"I see a bunch of multi-colored horses walking around. I also see what looks to be a castle made out of...crystals?"

Mercer and the 3 drones were currently watching the inhabitants of what he now knew as "ponyville" go along their way, some of them stopping to talk to one another. But it was the castle made out of crystals that took his attention. He'd never seen anything like it. The female drone nodded to him, while the 2 males kept scanning the area.

"That is correct, creature. The castle is the home of the one known as Twilight Sparkle."

Ah, so the pony who might be responsible for this arrival here lived in a fancy castle. Figures.

"Right. By the way, I'd rather you not call me creature. I have a name. Mercer."

She scoffed. "For how strong you apparently are, you sure are sensitive."

He shapeshifted his arm into his blade form, causing the female to back off and the males to get in front of her, weapons raised. Mercer grinned, shapeshifting back into his human form. "Heh. Easy to spook, aren't you?"

The males snarled at him and were prepared to attack, before the female ushered them to stop. Seems she was the leader of this 3 soldier squad. She grinned.

"Seems like you can have some fun after all. Name's Arisa. These two are Malok and Nox."

He nodded at the males, who scoffed and turned back to the village. The female rolled her eyes and walked up to him. "Don't mind them, they can't take a joke. I admit, when you shapeshifted just then, I expected you to attack me. But you're full of surprises, crea...Mercer. I like to poke fun, even at beings that I do not know. But I must say, you do interest me."

Mercer scoffed, kneeling down to match her height. "Don't worry bout it. Anyway, tell me more about this Twilight Sparkle."

"Well, you see, she is..."

Before Arisa could finish, Mercer's extremely acute hearing picked up on something far away. He put his finger up to his mouth, telling her to shush. It took her a second to understand, but she nodded and kept quiet. She motioned for Malok and Nox to come over, which they did.

Whatever it was, it was big. And it sounded like it was running.

Running towards their direction.

He stood up and shapeshifted into his armor and blade form, causing the others to look at him in interest. Arisa smirked.

"So, what else can you shapeshift into?"

He told her once again to shush, getting a frustrated grumble from her. Then, as he put his hand down, a giant creature jumped out of the bushes in front of them. It was some sort of weird combination between what appeared to be a lion, a bat and a scorpion. He chuckled quietly to himself.

"First talking bug horses and now this thing? It's like I'm in a really weird cartoon."

The creature charged at them, causing Arisa to snarl and shoot a magic blast at it from her horn. It dodged out of the way and swiped at her, scratching her face and sending her flying back a few metres. She grunted as she hit a tree, seemingly knocked out. Malok and Nox both charged the creature with their weapons, attempting to blugeon it. Before Mercer could back them up, he saw Malok get his head ripped off by the creatures claws and Nox snarl in anger as he watched his comrade die. He stabbed the creature, causing it to snarl and thrash. Before Nox could get out of the way, the creature grabbed him and bit into his neck, ripping out of his vein and dropping him to the floor, dead.

Mercer scoffed. He already was starting to find them two annoying anyway. "Best soldiers, huh? I don't want to know what her worst ones are if those two bozo's were her best." Then, he suddenly remembered.

Arisa.

She was the only one who showed some sort of personality. He looked over to her. He sighed as he saw her breathing. Good. He looked back towards the creature, who was staring at him with murderous intent. He chuckled. "You made a really bad choice today, fella."

The creature snarled as he said those words and charged towards him. He immediately jumped above the thing, causing it to look around in surprise, wondering where he disappeared to, before he landed on the thing's back and grabbed its neck. It thrashed around, trying to get him off. It tried to stab him with its stinger, only to miss and sting itself. It roared in pain as he pulled on its neck with all the force he could muster and before it could counter, he flipped it over and threw it into the nearest tree, hearing the satisfying sound of its back breaking. He walked over to it as it started to convulse, nearly close to death. He shapeshifted his hands into claws and smirked. "Seems like this was not a good day for you, huh, bud?"

It roared in agony as he began to tear into the creature, consuming it. All that was left afterwards was a pile of blood on the floor. Mercer groaned in pain as he started to shapeshift.

"Hope this doesn't backfire on me."

He then started to grow wings on his back, black and full of spikes. His body let out a shockwave as he finished shapeshifting, moving his new additions on his back. He smirked. "Damn, these things could come in handy."

"What...are you?"

He turned towards the voice, seeing that Arisa had apparently recovered, looking at him with a slightly shocked expression. He grinned.

"I'll tell you some other time. Sorry about your friends."

