Somewhere near the edge of the Everfree Forest, a small mote of blue fire appeared out of thin air.

It hovered by itself for just a few moments before it flickered erratically. Seconds after, the mote grew into a flat elliptical shape, wreathed by incredibly hot blue-red flames that haphazardly writhed in place.

Following its sudden transformation, an armored hoof stepped through the burning rift. The limb itself was tipped with roaring red flames, burning the green grass as it made contact with the ground.

It didn't take long for the rest of the hoof's owner to come through.

The being was a quadrupedal creature, almost equine-like in its visage. Its charcoal-black coat was covered with heavy, thick, yet elegantly designed armor, and it covered the creature from the neck all the way to the tips of their flaming hooves.

The creature's head was covered with a similarly ornate helm, with slots for their jagged, curving horn, pointed ears, and burning mane.

Crucible Spark, the human-turned-wrathful nirik Forge Lord and self-proclaimed Warden of Harmony observed the surrounding area with his bright glowing eyes.

He sniffed the air a few times and furrowed his flaming eyebrows as he noticed a rather peculiar scent.

"Human... yes..."

The armored nirik turned towards the direction the scent came from, his eyes widened as he noticed a blue-coated and rainbow-maned pegasus gathering up a storm cloud above the tree line.

With a slight twitch of his legs, he channeled his flames from his hooves and propelled himself forwards in a blur, leaving a trail of scorched earth behind.

"Jason!"

"P-please, Rainbow Dash! I'm not a monster!" a human man pleaded to the cocky pegasus flying above him.

He was still quite young, perhaps in his early to mid twenties. His form however, was quite... pitifful.

The young man was fairly emaciated, his skin practically pulled taught against his skeleton. The clothes on his body were in tatters, with significant chunks ripped off, leaving tears and holes throughout the fabric.

Small scars and injuries were littered along his skin as well, possibly caused from living a rough life.

Jason Wright, one of the least fortunate Humans-in-Equestria to ever exist, looked at his favorite pony in fear as she was preparing to strike him down.

"I'm not falling for your tricks, monster! Prepare to- GAH!"

Rainbow Dash exclaimed, interrupting her own 'heroic' speech as something impacted her mid air, leaving a trail of red flames.

She was flung all the way back towards the outer reaches of Ponyville, and left a thin trail of smoke as her body plummeted towards the ground.

Jason gaped at the sudden interruption. What the hell just happened?

He turned to look towards the thing that had crashed into Rainbow Dash, and stumbled onto the ground as he noticed the demonic-looking creature descending in front of him using its rocket-hoof-things.

"N-no! Wait!"

"Jason Wright." it said calmly.

The man halted his squirming, "Huh?"

"Don't be afraid. I'm not here to hurt you." the creature gestured a hoof towards him, "Rather, I am here to save you."

Jason didn't know what to think or do. This.. demonic pony-thing wanted to save him?

"W-what?" was all he could mutter.

The creature continued, "My name is Crucible Spark. I used to be a human too, from, ah, another Earth, I suppose. Where your existence is purely fictional"

The man slowly pushed himself into a sitting position, his eyes still locked on to the... person? In front of him. Once again, he was baffled by the individual's statements.

Crucible Spark's expression softened, despite being smothered by flames, "In my Earth, your story is known to be rather... controversial. I'll explain it later, but for now, I'd like to ask you to follow me."

He lit his horn, which caused an elliptical disc of fire to form behind him.

"Come. It's not safe here for either of us, especially after I pulled that stunt. Though I really hope I gave that RD variant some serious burns." Spark ended with a sinister chuckle.

Jason finally found the courage to shakily stand up. He looked between the smirking nirik and the portal before him.

Every part of his being screamed at him to bolt into the portal as quick as he can, but his logical side reminded him of how he got into this mess in the first place.

The ragged man looked at the transformed human with clear suspicion.

"How... how do I know you're not just tricking me?"

Spark turned back to him, "You don't. But I know that your options are between staying here and continue to mimic Bear Grylls, or following me back to my place, which has a nice heated shower and internet." the transformed human bluntly answered.

Jason stood quietly for a moment, weighing his options. He considered Spark's words and played them again in his mind. The nirik had mentioned Bear Grylls and the internet, more evidence to him possibly being an actual human who had transformed.

He looked back up at Spark, who was looking over towards Ponyville, likely observing if Rainbow wanted to come back for round two. Or perhaps even the Mane Six as a whole.

Jason sighed, "Alright. I'll come with you. I've got a feeling things won't end well if I stay here."

The armored nirik smiled, "You won't regret it!"

Jason rubbed his eyes as he and Spark exited the portal. The human had been absolutely bewildered by the infinite expanse of burning portals and pathways that the two had to pass through to enter Spark's 'headquarters'. And don't even get him started on how the flames weren't harming him!

He looked around the room that they had entered. Jason assumed it was some sort of armory, with various—mostly melee–weapons and armor adorned the walls. Each item was intrecately crafted; a beautiful, balanced bond between form and function.

The young man turned to his... savior? And saw what he assumed to be his normal form.

"What did you turn into?"

Spark placed his armor on a ponyquin before turning to him, "I became my OC. He's a kirin, a species introduced in season eight." he raised an eyebrow, "What season was the show in before you went to Equestria?"

Jason's eyes widened, "I... came when season four was still airing..." the man shook his head, "MLP ran for eight seasons?"

