things like this were pretty common among the higher classes.

"…And that's why all the E-Class men are going to have their 'jewels' removed today." I heard her say suddenly, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"WHAT!?!" I scream in shock, she deadpans.

"Just testing to see if you were paying attention, which you apparently weren't." She says with a frown. I gain an agitated look. 'Well at least I won't have to worry about you multiplying, I doubt anyone would want to be with someone like you.' I think angrily, it wasn't a secret that no one has tried to hook-up with her, despite being one of the best looking women in the company, everyone either is afraid of her, hates her or both.

"Sorry, what were you saying before?" I say with a frown.

"I was saying that your early, you have about 30 minutes before we actually had to deal with each other." She answered, folding her arms.

"I know, there's something I needed to tell yo…" I say.

The memory fades away

???'s POV - Unknown Location

I wake up after an unknown amount of time passed feeling much better than I did before, I'm able to move my body more fluidly. Before I get out of bed, I can't help but think about what I just saw.

'So Traffic had to meet with someone widely disliked on a frequent basis? Why? And who else was going to be there? I wish it hadn't cut out right before he could finish his thoughts.' I groaned before getting up. I look towards the man in question, only to find him missing. 'Huh, I'm not sure why, but for some reason I thought that he was dead.' I think in confusion. "At least I'm not a killer, not sure why I thought eating that weird heart would kill him though."

Shaking my head, I walk towards the drawer that guy pointed out. Opening it, I see a tablet much thinner than seems normal, and a piece of paper. Shrugging, I decided to read it.

Hello, glad you could get past the first part of the first hurdle! I won’t bore you with things like who I am and what not. But if you’re actually curious, play my game and you’ll find out at the end. With that out of the way, let me tell you about the game, you know, assuming you actually want to find out what happened to you. Now the game is simple really. Find all seven people relevant to the game, take their glowing ‘hearts’, and find me. You’ll of course, have to get past the guards and whatever else would hinder you (that includes this building as well), of course you’ll have to figure out how to leave each area as well. But since this is your first time, I've included a tablet with information on this building to help you escape from here. In the tablet is information on your seven targets (well six, but I threw in stuff on Traffic as well, in case you’re curious), there’s also something for you as well, though I only put what I felt you needed to know. Though like I said before, you’re more than welcome to not play my game.

Your choices are: 1: Play along, and learn the truth if you win, 2: Don’t play, and just skip to trying to find me (though even if you somehow managed that, I doubt you’ll like the end result), or 3: Don’t play the game, and spend the rest of your life wondering “Who am I? What did those people do to me?” and so forth. The choice is yours, choose wisely.

That’s all that’s written. I just sigh, whoever this is, has me right where they want me. Seeing no other favorable options, I decided to play this ‘game’. Taking out the tablet, I noticed a sticky note on the back. It has an arrow pointing towards a button on the top. Pressing the button, the screen comes to life. First I noticed some black boxes in the blue background with bold black writing. There are a lot of greyed out boxes that are missing words as well. One of the black boxes has:

[Soul Research Facility: Perseverance]

The other box has:

[M.D.S.]

Curious, I click on it M.D.S. The screen changes to pure white for a few seconds, then it shows what looks like a profile page, mine in fact. I get excited for a moment, before my excitement is crushed as I noticed a lot of the stuff about me is replaced with [MOMENTARILY REDACTED]. Somberly, I check out what isn't redacted.

Name: [MOMENTARILY REDACTED]

Sex: F

Weight: N/A - Subject seems to have wavering weight statistics, seems to rapidly gain and lose weight based on the current situation.

The subject's physical appearance seems to change whenever the subject goes into M.D.S mode. The subject's hair turns pure white, and the subject's eyes change as well. The subject's sclera turns pitch black, and the irises turns pure glowing white. The subject's skin also seems to turn pure white as well, though this seems to be a defense mechanism as it automatically turns pure white in moments of great stress or fear. It seems to cause more changes, but we are unable to pinpoint what all happens as all scanning equipment fails at this state. (Further analysis is required once the proper tools are manufactured in the earliest possible time available. Until this option is available, do not attempt to research this phenomenon unless given clearance from a SO-Class or the CEO, failure to follow this command will result in severe consequences).

Current abilities (Note: This section can and will change as time goes on, depending on the targets and subject's actions):

Soul Chains: These 6 white chains are used for defensive, offensive and mobility purposes (it should be noted that other uses can become known through trial and error). Their main function is to wrap around the intended target, and absorb the target's body energy (it should be noted that body energy and soul energy are separate power sources). Their maximum speed, durability, strength and length limit is unknown at present.

DT extraction/absorption: All SOULs contain a power source called Determination, the subject is able to safely extract this substance without killing or harming the target. The subject can gain the abilities of the trait(s) that are absorbed, but this ability is limited, the more it uses that specific trait, the more that specific type of Determination is used and drained.

SOUL absorption: Like the Monsters from long ago, the subject is able to absorb human SOULs, but the subject seems to not be interested in any SOUL provided. It seems to enjoy the act of hunting the SOULs, but not actually consuming them. This is regrettable as consuming a SOUL would allow it to self regenerate trait sources, allowing it to conserve SOUL energy.

Situational sight: The subject seems to be capable of altering it's sight, changing it from regular, to superior night vision (no green tint that normal night vision causes), the ability to detect other life forms through matter, and the ability to see the SOULs of others. (Further research is necessary as the chances for more features is possible).

Perseverance abilities:

Level 1:

A low level ability given from this trait is canceling the users ability to feel physical pain, along with minor emotional pain from loss. Alternatively the user can forgo the immunity of pain and either take someone else’s pain, or make someone else feel the user’s pain. Note: Canceling pain does drain a lot of DT, and minor levels will only either make other’s pain slightly lessen, or simply cause phantom pains (I.E cause no physical damage.

That’s all that’s readable, everything else is redacted for some reason, they couldn’t even tell me my name! And why do they keep referring to me as an "it"? It should be obvious what I am! Closing that page, I noticed a box for Traffic. I decided not to bother looking at his profile, I mean, I'm gonna see his memories anyway. Clicking on Soul Research Facility: Perseverance, the screen turns white again for a few moments before changing into what looks like a map. Based on this map, I'm in a medical wing, on the top floor of a 5 story building. The outside of the building is dark blue while the inside of it is light blue, the different rooms are separated by white outlines. And apparently, I'm the little red triangle with a black outline.

"Well…not like I have many options,…no time like the present." I say, trying to ready myself. Without any alternative, I exited the room, hoping this won't be the last decision I'll ever make.

First objective: Escape Soul Research Facility: Perseverance, alive!

Author's Note

Yes, ??? is a female, anymore guesses as to who she is? And as for the SOUL absorption being covered with the spoiler lines. I felt with how obvious that part was, that there wasn't a reason to redact it, but at the same time, ??? wouldn't handle being a killer that well, so those spoiler lines are used to simulate the redacted text for the actual character. And sorry about the info dump, but it's necessary for ??? to gain a bit of information about herself before leaving the room.

End of prologue

Equestria - Canterlot Castle Throne Room - an hour after Sunset went into the mirror

Celestia’s POV

“WHAT!?!” Screamed a very distressed and angry mother, Sunset's adoptive mother to be exact. Her name was Mural Dreamer, though most ponies just call her Dream. She had a brown mane and tail, her coat was peach and her eyes purple, she also had a cutie mark of a question mark due to her inquisitive nature. She was wearing a heart-shaped locket necklace, I had found out that a picture of Sunset, Dream and her…marefriend(?)…bodyguard(?)……somepony who's always following her around, she was in there too all the same. Speaking of the mare, she was quite a shy one when not around Dream. She had a black mane with two braids on both of the sides of her head and a white coat, always wore glasses with the lenses colored purple (oddly enough, purple was Dream's favorite color), and her cutie mark was a black belt (so her being a bodyguard isn't unreasonable to think). Though for some reason they never told me her name. Sunset always either called her 'aunt', 'other mom' or 'Ms.', never her actual name. Dream always called her 'dear', 'sweetheart' (which was pretty common for her to call somepony that) or Rose (apparently she only actually likes being called 'Rose' by Dream, but won't mind if somepony close to Dream calls her that). Speaking of Rose, I don’t see her anywhere.

“Ahem!” Dream said in agitation, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Oh! Sorry! I was in deep thought.” I say, a little embarrassed.

“About my little Sunny’s whereabouts I hope.” She grumbled.

“I was wondering where Rose was.” I say. Seeing her anger flare, I quickly say: “I mean it would be bad if we have two missing ponies on our hooves. Plus I don’t think Rose has the social skills necessary to go about on her own.”

“Hmph, I’ll have you know that my Rose can surpass all expectations when she puts her mind to it, I assure you that she won’t have an issue getting things done!” She stated firmly. ‘…Maybe Dream is Rose’s mother?…No, I already checked every orphanage and hospital in Equestria to see if that was the case, none of them had any records of somepony with Rose’s description.’

“Yes, you’re quite right, I apologize if I came off as if I was belittling her.” I finally said, hoping to calm her down, it thankfully seemed to work.

“Apology accepted, I’m sorry if I was out of place, your majesty.” She returned the apology with a bow and frown, I waved a hoof.

“It quite alright, I did just tell you your daughter was missing. Also there’s no need with the formalities while it’s just us, calling me ‘Celestia’ is fine, as I’ve said before.” I assure her, she smiles at that before standing up.

"Well to answer your question, she's doing a little research on something Sunset mentioned off hoofedly, something about Monsters. Now about my daughter, what could have possibly been the reason for her disappearance? Well, you will be quite happy to hear that I've thought up two very sound theories." She said with a confident smile.

"Oh? Do tell." I urged her, she lost her smile and gained a frown.

"She was either foulnapped by one or more of the nobles, or they hired somepony to do it!" She stated with a growl. My heart dropped at that, she's made it very clear how jealous she felt the nobles were at Sunset. Granted they actually were pretty jealous, but none of them are stupid enough to do something like this, not after I had bluffed that I would send anypony who did something like this to Mt. Ebott. I hated lying to them, but after the multiple attempts at foulnapping my protégés in the past, I had to put my hoof down.

"What could possibly make you think that? And I require tangible proof of their involvement, or the name or names of those who could provide me with said proof, and no your gut feeling doesn't count as proof." I told her, already knowing that she'd try that. She sighed.

"The proof will be in the pudding." She said, as if I didn't just say that gut feelings don't count as valid proof.

"what did I just say!?" I asked in exasperation. "We've had this type of conversation many times before, you can't use belief to justify breaching into other ponies' privacy in order to get them in trouble!" As sad as it is to admit, I've had this very same conversation with the very nobles she's accusing, word for word. 'Ugh, the moment I've raised a proper pupil that takes my lessons to heart, I'm giving him or her the throne so I can finally retire!' I mentally groaned to myself, feeling a headache starting to form, and reminding myself that I needed to find a new pupil.

"You're right…I guess…." She finally conceded, for now at least. "But I will find out what happened to her, even if I have to search all of Equestria or beyond this country!" She says with a smile. The concerning part about that is, I know her well enough that I knew she could and will actually pull that off.

"I'm sure you will, I'll let you know if I find anything." I say with a smile, hiding my guilt. 'I wish I could actually inform you about the mirror, but I know very well what you'd do if I told you.'

"Thank you…Celesta, thank you for being up front with me about this. Other rulers would just cover this up and leave the parent or parents in the dark, I'm glad you're not like those heartless creatures. I'll take my leave now, I have a lot of ground to cover, I'm not gonna lose another loved one if I can help it." She says before leaving me to my thoughts.

'……I'm sorry…I can't let you throw yourself in danger for somepony who might already be long gone, especially if Discord's journal was right about those bloodthirsty creatures in that world. It's better to let trained professionals handle something like this, I hope they find something on her whereabouts soon.' I think to myself.

Human world - abandoned building - right after Dream left Celesta

Cold Traffic’s POV

"Alright everypony, remember are mission: find and retrieve the brat, then wipe her memories of the mirror and this world. Has anypony found any leads?" I asked my squad. One of them nods his head, he was normally in the regular guard as a cover in order to see if there was any potential traitors, but every now and then he'd join in on search and rescue operations.

"Yes, but not much. We found residue of minor communication magic in a school library, nothing bigger then something a child would play with. We also found some strands of red and yellow hair next to drops of dust. Though what at the time seemed strange, now makes sense, the dust had magic residue on it. We managed to contain some of the communication magic residue in a gem before it completely faded, and what we found on it is rather worrying." He said before activating the gem and playing the recording.

"Anyway, to answer your questions. My name is Manny, though I doubt you'll believe what I am, it's pretty out there." A young male voice, now identified as 'Manny', apparently answered.

"Try me." I hear Sunset say.

"I'm a Monster, a creature made mostly out of magic and some mass." Manny answers before sighing for some reason.

"…What were the names of the King and Queen of Monsters?" Sunset suddenly asked.

"…Asgore and Toriel Dreemurr?" Manny responds.

"…Well you got the Dreemurr part right, and it doesn't say that name in any of the books I've read here. Alright, we can talk face to face. Don't do anything stupid alright? I'll buck you into next week if you do!" She threatened with a growl.

The recording stops, unfortunately my agitation doesn't. Out of every creature she could have came into contact with, of course it had to be a MONSTER! I better get a raise for this, Celesta (literally) knows what those freaks can do.

"Unfortunately that's all we could salvage, like I said, it's not much." The stallion says somberly.

"It's enough, I've tracked targets on much less then this. Alright, the mission has changed a bit: Find the Monster, restrain him, then we get the brat and finish the job. Any questions?" I looked to them for any questions they might have, one of them raised a…hand, much to my annoyance. "What?"

"What do we do about the Monster? If we pick a fight with him, he's most likely to follow us and find out the location of the portal, if he doesn't already know about it. We can't risk him following us back to Equestria." He points out the admittedly rational concern. 'I hadn't even considered that possibility.' I think in minor shock, but hid it well.

"I'm glad I'm not the only one who considered that possibility." I flat out lied. "We can't exactly take him with us, we aren't prepared for transporting something like him at the moment, so the answer is simple."

"What is it?" The same guy from before asked.

"We kill him." I answered with a grin.

Author's Note

Yes, Cold Traffic had already been killed off, but that was only the one from the human world, not the one from the pony world. So from now on, to ovoid any confusion:

The human world version will be called Traffic.
The pony world version will be called Cold.

And I need to make two things clear. One: I've changed Cold Traffic's name color in the previous chapters, to make it easier. Two: Human Cold Traffic and pony Cold Traffic are two different creatures, they won't be the exact same copy and paste character, you'll see what I mean later in the story (if you didn't already catch it).

First meeting

Gaster’s POV

I, along with Sunset and Manny, left our shared room at my request. As we reached the lobby, I noticed a rather well built human, though his magic gave off a signature similar to Sunset's. Noticing us (or rather, Manny and Sunset), he started walking towards us. Having a bad feeling about him, I decided to check his L.V.

34 LV
0 XP

‘So he’s never killed anyone, yet has more L.O.V.E then Frisk when they did a genocide run (or at least attempted to, thanks to Undyne, most of the Monsters had been able to safely evacuate before Frisk could kill them).

Be careful, his L.V is 34, but thankfully it wasn’t achieved through killing.

Manny grunts in confirmation, but thankfully has enough mind to not let what I had said effect his expression. The man was (if I had to guess) around 5,6, maybe 5,5. Like I mentioned before, he was well built, but he was also lean enough to where his muscles wouldn’t decrease his mobility. His skin was blue while his short straight hair was purple (though if his black eyebrows were any indication, that wasn’t his natural hair color). His eyes were a cold blue, and he had a bit of peach fuzz on his face (I have great eye sight). Next was his…outfit. He was wearing an ‘inconspicuous’ black trench coat, blue pants and black boots. I had no words, and given the minute changes in Manny’s expression, he had a similar opinion. Sunset (who was bragging to Manny about her intelligence last night) unfortunately couldn’t quite piece it together, so she went to greet him.

“Hi, nice to meet you, can I help you?” She said, at least trying to pull back on her attitude, for now at least.

"You most certainly can, young lady. Tell me, your name is Sunset, correct?" He asked calmly, but his undertone sounds like something Sans would feel like deserves a bad time, though I might be bias considering his L.V. Sunset 'shockingly' gained a cautious look.

"No…and I'm not sure who that is." She lied. Not surprising, after all, she's not from this world, so no one should know her name other then me and Manny (when getting the room for us, she used the name 'Abbey Osric' as an alias. Manny was very adamant about her adding Osric as her last name, in case something happened). "Why do you ask?" She asked in fake concern. His eyes drifted towards the face of the lady at the front desk who was well within hearing distance. The lady just raised a brow at him, before awkwardly waving at him. With a chuckle, he waved back before bringing his attention to Manny.

"Well that can't be helped I suppose. Hey kid, those are some nice horns you got there. You trying to start a trend or something." He asked Manny.

I don't like this, he knows more than he's letting on. End this conversation before one of you accidentally slips up.

"Yeah-" He started. I knew that was directed at me. "-I think they’re nice too. But I'm not trying to start a trend, I just like wearing them." Manny finished. The man nods in acknowledgment.

"Mind if I see them for a sec?" The man asked, causing Manny to stiffen."I'm just curious about their quality, I'll give 'em right back, promise."

"Uh sir? I don't think that should happen. My son is quite fond of those horns, and I'd hate to see him upset about handing them over." Sunset suddenly said, acting the part of Manny's mother. The man's eyes widened a little before returning to normal.

"Sorry Ms. Did you say 'son'? I didn't realize you were a mother, my apologies." He says after he sneaked a glance at the lady at the front desk.

"It's quite alright, now about this, Sunset was it?" She asked, seeing him nod, she continued. "It'd help if we had things to go on, could you tell us about her?"

"Oh I can tell you a bunch about her, but I'll start with three things. One: She has a strong desire to prove to all, that she's the best of the best. Two: She has a nervous tick where whenever she's nervous, she'll bite her lower lip. Three:" He said before leaning closer towards her, causing her to bite her lower lip. "She bears a striking resemblance to you. Does that help any?"

"Sir, I'm gonna have to ask you to back up from her." We heard someone say. Looking in the direction we heard that voice, we see a group of cops next to the lady at the desk, she was now sporting a concerned look. Doing as he was told, he gave the officers a questioning look.

"Sorry about that, I'm just very interested in finding a certain child." He says to them, they narrow their eyes for a moment before returning to a neutral look.

"Then file a report on this missing child, we'll inform you if we find anything." A red one with orange eyes and hair says calmly.

"Pray tell, why are so many officers in a place like this?" The man asked.

"Not that a civilian needs to know, but there was a report of a break in at a school. And while some of the footage was corrupted, the cameras showed a group of people doing unknown activities way past after hours. The security staff of that school informed us that those people didn't work at the school, and after some investigating, we were able to gain some descriptions on the intruders. As I was saying, why don't you come with us so we can properly 'file a lost child report'?" A purple one with green eyes and brown hair 'suggests'.

"Of course, the sooner we 'file a report', the sooner that kid can be found." He says with a smile, before giving Sunset and Manny one last look. "I'll see you two around." This caused Sunset to shiver, and Manny to stand protectively in front of her. Chuckling to himself, he walked out the door with the cops.

“Creep.” All three of us said in unison, not that Sunset could actually hear me.

“Excuse me, I hope that man didn’t try anything.” She said in sympathy.

He did, but not in the way you’re thinking, human

“It’s fine Ms., he didn’t do anything other then act like a creep.” She huffed.

“Well if he comes by here again, we’ll keep an eye on what he does.” She assured Sunset.

“Thank you.” Sunset said, before turning to Manny. “Come on, we got a lot to do today.” She says with a smile before walking towards the door.

“Yes mom!” Manny said with a smile on his face, causing a smile to break out on Sunset’s and (oddly enough) my face as well. We then followed her out the door.

Cold's POV

After walking a decent distance away, I stop, causing the others to stop as well before turning to me.

"Are you sure this was a good idea sir?" One of the 'cops' asked me. "Not to tell a professional how to do his job, but I don't see the pros in meeting her face to face."

"Don't worry, I take no offense to that." I say before giving them a proper explanation. "You see, in this line of work, it's best to think of the long run. First we assess the situation, then we gather information about the target or targets, then we move to capture, but not before we've secured an exit plan (the more, the better). So far, we've gathered a lot of information. For starters, we now know the Monster's name is Manny Osric. We also know that he's gained enough influence on Sunset, that she's willing to play along with his cover story (the fact that the lady at the desk didn't react when Sunset said her name wasn't Sunset, and that she was Manny's mom, definitely proves that). And most importantly, we can now use this." I say, before showing them one of my favorite tools.

"A black box with a speaker and some glass on it?" One of them asked, I chuckle.

"First of all, the glass is something called a screen. Second of all, watch what happens when I click this button." I say before clicking a button on the side. Suddenly a map of the area appeared on screen, a moving red dot and a stationary white dot appeared on it as well.

"That red dot is the tracking device I placed on Sunset, I put it on her when I leaned over her, both her and Manny were too distracted looking at you lot to notice. The white dot is connected to the tracking device still at the Motel, that'll be taken care of later. I'll let you see what another button on here does." I say before clicking my favorite button on this device, then clicking the red dot.

*Can't believe that actually worked.* Manny's was heard saying with a sigh.

*Yeah, part of me feels like it worked out too well.* Sunset was heard saying.

*[A weird otherworldly garbled sound was suddenly heard]*

*Right, I'll tell her.* Manny said, as if responding to someone.

*Tell me what?* Sunset asked.

*We have to do some boring-* He started to say before he was seemingly interrupted.

*[A weird otherworldly garbled sound was suddenly heard]*

*-completely important tasks like visiting the local library.* Manny said, as if he was just corrected by someone.

*Sweet!* Sunset says with enthusiasm. I decided to stop listening.

"I'm not sure what those sounds were, but it's probably just a connection issue, not important. What is important, is the fact that we can now monitor them, on the off chance that we aren't properly prepared for something they have." I say with a smile.

"Ok…but why'd you have to meet face to face like that?" He repeated. 'Huh…yeah now that I think about it, that doesn't really answer his question.'

"Right, sorry. I needed to meet her face to face so to instill unease into her and Manny, they'll be more likely to slip up. Plus they'll be more inclined to discuss any future plans, and who they can ask for help. It's better to learn about all of their resources before going in for the capture. Besides, it's not like they saw my actual face, speaking of which…." As I finish saying that, I take out a wet wipe and remove the blue makeup, showing my natural yellow skin. Then I take out the blue contacts, revealing my yellow eyes. 'Thankfully this mane-er-hair dye isn't permanent, gonna have to wash it out in a sink later.'

