//------------------------------//
// There's no chance 
// Story: The Weary Traveler 
// by The Psychopath 
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"Why are you so adamant in killing this thing? It's just an infant!" Cadance said angrily.

Chinch'k pounded against her shield again. "That thing is not a mere infant. It caused the destruction of two universes, and I won't have that happen again!"

Shining tackled Chinch'k to the ground in the hopes of pinning him down, but the insectoid pony to looked at him with a bemused expression and twisted his joints so that he could push himself up again despite the leg locks the captain put him in. The pony, disappointed and frustrated, let go and stared up at the metal pony.

"What are you talking about? How does THAT thing cause that?" Shining asked with contained frustration. "And what do you mean by 'universe'? I thought you said you failed at whatever it was you were trying to do."

"We failed at what we did, but only two instances let to the destruction of a universe." Chinc'k pointed at the infant that remained apathetic to his actions. "THAT thing is the cause!" The metal pony clutched his head, and his eyes widened with fear. "I have no idea how it does it, but I know that it's the source. Twice we found it at said start, and twice the universe was twisted to be destroyed." He began to pace around and think. "It appeared after Twilight did that strange ritual by...uhh...the Sins of something or other," he rotated his hoof. His eyes shot back towards Cadance still protected by her bubble. "Will you not let me KILL IT?!" He bellowed angrily and pounded against the shield again.

"No!" Cadance affirmed.

Chinch'k Kuchuk's mandibles chittered angrily at the response. "FINE!" He walked away, tapped his neck, and began speaking to himself. 

"I don't know what he's going to do," Shining whispered to his wife. He silently gestured to his guards to surround Cadance, with him at the front of the shield. "I'd rather take my precautions." The stallion snorted angrily after several minutes of silence and glared at Chinch'k who was staring at the sky. "What's wrong with hi--"

The captain seized up when the traveler appeared in a bright flash in front of Chinch'k. Leaning against one of his guards to catch his breath and recover. There was a lengthy exchange between the two visitors, unnerving the guards who clenched their weapons harder in response. A loud, angry yell broke through the silence, and the traveler stomped angrily towards the wall of ponies, his teeth bared through his beak-like muzzle. He was surprised when he was pushed back by the guard before him.

"Let me through. I'm grabbing that thing and killing it before it's too late."

Shining snorted at the traveler, increasing his irritation. "We tried to ask your 'friend' there why, but he wouldn't answer."

"Because it's too dangerous to tell you!" the traveler retorted.

Shining continued to look down on the traveler. "That's not an answer."

The cephalopony stomped around, angrily cursing to himself before returning to Shining. "You want to know WHY exactly?!" The wall of ponies nodded, clinking their armor pieces together. "Fine! That thing single-hoofedly destroyed two universes!"

Shining rubbed his chin. "Yes. I received something by Twilight on that, but I only glosses over it." He snickered. "I couldn't make out heads or tails of it, but I imagine that you being here means that the timelines are okay."

The traveler looked at the captain as though he had received the stupidest of answers. "I said universes, not timelines."

The captain rolled his eyes. "And what does that mean? How did such a tiny thing do it?"

"From what I can tell you, I don't know where it came from." The cephalopony mulled over what Chinch'k had told him and the events that occurred before then. "It's possible that the spell Twilight Sparkle used gave birth to it in this timeline, but where did it come from in the others?" He paced around, his tentacles twitching nervously. "But it makes no sense."

"Can you stop avoiding the question?!" the captain shouted.

The five eyes of the traveler went from Shining to the small gap between him and a guard. "That thing warped the princesses, but I'm not sure how." Murmurs started growing in gravitas in the crowd. 

"What did it do to the princesses?"

"It turned them into eldritch deities."

Several ponies started laughing at the claim, but Shining was not one of them. "What happened?"

"I don't know. I just know that it died soon after it did that." The cephalopony turned around and tensed his muscles. "Have you ever seen two ponies explode outwards in an assortment of blobby and twisted flesh, only to see them warp and twist again? Seeing the people of the universe struggle to fight them, even with their own gods?"

"No," Shining responded bleakly.

"I did. I saw them warp from the magics within them, engulfing whole solar systems and acting like mindless bacteria. I have no way of stopping creatures at such levels of existence, and so I left the universe entirely." He shrugged. "Of course, the last one had its own share of eldritch deities, so I don't know what happened, but different houses can lead to different results." He pointed back at the creature. "That' is why it must die. I don't know how it happened in those times, but it WILL die in this one!"

Cadance pushed through the protective guard, ignoring her husband's protests. "But it is barely a newborn. We can change it!" 

"I've heard that one," the cephalopony scoffed.

"It'll be different this time!"

"I've heard that one too."

Cadance's cheeks puffed in annoyance and Shining Armor stepped forward. "What if you give us a chance? If it's taught right from wrong, then surely it can't harm anypony?"

Chinch'k created a painful screeching noise from scratching his chest pensively and stepped towards the traveler. "Why not give them a chance?" he whispered. "Twilight Sparkle already surprised us both with how fast she worked. This timeline is already diverging far earlier than the previous attempts."

The traveler looked to the group on the right and remained silent a moment. "I will kill it," he emphasized with an outstretched foreleg. "If just ONE thing goes wrong. Just one," he insisted.

The insectoid pony nodded. "As you should. I will be watching as well." He looked to Cadance and furrowed his brow. "I will be watching very closely."

The traveler's tentacles wiggled around. "I didn't want to be seen as the villain in this whole endeavor."

Chinch'k producing a creaking noise from his throat. His version of laughter, perhaps. "It's too late for that."

