The Mechanical Technomancer in Equestria: Technology is Magic
Chapter 1: Prologue
Load Full Story Next ChapterIn a large laboratory in the capital city of the Human Kingdom, a lone hooded figure stood over a work table full of different tools, parts, components, crystals, and wires which were all perfectly organized with machine-like precision, as was everything in the lab. His featureless blue eyes were two polished and perfectly clear lab grown sapphire orbs that faintly glowed with an inner light due to the magic energy from the enchantments put on them that connected them to his brain and allowed them to serve as functional eyes. His noseless mechanical face had overlapping sliding plates over his mouth and jaws that served as "lips" and as the walls of his tongueless mouth which hid his high quality industrial steel artificial teeth which were mainly just for show, though he did use them to cut wires on occasion. When he spoke his voice had a slight metallic reverberation to it, the movements of his mouth didn't perfectly line up with his words, and a blue light flashed in the back of his mouth as his iolite vocalizer lit up with each sound it made. The entirety of his jointed metallic exterior consisted of bland unpolished copper.
His body was unnaturally still. He displayed zero body language whatsoever, save for the occasional blink if he was particularly surprised by something and very rarely even a slight facial expression. He made no gestures while he spoke nor any other unnecessary movements that a normal individual would make unless he very deliberately intended to do so, and even when he did move it just looked wrong somehow. How he moved wasn't anything like how an organic creature moved but neither was it quite like how a typical golem or machine moved. Instead his movements were like a disturbing mixture of all the wrong elements of both machines and organic beings. An effect that was made worse by the soft mechanical whirring and clicking his robotic joints made whenever he moved.
His head was covered by a black hood which obscured his mechanical copper face in the harsh, top down, artificial lighting of his laboratory so the only thing lighting it was the soft blue glow of his eyes. Covering the rest of his utilitarian metal body was his standard uniform meant for everyday work. He had heavy polished black steel-toe military boots covering his feet. He wore a thick black hooded robe with a metallic grey trimming — the fabric of which was made from super thin thread-like wires of pure silver — with a large gear symbol with fifteen spokes that encircled a perfectly measured pentagram with a short series of runes just below the symbol all in metallic thread made from wires of pure gold which served to indicate his military branch, rank, and office sewn into both shoulders. On his legs were thick black pants that perfectly matched his robes even having the same silver trim made of metal fabric.
This mage — as while 99% of his body was artificial he was indeed still in actuality a human mage — was the High Lord of the Research and Development branch of the Human Kingdom's military government, Gerhardt Mechanica. One of the five High Lords that ruled the Human Kingdom and the world's leading expert in purely scientific fields of magic such as technomancy and alchemy.
At the moment, he was just putting the finishing touches on the prototype of an experimental new device that Isabel Sano — the current High Lord of the Medical branch — had requested he work on developing. It was a significant upgrade to the basic sterilization ray the medical branch already made frequent use of which only cleaned whatever the beam hit, be it surgical equipment or a wound. This upgraded version was specifically meant to kill any harmful bacteria, viruses, or any other negative pathogens within a person's entire body and to boost the individual's immune system. It was an idea they both came up with in response to a recent plague that had been running rampant through the kingdom as well as a very concerning rise in the use of and startling recent advancements in biological warfare by the Kingdom of the Wraiths, the Orc and Ogre Tribes, the Serpentine Republic, and many of the Human Kingdom's other enemies.
If the new anti-plague gun worked as it was supposed to then it should instantly cure any pathogen based disease a person may be experiencing even before they begin showing symptoms. However, since he had never built something like this before and was mainly working with concepts and ideas that were largely theoretical at this point, he was certain he was going to have to build dozens upon dozens of models and iterations in order to perfect the technology before it could go into mass production and use. Unfortunately, that would take time and the more time he took the more innocent people would die from this plague and possibly from the bioweapons being utilized by Humanity's enemies. It didn't matter if they were men, women, children, infants, young, or old they would die and it would be his fault for not working fast enough. It was always his fault for not working fast enough. Such was his role as a High Lord.
He had oceans of blood on his hands already from people killed by the weapons and vehicles he had made, the combat golems he had designed, and from those he had failed to save or was forced to abandon. And that was just all the people he had killed indirectly. There was plenty more blood on his hands from the countless enemy soldiers, assassins, spies, and innocent civilians whose only crime was getting caught in the crossfire that he had personally — and sometimes accidentally — slaughtered without remorse over the centuries and every minute he didn't have a finished model of this device added another crimson drop to that ancient rotting sea of blood.
When he was young, killing and death used to affect him greatly. However, he had experienced centuries of almost perpetual war with very brief periods of relative peace scattered in here and there every so often and had personally seen and experienced some of the worst horrors and crimes ever committed by some of the most insane, depraved, sadistic, and outright evil — truly, undeniably, objectively evil — minds the world had to offer. So he was quite jaded to all of the proverbial oceans of blood on his hands at this point and all the death and violence that was an almost daily occurrence for him as a military leader. In his position he couldn't really afford to care about any of the deaths he caused or could not prevent, he simply had to focus on keeping as many of his own people alive as he possibly could.
However, that did not mean he enjoyed having the deaths of innocent civilians — especially human civilians — on his shoulders like this. He absolutely hated it. He was just forced to accept that it was simply the reality of his situation and continue working as he always did. So he hummed a soft and familiar tune to himself, which would sound almost like a child's lullaby to any who might hear it, while recalling pleasant memories from his now ancient past as he worked in an effort to comfort himself and help himself relax.
He remembered his parents and how proud they had been when he had made his first golem when he was just a child and had only just been drafted for his ability to use magic. He remembered how he used to enjoy his work so much when he was an apprentice and lower ranking technomancer, how he would lose himself in the wires and components of complex machinery as one might lose themself in reading a particularly interesting book. He would become so invested in certain projects that he would lock himself alone in a random lab and would spend anywhere from hours to days on end building, repairing, or improving upon different devices or bits of machinery while completely forgoing all of his former organic body's needs for food or sleep until he was completely finished. This would sometimes end up with him being found unconscious if not half dead on the floor before being rushed to the emergency ward of the Medical Branch in critical condition, whereupon he would be scolded by the doctors and medical mages, but that never mattered to him. He remembered how proud he was when he first invented brain augmentations, which allowed him to surpass nature and become effectively immortal which could never have been achieved with the conventional augmentations that existed at the time on their own. He even remembered the moment all his hard work was finally recognized and he was informed that he was to become the next High Lord of the R&D branch after his predecessor had been killed in action while testing and defending an experimental artillery cannon in the middle of some large battle.
