“What’s up there?” Shining whispered, tensing as if to strike out.

I closed my eyes, and felt my ears twitch in anticipation. Inhaling deeply, I took in the raw scent of freshly torn earth. Above my head, the sound of padded paws thudded against the floor of the library, accompanied by the occasional “woof”.

“Diamond Dogs…maybe a dozen, maybe more,” I said, cracking my neck. Turning to the princesses, I nodded, saying, “Alright, here’s the plan. I’m gonna go into human form, grab my new and improved boomstick, and unleash hell on them. Shining, feel free to join me.”

“Omnius, you know that we’re all powerful beings, right?” Luna asked rhetorically.

“You’ll have to take Twilight, and head out. Obviously, Ponyville ain’t safe enough if Diamond Dogs are traipsing around up there,” I grunted, shifting back into my regular form. Shining yelped in surprise, as I opened a small Pocket Dimension, and put away the revolver, replacing it with a classic pump-action shotgun with a second grip on the pumping-mechanism.

“Alright, get outta here then.” I loaded the shotgun, and climbed to the top of the stairs, slowly opening the door just a crack. “I’ll figure out who tipped them off, and why they’re here in the first place.”

Celestia nodded, and the entire group of ponies vanished, leaving me and Shining by ourselves.

“So, think we’ll be able to take ‘em?” Shining said, giving me a cocky grin.

I grinned right back at him, and clicked the side of my glasses, transforming them into a pair of black sunglasses. Turning to the door, I brought my boot up, and slammed the door open, startling the pair of burly dogs that stood in front of it.

“It’s time to kick ass and chew bubblegum!” I shouted, slamming the butt of the shotgun on head of the one closest to me. “And I’m ALL OUT OF GUM!”

[I’d highly suggest listening to “Grabbag” from Duke Nukem. Preferably the CarboHydroM version.]

Without skipping a beat, I brought up the gun, and fired it at another armored dog, tearing apart his shoddy armor, but failing to kill him. Good, I don’t wanna have to clean up their bodies. Or traumatize any ponies.

Shining seemed to hold no reserves about killing them, as he charged at one, and impaled his horn upon its torso, neatly piercing the armor and tearing into its heart. The dog staggered back, before falling over.

“Nothing hurts my little sister,” he growled, putting a shield up between him and another dog that had leaped into the fray.

Meanwhile, I ejected the spent shell, and loaded another one into the chamber, kicking out again with my boot to push a dog into another, forcing them to the ground. “Stay!” I commanded, before jumping back to avoid the razor sharp claws of a dog that had snuck up on me.

Instead of panicking, I simply let my instincts take over. Years, and years of combat experience, training, and failed experimenting (never load a cannon with the scattershot weapon from Contra) all resurfaced, and I ceased thinking.

Instead, I reacted.

My shotgun came up with blazing speed, and with a squeeze of the trigger, another Diamond Dog fell, never to rise again. Realizing the gun was empty, I picked it up like a club, and used it to block the double fisted blow of one of the Guard Dogs (those huge D-Dogs with armor on). Pushing him back, I shoved the barrel into his mouth, and tore the crude knife he had at his belt away from him. Not even skipping a beat, I jammed it into his throat, and took my shotgun back.

“Down!” Shining yelled. I instantly ducked my head, and a small purple dome, roughly the size of a cannonball, shot over my head, taking out a would-be assassin.

“Thanks!” I shouted over the commotion. Shoving the gun into another P.D, I reached in and pulled out a golden magnum, and smiled evilly. “Come get some,” I growled.

The rest of the Diamond Dogs fled with their tails tucked between their legs.

“Groovy.”

[Music over]

“It’s worse than I thought,” I stated once the chaos was over.

“Worse?” Shining repeated questioningly.

I nodded, and went over to the two Dogs that were still cowering in the corner. “Someone decided to get all lippy, like Luna said, and they told the Dogs about Twilight’s…changes.” Glaring at the two prisoners, I knelt beside them, and continued. “Someone told them how it’d be beneficial, or how it would be good for revenge.”

One of the dogs caught on to what I was saying, and he quickly shouted, “We do not know anything! Honest! We is just simple scout dogs!”

“Who sent you then?” I asked, Shining standing right behind me with a knife scavenged from one of the fallen dogs held in his magical grasp. “And tell the truth. Me and my friend here hate liars.”

