The hive is silent around her as Liz walks through the tunnels. A good thing she has recently noticed is that her systems include an automatic mapping function which allows her to mark points of interest as she comes across them. One hand trails across a thin vein of purple crystal worked into the waxy substance that covers the more delicate organic components of the structure. “Hard to believe we ended up on a planet with both a pre-existing Zerg infestation and raw energon. It’s like there’s some truth to that concept of destiny after all.” A light flick of one of her mechanical fingers activates the latent energy, causing the mineral to flicker back and forth along its length before turning on like some low-tech version of a fluorescent bulb. Fifty feet in front of her the hall opens up into the artifact archive; the room that holds everything scouts have brought back that isn’t raw materials or of obvious use in some other way while seeming too valuable to simply discard.

She’d recognized three things while looking around in here earlier, and one was going to be avoided like the plague while another seems to be of no immediate use. The three drone guards around the perimeter of the chamber ignore her as she heads over to the shelf where she’d seen the Unitrix core. “Okay, if I remember correctly you come from a series with at least three genius-level intellects, and I need some help if I want to live without fear that a single bad accident will cripple me forever. The question is, how the hell do I know what’s inside of you?” Her right hand reaches out, hesitantly touching the casing and only tightening her grip to lift it from its place of rest when it doesn’t immediately crumble to dust.

The fact that she begins hearing a voice in her head that is clearly not coming from anyone she knows almost causes her to drop it. “Man of many shapes? I thought this thing would just do something to give me the body of whatever was inside of it for a short time? Okay, Liz, time to think first and act later. Weigh the odds. Am I going to get someone just as clueless as I am about technology beyond how to use a computer? His intent certainly doesn’t sound malevolent, unless he’s changed since this recording was made.” She turns, looking around the room at the three guards. “My sister told you to obey any orders I gave unless they conflict with one that she gives. Do not attack unless you are attacked; no matter what ends up arriving here. Do not infest either.” The one she’s facing offers a salute, and the sound of three hooves hitting the floor tells her the other two have as well. “Whoever you are, don’t make me regret doing this.”

Her thumb lifts as she closes her eyes, but her audio receptors pick up the sound of high heels coming down the hall. Even closing her eyes doesn’t block all input anymore, a readout showing distance calculated based on echoes as ‘too far to intercept’ causes her to smile as she brings her thumb down the precise distance required to activate the unit without damaging it.

A bright flash fills the room, and three new beings appear.

“-Freya, I know you don’t like talk shows, just do your dad a solid for once,” a male voice speaks.

“Fine, but you owe me,” a distorted female voice speaks. A beat passes and something heavy collides with the floor. “Never fought a robot before, this should be fun.”

“Why don’t we let them talk before we go swinging a sword around?” another, clearer, female voice speaks up. “Hello, can you understand us?”

Three people? Liz opens her eyes and looks around the room once again; bringing her hands in front of her body with the palms held open and outward at the mention of fighting in what she hopes is the universal gesture for ‘wait a second here.’ “You’re speaking English clearly enough. One of you sounds a bit like my sister with that burr in your voice, but I doubt it’s for the same reason. I didn’t call anyone for a fight, either. I was hoping I could get some assistance with something I need, but have no means of acquiring or creating.”

Liz blinks, taking in the trio before her. One is a tall man, clad in a t-shirt with a vodka drinking skull on it and a pair of jeans. A wicked scar runs under his eye and his hair reaches down to his waist. His right forearm is almost entirely taken up by some kind of device.

Standing on his left is a lavender colored alicorn with a waving purple mane. She wears a smile, despite an ugly scar carved into her throat.

Finally, standing off to the side is what appears to be a humanoid changeling. It also wears jeans and a hoodie, hefting a sword taller than itself. The sword had to weigh at least a ton, though its blade is corroded.

The man clears his throat, holding his hand up. “Bah-wheep-Graaaagnah wheep nini bong.”

“Just my luck. I not only get a comedian, but a stingy one at that. You’re supposed to offer an energon chip while saying that.” Her expression changes from apprehension to an enthusiastic smile as she lowers her left arm to hang at her side, extending her right hand towards the human for a quick shake. “My name’s Elizabeth, but I will answer to Blackarachnia if you slip up and use that instead.”

The man shrugs. “I don’t have any of those.” He looks at her hand, taking it. “Jason Hughes. This is my daughter, Freya, and my friend, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Jason, got it. I don’t think I want to know the specifics of how you have a daughter who looks like one of these rogue zerg, but I am sure it is an interesting tale.” She offers her hand to Freya the same way, while turning her attention towards the only new arrival who isn’t a humanoid. “Wings, and a horn. You wouldn’t happen to be related to Celestia, would you?”

Twilight giggles, shaking her head. “No, I’m afraid not. She used to be my teacher. That was at least twenty years ago.”

“Twenty years ago? How are you speaking English when I couldn’t understand a word she said before she finished casting a translation spell?”

“That's because we’re from a different version of Equestria,” Twilight explains helpfully. “You brought us to your Equestria through Jason’s token.”

“Ah, so Multiverse Theory really is true then? A different world for every option available when making a decision... which means I just created a new world when I decided to summon you versus the one where I decided to wait and try doing things on my own?” She looks back at Freya, a sound like grinding gears coming from her throat as she pulls her hand back.

“What?” Freya asks, frowning at Liz. “You gonna just stare at me?”

“No, but I’m wondering just how different things must be on the world you come from for you to be able to speak to me. The zerg here communicate via telepathy, and apparently a computerized brain is so different from their own that I can’t catch the sig-” She facepalms mid-sentence as the idiocy of her own train of thought hits her. “Different world, different conditions, different rules. You aren’t even zerg, are you?”

Freya huffs, letting her sword hit the ground. “No. I’m a changeling queen. I don’t know what a ‘zerg’ is.”

A new voice butts in on the discussion, one with a similar distortion to Freya’s and carrying a tone of relief. “Good. Consider yourself lucky that you have never heard of them, because that means you should be safe.” Sarah enters the room, flanked by Chrysalis and a far more dangerous looking insectile pony as compared to the three guards around the room that look no different from each other, and anyone would be forgiven for thinking them a simple changeling. “Sarah Destefano, the person in charge of this hive, and someone my sister should have consulted with before doing anything that could endanger it.”

Freya grins at Chrysalis, giving a wave. “Sup, mom?”

I would know if I had spawned a non-Zerg somehow. I am not your mother. The response comes instantly in a deliberate telepathic signal that echoes in organic minds. It does end up with an identical tone to the version the visitors know. What differs is made more evident as it steps further into the room and unfolds its segmented legs to stretch and stand at a full height of nearly ten feet tall. She lacks antennae and her mane is composed of olive tendrils similar to those that Sarah possesses.

“I didn’t mean you exactly.” Freya hefts her sword again, somehow storing it in her pocket. “Another version of you is my mother.”

“You’ll have to forgive her for not extrapolating. Zerg that are created as such from scratch rather than infested from intelligent sources do tend to lack much in the way of imagination. Cerebrates, being little more than brains the size of a sports stadium, are an exception.” Sarah approaches the trio, with the honor guard blocking the doorway behind her. “I was a bit of a fanatic for Starcraft lore back home. Hopefully that will end up paying off. I’d offer to shake your hand, but I’d rather avoid infecting one of you with the base parasite form by accident.”

“Sarah, I don’t need your help here.”

“Liz, do you have any idea what that man registered as when he arrived? He’s not human. The guards sensed a Xel’naga. The only one that interferes with life outside the void is Amon. I don’t know how much of the game translates into this reality, but I’m not about to leave you alone with a being on the same scale as the one that created the zerg in the first place without proof that you are in no danger.”

Jason rubs his neck. “I have no idea what a ‘Xel’naga’ is, but, you are right. I’m not human. I’m a jotun, grandson of Hel, Goddess of Death.”

Sarah smirks and lifts her left leg off the ground, her ‘wings’ bracing her for stability. “Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “I could summon her if you like. She’s probably already spying on us. Watching me is like her number one pastime.” He shifts, crossing his arms. “Or, I could do something else.”

“No, please. I called you because I need help. I need help Sarah can’t give me, and the sooner I can get it the better.” A glare is directed at her sister, followed by bringing her right hand up to give a futile rub at her left shoulder. “Zerg don’t do machines. I don’t know how to transform yet, and the only other way I know to heal an injury is a C.R. chamber. I called him because I thought he could do something about that once the Unitrix turned out to not be what I thought it was.”

Jason eyes Liz, looking her over. “I’m going to guess repairs, yeah? I can do that.” Another bright light fills the room and Jason is replaced by a tiny, grey skinned creature.

“Err, not repairs as such at the moment. I’m more worried about the future. I need something that will be able to repair me if I end up too damaged to do it on my own.” Her eyes narrow as a thought rises to the surface of her mind. “Then again, not being able to transform could be a result of an injury that I don’t know about, or an imperfection in the associated systems due to caring more about having hands than being completely accurate to the show model.”

