Equestria Girls: Digital Destiny (Redux)

Chapters

Chapter 2: A "Fresh" Start
Chapter 3: Glimpses of the Past
Chapter 1: Broken Computers and Mysterious Eggs

Chapter 2: A "Fresh" Start

Lightning flashed and lit up the sky while thunder cracked like a whip in the distance. The downpour that had been drenching Canterlot was now slowly moving away, leaving the city and surrounding neighborhoods sopping wet, but otherwise unharmed.

A broken computer monitor with a crack in its screen flickered to life within the Canterlot City junkyard, illuminating the muddy ground in front of it. Its screen was covered in static, like that of a broken television, and a tall, menacing figure kept reappearing each time the monitor flicked on and off. Each time the figure appeared, it grew a little bit closer to the screen. It eventually grew so close that its chest soon took up the entirety of the monitor.

The figure raised its hands the moment it was close enough to touch the opposite side of the screen. It reached forward and touched the glass, somehow pushing through it as if it were a digital effect in a 3-D movie.

The monitor's screen began to glow like a spotlight had been switched on inside the computer. Two massive claws attached to two spindly arms reached out of the monitor like an open window and grasped at the dirt in front of the device. The arms began to pull the rest of its body out. The figure—now a tall, extremely thin humanoid creature—slid out of the computer like a snake leaving its burrow. It got to its knees the moment it had fully exited the computer and soon stood to its full height. It towered over the tall mesh fences that formed the perimeter of the junkyard, allowing it to easily survey a great deal of the land surrounding it.

The creature was easily thirteen feet tall with a pair of deep crimson eyes that scanned its surroundings like the searchlights of a prison tower. It took notice of the piles of garbage and large industrial machines that surrounded it. It immediately knew where the portal had dropped it off.

"A junkyard..." the creature sounded none too pleased with its current location. It raised one of its claws and placed it over its face. It hated the smell of decomposing matter, inanimate or otherwise. It only liked the smell when a kill was fresh and decomposition had only just begun.

It took a moment to observe its current location even further. This was not the destination it was told would be its arrival point. A mistake must have been made while trying to punch a hole between the Digital World and the world of the humons. It sighed. It was understandable. Traversal between the real and Digital World had not been attempted since the war a thousand years ago, so it was only fair to assume a few errors were bound to occur.

The creature turned its attention back towards the mesh fence in front of it. Over the fence it could see a small city in the distance, with a larger more suburban settlement spanning out widely just off to its left side.

A sinister look spread across the creature’s face. The Royal Knights were known far and wide for their stances on peace and fellowship. They believed all digimon were stronger when they lived together in harmony. They believed it was through peace that true bonds of friendship could be forged and through these bonds digimon would grow stronger by learning to fight for others rather than just themselves.

If the fledgling knight was going to be anywhere, he most certainly would be in a settlement. The creature snickered to itself darkly. It began to imagine the humons trying to live up to the Royal Knights’ beliefs. Them standing in its way as it came to collect the Royal Knight who now was trapped in this world with no other digimon around to save him. A smile spread across its face as it imagined what the humons screams would sound like as it casually slayed them for getting in its way.

Two leathery wings soon stretched out from both sides of its back. It slowly began to flap them before taking to the air. A bright flash of lighting suddenly covered the sky, masking the creature as it turned itself in midair and began soaring towards the city. A crack of thunder came soon after, easily drowning out its wicked and lengthy laughter.

******

Sunset jolted upwards in her bed after witnessing the strange nightmare. She sat up completely and placed a hand to her forehead. She wasn’t quite sure what caused her to dream up what she had seen. A gangly-looking demon appearing in the city junkyard like the girl from The Ring? Maybe one of the movies she watched with Flash had something to do with it? But they were all unbelievably bad, so she sincerely doubted that was the case. Maybe it was something in the pizza? Or perhaps she just ate too much of it?

Her hand started to sink towards her throat as she lost herself in thought. It eventually touched a piece of jewelry she was wearing around her neck. Sunset looked down and soon realized that she was still wearing her geode. It felt warm to the touch, telling her that it had recently been used.

Sunset pursed her lips and began to lose herself in thought again. “Was I picking up someone else’s dreams in my sleep?” She whispered to herself. “And if so, then who’s?”

Too curious to sleep at this point, Sunset got up from her bed and walked towards the railing of her loft. She lowered her body down behind the railing in order to hide her modesty, just in case Flash happened to be up as well. Thankfully, he wasn’t. Flash was sound asleep on her couch wearing only his t-shirt and jeans with his shoes and socks tossed haphazardly on the floor alongside his hoodie. He clearly wasn’t dreaming, so she decided to check him off her list as a suspect.

She turned around to look at the clock on her bedside table. It read: 4:30 AM. She groaned and cupped her face in her hands. It was way too early for anyone in their right mind to be up, especially on a Saturday. She walked over to her bed and flopped down on her mattress.

She knew she wasn't gonna be able to get back to sleep now, her brain was already too overloaded with questions to even consider rest. Now she was going to be pissed off and cranky later in the day and essentially be a burden on everybody else she’d be forced to talk to.

She absentmindedly kicked her feet while she continued to sulk in her bed. Eventually one of her feet swung in an odd direction and ended up hitting something sharp that was lying on her floor. She squealed in pain, but managed to clamp her hand over her mouth before that squeal could be heard. She immediately sat up and lifted her foot onto the bed. She examined it until she found what looked to be a small piece of shrapnel stuck between her first and second toes.

She pulled the shard out of her foot with little, making much less noise this time. The wound it left behind was barely big enough to cause any bleeding. She examined the shrapnel further and discovered it wasn’t a discarded piece of metal at all, but something far more fragile. The shard broke to pieces in her hand. She brought the pieces up closer to look at them. They were purple in color and felt oddly familiar, kind of like... her eyes widened… kind of like an eggshell.

Sunset dropped the pieces of eggshell to the ground and started to run for the railing again. She was stopped halfway however when she heard something press down on the springs of her bed. Feeling an immediate sense of foreboding, Sunset slowly turned around to inspect her bed, only to see something she could barely describe in her current state of mind staring back at her.

The thing blinked at her and she blinked back. A long silence was held between the two before Sunset was able to say anything, and the only thing that came to mind was, “what are you?” The thing replied by leaping off her bed and latching onto her face.

******

Flash was snoring softly on Sunset’s couch. His arm was lazily draped over his face and his body was oddly bent due to the size of the sofa. It was clearly not built to be used as a bed, at least not by someone of his size, but nevertheless he was able to make it work. It took him one whole hour to finally get himself to sleep, and even before then he was certain he was going to feel like crap in the morning. But he was willing to stick it out if it made Sunset happy. He didn’t want to snub her kindness after all, since she did offer to let him stay the night just so he could avoid having to walk home in the rain.

He probably would have been able to sleep a few more hours in this position, at least until the later hours of the morning, but unfortunately this was not meant to be as a muffled scream soon echoed throughout the apartment.

"MMMMMMMMMMMPPPHHH!!!!"

"Jeez!" Flash flew off the couch upon hearing the sudden cry. He landed on his stomach, his head was now throbbing after hitting the floor. He got to his knees and shook his head to clear his vision. He waited a moment to let his headache subside, then started to think about the voice he had just heard. The voice that screamed sounded like Sunset’s. His eyes shot open. The voice that screamed sounded like Sunset’s!

He shot to his feet and immediately ran to the stair to see if his friend was alright. “Sunset! Are you up there?! Is everything alright?”

The fiery haired girl’s response was to thrash about her loft out of eyeshot, her screams still muffled slightly due to some currently unseen cause. Flash backed up from the stairs in hopes of seeing what Sunset was doing over the railing. He could see her upper half. She was currently stumbling about, hitting every piece of furniture decorating her loft as she tried to pry some fuzzy purple thing that had been suction-cupped onto her face.

She soon lost her balance and backed herself right into the railing. Her feet left the floor and she soon found herself falling backwards over the top of the rail and towards the floor several feet below.

“Woah!” Flash sprung into action before he even thought to so. He lined himself up with where Sunset was going to land and held his arms out to catch her. She ended up landing on top of him however, leaving them both sprawled out on the floor like a pair of cheerleaders after a failed toss and catch routine.

They both groaned in pain as the thing leapt off Sunset’s face and shot off into the room to find somewhere else to hide.

******

Some time later, in another part of Canterlot, in a purple bedroom filled to the brim with books, beakers, and science projects, Twilight Sparkle was tucked away in her bed underneath her big, fluffy, astronomy-themed comforter (a blanket that depicted all the major constellations exactly as they’d appear in the night sky). Spike was peacefully curled up beside her and was enjoying the combined warmth of both the bed and his best friend's body.

The two had been enjoying their peaceful night's slumber, only for Twilight’s phone to suddenly ring and rouse them both from their pleasant dreams.

"Ugghh..." Twilight groaned loudly as she begrudgingly lifted herself off the bed. She reached for the smartphone on her bedside table and pulled it up close so she could read the time without her glasses. It was 6:00 in the morning and the caller ID said Sunset was on the line.

"Why's she calling me this early in the morning?" Twilight grabbed her glasses from the bedside table and shifted into a seated position on the side of her mattress.

A loud groan and the feeling of movement near her hip reminded her that Spike was still trying to sleep right next to her. “Twilight, please go back to bed.” Spike grumbled, keeping his eyes closed as he pressed himself tighter into a ball.

Twilight giggle. "I've got a call, you goof, and I’ve already looked at caller ID. It’d be rude to let it go to voicemail at this point." She brought the phone to her ear but refrained from pushing the accept call button on her screen. "And it's from Sunset, so it could be something important."

Begrudgingly, Spike lifted himself from the bed's tender embrace and began to stretch. "So answer it already." He said with a groan. "It's not like we're going to get any more sleep tonight anyways with your ringtone playing on repeat."

Twilight stifled a second giggle before pressing the button on her phone. She didn’t hear anyone immediately answer, so she decided to take point. "Hello? Sunset?"

"Twilight! Oh thank Celestia you picked up!" The girl on the other end of the line sounded frantic and winded. It made Twilight feel uneasy.

"Sunset, are you okay? You sound exhausted." Twilight asked out of concern.

"You could say that." Sunset admitted. "But that isn't important right now. Listen, I need you and the other girls to get over here as soon as possible."

Twilight hissed in annoyance and pinched the bridge of her nose in between her fingers. "Sunset, it's 6:00 in the morning on a Saturday. I'm sure whatever's going on can wait a couple more hours." She expressed in her groggy tone of voice. “I wanna go back to bed.”

Sunset's voice began to grow more frantic. "Twilight, don't hang up! You have to listen to me!"

"We’ll speak again later, Sunset. Right now, I need to get some more sleep. I suggest you do the same." Twilight moved her finger to push the end call button on her touch screen. “Good night.”

"Twilight wait!" Twilight paused upon hearing the severity in Sunset's voice. "Twilight… the egg hatched."

Twilight's eyes widened in shock. She practically yelled into her phone, "what?! You actually hatched the dragon egg?!"

Spike, upon hearing this, stared up at his owner in confusion. "Dragon egg?" He muttered to himself concernedly.

"It wasn't on purpose, okay?!" Sunset exclaimed defensively. "Look... just get over here as soon as you can. We managed to corner the dragon under my fridge, but I don't know how long we’ll be able to keep him there."

Twilight pursed her lips, suddenly feeling quite curious after hearing Sunset’s choice of pronoun. She began to play with a strand of her hair as if listening to gossip. "Who's we?" She asked playfully.

"Twilight!" A growl came from the other end of the line that didn’t sound like Sunset. Twilight soon remembered that a baby dragon was currently loose in her friend’s apartment.

"Sorry, you're right.” Twilight apologized. "I’ll start making calls. We'll meet at your apartment as soon as we can."

"Thank you." The relief in Sunset’s voice could practically be felt through the phone, but it didn’t completely hide the anxiety still present in her voice.

Twilight soon heard a beeping come from her phone's speaker. Sunset had ended the call. Twilight immediately switched over to her contacts page and began flipping through the names in her list in order to find her friends. Her contacts were alphabetized, so Applejack’s name was the first she came across. Twilight leapt from her bed and began sneaking quietly out of her room and towards the foyer of her house. She whispered to herself as she pressed the call button, "I'd better ask Applejack if she can pick up the rest of the girls on her way here. We'll be able to get to Sunset's house much faster if we can all take the same car."

Spike jumped off the bed and ran after her. "Wait a minute, I'm coming with you!" He exclaimed. "There's no way I'm letting you girls face a dragon alone! Those things are wild ugly beasts! All the movies I’ve seen say so!"

Twilight didn’t reply. She was too distracted waiting for her phone to stop ringing.

A voice soon came over the speaker, making her release a breath she wasn’t even aware she was holding. “Twilight is that you?” Applejack questioned. Twilight didn’t know why she was feeling so relieved. She knew Applejack was normally awake at this hour. She supposed it was just the stress of the situation finally getting to her.

“Twilight, if you can hear me, say somethin’. It isn’t like you to call me this early in the mornin’.” Applejack spoke louder and more clearly, as if trying to speak to someone who was hard of hearing. Twilight shook her head, finally realizing how distracted she had become. She really needed to do a better job of keeping her mind in check. She was getting distracted far too easily.

“I’m sorry, Applejack. My mind seems to be all over the place lately.” Twilight explained.

“It’s no problem, sugarcube, Ah understand. Now what’s the problem that has you callin’ me at the crack o’ dawn?”

Twilight’s breath caught in her throat the second Applejack asked that question. She remembered that Applejack was the one who was most against their experiment with the geodes yesterday. She wasn’t sure how the farm girl would react when she told her the news.

Twilight paused and cleared her throat. She was afraid to make her friend angry, but she could see no other option than telling her the truth. Sunset needed their help after all, so the sooner they got to her apartment, the better.

“Applejack, I need you to grab your family's truck and start picking up the girls from their houses. The dragon egg we had left in Sunset’s care has hatched.”

She waited for a reply, but the line remained surprisingly silent.

She decided to continue, “I’ll give the other girls a quick call and let them know you're on your way. Sunset sounded frantic over the phone, so we need to get to her apartment as soon as possible. You think you can get to all our houses within thirty minutes? I’d like to give Sunset a rough estimate on how soon we’ll be able to arrive.”

Again she only received silence as a reply. Twilight was quickly growing more concerned. “Applejack? You there?”

A sigh came over the speaker. “Sugarcube, be honest with me… this is gonna be the start of another crazy adventure, ain’t it?”

Despite everything that had happened thus far that morning, Twilight couldn’t help but laugh at Applejack’s question. She answered with just as much levity, “Yes, Applejack. Yes, I think it is.”

*****

Back at Sunset’s apartment, Sunset and Flash were camping out in front of her fridge where a high-pitched snarling was coming out from underneath. The creature she had more or less deemed a dragon had been using the underside of her icebox as a hiding place even since the two of them had come out of their near commas following her fall from the loft.

Since then, they had been watching the creature nonstop for what felt like hours. Sunset didn’t even think to start calling her friends until after an hour and a half passed, just to make certain the creature didn’t try to zip off anywhere while she was distracted. Eventually, she did chance it of course, and was thankful to Flash for filling in for her completely while she was talking to Twilight. She also used this time to put on a pair of modest pajamas over her underwear in order to make the situation fair less awkward between them.

It had now been exactly forty five minutes since Sunset had made her call to Twilight, but she and the other girls had still not yet arrived. She began to wonder if they were taking their time getting dressed or cleaned instead of rushing over to help her. She had to admit, she could at least see Rarity doing that even in the midst of a crisis, but she was also annoyed with herself for thinking so lowly of a friend.

A sudden knocking came from Sunset's front door, pulling her away from her current train of thought.

She took in a few deep breaths and composed herself, "that must be the girls." Sunset said, turning away Flash. "Please watch the dragon and make sure it doesn't go anywhere."

