Havoc teleported away from Carbuncle to regrow the body parts the eidolon had blown off, but Carbuncle teleported right after him and blasted him again. This time, Havoc managed to protect himself with his axe. Aio attacked him from behind, his sword somehow managing to cut Havoc’s wings without touching them.

“Fucking furries I’m going to fucking kill you and rape your corpses!” Havoc shouted as he used roughly half of his magic reserves to summon Gandalf the Grey, and Gandalf the White, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail's Black Knight, and Benito Mussolini, and the Blue Meanie, and Cowboy Curtis, and Jambi the Genie, Robocop, the Terminator, Captain Kirk, and Darth Vader, Lo Pan, Superman, every single Power Ranger, Bill S. Preston, and Theodore Logan, Spock, The Rock, Doc Ock, and Hulk Hogan. All of them rushed towards Carbuncle to kick her furry ass, allowing Havoc to focus on Aio.

In order to match Aio’s skill and speed, Havoc magically enhanced his body until he could move and react ten times faster than usual. Even then, Aio’s reflexes were still faster than him, so Havoc combined his physical attacks with fireballs and energy beams that aimed at Aio’s blind spots whenever possible. At first Havoc made his skin as hard as dragon scales, but Aio’s katana could cut through it effortlessly; and his dragonbone hammer would have met the same fate the previous one had when fighting Griffon if it weren’t for Havoc’s magic making it stronger. The fighting continued like that for several minutes, with Havoc’s magic quickly depleting and Aio slowly tiring himself. The diamond dogs that surrounded them didn’t dare to intervene, since the few ones who did were quickly killed by Havoc’s magic. Meanwhile, Carbuncle fought against the heterogeneous bunch of humans summoned by Havoc. Luckily for the eidolon, the ones such as Superman weren’t nearly as powerful as they should be. Eventually, Aio’s speed increased way beyond what should be natural, allowing him to cut several of Havoc’s tendons. This left him vulnerable to Aio’s next attack.

“Dìjiǎn fēng zhē” he said as he jumped high and, putting his feet on his katana’s hilt, used his full weight to impale Havoc from the base of his neck all the way down to his intestines. As soon as the Hakuryū no seieki’s guard touched Havoc’s body, it’s air manipulating powers shredded Havoc’s insides, turning them into a bloody pulp barely contained by his skin.

When Aio tried to recover his weapon, Havoc began spinning at great speeds, forcing Aio to abandon it. Then Havoc pulled it out and put it in his pocket dimension, away from Aio’s reach.

“Now I’m going to have some fun with you,” Havoc threatened, aware of his critically low magical reserves after healing the massive damage caused by Aio’s last attack.

Aio quickly pulled a foldable short japanese sword from his armor and tried to continue fighting with it. However, that weapon wasn’t made of a magic-resistant material, so Havoc used his magic to make it try to impale Aio. The diamond wolf struggled against his own weapon, but Havoc’s power slowly brought it closer to his right eye. When the tip was a few centimeters away from Aio’s eye, Havoc felt his magic be cancelled instantly as Carbuncle put herself between him and Aio. After a quick check he learned that all of the fakes he had created had been killed, either by Carbuncle or by the diamond dogs. Carbuncle’s ruby began to glow with great power, so much that Havoc could feel his hair standing on end and the air vibrating. Soon, a red spherical barrier began to envelop him, which bounced all of his spells back at him. Before he could find a way out, the magical barrier closed around him, leaving him trapped.

Cloudy Sunset flew as fast as her wings would take her. She had seen the green creature that came from the pillar of light trap Havoc in a magical sphere, and he had yet to come out. She had to report this development before it was too late.

Emerald Sword was exhausted. He had been fighting for two hours against the endless diamond dogs. He had abused his natural magic so much that he could hear his joints creaking like crystal whenever he moved. Tales of crystal ponies using their emotions-based magic so much that they turned into living statues, condemned to an eternity of darkness unless somepony else took a pickaxe and ended them; weren’t unheard of. He was ready to sacrifice his life if it was necessary, but he wasn’t planning to do so anytime soon.

Screwball, invisible to everyone in the area, grinned when the barrier closed around Havoc, knowing well what was going to happen in a couple of minutes.

