Chapters Blind to the cost of power
Another day, just another boring day. Every day is the same in this messed up world of ours. Day in, day out, working the same job, making the same wage. I can't help but sigh at the monotony of it all, the absolute grey of boredom that has settled over my life. working hard just to make enough to live off of, while someone up there barely does anything and makes enough for several generations to live off of. A world descending into chaos as leaders pull the strings for their own selfish purposes, regardless of where they're from. What's the point of it all? Why does everyone seem to think I should care? None of it really matters anyways, it's all meaningless. Nothing that happens now will matter, eventually.
I was startled out of my thoughts as a hand clapped down on my shoulder, causing me to tense up slightly "So what has you looking so down Shimazaki? You never seemed the type to really care about much, but you look like you're thinking hard about something."
I relaxed slightly, realizing it was just a fellow cosplayer. "I'm just bored, that's all." I replied, slipping into character. Not that it was hard, Shimazaki and I had quite a bit in common besides our looks. Who cares about the world? I just want to have fun. Unlike him, however, I don't have the power to just go out and do whatever I want. "Know anything fun to do around here?"
I turned to look at the cosplayer as they chuckled, my eyes widening slightly in shock. "Mogami, huh? Never thought I'd see you in person." I laughed, rubbing the back of my neck. It was a really good cosplay, this guy looked almost exactly like the anime character right down to the face and expression.
"Well I'd imagine you don't expect to 'see ' much of anything Shimazaki." The Mogami cosplayer chuckled, "So, out of curiosity, why pick Shimazaki?" He asked, breaking character. "Most people want to emulate the truly powerful, like Shigeo, Toichiro, or perhaps even myself." Well, maybe not fully breaking character.
"Well, I'm pretty strong myself." I replied with a smirk. "But I don't want to be the absolute strongest, just strong enough to have fun." I shrugged, "Yeah, more power is fun and all, but what's the point in being just outright more powerful than everyone else? It would get pretty boring eventually if there was never anything to challenge you."
Mogami laughed, "I see. So, what would you do if you had power?"
"Have fun of course." I replied, sounding as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"And what would you do for it?" He asked. "What would you be willing to give up to have fun, whatever fun you wanted?"
"Everything." I replied, without a second thought. I don't know what Shimazaki would say to that, but I really have nothing I care about in this world. Nothing I wouldn't give up. My family is gone, in one way or another, I have no friends, I don't even have any pets. I have a job, a house, a car, a computer.. But none of that really matters to me either. "Nothing else really matters in the end, right?"
"Well, how about a deal then? I'll take something from you and you can have your fun. After all, nothing else matters to you." Mogami held out his hand to shake.
I chuckled, amused by his theatrics, and decided to go along with it. "Yeah, sure." I said, shaking his hand a couple times before letting go. This seems really out of character for Mogami, I think, but whatever. It's a convention, not a historic theater, might as well let people have their fun.
"Perfect, then you won't really be needing these anymore." He said, confusing me.
I felt a stinging sensation in my head as my vision went dark. "W-What the hell!?" I turned my head this way and that, blinking and rubbing at my eyes. Tears of panic began trailing down my face. "Why can't I see?!" Slowly, things started coming back into focus. No... No, I still couldn't see. So why could I tell what was around me? I could tell Mogami was smiling at me, holding two small balls in an outstretched hand, but I couldn't truly see it.
"W-what did you do?" I stammered, thoroughly shaken, wiping at my face to clear the tears... No, not tears. I felt the liquid with my fingers, it was too viscous to be tears. "Why can't I see anything? Why can I see everything?"
"You wanted the power to have fun and you claim to care about nothing, so obviously you must not care too much about your eyes." He laughed, bouncing the hand with the orbs slightly. A cold feeling crept down my spine as I realized the horrible truth.
"You took my eyes." I realized, wiping the blood trails from my face. I was surprised at how little blood I felt, though I guess I should be in far more pain as well.
"Don't worry about it. I'm sure you can tell, but you won't be needing them that much anyways." Mogami replied, still smiling that sick grin at me. "Just try to enjoy my gift to you. After all, I'm giving you something worth far more to you than what I've taken. Far more than what I'm taking " He laughed, "This is your freedom. Enjoy it, take it and do whatever you want with it."
Everything began to fall away, a sensation of weightlessness overtaking me. I watched, through that odd not-vision, as Mogami and everything else around me slowly faded away and vanished. Was that the real Mogami? Was that weird sight just some kind of hallucination, and I really am blind now? Maybe it was just a psycho dressed up like the character and this weightless void is what death feels like. I closed my eyes, despite knowing the futility of the action, as I waited to disappear.
