Chapter 1 Alt Title: Crossovers With Real Life

I couldn’t help but notice that, for the past few weeks, something or someone had been following me through the Void; of course, me being a SysAdmin, a lot of things tend to follow me around. It felt like it was benign, so I decided, hey, why the hell not, and just ignored its presence mostly. That is, unless I felt like I wanted to get a better scan for it. What I found was a little surprising, but not really.

It was an energy golem powered with a soul fragment; clever, really. The soul keeps the energy together and the energy shields the soul from reincarnation. Oh, and it had an auto-recharge attached to it...nice really.

Suddenly, a tendril of energy seemed to attach to the thing from afar. It suddenly shook for a moment, like its eyes gained clarity, and it moved toward me

“Wait...what is it doing? Oi, what the fuck? Hey, golem, what are you doing?”

The energy golem, shaped with a floating upper body, the energy forming thin armor, suddenly bows before speaking in an odd ethereal voice.

“It is an honor to finally meet you, Umbra, even as indirect as it is through this energy golem I created from my soul.”

“Ah, I see. You must be the guy behind the soul fragment…well, out with it. Why exactly are you following me?”

“Well, it’s more to just contact you. My spirit has been so overworked that I couldn’t see through my energy golem’s eyes even if I wanted to, so I don’t even know where you are, but that wasn’t the point in sending it anyways. I sent it to request your aid in a rather confounding problem I’ve been having. I also sent some to Auric, since I figured either of you two could possibly help with my problem and MAY be kind enough to do so, but so far, circumstances have prevented my attempts with talking with him, currently. But, either of you could likely handle what I was sending to request aid of you anyways, considering your Understanding and whatnot.”

“Well, far be it from me to refuse another person the aid they require...hold on a moment, I’ll find you in a bit.”

With that said, I grabbed the energy golem and performed a Trace: Root Command, following its source back to Earth 1122990345Zeta.

Except…

I couldn’t get in, not the normal, non-SysAdmin way, that is. Curious, that. I suppose that was part of the problem.

‘Wait a minute… I recognize this work…. Cien, you MOTHER FUCKER! I thought I told that Belarusian asshole to stop coding shields around Universes!’

The energy golem began to speak again.

“You seem to recognize the source of the problem. Interesting. Thought it might be the work of Teridax or something. You see, been trying to figure out how to complete a time loop of sorts. When my spirit was in better condition, I, along with my friends, was able to contact my future self, confirming various theories about the multiverse and learning that, in some way or another, that all these visions I, and eventually at least the more spiritual of my friends, had had were future versions of ourselves. At some point in the future, they are meant to meet with us to give us ‘rebirths’ and train ourselves as multiversal travellers…. but due to having to maintain the integrity of the time loop, they’ve been forced to be vague on how, forcing us to try and figure out various ways to attempt to complete this loop…. have been spending a number of years upon it, actually, when possible. Every attempt so far have failed, and then, I came up with an idea that led to speaking to you.”

“That’s quite a story you got there, pal. Let me just check this shield out… my subordinates are all assholes, barely know how to do their jobs… Cien always accidentally makes shields, Tenebrous is just terrible at coding, Kage is good, but can’t internally check his progress, Stver, well, she tries hard, but she doesn’t get a lot of results...walking disaster, she is… Now, your problem is simple, Cien, being the dumbass he is, interfered in the Time Loop Stability Protocols of your Universe with this dumbass shield of his… It’s not even a good one, more likely to fall apart as soon as I actually hit it!”

“Regardless of how good it is, it has proven problematic. Since my future self and his allies, along with the multiversal country of heroes they eventually founded… thus why I thought Teridax may be the cause… have been prevented from entering this reality directly. At most, they, after great efforts, were able to destroy a regenerating spiritually barrier that Zeus set up to prevent humans from being able to use magic. Though the barrier is now gone, the generations of being magic-less no doubt has left the human race affected in the long term due to lack of any visible results. Not that that’s surprising.

Since getting into this reality for my future self has proven to be difficult, I’ve been trying to set up plans of a sort to enter a timeline of Equestria, since with how many humans arrive there, its cluster’s defenses are no doubt weaker than normal, and should be easier to reach. Purposely trying to select a timeline with specific qualities, set near immediately after Discord’s redemption in the timeline… though, admittedly, I’m only guessing there’s such a timeline there as what I’m aiming for, since there’s pretty much an infinite number of timelines out there in the multiverse anyways.

Figured that meeting my future self in Equestria would be easier for my future self and allies, and perhaps by focusing enough energy, it could punch a pinhole hole through whatever has been blocking us, possibly even allow for return warps eventually. Towards this end, even have some energy golems in the target dimension, intending to use the power of the Crystal Heart there since it’s not being in use anyways and is likely more powerful than Starswirl, whom has proven capable of dimensional travel anyways.

Unfortunately, seems that hasn’t been enough to get through the mentioned shield, as weak as it is.

Oh, and towards that end…. well, as you know, all works of fiction are created due to subconscious links to other realities, the links able to, to a degree, affect each other. Thus, I asked the ‘author’ of your adventures in my timeline to do a role play with you, while allowing me to thus ‘connect’ to my energy golem that’s talking to you in more than one way at a time.”