Those had all been the best times of his life and were by far his most cherished memories. Unfortunately, those days were long since gone. It had been centuries since he last felt even the tiniest spark of happiness, pride or even so much as the slightest most infinitesimally meager bit of satisfaction while working or for anything he designed or built. His duty as a High Lord and how long he had been one had sucked all the happiness and enjoyment out of his work leaving nothing behind. He could never be satisfied let alone proud of anything he ever built anymore as it was simply never good enough.
Nothing he could do was ever enough. There was always over a hundred different crises that demanded his attention at once and by the time he finished one thing a dozen more would pop up and/or the problem would have escalated past the point that whatever he had done or built could reasonably deal with it and he would have to start over and do or build something else entirely. He tried to delegate as much as possible but even then he struggled to barely keep up as his job was not typically a particularly fast one and required a lot of patience and precision to do correctly.
When Gerhardt finally finished bolting on the device's exterior plating he sighed. Well technically his vocalizer only made a sound that was extremely similar to a sigh with a bit of a static sound in the background, but it was the closest approximation to a sigh that he could physically make since he didn’t have lungs or an actual throat. "I'm finally done. Good. Now I just have to see if I can even turn it on or if I'll have to scrap it, start over, and completely redesign it from scratch... Gods above, I hope this works..." He muttered to himself in a mixture of stress and anxiety.
He was about to attempt to flip a switch to activate the device but paused and simply let his hands fall back to his sides as his sensors suddenly detected energy readings consistent with the presence of a lesser god currently standing directly behind him. "Hello, Gerhardt... Working on another abhorrent toy in a futile effort to control the natural course of life, I see." A familiar, angry, and spiteful voice growled from behind him.
Sighing in extreme frustration Gerhardt turned and saw Silvanus, a relatively young lesser god of nature who used to be kind and helpful but had become disillusioned and cruel, and had a very serious grudge against him. Fortunately he was unable to do anything to Gerhardt or any other mortal directly because of the rules the Greater Gods enforced upon all gods that ever came to the mortal world. He wore a green robe made from plants, had long green hair and a long tangled beard that were reminiscent of vines, grassy green eyes, pointed ears, very pale almost glowing skin like that of an Elf, and he was currently sneering at Gerhardt in complete and utter disdain.
"Greetings, Silvanus. I suppose I should have been anticipating a visit from you seeing as today marks the eight hundredth anniversary of the day that you first requested that I build those Funerary Séance devices for you. I see you are still very clearly upset about how that turned out. I, on the other hand, continue to fail to understand why you refuse to simply let go of your petty, misguided, and completely impotent grudge against me and move on with your life even after eight hundred years, nor why you refuse to accept the facts as they are. The facts being that you give me far too much credit for something I had little to no hand in. If you had never commissioned my services and had never given me those Arcane Equations then Caedes — or the "Father of Liches" if you prefer that completely asinine title he gave himself — would have never been able to use the equations you gave me to invent the study of Necromancy in the first place. I had nothing to do with it beyond developing and building a few machines. So if you truly wish to blame someone you should honestly blame yourself and Caedes rather than me, but I digress..." Gerhardt growled dismissively, irritated by the unwelcome interruption by this very unwelcome intruder. He had neither the time nor the patience to listen to a god blame and vilify him for something that was not his fault by any stretch of the imagination. He already blamed and vilified himself for a lot of things, but Necromancy was most definitely not one of them.
The lesser god’s sneer grew absolutely murderous and he backhanded Gerhardt across the face causing his pain receptors to activate as Silvanus knocked the ancient technomancer’s mechanical jaw out of alignment and very nearly dented the magically reinforced copper plates that made up his face. The shear force of the blow spun Gerhardt a full 180 degrees and very nearly sent him crashing onto the work table behind him which would have destroyed the table and wrecked everything on it due to the sheer weight and momentum of his magically reinforced metal body had he not managed to catch himself on the edge of the table — which happened to be bolted securely to the ground just as all of the many other work tables in the room were, to ensure the safety of the dozens of delicate tools and projects laying on them — before this could happen.
Standing up straight once more Gerhardt turned around to face Silvanus again before reaching up with his right hand and forcing his jaw back into alignment and calmly letting his arm drop back to his side again. Other than that he was completely unphased by the futile act of aggression, knowing the deity couldn't actually do anything to kill or permanently injure him so directly unless Gerhardt threatened him first.
"Silence, you insolent metal abomination! How DARE you attempt to place any of the blame on me! All I did was attempt to give you damned mortals a nice gift, like the naive fool that I was! It was one of your former apprentice who warped and twisted my gift into that grotesque blasphemy you dare call a field of magical study, you bastard! So it's ALL YOUR FAULT!" he growled furiously. With his fists shaking, he took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. "It doesn't matter. Soon you will be gone forever! You see, while I can't kill you — at least not here — I have finally found a loophole in the rules that I can exploit to at the very least get rid of you, permanently!" He smiled wickedly.
"I... I see... Well then." Gerhardt immediately overclocked his brain, drastically speeding up his perception of time and thus causing everything to seem like it was moving at little more than a crawl from his perspective. He quickly turned to the side and raised one of his hands in front of him which was suddenly engulfed by a bright copper colored aura as he cast a spell and created a portal leading to the main courtyard of the castle. With that done, he immediately began bolting towards the portal as fast as he could causing his joints to loudly whir and click in protest as his body was pushed to the absolute limits of its mechanically enhanced abilities.
He knew full well that he didn't stand a chance against a deity on his own, even a lesser god like Silvanus, but if he could at least get to the court yard then there would be hundreds of mages and soldiers there who could help him hold off Silvanus until everything the human military could possibly bring to bear could arrive to help fight him off. He had already sent a signal to remotely activate the castle's invasion alarms and had sent the other High Lords a message explaining the situation, so all he really had to do was buy as much time as he possibly could.
This was an absolute disaster. Far worse even then the recent plague or the bioweapons being utilized by Humanity's current enemies. If Silvanus caught him then for the first time in over twenty thousand years the Human Kingdom would be forced to declare war on a lesser god which hadn’t happened since a lesser god had declared war on them during the War of Survival, the very event that had forced the greater gods to create their rules in the first place. This was especially bad as it meant Silvanus would be allowed to kill directly in order to "defend himself" according to the rules laid out by the Greater Gods and he was far more powerful than the first lesser god humanity and their allies had fought. Granted, the Human Kingdom was also far larger and more powerful then it had been during the War of Survival, but that was not necessarily a good thing. In reality all of this just meant that this situation had the potential to absolutely dwarf the War of Survival in terms of scale, devastation, and bloodshed.