We then just spend the remainder of the day just observing them, but for some reason, something was telling me that this won't be as easy as my previous jobs. 'Those types of gut feelings only happen before something bad happens, best to keep my eyes open for anything out of the ordinary.' I think with a frown.

Author's Note

First of all, yes, *[A weird otherworldly garbled sound was suddenly heard]* is Gaster talking.

Two: Slow and steady wins the race, Cold isn't an agent for nothing.

Three: The place there staying at is actually a cheep hotel, someone just messed up the sign as a prank.

Four: I forgot to mention it in the last chapter, but Dream is a Unicorn.

This shouldn't be a surprise, it's not like they're from that world

Unknown location

2nd POV

We find ourselves in a fairly large room. The floor is covered in black marble tiles, and the walls are painted snow white. There's a white medium sized rug in the center of the room, a coffee table is at the center of said rug. There are white couches reasonably close to the coffee table, one on each side of the door that led in and out of the room. And opposite of the door, at the other side of the room, we find three individuals. Two were standing while one sat behind his mahogany desk.

One was an unusual man. He was strangely tall fellow, reaching 6,7 ft. He had on a brown jacket, with a patch of grayish blue on the right back side of his jacket, and a bright blue patch on the left back side of his jacket. He also had mixed match gloves on, one was yellow, the other, light brown. His pants was the same color as his jacket, they were held up by a magenta colored belt that had a purplish pink belt buckle. His shoes were mixed matched as well. One was a lighter shade of brown then his jacket and pants, but not as bright as the light brown of his glove, which was on his opposite side. The other was light green, this one was on the same side as the brown glove. He had gray skin, black hair, and white eyebrows which matched his white goat like beard. His eyes had yellow where there should have been white, and both his irises and pupils were the same shade of crimson red. Though one of his irises pupils were bigger in one eye then the other, but both had the same level of mischief in them. The next one was more normal then the first, but was more intimidating, but had regal air about him. He had dark gray skin, black hair (though it could be mistaken as being made of smoke), and red slited eyes. He was wearing a silver business suit with a red tie. His shoes were silver as well. Unfortunately the last one seemed to be in an unnatural dark space, preventing anyone from seeing who he was.

"Discord, Sombra, I hope things are going well on your end." The man said.

"They are, though breaking the mindset the new recruits have for dark magic is proving to be tougher then last year." Sombra answered with a huff.

"Good so far, though I wish I didn't have to explain why having fun is important when learning chaos magic. It would make things go by so much quicker if people would just loosen up, like my star pupil, you'd think that someone with her upbringing would be the worst in my classes. I can't wait to see what she'll accomplish." Discord said with a grin. Sombra gained a curious look.

"Where's Celestia?" Sombra asked. "She's never willingly missed the opportunity to express her happiness for her harmony classes."

"She went to the same school she went to when she was little, she wanted to shape the minds of children to fit a better mindset concerning magic, subtly of course. I believe Luna and Eris had the same idea." The man said, looking at the too. Seeing them nod, he continued. "Normally I wouldn't have allowed that at all, but we received information about an anomaly in that area. So as long as they send me updates about the anomaly, I don't see an issue in entertaining their little project. As long as they steer clear of any operations I might have for that area." He finished with a sigh, he then brought out a white laptop and opened it. He was greeted by the live security footage options of his latest project labeled [M.D.S]. Clicking on the one labeled [Soul Research Facility: Perseverance], he sat back and watched.

"Oh! Is that your 'magnum opus' you and Rosary were talking about?" Discord asked the man in curiosity. The man glared at him.

"How do you know about that?" The man coldly asked, Discord just deadpans at him.

"I was the one who brought her to you, and kept her from leaving!" Discord exclaimed before turning his head and folding his arms in a mock unset tone. "Honestly you'd think that would warrant some recognition, she nearly took my head off 10 times before you managed to convince her to stop and listen."

"…Right…right, sorry." The man apologized and rubs his head in regret. "With everything that's been happening at work, my daughter and most stressfully, my wife. Well, let's just say some things slip through the cracks every now and then. It wasn't my intention to downplay your contribution to this operation."

"Water under the bridge!" Discord waved it off with a smile. "How's the little fire starter anyway?"

"She's doing fine, it's almost time for school to start up, so I'll have to finish her enrollment. There's just one problem, the school I planned to send her was the same as the one the anomaly came from. And knowing her, she might end up burning the school down in order to catch the anomaly. I love her to death and back, but situations like this are when I wish she wasn't such an overachiever, would make this so much less stressful then it currently is. And I can't just send her to another school without raising suspicion from…a big thorn in my side." The man groaned. Before anyone could say anything else, the man's phone started to ring.

"Hello?" He asked.

"Hello, it Sure Service, from the 'Hotel'. I just called to inform you of something concerning your daughter. Last night she came here with some kid wearing goat horns on his head." She said, causing the man to raise an eyebrow.

"Odd…could you tell me anything else?" He asked in mild curiosity.

"She called herself Abbey Osric, and impersonated as the boy's mother. Apparently the boy's name is Manny Osric." She explained further.

"That's a pretty common tactic for someone her age, in my business I mean. Impersonate an adult with her extremely advanced vocab, find out what you need, and secure a place to stay for the time being." He says with a shrug.

"I'm aware, I just wanted to inform you in case something happens." She says with a nervous tone, causing him to raise a brow.

"Is there something wrong?" He asked. "You know how much I hate 'beating around the bush'." He added.

"OH! Sorry, that wasn't my intention." She apologized with a bashful tone, causing him to silently chuckle. "A suspicious person had been waiting in the lobby for her and Manny. Apparently, he had been stalking her. He knew what she looked like, he knew about her nervous tick, he knew about her wanting to prove to everyone that she was the best. Before I could call one of the local 'cleaners', some cops made themselves known. But something was off about them, every cop in this area knows how things work in this area, yet they went and took him to the station without first reporting it to the manager of this area. I think we have a security breach." She finished with a sigh, the man shakes his head.

"No…if that were the case, then they'd know they'd have to call it in, even the police stations we don't control has that as a basic rule, just through a more legal network. Whoever they were, they don't know much about how things work here, and this rule is something the average citizen should be aware of." He said with a frown. "Thank you for telling me this, but there's one big issue."

"What's that?" Sure asked before she heard a door opening on the man's side of the call.

"Hey dad-." A familiar voice said, causing Sure's eyes to go wide. The hotel and the man's office were at least a three hour drive, and the one they were talking about just left two minutes ago. "You said you'd help me summon and make a pact with a familiar today." Sunset finished as she walked in. She was wearing a purple shirt with a red and yellow sun on it, a black skirt, and purple flip flops.

"Ah Sunset! Come over here, I just heard the most interesting news." The man said with a smile. Sunset gave him a curious look, before walking to one of the couches, and sat down.

"Hey Mr. Discord, and Mr. Sombra, hope you're doing well." She greeted with a smile.

"I'm doing well, thank you, especially when talking to one of my best students." Sombra said with a genuine smile.

"Hey fire starter, I'm fine, thanks for asking. I hope you've been causing a good amount of chaos in your free time." Discord said with a smile, causing Sunset to laugh and the man to groan in agitation.

"I think that answers your question." Sunset says, causing Discord to nod in agreement and approval. "So…what'd you wanna talk to me about?" She asked her father.

"Sure, I'm putting you on speaker, tell Sunset what you told me. And remember, no beating around the bush." The man said. The next few moments would prove to be very interesting for the little girl. The man chose to tune them out and focus on the test subject on the computer.

Author's Note

Not a lot of stories on this site touch on what the human Sunset was doing and where she was. Though I wouldn't be surprised if some of you saw this coming. And yes I remember that all the Chimeras are supposed to be banished from that world, that will be touched on later in the story.

A warning from an unlikely source, and planning for the future

Soul Research Facility: Perseverance

???'s POV

Walking into a hallway, I shiver a bit, as if I'm being watched. Shaking it off, I look around. There’s nothing of real note, save for the water dispenser, I only walk 10 steps away from it when the tablet rings. Looking at it, I see a new message.

I wouldn’t be so quick to disregard that water dispenser. Why don’t you get a drink, I’m sure you’ll find it well worth it.

Shrugging, I decided to humor whoever sent the message. Taking one of the paper cups, I fill it up with water. I take a sip aND OH MY GOD I’M SO THIRSTY! I somehow re-summon those chains, it takes them a fraction of a second to completely wrap around the water dispenser. Flipping it upside down, I take of the unnecessary part and fling it to the side, then plunged my head into the water (the chains catching and absorbing the splashes of water that got flung out). I’m not sure how I didn’t notice, but I’m incredibly dehydrated, as if I hadn’t had anything to drink in a while. I guess purple smoke and a weird glowing heart doesn’t count, go figure. After drinking a good amount, I stopped to catch my breath. Unfortunately there's one problem, I don't know when I'll have access to fresh water again, so I really didn't want to leave this behind. But….

"It's not like I can take this with me…." I say, surprised at how hoarse my voice sounds. Hearing a beep, I look at the source, the tablet I was carrying.

Yeah that probably would help. Give me a moment, though you might wanna put the tablet down and step back.

I give a confused look before shrugging, I already humored whoever this was once, a second time couldn't hurt. After walking a bit away from the water dispenser top, I set the tablet down, and take three big steps back towards the water dispenser top. A few moments later, a big bright circle appeared around the tablet. The circle was yellow, and in the circle were eight yellow arrows coming from a dot dot in the center, all of them pointed in opposite directions. There was also weird yellow writing, I couldn't actually read it, but something told me it had something to do with…transmutation? Not sure where that came from, never even heard of that word, but all of this looks strangely familiar. After a few seconds, the tablet shifted into some kinda…wrist watch? The bright circle, writing and arrows vanished after that.

Before I could take a step closer, another bright circle appeared, this one was similar to the first, except all the eight arrows pointed towards the dot in the center. Also the color of everything was white and the writing looked different, I could actually read it, strangely enough. It said: "Without Order, there can be no reason. All who exist in this world, have a part they must play for the stability of this world. By the power of Order, I grant this object the power of preservation, so that it too may play it's part". This power felt much more familiar then the previous. The wrist watch glowed for a moment before turning to normal, then the circle vanished, along with everything except for the watch. After waiting a few moments, I walk towards the watch. The watch was white, with a black faceplate. Just then, another chaotic feeling circle appeared. After a moment, a folded up piece of paper appeared, then the circle vanished. Picking up the paper, I read it's contents.

Don't say anything yet.

/these/ are the instructions for the watch. (These) are my message.

(I'm sorry, I can't say much). /There's a button on the side of the face plate/. (And I can't tell you who you are). /press it/.

I stop reading for a moment to press the button, seeing it light up, I continue reading.

(I can however tell you that you have limited time). /Click on any app/. (You're going to lose your free will after you eliminate the last target).

As scared as I am, my gut tells me that if I take too long, something bad will happen. Looking at the screen, I press the music app. Not even a second later, a hologram the size of the tablet appears. I continue reading.

/A hard light hologram will appear/. (I can't undo the mind control spell, the caster is too powerful, but I can point you in the right direction). /click something on the hologram/.

I click on a song titled "Duality", and continued reading as I listened to the song.

(There's a weak point somewhat near a school called "Canterlot High", go there without raising suspicion, and go through it. Then ask anyone who is willing to help, for help with the mind control). /Click on the faceplate to close the hologram/.

I click the faceplate, and sure enough, the hologram vanished.

(Make sure you do this before you beat all seven targets. Be careful who you trust, the man in charge has eyes and ears everywhere, even in the police. Now to avoid suspicion, I'll have to play a little prank on you, say "flower" in a questioning tone).

I raised a brow, but shrugged.

"Flower?" I asked simply, my voice sounding much better thanks to the water. The letter then turned into a goofy looking flower, I go to smell it, only to real back as I'm squirted in the face with water. After the flower is finished, it disappeared, and I’m left drenched.

*BZZZ-BZZZ*

With a small growl, I look down at the watch.

Sorry about that, my employee was very insistent on the watch, said it’d make things easier for everyone involved. He’s also prone to pranking people. Anyway, I’ve enchanted the watch with the ability to preserve anything that you put in both dimension box A and B. Just select the box you want, click either “store” or “take out”. If you click “store”, anything you’re touching with the hand that the watch is touching will be stored. Anything you select to take out will appear either in your hands, or right in front of you.

Doing as it says, I'm shocked as the top of the water dispenser turns into numbers, letters and pretty much anything you'd see on a keyboard. After it was all converted, it went into my new watch, and a quick check showed it was now in dimension box A. After taking a few moments to marvel at it, I open the map and continue. After some walking, I come across the door that leads out of this area. I tried to open it, but it was locked, though I couldn't see any keyhole.

'Of course, I shoulda known it wouldn't be that easy.' I think with a groan. Turning around, I look at the many doors in this hallway.

Unknown location

2nd POV

Sure had long since finished explaining the situation to Sunset, Sunset was surprised at what she had learned. Ordering Sure to keep him posted, and to act as if this conversation had never happened, the man addressed Discord on his decision.

"Didn't take you for someone who'd give instructions without being told too." The man stated in confusion, Discord scoffs.

"Well of course I gave her instructions, the longer she'd try to boringly figure out how to use that watch, the longer it'd take to get to the interesting parts." Discord said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Conceding to Discord's point, he turned to his daughter who was talking to Sombra.

"So Sunset." The man started, gaining her attention. "What do you think the best course of action is?" He questioned. She thinks for a bit before answering.

"Depends on what we learn about them. If they're useful, manipulate them into working with us long enough to fully gain any benefits they could offer. And if they're not, we can still use their bodies for any projects you might have. I heard you and Rosary were having a fight about some big project you were working on, maybe this 'Manny' would be useful for whatever it is. And my lookalike could act as a scapegoat for the future if I ever mess up too badly, or a second body if I really mess up." Sunset said with a thoughtful look. The man nods in approval.

"Great answer, you're becoming more and more like me with every passing day." The man praised with a proud smile, then smirked. "Now if you could just learn Order magic."

"Even if I do somehow manage that, I don't think it'll be like yours, your Order magic feels much different then any other Order mage." Sunset says with a shrug. The man's Order magic was one of the greatest wonders of the organization. Many employees could have sworn he was using Law magic (corrupted Order magic), but the symbol for that type of corruption magic was a closed lock with many chains going around and through it. The symbol that he always used was from normal Order magic, which was eight arrows pointing at a dot in the center. It was certainly possible to disguise the true symbol as something else, but that takes a lot of power and concentration, and he uses it pretty often.

"Regardless, I'm impressed. Now let's get you that familiar." The man said, taking out a summoning book. Sunset gives an excited squee (which always baffled the man, as he had no idea how people do that), and starts to look through the book with her father.

"Well I have something I need to take care of, ta-ta." Discord said before vanishing in a flash.

"As do I, call me if you need anything." Sombra says as he vanished in black smoke.

The father and daughter just shrug before going back to what they were doing.

Author's Note

Could you imagine having to babysit that little girl?

So…I guess this is happening now

Author's Note

The worst kind of opponents to fight, aren’t some kind of super soldiers. It’s the ones who base their actions on truth and facts, even if their actions don’t seem right.

So…I guess this is happening now

SRF:P

???’s POV

I had had a gut feeling that I wasn’t going to like this before, and that gut feeling was proven right. Not 2 seconds after I opened a random door, I heard a bang, and felt a spike of pain in my shoulder. Not 3 seconds after that, I heard another bang, this time whatever it was had missed. Fully opening the door, I saw a man in a SWAT suit. We just stared at each other in silence, taking each other’s presence in. Slowly putting my hands…claws, on each of my fingers and thumbs, there was a glowing white claw on the end. A quick check of my feet showed the same white claws, and a tail that looks like it’s from a wolf. Even with my amnesia, I could tell none of that was right. Wait, this isn’t important right now, back to the situation at…claw? Claw. I slowly raise my claws in a none threatening way, as none threatening as someone with claws could anyway.

“H-h-hey buddy~.“ I say as sweetly as I can with the pain in my shoulder. “W-why don’t you put that thing away? We could have a nice simple conversation without the hostility!” I added, not wanting to get hurt again. He just stared at me, dumbfounded.

“…This is a Ruger 10/22 rifle, how are you not screaming in pain?” She asked in shock, her voice giving her gender away, the one she was born with anyway.

“It’s pretty rude to want to cause someone else pain. I haven’t even done anything to you.” I huff, she just scoffed.

“Abominations like you are nothing but trouble. When God created us, he never intended for SOUL stealing creatures like YOU to walk this earth! All servants of the devil need to be purged from this world, and sent back to the hell from whence they came!” She yelled.

Unknown location

2nd POV

“Who is she?” Sunset asked, watching the live recording as employees went to gather the necessary items for familiar summoning. The man groaned while facedesking.

“Someone from that magic purging cult, I believe I’ve told you about them.” He said. Sunset gave a deep sigh.

“Yes, you have. While I can't remember their actual name, I do remember you saying that they had a deep hatred for magic, and those connected to magic. They are the cause of things like those Witch Hunts and Witch Trials." Sunset said.

"Correct, thankfully they're only big threats to people as powerful as me on their own turf, they're not much threat in my turf though. At least, as long as she remains asleep, that is…" He said, muttering the last sentence.

"Huh?" Sunset asked in confusion.

"It's nothing. Anyway, I was planning to send 4v3s to kill them anyway, might as well have her kill any cultist that she finds in the facilities she's gonna visit." He said, already typing a message.

"'4v3s'?" Sunset asked. The man just shrugs.

"Need to have SOMETHING to call her besides subject, at least until she remembers her name, or earns me telling her." He responded with a shrug.

SRF:P

4v3s POV

"SOUL stealing? Seriously!?" I asked. "That's a pretty big stretch, don't you think?"

"Don't try to trick me. You and every other magic user shouldn't be in this world." She stated.

"What's your problem with magic users?" I asked in shock. She stared at me for a moment, then slightly lowers the gun.

"Let's start from the beginning, the Tyrant and the mad Queen. Back when the Tyrant was simply a new king, he used his twisted magic to cause fear and hatred to spread through his own subjects, and caused friends and families to turn on each other. The Queen ignored her duties as ruler, and allowed him to run amok unchecked. And by the time she decided to step in, many men, women and children were killed in the king turned tyrant's rampage. The Queen then decided to do something immoral. Long before even their reign, there existed a race known as Monsters, but they died out due to unknown causes. The Queen decided to make replicas of that dead race. Do you understand? She made artificial SOULs and put them in magical golems, but stripped them of their free will. Sure they acted like they had individuality, but the Queen made sure they couldn't disobey their masters. And this plan, as horrible as it was, worked amazingly well. Then the tyrant decided to one-up her. He forced every human who sided with the Queen, into horrific forms, and intended to use them as slaves. Though something went wrong, apparently a highly respected Chimaera was the cause of that." She explained.

"…What happened after that?" I asked, a little unnerved.

"The creatures got their revenge on the tyrant, but some of them weren't satisfied. After all, they were now much more powerful then the humans, why should they act like they were on the same level as those weaker beings. And from that point, a new era began, an era the Humans now call, the dark ages. Sure some of those creatures helped the humans, but who can say if it was for a benevolent reason, seeing as how some of them actually were a means to an end. Some would use their help as an excuse to make some humans indebted to them, using them as livestock or something else just as depraved, even to this day." She answered. I didn't know how to respond to that for a few moments, then I spoke my mind.

"T-that's insane! What proof do you have to back all that up!?" I challenge her. She's quiet for a moment, then answered.

"I have proof, it's called a mirror." She said, simply. "Or were you just staring at your claws and tail in shock for no reason?" She asked. I didn't have an answer. "You have any memories before coming here?" She asked. I didn't have an answer for that either. "At any point since you've woken up, has your body done anything you didn't want it to do, without you telling it to?" She asked. Again, I had no answer. She let out a sigh. "How did your body look and feel when you woke up?"

"…I was incredibly weak, and I looked like I hadn't eaten anything in a while. I was so dehydrated that one sip of water made me go crazy. And I felt a spike of pain in my neck when I woke up." I answered. She was silent for a moment, before letting out another sigh.

"You know, for what it's worth, I don't actually hate you. After all, you're just another victim in this fucked up situation. I won't ask for forgiveness, because this is your life we're talking about. And I won't ask you to let this happen, because I know the moment I raise my gun, you'll be forced into another frenzy. The only reason why I acted like that, was to distance myself. Ever heard of LV? It’s an acronym for LOVE. LOVE, too, is an acronym. It stands for ‘Level of Violence.’ A way of measuring someone's capacity to hurt. The more you kill, the easier it becomes to distance yourself. The more you distance yourself, the less you will hurt. I don’t wanna do this, but at the end of the day, being an adult means doing things you may not like, for the betterment of those around you. While I am robbing you of your life, at least your suffering will end, that’s one of the reasons I took this job in the first place. May you find the peace robbed from you in this life, in your next life, hopefully in a world where this will no longer be a possibility to happen to anyone.” She finished. I’m too stunned to say anything. After a moment, she points her gun at me. The moment she does, I lose control of my body, and let out a deafening roar.

Defense mechanism

Subconscious

Due to the sudden aggressive action, and the fact that program 4v3s was unable to defuse the situation, her control was overridden so this program could handle it. 4v3s preceded to panic as none of her commands registered to this unit, while alleviating her concerns would allow for smoother usage of the SOUL, I was unable to preform this action, due to Alpha's command. Switching to a different channel frequency, so 4v3s could not hear this discussion, I contacted Alpha for orders.

"A.D.S, this is M.D.S speaking." I say through the link.

"What is it? It had better be important, I'm overseeing the D.S's growth process for our creator, and I don't need any unnecessary distractions." He spoke in a calm and cold tone, sending shivers down my spine. I may be important to this project, but that doesn't mean I won't face disciplinary action from angering him. Not that he's ever done that to me, but I'd rather not risk it.

"A hostile intruder has appeared in the testing area during phase one of the current project. As per your orders, I've over ridden the controls of this unit, what course of action should I take against the intruder?" I asked him.

"…That's certainly a valid reason to call me. Tell me, have you already eliminated any targets, or acquired any SOUL trait energy?" He asked.

"Affirmative. The target Cold Traffic has been eliminated, his Perseverance SOUL and SOUL energy have been absorbed. However, no other SOULs have been drained." I answered without hesitation.

