Area: Entrance
Year: 1944

"I know I've said it already but I seriously missed walking on my feet and not having fur all over my body. And have I mentioned-"

"How you hate the wings flaring up, and the lack of hands, and the overly cutesy face, yes. You've mentioned it five damn times!" Scootaloo said, annoyed with Jonathan.

"Damn, sorry pissy pants."

The trio were now without Loretta, having dropped her off with Wind and RD and explained the current... situation.

Half an hour ago...

Scootaloo was looking at everyone in the room, making sure she had their attention. "So, I need to let you that don't know about some... discoveries that were made... there are boss monsters with Equestrian magic in this castle as well as whole sections filled with the stuff. So far, Dullahan, Keremet, and Astarte have had Equestrian magic, Astarte extra clear by a heart-shaped tattoo on her arm that isn't a part of her in most stories about her, and that's just pulling from what I know since this damn castle is anything but normal already," Scootaloo said, making Rainbow Dash slightly worried.

"Hey Squirt? Didn't you say that during 1813 that some ponies who worked for Sweetie Belle brought Equestrian magic and it turned an entire forest into a sort of copy of the Everfree?" Rainbow asked and Scootaloo already knew where she was heading.

"Yes, but there's something else... I think a Changeling admiral's behind it. The reason I think that is that when we found Silent Night the second time, which is when we also learned she might be spreading Equestrian magic in this place and its portraits, she had empty unfocused eyes and I felt the energy signature of a changeling admiral but I have no clue if the changeling admiral has anything to do with Silent Night's unfocused state." Scootaloo looked at the humans in the room and realized that... they were confused. "Basically a changeling admiral is a stronger changeling with one power no other changeling has such as stealing cutie marks and thus special moves, or just straight up mind control," Scootaloo explained.

"So we need to keep an eye out for a changeling, no problem."

"I'm pretty sure there is a problem though, aren't changelings shapeshifters?"

"Yes but it's purely appearence made to trick and lie, if we use our magic to scan it then we'll have no problem seeing through the facade."

"Eh, Scoots has dealt with those motherbuckers before so I don't expect her to be having any issues with those bugs."

Back to the present.

Scootaloo was through looking back for the moment as she and her friends kept moving forward in the search for another portrait, Scootaloo used her wings to quadruple jump to a small platform out of reach of Jonathan and Charlotte and found... "Are you actually shitting me? Why did I waste my time coming up here for a worse piece of equipment for my friends?!" Scootaloo threw the Copper Plate at the nearby wall and watched as it fell and revealed a secret boss door. "How much did this incarnation of Castlevania draw from Castlemania? This is exactly how Fabricator's boss door was hidden... granted, that time, it was a required fight and hiding it behind a wall might have left me lost if I wasn't attentive as fuck but I swear these hidden walls are a pain to find now for some reason." Scootaloo commented as she opened the boss door on her own.

Inside the boss room, Scootaloo saw a simple, bipedal, sky blue bunny but... something was seriously wrong about it. "Mommies and daddies aren't always right, they could be planning to leave you..." She said, her voice raspy and filled with distain as she moves a paint brush around, changing the room to one more befitting of a battle arena. "And little ponies need to face destruction... Maxxie, Wilty... we have a target!" The bunny announced as a pink dog with a massive hole in it's mouth and a yellow two-tailed cat with a heavily distorted face both came from the shadows. The bunny gave a thumbs up with her bloodied teeth clear. The dog raised a paw as if greeting but the hole where it's muzzle would be and the eye voids for eyes make it... rather unsettling. As for the cat... it stands there, holding a pencil and paper.

Scootaloo got ready to attack as the bunny pulled out her paint brush and painted up a monster, "I've made a masterpiece," she said as the cat started writing on the paper and dictated what the monster does through it. What makes it worse is that any damage Scootaloo does to it is immediately healed by the bunny.

"This is fucking stupid," Scootaloo said as she accidently used the monster to charge straight at the cat and the two hit causing the monster to be without command. Scootaloo smirked as she attacked the bunny, who was fittingly named "Hare". "And here I was thinking pony names were getting weird, but no. A bunny literally named Hare. Could things be any weirder?" Scootaloo asked as she used a dash attack on Hare and hit the dog, named Maxxie thus making the cat Wilty, in the process. And as Scootaloo realized that they were down, she realized it was time to finish Wilty off to ensure the rest of this battle goes smoothly.

Wilty got up as Scootaloo was about to attack but then grabbed his paper and pencil to write something and as Scootaloo attacked she missed and instead struck the paper, completely ruining it. "So you attempt to wield God's hand, and now will pay for your hubris," Scootaloo said as she pierced Wilty through the head, killing the cat.

As soon as the other two saw what Scootaloo had done, they realized they signed up for death. "Listen listen... us critters don't have to die... right?" Hare said, sweating nerviously... but Scootaloo just smirked as she made it clear they were dying for the experience they give. Hare gulped.

Area: Great Stairway
Year: 1944

Scootaloo returned to her friends with the biggest grin on her face. The group was in a part of the Great Stairway that shared design with the Entrance for some reason. The group found Liliths and Spittle Bones in this area but both were painstakingly easy. Same with the slingers in the area(WHY?! THESE WERE IN CITY OF HAZE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE BUCKING ADVENTURE!) that decided to get in Scootaloo and her friend's way.

"I'd say that I'm getting close to my strength from the end of my journey during 1813," Scootaloo said as life made it mad clear she was not going to have a good time.