Still, he might be able to mitigate this before it escalated to that point and prevent this war from ever occurring if he could just get away. Hell, he would even go so far as to publicly execute himself later if that's what it took to stop this from happening. After all, he would be eliminating the source of the conflict (himself) by doing so and it would be removed in a way that the kingdom would not be forced to declare war due to politics.
Unfortunately, it seemed fate had different plans. Before he even got a quarter of the way to the portal, Silvanus appeared in front of him again and he was now moving just as fast if not faster then he was. "Where do you think you're going, you mechanical freak?! You know damn well you can't escape me!" The lesser god growled as he grabbed Gerhardt by the throat and lifted him up into the air, as he was unable to stop his momentum or change his direction in time to get away. He felt his brain be forced out of its overclocked state by an external force and time returned to its normal pace for him. "So, do you have any parting words before you never see this world again?" Silvanus mocked triumphantly.
Gerhardt sighed and decided to accept his fate since he knew full well that there was absolutely nothing he could do at this point. It wasn’t like he could teleport away or something to that effect. Teleportation magic had yet to be perfected and was millions of times more likely to kill the one being teleported than actually work as intended or he would have used it instead of making a portal, which was a far safer, if less efficient, means of travel. And those numbers were by no means an exaggeration. Out of all 89,053,270 (recorded) trials and experiments with teleportation that had been conducted by almost every intelligent species across the entire world there had never once in the entire history of the planet ever been a single attempt at teleportation magic where the test subject had not been completely destroyed, be it an inanimate object or a living creature. As a result, a few centuries ago a small team of technomancers had decided to simply weaponize it instead and those weapons were extremely effective to this very day, but that was all teleportation magic was good for. Only gods and spirits had ever truly managed to use it as an actual means of travel. And despite all of Gerhardt’s augmentations and intelligence he was still only human so teleportation was far beyond his means.
Gerhardt couldn’t even attack Silvanus in order to force the god to let him go otherwise the deity could kill him outright and claim it was an act of “self defense”. That being said, he was only human, as was previously acknowledged, so he wasn’t exactly sure if he even could harm Silvanus enough to force the lesser god to release him even if he went so far as to pour 98% of his entire magic energy reserves into either the most powerful combat or war spell he knew and then spent another 1% of his remaining magic energy reserves not required to power his body to lace said spell with some of the most vile, cruel, destructive, and outright lethal curses this world had ever seen. It would take the work of a small army of combat and/or war mages working together to pose any sort of threat to him, a single technomancer like him simply wasn't sufficient.
“I have only this to say.” Gerhardt growled, despite his mechanical face displaying no emotions. “While I know full well that I myself am by no means a saint or anywhere near perfect as despite my augmentations I am still only human, you, Silvanus, absolutely disgust me. Not only because you are a god of nature — which as a technomancer is something I absolutely abhor to the point it would induce intense feelings of nausea in me were I still physically capable of such things as it is so pathetically weak, flawed, inefficient, impotent, overall incompetent in terms of design and engineering, and is completely devoid of purpose or direction — but because you as an individual are by far one of the most childish, narcissistic, arrogant, self righteous, spiteful, and hypocritical beings I have ever had the immense displeasure of meeting. You can never accept any fault for your own mistakes, always trying to push the blame off to others, such as myself, when things do not do your way. You believe you are perfect, infallible, and can never be in the wrong simply because you are a god, yet you are so pathetically immature and barbaric that you get angry and violent whenever someone even slightly challenges this idiotic assertion. You—”
Gerhardt could feel Silvanus grip around his throat tightening in anger with every word he spoke to the point the overlapping magically reinforced copper plates that made up the exterior of his throat were on the verge of buckling under the pressure while the lesser god’s expression grew darker and darker yet the technomancer still continued to speak, completely undeterred. He was hoping if he got him angry enough his patience and self control would ultimately shatter and Silvanus would end up harming or killing him in a fit of rage. If he did, the Greater Gods would punish him for breaking their rules and would never allow him to return to the mortal world ever again, thus ending this war before it ever had the chance to begin.
This, however, did not make any of what he was saying any less true. Well, except for the part about how he hated nature. Perhaps in his youth it was true to an extent, but even then what he said was exaggerated to a fairly significant degree. He never liked nature but he never truly hated it either, he merely claimed as much as an admittedly crude — but hopefully effective — attempt to get under Silvanus’ skin.
Unfortunately, while he believed he was fairly competent at psychological manipulation — not only as a result of the fact he had dealt with international politics for hundreds of years, but also because he needed to know how to build devices with which to conduct psychological warfare effectively, among many other issues that came with his job and the fact that he was born a mage — he was by no means a true master of it, plus he had a bit of trouble understanding body language, social cues, and the emotions of others. As a result he had no idea how effective or ineffective his words were being or even if they were having the effect he desired. All he could really tell was what was clearly obvious such as the fact Silvanus was indeed growing angrier based on how hard he was gripping Gerhardt’s throat and his very obviously angry expression.
“Silence…” Silvanus hissed furiously, cutting Gerhardt off as he talked.
Gerhardt shook his head as best he could and said, “No, you asked me if I had any last words and I am not yet finished. While you may be a deity you are far from omniscient, omnipotent, or perfect. Like nature itself or like any of us mere mortals you presume to lord over, you are so disgustingly flawed that you even put Caedes himself to shame and your current actions only serve to prove this beyond even a shadow of a doubt. You may get rid of me in whatever way you are planning, but in the end it won't truly matter. Necromancy will continue to exist and it will continue to be your fault, not mine.”
