Strange Hooves

It is not every day Luna gets a visitor in her throne room. The throne of the night seems lonely at times without her advisors. Mike had recently been with Luna to seek magical training, but he had gone off for several days. Luna is delightedly surprised to see Mike come into her courtroom again, even if he wasn’t announced. Mike seems to be nervous about something. He walks into the middle of the courtroom, and waves a hand, saying,

“'Sup?”

Luna isn’t familiar with this new slang, and so she nervously smiles and answers,

“Not much, how are you?”

Mike inhales, obviously having rehearsed these lines.

“I’d like to return to Earth on a rescue mission.”

Luna is stunned by the bluntness of Mike’s request, but shrugs it off, and thinks of the implications of Mike’s request. How does one easily transit from Equestria to Earth?

Mike sees Luna stare off into space, a blank look glued on her face as she thinks. He clears his throat, and it disturbs her train of thought. She says,

“Ah, yes, Mike. Your request is most… unusual. What do you want to rescue from Earth?”

Mike says,

“Whoever and whatever is left. Men, material, knowledge, anything, really.”

Luna’s previous prediction of what Mike wanted to rescue from Earth had only been correct, and she doesn’t know whenever

to be glad to be seeing and helping other humans, or cautious of the dangers of Earth, according to what Mike had told her so far. Luna says,

“How will we get there and back with whatever we find?”

Mike says back,

“We’ll find a way. An advanced spell, a gate of sorts, anything. I can’t leave anyone behind.”

“Okay, we can look into it. Don’t worry; the royal magicians will take care of it. We’ll send a scouting party…”

“Actually, I should go. I’m human and so a more familiar sight on my world. That and I can defend myself.”

“You do raise a point. Shall we call Shining Armor here to help plan this?”

“Who?”

“Captain of the guard and chief magician. He’s one very powerful pony. He’s even Twilight’s brother!”

Mike raises an eyebrow and says,

"Funny. She didn’t mention anything like that earlier.”

Luna shrugs, and says,

“Shall we begin?”

Mike nods, and Luna casts a summoning spell. A white unicorn with hair 2 shades of blue enters the royal courts to bow to

Luna when he notices Mike standing next to her. Shining Armor has heard the stories about Mike’s exploits, but he has never seen the human before. He finishes the bow and says,

“What is it, milady?”

Luna clears her throat and then decrees,

“WE SHALL BE HONORED IF THOU SHALT RENDER ASSISTANCE TO US IN THIS DIRE TIME.”

Both Mike and Armor is too stunned to say anything, but Luna doesn’t notice and continues.

“WE SHALL NEED THE HELP OF THE COURT MAGICIANS IN ORDER TO CONTRUCT A GATE IN WHICH TRAVEL BETWEEN OUR WORLD AND MIKE’S WORLD SHALL BE MADE EFFORTLESS AND WE SHALL USE THIS GATE TO RESCUE THE REMAINS OF MANKIND. WE SHALL PROCEED TO THE LIBRARY IMMEDIATELY!”

Luna walks out of the court, oblivious to Mike and Armor’s condition, both trying to recover from the ROYAL CANTERLOT VOICE. They see that Luna is gone, however, and they cast looks at each other before sprinting after Luna.

…

In the royal library, Mike, Luna, and Shining Armor all are standing over a table, books and papers splayed everywhere. They had thought of using spells for the trips, but soon, they thought of using gates instead. A gate was stationary and you need to expend a lot of resources to make one, but once a portal gate was made, it could be a powerful tool for traveling between worlds. This would be one of the biggest projects that magicians would ever undertake. Thankfully, they were being overseen by these 3 individuals. A princess, a capable guard, and an alien with an eerie body of knowledge about his home planet.

Sometimes, during planning sessions, Mike would disengage himself from the discussion at hand to meditate. He would assume a sitting posture on the ground, but he lifted into the air by his own power, and he used his magical vision to peer back at his home world to inspect what elements of humanity could be recycled. He would offer some Intel about the infected that still remain, and the information would be added.