Flash gave her a fake salute and replied. "Roger."

Sunset quickly made her way towards the front door and slowly opened it with all the nervous energy of a person trying to escape a sinking ship. Despite this, she greeted her friends with the calmest tone of voice she could manage, "I'm glad you girls make it here on su–oof!"

She was tackled to the floor by a girl in white tights and a pink skirt before she could finish.

"SUNSET ARE YOU HURT?! DID THE DRAGON ATTACK YOU?! DOES IT LOOK COOL?! WHAT DID YOU MEAN BY “WE” WHEN YOU WERE TALKING TO TWILIGHT ON THE PHONE?!! ANSWER MEEE!" Pinkie Pie shouted frantically as she shook her friend by the shoulders and bashed her back against the thankfully rug covered section of the floor.

The others rushed in behind Pinkie, and just like Sunset had surmised, they were all dressed in usual day clothes.

"Sunset, we came as soon as we could." Rainbow Dash proclaimed. She ran past Pinkie, who was still shaking Sunset in hopes of receiving answers to her many questions, and began searching every nook and cranny around the room as if looking for a lost personal item. “So where are you keeping Junior?”

Applejack and Rarity pulled Pinkie to her feet and off Sunset’s stomach, allowing the redhead to roll over and stare at Rainbow as she ran about the floor. “Junior?” She questioned.

“Yeah, Junior. As in, Rainbow Dash Junior. The baby dragon we’re all going to tame and raise and use to burn “you suck” messages into Crystal Prep’s lawn." Rainbow explained. "He’s hatched now in the human world, so that means we can’t possibly send him back to Equestria.”

Sunset placed her hand over her face and sighed. “Rainbow, I already told you, we can’t keep it. And why would you ever think that hatching it in the human world would prevent us from sending it back to Equestria?”

Well, it’s kind of like birds, right?” Rainbow Dash tried to explain. “If you touch an egg or baby bird the mother bird will completely abandon it because it smells different then the other baby birds the mother had. So since this dragon hatched here in our dimension, he’s got to have like a whole new dimension of smell to him. No mother dragon in Equestria is ever going to want him back now, so it’s probably best that we just keep him here and look after him since he clearly has nowhere else to go.”

To everyone’s surprise, Fluttershy was the one to argue with her. “Actually Rainbow, that theory was disproved a very long time ago. In reality, birds have relatively small and simple olfactory nerves that extremely limit their sense of smell. In fact, only a few types of birds have extraordinary olfaction, but this is due to specialized adaptations and as of yet no bird’s sense of smell is cued to any human scents. It’s also not correct to assume that dragons and birds would share the same characteristics, considering most dragons in fairy tales are considered to be more similar to reptiles than avians.”

Rainbow folded her arms and glared at Fluttershy, causing her to shrink back in fear. She turned her head away in huff, clearly disappointed that she had been called out on her ruse. “Yeah well, how would you know, Ms. Animal Expert? It’s not like you’ve ever met an actual dragon before.”

Applejack scratched the back of her head in confusion. “Doesn’t Princess Twilight regularly bring Spike over whenever she visits? He’s a dragon… well, technically.”

Rainbow shook her head violently as if throwing a tantrum. “No, no, no! That Spike doesn’t count! He’s a dog in this world so he only counts as a dragon if we meet him in Princess Twilight’s world.”

“But we did meet him, Dashie! Remember?” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, suddenly chiming in. “That time we all had to go into that magic sinkhole on that tropical island because our spring break cruise ship got caught in that magic storm?”

Rainbow Dash groaned and dragged her hands down the sides of her face. “Ugghh! Don’t remind me, Pinkie. I’m still apologizing to people for some of the shit I pulled while we were on that trip.”

Sunset got back to her feet. “Besides that, dragons in Equestria are largely intelligent creatures. They can talk, reason, and think on the same cognitive level as any human being, and they can recognize their own young just as easily, if not more so. To think that they rely on scent of all things to make that distinction is frankly insulting and quite possibly an extremely racist thing to say about their species.”

Rainbow threw her arms in the air in defeat. “Alright, I get it! My excuse sucked!” She exclaimed in frustration. “Can we just focus on getting him out of here, since my hopes of ever owning a dragon have been completely dashed.”

“I’d appreciate it.” Flash shouted all the way from the kitchen. “I’ve been sitting here on Sunset’s tile floor for more than two hours and my legs have fallen asleep.”

The girls all walked over towards the kitchen and peered around the table to see Flash sitting in front of the fridge. "Flash? What are you doing here?" Twilight was one to ask this question.

"He was spending the night here with me before the egg hatched." Sunset explained as she came up behind her friends.

Rarity smirked at her. "Was he now~?" Her voice held a tone that reminded Sunset of a reporter, one who had just stumbled on a juicy scoop and couldn’t wait to share it with the world.

Sunset flinched backwards. "Platonically!" She suddenly shouted. "We were sharing a pizza before it started raining earlier. I said he could spend the night instead of drenching himself by walking home."

It was Flash's turn to smirk, “you know you’re not making this sound like any less of a date, right? I mean seriously, what you’re describing sounds like a scene from a bad romcom.” He began to list off what Sunset said on his fingers, “the handsome guy comes over to the girl’s house with food. They hangout and eat together, expecting nothing at all to happen between them, when suddenly, a freak storm stops the handsome guy from leaving. The beautiful protagonist decides to let the handsome guy stay the night, completely unaware that passionate feelings are starting to bloom…”

Sunset swatted Flash over the head before he could continue. “I’m gonna stop you there, lover boy, before you accidentally fool everyone into thinking you still have feelings for me.”

Flash rubbed the back of his head and flushed red in embarrassment. “Yeah, good call.” He smiled sheepishly. “I am one heck of a storyteller after all…” Sunset took his words at face value, but the other girls could tell he was feeling something other than just embarrassment at the moment. They weren't certain, but they kind of thought he sounded… disappointed?

Sunset made her way over towards the fridge, drawing most everyone’s attention back to the problem at hand. Fluttershy however found herself quickly distracted when she heard some soft whimpers coming from the front door. She immediately turned herself around and looked back to see Spike shivering outside the doorway with his tail tucked between his legs.

Fluttershy quickly grew concerned. She walked back through the front door and knelt down next to the frightened puppy. "Is everything okay, Spike?" Her voice, like always, was warm and comforting, almost like a mother trying to sooth her saddened child.

It didn’t take long for Spike to notice that she was kneeling right next to him. He cleared his throat and tried to calm his nerves. He didn’t want to look like a scaredy-cat in front of the her, especially since she and others might need his protection just in case the dragon inside went rogue. He tried to speak clearly, but there was a clear tremble in his voice. "Y-yeah I'm g-g-good." He lied. "I'm just giving y-you girls a h-headstart. I'm not s-standing out here because I’m a-afraid or anything." His tremoring body said otherwise. “No siree.”

Fluttershy smiled at him sympathetically. She moved hands around the little dog's sides and carefully picked him up. "Don’t worry, Spike, I know you're not scared." She said soothingly. "You’re our big strong guard dog. Isn’t that right?” She rubbed her nose against his in clear sign of affection. “You came here to protect us, in case me or any of the others get scared." Spike looked up from his place in Fluttershy's arms. He could see that she was smiling at him. He smiled back.

"Y-yeah... Of course!" He exclaimed, suddenly feeling far more confident. "Don't you worry Fluttershy, I'll protect you!"

She giggled lightly. "Thank you, Spike. I feel safer already." She lifted the tiny dog and let him nuzzle his muzzle against her face. She carried Spike into the apartment and back towards her friends, who were already beginning to try and coax out the dragon.

Flash pointed towards the underside of Sunset's fridge. He and Sunset noticed that the snarling that was coming out from underneath was sounding far more aggressive than before. The dragon could obviously tell that more people had entered the room.

Sunset turned towards her friends to give them a quick forewarning. "You each can take a look, but be careful, this thing is incredibly temperamental, and as Flash and I have recently learned, it takes very little to set him off."

The girls shared a few worried expressions. They soon turned back and each gave her a nod. Flash slowly got up from his seat on the kitchen floor in order to give the girls some room to take a look. Fluttershy placed Spike back down on the ground before laying on her stomach in order to see. The rest of the girls all took turns mimicking her until they all had gotten a good look at the creature hiding underneath the fridge.

The dragon was a round and oddly furry creature with visibly no limbs to speak of. It's fur resembled that of a fox, but it had eyes and ears that more vaguely resembled a cat. It was backed up against the wall behind the fridge, snarling at them like a trapped raccoon. It snapped its jaws a few times at them in an attempt to look threatening. It only succeeded in making itself look more adorable by flapping its toothless infant gums.

The last to view the creature was Rainbow Dash, who was taken by surprise. She suddenly burst out laughing. "That's your baby dragon?!" She hollered. "You two really need our help dealing with that discount Furby?!" As she continued to laugh, she began rolling around the floor, gaining her a pair of annoyed scowls from Flash and Sunset.

"He’s so cute!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed. She laid back down in order to reach for the creature but only received another snap in response. "He's like a fluffy purple soccer ball! I wonder if he bounces?"

Rarity grabbed Pinkie and pulled her back before she could make another attempt at grabbing the creature. “Pinkie stop it! That beast is obviously agitated enough without you antagonizing it. Besides, you have no idea where it’s been.”

“Inside an eggshell mostly, I’d imagine.” Pinkie replied.

Twilight took Pinkie’s place on the floor and began to observe the creature with a much more curious eye. The dragon snapped at her, but she was far too astonished by its presence to even consider backing away in fear. "This... is..."

The others turned to look at Twilight once they heard her speak. "...INCREDIBLE!" The group jumped back in surprise. Twilight had just shouted far louder than any of them thought she could ever manage.

"A reptilian creature of this design has never before been thought possible! It hatched from an egg, yet its physical features match almost one to one with multiple mammalian species. This is just me hazarding a guess, but this creature may not be a dragon at all. What we might be looking at is some variation of an Equestrian monotreme.”

“Mono-what?” Rainbow Dash asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I think she said it was a monotreme.” Pinkie Pie repeated. "Now I don’t know what that is, but it kind of reminds me of the character Monokuma, which I hope doesn’t make the two words related, because we’re gonna be in very big trouble if they are.”

Sunset shook her head. “No Pinkie, that word has nothing to do with a psychotic teddy bear. A monotreme is a scientific term used to define mammals that lay eggs rather than give live birth.”

"We don’t know that just yet.” Twilight said excitedly. She lifted herself onto her knees and turned her head back to look at her friends. “We need to study the creature first; check its blood and body temperature, see if it has the correct body parts to produce milk, that sort of thing. Only then can we know for certain if my theory is correct.” She adjusted her glasses with a smug look upon her face, somehow making her lenses glow even despite the room not being that brightly lit.

Twilight felt someone's hand slap down her left shoulder, surprising her back to reality. "Calm yourself down, sugarcube. Your startin' to drool." Twilight looked down and noticed a wet spot on her shirt. She blushed as she wiped her mouth clean of any signs of her previous excitement.

Applejack continued, “besides, we can't do any sort of studyin' on the critter yet. We still haven't even figured out yet how to get him out from under Sunset’s fridge."

Twilight let her friend's words sink in. She began rubbing the back of her head. "You're right, Applejack." She said in embaressment. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be getting ahead of myself."

"It's alright Twi, we all know how you get when you're around these kinda scientific thingamajigs." Applejack smiled at her friend before turning back towards Sunset.

"Did you get any word back from the Princess, Sunset?"

Sunset shook her head. "I was able to send her a message through my journal after Flash and I managed to corral the dragon under my fridge, but she hasn't replied back yet though. I hate to say it, but for now we're on our own."

A quick, yet sudden, roar came out from under the fridge, quickly drawing everyone’s attention.

Twilight glanced down at the underside of the fridge and began to ponder their situation. "Well we can't just leave him under there." She explained. "We can’t properly survey him if only one of us can view him at a time. Plus, I don’t think any of us wants to spend prolonged periods of time laying on Sunset’s kitchen floor.”

Flash shook his head and chuckled. “Trust me, you don’t.”

“Thank you for agreeing with me, Flash.” Twilight smiled. “But me being right doesn’t help us at all with our current problem. So that brings up the all important question: how do we coax a creature we know nothing about out from the safety of the underside of Sunset's fridge?"

Rainbow Dash smirked confidently and cracked her knuckles. She pushed past her friends and pulled Twilight up from the floor. "Stand back everybody, I've got this." She fell down onto the floor as if she were about to do a pushup and began army crawling towards the fridge. The dragon’s snarling grew progressively louder each time she slunk closer to the icebox.

"Be careful, Rainbow. It doesn’t sound like he’s very happy with you." Flash warned.

Rainbow shrugged off his warning. "He's fine." She exclaimed. “It’s not like he can do anything to me anyways. The fuzzy doof has no teeth.”

Fluttershy still felt worried. She had experience working with stray animals thanks to the regular volunteer work she did for the Canterlot Animal Shelter. She learned from these experiences that many animals had a tendency to attack if cornered and were just as likely to thrash about violently if grabbed incorrectly. Some strays were even recorded to have injured themselves willingly in order to escape capture. Fluttershy didn’t put it past the dragon to attempt to do the same.

“Please be careful with him, Rainbow Dash.” Fluttershy pleaded. “He looks kind of fragile.”

"Don't worry Fluttershy, I won't hurt him." Rainbow Dash reassured. “I'm just gonna grab him and yank him out into the open. From there, we can lock him in a box or something till we can decide what to do with him.”

The others didn’t fully agree with Rainbow Dash’s plan, but were willing to go along with the part where she pulled the dragon out into the open. Rainbow soon reached the edge of the fridge and stretched her arms out underneath it. "Come here you little hairball." The dragon growled as her hands slowly began to wrap around it. It glared at Rainbow as she began to lift it off the ground. It then did something none of the teens were expecting, it shouted at them, but in a language they could understand.

“Little Iron Beads!”

A small iron ball, roughly no bigger than a marble, suddenly shot out from the dragon's mouth at a speed comparable to a fired airsoft pellet. The ball soared in a perfect straight line above the ground and ended up whacking Rainbow right under her left eye. She immediately let go of the creature and put her hands over the new welt now forming on her face.

"SON OF A–" Rainbow stopped herself from cursing before climbing out from under the fridge. "Dammit!" She rose back to her feet and began stomping her foot in frustration. She soon began pacing around the room as if expecting the walk to help alleviate the pain. She and others could hear the dragon snickering at her as she stomped around.

Rainbow turned and marched back over towards the fridge. She pointed at the opening leading to the baby dragon’s hiding spot and shouted, "screw you, you little turd!"

Rainbow turned to look at her friends and pointed at her injury. “Did you see what that little shit did to me?!”

The others did not reply because they were too busy gaping at the fridge in disbelief. Applejack was the first one able to speak their mind. “Did… did that critter… just talk?”

"I… I think it did.” Twilight confirmed.

"We think it's the only thing he knows how to say." The group turned to look at Sunset, who was glaring at the fridge somewhat pointedly. "At least, that's all he's ever said to us." Sunset lifted the bottom of her pajama shirt and Flash rolled up the sleeve of his hoodie. Flash's left arm and the side of Sunset's stomach were both completely covered in random red welts.

Applejack hissed at the sight of their injuries. "Geez, if Ah knew the dragon was causing that sorta damage to you, Ah would have gathered the girls a whole heckuva a lot quicker. Sorry y’all.”

Sunset waved her off dismissively. “It’s fine. Most of these were caused when we first found him hiding under my fridge. The rest came when we tried to do what Rainbow Dash did before I thought to call Twilight.”

“What?! You knew he was going to do this to me?!” Rainbow pointed at her injury a second time. “Why didn’t you warn me?!”

Sunset placed her hands on her hips and fixed Rainbow with a flat expression. “Flash already said you weren’t making him happy.”

“But you could have told me he shot tiny metal beads from his mouth!”

