"Aquila Ignis, by the Omnissiah, I command you to respond."

"Suggestion: I am otherwise engaged at the moment, master. Perhaps you could try back another time."

"Engaged? I told you not to attack anything, you disobeyed my orders?"

"Clarification: You ordered me not to attack unless the target was hostile, master. This target is indeed hostile. So hostile, in fact, that I find myself unable to return to your scouting mission until the matter has been dealt with."

"What could possibly be giving you so much trouble?"

"Identification: Anathema."

Magos Chronologis stopped in his tracks at the mention of the Lich.

"So Vengeful Dead is here then." he said to himself. "Continue engaging the Lich. But if the conflict lasts any longer than ten more minutes, disengage and return to me. We can't risk drawing too much attention to ourselves, we don't know if this dimension is hostile or not."

"Verification: Your instructions have been received and understood, master. Now if you would kindly leave me to my business, I would be very appreciative."

Magos Chronologis killed the vox link to his Assault Bot and continued on his journey through the forest. Oh how he hated the forest, he felt so much more at home surrounded by the soaring spires of Steel Canyon or roaming the endless freeways of Skyway City. Even the decrepit ghettos of Kings Row would be preferable to this endless maze of life.

He'd been assailed by hostile wildlife ever since waking up from the portal mishap. It wasn't exactly hard to get away, escape was never truly hard when time itself was your plaything. But even he had his limits and somewhere between the third manticore and the fourth pack of wooden wolves his strength had begun to flag. He'd even needed to summon Aquila Ignis to take some of the stress off of the constant attacks. And now Vengeful Dead was here, wonderful.

"Could this day get any worse?" he sighed.

The answer to his question came in the form of a titanic animal falling out of the sky and nearly crushing him.

"By the Omnissiah's brass ball bearings!" he cried in shock. He had to stop himself from reflexively teleporting as far away as possible, after all he didn't want to end up stuck inside a tree. Regaining his composure, he moved closer to inspect the creature.

"What in the world...?" he muttered as he looked it over. It was some kind of giant bear whose pelt was a perfect map of the night sky. But what drew his attention more than anything else were the scorch marks across its body.

"Well, commander, it looks like you've been busy," the tech-priest laughed. His bionic eyes confirmed what he had suspected, the bear had indeed been a victim of his commander's Judgment.

"Boy, you must have put up some kind of fight." he said with a whistle. "Pyromander's not one to idly throw his Incarnate powers around."

At his words one of the monster's eyes opened and glared directly at him. He felt the blood freeze in his veins at the gaze. Slowly, the creature began to stir.

"Oh no you don't!" the Magos yelled. He held his hand out and his Nemesis Staff materialized in it. In a move very unlike the Mastermind, he charged the creature and brought the cog staff down on the creature's head in a powerful two handed swing. A bolt of concussive force erupted from the staff as it impacted the creature and sent it back into unconsciousness.

"Back to dream land with you, Mr. Bear." he said. He then surrounded the unconscious bear with a bubble of slowed time, ensuring it would stay that way until he was good and far away from it. Instead of returning his Nemesis Staff to the tesseract he normally stored it in he opted to keep it out for protection. Also he just liked the whirring noise it made.

Tracing the skid mark the bear made as it impacted the ground, he determined the direction it came from and set off towards his new destination with all haste. Hopefully he would be able to reunite with Pyromander and Brother-Captain. But if he ran into the villains first he'd just have to make due.

"As long as it's not Vengeful Dead, I really don't care." he said to himself.

As he set off he checked his chrono; it had been seven minutes since he last spoke to Aquila Ignis, he should be returning soon.

As he walked he heard a rustling coming from a nearby bush. When he paused to look at it a chicken popped its head out of it.

"What?" he deadpanned. He was by no means an expert in ecology, but he was fairly sure chickens did not wander dark, foreboding forests.

The chicken jumped out of the bush, revealing that it was not at all a chicken. It may have had the head of one, but it had the body and wings of some kind of serpent. The creature jumped in front of him, rearing up on its long tail, and looked him right in the eyes.

Magos Chronologis cocked his head at the odd display, briefly wondering what the creature was up to. He absently remembered a book he once read about mythological creatures, specifically an entry about just such a creature. What was it they did again?

The odd chicken-lizard stared at him with all its might and he idly hoped it didn't burst a blood vessel from looking at him too hard. Suddenly it clicked; these things could turn people to stone by looking them in the eyes. He laughed at the sudden realization.

"Sorry, buddy." he said to the cockatrice, tapping his lenses. "Bionic eyes, this isn't your lucky day."

