//------------------------------// // Rallying Reinforcements // Story: The Princess of Adventure: Return of the Dreaded Love Bird. // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Kazooie sighed softly watching the early morning train leave; after she got everything moving she would face Pinkie in a cartoony duel for the ages. Before then she needed to wait another day, for now she could relax in her unicorn form. Much to Cadence and Shining’s confusion that she took this form instead of her princess form. Kazooie had asked if Cadence had a good night after ingesting the bananas’ Kazooie had spiked her food with during dinner the previous evening. Poor Cadence couldn’t stop blushing as she remembered what she did to Shining armor, it would take him the rest of the day to recuperate from it. She at least learned that Kazooie had a habit of making some rather mean spirited pranks; at least it was relatively harmless this time as Cadence loved her husband dearly and that was actually a fun night. Over the course of the second day of Kazooie’s wait, Cadence got to know her a little bit. A day later, things got strange in the Crystal Empire and after spending most of the previous day chatting up Kazooie; Daring wondered what the crazy bird going to do. She had learned Kazooie was going to take over the world, she accepted that fact. Kazooie told Daring she could follow her as long as she avoided incredibly dangerous fights they might run into, like a giant tentacle monster. Daring was no stranger to danger and she would stick by Kazooie’s side provided she takes her exploring a temple or ruins she hasn’t been in yet. She was amused that Kazooie professed she would take over the world, her and what army? From what she learned yesterday Kazooie is pretty powerful, but not invulnerable and her most powerful abilities had a significant catch to using them. That shine spark thing required her to have enough running room to use it, the falcon punch had a small highly noticeable charge up time and her most powerful spell took ten minutes, five if she cast a spell that doubled her speed and possibly four or less if she were a unicorn. In short Kazooie had a lot of tricks and the only thing Kazooie really had going for her was a cunning mind and the fact that she was immortal. There was also the white magic to consider that even if anyone opposing her were to kill one of her friends, as long as the body was mostly intact and provided she gets to them within a hour or so she can resurrect them. Out of everything she could do her backpack was her biggest advantage, since no one knew exactly what it held but her. Daring actually had wanted to see if Kazooie could pull off world domination, because she certainly didn’t seem evil enough to be doing just that. Kazooie didn’t seem like she was dead set on the goal and has been mostly goofing around since yesterday. It was a different story today as all her friends were going to come to the crystal kingdom using the crystal heart, which Cadence or any other pony knew very little about how it worked or what it could do in its entirety. Cadence and Shining armor were waiting behind Kazooie as she approached the crystal heart which created the doorway that disappeared before Twilight and her friends arrived. “Okay, let her rip.” Kazooie stated blandly and the heart started twirling and the doorway once again etched itself into existence. Opening the door she clenched and a green sphere levitated out from her back side and she chucked it through the doorway. After a moment of waiting several figures could be seen slowly coming into existence as they came out of the door, the first of which was a bear that wore yellows shorts and a shark tooth necklace who smiled at her. Next a strange black and yellow pony with bee wings and fuzzy antenna instead of ears slowly came out of the door before tripping over her own hooves, falling onto her back showing her cutie mark to be an empty golden octagon. The bear was immediately at her side to pick her up and give her a hug, the pony responded by nuzzling him without a word. This was followed by a solid yellow pegasus with a canary surrounded by a green haze for a cutie mark; her mane was crazy looking sticking out everywhere and her wings looked unusual. She was looking around the world at all the bright and shiny crystal towers. Along with her was a solid grey male pegasus with a stopwatch as his cutie mark, who was trotting in place for a moment before doing some odd looking jumping jacks. They quietly gathered together to watch the rest come through the doorway. The following two beings were less quiet, being entirely vocal as they came through the doorway. Cadence reared back in surprise at the sight of a pink pony body with a large comical pony shaped white skull with two blue eyes that didn’t look too well attached to it and three feather sticking out of the top of it. His tail, that was also pink like the rest of his body, was holding a staff with a smaller pony shaped skull on it and he had no mane considering his affliction. His cutie mark was of a glowing staff like the one his tail held. Along with the male earth pony was a female earth pony with a beige colored coat, she had a raven mane that was partly braided off to the side and was wearing a headdress with a single red feather she looked back at her tail and gave it a swish or two as soon as she had stepped part of the way out of the door before continuing forward. Her cutie mark was of a pink pool of liquid. “Mumbo still say bear and bird get more help from best shaman!” The skull headed pony known to Kazooie as Mumbo Jumbo said upon fully stepping out of the doorway. “Hah, glad you agree Humba best shaman. Bear and bird get much help from my skill!” The mare that could have only been Humba Wumba said in retort before she butted heads with the skull pony. “Mumbo teach bird how to be shaman, is greatly skilled at it. Mumbo also help bear learn powerful magic at jiggy temple. Mumbo is much better shaman then you by seniority of game appearances.” Off to the side everyone continued to watch as the two pony shamans started to push against each other trying to knock the other off balance. “Humba say teaching bear and bird not hard. Tell them they can do something and they will, purely out of ignorance that they shouldn’t be able too.” Humba said right back as a retort. “Mumbo think Humba been smoking pipe to long, become foolhardy and ignorant. So ignorant that Humba left toaster running around at home and can’t get VCR to stop blinking twelve.” Mumbo said right back; he proved his superiority with being able to magic a VCR to actually tell the time and he was proud that it was the most complicated thing he’s done to date. “Humba think Mumbo got no jumbo brain; Humba doesn’t think one ever existed in head!” While they were angrily bumping each other, they were hardly anywhere near coming to blows. “Are those two married?” Cadence asked hesitantly, because they looked like they