If someone told Shade he would soon find himself in an interdimensional battle between multiple universes and an insane God of Dreams, he… would probably believe that guy. I mean, he’s already friends with a mad scientist. Then there was the time he was in a cult, then he’s hanging out with literal superheroes. And let’s not forget the cheese noodle incident. Shade’s life was just weird in general.

It’d still be pretty weird, though.

So there he was, dazed and confused as he ran through a battlefield with a human school nurse’s assistant on his back. There were scratch marks and burns here and there on his body, but nothing too life threatening. At least, not that he knew of. He’s been physically tortured by Sunset and Quickfix for so long his concept of pain is sort of warped. His mind was perfectly intact, though. And all he could think of at this moment was;

“What the hell is going on?!”

“Sh-Shade!” the human Redheart screamed, hugging the Unicorn’s neck even tighter as she narrowly avoided one of the creatures

“I’m trying, I’m trying!”

Why was he in this situation? Hell if he knew. Apparently, everyone had woken up much earlier than him and the Sunset from his world was awesome enough to actually get them to form ranks so she could lead the charge against Morpheus. Since he was as dead as a brick and way too heavy for a girl with no physical training to lift, Redheart had taken it upon herself to make sure that he didn’t get stepped on by the various huge mobile suits, combining zords, or dinosaurs that were roaming the battlefield.

Really, Redheart was just the best. Shade briefly wondered if the Redheart from his world would do the same. Probably. Though, his Redheart was much stronger. She’d probably slap him awake and carry him all the way to safety just because.

“Take a left next to the giant pickle dinosaur,” Redheart shouted over the din of battle “It’s right in between that giant mobile armour and the spider with spikes growing on its back!”

“I see it!” Shade panted, a grin fixed on his face

The medic tent, which Sunset had made sure was erected for the thousands, if not millions of civilians who might be caught in the crossfire. To any normal person, a normal tent would be the absolute worst place to seek shelter, especially with people throwing plasma beams and giant deathscythes around. But Sunset somehow managed to make it work. Not only did she get enough wizards to constantly surround the tent in protective charms, she even got this one dude in a blue box to make the tent much larger on the inside to accommodate for everyone who can’t fight as well as the injured.

He sidestepped past the pickle dinosaur and slid underneath a stream of fire shooting out of the fists of a man with pink hair. Shade cheered, thinking that his luck was finally turning for the better. Unfortunately for him, the universe didn’t want to see him happy. Oh, no. That would be far too kind for him.

Instead, a hulking green man with extremely stretchy pants suddenly appeared out of nowhere and kicked him hard in the flank. He zoomed through the sky, Redheart hanging on for her dear life, as they barrelled straight for the tent. A few second before they entered the protection charms, though, Shade was positive he saw a yellow octopus monster thing suddenly zoom in, comb his hair, brush his teeth, fix Redheart’s clothes, brush her hair, and wipe the sweat off of the two of them before zooming back off at Mach 20. He then zoomed back and took a picture of Redheart’s panties before zooming away, leaving the two of them to crash into a girl who looked like she was part squid and part kid; like she was some sort of squid-kid.

“Urrghghrhg” moaned Shade as he rubbed his head “You okay there, Redheart?”

The medic in training was already standing up, apologising profusely to the girl they had crashed into. She simply waved them off and held up her huge paint roller, strutting off towards the battlefield outside.

“Somehow,” she smiled unsurely “You’re injured, we should get you patched up.”

“When am I not?” Shade waved his hoof dismissively as he shrugged off the pain and limped over towards the table where all the bandages were kept “Now that you’re safe, I need to go back out there and help Sunset – I mean, the other Elements. Yeah, them. I’m totally not just going out to try and find Sunset so I could help her out and possible get her to feel grateful that I helped her. No sirree.”

“That is… oddly specific,” Redheart pondered, but thought that this was just too much trouble for her to care about “Anyway, I am not going to let you go out there in your current condition.”