"So he was scheduled to be a sacrifice, makes sense, our creator always hated people like him. While that will help in tracking the other targets, it won't be much help in this situation. Neutralize the intruder for now. 4v3s hasn't been conditioned to handle killing yet, if you force her to do it now, it'll negatively effect her future performance. We also have to be careful how we interact with her, too many mess ups will trigger those strange fail safes our creator found in her SOUL. I'm sure you don't wanna be on the receiving end of them." He says. I don't like the idea of sparing an intruder (especially one that's seen our face), but the Alpha has a point, triggering those fail safes is the last thing I wanna do.

"Command confirmed. Proceeding with orders. Cutting communication link in 5 seconds." I say, starting the countdown.

"Practice self control, you cannot let your feelings on a matter effect the project, a big portion of this important experiment is riding on you." He suddenly says, causing me to pause the countdown.

"Yes sir. I won't let you down!" I say.

"Oh trust me, I know that. If I'd ever need to put my life in the hands of another, it'd most certainly be you." He says in an uncharacteristically warm tone. Hearing him say that sparked a strange feeling in me.

Hearing him say that, feels you with determination. Atk and Def increased.

"Now make short work of that intruder. Make sure you do it in a way that 4v3s wouldn't be scared of you, and would have her put faith in you." He says with the calm and cold tone he normally uses.

"Yes sir!" I say back, continuing the countdown, and cutting the connection. I then proceeded to change back to the previous frequency.

Reality

M.D.S pov

Having cut the call, which took a fraction of a second to have, I brought my attention to the intruder. I made a chain shoot towards her, causing her to fire her weapon by what must have been reflex, thankfully I was able to block it in time with another chain. Unfortunately she managed to dodge my chain as she jumped to the left, my chain only managing to knock off her mask and helmet, along with broken glasses that she was apparently wearing.

'Damn. She's fast, especially for a non-magic user. What the hell!? Aren't humans suppose to be much slower then that?' I think with a growl. With the mask removed, I'm able to see her face. She has straight blonde hair that goes down to her shoulders. She had piercing blue eyes, and tan skin.

(No, stop! I don't wanna hurt her, I wanna talk her down! Why can't I talk? Why can't I control my body!? What's happening!?!) I heard 4v3s mentally scream. Thankfully I'm not using the link between us to think...wait, she shouldn't be truly aware that this is happening. It was programmed in her to perceive this as a semi dream, she would be aware that this was in fact happening, but not aware enough to understand the situation. Gonna have to be careful not to go too far, now more than ever. The intruder then took out a small box, opening it revealed that it contained spare glasses, which she promptly put on.

"Nice try. My turn." The intruder said with a mad grin, having gotten back into her righteous killer persona, if that glint in her eyes were any indication. Putting her gun in some holster on her back, she grabbed the two smaller guns that were apparently in holsters on her hips. Without hesitation, she pointed both at us, then fired like the madwoman she was. While these guns fired slower bullets, it more the made up for it with the shear number of bullets. I tried to block as many as I could, but with how sluggish my chains were from lack of use, some of the bullets managed to hit their marks.

(Gah! What the hell!? Why does she have to be so aggressive! I hadn't even done anything to her, save for knocking some of her gear off, and those strange chains don't seem to be an actual problem for her…) I heard 4v3s think, which was a little agitating, but I ignored it for now. Deciding ranged attacks wouldn't be much help at the moment, I went on all fours and dashed to her. It doesn't take me long to reach her, my attempt to tackle turns it us locking hands, both of us trying to overpower the other.

"So the beast is tired of cowering behind her little toys, eh?" She mocks with a smug grin.

"So the hunter decides to let her pray lock her in place, even though the pray has ranged attacks, eh?" I mock right back, causing her to gain a confused look before realization strikes her, she forgot about my chains. I immediately make my chains wrap around her, but not before she can kick me in the jaw, causing me to let go of her hands. She quickly takes out a strange looking gun, and aims it at me, strange energy began emanating from it. The chains completely wrap around her, but not before she could take the shot. A blast of unnatural lightning hits us in the chest, and.it.HURTS.

"(AHHHHHHH!!!)" We both scream, with 4v3s's voice leaking in, causing our voice to sound doubled. And what's worse, I'm starting to lose control of our body, and 4v3s isn't ready to face someone like this!

"Pretty cool, huh?" The intruder asked with a…forced smile? "The tranquilizer bullets didn't effect you, the ones the reached you anyway, so I had to use this experimental gun. It utilizes an energy called Anti Magic, though by the looks of it, I might have had it set too high. It was only supposed to cause exhaustion, and drain your magic pool, not cause such pain. But don't worry, that pain is about to end." She finished with a small smile, which turns into confusion when I start to chuckle.

"You're right about that." I sneered. With my vision starting to fade, I make one last attempt at survival. I take every ounce of Perseverance type determination we had, and used it. The determination runs through the chains that are still wrapped around the intruder, who suddenly screamed in agony as she felt the pain we feel. And while she was distracted, I see a way to end this. Fighting through the pain and exhaustion, I made a chain grab one of her tranquilizing guns, and bring it to me. I then cock the gun, bringing her attention back to me.

"I'm sorry, was this yours?" I asked with a grin, I then pull the trigger, and hit her in the shoulder. And thanks to how much adrenaline is running through her, her rapidly flowing blood quickly spread the tranquilizer through her blood stream, knocking her out in seconds. Unfortunately for me, I don't last that much longer. Hoping 4v3s and the Alpha will approve of what I did, I let unconsciousness take me, and gave her back control. But not before noticing a familiar white circle surround us.

Author's Note

Concerning M.D.S repeatedly changing between saying "this unit", "us", "I", "her" (when referring to 4v3s): M.D.S doesn't really know what to refer to them as, she doesn't truly know if they're separated entities, or if they're the same being, just with different views.

Red flags

Canterlot High School

2nd POV

"Ugh! This is so stupid! When I started learning Chaos magic, I pictured destroying things, to be a shining example of what chaos is meant to be. Instead I have to teach them how to do pranks and turn rain into chocolate milk.” A woman groaned, before slamming her head on a desk.

She has pink skin. Her hair is purple, pink and pale yellow. She has grey eyes. She’s wearing pale yellow lipstick. She has on gloves, a shirt and jacket. The gloves are pale brown, and the shirt and jacket are both purple. She’s also wearing a long grayish blue skirt and pale brown shoes. On each of her wrists are two gray bracelets on each arm. She also has white curly earrings.

“Well what did you expect, Eris?” Another, very tall, woman asked the first. “The whole point of this project is to get rid of the bad reputation magic has. At least your subject can easily keep the attention of your future students. I have to convince a bunch of hormonal teenagers why harmony is important. Do you have any idea how hard that’s gonna be? Especially with the limited time I have with them? Not to mention keeping the younger kids attention.”

“Celestia’s right, Eris. The teens will be too busy ogling her, and the little kids will be too busy falling asleep.” A third woman snarked with a grin.

“HA!” Eris laughed as Celestia struggles to form a proper sentence. “Luna’s got ya there, sun butt.” Hearing that, Celestia wips her head at Eris.

“Who told you about that!?” Celestia sharply questioned, as her hair catches on fire.

“I have my sources, doesn’t mean I have to say who they are.” Eris says with a smirk. As Celestia glares at her with the power and heat equal to the sun, Luna quietly breathes a sigh of relief.

“I lost a bet ok!? I didn’t know that would be her choice if she won!” Celestia growled.

“Relax, if you can’t handle a little jab like that, then this job will be a nightmare for you.” Eris says without a care in the world.

“You…have a point.” Celestia reluctantly sighed. She then looked at Luna. “Any ideas on how to teach them? We can’t exactly be upfront with it yet.”

“Just put them under a spell that makes them not question magic without forcing them to like magic, teach them at your own pace, and see if they’re willing to learn. It’s what I’m gonna do.” Luna says with a shrug.

“Luna!” Celestia disapprovingly exclaims.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” Eris asked with a face palm. Celestia glares at Eris.

“Don’t encourage her!” Celestia says, only to groan as the other two high fived.

“Look.” Luna says, catching Celestia off guard with her sudden serious tone. “Despite what you say, you have the easiest part in this. My part literally involves the scariest aspects of magic, both normal and taboo.”

“And not only am I out of my element with the type chaos magic I, unfortunately, have to teach to put chaos magic in a positive light. But I have to add rules and restrictions to chaos magic. You know, possibility and choice in it’s purest form. My part literally flies in the face of how chaos magic actually works.” Eris added.

“Your magic on the other hand, has aspects that parents are already teaching their kids. All you have to worry about is keeping their attention on magic, and trying to keep them calm about the fact that magic exists. Our magic on the other hand, would get us labeled as devil worshippers.” Luna says while putting a hand on Celestia’s shoulder.

“I have it worse, thanks to everything Bill did awhile back. As awesome as it was, it’s not exactly a help at the moment. If it wasn't for the dude in charge, more people would have joined that extremist group.” Eris says with a shrug.

“Speaking of which, I found this in the teachers lounge on my way here.” Luna says, before taking out several strange looking guns. The other two go wide eyed seeing them. “We have a security breach.”

“Seriously!? Some of the teachers are with that group!?” Celestia asked in shock, Eris just glared at the guns.

“On the off chance that they aren’t, then they better have a damn good reason to have these guns.” Eris seethed.

“My thoughts exactly.” Luna says as Celestia takes out a phone. “Don’t bother, I already informed them. They said to act as if nothing happened, but to keep an eye on the other staff. Of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t tamper with them before putting them back.” Luna says with a malicious smile, the others gaining similar looks (not that Celestia would ever admit it), and got to work.

Equestra

Dream's POV

Celestia may think I'm a gullible fool, but I'm most certainly not! She knows more then she's letting on. Unfortunately, despite our friendship, she's still the princess, there's only so much I can do, legally speaking that is. You don't raise a daughter like Sunset, without learning a few tricks. I just need to find Rose, then I can get started. Casting a tracking spell, I focus on Rose. The tracking spell is how I initially discovered something happened to Sunset. After all, as morbid as it is to think, even a corpse can be tracked. And the only pony who was both close enough to Sunset. And would have something that could send her out of the range of the tracking spell. Without alerting anypony with the shear amount of magic necessary to achieve that, in the span of one night, would be Celestia. She may not have been the one to do it herself, but it's entirely possible that she has something that could do it, something that Sunset could use on her own. I love that filly to death, but she's too ambitious for her own good sometimes…

After a few moments, Rose entered my sights. She's in her room, surrounded by many different pieces of paper, muzzle deep in Sunset's journals and various books that we found left in her room. Bless her heart, the poor dear must have been at this for a while. I lay a hoof on her back. Without warning, her head whips around, and she lets out a deafening roar in my face. Her eyes glowed a menacing green, and her teeth became razor sharp. I go wided eyed as the roar lasted for a few seconds, then suddenly stopped as she realized who she was roaring at.

"I'M SORRY!" Rose yelled in the most pitiful voice I've ever heard, as her eyes turned to their normal (non-glowing) blue, and her teeth turn back to normal.

"It's quite alright dear…" I say, sweat dropping as I watch the most dangerous creature I know, act like a little filly who's been told they're gonna be grounded. I understand that she's upset with herself, but she doesn't need to be that upset. Thank goodness I decided to make it to where noises inside the house, can't be heard on the outside.

"So…what did you need?" She asked in a quiet voice.

"Well I have a hunch about where Sunset went." I say with a smile.

"Mt.Ebott right? I've already gathered stuff we could use to fend off the Monsters. Earlier today I met this weird pony who kept trying to walk on her hind legs. Apparently she was researching some anomaly near a school, and accidentally fell into a portal a few days ago. I tried to talk to her, but when I made my presence known to her, she panicked. She quickly galloped away, still trying to do so on her hind legs. In her haste, she dropped some things." Rose said with a confused look.

"I wouldn't exactly call that 'gathering', more like you just picked up something somepony dropped, but ok. And I wasn't referring to Mt.Ebott. But tell me about what you picked up." I say, now a little curious.

"Well, some of it were unfinished blueprints, and others were strange devices along with some notes (which is how I found out what she was researching). The blueprints were for some kinda weapon, but I guess she must've still been working on it, considering it was a Unicorn who dropped it." She started.

"Tell me about the weapon." I insisted.

"It's something called a 'gun'. It utilizes some weird materials as an energy source. But I guess she's still working out some bugs, because with the way it is now, it's pretty dangerous. So far it has two settings and a special feature, one has it eat away at the target's magic system, not just the magic in the body, but the actual magical network in the entire body. The second setting does the exact opposite. It strengthens the magic in the body to a point where the magic network can't handle. The magic in the body would start to become volatile, to the point where the magic breaks through the network. The magic would then expand until the body explodes. The special feature is apparently a chaining affect, the blast would ricochet from the first target, to anypony close enough. I could understand some creature that doesn't have magic to make something like this, but not a unicorn, so it's pretty obvious that it was a mistake. Thankfully I've managed to tweak it to were it'll only make the targets exhausted, or temporarily paralyzed." Rose finished while rubbing her chin. I think throughout that entire spill, I experienced four minor heart attacks…

"Rose, sweetheart, I don't think something that specific could be an accident. I'm gonna need you to track down that 'unicorn', and bring her here. And I don't mean you you, I mean the other you." I say in a serious tone. Her ears go down.

"Did I do bad?" She asked with a guilty look.

"No, no! Anyone could have made the same mistake. Now I need to talk with that unicorn as soon as possible." I say, "Did she have any friends?" She thinks for a moment.

"Well…I wouldn't say friends, more like coworkers. At least, that's the impression I got from the notes." She answered.

"Alright. Go find her, and bring her to me. I'll stay here and look over what you picked up. If I'm right, this could be bigger than a simple kidnapping." I say. Seeing her give me a confused look, I shake my head. "Never mind, as childish as it sounds, I was thinking about an old legend. Now hurry along dear."

"Yes Ms. Dream." She says with a nod. As she trotted out, I huff.

"I told you, you don't need to call me 'Ms.'!" I say with a groan. She laughed as she closed the door. With a shake of my head, I muse to myself. "Everypony knows Amaia is just a myth, an old mare's tale." I shake my head before looking at what Rose picked up.

Bizarre Pull

Manny's POV

-So I assure you, once you figure out how to trigger your magic, you'll be firing attacks like a pro in no time.

"If you say so…" I say with a sigh, a little upset that I couldn't immediately start using magic, especially since I'm apparently only missing one requirement.

"If who says what?" Sunset asked. Right, she can't see or hear him, only I can.

"Nothing, just talking to ☝︎♋︎⬧︎⧫︎♏︎❒︎." I tell her, only for her to get a confused look on her face.

She can't understand my name.

"The Doc." I clarified.

"Ah." She says with a nod. We continue in silence, we had been walking for a little bit, not having anything to ride. When I questioned why Sunset wasn't complaining about having to walk, she stated that the only type of transportation that exists in "Equestra", are carriages and a train. So walking long distances is pretty common for her. Before any more conversation could be made, I heard some people scream in agony. For a moment, I felt a spike of pain in my chest. Looking in the direction of the scream, I saw a building not too far from here. I feel someone yanking my sleeve.

"Are your eyes glowing green?" Sunset asked. Before I can respond, I feel a weird sensation all over my body. Suddenly everything shifted, and we now find ourselves on a roof.

Well…this is an interesting development.

“You can teleport!?” Sunset asked in shock.

“Apparently…” I say with an unsure shrug.

“Sweet Celestia, foals have more consistent control over their magic then you do…” She moans.

An over exaggeration, but I understand what she means.

“Not important right now.” I tell them both, making my way to the door on this roof.

“Where are you going? There’s a latter right there.” She says, pointing to a latter on the side of the building. I continue walking.

“I got a feeling that I need to go this way.” I say, trying to open the door, only to find it locked.

“Why are we here anyway?” Sunset asked. “When you hear screaming, the appropriate action is to run in the opposite direction.”

“What if someone needs help?” I asked her. She deadpans.

“Yes. And two magicless kids are gonna do what exactly?” She asked me.

“About as much as a little ‘filly’ was gonna do when she jumped headfirst into a portal.” I say with a sarcastic tone. “Seriously. I accepted a deal from someone who I thought didn’t exist-“ I started to say before I was interrupted by the man in question.

I don’t exist, remember?

“-Correction. Someone who I thought was a fictional character. As I was saying. I agreed to come here without any know how about this world. You came here because you assumed something here could give you power. Are you seriously questioning what we’re doing now?” I finish with a raised brow, which she matched with her own.

“Yes! Because that’s what’s suppose to happen when you realize what you did was dumb, you try to make better decisions in the future!” Sunset says, putting her hands on her hips. “You’re being dumber than normal. What’s gotten into you?”

“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it made me teleport us up here. So unless teleportation is basic stuff, I’m pretty sure whatever’s going on is important. If the pain in my chest is anything to go by.” I say, trying the door again.

“That’s…a good point actually. The sudden pain in your chest I mean. Everything else was stupid, plain and simple.”

“Pretentious little…” I mutter in annoyance.

“Could you speak up?” Sunset says in confusion.

“Nothing you need to worry your little bacon head over.” I say with a roll of my eyes. "Anyway, you wouldn't happen to have any lock picks on you, would you?"

"You know how to pick locks?" The two asked simultaneously.

"Yes." I say with a nod.

"And why do you know how to do that?" Sunset asked with a raised brow.

"Ok first of all, I know dang well that you of all people ain't got room to judge. Especially since the mirror that got you here, was in a lock and restricted area of the castle it was in." I quickly say to Sunset.

"That's fair." She says with a shrug.

"And yes, I do know how to pick locks, but that leads to my second point. A friend of mine back home had something of her's stolen, and the jerk put it in his locker. She texted one of her friends who knew how to lock pick (don't ask, because I don't know), and he picked the lock on the locker. Then he took what was stolen from our mutual friend, and brought it back to her, but not before leaving a 'present' for the thief. Not wanting to have a repeat of that, my friend decided to learn how to pick locks, and convinced me to learn, to." I finished with a shrug.

“Well sorry to tell you, but I don’t have a lock pick. Why not just break it down? It looks rusty enough to work.” She points out. While I didn’t want to leave any proof that we were here, I don’t have many options. So with a shrug, I kicked open the door.

Cold's POV

You know, there are certain things I just can’t stand. Ponies who think that they’re better then others just because dumb luck had them born into a higher status in society, even though they could have just as easily became a parasprite or a flash bee. Ponies who act all high and mighty, then wonder why others don’t wanna be around them. Having to deal with complete idiots who, by some unholy intervention, can somehow be unable to understand the most basic things no matter how many times you explain it (there are exceptions to this of course). Ponies who tell me how to do my job, especially if they don’t work in the same business as I do. But you know what I hate the most? Having to listen to something boring and/or annoying for long periods of time, and whatever I’m listening to has no gain whatsoever.

“Uh…sir?” One of my coworkers asked.

So imagine my mood, after listening to incomprehensible garble, FOR 30 BUCKING MINUETS! I tried everything I could think of to make that annoying interference stop, but nothing worked!

“I’ve never killed anycreature in my entire life, but I swear to Faust, if what you say next isn’t remotely beneficial to the mission, that fact will change today!” I seethed.

“Maybe you should cut that thing off.” He stupidly says. I stare death at him. “W-what I meant was, we can’t properly do our jobs if the best of us is so agitated that he might pop a blood vessel.” He quickly adds. I hold my gaze on him for a few moments, then break it with a sigh.

“As much as I want to, believe me, I do. We can’t risk missing anything impo-.” I start to before I heard Manny speak. My head turned to the device in my hand so fast, I accidentally pop my neck, and Faust did it feel good. After a few moments, I heard somepony scream. Suddenly the red dot disappeared, and reappeared not to far away, in a building to be exact.

"Let's move." I say, already rushing towards the building in question.

Sunset (Abbey)'s POV

'This is ridiculous, for all we know, we could be running towards our deaths.' I think in frustration. Following Manny's lead, we arrived at an open door. In the room the door leads to, we see two people on the floor, one of them is surrounded by what is obviously a magic circle.

"What's that weird circle for?" Manny asked in confusion. As much as I wanna take a jab at his intelligence, something tells me that this time, his lack of knowledge is justified.

"Oh." Manny suddenly says. I give him a confused look. "Don't worry about it." He dismissed. Shaking my head, I continue to look the two over. The one in the magic circle, has six chains protruding from her back.

'What kinda magic is this?' I think in confusion. I've never seen anything like it before, none that's not been coming from the ground or wall anyway.

"Hey ☝︎♋︎⬧︎⧫︎♏︎❒︎, any ideas on what happened here?" Manny asked.

'Seriously, why can't I understand what the heck he's saying?' I think with a deadpan.

"If they're only a security guard, then why does he or she have so much Exp?" Manny asked, picking up a weird metal thing.

"Look, I'm not sure what this whole 'exp' thing is about, but I don't see how it's important now. The one in the hospital gown had chains around the security guard, and the security guard is knocked out. See if you can heal him or her, then we could ask them questions." I say with an eye roll.

“Fine, fine.” He says with a shrug, before walking towards the security guard. I look back at the patient on the ground, and noticed she was wearing a weird band on her arm. Fiddling with it, I jumped a little as it suddenly lights up.

Please do not mess with that.

“Ok?” I asked in confusion.

Thank you. Now, let me explain a few things. You see, both me and my daughter have gain quite the interest in you.

“What kind of interest?” I asked, feeling a bit silly about talking to an accessory.

The kind that calls for a two-way Q&A session between you and my daughter.

“Why your daughter?” I asked in confusion.

Because the two of you have something in common, and I’m confident that the two of you will get along well with each other.

“And why should I agree to this? I’m not about to agree to anything I don’t have to.” I say with a raised brow.

Well, there’s the matter of you and your friend breaking and entering my company.

“Nice try, but there’s also the matter that this place looks like a shady operation.” I shot back.

What could have given you that absurd idea?

“The fact that there’s no windows in a medical room. Sun light is important for keeping humans healthy, and there needs to be a way to let in fresh air, or air out the room itself. So it’s required for normal hospital rooms to have windows. The fact that the patient in this room is severely malnourished. The fact that, despite all the time that’s past, not a single other security guard (or any other employee for that matter) have arrived. And last but not least, the fact that we managed to get here with no trouble. If this place was legit, it’d be shut down long before this patient could have gotten in her current state.” I pointed out.

You’re oddly smart for your age, another thing you have in common with my daughter.

"You know what? Fine, I'll humor you, where do I go to meet your daughter?" I concede with a huff.

Nowhere, stay right where you are.

I raised a brow in confusion, but before I can say anything, I'm surrounded by a magic circle. Then I'm blinded by a flash of light. When it dies down, I see a girl a few feet away from me, and she looks exactly like me.

