Displaced Hunger
Chapter 22: Another World
Previous ChapterGrogar and I were in the middle of our magic lesson when a strange bright yellow portal opened up and sucked me in. Grogar leapt in after me, Grogar frowned “So you were summoned by someone huh?”
I nodded “Seems like it.”
I frowned as Grogar’s form began to change, as we stepped through a huge white mechanoid shouted at us poiting what appeared to be a gun at us “FREEZE!” I raised an eyebrow, Grogar stepping forward. I doubt he liked being threatened by strangers.
The mechanoid shouted again “I SAID FREEZE!”
I sighed as Grogar deadpanned at the mechanoid “Put down the toy before I am forced to break it.”
I raised an eyebrow as the Mechanoid said to someone “Very well.” He then turned to me “I recognise him but who are you?”
I looked up at him “You can call me Sarah or Six, which ever one suits you best.”
He was quite large, at least compared to me. He introduced himself “I think I’ll go for Sarah. I’m Diego.”
He then paused for a moment before turning back to us “So, how did you two get here?” He then held up my token “And does it have something to with this?”
I nodded “Yes, that is my token. Tokens are tools for the Displaced to meet with others. The one who brought me to my world taught me how to make one and explained a lot of it to me. I’m surprised yours did not.”
He responded with confusion “Token. Dis...placed? I’m not sure what you mean. Also what do you mean by brought to this world?”
I took a deep breath “Alright. From what I was told Displaced are people who through being given an item by a powerful being that causes them to travel to a different world in a new form.” I hoped that was enough of a clue.
He seemed to understand from his explanation"Huh. Oh yeah. That fits the bill. Although, I wasn't given an item, I think I was… hypnotised into buying one. And then, from what I heard, I exploded. Wait a minute, Caulina didn't do any of that but she still ended up here. She just…, well, she got hit by a truck."
I frowned “It’s not an exact science, I’m only one example. I wonder how your world differs from mine and by how much. Well aside from our relationships with Grogar being different.”
I turned to Grogar, he was a muscular blue human wearing brown pants. His two large goat horns stuck out of his forehead, he was admiring himself “It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a humanised world. I find it very interesting how this turns out when I go to new worlds.” He adjusted his pants to be more comfortable, probably good considering the world had humans.”
I focused back on Diego as he asked “Humanised? What do you mean?”
I noticed Grogar's smirk as he explained “Well, in our world everyone is an equine of some sort. Hooves, not hands and four of them. Everything is designed around a quadrupedal build which means for large Bipeds such as yourself it is hard to get around.”
He paused for moment before flinching, he shook his head and turned to us signalling for us to walk with him to leave the forest "Okay, ignoring that headache. Do you have Galra in your world?"
I shook my head “No, are they a threat or an ally?”
I groaned as he responded cheekily “Yes. It depends. Thanks to the efforts of the resistance, they’ve turned around for the better. Although, there are still a handful of “loyalists.” He boasted “They’re in shambles though. Barely a threat anymore.”
I grimaced “They are lucky to have you, Grogar and I as well as many of our allies would not have been anywhere near as merciful. We would wiped their entire race out in a matter of days.”
Diego explained as we neared the edge of the forest "Sheesh. I wouldn't go that far. Kolivan, the leader of the resistance, is a good friend of mine and he's a galran. And one of my other friends is half galran, half Mystacoran. His name is Shining Armour."
I raised an eyebrow “I know my world’s version of Shining Armour, he is really strong. He is the General of the military and stopped the former Changeling Queen from kidnapping Cadence. They have a new Queen now I think, she’s leading them well.”
Diego stopped “Really?"Huh. That's not how it happened here at all. Chrysalis showed up and kidnapped princess Luna. She even tried to impersonate her but I saw through it. Then, she forced me to come to her hive where I freed Luna. I would have attacked Chrysalis but Luna had a better idea. We're now in a strong truce with the changelings. They've started taking on jobs and hobbies and considering we found a way to feed their hunger, I'm quite sure the truce will last for a while."
I turned to Diego “How did you cure Changeling hunger?”
Diego chuckled “See these trees around us?” We looked around as he continued “See if you can break off one of their branches.” I grabbed one of the branches and with a slight flick of my wrist, I snapped it off. A new branch immediately regenerated.
I turned to him “Your changelings must work differently than ours, there is no love in these branches.”
Diego explained to us as we continued walking "That may be true but there is a wellspring of quintessence thanks to yours truly. Quintessence is basically life energy which is what changelings need to survive, at least in this world. So, a team of galra regularly harvest branches from the quintessence forest for the changelings. The branches, which are called quintessence roots, are basically used as batteries for changelings to carry around. With them, the changelings can happily live among people." He then changed the topic "Anyway, come on. We're almost out of the forest."