No, wait... I started to feel something.
Everything exploded into focus as I felt my shoes make contact with ground, the familiar sound of crunching grass and wildlife reaching my ears. "I'm outside?" I took a deep breath, reveling in the clean air.. Too clean, even for the countryside. "Where am I?" I wondered 'looking' around. I was in a forest, a clearing, and there were trees on all sides of me. Birds in a tree behind me, chicks in the nest clamoring for their returning mother to feed them. A fox was crawling around the underbrush a ways to my left, hunting a rabbit that seemed completely unaware of the danger stalking it.
"I can see... Everything ."
An excited grin crawled across my face as I considered what this could mean
Author's Note
Hey everyone, I know it's been a while since I've posted an update on any of my stories and all. I am still working on them, but progress has been a little slow with the onslaught of schoolwork.
I'm currently working on some crossover chapters with a few others for my stories 'Feeling Cooler' and 'Son of a Kaiju!', so hopefully you can expect to see those update soon. I was taking a small break from schoolwork the other day, taking a little bit to watch an episode from Mob Psycho 100 season 2, and suddenly I really wanted to write this up. Yeah, Shimazaki isn't the absolute most powerful in the series (Probably like top five or six, give or take), but I found him to be one of my favorites with a truly interesting and versatile variety of powers.
Sidenote, there may be some powers the character ends up with (whether through experimentation or other things) that would not exactly line up with Shimazaki's power set. Also, most of the 'main abilities' of the character are going to come to him fairly easily, as a part of the deal he made with the entity that gave him his powers and sent him to Equestria.
As you can probably tell, this entity wasn't the Merchant. I honestly completely made up this entity, and losing his eyes wasn't actually the only cost in this transaction, it's just the most obvious. Part of the cost was of the flesh, his eyes (which the entity can use for certain purposes), part of the cost was of energy, his dimensional displacement (the entity can actually feed on energy released through the displacement in a manner reminiscent of the weeping angels and their temporal displacements in Doctor Who), and part of the cost is yet to be named.
As always, I really hope everyone enjoys this chapter and, hopefully, the story as a whole. It came to me in a big flash of inspiration, albeit not all of it is coherent but the main idea is in my head. This story is probably going to get a bit darker than most of my other stories, possibly pretty quickly.
I picked a random direction and began to walk. Was that smart? No, probably not. In fact, I'm sure many people would consider it incredibly stupid to just start walking in a random direction after ending up in a forest somewhere. No map, no compass, nothing but the clothes I'm wearing. It's not like anyone would be coming for me though. Staying still and waiting for help isn't an option when nobody even knows you're gone, let alone where you've gone.
As I walked, I used my 'sight' to look around. It would take some getting used to, being able to perceive everything around me all at the same time. Though perhaps not too much getting used to, my footing already felt surer in this forest than it had ever been while hiking with my eyes intact.
I felt as something whizzed towards my head and shifted my weight, leaning to the right. Perhaps a little farther than I needed to, but better leaning too far than smacked in the head. A blob flew through the space my head had occupied, landing on a tree ahead of me. I heard a lot of clicking and hissing, as it turned towards me.
"Oh what the fuck!?" It was a spider the size of my freaking head! Where the hell did I end up, the amazon rain forest? I shuddered slightly, "Ugh, I hate spiders." Well to be honest, it was more about their webs. The feeling of spiderwebs just makes my skin crawl.
The spider gave a louder hiss at me, bringing up its legs in what I'm almost certain could've been a rude gesture before suddenly scuttling off. I focused on it, relaxing slightly when it looked.. Seemed like it wasn't going to be coming back.
"Well, I'm not in Kansas anymore." I joked to myself, despite having never been to Kansas in my life. "Hopefully there's not too many other surprises in this forest."
I continued walking, trying to ignore an odd niggling sensation started creeping up in the back of my head. "It's just my mind playing tricks on me." I told myself, though the odd feeling persisted. I stopped and 'looked' around anyways, scanning my surroundings intently but not finding anything really unusual at the moment. Wherever I'd ended up, it's definitely not somewhere people generally go. There's no foot trails or anything indicating frequent passage... Wait, what was that?
I stopped in another small clearing as a bush rustled nearby, but there was no breeze and I couldn't sense any of the wildlife in that bush. In fact, everything seemed a little too quiet.. If my mind's not playing tricks on me, that bush has some kind of.. energy?
