A Roegadyn in Equestria.

Chapter 21: Bad Taste in my mouth.

*Point of view: Brex Mith*
*Location: Filly Delphia*
*Time: 2 weeks later*

The next two weeks came and gone, but not all that quickly. Every day Brex and Steel Will would meet up in the guild’s kitchen to practice their cooking techniques for the upcoming festival. As Brex had figured out, this event was a series of cooking challenges that ranged across multiple types such as, baking, barbequing and general cooking altogether.

When he had found out about the barbecuing bit, he was deeply concerned that this would be an issue considering the ponies are herbivores. But as it turns out, he had recalled a small passage in a book from the time before he died that mentioned that ponies were capable of eating certain types of meat, but it was frowned upon by the majority of them. So, when it came to the pony race, only the Pegasi indulged in eating fish while the others rarely ever did at all, but they did substitute for that so they didn’t eat meat themselves. In other words, they could eat it, but not all that much.

Just as in the show, there were animals that were considered sentient such as the Ponies, Griffins and minotaur’s and such. But there was also another sub category that involved farm animals such as cows and such. Back when he was inside of the golden oaks library, Brex had looked up a few things about what the races of this world would eat and he found that when it came to the meat-eating types, they did in fact eat cows and pigs but they had set up a system where they would only have the ones who passed on due to natural causes. Of course, there were also the wild ones that didn’t develop any type of intelligence, but that was a very gray area for him to try and figure out.

Going back to story at hand. Steel Will was very adept at making anything that had to do with baking. When they had first started to do their practicing for the upcoming festival, the minotaur wanted to try and bake a cake, but after seeing the creation produced by Brex, Steel Will decided to try something a little different for the upcoming festival.

As it turns out, Steel Will had tried to get jobs in bakeries all over the city, but was unable to hold one considering how his volatile nature would always tend to rear its head at unexpected times. He was also a husband, but due to his race’s stubborn nature, he had not gone home in nearly a month. Brex had inquired about this once and the only response that he got from Steel Will was him saying something along the lines of, he wouldn’t be going back until he regained his honor and if he could win at least one category of the events in this food festival, then he would be going home to his wife.

Brex was curious about who his wife was, so he discretely accessed heavens computer and was delighted to find information on Steel Will. However, a good portion of it was redacted due to what the system having something called, a personal privacy claw that was currently put into place. He had internally grumbled about not having full access to all the information, but figured that this was required to prevent this item from being overpowered. He wondered, if it did give him complete unrestricted access to any and all information, would this count as him being an all-knowing God of some sort. Immediately, he shook his mental head and considered that this was for the best. He didn’t know if knowing everything was going to drive him mad or not, but he didn’t wanna take the chance and he was satisfied with the information he was able to gather.

So, as for Steel Will, it showed that he was 22 years old and was married for the last three years to a wife called Melody. Brex tried to look up this Melody person, but came up empty. Again, the system wouldn’t show him anything on anyone that he had not physically met in person yet.

Now when it came to the cooking practice, Brex noticed that Steel Will was having a really hard time when it came to the delicate things such as measuring and mixing. This would always result in him making a huge mess, so he carefully guided him into another method of cooking that happened to be how he prepared that one dish during their fight against one another.

As it turns out, cooking really was a good way of relieving one’s stress and anger with how the minotaur was capable of quickly adapting to this way of preparing dough. In fact, he was so good at it, that it wasn’t just a form of preparing the ingredients but Steel Will had turned it into a type of exercise for himself as well. This was become evident when Brex came into the kitchen one morning and had already found the guy wailing on a large pile of dough that was nearly half his size on the table like some kind of punching bag that was simply laying on its side.

The Roegadyn paused at this time and wondered to himself if he had inadvertently created a minotaur version of Poe from the movie Kung Fu panda. However, this didn’t involve a lot of fluff and bouncing but more of the wailing of large muscular fists into dough. Suddenly, a picture of an old school boxing ring training school, all of the equipment being based off of food related items and they were all used by different types of cooks ranging from using their tools to simply beating up the dough for making their foods. This of course would have given a whole new meaning to the word’s, food fight.

It was now the day before the scheduled cook off time and Brex had left Steel Will to practice on his own for the last four days. During this time the Roegadyn was working on something special just for this occasion and was putting the finishing touches on it.

He had spent the better part of the last four days locked up in one of the first-floor rooms that had an easy access in-and-out of the building. On the door itself that could be seen on the outside, was a sign that said do not disturb.

He was currently hammering away at another piece of metal and affixing it to a larger mass that was partially hidden underneath a gray tarp. Next to him, just a few feet away from the table itself was a small pile of organized parts and other hunks of metal that he had been forging from a nearby blacksmith shop that was on good terms with the Guild.

As it turns out, when Little Light had informed him that he had all his gear and items from back in the game, she was not kidding. Not only did he get access to all his weapons and armor that he had been collecting during his entire time playing, but all of his crafting materials that he had been gathering from the beginning. Not only the ones he still had from the time this all happened, but it seems that he had also been given everything he had ever used to level up his skills. This basically meant that he had gotten a complete refund and was currently sitting on enough materials that ranged from crafting and cooking, that he could easily have built a town of his own and been able to open a grocery store and would have had enough in stock to keep it going for a full couple of years if he just used his item storage in place of a refrigerator to keep things fresh.

Now as for going to the forge near the Guild building. Brex had been using some of the stored-up materials that he would normally use for building armor sets. He had taken the raw ore and had it fashioned into bars of metal and ingots. From there, he turned them into nuts and bolts and various sizes of metal for what he was creating underneath the tarp.

When the time had reached midnight, Brex stood to his full height after affixing the last section together and started to wipe his brow. After four days of working on this project, the Roegadyn was starting to feel the effects of fatigue and was currently in a pair of blue jeans and a T-shirt. The door behind them was shut closed and there were no windows leading to the outside. He knew no one was getting in so his secret identity was kept safe. Of course, he wasn’t all that stupid, so as an added measure he had put together a dead bolt and a few extra locking mechanisms to the door while also reinforcing it to withstand a heavy beating.