were almost close to kissing each other. “No, but give them another game and they will be.” Was Kazooie’s cryptic reply, they were the original Banjo Tooie shamans and were quite skilled at what they did which was crazy zany hard to understand how it exactly works magic. “Hey, bone head and hippy girl, out of the doorway! We have to get the rest of the crew through here.” Both Mumbo and Humba glared at Kazooie before acquiescing, still grumbling that they were better than the other shaman. They stood with the rest of the gathering group. The next two ponies that came through the doorway were a mint green unicorn pony with a lyre on her butt and a grey pegasus with a blond mane that had seven bubbles marking her flank. The pegasus joined the group and started eating muffin she pulled from behind her back. “Is this it, are we finally home?” The mint pony asked looking hopeful towards Kazooie. “You’re a train ride away from Ponyville, it’d be a long flight for Muffins otherwise and I doubt you’d want to walk through the tundra Spoony.” As soon as Kazooie finished saying that she was almost choked to death by a pair of green hooves wrapping around her neck. “Thank you, I can’t even begin to tell you how much I owe you. So when does the next train leave?”The mint pony turned to Cadence and Shining as they were recognizable to her. “Next hour and it’ll take a few hours before it will reach Ponyville. We only get three a day up here.” Cadence answered swiftly, the pony looked to be tearing up over something. “Are you okay?” “Yes, I’m fine and my name is Lyra Heartstrings and that over there is Derpy… you may not remember me, but I certainly remember you from the wedding with the changelings. You wouldn’t happen to know where I can get some jewelry around here would you.” Lyra was led off to the side by Cadence after she was done pointing out the grey coated blonde mare. Cadence told Shining to wait for the rest of Kazooie’s rag tag bunch. She had business as the Princess of Love to attend to, given she could detect the love practically rolling off of the mare for a special some pony and distance made someone’s heart fonder. The Crystal Empire was pretty good for jewelry, given the empire was heavily specialized in arts and crafts, but she figure it was either a special necklace or a ring Lyra was looking for. The next two ponies to come through the portal were practically named after their cutie marks and looked to be the others opposite. One was a strange smiling pink coated earth pony with a purple with white stripes mane and the oddest feature was her spiraling pupils; her cutie mark was of a screw and a ball. The other was dark looking unicorn pony that had shifty blue eyes that took in the area around her. She had a messy thick dirty blonde mane and was wearing a ridiculously frilly pink dress over her dark grey coat; her cutie mark was a flaming baseball bat with a nut as the bottom of the handle. They were both holding baseball bats, the smiling one had her bat in her left hoof whereas the pony standing to her right had a bat in her right. They moved to join the group that was just starting into some small chatter. The last two things to come through the door were a bit of a surprise. One was a short bipedal creature, it had two pointy ears and a nose and it looked around in a nervous manner and its body color was green. The other was a white coated earth pony mare with a well brushed out blonde mane with bright blue eyes and a cutie mark was just an orange colored five point start in a orange circle, she smiled cattily as she walked over to the group with grace. The mare with the orange star kind of reminded Shining of Celestia somehow. “Okay guys and Screwball, we’re only going to be here for a today. So I want those of you who aren’t naturally ponies to acclimate to your new forms and the surrounding area in the kingdom before we all move out. We’ll be catching a train to Ponyville tomorrow as it’s close to where I want to set up shop. You’re all very well aware of what I’m planning, just not how I’m going to do it. Don’t worry about the details and just make judgment calls to the best of your ability unless I need your specific skill sets at any given time. ” Making sure she had her friends’ attentions Kazooie continued. “So Banjo do you have anything to add to this?” “Well gee; do we really have to take over the world Kazooie? It seems kind of counterproductive to what we usually do.” Banjo said still holding a happy bee pony in his right arm while rubbing it behind the antenna with his left paw. “Well what the ‘yay’ do these guys do for fun around here? The ‘yay’ is going on? Am I getting ‘yay’ censored?” The flaming bat marked ponies eye left eye started twitching. “I’d be surprised if you weren’t censored, you’re an M-rated character in a cartoon world after all so you either use censored words or you use a native clean linguistically known equivalent in its place.” Honey buzzed out in a voice that sounded like her name sake from the comfort of Banjo’s arm. “Well ‘yay’ me.” The pony said before quieting down and looking away. “I’m surprised the rest of us can still actually hear you saying the word over the bleep outs in the sound of a voice clip that’s rather familiar to me.” Shaking her head Kazooie moved on to the strange bipedal triangular headed creature. “I expect you to not cower at the first sign of danger and teleport away immediately, because so help me I know where you live and will come after you. So do you guys want to introduce yourselves to our hosts?” Cadence had come back with a very embarrassed Lyra, but their discussion had gone over pretty well. If only Cadence hadn’t gone the extra mile for Lyra by giving her a book called ‘Ka-mare Sutra’ for free. It was quickly stuffed into the mint pony’s saddle bag for safe keeping. Cadence perked up her ears in interest and looked at the strange ponies, a bear and the odd creature standing amongst them. “I want to introduce you to most of my probably insane family. This is my brother Banjo he’s pretty darn lazy and sometimes I become as lazy as he is by just being around him, that pony wasp thing he’s holding is his girlfriend Honey.” Kazooie motioned to her favorite bear since Smokey while receiving a glare from the pony bee in his paws, before moving on over to the all grey and yellow winged ponies. “The all yellow mare is Canary Mary who despite her ragged looking appearances is really good at flying, not to mention some other technical stuff. The all grey guy is Mr. Fit and he’s an exercise nut and with emphasis on the nuts.” Canary Mary just shrugged and Mr. Fit just trotted in place looking ready to go off for a run. “These two over here are Mumbo Jumbo AKA marrow face and Humba Wumba AKA the stellar stereotype.” No matter how much fun she poked at the two they were still her friends and even when they got exceedingly mad with her they didn’t get too much revenge for it. Maybe she should have told Mumbo she used his magic staff as a toilet