He was still nursing the burns as he limped through the frozen wastes. He still thought back to his fiery descent from the Crystal Empire's great rocket. So many things went wrong during the operation. It was such a simple plot. Go in, get the Crystal Heart, get out without causing a ruckus, yet he still managed to muck it up. Now that Gogurt thought back to it, he was strangely complacent with aiding a villain in the takeover of a peaceful nation.

Peaceful, sure. That's not what the painful magic currents still arcing through his body said.

Gogurt attempted to peer through the clawing, blinding blizzards to find some place of respite for his wounded body. He put a hand to his side and felt the sticky dampness of blood oozing from an open wound; a piece hard plastic from the rocket had gotten lodged below his ribs. The fall had not been kind to him. Most of his ribs were either bruised or broken, he was pierced on his left side, and he was certain a bone in his leg had fractured. The only parts working were his arms, left leg, and mental health, but now even he was starting to doubt the wellness of it.

Upon snowy impact, Gogurt had fallen unconscious for possibly days, and encountered a strange dream. Visions of shifting cities bearing impossible shapes, incoherent cries of insanity, majestic alicorns entering battle, the whispering book... none of it made any sense to him at all. What also made no sense was how he survived the cold while he was knocked out. Probably something to do with the book, but it would not be out of love or compassion, only for the sick pleasure of putting him through more and more misfortune.

None of that changed the fact that he failed. He failed the mission, his friends would pay the price, and he would die in some foreign, icy Hell away from all of his friends and family.

Friends and family...

Gogurt never had a single moment to think of them. He had been too busy running, hiding, doing some queen's work, and becoming a flaming meteor due to some fireworks. Now that he could think about his former life, he realized how much he missed it all. He missed home. He wanted to go home. He was tired of all this, he wanted to go back home... home, where ponies were butt-ugly and didn't talk, back where everything made sense.

Oh? A tear? It appears the memories of home have brought some moisture to Gogurt's eyes.

Gogurt stops his march through the snow once more to search for any shelter. As luck would have it, he spotted a dark opening in the elevated ground about twenty feet away. The opening wasn't large, but it had more than enough space to provide a bulwark against the whipping winds.

The weary human quickly trudged against the blasting colds to reach the shelter. He collapsed onto the rocky floor and immediately felt relief from the incredibly low temperatures. He actually felt... warm.

The warmth seemed to emanate from the back of the grotto. Gogurt shifted his body to the heat's direction. To his surprise, he saw that the heat had been pouring from a round hole in the caves's wall. It wasn't too small, just large enough for Gogurt to crawl through. The wise decision would have been to dismiss it at as a simple hole and sleep in the peculiar warmth, and that was what he decided to do.

Gogurt turned away, lied on his back and closed his eyes to receive some much needed rest. Of course, the hole now gnawed at his mind. Why would there be a small hole blasting heat in such a small cave? Where did the hole lead to? Would venturing down the hole only prove to find some molten lake, home to a gruesome beast of fire?

The curiousness was too much. He promptly rose and crept towards the hole. What would it matter if he found something that hungered for his flesh? He would just fall to another evil in the frozen wild anyways.

Gogurt grits his teeth and begins his crawl through the opening... "Down the rabbit hole I go."

... before he slips and slides into a steamy, bumpy tunnel.

He grunts and groans as he tumbles down the slick shaft to who knows where. The human would have cursed aloud but found no point. Gogurt had simply given up! Whatever darkness the hole carried him to was welcomed. Why not? Why not be torn to pieces by some hideous monster? What did it matter?

Finally, the slippery tunnel ends its course. Gogurt flies out of the tunnel and enters a vast cavern, nearly as gargantuan as the one he had encountered the dragon in. The main difference was that it deposited him through the top of the ceiling, meaning the ground would shatter every bone in his body.

Except that he landed in a delightfully heated pool of water.

Gogurt's falling form results in an eruption of steaming liquid. It was good fortune that the subterranean pool was quite deep, preventing his excruciatingly painful death. He swiftly swims to the surface of the pool for a gasp of precious oxygen. Gogurt eyes the edge of the lake and paddles for the dry ground.

Gogurt drags himself ashore and flops against the muddy ground, sucking in huge breaths as his body remembers that it is horribly injured. Gogurt sits up and takes stock of his surroundings.

The cavern was a beautiful, hidden oasis. Various, thriving species of vegetation sprouted around the shallows. Fat, juicy, and strange kinds of fruits hung off of vines and vividly colored flowers. The steaming water itself was a light tint of a lovely, luminescent, rose color that provided lighting for the cave. Hopefully the luminescence was just magic and not some horribly deadly radiation that would end his existence from the exposure.

Gogurt absorbs the cave's lush radiance with a raised eyebrow and a frown. Then that frown gave way, "Heh... heheheh.. HA.... HAHA-HA-HA! HAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!" to a mad cackle signalling his possible lunacy. "Of aaaaaaaall the Hells to destroy me, it's this!"

