A couple of days had passed with a surprising amount of normalcy in Ponyville, something which I had welcomed in its entirety after my visit to Simon’s realm. While the thoughts of the static had finally strayed away from my mind, it still plagued me whenever I thought about how things were going on Simon’s end.

As such, I found myself in normal attire at Sugarcube Corner, absentmindedly listening to Pinkie Pie talk about things in Ponyville while asking a couple questions about me, to which I just gave the occasional nod or shrug to let her think I was listening. She wasn’t a bad girl to hang out with, and admittedly she reminded me of someone back home. I just wasn’t a man of many words, preferring to enjoy the serenity and do what I could do to help.

But in a completely unintentional way, Pinkie Pie helped me keep my mind off of what happened in Simon’s dimension. What she was having me reminiscence about wasn’t particularly a fond memory, but it still did its job. That was, until she finally seemed to notice the expression on my face.

“Hey, what’s with the face, Jax?” Pinkie said out of concern, snapping me out of my nostalgia-made stupor.

“Eh? Nah, it’s nothing, Pinks,” I assured her with a well-practiced smile on my face. “You just remind me of someone I had back home, is all.”

“Ooooh!” Pinkie leaned over to me in interest. “Do tell?”

“Sister of mine back home. Pretty, and very chatty girl, just like you.” I then took a sip out of my malt, setting the drink back down before talking again. “Though I’d rather spend my time becoming ageless than talking about her all day. I’ll tell you about her at some point in the future, but for now that’s all I’m willing to say of her.”

“Pretty huh?” Pinkie leaned a little closer, showing off her cleavage for my eyes to land on. “Did you happen to reallylove her?” she said teasingly.

I stared at Pinkie in the eyes, brows furrowed as I gave my best ‘what the fuck’ face. Pinkie then proceeded to laugh, and I couldn’t help but crack a grin at the jab. “Nice satire right there. Hardly hear that humor nowadays.”

“I try my best to make everypony laugh!” Pinkie chirped.

“And you do a damn good job at it,” I complimented without a moment of hesitation. My malt nearly finished, I quickly downed it, before standing up from my seat and laying down some bits for her to pick up. “I’m going to go see about some more improvements I can make. Catch you later, Pinks.”

Pinkie waved goodbye as I exited Sugarcube Corner, me doing the same while I tried to figure out how I could avoid unexpected invasions of my mind. My first thought was Twilight, but with how boring she was about it, I was beginning to agree with Rainbow on her being both confusing, and an egghead, only being able to learn healing spells from her with ease. I already crossed Rarity out of the picture, seeing as she wouldn’t be useful for teaching any defensive magic spells.

That leaves the Huntsman, or finding someone else able to teach me, I thought to myself before sighing. Might as well just finish reading The Three Warrior Spirits. Pretty good legend of old right there, and is worth investigating. With that thought in mind, I began to walk to Twilight’s Castle to go read the book again, only to have bumped into somebody. I stumbled back a bit, before quickly regaining my bearings, quickly beginning to apologize, though the stranger beat me to the chase.

“Sorry about that,” I heard a voice similar to Rainbow Dash say. “Just been busy trying to locate a guy who came here about a month ago, and got distracted.”

“Nah, this is more my fault. Wasn’t looking as I was thinking,” I said in reply as I took in the stranger’s form. She appeared to be a griffon, more similar to the ones back home, but still with the dimension’s usual anthropomorphic setup. Unlike the ponies, however, her breast size was more tame, being at some normal B-cups instead of the absurd levels ponies were at. She wore some rather casual clothing, a white t-shirt and shorts. “Who you looking for, by chance?” I asked after looking her over.

The stranger opened her mouth, before abruptly closing it and looking me over. “You wouldn’t happen to be a human called Jaxson, right?”

“Please don’t mention the human bit,” I asked nicely. “I’d rather not let the world know yet.”

The griffon smiled sheepishly, scratching the back of her head. “Yeah, sorry about slipping that up. My name’s Gilda, friend of Rainbow Dash. I heard you take mercenary work?”