Purple light flares in the ‘cracks’ around Sarah’s eyes, and her expression goes from hostile suspicion to shame before she can turn to hide it. Her wings draw up tight against her back as she begins to walk back out of the room. “Right, right. Don’t antagonize the only person in the world that can help build something that will keep you from dying in the future. Good plan, and you actually thought about the consequences of things for once. My baby sister is finally growing up.” If you hurt her, I will destroy you. The thought is sent to Jason alone, and accompanied by the hissing of a hundred bestial vocal cords as the hive mind responds to its leader.

Jason frowns at Sarah, shifting into a larger, floating cat creature with a purple tail. His eyes glow blue and a searing pain fills the hivemind. I really don’t like being threatened. Your sister will be fine, I swear it on my life. He shifts back into the smaller creature. “Alright, I’m going to need a lot of tools, and space to work.” Pausing, he looks back at Sarah. “I promise.”

Sarah wipes the orange ichor leaking from her nose away with one hand. “Point taken. Sorry. I’m not feeling so great after a week without my medication, and the thing that sent us here has made me more suspicious than usual about something that I can’t just look at and know what it is that I’m seeing.” A new tunnel opens along the southern curve of the room, leading down at an angle that is almost steep enough to require a ladder. “Liz will show you the tool collection, but the only open area is the creep field outside. Do try to make whatever you create reasonably portable.”

“Right.” Jason hops up to Liz’s shoulder. “And uh, sorry about the counter-threat thing.”

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t hold grudges without good reason, and a dick-waving contest leaving me worse off is hardly good enough of a reason.” Two of the three guards step away from their posts, moving to flank Freya and Twilight, the third moves next to the newer opening. “It seems that I am to entertain guests, though. Are either of you hungry, by any chance?”

Liz starts walking down the tunnel leading out, not waiting to hear responses. “We’re Italian, family is important to us. I threatened Celestia with this because she was giving Sarah a headache and I thought that she was casting a spell to harm her. It didn’t help that I couldn’t understand her yet.” A whirring sound is heard and her left hand holds up a gun clearly based on the gun form of the original Megatron. “Not my proudest moment, but she got me back by pretending to threaten me with twenty years of community service.”

“Sure, I could eat.” Freya shrugs. “If you’re offering, I’m eating.”

Sarah nods, sending out a quick signal with instructions for two hunters and a gatherer trio before turning her gaze to the alicorn in the room. “And for yourself, Miss Sparkle? I’ll admit, I don’t know if I even need to eat anymore myself, but a full stomach brings more comfort than an empty one.”

Twilight nods. “I wouldn’t mind a bite to eat.”

“Should I assume that you both prefer a diet of plants?” She keeps the pace slow and easy, the hall lighting up as she approaches with the guests, revealing the undeniably organic nature of the building around them as the flesh within the walls pulses with an impossible heartbeat. “You bear more than a superficial resemblance to strictly herbivorous herd animals on Earth, and I noticed no meat of any kind in the small spread Celestia provided for herself when she greeted us in the frozen north.”

Neither of them seemed all that bothered by the walls.

Twilight peers around, fascinated. “Ponies, at least where we’re from, can eat meat. We just choose not to.”

“Not me,” Freya cuts in, bearing her fangs. “Meat all the way for me.” She closes her mouth. “And love. Love works too.”

“A race of emotivores? Alan Dean Foster wins that argument I guess. Old science fiction author from Earth, to answer the unasked question. He wrote about such things as entire planets full of crystalline creatures that eat light, beings whose entire nature wasn’t even fully visible because half of their body existed as fractals to the point of invisibility. I do wish I had saved more books to my phone before going to that con. Watch where you step, the floor isn’t perfectly smooth or level yet.”

“We could always bring you back some books from Midgard,” Twilight offers. “If you give me a shopping list, I can see to it that Dash drops them off.”

“Midgard? Next thing you’re going to be telling me that you’ve personally met Elminster Aumar himself.” Drones move on the ceiling, answering the call for resources elsewhere. “Don’t get me wrong, Miss Sparkle, I believe you when you tell me you have been places, but I do prefer to see things with my own eyes whenever possible.”

Twilight blinks, tilting her head at the name. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that name before. Midgard is the cosmological name we call the realm Earth is in,” she begins to explain, sounding very much like a teacher. “Equestria resides in Asgard.”

“I see. So your universe is, what, some kind of multi-leveled bubble with different galaxies on each level? I’m not trying to sound mocking, if I seem to be coming off that way. Much of my concentration is required in trying to develop new strains of zerg for domestic use to build some kind of sustainable economy.”

Twilight brightens up at the idea. “That sounds fascinating but, no, our universe isn’t like that. Our little section of the multiverse is like an enclosed ecosystem. There are nine universes inside of it: Muspelheim, Jotunheim, Alfheim, Åsgard, Midgard, Vanaheim, Niflheim, Svartalfheim and Nidavellir.”

“Closed systems don’t spontaneously generate. I’m getting the nagging suspicion that your home may have been developed artificially. Closed systems are also bad because they stifle development, but that might just be the Zerg part of me talking since they are also more stable. Have you been told about the concept of a bio-dome?”

“I think you misunderstand.” Twilight shakes her head. “The realms are cared for by Yggdrasil, the world tree. It doesn’t interfere with any of the realms. Only keeps other void dwellers away, usually by eating them.” She coughs, shuffling her wings. “As for the artificial part well... seven of those universes were crafted from Ymir, the first being.”

“Are you seriously telling me that your home is protected by an incomprehensibly gigantic version of Audrey 2?” The question is accompanied by both laughter and a brief image of a singing plant, complete with cartoonish musical notes, appearing on one wall as it shifts from transparent to opaque.

“It’s not really a tree.” Twilight frowns, watching the image. “It’s a void dweller that chooses to manifest itself as such. I wouldn’t begin to try and speculate on what it does or why.”

The hallway ends at an intersection, and Sarah pauses briefly before turning to the left. “Void dweller...you keep using that term. What exactly does it mean? I have a feeling that the image it brings to my mind as a result of exposure to the concept in a singular form is wildly inaccurate. Void dweller, to me, conjures this image.” The wall on their right acts as a screen, showing the image of a being clearly inspired by Cthulhu with neon orange highlights being attacked and harmed by what looks like Sarah herself. “Xel’naga. They live in the void and cultivate two races at a time. One with purity of form, and the other with purity of essence. One unchanging, and the other constantly adapting. This is a scene from the game where I got this costume that is now my body. That is what I thought Jason was, in disguise.”

“The concept is basically the same,” Twilight elaborates. “Void dwellers live in the, well, void between universes. One of them, Faust, created the Prime Equestria universe.” She taps her chin. “We’re still not exactly sure how she convinced Yggdrasil to let her create Equestria on Asgard.”

Sarah nods and stops for a moment next to a pulsing aperture in the wall. After a second or two she shakes her head and rubs her eyes carefully. “Sorry, had to hand over control of the brood to Chrysalis and that always makes me space out. I want privacy for this and that is hard to do with a thousand other minds in your head, no matter how primitive they are.” With that said she heads inside the room; the invitation unspoken.

“I wouldn’t know.” Freya steps in, followed by Twilight. “I don’t have a hive yet.”

“I’d say cherish your privacy while it lasts, but I don’t know how it works for your species.” The room is spacious and actually quite pleasant. Care has been taken to attempt to disguise the nature of the architecture and make it seem more of a sanctuary than yet another room. A table with five chairs stands in the center, a sixth open place near a small pile of actual pillows while the table and chairs are clearly made of bone. A shelf recessed into the wall near what must be some kind of bed holds a smartphone, a box of tampons, and a manilla envelope that has been carefully set flat as if to protect the contents. Sarah is stretching both her arms and her wings with a few loud pops. “Take a seat. One of the servant drones will be up in a minute or two with some tea Celestia gifted to me. The food should be here somewhat later than that.”

“Lemme guess; zebrican red tea?” Freya comments, dropping into a chair. Twilight chuckles as if it were a joke, taking a seat on the cushions.

Sarah flops into a chair as well, followed by stabbing the table with the spikes at her elbows in order to massage both temples with her fingers.”I honestly don’t know. She said it was something that always helps her to relax after a long day, but I swear there’s a hint of cannabinoid essence in the smell. It’s like she knew that setting up an actual place to live was going to put my mind through hell despite the fact that I have nobody back-talking or second-guessing any of my decisions.”

“Sounds like the changelings before they became a part of Equestria.” Twilight shifts, fluffing her wings. “Chrysalis was too stubborn to ask for help while her hive was starving so she replaced one of my fellow princesses and tried to take over.” She looks away uncomfortably. “It didn’t end well. Nopony was killed, but hundreds of her drones died, and she felt every one of them die.”

“Hmph, sounds like I have more in common with your Chrysalis than yours does with mine. Then again, I haven’t really talked with mine much about her past since we’re both too busy trying to fix her body so that walking no longer hurts. Born a Zerg, will die a Zerg, but the cerebrate that had corrupted the ponies here to make its brood really sucked at genetic integration. One day earlier and you’d have seen her with half of her skull exposed and six feet of decaying ovipositor dragging behind her.”

Twilight and Freya stare at her.

Twilight clears her throat. “That sounds... horrible. But, eventually, Chrysalis found Jason and he convinced her to become part of Equestria. Hay, he even got the other queens to unite, and Chrysalis became the changeling empress.”

