"Woohoo~!" My best friend John cheered happily as we walked towards the entrance to the convention, "This is gonna be the awesomest day ever!"
"Feh." I replied dismissively, "We'll see about that, but I wouldn't get your hopes up if I were you."
"Aww~, come on and cheer up buddy! It's gonna be funtastic, just you wait!" John rebutted, pulling me into a one-armed hug.
"Again, we'll see." I repeated, pushing him off me with a small smile. John's pretty good at cheering others up, he's just got that infectious joy about him I guess...
"Yay!" John cheered again, looking around like a kid in a candy store as we entered the convention. "Hey it's Dante! DANTE~!! DANTE~!!!" He bounced over towards another of our friends, waving the whole way.
"Hey guys! Enjoying the convention?" Dante asked with a grin as we caught up to him, John already pulling him into a hug.
"YEAH!" John cheered again. "This is so awesome!"
"Whee~." I added sarcastically.
"Don't mind him, he's just mad that we had the same cosplay idea! I offered to go costume-less, but he was too annoyed to bother to wear his." John stage-whispered to Dante, indicating the casual clothes he was wearing. "Not sure why though... Lots of people are going around as Altair!"
"I'm gonna go check out some stands..." I replied before walking away with a small frown, not really wanting to be reminded of that.
I drifted around the Convention, checking out the various stands and setups selling various action-figures, collectibles, replicas, and souvenirs. Eventually I found myself in front of one that had all kinds of different merchandise, many of which seemed almost too authentic replicas of the objects they were based on. Moving my gaze further in, I found my gaze nearly repulsed by many of the objects, even ones that I actually liked. Eventually I found one thing that caught my eye though...
"Woah! A Shadofang replica?" I wondered, moving closer to the object. "It looks so... Real." I whispered to myself, brushing a finger along the cool purple surface of it's gem. Wait, did the grin just widen?
"Welcome!" A voice greeted from behind, prompting me to spin around. "Interested in that, are ya?" The owner of the voice, dressed up as the Merchant from Resident Evil 4, asked.
"Yeah... How much?" I replied, a bit hesitantly. That game freaked me out when I was a kid, and I wasn't in any mood to remember it right now...
"For you? Hmmm... I'll give you the ring in for ten bucks." He offered. I might not have been able to see it, but I could almost literally hear the smile he must've been wearing. Growing up with John made me pretty aware of stuff like that... Must be glad to make a sale.
"Deal!" I agreed, not even thinking about it. A Shadofang replica this nice for ten bucks? Score!
Fishing out my wallet I handed him the ten dollars and received the ring. Unable to wait, I slipped the ring onto my right hand before walking away from the stand.
About ten steps away from the stand, and about three from having my ribs crushed into another hug from John, I began to hear a faint feminine laughter as the ring suddenly became very cold on my finger... And then, I vanished.
"Ugh... My head..." I groaned, bringing a hand to my throbbing cranium. "Did John miss the hug and headbutt me or something? He really shouldn't be... So... Reckless..." I trailed off as I finally opened my eyes and looked at my surroundings. "Why am I in a field?" I wondered curiously, knowing that even though John was a prankster, Neither him or Dante would just drop my unconscious body into the middle of a field.
"Well Hello~, Handsome. Glad you finally woke up." A feminine voice drawled, sounding almost like a mixture between seductive and loving. "I was beginning to wonder for a moment."
"W-who's there!?" I leapt to my feet, bringing my arms up into a defensive position as I scanned the area. Being a field, there wasn't really anywhere to hide... Maybe I was going crazy?
"Right here~" The voice called again, drawing my attention to the grinning purple ring on my clenched hand. "Don't say you've forgotten about me already?"
"I-bu-you.... You're... Real!?" I exclaimed, holding onto my right wrist with my left hand as I stared at the ring.
"Well of course I'm real! You put me on yourself, you should know that." Shadofang admonished me with a mischievous grin.
"Right..." I replied, staring incredulously at the talking ring. "I'm.... Just surprised that you're real, I guess. Wow.... Uh..."
"Well you're not too bad looking yourself, not a pretty-boy like my dear old count, but you're definitely in shape and fairly attractive..." Shadofang mused.
"I... Thanks?" I said, still staring at a loss for words. I mean, what would you do if you were getting hit on by a talking ring?
"Of course, just giving my thoughts." She responded, winking at me.