Looking around the room at the scattered bits of pieces leftover that he had made beforehand in case something broke, the Roegadyn then quickly placed it all into his item box and started to unlock his now impenetrable door, to what he had called his fortress of solitude for the last four days.

Before making his way over to the door, he switched out his attire for his now iconic yellow and brown robed set with the mask. When he had gotten to the door, it had taken him nearly a minute to undo all of the locking mechanisms and when the door opened there was a pair of feminine, welp sounds that came through just before two mare’s fell face first onto the floor before the Roegadyn.

While looking down, Brex began to think to himself, “Did I just pull off a scene from a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang movie where the dad is cooped up forever while working on an invention?” Pushing the stray thought away, Brex focused on the two and immediately identified them as both High Road and Low Road. The two of them had push themselves up onto their elbows and were both giving him different types of looks. High Road was looking a little nervous while giving out a small pathetic chuckle while her younger sister, Low Road was giving him an incredulous scowl.

Reaching down, he takes hold of one of their hands each and pulls them to their hoofs. They quickly brushed themselves off of any dirt and immediately jumped into the questioning.

High Road begins to start shooting off question after question without giving any time at all in between for any answers to be given, which mostly consisted of the following. “Do you know how long you’ve been in there? It’s been like 4 days, that’s like…. FOREVER! What’s with all the sound you’re making? Are you building something secret? Oh duh, of course you’re building something in secret! Why else would you do it in secret behind a big locked door? What is it? TELL ME! TELL ME! Oh wait! I know, you’re building a giant pink teddy bear that shoots muffins! No, wait! you’re building a muffin that shoots muffins! Oh, I know, you’re building a big pink robot bear that shoots muffins, that then shoots even more muffins!”

Brex then slowly turns towards Low Road and gives her a slight tilt of the head sideways to indicate his confusion. Low Road then gave out a heavy sigh as she held the bridge of her muzzle before lowering her hand to answer his unspoken question. “She’s been trying to get in here for the last three days. It’s about time you came out. I didn’t know what she was about to go and do next.” At that moment, the two felt the need to look over to High Road and that’s when they saw her holding onto a red cylindrical stick with the letters T.N.T. printed in bold letters on it. When the older sister noticed the two of them looking in her direction, she quickly hid the item behind her back while giving out a small whistle while looking in some random spot within the room.

Blinking a few times, he knew exactly what he had seen but figured that it would be best not to pursue that thought and move on. The Roegadyn spoke in a somewhat tired tone, “It’s all done.” That was when he indicated the item in question that was currently fully tarped by pointing at it from over his shoulder with his right thumb.

The two mare’s poked their heads around his large frame on either side to look at what he was telling them about. Low Road then asked in an unsure tone as she lifted her eyebrow without moving from her tilted position while still looking at the item in question. “So, what exactly is it?”

High Road had just taken a deep breath while straightening up and was about to say something when her younger sister covered her mouth which muffled her speech. She then looked towards Low Road with a playfully, angry glare and Low Road responded with, “No, I don’t think it’s a giant robot bear… whatever, a robot is.”

Brex was a little confused with the fact that high Road even knew what a robot was. This world’s technology level was all over the place from what he can figure out. They had things like microwaves and refrigerators but they didn’t have anything like computers or cell phones. So, there should be no way they would even know what a robot would be, unless it was some type of science fiction they had. That was when the Roegadyn remembered something in some of the fan fictions where spike the dragon would have a comic and it would depict superheroes. Maybe they do have science fiction but without the actual science behind it.

After considering this, the Roegadyn turned back towards the two and answered with, “It’s a tool.” The two girls then looked towards each other and started to scratch their heads in unison as if looking at a mirror at one another before High Road replied with a quick, “Okie dokie!” As she said this, Brex was positive she was going to add to the end of that the word Loki.

After that little exchange, the three of them left the room and Brex locked the door from the outside thanks to the key that was for their original lock that he had decided to leave behind. He had only installed the extra security to keep people out while he was still inside of the thing.

He then went up to his room on the fourth floor after saying his goodnights to the two girls by simply waving his hand as he walked away over his head. When he had gotten inside, he made sure that the door was secure and made his way over to his bathroom. Standing in front of the mirror he then switched out to his normal relaxing attire and stared at his face.

For what seemed like the first time in his life that he could at least remember. His face had dark bags under his eyes from lack of sleep or rest. Unlike that one month where he had gone and done nearly nonstop guild work, this time however was more taxing on him. For the past four days, he had been working himself nonstop by pounding metal and forging it into something completely brand new. He had made multiple sets over at the blacksmith and had ended up scrapping a number of ideas until he had finally gotten the right thing put together.

Letting out a tired sigh, Brex looks at himself while still standing in front of the mirror and asks Rory in a low voice, “I look like shit, don’t I? I think tonight I’ll just go straight into REM sleep. Gotta be ready for tomorrow. Who else is gonna lug that big thing out of here?”

After hearing this Rory replied with a slightly concerned tone in her voice, “You really need to pace yourself Master. Don’t you remember what I showed you before the last time you went to bed. Even with your mental fortitude being enhanced the way it is, no living thing can go without a decent night’s sleep without having some type of negative impact. Even if your body can handle it, the mental stress alone can stack up overtime.”

Nodding to himself in the mirror, Brex imagined the sight of Rory overlapping his in the reflection as he talked to himself. He then replied with, “Yeah, I see what you mean. I guess I’ve been pushing myself too much. It’s just that, we have just under 12 years until nightmare moon comes back. That’s when all my knowledge on the show will start. I have no idea what’s really gonna happen in this world’s timeline. It’s already different. The ponies here are anthropomorphic. The ratio between male and females are way off, then there’s the whole way the society is built up around the ratio gap. I know males weren’t shown all that much during the show, but not once did they show anything that had to do with the way they’re treated in this world. And let’s not forget the fact that there are monsters from Final Fantasy here.”

He then lets out a long sigh while closing his eyes for a moment before re opening them to stare directly at the imaginary image of Rory in the mirror before saying, “I have already changed the future concerning applejack and her family. There is also the whole kidnapping of Rarity. If I wasn’t here, who knows what would have happened to her. Would she have even been in ponyville to become one of the elements? There are way too many stray variables and I can’t rely heavily on this prior knowledge I have.”