I nodded. “You heard right. There some dungeon you need me to delve into or something? I may be new to the scene, but I can hold my own.”

“I’d hope so,” Gilda said with her arms crossed. “The job I’m offering you isn’t a easy one, but it’ll help you greatly. Especially with this whole god thing you’re going for.”

That caught my attention, and I made sure to listen closely to Gilda’s words.

“I need you to go into the Abysmal Abyss and obtain the Idol of Boreas. Once you get it, bring it back to me, and don’t think about walking into Griffonstone with it. Do that, and I’ll let you in on some stuff Celestia purposely keeps her ponies from knowing about. Any questions?”

“Several. Like what’s so special about the Idol of Boreas? And what does this secret have to do with immortality?”

“The Idol of Boreas is an ancient artifact that all of the griffons united under. It was stolen by Arimaspi, which the griffons couldn’t hope to stop, and it fell into the Abyss with it. I know it’s there, but I ended up causing it to fall deeper into the Abyss when I chose to save Rainbow and Pinkie.”

“And I’m to go even deeper down there to get it?”

“I know, it’s an insanely dumb request to get some stupid rock,” Gilda said seriocomically. “But that rock united all of the griffons, and from what I heard you’re capable of some pretty crazy stuff. As for the immortality bit, there’s a race to the west that Celestia intentionally prevents anypony from knowing about. I can’t tell you the details, but let’s say worms are a part of their culture.”

I turned away from her, thinking about it for a moment, before turning back to her. “I’ll do it. Just give me four days to prepare, as it’ll be a long mission.” That, and I’ll need to contact Ugorn about any chants that can prevent fall damage. Chances are I’ll need that if the worst of outcomes happens.

Gilda nodded, and she told me where to meet up when I arrived to Griffonstone. I then continued my walk to the library, parting ways with Gilda as I went to Twilight’s place.

As I neared Twilight’s Castle, I saw a familiar figure standing in front of the Castle’s door, as if waiting for somebody. I recognized the figure as the man in the dress, and walked over to him to chat.

“Hey there, dude. Remember me from the Huntsman’s realm?” I greeted the figure casually. The figure looked at me from behind his helmet.

“Yeah, I was actually looking for your help too. I really need you for something.” A portal then opened up next to him, showing what looked like a snowy wasteland. “Come on, I don’t got time to explain what you get if you help out.” He said as he stepped into the portal. An unnerving chill went down my spine, and I couldn’t help but be suspicious of the man. For a brief moment, I stood there, contemplating what to do as the man stared at me.

“Nah, I think I’d want an explanation before I do anything,” I said to the man, walking inside of Twilight’s Castle and making my way to the library without a second thought.

As soon as I began to continue reading the book, I saw something out of the corner of my eye, and turned to face whatever was hiding in the corners of my vision. Strangely enough, nothing was there, and I stared for a little bit, before turning my attention back to the book. For a while, there was nothing but silence as I reached the end of the book, a content smile on my face as I read the final battle.

Then suddenly, I heard the sound of nanites behind me. Knowing who it was, I turned to face Simon, only to see that he wasn’t there, though the sound had moved to the other side of me. Before I could react, something pierced my chest and through my back, and I let out a loud yell of surprise and pain. I turned to look at what stabbed me, seeing a rapier deep inside of my chest, before looking up at the perpetrator, seeing the man from before.

“You could’ve gone peacefully, my little pawn,” it said maliciously. “But I suppose you’ll need to be… convinced to help further my goal to infect all with SIVA.”

I coughed blood as I tried to pull myself off, trying and failing miserably, before attempting to attack the man with my sword, not even making a dent in his armor. I felt something crawling around in my head, and I heard voices telling me to stop resisting and accept my fate. I struggled for what seemed like a eternity, getting numb as the voices grew louder. In that moment, I thought it was all over. That this second life was for nothing.

Then another version of the man came from out of nowhere, wielding a bone-like cleaver that was imbued with a unearthly green flame. The man that pierced me with the rapier withdrew it, blocking the incoming attack and leaping back. Eventually, my vision began to get blurry, and I blacked out…

“...ax! Jaxson wake up!” I heard Spike say from behind me.

