Does Draconequus Discord Definitely Dwell Deleterious Dreams Definitively Despite Dangerously Decisive Designs?!

by Fireflower

Rating: teen
Tags: Profanity, Random, Discord, Crossover, Alternate Universe, Human, Anthology, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, My Little Pony Comic, Other
Length: 43161

Collective crossover compilation: too many stories, not enough time, yet inspired by yesteryears' dreams including a few from 2019; though self–explanatory to a fault, it's not the all–singing, all–dancing for many either, given the main protagonist.

Sweet dreams are made of this...
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas...
Everybody's looking for something.

It's no secret that Equestria has been the current habitat for various lifeforms, like and unlike them, even before its establishment over a millennia ago; in fact, one of which is a draconequus, a serpentine chimera composed of various anatomies belonging to other creatures yet identified as one of great power: as such, the lifeform in question needs no introduction whatsoever.

Called Discord, he's known as one of the most ancient of adversaries faced by the Equestrians themselves, especially by their rulers, Celestia and Luna: once upon a time, they'd both sealed him up into his stone imprisonment through the usage of the Elements of Harmony, the very same artifacts used by one of their students and her five friends to end his short reign of terror.

Although freed from his petrification thrice, he no longer has any desire at all to subjugate or seek revenge but many have known about it far too well; what remains unaware to themselves is the fact like most, if not all, creatures sleep on and throughout a fraction of the day though in his case, the innate abilities he’d possesses seem to have little to no effect compared to being awake.

Published 2020-08-06 06:10:00 UTC
Last updated 2023-07-30 04:00:03 UTC

Lost In The Supermarket

Author's Note

My name is Fireflower and welcome to my first crossover anthology fimfic, a hopeful break from all the sex and the violence making up much of my profile since several years ago; at this rate, I hope you will enjoy this experimental collection of stories I've made, each chapter from one and onward all based on some dreams in the passing years and with you–know–who.

As always, My Little Pony, or rather Friendship Is Magic, including its settings and characters belong to Lauren Faust and Hasbro; in addition, the characters featured from others shows, known and unknown so far, don't belong to me so please don't sue me over them either, okay...?

Lastly, let me also say I hope you enjoy this chapter now and stay tuned for future chapters later on: after all, you're going to be taking solace in the fact the following anecdote will serve as a nice change of pace so to speak; although, please don't expect from me to be a periodical upload like the other stories since I don't have much of a plan in the long term either.

Lost In The Supermarket

Light in and of itself was capable of traveling to and from anywhere throughout the whole wide world rather almost instantaneously; in addition, it also was accompanied by the warmth as well. Because of this, it had unveiled a whole slew of colors coming in many different hues and shades whatsoever, each of them painting the overall landscape in an attempt to provide it some identity. Given the very situation at hand, it was best to assume for the most part that the day was just about to begin; after all, such imagery would be best captured by the observantly wariest ones.

Today’s weather was warm outside seeing in which the big blue sky had been as bright like the shiny happy people outside with not even a single cloud or squall rolling alongside the vast and magnificent atmosphere, solar rays hovering over the neighborhoods where every single suburban residence, big or small, was baptized in resplendent wonder. The flat and narrow concrete remained neatly on the very slabs, burning hot like the magma of an erupting volcano for it was laying down there in the hot sun while being used to the constant ritual of getting run over by vehicles of all sizes, makes, and even models originating from whichever pathways of such ambiguous origins known and unknown. A calm breeze had strolled onward throughout the town, offering a sense of serenity to passersby indiscriminately; in turn, a few pedestrians, as well as motorists and bicyclists alike were all aware of how it would keep many of them cool and unperturbed as most had went to continue on with their daily lives outside their homes and gardens alongside inside. Other than that, it was so tranquil it was as if that very proximity was nearby some forested woodland which time had remembered, refusing to leave even when it was already known that the postal modernism of civilization had colonized over there; with that said, even the rather predominate lifeforms took pity upon their pittance left to the others.

This had served as a contrast to one particular area within and nearby such a community in question: while many were capable of providing housing to those seeking it, their presence alone wasn’t the case; matter of fact, multitudes of automobiles parked outside of them in a stationary manner betrayed them all. Needless to say, this was of no consequence to their owners and whichever passengers whom have been commuting alongside them between now and then; after all, most of them were already embracing the comforts provided by wherever establishment was nearby within any walking distance overall. There were nevertheless two kinds of entities when it had currently came to the likes of such commercialized structures in question: arrivals and departures, no different from the ones where mass transit supplanted the needs and wants of personal transportation; even the pedestrians themselves weren’t alone.

Of the many countless arrivals, one orange station wagon was found entering the mass of other vehicles halted upon the asphalt: like them, it was in search of an open space to deploy itself as many predecessors have done prior to this particular moment thereof; thankfully, whatever the wishes were made, if at all, were now granted almost instantaneously for what it was all worth.

As soon as the engine was shut off and the monoxides subsided, four doors were opened in sync, taking advantage of the liberated dimensions to reveal five passengers now vacating from their armored transport at once. Every single one of them were alike in fair dignity at the first glance as the only commonality in possession was their yellow skin; of course, they also had some rather significant differences in betwixt them all the same.

If at least one individual was already able to identify any of them at once as of this moment in time no less, then it’s rather obvious they were dire need of introduction, despite already being lost in crowd of others like and unlike themselves. The first person was a heavyset man with a neutral gaze upon the face and a few strands of jet–black hair curling from his barren scalp; his attire consisted of a plain white tee and moody blue pants with gray shoes protecting his feet from heat. The second person was a lanky woman with hope within her eyes and a full head of sapphire tresses towering by a small fraction; her attire was an emerald splashed dress covering much of her body and orange shoes matching the necklace. The third person was a shorter, leaner, and younger male frowning about slightly with spikes of blond hair circling about the surface area; he’d donned an orange shirt and blue shorts matching sneakers despite the steely accentuations thereof. The fourth person was much like the predecessor, albeit feminine as the one afore: the only commonality between the youths were spiky tresses and even then, they were more free; she wore a matching red dress and shoes with pearls. The fifth person was the youngest and smallest of the bunch, carried around by the woman in green: like the older girl, she, too, had spiky hair circling side–to–side but with a blue bow and jumpsuit; in the former’s mouth was a red pacifier.

“Hmm, this place seems odd to a fault: it ain’t like one of those Sprawl–Marts back in our neck of the woods; come to think of it, that shopping center isn’t like them, if at all…” the overweight man commented, looking upon the rectangular structure standing nearby the sea of molded metals bunched up together like sardines albeit geometrically.

The tall woman faced the eldest adult almost immediately and replied, “Homer, I know this is unfamiliar for you to unpack but we need to get ourselves some food for the vacation; room service can become so extremely exorbitant, even in this economy currently speaking: that Home Alone movie was a long time before that millionaire had become President of the United States.”

“Speaking of which, to think all of this surveillance state would be ready and willing to take root because of the Twin Towers…” the young girl said as she’d stared at the big blue sky above themselves while avoiding the golden sun, “at this rate, I kind of miss the old Big Apple already, though at the same time I feel as if nothing has changed…”

“Don’t fret, sis; it’s like what Plissken had said: ‘the more things change, the more things stay the same…’” the tall boy said instantaneously, the latter half of those words which were in a generated guttural growl.

The lanky traveler wasted no time in returning her attention to the glass windowpanes away from them and spoke, “in any case, I can assure you this will be a short trip for us if we work together: Homer will get the small containers should we end up taking home groceries, Lisa gets the fruits and vegetables, Bart can bring only one jug of ice cream, and Maggie and I’ll find cold–cuts…”

“But, mom… are you really suggesting we’d be limiting ourselves on ice cream all of the sudden on vacation no less…?” the eldest youth had inquired out of exasperation, looking upwardly to face the matriarch in an instant so to speak of, “for the longest time ever, we’ve finally been able to escape our otherwise boring lives in Springfield so the least we can do is cut loose like usual.”

“Yeah, besides, it’s not like that the ice cream we usually buy lasts an entire day; I still miss that butterscotch ripple…” the eldest man said with a sympathetic chuckle before becoming lost in thoughts with a faint whimper.

Rolling both eyes with a grumble, the woman in green had replied, “even so, it’s already bad enough we’ve found ourselves in a series of bizarre adventures spanning at least a decade’s worth of time and space; it seems to me even I’m having a bad feeling about this trip but thankfully I’d came prepared with a safe and economically friendly phone plan. Using our cellphones, we can send text messages in the event we get lost in the store, which would be highly unlikely given the small size and the directions; with that said, it’s best that we should all need a meeting place should this commonplace predicament ever happen to any of us, even to the likes of me: in our case, meet up in the bathroom in front of the registers.”

“That is if we could find them inside; what is this place: ‘Audi’ or ‘Liddle’ something…?” the boy replied as he’d stared intently at the four letters making up a single word on top of the entrance, “must be some kind of Eurotrash…”

“Bart, have you forgotten about all the times we’d gone to Europe: England, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, not to mention France of all places; where are you sensibilities…?” the feminine youth interrogated her aforementioned brother almost immediately, catching him off–guard at once.

The tall boy wasted no time shooting back at her, “relax, Lisa, I’m not that close–minded: I’d just never thought the loser nation that waged World War II would be able to spread their supermarkets from the vaterland itself, let alone around it.”

“In their defense, most of the goods and services they’ve made were only after the war ended and not every German supported National Socialism either…” the titular tyro talked to Bart in due time so to speak of, looking at some of the curved convertibles, “after all, even the museums specialized in these issues had enough nuance to shed light on the whole period with dignity…”

“Yeah, yeah, we get it: Axis bad, freedom good; now, let’s use the free time to get this trip over with while we still can…” the lone heavyweight jabbered onward before scurrying off to the store with little care whatsoever.

Despite his corpulent physique, the lanky traveler looked on in mild vexation and sighed, “oh, good grief…”

“It’s okay, mom, we’ll stay with you; after all, it’s just a new store: what could go–––” the young girl said with a smile only to pause in place when her brother followed the same path as their mother, albeit in a slower pace; it was at this point the former diverted to a straight–shooting stoicism barely different from the latter’s outlook, “oh…”

It wasn’t long until Bart had found his way into the flat building and the contents thereof which were instantaneously provided for his eyes and ears altogether. While there was light within the structure, they’d hung from the steely ceilings up above the boy and others like and unlike him in the form of lanky white tubes. He took solace in the observation of the heat and light from the golden sun not affecting his body since there were now much cooler temperatures all throughout. Bart felt his heart skipping a beat when he’d seen what had given the brick and mortar area life and purpose: aisles of items, known and unknown in full view. The boy had remained aware that they were masses of people within walking and talking about, each of them already varied in both appearances and capacity. Even the aromas currently entering his nostrils filled him up with hopes and dreams, expecting and anticipating any future meals following the very excursion.

“So, this is what happened when the Allies had won: maybe if we get a history assignment at school soon, then I could write about the postwar economy and how it’d birthed such things; then again, this would be something Lisa would do…” Bart ruminated as he’d walked around, taking in all of the details seen and otherwise with every step.

As the boy was doing so, he was greeted by the voice of another feminine individual: unlike his mother, there was a hint of youth no different from the likes of him though at the same time older nevertheless, “hello and welcome to Lidl: you seem to be lost, little kid; where are your parents…?”

“If you must know, one of the fat guys that went in before me is named Homer; I’d be careful around him if I were you, ma’am: he can be really engorged if you know what I mean…” he’d answered as the towering shadow overwhelmed his stature, unperturbed yet slightly defensive all the while, “as for my mom, she’ll get here soon enough; tell her and my sisters I’d said, ‘hi…’”

“But it’s dangerous to go alone…” the youthful individual warned Bart within mere seconds no less.

The boy remained unmoved despite smiling and retorted, “no different from the rest of the real world, past or present… I’m not like these babies crying for their parents to come and take them back home as soon as they get lost; I’m ten and in charge of my own life: all that want in return are some directions to where can I find some ice cream, please…”

“It’s in the far back, but be warned: pranksters have been found wreaking havoc recently last week; we need not any trouble from you or your kind…” the feminine observer spat back in return, her sweetly tongue slightly singed by some spice and salt within the spit and vinegar secreted by such a chosen set of words from her, “either way, we hope you have a nice day…”

“Thanks, toots…” he shot back in return no less.

Bart now had been provided a path of his own, forged deep within the mind as both legs brought himself away from the entrance and the unseen speaker whom he’d just talked to. As the boy walked along within and against the open flows of pedestrian traffic, he was calm on the outside but thinking all throughout the time of what had been said much prior. It’d seemed obvious that he was noticing a hint of disinterest every aisle passed by: whilst the goal alone was fresh within the forefront, at the same time he’d gotten worn–out. Nevertheless, Bart persisted with the very hope and glory awaiting to be fulfilled instantaneously upon reaching his given destination, the choices rather almost so endless to a fault.

At long last, the boy was able to stop himself in front of the very aisle’s end in question: though cooler than the rest of the area so far, the contents were a balance between solid and liquid. On one end were but a series of products ranging from the ice–cold beverages great and small to various foodstuffs all made from a certain rural livestock coexisting together without fear. At the same time were more of the same, except they were placed within the freezers with clear glassy panes where its potential viewers could see the selections therein without hesitation.

Out of the few whom were found within his line of eyesight, a trio of youths sharing the same gender as him stuck together all bunched up yet standing apart on their own two feet; much like his fragmented family, they, too, had their own fair share of differences in between themselves, something in which the former quickly took note for what it was worth. The first one was lanky and yellow wearing green, much like Bart’s mother, yet freckled with the hair growing from its owner’s scalp being an orange range of thin strands, contrasted by a thickly jet–black unibrow matching his shoes: aside from the jacket and footwear, the former worn an equitably striped shirt of red and white and a pair of baggy indigo pants. The next individual out amongst the very triumvirate also had some yellow skin but it was of a lighter skin, wearing a vermilion shirt with matching socks, purple shorts, and cyan shoes; in addition, he’d donned a hat camouflaging the thin strands of obsidian hair hanging downwardly past the neckline but with two of the white stripes upon each of its sides. The last of these was not like the others for his skin was tickled pink with some lighter spots around the eyes, clothed in a yellow shirt with a purple collar matching the sleeve hems and a vertical red rightmost stripe reminiscent of his shoes alongside light blue pants; despite having the longest, thickest strands of hair, he was short and stout like a teapot.

Of the threesome, the young middleman wasted no time muttering about whilst walking around in circles, “curse this arbitrary turn of events: to think that we would end up here of all places with little money and no sense of direction to help us out whatsoever; even the big cities up and down the seaboard had some maps to and from the stars’ homes and whatnot to guide us…”

“You think your the only person around here that’s stuck trying to figure out what plans to get us all out of this mess, sockhead?!” the more rounded of the trio had exclaimed quietly, staring at the glass barrier with a hungering displeasure as his hand stretched, “we’ve no idea how this all happened, no way to get back home to Peach Creek, and no scams to help us get outta here…!”

“I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream: rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah…!” the lanky youth in green sang, bouncing up and down in place without leaving the surface area of the ground despite the potential momentum therein.

Bart slowly approached all three of his older and taller peers with confidence and greeted them, “hey guys, noticed that you have some sort of a conundrum: mentioned something about scams but don’t know what to do about them; how can I help…?”

“Beat it, pipsqueak; we’re already in enough trouble as it is…!” the stout youth barked at the blond counterpart with little warning whatsoever, eyes boiling with annoyance, “oh, I would give anything to be back, listening to Tom Jones’ Green, Green Grass of Home…”

“Tom Jones… I didn’t know you were into that guy; ever hear of Sex Bomb…?” Bart sighed, unperturbed by the anger within the pink–skinned individual whom had felt whatever rage subside into shock.

An ecstatic grin appeared upon the stout peer’s face as he’d asked the mellow yellow correspondent, “Sex Bomb?! My parents wouldn’t let me play Reload, says that it encourages teen pregnancy and promiscuity; like I’m ever going to go steady in life, let alone be in a relationship, am I right…?”

“Girls, can’t live with them or without…” Bart bursted into laughter, something which had infected the pink–skinned individual in an instant, “anyways, who are you and where do you come from…?”

“Forgive us for the initial impoliteness: usually we don’t talk to strangers older than us and further away from our neighborhood in Peach Creek but since you happen to be within our age range, I guess we make an exception; I believe you’d already met Eddy, I’m Edd, and our tall colleague’s also Ed but with one ‘D’…” the juvenile in red introduced himself and his friends.

This would prompt a derisive chuckle to escape from the young blond’s lips, “sounds like to me ‘dat’s’ the only least common denominator…”

“Oh, great… a math joke; I hate math…” Eddy grumbled as he’d stared back at the ice cream assortment again, his incensed rekindling doing nothing whatsoever to them at all, “at least it’s better than that ones shovelchin dished out…”

“Who’s shovelchin…?” Bart asked them already.

The young middleman of the trio provided an answer, “I believe he was referring to one of our neighbors, Kevin; to be honest, most of the time these two never got along with each other ever since my family had moved to Peach Creek at least a decade: it was always about trying to be one step ahead of each other on the social climb to popularity by any and all necessary means.”

“Oh sure, tell my whole life’s story while you’re at it: that way this expository will go reduce everything we said and did to sentences; you may as well be my own ghostwriter, Double D…?” the stout youth scoffed, still licking his lips with a mixture of annoyance and melancholy as they’d already failed to affect the frozen foodstuffs.

Rolling both eyes in derision, the juvenile in red answered at once, “actually, you’re referring to exposition but that’s besides the point anyway; writing anything whatsoever, much less a biography, takes time and effort: even a simple excerpt requires forethought and planning to fill up the first chapter with words, not to mention a balanced vocabulary and grammar thereof.

Our animated adventures alone, whether on a piece of pulp or a sheet of cellulose is almost no different from the standard lead and/or ink against paper: even passion projects requires man–hours of desire spent bringing anything and everything imaginable to a mere facsimile of life as we know it.”

“No wonder why chubs has such a low opinion; your friend sound like my sister and those glee club nerds: platitudinous to a fault…” the blond youth had sighed roughly, earning him a cocked grimace from Eddy whom soon raised an eyebrow in process, “we’d once made a book together and all it took were her, our dad, our aunt, our principal, Moe, and even Neil Gaiman too…”

“By Jove, a book; why, how inconceivable… to think that a father and his small circle of family and friends alike would team up with the most famous writer of Neverwhere, Stardust, and Coraline of all people to write a single book…!” Edd exclaimed much to the apathy of his bored colleague in primaries whom still returned the burning gaze upon the still immune ice cream.

Bart spat out some air before scoffing in clear vicinity of all three peers almost instantaneously, “don’t start celebrating too soon: even a guy like me is aware of the phrase ‘never meet your heroes’ as Lisa taught me; Gaiman proved himself to a real piece of work that day we got our book out. Besides, the literature industry is full of bollocks anyway, a scam no less; after all, even she learned about how these girly–girl ‘Ange Butt’ novels are made: a corporate culture of five old guys taking advantage of today’s youth using middle–aged burnouts desperate for work and a paycheck…”

“Oh, my… how disheartening… to think that such a respectable trick of the trade had been corrupted by naked greed and shameless opportunism…” the juvenile in red gasped at the words their blond counterpart had uttered recently so to speak, “I know that Charles Dickens wrote of classism and poverty before getting inundated with such wealth in his life but this is just sad. Could this mean that other modern day classics like Harry Potter are now potentially tainted by this newfound knowledge that current year books are nothing more than a for–profit industry of avarice and arrogance, dooming literature as we know it to a fate of stagnation and repetition as one generation after another is deceived and preyed upon like caprines to the cosmic slaughter?”

“Don’t mind Double Dee anyway: he always gets like this whenever he’s against something that goes against his character and ideals; melodramatic, am I right…?” Eddy found the strength the laugh albeit briefly, cracking a smile from the suddenly extinguished infuriation worn over his hot face.

As Bart came to terms with the things spoken of here and there, a bridge of melodic beeping was soon heard within earshot; despite being faint, the point of origin came from a much rather surprising source simply because of the accompanied buzzing now: reaching into the left pocket, he’d pulled out a silver block prompting a reply, “sorry, guys; need to take this call.”

“Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring banana phone…!” the youth in green sang as the blond correspondent stepped away to open the electronic contraption in an instant, “it grows in bunches, I’ve got my hunches; it’s the best, beats the rest: cellular. modular, interactivodular…!”

“Talk to me: you’ve reached the Bartman; who is this…?” Bart announced himself on the small speaker within the device.

This inquiring introduction was met with a familiar tone through a garbled filter, already belonging to the likes of Lisa herself, “Bart, have you gotten the ice cream yet…? I’ve just about gotten all the vegetables on mom’s list; we’re just about ready to finish up now…”

“I’m getting there, Lis; keep your shoes on: it’s not like it’s the end of the world as we know it…” the eponymous listener answered back, regaining focus onto the task at hand as he’d mulled over the selections provided, “besides, you’re acting like you can’t even trust me anymore…”

“Don’t forget we’re not in Springfield now: everyone seems so different from us and vice versa – I found some other individuals of different styles; they all remind me of those Itchy and Scratchy cartoons but more diverse and variable…” the younger sibling talked as her firstborn counterpart glanced back at the trio with apathy and ambiguity.

Bart yawned reluctantly before replying to Lisa, “relax, celebrities are nothing new; after all, we’ve gotten used to seeing them coming and going to Springfield as well as leaving it to go on adventures like this one in Delmarva of all places: I once went on a class trip there to witness the peace conference hosted by our President of all people months ago…”

“He’s not my president and you know that: even aside from our ages, Trump lacks the acumen of a good one, let alone a person…” the younger sister spoken back in turn, unaware of what her lone listener had been seeing, “besides, I’d name a few good presidents but we’re running out of time; mom called me to say that she’d stocked up on the sliced meats as she’s at the restroom. Please meet her there when you’ve got the ice cream already; forgive me for saying this but she’d still remembered that time you’d attempted to steal Bonestorm during the holiday season, not to mention the choice of words you had used prior to this traumatic turn of events…”

“It’s all water under the bridge as they say; at least it’s not as bad as what Jessica tried to do to me: although I savor rebellion, stealing from the collection plate was too much for the likes of me…” Bart had slightly shuddered to Lisa.

In a matter of seconds, the young girl said to her brother, “gotta go, I’m gonna meet up with mom now; she might call you if you’re not done within five minutes time…”

“Yeah, you too…” Bart said before closing up the silver flip phone straightaway, returning it back to whence it came, “like I’m that bad with simple decision–making…”

It was at this point in time the young blond had been now compelled in coming to terms with the long distance communication between him and Lisa. Operatively speaking, Bart had plenty of choices to pick but not enough time to process them all; for what it was worth, he had only himself to blame. Though the blond boy hadn’t factored in the possibility of unfamiliar faces, it was nevertheless his choice alone to go engage with them all the same. All that was left was to do was return to the task at hand and the family Bart had arrived with: it was time to make a choice and fast while he still can.

Before the blond boy could even do so, he’d laid eyes on one individual currently standing out and about as the dense atmosphere before themselves gotten sniffed away; not much whatsoever could ever be said about this particular entity if at all, save for some simplistic attire: a jet–black hooded overcoat covering much of its wearer’s form as the sights and sounds became apparent.

“Perfect…” a raspy voice emanated: although masculine, it was devoid of the youth and clarity within the likes of Bart and his peers; in addition, there had remained some rough textures surpassing that of his own father.

The cloaked person wasted no time getting a tub of ice cream out from the confines right away; however, the blond observer otherwise inspired by such usage of timing also noticed something: the former was opening the lid of the paper packaging and held it to the nearby neckline at once.

Bart couldn’t help himself but make out a flash of color escaping from the jet–black fabrics and onto the surface area, lapping a small layer before retracting immediately; afterwards, the handler had returned the opened item back to the area retrieved, only to hear some words quickly escaping into the open air loudly, belonging to neither of them, “ICE CREAM POISONER…!”

“Huh…?” the blond observer peeped instantaneously, turning around to find that they were spoken by his lanky peer, “Ed…?”

“COME BACK HERE, MADMAN FROM ANOTHER WORLD…!” the aforementioned juvenile bellowed, chasing after the cloaked person with little warning whatsoever as Bart barely got out of the way in the already sprouted confusion.

It wasn’t long until the jet–black individual heard the lanky youth approaching him with increasing acceleration, prompting the former to flee from the impending danger leaking from the latter’s sudden burst of indignation as the former gave chase with fellow friends following after.

Needless to say, Bart trailed from behind them out of impulse, his rather simple responsibility abandoned in favor of watching the hot pursuit unfold before the likes of him as he ran off at once, panted about, “damn, what just happened with lumpy: he was happy just a second ago; did that ice cream licker trigger him so easily…?”