Gogurt sweeps his arms in a wide berth, "C'mon out! Poison me, eat me, kill me, END ME! Show me the daaaaaark boogieman hiding in this paradise! Where are ya?!"

"GRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!"

The lake explodes as an enormous white geist rushes from the depths and lands opposite the ludicrous human. The abstract whiteness takes the form of a fearsome, scaled dragon head and prepares to unleash another bestial roar, but what comes is a pained fit of coughing. The giant head collapses on itself and assumes a large shape of an angry, white wolf.

"WHAT INSIGNIFICANT BEING DARES TO INTRUDE ON MY GROTTO?!?!"

The human smiles and raises a trembling hand, "Hey, I sorta fell in here. You can just call me Gogurt. So, how are you going to kill me today?"

The wolf snarls and looms over Gogurt as strange, plated scales began to form over its body, "FIRST, I will fill your body with frozen daggers. THEN, I will flay you alive, and FINALLY, I WILL CONSU—kragh, agh!" the wolf turns away to engage in another bout of throaty wheezing.

Gogurt frowns and tilts his head to the size, "You alright, bro?"

The beast growls and gives the question an evil-eye, "ARGH...!... what's the point." his plated scales disappear as the wolf hangs his head low, and wades back into the lake. "I don't even have enough power left to take down so much as a rabbit!"

The perplexed human watches the glum wolf lazily paddle in the heated waters, "Okay, now I'm curious. Who and what the Hell are you?"

The wolf snorts, sending a spray of steam Gogurt's way, "Why should I tell you?"

"You have anything better to do? Because it looks like you're about to off yourself."

The wolf's ear twitches at Gogurt's bluntness, before he splashes ashore, "Aye... there isn't much to do in this prison."

Gogurt notices the way the wolf spits as he says, 'prison', "Prison? How? Look at this place, it's awesome!"

The wolf grunts, "I say prison because..." he turns, opens his mouth, and snaps at the air above his neck. The wolf's teeth clashes against the sudden appearance of a taut, spectral chain bound to his neck. "I cannot leave this grotto, and I haven't in something beyond a millenia... ugh, how I languish in this rose-colored cell."

Gogurt leans over and attempts to touch the wolf. His hands simply pass through with a chilled feeling upon entering, "Still haven't answered my question."

"Hasty, mortal?" the wolf cackles to stifle a cough. The strange specter lies down next to Gogurt, "I have been given many names and titles in my years on this plane. Since my true name would be quite impossible to pronounce in your tongue, I will give you the name I am partial to. They call me Fenrir."

"Fenrir? Okay, makes sense, 'cause you're a wolf." the human ponders the name, remembering that the title held roots in Norse mythology.

"Actually favored my true form is of a single-horned drake... but I used this wolf shape because it's a good bit easier to travel silently this way." Fenrir's volume increases as he gets into the story, "I ruled this frozen waste for eons past, only letting the most enduring of lifeforms survive. Only the strongest survive in my domain! That is the ultimate standard! I am the incarnation of ice itself, not like those inferior, weakling-Windigos!"

"And why are you chained to some heated pool below the ground?"

Fenrir flinches and slumps, "Agh, that... well, like I stated, I am ice's incarnation. Fenrir, the terrible tyrant who reins over the harsh colds..! And, as cold does, it spread. My domain's power grew, and grew, expanding influence over the land they now call Equestria... those new ponies didn't take to that too well."

Gogurt smirks, "Lemme guess... some pretty-Princesses got involved?"

Fenrir growls, "Yes... those ponies informed the new Princesses of my harsh wastelands and the dangers it would cause to their lives."

"Did you want that 'danger' to happen?"

"If it did, it did. My ice is absolute. If you can't survive, you die, it is life. Then they had the audacity to oppose the rule, by actually trying to slay me."

"I suppose that didn't much to harm you?" Gogurt suggests.

Fenrir shakes his head, "No, but they murdered my young in my sleep."

The human instantly blanches, "Uh..."

"From that point on, I devoted my existence to razing their settlements. They committed the ultimate crime, and now they must pay the price. Then the Princesses arrived, and demanded that I cease. Of course, I paid no heed to their decrees. Who are they to order me in my doman..?...yet, they still lowed me with those Elements. They assumed that the Elements of Harmony were an instant stoning, but I still moved, no matter the fact that I was then weaker than a cub.

"The two Princesses realized that I would not fall so easily, and that my being was necessary for the frost in this land to persist enough for the lesser animals to survive. They created this 'comfortable' grotto with their Alicorn Magic, and bound me to the pool, repressing my power... and now I sit here for years upon decades upon centuries... and now, I know for sure that I am dying. I've languished, destitute, unable to exert my influence in this cushioned cage for far too long. Soon, I will cease to breathe, and die, bitter, with vengeance on my lips..."

