Bronze was knelt on the grass, screaming in wordless agony as he clutched his hands into the ground. His horns burned, his eyes felt like pools of lava. Tears tried to pour forth, but quickly turned to steam in the heat of the magic leaving his eyes. But it wasn't ending. His magic wasn't leaving him like he thought. It seemed to have no end, no bottoming out. It practically oozed from his every pore, was ripping from every fiber of his being. The grass around him changed from a lush green to an alien blue, red, orange, and then a dead brown, before turning green again. The trees actually had their fruits change from apples, to oranges, mandarins, grapefruits, then back to apples, but the wrong kinds.

He could see them. People screaming, running, dying in mass. The clouds. The mushroom clouds. The flash of light that reduces them to shadows on walls. That leaves those in the outer rims of the detonation shambling corpses for several minutes. The radiation that turns anything outside that lucky instant death into a slowly dying bag of tumors. The fallout that slowly cooked everything alive across the planet like a giant microwave. The brown earth and blue sky began to turn green. The oceans red and orange with dead sea life, the land blasted to nothing. Every major civilization erased in calculated explosions. They were dying.

'Save them! SAVE them! SAVE THEM~!' Bronze's very being screamed, seeing people being grabbed by an invisible force as one of his Doorways appeared near them, flinging them to who-knows-where. 'I HAVE TO SAVE THEM!' Bronze began weeping, seeing as he could only save so many before the bombs claimed them, but he felt his Doorways moving faster, his power surging more. He could not see his left leg start to physically unravel in whipping white tendrils of energy from his body unable to take the strain, nor could he feel it.

The only comfort was he saw the faces of his family, his friends, and even those he interacted with on a regular basis were plucked from the Earth first, likely subconsciously, but he still kept going, his power wanted him to save as many as he could, and damn it; he was going to! “NO~!” Bronze screamed, seeing Las Vegas be claimed by several nukes, he couldn't save anyone there anymore! “YOU BASTARDS~! YOU BLEW IT UP~!”

“BRONZE!” The girl's screams of his name fell on deaf ears. He could only hear the deafening explosions, the screaming, the crying, the pained screech of the very planet as it died, the life it supported with it. He grabbed all he could before they were claimed unjustly by the wanton death and destruction. He didn't care who they were. Young, old, man, woman, saint, sinner. He would save them if he could. Nobody deserved this!

“AH~!” Bronze screamed as he felt as if a bomb had gone off in his chest, but really his torso seemed to be boiling, warping and trying to keep form as his other leg began to unravel. His old home in Florida, as much as he claimed detachment from it, was now gone. It was just a suburb in the middle of nowhere, and they still targeted it.

He wept, he wept for the dead, the taken, all the ones he couldn't save as he reached across the world, his Doorways opening and closing at rapid-fire, yanking people through them with an invisible hand. Wherever they ended up was better than there, he didn't care where, just to safety. “BRONZE!” He felt hooves on his face, and suddenly the visions of death and destruction were overlaid by the face of a friend he'd made, a friend he swore himself to. “FOCUS ON ME!” He could see her through the visions that tried to take forefront. Luna. “FOCUS ON ME YOU FOAL!”

“Luna! They're dying! I can't...I can't!”

“YOU MUST! I WON'T LET YOU DIE WITH THEM! THINK ONLY OF ME!”

Bronze tried, he tried to ignore their pleas for salvation, their cries to gods that did not exist, or did not care. He cared too much. He thought he didn't, he thought he was a cold-hearted monster, but he wasn't. He wept as he leaned into his friend's shoulder, crying, he felt something sprout from his back, ripping his essence from him. “BRONZE! HEAR ME! FOCUS ON MY SISTER! IT IS YOUR ONLY CHANCE!”

“LUNA~!” Bronze screamed, focusing on everything he knew of her. Her personality, her form, her power, her night, she encompassed his being and he heard her scream with him. All went dark.

[(X)]

*beep, beep, beep, beep....* The beeping...the infernal beeping of a heart monitor. 'Silence.' It stopped. 'Thank you.' Bronze wasn't on life-support, thank gog. No tube to pull out, just the helpful little air tubes in his nostrils. 'They had time to take out my nose ring? Must not have been as serious as I thought. But....' The visions returned, but without the pain. This time though, it was just visions. It wasn't happening in real-time. It was over. Earth was gone. What he could see, somehow, was nothing but barren radioactive wasteland. All life on the planet was gone...save.... 'Some are alive...bunkers, cellars, the ones far enough away from civilization to survive the initial blasts and fallout. Help them....'