“STOP, CRIMINAL SCUM…!” Ed cried with fury like a frail firebrand as the blond listener had struggled to pick up on the sound of the former’s voice, the latter retracing his steps to rediscover the entrance in question used by the very same family in question, “CEASE!!”

It wasn’t long until Bart found his way back to where he’d began, this time with the very same cloaked person standing up in front of the doors: despite being directly upon the black mat, they were still closed tightly, leaving the latter at the mercy of the lanky pursuer growling like a dog.

The jet–black individual eyed Ed with a static pose underneath the textiles, remaining calm on the outside but wary altogether; gone was the happy–go–freely amicability within the youth’s visage and in its place a vicious canine’s temperament thereof: adding onto this, the latter had adopted a quadrupedal stance with shrunken irises and bubbling foam soon spat at the former.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen…” the cloaked person spoke again, albeit internally so as a response won’t ricochet back at the current whereabouts.

Even though the lanky youth couldn’t see the jet–black individual’s eyes, he refused to back down from his stance, let alone allow the target of such choice to go no further than hereon out.

Almost instantaneously, a set of spheres slung from the cloaked person’s textiles, sauntering adjacently between the two individuals in seconds; sure enough, each of them created a cloud of smoke thick enough to obscure Ed’s line of sight, much to his infuriation as he’d barked even louder, “SHOW THYSELF, DASTARDLY WHIPLASH…!”

“Holy cow, that’s some powerful smoke bombs…!” the blond observer coughed alongside countless others including the trio themselves whom had covered much of their faces, even the lanky growler whom whined with disgust and discomfort; afterwards, the artificial cloud had dissipated and the jet–black individual was no longer there, “where in the Hell did he go?!”

“Bart, what’s wrong; are you all right: did somebody hurt you?!” another voice from long ago cut into the open airspace within the titular tyro’s range.

Before the blond onlooker could even turn around, he’d instantly found himself being hugged compressibly by the corporeal woman from before; despite the sudden discomfort, he was more than relieved to reply to her, “mom… you won’t even believe what I’d seen just now: there was this man who licked some ice cream without paying and one of the boys tried to stop him…”

“Shh… it’s okay, sweetie; I knew it was a bad idea to let you go off on your own: I just didn’t consider how horrifying it’d be…” the lean matriarch had sobbed softly onto Bart’s integuments, making no effort whatsoever to let go of him at all so to speak of, “I’m such a terrible mother for letting this happen to you…!”

“No, you’re not… I’m just surprised by the whole thing: I remember Lisa telling me over the phone about all the strange people we’d been seeing at the store since we’d entered the store; come to think of it, the tall guy was the one whom chased him off to stop that man in black…” the blond boy said to the lanky woman within the snuggle.

Soon, more of their relatives came by to comfort them: Homer and Lisa with Maggie in tow bearing widened and moistened eyes of storm and stress upon themselves; needless to say, the elder man was the first to speak, “I heard the commotion as well: was this another terrorist attack they’ve been warning us about; please don’t tell me that Isis is still alive?!”

“I highly doubt that they’d have anything to do with this supermarket whatsoever, let alone here…” the younger blonde replied hesitantly as she’d held the infant in the former’s hands tightly at once, “are you alright…?”

“Of course, I’m alright…” Bart scoffed softly.

Homer felt his skin crawling about due to the excess of perspiration trickling down thanks to gravity, shaking about as he’d hissed, “when I get my hands on that monster, he’s going to be sorry that he’d came to this neighborhood…!”

“Excuse me, coming thru; sorry…” another masculine voice was found to be making his way towards the family of five in mere seconds, “hello, are you the boy that had seen the attacker…?”

“Who wants to know…?” the blond boy asked.

All of them had turned around to face another individual standing directly abaft, unperturbed by the shocking turn of events. His skin was a dark shade reminiscent of the topsoil, matching the weary eyes he’d used to see what had unfolded currently. The onlooker’s hair was big and black with a few trace amounts of silver and white within them, matching the boots he wore. Like the balding patriarch, the speaker’s attire was simplistic to a fault: bearing a white shirt and blue pants, albeit so leaner.

It wasn’t long until the dark observer answered calmly, “I’m the assistant manager; I believe you should all come with me for the time being…”

Time had passed on through space alongside with the inhabitants whom were drifting aimlessly as the stars amongst the never–ending blackness floated on, each of them to prompt any wayward traveler to harken back to the memories of life when the richest beverage kept their spirits up until their next destination and from the mouth of madness. Of course, time itself was the only thing that remained constant in the ever–changing plane of existence where many variables had come in all shapes and size, coexisting alongside either in unions or divisions thereof as they transcended boundaries without incident to say the least; then again, almost all of them succumbed to the folding sooner or later. This interval however would prove to be a special case since that there were those who have found themselves still standing rather than stumbling and falling to the depths of their failure nonetheless; however, not all of them were doing so as the whole wide world turned on its own axis: out of many of those in question, there was indeed a few no less.

A new environment was currently in clear view, much smaller than the outside world and the supermarket it inhabited both in terms of potential personnel and static spacing alike so to speak. The very ligneous ceiling in its entirety bore a chocolatey scheme though at the same time far from edible; nevertheless, there were technicolor dots scattered about by a lit fan up and running. The flooring was merely made up of ruby red carpeting on the ground easily filled to the brim of the richness already composed to the point of mysteries and miracles due to its forced diversity. All of the walls were painted in a vaguely obscure shade of star platinum, save for some fractions deep within the wooden base holding it all together with the illegible squiggles above and below. Scattered about were some various artifacts left and right which had given that room some life: a bookshelf, charts, pictures, electronics, a desk, an intercom, a microphone, and an emerald chair.

It was at this point in time where at least several people had resided in there: of them, Bart, Ed, Edd, and Eddy were sharing the same side standing up and about as they’d faced the lone adult sitting down calmly.

“Sir, please forgive us for our friend’s sudden change in behavior recently; usually, this isn’t something that happens, at least not here…” the juvenile in red was the first to speak up to the assistant manager reluctantly at once, “the last time this occurred, it was all because of a pebble in his shoe: you’d not believe it even if you’d seen it yourself; I had hard time believing it too…”

“Relax, I’d be upset too if something was stuck up in my foot: at least a rock sounded more believable and removable in his case; a splinter on the other hand is a nightmare to get out on its own…” the lone adult said as his face was illuminated by a glass screen, eyes concentrated on a series of images moving about at a controlled speed.

It wasn’t long until the stout youth had joined in too, albeit slightly grim, “so, how much trouble are we in, sir…?”

“Compared to that dastard, not much at all: I would’ve wanted nothing more than to thrash this guy myself; this is what had been warned…” the assistant manager answered as he’d scrolled throughout the frames per second displayed afore himself, “a series of incidents such as this have been going on throughout America lately since a few months ago; they call them pranks now…! These sickos open ice creams and lick the surface off of them before closing them back up and returning them to the freezer like nothing has happened; the whole goshdarn thing makes me sick to my stomach thinking about it all, the diseases they spread, the tastes that have been ruined, not to mention the money lost ‘cause of such things…! Wal–Mart and Sam’s Club alongside some unaffiliated derivatives throughout America had a similar problem with them so they had to go and beef up their security protocols a bit to keep this from happening; to be honest, I don’t like where this is going, especially since we’re so close to the end of it all, yet it seems that our demise is inevitable.”

“The end… of what…?” the blond boy blabbed.

Suddenly, the screen collapsed into the blackness and the lone adult answered, “to tell you the truth, not a day goes by that I think about whatever’s awaiting us further down the future; I’ve been watching and reading how humanity would end so to speak ever since I was a young child: nuclear disasters, earthquakes, tornadoes, alien invasions, plagues, and even a megatsunami. None of them could compare to what had been written down in the books, of how the entire species has strayed off from the strait and narrow ever since the dawn of time itself so to speak; even the Western colonization serves as a more prominent example of why nothing last forever, especially with four centuries of progress made displacing, enslaving, and destroying others. The fact that the only things that’s changed throughout the ages is the technology yet rather than using it to do good, it succumbs to humanity’s deepest darkest desires for control and whatnot; it’s no wonder why the prophets from the ancient realm spoke of the end of days, especially considering how drastically different their societies were compared to the modern ages of now.”

“I’m sorry but I don’t understand how this relates to our currently situation so to speak…” Edd interjected, bringing the assistant manager out of his focus and back into the multidimensional reality all of them were still in, “you were saying…?”

“Sorry, I just have developed a habit going on tangents lately since my youth, an immutable one at that so far for what it’s worth; thankfully, I’ve been getting with my condition…” the lone adult said, calmly explaining the sudden bursts of dialogical discharge from before to the youths in question.

The blond boy then blurted out plainly, “you’re on the spectrum…?”

“Yes, for the lack of a better term…” the assistant manager had answered straightaway, slightly incensed but extinguished by a suddenly loud knock on the door, “okay, you can come in now…”

“What are you going to do to my boy: is he going to be banned from the store…?” the hairless correspondent asked after entering the room right away, a face flushed with trepidation as he stared at the youth nearby.

The leaner man wasted no time whatsoever in replying to Homer, “not at all; we are, however, going to close the supermarket until get this mess all sorted out: I don’t know exactly what had happened before then but I have reason to believe that the government is going to get involved in this mess all the same. Even if it was just a smokescreen, I cannot forget how much damage that monster would’ve unleashed on asthmatics and others with respiratory problems young and old; for a sec there, I might as well would’ve expected it to be so much worse, especially over something as mundane as ice cream.”

“Ditto, to tell you the truth I’d fallen victim a fair share of them myself: there was this Ukrainian mob boss whom kidnapped me…” the bald heavyweight said nonchalantly to the assistant manager, much to the newfound shock of Bart’s three peers, “apparently, it was to draw my new friend from work out so he could take revenge; thankfully, my friend came to save my life…”

“Good lord…!” the juvenile in red muttered.

The lean overseer guided Homer and the youths within the very same room out while saying to them, “well, in any case, I recommend watching your step next time before you set out for home and away now; we may not be dealing with Middle–Eastern Fundamentalists, but I best prefer choose to visit the countryside for vacationing next time. Please wait out there for the time being until further notice; do you two understand…?”

“Yes, sir…” Eddy grumbled as he, his fellow colleagues, and the hairless elder walked out of there, presented with a little bit of the same–old scenery from before yet with more individuals like and unlike themselves; it was at this point, he could care less in the slightest compared to earlier, “well, so much for the government; it seems the nineties are looking better than ever…”

I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes, I saw the sign
Life is demanding without understanding
I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes, I saw the sign
No one’s gonna drag you up to get into the light where you belong
But where do you belong?

The lanky youth sang freely, much to the stout counterpart’s slight displeasure at the choice thereof.

The blond boy had sat on down to watch as few of the various troops and police were currently surveying the area before himself: many of them were already active, whether it was asking questions and/or finding answers, it’d been all of the same to themselves; although they were already at ease, the turn of events they’d bore witness to directly was sobering to a fault no less.

Of the very personnel found in active view, two policemen were in the vicinity: the uniforms alone were ironically a dead giveaway to the various observers; at the same time, they were just as different like everyone else here and there. Out of the distant duo, the first was tall and muscular, a face chiseled like a quadrangular brick adorned with a jet–black mustache; the second one was short but still lean, rounded out with a balance betwixt youth and age all throughout.

It wasn’t long until the bulky man was the first to speak, “so what do you suppose happened, Daizaburo…?”

“I’m still at a loss of words: terrorists usually would’ve struck with a bomb of some sort, let alone come here with a team…” the eponymous partner answered, studying the few products that were still unaffected all the same with an intense composure, “one thing that bothers me is why the ice cream prank; what was he planning to do with it, Sleepy: start an epidemic…?”

“I don’t know but I didn’t get transferred out of New York to deal with this crap here: Capricorn was a tragedy on its own and that was before September 11th of all days; at least we didn’t have to deal with the following onslaught as well…” the muscular policeman growled, shaking about but remaining still for the convenience of others.

The shorter correspondent groaned, “you don’t need to remind me of that; somehow, I wish we didn’t need any of this mass media crap predicting it all: Kojima must be laughing his ass off about the whole prediction…”

Suddenly, with little warning whatsoever, yet somehow on cue, a vacant space devoid of people and items alike was illuminated with a cluster of sparkles shimmering about to little end in sight; soon, they’d transformed into a trio of concentrated circles kept apart but still sharing the same area as colors were swirled about within the otherwise flat surface area standing about sharply. Out of them were various lifeforms stepping into the same plane of existence as the males whom were sitting down watching it all: evidently, it was the only commonality shared between the visitors since even the young would be comforted by such a discovery; nevertheless, the significant differences were on clear display based on the entities whom appeared before them.

The first portal had bore a quintet of women stepping out from the literal blue, each of those dressed in a pointed hat matching their gowns and capes: of them, the most that could be ascertained was an elder in blue with a pink bow around the neckline whilst the remaining others were dark haired in a set of ruby, sapphire, and emerald. The next portal, in teal, consisted of a mismatched twosome, a man and woman more different to each other and everyone else: while the latter dressed in purple matching her hair, save for a baby blue blouse and pink bow, the former stood out as having more colors in his clothes than his face and hair alike; even his eyes bore red over gold. The final portal was white, a singular man stepping out from there, tall like Sleepy yet blond like Bart as much of his body was cloaked in a long scarlet rob with white fur and gold jewelry, all of which overlaid his brown pants found sliding underneath to match a pair of high boots as they’d touched the solid earth beneath themselves right at once.

“Hmm, come to think of it, it seems to me we’re not in Canterlot anymore…” the pied pedestrian prattled on, pondering about the predicament they’d all been presented with, “as a matter of fact, I’m surprised as to how we all got here no less…”

“Relax, Discord, I’ve been to the human world before: it’s just that it’s been more different than I’d seen it last time; now that you mention it, where exactly are we…?” the petite peer in purple peeped out as she’d looked around to find all eyes now locked onto herself and the titular traveler nearby alongside others.

As this was happening, one woman in emerald had this to say about it at once, “my sisters and I have been asking the same question as well; of course, it seems that we’re not the only ones looking for answers either: as a matter of fact, I’m amazed that the lot of us were brought here to the very same location…”

“Wow, what a rather strange new world: a civilization full of people with so much magic…” the tall blond exclaimed, watching the many individuals staring agape with a few holding onto their chosen armaments straightaway, “whoa, whoa, easy, I come in peace; I mean no harm to you in any way whatsoever: I am Julius Novachrono, the 28th Magic Emperor of the Clover Kingdom.”

“Yeah, and I’m the President of the United States; hands up where we can see them…!” the muscular policeman growled in an instant, drawing out a shotgun to point it into their collective direction at once; as he did so, Daizaburo also pulled a weapon from his holster, a small jet–black pistol within the left hand.

This brought the elderly woman’s attention quickly as she’d held onto a wand in her right, her younger compeers also following suit as their guide said, “please understand that we’re of no threat to you at all, young man: my name is Esperance, the current fairy godmother of Princess Cinderella and I’ve not arrived alone as we can see here. In my case, I’ve commuted alongside three other similar fairies from the same land as I in a similar method with the same task at hand – to protect a princess and her homeland from ruin; now, it seems that we’ve collective found ourselves in a time and place far unlike that of their homes and families. Nevertheless, we’re still curious as to our current whereabouts and the weapons pointed to us: it seems to me that although everything is similar to their land, I’ve noticed many countless differences between here and there.”

“This is America…” Ed now sang, catching the band of seven and their observant witnesses off–guard with little concern as they still remained focused, “don’t catch you slippin’ now… don’t catch you slippin’ now… look what I’m whippin’ now…”

“Heh, heh, heh… what a time to be alive…” Homer hooted heartily.

Although the short policeman still held onto his firearm, his gaze softened up a bit as he’d asked them, “who are you people and what are you all doing here…?”

“Surely, you have really forgotten your manners when you’ve taken up the badge alongside whatever substitutes for gunpowder and steel here…” the pied pedestrian plainly pontificated, peering at the proximate policemen poised ahead of themselves presently so to speak of, “I’m Discord P. Sullivan, the closest of confidants to Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Equestria…”

“Oh, jeez… more princesses; dreams do really come true…” the blond boy cerebrated as he’d looked away.

It wasn’t long until the woman in a ruby scheme introduced herself, “‘tis as her fairy godmother has said before, we, too, are fairies whom have arrived from a faraway land: I’m Flora Knotgrass Septa and alongside me are my sisters, Fauna Thistlewit and Merryweather Flittle Septa; there are at least four others sisters, all older and with more experience than the likes of us…”

“Interesting… actual fairies from another world… at the same size as the humans themselves…” the woman in purple said to herself as she’d stared at the fanciful foursome on her far–right past her polychromatic peer, “what do you suppose had brought us here all of the sudden, some new type of magic that humans have here…?”

“Not quite, dear princess: usually my magic would’ve taken me anywhere I’d wanted to go, at least under normal circumstances; the last time I was exposed to a different kind of magic, I’d ended up having walked all the way over to Chrysalis’ hive with Thorax guiding us through…” Discord answered, his eyes rolling around into his sockets and then back in front of them again.

This hadn’t gone unnoticed whatsoever as Daizaburo pointed his gun at the pied pedestrian in and instant, changing targets from the old fairy and the reluctance thereof as the former barked, “what the… what the fuck was that?!”

“Language already…?” Discord shivered after the short policeman’s question entered a stray ear, a small trail of red crawling out from there, “even Tirek had more restraint in his words but this was highly uncalled for…”

“I know… remember we’re not in Equestria: most of the inhabitants in this dimension aren’t used to seeing your body parts, much less your eyes rolling in other directions many can’t; besides, they’re still armed to the teeth with these strange metal wands…” the younger female whispered to her pied peer presently at once.

Sleepy also took note of the movements the woman in purple made and barked, “please cut the chitchat already; I don’t want to use this, especially not in front of a pretty little girl like you… It’s bad enough that this supermarket had to deal with a failed bioterrorist, now we’ve gotten some people showing up out of nowhere at a time like this: as a matter of fact, this old man is this close to playing fool with that dirty trick of us…!”

“Fool?!” Discord choked out instantaneously, his ear no longer leaking though releasing a puff of smoke at once, “says the meathead incandescently…!”

“Guys, please… let’s lay down our arms and talk this out: I’m pretty sure there’s a good explanation for all this; why don’t we all just settle down…?” the Emperor chuckled sheepishly even with both the muscular policeman and the pied pedestrian locking leering eyes onto each oter electromagnetically in this passing moment.

Esperance wasted no time whatsoever in chiming back into the conversation, “I concur: as far as we see it, most of us have been willing to comply with your simple command since our arrival; besides, even Julius has exceeded our expectations from the very beginning and we don’t even know each other at all…”

“Miss Esperance has a point: if we’re to cooperate with the humans, then we must prove to be no threat whatsoever, Discord…” the younger female pleaded to the aforementioned individual almost immediately, still wary of the armaments pointed at them, “besides, it’s as what Officer Sleepy said: someone tried to poison the others and the last thing Equestria needs is a war…! I’m not going to let the era my mentors had brought in end with a conflict between two worlds, especially not over something like this; think about Fluttershy, what do you suppose she’d say about it if something goes wrong and I’m not back…?”

“Fluttershy…?” the pied pedestrian peeped, his indignant gaze softening up a bit from what the woman in purple had said recently so to speak of.

The woman in sapphire asked, “who is Fluttershy, a friend of yours…?”

“Yes and she would want for us to return home safely alongside the others…” the younger female answered to Merryweather in an instant, remaining careful not to arouse the anger of the other armed onlookers, “after all, I have an obligation to uphold my title, not just for their sake alone; can you all please lower your weapons…?”

“What reason should you have to give us as a gesture of nonaggression…?” Daizaburo replied to the woman in purple, relieving himself of the sternness within whilst holding firm all the same.

It wasn’t long until Julius soon sighed, “my grimoire… usually I don’t see any reason as to relinquish it to any unknown personnel, especially to any hostiles though considering the situation, it should give you no cause of further alarm if I pass this onto to you for the time being…”

“Is he really crazy: from our experience, it’s no better than laying down their sword; how can this even work?!” Fauna ruminated frantically as an assortment of paper stuck together appeared before their very eyes, hovering about in midair, “he’s no Maleficent yet the idea is rather reckless, not to mention his spell book has no protective cover whatsoever…!”

“I’ll also surrender my wand as well: even I know better not to do this since the last time I’d been separated from it, the course of events set out had been gravely altered; at least this time, I now have faith that we can reach a mutual understanding and end the nightmare completely…” the elderly fairy also said as she’d released her wand, watching it fall to earth without incident.

Flora and her sister also did the same while saying, “same with us… regretfully so…”

“Oh, alright but I must warn you: I’m not like other guys, let alone other magicians you find at some resort past the desert plains…” Discord grumbled as he’d slowly knelt down without dropping his arms, looking firmly at the men with frustration in his eyes, “oh, this is most humiliating…!”

“Okay then…” one armed individual said, a soldier in green bearing a voice just as feminine as the new arrivals, albeit gruffly.

A few of the armored woman’s peer slowly circled in and placed the sticks and texts in separate plastic bags with all the tongs in their grip. Needless to say, although the band of seven were gestured to lower their arms, a combination of concern and hope dominated their minds. Denizens didn’t know what to make of the situation at hand, confused by the sudden turn of events but convince of the outcome so far. Yet, from what many observers could ascertain, the day was far from over, irregardless of the timing or the phase all the same so to speak.

One person in particular took note of this, a fair skinned man in a generally bleached scheme textiles with green hair in sideway slicked undercut matching his eyes, vest, and shoes, watching it all as he’d said to himself, “I’m not really sure what had happened but I have reason to believe this isn’t the work of an enemy stand, at least not this time. In any case, should I happen to come across even one normal enemy, the least I can do is subdue him: Heaven’s Door will surely keep him from making any sort of drastic measures known and otherwise; besides, I have a feeling this will not be the first or last time I find myself in America, what with all the bizarre things happening here and I'd thought Morioh was crazy…”

As he’d watched the band of seven approach the armed patrollers carefully, he kept his distance to the far corners of the supermarket, calm on the outside but thinking all throughout the time in regards to what had been seen and heard altogether without drawing any attention whatsoever.

Fade Away

Author's Note

It's Fireflower again with my first crossover anthology fimfic, a hopeful break from all the sex and the violence making up much of my profile since several years ago; at this rate, I hope you'd enjoyed the first chapter I'd made based on some dream in the passing years and with you–know–who cause here's another one: though, out of honesty, there will be some bilingual stuff.

As always, My Little Pony, or rather Friendship Is Magic, including its settings and characters belong to Lauren Faust and Hasbro; in addition, the characters featured from others shows, known and unknown so far, don't belong to me, not even that professor so please don't sue me over them either, okay...?

Lastly, let me also say I hope you enjoy this chapter now and stay tuned for future chapters later on: after all, you're going to be taking solace in the fact the following anecdote will still serve as a nice change of pace; though, please don't expect from me to be a periodical upload like the other stories since I still don't have much of a plan in the long term either.

Fade Away

Darkness was the only way of how the small world works, let alone the real world to say the very least; as a matter of fact, the small world is indeed the real world and vice versa too nonetheless. The jet black void was all that could be seen but not heard, felt, tasted, or smelled; yet, it can be also sensed as well anyways, devoid of even a modicum of light bearing any hue whatsoever to permeate through its entirety. For a moment, it had seemed that all was completely lost, its mere fate already sealed and set in stone to say the least before the very beginning; nothing else was going to even change that in the slightest.

Suddenly without warning, yet as if on cue, a small click rapidly resounded throughout the very darkness itself, subtle enough to get its very point across. As the echo’s reverb quickly departed from the blackened ocean, so, too, did the uncertainty of nothingness alone; light had filled the entire area instantly. Concrete had made up the entire space, uniformed in structure and stricture hand in hand as they had threatened closing in on their own collective target. Here the source of illumination hung in the balance, inching away from the ceiling as electricity had unleashed its collection of photons all throughout. In the confines of the stony loneliness was a small rectangle of glass resting about within the wall, adjacent to the wood table and the matching chairs.

At this present moment, there were at least two individuals found out and about with their attire, demeanor, and masculinity already in full display yet they were contrasting against each other instantaneously. One bore a brightly clear skinned complexion with eyes of cobalt and short spiky star platinum hair, wearing a midnight combo of a jacket, pants, and shoes sitting in a chair with both of his legs crossed up. The other stood darker and taller, bearing chocolatey orbs and shorter locks of jet–black with a silver beard; the only articles of clothing found were a suit and tie combo in light copper and a white undershirt.

“The bureau’s having a hard time trying to figure out all this information for processing; it’s obvious the agency would’ve tried harder to do the same: the one thing that bothers me is that you saw all of this happen before your very eyes, am I correct…?” the first voice came from the latter, gruff to a fault yet neutral all the while.

