"...and that's how the pigeon army came to rule over Equestria!" I ended my story on a non-sequitur just to see who was paying attention. Not a single member of my audience reacted to the abrupt topic shift. A small frown tugged at my lips when I realized that nobody, not even Ner', had really been paying attention to my story. Unique's eyes were glazed over, Fphant was draped over the side of his seat, probably asleep, and the Courier was fiddling with one of his guns.
Eventually, Unique noticed that I'd stopped talking. "Wait, is it over?" he asked. He blinked a couple times and glanced around, noticing Fphant's position. "Hey wake up, Fphant!" he nudged the mirage gently, "he's finally done talking." Fphant snorted and rolled over, but if the great big exaggerated snores were anything to go by, he was actually awake and just pretending to still be asleep.
A full five seconds later, the Courier straightened up from where he'd been slouched in his chair and pretended to act like he'd been paying attention. "What was that bit about pigeons?"
I waved the question away. "Ah, never mind. The important thing is that I was a badass and beat up a giant, undead dragon without even getting a scratch on me."
"Not like a scratch would stick with your regeneration," Unique pointed out. I conceded the point with a nod.
"Also," the Courier added, "you didn't make it out of there as unscathed as you thought."
I blinked in confusion and gave the Courier a look which clearly stated, 'I am confused, please elaborate. And then give me cookies.' It was a very specific look which I hadn't actually realized I was capable of giving.
Unfortunately for my hunger, the Courier was unable to discern the subtle nuances of my look.
"Allow me to elaborate," Ner's voice cut in from above. "You recall the glistening oil that was splashed on you during your fight with Skithiryx?" He waited for me to nod before continuing. "That oil is a very potent substance. When it comes into contact with a living being, such as yourself, it attempts to both subvert the will of the victim, which you were able to counter quite effectively, while simultaneously converting organic tissue into living metal."
It took me a couple seconds to realize what Ner' was saying. "So it tried to turn me into a robot?" I asked.
Ner' sighed and I imagine he would have given me a 'you're a moron' look if we'd been in the same room. "No," he said. "It didn't try to turn you into a robot. That's just ridiculous." I opened my mouth to ask what it did try do, but Ner' interrupted me. "It tried to turn you into a living being made entirely of metal, there's a very big difference between the two."
I did my very best impression of a pony who was hopelessly confused. I do believe my impression was spot on as Ner' sighed again and I heard the faint sound of him facehoofing. "Just look down at yourself," he said.
I looked down at my chest and hooves and let out a small, "Oh!" at what I saw. Spiderwebbing across my skin were thousands of tiny little hexagonal patches of shiny silver metal. About half of my chest and large swathes of my hooves had been coated in metal. Honestly, it looked kind of cool.
I poked one of the metal hexagons, it felt a bit like very tough skin, similar to scar tissue. On a whim, I stuck my tongue out and licked one of the metal patches. It tasted like vaguely like thunderbrew. I took a swig from the bottle of Unique's creation which I kept in the belt strapped around my barrel and then licked a different little metal hexagon. They tasted identical. My guess was that I would get some sort of brand-new, super-cool power because of this.
Then again, it could have been a coincidence. So, in the interest of being scientifically rigorous, I proceeded to give myself a cat-bath in between large gulps of thunderbrew until my bottle ran out. My friends merely stared at me with varying levels of shock, disgust, and reverent awe in their expressions.
I decided to ignore their looks and pretend nothing had happened.
I then burped, and a lightning bolt shot out of my mouth and zapped Aquapony right in the ass. "Yipe!" he yelped, then proceeded to rub his scorched rear end.
He grumbled at me to be more careful, but I wasn't paying attention. The bright light of the lightning bolt reflecting off of my new metallic bits gave me a wonderful idea. I focused on my magic, on the tingly sensation which was mainly focused around my hooves and my eyes. I imagined the tinglyness was a blanket which I wrapped around myself.
The effect was immediate and, quite frankly, downright awesome.
My skin, the normal, non-metalic bits, started to glow softly, but that wasn't what caught my attention. Brilliant beams of light were shooting out of and reflecting off of my metal bits, scattering bright spots of light all around the room. I shifted and the lights danced around in a dazzling display.
"By the gods," Ner' muttered, horrified. "I've turned him into a disco ball!"
What followed was an epic montage of me striking disco poses while doing my best attempt at singing some disco music. Sadly, since I was a disco ball and not a jukebox; my singing sucked. A fact which Fphant was all too happy to point out.
"Yeah, well I'd like to see you do better," I stuck my tongue out at Fphant in silent challenge.
He shrugged, then cleared his throat and assumed a grand operatic pose. The most majestic tenor I'd ever heard in my life issued forth from Fphant's face-hole. He sang a song of passion and grace, full of dramatic flair and packed with emotion. Around the halfway point Fphant raised his arms up and, to my surprise, one of his hands turned into a violin and he began accompanying himself. His playing was just as good as, if not better than, his singing. When it was done, all of us -including Ner'- gave him a standing ovation. I created a flower out of light and threw it at Fphant's feet-things.
"That was amazing," I gushed. "How did you learn to sing and play that well?"
Fphant brushed some invisible dust off his shoulder. The nonchalant effect he was going for was rather ruined by the fact that the hand he'd used was still a violin. "Eh, when you live alone in a cave you've gotta have hobbies or else you'll go crazy."
"And we didn't know about this impressive talent of yours before now because...?" the Courier asked.
Fphant shrugged. "It never came up."
"Getting back on track," Aquapony interrupted us. "Where are we supposed to go from here?" I looked around and realized the only ways into or out of the room we were in was through the doors we'd entered from.
Several seconds passed with the four of us sort of standing around awkwardly, wondering what to do.
"Oh, my bad," Ner' said, "I got distracted. Here!" A faint grinding noise rumbled out from somewhere that I couldn't quite place followed by a small 'pop' when an ornate wooden door sprang into existence in the middle of the wall. "I'm waiting for you all just over thataway!"