“After all, had you ever stopped to consider that perhaps the other gods had never done something similar to what you did by giving us access to those arcane equations for a reason, then perhaps this magic you hate so much would have never existed in the first place, or at least would not have ended up in our hands. However, you did not stop to think of this. You didn’t think at all. And as a result of your lack of thought countless people died and were turned into undead, entire species went extinct and were turned into undead, countless souls were outright destroyed, vast swaths of land were forever rendered completely uninhabitable, and people continue to suffer from rogue necromancers, liches, wraiths, and undead to this very day. And to think, none of this would have ever happened without you. So I truly must congratulate you Silvanus. Despite being a Lesser God of Nature, you have done more damage to the natural order of the world than Caedes could ever even dream of through your sheer incompetence alone. So I do truly hope you feel proud of yourself because that is quite the achievement. You truly are the most pathetic failure of a god to ever—”
“ENOUGH!” Silvanus’ voice boomed with supernatural force loud enough that it shook the entire castle and could easily be heard across the entire city, cutting Gerhardt off mid speech once again. Everything became unnaturally silent for a moment but this silence was quickly shattered by the sound of the reinforced concrete, stone, and metal walls, floor, and roof of his lab cracking and splitting open as plants and vines rapidly began to grow straight through them. Loud hurricane force winds began to blow outside and everything got darker as the sky outside was rapidly filled with pitch black swirling clouds which poured unnaturally heavy rains and began crashing violently with more thunder and lightning then was possible from a natural storm. As a result Gerhardt’s faintly glowing artificial eyes, the portal — which had long since turned a dull grey by this point, indicating that it was currently cut off and experiencing interference of some sort —, and the overhead lights, which were starting to dim and flicker ominously from the plants that were starting to interfere with their wiring, were now the room’s only sources of illumination.
Gerhardt could feel an external force shut down his vocalizer rendering him completely incapable of speech. As such, the only thing he could really do was close his mouth and glare at the deity gripping his throat while mentally cursing to himself.
“Do you think me so stupid that I don’t realize what you are trying to do, you insolent metal defilement of the human form?! Do you truly believe that I would be so easily manipulated?! That alone is a thousand times more insulting than all of those malicious lies you just spouted combined!” He growled furiously.
Gerhardt rolled his eye, though one would not be able to notice this unless they were looking very closely as the clear glowing sapphire orbs in his metal skull were completely featureless as they lacked the irises or pupils that organic eyes had. Unable to say anything with his iolite vocalizer currently offline the ancient mechanical technomancer instead opted to raise a fist and hold up his middle finger. A bright copper colored aura engulfed his other hand, which was currently dangling limply by his side, as he also cast an illusion spell in order to create a series of translucent silver glowing letters in the air in front of him that spelled out, ‘I did not speak a single lie you deluded sociopathic whoreson’. It was extraordinarily crude by his usual standards, but he didn’t exactly have many other options at this point since he could no longer talk so he would just have to make do with what he could for the moment.
Seeing this Silvanus narrowed his eyes slightly but he otherwise ignored the rude hand gesture and the illusory message. He waved a hand in front of the portal Gerhardt had created earlier and turned it into a pure white swirling vortex of pure magic energy. "Whatever. So long as you no longer taint this world with your disgusting presence your pathetic insults mean nothing to me... Now, BEGONE!" He shouted before physically throwing Gerhardt into the swirling white vortex of magic energy.
Gerhardt felt an absolutely immense wave of magic energy wash over him and everything turned white with the peripherals of his vision being the only color he could see as they were filled with ever changing fractal-like patterns that made it appear almost as though he was looking through some demented kaleidoscope. As soon as he was fully inside the vortex and it closed behind him, he began to experience a sensation as though the world had fallen out from under him and he was falling through reality itself, for lack of a better term.
Realizing he wasn't dead, at least not yet, he attempted to analyze the wild raging magic in the pure white space surrounding him but oddly he found it utterly impossible. It was as if he were trying to analyze an ever changing and ever moving fluid that operated in a non-euclidean space rather than studying actual tangible magic. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Attempting to manipulate this "fluid" or change it in any way, shape, or form he found was equally impossible. It was like trying to mold air or water like clay with his bare hands in a universe where the laws of physics worked completely differently to those of his own universe. Trying to use actual magic from his own energy reserves on this "fluid" did absolutely nothing but slowly drain what remained of his energy reserves.
Opening a writing program in his head, he began writing down notes and observations about this strange unusable pseudo-magic. His iolite vocalizer was no longer being shut down by an external force and out of habit he unconsciously started muttering to himself as he wrote his notes down. After a moment, however, he noticed something that made him pause. He just realized that he couldn't actually hear his own voice. Blinking in surprise, he tried saying something again. True absolute silence was all he heard. He couldn't even so much as hear the sounds or vibrations of his own body as he moved. It was as if his audio processors had been completely removed from his head entirely but a quick diagnostic check assured him that they were still there and were all working properly.
Curious, he reached into the chest of his robe and pulled out his ornate gold and silver concealed magic pistol he always carried with him. Flipping a tiny switch on the side and setting it from "Silent" to "Shriek" he fired a single shot off into the ether as an experiment to see if he might be able to hear something louder then his voice. Nothing. It appeared that sound just didn't exist in whatever this place was.
Even stranger, however, was what happened to the beam his pistol had fired. As the silver colored ray of magic energy shot off into the vast nothingness, Gerhardt watched as it bent, stretched, twisted, expanded, shrunk, turned numerous different colors, disappeared, reappeared, turned and shot back towards him only to pass harmlessly through his body as if either he or it didn't really exist, and many other things before it eventually just vanished again seemingly for good this time. Simply put, what happened to that beam was complete and utter bullshit. Hell, at this point he wouldn’t have even been surprised if the beam had turned into literal bull shit at some point during whatever the hell it was he had just witnessed.
Out of habit Gerhardt sighed to himself inaudibly. ‘I suppose that means this place’s laws of physics operate on non-standard logic then. Damn it all.’ He thought to himself in frustration. That meant if he wanted to figure out how this place truly worked he was going to have to use “Chaos Theory” which had always been something he absolutely hated ever since it had first been invented, yet had still been forced to use on multiple occasions as it proved to be extremely useful in certain circumstances. He had very little patience for dealing with the underlying patterns, interconnectedness, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, and self-organization inherent to Chaos Theory and found working with it extremely frustrating and tedious. He very much preferred the pure solid logic and order of technology and standard physics over supposed “chaos” any day. As such, he very much so wanted to get out of whatever this place was and back to a realm, plane of existence, or whatever else so long as it at the very least had a relatively normal set physics where things were relatively simple to understand and actually made sense, as soon as physically possible.
