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My Life as a Teenage Elder God

by Archon The Manic

Chapters

Chapter One: OKAY WHAT!?

"AAAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!"

"AAAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!"

We both had arrived here in a flash of burning light, and collapsed to the ground. We stood up and then looked around at the frozen wastes around us. And then we had seen each other. We both responded with screaming in a mix of terror, confusion, and shock after seeing what we both looked like. After a moment we both stopped when we realized that we were both scared. I spoke first.

"...Jenny? Is that you?"

The robot in front of me nodded and asked the same.

"Is that you Kyth?"

I nodded.

"Jen. I am I insane or am I actually Cthulhu?"

She chuckled nervously.

"Well Kyth you were already crazy but you are now Cthulhu. Am I Jenny from MLAATR?"

I nodded and spoke again.

"Whoever that salesmen jerk was, we need to punch him. But first we better figure out where we are."

She nodded, and the two of us looked over ourselves, taking stock. My body felt taller, stronger... Of course having a tentacles and dragon feet felt... weird. It felt sorta natural, like it all was a normal thing but it still seemed... Weird. Like having a leg go numb and feel like it isn't there but then feeling returns to it and your body sorta remembers that it's there. I looked up and saw Jen doing the same, and experimenting curiously with some transformations. I drew my sword slightly, and I could feel power charged in it, like static electricity in a blanket. The two of us locked eyes.

"I guess we should start trying to find civilization or something?"

She nodded, and I took her hand and we started walking. I stopped us after a minute though, having a thought.

"Wait a sec. Jen, XJ9 has rocket wings, right?"

She nodded.

"Yeah, and the rocket legs and stuff."

I nodded.

"And Cthulhu has wings, as seen on my back. If we're both the characters we dressed as, then why are we walking through this frozen wasteland when we can just fly? That way we can find civilization much faster and learn a bit more about how our new forms/bodies work on the way."

She giggled a bit.

"Well it seems sorta risky if we mess up... But let's give it a try!"

She got a look of concentration and then shook in place for a moment, only for four extra arms with scimitars to extend from above and below her shoulders. She retracted them and after a few more tries her wings extended.

"Aha! There we go! Alright, let's fly!"'

I flapped my own wings experimentally and rose up a good bit while watching her on the ground. She started shaking again only to shoot off the ground like a rocket and race above me, spastically flying through the sky, shrieking.

"KYYYYYYYYYYYYTH! I CAN'T STEER!"

I flew after her, only for her jets to give out midair and her wings retracting into her. She covered her eyes in her hands and screamed again, plummeting to the ground. I divebombed and managed to grab her, swooping up and barely avoiding a crash into the ground.

"I gotcha Jen!"

I went up a bit off the ground and hovered in the air. She uncovered her eyes, nearly hyperventilating.

"O-Okay. I'm gonna need some practice with all the new robot abilities."

I chuckled and nodded.

"Maaaaybe just a little."

Her face gained a puffed expression and she made to lightly punch me. The result was my face reeling like a firetruck nailed it.

"DYOW!"

I dropped down a few feet before recovering, Jen latching onto my neck not to fall. I put my hand around her and then my other onto where I felt my jaw beneath my tentacles.

"Okay, maybe work on the fact that you have super strength now..."

She blushed.

"Eheh... Sorry."

"Eh no harm done. I'm pretty sure that the Cthulhu which is me can take a few superpunches. Now, let's see if we can find someplace, and fast. I know that as a robot you don't have to worry about the temperature and as Cthulhu I have nothing to fear from it, but I'd rather not get buried when it starts snowing."

She snickered and started looking around. We both glanced down as we went over a ridge, and were shocked at what we saw. We both spoke at the same time.

"Is that the Crystal Empire!?"

We both knew it by sight, Jen was a pegasister and I a brony, but even with all that had happened to us we were caught off guard. A large circular region of crystal and gemstone, with a massive crystalline castle in the center, and towers extending from it. The center of the castle glowed, sending off pulses of magical power and generating a dome of shimmering blue magic over the city around it. The sky outside the dome was a deep orange, unnaturally so.

"Hey Jen? I don't think we're on Earth anymore."

She limply nodded.

"Um. Kyth. If we're in Equestria near the Crystal Empire, and we're outside the shield, does that mean Sombra's gonna show up and try to mind... control...us...?"

With those last few words she looked behind me and over my head.

"Let me guess, he's behind me?"

She nodded. I drew my sword.

"Jen, aren't you forgetting something?"

She blinked and then looked at me in confusion.

"What?"

I chuckled.

"You're a robot, so he can't mess up your mind. You have super strength, so you can easily bust up his crystals. I am an avatar of madness, so he can't touch my mind without getting majorly whip-lashed right in his psyche. and if he starts making crystals, I can cut through them with my sword. We can take this jerk!"

She laughed and we both gained devious grins as we turned to face the spirit. He looked like he did in the show, a floating horse gray stallion's head, with a razor sharp red horn and red eyes with a green glow around them. He had heard all we had said and looked angry. He raised an eyebrow as we grinned at him. I drew my sword and spoke to him.

"Hail evil king! I am Cthulhu the knight and this is my girlfriend Jenny! We are here to kick your butt!"

He roared and sent a blast of magic into the ground, crystals forming in the ground and aiming for me. Jen dashed forward and punched into them, shattering them in a single hit. He had an expression of disbelief on his muzzle. He regained his glare and sent a barrage of magical beams at me, only for me to dodge between them and deflect those that came near me with my sword. I smirked at him and leaped above him. His eyes widened as I brought my sword down on him, yelling.

"INSANITY STRIKE!"

It passed through him and I flopped onto the ground. Uh oh. I stood up and dashed over to Jen. I grabbed her and spread my wings, taking of toward the empire.

"Hey! What're you doing Kyth!? I thought you said we could take him!"

I shook my head.

"That was before I realized he was spectral! We can't even touch him, and that means we can't harm him!"

Her eyes widened and she leaned over my right shoulder, aiming her arm at the spectral pony behind us.

"Keep flying Kyth, I'll blast him with my laser arm!"

As she said this a beam of cyan energy erupted from her palm, tearing into Sombra. It didn't injure him, but it seemed that having a laser burn through his shadow body definitely hurt him. He yelled in pain, and slowed down in his pursuit. I looked forward, only to ram right into a jut of crystal and fall into the ground. Jen grabbed and helped me back to my feet, and we dashed on the ground, collapsing inside the barrier and seeing a jut of crystal ram into the shield behind us. We both let out a sigh of relief. I spoke up as I stood and lifted Jen to her feet.

"Okay, we're gonna need some kinda magic relic to beat him, or at least something that'll let us touch him normally."

She nodded, and we both heard a voice.

"Hey, whatever the heck you are, I won't let you harm anypony!"

I looked up uncertainly and saw the face of Shining Armor in front of me. A white unicorn stallion, with a blue mane and a black scarf, standing in a defensive position with a massive aura of magic around his horn. I spoke up first.

"Whoa whoa whoa! We're not going to hurt anyone, I swear! We just got lost out in the storm and Kin- I mean, that shadow guy started attacking us. We tried to fight him but my sword passed through him and we didn't want to risk getting hurt so we ran in here. Name's Cthulhu by the way, and this is Jenny."

He looked at us uncertainly, hooves spread wide on the ground.

"Well what are you? I've never seen anything like you that meant anything but trouble!"

Jen cut me off by speaking back at Shining.

"Hey! He didn't decide to have a octopus head or anything! Step off!"

Shining blushed and gained a slightly bashful expression.

"Er. Yeah, I suppose. Sorry for that. My name's Shining Armor, and I'm the Prince of this place by the way. Welcome to the Crystal Empire, Cthulhu and Jenny."

Chapter Two: Onward to Adventure

---Kyth POV---

"Okay Mr. Armor, before we do anything else is there someplace I can get some actual pants? This tunic is comfy but it carries a major breeze!"

I put this question forth to Shining Armor as he showed us  the way through the city to get to the castle. When we got there we'd be allowed to rest for a while and then we could head out to wherever we were headed on our 'travels'. Currently I was just concerned about getting some actual pants on, rather than the tunic (which was quintessentially halfway between pants and a dress and allowed a major breeze between the knees as it had NO UNDERWEAR). Hell I was alright with having no shirt since I was all muscle-y now, but I was at least wanting actual pants. Jen had found in the odd directory of info she had (she was finding that she could access data saved into her 'systems', including stuff like her own blueprints and stuff that she used her scanners on) that she had a transformation for weaving equipment which hopefully allowed for the making of what I wanted. When I asked Shining Armor this he seemed a little nervous apparently reading into my behavior that this was more important to me than it was.

"U-uh, yeah. We should have some materials that can be used for that... I think."

As we walked into the city I took in the sights, looking at a the splendor which was around me. Buildings of pristine crystal, in a grand assortment of colors. The crystal ponies which saw us gave mixed reaction, from fear, to apathy, to curiosity. The show didn't hold a candle to how they all looked in real life... They were amazing! Even dulled with Sombra's curse casting a shadow over them they looked like living gemstones, shimmering in the light of Cadence's shield. One mare worked up the courage to trot up to Jen, looking at her uncertainly and poking her leg. She had yellow, almost golden, mane and a pale blue coat. I pegged myself at about eight feet tall now, and Jen at about six and a half. From what I could estimate even Princess Celestia would only come up to my chest so the mare came up to only my waist. I figured it had taken a lot for her to work up the courage to approach beings as imposing as us, and I felt a bit of respect towards her for that. The mare looked at Jen and spoke to us.

"Umm. What are you two?"

Jen giggled and patted her head. I figured she'd be enjoying al of this since she always thought that the ponies in the Crystal Empire (at least the show's version) were all adorable.

"Well I'm a robot, that's sorta like an automaton but way more advanced, and he's a lookalike to an eldritch demon. Don't worry, that's just how he looks not how he is. My name's Jenny, and his is Kyth."

I waved at the mare. She seemed confused.

"Well... What are you doing here?"

I shrugged and spoke up.

"We're just visiting."

Her eyes widened slightly and she seemed to become slightly sheepish.

"O-oh. Uh...Sorry if I sounded rude."

I gave her a thumbs up and waved her off.

"Eh no problem! I'm probably gonna get that from a lot of ponies."

She nodded slowly and seemed to become lost in thought, slowly trotting away. I looked up and realized we had finally reached the castle. I leaned over to Jen and whispered to her, using a wing to insulate us speaking so no one could hear.

"Okay... If we're gonna get involved with the show's timeline then first let's head to the castle library and look around and find the book they showed in the show. If we find that then we can say we read the sucker and figured it out ourselves that for it be put under such emphasis that it had to be important."

She nodded and whispered back to me.

"We stay out of events until Sombra gets inside the shield. Remember the closer he gets to the heart the more corporeal his form'll be. When he's close enough we can finally fight back and hammer him straight into the ground!"

I nodded, and a few minutes later we had been lead into the castle interior and had been given some rough materials for clothing making by Shining Armor's servants.

"Alright Jen, you ready with the transformation?"

She nodded. It took her a few tries to get the proper transformation but it was easy for her to use transformations that she'd already learned. After a few short minutes my armored tunic and the given clothing materials had been rewoven into a slightly rough pair of dark red pants and underwear as well as a shirt. I stood behind a divider while Jen worked and quickly put it all on when I was handed it. I stepped out and grinned at the new outfit.

"Okay, objective one: get pants completed. Next up, let's go look around. Hey Shining, you have anything you need done around here? Both of us are up and ready to help if we can."

He looked surprised but nodded.

"Well with King Sombra trying to get in we're looking to see if the empire ever had anything that could be used to defend itself both from the weather and from attack. Maybe you could look around and see if you can find something for me? I'd go myself but Cadence needs me here to help give her extra power for the shield. My sister and some of her friends are on their way so they should be able to help, and since they'll be arriving soon I have to run out to go grab them, but that's one of the few things I'm willing to leave Cadence's side for."

I nodded, and Jen and I gave mock salutes. Jen spoke up.

"Alrighty sir, we're on the case!"

She leaned over to me when he left and whispered with a grin.

"Okay, to the library!"

I nodded, and the two of us set off into the castle.

---

"Okay ma'am, are you sure that you don't know where we could find anything on the crystal he- I mean, how the empire used to defend itself?"

The elderly mare's eyes looked downcast as we talked with her.

"I'm sorry there you two but I don't recall. I'm afraid I don't know rightly if I even work here..."

I shook my head and put a hand on her... Shoulder (withers?- barrel? I'm just gonna go with shoulder rather than try and use horse terminology), and gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile.

"Hey, don't sweat it. We'll just have a look around."

She nodded with a slight smile.

"Well let me know if you can find anything."

"Alright ma'am!"

I turned around and saw Jen hovering in the air, small jets coming from the back of her pigtail thrusters. She looked at me as I walked up.

"Hey Kyth, I remembered what the book looked like that they found!"

I tilted my head.

"Uh...How? It wasn't even all that detailed in the show."

She tapped the side of her head.

"I have all of XJ9's processing power and memory! I can just take a quick scan around with the ole X-ray eye scanner and- Aha!"

She dashed through the air and pulled a book from the shelf.

"History of the Crystal Empire! Alright, now we have our excuse, so we can just claim that we figured the heart would be an actual artifact."

I nodded.

"Okay Jen, we have our alibi so place the book back, and the events of the show play out while we're two steps ahead and already getting the heart. We may screw up the timeline, what with ruining Spike's being the hero and Twilight's lesson but still. It's better to be safe then sorry, and there's still the chance that just by our existing here the timeline's changed."

Jen nodded with an uncertain smile.

"Yeah. For all we know we're in an alternate timeline from the show where stuff wasn't going to happen like that."

We both stood there somberly for a moment and I shuddered with the possibilities of that statement.

"Welp... Let's go grab the Crystal Heart and monkey with the timeline!"

I held my arms in the air.

"Woot! Let's go ruin Sunbutt's plans!"

Quick note here: In the show... Well, let's just say that neither of us were that fond of Princess Celestia and her puppeteer way of getting things done. Anyway, as we entered the old throne room we spoke more.

"Y'know Jen, it's gonna be hard to hide that we have all this foresight on events from watching the show."

She nodded with a sad smile.

"Yeah. But it'll definitely come in handy. For now we'll just keep it to ourselves and figure it all out later."

We looked up at the darkened throne and I spoke, glancing at Jen.

"Huh. In the show Twilight used the crystal dark magic stuff to reveal the floor. Neither of us have that so how are we-"

I was cut off by Jen's fist growing and gaining spikes (a form I vaguely recognized was called Fists Of Fury or something), and then being used to punch through the floor to open the way to the stairwell. I laughed as Jen smirked at me.

"Well that works too!"

We both hopped down the gaping hole in the ground, Jen slowly descending with her hair thrusters and me with my wings. When we reached the bottom we hit another roadblock in getting to the heart. The nightmare door.

"Okay, neither of us have the light magicky stuff to open the door. That leaves one stupid option."

Jen gave me a deadpan stare.

"Break it?"

"I suppose. I'm gonna see if I can do whatever I did earlier to use magic through my sword in an Insanity Strike. Maybe insanity can substitute darkness."

I drew my sword and charged magic on it rising into the air to get some extra power in my attack.

"INSANITY STRIKE!"

I brought my sword down on the gem above the door, a pulse of black, green and purple energy erupting from it as it... Actually opened. Huh... I landed on the ground and sheathed my sword, only for my vision to flash with a searing light. Images tore at my mind without order or reason, along with a splitting pain and a burning numbness... I barely remember any of what I saw... Equestria in flames... The elements of harmony broken, their gems missing and leaving behind wrought and torn metal... And finally Jen... Oh god... Oh God no!

NO!

"JEEEEN! Nononono This can't be happening!"

I heard a voice as everything faded.

I am the avatar of he whose name you dare besmirch, and the being he who rightfully owns your stolen form.... And I

Will

Awaken

"Kyth! Snap the heck out of it!"

A painful impact hit my jaw, and  fell to the floor. It... It wasn't real. It was the door... Just my worst nightmare beheld in full sight just like in the show... I looked up slowly and saw Jen standing over me, perfectly fine but staring at me, looking totally freaked out. I stood shakily and walked over to her and numbly hugged her.

"...Jen. Do me a favor and destroy that door."

She nodded and walked to the door and punched through the open doorway, shattering the divide to the next area from the show. She hopped up and reconstructed her legs into a drill and shredded the rest of the doorway into nothing but powder. I nodded and numbly smiled at her and we continued. She knew just as well as I did what the door did. I was glad she was willing to go without asking me...what I had seen... I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep going if I had to tell her that I'd...

That I had been the one to murder her. That I watched her draw her last breath and had only laughed... I shook my head to try and banish these thoughts. We had to... Had to focus on stopping Sombra. The two of us hopped off the stairwell in the white void and Jen latched onto my back, using her leg boosters to propel me while I used my wings to steer us. After a few minutes we reached the top, and finally saw the heart. It floated in the air, a gem of shining sky blue color, made into the shaping of a hear by unknown means. An aura of unknown power surrounded it, one that both of us could feel. I stepped toward it, only for Jen to place a hand on my shoulder and stop me.

"Hold up Kyth. Remember, Sombra's trap around the heart was triggered by someone stepping on the ground around it. How's about I just do this."

Her right arm shook for a few moments before her hand and arm extended out to grab and wrap around the heart and yank it out from the circle before the trap could have any chance to activate.

"Alright, that is a much better plan Jen."

She grinned at me.

"You got that right Kythy! Now then, let's get this to the fair! It should be set up by now!"

I nodded and picked up Jen in a fluid motion.

"Eep! Kyyyyyyyth!"

I spread my wings and leaped off the tower, Jen shrieking with laughter all the way. I smirked as we heard the voices in the center of the castle courtyard below us. A raspy voice coming from a blue pegasus with a rainbow mane directed to a purple unicorn with a darker purple mane and a pink stripe.

"Uhh Twilight! We got a problem!"

I dropped down and set Jen on her feet with the Crystal Heart. I spoke up before they noticed me.

"No you don't!"

They both looked at me, and before they screamed I cut them off.

"IamKythandthisisJenShiningArmorbroughtusherebeforeyoutohelpdefendtheEmpireWereadthisbooktalkingaboutthefairandstuffandwefiguretheCrystalHeartitmentionedwasimportantsowewentoutandfoundit!"

They closed their mouths, now looking utterly confused rather than afraid. I coughed and repeated myself, slow enough for them to understand.

"Hey there. My name's Kyth and this is my girlfriend Jen. We arrived here into the Empire after getting chased around by Sombra out there and met up with Shining Armor. We decided to help him out and find out what we could about ways the Empire once defended itself after he gave us a rundown about the situation. We found this book in the library that talked about the Crystal Fair and all that and we figured that the Crystal Heart would have to be an actual artifact or something so we bashed through a bunch of Sombra's traps in the castle and fund the thing.

Twilight spoke first, and levitated the heart from Jen.

"Um. M-My name is Twilight Sparkle, and this is Rainbow Dash. Shining Armor is my brother."

I nodded.

"Yeah he said that he was going out to grab you before we started looking in the library to find stuff to defend the empire with."

"Well alright but um... If it isn't rude, can  ask what you two are? I've never heard of or seen anything like you before."

I gave as much of a smile as I could.

"Well I am a demonic eldritch creature made from a fusion of a dragon, a human, an octopus/squid and a whole bunch of other stuff. Okay none of that was true. I am an eldritch spirit, I think, but all that other stuff is just what I look like. Jen's a robot, which is sorta like an automaton but way more advanced."

I felt a wave of dread wash over me as Twilight gained a slightly manic grin. I suddenly knew what a human that was about to be probed by aliens felt like. Before Twilight could speak again.

"Anyway, I think Jen and I are gonna go tell Princess Cadence about the heart!"

I grabbed Jen's hand and rushed off towards the castle. I leaned over and spoke as we entered the doorway.

"Okay, we may have to deal with Twilight trying to examine us."

Jen grimly nodded and shuddered slightly.

"That's gonna be rough. Let's just hope that she only asks questions rather than going the 'Pinkie Sense' route of constantly watching us. Anyway, let's give the news to Princess Cadence and Shining Armor!"

We both heard a massive, resounding sound of something fizzling all around us. We locked eyes for a moment and charged up the stairs to the balcony where Princess Cadence would be, and both of us looked up to see the aura of Cadence's horn sparking and popping, and finally dying out. I looked to the sky and saw the shield around the empire cracking and shattering into nothing. I saw Sombra, his ethereal form in all its twisted glory. I limply spoke to no one in particular, my eyes never leaving Sombra.

"That's... not very good."

Chapter Three: What Did You Just Say About My Pants!?

"That's not good."

My mind went into overdrive. We had to get the heart working, now. I started planning to figure out how to handle this happening.

"Okay Jen I'll go after Sombra and buy you some time to explain the heart to Shining Armor and get it activated!"

She nodded, and I jumped from the balcony and flew as far as I could into the cloud layer. I flew out above Sombra and charged power in my sword for one of the 'tech' moves from my game. I took a second to wish that Sombra would be hurt by fire, and then divebombed towards him. I yelled out and he looked up. I could see briefly a moment of realization on his face, as he undoubtedly realized he was physical enough to be touched. He jumped back, but still got blasted back by the wave of flame.

"FLAMING STRIKE!"

More juts of crystal grew from the ground as he tried to dodge away from me while still trying to get past. I charged more magic on my sword and sent a blast of magic at him, one that'd be harder to dodge.

"FIREBALL!"

I watched the fireball nail him and send him careening into one of his crystals. He snarled at me and before I could react, all of the black crystals erupted with energy. I was hammered with black, purple, and green lightning from all sides. I dropped down to the ground and shut my wings, one of which I could feel was injured. I brought my sword around and managed to demolish the next crystal Sombra had made to step on. I hopped onto the replacement stepping crystal as he brought it out of the ground and then lunged out, knocking Sombra to the ground with me. He snarled and threw me off with his magic, slamming me into a wall. It seemed that I'd finally become enough of an annoyance that he had decided to deal with me before going for the heart. That was good by me, and I flashed him a tentacle filled grin.

"Heya buuuuuuuddy!"

He roared and sent a bolt of lightning at me, this one I avoided. I started running the opposite directions from the castle and threw a broken chunk of crystal at the back of his head. I glanced back and saw him charging after me. I ducked and dodged around to avoid getting blasted, until finally I heard him roar and a wave of pain erupted in my leg. I collapsed and looked up to see him approaching, with an expression like that of an animal watching prey give its last bit of resistance. I looked behind him and grinned dryly.

"Heheh."

He lifted an eyebrow and I did my best to imitate Yzma from the ending of Emperor's New Groove.

"I win!"

His eyes widened and he whirled around, only for a wave of blue energy to crash into him. I leaned out of the way of his remains as he shattered into darkness, and then darted my hand in to grab his horn from midair. I forced myself to my feet, and slowly started limping towards the castle. I glanced at Sombra's horn in my hand and then pocketed it. I decided that I'd have to keep an eye on it, and that it may come in handy. In the show it had the power to generate crystals and darkness even without Sombra, and that was just a small piece of it. The whole thing... I decided I would rather not find out. I looked up and waved as I saw Jen flying towards me and over all of the wrecked gems and broken street from while I distracted Sombra. She dove towards me and grabbed me in a bear hug. I gasped an poked her on the back.

"J-Jen! My back is hurt and.... I.... Can't... Breathe...!"

She blushed and loosened up. Then she seemed to notice my injuries.

"Holy shit dude what did you do!"

I grinned as she pulled me to lean on her as we walked.

"Well I pissed off Sombra until he decided I was worth killing, and then I got the shoulder of one of my wings injured along with my left leg."

She glared at me.

"Well don't get yourself all jacked up next time!"

"No argument there, but I'm still figuring out what stuff from the game I can actually do."

She nodded slowly.

"Yeah. I gotta figure out if I have all of XJ9's abilities or even if I have all of the transformable abilities. I could have a near infinite amount of weapons and such to use."

I nodded and grinned at her.

"Yeah. We're gonna have some fun figuring out our new limits."

She smiled back to me.

After a couple of minutes we made it back to the castle. We immediately received some weird looks, and it seems that the rest of the elements hadn't been told about us yet. Fluttershy gasped and rushed over, giving me the 'wounded animal' treatment. Pinkie ducked and dodged around, inspecting us at all angles, and Applejack and Rarity started yelling at the two.

"Oh my goodness, are you alright?"

Fluttershy had plopped herself under my other arm opposite Jan. The two of them started pulling me towards the castle steps and I heard Pinkie Pie speak up.

"Oh hey! What are you guys I've never seen anything like you before! Are you some kinda sea dragon god-monster? And you are you an automaton so advanced that we can barely comprehend it that's called a robot?"

Everyone froze and looked at her. Jen and I did what would defuse the moment in the show. We both spoke at the same time.

"What?"

Pinkie blinked.

"What are you?"

Before we spoke, Applejack cut us off.

"Pinkie Pie! Fluttershy! Get away from those things! We don't even know what they are dangit!"

"Yes dears, get away from that unsightly creature."

This I decided to take offense to.

"Hey! For your information Jen and I are the ones who grabbed the Crystal Heart, fought Sombra and then got the Heart activated to save the empire! A little thanks is in order I'd say!"

Rarity and Applejack's expressions dropped, and they both looked at Twilight, who was now walking out of the castle.

"Hey Twi this thing here is trying to take credit for what you did to save the Empire from Sombra!'

Twilight gained a downcast expression.

"Well actually he's right... The Crystal Heart is an actual relic, and if these two hadn't been here working for my brother then we may not have been able to retrieve it in time to defend the Empire."

I took my arm off Fluttershy and pointed at Rarity and Applejack.

"How's THAT for unsightly!"

I turned to Fluttershy.

"And thank you for the assistance miss, but Jen's got me taken care of."

Fluttershy blushed and moved away, murmuring something about getting bandages.

Pinkie Pie giggled a little and I looked down to see her poking one of my tentacles with an outstretched hoof, almost like a cat with a string. I concentrated a moment and made the tentacle wiggle around, sending her into a giggle of laughter. I patted her on the head, and I heard Twilight speak up again.

"Of course! These two must be part of my test!"

The rest of the elements sans Fluttershy looked at her. Applejack spoke up.

"How do ya figure that?"

She turned to Applejack and responded.

"Well think about it, a pair of beings unlike any other show up out of nowhere to save the empire? Ones with next to no information surrounding them? It's gotta be part of the test, Princess Celestia must be trying to see how well I handle major changes in plans! Heheh, that's the only logical explanation!"

She had a slightly manic and nervous grin by this point, and the other elements shrugged and nodded. Twilight turned to us and I looked up to see Fluttershy return and start wrapping bandages on my leg and wing after Jen sat me down on the castle steps. I looked back up to Twilight when I heard her speaking to Jen and I.

"Wel sir and madam, could you please reintroduce yourselves to my friends here?"

Jen nodded and spoke up.

"Hi there, my name's Jen. I'm a sixteen year old robot/automaton with a sentient soul and my own free will, and this guy here's my boyfriend Kyth."

I spoke up now, with a small wave of my hand.

"Hello, I'm Cthulhu. I'm Jen's boyfriend and I'm an extra-dimensional spirit that's on a quest to regain my lost power!"

They all gave uncertain looks, and Twilight was beaming.

"See? If they weren't part of the test then they'd seem completely impossible other than the fact that we can see them! So, what're the two of you doing here in the empire?"

I let Jen explain this part. She usually was better with explaining things that would freak people out than I was.

"It's kind of a long story. How about we get Princess Cadence and Shining Armor and gather in the throne room so we can explain how it really is."

All of the elements agreed, and a short while later we were all gathered in the throne room. Jen and I had agreed that it would be best to skip some of the secret keeping and tell everyone at least why we were here. We told them everything except for what we knew about the show, and they were all hesitant to believe us. Then I reminded them of all that Twilight had said, and how it was the only thing that made sense. They all seemed to accept this, and they mostly forgave the fact that we had lied earlier since we had saved the empire and the circumstances. Of course Twilight had deluded herself into believing that it was all part of the test, something about testing her ideas on the nature of reality by Celestia. She still wanted to study us though, and we still wanted to move to Ponyville. Then Applejack rammed us into an awkward situation.

"So wait, don't y'all want to go home? Don't you have family to get back to?"

Jen and I both had figured this out already, the plan between us was to wait a while and then come with the elements when they came back to the empire after Twilight ascended. After that we could follow Sunset Shimmer back to the mirror and then be back on Earth. Of course there was the debate on the EQ movies being non-canon meaning the mirror wouldn't be there, but for the moment that was our plan. For the moment we were just saying we hoped to find something miscellaneous that could send us back. I spoke up.

"Well yeah. But Equestria has magic out the wazoo so it shouldn't be much of a problem to find a magical relic or spell that can send us back home. Until then we can just chill with you guys in Ponyville."

They seemed to accept this, and they all swore to do their best to either help us find something or to make our stay comfortable until we could go home, and after that we departed for Ponyville. Each of the mane six had something they wanted to ask us about as we went along the way. First of all was Fluttershy simply checking that I was still bandaged properly. Then Applejack who was left perturbed by the idea of humans having machines to do farming tasks for us. Pinkie had already had her spiel, and next was Rainbow Dash asking if Jen and I wanted to race her when we got to Ponyville, since she had seen us fly with prety good speed earlier. Twilight was furiously writing the whole time, and Spike was actually curious about the comics and such that we had. That was actually an interesting conversation, and while I did that I heard Jen telling Rarity about clothing styles from Earth.

"Well we have the Power Ponies! They have all kinds of magic, lightning power, shaping gems into anything imaginable, super anger strength, a magic whip, even super speed!"

I smirked at him.

"Yeah well the Avengers have a robotic suit of power armor, super anger strength, a thunder god, a super soldier with an unbreakable shield, a secret agent, and even an archer with a whole crapton of technologically amplified super-arrows!"

Spike and I locked eyes. He broke the brief silence.

"You got any copies on you?"

"No. You?"

He shook his head.

"No, but I have some in Ponyville."

"Then I'll be borrowing some of those."

"No problem just take good care of them and keep them in the sleeves."

We broke the intense gaze with a laugh, me punching his shoulder and him grinning at me. Then we hear Jen getting ticked off.

"Hey considering they were crafted from a torn up tunic and scraps then they look damn good to me! Hell, Kyth likes them and that's what should matter when personally making stuff like clothing!"

Uh oh. Something I had learned before Jen and I started dating was that she gets defensive about stuff she works on. She can take criticism but a direct insult will get her ticked fast. And from the sound of it Rarity was criticizing the pair of pants Jen had thrown together back at the empire. I like them as Jen said, but sewing was a bit of a hobby for Jen, and so it was one thing which easily got her vamped up.

"Well I'm not denying that it's important that the client like the item darling, merely that that... Ensemble... Could be made to look a good deal more fashionable. Then again I suppose that a machine could never match the ability of a skilled designer."

And then I leaned over to Spike and whispered to him.

"Brace for impact, here comes the yelling."

"Excuse me, but just because I'm a machine doesn't take away from my skill in the slightest!"

"Well darling I apologize, maybe I simply misread your skill."

"Hey I'm no master but I'm no amateur either! Hell, I bet I could outdo anything you could make with the same conditions!"

"Well challenge accepted dear, we can settle it back at my boutique."

"Game on."

The rest of the ride was spent with them sitting back to back looking away from each other. Spike and I locked eyes and made a silent agreement to not be involved. After a short awkward while we arrived in Ponyville and everyone dispersed, Pinkie heading out to get supplies to throw us a housewarming party later, Rainbow to get to weather duty, Applejack and Fluttershy to take care of chores, leaving only me, Jen, Spike, Rarity, and Twilight. We were about to head to Rarity's for the two of them to settle their challenge when Jen froze up in the road. Her eyes widened and she stood stock still. I asked what was wrong but she shushed me.

"Shutupshutup! I hear something."

One of her pigtails bent and opened into a satellite dish looking broadcaster. Her eyes widened and she looked at me.

"C'mon, we got trouble!"

Her pigtails reverted and jets opened in them, and I unfolded my wings and the two of us dashed across town. I could see what she meant by trouble, I could see a group of foals from the Ponyville school running away from the Everfree Forest. I could see the Crusaders, Snips, Snails, Twist, Pip, and HOLY FRACK IS THAT BUTTON MASH!? I lost focus for a split second but quickly realized  why they were running.

Following them from the forest was a full grown hydra, and it/they looked pissed.

Chapter Four: Cutie Mark Crusader Hellraisers!

We both leaped into action, Jen rocketing ahead of me and grabbing the crusaders and Twist in her arms and rocketing away at extreme speeds. I drew my sword as I charged , bringing it to bear across the side of the hydra's leg. I spread my wings again and grabbed Snips, Snails, and Button and rushed to get clear as the hydra collapsed behind me. I saw Jen flying back at the hydra and I set the colts down with the crusaders and Twist before following Jen back to the angered hydra. It had pushed itself back up and was unsteadily standing with enraged expressions. I yelled to Jen as she darted around it.

"Jen! We gotta draw it away from the town and back towards the forest!"

She nodded and nailed one of its faces with a  beam of energy. It roared at her, only then to turn back to where the town was and start for it. I dove onto its back and slashed one of its four heads with my sword. It turned and all four heads started snapping at me. Jen dove below me and transformed one of her arms into a laser cannon. She blasted the leg I had already cut, and the hydra went down again. I was caught off guard as it grabbed my leg in one of its heads and thrown as it went down. I recovered in midair with only a minor cut on my leg. I landed on the ground in time for Twilight to run up.

"Kyth! What's going on?!"

"Some foals pissed off a hydra! We can't lure it off though, and Jen and I aren't experienced enough with our new forms to handle a long battle with something like this. We're gonna have to put it down, or else it could do some serious damage to the town."

She nodded resolutely. I opened my wings and drew my sword. I yelled to Jen when I got airborne.

"Jen! We gotta put this thing down! Get it into the air and I can get him with my sword!"

She nodded and dove, getting below it before it realized what was happening. Jen spread her wings and grabbed it, lifting it into the air. I flew down to the ground as Jen rocketed downward with it, planting my sword into its chest. It roared in anger and pain. I brought my sword down and tore out of it. With a final roar the hydra collapsed, its upper half landing in the forest. I exhaled and Jen landed next to me. We looked at each other for a moment before yelling.

"Yeah! We came, we saw, and we kicked its ass!"

We both whooped and high-fived, before hearing the cheers of foals.

"Whoa!"

We turned and saw the foals we had saved rush up to us. The crusaders and Twist charged up to Jen, and the colts to me. Snips spoke to me first.

"Holy shoot! You took down that hydra in two moves mister!"

Snails nodded ecstatically and cheered.

"Yeah! That was awesome!"

Button yelled in excitement.

"That was so cool! You were all 'pshing!' and then it was all 'raaaaar!' and then she was all 'KAPEW!' Who are you guys!?"

Around Jen the Crusaders spoke up, first Applebloom then Sweetie Belle. I looked up and saw Jen getting a bit wigged while silently preparing a response.

"That was awesome!"

"Yeah! How'd you shoot all those magic blasts and stuff?"

Scootaloo spoke up next, looking at us with wide eyes and was followed by Twist.

"You looked like you were as fast as Rainbow Dash!"

"That wath really thump'thin! Who are you guyth?"

She looked up at me with a nervous expression, clearly wigged out from all the foals swarming around, and I decided to take the lead in this. Jen always did get a bit bugged out by being surrounded by too many people in a crowd, and it seemed that them being ponies made little difference. As I spoke up I reached out and put an arm around her shoulders like I would've on Earth to help her calm down.

"Greetings foals of Ponyville! I am Cthulhu and this is my special someone Jenny XJ9! I'm a knight questing for a power which was stolen from me by becoming a true hero and Jen is a robotic warrior and a defender of the innocent!"

All of the foals gave us ecstatic looks of excitement.

"Cool!"

The foals barraged us with questions but Jen cut them off, now recovered.

"Wait a second! Why did you have a hydra chasing you in the first place?"

They all lost their excitement and looked bashful.

"Ehehehheheheh... We kinda... sorta... may have been looking for if it had a hoard of treasure."

Jen and I both facepalmed.

"Why did you think that a hydra would have treasure?"

I said slowly. I was actually curious as to their thought process.

"Well dragons keep hoards, right? And a hydra is sorta like a dragon so we thought that maybe it would have cool treasure and stuff too. And we figured it would be best to have a bunch of ponies to get it so..."

Jen spoke next in a parental 'we are not mad just disappointed voice'.

"Well we're going to have to tell your families what you've been up to. One of you could have gotten hurt from this!"

I put a hand on her shoulder and she sighed.

"Though at least you had the sense to try and get help. Well might as well tell us who you kids are."

The crusaders spoke first.

"I'm Sweetie Belle!"

"I'm Applebloom!"

"I'm Scootaloo!"

"And we're..."

Jen bent her pigtails over where her ears would be and I attempted to do the same with two of the tentacles on my face.

"THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS!"

I looked behind us and saw a number of ponies hiding upon hearing them nearby. The rest of the foals spoke next.

"I'm Snips!"

"I'm Snails!"

"I'm Twitht!"

"I'm Button Mash!"

Twilight walked up and told us she would take the crusaders to their sisters (Scootaloo went to Rainbow Dash oddly, as Scoots got defensive whenever her parents were talked about and thusly Rainbow Dash was the only mare who could take her home) and then left us to take the rest of the foals. After that Jen and I took the rest of the foals. First Button Mash, whose mom looked ready to murder me for holding Button on my shoulder. Button managed to cut her off though before she attacked me for holding her child.

"No wait mom! It's okay! These two saved me and the other foals from a hydra!"

"They saved you from a WHAT!?"

A short explanation later Buttons mom had sent him to his room and came back to talk to us.

"Sorry for my son, sometimes he doesn't realize how dangerous things can be."

Jen laughed and  spoke.

"It's alright ma'am. We're just dropping off the foals and making sure their parents know what happened."

She nodded.

"Well thank you for what it's worth. And I will definitely be having a talk with Button about this."

Most of the encounters with the foals' families went this way, with their parents nearly killing us but then having their foals explain we weren't monsters and that we'd saved them. From this we learned that Bon-Bon as she was called was Twist's aunt and Snips was raised by a mare named Sugar Mill (a small earth pony mare with a white coat and an orange mane similar to Snips) and Snails by a mare named Spice Mix (a unicorn mare with the same coat as snails but a brown mane). A few minutes later Jen and I nearly died laughing when we realized that Snips and Snails were raised by Sugar and Spice. After that we headed to the library to meet with Spike and Twilight, and tomorrow Jen and I planned to go with Spike to fill out the paperwork for us to get citizenship. As it was Twilight still thought we were part of the test but Spike was cool with us and had promised to talk with Celestia to help us get situated. As it turned out Spike was smarter than the show made him out to be, and was smart enough to know some of what we would need to live here in Equestria. It was late afternoon and into the evening when we were finally back at the library after dropping off the foals, and I decided to take a look into reading about magic. I figured that if Cthulhu had magic in the game, then maybe I could adapt some Equestrian magic for me to use myself. While I was reading in one of the guest rooms, sitting in a recliner Jen talked with Spike about what we'd do tomorrow. After a few minutes Jen entered the room and sat down in my lap and we talked about what I'd learned from the book, and then I remembered something.

"Oh yeah Jen I just remembered!"

"What?"

I took out Sombra's horn from my pocket.

"This!"

"Holy crap I thought that was destroyed..."

"Yeah but in the show it just shows it flying off with the rest of him. But in the show his horn was all kinds of magical. The tip could make crystals, and he could regenerate it when it was cut off. I grabbed it from the air when he got exploded though, so if it has the ability to regenerate him then we can keep him imprisoned."

"And if not?"

"If it doesn't remake him then I'm gonna make a wand or something out of it."

She laughed at this and I put the horn back in my pocket. The two of us sat there a while, Jen holding the book and me holding her. At some point Jen fell asleep (or into sleep mode or whatever) and I sighed contently and did the same.

I didn't know then all that would lie ahead.

But as long as I had Jen, I knew that everything would be alright.

Chapter Five: Home is Where The Lump Which Pumps That Black Sludge Is

I was woken up the next morning to the smell of fish cooking. I wasn't sure if it was me or the new body, but it smelled delicious. I poked Jen and she looked at me blearily.

"Hey Kyth... Wass goin on?"

I smiled at her.

"Well it's morning so I figured we could see about getting me some of that delicious smelling fish and you some oil of some sort."

She nodded slowly and stood up shakily. She nearly collapsed, but I managed to stand and catch her.

"Whoa. You okay Jen?"

She gave me an exhausted glance.

"I think... I've got a low battery or... Something."

Uh oh. I hadn't thought about that. Equestria might not have the right technology to have what we would need to power Jen's XJ9 body. I picked Jen up and walked towards the kitchen.

"Uh Spike do you have batteries or know what they are? We need some really bad."

Spike looked up from the stove.

"Batteries? Well there's magic batteries that use ambient magic to power stuff but  have a feeling that you mean something else."

I nodded fiercely.

"Okay is there anything used to contain lighting magic or something?"

He shook his head.

"Other than gems, no."

I looked at him.

"We need some, now."

Spike blinked as he looked at us.

"Well Rarity knows about enchanting gems some so you could ask her."

I nodded.

"Thanks Spike that breakfast smells awesome I'll try it later!"

I dashed out of the library with Jen and flew overhead trying to see where the boutique was. I got a few strange looks from ponies but Twilight had told the town about us so they didn't panic at the sight of me. They were nervous though, and I didn't blame them. I looked down and saw Rarity walking along.  landed in front of her.

"Rarity I need your help!"

She nodded and a few minutes later we were back at the boutique. I gave her a brief rundown on what we needed and Jen managed to chip in occasionally. A few minutes later we managed to get a few gems carved into the right shape and then wrapped in metal and charged with magic. I opened the panel to where Jen had batteries stored and then swapped out the old ones for the gems. Jen adjusted internally to connect to the gems and a spray of sparks shot out before gem closed the panel. She stood up, shaking a little but otherwise alright.

"Well I feel kinda funny but otherwise I think that it worked. I think that maybe it could be refined a bit but for now this works."

I let out a breath of relief. Jen stretched out as if she were just waking up. I spoke up.

"Okay, morning scare done with now let's see about getting you some robot food and me some regular food."

She nodded and Rarity questioned this.

"What do you mean by 'robot food'?"

Jen spoke up.

"Well I'm a machine so I can't really eat normal food. I don't really need to eat but I'm able to eat certain things. Think like how a dragon can eat gems but other stuff can make them get sick. If I eat normal food it can mess me up, but I still like being able to eat things. "

Rarity seemed to accept this.

"Well good to know darling. I will see you later but do remember our little challenge."

Jen smirked and gave her a nod.

"Sure."

After that we headed back to the library and told Spike what the deal was with us rushing out. As we found out though part of Spike's diet was fish. Since Spike was a dragon he needed to eat gems and meat along with the food ponies made, and thus the only meat type items ponies accepted eating was fish and eggs. Spike had been gracious enough to make enough fish for me to have some as well, and Jenny had verified with her scanners that some of the oil used for operating the stove was safe for her to eat. Spike had gotten out a spare can of it and Jen was siting with us at the table, sipping at it. I asked her how it was.

"So, how does stove oil taste?"

She finished a long sip and got a contemplative expression.

"Hmm. Pretty good. Can't really describe it though."

Spike questioned this.