I blinked as we saw the huge technologically advanced outpost “You didn’t tell us the Galrans were Aliens!” Suddenly a dozen strange weapons were pointed at Grogar.
Diego shouted as he stepped forward “Woah! Men stand down.”
One of the aliens asked Diego while gesturing to Grogar “Sir Diego, why is he here?”
Diego tried to explain it to them "He isn't Grogar, he just… looks and sounds exactly like him." I deadpanned, I don’t blame them for being sceptical. That was a terrible explanation.
The alien activated what I guessed was a communicator, I didn’t really hear the message that he spoke into it. It wouldn't really matter, they couldn’t beat Grogar if they tried. Diego said as he looked up at the massive spaceship “Alright. He’ll be here in two doboshes.”
I frowned “What is a dobosh? Is that some weird Alien measure of time that I am unaware of.”
Diego explained "Oh right. Yeah, a dobosh more or less correlates to a minute."
I shrugged as the alien asked “Who is she?”
Diego responded “Oh, this is Sarah. She’s from… uh…” He tailed off, clearly he didn't know how to explain the situation.
I stepped forward, I pinched my nose. This shouldn’t be that hard to explain “I’m from another world that is the dimensional equivalent of this one but full of ponies. I came here because of my token which Diego has, I live in Equestria and the planet is called Equis. Now I’m going to sit next to my world’s version of Grogar.” I went over to him and sat down.
I watched as Grogar was juggling a few compressed universes. Each one was about the size of a basketball, I turned to see the man who I assumed was Kolivan “I assume you're the leader of the Aliens?”
He confirmed my suspicions as he introduced himself “I am Kolivan. Leader of the Blades of Marmora. I believe your name is Sarah?”
Sarah nodded “I am Sarah and this is Grogar. He is juggling a few compressed universes he made. It is something he does sometimes, it makes for good practice from what he has told me.”
Kolivan said "If you could explain how you arrived here, it would be very informative." He then gestured to his ship "Perhaps we can have some… tea? As the princesses are fond of doing."
I nodded “Sure, we can do that.”
Kolivan guided us onto the ship he arrived, it was far more advanced than anything I have seen. Grogar didn’t look surprised, he must have seen this before. After a minute Kolivan informed us as he piloted the ship “I've sent a message to the princesses. They'll be expecting us in the hangar.”
I raised an eyebrow as Diego asked “ETA?” I guess that mean estimated time of arrival.
Kolivan responded to him “Two doboshes.”
Diego called back to us "Don't get too comfy, we'll be there in about two minutes."Grogar was sitting there quietly. Diego turned to Grogar "So, have you ever seen anyone do something weird without using magic? Not counting Sarah?"
I frowned Grogar raised an eyebrow.“Define weird, I have travelled quite a few dimensions. I've seen giant entities who can eat planets, mortals who grow to the strength of gods. Worlds where people hunt vampires, worlds invaded by armies of the undead created by a biological contaminant. Weird has lost all meaning for me.”
Diego asked "You sure get around. Well, have you seen any worlds where people can absorb and emit things through genetic abilities?"
Grogar nodded “You refer to the superhumans known as Conduits. Yes but I didn’t think they would be present in any world that was not Earth. Your world is full of surprises.”
Diego replied "Conduits. Cool name. So, they exist on parallel earths? That's weird. Then again, so are we."
The three of us then heard Kolivan call from the cockpit "Coming in for landing."
Diego said as he made his way to the door "Well, time to face the music. I better go out first, just to be safe." The door automatically opened, Grogar summoned a lemonade from somewhere. I shrugged as Diego walked down the staircase that somehow extended from the ship.
Both of us heard Luna’s voice "Diego? Are you alright? You seem tense." This was an interesting day.
We heard Diego tell someone who we guessed was Luna "Fine, just… don't freak out." Given what this world’s version of Grogar was like I could understand that.
Luna responded before trailing off as she looked at us "Freak out? Why would I…"The guard escorting her and this world’s Celestia behind her pointed their weapons at Grogar.
Celestia exclaimed loudly “Grogar?!” I groaned, really Celestia. Great way to cause a panic.
I rubbed my forehead as Luna demanded "Diego… why is he here? And not in chains?"
Diego responded "That question has a valid but long answer which I would rather not discuss here. Can we go to your study?"Grogar didn’t seemed phased bay any of this, it made sense. He was a self made god, he had no reason to fear anyone here.
Luna ordered looking between us "Very well. I expect a detailedexplanation of why he is here. And who they are."
I shrugged as Diego responded "Of course. Let's go."We followed him, a lot of the technology was far more advanced than anything I could recognise. I couldn’t name any of them. Grogar got a lot of stares even as we entered the castle which did look different from the one I knew. The doors where definitely designed for humans, not ponies. We entered Luna's’ study, we all took seats at a circular table.
Luna wasn’t happy about Grogar from her tone “Explain. Now.”