Not really sure what else to do, and having lost all interest in figuring out how the physics of this place worked upon discovering that he would have to use chaos theory to do so, he put his pistol away and continued to "feel" around in this pseudo-magic fluid for a few minutes, slowly reaching deeper into the seemingly endless ocean of the stuff. Eventually he found something that he could only describe as "solid" in that infinitely vast expanse of "fluid". It felt strange, alien, yet oddly familiar. As if with the instincts that he should technically no longer even have he almost immediately knew exactly what it was that he had found, though how he knew this was still a complete and utter mystery to him. It was a world, an entire universe even. Yet, while it felt somewhat similar to his original universe, he knew it was definitely not his original universe. He also felt himself rapidly being dragged away from it as if he was being pulled by the rapids of a raging river, while it was simultaneously moving away from him as it was also being dragged in a completely different direction.
He took a few microseconds to think, which for him was the equivalent to several hours for an unaugmented human due to his brain's drastically enhanced processing power. According to his internal chronometer he had in fact spent close to half an hour in this "place", if it could even be called that, already and he calculated that if he was being dragged this rapidly and this universe was being dragged just as rapidly in a completely different direction then he was already much too far away from his original universe to ever be able to find it again, let alone return to it.
The universe he had just found felt somewhat different but he estimated that it should probably be close enough to his original universe that he believed he should be able to survive in it. There was no guarantee if or when he would find another universe if he passed this one, and even if he did find another there was no guarantee he would be able to survive in it like there was with this universe. The gods only knew how long it would take for him to find another potentially habitable universe in... whatever this was. He also had no idea where he would end up if he just let this "current" continue pulling him along as it was. That was assuming it was even taking him anywhere since it could easily just be throwing him around completely randomly and without direction, like a leaf caught in a hurricane or a tornado.
After much deliberation he decided he had no other choice and followed these strange instincts he shouldn't even have in order to "latch on to" the universe he had found. Suddenly he felt his "direction", for lack of a better term, change and felt himself rapidly being pulled towards the universe he had latched on to. Finally he collided with the universe and felt himself being thrown towards a seemingly random location within. Suddenly he felt something — possibly multiple things — watching him and detected his "velocity" shift ever so slightly to send him somewhere else entirely. He immediately assumed his uninvited entrance to this universe had caught the attention of a few of whatever spirits or deities managed it and they were the ones who were changing his course for whatever reason. If he were to guess, they likely altered his course to force him to end up in the center of a star or a black hole or something to that effect to dispose of him as they would view him as an intruder. If he was correct, he was effectively doomed as it was much too late for him to do anything about it now.
With a noiseless sigh, he accepted his inevitable demise. He had been expecting this day to come for a very long time, he just never knew how, where, or when it would happen. Honestly, he was more surprised it hadn't happened sooner, especially in his line of work and with his political position. He had simply been lucky enough to survive this long, with quite a bit of help from his augmentations, but he was still mortal so his luck was not infinite and it seemed that it had finally run out. His only regret was that he didn't have salivary glands, lungs, or mouth muscles so he was physically incapable of spitting in Silvanus' face before he threw him through that vortex as a last great act of defiance, but he supposed that his words alone would just have to suffice.
As the bright white light vanished and along with it the feeling of being watched, Gerhardt realized he was still alive and had apparently been incorrect in his assumption about the intentions of whatever had redirected his course. However before he could register anything else, his sensors — which had a one mile effective radius — had very nearly exploded from a sudden influx of an absolutely massive amount of data as they immediately began detecting hundreds of thousands if not millions of energy readings all around him in every possible direction. It was almost as if he was in the middle of a city and every living thing in said city, from the people that inhabited it down to the very birds, rodents, insects and every other living thing that wasn’t either a single celled organism or microscopically small had some sort of connection to magic. Not only that but only a fraction of the energy readings he was detecting were consistent with actual mages while most of the rest were not even remotely consistent with anything he had ever encountered before — though he was able to tell that almost all of them were mortal — and effectively all of them were somewhat unique in some way shape or form. None of which should have been even remotely possible based on everything he knew about magic.
A mortal being born with a connection to magic was a highly uncommon trait and was almost completely random as it had to do with how an individual's soul formed before birth rather than biology or genetics (though two mages reproducing did have a far higher chance of having their offspring be born with such a connection, however this phenomenon had absolutely nothing to do with genetics). Furthermore, when something — be it a member of a sapient species or even just a mere animal — was born with a connection to magic, they were always capable of using magic and thus were always, without fail, a mage. Every. Single. Time. Without exception. It was completely binary. Either one was born with the ability to use magic or they were not, there was absolutely no middle ground. As such all of these strange energy readings made no sense to him whatsoever.
However, he was unable to really consider these issues for very long as he was very quickly forced to lower the effective range of his sensors to a maximum radius of approximately 50 feet as they were not designed to handle anywhere near that much raw data all at once and were in grave danger of overheating and melting to a useless puddle of slag or outright exploding inside of him which could have potentially damaged a few of his other systems.
As soon as the range was lowered and he was no longer being absolutely bombarded with excessive amounts of data, however, he finally noticed something somewhat alarming that had previously gotten lost amongst the millions of other energy signatures. Within the current drastically lowered radius of his sensors were two energy readings consistent with those of two demigods, multiple mages, a few not mages, and a few mages that were simultaneously also not mages surrounding him on all sides. He panicked for a microsecond believing he had been sent straight into a trap of some sort, when he noticed something odd about the demigods, mages, and sort-of-mages. Their energy signatures all seemed to lack proper control and coherency and seemed strangely weak, atrophied even, as if they lacked proper training and had never in their lives taken the time to properly maintain their magical fitness. Realizing this, he was no longer concerned about being in any danger but he was now more confused than ever.
Curious, he finally looked around and found himself standing in the middle of what looked like a wedding venue filled with strange, horrifically deformed, almost unnaturally colorful, tiny, mutant, equine-esque parodies of creatures with extremely exaggerated features that wouldn't look out of place in a child's picture book. Some of said pseudo-equine creatures had traits such as long spike-like horns sticking out of the center of their skull or uselessly tiny presumably vestigial wings on their backs that made them vaguely resemble unicorns or pegasus from ancient Elven and Dwarven mythology respectively, while others lacked either, and more still had different features entirely.
One of the demigods he was currently detecting — which appeared to be slightly larger than the rest of the pseudo-equine creatures and seemed to be some sort of pink hybrid pegasus unicorn creature — appeared to be somewhat disheveled, had its hooves glued to the ground by some strange green substance, and was standing underneath the wedding altar. Next to it was one of the unicorn-esque creatures. This one happened to be wearing what looked like some strange red uniform of somesort and judging by its eyes it was under the effects of a potent mind altering or perhaps — if the poor bastard was particularly unlucky — even a mind erasing illusion spell. Next to those two was a similarly strange and mutated large bipedal purple reptile of somesort, who appeared to be wearing a formal suit and a tophat.