Nothing happened. “Help them....” His voice was hoarse, weak, he felt so tired. Nothing was happening. “Help them....!”

{You must rest sir.}

'I don't care Jeeves! Help them!'

{You cannot strain yourself further, you would waste the lengths the Sisters went to in order to save you. You are no longer rooted in the universe Earth inhabits. You cannot just reach across realms to there so casually anymore.}

'HELP THEM!' Everything was silent, save some weak shudders and sobs from the blanket covered Bronze, who only realized now that he was laying on his side, which felt oddly comfortable compared to being supine since his horns were gone...he felt so...odd without them. Their now familiar weight was missing, and it made him feel violated.

{...Very well sir. I will do what I can. I will focus on saving the surfacers first. But it will be slow going.}

'Just...try...please....' Bronze sniffled, tears running from his closed eyes as he wept quietly for a dead world.

He didn't know how long he was laying there, crying feebly. He drifted in and out of consciousness. The wailing screams and death knells of those who had to suffer the horrid agony of intense radiation haunted his sleep, like an endless nightmare. He should've been able to control if he slept, but his body was too weak, too drained, and demanded he rest. He knew forcing himself awake would only make his recovery take longer, so he let himself remain semi-comatose.

After watching millions die a slow, horrid death, he woke to the oddly gentle caress on his cheek by a hoof and sweet whispers of somepony he needed right now, but his eyelids were too heavy to open at the moment to see her. “Luna....”

“Hush my friend...you needn't speak. Just know that I am here along with fair Applejack and Zecora.” Luna said gently. “We being those closest to you among your friends have gathered here for support. Having too many faces at once might hurt you more than help. You need your strength.”

“Ah'm so glad you're okay Bronze. Ah was so scared...ya jus'....” AJ uttered with a whimper in her tone.

“You have been resting for days dear friend, and much has happened which we believe is your business to tend.” Zecora intoned, and Bronze coughed before a straw was put to his lips, and he gladly sucked on it for the refreshing nirvana that was clean water.

“Thank you. The people I saved...how many made it here? I was grabbing so many, I couldn't count.” Bronze asked, hoping they made it here, but considering how frantic he was, he didn't know how many might have arrived, or been flung into the Void. 'Where did...yes...the Void is the realm of nothingness that somehow has presence, which is the barrier between all universes in the multiverse. Where is this knowledge...how...vast is....' Bronze was lost for a moment, knowledge he didn't know seemed to come to him, giving him a headache. “Ow....”

“I sense you are awakening to your Aspect. I...am sorry Bronze. But it was the only thing Sister and I could think would save you from your Ascension Level magic surge. When most achieve such a thing, they explode, reform, and explode again, becoming the very essence of what they'd reached and do not take the form they needed to survive.” Luna informed, and Bronze finally opened his eyes, looking at the beautiful face of his dear friend and fellow nocturnal being.

“What are you talking about, I-.” Bronze froze when he reached out to her. His hand was gone. His eyes widened and he began hyperventilating as he pulled up his other foreleg to see that yes; he was a pony now, the black legs and hooves being the obvious tell. “MY HANDS! WHY?! I loved my hands!” Bronze felt something on his back twitch, and suddenly his covers were flung off by the noticed new muscles, exposing his new body to the cold hospital air, and he turned his head to look at his velvety black bat wings in shock, before looking down and seeing black fur on his body rather than the silver lower body fur. That silver was instead his wild and shaggy mane and tail, both were cut short in a clearly unprofessional way. On his flank was a cutie mark, it was a Celtic Boar, like on his-. “Nose ring! PLEASE tell me I still have it!”

“I-it's right here colt, calm down.” Bronze quickly looked to his new marefriend to see her holding up a small bronze and boar-engraved nose ring that was clearly his, and he instinctively grabbed it in his deep blue telekinesis and calmed down as he put it back in his nose after yanking the breaking tubes from it, feeling more himself with something that was his and not...this body.

“What happened to me?” Bronze asked in despair as he looked up and saw a single horn on his forehead rather than the two curled horns he'd had. “Am I...an....”

“Alicorn you have become, for it is the only known being who's power won't make them be undone.” Zecora explained from AJ's side. The two seemed oddly close to each other. This wasn't a small room he noticed, it was a private suite actually, but he could worry about that later. He was having an existential crisis at the moment.

“Alicorn?! But-but-but!” Bronze pointed a hoof at the Moon Goddess before him, and she sighed sadly before nodding.