brush when she was last in Spiral Mountain… maybe later. “Also Mumbo taught me how to do shape changing and shaman magic for fun and profit. Humba is why Pinkie was able to return to Equestria when she disappeared from her parents’ farm years ago. They are pretty much even in their shaman skills if different in their methods; don’t honestly know why they like fighting each other so much. I and Banjo have known Mumbo a lot longer than Humba. Seriously they should just give it a rest with trying to prove whose better by this point.” “Mumbo think bird can remember certain incident with flamingo. No want me talk of yes?” Mumbo said clearly, making Cadence wonder how he talks without lips. “If bird know what good for her, she be quiet and let the shamans fight their own battle of supremacy or else I talk about archery with rear end as target practice.” Humba lightly threatened Kazooie. “Okay here’s my rebuttal… I start treating the both of you like I do the moles.” Despite the simplicity of the statement both Humba and Mumbo paled and started backed away from her slowly. “Mumbo no remember anything now.” Mumbo quickly said starting to sweat comically. “Humba wouldn’t know how to wield bow with hooves anyway.” Humba quickly added slightly panicked. “Why would you treating them like moles cause that kind of reaction?” Cadence tilted her head to Kazooie who smiled at her. “Oh don’t worry about it; it’s an in joke if anything.” Kazooie nodded to herself, who would want to be tortured that horribly? Breeding seagulls were relentless in their pursuit of making idiotic moles miserable, they weren’t particularly aggressive to relatively smart moles but those were in short supply. “Anyway these last three ponies here are my daughter Screwball, her friend slash bodyguard the gutter mouthed Nut Bat and this is Raki Suta a special tactician that happens to be a generally good commanding officer.” Politely the blonde mane and white coated mare addressed as Raki Suta bowed to Cadence and gave her a simple grin. “The ‘yay’, you know that’s not my name.” The pony with the flaming baseball bat for a cutie mark said. “Yes, but who would believe you if you told them your name was literally Bad Girl?” After a moment’s pause the dirty blond mare in the frilly pink dress thought over Kazooie’s answer. “Fine I’m Nut Bat. Just adopt me and call me Screwballs older sister while you’re at it. I’ve been alone for so long I need this job to keep me from being bored off my flank.” Now it was Kazooie’s turn to pause and consider Bad Girl’s words. “Sure Nut Bat welcome to the family, I’m sure we’ll get along just fine. If you need anything to drink just ask me since I have some really good stuff that will definitely get you hammered. I can even mix a few irregularly powerful drinks if you want, learned it from Humba.” There was a dark toothy grin across Nut Bats face and she nodded to Kazooie. “Here I thought I was kidding about the adoption… but I’m not ever calling you my mother.” Nut Bat said waving her right hoof holding the baseball bat lazily at Kazooie. “Okay, but who is this little guy he’s adorable.” Looking over to Cadence, Kazooie noticed she was cuddling the Jinjo she got them to bring along for instant messaging purposes. Even as an alicorn Kazooie really couldn’t learn the spells that this world had, even as a unicorn the best she could do aside from levitation was a slightly reduced casting time. Her alicorn form didn’t come with the natural reduced casting time effect, but it did come with a boost to all parameters and she did keep the unique abilities from both earth and pegasus pony forms. The boosted magic power from the alicorn form alone already made up for the unicorn ability loss, all abilities of three races rounded into one pony but not able to exceed the power of each pony separately in their unique area of focus. Kazooie thought it was a pretty good form that basically made her an advanced version of a red mage. “That is probably the best decision I’ve made in coming back to Equestria, he is a Jinjo and you can just call him Green. Jinjo’s are a non violent species, they have incredible magical abilities, can survive in any environment, have the ability to fly without wings and most importantly they can teleport immense distances on minimal magic usage.”After a pause Kazooie trotted her way over to the Jinjo and rubbed his ears, he gave off a cute purring noise. “They also make excellent living teddy bears and are very big cowards.” “Help, help Jinjo help help Jinjo Jinjo!” Green said as he glared at Kazooie. “Well please excuse me if you guys don’t run away screaming the first sign of trouble and get stuck in one spot yelling help all day. Do you realize how many times we had to find and rescue every one of you guys? We should really start actively charging you for it if you’re going to be like that.” Green just backed down from Kazooie and stayed comfortably in Cadences hooves. “Um, is ‘help’ and ‘Jinjo’ the only words he can say?” Cadence asked confusedly as she held the cute little critter in her hooves. “Sometimes it’s the only words I wish Jinjo’s wouldn’t say, otherwise they do speak in gibberish fluently but nobody here would be able to understand them unless they are from my world or are capable of silent protagonist speech.” Kazooie said wryly, before turning to the pony known as Derpy and Lyra. “Well I guess this is goodbye, we might be seeing each other sometime as soon as tomorrow. I’ll miss you most off all Muffins you were a real joy to be around and are a good friend of mine. Spoony you need to propose immediately as you walk in the door, she’ll be so happy she’ll forget you’ve been missing for while.” Derpy looked a bit confused before she remembered they had a train to catch, she quickly spat out a bubble that encased Lyra leaving her floating in a cramped space and exclaiming her distaste at being bubbled. The bubbly pony was last seen flying off pushing Lyra towards the train station. “We may have taught those two some bizarre things from our world, hope you don’t mind if normal ponies can do some really weird extraneous stuff because of us.” Kazooie gave a sheepish smile to Cadence. “Nothing too much to worry about I hope, so how long will your group be staying?” Cadence asked in a friendly manner, she really thought it was sweet that Kazooie’s family was willing to help her out on such a weird goal and they seemed like nice ponies even if they were a bit strange. “Well most of us will be leaving tomorrow morning, Ponyville is near where we will be setting up, however I’m thinking about leaving Raki Suta behind to help you with your military problem. She knows how to run a military and get one started as well. You okay with that Raki?” Raki nodded to Kazooie who had been busy dismissing her friends and family to have a free tour around the kingdom, much to Shining’s chagrin that a bunch of strangers with possibly unknown abilities were now wandering around. Daring and Raki however stayed in place at