“So, if I may ask, I’ve been curious about something with that name: Changeling. There are old myths on Earth about faeries abducting human babies and replacing them with one of their own that has been disguised by magic, only to return years later and demand their child be returned. Is the name more coincidences at work?”

Freya grins and is consumed by green flames. A moment later, Sarah is looking at a perfect copy of herself. “Changelings can shapeshift into anything.” Freya gestures to herself. “Before my father came along, changelings would abduct and impersonate a pony, feeding off the love that pony’s loved ones felt toward them.”

“I see.” Sarah looks at the mimicry of her form with an intently critical eye before shaking her head. “I think I may want to invest in some clothes after all. A costume is a costume, but seeing that I suddenly feel naked all over again. How long are you able to maintain a given shape?”

Freya shrugs, resuming her original form. “Pretty much as long as I want, long as I’m not starving.”

“Interesting, but I assume that kind of change must burn a good number of calories away.” A pony-shaped drone walks in with a tray made of more bone, but the cups are finely-crafted pieces of porcelain. Sarah stands up to take the tray, making a shooing gesture with her left wing as she carefully places it down. “I need to make them taller, and do something about their balance or replace the hips entirely.”

Freya changes shapes again, this time becoming a small, insectoid pony. She has big, pure blue eyes, a curved horn and large upper fangs. Her legs have holes in them, and instead of a mane, she has a fin. “This is what our drones look like.”

“What I wouldn’t give for a monitor right now to help compare things so that you can see them the way I do.” Her eyes move along, examining every aspect of Freya’s outer shell that can be seen without actually asking her to move. “So, your drones have functional horns? Ones that can generate magic or interact with the local weave?”

Freya nods, her horn lighting up with a red glow. She grabs a teacup in her magic, bringing it to her mouth. “Of course, all our drones are sexless. Only kings and queens have genders.”

“Fascinating.” Sarah’s eyes move from carapace to cup, though she doesn’t linger there. Her gaze instead moves to Twilight. “I have seen what your kind can do with your horns, although it has not always been pleasant. My drones, my regular ones at least, don’t even look like ponies. The ones I have absorbed into my brood only use theirs for headbutting. I haven’t been able to get any samples to use so that I can compare the essences to see what exactly differs between the different kinds of horns.”

Freya shifts again, back to her normal form. “There really isn’t a difference for us. Only in what the horn is made of. Changelings have chitin horns, and ponies have bone horns.”

“So is there a science to it, some kind of rote memorization of formulae or rules for how to interact with things?” Sarah begins to act a bit more excited, opening up and actually starting to enjoy this chance to unwind. “I have so much to do already, but if it doesn’t require much more than a mind capable of forming a couple thoughts, maybe I can spread it out in just one simple fix.”

“Spread it out?” Twilight asks curiously. She takes a sip of her tea, savoring it.

“Well, yes. I mean, it’s less time-consuming to attempt to integrate new essence into old strains with existing bodies than it is to revert them all to raw materials for recycling…” She stops talking, blinks a few times, and then groans. “I’m doing it again. I’m thinking of them less like distinct beings and more like disposable meat. I used to have more respect for life. I was a pharmacist! I helped make people healthy.”

Twilight shares a look with Freya. “I’m sorry, but we’re both very confused.”

“Ah, it seems we have enough members to form a club then. Welcome to the Dazed and Confused Club.” She finally picks up her own cup of tea, draining it quickly and closing her eyes. “Sorry. I’m not the best person to be around even on a good day. What, exactly are you confused about?”

“Neither one of us really knows what you’re talking about.”

“It’s complicated. I’m not trying to brush off your concerns or anything, but that’s really the best way to sum it up. I don’t even know that much about the process myself since the game tended to gloss over the exact details, but think of the zerg like a bacteria. You catch a disease, you get sick, you take medicine. If you take the wrong medicine or not enough of the right kind you get a little better, and then you get a whole lot worse because now the disease comes back with a vengeance. In the case of the zerg, well, they gain strength best by absorbing the strengths of what they kill...and devour. Good traits are kept and integrated into the swarm and the rest is discarded.”

Twilight stares at her, setting the cup down. “That sounds like-” she gulps, “SCP-682.”

“I have no idea what that is, but you have my pity if it’s anything like trying to kill a hydra only for it to suddenly grow scales as hard as diamonds.” She takes a few deep breaths, calming herself down. “Another way is for a genetic manipulation specialist to isolate a desired trait from a base creature and to integrate it in such a way that it disseminates to every zerg of a given type. One could, for example, kill a salamander or two to attempt to find a way to give some of them the ability to create fire, then upload it to the swarm as easily as editing a Wikipedia article about Stephenie Meyer so that the entirety of it reads: Complete Hack.”

“Oh, no, no,no.” Twilight vigorously shakes her head. “You don’t understand. I’ll put it like this. If SCP-682 ever ends up in your universe, leave. You can’t kill it. It’ll adapt to anything and everything you throw at it. Viruses, magic, altering the laws of physics. Nothing will work. The only thing to do is leave, and pray it doesn’t follow you.”

“So about twice as dangerous as zerg, then, at a minimum. Hell. Good to know there’s something out there more dangerous than I could even have nightmares about being. The methodology is a polar opposite. Zerg grow stronger by devouring, but that grows stronger by developing an immunity to whatever tries to kill it.” Another drone walks into the room, followed by a second one. The first carries a platter of various meats in its mouth while the other has a large bowl of assorted wild vegetables on its back braced between its wings. “Ah. I do hope that your definitions of poisonous substances aren’t different from local ponies. I was given a book on what is edible here in the swamp, but I didn’t think about compatibility until just now.”

Twilight cast a spell over the vegetables. “It appears to be alright.” She took one in her magic, biting into it.

Sarah waits a moment, ready to react in case there is a delayed effect. “Well, at least that’s one bit of consistency then.” She attends to the platter of meats first, setting that on the table between herself and Freya before hefting the bowl to position it more towards the center. “I’m still trying to figure out how to season things, or how to collect salts that aren’t rendered toxic by the sulfur around here, but produce seems to be a little tastier than back home...and salamanders do produce some naturally spicy meat.”

Freya wastes no time in digging into the meat, ripping and tearing at the flesh.

“Note to self: Changelings have worse manners than zerglings when it comes to meals.” She quickly secures a small selection of rare bits, pieces that have only been seared brown. She eyes the bowl for a moment, then looks down at her hands. “I think I’ll let you eat your fill before worrying about anything more for myself. It’s not like I’ll be short on prey in the near future.”

“Thanks.” Freya grins, chewing on another piece.

Twilight clears her throat. “That reminds me.” Levitating a small bag out from under her wing, she places it in front of Sarah. “A gift. It’s a bag of Enigma berry seeds.”

“I’m a character from Starcraft, my sister is now a cybertronian, and you just happen to have something that sounds like it came from Harvest Moon. It’s like I fell into the Twilight Zone episode where everything fictional becomes real for a day.”

Chuckling, Twilight offers her a smile. “Enigma berries are actually from Pokemon. If you eat one, it can restore most of your health. We grow a lot of them, and offer them as gifts to new Displaced we meet.”

“New what? There’s a name for this happening?”

Twilight nods. “There are an infinite number of you. A good number of them were sent to Equestria by a being known as the Merchant. Jason thinks he does it because he’s a, and I quote, ‘bored eldritch abomination who ruins lives for shits and giggles.’”

“The Merchant, eh? That’s...that’s a fitting name for it alright. I remember meeting it, and I can’t help but wonder why it didn’t seem strange at the time that he looked different every time I looked away from him while he was talking to Liz. He said something about latent potential, and threw us here. I’m pretty sure I’m missing a couple pieces there, because my memory goes blank while it was in the middle of a sentence.” She pauses in thought, looking over her shoulder at her skeletal wings. “I can’t even remember if we paid...not with money anyways.”

“I know he charged Jason a hundred dollars for his Omnitrix.”

“An Omnitrix?” Sarah freezes, her eyes wide with fear. “My sister brought THAT into my hive? He could destroy everything if that thing has its repair function activated!”

Freya shrugs. “He could do that with the self-destruct.”

“Oh, yes, well that just makes everything better, doesn’t it? No need to worry. You truly do have a way with words… Ugh. I need to stop imagining worst-case scenarios around every corner. He promised not to harm my sister, so I should probably assume that means indirectly as well.” She pops a finger-sized chunk of meat into her mouth and begins to chew as slowly as possible, a rather obvious ‘I need to shut the fuck up right now’ signal.

Twilight flashes her a reassuring smile. “I know Jay can be a little rough around the edges, but he doesn’t go back on his word.”

“That’s a rare thing where I’m from, and I’ve had my issues trusting people because of it.” She glances at the bag of seeds again before finally nodding as she comes to a conclusion. “I’ll plant these as soon as I can find a way to make it so that creep stops dissolving any plant life around it. Rather hard to grow things on soil that eats growing things that can’t move fast enough. Celestia called it ‘Smooze.’”

“Nothing can stop the smooze~” Freya sang out, licking her lips. “Sorry, couldn’t help myself.”

“I don’t get it…”

Freya reaches into her pocket, fishing out what looked like an iPhone. She brings up a video and passes it to her.

