"It's great to see you again Ying." Smeareyes seemed happy to see another friend back. "What brought you here though? And where has everyone been?"
The troll, Ying, next to them shook his head, his horns looking like the antennaes of an ant. "I don't know about the others, but I sought out a new world to call my home, and found it. I've been exploring ever since. It helps that I'm a space player."
Phynicxs nudged him with an elbow, his voice monotone but his features demonstrating how happy he was to find a friend again. "Tell us about it."
"Well, it's certainly amazing. It has many exotic rainforests. Most of the people on the planet are primitive, but they get along well and for the most part its peaceful. Like their better nature is their only nature. Not much to tell honestly. What about you guys, why are you guys here, and do you still play in boxes like a cat, Phynicxs?"
Phynicxs looked to the side, put off slightly. "Pfft. I don't really play in it anymore - I use it as extra disguise."
"Bah, you always were shy!"
"It's not shyness! It's just... I don't like being the center of attention."
Smeareyes popped up, "could've fooled us. You take charge pretty quickly if no one else does."
"Hmph! Whatever. Anyways, our story isn't interesting either. We've just been to so many different planets that when we came here, it was much nicer so we decided to try and hang low here. Also, they have great apples."
Ying prodded Phynicxs, "I forgot how much you loved apples, heheh."
Smeareyes popped up again, "uh, guys, the purple pony's asking us a question." They all turned to Twilight who seemed incredulous.
"How many of you are there? Anyways, thanks for your help, but where are Jordan and Typo?"
Phynicxs responded quickly. "They're in the forest and they're still alive. We could go in searching for them?"
Ying piped up, "hey, I'll go in and try to find them. If I help I'll send you guys a message. Meanwhile, you wait here and defend this place in case something else happens."
Phynicxs looked sad - and so did Smeareyes - but they both nodded and looked to Twilight, who began talking.
"I sent a letter to Princess Celestia - I'll explain later - and she seemed perturbed by this new threat and said that she had been sensing something off for awhile. She's given me directions to help you out, and has informed me of an ancient weapon that dwells within the main changeling hive. It's been their home for generations, but it started out as a city much like Manehattan until it was overrun by the changelings. According to her, it had been a technological highpoint for a long time, but after evacuating due to the changeling threat, the technologies are buried there in the buildings. The weapon she told me about was kept there deep underground that had been used to weaken Discord - again, I'll explain later - and hidden away so it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands. There's a lot of security there, and Princess Celestia has given me the information to get inside, provided you do her the favor of bringing back some of the lost technologies. Is it a deal?"
Smeareyes and Phynicxs listened intently, occasionally looking at each other in interest, and nodding. Phynicxs was first to speak and nodded. "It's a deal."
Smeareyes brought his arms up. "Thank you very much, we won't let you down." He honestly felt a little nervous about this, but was willing to give it a shot.
Twilight smiled brightly. "The princess knew we could count on you. Prepare yourself as much as you can and come see me in the treehouse library when you're finished." She telekinetically presented them a large bag filled with bits that she had been keeping in her saddlebags. "A friend or two and me will be joining you on the journey, so I have to go prepare as well." She turned and trotted away to prepare.
Typo, though often keeping his own personal bubble, picked Jordan up in a fireman's carry, looking around and using his muse aspect to understand the mind player's illusion. Jordan was still conscious, but mostly dead weight, and asked Typo how he knew her. Typo began talking a little about his session - keeping it short - not wanting to really talk about it but trying to keep Jordan awake so he wouldn't be completely dead weight. He told him about how Auryie was at one time his girlfriend before and during the game, and how a jealous player, after being held down most of his life, finally snapped and initiated a scratch, and told him how he thought Auryie had died in the scratch, and so had most of his other friends. He had escaped and wandered the dream bubbles for a long time, and when he finally found the dream bubble with all his friends - not the alternate reality ones - he had to leave because a monster completely obliterated it, and he had barely made it out alive. Typo mentioned how he mourned for a long time afterwards, and while in another dream bubble had found a way to get out of paradox space and into a new universe that had recently been made. The horror-terrors had helped him and tried to guide him, occasionally using other wayward travelers' aspects to get through the time and space inconsistencies.
As they walked, and Typo had finished a summarized version of small portions of his story, he asked Jordan what became of his planet. Jordan talked slowly and hazardly, having to take breaks to regulate his breathing (as much as someone with damaged lungs can). He explained how the planet was being eaten from the inside out by a cancer and that it was a hero of time who rounded some of the others together to stage a coup against those who had differing ideals and ideas. He explained how they used to be close friends, but power had corrupted some of them, especially the power they had over the planet. Jordan informed him about how he had been insisting that they take the people away to somewhere safer using their godtier powers, but quite a few of the others disagreed because they didn't want to share power during the travel. Jordan stated how he didn't know what happened to the planet after he'd been cast out and almost killed permanently by the hero of time's weapon. He managed to tell how no one knew where he'd gotten the power from, but that it worked considering he demonstrated it on one of the opposers. Jordan figured that they had probably destroyed the cancer at the expense of many people to help guard them against the beast, but mentioned that when he thought about it, he was suspicious about his ex-friend's weapon correlation with the cancerous beast.