The group went into a room accessed from a hole in the ceiling and found: a warp room, a save room, a secret room in the ceiling, and a portrait. But the portrait itself was odd, unlike the previous ones which were completely Brauner's work, this one matched a pony artist's style, if Scootaloo remembers the artist was named Pyrite or something along those lines, but it still held the distinct gothtic style that the others had. "How the hell did somepony copy Pyrite's art style while also keeping the gothtic style? How the hell do we know this one won't kill upon entry?"

"I hate saying this but... only one way to find out..."

Area: Mansion of Fools
Year: 1944

Upon hitting the ground, Scootaloo felt the ground and realized it was definitely a wooden floor she was on. Looking at her friends made her realize that they were ponies here. A whole portrait that's a pony zone? Shit's getting real, real fast.

Scootaloo was shot out of her reverie by the fact that she and her friends were in a mansion and if the other portraits were anything to indicate, they'd likely find lots of enemies that'd fit in with the mansion setting. Now that creates a question of who's the boss of the area? Scootaloo was eager to find out.

It took several minutes but Jonathan and Charlotte to get used to the area. "So despite it only having been 45 minutes since we were last in weird town, we're back but this time as part of a whole portrait..." Jonathan commented as Scootaloo nodded.

The trio moved forward and found Persephones, skeletons, and ghost dancers(Which were last seen in the City of Haze) but they prompted no issue. Skeleton Waiters roamed the castle with their plates of curry and the wine glasses as a Skeleton Bartender made a cocktail to be put in the wine glasses. Also, should it be mentioned that all of the enemies are the pony versions? "Even the enemies have pony varients? I knew of Skeletons having one but Persephone? Why them?" Charlotte asked as Scootaloo shrugged.

"To be honest, I stopped caring a while ago since it's Pinkie Pie levels of unexplanable," Scootaloo commented and ended the conversation.

As the trio moved forwards, they kept defeating basic enemies with... minimal effort. They even found the odd Ectoplasm here and there but they fell just as easily as the rest. And the circus room's Killer Clowns and Coppelias but they weren't that useful, they got a card from each of them but what use could a card be?

Actually... maybe Scootaloo shouldn't judge the card by it's suit since they might be required items.

Jonathan had used the Knife a lot just for the distance but now, suddenly, he threw three of them... did he get cocky enough to do that or was it an accident? Regardless, the group found a room that had a cog but... Scootaloo looked at the room and noticed that it... seemed familiar...

We are one... we are many...

Granfaloon/Legion's room...

Jonathan picked up the cog and Scootaloo watched as the familiar ball of dead bodies rose up. "Fucking hell, it's motherfucking Legion," Scootaloo said in "mild" annoyence.

"A familiar foe... if so... we are one... we are many... we are Legion!" the many voices said as Scootaloo jumped before dash attacking, Jonathan and Charlotte resorting to using subweapons/magic to deal damage to Legion.

"Shit! This thing has tentacles that definitely don't look fun," Jonathan said as he finally broke a section off, "And the groans are like... what's the opposite of a symphony?"

"A cacophony; a harsh discordant mixture of sounds."

"Yeah, that, the groans are like a cacophony!"

Scootaloo destroyed a section of Legion's shell which soon met her face-to-face with a tentacle about to fire a laser. Luckily Scootaloo knew better and dodged the laser... shame this fight wasn't going to be how Scootaloo expected it since Shadowfreight decided to arrive and throw Scootaloo into a nightmare, leaving Jonathan and Charlotte to deal with Legion while Shadowfreight and Scootaloo fought inside her own head.

Just as Charlotte and Jonathan each destroyed a section of Legion's shell, Scootaloo expelled Shadowfreight from her body and used a dash attack on it, causing it to fade into nothingness, before Scootaloo did a dash attack to destroy the last section of Legion's shell, allowing the group to target Legion itself and with three powerful ponies(two of which were humans made ponies by the pony zone) attacking it... safe to say it didn't last long.

With Legion dead, the trio turned to leave only to find Silent Night at the entrance of the room. "So Legion and... Shadowfreight failed... foreigns have no reason... in the portraits... it took too long to make this portrait for Brauner..." Silent Night spoke, her empty monotone voice still there and Scootaloo felt the changeling admiral's presence again.

"Come out changeling! I know you're there!" Scootaloo announced as the changeling admiral appeared... the one of the recon squad... Mental Sap.

"My my, clever aren't you, filly? I didn't expect any less from the enemy of my Queen and our ally. Yes, I'm here, the one and only Mental Sap!" He spoke in a raspy voice that was common among changelings but with a level of clarity no other changeling has.

"I bet you're why Silent Night is nearly lifeless, you took a page out of Chrysalis' book and used your powers to make her mindless!" Scootaloo yelled as Mental Sap just laughed.

Jonathan and Charlotte grabbed their weapons as Mental Sap shook his head disapprovingly. "Not yet, Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Aulin... I have no desire to fight either of you two, my beef is with Scootaloo but not yet... I can tell Scootaloo isn't up to par with herself yet... I want to fight and destroy Scootaloo's full power even if it kills me. Because once she's dead... my fellow admirals can feed on all the love we could ever ask for." Mental Sap vanished with Silent Night soon after.

They group went to save after that shit hole of an encounter.

Author's Note

Bosses beaten: Replaced Critter Trio, Legion.

Relics acquired: Critical Art(press forward twice then attack to unlease a special move, Jonathan only)

So... to clarify...the Pyrite of this timeline is different from the one Lucar made. I just wanted to reference him by having a very similiar pony in ancient Equestrian history... and yes. This means Burnt Paradise is different now that Nation of Fools is the Mansion of Fools.

Also, changeling admirals are a thing and, as mentioned in the story, they are loyal to Chrysalis even now with the metamorphosed changelings(what I call Morphlings) being a thing.

And yes, Sweetie dark minions are only growing.