Far from Equestria, in a desert far to the south east, past Gryphonstone, past the Dragon lands, past even Mount Aris, stood a single gryphon with dark grey feathers in light grey armor carrying an incredibly long curved blade. He stood down at least ten or even twenty Yeti, or Storm Beasts or whatever they were called.
The gryphon didn't care enough to figure out their names, or even to figure out exactly how many of them there were. The first one lunged at him, and he simply side stepped the strike, drawing his blade and easily slicing him clean in half. Another rushed him spear down.
The gryphon smirked and rushed him. With a flurry of blade strikes, he cleaved the spear into at least eight different pieces. The beast stepped back and looked down. It felt up it's chest and then pointed and laughed at him, thinking he did no damage to him. His arm then fell off, splitting into little pieces as it fell.
The creature screamed out and collapsed onto it's back grabbing at it's new stump arm. It kicked it's legs and cried out again and again.
The gryphon twirled his sword and stepped forwards with a yawn as the rest of the storm beasts growled at him.
"Are you idiots going to attack or are you just going to keep standing there?" He said with a smirk coming to his beak. The beasts roared in anger and attacked him all at once.
"Goody." He growled darkly, before charging in. He slashed his sword violently, hacking through bone and flesh just as easily. The first five beasts were cleaved in half, but he kept going.
Each slash of his blade ended one of their lives, causing them to collapse to the ground with a crash, a massive slash cleaving through their body.
Soon enough the gryphon was down to but two beasts left, who were cowering in fear. He raised an eyebrow. Usually these creatures were fearless. A crash of thunder behind him triggered the beasts to flee, terrified screams following after them, their tails between their legs.
The gryphon quickly spun around pointing his blade at the new arrival. He found himself face to face with a deep blue pegasus, who had his hooves raised into the air in the universal sign of surrender. The tip of his blade was an inch away from the pegasus's chin.
"I have a proposition for you!" The Pegasus cried out, a slight tinge of panic in his voice.
In a swamp, close to the mountain in which Epoxy made his home, sat a metal facility. Inside was a series of bedrooms, kitchens and servants going about their work. One particular room however, had a table with 6 figures sitting around it. Sitting near the head of the table were Tornado and a Gryphon whom was polishing his sword.
There was also a unicorn with a black coat and purple hair styled in a mullet like hairdo. She wore a purple skin suit that covered everything but her head. Her face was that of abstract interest, eyeing the only other female at the table with... odd intent.
Sitting across from her was a dragon. Well, it looked like a dragon. In truth it was nothing but a giant ball of fire in the vague shape of a dragon. Thankfully it could control what it burned so the room was in no risk of catching alight. It sat there perfectly straight, no one being able to tell what he was thinking, mostly because it had no definable facial features in the slightest.
Next to the dragon there was another pegasus, though this one looked like he was made of ice, unlike Tornado. She was the smallest person in the room, but she didn't care, a smile on her face while she kicked her legs excitedly. She also didn't seem to mind the fact that she was sitting next to something literally made of fire while she was made of ice, showing no signs of melting.
Finally, last (and certainly least) was a yellow earth pony stallion with pink hair and a tan tail. His cutie mark was that of a pencil. He was idly drawing on the table with his pencil, but what he drew would suddenly pick itself up as if it were a living entity stuck to the table and walk around, always causing the earth pony to giggle.
The doors to the room suddenly opened and everyone's eyes (or lack there of in the case of the dragon) snapped to it as Epoxy stepped out. He walked forwards, eventually coming to the head of the table and turned to see his guests.
"Hmm. I can't help but notice we are missing someone." Epoxy said as he stared ahead. All eyes turned to where he was looking. An empty chair on the opposite head of the table to him.
Tornado shrugged. "Yeah, Platinum Shine. Trust me I looked everywhere for him. He is either dead, or in Ponyvile, and I am not going there with Derek within a hundred miles of the place. That is suicide."
Epoxy nodded and turned to the wall behind him. A slideshow series of images flashed across the wall before settling on a picture of deer standing behind Derek with a glum look on his face, looking at the camera with a look of apathy.
"I brought you all here for one simple reason. His mind is likely full of secrets that will be nothing but beneficial to life on this world. Secrets of medicine, engineering, astronomy, everything from his own world. It is all stored inside his head, and I need to get to him." Epoxy said with a dark smirk under his helmet. He then turned to his guests.
"I brought you all here because you are all the greatest at what you do. Villains of unparalleled talent in what they do." Epoxy said gesturing to each of the people with him.
"Tornado, whose control over the weather is completely above any other pegasus in all of history." He said gesturing to the pegasus, a smug smile coming to said individual's face.
"Gregor Aka Fencer, the greatest bladescreature in all the world." The gryphon in question merely acknowledged him by looking at him out of the corner of his eyes.
"Void, a being of pure darkness in the vague shape of a unicorn, whom it is said taught the great King Sombra how to use dark magic in the first place." Void rolled her eyes.
"I did. Worst mistake of my life though. Now I have been eclipsed in power by some pathetic stallion." She said. Epoxy, and everyone else at the table, simply ignored her and carried on.
"Inferno, a sentient flame born on the day the first dragon breathed fire into the world. A boon to be sure!" Epoxy said gesturing to the dragon. He paused for a couple seconds, expecting some kind of reaction from it. It didn't move at all, barring the flickering of it's flames.
He didn't get a chance to introduce the ice pegasus. "Oh my gosh, my name is Chilblain and I am a big fan of all of you guys! You are all total inspirations! Well, except you two, cause I haven't ever really heard of you..." She said pointing to Epoxy and Fencer, neither of them seemed to care though. "I have the power to control ice and I am a total killer! Like, the other day this guard tried to stop me when I was robbing a bank and I totally froze him solid! That was so cool! Not to mention I-"
She was interrupted by Epoxy. "We will have a chance to discuss introductions later, please refrain from continuing to have such outbursts until we are done."
"Oh right sorry." Chilblain replied.
Finally, Epoxy turned to to last one there, who stared up at him with excitement.
"Lastly, we have Sketcher... who will make perfect cannon fodder." Epoxy exclaimed dryly.
"Yeah, you know I will!" Sketcher cried standing up and pumping a hoof in their air. He sat down after his outburst and turned to Void.
"What does cannon fodder mean?" He whispered to her. Void ignored her.
"Now then, settle in. Our plan is a simple one. We shall gather our strength and work on forming effective means of social communication and team work, before the six of you take on Derek all at once as a distraction while I claim the Deer. Once he is ours we will all retreat to this base, where you will form a defensive barrier between Derek and my fortress while I... extract the information I need." Epoxy claimed, manipulating the slide show behind him as he spoke, images of Derek and his fortress coming up as he finished up.
"Yeah, I got one." Chilblain said raising her hoof. "We are going to fight Derek directly? Isn't that, ya know, suicide?"
"In a one on one fight? Oh yes, most definitely. But if the six of you take him on all at once, not only do your odds of survival increase exponentially, but so do your odds of potentially beating him. Not to mention, your goal isn't to steal anything or kill him, only to keep him distracted for long enough for me to steal the Deer, then you will retreat." Epoxy explained stepping forwards. "Any other questions?"
"Uh huh." Tornado said lazily raising his hoof. "How are you even going to get anything useful out of him? If he actually know how to make any technology work, don't you think he would have done it already?"
"Myes I thought of that and I have a solution." Epoxy turned to the slide show and pressed one more button. An image of what looked like a drill mixed with a syringe came up. "The mind may forget, but the neurons remember forever. I will use this to drill into his hippocampus and drain the information directly from his mind, every memory he has ever had will be mine with perfect clarity. Every time he has ever had the functions of a piece of technology explained to him, every time he has even seen a blueprint in his life, hell, every time he has ever seen a piece of tech broken I will know and be able to reverse engineer it."
Epoxy turned to the rest. All of the other villains, barring Inferno and Fencer, looked slightly uncomfortable at the realization that they just got hired by an actual psychopath. Sure they killed people, but they didn't torture them right? The scientist stepped forwards slamming his hooves on the table and chuckled.
"Of course, he will most likely either die or be permanently vegetated by the procedure, but in the end, the death of the individual means nothing if it benefits the collective!"