The cockatrice slumped to the ground with a look of exasperation upon its features.

"But if that's how you wanna play..." his hand shot forward and reality rippled around the creature. It looked around in confusion and panic, its actions gradually slowing until it stopped moving altogether.

"Don't play the game if you don't wanna lose." he said, happily strolling past the frozen creature.

He checked his chrono again, the ordeal with the cockatrice had taken all of two minutes, leaving one more minute before his Assault Bot finished its play date with Anathema.

He strolled casually along, whistling a merry tune, as two more of the stick wolves burst out of the bushes to his left and leapt. With a wave of his hand the wolves froze in mid air. Continuing to whistle and without breaking stride, he walked around to maneuver the wolves in mid air and strolled away when he finished positioning them. Still whistling, he snapped his fingers and the sound of the two behemoth wolves colliding in the air echoed throughout the vicinity. He really loved these powers sometimes.

Finally the sound of thrusters he had been awaiting interrupted his thoughts. Looking up, he saw the form of Aquila Ignis descending from the sky on its booster rockets. The mech landed before him and he inspected its chassis. It was covered head to foot in scratches, dents, stains, and burns.

Magos Chronologis sighed to himself; it was going to take ages to hammer the dents out of him this time.

"Report. How did you fare against Vengeful Dead's henchman?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Statement: It was a stalemate, master. Just like it was the last time."

"And the time before that and the time before that," the Magos chuckled.

"Aside: I'd like to see you do any better, meat-bag."

"It's not an aside if I can hear it, you know." he deadpanned.

"Rebuttal: I didn't say anything, master."

"Yes you did, I just heard you say it. And you called me a meat-bag again."

"Hypothesis: Oh heavens no, master. With the constant sound of blood spewing through your weak, frail body, this is clearly a hearing difficulty on your part. I'm surprised you can hear anything, meat-bag!"

"There you go again! Stop that!"

"Rebuttal: Clearly this is still due to faulty hearing. As my need to repeat this information merely proves."

Magos Chronologis sighed. "Did you at least see anything from the air?"

"Answer: I did, master, there is a town not far from here. I'll transfer the layout I scanned to you immediately, master."

"Thanks." he said as he received the data from the robot.

"Continuation: I also managed to get a look at the town's inhabitants, master."

"And?"

"Hesitant Answer: Well, master. I believe that the town is populated by what look to be small, colorful ponies."

Magos looked up at the robot. "Are you lying to me?"

"Appeasement: Lying? To you? I wouldn't dream of it, meat-bag."

"Of course. Now if that's all I'd like you to rejoin the rest of the henchmen."

"Statement: Of course, master. I'll leave you to your ponies. Though I would advise discretion when dealing with these creatures, best not to cause a riot."

Magos watched as Aqila Ignis activated his booster rockets and took off into the sky, teleporting back to the tesseract that the other robots were in once he broke the through the tree tops.

As much as he hated to admit it, the robot did make sense. It would make his mission a lot harder if the entire population was rioting. Reviewing pictures and recordings Aquila Ignis took of the town, it seemed apparent that magic existed in this dimension. He also noticed a public library at one end of the town. A plan began to form in his mind.

It was a rather simplistic plan, but he was sure it would work. He would turn himself invisible, go to the library, tell them he was a pony who's invisibility spell had backfired, and ask to look through their books to try and find a solution. In the meantime he would be free to peruse the books for any information they might have about interdimensional travel. What could go wrong?

Wondering why he kept thinking that, he activated his cloaking device and headed off into town.

"Spike?" Twilight called. "Spiiiiiike? Where are you?"

Twilight Sparkle trotted down the stairs of her home into the main room of her library, giving the various piles of books a once over before rolling her eyes.

"Come on Spike, quit playing around, we really need to clean up the library." she persisted.

She heard a muffled voice accompanied by the sound of shuffling books. Looking around she happened upon a small purple claw poking out of a book pile and waving frantically. Sighing, she trotted over to the pile while using her telekinesis to pull her assistant out from under the mountain of literature. Spike gasped dramatically as his head emerged from the books.

"Thank Celestia you found me!" he cried. "I was trying to clean up and a stack of books collapsed on top of me, I must have been under there for half an hour!"

"Then you should be plenty rested for the cleanup we're going to have to do." Twilight said, earning a groan from the baby dragon.

"But Twilight-" he began to whine.

"No buts Spike, some of the girls are going to be coming over later and I don't want them to walk into a disaster. Everything has to be perfect."