Mike awoke one Tuesday morning and started to go to the library for some morning research when he stumbles into none other than Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, and Spike all in cat suits looking like they were infiltrating the place. Laughs were to be had at their appearance. Twilight fills Mike in on recent events, ending with,

“… and in summary, I visited myself in the past to warn myself not to flip out because nothing was going to happen, but when

I said, ‘whatever you do, don’t…’ the spell wore off.”

Mike notes this, saying,

“Oh, man. You flipped out about the vague warning, didn’t you?”

Twilight chuckles a bit and responds,

“Yes, I sure did. And when today came around and nothing had happened, I thought of traveling back in time to warn myself

of the not-disaster.”

Mike laughs at the folly, but says,

“Cool. Wish I could do such a thing…”

He unexpectedly turns around to see a big white ball appear in the air similar to the one that Twilight saw when she traveled into the past. It burst, and it is revealed to be none other than Mike. Mike stared at his future self and says,

“Um, hi?”

Future Mike had blackened hair and he had obviously been in battle, which worries Past Mike. Future Mike says,

“There’s no time to explain, Mike. A Skiá (which is a horrible shadow monster) has escaped Tartarus. I have killed it by

absorbing it into my own body when I stunned it with fire, which also grants me it’s power. The spell needed for this is in the book called Advanced Spells and Magic, page 39. The Skiá is in the cave in the mountain overlooking Ponyville. Good luck, have fu—“

Future Mike is cut off by the time-warping spell ending, sending Future Mike back to the future.  The Mike that remains turns around to look for a copy of Advanced Spells and Magic.

…

The Skiá is most… pleased. Oh, yes. Its escape from Tartarus had gone unnoticed and now, it will have a town to feast. Oh, yes. The night shall be in its possession once again. The pony princesses will pay—what is that entering its cave? Oh, no.

It was a cinch learning the absorption spell required to kill it, and Mike has quickly made his way to the cave. It was also a cinch to find the thing, as the shadow squid was plain in sight. Hideous thing. It seemed to be a sleek, dark body connected with many thick, dark, and sleek tentacles. Mike didn’t bother to count how many there are, but has made a mental note to be careful. A black pit in the Skiá rotates, and Mike guesses that the pit is the thing’s eye. Mike warms up his fire spells.

The first fireballs to reach the creature hit it squarely in the center mass, causing it to give a screech off that puts even Ponyville in a shiver or terror. Mike, however, was unfazed, and the fireballs kept coming. It writhed and climbed deeper and deeper into the cave, and away from Mike. This, however, was not outside Mike’s fireball range. Once Mike had fired several more fireballs into the thing, Mike felt that the thing was actually dying. Future Mike had wanted Mike to absorb the shadow power, but Mike had not understood at first, but then again, who was he to question himself?

As it turns out, Skiá are very powerful creatures. In order to defeat one, you have to take away their influence of the dark. This is why Mike told Mike to absorb the Skiá’s power. Or something. Mike decides not to question his own methods and begins the spell. The thing shrieks again when it finds itself under Mike’s influence, its own draining away. It was caught by surprise, and so had no opportunity to show this puny… whatever it was just how powerful it really was. Then the Skiá started to hurt, but the intruder continued his spell on the Skiá. Mike almost feels poor for the thing, but shrugs off the guiltiness and finishes it. The now dead Skiá drops the ground in a dry husk of its former self. It actually turned to ashes, which floated away.

Mike hears something behind him, and he turns around to see Future Mike again. Future Mike approaches Past Mike and presses his hand to Past Mike’s forehead. Mike feels memories being poured into his head. No, not memories. These were lessons on how to use his new abilities. Mike finds himself learning about his new dark abilities such as life-leeching from enemies, to... imagination powers? Future Mike says,

“Imagination power is only one name for it. You could also call it summoning, spawning, etc. Pretty cool shadow stuff. Mind your thoughts. Put too much effort in, and you'll manifest it."

With a wink, Future Mike disappears. Wait, what did Future Mike say?

Mike thinks back to what he had said, and tried to summon a sandvich. A puff of smoke, and lo and behold, a sandvich appears in his hands. Conventional thought flew out the window as Mike ate it excitedly and thought about something else to summon. Mike wipes the crumbs off of his shirt, and thinks. He better not try again.

...

Oh what was he kidding? He always liked jets.