The blade of a black axe broke through the barrier. Blow after blow, Havoc’s axe broke through the powerful barrier, its magic-cancelling properties allowing the draconequus to escape the otherwise unbreakable prison. Pure chaos magic poured from the opening Havoc was making, turning the dead diamond dogs it touched into undead abominations that attacked everything in reach, including each other. When the opening was big enough, Havoc himself levitated out of the sphere, his body crackling with barely restrained energy.

“Impossible! Carbuncle’s Ruby Light can’t be overpowered by the likes of you! Not even Celestia could have escaped it!” Aio shouted, bewildered. “What have you done to become stronger while inside of it?”

“Months ago, I figured that chaos magic feeds on itself and creates more than it consumes, breaking the law of conservation of energy. However, chaos magic tends to spread all over the place, so it never becomes concentrated enough to react with itself and begin to generate more of it on its own. I tried many times to make it so my own magic would feed itself and grow, but I can’t do it on my own. A chaos domain almost does the trick, but it doesn’t generate much due to how much energy it spends on growing or fighting against the boundaries that halt its growth, so it takes days to charge me up. My body constantly feeds on and releases magic, so I can’t generate energy on my own. Your barrier did just what I needed: containing my chaos magic in a sealed place that makes it bounce back like a perfect mirror. I only had to throw all of my magic to your barrier and wait as it bounced and grew until I could fill myself with it. After that I used my magic-destroying axe to slice through your barrier and that’s pretty much it. Your Carbuncle really fucked up by using her barrier thing on me of all people.”

“Carbuncle! You are still stronger than him! Kill him!”

Carbuncle fired more energy beams at Havoc, but he cleaved through them as he approached the eidolon. She tried to fly away, but Havoc made his plant arm grow to twice its normal length to grab her by the ears. Then, grabbing her head with one hand and her body with the other, he decapitated her with a sharp pull. Carbuncle’s corpse laid still for half a second on his hands before vanishing into nothingness.

“Now, let’s see how well you do without your weapons,” Havoc said as he yanked Aio’s short blade from his hands with a magical pull and encased it inside a stone as large as he was.

Aio proved to be a master hand-to-hand fighter, his abilities on par with his swordsmanship, and he managed to land several devastating blows on Havoc, who once again had to use his magic to match him. Unfortunately for Aio, his bare hands could only do so much damage, and even pulling Havoc’s eyes out of their sockets and breaking his bones only forced him to waste a small amount of his once again vast magic reserves to heal. Eventually, Havoc managed to land a lucky blow on Aio’s left leg with his hammer, breaking it. As soon as Aio fell to the ground, snarling in pain, Havoc repeatedly hit his helmet with the hammer until he was certain that he had knocked him out.

Several of the diamond dogs that circled them attacked him, trying to save their leader, but a wall of spinning scythes kept them at bay as Havoc grabbed Aio’s unconscious body and flew towards his army’s side. A few teen dragons flew up and tried to free Aio, much like the diamond dogs did, but Havoc created winds powerful enough to keep them away from him. A large shadow covering him was the only warning before the black dragon forced him to stop by flying just in front of him.

“Where do you think you are going with my reward?” he asked.

“Oh, you want him now? I thought I would keep him safe in a place he couldn’t escape from until the battle was over.”

“I will have him now and leave.”

Havoc threw Aio at the dragon, who grabbed him with his enormous claws and shook him until he woke up.

“Now you will learn what happens when you upset me,” he told the diamond wolf as he put him inside his mouth.

Havoc expected the dragon to either chew Aio to death or swallow him whole, but instead he kept his victim inside his mouth.

“...What are you doing to him?” Havoc asked as the dragon turned to leave.

The black dragon spat Aio back to his claw to reply. “I am keeping him in my mouth, which I keep just hot enough for him to feel pain with my fire, but not enough to kill him. The last idiotic pony who tried to steal from my hoard took two days to die. I expect to squeeze a full week of fun from this one.” Smirking, the dragon forced a now screaming Aio back into his mouth.

“I just had to ask, didn’t I? Well, have fun, uh… What was your name again?”