Kazooie’s side. “What do you get out of helping me start my military, what even makes you think you can? My Shining is having problems getting the Crystal Ponies motivated himself and they aren’t any ponies here that want to be fighters or are willing to defend themselves.” Cadence knew she a had a lot of work to do to get her empire running, so far she had it running on minimal strength without as much support as she thought she would have with the ponies she helped save. Raki cleared her throat and stepped forward. “I believe I may be able to motivate them, but I think we would like some volunteer units to help us out when we need soldiers for any skirmishes Kazooie may face. Don’t worry, I’m a brilliant tactician and have yet to lose a heated battle, though in a fight wounded are a sad inevitability.” The mare closed her eyes and gave a simple smile, before opening them up and staring at Cadence with confidence. “Give us reinforcements when we need them and I’ll help your kingdom learn to defend itself.” “If you can get them recruited that is. Know this however, if any of the crystal ponies don’t make it back alive from any battle you require their help with, their blood will be on your hooves.” After a moment’s pause with her staring deeply into the smiling pony’s eyes, Cadence decided to add something else. “By the way it’s an empire and I don’t wish to personally be embroiled by war nor do these innocent ponies.” “Right kingdom, that’s what I said. Anyway I’ll need to talk with your current head of defense to start working on some plans. No need to get so dark or serious, we’re not going to cause some huge continent spanning war.” Raki was pointed to Cadence’s husband Shining who quizzically looked at Raki. Raki didn’t seem like much of a fighter or a great tactician, but looks were deceiving and Shining learned that after his eyebrows were torched by a termite. “Okay let’s get started do you even have any soldiers at all?” “Yes, we have one and he’s a professional archer, but he’s only good at trick shooting.” Shining sighed in a discouraged manner as he rubbed his horn with a hoof. “That’s perfect; tell me do you have any ponies that can build stuff? Hold on a minute before you answer that.” Turning away from Shining, they had wandered a bit away from the castle so Raki had to yell back at Kazooie. “Can you do a crystal pony transformation? I need to know what kind of abilities and stats they have.” “I’ll get back to you later this afternoon with the information if I have any.” Kazooie yelled back before waving her off with Shining. “Well she’s just getting started, do you have any idea what crystal ponies are capable of? I really don’t want to go through another transformation sequence. Also before you say it, becoming a crystal unicorn wouldn’t give me the correct information as your crystal heart would just add the crystallized power to whatever form I’m in. I’m betting a Crystal Earth Pony is a bit redundant as well.” “Well I’ve never seen you transform, I wouldn’t mind the show even if it would remind me of those rather detestable creatures the changelings.” Cadence said sourly before adding with a hint of humor. “I’m starting to become less and less surprised by the things you can do.” “The changelings aren’t that bad; everyone gets hungry and will do incredibly stupid things when they are. They just go about getting food the wrong way and they tend to overpopulate themselves out of existence, it’s not their fault they need help to stop being idiots.” Try as she might Cadence couldn’t come up with a response to what Kazooie had just said. “You know this is all rather awesome, but is it really okay for you to just let your family wander around like that?” Daring asked as she wondered about Kazooie’s daughter with that strange mouthy pony. Cadence got a slight look into Nut Bat’s heart. It was in a rather dark place, but not completely black as it seemed to have been floating in a grey area of indifference for quite a while. “Eh, probably not considering a few of them are walking disaster zone magnets. I’m not too worried though.” Kazooie missed the horrified looks on Cadence and Daring’s faces when something exploded into a mushroom shaped cloud in the distance. “Still not too worried, I’m sure they’re fine.” A second explosion happened in another part of the Crystal Kingdom which Kazooie also ignored. Cadence didn’t know which one to investigate first so she looked to Daring for aid; the pony had a heroic heart. Despite Daring’s odd wish of wanting to follow Kazooie around, Cadence didn’t think it could hurt to ask the subject of another princess for aid as they were allied. “I’m investigating that one, can you go look into the other one for me please?” Cadence asked sweetly and Daring nodded before flying off leaving Kazooie to meander back towards the Crystal Empires market place. “Ah, everything here is as colorful and brilliantly explosive as it is at home around Spiral Mountain.” Kazooie actually was becoming rather fond of Equestria to the point that it might become her family’s second home. After a moment she decided to change into something shinier then she would ever want to be normally, but Nell needed her help on this so she could get a working alliance force running so she may as well go and do it. “Akanamoo…” Cadance landed out in the ewe fields where the pygmy ewes lived, from what she could see of the situation it seemed to be already handled even if it looked very odd that the grass was being painted back onto the ground over the wide area scorch mark that was left behind by whatever happened. Screwball noticed a thump sound and her ears perked up, she turned to Cadence and to give a sheepish grin and the spiral pupils in hers seemed to rotate slightly. Screwball turned back around and started slapping the paint everywhere and within seconds the ground didn’t look like it had been disturbed or destroyed at all. “Tell me what… you look familiar…” Cadence didn’t think much of it before, but Screwball looked like a pony she knew back in Canterlot. “Never mind that, what exactly happened here?” Screwball started expressing that she and the newly declared Nut Bat were out here practicing throwing and catching, one of her special talents was throwing things. She threw a fast ball that kind of exploded violently before Nut Bat could catch it or knock it back with her baseball bat. “Okay that seriously ‘yay’ stung.” Nut Bat declared as she trotted back over to Screwball looking none the worse for wear except for coughing up a bit of black smoke as she came over to them from a tree that had an outline that looked exactly like her scorched into it. “Watch it with the power throws will you Screwy?” Screwball apologized to Nut Bat for the over eager pitch she threw while rubbing the back of her head. “You’re telling me a baseball caused that explosion?” It wasn’t that Cadence had spent all of yesterday getting to know Kazooie’s bad habit of randomly if harmlessly tossing explosives around. Apparently