"Well what do you mean?"

"Well how do gems taste?"

Spike gained a blank expression and a hundred yard stare.

"They taste kinda... Like they're just...Huh. They don't really taste like anything but themselves."

Jen nodded.

"Exactly. Well this tastes sorta like liquid smoke, but actually pretty tasty."

Spike nodded.

"Cool. Anyway Twilight went to Canterlot to talk with Princess Celestia so I figured we could go out to start getting you guys citizenship and a house and stuff. I already sent a letter to Princess Cadence and Princess Celestia and she agreed to give you guys citizenship so we just have to drop off the forms and stuff by city hall."

I laughed and patted his head.

"Awesome! Thanks dude!"

He blushed.

"It's nothing."

Jen laughed at this.

"Not really. Thanks to you we're gonna be able to have a place to stay. Thanks."

He gave a small smile to this, and hopped down from his chair and grabbed the forms and pointed forward.

"Let's go!"

A short while later we were finally done with the paperwork and were looking for a house. We managed to find one that was unoccupied and then talk to the owner. And then we saw the price and went to the library in a dejected mood. Spike went with us to help with our getting jobs in town Then we realized we had no idea what we would offer the town, and then we got a message from the mayor inviting us to meet her. The two of us told Spike we'd see  him later and flew back to town hall.

"I bet the two of you are wondering why I've called you here."

We nodded.

"The truth is, I'd like to hire you. I was informed of you two moving into town and  was able to see how you dealt with that hydra. Here in Ponyville we don't have any record of crime, but with the Everfree nearby there's a large threat of monsters and wild animals wandering out and causing havoc. As such I want to have the two of you here to help deal with and drive off such threats. I can offer you a house in town and a decent paycheck for each of you, and you won't have to do any day-to-day work outside of dealing with these creatures and then writing out the proper paperwork to report anything that wanders out. What do you say?"

Jen and I looked at each other and back to her, and I asked a question.

"Will you be willing to help with getting me some armor to wear and Jen the occasional repair?"

She nodded, and Jen spoke up with a grin.

"We'll take it!"

That night we gathered up in Jen and I's new house near the library, Pinkie being happy to put together a housewarming party for us. She was happy as well to restrain it to just her and the elements (sans Twilight) and Spike. The house was a modest size, with a living room, kitchen and dining room, and a couple of bedrooms and bathrooms. After a short while everyone went home and Jen and I went to sleep in our bedroom, exhausted. We were woken up late in the day by the sound of many Pinkie Pies chanting outside the window.

"Fun fun fun! FUN! Funfun!"

I got up and looked outside the window. I took out the list of episodes we had recorded to keep track of the timeline and saw the next episode and shuddered.

Too Many Pinkie Pies.

"Jen we're gonna have a long day."

She groggily nodded and stood up.

"I'll start charging laser cannons..."

Chapter Six: Apinkalypse Now

---Kyth POV---

"FFUNFUNFUFNFUNFUNFUFNFUNFUFNUFNFUNFUNFUFNUFN!"

I cringed as I approached the door, only for Jen to poke my shoulder.

"Uh Kyth? We can fly. I'd rather not open the floodgates and fill our house with Pinkie Pies when we can just hop out the window."

I blinked and nodded. The two of us dashed up the stairs and jumped from the bedroom window. I asked her about our plan as we went.

"Okay, find the sad Pinkie and then get her to perk up and we can skip the paint drying stuff and have Pinkie fix everything herself!"

She nodded and pointed down.

"There she is! Let's go!"

We both set down. I spoke up, playing dumb.

"Hey Pinkie where'd all of these clones come from?"

"Why are you asking me? It's not like I'm the real Pinkie or anything."

"Of course you are!"

"Nuh-uh."

Jen chipped in.

"Ya-huh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Ya-huh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

I watched the two go back and forth, Pinkie getting a tad miffed by the end.

"Ya-huh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Ya-huh!

"Nuh-uh!"

"YA-HUH! I AM PINKIE PIE AND THAT IS FINAL!"

Pinkie's face got a blank expression, before she keeling over giggling. Jen spoke again as Pinkie jumped up and glomped her.

"See? You are the one Pinkie Pie!"

"Yeah!"

"You can prove it to everyone that no clone can be even close to being you!"

"Yeah!"

"And you're gonna help us gather the element bearers so we can exorcise all of the clones!"

"YEAH!"

I sighed in relief that our plan had worked and managed to out-Pinkie Pinkie and get her back to being herself. Jen reached up and took out a piece of string and wove Pinkie's mane into a ponytail (heh, ponytail), smiled at her, and spoke.

"There. Now we can know it's you. And here's the secret password for if your mane gets mussed up..."

She whispered in her ear, and Pinkie nodded emphatically.

"Okey-Dokey-Lokey!"

We started walking and saw the Apples herding all of the Pinkies. We flew up next to them, Pinkie planted on my back between my wings.

"Yo AJ! We got the real Pinkie right here!"

"Huh? Well how in tarnation do ya know that ones not just a clone?"

Jen spoke up.

"She's the only one not fun crazed! She even tried to deny being Pinkie Pie! It's like insanity, if you can see that you have it then you don't! This Pinkie can see that she might not be, and that means she is! She's the only one with Pinkie sense too, and she actually knows who all of you guys are!"

Applejack seemed to consider this as they finally herded the rest of the Pinkies into town hall. We flew in and went right to the stage and yelled out, even though Twilight had gotten them sat down.

"Would the real Pinkie Pie please stand up?!"

They all stood simultaneously, sans the real one.

"Kyth! I just got them down!"

"Yes but there's no need! We found the real Pinkie Pie!"

"What?! How? We couldn't figure out who the real one was, how did you?"

"Well it was the sad Pinkie obviously!"

"What? Kyth, Pinkie Pie isn't really the type to stay still for such a long time. What made you think it was her?"

"Well she was the only one that A. understood how useless it was to try and make everyone think she was the original and B. she was the only one who had a bigger vocabulary than,"

I leaned in to Twilight.

"FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN I'M THE REAL PINKIE PIE NO I AM NO-FUN FUN FUN! I'M PINKIE PIE LET'S GO DO FUN!"

She reeled back from my yelling.

"Ow! Still why would that make her the original?"

Jen spoke up now.

"Well the clones wouldn't have all of the mental faculties of the original, and besides,"

Jen's eyes turned bright blue for a moment as she glanced over all of the clones and the original.

"All of the Pinkies other than this one are energy constructs. I scanned them, they're all, like... Shells. Like they're just energy made into Pinkie-shaped shells. Kinda look like they're fulla bees of magic."

Twilight's face lost all expression.

"You can scan such a large crowd in such a large area... Just like that?"

Twilight looked to be on the verge of a mental breakdown.

"H-How!? Even the most advanced of magical scans take up massive amounts of power, and can only be used on a few ponies at the time! How can you take such a massive scan in such a small amount of time without even being slightly drained of magic!?"

Jen gained a sly/smug smile and leaned toward Twilight, eyes glowing.

"Science."

Twilight looked ready to have a melt down, and Pinkie leaned in nervously.

"Uh Twilight? How about you get out some of that frustration on the clones?"

Twilight nodded rigidly, and then screamed, eyes glowing white and beams of magic pulsing off of her horn and dissipating all of the clones in a few moments. She took a deep breath and then exhaled, giving Jen a crazed grin.

"Alright. So you can scan and get data on everything around you with more ease than even Starswirl the Bearded was supposedly able to do with all of his magical skill with... Science. How would you feel about me taking a look over you? I think that it's about time I continue studying on you two a bit, for the sake of Equestrian knowledge."

Jen and I looked at each other nervously and shrugged. Jen spoke.

"Alright... I think."

---

"Twilight. Twilight! TWILIGHT! PUT DOWN THAT POWER DRILL!"

"YOU SAID YOU WERE AN AUTOMATON! WE CAN JUST REASSEMBLE YOU WHEN I HAVE ALL THE DATA I NEED!"

"NOT IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE BLUEPRINTS FOR HOW I WAS MADE!"

I stepped between them.

"TWILIGHT THAT IS A TERRIBLE IDEA!  BESIDES, NO MEANS NO!"

"JUST GIVE ME THE DATA I NEED TO UNDERSTAND HOW SCIENCE COULD EVER BEAT MAGIC!!"

She lunged with the drill, and I watched Jen karate chop her head in a panic. She dropped like a sack of potatoes and Jen started freaking out.

"Oh frack! I think I killed her!"

I put a hand on her neck.

"Okay she's still breathing! Um um um.... Okay! I have an idea!"

---Third Person POV---

Twilight stood up with a groan, her head feeling like it had been smashed with a hammer... Or a robot. She read the small folded not that her horn had been stabbed into. She gained an angry expression and he mane flickered into flames for a brief moment, before she started for her basement. She mumbled as she descended.

"Show them to hit me... Gonna get my data somehow... Bucking 'science'...Honestly, 'fell down the stairs'.... I'll show them to- AHH!"

*whump whump whump whump whump*

"THIS PROVES NOTHING! NOT EVEN THAT I TALK TO MYSELF!"

Dear Twilight. You went crazy and tried to strip-scan me and then disassemble Jen for research, but you um... Fell down the stairs while you were chasing us. Yeah that sounds plausible, you fell down the stairs. Sincerely, Kyth.

Chapter Seven: Now THAT'S How You Sonic Boom!

A while after Twilight got bitchsmacked by Jen fell down the stairs, Jen and I headed out to see about settling her score with Rarity. The town had cleared up a good deal after the Pinkie Pie clones had been dealt with, so it was an easy walk through town, with a  few of the ponies exiting their shelters and cautiously looking around. In a couple of minutes we made it over to Carousel Boutique. We entered the door and heard Rarity calling out upon hearing the bell above the door.

"Welcome to Carousel Boutique, where every garment is chic, unique, and magnifi- Oh. Well hello again you two."

She smirked slightly at Jen.

"Here to try and settle out 'challenge'?"

Jen nodded.

"Let's do this."

The two of them took a short while before they began to gather up facsimiles of what Jen used back at the castle, and both of them had agreed that they would give it their best. While they both prepared Twilight had shown up and apologized for going crazy, and I told her it was okay. If magic had started mucking up things back home I probably would've acted similarly. Along with her Spike and Pinkie had shown up, the former cheering for Rarity and the latter just cheering in general. I snickered internally as the rest of the mane six showed up after Pinkie had decided to get them to watch as well. After a moment I officiated the event.

"Alright you two, I want to see some good, honest weaving out there. No cheats and no blows about the belt. Three... Two... One.... Weave!"

The two went to it, examining the materials and formulating their own plans. Of those in attendance, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash had made themselves unofficial judges for quality, efficiency, and awesomeness respectively. Though Pinkie had pretty much Fluttershy into it, since she seemed to be scared of Jen for some reason. She shuddered whenever she looked at Jen, too. Hmm, I'd have to look into that later. I watched the two of them go into their work, and after a short while Pinkie yelled out.

"Time! Show us whatcha made!"

They both had ended up with different results, both seeming to have different intentions in their result. Rarity's pants resembled something more akin to part of a formal outfitting, and Jen's resembled a pair of jeans . Applejack voiced her opinions first.

"Hmm. Well ya both put effort in, and that shows. Rares, yours is definitely somethin' that'd fit in well at a fancy gathering. But Jen's has the look of something that could take a day of work without being worn an' torn too badly. For efficiency I'm gonna have to go for Jen with my vote."

Jen fist-pumped and Rarity huffed. Fluttershy stuttered her answer next.

"W-Well Jen's does seem to be well put together, a-and very precisely too. B-but Rarity's has more quality and heart put into it, and feels less... erm... Artificial so...I'm gonna go with her."

After she finished she collapsed below the table. Rarity gave Jen a smug look and Jen glared off to the side. Rainbow went next in an apathetic tone.

"Eh. They're both pants."

Both of them stared at her intensely, hanging on her word as she would break the tie.

"What? They're just clothes. Tie."

Both of them tried to stutter out a response, and I stepped out with Spike. The two of us had agreed that to avoid a major conflict that we would step in in case of a tie. I went first.

"Well you guys do have different ways of doing things. Jen can work faster and be more efficient,"

Spike took it.

"And Rarity is more style based in her working!"

"Yeah. How about you two just agree to be strong in different ways, and thus be equal. Besides, if the two of you work together then you could make some interesting stuff."

The two glanced at each other, and then away again.

"Plus, Jen you could learn about Equestrian style and Rarity you could have access to someone who could help you gather and assemble materials with a higher speed thanks to her extra limbs and sensors and stuff."

Spike walked next to Rarity with a big grin.

"Plus you can say that you partner with not only the first alien to visit Equestria and the only robot in current existence!"

They both gained contemplative expressions and looked at each other. Rarity spoke first.

"Well. I do suppose I have been a bit rude to you darling. My apologies."

Rarity held out a hoof and Jen shook it.

"Eh no problem. I was a bit of a pain too. And I suppose I could stand to learn how to be a bit more fashionable in what I make."

"And I in being a bit more... functional."

From there the two agreed to partner up, much to the relief of everyone in attendance. It would be a major problem if Jen and Rarity were locked in a blood feud for all of our time here. I took the two new pairs of pants that they had made, as they were crafted to fit me, and stored them in a small satchel I had acquired from Pinkie to carry items around. We all just hung out after that in the boutique, until another challenge was issued by Rainbow Dash.

"Okay, now that we have all of the fru fru junk done, let's do something exciting! Jenny, how about that race then? You seem pretty fast but I still feel like I should test your flying!"

Jen smirked at this.

"Alright then. Just say the when and where."

I watched them shake on it and groaned internally.

The race was set in the same place where the race to get Dash a pet had been, and Pinkie was happy to referee over it as well.

"On your marks... Get set... GO!"

The two shot off, and the rest of us watched from the finish line. The two of them dove in, weaving around and Jen keeping pace with Dash. I watched through a pair of binoculars as Dash glanced at Jen, a bit surprised that Jen was keeping up. I smiled. Jen hadn't even needed to open her wings yet. as they got about halfway Dash gained a look of concentration as they dove down into the gorge. She started accelerating and a white cone started forming. Uh oh, is she going to try and-

BOOM!

Yes. She is. She sonic rainboomed away from Jen and I watched as Jen was tossed back, only to recover midair. I looked and saw Jen narrow her eyes and extend her wings. I wasn't a mouth reader but I could tell she was saying 'game on' under her breath. She held in midair for a moment, shaking as power built. She rocketed away, a blue jetstream behind her. I snickered. In the show XJ9 could fly around the Earth in minutes, so going sonic? No problem. The shockwave from Jen rippled and seemed to tear apart the ring of rainbow light from the rainboom. Dash seemed to turn her head in shock as Jen passed her, blasting her out of control just as she had done previously to Jen. Jen held a hand downward to tear the tape as she flew over all of us. I watched her deploy chutes in midair and turn her thrusters around to slow up. She exhaled and landed next to us, and I cheered and highfived her. I looked over to see Spike and the mane six looking at the shredder rainboom with hanging jaws. Rainbow Dash landed and looked at Jen angrily.

"W-what the hay was that?!"

Jen mugly looked at her and booped her nose.

"That was a sonic boom. No magic, all speed. Next time don't try to cheat and blast away the competition with a rainboom."

"I want a rematch!"

"Why? So you can lose again?"

"So I can beat you for cheating!"

"You mean when I went sonic, just like you did? You tried to cheat and blast me away, so I stopped holding back. That's how I roll Rainbow Trash!"

Rainbow puffed out her face angrily, and everyone else recovered. Pinkie rushed up to Jen.

"That was awesome! You managed to beat Dashie!"

Applejack was laughing on her back after seeing Rainbow's expression.

"Whatsa matter Dash? Can't handle yer own medicine!?"

`Fluttershy was hiding behind Rarity, and Rarity herself was looking over the display, murmuring about inspiration and torn beauty. Twilight had walked up to me.

"Was that more of your world's... Science?"

I nodded.

"We have vehicles meant for flight, some of which are built to go as fast if not faster than sound. Even some that can get out of the planet's gravitational field."

Twilight's eyes lit up.

"Could you two maybe tell me about them sometime?"

"Sure. But no dissection or disassembling, kay?"

She blushed and nodded. Spike was cheering with Pinkie and had climbed on Jen's back between her wings. Dash seemed pissed still, and I watched her give Jen a confused look when she held out a hand.

"We can both go supersonic, though I don't know my own limits. Wanna help me with flight training? Be flying buddies or something?

Dash seemed apprehensive, but shook the hand.

"Fine, but I still want that rematch!"

Jen giggled.

"Sure thing."

From there everyone had to leave to take care of various things, and Jen and I went home. We both talked and made the decision that for the events of the show some we would change, others we wouldn't. Of course we first agreed to go out and investigate the castle of the two sisters. Jen went out to grab first of all the inspiration manifestation book from the castle, thus preventing Rarity going crazy with power. I myself went to out basement and set up a small glass terrarium with Somebra's horn and crystals. The horn seemed to melt the crystals and absorb them, and then a small amount of black crystalline rock gre out of the base of it. It seemed Sombra could be remade after all. That'd need supervision. After Jen retrieved the book and I locked it in a chest in the basement, away from Sombra's horn. After that the two it was early evening and the two of us went to sleep for the night.

The next morning went fairly well, me and Jen simply hanging out at home. Then a dice came out of nowhere and pinged against the back of Jen's head. It was a six sided die, looking as if it contained a swirling purple galaxy within. A voice echoed out of it as I picked it up.

This is for anyone who needs help or just wants a friend. Summon the Dungeon Master of Equestria if you’re ever in need.

A wave of static sound ripped out of the dice.

I'm sorry, but Dox is unavailable right now. In fact, he could use some help himself. I don't know what you'd need him for, but he's gonna need you more than you need him

I spoke as a wave of light erupted from it, both of us cringing back.

"WOT!?"

With that we fell away, arriving somewhere else...

Chapter Eight: The Dragon Named After A President

---Dox POV---

        The next morning, I woke up and went out for breakfast. Hell, I had to search through the compendium to figure out how to create a waypoint at my camp, then I had to figure out how to teleport to the freaking crystal empire. Then I had breakfast and teleported back. It was amazing, but seriously, it was a pain in the butt. It took about half an hour to figure out how to set up the waypoint, ten more minutes to figure out how to teleport to the Crystal Empire, an hour to eat, let alone find food, then another fifteen minutes to get back to the camp.

        Anyways, it made me glad that I started storing all the tokens that I found in my weird pocket dimension that was known as my ‘magic satchel’. Now, who could help me out with what I’m going to face….

        Instead of being able to open the rift in space-time that would allow me to access my stuff, I heard a couple of screams, followed by what sounded like a pair of objects falling into the snow behind me.

        “The heck?” I said, turning around. I walked over to investigate, finding a green humanoid and a white and blue humanoid. “The heck?” They stood up and dusted themselves off from the snow. “Who the hell are you two?” I questioned them.

The blue and white one of them was a robotic looking sort, appearing to look like a sixteen year old girl, somewhat. She had armor made to look like a short top and skirt, and a pair of blue metal pigtails. Why did they look so familiar?

The green one looked more biological, but less human than he did monster. He had a torso with the same build of an athletic human. He had only a pair of deep red pants on, and a sword at his side. His head looked like an octopus of some sort, with red eyes, and his feet looked like those of a dragon, along with the pair of wings on his back.

The two looked over at me and started screaming. The green spoke first.

“GAH! What the hell!?!”

They both looked freaked out. He drew the sword and a pair of blasters extended from the girl’s arms. She spoke.

“We’ll ask the questions whoever the hell you are!”

“Yo, calm down,” I said. I raised my arms in a sign that I meant no harm. The problem with this was that my sleeves fell down when I did that, and they saw my robotic right arm, all before proceeding to freak the hell out.

She kept the guns trained on me, and the guy seemed a bit confused at seeing the robotic arm. He spoke, still holding his sword.

“Answer the question crazy magic dice guy!”

“You didn’t ask me anything!” I screamed at them. “Now, if we could all just calm down, then we could do the questions.”

He seemed a bit unsure, but put his swords tip into the snow. Still out, but not immediately set to attack. The girl retracted one of the guns, but kept out the other. The guy spoke.

“Fine. Who the hell are you, where the hell are we, and what the hell was with the die?”

“Die?” I questioned. Then it hit me and I facepalmed. “Oh! You mean my token. That’s odd, though. Something else should have happened. You shouldn’t have been teleported here. Unless the DM teleported you. Sorry about that.”

The girl spoke in a familiar voice.

“What do  you mean ‘token’? And who’s the DM?”

“You guys must be new to the Displaced scene,” I said. I then extended my left arm out for a handshake. “My name’s Dox. I’m the DM’s Champion. The DM is my ‘boss’, and he’s an astral being above just about any god you could think of.”

They both seemed a bit unsure still, but the green one took the handshake.

“Uh. Hi. I’m Cthulhu, Kyth for short. That’s my girlfriend Jen, also known as XJ9. What do you mean ‘Displaced’?”

“Wow, Cthulhu and XJ9,” I said. “That’s pretty cool. Anyways, Displaced are people that were wearing costumes to a convention, then got teleported to an Equestria by the Merchant. Ya know, that shady guy that looked like he was from the Resident Evil series? Although, I know there’s other ways here, and other reasons besides the Merchant just being a dick. Hell, the DM made a deal with the guy to get me here.”

Jen spoke next.

“So there’s people in the same boat as us? We just planned on waiting until the point in the show’s timeline with Equestria Girls to see if the mirror could get us back.”

“Yeah, that won’t work,” I said. “Some worlds have that, but if you remember, it wasn’t canon to the show. I mean, there might be a way back, but look at us! We all have powers now! Plus, I’ve been back to my world. It sucks ass there!”

Kyth spoke up next.

“Well ours was still pretty good! Not super awesome, but we have families, siblings, friends, all back there waiting for us. We figured we could use the mirror to get home while still having all the powers and stuff.”

Kyth seemed to get a blank look.

“Uh. How old were you when you got ‘Displaced’?”

“Eighteen,” I said. “Or that’s what I thought. Turns out, I’m actually over two hundred years old. I only know about eighteen of those years.”

Kyth spoke again.

“Well both of us are sixteen. We still have stuff to do back home, at least saying goodbye…”

They both seemed to get saddened expressions. Jen seemed to look out into space.

“We’ll never get back…”

“Oh no, no, no,” I said. “No, I was only displaced about eight months ago. Or has it been a year, already? Anyways, I’m over two hundred years old because my Earth wasn’t in another universe. No, it’s part of this one. Hell, I can even open a portal to it with this!” I pulled out the ball that was the Runic Portal Matrix to show them. They both seemed to still be kinda uneasy from the sudden news, but gave half-hearted smiles. Jen spoke up lightly.

“Well okay.”

Kyth gained a blank expression and then looked back at me in realization.

“Wait a sec! That other voice in the die said you needed help with something!”

“Hey, yeah!” I said. “See this mountain? Well, there’s a dragon’s lair near the top. Yes, I know it’s a big mountain, but I’m more freaked out about this feeling I’m getting about the area. Something feels familiar, and it’s freaking me out more than anything. It keeps telling me to get help.”

Kyth shrugged with a grin, and then the two of them put away their weapons.

“Well, like you said the two of us are new to this, but we do have some idea as to what we can do,” Jen said, placing her hands on her sides.

“Alright then,” I said. “Just be careful. I’m honestly worried about what’s in there. Whatever this feeling is, it’s telling me that we won’t like it.”

Third Person:

One trek up the mountain later, and the trio found themselves near the top of the mountain. Dox stood in front of a cave that led into the mountain’s interior.

“So, this is the Dragon’s lair,” Dox said, staring into the dark abyss that was the cave entrance. “I don’t know why, but not being able to see in there is NOT helping me at all.”

Jen spoke up.

“Well from what I can see with my scanners,”

Jen tapped the side of her head, gesturing to her eyes.

“There isn’t much of anything other than some houses in there,” she said.

“Houses?” Dox questioned. “There’s no way there’s houses in there, it’s a dragon’s lair.”

Jen shrugged. “Well maybe the dragon likes giant legos.”

“I doubt that,” Dox said. “Dragons from D&D like killing, eating, and being worshipped by mortals. They aren’t really known for much else. Well, except for Bahamut, but he’s a special case. And any of the other dragon gods….”

Kyth nodded. “It’s been a while but I’ve played D&D. Maybe he has the houses in there cause he stole them from a town and keeps slaves/worshippers in them. Maybe even something like a corral for… livestock.”

“It’s possible,” Dox said. “We’ll have to find out the hard way. As a wise frenchman once said, ‘Allons-y!’”

Dox then walked into the lair, followed by Kyth and Jen, only to find that instead of the abyss that they saw from the outside, it was a brightly lit -and utterly enormous- cave filled with houses, trees, and a small hill in the back with a…..

“Is that the White House?” Kyth questioned with a dubious tone.

“Son of a,” Dox said. “No wonder I was getting a bad feeling about this place! This is the lair of the Obama dragon!”

They both gave Dox flat stares. Jen spoke in a vaguely British tone of voice.

“Uh… You wot mate?”

“The Obama dragon,” Dox said. “It’s a huge as hell dragon, or at least that’s what I remember. I know there’s more to it though. It fooled me and a group of mine a while ago. Made us give up for a bit. Got us to do work, then one of us broke free and helped the rest of us. We kicked its ass then found it somewhere else. Kicked its ass again, and it turned into my character’s armor. Then I couldn’t play D&D for a while, but I digress.”

Kyth blinked. “So I’m gonna guess you were Displaced as a D&D character of yours? That would explain ‘DM’. Dungeon Master of the gods n’ shit.”

“Well, among things,” Dox said. “Honestly, I got Displaced as a homebrew rule that I made up. It’s pretty cool, too. But I’ve found out that my characters do exist here. Luckily for me, they’re all on my side.”

Jen shrugged with a smile.

“Well that’s good. So then bad guys got sent here...too..”

She looked up and locked eyes with Kyth. Kyth yelled out in a freaked out tone of voice.

“Does that mean we’re gonna have the Cluster and a whole mess of Lovecraftian shit showing up in our Equestria!?”

He grabbed Dox by the shoulders.

“Calm down, Kyth!” Dox yelled. “This is what attracts the Obama dragon! I don’t know your answer, alright?! Maybe!”

Jen moved Kyth’s hands off of Dox’s shoulders and onto hers.

“Kyth.”

he looked at her with wide eyes.

“Y-yeah Jen?”

“I’m sorry, but-”

*smack*

Kyth flopped onto the ground a few feet away. She walked over and helped him up.

“Stop being a dumbass. You’re Cthulhu. Any lovecraft stuff that pops up, you can deal with. The Cluster I can take, just like the real XJ9. We got both of us anyway, we have at least an even chance if anything does show up.”

He took a deep breath and nodded.

“R-right, Sorry. It’s just that I didn’t really think that Lovecraft stuff’d ever be real. Sorry Dox.”

Dox, meanwhile, just dusted himself off. “It’s alright,” he said. “You ripped my sweatshirt, though. Lucky for me, I have another.” He then opened the whole in space-time that was the magic satchel before pulling out an almost identical hoodie. This one had a certain logo on the back, though, as well as a yellow stripe going down the right sleeve. He took off his ripped hoodie and replaced it with the new one before discarding the ruined piece of clothing into the hole in space-time. “Thank goodness Jack sent me back with this one, it’s cold in here.”

Kyth looked at the hoodie and gained an excited expression.

“Wait a sec is that the Hyperion logo!? There’s a Hyperion out there?”

“Uh, yeah,” Dox said. “They made me the new arm, among things. They also replaced my eye. Honestly, they’re a bunch of good people. It’s not like Borderlands 2. This Jack is more like the one from the Pre-Sequel. He’s a good guy, just take my word for it. He calls you, help him, alright? He’s helped out a bunch of us Displaced.”

Both of them nodded. Jen spoke up.

“No problem. But wait. Are there Displaced villains out there? Y’know, humans with super powers but that were huge jerks back on their Earth?”

“Well, I haven’t met any yet, but I know there are,” Dox said. “I’ve found a few tokens…. and heard about this one guy. Just a note, if you find a Matoran Stone, avoid it. It’s Makuta’s token. He’s kind of a dick. Tried to start a war with all the displaced, from what I heard. Haven’t heard more than that, though. Oh! And if you find a Toa Capsule, that’s Alex. He’s a good guy.”

Jen facepalmed at this and Kyth seemed more excited.

“There’s freakin’ Bionicle Displaced? Awesome!”

“Yep,” Dox said. “And that’s how I reacted, too. That is, ‘til I put on one of Alex’s masks. Got a vision from it. Showed me where the freaking Mask of Life was.”

Kyth shrugged.

“Still cool, even if I can’t get Kanohi masks and stuff. It would be cool to get a blade to upgrade my sword like in the game though.”

Jen seemed to consider this.

“Well from what I remember about Bionicle the masks always went apeshit to purely biological beings. Y’know, since they’re meant to be worn by biomechanical types. I wonder if I could wear one though…”

She shrugged.

“So, Obama the dragon. What’s his biz?”

“What do you mean, my biz?” said a voice.

The trio turned to face the source of the voice, only to find a 50 foot black dragon. It had some jewels on it, but not much.

“Oh shit,” Dox said. “Well, I’m here to get Yngve!”

Kyth took a stereotypical ‘heroic’ pose.

“And we’re his friends I think! So we’re gonna help him!”

“But why?” the dragon known as Obama asked. “This is a peaceful place. Your friend is one of us, he’s over there, working the trees.”

Sure enough, when the trio looked over to the trees that the dragon pointed out, there was a nord chopping down trees one by one. He was the only human in the entire cave. The rest of the inhabitants were a mixture of many different types of ponies, from Crystal ponies to Pegasi.

Jen and Kyth both looked suspiciously at the dragon. Kyth spoke.

“Well how do we know that he isn’t an illusion or mind controlled?”

“Of course, he’s mind controlled, stupid!” Dox yelled at Kyth. “Hey Yngve!”

The nord responded by looking at them with an inquisitive expression.

“Catch!” Dox yelled, taking out Yngve’s sword and chucking it at him.

Amazingly, the nord caught the sword by the blade. He looked up, smiled, and then was no more.

“Gosh darn it,” said the dragon. “You shouldn’t have done that. Now I have to use you all as replacements.” The dragon then swung it’s massive tail at the trio.

Dox jumped out of the way of the tail, then burst into shadowstuff. Jen braced herself and managed to stop it. Kyth drew his sword and he pulled Jen into the air as he spread his wings and took off.

Obama took off after Kyth and Jen, clawing at them and shooting fire when he could. Jen dropped away from Kyth and started flying of her own accord, sending blasts of energy into his side. Kyth charged his sword and weaved through the air to avoid the flames.

The dragon would not give up though, no matter what, however. Eventually, a puff of shadowstuff appeared on the dragon’s back.

“Sadly for you, Obama,” Dox started as he started forming onto the dragon’s back. “I know this form’s weakness!” Dox then drove his sword into a crystal on the back of the dragon’s neck, shattering it. The dragon then took a dive. It appeared to have died. Kyth and Jen landed tentatively next to Dox. Kyth spoke and scratched the back of his head.

“So uh… Is he dead?”

“No,” Dox said. “We need to get out of here now. Just hold onto me.”

They each placed a hand onto one of his shoulders. Then, they turned into shadowstuff and disappeared.

The trio reappeared in Canterlot Castle, the garden to be exact. All around were the cries of panic. Suddenly, a massive dragon claw came crashing down in front of the trio, one that was just as big as the dragon that they had just fought was.

“I always did hate it when he did that,” Dox said.

Jen looked around the city for a moment, and then glared back at Obama. She spoke up.

“So round two Dox?”

“Yep,” Dox said. “Just try not to die.”

Just then, another claw came down, barely missing Kyth and Dox, but it did hit Jen. Kyth jumped back.

“JEN!?”

He turned to Obama, flames erupting around his sword as he brought it down into the dragon’s claw.

“YOU ARE SO DEAD! FLAMING STRIKE!”

The attack did next to nothing to the humongous dragon that was now using the castle as a chair. It did get the dragon to get up, however, and turn around to face the trio.

Meanwhile, Dox started investigating the damage done to Jen, who was now on the ground. She groaned and made to sit up her arm hung limp and wires were barely holding it. One of her legs was the same at the knee. She groaned and Kyth rushed over to her. A dent was visible over one of her eyes, holding it shut. She groaned and managed to speak.

“Shit. That… hurt.”

“God damn it,” Dox said. He took out his large tome and started shuffling through the pages. “I know I have a repair spell in here somewhere.” He eventually stopped at a certain page, then pointed at Jen. “I reject!”

A flash of light came from where Jen was sitting. When the light faded, there was Jen, perfectly repaired. Dox was now trying to suck in air, like as if he was punched in the gut. Kyth helped Jen stand as she looked over herself. She spoke out now. “Well then.”

They looked over at how Dox was and both went to help him stay standing.

“That spell,” Dox said, trying to breath properly. “That spell took a lot out of me…. Could…. Could you two help with the…. dragon *hack* problem.” Dox coughed violently again, this time spouting out his rainbow blood before passing out. Kyth let him lean onto Jen.

“Jen get him to medical attention. I’ll keep big dark and ugly occupied.”

Kyth’s sword lit up with energy and Jen nodded, spreading her wings and taking off towards the castle. As she flew she yelled down at him. “I’ll take him to his world’s princesses!”

Kyth turn to the dragon and lifted into the air with his wings.

“Hurt my friend… Hurt Innocents.. And My girlfriend… Let me rephrase this…”

His sword lit up brighter.

“YOU ARE FUCKING DEAD!”

The dragon roared at him as he dove towards him. Before landing any hits Kyth made it too close, sinking his sword into his chest, yelling out.

“PIERCE!”

His sword ran into him, down to  the hilt. He took off again, only to get smacked away by the dragon’s claws. He flew out of control, only for a pair of hands to catch him. He looked back and smiled at Jen. She spoke up.

“Well I got the cavalry, anthro style as it is here.”

Kyth looked back to see an anthropomorphic version of Luna wearing battle armor and wielding a scythe. She also had a sword and shield strapped to her back.

“We may not fully know how to fight like this, yet,” Luna started. “But we shall help you.”

He grinned.

“Well good. I ran my sword into his chest, so he has a weak point now. Let’s wreck this shit!”

Luna readied her scythe, Jen’s hands reconstructed into a pair of large, spiked gauntlets and Kyth’s sword started lighting up again. The dragon sent a wave of flame at them, only for all three to dodge out of the way. Obama lunged out with a claw towards Jen to strike her as he did earlier, only for her to smirk. She punched the dragons claw, a shockwave blasting out from where she struck. The dragon roared, and looked down. His claw was bloodied, and his talons were cracked and fragmented from the impact. Jen laughed and yelled at him.

“How’s that for a chipped nail!? No more of your cheapshots and shit!”

He sent a wave of flames at her, only for her to smirk further. Her body looked a little heated, but otherwise unaffected. She laughed at it, and Kyth grinned. As the dragon looked down at Jen in shock, Luna sent a wave of magical lighting into the wound left by Kyth, and Kyth tore a large gash into one of Obama’s wings.

Obama did not seemed fazed by the wing, however, as he started sending walls of flame at all of them, all while yelling, “CHAAAAAANGE!” It then proceeded to rip pieces off the castle, the ground, whatever it could get its claws on, and chuck them at Kyth, Jen, and Luna.

The trio either dodged, or in Jen’s case blasted, the chunks that were hurled at them. Jen finally grabbed one of the larger chunks and tossed it back, nailing Obama in the jaw. The dragon recoiled backwards, stumbling from it’s perch that was the castle. Kyth dove in, bringing his sword across its eye.

“Drain strike!”

A small aura of magic sapped from Obama and some of Kyth’s injuries healed.

Obama attempted to take flight so it could retaliate, but round that it’s wing would not respond properly. It flailed around, trying to fly. It failed to fly, eventually slamming down into the chasm that was the area below Canterlot. There the 5 mile large dragon lay for a small amount of time before getting up and roaring in anger. Kyth, Jen, and Luna remained above it in the air but went after it, staying in fighting distance. Jen swapped out the battle fists for a pair of laser blasters.

Before they were able to attack, however, a loud noise came barrelling in their direction from above. Everyone seemed to stop what they were doing and look up, only to see Dox falling down at terminal velocity with his sword pointed at the dragon.

The impact was messy. Dox collided with the dragon and the dragon exploded in a mess of blood and guts, splattering on the mountain, almost reaching Canterlot with the gore. There, in the middle of it all, lay Dox. He seemed a bit worse for wear, but none for the worse. It was like the fall didn’t even affect him. Kyth and Jen lowered their weapons in surprise, and then landed down next to him. Kyth looked over all of the parts of the dragon.

“Well alright. How are you doing, Dox?”

“I’m fine,” said the blood covered Dox. “You?”

Kyth shrugged.

“Well. A bit scratched, but none worse for wear.”

“That’s good,” Dox said. “How bout you, Jen?”

“Eh I’m good. Power’s running a little low so I may need to get a bit of lighting magic to charge my gem batteries.”

“Yeah, let me help out with that,” Dox said. He pulled out a vial of what looked like a dark rainbow liquid in a vial. “If you can turn this into a battery, you might have a solution, I don’t know. Just don’t break it, I only have one more of these.”

Jen reached out and took it. “Okay, but uh...What is it? It kinda looks like your blood.”

“It’s a distilled version of it,” Dox said. “An experiment that Avarice and I did. It was pretty cool. Honestly, it’s pure power.”

Jen smiled as she inspected the vial. “Well alright. Maybe I can find a spell or something that can convert it into a crystalline form. I’m still figuring out all of my transformations so I’m not sure if I’m capable of running off a liquid power supply. Then again, I could try drinking it like oil, see if that works…”

“I would advise against that,” Dox said. “That would overpower you severely. It would make your powers become supercharged, almost to the point of being uncontrollable.”

Jen nodded. “Yeah that’d be bad. Though I suppose that would make a decent final stand sort of attack weapon. Anyway, cool. We’ll figure out what can be done with this later.”

She opened a compartment in her chest with that and placed the vial within.

“Hey guys Obama dropped some loot!” Kyth yelled out as he walked among the remains. He held up a chunk of silvery metal. Around him was various other chunks of metal. There was a giant deep black chunk behind him. There was more of the silvery metal behind Kyth, as well. There was also a ton of gold coins, as well as some bags that appeared to be filled with mysterious contents.

“Mine,” Dox claimed. “My world, my loot. You can have some of the mythril, but the rest of the loot is mine.”

Kyth shrugged and pocketed one of the chunks of mythril and held out the rest of the items to Dox. “No problem. Maybe we can use some of this to make a battery with that blood of yours and maybe an upgrade for my sword’s blade.”

“Nah,” Dox said, finally getting up. “If ya put my token into a sword made of mythril, it should be fine. You’d get a pretty kickass sword. It’d work like this thing I gave Asphyxious. He’s this… actually, I don’t think I should be telling you that. Just swing it around. Concentrate hard enough, I’ll come help out. Okay?”

“Cool! Oh yeah, how do you make one of those token things?”

“Oh, that’s simple, kinda,” Dox said. “Just get an item to represent you, then just say an oath of sorts, something to tell others who you are. Then I can distribute it through the void for you.”

Kyth walked over and talked for a bit with Jen. Jen nodded and Kyth grabbed a dagger out of one of the bags. He held it in his hand and Jen placed hers on top. They both concentrated and when they were done the hilt of it looked to be the same shade of blue as Jen’s armor and the blade was made of an unknown green metal. They both decided on a phrase.

“For those who need a knight or a robot to lend a hand or just to hang out, feel free to give us a call, and Cthulhu and XJ9 will be on the way!”

They held out the dagger to Dox. Jen spoke as she handed it.

“Alright, send it out or whatever!”

“Alright, let’s do this,” Dox said, taking the dagger. He did a baseball wind up and then tossed it randomly in front of him, right as a tiny portal opened up, taking the token before disappearing. “There you go, expect some random people asking for help at random times.”

Kyth shrugged. “Eh, that’s no problem. Now after this, we actually know a bit of what to expect.”

Jen spoke up.”So you need anything else Dox?”

“Nope, that should be it,” Dox said. “Now, for the phrase to send them home, just in case they don’t just disappear. Our contract is complete. So, in this case, it’s Kyth and Jen, our contract is complete.”

A portal opened up behind Kyth and Jen. Kyth waved goodbye. “Bye Dox! Call us if you need us when you get our token!”

Right as he said that, a copy of the token came flying out and landed at Dox’s feet.

“Well, talk about convenience,” said Dox. Jen waved goodbye after Kyth had stepped through.

“Yeah. Well peace out Dox!”

She hopped through the portal.

“Well, that was fun,” said Dox. “But now how do I get all this loot back to Canterlot?”

Chapter Nine: How Sombra Got His Groove Back (or) Spike Battles The Friendzone

---Kyth POV---

We arrived back home in the same place where we had left, looking around. It looked like a few hours had passed, and it was late afternoon. I ran by the library and grabbed a book on magical mixtures, and managed to use the Inspiration Manifestation book to synthesize the materials to mix up something called "Nulling Solution". It was a magical liquid used to dilute various potions and poisons to the point where there was a slightly weaker but higher quantity of the diluted item. From what Jen could scan of Dox's blood it was extremely powerful. Jen had decided to try and test some of the blood for different purposes in a small station built down in our basement. Along with some of the unfiltered blood and the mythril we had gotten Jen managed to craft up a pair of batteries to use, and when she added them she immediately got a surge of power.

"Wh-Whoa! That's pretty wicked!"

She made a hand into a fist and a bit of power flickered around it.

"Dox was definitely  right about this stuff! With like half of it made into batteries I'm supercharged, and I probably won't need to replace them for years at least!"

I grinned.

"Well it's good that we met him. Now we have your power problem fixed and I have something to try with my sword."

I took out Dox's token, and drew my sword. I held the dice to the point of my sword where the blade met the hilt. The token seemed to melt into light, and fuse with my sword. For a moment my sword glowed, resembling the dice in seeming to be made of crystal with a galaxy within. It flashed again and turned back to my regular sword. It looked unchanged but I felt like I had a new Tech move to use. I decided to name it Dox Reroll. I shrugged and sheathed my sword. I looked over at where Jen was dealing with the blood. She came over to me holding a few vials of the diluted blood. She had made half of the blood into the batteries she currently had, and split the remaining half of it into two fourths, one to store for if she ever needed to replace her new batteries, and the rest to use for experimentation. A few drops of it had easily bonded with some of the Nulling Solution, and she now had a set of vials of it. She waved for me to follow.

"C'mon Kyth I wanna try something with Sombra's horn."

We both walked down and I watched her take out a medium sized glass jar. She picked up Sombra's horn and put it in the jar, and then placed a fragment of glowing emerald into it that she had grabbed on her trip to get the Inspiration Manifestation book after crushing it into a fine powder. After that she filled the jar with one of the more diluted mixes of Dox's blood into and sealed the jar. She reconfigured her left arm into a paint mixer and started shaking the jar around with its contents. After a few moments the jar started glowing like a star and then exploded in a wave of energy. We both got sent flying back, and heard a familiar deep voice laughing. When the smoke cleared, standing before us was... A colt. We both looked at each other and back to the strange colt. He spoke and laughed like Sombra, but... He was a colt. A small colt, looking slightly younger than Sweetie Belle, with a charcoal gray coat and a black mane. He had a pair of draconic emerald green eyes, and a familiar curved spike of a horn, but rather than being red it was a similar glowing emerald color to his eyes. He looked at us after laughing with an evil grin. He still had Sombra's voice.

