Author's Notes:

Did you notice? I've now numbered the chapters. Don't know why I didn't before...

A big thank you to Muranuse, The Dark Brony and Dream Seeker for helping out with the editing.

And as always, sorry for the delay. This is the last crossover for a while, I promise. Thanks to FrostTheWolf for writing it with me.

Edit: And the crossover is with the story Of Magic and Machines.

“That was far too close!” I thought to myself as I barely escaped from Blood Cleaver. I knew she would soon be on my tail once again, so my best shot was to get as far away from this universe as possible. The problem was that currently distance, direction and time was beyond my control in The Void, making any attempts—besides obvious traps—to create an advantage useless.

If I was to stand up against Cleaver, I would have to refill my magic reserves. I was still far from empty, but I was getting closer than I ever could have imagined; the stunt I pulled in Robin’s universe has taken a lot more out of me than I thought.

Swiftly, I swept my gaze around and took in all surrounding universes. A few of them had powerful Displaced I could most likely drain of magic, but there was one that somehow felt familiar… This one was filled with multiple Displaced. I would normally have avoided entering a universe with multiple Displaced, but they were all weaker than Blood Cleaver, and I could probably pick them off one by one should it come to it. There was also the fact that this universe already had a set ‘invitation’. After all, I could feel one of my tokens already in there.

I smiled to myself. This would be perfect for me to take care of Blood Cleaver; the time dilation would allow me to spend enough time in there to recover fully before Cleaver caught up to me. Plus, she would still be exhausted after having chased me. I would be the-

Any further thoughts of mine were shattered as I was thrown against the edge of the universe I intended to invade. A quick look back confirmed my fears: Blood Cleaver had already caught up to me and had landed the first hit, and she looked furious.

“Welp, might at least not waste the opportunity to regain some energy.” I thought to myself as I activate a passage, connecting it to my token.

Unfortunately Blood Cleaver seemed to have guessed my plan.

“As if I’d let you!” She screamed grabbing onto me.

I was already in a relatively bad situation, but it only got worse from there.

Because of the sudden addition in mass, the passage shifted and our point of entry changed, further decreasing my chances of draining another Displaced of their magic.

As Blood Cleaver and I fell through, my only thoughts were on how much I would enjoy getting back at Blood Cleaver after this was all done and over with.

Once Blood Cleaver and I had both fallen through the temporary passage I had set up, I couldn't resist smiling. This time, it seemed I had been in luck. All around us the snow was falling and the cold provided me with quite an advantage against Blood Cleaver. One I would use to the best of my capabilities.

Seeing as how Blood Cleaver had already grabbed me, I used my magic to siphon heat from her, trying to slow her down and make her movements more sluggish.

Blood Cleaver quickly caught on and managed to push me away before I had time to begin freezing her for real. As she separated from me, I called in the help of the wind, to make sure I had every advantage imaginable. The increase in wind made the snow conceal my movements from Blood Cleavers eyesight, making me smile. I had effectively made her blind. While the show itself was blocking my vision, I could still see Blood Cleaver using my ability to see things clearly through the aid of my magic when used on either snow or ice, giving me one of the biggest advantages.

Halting my movement by letting the wind catch me, I turned in the direction towards Blood Cleaver and sent an icicle towards her, just to see how well she would handle it. However, as the icicle was about to impact her, she suddenly appeared above me, ready to deliver an ax kick. It had been too fast for me to see, but the change in the wind and movement of the falling snow gave away the fact that she hadn't teleported, but instead moved faster than the eye could see.

Making the mistake of freezing up for a moment, I ended up taking her attack in full force without being able to block it in time.

A loud BOOM accompanied me as I hit the ground, creating a crater which would soon be filled by the falling snow.

At this point, I had realized that my advantage had been turned against me; my snow screen hid me from view, yet Blood Cleaver still had some way of detecting me. This meant I was simply wasting magic on upholding the storm and using it as an additional eye. I quickly dispelled my self-induced storm and instead used a small amount of magic to clear the surrounding area of any snowfall, giving me a clear view.

As the snow stopped falling, I saw that Blood Cleaver was trying to hit me once again by falling on top of me, most likely with the intent of delivering a devastating punch or kick.

Rolling out of her way, I barely avoided the explosion of light blue light that filled the spot I had previously occupied, the explosion was quickly followed by another loud BOOM.

Getting up on my feet, I immediately sent up pillars and spikes of ice from the ground, with the original intent of hitting Blood Cleaver. She managed to dodge by weaving in between them while sending her plasma-based attacks towards me. Blood Cleaver being a wild card—and already has proven to me that her plasmablasts could harm me somehow—I tried dodging or countering them by using my magic to intercept them. For those I couldn't dodge or intercept, I instead avoided by taking cover behind the pillars I had created earlier on. While they could take a hit for me, they could not take more than one, meaning I had to move constantly as well as attack her myself.