Pausing, the Roegadyn reaches down and turns on the faucet and takes some water and splashes it onto his face before wiping it away with his hands. Looking a little more refreshed than before, Brex adds, “Having a long-term plan can be really tiring. Helping Steel Will is sort of like helping myself down the road, but at least I’m having fun while doing so. Do you remember last week when we walked into the kitchen and found him buried under a mound of dough that he had made that got too big? The poor guy had to literally fight his way out. Who knew that an unbaked pastry was a match for a big strong minotaur?” This got a light set of chuckles from Rory after he had mentioned that little incident.

After that little discussion Brex then turned in for the night and just as he had mentioned he did in fact go straight to REM sleep. For Rory, it went just as the night before where she would cuddle up to his form within his mind.

The next morning Brex awakens just before five in the morning and does his daily preparations and exits his temporary living arrangements and heads down to the room that was currently containing his latest creation. On the way he ran into High Road and she ended up following him all the way to his destination. With the building being as large as it was, it was going to take him maybe two minutes to get there, but to the Roegadyn, it may as well have been a mile away with how High Road was chatting up a storm.

She would constantly bring up the fact that she was excited to see what he was building and this was only dwarfed by her overly enthusiastic personality when the subject of how much she can eat was suddenly brought up by herself. Brex couldn’t help it, but everything that this mare did and said, just kept bringing up her relative that he is going to end up meeting in 12 years’ time, if not sooner by the way things are going.

After unlocking the door and stepping in, Brex takes hold of a handle sticking out of the edge of the tarp covering his contraption and starts pulling it out of the doorway. Luckily thanks to a few small annoyances from his last Carpenter job, the Roegadyn remember to measure twice the object and the doorway to make sure that he didn’t build a car inside of an apartment type of scenario.

The hallways and doorways were big enough for a large being to walk through. This was obviously considered into the design when it came to different species that might use the building. He made his way to the front entrance and spotted Low Road sitting behind the counter with an expression that just showed how little she was awake at this moment. Her eyes were unfocused and droopy, he could swear that she was trying to write something but her hand had no quill in it and it was just moving while it rested on the counter with a piece of paper that was a few inches away. The mare could have been sleep-working for all he knew.

His thoughts were brought back to the real world when his vision was covered with nothing but brown and light red directly in front of his mask. This would have caused him to have reacted in some way but at this point, Brex was now becoming a little more desensitized towards this pony’s antics. He then heard her talking at a very fast pace. “So, are you finally gonna tell me what it is it’s under that tarp? Come on, you can trust your auntie High Road! Come on tell me tell me tell me. I wanna see the muffin shooting robot already!”

It took everything that Brex had to prevent himself from just stopping on the spot to take off his mask and pinch the bridge of his nose with how this pony is so fixated on some type of robot and muffins. He started to say to himself inside his head, “If I didn’t know any better, I would say that this pony was also related to Ditzy Doo. She has such a fixation on muffins, I wonder if she’s part Pegasus. Also doesn’t she know anything about personal space…” That’s when he noticed and did a mental facepalm before thinking to himself, “Oh right, their ponies. Of course, such a thing as personal space is foreign to them. Also, how the heck did this mare managed to sneak up on me this time? With the ability I got from Rory, I should have enough reflexes to nearly catch a bullet. Yet this girl just jumped on my face and I couldn’t sense it happening until it was too late.”

Rory chimed in and said, “Master, what I find hard to believe is that you’re thinking about this when you currently have a pair of breasts pressing right up against your chest. I don’t know if you’re just good at hiding it or you just didn’t notice.”

After hearing those words, Brex’s face from under his hood just turn several shades of red. While still clearly embarrassed the Roegadyn manages to keep it hidden from those around him and let’s go of his package to take hold of the mare on both sides of her hips and pulls her off before setting her back on her hooves.

High Road looked at him while blinking and it appeared that she was none the wiser to what she had just did. Brex couldn’t help but think, “Did she do that on purpose or does she really not notice that she had her chest on me?” After giving himself a moment to calm down he then takes hold of the package and walks around the mare and towards the door. Just as he was going to exit the door that he had just opened using his free hand, High Road called out from behind using her usual cheery tone, “Save some muffins for me!”

Shaking his head, Brex leaves the Guild building and starts his way down the street in the direction of the cooking festival which was almost halfway across the city.

By the time he had arrived it was close to seven in the morning. He had made sure to go over the rules of the contest word for word and figured out that even though the contestants had a time limit that they had to present they’re finished works, they were allowed to have as much time as needed until then, but they could start only on their actual food preparations once the sun had come up. Brex looked towards the distance that the sun was rising and concluded that it had happened about an hour ago. He double check this by looking at his regular clock on his visual display.

Even with a clock on hand at any given time, the Roegadyn would often fall back on the natural way of looking towards the sun to indicate what time of the day it was. He wasn’t quite sure if this was an instinctual or a force of habit but he couldn’t bring himself to stop doing so. It had taken him a few weeks to adjust to how the sun moved in the sky with how it would quickly ascend and lower. During this he had noticed that when the moon was to be in the sky, its movements were not as fluid as the sun when being worked with. Brex concluded that this was due to Celestia’s concentration being better during the daytime, so her hold over the moon was suffering somewhat.

After pulling along for a little while longer, Brex arrived at the venue. Taking a good glance around he noticed that there were multiple stands and numerous large stages that had a wide variety of cooking instruments. These ranged from items used by hand such as mixing tools, bowls and whatnot. They had even set up some ovens and what appeared to be refrigerators. Near all of the stages were stalls set up with different types of ingredients.

From what was written in the rules, it appeared that whenever the participants arrived, they would have to sign in and wait until the judges say that they had full run of their selected kitchens. From there they would have to rush down to the ingredients area and get what they needed. Then they had to return and start cooking their meals which would be presented at noon. He could have sworn that this reminded him of some television show he may have seen back on earth.

He could see that there was not too many at their kitchens at the moment, but he did happen to catch the sight of Steel Will standing up on stage and wearing a chef outfit that even included one of those muffin top hats that was currently sitting on top of his head.