It was at this point the sitter answered calm yet timidly as well, “yes, and for that, I am sorry about the trouble I’d seen recently; if there’s any consolation, then I’ll be willing to state that what I’d witness wasn’t the first time I'd faced down death, let alone bounce back from it: I was a premature birth, weighing in at 5.125 pounds – left in intensive care for an entire week…”

“I don’t need to hear your entire life's story; besides, as far as they’re concerned, you’re not in trouble: you’re a witness, plain and simple…” the first man said to the shorter counterpart almost immediately, both eyes glancing at a silver device on the table before the former pressed a button, “for obvious reasons, please state your name, birthday, and hometown…”

“I’m Koichi Hirose, born on March 28, 1984 in Morioh, a town district from Sendai, Japan…” the listener introduced himself instantaneously.

Afterwards, the dark correspondent wasted no time in speaking to the titular tenant, “so you want to tell me what this is about…”

“Not much at all; considering what I’ve seen lately, I was a fool to believe that this wouldn’t be possible in the slightest: killers, scammers, and all sorts of troublemakers aren’t just bound to here…” the bright man said softly as he stared at the flooring underneath their feet, lost in thoughts at once, “still, there’s only one question: how do people disappear…?”

“You mean missing persons…?” the taller counterpart replied in an instant, only for Koichi to shake his head at once.

Nevertheless, the bright man said, “not that kind of disappearance, I mean watching someone fade out of existence, like they do in these movies and TV shows as well as those video games people put out…”

“Kid, if it weren’t for the turn of events recently, then we would’ve sent you off to the mental ward for that…” the dark man interjected with little warning whatsoever, his tone loosening up a bit in the process for Koichi to hear, “at this rate, there’s even been camera footage collected from the internet regarding it all the while…”

“It’s kind of funny, officer: had Japan made camera phones back when I was growing up, all those dead girls would’ve been found sooner; I should’ve been staying dead back then, but now I have to suffer through yet another nightmare after all these years…!” the bright man muttered, struggling to stay in control of himself in front of the elder afore.

The dark correspondent watched a few tears fall from Koichi's face before replying, “relax, you’re safe and sound; no one’s after you… we’re just trying to make sense of what happened today…”

“Even so, you weren’t there in person when I’d gone through all of this: serial killers on the loose, a con artist stealing luggage, and now this…!” the bright man screeched all of the sudden, catching the elder officer off–guard at that point in time, “the worst part is that I couldn’t save anyone or anything this time, not a one! Every time I end up in danger, I either had to save myself alongside my friends and family or be saved by them and even complete strangers: even though I’ve been loved, I’d always considered myself as a weakling, hiding behind them and running from danger; I even remember the time a grown man save me from certain death! I’d thought that after all these years, I would’ve been able to put this all behind me and stand on my own two feet: at the very least, I’d make something positive of my life by helping people wherever I went, with or without sponsors; now, it seems that the nightmare has come back in full force, taking more from me than I could’ve protect or give!”

“Slow down…!” the dark man warned sternly.

Heeding the elder's words, Koichi took a deep breath and sigh before speaking again, “I’m sorry, it’s just that I’ve been shaken up lately over how unbelievable it is: although that violent crimes are nothing new in America, they’ve never stopped me from coming here to make a difference: what I wasn’t prepared for was who would be involved in this, let alone what kind of individuals. I suppose it should be time I should go on ahead and take it slow anyway; after all, it’s a long story and I’m sure at this rate I wouldn’t be allowed to leave until I tell you everything: I just hope nothing else goes wrong afterwards, especially with how messed up today has been for me…”

“It won’t though I should say that after this, I’m gonna have to leave anyway; I’m getting way too old for this anyway…” the dark man said to his shorter counterpart with a tired grumble, taking another look at their collective surroundings, “you may start when you’re ready, Koichi; just be mindful that honesty is the best policy with the Bureau…”

“Yes sir…” the eponymous adult had sighed.

Light in and of itself was capable of traveling to and from anywhere throughout the whole wide world rather almost instantaneously; in addition, it also was accompanied by warmth as well. Because of this, it had unveiled a whole slew of colors coming in many different hues and shades whatsoever, each of them painting the overall landscape in an attempt to provide it some identity. Given the very situation at hand, it was best to assume for the most part that the day was just about to begin; after all, such imagery would be best captured by the observance of the wary one.

With the entire sphere rotating on its own axis at a set speed while revolving as well on a different speed, a brand new morning had now started to come about. The spacious blue sky was crystal clear enough to see the golden sun shining brightly about over the silent scope as a flock of birds from various sizes and shades soared across so serenely. Within a rather large dream drop distance was but a civilization already defined in such various materials used to build them from the ground up, most of them all being the ones suitably fittest for the likes of even three little pigs. The calm gentle breeze was surfing onward and about throughout the dirt roads and dusty trails, cutting across the otherwise barren landscape as it got to and from the deserts surrounding them all. In amongst the very background were but a widget series of monoliths each raging with growth and erosion in the process of their trying times as the sun hovered over all of them. Given the handsome size of this town in question, it was likely that there would at least be an utter abundance of many individuals from various demographics whatsoever: age, gender, finances, and social standing being rather nothing short from the standardized metallurgy of life.

Out of all the places within this otherwise small area in particular, there was one that stood out amongst the others no less: it was a tall home at first glance, made completely of timber and steel. The hip roof upon itself sloped down on all four of its very corners, providing a standard if diminutive shelter for each and every one of them rather ever so presently for the most part. There were a few shapely yet wholesome windows that while sharing the same geometric structure came in different sizes; of course, they were either closed off or obscured by blinds. Only a singular door had remained there to be a finishing touch as a gateway to this simplistic residence, bearing a fruity color reminiscent of an orange along with its texture and nothing more.

Anyways, one of the rays of sunlight managed to pierce through the looking glass within the frame, illuminating a rather small area of it with some distinctiveness. In that very location thereof, it had instantaneously stopped itself against a singular wall; as a result, its color was sparkling about in a faint hue of lavender. Within that small space that lit up in the process, there had remained a rectangular panel with a thick circular dial standing out within the middle of that space.

Whatever peace and tranquility made up the darkened area was eviscerated by an electronic staccato in a steady pattern; in addition, a teal backlight appeared from the very same darkness, etched with some alphanumeric text in jet–black all the same no less.

It was but a matter of time until the new batch of colored photons were being covered up initially, only for them to return with factorial reinforcements as they grew brighter enough to be whitened instantaneously, bearing the text, ‘AYANA’.

“もしもし⋯？” its owner had spoken up, timid and tired to a fault yet willing to answer all the while no less, “綾那、今晩は… お元気か？ 杜王町で天気はどうか⋯？”

“はい、そうですが、昨日からまだ雨下している⋯！” the speaker in question sighed, a feminine voice reverberating about despite the electronic filters in action.

After the shuffling of fabric, the corporeal tenant replied, “残念だね。僕は日本で台風の季節はアメリカで暴風雨ん季節より約一ヶ月早い事を忘れた。良く考えてみて、父母どうか？”

“まあまあ⋯” Ayana answered almost instantaneously, leaving the listener in a state of hesitation at once so to speak, “父は病気がちだったで、母は負傷したが、まだ生きている。仗助と億泰は元気になるまで家の周りを助けているで、岸辺露伴は手形を支払うために資金を集めている。”

“僕は手伝ってもいいか？” the corporeal tenant had asked the feminine speaker immediately in turn.

She’d said, “はい、康ちゃん。”

“僕はもう男の子じゃない、姉さん！” the lonely listener had sputtered about, struggling to regain control over respiration and emotions as well, “僕は今３６歳で、名前はまだ広瀬康一！ごめんね。僕は給料日後の週末までにお金を送る。どうもありがとうまた会いましょう。さようなら。”

“はっ⋯さようなら。” Ayana had chirped, right before a hard click entered the corporeal tenant’s ears; at long last, the light had faded to black and the latter was left alone, just like much earlier ago.

It was at this point in time the singular inhabitant was free to return whatever had been done before the speaker's digital visit: at the very least, slumber was the most viable option given the darkened environment in question so to speak of; of course, the sunlight had betrayed all of that, compelling the former to heave, “ようし⋯行こう！”

It wasn’t long until a singular turn of the dial bathed the space in light, instantaneously chasing away the darkness as it become identified within all due time. The ceiling had served as the foundation of such an illumination was suspended by about a few yards from the very flooring as it’d provided guidance quickly. The partitions that had currently held up the general composition were already dabbed in a salubrious coating of goldenrod wallpaper studded with shine. The flooring itself was already basked in a tufted and orientated carpeting, rich with but a down–to–earth shade of auburn, something to provide some warmth. The thin ray of sunlight that had already invaded the room was nearly blocked off by some jaded curtains facing into the direction of the dial’s present location. A large bed had rested nearby the window frame, donned with a vermilion comforter with white sheets and pillowcase all slightly out of place thanks to earlier. A tall dresser stood close by a short nightstand, both of them sharing a matching beige scheme, the latter had a slender lamp and a clock standing on the top. In addition, there had remained a pair of doors that were standing adjacent from the bedside with a share of wooden knobs with all the red lacquer and texture.

Finally, there was the corporeal tenant, Koichi himself, dressed in thin clothes matching his otherwise unkempt hair: additionally, he’d possessed small dark circles underneath his eyes yet still clung to the life drawn from him right here and now; despite, he was filled with a burning yet controlled resolve, ready to face the outside world and the lifeforms dwelling about as well.

Standing up straightaway, the man in white released his grip off of the chronometer and walked towards the dresser in a few seconds. At once, he'd opened it to pull out a few articles of clothing without any hesitation, all of which were black; this was but a beginning. Laying them all aside up on the bed, Koichi had placed each of the three within his grasp afore venturing outside with underclothing.

With the door shut behind her completely, the man in white turned to the right side and found another door open ajar; in no time to be wasted whatsoever, the hallway separating between the two of them was not of much concern for walking distance: unlike the room, it was a bit small in geometry. The slow yet steady change in temperature was already being suddenly felt by his feet as it’d currently showed off only instantaneously that its very flooring was composed completely of merely ceramic tiles in a floral arrangement reminiscent of its organic source materials sprouted from earth. Instead of a cool color shade from before, its walls were adorned with a hot orange paint, burning brightly like an open flame yet cold to the touch no less; however, the ceiling was colored in pastel white, bearing a single bulb where running electricity brought the area up to snuff now. Its accommodations thereof were all firmly gathered within Koichi’s line of eyesight: a toilet, a sink, a mirror, a cabinet, a hamper, a closet, and a tub with curtains being the very things that provided such relief in those eyes; after all, the fact he still was up and running gave him a clear motivation.

At this moment alone, the man in white now made it possibly sure enough prevent any unwanted intrusions by locking the door right away already. He went onto the closet door, pulling out a red towel and a teal washcloth from there in due time at once before turning his attention to the bathtub. Already made aware of the current attire upon Koichi’s body, they were completely stripped off of him at once, leaving his skin completely bare.

The silver haired occupant soon stepped inside rather slowly and carefully, quickly closing the curtains alongside as well so as to shut out the cold air before it’d even have the slight chance of following after him. He’d soon taken his precious time as to study what was now directly right up in front: the nozzle was guided directly overhead as it’d hung from the walls with the mixer tap and its three handles had rested beneath.

Calmly, Koichi started to place his hand on one handle in the middle before arranging the others nearby; before long, a heightened pitch whine was followed by a deluge of water splashing upon the bright skin. As the cheeks upon the face became like fresh pearls, the silver haired observer had soon looked around to discover a singular white bar of soap and started to expose the very item to the running downpour now. Soon, it was wrapped around the teal washcloth and scoured vigorously ‘til some thin line of foam came about in an instant; as a result, a brief sigh of relief escaped from his very lips based on the viewing.

Afterwards, only the lukewarm water returned to the most dominate and sole source of sound for Koichi to hear; of course, this alone would not even last. With a washcloth in hand, the silver haired occupant touched his ears and dug into them with ease, using a single fingertip to do so before pulling out. Now its fabric and foam interfaced with the his face, scrubbing the pores cleanly and intently until it’d lower itself to the neckline briefly so to speak. Koichi started to cover himself with soap underneath the cheekbones and around the arms, soon slathering spume across every part of the skin over them. Quickly, the muscular yet otherwise lipid formation was drenched by the same substance the silver haired occupant latching on his torso and abdomen. More bubbles even formed as he’d scrubbed her legs and feet from top to bottom in the process, making sure to clear out the most clandestine of crevices.

When Koichi became completely covered in the hot white foam, he’d moved towards the stream and reverted back to his original form at once as the suds simply slithered down into the drain. Afterwards, the silver haired occupant had then turned the nozzle off completely, quickly ceasing the concentrated inundation from making such contact with his bright skin in only a few seconds. Clad in only liquid moisture and gaseous steam all throughout the way, he’d now opened the very curtains back up simply to step out of the tub carefully as to avoid a sudden fall to gravity.

Koichi strutted along towards the sink and found a red toothbrush along with some toothpaste resting on the side, carefully opening up the cap to place it on the corner: the tube was lifted off into his grasp, squirting out a deep green semisolid before returning to its previous location; afterwards, the bristles were raised up to his teeth, finally making first contact. The silver haired occupant now felt his toothbrush running into the very mouth as it scoured over the enamel at once in such acute angles, repeatedly circulating onward and about as he’d guided the item to every part of his very own teeth within before pulling out from there in due time no less, watching the fibers becoming stained with a bit of claret clinging onward. The faucet within his line of eyesight was turned on almost instantaneously, giving him a cleared opportunity to spit out the contents that accumulated inside since long before; as the water had ran itself down into the drain, he’d rinsed away the remaining residuals from the red toothbrush neatly before turning it off with but a sigh of relief from his respiration at once.

Now Koichi quickly turned her attention towards the hamper, already made aware of the fresh new clothes stacked on top of them he’d taken along earlier ago. First, the silver haired occupant began putting the blue boxers upon her legs after drying himself off with a brown towel; soon, he dressed himself in a gold shirt. Even though that he was neither in a towel nor in the altogether, the ceramic flooring underneath him instantly gave off a reminder to put on some socks at once. Sure enough, it was now time for Koichi to go leave the bathroom at once, feeling refreshed and renewed by the very experience thereof he’d partaken in recently.

The silver haired occupant had retraced his steps towards the bedroom and took some time to concentrate on what had already remained inside of there at once. While it may seemed nothing much had changed at all, the angling of the sunlight, however, was a different story, reduced to a small strip barely touching the dial. He’d quickly noticed rather instantaneously how the covers upon the bed were left a bit slightly out of sync but otherwise remained in alignment for the most part.

Nevertheless, just as what was done before only so long ago, Koichi instantly quickly donned the clothing in his view at once, covering up his abdomen and the thighs in the process. Tilting the silver haired occupant’s head downward, he’d quickly found a singular pair of some jet–black shoes resting on about among the tiny line of footwear underneath the bed.

After getting himself all dressed up, he was also ready to go: of all the places he’d went to, his feet stopped at a larger room, its color sparkling about in a faint hue of beige with a hint of plum. Beyond the small space that was lit up in the process, there had remained an entire area already exposed to darkness, despite the ceiling fan above spinning about with its wooden panels at once. In what had seemed to be devoid of life, the whole place was decorated with a set of furniture: a green chair lying in the middle while accompanied by a pair of couches sharing the same corner. Locked up in front, a lone rectangular machine was cloaked in blackness with its thinner screen already without sights, sounds, or substances whatsoever for it wasn’t even in use at all no less. Edging right underneath was a brown dresser holding up more items than the adjacent wall itself: a quadrangular device in red and a series of pictures with a lone candle colored in midnight sky. Nonetheless, there were a few other windows to the outside world beyond the single area where telecommunications had been faintly codominant despite being hidden by the platinum blinds.

Koichi took aim at a small flat device slathered in black save for a few buttons and picked it up; afterwards, he’d rested his thumb onto a red circle, causing a green light to appear afore his eyes: this light grew from a singular dot matrix to an amalgamation of bits and pixels making a picture. It was a small yet incomplete illustration of some landmass with all the jet–black outlines etched within them as they’d carved up pieces of gray: aside from the various yellow squiggles traveling to and from in many directions, much of the areas were colored in green while some are in gold. The silver haired occupant also took note of white letters spelling out ‘Today’s Severe Weather Threat’ above five boxes with their respective texts outlined in colors: ‘MARGINAL’ in green; ‘SLIGHT’ in yellow; ‘ENHANCED’ in orange; ‘MODERATE’ in red; and ‘HIGH’ in magenta.

He barely had anytime whatsoever to make sense of it when the map in question had transitioned into a picture of dark clouds traveling across the blue sky: standing in front of it was a bald man also dressed in black with a white undershirt, save for a pair of glasses and a stripey blue necktie; in addition, the subject in question was older and taller compared to the former so to speak of.

“Good morning on this first alert weather day…” the individual onscreen had greeted, his name popping up in a flash: ‘Andrew Freiden’, “severe thunderstorms possible: it’s not one of those days but it’s likely; we don’t think there’s gonna be widespread severe weather but certainly a day to pay close attention, especially if you have plans towards the late afternoon or evening. Mainly after six – could start a little bit sooner out west of town: strong wind gusts and downpours are a pretty decent bit in a few of these thunderstorms; but then again, that first alert weather day and you can see it highlighted on the seven day on the side of the screen that… that red highlight there for today is to alert you that it’s a first alert weather day. Look at how warm it is out there, mid seventies basically – Mechanicsville 74, 72 Mineral, and it feels like the mid to upper seventies on the JES WeatherNet computers; it is sticky out there so your hourly forecast has most of the day… totally fine, it’s gonna be really humid, not that comfortable outside today but, uh, rain free: ninety–one for the high. So one in the afternoon, eighty–eight, I don’t even have a rain chance at all at one and it’s at relatively low, twenty percent rain chance at four but shortly after four the rain chance starts to ramp up and then the Richmond Metro the rain chance at 7oclock is about sixty percent. Here’s the hour–by–hour forecast again: a lot of the day’s gonna be dry, lots of sun to start, partly sunny midday and then clouds build in over the afternoon; here’s 3oclock – I think a lot of after, uh… um, not afterschool activities but sort of afternoon activities are gonna be okay, but watch the radar at 5oclock from Fredericksburg out to Farmville. The forecast is for those thunderstorms to be popping: they roll into the Richmond Metro area; that 7 to 9oclock timeframe could have some strong to severe storms and then that pushes east to town as we roll through about 11oclock at night. So tonight’s forecast kinda highlighting that rain and thunderstorm chance from 6 to 11: I think a lot of folks are gonna get non–severe, just plain old rain and thunderstorms out of this, but it could slow you down and, of course, you want to take precautions if you have evening plans today; then, it turns partly cloudy, we drop down to 73, the rain chance after midnight’s quite low. Tomorrow, it’s gonna be really humid again; this is two very humid days: 93 for tomorrow, sticky out there, an isolated storm or possibility – I think we’ll catch a few that’ll pop up into the afternoon tomorrow but not many, thirty percent rain chance for tomorrow. A quick note about a potential tropical system forming in the Gulf here: not even yet officially a tropical depression but basically acting like one and it’s on its way and I, I think a 5oclock observation from the hurricane center will have this officially as a tropical depression; look at that slow movement, it’s gonna be hammering the coastline of Louisiana really hard over the next few days.”

“恐ろしいで、これはアメリカである事になっている⋯！” Koichi shivered, pressing the same button before another picture appeared abaft the aforementioned adult; even after becoming found back again with the darkness, the former had now been treated to the same staccato from much earlier ago after quickly returning the item back to the soft surface almost instantaneously.

The shorter man in black returned to the point of origin, finding the cellphone from before still on the bed as it’d now bore the text, ‘JOTARO’.

“お早う御座います⋯承太郎様！” he’d greeted the titular caller almost in an instant so to speak of.

It wasn’t long until another masculine yet gruffer voice said in turn, “おい、康一君⋯週末になるには早すぎる事を知ってが、ヴァージニア州の中でここに滞在についてよろしいだか⋯？”

“済まない、承太郎様…” Koichi answered Jotaro instantaneously, looking at the ray of sunlight growing brighter about, “僕は知る限り、リッチモンドの中で労力がまだ終わらないで、スタンド使いの兆候はまだまったくありません。”

“露伴はおそらく以前にスーパーマーケットでテロリスト攻撃があったと述べた事を言った。” the rough caller had said to the younger counterpart almost immediately, earning a shiver from the latter.

Despite this, Koichi said, “それなら、なぜニュースにならないのですか？僕はアメリカがテロリストによって攻撃されました事を伺ったが、なぜスーパーマーケットですか？”

“知りませんが、何かが正しくないよ。” Jotaro replied in turn as the light within the room spread from thereon out so to speak of no less, “アイスクリームと関係があったが、方法や理由が分からない。テロリストは通常、政府の建物や金融街のような場所を打ちますが、スーパーマーケットはそんな場所じゃない。”

“同意したで、因みに、爺君が亡くなってごめんなさい。” the young speaker had told the elder caller hesitantly while looking around for anything else whatsoever.

Jotaro hissed slightly at what Koichi had said but kept calm nevertheless, “鋼入りのダンは死んだ祖父を攻撃している事に対してもっと残念なはず⋯！”

“だれ⋯なんでもない。” the younger man attempted to ask before stopping himself instantaneously, “いい日を！”

“Okay…” the grown caller replied afore hanging up.

Like before, Koichi was back again with the soundless dark, devoid of any meaningful substance whatsoever so to speak of: as arbitrary as it were, the day was just only the beginning for him and it was only a matter of time to be spent as of now; besides, the morning had already shone itself to be up and running based on his observations in the now and then for what it was worth.

Time had passed on through space alongside with the inhabitants whom were drifting aimlessly as the stars amongst the never–ending blackness floated on, each of them to prompt any wayward traveler to harken back to the memories of life when the richest beverage kept their spirits up until their next destination and from the mouth of madness. Of course, time itself was the only thing that remained constant in the ever–changing plane of existence where many variables had come in all shapes and size, coexisting alongside either in unions or divisions thereof as they transcended boundaries without incident to say the least; then again, almost all of them succumbed to the folding sooner or later. This interval however would prove to be a special case since that there were those who have found themselves still standing rather than stumbling and falling to the depths of their failure nonetheless; however, not all of them were doing so as the whole wide world turned on its own axis: out of many of those in question, there were indeed a plenty.

Although everything felt easy like a Sunday morning, it was still a day in which where many individuals were found living, working, and even shopping at this moment in time; of the places in question, one was no different. There were at least about several buildings standing onto ground zero with merely only a few floors for most of them as each of them were built up with standard sets of the sturdiest materials known to and by the entire world. While it may not seem much, one could find many places inside where people could engage in a wild excursion of recreation inside many of them should one look hard enough to do so as long as their conduct was their utmost. Open fields of concrete and asphalt were found to be etched around them as they were mostly occupied by various automobiles of all sorts of varieties: makes, models, shapes, sizes, colors, and conditions so to speak of now. Everything else was surrounded by a vastly large sea of the brilliant green with each of its fibers currently in such various combinations already fashioning a bewildering camouflage for the most observant lifeform already airborne. A calm gentle breeze had traversed all throughout the entire area within them whilst the clashing textures inside the very landscape had remained loud and proud of its structured foundations with the colors of various shades thereof.

In this particular case, the silver haired observer was found to be standing on the sidewalk in front of one of the buildings, staring at the various windows found plastered within, along a staircase inside. He could see a handful of people traversing in and out of there in various attires and fashions, each individual already keeping whatever businesses and/or pleasures to themselves, whether alone or joined. Considering that Koichi was already in a solid state society, he was free from the dangers hidden and otherwise by virtue of being in the public eye, even though its members could care less about his very welfare.

In any case, the silver haired observer had quickly picked up on a stray sentence made by a random woman faraway from himself, “hey Becca, did you hear about the rumors about what happened at LIDL sometime ago: they say there have been some terrorist attack made there; how scary was that…?”

“Very, Cathy…” the eponymous compeer said to her friend instantaneously with a slight nasal compress, prompting him to follow on carefully at once, “they’ve said that ISIS had been defeated but what if it’s not true: we know for a fact that Trump is a liar and cannot be trusted but this is becoming suspicious; who knows what else they could be lying about…?”

“Agreed… and he still has those fucking Republicans cheering him on like its nothing; I still remember what he’d said when they still had the tape played: what a creep…!” the primordial female replied with bitter vinegar in her tone, unaware of Koichi trailing after them for the most part.

In any case, Cathy was revealed to be brightly skinned, just like the silver haired listener, except she’d possessed freckles over her integuments and short blonde hair: her attire consisted of a baby blue blouse with thin straps, a beige skirt, and bloodstone sneakers as she was carrying a black backpack. As for Becca, she was of a darker complexion yet in the clear with her brown tresses frizzy to a fault as they’d already made it past the neckline: she wore a jaded jacket with purple shorts and brown boots, slinging a sandstone satchel over the right shoulder open to bearing stray sheets of leafy paper inside.