Typo held onto Jordan tighter and told him that they were almost there, but that once they were he probably wouldn't be able to destroy the enchanted item on his own, knowing that it had been a special orb of Auryie's that she had kept close for a long time and had imprisoned many creatures in there who would wander for eternity until their bodies deteriorated to the point of no longer being.
That's when Typo heard the rustle. Jordan seemed delirious and unresponsive to the stimuli.
The rustling stopped and a shadow appeared from the encroaching fog.
"There you guys are. Do you have any idea how hard it was to make my way through here? It's almost like this is all an illusion."
Typo glowered, "it IS an illusion." He added, "and it's being created by an enchantment. I don't know how to destroy it."
"Well, where is it? Let me have a shot at it." Typo, tired, nodded and complied, motioning for Ying to follow him.
When they found the orb, sitting on an ornate pedestal, Typo nodded to it. Every time Ying swiped at it, it just seemed to rematerialize, as though it had been an illusion as well. Ying asked if Typo had any ideas, and he decided why the hell not just add some doom aspect to the blade temporarily. Typo temporarily stole Jordan's blade, who was resting against a tree, and drained some of its power which was quickly replaced, and grabbed hold of Ying's eraser while he held it, surging some of the doom into it, and the both of them brought the eraser down to tap it a few times, letting the energy permeate, before bringing it up and forcing it down hard on the orb. It cracked and as the crack grew, the more the remaining pieces diffused and dematerialized until they were gone. The illusion around them flickered multiple times before winking out. After admiring the sword, Typo put it back in Jordan's captchalogue deck.
Phynicxs' first stop was the bazaar/market, charging himself with gathering food while Smeareyes would gather supplies. They had split the bits between them and went their separate ways. Phynicxs came across Applejack, Golden Harvest/Carrot Top, and others such as Derpy who was selling homemade muffins. Phynicxs collected a little bit of everything, putting the piles in his captchalogue deck, which confused any ponies who watched him. Most just shrugged and went about their business. Stranger things had happened.
Smeareyes' errands were more exciting however, especially when he got to a carpentry supply shop to check out its wares and see if there was anything that might need doing.
The first sight Smeareyes laid eyes on was a yellow pegasus with long pink hair bowing down in front of the store owner, pleading with him to drop the price, as she needed to get this done before leaving on a journey. Smeareyes could feel and see the rage and other emotions building up between them - especially the rage building up in Fluttershy. Not wanting to cause a scene, he came up to the stallion and pushed in front of Fluttershy. "Hello sir, good day isn't it?" The stallion looked at him coldly.
"I'm not dropping the price. You can forget it." The stallion seemed cold, but the seer of rage could tell he was smirking on the inside, as though he knew he had won. This put Smeareyes a little off.
"Oh please, sir, I have to use my bits sparingly!" Fluttershy cried in her shy voice.
Smeareyes looked to the stallion again and asked what the problem was, and was told how many bits Fluttershy's materials would cost. Smeareyes glared at the stallion with killing intent in his eyes - whether he meant the threat or not. The stallion backed away and whinnied, taken aback by the look. "I'm sure we can come to an agreement, don't you?" He looked to Fluttershy, questioning her.
The stallion whinnied again and stepped forward, hardening his resolve. "I won't go any lower than thirty bits."
Fluttershy looked into Smeareyes' eyes and saw something. Smeareyes looked back and pounded his fist on the table, getting dangerously close to the stallion. "Fifteen bits and I'll let you live." This stunned the stallion silent, and Fluttershy gasped, eeped, and fainted. The stallion was getting extremely perturbed by the feelings filling the air and finally consented.
"Fine, fine, take it for fifteen bits. Just get out of here!" He yelled, somewhat worriedly while trying to keep composure.
Smeareyes smiled at the stallion and thanked him, collecting the materials and storing it in his captchalogue deck and carrying Fluttershy out of the shop.
When Fluttershy awakened, Smeareyes was there, having finished collecting supplies that might be needed for the first leg of the trip.
"How are you feeling?"
"Eep...! Wh-who are you...!?" Fluttershy's voice trailed off at the end.
"My name's Smeareyes, and I'm sorry I scared you - I just couldn't stand that owner taking advantage of someone vulnerable."
"You didn't actually... Um.... You know... Did you?" Fluttershy seemed really worried. Understandably.