"Fools! Your actions had revived me and brought me from death's grasp! Now I will return my- Wait. Why are you both of such a large size?"

Jen and I locked eyes again, and both of us burst out laughing.

"What is so funny wretched metallic maiden and cephalopodic demon!? I am your destroyer!"

His horn lit up and a few feeble sparks of lightning ignited around his horn, but quickly fizzled out. I stood up and grabbed him by the scruff.

"Here's the deal Sombrero, we just brought you back to life. This is a second chance for you, so you can either learn why everything you did was wrong and be a new pony from it and be one of us good guys, or..."

I balled my open hand into a fist and put it in front of him. His mouth screwed up and his eyes widened.

"Or I put this fist through your small colt body. You get me?"

He kept his eyes on my fist and slowly nodded.

"Good. And you will refer to me as Kyth and her as Jen. And no insulting people or ponies unless merited."

He nodded again.

"Good. Now c'mon, we're gonna go show you to the elements and tell him about this. They'll be helping us take care of you, but Jen and I are gonna put you into the system as us adopting you for the moment as you are currently a small colt. And we'll have to tell Cadence about you."

He 'eeped' when he heard her name.

"No! Not the wretched exploding princess! The wretch will come to finish the job she started already!"

He squirmed around in my grip. It seemed that with his brain being more of a colt's he was actually scared of Cadence.

"Fine! We won't tell Cadence yet. But we will tell the elements."

Jen had been smirking the whole time, satisfied that her idea had worked to repair Sombra. After this we all headed over to the library, keeping Sombra hidden by wrapping him in a blanket. We knocked on the door and entered the library, setting down Sombra after locking the door. We took a few moments to tell her what we'd been through and what we had learned with Dox, and then we told her about what we had come over to tell her about.

"YOU DID WHAT!?"

She was displeased about hearing what we had done to revive Sombra.

---Third/Sombra POV---

Sombra was not a happy stallion, and now an even less happy colt. He had been brought from death as planned, only to find himself in the care of those who had brought about his downfall, and in the humiliating state of a foalish form. They had dragged him across town to a great tree which had been forced into the housing of a library. They had then dumped him onto the ground and began conversing with one of the loud and irritating mares that had been around for his death. While they yelled he set out into the building for no reason other than boredom. He made the decision to bring about a terribla vengeance when they slept, he would take the blade worn by the green demon and run it through his- What was that!? He looked over to see a small dragon of purple and green holding the most delicious looking ruby, and looking on the conversation being had by the green demon, metal maiden, and irritating unicorn. A loud rumble emanated from his stomach, and the dragon turned to him uncertainly.

"U-uh. Are you... Hungry?"

Sombra limply nodded, eyes never leaving the gem. The dragon followed the line of his eyes, and held out the gem.

"You want this?"

Sombra nodded again.

"Uh. Okay. You can have it then if you're that hungry."

Sombra blinked. He had not expected the dragon to offer up the gem.

"You would give such onto me with no promise of repayment...?"

The dragon nodded.

"Well sure. I'm just eating it cause it's tasty, but you're actually hungry so..."

Sombra snatched the gem in a hoof and eagerly consumed the gem, crushing it in his jaws and relishing it. The dragon seemed surprised.

"Whoa! How're you able to eat gems? You're a pony..."

Sombra burped when he was done.

"I am of the hybrid race kirin. Mine mother was a wyvern of the desolate north and mine father a crystal stallion born to windigo and unicorn parentage. I was the result of them, half wyvern, one fourth wendigo, one fourth pony. As such I can shift my form into that of a shadowed specter, consume the divine consumables that are gems, and bear magic of an unknown level to ponydom."

"Cool! Nopony around here is able to eat gems other than me!"

"Well I am no mere pony! And for this gift onto me then I am in your debt. Name a boon and I will grant it should it be in my power!"

"Well I don't really need anything right now. You wanna read some comic books?"

"Very well, but what are these... 'comic' books?"

---

"Truly these are tales of gods on Equus! Yet I do not see how these characters which wield powers greater than the power ponies can be so easily defeated! They do not even leave a lasting mark! Were it me I would plan for their arrival and strike them down!"

"Well I suppose that could be true. But then again Sombra, you sound a bit like the Craven Clairvoyant, he nearly beats the power ponies by planning around their every move but gets beaten because of his pride."

"Yes but I would plan for my own pride as well!"

This went on for a while until they got interrupted by the yelling of Twilight.

"Spike! Have you seen where Sombra went!?"

"Yeah, he's up here with me!"

The unicorn rushed up with Kyth and Jen, as if expecting to find a pile of bloodied corpses, only to give a confused and surprised look to Sombra.

"Seal your mouth purple one, else you catch flies."

He turned back to the comic book. Kyth spoke.

"Well we managed to settle everything with Twilight and we'll tell the rest of the elements tomorrow. C'mon Sombra, it's time we go home. The sun's almost down."

"WHAT!? I have not yet finished this 'comic'!"

Spike spoke up.

"You can borrow it if you want, just give it back later and don't let it get messed up."

Sombra turned back to Spike.

"Very well! I shall keep it from harm and return it upon the morrow, friend Spike!"

---Kyth POV---

I sighed as we walked home, Sombra once more wrapped in the blanket we brought to hide him. After a few hours of arguing Jen and I managed to convince Twilight to give him the chance to start over. And to not tell the princesses yet. I smiled at the fact that Sombra seemed to have befriended Spike. Hopefully we would be able to reform him much in the same way as Discord in the show, and him being a colt would make that much easier. He squirmed in the blankets, and I set him down on the couch Jen spoke to him when I placed him.

"So you have fun with Spike?"

"Verily. He told me of a great many things which have been made in the time of my imprisonment. I will continue to learn their secrets, and then plan my next move. For the moment I will stay here, and when I reach the point of my former age then I will decide whether or not to conquer the world once more!"

Jen sighed.

"Well fine. But remember, if you start being evil then we'll have to explode you again or worse. If you behave relatively within the behavior parameters of a regular foal then you can stay here and live a new life without the persecution of your old one. And there might even be gems in it for you if you're good."

Sombra drooled a little bit at hearing the mention of gems.

"Verily, Jen the metal maiden. I shall behave for the moment. But I will hold you to that!"

I laughed and showed Sombra to the small room we had prepared for him. It had some basic possessions in it, but I told him that we would get some additional things for it later. I let him read his comic and then I shut off the light and left him to sleep. Of course Twilight had given us a necklace to track him if he tried to run. For the moment I decided to treat him as if he were an actual foal.

-One Week Later-

The rest of the elements had been a bit reluctant to accept Sombra, but had all agreed to give him a chance to prove that he wasn't pure evil. He actually seemed to have mellowed out from being a foal, and other than a few hiccups...

I will destroy you wretched thing!

Sombra no that's just a toaster! It didn't mean to hit you with 'demon bread'!

...Sombra had behaved relatively well. He had clung to Spike a bit, but other than that he was just an overdramatic colt with an odd look to him. Ponyville had gotten used to odd looking ponies/people after Zecora, Spike, and then all of us, so he was fairly well treated, if a tad coldly. Jen and I had finally gotten armor from the town blacksmith as well, so I had a basic iron chainmail coat to wear under my T-shirt (Jen had made me clothes and stuff to wear so I wouldn't just be walking around in just pants) and Jen had gotten some additional cosmetic attachments. She had decided that she wanted to change her look from that of XJ9 in the show, and so had gotten her armor and 'hair' redone to be a royal blue color, and along with that her skirt piece was made a bit longer, and the same for her top, and with that she now had a pair of shoulder plates to protect her arms from being dislocated (in the show XJ9 seemed to get damaged a lot, so having extra armor to wear seemed like a good idea).

It was midday and Jen had taken Sombra to have his first visit to the dentist. She had told me to go grab some gems and then get Pinkie to help me mix into an emerald milkshake to give him after they were done in a few hours, as he would undoubtedly need some form of treat to soothe his teeth and his childish fury afterwards. I grabbed the gems with Rarity's help from outside town and I had started for Pinkie when I heard someone talking. I told Rarity I needed to check something out and that I'd see her later, and went to investigate. I found Spike sitting on top of a nearby hill, looking at the horizon. I alerted him to my presence.

"Hey Spike. You alright?"

He turned to me with widened eyes, before lowering his eyes to be half lidded after he recognized me.

"Oh. Hey Kyth. I'm just... Thinking."

"What about?"

"I dunno. I'm just trying to figure stuff out."

I decided to probe at the issue further.

"Well what stuff? Maybe I can help."

He sighed.

"Did... Did you know I have a crush on Rarity?"

I decided to play dumb. I knew about it from the show but I figured I'd continue the effort to hide Jen and I's foreknowledge.

"Really? Well what about that's troubling you?"

"Well... I don't really know what to do. I tried telling her how I felt a while back when I went into greed growth, but she hasn't said a word about it. I try and impress her to no result, and everything I do to try and help her just... She just thanks me and gives me a gem or something. I don't really know how I would be able to win her over. She's amazing! And I'm just... Me."

I looked at Spike right in the eyes.

"Spike. No one is 'just' their self. You can be whoever and whatever you want to be, that's up to you. And if you want I could give you some advice for winning Rarity over if you decide that's what you really want."

"Really!? Wait, what do you mean 'what I really want'?"

"Well if you have a crush then there's always the chance that it isn't really love. I won't try and tell you what it is, I know from experience how maddening it can be for someone to tell you about your own feelings, but how you feel is something that you'll need to make certain on your own. Alright, first in Kyth's rules of winning a girl: The Friendzone."

"What's the 'Friendzone'?"

I gave him a deep look.

"Spike, the Friendzone is the metaphorical place where relationships go to die. The friendzone is the point in a platonic relationship where you open up to the person you love, tell them how they make you feel, how the thought of them drives you crazy and seeing them with someone else burns at you. How you want nothing more in the whole world than to be with them, to be there for them... And they don't feel the same. They say that they don't feel ready to take the risk of a relationship, that they want to stay 'friends' even though they'll never look at you the same way again. The friendzone is when they don't feel the same way about you that you do about them. People may tell you the friendzone isn't real, but that's because they've never been there. It's how I actually started with Jen..."

"But you and Jen and special someponies... So you can get out of the friendzone?"

I nodded.

"Yeah. It's difficult, and sometimes you have no option but to accept it and move on, but it's possible sometimes. For you, it'll be extra hard. Rarity is a high-class type, so you being a dragon could be good or bad if she is involved with you,depending on who you ask. But the main issue for you is age."

"Age?"

"Yup. Spike, don't take offense, but you're a kid. Maybe a teen by pony terms, but a kid by their perspectives. It'll be frowned upon from everyone if you start dating now, and neither of you can handle that. The only option for that is to wait a few years until you're older and then determine how you really feel about her. Then make your choice. Until then, I'm afraid the best thing is to do two things..."

Spike looked at me uncertainly.

"What?"

"First you have to stay away from Rarity."

"WHAT!?"

"Spike if you wait on her every desire then that'll put you in extreme danger of falling into the friendzone. The only option to avoid that is to get some distance from Rarity. Take some time for yourself, figure out what you want for yourself and get some certainty for in how you feel for her. How long have you had a crush on Rarity?"

"Since the moment I saw her."

"Spike if you've acted in the way of having a crush on her since you first met her then how would she ever figure out that you had a crush? She won't figure it out on her own, she has no frame of reference. The second thing to do is something you may enjoy more."

"What"

"Date someone your own age."

"What!?"

"You heard me. While you take time away from Rarity you should try and get some more experience with dating. The best option is to try fillies that are the same age as you are, you'll have much better luck with them. And who knows, maybe you'll even start to have feelings for someone other than Rarity and then move on without having the heartache. All of this is the best advice I can offer for the moment, and I'm afraid I have to go deliver these to Sombra. Here though."

I passed him an emerald as I stood up. I started walking when I head Spike.

"Hey Kyth?"

"Yeah kid?"

"Thanks."

I smiled at him and started walking to deliver the gems.

Chapter Ten: Sombra Vs. Babs Seed/ Dark Foresight

---Kyth POV---

I stood in the Apple family's house currently, looking at the two groups of foals before me. On one side was the Crusaders, Spike, and Sombra. On the other was Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, and Babs Seed. Currently in the MLP timeline we had gotten up to the point of the 'Bad Apple' episode. Of course, Sombra and Spike had gotten involved before Jen and I had the chance. From what we had pieced together, while Spike was showing Sombra around town today they had met up with the Crusaders shortly after they had lost their clubhouse to Babs, Diamond, and Silver. Sombra had asked about their problems, and immediately acquainted the issue with his own experiences. It seemed that before he rose to kingship he had often struggled with nobles. The incident in question was when he had lost a pet arctic fox named Foofie to a rival noble family, who had stolen him away when he was a colt (the first time that is). This had led him to the conclusion that the Crusaders were involved with a foals' Coup de Tat and thus decided that since they were friends with Spike (by the logic of 'a friend of yours is a friend of mine') that he and Spike would help them. This had led to Sombra making a military styled assault to regain control of 'Crusader Keep', using the best weapons of the age (i.e. water balloons, rubber bands, stink bombs, rocks, syrup bombs, and glitter bombs to be used after said syrup bombs). I was actually impressed that he had managed to lead such an intricate attack with only foals. One thing was true, Sombra definitely had a silver tongue to him. But that led to the current situation, where I, Jen and all of the respective sisters/parents/caretakers of all the foals involved were collected. The foals before me were covered in an assortment of messiness, from mud to dust to syrup mixed with glitter. As such I now had to work with Applejack, Rarity, Filthy Rich, Twilight, as well as two faces that I didn't actually know, Silver Shield (Silver Spoon's father and one of the town guards), and Rolling Wind (Scootaloo's mother and a pegasus courier alongside Ditzy Doo). I started the questioning.

"Okay... Do you kids know why you're here?"

"The noble's daughter hath began this quarrel, as did her servant and the traitor apple! We merely finished it!"

"No we didn't! They started throwing stuff at us out of nowhere, for no reason!"

"Yeah! Diamond and I didn't do anything!"

"Nuh-uh! Y'all took our clubhouse!"

"No we didn't ya filthy snitch!"

"Hey we didn't snitch! You guys are the ones who brought the adults in to make yourselves seem innocent!"

"ENOUGH!"

I cut them all off.

"Look we'll give you all a chance, individually, to present your sides of things. That way we adults can compare notes on all of your stories and figure out from the bits present in all versions what really went down. First off, Applebloom. The rest of you, step outside. I don't want any interruptions or attempts to mislead, so we'll be listening to each foal individually."

Silver Shield nodded. "Sounds good. That way we can get a fair perspective of all angles on this then determine punishments and such on our own basis."

Oh yeah quick note: Silver Shield is a HUGE believer in due trial and fairness. The reason he didn't show up in the show, from my best guess was that Silver Spoon did her best to avoid her father finding out about her activities since he wouldn't spoil her like Filthy Rich. He gave her a fairly big allowance but otherwise he treated her like I would expect any other parent to.

About an hour or so later we had managed to figure things out. Currently all of the foals would be grounded for the rest of the day and night, but after hearing all of the circumstances and then telling the foals all of what we had seen then Babs had made peace with the Crusaders, and thought that Spike and Sombra were 'pretty cool guys' and then Silver Shield and Filthy Rich (probably just Shield) were going to put the hammer down on their kids. And Jen and I had made (albeit cautious) friends out of Filthy, Shield, and Winds. Of course Sombra was still grounded but I did let him know how impressed I was with all of the planning put into his attack.

"Verily! I was a master of stratagems and such back during my reign over the empire! It was only against the princess Celestia, one  skill equal to mine, that I fell."

"Well you're still grounded. No gems after dinner and whatnot."

"WHAT!? I SHALL SLAY THE WRETCH NOBLE!"

"That's two nights no gems."

"I NO LONGER SHALL SLEW THE WRETCH NOBLE!"

"Better."

Jen and I had spent most of the day before all of that at the parade and festivities around the holiday. It was kinda like a big farmers market, and Jen and I had grabbed some cool stuff. I had grabbed a bunch of honey and stuff to try making stuff out of (for those few moments when I decided to actually cook rather than use the Inspiration Manifestation spell to create already made food from magic), and Jen had grabbed some bits of things people had made or collected, specifically necklaces with possible magical properties. Jen had managed to scan a whole ton of books from the library into skills stored in the back of her mind. Currently she was experimenting with alchemical magic (as she was robotic Jen didn't have any magical ability, at least from Equestria's understanding of magic). All in all it was a decent day, and we were one step further in the show's timeline. I led Sombra back home and Jen pocked my shoulder.

"Hey Kyth go ahead and take Sombra home, I'm gonna go for a walk."

I shrugged. "Sure thing Jen. Just don't be out too long, kay?"

She giggled. "Sure thing. See you later."

---Jen POV---

I waved to Kyth as I started walking off. I didn't really have a plan but I just sorta felt like going off on my own for a bit. I moved my pigtails into thruster mode and took off, flying through the air. Eventually I found myself landing in front of the empty cave from the 'Dragonshy' episode. I shrugged and walked in, looking to find something interesting. The front part of the cave held piles of gold and jewels, enough to make a man rich beyond all- You know what? Screw it, it was a shitton of treasure. End of story, no sequel. Nothing much caught my interest other than a simple pair of armored bucklers, crafted from an unknown green metal. I scanned them and I recognized it from Dox's world. Orichalcum. I raised an eyebrow and leaned down, grabbing the two and then wearing them both on my forearms. Might be useful later, for if something messed with my weapons and I couldn't access them. I took a scan over the cave, and I was about to leave when I finally found something interesting in my scan, or to be more accurate what I didn't find. At the end of the cave and then going down in the shape of a tunnel or a mine shaft there was a complete gap. Everything in that area was in that area was completely invisible to scanners. I walked to where the entrance would be, if it actually were a tunnel. I curled back and then brought my fist forward, busting through the wall and revealing a pit that my eyes alone couldn't see the bottom of. I tried my scanners again but I wasn't able to tell. It was like looking to find a black painted rock in space. I morphed out a blaster in my right palm and blasted down into the depths. I watched it go for a bit before seeing a small blast where it hit. I brought my pigtails into thrusters again and started slowly hovering downward. I looked around as I went down, morphing a flashlight out of my left hand and then keeping a blaster in my right. On the walls of the shaft were carvings in a language unregistered into my language database. That meant it was either alien, unique to Equestria, or something made up for an unknown purpose. I managed to use my scanners to at least record as much as was  visible by flashlight and record it. A few scraps of it seemed like Egyptian hieroglyphics, but not enough together to make any sort of functional translation. I landed after a few minutes, looking to see an ornately carved and decorated tunnel. The markings continued down the tunnel as far as I could see, and I shuddered in shock from seeing the bones of what I could identify  as diamond dogs, ponies, even griffins and a few teenage dragons. I tentatively walked forward, coming to the decision to look into this myself. The tunnel opened out into a massive chamber, and  saw a stairwell leading up to an altar of some sort. I used my thrusters and hovered up to it. The closer I got the more it seemed like it was meant to be a sacrificial altar, and when I saw it there was even bones sitting and tangled with chains. It seemed that was one of the unlucky beings sacrificed to whatever god or deity this was meant for. Whatever god this was meant for had to be some kind of seriously fucked up.

"Well that is a true fact, but he didn't mean all this. He just has that kind've effect on mortals with lower functioning mentalities."

I whirled around and locked my blaster on him.

"Easy there girlie, I'm not doing anything...Yet."

He gave off an aura like whatever material insulated the walls. By sight I could see him though and I did my best to get as much data as possible. He was human, or at least he looked like one. His skin was a neutral gray, but not in the way of a sick person though. His eyes were completely yellow, but with slit pupils like a cats. His teeth looked human as well but all sharpened to a fine point. His face lacked a nose, though it had a bump to give a slight impression of one. He had a mess of hair on his head going to his shoulders. It may have been white once but it looked to have been recolored with dust the same color as his skin, leaving it to be a mix of gray and white shading. His outfit looked fairly simple, composed of well-worn jeans, a pair of black sneakers, a black jacket which seemed to transition in materials on the arms (starting off normal in the shoulders and biceps, but then from the elbow to the end it seemed to turn into black denim, going past his hands slightly and looking to be raggedly torn), with a white T-shirt under. He looked to be about eight-ish feet tall, about the same height as Kyth. He had a look to his face that somehow seemed both knowing and curious. By human aging I pegged his appearance at about seventeen, but I knew that was only by looks. I yelled out when I saw him, startled.

"What the fuck!? Who the various hells are you!?"

"Calm yourself, child. As for who I am, I have been called many names in many places by many mortal civilizations. One that I use somewhat just for the sake of simplicity would be Messenger."

He held out a hand. I didn't take it. He sighed and rolled his eyes with a relaxed expression.

"Alright then, be that way."

"So 'Messenger', what are you doing down here? I had to punch a hole in a cave to find this place."

"Even if that were the only entrance, things like walls do not much affect me. As to why... Call it a bit of business."

I looked at him uncertainly.

"So what are you then?"

He chuckled and shrugged. "I'm... Myself. Not much else to be said there."

"So do you know what this place is?"

"A temple. One dedicated to an ancient void dweller that once visited this place. He came simply to observe, though the mortals misunderstood his meaning."

"Well that explains the altar. But what's the deal with all of the bones?"

"This place was sealed away from above, bound in a wall of stone and then treated so that none would be able to see through it. As such these beings were trapped for an eternity and slowly went into madness, and soon... Death. but enough of that, time to get to work."

"You mentioned that. What kind of work are you talking?"

"The kind that changes paths. I'm actually here just to speak with you."

I raised an eyebrow. "What for?"

"To give a warning."

He locked eyes with me and held an intense gaze.

"The Book of Death lost to time has been found again. The fallen queens will be as one, and bring destruction onto all in their reach. There will be pain, there will be blood, and the end of your path on this plane of being shall end. He will awake. He will return. And he will be reborn. I give this warning as a being that wishes to see this path continued to its end. And a final note..."

He turned around and started floating away from me. "His blood will bring life into ones who have fallen."

I narrowed my eyes and locked my blaster on him.

"Wait get the fuck back here! What the hell are you talking about!?"

He laughed and seemed to pass through the wall like it was an illusion. I started blasting, hoping to stop him. The chamber reverberated under the force of the blasts hitting the wall. I realized that the whole thing was collapsing around me.

"SHIT!"

I opened my wings and put away my blaster, swapping it for another flashlight to give me the equivalent of headlights.

I barely managed to get out as the shaft collapsed down behind me. I panted after landing, retracting my wings. I stood up uncertainly, both from the sudden escape and the warnings from Messenger. I looked around and blasted the wall, bringing more rocks down and burying the shaft entrance further. I took a moment to calm myself down, and started off to tell Kyth what had happened.

Chapter Eleven: Madness Vs. Chaos

---Kyth POV---

After hearing about Messenger from Jen I got a bit freaked out but I managed to calm down. The two of us agreed to be cautious and to look out for the stuff he mentioned or stuff that could relate to them. After that the only worrying thing to happen over the next week and a half was the fact that the 'Magic Duel' episode somehow didn't happen. We knew this from the fact that we wet through the events of 'Sleepless In Ponyville', 'Wonderbolts Academy', "Apple Family Reunion', and 'Spike At Your Service' without it. Of the four episodes and their various problems, the first was solved on its own, the second one got Jen some attention from a few pegasi (she had personally been flying to make sure no one got hurt when the balloon wrecked) due to her speed, and then I talked with Applejack to help her understand how people were bugged by her actions (she got pissed at first but I managed to convince her with some efforts), and then talk Spike down from being Applejack's servant without the life-risking business. Then the one episode with the most risk of badness happened. The episode 'Keep Calm and Flutter On' began.

That meant one thing. Discord being released.

Jen and I were on high alert in case of Discord going rogue, as well as watching for any deviations from the plot of the episode. So far that included the fact that Fluttershy wasn't helping Applejack with a beaver problem. That meant the main issue of the episode wasn't happening. That... Did not bode well. We both stayed out of sight. Sombra was at home reading a book on modern magic (seeing what he had missed) but we preferred to not be seen by Celestia yet. Seeing as I looked...Well, like Cthulhu, it seemed like she would attack first and ask later. She explained the deal to the elements, they freaked out, Discord got released, etc. The two of us watched, out of sight. We waited until Fluttershy had left her cottage after taking him there before we made out selves known. He looked up at us, and for a second I could swear that when he looked at me he was... Afraid. He couldn't be, what reason could someone like him have to be scared of me, regardless of my appearance. Jen spoke first.

"Hello Discord. My name's Jen and this is Kyth. We figured that we should just stop by and have a little...chat with you."

He cleared his throat and shook his head as if clearing it. "Well what about my dear little... Thing."

I chipped in. "The fact that Jen and I work with the town guard to protect Ponyville. And if you start something, then you won't just have the elements bringing the hurt on you."

Jen morphed her hands into a hammer and chisel for effect. Discord gave a smile and slithered through the air.

"Well what reason would I have to try and-"

I grabbed him by the throat. "Cut the shit. We both know that you want nothing more than to start raising chaos. You have a chance here to change though, to make friends and actually get some amount of actual happiness. There's no point in laughter if you laugh alone, and there's no true chaos if you aren't willing to change. The choice is yours here, and we'll give you a chance to change like Fluttershy has. But unlike her, we aren't afraid to beat some sense into you."

He lost his smile. "Ugh, you always were a control freak Cthulhu. Honestly, guy controls the universe and expects everyone to bow down... Even shielding you and this metal chick's minds... Bah! You void dwellers are no fun! Very well, I'll play nice... But don't expect me to be a goody-goody all the time. I still want some freedom to have fun!"

I let him go and Jen retracted her weapons. Jen turned on her pigtail thrusters and floated above him. "That's no problem. Like we said, just don't brainwash anyone and don't cause destructive chaos. Kyth and I can get behind some rules being bent and such, just don't do anything that expressly makes anyone unhappy, and we'll be good kay?"

He crossed his arms and pouted. "Very well..."

I chuckled and gave him a hard pat on the back. "Good! Alright then, welcome to the neighborhood. If you wanna hang out let us know. See ya laters! And remember..."

I locked eyes and glared at him. "We'll be watching."

I heard him shiver behind me and I smiled. Sometimes, looking like an elder god ca be useful as hell. Then as Jen and I were walking off it hit me. ...you always were a control freak Cthulhu. Honestly, guy controls the universe and expects everyone to bow down... Even shielding you and this metal chick's minds... What the hell did he mean 'control the universe'!? And how did he know about Cthulhu, even enough to recognize me being/looking like him!?

---Third POV (Discord)---

Discord smiled to himself as he watched the two depart. He wasn't a fool, he knew that the being before him was only part of Cthulhu himself. But he also knew that that was a dangerous thing. Something that Cthulhu had programmed when he was in control of this universe was the fact that only certain beings could change the coding here, and something that prevented any beings from getting into his mind. Discord couldn't get through the aura that held around him and the girl, and he had no certainty in how much the kid knew about his own power. So he would go along with it and play nice, after all he could tell that big things were coming...

After all, it's not every day that you can see a god with a teenage mind. And if Discord knew one thing about teenagers, they were unpredictable. So he would just sit back and relax with a  bag of popcorn, and see what the kids would bring about...

---Third POV (???)---

Somewhere, lost in the badlands and deep in the ground there lay a great city. It was a place of unnatural horror, constructed of unnatural stone and the bones of untold dead. The city lay abandoned and empty, with the forms of fallen ancients scattered about. The faint sounds of scratching echoed out from a single point, where the faintest bit of moonlight shone. In it lay a broken and crippled form of a changeling queen, once known as Chrysalis. A jagged hole had been formed in the ceiling of this cavern by her arrival, and in a wave of burning power she had landed here. For weeks she had sat there, struggling to move and to survive, barely lasting off of the meager magic left within her to subside with. Around her scuttled the forms of unknown beings, resembling the faint forms of ponies but forms of black liquid somehow holding form. They all possessed a pair of white glowing eyes, lacking any other feature. They had prepared around her a circling of markings, with idols of unknown material. The changeling had managed to feed off of them, gang some form of twisted and unnatural love from them. She survived, but in the way of someone living off of eating food which has become rancid or otherwise tainted. After a few weeks she was left alive and still bound in ever present pain, with her mind fading into a warm blanket of euphoric madness. The beings around her finished their work, runes around her spanning the entire area within a certain distance of her. Two of them, both larger than all others, brought forth two items then. One was a book, bound in the flesh on unknown beings descended of the stars and within it was written untold evil. It told of those beings beyond knowing and beyond comprehension, those eldritch spawn of untold intent and horror who called themselves the creators and masters of all reality, and all of which lurked in the void of creation. The second object brought forth was a form that had not known life as long as these beings had held it in their possession. They lacked its name and its origin, but it was believed to be sent from the stars, as a herald of their broken god. Their god was broken and torn asunder by the false creator Faust, but this herald would now arise, reborn from the flesh of another mortal queen. The broken gods' power had been taken by a false champion, defended by a metal demon of the same stars as the great herald herself. The herald of metal and flesh made one, with knowledge that would bring down the demon and then would use the sacred book of which brought her own return to call out to the soul of their broken god, and then soon he would arrive from that space beyond mortal sights to reclaim his power and strike down the false champion. They began their chant and the two forms lifted in an ethereal darkness. The form of the ancient was bent and melted, forging itself around the form of the changeling. The mare screamed, her voice changing as the two became one. When the process was done, in a final wave of burning energy there stood their herald. She stood on four legs with a height equal to the changeling queen that she had been shaped from. Her body was covered in a pale green and yellow-white carapace of metal, and her wings were now bonded with a protective shell. Her eyes were replaced with single square dots of the same pale green color, and her horn extended smoothly from her head, but split into two ends, with a golden orb between them. She shook in place, with a fearful and wild expression. She struggled to speak as the minds of those who had been bound into her fought to become the dominant voice of their new mind.

"ThEsE nAmEs... VeX...cHrYs...Us...AliS... wHaT dO tHeY mEaN... oNe A qUeEn Of ThE... cLuStEr...ThE oThEr Of...ThE... cHaNgElinGs..."

Her head slowly turned to the beings that had brought her forth, making her of a native of this world and a native of another. She was no herald, but if that was her purpose then she would fulfill it. A manic and razor-toothed grin grew across her muzzle. She was made of two queens who had failed in their endeavors and had payed the price for it dearly, both losing everything and dying for it. But she was not. She was a queen born for a purpose, to bring Great Cthulhu to life one again. She looked through the knowledge of the two souls  she was made from. One of them knew the functions of this world's civilization, and was a wielder of magic. The other was an enemy to the metal maiden that stood alongside the false champion, with knowledge of her every weakness. Both of them had great power, and now both were made her own. She would strike down the metal maiden and then she would use the holy book to perform the ritual, and the soul of the true champion would regain his form from the false champion. And then, he and Great Cthulhu would become whole again. She purred as she looked up to the statue of the god that had been placed ahead of the place for the ritual.

"Soon... Soon I will make you whole, great one..."

She ran a long tongue along the side of the statue's face.

"And we will rule this place in a storm of divine madeness..."

He would be the god of this universe, and she...

She would be his queen, and rule alongside him...

"If I am the one that will return you then I suppose the best fitting name would be... Hmm..."

She grinned. All she had to do was kill the metal demon Echs-jai-nein und the false champion 'Kyth', and the true god himself would be hers and hers alone...

"Look out false champion... Queen Cthylla has been born anew..."

---

Somewhere, a shiver rushed up Kyth's spine and left him feeling an unknown sense of dread.

Chapter Twelve: Kyth Learns The Shoggoth Shuffle

---Jen POV---

"DANGIT I AM TRYING TO NOT KILL YOU BUT YOU ARE MAKING IT DIFFICULT!!"

Currently I was battling a group of manticores on the edge of town that wandered out of the forest and were trying to make trouble. One of them had decided it was a good idea to try and bite my head off. As a result I was currently doing me best to not tear him apart in a fit of anger. I opened my hands into Fist Of Fury mode and rammed a fist into its gut and forced it to get off of me. I kept my fists up and pointed at the rest of them.

"YOU WANT SOMMA THIS!? HUH!?"

All of their ears seemed to fold behind their heads and I retracted my fists and pointed to the forest.

"THAT'S WHAT I FREAKING THOUGHT! NOW GET BACK TO THE FOREST BEFORE I START SWINGING!"

They all nodded and slunk away and I let out a groan. My armor was covered in scratches and drool, but I had at least managed to harvest some venom from them when one had tried to sting me, only to break his stinger on me. I sighed and started heading back to town.

"Jeez. I hope Rarity is in town to help gimme a clean up. I'd rather not go around like this."

Normally I would talk to Kyth so he could just use a bit of magic to get all this stuff off and I could buff out the scratches myself (though I needed someone to help make sure I didn't miss any). Right now however, Kyth had gone out to see if there was anything else to be found about Messenger around the mountain I met him, and at least some treasure if not. I walked into town and did my best to ignore the odd looks I got, both from the scratches and drool and from the fact that I was still somewhat of an outsider in town. I talked under my breath to reassure myself.

"It's not you, it's just the battle damage. You're fine, you can get along without Kyth here to keep you from having a breakdown. Heheh, you're fine."

See, even back on Earth Kyth and I were both outsiders. Neither of us did well in crowds, but for different reasons. I tend to get self-conscious over every little detail of myself and freak out a bit when too many people I don't know are around, but Kyth was just sorta clumsy back on Earth, which was exacerbated by being in a closed space with tons of people. We kinda gravitated to each other since I could help keep his mind off of the idea of his own messing up and he could make me feel better about any doubts I felt about myself. Neither of us were big on...erm... physical stuff, as much as about having someone that cared about us without fault. We both did best together, y'know helping each other get over issues and stuff but uh...

Let's just say that getting put in a body of frigid steel without any sensation, tons of weapons, and a level of physical strength to the point of me being able to kill someone by tripping didn't exactly  boost my self image. And did I mention the fact that I heavily resemble the equivalent of an unnaturally advanced pile of scrap by pony standards? Yeah. Having odd looks from all directions whenever I stepped outside, especially moments like this when I had just gotten done with a fight, doesn't help. All in all, it sorta brings some of those bad thoughts about myself back to my mind. Kyth's still confident in himself to not be clumsy anymore (as he was always more of an optimist than me), but my own issues have popped back up. Being around him sorta warded it all off, but I still didn't want to bug him with all of it again. He probably had his own problems, I thought. I didn't want to throw my baggage onto his shoulders. Then again, having a human brain (especially one with as many issues as mine) and emotions still didn't exactly help all of it. I was fairly sure I was one step off from having full blown 'Hurricane Fluttershy' hallucinations of people watching my every move whenever I was in a situation like this though.

I finally made it to Rarity's house and knocked on the door. I waited a few moments, making myself as small as possible. I knocked again to no answer.

"Uh...Rarity? You in there?"

No answer. I darted my eyes around and then found my explanation for Rarity's whereabouts in the form of seeing Spike go by with the pets of all the mane six with him. That put us at the "Just For Sidekicks" and "Games Ponies Play" episodes. I groaned and dashed over to him and tapped him on the head.

"Yo Spike, ya mind using your fire breath to help me get some of this stuff off please?"

He looked up at me. "Uh sure..."

He took a deep breath but then stopped. "You know, I've been told that dragons can breathe hotter flames if they're paid..."

He tilted his head and gave me a sly grin. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"And I hear that dragons get greed growth if they start getting greedy. And from what I see, a certain green and purple dragon has been ignoring the needs of the pets in his care for his own sake."

"Uh...What do you mean?"

I sighed and dropped to one knee.

"Spike look at these pets. Really look. You're responsible for them, but do they look like they're happy right now, tied up and being dragged across town?"

"W-well I wouldn't have had to drag them all over town if Angel hadn't run off!"

He darted his eyes around and yelled in fearful shock.

"AHH! ANGEL'S GETTING AWAY ON THE TRAIN!"

I put a hand on his head. "I'll grab the bunny. You stay here and watch the rest of the pets."

He nodded uncertainly. I turned and rocketed off towards the train, which had began to depart while we had been talking. I dove low to the ground and moved with enough speed to avoid attention. I rolled in the air to the space between two cars and stopped, landing on the connector between the cars. I opened the door to the cart with Angel in it a small amount and slowly extended one of my arms into the gap. I used my scanners to find Angel and slowly moved my hand towards him, and extended my fingers out and used them like a cage to immobilize Angel and drag him out as my arm retracted. I heard him squeaking in fear as I brought him to me. I shushed him.

"Hey hey, if you raise heck, I make heck. Don't worry I won't hurt you or anything, alright?"

He glared and turned his head away from me. I thought of how Angel got calmed down in the show.

"How about I fluff up your tail for you? Would that make you feel better?"

I saw him twitch his whiskers and turn his head slightly. I morphed my hand and took out the curlers and weaved my fingers around and poofed it up. He turned around to saw it and I giggled as he made an 'oooooooooh....' expression and poked it with a paw. He smiled and rubbed his head against my wrist. I morphed my hand back to normal and let him move freely. I held him carefully in my hands and flew off the train and headed back towards town. When I got back Spike and Angel had the sort of talk that they would have had at the end of the episode and made up, and I personally helped Spike make his gem cake after he burned off all of the manticore mess off of me. Though I did end up having to whack his tongue with a spoon whenever it shot out to grab one of the gems before it was added into the batter. I smiled as I had Angel rub against me multiple times in attempts to fawn for my attention. I smiled and petted him each time. Turns out the little guy isn't so bad if you just show him a little...Kindness. Yeah the second I realized that  burst out laughing. It actually made sense that he would stick to Fluttershy so much. All my worries from earlier faded from my mind, and for a while I hung out with Spike and the pets until a weird feeling went over me. I looked and saw a faint glow covering me.

Huh. Someone was using Kyth and I's token. With a flash I followed the call, leaving Ponyville behind...

---Kyth POV---

A splitting pain tore at the side of my head, and I slowly pushed myself up from where I lay on the ground. I put a hand to where the pain was and saw black ichor stretched between my hand and head, hovering in the air as if gravity held no sway over its motions. I shook my hand and the ichor seemed to retreat to my head. I looked so see my sword stabbed into the ground at an odd angle and I saw myself reflected in it. I was covered in small gashes and even a burn of some sort on my shoulder. Ugh, where was I? And what the hell had happened? I remembered telling Jen  was going out to look for more clues about Messenger, and then starting to fly, and then... Nothing. I finally regained hearing and the sounds of strange chanting out in the distance. I finally looked around the room I was in. It had the looks of a cave, but with walls covering in writings I would expect of a madman, with no known language or pattern to them. The longer I stared at them though, the more it seemed to make sense in my head. Words began to take shape from the mess, and I was ripped away from further trying to decipher the walls from the sounds of an unearthly wail. I forced myself to stand, one of my legs bearing a gash as well. I drew my sword and held it at the ready. I looked down to see my injuries seeming to retreat before my very eyes. I shook my head and started moving to where I heard the struggle from. At the doorway to the chamber was an iron gateway. I charged my sword with Pierce and brought it down and shattered the lock. I poked my head into the room, and saw a great ceremonial altar constructed under a statue of... Was that...

Was that ME!?

Okay now I doubly had to figure out what was happening. The statue was in my exact image, albeit more muscular and without a sword or... Um... Pants...

Okay it was a statue of me, made to be more muscular and buck-naked. Crazy extra-dimensional god-wang and everything (you can understand why I would leave that little, or should I say big, feature of my body after getting Displaced unspoken of). I did my best to ignore the statue as I looked around. I started up toward the altar, having to walk rather than glide since one of my wings was damaged. The door I was in was at the base of the stairs leading up, and I saw that it was only a side entrance. The main door was much larger than the others and it was aligned with the stairs to the altar. On either side off it were four doors, two on each side. I was in the one on the left of the main entrance. I looked up and saw someone standing in front of the altar. He stood at equal height to me, but there ended the similarities. His body was vaguely humanoid and of a willowy and jagged build, but made of a flame of the same color as antarctic ice. His chest held an orb of burning blue flames inside of it, as if it were his heart. His eyes were the same color as the orb, with the same burning look. He had no other features than that, and held me in a fierce glare.

"We have been invoked for a purpose, and we will do as told until we are freed. Then we will do as bade by lord Cthugha bring him release from his bindings. Before we are free though, we are to deliver the false champion of the dead dreamer to she who called on us... We see you have healed as expected. That is good. Now that you have awoken we may clash ourselves and I will strike you down and bind you to the altar and thus send you through the rift to her."

I blinked and readied my sword.

"Okay I don't know what's going on or what you're talking about, but I know that Cthugha is wicked bad news, and I ain't getting 'bound' by no crazy flaming dominatrix jerks like you!"

His hands ignited with gray flames, and the ground around him seemed to freeze.

"I am the avatar of Cthugha, brought to this realm in his stead and I will liberate him when the terms of my summons are filled. For that end, she desires you be broken and brought before her. Thus I will best you in combat and send you to her with the altar prepared."

He seemed to start levitating into the air, an aura of gray flames surrounding him.

"Fear me false champion, for I am the champion of lord Cthugha. I am Fthaggua and Aphoom-Zhah, the flames that chill and sear the soul of my enemies. We were once apart, but we surpassed the falls of Earth and Ktynga and were made one so that we could bring release to our lord's imprisonment. Now face the wrath of Fthagrin, The Silver Flame!"

I held my sword ready. I couldn't remember all the details of the names he gave but I did recall Cthugha. 'He?' was a fire elemental and a Great Old One, on the same level as Cthulhu. I wasn't sure of the specifics though, only remembering some basic bits and the act that he was written by an author that sought to build onto Lovecraft's pantheon (at least back on Earth). I managed to remember that Fthaggua was a high priest of Cthugha and that Aphoom-Zhah was one of his progeny. And if this guy was both of them put into one form...

Oh bugger.

"Fear us champion, for you shall not best me nor my servants..."

He waved a hand and my blood (Ichor?) ran cold.

Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

I knew that call. It was one that added further fear and confusion to my mind as I saw it emerge from the main entrance behind me and block any route of escape I held. A shoggoth. I didn't know how or why but there was a shoggoth here. Large enough to barely fit in a sphere with a fifteen foot diameter, capable of moving with the force of a freight train, and able to morph their bodies in any manner they needed. I saw it surge forward, about to end me in a single moment.

Only the end didn't come. I opened my eyes to see the shoggoth frozen in place. I looked around and realized that the world seemed to have been grayed out other than myself. I looked up the stairs and saw someone that matched Messenger's description standing above me, holding an Egyptian Khopesh crafted of a black metal. He grinned at me and lowered the blade. I spoke uncertainly, terrified at all of the influx of information.

"Wh-who are you?"

"You know me as Messenger."

"What did you do then?"

"I froze time."

"How?"

He grinned and raised a hand. I saw darkness seem to spread from his palm into a 3D grid framework outward, only to lower it and wave away it off.

"'Cuz I broke the rules. But more importantly, I rather you not die as you have a role to play in the days to come. For that you must be kept alive."

"So what...What happened to me?"

"You entered an unknown cave, seeking details on myself, and were promptly ambushed from all sides from that guy's fire vampires."

"So wait a sec, what is he? And the hell is a fire vampire?"

Messenger chuckled and gave me a look implying there was more than he was letting on.

