LoHAV: Can We Really Be The Hero?

by LoHAV Collabs

First published 24th of April, 2015

Eight souls (and counting) trapped in one body was the result of reincarnation gone wrong (right?). Said souls happen to be zealous, vengeful beings who went under the banner of LoHAV. Being stuck in one body, however, won't deter them by even a bit!

What happens when you reave eight beings of their souls and trap them into one body? The result would be awful, but you can wager that they'll want revenge on whoever that did that.

And you can wager whatever is left that they'll wreck most if not all of equilibrium trying to attain their goals.

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This is a collaborative effort between eight LoHAV authors. Feel free to join in--the only prerequisite being that you must have to contribute a LoHAV character.

Prologue. Greetings

“This is complete lunacy,” the words spoke themselves, no physical tongue conveying them vocally. Just exactly where the voice came from, was a spherical orb. The atmosphere surrounding this ‘orb’ cascaded with strong magic due to the residue of a mage’s intense magical trace.

This spherical light hovered around gently in the air, boasting an ominous pitch black aura. The middle of the orb’s aura was lit afire with a fervent red glow.

The orb, illuminating the surface lightly with the red luminescence, added, “We all died… and we actually have the chance of reincarnation. But… why the hell do we need to share just one damned body? Just- did they run out of bodies or something?”

“I’m not sure, what lies after death has never been something I’ve researched in my studies…” An orb of solid gold spoke, a whisp of clouds following its wake as it drifted in its surrounding.

“I think I remember you…” the Summoner spoke warily. “You’re that other mage guy. Uh. Jamal Jared? Right?”

“I know I’m already dead but I feel like I just died a little inside... Again…” The golden orb sighed, the clouds beginning to turn gray as small droplets of water fell from them. “It’s not Jamal, It’s Ral. Ral Zarek.”

The current terrain was quite lifeless, actually. There was nothing for miles on end- no; there was absolutely nothing here. Whatever naturality of the ground was replaced with white tiles that seemed to ripple with water-like waves every now and then despite there not being a breeze. The sky, if one could call it that, was substituted with a pale white ceiling--much like the texture of a blank canvas. The horizon held nothing promising; simply the same dull, dreary tiles of white for a perpetual distance.

It’s unbelievably boring here as our ‘heroes’ have recently discovered.

In the middle of the planes of utter listless nothingness, stood one lowly human. He stood there, mindless--quite literally, actually--gazing throughout the white void that stretched for as far as one’s eyes could see.

The human held a neutral expression--and it held it for quite some time now. Specifically, an hour long now. Reality rippled around him, as if the spirits of dead entities whose powers could distort actuality itself. Oh wait--that was actually happening right now.

The human’s visage was as boring as his looks. Running down his scalp was a rather unruly, long hair; quite cliched, really.

Spherical, glowing, faint orbs of light circled around the human. These orbs observed their would-be body, their glances scrupulous, astute, and… among other things, apathetic.

“Beats me,” another one with a bright dark purple ethereal glow spoke as he faded in alongside him. “But at least we got a few hits in and I managed to destroy my cap before she was able to use it.”

“Who’s ‘she’ again?” a voice resounded like a knell. The origin of said voice was from a gaseous sphere of blue. “My… memory is a bit blurred.”

“I guess dying will do that to you…” a dull brown orb floated. It seemed larger than the others.

Another orb soon joined in, this one black at the core, and engulfed in a red aura. A pitch black smoke engulfed this aura, leaving a trail of stifling smoke screen as it bolted around frantically.

"Guh... holy... What...? Ow, my... head..? Where the Hell is my head? Where am I?! When my fucking uncle-in-law hears about this, heads are gonna roll!" The aura screamed, vibrating with anger. “Wait! I remember now! I know the voices of you guys… We all died or something, didn’t we?”

“Yup,” one of the previous balls of aura replied in a deadpan tone. “Ah… that irate tone mingled in fury and a signature venom of hatred--you’re Malideus.”

“Yeah… and you,” the aura streamlined towards the other, orbiting around it with an observant gaze. “You’re the inferior mage…”

“That’s not my name,” the offended aura replied with an agitated sigh. “Hint; it ends with ‘er’. I’ve a feeling that you’ve forgotten. It seems that a portion of our recollection has faded-”

The purple one zipped in front of the red orb. “It’s the Stripper, right? Probably not, but I know for a damned fact that it started with an ‘s’.”

The red orb sighed. “No. And look, I can even remember your name! It’s Batty.... uh- right?”

“Other than the weird pronunciation, you’re correct… phonetically, at least. It’s Vaati.” The purple orb swished around in front of the red orb. “Notice the prolonged ‘a’ there? Idiot.”

Another orb poofed in existence near the group, interrupting the conversation. The dark-grey soul of the formerly alive villain rolled a couple of times, leaving a trail of blue lightning as it groaned.

“That… Hurt…” The ball said with a deep, slightly echoing voice as it came to a stop.

The Overlord decided to lurk in the background, only saying anything when he had what to say. Someone had to be stoic and a voice of reason, after all. Or a tactical commander...

“-Fuck.” A brown ball of magical energy materialized, looked the scene over and then sighed. “Great, not even in death can I escape. Hello, everybody.” This orb was larger than the other orbs, and rather plain in spite of it all.

Author's Notes:

Do not click the below link if you wish to avoid spoilers vvvv

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_-AreaNM2J2zUHqCl2OhjoZbq96xEFN1JEpKG0nia1Y/edit

That's the commentable, (mostly) unedited version of this story! And it's all uncut--up to the part where we decided to divide the behemoth of a chapter into smaller chapters...

Provide commentary! Do whatever! Spoil people! We at LoHAV don't give much of a care!

Chapter 1. Character Creation

“Alright! Alright! Everyone! Shut up!” the Summoner yelled out, his voice echoing throughout the nothingness strangely enough. “We have to go through this oddity of a ‘character creation’ sequence,” he spoke, nudging at the lone human in the middle of them who was still staring at nothing with a literal absentminded state.

“The hell is this?” Malideus’ form fissured like an earthquake, sending off embers from his ghastly aura towards several directions. “Dark souls?”

“Darksouls- you could remember that game, but not my bleedin’ name?!” the Summoner exclaimed, shaking as well uncontrollably.

“In my defense, that game was more memorable than you,” Malideus retorted.

“He does have a point. I got acid reflux from that game.” The Friar interjected.

The Summoner wriggled around in the air, his non-existent mouth managed to mumble a few incoherent grumbles, but he was unable to ultimately make any intelligible sentences to be uttered from himself. “Fine,” the Summoner let out in a hushed tone. “That’s actually a valid alibi. In fact, the mental trauma from that game still is present in my recollection. Even in death, Dark Souls will always haunt me.”

“So…” Vaati muttered, looking directly at the unmoving human. “His height is a bit problematic… I’m not so used to being tall. How about we we make him shorter?”

The clean slate of a human began to shrink--in a rather comical fashion as it was as if he just deflated. The human stopped at half of his former height.

“No! What the hell!?” Audrey bellowed, “Revert it back! Revert it back! I’m not willing to be bound to a midget!”

Promptly, the unfazed human attained his former height in a similar fashion. The human now stood at an average height once more in the span of a split second.

“Yeah, you’re right. Ugh, being dead fucked up my memory more than it already was. Really wish I could reincarnate as that white haired guy from Aria of Sorrow, I think that’s the game’s name.”

Just as those words rang throughout the vicinity, it seemed as if reality itself obliged to the aura’s whim and began morphing the human accordingly. The human, engulfed in actuality’s yoke, became warped and distorted. The sight of the human being reborn was similar to that of an egg yolk being beaten into a spiral.

Just as the distortions dissipated, the human was birthed anew with a new form. The human now idly stood with a white coat complimented with a powdery snow, slightly silver hair that was both unruly and lengthy. Hanging loosely by the human’s new white fur coat was a scabbard, complete with an actual sword.

“Holy shit!” The dark purple aura continued “I was kidding when I said that, doesn’t the cosmos know sarcasm?” The aura closed in on his physical form’s successor, zipping past around his ‘character’.

“Magic is fickle. There’s a reason why I have a sword as well.”

“Nope, we’re not going to be using that body,” Ral sighed, his imaginative eyebrows squinting as he looked the figure over. The aura then courtly shrugged by bopping left to right rapidly. “He looks too gothic for my tastes. How about removing some of the make up?”

The human’s upper extremity flashed for a second, revealing a new face. Well, it was the same exact face just minus the overdone makeup. The face looked much more natural and with a much more crisp texture.

“Hm… I guess that’s a little better...” Ral grunted.

“Better!? I hate anime! Let's go with something more presentable..." Malideus trailed off, moulding the character before him into a tall, armored figure, his face concealed by a cage-like helmet, adorned with an absurdly large crest, and massive stone armor, chains dangling from the waist and wrists.

"There! Havel the God-damned Rock! Now we can actually keep ourselves from getting smoked by Senile-lestia again." The red-and-black orb declared, quite pleased with his creation.

"By all means, explain how being encased in several inches of armor would make us look more 'presentable'?" the Summoner spoke out, quivering furiously. "More importantly, how are we supposed to move?"

The Summoner blurred his wisp's image as he began circling the remarkably accurate Havel the Rock replica at an unrivaled speed. Consuming the Rock's body whole in a red mist-like shroud, the Summoner let out a few singsong hums as he threaded and fabricated a new body, fluttering in and out of the foreboding mist every few seconds of so.

“Hey, what’s wrong with a good defense!? Those are freakin’ everlasting dragon scales, for cryin’ out loud! You guys just don’t know efficient when you see it…” Malideus sighed, glaring at the Summoner with increasing intensity.

“If efficiency is to death then you’ve done a mighty fine job, you pretty much turned us into a living pressure cooker, waiting for Celestia to turn on the dial.” Ral tsked, irritation reaching his voice.

Malideus gestured dismissively by swishing around a bit. "Feh.”

"And here we go!" The Summoner declared as he vacated himself from the confounding fog of red he had just made, "Something much more deserving of our interests, eh?"

Standing motionless, swathed in a refined two-piece suit of a pitch black fabric complemented with a black tie, stood a relatively aged man with a slightly short, but appealing haircut. The man kept his arms low, sporting two identical sidearms finished with a black, glossy surface outfitted with suppressors.

"John Wick?" -input whoever this is here- spoke out, his/her face forming a pseudo-glower and grimace.

"Not only that, but I'm pretty sure I've altered his presence so that whenever we have to kill something, techno blares in the background."

"That would be both advantageous and harmful for stealth... The surprise techno could distract them long enough for us to sneak in a swift stab or two... but on the other hand, it would make our presence obvious," Ral remarked, eyeing the suit.

"Hell no. I'm not playing as some old dude, much less one with a techno battle theme." Malideus’ voice whined, the pure abhorrence clinging into his tone still lingering in the atmosphere as his form flared and shuddered unpleasantly.

“I demand we change it back! The lack of defence was what got us killed last time... I think!” Malideus finished, butting the Summoner’s orb out of the way.

“You know what? Fuck it.” Vaati irritably commented “Whatever the hell works is fine for me, I don’t care what it is. I’m not gonna give it much use anyway.”

“I concur.”

"Stuff it, you little garden gnome. Feel free to pitch in when YOU have a good idea." Malideus smugly shot back, his glare more felt than seen.

“Everybody, for the second time, shut up!” the Summoner’s words echoed at a near-deafening volume. Just as his voice evanesced, silence instilled itself once more into the vicinity. Pointing himself towards the ‘template’ the Summoner spoke out, “Undo all of the changes!”

Adhering to his whim, the unforeseen force began to tether the human in its spacial vice once more. Rending space and time, ripples of reality began to flow outwards from the human, obscuring his figure. Finally, the eclipsing mishmash of static-like blurs surrounding the human disappeared.

Once more, the human appeared in his former appearance--generic, half-naked, and looking rather pale and feebly toned .

“Let’s be sensible about this,” the Summoner spoke as he visually gestured by doing a few loops in place. “Why not we give him our natural abilities?”

The other auras simply glanced at the Summoner blankly, all of them collectively giving of an eerie silence as they continued to stare at him. The Summoner fidgeted around, a bit unnerved.

"I, for one, agree. Some intelligence would suffice, for starters. Let's start with that." Malideus started, and soon, a little bar marked 'INT' appeared over the blank slate, followed by several others marked with several other attributes; dexterity, vitality, strength, endurance, speed, size, and sex appeal.

"Now... everyone, put your numbers on these. This should help the Summoner out a bit, as well as get us back into the fight faster. Now, who's first?" Malideus asked, sneaking a smug glance at the crew before him.

“Well, my magic was a bit odd, but it definitely relied on my own vitality.” The Fat Friar said, tapping the Vitality bar.

“Sex appeal? Really?” Vaati commented disgusted.

"Hey, don't blame me; blame Saint's Row 3." Malideus replied, shrugging.

“Say- what happens if we max that stat out?” the Summoner dashed forwards towards the large ‘stats sheet’ screen. Unceremoniously, the Summoner’s aura bolted towards the side of Malideus, shoving him off. He flicked the ‘slider’ of the sex appeal stat to the utmost right with a single flourish.

