The Great Multiverse Theory: Repairs and Recordings

Chapters

[1.1] Strange, But Seems Fun
[1.2] Fun Averted
[Introduction] Introduction
[2.1] Numb skulls
[2.2] SuperNova
[2.3] Back to the Future
[2.S] On the Job
[2.A] Squishy
[3.1] Omnius Tidings
[3.2] Everybody Clean Up
[4] Endgame
[Epilogue] Last Life

[1.1] Strange, But Seems Fun

A lone shack stood on its own, sandwiched between large apartments and loud restaurants. A middle aged man of average height with slightly shaggy hair in a hoodie and black sweatpants walks casually down the dark street, carrying a briefcase. He glances up and smiles at the bright moon hanging in the sky. As he passes by an alley towards said shack, a shadow moves out towards him, carrying a knife and a bat. The man frowned, pulling a rust yellow alarm clock out of his pocket, and activated the alarm. The world blurred for a moment.

The man walked out of the alley, adjusting his tie and flicking blood off his fingers. “Why that guy was even here...” he shook his head. “Ah well. At least he’s retcon-able. Pretty embarrassing for the Janitor to have to walk away from that.” The Janitor turned around and pulled out a small tube. With a flick, it expanded into a large broom. He pointed the bristles end at the alley and sucked all the matter in the alley, leaving a white tear in the space. He glanced blankly at a dismembered hand that fell out the railing of a nearby balcony. A blue collar was wrapped around the hand, its death grip holding a handgun Sigh. “Why can’t people learn to stay out of my business? Now I have to reconstruct you, if my day wasn’t interrupted enough times already.” He gave the broom a thrust and sent a wave of atoms into the alley. Atoms formed and became molecules, binding with each other. A female silhouette materialized on one of the reforming apartments, screaming. “Pansy.”

He picked up his briefcase and walked to the front door of the small shack. He knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” asked a cheery voice.

“I’m the cleaning service. I'm here to get rid of the zombies in your basement.”

“Correct! Come on in, buddy.”

“...I’m not your buddy, just your partner in this dead end job.” the Janitor half-growled.

The door clicked open. Instead of a one room shack, there was a medium-sized laboratory and a small open trapdoor leading to the basement. The door was actually a portal connecting to a room in a ship outside of the universe. The Janitor was cleaning up some business and found some files along the way. On one side of the laboratory, a figure wearing a cloak hunched over a pile of scrap parts and a video projector. He turned around and raised the hood. A pair of ski goggles glinted from the lighting. Worn, slightly bloody bandages wrapped around his entire head, and can be seen poking out from inside his sleeve and his moderately frayed gloves. His hair was short cut, and hung right above the straps of his goggles. He was also a foot shorter than the six feet three inches of the Janitor.

“So you got the situation taken care of?” he asked.

“Yes Shtik, no world burning experiments until the next decade. Don’t you have something more interesting to do? All I have done recently is pretty much like what those memory wipers do.” replied the Janitor as he handed him the briefcase. “Oh, and I found this. You might want to take a look at it. It seems to be coded toward your aura.”

Shtik took the case and set it down on a table. When he stuck his thumb into the keyhole, it glowed a bit, then popped. The lid slowly flipped open on spring-loaded hinges. There were a few pages inside held together by a paperclip. It read: “Alert: Mega-Crossover initiating in an area near you. Includes many gods and hapless humans, may be fun. Enjoy your ticket.” There wasn’t really a ticket since it was really all a formality, and he unsubscribed from the service anyways. Shtik grinned a little and rubbed his hands, but paused when he saw a small post it attached to the side. “Warning: An aura sensor named M**** S** has entered the arena. Keep your signatures low if you decide to enter.”

Shtik groaned. “Dammit. I can’t hide my aura very well and have health insurance at the same time. I really wanted to go there myself.” He deflated slightly, but started cleaning out the junk on his desk and inspecting the large camcorder sitting atop of it. “Oh well, I'm am a part time summoner. I guess I have to pull out Avery for this.” He reached underneath his desk and plopped down a rust colored box.

Avery is the nickname for Audio/Video Environment Recorder - Earth Class. It is basically a rover with many scientific analyzing equipment stored within its stomach compartment. Shtik grabbed the 720p video camera and attached it to its “neck”. The Janitor pulled out a black tube from the recesses of his broom and handed it over to Shtik, who dropped it into a vent in the back. The robot shuddered slightly as electricity started running through its body, started its fan, and rebooted. The head-camera straightened out slightly. “AVER-E 2.0 running at 90% power. All systems online, directive?” Meanwhile, Shtik grabbed a box, scrawled “CGotG” on its cover. After writing it again on the blank hard drive inside, he proceeded to stick it into the robot's chest port.

“Come on Johnny, let’s go. Please scout out the area and find a suitable landing spot.” Shtik squeezed a letter out from his arm. “I might send out a message to a guy I left in these worlds. You should just continue to monitor the natives, and if needed I’ll get my representative to help you take care of my camera here.”

“Yes sir, And my name isn’t John. I stopped using it for over ten centuries.” He turned around with his broom on his shoulder and walked out through one of the hallways into the interior of what could only be called a home for a six hour break, despite how much he dislikes it. A shadow of a scythe overlayed his shadow.

“...spoil sport,” Shtik grumbled.

A shining blue jewel glittered on my view screen. I hopped through a portal, landed on a passing asteroid and drained the kinetic energy from said asteroid, freezing it in place. This way, almost no one would notice my temporary work area unless they were also on the same rock. It worked as a nice base of operations until I got everything set up. It took about an hour in real time. All I really needed to do was to sync up Avery’s video feed to my monitor and plan out a path of action. Then I created a Party Cannon (TM) and shot Avery at the planet. I had to wait for the sun to move out of the way. I was a bit unfamiliar working with a geocentric planet. I found it a bit strange that these systems were so rare, but that was the least of my worries, seeing as it only took fifteen minutes for an opening to come up. I then sat back.

I wonder what The Janitor had done in the past few weeks here?

A few hours later...

It was night time in this half of Equis. The stars were twinkling, the crickets chirping, the sound of a sky pirate slinking around in his airship, and there was also a small cluster of shooting stars across the sky. One of the fireballs started going off to the side, confusing a few sky watchers. Unlike most of the other fireballs, this one kept on flying. Some worried it might destroy a town, and others wondered if a certain princess was drunk.

After flying through half the country, the meteor smashed a little off the path between Ponyville and Canterlot. It landed strategically behind a cluster of trees, shielding the spray of dirt created from its landing. The slightly glowing sphere rolled to a stop. The ball made a slight snapping sound as it split in half, dropping a rusty orange box. A small flap on the box’s top flipped aside. The camera stored within spun noiselessly on oiled gears into the alien (from its perspective) atmosphere. After short damage check, it began running its boot up programs.

Flight time: 5.6 hours

Damage: 2%, within operable parameters.

Power levels: 90% Est. 2 years run time.

System Diagnostic...

Running...

RunniNg. .. .

cH*ck ComP-bzzzt-crack

The “head” of A/VER-E 3.0 glowed and blew off, leaving a stump behind. Several hundred miles away, Shtik stared at the white noise in shock. “Did I miss something? How did it do that?” He looked over his blueprints and scratched his head. “...Nevermind, I just go back to version 2.0. That thing has always worked for me.

The neck of A/VER-E retracted back into its body, and after a few clunks, it came back out with another HD camera. Though it didn't have stereoscopic vision, it worked. It took another few seconds to start booting up again. And in another fifteen seconds, just as the sun started to rise, the head glowed as a freak energy pulse blew it off again.

In surprise and rising horror, Shtik frantically powered down the robot completely after he saw that the damage indicator was now at 90%. He presumed that it will continue to drop as long as the robot stayed on. He peaked over the edge of the asteroid and focused his glowing eye at the planet. A few tiny circles spun inside his iris as its magnification increased. A few filters were shifted around to see in octiron, or the wavelength of magic. He saw a line of power streaming from the pony capital, and a few trace strands flickering out to the side, right over where his robot was parked. Gears spun in place as ancient memories were pulled out to scan their contents. Soon, the connection between the magic surge and his robot with many delicate electronics clicked into place.

“Oh buggah.”

[1.2] Fun Averted

I wiggled my jaw at the static that is now the video feed of my robot. And this was several years before the crazy starts happening. If the change of days is enough to short out the camera, when the main course begins, the entire thing will go up in a small fireball. I gave a slight sigh. The words of a powerful wizard and a few forgotten personal experiences come up to mind. Paraphrased, its pretty much how magic interferes quite a bit with technology. In small experiments I have conducted, I had found out that in some cases they act similarly to electricity, and though it was a type of energy, it acted more like an EMP pulse to things that run off of electricity. I could convert A/VER-E to run of a magical power source, such as a gem battery or crystal powder based hydraulics, but despite its size, A/VER-E actually uses enough energy to run a factory. Using magic stored in crystals was just way too inefficient when I have Energy/Matter (E/M) Rods at my disposal. Basically, they were solid rods of matter than can be melted in a way to release the energy, and resembles a black hole in density, though with a bit of manipulation, I managed to make them comparatively light and portable.

So, in order to use this power source instead, I needed to call out someone who I left as an emergency, someone who could do the necessary modifications to A/VER-E. I flipped out my rusty phone. “Janitor, get Erma.”

A hummingbird sat on a tree, napping besides a sweet, yellow pegasus’s cottage. Life is goood she thought to herself, lightly ruffling her feathers. Several centuries of just enjoying the life made one content bird. Hmm. A buzzing noise. Oh, so he needs me now? Guess I’ll go check it out. The small bird shook its head in a brief bout of confusion before understanding the message. She took off and flew to a specific set of coordinates in the Everfree Forest and landed about ten minutes later in a barely visible clearing. She fluttered around a bit and found an egg half buried inside a branch. A bit of pecking managed to loosen the egg, and then she rolled it to a fork in the branch. The bird gently tapped her head against the side of the egg; the egg pulsed slightly. She would miss her presence.

As the hummingbird shot away, the egg rolled off the branch and cracked onto the forest floor, spilling life juices everywhere, the fluids slowly seeping into the ground. Some of the evaporating liquid caused a few flowers of some dead looking trees directly beside the impact point to quiver. Suddenly, color rushed back into the trees, and their roots started straining against their earthly cell. A circle of grass yellowed and died. A few feet below the surface, the yolk touched the bones a certain someone left in place. A circle of runes glowed from beneath the grass, electricity jumping up the tree trunks nearby. With renewed vigor, the trees ripped completely out of the soil and stepped into the circle. Wood chunks fell off like melting butter, sinking into the soil. The peeled bark revealed a set of dry, well preserved muscles and organs, which entered a hole one of the trees have made in the unmarked grave. Soon, all that was left were a few husks of the old trees.

A moment passed before a bony hoof stabbed its way out from the dirt. With the last of their juice, the trees pulled upward, loosing a bit of the soil. The bony hoof slowly pulled the rest of its skeleton out of the ground, sitting in a pool of mud. After it was sure its internal organs were in place did it absorb all the water. Lungs reinflated, a heart was met with new blood, and a mouth took its first breath in centuries, though the mind inhabiting the body had been alive for some time. Cells replicated at a rapid pace, growing skin to hold the body together. Hair follicles grew a tannish fur and a ragged, messy grass colored mane. Eyeballs inflated, spinning a bit in their sockets.

Elma stretched her old body, yawning slightly. Grappling claws grew out of her hooves and hauled the rest of her skeleton out of its shell, shaking her rump a bit to spread out the water and a bit of tail flicking to shake out all the dirt. The claws slowly retracted back into her hooves. She looked at the bored figure leaning on a tree across from her, his grey flak jacket rather noticeable against the background of trees. “Was that really necessary?” he asked

She pointedly ignored him. “So, whatcha call me up for?” The Janitor straightened and stuck a thumb behind him.

a few hours later (in their time)

The pair walked to the edge of the forest and saw the still smoking ruin of what was a perfectly functional camera-bot. “Oh, so this happened,” Elma said. “You really should make a list of things on a planet that may cause distress to whatever plan you cook up.”

“I know, I know,” Shtik grumbled into her mind. “I was mainly worried over the god-princess here, and forgot about everything else. I’ll get to it eventually, but in the meantime, that’s why I have you here, is it not?

Elma rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll admit it makes life a bit more interesting. Now quiet, I’m working.” She circled the robot, examining its innards. The Janitor handed her a blueprint and an instructions manual, which she skimmed through. She summoned an ivory screwdriver out of her hoof and popped of the robot’s back cover and started pulling out half of the wires, motherboards, and cards inside. “Esh, the stuff inside is starting to melt just from the magic field.” She whacked her head a few times to change the frequencies her eyes saw to move the robot to a spot furthest away from the leylines in the area. The Janitor fell asleep, but did leave his broom beside her for her to use.

Elma took a deep breath. Here we go... Bubbles slowly formed along her hoof as she shoveled food dug from within the broom’s depths into her mouth. She also chugged a shot a hydrochloric acid to speed up the digestion process. A pink thumb like object popped out of her skin, almost looking like a tumor. Yellow fleshy wires sprouted out one end. Elma grew a hand underneath her right hoof, the one currently “holding” the growth and started the slow process of rewiring and reprogramming the robot.

Only after several blobs of fleshy matter have been grown and sealed within small silicon boxes and springs did Elma relax. There were still some motors within, but Elma had stuck on tiny spiral cone-shaped bones to act like magical lightning rods. Even if A/VER-E was hit with a magic blast, it will only be knocked out of commission for a few minutes to stabilize and reboot. That’s what Janitor and she were here for: to protect the robot from receiving too much damage and to repair what damages it may pick up.

Elma grabbed the back cover and screwed it back on. She spun a black rod recovered from the electronic innards she tore out earlier. “Here goes nothing.” She dropped the rod into a tube that looked suspiciously like an exhaust port. A tiny fan twitched in response to the energy that coursed through it and began to spin. Elma flipped open a tiny cover on A/VER-E’s “chest" and stuck the plug of a small view screen in to check its biologically based computer. For the moment, it seemed like all clear:

A/VER-E (2.0) searching …

A/VER-E (2.0) not found, running A/VER-E (1.0)

(1.0) is updating, please wait a moment …

Bioware successfully installed, now running version (1.0/B)

Total run time: 0 hours.

Damage: 4% (Note: Contains Passive repairs, est. time to 0%, 1 hour)

Power Levels: 88%, est. runtime, 1.5 years (Damn, this doesn’t sound really efficient. Probably why he doesn’t use bioware for simple projects)

System Diagnosis: Running …

All systems online, no errors detected.

A tiny, old looking camera popped out of the top of the cube shaped robot. It was the prototype camera, a cheap one slapped on just as a proof of concept. It wasn’t of the best quality, but it would work for now. Plus, it wasn’t as susceptible to the background magic, though there will be upgrades soon. I refuse to use this old thing forever.

The robot snapped its head up. “A/VER-E (1.0/B) ready for service.”

Elma smiled. She turned and prodded Janitor’s foot with a foot. “Wake up, sleepyhead. What’s our next destination?”

A hologram suddenly materialized beside her; it was a green tinted version of Shtik. “We’ll be going … back to the FUTURE!” He posed dramatically, pointing at the sky.