The thin, yet razor-sharp ice spears I threw at her whenever I managed to spot her were more than what met the eye. For one, they weren't as fragile as regular ice, and could withstand Blood Cleaver's plasma blasts without instantly melting. With them, I managed to even the fight out somewhat, making her dodge my attacks about as much as I had to avoid hers.

"You know there's no way you can win Jack, just give up!" Blood Cleaver shouted over the sound of her vaporizing her surroundings while I quickly recreated them.

"It's Black now, and don't you be so sure. I'm slowly turning this in my favor, and there's nothing you can do about it!" I shouted back. While I wasn't entirely sure about my statement, I knew that I was faring decently against her for the moment. If I was lucky enough, I'd be able to escape into another reality after having drained a Displaced or two from this world.

My response didn't seem to do me any favors as she began shooting more of her beams at me. Dodging and blocking her beams with ice was not ideal. Her beams seemed to instantly vaporize the ice, only giving me an additional fraction of a second to react. Fortunately, it was plenty enough for me to move, but I was hard-pressed to retaliate. Most of the ice I created and sent her way I didn't have time to aim properly as I had to make sure she wouldn't be able to instantly melt them, resulting in her easily dodging them instead.

Suddenly, Blood Cleaver decided to jump into the air. The sudden change in tactic caught me off guard, but I quickly recovered and sent an aimed volley of icicles at her, seeing as she had given up attacking me to perform her move. While I saw her move as foolish, I didn't complain as it gave me the perfect opening. Or that's at least what I thought until she moved to the side in mid-air and watched my attack easily move past her.

I realized that she hadn't simply jumped up into the air, but was now actually flying. Given her now apparent advantage of a bird's eye view, I was once again at a disadvantage.

Two can play at that game. I thought to myself as I jumped into the air. While I abandoned my cover, I now had the same advantage as her, rendering it null. It was either-or, but I was quite confident in my ability to ride the winds and manipulate them to my whims having had several millennia of practice. Since I could move even faster in the air, I still had the upper hand, exchanging the tactic of blocking her blasts for dodging them instead.

As soon as I reached the same height as her, she released another collection of beams at me. In return, I did the same with a bunch of my icicles. We were both dodging each other's attacks while keeping the other one from advancing by releasing our own upon them. I found myself enjoying this, but the enjoyment was overshadowed by the frustration I felt about this stalemate we found ourselves in.

Deciding to change things up somewhat—and hopefully gain an advantage—I gave up my attempts at aiming and instead began creating more icicles, as well as scattering them in every direction. My logic was if I didn't attack in any predictable pattern, she wouldn't be able to predict any of my attacks and by increasing the amount of them, I further increased the possibility of hitting her.

At first, it didn't seem to work, but then I noticed her briefly looking away at something. Not being one to waste such a chance, I immediately made as big of an ice chunk as I could and threw it towards her. While her being distracted allowed me time to create the chunk of ice that could pass for a mountain top, it wasn't enough to catch her completely unaware.

The mountain of ice simply blew up with a loud BOOM!!!. Ice chunks suddenly filling the skies around us. I still had a clear view of Blood Cleaver though, and I noticed the attention being elsewhere. Following her gaze, I noticed we had a group of observers. And the many chunks of ice were about to hit them all.

Before I could even blink, Blood Cleaver disappeared and reappeared in between the group and the hail of decently sized chunks of ice. While I could simply pass through any that fell my way, none of them seemed to have such an ability. Blood Cleaver seemingly having noticed this, had decided to shield them by destroying any that came near them. Deciding not to make things to easy for her, I began redirecting additional chunks towards her until she had destroyed them all.

As soon as the group seemed to be out of harm's way, Blood Cleaver once again appeared in front of me.

"That was dirty and you know it. This is our fight!" She complained. Before I could inform her that I hadn't intended to attack them since I hadn't even known of their existence and that it was only a bonus for me, she took a weird stance and shouted.

"Multi-form!"

I was almost about to begin laughing at the ridiculous move, but stopped myself as she split into two. Oh, shit. I thought to myself before noticing that one of them descended towards the group.

While I didn't let it show, I was relieved. I was NOT ready to take on two of her. Though, why didn't she do this earlier? I asked myself. Perhaps the split means she also splits her power? I hypothesized. Perhaps her deciding to split her powers to protect them would work in my favor. If I ignored the group and focused on this Blood Cleaver, I would be fighting a weaker Blood Cleaver, while focusing all my powers on her.

I smiled to myself as I once again began to send icicles towards her.

As Blood Cleaver split into two, one of them descended towards what she had identified as two Displaced and a Draconequus, although she couldn't see the Draconequus, only sense him.

