Pyromander awoke in a daze lying on an unknown forest floor with only one thought able to make its way to the fore of his addled mind.

"Screw. Portals."

He groggily sat up and attempted to take in his surroundings. Evil looking trees, low light, giant foreboding cave. Yep, seems just about right. From his limited scan of the area one fact became abundantly clear: this was not the palace of Emperor Marcus Cole.

"Well that's the last time I listen to those egg-heads at Portal Corp." he muttered, getting to his feet. "A whole fifteen seconds and I haven't been mauled by werewolves or shot up by Freaks? This dimension just made it to my top three."

He pulled out a scanner the Portal Corp technicians had given him prior to the start of the mission and checked it to see if he could get a read on what dimension he might possibly be in.

"Fried. Of course." he grumbled as he tossed the useless scanner over his shoulder. He could practically hear the mechanical voice of Magos Chronologis chiding him. Portal technology is extremely unstable at the best of times and we have no idea what kind of defenses the palace might have in place, you really should have let the probe go first.

"Put a sock in it, nerd." Pyromander grumbled to himself, trying to shake the imaginary voice of his friend out of his head. "Well it's not like I haven't been stranded in alternate dimensions with no means of rescue before, at least there don't appear to be any hostiles."

As if on cue a titanic shadow engulfed the area accompanied by a menacing growling coming from the direction of the cave he had seen earlier. Pyromander turned to face this new threat and came face to claw with some kind of massive animal. Looking up he saw that it was some sort of massive bear whose pelt seemed to be comprised of a starlit night sky. He rated it at about a three on his weird animal scale.

"Oh bugger." he muttered. He then did the only thing that seemed sensible at the time and activated Fire Shield.

At her cottage at the edge of the Everfree Forest, Fluttershy went about her daily business of feeding and caring for the animals that called her cottage their home. She and her critters were promptly scared out of their wits when a huge explosion rocked the ground. Her curiosity temporarily overpowering her fear, she flew above the trees that marked the edge of the forest to try and see what was going on.

Another fiery explosion erupted from the forest, followed by another and then another, each consecutive explosion getting closer to her cottage. Terrified for the safety of her little critters she began warning them all away as fast as she could, flying the ones who were too sick or injured to move themselves to what she hoped was a safe distance.

Having moved the last of her animal friends she flew back to the cottage to see what was going on. The explosions had almost reached the edge of the forest and she could start to make out other sounds that went along with the fiery detonations. It sounded like roaring and... cursing?

Finally the explosions reached the edge of her clearing and the trees at the edge of the forest blew apart. Something red and on fire came rocketing out of the forest with the last blast, flying a few yards by her before skidding to a stop on the grass. She barely had time to look at what it was, though, as she saw a scorched up, yet very angry Ursa Minor claw its way out of the woods.

She rushed over to the thing that the Ursa Minor was chasing to check on its condition. She had no idea what this creature was, but it looked pretty beat up and it wasn't moving. Its head was covered by a hood and most of its face was obscured by some kind of mask, but enough of its face was visible for her to see its eyes were closed.

"Oh please wake up, we have to go, it's really not safe here!" Fluttershy cried urgently. She tried to shake him awake but to no avail. Looking behind her she saw the Ursa Minor slowly making its way towards them.

Desperate, she put her front legs under its arms and tried to fly it away, but the creature was far too heavy. Terrified and on the verge of tears, she was almost desperate enough to leave the creature to its fate and save herself. But she just couldn't bring herself to let anything come to any harm if she could still do something about it.

The Ursa Minor was barely thirty yards away when the strange creature was enveloped by a green light and lifted bodily into the air, seeming to regain consciousness as the light lowered it to the ground. As it landed its eyes snapped open and fire engulfed it, making Fluttershy scream in terror and fly into the air.

The blazing aura around the creature began to emit pulses of fire in all directions and the ground beneath its feat seemed to boil into lava. It stared down the Ursa Minor, not seeming to notice Fluttershy, and began to slowly walk towards it.