"Kid, you're a fan of Lovecraft, right?"

"Uh...Yes?"

"And there are authors who sought to extend onto his original works?"

"Yeah?"

"The multiverse and the void are realms of infinite impossibility. Things change, truths are made lies, gods are killed. Most of the guys that humans attuned to and wrote about in the pantheon are real, but follow different paths and rules than humans can comprehend. See, back in the beginning, the first versions of the multiverse, ALL of them were real. Over time though they fell, whether to each other or their own actions or simply making enemies of the wrong beings, much in the way of the Sys Admins you know. Of course they start off at varied levels and rather they came from Azathoth and those of his court than Death. By this point there's only a fraction of a fraction of an infinitesimally small decimal point left of any of them. Most don't even remember themselves or what they were and are. Many of them were lost in the void and then forgot their old loyalties and grouped up. This planet is a hotbed of old spirits trying to make their plans work, and he and his servants are a single example."

Dread gripped me.

"And Earth?"

He lost his grin for a moment and locked eyes with me.

"Let's just say that those stories about beings trapped on Earth came partially true for this universe's Earth. Which would be yours. It happened a ways down the line from your era however, and Earth went down fighting. But in the end, the old rock fell..."

He locked me in an intense stare.

"And it fell, screaming..."

I shuddered a tad, and suddenly searing pain split my skull.

I saw a great army made in my image. We rose from the sea and brought a great and terrible madness onto all who we surveyed. Humanity screamed in fear, and we reveled in their agony. Countries fell, the world was ours. And then the wretched things that had taken refuge on our lands dared to fight back. Creatures of metal and mechanizations arose, and thus went to war on my forces. Battles waged on all corners of the globe, and finally I faced their leader. A small thing the size of its creators, made of metal blue and white. It brought out weapons of an unknown sort as it battled me, and I sensed the presence of another being near my own level of power nearby. I watched the child of this rock lash out, flooded with knowledge and power that destroyed her from within. I lunged forward, sealing her doom with a single move...

Splitting pain tore through me again, and I was left... Confused? It felt like I had just seen something important, but I couldn't recall it... C-couldn't have been that important... I groaned and shook my head, attempting to clear the nauseating fog from my mind and keep talking.

"S-So who is this guy?"

"He is an unwritten. A being created by a group or pair of beings dying and something else coming along and patchworking them into a working form. Usually, as is this guys case, they are made from beings that served the same master. In his case, Cthugha."

"So what are you then?"

He gave me a sly grin.

"That'd be telling now, wouldn't it? Either way though, I'm not here to solve your problems, just to set you on equal terms for this fight."

Before I could speak, a tentacle of the same color as his skin shot out from his palm and molded onto my shoulder. Somehow it didn't feel painful but...Good? Kinda like a warm itchy feeling you get from a sweater? I don't really know how to put it. I felt a weird sensation all throughout me and I watched him pull away with the tentacle. I looked down  and saw myself seeming to heal, and I felt my wing pull itself into position in my back. Now THAT hurt. I sank to my hands and knees from it, and pushed myself back up. I finally realized I was fully healed. I looked up at Messenger uncertainly as he retraced the tendril back into his hand.

"...Why?"

"Reasons twofold. First, I have plans that involve you later, so I'd rather not have to get involved again. Next, to piss off Cthugha by having you win... Hate that guy. Either way, good luck kid. You'll need it."

I watched him shimmer with darkness and disappear, and I had to dash to avoid being crushed by the shoggoth as time resumed.

It screeched at me and I charged my sword with flaming strike and sliced it across the side of the shoggoth's side, using my wings to hop backwards to avoid a fireball from Fthagrin. The shoggoth roared and plowed forward at me and I dumped flaming strike after flaming strike into it. I finally yelled in rage and swung my sword through the air in front of me and watched as a bolt of lightning erupted from my sword and blasted a chunk of the shoggoth apart and into nothing but liquefied slime on the ground. Holy fack.

I just learned lightning magic!

I grinned internally and started charging magic into more bolts into the shoggoth as I dodged around it. I turned around and used my sword to deflect a fireball from Fthagrin. That was when I tripped up. The shoggoth finally hit me, slamming into me the same way a tidal wave would. One with tentacles. I struggled for breath as it engulfed me, feeling it seem to burn away at me as if it were acid. I felt it crushing me from all around like a car compressor, and I finally let the air out of my lungs under the pressure. I already had lost sight from with its mass but now that was accompanied by pain from around and within. I growled and let out a silent roar, feeling a primal will push through me. I finally saw something through the black muck around me. A blood-red glow emanated from me as rage burned through me. I let out a wave of red energy from my sword and surged forward, blasting throughout the shoggoth. The creature let out a mournful tone as it exploded apart, splattering the stairwell and chamber around me as my vision finally faded to black and I fell into unconsciousness.

---Third POV---

The shoggoth blew apart in a wave of red energy, and Fthagrin watched in uncertainty as the false champion of Cthulhu stood there. His appearance had changed since he had been submerged. His green was no longer a smooth, pale green. Rather it was rough with the appearance of stone hewn into rough, moss-looking skin. His eyes were still a pale red, but after a moment from his release the false champion stumbled, and when their eyes met his eyes were...Different. They were still red, but now dark to the point of being near black colored. They no longer shone with life nor light, and held a gaze of pure hate. He roared and seemed to be upon Fthagrin after a split-second of movement, bringing a sword brimming with darkness down. Fthagrin moved fluidly and sent waves of flame onto the false one, to no avail. Fthagrin brought his claws together and summoned a lance of chilling flames, clashing with the sword of the false one. Fthagrin grimaced. It was apparent now that he was not simply facing the false champion. In the false one's failings it seemed that the soul of the true champion had been channeled from its bindings, called forth in a wave of primal rage brought on by near death. Finally the stalemate of their blades was broken as Kyth threw Fthagrin back with a roar. Fthagrin tumbled backwards, but recovered and surged down the stairs and away. He glanced back at the...Creature... Standing beneath the statue of the true champion. It stood firmly with spread wings, wreathed in the black muck and torn flesh of Fthagrin's servant and now the flames of Fthagrin himself both of his attacks and his own ethereal ichor. He looked as if he were a specter of death, standing with eyes numbed with malice. The same red glow held about him and he lunged forward and pursued Fthagrin from the chamber and down the main corridor. Fthagrin waved his hand and called forth the same being she had sent to ambush the false champion the same morning and they poured out of the surrounding rooms and piled onto the maddened champion. He went into a frenzy and tore through them with a roar. In the midst of it all as they bled into nothing the red light about him faded as a wave of light washed over him as the token he was bound to was brought into use. He didn't take notice of the fact that he had changed locations nor his surroundings. He held his sword above his head and roared out a final call of victory as he planned to pursue his prey.

"I AM KYTH! SLAYER OF SHOGGOTH AND FIRE DEMONS!"

Pain struck though him as he felt something smash onto his skull and knock him back to his senses, bringing him out of his rage. He blinked in confusion to see Jen staring at him with deep concern as she inspected his injuries. He spoke uncertainly.

"Uh... What's goin on?"

Chapter Thirteen: Kyth Gets Plastered and Jen Gets An Upgrade

---Kyth POV---

I leaned on Jen for support while my leg healed as I spoke to the room around me, seeing Dox standing with an unknown figure.

"Uh... What's goin on?"

Around me I watched portals appear with various figures stepping out, most speaking to Dox.

The first portal to open revealed a normal looking guy, wearing a black windbreaker with a hood, and a backpack and jeans. He had short brown hair, which was mussed slightly as he pulled back his hood. His legs seemed to creak under his jeans and he spoke up. "Hey, Dox!"

An 'H' shaped portal opened in an ordered fashion, showing an odd pair. One was an average sized human wearing a white space suit but in a flared executive fashion, and then along with him was a more... Unique individual. She was a robotic looking alicorn, eighteen feet in height from what I could judge, with a white coat and a mane of glowing red wires. She had a motherly and curvy figure, and had a small smile. The guy in the space suit spoke. "So, we meet again.  Under not interrupting my morning coffee moments, I swear if it isn’t you it’s somefucker else.  But thanks for the invite, I need some kind of vacation...”

The next portal revealed a group that made my brain halt for a moment, as a group I recognized as Jessie, James, and Meowth from Team Rocket. Along with them were two kids, a boy and a girl. The boy wore a standardized Team Rocket grunt uniform with a black hat covering his red hair and a green watch with an hourglass symbol on his left arm. The girl wore a miniature version of Jessie's uniform, with a hairpin with an Arbok design stuck into her brown hair. The next two out of their portal were recognized as the MLP OC  Screwball, and Team Rocket's Wobbuffet. The kids and Wobbuffet were carrying odd eggs.

The next portal opened up to show an anthro Queen Chrysalis with a young changeling queen holding her hand. The kid spoke. "Wow, are they all daddy's friends?" Chrysalis glanced around. "Don't know myself, though I do see Jack over there."The next one to walk out was another anthro alicorn mare with dragon wings on her back. She smiled and walked up to Dox. “Don’t worry, Asphyxious will be along he’s just trying to work out if he should bring the Warjacks or not” Just as she finished, a man with black hair and a long dragon like tail jumped out. He was wearing some kind of chest plate with armor all along his left arm and had what looked like a cutlass hanging off his hip.

“Aloha!, did you miss me brother?” He said with a big smile on his face. “Good to see you again, Dox. Come here and give me a hug!” He then wrapped his arms around Dox in a crushing hug..

 Once he let go, Dox gasped for air and looked at and seemed to notice something else he was wearing, an eyepatch. “Asphyxious?” Dox asked and that just made him laugh.

“That’s right, it’s me dude. I guess that fight with Everblight hasn’t happened yet, huh.” He asked, giving Dox this big smile on his face.

“What.” Dox said. “Know what, I’m not gonna ask. We have a party to have.”

      Jen and I looked up to see a massive monstrous fusion of creatures land on and crush tthe stage in front of us and give us a razor-toother, shit-eating grin. He spoke.

“Welcome to the party, you’ve been invited, and we are going to wreck shit up. I got the booze!” He said, holding up a small ship he summoned from the air. “No minors allowed to drink, of course, so I also got some non-alcoholic cider.” He commented, holding up a weathered barrel in his other hand.

I looked at it for a moment before raising my sword and yelling, only for my injured leg to buckle and I leaned on Jen, who raised a plasma cannon to it.

        The Robotic Alicorn smiled first at this before adjusting her gaze down at the human visibly in a Hyperion Space suit with markings on it showing the ‘rank’ of C.E.O.  “This ‘young one’ would be Avarice, we have made many dealings with him before.  Though admittedly it appears he has undergone a ‘change’.”  The helmet's blank screen showed a view of Handsome Jack’s face, giving a shrug in response with a wave.  “I’d come over and shake your hand for the business you’ve provided but, I’d say only my EGO could match your size.” 'Avarice' grinned wider, and winked.

I saw the guy in the windbreaker stare at the humanoid beast for a few seconds, before giving a salute and stating, “Yo!” As he did so, however, he noticed something in the crowd and gave a deadpan look. A few seconds passed before he began to shift around, trying to keep an eye out for any sign of something.

James stared at Avarice, “It’s that merchant!” He grabbed a pokeball and threw it, “Victreebel!” In a explosion of light, the large flytrap pokemon appeared, as soon as it was summoned, she turned around and faced her trainer and proceed to bite on his head, “Victreebel! Don’t attack me! Attack that merchant!”  

I saw 'Asphyxious' was laughing his ass off at what was happening, Chrysalis was keeping an eye on the young changeling that was playing not really sure myself. The dragon like Faust was looking around as if she was looking for someone, not sure what that about.

While this was all going on, I heard Dox yell out in anger.

“GUYS! CALM THE FUCK DOWN!” He shifted his form to one of a giant version of himself. “CALM DOWN NOW OR I’LL MAKE YOU CALM DOWN!” Instantly, everyone dropped what they were doing and stared at him as he shrank himself back down. “Now then. Now that that’s out of the way… This, my friends, is Avarice.” I gestured to my strange friend. “And he is NOT the Merchant you all think he is. No, this guy’s a Displaced like the rest of us. He’s a good sort, and he means well, so don’t go and try and hurt him. And trust me when I say this, even if you do, it won’t work. Now that I’ve explained that, can we PLEASE get on with the reason we’re here?” He pulled out strange Device and opened a portal. “Let’s stop with the crazy and get on with the party! I’m getting married soon, so let’s do this! Through that portal is my Earth. We’re gonna go and steal a limo, I’m gonna use my technomancy magic and other powers to upgrade it, and we’re gonna party! LET’S GO FUCK UP LOS ANGELES! OR TOKYO, I DON’T CARE!” He turned to the girls that happened to show up with the other people that I summoned. “You girls can stay here with Luna, Celestia, Emerald, Sapphire, Athena, and Bluebelle. Show them a good time, without sex, and we’ll be back later.”

“Also, as a precaution against my presence, can’t control my fertility powers yet, and any sort of intercourse WILL get you pregnant!” Avarice warned them all, and suddenly put down the small ship, and giant keg, and split in half into two giant basilisks again and began slithering to the portal.

“While I doubt that your powers will have any effect on me.” Alex said to Avarice, before he grew a shit-eating grin on his face, “I can’t wait to uphold my title as the Prince of Trolling.”

Jack just looked at Avarice and the others, giving a sigh in response to that speaking to Me.  “Well at least there won’t be any alicorns there, so that’s an improvement.  But I will shoot a fucker who deserves it.”  Saying in warning though the alicorn bit sounded weird as he shuddered.

Jen raised a hand to Avarice. “What if we aren’t built with that..erm… function?”

“No worries, just ask Jack to make you one.” Asphyxious said as if it was no big deal. She responded by giving him an odd look and slowly taking a step away.

“EARTH!” Dox shouted into the portal that he had opened. “PREPARE TO HAVE YOUR SHIT REKT!”

With that, we all stepped through the portal.

That was when shit went down. It seemed from the way all of us seemed to act and look, that the people of Dox's Los Angeles had no reserves with trying to kill us. There were civilians, cops, and criminals alike all pulling out guns to fire on us.

“Uh, guys.” Dox said to the gathered humans. “You don’t want to do that.”

They all opened fire, only for all of it to be deflected by Dox using some kind of crazy magic to deflect all of the shots.

“Told you.” He said. “Hey guys, don’t hold back. These guys are stupid enough to shoot at us, then they deserve it. I don’t care for my Earth anymore. Plus, we’re not here to play hero, we’re here to fuck shit up and have fun. LET’S GET TWISTED!” He yelled, sending the bullets back into the guns that they came from.

“Why not, let’s do this!” Avarice and another serpent that split from him crowed as they shot forth from the portal, swallowing screaming people whole as they cleared the way. “It’s a fiesta! And you’re all going to jail cuz you’re not invited!” Avarice cast an emerald aura around himself, later explaining that he was making it so that anyone who 'died' was to be transferred to a prison cell.

Iron Man had swapped into the War Machine armor. “Let me get this straight, We get to go on a  murderous, chaotic rampage and not have to deal with the after effects.  In that case, let’s fuck them up!”  The minigun on his back hummed to life as he ripped a crowd of cops to pieces.  “HA HA HA HA HA, I am getting a huge boner from this!”  He screamed. Dox later explained to us how much of the people in this city were corrupt/rapists. That made me feel less guilty for all of this.

The rocket grunt child fixed his black hat, looking at the destruction in front of him, he grinned devilishly, “Yahoo! Time for big ol storm of chaos!” Pulling out a small gem, he activated his magic, causing some of the cars to grow legs and start stomping on anyone who dared to attack them. “Come on out Shellder!” Summoning out the small purple clam, he pointed at a nearby building, “Shellder, use Ice Beam!” Firing a beam of ice, the building froze and collapsed, causing the Rocket child to laugh maniacally.

Alex, who I found out was the guy in the windbreaker, stumbled as he fell out of the portal, but quickly righted himself before diving down to avoid gunfire. “I really regret not transforming beforehand,” He said aloud as he took a kanohi Olmak (so THAT is the bionicle guy!) before slapping it on, transforming in seconds. As he got back up, bullets now bouncing off him harmlessly, he turned to Dox and asked, “You mind if I go terrorize Lego for dropping Farshtey as the writer for the new Bionicle series?” I nodded, and he gave a grin before opening a portal with his Olmak and stepped into it. I silently wished him luck on his noble quest.

On the other side, Jack’s first action was to look around, raise a brow watching the show.  “Well, I forgot how much of a shithole this place was. Hey, can the freeways through here be wrecked if I can’t bring a Mars Unit along?”  Opening the visor to his Space Suit as a couple bullets reflect off his shield, priming his finger on a Moonshot summoning button just waiting for Avarice to give the signal.

“Go for it, I hate the traffic there anyway, might as well, but let Avarice incapacitate as many civilians as possible first.” Dox said as he floated up to a nearby building wall, and began to watch the carnage.

Jack started tapping away on the watch, bringing up a holographic view of some kind, he then started to shift direction facing where Earth’s moon was.  a Distant if unclear view of it before completing the task, those with a magic connection could feel distant ‘thumps’ of power with anyone looking at the sky will soon enough see a starting glow of what appeared to be a meteor shower.  But in a matter of minutes of that being done Jack had his helmeted visor down, bracing for impacts by sitting on a street curb with shrieking crashes into the Freeway in several places around the city of L.A. likely cutting the city off from any vehicle traffic except for smaller roads.  But the final impact only landed just across the street into a building, only to explode outward with a self righted Saturn Bot, lumbering over to a Casual looking Jack giving a ‘circle around’ motion.

I then saw Asphyxious get a hotdog from a stall and pay the guy in gems then he just watches Jack, Dox, and Avarice, eating it with a smile on his face before someone tried to shoot him and missed, but the hotdog was nothing more than a mess on the street. “You know I was going to go easy on you all, but now…” His body was cover in fire and black smoke as Asphyxious transformed into a lich looking form, of a large size.

“I am going to eat your souls!” He roared at them then they all ran away from him screaming like little girls. “Big babies” He said and went into a mall, sending hundreds of people out screaming.

“You guys mind if I wire some money to my mom of this world?”  Iron Man said after pulling the arms off a mobster.  Getting no response, he ran into a bank.

  I looked around uncertainly, before grabbing a torn up piece of metal and using it as a shield, Captain America style. I charged up to the guy in the space suit and spoke.

“Uh. You’re the Handsome Jack Displaced, right? You got any shields I could have? I don’t exactly want to test how bullet-resistant I am.”

He gave me an unreadable look through his visor and I felt like I had done something wrong when he lifted it up and gave me a classic Handsome Jack smile. "Well sure, though for a first time customer I’ll play it easy on you kiddo. So I think for your ‘style’ from how you are standing a more ‘melee’ regen variety would be needed.”  Tapping into his Echo, before pulling out what appears to be another echo with a possible shield device.  “Just wear the Echo and put it in by accessing the Inventory screen like the video games.  Also YOU will pay me with 35,400 Bits.”

I blinked before reaching into my pocket and grabbing the Inspiration Manifestation tome, holding it in one hand. I concentrated and a green glow surrounded my hand as I generated bits to pay with. I spoke up again.

“Uh, tell me when to stop. And for the melee thing, that’s more because I don’t really have any ranged weapons yet.”

A retching sound came from overhead, and I looked up to see the horned serpent that was Avarice barfing gold coins into a pile next to me on the side opposite the one I had already made. The serpent that came with him 'Crescent' seemed to be the one barfing it all up, but Avarice spoke. “Say when Boss.”

I blinked and stepped back, pocketing the tome. I spoke up to apologize.

“Uh. Thanks guy. Sorry ‘bout trying to stab you earlier.”

“No hard feelings, if I held grudges against everyone who tried to hurt me, I wouldn’t be in a relationship with nearly any of my mares, ha, ha!” Avarice, the red-frilled serpent laughed as he shimmied in place.

I chuckled nervously. When all the bits were exchanged by Jack taking the pile into his ECHO and handing it to me, I programmed it and attached it to my belt. I started talking to Avarice, trailing off as I saw him already leaving. “So, what exactly were… you... Displaced.. as?” I looked over to where he had gone.

“Huh.”

I shrugged and rolled my ankle, now realizing that my leg had healed, and used my wings to glide over to where some of the others were talking.

---Jen POV---

“Welcome back, mother!” Luna cheered from her seat in a recliner, now properly dressed in a comfortable gown that fit her, one of her sister’s, since it was her style of white and gold.

F.A.U.S.T.  Reemerged through the portal from Dox’s location giving a sigh with shaking of her head with a light smile, Gazing over the other mares present giving a smile.  “We thank thou, though thy groom to be is rather ‘enjoying’ himself with his colt friends and OUR Handsome Jack.”  Giving a smile as her robotic wings gave a happy flutter.  “We can see our Jack at least seems to be keeping an eye out, though the phrase ‘designated driver’ is lost onto us as for why he sighed.”

All of us ladies were all gathered in a parlor, sitting around on plush and comfortable couches and chairs, while the kids all were playing and laughing in the next room being watched by Chrysalis. I didn't know what group I would fit better in, so I had made the choice to sit down with the adults and talk to the only other robotic female in the room, F.A.U.S.T. She was extremely tall, with a figure befitting an amazon, and the couch we both were sitting on could only support our combined weight (I knew I was at least 600 Ibs and I had no idea how much she weighed but with eighteen feet of robotics stuff it had to be pretty big) as she had magically reinforced it. I had gotten a break from a conversation which was awkward enough to rival my dad giving me 'The Talk' (Mom skipped town when I was born, don't ask), but now it seemed I had to resume it when she returned from helping Dox with something.

“So dear, where were we?” F.A.U.S.T asked conversationally as she gently set her large body down on the couch next to me. I responded in a nervous voice.

“U-Um...you were talking about the theories you developed on synthetic flesh, nerve endings and...upgrades?”

“Ah, yes. If thou would wish, we could even upgrade thou current chassis with nerve endings that have a full-range of sensation with dampeners so thou only really feel pain when something endangers thy structural integrity. We could also give your body a more organic appearance while not hampering your current functions, along with being able to eat normal foods to replenish your energy stores, and taste them too. Any more ‘Mature’ options would be entirely up to thou as well, since while to us thou art already an adult, we sense thou art uncomfortable with the subject of sex.” F.A.U.S.T supplied, making me blush a deep blue.

“Uh..Yeah, that does sound pretty good. Though y-yeah the erm..s-sex stuff I think would maybe be an upgrade for in a few years. But still, having a more organic body plus still having my battle armor, flight, weapons, et cetera would be pretty awesome.”

She smiled at me and started speaking in what my language processing system deciphered as a computer programming script.  (“Thou should try to see how a slightly more mature form at the least will ‘affect’ thy chosen mate, we could have it done long before those colts finish their fun for our own at how thy ‘Kyth’ reacts visibly.”)  A smile adorned her muzzle as she gave me an added wink, her gaze shifting over to the other mares present. I let out a small, nervous laugh.

“[W-well in a few years maybe… Though then again, wouldn’t there need to be time to actually y’know design it? Seeing as it’s gonna be a combo of your tech and mine...?]”

Giving a slight nod as she continued in a binary tone.  (“Thou art still thinking of how those of flesh and blood work mentally, a simple connection depending on processing speed could have our results in seconds or less..  Though tis understandable being so young, if thou doesn’t mind we may offer insights and our own teachings to help ‘adapt’ to thy nature as it were.”)  She stated with a slight hand gesture not noticing some stares for how she has been speaking so alien a tone that only one side of the conversation was heard. I placed a hand onto my chin.

“[Well.. Yeah I suppose that’d be useful. I actually have some of the blueprints for other stuff in the show that I could use help deciphering… Yeah, sure. So where does the upgrading whatever happen?]”

        F.A.U.S.T. merely smiled at at me in a devious way.  (“We COULD return to our Jack’s universe for such a procedure, or thou could give a ‘leap of faith’ by our remote model’s fabrication aboard this unit as a first ‘stage’.”)  She stated with a soft hum emanating from the larger frame. I didn't hesitate to answer her, shuddering internally.

        “[Uh… Thanks but I’d rather make this as not weird as possible. First option!]”

F.A.U.S.T. nodded and opened a portal to Jack’s world and thus we proceeded through...

She led me into a white room, one with no visible doorways or windows but what looked to be a wall of code surrounding on all sides. After a moment the room seemed to open with a command ‘flutter’ of her metallic wings into what seemed to be a portal chamber. She waved me on and I followed her forward. As we walked along I took in the sight of the facility, and even saw through some windows in the longer corridors I gained a glimpse of the surrounding landscape. As it was it seemed that the facility was constructed on this Equestria’s moon. I opened one of my pigtails into satellite dish mode to scan around me. F.A.U.S.T. glanced at me and I explained.

“Uh, I haven’t really tested my flight systems outside of our Equestria’s gravitational field, so I’m just seeing if I can get some data to help develop a map for myself to use later whenever I head out to my own moon.”

She gave a nod in a knowing way, as it seemed the path we were going shifted a bit to what looked like a larger ‘airlock’ for some kind of garage.  

“We believe a ‘mix’ of information and some experience can often be good teachers for events like this, as it would be a more ‘direct’ route by going for a walk outside the corridors. Thou wouldn’t believe how happy our Jack was when he first ‘moon jumped’ with a flip of his coming here to build a ‘Home away from Home’...”  

The direction she gestured to when we got outside looked like some weird mansion built into a crater that gave off a soft calming glow. I blinked and started hovering with my pigtail thrusters as we exited, giving flight without minimal gravity a try for the first time. The result of this was me shooting off into the air out of control and finally stopping when I crash-landed into the ground in front of the mansion’s front door. I groaned and pulled myself out of the me-shaped hole in the ground and stood up. I ‘spoke’ in binary code to F.A.U.S.T. though it was more like a broadcast signal, as we were in a vacuum.

“[That’s gonna need some work… Anyway, where were we heading?]”

Her response felt like a refined giggle of tones, even her large frame flew gracefully with a few if lazy wing beats having apparently thrusters in the bottom of her hooves pointing towards another larger built location with what looked like a Massive Cannon angled towards Equestria with the Stenciled ‘Moonshot Bitches!’ on it’s side.  

(“We would say the main Hub facility, to see about putting together a improved chassis of thy enjoyment.  But we could take a few lessons of ‘lunar flight’, so thou has a better ‘finesse’ of system controls for thy agile frame.”)

I put a hand to my chin and pondered this for a moment before I responded.

“[Well that sounds good, but I think that those lessons would be more useful  to have after I’ve been upgraded. Y’know that way I won’t have to relearn everything for usage in my new body.]”

She gave me a raised brow in response, before giving a possible sigh in response.

(“Thou should know having data to compare against when relearning, makes thy logic centers adapt faster.  Thou art a being similar to us, though we are not the same we each have our own special perception of all things.  From the wise to the fool, but let not a lack of knowledge lead thou as it would the fool.  Rise above it and grow wise from experience.”)  

She said this with a motherly expression, and I shrugged.

“[Well I suppose. Remember, I’m still new to all this. Being a data being and all. Still, either way is good I suppose. But either way, wherever you give me the lessons we may want to be away from all this. I got some serious thrust power in my pigtail thrusters and that’s only a fraction of my speed when my actual wings are active.]”

F.A.U.S.T. floated over closer, giving me what looks to be a once over.  But I saw and ‘felt’ her eyes scan my body leaving a warm shudder, as she used a finger to tap her chin as a smile broke out.  

(“Would thou care to accept a ‘tutorial’ program we would offer to help thou master thy form or bodies, so that adaption to what thou is is smoother and less ‘accident’ prone from miscalculations?  For surely it would help thou when in danger with thy beloved mate.”)

She added on that at the end, looking at me in a familiar sense. I smiled.

“[Sure, that sounds perfect!”]”

She simply gave a small smile, gesturing me to come closer as she landed softly.  I took a moment to question how she could be so heavy but not even leave an imprint in the lunar soil with her landing.  

(“We would simply ask that thou come to us, than offer us a port for transfer of the program.”)  

Her arms folded in front of her chest, raising her brow as if to watch what I would do. I shrugged.

“[Sure, I got an access port for data in the back of my head.]”

I span my head around like an owl and opened the small panel.

“[See? It’s actually there just for downloads and stuff like that.]”

I rotated my head back to normal positioning and looked to see her gesturing in a ‘come here’ method, looking amused. I walked over.

“[My fingers actually can reconfigure into plugs for getting data and all too, if that helps.]”

She nods slowly while motioning me to turn around, as if to look at my port and her now held cable mane strand.  

(“Thou art comfortable with this idea, just to be sure of this as we would not force anything upon thou.”)

She said in a motherly tone resting a hand on my shoulder. I raised an eyebrow.

“[Uh...Why wouldn’t I be? It’s just data, right?]”

This led to an incredible awkward conversation between F.AU.S.T. and I wherein she gave me the robotic/A.I. version of the birds and the bees, and why she was being weird about that. As it turned out transfer of data is kinda like... sex... for data beings. ((So much that I wish I could just erase from my databanks...ugh…)) After a while though I managed to determine in my own build’s data that at least for me it wouldn’t react the same way as it would for her, as my own OS didn’t have any data to interpret data transfer into sensation, unlike F.A.U.S.T’s. This was a great relief to me, and so it was a LOT less weird to get the program downloaded, though F.A.U.S.T did make some weird noises while uploading. ((This much I WAS able to erase from my databanks without consequence)). After a while I had gotten a good hold on how to fly in zero-G with my pigtail thrusters, and I decided I would deal with learning how to better use my wings after I had actually mastered regular flight with them. After that F.A.U.S.T led me into the facility again and took me around the factory areas where they constructed bio-mechanical units like herself, ((Good GOD did I have to edit my memory data after that… So much weirdness…)) and then to the machinery in her own office that she personally used.

The first odd thing out of place was a sort of coffee mug, which had ‘Best Alicorn’ stenciled on the side with a flourish of apparently Jack’s signature in smaller writing above it, it was kinda cute though the sight of fresh oil in it was a surprise. Other than that the office had a few consoles that exhibited 3D models of various bits of Hyperion tech, and finally the separate console where she informed me that we would develop my new build. The two of us worked fast, and I finally started seeing what she meant about thinking like a non-data being. We managed to complete a rough amalgam of her bio-tech with my current build, one that would maintain all of my current functions while still giving me some biological functions like being able to process regular food into fuel and having physical sensation, though it was muted compared to those of a full bio-tech being. The reason for this was the fact that we had to figure out a way for my artificial skin and flesh to have the capability of reconstructing into solid armor.

For the looks I decided to try and make it look like the Snafu comics XJ9, though without the jacket and made to be a tad thicker in build as well as being seven feet tall. F.A.U.S.T and I also worked out somewhat of a trade deal, where I would give her access to some of my own original body’s technology (weapons with cartoonish physics in being able to fold up and fit into a way too small space to name one) in exchange for me getting some access to various bits of Hyperion tech though both of us agreed to never abuse the others tech (in other words, I wouldn’t leak Hyperion tech to competitors and she won’t start using my tech without my permission) when trading.

After my new body was fully constructed (my old body having been left as a hollow shell after all of my weapons and gear were moved over, with some bits from one of F.A.U.S.T’s loaders put into it so that it could operate even whens tripped down until I was moved over. I plugged in (a variation of my access port in the back of my current head had been put into the new, but now I could seal it off at will to prevent unwanted access even when unconscious) and transferred myself over in an instant, taking a moment to adjust to having a sense of touch again. I stretched and took my first uncertain steps and managed to get the hang of it. I looked over at my old body where it stood the eyes now dark as it deactivated. It still had a great deal of strength from the loader components, as well as some minor flight and some small weapons. In programming it was just a copy of my basic OS with some bits of a loader OS to help it function. I had talked with F.A.U.S.T about it and decided to keep it, as either a simple momento or even a spare body if my current one got trashed and I needed to transfer over to keep myself alive in a combat situation. Along with that F.A.U.S.T and I worked out the first of our trades, with me giving some data on the basic laser weapons in my arms in exchange for some blueprints to a few Hyperion gun components, that way I could try and make my own part later and assemble my own extra weapons, as well as an electrical thorn shield to integrate into myself, that way I would have protection even with my body not set into combat mode. I chose to add it into my arm, on the side of my ‘bicep’ and partway onto the shoulder. After that we ended up deciding to head back, F.A.U.S.T giving me an Acquisition Beacon to use if I ever needed/wanted to call her. After that the two of us ended up heading back, figuring we’d want to be there when the guys got back from the party. Though I was more so wanting to see how Kyth reacted to the ‘new’ me...

---Kyth POV---

I watched Dox, Tomas/James, Meowth, Ken, Wobbuffet, and Avarice scrap all of the loaders into a beautiful monstrosity of a miniature Mechagodzilla. Dox rammed the large gun he had bought into its mouth to give it a cannon. Dox put on the loader shoes he had and tested them with a grin.

“Ya know, I feel like Shadow the Hedgehog now.” He said. “Funny thing is, I saw one a few days ago.”

I casually glided through the air past him and spoke in an imitation of Shadow's voice.

“You’ll never be the real hedgehog, faker…He he heh, JK. I’m just gonna go grab loot from wherever now. Cya in a bit!”

With that, I spread my wings and went off and into the city. I first stopped into a 'beverage' store, looking to get a drink of water or something. I walked in and spoke to the terrified clerk.

"Hey. You got anything good to drink?"

She nodded and gave me a large bottle, speaking in a vaguely Russian accent.

"I-i-i-it's the best we have!"

I shrugged and picked it up. It was full of clear liquid that I assumed was water. Being on Earth again had made me forget the fact that I no longer looked like a scrawny teenager rather than a living demon, and thus I still figured that nobody would be able to sell me anything alcoholic. I chugged down the bottle and hissed afterwards as the liquid burned away at my throat but... It was kind of a good burn. I coughed afterwards anyway and felt a weird buzzing in my head. I looked at the empty bottle and on an urge threw it to the ground and shattered it.

"Wh-Whoa! That's... That whatever it was is some good shits! Another!"

I pointed at the clerk who nodded again and gave me another bottle. I took out all of the bits I had generated earlier and dropped them onto the counter, and then grabbed a whole bunch of extra jug/bottles and started off from the shop. I whooped and started flying again, drinking down another bottle. After a few minutes of straight flying I touched down in front of a large candy shop. I strode up to the entrance cockily and kicked the door in to the brightly lit establishment. I glanced across the room and locked eyes with the guy at the register, a man only a few years older than me. I pegged him as about nineteen or twenty. I spoke slowly in a low, old western movie villain voice.

"Alrighty yew giddy sonuva bitch. Gimme all the gummy worms, bears, and otherwise y'all have. And ALL the Swedish Fish!"

I drew my sword and held it out in front of me with one hand and held the Ins-Man tome in the other.

"And you best know that I'm gonna pay yew EXTRA fer all that!"

He shook in fear but nodded and started gathering it all up for me. After a few minutes I roared and swallowed a large bag of gummy materials, and generated payment for the lad.

"Son yew just take that money and don' tell nobuddy what yew saw herr but thet yew made the best sale this place had ever seen."

He feebly nodded and I took off. After that my memory fades a bit but here's what I figured out from getting into my ECHO's data.

---Third POV---

"THOU SHALT NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE! FEAR ME MORTAL SWINE I AM THE GUMMY BEAR KING!"

The police would never forget the day that Cthulhu descended and held a pig hostage on the roof of an Arby's, somehow having a supply of infinite rocks to throw at them while somehow being completely bulletproof. He roared at them as their Chief walked up to call him down.

"Sir! Let the pig go and we can work out a deal!"

"NEVAH! I NAMED HIM TREVOR AND I WILL SET HIS PEOPLE , NAY HIS PIGGLE FREE OF AMERICAN TYRANY! SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!"

He threw a Molotov cocktail down at them and they scattered, screaming as he seemed to shoot lightning at them, before spreading his wings and taking off, pig in hand, bag of vodka bottles on his back and sword at the ready. In the hours to come a number of farms between Las Vegas and Los Angeles would be assaulted and a stampede of mixed farm animals would be led into the wild by Cthulhu, who would later be reported by PETA as one of their  own champions. This would lead to the police leading a mass raid on them, but that's a story for another time.

 

---Kyth POV---

The next events I recalled after a long while.

After that whole affair I found myself flying in a dazed and drunken state. Eventually I found himself landing in a tumble and stumbling to my feet. I looked down to see an old red brick building of a high school of some sort down below the hill from me, with a sign reading ‘Bonanza.High’.  From what I could tell I was somewhere in the city of Las Vegas in the residential districts to the west, though I still have no idea how I got around to that city so quickly. I looked around and was drunkenly surprised to see an utterly giant 50-foot anthro mutant alicorn Avarice sitting on the top of a nearby huge building just across the street and staring at the building with dead/glazed eyes. I used my wings and flew up to the building and landed by his side and poked him.

“H’lo Mr Big Guy!”

Of course, I didn’t consider that A; he was so huge my poking him was little more than a bug’s presence, B; he was totally nude, and C; that he probably couldn’t hear me from all the way down here at his butt. I took out my loot bag and rummaged around and pulled out a megaphone.

“I shaid H’LO!”

Again, despite how loud that was it sent my own hearing ringing, he just kept staring at the building with those glassy green eyes. I finally flew up to his shoulder and put the megaphone in his ear this time. I spoke again after taking another swig from one of the random bottles I had gathered.

“I’S NOT PERLITE TO NOT SAY H’LO BACK!”

I burped and watched the megaphone fall the long way down to the ground.I binked, one eye at a time and turned back to Avarice. He was still glassy-eyed, but he hummed and looked to me. Somewhere in my inebriated mind, I saw nothing but pain, and loss. Almost killed my buzz I think. “Hey...Kyth right?” He then grabbed me carefully in a hand and held me out in front of him so he could see me clearly. I remember standing on his palm was like being on a solid platform.

“What’re you doing all the way out here?”  I blinked.

“What’re YOU doing all the way out wherever thish is?”

His dead eyes looked mine directly into my soul. I don’t know how, I don’t know exactly why, but he smiled sadly and turned his gaze back to the old brick building. “We’re kindred spirits hm? Even if you don’t know it yet.”

I blinked. “Whatcha mean?”

“We’ve both lost absolutely everything.”

His voice was full of anguish, and even drunk, I felt a spike of pain in my heart, somehow knowing he was right. I blinked and tilted my head.

“Whut?”

“Hmph, nothing. Just the rambling of a broken man.” He continued to stare at the building, and I couldn’t help but be curious.

“Like how do you mean?”

“...That place down there. What does it mean to you?”

His question was odd, since the obvious answer was nothing.

“Likely you just thought it was meaningless. I would have said so too a couple years ago. But now...it’s everything good I had.”

He looked me in the eyes again, this time with anger in them, and I couldn’t tell if it was at me, or himself or something else entirely.

“Never take what you have for granted Kyth.”

I blinked and spoke in an uncertain voice, half my own half not.

“I saw my world get exploded.”

I felt a wave of nausea and I leaned against his thumb for support.

“Yups… I saw myself killin stuff…”

I glanced over at my reflection in Avarice’s eyes and saw myself with an empty expression. My skin had gotten darker and had the looks of mossy stone and one of my eyes had faded to nearly being black. I let out a low laugh and kept speaking.

“Heh...HehehHA! See, I saw everybody bleedin’ and screamin’ and I saw myself skoosh Jen like a little buggy while she was crying in pain… But you wanna know what else?”

I gave him a manic grin underneath my tentacles. I spoke in a low whisper that I knew he would be able to hear somehow.

“I’m not even gonna remember that I saw that, or that I said this, or anything else! Not just cuz’ something’s wrong in my noodle but just cuz some little part of me know this ain’t water! I’m not gonna even remember what it was like that I killed the woman I love or that I remembered enjoying it!”

I laughed and stumbled away from his face and barfed off the side of his hand. I giggled and looked back up at my reflection in his eyes and saw that I had gone back to normal. My memory went a bit fuzzy and later I would know that I had forgotten all that I had recalled and said. I gave a loopy smile up at him, one that could be compared to a cat that dropped a dead mouse at someones feet as a ‘present’.

“...Like I said.” Avarice looked back at the building, sad as ever. “Kindred spirits….” What I don’t remember anymore, is what happened after that. Later I managed to remember what happened a good while after that...

 

Several hours later:

I roared at the machine in front of me.

"GIMME THE FUCKDAMN PERNGLES!"

I started shaking at the vending machine and watched as it refused to yield to me the Pringles I had payed for. I leaned down and wriggled my face tentacles into the slot and reached up throughout the machine. I felt total victory as the thing of Pringles dropped into my mouth. I used two of my tentacles to open it and I started eating them. Then I realized that I couldn't get loose. I started trying to pull away and after a few minutes I pulled at the machine and dragged it with me. I made it to the room where Dox, Avarice, and all the others had been staying. I knew they had locked me out with a specific purpose but I decided that this needed help. I backpedaled to the locked door and rammed my back against it and slowly it broke open.

*whump*

*whump*

*crack*

I managed to get though the doorway and into the room slightly. I spoke slowly, as I was still drunk from the night before.

“I got the Pringles!… But I shorta got shtuck....” I fell over on my back and looked up at everyone.  “Halp pls.”

“*Sigh* I’ll help you big guy, just let me find my underwear.” Said Asphyxious as he went back into the other room Alex was in.

“Okay, who of us DIDN’T screw each other?! Wake up!” Dox shouted, elbowing Avarice who, oddly enough, was nude in bed with him.

I laughed and yelled out. “I dunno! You guyses locked me in the hall, but I heard some SHIT! Like I heard grunts, schquealsh and even shomebody making cat noises! It was crazies… Hell I heard a shcream too I think.”

I burped and put a claw to my head. “Uh… I keep drinkin’ water but nothin makes me feel less weird…”

I took out a bottle of what I later learned was vodka and downed it, letting out a small hiss sound afterward.

Asphyxious walk back out of the room and closed the door and looked at everyone. “Don’t go in there Alex a little… Just don’t go in there” He came over to where I lay. "Just hold still big guy”

I heard a commotion from where Dox was. “NOPE!” He yelled, jumping out of bed, still nude but thankfully not facing me as I averted my eyes, and drew his sword. “NO! JUST, NO! NO SNU SNU FOR YOU!”

I wasn't sure of the specifics of what they were doing but I pointed vaguely to where I recalled Dox to be and yelled in a Scottish accent.

“SHE CANNAE TAKE ANYMORE CAP’N!”

Asphyxious growled at me and spoke.

“Shut your gob and hold still I can almost get it out I just have to reach a little deeper.”

“Mmph...what’s all the racket?” Avarice finally woke up, his currently anthro dragon body shifting up. “Pee….” He climbed out of the bed, ignored Dox, and stumbled into the bathroom.

I hear the Team Rocket guys saying something but I tuned it out.

“And there!, you’re free big guy.” Said Asphyxious with a smile. “Now I’m going check on Alex, seeing he’s a acting like a woman now. I’ll be right Back.”

I gave him a thumbs up and stood up, wobbling a tad. I looked over the room and felt my face bulge up, and I gagged.

“BLEEEEECH!!”

A small pigeon flew out of my mouth and landed softly on the ground and started pecking. I looked down to it for a moment before shrugging and sat down on a chair in the corner of the room, fully confused. I spoke a small tad.

“De fuuuhh…?”

Avarice came back from the bathroom, now wearing his pants and silver signet ring. “Ah~! Haven’t had to do that since I was Displaced. Now, so why’d you jump my bones last night Dox?”

“THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!” Dox yelled in a confused voice.  “I was drunk! I don’t even remember last night!”

“Well, while I was sober, you lot all stumbled here into West Vegas, tearing shit up and playing bumper cars with actual cars, being hilarious jackasses all the while, and then you all sorta collapsed after I, Jack, and Jacob all managed to corral you to the Texas Station casino hotel. You were all totally blitzed, way worse than anyone I’ve ever seen. Anyway, I decided to get you all situated while Jack, Crescent and Jacob all offered to watch the kid. Then...well...you kinda didn’t give me an option. Pulled some sort of bullshit attraction spell out of your ass and I couldn’t resist you.”

“So, wait.” Dox said. “I got drunk, and then jumped you.”

Avarice shrugged. “Had fun, but, eh, sorry. I don’t know enough about magic to snap out of a haze that heavy. I mean, damn. You got really creative.”

“I vaguely remember something about magic strip poker or something?” Said Asphyxious as he walked around fully dressed.

“God damn it.” Dox said. “Ya know, fuck it. I’m just wondering if I can change back or not.”

Don’t worry. I took care of the protection. The DM’s voice chimed through the area, though I heard some odd static mixed in.

“Wow, thaaaaaaanks.” Dox said. “Where were you when I got drunk and jumped him?”

You call that drunk? You were all drugged. One of the humans decided to try and have fun with you all and it all backfired. You even ended up killing him. Hell, his body’s in the corner of your room.

“Joke was on him! I ate his… Er... Oh right! I remembered it! I ate his spleen ‘n haggis!”

Dox gave me an odd look after I yelled this.

“Yo anybody hearing The DM right now, I only ever heard his voice once and that was with Dox and I was in the void that one time.” Said Asphyxious as he looks around. I held up a hand, about to enter into a grand speech.

“You guys oughta… Oughta know… BLEEEECHH!”

I looked down to the mess of Mtn. Dew, gummy material, and vodka, that once sat in my stomach but now covered the floor at my feet. I gave a thumbs up.

“I don’ remember anymores!”

“Well I hear him, but then again I’m kinda stuck with the fate of being a deity, and I just did the nasty with Dox like, twelve times at least.” Avarice added, and looked at the body, licking his lips. “Mmm...human...haven’t tasted that yet.”

“Listen.” Dox said as he shifted back to normal, his clothes thankfully returning. “Let’s just all head back, then we can all say our goodbyes and go home. I think I’ve had enough of our little party.” He took out the odd device from earlier, and opened a portal. “Well? Everyone through the portal, we’re going home.”

“The girls will not be pleased with any of us.” Said Asphyxious as he walked through. I let out a laugh.

“Tch! Says you! I didn’t sex nobody, I just drank and ate things! Hell I ateded a jellyfish! Or was it a fish covered in jelly? Eh… Either way, I gots loot and had some crazy shit happen!”

I took out a large sack of my gathered loot.

“Well we just ended up sulking around until you all showed up and Dox got freaky. Damn dude, just to let you know; you’re a natural. That’s what disturbs me, considering you don’t go all girly at all.” Avarice and Crescent said before merging together and moving to quickly eat the corpse in the corner while most of the guys other than me all looked away, but Dox grabbed his wrist with his robot arm.

“Shut the hell up before I make you.” He said, shoving Avarice and the rest of us through the portal.

On the other side of the portal all of the girls were waiting on us.

“They’re smiling at us...” Whispered Asphyxious.

“DOX!” Bluebelle screamed at Dox. “You have some explaining to do!”

“Can it wait until I send some people home?” He asked.

“You can send everyone but Arbok home! SHE! Deserves to know where she stands in our relationship. Those are YOUR offspring Dox! Didn’t you even battle for the right to be her mate?” Bluebell shouted as she stormed up to him, and grabbed his ear in a pinch. “Now move it mister!”

“AH~! NOT THE EAR!” He shouted in pain as he passed his other brides with Arbok. Luna took the portal device thingy from his pocket as they passed.

“You can all go home by just focusing on your dimensions with this, just leave it behind so the others can all go home too.” Luna instructed before handing the billiard-ball sized portal device to Sarah/Jessie, and turned to walk away after Sarah had nodded to Arbok, who slithered after them, her eggs still secure, three other Pokemon slithered towards their mother, the large shiny Arbok comforted her mother, while the tall dark Arbok stood protectively, a large blind Ekans with a large star birthmark slithered at the wrong direction and hugged a vase, until he noticed that his mother was ahead of him and started slithering towards her, smiling sheepishly.

“I want to wait and see what happens” Said Asphyxious with a smile, and I nodded fiercely behind him.

“Oh Kyth~!”

I looked up tiredly as F.A.U.S.T. called me. From behind her leg I saw Jen step out with an entirely reconstructed form. She smiled uncertainly at me as I made my way up to her.

“Uh...Hey Kyth uh...Whatcha think?”

I spoke in a flat tone.

“...You look sorta like when you were human.”

Jen gained a downtrodden expression, which immediately left her as I rammed her in a drunken hug.

“I alwaysh likeded the old you!”

---Jen POV---

I enjoyed Kyth's hug until I got a whiff off him. He smelled foul, like a mix of sickness, candy, and booze. I turned and glared at the crowd of males gathered in front of me. I held up Kyth with one arm and morphed out a blaster in my other, taking aim.

“Who the FUCK got Kyth wasted!?”

Asphyxious held up both hands and didn’t really do anything, then looked to the others.

”Well it was fun guys, but I think it time for me and the girls to head off home. Somebody say goodbye to Dox for me okay?”

He then walked over to his girls and headed off through the portal home that opened when Chrysalis touched the orb.

“I’m going to take a nice long nap once we get back” He said once they all walk through.

I sighed as I carried Kyth, who was now leaning on my back and letting out a soft snore, to the portal, mumbling. "Gods I am glad that F.A.U.S.T. let me make my upgraded body seven feet tall... Otherwise my eight foot tall boyfriend would be immensely difficult to carry..."

When I stood before the portal home I waved to F.A.U.S.T and all of the others in the room.

“Well I suppose it’s been a good night. Tell Dox we said goodbye and that we had fun, see you guys later! If I need any tech support I’ll call you F.A.U.S.T!”

I extended an arm out and grabbed the Hyperion Acquisition Beacon I had been given to call with and waved good bye as I carried Kyth through the portal. When we got home I helped him get into bed and sighed.

"He's gonna have one hell of a hangover tomorrow."

I gave a small smile and walked up to Kyth and gave him a kiss on the head. He opened one eye and grabbed me and gave me a deep kiss, to which I was slightly regretful that my new body could taste again despite how enjoyable it was. His mouth tasted like vodka and gummy bears. He let go and flopped back on the bed with a drunken smile as he fell asleep.

"Been wantin' to do that..."

I blushed and smiled. All in all, drunkness and awkward talks aside...

It had been pretty awesome for my first bachelorette party.

Chapter Fourteen: Recollections And Loot

---Jen POV---

I turned and shook my head as Kyth snored peacefully where I left him. I went over to where I had left the Acquisition Beacon and carried it out from out bedroom and into the downstairs living room. I turned it on and it whirred to life, releasing my old body from storage. I took it and carried it down into the basement and left it with the rest of the stuff I had been tinkering with. I figured it would be useful to have later either way. After that I went up and grabbed the bag of loot that Kyth had carried with him to see about sorting it out in case there was something dangerous he had gotten from Dox or one of the other Displaced that he had been with. I was a tad shocked to find that there was a massive amount of miscellaneous guns in the bag, possibly stolen (then again Kyth was no criminal and he could generate money with the InsMan tome so I figured bought by some odd means). Next was a whole bunch of miscellaneous bottles of liquor and alcohol. Well that was gonna need to be locked in a safe or something. I did NOT want to see drunk ponies if they accidentally drank any of it. After that I found enough gummi candy to fill an empty shop a tad past capacity. Then I found something that made me completely confused.

A pig.

There was a little, foal sized, pig in the bag that blinked and stared at me when I took him out. And he looked exactly like Waddles from Gravity Falls. I noticed he had a 'Hello My Name Is' tag on him, and written in Kyth's handwriting was 'Trevor Waddlesby'. I blinked back as he snorted at me before squeeing and pulling him in for  a hug against my face.

"Daaaw! You're adorable!"

He snorted happily and I set him down after a moment. I had no idea why Kyth had brought a pig but he was adorable enough that I didn't care. I went back to the bag and found that he had grabbed a whole bunch of extra pairs of pants for himself and then some T-shirts and stuff. I smiled when I found a gray hoodie with an Invader Zim Irken symbol on the front with a note 'For Jen' tacked on. I took a moment to slip that on and then went back to the bag. Next up was a bag of gems most likely form Dox's Earth with a note 'for Sombra', and I extended an arm and placed that on the table to give him later. Then I quickly grabbed a gem from my lab to try and eat for the first time (F.A.U.S.T. had worked dragon genetics into my bio-tech upgrades).

"Good gods... These are delicious!"

Sapphires were definitely delicious I knew that much now. I understood Spike now... These were worth all of his actions in the show. After that I went back to the bag and found the final item of Kyth's loot to be... A set of photos of Dox's worlds equivalent of us... And our families and friends... Shit that hit me with feels.  I smiled at the pictures. My mom and dad with me and my older brothers, Will and Jack. Kyth had grabbed a picture of him and his uncle and cousin Calvin. Then I smiled at the next picture. It was of me and Kyth with out friend Violet, or Vive as we called her. She was like the little sister I never had. I sighed when I realized that I might never see her or my siblings or even Kyth's cousin again.

"Oh I wouldn't say that."

I whirled around after hearing Messenger right behind me. He stood at the edge of the room with a raised eyebrow. I stood and turned to face him.

"Messenger...What are you doing here?"

"Nothing much child but I found something of yours lost in the void..."

He held out a hand and dropped something into my palm. It looked like a pair of dogtags, but with an emblem of cthulhu and XJ9 on it... I shook in place when I saw it. It was a good luck charm given to me by Vive... She had made me promise to keep it with me before I got Displaced... I hadn't realized that I had lost it when I got transformed. I tilted my head back to Messenger.

"Thank you."

"You are welcome child. And don't worry..."

He flashed a sharp grin to me.

"I have a feeling you'll see some of those you've lost again, quite soon..."

I opened my mouth to speak, only to be distracted by hearing a thump upstairs. When I turned back to Messenger he was gone, leaving no trace. I calmly turned back to Kyth's loot and packed it all into the bag other than Trevor, who I hugged again and then sat down on a chair with a blanket. I smiled and walked back upstairs, placing Vive's charm around my neck. That night I ended up accessing some of the dreaming software that F.A.U.S.T. gave me...

-----

I floated limp in a strange, ethereal void...I blinked and looked around suddenly finding myself on the ground in front of... Kyth and I's old school? I walked forward my metal 'hooves' on my legs clanking somewhat with each step. I watched a bus ride up and among all of the children stepping off one caught my attention. Her eyes were hazel, she wore a red zip-up hoodie that was exposed to show a black shirt with an MLaaTR XJ9 icon, grey jeans, and black sneakers. She had somewhat of  a negative expression as she went and I watched a football arch through the air and slam into her as she dashed off the bus. She tripped and her open bags released all of her belongings onto the ground. She looked up as one of the school's jocks walked over and smirked at her.

"Hey look it’s one of my uncle’s pet orphans! Sorry ‘bout that, I was aiming to knock the wind out of you too. My bad.”

I knew what this was... This was when Kyth and I first met Vive back in the sixth grade! I watched Vive seem to sigh and then I grinned as someone else walked up and got into the jock's face. He had a pair of mossy green eyes and almost golden blond hair. He wore a simple dark green jacket with a symbol of what seemed to be Cthulhu’s head on the front in black coloring, and I watched him start getting on the jock's case. I giggled at remembering how silly Kyth had looked back then. Before we got Displaced he still had that hoodie...

“Hey, what’s your problem ya jerk!”

“My problem is that freaking loser so get out of my face!”

“Oh goodness, look everyone LOOK! A guy who picks on new kids just cuz’ they’ve got problems! He’s so cool amiright!?”

“Hey what’s your problem you weirdo!?”

“Well guy I got multiple problems here, Number One: Yo face! Number Two: Your attitude! Number Three: YER A JACKASS!”

While they argued I watched a younger version of myself walk up to Vive and start helping her gather her belongings and stand up. She/I had a pair of poofy pigtails and dark brown hair and pale skin. She/I was wearing a cyan backpack as well and smiled as she went to Vive.

“Hey there, my name’s Jenny! Well I go by Jen but still. What’s your name?”

Violet stuttered slightly as she responded, “I- I’m Violet… I guess y-you can c-call me Vive…” She then proceeded to smile. She rubbed her left arm arm up and down shyly.

“Nice to meet you! Oh hey!”

She/I glanced at the design on Violet’s shirt.

“You’re a fan of MLAATR? I’m one too!”

She/I flipped her backpack around and showed that it had a patch of the show’s emblem stitched on.

Vive smiled brightly (God she was ADORABLE back then!). Past Me and Vive turned back to where Kyth was yelling at the jock.

“Who you callin’ a jackass you fucktard!?”

“Well I don’t see anyone else who probably has shrunken dildo disorder around so it must be you! You know, the jerk who’s inappropriately using ‘retarded’ as an insult!”

“YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME!?”

“NO, I want two but there’s not enough of you there for even ONE!”

“THAT’S IT!”

The jock lunged for Kyth only to be grabbed by an older student, one I recognized. The older student was Kyth's cousin Calvin, a student five years older than us but still a good friend to me and almost a brother to Kyth. He had blond hair similar to Kyth, with a pair of hazel eyes that almost looked golden. Calvin glared at the jock and spoke to both of them.

“Now then I think that we can all agree that this should stop now before the teacher who’s watching across the yard comes over and get everyone in trouble on the FIRST day of school! Capische?”

The jock glared and moved his shoulder out of Calvin's grip and slunk away, muttering. Calvin turned and raised an eyebrow to Kyth.

“Cousin, why did I just find you at odd with someone right before school?”

The kid crossed his arms.

“What? He was being a jackass!”

The older student grinned at him.

“Just as I taught you to handle bullies then?”

“You know it.”

Calvin smirked and he and Kyth looked over at Violet and Past Me. I kept talking to her.

“That’s my friend Joseph, but everyone calls him Kyth since he’s a fan of Cthulhu and stuff! The guy with him is his cousin Calvin.”

The two walked up. Kyth waved.

“Hey there. So, I take it you two’ve met while I was dealing with that jerk?”

Violet nodded, “I’m Violet… But you can, umm... call me Vive if you're into nicknames…”

“Cool, my name’s Josep- Uh. Kyth. According to Jen and our other friends my name is now to be ‘Kyth.”

Violet giggled a bit, “Thanks for that. I don’t know what I would have done.”

Her eyes widened, “We’re gonna be late for class!”

Both of their eyes widened and Kyth flung his hands onto either side of his head.

“SHIT! C’MON VIVE AND JEN LET’S GET GOIN!”

He grabbed both of their hands and started pulling them as they struggled to run beside him. Calvin smirked as they left.

“Good luck you three, see ya later!”

After they left he sighed.

“And thus they began sixth grade. Ah well, time for me to get to the start of junior year myself.”

He put his hands into his pockets as he walked off, in no big rush.

The dream seemed to shimmer and dissolve around me and the world flashed into a grid for a moment before the dream program kept going.  I sighed with a sad smile.

Vive had been one of Kyth and I's best friends. She was always a tad protective of us but I didn't hold it against her. The jock that Kyth had argued with, a jackass by the name of Greg had been a just pain to deal with for years after that day but for the most part we could handle him easily, the only incident where we nearly got into a bad situation being when Greg had a mental break and ended up attacking Kyth with a knife... No one was hurt but it still spooked all of us a bit. I watched the dream keep going, this time to the last time I spoke to Vive before we got Displaced...

I looked around to find myself in my old bedroom back home, and I saw myself sitting on the bed talking on the phone. I could hear the words on the other end clear as day though.

“Hey Vive are you free this saturday? Kyth and I are going to this convention in cosplay, me as XJ9 and him as Cthulhu the knight, it’s gonna be awesome! I actually heard from Kyth that his cousin’s even going out dressed as Golden Freddy and my brother Jack’s going dressed as a necromorph, so we might meet up with them to hang out. You interested?”

She sighed. “Sorry. I’d love to go, but I don’t even have a costume. I have been saving money, but it isn’t enough. I think my friends at the orphanage are going though. Cory’s gonna be The Hero of Kvatch/Sheogorath from Oblivion, and I think Faith is going as… Lumen or something… I’ve got some stuff for a Chaos Jenny costume, though I doubt I could get it ready in time.”

“Aw dang! Oh well, maybe next time?”

“Pinkie promise. And you two be careful. And don’t enjoy being without me too much.” She teased.

“Heheh no problems there. And thanks. Hey, maybe I can grab you a souvenir or something while we’re there.”

“Of course! Gotta love them free stuff!” She laughed. “You know what I like. Robot stuff, of inFAMOUS stuff.”  She sighed. Past and current me looked up when the door to my room opened. Standing there was my older brother (by five years) Jack, pointing downstairs. He whispered to me.

"Hey, mom and dad want both of us downstairs for one of those military drills with the basement safe room."

I nodded and went back to the phone.

“Sure thing! Well Jack says we gotta go, apparently my parents are getting paranoid about all of that war talk. Seriously, have you heard all the crazy rumors about us going to war? Personally I don’t buy it but still my parents are freaked out.”

She coughed, “I think they might be on to something. I mean, look at how countries react to things. I don’t think it’ll be soon though… God… let’s not talk about this, I’m having a bad time here as it is… Take that charm I made you. I know I’m being sappy, but the whole ‘I’ll be with you’ thing. Don’t laugh…”

“Heh sure thing Vive. I’ll talk to you later, kay?”

“Sure thing. Later Jen!”

I hung up and got up from my bed and I talked with Jack as we headed to where our parents were.

"So, anything from Will?"

Will my other brother, a year older than Jack but by his own choice moved out of the house. He never really got along with our parents and it made me sad to think about the fact that he seemed to genuinely think they didn't love him... As such Jack and I did out best to keep in touch and spend time with him. Jack shook his head.

"Nah, he said he had too much homework. How about your little friend?"

"Eh Vive didn't want to go since she didn't have a costume ready."

Jack nodded. "Still, just cause mom and dad want us to be safe and all that junk what's the plan again? Just to make sure you still remember."

I laughed and punched his shoulder. "Okay you and Calvin go out on your own for a bit and try to scare people, him as Golden Freddy and you as a necromorph, and me and Kyth meet up before hand and go in without you. Later when its time to get food then we meet up with the two of you and hang out."

"Right, and remember to grab souvenirs! Cons always have awesome stuff!"

Past me nodded. Then something hit me.

When we got Displaced... Calvin and Jack were in costume there as well... Could they...

Could they have gotten Displaced too?

I woke with a start and looked around. Kyth was still asleep next to me and I brought up my system's internal clock to find that it was morning. I stood up and kissed Kyth's head and pulled all the blinds shut. I figured it'd be best to give him a little while to sleep because with how much I figured he'd drunk. Hoo boy...

He was gonna have one hell of a hangover when he woke up.

Chapter Fifteen: Hangovers Are Terrible/ Magic Duel Interrupted

---Kyth POV---

I was woken up by searing headpain. It felt like someone had hammered a spike into my skull... I opened an eye and regretted it as my vision was greeted by sunlight. I flinched back.

"GYAH THE HARSH LIGHT OF THE DAYSTAR!"

I landed on the ground with further regret as agony went through my head again, now exacerbated. I limply whispered as I curled up on the floor.

"...ow."

I dared to open my eyes again to figure out what was happening. From what I could see through a pair of blurred up eyes I was...Home. Or at least in me and Jen's house.

"Okay...What did I do last night to make my head hurt this much...?"

"Drank a liquor shop from the empty bottles I found in your 'loot' bag, sweetie."

I tilted my head up and...Whoa. Jen looked way different. She still had XJ9's color scheme, but she looked like sorta like she did as a human. Like... Biological. Sorta hard to describe. She gave me a slight grin.

"Good morning."

"...Okay story behind you being all biomalogical and stuff later... For right now can I...I...Oh gods my stomach hurts...Jen pass me that trash can please..."

She nodded and grabbed it and set it in front of me. A few minutes of rainbow-colored vomit later I managed to recover enough to down some painkillers for my head. I looked up at her blearily.

"Erkay... Do you know-urp- What I did last night to make me feel so shit?"

"You don't remember anything at all?"

"No...I remember some flashes...Robots...fire...Something about Bionicle..."

Jen sighed and patted my shoulder.

"Damn. Well what's the last thing you remember from yesterday?"

"Waking up. Then it turns into a blur..."

"Okay...Well all I know is that yesterday you went off on your own for a bit, and then we got summoned by Dox to attend his bachelor party. We both arrived at the same time and you were all injured and yelled something about shoggoths and fire demons... I was freaked out but Dox and took you and all the other guys out to party and stuff so I never found out what happened. I didn't see you until the end of the night, and you were too wasted to even speak discernibly..."

"Oh jeez...Hey Jen...What was that you said about loot?"

"You had this bag of stuff that you brought back with you. And an adorable pig. You named him Trevor."

"...Whut."

"And you got me this hoodie."

"...Okay that one I vaguely remember. I kept thinking of the fact that you didn't really seem to care about having clothes but back home you always said you liked having a hoodie to wear...I think I bought it for you as a present..."

Jen lit up and pecked me on the cheek. I feebly smiled at her and was about to say something when the door slammed open.

"Guys you gotta help!"

I curled up as a wave of pain shot through my head again and Jen patted my shoulder. I looked up and saw Spike standing in the doorway, holding... Holy shit. It looked like Sombra but... Made of crudely carved crystal. I looked at Jen and she spoke slowly.

"Spike...What's going on?"

"Okay so a long time ago this cheap unicorn magician showed up in town and was a huge jerk and lied about what she was capable of and there was this ursa minor that came into town but basically Twilight stopped it and Trixie ran out of town but-"

Jen shushed him. "Story later, problem now!"

Spike nodded. "Okay so Trixie ran out of town but now she's back and she's super powerful! And just as crazy! She out-magicked Twilight and threw her out of town and trapped everypony inside this giant glass dome! And Sombra he...He knew somehow that this weird amulet she had was the source of it all. He tried to use his crystal magic to get it off her but she caught him and...And..."

I looked back to the statue he had brought with him and froze. Jen spoke in a low tone.

"Good gods... Okay normally I'd let event follow their normal course but this... This makes it personal. Kyth you go and play interference, I'd feel better if you didn't get involved with the fighting until you're sobered up and not hungover. You go with Spike and make sure that everyone that could get hurt is out of the way, and make sure nothing happens to Sombra until we can find a way to turn him back to normal."

I stood up. "Jen... What are you planning on doing?"

"I'm gonna do two things. One I'm going to put my fist through Trixie's face. Second I'm gonna kick her flank three ways from Sunday. Third I'm gonna knock the crazy out of her."

"That...That was three things."

"Yeah. I'm pissed off enough that two wasn't enough. No one messes with my friends, especially not those I look at like siblings. That means you and Sombra, Spike."

I nodded. "Gods you're cute when you're pissed off!"

She smiled at me. "Thanks sweetie. Now let's go kick some ass!"

Spike looked at Jen and seemed to realize something. "Whoa... Jen what happened to you?"

"I got an upgrade. I'll tell you guys about it later. For now let's deal with Trixie."

Spike nodded and I did the same.

"Let's go."

---Jen POV---

I directed Kyth to find the mane six and he carried Spike and Sombra with him as he ran off. I stretched out to loosen up to make my transformations easier. Transforming was kinda like... Like using a muscle. If you pull something the wrong way it can get messed up and you have to take a while to figure out how to make it better before using it again. For a normal person that means therapy or whatever, for me it would be taking a few hours to get everything untangled and reassembled to normal function. Against Trixie, and opponent wielding an artifact of unknown magical power, I would need every available transformation I had. Along with that I got one final system upgrade from F.A.U.S.T. in the form of a way to use magic. Well...Sorta. It was an extra modification to my power core that could filter the near infinite power I got from my Dox battery into artificial magic using a  chunk of eridium (an unstable but powerful material from the Borderlands games that had emerged in F.A.U.S.T.'s world). I was hoping to have some experience in using magic before entering combat but this might override that. A static sensation went up my body as I shifted my artificial tissue into 'armor' mode, cancelling all sense of touch but returning me to being combat ready. I ignited my thrusters and decided to save some time.

Rather than finding Trixie I'd draw her to me. I shifted my right arm into a drill and rocketed through town, going to the patch of the glass dome encompassing Ponyville that was above the town center. I rammed the drill into the dome at full speed and drove it in, sending out a spiderweb of cracks across the dome and producing a massive reverberating sound all throughout its interior. I heard Trixie call out to me from the ground below after a few minutes of digging into her dome.

"Hey! Stop breaking the dome of the Grrrrreat and Powerful Trixie you wretch!"

I dodged to the side and saw a bolt of red lighting shoot past me and hit the cracked dome. I retracted my drill and turned to her, slowing my thrusters. I dropped down, landing in front of her with a glare to match hers. She spoke in a cocky tone and had an expression to match.

"Ha! The Great and Powerful Trixie knows you! She heard of you from the little crystal abomination as she turned him into crystal to stop his insolence!"

I didn't move, and held her in a steely glare.

"Well? What do you have to say to the Great and Powerful Trixie before she puts you in your place for harming her dome!?"

I spoke slowly and tightened my hands into fists.

"One thing. Do you want a nose guard?"

She blinked in slight confusion.

"Why would I want a-" A resounding crack echoed through town square as I socked her dead in the muzzle. I didn't bother moving as she sailed through the air and crashed into an empty carrot stand in the market nearby. I heard Trixie scream in pain and a moment later a red flash went off in front of me as Trixie teleported back. I gave a grin despite my glare as I saw how her muzzle looked, like a tin can that someone stomped on. Trixie blinked back tears and let out a long grunt a her magic forced everything back into place and fixed the damage. She gave me a hateful glare and yelled in rage, lowering her horn and sending a wave of lightning at me. I sidestepped and let it go past me and raised and eyebrow at Trixie.

"That all you got, crap and impotent Trixie?"

"No it is not! I am the most powerful unicorn in the entire world, and you are NOTHING!"

She raised her head again and conjured a ball of deep red fire and launched it at me. I extended my right arm into Mass Hammer mode and brought it down, driving the fireball into the ground and snuffing it out.

"Wow. Veeery powerful. I think I might have had my body temperature go up one degree."

She gave me a baleful look and sent a wave of raw magic towards me, screaming in frustrated rage.

"The Great and Powerful Trixie will NOT be upstaged by a...a...A WHATEVER YOU ARE!"

I raised an eyebrow and swapped my hammer for an umbrella shield and nonchalantly blocked it. Trixie fumed further.

"GRRAH! FINE THEN! LET'S SEE HOW YOU LOOK WHEN YOU'RE AGED INTO DUST!"

I crossed my arms as her magic wrapped around me, seeking to find purchase as she entered into an aging spell. I crossed my arms and felt it wash over me, seeking to age me to the point of death. I gave her a moment of putting the spell on me before I tore my way out in an aura of power and stretched, letting out a yawn.

"That all ya got?"

Age spells were something I had no fear for until something damaged me. My body was bio-mechanical, but I was still artificial and I had no biological 'expiration date', so an age spell wouldn't affect me other than wearing through my power supply and wear out my components. I had near infinite power from my Dox battery (though I could easily overload my weapons if I put too much power into them) and with that my bio-mechanical systems were capable of self-maintenance as long as I both had power and wasn't critically damaged. Standing in one place without moving for the equivalent of decades I could do with the only side effect being that my joints were a bit cramped up. Pretty much what you'd expect your legs to feel like if you sat down and didn't move for a few day straight and then started moving again. Trixie's jaw dropped as she attempted to stutter out a response.

"W-w-what!? That should have reduced you to...to nothing!"

"Nope. That was an aging spell. My current body doesn't age. Therefore, your spell can't touch me b-hole. Now it's my turn."

Before she could speak I rocketed forward and grabbed her in a headlock, pinning her to a wall.

"My Dad was a police officer y'know. He taught me and my brothers how to do this awesome police hold he used for cuffing criminals. It went a bit like this,"

I twisted her arm behind her back and kept her down, extending out a pair of handcuffs from my arm and cuffed her. With a flash she was gone and I whirled around to face Trixie again.

"Fool! Mortal chains cannot bind one as mighty as I!"

I retracted the cuffs and crossed my arms. I had an idea for how to get the amulet off her at that point, and thus when the next bolt of lightning was thrown at me I shut down the thorn shield I got from FAUST and threw myself into a wall. I let a few hits from Trixie land and made a big show of acting damaged (though I was barely scuffed. Being lightning-resistant and fireproof made combat with a powerful but noncreative magic user easy). I dramatically threw my head back with a hand on my brow.

"Oh no! I cannot best thee Great and Powerful one... I have but one request for you when you end me. Whatever you do, don't take the amulet off when you smite me! Use its full force and not your own!"

Trixie blinked.

"And why not!?"

"Surely such an amulet is but an inhibitor for you! Your own power must be truly terrifying!"

"Erm...Y-yes! Of course it is! I AM the Great and Powerful Trixie after all! Heheh... Certainly m-my magic would be more than enough to finish such a...a pathetic whelp!"

She looked around nervously as she removed the amulet from around her neck. I had her right where I wanted her. If she tried to finish me with the amulet on then she'd look weak (though even with the thing she couldn't touch me if I were actually trying to fight). If she removed the amulet then I would snatch the thing and win instantly. Just like clockwork she took the thing off and started attempting to charge magic for an attack. I rocketed forward and grabbed the thing, slamming it into a storage compartment before turning and launching a chain to tie Trixie up.

"H-Hey! How are you not defeated!?"

I leaned in to her ear.

"You didn't beat me in the first place. I tricked you. Quite easily in fact, but that's just a minor detail. Now then you're coming with me and paying for what you've done."

"Never! Trixie is too great and powerful to be beaten by such a-"

"Such a what? You really want to finish that sentence when I have you in a headlock?"

"You do not have Trixie in a-GACK!"

I grabbed Trixie easily and held her down.

"Now I do. And besides that wasn't a question."

I muscled Trixie into following me as I moved to the fountain in the town square and deployed a pair of handcuffs from my arm and locked Trixie to the fountain so she couldn't leave.

"Now stay here. I'm gonna go make sure that all the damage you caused has been reversed."

I didn't give her a chance to respond before taking off into the air and looking over town. So far it seemed that everything was fixed... No giant dome anymore, no crazy storm clouds...I activated my scanners and looked around until I found Kyth and Sombra...Well Sombra was erupting into glowing cracks and the crystal was busting off like a cocoon so that was good but... Huh. I hadn't noticed until then that Kyth gave off the same aura as Messenger...There as just a Kyth-shaped void in my scanners' sights. That'd have to be investigated later. For the moment I just dropped down in time to see Twilight and the mane six charging into town.

"Trixie it's time that-Huh? What happened?"

I waved to them. "Hey girls! I just got done here."

Twilight looked up and her jaw dropped.

"J-Jen!? Is that you?"

I nodded and reconfigured myself out of combat mode and waved to them.

"Yup!"

"Wha...What happened to you? You look almost completely different!"

I gave a small smile and nodded. Pinkie dashed up and started poking and prodding me all over in curiosity.

"Wow! You're all squishy and not metal anymore Jenny!"

"Darling whatever has happened?"

I giggled. Now that I had a sense of touch again I realized how freaking fuzzy pony hooves are. I ruffled Pinkies mane and looked up to the others.

"Okay guys I'll explain the new look later, for now I gotta figure out what to do with this."

I took out the Alicorn Amulet and held it up. They all gasped and Twilight lit her horn up and attempted to pull it from my hand telekinetically.

"The Alicorn Amulet! Good job Jen, now I can give it to Zecora and hide it from anyone ever finding it again!"

I yanked my hand out of her TK and shook my head.

"I got a better idea. I can just throw the thing into space, problem solved."

"Wha...What do you mean into space?!"

Her eyes gained the look of burning curiousity and she seemed to be drooling at the prospect of learning what I was capable of. I decided to give a brief explanation.

"I'm capable of flying outside of the planets gravity and atmosphere, so I can just throw it and the odds that anyone could find it in all the vastness of space are near impossible. And seriously I'll explain everything later, for now I gotta tell Kyth know what I'm up to."

I flew off before they could ask me anything else, and quickly found Kyth watching Sombra break free. I dropped down next to him.

"Hey Kyth I'm gonna go get rid of the Alicorn Amulet. You gonna be alright here?"

He nodded. "Sure thing! Have fun I guess."

I pecked him on the cheek and extended my wings. I shook a bit before rocketing off into the air. I managed to compile a rough map of Equestria's solar system from my flight practice with F.A.U.S.T., and with that I managed to find my way into orbit. After a moment I picked up the planet's moon and made my way to it, landing on the surface of it after a moment. If there was any sort of atmosphere I would've gasped. It was as beautiful as always, a pure white landscape without a single thing marring it but the slight hills in the distance. I took a few minutes to walk around, just to get a look around for the map I was building of it for later use. After that I reconstructed my legs into drill form and tore a deep hole into the surface and threw the Alicorn Amulet into it, refilling the hole afterward. I made a marker in my maps of where I left it in case I had to find it later, but as Equestria didn't even have planes yet then I doubted space travel would be a factor for at least a few decades so it would be safe for the moment. I turned to fly back home when I began to feel a tingling sensation. I spoke in binary signal out of habit from spending time with F.A.U.S.T. though I knew I was alone for the moment.

"[So THAT'S what being summoned by my token feels like! Sense of touch rules!]"

I pumped my fist as darkness washed over me, pulling me on through to another world...

Chapter Sixteen: Jen Meets Bill Cipher And A Bugbear

---Third POV---

Bill looked at the memory; it was Celestia and Luna hiding the one of his keys somewhere in the the castle. HIS keys, to HIS bunkers.

"Are we simply going to keep these keys down here?"

"Bill knows where the Bunkers are." Celestia replied. "But without his keys or a body to inhabit, he will not be able to do anything in them. We must find them ourselves, and I refuse to ask him. We must destroy everything in those bunkers."

The others were probably either exploring Equestria or messing around in the kingdom. Twas still the night time, so he didn't want to wake up Chrysalis or bother her. It was probably about 4am if he were to guess, but he didn't have a clock with him. They knew he was free, so they would likely redouble their efforts to find them before him, and guard those keys. The last thing he wanted was for all his work to go to waste. Bill had no body to inhabit, so he could only wait and wander the mindscape while the others were asleep.

His singular eye darted from left to right, trying to find something, anything of interest. He didn’t particularly feel like trolling ponies in the dream world. He would’ve simply stopped and went back to the castle to search for the others, had he not saw something twinkle in the corner of his eye. With nothing better to do, he flew towards the shining object and inspected it. It had colour, to his surprise as most things in the mindscape were grey. It was a dagger, with a blade of an unknown mossy green metal on a hilt of teal/blue metal. When he picked it up two voices spoke from it.

“For those who need a knight or a robot to lend a hand or just to hang out, feel free to give us a call, and Cthulhu and XJ9 will be on the way!”

The dagger began to glow, and Bill raised his hand over his face. After a moment, the light faded and before him stood an odd figure. She stood at a height of seven feet, but with the looks of a teenager. She had white skin and hair a shade darker than cyan. On her head were a pair of what seemed to be a pair of blade-like pigtails. She wore a gray hoodie with a short-skirt the same color of her hair. Her legs were more armored than the rest of her, looking human but ending in flat circular ‘hooves’ of some sort. She looked around, confused and Bill saw that she had a round, somewhat cute face though rather than ears she had a pair of metal discs and her face seemed to have a slight bump to it rather than any sort of nose. All the while an aura of static seemed to hover about her in the mindscape. She finally turned to see him and blinked.

“I’m gonna guess you’re the Displaced that called me?”

“The what?” Bill stared at her, confused.  “I’m afraid I don’t know what that is.” He was Bill Cipher and he didn’t know something. It felt kind of odd.

The girls blinked again and put a hand to her jaw.

“Well first of all, did you used to be human?”

“Yeah, I did. How did you know?”

“Okay good. Well excuse me if this gets confusing, this is one of my first times explaining all this. A Displaced is someone who goes to a convention in cosplay, at least usually it is, and buys an item from this jerk called the Merchant. Well usually bought sometimes the jerk forces it on them. Anyway, the item makes them either black out or just makes a big portal and it sends them onward to a version of Equestria. Usually they arrive and find themself/themselves turned into the character that they were dressed as. I say ‘a version of’ Equestria because there’s actually a massive multiverse out there, with Displaced getting sent to different Equestrias. Most Displaced keep in contact with other Displaced with the use of tokens, which get scattered out throughout the void. The void is sorta… It’s like where the multiverse is created I think. I’m a bit blurry on that. Anyway, the knife you found is the token I share with my boyfriend, Kyth. I got Displaced originally as XJ9 but I met this awesome anthro alicorn chick named F.A.U.S.T., and she helped me construct this biomechanical form that I’m in now. Still have all the abilities but it’s got unique stuff and it’s actually my own. Anyway, I’m gonna guess that you were Displaced as Bill Cipher?”

“Well given your description of displaced, I’d say yes.” He answered, and was silent for a moment. “So where does that leave us?”

“Well Displaced usually make friends and enemies out in the multiverse since most have super-strong alignments. Like inflexibly so. Anyway, before anything are you a villain a hero, or a neutral type? For the moment I’m gonna take your word for this, so be honest.”

“Well… I guess I’m neutral. Though I won’t help the princesses, especially Luna.”

“Something go down between you?”

“Not really sure if I want to do into detail with someone I just met, but we used to be friends, best friends until we drifted apart and she sealed me in her own book along with that sister of hers. Don’t think I was ever really close with Celestia.”

Jen nodded. “Sorry dude. I’ve only been in my Equestria for a couple weeks, I’ve kinda been avoiding meeting with either of the Princesses just from the stories I’ve heard from other Displaced. Still, do you need help with something?”

“Well, I do need help finding my keys, so to say.’ I need to find the keys to my bunkers, which the sisters scattered and hid. Those contained all the work and research and… experiments I did before my imprisonment. I’m also missing one of my books. You can check through the ones I have; they’re in the break room.” He lead her through the castle to the location of his two books. She walked over and picked them before turning back to him.

“It okay if I scan these? They seem like they could have some interesting information to acquire.”

“Sure, knock yourself out… I don’t think you told me your name.”

She blinked and blushed. “Eheh whoopsie. Uh, sorry. Hi there, my name’s Jen. What’s yours?”

“I was William, but it’s just Bill now.”

She nodded. “Nice to meet you Will.”

She smiled at him for a moment before turning back to the books. She picked them up and rapidly starting flipping through them, a green glow covering her eyes. After a few minutes she set them back down and turned back to face Bill.

“There we go, all scanned. Now then, what can you tell me about these ‘keys’?”

“Well let’s see.” He looked through the memory to find a location. “Here’s one, and it appears to be under Ponyville.”

“Like buried or stored in a building’s basement?”

“Buried right under the Town Hall.”

“Hmm… Well that should be pretty easy to retrieve then as long as there’s no magical defenses.”

As he said this her right hand seemed to reconstruct into a drill. She looked to be about to go when she stopped and turned back to him.

“I’m still able to interact with the world while in the mindscape, right?”

“No, I’ll have to let you out. I’ll go with you though. You’re in the changeling kingdom and it’s night.” Just as he finished his sentence, everything went from grey back to their original colours which were still very murky. She shrugged and looked around, one eye gaining the green glow which her eyes expressed while analyzing the books. She spoke to the empty space around her.

“Uh… Bill make sure to tell Chrysalis or whatever changeling queen rules this place that I’m not an enemy alright?”

After a moment of silence she shrugged again and started walking to find the exit. A short while later she was out of the kingdom and flying towards Ponyville. When she reached the edge of the town’s sight she stopped and spoke into the air after landing.

“Hey Bill, you still there?”

“Eeyup.” Big Mac appeared in front of her, and morphed into Bill.

“Okay, how about you keep me in the mindscape until I’m in position to drill to your key? That way no one can see me grabbing it until I’m on the way out.”

“I can keep ponies distracted, sure. Not certain we’ll see any though.”

“Why’s that?” Bill simply pointed at the moon.

“Uh...The moon?”

“It’s still night. They’ll mostly be asleep.”

“Eh I suppose that’s true. Well I’ll get to work then.”

She dashed off with this slowly flew over the town and landed by Town Hall, around the rear of the building.  Jen promptly began drilling at the back, going under the hall and leaving a mess of torn soil behind her. Within a few minutes, she stopped as she found a small chest. The drill in her hand disappeared as she placed her index finger in front of the lock,sending a small beam of energy into the lock and melting it. The chest opened and in front of her was an old rusty brass key with an eye engraved on it.

“Hey.” Bill popped up behind her. “~ heard you stop digging and-” He noticed the key in her hand. “Yes, you found it!” He punched his fist in the air. “Thank you so much!”

She smiled and held it out. “Eh no problem. So, is this all you need for now?”

“Unless you want to come to the bunker with me which if memory serves correct, is in Macintosh Hills then yeah, that’s all.”

“Sure, sounds worth seeing. Back home I was just disposing of our version of the Alicorn Amulet when you called so I don’t really have a time constraint.”

“Oh yeah, I remember when I made that. Good times, though it had those annoying side effects that I wasn’t able to fix.”

Jen nodded. “Tons of magical power mixed with violent madness. Not a good combination.”

“No. We should probably go before anypony notices us. Celestia and Luna will know I was here if they get word of this hole under the Town Hall.”

“Well I could collapse the tunnel, filling the hole and all. It’ll look like something was messing with the ground but not necessarily a hole.”

“If you say so, then knock yourself out.” He shrugged, and Jen rocketed out of the hole, morphing a bulldozer of sorts to fill the hole and patted it down. With a final step the hole was filled with little evidence of its existence.

---------

 

Bill and Jen flew in the night sky towards the Macintosh Hills beyond Appeloosa. It wasn’t too far from their current position; they could see it in the distance.

“...Hey Jen?” The triangle in the top hat turned to his new friend.

“Yeah?”

“You said your boyfriend was also displaced. What’s he like?”

She put a hand to her jaw to indicate that she was thinking.

“Well he’s… Well, smart. And he’s been one of my best friends since we were little. And he sorta… Balances me. Like back home I was sorta self conscious, but being with Kyth helps me hold together. And most importantly he cares about me, even though we haven’t been dating that long. Heck, if he wasn’t Displaced with me then I probably wouldn’t have made it this far.”

“That must be nice.” Bill began. “Having someone there for you, and you got to stay together even when you travelled worlds. I never really had anyone like that, I was too afraid to approach people on earth, constantly playing ‘what if’ scenarios through my head. I was still able to end up with a couple of friends though, but never really found ‘the one’ I guess, if that’s what some people call it. I’m surprised I even remember all of this, when all that knowledge and those memories filled my head after I became displaced.”

“Well maybe you can find her/him here! Kyth and I have met a few other Displaced, some of them have found ‘the one’ or in some cases ‘the ones’ in their Equestrias. This guy, Dox, he’s getting married to multiple different ladies himself. And if not in Equestria, maybe she’s somewhere out in the Multiverse. There’s all kinds of Displaced out there you know.”