“Actually, back to the past, but whatever,” Janitor grumbled, hauling himself up. Shtik gave him a glare, but Janitor ignored him. Shtik looked like he was about to give a snappy retort when something appeared to have disturbed him. He held out a hand and summoned a revolver from Janitor’s broom. Shtik grabbed the handle, spun around, and fired into the darkness of the forest. Shtik then stuck his hand into a portal and pulled out a small gooey mess. Despite its ruined remains, a piece of a claw and wingtip was still distinguishable. “Oh dear...” he muttered.

Elma raised an eyebrow. “Something wrong?”

Shtik burned up the corpse. “I hope not, but you two, I mean three, go on without me. I’m going to need to do some research and find this world’s auditor. If what I fear is true, then there will be an even bigger reason I can't stay.” He tossed the revolver back into the broom and faded away. Elma and Janitor just stared at each other and shrugged. With nothing else to say, Janitor pulled out a rusty alarm clock, set the timer to several thousand years earlier and activated the alarm. A swirl of spiraling energy surrounded the trio. The light slowly grew brighter and brighter before a small boom went off as a section of air was disturbed rather violently. In moments, only a few sparkling traces were left behind.

I lowered my hand, the reaper’s blood still tingling the palm of my hand. I clenched my stomach, wincing slightly from his furious kinsman clawing inside me. “Gah!” I fell to my knees, colors distorting. I saw a small young child standing to the side, staring at me. Boy or girl, human or alien, I would never know, because one second later there was only a bloody stain where I hacked my sword through it in blind fury, my forest green bathrobe flapping behind me. I closed my eyes and sheathed my blade, shakily exhaling. When I opened my eyes again, there was only a small pile of shattered stones. I have massive respect for those who must fight their conscience, it’s not easy, especially when it conflicts with your own moral path. I gave in once … never again.

I spun around and started packing my stuff: my monitor, the cannon, a few office supplies, etc. I tore a hole in space-time and jumped out of the universe and into the deck of my warship, The Loggerhead, which basically resembled a massive mechanical turtle with an equally massive array of concealed weapons. It was parked right next to the universe, so I quickly began scanning the number of citations that the universe had. As the scan ran, I was mildly amused that the universe had started budding already.

This amusement was cut short by the beeping that started emanating from the scanning device. The auditors...most were unique, separate entities. I looked down at my attire. A bathrobe is not what someone brings to battle. I flung it off behind me and summoned a glowing blue outline around me as I stood up. Liquid matter poured in, covering me briefly like a cocoon. Soon, the colors came back. I was dressed in my stealth suit. A grey fishing hat covered my face. A large, dark brown cloak fell to around my ankles. Old runes flared, opening portals within my pockets. I checked two trailing bandages from the back of my head. One fifty centimeters. That’s about 79%, good enough. I stuck my hands into my pockets, gripping the handle of a custom made sniper rifle and an oversized, large caliber, plasma boosted eight shot belt feld revolver. It was an old design, and my favored side arm for a good several centuries.

“Let’s go.” C-6 dutifully stuck his massive gripping claws out of my back and grabbed the controls of my ship and steered us along a glowing line to a world as we slowly but steadily floated closer. I pulled my rifle out, watching the pulsing wire, tracing its path as it split into a few pieces. “And there comes the first one. Soon, more will follow. And so will the unsavory ones.” C-6 walked me to the abandoned world as more wires started sprouting out, including a couple of other nearby worlds. We silently walked out of our ship through the main cannon and hopped into the void without a word.

[Introduction] Introduction

Loading disk...

Disk is blank

Record, title is “Introduction”

Introduction selected. Do you wish to record now?

Yes

Command confirmed. Recording in three seconds.

Two...

One...

Screen on.

The screen wobbles as unseen hands adjusted the camera. Eventually, the screen focuses on a small stool. Behind the chair, a hat and coat hung on a peg near the door to the room. On the floor underneath the coat, a gun rested, appearing to have fallen from the coat’s pocket.

“Is this thing running? Yeah, I-”

Screen is in operation.

“-think... Okay.” The bandaged legs of Shtik walk into view. His attire seems much more informal, making him look tired, a bit like a tired teenager with a full body burn cast. He was wearing a simple green T-shirt and a pair of matching forest green shorts. He collapses into the stool and sighs. “Well, my boss has recommended I add this thing to the rest of my recordings. If I’m going to make this easily assessable, I should at least make it understable, right?” He shrugs at the camera. “I’m not gonna lie, I’m not very good at describing the scenery around me, and I have an extreme aversion to monologues inside my head. Half the time, the thoughts in my head are just there for convenience. I always rather rush in with as much firepower as possible, remove the threat or problem, then leave as quickly as I came. If my mind gets overloaded, critically damaged, or I just don’t care anymore, my mental state skirts close to the state one might find inside the mind of a philosophical zombie.” He taps his head. “I got someone in here who pretty much regulates my body. He handles my insanity, and makes sure I don’t babble incoherently. He can even disable my emotions. Though even with that thing on, I can’t really feel it. I’ll laugh when its appropriate, I’ll offer you a helping hand when you need it, but I can never truly feel the awe from looking at a night sky ever again...” His eyes glazes a little, trying to remember a better time and failing. With the abruptness of a light switch, he looks up again.

“I’ll try to make things understable for someone who hasn’t heard about my world.” He gestures to the room around him. “This is, for lack of a better term, my home. It is a massive turtle shaped warship that has nearly every surface covered in some weapon. It is also my command base, where I look up information up at deck. There are many rooms around here, filled with random knickknacks or weapons of some sort. I have decided to fight as a summoner of sorts, and pull them out of hammerspace so I wouldn’t need to waste energy creating the item.

“Outside my warship is the Outside. It is ‘outside’ your universe, and also outside many multiverses. It is filled with a pure form of matter. There is nothing remarkable about it. It just is. It still exhibits basic laws of physics, like gravity, but unless you have a extremely focused mind, you will disintegrate from touching it in its free flowing state. I recommend you read this link over here. It should pop up on the screen floating beside me. If you are reading this from a written format, a link should appear. Its concepts are rather similar, but a little more deadly. It is more chaotic, basically. This is my ... birthplace.” He mutters it with noticeable displeasure.

“My title is H.M. Conagher. The man behind my name is as good as dead. I am a Shtik, supposedly born for speed, a slave to the machinations of the Energy/Matter Company to protect the multiverse. I make sure these house of cards have something to stand on, and don’t get knocked over. If I do my job right, you will never know who I am. Aloha.

End Transmission

The camera tilts up as Shtik stands up, seemingly drained of energy. He slowly looks around his room, as if trying to find something. Finding nothing, he sighs and shuffles over to the coat rack. Even though Shtik is supposed to be able to create things out of his body, being effectively a PC instead of an NPC like everyone else in the place requires him to actually concentrate. To cover this weakness, he creates many of his tools in advance, so the only thing he has to do is to pull them out. His coat is a form of his armor.

He slides it over his back and pops the hat over his head. His bandannas, visual identifiers of his energy levels, burns in reverse as the energy of the Outside flows through him. He reaches down, picks up his revolver, and drops it into a too small pocket. From another pocket, he pulls out a grip and trigger. He points the trigger up, and focused his energy. A tiny spark of excitement crawls up through the-place-where-his-spine-should-be as he guides lines of light into the familiar shape of his sniper rifle, Full Color Jacket (S-12). A pez dispenser at his hip pops out a clip filled with purple marked bullets. Normally the greens were enough for the job. Most skulls couldn’t handle a piece of matter going through at several times the speed of sound, though he might need the higher frequency for an explosive punch in case the target was my hardy than expected. He hangs the purple bullets from his belt then pulls the bolt back, checking that the green bullets were loaded in.

Nodding in satisfaction, he opens the door and was greeted by the inky darkness of the Outside. He waves a hand at the robot. “Come on Avery, you have a job too. You know what it is, stop pretending to be a wimp.

Affirmative The robot reached into its stomach and pulled out a over and under derringer from a compartment within. It loaded two shots into each chamber and flicked them closed. Shtik was already gone. The robot just rolled forward and tumbled towards the world below. Its hand crackled with energy as it prepared to break the surface.

The snarls of many assorted creatures echoed off the walls of a cave. Their confusion at entering a world of light made them miss a slight reflection of light near the walls of the cave entrance. The shadow tossed a bundle, trailing a Red light. I grinned. Boop The improvised Red grenade sent out a stunning energy ricocheting off the walls and into the Outsiders. I loaded a Orange bullet into my bullpup rifles’ open bolt and let out a fireball into the mass. A streak of Blue pierced a group of startled creatures. A explosion of Purple rained stalactites upon my hapless victims. A stream of basic Greens wiped the rest of the stragglers. I pulled a bullet marked with a Gamma symbol out of my wrist and slammed it into the breech, shifting my aim to the massive formless blob forming at the rift. “Should’ve made a U-turn at Albuquerque, dolt.” A flash of death ripped the monster into shreds before it could fight back.

“For my next trick, more fire!” A box of lines formed before my outstretched hands. Four cylinders emerged from one end, a half cylinder covered up the bottom. Two handles went between my hands as I rested the weapon, a four barreled plasma minigun (G-4, Torch) on my hip. A wave of burning matter roasted the floor until nearly everything was melting; some parts of the wall had already began solidifying into glass.

I dropped the minigun, its lines dissolving and returning through my foot. A roll of duct tape slipped through my sleeve. I gripped a loose end and pulled out a few feet of the tape. Glowing lines of garbled text swim through the tape’s bindings. Slowly and painfully, another pair of arms emerged from my rib cage. The extra pair of arms pulled the tear in reality closed as I carefully sewed it shut. The main reason these tears occur is because everyone’s imagination is a little different. When several minds try creating one universe, inconsistencies are bound to occur, ripping the surface apart slightly.

I glanced up at a barely visible shimmer passing through my position. “Looks like the party’s moving.” I mumbled to myself. I pulled the suture closed and tied a knot. The tape will eventually degrade into the environment, subtly editing reality to keep it consistent. We can’t have a street be twenty feet to one guy and nineteen feet eleven inches to the other, can we?

I slung the rifle over my shoulder and jogged out of the cave. At the entrance, I spun around. My hand melted as it turned bell shaped. Vents glow as it sucked all the debris from inside the cave out toward its barrel. The force fields generated by my cannon compress the matter, crushing bonds and fusing atoms. A dark grin grew under my bandages. Here goes the Nova Cannon A black ball flew out of the massive barrel surrounded by an excursion funnel. A sent a mental command once the ball flew into the cavern. I walked away as cracks expelling dust cover the mountain. I always loved hearing the satisfying ‘thump’ the little marble of matter made. It was the only bright thing before my next dark deed. I sent a whisper of energy to keep the cavern from collapsing outright. Five travelers will find this lonely mountain, and they were not scheduled to survive. With a sigh, I walked away under the cover of night, forever alone. Mother Nature is cruel indeed. What does that make me?

[2.1] Numb skulls

A kernel of popcorn arched through the air and lands neatly between a row of ivory pillars. Said ivory pillars promptly fell upon the poor kernel and crushed it into little itty-bitty pieces as a weak acid melts them. Elma stuffed her hoof into the bag and grabbed some more popcorn. Janitor stared awkwardly at her feasting.

“Doesn’t it creep you out in any way that that corn was grown from your back?” he asked.

“You know, technically Shtik does that all the time, but his body just so happens to be made of black matter instead cells, but same concept,” she shot back.

Janitor scrunched up his face. “Ew. I need brain bleach for that.” He pulled out a small white jug, poured out a measured cup, and downed it. His face briefly glazed over a few seconds before refocusing. “Let’s never talk about that again.” He turned to a twitching cynogriffon bleeding out beside him. “You want some popcorn?”

“Glubble”

“Suit yourself.”

In the meantime, Avery the camera bot looked up into the sky and watched the battles of old, of the Wardens and the dark forces that had inhabited a time before ponies, griffons, etc. It would’ve looked better if the HD camera was working though. Shtik should be able to spruce the colors up a bit later on.

A dude running around with a flamethrower tossed it and axed the twitching cynogriffon. He raised his mask. Shtik pulled out his normal goggles and slid it over his eyes. “Guys I need your help. There are … things, that followed the rift these dimension jumpers made. I need you two to be on distraction and pining duty on one as I get my attack to full charge.” The two nodded and strode after Shtik, leaving the robot behind.

A few minutes passed, the wind and shockwaves mildly shaking the earth. The robot slowly turned its head toward the dead body of the cynogriffon. It twisted the rest of its body and rolled over, its stomach door flipping open. Tiny arms and their powerful motors within spun to life. It wasn’t a analyzer for nothing.

Elma stared blankly at a unmoving skull. “That’s what you’re so worried about?” she whispered.

“Yes, that ‘little’ thing. You’ll take those words back if it awakes. It’s still getting used to the form it took and draining the magic out of the area,” Shtik said. Sure enough, a small circle of dead grass slowly expanded. “Once it drains all that it can reach will it actually start moving its ass. I could’ve summoned a massive laser and fried the shit out of it, but unfortunately, this is Equestria. Celestia will feel me and abandon everything to come after me.”

“What the heck did you do to make this Princess that angry?” she asked.

“That’s the thing, for some damn reason, one set of her memories seem to implant and overtake the memories of whatever Celestia I’m near, so I have to limit my power as much as possible to slow down the process. This was the primary reason why I rarely come by.”

“You still haven’t told me what it was.”

“...uhhh.”

Janitor groaned. “It happened several centuries ago. Short story, he was in the wrong place and the wrong time, and became irrationally convinced that everything was his fault.”

“Yeah, that,” Shtik mumbled. “Still haven’t figure out how to revert it.” He clenched a fist. “Enough of that, let’s focus on the present. You two pin him down, I’ll start constructing the framework for my attack. It’ll only take fifteen seconds.”

Elma looked back. “If it only takes fifteen seconds, then why do you even need us?”

“Because the moment I start, it will sense my intent and wake up. Plus, trying to aim at an erratically moving target creates the risk of misfire and/or alerting the sun goddess to my presence. Now go!”

I watched Elma and Janitor sneak out of the bushes. Their aura signatures were small enough to avoid detection. My aura feels like his long lost brother and is as loud as a bullhorn. The skull and I were both similar entities, though it was more like a wild spirit unfettered with morals or a job. These buggers form from twisted imaginations, and from the looks of things, may have been created from someone’s bad encounters with the Wardens.

Elma scrawled some runes around the skull and Janitor stood on the side running through his attack options to figure out the best one. I had already figured out my weapons of choice. “Get ready in 3 … 2 … 1 … GO!” Glowing outlines surrounded my arms. Around my right hand, a massive syringe shaped cannon hologram hovered beside me, black matter filling it in. Around my left, a circle of pale white metal encased it with three prongs sticking out around the barrel. With a pop, my hand came through the barrel. Almost immediately, the skull came to life. White hot points of light flared inside its eye sockets. The same dark magic pulled its body out of the floor. Nevermind the whole Warden thing. This reminded me of a spirit of knowledge or something, and a lot of magic powering it.

Elma slammed her hooves against the floor, activating the runes placed earlier. A rush of her cells shot through the ground, boosted by the runes, and wrapped around the skeleton, giving it unwanted and uncontrollable muscle mass.

