“Wait a minute… what just happened?” The pegasus detective Pranced in a nervous circle. “They were right here! The damned doll was trying to throw it’s weight around. Then it passed out and started snoring. Then something happened. I know something happened! And now they aren’t here! In this place that they just were!”
“Smile! As bad as it seems, it could always be worse.” The smiling sun on the motivational poster at the edge of her vision proclaimed cheerfully.
The suddenly teal pegasus began to unravel. Did she even have a name anymore?The goat faced earth pony mare drew a single card.The card depicted a mad mare, smiling in the comfortable embrace that she was a good pony. With a proud smile she wielded her needle and thread as she sewed her armor of bootleg souls. A mild scent of mildew wafted through the room..
“The Treacherous Smith, inverted. False optimism, and a broken promise.” The mare looked the sun in the eyes. “Disaster is to be expected. You’re too late to blind me.”
“Even a small victory can feel huge in face of inevitable defeat.” The poster helpfully provided.
-=-=-=-=-
“It’s just an izs, OC. Don’t worry, it can’t hurt you… although this is going to hurt.” The pure white noodly, eyeless equine abomination smiles menacingly with far too many teeth. “I need you to trust me and do exactly what I say. I need you to turn your front-most hooves into talons, for grabbing things. It’s going to bite you, and when it does you have to stick your hoof in it’s mouth and grab it’s tongue.”
“OW!” It would be a cute sound if her plushy arm didn’t bleed.
“Don’t let go, OC! Punch it in it’s stupid blind head!” She tastes my rage and she drinks deeply. OC doesn’t have the words for this feeling. She doesn’t need words as she wails at the indignity visited upon her. The noodly albino freak tries to back off. It wishes it could back down. I was made for these words. And OC laughs with me as the rage flows through us. “WE OWN YOUR HEAD! It’s too late to let go! Stop pulling away! Stop making us hit you! Stop… OC… just stop. It’s not going to hurt you anymore…”
“I-I killed it?” She shuffles angrilly, as the other izs withdraw into the scrub brush of the outback. She wants to feel guilty, I can tell. I have to nip that in the bud.
“Their viscious little cannibals, OC.” I message her ear frills as I balance between her head and her elytra. “You need to do something about that bite though… I need you to transform yourself a patch over that bite. We need to keep moving.”
She makes an adorable scruntchy face and a spiked leather patch appears over her wounded arm in a burst of pink magic flames. “Huh, I was going for velvetine…”
“Well, I just pumped you chock full of rage, so that’s what your magic is working with right now.” I emit a chuckling sound. Gods of Tartarus what I wouldn’t give to have facial expressions.
“Where is this place, Uncle?” She’s hurt, scared, and ready to trust me completely. I hate myself for that. “What was that thing I just killed?”
“One question at a time, OC.” I scramble down her carapace to inspect the the patch she’s shifted over her wound. “This is a pretty good patch, especially for a first time try. Just remember, it’s still just a patch. Your carapace is still injured, so be careful. To answer your first question, though, this is The Outback. It’s a physical demi plane that borders the subconscious and subliminal planes. Me and Diane used it to dodge Luna after a couple of her more high-profile ‘justice’ crusades.”
“That really just brings up more questions, Uncle.” And yes I am riding her like a tank, steering with her ears and she is going along with it and it is adorable. Don’t. Judge. Me. “Is it another dimension, because you can just say it’s another dimension. And what was that thing outside the train in your dream?”
“Okay, forget one question at a time, it’s all the questions!” I flail a noodly arm while keeping the other firm on the controls of the ladybug-tank. Because we are all in on this game. “To start with the white squishy cannibal is an izs. Don’t worry, their alignment is evil-stupid. And they're squishy. Their pretty chicken shit though. And since you just squished the bravest on in the local pack, the rest aren’t about to start any trouble. If you want you could bully them into fairly loyal minions, but I wouldn’t if I were you. They are murder crazy and really, really stupid.”
“As far as where we are, this is the near-multiverse.” I deftly steer OC across the savannah of the Outback… which is odd because the Outback is ruled by a ‘Jungle Queen’. Meh, semantics, but words mean things. And this is clearly not a jungle. Behold the mesas and the vast scrub-grass plains… “It’s locally referred to as the ‘Outerverse’, which is a much better name. Think of it as the near orbit of our universe… wait you grew up in a cave… so that is a horrible analogy. So yeah, we’re in another dimension. As for the multiversal parasite thing… I know of it… but I’ve personally never run up on it before now. That’s why we’re here. We just need to make it over that ridge of giant bonzai trees. There’s a villa where I’m hoping we can get some answers.”