"Ok." She says, her voice sounding exactly like mine. "Let's talk." She finished with a smile.

Author's Note

Hey! I managed to do two in one day!

Tutorial Mid-Boss

“Ma-.” Sunset started to say, but was immediately cut off.

“W̶e̸’̸l̷l̵ ̴t̶a̵l̶k̴ ̷l̸a̷t̶e̶r̶ ̷S̷u̷n̶s̶e̶t̴.̴ ̷R̴i̷g̶h̸t̸ ̶n̴o̵w̸,̷ ̴I̴ ̶w̴a̴n̶n̵a̶ ̵h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̵a̵ ̷‘̸c̶h̵a̴t̸’̷ ̵w̵i̶t̶h̸ ̶t̶h̷e̶ ̸h̵u̸m̶a̷n̶ ̸w̶h̸o̷ ̷t̸r̶i̷e̵d̵ ̴t̷o̶ ̸s̴h̵o̶o̴t̷ ̵y̷o̸u̷.̸“ Manny says with an uncharacteristically dark tone, putting venom in the word “human”.

“You’re a Monster, aren’t you?” The woman in question asked, Manny simply nods. “Then I know what I have to do.” She somberly says. Checking the settings on her gun, she switched it back to it’s previous setting, then trained the gun on him. But before she can take the shot, Sunset hits the back of her head with the pipe.

“What you ‘have to do’ is drop that ‘gun’ and stop trying to attack people!” Sunset says with a glare. The woman scowls at her.

“‘Stop trying to hurt people’? That’s rich coming from you, demon!” The woman growls.

“Who are you to call that little girl a demon?” 4v3s asked with a frown. “And I’m pretty sure she has a right to say that, you literally just tried to shoot her!” She stated, attempting to get closer, only to be stopped by a barrier. Whatever the circle was, it was preventing her from stepping out of it.

“My name is Hannah White.” The woman answered with a glare. “As for why I can label her a demon, it’s because that’s what she is! She’s literally a demon!” While Manny, Sunset and 4v3s glared angrily at her, Gaster studied her. In the many years he’s existed, and the years he’s observed from the void, he’s learned how to see through smoke and mirrors. And he could tell that she wasn’t lying to them, or herself. And a quick CHECK told him that Sunset was LV 1, and had 0 Exp. He contemplated telling Manny, but decided that that would be a bad idea.

Suddenly, 12 ice covered bones were launched at Hannah, who dodged and fired back. Unfortunately for her, due to the time it takes to fire, Manny’s able to summon a few ice covered bones to protect himself.

*[ACT]*

“Manny! Calm down!" Sunset says with a frown, a little shocked by his sudden attack.

"E̴x̶c̸u̸s̴e̴ ̶m̸e̵!̸?̷!̶" He asked, eyes widening as his anger flared. "D̸o̶n̵'̷t̵ ̴t̴e̷l̴l̷ ̷m̷e̸ ̵t̷o̸ ̷c̷a̴l̴m̵ ̷d̶o̷w̵n̸,̵ ̵y̴o̶u̶ ̷b̷r̸a̵t̶.̸"

"Brat!? What makes you think I'm a brat?" Sunset asked, feeling insulted for obvious reasons. He just deadpans.

“Y̷o̵u̶ ̵c̸a̴n̸’̷t̷ ̷b̴e̵ ̶s̵e̴r̵i̷o̷u̶s̷.̸ ̵I̸’̵v̸e̶ ̷d̸o̵n̶e̵ ̵n̷o̴t̸h̴i̸n̸g̴ ̶b̸u̶t̴ ̸t̸r̷y̴ ̴t̷o̸ ̵b̸e̵ ̷n̵i̴c̷e̴ ̴a̸n̶d̸ ̷u̵n̷d̸e̵r̷s̷t̸a̸n̸d̷i̸n̵g̷ ̶t̵o̸ ̸y̵o̶u̷,̵ ̴a̸n̷d̴ ̶i̷n̷s̵t̶e̵a̶d̸ ̵o̸f̴ ̴r̷e̴t̷u̸r̷n̷i̸n̵g̶ ̵t̸h̵e̶ ̶f̴a̶v̶o̴r̷,̶ ̴y̶o̶u̷ ̸k̷e̸e̵p̴ ̶t̴a̷k̷i̶n̷g̴ ̷j̴a̷b̵s̷ ̴a̴t̵ ̸h̷o̴w̷ ̴l̶i̷t̶t̴l̵e̸ ̵I̴ ̵k̵n̵o̴w̷!̸” He says with a frown, jabbing a finger on her chest.

*1*

Sunset wanted to say something, but couldn't bring herself to. It was as if his eyes were taking her will to speak, like the rare instances she's made her mom angry at her. And it felt just as bad with him, as it did with her mom.

Perhaps it would be best to apologize, after he's calmed down.

Reading the screen that popped up, she silently agreed, looking down in contemplation. Having said his piece, Manny turned his attention back to Hannah, who was running towards him. Though, before either of them could process, one of the chains lashed at her, knocking her back. While Manny was distracted with Hannah, Cold snuck towards Sunset. Before she could react, Cold grabbed her and took off, though not without Sunset making a sound.

"Wh-HAY! Get your hands off of me!" She yelled as he carried her off, catching Manny's attention. Manny tried to chase after them, but was stopped by an invisible wall, which just so happened to be at the edge of the white square surrounding them was.

This is a boss battle, you can't leave until either one of you are dead, or you both decide to SPARE each other.

Hearing that, Manny growls, and turned his attention towards Hannah. He takes a deep breath, and speaks in a normal tone.

"Look, I know you have this whole 'crusade against magic' thing going on, but I have to chase after them." Manny says in a calmer tone. "Can this wait until after I get Sunset back?"

*[SPARE]*

"And why would I agree to that? By the looks of it, they aren't friends of yours, so I doubt they have good plans for her." Hannah said with an uninterested look, causing Manny to glare at her. 4v3s on the other hand, was deep in thought, specifically on the man who just took Sunset. Something about him, resonanted with the SOUL (which she isn't aware is in fact a SOUL) she ate, though she couldn't understand why. As far as she knew, her chest was what was feeling strange.

Cold had made good distance in a short amount of time, having Sunset slung over his shoulder.

"Let me go!" Sunset yelled.

"Pipe down pip squeak, the princess wanted us to get you, and that's what we're doing." Cold says with an eye roll.

"Seriously!? I don't need her help, I was doing just fine on my own!" She raged.

"I saw, 'Abbey'." Cold said with a huff.

"How do you-" She started to ask, but was cut off.

"Know what you called yourself?" Cold finished her sentence. "I have my ways. All you need to know, is that you're in a mountain of trouble."

"Excuse me." They heard Sunset ask, though it came from in front of them. Looking at the source, they saw an exact copy of Sunset standing in front of them, though this one felt…different. "I'm gonna need you to drop her, and leave."

"No can do, we have a job to do. Now mind your business, kid." He said, attempting to walk past her, only for her to get in the way.

"Sorry, but she is my business." The other Sunset said with a creepy smile.

"If you know what's good for you, you'll get out of my way. Don't think I won't hurt you." He warned.

"Oh believe me, Cold. I know very well that you're serious about hurting me." Sunset says with a nod.

"How do you know who I am?" Cold asked, narrowing his eyes.

"The you from this reality worked for my dad. Apparently he used to kidnap people, and sell them for a profit, though, the consequences eventually caught up to him. I won't go into detail, but let's just say, he got a taste of his own medicine." Sunset said with a chuckle. Throughout that entire speech, Cold was shaking in rage.

"You know what? There's time before we hit our deadline, I can spend some of it teaching you a lesson about ticking off the wrong stallion." Cold says, handing one of his "buddies" the Sunset from their world.

"Oh? So you wanna fight now?" The Sunset of this world asked.

"Yep, should've left when you had the chance, brat." He said with a glare.

"Alright then." The Sunset of this world says, taking out a knife, then points it at him. "Come : )"

‘I think I’m starting to get the hang of this.’ Manny thought, as he (somehow) made the chains shoot towards Hannah, who preceded to dodge to the left, only to run into a dozen ice covered bones. Manny could already feel the effects of the gun start to wear off. But while it was active, Manny could fire as many ice covered bones as he wanted, and not have to worry about tiring himself out. That being said, the longer this took, the further those kidnappers got. He needed help to finish this before the effects of the gun ended.

'This isn't going to end in our favor at this rate. This would go by so much quicker if I wasn't stuck in the void.' Gaster thinks with a frown, as he watches the fight. Hannah had recovered from Manny's attacks, and had taken out another gun. Manny ducks for cover as she pulls the trigger, unfortunately, he's not fast enough. As Manny screams in pain, 4v3s looks at her watch.

Thank you for informing me about those kidnappers, for some reason, the cameras in that room stopped working after that kid got shot. I was able to locate them in another camera. Is there anything else?

4v3s typed "yeah, could you let me out of this circle? The monster won't last much longer by himself.". After waiting for a bit, she got a reply.

No can do. Sorry, but you're WAY too important to lose. Don't worry though, I'll send over someone who can help. Consider this action a testament to how important you are, considering how hard it was to pasifie her when she first got here.

4v3s gained a confused look, which turned into worry as Manny fell to his knees, both exhausted and in pain. Hannah on the other hand, didn't even have a scratch on her, she actually looked bored.

"Just stop, you can't win, you're only making your suffering longer." She says with a frown. Manny growled.

"You're the one who's so gung ho about us fighting! Just let me go!" Manny says with a frown. "And before you even try that angle. Yes, I fired those weird bones at you, but that was after you tried to shoot a little girl. A little girl who you claim is a demon, yet have shown no proof!"

"I wouldn't expect a child to understand." Hannah said with an uninterested look.

"Really? Because to me, that sounds like something an adult would say to a kid when the adult can't actually counter what the kid had said, yet still wants to brush the kid off." Hannah hears a new girl say. Looking to the source, Hannah sees the girl in question standing in a doorway. She has brown hair with tips of pink on the edges that's about medium-length. She's wearing a magenta skirt with torn edges, a light purple turtleneck with a large light pink stripe at its bottom, light purple leggings and brown boots that are pretty close to reaching her knees.

"Try me." Manny says, having not seen nor heard the new girl. In fact, no one other then Hannah was even aware of her presence, not even Gaster. That was made clear as the girl was now standing right in front of Manny, yet he made no indication that he was aware of her.

"What's going on?" Hannah asked in confusion, which the other occupants matched.

"Uh." Manny says, unsure about what was going on. Suddenly a screen pops up.

Hannah seems distracted by something, to the point where the FIGHT has seemingly ended. Now could be a chance for an escape. Or a chance to gain some Exp.

That was a good point, this lady seems relentless in her goal of killing him, and Sunset. Plus he could increase his power by increasing his LV. On the other hand, he'd have to live with the blood on his hands, knowing that he needlessly took a life when he could have just left. He could take one of her normal guns, shoot her in the head, and be done with it. Or he could just leave. Gaster probably wouldn't care either way, on account of her wanting to kill a Monster. Sunset isn't here, so she wouldn't be aware of this choice. And the girl in the circle had only talked when Manny was too angry to notice she was (and still is) there, so she wouldn't influence his decision at all.

So…

*[SPARE]* or *[ATTACK]*?

After a bit of contemplation, he made his choice.

Author's Note

In case you couldn’t read it:

“W̶e̸’̸l̷l̵ ̴t̶a̵l̶k̴ ̷l̸a̷t̶e̶r̶ ̷S̷u̷n̶s̶e̶t̴.̴ ̷R̴i̷g̶h̸t̸ ̶n̴o̵w̸,̷ ̴I̴ ̶w̴a̴n̶n̵a̶ ̵h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̵a̵ ̷‘̸c̶h̵a̴t̸’̷ ̵w̵i̶t̶h̸ ̶t̶h̷e̶ ̸h̵u̸m̶a̷n̶ ̸w̶h̸o̷ ̷t̸r̶i̷e̵d̵ ̴t̷o̶ ̸s̴h̵o̶o̴t̷ ̵y̷o̸u̷.̸“

“We’ll talk later Sunset. Right now I wanna have a ‘chat’ with the human who tried to shoot you.”

"E̴x̶c̸u̸s̴e̴ ̶m̸e̵!̸?̷!̶"

“Excuse me!?!”

"D̸o̶n̵'̷t̵ ̴t̴e̷l̴l̷ ̷m̷e̸ ̵t̷o̸ ̷c̷a̴l̴m̵ ̷d̶o̷w̵n̸,̵ ̵y̴o̶u̶ ̷b̷r̸a̵t̶.̸"

“Don’t tell me to calm down, you brat.”

“Y̷o̵u̶ ̵c̸a̴n̸’̷t̷ ̷b̴e̵ ̶s̵e̴r̵i̷o̷u̶s̷.̸ ̵I̸’̵v̸e̶ ̷d̸o̵n̶e̵ ̵n̷o̴t̸h̴i̸n̸g̴ ̶b̸u̶t̴ ̸t̸r̷y̴ ̴t̷o̸ ̵b̸e̵ ̷n̵i̴c̷e̴ ̴a̸n̶d̸ ̷u̵n̷d̸e̵r̷s̷t̸a̸n̸d̷i̸n̵g̷ ̶t̵o̸ ̸y̵o̶u̷,̵ ̴a̸n̷d̴ ̶i̷n̷s̵t̶e̵a̶d̸ ̵o̸f̴ ̴r̷e̴t̷u̸r̷n̷i̸n̵g̶ ̵t̸h̵e̶ ̶f̴a̶v̶o̴r̷,̶ ̴y̶o̶u̷ ̸k̷e̸e̵p̴ ̶t̴a̷k̷i̶n̷g̴ ̷j̴a̷b̵s̷ ̴a̴t̵ ̸h̷o̴w̷ ̴l̶i̷t̶t̴l̵e̸ ̵I̴ ̵k̵n̵o̴w̷!̸”

“You can’t be serious. I’ve done nothing but try to be nice and understanding to you, and instead of returning the favor, you keep taking jabs at how little I know!”

Also, I’ll be clarifying what that decision at the end actually means in the next chapter.

Morally gray

Equestra-unknown forest

3rd POV

"Ugh, did you honestly have to present us in such a shameful manner in front of our master?" A disembodied voice questioned with a groan.

It doesn't take long for Rose to catch up with the unicorn, but before she can face her, she had to have a little heart to heart with herself. To be more exact, Rose Lily and Rosary had to talk things out.

"Yes! I roared at her!" Lily said with a huff.

"I understand feeling regretful, but the fact that I have to listen to my own voice sound so pathetic." Sary says with a 'frown'. Which Lily physically matched.

"Well maybe if you hadn't pushed your sensitive side so far down, I wouldn't have been created as a result. You have no one to blame for your current situation, other then yourself. And I mean you you, not me you." Lily shot back.

"I do not need to be reminded of my failures!" Sary snapped.

"And I don't need to be reminded of my over sensitivity!" Lily snapped right back, then sighed. "Look, this is just who I am, you may not like it, but can you at least respect that's who I am? You spent all your time in absolute control pushing your sensitive side as far down as you could, and it resulted in me. Don't you think it's about time you come to terms with yourself?"

"…I…I suppose……very well, I shall give it a trial run, so long as you don't let your sensitivity impair your judgement." Sary says with a huff, and by what Lily could feel, an eye roll.

"That's a fair condition. Alright, I'll try to not let that happen." Lily said with a nod. Satisfied with Lily's statement, Sary said no more, and the two continued in silence.

…

"Disgusting, I can taste the magic here! To think such a world exists…gonna have to tell the leader." A grey unicorn with a white mane muttered to herself, her cutie mark (which she learned about from a couple of 'fillies') was that of a star being crossed out. When she learned that stars are symbols of magic here, it took all her willpower to not smile like a fool, since her cutie mark meant that her destiny was the eradication of magic. If it wasn't for the fact that she was a unicorn, which are the most reliant on magic in this world, she would actually be nonchalant about her current situation. Suddenly, she hears hoofsteps approaching her. Looking at the source, she pales (though it isn't visible under her coat) at who she sees.

"Hello." Lily said with a smile. "Please don't gallop away this time."

"Tch…drop the act, I know all about you…Rosary." The unicorn says with a scowl. The smile leaves the Roses' face, as the Rose in question takes control.

"Do you now? And pray tell, what exactly do you know?" Rosary questioned with a bored look. Where Lily's voice was calm, patient and warm. Sary's voice was apathetic, bored and cold.

"I'd rather not spend my time stroking your ego, so I'll keep it short." The unicorn said with an eye roll, then glares at Rosary. "You're a sick twisted fuck who doesn't care about the lives you've ruined, not out of necessity, but because you get some sick kick out of it!"

"Most of that's correct, save for the last part." Rosary says with a shrug, seeing the unicorn raise a brow, she continued. "I simply lacked control. Considering what I am, it's nothing short of a divine intervention that I'm able to restrain my inner beast."

"Do I look stupid to you?" The unicorn sneered.

"Yes." Rosary says with a shrug.

"Cute." The unicorn dryly says, rolling her white colored eyes. "Back to my point. Vampires don't have issues dealing with any 'inner beasts'. In fact, they only need one blood bag's worth of blood a month for them to stay healthy, two if they've gone around a month after the first without any blood. You consumed a city's worth in a day, after you slaughtered the city's inhabitants!"

"What madness! I have never done anything like that, unless absolutely necessary! Like when Grogar had corrupted that city's inhabitants beyond salvation!" Rosary said with a frown, then gained a confused look. "Also, 'Vampire'? Don't you mean vampony? In any case, I am only part vampony. Now then, enough of this pointless back in forth, my master desires to speak with you."

“Ha! As i-“

Jump cut

“Was this really necessary, Rose?” Dream says with a deadpan, attending to the various (non-lithel) wounds that covered the poor unicorn’s body.

“With all due respect, my master. Did you honestly believe it wouldn’t have ended up like this, especially since you tasked me of all creatures?” Rosary asked with a raised brow.

"I suppose not, in reality, I had thought she was a bigger threat then she actually was." She says with a frown, before looking at the restrained unicorn. "Now then, sweetheart, could you tell me your name?"

"It's rude to ask someone their name, without first giving yours." The unicorn says with a frown. Rosary growled while Dream went wide eyed.

"Oh you're right, where are my manners?" She asked herself, much to Rosary's shock. "I'm Mural Dreamer, it's a pleasure to meet you."

"I'd say the same if not for your pet kidnapping me." The unicorn says, ignoring Rosary's glare. "But 'Mural Dreamer', that's a very interesting name. As for me, I don't really have a name. Those of my religion cast aside the concept of names, as they promote individuality, and we strive for unification. If you must call me something, call me Unity, it is what my group is called."

"You're group is called Unity?" Dream asked, the unicorn nods. "Are you sure it's alright to call you the same name as your group?"

"'We are one. We are all children, and our cause is our Mother. We stand together with one voice, and that voice is the voice of Unity, the name of our cause.' Calling any of us 'Unity' is no different then referring to us with our surname." Unity said with pride.

"…Well ok then." Dream simply says, not sure how to respond to that.

"In any case, care to tell me why you sent your, obviously illegal, pet to kidnap me?" Unity asked.

"Do not label me as a mere pet, you insignificant weakling!" Rosary growled.

"Oh? I remember you calling this lady 'Master'." Unity stated.

"Indeed, as per our arrangement, she is indeed my Master. But I am no pet." Rosary said with a frown.

"Then what are you?" Unity asked.

"I am Rosary, the no-life Queen! Former survent of Grogar, the father of all evil. And currently the survent of Mural Dreamer, of the Delta Rune!" Rosary said with a glare that matched her title.

"'Delta Rune'?" Unity asked with a raised brow.

"Oh think nothing of it sweetheart, it's been a long time since I've been called that by anypony other then Rose." Dream said with a smile.

"In any case, what are you going to do with me?" Unity asked. Dream's horn glowed in response.

"I'm going to look through your memories, to see what kinda pony you are, then I'll wipe your memory of tonight. What happens after that depends on what I see." Dream said.

"Is that even legal?" Unity asked with a raised brow.

"No. But I'm sure the proof is in the pudding. Ponies today are too nice for their own good. They don't know that sometimes, you gotta do something bad, to achieve something good." Dream says, before casting the spell. Or at least, she attempted to, but something was blocking her out of Unity's mind. "Well that's strange. Rose, could you help me? Something is blocking my spell."

"Of course, my master." Rosary said with a bow, before lighting up her horn, and casting the spell Dream was currently casting. But unbeknownst to the three of them, the spell was working, just in reverse. And Unity saw what the three had been hiding for a long time.

Author's Note

In the last chapter, I left Manny's choice on a cliffhanger.

So…

*[SPARE]* or *[ATTACK]*?

After a bit of contemplation, he made his choice.

I was organized going to explain it here, but when I got done writing, I realized it was way to long for an Author Notes (personally at least). So if you want to learn about it, click this link right here: Judgment

In the next chapter, the story will earn it's "Death" tag, a fair warning. Also given how much I have to write, it probably won't only be in one chapter.

Delta Rune

Dream's POV

"Hey Drawer!" A familiar obnoxious voice said, bringing my attention to the source.

"It's 'Dreamer'! And what is it?" I groan, glaring at the yellow mare, her name was Sling Shot. Normally someone like her would have been kicked out of the guild, given her attitude, but her accuracy was second to none. She once fire three arrows at once, blindfolded. One pointing upwards, one pointing downwards, and one pointing forward. The one pointing forwards 'missed' her target, ricocheted off the wall behind the target, and flew to the one going upwards. Meanwhile the one going upwards ricocheted off the ceiling, which caused it to start spinning quickly, while heading towards the one that originally was flying forwards. When the two hit each other, the spinning arrow knocked the other one downwards. Meanwhile the one originally sent downwards ricochete of the ground, then flew towards the target, and hits the target in the shoulder. This caused the target to stumble backwards. Meanwhile, the other two had hit their actual targets, which were two thin strings that were connected to a trap behind the living target. During this, the living target had stumbled in range for the trap to spring on them. And sure enough, the trap sprung, and the target was captured.

"Dreamer, Drawer, doesn't matter. You're a loser either way." Shot says, laughing.

'I could kill her. It'd be so easy to; and so, so satisfying. It's not like anypony would mourn her death; everypony hates her.’ I think, making sure to keep a blank face. “So what do you want?” I asked in annoyance.

“Jackson wanted to talk to you.” She says with a frown, causing me to go wide eyed. It’s a surprise that someone on his level, wanted to talk to me, even if he wasn't aware of my true personality. Not that I liked him in a romantic way, I just respected him. And even if I did, he has a marefriend anyway (or as they put it, girlfriend).