Janitor raised his broom, a line of alien symbols lighting up on its base. He swung it down over the skeleton. ”Gravidon!” Within a sphere with a diameter of three feet, one universal constant changed, from 6.67 x 10^(-11) to 1. These are some of the perks you get from being a reality editor. The ground cracked and shattered as matter started flowing to a single point. The skeleton rasped in rage, trying to escape. He raised a shaking arm as I pointed the now fully formed Spiral Cannon, shooter of extremely high RPM objects. With a bit of horror, I realized that he was attempting to take over my mind, and slowly succeeding in shoving my aim toward my hapless allied. His eyes flashed once more, and a white cloud of magic that appeared to defy the gravity floated out toward my allies. The modified gravitational constant started to waver, slowly dropping. Elma gritted her teeth in pain as she felt her limbs chill and rot, almost akin to the feeling of zombification.

“What do we do?” Elma rasped in fear.

A tiny smirk formed on the Janitor’s face, even as his limbs felt leaden and numb. “Noob.”

I gasped as grass turned red, the tree trunks became cyan, and then a checkerboard of nonsense colors flashed in my vision. Then, I saw nothing.

A large cube with a claw coming out of an aperture on one of his faces held a smoothie, sitting on a plush office chair. He looked at his master’s (Shtik’s) brain monitor. “Ha, that old trick? That was the first thing I learned how to counter.”

He tapped a joystick. ”Welcome back, C-6” the room, located somewhere within Shtik’s body, rumbled as the manual control system shook out of sleep mode. “Let’s see, trying to override his arms, hmm? Let’s counter that with the old switcheroo.” He stretched a clawed appendage and tapped a rainbow colored button. The room started spinning. The monitor’s glass fractured, then blew out. The controls melted, sliding towards a vortex not unlike a toilet in the center of the room. And through it all, C-6 sat in his floating armchair, chuckling as one by one, the lights blew out.

Then came back on. He raised the claws and resumed direct control. “You tried to use mind control. Should’ve tried to do it on someone who actually has one.”

Shtik spasmed. His normal right eye dilated, then started spinning vertically like a slot machine out of control. A warped, useless soda can stuck out of his stomach. In contrast to his slightly distorted body, his left eye, the one that glowed like molten rock was constantly churning behind it, slowly focused onto the skeleton, its iris changing from its gentle green to a smoldering red.

Janitor and Elma also twitched, their eyes slowly luminescing a weak red light from being taken over by a certain robotic controller. Red electricity jumped from Shtik’s feet and through their limbs. The decaying muscles took up the strength akin to a zombie and curled up tightly, nearly restricting all movement. Sickly mutated flesh bubbled up from the ground, ensnaring the skeleton in a mound of pink slime. The runes on Janitor’s broom flared brightly. A tiny point of light slowly grew brighter as the matter within the sphere compacted tightly, almost becoming a dwarf star.

Shtik gave a toothy grin from underneath the layers of protective bandages. “Bad move,” he said, his voice having a slight electronic echo to his own. His cannon swiveled back at the skeleton. “Thanks for forcing me to shoot you.” A short electronic signal ignited a tiny pebble of Black Matter, sending massive amounts of kinetic energy into the rapidly spinning drill bullet. The energy forced the bullet to run through the barrel of the cannon in an effort to release its energy. The moment it came into contact with the atmosphere, it unleashed a massive whirling backdraft onto Shtik’s body, pushing him back a few inches. A tiny gem engraved with spirals glowed within, stabilizing its flight. The ensuing explosion allowed the bone fragments to reach escape velocity. “Oh, I’m not letting you off that easily,” Shtik growled. His gauntlet encased hand glowed, then shot said hand two seconds back in time to rip a hole in the universe. Instead of flying randomly into the forest, time was partly rewritten to send the fragments Outside. Since he just saw the bullet’s impact point, he was 100% sure where to place the tear.

He looked around, checking for any giblets. Satisfied there were none, he carefully sealed the tear. He glanced to the side and noticed that their eyes were still glowing red. He stood up straight, balanced him- ahem, his master’s body, then slowly relaxed as the borrowed body slowed down. His right eye stopped spinning and stopped, awkwardly rolled into his head. His left eye froze in place as its inner glow died.

“Annnnnnd, reboot. I should send him the video files of the past thirty seconds.”

I blinked, stretching my aching limbs. I stuck my finger into my right eyeball and centered it. Huh. I stared at the smoking barrel of my cannon. As I looked at the smoke emanating from the barrel, a notifications popped out in my peripheral vision, effectively a makeshift HUD created by self induced hallucinations. I opened it and saw...

I deconstructed my weapons as a claw sticking out of my back opened up a portal behind me. “You two can leave if you want, we’re done here. I just need to clean this place up and repair the damages.”

“Woah,” Elma groaned, her head spinning slightly. “That was weird.”

Janitor hefted her over his shoulder and walked to the portal. “You’ll get used to it after a while.” He glanced at her. “What did you see? I thought as was giving someone a massage.”

Elma just flopped limply over his back. “Eck, I don’t want to talk about it. What was that anyway?”

He glanced back at me. “Let’s talk about this after we get back to our place. There’s a guy inside his head that does maintenance. His ‘ulterior’ tasks are blocked from Shtik’s memory. Not many know about his existe-”

I shook at my head when I noticed the two disappear from my vision. Eh, focus on the task at hand first. What worried me slightly was an uneasy feeling that I forgot to do something during the fight. I decided on looking over my shoulder every ten seconds as I restored the lost energy in the area.

Just as I finished rebuilding the last tree, I remembered. “Oh right,” I said, snapping my fingers. “Resisting the attack used up a fair amount of power.” I glanced at my bandanna/power meter. “Damn, a whole inch. Now why was that so bad again?” As I pondered, I felt a sense of warmth, of family. Crap. I forgot about her. My inner demon clawed against the side of its cell, trying to reach its brother, or its equivalent. I spun around, barely catching a furious looking white alicorn, her flowing mane catching fire, and a black growth stretching across her face before I got hit by a solar flare.

I smashed through a line of trees, destroying a portion of my hard (sorta) work. Damn, now I got to fix it all over again-agh! I rubbed my head after bouncing off a rock. The darkening mare stalked over to my landing spot, glaring at me throughout. “Oh you again. Let’s get it over with it. What’s your name this time, Corona Blaze? Daymare Sun?”

My only response was the corrupted alicorn trying to eat me.

[2.2] SuperNova

SuperNova

The young forest (later to be named the Everfree) rustled, as bullets and small shockwaves blew the leaves off several branches and scared the local wildlife away. A moment later, I burst from the undergrowth, muttering “I hate ambushes!” as my pants burned. I barely managed to escape another laser beam by detonating some of the matter in my butt. A hit the ground hard, but managed to whip out my katana and activate its shielding ability to knock away a tree.

I tossed a finger onto the ground to summon a giant smokescreen. With the cover in place, I frantically dug a hole and buried myself. I quickly started manufacturing my heavy revolver and a few shotguns. Halfway through the second shotgun I remembered that this was what attracted the alicorn’s attention to me in the first place. I facepalmed before getting blown out into the sky by another super powered flare. And once again, I was on the run. Crap. I need to end this soon. The battle needed her.

meanwhile

The Janitor held up a 3D model of a white alicorn with a pink mane. “This is what she roughly looks like.”

“Remind me why I am doing this again?” Elma asked.

“We need to keep the time-space continuum stable until Shtik can get his shit together,” said the Janitor’s disembodied voice. “Right now, I assume he has caught the unfortunate attention of this mare you will be imitating. Until he has repaired the divergence, we must trick the universe that all is well. And plus chaos magic is going to be very hard to repair. There is a high chance he might screw with our work or even escape. And by that, I mean find out that there are more besides the universes, which we cannot let happen. Now shut up and shoot things the squares tell you to.”

Elma groaned audibly and strained her magic reserves to blast more creatures. Underneath her, hidden by a cloaking device, the Janitor gleefully shredded his foes apart with a portable rotary machine gun, the Grinder (G-6). He glanced up at the false alicorn and frowned. Wimp, he thought. He casually knocked a bolt of magic away before realizing that it was targeted at the mech behind him. “Sorry, that was meant for you.” He tossed his broom into the air, jumped, then stabbed the broom through the driver. He momentarily uncloaked to provoke a surprised reaction out of the pilot. “Oh, I love this too much,” he cackled to himself. He pulled the broom out and kicked the mech onto his side, ignoring the look of fear the pilot made as he realized his guts were spilling out.

He went back to his observation of Elma. As an afterthought, he sent a tiny stream of black matter into her. He slowly grinned as the dark energies ran through her body, lightly corrupting her. Yes...let that power flow through you. He mentally applauded her for finally going all out. Besides, Shtik would probably reset everything anyways. No one will remember a thing. Elma wouldn’t want to remember this anyways. She holds back too much, in his opinion.

“Alright, that’s it!” I shouted, spinning around to face the princess. “If its a fight you want, then its a fight you’ll get. I grabbed three cards. A sent a short burst of energy to activate the matrix holding the constructs, dropping a centimeter off of the remaining meter of my bandanna. Two cards went in front of me, the other was tossed over my shoulder. One card summoned a robot with a thin head and a large right arm. Its wrist flipped down to reveal a minigun. The other card summoned a middle aged guy holding a staff with a spiral head stabbed on top. Both were accented in blacks and greys. The third card just vanished.

I smiled at the memory of getting the second card...

The alicorn charged forward, heedlessly ignoring the summons, thinking that their low power levels made them gnats not worth paying attention to. Of course, that’s why I made them. The blue haired man tilted his staff and sent its stretching spear point underneath her chin. With another flick of his wrist, he gave the alicorn a hard uppercut. She managed to repair the damage to her spine with a bit of energy, but was met with the spinning barrels of a minigun. Hundreds of rounds spilled out, tearing countless holes through her body.

Twelve seconds of hot lead spilled out of the gun until it went empty, clicking a few times. As the robot paused to examine the smoking barrels, the princess pushed her way out of a desperately made shield, seething in anger at having to waste more energy at repairs. She only managed a few steps before getting slammed into the ground again by the blue-haired man’s spiral staff. He managed to get several more whacks and energy boosted jabs before getting caught in a telekinetic push. The distraction allowed the robot to sprint behind her and gave a solid overhead smack into the grass, pulverizing her head.

As the two continued to fight. I shakily pulled out my revolver and started to insert rounds. And more. And more. Once the chambers/belt went past 270 degrees, it was empty again. Sweat actually started to form on me, though it more resembled a slight cloud of dissipated gas due to my massive body heat. The only reason fires don’t start around me is because of an anti-gravity field I generate around me. I sometimes explode if the field gets too damaged to quickly.

“Come on,” I muttered. Another few centimeters of energy burned up

The robot had finally reloaded his minigun, but the princess was ready. He only grazed a hoof before her shield went up. Several bullets ricocheted back onto the robot, crippling its system. The man moved in to help but was smacked aside by a fireball, burning away a layer of his shell. Some energy leaked out, causing me to wince. It took me a year to get the energy matrix just right, and in just a few minutes it was destroyed again. Despite the fear, I managed to steady my hand and continue to feed in bullets, though they started to deteriorate in quality.

The princess used the lapse to tackle the robot, crushing its legs and gun arm. The robot merely raised its only undamaged arm and gave her the bird. She opened her mouth to drain its power, but was interrupted by the robot’s self destruction, searing off another layer of armor and dissipating more energy from her body. Out of the smoke clouds, the crumbling man shot through holding his staff in front of him with his remaining hand. The tiny drill on top lengthed, then grew to the size of a large dinner table. Green fire exploded out of his legs, spinning and accelerating him through the alicorn’s body once more before exploding himself.

I clenched my teeth, but said nothing, trying to not look nervous. I slowly closed the chambers and jitterily raised the gun. I used what little acting skills I had to pretend that I was paying complete attention to the battle. With a pop, the third card revealed itself. It was merely a turret with a firehose. The hose had a backpack attached to it and a bottle of glowing fluids hanging underneath. With the mandatory Russian accent befitting the occasion, I yelled, “Kritz me, doctor!”

The tool glowed, shooting a crackling beam of energy towards my back. The most noticeable effect it made was to my gun, now glowing a solid green with lightning jumping all around it. Slightly hidden under my hat, my left eye exploded into flames. The “skin” around it completely melted off, leaving behind a floating eyeball vibrating with power. In my PoV, the world slowed slightly, and I could see the currents around me, and by currents I mean pretty much everything. I could see the magic building up inside her horn, the wind blowing molecules across my path, the fallout of my destroyed warriors. I could also see the weak points in her armor/skin.

I pulled the trigger, growling under my breath. A tiny, barely visible laser line emanated from the end of my gun’s barrel. Normally, I only sent a small bit of energy into my eye, dubbed Level 1: Crosshair. Basically, it let me line up my shots better. My pupil becomes overlaid with a small crosshairs symbol. When times were bad and a full blown battle was going on, I might use Level 2: Eagle eye. This created a holographic laser line that pointed at what my weapon was aiming at, eliminating the need to “aim down the sights” all together. My reflexes get boosted along with it, making aiming even easier. This time, the aforementioned crosshairs start spinning. When diarrhea has hit the jet engine, I pulled out Level 3: Spiral Eye. This time, the entire eyeball spun, its energies burning off part of my face every single time. Its also extremely power consuming.

I watched the bullet soar gracefully through the air, smashing against her horn and disrupting her spell. The recoil pushed the slide (again, think of the Nerf Maverick) back, and moved in the next round. The slide fell back forward and sent the next shot though her neck. Then a hoof and a wing. Another glowing bullet shredded her ribs and the organs that haven’t been consumed yet. For a few seconds, the revolver became a fully automatic, handheld minigun. Come on, I’m almost there I pleaded, straining to keep my energy as stable as possible. After a measly eight seconds, and about 100 rounds, the gun ran empty. The turret dissolved. My eye collapsed back into its socket from the sudden loss of energy, along with part of my knee and hand. I could see my burnt bones in front of me, weakly grasping my gun. With a sigh, I flung the gun, using it as an improvised grenade by breaking up its atomic framework to further drain the princess’s energy levels. I slid out my katana with my boney hand and held it in front of me vaguely imitating a fencing position. Though my skin acts as both a form of armor (when solidified, anyways) and as a battery, its jelly like consistency often times slows me down.

10 centimeters.

The pile of burnt limbs slowly yes! pulls itself together. Both of us were at our limits, and probably be unable to cast any more energy attacks, which is why I pulled out my blade. She merely snorted and started charging at me. Once she was two feet in front of me, I quickly sidestepped and attempted to slash at her back. Apparently she was thinking of the same thing and was going to send a spear of her flowing hair at my chest. Our respective attacks collided and pushed us apart. I pushed off the ground and managed several light cuts upon her back. Annoyingly, without the mass of my arm boosting the force, all it did was annoy her. This is why I don’t try to fight like this often. Her wings snapped out; it was rather easy to block the attack, and I got a few more stabs into her wings.

This time, she jumped and tried to gain a height advantage. It didn’t work very well due to her wings having a few holes in them. The princess fell short and carved up a small furrow. I tried to hack at her neck with a rocket boosted stab, but it was a trap. My blade got imbedded into her back, momentarily trapping me. She snapped her head upward, catching me on her horn and knocking me backward. The tumbling impact snapped my left foot off at the knee due to the weakness from the earlier drain. She telekinetically yanked out my blade and tossed it towards the forest.

Seven centimeters. Dang it. I don’t think I can spare any more-

Ding

My eyes bulged open. Finally! I stuck my hand behind my back and pulled out a revolver dripping in black gunk. It had a wooden stick for a barrel. I slid behind a rock and cradled the gun in my lap, flicking open the chambers as I went.