Suddenly, the human became enshrouded by light, his figure being molded once more. Finally, the light dissipated, revealing the human’s newly formed physique that was too immensely astounding to be described to the point that it was emanating an illustrious golden aura.

“My eyes!” the Summoner yelped at the intensity of their player character’s aesthetics. “This was a grievous mistake!”

“You fool! Are you trying to mentally scar us!?” Malideus shouted, taken aback by the sudden marvel, yet still remaining composed enough to convey his raw ire. "Turn it back! Turn it back before I catch the Gay!!!"

“Oh. I’m mentally scarred alright… but in a good way,” Audrey’s aura spoke, a bit of a lusty drawl clinging onto her tone.

“I have no eyes, why does this burn so much?!” Vaati’s voice was heard as he wringed around in the air.

“Fascinating…” Ral muttered, feeling the urge to question his sexuality come onto him.

“Huh. Well, I do believe I’m bisexual now.” The Fat Friar gave the impression of shrugging.

“No… Just no.” The Overlord growled as his orb moved behind Ral’s, using it to shield himself from the sight. After all, that was what allies were for...

Finally, Malideus mustered up his energy, and breaking his sight with the unfathomably handsome character they just created, he flipped the Sex Appeal slider to the dead middle, ending the ordeal there.

"You..." Malideus growled to the Summoner, venom dripping from his voice, "You will not touch another stat slider for as long as you live. Got it?"

“Ha! I accept those terms,” The Summoner wiggled around ecstatically for a second. “After all, we’re not technically living at the moment and I doubt that we’re going to find any Stat Sliders after our rebirth.”

Malideus paused a second, the gears turning in his nonexistent head, then, finally, made a quick retort.

“I hate you.” Malideus curtly replied, his red aura dimming.

“Alright, alright. Obviously, we need a higher “INT” stat so that us mages,” Ral gestured to both the Summoner and Vaati, “can retain our potential.”

“Yes,” the Summoner interjected. “The procedures on how we cast our spells--they’re still quite present in our heads, though they’re a bit blurred, so don’t expect them to be too overpowered.”

“Pft.” Ricky suddenly butted himself into the conversation with a disparaging tone. “I don’t detest the use of magic, but I certainly don’t want to be dependent on it.”

“Shut up, you. If we hadn’t used even a sliver of our magic during that final boss fight against Celestia, we’d have been done for in the first few seconds of that fight,” the Summoner remarked.

“Fine, whatever, cap out the magic stat--or whatever,” Ricky retorted.

As the INT bar began surging to its zenith, the human began to ripple with magic, the atmosphere became damp and heavy with magic. Waves of reality began to flow like waves of water as the human stood with a brazened aura of magic, distorting reality itself.

Accordingly, the INT gauge displayed on the “stat screen” began to rise alarmingly, stopping at the uppermost edge. Now, the INT stat meter was quadrupled in size.

“Woah-” the Summoner recoiled back as the cascade of arcane energy struck him in the face like a banana cream-filled pie. “That’s a bit too overwhelming don’t you think?!” his words rang out a bit frantically.

“Damn straight this is too overwhelming!” Malideus yelled out, his appearance seemingly growing in size accordingly to his anger. “Look at the other stats!” Malideus, without no more than a cautioning swish, dove at the stat display screen. “Look!” he exclaimed as he pointed at the STR bar. “It’s tinier than our dignity right now!” He complained, gesturing at the STR meter displayed as a tiny speck of a line of red.

“True… We wouldn’t be able to even lift a fork with that laughably low STR stat,” the Summoner added.

“I actually used magic to enhance my strength while fighting, but only in short bursts.” Ral commented. “I feel it would be more effective if we took the cumulative of all our intelligence together, our knowledge should give us the power necessary to cast our spells.”

With a nod of agreement from the others, the INT began to recede, stopping at a leisurely height of the center, before raising again till it rested well above normal. The aura around the figure was still thick with magic, sparks jumping from his skin every now and then from the power.

“God I love storm magic.” Ral mentally grinned.

“Alright!” Malideus chirped out, jerking upwards. “Now we can raise the STR stat much higher now that INT is out of the way!” With an effervescence only known to Dark Souls players getting their own moonlight greatsword, Malideus bolted towards the human, stopping just a moderate feet away from him.

“Yo!” he shouted upwards into the blank sky at no one in particular, “Give this idiot the power to pierce the heavens! But not literally, though- Gah! You know what I mean, oh great cosmos gods!”

Suddenly, everything blinked with a red flash, causing everybody to flinch somewhat at the suddenness. Once it was done, well-toned muscles, not too large, but certainly not too small, enveloped the blank slate, and with another flick, Malideus rose the dexterity up a bit, too, just for good measure, and quickly turned to his comrades.

"Yeah, I leveled DEX. But don't tell anyone I leveled that up... fgts." Malideus said, glowering at his comrades.

“Are you a casul, or something?” the Summoner reared himself at Malideus as he spoke.

“In spite of the fact that I want to murder you--and drag you out of hell to kill you again--I shall avoid doing so since my dignity is already at a low… and the fact that we’re already dead.”

“I actually agree with increasing the stat as I am used to using my hands for complex crafting.” Ral reasoned, siding with Malideus.

“Balance is crucial for a shared body.” The Overlord added his own two cents in. “With good Strength, Magic and Dexterity we will have more options open when we finally get out of this accursed place and start to make our mark in the world anew.”

“I can agree with that reasoning…” the Summoner muttered audibly. “Anyways, now that we have adequate stats, I say that we proceed on what our ‘equipment’ is.”

Chapter 2. Preparing For War

Just as the Summoner’s words departed from his mouth, the “Stat Display” screen began to dissipate, dimming itself out of existence. As the once-occupied space was cleared, another display screen popped up, lighting up the surroundings a bit.

This time, the display read “Equipment Terminal.”

The Summoner gasped as he shivered a bit, “You mean- you mean we get to pick anything?!” Just as the Summoner began to grin--mentally, mind you--like a madman, his eyes swivelled to a number displaying the figure “nine” at the bottom right of the screen. Beside the number were the words “Equipment Limit.”

“Dammit!” the Summoner let out an exasperated sigh of defeat as he yelled out. “Oh well. We can cope well with just nine, can’t we guys?” Malideus grumbled, though, not pleased.

The Fat Friar seemed to glare at the Summoner. “You just had to say it, didn’t you. Don’t jinx us too much.”

“My cap!” Vaati called out, rushing his way to the Summoner’s side--in fact butting him away from the display screen, actually. “My cap! Does this thing have my damned cap!?”

Suddenly, the search bar present on the top right corner of the display screen began to type itself. Engraving the words “Minish Cap” on the search bar, the list of items were narrowed to just one item--”The Minish Cap”.

“Yes!” Vaati cheered out, his triumph basically radiating from his echoing voice.

“Not so fast!” Malideus swiftly confronted Vaati, placing himself directly in front of Vaati. “Do you not have eyes, midget gnome?” Malideus promptly gestured towards the right of the Minish Cap. There stood proudly a figure of a “ten” alight with a red glow. “We can’t get it with just nine points!”

“No!” Vaati hovered downwards in an almost a butterfly-like flutter, but the depressingly slow descent coupled with his involuntary convulsions made it appear much less vivace. “NooooooOOOOOOOooooo! “Ah, whatever.” He suddenly calmed down in a strangely quick mood swing “We’ll get to break the game later on then.”

“With that settled…” Malideus commented, disregarding Vaati, as he made his way towards the “Equipment Screen”. “Let’s see…”

“Unlimited pizza machine!” the Summoner suddenly yelled out as he shoved Malideus out of the way of the display screen’s presence, causing Malideus to yelp out as he suddenly found himself careening out of control, courtesy of the Summoner’s shove. “Search for that!” the Summoner added!

“Nice thinking!” Audrey yelled out as well, blurring towards the display screen as well. “That’s the greatest thing in non-existence!”

“Morons…” The Overlord muttered as he followed them. One could almost see the impression of his glowing eyes glaring at the two from the otherwise featureless surface of his orb.

The “Minish Cap” typed in on the search bar became blue before it suddenly evanesced into nothingness. Replacing the cap was now the words “unlimited pizza machine”.

Soon enough, the “Search Results” page displayed an image, along with its respective descriptive name on its side, of a simple, cube like machine with a crudely drawn image of a pizza plastered onto its surface.

“Yes-’ the Summoner’s triumphant cheer suddenly fell flat as the Summoner inspected the “Equipment Cost” for the coveted item--it was infinity. “No…” the Summoner let out a soft, but harsh gasp as he began to crumble to the floor. “It- it can’t be…”

“Why, great cosmos, why?” The Fat Friar sobbed, floating down with the Summoner.

“Why is life cruel to us even when we’re dead…” Audrey too began to deflate, spiraling downwards towards the floor, soon joining the Summoner and Vaati in their defeated lamentative conditions as her aura’s color began to gray out, though Malideus just laughed at the three on the tile floor as he regained control.

“Hm… If the reasoning for that were to stand…” Ral muttered, taking his place in front of the screen. “Elemental Gauntlets.” He spoke, the words “unlimited pizza machine” being replaced by “Elemental Gauntlets” It showed of several variations of the item Elemental Gauntlet until it showed the one that he was looking for.

“Thought so…” He sighed, seeing the number read 50.

“Alright then, how about Personal Journal of Ral Zarek: Notes about the Multiverse and it’s Many Theories.” The long name was eventually inputted in and eventually came up with a worn out journal that was thick with notes and other tabs of reference. The number 1 was next to its cost.

“Excellent, I’ll be taking that then.” Ral grinned, the book magically appearing in the character's hand. Suddenly, Malideus butted Ral aside, a malicious air about him now that his turn had begun.

"Keh heh heh... oh, this should be fun..." Malideus laughed, searching the bar with the word 'Staff of Vodahmin'. Quickly, the picture of the staff appeared; a long, thick staff, with a metal coating, and at the tip, a long, sharp, red gem surrounded by four blade-like struts in the depiction of roaring dragons. The cost only read three, making Malideus flare and giggle like a schoolgirl.

"Aw, yiss. Come to papa..." Malideus said, downloading the weapon before anyone could stop him. Soon, the staff was also within the avatar's grasp, crackling with maddening and borderline horrifying energy.

“Eh… What’s that supposed to be?” the Summoner asked, his form still shaken by seething sorrow. Malideus, ever one to explain things, then turned to The Summoner, a sly air about him.

"Oh, this? Just a little something my uncle-in-law showed me once. Said it belonged to a really powerful sorcerer named Vodahmin the forgotten. Supposed to be super powerful, and double as a spear or something." Malideus explained, still giggling a bit.

“Whatever… now that we have a pointy stick,” the Summoner dismissed. “Let’s move on to the next concern, we’re lacking armor. Not that I’m complaining, though… Armor always made me feel too cumbersome. Something tells me that we’re going to need it, however.”

“Something light may work, anything heavier would dampen us… Perhaps we just have some enchantments placed on normal clothes?” Ral voiced. “I was originally able to cast whatever enchantments I wanted to before, but I am unsure as to our current ability when we’re just being born again.”

“Screw it, let’s just search “Armor” onto the search-bar-thing,” Audrey spoke, practically appearing out of thin air just behind Ral.

As such, the search bar was now displaying the text “Armor” onto it. A little loading loop popped up, circling in a set rhythm as the word “Searching” was shown below it. Soon enough, the loading screen had vanished, it being replaced with a number of search results.

Appearing on the display screen was myriad protective gear of various flourish and craftsmanship. Conveniently enough, the description of said armor along with their respective stats were shown as well in the side. Malideus quickly butted in, seeing the set he wanted: giant's armor, mask of the father, and grass crest shield.

"That one. Get that one." Malideus egged on, practically drooling.

“I feel that would be a bit expensive… We only have five points left to spend…” Ral hummed.

“Wait- look at that one,” the Summoner pointed at a lone, casual-looking silk-fabric hat. “Pyromaniac’s hat. Causes the wearer to combust randomly aflame. No additional penalties or bonuses… Minus one equipment cost?” He continued gawking at the off-putting hat. “I guess we get one point back if we wear this?

“And enduring the pain of being set on fire randomly would be worth that?” The Overlord growled, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Easy! We just wear something that negates fire damage!” Malideus suggested, his voice brimming with prideful triumph. “How’s that for cheating the system, eh?”

“But then we just spend a point to negate it, and chances are the equipment to negate it will be more than one.” Ral mentally frowned.

“That is true…” the Summoner noted. “Hey- I wonder, are there any equipment that has no cost whatsoever?”

Without even acknowledging it, the Summoner inputted “No-cost Armor” into the search bar.

Suddenly, Malideus chuckled, and pointed the cursor at one of the items in question; the Speedo of incombustibility.

"Well, seems the universe is one step ahead... look, immunity to fire, +10 sex appeal, -10 dignity." Malideus noted, greatly amused.

“All this stuff either gives us nothing or a negative buff…”

“And the penalties are compensating us with more equipment points,” the Summoner noted idly. “Hey- look at that; negative five equipment cost.” Towards the Summoner’s gaze was a rather questionable piece of apparel that will remain undescribed as to avoid having this story being rated ‘Mature’.