After exchanging some greetings, the Roegadyn pushed his cart into position near the stove and pulled off the tarp. Steel will was visibly confused as he began scratching the top of his head after removing the hat and when he placed it back on he turned towards Rex and asked, “So yeah mind explaining what it is I’m looking at here?”

Without wanting to break his three-word count and with such little time left, he simply handed a scroll over to Steel Will who took it with a small amount of annoyance visible on his face. The minotaur then started grumbling as he began to look it over, “Dang milk drinker! Just talk properly already! I just might make it my life goal to get yeah to say more than three words.”

When Steel Will was finished, he looked up at Brex with a raised eyebrow and said, “So, this is that thing you were explaining before? Well, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of it being done like this using cheese. I tried the stuff you made back in the Guild kitchen, but I guess this will make it better huh?”

What Steel Will was referring to, was the improvised version of smoking cheese. Brex figured out that this world’s culinary abilities were nowhere near that of earth. This was evident when he had tried out those multiple restaurants back in Baltimare. So, while helping out Steel Will with his cooking training, slash anger management, the Roegadyn was showing him new methods of cooking certain dishes and improving some existing ones. He thought the bull would fight him along the way and say things along the lines of, “I ain’t fixing anything that ain’t broken.” But it turns out that you can teach an old bull new tricks as he eagerly soaked up the knowledge like some yellow sponge that lives under the sea. Brex couldn’t help but look at Steel Will and picture him with a spatula in hand and screaming, “I’m ready I’m ready.” whenever he got excited about something new to try cooking.

From there, Steel Will started his preparation work. He went through the process of getting a few different types of wheels of cheese and began cutting them into manageable sizes and placed them in the smoking box. It was fortunate that Brex had inside of his inventory what he needed for the unique flavor that they were looking for to add to the cheese. While in the game he had to harvest different types of lumber and among those, were a type of apple tree wood. He wasn’t sure if it was a personal memory that was engraved into him or if it was some type of passive effect by equipping his cooking job, but he knew very well that using these wood chips would add a unique flavor.

Seeing that the minotaur had everything in hand, Brex decided to go ahead and begin with his exploration of what the other participants were doing. Waving goodbye to Steel Will, Brex then heads into the crowd and manages to disappear into them. Normally this would be impossible but there were a fair number of different races mixed in with them. With so many other minotaur’s mixed in every now and then, it was easy for the ponies to mistaken him as one of them. This meant he got quite a few fewer lingering eyes in his direction.

He began to wonder if there were any meat based cookoffs but dismissed it due to the nature of these ponies. However, he did detect the scent of cooking fish off a short distance away, this drew his attention and he followed his nose to a stand near the outskirts of the event.

When he had arrived, he saw a Diamond dog and a Pegasus mare working together at a cooking station. Quickly concluding that they were participating in another type of category, Brex looked around and saw that there weren’t that many compared to the others that comprised of non-meat-based dishes. He smirked to himself from under his mask as he began to think, “Well, can’t say I wasn’t expecting something like this. Makes sense when it’s a society full of vegetarians that they would keep the meat-based contestants as far away as possible.”

He fully understood the reason for the Diamond dog to be working on something that used meat. After the incident with the kidnapping ring, he had been around that diamond dog that went by the name Einstein for a while and found out that not only did they actually eat diamonds, but they do partake and consume fruits and vegetables along with meat of course. He remembered that there was a book in the Golden Oaks Library that had a small amount of information on the Diamond dogs. That however didn’t say much about their diet aside from that they eat gems. Again, this was another example of these ponies being ignorant of others that are not of their own species.

Now when he looked over to the Pegasus mare that was working alongside of him, Brex noticed that this one was somewhat older, maybe around 35 or 40 years of age. She was dark yellow with some orange on the tips of her wings and on her mane as well. It appeared that they were trying to grill up what he could have considered as a salmon.

He thought about going over there and trying some when they were done but thought against it. That was when Rory spoke up and asked, “Master, I know you don’t really need to eat and everything, but how long has it been since you’ve had any meat at all? It’s just that, wouldn’t it be more along the lines of a psychological thing if you didn’t eat something that you liked in your past?” With the mental connection he replied with, “Well I can’t say haven’t been craving it now that I’ve gotten a good whiff of the smell. But I think I can get by. After all I can’t show anyone that I eat meat. I can only imagine what type of complications that would bring up.”

Not showing any signs of letting the matter go Rory continues with, “Master I’m beginning to worry about you. You have been running yourself ragged doing pretty much doing any work you can get your hands on. You have not even taken a single day off. All work and no play is not a very healthy lifestyle. From the moment we showed up at the Tree of Harmony, you have not taken an opportunity to enjoy this world. Sure, you would go and eat things here and there but…” there was a short pause before Rory continued a subdued tone, “Perhaps Master may want to… sample something other than food…”

Raising an eyebrow, the Roegadyn stands in place for a few seconds before going wide eyed and replying in a shocked tone towards Rory with a mental connection, “Rory I I… I’m not entirely sure, but what exactly or are you talking about?”

This only got a reply from Rory in a low whisper, “I think Master may need to relieve some stress in some way or another. I mean, you do get some attention here and there. Perhaps Master may want to partake in what’s offered…”

If one was to see Brex without his mask, they would see that the pale skin on his face was now beet red. With his eyes fixed straight ahead, the Roegadyn takes in an involuntary gulp before replying, “That… may not be such a good idea. I mean it’s just… But I’m not one of… I don’t even know if I can… I understand the functions of how they… I mean I know how the human body works, but I’m of the Roegadyn race now.”

Tilting his head down, Brex glances down to his large form and then towards the nearest pony to gauge the size difference in height. When he realized what he was just doing, he diverted his gaze and looked straight ahead at some random object in the distance while his blush only intensified.

Taking another gulp, Brex then says to Rory, “I may have gamers knowledge and then there’s the whole thing about those displaced stories. So, it’s not like I’m entirely against the idea, considering how many I’ve been reading...” That very last bit was muttered under his mental breath. He continued on with an unsure tone, “B-Besides, I don’t even know how this body works when it comes to… those types of activities…” He could have sworn that he was developing a very intense fever at this point. He knew that Rory was only looking out for his best interests but at this moment, he wished that something would happen that would distract the woman in his head but unfortunately for him that was not the case at this exact moment.