That I did, with a quick jolt to stand up, almost fumbling off a chair that I was on. I looked around for any sign of the two men anxiously with my crossbow out and readied, until finally settling my eyes on Spike and relaxing. Spike, however, looked concerned at my sudden movements.

“You ok dude? I didn’t happen to catch you in some sort of crazy nightmare did I?” Spike asked while slowly backing away.

I sighed as I unsummoned the crossbow. “You could say that, even though Luna goes after nightmares like I’d go for a hamburger in this vegetarian dominated world.”

“True,” Spike said with a chuckle. I looked back to the table, finding a note sticking out of the book I was reading, which was conveniently positioned to look like I slept on the book. I took the note out of the book, unfurling it to read it.

Hey there Jaxson! This is Inigo, the burly man in armor you met at the Huntsman’s place. Aaron asked me to leave you a note of apology, as well as explain what just happened. There’s this a-hole trying to infect the whole displaced multiverse with SIVA, and has mainly been targeting displaced with great potential. One of his lackies just got you, but don’t worry! We have erased all of the mind-altering nanites.

I breathed a sigh of relief before continuing to read.

Hunting down this guy shouldn’t take too long, so you won’t have to worry about an invasion anytime soon. Though, personal note here? Since you’re dragonborn, you have an innate ability of getting gods and goddesses interested in your ass. Maybe not literally, but just telling you that life isn’t going to be calm from here on out. In fact, it’ll just be crazier.

That’s all I have to say! See you when we’re done killing this guy!

-Inigo

I stared at the note in silence for a bit, re-reading the part before the goodbye statement, a perfect poker face molded onto my face.

“Dude?” Spike said, tapping me a bit.

“I’m fine, Spike,” I said while trying not to scream and keep my eyes from twitching, which I was able to pull off. Out of all the things the Huntsman could’ve given me, he gave me a cool power that naturally brings crazy shit. Granted, I knew this new life of mine is going to be crazy, but not that crazy! I was a doctor with some street experience my past life! Doctors don’t go slaying gods or fighting armies! Oh, where’s a good magic teacher when you need one?!

As I ranted on in my head, Spike noticed a strange, bright glowing stone with metal hugging its sides laying on the floor of the library that wasn’t there before I woke up. I gently placed the note down, the wind picking it up and flipping it over. As I grit my teeth in frustration, I noticed some more text on the back, Spike looking over my shoulder as we both proceeded to read the text.

P.S

I know I wrote this on the back of the note, and that you most likely won’t read this, but this guy saved my ass from a giant when he was younger. I’m pretty sure by now he’s a total badass in the region of magic, so I decided to leave you his token. The stone I placed, which should be on the table, is the token of the person I’m speaking about.

“Huh.” Spike said, as turned to look at the stone. “So that’s what that is.”

“Please be really good at magic…” I muttered as I picked the stone up. I sat there with Spike for a while, waiting for something to happen.

“...How do we do this?” I asked Spike while I examined the stone for any sort of mechanisms.

“What?” Spike said, unsure of what I meant.

“How do we get that guy to get here?”

“I dunno, I thought the Huntsman dude might’ve told ya.”

“He didn’t, actually.”

A brief moment of silence.

“Well fuck me,” I said with a sigh.

“I’m sorry, did my Varla Stone arrive at a bad time?” a slightly raspy voice spoke from from the stone I was holding.

“You sound like a snake!” I blurted out, Spike giving me a deadpan. “Err, no offense to you, but you do.”

“Never mind that,” the voice said, sounding offended.

“Right, so according to a note this Inigo guy left me,” I said while grabbing the note, making a bit of a crinkle sound as it bent back from my quick grab. “You’re somebody who can teach me magic right? I’m kind of in need of that.”

I looked over the note again, seeing yet something else that Inigo left.

P.S.S

Ask him if he has any poison, what sort, and what would it do to a person-sized pet. Just do it for me, ok?

Befuddled, but willing to try it anyways, I did. “Also, have any poison?”

“I don’t dabble in poison, I’ve only took interest in Alchemy as my magicka won't regenerate on its own,” the voice responded.

