“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!”