The lonely brunette had wasted no time whatsoever continuing onward with their conversation, “anyways, what was the terrorist doing anyway attacking a supermarket…?”

“Hell, if I’d know: apparently, they say he was taking part of an internet prank where people open tubs of ice cream and lick them before putting them back in the freezer…” the blonde scoffed, her disgust now amplified by a factorial setting within a derivative function, “none of the cameras could even make out his identity yet they say he may have ties to them…”

“噂を聞いたのは承太郎様だけではなかったようだ。” he’d cerebrated about before bumping into Becca abruptly.

This had earned a gasp from the lonely brunette as she and Cathy turned around to face Koichi; although no one was hurt in any shape or form whatsoever, the latter female looked at him with indignation, snarling about with eyes of emerald enmity, “what’s your problem; don’t you have anything better to do, creep?!”

“Sorry, it’s just that I’ve been listening to what you two had been talking about earlier: the terrorist attack…” the silver haired man stuttered as he’d started to keep his distance from the women in front of him almost immediately, “my friends from home were also hearing the rumors too; how do you know about all of this…?”

“It was on the deep web: some guy claiming to be a secret agent said one of the prankster was caught licking ice cream; fucking distasteful…!” the belligerent blonde answered while he’d shivered about from what had been heard so to speak of.

Koichi looked away and said softly, “I agree, though I must know why it wasn’t on the news anyway: normally, I’ve heard of terrorist attacks on American soil recently since over twenty years ago yet this one was censored; anyways, why resort to such a prank…?”

“Copycats… ever since that challenge ended up on the news, people have been doing it like crazy; almost makes me want to throw up too…” the benign brunette blurted out with eyes of gold within herself, not that the silver haired man could even look at.

He’d soon found the strength to speak to the females at once, “I’m Koichi by the way… and I’m sorry for spooking you two; it’s just that I was surprised to hear about this from you two: did anyone else know about it…?”

“Apparently, the site I’d went on had at least thousands of hits; that means something is up yet the media isn’t saying anything at all…” Cathy answered, her frown fading away for the most part for the aforementioned bystander to hear rather clearly, “what do you think: what reason do you think they have to do something about the coverup thereof…?”

“Most likely reputation: I remember that LIDL was first established in 1930, years before the German Reich became official and even then, they’d have held enough power to control many businesses in the country; even without their lingering influences, there’s only so much they can take…” the silver haired observer replied, scratching his head freely with trepidation inside him.

Becca cut back into the conversation, “like what…?”

“All sorts of things: food poisoning, unsafe workplaces, poor relations, even organized crime; wherever there’s trouble, one could surely see the impact on the news…” he said to both women almost immediately while growing some confidence inside, “stuff like this almost never happens in my hometown, at least not with the lives and safety of others being of prime concern.”

“Come to think of it, we haven’t even been able to meet anyway; as a matter of fact, you don’t look like you’re from around here: are you a visitor…?” the brown brunette had quickly asked Koichi instantaneously so to speak of.

It wasn’t long until the silver haired observer had answered without any fear whatsoever completely, “yes, and I’m also a private investigator: I’ve been hired by the Speedwagon Foundation to find and gather intel regarding Bighorn Brightman; my sources believe that he’s actually Hans Davis masquerading as a teacher’s aide here on this campus…”

“Professor Brightman, you mean the chemistry teacher; to be honest, neither of us have ever seen him before if at all, though if that’s the case what would he be doing here of all places…?” Becca said, still retaining awareness of their collectively shared surroundings thereof as the others, “as far as we know, a third of the teachers from Reynolds usually would be found in Goochland…”

“Then, it all makes sense: he must have transferred from here; the only certain way anyone would’ve seen him is if they’re enrolled in his classes…” he’d replied, taking in all of the information recently provided by none other than the brown brunette herself.

The brighter blonde wasted no time in jumping back into the dialogue as well, this time with a scoff, “no duh, I’m not even in his class this semester; I’m still taking a photography class and I need some help for my project: it’s due by the end of the month and I haven’t even started figuring out what to take a picture of.”

“Just take it easy, Cat; it’s almost lunchtime anyway: I’ve saved up enough money for some danishes from my part–time job last week…” Becca had spoken to her titular friend at once, resting the left hand upon the latter’s shoulder almost immediately, “you want to come with us…?”

“Not quite, I still have some work to do; besides, I’m trying to slim down anyway: your cities have more McDonalds and 7–Elevens than there are needed…” Koichi had answered as he’d finally walked away from them without any trouble whatsoever so to speak of.

Needless to say, the silver haired observer walked off into one of the buildings, passing through both sets of the same jet–black doors within seconds as he’d been quickly acquainted with the pristine conditions and population density. Both the walls and the ceiling were both painted in a clearly snow white, the same color as the very lights deeply embedded into the latter as they’d already guided all sorts of travelers hither and yonder throughout the finite premises. The very flooring underneath Koichi’s footwear was but a thick layer of carpeting composed with the interwoven fabrics dyed in the finest amalgamation of viridescent colors reminiscent as grass blades scattered amongst the world. Of course, these dimensions in question weren’t universal or uniform whatsoever, something in which the man in black learned about far too well since he’d quickly seen the very heart of the area for what it is: a perfect square overall. Many individuals congregating about were either sitting upon plastic chairs in wooden tables or standing upon the ligneous surface; whatever fashions they had were much like that of the very two women he’d followed not too earlier. Koichi can see a small fraction of people already found to be on two opposite sides of the square: on one side, there were those entering and/or exiting a cafe; the other had bystanders up close to rectangular machines with food and drink. There was a television screen hanging from the rightmost wall mere feet away from the railings above, displaying a man speaking freely amongst a tiny abundance of text here and there even though they were drowned out by many. The man in black also took note of other furniture found outside of the open space also occupied by people as they’d rested nearby the windowsills without even touching the surface, softer and denser compared to what he’d discovered.

Almost immediately, he’d spotted an open chair in the cold distance, free to claimed by anyone ready, willing, and able to be sedentary without bias or fear altogether: of course, it had to be only him alone since no one else was there in the vicinity to make such a claim so to speak of.

As soon as Koichi took his seat, he’d heard a familiar sound from before, prompting him to reach into his pocket to find the same cellphone with a name so instantaneously recognizable to its owner’s baby blue eyes, it was opened up at once for the caller to be answered, “もしもし⋯！”

“おい、康一君⋯嵐が来ているので、俺は今岸に向かっている⋯” Jotaro’s voice had easily entered the younger listener’s ear almost immediately for only the latter to hear rather clearly, “大丈夫ですか⋯？”

“はい、大丈夫ですが、ブライトマンについてはまだ何も言われていません。” Koichi replied to the gruffer speaker instantaneously.

It didn’t take long for Jotaro to sigh anyway, “やれやれだぜ⋯見る、康一君⋯数時間前に俺のＥメールを受け取った か？ブライトマンは、また寧ろディヴィスは、ここに彼のスケジュールを持っています。実際のところ、彼の学生は解雇していたので、彼は今すぐ教室を離れるはずだ。今はジョージアディスホールでブライトマンを見つける事ために君のチャンスだが、まだできる間に速く動いて。彼は俺達が直面した他の悪役のようではないかも知れないが、まだ何かが可笑しい。此奴ブライトマンの人は俺達がおよそ昨年いつかにニューヨーク市で出会ったソリッド・スネークかも知れません！”

“ソリッド・スネーク⋯ソリッド・スネーク⋯核戦から何度も世界を救ったソリッド・スネーク？！” the younger listener stammered about, struggling to keep his voice down even after what his elder peer had said earlier, “だとしたら、彼はレイノルズでここに何をしているのですか？僕は前回聞いた時、彼が２０１６年に亡くなった。”

“俺も知らないが、およそ想定されりた死亡の１０年前に他の人達と一緒にワームホールから彼と侵略者達が街に襲った大虐殺を見た事が覚えたで、どのように起こったかは言うまでもありません。” Jotaro had said to Koichi as the latter began to review the presently corporeal surroundings once more before arising back up on both feet.

The younger listener had stretched himself out a bit afore replying to the gruff listener, “いずれにしても貴方が言ったように僕は今出かけるべきので、今のところこれはさようならだと思いる。”

After taking in yet another deep breath, Koichi found the strength to depart from the chair and from the premises of the building in due time, placing the cellphone back into his pocket as well. It wasn’t much of a challenge to the man in black when it’d came to exiting the quadrangular area, his eyes instantaneously focused onto the other one the women had went into much earlier. To think that Koichi would be found out into the open world again wasn’t what had surprised him but rather the explanation Jotaro had given out over the very phone sealing the deal overall.

In any case, the silver haired observer found himself passing through both sets of the same deep silver doors within seconds, quickly acquainted with the pristine conditions and population density like before, albeit with some certain differences. As such, the walls and the ceiling were both painted in a clearly snow white alongside with the very lights deeply embedded, its color scheme more sterile compared to the other building he’d walked into moments ago, given the environmental state. The very flooring underneath Koichi’s footwear now took the form of thinly combined ceramic materials, most of which were painted in the darkest shades of gray while long rectangles of ruby and sapphire were slathered amongst them horizontally. Like before, the man in black could see individuals congregating about, many of which were sectioned off by glass panels which had served as barrier for the most part from what he’d seen; speaking of which, Cathy and Becca were also thereon. He could also see a stairway barely cluttered with various pedestrians up and down his line of eyesight, something in which he’d have no problem in even partaking whatsoever considering the very reasons alone, known and unknown, so to speak.

“Hey, MIBTS International; over here…!” Koichi heard another corporeal voice within an instant, masculine as him and the caller from before yet more suave and uncouth, “yeah, that’s right: I’m talking to you…!”

“Eh…?” the silver haired observer gasped as he’d directed his attention to the source of the exclamation thereof: another sharp dressed man in black from top to bottom with hair matching the attire; aside from their cold blue eyes also being their commonalities, the other differences the former found were thick cheekbones, bushy brows, lightly tanned skin, and a tall stature.

Before Koichi could muster up the strength to give a proper reply, the raven–haired onlooker was quick on the draw anyway, “wasn’t expecting the president of their fan club to be making an appearance now, let alone someone of my age no less…”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re talking about…” the silver haired individual had said to the other man in black almost immediately so to speak of, “who are you…?”

“Duh, the world famous spy, Sterling Archer; who were you honestly expecting, Jason Fitzgerald…?” the raven–haired onlooker had answered Koichi in a near and dear instant no less overall.

This had left the silver haired individual cross with claret across the visage constrained about all the while; nevertheless, he was able to control himself in talking to his taller counterpart anyway, “I don’t see how people would confuse you with him; I don’t even know the guy or you for that matter…”

“Of course not, you look like the kind of guy who cries in a basement after prom night went wrong…” Archer responded to Koichi instantaneously, walking up to the latter to ruffle up the strands of hair standing upon ends, “at least you look way younger and shorter than Woodhouse, God rest his soul, now that I think about it, especially with that anime hair of yours…”

“Kindly, leave my hair alone, sir…!” the silver haired individual spat out, pushing his towering correspondent’s hand straightaway indignantly.

As Koichi had started to walk away from Archer with a huff, the latter began to follow the former without hesitation while speaking idly, “so, what brings you here to Reynolds, champ…?”

“お前は馬鹿野郎ですか？！” the silver haired individual ruminated, firmly aware of his rangy counterpart’s presence abaft himself prior to turning around, “gee, that sounds like something I’d oughta be saying to you, Archer…”

“What part of ‘world famous spy’ did you not understand; I mean, hello, how could you miss that…?” the eponymous adult replied as they’d both found themselves walking up the same stairwell all on their lonesome.

Koichi had turned himself around and answered, “nothing, it’s just that most spies, if not all, wouldn’t announce it to anyone and everyone they meet, especially if they happen to be in a non–English speaking country…”

“Oh, please, you sound like my mother of all people…” the raven–haired onlooker scoffed as he’d attempted to follow his shorter correspondent without a care, “as a matter of… of… of…”

Archer was soon overwrought with terrifying resolve as his very visage, once clear as day, soon shifted to a pale green as visions betrayed him at once: dizzying about, he’d begun to see many shades of gray as well as the lights shining about were swirling about to no end in sight, circular like wheels but lacking in direction whatsoever. In spite of the changing courses, the raven–haired onlooker still maintained some control to run back downstairs and further, keeping himself from letting loose an assortment of lukewarm hues from his angular maw as a chunky salsa now gathered about within as he’d struggled to look for an opened wastebasket almost instantaneously. Choking about, Archer had soon felt compelled to hideaway his own nausea, quickly pushing and pulling himself away from the public eyes near and far as even Koichi was capable of drawing out the foregone conclusion, the very prognosis alone leaving the latter’s mind infected by all the erstwhile nausea from patient zero.

“おっと、彼とは⋯？” the silver haired individual had simply thought to himself as he’d kept on going the up and up straightaway; although he was freed from the potential influences his taller counterpart, the recent stardust memories thereof left the former bereft of irritation in and of itself so to speak of.

In any case, Koichi was left to his own devices, ready to explore whatever had been left to his remaining imagination even with reality already within his constraints therein. The simple reminder sent by the likes of Jotaro himself already left the silver haired individual filled with resolve, especially considering the latter’s current location overall.

While being mindful of whichever personnel he’d passed by, it didn’t take long for him hear some distant noise from afar belonging to another organic voice: much like the caller talking to him on the phone, it was gruff and masculine but with a lower pitch compared to the likes of Archer himself, “it’s amazing that a teenager such as yourself could build all of this no less…”

“その声は、承太郎様の死んだ祖父の事を彷彿する⋯でも、なぜ年下な聞こえるのですか？” Koichi cerebrated as he’d followed the source of it all within an instant, keeping his pace steady and quiet altogether, “ブライトマンはもう近くすでにだろうか？”

“At this rate, it still hasn’t been tested yet; I’ve been trapped in this world for so long, there’s no telling what may had befallen my friends back on the White Base: for all that I know, they may as well have lost thanks to that bastard Red Comet…!” another voice entered the younger listener’s ears, albeit much more so compared to the former for the lack of a better word therein.

This left Koichi with a rather confused gaze as he’d still ruminated about, “ホワイトベース⋯赤い彗星⋯これらはすべてガンダム言及ですが、それは何かと何の関係があるのでしょうか？！彼らが実際の宇宙世紀から事を信じるほど愚かとか凝った人は誰もいません！”

“It seems to me you’re not alone in this world either, kid: even after everything that’s happened, I can’t even imagine how things like this keep going…” the elder male replied to his youthful correspondent immediately, sighing softly all the while no less, “I could barely show my face around here without others asking me about that other guy, Hans Davis. Apparently, it seems that it’s been a few years since his passing and people have still been wondering why I look like him all of the sudden: it seems that either cloning has advanced to the point where life and death have become cheapened altogether or we’ve been summoned straight out of some television screen as part of some dark ritual.”

“儀式⋯どんな儀式⋯彼らは世界で何について話しているのですか⋯？” the silver haired listener thought to himself as he'd continued to approach them silently in the process to avoid attracting their attention.

Of course, this move to secrecy didn’t last for the likes of Koichi as the brief chirp dinged into his very ears instantaneously; it’d belonged to a nearby elevator from behind himself as its doors shifted wide open, bearing a familiar face from long ago: the raven–haired observer stepped out with a fresh smile, greeting the former at once, “hey there, sonny; sorry for what had happened!”

“うわぁ⋯！” the silver haired observer yelped as Archer had suddenly reappeared from abaft the former with barely a warning whatsoever so to speak, bumping his shoulder against a wall in the process, “dammit…!”

“What the Hell?!” the elder male barked at once.

Now stuck in the open atmosphere with all the bright lights and sharp sounds, Koichi was now in full view of the distant voices’ identities: a pair of light skinned brunets alike in fair dignity at the first glance, despite their significant differences between themselves when contrasted by the likes of him and his taller counterpart. The lonely elder was rough around the edges thanks to his beard despite being yet another person with only sapphire orbs, distorted by the silver chariots requiem within as they’d matched some of the streaks in his hair; the attire consisted of a snow white shirt with a blood red tie clipped on, beige pants, and jet–black shoes. The younger correspondent was several inches away from the gruff man but still taller than their silver haired observer, both eyes matching the former’s slightly bouffant hair and shoes thereof; aside from being dressed in denim, a yellow undershirt was also discovered by virtue of already being exposed to the very world.

It didn’t take long for the teenager to go up to Koichi in an instant whom was lying on the floor weakened and vulnerable but still active nevertheless with a question, “are you alright, sir…?”

“It’s nothing really…” the silver haired observer hissed in an attempt to suppress the pain within his body so to speak of, “who are you anyway…”

“I’m Amuro Ray, an inventor; I’ve been going to this community college in the hopes of searching some help on my way back home: this is Professor Brightman, a chemistry teacher…” the aforementioned brunet introduced himself to Koichi almost instantaneously with an outstretched hand.

Accepting the gesture, the silver haired individual replied immediately, “I knew who he is already because I’ve been asking some students about him earlier; by the way, I’m Koichi Hirose, a private investigator currently working on behalf of the Speedwagon Foundation: I was on a secret assignment before a certain someone blew my cover wide open…”

“Hey, don’t look at me, lil gramps…” Archer shot back at the titular traveler defensively, watching as the latter got back on both feet, “I was here for the same thing, thanks to mother: she’d said that some man cloned from the world famous secret agent Solid Snake is here in the state of Virginia posing as some college professor at Reynolds, no relation to Burt regretfully.”

“What secret agent… what does this have to do with Mr. Brightman…?” the lone juvenile had asked the twosome afore themselves instantaneously.

It didn’t take long for the eponymous eyewitness to interject indignantly, “nothing at all, I’m afraid: as far as I see it, I’m nothing like the guy at all; I have assignments to grade in a half–hour from now and a device to load up in the truck by the end of the workday, at least before the storm comes…!”

“If that’s the case, what is it anyway: what does it do; why’s it here on campus…?” the silver haired individual asked them, quickly pointing towards the big black boxy contraption behind themselves immediately at once, “this doesn’t look like something they’d have the budget for in any year…”

“It’s my personal project: I’ve been able to collect some old materials from some junkyards and clean them before putting them all to good use; I’ve been trying to find my way back home ever since I’d ended up here in America and these Back to the Future tapes were of no help at all…” Amuro answered already at a loss for small things.

The raven–haired observer wasted no time contorting his face into a grimace prior to replying, “don’t trash the entire trilogy, wannabe; that show did a good job predicting lots of things: hoverboards, jetpacks, and the Cubs winning…!”

“They also got a lot of things wrong altogether as well: DMC failing, Princess Diana, hovercars, a legal system without lawyers; I could go on for hours…” the elder teacher had spat back in return, speedily snarling at Archer almost instantaneously so to speak of, “nevertheless, I have a long night ahead of me so I need to stay prepped up in one piece, especially with the weather…”

“What weather?!” the raven–haired observer scoffed.

It wasn’t long until all of the lights and sounds were starting to emanate from the dark device, shining bright with loud pitches hither and yon as electricity illuminated about without warning. Only then did it start to rise from the cold floor it was set upon, reaching up to Koichi’s waistline without even touching him or any of the other men but going no further altogether so to speak of. Then, the complex contraption started to spin around to no end in sight, spreading the strands of hot plasma from the growing sphere of influence as debris began to be drawn to it all the while. At this rate alone, the centrifugal force was sprouting about in an instant, drawing in more objects heavier and denser compared to loose leaves of paper and the writing utensils used upon.

The lone juvenile backed away, pulling out a rectangular item as he’d muttered in an instant, “oh, no… get away from it while I shut it down… no, it’s not… it’s not shutting down…! EVERYONE GET OUT…!”

“ECHOES ACT THREE…!” cried the silver haired observer, a small figure of humanoid form appearing from him colored in gunmetal and emerald: the veiny muscles served as proof of said entity’s gender due to multiple protrusions, many in a straight line betwixt the stripy golden eyes; nonetheless, modesty was no issue, bearing clothing with a ‘3’ in the midst, “THREE FREEZE!”

“Command acquired…” the inorganic individual said as a gust of wind sent the four males further away from the suspended device, no doubt belonging to the former’s handiwork which radiated with a goldenrod aura while staring it down stoically so to speak of.

Raising both hands together before clasping them, Echoes touched the ground before resolving to deliver a volley of punches towards the heavy object; although making sure to avoid whatever item being pulled in, three people left in awe of what had been seen and heard, especially Archer himself whom said, “damn, this looks like it came straight out of a comic book or something…!”

“This shouldn’t have happened: none of the inventions I’d made activated without any my input, let alone my knowledge…!” Amuro cried out as the inorganic humanoid was sent hurtling back towards them at breakneck speed in an instant, “what the Hell is going on here?!”

“I don’t know but we should leave now…!” Brightman warned, struggling to stand up before being pulled in by the swirling current almost immediately.

Suddenly, the contraption sank right back into the floor, this time making a deep impression as it was firmly stuck within instantaneously: although it wasn’t swirling around anymore, the sparks were still flying about as its lights and sounds remained active all the same; this was more than enough for the others to go and keep their distances as a precautionary measure nevertheless.

It wasn’t long until a more immersive imprint expanded itself around the dark device, bearing its own crater as it’d struggled to move about; in the meantime, Koichi struggled to find his phone straightaway, wasting no second, if at all, to dial some numbers, only for his grip to be subverted as it was soon directly over it completely.

This had left the silver haired observer speechless, save for one little word underneath his breath, “shit…!”

Without warning, an ominous cluster of twinkling glitter appeared before themselves, exploding in a giant growing globe as a rocket’s red glaring at the bombs bursting in the air over the crater;soon, it’d expanded, starting to disintegrate everything that made contact with afore their eyes for a while before stopping itself in place to change colors and then some with little warning no less.

Out of the literal blue, an amalgamated animal already stood directly near an arch of running water: though predominately serpentine, a bright antler and horn both sharing a grayscale head, a yellow leonine paw and eagle talon emerged from both sides of the darkly maroon body where two mismatched wings rested abaft, and a jet–black mane with white beard and brows appeared.

“I, I want it, I want it real… run away with me now…” the inhabitant sang as a pink handled sponge was found within the very talon in full view; of course, this didn’t last as eyes of crimson again yellow slowly opened up, initially with bliss before contorted into shock as the very visage became snow white, “KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH…!”

“Ew, my eyes; they burn…!” the raven–haired observer shrieked as he’d shut them away in turn, unaware of the creature’s instantaneous embarrassment as its presence was shrouded in a static shock of meshed waves before settling down on a swirl of emerald splash with the occasional glimmer thereof.

The danger alone refused to subside as the winds howled from the otherwise flat vortex alone, the force therein now starting to pull in more objects asides the likes of pens, papers, and pencils: in what had seemed to be some sort of a cruel sick joke played by none other than fate itself, all of the males were caught in its path in an instant.

Of the quartet in question, the lone professor was the first to go since he was the most closest to the emerald circle; despite latching onto the white tiles therein, he’d found himself launched in there, screaming wildly with a reverberation of anguish, “EEAUUGH…!”

“NO…!” Koichi had cried in disbelief, “WHY?!”

“RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE…!” Archer screamed as well now that it was his turn to join Brightman into the vortex, despite being further away from the remaining rest so to speak.

Needless to say, the young teenager had to act fast in order to keep his place alongside the likes of the silver haired onlooker now: thinking quickly, he’d pulled out a claw hammer and dug deeply right into the flooring almost immediately, his feet all in midair; despite this, the sweat within his palms betrayed such determination, sliding him away from the ground, “NOOOO…!”

“OH MY GOD… I’M GONNA DIE…!” Koichi shrieked as it was finally down to him alone, the airstreams from within now gripping his corporeal form even as he’d struggled to keep the distance between himself and the circle; suddenly, it’d disappeared without a trace, save for some broken pieces littered about within the crater, “what the…?”

Hurricane force winds soon blew the sole silvery survivor away even more further than where the others were before finally receding, sending him up against a different wall like a rag doll; afterwards, he’d struggled to stare at the section up in front before finding himself seeing nothing but darkness all throughout despite his valiant struggles therein.

Imagine Dragons

Author's Note

It's Fireflower again with my first crossover anthology fimfic, a hopeful break from all the sex and the violence making up much of my profile since several years ago; at this rate, I hope you'd enjoyed the previous chapter I'd made based on some dream in the passing years and with you–know–who cause here's another one: though, out of honesty, there will be some bilingual stuff here too.

As always, My Little Pony, or rather Friendship Is Magic, including its settings and characters belong to Lauren Faust and Hasbro; in addition, the characters featured from other shows, known and unknown so far, don't belong to me so please don't sue me over them either, okay...?