“Wait, can’t we just drop the negative stuff when we start?” Vaati suggested, mentally arching his figurative eyebrows.

“Doubt it, those slots are probably permanent, so this’ll be the equivalent of having a pair of shoes but not knowing what to do with them and wearing them on your head.”

"Then what about the stuff that you DO wear on your head?" Malideus joked.

“You wear them on your feet-” The Summoner then cut himself off, “Screw it. We’re getting sidetracked here. Let’s scroll down for more equipment options…”

The Summoner began perusing through the wide dossier of armor. “Armor of the Dead… Dead Armor… Undead Armor- why the hell is there a crap ton of armor like this?”

“Isn’t that, like, the most massively known type of armor in the RPG genre?” someone said, mentally sighing.

“Alright, screw it.” Ral tsked. “We need something specific, let’s just request it. Mage Armor, Light Weight, Cost of five or less.” He listed, and Malideus butted in;

"And made of everlasting dragon scales and latex!"

“Belay that!” Ral shouted, headbutting Malideus to the side. “And bring up parental controls, block Malideus-”

“Don’t mistake me as a mere child!” Malideus bellowed, diving himself towards Ral, causing the both of them to bolt off into the ground with a resounding thud.

“Let’s see what we have here…” The Summoner absentmindedly hovered towards the display screen. “All of these ‘Mage’ armor are so generic… We need something with flair-” suddenly, something caught his attention--a grandiose piece of equipment with a cost of a mere ‘two’.

For the sake of being concise, it was a lightly plated, scale-vested robe, complete with cape, and fully-custom color scheme of red. Complimenting it was a scarf that flickered from one color to another. Appropriately titled ‘Rainbow Madness’ this piece of clothing shifted from color to color every few seconds.

“Got any in Izzet colors?” Ral glanced over The Summoner, causing him to recoil back, startled.

“Oh, uh-” Swiftly, the Summoner flicked the screen a bit, causing the ‘Rainbow Madness’ armor to go out of sight. “Um, nope. Nothing so far.” He let out a suspicious sigh of relief.

Ral stared flatley at him. “Uhuh...I was talking about a variation for the Rainbow Madness, quote unquote.” He mentally frowned.

“All of you guys this picky about clothing,” Audrey mentally burrowed her nonexistent palm onto her face, causing a reactive “hmph” from Malideus.

“Not clothing, woman!” Malideus protested. “Armor! Armor; there’s quite a difference there!”

“Hold on, let me skim this.” Ral then began to scroll at an impossible rate, the screening beginning to blur.

“Are you even reading it? We may be missing the funny armours.” The Fat Friar said, trying to get in closer.

“Uhuh.” Ral muttered, scrolling faster.

“You are not!”

“There!” the Summoner exclaimed, causing Ral to cease his absentminded browsing. “I saw something sick a few back! Scroll back!”

“Was it the apprentice Star Swirl robes?” Ral asked. “Because they were by far the best so far, but I wanted to see everything first.” He scrolled back up until the page became clear.

“Hell no!” The Summoner thrusted himself towards Ral, pushing Ral off the screen’s view. Scrolling a bit upwards, the Summoner figuratively grinned like a mad man. “Necromancer Robes! Not just generic Necromancer Robes, but the ones from Fire Emblem-”

“Bleh. Whatever; they still look generic,” Malideus commented.

“Guys, it only costs three--we’d even have two points left to allocate!” the Summoner jerked upwards. “Gives us a forte in dark magic, which I’m actually well-versed in, “Five percent increase in INT, a bit more power in summoning, and amplified dark magic damage output--I’d say that this is the one for us.”

“So the equivalent of Black mana… If I think on it like that…” Ral muttered, deep in thought.

“It’s decided then!” the Summoner yelled out. “It’s time to don this sick piece of armor!” The Summoner reared himself at the screen display. “Give us the power, oh glorious screen display; give us that sweet Necromancer armor!”

Once more, a haze of distortion enveloped the template character, causing him to blur out of view. The haze began to dissipate,

Replacing the human’s casual wear was now a much more drastic-looking cloak. Epaulets of white laced with gold was now apparent on the template’s shoulders. Endowing the human’s back was a cape of purple mingled with a padded, silvery fabrics that almost lengthed to the floor. Swathing the human was a robe of leather clothing that was dyed in purple that was also outlined in gold.

“Nice,” the Summoner noted.

“Hey, I got an idea for the last bit of points.” Ral spoke. “Bring up Izzet Keyrune.” The item list then brought up the item, the equipment cost being three.

“Ironic how its cost is the same as its mana cost, huh?” Ral muttered before changing his attention to the rest. “If we take this, then we should be able to access the magic that I could use when I was alive, and thanks to the robes we can also cast other spells that require black mana instead of only red and blue. Mind if we grab it?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“You’d be worthless without it, so yeah. Go ahead,” Malideus spoke.

“Humph, because of our natural abilities being added I already give us the benefit of using lightning, this just makes us that much more powerful in the end,” Ral remarked. “Alright, add that on. I guess put it on a chain as a necklace I guess since our hands are full…”

Rending the winds, the unforeseen entities shrouded the template in a haze of warped reality once more. Disappearing from view, the surroundings of the human reverted back. On the human’s neck was now a chain with a totem of a strange creature, or weird to be precise, colored in simple blues and reds. In the middle of the keyrune was the symbol of the Izzet League. The eyes of the weird glowed an eerie blue with magic.

“Finally. We’re set!” Audrey let out a cry of relief. “Let’s go blow stuff up already.”

“Not so fast!” the Summoner yelled out. “Terminal,” he faced at the display, “search freebies.” Once more, the screen went white with a little loading loop in the middle before displaying a menagerie of “zero cost” items. “There are still stuff here for free! You can’t go wrong with free stuff.”

“Used tampons… Nope, there’s everything wrong with free stuff!” Malideus retorted with an aggravated tone.

“Ugh… wait. Look at that one,” the Summoner pointed out. “Anime cat ears. Gives a subtle, and by that I mean exactly by one point, boost to DEX and plus a couple of points to Sex Appeal-”

“No!” Malideus roared out, causing tears of wind to turbulently shoot out from him. “I. Hate. Anime!” he added with a convulsive shake of anger.

“Gah!” The Summoner replied to Malideus with a convulsive irate shake of his own. “It’s free! And it’s somewhat helpful, so I say we get it!”

“You can’t be serious…” Ral deadpanned. “I’m all for getting free buffs, but if its something as meager as anime cat ears then I say skip it.”

“Damn all of you…” the Summoner began to deflate once more.

“Yeah, well, I feel that we’re good, the freebies are just stupid anyways.” (Enter someone here)

“Next phase, for whatever’s sake!” Audrey shouted into the sky. “I’m tired of waiting for all this crap!”

Suddenly, everything began to dim with an eerily red glow ominously eclipsing everything. Appearing in the form of a display were the words “Combat Training” with a countdown of five seconds below it.

“Eh… ?”

“We’re going to be thrusted into the body already?”

“About time…”

“This is…”

“This’ll be hard… Who’ll be controlling the body first?”

With the lack of attention on the display, the countdown reached zero faster than everybody anticipated. Suddenly, everyone felt nauseous as they were all plunged into one body. The template began to twitch and jerk back several times before everybody collectively said random curses.

“Fuck! Shit! What happened? Don’t move! I’m confused! I was sleeping--sorry!” the template spoke out in a weird mishmash of everybody’s voice.

“By whatever lunacy does this adhere to that our voices still retain their tone?” the “template” spoke in the Summoner’s voice. “We must have one messed up vocal chord…”

Chapter 3. Combat Tutorial

“Whatever, let’s try moving,” Malideus spoke.

Suddenly, the template began flailing his extremities while trying to move simultaneously left and right, looking with much semblance to a wacky inflatable tube man.

“God dammit! I knew it’d end up something like this!”

“I’m not used to this!” The Fat Friar yelled. “This is like being a teenager, only I’ve lost a tonne of weight!”

“Hold up, let me try out my lightning-” The template tried to raise an arm, but before it could lift it all the way it released an electrical explosion, throwing the body off its feet and hitting the ground hard. “That hurt…”

“You kidding me? That was nothing,” Audrey stated.

“You’re right, I didn’t feel that at all- oh wait. The adrenaline is wearing off, I can definitely feel it now.”

Standing back up, rather wobbly thanks to the dissonant fact that everyone was trying to control the whole template’s body was brought back up.

“We can avoid being clumsy if we just assign each of us to one function,” the template spoke in Malideus’ voice. “Or for an alternative, we can control the body one at a time.”

“I feel that learning to control it together would definitely help our combative prowess, but as a fall back we should have a single individual control it. Whose first?” Ral voiced his opinion.

Several feet away, the ground of pallid white began to break, forming a hole-like rift. The rift was seemingly endless as there was no end visible within it. Suddenly, a large figure clad in some sort of static began to emerge from the rift--rather slowly, actually.

“I got this!” the human character shouted in the Summoner’s voice as he took stance. “I just require a book for a medium.”

“Will this suffice?” The avatar grinned, speaking this time as Ral. He opened the journal in his right hand, the pages flowing like water. “Anything specific you need?”

“Oh--I’m just going to use the pages as ammunition. Pretty basic stuff.” The Summoner chirped, “Basically a book machinegun.”

“W-wait, What!?” Ral flinched at the Summoner’s statement. “Fine. My book can repair itself anyways.”

“Got it. So it’s fine to use your diary-”

“Journal,” Ral corrected.

“It’s a diary.”

“Whatever. It’s time to see if my abilities are still responsive. Guys, refrain from controlling the body for a while, got it? Otherwise… we’re going to end up writhing in pain.” With a reflexive brandish of the book, the Summoner aimed the book’s end at the incoming figure.

Suddenly, the static bursted, leaving the large figure’s imposing visage. The figure was humanoid, but was roughly four times the height and size of one. It was clad in a black, glossy armor of steel. A visor was integrated on its helmet, masking its face. With one hefty heave, the large knight brought upon a large cleaver-like sword two times the length of an average human.

“Uh- are we going to die the second time?” Vaati’s voice came from the human’s mouth.

“Shut it!” The Summoner’s voice replied. “I need to focus here.”

Channeling much of the magic into Ral’s journal, the book itself began to shimmer a foreboding dark purple glow. Suddenly, the pages began to rip themselves out of place, sending themselves speeding towards the heavily armored knight.

The knight shrugged off the attack as the pages simply ricocheted off its armor, sending a display of torn paper everywhere like fireworks.

“That didn’t work… Weird. I could pierce through a ship’s hull with that attack.” the Summoner nonchalantly muttered. “Oh well. Since most of my other techniques are costly, I think I’ll pass the baton onto one of you guys. Good luck.”

“Whoa- Wait, don’t just back off after nearly ruining my book!” Ral gasped, instinctively taking control of the body, jumping back to dodge a wide swing from the sword.

The knight went motionless for a few seconds before it began to settle its sword for another blow.

“Alright, lets see… Lets see…” Ral muttered, grabbing the totem around their neck as it began to glow blue.

Blustersquall! He shouted, a violent maelstrom of gusts forming like a barrier around the character. Pushing off the knight with heaving gale, the iron behemoth began to stagger backwards, rendered immobile by the kinetic discharge as he was knocked down to but one knee.

“Alright, that’ll hold him off for a few seconds, but he’ll attack again soon. Anyone else have any abilities that I am not aware of?”

“Hey! He’s pinned down! It’s time to do a crushing blow on him--I don’t see the prompt that usually pops up though…” Malideus muttered.

“What does this look like to you? A damned game?”

“Yes,” Malideus simply replied.

“At this point, Im not surprised our lives are little more than a game.”

“Leave the finale to me!” Audrey yelled as she suddenly took control, etching a grim smirk on the character’s face. Gripping hard against the lance-staff combo weapon, she rushed at the staggered knight. “Finally, I can do something,” she spoke out as the winds dragged along her as she continued rushing towards the defenseless target.

“I’ll back you up with some electricity.” Ral remarked. Soon enough, the lance-thing-weapon began to trickle out sparks of electricity.

With a flying leap, Audrey swung the lance-thing around her body as she descended upon the targets head. With a nigh-imperceptible flick she launched the lance-thing straight through the targets armored head, burying the weapon in the not-quite-ground.

“That was a good shot, actually,” remarked the Summoner. “Wait- do we even have enough STR points to pull that off?”

“Why are you complaining?” Malideus snarled a bit. “That was freakin’ awesome.”

“I do aim to please,” Audrey boasted.

“With him gone-” Ral found himself cutting himself off. “Oh wait. He’s not gone; he’s quite alive actually.” Ral gestured at the knight-like being simply shrugging off the excruciating agony that is embedded into its head as he suddenly rose up, clutching the handle of the lance.

Pulling it out, there came a shriek-like sound of metal grating against metal as he plucked off the lance from his front cranium, revealing an abysmal depth present in where its head should be.

“Crap… We basically gave it a weapon.”

“I wonder…” Audrey muttered as she went silent.

“His handguards shouldn’t be all too problematic,” the Summoner noted the apparent lack of plates on the leather-like gloves swathing the knight’s hands. “I can probably force him to drop our lance.”