Diego turned to us "Do… you want to explain it again or should I?"
I nodded to Diego “I will.” I then turned to Luna “We are from another version of this world but everyone from your nation are ponies.” I conjured up an image of my world’s Luna. She continued “Grogar is from my world and he has proven to be of good trust. Besides, if even half of what he says is true, he could destroy the entire planet before breakfast with a click of his fingers. If he wanted to cause harm he would have done so.” Luna looked to Diego for confirmation. He nodded to her.
Luna asked us "Very well. How did you arrive here?”
I frowned “Well I created an object that can be sent to others like me, Displaced. People who are sent to other worlds in a new form for one reason or another. This object allows other Displaced to summon us, this object can be anything but we must infuse our will into it. As for Grogar, he decided to tag along. Now I made mine using this.” I pulled out my lighter.
Luna held her hand out to me “May I see that?”
My eyes narrowed as I dropped it into Luna’s hand “I gained all the memories and feelings of the person who I became over time. This is very precious to me, so be gentle or I’m not sure that anyone other than Grogar could stop my rage.” I watched intently as Luna she studied the object, opening it up lighting it. I grimaced as her horn lit up, levitating my lighter into the air. I jumped a bit as my lighter vanished in a puff of fire, appearing right in front of me. I didn’t know it could do that. Another lighter then appeared with a bit of grass on it in front of Diego.
Diego exclaimed "Where the heck did this come from?” After a few moments he said as I picked up my lighter “I see.”
Luna said "That lighter is very strange. I do not wish to touch it again."
I smiled “That’s good, I prefer it that way.” I’m glad she didn't break it but that didn't mean I wanted her to handle it again.
I grimaced as I felt Daybreaker travelling along our link, suddenly Daybreaker materialised in front of everyone but she looked different from how she looked at home.She was wearing fiery orange armour and had claws coming out of her hands and feet. Her hair still appeared like it was made of fire which was good.
Daybreaker shouted at me “Where did you go?! I couldn’t find you anywhere!”
I sighed “I was summoned to another world, you didn’t even try to ping me over the link.”
Luna seemed to walk through shadows onto the table, she was standing between Daybreaker and this world’s Celestia. She shouted “Who is this?!”
Diego asked "Ditto. Sarah, who is this?"
I sighed. This was going to be a huge drag. “She is the embodiment of everything my version of Celestia repressed, similar to how Nightmare Moon was the embodiment of all of your bottled up resentments. She’s not bad, she is actually good company. Her name is Daybreaker by the way.”
I grumbled under my breath as Celestia’s eyes shrunk to pinpricks as he stared at Daybreaker, the Sun Princess proceeded tightly squeeze the armrests of her chair. I surprised the chair didn’t shatter to be honest. I also noticed Luna was staring at Daybreaker with trepidation. Luna hesitantly holding out her hand "V-very well. Greetings… Daybreaker."
Daybreaker smiled as she took Luna’s hand “Much like Nightmare Moon had the same goals as you, just had a different way of going about it. I’m Celestia with different ways of getting what she wants or denies that she wants. I’m the fun one unlike your boring sister who wouldn’t know fun if it hit her flank several times with a sledgehammer.”
Daybreaker shook her hand as Luna snorted at what Daybreaker said "While I do not agree with your statement, that is a humorous image." I smirked slightly, that eased the tension fast which was good. My smirk widened as Celestia pouted, Luna added as she sunk into what I guessed where shadow and reappeared in her seat "Oh come now sister, I am only joking."
Daybreaker grinned “That’s quite the ability, the Luna from our world can’t do anything like that.” She then frowned “She doesn't like me that much.” I grimaced, yeah because she rendered Celestia so weak. That is a point of contention.
Luna responded slowly "Well, I shall try to remain civil despite my… anxiety."
I did owe an explanation, at least in part. I grimaced “That is kind of my fault, I had an altercation with my Celestia and in trying to defend myself I tore Daybreaker out of Celestia. As such my worlds’ Celestia had her size and magical power drastically reduced. Despite this Luna puts most of the blame onto Daybreaker.”
Celestia stared at me for a moment before asking "Well, now that you are here, I must ask what you plan to do while you are here?"
I shrugged “Nothing much, I mean. Unless you have some otherworldly threat I’d rather just relax. I mean Grogar is already doing so.” I point to Grogar drinking out of coconut on a hammock. Honestly, he is very good at pulling off weird things silently.
Celestia stared at him before glaring at him “He reminds me of Discord.”
Diego then interjected “Speaking of. What is your Discord like?”
I sighed as Grogar pulled out a rubber chicken out of thin air “Well as the person who taught him everything he knows about Chaos, he likes hitting everyone with rubber chickens. He is also the reason I was forgotten. A good way to stop my Discord from annoying you is to him with a rubber chicken. If you beat him in the rubber chicken duel he will leave you alone for at least 24 hours while he goes to challenge others to chicken duels.”