“Would you have believed me?” Sunset asked, raising a brow. “Or would you have completely ignored my warning and rush in all gungho to grab him like you always do?”

Rainbow furrowed her brows at her. “Just give me a heads up next time.” She sounded like she was making a threat rather than a request. “I’m not as thick-headed as you make me sound out to be.”

Sunset sighed and placed her on her friend's shoulder. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Rainbow.” She turned back towards the rest of her friends. “Anybody else got any ideas?”

The group grew silent as they all began to brainstorm. The silence lasted for a few minutes, but eventually Fluttershy decided to speak up. "Maybe he's hungry?"

The others looked towards her in confusion. "What do you mean, darling?" Rarity asked.

Fluttershy quickly became nervous, everyone's eyes were on her. She continued to speak, albeit more softly, "well normally, when baby lizards start hatching, they come out of the shell very hungry and very mobile. Sometimes this hunger can make the newborns cranky and can lead to different kinds of aggressive behavior."

The others nodded, seeing the logic in her words. "Maybe if we give him something soft to eat, he'll calm down and I could try talking to him." Fluttershy pulled the necklace she got from Camp Everfree out from under the collar of her shirt.

"Well it's as good a plan as any," Sunset said with a shrug, "and pretty much the only one we have right now, so I guess it will have to do." She turned to look at the rest of her friends. "What should we try to feed him?"

"I think I have some canned dog food in my backpack, but I left it back in Applejack’s truck. I'll go and get it." Twilight bolted from the room and out the apartment's front door. After a few minutes, she returned with a purple backpack she normally only used for school.

"I'll go get you a can opener." Sunset said. She quickly dashed towards the kitchen counter and started digging through the many drawers that held her utensils. Eventually, she found it and handed it to Twilight.

She reached into her bag and produced a small can of wet dog food, as well as a small dog bowl with Spike's name printed on it. Rarity cocked an eyebrow at the bowl in confusion.

"Do you always carry Spike's dog dish around with you, Twilight?" Rarity asked curiously. “It seems like an odd item to keep on your person at all times.”

"I only take it with me when Spike and I go out on long trips away from the house." She explained. "All the pet care books I’ve read say it’s a good idea to carry extra food with you when you're going to be away from your pet’s normal food dish for a long period of time."

She scratched Spike a few times behind the ear before placing the food bowl on the floor. He instinctively ran up and began wagging his tail in excitement. Twilight giggled, “Sorry, Spike. The food isn’t for you this time. But I promise, I’ll feed you later. Okay?”

Spike’s ears flattened against his head and let out a soft whimper. He trudged back over towards the others and took a seat next to Fluttershy’s feet.

Twilight placed the bowl near the edge of the refrigerator and stepped back to rejoin her friends. They all moved to the other side of the kitchen table and watched with anticipation to see if the food would be enough to draw the baby dragon out.

The room grew silent, nothing could be heard except for the sounds of the dragon’s breathing. Minutes passed, until suddenly the group heard a soft thump, like a rubber ball being bounced against a carpeted floor. Another thump came soon after, followed by another and another. The dragon bounced out from under Sunset's fridge to eye the bowl suspiciously. It glanced up at the teens from the other side of the table then back towards the bowl.

It sniffed at the food, instinctively looking for any smells that seemed dangerous or off-putting. It glared at the food before glancing at the teens one last time. It took a cautious bite of the dog food and chewed it contemplatively, studying its texture and taste. It soon swallowed and greedily licked its lips. The dragon liked the dog food and quickly began scarfing down the rest as if it hadn’t eaten in days.

"Well would you look at that?" Applejack said, tipping her hat. "Y’all were right, Fluttershy. That was a good plan."

Fluttershy blushed in embarrassment after hearing the complement.

"Quick, see if you can talk to it now!" Twilight exclaimed. Fluttershy nodded and started creeping towards the creature. She grasped her necklace tightly and felt its warm magic radiate out from between her fingers.

"Hello there little guy." She greeted the furball warmly. The creature stared up at her in bewilderment, but did not run away. It remained silent as Fluttershy lowered herself onto her knees. "Do you understand me?" She asked.

While they were talking and the other teens were distracted by the exchange, Spike stealthily snuck up on his food dish. He didn’t realize how hungry he was before they had reached Sunset’s apartment. He wanted to at least have a bite of the wet food Twilight had brought along. It was his favorite brand too, so this was an opportunity he could not pass up.

He snuck up tentatively behind the baby dragon and slowly outstretched his tongue towards some of the food that was hanging outside the bowl. He ended up collecting it, enjoying the taste of multiple different processed meats on his tongue, but in the process also ended up kicking the bowl by accident. The baby dragon turned around in surprise and took notice of Spike’s close proximity to the food dish. A low growl rumbled out of the creature’s throat, it clearly didn’t feel like sharing.

The group's eyes widened and before anyone could intervene the dragon pounced on Spike sending both tumbling into a frenzy of gnashing teeth and flailing limbs, like two feral cats fighting over an alley. Spike eventually broke free of their tussle, but soon found himself being chased with the dragon in hot pursuit.

“Spike!” Twilight was the first to break off from the group, desperate to save her pet from danger. She ran straight in front of them and scooped Spike right off the floor before the dragon could bite down on his tail. The dragon ended up bumping into her legs and falling over onto it’s back. Twilight held Spike close and glared at the dragon as it looked up at her.

It bolted back for the fridge, only to find Rainbow lying in wait for it. “You're not getting away this time!” She dove for the creature and slid across the floor like a baseball player trying to take home plate. It leapt as she came for it and landed on her head. It then jumped a second time, reaching an impressive height for something that didn’t possess legs, leaving Rainbow to continue sliding forward and crash face first into the leg of Sunset’s couch.

The dragon began to fall towards the ground. Applejack ran right under it with the intent of catching it like a football. “Ah got ‘em!”

“Little Iron Beads!”

Two iron balls were shot this time, striking Applejack clean in the forehead. She winced and staggered backwards, unaware that the dragon was now on a collision course with her face. It opened it’s jaws wide and bit down on her nose. It had no teeth, so it didn’t hurt the young apple farmer, but the sensation of having another creature’s toothless maw wrapped around her sniffer was still very unpleasant.

She grabbed the dragon and tried to pull it off. She was surprised to find it was clamped on tight like a vice around her nose. “Let go of mah nose, yah varmint!” Her voice sounded nasally, which made sense because the dragon was holding both her nostrils closed.

“Don’t worry, Applejack! I’ll get him!” Pinkie Pie announced. She pulled a tennis racket out from her hair, surprising everyone standing around her, and pulled it back to take a swing. The dragon noticed the weapon she was about to attack it with and placed its body against the lower part of Applejack’s face. It leapt off her, out of the way of Pinkie’s swing, and back into the air. Unfortunately, this left Applejack to take the full brunt of Pinkie’s full arm swing.

The young farm girl was sent reeling to the floor with a red net-like mark covering her face. Pinkie placed a hand over her mouth and stared at her friend in shock. “Oopsie.”

The creature began falling towards the floor again, but this time landed in Rarity’s hair. The fashionista began to scream and started to run around the room in a blind panic. “It’s in my hair!” She hollered. “Get it out! Get it out! Get it out! Get it out! Get it out! Get it out!”

Sunset ran up to help her. “Alright, alright, just hold still.” Rarity stopped running and began to bawl, her mascara running as tears rolled down her face. Sunset raked her fingers through Rarity’s hair, but was having a hard time finding the dragon. The color of its coat made it blend extremely well with color of Rarity’s hair. Eventually, she found a pair of golden eyes staring back at her and immediately thrusted her hands forward to grab the dragon. It leapt out of the way before she could grab it and instead she ended up pulling a good deal of Rarity’s hair in its place.

“OW!” Rarity screamed.

Sunset grimaced at her friend. “Sorry.”

The dragon landed on the floor and began darting its eyes around in search of another place to hide. Before it could make another move however, Flash slammed down a large plastic tub over the creature and placed his foot on top of it to keep it from escaping. “Not this time, buddy.” He said, smirking at creature. “Playtime’s over.”

He turned his head towards the leopard gecko on his shoulder and gave him an affectionate pat on the head with index finger. “And thank you for letting me use your spare terrarium, Ray. You’ve been an all-star through this entire thing.”

Rainbow picked herself up off the floor. She had a large red mark on her face from when she hit the leg of the couch. Her friends groaned upon seeing her injury. “Okay, that’s it.” She marched past Pinkie, grabbing a hold of her tennis racket as she pushed her aside. She stood in front of Flash and glared down at the trapped baby dragon. “Flash, move your foot. I going to make a fucking hat out of that thing.”

"AAAGGGHHH!" Fluttershy suddenly screamed. Rainbow assumed it was because of the threat she just made. She sighed in defeat and turned back towards her frightened friend.

"Calm down, Flutters. I didn’t mean it... mostly. I'm just going to rough him up a bit. Give him a spanking or something.” She looked down at the tennis racket in her hand. “Probably with this.”

Fluttershy trembled, but didn’t immediately respond. She slowly lifted her arm and pointed towards the window on the other side of the room. "T-there's a m-monster outside the window."

The others blinked at her in confusion, before turning to look at the window. Their eyes soon widened in terror.

A tall gangly figure, cloaked in the early morning darkness, was staring into the room from the other side of Sunset's window. It had long steer-like horns pointing off horizontally from both sides of its head, and its eyes glowed a deep crimson like the side of a firetruck. Its gaze was piercing, but it didn’t seem to be focused on them. Its sights were pointed at the small creature currently trembling under the plastic terrarium.

A sinister voice somehow echoed through the glass, "I've finally found you."

The monster raised its slender arm and pointed its hand at the window.

"Death Claw!”

Its massive hand smashed through the glass, sending multiple shards scattering across the floor.

"AAAGGGHHH!!" The teens all screamed. The monster's claw slammed down in front of Sunset's couch, knocking the furniture aside as it stretched further into the room. The baby dragon slammed itself against the side of the terrarium, desperately trying to knock Flash’s weight off of it so it could make it’s escape.

"I can smell your blood, little knight. It was easy to find you." The monster lifted its other claw and grasped onto the frame of the windowsill. It pulled its thin body halfway through the window and leaned in further to reach for the teens.

The girls, Flash, and Spike were stuck frozen in fear. The creature that laid before them was vaguely humanoid in appearance with a body covered completely in a skin tight leather suit. Belts, bandages, and skull and bat designs unadorned multiple places all over its body, and a pair of huge holey wings were pressed tightly against its back given the confined space of the room. Its diabolical gaze and appearance sent a chill down everyone's spine.

Rainbow Dash grabbed Fluttershy and walked her backwards towards the rest of their friends, who were beginning to huddle. "W-What the h-hell is that thing?" Rainbow Dash could feel herself quivering.

"The devil in a gimp suit?" Pinkie replied with uncertainty.

The malicious looking creature continued to pay little attention to the teens, as it pulled itself further into the room in pursuit of the smaller creature. Lifting its claw, it casually swatted the group to aside and onto the floor. Ray and Spike quickly dashed away in order to find a safe place to hide while the teens slowly picked themselves up off the floor.

The monster flicked the tiny terrarium off into some other part of the room and raised its claw over the baby dragon. The infant stared up at the demonic hand with a deep look of horror etched squarely on its face. It turned to make a run for it, only for the claw to come crashing down upon it.

"There’s no use in running now, Dodomon." The monster chuckled wickedly. It lifted its hand, clutching the baby dragon between its fingers as if holding it in a cage. “My general has given me express orders to make certain you don’t make it back to the Digital World, and by my honor as a member of the New Devimon Corps, I will make certain those orders are carried out.”

The teens were soon back on their feet, their eyes quickly moving towards the demon upon hearing the dragon’s screams of agony. The monster was crushing the infant beneath its fingers. Fluttershy gasped, "that monster is going to squish him! We have to help!"

Sunset shot away from the group much faster than anyone was expecting. She didn’t have any powers that would aid her in a fight, but she still charged the creature as if they were an equal match. She reached down as she ran and plucked a large piece of shattered glass off the floor. The others had to assume she planned this assault within the few seconds it took to rise back to their feet, because Sunset grabbed the glass with such expert precision one would think she purposely planted it there. She twirled the glass in her hand so the long sharp end of the shard was pointed towards her body.

Her friends screamed at her in worry, “Sunset!”

The demon turned its head upon hearing their voices. “Leave him alone!” It catch sight of Sunset just in time to watch her plunge the shard straight into its upper arm. The fiend howled in pain before retracting its arm to grasp the wound in its other claw. It could see streams of blood leak out through its fingers as they fell from its body and pooled on the floor.

The baby dragon stared in amazement as it hit the ground. It couldn’t believe what it had just seen. It had caused nothing but trouble for the girl and her friends, but she was still willing to rush in and defend it even despite how much the monster outclassed her.

The demon hissed and eyed the fiery haired teen with a deadly glare. "You miserable… stupid brat.” He tightened one of the straps on his arm to halt the bleeding. “How dare you strike me!” It swung its uninjured arm at Sunset, backhanding her across the room.

The baby dragon’s eyes widened in shock. He watched the girl soar through the air before landing in the caring embrace of her friends. They surrounded her and began checking to see if she was injured. From what it could see, she looked dazed and a bruise was forming on her cheek from where she had been struck, but she didn't look too terribly injured otherwise. Even still, the fact she was hurt at all had set a fire in his stomach that told him to waste the creature that attacked her.

The baby dragon began to growl. If those other girls, that boy, or even that dog tried to attack the monster again, it would most certainly kill them. A strange but familiar hatred, like one the dragon had never felt before, surged through his mind. That girl had risked her own safety to protect him. He had been nothing but a nuisance, but she still protected him. Memories he couldn't place clouded his mind. Blurry vague images from his own perspective...of him protecting creatures like himself...they called themselves something...digimon...he was protecting his fellow digimon?

These children were they..?

The dragon shuddered violently on the floor. He felt more angry now then he may ever feel for the rest of his life. The dragon grit its gums together and gazed hatefully at the giant demonic figure. It did not know why it had these memories—nor where they even came from—what he did know however, was that they gave him a feeling…a determined feeling...a feeling that told him the crimes that this monster just committed would not stand. It felt it needed to protect the girl that protected it. It needed to protect them all.

The tiny dragon roared in voice much deeper than anyone was expecting, catching the teens and even the demon completely off guard. The dragon's body was suddenly enveloped in a blinding white light. Sunset and her friends were forced to avert their eyes while the fiend was only able to stare on in shock and amazement.

“Dodomon digivolve to…”

The low voice the teens had just heard suddenly began to lower several octaves more as the glowing form of the dragon slowly began to morph and change. The small creature's body suddenly shifted and grew to a size that roughly reached their waists. Its new body laid horizontal with the floor with two small arms and two powerful looking legs supporting it.

“Dorumon!”

The light exploded off the dragon’s new form, blinding everyone and forcing them to turn away as the flash subsided.

Once the flash had completely vanished, the monster quickly turned around to reclaim his quarry only to find it already charging towards him.

“Dino Tooth!”

The new creature leapt from the floor and bit down forcefully on the demon's wounded arm. The monster recoiled backwards as it shouted in pain, dragging itself and the new creature back outside through the destroyed window.

Rainbow Dash was the first to look back at the scene after she heard the commotion. Both creatures were missing from the room. "What the hell just happened?!" She asked.

"They both went out the window!" The teens looked down to see Spike rushing towards the windowsill. Without hesitation, they all followed him to look outside.

The devil creature was now standing at its full height and was shaking its arm wildly. It launched the smaller creature off with a powerful flick of his wrist, sending him flying down the road. The smaller creature, Dorumon they heard it call itself, landed on its feet and skidded gracefully to stop a short distance away from its opponent.

Even in the darkness of the early morning, the teens could clearly make out the new form of the creature now battling in front of them.