“Then do that, idiot!”

“Yeah,” the Summoner withdrew his ‘borrowed’ book, letting it up towards chest height. “I’m on that- Woah!”

The knight had surprisingly closed the distance between our ‘heroes’ as it was now standing mere couple of feet away. With a glint reflecting from the tip of the Staff of Vodahmin, the knight raised it high above his head.

“Sidestep!”

“Dive towards the back!”

“Jump to the side!”

Failing to compute all of these commands, the human vessel simply flopped to the ground, flailing somewhat weirdly. With the sound of gales being cleaved, the lance buried its way into our ‘Main Character’s chest.

‘Oh bleedin’ hell!’ the Summoner thought.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!” Vaati’s own words resonated in his mind.

‘The pain is not within the realms of this world…’ Malideus spoke to himself mentally.

‘Not surprising…’ The Overlord thought through the agony.

‘This is almost as painful as dropping a greatsword on my foot,’ Audrey thought in a non-plussed way.

Faultily recognizing these excerpts of thoughts, the human vessel ended up saying, “Hell is not within the surprising fuuuuuuuuuck of this greatsword.”

There was an eerie sort of silence as the great knight swirled the “Main Character” around in the air, still skewered onto the--stolen--spear-staff-combo. Flicking off our “Main Character” towards the floor, there came a disturbingly crisp sound of blood being expelled from the body violently as our “Main Character” found himself soaring towards the floor.

Deflecting off the floor, our MC plopped to the ground several feet away from where the knight stood. With a combination of pained wails, grunts riddled with pain, and sobbing-like noises from the Main Character, he finally stood up, clutching the very visible, wide puncture wound present on his chest with both hands.

“Now what?! Our blood is flowing from us like a damned waterfall!” Vaati yelled out via the Main Character’s voice. Sorry. Needed to point out to our future readers that we’re having a hemorrhage.

“I highly doubt that the mysterious entity that brought us here is THAT much of an asshole. Or maybe they are. Mysterious beings are often like that,” Audrey commented.

“They mysterious entity is giving us the chance of reincarnation,” the Summoner pointed out. “But the question is--for what reason?”

“I got a better question,” Vaati spoke again “Why did it only gave us ONE body for the thousands of us?”

“There’s really just about nine or so of us-”

“Enough of the unproductive discussion!” Ral yelled out. “Here he comes!” Controlling the body, Ral extended the MC’s arm, pointing a finger at the hulk of metal charging at the MC’s footing, the earth seemingly quaking with every step the metallic behemoth took.

Reflexively taking full control of the body, Audrey spun the pseudo legion around the knights incoming attack and grasped its wrist. Placing another hand near its elbow, she twisted the appendage down and forwards, utilising the mass and speed of the knight against it and launching it several metres away.

“Are you goddamned stupid!?” the Summoner yelled out. “Our blood has been sprayed everywhere now thanks to your flashy attack!” The Summoner promptly took control and extended both arms, gesturing at the mass of blood mantling the used-to-be white ground. “Thankfully… I still remember a good regenerative spell.”

“You act like you’ve never beaten a hydra to death with your own severed leg,” Audrey said in a belittling voice.

“The majority of us haven’t,” the Summoner responded in a hushed, hasty tone. “With the minority being only you.” Engulfing Ral’s diary- journal in a listless manifestation of scornful, black magic, the shadows began to manifest into flames, swirling around the MC like a torrent of a turbulent river.

“Are you trying to roast us into a well-cooked meal or something!?” Vaati yelled out, flailing his arms around as the flames continued on enveloping the MC’s body.

“Maybe he’s trying to pull a Natsu from Fairy Tail and eat them for heals?”

“No! You’re both wrong! These fires stitches the flesh, mends the bone--unfortunately, it doesn’t replenish lost blood,” the Summoner hissed out.

The gash apparent on the Main Character’s body began to rejuvenate, the flesh forming shape as the dark flames persisted on licking the MC’s figure. Soon enough, the blood ceased from seeping from the MC’s body as the wound simply evanesced.

“I felt as I- we’ve been molested,” noted Ral.

“Shut up. I know--they feel like tentacles. Know my burden.” The Summoner scoffed a pained hiss. “We must regain our magic-”

“I’m pretty sure our magic just gradually accumulates.”

“Sorry. Force of habit.”

"Bah, enough magic, let's have some real fun!" Blurring past the side of the unaware knight, Audrey launched herself towards the back of her prey, leaping off the knight’s steel with a resounding thump, causing the knight to bite the dust, clanging his helmet against the ground with a resonance. Launching herself several feet in the air, Audrey whirled around a bit, doing several spiral flourishes with the entire body of the avatar as she finally aimed the lance.

She corrected her aim as gravity began pulling her down. Launching the Staff with impeccable propulsion with her arm, the lance pierced through the breastplate with relative ease, bounding the knight into the ground.

"He's down for good! Let's end this fucker!" Malideus chanted out, “Fatality! Fatality! Fatality!”

“Alright, prepare for some nausea, I’m going all out on this thing!” Ral shouted, raising his hands into the air.

“Eat lightning!” He shouted, electricity charging up around their body and launching from their hands. The line of lightning arced and changed direction, heading straight for the lance as it acted as a lightning rod. As the lightning hit, the knight convulsed as it pierced its very being. A feeling of fatigue began to vice the Main Character as he stood poised, unrelenting the channel of lightning that was coursing and piercing through the knight.

Eventually, Ral finally cut it off as the knight was left as a charred mess.

“I think that took care of- oh god here it comes-” Before he could finish they all bent over and proceeded to dry-vomit, shaking as if having ran several hundred miles.

“W-what the hell was that for!?”

“Oh god, this reminds me of the first time I had a Jaegerbomb…” The Fat Friar said, wincing in sympathy as the character collapsed before finally starting to move.

“Sorry… This was like the first time when I tried using my lightning so much as well…” Ral gasped, spitting some of the bile from their mouth.

"Ew... let's not do that again... ever." Malideus sighed, grabbing the Staff of Vodahmin from the charred remains of their former opponent.

“I-It should get better the more we use it, it’s somewhat like a muscle I’ve noticed when I first arrived in Equestria…” Ral sighed, wiping their mouth with a sleeve.

"So... what now?" Ricky asked, everyone looking around the blank world for a clue.

Suddenly, flaring itself brazened in the middle of the air, was a suspended display with the words: “Tutorial Completed” in shining gold with confetti seemingly materializing around it, falling towards the ground below in a spiral-like fluttering pattern. The atmosphere also resounded with a very generic RPG victory theme that shall remain unnamed and undescribed.

"Oh cool, real confetti this time!" Malideus said, chuckling.

“Finally… we can get out of this damned purgatory,” the Summoner let out a breath of relief as he spoke.

The display purged its “Tutorial Complete” slate, turning blank. Soon enough, more words began to fill the display--”Select Spawn Location” followed by a rather well-textured map of the entirety of Equestria.

"Aw, what, a map? I thought we were gonna start in Pallet town or something." Malideus fake-pouted.

“Jesting aside, I’d say we start off in Canterlot.” The Summoner’s aura became grim with darkness. “Vengeance….”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree…” Ral shook his head, sighing. “We were thoroughly defeated against True Celestia, without having done hardly anything in return. As we are now, we’re even more vulnerable than ever. We need to train, practice, working in one body.” He clenched their fist. “If my lightning will give us that much of a backlash, think of what other abilities may do more harm than good at the moment?”

“True. But if I had to guess, I’d say that this Celestia isn’t the “True” one,” the Summoner responded, shrugging off his darkening veil. “But--I guess I’ll have to agree with you. We have to grind like bastards until we’re like level 99 or something.”

“I agree, it would be like trying to fight Lavos right when you first get to the end of time in Chrono Trigger, on your first playthrough.” Vaati commented shuddering at the memory.

Ral looked up at the map, using several hand motions to bring up a much larger area than Equestria.

“Since we’ll be training to fight Celestia, I advise we find supporters for our cause, which means we’ll have to look other than Celestia.” He hovered his hand over towards the southern region of the map; it was quite far away from equine civilization.

“The Dragons are very powerful and could teach us much, and will make good partners to train with. The downside though is that in order to even enter their territory we need to fight right off the bat with a dragon knight to prove that we are worthy to enter. Furthermore, they are in a treaty with Equestria so I doubt they’ll outright break it.” Ral pulled up an image of several peaks.

“No!” Malideus yelled out defiantly. “No dragons!”

Ral nodded and continued. “Very well… Next would be the Changelings, not quite as far south in the Badlands. Though despite how much they hate ponies they’re quite weak if I remember correctly…” Ral mused.

“No!” the Summoner yelled out this time. “No changelings!”

Chapter 4. You Will Respawn In...

Ral quirked an eyebrow. “Really not giving me much to work with here…” he muttered. “Alright then, may I ask if there are any other particular races that we have a grudge with, and maybe the why?”

Silence. Dull, listless silence.

“We could learn some sort of mind control spell and turn the entire town against Celestia.” Vaati suggested.

“Sigh… Very well. Alright, next would be the Zebras, though they’re quite friendly with Equestria so they might fight us on sight, so I advise against them the most. Same with the Minotaurs, the Merponies and anything else pony related-”

“We do not need the help of mere mortals!” The Main Character suddenly rose his fist, posing in the signature stance of Malideus.

The Main Character suddenly drooped as he spoke in the Summoner’s voice, “We are mortal… given, that we are very, very difficult to kill.”

“Silence!” Malideus yelled out.

“Who said that we’d be getting their help?” Ral smirked, bringing up the last location.

“The last are the Gryphons, but I actually would rather not… I’ve had a bad experience with them in my past.” He frowned.

“That’s make three of us then,” Malideus clarified with a rather stoic tone.

“Wait! Wait!” the Summoner interjected. “Don’t forget that not every Equestria is identical to each other. In my Equestria, they were aligned with those pony bastards.”

“Hm… Let’s take a look then.” Ral spoke, zooming out so that both Equestria and the land of Griffons was shown, as well as a clear view of their borders.

“Oh look!” Malideus pointed out. “This isn’t just a map, it’s actually a live surveillance feed or something!” Noting the strange ships moving in the ocean and the large clouds slowly spinning around the planet. “Quick! Zoom in on this world’s Celestia!”

Obeying his whim, the map’s perspective began to shift, moving towards Canterlot. Pinpointing the Canterlot castle in its central point, it began zooming in directly into the castle’s interior.

“Let’s see what this biatch is doing…” Malideus muttered, forcing the Main Character to lean in, glowering at the map display.

“This is a bit… stalkerish even if it IS Celestia we’re spying on,” Vaati commented.

As the camera-like view phased through the walls, it finally stopped dead on Celestia, just above her to be more accurate. Following this was a dead silence.

“This is…” the Summoner trailed off.

“I’ve seen something incredible…” The Fat Friar breathed, absently noting down the details.

“Despite her being the enemy,” the Overlord grumbled, his voice barely being audible, “I am somewhat intrigued.

“This would make great blackmail… Too bad we lack a camera,” the Summoner remarked, still a bit taken aback as a very unsubtle drawl of… peculiar feeling was laced with his voice.

“Heh… Luna would take a picture of this too…” Ral commented.

“Map! Return to default view please!” Vaati’s voice yelled out from the MC’s mouth.

Returning to the original perspective--a very wide, comprehensive view of the entirety of Equestria--the camera zoomed out from the rather indescribable sight.

Sighing, Ral continued on what he was getting to previously. “Returning to the previous issue-” Ral mentally glanced in Malideus’s direction, “it does look like they are allied with the ponies, which is odd… They currently have trade routes all over Equestria, possibly due to some rare export that they have.”

“Looks like we’re out of options I’m afraid.” Ral frowned.

“Hold on, hold on. Let’s examine the changelings in this place.” The Summoner reluctantly took control of the body. Flicking on the map, he motioned towards the Everfree. “They normally cluster themselves here. Nearby pony civilization means a close food supply- Ah. Spotted them already.”

The camera was now directing its view towards a changeling entrance. It was more or less a hole in the middle of the ground camouflaged with foliage. Hinted of its existence was that there was a rather pseudo-illuminant patches of fungi surrounding the general area of it.

“The fact that there is little to no sentries confuse me… They’re within proximity with an equine-occupied territory.” The Summoner darkened somewhat suddenly. “That might mean they’re inclined with the ponies. Inconvenient.”

“Agreed.” Ral frowned. “Though easy to detect once the right spell is cast, we’re at the level where we wouldn’t tell if anyone was a changeling till the last moment.”

“We checked up on the gryphons and changelings,” the Summoner pointed out. “We might as well make ourselves acquainted with the rest of the inhabitants here…” Gesturing the screen with a hand motion, the Summoner swooshed the view towards the ocean.

“Oof. Heavily polluted seas… the mermaid-things won’t be liking that.” The Summoner glanced towards Canterlot, noticing a few alterations of its usual archetype.

“Noted: the ponies here are much more industrialized,” the Summoner spoke.

“I don’t care if they even have mechas wielding rocket launchers and miniguns!” declared Malideus, posing once more in a determined stance. “They won’t be escaping my- our wrath!”