“I’ll have to keep that in mind, but what if…” He shook his head and stopped himself from finishing that sentence. Jen floated up with her pigtails and flicked him jokingly.

“What iiiif there’s a sexy lady out there waiting for ya?”

She gave him a slight smile. “I can understand overthinking stuff to a fault. But all it takes is a little faith to get to where you have to go. Don’t worry about it, it’ll happen for you Bill.”

He was about to respond when he looked down. “Hey, we’re here.”

The two floated down, will Bill leading the way to a small cave. He floated through with Jen following him. They stopped when they saw a fairly metal door about 7 feet tall.

“This is it, all you need to do is put the key in.” Jen saw the keyhole and pushed Bill’s key through. She twisted it, and while it was stiff for a couple of moments she managed to hear a ‘click’. The door creaked open, and everything was dark. One of Jen’s eyes glowed green again as she looked around.

“So what are we looking for?” She asked.

“Some of my notes, research, experiments and maybe my last book.” She nodded at Bill’s response as she scanned the room. To her left, she saw old and broken down scanners as well as buttons.

“I was able to make some old tech. It’s kinda on the same level as something you’d find in the 1960s or 70s, but it’s not really easy to make machines all by yourself.” He paused for a moment. “Be careful, there might be something in here.” He eyed his broken down and ripped- apart old fridge. He saw his old filing cabinet; there was a draw loose and paper was scattered everywhere around it.

“How big is this place?” Jen asked, eyeing how high the ceiling was.

“This was one of my bigger bunkers. It had to be considering…”

He paused, before giving a look as if he remembered something. “We should go.” He said sternly.

“What?” Jen turned to him and cocked her head. "Why?"

“Do you know why the door is so small, Jen?”

They both heard a roar echo through the cave. Soon, the roaring was replaced with the sound of hovering wings. Jen looked back down the hall and back to him.

“No. Why?”

“This is where I keep some of my biggest experiments.”

A different sound was heard, it was like the roaring but not as loud.

“And what exactly do you mean by ‘experiment’’?”

“Ugh.” He groaned. “I mean DUCK!” He brought her down to the ground as a large white stinger shot past them, into a wall. Jen shone here eye- torch on it and as a gigantic bear. Its body was covered in black and white stripes and it was using its four arms to pull its stinger out of the rocky wall. Once it succeeded, it used its wasp- like wings to fly towards Jen, who was not in the mindscape. She screamed and immediately started running.

“DYAA I FREAKING HATE BEES! WHY WOULD YOU FUSE BEES WITH A BEAR!?”

“Would this be a bad time to mention that he also has some level of intelligence?”

“WHY WOULD YOU GIVE INTELLIGENCE TO SOMETHING LIKE THAT!? THAT’S JUST BEGGING FOR BEES TO OVERTHROW YOU!”

“Intelligence means he’s a better tactician. That’s also something you should watch out for. You don’t like bees do you?” Bill tried to change the subject. She glared at him.

“YES! I HATE THEM!”

“Well now you know why I fused a bear with bees! Who likes bees?”

“FINE! KILL IT THOUGH!”

“I don’t have a physical form, remember? I’m just a mind without a body. Speaking of which…”

He stopped as he dived into its mind.

“You’ve scanned the books, right? Look for his entry!”

He called out. As the beast was clenching its head, Jen remembered back to the page which described it. It was entitled ‘Bugbear.’ She also remembered the words ‘Became too dangerous’ as well as ‘Extremely durable’. She groaned and turned to face it, her right arm opening into a grenade launcher of sorts.

“Any objections to me blowing this thing apart!?”

“No objections to trying.”

“Good! EAT BATTLE BATTLE BAZOOKA SKAG!!”

She opened fire, explosive pods of some sort arcing out of her weapon and ricocheting off of the walls of the hallway before impacting and detonating against the creature. It roared in anger at her, showing some signs of damage but not enough to stop it. It flew towards her, ignoring the dream demon in its mind and swung its bottom left arm at the teenage robot. It left some slight scratching but didn’t tear through any armor, and at that point a grin came across her face.

“I have battle armor now… Bees can’t hurt me anymore. Well maybe your giant stinger but not your claws..Heheheh...HAhahaHA! EAT IT SKAG!”

One of her fists opened into an armored gauntlet which she plowed right into its jaw.

“STING THAT SKAG!”

At that moment the Bugbear began to fly away and headed for the door that it was too big to have any chance of fitting out of. Both of her arms extended otu and grabbed it, pulling it back and slamming it against a wall.

“Hey Bill what do you want me to do with this thing?”

“Hmmm…” He popped out of the Bugbear’s head and thought. “I doubt I can put the old boy back in cryostasis, since that’s probably long broken. I guess you could either punch his lights out or nuke him.”

At this moment, the bear tried to claw at the door and punch the rock surrounding it.

“You will not make me go back, Cipher!” Bill translated the Bear’s roars. “I will destroy you and your automaton friend!”

“Wow, someone found the dictionary.” Bill joked. Jen put a hand to her jaw.

“Well if he’s this intelligent then maybe we can just drop him off in one of the kingdoms outside Equestria. Big guy like him would probably be able to make it on his own after all.”

“I will mount your metal head on my sti- I mean yes, I could do that.”

“Well I guess.” Bill thought. “But we’ll need to get him out, and I don’t have my alicorn amulet to teleport him like last time.

“I could use my drills to widen the tunnels maybe.”

“Yes that could definitely work. Do it now.”

Bugbear nodded his head, not showing any signs of gratitude but instead being impatient.

“You see, this is why I never gave you the ability to speak.”

“Uh… I’m not all that familiar with Bug..Bear...thing body signals. Should I be worried?”

“Probably, but you can tell he’s very aggressive.”

“I’m right here sherclop!” Bugbear folded his multiple arms.

“Yeah we know ya big ball of anger. Regardless, I’m gonna think it through before letting a massive murder bear out into the wild.”

“Yes the wild, that’s definitely where I’ll go…” He muttered.

“Oh you get what I mean!”

“I get that you still haven’t dug that hole.”

Jen turned to deadpan at the bear.

“You know, I already hate bees. And the fact that you were talking about putting my head on your stinger like a pike doesn’t help. So being a huge dick is hurting your chances of me actually helping you.”

“I am simply stating that someone will be digging someone a hole one way or another.” Bugbear growled. Bill rolled his eye and went back into the monster’s head. His top right paw then slugged him across the face.

“Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself…” Bill taunted. He eventually stopped after several more blows.

“Better?” The bear grumbled in response. “Good.”

“Should I go ahead and free him then?”

Bill looked at Bugbear, then at the door. “I’m going to hate myself for this later…” He sighed then gestured to the door. “If I left him here he would probably starve to death and it would take too long to fix the cryostasis chamber.”

Jen shrugged and then extended her hands into drill form, quickly tearing through the entrance. After a few minutes she was done, and the exit was large enough for the Bugbear to leave. Before he had the chance to though Jen stopped him.

“Remember big guy. I can fly faster than light and my body is variably an arsenal of munitions. If you start trying to pull shit then we’ll have a little...chat.”

With this her right arm opened into a large fly swatter.

“Kapische?”

He reluctantly nodded and flew away down the large hills. The two were left alone with Bill’s notes.

“You were very weird about bees. Why’s that?”

Jen averted her eyes and then shuddered.

“When I was little a few friends I liked to play around in the woods outside of the city where we lived. One time we found this old treehouse and decided to check it out. While the others started climbing I was left on the ground. Well as it turns out there was a beehive in the tree. It got knocked down and dropped aaaallll the way down and right onto my head. Head injury plus swarming, horrible bees…”

She shuddered.

“That kinda thing gives you serious issues. Gleh, anyway...Why exactly did you make a bee-bear fusion meal? And with intelligence?”

“He’s not the only thing I made.” Bill sighed. She deserved an answer after how much she helped him. “I’ve made lots of other things with my experiments. They were made to protect Equestria, because Celestia and Luna rely too much on the Elements of Harmony.Over time bear- o dI wanted to have another line of defence. I made them because… ‘what if’?” He looked at her. “ down there became more and more unstable. I ended up freezing him.”

She nodded. “Well yeah… They do seriously rely on them in the show. Kyth and I have been skirting the lines of which events of the show we interact in, that way we can keep certain events from cancelling out. Though… Huh.”

She put a hand to her jaw in thought. “We had Magic Duel happen late… Uh oh. That… could mean trouble. A-Anyway, what other kinds of experiments did you make?”

“Well I already told you about the Alicorn Amulet. Funny thing, its original purpose was to give more magic to unicorns who were more challenged, but it just became another contingency after a while. I reckon it puts you on the same level as Cadence or something, which is kind of a let down. I also used dark magic on clay to animate whatever it is moulded into. If you’ve seen ‘Little Gift Shop of Horrors’ then you’ll know what I mean. I’d be able to sculpt my own army.” He chuckled at the thought. “I also tried to construct my own body to inhabit, but those never really worked out well.”

“A body? Oh! You mean like Bill did in the show with Dipper! Well… Can you inhabit robotic bodies? I could maybe help you build something, I got blueprints saved in my datastores for different components.”

“After all you’ve done for me? I couldn’t. I’d have to find some way to repay you at least.”

“Well.. If you say so. Oh yeah! You want me to help you make a token? I think I can remember how to do it from making mine and Kyth’s.”

“Okay.”

“Alright, first pick out an object which either describes you or relates to you. That’s more of a recommendation than a rule though, me and Kyth had no idea what to do for ours though so we just used the dagger that you found. Pretty much anything will do, as long as it’s not something perishable.”

“Hmmm.” He went back into the cave and reappeared moments later. He was holding a notebook. It wasn’t one like the other two in the changeling kingdom; it was just plain and blank.

“Okay, I choose this notebook. What now?”

“Alright. To make it a token just sorta… Okay, focus your essence into it. Bind it to you, and then leave a message on it for other Displaced to hear when they receive it.”

Bill went through the steps and after a few moments, the notebook changed to have an eye on the front and the pages faded to brown.

“To those who seek knowledge and maybe a bit of chaos here or there, call Bill Cipher.”

“How was that?”

“Better than ours. Anyway, here I’ll show you how to throw it into the void and distribute it around the Multiverse.”

A few minutes later, the token was gone and faded from sight. With a flash a copy of it appeared and was caught by Jen.

“And here’s my copy of the thing. You already have my token of course, but is there anything else you need before I go?”

“Yeah, anything I can help you with? If I’m doing that body thing I want to repay you somehow.”

“Well… There’s a chance that my brother and Kyth’s cousin got Displaced as well. If you hear or see anything about a Golden Freddy Displaced or a Necromorph, you mind letting me know?”

“Sure. What’re the names of your family members?”

“Jack and Calvin. Calvin would be the Golden Freddy and Jack the Necromorph.”

“Alright then Jenny. See ya.”

“See you too Bill!”

A wave of light passed over her and with that, she was gone.

“Bye Jen. Hope you and Kyth enjoy yourselves.” He waved as his notes were transported back to the changeling kingdom.

Hours later during the daytime, Bill was with Chrysalis outside in the badlands during an overcast afternoon. Suddenly, a light appeared in front of them. It was a robotic body, complete with a light blue shining eye on the front, as well as slender black arms and legs. It hovered in the air in front of the two, seeming to be made as a changeling version of him. A small note on it read

I whipped this up using scraps from my old body. It isn’t advanced enough to do magic or anything but it’s able to move and is decently strong. I figured you could use it as a base for your own workings, y’know upgrades and stuff. Enjoy!

-Jen

“What’s this?” Chrysalis wasn’t sure what it was at all.

“A gift from a friend.” Bill said. “ A gift that will be repaid.”

Chapter Seventeen: Winter Frost and Cold/Kyth Meets Pitch Black

---Kyth POV---

        While Jen flew off to dispose of the Alicorn Amulet I stood behind in Ponyville helping to make sure everything was fixed. For the moment I was watching Sombra do his best to break out of the small shell placed onto him. Being in a cocoon of crystal wasn’t fun, from the looks of it.

“Gyah! Squidface aid my escape!”

“Yeah yeah ya little shit.”

I drew my sword and got ready to chisel the thing open.

“What!? NononnonoNO! DO NOT USE THINE SWORD WHELP!”

“Hey I can be careful besides the crystal will take the blow!”

“Yes but I am stuck in a foal’s body! It could kill me!”

“No it wouldn’t!”

“I disagree!”

“Fine then! Spike can just gnaw you loose!”

Spike shook his head and waved me off.

“No way. I am not getting involved with this!”

Sombra deadpanned and squirmed over to him.

“Dragon friend...Pls halp. Release me!”

“Dude I’ll agree that having a shell of crystal on you that you can’t even move your neck to eat off stinks but I don’t want to risk licking you! That’s nasty!”

“MYEH! Traitor!”

“Would you do the same for me?”

“...Good point. Very well... “

While Sombra was distracted I stabbed my sword into the ground and through the outside of the shell. Sombra let out a sound comparable to a dying balloon as the shell shattered off of him and set him free. I picked him up and brushed him off as he held a numb expression.

“There ya go. Shell’s off.”

He whirled to face me.

“THOU TRIED TO KILL ME!”

“It worked didn’t it?”

“BUT STILL!”

“Relax I wasn’t gonna let anything happen! Besides we coulda patched you up if anything did happen…”

He glared at me for a moment.

“I shall never forgive you for this…”

“Wanna go get milkshakes?”

“I rescind mine previous statement…”

“Good. You coming Spike?”

“Sure!”

        We started walking into town to see how long it’d take for the shops to all reopen, only to be interrupted by the arrival of a token slamming dead into my face. It looked kinda like a voodoo-puppet made of a hybrid between a human and a rabbit. It also had one half encased in ice, half of which was further encased in shadows.

“That...Is the weirdest token I have ever seen. Uh...Come on out I guess...Whatever kinda rabbit...ice..shadow...guy... you are.”

A shadow hung across the street from a house to our right. From the shadow it cast a pitch-black substance began to cover its wall, forming a round circle...Out of said circle a light grey/blue head came, with dark grey hair, then finally it emerged the rest of the way out of the portal. All but its head and hands were covered by a dark robe.

After it fully emerged from the portal, a stone shout out from behind it and into its back.

It took notice of the stone, and saw that there was a paper wrapped around it, as it shrieked because of the pain. I looked at it and blinked before turning to Sombra and Spike and speaking slowly.

“Spike Sombra… Go on to my house and we can grab milkshakes later.”

They both nodded and ran off and I slowly drew my sword and planted the tip of it into the ground. I couldn’t be sure if it was an enemy or ally. Or what it was exactly, as it stood in the shadows where it was harder to see it. I spoke slowly to it.

“Okay, who the hell are you?”

At this it seemed to take notice of me, and replied.

 “Well, my name is Pitch. I believe this message was for you.”

He walked out of the shadows, and tried to give me the paper. I raised my brow and took it from him. It said (or whatever you want to use there):

To whoever tried to summon me,

 I’ll have you know that the puppet was the first I ever made, and therefore has

sentimental importance to me. And also I would like to mention that the ice and shadows

are not my fault, but rather the fault of those who simply used my essence-container,

you called it a token, as theirs!

I am deeply sorry, but I am busy at the moment. Maybe that remaining idiot could help

you…

-Sor’Gat

“Okaaaaay...Whoever the hell that is.”

I shrugged and pocketed the note. I looked back up to ‘Pitch’.

“So, you a Displaced or just a weirdo with a token?”

Pitch smirked, before replying: “I am a Displaced. The owner of that message is the weirdo.”

“Well alright then. So, what’s with the whole ‘lurking in the shadows’ deal? You a vampire or something?”

“No. The character I am currently impersonating is an individual capable of transforming shadows into black sand and using that to attack his enemies. Or, that’s how I explained it.”

“Well alright. As is probably obvious I got Displaced as Cthulhu… Or I at least look like him… I don’t really know. Anyway…”

At this Pitch interrupted me: “Question! Are you homeless or something? I mean, I just arrived here as practically a guest. And yet we are still standing on the middle of the street… that is not really good hosting.”

I deadpanned. “No. I’m not homeless. But you’re some shadowy guy that I just met. I don’t know if you’re good, bad or neutral. I’d rather not invite a possible supervillain into my house.”

He gasped, before asking: “What? But… don’t you have like, all those traps around your house in case a mean Displaced escapes your attention? And and and… what would you do if your house burned down if you wouldn’t have water stored inside the ceiling?”

“Okay I don’t set traps in my house, that’s something I have a sword for. And storing water in the ceiling is just begging to rot through everything and flood the place. And besides if a ‘mean’ Displaced escapes my attention then my girlfriend’s got scanners that could find them like that.”

I snapped my fingers.

“Hm… interesting”, at this black sand went over him and formed a moustache on his face, “I’m just kidding. And messing with you”, the moustache dispersed again. I shrugged.

“Dude I’m not the type to scare easily. At least not since getting Displaced. Crazy magic whatever sorta does that.”

“Riiiight… so are we going to stand here all day? Because if it is that way, then I could go back home. I was just about to grab a VERY interesting book… Then again, I have to uphold a stoic demeanor there.”

“Alrighty. Magic book or something?”

“Yup. Magic Book. The same section as all those Demonology-books.”

“Hmm. Alright then. Personally I only have like one magic book and that’s this sucker.”

I took the InsMan book out of my pocket to show him.

He looks at it weirdly, and asked: “Should I know that? I mean, is that like something important I should know about?”

“Eh maybe. It may not come into play in your world and we intercepted it before it could do so here. It’s a spellbook that holds a spell called Inspiration Manifestation. It corrupts the mind oof the wielder unless they’re capable of resisting it but either way you can use it to synthesize magic into solid matter. Like so,”

I held out a hand bearing a lime green glow and summoned a can of soda to drink.

“Ahh. Corruptive magic tastes awesome when it’s made into food. Well...it tastes like whatever food you made with it. Either way...”

At this Pitch turns around, and starts walking into town. “Well, if you’re not going to tell me where to find it, it wouldn’t be interesting either way. Your house is this way, right?”

“Did you miss the part about ‘I’m not inviting a possible supervillain into my house’? I still don’t know who you are. And you’re looking for demonology books which I’m not against personally but more often than not people use those kinds of books for nothing but bad.”

Pitch stopped walking, stared back at me and spoke.

 “Oh, really? You know, the only reason I even knew that was the section about demonology was because the guy who helped me find my book told me so. It wasn’t even in the right section of the library! And you’re not inviting me, I am.”

I deadpanned. “Into my house? Eyeeeaaaah that’s not happening.”

Pitch turned fully back around to face me, crossed his arms and shouted a response.

“Well, I don’t know about YOUR day, but my brother died yesterday by a freak who had the same costume as him, then I was being lectured about all different kinds of stuff by his mentor, and THEN I am still unsure whether or not my travelling companion is booking us a tavern. Please excuuuuse me, princess.”

“Well I woke up horribly hungover and yesterday I’ve been told that I fought a horde of fire demons of some sort and shoggoth, not to mention the fact that I’ve started having blackouts where I have no idea what I’ve done other than context clues, I don’t HAVE a brother but the closest I have to one is a guy that I have no idea if he got Displaced killed or is back home, and you know what?”

I leaned a bit closer to him.

“Sorry if your brother died but that won’t stop me from being cautious when meeting new Displaced. Hell, I’m sixteen and I’ve seen more shit than most people back home ever would! If you’re having such a shit time say so rather than trying to force your way into someone’s house out of nowhere! Jeez… If you really need a place to crash then fine. I don’t mind, but at this point I’m having to be cautious to not have shit go down. I don’t even know who or what you were Displaced as so I don’t know what you’re capable of! Hell, I’ve met someone who’s a child of some kind of god that I don’t even know!”

I let out a sigh. “C’mon. Our house is this way…”

As he started to come back and follow me, he mumbled.

 “I really have to practice my humor more…”

At this he started to speak in a louder voice.

“That part about me inviting myself was actually meant as a joke. And we were kind of stuck just metaphorically circling each other in battlestance. Your sword is even still drawn! And sorry, I thought I told you already who I am. Pitch Black, main villain in Rise of the Guardians, a movie pretty famous back then, but worth shit if no one fears him. I think it would work too if they believed in him, seeing how that’s the case with all others…”

I shrugged and sheathed my sword. “Eh I never got the chance to see that movie. Looked interesting but I never got around to it before getting Displaced. And it doesn’t matter to me if your character is a villain, judging from the shield I got on my belt I met a handsome Jack Displaced sometime yesterday. Like I said, I got wasted to the point of my memories being kinda blurry.”

I waved him along and went through town until we came upon me and Jen’s house and I showed him in.

“And this is our place. nothing too big or impressive but it’s just a temporary thing until we get back to Earth.”

He looked around, before telling me: “Eh, I never was one for all that high and mighty castle-stuff anyways. Why go a hundred meters to the kitchen if ten is enough?”

“Yeah. We could probably get a castle or something if we wanted one but y’know…”

I stopped talking when I saw the pile of guns and alcohol bottles sitting in the living room. Pitch whistled, sounding impressed.

"Thats one huge and mighty collection you have there.”

“Jen did mention earlier that while I was drunk I brought a bag of random stuff home with me. And a pig… I guess that I got guns too… Weird.”

I turned to Pitch. “Uh… Want one? I don’t really know how to use any of these so they’re kinda useless to me for the moment.”

He looked at me surprised. “Sure! But I really wish I had been at that party. Must have been a blast. What guns you got?”

“No idea. Jen might know about some of this, since her dad’s a cop he taught her and her brothers about some stuff like this, but I know absolutely nothing.”

He seemed to think about it for a moment, before saying: “Welp, maybe I can find a Deagle in all this…”, and looked over to the pile, seeming to find what he was looking for after a moment. The object searched and found had shadows creeping over it by, and vanished after being completely engulfed.

“I take it you found what you were looking for?”

He began to nod, but stopped himself midway. Then he shook his head, and replied: “Nope. Still tired. If you were talking about the gun, yeah, I did. I took a Desert Eagle, a classic.”

“Well alright. May it be useful for you in whatever stuff you do. But if I hear of you doing evil shit with that gun then Imma find you.”

I said this jokingly and punched his shoulder.

He somehow hissed at that, and held his shoulder. “Dude, I’m not made out of steel!”

“Whoops. Sorry dude, I’m kinda used to being a weakling like I was back home. Here I’m suddenly eight feet tall and ripped so it’s a bit of an adjustment. Anyway, one sec and I’ll see if I can get a copy of me and Jen’s token for ya…”

I concentrated and after a moment one flashed into existence in front of me. I held it out to him and then took out Pitch’s token and placed it on the mantle over the fireplace. I spoke as he looked over the token.

“So, you need anything?”

“Yeah… I’m dog… tired…”, at this point he collapsed to the floor, asleep. I blinked and picked him up, plopping him onto the couch.

“Okay…”

I took out a piece of paper and wrote a quick note.

“Nice meeting you… Call me with the token whenever you need… Maybe you could meet Jen next time… Don’t worry about the couch I can magic up a new one…Cya laters, Kyth.”

I folded it like a tiny tent and put it on his face.

“Pitch Black our contract is now complete. “

Darkness washed over the floor beneath him and I saluted as he and the couch tilted and sank into the portal in the manner of a sinking ship. I figured that with whatever rough stuff he was going through that letting him keep the couch was the least I could do. When he was fully gone the portal sealed up I took out the InsMan book to start conjuring a replacement couch.

“Hm. Nice guy. Bit weird, but nice. Hope he finds that book of his…”

Chapter Eighteen: Explanations and Experiments

---Jen POV---

After helping Bill I reappeared where I had left up on the moon. I took a moment to reorient my mapping systems for my own Equestria, and made sure to save the data I had from his world into my drives. Bill's journals held a god deal of information on magic and science from his world that I'd be able to use. My brain already functioned like a supercomputer at this point, so all it took for me to get an understanding of magic was just the raw information on magical functions at different levels and some practice. The practice I could do easily with some of the training programs I got from F.A.U.S.T., and here on the moon made a perfect place for me to come later. I'd actually be able to go all out without fear of harming something or someone. I took a few moments to look over the data I'd gained from Bill.

Huh... It actually had the blueprints for the Alicorn Amulet from his world. Using that I quickly took out my Alicorn Amulet and decided that I'd make a vault or something in Kyth and I's basement to store it in. Hopefully I'd be able to disassemble the thing into raw components later and make something without negative effects from it. With luck, the thing could be useful in the long run. I opened my wings and took off, flying back into the atmosphere and  returning to Ponyville. I found Kyth, Spike, and Sombra waiting for me at home, Kyth using the InsMan tome to conjure up a couch. I raised an eyebrow.

"So...What happened to the couch?"

Kyth glanced up at me when he was done with the new couch.

"Met a Displaced that was having a rough time, so I let him crash on the couch and keep sleeping as he went back."

"Huh...Cool, what was he Displaced as?"

"Someone named Pitch Black from that Rise Of The Guardians movie.  So, how was the moon?"

I cracked a smile.

"How'd you know I was on the moon?"

"You have moondust on your legs."

I blushed and morphed a hand into a scrubber to get that off while I talked.

"Well I met a Displaced Bill Cipher!"

Kyth gave me a blank stare. "...Wut."

"Yup. Fought some kinda horrible Bee-Bear fusion monster."

Kyth looked at me with concern.

"Oh jeez...You okay? I know you have that thing with bees..."

I giggled as he walked over. "Y-yeah, I'm good. I kinda figured out that even outside of combat mode my artificial tissue is able to resist being stung by bees or bitten by bugs and all that. It made it easier to fight the thing once I realized that I'm actually able to fight back. Anyway I actually got some awesome data from Bill and his journals. With some practice I might be able to cast some of the magic stuff that he had recorded information of. Anyway, it's time for explanations. C'mon, let's grab Twilight and the others and I'll explain the deal with the upgrade."

It took a while to give them the rundown on everything without telling the native Equestrian's about the Displaced. As far as they knew, F.A.U.S.T. was someone that was passing by and I had planned to meet with on her 'journey' for an upgrade. A load of crap? Yes. Did they know that? No. It worked well enough for them to buy into everything, and hopefully I'd be able to keep up the story until it became necessary to come clean (and subsequently dissolve all of their perceptions about the nature of reality), but hopefully that'd be a far ways off. When I was done I made up an excuse about being tired from the day's activities and ducked out before anyone could ask questions. Later I explained it all truthfully as well a telling him about some of my new abilities. Though we then came to a troubling topic.

"Hey Kyth... Magic Duel happened today, right?"

"Uh...Yeah. Trixie with the Alicorn Amulet and the like. Why?"

"Well... We already saw Dicord get loose. That means 'Keep Calm And Flutter On' happened before Magic Duel. That means something's changed the timeline of events to no longer match the show. Besides that, what happens when we run to the end of what we know about the show? We only made it to seeing 'The Lost Treasure Of Griffinstone' before getting Displaced. Anything could happen after that, and we'll have no way to prepare!"

Kyth walked up and drew me into a hug from behind.

"Hey, c'mon. We can handle anything that gets thrown at us, what's the worst that Equestria could throw at us?"

I tried to calm down but I couldn't shake a feeling of dread... I wasn't worried about what Equestria could throw at us.

I was worried about Messenger's warning.

---Third POV---

On the edge of the Everfree...

Two figured stood on the crest of a hill, looking down at the small town off in the distance. One of them appeared to be a young girl with a pair of sharp pigtails. With her stood a tall man, his face obscured with an odd mask and on his right arm a metal plated gauntlet, with wiring and tubes coming out of various points and tearing into his arm. Next to him was an odd automaton, looking like the top part of a being but lacking in legs and floating in the air. Both the girl and the man looked at each other with purple, glowing eyes. The girl spoke.

"Alright, there's the place... Ravn, Deathtrap, you ready?"

Both nodded and the girl smirked.  "Good. Come morning those Hyperion-loving bastards won't know what hit them..."

Chapter Nineteen: Agents

----Jen POV----

I was woken by an ache pulsing from my chest. A faint, but ever-present grinding of gears so very slowly approaching a halt. I blinked blearily and stood up, my joints feeling the same sort of grinding with every movement. As I became more awake I pulled up a diagnostic on myself, and quickly found the problem...

Something was happening to my core. Or at least my Dox battery. From what readings I got off of it, the sample of his blood and the mythril casing holding it were slowly bleeding off energy, and weakening me. I estimated I had enough energy still charged in it that I had maybe a day before it ran dry. I wasn't sure what was happening to it. Had... Had something happened to Dox to cause this? Or was it losing power just from being in a separate universe than him? I made to go to the basement to check on the other samplings of Dox's blood I had stored to see if the same thing was happening to them, maybe there was a common effect that could be derived from them and my battery. I was cut off by hearing a massive explosion going off somewhere in town. I looked up and my eyes went into scanning mode over the area it came from. I could see the forms of two humans/humanoids and some sort of robotic being, seeing to be attacking! I turned off my sensors and swapped over to a megaphone briefly.

"Kyth get down here! We got big trouble!"

I heard the sounds of Kyth moving to try and get himself together and in the meantime I dashed out of the door, hoping to intercept whoever the three people tearing up the town were before it was too late...

I allowed myself to drop a slight bit of power to use my thrusters to rocket over the town to get to them, only for a missile to blast me before I could get a look. I flipped myself around as I dropped through the air, thankful that I was already in combat mode as I landed on my feet-hooves. I stood up fully as I faced my opponents and my jaw nearly dropped. I wouldn't have believed what I was seeing if it weren't for what had happened over the two weeks...

Standing across the way from me were Gaige and Deathtrap, straight out of Borderlands Two, and along with them a being I hadn't thought of for a long time... See, Kyth showed me Borderlands a while back, and for the next two weeks after that I went a little... overboard, in fangirling. Like I went crazy with it for a while and became one of those fans. But that brings me to this guy... See I had an idea for a storyline if I ever met someone capable of modding and stuff that I could pay to try and program it together. It was about a supposed Hyperion initiative taken in their 'biological weaponry' programs, known as Project Valravn. The story would focus on the Vault Hunters finding out the story of the doctor in charge of the project, and what happened to him. Essentially he was the head of the project, with its objective being a way to emulate the powers of a siren in a normal being. The project eventually came close to succeeding, with the creation of an item known as the Valravn Gauntlet. The Gauntlet was a way of controlling and utilizing a swarm of form-altering nanites, which would be activated upon the gauntlet being worn for the first time by someone. Then came the drawback. The nanites would rewrite every single cell of the wearer, inside and out to make them into a half biological half mechanical hybrid being, that way they were capable of changing as the system required. Their mind would be torn apart in a storm of pain, so if they even survived then they would be driven completely mad by the process. The head of the project would be found by the player, wearing the gauntlet and having been left in a state giving them resemblance to a psycho of Krieg's level, but with the full powers of the Gauntlet...

Those of a twisted siren.

See, the Gauntlet would have data about all known sirens and their genetics. With the right input commands it would rewrite the biomechanical structure of the wearer to have similar features to the sirens and hybrids of their genetics. Compile that with a supply of eridium to offer power to the system and the wearer would have the power to match any preexisting siren, though practice would be needed to control it. The thing would have some preset modes, such as Phoenix, Blight Phoenix, and then the actual original set that it would contain, a mode focused around manipulating darkness and shadows in the same way a normal siren warped reality, known as Valravn. But I'm rambling now, so I'll get back to business.

The whole thing was mostly nonsense anyway, but that project head I mentioned? The Psycho with Siren Powers and little to no restraint? He was standing there with the other two, turning to glare at me with raw malice. I shook my confusion off and morphed one of my arms out into a laser cannon and made sure it was prepped. I spoke in a (hopefully) commanding tone.

"Hey! What the hell are you three doing!?"

Gaige turned to me, and I saw an unnerving purple glow in her eyes. Something about her just felt... wrong. Profoundly so. I blinked my scanners at her and found that she carried the same sort of aura as Messenger, completely shrouding her from me. She grinned when she saw me and gestured around at the damage they had caused.

"Getting your attention, duh! GET THE BITCH DEATHTRAP!"

She didn't even sound like the Gaige from the games, other than her voice... I dodged to the right to avoid a claw strike from her Deathtrap as he lunged for me, and the next attempt he made I opened my right hand into fist of fury mode and caught it, swinging him around and throwing him away from me. I looked back to the two humans in time to be caught by a grenade detonating next to me. I pirouetted away as multiple more grenades were thrown at me and opened my left arm into a laser cannon to blast at Not-Gaige to get her to stop bombing me. I flipped back and delivered a kick into the Deathtrap as it lunged for me again, and then turned to blast a volley of shots at Gaige as she pulled out an assault rifle of some sort alongside a missile launcher. She opened fire with the former and I matched her with my laser cannon while still keeping the Deathtrap off of me with simple blows from my FoF. For a while I managed to keep it up and hold both of them at odds while still avoiding taking damage simply from the durability of my armor. Not-Gaige cracked a grin after a short while.

"Heheh... Alright then. Let's play it that way."

She drew her launcher and took aim into the town square, unloading it in all directions. Oh god she wasn't targeting me anymore, she was targeting the town! I ignited my pigtail thrusters and shot forward, grabbing the shots of out the air and holding them in my arms despite their own thrusters still going. I managed to snag them all before they impacted and turned to Not-Gaige with a smirk.

"Nice try but it'll take more than that to-"

I was cut off my Deathtrap ramming him claw at me through the missiles, both driving a pair of gashes through my chest's armor and detonating all of the missiles onto me. I grinded to a halt in a crater in the ground, leaving a long tear of disturbed earth behind me. Sparks flickered out of the gashes in my armor as I forced myself into standing up. I glared at the Deathtrap as it leaped at the opportunity, bringing its claw into another strike. I attempted to shift my hands back into weapon mode only to have my arms lock up midway, followed by a wave of the same grinding I had felt in my core. Before I could run a diagnostic the Deathtrap managed to clock me with its claw and throw me out of the crater. I rolled to my feet and moved my arms into an X in time to guard against the next strike and took the chance to grab it by the claw, whirling around and crushing its head into the ground. As it moved to try and right itself I managed to jump into the air and drive my legs through the chest and torso of the thing, effectively taking it out. I turned back to Not-Gaige with a glare as Deathtrap deconstructed and returned to her. I rolled my shoulder and cracked my neck as I attempted a transformation again, only to be met with the same results as before. A missile launched directly at me and I managed to catch it in my hands, only to be caught off guard by a grenade being thrown at me and then shot with a bullet to trigger it before I could dodge. The missile added onto it and blasted me as well, and the next grenade thrown I attempted to dodge, only for it to split apart into bee-grenade form. The miniature barrage blasted me from all sides, and I finally realized as a coat of ice covered me that it was a cryogenic grenade.

"Grr.... You th-think this can stop me?"

I attempted to muscle my way out and shatter the ice, a feat I expected to be of little trouble... Until I felt a wave of heavyness seem to pass over me, along with the same grinding on my systems. I murmured under my breath as I struggled to get loose.

"Huh? W-what the hell?"

I looked up in time for a newly reconstructed Deathtrap's claw to uppercut me, freeing me form the ice but sending a spiderweb of cracks across the armor of my jaw and throat as it barely withstood the blow. I slammed into a building and easily went through the wall, slowly standing up again despite the grinding that steadily spread across my limbs. I dodged to the side to avoid a barrage of bullets and moved through the town until I felt my speed seem to fade in the same way as my strength. I felt another clawstrike across my back send me flying through another building, and I realized I had actually landed in my own house. I grinned as I dodge-rolled forward. If I couldn't transform then I'd get weapons the old-fashioned way. I grabbed the orichalcum bucklers I had found in the cave where I met Messenger and slid them over my forearms and then grabbed two pairs of pistols from what Kyth had gotten when he was out with Dox and his friends, binding two of them into makeshift holsters at my sides and then holding the other two in my hands as Deathtrap caught up with me. I took aim and opened fire, forcing it to guard as I moved forward and hopped through the hole in the wall I had made with my arrival, before redirecting myself to be putting distance between us and the house. I turned on my scanners and intercepted another claw strike from Deathtrap, bringing up one of my bucklers to catch the blow.

Huh. The suckers were small, but sure as hell were they durable. They might even have been stronger than my own armor when it was full-strength.

I pushed back from the Deathtrap and unloaded my first pair of pistols into its head, managing to take it out and forcing it to deconstruct again. I moved back to where Not-Gaige was, and took aim, swapping my original pair of pistols for the second.

"Alright cut the shit! Why are you doing all this!?"

"Oh yeah, and this is the part where I decide to spill every detail of my plan to you because 'I've already won' when in reality you're only at a slight disadvantage. But still, not telling you anything would be fairly lame so I'll give you a few bits of it. It involves you, us, and Hyperion's systems getting a major asskicking... And before you start talking about how you'll stop us, let me just say one thing."

She smirked at me and spoke in a low voice. "I've already won."

Before I could respond a wave of numbness spread over me, starting in the small of my back and then engulfing my entire body. I slowly rotated my head to see Valravn standing behind me, his body obscured in an aura of darkness and his hand planted directly onto my back, sending black pulses into me. I saw a flicker of lightning around his fingers and his eyes locked onto mine with a blank, vacant gaze...

And that's when every little bit of that numbness turning into utter agony.

As black lightning spread across my entire body, seeming to conduct along every aspect of my form I finally figured out what was wrong with me when I was fighting. I was out of power. My Dox battery, in its draining state, had a day at best before emptying out. Then when I had started fighting, flying, accessing weapons... All of those had been drawing massive amounts of power out of what little I had left. And so little by little my systems had been automatically shutting down to preserve core functions. First my weapons, then my armor, then my strength, and then my speed...

And finally as pain wracked my entire body, consciousness.

I found myself in the same virtual mindscape I accessed for artificial dreaming, with only a vague awareness of what was going on in the real world. The pain going over my physical form wasn't able to affect my virtual self, but I managed to pull up a minor diagnostic of my systems with the tiny bit of power I had. Everything about me was shut down, the only thing left was simple processing and that was fading fast... I looked around the mindscape to see darkness at the edges of it quickly approaching me. I managed to reactivate my optical and audio processing, that way I could at least see and hear what was happening... It registered to me that my body was lying on its back, with Valravn and Not-Gaige standing over me. Valravn seemed to silently communicate something and she nodded, reconstructing Deathtrap. I tuned myself to hear them as she spoke.

"Alright Deathtrap you know what to do... Plug up to this Hyperion bitch and get cracking, the sooner we have her rewritten the sooner we can use her access to F.A.U.S.T. to start attacking Hyperion's systems. They have contacts in who knows how many worlds, and with luck when we get their network crashed it'll bring them all to a screeching halt..."

Deathtrap floated over my body and a green, almost corrosive glow came over its claw. I started trying to redirect power, to thrusters to movement to ANYTHING that could help here, to no avail. It rammed its claw into the torn up armor of my chest and its claw seemed to reconstruct into wiring as it tore into m-

I screamed in binary static as the pain I had felt before shutting down returned to me in the mindscape, only even worse... Oh god, they weren't just getting data from me they were rewriting me!

I looked around in my mindscape as the darkness that had been approaching was replaced with a burning green haze. I threw my hands to either side of my head as it began trying to alter my systems. I yelled out into the mindscape to no avail, for anything to stop this...

 

"̫̜̦̯̠̠̰ͣͦ̉ͭ̆́ͅK̺̖̰̈́̂͌ͧ̆-̖̠͉̝̿ͨ̓ͩ̓́ͬ̚ͅk̳͇͖͓͓̻̟͔̑͂̃͋ͨy̬̳̗̦̥̗̰ͪ͐͒͆̂ͯ̃̍̚t̤̩̤̮̥͓͓̍̆͊̚h̩̰̓ͦ͐̀ͥ ̬̟͇̲͓͔̮̀̂ͦ͊̂H̦͔̲͍̳̝̄̆͐͐͒ͦͧ̃-̤͙̜͉̣͋ͤĥ̖̲̞̞̖̲̫͚̙ͬe̮̱̮̺͇ͭ̌ͣ̎̽l̝̜̱̗̾̔p̘̞̠ͬͣ͆-̺͇̗̮̟͖̻̤́̀̓͗͋p̳̗͔̹͖̳͆ͬ̈̽̓̄̈!̝̲ͣ͋̏̂͗̓ͦ̚ ̳̙̼͇̗͇͉̲͐ͤP̝̙͚̼̓-̠̩̱̲̖̗͚̐̍ͫ͑͂̋̈p̫̦̘̮̥̩̰̲̯ͦ̿͋l̪̫̣̮̖̜̗̋̎̏̔̍̚e̝̹̻̗̦͖̗̻̋a̟͕͙͕ͧ̉s͍͇̓e̦̠͉͙̙̲̒.͕͙͕̳̃̓̓̏.̳̝̘̬̠̭̰̒ͦ.̯̱̪̲͂͗"̬͔̭̪̻̙͔̚

Darkness overtook me...

----Kyth POV----

I was woken up by hearing Jen yelling into a megaphone somewhere downstairs.

"Kyth get down here! We got big trouble!"

I tumbled out of bed and threw on a shirt and puled my pants up, grabbing my sword from where I had left it and hooking its sheath onto my belt before charging out of the room. I looked around when I made it down the stairs and called out.

"Jen? Where is this threat exactl-"

An explosion went off somewhere in town and I decided that was a god bet for whatever Jen was talking about. I rushed out of the house and took into the air with my wings to find Jen and whatever was attacking the town. I looked around town and saw Jen talking with...

"Okay what the what?!"

She was talking with what looked like Gaige and Deathtrap from Borderlands 2 along with some kinda armored Psycho. I dropped to the ground and kept in the shadows, hoping to get the drop on them if thing escalated. I watched the Deathtrap lunge for Jen and I moved to try and intercept, only to feel something grab my throat from behind and throw me back and send me down an alleyway and into a wall. I cracked my neck and stood up, drawing my sword as the odd Psycho put himself into the only entrance to the alley. I glared at him as he looked at me with two glassy eyes bearing a purple glow. He spoke in a low, quiet voice.

"Gotta buy time... First the metal then the flesh, both fallen to me... Burn..."

He jerked his head to the side as he moved his right arm up, showing it to have a mechanoid metal gauntlet of some sort, which he opened a plate of and entered something in. His eyes locked with mine as he began to lift off of the ground, an aura of flames beginning to surround him, forming a pair of ethereal wings on either side of him. On the arm bearing the gauntlet I watched as a jagged, lime green flame burned across it, inscribing the tattoos which Sirens all held in the Borderlands universe, though... Different. They looked...Jagged. Geometric. He aimed the arm at me and spoke in a low voice.

"Phoenix mode..."

His form distorted as he seemed to rocket towards me, unleashing a wave of energy into a single blow, which  barely managed to block with my sword. I brought my sword around to slash him, only to find that he had dashed back. I spun my sword around as he moved again and again with the same strikes, each time becoming more and more difficult to block as he kept on with the same empty stare. I brought my sword around and went on the offensive, charging into a strike.

"Flaming Strike!"

Something clicked in his gauntlets and his aura seemed to shimmer and my blade stopped an inch from him in a distorting aura.

"Phase... Lock."

He brought up his fist into the same strike before I could react, sending me flying back as he held my sword suspended in the air. I glared and moved my arms into an X to block the next of his strikes, bringing one of my wings across his chest and smacking him with the other. My wings were nowhere near as good as a sword but they were actually sharp enough at the hooks to cut at someone. His armor managed to block me however, and I kept my glare on him. He rose into the air and a sphere of the same distorting aura appeared in each of his hands and his wings took on a green tint.