“TL;DR, man, that wall of text showing on the website our readers are watching isn’t gonna help… I think the basic gist of it was: Get rid of the damn shield so you can get to Equestria and move on to your plan from there.”

“Pretty much. I may be smart, but I tend to ramble. One of my weaknesses, I’m afraid.”

The golem almost seemed to smirk at this. How an energy golem without a face could smirk is a mystery… I guess it’s like my face…

The energy golem almost seems to go inert for a brief moment, as the connection weakens but doesn’t quite disconnect to it.

“Huh...I guess he left for a while… Whatever.”

With that said, I tried to untangle the shield from the rest of the code, but, just like the rest of Cien’s works, the fragile ass piece of shit was embedded so deep in the code that I just up and replaced the Shadow A++ coding of the Universe with my personal UMBRA OS-, then transferred the data over. Because fuck Shadow A++.

As he finished this, the golem seemed to reactivate.

“Sorry about that. During our conversation, your ‘author’ had to do something, so my creator decided to go do something as well while waiting, since it’s only through your ‘author’ that he’s even able to know all of what’s going on where you’re… err…. where WE are at.”

“I know, I can communicate with my own author, y’know… I can actually sense him right now… He’s somewhere in California. I, however, cannot exactly sense you… I believe due to your soul fragments…”

“Understandable. My soul has felt weak for a while, no doubt due to it being overworked and fragmented, though I intend to call back my golems back into myself once I get to Equestria. Will probably help my soul recover in the process. Who knows? Maybe I’ll recover enough to levitate again, like I could in college when I was actually fit enough to do 300 sit-ups and 100 push-ups every morning… may not have been enough to be worth doing, but it was fun...”

“I was a skinny-ass nerd that swam decently… I don’t know what this ‘fit’ thing is…”

“Hah! I know the feeling. Though I did that every morning, my body never seemed to look the part. In part due to a genetically inherited hernia, plus a genetically inherited tendency to be fat…. though I was less so then than I am now, if only just a bit.”

“I can fix that, if you want.”

You could almost hear a smile in the golem’s voice as he replied.

“That’s alright. I actually intended to do so on my own after making a deal with Discord once I arrive in Equestria… besides, you helping get rid of the barrier is a major enough aid. Though, confirming this plan to get to Equestria to begin with may help, but you need not do that. It’d be great, sure, but I’m already imposing on you enough as-is to deal with this shield mess.”

“You...do realize that deals with Discord don’t work...right? He’s an asshole through and through… never keeps a promise…”

“I disagree there, actually. From what I’ve seen, he DOES keep promises… but he sure as heck loves his loopholes… Though, as said, specifically choosing a point in the timeline after he’s been rehabilitated… and part of my deal with that is to help him with that, since the point I’m aiming for in the timeline… well, he no doubt has not gotten used to being ‘good’ yet. Figured some advice would aid him there, especially since I’m choosing a version where the Discord there, though aware of the fourth wall, has yet to have a reason to discover what it actually is. Just mainly enjoying ‘having an audience’, sort to speak.”

‘If he wishes to make a deal with Discord, then so be it...’

Anchoring a Transverse Tunnel in a specific Equestria, I quickly brought the end over to where the energy golem was.

“Hey...what should I call you anyways?...and what’s your general area?”

“Well, I kinda go by many names. My often used identity online is Regreme, my future self’s name is Vince Elbic Vinni… after his rebirth anyways… and my current name is Joshua McInnis. I currently reside in Oklahoma. … So, call me what you wish. I should get used to being called any of those names regardless, eh?”

“Okay, I got a Target Lock on your position… Tunnel is opening on your left in three… two… one.”

“...err…. don’t see it, though that’s likely cause there’s a wall to my left. It may have opened in the wall.”

The golem chuckled briefly.

“Hmm… can you set up a type of delayed warp for me? So that I can be warped to and wake up there throughout tonight?”

“Shit! I thought there was an error message! Agh, hold on, let me reprogram this Tunnel a bit…”

Doing so, I anchored the Tunnel in and around his general position, set to activate in his sleep and place him in a field not too far from Ponyville.

“Thanks. Ironically… hm… could you adjust it so I show up in the Everfree in a relatively safe location? For my plans, I’ve got some things I’d like done before heading to Ponyville. … and thanks for this, by the way. I definitely intend to repay ya at some point in the future should this work as hoped. Plus, it’d be cool to see your current form in person anyways.”

“Done… and I’ll be there soon”

What simulated the golem’s eyes almost widened for a moment.

“That’d be great. Never thought I’d see a supernatural event in person again till this loop got me to Equestria…. The last time I got to see a clear example of the supernatural was my levitating I mentioned from years ago. Hope to see you soon then…. whatever accounts as ‘soon’ in this case, anyways. Time relativity, after all.”

The golem laughed.

‘Well, most of this is good to go… so...’

Diving through the code of UMBRA OS- is an experience that I have yet to really describe well. Like a warm hug, in a tsunami of swirling lights...in a cyclone of silence. Like getting pulled through a taffy puller. Like being torn apart without the pain. Whatever. The point is, I dived into the Universe and relished the feeling of near freedom from narrative causality. In effect, I basically wrote myself, without the input of [Jsyrin]... of course, he was still typing, or you, dear readers, would not be reading this right now.

End Chapter 1

Author's Notes:

What a strange way to start a story made of one-shots, ne?