Fenrir grimly chuckles and looks to the opening in the cavern's top, "Gogurt, what a strange name, and an even stranger being surrounded by an even stranger evil. You seem more like a monster than I do..!"

Gogurt shifts uncomfortably at the mention of his appearance. Even ice demons saw it. "Anyhooow, I suppose it's only fair that I tell you who and what the Hell I am."

The human recounts his intrepid tale of wonder and misfortune to the demon. By the end of the story, even Fenrir was surprised by the sheer unluckiness.

"... so here I am, stuck in a cave with a snow dragon-wolf thing, while my friends are gonna be leeched on for years until they're a used-up husk. Sorta like what's happening to you! At least I'm gonna die next to an awesome ice-demon."

Fenrir stares at Gogurt with an odd curiosity. "So.... do you still want to liberate your friends from the Insect-Queen?"

Gogurt snorts, "It'd be pretty damn nice if I didn't die here too!"

"Well.... there's a way for you to leave this jail with the power to free your pegasus and raptor, if you're willing." Fenrir snickers and begins to stalk around the human seated on the shore.

Gogurt grimaces in annoyance, "Gonna quit dickin' around and tell me already?"

"Yes!" Fenrir plops his haunches down in front of Gogurt. "It's quite simple really. You absorb my soul into your body. You become able to summon my powers at will, and I won't perish! Once I become your weapon, these chains will hold nothing but air, and I will aid in your escape!"

Gogurt stands and turns to the wolf, "Okay, why exactly did you not think about doing this before to some other idiot?"

"Because not even an idiot wanders this far into the cold..."

"Oh.." Gogurt shrugs.

"Besides," Fenrir reasons with a sly smile, "I am not keen on becoming some insignificant pony's tool... you however, are perfect! That darkness, that monstrous presence which I can't quite explain... we'll get along just fine."

"Hmm, you provide good points, I am pretty awesome, but wait," Gogurt squints, "you aren't a demon right? I mean, performing a demonic ritual is sorta against my M.O..."

"No! I'm not some Tartarus demon! I'm like a... half-metaphysical-being. Which is why I can even do something like this."

"Oh, alright, then. Go ahead, come on in!"

"Yes..." Fenrir's form disperses into a white fog, "by the way, this idea is pure theory. The results could rip us to pieces."

"What?"

"Nothing."

With that, Fenrir's fog enters Gogurt's eyes, mouth and ears like a rushing torrent. Gogurt falls to the floor, gargling and flailing uncontrollably as both of the beings shriek in unimaginable pain.

It seems like hours before the seizures finally end. Gogurt shakily rises to his feet and notices that something is off. He looks at his hands to see they were covered in white, scaly plates pack tightly over black, beady skin. His fingers and knuckles ended in enlarged, sharpened claws. He traces the the claws down his forearm to see that the strange, textured plates ends at his elbows in a series of large, hollow spines. Gogurt glances down and sees his feet were in the same situation. Black skin, hard plates, bony, clawed toes, all ending at the knees in hollow spines.

He pats himself down to make certain the strange transformation had began nowhere else, and sure enough, it was only at his hands and feet. He also noticed that all his wounds had been miraculously healed.

"So... what the heck kinda weapon is this?"

Gogurt scratches his chin, and glances at a nearby boulder. "Hmm..."

He closes his fist, brings it back, and slams the clenched claws into the rock. Azure fire blasts from the hollow spines, propelling his fist at insane speeds. The helpless boulder is obliterated into dusty bits!

"Oh!"

Gogurt turns around and charges at a tree, fifteen-feet away. The spines on the knees spouts flames, expediating the journey to half a second. He whip kicks the tree across the middle, snapping it while emitting a wave of cold energy, freezing anything in its path.

"OH!!!!!"

"Now," Fenrir whispers in his mind, "let me show you how to exit this accursed cell."

Gogurt disappears in a whirl of snow, and reappears halfway up the cave. He looks down to see the nonexistant floor, "Oh, like that helps—"

Fenrir blinks him away once more in a similar remnant of frost, and he reappears in the tunnel.

The human gazes at the gauntlets and greaves, "So, how do I make these go away?"

"Ah. Just, will it away, I suppose."

The weapons melt away, revealing his good ol' human arms and legs.

Gogurt cackles to himself as he realized the implications of the new abilities, "I'm comin' after you first, Glory-Hole Queen!"

There he goes, on his way to his friend's rescue, armed to the literal teeth with impossible powers and abilities that could only have been achievable in dreams. An ancient entity as his ally, wracked with fury and strength. Powers so wonderful that they could freeze or shatter any obstacle in his way, powers so wonderful that it could give this boy a chance in this strange world.

Could he have ever known that such power would only lead to ruin?

Author's Notes:

Yup, one of the humans won't die of some horrible evil so easily anymore. Don't worry, he won't become some overpowered red and black OC alicorn or nothing.