her daughter seemed to reflect that ability as well. Cadence also had the chance to learn a bit about the legendary Daring Do, who is not as fictional as previously thought and is the author of her own fictional tales under a penname. Some of those stories had bits of truth like the existence of Ahuizotl. Apparently he wasn’t as dangerous as Daring makes him out to be in the books. Shaking her head to get back on track, Cadence focused on the two ponies before her, the gritty blonde one that was in her twenties and the younger one that was nearly an adult with a childlike whimsy in the air about her. “It caught me by surprise too. I didn’t know Screwball had that kind of throwing arm on her, she packs a rather explosive punch to her pitch.” Nut Bat sat in the recently repainted grass and it didn’t look to be staining her coat with paint or anything. Looking at the grass more closely Cadence noticed that it was actual grass and had she not seen Screwball painting over the scorched earth she would have sworn it was always like that. Neither of these ponies seemed overly concerned about the disturbance they had recently caused. “Well as long as you two are willing to fix any of the damage you do, just don’t disturb the… never mind.” Looking down with a sigh at the ewes now currently surrounding them, Cadence perked up and smiled as one crawled on top of her head. They were a lot of them cuddling up to Screwball and one in particular looked rather odd and like a pony. After a moment to stare at it Cadence noticed that it probably was a pony, but not like any one she’s seen before as it was incredibly fluffy… and pink. The pink pony that hid, poorly at that, among the ewes looked to Cadence and then its tongue slid out of its mouth and it gave off a raspberry in a seemingly rude gesture. Screwball blinked confusedly at it and it was around this time that Cadence noticed that Screwball didn’t even shift a vocal cord when she talked, her mouth didn’t even move except maybe to smile or frown. Screwball was now talking to the strange fluffy pony like being; however the pony like being didn’t seem to be saying much back. Nut Bat was busy trying to get the ewes off of her while spouting expletive after expletive, as they kept trying to cling to her because she was upset and they didn’t know it was them that was making her upset. Cadence giggled at the sight of the little ewes being the generally happy creatures they were, after a moment she decided to address the strange foreigner in her empire. “Screwball, can you tell me who this is or even what she is? I’ve never seen a pony quite like her before and I’d like to know where she came from.” From what she could see Screwball could communicate with the stranger who seemed to be smiling brightly and after a moment of waiting for an answer Cadence finally received it. Screwball said that it was the leader of the Puffle Ponies or that’s the approximation of what they called themselves; apparently things seemed to have immediately changed around them as it didn’t use to be so cold around here. They lived among or near the cuddling ewes, which Nut Bat was currently chasing off with her flaming baseball bat held in a magical glow. The ewes all gathered around Screwball because she was a safe zone from the wrath of the scary angry pony that sighed and snuffed out her flaming bat with but a thought. It took a moment for Nut Bat to finally notice that she was levitating the bat; she carefully put it away to wherever she pulled it from. “That is ’yay’ awesome, I’m psychic!” Apparently after the two giant shiny ponies killed shadow red horn, things became weird around where the Puffle Ponies lived and then the shadow red horn was back in force not to long after that and then there were these six ponies with a purple lizard and everything was okay after that! “Can I have a name so I know what to call her?” If they were going to be neighbors she wasn’t going to be a bad one by ignoring a species of pony that seemed to have existed alongside the Crystal Ponies before they too were sealed for a thousand years. Screwball after a bit more discussion turned to Cadence with a name that was also an approximation of what this Puffle Pony called itself; it was ‘Shuffle Puff’. Shuffle Puff gave another raspberry in greeting to Cadence, before turning to Screwball who was bridging the gap in communications between the two. She had a question to ask of Screwball to the large shiny pony. Apparently all alicorns were shiny to them. Screwball suddenly had a questioning look on her face and she turned to Cadence to ask her if she’s seen another Puffle that looked like Shuffle Puff, apparently Shuffle Puff’s identical sister got on one of the smoky beasts that ran along the trail made of tough stuff and hasn’t been seen since then. The approximation of her name as far as Screwball was able to tell was ‘Fluffy Puff’. “No, but I’ll eventually get word to Ponyville to be on the lookout for her. What should I or anyone else do should they find her?” After a moment the translation came back through Screwball that it was to tell her that she should bring back some new type of food. Cadence blinked, food was the only thing Shuffle was going ask for from her wayward kin and not for her safe return home? “Tell Shuffle that we’ll tell her if we see her.” Cadence was probably going to be swamped with work as she finally discovered where some of the crystal berries have been going, it wasn’t much of an issue. The Puffle Pony skipped away merrily while being followed by the pack of ewes that had been cuddling up against Screwball for the last minute or so. “Can we get the ‘yay’ back to what we were doing before you and all the fluffy abominations distracted us? Screwball here wants to eventually run her own baseball team and she needs to be at the top of her game if she’s to be the coach and captain of it, I’m a better batter then she is but she’s a goddess at pitching.” Nodding to Nut Bat, Cadence took off and flew in the direction the other explosion took place hoping that nothing bad had happened to anyone. Along the way she dropped to the ground and approached the two beings that were rather close to each other. “Excuse me for interrupting your moment, but are all of you as crazy as Kazooie? As I’ve recently learned that her daughter is capable of weird unexplainable things.” Cadence though it was a good to ask this of Kazooie’s brother who was a honey bear. Banjo was currently holding the bee pony in a comfortable position on top of a picnic blanket. “Well of course we are, everyone has to be a little bit insane. Us especially given the world we came from is equally crazy. Honey here was a giant bee, now that she’s a pony she’s much cuddlier and her stinger is a bit smaller.” Cadence would have asked what he meant by stinger only for Honey to flick rear end and then a sharp stinger flung from out of her tail hair and into the ground in front of her. “It seems that this world runs on the evermore principle