“Who’s gonna stop me? You? I told you I’m fine,” Shade found the bandages and effortlessly used his magic to wrap it around his injuries “What can I do here, anyway? You’re a nurse, you could help people. I’m a dark mage and a cultist. If anything, I’m more useful outside than here.”

“Nurse in training,” reminded Redheart as she grabbed the bandages from Shade’s telekinetic hold and ushered him to a bed “I know you’re strong, and I know that you could handle a fight. But where I’m from… stuff like this isn’t normal. You’re my patient, and you’re injured. I can’t let you go to war with those injuries.”

“Ooh, better reword some of those sentences. Bulk might get jealous,” reminded Shade, making Redheart’s face turn several shades redder

“I trust him to not cheat on me, and he trusts me,” was Redheart’s abrupt answer, though it felt more like she was reassuring herself than Shade “Anyway, why would I want to date a horse, anyway? I’m a human being. I’m not into bestiality, thank you very much.”

“Eh, I’m not too big of a fan of inter-species romance either,” Shade shrugged. If there was something he was, it was a bro. And a bro does not steal another bro’s girlfriend regardless of whether he knows the guy or not “Where is that lump of steroids, anyway?”

“HEY!”

“Ye asketh, and doth ye receiveth...” Shade sighed, not really surprised by Bulk Biceps’ sudden appearance

The hulking white teenager picked up his girlfriend with a single arm and hugged her tight as if she was a throw pillow. Really, for all intents and purposes, that looks like it should hurt. But Redheart... she seems to be enjoying it. Oh Celestia, has she been a masochist all this while?! With a boyfriend that muscular, she had to be!

“WHAT’RE YOU DOIN’ WITH MY PUDDIN’ CAKE?!” Bulk bellowed, eyeing Shade as if he was some sort of untrustworthy cult member.

Well, he was wrong. Shade was an untrustworthy former cult member.

“I swear, we were just talking!” Shade quickly shook his forehooves in defence. He did not want to be on the receiving on of this guy’s fist “In fact, I – uh... I already have a girlfriend! Y-Yeah! Why would I hit on someone else if I already have someone I... uh, someone I’m dating. Yeah!”

Bulk squinted his eyes. Bulk might be the clear definition of a meathead, but he wasn’t that stupid.

“Sugarbottom, does this pony here have a girlfriend?” he turned to ask Redheart, his tone suddenly dropping several octaves in volume. In fact, he sounded like a completely different person!

“Hmm...” she tapped her chin, pondering the question for a moment “Not that I know of, no.”

“YOU LIEEEE!” Bulk suddenly twisted his head back to look at Shade, his veins popping out and a murderous glare filling his eyes.

Shade was going to die He was so going to die. And it’s not even an honourable warrior’s death, either. Not that he expected to die like that, but he at least hoped he could die with more dignity!

Just as all hope seemed lost to Shade, the universe finally threw him a bone and gave him a chance for once. The tent’s entrance was pulled back and a single pony rushed inside, sweaty and covered in blood. Even her breathing sounded ragged and uneven. She tossed her weapon aside and rushed over to the medicine cabinet, pulling out several band-aids and sticking them carefully onto her wounds.

“Redheart!”

Nurse Redheart looked at the trio, though her expression remained stoic and calm.

“Shade?” she raised an eyebrow. She didn’t expect to meet him here. She then noticed the humans next to him, particularly the girl in Bulk’s arms “Oh boy...”

“ANOTHER BUGGYBEAR?!” Bulk screamed, holding on to his girlfriend even tighter “WHY ARE THERE TWO FLUFFYBUNSES?!”

“I-It’s cool, Bulk!” Shade sprinted over to pony Redheart’s side, placing a hoof around her neck “This is the Redheart from my dimension! And she... uh... she’s my girlfriend!”

The entire world suddenly silenced. Not even the universe could comprehend the amount of stupid that Shade was emitting right now.