“Well, that pretty much defeats the seemingly random questions Inigo left…” I said with a raised eyebrow. Why did he ask that? I shook my head, deciding to forget about it. “Anyways, first question still stands. Can you teach me magic? Maybe something to protect the mind from invasions, or some pretty good spells?”

“I can teach you magic, have you used any before in the past though?” the voice from the stone asked.

I thought for a moment. “Does fire coming out of your mouth count as magic? I have some sort of dragon power, and when I speak in dragon language some weird shit happens. One time I got turned into some sort of weird ghost thing...” I then talked a bit about the weird things I had yet to master from Ugorn’s teachings.

There was a moment of silence at first. “...I’m sorry, but what you speak of is something I’ve never heard of, however I wouldn’t be surprised considering the probability of the multiverse, anything is possible. Could you do me a favor? I just need you to place the stone somewhere that is made of.. Well, stone, rock, earthly materials,” he said.

“Well good thing this whole castle is practically made of crystals,” I said nonchalantly, walking over to one of the much crystals in the castle, and placing it on a stable spot, which was unfortunately a few feet elevated from the ground. Slowly, pieces of crystal started to break off and float into the air, each one lining up in the form of a gate, each one with a strange symbol I couldn’t recognize. With a sudden spark, a portal was created, and out a blue cloaked figure with his face hidden inside of his blue hood. He had a book chained to his right hip and a leather belt around his waist, a golden necklace around his neck that had two turquoise stones. Along his hood were yellow trims that were also along his sleeves. There was something that caught my eye though, and that was the blue tail that was sticking out from behind.

“Oh god,” I said, trying to keep myself from laughing childishly, only managing a chuckle to escape. “I said you sound like a snake, and you’re a drake. My bad!”

“Argonian.” he firmly correctly me as he reached up to lower his hood, allowing me to see a pair of gently glowing amethyst eyes.

“Right, so can you teach me anything of the sort? Or leave any books behind for me to study? The books would be great, as I’ve got a job in a few days to prep for, recovering some ancient relic.”

“I can teach you many types, but what would you be interested in? There are seven total, eight if we count Thaumaturgy,” the lizard-like creature explained. “By the way, my name is Athre’us-Ei, or Magic-Eyes, if you can’t speak my people’s language.”

“Athre’us-Ei,” I said, repeating it in mutters a bit before quickly getting it down perfectly. “Reminds me of Aether from the Greek mythology. As for the kind of magic I’d need, mind-protection magic is something I’d like. If not, I’d go for some destructive or restorative spells.”

“Alright, we can start raw, or I can give you the knowledge through spell creation, I just need somewhere to summon my tent so I can get to my Spell Altar,” Magic-Eyes said as he looked around the strange crystal castle.

“So do Argonians ever grow wings?” Spike asked a little hopeful for Magic-Eyes. “I understand if they don’t. I feel as if I’ll never grow wings with how late they’re coming..:”

“I don’t think they can, or at least not from my world, as well as the alternative Equestria,” Magic-Eyes said as he gave it some thought. “But even if it happens, it wouldn’t serve much purpose when a Levitation spell exists.”

“Wait, so you can levitate yourself?” Spike asked with a raised brow. “Wouldn’t that be high level magic or something?”

“Yeah, that should be impossible,” I said disbelievingly. “It’d make walls useless if there’s a society of people like that. I don’t even know how Twilight does it, but that’s too powerful of an ability to not be one of the hardest spells to master.”

“I traveled across Morrowind and practiced at the Mage’s Guild in Balmora to learn this spell, it’s only hard to maintain if you plan on trying to levitate a hundred or so feet in the air for long durations,” Magic-Eyes said as he raised an eye-ridge at what I said.

“...Yeah, that’s still pretty damn broken.”

“Broken? No, it is merely dangerous to use and can harm those who approach it without caution, it takes weeks or years to learn. For the levitation spell, it took me months. Allow me to demonstrate,” he said as he started to move his arms in a circular, yet mesmerizing pattern. “Fujo Suru,” he whispered, causing his body and eyes to take on a soft light purple glow as he started to float a few feet off the ground.