as well.” Honey said almost immediately following the demonstration of her stinger launching capabilities. “The evermore principle, what’s that?” Cadence asked a bit confused, she was curious about these beings from the other world and this was a time of learning even if she was a little put off by having a bee aim it’s stinger in her direction even if she was currently being docile while rubbing up against the bears chest. “Well it’s the principle of things that can’t exist in a world, such as this one and if something that can’t exist comes here it will immediately take on a different form based of various factors. I was too close to something that couldn’t exist in this world so I snapped straight into a form to be closer to what can exist here naturally; as such I look more like a pony now.” The way Honey just explained it; she wasn’t always a pony shaped bee but she was a bee of a form that this world rejected for some reason. “So almost everyone from you’re world excluding Green and Banjo would fall under this principle? So anyone from another world who comes here might immediately become a pony?” Cadence asked with a tilt of her head. “Oh no, Kazooie isn’t affected by the principle she transformed before she came into this world. We transformed when we got here because we appeared too much like something your world rejects. Screwball was already a pony and came from this world and is Kazooie’s happily adopted daughter.” Honey rolled onto her back and stretched her legs out and looked at Banjo with cute eyes while motioning to her belly. Sighing Banjo started to pet her and she squealed in delight wiggling her legs to the sky. “Anything else you wanted to know?” “Yes, now I noticed Kazooie has some rather… special powers and some really bothersome quirks. Is there anything that I would have to watch out for from the rest of you? Well aside from the fact that you can fire your stinger that is.” Looking at the ground where the stinger had planted itself, Cadence didn’t see it anymore and just saw a small hole punched into the ground. “Green can’t directly kill anyone so don’t mind him much, Jinjo are harmless and it’s a good thing Minjo aren’t infesting you’re world as they look exactly like a Jinjo and are much more volatile. Never get between Mumbo and Humba when they’re fighting, unless you need one of them for a very specific reason otherwise you might accidentally get transformed into something against you’re will. Never let Mr. Fit talk you into following one of his training regiments or you’ll be stuck in one all day drinking horrible tasting nutrient drinks. Canary Mary is friendly and isn’t very dangerous, me and Kazooie rescued her from a cage in a mine filled with poisonous gas so don’t abuse her kindness as she needs more friends and happens to be a bit introverted because of what happened to her.” After a pause for Banjo to take a drink of what looked like pink lemonade he continued to rub Honey’s belly. “Honey here has apparently gained projectile stingers, but otherwise she can talk to bees of all kinds and is good at making giant honeycombs. I’m really good at wrestling and I currently have the power of the Jiggies which allows me to open things ‘so to speak’. Nut Bat is immune to fire and heat but not lava; she’s an expert in fighting with a baseball bat and is a high class assassin where she comes from. Screwball…” “Wait, wait, wait… did you just say Nut Bat is an assassin?!” Cadence suddenly said with a hint of fear in her voice and her pupils shrinking in apparent fright. “Yep she’s a professional, but she’s now Screwball’s personal bodyguard and I’ll bet she’ll be pretty good at it too… her world is kind of lonely and empty. She’s technically not evil and tends to see things in a grey area, but she’s ‘Nut Bat’ at all.” Banjo received a playful hoof to his cheek for that pun from Honey. “She’s an assassin though?” Cadence was trying to wrap her head around that one idea that Kazooie would have an assassin working for her, someone with a heart of gold who was a jerk working with someone who was a killer in a grey area. The more she thought about all this, the more her headache grew. “Well yeah, in our world assassinations aren’t really all that big a deal, she has been notified that death here has a bit more permanence.” After letting the information from Honey sink in, Cadence actually had to agree given that Kazooie had a spell that could return life to the recently deceased. Honey stretched out and popped a joint in her spine before she continued. “Death is really cheap in our world Cadence, so killing is not much of an issue as is the fact that we know what we kill won’t stay entirely dead forever. That is not to say there are parts of our world where death isn’t a bit more permanent, but it’s kind of hard for us to take dying seriously.” “How can you say stuff like that?” Cadence didn’t put any tone in her voice; she just wanted to understand how having a cold blooded killer for a friend made sense. “I have died at least two hundred times; Kazooie has died literally a million more times than that and Screwball has died three or four times before returning here. We’ve been crushed, skewered, fricasseed, frozen, exploded, died from falling great heights, eaten alive to be slowly digested and much more then I’m willing to tell you. Suffice it to say we’re kind of desensitized to our personal deaths and as a result we act in a foolhardy manner at times.” Banjo continued by hugging his bee pony girlfriend to himself. “That’s not to say we’re entirely emotionless or can’t feel pain, dying really hurts a lot you know. Besides it’s not like Nut Bat killed us or anyone we know and she promised not to kill without good reason as long as we’re here.” “Then you won’t mind if I stay a little more than wary around her then?” Cadence said with a slight hint of wariness. “Whatever ever floats you’re boat.” Honey said lazily before giving off a yawn. “We all consider her less dangerous than Kazooie is anyway.” “Oh right what was I talking about again? Screwball has chaos powers and she’s still working on them a bit, she kind of inherited them from Discord.” Banjo paused seeing the look on Cadences face. “Discord as in the master of chaos?” It wasn’t hard to figure out why Cadence was a little sketchy upon hearing that Screwball had inherited powers from Discord. Well that explained the returned grass then. “From the way Kazooie tells it he’s not really a master as much as just a reality twister; he’s the one who somehow gave birth to Screwball and left her to fend for herself. Needless to say Screwball never really saw him as her father, only as the being that gave her life and enough information to barely get by. She’s really quite friendly, but you should never get on her bad side.” Banjo was only telling of what he heard from his sister and from what he had seen personally, Discord was only able to warp reality and alter the state of existence in a limited capacity. Discord however can’t control time and space nor did he control life and death, which is an oddity considering Screwball’s existence. There was no doubt that Discord sounded like a powerful trickster, but he wasn’t unbeatable by any stretch if Kazooie could take him down by herself. “I see, I believe you were about to get to Raki Suta?” Inside her head Cadence bounced around the idea of getting to know Screwball better, it might explain her weird method of talking without creating a sound at all or how she managed to paint grass back into existence. “Oh her… she’s almost as dangerous as Kazooie is and that’s just for her leadership abilities. When her special ability is active she and anyone who she is in direct command of become somewhat nigh unstoppable. I doubt anyone who’s under her command would get a scratch on them if you give her a battlefield to take command of.” Banjo was rubbing a paw under his chin; he could kind of guess why she was here and when she would be needed to fight. All it would take is a single day… Kazooie knew what she was doing and Banjo was probably the only one that had any inkling as to everything she has already considered in her world domination plot. He knew his sister well no matter how much traveling she’s done, a hero doing the world domination bit was unusual even if Banjo accepted that he was along for the ride. “Could you maybe tell me more about Kazooie given you’re her brother? She certainly nothing like Shining’s little sister I can say that much.” She was a cantankerous, rude and destructive being, but Cadence knew she wasn’t evil just hard to be in the same room with. “You spent the last two days with her, so you should know she likes making people mad and she can be a bit grating to be around at times but I love her all the same. Wouldn’t find a better partner in the heat of battle besides her or Honey. The one thing to know about Kazooie is she sometimes tends to see life as a running long winded joke. I’m with her on that kind of outlook.” Banjo nodded to Cadence before pointing at something waddling up to them angrily. “Seeing that kind of proves it.” “Can either of you tell me how to get out of this? Saying Akanamoo doesn’t help me in the slightest.” The beige colored crocodile with a black tuft of hair on its head asked, it was wearing Daring’s pith helmet and green shirt that was recently fixed by Rarity. “Got between Mumbo and Humba huh? Like I was telling Cadence here a minute ago never try to stop their fighting unless you have a valid reason.” Pausing to set Honey down Banjo crouched down to look Daring in her crocodile eyes for a moment. “Eh, you’ll be back to normal in a little while don’t worry about it. They tend to use temporary spells often enough, longest time anyone’s ever been stuck in a different form was a month as a frog, which is rather ironic if you were given the right context for it from our world. I give you about five minutes before you revert. The backwards word thing only works for those trained in shaman magic, meaning Mumbo, Humba, Kazooie and me since I’ve been exposed to so much magic that I can do it even without training and understand the shape shifting magic pretty well. The word is always different for everyone and mine is ‘ensiru’.” “So that is what, ursine backwards? Well that doesn’t sound very unique at all.” Daring said in a bored tone through her toothy maw and within the next ten seconds her body started warping till with a pop and a lightning sound effect she returned to being the pegasus she was born as. “By the way princess, they were the cause of the second explosion. They didn’t seem to do any damage to their surroundings though.” “Oh, don’t worry about them. Those two can fix any problem they cause on their own; in fact they can fix just about any problem with magic if given enough time and space from each other. The only problem is choosing which one of their solutions is the better one as they tend to turn anything into a competition which includes fixing things they both broke in the first place. ” Banjo said before laying back and putting his paws behind his head, Honey crawled onto his chest buzzing merrily as she snuggled against him. “Well if you have nothing else to do, go find out what Kazooie is doing because if you leave her alone long enough she’s bound to find a way to cause trouble.” Honey curled up on Banjo’s chest to lay her head there. “Yes, we’ll go do just that and hope that Kazooie isn’t up to too much of a mischief in my empire.” A minute later Cadence’s alliance with Kazooie had become rather strained. Cadence liked Honey and Banjo because they really seemed to enjoy each other’s presences; it was like a breath of fresh air to be around. Screwball and Bat Nut weren’t in love, but they were really good friends even if one of them could kill you in cold blood and not think about it too hard. Now all she had to do was learn a bit more about Canary Mary and Mr. Fit which shouldn’t be too hard as she found them with Kazooie. Two crystal ponies, one obviously Kazooie and the other one of Cadences newly minted month old subjects were arguing over something. Canary Mary was just squawking while floating next to Mr. Fit who did nothing but stand there staring blankly at what was going on before he started to hop in place. “What’s going on?” Cadence asked of the yellow wild haired mare with the gaunt wings. “Well Kazooie just started to draw attention to something after she had been a Crystal Pony for a while. I think what she said was that all the Crystal Ponies were practically the biggest idiots she has ever had the displeasure to save. That’s saying a lot considering she saved Bottles who’s a mole and he’s number one on her list of idiots.” After a moment’s pause to think over something Canary Mary turned to Cadence with a serious look on her face. “She’s right you know; you’re in charge of nothing but idiots.” “What do you mean; they seem relatively smart and up to speed for having been gone for a thousand years to me.” As Cadence said this she was watching the continued debate between Kazooie and the Crystal Pony. “Yeah, but that’s because you’re not seeing it from the angle Kazooie is, if she declares something stupid I’m already willing to agree with her. Not that I will ever agree with her that my exercise regiment is pointless given that I will never be more fit then I already am, I’m still entitled to my opinion after all.” Mr. Fit was currently doing pushups with his wings, and then started doing one hoof pushups, he didn’t sound tired despite looking like he was almost constantly exercising every moment Cadence was looking in his direction. “What started this argument?” These two seemed rather… mostly sane… yeah those were the words for it; however they seemed believe Kazooie was in the right that the Crystal Empire was filled with idiots and was previously run by them too. Canary Mary was a broken heart that seemed to be readily taped back together in her strong friendship bond with Kazooie and several other