“In order to stabilize you, I...I acted as the template. We're practically related now. Like siblings!” Luna beamed. Ecstatic at the thought of having a little brother, only to wilt at him shaking his head in horror.

“N-no...no! I'm not...I can't! How?!” Bronze looked down at his hooves in horror. “I can't be that powerful! I...I....” 'I don't want this! I just...wanted....' Bronze put his hooves to his new face, crying as the three mares all moved in closer and nuzzled his neck, shoulder and barrel comfortingly. 'I'm a god? No...no....'

{It was going to happen sir. The odd circumstances were all in perfect alignment. You just evaded this happening in another way. In a more sinister way.}

'What are you saying Jeeves? That this was fate? That I didn't have a choice?' That thought made Bronze choke. Everything was moving too fast. It all started with a wish for something better, how is THIS better?! 'With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility! I wanted my responsibilities to lessen! I just wanted to live in happiness like anyone else!'

{Such selfish thinking is normal for a living creature. But such is exactly what allowed you to ascend. You opened the door at exactly the right time as a leyline had shifted right under you, aligning with the leyline of Golden Oaks in Equestria. You wished for something new, and viewed the door as a gateway to possibility. This was all the two worlds needed to make the first connection. The surge of energy awoke something in you. Opening the other doors. It grew. Your power began leaking to other things. You became a balrog, obtained actual magic on Equus. Your power grew still, unchecked. Then your new instincts allowed you to evade the trickery of the one who had planned to use you.}

Bronze sniffled as he calmed down, the mares deciding to leave him be when he didn't respond, leaving him alone like he wanted. 'Who...the...the Merchant?' Bronze remembered...that creepy Resident Evil 4 Merchant vendor at the library Convention.

{Yes. He was an interdimensional being of great power, and he held trinkets in his possession that would fling their possessor to other worlds in new forms. The one that called to you, held the pure essence of an Elder God of Chaos. Had you decided to take that item like he wanted, you would have become the Elder God's new avatar instead of your friend.}

'Who? Who did that bastard take?!' Bronze was losing his self-pity and fear of his new form at hearing someone took one of his friends.

{Konrad.}

Bronze's roar of fury was so loud, so filled with rage that it made everypony for several miles cringe, and his new power flared in a pulse so harsh it cracked every surface in the room, broke the bed, and all the equipment as he forced himself onto his new hooves. 'Find him!'

{Sir, that's-.}

'FIND HIM!' Bronze demanded, his deep blue eyes staring at the ceiling, his vision seeing not a ceiling, but Jeeves' face. Seeing as he would not be able to convince his master of otherwise, Jeeves did a mock sigh.

{Very well sir. As for your earlier unanswered question to your friends; you had managed so save about a few hundred thousand people before the Sisters were able to stop and stabilize you. I have moved another couple thousand since you ordered me to continue evacuations.}

“Bronze, what is it?!” At hearing Celestia's voice, Bronze blinked and looked down from the ceiling...and was shocked to see Celestia towering over him. He gawked up at her and then turned his head to see he was now eye-level with AJ and Zecora who had rushed back in with the royal sisters from his roar of fury and his pulse of power.

“W-what? How'd I get so short?!” AJ and Zecora both leered at him, and Bronze blushed as he fell back on his haunches. “N-no offense...I'm just so used to being huge.” Bronze looked himself over more intently, and was stricken with how...frail he seemed. His fantastic muscles gifted by his minotaur and then balrog body were gone. He was lithe, skinny, perhaps even graceful. He'd...never been so thin, ever. He raised a foreleg, looking at the noodle-like limb in sadness.

“You lost a lot of your mass before we could save you. You're lucky you didn't end up like I did when the Elements cleansed me. At least you're the size of an average stallion...if...lacking in muscle.” Luna commented with a little sadness at seeing her friend so despondent over his current situation.

“All those years of weight lifting...wasted....” Bronze lamented, sniffling, and then shuddering as he felt weak, and gasped as he almost fell over onto his side on the collapsed bed, only for Applejack to be sitting there, holding him up with her body. “AJ?”

“Hush now colt. Ya should get your rest. Ah'll be here while another room is made ready for ya.” AJ then leaned closer and kissed his cheek, making Bronze blush as his new wings flared out, getting the mares to all giggle at him.

“W-what's so funny?” Oh, he would know soon enough.