“Oh look, they really do have mechs with rocket launchers.”

“Really!?”

“No.”

“Hey- they have factories,” the Summoner pointed out as he glanced at Canterlot through the map-camera-thing. “Maybe they DO have mechas with rocket launchers.”

Ral blinked before grimacing. “Well this is starting to look like my Equestria a little with all their technological advancements… I highly doubt they have mechs, but when I was Starswirl, I… Uh…” Ral went quiet, unsure how to continue.

“What exactly did you do?” The Fat Friar asked, curious but cautious.

“I.. Heh, granted this was while I was working for the Princesses… I may have drawn up plans for magically powered tanks… Some of those cannons were strong enough to level cities.”

“Why the fuck would you design those FOR THE ENEMY!?” Vaati snapped.

“Well first, I was working for them in the beginning. The second, why not?” Ral shrugged sheepishly. “Besides, I scrapped the design for most of them anyway… I think.”

“Irrelevant. You did that in YOUR Equestria.” Malideus scoffed a sigh.

“Anyways, we won’t know for sure that the existence of rocket launcher mechs is real or not here unless we go into these factories.” Gesturing the MC’s hand, the Summoner zoomed into the factory.
As the camera’s feed descended into the metallic corridors of the behemoth-like buildings, the lighting was significantly dimmed, but the scenery was still very visible. Hanging from the walls were bolted-down plates of some sort of ominous black steel. In the middle of the room was a very spacious conveyor belt--at the moment, it was empty as it was not turning nor was it transporting anything of notable property.

“Pity.” The Summoner kicked the floor, taking control of the MC for a brief moment. “Nothing going on here. Should we decide on where to spawn now?”

“Not yet,” Ral suddenly spoke up. “We still have to identify the current political standing of the dragons. Who knows? They might be inclined to help us?”

Suddenly, the MC’s body became shallow and was now displaying a grimly anxious face as Malideus took control. “Please. Please. Please. Please let them be allied to those dimwitted ponies…” ‘

Snapping the MC’s vice of Malideus, Ral Zarek extended his arm towards the map screen. With a flourish, he zoomed out the perspective.

“Now.” Ral Zarek cleared his- the Main Character’s throat as he began to speak, “Dragons normally live in the rigid mountainous regions…” Moving the camera’s angle a bit, he began to direct it towards the Northeastern portion of Equestria.

Emerging into view as Ral magnified the zoom were mountains outfitted with metallic frames and steel scaffolding. Suspended by the sides of the mountains were crevices extending themselves deep into the mountain. Metallic flooring and walls were apparent within the mountains.

“What the-” Ral caught himself cut off as suddenly the Summoner took control.

“Huh. Dragons here are more adept at technology here,” he began to scratch his chin, “That’s peculiar. They’re more like brutes in most Alternate Equestrias.”

“By logic…” Malideus regained control, “if they’re competent at industrialization like this, that means they must be allied with those sissy ponies!”

The Summoner once again claimed control over their vessel. “This guy really, really hates dragons, huh?” Shrugging, the Summoner brought his hand upon the map, defaulting the view once more.

“So--our only chance for allies are with the mermaids, so we should spawn…” the Summoner began scrolling through the map, zooming onto the shore of the great Equestrian sea, “...here. If we’re to find some willing meatshields- assistance, it’d be them.”

Malideus took control, folding the Main Character’s arms. “Nope.”

“What do you mean ‘nope’?” the Summoner questioned.

“A pony is still a pony,” Malideus protested.

“Aren’t there some kind of sirens or something that want Equestria dead as we do?” Vaati interjected.

“Doesn’t matter; they’re still ponies,” Malideus adamantly replied.

“We don’t have to befriend them, just recruit them and leave them this hellhole when we’re done.”

“Whatever… we’re still going to at least attempt to reason with them,” the Summoner began zooming onto the ocean shore.

“Our attempt of ‘recruitment’ should be that we guise ourselves with the robes of a messiah promising their oceans to be purified from the wastes…” Ral stated.

“So… everyone good?” the Summoner asked. “We’re going to spawn here… seems like the most optimal currently.”

“For now, yes.”

“Oh, fine.” said Malideus.

“Agreed, let us move out.” Ral nodded.

“Most logical.” The Overlord nodded slightly. “Do it.”

“Aye, aye.” Ricky stretched out the MC’s limbs as he yawned. “It’s gettin’ a bit boring here anyways.”

“Ha… ha ha ha...” Audrey began to violently tremble, joy overwhelming her. “I can finally kill things again!” she roared out, pumping her fist high into the air.

“Here we go then,” the Summoner began as he started narrowing down the camera’s view on a relatively empty patch of sand on the shore. “Gods of the cosmos, some unforeseen power, whatever--spawn us here!” the Summoner’s voice resounded like a knell.

“Let the insanity and chaos begin.” Vaati commented.

Chapter 5. Seashells By The Seashores...

An aura of thick, hazy smoke began to veil the MC’s body. The MC’s sight was completely eclipsed with a pitch black as a choking feeling of trance began to overwhelm the Main Character’s mind.

“I can’t see crap,” Malideus spoke with a bemused tone.

“I think that’s the point-”

Suddenly, a feeling of disorientation overwhelmed the MC’s footing, causing him to stagger somewhat in a wobbly fashion.

“Hey- our vision is clearing,” the Summoner noted.

As the eyes of the MC began to normalize, the clear view of the beach’s scenery became clear. The stretch of ocean seemed to carry out for miles on end, its vastness frequented with the waves of water. The scent of sand, palm trees, and the salt from the sea was pervasive around the atmosphere. Around the golden sand beach were shells with spiral-like designs, laying up straight or recumbent.

The skies were as seamless as clear glass--the clouds were scarce and the blue canvas of the sky was easily perceptible.

“I like the beach,” the Summoner spoke with a certain type of cheer.

“I concur,” Ral stated.

“I concur. Do you concur?” The Fat Friar remarked, spinning an arm idly.

“I concur,” Ricky finished.

“Nice, now we need to find something Madileus likes.” Vaati chuckled.

“Those giant shells look decent,” Malideus pointed out using the Main Character’s arm. “In fact, the ones with the spines protruding off them look even better,” he spoke as he gestured once more to a nearby shell that was at least twice the length of the MC and was also mantled in spine-like protrusions that seemed razor sharp.

“They look metal,” Malideus let out a devious smile as he brought forth the MC’s hand, creating the iconic “Devil’s Horns” symbol with them.

“In fact, let’s put it in our inventory,” Malideus suggested, his eyes gleaming somewhat of a malicious stare. “Maybe they’ll end up as some sort of crafting ingredient-”

“Malideus,” Ral cut him off.

“Yes?”

“Please elaborate on how we’re going to carry a shell that is twofold our height? Along with the fact that we have nothing to store it in?” Ral asked.

“Easy!” Malideus pumped his head high skywards. “If we got to create this character through some character creation screen, I bet that we have game logic levels of inventory.”

“That would be convenient, now wouldn’t it?” Ral sighed. “Fine. Go poke at it or something. Maybe it’ll magically fit into our pockets.”

“I don’t need your permission!” Malideus let out a wayward war cry as he bolted towards the rather imposing shell.

Closing in on the distance between it and him, Malideus fired away his- the MC’s hand, poking it. The Main Character’s finger made contact with the shell. The shell’s somewhat warm surface permeated into the MC’s finger as it simply stood there.

“Ah… what a disappoint…” Malideus found himself questioning his- the Main Character’s vision as he swore he saw the shell starting to twitch somewhat violently, “...ment. Hey, guys. Am I the only one seeing the shell moving… weird?”

“You’re definitely not the only one, unfortunately,” the Summoner began to take control of the body, backing off from the turbulent shell with a few pensive steps.

“What are you waiting for?!” Ral shouted. “We need some distance! No idea what it can do!” Asserting control, Ral jumped backwards, placing several feet of ground between the MC and the shell.

The sand was upheaved as the shell suddenly sprouted several arachnid-like legs. With a fell growl, the shell began turning around, facing the Main Character. Rearing its beady eyes, it unsheathed its long mandibles as well as its claws.

“I think you shouldn’t have poked it like that!” the Summoner, in a frantic state, began to shift through the many pockets of the Main Character, retrieving Ral’s journal, igniting it in a dark sort of magic.

“I can see that I pissed it off, dumbass!” Malideus, with a flourish, began to brandish the Staff of Vodahmin, waving it in front of the hermit crab beast.

“Well… we came here to ‘train’ right?” Ral took control of a portion of the MC’s mind, silently citing incantations of runic, arcane properties. Lighting began to sizzle around the footing of the Main Character, sending out crackling embers of blue.

“So this is level grinding to us? I’m gonna go play the cliched RPG music then," Vaati spoke sitting on the back.

“Focus this time…” the Summoner muttered in a hush tone, well examining the hermit crab behemoth. “Guys, make sure you tell everyone what you’re planning to do. We don’t wanna end up flailing on the floor again.”

“Whatever!” Malideus snarled. “It comes!”

Gales began to warp around the hermit crab as it began to relentlessly charge, its thin, carapace-plated legs seemingly blurring as it ascended its claws, heaving it high.

“It’s open for a parry--go for it, you damned madman!” the Summoner stated a bit too hastily. suddenly, with a rebellious yell, Malideus swung his staff forward, and the tip exploded with red light, firing a beam of terrible energy at the crab, launching it several feet away.

"Woah..." Malideus mumbled, revelling in the stunned feel of his companions. "I told you guys this thing was awesome." He finished as the crab struggled to get up.

“Yes, I admit that was awesome but what exactly did it do?” Ral questioned, watching as the crab got back up, unharmed. “It didn’t do anything! It only knocked it down… Perhaps it has magic resistance? Intriguing, what if-”

“We can hypothesize about the crab later, right now we need to dodge!” Vaati shouted as they barely missed a claw that reached out towards them, barely managing to just slash through the air instead of their face.

“To be precise, it seems to be a rather large version of a hermit crab...” Ral added.

"I'm so sorry, Pinchy..." the Summoner muttered in a rather melancholic tone. "I'll have to kill your greatly distant cousins too..."

"Who the hell-" Sidestepping to the left absentmindedly, Malideus inquired, "-is Pinchy?"

"My pet hermit crab..." the Summoner spoke with a reminiscent tune to his words.

"Can we avoid talking about irrelevant topics while we are currently being accosted by a giant crab?!" Ral yelled.

"Yeah, I like that plan. The thing is immune to magic, though, so..." Malideus said, mentally looking at Audrey, Ricky, and The Overlord.

“Magics aren’t viable then?” the Summoner regarded the incoming, massive claw rapidly making its way towards the Main Character’s face. Sidestepping accordingly, the claw made its way through the now empty space, merely inches away from the MC’s face.

“Such…” the Summoner, marionetting the MC’s hand, he flourished the journal, grasping it tight. Aiming down the book vertically, the Summoner kindled dark energy into the book. Like a torrential wave of water, the pages from the journal began detaching themselves from the book and launching themselves at the hermit crab’s arm.

The pages tore through the appendage, sending out an emerald fluid-like blood in a constant spray as the limb gradually deterred. The crab beast shrieked out a tremor-causing cry as the constant volley of paper going about a couple thousand miles per second from Ral’s journal did not relent, cutting and scathing the leg further.

“Hey- I thought magic didn’t work?!” Malideus shouted.

“This isn’t magic--sorta!” The Summoner bit his lip, keeping a steady aim on the crab. “I’m just sending masses and masses of paper that’s going at about two thousand MPH at the crab thing! Of course it’s gonna cut it!”

“Dead by a thousand papercuts?” Ral mused, intrigued.

“Exactly-” the Summoner trailed off abruptly as the hermit crab leviathan suddenly withdrew into its shell in a mere split second. The pages simply deflected upon impact, scattering themselves towards multiple directions.

“Oh come on!” the Summoner yelled out, his arm still extended, directed at the giant crab. Unrelenting to stop the volley of pages, the Summoner cursed aloud as he deemed his attacks were nullified, “Dammit! That’s not…” a feeling of descent tugged on the Summoner’s--and everybody else’s--attention. Looking downwards, they all took notice of the ground seemingly swirling and apparently sucking them in, “...fair. Crap!”

Flailing wildly, the Summoner began to pull up, but the MC’s legs, half-devoured by the sand, were arrogant to budge.

“What is this!?” Malideus took control, motioning the MC’s eyes towards the crab once more, noticing something off-putting. Imprinted were magic runes that were emanating a red glow from the crab’s shell. It ran across the shell in many patterns--somewhat awe-inspiring had it not been overwhelmingly terrifying at the moment. “The damned crab knows how to use magic too?!”

“I have no words,” Ral commented.

“As a mage, I’m somewhat-”

The Summoner cut Vaati off, “Not now! We’re going to get suffocated by the sand below us!”

Suddenly, the shell began to shift and rumble about once more, scattering the sands around it slightly. Legs began to emerge from its crevice one more, taking itself up. Poking its head out, the crab let out a menacing glare as it began approaching the MC, claws poised wide apart from each other, indicating an attack of some sort .