He could have sworn that he had an image of Rory giving him a, are you kidding me look right then and there before she replied, “Master, I don’t want to say it but, I think you’re just making excuses. I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with a little experimentation. Besides, from what I got a good look of you before you locked me out, I think you’re-

That was the exact moment that Brex cut her off by quickly exclaiming within his head while in a panicked tone, “I think that’s quite enough! And before you go any further, yes I will admit that these anthro ponies are… very attractive.” That last bit was said extremely quickly as if trying to pull a Band-Aid off of a fresh wound.

Rory then spoke up while giving him an alluring voice, “Well you are my Master after all. If you need a way to blow off some steam. I’m more than willing to help out with that~” That was when her voice felt as if she was literally whispering into his ear, “I’m very willing to help you out… My Master~”

At that exact moment the crowd of ponies that were scattered about that were within 20 feet of Brex, decided that now would be a good time to shed an article of clothing due to the temperature around the Roegadyn increasing to the point that it went from a nice cool spring temperature, to that of the middle of summer within that radius.

There were no male’s insight, so he was essentially surrounded by at least ten females that could have been considered for models, that were now only in their bras. But that didn’t even register towards the Roegadyn as his eyes were still transfixed straight ahead and his mind was apparently out for lunch.

It had taken him a solid minute to recover and another two or three for the temperature around him to return to normal. Letting out a long mental sigh, Brex then asks Rory in a professional tone that was laced with some sarcasm. “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”

This elicited one of Rory mercuries trademark giggles before she replies with, “Oh Master~ Now this is something I would not kid about. You know… we could try something tonight, that is if my Master wants something~ I’m sure we can figure out how your new body works together.” There was then a small fleeting image of Rory licking her lips that was racing across his mind’s eye. Brex was about to blush up another storm that would have caused another enclosed summer, but was able to control himself now that he had felt the effects from just earlier and was ready for it.

While trying to think clearly, the Roegadyn replied with, “I… I’m not sure if we should or should I say, can we? It’s just, your… not out here so I’m not entirely sure if it would do any good to try that, you know… in there.” At this point Brex was actually being swayed by Rory’s words and had to stop himself from starting to imagine things, knowing full well that if he did so, there was no way he was going to have the mental fortitude required to prevent Rory from seeing it.

Just as he was about to try and talk his way out of this conversation, Brex suddenly felt a cold chill running down his spine. He could feel that the hair’s on the back of his neck were standing on end. This caused his eyes to go wide and he hurriedly checked his mini map but only to find nothing out of the ordinary. Now focusing completely on his situational awareness ability, Brex attempted to extend the range as far as it can go. Yet again, there was nothing. Thinking it was just his imagination and his nerves being played with thanks to the teasing that Rory had just administered. So he dismissed it as him imagination playing tricks.

He was caught unprepared when he saw straight ahead in the distance past the many groups of ponies that were crossing his path, a figure dressed in a black robe with purple jagged tribal tattoo like markings going along the sleeves, was turned sideways towards him. He could have sworn that he caught the glimpse of a corner of a red mask underneath that only covered upper portion of the face. Unfortunately, he was unable to see the lower section very well from that distance.

He had only blinked once and the figure was no longer there. His eyes darted to and fro in an attempt to catch the person again. He even spun in place quickly to get a good view of everything around him before returning his gaze to the spot that he had just seen the robed figure. Now breathing with a shaky breath, he uses the mental connection and asks Rory with a panicked tone while his eyes continued to dart left and right as if on alert for danger. “Rory! Tell me you saw what I just did!”

This only got a confused reply from the girl as she said, “Uh, I’m… not sure what you’re talking about. Master, please you need to calm down you’re going to have a panic attack if you don’t do something about it.”

Taking her advice, He takes in a few deep slow breaths. He could start to feel his heart rate which was skyrocketing just a second ago, to come down to a regular and more manageable state. After taking another gulp of air and resisting the urge to remove his mask to wipe off the bead of sweat on his forehead, he then says to Rory while still shaken up, “I- I think, I think I saw one of them. I’m positive it was one of those guys…”

Rory then attempted to reassure her Master by saying, “It’s gonna be OK. I didn’t see anyone in the crowd that looked like anything out of the ordinary. Please tell me what exactly did you see.” Had taken a few more seconds before Brex answered with, “I think I saw an Ascian…” After a few seconds Rory then asked in a very worried tone, “Master, are you talking about one of the beings known as the Bringers of Chaos? But these ponies didn’t react at all, they’re still going about their day as if nothing happened.”

Now feeling more like himself, Brex answers with, “In the game, it was explained that not everyone is capable of perceiving them, not unless they want them too. The only ones that are capable of freely sensing them at all, would be those that have the Echo. So, I have no idea if what I saw was real or was a trick from my subconscious. All I know is it terrified me to see him. Felt like life was draining from my body.” That was when he brought his right hand to his chest, as if examining himself for some unknown wound.

After that traumatic scene played through, the Roegadyn made his way towards an area with the least amount of traffic and found a bench to sit off towards the side of the road. His head was hanging low and his arms were laying across his knees. Still feeling the effects from earlier, his eyes were currently shut as he attempted to put himself into a calming state.

At first, he tried to drown out the sounds of those around him but that was becoming difficult thanks to the situational awareness which was in constant use. He considered about dropping it for the moment but thought otherwise. If he did so, he would put himself at risk to a sneak attack of some sort.

Trying to come up with another way to relax the Roegadyn thought back to a part of his training in the other world, this soon brought him to a scene with one of the trainers that little moon had summoned.

This was when he was training with his Monk class. Seeing as there were countless methods of fighting with your bare hands and legs, Brex wanted to train with a few different masters so he can develop a mixture of fighting styles. Originally in his game, every class had a set movement pattern and the monk was no exception. He made sure that when he trained with all the classes, he was going to have his own style after being trained thoroughly.