“What –" Redheart tried to say, but was quickly cut off by Shade

“See, it looked like I was flirting with your Redheart just now because she, uh, reminded me of my own Redheart! It’s a common misconception, really. No need to kill me for it!”

Just what chain of events occurred for Shade to actually say that? Redheart didn’t know. In fact, she didn’t even want to know. After the whole even with that other Sunset Shimmer and the other her inside the tyrannosaurus mech, she knew that it was just going to be convoluted and not worth her time. She was a woman of science, not insanity!

Although, Quickfix would probably tell her that the two of them were basically one and the same.

“Look, now is not the time to talk about this,” pony Redheart finally said as she went to pick up the syringe gun that Tyra had given her. She could probably upgrade it to heal people, but it would take too much time. Instead, she passed it over to Shade “Take this. You’ll need it more than me.”

Confused as heck, Shade grabbed the weapon with his telekinesis and tested it out. Wow, this thing is… amazing! If he could just supercharge it with his own dark magic, it could be even stronger!

“Whoa, thanks Red!” he twirled the weapon around, too overjoyed for words

It was then that he realised that, wait, Redheart didn’t deny his accusations? From the seven Elements, Shade probably knew Redheart the least. Especially since she was always busy with her job whenever he did visit her in the hospital. Did she really not care that Shade was making such a bold claim?

“Daww, you guys look so cute together, too!” human Redheart cooed, finally getting out of her boyfriend’s grip and sitting comfortably on his muscular shoulder “It’s like you were meant to be together!”

“Aheheh… yeah…”

This should have been a happy moment for Shade. But why… why did he feel like this was wrong? Well, it was wrong. Maybe that’s why. He’s lying to the two of them just to save his skin, and Redheart doesn’t even care. Even when the world is finally giving him a chance, Shade still isn’t happy. Damn.

“WE BELIEVE YOU”, Bulk shouted, backing off into deeper into the tent with his girlfriend in tow “SEE YOU GUYS LATER”

“I’ll be here if you need me!” human Redheart called out “There are a lot more patients for me to take care of. Huh, I wonder if I could write this off as practical training…”

The lovey-dovey duo soon disappeared from sight, leaving Shade and Redheart along at the front of the tent. Without them to instigate any conversations, the air around the two of them started becoming much more awkward. Redheart continued to collect medical equipment, silently marking off a checklist of things she would need to treat the wounded inside.

“Hey… Red?”

“I’m a bit busy, Shade,” Redheart explained curtly “Could you please leave? There’s a war outside, and that means injured soldiers. I need to treat them right now.”

“Look, I’m, uh… sorry about that,” he hung his head down low. He can’t remember the last time he felt so guilty “I was just trying to not get killed by Bulk and-”

“It doesn’t matter,” Redheart continued with her job, too busy to even look at Shade in the eyes “Only an idiot would believe a lie that simple. I think they knew, and they were just trying to make you feel better.”

“Really?”

“Of course,” Redheart finally turned to face Shade, a warm smile on her face “And even if I did like you, I’d give up right now. Sunset would probably kill me if she ever found out.”

Huh? Sunset? What did she have to do with anything?

“Listen, Shade. Right now, there’s a third me out there inside a giant red and yellow tyrannosaurus mech. I can’t do anything to help her, but I know you can. She’s probably going to look for Morpheus, and there’s no doubt that Sunset is going to be there as well. If she’s smart, the other Elements should be with her as well. The other Sunset Shimmer might be looking for him as well, I don’t know. I need you to go help them out.”

“But-”

“No ‘but’s,” she passed him a bag filled with spare empty syringes “Go.”

“I’m on it!”

Saluting the nurse, Shade galloped outside with the syringe gun in tow and the bag of syringes. Oh, Shade. Simple, simple Shade. Just wave Sunset in front of his face and he’ll probably murder an entire town for her.