As she landed she looked upon them.

“You guys alright?” She asked as the sounds of fighting resumed above them, a few more chunks of ice falling around them.

“Y-yeah-.” The younger girl began before she was interrupted by the man.

“Yeah, just who the hell are you?” He demanded.

Deciding introductions were in order, Blood Cleaver bowed a little before speaking.

“My name is Blood Cleaver, and that,” she pointed towards the fight. “is me battling against Jack Frost, or as he’s currently calling himself, Black Frost.” Cleaver introduced both herself and Frost.

“Whoa, Lady. Black Frost? What’s up with the change? That’s different from the last time I saw him.” The man replied while the girl herself was observing the two fighters battling it out against one another.

“Well, from what the Cutie Mark Crusaders told me, he was discorded.” Blood Cleaver responded. Although, she knew with certainty that it was just that that had happened to Jack, she had after all been trying to undo what Discord had done to him by trying to affect his mind, something that wasn't easy while both doing battle if one wished to do so safely.

The man and the girl looked at each other in confusion, unsure of what Blood Cleaver was talking about. That was when the Draconequus Blood Cleaver had sensed came out of the man and decided to step up to the plate in regards to explaining.

“It’s an ability where a Draconequus steals some pony's harmony and has them act the opposite of what they normally would be. Something tells me Jack’s Discord did this to him.” He explained.

While not exactly accurate according to Blood Cleaver, she guessed it was only one of many differences between universes. And since the explanation did explain what had happened, but through a different method, she supposed it was a valid explanation.

“That would be correct. Heh, I wasn’t there when it happened, but Discord back in Jack’s Equestria already learned his lesson. Because after Jack returned as Black, Discord wasn’t seen leaving the site. Although I doubt he’s dead. It ain’t easy getting rid of you lot.” Blood Cleaver said as she chuckled a little, pointing at Discord.

“I know I’m in no position to ask this of you, but could I ask for your assistance? I might not look like it, but I’m currently not capable of containing Black. Would you mind helping a lady out?” Blood Cleaver asked.

“Anything to get my friend back,” The man retorted. “Just leave my daughter out of this-.” He began saying before he was interrupted by the girl instead.

“No, dad.” She interjected. “I’m fighting with you. If Blood Cleaver needs help, then that means trying to fight him alone will end up getting yourself hurt or worse,” Around that moment, six blades began to materialize. “Now, how do we do this?” She asked.

“Ah, that. Well, for a start, we have to avoid all the Ki blasts, icicles and anything else flying from those two.” Blood Cleaver said as she gestured behind herself where the fight had once again distanced itself away from them.

“Otherwise, it’s mostly the containing part I need help with. Word of advice though, if you have to hit him, hit hard. He takes close to no damage from punches that break rocks. And sharp weapons don’t cut him, so don’t fight him head-on if he tries to attack you. And watch out for his magic, I believe he is low on reserves, but he could still freeze you solid I believe. He did it to another Equestria’s SUN with no visible effort before and didn’t even use half of his reserves.” Blood Cleaver warned them.

“Not a problem. Just need to change my code real quick.” The girl responded as she had a screen appear and typed a few keys.

“Huh, you’re some kind of class changing Displaced?” Blood Cleaver asked, curious about the girl's transformation.

“You could say that,” she responded as she changed her form. Her appearance, along with the appearance of the two probes changed along with it, surprising her father.

“Neat. However, while you help… well, me. I’ll be staying here. The Multi-Form technique lets me split my power and body into multiple selves, but I only have about a millionth share of my total power, if I go out there I’ll be minced meat. But I’ll signal myself that you’re going to help me.” Blood Cleaver explained truthfully as she barely had enough power to make herself fly.

“Got it,” The girl replied, seeing her father draw his swords. “You sure you’re gonna handle this, dad? Blood Cleaver said-.” She began, only to be interrupted by him.

“I know what she said about weapons not cutting him, but he doesn’t know that my weapons aren’t ordinary,” He smirked. “You know, when I said I wanted the chance to have some Father-Daughter time to ourselves, this was not what I had in mind.” He joked.

“Hah! Good Luck! Make sure not to get in the way of myself. I’d hate to disintegrate you with plasma.” Blood Cleaver said before flying upwards and shooting a small orb into the air, the orb exploding with a loud Clap working as a signal. The other Cleaver quickly allowed herself a moment to do the same to let them know she heard the signal.

Nodding to herself Cleaver landed once again and smiled. “She’s ready now, now go out there and show him how you can catch a spirit!"

Both of them nodded, charging into the fray. The man went head-on into the fight, while the girl stayed behind. A force field appeared around her. She also used some kind of beam, that upon impacting the inside of the field, split into three beams and continued towards Black Frost. She was aiming for the lower half of the body, since their focus was to contain him and prevent him from running away.