He pointed towards the now dead bodies of her former comrades. She scoffed, looking back at him. "Trust me, they weren't my friends. Couldn't stand them. They were my squad, yes, but I hadn't been with them long enough to form any sort of bond."

Mercer nodded. He liked her way of thinking. Reminded him a bit of himself with anyone except Dana. She was the only person who he could never bring harm to, regardless of what she did to him.

"You doing okay? You took quite the hit." He shapeshifted back into his human form, storing away his new ability. She grinned.

"Don't worry, I've had worse. Tell me, what did you actually do to that Manticore?"

So, it was called a Manticore. He'd heard of that before in an old human book.

"I assimilated its DNA and modified it, to put it in basic terms."

Arisa nodded in interest. "Seems you're even more interesting than I thought you were. Anyway, we better get back to the hive. Tell the queen what happened. We've done enough reconnaissance for now."

He nodded. letting her send her telapathic message to Chrysalis to teleport them back. In a few moments, they were gone.

"I see. Shame that they had to die. They were good soldiers. Alas, it is not an issue. You did what you had to do and you did what I asked of you."

Chrysalis sat on her throne, regarding Arisa and Mercer, having listened to what had happened in the Everfree. She then looked at Mercer.

Strange. He thought he could see the tinniest of smiles there for a split second.

"I thank you for at least saving one of my soldiers, Mercer. I can't say I trust you yet, but still, you saved one of our own."

He nodded. "No problem. So, tell me more about this Twilight Sparkle. I was going to ask Arisa here before we got attacked by that Manticore."

Chrysalis snarled at the mention of that pony's name, before taking in a deep breath. "She is the princess of friendship. A student of princess Celestia. Her favourite student, to be precise. She is close to the other element bearer's. Very close. She also has an assistant named Spike, who is curiously a dragon."

He rolled his eyes. "Dragons exist here, too?"

She nodded. "Indeed they do. There are a lot of magical creatures on Equis. Alas, most of them will not accept us, so it is up to us to make them accept us."

Mercer could relate somewhat to this thought process, even if it wasn't a great one. Once he found out that he wasn't even really Mercer and was just the blacklight virus with Mercer's memories and skills buried deep inside its DNA, he realised that humans really didn't accept anything other than themselves. A very selfish race. The only one who was worth a damn was Dana. Maybe the doctor who helped him and Dana. Even then, he still didn't trust him completely.

He turned his attention back to Chrysalis. "So, what's our next move?"

Chrysalis grinned. "Well, we should go and do a more thorough investigation of what Twilight Sparkle is currently doing. The reconnaissance that you went on was merely to gain some information as to what the current state of Ponyville is like. Now that we know that it is just normal business in that wretched little town, we can get to work planning on how to handle taking over once we have more info on what exactly Twilight Sparkle and her friends are doing and how ready they are for an attack. Because you see, I know that they have no doubt already sensed my presence. So, they will be preparing. We must be ready."

Mercer looked over to Arisa, who was still standing next to him. "I would prefer if Arisa came along with me on my next venture into the place. She actually has some sort of personality to her and she could help."

Chrysalis nodded. "Very well. Arisa, you will go with Mercer on his next mission."

Arisa bowed. "Of course, your highness."

Chrysalis raised her hoof. "You two are dismissed. I will alert you when you are going on your next mission. For now, do whatever you please, so long as you do not cause trouble. Or there will be dire consequences."

They both nodded, walking out of the room. Arisa turned to Mercer, grinning. "Don't want to go alone, huh?"

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Not at all. I just want someone there who isn't a bland canvas. Besides, I usually prefer working alone, but considering I have no idea how this place works, I need someone who knows how this place functions to fill me in. I made the mistake once of thinking that I could do everything by myself and it nearly got me killed."

She looked at him in interest, secretly wanting to poke him on how he nearly died. She'd seen how strong he was. So if he nearly died to something, that somewhat concerned her.

"I see. Well, what do you want to do for now? The queen has been quite nice to you. When you first arrived here, I could tell that she wanted to gut you. Maybe she still does. But I know that she needs you for her plan and you need her help also."

He nodded. "Yup. Sure do. Not afraid to admit that. But, we'll see what happens. As for now...I'm not sure. I can tell that you want to ask me some questions, so shoot. If you ask something too personal, however, I won't reply."

She agreed. "Alright. So..."

He rolled his eyes. "Hopefully getting back home doesn't take too long."

Author's Note

Hope you're all keeping safe during these times. See you in the next one.