The second and slightly more powerful of the two demigods — which also seemed to be a hybrid like the pink demigod creature — was currently hanging upside down from the roof in a translucent green cocoon-like sack or pod that appeared to be made of the same green substance that currently had the hooves of the pink demigod glued to the ground.
There were also several insectoid faux-equines with strange perfectly circular holes in their legs, sharp jagged horns sticking out of the center of their skulls, pitch black carapaces, and insectoid wings on their backs that should have been far too small and thin to produce even a fraction of the force that should be necessary to lift their bodies but were somehow violating the laws of physics and allowing the creatures to fly anyways.
Upon seeing this Gerhardt really wanted to capture one of these creatures in order to study them in an attempt to determine the exact mechanism behind how it was even remotely possible for them to fly with those pathetic little wings. He suspected some sort of magic had to be at work, especially since they seemed to be the sort-of-but-not-mages his sensors were detecting — which still made absolutely NO sense to him —, but he couldn’t truly be completely certain without dissecting one as well as running a few tests and experiments on them. Either way he just wanted to figure it out so he could adapt it for use in his own machines. However he knew that was likely just a pipe dream as they were probably sapient creatures and as such he would most likely have to jump through all sorts of legal and political hoops and spend a fortune — which he did not have — just to get permission to be given even so much as a corpse for study let alone a live subject, likely in the form of a dangerous criminal whom has been given the death sentence. So ultimately it simply wasn’t worth the trouble.
Refocusing on the matter at hand Gerhardt also noticed another of the strange black insectoid creatures only this one was larger than the other insects like the demigods though according to his sensors it was very much still mortal if just a bit more powerful than any of the other creatures in the room save the demigod in the cocoon thing. That wasn’t saying much, however, since said demigod was only about as powerful as an above average mage with its magic atrophied as it was. The larger insectoid creature’s wings appeared to have been horribly mutilated in a way that looked as though it had been quite painful, it had what looked like a strange crown-like growth attached to its head just behind its jagged horn, it lacked the compound eyes of the rest but had green snake-like eyes, and it lacked the pitch black full body carapace of the rest but instead had what looked like a bright green carapace that only covered its back and chest while the rest of its body save for its strange membranous mane and tail was covered in pitch black fur.
All of the creatures were apparently capable of unsettlingly humanoid facial expressions and were all staring at him in a mixture of surprise, shock, confusion, and even a little fear in a few cases.
He assumed that the larger insectoid creature was probably the leader of the insects while the two demigods were the leaders of the other group of faux-equines. Furthermore, based on the fact that the demigods seemed to have been captured, the two groups were probably at war or something and this was likely a very important battle. However, a wedding venue was a rather odd choice of location for a major battle like this in his opinion, but he assumed there was probably a reason for it and he simply lacked context. Perhaps there had been a wedding planned for today and one group decided to use this as an opportunity to attack the other group while they were distracted or something to that effect? That would certainly explain it.
Either way he really didn’t want to get involved in any of this if he didn’t have to as whatever conflict they had with each other did not concern him in the least. Plus he did not know anything about this world, its current political climate, or either of the two sides and their respective goals or beliefs. So even if he wanted to get involved he simply didn’t have enough information to make a sound judgement about which side he should ally himself with.
With that in mind the first thing he did was activate the universal translation device that was built into his brain while carefully raising a single hand so as to not provoke any of the creatures and lowering his hood in an attempt to look slightly less intimidating or suspicious. He then let his hand fall back to his side and said, “Greetings. I come in peace. My sincerest apologies for the interruption, my sudden arrival here was not by choice. I have no intention of involving myself in whatever this is. So if there are no objections, I will be leaving now. Good day to you all.”
He was about to bow politely and turn to start heading towards the massive door that he could only assume was the exit. Before he could, however, the larger insect shouted. “Capture that huge metal freak as well, my changelings! He may not be a pony but his love can still serve as food for the hive all the same!”
Gerhardt froze in place. “Changelings?” he asked in surprised confusion. These things were changelings? They certainly didn’t look like any kind of Changelings he knew of. Then again, when it came to changelings appearances hardly mattered since they could take on essentially any form they desired. More importantly his sensors told him these insect creatures were all mortal, but Changelings were a type of Fae which meant they were decidedly not mortals. So these things couldn’t possibly be Changelings. This made him wonder if his universal translator was malfunctioning.
He didn’t have time to run a systems diagnostic in order to check, however, as all eight of the smaller insectoid creatures in the room hissed at him, revealing long snake-like tongues and sharp fangs, before they started flying towards him, some having green auras surrounding their horns indicating they were channeling their magic through them.
Gerhardt simply frowned slightly and reached into the chest of his robes with his right hand. Grasping the handle of his concealed magic pistol but leaving it in its holster for the moment he stated in a dangerously calm voice, “I said I do not wish to become involved in whatever quarrel you have with each other. Please just allow me to leave or I will be forced to defend myself.” The so-called “Changelings” just ignored him and kept coming. A few fired beams of green energy from their jagged glowing horns. Two missed while another slammed into his face causing his pain receptors to activate but doing little to no real damage to the magically reinforced copper that made up his exterior plating.
The ancient technomancer sighed and pulled the magic pistol out of its holster and flipped the switch on the side from “Shriek” back to “Silent” as this was a fairly enclosed space and he did not wish to permanently deafen anyone by rupturing their eardrums plus he did not believe this was the best time for psychological warfare tactics, which that setting was specifically designed for. “So be it...” He muttered in frustration. Deciding not to kill the creatures as he wanted to avoid making enemies if possible and because he only really needed to make a point, he twisted the very end of the barrel to change its focusing crystal’s settings and raised the ornate weapon. Allowing an advanced targeting program to take control of his arm, the limb began to move on its own as it very quickly aimed his sidearm at each of the creatures in turn and pulled the trigger of his weapon eight times in very rapid succession. There was a soft Bzzzt sound every time he pulled the trigger as the weapon quickly unleashed eight flat wide beams of bright silver energy from its barrel one after the other.