"Nine, actually. With a bunch of stuff in between."

Spark proceeded to open the room's door with his magic, Jason couldn't help but feel a little envious.

"I'll explain everything I can when we all settle down. Come on, I'll show you where the bathroom is. No offense, you smell like a Nurgle daemon."

Jason furrowed his brows. He lifted an arm and took a sniff.

"Hurk!" he gagged.

"Yeah... let's just go."

"Jesus... I... I don't even know what to say to that! This is insane!"

Jason exclaimed as he finished reading his own story on Spark's phone. The kirin had decided to take their discussion to the living room after the human was done cleaning himself. To say that Jason finally felt relieved would be an understatement.

Spark had given him a new set of clothes, and had served him a footlong sandwich that had a suspiciously familiar yellow-green logo on its wrapping. It was the first time the human had felt truly full in months.

Jason also noted the odd insistence for him to wear the Chrysalis shirt specifically. He wasn't going to complain, though. It was pretty comfortable.

Spark took a sip from a cup of tea in his magic, "Pretty big revalation huh? And there's a bunch of revenge stories about you as well. Pretty cathartic reads, those are. Maybe if you're willing, I could help you, hm?"

Jason looked up from the mobile device, "Uh... maybe some other time."

He glanced around the adimittedly cozy room, despite being in fairly close proximity to a smithy and workshop. Spark must clean often, the young man mused.

"So..." he took a breath and leaned back on the couch, "What now? For me, I mean."

The kirin in front of him shrugged, "It's your call. Oh, and I can't bring you back to your Earth, by the way. My portals don't connect to our version of humanity, only to the ones with Sunset Shimmer in them. I honestly don't know why."

Jason wilted slightly. So he's trapped for good, huh?

"Okay. So, uh, maybe I could live with... you instead?" He asked hesitantly, not trying to push his luck.

Spark gave him a smile, "Hey man, if you want to stay here then by all means. We Humans-in-Equestria gotta stick together, y'know?"

Jason breathed a sigh of relief. It seems like all of that suffering wasn't for nothing.

Spark decided to continue, "Ah, and if you want, you can join me in my crusades every now and then! I can make you some nice armor and weapons if you'd like."

It took a moment for the human to snap out of his reverie, "Wait, what do you mean by 'crusades'?"

Spark waved a hoof, "Basically, I go around the Equestrian multiverse or whatever it's called, specifically to dark, grim, or grimdark AUs and do my best to save it or prevent things from going to shit or becoming shittier. You were just a part of one, and I'd say I was pretty successful."

Jason blinked. And then blinked again.

"Huh."

The kirin smirked once again, "So, you up for it?"

The young man looked off to a window in contemplation, and noticed a streak of rainbow in the sky from this Equestria's Rainbow Dash. He sighed, remembering that his favorite pony had tried to fry him alive no more than a few hours ago.

He looked back to Spark, "What do the ponies think of humans here?"

Spark shrugged again, it seemed like he does that a lot.

"Like they do with all the other creatures. 'Oh, you're a human? That's neat!' and then they're off again, doing Harmony-knows-what.

"Twilight's also a lot more familiar with humanity in this Equestria. I guess her relationship with Sunset helped with that."

Jason almost jumped out of his seat, "Wait wait wait, roll back, her what with Sunset?!"

The kirin looked at him like he had grown another head, "What? They're together here, like, y'know, romantically and stuff." he chuckled, "I practically squealed like a fangirl when I heard my OTP was real. Almost fainted too, I think..."

The human rested an arm on the couch, "Well, uh, good for them."

"Anyway, yeah, you won't get the same treatment here as you did back there. This is my personal 'best' version of Equestria, after all."

There was a moment of silence between the two of them before Jason turned his gaze towards Spark again. The kirin noticed the determined look on his face, which caused his smile to widen.

"Okay. I'm in."

Spark offered a hoof towards the human, to which he responded by shaking it.

"Welcome to the team, Mr. Wright!"

In another version of Equestria, located far from the blessed light of Harmony, a variant of Rainbow Dash had been declared permanently incapable of flight.

Spark sighed in satisfaction as he continued to forge Jason's personal armor.

He lifted the yellow-hot metal close to his goggles to check for imperfections.

"You don't mess with my people. Not anymore..."

He continued to strike the metal with his hammer.

"Ave Harmonia, morituri te salutant."

Author's Note

So Spark went straight to the Ending-Verse and saved Jason Wright! Right after he set up an HQ in his favorite version of Equestria and forged his own equipment, of course!

Just a disclaimer, while this story does feature Jason as one of the main characters, this isn't an Ending-verse story. Because it's set in various AUs, obviously.
Both him and Spark are going to collect more buddies as the story goes on.

This'll essentially be the replacement for The Interlopers, which means that this story will not be a part of my focus, and will be randomly updated when I'm not feeling like writing my light-hearted and comedy-centric stories.

As you can see by the tags, this won't be my typical, happy-go-lucky story. In this one, we'll see just how relentless and ruthless Spark can be when he's absolutely livid. Prepare to see him slaughter entire armies and disembowel villains just to save his favorite characters.

And also, I'm mainly doing this because I'm having too much fun with writing nirik-Spark lol.

"THE FORGE LORD HAS CAST HIS JUDGEMENT UPON YOUR REALM, AND HE IS NOT PLEASED."
- Crucible Spark, trying to exterminatus a creepypasta Equestria