The traveler frowned and returned to the princess. "I've been convinced to let..." He took a deep breath. "-it live." The pink pony almost formed a hopeful smile on her face, but the cephalopony anticipated it. "ONE error. Just ONE, and I'm killing it where it stands, regardless of what is around." He glared at the creature that stared back with childish eyes and stormed off. "I have transport technology to work on," he growled. 

In a flash of light, he was gone, leaving a scorched circle of black dust behind.



Twilight was resting in her crystal castle, but her sleep was not a comfortable one. She twisted and turned and spun around under her covers until she finally awoke and threw them off. She heaved large breaths of air to cool off, although the heat left way for the cold near instantly when the mare saw what was looking at her from across the room. It was sitting in front of the entrance and, unfortunately, only exit to her room.

"Eldromac?" she muttered.

The misshapen, faceless creature nodded. "You called upon my powers, Twilight Sparkle." It stretched its seven arms before returning them to the 'circle' figure they were in. "I must admit that I was not expecting such a thing after so long." It hummed to itself. "I was growing accustomed to the silence."

Twilight clung to her covers more tightly. She felt like a little filly seeing a monster at the corner of her bed. "What do you want?"

The creature shrugged. "It all depends on you, Twilight Sparkle." It vanished in the blink of an eye then appeared to Twilight's right. "I just want to have followers again. If that is something you would permit an old god to enjoy once more--"

"I can't do that!" Twilight shook her head energetically. "I saw what you had your followers do!"

"Oh. That." Twilight couldn't see it, but she could feel the discomfort of the god. "I didn't ask them to do that. They did it to themselves and used the power I provided them with."

"But if you supplied them with the power, then you allowed them to do it! It's your fault!" Twilight accused the god.

It shook its head. "My followers performed the rites bequeathed unto them, by me, to call upon my powers," it explained calmly. "What sort of person would I be if I did not respond to the rules I set upon my followers?" It shook its large head. "No. It was their idea, and I felt nothing for it, so they took it as a sign that they could perform these strange mutilations as much as possible."

Twilight was horrified. "That's...terrible. All that...that pain. That loss."

"It wasn't a big loss. They still acquired better gifts because of the rites."

Twilight sighed internally and relaxed after assessing that the entity held her no ill will. "So you said you were here to have me reestablish your cult?"

Eldromac shrugged. "That is up to you," it said. "You are the only one to have called upon my powers after so long, pulling me through my world and into this world." It snickered. "Whether you accept it or not is of no consequence to me, but I won't help you the next time you ask for it."

Twilight raised a brow. "And what says I'll need it next time?"

The god rocked side-to-side in its spot. "Because the one you are working for has dubious means to reach his goals despite wanting to let everyone keep their free will."

Twilight furrowed her brows and frowned. "He's the reason why I can't commit to thanking you in the manner you want."

Eldromac stopped mid-rock for a moment, unnerving Twilight and letting her realize that the entity was floating above the ground. "Then you will need to keep my idol hidden for a time until you can bring it out." It raised a finger. "IF you bring it out."

"Yes. IF," Twilight emphasized. She hopped out of her bed, letting her hooves clonk roughly against the hard crystal floor. "I'm curious. Why would a god, of all things, come see me? I'm already preoccupied with the traveler and his...'friends'."

"I never said I was a god, alicorn," Eldromac spoke quietly. "

Twilight blinked several times while her brain tried to process what she just heard. "But everything I saw--"

"Is in line with what gods do, yes," the entity interrupted.

"Then what in Equestria are you?"

"I won't tell you directly, but there are things above gods, and even things above them." It floated towards the exit of Twilight's bedroom and exhaled tiredly. "Your 'friend', whether you call him that or not, is likely to show you a world that you would have never conceived of. I saw it myself." Its body started to lose solidity and was beginning to turn into a transparent and blurry haze. "Much like colonists, watch the forests around you. You never know what you might find."

"I'll take those words to heart," Twilight said. "Thank you for the help you gave me. I'll try to repay you when I kind."

The entity raised its seventh arm and stuck out two fingers. "There's no rush. I quite like the calm."

The alicorn turned back to her bed when Eldromac had vanished, seeing that the same tiny statuettes she had seen in the archive aboard the traveler's ship was laying within an indentation it made in the blue covers. Twilight shook her head and brought it to her with her magic, turning it every which way to take in its details, or lack thereof.

"A friend with a god-like creature." Twilight looked at the faceless head of the statue and placed it back on her bed. "I wonder if Discord knows anything about that." She shrugged off the idea. "I'd rather not get him involved. I don't know what that god is about, and if they're both gods of chaos, then I'm sure that there'll be a LOT of problems if they get inclined to compete with each other." She looked through the doorway to the empty, quiet halls of her castle and frowned. She felt sad for a sudden inexplicable reason. "I wonder why the traveler hasn't been doing anything for us yet. I mean, he made the farm." She closed the door behind her and trotted through her castle. The echoes of her hooves emphasized the silence. "It would be nice to see him try to do something for everypony rather than just work on stopping whatever paranoid threat is crossing his mind."



The cephalopony, locked in his dark room, raised a tall stack of papers with his tentacles. "This must be at least a thousand pages long." He wiped his forehead with a foreleg. "With a few more revisions, I'll be able to bring this to Celestia and avoid her suffering any lost of position by me forcing my will upon her." He tapped the sheets against the black table to straighten them out. "Good. This is the first step to getting this kind of knowledge normalized, but I need to iron out any problems first." A smiled broke through his beak. "Now I can finally start the actual first steps of my goal."