"Blight Phoenix... Phase walking strike..."

His form erupted, going intangible as he seemed to disappear, only to return to view right in front of me, both of his hands placed... In my chest. I slowly looked up and met his gaze.

"Rapture."

I yelled in pain as black blood erupted from my chest where he had torn into me, and he ripped his arms to either side, drawing a pair of long tears along my chest. I noticed him seem to open and close his hands a bit, smoke curling off of his armor. It was as if my blood was...

Corroding it? My blood being black was weird enough but... I looked down and saw my blood, at least that of it around my chest, seeming...ethereal. It hung in the air, somehow uninhibited by gravity's pull. I got a twisted idea and grinned at my attacker. If my blood melted his armor but not my own body... That meant I could use it. I grabbed it in my hands and yanked off a blob off it from where it hung in front of my chest, working it into a ball and spiking it at him. He held up both of his hands with the same distorting aura.

"Phaselock..."

A shimmering barrier appeared in front of him, and both of us were caught off guard when the ball of my blood tore through it like it was nothing before bursting apart and soaking my attacker in it. He looked up, even with the blood covering his eyes I could see the same purple glow forcing through. He spoke in a low voice and his eyes actually seemed to focus slightly on me.

"Valravn."

Darkness seemed to spread across him, and the flame wings on his back were consumed and replaced with a pair of jagged shadow wings. He rose back into the air, his armor still corroding from my blood as he aimed an arm at me.

"Phase Shadow."

A lance of black energy shot forward at me and I darted to the side, barely avoiding it. I watched it seem to move with its own mind, turning before hitting the ground and aiming for me again. I kept moving and managed to get past my attacker, using the blood on my hands to melt the bubble holding my sword and grabbing it again, feeling lightheaded from the wounds on my chest. I shook it off as best I could and brought my sword around only to cut empty air as Valravn dropped down and moved back from me.

"That's enough time."

He lashed out with one hand and a wave of black lightning erupted from it, right into the wounds on my chest. I yelled in pain again and snk to my knees, holding myself up with my sword. His form shifted into darkness and he faded from view, moving out of sight. I forced myself to stand, noticing slightly that my blood seemed to be pulling itself back into me, sealing the wound. I growled and started moving towards the sounds of combat and gunfire. When I got there I was greeted by a horrifying sight.

Jen lay on the ground, covered in blood/oil, with the Gaige lookalike and the guy who attacked me standing over her, and a Deathtrap unit tearing a claw into her chest. She shuddered in what could only be pain and both of her eyes had gone dark. I shook where I stood, rage pouring through me and searing its way through my veins.  I spread my wings and rocketed forward, my sword charging with energy as I brought it down, scattering the two humans from Jen. I was pushed back by a wave of darkness and I matched glares with the odd Psycho. The Gaige doppleganger ushered a command to him.

"Take him down Valravn! Nothing can interfere with Deathtrap while his systems are focused on the hack!"

So his name was Valravn. Good to know the name of the guy I was about to take down. I brought my sword down towards him, only to be caught in a field of distortion and thrown back. Something in me felt... wrong. My mind felt like something wasn't happening properly. So my blood was the only thing that could pass that guy's Siren knockoff powers? Well alright then. Something in me made it seem like what I did next was a good idea. I ran the blade of my sword along the wound on my chest and gave them a manic look, my sensibilities numbed by rage as I gave them a lazy grin.

"Hehe... My blood's black ya know."

I surged forward again, this time my blood-soaked blade tearing through every one of his barriers. I threw my sword at him and grinned maniacally as it successfully cut a massive swath into the gauntlet that seemed to regulate his abilities. My mania was cut short as a missile detonated into me, only kept from injuring me by the shield I got from Jack as I was thrown to the ground. I rolled to my feet, only to be caught off guard as a barrage of bullets ripped into me, peppering my entire body. I sank to my knees, a blank expression on my face, the last thoughts in my mind being that I was blacking out again, just like I had during the bachelor party...

 

----Third POV----

 

Valravn and Gaige looked uncertainly at the creature before them, the one by the name 'Kyth', as well as another Displaced to make ties with Hyperion. Both of them weren't certain what to make of it when his eyes faded to black, seeming to draw in light as he gave them a look of unbridled hatred. In a single move he surged forward, delivering a fist into each of their abdomens and launching them back. Valravn stood up, attempting to gain a response from the gauntlet on his arm, only to be seized by the throat and sent flying across the field. Gaige stood and opened fire with a rifle, only to watch as it seemed to shrug off all attacks, no longer vulnerable as he had been previously.

He drew the sword he had thrown from the ground and brought it to bear, decimating the Deathtrap as he turned to face the two humans. His demeanor changed, and both of his eyes gained a sickly glow as he spoke in a voice that wasn't his.

"Listen and listen well, children of the Architect... I have an offer for you."

 

----Kyth POV----

I blinked as my senses returned, and I found myself in the town square where they had been doing whatever that was to. Jen- JEN! I lurched to my feet, looking around drunkenly and registering that I was covered in my own blood along with that of someone else. Ugh... What...what had I just done? I couldnt... Couldn't remember... I looked around wildly until I found Jen, laying where she had been previously and rushed over to her, trying to wake her up.

"Jen? JEN!? "

I thought wildly as to what I could do to help her, I didn't know first aid or how to fix robots or anything useful for this! I managed to remember that Jen had mentioned she had something to call F.A.U.S.T. with back home, and struggled to lift her up. Pain spread form the still bleeding wounds across my chest as I strained... Some part of my dulled mind knew that I shouldn't have this much trouble carrying her if I was alright. I slowly moved forward with her and headed home, stumbling to the closet where Jen had left the Acquisition Beacon from F.A.U.S.T. and her old body... The latter of which was gone. The last bit of my will left as I rammed a fist into the beacon, the thing whirring to life as I finally succumbed into unconsciousness, knowing that this time I wasn't losing control of myself but thinking of what I could have done in that fight to get rid of the Gaige doppleganger and that Valravn guy...

Chapter Twenty: Repairs

----Kyth POV----

Where...Where was I?

I found myself floating, adrift in a black expanse with not a thing visible to me. It felt like I was underwater, but I didn’t feel like I was drowning... I looked over myself and found that I was...Human? I was myself again, no longer bearing the form I had gained when I had been Displaced. I was wearing the mossy green hoodie I used to wear back on Earth, with an emblem of Cthulhu on the front. On my belt I noticed that I still seemed to have the ECHO and shield I had gotten from Jack along with my sword, which was much longer now that I wasn’t eight feet tall and rather was a bit below six. I looked down and froze as I beheld a pair of burning red eyes looking to me with pure, baleful hatred. I flailed my arms, trying to swim away from whatever it was as it surged forward and pursued me, gaining on me with great speed. I felt something like a tentacle seize my ankle and drag me down to it. I silently screamed, and suddenly found myself in dire need of air as it approached me. I drew my sword in an attempt to cut loose, only to freeze as the thing itself drew itself to the same level as I was. We both hung there for a moment, complete silence reigning as I slowly ran out of air. I clicked onto my ECHO to turn it on to shed some light, and froze as I finally glimpsed it.

It was… me. At least… me after getting Displaced. I/it glared and let out a roar which reverberated throughout my very being as it lunged for me. I drew my sword in an attempt to defend myself and sank it into It's chest, my eyes sealed shut.

I finally opened my eyes after a moment, taking stock as confusion went over me. I was back in my Displaced form, my hand on my sword from where I had sunk it into… Jen?

I stumbled back in horror as she looked at me with blank eyes, tears going down her face as she looked at me with pleading look.

“No...NononononononoNO!”

I let go of the sword and Jen dropped to her knees, collapsing to the ground. I ran up to her and grabbed her, holding her.

“J-Jen, don’t worry you’ll be alright, you’ll be fine! I-I’ll just get help and then-”

        

Her eyes locked with mine and I froze. The whites of her eyes were a pale, glowing yellow and her irises were a burning green. Her pupils shifted into white slits as she gave me a grin filled with jagged fangs. She spoke in a sultry voice that wasn’t Jen’s.

“I think that I have all the help I need right here…”

She closed the distance between us before I could react, and I flailed my arms in an attempt to get away from whoever this doppleganger was. I felt a wave of pain as something tore into my chest as she released me. I looked down and saw my sword had been rammed into my chest as I collapsed, coughing up blood. I looked up at the doppelganger as she gave me a grin, placing a hand on the side of my face as both of my hands were on the hilt of my sword. She whispered in my ear as darkness washed over me.

“Won’t be long now….”

---------

 

I jerked awake, pain going across my chest as I started trying to sit up and figure out where I was, only for a mechanical hand to push me back down, with a medical looking claptrap nurse giving me a frowning look.  

“You need to lay down for a few more minutes to let the emergency treatment fluids replenish what vitality YOU lost.  Add onto that the strain on your musculature and bone fracture from a high level magic use yet to be identified.”  

She intoned with a frown while a more excited male claptrap let out a oddly comedic ‘SHE LIVES!’ Before a familiar jerk upright form of Jen sending a claptrap flying into a couch. She raised a hand and waved to me. I spoke in a rough voice the instant I saw her.

“Holy shit, Jen are you okay?!”

She silently nodded, and then put a hand to her throat and shook her head. I looked and saw her neck and jaw covered in a scattered of cracks.

“You.. Can’t talk?”

Neck damaged. Just mute until fully fixed up.

I nodded slowly. She pointed to my chest, which was covered in bandages and the like and I waved her off.

“I-I’m fine. I’m just worried about you after… whatever those guys were doing.”

She blinked and looked away, seeming to shudder from thinking about it. I looked down at my chest and to the medical claptrap, and ground my teeth as I hopped up and walked over, sitting next to Jen. She looked back at me and shook her head and pointed to where I had been laying. I shrugged and patted her shoulder and she gave me a small smile.

“So… Where are we exactly?”

Looking around, I found that we were in a white, surgically cleaned room. Above the door to the room was some sort of observation window, the sort that would be used to show somehow a surgery in progress, and scattered around the room were holograms of various mechanical and biological components with diagnostics of sorts. A hologram of Jen was across from her, showing damaged areas in black, and one of me across from where I had been laying, showing parts of me in yellow and red. My hologram was blurry though, as if it was done from sight alone with large swaths of it being nothing more than a three dimensional outline of my form. Jen entered a response to my question.

F.A.U.S.T./Jack’s world.

I let out a sigh. So my attempt to get the beacon up and running had worked. It was around that moment when a light tapping came from the speakers in the room, a male voice I recognized calling out to us in the room while the male claptrap fussed over Jen’s connections.  

“Well it’s you again Kyth, and Jen your girlfriend or is it something else now? Anyways, I’d welcome you kiddos to my world if it was under ‘better’ circumstances but we three know that won’t be happening this time.  Also look up and tell me if you can see my hand from there.”  He waved his hand at us from a seat he was sitting in, with a tall anthro robot Alicorn standing beside him in a sort of business suit with a miniskirt and heels. Jen waved to her, and it clicked in my head that this was ‘F.A.U.S.T.’. I waved uncertainly myself, my memory of meeting Jack before the bachelor party returned to me.

Though in a lighter tone of question aimed my way Jack asked.  “So are you still eating weird shit or birds?”

I shook my head. “No. Definitely not. Dunno why that ever seemed like a good idea, and I don’t even remember doing that…”

Jen brought up a text box to question me.

...bachelor party?

I nodded and shuddered. Whatever I had eaten over that night hadn’t sat well with me the morning after… I shook my head and looked back to Jack and F.A.U.S.T.

“Hey, uh. Thanks for the save.”

Jack nodded as he silently spoke to someone else in  the room before continuing to talk with us.  

“It isn’t an issue, though never thought that we’d get an Emergency Response call.  So you two are technically ‘3’ and ‘4’ displaced who have ‘graced’ my medical ward, though first two for combat related damage, before you guys it was a pregnancy birth and the first was for cybernetic operation to fix himself up after losing an arm.”

He tapped his chin for a moment until F.A.U.S.T. laid a hand on his shoulder, gesturing to Jen.

“Right, that magic ‘battery’ thing you had inside you.  Seems whatever or whoever gave it to you lost ‘something’ and it outright affected what was given to you, so you may want to check on that when you can. Because shit that fails due to being a source from another power means one of two things, they died.”  Pausing for a moment to relay what FAUST was saying.  “He ‘fell from grace’ or lost what made him ‘special’ that kept your battery always charged at full tilt, but the good news is you need a magic user to jump charge it maybe every month.” He explained showing Jen the holographic view explaining details while I could only see some of it.

“But if you want, we can put in a type of power conversion core into your frame.  Depending how much you want invested in type or the best we can make, will affect how you’ll likely be fueled from here on while that battery thing can act as your ‘emergency’ backup.”  He finished before turning more towards me, getting a look on his face that seemed to be trying at calming.  “As for you Kyth, I’d say you have something of an ‘elder god’ aspect to your body. Being Cthulhu and shit is beyond my current understanding, but from what we COULD understand.  Whatever YOU did, or didn’t do triggered it in your weakened state, like a next-to-last resort. It gave you a period of access to a higher level of power than your body could currently take for a short while to help you survive or escape but then left you even further burnt out than when it started.”

I nodded slowly. Was that a part of my blackouts? “Huh… I didn’t know that I had that…”

Jen gave me a concerned look and patted my shoulder. I gave a small smile to try and comfort her before turning back to Jack.

“So aside from all that, you two kiddos get to undergo medical leave while you are here.  As for your world’s contacts, well they were invited over after much ‘nagging’ and ‘questions to be had.  Though don’t be too surprised by how they look…” He said pointing downwards at the only door to the room, as F.A.U.S.T. with him gave a slight frown.

I blinked and deadpanned as I heard approaching foot(hoof?)steps, and at the door I saw a now anthro Twilight, Spike, and Sombra walking uncertainly into the room, clearly still learning how to operate their forms, followed by a pair of Angel Loaders. All of them were dressed in various bits of basic ‘Hyperion’ logoed clothing, seeming unused to them. Spike and Sombra lit up when they saw us, charging forward and ramming into me in a hug. I grit my teeth as I coughed up a small amount of blood in my mouth and swallowed it down, patting them both on the head with gritting teeth.

“H-hey guys… What’s up?”

Sombra locked eyes with me and I flinched back as he socked me dead in the schnoz. I put a hand to my face as he yelled at me.

“You nearly destroy yourselves and all you say is ‘What is up’!? IDIOT! THOUS HAD US SCARED FOR THINE LIVES!”

“Sorry guys, just sorta… Still adjusting.”

I blinked as I remembered to see what Jack knew about our attackers.

“Hey Jack, your world has Borderlands stuff, right?”

Jack took this moment to respond over the speakers in the room causing the others ears/fins to move trying to locate him.  

“Sure it does, though the lovely Mare next to me has caused many things herself while i was imprisoned, the only oddities are the Vault Hunters from Pandora show up. Though their timing can be perfectly bad at times or often…”  

He growled out with a scowling expression visible from the observation room as F.A.U.S.T. looked to have been injecting something into his neck, visibly relaxing a bit rubbing his face.  “Lets just say there’s one who is at the top of my list for the pain I feel often…  If you haven’t noticed my face.”

I looked at Jen and then back to Jack. “Those Vault Hunters you mentioned… They look like the character from the game but with glow-y purple eyes?” His reaction was a Thumb’s up through tapped the glass so they could see where he was, with a Alicorn robot next to him.

“Then… We were attacked by a couple of them. They’re the ones who got us all jacked up!”

Jack raised an eyebrow at that, he moved closer to the window only to look like he’s in a wheelie computer chair.  “Is your girlfriend willing to share her memories of the fight from first seeing them to it’s end?  Could be rather useful to look over, though if not she can go into detail later whenever.”  

He made a tapping motion on his wrist as a holographic menu appeared in front of Jen showing a listing of power converting Reactors. She nodded and scanned over the menu, eventually choosing an Eridium Reactor, giving a high output of power which could be used or stored by Jen and her systems. The only downsides to it were that the current bar of eridium in use would be converted to slag over time as it was used and a new one would need to be swapped out for it. Of course the slag Jen would probably find a use for and the eridium we could find some way to pay for when the time came. Jen rubbed her jaw as the repair units managed to give her a temporary patch-job and spoke in a raspy-static filtered voice.

“I’ll t-take this one. But uh… How much is it?”

Jack displayed the price for it in bits, the number floating over it was close to a hundred thousand bits due to the modification efficency and power output per bar.

 “How’s your bit purse cupcake?”

Jen shrugged and made a ‘so-so’ hand gesture. “We make a decent, albeit not huge salary from protecting the town part-time. Though Kyth can just magic up some more bits with the Inspiration Manifestation tome when it’s safe for him to use magic again.”

Jack just frowned at the answer, folding his arms looking at me and Jen.  “So how are either of you going to ‘legit pay’ for the medical/mechanical treatments and part?  Because what you are doing is a shifty sort of ‘forgery’ of your world’s currency, there is likely some sort of law against that.”

I blinked. “Uh… I actually never thought about that. Well we do make some bits and stuff but... “

I grinned as I got an idea.

        “Well is my weird demon-whatever blood worth anything? The stuff has some odd properties to it from what I saw during our fight with those Vault jerks. Plus my weird un-scannability whatever, maybe my blood could be studied to try and figure that out.”

Jen chipped in. “On another note, our world does have some seem to have some small amounts of Orichalcum in it, so that’s probably worth something. And the same disruption to scanners is present in certain areas around our world, so we could see if we could trade intel on that.”

Twilight’s ear twitched at this. “What’re you talking about? What’s orichalcum? And what do you mean about Kyth’s blood being unscannable?”

Spike spoke up at this point. “And what’s an ‘eridium reactor’?”

Sombra followed suit. “And why should we care?”

Jen decided to try and explain some of that before anything else.

“Well, Orichalcum is a metal/alloy something that nullifies all magic which comes into contact with it. We don’t know much about it other than that. I actually found a couple of bucklers made of the stuff, if you want an example. Hey, where are those? I had them on me when I got taken out…”

Twilight held a numb expression for a moment after hearing that before responding. “What!? How could something like that exist!? Magic is present in everything, something like that should be impossible, and if not then surely Princess Celestia would’ve made sure to get rid of it all!”

Spike blinked and walked over to her, handing a paper bag to Twilight, seeming to want her to calm down.

“Deep breaths Twilight, deep breaths…”

While she hyperventilated into the bag, Sombra seemed to ponder all of this.

“Or-i-chal-cum…. Hmm. I have heard of it in rumors and legend around the empire. It was believed to have been a metal capable of making even the gods themselves bleed, and as such any amount of it was revered and widely sought… To have found any of it at all is impressive. I myself had looked into it, but found no results other than further rumor…”

Jack cut in by bluntly stating what he knew.  “Well so far I have enough being sampled currently to make a Dagger from, but when I received it from Avarice.  The arrow heads turned into the front ends to BULLETS, just without the casing.  But as for your pieces, they are held in a gravity locker until you can retrieve it.  That is unless you wish to trade one in return for your medical bills, the reactor and 30 bars of Eridium.”  

Jack made his offer at the end watching our reaction, also our friends. Jen put a hand to her jaw in thought.

“Hmm. That would be useful, but then again the bucklers could seriously come in handy… Could I have some time to consider?”

Twilight seemed a bit calmed down by this point and spoke up. “A-actually I may have  a deal for you… Um, Princess Celestia gives me a monthly stipend for the various subjects of magic which I research in Ponyville. If you’re willing to maybe let me study those bucklers myself then I could most likely pay off most of those expenses.”

Jen nodded. “That’d be alright, as long as I still keep the bucklers. Jack sir that sound alright?”

His business gaze shifted over to Twilight as a Hologram menu appeared in front of her.  

“This would be the total cost for their treatment, the individual purchases of what Jen wishes and needs are there.  Also the minor cheap cost of those ‘duds’ you three are wearing upon coming here.”  

What the total value showed Kyth’s medical treatment was less than Jen’s repairs due to mechanical parts and adjustments to her frame to be as it was before the fight. Twilight considered it for a moment before nodding.

“Th-that’s pretty high… But then again, my stipend should allow for most of that, and I can dip slightly into savings for the rest.”

Jen shook her head at this. “Twilight we can’t just let you spend up your savings on us!”

“Jen it’s perfectly alright. The knowledge I could gain from those bucklers, not to mention from the two of you, is more than worth simple bits! Not to mention what I’ve seen here… Besides, I have enough saved that it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Jen hesitatingly nodded and Twilight signed off for the costs. “Of course I will need to stop off back home to collect the money, would that be alright?”

Jack nodded though an Anthro Unicorn Claptrap with a grey tone paint in an equally dull business suit with fashionable glasses with symbols moving across it entered the room to walk up to her offering a greeting before a business card with the name ‘H.O.M.A.G.E.’ written on it.  “Homage here will accompany you until the payment been received and return, late payments have penalties if not done on a timely manner IF you decided to do it in monthly transactions. The token these two have in your world would accept it.”

        Twilight nodded with this and gave us an uncertain look. “I’m assuming that you two WILL explain all of this later?”

We both nodded and she nodded back to Jack. He just smiled at her while F.A.U.S.T. still had her hand on his shoulder in what seemed to be closeness. While the order for it all was processed, we started giving Twilight, Spike, and Sombra the truth about us and the Displaced. This also included the fact that Jack’s world seemed to convert any Equestrains that came into it to ‘anthro’ form. She was understandably blown away, but surprisingly understood our reasoning for not telling anyone.

“Something like that… This could change all of Equestria if it gets loose…”

Her eyes lit up with a slightly manic glow.

“Just think of all the possibilities for new magic, science, everything from other worlds… So much to gain. Hmm… Though I already ponder theoretics about this sort of thing, having it confirmed is amazing! But… Most ponies wouldn’t be able to handle all of this. It hurts that you didn’t trust us with this, but then again… I can see why.”

Sombra raised a hand. “Question! Is this ‘eridium’ an edible sort of gem by dragon standards?”

Jack responded by smiling more at that, a trademark smirk from the game plastered on his face.

“Yes dragons can eat it, Unicorns can absorb it’s magic strengthening properties temporarily and YES it could be smashed to absorb said bar’s energies.  But depending on the addictive disadvantages from continuous use, would result a drug like addiction to it with a minor case of DEATH without it in the situation for Sirens.”  

His eyes bore into Sombra during that entire point, likely having a meaning at that when he emphasized death. Sombra nodded at this and seemed to consider it. Twilight seemed worried by the idea of the negative effects of it.

“Is it safe for Jen to be using so much of it then if it could harm someone like that?”

Spike seemed worried by different reasons.

“So… There’s gems out there that can actually harm me even though they’re delicious!?”

Jack had a deadpan expression on his face before stating his response.  “Really?  She’s not technically flesh and blood as you are Twilight, so YES she is safe using it.  Though the Slag may become an issue due to it technically being ‘Magical Fallout’ by studies done by my Equestria. But if enough were collected and turned in we can recycle that into a bar every three used, but remember Jen think of it as something that lasts half as long as a normal bar.”

Jen nodded. “Yeah, though I do have one question. Would the slag produced by the core work like slag from the games? Like reacting to make stuff more susceptible to damage?”

Jack nodded at this as he gave a grin.  “Of course, though how good is your aim with what is essentially sludge?”

“Eh, my systems have some functions that could aim stuff like water which could be used for that sort of purpose. But just a well, I could probably find something to use it for in some of my own studies, and in Twilights.”

Twilight nodded to this and I spoke up to Twilight. “Uh… So, are you gonna spill the secret about us to everyone back in our Equestria?”

She pondered this with a troubled look. “Well… I don’t like the idea of lying to my friends, let alone the Princesses… But I suppose I could put off telling them about all of… this until it becomes important for them to know.”

I let out a breath I’d been holding and gave Twilight a tired smile. “Thanks Twilight. We owe you one.”

She snickered. “Well I’d say you owe me more than one, but I’d say giving me all of these research opportunities is a decent enough payment.”

Jack took a moment to add in another deal for us.

 “If you are willing to offer your Blood or artifacts of verified value that can earn you a commission worth in bits, depending on what you bring. Admittedly Blood will be lower payouts, it’s not like this is an earth genetics lab or a sperm bank.”  He added with a look before shaking his head from a possible memory.

 “Short story is, you get paid for a haggled low but decent price for any blood but artifacts can be talked about when it happens.  Unless your Twilight desires to become the first ‘choice’ at what you get.”  Jack grinned softly at Twilight while the Alicorn robot next to him chuckled softly.

Twilight gave a sheepish grin at this and I gave a thumbs up.

“Good to know! Though the blood’ll probably be a last resort for us since with Twi paying for all of this we’re less severely needing aid. As for the artifacts we’ll probably go on a case by case basis in how we deal with those as well.”

Twilight gave me a curious look. “Where or what is ‘earth’?”

A bit of my cheeriness faded. “...Home. We’ll uh… We’ll tell ya later.”

She seemed to understand that I didn’t want to talk about it and nodded.

Jack took a pondering sit looking down at us.  

“Let us talk again and exchange ‘notes’ about Earths, but someone has to go pay.”

Twilight nodded. “I’m assuming that we can reach you with that odd device that brought us here?”

I chipped in. “She means the Acquisition Beacon.”

Nodding his head, Jack spoke again as the male claptrap next to Jen started to install the Eridium Reactor inside her chest.  

“Yes, it is referred to as a Token by most. Met some who use other words but most just do that.”  

As after that was said the Robotic Alicorn offered him a pad, as he looked it over before signing for something, as a black smoke formed behind him giving a hug from behind with slitted teal eyes looking down at us with a visible snarl speaking up with disdain mostly leveled at Twilight and Sombra.  

“You bring the ‘strangest’ of guests to our moon…”

I wasn’t sure what to make of the newcomer so I simply braced myself for if any sort of action was needed. Twilight's eyes widened for a moment before she took a slow breath and spoke to the shadowy figure.

“I’m going to assume that you are ‘this’ Equestria’s Nightmare Moon?”

Her response is a dark chuckle before showing her fanged teeth with pride.  

“We would be, though know we won’t relinquish our claim on this one as our mate!”  Jack’s expression when she said that drew onto a deadpan before he mumbled something that wasn’t heard, likely refusing the fact before bringing up ‘why’ she would say that as Twilight gained a confused expression.

“Short answer is that she’s into me because of my nature and how my personality is like, despite not being able to use magic.  From the studies I’ve done and simply prodding for answers, ‘I’ am able to impregnate an alicorn because of my ‘severe lacking of magic’ while a normal one with their high ‘power level’ only makes it more difficult to get knocked up. But put me into that mathematical equation and you get lucky every time…”

Twiight slowly nodded, seeming to accept the logic of that before responding.

“Okay… So why did she think I would object to you being her….’mate’?”

Jack’s response was to shift the topic to something else, ignoring her question rather suddenly.  

“So, how are the Wonderbolts for your Universe?”  

Nightmare was still staring at twilight before nodding as she nuzzled the side of his head before licking Jack’s neck resulting in him pushing her muzzle away giving a pointed look. Twilight shrugged, seeming to understand his intent.

“W-well I’ve never been one for sports all that much, though my friend Rainbow Dash is a huge fan of theirs.”

Jen spoke up in an attempt to help with this. “Well maybe we can go see a show of theirs sometime!”

Twilight nodded. “S-sure thing! That sounds like fun eheheh…”

The male Claptrap at Jen’s bed input a glowing ingot of Eridium into Jen’s new reactor, activating it before closing up quietly likely asking in computer for her to test her mobility and such medical things. She nodded and stood up, testng her joints a bit before testing out a few low-key transformations and the like. She gave a thumbs up, and the claptrap which had helped her install the new core handed her old Dox battery back to her, and she placed it into a storage compartment. Another claptrap walked in and held out Jen’s bucklers, both of which were wrapped up in a cloth for safe keeping. After she returned Jen’s bucklers she walked over to me, holding out my sword in its sheath which I gladly returned to my belt. I looked back up to Jack as I slowly stood up, having to be careful from my injuries. Jen walked over and I leaned into her as I looked up to Jack.

“Well I think we’re all done here then, other than payments.”

The H.O.M.A.G.E. unit walked over and held out a contract for Twilight, who lit up her horn to sign with her magic. The Contract glowed before vanishing into F.A.U.S.T.’s grasp magically, as the aura on it matched what washed over Twilight as Jack explained.  

“What just happened was a bit of Contract magic, failure to follow through results in bad things.  Or Faust here will collect in her own ways for payment.”  

There was a barely eye blink moment where said Alicorn’s eyes turned to black pits with a white pinprick at the center leveled at us, sending a shiver to down all of our spines. Twilight nervously nodded as did Jen and I. I spoke up, still a bit nervous.

“W-well alright. We’ll make sure the payment goes in through the beacon. Thanks again for the help Jack, is there anything else you need before we head back?”

“Just watch out for life threatening situations, or to avoid nearly dieing at my Token’s base needing help.  Because the least you could do is to come if near or halfway near such a state.”  He plainly said with a flat look, putting one hand on his chin as the elbow rested on his knee.  “Oh and Twilight if you want some ‘cheap and easy’ medical knowledge you can buy that.”

Twilight gave him a nod and I shrugged. “Eh, your beacon was honestly the best bet I had at the time. The only tokens we have are yours, Dox’s, a Bill Cipher’s, and a Pitch Blacks. The only ones of those that could offer medical help in that situation as far as I know about them all would be you or Dox, and Dox would most likely lack the technology to fix Jen. But just as well, hopefully we won’t get to that state again. Well, see you later Jack and F.A.U.S.T.!”

I waved along with Jen and the others, and we headed for the portal home as we were directed to it. The portal itself was a circular machine, surrounded by symbols of an unknown sort as it lit up and a rift formed in it. We all entered in and found ourselves standing in front of the Acquisition Beacon back home. Jen stretched her arm out to catch Spike, Sombra and Twilight as they all fell over, suddenly returned to being quadrupeds rather than bipeds. Twilight's eyes lit up as she considered everything she had seen.

“Okay, I’m going to get the payment for everything after the work for repairing the town is done, and then get straight to researching!”

I spoke hesitantly at this. “Uh… repairing?”

It was at this point I looked up and saw how trashed the front of our house was, as well as a small glimpse to the rest of the town. Jeez… Those Vault Dwellers did a number on the place. I locked eyes with Jen and we both looked back at the town. Twilight continued speaking at this.

“Yeah, those ‘Vault Hunter’s’ did a number on the town. Thankfully the only repercussions of them is a few damaged buildings and some small injuries, but a while back I found out the town’s prepared for that sort of thing. There’s a lot of bad stuff that seems to attract to Ponyville, so there’s a town fund in place to help for damages from random attacks. Everyone’s pretty close in town, so no one minds chipping in to help each other out. It’ll take a little while to fix up everything but overall the only thing lost will be time.”

I nodded and made a silent vow to myself. We were lucky no one was killed with the way that they had fought us… God, we nearly got killed because I wasn’t strong enough to fight on my own, not to mention the fact that in a life-or-death battle I blacked out… The only reason I had made it this far was the fact that I could use my sword’s specialized strikes by instinct, but other than that I was swinging the thing clumsily with no real skill. I needed someone to teach me how to actually use a sword with real skill.

I couldn’t let us fall into that situation again. I had to become stronger, to defend not only the town but… I couldn’t let Jen get that hurt again.

I wouldn’t allow it.

Chapter Twenty One: Sun, Moon, and Star

----Jen POV----

When we made it through the portal I caught Twilight, Spike, and Sombra as they reverted to their normal forms, keeping them from falling. Kyth leaned onto me as I helped him get into the house proper, sitting him down when we made it to the couch. I was back to full capacity, but Kyth was still an organic. He’d be messed up for a bit, but I had seen the meager data that had been gathered on him back in Jack’s world and could tell he’d recover soon enough. Twilight was holding onto one of my bucklers and the other was on my arm, and she was talking about how much she could stand to learn from everything about us, and I simply gave her a smile. After Kyth was sat down I went to the basement briefly, storing some of the excess eridium I had on me along with the drained Dox battery for later. I kept a backup supply of the former of these for if I needed to quickly swap out but the rest would be stored safely here. I quickly went back upstairs and decided to get to work with Twilight.

“Alright, so what all needs to be done in town?”

“Well, it’s mainly a few buildings that need repairs, but luckily enough there’s already materials around for all that so it should be easy. Since Kyth is injured then he could help keep track of what all needs to be done.”

I saw Kyth shake his head, as if realizing he was lost in thought and then acknowledging what had been said. He slowly stood up and we went with Twilight to the damaged areas. When we arrived I froze slightly, seeing our Equestria’s Celestia and Luna talking to some of the injured. Whoo boy… Kyth and I had been avoiding them with purpose, not really interested in dealing with them after hearing about how alternates of them had reacted to other Displaced. I glanced at Twilight and she smiled reassuringly, jerking her head towards them to tell me to go. I nodded feeling glad that she was helping us keep everything secret. She led us towards the princesses, who looked up first at Twilight, then giving me a confused glance, and then seeming to freeze upon seeing Kyth. Twilight started speaking to them.

“Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, I’d like for you to meet-”

Luna cut her off with a look of rage towards Kyth and I. “Look out Twilight Sparkle, they are behind you!”

Her horn lit up and she magicked Twilight behind her and Celestia, the latter of whom sent a wave of magic towards us. I quickly grabbed my other buckler, it having been left behind when Twilight was teleported, and locked it onto my other arm. I brought them up to block the wave and glared at the princesses.

“What’s your problem!?”

Celestia rose into the air, magic accruing around her horn as she prepared a spell of some sort.

“You do not fool my sister nor I! We have foreseen the arrival of that thing and we will not allow it to rise to power!”

I blinked and looked at Kyth, who shrugged, clearly as confused as I was. I looked back to Celestia.

“Uh lady, I think there’s been a mixup of some sort h-”

Before I could finish, Celestia unleashed the spell she’d charged, sending a lance of pure golden energy towards Kyth. I activated my thruster sand rocketed in the way, using my bucklers to null the blast. I yelled angrily at her. Considering how much shit had gone down with other Displaced I didn’t want to make an enemy of the princesses if I could help it, but considering that they were hellbent on killing Kyth for whatever reason, it seemed that I wouldn’t have much of a choice. Hopefully I could find out what had them so enraged later…

“Alright, you wanna play like that? Fine, let’s play!”

Luna and Celestia charged at us, going to my left and right respectively. I couldn’t kill or seriously injure them, so a bunch of my weapons were off-limits, so for the moment I’d have to be on the defensive. I gestured for Kyth to get behind cover. While he was injured I didn’t want him to get involved with combat, since he could easily get further injured. I dodged around, getting to the other sides of the princesses and zapping them with a small beam from each of my hands. In truth the beam wouldn’t even hurt a normal pony, but it was enough to get their attentions on me rather than Kyth. Both of them started flinging spells at me, and I was able to use my scanners to predict their aiming well enough to intercept them all before anyone was injured. I watched Twilight seeming to try and get to me or the princesses, only to be held back by the other elements of harmony. I looked back to the fight in time to realize I hadn’t been focusing on my scanners and that Luna had used that opportunity to strike an armored hoof into my face. I took a tumble but was otherwise fine. Alicorn strength or no, my armor was at peak condition again. Of course, Luna seemed to assume that I was already defeated by a single hit from her.

“Yield metal golem! We have come to strike down the elder one and you shall not stop us!”

Elder one? Did she…Oh. Okay. From what I could figure, they thought Kyth was actually Cthulhu (I would find out how they even knew about Cthulhu later) and wanted to stop  him since Cthulhu’s all about madness and the like… I held up my hands in a defensive gesture.

“Uh, I think there may have been a mix-up with-”

A pulse of magic went off against my jaw and clocked me while I wasn’t focused. I rolled into a standing position and balled my fists. I didn’t want to hurt them but they were making it really difficult to be nonviolent. Luna gave me a hateful glare and spoke in a low voice.

“We have no place in Equestria for you and your ilk, elder one. We have seen thine taint lurking across the realms, always at the threshold of mortal sights… We were raised on legends of your return, and we shall NOT allow it!”

I looked back at Kyth, who had a completely confused expression after all that, and then back to Luna.

“Lady you’ve got the wrong guy here!”

“We will not be swayed! Thine is a tale of corruption and falsehood, and thou shalt not fool us!”

Luna shot into the air, her horn igniting with magic as she bore her horn down on me, I braced my bucklers to absorb the blow…

Which didn’t hit. I blinked and looked up in confusion at Luna, where she was suspended in the air by a golden aura, which I used my scanners to trace back to Celestia, who was standing next to Twilight in the area behind Luna. She spoke in an uncertain voice to all of us.

“Sister, we may wish to halt our attacks. From what Twilight Sparkle has told me, these two have behaved differently than those of the legends… Mayhaps we can get each others’ sides of this matter?”

She looked at me with a raised eyebrow and I nodded slowly, not wanting to set Luna off.

Being the impartial party here, Twilight guided us all into the library, where we all sat across the room from each other, tensely waiting for Celestia to begin telling her side, after which we’d do the same. Celestia spoke slowly, starting us off.

“For as long as we have lived, Luna and I have always had… Foresight, some might say. Events past, present, and future, we are sometimes given glimpses as to events across Equestria. Most often these are of events of great import, those which could change the course of history. These are often difficult to understand, and it is left to us to interpret what they could mean. But one thing we have seen, is that all across the span of our lives, there have always been...shadows.”

Luna spoke next.

“There are legends, as old as written history, of creatures beyond our knowing that have been sealed away for all of eternity. They are beings of enough power that they could destroy all of our world and even others if awoken. They lurk beyond understanding and comprehension, and it is told in the stories of our worlds very creation that it would be the prison for one of these...things. It is one of the most sacred duty of the rulers of the realms to maintain the bonds of our world, keeping it sealed away and the world safe. But there are… Interlopers. Those who would bring the end of our world and awaken the thing beneath all things… In the waking and unconscious world, I have seen them. Lurking, waiting at the threshold of our sights, making events take courses which they should not… But with all this, there has always been one thing that has shown itself to us.”

I spoke in a low voice, a feeling of dread coming over me.

“And what’s that?”

Celestia answered me with an even tone.

“Just before the end of days, when those things which we cannot know rise and the world falls, Equestria would be met with two beings from beyond the stars. A maiden of metal will arrive with one...One that would be the avatar to that which is dead and fallen, and would give rise to the end of all...”

That… That didn’t sound good. But Kyth certainly wasn’t any sort of avatar, let alone to any kind of ‘end of days’... Still, it merited thought. While I considered all of this, Kyth started telling our story. It would do way more bad than good to lie about ourselves, so with Twilight confirming what she’d seen we gave them the full record of all that we’d seen though with some minor edits (Kyths blackouts seemed worth hiding, as did the fact that we had foreknowledge from watching MLP). Celestia and Luna were understandably shaken by all that we had told them, and were willing to judge us as we were. They certainly didn’t trust us, but for the moment they were giving us a chance to prove to them that we weren’t a threat. Well, Celestia was anyway. Luna seemed to be struggling merely to tolerate our existence, but for the moment she would allow us to be.

While we dealt with the princesses most of the repairs in town were finished (jeez, the town could work fast when they were motivated) and we headed back home to start repairs on our house from what my fight with the Deathtrap had done. Kyth and I had also decided to give a serious look into what they had been talking about. Avatars of destruction didn’t bode well for us or for this version of Equestria. Before anything else though, Kyth got my attention and drew his sword.

“Hey Jen, before something comes up and I forget, should we try and check on Dox? If Jack and F.A.U.S.T. were right then maybe something happened to him.”

I nodded and Kyth’s sword lit up with the same swirling looks of galaxies and stars which Dox’s dice token previously held. Kyth uncertainly spoke into it.

“Hey uh… Dox, you there?”

I watched the sword begin to shake in Kyth’s grip, a burning light encompassing it. A wave of energy pulsed from it. knocking me back as Kyth struggled to keep his grip. A storm of energy surged along the length of the blade, magical flames of an unknown sort burning across Kyth’s arms as he held the blade. He yelled in pain, swinging the sword and seeming to eject Dox’s token from it as he plunged it into the ground. The die floated in the air holding the same burning glow as it surged with power. I grabbed my bucklers and slammed them onto either side of the token, just barely containing it as it seemed to explode with power. After it resided I let go, and where formerly a six-sided dice had been a new item fell. I cautiously reached down to pick is up, examining it. It appeared to be a necklace with a twenty sided dice attached to the cord by some kind of golden metal. I looked up from it as I heard Kyth growling in pain.

I rushed over to him and morphed a hand into a bandage dispenser and worked quickly to treat whatever kind of burns he had gotten though they seemed unnatural both in how they burned and in how Kyth’ form reacted to them. He growled as he clenched a fist, his hands and arms up to the elbows now bandaged. He reached down and drew his sword from the ground, seeming to inspect it. The blade seemed to have dulled a bit, seeming to have lost some of its shine. Along with that, cracks marred the metal in ways that should have broken it, though it oddly held itself together. Kyth narrowed his eyes and slid his sword back into its sheath and picked up the odd item that had replaced Dox’s token. He spoke in a low voice, easily conveying the fact that he was ticked off.

“I think I need to have a few… choice words with Dox.”

Chapter Twenty Two: Screaming, Swords, and Such

----Jen POV----  

As Kyth summoned Dox through whatever his token had transformed into, a portal burst into light in front of him. From the portal I watched in confusion as a fifteen foot tall, very much anthro, scantily clad, and silver version of Luna rocketed out of it, barreling into Kyth. She looked down at him, roughly grabbing him before he could react and shoving his head into her chest. She spoke in a tone that conveyed an attempt to sound casual.

        “Hey there, sexy squidface. Long time no see. So, how’s it going? Make any squid-robot babies?”

He grunted in pain and then growled, pushing to get away from her, and clearly having the rough treatment bring pain from what remained of his injuries.

“Get. Off. Now.”

“Nah, I think I like you were you are, squidface.” She responded. “In fact, it wouldn’t be against me to- OW!”

I hovered into the air to be on equal level with her and slapped her upside the head for manhandling Kyth. I spoke in a  neutral tone.

“I did that because Kyth can’t right now. So get the hell off him ya crazy whorse!”

“Hey! I’ll have you know that I am not like that!” She declared, letting go of Kyth and turning to smack me upside the head in turn. “And who are you to call me a whore? You are a robot, as far as I can tell with you two, you can’t even have sex.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You claim not to be that way, when you come out of nowhere, ask about people’s sex lives and then shove an injured guy’s face into your rack. And yeah, I could have sex if I-”

“Prove it.” She said.

“Why would I want to prove myself to some crazy anthro horse lady that came out of nowhere to ask about my sex life?”

“Because I don’t believe you. You say you can have sex, get on down here and either bang your boyfriend, or come get some of me.” She said calmly. “Come on, you know you want to try this.”

I gave off a repulsed look and shook my head. “Firstly, my door doesn’t swing that way. Second of all, I’m not into random interdimensional skanks that hit on my boyfriend. Thirdly, I dont gotta prove shit to you lady.”

“Eh, your loss.” She said, waving me off. “And for your information, I wasn’t hitting on Kyth. Why the hell would I hit on a friend that I barely see? I mean, there’s Ava, but she’s different. Come on, bud, tell her!”

Kyth looked down at the copy of Dox's token in his hand and then back up at her. He spoke in an uncertain tone.