It didn’t actually have chambers. In place of it was a cradle that held various power sources, often battery shaped. In place of a hammer, it had a small LED screen. In some circles, it could be said that it looked like a tool gun. I gently blew on the battery like object. Six glowing lights spaced out equidistantly inside pulsed gently like fireflies. Ha ha! I got it out! Even while I was doing at least two other things at once. Now all I have to ... why is the rock floating?

The princess’s half melted skull, still dripping black tar, leered at me. The rock swung down and smashed me down. Once. Twice. Two more times. My vision shattered like broken glass and blacked out.

The gun got flung into the air and slid a few feet. The princess’s head snapped off. She shrugged and kicked the rock off to the side. A hand of fractured bone weakly clawed out of the crater and slowly dragged the rest of its body out. Half of his head was gone, he had no left hand anymore, and his legs hung loosely from his hip. His unfocused eye, a large scar going across its lens, turned toward the gun and continued to crawl towards the it. The princess trotted over and stepped on his back. Shtik acted as if he couldn’t feel anything, see anything.

She reared up and slammed down. Her body ignited, illuminating the forest so much you could still see her ten feet in. Basically, she went SuperNova. The fire burned away Shtik’s legs immediately. Shtik’s response was to slowly stretch out his arm and attempt to escape the gravitational pull that started to pull him backwards. He tried stabbing his finger into the ground, but soil isn’t very good at resisting horizontal force. When the fire reached his chest, he gave up and curled up, protecting his core.

A small section of grass flattened. A haze reached down and picked up the Gun-Staff. The haze slowly faded away, uncloaking a six foot humanoid android. Classification, IN-4, the Infiltrator. He doesn’t actually infiltrate as much as one would think. He resembled the mannequins artists use, except with metal limbs, joints, a glowing stomach, a mouth, and glowing eyes. He carries a broadsword on his back, and can swing it just as fast as one can swing a bat, though right now it hung loosely in his left hand’s grip. He gave the battery a quick glance, then locked it in place. “Fooled you once, blame’s on me.” He raised the gun and pointed it at the star. “Fooled you twice. What do you think comes next?” He briefly thought how ironic it was that the same spell she had employed in a time far in the future towards her own sister is the one pointed at her this moment. He pulled on the trigger.

“Fly, Rainbow of Light.”

Sparks of energy went down the wires of the screen into the battery. A gaseous aura shot out of the back of the chambers as a massive beam of light blasted out the other end. Like being hit by a giant hammer, the SuperNova blew apart, the energies she wielded destabilized and destroyed. The rainbow did what it was supposed to: purify, and it did so with deadly efficiency. The princess’s shell of a body stood awkwardly, hooves went up to exposed muscle. A few inches higher the muscles were also burned away, leaving bones behind. Half consumed organs rolled around in her rib cage, or just fell out. Several neck vertebrae crumbled into pieces. Underneath her shadow was a small quivering ball of black matter. He picked up the ball and waved his hand.

Two forms stepped out of the shadows. Their cloaking systems weren’t as powerful, so they stayed back. The taller one (5’6”, about the same height as Shtik) had oversized forearms and lower legs. Everything else was pretty tiny in comparison to its bell shaped limbs, though its head was more or less average sized. Its classification was R-T, artillery and heavy weapons unit.

The shorter one was about three feet, though it varied often due to him not having limbs connecting his hands and feet to his body. Instead, he had glowing blue lines. A bandolier was slung around his torso, with two pistol holsters strapped to his “hips.” His number was TH-6, Gunner and an all around good support and scout class. Currently, his holsters were loaded with two semiautomatic 10mm pistols. Shtik managed to stick in a shrinking device within the barrel a while ago, making them really accurate up to at least 400 meters.

The two of them were carrying a steel tube about five feet long, and plopped it down beside IN-4. IN-4 lifted the ball of black matter and dropped it in through a chute on top. He reached down to a small panel on the side of the coffin and hit a green button. When he stood up, the black ball shot out of the vent and through IN-4’s stomach. He spased backwards in surprise, grabbing his body.

Green lightning sparked across his limbs. Slowly, IN-4’s golden eyes were replaced by a light grass green. A invisible grin shone in the darkness.

I stretched my borrowed arms. “It feel good to get my self awareness back.” I checked the power levels of IN-4. “Hmm. Back to business then. I got about ten minutes of juice I can use.” I raised a hand. A large ball point pen hologram shimmered around it. A LED screen appeared on the side.

Searching...

Targets locked on. Ready for jump?

“Hmm. I must remind myself to give Elma her own amulet. That way I won’t have to deal with confusion each time I must explain this time repair nonsense.” I stabbed the pen through the ground. (*)

A bright light spread from the impact point, spreading through the universe. A giant pillar of energy slowly rises into the sky, garbled text swirling through the storm above me. Several miles away, the Janitor grins at the wave of light surrounding him. Elma briefly glanced at him, a moment of confusion piercing her blood lust. The light enclosed him completely and seemed to make him dissolve. Meanwhile, I just smiled through my borrowed body as the storm reached the zenith of its ascent after several minutes of charging up. Besides me, the robots were also covered by the light. I shifted my grip. “Activate the Retcon,” I said, swinging the pen-blade in an arc, spreading a wave of blackness outwards, enveloping everything not shielded by the light. The world dropped out underneath me and I saw nothing.

(*)(Its not easy finding your companions when they’re several miles away, so I put trackers on them to help me pinpoint their location and select them for transport)

The three of us, Janitor, Elma and I stepped cautiously through the forest. “Now, be careful,” I whispered. “he can sense your intent, so try to restrain yourself before - hrrk.” I chilling coldness spread throughout my limbs. For a moment, I was able to see a black silhouette staring at me overlayed with the forest. The Janitor flickered and disappeared, leaving Elma looking around in confusion. I was able to see the two paths that could occur. And it was ripping me apart as I neared the fork in the road, unable to choose either side. I tripped and fell through the leaves and collapsed toward the skull I fought earlier, or was it in the future? I usually tried to stay outside of these diverging paths, but I guess I wasn’t able to figure out which way I needed to go in time. Crap. Ha, the skull is suffering the same problem. Tunnel vision slowly creeped upon me the skull struggles to grab me.

“Oh right, this way.” Yank.

A powerful force pulled onto my spine. The skull screeched in outrage as I was pulled from that reality and stabilized into the “real” one. The shadow of the skull tried to jump after me but disintegrated as the universe collapsed around him. I looked at Janitor and nodded in thanks. He just grunted. I looked through the closing tear. The parallel universe I generated through the retcon dissolved as its reality destabilized and disappeared. Without me acting as a foundation, the only connection the parallel universe had, it had collapsed upon itself. Behind us, Elma looked on in confusion.

“What were you trying to have us fight?” Elma asked.

“We already did,” I chuckled. “I ended up accidentally summoning Celestia over, and I had to reset the universe due to her death. The guy I told you we had to fight has already been removed, since only one of it can exist, though shadows of them can still exist. Janitor here kicked him out into a parallel universe, and that took care of him. I kinda got stuck in there, though. I was temporarily immobilized from having to hold the rewind in place, and that affected my ability to escape. Don’t worry, I’ll get you an amulet so you will understand the next time I have to do this.” An idea sparked through my head. “Hey Janitor, don’t you have a few copies of those?”

The Janitor gave me a flat stare. Elma was fiddling with a necklace around her neck. A small prism hung from it. “Sometimes I wonder how you get by without me,” he grumbled.

I blushed slightly and rubbed the back of my head. “Alright, I get it.” I pulled out a phone and checked the timeline. “In any case, the universe should be fairly stable for the next thousand years or so, unless someone pulls another time traveling gimmick on me. You guys can … explore the world or something. I’m going out for some R&R, probably complete a few mundane missions.” I tossed them a red “easy” button. “Hit it when you got everything. We’ll make the jump together.”

I waved goodbye and parted. I clutched my writhing stomach. “Someone’s frisky tonight,” I muttered under my breath. Urgh. Still a bit woozy from the retcon.

C-6 pulled out a few wires out of the monitor and attached a few spare parts. A few of his marbles got scrambled during the jump. “Woah!” He grabbed a knob and spun it to stabilize his energy output. Must be a short somewhere. Somethings draining. He wandered down the hallways of his master’s head. “Oh.” In front of him, a black matter claw had broken free of its confinement and was trying to steal Shtik’s energy. He raised his own claw and blasted the black limb off from a laser diode imbedded in the claw’s center. One claw repaired the wires and covered up the plating while another claw held a remote. Flashes of energy brightened off of the cubes emotionless face, befitting an executioner, ignoring the cries of pain.

I took a deep breath as my energy levels stabilized and watched their retreating forms. I lied. I keep on forgetting, and refuse to put it off any longer. My skill lies in summoning but from what the short battle told me, I am still much too slow. Next time ... I’m going to remove the whole summoning process out of the equation. I sent a short command out to my ship still Outside to start manufacturing hundreds of weapons, traps, and rune-enchanted papers. I won’t be ambushed defenseless on this planet again.

[2.3] Back to the Future

Back to the Future

Crickets chirped into the night. The manager of the general store locked the doors and left for home. A tiny sliver of light reflected off of goggles looking at her retreat. Once the coast was clear, the shadow slipped towards the entrance. I lifted my goggles, allowing the light of my left eye to spill forth. I carefully weakened the bonds holding my body together and slipped through the tiny gap between the doors. I modified the brightness levels entering my eye as I stalked through the shelves. I carefully moved a few jars to the side and pulled out a black cylinder out of my stomach. The cylinder took on the jar’s appearance the moment it was a few inches away from one. I gave a brief nod of satisfaction, then wrapped it in a sheet of translucent paper. A few runes glowed to life; these babies forces observers to pay much less attention to this particular jar. It would also compel the staff to refill the shelf before it reaches empty. Most wouldn’t notice it even if it was the last one. If the item was replaced, the fake jar would change into the new item. I also stuck a few sticks with a box of umbrellas and a ball or two within the fruits isle.

I grinned at the outlines that only I could see shimmering in the darkness, within the store and beyond.

The Janitor checks a pile memory disks, then stashes them within his broom. “Think I got everything,” he muttered. Beside his feet, Avery sat slumped in shutdown mode as his memory disks were replaced with fresh ones. Elma shut his chest compartment.

“So, can I call him now?” she asked.

“Sure.”

Elma whacked her foreleg a few times. Slowly, a fleshy bag emerged out of the arm like a giant pimple. She gently pulled it out and split the bag.

In the background, Janitor cringed. Even though he could do the same, it always weirded him out. He stuck with bone claws and disguises.

She shook the bag, dropping out a small, red easy button. She then raised a hoof and bopped the button.

“Position locked and recorded,” it buzzed as if reciting a slogan.

A swirl of light shimmered above the button. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Suddenly, a portal opened. Shtik walked out wearing a bathrobe spinning a dagger between his fingers and resting the barrel of a rotary machine gun over his shoulder. He stretched his arms, lazily pointing the gun towards the portal. “...and don’t you try to come back,” he said, yawning.

“What,” Elma asked.

He waved his hand. “Nothing much. Just needed to ... rest after organizing my inventory. Oh, and one more thing.” He turned back towards the portal. He tapped his watch, pointing it at the portal as if flipping through channels. He stopped at a garage. “One moment please,” he called as he hopped through.

A few awkward silent minutes later, a large rumble came through the portal. Headlights shined through the portal as a massive tank rolled through. The front vaguely resembled a low jeep with two pairs of wheels. The back half had a trapezoidal pillar with a double-barreled, 120 mm cannon with 1.5 meter long snub nosed barrels, supported by two wheeled treads. The driver area was heavily armored, with sloped glass, their bonds strengthened courtesy of Shtik. Two machine guns sat on the roof of the front half. The portal closed a few seconds after.

He stepped out of the driver’s side once again wearing his dusty brown trench coat and grey fishing cap and grinned at Elma’s surprised face. Janitor nodded. “Good call.”

I chuckled to myself. I never really use this tank (TNK - 02) much, to be honest. I really like the feeling of it rumble and weapons though; I should probably drive it around more. I walked over to Avery and turned him on. “You, my friend,” I grunted, lifting up the robot onto my shoulder, “will watch the world outside time. Record events, analyze data and new objects, and most importantly, tell me when the next big one comes.” My hand glowed with power, and chucked Avery into the Time Vortex (yelling “Confirmed”), leaving a trail of sparkling energies. I turned back towards my allies. “Y’all get enough rest? ‘Cause we’re going straight to the next one.”

Janitor wordlessly stepped into the passenger side seat. Though it looked cramped, a bit of dimensional meddling added a few square feet in the back where the cannon should have been.

Elma gulped, looking around nervously. “Am I strong enough? Do I have enough energy? What if I scre-”

I put my hand on her shoulder, and did my best to think friendly thoughts, the thought patterns I once used lifetimes ago. “Don’t worry about it. I can give you some lessons along the way. If you need to, we can wait a few months; I can stick us out of the time stream for as long as you need to so we can avoid the locals, though try to keep it within,” I wiggled my fingers, “four or five years. The effort is a bit draining. If you are worried over your personal energy levels...” I held up a canteen with a wrench on it and shook it. “This is an emergency boost until you improve your efficiency. I can work with you on that too.”

Elma took a deep breath, calming her heart rate. She slowly opened her eyes, nodding once. “Okay, I can do this. Let’s go.” She stepped into the backseat as I watched from behind. I took a few breaths, calming my nerves. Something warm bloomed inside me. I held it for a moment, and smiled bitterly. Maybe...As if.

I shook my head and stepped in myself and shut the door. A stuck my thumb into a socket on the left hand side of the steering wheel. The tank shudders in response, rods of black matter sending currents of energy through the vehicle. A HUD lit up, showing the full power tanks and the loaded guns above and behind me. Never hurts to be over prepared. A monitor on the center column lit up and turned slightly towards me, showing the plans I programmed earlier. A small window in its corner displayed the data Avery was collecting like a satellite from space.

I slammed the accelerator, the half track tank spitting dirt back. Lights flickered across the monitor, locking onto my position in space time and preparing to jump. Sparks jumped through hidden lines hidden underneath the tank’s shell.

“Back to the future, kiddies!” I said, “Hold on tight. Thank you for joining us on this one way trip, hope to see you next time.” As I finished, the invisible wires glowed, ripping the multi-ton vehicle out of the space time continuum. A cone of light freckled in dots of multiple colors spiraled in its wake. Black smog slowly dissipated through the aperture before it closed, hiding the dirt and leaving no trace of anyone ever being there.

[2.S] On the Job

Intermission: On the job

The light yellow earth pony stumbled blindly through the dark forest. She nervously brushed her long pink mane to the side, already filled with bits of leaves. She had no idea where she was. She had just opened her eyes to be greeted by this wall of green. She couldn’t even remember her own name. She really wanted to just stay put and hide, but all the noises kept on scaring her into running forward. Now, she was too afraid to stop. The sun has been dropping for the past few hours, and her hooves ached badly. In the end, her exhaustion and hunger forced her to collapse to the floor. With the last of her strength, she managed to crawl beneath the crook of a tree stump. Right before she sucumbed to the darkness of sleep, she heard the gentle thuds of footsteps moving toward her.

The yellow pony slowly lifted out of her comfortable realm of darkness. She didn’t really want to wake up, the bed felt so - wait, a bed? Her eyes flew open and was met with the wooden walls of house. A small fire on the other side of the room get the building warm and comfy. A light grey stallion sat in a chair near the fire, a wide brimmed hat hanging from a hanger behind him. He noticed her awakening and trotted over. He asked about her health. She responded that she was fine, blushing slightly behind her mane at having the stallion drag her all the way here.