It was a big help that his memories were converted over to the game being real to him, so his body upon equipping the soul stones, was fully capable of mastering fighting styles that pertain to that class at an astonishing rate. As a result, Brex was able to learn what would normally take a person years to do, only would take a few days at most.

Now when he was training with his Monk class, he had two trainers popping up. The first which was quite comical to him at first was the one known as Po, from the animated movie Kung Fu panda. The second one to train him was Jackie Chan in his prime.

Without even having his own personal memories, Brex was capable of nearly going into fanboy mode at the sight of these two. He was even visibly shaking with anticipation. They had worked together and training him in multiple styles of fighting arts. These mostly consisted of what was seen in various movies in anime’s. But they were mostly focused on karate, Thai Kwando, and free form Thai boxing.

Due to this, he was capable of honing his fighting skills with a mixture of punching, kicking and various types of grappling, while at the same time adjusting his body for quick movements at odd angles. As for Thai boxing, that mostly consisted of him using attacks which required the use of knees and elbows. This of course meant that this type of fighting style was used primarily for killing blows so he would save those for desperate situations and rely on the other ones mostly.

The training however, did not only consist of fighting and body training, but had a good mix of meditation. It mostly consisted of him calming his mind and putting himself into a centered state. Now this was the part of the memory that he was focusing on at this moment.

Back in the present, Brex had straightened up and was holding his hands together with his palms facing up. He had then adopted a meditation pose with them where his thumbs were now touching the tips together. After which he took in a deep long breath and held it in for a few seconds before letting it out. Almost instantly the large amount of anxiety that he was feeling left his body and it was beginning to feel rejuvenated.

When he had finally opened his eyes, he noticed in front of him a small transparent window that he recognized from his gaming system. He started to read the text that said, new monk ability acquired.

Passive skill: Zen mental state. Zen mental state, your monk class is capable of resisting negative mental effects. Weak mental attacks are negated, medium ranked mental attacks have high resistance, high ranked mental attacks will be dispersed after a short time.

Raising an eyebrow, Brex asked himself a question in his head, “OK, now I’m confused. This was not part of the game mechanics for the Monk. I thought I can only get new stuff if I combine existing skills?” Bringing up his skill list, the Roegadyn checks to see the fourth list and begins to examine it for any clues.

That was when he found the new skill Zen mental state and saw that there were two skills that were used in its creation. The first was called Meditation. The second one used in it was Mantra. He was rather confused considering that these were chakra energy recovery abilities and one that helped with restoring health. He considered that maybe using these two in tandem was what inadvertently created a new skill. Either way, he felt grateful now that he had a much clearer head.

After he had gotten done checking over the new skill, he got up and then went back into the crowd to check out the festival a little more before heading back and meeting up with Steel Will. During his time while exploring, he got to see quite a few more groups of cooks, but he ended up catching a momentary glimpse of a pair of young Colts that ran by and disappeared into the crowd.

The only reason he noticed was because of the fact that they were males and he had hardly ever seen many of them out in the open. The ones he did see were always with one or more females. What had caught his attention even further was the coloring of their hair and mane’s. They appear to be yellow on their body but their hair was streaks of white and red. They were even wearing some type of version of clothing that resembled that of barbershop quartet members.

Coming to a quick stop to glance back in the direction he had just seen the two, Brex muttered under his breath, “Oh I really hope I didn’t just see who I thought I did. If so, then things might get a little complicated.

His assumption about things getting complicated did in fact come true only when he got back to the main judging area that was set up in the middle of the main Plaza for all to see. Where all the contestants where to have their dishes placed and hidden behind a set of screens made of fabric to be presented to the judges.

For when he got there, they were about to do the judging when there was a scream from behind the tent and a couple of mare’s stumbled out and knocking over the judges who were just about to pull the cord and reveal what was on the tables inside.

When the covering fell it displayed a horrific scene for any food lover to ever come across. They was tossed over and broken shattered pieces of plates and food everywhere. There were several large tables all neatly placed in a type of square pattern and in the middle, was a creature that Brex knew quite well from his gaming past.

( This is the form of a Flan Monster. )

Right in the middle of the chaos was a 5-foot-high monster known as a flan. This grotesque gelatinous creature was given the name due to its body resembling a type of food or other kind of gelatinous mass. It had appendages that were attempting to reach out towards anything nearby to consume while it’s twisted and very stretched out mouth was currently chewing on some assortments of delicacies that were meant for the judges.

It didn’t take even a second upon the creature being fully exposed for the masses to begin screaming in horror as they began to evacuate the area. Within record time, the evacuation of the square was completed. The only ones to remain was Brex, Steel Will, High Road and a small handful of adventures that were nearby, along with two royal guards that were the ones helping in directing the evacuation and came to lend a hand.

Checking is mini map, Brex accounted for every one of those individuals there, but found two dots off in the distance before they disappeared from his radar range. Narrowing his eyes in that direction, he muttered under his breath that was laced with great annoyance so that no one else can hear aside from Rory, “How much do you wanna bet that those two dots were Flim and Flam, Also for a bonus, do you want to place a bet on whether or not that monster is here because of them?”

Rory replied with an equally annoyed tone towards the situation and said, “Oh I’m so betting on both of those questions being yes. From what you’ve told me of the show, I can see those two being a part of this mess. That thing is a Flan right? I bet those two thought because of its name, that it would be a type of food and try to enter it into the contest as something they made but then this happened.”

Brex replied with, “That’s an interesting theory. But I think you’re right on the Gil on that one. I’m not ashamed to say when I heard the word Flan back in the past, I started to get a little hungry. Now back to what’s happening right now. I could probably take this thing out if I was to get a little serious with no problem at all. However, we have a bit of a crowd this time. Which means I need to hold back, A LOT. Now let’s see how strong this thing is.”