Sarah watches the video, her face contorting a bit. “You have got to be kidding me. This looks like that horrible cartoon Hasbro tried to use in the 80’s to stop girls from watching Transformers. It even looks like it was made then!”

“That’s because it is,” Freya replies, taking the phone back. “The Smooze back home looks different though.”

“I got sent to the future of the same world as a cartoon that was cancelled after two episodes? Jesus child-raping Christ on a popsicle stick!”

Freya and Twilight look at each other. “Well actually, you’re the exception then.” Twilight gestures with a hoof. “In most universes, My Little Pony has been around for decades. The original show aired in the 1980s. The universe you’re in, is actually the fourth incarnation, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It followed the adventures of me and my friends.”

“I guess I really should have seen this coming. Maybe not this exactly, but I knew that something had to be going on other than just ‘magic’ for everything here to be so weird. Children’s show...makes absolute sense. So that probably means that...no. No there has to be SOME logic to this world, otherwise everything would be complete chaos.” Sarah stands up, beginning to pace. “I’m in a world where horses talk, magic is real, and the moon has a unicorn head on its face. You’re telling me that there are uncountable others like myself out there, and Liz called one of them here somehow. How does this all work?”

Twilight’s mouth forms a small ‘o’. “Right. You’re back before Luna’s return. As for how this works. This is just your reality now.”

“So...I’m in your past? Relativistically, not you-you, but this would be something you already know about?” She pauses in thought, looking upwards. “When Celestia came to see what had ‘ripped a hole in the Weave the size of Manehatten’ she mentioned that she didn’t expect to see anything in the area for another fifty years, and that we had technically invaded the Crystal Empire...does any of that ring a bell? What should I look for to avoid doing anything that could destroy the world?”

Twilight takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I would suggest moving. If you stay, there's a good chance you’ll alter more than you intend to.”

“Seriously? I asked her specifically to give me the most secluded and inhospitable area of her country. We’re in ‘Flame Geyser Swamp’ with only a tiny...town...fuck, that’s practically a hero origin story right there. Why didn’t I see that?”

“Wait, Flame Geyser Swamp?” Twilight blinks. “Oh, then you should be fine.” She pauses. “I don’t recall anyone important coming from here.”

Sarah breathes a sigh of relief, grinning after a moment. “Did you really think I would have been irresponsible enough to plant my ass in the middle of a population center with a bunch of dangerous creatures under my command that get stronger by eating other animals? How...how stupid are some of these other...displaced?”

Twilight shuffles for a moment. “Well..., you’d be surprised.”

“So, I know there’s not much here to use,” Liz gestures at the tiny, wooden toolbox with all of three hammers, a broken saw, and some screwdrivers in it. “Like I said before, the Zerg don’t really do technology...yet. I do have something that could help us, but, since you used the ‘Universal Greeting,’ you have to promise not to freak out when you see it.”

“By all means.” Jason nods, gesturing in front of them.

“I’d rather wait until we get outside for that. I guarantee it’s going to be of more use than a stone hammer in correcting anything you might find wrong, but we might as well bring these too.” Having said that she picks the little box up by the, well, technically it’s a mouth-grip. “This next bit might be a little crazy, so you’re going to want to hold on tight.”

“I’m fine, trust me.”

“Alright then, time to get a little slimy. The only exit from this point without going through about a mile of tunnels is like something Six Flags might put in one of their water parks.” She walks calmly over to the doorway, smiling as she braces her hand on it for a few seconds. The floor of the ‘hall’ beyond has a severe slope, and there is only the faintest of illumination. Trusting that there is nothing coming up this way she crouches down and launches them down with her legs crossed.

Brief glimpses can be caught of other doorways on the way down, and momentum causes a corkscrew effect around a couple sharp turns. Less than a minute later the pair emerges from the building and slide a good twenty feet before even slowing down on the smooth surface.

Jason hops off her, taking a deep breath. “Next time, I’m just going to teleport us.”

“You can do that without knowing what the area around you is like? What if you end up in the same space as something else?” She stands up, looking around and pointing to a boulder that has managed to stay uncovered by the purple substance. “That look suitable for a decent examination?”

“Uh, sure why not.” He looks up at her, clasping his hands behind his back.

“I just wasn’t sure if...nevermind. I’m still thinking like I have an organic body, despite knowing quite well that that simply isn’t true anymore.” Her right hand taps out a pattern on her thigh, causing the exterior to split open so she can reach in. What she pulls out is a golden remote control-shaped object, the face of which is decorated in silver with blue crystals. “You have the Omnitrix, I have the Key to Vector Sigma. Not horribly useful on a planet that isn’t Cybertron, unless you need to make a lot of metal really quickly.”

“Right.” Jason nods, eyeing the disk. “If I’m going to do this I need to know how you work. Try not to move.” He shifts again, and before Liz could ask what he was doing, his new form leaps onto her, spreading over her body.

Liz simply freezes as requested, not something that’s terribly hard to do for a robot of any kind what with not even really needing to breathe.

Jason jumps back off her, changing back to the smaller creature. “Well nothing's broken in you.”

“Great, so that means either something’s wrong with what I’m doing or I ended up locked with a single form. Either way I’m stuck here.”

“There are two things inside you that aren’t hooked up to your systems.”

“Wait, so this could be as simple as a gear being out of alignment or something? I suppose it makes sense that there would be safeguards in place to prevent transformation if it would just result in further injury…”

“They’re both in the chest,” Jason elaborates. “One up high, and the other low.”

“Huh, It’s probably the lower one then. I know what the higher object is, and it’s something that should correct itself if the underlying cause is taken care of.” She walks carefully, sitting down on the boulder. “The only problem with that is I was never really all that good with Cybertronian anatomy, and the only major component that I know of for sure in my lower torso is my spark. I’m assuming you’d have to do something a bit more invasive to see about fixing the loose connection?”

“Eeyup.” Jason nods. “This is gonna get weird.”

“I’m pretty sure I can self-induce stasis-lock if it’s going to be painful, but I also don’t know if that would mean automatic reactivation or if something would need to be done first.” She pauses, eyes narrowing in thought. “Then again, the way you said that makes it sound like you have something else in mind rather than any kind of surgery. This is going to be some kind of goo, isn’t it?”

“Nope.” Jason changes again, vanishing from sight. A closer examination shows that he turned into a mosquito sized mechanical creature. “This’ll hurt a bit,” he squeaks, firing a tiny blast of energy at her side. He creates a small hole, which he quickly flitters into.

“Ow! Okay, definitely not the worst pain I’ve felt from someone trying to help me.” Her voice gets a little harder to hear on the inside, and every component seems to be just barely fitting in the space allocated to it as it is. There’s still some room to maneuver, especially for something so small, but nothing like the kind of internal emptiness shown in the few episodes where a look inside was given.

Jason relies on his own sensors, weaving between Liz’s mechanics. “You know, I scanned a Transformer once.”

“Really? How’d that end up turning out for you? Awesome strength but immobile when hiding, or did you get an alt-mode with some horsepower?”

“The guy I scanned was from Cybertron, that crappy show that capped off the Armada trilogy,” Jason explains, squeezing between two components. “The alt form is basically Kevin’s car.”

“Oh thank Primus, someone else who refuses to honor that garbage with the designation of ‘the Unicron Trilogy.’ I hate how they butchered the characterization of Solus Prime, and don’t get me started on the horrible fake Australian accent.” She actually laughs, relaxing a little.

“That series was just full of stupid,” Jason agrees. “Okay, I think I see the problem. I’m gonna try to fix it now.”

“Should I try to relax a bit more? I don’t think it’s really possible for me to get any less tense without flat-out reverting to protoform.” The mechanisms shift a bit as she moves slightly. “Ugh, I really wish I knew why i’m using so many sayings like that. It’s like my head has more than just my memories sometimes...but never anything useful.”

“And... go!” Jason shouts as he grabs the misaligned piece, pulling it into place.

Okay, THAT hurt! Liz screams in pain at the sensation of something shifting in a space where things are far too tight for that to be comfortable, and it ends in a discomfort akin to setting a dislocated shoulder. The component quickly engages with the surrounding mechanisms, and a set of tones that is both wonderful and potentially alarming emits from the completed circuitry as multiple systems start to shift around to accommodate the change in form that has been ‘pending’ for over five days. “Ummm, Jay? Might want to make with the escaping. I don’t know how things are going to move in there.”

“Already on it!” Jay calls back, hurriedly making his way back through Liz’s mechanisms. He darts out of the hole, panting heavily.

The escape is accomplished with moments to spare as panels shift and turn, the hole being closed off as the two armor sections it pierced rotate in opposite directions around the central axis of her robot mode, effectively sealing her internal components away from the outside again. The end result is a near-perfect recreation of the beast mode Blackarachnia was introduced with. The only ‘flaw’ being the correction of the hourglass placement to the underside of the spider rather than on top. “Ugh, remind me not to hire you as a chiropractor anytime soon.”

“You’re welcome.” Jason waves. “So, how do you feel?”

“Well, I feel like I just got punched in the gut for one, but a punch in the gut that somehow loosened me up to the point where I can kiss my toes. On the whole, I feel a lot better, but that was only half of the battle. Now I have to get back on two feet.” Despite the complaining, her tone of voice is thankful. “Now...Blackarachnia, Terrorize!” Nothing. “Hmmm, Blackarachnia, Maximize?” Nada. “Shit, don’t tell me it was a one-way trip.”