“Well, I guess it makes sense with how long it takes to learn then. And you have that dragon power too?” I asked in surprise.

“No, I bound my magicka to a word, I simply need to speak it verbally or mentally and the spell comes to me naturally, afterwards I can control it to my will,” Magic-Eyes said as he slowly levitated back down. “However, because I was born under the Atronach, there is just so much I can apply to those spells before I’ll need to drink a potion of Magicka.”

“Huh. I genuinely thought that was something Ugorn hadn’t taught me yet,” I said thoughtfully. “Ugorn has me shout out chants of his language. Like this-” I took a sharp intake of breath. FEIM I shouted, and then turned into a spirit, the world around me looking a ghostly blue. “Yours is kind of the reverse of this. It’s the ghost thing I mentioned earlier, but the only thing I can feel is landing on my feet, and while it doesn’t actually hurt me, it sure as hell feels bad when I land hard. This is due to the dragon soul inside of me, if I recall correctly,” I explained one of my shouts

“It sounds like a combination of an Invisibility spell and a Shield spell, the first part allows you to turn... Well, invisible. While the second part prevents you from being harmed,” Magic-Eyes theorised after studying my ghostly form. The form then expired, and I turned back to normal.

“So this whole magic thing relies on the power of my dragon soul, and I’m not using it correctly?” I asked Magic-Eyes, hoping his theory is right. “The dragon soul also allows me to shoot fire from my mouth, as I said earlier.” I faced a small, open balcony, taking a sharp intake of breath before shouting. ”YOL, TOR!” A giant wave of fire erupted from my mouth, going out the window and leaving scorch marks on the floor, as well as the balcony itself.

“Yeah, I think I’ll just leave you two be…” Spike said, walking out of the library, not wanting to listen to magic talk.

“No. Magic is drawn from aetherous which is a plane of existence outside of Nirn, everyone in Tamriel can draw upon this magic or allow their body to absorb it. I can’t say yours is the same, I’m only comparing it to my own form of magicka to replicate it the best I can in my mind,” Magic-Eyes explained.

“Damn,” I said a little bitterly. “I was kind of hoping this dragonborn thing I had going, was doing something with magic.”

“Dragonborn?” Magic-Eyes said as he stared at me. “...No, your tone of voice makes you sound oblivious. Surely you can’t be the same as Uriel Septim or any of his sons...” he said in disbelief.

My eyes lit up in hope of finding out more about the dragonborn power. “Did they kill dragons to gain power?”

“No, their power was a different..” Magic-Eyes said before proceeding in telling me what he knew of the Septim Dynasty. I stayed interested for the entirety of it, taking in everything he told me.

“Well it’s at least nice to know my power has its origin in your dimension. I’ll need to stop by and look into it further, see what else a dragonborn like me has in store.”

“...But if you and him are the same, I pray to the nine divines that your Equestria doesn’t get invaded by the Daedra,” Magic-Eyes said.

“Those demons or something?” I asked with a raised brow. “Even if that the case, I think the two displaced I met at the beginning of my new life are more than capable of handling them should an invasion happen. One of them saved me from death and turned me into a dragonborn, which from what Inigo told me attracts a lot of gods and goddesses. So I think this Equestria will be fine if these Daedra invade.”

“Except while you can kill them, they’ll keep coming until you either give up your life to become the avatar of Akatosh, or if you relight the dragonfires if there is a temple similar to that,” Magic-Eyes said with a look of concern. “The Daedra aren’t something you can easily overcome, especially if Mehrunes Dagon is there leading them.”

“Yeah, the one who resurrected me would just scare them off,” I stated without a care. “His own presence destroys reality, from what I remember of him telling me about him and the void. Chances are, he’ll wipe the floor with these Daedra. But hey, it’s just me. I dunno the true extent of these Daedra.” I then stretched a bit, before looking out the balcony and seeing a change of color in the sky. “Huh. We’ve been talking for quite a while. I wonder if there’ll be enough time to learn a spell?”