"Did he say why?" I asked, a curious look on my face.

"No, not that I'd care enough to remember anyway. Honestly, a loser like you doesn't deserve to be in this guild, let alone talk to somepony like him." She snarked.

'They'd never find the body.' I think in cold rage. "Fine, I'll be heading off, but before that. I know your poor little brain can't handle to much info at once, so I'll keep this simple. Jackson, human, not pony. So it's somebody." I say real slowly and clearly, like you would to a toddler.

"Excuse me freak?! Who the buck do you think you're talking to? I'm gonna beat your flank like your parents would've if they actually-!" I cut her off as I grab the tuft of hair on her chest, and yank her closer, staring her dead in the eyes. While she had the best accuracy in the guild, she was far from the best hand to hand fighter. And while I wasn't the best either (by a long shot), I was certainly better then her.

"Choose your next words, very, very carefully." I growled in a low, threatening tone. She was silent for a moment, then gave that same infuriating grin.

"-If they actually cared about you." She finished. Having enough of her, I take out my sword, making her go wide eyed. The blade turned black as I attempted to plunge it into her, only to be stopped by another one of my guild mates.

“Don’t.” Said the brown earth pony, with a red man and tail. Her name was Apple Stem. “She ain’t worth it sugar cube.” She says with a frown, before glaring at Shot. “Beat it before ah make your flank as red as thuh apples ah buck back home, ya no good varmit!”

“Hmph, whatever mud po-.” She started to say before I knocked her lights out, my forehoof covered in a black substance. Stem deadpans at me.

“Sorry sweetheart, but I just can’t let a remark like that slide. I hate things like that.” I say with a frown. Stem rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, ah could tell. The whites in your eyes turnin' black kinda gave that away.” She says with a chuckle. Hearing this, I focus a bit, and make them go back to normal.

“Come on! Jackson wanted to talk to me!” I said, heading for the door.

“Uh, ya sure ah can come? Ah wouldn’t wanna intrude.” She says with an uncertain look.

“Oh hush, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind your company. If he did, he doesn’t know what he’s missing.” I said with a smile, which she matched. And with that, we headed out.

"AHHHH!" I hear two yell, as countless vines and frozen bones shot up from the ground, each and every one of them having impaled some creature. Specifically those afflicted with the Hunger. The Hunger causes those afflicted to bleed tainted, clotted magic from their orifices, making the victims unnaturally and uncharacteristically aggressive, and convinces its victims that they are starving constantly. So in an act of mercy, everyone who’s been afflicted with it must be killed. Regardless of race, gender, or age. According to [Name missing], this illness stems from a leakage from the Void. The leak was caused by a, and I quote, “glitch in time and space”. Which is a black mist like substance, different from the black substance I have (thank every divine being for that).

"Dear Faust…" Stem muttered in amazement.

"No kidding…" I agree. The two notice us, and started to approach use.

One was a male human Combat Mage. He had dark skin, brown eyes, and black short hair. He was wearing grey light armor with various runes on them, though I had no clue what they meant. His name was Jackson, head of the Royal Guard, and (unofficial) co-leader of our guild. He specialized in nature magic (plants, wind, earth, lightning). He was a pretty down to earth guy, didn't have much patience, but could slow down if he had to. He was also an aspiring artist.

The other is a female human witch. She had light skin, blue eyes, and brownish orange hair that went to her shoulders. She was wearing a teal cloak with various runes on it, and while I couldn't make out what they meant, they were clearly more advanced then Jackson's (which made sense since she was more focused on magic then he was). Her name was Crystal, head of the Mage’s tower, and a substitute magic teacher for various schools every now and then. She had a good grasp of many types of magic, but specialized in Necromancy, ice magic, and fire magic. She was blunt when around others she was comfortable with, but not so much around people she isn't. She was very in tune with her emotions, and is more then willing to state when she feels something isn't right. She was also an aspiring writer.

“Surprised Shot actually told you to come. Figured she’d act like she couldn’t find you.” Jackson said.

“Naw, she clearly tried to start something with Mural, if the black in her eyes are anything to go by.” Crystal says with a frown. I go wide eyed at that, and I noticed Stem start to tense up.

‘As overprotective as ever.’ I think with a mental chuckle.

“Calm down, we ain’t gonna hurt her, in fact, we have something for her.” Crystal says, raising her hand in a calming gesture. She then preceded to take out a black beaded necklace, which had white runes on it.

“I appreciate the gift, I really do. But what’s the occasion?” I asked as I let her put it on me.

“It’s something that’ll let you have more control over that ‘SOUL trait’ of yours. I’d prefer to remove it completely, but [Name missing] said it was to attached to your SOUL. I don’t understand it, since the very nature of this ‘Hate’ defies what we know about magic. But if [Name missing] of all creatures says this is how it is, then I guess this is how it is. Just concentrate on the necklace, then do whatever it is that triggers this ‘Hate’ of yours. Let’s see how well you can use it.” Crystal said with a curious look. Noticing more enemies approaching, I do as I’m told. And for the first time since I got this curse, I let go of my emotional dam.

‘Wyxmoi i tæll’d aeqqriæ'i æth dyi aessssiuuæri'ei, i’na rmoaet dyaed 'eiæœ’'i thxllaemomo'ei tissxtit dæ udæq yæmotxllr 'eiæœriuimoth 'aessek.’ I heard an all too familiar voice say with a chuckle. I frowned at that.

‘You and I are nothing alike, you’re not even my Hate. I haven’t been holding myself back, I’ve only been holding you back.’ I snapped at the accursed voice.

’Ith 'eiæœ uae'ei uæ.’ It says with a chuckle, thankfully it had nothing more to say. I stand on my hind legs as one of the enemies gets close. Taking out my sword, I channel the Hate through it. And with a quick downwards swing, I cut the creature in half. It was as easy as cutting butter with a hot knife, the bones offering no noticeable resistance to my sword. Much to my joy, this didn't cause me to smile like it had before, signifying that the necklace worked like a charm. Which, considering how it was a charm, kinda makes that sentence sound stupid. Noticing two more enemies approaching (both pegasi), I swung my sword horizontally, causing a crescent blade of Hate to shoot towards the two. The blade easily beheads the two, and even cuts off the horn of an enemy unicorn before detonating. The explosion kills the dehorned unicorn, ending her suffering.

Putting away my sword, I let the Hate envelope my body, allowing my body to work more efficiently on two legs. After a few moments, I look exactly like a human silhouette. Clutching my fists, I rush towards some more enemies, this time their a griffin and a earth pony. I knock the earth pony back with a backfist side strike, then did a knifehand strike at the griffin's neck, the Hate adding to my attack power. Unfortunately with griffins being more accustom to fighting then ponies, it didn't take long for the griffin to recover, and return the favor. The griffin slashes at me with her talon, and if it wasn't for the Hate covering me, that would have done some serious damage. Grabbing the griffin's talon, I yanked her closer. Then in one fell swoop, I whip out my sword, and cut off her head.

"Alright, let's see." I muttered as I looked around. As I look around, I catch a glimpse of Stem, who's wide eyed in shock. I feel the Hate retract a bit as I flinch at her look. She's never seen me use Hate like this before. I then noticed she was rushing full speed towards me, I also noticed the three yelling something.

‘Biyxllt 'eiæœ!’ I heard the voice shout. I turn around, and see the earth pony from before lunge at me. Before I could react, a brown and red blur shot past me, and bucked the earth pony.

"Ah know I'm easy on the eyes, but ya really shouldn't get distracted in a fight." Stem says with a smile.

"R-right, thanks." I say with an embarrassing stutter, then re-cover myself in Hate again. I then shoot ten tendrils out and wrapped them around ten enemies. Not a second later, several fire covered bones shot through their heads.

'Was the fire really necessary?' I think with a deadpan.

‘E'ill i dyxllek dyaed’u æ'iriekxmomo...’ I heard the voice agree, which in itself is a rare occurrence.

…

Slowly but surely, we managed to kill each and every one of them.

"This 'Hate' is pretty fascinating. I'd like to take a sample of it back to the Mage's tower." Crystal says with an intrigued look.

"Uhh." I simply say. While I hate the voice as much as the next pony, I don't feel it's right to experiment on a living creature. Parasitic like, or not.

"That's some mighty fine earth and plant magic y'all got there." I heard Stem say with a smile. "Think ya could teach me some things? Ah wanna see if I could make a new type of apple."

"Well." Crystal said, turning her attention to Stem. "There might be something we could show you."

"Much appreciated." Stem said with a smile.

"I'll take you back to your living quarters, and Crystal can take Ms. Dreamer to see [Name missing]." Jackson Said with a shrug.

"Thank you kindly." Stem says, before offering a hoof. "Apple Stem Apple." He takes the hoof, and shakes it.

"Jackson Osric."

Author's Note

Sorry it took so long, writer's block was reluctant to use *[MERCY]*. And to be clear, while this is Dream's POV, Unity is the one who's seeing it through her POV, so things are gonna be missing. And as a reminder: Judgment

’Wyxmoi i tæll’d aeqqriæ'i æth dyi aessssiuuæri'ei, i’na rmoaet dyaed 'eiæœ’'i thxllaemomo'ei tissxtit dæ udæq yæmotxllr 'eiæœriuimoth 'aessek.’

Translation:

‘While I don’t approve of the accessory, I’m glad that you’ve finally decided to stop holding yourself back.‘

’Ith 'eiæœ uae'ei uæ.’

Translation:

'If you say so.'

'Biyxllt 'eiæœ!'

Translation:

'Behind you!'

'E'ill i dyxllek dyaed’u æ'iriekxmomo...'

Translation:

‘Even I think that’s overkill...‘

Hair trigger

Rosary's POV

"How agitating." I groan as the worm blathers on about some problem they're too incompetent to handle on their own.

"I couldn't agree more, my lady. It's certainly agitating that some freak with horns dares oppose you. You, the right hand of Lord Grogar himself!" The bug said.

'Must you be so mean to them?' A (unfortunately) familiar voice asked.

'Do you actually dislike how I view them?' I asked her in surprise.

'Well…they do work for you.' She says.

'No, they work for that old goat with the cracked bell. If they could, they'd happily stab me in the back to get my position. Not that they could, given how weak they are.' I say back, before talking out loud. "Speaking of him, how has the assignment he gave you progressed?"

"Securing Doctor [Name Missing]'s assistant has proven…more difficult then we anticipated, especially with some new Guardian getting in the way." The worm said, catching my attention.

"Did you say 'Guardian'?" I questioned, only to receive a nod in return.

"Yes, as surprising as it is, there is indeed a new Guardian." The worm says.

First a Judge, and now a Guardian? This is not a good sign.

"And has the Guardian made any Oaths? And if so, what level?" I questioned.

"As far as we can tell, the Guardian has only made one Oath, and it's with the Judge. The level seems to be 10. The Guardian and the Judge also seem to have a Contract with each other. The Guardian seems to be working on establishing an Oath with the assistant as well, though thankfully they're not close enough to trigger a Link Event, so an Oath can't be made yet. But that may change soon." The worm said with a frown.

"Well if it's only with a single creature, then I suppose it's not too bad. I'll inform Lord Grogar. If that's all, you're dismissed." I say.

…

'Can't you just send him a letter?' The voice asked with a groan, a sentiment I am not ashamed to say I share. While I don't dislike the old goat, I didn't like him either. Though recently, he's been acting and looking different, ever since he got his hooves on those 6 colorful hearts. Ever since some substance call 'Hate' went missing, he's been much more paranoid. And while he was using his strange crystal ball to spy on his subordinates (myself included), seeing if one of us stole it (granted, we have stolen some things from him, so I suppose that's not really a foolish thought, though he's never caught me), he decided to widen his search radius. I don’t know the details, but he widened it far more than he intended to. And whatever he found, he felt like he needed to take care of it alone.

The 6 colorful hearts, or as he is adamant to call them, SOULs (for some reason, he insists on having the entire word capitalized). There’s apparently a seventh type, but he couldn’t find it. These SOULs seem to have consciousness of their own. And the next thing might just be the most shocking thing I’ve ever learned in my long existence. These SOULs apparently DON’T want to be controlled by a being that doesn't represent any of their traits, and especially one that represents their exact opposites. Who could have possibly conceived such a thing?

Integrity.Bravery.Patience.Perseverance.Justice.Kindness.Determination.

These are the SOUL traits he's been obsessing over, though he hasn't acquired the last one.

"Ah, Rosary, to what do I owe the pleasure?" Grogar asked, bringing me out of my thoughts, and forcing me to stifle a flinch. His horns looked much more jagged, his eyes were leaking a strange black liquid. Speaking of eyes; they seem to litter his entire body. And not only are they fully functional (as a would-be thief found out the hard way), they moved in separate directions from each other, some even constantly twitching. The extra eyes also leaked that same black liquid. And if that wasn't creepy enough, they also could do the same thing the crystal ball could do, meaning he literally has eyes everywhere. To make matters worse, his hunger seems endless, which is even worse since goats can eat just about anything. He gained the ability to see everywhere by eating his crystal ball, and by the looks of it, he's currently finishing up his cracked bell. Joy, now we'll have to worry about him eating magic to satisfy himself.

"Do you want the long answer, or the abridged version?" I asked.

"Unless this comes with something to eat, the abridged version." He (oh so eloquently) answered.

"Basically, your soldiers failed to capture the pink haired brat with horns, and [Name Missing] has a contract and a level 10 Oath with a Guardian. By the way, apparently there's a new Guardian." I say, probably way more bluntly then I should've.

…

Definitely.

I was definitely too blunt; to put it simply.

I push down a ping of guilt as I heard Lily quietly sob and whimper. I won't lie to myself, I honestly wanted to do the same, to the point where my pride almost wasn't able to prevent me from doing so. I…WE barely got out of there alive. I cursed my own foolishness. Of course he'd react that way, he'd probably react similar before his emotions became so chaotic. As it turns out, I was the only one to not realize this, because everyone else vacated the premises.

'Do you hear that?' Lily asked. I strained my hearing to see if I can hear what she's talking about.

'Huh, kinda sounds like how a Diamond Dog does when they dig...' I think as I try to pinpoint the source.

…

It's…coming from the ground?

My eyes shoot wide as I'm barely able to dodge as (sure enough) a deformed Diamond Dog bursts from the ground.

"You can run, but you can't hide! My eyes are everywhere!" The mutt said in a distorted voice.

'Seriously!?' Both Lily and I mentally scream as I'm forced to shift into a much faster form, which resembles the wereponies I've heard about (one of my many forms). I then dash away as fast as I can.

'Uh, Rosary?' I heard Lily call, causing me to groan.

'Let me guess, 'don't Diamond Dogs normally travel in packs', right?' I asked as I hear more sounds of rapid digging.

'That. But also, why isn't Grogar just teleporting us back to him? All he would need is to know where we are, and have enough magic to cast the spell, and he has both.' Lily points out. That actually caused me to stumble a bit.

'That's…a really good point actually...I guess he's too mentally unstable to think of that.' I think. With nothing else to say or think, I focus my attention on escaping. I suddenly feel magic gathering in front of me, and thanks to my quick reflexes, I'm able to dodge a bolt a magic. Looking at the direction it came from, I see a deformed unicorn stallion.

"I guess not everycreature got out." I ponder as I, without stopping, behead the guy.

'As much as it sickens me to say; that might've been the most merciful thing you've ever done.' Lily states.

'Whatever, just tell me when you have a destination in mind. The sooner we have one, the sooner we can teleport out of here.' I think with a huff.

'Easier said than done! The guy has Leylines seemingly everywhere; it's hard to find an area without them.' She says back. Before I can respond, the ground shakes to an unnerving degree, causing me to nearly trip and fall. It doesn't take me long to figure out why, as an adult skeleton dragon bursts through the wall.

"Are you kidding me!?!" Both of us shout at the same time, causing my voice to sound doubled. The dragon has two heads, which wasn't that uncommon to be honest. I had dated a two headed dragon a long time ago (in my draconic form; which has purple scales, blue spikes and a lime green belly), so that didn’t stand out. What did stand out however; was the fact that it had a strange glow around it.

Without warning, it blew black fire at me. As I dodged out the way, I noticed the fire and glow around the dragon had a depressing feeling to them, to the point of hopelessness.

'Flames of Despair!?' Lily asked in shock.

I remember when I first learned of this unforgivable magic. The Flames of Despair not only burn the body, but the very hope and will in the SOUL. And no amount of fire resistance or immunity can stop it from doing it's job. It could turn the most happiest person, into the worst type of depressed person, to the point of suicide. Making the victims do nothing as they slowly burn to death. Not even the SOUL has the will to pass on, and remains in the body, allowing the body's actions to be dictated by it's killer. And considering how a skeleton dragon's abilities depend on how they originally died, it's safe to say that Grogar must've killed this unfortunate SOUL with the Flames of Despair. The only way to free the SOUL, is to destroy the body, though this leads to another problem. Without the will to exist, the SOUL will only stick around for a few seconds, before fading from existence. No one knows where they go after that, as these SOULs don't show up on tracking spells. There are, of course, other types of Despair magic, but fire is the most efficient and effective type in the current area.

I'm in no way, a good SOUL, but even I cannot turn a blind eye to this.

Unfortunately, I'm weakened thanks to fighting off Grogar, and trying to escape him. So I'm currently not strong enough to do what needs to be done. A quick look around showed that the Diamond Dogs retreated when the dragon showed up. That's good, since that means I won't have to worry about them getting hit with the Flames. If I can bring this dragon to a settlement with strong enough fighters, we could free the SOUL, and purge the twisted magic from it. After that, help it recover, then let it pass on.

'Li-.' Before I could even finish calling her, she cut me off.

'Already got a destination, hope you don't mind being in enemy territory.' She says with a grim tone.

'It's fine, we'll need their help if we're gonna face Grogar. He's never gonna leave us alone now that we've seen this anyway, so we might as well get their help.' I sigh. Without another word, I dash full speed to the dragon, and tackle it. And before the dragon could react, we teleport into enemy territory.

Author's Note

While most types of magic are accepted in the world, some aren't. These are call Unforgivable magic.

In the world of magic, there are three world agreed types (or columns) of magic.

Approved.Corruptive.And Unforgivable.

Approved are the types of magic that is considered safe to practice, of course there are certainly risks to using certain types of Approved magic, but they are manageable show you take the necessary steps.

Corruptive are the types of magic that leave big impacts on the psyche, these types of magic are considered a sickness. What makes them dangerous is how powerful and addictive they are. Often leading the afflicted to make morally abhorrent decisions. Of course since the afflicted doesn't have a real choice in this regard, they won't be held accountable for their actions while afflicted. This is because their own magic assumes a persona of its own, and seals the afflicted within their own mind, only semi aware of what's happening. And unless they can resist the corrupted magic (which only 1% can manage), they'll be unable to regain true control over themselves on their own. Therapy for these individuals are mandatory, to the point where a high ranking magic user will MAKE them attention, by any legal means necessary.

Unforgivable is as the name implies, unforgivable. Only the most twisted and evil types of magic can be given this title. And the entire magic world will be out for nothing short of the caster's obliteration. There's no turning back once someone has crossed this line. Even suggesting the use of these types of magic will bring great ire to the one who suggested it. Thankfully all magic have fingerprints of the caster, so it's impossible to frame another for this crime, unless the magic was completely erased from the area the caster and the afflicted were while the magic was active. And even then, the sudden depletion of magic will draw the attention of other magic users, so the chances of witnesses are exceptionally high.

A reluctant agreement

“I don’t understand, why can’t we penetrate your mind!?” Rosary asked, glaring down what she viewed as trash; a sentiment and action Unity returned.

“Well, since we can’t look in your head, I guess we’ll just have to…” Dream trails off. ‘If we take her to the guard, it won’t end well for us.’

’Yæœ’rii rællllae 'i aeddaessekxllr dyi rœaerit aell'eivae'ei, vyxssy naiaellu 'eiæœ’momo 'i thaessxllr dyi qrixllssiuu. Wy'ei llæd yae'i ’Unity’ yimoq?’ I hear the voice suggest.

”Well, it’s not like I have any better ideas.” I muttered. "How about this, you help us in something, and we don't turn you over to the guard for carrying an unregistered weapon."

"Do I look stupid to you?" Unity sneered.

"I can't speak for her, but you most certainly do to me." Rosary said with a glare, causing Dream to sigh (and inwardly chuckle).

"As you've already stated." Unity says with an eye roll. "As I was saying. You won't turn me to the guard." Unity said with a grin. 'You still rely on guards? Wherever I am, it must be pretty primitive, unless the guard in this realm are like the ones from the Citadel of Mages. If that's the case, I should tread carefully.' I think, repressing a shiver.

"Oh? And why's that?" Dream asked, mentally cursing.

"Because if you do, I'll rat you out faster then a brown noser can plant their lips on their superiors' butts." Unity says with a grin. "Or did you forget that your pet assaulted me, and then kidnapped me?"

"We could always-." Rosary was cut off by Unity.

"Kill me?" Unity asked. Rosary nods, annoyed at being interrupted. "Sorry, but that's also a no go."

"Huh?" Dream asked in confusion.

"I could see it." Unity said, turning to Dream. "When you mentioned having my help, I saw the desperation. Whatever it is that you need help with, you don't have much time. And seeing as how you've spent so long trying to get something useful from me, you aren't prepared to do whatever it is you need to do." She stopped for a moment, remembering what she saw. "Or you do have the means to do so, but can't bring yourself to use it." She finished, causing Dream to flinch.

"…"

"Though there's no reason to go the threatening route." Unity stated, taking their silence as a sign to continue. "We could just establish a mutually beneficial deal.”

With their interest peaked, the two listened intently.

”This had better work, bug.” Rosary glares.

“Don’t worry, you freak of nature, it’ll work just fine. Unlike you abominations of God, I can be trusted to keep my word.” Unity says with a huff.

“Girls, please!” Dream groaned. “I know we started off on the wrong hoof, but can’t we just put that behind us? Who knows, we might even be able to form a nice friendship.”

“Pff.” Unity brushes off.

”Master please, this insolent fool is undeserving of your kindness.” Rosary says with a frown, which turns into a scowl with Unity’s next comment.

“Dang Dream, I’m impressed. Most creatures would get uncomfortable with someone gluing their lips to their butts in public for so long, but you seem to be doing just fine. Really shows who wears the pants in your relationship.” Unity says. “Why not just cut the crap, and have her call you ‘mistress’? Since she wants to be so open about it.”

“Ah, I see now.” Rosary chuckles. “You’re among those childish enough to think that just because you talk down to others, you’re better than them. Well news flash, child, the world doesn’t work that way. You’re just as insignificant as those you look down on, if not more so.”

