"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...

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?" Next Chapter: Chapter Thirteen: Kyth Gets Plastered and Jen Gets An Upgrade Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 11 Minutes