The dragon just turned away from Havoc and left, not bothering to reply. For a moment, Havoc considered beating the shit out of the dragon, saving Aio from a terribly long and painful death, and making him face pony justice. Then he remembered that Aio was also a god’s piece, so they were meant to kill each other anyways. With that idea in mind, he let the dragon leave and flew towards a blue signal near his position.

With their leader gone, the diamond dogs quickly lost their morale and began to disband and flee for their lives, so in less than an hour the battle was over. While Drogur and Attila ensured that the city was properly taken and dealt with the few dogs that were still fighting, Shining was busy managing their own soldiers and the enormous amount of prisoners they had seized. Soon enough, Havoc was called to report to Shining Armor, who asked him about Aio’s fate.

“Alright, Havoc. Let me get this straight,” Shining Armor said after Havoc finishing relating his fight against Aio. “The diamond wolf, whose name was Aio Kusasomething, was mind controlling the black dragon. You released the dragon’s mind and decided on your own to strike a deal with him. Then, when you defeated Aio and the creature he summoned, you gave Aio to the dragon so he could kill him in a gruesome way.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

“So you just ignored my orders of taking him alive unless it was impossible.”

“If I had brought Aio here, the black dragon would have attacked us to get him. Black dragons are just so hard to kill I thought it better to just let him have things go his way.”

“No. This is not how we do things in Equestria. We don’t sacrifice people to make things easier. Go after that dragon and recover Aio so we can bring him to justice properly. Can you do it on your own, or do you need some Wonderbolts to assist you?”

“Well the Wonderbolts would help a lot. Black scales are simply too resistant to magic.”

“Don’t you still have that Aio’s sword? The one that manipulates air and is almost the same as Griffon’s, who is famous for killing dragons with his sword?”

“I guess I could test it on that black dragon…”

“Do it, I’m not going to risk anypony’s life to correct your mistakes.”

Groaning, Havoc spread his wings and flew in the direction the dragon had taken, hoping to catch him up. ‘I sure hope he hasn’t taken any turns, and that I am actually chasing him and not flying in the wrong direction… How angry would Shining Armor get if I return a few hours later claiming that I found the dragon and he had killed Aio already, or that I simply couldn’t find them?’

With each passing minute, Havoc was more and more eager to simply give up and lie to Shining Armor. Just when he was about to turn back, he saw a black speck in the sky right in front of him. ‘Ugh… Alright, here we go.’ Teleporting right in front of the dragon made only a small dent on Havoc’s magic.

“You again?!” he asked after he placed Aio between his teeth and cheeks to speak freely. “What do you want now?”

“I have come for Aio. Apparently the ponies I fight for want to have him face a trial for war crimes or whatever instead of having him die in your mouth.”

“Hah! You think you can beat me? You won’t be the first draconequus I kill.”

“Are you serious?”

“I am three thousand years old, boy. A pony lifespan is a blink for me. Your kind is powerful, but only Discord is powerful enough to kill me. My scales will make your magic only tickle me, and I know for a fact that none of you can use your magic like the Wonderbolt pegasi to cut my scales. You are welcome to try, but you are just going to die following a pony’s orders.”

“There is one thing you forgot to take into account. I have Aio’s sword that can easily cut your scales. Last time I checked dragon flesh wasn’t as resistant to magic as scales.”

Grumbling, the dragon slowed the beating of his wings until he landed on the ground a hundred meters below. “I hoped that bloody weapon had been broken or lost in the fight. Very well, take me to your leaders. Since Aio is my prisoner now, I will negotiate with them for his release.”

“... What?”

“You thought I was going to just try to kill you, even though you have a weapon that can cut my scales and let you unleash the full power of your magic on me? I’m not like those hot-headed dragons who aren’t even five hundred years old yet, I know how to pick my fights. My only chance is that you are very weakened after your fight with Aio and his eidolon, but I’m not betting on it.”

“Wow, I honestly thought you would just roar and try to spit roast me... Uh... Alright, let’s return to the battlefield and you can strike a deal with Prince Shining Armor. Can you… Take Aio out of your mouth for the moment?”