I turned, more out of habit since I don't have eyes now, scrutinizing the odd bush about ten feet away behind other assorted shrubbery. Then it began moving towards me and I realized it wasn't just oddly shaped.. It was shaped like a wolf. "What exactly are you..?" I wondered, 'staring' at the wolf. It would probably look to most people like I was squinting, but I'd rather keep what's left of my eyes closed if there's no point to having them open.
It lunged for me and I sidestepped, before ducking as another one flew overhead. "Evil spirits?" I asked aloud, looking at the two wolves. Now that I was paying more attention, the wood and plant matter seemed dead, dying, or rotting, giving them an awful stench. The eyes burned a bright green with energy of some kind and it drooled a thick amber sap from its jaws. There was some sort of sickly sweet underlying scent as well, though I couldn't recognize it. "Well you'll need to try harder than that." I smirked as they growled at me.
Why am I smirking? Why does this situation seem so amusing.. Shouldn't I be afraid for my life? Out here, away from civilization, facing down creatures that could be straight from someone's nightmares, without anyone so much able to vouch that I'd existed, let alone hear my dying screams..
I laughed with sudden elation, "No. No, I won't be dying here today. I want to have fun, I want to truly live for once, and I won't let you rotting mutts get in the way of that." I sped forward with speed I hadn't known before today, landing a kick on one of the wolves and blowing it into splinters to scatter into the underbrush. The other leapt away and I 'watched' as green energy from the one I'd hit swirled, pulling together the pieces of its broken form and ripping smaller pieces of plant matter from the nearby flora. "Well that's not fair." I frowned slightly as the last of the twigs fell into place, a Fel green light overtaking the empty place where its eyes should've been once more.
I chuckled, "Come on, neither of us has eyes here, should we really be fighting?" I asked jokingly. "After all.. You won't win, even if I don't have a handle on these powers like the real Shimazaki." My expression hardened slightly and I took a ready stance, just in time to dodge a third wolf lunging at my shoulder from behind. "You know, I really hate it when people gang up on me.. Even if you aren't really people, just mindless things." I can't call them animals, can I? Carnivorous plants? I dodged as one of the three jumped for my head, pivoting to the side and lashing out with a fist, blowing its own head to bits. The other two lunged for my legs simultaneously while the limp body of the first flew past me and crashed into a tree, breaking apart further. I dodged them both by jumping into the air, aiming a double stomp at both of their heads. I jumped back after, watching as the plant matter went limp like puppets with their strings cut. The green energy swirled around each of them, the first moving much more slowly to rebuild than the other two.
"So your forms have at least one of the same weaknesses as flesh-and-blood wolves would, and you have a harder time building yourself up over and over, huh?" I mused, putting a hand in my pocket and bringing the other up to cup my chin, "Interesting."
I watched as the two wolves finished building back up, though the first was only half-finished. I brought up the hand from my chin and studied it curiously, "You know, I have these powers so I have to wonder.." One of them ran at me, possibly thinking that I was vulnerable for taking my 'eyes' off of it. I brought my hand up to that wolf and envisioned grabbing it and lifting the wolf into the air, and to my mild surprise it worked. "Huh, so telekinesis does work." It began to struggle in the air, so I tightened my 'grip' on the wolf... Accidentally crushing it, reducing it to little more than sawdust and mush. "Well fuck, I really don't have much in the way of 'finesse' in my regular telekinesis huh?" Calling this telekinesis my own came much easier than it should've, almost like I've lived with it my whole life. In fact, calling these powers mine just feels right like nothing else ever has.
I raised my brows in surprise as I 'saw' the green energy attempting to leave the wooden construct I'd just destroyed, but unable to get out of my grip. "Wow, so I can even grab energy like that?" I wanted to bring it closer, but I couldn't stand the smell. I let go, allowing the wrecked mass of plant matter to fall to the ground, but also allowing the green mass of energy to quickly try and fly away. "Oh no you don't." I captured it and brought it in close, ignoring the other two wolves growling at me. Seems that they learned from this one's mistake, just because I don't seem to be paying attention to you doesn't mean I'm not aware of you.
The two other wolves backed into the underbrush and began circling the small clearing, still well within my range of detection. This energy reeked of malice and entropy, even to my extremely inexperienced 'eyes', but it didn't really seem any more intelligent than an actual wolf. It didn't even seem like an evil spirit from the anime. It had an almost sweet 'smell' to my senses, but it wasn't like I could eat it.. Could I?