connections. Mr. Fit’s heart was beating three times the rate his body was moving and looked like it was made of steel. “Kazooie declared loudly that all the Crystal Ponies despite their architectural prowess, were truly pathetic in anything else to her eyes. One of them tried to stand up for themselves, that poor guy.” It was around this point that the Canary Mary and Mr. Fit started making a path for Cadence and motioned for her to move close to the two arguing ponies. Cadence was drawn into the conversation after Kazooie made a seemingly bold declaration that the Crystal Ponies allowed Sombra to happen. “What right do you have to say that we could have prevented the tragedy that launched us a thousand years into the future?” The Crystal Pony said, he wasn’t on good legs at the moment as Kazooie has already proven their culture to have plenty of failings. “Well for one, what were the defenses Sombra set up for the Crystal Heart while he was in control of it compared to it sitting out in the open for anyone with half a brain and a horn could just learn to control it magically at a distance. I bet he didn’t even need to touch it to gain control of its powers, heck if you had any defenders back then they had to have been sleeping on the job.” Kazooie pointed to the very much exposed Crystal Heart, in fact if she were so inclined she could have just usurped Cadence and Shining within minutes after saving their kingdom from the changelings since she actually knew how the heart worked. Interesting that something like a dungeon heart would be here of all places, but Kazooie wasn’t going to bring up her adventures in dungeon keeping. “Not to mention that’s exactly what happened a thousand years ago, you do realize that the Crystal Heart didn’t stop Sombra from taking over the Crystal Kingdom because you were all probably too reliant on it defending itself and all of your lazy butts.” The male crystal stallion ears splayed out, he had nothing to say to that. “Furthermore, I’ve learned that the Crystal Heart allowed him to do some interesting tricks as long as he was in control of it, even when the sun and moon killed him and sealed away his spirit. He was still technically in control of it and it’s the only reason why he was able to curse you’re entire kingdom and seal it away for a thousand years and as soon as it came back so did he in the hopes that he wouldn’t have to deal with the sun and moon again before he could possibly better entrench himself against them if they were still around. Was it any wonder he was able to create those dark crystals that can block magical flow, which I suppose he used on your previous ruler and cut them down rather fast because they relied too much on magic and the power of the heart. It’s also how he was able to control all of you into not being able to have any happy memories. I’m guessing any knights or guardians you previously had were voided the minute he had the heart under his control.” All the surrounding Crystal Ponies ears were now splayed back and they were all frowning at Kazooie’s words, she was right after all that it had been a rather sudden hostile takeover by one solitary pony in a mad grab for power. “You know what kind of defense he set up for the Crystal Heart? He set it up for someone like himself… it was all mostly for a single solitary pony that can possibly circumnavigate all the defenses and get the Crystal Heart into their or someone else’s control, he wasn’t worried an army was going to get the Crystal Heart. His first line of defense was that invisible staircase in the floor, no pony unless those who were smart and could use even a miniscule amount of magic would have been able to find it. Then that pony would come across a door at the bottom of a downward staircase, alone this pony would not have made it past the door that made you face you’re worst fears or nightmares on loop.” Kazooie started pacing in front of the crowd sending a glance at Cadence. “This is where he set up his next line of defense, the long magically shielded staircase to the top of this kingdoms spire in the case that more than one pony working together managed to get through his door and this far, there was no other way to reach the heart as he had it protected from even a pegasus being able to just fly up and pluck it from the tower. It would take a while for even a group of ponies to run or fly all the way up all those stairs, this would have given him time to plan a counterattack and should a pony have survived getting this far.” Turning and pointing to the top of the spire with a shiny crystal hoof, Kazooie continue her spiel. “He would have been waiting with the Crystal Heart up there. Should you somehow manage to defeat him, because of his connection to the Crystal Heart he would have survived anything done to him and would have been up before too long. He set up an impossible to escape magical cage that could hold just about any kind magical being short of that Discord guy. You were lucky that the heart managed to get into Cadence’s grasp at all, because if he had come back inside the empire as soon as it had reappeared...” All the Crystal Ponies shuddered at hearing Discords name; they had been around when Celestia and Luna effectively turned him into a garden statue. They were shuddering at the fact that it would have been too late had Sombra not had a problem breaking the seal holding him and he must have broken it fast given that he got out of the seal he was put in given less than half a day upon the Crystal Kingdoms return. He was still effectively connected to the heart at the time, but he couldn’t connect to it very well because of the barrier that Cadence had erected around the entire empire. He lost connection to it when Twilight interfered dropping the anti flight field around the top of the tower, though that really didn’t do much as there was nothing around that part of the tower that could fly. One wonders why Luna or Celestia just defeated him and didn’t stick around to help fix the damage he did to the kingdom or even stop him from cursing the kingdom to a thousand years solitude. It was probably because Luna went mad with jealousy before they could look into it, thus he had sealed it away sometime after the Nightmare Moon event happened while Celestia was grieving, so it took him a while to curse the empire through the use of the Crystal Hear itself. “But can you honestly say that we could have stopped him? How do you even know any of this stuff when you’ve only been here for a short time?” The indiscriminate male Crystal Pony said, Kazooie’s response confused all the Crystal Ponies as she stood up on her hind legs and pulled out a tiny red and white ball. Pressing the button with her other hoof the sphere enlarged, she hit it again and lightly tossed it at the ground. Something started to come out in a coalescing red mass of energy in a familiar form to the Crystal Ponies as it started taking shape. Kazooie smirked at them, she loved causing a panic attack sometimes.