"Right... So, any idea where we are?" I asked, re-focusing my attention on the surroundings. "It doesn't seem like anywhere I know."
"I'm just as clueless about our whereabouts as you are right now... Let's see if we can find a town, perhaps they could relinquish some information." Shadofang suggested.
"That sounds like a good idea..." I replied, picking a random direction and walking with it.
A few hours later, I found myself walking into a small town. It looked kinda medieval, and... Furry? The people walking around weren't really.. People. Hooves, Muzzles, Ears, some even had wings or horns... And the colors, almost every single one of them were done up in a different color; Blue, Red, Orange, Purple, every combination of everything. Walking, talking, colorful horses.
"Well, well... This is new." My sentient ring commented. "Very colorful."
"Yeah..." I couldn't believe it, the amount of shocks today are simply unreal...
A few ponies eyed me curiously, whispering to each other and looking away whenever I turned towards them.
Raising an eyebrow, I lifted the purple ring to face-level "I think that they're a bit scared of me." He stated quietly, looking at the face in the gem.
"Perhaps... But this is a wonderful opportunity!" The accessory replied, "Why not sow a little fear? Steal a few shadows? It's the perfect opportunity to bring darkness to this colorful land!"
"No." I responded firmly.
"Oh, why not?" She asked, a pout to her voice. "It would be so much fun! Just think about it, everything here under your control, yours to do with as you please."
"Nice try Shadofang, but I know your game. I'm not going to do that, and don't even think about asking me to get a body for you or something." I replied with a small smile.
"Hey, you!" One of the weird horses, a male based on the sharper features, shouted. "Get out of the way." as he shoved me aside me.
My anger flared slightly as I was shoved aside, causing Shadofang to grin in her little gem upon feeling it. "I don't really need a body anymore, you know.." She purred, "I can manifest myself just fine, so why don't we work together, Hmm? It'd be better for the both of us."
That caught my attention, "What do you mean you can manifest yourself?" I asked, peering at the Shu-Shu on my hand.
In response, a smoky wisp began flowing from the center of the gem and formed into a rather attractive, if slightly devilish looking, woman. Well... Mostly. It was kinda like a genie, from the waist down she was a shadowy smoke.
"Woah." I said, staring at Shadofang. "That's new."
"Just a bit." She agreed, holding out a forefinger and thumb slightly separated to emphasize.
"DARK MAGIC! THAT CREATURE IS HERE TO CURSE US ALL!" One of the equines shouted upon seeing the manifestation of my Shu-Shu. Feels weird saying that... My Shu-Shu, guess I'm technically a Shu-Shu guardian and stuff now. Anyways, all of the other Equines began panicking and running randomly all over the place, I think I even heard one shout 'THE HORROR!' or something...
"STOP RIGHT THERE FOUL BEAST!" An extremely loud voice called out, making me cover my ears in pain. Two Pegacorns or something floated down to land in front of me, a dark blue one and a bleached white one. They both had butt tattoos, something that seemed pretty common around here. I think the blue one shouted.
"WHAT THE HELL YOU BANSHEE!?" I returned, rubbing one of my ears with annoyance written all over my face. "What's with trying to make me go deaf?"
The white pegacorn with the sun-tattoo stepped up, "Why is thou terrorizing our subjects?" She asked calmly.
Subjects? Oh great, pegacorn royalty... "Listen miss pegacorn, I didn't do crap. They saw my friend here materialize, and then bam! Chaos everywhere."
Shadofang went oddly quiet for a moment, "...You consider me a friend?" She asked.
"Well yeah... You've been pretty nice and helpful, and even though I know you could be trying to manipulate me, I think I would like to consider you a friend." I replied with a smile, a genuine full-on smile too, not the small stuff I usually put on for my friends.
"Even though I'm a Shu-Shu?" She asked, smiling a bit herself when I nodded. "...Thanks."
I could sense she had a bit to think about, Shu-Shu's don't exactly seem to take the idea of being friends with humans all that easily if Rubilax is any example... So I decided to let her think about it while I dealt with the pegacorn situation. I turned back to talk to them, just in time to catch a rainbow to the face.
And that's how I ended what's either my luckiest, or unluckiest day ever... By getting turned to stone and put next to some sort of chimera statue in a little hedge-maze garden one of those pegacorns had recently planted. Like I told Dante earlier, 'Whee~.'...