Lastly, let me also say I hope you enjoy this chapter now and stay tuned for future chapters later on: after all, you're going to be taking solace in the fact the following anecdote will still serve as a nice change of pace; though, please don't expect from me to be a periodical upload like the other stories since I still don't have much of a plan in the long term either.

Imagine Dragons

There was a complete absence of light dominated the environment, shrouded in mystery and suspense that relied consistently on the element of the uncertain. While there had remained a likely chance of loneliness filling the air itself at once, the atmosphere was likely enough to clear out within due time for one reason or another. Additionally, even at least a few clues were providing some semblance of substance that dwelt inside even with the lack of a solid terrain, let alone earth.

“It’s been fourteen years since I’d found myself into this void, all alone and without a way out: this would’ve been a great discovery for the likes of Stephen Hawking himself to make no less; now that I think about it, I wonder what he’d have thought about who else was there as well…” a low voice was heard all throughout yet its escape was denied instantaneously so to speak of.

As lonely as it was by virtue of lacking any details, another voice joined in: unlike the first, this one was more disjointed to the point of being fitting; nevertheless, it was coherent to a fault likewise from a stray observation, “you honestly miss your family too, I see then: it seems that despite everything, you’re still filled with determination; your kind would’ve gone mad already.”

“I agree, mental illness is not a joke as many would’ve made it out to be, just because it’s not even happening to themselves…” the premier inhabitant retorted, a mixture of static and fluidity blending in seamlessly compared to the secondary respondent alone, “still, how come is it that I’m not dead; don’t most humans perish from hunger after two months or was that a lie…?”

“I’ve seen those bodies before and not just humans themselves: I know of others of my kind that tend to suffer such a fate back then, I’ve studied their remains; no matter the size, shape, species, it all ends the very same – all return to dust…” the guttural growler groaned painlessly as far as the jet–black void was concerned, it if had any altogether.

The first voice wasted no time speaking about all too freely, based on what details had been provided all the very while though, “dust… I’d thought that dust would be my final fate afterwards; I know what happens when people die because I was there when my papi died: they’d lowered him into the ground and he’d been worm food ever since. Even though we go on living our lives, I never forgot about him at all and neither did any of us, not mama, not tío and certainly not abuela; we waited for him to come back every Día de Muertos since, just like everyone in my hometown did as well as anyone whom lost a loved one like me. After all these years, I’d wondered if anyone came looking for me; after all, they say if people disappeared, then it would be as if they’d died yet their bodies aren’t found: they haven’t found Earhart or Durante yet and it’s probably likely even if they did, then they’d be dead already from old age nevertheless. Despite everything, I wonder to myself about certain things, not just of whether or not they’d still come looking for me but sometimes what happens when a dream is deferred: does it dry up like a raisin in the sun or fester like a sore and then run; does it stink like rotten meat or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet; maybe it just sags like a heavy load or does it explode?”

“Langston Hughes, I’ve read about him back when I was whole; found many of his scattered texts discarded by your kind…” the secondary respondent replied, a stray cluster of paper refuse materialized about as they’d formed a blank sheet no less, “between their warlike ways with each other and us monsters, their long list of transgressions keeps growing and growing all the same.”

“You don’t need to remind me of what my kind has done; even without you monsters, we can’t even go one second without having to worry about what horrors exist in the land of the living: murders, muggings, hoardings, pornography, atheism, cults, hedonism, and devil–worshiping!” the premier inhabitant spat out dryly at large.

Needless to say, the guttural growler had wasted no time whatsoever in speaking about freely, “we too have our fair share of problems as well, despite our powers as well as because of it; even before the great war between humans and monsters, there were times we’d indulged ourselves in the same sins: bloodshed, thievery, egotism, concupiscence, sacrilege, heresy, sloth, and dealing. It seems the only thing that binds us together, besides our souls, are our petty obsessions with foolishness and the like altogether: while many of your kind would’ve had every right to tremble at our powers, we can’t even fathom how much they squandered; even though there were times we’d drawn first blood, even the humans had no problem throwing their morals away so easily. They’d boasted about their faith in whichever deity and/or government as if they have a grand influence on their lives but without a collective enemy to fight, it all becomes nothing to them; all that these humans have done is get into silly arguments about resources and religions, only to render them into the ether through their words and deed then and they may as well repeat later. Since that fateful experiment, I’d seen how many mistakes have been made by the humans and to other humans and their pets: the same stories all over again but with one too many variations hither and yon, some of which being used to entertain others; no matter how often it happens, they don’t even deserve the right to be either teachers or students for perpetuating confusion.”

“Forgive me for asking but how in the world can you ever claim to have a soul as if it’d mattered to me or anyone else it at all…?” the first voice had asked instantaneously, unfazed by the rather brief diatribe dispensed by the secondary respondent recently, “if anything, then I can’t fathom why would anyone ever do such things, much less think about them altogether, Dr. Gaster…”

“Please, you don’t have to call me that, at least not after all the time we’d spent together for so long; speaking of which, now is the time for you to shine, show the world you’re not dead or gone whatsoever: after all, you have a home to go back to now…” the titular tenant tittered tersely so to speak of no less.

A long pause had emanated from the blackness before the premier inhabitant emerged from there: within was a tall male with bright hair matching his shoes, bearing dark skin and darker clothes too; his eyes radiated with a clash of yellows and blues before being shut away as he’d spoke with both confidence and determination deep within, “abuela, it’s me, Vicente. I did it, I found it – it was right where he’d said it would be; it’s all there: but then, they thought I was them and I’ve found them. I’ve been put back together just like I’d asked him to; I’m free now, but something is wrong with me: I should’ve been dead, but I’m not. I’ve been living in darkness; there’s only one thing left for me to do now: I’m going to come find you. I’m going to come find you…”

A bright and clear day befell over the world, all its inhabitants graced with the sights of a much distant plasma and a scatter of clouds had currently shared the firmament. The only things which had dared to reach them but to no avail were tall skyscrapers drenched in even colder colors, made with industrial materials and orthogonal shaping. As a result of their beings’ fiber, an exertion of influence could be felt within every aspect of the environment and its denizens alike, irregardless of their own types thereof. Even amongst the concrete jungle, patches of lush vegetation were still found within themselves, each bearing both flora and fauna hospitable to the likes of its very observers. The areas between them were sequestered in predominately gridded streets where all sorts of metal contraptions ran rampantly whilst pedestrians were literally sidelined. The only checkpoints beyond the premises were bridges to the adjacent mainland; everything surrounding itself happened to be water reflecting the lights above and near. Resting amongst the seemingly endless compound was a small island occupied by a jaded statue of femininity with a torch in hand now enlightening the lands, air, and sea. Between the landmasses and the fluid separating them at a vast distance, there were many ships of all shapes and sizes skittering about freely around themselves to and fro. Hovering on and about were various aircraft ranging from the smallest of gliders to the biggest airships; with that said, their collective freedom had their own limitations.

Simply put, there were one of the many buildings standing out and about within the vast and magnificently similar conurbation on display. Though predominantly adorned with a richly heated coating of metal gears survived, there were sections of eight purple pillars inside of them. At least a dozen’s worth of rows were windows already plastered on the very structure, each of themselves outlined in aluminum framework. Resting firmly on the top, the very building itself had possessed a skylight firmly rectangular in a stark contrast to its overall rounded formation. The blue textile currently hung in from the side of the building with letters in white had read orderly, 'SPEEDWAGON FOUNDATION'.

High above yet within the very building was but a boardroom already bathed in both sunlight and electricity alike, up and running about without any end in sight whatsoever so to speak of yet. The dark ceiling and background in their entirety was colored in the brownish gold of highest quality, rich enough to bear any sweet treasures and texture alone despite faintest illuminations. Underneath it all was some elaborate carpeting seemingly originated from a faraway land, made with the finest shades and hues in spite of the overwhelming simplicity within their very fibers. Only a line of steel drawers stood out and about, currently resting against a wall opposite of the windowsills with portraits upon the adjacent side and a small circular clock resting from the top. A lone door was found halfway nearby from the windowsill, brightly painted in a bloody stream of orange blossom with a square of acrylic glass at the upper half amongst the wood and foam. Stuck in the middle of the naked space was a long slender table with many seats nearby it, each of those, occupied by many of its inhabitants as it was littered with papers and foodstuffs no less.

Inside, a brightly tall elder was hunched up in an arch between charts and a long table seated by many of his peers, each with their own similarities and differences to himself and the others too. Although his shining tresses were soul silver to a fault, faint purple highlights were found within; nevertheless, they were all neat and tidy enough on the account of being well maintained no less. Narrowed about the tall elder’s eyes were a hierophant green matching a freshly cut lawn and his tie; of course, the small glasses overlaying them were enough for their wearer’s age to be shown. Some textiles were already found to be draping his body, much of which happened to be a tall tanned trenchcoat buttoned up; the rest, a white undershirt and some beige gloves, pants, and hat.

“On a final note, let me make this clear to everyone in this boardroom about what’s going to be happening starting Monday…” the tall elder had spoken up freely, calm on the outside but thinking thoroughly ahead as far as his listeners were concerned, “considering what we’ve discussed earlier, it’s apparent enough as such that our company has set some proper examples. Considering the lawsuits against Monsanto in the coming years, we’ve decided to amp up business operations crushing them; although this was unexpected, we have taken note of the damage their product has wreaked upon both producers and consumers alike: considering the rise of poisoned crops and cancer cases as well, we’d been able to use our influence to our advantage. Usually, the lawsuits themselves are a fact of life in this day and age when it comes to certain disagreements in and out of things; however, considering the startling developments dating back to the nineties, the opportunity itself is too much to ignore overall: after all, this isn’t about net profits and/or loss but rather the state of commonsensical decency and dignity regarding others. Likewise on a similar note, we’d came across one of the employees taking the day off to attend his own children’s memorial: apparently, it seems that St. Jude did all that they could for his son and daughter, keeping their disease at bay for seven years; as a family–owned company, we have a responsibility to individuals in and out of America to help maintain our image in these times. As such, let me state for the record that services with take place within the next week at 1:00 P.M. sharp, and not a day later: I intend to make an appearance at this function in plain clothes and request all personal interested to join me for some moral support; any donations for the hospital may be given to sir Kakyoin as so but they all must be in either cash or check only. Reasonably enough, it’s safe to say that their will be some certain changes to be made regarding out policies, moving forward: starting on Monday morning, we will be running paid physical once a month to insure that our employees are in good health; it’s imperative that we must continue the fight against cancer alongside other diseases in the modern age for the public good. So, in summary, Speedwagon Foundation will still serve the communities in and out of the Anglosphere much like before: aiding in the decline and fall of Monsanto will sending a powerful message to both the medical and eco–friendly communities; never again will we poison ourselves or the earth as we know nor be poisoned by the earth carelessly in any shape or form.”

“Mister Joestar, forgive me for interrupting though what must we do in dealing with hostile pests in the meantime: from what could be said, some of our clients have stated to have allergic reactions to certain organisms alone; any alternatives we can construe in order to meeting those balances together…?” said one businessman, a dark skin man dressed in the darkest of midnight.

The eponymous listener wasted no time in replying altogether to his younger counterpart almost immediately so to speak, “there has yet to be a problem we’ve yet to solve, even in this day and age; in any case, this meeting is over as of yet: if you have any questions, please send me an e–mail as soon as possible, no later than tomorrow, but 'til then, today’s meeting’s now adjourned.”

It didn’t take long for all of the businesspersons likewise arose from their stations and took whatever foodstuffs and/or papers with them along the way; as this was going on, the tall elder was the last to leave, finally taking a stand as the call to action was answered almost instantaneously.

If there was one thing that had proved to be noticeable, then it would be the sheer cold already beginning to envelope anything and anyone around itself; however, there were many things attempting to keep things warm and toasty. For starters, the sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel with its white noise hissing amongst a never stagnant but grayscale background; in addition, the clashes of silver chariot and star platinum gleamed. Within a large dream drop distance was a civilization defined in such various materials, most of them being the ones fit for the likes of even three little pigs, all of which accented with layers of ice and snow growing in color and quantity. The calm gentle breeze surfed across the grassy knoll, the white coverings surrounding it all on a solid lower plane of existence with a dirt road guided its way from a nearby forest, a curvilinear line worth holding as much as it is crossing. In the background, there had rested a blue ridged valley of mountains, raging with growth and erosion in the process of their trying times as the snow pounded onto and even off of the variant earth very rapidly without so much as a care. The fair town was scarce with its own denizens of various demographics: age, gender, finances, and social standing being nothing short from the standardized metallurgy of life at large; in spite of everything so far, there were exceptions.

One particular place within that town stood out and about in the process: while it wasn’t home in the very least unlike the other residences that were built nearby but were nonetheless treated with respect. Standing upright from the ice and snow, a long series of numerous monochromatic stones all uniform: carved in various shapes, a name and a line of text beneath were clues to who they once were. All that was occupying near them were but an arrangement of many flowers made up of various colors and species already planted over the otherwise infertile soil that was their new residence at large. Many of them that were being observed by some wayward pedestrians remained aware of their purpose within that very space as there were at least some people, either by themselves or in a crowd. Uniting them under one common goal was but a feeling of solidarity and reflection of their lives as they had stared at the formations that were sticking out of the very ground they were standing upon.

Of the many who had appeared in attendance, there were at least two people standing out and about, side–by–side upfront of one particular stone out of the others. Defined amongst themselves were likenesses in fair dignity with commonalities: darkly colored tresses, bright complexions, somber emotions, and an achieved goal. Even so, they still had significant differences betwixt one another that many observers around themselves would be very quick to notice in just a heartbeat no less.

Speaking of which, these particular individuals in question had a sense of fashion that was more conservative much like the rest of the common folk themselves whom were also in attendance within the very environment thereof. For starters, their hair had brought out the color in both of the eyes: the man in question donned a brownish scheme, in spite of the short spikes hither and yon; the woman next to him was purple with eyes of sparkling star sapphires. Secondment, both faces were already possessing vibrant complexions so smooth and soft they were free of imperfections therein: his integuments were chiseled like a megalith; hers were only soft and smooth like the stormclouds. Third of all, their choice of attire were elaborate: the lonely man, clad in a long blue jacket with golden accents over a gold shirt, gray pants and boots; the woman nearby wore a jaded ensemble of a big overcoat, pants, and shoes.

“Well, Kevin, what do you think about it: it’s been a long time since I’d last seen my mother; do you think we’d done it right…?” she’d sighed sadly, slowly sowing the spectral sprays nearby the stone, struggling against the shimmering snowflakes strongly, “even though these were her favorite, I still wonder what she would’ve done about my father…”

Soon, he’d wasted no time in replying to the lonely woman almost immediately no less, “I’m sure she’d have liked it either way, Eriko; after all, your mom had always seen the beauty in everything, that’s something most people don’t get to do anymore, especially in this day and age: the thing’s we’d seen and hear years ago were nothing compared to the now.”

“At least you didn’t get to be scared to near death on a regular daily basis since age one, Kevin; even though I’d lost my sense of fear since childhood, I still can’t get over having to wonder: kids back then used to worrying about things likes bugs, ghosts, and the dark so to speak of…” she’d wept, her eyes becoming saturated with water before they'd started falling onto the ground.

The aforementioned bystander was now hugging Eriko tightly as the heavy winds struck their backs, a melancholy addition to the situation they were both as he’d soothed her all the same, “but that’s what had made horror stories so popular to me back then: the grotesque, paranormal, and unknown threats plaguing the human mind and body through sheer existence alone no less.”

“That’s because they didn’t have to worry about having your own father treat you as a guinea pig since infancy while traveling…!” said the jaded woman whom looked at the darker man with tears in her eyes as she’d struggled to regain some composure at once, “I don’t know what came over him when he did those things: I know that he’d used to care about back then but now–––”

“We must live in the now, that’s something she would’ve wanted, much like a normal childhood: everything that happens in the world today’s no different from what had gone on since our birth; even with all the new discoveries, the cause and effect remains the same as it’d been always…” declared by his voice as he was just staring back at her with but only restrained intensity no less.

Eriko looked away from Kevin to stare back at the tombstone still right in front of themselves and sigh, “I know that; as far as we see it, everything changed since the eighties came and went, just like every other decade before it: fast food is becoming commonplace, answering machines are phasing out, one–night stands take centerfield, and anger is spreading out of control…”

“Anyone can claim that anger is what makes a country great, Americans and otherwise, but our outlet for it is being misspent…” the dark man replied as his greener counterpart broke away from the embrace for her to inspect the monolith and its very flowers, “televisions with gunshots, people in hospitals, and celebrities with armed escorts; nowhere’s safe anymore, not even home.”

“Home, I miss home already and I don’t even know where it is anymore, not since that day…” she’d responded, still looking away from him to laugh mirthlessly while already unresponsive.

During this time, both Kevin and Eriko were still assaulted by the ice and snow all the same but neither of them paid any mind to them whatsoever as the nearby slab stood upright without care.

A sky full of silver linings were soon etched about, swirling over the earth in its broken patterns as patches of some blue were breaking dawn without a care. A flock of birds in various sizes and shades soon soared so serenely, not even gravity dared to pull any of them down towards the solid plane of existence. A small civilization was started to carry on with its own lives and times, living and breathing around their happy little abodes topped off by so many tiles. All pedestrians were being greeted with an abundance of some calm gentle breezes currently surfing across from the grassy knolls and to parts unknown. Aside from the town itself were a nearby forestry with a road as its guide and many lackadaisical waterways raging with both growth and recession thereof. As far as any lifeform was concerned, the smell of moisture was more enough to provide a sigh of relief and reprieve, courtesy of the brilliant green beneath.

Of the scarce pedestrians within the vicinity of the very town, there was but a trio of youth who were perhaps alike in fair dignity at first glance. These three had possessed certain common traits between them: heads full of hair, a pair of dark eyes, and heavy clothing upon their very bodies. Of course, there were some significant differences all of them had, something that many like them would care less about to say the very least.

Their collective sense of fashion was certainly suitable for the very environment they were all in, something the youths had constructed as their identities. The heavyset boy on the left had chalky white skin and short ginger tresses, wearing a big orange shirt with white stripes, tanned pants, and black trainers. On the other side, a lanky female correspondent’s big hair served as a citrus bird’s nest, donning a plum cape, teal blouse, pink shorts, and sapphire boots. Standing in the middle of them was a dark skinned boy with darker hair: his attire consisted of an opalescent vest, gold shirt, blue jeans, and white shoes.

Out of the three youths in question, the one between the gingers wasted no time in talking first, “gee, I’d never imagined how much has changed since the winter storms; I guess they’re right about one thing: a White Christmas does comes once a year but snow days are common…”

“Yes, it seems that the big freeze is on the horizon; could this be humanity’s punishment for past and present sins as forewarned?” she’d cerebrated about as the scenery was becoming colder than what her eyes were being shown currently, a sight unlike the boys, “so what are we going to do now that spring break is fast approaching real soon, you guys…?”

“The same thing we’ve been always doing ever since: going to the creek as always; you know that answer well, Kelsey…” the corpulent ginger had answered his eponymous counterpart almost instantaneously so to speak of, unperturbed by the cold.

The dark skinned loner soon began the reply freely all the same, “yeah, but lots of things had change since the new year had begun: my dad said this was because of the election months ago; my folks still couldn’t get over what had happened…”

“Yeah, I know that: dad’s been going through a tough time considering everything that’s been happening ever since then…” the lanky youth said outright, bearing a more mezzo forte range compared to initially as far as the boys were all concerned, “yes, mother’s passing had came as a heavy shock for the Pokoly household, especially considering the circumstances altogether…”

“Laura’s been getting involving in these protests on the weekend since that guy got elected; I had to go with them sometimes since my parents can’t always be here to let me watch cartoons…” the heavyset ginger shivered about as he’d still walked alongside his two compeers with still remaining bravery all the very same.

In any case, the slimmer youth had choked out breathlessly, “bummer… anyways, I’m going to have to prepare myself for the revisions in due time: I may have gotten a good look of the creek’s layout at large but I’m gonna need some better tools to finalize them; maybe if I ask then, they might let me borrow the old camera for the next time we meet again…”

“That’s a great idea, Craig: that way, we can immortalize these otherwise minuscule moments of ours upon a flat surface overall…” she’d said openly for both boys to hear clearly as all three of the youths were still walking along the curbside of this lonely road, “yes, with Craig’s artifact, we’ll surely craft a tome of picaresque memories to look back on thru the years later onward…”

“Just be careful of the sewer kids, little dude: the last time we’d been there, you’d almost drank the wastewater; I can eat and drink almost anything and even I know it’d have made you sick…” the heavyset ginger responded as he’d stopped to look at the porthole right at the corner of the opposite street at once with mild trepidation.

It didn’t take long for the dark skinned youth to laugh briefly, “relax, nothing bad will happen to either of us or the camera as far as I can see it; besides respecting their rights to privacy, handling the old device is a big responsibility for growing youth such as ourselves: this had been in my family for many years, taking as many pictures as it could throughout history as we know it…”

“Ah, yes, the old Iceteroid, one of many cameras released by the likes of Ed Land himself, no different from others like his…” Kelsey ruminated intently as her vision grew darker despite all the lights and sounds provided for her eyes and ears along theirs, “in any case, I hope that you’re successful at convincing your folks to letting you borrow their camera; ‘til then, see you later…”

“Bye, Kelsey…!” the lanky ginger’s masculine correspondent said as she was the first to break from the trio almost rather instantaneously.

Soon, it was now down to the boys themselves, alone in the world yet stuck together to face it: of the remaining twosome, Craig began to break the brief silence, “so I guess this is the part you head off to home as well, right J.P.?”

“At least my folks still have last night’s lasagna to look forward to; they’d said that the catering company were very skillful…” the titular tyro talked to his darker skinned counterpart almost immediately before drifting apart gently, “anyways, I’ll see you tomorrow as well, Craig…”

“Well, I hope you have a nice day, J.P.; tell them that I said hi…!” the aforementioned youth said to the heavyset ginger before the former was left alone in the midst of the ambiance provided.

A similar environment was found somewhere else: although there were plenty of houses, the trees were far and few in between through size and shape alone. Another difference between the suburbs in question was the abundance of hills amongst the otherwise flat and uniform terrain, each with the sound of music. All of this had paled in comparison to the dense fog emanating throughout the earthly plane so to speak of, despite the otherwise sunny skies high above them all.

Out of the many residences found amongst the obscured environment, there was one in particular that was triangular to a fault but asymmetrical. Its own shingles were muddled in a collection of burnt sienna as they were all neatly aligned for the average observer to go take note of already. The walls where the windows remained adorned were clothed in different subspecies of white with some crimson accentuation at the baseline. Any edges found underneath the triangular peak were but an electric blue yet otherwise grounded enough to avoid putting a shock to the system. Nevertheless, there was an anomaly in the form of a curvy yet angular green dome with a gilded overlook underneath bent from the right side. Other than the surplus of cacti all throughout the entrance, the lawn was dry and filled with a few accessories as two rock pathways were carved.

The rather uneasy ennui was then suddenly broken by an ethereal whooshing blip, accented by a swirl of both tranquil and moody blues emerging from the thin white line cut within the oxygen. Out from the void was a figure enshrouded in mystery due to the thick and heavy fog itself as the naked eye could see a jet–black silhouette taking on a bipedal formation almost instantaneously.

It didn’t even take long for the visitor in question to make a quick beeline to the ligneous door standing under an arch with its bay of cyan adjacent to a small stairway filled by inorganic eyes; after knocking upon wood literally, a voice was heard from the other side of the surface area, muffled yet freed all the very same, “venirse…”

“Finally, my dad’s here: at the very least he and mom can give me an update as to how much has changed since we’d last met…” a line of thought escaped soundlessly from the outsider in question as footfalls upfront were now getting closer than before no less, “dad, it’s me, your son, Marco; I’m home again at last…”

Within seconds, two individual males both alike in fair dignity were now watching each other stand face–to–face as they’d entered the line of vision immediately. Each of them had their commonalities pronounced by their warm yet dull attires, hair matching eyes, tanned integuments, and white shoes already on a full display. Now, it would’ve seemed safe to say whatever was upon their very minds, the literal roadways they’d currently traveled on was finite yet felt the end already came.

On the other hand, they still had some significant differences between one another, especially at the first glance from a separated perspective so to speak of. For starters, one of the individual brunets was another tall elder, much like Mr. Joestar, whilst the other was a teenage youth merely a foot off by comparison. Secondment, the tenant was muscular with a clear complexion and mustache whereas the visitor was skinny with a lonely nevus directly beneath the left eye. Thirdly, the broad brunet wore a yellow shirt with darker and lighter stripes running down to the pants while Marco had a red hoodie zipped up from his too.

“Welcome back, son, we were just talking about you now; you couldn’t believe all this fog that’s out and about: they said it was going to disappear by this afternoon and it’s still there…” the fatherly tenant had greeted his offspring almost instantaneously so to speak of upon making first contact, the former’s voice gruff yet tranquil.