“No. You can’t take him away from me while he is in my mouth, protected from your teleportation magic by my scales. If you try something, it’ll take me a fraction of a second to close my teeth around his neck and kill him. And since I will have to let him go soon, I’ll make the most out of my remaining time with him.”

With that said, the black dragon took flight again and smoke began to seep between his teeth as he increased the temperature inside of his mouth. As they flew back, Havoc tried to ignore Aio’s screams and the stench of burning hair as best as he could.

“So he just told you to bring him here so he could negotiate?” Screwball asked.

“Eeyup,” Havoc answered. “I really wanted to try this katana, though. I guess I’ll have to wait.”

After returning to the camp and explaining to Shining why the big and deadly dragon was accompanying him, Havoc had been allowed to rest in his tent. As usual, Screwball was waiting for him and they talked about the latest events.

“You could have helped me against that Carbuncle thing that I could swear is also a creature you can summon in Final Fantasy games.”

“Well, given that there is a TV show in your world that is based on what happens to the Elements of Harmony, it’s not that surprising that there are some more coincidences.”

“Yeah… So do you have any idea what Carbuncle was? Aio called her an eidolon, whatever that means here.”

“I had no idea either, until I asked daddy and he explained them to me. Eidolons are the spirit of beings who gave their lives for a heroic cause. Since he’s not a god of death, he doesn’t know exactly what happens after that, but only a minority of these spirits actually turn into eidolons. When they do, the god who turned them into eidolon or adopted them or whatever creates a temple that the summoner must go through to have a chance to make a pact with the eidolon. Then, the summoner can, well, summon them with his magic. Carbuncle is one of the weakest eidolons, and daddy had something to do with her death but he didn’t go into details.”

“So anyone with enough magic can solve some puzzles and summon these powerful fuckers?”

“Yeah, but everypony sort of forgot about them. The last thousand years have been very peaceful, and Celestia probably worked to erase any knowledge about them from history books and stuff. Dude, Sunbutt sure loves rewriting history.”

“So… Do you know of any temple I could solve to get myself an awesome eidolon to fight by my side?”

“Stick to chaos magic, Havoc. Summoning is a very complex magical art that requires years of training and study.”

“Ugh, alright. It’s just that I always do the same things. Use chaos magic for both crazy stuff and actual attacks, wield the hammer for physical combat and use the axe to destroy enemy magic.”

“Well now you have Aio’s gun and katana, maybe you can use those to keep things from getting boring.”

“I guess you’re right. Now, there is something else I want to say... Screwball, I have been thinking…”

“Wow! I’m so proud of you! I was almost certain you had a hamster on a spinning wheel inside your cranium!”

The joke was so bad that Havoc’s couldn’t help but laugh. “Alright, so… This is pretty much the end of the war. There will probably be a huge party a few days later when the situation becomes more stable, but I thought we could do something special to celebrate. Just the two of us.”

“W-what do you have in mind, e-exactly?” she asked, blushing under her coat.

Havoc reached under his bed and produced a bottle of red wine. “I convinced Shining Armor to give this to me, since I don’t even get paid. A fine wine from Canterlot’s cellars, better than anything you and I can create with magic.”

“So we are going to drink wine here, alone in your tent? Why, Havoc, a filly might think you are asking her on a romantic date!”

“Maybe I am,” he replied, making two chairs and a table with luxurious tablecloth, candles and chinaware appear.

“Are you really doing this? Are you trying to take our friendship to a whole new level?”

“I am. I’ll understand if you don’t want to. I have my fedora ready so I can safely venture into the friendzone.”

“Keep your neckbeard and fedora away, we are on a date now,” she replied, her propeller beanie morphing into a dress. “Did you get something to eat or are the dishes just for decoration?”

“Turns out that finding tasty food here is impossible,” he replied as he made a shirt and pants appear on him. “Wow it feels so weird to wear clothes after so many months. The dishes aren’t for decoration, though.”

Focusing, Havoc created food out of thin air: a risotto with mushrooms as their first plate, and a pumpkin lasagna as second. “I learned how to cook these two back in Trottingham. I also learned that learning how to cook something makes me able to make an almost exact copy with magic.”

“You are more resourceful than I gave you credit for. I would have sworn that all you can make with your magic is laser beams and dildos.”