The stallion chuckled and waved it off. What kind of pony would he be if he let such a cute girl like her die in the woods. This only served to make the mare blush harder. At the end of their musings, the stallion asked for her name. The yellow pony opened her mouth to reply, but was unable to come up with anything. Paralyzing fear came down upon her, and she wilted underneath the covers. Worried by her change in expression, he immediately went to her side to comfort her.

This went on for a few days, the grey stallion taking care of her until she was healthy enough to move around. On the fourth day, he perked up and asked her about a name that he felt perfectly suited her: Posey. She thought for a bit, and smiled.

By the end of the week, he had to get back to his job. He had told his boss that he was taking care of a sick friend, but he could only take a break for so long. For the next week, they managed to get an acceptable schedule worked out between them. Posey helped out with some chores while the stallion goes out. The stallion offered to help her find out her origins, but for some reason her gut told her to not accept the offer.

At the end of the third week, she began to feel something watching her from beyond the forest. No matter how hard she tried to look into the shadows, she could never make anything out. The only thing she was sure of was that the sensation seemed to be gradually moving in a circle around the town. She thought about telling the stallion about it, but something inside advised her against it. Instead, she feigned illness and hid. She obviously wasn’t very genre savvy.

The silent blanket of night comforted Posey as she tried to fall asleep after waking up to nightmares again. Just as she was reaching the state of blissful unconsciousness, she heard a creak on the floorboards to her room. Her eyes flew open in surprise, but immediately softened at a feeling of kinship flowing through her veins. It appeared to tell her that this presence was a friend, maybe even closer. She rose out of her bed, her blanket covering her. Her soft blue eyes looked at the shadowed entrance.

“Daddy?”

I stood in the doorway, the tools of my trade hanging on my back. I glared at the lump slowly sitting up. My glare was met by one thousand joules of d’aww. It would’ve softened, heck, melted my composure if one, I was alive, and two, I couldn’t see the truth, and it made my dark heart burn. Under the faint green glow of my simmering eye, I raised my revolver, loaded with a bullet made of impure matter. Truly pure matter could become anything, full of potential. This thing has become something. And damned good at what I wanted it to do. The internal hammer dropped, firing the low velocity slug, leaving a hazy trail of flickering text and gibberish. The bullet splashed against Posey’s surprised face, as substantial as smoke. For a moment, nothing appeared to happen. She looked down at her hooves, and saw her face melting off, exposing a black, smoky snout.

My teeth nearly punctured the cloth on my face in anger.“I knew it. You selfish idiot.” She trembled on the bed, locked away memories breaking free, memories she herself had locked away. “DUMMKOPF!” I roared, kicking her bed upward while pulling out my one gauge shotgun over my shoulder. “You know why we can’t live with them!” One pound of buckshot ripped through her slender frame, sending tar like chunks across the walls. Without even bothering to reload manually, I just shoved the gun’s stock through my arm, up to the barrel. I then pulled it out, almost like pumping the entire gun, if my arm was included as part of the gun. My hand reformed around the trigger and blew off her head. Sizzling drops of acid fell from my face and burned through the floor.

I hung the gun over my shoulder. I vaporized the glove on my left hand, and released the suppressed gravity field. I carefully targeted only the black chunks and dragged them into a pile.

“Are .ou al. ght, Pos..?”

I froze partway through my task, holding still as the grey stallion walked into the room. He seemed ... paler, almost ghostlike. If I focused hard enough, I could see through him. If I unfocused ... then I would see him flickering like a laggy video. Tiny lines of text ran through his veins. Each time he took a step with his right fore leg, the leg was briefly replaced by a grid of the word “leg.” I gritted my teeth as the stallion blithely walked past me, his legs phasing through the shattered furniture. He paused at the corner of the room, where the bed used to be. He rested his arms on that invisible surface and calmed the night time terrors of a nonexistent filly. “You see?” I muttered under my breath. “This ... this is why we can never have nice things.” I opened a rift and shoved the silently sobbing blob of tar Outside.

“Some say loving once is better than never experiencing love. For us demons, we can never afford it. You got it through your skull? Look at the mess you made...” I pulled a fat ballpoint pen out of my pocket. It was dark green, with lines of emerald green lining the pen’s body like cracked eggshells. I gave the back section a twissssstt.

I watched the point 120 centimeters away emit colored text smoke. I made a few smoke trails from waving my pen blade around. I’ve seen I guy use a fountain pen, a key. Another guy just used his claws. “Exhibiting Mess A.”

The pen blade’s smoke gathered behind me. The sword’s silent swing accompanied its silent impact. A cloud of text flared from having a massive streak slashed across it, then dissolved. I sighed, wiping of the tar off my face with my left hand. “Let’s see if I can do this right.” I calmed my mind, holding my sword beside my head. A moment later, the pen made an circle of smoke and text. The inky words flarrrreeeddd-

Shtik- I mean, I stood in the courtyard of the city. I noticed that I was now holding the blade in my left hand, and that my hat was on fire. “Dang it, still not very good at scene changing,” I said, tossing the pen blade to my right hand and smothering the flames. “Thanks anyway!” I called into the sky. The only reason I am trying to learn this technique is because its somewhat less energy intensive than portals and really cool looking.

I turned back to the city of flickering text. “Now for Exhibit Mess B.” I switched to an under hand grip and plunged the pen blade point first into the center of the town. Runes I set up a day earlier shone brightly. I stepped back and cupped my hands together. A cloud of atoms swirled between my palms. The cloud coalesced into a distinct clump. “Fission Ball!” I shouted, forcing the clump apart. I thrust my thumbs into the cloud while simultaneously flinging it at the ground. The ball of energy detonated, flinging a explosion of energy. Once it reached the runes, it smashed against a glowing domed barrier. This town was the only thing it affected.

I stood amidst the flames, leaning on my blade. It wasn’t really hot by my standards, though it was enough to flash fry the buildings; this was only a toned down version of the attack I used in combat. Don’t get me wrong, heat based attacks still hurt me, though its less of a burn than the massive difference in temperatures causing convection currents to start up inside me. When your body is pretty much held together by your mind, you don’t want it getting blended from the inside unexpectedly, disrupting your focus.

The flames burned for a few seconds, soon expending all of its energy in the confined space. There were only ashes and cracked stone left; everything within the rune’s dome had been leveled. “In order to create, one must first destroy...” I walked to the edge of the circle, the pen blade over my shoulder, and broke the circle by smudging the runes with my foot. The rest of the runes dissolved along with it. I looked back at the town. Slowly, reality began to reassert itself. Tendrils of energy flowed back into the area, creating ghostly shadows. I estimate that by the end of the day, no one would be any wiser. I sighed. I twisted my pen, returning it to pocket sized and dropped it into my coat pocket.

I shook out my watch and opened a holographic folder, pushing away the events that just transpired. Well, the next assignment seemed easy. I opened a portal in front of me, connecting two points with some effort, and I hopped through.

I stepped into a forest. I jogged down the path until I could see the figure camped out in the distance. This was a simple case of canon/non-canon confusion. I reached out with my ethereal senses, carefully breaking through the veil that protects the world from the Outside. I found the alternate universe and pulled it to me, creating a bubble within a bubble. I threw my hands apart, momentarily replacing this section of universe.

I looked at the caravan rolling toward the forest. A draconequus sat on the roof, lobster claws underneath his bear paws. When the bubbly film evaporated, he twitched in surprise. He looked backwards, locking eyes with me. I grinned and put a finger to my lips. Don’t worry about it, I mouthed. I once helped him pass the time in his prison by playing poker with him. I lost. The freakin’ cheater. I had to leave when the Dog came hurtling by.

The point of this exercise is because the god overseeing this crossover forgot that the Dog who lived in this version didn’t lose his claws. The imported universe would leave once the caravan was about two miles away. After I made sure the universe wouldn’t destabilize, I left for a quick break.

I walked out of the bakery’s basement, closing the trapdoor behind me. I stuck a thumb at it. “Pinks, the basement is cleared out. Got rid of your blood obsessed double and her mutilated friend out.” I slumped down on one of the seats as the occasional reality distortion began fading. Some memes are just too ingrained within the collective’s memory to die. I watched a few of the extra Pinkies waved goodbye to each other as they returned to their own reality as I munched on a muffin. They really tasted pretty good. The one who lived here was about to talk to me when something hurtling through time caught my attention.

“Nope nope nope,” I gasped. The face of my watch popped out, and I slammed my palm against it. Green flames coated my body as I jumped backwards in time, about five minutes. “Gotta go, bye!” I jumped out the window and teleported, and not a moment too soon. A pink pegasus mare appeared inside the bakery.

“Wait up, you sneaky bastard! What are you doing here?” With a few powerful strokes of her wings, she soared after me.

Meanwhile, I was sitting under the shade of a floating building. Yeah, I had to jump through another time portal, a few months into the future. Fortunately, Discord’s magic should be able to cover my tracks before long. I try to avoid leaving the universe in the middle of a operation, to be closer to the problem and all. In the meantime, I relaxed in chaos’s basking glow. This is a real break, I thought, sipping a milkshake. I paused for a moment, then slowly removed my glove. Real, living tissue looked back for the first time in decades. I savored the feeling of a heartbeat sending revived blood cells through my body. I opened my eyes, free of the veils I had clouded myself with. I could think clearly, and remembered everything, in all of its glory...

And all of its horror.

[2.A] Squishy

Squishy

“...Record events, analyze data and new objects, and most importantly, tell me when the next big one comes.” The robot gets chucked into the time stream by Shtik’s glowing fist. A/VER-E buzzed “Confirmed,” before disappearing from view. The robot floated beside a stream of bluish light: the Time Vortex. The robot’s chest whirred a bit as it switched toolsets, then opens up, sticking a glowing screwdriver and a few USB ports into the light.

Years:

146

388

New Object detected. Investigate?

Scanning...

Object seems to be: adaptable, fluid, sentient, acidic, extremely dangerous.

Preparing to investigate. Switching toolsets from Time Mode to Investigation Mode.

Exiting time stream in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

Brakes Engaged

Vwoorrp...Vwoorrp...

Avery’s velocity slowed as he entered normal time, its particles soon catching up to the robot’s fuzzy outline. In no time, the robot was solidified, and took a quick look around. The place was dark, but it could echolocate its way around if need be. It could have been a cavern, or even deep underground, not that it really mattered. Little life existed here.

Its camera eye was fitted with more than just optical sensors. Besides its large range of frequencies, it could also see temperature fluctuations, normal radiation, energy levels within inorganic systems, auditory sensors, and after the upgrades Elma gave it, life forces and the flow of magic. The last point was kinda important since it was still a bad idea for the robot to go wandering willy nilly into powerful leylines. A large portion of it was still electrical, especially some of the disks. I really don’t want someone accidentally reading Avery’s mind, and so changed everything else I could spare organic. Therefore, if Avery entered a powerful enough leyline, I might be faced with a fried robot with corrupted memory. Yeah.

The robot detected a large, magical black haze over a hill of dirt. It rotated its cubical body and rolled over on steel treads. It waved its three fingered (includes opposable thumbs) arms; a slight shimmer passed over it as it placed a low level veil over itself. No, I haven’t gotten my robots (or should I call them androids now, since they all have a few organic parts) to do magic yet, though I’ve been working on making the gun-staff (aka a revolver with a wooden [slightly singed] barrel and clamps where the chambers usually are to hold various batteries) more machine-friendly. You may remember IN-4 using it against SuperNova. Due to my retcon, little evidence remains that IN-4 had ever held it. Repeated usage usually causes some wiring damage and power instability from the magic aura. So no, all Avery did was bend light around itself, its energy requirement easily covered by the black rods that power it.

One hill later, Avery could finally see what was causing that poisonous haze: a river of dark purple ooze, bubbling and seething with evil. Yep, definitely black magic. Avery rolled over to the edge and peered in. Apparently, Avery’s bio signature wasn’t big enough for the ooze to notice it. It waited for five minutes just to make sure, then silently opened its chest compartment, not unlike the chassis its body was based off of, its ancestor WALL-E.

It carried molecular detectors, scanning devices, and light laser cutters. A small tube ejected a probe into the river with a disguised skin of a rock. The purpose? To see how a blob could can retain intelligence. It collected a few minutes of data before melting; the sludge appeared to have a vast nervous network made of magic that connected every part of the body to each other. There was a core somewhere, but definitely not here. More tests would have to be conducted to see if this could be replicated in a safe manner. For the last test, it extended an bone white horn, to create a diagram of the leylines that inhabited this monster. It slowly pulsed to life...

Avery looked back at the sludge quickly. The current was changing. The sludge was slowing down and appeared to be aiming for the horn. Shoot, it had been spotted. Avery quickly spun around and made a break for it. Before it could go more than a meter, the ground in front of it cracked. A low wall of the purple sludge reared up like a frozen wave and forced Avery to brake, lest it smash head first into the ooze. The cloud of black magic that surrounded the sludge condensed and began flowing into Avery. Avery tried to jump over, but it was too late. His shell bleached white, and waves of black consumed its limbs and head. Avery’s treads gave a slight hiss from the air escaping its pneumatics as the robot fell limp. Its camera lens glowed a dull red. Seizing the opportunity, the purple ooze spilled over the stone floor and converged upon the disabled robot.

Smash Mode Activated

The robot’s eyes flared like bright orange headlights. “I Am R.O.B.” A orange force field blasted the sludge away. In the epicenter there was a swirling black twister, pulling in more of the black magic. Three equidistantly spaced fingers poked out of the twister, then segmented arms. Avery’s orange eye glowed through the shadows. Soon, the rest of its transformed body was revealed. Its chest cavity had shrank, and was now just a hub for the arms to connect to. Its treads were connected to the spine of the robot, a foot below everything else. Avery pulled out a thin cylinder with rubber grooves out of its chest cavity. “And You Will Be Terminated” The device made a whirring noise; the sludge shrieked in response and rolled away from the noise. With a flick, the back third folded down like a pistol grip. The activation lever popped out a centimeter along with it.

Avery depressed the trigger of the Sonic Saber Shooter. A rust orange beam of light swooped in a semicircle and burned the retreating sludge. With great effort, Avery ejected the smog running through its systems. Returning to Investigation. A hiss of black gas shot out of the exhaust/fuel pipe on its back. Its cooling fan staggered a few times from the choking steam, before finally resuming operation.

As soon as it recovered from the bugs in the Combat Mode, Avery immediately teleported before the ooze could figure out what it was planning. It was as suited for combat as a space rocket. Bright, flashy as hell, and dangerous if you’re too close, but not really a feasible weapon of war.

A slight mirage formed deep within a cavern. With a groan of metal, Avery popped out of the rift and barely kept itself from tipping over. Its HUD flickered erratically, sparks shooting out scarred joints at random intervals. Its fan gave one final rattling cough before dying out like the rest of the robot. A few minutes passed as an eerie orange glow pulsed from deep within. Yellow strands reached across the damaged wires and reconnected broken circuits.

The robot gave a jolt and stood up straight again (or as straight as a wheeled robot without hips could). “Emergency programs online,” the robot, now android, said in a young, child like voice. It did a quick systems check, moving all of its joints to make sure the organic systems connected correctly. Afterwards, its eye gave off a soft orange glow. Its chassis slapped the ground, hard. It felt the echoes and began mining for materials to repair itself. Once it was done, it will return to the Time Vortex. Its master (ahem, moi) will be pleased with this new data.