Like they first surmised, it now resembled a dragon in body shape, complete with a tiny pair of wings growing from its back and a vibrant white and purple coat covering its entire body. Sharp black claws extended from each of the creature's fingers and toes and a set of sharp white teeth now filled the creature's maw. Its tail resembled that of a fox, and a deep crimson gem was embedded into the center of its forehead. Dorumon lowered itself closer to the ground as it stalked towards his opponent.

"So you managed to skip the In-training stage and jump straight to rookie." The devil spoke with mild amusement. "Impressive, but it matters very little. You're still no match for me!"

"Demon's Ray!"

Two blasts of dark energy shot out of the demon's hands towards Dorumon. The smaller creature quickly leaped out of the way and began charging the larger, all the while dodging more blasts each time they were fired.

Sunset's face quickly furrowed with concern. She turned towards her friends, all of them carrying similar looking expressions. "He needs our help!" She voiced passionately. The other's nodded in agreement.

The teens and dog all rushed towards the front door and down the stoop onto the street to witness the battle continuing in front of them. The demon fired another beam of dark energy from its claw as Dorumon leapt to the side to avoid it. The dragon creature leaped from the street as soon as he was close enough to reach the monster.

"Dino Tooth!”

It dug his teeth into the demon’s left bicep. The demon monster screamed in pain, then grasped Dorumon's body in its right claw. "YOU ARE AN IRRITATING PEST!"

It ripped the smaller creature off its arm, a violent spray of its own blood shooting from its wound. The monster began to squeeze Dorumon between its palm and fingers, like it was trying to crush him like an empty soda can. Dorumon screamed in a more human sounding voice than it had been using prior.

The teens and dog gasped in shock.

The monster chuckled evilly.

Then a garbage can came flying and bashed it in the side of its head.

The demon loosened its grip as it staggered backwards, but refused to let go of its quarry. As soon as it could straighten itself, the demon turned to see where the sudden trashcan had come from. It then saw one of the humons, the one wearing the stetson, hefting a second fully-loaded garbage can over her head like it were a football. The small piece of jewelry she wore around her neck was glowing.

"Now ya probably don't hear this very often but... GO PICK ON SOMEONE YER OWN SIZE!" Applejack chucked the second garbage can like it was the lightest thing in the world. The demon caught it in its free hand and crushed it easily.

It dropped the can and opened its free claw to point at the girl. "I'll kill you for that!"

The demon suddenly felt itself begin lifted off the ground, almost like it was a lost balloon suddenly taking flight. The creature looked down and noticed its body was enveloped in a bright purple aura.

The rainbow haired humon was suddenly at its feet. The monster's crimson eyes widened, she had appeared in the time it had taken him to blink.

She grabbed onto the monster's right ankle with both of her hands and smirked at him madly. "You better hold on to your leather pants, Stretch, because I'm taking you for a ride!" Rainbow Dash suddenly began sprinting down the road at a pace her friends could not even perceive. They could only watch as the levitating demon was pulled along with her like a kite blowing wildly in the wind. The sudden burst of speed caused the monster to accidently let go of Dorumon allowing him to fall gracelessly back to the pavement below.

Twilight released her hold on the demon allowing it to fall to the ground as well. A loud thud was heard farther up the street followed by the sounds of intense screaming as the monster was dragged across the road. She and the others all rushed to Dorumon's side. They helped him sit back up on his haunches.

"Are you alright?" Sunset asked.

Dorumon looked up at the fiery-haired girl, his expression was one of pure astonishment. "You all just saved my life… again." It's voice was lower than before, but carried a high level of intelligence that the teens found surprising.

Loud screaming could be heard coming back down the street. The group turned to see Rainbow Dash running back towards them with the lanky demon still dragging behind her.

Rainbow let go of the monster's ankle and let it skid past the group before coming to halt a few feet away. She rejoined her friends. Behind the group, Applejack hefted another garbage can over her head. Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie dug through one of the open trash bins for something to use as a weapon.

The devil slowly rose off its back and onto its feet. "REPUGNANT, IRRITATING, HORRID LITTLE HUMONS!” He turned around and pointed both his claws in their direction. “I WILL SLAUGHTER YOU ALL!"

A rotten egg splattered across the demon's face as he finished his threat. The others turned as it began rubbing the gunk out of its eyes. Pinkie Pie was holding an open carton of six rotten eggs she apparently found in the trash in the crook of her arm.

Pinkie began hucking the eggs one by one at the creature as she shouted. "Get out of here Stinky McLeather-Britches, nobody wants you here!" Once the final egg was lobbed, Pinkie Pie threw the egg carton over her shoulder and struck a sassy "that's all I have to say to you" pose.

The tall fiend rubbed a small amount of the egg gunk off his closed eyes, allowing him to once again see. The creature growled angrily and raised his claw towards the group.

“Devil’s R-”

The monster paused. Its face was suddenly beginning to feel hot. It looked down over its mouth and chin, the rotten egg gunk was beginning to glow and released a high-pitched ring that was quickly growing louder. Before anyone—besides Pinkie—knew what was going on, the egg gunk suddenly exploded like a pack of colorful fireworks was strapped to its face. The blast sent the monster flying backwards and onto its back a second time.

Rainbow Dash began laughing. She rushed over to Pinkie's side and quickly high-fived her. "Pinkie Pie, you are amazing!"

For a moment, the large imposing demon laid motionless on the pavement. It contemplated the situation it found itself in. Humons were never reported to be this strong in the Digital World's records. History always said they had the power to incite digivolution, but it never stated that they'd have abilities like digimon did. These weren't normal humons, the demon decided.

It had been careless and didn't consider the possibility. It needed to regroup and formulate a new strategy with the information it had learned. It would make sure not to fail the New Devimon Corps a second time.

The gangly monster quickly returned to its feet and flapped its holey wings to get into the air. He stared down at the eight teens, their dog, and the knight he was forced to let get away because of their meddling.

The monster shouted, "this isn't over! I will slay that knight, even if I have to gut everyone of you meddling humons to do so!"

The demon flapped its wings quickly and rose higher into the air. He began flying into the dark of the morning's horizon until the group could not see it anymore.

"Well, if nothing else, you can definitely say the guy's commitment is admirable?" Flash said sarcastically.

The teens that had been crouched around Dorumon rose back to their feet and began looking amongst each other for injuries. "Is everybody alright?" Sunset asked. She received a smile and a nod from each of her surrounding friends.

She turned to Rainbow Dash, "Rainbow?"

Rainbow Dash smirked. "Gimpy didn't even touch me." She stated proudly.

"Twilight!" Twilight looked down to see a rather excited puppy leaping at her leg. She kneeled down and opened her arms, allowing him to jump from the street into her embrace.

"I'm really glad you're okay, too." He nuzzled her face. Twilight smiled and nuzzled him back.

Pinkie Pie smiled the widest of them all and inexplicably pulled all her friends into a group hug, even despite some of them standing a good distance away from each other. "Yaaay friendship!" She shouted. The other teens and dog all shook their heads, not willing to question their friend’s strange abilities, and returned her hug.

"Excuse me... " The group's eyes all widened in realization. They all turned as a clumsy unit and stared at the purple-haired dragon standing roughly at their waist height. He looked up at all them and continued to speak.

"Thank you for giving me your attention." He stated formally. "Firstly, I would like to apologize for my actions while in my fresh stage. I am now aware that the way I was acting before was both rude and brash, and I hope that you will all forgive me. Second, I would like to thank you all for the assistance you have provided me today. You can all rest assured that I will be providing you the same kindness and that I will be ready should our enemy ever choose to attack us again."

The street suddenly became silent as Dorumon waited for a response. The teens only stared wide-eyed at him, they had been so caught up in all the excitement that they had completely forgotten that Dorumon was in their presence. Dorumon cocked his eyebrow in slight irritation. "You know it's usually customary for one to respond when being offered an apology." He waited another few seconds, but again received no response. “Do you all really have nothing to say to me?”

“Oh no, yes, sorry, I do have something to say.” Rainbow said, suddenly chiming in. “What the fuck is going on?!”

Chapter 3: Glimpses of the Past

In another place, at an earlier time, a blue and white digimon garbed in golden armor was soaring upwards through a tunnel that seemed to stretch on for eternity. Bright lights and screens flashed by him as he streaked up at a breakneck speed, revealing images of different locations around the human world, but none of them the one he was currently searching for. He groaned, fearing he was already too late. “Why again are you sending me? My abilities aren’t exactly suited for retrieval missions, especially ones that require this level of discretion. The humans will easily spot me the moment I enter their world.”

Five screens soon appeared around his head and traveled with him upwards as he continued through the tunnel. The screen directly to his right spoke first, it had the silhouette of a tri-horned digimon upon it. “You were briefed on this already, Magnamon. King Drasil has discovered a breach between the human and digital worlds. A champion level digimon has entered it, which means only a digimon of the same data size or smaller can follow them.” The silhouette said stoically. “You are the only knight in our order who could possibly travel through the connection, since you are an Armored Evolution digimon.”

The screen in front of him began to snicker, the silhouette showing another digimon with three flying creatures behind it. “Besides, Alphamon could use a miracle right about now.”

Magnamon groaned at his fellow knight’s joke. However it was a third knight that reprimanded the jester on Magnamon’s behalf. The third knight's silhouette was holding a rose on screen, “Jesmon, thy humor is unbecoming of a Royal Knight. Thou shouldst hold thyself to a much higher standard.” The knight spoke with a distinctively masculine tone but highly effeminate voice before smelling his rose. “Gankoomon, thou should teachth thy squire the manners of our order.” The speaker turned towards a fourth screen where a digimon with a long billowing jacket was standing.

They couldn’t see him clearly through the screen, but they all could tell he was smirking. “A true mon never backs down on anything, not even his own opinion. He must always stay true to his own beliefs, wherever they might lead him. Sticking to his guns against all else! For that is what it truly means to be manly!” The others could swear they heard an explosion go off as he finished his declaration.

A drop of sweat rolled down the back of Jesmon’s head. “Sensai, I fear you may be taking my humor a tad too seriously.”

The fifth screen lit up, revealing a silhouette of clearly draconic appearance. “LordKnightmon, Gankoomon, now is hardly the time.” He said, reprimanding both squabbling knights. The dragon then turned to Magnamon, "soldier, we have complete faith in yo-” he was cut off as what appeared to be a black bolt flew past them at a rate almost impossible to perceive. “What the..?”

“YGGDRASIL DAMN IT!!!” Magnamon cursed, “that must have been the champion. He’s still searching for an exit and this call is causing me to lag. Sorry, but I have to drop this.”

Magnamon then swiped his left hand and the five scenes disappeared ending the conversation. “FUCK!!!!” He roared as he put all in his power into catching up and hopefully overtaking the black bolt that passed him. Unfortunately, he saw a light at the end of the tunnel dim for the briefest of time before it returned to what it was. His target had exited the connection. “DAMN IT!” He roared a second time before increasing his speed. He looked to his waist as well as the bag tied to it. Part of him wanted to chuck it in order to lose some excess weight, but he couldn’t take the chance he might need its contents in the future.

******

Back in the present, the teens had just led Dorumon back into Sunset’s apartment following their fight with the demon. They had spent some time clearing the street of the crushed garbage cans and loose trash to avoid drawing suspicion to Sunset’s home. Their city already had plenty of experience with Equestrian magic running rampant and the absolute last thing they needed was for a panic to start up because someone mistook Dorumon for a monster.

The inside of the apartment was still a mess, but at the moment other matters were taking priority. The teens spent a few minutes searching for Ray before eventually finding him underneath the couch the demon had turned over. Sunset took her pet and placed him inside a large piece of tupperware to rest for the time being. She would decide what to do with him later once she got a chance to fix one of his cages. For now, she was more focused on hearing what Dorumon had to say now that he’d gained the ability to speak.

Flash and Applejack worked together to flip the couch back onto its feet while Rainbow placed Sunset’s coffee table back in front of it. The teens each took a seat on and around the couch while Spike sprawled himself out on Twilight’s lap. By the end of it, only Rainbow and Applejack were left standing. Of all of them, they looked the most ready to spring back into action should the demon attack again.

Dorumon found a seat on the opposite side of the table and stared at the group as if he were leading a committee. He wasn’t sure why, but taking this position felt familiar. He could oddly recall vague scenes similar to this one in his mind. He could remember sitting down at a grand table with other beings like him dressed in varying forms of armor. They appeared to be discussing something of importance with him, but he couldn’t make out the words the armored creatures were saying. Dorumon shook his head and returned his attention back to the teens in front of him.

“Forgive me for my silence...my mind was elsewhere for a moment.” He looked down at the coffee table for a short time before looking back up at the teens. He felt like he was about to take part in a major diplomatic discussion. He wasn’t sure why he knew what that felt like nor how he knew what that even was.

He did hatch only a few hours ago…didn’t he?

“It’s okay. We know you must be feeling a bit overwhelmed after…everything.” Sunset smiled at him sheepishly and scratched the back of her head as if the events that had occurred prior to this had been her fault. Dorumon didn’t like that she felt that she felt this way.

“It has been a little jarring, I will admit.” Dorumon sighed. “First waking up in your home and finding myself trapped inside that glass prison.” He motioned towards Ray’s larger terrarium. “Then that whole mess with that massive digimon. Plus these vague memories that have been clouding my mind. It’s a lot to take in for someone who’s supposedly only a few hours old.”

Rarity arched an eyebrow, “I’m sorry, darling, but I’m afraid you may be going a tad too fast for us. Would it be alright if we asked you a few questions?”

Dorumon nodded. “I believe that would be the best course of action. I’m sure you all are very confused and I would like to help you as much as I can. It’s the least I can do after everything you’ve done for me.” His eyes caught Sunset’s. He seemed to be speaking to her directly. “I however have a request as well. I would like to ask you all a few questions of my own, I think it may give me a better understanding of the world I currently find myself in.”

The teens looked at each other. The more Dorumon spoke, the more confused they seemed to get. They were beginning to wonder if asking him questions would even provide answers they’d understand.

“Of course, Dorumon. It would only be fair.” Sunset cleared her throat. The tension in the room was oddly thick. Maybe it was because their new guest could seemingly change into larger forms at will. She really didn’t want to provoke him if she could help it. “I suppose the best place to start would be…what are you?” She tried to make her words sound as respectful as possible. “I’m sure you probably have the same question, so I’ll answer first. My friends and I are humans, and Spike here," she motioned to the canine, "is a dog.”

Dorumon furrowed his brows and turned to stare at the floor. For a few minutes the room went silent as the dragon processed what he had just been told. He exhaled and turned his head back towards them, finally ready to speak. “I am a digimon, the same kind of creature as the one who attacked you.” He stated bluntly. “We are a species from another world that has the ability to change form as it grows older. I am not sure where this world is, but the word human…it is familiar to me.” His eyes took on an intensity that surprised the teens. They tried not to show it for fear that it might make Dorumon lose his train of thought. “There are no humans where I come from. Of this I am certain. But then why would I know this word?”

Twilight adjusted her glasses, her mind suddenly on overdrive. “Do you think that's why you were able to transform so quickly? I’m only hazarding a guess, but I’d assume a transformation as drastic as yours should have only occurred further on in your lifecycle. Maybe after at least a few years or so, right?”

Dorumon shook his head. “This I do not know. I can only tell you that digivolving so quickly after hatching is most likely uncommon. I have to assume it had something to do with your presence around me when the change occurred.”

“I do believe I saw Sunset’s geode shine just before Dorumon started, ermm…digivolving?” Dorumon nodded at her. Rarity smiled, slightly proud that she had gotten the term on her first try. “Perhaps her magic had something to do with inciting your transformation?”

Dorumon stared at the group in confusion. “Magic..?” The term was not foreign to him, but he was a tad bewildered by the girl’s use of it in this context.

Sunset chuckled timidly. “Trust me, it’s better we leave that topic for another time. Things are confusing enough as it is. Let’s just say we’re familiar with weird things coming to our world from other places and leave at that.”

“Hmmm…” Dorumon was curious. “So this “magic” you speak of...it is alien? And it comes from another world like me?”

The group was starting to connect the dots like Dorumon. “It is.” Applejack confirmed. “But it ain’t from the same place as you, Ah’m afraid. If it were, this mess would be a whole heck of a lot easier to sort out.”

“I had a feeling you would say that, but that isn’t what I'm suggesting.” He began to pace back and forth on the opposite side of the table. “The birthplace of your magic and the world from which I hail are completely separate locations. But I can’t help but feel they’re connected in some way. At least, that’s the conclusion I’m taking away from this.”

Fluttershy lifted her hands and put them over her mouth. She quietly stifled her giggles in case Dorumon was listening.

Flash looked up at her from the floor. “What’s so funny, Fluttershy?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “it’s just, he looks so cute pacing around like that. It’s almost like he’s a little detective.”

Pinkie Pie gasped, “OH!” To everyone’s surprise she immediately ran out of the room only to come back seconds later with a deerstalker cap and a calabash pipe that blew bubbles. “Quick, Dorumon, put these on and say: “elementary my dear Fluttershy.”

Twilight seemed a tad piqued by Pinkie’s request. Under her breath, she muttered, “he never actually said that in the books nor did ever wear that type of hat and his drug of choice was heroin not tobacco!”

Dorumon meanwhile was more focused on the fact that Pinkie had collected the articles of clothing in such little time. It didn’t seem physically possible.

“You collected those so quickly.” He said in utter disbelief. “Are you certain you’re human?”

Everyone else began to laugh, much to Dorumon’s confusion. “Trust me, dude, that’s one question none of us have the answer to.” Rainbow explained. “We find it best to just go along with whatever crazy thing Pinkie’s doing at the time. Saves you a headache.”

Dorumon stared at her for a moment, considering her answer. Eventually, he sighed and decided to go along with what she said. He had other more important topics to focus on anyways. “Very well, I will do as you recommend.” He turned so he could look at the group in full. “Do you have any more questions?”

Sunset leaned closer, her fingers steepled as if to visualize her curiosity. “Yes, actually. I’ve been wondering about these memories you’ve been seeing. Can you tell us more about them? I can’t help but think they might be helpful in finding a way to send you back home.”

Dorumon shook his head. “Beyond what I’ve already told you, there isn’t that much else to say. From what I can gather from these memories, I was some sort of protector. A powerful figure who served alongside other strong digimon . I believe these digimon and I were entrusted with keeping my world safe from disaster and those who would seek to do it harm.”

Pinkie Pie gasped a second time. “Like a superhero?!” She ran for the door again. “Stay right there, Dorumon, I'm going to get you a tiny cape!”

Dorumon ignored her this time, instead keeping his attention squarely on Sunset who was now stroking her chin in thought. “I think I have an idea.” The others turned towards her. “Dorumon, this may sound weird, but I’d like to take a look at your memories.” The digimon arched an eyebrow at her request. Sunset chuckled, “let me explain,” she motioned her hands towards the geode around her neck, “this object around my neck gives me the power to look at the memories of others. With it, we might be able to get a better view of these visions you’ve been having and possibly get a better understanding of who you were.”

Dorumon’s eyes widened at the prospect. He couldn’t help but feel intrigued. “This is more of your magic, I assume?” Sunset nodded. “Hmm…” Dorumon considered subjecting himself to Sunset’s magic a second time. He looked down at his new body, the one he achieved so quickly only because of Sunset’s influence. He looked back up at Sunset and the warm smile she was giving him. He didn’t hesitate to make his next decision.

“I will gladly accept any help you are willing to give me, Sunset.” He said with a bow. “Please feel free to perform your magic whenever you are ready. I will trust in your judgement.”

Rarity giggled as she watched Dorumon’s display. “My how chivalrous of you, Dorumon. Perhaps Pinkie Pie was wrong in thinking you were a superhero. You remind me more of a valiant knight, if anything.”

Her friends got up from the couch and moved aside so Sunset could step around the coffee table. She sat down next to Dorumon, then gently placed her hand over the gem on the digimon’s head. Almost immediately she felt her magic kick in and Sunset soon found herself in a location completely alien to any she had seen before.

Unlike the memories she had seen before while reading other people’s minds, this time she was looking through the eyes of what she assumed was Dorumon's old form. Based on his perspective, she had to assume Dorumon's previous form was massive in size, possibly just as big—or maybe even bigger—than the monster they had fought in the street. She couldn’t control the old Dorumon’s movements, this being a memory in all, but thankfully he was standing in a large open area allowing her to easily make sense of the land around her.

Dorumon was standing in a gigantic clearing that was encircled by a dense forest. The forest itself vaguely reminded her of the Everfree Forest in Equestria, but whereas the Everfree felt foreboding and dangerous at almost all hours of the day, this forest almost felt enchanting. It had a thin layer of mist pouring out of it like steam from a hot bath, and she couldn’t place why, but it had a magical presence to it as well, like something she’d might experience if she lived in a fairy tail. A magnificent castle sat before her crafted of ivory white bricks and aqua blue shingle roofs. But what really caught her attention was the massive tree sitting behind it. It was the largest tree she had ever seen, almost matching the size of some of the human world’s largest cities with its radius alone. Its bark and leaves shone like cerulean crystals and almost blended in perfectly with the clear sky above thanks to the extreme length of its branches.

She was so awestruck by its sheer immensity, that she didn’t even notice a clenched fist flying straight at Dorumon’s face. Dorumon’s old form was struck backwards, the punch staggering him, but he quickly righted himself before turning back to face his enemy. Sunset gasped upon seeing Dorumon’s attacker. It was a digimon that looked extremely similar to the one that attacked her apartment.

It looked like a shirtless version of the creature garbed in a pair of black pants rather than a leather body suit. Belts and bandages still covered many areas of its body and a line of seven red orbs were growing out of the front left side of its chest like an oddly coordinated string of acne. A mullet of spikey white hair stretched down to its shoulder blades and a golden mask with six eyes was staring back into her own… err, Dorumon’s.

An army of similar digimon were fighting in the background behind the monster against another army of beings that vaguely resembled knights. A second demon, one that looked identical to the first, landed behind Dorumon’s attacker. Both creatures raised their hands in order to attack, only to be struck from behind when a sword pierced through the chest of one monster and a blast of blue energy froze the second solid.

The demon skewered on the sword disintegrated, it’s body blowing away like shredded leaves in the wind. The owner of the sword was a caped knight with a three horned helmet and a pair of gauntlets over his fists that resembled the heads of a dragon and a wolf respectively.

“I could have handled them myself, Omnimon.” Dorumon’s old form stated. He punched the frozen demon, shattering it to pieces no bigger than the cubes found in an ice tray. “Quite easily, I might add.”

Omnimon folded his arms, “I’m well aware of that. But we need to discuss something immediately.” He rushed past Dorumon to slay another demon that had been charging towards them. Several more digimon were beginning to surround them. A glowing blade, seemingly made of light, suddenly appeared in Dorumon’s hand and the two knights soon found themselves standing back to back against a large portion of the invading army.

“Don’t you find it strange that the remains of the Demon Lords’ armies are attacking us now?” Omnimon questioned. He bisected a demon as it charged towards him. “The war has been over for centuries and most of their forces had been scattered to the wind following their masters’ demise. It seems unlikely that they would all come together so suddenly and so brazenly attack even though their odds of winning this battle are minimal.”

“We are missing six members of our order, Omnimon. Perhaps they saw an opportunity.”

“Digitalize of Soul!”

A small two dimensional circle patterned in runes appeared before Dorumon’s old form and fired multiple blasts of green energy at a rate similar to a machine gun. Three demons in front of him were quickly turned into swiss cheese before disintegrating.

“But I do see your point. Do you think someone has brought them together again? And if so, whom? This attack doesn’t suggest it to be someone with experience in warfare. These demon digimon are attacking us at random and they aren’t taking advantage of our lack of numbers. It's almost as if their commander sent them into battle without a plan of attack.”

“Garuru Cannon!”

Omnimon laughed as four more demons were frozen in place. “You sound almost disappointed. Don’t tell me this era of peace is finally starting to wear on you? That being said, we do see you so rarely. It’s hard to imagine you getting bored when I know so little about you, despite the countless years we’ve worked together.”

“Secrets create mystery, mystery creates power.” Dorumon explained. “If you know nothing about your opponent then you have no way of defending against them. This is why I tell you so little, it makes it less likely that our enemies will get ahold of sensitive information. It also greatly hinders the possibility that you or the other knights will be captured or integrated because of my actions. I work alone because it paints a target on my back and keeps our enemies distracted, allowing you and the rest of the order to place more of your focus on the protection of the Digital World.”

"And yet when things go awry with your plans, it is either me or one of our brethren who ends up having to clean up the mess.” Omnimon countered, hinting at other matters while also striking at the heart of this one. Dorumon's old form groaned like a child that had heard the same lecture more times than they cared to count, and yet could not refute or challenge the point being made. Omnimon continued, “you forget I am the Omega to your Alpha. Imperialdramon did not entrust the order to you alone nor to even the both of us.” Omnimon said as he pointed between them both. “He entrusted its care to every Royal Knight because we work best as a team. Look at me," Omnimon took a step back and held out his dragon gauntlet arm, "I was once an Agumon," he then lowered it and lifted his wolf gauntlet arm, "and a Gabumon that many times in their youth at best wanted nothing to do with each other. I am what I am because they realized they needed to work as close to one mind as two separate beings could to survive. I am greater than the sum of any variation of a WarGreymon and a MetalGarurumon that could be my parts because of that. Our order is no different. Remember that, Alphamon."

Sunset felt like she had been completely engrossed in a movie. It was only now after hearing Dorumon’s prior name that she remembered she was supposed to be keeping track of all the important information she heard. She tucked away the name “Alphamon'' for later before immediately returning to the history playing out before her.

“You are a good friend.” Alphamon said as he impaled another attacking demon on his sword. “But I’d still prefer to be the one to make sacrifices rather than worry that you or the others will do the same for me.”

Omnimon drew his sword as he cleaved another demon in twain and blasted half a score more with his cannon, “with all due goodwill, I can't return the sentiment.” Once the demons around them seemed cleared, he turned around fully to face his friend. “Never forget, we were all chosen for a reason. If each of us didn’t have the same mentality as you, our order would have died with Imperialdramon.” There was a moment of silence between the two, as if to recall a lost loved one. Omnimon gave a slight sigh. “Your seat can’t remain empty forever. Too many of our seats are vacant now, and with the others who still claim their seats off on other quests from King Drasil, I need you now more than ever since the Demon Lords’ demise.”

The two looked around, the area seemed clear. "Mayhaps you-" Doru…Alphamon stated but was cut short when they heard an explosion.

The two knights turned towards the castle where they were sure the sound had come from. The exterior of the castle looked to be undamaged, which unfortunately did not ease the Royal Knights’ worry, because they knew if the noise did come from outside the castle then there was only one place the perpetrator who caused it could be.

Alphamon’s grip tightened around his sword. “Someone has entered the castle!” He turned to look at Omnimon with what Sunset could only assume was a fierce expression. “You were right. This attack was a diversion!”

Omnimon turned his gaze towards the ground, a remorseful expression suddenly appearing underneath his helmet. “One I imagine even our enemies weren’t aware of. They were attacking us with the intent to kill.” His expression hardened and soon he began shouting, “they were used as cannon fodder while their cowardly leader snuck into our castle! OUR HOME!” He took a deep breath before returning to his usual calm manner of speaking. “He’s heading towards King Drasil’s chamber. There is no doubt in my mind.”

Alphamon growled. To Sunset it sounded the exact same as the growls he let out when he was fighting to protect her as Dorumon. “Kentaurosmon would have many choice words to say about this situation if he were here.” Alphamon wanted to say many choice words himself but was able to stay his tongue. “No one deserves to have their lives thrown away without choice or even informant! Not even the armies of the Seven Great Demon Lords!” He turned to look at Omnimon, their gazes meeting like they were about to commence a duel. “We will show this coward no mercy. He will pay for his crimes!”

Omnimon nodded, “I couldn’t agree more.” He thrusted his arms backwards, his cape billowing in the gust he created, before dashing across the clearing towards the stone steps of the castle that led to its front door. Alphamon was quick to follow, almost copying Omnimon’s heroic start off, before rushing towards the castle.

Impressively, both gigantic digimon in their bulky suits of armor managed to cross the clearing in roughly a few seconds. They bashed through the massive oaken doors that kept their fortress secure and made them swing inwards as if they were the doors to a saloon. Both knights stopped in their tracks as they looked upon the long entry hall that led to the main interior of the castle. Like the exterior, no signs of damage could be seen. Both knights were growing more and more suspicious.

They heard the sounds of stampeding feet behind them, without a doubt the remains of their army who had so bravely battled the attacking demons. Both Royal Knights would make sure they were all commended for their valor as soon as this situation was fully dealt with.

Alphamon raised his hand without turning his head back. Behind her, Sunset could hear the sounds of the stampede immediately growing silent. It amazed her to see just how much control he had over these soldiers.

Omnimon gestured with his head, silently asking his friend if he should lead the way. Alphamon nodded and soon began to follow. Both digimon hunched over and held their weapons as close to their bodies as they could without hindering their ability to attack. They knew their enemy was waiting for them. Even a fool would know an explosion that loud would attract the knights’ attention, which made it all the clearer that they were walking straight into a trap.

Both knights soon reached the end of the long hallway and found two adjoining paths that lead directly to both the left and right. These new hallways stretched the same distance away from the entry hall and both turned at a ninety degree angle towards the true interior of the castle. Both Royal Knights stopped at the end of the entry hall and stared down the adjacent paths. They looked at each other and for a brief moment stood as still as statues, almost as if wordlessly communicating a plan through their stares alone.

The knights turned and each took a hallway. Sunset lost sight of Omnimon after Alphamon turned. She noticed he was holding his weapon close to his chest again, guarding himself as if expecting the enemy to spring straight out from the walls. He reached the turn at the end of his hallway and cautiously peered around it for the enemy. That was when he heard an odd sound, like bricks being stacked to make a wall but at a speed far too quick for a task so strenuous.

Immediately Alphamon turned around, catching a glimpse of something in his peripheral vision before feeling a five pronged object stab him straight in the gut. The knight’s eyes grew wide and his vision blurry. He turned his head to see his attacker, but couldn’t make out any of his physical features due to the growing impairment in his sight. All he could see was a single, glowing, crimson eye and a massive white weapon that created an impressive distance between him and the assailant. Alphamon fell to one knee, he thought he could hear a slight sigh coming from his attacker. “It’s been a while.” His attacker…no, his executioner said. “Though I doubt you recognize me.” He pulled his weapon out of Alphamon’s body allowing him to fully fall onto his knees. “I hope you understand this is nothing personal. I’ve always thought the world of you, I hope you know that. It’s why I didn’t delete you, but I can’t have you standing in my way, not with what I have planned for the future.”

“Alphamon?!” Alphamon heard the muffled voice of Omnimon as well as the footfalls of the hundred soldiers they left outside. His hearing must have been starting to go as well, because as the other knights grew closer the sounds they made grew quieter.

“You have loyal friends.” The executioner stated. “I suppose I wouldn’t count as one of them now.” Alphamon could barely make out a smile as it formed on his enemy’s face. “I hope someday we might be able to meet again, that is...after I fix everything. I wonder what you’ll be like after the change occurs? I will continue to ponder this until our next meeting. I hope you will be able to forgive me by then.”