“Says the chaos pony who attacked me with a tsunami of milk produced by her enlarged teats.”

Smiling at the “compliment”, Screwball took a bite out of her risotto. “Hey, this is good!”

“Well thank you for the show of confidence in my skills.”

“No, seriously. This tastes great for being something made with chaos magic. I was expecting it to taste like chocolate or meat or a combination of both.”

By the time they were done talking about the difficulties of making “normal” food with their chaos magic, they were eating the lasagna and drinking their second glass of wine.

“Screwball, you never told me how you got your cutie mark. Is there some tragic story or traumatic event involved?”

“Not at all. I have a beautiful and meaningful story about how I got my cutie mark and what my special talent is just like anypony else. You see, it all happened back when I still lived in the orphanage and my search for ways to acquire unicorn magic had yet to lead me to Discord’s book. I was a very energetic filly, so searching through old books bored me very quickly. To make things worse, the orphanage was a really boring place, with nothing fun to do. Because of this, most of us orphans liked to go out to the city and return only when it was time to have dinner. One of my favorite games was baseball. I played with a group of non-unicorns, since it was no fun to play with ponies who could levitate their gloves around to catch balls that nopony else could reach.”

“I think I see where this is going.”

“Shut up and let me finish. I was the best pitcher, so I usually took it easy so the game wasn’t so boring. Until one day a bunch of unicorns older than us demanded us to leave the field so they could play. You know how much I hate snotty unicorns, so you can guess how angry I got. I dared them to pick the best of them and have him try to hit the balls I throwed. If he or she could hit one ball out of three, we would leave the field.”

”So he-”

“Shhhh! They agreed, but their leader said he could hit two out of five. Now, I know you know jackshit about baseball, so I’ll just say that I tricked him and he missed five times in a row. When they left and we were about to resume our game, one of my teammates noticed that I had earned my cutie mark. And that’s how I learned that my special talent is being a baseball pitcher.”

“I honestly thought your special talent was being a chaos pony. Like, being a screwball. It never occurred to me your talent would be related to the baseball pitch named screwball. Oh, that’s a thing I still don’t get about ponies. How come your names fit your cutie marks most of the time?”

“Because cutie marks were created by Faust to keep us under control. Or because my father was a baseball coach and cutie marks are hereditary to some extent. Like those Apple hicks.”

When they finished eating the lasagna and the wine bottle was empty, Screwball was laughing at everything and acting sillier than usual, and the sun was setting.

“Screwball, stahp. You are drunk.”

“Hehehe, am I? *Hic*”

“You sure are a lightweight.”

“Well excuuuuuuse me, but if you had to count the times I have had alcohol with your fingers, you would have plenty enough of them.”

“Do you still have room for dess-” Havoc’s ears perked up as he looked at his tent’s entrance. “Somepony’s coming!” he warned her, alerted by the magic field he always placed when he was with Screwball to keep her existence in secret.

Screwball became invisible just as Shining Armor walked into the tent. “Oh Celestia why couldn’t you just kill that dragon? … Are you having a fancy dinner alone?”

“Actually, I was waiting for you,” Havoc said as he turned into a perfect copy of Cadance, voice and all. “It’s been so long, my love. Come and take me like the stallion you are. No homo.”

“Now is not the time for your nonsense.”

“Maybe you like this one better?” he said as he turned into Chrysalis. “I can only give birth to a new generation of changelings after being impregnated by a worthy stallion.”

“Do you really find this amusing, or are you just trying to make me mad?”

Turning into Flash Sentry, he lifted his tail and showed Shining Armor his privates. “Captain, follow me to the gay bathhouse.”

“No.”

“Oh, I know!” he exclaimed as he turned into Twilight Sparkle and jumped into his bed. “B-big brother, w-what are we going to do on the bed?”

“Havoc, I swear on Celestia’s name,” Shining began, his jaw tense and his horn glowing with magic. “If you turn into anypony else - be it my mother, a princess, a Wonderbolt, or my personal maid - and ask me to have sex with you, I will end you.”

“Yes, prince Shining Armor,” Havoc surrendered as he returned to his normal form, minus clothes. “What did the dragon ask for?”