[(X)]

Bronze was so embarrassed when the princesses explained what a “wingboner” was to him. In front of AJ and Zecora no less. He was still embarrassed once they transferred him to a new room and was left alone. 'I got hard...in front of four mares....' He shrank in on himself in his new bed in his new hospital room. Also a suite. He was now an alicorn, and prince or no-DEFINITELY NO! He was a VIP. 'I'm just glad the princesses agreed to have some guards take care of the wolves harassing AJ's farm. I...can't really fight like this.'

Bronze rolled over and looked across the bland white on white room to look at himself in the body-width mirror, and sigh at the wimpy four-foot-nothing alicorn sadsack that was him now. 'Why? Why did this all have to happen? Earth is dead because of me...it may have been on a tilt towards destruction for forever, but I was the one who ended up bringing it about.'

He didn't blame Luna. He couldn't blame the cosmos for the nearly impossible random chance of the circumstances aligning for all of this. He certainly couldn't blame fate. He didn't believe in it. Even now; as his new knowledge tells him otherwise, he didn't believe in fate. Fate is a weakling's way out to explain why they couldn't do something. No. To Bronze, fate was a bitch you either had to put up with or smack. He'd put up with it enough and got tired of it, so he tried smacking it, and it smacked back. He narrowed his eyes at his pitiful reflection, and growled to himself. 'I'm going to bitch-slap fate again, this time I have a hoof to do it with.'

Bronze opened his mouth, glad to see he had fangs and other canine teeth along with his flat molars. 'At least I'm still an omnivore. Thank you sis...uh...Luna...sis...ugh...this is so weird. I already have four sisters.' He looked down at his hooves again, his despair being replaced with resolve. “First order of business; get used to new body. Second; get buff again. Third; actually learn how to use magic. Finding and maybe saving Konrad is on that list too, but I'll see what I can do when or if I can. Kon's a strong dude. I'm sure he's fine.”

Bronze perked and his new ears swiveled and twitched at registering a knock at his new room's door. “Sir Bronze, some more visitors.”

“Let them in, please.” Bronze responded, and suddenly the door burst open and a pink mass of fluffy mare pounced on him in a blur.

“Oh~! You're so cute like this! Much better than even that hunky minotaur body you had.” Pinkie rambled, nuzzling his neck and sniffing his new mane, making him quite flustered. “You smell like vanilla instead of chocolate now.”

He shuddered and gasped at feeling the shapely and soft-yet-firm mare pressing against him in her hugging and nuzzling. 'Must...not...get...wingboner!' He found relief in Pinkie being enveloped in a purple aura and being pulled off of him. 'Oh thank gog. Damn it stupid sexy Pinkie! Stop teasing me!'

“Pinkie, I know you're excited that Bronze is okay, but he's really weak right now.” Twilight explained factually and with clear concern as she, Rarity, Dash and Shy all filed in to sit around his bed, Spike came in last and closed the door, and Bronze made the effort to try and get up, only for Shy to gently press him down as she hovered over him.

“Please, don't get up. You need to build your strength.” Fluttershy gently enforced before she landed on the bed behind him, petting his head to help him relax.

“Hey girls...sorry if I scared you.” Bronze apologized, and they all scoffed at him.

“YOU'RE sorry? WE should be the ones who are sorry. We could do nothing as you...literally fell apart.” Rarity said with a quiver in her voice, and Spike dutifully pat her shoulder with a similarly haunted look in his eyes to let her know he knew how she felt.

“Yeah, but what you were doing. It was worth it dude. You saved those folks right?” Dash emphasized what Luna had told them about Bronze literally destroying himself to try and save as many lives as he could back on his world.

“Y-yeah...you're right. Even if I knew this would happen...I'd still do it.” Bronze thought, his Loyal pal bringing him right out of his funk. 'Heh...Dash...so cool.' “But I could only save at least 100,000 in a world of billions...I...I only hope I saved enough to preserve our history. The knowledge of our mistakes, so that this world never makes them....” Bronze's sudden downturn into sadness made Pinkie bolt to his face, and force him to smile with her hooves.

“Hey~! No frowny faces! You're okay, we're here, and everyone you saved is going to have a new home here. My Pinkie Sense told me so.” Pinkie assured, getting Twilight to blink in confusion, and for Rarity to whisper into her ear to not even worry about it.

“I...thank you Pinks.” For some reason, Pinkie blushed when he called her that. “Pinks?”

“I...I...um....” Pinkie was oddly flustered, and her mane deflated but she didn't lose her pigment. “Um...you're welcome....” The surprisingly long-maned mare let go of his face, and hid behind her curtain of a mane adorably, getting everypony to look at her in confusion save Dash, who grinned mischievously, and Fluttershy who smiled at her in understanding.