"You asked for it buddy, I didn't wanna have to do this, but it's on now!"

It braced itself and held its hands together in front of its chest.

"Pyronic Core..."

What appeared to be a miniature sun began to form between the creature's hands and the fiery aura around it intensified.

"FINAL JUDGEMENT!" roared the creature, thrusting its hand towards the giant bear.

The fireball flew towards the Ursa Minor like the fiery fist of an angry god and detonated upon impact. The shockwave caused by the explosion sent Fluttershy flying nearly a hundred yards through the air. When she managed to regain control of her flight she saw the creature standing victorious amid the flames for a brief moment before collapsing on the grass.

Pyromander stood long enough to see the smoldering form of the crazy space bear fly through the sky back into the forest far away. Satisfied that his work was done he dropped to his knees and the fell face first into the grass.

"Thank god I still had that wakie." he murmured into the ground.

After a few minutes of just lying there he heard what sounded like the soft clopping of hooves upon grass.

"Um, excuse me sir? Are you okay?"

Pyromander turned his head towards the voice and found himself facing the concerned eyes of a small, yellow, winged pony. That apparently talked. Wonderful.

"Take my advice," he said weakly, "never use portals." He then finally allowed unconsciousness to overtake him.

Pyromander lay barely awake in his bed, valiantly trying to forget his dreams of space bears and talking ponies. He really needed to stop getting into close combat with those tank Freaks, he was a Blaster, damnit, not some brutish Scrapper. Dimly he remembered that he had a mission to Praetoria later that day with his team. He groaned and pulled back the covers and sat on the edge of his bed for a while, trying to build up the willpower to finally open his eyes.

Finally managing to pry his eyes open long enough to look at the floor, he was surprised to see that his robes and armor plates were all laid out on the floor next to the bed. Must have been a rougher night than he remembered, usually he was better about keeping his costume hidden away. He was glad he didn't share an apartment with Charcarodon anymore, the Brute would have some real words for him if he caught him just leaving his costume all over the floor.

"Charcarodon..." he mused, "where did we go wrong with you?"

Looking down further he noticed he was only in his boxers instead of his normal pajama pants. "Did I bring someone home last night? Oh god, please tell me I didn't bring Flambeaux home again, I really don't wanna move again."

He frantically searched the bed for any sign of company, and then noticed that it wasn't his bed. Nor was it his room.

"Did I go home with her this time? Would that even be better...?"

Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of hooves coming down the hallway. The door cracked open and as a yellow muzzle appeared in the doorway, followed by two big blue eyes and a pink mane.

"Hello, are you awake? I thought I heard noise." spoke the pony in a quite voice.

"Aw no." Pyromander said, staring at the pony. "That was all real, wasn't it?"

"You mean the Ursa Minor? Yes, I'm afraid that really happened. You took quite a beating out there, you really should stay in bed and rest."

"I've had worse." he grumbled, getting out of bed. "Did you take off my costume?"

"Oh, um, yes. You were much too heavy to move with it on." the yellow pony said with a slight blush.

"Jeez, don't you think you're taking it a little fast? I mean we only just met," he said.

The pony's face turned completely red. "N-n-no! N-nothing like th-that! I-it was just easier to-"

Pyromander interrupted her with a burst of laughter. "Calm down, I'm only pullin' your leg. Though I must say it's a little strange to be waking up in a girl's bed without even knowing her name."

"I-I'm Fluttershy." the yellow pony stuttered out. "What's your name?"

"I'm-" Pyromander paused here, should he give his real name? Would it even matter? Charcarodon would have told him to be safe and use his hero name. "Pyromander, but my friends just call me Pyro."

"I-it's nice to meet you Mr. Pyro." Fluttershy said, face still red. "So where are you from? I've never seen anything like you before."

"I'm a human from a dimension called Primal Earth, you seem to be reacting very well for someone who's just had an alien explode into their lap."

"Well it was pretty terrifying, but you seem like you're nice. And you also seem to be taking this all rather well."