Redheart picked up the tray of medical equipment with her mouth and trotted deeper into the tent, all the while wondering about the future of Shade and Sunset. If they do end up getting together, and take over Celestia as ruler of Equestria… Sweet merciful Celestia, she can’t even imagine what would happen to Equestria!

Hopefully, that wouldn’t happen for a long while.

Meanwhile, outside the medic tent, Shade was already facing problems. For one thing, he didn’t know how to reload the syringe gun. So as soon as he finished up the six that were left inside, he was left screaming and running from the hundred slime creatures that had targeted him.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!”

Shade could only curse out obscenities as he hid behind a large stone man, passing on his pursuers onto him. Unfortunately for him, though, he was Shade. And the world was never kind to him. Just as he thought that he had enough time to figure out how to stick more syringes into the gun, a giant slime monster sneaked up behind him and swallowed the bag of extra syringes.

“Oh, hell no!”

Shade jumped into the monster’s mouth, fighting and struggling against the acidic sludge as he tried to pry the ammo out before they were dissolved. Try as he might, though, Shade was only able to pull one out of the hundreds that Nurse Redheart had supplied for him. The acidic sludge was finally taking its toll on Shade as he finally felt the effects searing into his skin.

“FINE!” Shade screamed, filling the empty syringe up with dark energy “You want it? Then TAKE IT!”

He stabbed the needle into the insides of the slime monster and pressed on the lever on top, pushing all of the compressed dark energy into the creature. At first, the monster seemed to grow bigger. Great going, Shade. You just made things harder for everyone else! How was he supposed to know that they fed off of dark magic?!

But then, something weird happened.

The sludge monster kept on expanding more and more, but… was it screaming? In fact, holes started exploding out of the monster’s body. Shade took this as his chance to jump out, grabbing as many syringes as he could grab before the monster exploded, splatting the surrounding area in dead monster carcass.

“Well, that was… convenient,” Shade blinked, looking at the newfound weapons in his hands “But it works!”

Quickly locating the gun he had dropped, he then turned it around and noticed a label that said “Insert Ammo Here”. Slapping himself for his stupidity, Shade stuck as many syringes as the weapon could hold in and took aim, but not without filling them all with his magic beforehand. He notices a red bipedal mechanical dragon jumping around, swinging at slime monsters with his microphone. Shade takes aim and steadies his breathing. This was all or nothing!

“Watch your back!” he shouted, firing off a dark magic imbued syringe at the enemy.

The dragon was quick to dodge, merely grazing his green earphones before stabbing the slime monster and making it slowly expand before exploding into a huge goop. The dragon thanked Shade and ran off, looking for more monsters for him to kill. On the other hand, Shade was ecstatic! He had a cool weapon and he’s actually helping, guys! He’s not just a random background character!

Cocking his gun once more, Shade dashed across the battlefield; shooting whatever slime monsters he could find. And for the first time in his life, he actually felt useful! People actually thanked him for once, and he wasn’t screwing up! Maybe life was finally looking up for him!

And for the first time, the universe didn’t interfere.

He passed by a group of giant monsters and robots wrestling against the larger slime creatures, and had to make a double take. Right there, in between the king of monsters and the silver and red man, was that…

“A TITAN!”

Squealing like the fanboy he was, Shade grabbed a boy flying nearby on a broomstick and begged him to send him on top of the titan. The bespectacled boy complied and used his magic wand to levitate Shade onto his broom. They flew across the sky, all the while firing at whatever monsters got too close for comfort. When he was close enough, Shade jumped off and thanked the boy, landing squarely on top of the Titan’s head.

“Hey,” Shade muttered, trying his best to look cool “It’s been five years,”

All the giants turned to look at him, as if confused at what he was doing.

“Oh, uh… I was, a… BACKUP!”

He cocked his syringe gun and fired at the large slime monsters, making them expand and grow. The king of monsters took this chance to fire up a nuclear blast, turning all the enemies to dust. Shade squeed, giddy at the prospect of seeing such an awesome move up close. As he did a little victory dance, Shade noticed two people running at a certain direction. Well, one person and one tyrannosaur mech, at least.