“This could be a problem,” Jason agrees, buzzing around her.

“Stupid computer protocols. It would end up glitching out on me or something. It was so simple in the show, and predictable. Roll-call and the activation code. The character says their name and they’re battle-ready…” All eight eyes close at once. “And my name isn’t Blackarachnia...duh. Elizabeth, Maximize!” That wonderful sound series plays in reverse, and within two seconds she’s back on her feet while scratching the back of her head. “I really do wish I was smarter sometimes. I should have figured that out instead of starting to panic.” She sits back down on the boulder, looking around. “So, what do I owe you for all this help, anyways?”

“I don’t normally charge.” Jason changes back to himself, stretching out. “A scan would be cool, though.”

“A scan? Oh, you mean you want to see if you can acquire a second cybertronian mode? Would that even work?”

“Well, I figure, Beast Wars Transformers have different DNA from the ones in other series.”

“You have a fair point there. I mean, they obviously have systems and equipment far from the standard to the point where they can replicate organic tissue based on a fossil scan. Then again, that clone dinobot episode had a lot of things that defied logic. I don’t have any reason to object on principle, but I’d advise against trying to scan for a beast mode around here.”

“Yeah, this place kinda sucks,” Jason agrees. “I actually got my chimera scan around here.”

“Just a chimera? Yeesh, your world ripped you off. Here we have salamanders that are surrounded in flames, hydras that breathe fire, outright animate flames, and I think there might still be a den of chimeras unless the last extermination sortie cleaned the one by the trade road out. Celestia set us up here on the condition that we keep the road safe for supplies to the local town. I meant more ‘no scanning zerg because who knows how bad that would foul the sensors.’” She smiles, clearly more amused than anything else about the relative threat of the local fauna. “So, do I need to do anything special for you to get that? This sounds like it could almost be fun.”

“Nah. You just gotta stand there.” Jason walks up, holding his watch arm out. “As for the rest, the watch only scans sapient races. The nemetrix scans animals.”

“I meant for your Beast Mode.” Her eyes widen and she gives an awkwardly-choked cry as the phrase quickly reverts her to spider form. “You set me up for that, didn’t you?”

“Uh, no.” He rolls his eyes. The watch chirps, passing a yellow light over her. “Well, that answers that doesn’t it?”

“I suppose it does at that. So did you get a protoform, or something with a bunch of kibble pre-assigned?”

“I dunno.” He shrugs. “The last one just had an alt mode already. I think the watch did that on its own.”

“Correct”

“Ah.” Jason nods. “There ya go.”

“It can talk? I only watched sporadically when I had the time, so I thought it was just a tool, not an AI.”

“Yeah, it became self-aware a while ago, it just doesn’t talk all that much.”

“Not that I’m going to judge, but I’m assuming you came to some kind of agreement over things after that point, a mutual arrangement that benefits both of you.”

“I am loyal to my user.”

Liz thinks for a moment, chuckling at the choice of words. “Loyalty, definitely an admirable trait in any sapient entity. Without that you get nothing but a bunch of backstabbing and…” She cuts herself off with a grumble. “Ugh, too many soured relationships in my past, and here I am complimenting a watch. Maximize.” She ends up sitting on top of the boulder again, in a position reminiscent of ‘the thinker.’ “I have so many questions I want to ask, but everything just keeps getting jumbled around as new things happen. How did you make the Unitrix act as a summoning device instead of a genetic storage capsule? That’s something I wanted to ask earlier, before Sarah barged in.”

Jason leans on the building, grinning. “I turned into Grey Matter and took apart a bunch of Twilight’s lab equipment to do it.”

“You just made it, and it does something completely different than the original design? I think there’s a bit more to it than that.”

“Grey Matter can make Omnitricies, which I have done before. It’s really not that hard to alter a design.”

“I’m a paramedic, not an engineer, and I’m certainly nowhere near the same intellectual level as Grey Matter. What did she call it...a token? I saw a sonic screwdriver and something that looked like it came out of an Avengers comic which I kinda recognized. Do they have to be technology, or is there some other trick to it?”

“Not really.” Jason shakes his head. “You just have to find something that represents you and with a little focus, put a saying into it.” Jason cracks his joints. “Then, you send it out to the void.”

“Send it to the void? Like a banishing spell or something, because I don’t think I can use magic.”

“I usually turn into Hodgepodge and punch a hole in reality.”

Liz blinks, then slowly mouths that phrase as if trying to figure out how it could be possible before the missed implication catches up with her. “Wait, you could do that for me if I have something that I made with a connection? Would sculpting a spider out of solid energon count as having a connection?”

Jason shakes his head, looking up at her. “I just said something that represents you. It could be just a rock, if that's what you felt would work. It’s literally whatever you want.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’ve already made something that could work. I had to do something to keep myself busy for the last week, and I used to shape rocks for fun like the guy in The Shawshank Redemption, but without the whole breaking out of prison thing. I made a spider for me, and a drone for Sarah.”

“You know, I’ve never actually seen that movie.” Jason runs a hand through his hair. “I gotta say, thanks for giving me a reason to use Upgrade. Can you believe I had this thing for nearly two decades and haven’t once used that form?”

“Well, that’s not exactly hard to fathom. Alternate universes, likely nearly identical timelines. When would you get the chance to use a form dedicated solely to enhancing machines or diagnosing problems with them in a world that has a freaking sun god but hasn’t even thought of photovoltaic cells? Hell, the only reason I even know the proper term for them is because Sarah bragged about getting some portable ones to charge our phones in case we got stranded back home.” She does smile, looking down at the Omnitrix. “She likes to prepare for everything, but I think she just wanted to show off that she made more money and could spare the extra.”

“I wouldn’t know, I didn’t grow up with my biological family.” He looks up at the sky, letting some hair fall into his face. “My sister and I aren’t all that close.”

“I can’t really weigh in on that, but Sarah and I weren’t all that close until about six years ago when she started needing my help dealing with some big changes in her life. No offense to you, but it’s not my place to go into more detail than that. Planning ahead doesn’t do much when your free ride turns into a leaky cruise, after all.”

“Yeah, I feel ya there.” Jason closes his eyes, listening to the sounds around them. “Course, I got adopted into the Apple family, and we’re pretty close. Once you get in with them, you’re set for family.”

“Apples, eh? I guess I’ll have to pass that tip along to Sarah at some point. The only pony we really know right now is Celestia and some of her guards who swooped in to help us destroy the remains of an ancient pony named Morning Glory who had become fused with a bunch of zerg stuff somehow. She was controlling the brood that Chrysalis belonged to, and was completely nuts. I can’t really follow Sarah when she starts talking about all the alien stuff, the same way she can’t follow me when I talk about gothic novels like Dracula, or The Modern Prometheus which is better known as Frankenstein. Sometimes our interests are just incompatible, but we care about each other.” She smirks looking up at the sky. “Hell, she can’t even be bothered with Stephen King, but I still love her.”

“That... that's something I wish I had with more of my family.” Jason lets out a long sigh. He opens his eyes, brushing some hair out of his face. “I had to give up one of my children. If I had taken him, his father would have hardly ever seen him.”

Liz slides down off the boulder, not even asking before giving Jason a hug. “I’m not even going to question how, but no mother should be forced to give up a child without there being evidence of abuse. That you chose to suffer that kind of heartbreak says more about the real you than anything else you do. If we can get things set up you need to call Sarah for a long chat sometime. I’m sure you two have more in common than you would ever believe.”

Jason returns her hug. “I dunno, does she have an evil, opposite gendered clone?”

“Not that I know of, well, not for sure anyways. Does it count if the evil clone is the same character while being mind-controlled by an evil alien in the source material?” A pained look crosses her face, and she gives a quick shake of her head. “Some things are too private for me to be the one to talk to you about, and for me to tell you would be breaking her trust. If I lose that trust, I’m alone in this world.”

Jason pulls away, clapping his hands. “Right, we’re way off topic. We need to make you something for repairs.”

“Oh, um, right. Yikes. Let’s get that done before we end up swapping stories about our worst dates or something. Neither of us wants to get attached to the other since that seems to...just nevermind.” The Key is resting against the boulder, a small pool of liquid metal surrounding it. “Ugh, and that’s why I keep it in my thigh most of the time. That organic-to-metallic conversion field around it doesn’t seem to ever completely turn off, but it also doesn’t seem to affect anything more complex than the creep or grasses without being actively used.” The device is quickly scooped up from the ground and wiped clean. “Plus, what am I going to do with this stuff?”

“Sell the metal it makes?” Jason offers. “If we’re going to do this, I need machine parts. Actual parts.”

“I’d consider it if the stuff actually cooled off and turned solid at some point.” She reaches out and touches the pool of what looks like mercury. “I guess I should have thought about the whole level of technology aspect of that request, but I should be able to recover from injuries, if slowly, now that you helped repair me.”

Jason reverts to normal, cracking his knuckles. “It’s fine, I’ll fix it. Just don’t feed the troll.”