Pyromander began to slip his robe back on. "Well, space bears aside, this is easily the nicest dimension I've been to thus far. Pony Dimension is so much nicer than Werewolf Dimension, I swear if I ever see another dumpster again it'll be too soon."

"W-werewolf Dimension?! Oh dear, that sounds absolutely horrible!" Fluttershy squeaked out.

"Oh my, yes," Pyromander agreed as he began attaching his armor plates. "It was an alternate future of my world after it had been destroyed by werewolves."

"What did you do there?" the pony asked.

Pyromander affixed his cloak. "I killed them."

"K-killed... them?" the thought seemed to unsettle the pony.

He idly slid into his greaves. "Mhm, thousands of them. Nasty things, werewolves. Mindless killing machines, god forbid they find a way to travel to Primal Earth."

"Um, could we talk about something else...?" she asked quietly.

"Of course." Pyromander said, pulling on his gauntlets. "If it's at all possible, could you direct me to your foremost authority on portal technology... or magic? Either one works really, I'm not picky."

"Um, my friend, Twilight Sparkle, knows the most about magic, we could check with her."

Pyromander slid his pauldrons on and, with a click, activated the holoprojectors on his costume causing holographic sigils to appear over his armor pieces. "Can we go visit her now?" he asked

"But you're hurt, after all that you really should just stay in bed, I can go get Twilight for you."

"No need, I'll be fine. Like I told you, I'm used to far worse than that." he contemplated his hood and mask, but decided to do without them. The two walked downstairs and out the front door, Fluttershy saying goodbye to a white bunny before they departed.

"If it's alright with you I'd like to be as discrete as possible about my presence here." began Pyromander. "If your reaction is anything to go by, I take it humans aren't a very common sight here and I'd like to cause as little excitement as possible. I don't want to cause a panic or anything."

"That's probably for the best." Fluttershy agreed.

"You have wings, does that mean you can fly?" Pyromander asked.

"Yes, but I'm not very fast." she said.

"That's fine," Pyromander chuckled as he lifted up into the air, "neither am I."

"You can fly?" Fluttershy gasped, "But you don't have any wings!"

"I'm a super hero, ma'am, what do you expect?" he said with a laugh.

Far above Froggy Bottom Bog, Rainbow Dash flew through the air without a care in the world. She performed corkscrews and dives, summersaults and loops, just about anything that crossed her mind.

"I knew coming here was a good idea." she said, blasting through a cloud. "Don't want anypony seeing any of these sweet new moves before I'm ready to show 'em off."

She flew around for a little while longer, blowing clouds apart in dazzling rainbow bursts. However she was soon interrupted by a sound she couldn't identify.

"What the hay is that?" she wondered aloud, straining to hear.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

"Is that... screami- OOF!" The air was knocked out of the pegasus as something very heavy collided with her in the air. She wasn't too far up so she hit the ground fairly quickly and, though the impact was lessened by the soft marshland, the weight on her back drove the remaining air out of her lungs and knocked her into unconsciousness.

"Ugh," groaned Felfire Caster, pulling himself out of the mud. He got shakily to his feet and looked around at the bog he now found himself in. "Well, either Tyrant's done some remodeling or those Mu idiots sent me to the wrong dimension."

He cracked his back and was about to set off when he was suddenly startled by a groan. Looking around for the source, his gaze finally alighted on the small crater he'd made when he impacted the ground, at the bottom he saw a blue... something lying in the mud.

"Oh jeez, did I land on something?" he muttered. He bent down to get a closer look at whatever it was he'd landed on. Upon closer inspection it looked almost like a...

"Pony? I landed on a pony? Where the hell did those stupid cultists send me to? Oh man, this thing is friggin' adorable."

The pony shifted and muttered something that sounded like 'Wonderbolts' in its sleep.

"Holy crap, it can talk?" he said, picking the pony up. "Wow, this thing's a lot lighter than it looks."

Looking it over, he saw that it had wings too, though it didn't really surprise him, not much did these days. This rated very low on his weirdness scale, but it scored a perfect ten on his adorableness scale.