“There they are…” Shade muttered, checking his gun. Only five more syringes left?! Since when did he start running low?! He needed to catch up to them and help, fast! “Hey, uh… can any of you guys, you know, send me over there?” Shade pointed to the duo that he had noticed.

Just as he said that, a dimensional rift wall appeared right in front of Shade, and out came a man in pink and black armour that looked like he had a barcode on his helmet.

“And you are…?”

“Just a passing through Rider,” he replied, turning back to the dimensional wall “I hear you wanted to go to your friends? Jump in.”

“Thanks!”

Shade thanked the large combatants for being awesome and followed the pink armoured man through the portal, appearing just a few feet in front of the place he had seen the human Sunset and red-and-yellow dinosaur Redheart had told him about. He would have thanked the man, but he had already left. Oh well, he’ll just thank him later.

There, in the distance, Shade saw them. Sunset, well, Shimmer in this case since both Sunsets were here, had a gleaming golden sword. Where she got it, he didn’t know. But who cares, it looks awesome! She swung it left and right, cutting up any of Morpheus’ minions that dared get too close. The mechanical dinosaur was not far behind, gobbling and stomping its away across the sea of enemies.

“Yo, guys – AAH!”

Shade took a step forward and tripped over a discarded beam sabre, tumbling over his hooves and planting face first onto the ground. He groggily tried to pick himself up, only to accidentally kick his syringe gun which sent a syringe flying right into his thigh.

“GAAAAAGHH!!”

“Shade?” Sunset called out, running up to him and helping him back up “You okay?”

“Ahaha~ Sure, why not?” Shade muttered, pulling the ammo out of his flank. Four left.

“I was heading towards Morpheus, and I suspect he’s over there,” Sunset looked off into the distance, and Shade had to track where her eyes were looking at.

Off in the distance, a large black cloud was hovering maliciously over the heads of even the largest of the people fighting against Morpheus. He could barely make out five coloured lights zooming around, and every time they connect with the cloud, it backs away just by a tiny bit. No doubt it’s five of the Elements of Harmony fighting against Morpheus.

But then that begs the question… where is Quickfix? The five that are fighting are probably Sunset and the four girls who were absorbed first by Morpheus, and Redheart was off at the medic tent. Surely Quickfix would have a riot waging war here. Unless…

“Ah never hurt innocents before! How can ah be the damn Element of Inspiration if ah’m the one hurtin’ me friends?! What if ah keep hurtin’ innocents, Shade?! That makes me no better than the guys ah’m tryin’ to kill! Ah’m a monster, Shade… Ah’m a monster…”

Shade held his lips, remembering the abrupt kiss that Quickfix had given him. Where was she? It wasn’t like her to be so caught up in her emotions like that. First thing he’ll do when he gets back is to find Quickfix and just sit down and talk to her. If he can find her, at least. He hoped that she didn't hate him for some reason and would actively avoid him.

“Looks like a long way away,” Shade muttered

“Seems like it…” agreed Sunset. She then turned to face the large red dinosaur behind her “Think your imagination power could send us there faster, Tyra?”

GRRAAORRGHH

Before Shade even knew what was going on, the dinosaur swung its head down, swallowing Sunset whole. Shade panicked. What the hell?! Did that thing just - ?!

He didn’t even get to finish that thought before the dinosaur chomped down on him. The last thing he remembered doing was screaming, screaming for his dear life.

Author's Notes:

How long has it been since the last update? I don't know. Too long that a lot of you might have dropped the fic by now, I presume. Anyway, I (FINALLY) managed to get around to writing the next chapter. It's light hearted, it's weird, and it stars Shade. Surely this is the weirdest combination for the chapter to get everyone back into speed.

Hopefully, all the sudden cameos from all the different characters won't distract you guys too much. But knowing me and my writing style, it's probably a bit distracting.

I apologise for any trouble I caused.