Glancing around, as if someone would see me, I compressed the energy into a small ball about the size of a gumball and sniffed it a little more before sticking my tongue out and licking it. "You've gotta be kidding me, this actually tastes like sugar." You know, they were going to eat me.. Oh, and they're obviously not sapient, so... I let a feral grin appear on my face as I popped the energy into my mouth, consuming it with no regrets and feeling a burst of energy fill me. "The predators become prey." I chuckled to myself, feeling as the other two wolves quickly turned to flee after witnessing my consumption of their partner's essence. I quickly grabbed ahold of them before they could, however, ripping them out of the underbrush as they whined almost like a domesticated hound. "Oh, not used to something that can eat you back are you?" My grin may have dipped a little towards the deranged side as I said that, enjoying the fear these 'animals' suddenly had. The fear of something that could truly hurt them, kill them even, rather than just their constructs.
I quickly tore apart the wooden constructs with my telekinetic grip and consumed their energy as well, giving a content sigh. "You know.. I think I'm going to enjoy myself here. Things are looking up." I said to myself with a truly satisfied smile. I shoved my hands into my pockets and began walking off with my head turned as if to watch the sky, enjoying the warm feeling I'd get whenever a ray of sunlight managed to pierce the canopy to shine on my face.
View Online
Picked the right directions, I must be psychic.
I'm pretty sure it had to be at least mid afternoon, perhaps even evening, by the time I finally reached the forest boundary, breaking open and consuming the energy from several more of the wooden wolf constructs along the way. The more I used my telekinesis, the more comfortable I felt with it. I even figured out and practiced teleportation and putting up barriers, dodging with teleportation and allowing a few to smack into shields or try in vain to chew on me once I got confident enough to try a personal barrier, which is what I call the protection the characters in the anime used that made them seem so durable. I've begun working to keep up a personal barrier without having to focus too much on it, out of boredom mostly, but it'll probably be a while before I can actually keep it up all the time like they do in the show.
More surprising than the wolf constructs, perhaps, was the myriad of mythical creatures that I knocked unconscious along the way. I don't know how rare they are around here, exactly, but killing them wouldn't really benefit me anyway so I left them alone for the most part. I may have knocked out a few manticores, or something similar, in self defense and perhaps I took some time to examine some of them, mainly that awesome giant scorpion tail, while they were unconscious. But I didn't really hurt them, no real point in messing up the ecosystem of the actual animals living here, it wouldn't even be amusing. The constructs, on the other hand, were hardly something worth the consideration of preserving and I enjoyed every one that I ripped apart and ate.
I wasn't sure what to expect when I reached the edge of the forest but it seems that civilization must be pretty close after all, I could 'see' a road at least. I continued on past the edge of the forest, towards the road with a chuckle, "I picked the right direction after all, guess I must be psychic." I joked to myself.
I traveled down the road for a bit, which took me away from the forest and into a nice countryside looking area. There was still plenty of trees and such along the path, but not like the dense wilderness from before. I paused in my stride as something stepped off of the path ahead. "Hold there, friend!" A small colorful horse called out to me in a masculine voice. What is this, a movie about medieval times? Also, more importantly, is that a tiny talking horse? A blue tiny talking horse?
"Holding." I chuckled, going along with it for now despite my mind-boggling disbelief. "What can I do for you, tiny horse?"
"I'm a pony ." The fellow corrected, furrowing his brow. He likely noticed the lack of any sort of pack or valuables on my person. "Anyways, you need to pay a toll to use this road, you see." He began giving me a rather cliche spiel.
"And let me guess, if I don't then your 'hidden' friends will come out and attack me." I responded, air quoting the word hidden, picking them out with my senses. "They may as well come out now then. I have nothing of value, after all." I laughed, feeling as though I had landed in a situation straight out of a video game. "But I warn you, if you try to kill me then I won't be very happy. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
"I'm sure you must have something worthwhile." The bandit pony said with some hope, obviously wanting to at least make some kind of a profit, as his friends stepped out from their hiding spots as well. I noticed two armed with swords while three had taken to the air, hovering there with nothing more than a crossbow and dagger each. "It really does seem to be the middle ages." I muttered to myself, though I was confused to note that the ones with crossbows actually looked a lot like Griffins. One of the other small horses seemed to have a horn jutting out of his forehead.
"Not really. What's the deal with the, ah.." I tapped my forehead for emphasis, pointing to the brown one with the horn.
"What, never seen a unicorn before?" The horned bandit spat before his horn glowed, causing a rather visible telekinetic aura to unsheathe his sword and point it at me. "Or do you have something against unicorns?"