“Hello pot, I’m kettle.” Unity said with an eye roll.

“Girls!” Dream nearly shouts.

”Apologies.” Rosary said with a bow.

“Alright alright, we’ll stop.” Unity says, moving her front hooves in a “calm down” gesture. “So did you place them in the places I requested?”

“I did, though it’d have been easier if you had just used your magic.” Dream huffs.

“NEVER!” Unity seethes, stomping a hoof in anger, then tosses her a remote. "Just push the button when you're ready. As a reminder, this is only a magic dampener, and it'll only last an hour. After that, we're dead if we're still around. So I suggest making every second count." Then gives them special wrist bands modified to fit hooves, and repel the dome's affects, among other things. "These will make you immuned to the affects." The two put the bands on after seeing Unity do so.

"Alright." Dream said, nervousness clear in her voice. Before she could second guess herself, she pressed the button. A second later, the dozens of devices wirelessly connected to the remote activated, generating a giant white dome. After a few seconds, the dome completely covers the castle, and even the castle bridge.

…

"I mean no disrespect master (though a don't care how the child feels about it), but are you both sure about this?" Rosary asked the two, having just knocked out another guard.

"Sunshine-"

"Sunset!"" Rosary interrupted.

"Whatever." Unity brushes Rosary off before continuing. "The girl was last seen in the castle, your master said that her 'highness' has a number of otherworldly artifacts, and I came out of a mirror when I got here. Add that to the fact that, according to you, this world fractured from another. I'd say your kid probably found out about it, and decided to go to one of the other fractured worlds."

"We don't have all the details, but yes. As far as we know, this world used to be connected to another. Though we can't get the exact story of what actually happened, because no creature is old enough to have been there when it happened. And unless we find some creature who is, we'll never know." Dream says with a frown, putting a guard in a sleeper hold.

Thanks to the dome, the magic in the area was severely dampened. And because the guard didn't have time to prepare themselves, the sudden energy loss had made them exhausted, to the point where they couldn't even hold a spear. Unfortunately for Rosary, since Sunset had spent so long all over the castle, her scent was all over the place. So she had to rely on Unity to guide them, which hurt her pride greatly.

'Just deal with it for now; all that matters is finding Sunset, and helping our master.' Lily said, once again acting as the voice of reason. Rosary nods, already aware of this, but grateful for the reminder anyway.

…

"And here we are." Unity says, opening a door. And sure enough, on the other side of the room, stood a mirror oozing with magic.

"Well…I guess this is it." Dream says, before looking at Rosary with a determined look. "Let's not waste any time."

Manny’s POV

My sharp breaths were the only thing that broke the silence of the staircase, having turned back to my normal form, and running on pure adrenaline. And after a few seconds, I made it on the rooftop.

"Aww what's the matter? The big bad man can't handle one little girl?" I heard Sunset taunt, though it sounded kinda off. Though that doesn't matter right now. What does matter, is the fact that she was close on the ground, and she's fighting-

"Keep talking, but that's gonna make your punishment all the more painful!" I heard some dude say.

-She's fighting the prick who kidnapped her.

Without a word, I raced to the ladder leading down. When I touched the ground, I could only stare in shock and confusion. There were two Sunsets, the guy who took her, and his buddies. The buddies lead on the ground, unconscious and bleeding from the many slashes on their bodies, though something told me that it wasn't lethal. Next to them was one of the Sunsets. She seemed to be relatively fine; only sporting a bruise on her shoulder and cheek. Hopefully I can get my magic to work, and heal that. After that was the prick himself, he unfortunately looked fine, not a scratch on him. He even looked mildly agitated. And finally, the other Sunset. She surprisingly (like the prick) didn't have a scratch on her, though she did look a little exhausted. For some reason, I couldn't shake the feeling of dread when I looked at her, like she'd stab me the first chance she got. And considering how much damage the other Sunset did to me, I'd rather not try my luck with her.

"Manny?" The Sunset near the unconscious bodies called, drawing my attention.

"Sorry I'm late." I apologize as I jog to her.

"Watch out!" I heard the other Sunset yell.

Duck!

I quickly do so, and not a moment to soon, as a knife flys over my head. I quickly look to the culprit, only to see the prick glaring daggers at me.

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to talk this out, would you?" I asked with a nervous chuckle.

Author's Note

’Yæœ’rii rællllae 'i aeddaessekxllr dyi rœaerit aell'eivae'ei, vyxssy naiaellu 'eiæœ’momo 'i thaessxllr dyi qrixllssiuu. Wy'ei llæd yae'i ’Unity’ yimoq?’

Translation:

‘You’re gonna be attacking the guard anyway, which means you’ll be facing the princess. Why not have ‘Unity’ help?’

How come it's fine when Sunset talks to herself, but it's weird when I do it?

'Oh dang oh dang oh dang!' Was all Manny could think as he barely dodged a magic beam from Cold, who laughed as he fired at Manny. As it turned out, his ability to use magic was a fluke, a result of the weird gun. And since the effects of the gun wore off, Manny could no longer access his magic as easily as he could before. And to make matters worse, his chest really hurt.

"Stand still." Cold said causally, as he fired what Gaster had said was a crushing spell normally used for making junkyard work easier in Equestra. "I need to crush you."

Why do I feel like that's a reference from somewhere?

"Is that really important right now?" Manny asked as Cold dodged another attack from the other Sunset, only for her to stab him in the leg.

"Ack!" Cold flinched and jumped away, then turned and glared at the other Sunset. "You little-!"

"Aw, that looked like it hurt." The other Sunset says in a mocking tone.

"Yeah enjoy it while you can, brat, because it's the last hit you'll get in." Cold says as he readies another spell. The girl just smiled, then frowned as she put a finger in her ear.

"Yeah? I'm fighting him. Because it'd be over too quickly if I did. What? Ugh, fiiiine, if you really want me to do it the quick and boring way." The other Sunset says, taking her finger out of her ear. Then suddenly, her eyes changed. The white in her eyes turned black, and her pupils turned slited.

"Can you do that?" Manny asked his Sunset, who shook her head.

"No. But I think I could learn it, since she's this world's version of me." Sunset says with a shrug.

'No, I'm not sure what, but something tells me this isn't something you can just learn.' Manny thinks, as looked at the other Sunset, who was now turning red. 'This feel…unique.' Manny thinks, as everything else fades from his sight, save for the other Sunset. 'Wrong.' Suddenly his eyes and head started to tingle.

"Manny?"

Looking around the other Sunset, Manny noticed transparent figures flouting behind her. They all had various negative expressions on their faces. Some were crying, some were extremely angry, some were scared. At this point Manny's eyes started to hurt, and he started to get a headache.

"Manny."

But there was one thing they all had in common, their attention was directed purely at the other Sunset. At this point it was getting difficult to breathe.

"Manny!" Sunset's voice broke Manny out of his thoughts.

"Huh?" Was all Manny could say as everything went back to normal, and the pain in his eyes and head vanished. As he regained his breath, he looked at the girl fighting. The the other Sunset, who hadn't noticed Manny staring at her, regained her normal colors. Looking around the other Sunset again, he no longer saw the transparent figures. "What the…?"

"Finally!" His Sunset huffed. "What's the deal? Once you starting staring into my counterpart's eyes, you completely zoned out, and your eyes glowed green. Care to explain what happened?" Sunset asked with a raised brow.

"I'll let you know when I figured that out myself." Manny says, scratching his head in confusion, then flinched and grabbed his chest.

“You alright?” His Sunset asked as the other Sunset launches of the ground, heading straight for Cold.

“Yeah…just a spike of pain.” Manny says in a pained tone. During this, not only had the other Sunset reached Cold faster then Cold could react, she also slashed his face with claws made out of magic.

“You sure? That doesn’t sound very reassuring.” His Sunset pressed. Cold had staggered from the other Sunset’s slash, and countered with a kick to the jaw.

“I swear if you keep talking like that, I’m gonna nickname you ‘Dictionary’.” Manny states with a sigh. “I’m fine, it's probably nothing.” Manny assures as the other Sunset shoot 3 fire balls at Cold.

A little curious himself, he decided to check under his shirt to see if he could see anything. Once Manny could've sworn his heart skipped a beat, assuming Monsters had that specific mussel. On his chest was a massive 2nd degree burn in the shape of lightning going everywhere.

Woah…" Was all Sunset could say as she stared wide eyed at the injury. The only thing Manny could think of was that he wanted it healed immediately. His hand suddenly blazed with green magic, which he immediately brought to his chest. Though much to his horror, the green magic disappeared when it got close to his chest.

*BOOM*

Both their attention, though only a fraction of attention from Manny, was brought back to the fight. The other Sunset was floating in the air, and she had 6 fireballs around her, the fireballs being a mix between green, dark purple and black. Looking at he eyes, they saw both of her eyes were completely great, and dark purple mist were coming from them. And in a crater in the ground laid Cold, in the process of getting back up.

“Wow, I’m surprised you could tank that.” The other Sunset said, her voice and expression showing that in was genuine surprise, possible even respect.

“And I’m surprised a kid like you has that kinda power.” Cold says with a grin. “We’ll pull back for now, but I’ll definitely be back for a rematch, kid.” With that, takes out a gem, takes his fallen partners away in a telekinetic grip.

“Alright.” The other Sunset says, turning to her spectators, her eyes returning to normal. “Now that that’s taken care of, let’s…” She trails of as she noticed Manny’s burn marks.

(Unknown Hospital)
Examination room

The other Sunset had called for a ride to a hospital, when asked why they couldn’t use the hospital they were at, the other Sunset had said it wasn’t that type of building. When asked to go into more detail, she just shrugged and said that was the exact explanation her dad had given her.

During the ride, the three had a talk. Manny had stated that the burn was going back and forth between not that bad, to feeling like someone hit him with a bat, and it was getting progressively worse as time went on. And at some point in the conversation, the other Sunset had mentioned that she gotten the nickname “fire starter” when she accidentally set fire to a giant block of ice without the use of dark or chaos magic. While the Equestrian Sunset was wondering how that was possible, Manny asked if they could call her that to easily tell each other apart, to which she responded “sure, I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t like being called that. If anything I’m proud of it, I got it by doing something that confused my chaos magic teacher.”

(From this point forward, the human Sunset will be called Fire Starter, and the Equestrian Sunset will be called Abbey, though this’ll only be with both Sunsets, Gaster, and Manny. Everyone else will call them by the name they know them by.)

Fire Starter and Abbey were talking about the difference between their worlds magic when they had arrived at the hospital. As it turns out, while magic was much more varied and free flowing in Abbey’s world, common magic users in Fire Starter’s world had much higher potential then Abbey’s.

Now in the examination room, while the two girls picked up the conversation they were having before, Manny decided to talk to Gaster. Not wanting Fire Starter to think Manny was crazy, Gaster decided to bring Manny to their shared mindscape.

Mindscape

“Ok, we should have plenty of time to talk here, and possibly go over some magic exercises. Though since your body and possibly SOUL are damaged, you can’t use your actual SOUL for that.” Gaster says, looking at me.

“So what were you about to say back in that weird place?” Manny asked, relieved that he could no longer feel the pain.

“As I was saying, when creating your body, I had pulled three things together. One was my own magic, another was from an experiment long ago, and the third was from the void itself. Of course I unfortunately can’t take all the credit for the creation of your body, some of it goes to the same person who made that girl who could hear and see me. The void is toxic by nature, but when manipulated in a certain way, can safely create many things. Of course, when I attempted this long ago, it…did not go as planned. But by the looks of it, someone found my notes, and refined them." Gaster explained.

"And those 'void chains'?" Manny asked.

"The experiment I was talking about. They were the result of studying my top assistant at the time, her name was Kaede, truly a special girl that one." Gaster says with a smile, staring off, remembering fond memories from long ago.

"Could you tell me about her?" Manny asked.

"Maybe another time, right now we must focus on the present." Gaster says. "Now listen carefully."

With the Sunsets

"I still can't believe that dark magic is not only legal here, but also encouraged." Abbey says, scratching her head.

"'Dark' does not mean evil. Darkness is a natural force that exists in harmony with light. It's not dark magic that corrupts the user, it's corrupted users who misuse it's power. Take what happened in the fight I had with Cold for example. I used enough dark magic to kill a normal person, but-" Fire Started explaining before lifting her hand and gaining a concentrating look. Suddenly a sphere made of rainbow light appeared in her hand, giving off a wave of peace and tranquility that Abbey had never felt before. It was like whenever her mom had hugged her whenever she was feeling down, and always cheered her up. It was definitely powerful, but also comforting."-as you can see, I'm still able to use harmony magic."

"That's harmony magic!?" Abbey asked in shock, then remembered how Celestia would talk about how friendship spawned harmony. 'I'm still mad at her, but if I knew this was what she was talking about, I might've payed more attention to what she was saying.' She thinks, getting into a thinking pose, then raised a brow. 'Wait…if she was so knowledgeable about harmony, why did she never use it when we had arguments? Based on what I'm feeling, it should've easily calmed me down enough for her to get her point across, plus she wanted me to be harmonious anyway. So way didn't she?' She thinks with a frown.

"Yep, I personally feel like dark magic is better, but many people like harmony magic more." Fire Starter says with a shrug. "Whatever makes them happy I guess.

"Hey Fire?" Abbey called. "I have a question."

"And I might have an answer." She says.

"Is there anything that could take away the ability to use harmony magic?" Abbey asked.

"Well that depends on the user, for some it's because they no longer care about what they use to view as harmonious, for others it because they've done something (or caused something to happen through in action) that they regret to a point that their magic will react to their desire for punishment. To be more clear about the first one, it's normally because they're still in the process of figuring out what their new views on harmony are. It could also be because they've become greedy for power, not wanting others to gain enough power to challenge them." Fire explained.

'Could that be the reason she refused to let me achieve my destiny? But even though I'm angry at her, I can't say that's the case, it just doesn't sound like her. If she didn't want others to gain too much power, then why would she not only build a school, but take on a protégé? Maybe to use as a tool? But again, that doesn't make sense. If she wanted a tool, then she could've just use a mind control spell to make me absolutely obedient to her, but she was very pushy about me making friends of my own. But at the same time, what else could it be? I don't know somepony more stubborn in their beliefs then her, and she's Princess Celestia for ponies sale! What could a mare like her have possibly done, or not done, that was that bad? Wouldn't ponies know if she had done something bad enough to lose harmony magic?' Abbey think, gaining a headache from the confusion. "This makes no sense."

"What fun is there in making sense?" A new voice says, startling Abbey.

"Mr. Discord, what're you doing here?" Fire asked.

"Well I'm here to examine the sleeping kid here, since his body is so out of the ordinary. Glad he decided to save me time and go to sleep himself, now I just gotta lock him in his sleep." Discord says before snapping his fingers. A flash of light covered Manny, then disappeared, locking Manny in his dreams. "Now let's see what the problem is."

Hospital time, and girl time

Author's Note

Important notice before the chapter starts:

As a victim of it myself, recovering and dealing with the pain from a 2nd degree burn in real life is no where near as easy as it is for Manny. Manny is a Monster, so unlike humans, he has no skin, flesh or blood. He is literally just magic with some mass. Burns of any kind should be taken completely seriously, and should not be made lightly. The only reason that Manny’s handling it so well is because he’s not like humans, and he’s in a world where magic can achieve the seemingly impossible.

This is in no way to earn sympathy points and make him look like an awesome character. Nor is it to “add depth to his character”.

These types of injuries can cause trauma for the victims, and I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea to use this type of injury for anything other then necessary story reasons.

If I have in any way made you think I feel the opposite, that’s a failure on my part, and I’m sorry I gave you that impression. Please let me know if there’s any way I could correct this without holding up the story for too long.

Hospital time, and girl time

After Discord had finished his examination, he woke Manny up. Then Discord went over what he discovered. As it turns out, Manny did have 2nd degree burns, but couldn't immediately feel it due to his magic being scrambled. Since Manny was made of mostly magic, the magic that made up his nerves where still trying to get back in order, so they couldn't properly tell Manny just how much damage he'd received. This would fix itself in time, and the more it did, the more pain Manny would be in. It had been an hour before Manny could properly feel again, and he made it known.

Luckily for Manny, Gaster could pull him into his mindscape and keep him there, at least until the doctors on staff could find a way to give him pain medication. Since the injury seemed to cancel out any and all magic, and Manny didn't have enough mass to produce blood and veins, they couldn't inject him with pain medication or healing magic. However, Discord could repeatedly disperse Manny's nerves, since Discord's specific chaos magic could somewhat bypass the anti magic around his wound for a short period of time. Discord had attempted to use healing magic, but he wasn't that good at it, so he couldn't do much at a time. Manny had no choice but to heal the long way, and while Manny was waiting, Gaster had made sure to keep Manny's mind sharp. Or at least, as sharp as Manny could get it, progress was made either way. Though Manny was told not to use his magic while he recovers, just to be safe.

Abbey would make sure to visit him when she could. She was normally busy with Fire, who had agreed to use her position to help them get a proper foot in this world, in exchange for their help in various things. Of course Fire would also help them learn things to better their ability to help her, though there was one thing she wanted to do that Abbey had to keep a secret. Right now the two were alone in a sealed room, Fire's hand on the right side of Abbey's neck, and Abbey's eyes closed.

"Not gonna lie, this is a bit…" Abbey trails off.

"I know, but I don't know how Equestrain magic will react to this world's magic directly, so this is to make sure no one important is hurt." Fire says, which confused Abbey.

"But wouldn't you and I be hurt?" Abbey asked.

'Well you're far too weak to hurt me, and you're far from important. So again, no one important will be hurt.' Fire thought. 'Relax, at most you'll feel exhausted since I'll remove the magic before anything bad can happen, and I'm strong enough to tank the amount of magic I'm using should it harmlessly burst out of you." Fire says, lying about the first part. 'Not that you'll remember this if things go south anyway.' Fire then began to pump magic into Abbey, causing Abbey to gasp as she felt a spike of power. This went on for a while, as Fire was weaving certain spells while pumping magic in Abbey.

…

"Mom would kill me if she saw this." Abbey says, rubbing the spot Fire had touched, which now had a black version of her cutie mark.

"Well luckily for you, I made it to where she couldn't." Fire says. "There's a few more hours until visiting hours open, wanna head into town and get Manny something? I'm sure he'd appreciate it."

"But won't people recognize me as Manny's mother? Plus you and I look and sound the exact same, wouldn't that cause problems?" Abbey says.

"Already taken care of." Fire says with a dismissing wave.

"Then sure." Abbey says with a smile. "Where to first?"

"Probably the mall, it gets boring just waiting in the hospital to recover, so we should get him something to occupy his time. Sure there's TV, but that gets boring after awhile." Fire says, then gives Abbey a serious look. "By the way, during our ride there, we'll stop in certain locations. During those stops, I want you to memorize the location. If what you said about Equestrain teleportation is true, then memorizing should be enough. I wanna see just how well you can teleport to and from places you've just seen, and how well your memory is. Gotta know what I'm working with." Fire stated. Seeing Abbey nod, the two set out.

During the car ride, Abbey decided to ask a question that's been bugging her.

“Hey Fire, what’s your dad like?” Abbey asked, causing Fire to raise a brow.

“Where’d that come from?” She asked back.

“The chances of us having the same name while having different parents are almost nonexistent, so if I’m right, we should have the same mom and dad. Well my version of them had a falling out when I was too young to remember, so I’d like to learn about him through you.” Abbey explaine, causing Fire to go wide eyed.

“The same happened to my version of them.” She says, then gained a thoughtful look. “Though by the sounds of it, you stayed with your mom, while I stayed with my dad. I wonder why it’s different.”

“So, can you tell me about dad?” Abbey asked.

“Only if you agree to tell me about mom.” Fire says with a smile.

I was running, I’m not sure why, but I was running for my life.

”Oh what’s the matter? I thought you guys liked fired.”

“This hag’s crazy!”

”WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME!?”

I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but soon I started hearing screams of pain.

“Your Mom’s scary sometimes.” I heard a familiar voice say, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out who it was.

“Huh? Is someone there?” I asked, then heard someone running towards me.

“You should hide, I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come out.” The oddly familiar voice says. I preceded to hide in a bush.

After a few moments, whoever was running had past me. I go to get out, but I’m suddenly pulled back, and my mouth is covered.

“I didn’t say it was safe yet.” The familiar voice says. Noticing she was hugging me from behind and keeping me in a sitting position, I turned my face to see who it was.

Hospital room
Manny’s POV

My eyes shot open wide. After a 2 hours of going over the different types of bullet patterns, Gaster felt like I should get some proper sleep, so he pushed me into an actual dreaming state. I’m not sure what I saw, or how long I was actually out, but it felt important. Who was that girl? Why’d she sound familiar? I remembered my best friend’s voice, and the voice made it clear that she wasn’t my mom. So who could it be?

I’m brought back to reality by a knock on the door.

“Come in.” I say, after I say that, two pieces of bacon are brought in.

“How’s it going?” Fire asked with a wave.

“Fine.” I say, then noticed a red sun on the right side of Abbey’s neck. “Did you get a tattoo?”

“Oh I gave her that during our girl time, it’s nothing you need to worry about."

‘But why red? It kinda blends in with her hair unless it’s at a certain angle.’ I think to myself.

“Anyway, I brought some papers for you to fill out. Most of it has already been filled out for you, just a bunch of legal junk you don’t need to worry about, but you need to fill in the rest.” Fire says, handing me a stack of paper.

“What’s it for?” I asked.

“Once you’re discharged, you’ll be places in a space that make time move more quickly for you. After enough time has past for you, you’ll be sent to school along with Abbey and I.”

…

Well this has worked out much better than my plan ever would have. I gotta say, your almost suicidal recklessness has certainly sped things along.

“☞︎︎◆︎︎♍︎︎🙵 ❍︎︎♏︎︎✏︎“ I groaned. Gaster had also been teaching me how to speak his language properly. He figured since we were connected somehow, I’d be able to speak his language.

If it wasn’t for the fact that I knew they can’t understand you, if be scolding you about using that kind of language in front of children.

First Monday of school-Manny

‘I’m gonna die.’ Was all I could think as I looked around. There was about 26 students in this classroom, including me. 25 people who’re all capable of killing me in one blow, and if they’re anything like the students in my old school, then they’ll start fights for the stupidest reasons. Wanting to take my mind off the possibility of being murdered today, I took the time to go over the schedule I was given.

My first block (which I was currently in) teacher was some dude named Written Note, though of course we were supposed to call him Mr. Note. he taught history.