"No, don't worry. I didn't hurt him. That's very kind of you to worry about him even after what he did."
"Mmbmm." Fluttershy said, nearly silently, turning her head to hide behind her pink mane.
"Anyways, you better get home, get your stuff done, and get some sleep. After all, you are travelling tomorrow, right?" Smeareyes gave a genuine smile and handed Fluttershy the captchalogue card with her stuff in it. Fluttershy eeped again, remembering it all, and thanked him before running off. Smeareyes watched her run off, shouted to her how to get it out, and started walking toward the tree house library to meet up with Phynicxs and Twilight.
Rainbow Dash was outside the Everfree Forest, laying on a cloud and resting her eyes when she heard some rustling from below. Her eyes snapped open, putting a hoof in front of her eyes to block the sun and looked down at the two who were finally out of the forest.
"Took you bozos long enough! It's been a day since you three went in there. Where were you!? I could've gotten in and out in ten seconds flat!"
Typo smirked up at her, amused that she was still wearing his glasses, when Ying spoke up. "We were caught in an illusion and had to wait for Jordan to get enough of his strength back so that Typo could take some of Jordan's power and direct it into healing magic for him. He's dizzy and exhausted, but he's better off than he was before. When he gathered enough strength, he helped us out big time when some more of the lord of doom's goonies came to finish the job and take over Ponyville."
Jordan exited the forest last, sticking his tongue out at Rainbow Dash and waving his sword at her non-threateningly. Almost like he was waving hello. Then he sighed and flopped down on the ground as Rainbow Dash came down and walked toward them.
"Twilight got a letter from the princess yesterday telling use about how weird things have been happening all over Equestria. In the letter she asked for our help and yours in investigating the main hotspot for all these weird and violent things. Basically." Rainbow Dash may not have known the exact words, but she knew what was going on, going back into the air and hovering, crossing her forehooves over her chest. "Applejack has been preparing for the trip all day and before she left, Rarity helped by making you three some packs."
Jordan shook his head and held up his captchalogue deck. "No need - we got these."
"What are they?"
"A better form of storage than you ponies, that's for sure," Typo teased.
If Rainbow Dash had been able to give Typo the finger, she would have. And her displeasure at Typo made Jordan smile.
When Smeareyes and Phynicxs got to the library, Twilight was there waiting with Pinkie Pie who had been at Sugarcube Corner all day. Pinkie took one look at them and inhaled sharply, and very deeply before going up in front of them and talking in their faces at speeds unheard of. Something about a party and their "exploits."
Twilight came behind Pinkie, looking worried, and told her this wasn't the time for that, putting a hoof on her shoulder.
"Every time is a good time for a party! What'swrongwithyouTwilightmaybeapartywouldcheerupt hatbigfatmeaniepantsdoomlordorwhateverhe'scalledan dthenhe'llbeonthegoodguysideandthenandthen-!"
"Pinkie, slow DOWN." Twilight coaxed. Pinkie started taking deep breaths to calm down; although it just made her hyperventilate, the feeling in her head making her dizzy so that she giggled and fell down before passing out.
Twilight said, a little disappointed, "and thaaat's... Pinkie Pie for you. Look, we all got to get up early tomorrow, so we should all get some sleep. I assume you have your own beds stashed in those extra dimensional spaces of yours," Twilight asked as she turned around, looking back at them, and helping Pinkie to the bed with her telekinesis. Phynicxs and Smeareyes knew this was going to be a fun one. At least Pinkie was upbeat and positive. They smiled at each other and Twilight told them to get some sleep, that she had to stay up and wait for the last pony that would be joining them, and that she needed to do a little more studying before bed. Phynicxs yawned, said good night, and Smeareyes said "have suitable dreams."
Rainbow Dash floated lazily along, Jordan, Ying, and Typo trailing along at a reasonable pace. Rainbow Dash looked back to them and spoke. "Twilight suggested that since it's gotten so late that we ought to rest up today and set out tomorrow. I didn't totally agree, but whatever."
Jordan nodded. "I would like some rest." Typo and Ying; although not as tired, agreed. "Also, you said the supplies are already packed?"
"Yeah, Applejack took care of the food, Rarity took care of clothing, and I took care of basic adventuring supplies." At Rarity's name, Typo grumbled to himself.
"Is Applejack coming with us?" Jordan smiled brightly at this idea, and was becoming accustomed to Rainbow Dash's ego - be it born from insecurity or not.
"Yeah, squirt. Applejack's coming with us. She spent some of her time today finding extra farm hands to work while she was gone. I suggested she ask Princess Celestia to send some guards - after all, we're helping her out - but she put that idea down quickly." Rainbow Dash grumbled at this, as though being blown off like that had harmed her ego or confidence.