Each of the beams slammed into their targets exactly where he wanted to hit them and instantly severed one or two limbs from each of the eight “Changelings” as any atoms that came in contact with the beams were instantly teleported randomly across the universe. They each flinched as the beams came near them but otherwise didn’t react until they heard clattering and wet splats on the floor beneath them. Then almost as one they each looked and saw their missing limbs laying on the ground beneath them, as well as the bloody stumps where they used to be attached. Finally their bodies seemed to register the fact that their limbs had been cut off and they each fell out of the air screaming in a mixture of mind numbing agony and absolute horror while clutching desperately at whatever stump they could with whatever forelimbs they still had. A few even passed out, likely more so from the pain or perhaps shock rather than blood loss as they had not had enough time to lose that much blood yet.
As the “Changelings” hit the ground, Gerhardt finally lowered his ornate magic pistol and raised his other hand, which became engulfed by a bright copper aura. As he did not want the creatures to bleed to death either he cast a simple wound cauterization spell. Suddenly the profusely bleeding stumps the creatures limbs used to be attached to were engulfed with intense arcane flames. The smell of burning flesh and carapace rapidly filled the room and several more of the creatures passed out from the pain while the screams of the few that continued to remain awake grew even louder and more intense. Once it was the stumps were thoroughly charred and no longer bleeding, the flames dissipated. Finally, the ancient technomancer decided to be a bit merciful and cast a sleep spell on the few “Changeling” soldiers that remained conscious, and with that the screams came to an abrupt stop and the room became completely silent.
Gerhardt saw the non-insectoid pseudo-equines staring at him in a mix of shock, disgust, and fear, except for two in particular. The first and most notable of the two was the white unicorn-esque one with the purple mane. Witnessing this sort of violence appeared to have been too much for it as he watched it dramatically fall over onto the ground appearing as if it had passed out, though he highly suspected that it was still awake and was just being over dramatic. The second was of the two was the yellow pegasus-esque one with the pink mane, who was currently huddled in a corner with its fore-hooves covering its head while its entire body trembled in what appeared to be genuine terror.
‘They must be civilians.’ He noted mentally while twisting the end of the pistol’s barrel once more to return it to its default beam setting before turning back to face the large “Changeling” creature who was just standing there looking at the unconscious bodies of her soldiers with a dumbfounded expression that eventually gave way to one of shock, horror, and what appeared to be genuine concern for her soldiers. Having long since become jaded to such things Gerhardt simply ignored this and walked towards her saying, “Do not worry, they are all still alive and are in no danger of dying. I truly did not want to do this, ma’am, but unfortunately I am in a very bad mood right now and you have just forced me to pick a side.” His voice was completely cold and remorseless.
The creature glared furiously at him and opened her mouth to speak but Gerhardt cut her off by aiming his pistol at her head and saying in a deathly serious tone that brokered no argument, “I was not finished. Do not attempt to interrupt me again or, unlike what I did to your soldiers, rather then simply removing limbs I will instead aim for your head and kill you before you can so much as blink let alone attempt to defend yourself. You are to remain silent until I explicitly tell you to speak. Do I make myself clear?” She continued to glare hatefully at him with a defiant expression on her face but closed her mouth and silently nodded.
He lowered his pistol and came to a stop a few feet in front of her. “Good. So now that you have decided to involve me in this conflict between your people, here is what is going to happen. As I still do not wish to take a side, first, you are going to release those two demigods over there, whom I can only assume are the leaders of these “Ponies”, as you call them.” He said while pointing towards the two captured hybrid creatures. “Second, assuming I am not mistaken in my assumption and this is indeed some sort of attack or invasion, you are going to call off any and all of your soldiers that are in the area and those two are going to do the same. Finally, you and those two are going to sit down and you will negotiate some sort of compromise, peace treaty, cease fire, or whatever else — I really don’t care which — and I am going to act as a completely neutral third party mediator to ensure things remain perfectly civil between you. Do these terms sound fair to you? You may speak.”
“No! Celestia hates Changelings simply because we feed on love, she will never agree to negotiate with us let alone help us! My hive is starving, we need the ponies love to survive which is the entire reason I invaded Equestria in the first place! If you are going to execute me then so be it but I will never call off my subjects! Not when we are so close to securing a permanent food source! Especially not on the orders of some sort of metal monster that just maimed and tortured eight of my subjects in front of me!” The “Changeling” hissed defiantly.
Gerhardt rolled his artificial eyes at her accusation, though it was almost impossible to see as they were glowing and were completely blank as they lacked any irises, pupils, or even any noticeable flaws. “Please... They are soldiers. Such injuries are expected in this line of work. Furthermore, I did not “torture” them I merely cauterized their wounds so they wouldn’t bleed to death. Would you have preferred I let them die instead? Ultimately I did not do anything to them that I myself can not fix, assuming I have the right materials. Merely replacing a lost limb is a trivial matter. After all, I was not always a “metal monster” as you call me, but that is besides the point. Now, I remember hearing you mention feeding on love when you ordered those soldiers to capture me. I have no idea how that even works and I would be very interested to learn or perhaps study it at some point in the future, but I digress. If this “Celestia” truly vilifies your species for that then I believe there must be a root cause of this hatred. Does your feeding on emotions perhaps harm the Ponies in any way shape or form?”
She shook her head. “It can if we take too much but we actively try to avoid that! We are starving so why on Equis would we want to harm or kill off our main food source?!”
“I see. If that’s the case then I still believe a compromise could be reached between you. Setting up a system where ponies could willingly donate love, perhaps? Bah, it is irrelevant either way. I believe I have a few ideas that would be a far better solution anyways. Ideas that will ensure your species will never have to worry about starvation again but also do not involve you having to feed on Ponies or indeed any other living creature ever again and I am willing to work with you on these ideas. However, you must first agree to negotiate with the Ponies.”
She gave him a suspicious look. “Why? You just appeared out of nowhere in the middle of our invasion, maimed eight of my subjects, and are now demanding I negotiate with Equestria while offering to help us. It’s all too convenient. Who are you? What do you even get out of this?”
He frowned slightly and decided he should probably tell the truth for the moment for two reasons. First, he believed it was likely a wise idea to start building this creature’s trust at this stage so she could be more easily manipulated later, if necessary. And second, if these “Changelings”, as they call themselves, truly feed on emotions then they likely have some way of sensing emotions which would make lying to one far more difficult and getting caught lying at this stage could very easily ruin any progress he had made up until this point, which was something he really needed to avoid right now.