Liz just looks confused at that, followed by a shake of her head. “I’m going to have to get used to a lot of weird things if I want to save my sanity, I suppose, but what troll are you talking about?”

Jason shifts again, this time into a strange, mishmashed creature, his body made up of various different animals. He grins.

“This one!” He proclaims, with the voice of... Christopher Walken?

“Do you have any idea how strange it is to hear that voice sound excited, about anything?” She’s clearly struggling not to laugh from that bit of oddity alone, but she is not succeeding very well. “Where’d you get this alien?”

“The name’s Hodgepodge.” He takes her hand, shaking it vigorously. “I hang around in Jay’s head with all the other guys.”

Liz pulls her hand back carefully, wincing a bit as she does so. “Interesting, so you’re a split personality of some kind?” She flexes her elbow a few times, making sure nothing slipped out of place from the unexpected shaking.

“Nah! We all just pal around in Jay’s head.” He hovers in the air, coiling around her. “You know, I’m not sure this is your look.’

Her expression becomes worried quickly at the comment, coupled as it is with an obvious display of at least gravity-warping power. “No offense intended, but I’d rather you not mess with my body too much. I’ve got a piece of precious cargo in here that I’d rather not risk being damaged, and I’m not even talking about the metal-generating key.”

“Nonsense.” He snaps his fingers. “How’s this?” Conjuring up a mirror, he holds it up to Liz’s face.

She stares, seeing Animated Blackarachnia staring at her.

She quickly looks away, looking around for reference points to get a quick height comparison. A sigh escapes from her as it is quickly noted that everything looks to be about the same relative size before she reaches up and tries to remove the helmet that covers this version’s head. “Well, if you’re going to do that, can I make a small request?”

“Yes~?” Hodge asked sweetly.

“Can I get my hair back? I was a redhead before all this and if I’m going to be a robot with organic parts in what was considered to be some kind of abomination in the source material; I’d like to at least have one piece of the old me back.” One hand is lowered to about waist height, as if to indicate how long it was.

“Hm... Nah, I don’t think this look works for you. How about... Transtech?!” He snaps his fingers again, altering her form once more.

“Ack! They actually completed that design on your world?” She shudders, not even wanting to look. “They scrapped that entire line on mine after rumors about having hired a hentai artist to draw the concepts.”

Hodge blinks. “No, that was not a thing back home.” He rubs his chin. “Maybe you’d look better with Beast Machines paint...”

“Oh please no, not that fuschia and green eyesore!”

“Hm well, it’s still a bit to early in the story too early in the story to upgrade you,..” he snaps his claws one last time, restoring her original look.

“Early in the story? Okay, I’m going to do what my sister does and just not think about it, because thinking about someone enjoying reading something like this is going to drive me crazy. It’s going to be bad enough trying to figure out how to get home that we both need all our wits about us.”

Hodge frowns, gently putting a hand on her shoulder. “Elizabeth, there is no way home.”

“There has to be. Even if we’ve been sent to the future, this is at least a universe with an Earth in it. I mean, there’s an Earth in Starcraft, and we ran into an ancient Zerg base here…” Her voice lowers in hopefulness rather quickly as her mind begins processing what she’s saying and thinking. “But...Sarah’s not the same, and neither am I…”

Hodge pulls back, holding his arms out in offer.

Liz quickly embraces the odd creature, and immediately begins muttering all kinds of swears into his shoulder as all of the various implications of never being able to go home hit her hard. “Mom and dad are going to think we just ran off the road and crashed, or worse. I hope that guy dressed like Carnage isn’t accused of murder…”

Hodge gently pats her head. “I know what it’s like to lose something you can never get back.”

“Okay...if you’re part of Jason I can’t disagree with that. You lost the same thing he lost at the very least. I miss being able to cry, but that’s not likely to be fixed without messing with my body again, and since we just got through fixing it I suppose I can live with the limitations it has.” She tries to step away again, starting to feel awkward.

He let her go. “Anyway!” He snaps his fingers, making a pile of machine parts pop into existence.

“Hmm, let me guess, ‘some assembly required?’” She smiles, looking the parts over and actually going so far as to start trying to sort through them. She steps back after a few seconds. “I’m...I’m getting part names as I look at them, like something in the back of my mind recognizes them. This is going to start getting confusing trying to keep stuff I know separate from stuff that came with the body.”

“Don’t try.” Hodge shrugs. “But.” He magicks up a cellphone, dialing someone. “Hello? Is this Chrysalis?”

Who is that? You are not my Queen.

“There’s something I haven’t thought of. What could possibly go wrong with not bothering to keep what I know separate from things that came with the body? Oh, right, becoming evil and going crazy in a desperate grab for power, forcing my sister to kill me and probably driving her insane in the process. It may be a bad idea to make an effort to keep things separated like that, but that’s better than losing my mind.” Her tone is firm, and not even remotely angry. It almost sounds like something she’s said to herself a number of times since everything changed. “Wait, my Chrysalis or your Chrysalis?”

“Sh! I’m trolling!” Hodge whispers, covering the receiver. “Yes Chrissy, I invaded your hivemind. I’d like to order some zerg, extra T H I C C.”

You are not my Queen. Order not recognized.

“Wow, you really need to lighten up.” Hodge rolls his eyes. “Anyway, how about we do something fun?”

The zerg do not have...fun. Get out of the mind before I contact my Queen.

Hodge smirks. “Now that's where you're wrong~” Suddenly, Liz finds herself surrounded by Zerg and a confused Chrysalis. Clearing his throat, Hodge pulls a ukulele out of nowhere. “F is fire that burns down the town. U is for uranium bombs! N is for no survivors!!” He blinks. “Wait wrong bit.” He tosses the instrument over his shoulder, pulling on a very familiar red jacket.

Liz blinks as music starts to play from nowhere. Hodge begins to move to the beat, and Liz’s eyes widen in realization. “Ummm, I wouldn’t do this. You’re going to make Sarah mad, or scare her that something else has abducted her brood…”

Hodge pays her no mind, already performing the song and dance. He even has Vincent Price’s narration going. Afterwards, much to Liz’s reluctant amusement, the zerg join in. Granted, since none of them are bipedal some of the moves look awkward, but the total effect strikes just the right balance between creepy and hilarious.

The number ends and Hodge releases the zerg from his control. “Thank you, thank you. I’ll be signing autographs until midnight.”

What the hell is going on? Sarah’s voice echoes through the hive mind, sounding both angry and panicked with a bit more fear to it than anger.

“I borrowed some zerg for a comedy bit,” Hodge replies, sending them back into the hive. “There, your creepy bug monsters are back, safe and sound.”

“Okay, that was probably worth her being angry at me later for not stopping you. She’s not going to hold onto that for long, especially since I couldn’t stop you from doing anything if I tried.” Liz smiles, looking around for any remaining disturbances as if suspicious that not everything has been restored. “Seriously, even Celestia put more effort into her spells than what you’re doing. I could at least see her working in some way.”

Hodge is suddenly coiled around her again. “I’m a draconequus, we’re like Q from Star Trek. We can just do whatever.” He slams his head against hers. “The zerg genocided the flutterponies!!?!?!?”

“Not... not exactly. From what I’ve been told the end result amounts to the same thing, with the pony-shaped Zerg here being based off a corrupted version of them. It’s not like it happened after we arrived! It was thousands of years ago by Celesta’s own admission.”

He pulls away, grabbing at his horns. “Oh, now we’ve got to fix it!”

“Sarah’s been trying, I think. She said something about trying to create a pure sample, but it’s taken a week just to make it so that Chrysalis doesn’t look like something out of a Wes Craven movie, or The Thing.”

“Bah!” Hodge waves her off. “We’ll fix it. Not like we haven’t done it before.”

“Wait...you said like the Q? Yeah...you’re not going to have any trouble doing that if I remember correctly. I guess you know what you’re doing if you’ve done it before.”

“Oh no.” He shakes his head. “We gotta bring the big guns. Anything I do could be undone with the Elements of Harmony.”

“The what?” She almost looks alarmed at this bit of information. “You’re telling me there’s something on this world capable of fucking with the results of a Q-level being’s powers?”

“Yes.” Hodge nods. “Anyone, if anyone asks, tell them we’re busy.” Hodge vanishes in a flash of light, replaced by a solid black humanoid, who has tiny white dots all over his body.

“Oh, oh hell.” Her eyes widen at this. This is a form that has every right to scare anyone familiar with Ben 10. She’s not too alarmed at the implications in regards to herself, but a reality rewriter like Alien X is disturbing on a fundamental level.

Alien X stands silently, not moving an inch.

Liz simply waits patiently, knowing there’s nothing she can do here. She does keep her gaze focused towards the rock structure the hive is grown inside of to keep an eye out for anything that might happen as a result of this creature being sensed. A lone zergling, not one based upon a pony body, runs out to her side. “Message to Chrysalis, and Sarah. Jason’s taking care of the extinction issue apparently. No reason to attack. We’re fine here...how’re you?” She adds the last bit with a smirk, knowing the creature to be incapable of relaying any response anyways.

“Motion carried!” Alien X shouts, extending his arms. A strange... pulse ripples through the world, rewriting some law of reality.