The lanky youth had wasted no time in looking around and sighed stoically, “I guess some things don’t change; anyways, can I please come in…?”

“You’re still always welcome in our home on account of being our son and so is your girlfriend Star since she’s also like our kid…” the broad brunet beamed brightly before granting Marco safe passage instantly without any kind of hesitation whatsoever overall, “come to think of it, where’s she at now; probably off attending day court with her parents, am I right…?”

“She’s off doing some princess stuff, getting everything in place for the big event since the party: I wish I could tell you more but I don’t want to risk a repeat of what happened months ago…” the teenaged youth had only answered before walking right inside of the asymmetrical house immediately.

It didn’t take long for either of them to notice how the fresh air of the outside world was now becoming spicy and serene due to the lack of density overall. The beige ceiling above themselves was suspended ten feet from the ground, already held up by a gridded series of interlocking support beams with lights on. The background, better yet known as those walls that served as part and parcel to the foundation, were adorned in baby blues, save for some bricks and mortar. The floor was bare minimum, a mixture of thin squares painted in blue and yellow tiles as well as some carpeting both of males were stepping on right now. Multitudes of windows were present, most of which were bare save for some exceptions as they all showed some scenery not too different from not long ago. An emerald splashed couch now resided behind a bulky television in the corner with a table full of knickknacks standing between them both for Marco to see.

The moment the lanky brunet shut the door behind himself, he was treated to a lyrical soprano from another tenant that was comparably different to the first whom had greeted him just now, “how is our favorite little knight in shining armor…?”

These words had belonged to woman now entering the youth’s line of eyesight: unlike any of the males within the very home, her integuments were much brighter compared to either of them. Additionally, she, too, was a brunet, much like Marco and his father although her eyes were that of a hierophant green, a lighter shade compared to the long skirt wore around its wearer’s waist. Moreover, the brighter woman was also wearing a light orange blouse with tickled pink ruffles around the sleeves and neckline, doing little to cover her otherwise gravid but dainty formation. Another anomaly which had sat her apart from the other inhabitants were how open her footwear was: a pair of brown sandals with a black bracelet around their wearer’s left ankle snugly no less.

In any case, a dark storm seized the day but still possessed the light hidden away from the eyes of its own observers whom were now running about at this moment in time thereof. The silver linings that could have been easily found as the shine in the storm were overshadowed by the outpouring of rainwater which fell onto the solid ground almost immediately. Some sounds of thunder that had rolled about within the vast stormclouds whilst its refrained waves of lightning carved their way through with blinding speed and synchronicity. Unbound by the vast spaciousness of the very atmosphere, the cluster of grays and whites with the occasional colors spread further apart all over the lands and waters underneath. Kiloliters worth of fluid already saturated the terrains; many square acres of it all were gaining puddles with the reminiscence of mirror as countless ripples were discovered inside. Accompanying the rain and thunder were the howling winds now moving the grass and trees which already completed the interactive orchestra for the surrounding environment.

Speaking of the environment in question, it was nothing short of stony structures resting upon a flat terrain with water around them all so to speak of. A series of concrete was etched about despite their liquid surroundings, most of which made an intersection to and from the hillsides, save for but one. Though there were large islands of green, great and small, they were already soaked with many of overwhelming moisture, gaining malleable textures. Only the cacti that had remained stood their collective ground tall and proud against the rain and winds but even they weren’t remaining unperturbed. Many square acres worth of space were starting to collect a large amount of water in the process to the point of making a swimming pool in the grass. In the midst of the scenery were but few individuals now taking shelter from the pouring deluge, their integuments and clothing unscathed generally.

One exception still stuck out like a sore thumb in a much colder environment: a figure dressed in black but more corporeal by comparison no less. Apparently, it’d seemed that nothing much else could be said about the attire, especially since its own wearer was obscured altogether so to speak. That being said, the rainstorm did little to stop the loner from traversing the roadways on a bike, carrying a package in the basket shielded from it.

As far as the cyclist was concerned, the long and arduous road underneath was coming to an end when one building stood out before the line of vision. It was as blue as the waters beyond their premises yet the surface area was as flat like the stone roads lined out adjacently afore itself along the others. Dense small foliage was found side–by–side of the doorway, most of which laid underneath the windowsill on the same level with its yellow flowers. Even though it was equilateral to a fault, the rooftop was filled with so many angular edgings all squared off like a game of tetrominos falling in place. Nothing much else could be said about the household except for the other window high off of the ground, supported by its own sturdy adjacent balcony.

It didn’t take long for the loner to disengage from the transportation in question, carrying the precious cargo over to the door in an instant; afterwards, it didn’t take long for a closed fist to be banging gently against the ligneous surface upfront, earning a faint yet clear question, “¿quién es…?”

“¿Lo ciento agobiarlo, pero tengo un paquete que entregar aquí: creo que está dirigido a un Valentino Calavera, correcto…?” the cyclist in black answered the concealed tenant almost immediately, hearing some footfalls approaching before the former, “¿hola, alguien…?”

“Uno segundo, por favor…” the listener said.

Sure enough, the tenant’s identity was revealed to the loner the moment the door was opened up: unlike the latter, the former was unambiguously an elderly woman. Despite having grey hair, her two braids were accessorized by tickled pink bands at the near end of it all whilst they had both reached past the nape of her own neck. Moreover, the elderly woman was also wearing a predominantly white dress matching her own earrings, in spite of the still abundance of blue birds and red roses. Another anomaly which had sat her apart from the observant cyclist was the fact a cane was in her right hand pointing towards the latter’s presence all the while. The elderly woman’s eyes being closed was more than enough for the loner in black to see that she was blind, despite donning some small square spectacles over.

It didn’t take much for the observant cyclist to notice her as the former spoke, “perdón per eso: no me di cuenta de que eras este delicado; supongo que debes ser su madre…”

“Corrección: soy su, o mejor dicho, sus abuela; Valentino también pasa a tener un hermano menor y su nombre es Victor…” the elderly woman replied giddily as the outsider in black had started to feel the downpour around soon decrease in density, “ahora que lo pienso, no esperaba una entrega hoy, y mucho menos una para Valentino. ¿Niños, puedes bajar las escaleras?”

“¡Sí, abuela…!” a short duet of youthful masculinity had emerged from the home she’d resided in.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long until the doors were opened, prompting the outsider in black to eye the source approaching their shared location. Outside in the cold distance, a wildcat did growl; two boys were now approaching and the wind began to howl from where they’d just entered. Both of them had possessed such commonalities compared to the elderly woman: dark tresses matching their shoes and colorful clothes too. It was already safe to say that whatever was onto their very minds, the short road they been both traveling upon was already at a collective end.

Speaking of the boys though, they, too, possessed differences many could identify at once almost instantaneously, especially considering who was at the door. For starters, one of the youths was delicate and possessing rounded jet–black hair whereas the other was wide, bearing locks of ruffled up chocolate instead. Next, there were differences in attire: the former, a blue poncho over white shirt matching socks and tan shorts; the latter, a vermilion shirt with white shorts.

It didn’t take much for her to say to the observant cyclist immediately as far as the former can see, “estos son mis nietos, Víctor y Valentino; decir 'hola' al repartidor, por favor: él tiene un paquete con él…”

“Hola…” the brothers said instantly: of the two, the smaller one was quick to break away from the synchronicity and started asking his eldest, “¿qué hace esto aquí de todos modos, Valentino?”

To say it was a dark and stormy night would be a great overestimation for an utter lack of better terms to say the very least; however, it didn’t change the reality of it all. An abundance of stormclouds were found to be clogging up the firmament, dumping its surplus of precipitation all upon the world below itself before solidifying about. The target in question was a large conurbation, a series of tall buildings with its lights and sounds out and about as they guided the way all throughout for all its denizens. There were soft layers of whiteness all piling up onto the earth and the vegetation egregious to be standing in the downward path off from its dream drop distance therein. Only signs of life brewing through the shine in the storm were various mechanisms out and about and the pedestrians that dared to set foot right upon the wintry mixture. Of course, there was nothing much which could be done about the situation at hand so to speak; after all, the ice and snow alone reduced such possibilities in numbers.

“And taking a look at the long range forecast: continued snow, darkness, and extreme cold; this is Heartstrong Hooverton saying goodnight… goodbye…” a stray voice buzzed about, belonging to an elderly olive stallion with a short mane while wearing a midnight blue suit and lighter tie as well as a white undershirt displayed upon a bunch of various electronics behind a window.

These words were nothing more than an understatement as the looking glass was shattered in an instant by a big rock, courtesy of a wayward equine in the form of a blue unicorn all dressed up in heavy clothing as a swirl of teal aura was enveloping the machine as a wave of static mesh appeared in the speaker’s place, reminiscent of the weather the former was currently caught in.

Unbeknownst to the vandal, a purple dragon was in the same area, both eyes sharing the same color as the integuments upon the latter’s body. Every singular spike from the traveler’s head to tail was gilded by the fighting gold experience, matching a dragonfly accompanying the former.

Despite having them up on display, the purple dragon was fastly approaching the blue unicorn without attracting any attention at all; soon enough, the former was quick to ask the latter almost immediately, despite the howling winds driving a wedge all throughout, “uhh… excuse me, can you please tell me what is this place…?”

“Dragon…?” the vandal peeped after turning around to face the grounded flier, the former’s faded eyes growing wide with high and mighty color at the sight of the latter before scurrying off, “AHH, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES; THE DRAGONS ARE REVOLTING: THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END…!”

“This doesn’t sound good at all: I haven’t seen someone run off faster than Gnasty Gnorc years ago; as a matter of fact, where am I and what’s going on here…?” the purple dragon hissed after watching the blue unicorn galloping away to parts unknown as the contraptions garbled about for the former to see clearly.

There was barely anytime whatsoever to make sense of it all when the screen in question had transitioned into a picture of dark clouds traveling across the blue sky: standing in front of it was a black unicorn mare dressed in red, save for a pair of blue glasses and a stripey yellow hairbow; in addition, her mane was well kept in a bun with all the emeralds splashing about throughout.

Her name had popped up in a flash, Crowned Pebble, and with it, her eyes radiating with hazel as she’d greeted about, “good afternoon on this first alert weather day, heavy snow is a certainty: it’s not like Hearthswarming but it’ll be much more worse; we already think it’s going to be widespread, certainly a night to pay close attention to, especially in the overnight hours no less. It’s mainly after eleven, though it couldn’t end a little bit sooner out south of town: heavy wind gusts and a few flurries are a pretty decent bit in some of the clouds but then again, that first alert weather day and you can see it highlighted on the seven day on the side of the screen; that red highlight there for tonight’s to alert you. Look at how cold it’s our there, low thirties below zero basically – Panston 34, 32 Mareton, and it feels like the low to mid–twenties on the FIM WeatherNet computers; it’s loose out there so your hourly forecast has most of the afternoon totally fine: it’s gonna be really cold, not that comfortable outside today: minus sixteen for the low. So seven in the evening, nineteen: I don’t even have a sun chance at all at that time and it’s at relatively low, twenty percent decrease at ten but soon after, it starts to hunker down and then the Fillydelphia Metro’s chance at 1:00AM is about five percent. Here’s the hour–by–hour forecast again: a lot of the morning’s gonna be cold, no sun beginning to end, mostly cloudy midevening, and then flurries build in over the evening; here’s 8oclock – I think a lot of activities aren’t going be on schedule at all so watch the radar at ten from Dunmare to Somersault. The forecast is for those snowstorms to be rolling, into the Fillydelphia Metro area; that 12 to 2oclock timeframe could have some moderate to heavy snow and then that pushes south of town as we roll through about 4oclock overnight. So tomorrow’s forecast kinda highlighting that sunshine chance next to nil: I think a lot of folks are gonna get a few additional flurries but it’ll slow you down and you want to take precautions if you have overnight plans today; in any case, the snow chance for tonight is extremely certain. Tomorrow’s gonna be really cold again; these are some very cold days: minus 14 for tomorrow, loose out there, scattered snowstorms – I believe we’ll catch many that’ll pop up into the evening tomorrow but not many, ninety percent; either way, hope you all bundle up for the calm before the storm tonight.”

“This isn’t promising at all; the places I’d been to weren’t even this fierce, not even Ice Cavern had such storms last time…” the lonely visitor shivered about as the pictures shifting back to the fifty shades of gray already interwoven with one another, “come to think of it, that pony said there were other dragons; where could they be…?”

Sure enough, there was a district inside of the very city that was more in tune with the elements in question by virtue of being made with it altogether. As uniform as the materials were, they weren’t like the rest of their collective surroundings due to the lack of symmetry and congruence all the while. In addition, many of the windowsills adorning the buildings were circular to a fault yet they’d been mostly obscuring internal affairs from the world. Nevertheless, much of the doors found were made of wood, its singular colors already blending in with the surface area of the stony shapings overall. There was a predominately warmly angular archway over the stone street, its blue beams bearing yellow dragons matching the statues in front of it all.

While the purple dragon was more than relieved to find such an area in question instantly, it was nevertheless just the very same: if one denizen running away without hesitation was enough, then the probability of others being different was next to nothing too; either way, the former wasn’t going to get much done staying in one place alone, especially with the ice and snow here.

Despite the overwhelming frigidity, a large sea of the brilliant green prevailed as each of its fiber were currently in various combinations already fashioned a bewildering camouflage. The calm gentle breeze traversed throughout the herbage inside of them as the luscious landscape had remained loud and proud of its structured foundations with viridians and browns. For every piece of vegetation dwelling within this environment, there would usually contained a plant capable of providing either nourishment or mortality to any living being overall. Given the rather immense dimensions of such an acreage, it’d have seemed that such a sheer probability of finding anybody residing inside here was rather nonexistent to a fault. Dense moisture of the dewdrops were now taking formation around the surface area upon the innumerable green grasses storing the very floras presently overwhelming themselves. All which would remain to complete this very scenery alone was at least a stray pedestrian in any varying states of being traveling throughout the area for whatever reason imaginable.

Of all the fauna that were within the forestry, a tall lonely panda was found to be sitting next to the river with no end in sight whatsoever to say the least. The inhabitant’s integuments were already riddled with the many wrinkles of time and space making their very way throughout and within themselves. The panda’s face had borne a few cuts and bruises here with darkened bags beneath his eyelids, opened enough to find nothing but anticipatory amethysts. A short, grayscale bread was found to be climbing downward, signifying its wearer’s age rather instantaneously for any wayward observer to take note of. Nothing much else could be said about the panda’s attire except it was simplistic enough to only consist of a chocolatey overcoat thick and heavy overall.

“Master Yo…?” a maidenly voice was heard, prompting to turn around and face the source instantaneously.

There, the elder’s eyes were facing down a pink rabbit standing at half the former’s height and several times younger by sheer comparison alone so to speak of. Like Master Yo, the youth’s eyes were cold, yet they were all filled with worry within the star sapphires, both matching the latter’s long thick dress covering it.

It didn’t take long for the panda to reply upon finding the pink rabbit, “what’s wrong, Yin: another bad dream…?”

“Worse, have you ever had the feeling that you’d been watched by someone, like one of the villains back before we’d met…?” the lonely youth had asked as the distance between the two were being closed in on one another with the former’s trepidation too, “you know, like some spy or a ghost or something…?”

“You mean like your boyfriend Coop, one of the Night Master’s pupils from a long time ago; isn’t he still alive and well…?” Yo spoke to Yin.

The pink rabbit shook and retorted, “no, not him; I meant like we were being watching by someone from another world or something…”

“Another world, what do you mean by that; you mean like the one in which Eradicus was inside of back when we defeated him …?” the panda had said in confusion but no delay whatsoever in a gruff yet calmed voice all the same as far as nature was concerned anyway, “you usually seem to be making sense about things; please clarify…”

“I see some almost hairless simian of some sort watching us from some kind of screen: he’d seemed to be someone that one of the villains like Carl would have under their employ; other than that, he’s always asleep in some messy bedroom that reminds me of my brother Yang…” the anxious youth said to the stationary elder with a lone teardrop in the former’s eye no less.

Yo muddled about and said at once to Yin, “him…?”

“Not Carl but he seems to be much worse now that I think about; as a matter of fact, he’s not like the others we’d met back then…” the pink rabbit answered before stopping in place to turn around and leave the panda back alone much like earlier so to speak of, “come to think of it, I don’t even think that Carl’s even behind this whole thing this time around, especially since–––”

“Just go on back to sleep, Yin; you’re gonna need your strength to face this new foe, especially considering where we are no less: besides, it’s obvious that whatever villains’ scheme had been cooked up, it’s nothing like the ones we’d faced alone or together, not even Ferocitus himself…” the tall elder interjected at once, prompting the youth to hurry back almost immediately anyway.

The eponymous camper agreed with Yo before disappearing right back into the deep woods, “yes, Master Yo…”

“Hah, finally some time alone at last: at this rate I don’t even want to know what would happen had we gone on any further…” the panda exhaled before reaching into his pocket to pull out a notebook with a pencil within the metal spiral and opened it up, “it’s only now that I understand the depth of the depravity of this monster, this being they’d both unwitting came across no less. As if what he’d already done wasn’t enough, he’d found a new way to distort, horrify, and deteriorate as if the suffering wasn’t enough: the loss of direction as well as everything that made sense to us all, small souls trapped in a playground of ice and snow now open to the public for reasons never thought or dreamt of. He dragged us all back to unfamiliar places with familiar tricks together; is he still aware? I hope not but it keeps me awake at night, especially now considering what had happened to Yang: this may not be the first time his body was taken over by someone else but this time it was much more horrifying by sheer comparison alone; after all, my son is still confused as to what had been done to him and even worse his enemy has taken control of his own original body. I’d make myself sleep but not yet, not until I undo what he has done and heal this wound, one inflicted on me then let bleed out to cause all this confusion and delay; he’d set some kind of trap: I don’t know what it was, but he led them there all the same, overpowering them and robbing Yang of the many things he had. I don’t know how his tiny breath of life came to inhabit this dragon but he can never find rest now, not like this and especially not with the new form his attacker possesses; I have to drag this bastard back to us, together in one place, not just for my son’s sake but for the rest of this strange new world we’re now in because of him, especially with all this chaos and disarray out in place.”

Now, it’d have seemed that one part of the world had its very atmosphere already applying some direct pressure upon itself with coldness and calculation. At the very least, the spacious skies had objectively held up the flashing lights, all bearing silver linings within themselves among the sea of dark clouds. The air all throughout crisp and cool enough to commute many different aromas from all walks of life had each of them varying in quality and quantity. Even so were many flowers quickly wilting from the ice and snow, instantaneously bearing witness to the rushing waters frozen within the cataracts. A roaring tempest was surfing onward and sliding about throughout the stony roads and dusty trails already cutting across the vast hillside landscaping. Nesting nearby the rocks and ice was but a civilization currently defined in such an intricate manner, bearing lesser colors and shapes than the earth. Density notwithstanding, it was only a matter of perspective to find an utter abundance of such individuals from finite and scarcely typed demographics.

Of the many structures found within the city, none were more noticeable than the wreckage of the castle within, something many took note of. The stony lonesome walls retained signs of eradication and disrepair as oblong holes of every shape and perimeter whatsoever surrounded it. Many parts of surviving ceilings were reeking of leaky dust and pebbles as if they were ready to stumble and fall under its own weight any time. The flooring had many patches of carpeting overwhelmed by the ice and snow, the very same precipitations wreaking havoc across the stones. The tapestries that were found hanging from above the ground once told of its very own history now of the current state of affairs, if they’re any. The few stairwells left around had pointed away from the ground with each limited by its fleeting dimensions as they still stood upon themselves.

Standing out in the cold distance was none other than a blue rabbit, sharing the same physique as the pinker counterpart but otherwise different from her all the while. Speaking of which, the observer’s eyes were predominately red like blood, save for the emerald splashed pinpricks within the epicenter as they’d looked roundabout. Some simple attire was found to have been clothing the blue rabbit: a plain white tee, blackened pants, and brown boots were all being caked in some scarlet liquids.

“Well, I must say, little boy blue’s gonna be missing more than his old man and the moon: fuck that cats’ cradle and the silver spoon too, real money is in finding a more suitable body to switch with; what better place than here no less, despite all that ice and snow bullshit taking place…!” hissed the observant loner whom surveiled the environment and its denizens too in so little time.

Even with the cold cruel world bearing down upon this broken city, the blue rabbit was undeterred by it altogether, pressing on forward thru the frozen wasteland that had been home; needless to say, the small steps had felt like giant leaps, despite the otherwise uniform trail left behind by the boots themselves as the wreckage alone was becoming closer in tow nevertheless. As far as the reddened traveler was concerned, a fist was now making contact with the dark wood making up this door up in front, knocking it down in mere seconds alone so to speak of; sure enough, there was nothing more than merely an empty lobby, already matching the very same temperatures as the outside world looking in and vice versa, suffice to say in the meantime.

Of all the objects found within were a series of statues, each of which were cold, unmoving, and devoid of animation, unlike that of moving pictures found inside the otherwise finite timelines. At the very least, the blue rabbit could see that they were bearing the emotions of hopelessness and horror upon their visage, in spite of their collective differences as well as because of them. The most notable, predominately serpentine, bore an antler and horn on the same head, a leonine paw and eagle talon from both sides, two mismatched wings and legs, and a long fang as well.

“Who… are… you…?” the reddened traveler instantaneously heard, despite being all alone so to speak.

This had prompted the blue rabbit to bark, “who said that, who the fuck said that, who’s the slimy little chickenshit twinkle–toed cocksucker down here who just signed his own death warrant; nobody, huh?! The fairy fucking godmother said it: out–fucking–standing; I oughta PT you all until you fucking die, I’d PT you until your assholes are sucking buttermilk! Was it you, you scroungy little fuck, you little piece of shit: you look like a fucking worm; I’d bet it was you, huh?!”

“What do you think, intruder…?” a different voice was heard invading the reddened traveler’s ears instantaneously in the form of a drone, “I’d honestly wasn’t expecting any guests today, if at all, let alone a worm like you no less…”

“Show yourself, cunt…!” the blue rabbit snarled.

In the heat of the moment, a shadowy figure had emerged from the collection of statues, gaining a more elaborate form by sheer comparison alone. From what the reddened traveler could see, a taller jet–black alicorn was found to be smirking about with fangs more sharp due to their presence. Much like the blue rabbit’s eyes, the animate tenant was too colorful to have any whiteness all throughout, albeit being completely jaded instead. Speaking of which, the jet–black alicorn’s tresses were but a dark translucent teal, matching both arthropod wings and glycosaminoglycan midpoint. The most crucial detail the animate tenant possessed were the more numerous holes being etched in the hooves and horn, varied in size and space.

The reddened traveler was unfazed by the jet–black alicorn sashaying about in the former’s direction as the latter cooed, “so, do you like what you see, bunny boy; I was honest expecting more foalish failure trying and failing to avenge their fallen princesses and their entourage of followers and allies but you don’t look like either of them at all: who are you, little boy…?”

“What difference does it make: you seem to mistake me for one of these fanboys from the past; do I even look like one of them?!” the blue rabbit answered before walking up towards the animate tenant slowly with a gleam in the former’s eyes appearing briefly, “I’m much older than I even look and nothing like those dogs and ponies I’ve been seeing since I got here today…!”

“Oh, you’re approaching me already; surely you must be yet another challenge I’ve yet to face: even that usurper and traitor were a challenge, besides the windigos here and there, but you seem to be radiating with a rather strange magic I’ve yet to gain awareness of, much less ahold of…” the jet–black alicorn had laughed before the gangly horn gained a greenish hue in the process.

The shine in the storm was starting to worsen anyway as its very ice and snow began to overrun the otherwise diverse landmass at once. One of them had struck the tallest building, a crystalline monolithic castle sparkling about in the uncivil twilight, setting the atmosphere. Other similar structures surrounding it also shivered about as well in a disharmony best befitting a blanket of unsullied whiteness therein. The emerald splash of flora was well in the process of becoming chilled and frozen because of the subzero air levels dropping down. In the background, a valley and ridge of mountains raged with growth and erosion in the process of their trying times enclosed the white. In any case, an orderly abundance of concrete had been paved out an elaborate set of pathways for travelers to go seek out any location. Given the timing of the blizzard, the odds of finding any denizen was almost out of the question; better yet, hostiles weren’t needed too.

The woodwind sounds of whistling had cut on through the briskly scarce air as it had been now followed by the constant percussion of steel parts in rapid succession. Within the cold distance, an enharmonic orchestra had came in the form of a slender and shiny locomotive presently undergoing the tender processes of deceleration. Slowly and steadily, the synchronicity of music came to a gentle end when the grinding of metal was followed by the whooshing of smoke clouds nearby the platform. Instantaneously, the doors slid open to unleash many passengers now taking their own spot onto the same surface, wasting no time whatsoever to exit the contraption.