“Oh shi-” before the Summoner could finish his profanity, the crab suddenly bolted towards the Main Character, its legs melding into the air as it was seemingly sprinting at a ridiculous speed. Closing the distance, being mere inches away, the crab brought forth its left claw, encompassing the Main Character as it began clenching it.

Cutting through the Main Character’s body with little to no effort as flesh began to sever, the Main Character spontaneously bursted into a display of flashy lights. Plopping down towards the ground as the crab instinctively let go, the Main Character staggered downwards.

“Gah-” Malideus began to regain control--albeit, their vessel was somewhat stiff on the controls as Malideus had trouble regaining their footing. “What- what the hell happened?” Malideus slightly tilted the MC’s head upwards, noticing a very small, subtle display screen. The display screen was written on with red font: “The Summoner’s Soul was disrupted!”

“Oh… I guess that what happens when our HP goes down to zero.”

“Is he going to be okay?” Ral questioned. “I can’t hear him anymore… and his presence is faint now.”

“He’ll be fine after we finish off this crab.” Malideus smirked. “Most RPG’s would do that if they had this ‘system’.”

The crab launched itself once more towards the Main Character. As it went airborne, it swung its claws overhead. Diving down onto the ground, it smashed the ground, the attack landing just a few feet off from the Main Character. A fissure came from where attack from the crab connected, sending out a tidal wave of sand.

Engulfed by the sandy tsunami, the Main Character was stifled and choked by the grainy bits of white as he was dragged away several meters away.

Spitting out the sand, Audrey promptly took control, wiping the sand of their face. “Okay… nobody, and I put much emphasis on ‘nobody’, makes Audrey bite the dust… literally.”

Swirling the Staff of Vodahmin around with a circular brandish, Audrey set her footing firmly, asserting her stance as she prepared a countering stance.

“Come on…” she peered into the hermit crab’s soul with a cold glare, “Do it now! Kill me! I’m here! Do it!” she shouted, her eyes widened and imbued with bloodlust.

As Audrey’s taunting reverberated throughout the vicinity, the hermit crab let out a growl, Audrey’s words seemingly getting into the crab’s head.

The crab began to bolt past through the sandy ground once more, its leg much like after images. Extending its right claw further back, it let out a piercing war cry. Lunging forth to bring down a crushing blow, the crab swung its claw to the right.

Audrey, through impeccable reflex, managed to jump and grasp onto the arm that was attached to the claw. Hanging by the arm with only two hands, she settled herself upon the arm, placing her footing onto the arm, she affirmed her hold by grasping the arm with her hand as well.

Thrashing about uncontrollably, the crab attempted to shake of the MC off its arm. Audrey was not shaken off, however, as she simply clenched her teeth against each other in tension as she held firmly onto the enraged arm.

Audrey raised the Staff of Vodahmin, preparing to sever the appendage of the crab. She smugly grinned, preparing to let the blow strike through, but she was interrupted before she could so.

“I think I’m gonna get sick…” Vaati commented

Shrugging it off, Audrey brought forth the lance-staff-thing into the extremity. The metal of the Staff sliced through the appendage with ease, dampening it with a coating of emerald blood.

The Main Character began falling down safely back to the ground with the now amputated arm. Stepping off from the still twitching appendage, Audrey yelled out in a triumphant manner, “Hell yeah! Now you’re screwed like hell, buddy!”

Seeing the crab being occupied convulsing in agony at the lost of its limb, Audrey adjusted her posture with the lance-staff, gripping the base of the Staff. Aiming down onto the crab’s head, Audrey inched the lance backwards a bit before launching it forwards, sending her arm ahead of her as she threw it with remarkable velocity.

Rending the air as it spiraled towards the crab’s face, the Staff began to emanate a red light due to the ridiculous amount of force behind its propulsion. Sickeningly making some sort of gory, crunching sound, the Staff impaled the head of the unfortunate crab.

The crab, under the presumably incomprehensible excruciation of having one’s head being stabbed very violently, writhed and flailed its arachnid-like limbs in a frenzy as they waved around desperately.

The Staff suddenly went aglow once more, letting out a fierce scarlet aura. Beginning to envelop the whole crab, it shone out as it let out a humming sound. Its red radiance becoming blindingly bright, it suddenly detonated, enshrouding the beach with a massive fireball of condensed energy.

As the explosion faded, the dissipating fires of magic gave a clear view of the morsel that was once a behemoth-sized crab. The corpse of the crab was entombed by glass as the explosion from the Staff had apparently soared through such temperature that it actually converted the sand below it into glass.

Currently agape and a bit taken aback at the whole spectacle before them, the Main Character began to stammer out a series of incomprehensible words.

“That explosion was pointless…” Ral Zarek let out a sigh. “It’s impervious to magic.”

“I can still see it struggling to cling to life,” Vaati spoke, narrowing the MC’s eyes to get a clear view through the settling flame, seeing the crab barely being able to move its limbs, trying to escape its sand-glass coffin.

“Aghh!” The Main Character began to swing his arms wildly as the Summoner was suddenly resurrected. “What the hell!? What happened?!”

“According to the display screen some time ago, your soul was ‘disrupted’.”

“What? What does that even mean?” the Summoner stammered. “Sorry- sorry. I still feel weirded out… I felt as if I died and was brought back to life so suddenly again...”

Chapter 6. Making Friends

The fires finally vanished as the magic fueling them trickled out. The sand were relatively spared; a few charred patches and a few mounds of blown over sand here and there, but the beach was relatively clean--excluding the potentially dangerous shells that may or may not have living behemoth mutant crabs residing within them littering across the shore.

“Alright… alright. I think I’ve calmed down now,” the Summoner spoke, wiping a sweat glistening on his forehead.

“Good, ya whimp.” Malideus scoffed. “Anyways, let’s get the Staff of Vodahmin back. I don’t want it to be overly soaked in weird, green crab blood.”

“That’s off…” Ral muttered as they began walking towards the now motionless carcass with the Staff protruding from its head. “Crab blood isn’t green. It’s supposed to be blue.”

“As an avid researched of most departments,” the Summoner cleared his throat before continuing, “I can attest to that. Perhaps there was some artificial alterations to this crab?” the Summoner, with dull but curious eyes, stared at the carcass before them.

It was surprisingly left not charred to cinders and was actually cooked rather finely, permeating a miasma of aromatic seafood.

“Bleh. Who cares.” Malideus reached for the lance, manipulating the MC’s hand in order to reach for it. But as Malideus motioned their vassal closer, the crab suddenly exploded in an array of white light. “Oh god! It has come back from the grave to-” Malideus flinched, swinging the Staff in a frenzied state, trying to batter away the white light. Suddenly, the misty light seeped into the MC’s body, seemingly fading into him. “Oh. Cool. Dark Souls style experiencing gaining.”

Appearing just above their heads was another display screen. This time, it read: “Triumph” followed by a number of statistics such as ‘experience gained’ and ‘loot’.

“Yes!” Malideus shouted as he shot both of his arms towards the sky. “So we do have an inventory!”

“Let’s see here… wait… what.” The Summoner went deadpan, looking at the display with incredulity. “It says we’ve gained ‘a moderate amount’ of experience, and that our amount of experience required to level up is ‘not a lot more’.”

“Disregard the apparent impudence of the cosmos who designed this ‘game’.” Ral Zarek added, “At the very least we survived that ordeal.”

“The fact that we’d have to ‘die’ eight or so times to actually get a ‘game over’ makes surviving against things very, very easy for us,” the Summoner responded.

“What is this, a Shin Megami Tensei game?” Vaati spoke dumbfounded.

“After all that trouble, we got…” the Summoner leaned in over the display, shooting out a rather over analyzing glare. Suddenly, his neutral expression darkened to a grimace, “...a shell. Well, at least Malideus got what he wanted.”

“Had I known that we actually had to do a fight to the death with some fuk that looks like from a Souls game.” Malideus grumbled a bit. “No zweihander? No awesome spells? Ugh.”

“Hey, guys… don’t you have the feeling of...” the Summoner began turning the Main Character, causing him to face to the right--just directly towards the ocean, “...being watched.”

Roosting like a bird was a very eerie silence as the MC swivelled his head, gazing upon the ocean shore. Swaying from left to right was a very large tail, mantled with teal scales. Connected to this tail was a rather bored looking pony who was glaring at the MC rather… dully.

‘Do we say ‘We come in piece’ or something?’ the Summoner mentally noted.

‘By the way it’s looking at us, I’d say no,’ Vaati replied to the Summoner’s thoughts.

‘Her look… indicates of… bewilderment.’ The Overlord concluded, ‘As to be expected.’

‘She’s looking at us... with such… a flummoxed state.’ Ral began pondering, ‘What if she can read minds-’

“I can read minds, actually.”

‘Oh my god.’ The Summoner began, taken aback, ‘Did you just say that outloud, or did she actually-’

‘Impossible,’ answered Ral. ‘No matter where I went, my studies proven one thing--merponies don’t have the natural ability to read minds. One would require to be a very powerful mage, or much more rare-’

“I have ESP,” answered the merpony that was still about several feet away.

‘Uh… That.’ Ral finished.

“Oh wonderful, do you have mind control powers as well?” Vaati asked sarcastically.

“I read minds, not control them,” the mer replied, remaining stoic.

‘Could somebody tell me what the hell ‘ESP’ is?’ Malideus mentally spoke.

‘Well…’ the Summoner sheepishly began, ‘I know what ESP is, but I forgot the unabbreviated title for it. Uh… Was it… Extra… Super Power?’

‘No…’ Ral mentally shook his head. ‘It’s Extra Special Perception.’

“It’s extra sensory perception,” corrected the mer.

‘Ack.’ Ral let out an incoherent babble of words throughout the MC’s mind.

‘What’s our course of action… ?’ the Summoner asked, a bit dazed.

‘She can read our minds, pretty sure that whatever our plan is she’ll know it.’

‘I’m pretty sure she’s going to be more concerned as to how we have several minds stuffed into one body,’ the Fat Friar regarded.

‘If she is, then we’ll have to spill it.’

‘Yeah, I guess we have to,’ the Summoner admitted, closing the MC’s eyes as he brought up his hand below his chin. ‘We have to clear up that we’re-’

‘Here to fuck shit up?’

‘To murder Celestia--this world’s Celestia, anyways?’

‘Enslave Equestria and destroy it to build a better city?’

‘That I want sushi right now?’ Audrey, without much regard to anything, nonchalantly spoke in the mental IRC chatroom.

‘Those are… somewhat correct, save for enslaving Equestria. We can’t do that right now… we have to find True Celestia and-’

‘Fuck her shit up?’

‘Stab her throat with her own horn?’

“You got me at ‘murder Celestia,” the mer, once more in a stupor of stoicism, answered. “Talk.”

“We are many, you are but one!” Malideus declared. “We’ll talk when we want to talk!”

“Yeah!” Audrey took control, pumping the Main Character’s face into the air. “Just who the hell do you think we are?”

“Some odd being that surpasses ‘Multiple Personality Disorder’?” the mer answered.

‘I want sushi even more now…’ Audrey glowered at the mer.

“Since you’ve read our thoughts prior,” Ral steeled his glance at the mer--whose glance was as cold as a barren, cold wasteland, “I don’t think we need to punctuate on our intentions.”

“It’s fine.” The mer shuffled her tail around, kicking up sand. “I want Celestia dead as well.”

‘That… makes things less complicated,’ the Summoner thought.

‘I still want sushi.’ Audrey reluctantly lowered her stance.

“Oh.” The Summoner fumbled with words, uttering out incomprehensive blurbs. “Very- very well then! Uh… Why do YOU want Celestia dead?”

“Our distant cousins of the Southern sea has been nigh completely eradicated due to Celestia’s ponies gratuitously polluting the the se..” The mer somehow gained an even more chilling, ominous aura. “It won’t be long before we too will die.”

“Rather… blunt.”

“I’ve told you mine,” the mer spoke. “Finish the exchange.”

‘By that I’m guessing she wants us to tell her why we want to-’

‘Fuck Celestia’s shit up?’

‘Yeah…’

“It’s a very long story-”

“I have time,” the mer stated.

“Fine then!” Malideus abruptly took control.

“Get the popcorn, we have a lot of stories to tell,” Vaati spoke to her.

“Some time ago, all eight of us in our respective separate bodies--wait or was there nine of us? I’ve lost count…” the Summoner sighed as he spoke. “While collaborating, we accidentally stumbled on an Equestria--an alternate one thanks to dimensional transportation.”

“This Equestria… was hectic… but organized, deadly so.” Ral interjected. “Naturally, the one leading this Equestria was Celestia. She, however, prefers to be called ‘True Celestia’ as she regards her counterparts to be inferior and mere defective copies.”

“After we found that out, we went on, crusading about and freeing the races she’ve enslaved in her Equestria,” the Summoner continued.

Suddenly, there was a very conspicuous pause as the MC suddenly went quiet, an atmosphere of embarrassment beginning to overwhelm the vicinity.

“And then what?” the mer asked.

“We died, unfortunately.” Ral sighed. “We were then reincarnated, for whatever reasoning behind some sort of deity. Catch was that we’d be stuck in just one body…”

“That’s stupid.”