“As I mentioned in the beginning of our conversation, I’ll need a place to summon my tent, as it holds things I use on my travels,” Magic-Eyes said as he stretched his arms out over his head.

“I live in Rainbow Dash’s ground house, if you mean you need a place to live for a bit.” I offered. “She doesn’t really come by, as she likes her cloud house, and I like taking the couch anyways. I go to it more than I did my bed in my old life.”

“No, I mean place as in an area,” Magic-Eyes corrected.

“Oh…” I suddenly realized how stupid my response was. “Well, there’s a lot of open space around Rainbow Dash’s house. The area around it is surprisingly well kempt despite it never being mowed, so you shouldn’t find any trouble setting up a tent somewhere nearby the house, and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind anyways.”

With a nod, Magic-Eyes walked onto the outside balcony to do just that. Sensing that he was going to levitate down to the group, I felt an urge to race him to the bottom with my ghost shout, but suppressed it as to not be childish. “Where would this house be?” he asked as he looked at me with those amethyst eyes.

“I can lead you to it. And since you’re doing that,” I said as I walked next to him, getting on the fence of the balcony. ”FEIM!” I shouted, just as I jumped off. Suddenly, I realized how much of a bad idea this was, considering that the pain wasn’t necessary.

Oh fuck, was what I thought as I landed. I hit the ground as hard as one would expect from falling several stories from the ground, though none of my bones being broken. I groaned from the immense pain, the shout wearing off shortly afterwards.

The magic lizard gently levitated down to where I fell, his leather boots touching down on the ground. “Reckless,” he commented.

“No pain, no gain right?” I lied, as I knew in the long run that this was utterly pointless, but wanted to save face.

Spike looked out from a window within the castle, eyebrow raised. “Why didn’t you just use the stairs?” he called out to me.

“I DUNNO!” I said while throwing my arms in exasperation. “I JUST DIDN’T!”

“I hope you don’t plan to be reckless with the magic I’ll be teaching you,” Magic-Eyes said as he shook his head.

“Hey, it would’ve taken longer if we-, alright this clearly isn’t working,” I said in defeat. “I just didn’t think about it ok?”

“Being intelligent is the key to magic,” Magic-Eyes said as he gave me a look worthy of a teacher. Wordlessly, I guided him to Rainbow’s house, it not taking much time as the townsfolk seemed to realize that he wasn’t a threat since he walked with me. Though even with the reduction of people being suspicious, night still came moments before we reached the house.

“Well, we’re here,” I said as we reached the two-story cabin, Ponyville far off in the distance as nothing but the grasslands of Equestria surrounded the house. “You can set up the tent here. Tomorrow, I grab the supplies for the mission I’ll have in a few days, and learn some spells from you. You could come along for it if you want after we train, could probably use the company.”

Magic-Eyes nodded before walking off as he gave the area a good look around. He eventually walked over to a spot before starting to do that hand motion again, but this time purple energy twirled with his hands. "Jumon Tento,” he whispered as the same twirl started to raise from the grass, soon a somewhat square old leather brown tent started to materialize as if it was vaporization in reverse. He opened the flaps and headed on inside.

Seeing that I was going to have a busy day tomorrow, I entered the house, moved over to the living room, and slept on the couch. For a while, I stayed in limbo, thoughts preventing me from sleeping.

Life is going to be that crazy huh? I idly thought to myself. I wonder if this guy placed me in some sort of anime. Too much perversion and crazy shit for any chance of this being a video game. Wish he could’ve placed me in Heaven’s Lost Property instead. It’d probably be a helluva lot calmer there… that and I like the blue angeloid.

My mind drifted off to that particular anime, silently remembering all the episodes. This got me to eventually relax, and I managed to finally go to sleep after what felt like an hour.

Editor:Vutava

And yep, I'm still alive, surprisingly.

Ah, don't get your panties twisted. Life just came up is all. I'm heading to college within a few months, and family plans to move far out of where I currently am due to some changes coming in California(more than 50 gallons of water and you get fined), so probably a week's delay when that happens.

There was also a dance show I had to do. You guys can feel free to ask for footage of the show, my teach wants to get her dance group out there anyways.