I opened a closet with rows and rows of various items, whether mundane, dangerous, or magical. I withdrew a jar with a large blob of mold covering a rotting log and shut the door. I want back to my worktable, cleared off except for the hologram of the data Avery had collected and several charging stations and sensing equipment stacked in a pile at the far end. This was my third jar. Due to the incompleteness of the data, I had to screw around with some of the missing variables. I believe I made the connections of the first one too weak, and did nothing. I ended up wasting half an hour spinning my thumbs. The second time, it turned black and bounced off the walls trying to kill me. That jar got the “instant vaporization” treatment. This time, however...

The jar sat upon a fresh circle of runes and wires, powered by glowing gems I charged by a large, fleshy battery with a horn. It runs off of butter. A sent a flicker of will into the gems, sending power into the runes. I watched it glow faintly, the fingers on my right hand tingling as if energy was being vacuumed from it, despite outward appearances, just like my left hand on bad days. I heard a few thumps from Elma’s sparring lesson with Janitor. I ignored it, carefully picking up the jar in my weakened state, filled with a curious yellow slime. After I caught my breath, I grabbed a few extra jars of various substances from my closet, mainly belief powered items. You’ll be surprised what a can of spinach can do when something, a story, a cartoon, or whatever demonstrates a particular usage many, many times.

When I unplugged the jar of spinach from its imprinting station, I brushed off some dust coating the adjacent wall. I froze at the sight of brain monitors nearly identical to my own. I haven’t touched this thing in, jeez, centuries? I look down grimly at the jar of mold I held. My hand unconsciously pulls out a prong rolled up underneath the monitors. I stared in horror as my hands plug it into the mold, and the new lights on the wall. I angrily flung the cord away and went out to introduce Elma her new assistant/secretary.

I pushed the recent events out of my mind. Questions about free will never seem to get answered, annoyingly.

I wished I didn’t have a soul, or what was left of it.

[3.1] Omnius Tidings

Omnius Tidings

There are legends of beings employed by the gods to fight for them, whether for good, evil, or neither.

They say his heart is just, and fights for his friends.

They say his heart is cold, and fights to cause fear and pain.

They say her heart is warm, cold, or as knowable as the secrets of the universe.

They travel from world to world, whether to observe or to carry out their employers’ will. They balance each other; none can exist without the other. Often times, they are a package deal, appearing out of nowhere in any shape or form. Despite all the mystique that surrounds them, there are still some things that remain constant throughout their journeys.

They are the Travelers. Fear their travels. Fear the wake of the oncoming storm.

~Shtik, Vestgate Snake

We had scattered across a few worlds to try to catch the “big one” as Avery termed it. It was such a large event that it wasn’t sure if it was actually going to happen within the universe or not. It made me suspicious and we decided to split up to see if we could prevent it. That’s what we’re here for, anyways. But what actually happened was something that I really rather not deal with. It was an exception to the rules of the multiverse. I hate exceptions.

From within the dark depths of the void, a trio of lights broke through an invisible surface and streaked through the darkness. They swerved and flew towards a relatively young cluster of lights. My workspace. My charges.

Crap.

The Janitor was out in a garden, moving freshly cut grass around to help a flower bed look a little better. Rabbits may be eating this clump soon, and Janitor wanted to make sure they will attract enough critters to cause a stampede. A buzzing in his pocket shook him out of his task. He fished out his cell phone and stared at the alert with widening eyes.

Elma dropped a broom she was using to sweep up some mushroom spores to stare at her flank, where a writhing shape started to emerge. The resulting image gave her a squeak of fear.

I was floating in space, burning down some robots (due to writer error, apparently) when a holographic notification appeared before me. My eyes widened in horror. “No way... I thought we killed all of them!” I pushed the hologram away and teleported to the location where I detected a crack forming. It was an outpost, typical of these places. And there was a giant line visible only to my kind extending towards space.

I rushed towards the surface, trying to zipper up the crack closed as I went. “Come on, I can’t be too late..” I was too late. A few meters above the surface, I found out that the tail end of the crack was following the head of a wide eyed boy. He himself had a crack on his cheek, and the way his eyes moved clearly indicated he could see the rift headed for him. I wasn’t expecting a moving target and smashed into the ground. This distraction tripped him. And the crack shot towards his head before he could cry out.

Whumph

The crack smashed through his head, turning it into disconnected molecules. The force it generated from the explosion ripped my earlier patchwork job apart, spilling black matter onto the planet below me. I forced my half liquified body out of my crater and tried weakly to generate a shield around the rift. Two problems with that attempt. First, the thing was several miles high. My measly shield couldn’t do jack shit to hold back a skyscraper sized sprinkler. Second problem was that there was a reason I tend to carry my tools of the trade around. Plus, I was hampered by being smashed into the ground at a few hundred miles an hour.

Quite predictably, my shield broke apart after one second and flew into my face. I got knocked around in the fierce current, and the raging, uncontrolled energies the matter released from being in contact with the Inside made my head ache awfully. My hands clawed for the surface, trying to avoid being dissolved by the chaotic energies. My vision started to tunnel, and barely noticed a flash shooting out of the tides. Suddenly, I felt a grip around my skull, and I was promptly yanked out of the swirling currents. Through my blurry vision I saw some winged angel staring at me curiously. “Whor..?”

She smiled wryly. “You must have suffered some serious mental damage. I’m Ryft, remember?” She gently placed me down, which I started hovering under my own power. My vision blacked out for a moment before appearing to reset, everything back to its original clarity.

I groaned, rubbing my head. “Yeah, its back. What’s going on?”

“Not to be insulting, but after you failed to contain the explosion-”

“None taken.”

“-I got here to pull you out of the wreckage and hold the flood at bay as those guys retcon the area.”

I looked to the side and saw a orange fire encircling the area. I turned back towards the epicenter and saw to figures looking at a video scroll or something. It made me wince slightly.

“Don’t feel too bad. Many of us were caught by surprise too, and had to have their sections quarantined and frozen until the damage could be undone.”

“Doesn’t really, help, but thanks for trying.” I sighed and looked around. “So, is it mostly done yet?”

“Wait a moment.” She flew over to the two figures in the distance, Wow, did I really get swept that far? appeared to chat for a moment, nod, then shot up into the sky. She threw her arms downward, shooting a blue fireball. The figures stood at the epicenter and threw the scroll into the fire, which then began to trail electricity. Once it hit the surface, it exploded, in a sense. It spread throughout the black stuff, burning it away. Within a few moments, the place was back to normal, ,albeit frozen in time.

“Sigh. Looks like I’m not needed here,” Shtik muttered. He opened a portal and walked Outside.

Time to clean up the rest until he leaves. This is going to take a while.

[3.2] Everybody Clean Up

Everybody clean up

Shtik sat in front of the camera, his fingers steepled in front of him. A few minutes passed before he opened his mouth.

“Alright, to tell the truth, the next part isn’t very interesting. You probably often enjoy epic tales, of heroes overcoming great obstacles, or just people struggling with day to day life with a funny twist. If I tried to make my day be full of that much awesome, the universe would’ve blown up several times by now, and not from the coolness factor.”

*Shrug* “I’m not really good at direct combat. I already have a few centuries of experience under my belt, and also an apprenticeship under those who have been around for a several millennia. There are many around for several millions, even billions of years. Because of this, we have a strict, zero-tolerance policy.” He leaned forward slightly. “If there is any doubt, anything that you may not have seen before, you get someone else to have a second opinion. With all the ones around that have pretty much seen everything, us repairmen do not tolerate any risks. If something strange happens, you have to be pretty darn sure you can take care of the new variable. Pride and ego have no place here. In fact, with what I often get into, I sometimes wonder why I haven’t been executed or something, especially with my Celestia problem.”

He turned to a chalkboard, with a somewhat crude map of the courtyard. “Our resources have shown us that there is a piece of a clone of the Traveler’s essence within one of the rooms within the castle. Preliminary tests have shown that said essence is clinging tightly to the universe, and any ranged attack harmlessly veers off to the side as if there’s a giant anti-gravity field. Warp space is also a bit unstable there, so we can’t just teleport right beside it. The essence also has a defensive aura around it, and when it detects one of my kind in its vicinity, will start corrupting nearby entities to fight back, like white blood cells.

“Our solution? This...”

A slight shimmer formed to the courtyard of the castle. A moment later, five shadowed beings landed, cracking the stone. Some had wings, some had claws, some had no discernable limbs, and some had more limbs than most. One of them wore a fishing hat, billowing with the same energy as the others beside him.

He grinned, raising a his S-class bullpup Carbine. “Let’s go. Just like old times.”

“Ha. I remember,” A large blob rumbled. “Didn’t you almost die?”

The hatted one laughed. “And what do you think’s gonna happen this time? Did you even pay attention?”

As the group bantered, the ponies in the courtyard began noticing their presence, black smoke swirling out of the ground and around their forms. Their bodies began to flicker, as if a bad movie film started skipping.

“Stay ... awaaayyy...” The ponies growled in unison. A guard closest to their position took a step forward, only to have his head blown off by the hatted one’s rifle.

“Boop, headshot.”

“Heeeyyy...” complained a quadruped blob. “You just shot the people of my homeland. I was supposed to fire the first shot.” She held her gaze to the hatted one for a few seconds, before dissolving into laughter. “Bet I can get more than you.”

The hatted one grinned. “You’re on.” Then they looked up to find the others already gone. “Gah! Wait up!” He dashed forward, lobbing energy bombs to assist in the chaos causing, as a minigun and a missile launcher popped out of the equinoid’s back and started spewing death (or whatever it resembled) into the flickering creatures.

Hundreds of more black flickering ponies crawled out of doorways, behind walls and anything you could hide behind. A massive unicorn shot a blaze of energy towards them. The winged one stepped forward and slammed his wings down, altering not the projectile, but the space it traveled, looping once and smashing back towards its owner’s face. A massive laser from the massive dragon-head shaped blob ate out a column and smashed rubble against a score of charging ponies, and took out a mob of dive bombing pegasi.

A dark light stepped through the towers. A pitch black alicorn, wreathed in scorching flames She looked down upon the group with hatred and contempt of their being. The hatted one froze, suddenly panicking over whether the others knew about his little situation with the one who probably is calling herself Solar Eclipse. And then a second alicorn mare, ringed in darkness and glowing with a blood red light stepped in beside her.

“Damn, two?” a large, insect like figure muttered while the hatted one sighed silently in relief. No one questioned him as two energy blasts hammered against the winged one’s hastily erected shield, managing to refract the energy into several of the shadows trying to jump them.

“Less gawking, more fighting” the hatted one muttered, trying to change the subject while, firing off another stream of bullets through several heads.

If you aren’t blind, you probably inferred who the guy with the hat was. The other guys who came down with me were my first contact with those of the Outside, and people I like to work with, mostly due to familiarity.

We had destroyed hundreds of shades within several minutes, but there seemed to be a never ending supply of them. My friends eventually were completely drained, and due to the sisters, unwilling to risk opening a portal. They became little figurines, which bounced around in my pocket. Me? I rarely ever used my own energy for something like this, I was never really efficient at it anyways.

*Slash*

“Hope you didn’t need that head, brother!” I cackled, bouncing around waving my katana through their ranks. I flipped out my dagger and jammed the hilts of the two blades together. Did I ever mention that my katana had defensive properties?

The sisters were off the balcony now, slowly stalking over to me. They fired another energy attack, and range, no less. They never learn. I simply crouched behind my blade, conducting their energies into the hilt. Immediately, the claws on the hilt of the dagger spring open, and fired a similar beam of energy, crackling with green from my supercharging, blowing out another group trying to flank me. Unfortunately, all this moving around still drained upon my meager power supply: my bandanna had a few centimeters left. Eh, not really a problem. I glanced casually at my watch. I grinned, spreading my hands into the sky.

“Come and get me, beeeyetch!!” I slammed my hands onto the ground, summoning a massive cannon made of earth and stone. It glowed and fired...several hundred thousand gallons of corn starch. I laughed as the shades were momentarily disoriented and blinded, even as my own body started to freeze up from insufficient energy running through them. “Cause I never really was your target.”

Several hours(?) earlier

Elma walked into the garage of The Loggerhead. Janitor was off doing some important, and since she had the smallest energy signature, this part of the mission would lay on her. She went to the row marked “Standard” and found rows upon rows of the same vehicle Shtik transported them several days ago. She frowned. Too boring. She turned around, looking for something else that she could use, and caught her eye upon another section of the wall, also lined with garages. Above them were signs marked “Classics.” Ooh. This sounds fun. She flipped up the gates.

A tired dude woke up from the ringing of his alarm, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He was about to go reach for his clothes when he heard a mysterious grinding noise outside. He trudged out the window and saw a DeLorean parked outside on the street. A lady wearing a black hoodie stood beside it, reading what appeared to be a glowing map. Huh. Oh well. He was about to turn away when he noticed that the back of the vehicle also had those jets, similar to those from Back to the Future, and antennae attached to corners. The lady stepped into the vehicle and revved the engine before peeling off the street in a cloud of smoke.

No way...she can’t be. This street isn’t long enough.

His eyes widened even more as the vents actually belched flames. A crackle of plasma sparked across its chassis, right before the vehicle burst into pure light and disappeared.

Year: A really long time ago

Wheels made of pseudo-rubber bounced across ashen rock. Something was starting work - excuse me, spoilers. Suffice to say, nothing was worried or caring about the time-and-space traveling vehicle bouncing along towards a specific set of coordinates. The clone definitely haven’t spawned yet, but the further she jumped back, the safer. Elma peered through the dusty windshield into the stormy skies.

Huh. The spire was already here. That makes navigating a lot easier. She pulled the computer on its crane-holder closer, tapping the screen to make sure it was on: this was on every vehicle to make teaching others easier. She upped the friction constant as she went up the side of the mountain, nearly going up a 45 degree slope.

“Let’s see, left a bit, around this hill...ah ha! Found it.” A little hologram appeared in the car’s HUD, pointing out the exact path she needed to take. The little LED display flickered as the time she was to jump to was received. “Perfect,” she said, grinning. She gunned the engine, a nuclear furnace going off in front of her behind sealed walls. Five hundred feet from the jump point, she pressed a button to eject the black rods and sent them back to the ship. No point in leaving any trace that someone from the Outside was jumping in.

Once she was sure the rods were safely out of the universe, she pulled back upon the lever for the time circuits and shot into the future.

Cornstarch. Cornstarch everywhere. It flowed between bushes, over statues, into the dirt, up the stairs, through cracks in the walls and doors, and probably places I rather not talk about. Most importantly, it was deemed such a nuisance that for a few seconds, flowed into a chamber that nothing was supposed to be able to enter so freely. Sparks of electricity jumped across - you know what? I’m not trying to impress anyone with my special effects, nor is safety for others at this particular moment in space time is nowhere within my list of concerns at the moment.

So, hypothetical sparks that would have been erupted from a section of cornstarch a few feet away from the statue as it darkened imperceptibly, right before a few thousand pounds of steel going at one-hundred and ninety six miles per hour popped into existence and connected with the statue. In fact, it was going at enough speed for the car to start splitting as the immovable object stood against the comparatively squishy vehicle.

And that also meant that for the purposes of me, the statue became temporarily part of the vehicle.