“I know, right?!” the Summoner yelled out in vehement agreement. “Why couldn’t they have gave us more than one body-”

“I was referring to how supposedly eight of you died to one Celestia.”

The MC’s body stood motionless, still in his exact same posture. Seething inside, however, were the several different screams of anguish. Suddenly, Malideus regained control, eyes blazing with hate.

"The fuck do you know about it!? I have to work with THESE idiots, of course I was going to get killed! Were it up to me, I'd have just summoned Nicol Bolas and been done with her!" Malideus cried, gripping his face.

“We love you too Madileus.” Vaati remarked, eliciting a sigh from Malideus.

“You don’t seem to understand what the situation was.” Ral began. “This world’s Celestia? We’ve seen her, and she couldn’t hold a candle to the ‘True Celestia’. It is a fact that most, if not all of us have fought our own versions of Celestia and won. But the ‘True Celestia’...” Ral shuddered. “She does anything, and I mean anything to further her own goals. Even if it means enslaving her own ponies, doing genetic experiments on her enemies, and sacrificing whole worlds just to grow stronger.” He emphasized.

“And this one could be next.” He finished the statement with a dark tone.

"That's why we need some help this time. This Celestia may be a massive knobgobbler, but she can be beat with a small party. We need a worldwide ambush, or a godlike, homosexual robot named Terridax to even weaken 'True' Bitch-lestia. And since I see no homo-bots around, the honor falls to your ilk, hippocampus." Malideus gave his speech, puffing out the MC's chest for intimidation.

“Under the tense that I were to believe all of this,” the mer spoke with a surprising hint of emotion behind her words--said emotion being indignation, “by what assurance do you provide that, assuming that you can even fulfill killing this world’s Celestia, we mers will be spared from the inevitable crumble of this Equestria as the Celestia here is a high ranking authority.”

“If need be, we’ll also kill the other world leaders too!” Vaati clapped his hands. “Problem solved.”

‘Wait- god dammit, Vaati.” The Summoner mentally glared cold, stabbing eyes into Vaati. ‘That’s not-’

“Fair enough,” the mer stated, still remaining that emotionless mien on her face. “Additionally, will you disregard the fact that we merponies, ensuing after the murder of Celestia, will in fact establish tyrannical rule over Equestria?”

“Sure!” Malideus half-mindedly answered.

‘Hold on!’ the Summoner yelled out. ‘What-’

“Very well,” the mer nodded her head as she began to slither back towards the ocean. “I shall provide you adequate enough resources.” Slipping into the clear waters, she let out one last call, “I’ll try to be utmost punctual. Give me a few minutes.”

With that, she delved into the ocean, slipstreaming into the blue abyss of the ocean floor.

With an idle blink, the MC turned around, facing opposite to the beach, gazing upon the golden, glistening sand of the beach.

“Now what,” the Summoner deadpanned.

“Now?” Malideus evanesced a breath from the MC’s mouth. “Now we kill some more hermit crabs.”

“What?” Ral emitted out a disparaging sigh. “We nearly died from the one crab alone.”

“We gotta start somewhere,” Vaati added “If there’s anything I learned from playing Golden Sun it’s that to stand a chance against True Bitchlestia we need to do every single side-quest ever. Every. Single. One.” He ended emphasizing the last words.

“I’ve no qualms with that since I’m a perfectionist in regards to these things,” the Summoner answered, wiping off a sweat from the MC’s head. “Very well then. We should probably do a pre-emptive strike on them while they’re still unaware,” the Summoner muttered out audibly as he faced the uncountable amount of spiny, colossal black shells resting about on the soft blanket of sand.

“Alrighty then.” Without much regard, Audrey began to spin the lance, seamlessly spinning it with her one hand as she began to raise it. Firmly gripping the base of it as she reared it way over her head, she threw it.

Lunging at its target, it reft the winds of its peaceful stillness as it began to cut through them. Finding its way into the base of the shell, the Staff lanced its way into it, burrowing deep into the crab as it cracked out the shell, flinging bits of it away as it made a sickening crunch.

Chapter 7. Grind Away The Levels, Dood!

With a roar of pain, the shell tremored itself violently as the crab within it started to sprawl its legs about. Basking its limbs into the sunlight, the crab peered its head out, its peridot-sized eyes holding a burning grudge within them as it began to twitch and move about in multiple directions, constantly going back and forth unpredictably as it snapped its claws at the MC’s direction.

“Nice shot… it seems that this one’s a bit more brittle than last time. It’s even smaller than last time,” the Summoner spoke of his analysis. “Let’s see if it’s still impervious to magic.”

Withdrawing the journal of Ral with a swift flick of the arm, the Summoner drew it upon the crab. “Death by a thousand papercuts!” Kindling the malice of forbidden magic within the book, individual pages of the book began to squall themselves towards the crab.

Peppering the crab’s several legs with searing, cutting parchment, the hermit crab lowered its claws, covering its face with them. The pages still cut through the claws, soon enough, green ooze from before began to seep out from them as the papers lashed out at them.

“Vaati, you’re up.” The Summoner relinquished control, the Main Character losing its vivace as his face suddenly went blank along with his actions. “Train up your magic a bit.”

“I’m flattered, I assure you that I won’t give out any fuck-me eyes weak spots.” The Main Character suddenly shifted from a pallid gray to a purple as he promptly let a sinister grin etch on his face. Vaati stabbed the Staff into the sandy surface, making it stick upright.

Bones clicking into place as he cracked his knuckles, Vaati began chanting mystic citations underneath his breath as he flared his palm wide open. His hands began to emit a purplish aura of magic as the winds suddenly moderated, turning into wild gales.

Forming from thin air were pitch dark orbs. They all began to circle around the MC--who was still muttering out incantations subtly and silently. Forming a barrier, the shadows consistently encircled the Main Character.

With a fell glare, Vaati flung his arm at the crab’s general presence.

Following the gesture were shadowy orbs mingled with blood scarlet color appearing once more from nothingness. These orbs began to seek out the crab, steadily making their way towards it as they homed in.

Burying themselves into the crab, they all left tongues of black fire as they passed through the crab. As they passed through, these dark spheres made U-turns towards the hermit, striking the crab once more in succession.

The crab, shooting its limbs in a frantic pattern in several directions, attempted to extinguish the lingering flames.

Two more orbs appeared around Vaati. Circling around a bit high above the air, they began to stream out a steady ray of black arcane energy. The crab, seared by both laser and inferno, drew out green blood, dying the sand a repugnant green color.

“Anyone else that wants a chance is free to take over from here.”

“Wha-” the Summoner trailed off suddenly. “Of all times, you decided to do that now.”

“What? I thought you all wanted to get some more fun.”

“I can’t do much since I’m used to swords and rifles… so…” Ricky nervously spoke.

“I only specialize in either swords or bludgeoning weapons.” The Overlord exhaled in annoyance. “I cannot participate in the murder of this crab.”

“Meh. I ain’t feeling it--killing a wee crab seems too boring for me,” Audrey let a sigh escape from the MC’s lips as she said that.

“I’ve a feeling I’ve already showcased enough…” the Summoner muttered idly. “Malideus. Have a go at it, will you?”

“Fine then,” Malideus spoke.

With a swipe of his staff, Malideus simply gazed at the beast a moment, then rushed over, fast as lightning, and grabbed the crab in a vicelike bear-hug, using his legs to lift the crab over his head.

"Gonna... snap you... into a Slim Jim!" Malideus roared, lifting the crab, and with a grunt, Malideus bent backwards, suplexing the crab, then spinning around, and preparing for another. And with two consecutive slams into the sand dealt, the crab simply laid there, limp, before exploding into white light and Slim Jims.

“Well then…” the Summoner let out a soft whistle as he spoke. “That took care of that,” he uttered out almost inaudibly as he continued staring at the thoroughly obliterated viscera of the formerly-a-crab thing. “And we gained a level… and with that…”

Skimming through the display screen, the Summoner slipped out a hiss of agitation. “What a pain… We gained a meager one Equipment Point. What a pain, but still, it’s something.”

“Yeah… and we still have several crabs left to kill.” Ral motioned towards the shells simply reclining on the beach. “Surprised that merpony still hasn’t arrived yet, however.”

“Forget her… for now, let’s focus on purging this place of crabs.” The Summoner shrugged slowly, withdrawing Ral’s journal once more as he faced the myriad shells.

...In which they kill ALL the crabs offscreen as to not bore the readers with crab battles...

“Last… one…” Panting, the Summoner’s voice rang out from the Main Character who was well drenched in sweat. “Last… bloody… crab.”

“In the end… we received an additional four levels…” Ral’s voice spoke with fatigue, causing him to stop abruptly. With a deep inhale, Ral continued through a somewhat hoarse tone, “I don’t think that was worth it…”

Vaati shrugged off the fatigue, managing to blurt out, “At least… it’s a damn start.”

Suddenly, the echoing sound of clapping came from somewhere near the shore. Turning the right, the MC’s glare was greeted with the mer from some time ago.

“You…” the Summoner managed to barely say.

“You!” Malideus rose his finger, pointing it at her.

“You,” Ral spoke with not much emotion--presumably, he was drained much from fighting the same enemy over and over again.

“You?” Audrey spoke out with slight confusion, scratching the back of her head, having already forgotten who she was--this was presumably because she nearly lost it to utter bloodlust when they had to simultaneously fight ten crabs at once.

“What took you so damned long?!” Malideus rose his fist, violently spinning it around in the air. “We had to kill crabs just to avoid being suffocated by boredom!”

“Actually, it was for the exp-”

“Shut up!” Malideus spat back.

“Well. Seeing that you were busy killing the mutants-”

“Ha!” Ral shouted out. “So I was correct; these crabs aren't natural.”

Chapter 8. Progress

“As I was saying…” The mer cleared her throat. “Seeing that you were busy killing those crabs, which is convenient for us as they make troublesome nocturnal predators for us, I decided to not disturb you.”

“Predators? Hm…” the Summoner spoke with a calculative mien. “Not to disturb us, or for the convenience that we’d eliminate them for you?”

“Spare me the complaining,” the merpony spoke with outright sternness. “I’ve went out of my way and made several arrangements and to give you…” she began motioning her hooves together, forming an illuminant orb of energy.

A pool of water, just about the size of a person, began to swell up from the ground, it's waters faintly permeating a blue glow. Emerging from the waters was something metallic, protruding its tip from the crevice of foreboding waters. It was as thick as a stick, but not so much that it'd be effortlessly snapped--it was about the size of a lance's base.

It finally emerged from view, the triple pronged skewering tips that was without a doubt a trident's. The multi-pronged weapon casted off the luminescent liquid from it, revealing its golden surface laced with blue crystalline shards embedded into it.

Seaweed with an unnatural pigment of yellow hung loosely from it, seemingly binded in knots as to prevent them from falling off. These water indigenous strips of plants appeared to let out sparks of lightning from them in a timed interval of a couple of seconds.

Where the prongs meet with the handle was some sort of gem that was much bigger than the shards present around the base of the trident. It was much more bigger and was opaque with a blue hue.

"...that. Behold." The merpony slithered towards it, leaving a trail behind her. Grasping it within her hooves, she rose it high, causing it to reflect the sun rays much more intensely causing it to emanate a golden luster. "One of the marvels of the Merponies."

Casually, she arced it down, grabbing it by the middle of it. Stretching her hooves back, she tossed it at the Main Character's direction.

With a flinch of eight or so people, excluding Audrey since she has an innate habit of disregarding danger, the Main Character stiffened his stance.

The trident simply landed before them, piercing deep within the ground, sticking upright, ready to be used.

Grasping the base of it, Ral spoke suddenly as the sensual feeling of lightning suddenly grasped around the Main Character, "Compatible with the element of lightning... This. Will. Be. Amazing."

"W- wait!" the Summoner spoke out towards the mer who was turning around, heading towards the ocean. "This... this is nice and all, but what we really need are allies-"

"What do you think I'm doing?" The mer began to descend into the waters, her shoulders being barely able to reach the surface. "I'll get you willing soldiers. Give me time."

"And... she's gone," Malideus announced, seeing that the mer has already delved into the abysmal waters. "We'll have to come back here later on for that promised army."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah-" Ral suddenly gained control, wielding around the trident around, swishing it from right to left , up and down in one hand. "Staff of Vodahmin," Ral spoke, looking at the Staff held in a firm vice within the Main Character's left hand, "return to inventory."

The staff lit afire with a pure white light, completely being engulfed by it. Completely obscured within the radiance's stretch, the Staff disappeared, leaving behind dissipating embers of light from where it once existed.

"Wait- voice commands?" Vaati spoke out. "How did you know that the inventory thing responded to voice commands-"

"Lucky guess," replied Ral, before returning his attention to the staff.

“I say its time for… An experiment!” he shouted out, somewhat giddily as he was suppressing his urge to rapidly shake around like a schoolgirl.

Chapter 9. Random Encounter

The ground chiseled and broke, depressing under the weight of the Main Character’s foot as the Party breathed in the zephyrs of livening air pervasive around the coast. Around them were sand. Sibilating, the golden grains of sand were scattered as whirls of wind brushed against them.

Scaling up an ascending earthen pathway of brown dirt, the Main Character smirked, wielding the Trident just leveled with his head.