Liz watches, waiting for either the figure to revert or for whatever changed to have some kind of sign that it happened. “I wonder if ripple-proof memory is a thing with this. Will I even know things are different other than the whole extinction event?”

“Yes,” Alien X speaks, sounding like the amalgamation of six or more voices.

“Well, that’s good to know. I don’t think anyone would like having their memories changed to not remember things that happened. You finished rewriting the world yet?”

“Yes.”

Liz nods, waiting for some signal from the zergling that everything has been relayed while watching the starry humanoid intently. The response comes as a light bite to one hand, almost like a pet dog might give. Considering her body is metal rather than flesh, the result is about the same rather than an actual painful wound.

Alien X shifts back to normal, leaving Jason clutching his head. “Expect a visit from Celestia.”

“Shall we go inside for the time being? Something tells me you’re going to want some water, or something to drink along with either willow bark or aspirin in case we still have some. In either case we do need to get to my room in order to see if that spider I made could work.” She seems to not really care about the possibility of a visit from the solar alicorn.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s go do that.” He nods, heading toward the opening.

“Wait, not that way. One-way exit designed to look like an entrance. There’s a bunch of stairs carved around the back. Well, not quite stairs, but it’s better than trying to go back up a massive slime-based waterslide. Takes about three minutes to walk.” She pauses for a few moments, smiling as a thought crosses her mind. “Though, I could always carry you right up the wall now if you want a shortcut.”

“Already ahead of you.” He shifts back into Nanomech, resting on her shoulder.

Liz shifts back to her spider form, taking a moment to make sure everything still feels right before making her way to the top of the large stone hive structure. The ‘stairs’ on the back side are spotted, looking more like a bunch of ambush points and areas for rocks to be rolled down on anyone using it. “We’re a bit open to attack from anything that can fly, but aside from a few stirges we haven’t seen a reason to correct that. Um, really big monster mosquitoes. Saw one suck a pony dry the other day.”

“If you had told me that, I coulda brought that pony back.”

“I suppose I should have thought of that. I was just a little intimidated by the fact that I had a Q in my face talking about genocide, and then there was the whole wonder of watching you rewrite things. How much of a difference does one pony really make? Plus, if he’s already buried, would he be revived underground? Fast way to die again.”

“I can alter reality. I can just make him appear next to us.”

“Remind me to consider everything like that the next time I’m around when you do that. I’m starting to appreciate the advantages of having a computer for a brain.” She heads inside, following that same map that helped her earlier in order to reach her own room. Laughter is heard from nearby, the other group obviously having managed to enjoy themselves after all.

“Good to hear they’re in good spirits.” Jason flitters off her shoulder, changing back to normal.

“Good just to hear Sarah laughing again. She’s been far too serious about everything ever since she realized this wasn’t all a dream, or that she wasn’t drugged. We don’t have much yet, and Sarah has told me that my top priority is to learn everything I can so we can help. Just learning the language has been a bit of a struggle.” She heads across the room, turning around a moment later with a spider carved out of pure energon in one hand, glowing softly from the inherent energy of the mineral.

“That's why I have the Omnitrix, built in translator.” He grins, leaning on the wall.

“Oh, look at you. Big guy with a Game Genie for languages.” She laughs, more at the situation than her joke. “Ever had to go for a week with only one person to talk to? Conversations can get a bit dull after a while.”

“Anyway, you promised me some headache remover,” Jason reminds, looking around the room.

“Right, right. It’s not exactly the best thing in the world for it.” Her other hand holds a ball of bark about the size of a jawbreaker, though not exactly compressed very tight. “This should help a little though, if anything holds true about remedies from Earth to plants that look like an exact match. If I know Sarah, there’s going to be a pot of tea in her room.”

Jason takes it. “Shall we join the others?”

Liz nods, leading the way down the hall and stopping just outside Sarah’s room. She tenses up and pauses for a moment before stepping inside. “We’re back, and I’m sorry about anything that might have caused a panic in the hivemind. I didn’t exactly have many options available to me at the time.” Sarah just looks over to the doorway, not even bothering to hide how happy she is just to see her sister again as she stands up from the table to offer her own seat.

“I get it, you called in someone who outclasses me by a huge margin. I’m only mad at myself for not anticipating something along that line after he gave me a bloody nose for warning him not to hurt you.” The vast change in demeanor might be a bit of a shock to Jason, compared to the reserved and commanding presence she was trying to project earlier.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Jason drops down in a seat next to Freya. “I fixed your Flutterpony problem.”

“For which I will be quite willing to help you in turn should you ever need it in the future, I just need to figure out how to do that. You hardly lack in strength where you’d need me to help you in combat, and I’m afraid the Zerg aren’t all that useful in any other capacity at this time.” She passes her own plate over to Jason, the meat on it hardly touched but still quite warm.

“Got any tea?” he asks, taking a piece of meat. “And actually, I might have something you could help with.”

A motion is made towards the teapot at the center of the table, followed by a meek smile and an offer of the cup she had been drinking from. “I hope you don’t mind. I don’t have much as far as eating and drinking amenities go outside of raw materials.” Liz sits down as well, more to be polite than out of any need to eat or drink.

“It’s fine.” Jason drops the bark in, taking a deep drink. “So, gonna ask what exactly I did?”

“If that was willow bark, you’re going to want to chew it. Steeping it helps release the active ingredient if the liquid is actually being heated, but chewing it will release more.” Sarah walks away from the table, taking a seat on her bed instead. “As for what you did, I’d rather you make yourself comfortable before you tell us. I may have made a bit of an ass of myself at first, but I’m not trying to make enemies, I swear.”

“I want to know. You said that we should prepare for a visit from Celestia. We’re on good terms with her for now, but I want to know if I should be preparing to evacuate in case things go south.”

Jason dumps the tea into his mouth, chewing on the ball. “Resurrecting people from that far back out of nothing would have made things weird, so, we read the universe’s history and transformed at least half of Cloudsdale’s population into flutterponies.”

“Well, I don’t see any reason she’d have a problem with that.” Sarah looks to Twilight, her mind closing to try and force herself not to read thoughts by accident. “But I could be wrong since this isn’t exactly my world to toy with, and I don’t know how this could alter what is history to you, but the future to me.”

“I also turned a sizable portion of unicorns into bicorns, made naga ponies out of all four natural tribes, turned a few earth pony families into tatzlponies and made a few kirins.”

“That...that sounds like a lot of extra changes that weren’t exactly neces-”

“You didn’t see the creature he became before he did that, Sarah, the one that hijacked your hive mind for a bit. He was able to change my body with a thought and a gesture, and wasn’t exactly...predictable.”

“I realize they don’t sound necessary, but, that was the consensus we reached.” Jason puts his cup down. “I can’t do anything as Alien X unless everyone in my head reaches an agreement.”

“I see. Well, maybe she hasn’t noticed anything yet, otherwise I expect she’d have arrived by now in a flash of light and fire. Either that or she’s busy quelling panic before tracking down the source.” Sarah reaches into her little wall cubby, pulling out the crystalline drone figure Liz had made for her and stroking it almost absentmindedly. “I think we’ll be able to explain that it was necessary. She seems reasonable.”

“Remind me to snag a flutterpony scan before we leave.” Jason held his hand out, looking at Sarah. “May I?”

“May you...what? I don’t have any flutterponies here. They’re all zerg clones from a being with severe neural degradation…”

“I meant the figurine.”

Liz hands hers over without comment, looking over her shoulder at Sarah and smiling. “He might be able to make something like his Unitrix; a way for him to summon us if he needs help, and he did mention that he might have a use for the Zerg.”

“Oh, right. We’ll be able to keep the originals, right? Liz put much effort into making them, and this one almost feels alive in my hand. That might just be wishful thinking on my part.” She stands, bringing the bauble over to the table and holding it out for Jason to take.

“Of course.” Jason takes them. He leans back in his chair, examining them. “These will work just fine. You two just have to put your phrases in.”

“Our phrases?” Sarah is obviously confused, not having touched any of the tokens in the hive’s artifact archive herself. Her eyes lose focus briefly as no less than a dozen are transmitted to her through the hive mind, recalled from when the items were first found. “Oh…”

“So, what? I just take it back and I say the first thing that comes to mind about myself, or does it have to be like yours where I brag just a little bit?” Liz does reach for the spider, picking it up gently by the abdomen.

“Tell people what you’re all about and what to expect if they call on you.” Jason passes the other figure back to Sarah. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Well, that makes mine simple enough.” Liz closes her eyes, smiling as she thinks back to what makes her who she is. “I’m a paramedic first and foremost, but that doesn’t mean I’m not prepared to fight. I’m more than willing to take a life if it will save more in the balance. Kolsen’shea orbb.” The figurine flickers in her hand for a moment before the glow intensifies from a barely-visible luminescence to about the level of a flashlight. Jason would hear that last bit as ‘pull the legs off a spider.’

“Ugh, did you have to use a fantasy language at the end there, Liz? Not everyone is going to know what that means, especially if they come from an Earth where Dungeons and Dragons never became popular.” Sarah holds onto hers, not really seeming fully comfortable about this. “But, I didn’t make this, Liz did. Wouldn’t that muddle things up if I tried to use it for myself?”

“It’s fine,” Jason dismisses. “Just give it a try. If it doesn’t work, I’ll help you find something else.”