The sudden assault surprised Black, but he quickly recovered and gritted his teeth in frustration over now having to face an additional opponent. Trying to gain an advantage he quickly shot forward towards the girl and tried to blast her with ice magic from a close range, at the same time moving in a way so that Blood Cleaver could potentially hit her if she tried to shoot him. Knowing she wouldn't risk it, he used it to his advantage.

In response to this however, Blood Cleaver decided to give herself and her allies another advantage and began casting a barrage of Ki blasts over the sky, creating a wall of them that was pressing down from above, forcing all of them down to the ground before they stopped in mid-air a few meters over the ground.

The girl slid out of the way of Black's first attack and waited to see what was the outcome of Ms. Cleaver’s attack.

Having forced Black down to the ground, allowing the man to help out as well. Blood Cleaver began using more precise attacks as to not hit either of her new allies by mistake. Her current beams had now taken on a green tint and the small Ki blasts had become white instead of blue.

Black himself was about to retaliate against Blood Cleaver, but soon found himself being attacked from behind as he narrowly dodged the first of the man’s two swords. The second one the man held in reverse and caught him off guard by using it to try and pull him down to the ground and restrain him. It worked, but what took Black by surprise was who was attacking him. For he had seen him before.

“Anson?” Black asked in surprise before gathering his wits and created a wall of ice between them to give himself an opening. Using that opening to his fullest he created a lot of big ice spikes all over the clearing to use as cover and began weaving between them to lose his opponents and strike them from behind.

However, this was the moment that Anson's daughter created a slow-moving Electron Ball that dealt a lot of damage, but also pulled their opponents towards her. Much like a black hole created by energy. In this case, her energy was being used not just to hurt Black, but pull him towards the group as he fell forward onto the ground with a THUD!

Quickly getting up and narrowly avoiding a beam that would have hit him in the head, Black shouted a few curse words and released all the wind surrounding them from his control, allowing the falling snow to enter the clearing and further obstructing everyone's vision.

Everyone except the girl. While she couldn’t see a thing, her probes could. They were her helpers, weapons and in this case, eyes. She could see what they saw. And right now, she was seeing Black head towards her father.

“LEAVE MY DAD ALONE!!” With this, she conjured and released another beam, she tried to hit Black in the upper chest area where his arm was stretching out towards Anson.

Not having enough time to dodge, Black instead conjured up small blocks of ice to take the hit for him. But before he could retreat he found his lover jaw getting hit by a powerful kick delivered by Blood Cleaver. While Blood Cleaver couldn’t see much herself, she had a pretty good idea where everyone was because of her ability to sense their power levels, and therefore, she was still able to fight.

The kick sent Black through the air. The strike was both surprising and quite painful, making Black accidentally let go of his staff. As Blood Cleaver felt the opening in Black’s defenses in both his mindscape and in the fight, she quickly took advantage of it by showering him in a barrage of kicks and punches, keeping him pinned against one of the ice spikes he previously created. Large cracks beginning to spread through it.

The girl herself checked on her father before looking back at Blood Cleaver. She was surprised that she could move so fast, but had a feeling that something was wrong. Very wrong. Like she had been set up.

Before Faith could voice her suspicion, Blood Cleaver winced in pain and quickly distanced herself from Black, holding her left arm. The whole arm had been frostbitten, the frozen skin having turned black, just like dead tissue.

“Dammit, forgot about that.” Blood Cleaver swore as she quickly fished out a knife from somewhere and cut her left arm clean off, splattering a surprisingly small amount of blood into the snow.

“Well, seems I finally got you. You sure you’d not rather leave and stay out of this?” Black asked with a confident smirk. Blood Cleaver, however, didn’t falter.

“As if, what you’re doing is wrong, and I was told to help you return to normal, so that’s what I’m going to do. Now, let’s see about that trapping. NOW!” Blood Cleaver shouted. To the Frost mage’s surprise, he was soon attacked by a series of rapid slashes from Anson and then, thrown against the same wall Blood Cleaver had struck him against, this time by Anson. Conjuring four small blades, he used two of them to pin down the sleeves of Black's clothes and the other two to pin down the pant legs.

“That… was for almost hurting my daughter.” He said.

As soon as Anson was done, Blood Cleaver appeared before Black and gripped his throat with her now only hand and held him up before bashing heads with him. The unpleasant sound of two craniums bashing together sounded loud enough to wake an Ursa Minor, peacefully sleeping in the middle of the Everfree forest. And Black visibly winced at the contact. Blood Cleaver, however, seemed completely unphased by it as she made the last mental push needed to get through the whole ordeal.