“Are… you sure this is wise, lesser wizard? Because it’s not that I don’t trust you, I just… don’t trust those hippocamps is all…” Malideus vocalized as the body raised the trident, eager to try it out.

Stepping onto the edge of the cliff they had discovered recently, they viewed their surroundings. Scattered among the left side of their view, say fifty meters or so, were trees. A menagerie of trees by the looks of things.

These trees were merely outskirts to an even thicker, denser forest riddled with thorned, charcoal-black foliage.

There was an undoubtedly sinister aura emanating from this particular forest.

Magic surging around the Trident as the MC raised it high, it lit afire, shooting out arcs of electricity between its three tips.

“We’re not exactly in a position where it would be wise to refuse aid,” the Friar vocalised. “But yes, we should still remain cautious.”

“Oh right, I forgot!” Vaati mentally slapped himself. “To sum up, I did a Death Egg mk.II on the Equestria Girls world of my Equestria. Please fucking remind me to destroy the system of that shit as soon as possible before Trollestia takes that too.”

"Death Egg? Really?" Malideus deadpanned, casting a mental glare at Vaati.

“It was the lesser of two annoyances. So, what exactly are we doing with this… oversized fork made of gold?” Vaati spoke out.

The MC grinned as Ral guided their hand down to a strong grip. “Intriguing, the merponies are aquatic beings but they have a magical treasure that is lightning attributed.” He muttered, twirling the spear a few times.

“Logic doesn’t really play much of a role in our…” The Summoner fumbled a bit, uncertainty lacing his hesitation, “...escapades.” The Summoner hummed to himself, bringing the MC’s hand upon his chin. “Now that I think about it, actually. There are marine creatures capable of low-rate electricity, right?”

“Normally, I would like to find the properties of the Trident; abilities, type of metal used to make it, its flexibility, and many other aspects… None of which I can test, except for one.” He grunted as he drew their arm back, aiming the tip of it towards one of the nearby cliffs beside theirs.

“Audrey, mind seeing if you can break that cliff over there?” He asked, the trident suddenly dimming, the sparks of it vanishing as the crackles of electricity died out. “I wish to see how much damage this can potentially deal without any magical imbuement.”

“With my former body?” Audrey smirked as she spoke out, twirling the Trident around like a lance as she stepped towards the direction of the cliff just, say perhaps thirty or so feet away, yonder right to them. “Without a damned doubt. Not sure about this one though,” she stated as she leveled the Trident just above her head, poising it to be thrown.

“Eh.” Ral nonchalantly muttered, “If we break the Trident, chances are that we’ll find someone capable of fixing it. You just have to see what the blacksmiths that I’ve encountered in my travels are capable of.”

“Let it cleave through the winds, comrade!” the Summoner sing-songed, prompting Audrey to widen the smirk on the MC’s face.

With a bit of a revving shrink, the posture of the Main Character shrunk a bit as Audrey clenched the handle of the Trident a bit tenser.

Hurling the Trident forwards with a coordinated throw, the golden weapon pierced through the wind, whistling out as it spiraled towards the side of the cliff.

Embedding itself deep as shattered rock flung out from where it struck, the Trident let out a chilling resonance as it stuck itself to the cliff.

“Pft.” Audrey shook her head a bit, conveying her disappointment as she peered her head forward, squinting at the result of her throw. “Not amused. Should’ve at least obliterated half of that cliff with that throw.”

“Yes, yes.” The Summoner puppeted the MC, walking in a circle as he spoke, “Question is how are we going to get it back now?”

“Obviously, we use telekinesis.” Ral shot a smug smile as he turned to face the Trident--still afar in the distance and still suspended by the cliff. “And as I am an accomplished mage, I can pull this off without no arcane assistance.”

“Sure, sure.” The Summoner, bemused, flaunted his hand, gesturing Ral to proceed. “Go ahead.”

Expanding the Main Character’s footing, Ral steeled his posture as he extended an arm towards the direction of the currently-embedded Trident.

Tensing his mind, a fleck of sweat began to trickle out from the MC’s temple as Ral struggled and wavered, his mentality waning as he gnashed his teeth, his hand trembling from over-working it.

“Agh.” Ral drooped down, a feeling of dread and depression wringing out from his figure. “Can’t perform telekinesis… our INT level must be too low.”

The Summoner rolled his eyes as he spoke out, “Recall: Trident.” He extended his hand forward, displaying his palm.

Afar, the Trident crackled with thunder, enveloped by a blanket of magical light. Blaring out thunderclaps, the Trident dissipated from existence, vanishing into glowing dusts of fluttering, evanescing bits of magic.

The Summoner idly stared at nothing in particular, remaining motionless, his hand still expanded wide, as if expecting something

Flashes of bolting lightning began to sizzle within the opened palm of the Main Character, more or less, flaring the surroundings with blinding light.

Forcing his clutch close, the Summoner felt a cold surface within his palm as he gripped the radiance of crackling sparks. Flourishing away, swinging his arm to the right, a lengthy pole began to materialize, engulfed in running electricity.

Cascading, the electricity began to disperse as the Trident fully took shape, but still eclipsed by the flashes of lightning.

The cackling lightning finally dissipated, leaving the Trident viewable--completely untarnished and still somewhat emitting sparks of lightning.

“Pft.” Ral mentally dismissed. “A simple weapon-return spell?" He pondered for a bit, seeming hesitant. "Why didn’t I thought of that…”

“Anyways, we got what we haphazardly just threw at the side of a cliff,” Malideus stated. “What now, proto-brainiac?”

Ral shrugged off as he opened his mouth to retort, but before he could, he stopped himself, the Main Character’s mouth just hanging awkwardly open.

“Do you… hear that?” Ral spoke out as he began to walk towards the source of the noise--the end of the cliff, the pool of water below them.

It was a frothing sort of noise, much like intense bubbling.

“It’s sounds like sibilant water frothing violently…” the Summoner answered, their steps toward the end of the cliff wary and slow.

Audrey suddenly regained control. Yanking away the controller from the rest of the group, she began sprinting towards the end of the cliff. Stopping just at the edge, she peered at the bottom, spotting the vastness of azure water welling below them.

“I don’t know what the hell he just said!” Audrey exclaimed her statement, forming a gleeful smile. “But I did hear ‘water’ and ‘violently’ in the same sentence! And that means...” she trailed off, her giddy figure not bothering to finish her sentence.

Gazing down, she indeed spotted the patch of water that was seemingly suspicious--welling and spiraling like a miniature whirlpool, filling itself with bubbles. “Yes!” Audrey pumped her fist high. “I called it! Sea monster!”

“Oh good,” Ral muttered out with a straight-face riddled with annoyance. “More to hinder us of our travels.”

“Who cares?!” the Summoner psyched himself, stancing the Main Character’s figure, drawing the Trident. “We’re gonna get experience points--and maybe rare loot!

A tumor of water spreading out from the frothing bubbles, a texture of greenish black appeared. Towering over the patch of water were large, yellow eyes that seemed to have no irises and were just simply two analogous spheres.

“Wow.” The Summoner widened as he stepped back a bit, somewhat unsure what to make of out of the peculiar-eyed beast. “Googly eyes would’ve been better on that thing.”

Finally, the sea beast’s upper half finally emerged out of the blue depths, presenting itself brazened. It was some sort of serpentine fish. Its green scales rough and plating its skin like armored plates. Its snake-like body seeped out some sort of clear fluid.

However, upon its surface were clusters of exposed flesh, darkened and decaying with parasitic moss-like colonies nestled within them.

Its maw was guarded with a mandible, barely concealing its rows of fangs lining against its mouth cavity. Its face also had very lengthy whiskers.

“Damn!” The Summoner stepped back. “And I thought it couldn’t get any worse! Ral, what the hell is that?” The Summoner pointed the triple prongs of the Trident at the idle beast upon the water.

“It looks like some sort of eel.” Ral leaned a bit closer towards the eel creature that was waving around expectantly. “A very large and deformed one, that is.”

“Yeah? Deformed is a very large understatement-” The Summoner staggered back, interrupting himself, as the eel suddenly splashed forward, jumping high into the sky.

“What the hell!?” Malideus cursed out as he sprinted back off the cliff.

The eel smashing the ground with tenacity, the hill splintered and trembled, cracks forming across the base of the hill. The eel wriggled fanatically, ooze being splattered across the earth, the terrain being murked with slime, as it flailed.

“It jumped at us?” Vaati spoke in disbelief. “That doesn’t seem sensible!”

“Look.” Ral pointed at the eel’s body, pointing out the colonies of parasitical entities blotting the eel’s flesh with mossy bubbles. “Parasites… This eel must be under the influence of them!”

“How unfortunate.” Malideus jerked his hand, the Trident responding as magic began to envelope it, becoming nothing more than a figure of light. The Trident vanishing into embers of light, Malideus held his hand forward, summoning the Staff of Vodahmin. “Still. No pity for you, damned fish!”

The Staff of Vodahmin drafting into the opened palm of Malideus from non-existence, Malideus aimed it at the eel.

The eel desperately swivelled left and right, inching itself closer towards the Main Character.

Malideus smirked maliciously as he tapped upon the Staff’s mechanisms. The Staff’s tip suddenly kindled out a visible fire, its intense warmth filling the atmosphere feverishly.

“Wait.” The Summoner sighed out. “The Staff could change elements?”

Malideus blinked blankly. “Uh. Yes. Did I not tell you guys that before?”

Ral answered for the Summoner, “No. We do not recall you mentioning the multi-element of that staff.”

Malideus shrugged. “Meh. Whatever.”

Brandishing it across overhead, Malideus once more extends his arm forward, pointing the Staff exactly at the eel’s face.

“Fried fish!” Malideus yelled out as he channeled magic into the Staff. The Staff growing volatile with arcane torrents, it brimmed with power, its flame enlarging. The Staff at its zenith, unleashed the unwieldy amount of flame stored within it.

Infernos unrelented from the Staff, bathing everything in crimson fire. The dirt itself even began to sizzle, melting into thin lava. The air sizzled and distorted, Malideus still grinning madly as sweat profusely exited out of his face.

The eel beast’s silhouettes was obscured by the ludicrous amount of flames engulfing the area whole. Everything was consumed in purging flames as Malideus continued on perpetualizing the stream of flames.

Sending off the Staff with a flick, Malideus regarded the beast as cooked finely and ended the flames, still sporting his insane grin.

As the flames extinguished themselves, however, the eel’s body was seen once more, untarnished and relatively unharmed.

As such, Malideus hung his jaw loosely in astonishment as he drooped down in incredulity.

“What kind of fish is that?!” Malideus shouted out spitefully.

“Perhaps its the slime coating it?” Ral suggested. “Though, I have not exactly one explanation for why a marine animal would need fire resistance.”

“Whatever.” Malideus shrugged off. “Who’s next?”

“I’d like to try.” Ral stood a bit more finely, fixing his composition as he sported a determined smirk. “I think I still have access to one of my better skills.”

“Go ahead.” The Summoner nodded as he gestured at the still writhing fish. “I can’t do much without a more magical book yet.”

Nodding, Ral retracted his hand to his neck. Tapping the Izzet Keyrune hanging loosely from a chain swathing their neck, the Rune flashed out light in a blink. Suddenly, emanating magic from its sanctity, the Rune cascaded magic.

Absorbing the magic, Ral hummed out in satisfaction, “Right. Much, much better.”

“You didn’t tell us that either.” Malideus folded his arms together.

“Hey!” Ral defended himself, “Didn’t I tell you that this thing could give us mana?”

“Yes.” The Summoner nodded, looking downwards with closed eyes. Rearing his head leveled forward once more, he flared open his eyes once more. “But you didn’t say that we needed to tap it to gain mana from it.”

“Oh.” Ral titled his head a bit. “My mistake.”

Shrugging off that short incident, Ral positioned himself once more, staring the eel. Reaching forth, into the empty space before him, Ral summoned the Trident. As he flourished the Trident in whirls, he unequipped the Staff, causing it to vanish from sight.

Drawing the Trident high, lightning sparked from it, arching from each prong to the other as it flashed out violently. Suddenly, arcing out down, the trail of sparks followed it as the Trident was suddenly pointed at the eel.

“Good bye, foul fish,” Ral sing-songed as he stabbed the Trident downwards. A strike of lightning enveloping the Main Character, spouts of electricity protruded from the ground as dirt was coarsing with electricity. Even the air itself was cleaved and pierced with stabs of lightning emanating from the Main Character as a deafening, resonating piercing sound played out continually.

The fish actually being affected this time, its aegis of slime ineffective and was dried away by the searing bolts, was pierced and forked by the unrelenting electricity. Smoke coming from it, it suddenly went limp without no more than a struggle.

Still, the assault of electricity unrelented, spikes and spirals of lightning still pervading the atmosphere around the Main Character.

Finally, the electricity dimmed down as Ral felt a pang of fatigue running through his body. Seeing that he’s straining himself, he ended the display of sparks. Everything going back to as they were, the menagerie of lightning ended.

Panting in exhaustion, Ral stepped back from the Trident he has impaled straight into the ground. Looking around, eyes darting back and forth, head turning left and right, he was somewhat stunned.