Celestia explained to us "Our Discord is nothing like that. He is much more destructive than he is chaotic. Ours is also your- our Grogar's son. He shares his father's pension for manipulation."
Grogar rubbed his chin “I could deal with them if you want. It wouldn't be hard.”
I rubbed my forehead Grogar smirked clicking his fingers, suddenly this world's Discord and his father appear in a giant floating bubble above our heads. Just another day with Grogar. Discord exclaimed "Huh? Hah?! What are we doing here?!" He then noticed us "Father! I thought you said you weren't going to clone yourself!"
Their Grogar denied it "I-I-I wasn't! He isn't me! He's… some sort of imposter!"
My version of Grogar smirked “You are not unique, there are multiple versions of this world and each one has a version of you. Unlike you however I can see and travel to these other worlds as well as countless others. My powers far exceed yours, after all magic really can do anything if you have enough power and vision. I have studied magic for many millennia. I was my world’s first master of magic and the only reason I was defeated was because all of my students worked together. Still most of them were mortal and I wasn’t. The only student of mine left is my world’s version of Discord. Now then to get rid of you.”
He clicked his fingers and Discord was wrapped around Grogar. He then shrunk the bubble and put it in a jar. He then tapped it with a small bit of magic, which I could tell that he was using to strengthen the jar and seal it. Celestia asked looking at the jar Grogar had made "Is… is that it?"
Grogar nodded “I can create entire universes with what I have learned about magic, sealing away those two was like taking a walk. Magic can do anything with enough practice and power, don’t assume anything is impossible. Push the boundaries, it’s the only way to improve.”
Luna said as she took the jar in her shadows “Magic isn’t everything though. I shall make sure this is safely locked away.” She said teleporting the jar away a moment later.
Grogar smiled “So you are the Conduit. I would have noticed earlier but I was not very included in the conversation. I have seen worlds where they are commonplace.” He then sighed “In those worlds though, they are feared for their great power. I try not to interact with other worlds due to unbalancing them but considering this world is going to encounters other worlds anyway I was willing to help here.”
Luna thanked him, bowing her head "A Conduit? Is that the correct term? My sister and I were just considering calling us Absorbers but we can use that instead. And I thank you for your contribution. It is of great help to us."
Grogar frowned “It’s nothing, just be careful how much you show. It is possible to create conduits by force but it causes their mental faculties to become unstable.”
I grimaced as everyone from their world in the room exclaimed “What?!”
Luna demanded “How is that possible?!”
Grogar turned around and walked very close to us, he whispered “It’s called a Power Transfer Device. The people who gain the powers are often mentally unstable and not able to use all of the power in quite a few cases. If you ever discover someone has built such a device, find it and destroy it immediately otherwise it could be used to weaponise people.” Grogar conjured up an image of the device to show them. It had two metal dishes with cuffs, and a metal emplacement with a strange crystal on top.
Luna whispered "What kind of crystal is that? In the centre."
Grogar whispered “They are the catalyst for the effect. I would advise destroying any you find, it is too risky to keep them around.”
Celestia smiled "Alright. Thank you, Grogar. We shall keep an eye out."
Daybreaker frowned at us “We've got work to do, I doubt we should leave our Luna to handle all the paperwork. Come on.”
Don’t remind me, paperwork sucks. Sarah smiled “We have to go, it was a pleasure meeting you. Maybe you could visit us sometime.”
Diego asked "I'd like that. But, wait. How would we go to your world?"
I smirked “The same as I did, make a token. You need a phrase that represents you. That will be how to recognise others, by those phrases. If you need back up just ask.” He down, he started at the copy of my lighter before pulling out a strange object I didn’t recognise.
Celestia asked him “Are you sure?’ He nodded in response, this was interesting.
His voice echoed as that device glowed "My name is Diego. The warrior of white. I fight for freedom and to protect the innocent. If you seek aid in a time of need, call upon me. If you oppress others for your own gain, beware the barrel of my gun. When you seek the light of a star, call upon me. I am Super Voltron." The device dissapeared, one appeared in his hand and the other appeared on the table.
Sarah picked it up, causing it to transform into a yellow umbrella. She looked at me bewildered “What do I call this and why did it do that?”
Diego speculated "It's called a Bayard. It's basically a shapeshifting weapon. That umbrella is your form. Although, mine's never changed colour before. My token must change according to the person who holds it."
I smiled “Thank you, Diego. See you again another ti…” The portal opened sucking me in mid sentence, I see Grogar and Daybreaker jumping in after me. We fly into my room, Grogar slowing our momentum before we break anything. That was fun, I smile as I look at my umbrella. That was a good trip.
Author's Note
This is a crossover chapter with Super Voltron