“Well I hope so too Bronze.” Twilight injected in order to continue the conversation, but on a brighter note. “I still want to learn as much as I can about your world. Even if it's gone now, it must have been an amazing place. I just hope that amazing place called the 'internet' is still working.”

“Uh....” 'How do I break it to her that it's more than likely gone? Every single country would have been aiming nukes for every other country's information hubs and servers.'

{Good news sir. A backup hub for the US is still online deep underground. It is massive enough that it has copied most of the content of the whole internet onto itself before the holocaust. Including all of the frivolous content such as literary and video entertainment.}

'That's great!' “Jeeves has just informed me that there is still a huge information repository available, and considering how my phone still connects here, then getting some things brought over should still be viable...right Jeeves?”

{Correct sir.}

His friends all looked at him oddly, and Fluttershy actually started inspecting his head for injuries before he stopped her. “I'm able to telepathically converse with Jeeves now. He is still acting as my proxy for my magic in the matter that I do not yet know how to control it myself.” Twilight nodded in understanding as the others all looked confused. “What has you so perplexed?”

“Why're ya talking egghead? Speak Equish.” Dash demanded in irritation. He was suddenly starting to sound like Twilight.

Bronze blinked in confusion. “I do not understand. I am speaking English, which is my world's equivalent to Equish. My diction should be perfectly comprehensible as-.”

“ARGH! MY BRAIN! Stop using fancy words!” Dash demanded. She thought Bronze was a musclehead, not an egghead, so this was frustrating.

“What Rainbow is saying is that you're speaking in an unusually educated way, considering how blunt and straightforward you've been since we've known you; it's a little strange.” Twilight informed, getting Bronze to groan.

“Oh this is fantastic. What else is going to change? I know all these words, but to use them so effusively in conversation is unlike me.” Bronze growled as he noticed a potently advanced word in that sentence. “I mean; I know what they mean, but I usually just speak my mind with less eloquence, damn it!” Bronze's sudden curse made his friends all cringe. “Spike...do I sound like a snob?”

“Yeah, kinda. Like those stuck-ups in Canterlot.” Spike's blunt answer made Bronze groan and bury his face into his blankets. “Sorry dude.”

“No, I thank you for your blunt observation Spike. Ugh...I...thanks for seeing me girls, this means so much to me, you too Spike, but I need to rest and wrap my head around all of this.” Bronze stated, informing them of his desire to be left alone, but was surprised when he felt himself picked up from the bed, and surrounded by them in a group hug. Even Dash and Spike were in on it. “W-what...what are you doing?”

“We're here for ya dude. Don't forget that you're not alone.” Dash said from her spot, and the others all spoke in the affirmative. Bronze blushed lightly at being in such close contact with so many mares, considering he was also coming to terms with his changing attractions, but he smiled, spread his wings, and used them to hug back as much as he could.

“I love you all so much. I...I've never felt so....” Bronze's breath hitched as he began to cry again. This time in happiness. “So this is the Power of Friendship? The Love of those who care, simply because they can?” Bronze nuzzled his friends the best he could in the tangle of bodies, them so happy to see him cheering up. “My Friends...I'm not alone anymore....” Bronze was never happier than in that moment, and he could only hope that could change in the future. Bronze's words made Twilight gasp and her eyes to sparkle, and she among them, felt incredibly contemplative of the implications.

'The meaning of Friendship....' Twilight thought, looking around her at her friends, how they were all happy just to be there for each other, just to be together. She felt something amazing welling up inside her, and shed a quiet tear herself as she nuzzled her friends next to her. 'I'll have to study it even closer. Such an amazing thing. Princess...I will devote myself to this even more than I intended. Such a thing is worth several lifetimes of study.'

Author's Notes:

And there you have it folks. I would like to state that this was an attempt at a self-insert, and it failed horribly. This story isn't ending though, not by a long shot, and you can tell why.

I've planned Doorways and Hello, Stranger.... to be connected since Hello, Stranger.... was conceived. You see here that it was Anthon that was supposed to become a Merchant and sent to that anthro world of Equus, since I have a naturally creative and random personality (as if my style says anything less) but he instead fled because he felt something off about the Merchant. As a result; it was Konrad who became Avarice in his place. Vaga wanted Anthon because he was a suitable replacement, but Konrad was a good runner-up since he's more...lewd, and in line with Vaga's original origin as a God of Fertility, so, it all worked out.

Only Bronze isn't about to just leave Konrad be, he'll find a way to contact him at some point.