Someone named Ms. Luna (apparently she insisted that students use her first name for whatever reason) was my second block teacher, she’d be teaching Math, though Fire told me she’d also be teaching something else.

My third block teacher was someone called Iron Will (he was apparently really insistent about speaking in the third-person), he was my P.E teacher, though apparently he liked to double as a self-help motivational speaker.

I was able to chose my fourth block, and my choices were between science, band, English and Agriculture. Gaster said that he could easily teach science. I didn’t think I needed to take English since I already spoke that language (not sure why they teach something that the students already know how to do, but whatever). I had no idea what Agriculture was. So in the end I decided to take band. My fourth block teacher was Musical Score.

“Alright everyone, today we’ll be talking the era of the Mad King. While it may just be a silly myth, the historic moments surrounding this myth are important enough to bring up this myth. To save time, I’ll pass out papers that have the summery of the myth, so you can at least have a basic understanding.” Mr. Note says, handing out the papers. Without a word, we quickly read what was on it.

The world was split into two powers. The rulers of of those powers were friends. The king died so someone else, who happened to a racist megalomaniac, took the crown. The Queen was too heartbroken about the death of the old king to pay attention to the new one. When the queen noticed there was a war.

I’m not a fan of this teacher.

‘You can hardly blame a modern day teacher for not believing a story that crazy.’ I think with a chuckle and eye-roll. Abbey had told me the story during my time in the hospital. If I wasn’t living proof that Monsters existed and could be created, I’d be just as skeptical as Mr. Note. “Well he did say it was ‘just a silly myth’, it makes sense that he wouldn’t take it seriously.” I whispered.

Still.

I ignored the grumbling scientist and looked at Mr. Note.

“Now while this myth has many outlandish things in it, there has been proof that some sort of war took place around that time. For example: the castle ruins that the battle took place, the area around it was found in a way that couldn’t have possibly been made non-man made. Though rather then magic spells, it’s more likely that they used some ancient form of explosives, since shrapnel was discovered littering the area, though it is unknown what specific methods they used to make the explosives.” Mr Note says. The class continues like this until the bell rings, with us writing down notes. I proceeded to put my stuff in my backpack, something strangely felt off. I felt like there was something he was missing, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. It was like something was supposed to be there, but wasn’t anymore. So without a word, I finished packing and left.

I was on my way to my next classroom when somebody stopped me in the hallway.

"Hey new kid, why don't you stop and talk for a bit, me and my friends are wanna chat with you." I turned to the source to find three people. One (who seemed like the leader since he was in the front) had dark orange hair, red skin, and black colored eyes with yellow where there should be white. He was wearing a red open jacket, a tan shirt, and red pants and shoes. The one to his right (my left) was brown and wearing a dark brown long sleeved shirt and shorts, had lightish blue hair, and red eyes with yellow where there should be white. The one to the first's left (my right) was purple with a dark purple sleeveless shirt and pants. I couldn't tell what his eyes looked like because his yellow hair was covering them, though if I had to guess, they're probably similar to the first too.

"…Alright." I say, a little confused.

"I'm Garble, I just wanted to give you a little heads up on something, call it a little welcoming gift." He says.

"Oh! Well nice to meet you, I'm-" I started to introduce myself before I'm cut off.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Garble says dismissively. "Look I'm gonna cut to the chase. Since you're new to this school, you should know that me and my pals rule this section of the school." He finishes with a smile.

'Oh, they're bullies…I just love my luck recently. First Some phycho tries to kill me, then some pedo guy tries to kidnap a little girl on my watch and tries to kill both of us, then I end up in the hospital because of the phycho, and now I get to deal with bullies.' I think, with a groan.

"Oh don't worry, we'll leave you alone, for now at least. Just wanted to clear a few things." He says, before turning around. "See ya around." With that, he walks away.

"They're probably gonna stop me after school…" I groan, before continuing to walk to my next class.

How do you know this?

"Bullies rarely have originality, they tend to follow the same patterns with each other. 'See ya around' after talking to their future victims normally means 'see you after school', but they just wanna act cool and intimidating so they don't say it directly." I say with a sour tone.

It sounds like you have experience dealing with them.

"I come from a family with a reputation for being weird." I say simply. Nothing else was said during the walk, though I hoped I didn't share any blocks with them.

I finally get to my class when I'm stopped at the door, thankfully not by a bully this time.

"Hello Manny." The lady I assume is Ms. Luna asked.

"You already know who I am?" I asked in shock.

"Yes, my boss told me about your magic situation, along other things. I'll be your dark magic teacher, along with your math teacher." She says with a smile, then gets a look that you normally get when you remember something important. "Oh before I forget, I placed a spell on the math problem on the board, it's something to make the students unaware of it more accepting of the out of the ordinary for them."

"That's kinda…" I trail off.

"Yes yes, my sister already told me. But it's either this, or try to explain to a bunch of teenagers that dark magic can be used for good." She says with a wave of the hand.

"Makes sense, this would go faster." I say.

"See! I told Celestia that it's a valid reason." She says, losing the professionalism teachers normally should have. "Where were you when we were arguing about it?"

"Probably running from a pedo trying to kill me after a phycho shot me." I say with a shrug.

"Oh by the way, one (or possibly more) of those 'phychos' are here at school, possibly as a teacher." She says, causing me to groan.

"I'm beginning to this world hates me." I say genuinely.

"Don't worry, I assure you that things will get better for you, in time." She says, patting me on the shoulder.

*62*

I grabbed my shoulder as I feel a spike of pain.

"D-did you just damage me with just a pat!?" I whisper/shouted as a familiar green glow envelopes my hand, and by contact, the damaged area.

"Oh I'm sorry! I forgot how fragile your body was!" She says, taking over the healing, causing it to heal much faster.

"It's normally intent that causes the damage for Monsters, along with power." I say, not liking that she wrote it off as me just being fragile.

"Well the power part makes sense, I'm a magic teacher for a reason." She says, a bashful look on her face. She then gained a grim expression. "As for intent, that was because my mind was focused on those phychos as you called them, we have…bad history." After she says that, she looks away, and for a split second I could've sworn I saw her eyes turn slited and gain a bluish tent. Though when I looked closer, they looked normal. "In any case, I'll make an effort to avoid what just happened in the future, and I hope you enjoy your time here." With that, we both entered the class. I looked to the board to see the math problem she mentioned.

7x-6=50

The x was probably an 8, I may not be smart in a lot of areas, but I was a wiz at math! That's…kinda one of the reasons for my problems in my last school. Wow, not even halfway through the day and I'm already depressed.

"Yep, I'm definitely back at school." I sighed, though it wasn't all bad, at least I get to learn dark magic!

…

'This woman has lost her mind!' I think as I fired bones at the one of the demons she summoned. While I'm far from a master, I did get a better handle on my magic during my stay at the time increased realm thingy that Discord made. Granted I could only make 5 (possibly 6) bones per few minutes, progress was progress. Though they didn't have the ice patches they did before, so I probably had a ways to go before I could unlock whatever that was.

"Sorry Manny, this is the first day of my teaching career, I accidentally casted the wrong spell. It was supposed to be a window to the Infernal realm, not a doorway. Though Husks are basic demons, so you should be able to handle them easily, which you are." Luna says as she held the remaining "Husks" in magic bindings.

"While you're not wrong, who does something like this on their first lesson?!" I asked, before the Husk I just "killed" (apparently unless you have divine magic, you can't actually kill them, only send them back to their realm) proofed, and in its place was a bag with a loaf of bread in. "……what?"

Gained 25 experience

"For your first question, I told you it was an accident, sue me." She says with an eye roll. "For your second question, the Infernal realm connects to all realities, these Husks must come from a place where defeated enemies turn into items. Now I’m gonna release another one, and this time I want you to your attacks with negative thoughts, specifically fear and hate. This is because this is the easiest method, though hardest to control and least effective in my opinion. I’ll explain why after you defeat that husk.” I reframed from rolling my eyes, and focus on my hate and fear.

…

"Why am I not he ceiling?" I asked, having no idea what happened.

"Apparently fool's dark magic doesn't mix well with your race." I heard Luna say. Looking at her, I noticed she had bruises here and there. "You went feral and attacked me."

"I did that to you?" I say, feeling pretty guilty, though she just waved it off.

"Don't worry about it, consider it payback for what I accidentally did to you." She says, letting me down from the ceiling. "Besides, I can easily heal this, I just waited because I didn't think you'd believe me without proof." She says as she does just that.

"You called it 'fool's dark magic', why's it called that?" I asked.

"Because only fools think that's the way you should use dark magic. Darkness is an already existing force that's all around use, like the light. What you did was the equivalent of someone jogging in place for hours on end without a break, just to get enough sweat to put out a fire, when the ocean is right next to them. By the way, here." She says, handing me a scroll, some vials filled with unknown liquids, and a jar (the size of a water bottle) filled with clear liquid(?). "These appeared when you destroyed the husks. I wouldn't get your hope up, husk's rarely drop anything that good, you'd have to be super lucky to get anything decent.” I shrugged at that.

“How am I gonna carry this without the glass breaking?” I asked. ‘It’s not like I have an Inventory to keep it in…’ Suddenly all the glass based items vanished in lines of white.

“What?” I asked at the same time.

Oh yeah, you have an inventory...Did I forget to mention that?

“Relax, it’s just an inventory, it’s no big deal.” Luna says, snapping her fingers and causing a clear dark blue tinted screen pops up.

“Is having an inventory common?” I asked, she just raised a brow.

“Yeah, all magical beings have one.” She says. “Just think about it, and snap your fingers. It works differently for some beings though.” I do as she suggests, and instead of an inventory screen, what looks like an options menu pops up. On it are inventory, stats, phone and exit. “Ok, now that’s strange.”

"Ms. Luna-" I jump as someone behind me said that. Do to everything that happened, and the fact that they've been quiet this whole time, I forgot they were here to. "-can I go to the bathroom?"

"I think you might've put too much power in that spell." I say as I turn to Luna, referring to the spell that made them accepting of strange things.

"I think you might be right, it defeats the purpose of the class if they're unable to register magic at all. Oh well, something to keep in mind for next time." Luna says with a frown, then looks at the clock, there's at least 25 more minutes until 2nd block was over. "Yes Mr. Treat, you may, but don't take too long." With that, the student walks out the door, but not before Luna hits him with a spell.

"So do you think I could fight more of those things?" I asked her.

"You want to fight more of them?" She asked with a raised brow.

"Well yeah, I get to practice my magic while getting things when if I beat them!" I say with a smile. 'Plus since I'm technically just banishing them instead of killing them, my LV won't rise, so I don't have to worry about that.'

"Sure, as long as you maintain a good grade in my class." She said with a shrug, then gave me a stern look. "Both aspects of it."

"Y-yes Ms. Luna." I stuttered. 'Man she's intimidating.'

…I like her.

On the way to my next block, I decided to take a stop in the bathroom, not to actually use it though. I wanted to check out my menu. So once I entered a stall, I bring up my menu.

Inventory
Stats
Phone
Exit

First I clicked on Stats.

Manny Osric:

LV: (ERROR)
Exp: (ERROR)
Level: 2
Experience: 0/125

HP: 330 Atk: 80 Def: 80 speed: 100 magic: 3030 (Error in SOUL locks stats to 100-HP 5-Atk 5-Def 10-speed 20-magic).

SOUL: Boss Monster Active (Error)

Status: (Active) (Single) (Neutral Good)

Conditions: There seems to be an error in Manny's SOUL. While it's not fatal, it seems to have debuff elements to it.

"That's…much more detailed then it was in the game." I say.

Well there were massive glitchs long ago that caused certain changes to the way this world operates. Some much worse then others. Take the fact the you have an LV stat and a level stat for example, despite those having been one in the same in the game.

"You ever gonna clue me in on these things?" I asked, slightly annoyed that he's keeping me in the dark about so many things.

The reasons I haven't told you as much as I should have are because I've either forgotten to, being as old as I am will do that to you, or I felt you weren't ready for it. I mean, your mind nearly broke when you saw an enemy turn into items, despite being sent here by a would be video game character.

"Ok yeah, that's fair." I say with a nod. "Any idea about the error?"

No, unfortunately that was there before you and I first met. And I don't have the tools to examine it, sorry.

"It's fine." I sigh, then remembered something. "Hey, back in the void, you mentioned how my friend was technically in the same place as I was. What happened to her?"

I'm not sure, I couldn't find her SOUL after I made the deal with you. Though I'm sure she's fine, she had quite a strong SOUL.

"Yeah, that sounds like her." I say, then looked at the level and experience. "So can you explain the new leveling system?"

Well this would has two sets of levels to work with. L.O.V.E and levels. L.O.V.E is increased by acts of violence. Killing sentient beings just because you want to, causing misery to other, etc. Levels on the other hand are increased by completing objectives, beating (not killing, but beating) enemies or opponents, etc.

"Is there a difference between which one you increase?" I asked.

Increasing your LV is 10 times as powerful as increasing your level, not that that really matters for you, since your stats are locked as they are. Though if their SOUL isn't active like yours, they can't gain the benefits of increasing LV, while everyone can increase their level. Also levels are not affected by Karma. Hey Manny, maybe you should do this later, you still have class.

I go wide eyed and rushed out the bathroom, then headed for the gym.

‘Alright, this is just ridiculous.’ I think as I looked at the body builder that was my P.E coach. He had hair so dark blue it was almost black. Grayish blue skin, dark blue shirt and shorts, and black shoes and tie. His eyes had a red ring around each one. There was yellow where there should’ve been white, and his eye color was black. I also noticed he had tattoos of bull horns on the sides of his head. Once I looked closer, I noticed a whistle under his tie.

"Uh mister, I think you're in the wrong type of gym." One of the students said, she sounded kinda familiar.

"First of all, Iron Will will be called Iron Will. Second of all, there's no such thing as a wrong type of gym. Third of all, Iron Will is exactly where he should be." Iron Will said, kinda sounding like a stereotypical wrestler. "Now before anything, let's do some stretches." After he said that, he lead us through various stretches. After we were finished, I felt a little sore, probably because I haven't really done any physical activity since I got my new body. If I had blood, it would've run cool then and there.

That's right, other then the 2 fights and a little bit of dodging, I've done practically nothing physical with my new body. Especially when I was stuck recovering, since I'm just magic with some mass, I didn't even have to do physical therapy since my body could move just fine.

"This is gonna suck." I groaned.

Oh quit complaining, it's your own fault for not taking the initiative to exercise during your recovery. Now get to it, you've got a lot of ground to make up.

…

On the plus side, I had plenty of energy, the only real problem was that my body wasn’t used to this, so it was pretty sore. We had just done 10 laps around the gym, and while I wasn’t the very last to finish, I was one of them. During the run (yes I know that’s it’s better to jog the laps and save energy then it is to run nonstop, but I prefer running nonstop), a teacher had came in. I heard Iron Will call him Professor Yin Tu, he was apparently this school’s top science teacher. And oddly enough, he wanted to talk to me. He was grey with white hair and eyes, it was like he was born without pupils. He was also wearing a lab coat.

“You wanted to talk, Professor?” I asked.

Wait a second, what’s a Professor doing here? Shouldn’t he be in some college or university?

‘He has a point, now that I think about it.’ I think, once again, not understanding what’s going on.

“Yes, I’d like to talk to you about Ms. Shimmer." He said, causing me to pause. It took me a moment to realize he was talking about Fire.

"So what about her?" I asked.

"Well, I'd like to know what's she like, I'm gonna be her teacher tomorrow." He, a literal Professor, said with a straight face.

"You're joking." I stated.

"She has an overachieving 'my princess deserves the best and will get the best' father." He said with an understanding look.

"Ah." I say, relieved that the world still had a scrap of logic in it.

"So you can imagine why I'd like to learn about her before I meet her, especially considering certain…factors." He says, scratching his head.

"Well she seems like a girl who knows what she wants, knows how to get it, and will do what she needs to do. She more then deserves her title as a prodigy, and regardless of what adults say about adults knowing better then kids, I'd be much more confident in doing what she suggests then I would be for most adu-" I say before I'm cut off by a scream.

Gaster's POV

As I watched Manny talk about the girl, I couldn't help but be reminded of my own former prodigy. She was a bit stubborn at times, but she was one of the few people I'd genuinely recognize as a master of magic, despite some people claiming that you can't master magic. Their argument was that magic was an ever expanding force that had far too many mysteries to be mastered. What they didn't understand is that that is the case with everything else you could learn. Martial arts are an ever expanding force with many unknown mysteries, but you can still be a master martial artist. Archaeology is centered around the ever expanding mysteries of the past, but you could still be a master in that field. Even science is something you can be a master in, despite the many questions and possibilities to discover. Frankly if they spent less time trying to act sage like, and more time to think about what they're talking about, they might actu-

"Get away from there!" My train of thought is broken as I heard someone scream in the distance.

*Boom*

“Well he did say it was ‘just a silly myth’, it makes sense that he wouldn’t take it seriously.” Manny suddenly whispered.

I give him a confused look, before noticing he's now sitting in a desk. I looked around to see where we are, only to see we're back in Manny's first block class.

"Uh dude, you alright?" Manny asked, a concerned look on his face. I just nod, now understanding what happened.

'Someone here can Reset, but who?' I think, hoping whoever it was won't go down the same path the prince had.

Author's Note

While Gaster might've not answered it, there's a very important question that Manny forgot to ask due to not paying enough attention to everything Gaster had said (from the deal, to the bathroom part in this chapter. Can anyone guess what that question was?

Also I know this chapter was a pretty big info dump, but there’s a lot of things to cover.

With Mr. Note: I wanted to reinforce the fact that the everyday citizen aren't aware of the magical world, plus give Manny a way to learn the history of the world in a way that his character would logically learn it despite it not being something that he'd go out of his way to learn. And what better why to get someone to learn something they wouldn't care about then to make them learn it in school.

With Luna: Manny needs guidance from someone more down to earth then two geniuses who're so outta his league that they literally can't properly teach him magic. Luna, despite also being outta Manny's league, is still pretty down to earth. And not only that, she doesn't have much experience teaching, so it gives Manny and her a reason to get to know each other. Since (in my personal experience) there's a emotional barrier between many experienced teachers and students. You saw how Manny instantly went feral the first time he channeled negative emotions in his magic? That's due to Garble bringing up bad memories right before he got to Luna's class. So Manny needs someone who can act as an outlet for his negative emotions, understands what he's feeling, and can help him work past it. And I thought what better character to do that, then Luna. Also I had her be inexperienced because the "all knowing and wise teacher that helps the protagonist" troupe is done to death, and I thought this would prevent her from being a cardboard cutout [insert wise mentor name and description here] that most protagonists "conveniently" get because they're the protagonist. This way she won't instantly know how to best handle a lesson and will have to learn as she goes.

With Iron Will: Manny's kind of a pushover, and he needs to learn how to be more aggressive to get jobs done. He also needs to get in better shape. Yeah his stats are locked, but having good hand-eye coordination and reaction time will help him in future Fights.

Shot through the heart, and you're to blame~ You give L.O.V.E, a bad name~

'Why do I get the feeling I'm leading us into a lion's den?' I think in concern. Following my lead, we arrived at an open door. In the room the door leads to, we see two people on the floor, one of them is surrounded by some weird circle.

"What's that weird circle for?" I asked in confusion. Sunset looks like she wants to say something, but decided not to.

It's a magic circle, or seal, whichever you prefer.

"Oh." I say, feeling a little put off by Sunset's lack of snark. Sunset gives me a confused look. "Don't worry about it." I dismissed. Shaking her head, she continued to look the two over. The one in the magic circle, has six chains protruding from her back.

'Those chains feel familiar somehow.' I think in confusion.

"Hey ☝︎♋︎⬧︎⧫︎♏︎❒︎, any ideas on what happened here?" I asked.

Well, given how there's bullet holes on th-.

"It looks like these two had a fight. Considering how this looks like a hospital room, a patient (probably the one with chains) must've gotten aggressive, and a security guard must have been called in to stop the patient. And by the looks of it, while the patient seems to have been taken care of, she (or he, hard to tell) must've gotten some good hits on the guard." Sunset answered my question, unknowingly cutting Gaster off. And for the first time since I've met him, Gaster gained an annoyed look, though he doesn't say anything. Probably because Sunset can't hear him, and therefore wouldn't know he was talking.

Yes well, be careful. The security guard has enough Exp to equal Frisk when they did a genocide route, all the way until they left the Ruins.

"If they're only a security guard, then why does he or she have so much Exp?" I asked, picking up a weird looking gun, then started to fiddle with it. After a bit, I heard a weird click.

“Fine, fine.” I say with a shrug, before walking towards the security guard. Now that I've gotten closer, it's plainly obvious that I wasn't looking at a security guard. Looking them over, I couldn't help but notice the chains.

"What's up with these chains?" I asked in confusion.

Void Chains

I look over to Gaster in confusion.

Void Chains are different from your average magical chains. Tell me, how do you think I turned you into a monster?

"You and I both know I'm never gonna get the correct answer." I say with a deadpan.

Try

"Alright." I say with a sigh. After a few moments, I come up with an answer. "Well…in one fan comic I've read, you cut out circles from your hand, and used them to create Sans and Papyrus."

Ah yes, I'm familiar with that universe. And just to clarify, that is NOT how they came to be, at least with this version of me.

…I've never met anyone who can sound so distant and neutral about something, yet give the impression that they're extremely passionate and enraged about something, at the exact same time. Seriously, he both sounded like he was discussing the weather, and that he'd shatter my SOUL if I ever directly compared this version of him, to that version of him.

Well in any case, that was incorrect, care to try again?

"No." I stated firmly, my undertone screaming "I'm not gonna do something as stupid as risk saying something to make this worse". He must of caught onto my undertone, because he flinched and gave a slightly guilty look.

Sorry, it’s just, those versions of myself are a touchy subject for me.

“It’s fine dude, really.” I assure him with a smile.

Well, when creating your bo-

He’s interrupted by a flash of light from behind us. After the light dies down, we turn to the source, only to see Sunset.

“What happened?” I asked, though I noticed the security guard begin to stir.

“Just had a chat with the daughter of the guy who runs this place. Apparently this woman (apparently) is a member of a zealot group that wants to purge existence of all magic. We should probably go before she wakes up.” Sunset says, before going wide eyed. I give a confused look before I feel the gun snatched out of my hand.

“Spawn of the false god!” The woman yelled in rage, pointing the gun at Sunset.

“Woah! Calm down!” I say in alarm, only for her to point the gun at me.

“Don’t tell me to ‘calm down’, buck!” She seethed. For some reason, Sunset’s jaw dropped.