Sarah nods, thinking while she holds it in her hand. “Have two people ever shared one before? Like, if I wanted this to summon both of us instead of just me?” She actually looks almost guilty as she holds it. “I don’t want to leave her out of using something she made.”

“Sarah, shut up and find something to say. You can always drag me with you when you go if you want, just like Jason came with his daughter and their friend.” Liz waves her hands out, indicating Freya and Twilight. “Clearly the things aren’t coded by biology or magic to bring only one person ever at a time.”

Sarah appears shocked for a moment, then just groans in embarrassment before closing her eyes. “Yeah...we both need to work on our responses to a panic impulse. Let me think for a minute here.” Her hands move over the drone, fingertips tracing the fins and the pincers at the front. “I am the Queen of Blades. I command the swarm. Call on me if you need an ally, or an army.” She pauses for a moment, thinking further. “Try not to summon me too close to a city.” The drone begins to glow as well, though this one is a darker shade of purple than the spider and a bit less bright.

Jason gets up, taking the figures from them. “See? It worked fine.” He flashes them a smile, shifting back to Hodgepodge.

Sarah flinches away at the sudden shift, having seen this shape before through the eyes of her commandeered zerg, but still wary of it. “Okay, so it worked. I guess this form is the only one that can do whatever else is needed to send them out?”

“Sarah, calm down. The worst this guy’s going to do is give you a hug, or maybe turn your hair a different color. He’s creepy, not evil.”

“Hey!” Hodge pouts. “I’m not creepy!” Drawing his arm back, he punches the air, smashing a hole in the world. He tosses the figures through the hole, which repairs itself with a sewing needle.

“I meant it as a compliment?” Liz giggles, standing up and walking over to the doorway. “So, what else is there to do other than for me to get to work on building something out of that pile of parts you created for me?”

Sarah perks up a bit at Liz’s mention of parts, or maybe about this visit being over soon. “Well, I was hoping to get a few genetic samples of you so I can see if I can use anything in them, or maybe just help analyze your abilities a bit. Natural ones only, it wouldn’t give me anything related to spells or that Omnitrix. Specifically I want to see if I can find a way to integrate the ability your daughter has to disguise yourself into my brood, but anything else I could gain or find out would be a pure bonus. In trade, I can offer an endless supply of, well, anything else that we could reasonably provide.”

“How about energon? Guy’s got two cybertronian forms, and even without those it acts as a potent source of power, or storage medium.”

“It really depends.” Hodge leans down, looking into Sarah’s eyes. “What are you going to do with those samples?”

“Other than trying to give my brood the ability to disguise or trying to learn more about Jason’s genetics to see if I can find out things even he doesn’t know? I don’t have any plans, really. If I get nothing useful I’ll probably just toss them aside and never think of them again.” She looks worried for a moment. “By the way, thank you again for taking care of the flutterpony problem. I found out just before you arrived that I can’t actually make any kind of pure clones, so there’s no chance of me creating a bunch of you or anything.”

“You’re welcome.” Hodgepodge smiles before bursting into laughter. “Oh that's rich! Trying to understand jotun genetics! You’re a riot, Sarah!”

“If anyone can do it, it’ll be a zerg. That’s kind of the whole idea of them as a species. Pick through genes, take the best parts, weaponize them. I know that sounds like it’s horrifyingly abusable, but I swear that I will not do that without express permission from you. I’d have to be able to isolate something to tell if it’s usable anyways.”

Hodge reaches over with his paw, booping Sarah on the nose. “That's not how jotun work. I’ll give you an example. Jay’s great grandfather Loki hooked up with another jotun. Somehow, they ended up producing a wolf and a snake. Jotun ‘genetics’,” he air quotes, “don’t make any sense in the slightest.”

“Then maybe just Freya? I mean, even if hers are scrambled worse than a frog in a blender she can use her ability, which means I could possibly isolate it.” She smiles sheepishly at the young queen. “No offense.”

Freya shrugs, holding her hand out. “Go for it.”

Sarah moves quickly, her talons carefully feeling for a tender spot where hopefully nothing will be damaged too much. “This would work out better if I had a scalpel, or something professional like that, but I’m not about to take you down to the manipulation chamber to have pieces peeled away either. Do you know if I could get away with just taking a piece off of your knuckle?”

“Go ahead.”

Sarah nods, looking over to Hodgepodge for a moment before carefully stabbing at the area with her index finger, cutting a small piece away and doing her best to make it as clean as possible, without a chance for the skin to tear in such a way that anything underneath suffers more than a bit of bruising. “Thank you, Freya. I will make whatever use I can of this, and ask before I implement any changes.”

“That's fine.” Freya flicks her hand, casting a spell over the slight wound and healing it.

“Well, before we go back to tool time,” Hodge spins around with a flourish, holding out a green and black canister to Sarah. “A gift, to make up for the pissing match earlier.”

Sarah takes the canister, holding it with a hint of suspicion that is easily seen in her expression. “But that was entirely my fault. You don't need to do anything to make up for my mistake.”

“No, we were out of line.” He gestures to the canister. “That little gadget holds all our scans. You.” He poked her chest. “Only get ten. After you choose your ten, the others are erased. You can then use to to store pure samples of species you run across.’

“Do I have to choose them now?” She smiles, her entire face almost seeming to glow a bit with excitement.

“You do realize you just handed her the most dangerous thing in the universe if she weren't in that character's purified form, right? If she were thinking like a Zerg instead of trying to stay herself, I mean.”

“Don’t worry, I locked out all the really dangerous ones,” Hodgepodge assures with a smile.

“Oh, good. That means I don't have to worry about accidentally finding that ‘scp’ thing Twilight mentioned.”

“That one got removed years ago.” He grabs Liz up, throwing her over his shoulder. “We got things to build, stuff to smash, you know how it is.”

Liz yells in surprise, squirming for a few seconds before giving up. “Be back in a bit, Sarah. This might take an hour or so, maybe less depending on how fast we can work and which alien he chooses.”

Hodge waves, then poofs away with Liz in tow.

An hour or so later Liz wipes some splashed creep away from her face while looking at the finished project. “Granted I'm not really mechanically adept myself, but I never would have thought of using an electromagnetic field to keep the energon stable while leeching power off of it.”

“I have no idea how I did it,” Jason replies, brushing his hands off on his jeans. “But I’m glad to help.”

“And we're both glad you were able to help. Sarah might never admit it, at least not to me, but that gift is probably going to help her out quite a bit in the future if she chooses a few smart forms alongside a few strong ones.” She laughs, walking around the coffin-like assembly of parts and armatures. “Not a whole lot of room to spare in there, but that shouldn't be an issue unless we get a fellow cybertronian visitor sometime soon.”

“Well, then, I guess that's everything.” Jason nods. “I’ll collect the girls and get out of your hair.”

“That won't be necessary.” Sarah lands close to the hive, having jumped down from the roof and hopped off a few protrusions on her way down. “Freya’s been complaining about getting hungry for love for a few minutes, so I had a standing order to alert us when you finished so that she could get her fill as soon as possible without interrupting.”

“I’m starving,” Freya agrees, making her way down the hive.

“Alright, alright.” Jason nods, walking to stand next to her.

Liz looks around, then up as she notes one member of the group missing, “Where's Twilight? She knows how to fly, right?”’

“Of course I do.” Twilight glides down, landing with Jason and Freya. “I just got a little distracted. It was a pleasure meeting you both.”

“My offer stands, Twilight. If you want a larva or some other samples to study in a careful and controlled environment…”

“Sarah, do you really want her to be responsible if whatever you give her breaks free and starts ravaging their world? You know I'd hold you responsible in the first place for pressuring the poor girl...mare...whatever.” Liz all but glares at her sister. “You do remember the reason you asked Celestia for a location like this in the first place, right?”

“Thank you for the offer, but I’ll have to decline. I just hope you’ll get some use out of that care package.”

“I'm sure I can think of a few things to do with a container that has nearly infinite space in it. Some of them might be a bit questionable, but I promise not to smuggle any known contraband across universe barriers. The spellbooks might be a tiny bit less immediately useful, but at least they're in English. Thank you all, for everything.”

Jason gives them a thumbs up. “Don’t worry about it. It was fun to not have to deal with trouble. All you have to do to send us back is say ‘Jason, our contract is complete.’”

Liz nods, followed by offering her hand for one last time towards Freya and Jason, then Twilight. They each shook it, with Twilight offering her a smile. “Jason, our contract is complete... and thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He waves before they vanish in a green flash, leaving the unitrix resting on the ground.

Sarah picks it up quickly, smiling as she turns to look at her sister. “You like him.”

“So what? I know better than to get involved in a long-distance relationship with a married man.”

“That was one time!”

Author's Notes:

It hardly needs to be mentioned, but credit to a great guy who was fun to write with.

Jason Hughes is from And then there were 10...er...67 and its sequels by Shagohad12

And, as of this moment, their tokens are dispersed and they are available to be summoned.

Oh and before anyone cries 'continuity error' over the Morning Glory thing, Liz is giving her interpretation of events as someone without the ability to even hear anything the cerebrate said. As far as she knows Morning Glory went crazy until the big mutant brain behind her was destroyed.