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.” Next Chapter: Chapter Twenty Two: Screaming, Swords, and Such Estimated time remaining: 42 Minutes