“When I said I did not arrive here willingly, I meant it. Allow me to explain. My name is Gerhardt Mechanica, and up until a short while ago I was one of the five High Lords who ruled the Human Kingdom on planet Earth. In that sense, you may consider me an extraterrestrial of sorts as this is not my world. To be a bit more specific I was the High Lord in charge of the Research and Development branch of our kingdom’s military government, and while I was in the middle of developing a device that was of vital importance to my own people in my personal lab, I was accosted by a very powerful and highly malevolent entity by the name of Silvanus. He then banished me from my world against my will. The fact that I ended up here after being banished is merely poor timing and an unfortunate twist of fate.” He explained, attempting to remain as brief as possible while still giving as much of the full story as he could.
”So when I arrived I knew absolutely nothing about this world or either of your species so I did not wish to attempt to ally myself with either of you or get involved in your conflict. However you decided to involve me anyways by ordering your men to capture me. Now I am simply trying to salvage this situation to the best of my abilities. To be perfectly honest I simply can not afford to make powerful enemies such as you or these Ponies respective kingdoms at the moment as having to avoid assassins and/or groups of soldiers constantly attempting to hunt me down and kill and/or capture me would make my life extremely and unnecessarily difficult at this stage. So I am hoping that by improving relations between your respective kingdoms I will be able to avoid becoming enemies with either of you. Furthermore, this also gives me something to focus on other than the unfortunately rather dire situation that my own kingdom is in at the moment, even if only temporarily. Otherwise, I gain little to nothing from doing this. So, now that you know all of this, do you finally agree to have peaceful negotiations with the Ponies?”
The creature stared at him evaluatingly for a few seconds before looking behind him towards the eight unconscious bodies puddles of their own blood on the floor with a bit of remorse. Finally she sighed in resignation and nodded reluctantly. “Assuming you’re telling the truth about having an alternate solution to prevent my Hive from starving, I have no choice but to agree… But I only agree if the ponies agree as well, and you replace the limbs of my subjects as you claimed to be able too! And if it turns out you’re lying about having a solution to keep us from starving or if these negotiations go badly, I will do everything within my power as Queen of the Changelings to ensure you are hunted down and executed for your crimes against the hive, so it would be in your best interest to try your best to make sure that doesn’t happen!” She growled viciously.
Gerhardt ignored her threat for the moment, though he most certainly kept it in mind, and nodded at her. “Very well then. I have a few materials with me currently, though I will need more to work with in order to do as you have asked. However, we may discuss that in more detail at a later date.” He acknowledged. Finally he turned and looked at the two demigods who were both still trapped and appeared to have been listening very intently to his entire conversation with the insect creature this entire time. “Thank you both for remaining patient up until this point, not that either of you really had much choice in the matter but it is still appreciated nonetheless. So, as it appears that only one of you is able to speak at the moment, it seems that you will have to be the one to make this decision.” He stated, looking at the pink one. “Do you agree to have peaceful negotiations with the Changelings?”
The demigod remained silent for a moment looking somewhat conflicted. After a full thirty seconds of silence Gerhardt was on the verge of raising his pistol and repeating the question a bit more forcefully but finally the demigod nodded and said, “I agree, but only if Queen Chrysalis releases my Shining Armor from her spell and I receive a public apology for her ruining my wedding!”
“Ah, so there really was a wedding. I will admit, I had been wondering about that.” Gerhardt muttered to himself. Looking back towards the newly dubbed Queen Chrysalis he asked, “Very well. So, your highness, do you accept the demigod’s terms?”
Queen Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “Ugh, fine whatever. I was going to release your little coltfriend anyways, and I’ll apologize after the negotiations are over. That is assuming they don’t fall through.”
The demigod sighed. “Alright, I suppose that’s the best I’m going to get right now.”
“Excellent!” Gerhardt stated, both surprised and extremely relieved that he had somehow managed to pull this off. Putting his pistol back in its holster under his robes, he raised a hand which became engulfed by a bright copper colored aura as he cast a spell. Suddenly a line of copper colored light ran up the side of the green cocoon-like sack that held the other demigod. Said sack then promptly split open as if it had been sliced open by a razor sharp blade allowing the demigod within to free herself with relative ease. He then cast another spell and the green substance gluing the smaller pink demigod’s hooves to the ground almost seemed to melt into a liquid state freeing her as well. “Now that all of that is settled, I assume you three will need to discuss a time, date, and location for these negotiations to take place. I am fine with whatever you decide as my entire schedule has, unfortunately, been completely cleared up for the foreseeable future.”
The larger white demigod cleared its throat and said, “Actually, while Queen Chrysalis, Princess Cadence, and I all have a few things we need to take care of before we start, I believe we should get to this as soon as possible. So, how about we hold these negotiations in a private meeting room in the castle in let’s say, one… maybe two hours?”
“I agree, the sooner the better.” The pink demigod who was apparently called “Princess Cadence” nodded.
“Let’s just hurry up and get this over with. We all know it’s just going to end up being a complete waste of time anyways.” Chrysalis grumbled impatiently.
Gerhardt stared at them for a moment, not having expected this. “As you wish. I certainly have no objections. I am surprised, however. In my experience politics and bureaucracy are typically rather slow and tedious processes that often take quite a bit of time. The fact that this can be done so quickly here is actually quite convenient and is a welcome change of pace.”
The larger white demigod chuckled at that. “Oh, don’t misunderstand. Both of those things are exactly the same here too, it's just that this is a unique situation.” She said with a slightly amused smile. “Now, High Lord Gerhardt, I need to talk to my student Twilight and her friends alone for a few minutes since this is the first time any of them have ever seen violence like this and I need to make sure they're all okay, then I’ll lead you to the castle and will have a servant show you to the meeting room.”
“Very well.” Gerhardt acknowledged.
She nodded and started walking towards the group of six smaller faux-equine creatures on the opposite side of the room before pausing mid stride and looking back towards him with a stern disapproving glare. “Oh, and by the way, after the negotiations are over the two of us are going to have to have a very serious discussion about your use of excessive violence against these eight Changelings.” She stated in a very serious tone.
Gerhardt simply stared at her, unsure how to respond and not really caring either way. As far as he was concerned he had merely acted in self defense. In fact, he had even been quite merciful considering all of them were still alive when he could have just as easily killed them all and been done with it or even cursed them instead. It wasn’t his problem if this demigod was a bit squeamish about something so trivial as a few severed limbs.