“So you turned into a horse lady Dox?”

“And of course I get that response.” She replied. “Good job, I’m a horse lady, neigh. You insult us so.”

“Seriously, though, Kyth. A horse lady? I am not a horse! I am a pony! And before that, I’m a god!” She proudly declared, spreading her wings with a cheeky grin.

Kyth kept an even glare, staying silent for a moment and seeming to take a breath and consider himself.

“I don’t give a damn. You have some fucking EXPLAINING to do!”

“Ah, but what’s the fun with that!” She(He? I wasn't really sure what Dox identified as by this point...) said as... She... stood up, but hunched over, and started walking away from us. “Where the hell are we, anyways? I can’t even stand up properly in here.”

Kyth spoke in an even tone. “We’re in Jen and I’s living room, what’s left of it anyway, after your token and Deathtrap going through it.”

“Oh, so that’s why it looks like it’s crap. Oh hey! A hole in the wall!” She said, slipping out of the house via a hole left from the Vault Hunters and my fight, and out into the open. “Huh, looks like Ponyville. You guys live in Ponyville? Hah! I forget what it’s like down in this town. Mind if I look around?”

Kyth spoke in a low tone and his eyebrow twitched as he responded to the now obviously zoned out Dox.

"No, no you may not!"

“I’m sorry, what was that? I can go? Thanks!” She said, having completely ignored Kyth. As she made to leave he placed a hand on her shoulder and turned her back around to face him. He hovered in the air behind her, his wings seeming to struggle to hold him up.

“Like hell! You aren’t going anywhere until you explain what the fuck happened with your token and with the blood you gave Jen!”

“Ah, that. Ya see, about that. Kinda destroyed my last token.” She explained. “That… And I kinda became a god… and lost graces with the DM… Why the hell are YOU so angry?”

Kyth was silent for a moment before responding. “You fucked up my sword. I can forgive that. You jacked up my hands. I can get over that much too. But you didn’t even give us a warning of shit, and you know what?”

He leaned his face close to Dox's. “YOU NEARLY GOT JEN KILLED! THAT I cannot forgive! And you ask me why I’m MAD!?”

“Well, how about that. Squidface has some testes.” She said. “Now, here’s a better question: How the hell was I supposed to alert you, to know what would happen? Answer? I don’t have a way to know any of that shit. So calm your green tits, and shut up.”

He kept his glare. “Maybe you wouldn’t have known about the shit that happened, but it would’ve been one thing if you actually gave us some warning. Oh hey guys, y’know that blood I gave you that’s keeping Jen from running out of power and that she needs to stay alive? That’s gonna suddenly crap out, just thought I’d let ya know! But no, hell even now we called you! If it wasn’t for Jack and F.A.U.S.T. then when Jen ran out of power then we wouldn’t have had any way to fix her! Don’t tell me to calm down, jackass, I’m justified in this.”

“Really? Really? Again, how the fucking HELL was I supposed to know what was going on outside my world? I ask you this in earnest.” She said, finally seeming to get ticked off by Kyth's anger. “I mean, seriously? You think I actually KNEW that Jen’s battery would die? That I would become this and screw over everyone? That my destroying my token would do that to you? Who are you to say that I did?! Who are you to say that you’re justified?!”

As she spoke, her form slowly seemed to shift, losing any resemblance to Luna and taking on a form comparable only to a human  fused with...something else. As she fully shifted into her new form, she stared at Kyth with a pair of unnatural green eyes.

"I’ve been bastardized by a being who creates life when he sneezes! I lost EVERYTHING close to me! Hell, I can’t even properly control who or WHAT I am! DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT’S LIKE?! I’VE LOST EVERYTHING!”

She stopped screaming at Kyth for a moment and looked over herself.

“I lost everything I was…”

Her eyes and Kyth's locked for a moment.  “Luna, Celestia, Emerald, Sapphire, Athena, Bluebelle, Arbok. Avarice, Jacob, and who knows all those other Displaced at your bachelor party. You have ALL OF THEM. Me? I grew up alone. My parents died when I was five. I was raised by my cousin, who was only five years older than me, and my drunk-off-his-ass uncle. After getting Displaced, I have no idea what happened to my cousin, he might’ve been Displaced as well, he may not have. He might be dead, might be waiting somewhere. Other than him, I only have a few friends back home, who I also have no idea whether they’re alive, dead, or otherwise. I don’t let it keep me down, because I have one person that cares about me that I know for certain is alive, and that I can keep that way damn it!  I know what it’s like to lose myself, too… My own mind feels...wrong. Stolen… But I keep going. Maybe you didn’t think about it right away, but there was no warning that Jen was about to run dry until it was too late.”

Kyth's gaze fell to the ground, seeming to lose some of his anger. I frowned with concern towards Kyth... Why hadn't he told me about all of this? I knew about his situation with his cousin back on Earth, but... “Maybe you didn’t have anything to make you think Jen’d be in trouble from your blood running out of power but... “ Kyth let out a breath and seemed to deflate a bit. “If I’m not mad at you for this then that just leaves me to blame…”

“Listen, buddy, we’re all to blame. Even when we’re not, we are.” Dox said, trying to console Kyth. “Ya just can’t go pointing fingers at people. It doesn’t help anyone.” Dox shifted forms back into his silver Luna form. “Now, let’s have that tour around town, shall we?”

Kyth nodded as he dropped back to the ground, and I immediately went up to give him a hug as he cracked a small smile. Kyth turned back to face Doxuna.

“Uh… You may want to go into a smaller form. The town just got attacked by a pair of Vault Hunters from Jack’s world, and they might be a bit skittish by something your size.”

“Yeeeaaaah, about that. Not really sure if I can…” She said sheepishly.

“Um… I’m guessing your shapeshifting whatever abilities got messed up somehow then?”

“I guess you could say that.” She said. “It’s more like they’ve been amped as hell and I’m kind of having trouble getting everything correct right now, so excuse me if I can’t turn into a smaller creature right now.”

Kyth put a hand to his jaw and glanced outside, giving a shrug.

“Well it is nightfall, so I suppose that there won’t be many ponies around… Then again, our Princess Luna is sorta suspicious of us. Might not be the best idea to have random giant beings around until we know more.”

“Yeah… I’m a just go check shit out, so laters.” She said as I started to walk into town.

“Why do you want to go into our version of Ponyville so bad?” Kyth asked, getting a shrug out of her. Dox was acting pretty weirdly...

“Well, I mean, why the hell not?” She said. “We can just have some fun!”

“Well we were actually just about to start trying to fix our house… Since, y’know, it’s exploded. How about we do that some other time?” Kyth explained.

“Oh, you’re no fun.” She said. “Come on! I don’t want shit to start happening! Let’s just go! I could help you with your house problem, but I don’t know what side effects my new powers would have.”

Kyth raised an eyebrow. “Uh...okay?”

“No, seriously, if I just give you the ‘gift’ of a fixed house, it could end up becoming all...I don’t know! It could turn all sci-fi futuristic to contrast the rest of your world, it could have even a...uh...okay, not mentioning what crossed my mind. But it could even come with an infestation, or something wrong. I’d rather not risk it.” She warned.

Kyth and I glanced at each other and we both shrugged.

“That aside, if I don’t move someplace interesting soon, or I don’t get entertained somehow, I’m kinda scared that something that popped up recently is going to punish me.” She told us, her wings letting off an involuntary flutter. “So...I can help, but I might have to leave soon. Or I could just, fly off, find someplace else.”

I shrugged and offered a response.

“Eh it’s alright. I guess. You can go back wherevs we summoned you if you want.”

Kyth raised a hand to cut Dox off before she could respond.

“Actually Dox… You’re a swordsman, right?”

“Doxuna, please. Anyhow, I’m not a master, but I’m a hand with a sword. Kinda had to be, especially with Sapphire beating the shit out of me in practice sessions when I was still serving as the active king of her former hive...gotta go check on that…And Urahara...anyway, I could help, sure!”

Her demeanor seemed to shift from bubbly and upbeat to rather grim for a moment.

“But I won’t pull punches. The way I was taught, I had to be kept on the bleeding knife-edge of near death, in a true constant death battle for days on end. Trust me, Urahara was ruthless, even with the starting instruction I got from Sapphire. Now, if you really want me as a teacher, I suggest you buck up and be ready to experience pain, and a lot of it. I may not show it, but a good amount of the shit Urahara taught me should have left scars. Deep scars.”

Kyth seemed to consider this and nodded. “I might not be able to go full out from my injuries, but just as well. I need actual training, I can’t just be swinging this thing around like a freakin’ club.”

I wasn't sure if Kyth should be going into training so soon after getting patched up, but then again he seemed excited enough that I couldn't bear to stop him. And I guessed he had recovered fast enough to handle it...

“Well then, first lesson. How to- DODGE!” Dox/Doxuna yelled as she chucked a knife she had pulled from her satchel at Kyth. Kyth jerked to the side, mostly avoiding the blade but having it still leave a cut across the side of his arm. I grit my teeth at that, glancing at at the knife as it landed on the ground, covered in Kyth's black blood. I ran my scanners over the knife, identifying it as orichalcum, and noting that it seemed to be reacting against Kyth's blood...It clung to the blade like it were liquid metal on a magnet and yet seemed to burn the metal just by contact, yet it didn’t corrode... I'd have to figure that out later. Dox placed her hands on her hips in a nonchalant manner with a smirk

“Well, you fail that test and- DODGE!” Dox chucked yet another knife at him out of nowhere.

Kyth lurched to the side, this time more prepared for the attack. Dox drew out a modified flintlock of some sort and prepped it, and I instinctively readied a blaster in case Dox actually fired at Kyth with malicious intent, and watched Kyth as he looked up at her.

“What did I say again?” She asked as she aimed her flintlock at his face. She pulled the trigger, only for nothing to happen.

“Heh. HAHAHAHAHA! I’m just messing with ya! This gun doesn’t even have any ammo! Makes sense, it was pretty much the very first thing I enchanted with my blood.” She put away the flintlock, only to pull out a Volcano Sniper, a weapon I vaguely recognized from the Borderlands games.

“This gun, however, does work and has splash damage.” Kyth’s pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks. “Run, little guy, run.”

“Sh-shouldn’t we move this outside of town that way no one’s caught in the crossfire?!”

“Hmmm, interesting idea. Then again, Urahara threw people at me.” She explained. “Again, brutal training, and I hope you understand what this thing does. Now, DODGE!”

She pulled the trigger, firing a blank, and watched as Kyth tumbled to the side, rushing to right himself before the next shot.

“Seriously? You were going to roll out of the path of a bullet?”

“You said dodge! And it’s not like there’s much I can do to dodge bullets!”

“First rule for dodging anything; you do not roll. Sure, it’s a fancy way to put some distance between you and a target, but rolling means you waste time getting down, and getting up. You instead-.”  

She suddenly bolted right into Kyth’s space, looking down at him as he stumbled back.

“Quick-step. You get the quick-step down you can dodge most anything. Gotta work them calves and ankles though.”

“Uh...okay, I get that.” He picked himself up and got ready for her next move.

“Now, when facing a ranged opponent, the easiest way to avoid getting shot is to zig-zag, or serpentine. It’s a lot of work though, try to conserve stamina.” She back-stepped away quickly and raised her rifle again, popping in a new cartridge.

“I’m firing rubber rounds, but they’ll still light you on fire since rubber’s ALL kinds of flammable! So you’d better DODGE!”

This time Kyth managed to evade the attack, quick-stepping towards her at an angle, keeping himself readied for the next move. He succeeded the next several shots until he was right in Dox's space, looking slightly smug. She snorted in amusement as Kyth spoke.

“Hey, I’m a quick learner.”

“Yeah, well you still failed the test, but not for dodging, you did good, I meant on approach, you stopped too soon.” She said. “Next lesson, don’t get in the face of an opponent with a ranged weapon. Most of the time, that either means you get shot anyway, or worse; if the weapon’s bayoneted you get stabbed. That leads me to a side note: Don’t get near snipers, the good ones carry knives, and the better ones carry swords.”

She motioned her head to her left hand, which had morphed into a sickle that curved around the back of his neck. “So really, the best way to deal with a sniper or otherwise ranged opponent, is to get around them or at least to the side, then take them out asap, or get punished.”

“Okay, be careful when getting up close to opponents, got it.”

“No, just watch the hell out.” She said. He nodded and took a few steps back.

“Well at least you get the basics, took me FOREVER to learn how to dodge.” She laughed in some self-derision before noticing all the lights on around us, the ponies all looking out their front doors or windows in awe up at her. She blushed before clearing her throat. “Um...sorry, please go back to sleep. I’ll be quiet.”

“...Thank you.” A random pony said before going inside, most the others all shrugged and followed, some deciding to watch.

“That was...thankfully unexpected. I thought this being a nearly vanilla world that they’d be running around panicking at first sight of me.” She admitted towards Kyth, who gave off a shrug.

“I think it’s a combination of having just been attacked by Vault Hunters and being relieved that you weren’t an enemy and the fact that they’ve gotten somewhat used to Jen and I being around. And you at least look vaguely pony, unlike us so....Eh.” He shrugged again.

“I would’ve figured me being a giantess and having Luna’s features would’ve sparked a whole Nightmare fiasco, but it’s nice to know that not all ponies will run on sight.” She stated as she began to put away her rifle.

“Yeah it seems like our world’s fairly tame in terms of pony response to stuff. Still, how about some actual sparring?”

“Well, sure, but I can’t exactly shrink down to your height, and learning to fight somepony...someONE, my size, would be a much more advanced scenario. I mean, if I were to say-.” She suddenly swung her armblade down and Kyth managed to backstep out of the swing. “Yeah, that’s a lot of distance you have to cover in a dodge, feel the burn in your legs?”

He nodded, drawing his sword for the next strike.

“Ah, so enthusiastic. So ready for teacher to give a beating. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Just let me muffle things so we don’t make more of a racket.” She called up a spell of some sort which I determined was a muffling spell. She lifted her free hand up and motioned for Kyth to begin as her horn shimmered and coated them both in a gentle aura, seeming to make both of their actions silent.

Kyth began by bringing his sword around in unbalanced strikes towards her, which were quickly and easily parried, tossing his large broadsword from his grip. Dox sighed, seeming to look over him and his sword. She spoke to him, and even with the silence filter around them I managed to load up a lip reading program to figure what she was saying. While they were busy I went back to working on the house to get a headstart on repairing the damages.

“Okay, looks like we’re going to have to fix that sword. Simply allow us to smith thee either a new weapon, or reforge it. Thou should be honored that a Princess offers-"

She froze for a moment, seeming to think to herself and consider her words.

"...Sorry. I can fix it. Have a forge nearby?”

Kyth shook his head. “Nope. The closest thing we’d have would be Jen’s transformations, and I dunno if she’d have the right things for a forge.”

“Hm...in that case, we merely need some masonry, a set of tools, and a location. Tis simple enough to make a forge anywhere so long as one has the materials. Why, I once crafted one from a pile of rocks, sand, and a bucket. Twas gloriously simple.” She informed Kyth with a shining smile, and moved towards our wrecked house, casting some minor spells upon it as she kneeled through the rapidly repairing hole. She collapsed the silence spell and went back to speaking normally.

“Jennifer, we ask of thee; would thou know of a good location for which to set up a smithy?”

Whatever spell she had cast on the house seemed to be doing my work for me, reconstructing the houses' damage. I looked down at her and put a hand on my chin in consideration.

“Well… I suppose we could put it in the basement/workshop if we could work in some decent ventilation. Then again, that’d still have some problems to it… I dunno. Might have to try and get some other land or something to set it up...  Though that’d take a while...“ I shrugged.

Dox considered this and responded. “Fine, if it must be that way. We shall create a Pocket Forge. Have thee a room or closet thou has no real need of?”

I nodded and directed her to the crawlspace under the stairwell in the house.

“Well, this will have to do. Is anything within? If there is, the spell might destroy them.” She warned, and I shook my head.

“Nope, we don’t have that much in the way of possessions here in Equestria.” Just to be confirm that was the case, she opened the door and took a brief look within.

“It shall suffice and is without any dangers.” She told me before casting the spell from her horn, the door and the frame shimmering,  each brief shimmer leaving the door looking less wooden and more like it were iron. I figured that if that was for a forge then that'd help prevent fire from spreading.

"Let us enter, pardon our size, we’ll have to squeeze.”

She warned as she opened the door, revealing to the both Kyth and I that within our crawlspace was now a seemingly endless void, with a whole smithing station set near the door. She grunted as she turned on her side, and I blushed and averted my eyes as the giantess crammed herself through the doorway.

“Oh dear... Um...would it be too much to ask for assistance entering young maiden? We wouldn’t ask dear Kyth as it would be uncouth of us to ask him to lay hand upon our rear, or legs for that matter.” I slapped my hand to my face in a facepalm and took a look through my mental systems' functions until I found my emotional functions, which i toned down severely. I popped my neck and responded in an emotionless voice.

“Alright. I’ve reworked my emotional parameters to make this not awkward. Kyth, go upstairs and fetch the bag in my nightstand.”

I looked back at Kyth, who was doing his best to look away with a furious blush, watching him mumble something while nodding and then heading upstairs.

Dox yelped as I moved to push her forward, helping her to get the rest of the way into the doorway.

“Thank you young maiden. Apologies for our lost control over our form.”

I blinked, feeling an odd buzz. I... didn't feel anything. No emotions, no odd thoughts about this...Huh.

“Eh, it’s alright. I’m just glad that I’ve figured out how to manipulate my processors to control my emotional state. It is rather… Weird, having logic prioritized to emotion though. Regardless, what is it which you’ve constructed in the crawlspace?”

“Oh, tis nothing special, just a transdimensional space known as a Pocket Forge. Tis more than enough to reforge Kyth’s sword. Even if we didn’t already sense the complex enchantments on it. If we are to continue training before we must leave, however, we shall have to forge him a new sword.” She explained this as if it were common sense. “It shall be a gift, so to speak. Now, about the subject of materials. What kind of metal or mineral dost thou have on hand?”

“Not that much I’m afraid. Like I said, we don’t have much in the way of possessions, treasure, metal or otherwise.” I responded.

“Well, dost thou have the ability to go out and find me some iron and some obsidian? It is necessary for what we have in mind.” She stated. “As soon as is convenient, if  you please.”

I nodded and ignited my pigtail thrusters, rocketing out of the room and heading into the mountains near Ponyville, using my scanners to find the required materials, and them my drill transformations to make my way to them.  A few minutes of mining later I grabbed everything and them shot back to where Dox awaited me. By the time I had returned Dox had already heated the hearth and prepped all of the tools we'd be using.Now that the materials were gathered, we were ready to get started.

“Ah, perfect. Just as we ordered. We thank thee metal maiden.” She said before turning to the forge and stoking the flames. Huh. She'd been using the weird royal Canterlot speak... Eh, it didn't matter. “Now, what type of sword does Kyth like?”

“Hmm. I’d say something durable, but able to move quickly in combat. His original sword was-”

“A rather large broadsword, we know.” She deadpanned. “We already know this, and we’d rather not craft something so… boring. Yet, your description of a blade is so widely used. Could you possibly narrow it down so we may get forging?” She asked as she took out  a set of daggers made of what I identified as pure orichalcum and threw them in the smelter along with the iron ore.

 

“Boring or no, a broadsword is what Kyth would be the most comfortable with.” I insisted, and she let out a forlorn sounding sigh.

“Very well, a commoner’s everybuck weapon it is.”

She silently took some coal and crushed it in her fist, dusting it into the smelter, getting a reaction as the high-carbon allotrope was added to the iron and orichalcum mix. I figured this would be for the purpose of making steel out of the iron so I figured I'd just go with it. Dox seemed to stop for a moment, giving me an uncertain look.

“Um, Jennifer, we hath just realized this; but we are too big to use the tools the station has provided….”

I nodded, walking up to the forge. I decided at this point to reactivate my emotional parameters, blinking for a moment and shuddering slightly with a shake of my head.

“Uh sorry, just getting my emotions back online. Still, how about you just run me through the steps of all this and I work everything? That way I can do some of this on my own later and pass it to Kyth and all. Sound good?”

        “EEEEEEE~! An apprentice! We hath longed for somepony to ask us for such a long time! Let this be the day that Selune finally passes her knowledge unto somepony.” She cheered with a great deal of excitement. Huh... Apprentice. I kinda liked the sound of that... Dox cleared her throat, and settled into a cross-legged seated position, placing her almost down to my height off the ground. “First….”

---------

        The smithing process was fairly easy to learn, between Dox's instructing and my systems giving me advanced comprehension. It was a simple matter of watching the metals melt together, and then preparing to pour into ingot casts. Following this, we melted the obsidian down which would be the hard part, because we couldn’t mix the obsidian with the rest of the metal without ruining the durability of the steel/orichalcum. Next came the use of the hearth and forge while keeping the obsidian molten, with Dox taking a more observational role as I heated and hammered the ingots, fixing impurities and folding the steel over into itself several times with mechanical precision and power, all thanks to my mechanical form. Then came the shaping. Dox directed me to shape it as I saw fit, with the goal of its shaping taking shape in my mind. I unconsciously smiled as I worked, pounding the metal into shape. Dox got my attention as she spoke.

“You’re smiling we see.”

I glanced up at her and nodded.

“Uh-huh. I like learning new stuff, especially when it involves like.. making something. Y’know?” She snorted, and I blushed and waved her off. ”U-Uh, not like that ya perv! I mean like art and stuff...”

“Well, not completely away from the subject, if thou art willing to at least indulge in some filly talk, what dost thou find appealing about thine chosen partner? Personally, we admit he is absolutely adorable. Not to mention he has a nice flank.” She waggled her eyebrows at me as I focused on hammering the broadsword into shape.

“Uh alright… Well, first of all he’s loyal… Like, I can always trust him with whatever’s bugging me and he’ll be there to help. And he’s a teeny bit clingy I suppose, but it’s kinda nice to have him be all protective of me, you know? But mostly I can just be sure that he’ll always be there when I need him."

“And of his body? Tis more important than thou art willing to admit, but physical attraction is also key to a healthy relationship, lest thou be stuck as incredibly close friends than as lovers. Thou cannot have a purely platonic relationship with a love...lest thou end up stuck in...what dost the youth call it these days? The ‘friend’ zone. If neither of thee take steps to improve this, twould become extremely awkward for any future romance. Please say that thou at least kiss, and not just for special moments.” She stated with a concerned expression.

I blushed slightly and nodded, my mind wandering to Kyth when he was human and now. “Y-yeah, we do… And yeah I will admit that it’ a bit interesting having Kyth be all muscly, but I liked him just as well when he was human.”

“So the tight plot was part of the package either way?” She asked with a curious tome, and I gave a brief nod and turned back to my nearly complete metalworking. “That is enough, for what we’re doing, thou need not make an edge, just the shape is well enough, go ahead and put it in the water to quench. Also, thou hast made a good catch with Kyth. Consider thou quite lucky, especially with his Displacement ‘enhancing’ him.” She winked, and patted me on the shoulder. I rolled my eyes, feeling a little more used to her types of questions.

“Well he does have an octopus on his head, so that takes a little bit of adjusting.”

“Thou finds that unattractive? We consider it a bonus. Imagine, what that exotic beard would make kisses like. He wouldn't even need to raise his arms to pull you into a kiss.”

I gave a shaky nod and shrug. I didn't necessarily like or dislike that about Kyth's new form, it was just sorta... Different. Like if he suddenly got a normal beard out of nowhere.

“Oh? I see. Well, thou had best get used to such embraces. In our own experience when we tried courting the seapony king, who happened to be an octopus-pony, we discovered the binding tentacles tend to react more out of instinct than anything. It gets annoying, but such is the way with love, you try to find ways around such things. Now then, for the difficult part..." She stopped talking for a moment, putting a hand to her head with a pained look.

I blinked and looked up at her, uncertain what to make of this.

“Uh hey Dox… I don’t mean to sound rude but uh… Is there any reason behind the royal ‘we’ you keep using? I didn’t want to sound rude about it but you’ve been using it since you got here so I’m kinda curious.”

“We are the Princess of the Night. Tis normal for us to use the Royal ‘We’ when addressing...address...I...I….” As she spoke tears began running down her cheeks, and I instantly became worried as she put her hands over her face. “I lost it...I lost myself again and just kept ignoring it...why did I need someone else to tell me that besides Recall?”

I gave her a concerned look and extended my legs to place me at an equal height to her as she at. I tried and failed to speak a few times and settled on putting a hand on her shoulder with a concerned look.

“Um… Is everything okay Dox?”

“No. Nothing’s okay. What I said to Kyth earlier about losing everything? I’m...losing myself. I can barely remember things I used to know compared to thousands of years of memories I got from sharing pieces of my soul with Luna. Now I’m not Dox, but I can barely remember I’m not Luna either. It’s why I’m Doxuna. I can’t...please, it’s a lot to ask, but can you give me a hug? I...I need to be reminded I’m not alone….” She asked with tears in her eyes, giving me a wretched look.

I blinked and nodded, stretching my arms to wrap around her shoulders as I brought her into a hug. She sobbed softly as she nuzzled into my shoulder and I did my best to offer comfort. She seemed to stiffen up from something, clinging to me a bit tighter before suddenly spasming, hacking up a mess of blood with the appearance of quicksilver.

I yelped at this, concerned for whatever was happening to her. “Gah! Are you alright? W-we have some minor medical stuff if you need it!”

“No, I told Kyth this already. If I don’t travel or get entertained, I get ‘punished’. Painful nosebleeds, coughing up blood from a popped vessel in my throat or lungs, a broken body part even. If I don’t leave soon, I’m going to get hurt even more. Worst thing is it has the worst timing. First time it happened I was getting a seriously good lay from a stallion for the first time, and then again for...I don’t know how many times in a row. But apparently, raunchy sex isn’t enough to keep it interested, and that was for staying in one place for a night and having snu snu all morning. Here I’ve only been with you a few hours into the night, and it demands I go when being alone is the worst thing I could do to myself.” She informed as she let me back off the hug and wiped her eyes.

“Holy shit… Whatever ‘it’ is, I wanna punch it right now. Is there anything Kyth and I could do for you?”

“Not to my knowledge, besides company. I’ll help you finish the sword, then I’ll have to go somewhere else. I might stay in your world, but I have to at least take a tour around town, maybe into the Everfree, anyplace but here specifically. Heh, just look for the busty giantess, shouldn’t be hard to find, hm?” She asked sadly as she sniffled, and hacked up a few of what appeared to be hardened chunks of  her quicksilver blood. “Now then, for the obsidian.”

She had me coat the base sword I had made of the steel and orichalcum in the molten obsidian, and use a spray of wateroccasionally to quench parts that seemed to be in place. It made the impressive 4-foot broadsword from a green-tinged steel shape into a black shining blade of impossible sharpness, increasingly so with how I had decided to give the blade very fine waves to it, allowing for the blade to be able to catch targets easier.

When the sword was then put in the quenching bath to cool and harden, Dox seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and pride.

“Well, it’s done. Either name the weapon yourself as it’s creator, or let Kyth name it. Such a weapon is deserving of a name. Also...what was this bag you asked Kyth to retrieve? He never came back down.”

I gained a slightly discomforted look. I had actually intended that as a wild goose chase to get him to leave while Dox was in such a  compromising position earlier.

“Eh, that was just a reason to make him leave while I was pushing you before I turned down my emotions. And as for the sword...Hmm. Magic nulling, dark blade…. I’ll call it Riftcutter.”

“A fine name! I am proud apprentice Jennifer. I am glad to have been of assistance to you. Now then...um...I’m afraid considering last time; I’m going to need help out too….” She admitted with a massive blush. “No homo. Wait, what? Um...sorry, totally confused right now.”

“U-uh sure, I’m gonna null my emotions again real quick though…”

A few minutes of awkward touching later, we were outside of the room and into the house proper again. Kyth looked up at us from where he had been sitting on the couch, apparently reading the InsMan tome.

“Oh hey guys. How was the forging all night? I would’ve checked in but uh… You guys locked me out.” Kyth informed as he looked back to the spell tome in his hand.

“Sorry about that. How has it been going, sitting on a couch, doing basically nothing?” Dox asked him. “Surely you found something fun to while away the time as we essentially ran off and made you a present.”

He nodded and held up the book. “Yeah, I’ve been reading through the InsMan tome. There’s actually spells recorded in this thing other than the Inspiration Manifestation one. It’s got theoretics in it, too. So, how was the forging or whatever?”

“It was fantastic. You have a new weapon that your beloved made for you with her own two hands.” Dox said proudly, hovered over me and patting my shoulder. “Oh go on now, it is customary for a Forge Mistress to present her love at least one item of her making.” She insisted, holding the sword to my back so Kyth wouldn’t see it immediately. “Imagine, one day, you’ll make the rings that bind you.” She whispered to me. I cracked a nervous smile at that, and moved forward to present the sword to Kyth. “Here you go Kyth, your new sword! I’ve named it Riftcutter!”

He blinked and took the sword from her, looking it over. “Whoa… Awesome!” He took it and gave it a few experimental swings before looking up.

“Thanks Jen! And you too Dox!”

“Doxuna, please.” Dox replied as if by reflex, only to gain a mildly depressed expression after. “Th-thanks Kyth. I’ll have to postpone any further lessons for now due to complications, but feel free to call on me later for more. Don’t forget to practice on your own time though, you can’t spend all your time giving loving looks to your love, you have to do something productive besides tell her how much you love her.” Dox winked with a little giggle before turning towards the front door and stopping. “Um….”

I blinked and narrowed my eyes at her, thinking of something I had forgotten earlier when I had been forced to help her get through the entrance to the forge. “Wait a sec… Can’t you teleport!?”

She blinked, and blushed vibrantly. Her posture seemed to shrink a bit as she grinned sheepishly at me, her ears bent back. “Um...yes? I forgot about that. Sorry for having you touch my butt….”

“Mm-hmm.” I gave me a deadpan look with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, I’m just… Gonna go.” She said, quickly teleporting out of the room, being pinged by my scanners as having gone right outside.

I pondered what Dox had told me about all that he had dealt with, and an idea popped up. I dashed down to my workshop, grabbing the remains of my drained Dox battery and rushing to catch Dox before he headed out.

“Yo Dox wait up!”

I went out of the house, Kyth behind me, and saw Dox hovering in front of a portal in the air and about to enter it. She turned her head to look up at me as I hovered up to be at eye level with her and spoke.

“Hey before you go, I got you something!” I took out the battery and held it out to her. She took it, not quite seeming to recognize it.

“It’s the battery I made with some of the blood you gave me. The thing’s drained and I got a replacement but I figure you should have it, sorta as a reminder. I don’t know what all has happened to you but maybe this’ll help you remember what you were like before whatever stuff from Luna got into you. Help you remember the guy that gave me a way to keep alive when I needed it and all. And the guy that we fought a president dragon beside, hmm?”

I jokingly elbowed her side and she laughed as she put away the battery. “Thanks Jen. You two be safe now, hear?” She said before turning to the portal and flying into it, fading from sight as it closed. I turned back to Kyth with a tired smile.

"Alright, friend consoled, new sword made, body repaired, and everything finally dealt with. It has been a LONG day, so I'm gonna go to sleep now..."

Kyth nodded. "I've been awake more than twenty four hours, I think I'll join you..."

The two of us stumbled to bed together, immediately falling unconscious from the strains of the past day, wondering what tomorrow'd bring...

Chapter Twenty Three: Aftermath

----Jen POV----

I stirred from my sleep from the pull of someone calling on Kyth and I's token and I pulled up some minor systems to see what time it was. We'd barely been asleep for two hours... I noticed Kyth was missing from our bed and I sensed on my scanners that he was standing next to the bed, geared up. He leaned down and planted a kiss (although given the cephalapodic nature of his current body it was more of an affectionate nudge) on my head and I heard him speak in an exhausted tone.

“G’back to sleep J. I got this one…”

I smiled at this and curled back up in the covers as Kyth faded out, and allowed for my systems to re-enter sleep mode...

 

I woke up a few hours later, feeling fully refreshed. I stood up and brought up all of my systems back online and after a quick look around the room I found that Kyth had returned at some point while I was asleep, and was now unconscious on the floor, slumped over. I chuckled and hefted him onto my back, moving him onto the bed and pulling a blanket over him. I decided that since he had dealt with the summon that I’d let him rest for the day. I blinked as I heard the Hyperion Beacon doing something downstairs. I walked down to the closet where I had it set up and looked to see a storage container from the Borderlands games paced in front of it. I blinked and opened it, finding it full of armored clothing for me. I opened the small holo-note that was with it.

THIS IS A FREE SAMPLE OF THE LATEST IN HYPERION ARMORED BATTLEWEAR, MADE FROM OUR RECORDS OF UNIT ‘JEN’S SIZINGS! ORDERING INFORMATION IS INCLUDED IN CASE YOU DESIRE TO ORDER MORE OF THIS LINE FOR YOU AND SUBJECT ‘KYTH’ TO USE. CONTAINED IN SAMPLE PACK IS FIVE BASE OUTFITS TO TRY.

I blinked and pulled out one of the sets to try on, quickly changing and looking over myself in the mirror. Hmm. They were a deal more revealing than I would’ve liked, the tops being tank tops  with no midriff and the bottoms being skirts that barely went halfway down my thighs, and both were made of a woven mesh of various materials in the same shade of blue as my pigtails and hair, and all of them were made to shift between armor and clothing as my body shifted between battle and biological modes. Whether revealing or not I could tell they offered a decent amount of extra armor for me, not to mention that they would offer me a full range of movement and wouldn’t interfere with any of my transformations sans the ones that’d require for me to reconstruct my entire form (most of which had no practical use anyway). And I had to admit I looked pretty okay in them. I jumped back in surprise when a note from F.A.U.S.T. lit up from the container.

I bet Kyth will spring a leak from seeing his marefriend in a revealing light!

I sputtered and blushed as I turned off the hologram notes. I swear, at this rate between Doxuna and F.A.U.S.T. I was gonna become as pervy as they were…

Then again… Maybe that wasn’t entirely a bad thing. Even back on Earth I bounced between being a self-conscious clutz and a sort-of-okay-with-myself nerd, so maybe… Maybe if I could look at my robotic body sort’ve like they did with their forms, I could look at my human body the same way when we got back home...if I was turned back into a human when we arrived, that is.

I grabbed the container and slid it into a corner, deciding I would put it away later so I didn’t have to disturb Kyth. I moved to grab myself breakfast, only to stop upon seeing my bucklers sitting on the table, marred with burn-marks from the battle with the Vault Hunters. I lost my appetite, staring at it and freezing in place as memories of the prior day echoed through my mind.

We had… We had nearly died.

That had happened. The image of Kyth laying broken over in F.A.U.S.T.’s world flashed in my eyes, himself and the drones operating on him drenched in unnatural, burning black blood while they attempted to patch together his wounds, on a body with unknown, unscannable biology from such a state…

We had nearly died.

Black lightning curling from Valravn’s claws as a silly and half-developed idea of my own conception did its very best to end my life, sending total agony through me as it did so with a blend of apathy and malice…

We had nearly died.

I stumbled to the sink and heaved up the contents of my stomach, thankful to have not eaten anything the day previous. I stood there for a few minutes, trying to come to terms.

I had nearly died.

I thought I heard something, but everything around me was droned out by the pounding of my own artificial heart pumping the eridium-oil-metal cocktail I had for blood echoing in my skull. I felt a hoof on my shoulder and I was jostled back into reality, looking up to see Sombra standing on the counter beside the sink and where I stood, his foal-body’s height requiring this for him to be anywhere near eye-level with me. He gave me a confused look, clearly having just woken up to find me like this. I seized him in a hug, clinging to him and not saying a word as he patted my back and I slowly calmed down.

He didn’t say a word as I moved into the living room, sitting down and still holding him. I heard him speak, though his tone didn’t convey any real irritation, but the barest hint of concern was audible.

“Erm… Wouldst thou mind telling me what hast thou in such a state, metal maiden...?”

I shook my head and he seemed to understand my momentary inability to speak.

“Very well, I can wait.”

A few minutes of silence passed by before I spoke.

“It’s not a game anymore…”

“Hrm? What wouldst thou mean by that?”

“Sombra… You saw the barest bits of the truth behind Kyth and I, over in Jack and F.A.U.S.T.’s world. The truth is, we’re nothing like we seem. We’re not heroes or champions of justice or anything like that. We’re just… Kids. A couple of kids in costume. The only reason I’ve been able to fight any of the things here in Equestria or in parallels of it, or even you before you got reformed through Dox’s blood… It was like a game. We could go out and play pretend, throw a few punches and play the heroes in a grand adventure but… It really isn’t a game. It’s finally started to sink in how real all of this is. We nearly died Sombra, th-that’s not the sort of thing that you can joke around with. All those battles, we could have been killed, and I never even considered that! Not even in Dox’s world when that dragon stomped me, it never felt real.  It all felt like some big game we were playing, just Kyth and I in some cartoon world. And now that the Vault Hunters made it plain to see how terribly real all of this is, I’m…”

I hitched a breath. “I’m terrified. I just wanna find Jack and Calvin a-and go home, and I don’t know if we even can at this point…”

Sombra didn’t say a word, seeming to be lost in thought. After a few moments he spoke up, hopping out of my arms and striking a defiant pose.

“Thou art a dingus!”

I tilted my head, not understanding his words.

“Uh… What do y-”

“A dingus I say! Despite it being a game in some appearances to you, I would easily wager that a great deal of your actions were far FAR more than a child playing at heroics! I have seen you both place thineselves at risk not for showboating but out of genuine concern. Whether some of those cases were borrowed confidence or not I cannot say but there is most definitely the makings of genuine heroes within you both, that much I can see even if you cannot! Yes, you had a brush with the reaper but that does not mean that he has painted you over with a new palette! Let this be a moment you learn from, to find strength in rather than weakness! Continue, find your home if you would wish as well as your lost ones, but do not let such occurrences bind your path in place. In other words...”

Sombra moved forward and booped my non-existent nose.

“It is rather silly to let such things halt you, when you have so much to move you forward. Understand, Jen?”

I cracked a smile, and nodded, grabbing him in a final, more gently hug.

“Yeah. Thanks, Sombra.”

“Do not mention it.”

I snickered and halted.

“Hey… You called me Jen there!”

“No, I did no such thing!”

“Yeah you did~”

“NONSENSE! DINGUS, RELEASE ME!”

I finally burst out laughing as he squirmed to escape my arms, feeling a good bit better about my troubles and pushing them to the back of my mind for the moment. I flopped onto my back, a small smile crossing my face as I came to stare at the glow in in the other room coming from the Hyperion Beacon, my one continuous link across the multiverse… Wait. Would it be possible…?

I hopped to me feet and moved quickly toward the beacon, Sombra calling out to me on my sudden action.

“Where art thou going?”

 

I shushed him as I brought up all the data I had on the beacon and its specifications with the Hyperion system, and then brought up some of my own data on XJ9’s deep-space transmission technology… If I were to put this there and that over there then… Holy hell.

If Kyth and I were going to find Calvin and Jack in such a massive multiverse, then we couldn’t simply wait for the right tokens to arrive to the right people. We would need to get out there and find them ourselves. If I could determine the right combinations of Hyperion and XJ9 components to use, then what was to stop me from imitation Jack’s Beacon token?

A semi-robotic probe with an AI to operate it,  with the intent to search for any information regarding the whereabouts of Kyth and I’s families and then transmit back. If I could get a working design together, then I could even make them into a separate token for myself in the same way as Jack’s beacons. Then it could transmit back to me in the way the beacons do with Hyperion’s mainrframe or even have the probe’s AI initiate its own summoning of me if it found anything major. If I could get a token-probe like that online, then it would give me viewpoints into any number of worlds, Kyth and I’d be able to find everyone exponentially faster!

Of course, if I could figure out the right design then what was to stop me from producing more than one, to create even more possible openings to different points in the multiverse with different Displaced? It would take some time to put together the designs, and even more to collect the components for me to construct them with my own transformations and the forge Doxuna left me, but it was certainly possible! I turned to Sombra, a grin across my face.

“Sombra, I just thought of a way to super-speed my finding the ones I’m looking for!”

“Well that is excellent!”

“And Sombra… Thanks. Really.”

“Meh. Do not mention it. And if you were really grateful you would make me breakfast…”

I giggled. “Eggs and gems sound alright?”

He gave me a shocked look, clearly not expecting me to go along with his ploy but taking it in stride, not dropping his faux-prideful expression.

“I suppose they’ll just have to do…”

I found myself having an appetite again.

When I turned I saw reflected in the beacon him flaring a grin and hoof-pumping in the air. While putting breakfast together, I had another idea come to me. If I was already going to be gather materials in advance until I had the right designs compiled, then maybe I should work on some other projects in the meantime. Kyth was a close-combat fighter, and he had nowhere near the protection that my body had. Maybe I could fix that. I had a brand new forge and the equipment to use it, not to mention the ability to get all the right materials together… What was to stop me from trying to put together some sort of armor for him? Something better than the tunic/pants he already had, at the very least. While I pondered how to go about that, I noticed Sombra eyeing my bucklers on the table.

“Something wrong Sombra?”

“...Orichalcum. That’s what you said those were made of, correct?”

“Uh… Yeah, why?”

“...I remember something new. From my first life, from before the rebirth you and your mate gave me.”

I didn’t say anything as flickers of purple and green danced at the edges of his eyes, and were it not for the emerald coloration of his irises then I would swear he looked just as he had when I first saw him.

“A place where said metal was said to be found, or rather bestowed… Far to the north, some distance from the Empire...”

I decided to cautiously probe at this bit of information. I did need more orichalcum, both to sell back to Jack for supplies plus for forging more armor and weapon components, and this had the potential to give me just what I needed.

“Really? Well, do you know what it was called?”

His eyes lost focus, the flickerings still hanging at the edges of his eyes as he seemed to behold an unknown vision.

“Yes… The Elders’ Cairn. A place of ritual, to test those who sought to rule the Crystal Empire in mind and spirit alike. A place which ref… refused m-me, and so I…”

He shuddered, as if he were physically struggling to speak. His eyes flashed back into focus, locked on me with no further signs of the magical aura they previously held.

“Jen, I would require your assistance! I believe I may have done something regretful in my past life, and I would like to know for certain the result!”

“S-sure thing, but what exactly do you need?”

“We must depart for the Cairn post-haste! Take a brief time to collect yourself and then we fly!”

“W-wait, as much as I’m up for this, we can’t just up and leave on the spot! Kyth and I gotta check in with the Mayor later to tell her about what happened, and we still have to double-check that everything in town is okay after yesterday.”

He deflated slightly, and I spoke up with a possible idea to cheer him up.

“Of course, this will give you extra time to prepare for whatever it is you need to look into up north. Maybe you can do some research at the library to see if Equestria has any information relating to it since your...erm...absence.”

He looked at me for a moment before putting a hoof to his chin in thought.

“Hmm… Yes, I see your point. Very well! I shall prepare myself and you will see to your affairs until you are able to assist in mine mission, and then we depart with the squidface for the north!”

I nodded and watched him gallop out of the house, extending out an arm to grab all of the dishes and then dispose of them. Now that he was gone I could get straight into planning for my next moves.

“I’m gonna get us home Kyth…”

I brought up a mental display of the for viewing blueprints and similar data from within my headspace.

“One way or another, we’re gonna see them again…”

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