Flaming gasoline squirted out of crumbling fuel lines. The driver roared in defiance as glass and metal ripped apart besides her. She grabbed the lever for the time circuits in one hand and a steel hammer in the other. She smashed the Temporal Positioning System at the same time she powered it up. Electricity and plasma burst out of torn wires. The car nearly instantly blasted into the Time Vortex, but without a guidance system, it sent its targets in every which way.

I laughed triumphantly as I watched the core of the universe twist before me through my overused left eye. Without the statue supporting the existence of the shadow creatures, they lost the foundation of their reason to exist. When a tower of cards suddenly realizes that they are missing a floor, they collapse. Quite spectacularly if there’s enough of them. My enhanced vision showed the timeline rippling as a piece was removed, and quickly reverting to the “original” state, for a given definition of normal. I felt pretty good about myself while watching the world warp around me until I noticed a weight on my belt disappearing. My partners have been shoved out of the timeline as the universe was fixing itself. For some reason, I was not. With a quick eye scan, I saw why. I was coated in infinitesimally small particles of this universe, and being bogged down as if I was standing in a super thick swamp. Heck I could at least blast my way out of quicksand, but not this.

I could only stare in horror as the timeline’s ripple effect rushed toward me like a freight train.

What did being deconstructed piece by piece feel like while jammed against the metaphorical wall of the universe because you couldn’t breach it? Like being stuck between a thousands of knives and while being crushed by an invincible mattress. All sense of direction or time was blown away as I watched the arm in front of me burn away down to the bone. Previous battle scars, bad enough to tear my soul apart, got torn away into the vortex. Probably why my right arm disintegrated shortly after trying to maintain a shield of any kind. After the left half of my face, my left leg, chunks of my right knee, bits of my hip, my heart area, and my left shoulder melted away, I could really feel the burn. This wasn’t just signals sent from sensory organs. This was actively eating away at my soul, or what was left of it, anyways. There wasn’t anything protecting it anymore. I could do nothing as the universe went along “fixing” me but stare and my melting fingers through my tunneling vision

Bwoooa

My vision tunneled into a pinprick, then returned in full force, nearly blinding me. I blocked some of the glow with my hands ... wait, hands?

To my surprise, my body was whole again, though how long it took for it to regrow, I didn’t know. I looked around me carefully and noted that I was inside a container resembling the ones for cryo-sleep, and sitting in a mold of my body. I pulled on a latch, pushed the door open, and poked my head out.

I was in one of the many rooms of the Loggerhead. Watching over me was Elma, her bone wings coated in the black substance of the Outside, reclining on a folding chair. We seem to have a lot of those in this ship sometimes. “Wha-?” I asked, gesturing at the gunk.

“These?” she said, waving them. “I had to gather up the matter and stick it in your body manually. We couldn’t risk just sticking you in the atmosphere and exploding from all the wounds you accumulated. Took me a while to get the right amount. Heck, we had to replace Cubi’s shell.” I noted dimly that there was a charred box in the corner. “Took you a few days before ________your brain ________ woke ___ up.”

“Ah, I see. Thanks.”

“No prob. Part of the job, though we appreciate the sentiment.”

“How’d you guys get me out? I don’t remember anything after I got stuck in between the universe.”

She chuckled. “You forgot Janitor? You left him out here in case something went wrong. This was it. Here, let me show you.” She stood up, walked over, and hauled me out of the chamber. She helped support my weight as I stumbled along with my regrown, alien feeling legs. They felt ... dead.

We reached the garage/hangar before I could dwell much upon it. Parked near the airlock was a car that vaguely looked like a futuristic LeMans, though this one was heavily scarred from its trip. Massive twin rudders stood on the back, shielding two jets that looked like naval cannons pointed backwards. It had two pairs of steering wheels, and short treads on the rear. It was a lighter, speed based version of my tank conversion. She reached into the vehicle and pulled out a sheet of paper from the glove compartment, the ink somewhat tearing, and handed it to me.

The SPD-00 sped through the howling currents of the warping universe. It found Elma first, frozen in the epicenter of the retcon wave. It positioned its chassis to allow her body to fit inside the vehicle. Her body reformed with a pop, then a thud as her head impacted the floor. She was still dazed, and her body hung limply from her seat. The car sped off into the whirlwinds once more, its turbofans flaring. By luck, it found ShtikH. M. Conagher squeezed between invisible walls. his body melting away. Its jets roared, then made a spin as it neared, scooping up his body into the cabin. The car’s shell protected him from the clashing energies outside, and broke through the walls of this universe.

I looked up from the sheet. “Huh, so that’s how you guys got me out.” I nodded silently. “Thanks,” I said, after a moment.

She chuckled, patting him on his back. “What did you expect? That’s what we’re here for. Stop having such a low opinion of yourself.” She gazed seriously into his eyes. “We will always have your back.”

I held her gaze for a few seconds, then hugged her. She let me hold on to her for a minute, then pushed me away. “I’m sorry,” she said. She seemed conflicted, regretful. “but you don’t have much time. You need to return to your job as a Reaper. You were only one of the few who successfully completed the ritual.”

My eyes widened. “Cripes. Looks like I still don’t get to have that vacation.” Plates of metal grew out of my skin and covered me. “Back to the fray it is, then,” I sighed unhappily. I trudged to my armory. I pushed down on a lever and collected the blade that fell out like a straw dispenser: a katana and dagger fused end to end, which I draped over a shoulder. I picked up my custom revolver from a steel box and dropped it into a holster. I took one rotary machine gun away from its family. That went over another shoulder. I also collected the Spiral Cannon and my sniper rifle. A blast of black energy vented out of my armor’s joints and floated into the weapon’s barrels. Sparks of energy started dripping from their frames, dark dense gases bubbled out of the barrels like dirty dry ice.

I left my armory. Elma was waiting in the garage. Her abilities were better suited from ambushes, so she volunteered to be the heavy armor. She was coated in purple armor, brown ribs sprouting in various places. Her hair had thickened, resembling insects’ legs sprouting out of her head. Her eyes glowed a light indigo.

She was sitting in another one of my identical cars. When she saw me enter, she reached across the dashboard and flicked a switch. The front wheels slide into the center. The trunk narrowed and pointed up, sprouting a pair of rudders and elevators. Wings snapped out of the roof, swinging forward to pull out the engine. When they snapped into place, props shot out, and started to gain speed. A 100 mm cannon hung right next to the wing joint as miniguns grew in the empty engine space and moved backwards to right below the side windows. Within seconds, RCN-01 completed its transformation into the OSP-04, an Osprey. She flashed me a grin and a thumbs up from within.

Also within the garage was the robots I've constructed to assist me. There was TH-6, a thing-thing inspired robot with physics-gun manipulated limbs and an array of accurate automatic handguns and SMG’s. R-T, a somewhat tall robot with a tiny torso but massive lower arms and legs, had several cannons that he could summon from within. And lastly was IN-4, a 6 foot infiltrator with a 3-inch wide broadsword, a .4 caliber revolver, and a new addition, my gunstaff. We were going to stay Outside most of the time, so I modified the feed to just use the latent energy constantly around us.

Janitor wasn’t here, I soon found out that he was piloting the Loggerhead, moving energy around to focus more heavily on the weapons and thruster systems. He had shut down the automatic hallways, leaving only the armory, respawn chambers, and the bridge easily accessible.

I dual wielded the sniper rifle and my 8-shooter. TH-6 held up a pistol version of the P-90 (I called it the G-90) and a pistol that had the punch of a Desert Eagle and the fire rate of an Uzi. IN-4 chose to hold his sword and my gunstaff. R-T had a 20 mm cannon and a 8 mm heavy machine gun. All of their weapons billowed the same black smoke billowing in the downdraft of the OSP-04 hovering nearby. We sprinted out of the opening airlock, joining in the war that was already several days old.

“ATTACK!”

Bullets, lasers, and missiles flew into the Outside. My symbol, a stick figure within a circle flashed upon my shoulder. The youngest Reaper has joined the fight.

[4] Endgame

Endgame

I stalked through a forest. I wandered around so many different planets for so long I started to forget the names of things. It was a rather typical one, dark and spooky and filled with the cries of invisible beasts. I wasn’t worried. They wouldn’t bother me.

My outline inched through the gas. I was supporting my body with the barest minimum possible, a gaseous form. I only had a 10% charge. Animals might feel something strange, but for the most part, I was for all intents and purposes invisible. I crouched down besides a tree and cautiously expanded my senses. If my enemies felt it, I would be completely and utterly screwed. I had one chance to take it out. And to tell you the truth, I prefer it this way. I was always the worst at close quarters combat anyways, also know as “fighting fair.”

Ah, found it.

There was a tiny ping 2 miles in front of me. The moment I felt the stain, the thing that didn’t belong, I pulled back. Hopefully, it would only regard it as nothing more than a fly, but I rather not take any chances.

Along with my meager energy supply, I only brought a two weapons with me. One was a G-2 pistol, TH-6’s hyper accurate, semi-auto handgun. I only had three clips for it in my other pocket. The other weapon was a Spiral Cannon. This thing had the same amount of potential energy as I did, all by itself. This energy, fired off in one burst, was plenty enough to annihilate anything it was pointed at, short of a god-tier creature.

I pulled the massive syringe shaped tube over my shoulder and dropped to one knee. I had one chance to make the shot. The black rings I stored within pulsed gently, slowly increasing the projectile’s rotation. I let it charge for a minute. At the end of the minute, the drill-shaped bullet was rotating at about one million RPM. The drill’s ludicrous speed plus the grooves carved in created a massive vacuum effect in front of the barrel. I twitched my arms as carefully as I could, lining up the shot.

Once I was satisfied with what I could do by simple manual targeting methods, I sent a quick, massive surge of power into my left eye, consuming half a percent of my reserves just by activating it. Fortunately, I only needed it for one second. “Skin” and reinforced plastic (goggles) burned away in the heat flash surrounding Level 3: Spiral Eye. The eyeball spun rapidly in place, its speed great enough to have a noticeable effect with the molecules around it. My vision expanded upon its activation. I could see everything around me in perfect clarity. There were the bugs skittering up trees. A dragonfly buzzed around behind me, right before a bird swooped down to eat it.

And within the next few milliseconds, I could see everything in front of me, with perfect clarity. An invisible smoky line formed up, shooting through the forest. Huh. Only off by three meters. Not bad. ) By the half second mark, I had corrected my aim, the smoky line centered around its torso. The stain twitched, as if feeling something upon it. Too late, sucker. I said to myself.

Alert: Shunting 12800000000 Joules ... now

boosh

The invisible drill rocketed through the forest, phasing through the matter that was less “real” than it. In its attempt to stay hidden from detection, the stain had hid within a “borrowed” body. It was conversing with someone, further distracting it. The .4 seconds it needed to defend itself just wasn’t wnough. From the time it had noticed me to the time the drill reached it took only .2 seconds, and tore it from it out of its host like a tissue paper in a thunderstorm. I managed to catch a glimpse of a zebra underneath the shattered cloak right before my enhanced vision cut out. The projectile will eventually dissipate. I wasn’t worried whether it would hit anything, just like I wasn’t worried I might blow up a few miles of trees.

I pulled out a clicker out of my pocket and pushed it once. The dial now read 1683. I sighed at ‘ported out. I stepped onto the surface of the universe’s walls and gazed out at the chaos Outside. I idly wondered if this happened on a regular basis, before recharging my batteries and returning to our little extermination.

It had already been a century since the Traveler entered. Every once in a while, one escapes our gaze and tries to hid in one of the myriad of universes. The rest of us went to fish it out. As I have mentioned before, these aren’t our worlds. We can’t stay in them, no matter how much we want to. We are imprisoned in Asgard, forever fighting, forever waiting for the unattainable end.

90%

Oh. Oh well. Back to the grind then. I leapt up into the inky blackness and swung my blade. My other hand cranked a lever and fired off a glowing shotgun blast. Solid, wet chunks bounced off my visor.

Same old, Same old.

Over the course of countless battles and research of enemy movements, we might finally have a way of getting rid of these memetic creatures. Each stain can create another one of itself, but only weaker ones, fragments of itself. This implies that for each stain, there is a stronger one. Armed with this knowledge, we began assembling an archive of the ability power of the stains we have faced. We were right; there was a cap.

But he, the most powerful of them all, still hasn’t been found. We don’t know what kind of intelligence had been created, nor what motives it has. We can only stride on and continue to fight, hoping beyond reason that I wouldn’t be the one that finds him.

...Yeah, as if that’s gonna last. How naive of old me.

Old me was floating around his post. It was a subsection of the equinoid universes. I was stuck here because it was where I last was. It was how most of the positions were chosen, though some get moved in order to block off an advance. It was somewhat annoying sometimes how when you look at the Outsiders to Outside space ration, it is more annoyingly than depressingly low. We actually had to hurry to places instead of speeding up or slowing down time.

I sat on one of the universe’s surface, a few bottles of 48 hour energy floating beside me as I peered through the scope of S-12 the sniper rifle. Since I was Outside, I could afford to keep Eagle Eye (2) running constantly. I also had a partner this time around, an equinoid who called herself Red Moon. I think she was a Magi class. She was metaphorically across the hall, watching my back. I think she sees me as a weirdo; she had a surprised look on her face when I introduced myself. I somehow got tired, too tired to care anymore. My head felt heavy, dull. I spent most of the time sitting silently, occasionally popping off a shot.

At least I could rely on her preventing anything from catching me from behind. This was what was running through my head as something pinged my sensors several klicks away. It didn’t feel very big, but pretty fast, so I upped the energy output for my next shot and waited.

The proximity sensor went off nearly immediately after.

“That’s...not possible,” I said. “Ignoring the fact that it just happened.” I panickedly pulled out my sword and stabbed it into a socket beside me. The blade glowed with power as a massive shield appeared in front of me. I drew in as much energy from the darkness around me and poured it all into the shield.

You know how some wizards suffer backlash when their spell is disrupted? I wasn’t a specialist at shields. My right arm, the one channeling the defensive energies and intricately linked to the Shield, imploded. The shockwave knocked me flat on my back while I hissed at the massive burning surrounding my arm. I tried to reach out for the energies again when I realized that the connection was gone. What was left of it was a few shattered sections of a silver-steel katana. The handle was also stuck between the charred remains of my ulna and radius. That’s the lower arm by the way. I left it there, no point anymore.

“Uh, Moony?” I called out. “Help?” I received silence in return. I screamed in frustration and whipped out my dagger out of a hook on my pocket and stabbed it into the rifle’s magazine. White lightning crackled out of the gun and into the dagger. The claws snapped open fully. The gun dissolved as I pointed it outwards. “GAMMA” I screamed desperately, activating its emergency mode as I did so. A massive, darker than black maw raced towards me.

I wasn’t a powerhouse either. The Lance’s emergency mode operated by firing off a pre-calculated amount of energy, figuring out how much damage it did, then multiplying it to do critical damage. The left hand that powered the Lance did the opposite of a backlash and froze solid, a numb, shriveled, dry husk that felt nothing.

I stared at it in disbelief. Until a massive force smashed into me, sending me flying into the wall of the universe I protected. Peering through squinted eyes, I was dismayed to see that the ridiculously overpowered creature was apparently heading towards to was the original, canon universe of Equestria. There wasn’t any time nor point in creating a fake buffer in front of it. I had just literally flew through a cluster of expendable universes that it had completely ignored.