Spike groaned but knew better than to argue and soon went about picking up books from the pile. Unfortunately for Spike a loud knocking on the door sent books tumbling off the precariously balanced pile, burying him yet again.

"Oh no, they're early!" Twilight panicked, heading for the door. "Spike, try and clean up while I stall!"

The only response to her order was a half-hearted groan from Spike's pile. Realizing the hopelessness of her situation, Twilight resigned to simply ask for more time. She opened the front door to find that it was not, in fact, one of her friends. There wasn't anypony there at all.

"Um, hello?" she said, looking around.

"Oh, yes, hello." said a disembodied voice, confusing Twilight even more.

"Alright, what's going on?" Twilight demanded.

"Oh, sorry. Well, you see, I was working on an invisibility spell and it backfired. So now I'm stuck like this and I was wondering if I could perhaps look through some books to see if maybe I could find a solution."

Twilight took a second to think it over. This certainly wasn't the strangest thing she'd ever heard.

"Sure, come on in." she said. "Just be careful, the library's a little bit messy."

"Oh that's quite alright." the voice said. Twilight heard the pony stumble in through the door, knocking into the frame as it did.

"Ah, bugger! Sorry, being invisible takes a bit of getting used to."

"Don't worry about it. So what's your name? I didn't think there was anypony else in town who could cast spells like that."

"M-my name? Y-yes, my name. It's M-Magos. Magos Chronologis." the voice replied, hesitantly.

Twilight frowned. "Is that another language? I've never heard of it before."

"Yes, it's High Gothic. It means Time Mage." replied her visitor.

"Well I'm Twilight Sparkle, it's nice to meet you." she said. "Wait, Time Mage? Would you happen to be a friend of The Doctor's?" she asked, excited.

"Doctor who?" he asked.

"No, not 'Who,' 'Whooves.' Doctor Whooves." she corrected him. "He owns the watch store in town with that antique blue police box outside it. Though sometimes it's not there."

There was a brief pause. "Would he happen to be a time traveler?"

"What?" Twilight asked, confused.

"Nothing at all, forget I said anything."

"Alright... Well help yourself to the books, just be careful of the piles. If you need any help just ask."

"Will do, Miss Sparkle. Thanks again."

"It's no problem." she replied. "Now where were we, Spike?"

'By the Omnissiah!' thought the Magos as he rifled through a pile of books. 'Blue police box? There's no way this is a coincidence. I don't care how many War Walkers Tyrant has up his sleeve, I'm not leaving this dimension without talking to this pony.'

He pulled out books at random and tossed them into another pile as each one proved useless.

'Equestrian Tax Code? Nope. The Princess of the Sun? Nope. The Ninth Canticle of... What? Oh dear, better not let Brother-Captain see this. Basic Portal Magic and Interdimensional Travel for Fillies? That's... very specific.'

He picked the book up and began reading. Unfortunately, much of it was gibberish to him, he was a man of science and technology, he couldn't do anything with this arcane nonsense! As he stared angrily at the book before him another knock sounded at the door.

"Coming!" called the pony named Twilight. He heard the door open.

"Hi Fluttershy!" the pony greeted the new arrival. "Um, I know you guys were supposed to come over today, but would it be alright if you came back later? The library's a horrible mess and I can't stand having a messy house when my friends are over."

"Oh, that's alright, I wouldn't want to be a both-" Fluttershy stopped mid-sentence and Magos saw her look up at something out of sight above the door. "Um, I mean, this is actually kind of urgent. There's a problem and you're the only pony I could think of to ask for help."

"Well I could never turn you away, Fluttershy. Come on in and make yourself at home."

Magos became nervous as the yellow pony walked inside, he wanted to be around as few ponies as possible right now. He didn't want knowledge of his presence to get any further than this library. He listened intently to the ponies as they talked.

"So Fluttershy, what was it you needed help with?" the unicorn questioned.

"Well, Twilight, I was wondering if you knew anything about... um, portals?" the pegasus said, blushing. Magos's attention was instantly piqued.

"Uh, portals?" Twilight repeated. "That's... kind of an odd request."

"Oh, well, you see it's not for me. It's for a, um... friend of mine." the yellow pegasus stammered out.

"Really? Do I know them?" Twilight pressed.

"Um, I doubt it. He's new here." the one called Fluttershy responded

"Really? What's his name? I've got a unicorn in here right now who's pretty new in town as well. He's got this really foreign name that means Time Mage or something."

Magos cursed the talkativeness of the unicorn.

"Well he says his name's Pyromander." the pegasus replied.

That certainly got the tech-priest's attention.

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