Brex quickly takes a look at the creature’s status bar and sees that it is level 17. When seeing this he thought to himself, “Well at least it’s not level 28. I could take this down in no time flat. But I’m registered as level 10. So, I’m gonna have to play a bit more of a supporting role in this fight.” Slumping his shoulders, he lets out a very drawn-out sigh, Brex looks up to the sky and mutters under his breath, “Can’t I just have one slow day? I feel like I’m the main character in a badly written story.” Just then there was a Thunder clap in the distance and Brex quickly amended his previous statement and said, “Oh, I mean I feel like the main character of a nicely written story, Hehe~

Looking over, he notices that the assembled group of adventures and Steel Will had taken up a position around the monster and encircling it. Glancing over their Status bars he could see that their levels ranged from 9 and up to 13, The only one that was a higher level was Steel Will, but he was classified as a Cook.

More than half of them were brandishing swords and Shields, while the other half was comprised of ranged attackers that used magic along with bows and arrows. There were a few Unicorns that were charging up their horns. Taking a closer look at the Unicorns, he can see that three of them were classified as Casters. He was sure that with this world being centered around Final Fantasy 14, they would have been called Conjurers. Now this was the beginning class that evolves into the White Mage after completing a Level 30 quest to get the Soul Stone.

Brex felt a little better now knowing that they actually had some healers on hand. He began to wonder if he was really needed for this fight seeing as the creature was so weak and clearly out numbered. But that hope came to a screeching halt when He saw that the creature was beginning to swell up. There was a faint dark neon color emanating from a single point deep within its body. Over the course of several seconds, the creatures form nearly doubled in size. Where it was once completely smooth aside from the jagged teeth along its wide mouth, was now riddled with spiny thorns that protruded from random spots along its body. Its eyes began to glow purple with a single point becoming bloodshot red. The color of the slime That comprised most of its form was steadily shifting to that of a sickening, dark black purple like fluid.

Before, the air was riddled with the smell of the food that was previously prepared, but now that soon quickly shifted to that of rotten garbage and other types of fowl odors that could make a seasoned garbage man turn tail and run for the hills. The ponies that were closing in had to stop in their tracks and cover their noses from pure disgust. Some of them had visibly turned green around their faces. Almost immediately, they started to throw up onto the ground While having one hand on their stomach and the other on their mouth to prevent more from escaping.

Brex couldn't believe it, but the monster had undergone some type of evolutionary state. This was something he had never seen happen in the game. At least not to a regular monster anyway. This was something that would normally happen when he was engaged with a.... Boss or some Raid Monster. With his eyes now going wide he realized that this situation just went from manageable, to something very dangerous.

Quickly he examined the monster once more and discovered that its name had also undergone a change. Before it was called a Flan, but now it turned into something called a Poisonous Pudding. Next to its name, he could see that its level had risen up to 26. Now that this had happened the idea of him staying on the sidelines was no longer an option. If something wasn't done soon, then very bad things were going to happen. If this was a Boss Monster, then who knows what abilities it might have gained. Then there was the whole poisonous part in its name. He didn't know why this happened, perhaps it was due to something it ate that caused this reaction, or it could have had something to do with the amount of food in this event?

Before he could speculate on the matter at hand any further, the creature began to make a chorus of gurgles, splurches and squishing sounds. They were rather loud so they were very intimidating as they came out of its wide mouth. A mouth that now sported a set of razor-sharp teeth That was now dripping off the tips and in-between, a black fiscus fluid onto the ground.

Brex couldn't help himself but call out to the others in a loud booming voice, “CAREFUL! IT’S POISONOUS!” This caught the attention of everybody around and they took a step back in caution. High Road came up next to Brex and asked while still keeping her eyes on the creature, “How do you know it's poisonous, have you seen this thing before?” He quickly nods his head before continuing by saying, “Don’t make contact.”

After hearing this, High Road calls out to the others, “Gambit Says this thing's poisonous and it's strong, be careful. Everyone with Shields, keep your distance. You're only the step in to block its path or protect one of the long-range Fighters. Archer’s, Unicorns, you’re to focus your fire. Don't let that thing get close to you. There's only one of it and there's a bunch of us, so no one better be playing the hero!"

After hearing High Road speaking in such a way, Brex was quite surprised that she was able to think so well on her feet, er hoof in the situation. he was actually beginning to wonder on how well these ponies would react in a life-or-death situation. But Brex was relieved when he saw that the way that they were organizing themselves, was the correct course of action.

Brex was currently level 25 with his level sync. He had considered bumping it up a little but thought otherwise. If he did, there was a good chance that he was going to have to explain more than he would like. He thought back to the game world where he would often fight creatures that were 10 levels above him and would still come out as the victor. Of course, during those fights, he had to think more clearly with the use of skills and items more efficiently.

But then he realized yet again that this was life-and-death and not some video game anymore. The creature only had a few levels on him and he had a group of others around on his side for once. Glancing at his items menu he could still see the potions that he had at the very start. Among them was a handful of poison cure potions which would come in handy if any of these ponies were to go and get themselves poisoned by the creature during the fight.

It would seem that the monster had grown impatient and was now making a charge for the nearest pony. The one in question was a female unicorn who was wearing casting gear that was clearly meant for a magic user. This meant the pony would have very little defense. The creature's sudden movements caused the mare to inadvertently shoot her spell, but it overshot and went into the sky right above the creature's head.

Seeing as she was going to be hit straight on, two of the other members with shields blocked the path of the creature. Just as it came into the contact with their shields, the two ponies let out a pair of shrieks as they disconnected from them and ran back to a safe distance along with the Unicorn. Brex wondered why they screamed but quickly saw that the shields in question were stuck in place on the monster's body. The wood that they were made from quickly turned a dark, sickening shade of purple before they broke apart and were absorbed into its body.

Brex cursed himself for not having a viable means of attacking a creature from a distance with his Monk class currently equipped. The safest course of action was for him to turn into his Bard or one of his other class’s that could cast spells. Mentally, he shook his head seeing as this was not something he could do right now with so many witnesses. He had prepared himself by glamouring nearly all his gear to look like the robes that he was wearing now. That way if he ever needed to switch jobs, he would look the same to everybody. But suddenly breaking out another weapon or casting spells was not a viable option. He still didn't want anyone here to know that he could cast any magic at all. That needed to be his ace in the hole for the future just in case something happens. This was because he knew that they always let their guard down when something didn't possess any magic to use.