“He wanted Aio’s weight in diamonds, and he just wouldn’t take him out of his mouth. Do you know how hard it is to focus while somepony is screaming and being slowly burned to death just in front of you?”

“Trust me, I know. So why are you here? Are you going to reprimand me or is it something else?”

“No, I’m not going to waste my time yelling at you. I would rather yell at a brick wall. The wall is more likely to listen. I came here because we convinced the dragon, Abaddon, to spit Aio and let us handle him. Just before releasing him, he breathed a large amount of fire, so now Aio is terribly burned and only our best healers’ combined efforts and his toughness are keeping him alive.”

“So what do I have to do with all of that?”

“A few minutes ago he woke up and has been thrashing around and muttering that he needs his sword. The doctors fear he will die if they sedate him, so I want you to go there and return his weapons. Maybe then he will calm down and allow us to save his sorry hide.”

“Everything would be so much easier if you had let the dragon kill him.”

“I told you already, that’s not how we do things. Go to the field hospital, give him his weapons and make sure he doesn’t kill himself with them.”

After teleporting to the hospital’s entrance, Havoc only had to follow the angry curses towards the place where half a dozen of ponies wearing white coats were trying to apply some sort of ointment on Aio. He was no longer wearing his samurai armor, which was laying on the floor next to him, and most of his fur had been burned away. His skin was horribly charred, most of it covered in second or third degree burns. Some of the fingers on his left hand were completely black, and would have to be amputated unless pony magic could repair them.

“Aio, Aio, Aio. Didn’t your mum tell you not to play with fire?”

“You,” Aio coldly muttered as he stopped struggling. “My katana.”

“Can I keep it, pretty please?”

“Give it… Now…”

“Alright,” he said as he retrieved it from hammerspace and held it just out of Aio’s reach.

Injured as he was, Aio managed to slowly sit up so he could grab it. When his fingers were a few millimeters away from it, Havoc gave him a quick magical push that made him lay on the bed again. “Oops!”

“Kutabare…”

“Moshi moshi baka-desu sugoi sugoi kawaii.”

One of the doctors frowned and “You know our medical equipment tends to malfunction when you are around, and right now we are overwhelmed with all the injured from the battle. Give him what he wants and make it quick.”

Sighing, Havoc placed it on Aio’s trembling right hand. “Don’t try anything funny or I’ll take your toy away.”

“The gun.”

“Oh for the love of-! I really wish I had killed you when I had the chance,” Havoc added as he also returned the handgun to Aio.

The diamond wolf briefly checked his recovered weapons and then carefully placed them near his armor, allowing the ponies to treat him.

“Alright, now that he isn’t trying to get himself killed you have to leave,” the doctor commanded.

“Right, if he tries something just give me a call and I’ll handle it,” Havoc replied as he walked away, not wanting a repeat of the first time he teleported out of the hospital and a pony died because the chaos magic released overcharged a defibrillator so much that the poor guy exploded in a shower of gore and blood.

Havoc forced himself to stop thinking about it as he teleported back to his tent, only to find Screwball visible again, laying on his bed and wearing pajamas. “Poor boy. Shining took your new toys away,” she cooed.

“Well, at least I won’t look like a freaking weeaboo while fighting. I mean, a katana?! That ain’t me.”

“That is totally you, you wapanese furfag.”

“... Alright you got me, I would have loved to keep that awesome katana that makes the air itself cut stuff.”

“With a bit of luck you’ll have another chance to kill him and get his stuff. Now come to bed, I’m sure you are exhausted after such a long day.”

Yawning, Havoc lazily went into his bed and spooned Screwball. “Tomorrow we’ll dress up as Japanese people. You can be the samurai and I’ll be the geisha.”

Laughing, Screwball turned to face him and gave him a quick peck on the lips. “You’ll have to wait a few days before going to first base. Baseball pun totally intended.”

“But I want the horse pussy now!” he whined.

After a cat-horse hybrid summoned by Screwball attacked Havoc, they resumed the spoon position.

“Havoc,” she said after a few minutes. “Your tree arm is a terrible pillow.”

And that’s how Havoc began to sleep with pillows covering his wooden limb.

Author's Notes: