King Phasmatodea “The Comet” stepped out of a swirling purple vortex of energy.
As the portal closed behind him, he took in his surroundings. When he saw that his vision had been turned into a kaleidoscope, Phasma took his helmet off and inspected it. The green lenses had been cracked beyond usability. Sighing, he went back to examining his locale.
He was standing in a secluded courtyard. The shade offered by the buildings was pleasant enough, though Phasma had to squint to adjust his eyes to the dim light. Around the small space, boxes of roses and violets sprouted healthily from black soil. Judging by the gold and gem inlays on the pony statue that stood in the center of the courtyard, gently pouring out a vase of water into a pool, Phasma had wound up somewhere in an affluent neighborhood of Canterlot.
On one of the far walls, ivy had been cleared away in a perfect square and posters were neatly placed. Three of them were lined up next to each other. The one on the left depicted a silhouette of Queen Chrysalis retrieving a princess tiara from a filing cabinet. It was captioned with ‘Only You Can Prevent Changeling Espionage.’ The middle poster was an advertisement for the Royal Guard. Finally, the right one was another warning about changelings, split in half with Chrysalis on the left and Princess Cadance on the right, captioned ‘Talk Less, You Never Know.’
“Sounds like they’ll be rolling out the red carpet for me,” Phasma muttered to himself.
The soft burble of the water feature nearly covered up the constant, quiet beeping. Recognizing it, Phasma lifted his left foreleg and checked the device wrapped securely around his fetlock. The large central display on the multifaceted black device showed a blinking battery.
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” he sighed. “Looks like I need more MacGuffin juice.”
Stowing his helmet and the device in his armored saddlebags, Phasma chose his unicorn disguise, a light blue unicorn with orange eyes and magic, as well as a Mu symbol for a Cutie Mark, and trotted off to find something to eat. Finding the required power source to let him jump universes again would have to wait.
Phasma set off into the streets of Canterlot. His disguise blended in perfectly with the nobles. Though he knew how to act like a noble, Phasma found himself not caring in the slightest. If they mistook him for a commoner, why would he care?
‘I think I want to find somewhere I can relax. Somewhere with the least… social expectations.’
The seediest, least-reputable bar that Phasma could find in this area of Canterlot happened to be a cheerful and lovely open-air joint filled with a staff that was far too cheerful for serving what was essentially beer and fast food.
Still, it meant that Phasma got his food pretty much instantly. Given that he only needed love to eat, he had ordered only some hayfries and a cold glass of apple cider imported from Ponyville.
As he sat down and waited for his food to arrive, he began to think.
‘There are changeling wanted posters everywhere. It’s safe to assume that there aren’t any changelings in Canterlot– and if there are a few Infiltrators, I can dissuade or dispatch them easily enough. I think I’ll properly unwind for this jump. My horn is still creaking from the last world; it’ll do me some good to take a week or two to cool down before I get back to it…’
Phasma turned off the glowing blue orb in his armored saddlebags. With a great, relieved sigh, he felt the confining pressure vanish from his mind as his Weave bloomed back into its proper size.
He smiled and waved at the server when she trotted out of the restaurant, already carrying his food and drink.
Peace, tranquility, the sound of hooves hitting hooves, and the smell of sweat in the air were like music to Six’s ears.
Yes, this is precisely what she needed right now. After the brutal conflict over a month ago that had spelled the end of open hostilities between Equestria and Changelings, even a Spartan like her needed some R&R.
But as some would think that to be a quiet evening with a good book, to Six, it was an afternoon of training and sparring with her troops. Her fellow equestrian Spartans certainly thought differently than her, but none dared speak up. When Six said it was time to train, you should have been running a lap 15 minutes ago.
Six watched the match in front of her intently, eyes scanning the recovered Pixy like a hawk would a lonely mouse. Though the prosthetic she now bore in place of her lost red wing had already shown its bite in the battle for the hive a month ago, its user still required practice.
Then there was her opponent, Spirit, clad in her earth pony facade, the one she had the most training in, fighting slower than she usually was. The grace that normally accompanied her movements was still missing thanks to the still quite fresh injuries she had unwittingly sustained from Six herself. But that did not stop her from remaining the slippery Spartan that she was.
The match was picking up speed as Pixy seemed to have had enough of playing around with Spirit. Her blows became quicker, and her wings flapped faster and faster as she put Spirit on the backfoot.
‘Too fast,’ Six noted as she watched Pixy's prosthetic begin to buckle against her side, its structure still unable to handle the speed the pegasus willed from it. ‘Three…two…one…’
*Crack*
Pixy yelped as her metallic wing suddenly clamped shut, sending her spiraling right in front of Spirit’s hooves. She groaned in pain and exertion as Spirit could only grin at the reward her patience had granted her. Six couldn’t help but smirk alongside her.
Raising her hoof to deliver the final victorious jab, she brought it down against her friend's side– but her hoof failed to connect. In fact, her whole body froze as if suddenly put in stasis. Her gaze suddenly snapped towards some distant location; at the same time, green flames were licking at her form.
Even Six barely had time to react to the sudden freeze before a punch to the chin from Pixy knocked the changeling to the ground in a daze.
“Ha! Got…cha?” The pegasi’s celebrations died on her lips as she saw the blank stare Spirit was still giving empty air.
Six was beside the changeling in less than a second, the others following suit with equal urgency.
“What's wrong?”
“One…one moment.” Spirit took several deep breaths as she brought her now undisguised hooves up to her temple, the horn on her head now glowing very faintly. “Okay, I’m fine now. The peak was just so…sudden.”
“What happened, Spirit?”
“A strong– very strong aura just appeared here in Canterlot! A… a royal. It has to belong to a royal. A Queen is nearby!”
“Hostile or friendly?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Then we assume hostile.” Six looked at Pixy's now sparking metal wing as Spirit got back up to her hooves. “Get that fixed then regroup at the gates in full combat gear. I'll sound the alarm.”
A round of affirmatives greeted her before they all dashed away towards the armory, leaving Six alone as she reached for the helmet attached to her hip. With a hiss, the pressure seal around her neck closed as the hum of her shield reforming its protective barrier filled her ears.
‘Time to get back to work.’
“Forgot how good normal food can taste,” Phasma muttered quietly as he devoured his hayfries as quickly as he reasonably could.
‘Sure, it might not be as good as love, but too much of the same– what the hell?!’
Phasma picked up on the sound of bells in the distance. Then in the not-so-distance. Finally, he heard the bells in the hospital down the road begin to toll, too. Every single bell in Canterlot had begun to ring loudly across the city.
The effect was close to instant. All the ponies in the street and sitting around him went from calm, cheerful, and pleasant to panicking. Fear soured the air– and threatened to sour his mood, too.
‘I was rather looking forward to enjoying a single damn break from all this. But nooo, the moment I arrive, things go to shit. Ugh, more likely something somewhere picked up my arrival. Maybe some wizard tower’s sensitive experiment was shot to shit when my dimensional portal opened up, and they sounded the alarm…’
The former patrons were all running for the metaphorical hills, getting to their homes as quickly as possible. Even the store staff made themselves scarce.
“Well, I already paid for my food!” Phasma angrily shouted above the bells.
So he went back to eating.
‘I’m sure whoever decided that my day has to be ruined will also find a way to find me immediately. I swear, watch this be the one in fifteen worlds where ponies and changelings live together in harmony. That would explain how they noticed my arrival; I stopped hiding my Weave! Those posters must have been old or outdated!’
Within just a few minutes, Phasma was found.
He would have heard them before he saw them had it not been for the loud ringing of the bells droning out all sounds in the city. As it was, his first clue that the ponies had located him was when three armored ponies and one armored changeling rounded the corner half a block away. Or, rather, when one armored changeling, two armored ponies, and a four-legged tank rounded the corner.
Phasma felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on edge when he sighted the juggernaut. It didn’t matter that he hadn't had hair there in years, the feeling remained. The armored thing was as big as Luna was– and looked ten times deadlier than any alicorn or royal in full battle gear could ever hope to pull off.
Phasma was shocked.
The armor was familiar. So familiar that he recognized its source right away. But it was impossible. It was impossible.
The changeling collapsed onto the dirty flagstones of the street, pointing in Phasma’s direction. So Phasma waved back.
‘No point trying to hide.’
The stomping armored giant gestured to one of the two Royal Guards to stay behind with the changeling, then turned and slowly stalked towards him with the remaining Royal Guard. Phasma watched with fascination as the thing moved.
‘It looks perfectly realistic. In fact, the entire power armor looked authentic! Power armor! Real power armor! And not just any power armor, but a very recognizable set of armor!’
If his recollection was correct, and his Weave helped more than he cared to admit in that regard, the pony-shaped weapon of war stalking towards him was none other than a UNSC Spartan supersoldier.
A Spartan!
Though Phasma smiled and waved, he felt frustration boiling inside him. Parallels to Earth were common enough on Equus, but this was pushing it. It was as if the world knew who he was and wanted to hurt him where it mattered most. Which was entirely possible, given what Phasma had seen over the past few years.
The city’s bells died down at last, their last rings echoing off the empty streets of Canterlot. When it became quiet enough to be heard– and when they got close enough to yell over the receding bell rings– the Spartan yelled at the disguised changeling.
“Identify yourself!”
“I’m just a normal food-eating herbivore, like you guys! Swearsies!” Phasma yelled back.
The Spartan and her companion continued to trot closer.
“Identify yourself!” She yelled again, this time purely for intimidation as the bells had stopped tolling. “What is your business here?!”
Phasma gestured to his mostly-cleared plate of hayfries, “I was just enjoying my meal here until you lot came over here and scared everyone else away. Really killed the mood.”
Finally, they stopped in front of him. The Royal Guard stayed a pace behind the faux-Spartan, no doubt using the armored pegasus as a literal bulwark between them. A smart maneuver. Though Phasma’s empath senses were partially muted by the device that obscured his Weave, he tasted too few emotions from the faux-Spartan for his liking. She was too serious to be anything but a trained soldier.
“Identify yourself! What is your name?! What is your business here in Canterlot?!”
Sighing, Phasma pushed away his food. Clearly, he was not about to be given the chance to eat any more delicious, greasy fast food. He would have to deal with this painful reminder now. Phasma put on a smile and spread his hooves wide, welcoming the ponies.
“Why, isn’t it obvious? I am King Phasmatodea of the Fifth Hive! There are a bunch more fancy titles, but you can just call me King Phasma.”
‘Let’s see if I can get them off my back diplomatically. I’d rather not get into a fight so soon after arriving.’
“You are a changeling?” The Spartan asked.
“I would have said no, but it was quite clear that you knew otherwise,” he rolled his eyes.
As Phasma finished rolling his eyes, he spotted squads of pegasi Royal Guards take off from the Palace and scatter into the skies above Canterlot. Amongst their numbers was a particularly large pair, one white and one blue.
‘Looks like I’m going to have to speak to the sisters this time. Great. Just great.’
“What is your business here in Canterlot?”
Phasma glared at the Spartan, “You got a warrant?”
She stepped closer, “What is your business here in Canterlot?! Answer me, or I will have to use force!”
He scoffed at her, “You really need to work on your de-escalation training before you go and kill a minority.”
She scoffed right back, “Oh, the changeling speaks of de-escalation?”
“See? There you go, already judging me because I’m bl– because of my species,” Phasma snarked, lazily lifting a hoof to inspect it. He was still disguised as a white unicorn.
‘If I have to endure her continued presence, then I am determined to make the most of it. Pissing the faux-Spartan off would be entertaining enough.’
Phasma continued, “If you must know, I am simply passing through. There we go, that’s your answer.”
For a quiet moment, neither of them moved. The Royal Guard accompanying the Spartan looked between the stand-off nervously before glancing back at their fallen comrade. The changeling was being helped to her hooves by the last member of their squad.
The Spartan slowly relaxed her posture. It was so slow that Phasma missed it at first. Though her blank visor continued to stare Phasma down, it seemed that he had successfully disarmed the situation a bit.
As Phasma was sitting down and disguised as a normal unicorn, he found that he had to look up to the Spartan. The interaction would certainly be intimidating to a civilian… which Phasma was not.
He decided to speak first, “You know, that’s a very good ‘I’m-angry-at-you-for-breathing-my-air’ stare that you got. Can’t beat my mother’s, though. She was the world champion when it came to making you uncomfortable.”
The large, armored pony remained silent.
“I will admit, that cosplay you got really adds to the feel. Well, I’m sure it does for those who don’t know that you’re prancing around, dressed up as a video game protagonist.”
Finally, Phasma gleaned an emotion from the stoic Spartan. It was one he was quite familiar with.
Anger.
It rolled out in waves immediately from the Spartan like banks of a thundercloud. To her credit, she did not outwardly react.
'But she did react. She at least knows what a video game is. That means the odds of her being a human, being a real Spartan, are… low. So some schmuck in a Noble Six cosplay was transported to Equestria? Or rather, had some blacksmiths whip up a suit to fulfill their lack of creativity?'
The exchange of deadly stares would have lasted until the cows came home– or until Phasma got bored and wandered off– had it not been for the arrival of reinforcements. Two squads of Royal Guards set down onto the street in front of the open-air restaurant and Cafe, effectively surrounding Phasma. One squad had sparkling gold and blue armor, while the other squad had pure blue armor. Two of their number, the large blue and white ponies spotted earlier, stepped forth.
The Princesses of Equestria had arrived.
"My, my. Here comes the Fuzz," Phasma quoted.
"Six," Celestia said, "is this the intruder?"
"Yes," the Spartan confirmed.
'She even took the name.'
"He does not look very threatening," Luna remarked as she judged Phasma's disguise.
'It's not enough that I have to deal with this walking insult to all that I've lost, now Luna is here, too. Panar, I hate having to– wait, her eye!'
Princess Luna had one eye covered up with an eyepatch.
“Looks can be deceiving,” Phasma said while staring at Luna’s eyepatch. “You, however, seem to have some trouble when it comes to looking. What happened, Luna?”
“It was the doing of your assassin, changeling,” Luna said coldly.
The hostility was tame in comparison to what Phasma had dealt with frequently… But it was coming from Luna, not anyone else. Phasma opened his mouth to reply to that, but slowly closed it, remaining silent. Celestia watched the exchange with silent interest.
Phasma cleared his throat, “You know… the ancient god of gods, Odin the Allfather, was said to have an insatiable appetite for knowledge. When he heard of the knowledge offered by the fabled Well of Urd, he journeyed to it at once, crossing down to the roots of the World Tree Yggdrasil. When the Well of Urd demanded that he sacrifice his eye in return for the knowledge he sought, Odin agreed without hesitation. Since then, Odin has always been depicted with an eyepatch. Not sure where I’m going with this– but the moral of the story is that eyepatches are cool…”
Luna stared blankly at me.
The Spartan, interestingly enough, was the only person to actually react to what I said. Her anger ebbed away somewhat and she visibly lowered her guard just a little bit more.
‘She recognized human mythology… Whoever this is, they definitely are human. Or were human, just like me. Fine, I guess I will have to call them by their LARP name, Noble Six. It will have to do until I can find out who they really are.’
Celestia stepped closer towards Phasma, “Stand down, Six. I believe that I am not mistaken when I say that… I am sorry, I did not catch your name?”
“I am King Phasma,” Phasma replied.
“That King Phasma here is not a threat,” Celestia finished.
Six turned to look behind her and pointed a wing at the changeling collapsed in the forelegs of the last Royal Guard. The drone in question was visibly in pain.
“Tell that to my Spartan.”
Celestia nodded, “King Phasma, I require you to stop hurting Spirit, however you are doing it.”
Phasma shrugged, “It’s not anything I’m doing.”
“It is clearly your doing,” Luna said. “You must control your Aura!”
“My what?” Phasma frowned.
Six jabbed a hoof towards Phasma, “Your Hive-mind-thing!”
“You mean my Weave?” Phasma asks, blinking in surprise. “It doesn’t hurt drones. So again, it’s not anything that I am doing.”
“It is your doing, changeling!” Six insisted.
Phasma sighed and reached into his armored saddlebags with telekinesis. After rooting around for a moment, he found the orb that he used to conceal his Weave. Activating once again, Phasma felt his Weave constricting into a tight space. Any hope of properly relaxing and not feeling like he was being stuffed into a box was properly snuffed out.
“There. My Weave-inhibitor is on– even though it can’t hurt changelings. You’re lucky I have this thing. Let me tell you, wrapping up my Weave is like stuffing myself into a damn lamp. I’m not a genie, you know.”
‘Infinite cosmic power, itty-bitty living space…’
The changeling Royal Guard sighed in relief and managed to stand up straight, leaning on her companion. Together, the two walked over to join the little soiree that was occurring on the restaurant’s front porch.
“Now then, let us formally introduce ourselves, King Phasma,” Celestia announced. “I am Princess Celestia and this is my sister Princess Luna. We are the rulers of Equestria. Though it seems you have us at a disadvantage; you know who we are, but all we have is your name.”
Luna added, “Shed your disguise, changeling. Prove you are not… a genie.”
‘Swing and a miss when it comes to humor, Luna. You’ll get there someday, I’m sure.’
Phasma rose from his seat, pushing away his chair and stepping out from the shade and into the light of day. A cloak of orange flames burned away the white unicorn before the ponies’ eyes. In his stead, the changeling King, as tall as Celestia, stood proud. Only his armored saddlebags remained unburned by the orange inferno.
“I am King Phasmatodea, ‘The Comet’ of the Fifth Hive, Twice Born and Undying. I am the Living Champion of Panathropo and Slayer of Epitaph. I’m sure you two also have more titles than you’d care to list, so let’s just skip the rest.”
Most of the ponies had taken a step back in surprise at Phasma’s height, with the exception of the Princesses and Six. While they were surprised, they had kept their emotions more in check.
The changeling stared at him with undisguised confusion and awe. The Royal Guards eyed him warily, no doubt scared of the parallels to his mother. Noble Six was Noble Six and therefore was as expressive as a chunk of granite.
Celestia gave a slight bow, “Welcome to Equestria, King Phasma. I offer our hospitality and invite you to the Royal Palace, where we may discuss your business here in Equestria. Should you choose to accept it, you will have a place to stay…”
Phasma returned the gesture, “I accept your hospitality. I had rather hoped to avoid notice and go about my business quietly, but this will have to do. Lead the way, Princesses.”
The changeling King and the pony Princesses took off into the skies with their pegasi escorts, leaving behind Six and her Spartan cohorts on the ground below.
Six watched them shrink into the skies before turning to her Spartans, her attention hyper-focused on the recovering changeling.
“You injured?” She asked, her eyes scanning their body for any physical injuries. There was nothing.
“I’m…fine. His aura was just… too much for me to handle,” Spirit reassured as she returned to her hooves with some help, one of her holed hooves held against her aching temple.
“I’ll say,” began Pixy coming up from behind Six, “looked like it must have hurt.”
Spirit chuckled slightly before breathing in sharply through her fangs, “You can say that again…okay, I think I’m good now, but a nap sounds pretty good.”
At that, Six herself smiled, glad her Spartan was okay, “You can lie down once we get back.” Her face went serious once again, “Do you know who that bug is?”
Spirit shook her head, “No… Chrysalis wiped the name of the Fifth Hives royals after their defeat in the unification wars…”
Pixy spoke up, “Soooo, what you’re saying is, ya got nothing.”
Spirit nodded solemnly, “But whoever he is,” she turned to look towards the castle, “he’s powerful.”