The other dog gulped, fear in his eyes, and said, “Alpha did! Alpha did! He says we is to get pony so we can get more gems!”

“Okay. Who told your Alpha, then?” Shining growled.

“Demon in black coat! He says that we can gets our own magics if we get the pony! Please don’t hurt us!” he whimpered pathetically.

I sighed, and stood up, rubbing my head. “Alright,” I finally said in a calmer voice. “You can go then. Just do me two favors.”

“Anything!” they promised quickly.

“First: clean up the mess. I don’t wanna deal with that tonight,” I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“And what’s the other?” the smaller dog asked hopefully.

“Deliver a message to your alpha…” Suddenly, I grabbed one of the dogs by the collar, and brought him up to meet my eyes. “Tell him that if he’s gonna try this again…well, he’s gonna need a bigger army.”

The dog’s eyes widened in fear, sending a pang of guilt through me, but I slammed the dog onto the ground, and nodded. “Got it?” Shining emphasized.

The dogs nodded meekly, and I turned on my heels, and stormed out of the library.

“Well. I didn’t expect you to get THAT angry,” Shining said as soon as we were outside.

“I didn’t either. But now I’m even more worried,” I said, wiping sweat off of my forehead. “Did you notice how the dogs weren’t surprised to see me in my human form?”

“I dunno, they looked pretty shocked to me. Then again, maybe that was you kicking open the door and shouting stuff about bubblegum.”

“That’d do it,” I agreed. “But even after, when we were interrogating those two mini-dogs.”

“Mini-dogs?”

“They looked like Chihuahua versions of Diamond Dogs. I mean, did you see how short they were?” I chuckled. “No, sorry, off topic. The point is, that there’s only one other person who could’ve shown them their human form so that they wouldn’t be too surprised.”

“That Torrentican person you mentioned?”

“Yeah. Him.”

With that, we lapsed into silence, and started to aimlessly wander the town, until we found ourselves outside of the forest. I glanced around, and said, “Alright, we’ll wait in that cave over there until the princesses can get a signal to us or something.”

“Right. So…who else do you think knows about this?” Shining asked as we sat down on the floor.

Leaning against the walls, I thought about it for a moment, and said, “Alright, I’m gonna use some detective work here…”

“Hey, if it helps us out, go for it,” Shining shrugged.

“Okay. So, here’s what we know. Torrentican somehow knows about Twilight’s change. He’s informed the Diamond Dogs, who would be able to use her magic to mine more gems, and maybe have a little revenge for when we handed their asses to them when Rarity was pony-napped by them.” I got up and started pacing, pulling a bubble pipe out of my pocket, and blowing on it thoughtfully. “So, if we’re going by process of elimination, who else would stand to benefit from this?”

“The changelings,” Shining answered instantly. “If Twilight hadn’t figured out what was happening at the wedding, Canterlot would’ve been taken over.”

“Correct. Not only that, but Queen Chrysalis could take that magic, and use it to increase her baseline power. If that were to happen, she could not only challenge Celestia and Luna without having to feed on anything, but she could use that to spread her reign of power. Imagine if she somehow got into the Griffon territories,” I pointed out, tapping the pipe to my beard.

“That’s true…man, if she’s the worst one-”

“Oh, by no means, she isn’t! We can’t forget the dragons! During the great dragon migration, those teenager dragons got their asses handed to them by little old me. If they spread the word that there’s a powerful dragon fighter running amuck, like I told them too, then that means that they’ll be looking for a chance to silence me.” I coughed slightly, and added, “That, and grown dragons will naturally go for anything that can increase their standing if it holds small enough risk.”

“Is there anyone you didn’t manage to piss off?” Shining asked sarcastically.

“Well, I’m fairly certain Discord won’t wanna mess with us. Heck, if he were freed again, he’d probably help us,” I admitted.

“…You’re an interesting creature, you know that?”

“Twilight says that allllll the time.”

Sorry it's short today, but I wanted to get something out. Next chapter will be longer, and will have some epic moments (hopefully).

Anyways, I'll be able to start work on another little...project, that's in the works for The Travels. Updates for this, and The Travels will be slower than usual, but it should be worth the wait if the projects turn out good.

Next Chapter: 12) Eleventh Rip-Off Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 23 Minutes