Despite being in the midst of dying, Alphamon found himself surprised as the digimon suddenly started sinking into the floor. His smile became strangely warm as it spread to its full length across his face. “Rest in peace, dear friend. The Digital World will soon be a far better place.” His head sank below the bricks that made up the floor like a creature drowning in quicksand. Alphamon’s vision grew darker as he collapsed on the floor. The last few images he could make out before his sight left completely was the sight of Omnimon as he knelt down before him with the soldier knights crowding behind his back. Despite everything, Alphamon couldn’t help but smile underneath his helmet. It warmed his heart that they cared so much for someone they hardly got to see.

With his last breath, he whispered one last command as the leader of the Royal Knights. “Let your dedication and honor never falter and make our order proud...my...brothers.”

“ALPHAMON!!!” Omnimon’s cries were the last sounds Alphamon could hear as the world finally began to fade. “NO!! ALPHAMON!!!”

******

Back at the dump, the demon digimon was cursing his defeat. “Dammit!” He slammed his fist into the dirt as he landed and began limping towards the computer monitor that was his portal home.

He growled at his own arrogance. He had underestimated the humons and lost his target. He knew couldn't go back empty handed, his masters were not known for their mercy, but he was also in no condition to make another attempt right away. He needed a fair amount of fresh data to heal himself and in this world it wasn't in a form his body could use.

He was only a few yards away from the monitor, he could already imagine the feeling of the Digital World’s raw data entering his lungs instead of the putrid air that filled the humon world. It made him feel bitter, being forced to slink away after a battle with a Rookie digimon and a group of humons. It was an embarrassment! One he’d never live to talk about if his masters found out. Thankfully he already had a strategy, one that could keep this entire debacle under the radar if he played his cards right.

He began to run over the steps in his head. First, he needed to get back to the Digital World and heal his wounds, then he’d go straight into hiding as soon as possible. Later, after he regained his full strength, he would then search for a way to return to humon world and make all the humons pay for their insolence. He wasn’t sure how he would do this yet, but he would find a way. His pride as a warrior would allow nothing less.

His breathing haggard, he reached for the computer’s screen, even though he still had a good distance left to walk. The sooner he got back to the Digital World the better he’d feel, he kept telling himself. His raised hand was possibly a subconscious way for his body to urge him forward, making it seem like the distance was shorter because the portal would soon be within arm’s reach.

However, the monitor soon began to glow despite the absence of his touch. The screen came to life and shined a bright gold and blue. For an instant, the demon was baffled, that is until he remembered what those colors meant. In a flash of light, a digimon in gold armor emerged from the monitor kneeling before the demon. He soon stood to his full and imposing height, revealing the Radiance of Miracles himself, Magnamon, one of the six remaining Royal Knights.

“Shit...” The demon cursed under his breath as the Royal Knight turned his gaze towards him. He staggered backwards slightly as their eyes met. He quickly reclaimed his bravado and snarled at the warrior, “you’re too late, Magnamon!” He declared. “I'v-ACK!'' But before the demon could finish his sentence, Magnamon had already grabbed him by the neck and was lifting him off the ground.

“Liar.” Magnamon said. “If you had killed Alphamon, you would have digivolved into one of your blasphemous Ultimate forms already. Regardless of his level, the data you’d absorb from him alone would be more than enough to insite the change.” Magnamon informed before delivering a punch to the gut of his gaunt foe. It wasn't enough to kill the fiend digimon outright, but the demon was winded. "Now, the truth. Tell me everything you know, Devimon." Magnamon ordered.

Devimon chuckled at Magnamon’s demand, for he didn’t fear the aurian clad warrior, the supposed Radiance of Miracles. "You're a Royal Knight, you won't kill me." Devimon pointed out, knowing that Magnamon had his hands tied.

If Magnamon was affected by Devimon’s words, he showed no signs on his face, not that his helmet would allow for such things to be seen. He reached with his other hand and grabbed Devimon's left horn, "I always find that among you fiend digimon, things need to break to get anywhere with you.” Magnamon paused as he looked square into Devimon’s eyes. “And often I find myself asking your ilk, ‘what breaks first, the body or the will?’” Magnamon finished as if he was expecting a different answer than what he historically got.

"Get deleted." Devimon hissed in defiance.

"Body it is then." And with a flick of his wrist, Devimon’s horn was snapped clean off.

******

Sunset awoke from her vision once Alphamon’s eyes closed for the final time. She felt like she did prior that morning: sweaty, confused, and like she had just woken up from a nightmare. It soon dawned on her that she must have picked up the demon digimon’s thoughts when she was dreaming earlier today. If the danger hadn’t already passed, she would have kicked herself for not realizing it sooner. She could have prepared for the demon’s attack; she could have protected her friends by keeping them as far away from the danger as possible; she could have sent Flash home early and prevented him from having to deal with any of this; she could have…she could have been all alone...with no else around to help her save Dorumon. They both could have died this morning if she hadn’t asked for help.

Sunset shook her head, realizing she had lost herself in thought. She soon noticed a few of her friends were surrounding her. They looked worried, like they had just stopped in to visit an ailing loved one in the hospital. The rest of her friends were kneeling around Dorumon. She assumed that he must have blacked out around the same time she did once her vision had started.

Sunset sat up and rubbed her head, “how long was I out?” She asked with a groan.

“About fifteen minutes, Ah reckon.” Applejack replied. “So what did you see? Did you figure out how to get Dorumon home?”

Sunset moved her hand and began to rub her temple, she felt the start of a mild headache coming on. “It was…” She paused. She spent a moment searching for the right word to describe everything she had seen. “Intense, to say the least. Dorumon definitely wasn’t kidding about being someone important in his previous life.”

Twilight tapped her fist against her chin quizzically, “so you're saying Dorumon actually does possess memories of a past life. Suggesting that he, and perhaps even all creatures of his species, possess the ability to reincarnate. Fascinating.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Sunset leaned back so she could support herself with her hands. She felt exhausted, even despite having done nothing but lay next to Dorumon for several minutes. “In the memory, he was some kind of warrior, coincidentally enough, a knight judging by the look of him, and he was caught up in this major battle with a bunch of demon digimon that looked a lot like the guy who trashed my apartment. He had an army of other knight-like digimon behind him and they were all fighting to protect an ivory castle at the foot of a massive tree. They called him Alphamon and...he was their leader.” Her voice soon grew more somber, as if she were recalling a scene from a movie that had left her in tears. “Only two digimon talked to him in the memory and they both spoke to him like he was their equal...or their best friend...or their...” Sunset tried to recall the word Alphamon used, “...brother.”

“S-So what happened?” Fluttershy asked, her voice filled with worry. She was afraid to hear Sunset’s answer. “Did Alphamon and his friends win the battle?”

Sunset nodded her head. “They did, but Alphamon didn’t make it through the fight.” She closed her eyes as if paying respect. Her friends collectively gasped. “They fought off the demons, but their leader managed to sneak into the castle. Alphamon and Omnimon, one of the digimon I mentioned already, snuck in to eliminate the intruder before he could cause any damage.”

“But what about Alphamon’s other friend?” Pinkie Pie asked.

Sunset looked up and met Pinkie’s eyes with a cold expression. “He was already inside the castle. He was the intruder. He’s the one who killed Alphamon.”

She heard a couple shrieks come from her friends, as well as a few “no ways,” and even a couple swear words pointed at the backstabber from Dorumon’s memory. A groan was soon heard and the group turned to see that Dorumon was starting to stir.

The young knight rolled himself over and sat upon his rump. He stared at the humans with a pair of groggy, half-lidded eyes. He groaned a second time, “ugh, my head.” He leaned forwards until he fell over onto his chin. The teens who weren’t already huddled around him quickly rushed to his side. “You feeling okay, Dorumon?” Sunset asked sympathetically. She gently lifted his head and placed it on her lap.

Dorumon shook his head, “no. I feel like the battle for the Royal Knight’s castle is going on inside my head.” Without even asking permission, Sunset began to stroke the top of Dorumon’s head down to the back of his neck. She continued to repeat this motion in hopes that it would help to ease his pain.

“So I guess you remember your life as Alphamon now?” She asked.

Again Dorumon shook his head. “Much of it is still foggy, I’m afraid. But I believe I recall about as much as you witnessed while exploring my mind. At the very least, I now know who I was in the past.” A faint smile soon spread across his face. “Alphamon,” he repeated the name as if it belonged to someone he admired, “Leader of the Royal Knights and protector of the Digital World.”

Dorumon’s smile turned into a much more determined expression. He stood up suddenly and began marching towards the door, “and right now that’s exactly where I need to be.” He exclaimed with conviction. Before he could reach the door however, Rainbow Dash rushed in front of him at an incredible speed. She pressed herself against the door as if trying to hold something back and shot a stern look at the digimon.

“Woah, woah, woah! Where do you think you're going? In case you’ve forgotten, there’s a leather-clad batman out there looking for you. But unlike the real guy, this one's gonna have no problems with skinning you to make a rug.”

Dorumon shook his head in annoyance. He had hoped that by learning his story the humans would be more willing to let him leave. He didn’t want them to risk their lives for him anymore than they already had. “To answer your question, I'm going to find that digimon who attacked us.”

The rest of the group was on their feet almost immediately. They shouted in unison, “ARE YOU NUTS?!”

Dorumon looked back at them, his serious expression growing more firm. “He’s the only other creature of my kind in this world. He had to have used some kind of gateway between our worlds in order to find me.”

The teens looked about ready to tackle Dorumon to the floor. The digimon felt a sudden feeling of unease. He assumed this was a natural feeling, like when an animal was cornered by a predator. He didn’t want to hurt them, but would fight back if they impeded his mission. He would not let them sacrifice themselves for his sake. It wasn't something Alphamon would do. He was the one who made the sacrifices so no one else had too.

“We’re not letting you go out there alone.” Sunset said as she folded her arms. “I don’t care if he's injured or not, that monster nearly killed you this morning. No...you are going to stay right here where it’s safe until you are fully healed. Once that’s happened, then we’ll go looking for that digimon. Together.” She put emphasis on that final word as if scolding a child.

Dorumon growled at her, surprising everyone, “that isn’t your choice to make, Sunset!” He shouted. “That digimon came after me because I am a Royal Knight. He’s afraid that Alphamon may someday return and has come to your world to prevent that from ever happening.” His breathing grew heavy and looked down towards the floor. A dour look spread across his face, “I don’t know how or why I was sent to your world, but it's because of me that you are all now caught in the center of this. You shouldn’t have been involved, and I promise as soon as I get back to the Digital World I will have words with whomever decided it was worth the risk to put your world in danger. For now however, it’s best that you leave the rest of this crisis to me. It’s the only way I can make certain none of you get hurt because of my order’s mistake.”

Sunset scowled at Dorumon. “You know, you're really beginning to sound like Alphamon right now.”

“He was a hero who could fight off an army of demon digimon single-handed. I’d suspect that’s how you’d want me to sound.” Dorumon argued.

Sunset placed her hands on her hips. “Not if that means you're going to repeat his past mistakes. Running out there without someone to watch your back is exactly how you got killed in the first place!”

Dorumon’s growl slowly turned into a snarl. He bared his teeth at the girl and opened his mouth to bark another argument, but what came out instead was a groan of pain. He felt the gem in his forehead begin to beat as if it were his own heart. No...it was pulsating, and it was painful. He shut his eyes and cried out in agony, suddenly falling to the floor.

The teens gasped in terror and circled around him. Sunset placed a hand on top of his head to see what exactly was the problem. She pulled his hand back almost immediately as if he had just touched a scolding pot. “Jeez, he’s burning up!” She exclaimed. “Someone grab Dorumon some ice! I don’t know what’s happening, but I think he’s running a fever!”

******

At the same time, back in the dump, Magnamon was tossing a hornless, fangless Devimon onto the ground like a limp rag doll. “I’m impressed with your resilience. Most other fiend digimon would have sung like a dove by now.” He lifted his left foot and placed it on top of Devimon’s head. He started to force it downwards into the dirt, “ but it’s this stubbornness you show that really irks me. I want to tell you something in case you haven’t heard. I was one of the thirteen warriors that faced Megidramon when he was set loose.” He spoke slowly as he reminisced, paying little mind to sounds of Devimon's skull crunching and the fiend’s screams and pleas for mercy. “I was also one of the few who held off Ogudomon while the rest of the Royal Knights plotted how to defeat it.” Devimon bellowed in pain. “I have been around since the beginning of the Royal Knights, and I have grown very tired of fighting because of it.”

He lifted his foot off the demon’s head, allowing Devimon a brief reprieve from the pain. “I don’t enjoy doing this to you. But I will do whatever it takes if it means I can protect my brethren and my home.” He leaned down and whispered near Devimon’s face. Oddly, the demon digimon found it more intimidating than when shouting at him earlier. “So start singing, dove,” he warned, “before I am forced to do much worse.”

Devimon could barely even breathe. At this point he was almost willing to divulge everything he knew, but the fear of the punishments he’d receive from his masters was enough to stay his tongue. Magnamon rose back to his full height and looked about ready to stomp on him a second time. The demon closed his eyes, readying himself for another deluge of pain. But when nothing came for a solid minute, he found himself confused.

Devimon looked up to see Magnamon had froze. The golden knight moved his leg and placed it back on the ground. The bag tied around his waist was beginning to glow and fade repeatedly. This must have been what grabbed Magnamon’s attention. The knight suddenly grabbed the bag and held it out at arm’s length. He pointed in several directions until the bag glowed its brightest. He began walking in that direction. “Looks like I don’t need you to sing after all.” He said to Devimon dismissively. “Return to your masters, the traitors, and tell them The Empty Seat is about to be filled.” The turbines in his armor were soon activated and the knight was then lifted into the air. He soon flew out of sight once he crossed over the fence.

Devimon snarled. He had been beaten, used, and tossed aside, just like the trash that surrounded him. Not only was he humiliated by a weaker digimon and gaggle of humons, but a Royal Knight kicked him around like a training dummy. No one was showing him the respect he deserved! He had been hand chosen for this mission! His masters considered him worthy enough to kill Alphamon!

With a new found resolve, Devimon began clawing his way towards the portal. He dragged his body like a sack of broken bones, the pain eating at him, urging him to stop, but was unable to halt him as he set forth on his new self-appointed mission. He was going to kill Alphamon, the humons, Magnamon, and everyone else who got in his way, and nothing in this world or any other was going to stop him this time.

Chapter 1: Broken Computers and Mysterious Eggs

"Twilight, darling, are you absolutely certain about this?" Rarity was nervously standing amongst four of her friends as they watched Twilight place their seven multicolored necklaces into a small compartment of a much larger machine.

The human version of their Equestrian friend was currently dressed in a white lab coat with her hair done up in a bun to keep it from falling in her eyes. She turned around upon hearing the fashionista’s voice and smiled at the group in a way that made her look slightly deranged.

"I’m not only certain about this experiment, Rarity, I am excited beyond belief that we finally have the materials needed to perform it!" Twilight answered giddily. "These geodes we got from Camp Everfree are the first physical forms of Equestrian magic I've ever been able to study." She closed the compartment and began to dance happily in place. "Just imagine what this experiment alone could teach us!"

The girls briefly glanced at each other through the corners of their eyes, a collectively feeling of unease welling up inside them as they watched Twilight perform a few more minor calibrations to the machine. Their bodies grew visibly more tense every time they saw her push a button or turn a dial. It worried them greatly that they weren’t able to keep up with Twilight as she worked on the machine, especially since they knew they wouldn’t be able to personally jump in and turn it off should something go array. Suffice it to say, it didn't take long for one of the girls to start voicing their concerns.

"Yeah...what it could teach us." Applejack repeated. "But again, are ya absolutely sure this here experiment is safe?" Twilight turned her head to look at her stetson wearing friend. She quickly stifled a giggle and waved her unease off before returning to the machine.