"So do I leave this thing here or what?" he wondered aloud, looking around. "Well it's light, I guess I could carry it till it wakes up. This thing's just too bloody adorable to leave all alone out here."

Cradling the pony like a baby, Felfire Caster set off completely at random, hoping to come across some kind of town. To fill the silence of the long walk he began to converse with the unconscious pony.

"You sure are lucky that it was me that got tossed through that portal, I absolutely adore ponies. If it was Vengeful Dead, though, you'd probably be a zombie by this point. Don't get me wrong, it's not like he hates ponies, well actually I don't really know his opinion on ponies, but that's beside the point, zombifying things is just kinda what he does."

He rambled on in this fashion for about an hour, talking all about his friends back in the Rogue Isles, but eventually he began to suspect that he was going in circles. His suspicions were confirmed when he came across the small crater he made when he and the pony hit the ground. However he was spared the tedium of picking another direction at random when the pony in his arms began to stir.

"Ugh, what the hay hit me?" it said, rubbing its head.

"Um, that would be me," Felfire Caster said. "My bad."

The pony finally took notice of him and yelled in surprise, jumping out of his arms and flying a safe distance away.

"What in Equestria are you?!" it shouted.

"Nice to meet you too." he said. "I'm a human."

"What's a human?" the pony asked.

"I am." he replied.

"Are all humans so, uh, scary looking?" it asked hesitantly.

"What?" Felfire Caster said, confused. "Oh! No no, this is just my mask."

"Why are you wearing a mask?" the flying pony asked, its curiosity starting to overpower its nervousness.

"Why not? This thing is friggin' sweet. Look me in the eye and tell me it's not cool."

The pony seemed to be warming up to him by this point, it flew over to him and inspected his mask. "That actually is pretty cool. Way cooler than any other mask I've seen."

"Thanks, I like to think I've got the coolest costume out of my friends." he said.

"Your friends wear costumes too?" asked the pony.

"That they do, I'll tell you all about it if you can show me to some kind of town. I've been wandering around with you for about an hour and haven't come across anything."

"Yeah, heading back to town's probably a good idea, it's starting to get late and I really don't wanna run into the hydra again." it said.

"Oh please!" Felfire Caster scoffed. "I can handle a few piles of goo, Hydra ain't got nothin' on me."

"Piles of goo? That doesn't really sound like a hydra." the pony said skeptically.

"Oh? Well then what do Hydra in this dimension look like?" he asked. He didn't have to wait long, however. A loud, ominous thumping signaled the answer to his question.

"That!" the horrified pony yelled, pointing behind him.

Felfire Caster turned around to face whatever it was that made the pony so scared. It had nearly a dozen heads perched atop long, snake-like necks all connected to a stubby body with two legs and a short tail.

Felfire Caster laughed as he saw it. "Oh! It's a legit hydra, not those little piles of goo from my dimension. Well this certainly is horrifying."

"Run!" the blue pony yelled, flying away as fast as it could. Felfire Caster, however, just scoffed and stood his ground as the hydra stalked towards him.

"At last, a challenge worthy of me!" he cried, his body erupting in emerald fire. He brought his hands together and took a wide stance. "Pyronic Core..."

Rainbow Dash flew as fast as she could away from Froggy Bottom Bog and, more importantly, the hydra. That thing had almost got her and-

"Oh no, the human!" she yelled. "I left that thing back there all by itself with the hydra! Oh man, some Element of Loyalty I am."

She veered around and flew back to the bog, hoping against hope that the human was still okay. As she got close she was nearly blinded by a brilliant green blast that came from where she'd left the human.

"Oh no oh no oh no!" Rainbow Dash yelled as she saw the blast. When she got close she saw the human standing right where she'd left him. The bog was dried up for nearly fifty yards in every direction around him and green fires flickered all over the area, even the human was wreathed in it. Of the hydra, there was no sign.