This was of great concern for the fraction of denizens already inside buildings: one of them in question was the castle itself, now in dire need of introduction. In all fairness, it’d possessed the colorful transparency of any water thereof solidified yet it was sturdy and strong to support itself and its contents with warmth. The front side therein was so symmetrical to a fault many potential onlookers taking a glance became aware of its elongated banners of a midnight scheme. Of the towering structures part of the castle thereof, the midpoint was of the darkest thematic and yet its top shined about to the point of brightening up the rest. Rather than being built from the ground up directly, a vast majority of its dimensions was hoisted into the air by several stories with its curvilinear base in view. Underneath its intersection was a heart of the same textures spinning about within two conical sections of an unconnected pillar without touching either one. The one colorful anomaly standing out and about was a balcony: it’d been composed of a golden railing directly beneath the cold archway and its plum curtains.

Standing out from there merely inches away from the comforts of the megalith were at least two equines both alike in fair dignity at the first glance. Each possessed certain common traits: bright coating on themselves, coldly colored rings circled around pupils, and worried demeanor in their faces. Of course, they had some rather significant differences, further established by the sheer fact they were tenants within the crystalline castle in question.

If one was already able to identify them both at once as of this moment in time no less, then even the stances that they’d taken would reflect themselves. For starters, one of the equines leaning safely over happened to be pink alicorn whereas the other counterpart standing directly abaft was a white unicorn. Secondly, the former’s long tresses donned a tricolor scheme of purple, pink, and gold whilst the latter had a short style of blue matching the sapphires. Third of all, the pink alicorn had but a pair of amethysts circling around the pupils, matching the jewel found within the gold tiara and necklace as well.

Needless to say, the former was quick to speak, “I’m worried, Shining: it’s been at least two hours since we’d since our friends and family back at Canterlot; they should’ve been able to defeat the Legion of Doom by now, if not earlier…”

“I know that, Cadance: if there’s one thing that I know about my sister Twily, then she’s the last pony to surrender or even lose…” the titular tenant talked tepidly as their eyes were facing the multitudes of travelers escaping the long train almost instantaneously, “I know her far too much for her to go this far and end up reaching this outcome despite everything she’d done ever since. I’d never imagined that your aunts’ retirement would culminate into this series of unfortunate events, let alone with her involved: it’d seemed likely to me that for many years, Canterlot used to be the only thing closest to being more exciting, if not the most for us; after all, we’d both grew up there together thanks to our family and now we’re going to lose it all in so little time. Even though we were so different from one another, the fact I could still see you now and then gave me the hope and courage to take the initiative over my life and make something of it all; I can’t believe I’d felt so dorky in the past only to end up becoming captain of the guard in over so much time no less only to be forced back into hiding again with the return of that wicked widge. To tell you the truth, I’d never imagined how easy was to wake up and find out who else was lurking about in Canterlot on our very special day, let alone have the nerve to steal you away with only a few ponies noticing no less; even worse, who knows what she and her cronies might be planning now that they have our friends fighting them out into the blistering cold no less…”

“Have some faith for once, Shining: it’s what Twilight and her friends would’ve wanted; besides, she’d told us to keep Flurry Heart safe as a backup plan, especially considering how close our daughter was to be under Sombra’s influence, last time we’d met up with him months prior…” the pink alicorn scoffed about stoically before finally trotting straightaway from the balcony.

A somber sigh escaped from the white unicorn’s lips before following Cadance in tow, speaking up, “sorry, it’s just that ever since that day, I’ve been feeling rather on edge about what had been happening lately: the failed invasions by both Chrysalis and Sombra no less, not to mention the fact that Twily had to go and risk her life doing all the work to stop them both, like before…”

“Don’t expect to count either of us out that easily, Shiny; as far as your sister is concerned, she would’ve wanted the both of us to be together…” the pink alicorn spoke back to Shining, turning back around this time to face the latter directly with utter tenderness and a hint of annoyance, “besides, we’d beat them before so we’ll beat them again, just like old times’ sake…”

“But what if I’m not: as far I see it in hindsight, I was about this close to losing everything and everypony we’d held near and dear to us and to the likes of Changelings no less; if anything, aren’t you worried about everyone’s well–being now, especially with what Chrysalis’ doing…?” the white unicorn asked, looking away from Cadance’s amethyst orbs shamefully so to speak of.

“Who wouldn’t be…?” the pink alicorn said, soon suddenly shedding a teardrop in the process, “after all, none of them want it to be all for nothing, let alone return to it, Shiny, not even him…”

Guns N' Roses

Author's Note

It's Fireflower once again with my first crossover anthology fimfic, a hopeful break from all the sex and the violence making up much of my profile since several years ago; at this rate, I hope you'd enjoyed the previous chapter I'd made based on some dream in the passing years and with you–know–who cause here's another one: I bet you'll like this one as well.

As always, My Little Pony, or rather Friendship Is Magic, including its settings and characters belong to Lauren Faust and Hasbro; in addition, the characters featured from other mediums, known and unknown so far, don't belong to me so please don't sue me over them either, okay...?

Lastly, let me also say I hope you enjoy this chapter now and stay tuned for future chapters later on: after all, you're going to be taking solace in the fact the following anecdote will still serve as a nice change of pace; though, please don't expect from me to be a periodical upload like the other stories since I still don't have much of a plan in the long term either.

Guns N' Roses

There was a collection of assorted lights plastered all throughout the background, each of them in a series of such light coloration: from the looks of it, one would be forgiven for assuming they were apart of some abstract project crafted for the public exhibition; however, the space thereof was far too multidimensional to be restricted by any and all broad strokes made with one utensil. At the very least, the oxygen was moving fast yet happened to be cold enough to be damp as a light drizzle merely tapering off: considering the sheer acceleration alone, a single direction had been already picked out for purposes unknown so to speak; not only that, there was almost nothing impeding the flow of time and space within themselves due to the abundant right of way. Under no circumstances therein were any and all signs of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, or equality of opportunity brimming; at the same time, there were no signs of death, slavery, a retreat of sadness, or inequality of closure coexisting either in turn: either way, the colorful void was en route to parts unknown, the seemingly strait segment between the departure and arrival.

Suddenly and without any kind of warning whatsoever, a lonely figure had entered the mobile borderland with a screech capable of breaking the sound barrier. There were some short brown tresses held in place by a jet–black headband; however, they been showing signs of smoldering due to the smoke emanating about. At the very least, the lonely figure’s integuments were as brighter than a mere peach, yet had bore the scars of yesterdays unbecoming of said fruit in question. Buried underneath the pained visage were the starry sapphires which were both being currently assaulted by the light around their owner almost instantaneously. Singeing the lonely figure’s wings were a midnight ensemble of a shirt, vest, pads, pants, belt, and boots; considering the coloration, it’d have been hard to tell.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!” screamed out aloud voice from the very mouth of marched madness which had belonged to the speaker in question, its gruff baritones carried far away rather immediately by the speed of surround sound it was traveling alongside without any restriction.

Initially, the lonely figure traveled alone, propelled by the gravitational pull drawing forward into the finite regions already; soon enough, both ears were treated to the sounds of tearing phasing through the same area the whole entire body had entered: multiple debris consisting of boxes, crates, and other kinds of containers, in parts and whole, created with various materials. As soon as they were within the area of influence the screamer was in, the screeches were cut short as both eyes turned around: although a safe distance was being maintained, the wide gap was slowly being closed up as soon as the viewer’s mind had made; after all, even though fast travel was already established, the objects en masse were stuck in place, prepped for contact. Needless to say, the lonely figure attempted to move further away from the angular prisms with both sets of limbs still attached: although frantic yet focused, they were all still catching up to the former without any effort being made whatsoever so to speak of; from the looks of it, the space in between was bound to be closed up soon enough in every which way possible no matter what.

Sure enough, the individual’s body had rested against the surface area belonging to one of those crates, one tri–star platinum: at first, it would’ve seemed that no harm whatsoever had come about in any shape or form conceivable to its one subject; of course, this brief respite departed as soon as its arrival when it was now straying off course from the rest of its amalgamated kind. Eventually, the lonely figure’s body was nearing the edge of the pathway the other objects were traveling within so to speak of: not only that, as soon as the textiles had begun to touch it gently, it wouldn’t be long until the rest was submerged into it outright; surprisingly, both the individual and item in question were both still intact but no longer with the rest of them inside nevertheless. Although outside of the space as is, the same orbs from before were now treated to a much larger discovery in the making hereof: similar pathways of the same qualities alone were within the line of eyesight, each of them also carrying whatever contents now; whichever direction they’re all going hadn’t mattered in the slightest as far as their observer was concerned given the situation. Now, the oxygen became cold all throughout as both the lonely figure and steely box floating throughout aimlessly in the dark: the loudmouth from earlier shivered and rattled as the exhalations had become more solidified in color and concentration already; the surface area abaft remained unchanged so to speak and even then, it was only a matter of time for its own carrier.

In the meantime, the wayfarer in midnight placed a right hand up to the ear and found a round surface, turning to and fro; soon enough, one of the fingers from the very same appendage pressed on gently and was now hearing some brief ringing: it didn’t take long until another voice had garbled straightaway into the drum already, “hello…?”

“Dalton, come in: are you there…?” the lonely figure hissed about into the open air, even though there’s no one in sight to provide comfort, “answer me…!”

“Snake, is that you…?” the titular talker had answered the corporeal speaker in midnight almost instantaneously.

It didn’t take long for the eponymous individual to reply, “Dalton, can you hear me…? You’re not going to believe this: I’d been pushed into what appears to be a little wormhole created somewhere on Earth of all places; I know it sounds crazy but I’d been able to stay alive long enough to let you know about this discovery…! Even now, I’m in shock as to how little air exist in what appears to space alone; not only that, I still trying to process all of this information for myself as of this moment: just recently, a bunch of boxes were heading off into the same direction as I was not to long ago before one of them pushed me out of the way. Do you suppose it’s even possible that there are other wormholes on the planet’s surface or above; as a matter of fact, could they ever even be created on Earth by any and all means so to speak of: if that magic wand of hers could merge with some fragmented technology, then what’s to say it won’t happen again…?”

“Magic wand… what the Hell are you even talking about, Snake: what does magic have anything to do with all of this nonsense?!” a frustrated tenor escaped into the midnight traveler’s ear, cutting throughout the static mesh the latter was currently listening to, “you just said something about a wormhole just now: what exactly are you talking about; where are you by the way?!”

“Let’s just say I’m out of this world for the lack of a better term: earlier today, I’d found myself battling a tank hiding out in Alaska before we’d found ourselves in some suburban backyard further away from here; not only that, I wasn’t alone once the travel arrangements were made…” Snake said slowly as some coldness started to take ahold of himself surely enough so to speak of.

It didn’t take much for Dalton to sigh at once before replying to the midnight traveler all the same, “besides the fact that I’m listening to what appears to be a major hoax in the making, what kind of tank was it: American, Canadian, Soviet…?”

“Neither; to be honest, I couldn’t tell if it was manufactured in North America, but it definitely wasn’t Russian, that’s for sure…” Snake had answered while his body and the box abaft himself were now heading towards another ethereal coil nearest to him now, “it’s highly unlikely that the war games were up and running, let alone so far out into the wilderness I was residing in. No one had ever dared to say that this land of opportunity was going to be easy: even before my arrival, I’ve seen horrors that would make a common soldier detest war forevermore, even without WWII; after all, the Cold War was far from a burning memory, especially for the likes of me overall…”

Before the receptive tenor could chime in, the midnight traveler found himself entering the edges of a similar thoroughfare now: on the surface, or lack thereof, the latter could see nothing much different between this one and the primordial so to speak of; however, there was a newfound yearning that was coming to terms with the newfound discovery, especially considering all this.

“Snake, are you alright: if so, then please respond; Snake… Snake… SNAKE?!” Dalton soon interceded but to no avail as the connection betwixt himself and the aforementioned caller was suddenly severed.

On the original end, the midnight traveler was being besieged by a line of metal contraptions traveling at higher velocities than the large item he was riding upon not too long ago. Though angular to a fault, there were plenty of curves to go around, especially considering their varieties of shape and coloration; most of the materials composed were diverse as is. Having said it, there were very few signs of wear and tear all throughout the very machines alone present and accounted for, having signified their overall singular usages so to speak. Illuminating the path of most persistence from the back were but large tailpipes expelling short flames, ready to unleash the rainbow at a certain layout, most of which were lonely. Their looking glasses were being hampered by the fatal inertia yet had remained unharmed all due to their tempered surface area, even with all of them on the very same fast track.

Speaking of which, Snake could see the conveyances passing him by without a second’s worth of thought to spare in the slightest: most of which had already done so almost instantaneously, with or without a turn in avoiding the lone prism he was still residing; others had started to slow down in anticipation, wary of the object alone but not of him due to being abaft, not that it’d mattered. In a matter of seconds, one of the metal contraptions was able to slip by underneath the midnight traveler at a reduced speed alone: it was of a lighter shade of azure coating with a rather triangular base as white–hot plasma shot out from all its several cylinders; not only that, he was able to notice a silhouette within the glassy confines upfront of it all down from the tip already. As Snake alone was feeling his heart skipping a beat or two, he’d noticed the machine hovering closer to his position altogether: the very shadow underneath him and the crystalline shell alone started to take shape in a matter of seconds, closing the big gap; soon enough, it wasn’t long until his eyes began to get a better glimpse of the situation at hand, in spite of the suspicions recently.

When the thin spacial layer was slowly unveiled before the midnight traveler’s sapphire orbs, he couldn’t believe what he’d seen: within the conveyance in particular was its pilot, wearing but a scarlet helmet with a goldenrod avian affixed upon its black visor; it didn’t take much for the latter to call out to the former about immediately with a wave of a thick gloved hand, “get in…!”

“Who is this man and what is he doing all of the sudden; why is he trying to save me if I don’t even know what’s going on…?” Snake had cerebrated, wary of the driver approaching him all the same but steely reminded of the recent brushstroke from earlier, “answer me, are you friend or foe?!”

“Friend; in…!” were all the pilot could say.

It didn’t take much whatsoever for the midnight wayfarer to travel on downward nearby the solo driver’s pole position anyway: given the flat surface the former was resting on, a shift in body weight was rather more or less necessary for much safer travel; in any case, a change of place took suit as the naked eyes were closer to the latter, no doubt due to a more prostrate perception. Only then did Snake crawl towards the very contraption and its pilot carefully as the former had remained aware of the environs; after all, there was absolutely no telling what was going to happen next as far as the two were concerned in this moment of time: even though those recent experiences firsthand were brief, that isn’t to say that the latter would be immune in any form. To put this mildly, the midnight traveler was in no mood to be right back out in the sheer cold as described to his receptive tenor: the past memories of all the boxes traveling in the same previous pathway as he was turned all that wonder into only weariness; additionally, his respirations were barely recovering from the thin crisp oxygen present outside of it all from that very perspective. At the very least, hitching a ride from the solo driver meant no longer needing to stay on the very object from not too long ago; considering what had happened to Snake recently, there was no need whatsoever to go and take any more chances out alone: the former’s presence happened to be enough of a motivating factor into finding a way out of the latter’s current location overall.

Soon, the midnight traveler had taken a leap of fate away from the platinum prism and into the backseat of the pilot’s machine; afterwards, the glassy confines from before had sealed itself shut above the eyewitnesses almost instantaneously, shielding both: of themselves, the former was quick to ask the latter straightforwardly so to speak, “who are you…?”

“Like I had said before, I’m a friend: name’s Captain Falcon, at least it’s what everyone at home calls me; I’m an F–Zero racer…” answered the solo driver, both eyes still focusing deeply within off the beaten track in which they themselves had been found on, “you don’t look like you’re from around these parts, much less my hometown; what’s your name, sir…?”

“Call me Snake, though I don’t even know whether or not it’s my real name; if anything, then I’m just a copy of someone who came before: a real–life action–adventure all–American hero…” the titular traveler talked tensely as both he and Captain Falcon were currently staring into the off–white void afore them where many similar conveyances were driving towards straightaway.

Little did either of the men know, care, and/or understand, this was only the beginning as far as they were concerned; after all, so much happened in little time, words were incomprehensible.

Light in and of itself was capable of traveling to and from anywhere throughout the whole wide world rather almost instantaneously; in addition, it also was accompanied by the warmth as well since it was the only way of how it’d worked out for all the aspects making up the very reality interchangeably. At the very least, its absolute presence alone had served to provide a sense of identity for all the corporeal dimensions; after all, the fact it can be seen by all of its lifeforms in general was good enough to serve as a provider for every single environment hither and yonder the entire realm so to be speaking of. Now, it’d seemed just about anything and everything could be discovered almost immediately, irregardless of whatever importance and/or lack thereof, all thanks to a wholesome slew of colors painting them all in many different hues and shades crying out with life in every single emotion known of so far. Given the very situation at hand, it was best to assume, for the most part, today had already just begun for many of them up and running about on all parts within the sphere of influence alone, already rotating upon its own axis at one set speed whilst revolving around another distant star at a different other.

If there was one thing that proved to be noticeable for many of its inhabitants already though, then it’d be that many of them were now on the lighter side as of this particular moment in time. Daylight was burning bright as a fluorescent lightbulb as the scenery below it was being bathed in its glow, providing only warmth and guidance in their entirety from high above into the sky. Within a large dream drop distance was but a mere civilization already defined in such various materials whatsoever, most of them being the ones surpassing the likes of even three little pigs. The calm gentle breeze was found to be surfing across the grassy knolls, the brilliant green surrounding it all on a solid lower plane of existence even with concrete roads laid side–by–side. In the background, there had rested a valley and ridge of mountains, raging with growth and erosion in the process of their trying times as the sun had hovered over them at the event horizon. The location bustled with utter abundance of people from various demographics: age, gender, finances, and social standing being nothing short from the standardized metallurgy of life itself.

Out of the many buildings in question, there was one which had stood proud and tall out amongst the rest: an enormous castle in dire need of some introduction. Though like a tree, it’d possessed the crystalline clash of moody blues and purple haze solidified, sturdy and strong to support itself along its contents with heat. The entrance therein was so symmetrical to a fault many potential onlookers taking a glance became aware of its branches, the support springing upwardly. Of the very castle’s structure thereof, the midpoint was a goldenrod balcony, made from the same materials found on the roof as well as the very doorway. Hung far off from the ground were a series of beads: half of which latched onto another longer veranda; the other side was far from level, if not less so as is. Numerous windowsills were carved into there, each much smaller than the openings provided by the flat platforms pointing adjacently by themselves no less. Standing atop it all was a big crystal star with more points than the similarly shaped pink polygram slathered across the violet banner hanging overhead.

Amongst the many pedestrians were but a mere trio whom were not at all alike in fair dignity at first glance and with good reason: considering the many significant differences all of them have, it’d be more than enough cause for sounding the alarm so to speak of; however, seeing that nobody was threatened by any of the three in question, not even they’d care in the very slightest. The first individual was a purple dragon with green scales matching both eyes, short and down to earth despite possessing wings; the next, a big red ginger pony sharing the primordial’s orbs with freckles so close to them both, happened to be standing nearby; the last of these was not like the others, utterly elongated and serpentine despite having an anatomy from about a dozen lifeforms.

Of the triumvirate standing up mere meters away from the castle entryway, the petit pedestrian happened to be the first to speak, “I can’t believe that a lot has changed in one month alone: first I find out about Smolder’s brother, Garble; then, Starlight becomes the school counselor; and, now I learn of Scootaloo’s family. Why didn’t I even bother to pay attention to all of this prior?”

“It basically sounds like t’ me ya had a rough patch to deal with ever since they’d announced the imminent retirement, Spike…” the middlemost subject replied deeply, putting the upper left hoof closer to the stairwell afore themselves in only mere seconds, “everyone gets one in their own lives; Ah know that Ah have: ya wouldn’t even dare t’ believe mah very first one so t’ speak…”

“Not me…!” exclaimed the far–right listener, happy as a bird on the first day of springtime.

It didn’t even take much for Spike to snigger slightly, “said the master of misrule ironically…”

“At least I’m not some shameless ghostwriter peddling derivative mind–numbing garbage disguised as a thesis statement!” the serpentine pedestrian thrummed as the yellowy talons snapped along to the response almost instantaneously, opening a door, “anyways, I could go for another round of Ogres and Oubliettes: I have a feeling the next adventure is awaiting us all…”

“Eeyup…!” the ginger stallion chimed back in, anticipatory to a fault in his own stable mind.

As soon as the purple dragon followed along, so too did their amalgamated peer immediately; soon, they were all greeted with the open space betwixt predominately equilangular ceilings and an enormous burgundy carpeting held into place by smooth pillars: in between each of them were emerald splashed windows, transparent enough to not only see the light but welcome it too. Speaking of which, the trio were greeted instantly by large shining lanterns held in place by bits of string far above themselves: all of them were flameless to a fault, their luminosity bright enough to provide safe passage from the very outside world already; out of the five types of colorations, the white was the most purest enough to do the job to their utmost as the rest no less. Here ahead of them happened to be another stairway, this time much larger and less glamorous than the entrance abaft them: the only other significant difference between the two was how it’d been split right down in the very middle with symmetry; adjacent to the flat square was a golden trimmed banner filled with shades of purple, accented by a few light asterisks and a blank book.

Spike soon took the lead as he’d begun to make a sudden left turn down the nearby hallway with a sigh, “now that I think about it, have any you ever got any strange dreams lately: I know for a fact that all of us in Ponyville took care of the Tantabus a few years back but this doesn’t feel like the work of it at all; what was the most poignant detail either of you could ever recall…?”

“Not since Luna came over, that’s for sure: at the very least, I can take comfort in the fact that it’ll never happening in real life…” the serpentine tenant answered confidently while hovering above the same terra firma the rest were walking upon all the same, “besides, I wasn’t even aware of this creature’s presence or its connection to her; it almost reminds me of Smooze…”

“It’s probably nothing so to speak, Discord: at least it’s no reason t’ be ashamed of it all; Ah just can’t wrap mah head around the kind of company Ah would end up finding with Applejack…” the crimson quadruped conversed as they’d found a line of doors on both sides with little to no light but made with the same material either way, each shining about freely so to speak of as is.

The purple dragon fluted about as he was nearing another entranceway at the other end no less, “now that you’d mentioned it, I’d remember that she’d been taking her sister Apple Bloom out for swim class lately in their free time; apparently, she’d said there had been some notes sent away to one of the nurses at Ponyville General Hospital recently, but nothing too serious…”

“Oh, Nurse Sweetheart…?” the ginger stallion had interceded, catching both Spike and their colleague off–guard slightly as the former started falling behind them at once, “yeah, Ah think it’s because of the nightmare she had involving a gym class gone wrong sometime ago; Ah will spare ya both the details but it wasn’t pretty t’ sum it all up so t’ speak, guys…”

“That may as well be exactly what I’d been talking about; although, since we’re on the subject, how is she, Big Mac: anything out of the ordinary at Sweet Apple Acres since the harvest…?” the purple dragon questioned the eponymous equine with little hesitation whatsoever, prompting the latter to speed it back up again, albeit slightly as far as the former was currently concerned.

Despite the suddenness of it all, the ginger stallion calmly answered, “she’s been doing fine as usually but Ah am concerned about Granny Smith: she’d said she’s been having dreams about mah parents, Bright and Buttercup, recently; apparently, she’d recalled of them going on some honeymoon out in Iori all of the sudden but something had went wrong in a matter of seconds…”

“And they call it the land of love; that Wolfgang is nothing but a thief and a liar: he hadn’t even brushed up on history classes…” Discord grumbled jubilantly as Spike made it to the end of narrow pathway, opening both of the doors before themselves speedily, “last time I’d visited them, they were doing more than just slamming rocks and making vowel sounds; not ridiculous.”

Upon doing so, they were all greeted by the centerpiece of resistance, so circular to a fault but otherwise well–rounded as is: afore the purple dragon was a crystalline tableset with a sextet of matching thrones in a harmonic convergence already in place; above them was a predominately ligneous chandelier with similar strings of luminous beads, more organic than the frames therein.

“Anyways, do ya still remember where we’d left off, Spike: Ah haven’t been able t’ stay focused since last year so t’ speak of; there must be a new campaign in the making, am Ah wrong…?” Big Mac had asked the aforementioned tenant whom had now safely scurried off towards another doorway in an instant so to speak of, almost apathetic regarding the latter’s newly formed travel.