"Of course it’s safe, Applejack. I personally went over this experiment multiple times on paper and studied for every possible outcome." Twilight explained proudly. "I also made sure to check that every apparatus on this machine was working properly and performing at peak condition. I even had our own resident magic expert check for me to see what kind of effects magical items like our geodes could have on this kind of machinery." She pointed her thumb over her shoulder towards Sunset Shimmer, who was sitting in front of them at one of the school's old box computers. The two girls had borrowed the device from the school’s computer lab and had somehow wired it up to the strange machine. The fiery haired girl in front of them, who was also in a lab coat, swiveled her chair around and gave them a reassuring smile.

"I can guarantee you all that nothing bad is going to happen." Sunset said with somewhat believable sincerity. "This machine is simply going to scan the geodes and tell us about their physical makeup." She tapped the printer sitting next to the computer with her hand, pointing out where said information was going to be produced from. "I swear to you, nothing is going to explode this time...or catch fire...or suddenly implode on itself like the start of black hole...again." Sunset suddenly began to mumble, "at least we're 90% sure..."

Applejack raised an eyebrow in casual disbelief. She had spent enough time on the farm to know bull shit when she smelt it. "What was that?" She asked her ex-Equestrian friend incredulously. The others narrowed their eyes at Sunset as well, clearly now picking up on what Applejack was thinking.

Sunset giggled nervously, her eyes darting between her friends' hardened gazes in a slight fit of apprehension. "I said...this experiment has a 90% chance of success!” She successfully lied. “Those are very good odds and provide complete confirmation that nothing catastrophic is going to happen here today." The girls’ gazes seemed to lighten somewhat upon hearing Sunset’s explanation, but not nearly enough to make the redhead feel as confident as she had been a few seconds ago.

Rainbow Dash folded her arms, "it better be, because if I have to wear that stupid rainbow wig again! I swear to god-"

Pinkie Pie’s hands suddenly shot upwards to cover her mouth. She could barely contain her own laughter. "Oh yeah, I remember that!" She snickered. "You’re talking about that time their experimental shampoo made your hair fall out and you had to wear that afro wig for a month straight, right?" The others soon snickered at the memory, causing Rainbow to glare deathly at her pink poofy-haired friend. Pinkie suddenly burst out laughing, “everybody called you Disco Dash!”

"Are you looking to get yourself knocked back to the 70s, Pinkie?” Rainbow raised her fist up in front of Pinkie’s face threateningly. “Because this is a good way of doing it.”

Pinkie gasped dramatically. "But Dashie, I’m not packed to be going on a long trip! And my bell bottom jeans haven’t even shown up in the mail yet!”

"Alright, that should do it!" Twilight’s voice cut through the conversation as she backed away from the supercomputer-like device. She ran back behind the desk where her friends were standing and tapped Sunset on the shoulder to get her attention. "Run the program!"

Sunset nodded.

"Ah'm just gonna go and stand back here, if that’s okay with everyone else?" Applejack quickly stepped back and behind the rest of her friends. The worried looks she saw on their faces indicated to her that they weren’t opposed to doing the same should the need suddenly arise.

Sunset began typing a long and intrinsic code noisily into the keyboard of the computer. She soon struck a triumphant pose in her chair like an overconfident hacker in a TV drama just before hitting the final key to start the program.

The machine that Twilight had set up in the Canterlot High science lab suddenly sputtered to life. It whirled, it beeped, it clicked, and it made all those other worrying sounds that all scientific equipment seemed to make during experiments like this. The compartment that held the geodes suddenly began to light up like a microwave oven when in use.

The two young scientists smiled eagerly as they turned their heads towards the computer screen. They watched in anticipation as scanned information was downloaded and processed onto the computer's hardware. They could hear the sounds of paper being formatted and printed besides them. The scanning of their group's necklaces was going better then either of them could have ever imagined.

But then they heard a disconcerting clunk. The girls all turned their eyes back towards the large machine.

The machine's clicking had suddenly become more violent; multiple blinking and non-blinking lights on the machine shinned and popped from being overloaded; and a fire suddenly burst from the side of the device causing all the girls to shriek out in terror.

"Quick, shut it off!" Twilight shouted. Sunset was even quicker to agree, and began violently punching in the machine's kill-code.

The compartment that held the geodes began to glow brighter. The girls were forced to cover their eyes as a multicolored strobe-like light shot out from where their necklaces were placed. A high pitched whine sounded from the device and the machine began to shake violently.

Applejack's eyes widen in realization. She jumped at her friends with her arms outstretched and tackled them all to ground.

"Get down!" She shouted.

The scanning machine exploded in a small but violent way, sending pieces of metal and wiring in all directions. The girls were forced to duck and cover under the desk as they waited for the explosion to subside. Only when they were certain the room had stopped shaking did they rise to their knees to peer over the desk and to assess the damages the machine had caused.

Fluttershy was the first to rise aove desk height after Applejack got off her and their friends. "Is everybody okay?" She asked nervously. She could see the other girls nodding and let out a sigh of relief.

"Ouchie...could you be a little more gentle next time you save our lives, Applejack?" Pinkie was the third to pick herself up. "Oh! And thank you for saving our lives, by the way. I super-duper appreciate it!" She gave the farm girl a thumbs up as if it were enough to show her her thanks.

Applejack was the first to fully get back to her feet. "Twilight... Sunset..." Applejack spoke calmly. "As your friend, Ah ask you this with utmost respect..." a familiar fire soon blazed in the young girl's eyes, "ARE YOU TWO TRYIN' TA KILL US ALL?!"

The rest of the girls rose to their feet around Applejack with Twilight being the last to stand. She placed her hand on her head and began raking them through her hair. "I-I'm sorry, I-I don't understand what could have happened?! We went through every possible scenario, we implemented every possible precaution, this experiment should have gone off without a hitch!" Twilight looked about ready to have a panic attack, earning her more than a few worried looks from her surrounding friends.

Sunset quickly placed her hand upon the younger girl's shoulder, showing her an equally concerned look to match the ones the others were giving her.

She looked toward the burnt and melted bombshell of a device that was now scattered over half the room. "I just don't know what went wrong!" Twilight suddenly shouted. Her friends immediately drew closer in order to comfort her.

Sunset removed her hand from Twilight's shoulder and strode closer towards the wreckage that was once a vastly expensive scanning computer. Strangely, she found the closer she got the colder the debris became, even despite it recently being part of an explosion. She looked down into the wreckage and noticed the geodes. They were all sitting on the room’s floor tiles in a circle of surrounding debris. Oddly enough, the geodes and the tiles beneath them were completely untouched by any sort of damage that could have been caused by the explosion.

She turned back towards her friends with a look of confusion. "I guess the geodes didn't like what we were doing to them." She bent down and retrieved the magical jewelry before walking back towards her friends. "So they decided to stop the experiment for us." She handed each of friends their respective necklace. “Unfortunately, I guess that meant having to destroy the scanning machine in the process.” She glanced over towards the box computer. “And the computer and printer too, apparently.”

Twilight moved her eyes from the destroyed machine towards the computer and printer. Much to her dismay, both looked to have been run through by large pieces of scrap metal. She groaned anxiously, "Principal Celestia is going to kill me." Judging by her tone, the girls could tell she felt utterly defeated.

"Us." Sunset said defiantly. Twilight looked up at her in confusion. Sunset continued, "we both decided to run these tests. So it was both our fault that the machine went ka-boom. That means we both have to share the blame and the wrath of Celestia too."

Twilight smiled back at her friend appreciatively and soon pulled her into a deep and thankful hug.

The rubble suddenly shifted with a couple resounding clangs. The girls all turned towards the noise and noticed a large rounded piece of purple debris rolling out of one the larger piles of scrap. It rolled down the pile until it came to a stop right on the tiles where the geodes had once been sitting.

Sunset raised an eyebrow in confusion and began walking back towards the wreckage. She knelt down once she reached the new oddity and lifted it so she could cradle it in her arms.

"What is it, Sunset?" Fluttershy asked. She turned back towards her friends, now holding the strange piece of rubble on display as if it were a baby.

"Oh! Oh! I know! I know!" Pinkie Pie shouted excitedly. "Its an egg!" She promptly high-fived herself and smirked victoriously. "First point goes to Pinkie Pie!"

The girls shot their hyperactive friend a few deadpanned expressions before turning back to look more at Sunset’s egg. "What is it really, sugarcube?" Applejack asked curiously. She glanced back towards Pinkie Pie. "Ya know, besides the obvious."

Sunset's expression was wary and uncertain. She did have an idea of what the egg could be, but it just seemed so ridiculous that one would even be in the human world to begin with. Still, the seven of them have faced weirder situations before, and it didn't hurt to at least voice her assumptions. She took a breath and then spoke without a hint of doubt in her voice. "I think this is a dragon egg."

"Eeep!" Fluttershy squeaked at her friend's declaration and immediately hid behind Rainbow Dash. The other girls’ expressions, likewise, varied from shock, to terror, to vague feelings of excitement.

"Wait… so you're telling us that there's a baby Godzilla in there?!" Rainbow asked quizzically. Of all the girls present, she looked to be the most excited. "Like an actual dragon we could hatch and tame for our own?" Rainbow's eyes began to sparkle. “Like an actual fucking dragon we could put a saddle on and ride and use to burn insulting messages into Crystal Preps' front lawn!”

"We can't keep it Rainbow Dash." Sunset stated flatly. "And even if we could, I would never let you do that." Sunset’s voice soon grew much calmer. “Besides, I’m not even sure if this is a real dragon egg or not.”

Twilight rubbed her chin quizzically, "is it really that hard to tell?"

Sunset gave her friend a so-so look to answer her question. "I've only ever seen depictions of dragon eggs in books and scripture, let alone held one. Princess Twilight was the one who hatched a dragon for her entrance exam, not me."

"Then perhaps she might know more about the little darling?" Rarity suggested.

"Rarity's got a point." Applejack continued. "If we really want answers, she's gonna be our best bet. Heck, Princess Twilight might even be able to take the little critter back to Equestria for us and get him back to where he belongs. Wherever that is, of course."

Sunset nodded in agreement. "I'll send her a message as soon as I get back to my apartment. We can work out what to do from there once I get her reply." She looked down at the purplish-blue egg she held in her arms. A faint smile crossed her lips. "Till then, we’ll need to figure out where we're going to keep him."

"Ooh! Ooh! Let him move in with me! Let him move in with me!" Pinkie Pie bounced excitedly while frantically waving her arms about. "He’ll be the perfect playmate for Gummy!" She explained. "He gets super-duper lonely whenever I leave the house, but he’ll never have a chance to be lonely again once he has his very own egg to take care of!"

The girls stared at Pinkie in confusion. “Pinkie Pie, dearheart, you do realize Gummy is a stuffed animal, correct?”

Pinkie Pie folded her arms and turned away from her friends in a huff as if they had just told her her cupcakes tasted bad. Her cheeks puffed up and she grumbled out a response, “doesn’t mean he still wouldn’t make a good mommy.”

Twilight cleared her throat and adjusted her glasses. She wanted to cause a distraction to avoid having any more arguments start up. "Gummy’s potential for parenthood aside…I personally think it would be best if Sunset took care of the egg."

Sunset blanched. "W-what m-m-me!?"

"You do have the most experience with these kinds of endeavors, Sunset." Rarity stated. "Besides you already take care of a lizard at home, correct? I’m certain egg care for a dragon can’t be that much different. You’ll just need a larger heat lamp and a box to keep it in.” The young fashionista darted her gaze towards Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, causing Sunset's gaze to do the same. She whispered into Sunset’s ear, "besides, I personally feel safer knowing you are the one taking care of this creature as opposed to some other people. At least with you, I can feel certain that you won’t try to hatch this thing."

Rainbow Dash leaned back after listening in on their conversation. "Hey!"

Pinkie Pie leaned back after doing the same. She shrugged in response, "that's fair."

"But taking care of an egg like this is way different than taking care of Ray! I haven’t even taken care of an egg in my Home and Gender Studies class yet!" Sunset exclaimed in panic. Her friends noticed a few stray hairs falling out of place on her fiery head. "An egg's embryo requires constant amounts of heat and warmth to ensure the yolk inside doesn't go sterile! We'd need to build an incubator, but we neither have the time nor the materials for that!" A sudden look of terror appeared on Sunset's face. She shouted, "WHAT TIME OF THE MONTH IS IT?!"

"Uh... we're about halfway through November." Rainbow answered disconcertedly.

"THE COLD WEATHER HAS ALREADY SET IN!" The other girls winced worriedly as Sunset clasped the egg tighter in her arms like it were a security blanket. They feared she might crack the poor thing open out of sheer anxiety.

Fluttershy suddenly stepped in and slapped her hands onto her worried friend's shoulders. She gave her a stare that she normally only used on her misbehaving animals and Sunset almost immediately felt herself go slack. She spoke in a commanding voice, "Sunset Shimmer, please calm down."

"Okay." Sunset answered in a calmer, near trace-like voice.

"You do not need to feel overwhelmed. Your friends are going to help you, okay?" Sunset nodded.

"Good. Now here's what you're going to do: you're going to take that baby dragon home with you; when you get there you are going to turn up your heater to a higher degree; and then you will wrap the egg's shell in the warmest clothes you can find. Do you understand?"

Sunset nodded again. “Yes.”

Fluttershy raised her hands from Sunset's shoulders and slowly backed away towards the rest of their friends, who were all carrying expressions of extreme unease. Twilight silently leaned over towards Rarity and quickly whispered in her ear. "She scares me when she uses the stare on people." Rarity nodded in agreement.

Sunset shook her head to clear it of its dizziness. "I really wish you wouldn't do that Fluttershy." She stated groggily.

Fluttershy blushed in embarrassment. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be, in truth, I should be thanking you." Sunset said forgivingly. "I mean... at least now we have the start to a plan." She gave her friends a genuine half smile.

"And we're going to help you every step of the way until we come up with a full one." Twilight stated optimistically before pulling her friend into a second deep hug.

"Indeed. You have our total undying support and aid." Rarity continued as she joined the hug.

The rest of their friends nodded in agreement before joining the three in a much bigger group hug. Sunset smiled happily. She very much appreciated their love and support, but maybe now was not the best time for a tender embrace.

"Girls…not that I don’t appreciate the hug, but you're all kind of crushing the egg."

The girls all stepped back from Sunset in sudden shock. An awkward silence soon filled the room, only to be replaced by the sounds of laughter when the girls fully absorbed how absurd their situation had become.

Little did they know, another was listening in on their guffaws. It didn’t know where it was, nor why it was currently so dark. All it did know was that the sounds it was hearing were pleasant and something was placing a comfortable amount of heat on its body. It soon decided it would like to find the source of these things just as soon as the world became a little brighter and a lot less cramped.

******

Sunset returned to her apartment as soon she and the other girls cleared most of the debris from the Canterlot High science lab. It had been a long and busy day for her even before the explosion occurred, so she was happy to finally have made it home.

She unlocked her door and gently pushed it open. She flicked on the lights, her one room flat looked exactly the same as it did that morning before she had left for school. It was slightly messy she had to admit. Some of her dirty clothes were lying discarded in random places all over the floor and her kitchen sink was filled with a leaning tower of dirty dishes. She decided that she would make a note to herself at some point to clean her apartment tomorrow morning. It was a Saturday after all, it wasn’t like she wouldn’t have the time.

Sunset sauntered over to her couch and gently placed her backpack on the cushions. She leaned back and placed her hands on her aching spine, gently pushing it forward until she could hear the pops of her vertebra. She turned her eyes back towards her backpack. The egg that was inside may not have been heavy, but its round shape certainly made it uncomfortable to carry. She leaned down and unzipped the backpack before pulling the egg from its canvas-lined innards. She placed the egg on the coffee table in front of her couch and then started heading for her thermostat.

Sunset began mentally reciting the steps Fluttershy had given her in order to keep the egg warm. She was about to reach for the thermostat, when something suddenly caught her attention from the corner of her eye. She turned her head and soon noticed Ray, her pet leopard gecko, darting towards the glass nearest to her and pawing at it as if trying to gain her attention. The tiny lizard must have noticed her when she came in, Sunset surmised, and he must have wanted to spend some quality time with his favorite human.