Helpless, tired, and near immobile, I could only watch as the monstrous dragon like creature slam into the wall, accompanied with a equal spike of pain in my legs and lower torso. Yeah, I had to guard this place with my life. Literally. Each of its pummels drained a chunk of my own energy with it, and I was barely able to recuperate from them, despite the energy rich environment I practically swam in.

Fortunately, I didn’t need to keep it off indefinitely. I could already feel the waves of other Outsiders responding. I weakly rolled over and used the charred bones of my right hand to drag me over to the creature. My left hand was a frozen, useless lump at this moment, and I couldn’t spare any energy to even attempt to repower it.

The creature roared at me when I got close. I suddenly realized that it wasn’t a mindless roar. It was cry of frustration, of pain and sorrow. Why? Why must you chain me in this horrid place?

It was something I know all too well. “Because we are cursed,” I whispered. “with power. We are too real for them. We can bend the fabric of their universes on a whim. Even to tell it to ignore us. But that falsehood can only stay for so long before their worlds become unable to cope with us. We defy all logic, and break every law of sciences just by existing.”

I pulled the imbedded handle out from between my bones and stabbed it into the air. It froze in place, as if striking an invisible surface. With it, I slowly pull myself up on shaking feet. Bits of tar-like flesh flaked off. More charred bones showed. “Therefore, it is my duty *cough* to prevent you from entering.” I put the frozen blade underneath my left armpit like a crutch.

“I’m sorry.” I reached deep into myself and grasped the tattered remains of my spirit. With it, I summoned a small blue flame, learned from an old wizard for hire: Soul Fire. “...and goodbye.” I forced a jet of searing flame towards the creature. Like the spell it came from. A massive hand formed out of the flames and picked up the dragon like creature up. The hand bulged as if there was something within it and completely encased it. My bones began glowing neon blue. Of course, the creature struggled. With each attack, sparks flew out of the bones of my lower legs. The blue also receded with each attack, consuming the bones as they burnt up like a candle.

In the distance, streaks of light all flew over everywhere, converging on my position. Its struggles became more frantic, ripping and smashing and clawing. My knees flared, and then went dark. Then my hips.

And then came the counter attacks. Steaks of energy pounded from every direction upon my prison. It lasted for at least an hour, according to the rotation of the universe beneath me. I couldn’t tell after that. I get the shield up as the creature within was beaten as if it was in a sack. My vision tunneled not long after.

Shtik’s (Conagher) shield soon shattered under the massive assault. He did manage to hold from an impressive one and a half hours, thirty minutes before the massive display of overkill ended. The other’s quickly dispersed, except for a few who hung around the area on a semi-regular basis. Despite the completion of the task, that boss battle not too long ago, his hand was still outstretched, blue flames jumping around his finger tips. Only his right arm, shoulders, and head still displayed any trace of soul fire, and even those were quickly burning out. It was as if the only thing keeping him up was the shattered sword that was still frozen in the air.

And then, his right eye caught aflame. Splurts of blue flame slowly consumed the skull underneath. Over time, the blue flame gradually shifted green, matching his other eye, smoldering gently. His arm was still outstretched, his gaze empty.

Three pairs of legs stood in front of them. Two of the pairs belonged to one of them. The bipedal one raised his hand, and pulled the sword handle into his grip with a bit of green sparks. The body of Shtik collapsed onto the ground, rigid as a statue.

The newcomer observed the blade for a bit, then waved the edge at the rest of the broken pieces. The pieces glowed lime green, floating up and reforming with the rest of the blade. He gave a few test swings and grunted, satisfied with the feeling.

“Boss, is this really necessary?” his partner asked.

“This is the first time you’ve ever been with me for this, is it? I’ll give you the short version. Did you see that blue flame? I needed that stuff back for my own uses. But each time I use soulfire, I lose the amount I carry in reserve. So I created him, my avatar. He lives, he learns, and most importantly, forms a powerful soul.

“He eventually gets out, whether by himself or through intervention on my part, and and let him do some of my jobs for me as I siphon off his life energy from afar. Whether because of an attack, like today, or just running out of life from old age, which is at least ten times longer than this, he dies, and I get my power back.”

She sighed as he walked over to the corpse, lifting it up by its left arm. “I still feel guilty though. He was his own person, with hopes, dreams. He had a-”

“Don’t worry about it,” he interrupted. The light from the frozen arm illuminated his body. Though bipedal, he was noticeably not humanoid. Looked somewhat more rabbit like, with four “fingers” and digitigrade. He wore a dark grey leather jacket and jeans. Smoke wafted from the arm and entered through the Boss’s nostrils. “Ahh, that’s the stuff.” A green light flashed from deep within his eyes. “Its all mine to deal with now.”

His ears shrank into his skull, replaced by a wide brimmed hat. His leather jacket got replaced by an overcoat and a scarf, and his jeans with sweatpants. Gloves formed over his five fingered hands. A short crop of black hair spiraled out of his skull.Safety goggles grew over his face. He also shrank a few inches. “Drat. Oh well, guess that was to be expected. He, or I now, was kinda average height.”

He waved at a hand behind him. Out of the shadows came H.M. Conagher’s robots, but slightly modified. IN-4 wore a tattered maroon vest and an actual pair of holsters on its legs. Its forearms were slightly thicker, hiding mechanisms inside. Its feet had jump jets installed.

R-T just had a squarish screen on his face, similar to EVA, though lacking any eyes. Treads ran through its feet, allowing it to speed skate. Several heavy cannons were hidden around its body, and its main weapons were upgraded with multiple barrels.

TH-6 has no more limbs, just eight ports coming out of his body trailing smoke.

Boss gave a wild grin, hefting a Automatic rail gun summoned from Outside matter. “Sweet. It feels great to be back in action. Want to join in on the fun? I can only stay and chat for a few centuries before I have to recharge.”

Moon sighed. “Sure. I need something to get my mind off of him.” The pair walked off into the darkness of the Outside. “We met a long time before, you know. I was shocked that he forgot me, though what you said of his disintegrating mental state makes sense-”

“I know,” Boss interrupted. “I set that up. Couldn’t have my battery die out on me. I always have to keep an eye on them, whether directly or indirectly.” With a flick of his hand, the Loggerhead warped in. C-6 stood at the helm when they walked inside, and gave a brief wave. He had absorbed some of Shtik’s energy himself, and harbored some remnant of his personality.

“Oh,” Red Moon muttered. She stared silently at the bridge’s monitors, watching universes fly by. “I was wondering...when do you start looking for a new battery?”

Boss laughed. “I’ve already have. Think about some crucial traits the old guy had. You can figure it out. You’re a smart girl.”

She sighed in exasperation. “Fine. Give me a moment.” Let’s see. Creative, not a powerhouse, comes from a universe, has the ability to cast soulfire (though obviously not recommended)...

“Wait a minute.” Her eyes widened.

Boss’s face held a Glasgow grin with too much teeth. “Don’t worry. The old boy back there just burned off a few tens of thousands of years of his life in the span of an hour. Though his body would have been perfectly fine, what his mental state would end up like after so many years of being slowly drained is debatable.” Red Moon’s jaw dropped and just stared at him.

“You got plenty of years ahead of you,” he idly commented as he opened a guitar case. Inside was a stick with a keyboard attached to the end like a key-tar. A glint of steel sliding on the ceiling went unnoticed. “Now please, forget about it.”

A box of heavy metals dropped down from the ceiling and stabbed his silvery tentacles into the back of her head. She reared up, jaw twisted into a silent scream. Memories flashed through her mind; some were kept some were locked away. She collapsed to the floor like a sack of potatoes, convulsing every so often as her head was being forcibly reordered.

“Make way for the tyrant king,” Boss cackled harshly, swiping down at his keyboard like a guitar. Black lines of garbled numbers and letters shot out of it in all directions, warping reality around him. The negative zone expanded to surround the ship. Pieces of the ship stretched while other sections got sucked into the center like a giant starburst until it warped from existence.

[Epilogue] Last Life

Last Life.

Beeeeeep!

I sighed, leaning on the car horn. Blasted idiots I thought to myself as I swerved away from the vehicle popping out of the driveway. I had just left my home, which really looks more like a large shack. It had a kitchen, a “living” room, and a bedroom with a small bathroom attached. It had been a decade since I last wrote a book, and was grumpily living off my retirement money and spending most of my days reading books or playing old video games.

Of course, I still needed food, and finally convinced myself to go for another grocery run. Money was rarely a concern whenever I went out to buy things. Partly because I almost never do. Ten percent of the things I had were sewed or patched with duct tape unless I really had to replace it. Heck, I still had a computer that was two generations behind.

Only one thing money couldn’t buy, though. Companions. I do occasionally accept invitations to parties from old friends, but really, what was I supposed to do? I just hung in the back and pretended. I was always good at that.

I shoved the unpleasant memories (I had lots of them) to the back of my mind. My throat felt a little dry, and so I accepted the cup of water from my passenger. I set it down in the cup holder and continued on. I turned into the parking lot and after a bit of help from my passenger, found a passable spot: in the middle but underneath a tree.

“Alright, now that we have some time and little chance of me freaking out and smashing into a tree,” I said, wringing my subtly shuddering hand together, “who the hell are you and how did you get in my car while it was moving?”

The passenger chuckled, his voice seemingly not using air to transmit his sounds. Recognize this? he asked, tilting the edge of his black cloak. A bit of bone poked out.

“Uh, a skeleton zombie?”

He turned his head to look at me with his dark, eyeless sockets. Seriously? Can you not recognize this cloak? Do I really need to wave a scythe in your face? He reached into his cloak, pulled out a small toothpick dispenser, pulled out and waved a two inch scythe at me.

“Ooo. A Grim Reaper.” A twiddled my thumbs awkwardly. “Any reason why you’re here or why your bones look like a horse?

Pony, he corrected automatically. There is another reason why I’m here, besides the fact that usually sightings of a skeleton usually mean death is near. Two actually.

The first reason is that this happened to be the body I took most recently. The second should be very clear once you see this...

“Hold on, hold on,” I said, holding out my hands. “Is this big? Like, mindblowingly big?”

He paused for a moment, then nodded. I guess it could be.

“Then give me half an hour, I want to buy my groceries first before I collapse of shock or something.” I stood up without giving him a chance to reply and pushed open the door. As I left, he somehow formed an amused grin. It kinda worried me.

I sat down in the car. I just dropped off the groceries in the trunk. I stared blankly out the window as for some reason, I realized that I couldn’t remember what I did in the supermarket. Receipt? Check. Food? Check. Memory of Food and Check? Strangely lacking. My passenger was grinning like a lunatic, somehow making the rows of teeth on his bare skull bend upwards.

Maybe this will help, He reached into his cloak and pulled out...my god, is it? A steel grey handle, scratched yellow paint on the barrel. An eight round belt wrapped around an octogonal rod held in place by superconducting electro-magnets. My mental voice surprised me. Now where did that... oh right. I’m the author

I sighed, pinching my nose. “Ugh. It was actually real? I made it up and started splurting it out after friends encouraged me to, but I never actually got much money from any of it.”

He shrugged. “Well, it was enough to create me.”

“I’m just gonna go home. So, your coming heralds my imminent death?”

He nodded as I started the engine and backed out of the parking lot. He glanced at a wristwatch floating an inch above his wrist. I guess it stopped it from bouncing all over the place whenever he waved that arm. “I believe you still have around 10 hours or so left. So about the rest of the day.”

“Agh,” I groaned, banging my head on the wheel before actually checking the road for cars before driving out. “Then I needn’t to have bothered buying groceries. I still have plenty of junk food to gorge on.”

My passenger looked impressed. That’s what you’re worried about? I will admit, that is one of the strangest final words I have ever heard.

“Eh, after reading so many stories about death and contemplating on it whenever I get depressed, which is quite often, I got quite used to it. I’ve been expecting it by now, I’m over 80 years old. The only thing going for me is ironically a large well of apathy, with which I roam around in life with.” I shrugged. “I’ve been told I go off on strange tangents. I guess this counts as one.”

A few minutes passed in silence. “So...I guess that means I’m the origin universe for everything?”

Not everything. he corrected. Just one multiverse. You’re not that important.

“Ah,” I paused for a moment to navigate through traffic. “Well, at least that means my death won’t kill everything.” I thought about it a little more deeply. “Still sucks though.”

He shrugged. It happens all the time. He snapped his ... hoof things. There, someone probably died. There goes a lifetime of memories, creativity, and imagination. It kinda sucks, but that’s what happens when you are unable to care about a group of people over 80 or something.

“Huh. That’s what I thought for a long time too. Never really forgot it.” I sighed. “Well, anything cool to show me?”

Let’s see. I have recordings of some of the adventures we saw-

“Ugh. Videos,” I interrupted. “I know its unjustified, but for some reason they seem to create a deadline. Like ‘oh, you can only go through three things before time’s up’. Something else, please?”

He scratched his chin. Well, how about the equipment you so generously created.

I contemplated the proposition for a moment. Definitely unique. I grinned. “Sounds like a plan.”

I spent the rest of my time dining on junk food and messing around with some of the smaller ordinances that was hanging around. I got to drive a tank out of the deal, which was really, really fun. I also got to fire a sniper rifle and several machine guns. I occasionally visited a firing range, but I could only get my hands on small arms. Obviously, there was no way in hell that I could find someone willing to let me shoot a mingun for a few seconds, seeing how its freaking expensive and the fact that there aren’t many of them in the public domain in the first place.

I will admit, some of the weapons weren’t built for the human body due to the massive recoils some of them produced.

At the end of the day, I could feel the pain of old age wrapping around me. I still exercised a little bit, but it was nothing compared to what I did in a six hour fun spree. My joints ached, my muscles burned, and my breath was lost. But it was the most fun I ever had, though ironically it was with someone who was practically myself.

Right now, I was sitting in the edge of the Everfree Forest, just watching. I thought that it would be funny, seeing how this was supposedly the “brony dream.” I just wanted it as a cool vacation spot, and he said that he could open a portal here. We sat together, just watching the sun go down and Luna’s night begin.

“How much time left?”

He checked his watch. Five minutes.

I chuckled weakly. “Heh, makes sense. I think I can feel them organs dying too...”

Another moment of silence passed between us. “Hey,” I asked. “With all of your powers and all, why can’t we just make me a new body?”

He shrugged. Well, I guess it can’t hurt to try. Nothing to lose at this point.

Black fluids swarmed my body until there was just an amorphous blob. Well, when in Equis...

The fluids elongated, then settled. After a moment, the fluid settled into the shape of an equine. The fluid retreated back into his bony hoof. In my place, there was now a dark green pegasus with unruly brown hair.

“Woah,” I muttered, raising my ....wings? I looked at my back, confused as to why my arm muscles got shifted to my back. “Well, this is awkward.” My legs were still in the back, but I now had to figure out to move more forelegs with limbs that I never used.

Hey, he called out, We’re past the time. I think it worked.

“Really? Haha, destiny! Who said you can’t fight fate?” I leaped into the air, awkwardly punching the sky with clenched wings. I fell to the ground, breathing lightly.

He chuckled with me, leaning back onto the ground. Well, that’s probably another decade at least, hmm?

“......”

He frowned. He glanced back at me and noticed that there was nothing behind me in a 180 degree circle. No.... He screamed, You cheated! into the sky, even as his body started dissolving. That was a Deus X Makkimmm His jaw fell off and melted into the ground. Trees bleed as if it was a watercolor, slowly draining out its colors into the grass until it was just an outline. Within a few minutes, the entire town was just an outline. And then the lines erased themselves.