“Don’t call me that.” I say with a huff.

“Why not? Are those not goat horns?” She says with a raised eye brow.

“They are.” I nod.

“Well there you have it.” She says with a nod.

“Ok!” Sunset starts with a scowl, earning our attention. “I don’t know who you think you are, and frankly, I don’t care.” She continued, walking towards the women, who trained her gun on Sunset.

“What are you doing? She has a gun!” I yell in shock. ‘For someone who’s bragged about how smart she is, she’s being really dumb.’

“I don’t care what that weird paper weight is called, I’m still gonna knock her silly.” Sunset stated, pulling a familiar pipe out of seemingly nowhere. ‘Do guns not exist in her world?’ I think in surprise.

“Oh yeah?” The woman says, the gun making a powering up sound. “I’d like to see you try, demon.” She says with venom, pulling the trigger.

I’m not sure what happened after that. One moment, I was out of the line of fire, the next I was in front of Sunset. I then feel a spike of pain in my chest.

3rd POV

4v3s woke up with a groan, then looked at the others present. She sees the women who shot her, and three other people, her night vision helping her make them out. Looking down, she sees a magic circle around her, not that she knew what it was.

Meanwhile, Manny was doubled over in pain, as the effects of the blast spread. Though instead of it eating his magic, like it did with 4v3s, it made his magic rise to dangerous levels. It was at this moment that the Equestrian agents had caught up to them.

“The hay…?” Cold asked in confusion.

"☝︎♋︎⬧︎⧫︎♏︎❒︎, what's going on!?" Manny says in panic, still holding his chest.

'Gaster?' 4v3s thought in confusion.

"Hey, kid with the horns, could you repeat the first part?" Cold requested. 4v3s gave a look of confusion.

"He said ☝︎♋︎⬧︎⧫︎♏︎❒︎." She stated, causing the skeleton to look at her in surprise.

She can understand my name, interesting.

"Why would me knowing your name be interesting? Your friend just said it." 4v3s points out, looking directly at Gaster, causing the Monster's interest to rise.

"Who are you talking to?" Sunset asked in confusion, allowing Manny to lean on her for support, as he started to vibrate.

"Him." 4v3s says, pointing to Gaster, causing everyone else (save for Manny and Gaster) to look at her in confusion. To them, she was just pointing to a wall.

As fascinating as this is, we really should deal with what's going on with Manny.

Meanwhile with Manny, throughout that conversation, the effects were getting worse. Normal magical creatures have something called an internal magic network (or system, depending on who you ask). This network regulates the flow of magic, and can withstand a good amount of magic pressure before they burst (the amount of durability depends on the creature, and how proficient in magic they are). They also have pressure points throughout the network, some increase the healing rate of the creature, some disable the flow of magic, etc. Monsters don't have these networks, their actual bodies are magic, so there's no real limit to how much their magic can increase. This would be the most ideal situation for a Monster, assuming they have the foresight to practice with this level of magic, here's the thing. Monsters are sensitive to the emotions of others, hence why Monsters start to hide after you leave the ruins during the Genocide route, but having killed anyone outside the ruins yet (this is before you have spared anyone). This is a magical ability all Monsters have, but not all utilize. The blast was making all of Manny's magical abilities skyrocket, including his natural (and unused) empathy ability.

Cold's agitation, and his various negative feelings.

Gaster's desperation and anger.

Sunset's thirst for power, and annoyance at her own powerlessness, along with her anger at Celestia.

4v3s's feelings of powerlessness and fear, knowing she'll end up as just a tool for some unknown nut job, along with the fact that she might not always have control over her body.

The mysterious woman who thinks everyone except her is connected to her religious enemies, and her pure hatred of them, because she thinks that.

All of those factors weren't exactly helping the situation.

“M̵̼̖̆̅͒ḁ̵̱̏̊̽k̴͎̩͉͛́̀ë̸͔̣̲́ ̴̪͛͜ḯ̸̼̦̯̏t̴͉̀̒͊ ̴͈͆́s̴͂̍͜t̴̙͂͊ò̶ͅp̵̼͔̄͛.̷̥̱̽” Manny says.

“Huh?” Sunset asked in confusion.

Oh no.

“I said…” Manny says, eyes glowing green, and the white in his eyes turning black. “M̶̨̨̛̛͎̤͍͍̖̺͇͇̬̟̹̖̺͍͓̋͊̏́̉̏͒̇͜Ȧ̶̭̟̠̍̍͌̌͐̇͝K̵̡̨̢̻̦̫̻̮͈͉̠̯̗̹̰̙͊̈́̓͛̿́̇̈́̾͌̄͒̀̃̔̚̕Ȩ̶̪̗͕̓͒̅̓̌̔͛͗̄̈̀͑̈́͠ ̶̛͈͇̞̂̈́̄̅͋̔̑̎̓̌̐̍̇̕͘I̷̦̪͍͈͈͚͖̳͉̺̬̫͚̋͗̐̓͂̈̓̍̋͆̈́̽͘͜T̷̢̨̹̞̬̼̪̩͇͙̣̝͔͇̥͉̖̗̰̆͑͊̋̈́̓͆͂̔̐̌̊̽͂́́͘ ̷̨̡̡̧͈̣̰̟̺̜̫̥̍̋̀͘Š̸̭̥̐̉̚͝Ț̵̢̢̠̩̹̱̥͍̥̯͊̓̓̎͊̂̃̈́̏̋͘ͅỌ̴̡͎̜̠̱͇̱͒̍̿͐̒̕P̷̛̫͙̮̺̦̤̭̌͋!̵̡͕͔͉͕̻͖̙̝͎̞̫̽̓̍̓̓̈́̕͜”

As he yells this, an invisible force of magic pushes everyone back, even Gaster. Sunset goes pale as Manny starts to change. His skin turns ghostly white, his horns and body grow to match that of a teenager, and six chains spring from his back. She gets a sinking feeling as the same weird black void appears, all of her colors turn white, and a familiar red heart appeared in front of her.

Author's Note

To clarify: in the human world, young male goats are called bucks, bucklings or Kids (the last one is gender neutral). In Sunset’s home world, all young goats are called Kids, regardless of gender.

Name the fallen monster

"In all honesty, I'm not even surprised." I whispered as I watch another house being burned down in the distance. "If this doesn’t prove humans are an insane species, then I don't know what will."

"Come on dude! Aren't you being overdramatic?" The girl next to me quietly asked with a deadpan look. I look to her with a frown. Her name was Sophia Vivienne, she was a pretty stubborn girl. We had been best friends for years, so we hung out a lot. When we learned about the arson spree from the news, we didn't think much about it. Of course, none of our family members shared our view, so they pretty much put us under house arrest until the culprits were caught. We were hanging out in my house when that specific house suddenly caught on fire, my folks were in the kitchen, so we were alone at the moment.

"’Overdramatic’? Look outside!" I whisper shouted. "It's almost like they woke up one day, and suddenly wanted to watch the world burn! There's literally no reason for them to go out of-." I'm interrupted by the sound of two gunshots, making me shiver in fear, I look to Sophia and see she's in a similar state. We both fall down, Sophia pulling me into a hug.

"That sounded pretty close. You don't think they'll hit this house, do you?” She asked, only to receive a shrug.I look to the clock to find it's pretty close to 9:00pm.

"Well if it makes you feel any better, things should calm down soon. I mean, nut jobs gotta sleep too, right?" I asked, she gave a snort before looking at me.

"Not all humans are like that. I mean, I haven't started any fires, and you haven't intentionally started any." She started, my deadpanning intensifies. "So we can't all be bad, right?" She asked with a smile, I don't have a counter for that, so I just reluctantly nod in defeat. She lets go of me and we cut on the T.V.

We sit quietly together while the hours fly by. After awhile, I noticed Sophia wasn't with me anymore. When I looked around for her, I saw that I was in a black void. Before I could question life, an elderly man walks out of thin air.

"Hello there." He said calmly with a smile on his face.

"…Hi." I say back, slightly on guard. 'I'll be nice for now, but in case this goes south, I should get ready to run. Though since he appeared out of thin air, I wonder what the chances are that I could out run him.' I think to myself, he chuckles for some reason.

"Oh don't mind me! If you feel like running, go ahead and run. I'll be here when you’re done!" He says with a knowing look. I shrug it off and take his advice. I book it and run full speed away, a few minutes(?) later, I'm right back where I started. Sure enough, the man hadn't moved an inch. "You're pretty fast for your age. Now that you're done, I'll answer any questions you might have."

"Who are you? Where am I? Where is the girl who was with me, Sophia? Who are you?" I fired question after question at him.

"…You asked who I was twice. Anyway. You’re in a black void, not much I can explain about it without confusing you." He started.

"That's fair." I nod in agreement, I'm not the brightest bulb in the pack.

"Your friend is both here and not at the same time, again this "place" is complicated. She's completely fine, so don't worry." He continued.

"I wouldn't be a real friend if I didn't worry about her sudden disappearance." I state firmly.

"As for who I am, I'm Gaster." He stated without hesitation. Seeing my disbelief, he gestured toward the "surrounding area". Seeing that he made his point, he continued. "I'd like your help in an experiment I've been working on."

"…Experiment?" I asked in confusion.

"Yes, it's a means for me to leave this place. I'd do it myself, but as you can see, I'm not in the best shape." He said with a shrug.

"What do you mean? Sure your not exactly built for freerunning, but you don't look that bad. Heck, considering how most people from the fandom believe you look goopy, this actually looks fine. Though I'm surprised your human, I honestly thought you were a monster." I say before I hear laughing.

"Don't be fooled, that's just your mind trying to protect itself. Truthfully my form has…changed over time, what with all the time that's past, this place does that to you. My form is too terrifying for your mind to handle, so in an effort to save itself, it's making you perceive me as something harmless. And yes, I am a Monster." He says with a more hollowed chuckle.

"Wait, doesn't that mean I could end up the same way?" I asked in concern, he nods.

"Correct. That is, if you were here physically. This is more of a shared dream, I probably should've said that sooner." He said, cracking a smile.

"…Of course." I sigh in exasperation. "So why am I here?"

“As I said, I need your help in an experiment. Don’t worry, this is like the red and blue pill choice from that inaccurate movie you humans seem to like.” He says. Seeing my confused face, he explained. “While the human SOUL could generate enough power to make that machine function, the human body couldn’t. In fact, it would take much more power to keep them alive then they could generate. As for why you specifically, you’re the 185,678,457,855th human I’ve pulled here from countless universes. So far only one accepted………I’d rather not talk about that human.”

“What’s the choice.” I asked, slightly interested.

"I'm giving you the choice to either go back to your original world, or be sent to another one with an assignment, if you agree.” He answers simply.

'Well if I'm gonna be honest, having the chance to go to a new world is a once in a lifetime deal.' I think with a nod. "What’s the assignment?” I asked.

“In this world I’m talking about, there’s someone foul, irredeemable. They have, and will continue to, gain a lot of L.V through killing. I’d like to use this individual as a means of escape. I’ll explain ‘how’ later on, if you accept. And it’s not like you’ll be alone in this experiment. Trust me, this individual has already made a lot of enemies.” He says.

“Well I would hope so!” I say bluntly. He chuckles before offering his hand.

“To make sure we’re both on the same page: I’ll send you to a new world with some alterations to your body and SOUL that will let you use magic, and in exchange, you help me in an experiment at the expense of a megalomaniac. So, do we have a deal?” He asked with a smile.

“Wait, how are you aware of what’s happening in that world, aren’t you stuck here?” I asked, puzzled that he knows so much about what’s been happening outside of this void.

“I’ve been ripped apart and had my consciousness spread throughout the multiverse. I know things no Monster nor Human should ever be forced to know.” He says with a shiver.

"…OK, we’re just gonna stop before it gets too freaky.” I say much quicker than I meant to. He nods and I shake it his hand. Everything suddenly goes dark. Then I see a screen and a white heart. The heart has small and barely noticeable streaks of different unidentifiable colors in it while the screen had text on it.

NAME THE FALLEN MONSTER.

This will be your name, not someone else's.

After a moment, I type in my name.

Manny Osric

Then everything goes white, and I slipped into unconsciousness.

A picture shows a human King and a chimera Queen standing side by side, smiling at the camera. Long ago, two races ruled the world formerly known as Terra, humans and chimeras. The rulers of the land were not wed, but were best friends who chose to unite their kingdoms and rule side by side. Together they brought peace and harmony to the realm, with the exception of some trouble makers here and there. As time passes, the citizens of the fused kingdoms split into smaller factions, more out of wanting to be with creatures that have similar interests like them then wanting to claim power.

There was the Harmony faction who focused on spreading light and positivity throughout the land, they were not fans of the Umbra faction but chose to reluctantly support their decision. They felt it wasn't their place to judge them for being true to themselves. Then there was the Umbra faction who focused more on darkness and other types of things others were too afraid of, they hated the harmony faction with a passion but never acted on it. Then there was the Chaos faction who focused on causing mischief wherever they go. They didn't care about the other factions at all, they just cared about having fun and having a laugh. They were like the youngest sibling of the trio, though Harmony and Umbra couldn't fully stop Chaos on account of how adaptable and powerful Chaos was. Of course not everyone was in a faction, some just didn't see the point or didn't have the courage to join one.

As time went on, the human king eventually succumbed to the passage of time and left the living plane. In her grieving, the Queen failed to notice the warning signs that the new King was corrupted and twisted. As he gazed at the humans and chimeras laughing and playing together, he looked at the chimeras in disgust. To him, they were an unnecessary eyesore. Wanting to get rid of them, he devised a plan. He just had to sow hate and distrust into the two races while the Queen was too distracted to notice. By the time she did notice, the damage had been done. The hate fueled humans waged war on the chimeras. With the Queen not being of sound mind, the chimeras were quickly losing. As the war raged on, something no one thought possible happened. All three factions put their differences aside to combat the hateful humans, even humans who hated the new King chose to fight for the chimeras. The three factions, and the nonaffiliated formed a union called Dreams. Of course the factions were still present, just changed from factions to sections.

Putting all of their magic and knowledge together, they created a new race called monsters. The nonaffiliated section handled the structure of the SOULs, which were quite similar to both humans and chimeras. The Umbra section handled the combative and SOUL absorption of them, though they didn't mention the SOUL absorption to the others. The Harmony section handled half of the monsters' body structure, making sure they were constructed with positive emotions to avoid whatever they knew the Umbras were secretly pulling. And the Chaos section handled the other half of the monsters' body structure, making sure each and every one of them were unique in some way. They monsters proved to be frighteningly powerful, but they had a weakness. The humans were much stronger than them physically, not to mention that the humans seem to get stronger the more they kill. Even with that weakness, Dreams managed to push the fight all the way to the King turned tyrant's front gate. But all that struggling and hard work was for not, the tyrant had been developing a spell to end the war once and for all using artifacts developed with the help of the chimeras before the war. It was a banishing spell that would send the target(s) to another world.

Successfully casting it, he sent both monsters and chimeras away with a twist just for amusement. All the chimeras save for one who managed to resist that part of the spell were split into the multiple species that made them up, some still having different aspects. And the humans who sided with them were changed into creatures that he thought would make better slaves. Their very memories were also being erased to make sure they never returned. These acts infuriated the former chimeras, and the one remaining chimera now called a draconequus. For the first time in his entire life, the draconequus absolutely loathed someone. This thing that had the audacity to take-no-steal the image of King from such a benevolent ruler decided to pull a stunt like this and sully the title even further than the draconequus thought possible. Being someone who was almost as high standing as the Queen herself, the draconequus managed to easily persuade everyone affected by this spell to lend him as much magic as possible for one last spell. Managing to snap his eagle talon and cast two spells before the banishing spell was completed, he vanished along with everyone else. The spell shattered the enslavement spell on the former humans, and the humans that sided with the tyrant were suddenly overcome with rage and bloodlust for the tyrant. No one knows what became of the tyrant or what all occurred in the time that is now known as the dark ages. But it is said that you can still hear his screams of suffering if you visit the castle ruins, even to this day.

Author's Note

To those who read the previous version of this chapter, I'm changing the start. Because I think I can do more with this change, then I could in the previous version.

As for the Name being Dreams, I'll explain.
Dreams can lead to peace and happiness (Harmony). Dreams can easily turn into nightmares or even night-terrors (Umbra). And any dream, be it good or bad, are always chaotic in some shape or form (Chaos).

And for those of you who aren't Undertale fans who are confused on why I keep spelling a word in full or almost full capital letters, that's just how those words are done in Undertale.

Whoever was on guard duty should be fired.

(Sunset's POV)

‘Well that's much different then the stories back home. Aren't monsters just an old pony's tale? And how did the writer of this story know about the memory erasing aspect of the spell?’ I think before looking at a mirror nearby. I had light amber fur-er skin and my ma-hair was a mix of red and brilliant yellow. I was wearing a purple shirt with a picture of a red and yellow shimmering sun on it. I was also wearing an orange long skirt with purple and pale yellow stripes on it. I also had on black shoes with purple trimming. I was laying against what I think was a big weird plushy. It didn't feel like it had bones and it was kinda squashy so I don't see a reason to think it was anything else, it was strangely warm though. The plushy looked like those "human" creatures, save for the small goat horns poking out of the plushy's curly black hair. It had light brown "skin" with a few dark brown dots on its face, one big one near its mouth and three small ones just shy of it's left closed eye. It was wearing a green short sleeve shirt, black shorts and white tennis shoes.

‘…Well you don't have a pulse, so I don't think you're alive and you don’t smell so I don’t think you’re dead.. The Princess did say all living creatures have pulses when my hamster died.’ I think before my mood sours. 'Princess…If she would have just listened to me, I would rightfully be an Alicorn and achieve my true potential. Instead she held me back because "it wasn't something I was ready for". She was clearly afraid of my potential, that's the only explanation I can think of. I am or rather, was, her most promising student! Who cares about friendship when learning magic!? I can't believe she thought I was dumb enough to fall for that "friendship is important" speech she pulled out of her flank.' I think, upset she thought so little of my intelligence.

Flashback

"Sunset Shimmer for the last time, you.aren't.ready! you have a long way to go before I could even consider turning you into an Alicorn! I will admit you are a promising student in almost all areas-." Princess Celestia started before I interrupted her.

"Then why can't you make me an Alicorn right now, since I'm promising in all areas-!" I argue before she interrupted me.

"Almost all areas! And you will not interrupt me again, do I make myself clear young lady!?" she scolded me, I reluctantly nod my head if only to get this stupid argument over with quickly. "You are a promising student in almost all areas, but you are lacking in understanding friendship!" It take every ounce of my willpower to not roll my eyes at that. 'Here we go again with this! How can somepony as important as her, waste so much time with something as trivial and unimportant as friendship.' "You may sadly not see the point of it, but it is imperative you learn it!" She then goes on and on about it, but I've learned how to pretend I'm listening when I'm really thinking about something else. She tried to trip me a few times, but I've heard this spill so many times that it was trivial to deal with.

…..

I told the Princess about the Alicorn spell that she should have used on me, but I didn’t tell her that I also saw a page about a special mirror. Everypony knows the tale of Monsters, but nopony knows where they came from. That’s what I’ve been told, but apparently certain ponies secretly know a lot more about them than they let on. It’s nothing concrete, but apparently there’s signs that both normal creatures and Monsters aren’t from this world. I didn’t believe in Monsters, but I did believe we weren’t originally here. ‘That makes way too much sense to not be the case. If it wasn’t, then how did we survive before learning how to manipulate the plants, the animals, the weather, the sun and the moon!? Now that I think about it, why has no creature questioned this?’ I think, now more Determined to achieve my goals and find out. And the only way to do that, was to find and enter the mirror in question.

Finding the mirror was even harder then I thought, I knew it wasn't going to be easy but still! Not only did I have to navigate the castle for a room and artifact I've never seen before, but I also had to avoid all the guards! Thank Celes-…thank "a certain mare", it was night and ponies don't normally look up as long as nothing seems out of the ordinary. It was pretty touch and go a few times when a guard got to close for comfort, but I managed to finally find the room I was looking for! I checked my saddlebags to make sure I had everything I needed or couldn't bring myself to leave behind, and thankfully I did. Hearing hoofsteps and the door to this room opening, I galloped to the mirror.

"Sunset? Sunset stop!" I heard Celestia shoutout in rare panic. I didn't stop, I wasn't going to let her stop me from achieving my destiny! The book said this mirror leads to the place where we originated from, so there's gotta be something there that can unlock my full potential! Before she could snap out of her panic and use her magic to stop me, I jumped head first into the mirror. Then my eyes were blinded by different colors, as if somepony decided to shove my head into the rainbow factory's rainbow storage pool. Thankfully, I soon lost consciousness, my eyes were seriously hurting from all those flashing colors.

When I came to, I was near a statue in front of a school. When I looked down I noticed I wasn't a pony anymore, and currently wearing clothes and shoes. After freaking out for what I think was 5 minutes, I managed to calm down. At the time I didn't know how to properly use my new body, so I was awkwardly galloping for a few moments before I saw everypon-everyone else walking on two legs. After practicing a bit, I managed to get the hang of walking like them. Looking at my saddlebags, I saw they turned in what I now know what is called a backpack. Deciding that it would be best to find a place to stay for the time being, I snuck into the vacant school. Sneaking in was surprisingly easy, whoever works here forgot to completely close the back door. I searched around for the one place that would shed some light on this new world, the library. Through shear dumb luck, the inhabitants of this world wrote in the same language as the ponies back home do. All I had to do was follow the signs, and I would reach the library in no time at all.

End of flashback

When I finally got here, I noticed this weird plushy in front of a bookshelf. After checking to make sure it was actually a plushy, I grabbed a few books and began to read. I had just finished this book on an old "wives" tale, it was so bizarre. This story was so ridiculous I couldn't help but think it's ponyfeathers, but at the same time it matches a lot of things from my world. One of the pictures I saw those chimeras turn into were Pegasi and Unicorns, so I can't completely brush it off. As I was mulling that over, the “plushy” started to groan and get up. We make eye contact as I’m frozen in fear, staring into it-his brown eyes.

Author's Note

To be clear, Sunset is still a filly. And to the people wondering why a filly has such a good vocabulary. she was the princess’ star pupil, her vocabulary is going to be better than most fillies her age.

As for her attitude, I haven’t really read the comic that shows Sunset as a filly, so this is more a rough guess of how she used to act. If I’m laying the arrogance to thick or she’s meaner then she should be (I.E OOC), let me know. Constructive criticism only is welcomed. As for the title, a filly managed to sneak by them undetected.