Sunset smiled and immediately walked over towards Ray’s terrarium. The leopard gecko nearly jumped into her hand the moment she lifted the terrarium’s roof and reached down far enough to grab him. Sunset giggled as Ray scampered up her arm and nestled himself into a spot on her shoulder amongst her long flowing hair. “How’s mama’s little man doing today?” She raised a finger and scratched Ray under her chin. The gecko chirped happily in response. “Did you miss me while I was gone?” She continued to coo. “I bet you did! Yeah, I bet you did!”

She moved her finger and let Ray settle into her hair. It was normally at this point that the gecko liked to turn in for a nap, the warmth of her hair and body being one of his favorite places to lay. Sunset smiled tenderly and turned her head back towards the terrarium. She hadn’t thought about it much, but the case she had bought for her pet lizard was actually quite big. It had a thick wooden frame, actual glass and wire fencing to keep Ray inside, a grassland patterned poster on the back to remind Ray of home—even despite Fluttershy telling her Ray was born in a pet store and not the arid grassland of some distant country—and even a pair of two foot branches and a hollow log for Ray to climb on. In retrospect, the thing was extremely massive and cost her quite the pretty penny to afford, a little over three months of paychecks from her job at Samurai Sushi in the Canterlot Mall. But on the bright side, the terrarium also came with its own industrial strength heat lamp, which was more than enough to keep Ray warm even during the colder months of winter.

A thought soon popped into Sunset’s head and her eyes widened. She rushed over towards the couch and quickly grabbed the egg before rushing back. She held it up against the front of the terrarium and smiled. The egg was definitely a great deal larger than her leopard gecko, but it was still a great deal smaller than the massive terrarium, enough so that she could easily fit the egg inside and crank up the heat to keep it warm until Princess Twilight could be contacted.

Sunset smiled excitedly and began to dance happily in place as if she had just found a hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk. She soon stopped when she realized Ray had been holding onto her for dear life ever since she had started zooming around the room. Sunset grimaced sheepishly and held still while she let Ray resituate himself on her shoulder. The lizard glowered up at her from her shoulder, leaving Sunset only able to chuckle awkwardly in response. “Sorry buddy, I got a little excited.” She placed the egg down and reached for the terrarium's roof. Once she placed it aside, she then picked the egg back up and set it down gently in the sand lining the bottom of the case. She dug the egg a little further into the sand in order to keep it from falling over and placed the roof of the terrarium back on top.

Ray looked up at her in confusion. “Don’t worry, Ray, I’m not taking your house away.” Sunset reassured. “I’m just letting this little guy borrow it for now until we can send him back home. Okay?” Ray didn’t understand what she was saying, because he was a lizard, but decided not to worry about it for now. He had a nap to get back to anyway.

Sunset was proud of herself for finding a way to keep the egg warm. Now she didn’t need to kill herself by turning her home into a sauna. She marched over towards her couch and gently laid herself down so as to not disturb Ray.

She turned her head to look at the egg and began laughing at herself for how flustered she had been acting back at the school. What was she so worried about? This was going to be easy. It’s an egg, not an actually living baby. She didn’t even need to feed it. She just needed to make sure it stayed warm and that no one mistakenly used it to make an omelet.

Her thoughts slowly started to become more nostalgic as she turned her head towards the ceiling. "If you could only see me now, aye Celestia?" She said as if speaking to a shrink. "First, I become your personal student at the most prestigious magic school in Equestria; next, I become the world's first 'quote-on-quote' immigrant to an entirely different dimension; and now..." she chuckled again, "just call me Sunset Shimmer, professional egg-sitter." She folded her arms behind her head and continued to lazily stare at the ceiling. She had told her friends that she would send a message to Princess Twilight concerning the egg as soon as she had gotten home, but now that she had reached the point of being able to send the princess her message, she didn’t really feel like doing it. Right now, all she wanted to do was decompress and nap after a particularly harrowing day like the snoozing lizard on her shoulder. She briefly considered the idea of taking a nap and soon decided that it wouldn’t hurt anything if she did. Her friends wouldn’t know anything about it if she did, and the egg wasn't going anywhere, so what was the harm?

She started to close her eyes and took in a deep breath to relax herself. The message could wait till later, she fully decided. Right now, it was Sunset time and she was going to take a nap, by Celestia! She kicked off her boots and let out a loud sigh of contentment as she wiggled her toes. She didn’t realize before just how badly she needed to take those off.

Her eyes finally reached being closed and she let her head slump to the side as sleep slowly began to take hold of her.

An abrupt knocking suddenly came from Sunset’s front door, startling the girl upwards into a seated position and sending Ray flying off her shoulder to the opposite arm of the couch. Sunset shrieked and dove over the end of the couch like a football player trying to catch a punted ball. She caught Ray in between her hands and curled them and her body around him as they both hit the floor. Sunset groaned in discomfort as she rolled onto her back. “Oooww…” She lifted her hands above her body and opened them up to reveal that Ray had not been harmed in the collision.

A second round of knocking came from the front door and Sunset and Ray both turned to glare at it. Sunset stood up and placed her pet back on her shoulder. She turned towards the doorway and began marching towards it with the full intent of decking whoever was standing on the other side in the schnoz.

A third round of knocking was heard and Sunset grasped the doorknob with so much force that she wouldn’t be surprised if she dented it. She swung the door open much harder then she intended to and ended up slamming her wall in the process. “Who’s there and what the f-”

Her eyes widened when she noticed one of her friends was standing at the door. The blue-haired boy with a pizza box in one hand and a two liter of soda in the other stared at her in confusion. “Umm… Hey Sunset.” Flash Sentry replied. “I’m sorry if this is a bad time. I could come back later?” He framed his last choice of words as a question because he honestly couldn’t read her expression. She looked mortified, but sounded a few seconds ago like she had just come off a heated argument with her ex. He continued to think about that analogy for a second while he waited for Sunset to reply to him, and slowly over time began to fear that Sunset might have been upset with him for some reason. An angry Sunset was not something anyone found pleasant, so in order to protect himself from possible harm, he decided to calmly speak to her in hopes of finding the root of her problem. His first guess was unfortunately himself.

“Hey are you alright?” He asked, noticing Sunset hadn’t replied within the minute he had spent thinking to himself. “Umm… did I do something that upset you? If I did I’m sorry.”

Sunset shook her head finally realizing Flash was talking to her. A blush spread across her face, “what? Oh no, no Flash, I’m not mad at you. I was just lying down for a nap when you started knocking at my door. It scared me awake and I ended up launching Ray off my shoulder and nearly onto the floor.”

Flash grew immediately concerned. “Oh my god! Is he okay?!”

Sunset reached up and pulled the gecko off her shoulder and showed him to Flash. “Yeah, he’s fine. A little motion sick, maybe?” The gecko sniffed the air in front of him and turned his attention to the pizza box. Both teens soon realized what the gecko was thinking and before Sunset could pull him back from leaping distance, Ray jumped from her hand and landed on the lip of the pizza box, which he then crawled inside.

Flash raised a brow at the box he held in his hand. “Sure hope he doesn’t hork in there.”

A moment of silence was held between the two before Sunset finally broke out laughing. “Don’t be gross!” She pushed him in the shoulder. Flash began laughing soon after.

“So what are you doing here anyways?” Sunset finally decided to ask.

Flash raised up the pizza and soda in front of her as if presenting them to her for holy sacrifice. “Parents aren’t home, Scootaloo’s at a sleepover at Applejack’s house, and there was nothing good on TV.” He replied. “So then I thought, I got a few spare bucks lying around, why not order a pizza and crack open a bottle of Pepsi since I got nothing better to do.”

Sunset cocked a brow at him. “And you decided to share them with me?” She asked skeptically.

If Flash could scratch the back of his head, he would have. “Well… you were close by, and it's been a while since we last hung out without the other girls.” He suddenly caught himself after he realized what he was implying. “Not that I don’t like them, of course! Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and the others are awesome. It just feels weird sometimes when you're the only guy in a large group of girls. Other dudes either come up to congratulate me as a legend among men or curse my existence for preventing their chance at making a pass at you guys.” He shook his head in dismay. “It’s both very flattering and somewhat embarrassing at the same time. It leaves me very confused.”

Sunset patted him gently on the cheek. “I would consider it flattering.” She said encouragingly. “Think about it this way… Men either see you as a threat or as an idol to respect and strive to be like. Plus, think about it from our perspective. The girls and I know we’re hot, so we’d be swamped by guys 24-7 if we didn’t have some way of regulating them. With you around we know guys aren’t going to make a pass at us because they think we’re with you and a lot of them are afraid to start something with you because you look tough. You are, in a sense, the big brother to our friend group. You keep away any sleazy guys who may try to get in our pants and weed out the more respectable guys who would have the courage to ask us out even despite you being there to protect us. You’re also funny, charming, and quite frankly just a nice person to be around. It’s why we like to have you around whenever you can hang out, because we enjoy your company.”

It was Flash’s turn to blush. “Jeez, stroke a man’s ego till he bursts, why don’t ya?” He caught himself again. “Sorry, that sounded dirty.” He smiled sheepishly. “I regretted it as soon as I said it.”

Sunset shrugged her shoulder and turned to head back into her apartment. She looked over her shoulder and gave Flash a ‘come hither’ look, “You gonna stand out there all night or bring that pizza in before it gets cold? I just realized I haven’t eaten anything since lunch and I am starving.”

Flash Sentry nodded in response. He stepped in just far enough to kick the door shut. He then walked over towards the kitchen and placed the box and soda onto the table before moving over towards cabinets for some cups.

"You do know we aren't dating anymore, right Sunset?" He asked after realizing how flirty Sunset was had been just a few seconds ago.

Sunset noticed the slight blush on her ex's face and snickered to herself audaciously. "Is it really my fault you're just so easy to tease." Flash chuckled in response.

"Guess not. I just wouldn't go around talking like that though open doorways." Sunset's eyes widened upon hearing Flash's words. “You never know who could be listening.”

"Wait? Was there somebody else out there?" She asked worriedly. Flash gave her his own patented smirk.

"There was a creepy looking guy with a beard and trench coat sitting at the bus stop nearby.” Flash replied. “But I don’t think you have worry too much about him spreading rumors to our friends. I sincerely doubt he’s the kind of guy they’d like to be seen with.”

Sunset scowled at Flash in response. She could tell he was lying. "Jerk... I thought you meant someone from school. You really scared me there."

"Right, now who's easy to tease." The expressions on the two teens quickly began to brighten, and soon they found themselves laughing uproariously.

Sunset flopped back down onto the couch as Flash began pouring a pair of drinks. He walked over and handed one to her as soon as he was finished. “Thank you, sir.” He walked back toward the kitchen table and opened the box to grab a couple slices of pizza. There was a small pile of paper plates sitting on top of the pizza inside, so he took two and deposited two slices each onto the plates before heading back over toward the couch. He chuckled slightly to himself as thought about Ray, who was gnawing on the crust of one of the slices he left behind, as he made his way back towards Sunset.

“Here you go.” He handed Sunset her pizza and she smiled sweetly as she took it.

She looked at the many vegetables that decorated the pizza. “Aww, you remembered I'm a vegetarian." She jokingly said.

"Kind of hard to forget. It's not everyday your ex-girlfriend tells you she's some kind of magical talking horse from another dimension."

"Pony. Not horse. There's a big difference." Flash nodded and took a sip of his soda. He turned his head without reason and soon noticed the giant egg sitting in the terrarium not far from the couch. He stared at it for a brief while and blinked at it a couple times in confusion. He soon placed his drink down and turned to look at Sunset.

"What's that?" He asked, quizzically pointing at the egg.

Without even batting an eye, Sunset answered. "An egg the girls and I found after an experiment with our necklaces went wrong." Flash blinked in reply.

"Is... is it a magical pony thing?" He asked.

"We think it's a dragon egg." Sunset continued to explain. "But don't worry, we plan to send it back to Equestria before it has time to hatch."

Flash felt somewhat relieved. "Guess that explains why its taken over Ray’s terrarium." He looked back at Sunset curiously. “Speaking of which, does Ray have somewhere to sleep now?” He looked back at the egg, “I can’t imagine it would be comfortable to be in there right now with the egg taking up the majority of the terrarium’s space.”

Sunset waved a hand at him. “Yeah, Ray’ll be fine. I got a smaller cage in my closet I use for him whenever his terrarium needs cleaning.”

Flash nodded his head. "Alrighty then." He reached forwards and grabbed the TV remote off the coffee table. "Let’s see what's on TV." He pressed the power button and immediately began flicking through the channels.

Sunset snickered and without thinking leaned over to place her head on Flash’s shoulder in order to find a more comfortable way to sit. "Check to see if there's any good movies on."

******

The two spent most of the rest of the night eating pizza, talking, and watching bad movies on Syfy. It wasn't until a couple hours later that Flash finally decided to take a look at the time. It was a quarter past 10:00 and getting pretty late.

Flash silently rose from the couch and stretched out his back. "I think it's about time I head home, Sunset." Flash grabbed his hoodie off the floor and picked up the trash from dinner. He headed towards the door with Sunset following close behind him.

Flash reached for the door before turning back to say goodbye to his friend. "I'll see you at school on Monday, Sunset. Tell me how this whole egg thing works out then, okay?" She nodded in response, earning a smile from the boy.

Flash then opened the door, only to be met with a sprinkle of water to the face. The outside world was currently being drenched by an unexpected storm. Flash blinked in surprise. "Huh?" He stated unenthusiastically. "Guess I'll be walking home in the rain then."

"Nope!" The door to the apartment suddenly slammed shut in front of him. Flash turned to look at Sunset, who had her arms crossed over her chest. "You are going to stay right here tonight. You can go home when the rain dries up in the morning." She stated with authority.

Flash briefly remembered the conversation he had with himself concerning how an angry Sunset was not something anyone found pleasant, so to avoid enraging her in any way, he decided to go along with her commands and tell his parents he’d be sleeping over at friend’s house tonight. “Okay, I guess I’m staying here.”

Sunset patted him on the head affectionately. “Good boy.” She had returned to teasing him.

Flash sighed in defeat. “I'm going be sleeping on the couch then, I assume?” Sunset nodded. “Great. You got any spare blankets?”

"Top shelf of the closet, just above my winter clothes." She pointed towards the east side of the room where the closet was located. She then began sauntering past him towards the stairs where her loft bed was located. "Feel free to stay up as long as you want, but as for me, I'm going to bed." She climbed the stairs and sighed upon seeing the state of her sleeping area; she had forgotten she waded up her sheets for laundry this morning.

Sunset continued to talk. "And if you need me please knock on the steps first. I don’t know what it is, but I always seem to get really hot during the night. I'll be sleeping in my underwear and I'm not even kidding." As one would expect, Flash blushed wildly. “So no trying to sneak a peek while I’m snoozing, alright? This is me putting my trust in you. You understand me?”

Flash nodded his head. "Y-Yes. Yes I do." He stated in embarrassment. He quickly cleared his throat, regaining Sunset's attention. "Before you go, could you maybe tell me where the bathroom is located? That soda ran right through me."

"It’s through the door right next to the kitchen." Flash turned and quickly started walking towards it. "And I don't want any guy stink in there, Flash Sentry!” She shouted in hopes that he’d hear. “Keep your waste purely liquid! You hear me?!" She didn’t wait for a reply and instead started stripping down before jumping into her sheetless bed.

As the two left the room at large, both teens failed to notice the egg in the terrarium beginning to twitch. Its twitching soon turned into a jostle and then a violent rumble until it had shaken itself free of the sand that was holding it. But as soon it came loose from the sand and fell over, it became stagnant and motionless again. If one were to look straight at it they wouldn’t notice a difference besides its current sideways position. But if one were to look closer and actually feel the egg, they might just notice that a strange new warmth was now resonating off of its shell.