"Um, Mr. Human?" Rainbow called out as she got close to him. "Are you alright?"

"Hey pony, where'd you go? You missed out on some sweet action!" he said, enthusiastically.

"I... what? That was a hydra! What'd you do to it?" she asked, dumbfounded.

"I kicked its ass is what I did! Man, that thing was weak, one Judgment just did it right in."

"How'd you do that? Are you like a super hero or something?" she asked.

The human laughed. "A super hero? Oh man, that's a good one. No, I'm actually a v-"

The human was interrupted as he disappeared head and shoulders into the mouth of a hydra head that burst out of the ground.

"Oh my gosh!" Rainbow yelled, watching in terror as the hydra began to pull its body out of the baked earth. Its body was scorched and battered after whatever the human had done to it and most of its heads hung limp on its body, unconscious. As the beast pulled itself the rest of the way out of the ground, the head that held the human tossed him up in the air and swallowed him whole as he came down.

Rainbow Dash sat frozen in terror, feeling her eyes start to water up after what she'd seen. It wasn't like they were great friends or anything, but she'd never seen anypony die before. When the hydra finally turned its attention to her she couldn't even muster up the strength to fly away.

"Come on wings!" she whispered loudly to herself. "Fly! Come on! I have to get out of here!"

No matter how hard she tried her wings stayed frozen on her back, she was completely paralyzed in fear. The hydra began to limp towards her.

"Please! Please fly! Oh Celestia I don't wanna die!" she whispered, tearing up, her voice bordering on hysteric.

The hydra stopped as it reached her, eyeing her up like the snack it saw her as. As it made to snap her up too, it stopped as a loud rumbling came from its stomach. The rumbling intensified and suddenly the hydra's body inflated like a balloon. Rainbow Dash watched in awe as it reared back its heads and green fire shot out of each of its mouths, followed by the human flying out of the mouth that swallowed him.

The human flipped over in the air, coming down to land on his feet right next to Rainbow. "How'd ya like them apples?" he said, placing his hands on his hips dramatically as the hydra collapsed behind him.

Rainbow Dash could do nothing but stare at him, mouth agape, left totally speechless by what she'd just seen.

"Yeah, I have that effect on the ladies," he laughed. "So let's get outta here, yeah?"

"That. Was. AWESOME!" Rainbow yelled, finally snapping out of her stupor. "That was like the coolest thing I've ever seen! You kicked the crud out of that hydra! And you saved my life too, oh man you're the best!"

"Hey, don't worry about it, I'm happy to help. You're like the cutest thing I've ever seen, no way I'm gonna let a hydra eat you." he said.

"Eeeeeeee!" Rainbow Dash squealed. 'Oh my gosh he thinks I'm cute!' she thought, totally misunderstanding him.

"So what's your name, anyways?" the human asked.

"I'm Rainbow Dash, fastest flier in Equestria!" she said proudly.

"Nice to meet you, Dash, I'm Felfire Caster." he said, kneeling down to shake her hoof.

"Oh man, your name is so cool!" Rainbow gushed.

"So is there a town nearby or something?" Felfire Caster asked.

"Yeah, Ponyville is really close." she replied.

"Is there anyone there who knows anything about portal magic? I need to figure out how to get back to my own dimension." he explained.

"Sure, my friend Twilight Sparkle knows everything there is to know about magic. Want me to take you to her?"

"Sounds good, lead the way." he said. Still beaming, Rainbow Dash took the lead and trotted off towards home.

"Hey, you've got wings right? Why not fly there?" asked Felfire Caster.

"Well I just figured I'd walk so you could keep up." she said as though it were obvious.

"Ah, well, I just thought that since you were the fastest flier in... Equestria was it? That maybe you'd wanna race there." he said.

"Well it doesn't seem like it'd be fair if you... were... walking..." she trailed off as Felfire Caster lifted off the ground. Her eyes widened as she stared in awe at her new idol.

"Fastest flier in Equestria, meet the fastest flier in the Rogue Isles." he said, smirking beneath his mask.
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