He started looking around for something to use as a makeshift weapon but all that was around, where the still scattered about ingredients laying off in the distance near all the cooking areas. Just as he was about to tear his sight away from the cooking area, Brex turned back and saw a large bag of flour. That was when a devilish grin appeared underneath his mask.

Quickly calling out to Steal Will, he yells, “Steel, with me!” Brex could see the minotaur rushing over with a confused look on his face. He then pointed towards the kitchen area and said, “We need flour!” This got the bull to scrunch up his face while lifting an eyebrow before he said, “Do you wanna cook at a time like this?! Did that things stink get to your head?"

Without saying anything else, he rush’s over to the nearest kitchen and grabs one of the large bags of flour. Afterwards he proceeds back to where he was and gets in position with the bag in hand. Tossing it up into the air several feet, the Roegadyn does a 180 degree turn and stretches out his leg for a strong kick. It strikes the bag of flour as it comes down and is launched straight at the monster. The force in which the bag flew upon hitting the creature, had enough force behind to cause it to explode upon impact. There was a thick cloud of flour in the air and most of the monster's left side had been covered in a thin layer of the white powder. Immediately after doing this, Brex reaches down and grabs a random small rock that was near his feet and throws it at one of the areas covered, instead of being stuck and getting sucked inside, the rock hit the creature. This caused it to let out a displeased sound as the projectile used, fell to the ground.

Seeing this, Brex calls to the others and says, “Use the flour.” He then saw that nearly half of the ponies around him, including Steel Will, had made a run for one of the many tables and was looting it of every bag of flour they could find. In the meantime, the creature was making its way slowly towards them at a slow pace.

The ponies had more than enough time to get their supplies together seeing as the creature was very slow in its movements. Within moments they had amass at least 10 bags of flour that were 20 Pounds apiece. There was a loud battle cry from Steel Will as he shouted, “Now this be a food fight! Let's show this sorry excuse of food what we think of it!”

After that, Brex could hear High Road yelling, “Justice will be swift! Justice will be painful! Justice will be… DELICIOUS!” The pony screaming this was holding a small carton of milk and had crushed it in her hands. If this wasn’t enough to make the Roegadyn to take a double take. Then it was with how High Road was now wearing a school uniform that he was positive he had seen somewhere. That was when there was a loud chorus of cries from the other ponies that war had just begun. But Brex could have sworn, he heard Steel Will muttering under his breath, “Hey that was my milk..."

The Roegadyn, just couldn't believe what he was seeing. What was once considered to be a very dangerous situation had evolved into a comedy. The creature was now getting pelted repeatedly with bags of flour that were telekinetically thrown by the Unicorns. While somehow, High Road had pulled out, what could have only been called a cannon from behind the kitchen counter. The thing was being packed with a flower bag every time it was shot. He could have sworn he only blinked once and the mare was now wearing a pirate hat in an eye patch. She was giving more commands to the troops while speaking in pirate lingo.

It didn't take long for all the bags of flour to have been used up and by the time the cloud of carnage had settled, the entire ground was covered in a layer of white powder. In the middle of the clearing was the creature but something was off about it. For one, it was completely white, the next thing to be noticed was the fact that it was no longer moving, which was very, very odd for a slime creature in the first place considering they are incapable of staying still. He approached the now, stone like creature and with a finger, Brex started to poke it repeatedly. With everything that was happening, he had completely forgotten to check the creatures HP. When he did so after poking it for a good minute, he saw that its H.P. was down to a paltry one percent.

Brex was about to say something, but then he heard High Road screaming in an excited tone, “Found one more!” Just then the creature was hit with another bag of flour which ended up covering himself as well. When he was finally able to see again, he could see that the creature was now on the ground and broken up into many pieces. Brex was no longer able to see a health bar, which indicated that the creature had been defeated.

Letting out a few coughs to get some of the flower that managed to get under the mask out of his mouth, Brex turned to see High Road already standing next to him and she was looking down at the remains of the creature. She didn't turn towards him and asked while pointing down at it, “Are you gonna eat that?"

As soon as those words left her mouth, everyone that was able to hear it started to make vomiting sounds and groans. Blinking several times, Brex just couldn't understand why this mare would even consider eating something like that, but quickly replied by saying, “Recommend against it.”

Afterwards things got quite busy. There was the clean-up of the monster, then there was an investigation being launched about it. They found out that somebody who was using a fake name had entered a dish and it turned out to be the monster in question. It was originally small, but after it started to consume the other food, it quickly grew in size. They weren't able to find who the culprit was.

After that they managed to clean up the mess somewhat and gave all the contestants that still wanted to participate another go, which meant that they would be cooking until 6:00 that night. As it turns out, that fight drew in a large crowd that was unnoticed by the participants or Brex. It ended up becoming a type of advertisement in a way and managed to get a number of the participants to stay around. There were even some discussions in the group about doing something similar next year, seeing as it was so much fun to fight food with food on purpose.

Later that day, the contest judges came back and had made their decision after sampling everyone's dish’s. In the end, Steel Will ended up winning. He used the smoking box on the cheese he was making and created the world's first Filly Delphia cheesecake.

As it turns out the winner got a substantial number of bits. Thanks to the judges and their review after speaking aloud and what they thought about the food, Steel Will was approached by some investors. It didn't take him long to accept the job of opening up a new bake shop. When the investors asked what Steel Will wanted to call the bakery, He told them that he wanted to call it, The Angry Bull Bakery.

After that, things went pretty much as scheduled for what was planned for the event. Even after several hours had passed, he was still brushing off random bits of flower from the last one that High Road had shot out of her cannon. He thought to himself, “I wonder if she's the reason Pinkie Pie even has a party Cannon?"

That's when Rory replied with a mischievous tone, “Perhaps Pinky will end up visiting High Road and learn a few things from her in the future?” This only caused Brex to blanche from behind his mask before exclaiming in a panic tone within his mind, “NO, I do not want the fun to be doubled!” Unknown to Brex, somewhere high above the planet, there was a voice coming from the satellite that orbited Equus, “Who, what? Who hath doubled thee fun?” It was soon followed by a small yawn before going silent.

Author's Note

Im happy to see i made it to 100 likes for my story so far. I will continue to do my best at getting these chapters out at a steady pace.