"Never seen one." I answered honestly, "But I really wouldn't have imagined a unicorn looking like that." I chuckled
"Like what, exactly?" He asked, looking a bit angrier.
"I don't know, I imagined like.. A majestic creature with a snow white coat or something." I said thoughtfully, bringing a hand up to cup my chin "not a small turd with a smaller swirly turd sticking out of it."
The guy immediately rushed me, of course, swiping with the sword. Left, right, diagonal, I dodged them all, still smiling like he wasn't trying to hack me to pieces. "Was it something I said?" I asked with a laugh of honest amusement over his reaction, dancing around his sword. I noticed one of the griffons aiming for my back and visualized appearing behind the unicorn just as they took the shot, while the unicorn lunged forwards while sweeping his sword in a wide arc.
THWACK!
The bolt struck true with a meaty thump. Though the griffon's victorious grin, I don't know how that works with a beak, quickly turned to a look of horror as the unicorn slowly looked down at the crossbow bolt embedded in his side. He coughed up blood once, one of his front legs giving out and leaving him in a kneeling position while his sword fell to the ground. Standing behind the unicorn, I looked down at him. "Well, that looks pretty bad doesn't it?" I asked, oddly calm as I observed the creature that could be dying. "Maybe someone should do something about that, get him to a hospital or something?" I offered them an out, as their companion lay wheezing. He wasn't dead yet, and it didn't seem like it hit anything vital, so maybe they could still save him.
I jumped back as two of the griffins, one of which being the one that took the shot, came down to scoop up their partner and whisk him away. Perhaps to get him healed, maybe to eat him, I couldn't really say for sure. I'm an esper, not an alien mind reader. "So far you have one guy down and I haven't even done anything yet." I commented, loud enough for the remainder to hear. "Are you sure you want to keep going? You could just point me to the closest town and walk away, rather than make me kill you all."
The last griffin decided to try and shoot me while I was talking and they all watched in shock as I pivoted backwards on my left foot, allowing the bolt to fly past me and embed itself into the dirt. "Maybe I need to scare you all, too. Like those wolves." I continued, almost conversationally, getting angry now. "Then maybe you'd take the smart option and leave me alone instead of spitting on my mercy." I quickly appeared above the griffin, landing an ax kick between the wings and sending it to the ground, where I appeared and caught it by the neck. "I could kill each and every one of you in the time it takes you to blink." I threw the griffon at one of the other little horses, sending them both to the ground in a tangle of limbs. "But I also don't really want to kill sapient creatures if I don't have to."
"So I'll give you one last chance." I grabbed the one who had first spoken to me and brought him in close with my telekinesis, careful not to exert any actual pressure on him. "How far to the nearest town? Tell me that and walk away peacefully, I'll let you all go." I cracked my knuckles, opening my eyes to reveal the empty sockets, appearing as shadowy voids to the terrified creature. "Otherwise I'm going to tear you all apart and perhaps think about dragging what's left to the authorities for someone to bury."
"H-hoofmere! The nearest town is Hoofmere, just down this road in the direction you were already going! It's about a half-day's trot from here!" The small horse babbled, tears trailing down his muzzle and fear shining in his eyes. "Good, thank you tiny horse." I set him down and patted his head like I would a dog. "I hope you've learned a valuable lesson from all of this."
"R-robbery is bad?" He tried, nervously.
"Don't fuck with me."
Author's Note
I'm sort of going for a whole new direction with this story. Most of my Displaced stories so far deal a lot with the Mane 6, probably too much, or at least some sort of very recognizable character from the series. In this one, I actually plan to have this character wandering around in a completely different Equestria. In fact, I think I'm going to be putting this one more in the past. Celestia and Luna will both be ruling, Luna hasn't been banished or anything like that, other such things. Probably going to be changes here and there as I go along, none of this is planned out entirely, it's mostly just a spark of inspiration.
In fact, to be honest, this is a re-write of this chapter. The original chapter was about 2.5k words long and mostly featured stumbling across ponyville, meeting a townspony I made up (most of the chapter featured that interaction actually), and then following some of the nightmare moon stuff, etc. Then I realized that I could make this completely different and take it in a whole new direction rather than stick to what have become my usual sort of intro routines involving the mane 6 or nightmare moon (because let's face it, I'm pretty sure each of my stories (except hand of fate) has at least one of those two things as a part of the introduction).
Also, I made up 'Hoofmere' on the spot. In my head it was pronounced something like 'hoof-me-er'
Anyways, I hope you've enjoyed the chapter and the story so far.