Before leaving both the ginger stallion and their serpentine friend right to their own devices, the purple dragon had answered, “who wouldn’t…? Word on the street is they’re already planning a backwards compatible update to the classic game; still, I don’t see any purpose purchasing it in the near future, considering what’s going to happen in several fortnights from today anyway…”

“Me neither… Ah still have t’ make up for lost time with the harvest weeks ago: apparently, they had me believing Ah was it…” Big Mac said in turn while taking his seat upon one of the thrones, a stormcloud with a primary color themed thunderbolt under, “the Great Seedling of all things; Ah was too tired t’ even focus on the task at hoof: so much for the revised scheduling…”

“The Great Seedling; I haven’t even heard of such a preposterous thing, much less a cryptid: even if it were real, then there would be no way it be caught, especially by little filly like her…” Discord commented as he’d done the same, residing upon one now studded with but a trio of diamonds no less; needless to say, it was enough to catch a dirty look but nothing more than that.

Although the ginger stallion was calm on the outside, he couldn’t resist thinking about the subject at hand while speaking, “Ah agree and Applejack wasn’t the only one whom had just believed in such a thing: Ah was out there in the field looking for the thing when Ah was little colt; that was then, this is now – no need for a cash cow, a shadow of what it had used t’ be…”

“Pardon me for the intrusion but it’d almost sounded like you were about to burst into song like Fluttershy and her friends do…” the serpentine lounger commented instantaneously, catching Big Mac off–guard as the former’s ears had flopped about briefly, “come to think of it, where have you heard those lyrics; they almost sound familiar: what’s the name of the song anyway?”

“Sorry, Ah had been reading some of these graphic novels that Fluttershy had acquired a few years ago; apparently, this would explain all the drawings she’d made on Nightmare Night…” the ginger stallion answered freely as his glowing green eyes surveilled the many windowsills above themselves, each devoid of deviations from the very norms and normalities therein as is.

A long golden silence awash over Big Mac and Discord all the same, restoring the ambiance which dominated the outside world all three of them were from earlier ago until the latter said, “Nightmare Night, so that’s what you ponies have been calling it since then: I wonder what kind of holidays did they have when these prissy princesses turnt me to stone ever since that day…”

“Hey, guys, you’re not gonna believe what I had found: I was just looking for the game but I’d ended up with so much more…” a familiar tenor cut back into the fray, preventing the ginger stallion from responding: it was none other than Spike himself, “there seems to be some gadgets and stuff right where it’s supposed to be: they look like some games from the local arcade…”

“What games; I didn’t expect Twily to be a games horse of all ponies, let alone hold onto them so to speak: either way, did somepony from there gave them to you or something like that…?” the serpentine listener asked as his jaundiced rubies bore witness to the purple dragon returning with a true blue wagon of small devices and cases resting beneath a much larger cardboard box.

It didn’t take much for Spike to answer as Big Mac and Discord both set their gazes onto the contents in question instantly, “not at all: now that you’d mention it, it kind of reminds of that Power Ponies comic we’d been sucked into since that Summer Sun Celebration years ago…”

A similar environment was found to be basking underneath the gilded firmament, thanks to the sun resting on the event horizon: the materials found to be making up the area of influence were more solid from top to bottom, especially at the expense of trees; not only that, although there were horses spotted, they were unlike the ginger stallion – darker, simpler, and pulling carriages. In addition, there had seemed to be people much like Snake and Captain Falcon in any and all the aspects, known and unknown; however, their fashions were far more elaborate and much looser around their integuments, so much one could differentiate as is: while there were plenty of men hither and yon, the women were walking about too, all with various materials for modesty.

One person in particular had stood out and about amongst the rest: though predominately dressed in green, there were some other shades and hues from the fabrics which had failed to match their wearer’s irises. The tresses were black as the timeless and timely nights were spiked up in all directions, despite being all kept short; it was all shiny enough to match both two belts and undershirt found upon the skin at once. To keep up with a theme the denizen was going with, an ensemble of brown gloves and tassets were also discovered in the meantime, pelted much like the pants and mantle keeping the cold air at bay no less. Of course, there was also some metal slathered about its wearer instantaneously: a breastplate, several chains all throughout the limbs, and toecaps of leather boots; as solid as they were, they didn’t restrict.

It was at this moment in time the denizen in green was walking along the rocky road with a straight–laced demeanor anyway: on the surface, the bright visage was calm and ready to drop bomb, remembering each and every detail in advance so to speak of; however, hostility was at an all–time low, a mutual feeling between the individual and the rest of society in the meantime.

“It’s been at least a month since that certain Witch had been dealt with; in all fairness, I wish I hadn’t seen what he’d done here…” the ruminations took formation, safely away from big pitchers and catchers alike whilst on a stroll throughout the community, “even though that crystal had been dealt with, I seem to be having worser nightmares than the one before the big trial. Come to think of it, apparently the first one I had since the Queen had returned was how I’d want their heads to rolls as they should; that Trash and his daughter have caused me nothing but problems ever since I’d arrived in this world, all due to this strange being: ever since the first wave, all I could do was punch enemies into dust and restore anything and anyone but myself. Even though I admit it’s a pretty cool power, at the same time, it has been more than enough to make me some enemies anyway: I’d never even imagined how far the institutions were willing to go just to have me wiped off the face of the earth so to speak of; not only that, I didn’t even believe they’d go so far as to get rid the Crown just because of what they’d been doing before. Perhaps a nice walk to the blacksmith would help me clear my mind off of those things, at least for the time being until then: not only it’d convince me to keep helping Melromarc and the rest of the world safe, it’d give me something to focus on therein; the timer may have been frozen but I can’t let myself go lazy or else the world will be endangered again and we’d barely recovered. Of all the stupid things these Cardinal Stooges have done, this one made Larry, Moe, and Curly Joe more suitable to their tasks: months ago, I would’ve been fine with letting them all rot for this had it not been for that promise, especially Motoyasu; he had more than plenty of chances to grow some brainstem but Witch was so persuasive even after she’d been disowned altogether. Preparations should be in order all the same, including the safe recovery of the other heroes, that’s for sure if I do say so: seeing Ren and Itsuki this way has made me feel more pity than I had to spare, all thanks to that wretched excuse of a woman; if it weren’t for my status, then rotting in prison would be the least of my worries, especially given how it’d all started out here. Soon, all of this will be a burning memory for the lack of a better term, especially now that she’s gone for good all the very same: she’d been nothing more than a bane on this country more than she was to me ever since and now here’s but only just desserts; despite this, I feel sorry for her father anyway, even though he’d blamed me for everything underneath the kingdom’s sunlight.”

“Hey, Naofumi…” a stray voice had called out to the lone pedestrian almost instantaneously, breaking the latter’s train of thought.

It didn’t take much for the titular traveler to spot the origin of said greeting altogether already: nearby was a slightly taller man waving briefly as a signal to the former in question to witness. Unlike the denizen in green, the greeter was lacking in tresses onto his very head so to speak of; nevertheless, a short pointed beard was found, brown as the latter’s waist bag over the apron. Like Naofumi, the tall man also had worn gloves, except they were jet–black like the former’s hair, matching the latter’s baggy pants as they were lacking in pelts all the very same no less. Additionally, the greeter’s off–white undershirt had been latched onto his bright muscular body, also riddled with the scars of yesterday as the midnight traveler, but much older as the gray eyes.

The tall man was standing against a stony house with a green roof, his big boots supporting their wearer already as the denizen in green spoke to the former almost immediately, “Elhart, hello; how was your day…?”

“Same–old, same–old: at least that’s how a blacksmith’s life should be; still, seems the firstborn Whore’s changed spite her end…” the eponymous greeter answered Naofumi rather instantly, smiling big for the latter to see plain and clearly so to speak of as is, “I had to start over from scratch since some of the weapons were destroyed either during or after the uprising no less…”

“Not a big surprise, the Queen had to make sure no traces of their presence could ever be found; no telling what would’ve happened if Witch had ever succeeded in getting what she’d wanted…” the denizen in green had said as he’d presented the tall man an enormous pouch from underneath the former’s cloak gently.

This made Elhart raised a brow in the process as he’d replied to Naofumi, “I agree and from the looks of it, she wouldn’t have stopped at taking over the kingdom after getting rid of her own family: Siltvelt and Shieldfreeden wouldn’t be the only one going to war against Melromarc and I highly doubt the bond between this land and Faubley. It seems apparently that fighting and more fighting is all that the two countries have been good at before Trash was on the throne: they’re like water and oil, they don’t mix, no matter how high of a temperature you set them in upfront to watch it all no less…”

“That’s for damn sure, old man: speaking of which, I think he’s been unable to eat or sleep since his firstborn had been sent away…” the denizen in green had said as he’d begun to give this round and flexible container over to the tall man anyway so to speak of, “besides, here’s the money for shields I’d copied off earlier ago; there should be more along the way in the future…”

“I’m sorry but I can’t take your money anyway: you’re doing more than well enough as it is; besides, I still feel bad about the second time we’d met…” Elhart protested almost immediately, catching Naofumi off–guard already with a but slight frown upon the jaded visage for the former to see.

The denizen in green still pressed on all the same, “understood, but I insist all the same; after all, I’d almost came close to dying in the first battle against the Three Cardinal Heroes heretics if it weren’t for her: having to see Trash and Whore lose their heads was one thing but seeing double was more than enough…”

“Seeing double: you’re not making any sense, kid; just what are you talking about…?” Elhart asked Naofumi whom was looking away briefly before looking the former in the eyes again, “it seems to me you must be coming down with something already; you want to find a doctor now…?”

“Not at all, the Queen’s royal medics have been taking care of me since then: I’d seen this as the first step she has taken to make up for all the shit her husband and their firstborn daughter did…” the denizen in green said as he’d started walking past the tall man and into the building the latter was resting against altogether much prior ago.

In doing so, Naofumi was confronted by a sight in which to behold for those unlike himself and Elhart instantaneously overall: armors and weapons of all kinds, known and unknown, were up on display, found either against the wall or atop wooden desks; adjacent of the former was a predominately green carpet with a white edge matching the center and two golden rhombi inside.

It didn’t take long for the denizen in green to set the pouch onto the surface area of a small desk, text plastered in his view surrounding a gray curtain with a gentle clink as the tall man abaft said, “no point in changing your mind about all this, am I right: I was already aware of your promotion and status as one of the biggest landowners in all the land; why even dare bother…?”

“Insurance: it’s only a matter of time until I find my way out of this world, if I could, but only when the waves are all over…” Naofumi responded as he’d turnt to face Elhart almost immediately so to speak of, sighing as both men stared at the opening, “besides, I’d made a promise with a certain someone I had met on the way and without her, who know then what…?”

“You mean Queen Mirellia…?” the tall man peeped.

The denizen in green shook his head full of hair sideways and replied all the while no less, “not quite because it was a different Queen to be accurate; I’d met her after facing off against a Tyrant Dragon Rex recently; apparently, it was let loose from an obelisk after one of the noblemen in town had released it sometime after escaping from the Three Heroes’ party…”

“Tyrant Dragon Rex… you mean the Tyrant Dragon Rex… the Tyrant Dragon Rex from sometime in the distant past?!” Elhart stammered profusely, catching Naofumi off–guard as the former was sweating and panting about near chaotically, “I’d heard that all the past four Heroes had to seal it away together; what in the hell could possess someone to do something so crazy?!”

“Ask Idol Rabier: he’s the reason why; apparently, it wasn’t enough that he’d been bested, the fat fuck had to summon it just to get rid of me so bad, I wonder what could she’d done instead…” the denizen in green huffed as he’d walked toward the leftmost windowpane with but a stern look, clenching the right hand into a fist briefly.

The tall man was now shivering about to and fro as he was staring at the round container shown to him not too long ago before finding the time to regain his composure instantaneously and said, “you don’t even want to get me started and here I was thinking that she was going to be your girlfriend; well so much for that royal discount and a best foot forward if at all…”

“That’s funny, this wasn’t here before: the first time I’d fought in here, there was an hourglass; now, there’s just a sundial…” Naofumi said, confusing Elhart almost immediately as the latter started to walk towards the former slowly but surely here, “not only that, it seems like it’s on fire or something; could this be an aftereffect from when I’d traveled to Glass’ country earlier…”

“Sundial… Melromarc has them in and out of museums all around; where have you found this one: what’s all this being on fire all of the sudden and how could that ever even be possible…?” the tall man has exclaimed almost quietly as the denizen in green was now backing away from the glass surface and steel framing afore the latter already.

It didn’t take much for Naofumi’s right hand to revert back to an open palm as his eyes were treated to the monochrome stencil on the upper left corner so to speak as he’d thought clearly, “there’s no way that could be right: the waves came about because the Spirit Tortoise was initially sealed off by our predecessors; now, it seems that we’re dealing with a new threat…? The invasion plan was called off the second Witch was married off to the king of Faubley following her rebellion’s end; I’d even seen the crystal with them together, gruesome as it was, especially with what kind of man he was altogether no less: even though Trash is his brother, even Mirellia admitted to having memories of dreading that brother–in–law in her own youth. This must be some sort of joke, right: if anything, there wouldn’t any spies from Houou or Q’ten Lo trying to thwart Melromarc’s plans in advance all of the sudden like they’ve done before; besides, the latter’s already better off getting reeled in by Siltvelt since they have so many Demi–Humans and Beastmen compared to actual humans like us Heroes…!”

“Naofumi, is something the matter; what’s going on?!” Elhart cried as both eyes were treated to the sight of his aforementioned target now slowly becoming enveloped in particles of white, “tell me this isn’t one of those waves happening already… Naofumi, answer me… NAOFUMI…!”

“What the…?” was all that the denizen in green could ever say as he’d watched the skies above themselves become a bright shade of hot pink in a matter of seconds; before long, he was becoming engulfed in a cloud of a rather ethereal substances without warning, swirling about into a spiral for the tall man to bear witness almost instantaneously so to speak of.

Soon enough, Naofumi had disappeared without a trace whatsoever, no rhyme or reason if at all.

At long last, an open field was in full view, filled to the brim with blades which would’ve been called the green grass of home; however, it was devoid of a heart and the walls to surround it as there were but a mere abundance of organisms taking formation: the skies were littered with numerous bats in various sizes and colors whilst the ground was trampled by skeleton warriors. Of course, they weren’t alone as grounded whirlwinds of white began appearing all throughout the encroaching environment: each of them were lacking in variation on the surface compared to the lifeforms cluttering them all up without a care thereof; however, the moment they’d all begun to disintegrate, it was clear the contents in question weren’t as uniform as the veils from before. In what had seemed to be such a stunning surprise, the denizen in green was found within the winds of change in question as is: seeing this abundance of lifeforms, it was clear to the likes of him alone that conflict was rather imminent, his shield still glowing; despite the overwhelming odds, by and large, something within had sent a message that loneliness was to be short–lived

He was indeed with allies in a matter of seconds as more faces emerged from the very same whirlwinds he’d arrived inside: there was a brunette with red eyes, a blue–eyed blonde in white, and a blue haired girl with eyes and attire to match them no less; despite looking alike, they had their own differences to take note of, especially considering the fact the first wore ears overhead. In any case, the primordial was wearing a long dress with a tricolor palette compared to the rest, most of which darker than eyes: there were also some white textiles underneath it all, covering up the wearer’s forearms down from both of the shoulders as is; additionally, the brown found onto it all consisted of a leathery breastplate matching the thick gloves and long boots altogether.

Of course, they weren’t the only maidens whom had made an appearance onto the battlefield as two more also attended as well: much like the trio in question, they were alike to each other all the same, especially considering how tall they both were no less; having said it, they, too, had their own differences as far as Naofumi was concerned so to speak, especially with all that too. First of all, the woman was similar to the shieldbearer altogether due to having eyes and clothing dyed in a green, albeit with hair: though her tresses were long, they were thinner compared to the brunette in question, especially considering the blue bows found; much like the latter, the former was wearing some armor as well, except they were far more numerous around the upper regions. The second one shared the same eye color as the tertiary girl, except they were much brighter by comparison as far as he’d seen it: the former’s hair was thicker with the sight and smells of strawberry at the waistline, unbound compared to the rest altogether; a full set of armor was had covered much of its wearer’s body, moreso compared to females like the primordial in question.

Anyways, it wasn’t long until the maidens and the like were finding more males other than the likes of Naofumi all the same: as far as he could see all clearly, they were alike to him by virtue of appearance, especially considering their colorizations; as such, they were more different to each other and themselves, unlike the ones whom had first appeared alongside the eyewitness. The first of the men had been predominately dressed in black, matching their wearer’s tresses as they were accented with azure: much of his longcoat was white, just like the sword resting firmly within the owner’s right hand as it’d failed to touch the earth; additionally, both eyes were hollow but far from emptied as they were staring at the creatures afore themselves all the same. Secondment, the next man was a dirty blond like the middlemost girl earlier, mostly adorned in brownish gold matching eyes: whilst his left side had armor protecting his shoulder, breast, hipbone, and hand, the right had only consisted of a green cape; in any case, his left hand had held a steely longbow, quickly prepped to fire due to the opposing forces he’d stumbled upon. Thirdly of all, another blond man appeared, his hair held back into a ponytail with bangs hanging on the left side of his forehead; though he’d donned more armor compared to the rest of his peers, he fell short abaft of the pink tressed woman with all the red: another major attribute of great acknowledgment was his spear, longer than his cape but with a shiny sphere near the edge.

It didn’t take long for any of the maidens to responded to the shieldbearer nearby him, the one in white running fast towards him barefoot with a cry, “Master Naofumi…!”

“Filo, did you and the others ended getting caught up in the fog all of the sudden like I have…?” the titular traveler asked the young blonde immediately as she’d stopped short by a mere yard, “I had a feeling something like this was going to happen; come to think of it, are Raphtalia and Melty okay…?”

“Mm–hmm, we were honing our skills at the village together when we seen the skies turn pink: next thing we knew, something took us away like we’d found ourselves fighting the next Wave; you don’t even suppose it’s all due to the Spirit Tortoise because we all fought it earlier ago…?” the maiden in white had replied to the tallest man in green almost without hesitation in her voice.

Naofumi still paid attention to the slowly advancing horde all the same as he’d spoken softly, “most unlikely: without it, the waves wouldn’t have been able to keep going, at least before then; come to think of it, I don’t think it’s a wave at all, let alone one as far as I can remember – the Dragon’s Hourglass had stopped counting altogether, despite its defeat…”

“Master, should we engage all the same: I have a bad feeling about this anyway, don’t you, sir…?” the brunette asked as she and the tertiary girl regrouped fearlessly so to speak, also aware of the creatures as is, “it almost reminds me of the dream you had of them at their execution; are they enemies…?”

“They have to be, given our prior experiences together: zombies, honeybees, wolves, goblins, lizardmen, you name it; they’re nothing to us, not even the bats from before the Spirit Tortoise were a joke to us…” the man in green answered freely as his line of sight became clouded with letters, numbers, and symbols alike all the while, legible and otherwise coexist side–by–side.

The maiden in blue wasted no time in outstretching her hands, the air around them becoming moist and accumulative as she’d stated, “well, let’s not waste any more time: last time, I’d fought in a wave with you all, I’d almost been pulled down to my watery grave; this time, I can’t afford to take any more chances all the same…”

“Me neither: after what that Witch has done, we can’t afford to slack off now that we’re here, Melty; in any case, let’s go…!” Naofumi had replied as his right hand also produced an open palm, the overlaying shield glowing up afore its user’s very eyes, “Crazy Diamond, come on out…!”

“DORA…!” cried a life sized figure of a humanoid form appearing from within the item, flesh as pink as bubblegum armored in cobalt: unlike any of the witnesses afore, muscles were all out and about in broad daylight, in a state of dishabille but otherwise modest; in addition, there were cables joining the headgear’s back with the upper torso with spikes from shoulders and ankles.

As Crazy Diamond was hovering off the ground by a mere foot, both midnight orbs had been more closer to the skeletons here: although calm on the outside, thoughts were circling about as they were within the line of eyesight much like everyone else; at long last, the man in green had bellowed in a heartbeat no less, “change form, Spirit Tortoise Heart Blast…!”

It was at this point the humanoid figure gave off a glow shared by the armament from which had been summoned from altogether: the armor worn thereof became golden much like the blonds present and accounted for while its wearer’s flesh turned jaded as is; not only that, wings had appeared abaft of Naofumi as daggers were pointed at the opposition the former was facing off. Adding to this were a series of crosshairs appearing onto the skeletons’ dingy armor, each of them bearing a quartet of yellowy triangles too rounded off to have straight edges whatsoever; either way, the man in green could tell that Crazy Diamond was making preparations for what would come next, especially considering the abundance of eyewitnesses out and about with him. Naofumi couldn’t resist taking a breath even from where he was still standing so to speak of no less, all the oxygen exchanged: he couldn’t do much besides closing his eyes before reopening them in a matter of seconds, playing out the prognosis here; after all, considering what had happened to him, the conclusions, if any, were already drawn out since he’d been taken away.

“DORA…!” the humanoid figure exhaled before charging off into the advancing army almost instantaneously no less, a mouth open wide as both fists were making first contact with them; soon enough, there were holes being embedded into the enemies’ armor and the bones underneath them as they’d started to collapse, “DORARARARARARARARARARARARA…!”

“I’m still surprised that he’s the one whom was chosen to be a Cardinal Hero: all the power at his fingertips and Trash had to be a jerk to him; it’s no wonder why we have to clean the mess up…” said the armored woman as she’d started drawing her own sword out into the open air at once, an act which was being repeated by two of her younger peers in question.

In any case, it didn’t take much for the skeletons Crazy Diamond had punched to start exploding, figuratively and literally no less; even though there were some which were still standing up and at them, they weren’t immune to the aftereffects left behind as is: adding to the fact is a few of the winged hostiles were getting impaled by the fragments of bone and metal from underneath. Of course, there were still some hanger–ons whom were unwilling to be even deterred by the rather preemptive strike made up: the bats in question were nevertheless swooping in as if they were birds of prey, albeit without a fantabulous emancipation herein; the man in green had still remained aware of their hypothetically destructive powers, both individually and collectively.

Despite everything, Naofumi wasn’t alone, something he can see clearly as everyone else, male and female, joined into the fray: the similar maiden also prepared her attack, even with the skin becoming moist with perspiration at the sight of the flying beasts; as she was whimpering about, she’d taken her first strike of her knives against one of them approaching dangerously, “FUE…!”

Sure enough, the counteroffensive was successful in the observer’s jaded eyes, incisions being made into an orange bat’s body: it’d screamed out a powerful frequency as blood had escaped from the newly made wounds by her ethereal blades all the same; still, it wasn’t down or out as far as she was concerned, especially considering how persistent the wingspan was being utilized. Either way, the emerald maiden held firm as a pair of blades had appeared within her left hand firmly as they were so to speak: they were nothing like the ones which had been embedded into the creature for the implements were clean as the wet whistles; anyways, she was more than ready to ensure that it was going to be defeated, especially considering how much her peer did. As the jaded orbs had locked onto the orange bat singled out by the ordeal in question, her body became still like a crystal lake: a stock exchange of substances took place as she’d maintained focus on her target without bias or fear like the times before as is; afterwards, the new projectiles were launched into its general direction, faster than the initial attack, but otherwise less precise.

“DORA…!” roared the same humanoid figure from before as it’d still confronted the remaining opposition as the others have; however, it was besieged by the latter’s reinforcements arriving abaft of the remaining creatures the former had been fighting: giant rats and life–sized zombies were found to be crawling out of the ground underneath instantly, “DORARARARARARA…!”

“Dammit, there’s too many of them: there’s no way it’d be the work of some beast like the Spirit Tortoise; still, we have to keep fighting them off or all of Melromarc will be going to pieces…!” panted Naofumi as Crazy Diamond fell back into his shield before it’d suddenly reverted to the same simplistic shape as it were not too long ago so to speak of.

The man in green noticed how much effort was being made in repelling the invasion they were all confronted with immediately: his peers had their own weapons cast against them directly whilst avoiding a closer range as the enemy’s numbers shrunken afore; as for the maidens, the aura from them was converted into energy to be used as well all the same, much to their relief.

Before long, Naofumi saw some more whirlwinds appear behind them, eyes widened with shock but otherwise filled with caution: from what had happened, he couldn’t resist thinking about who and/or what would be unveiled underneath the fragile layers as is; after all, if it’d been something which sent him off, then what was to be expected from him and other like–minded individuals? Eventually, the man in green found numerous people emerge from there already, more pleasant to the eyes by comparison herein: most of them were basically human to a fault, especially considering how many of which were bearing the same skin coloration; others were out of this world, by and large, especially considering the possibility of being far from native to the terrain.

Out of the newcomers in question, Naofumi had noticed a trio of which in the midst so to speak: there was a diminutively bearded purple dragon in green holding a predominately wooden staff, a stubbly red unicorn in jet–black armor armed with a sword and shield held by an orange aura, and a serpentine archer with tresses blond like a set of parsnips making up the left hand already.

Discord couldn’t resist having something to say about all of this, “wasn’t enough I had to suffer: now, it seems they’ve to come along…!”