//------------------------------// // Creepy Anime Stuff // Story: The Equestrian Edda // by Grey Ghost //------------------------------// "Welcome to Griffonstone, the worst place to live," Gilda proclaimed, and Jason couldn't really argue with her. The place looked terrible, with all the houses in severe disrepair, many having collapsed, with trash everywhere. Not that the griffons seemed to care, they just went about their business like it was nothing. "Uh G, I know you used to tell me your home was a dump but I didn't think you actually meant it literally," Dash commented as they walked into town, her eyes wide. "Yeah, Griffonstone sucks, has for a long time," Gilda snorted, not exactly happy she was back. "What happened to it?" Pinkie asked. "It doesn't look anything like Twilight said it would." "I'm sure the king can tell us," Jason said, only for Gilda to bark out a laugh. "What?" "Griffonstone doesn't have a king and that idol is just a stupid story." Gilda snorted, rolling her eyes. "Oh you better believe that idol is real," an elderly griffon protested, walking out of a collapsed house. "Ugh, go away Grampa Gruff, we don't want any of your stupid stories," Gilda growled, giving the old bird the stink eye. "I wanna hear what he has to say," Jason said, the ponies nodding in agreement. "I'll tell you the whole story..." He held his talon out. "For some bits, that is." Jason stared at him for a few moments before pouring some bits into the griffon's talon. Grampa Gruff smirked, beginning his tale. The first griffon king had indeed found the idol and used it to unite the griffons, but it had been stolen during the last king's reign by a monster and lost into some kind of abyss. "So all we have to do is find the idol!" Dash exclaimed, flying into the air and smirking. "Yeah well, you guys can do that on your own," Gilda huffed, starting to walk away. "Where are you going?" Dash asked pouting. "I'm going to see if my bakery cart is still here," Gilda said, not looking back. "With my luck, someone stole it." "Oooh! If it's baking count me in!" Pinkie shouted, bouncing after Gilda. "Okay Dash, guess that just leaves you and m-" Jason started before he vanished in a green flash. Dash just sighed, shaking her head. "Looks like I'm on my own!" she said before zipping off toward the abyss. The device went off in a flash, dropping Jason on the floor. "Seriously?" he asked, getting to his feet. He brushed himself off, looking around. "Okay, who summoned me and why? I'm kinda busy at the moment for Yggdrasil’s sake!" The red-haired woman just stared at him, assuming he was human for a few seconds before grinning, showing off her teeth. "Summoned? Is that what I did when I pressed the button on that thing?" she asked, pulling off her coat and draping it over Fluttershy so she wouldn't freak out when she woke up. Gilda just sat there staring at the two before she sighed. "I'm going to go to my room, and try and forget this ever happened," she said simply and left. The woman rolled her eyes, seeing as she would probably get lost; it was bigger on the inside, magic was the best. "Yes, summoned," Jason said, turning to glare at her. "Now please, tell me why the hell am I here? I'm, you know, rather freaking busy." He ran a hand through his hair, sighing loudly. "I'm Jason, and you are?" he asked, looking into the woman’s eyes. "I'm Grell, and I was just wondering what the button did; not like I knew it was going to open a portal to who-knows-where!" she exclaimed. She adjusted her glasses and stared into the air for a moment. She then quickly pulled her glasses off and let them hang on their chain, seeming to calm down a bit. "Grell! Why was Gilda stuck in your spider's room in her web?!..." the Undertaker yelled, trailing off as she realised someone else was there. "Who the hell is that? I thought we agreed no more-" Grell cut off her rant. "We did, I pressed the button on that cylinder thing and then he appeared; said I summoned him. No idea how I did though." She turned to Jason. "Jason, this is the Undertaker, Undertaker this is Jason." "Okay, I'm not liking the tension in the room," Jason said, eyeing the Undertaker warily. "Should I be worried for my safety?" he asked, reaching into his pocket and narrowing his eyes slightly. Undertaker gave a cackle. Grell groaned. "Not this again," she muttered. "Perhaps, perhaps not," Undertaker said with a giggle, pulling her scythe from midair. She spun it around her fingers, smirking the whole while. "Knock it off," Grell said, trying to grab her scythe without losing a finger. "Nope!" she replied with another insane giggle and spun around like she was dancing. The red-haired woman epicly facepalmed, it was normally her doing the crazy stuff. Jason just groaned, running a hand down his face. "I always get the crazy people, don't I?" he muttered, watching the Undertaker spin around like an idiot. "Whatcha mean?" Grell asked, ignoring Undertaker's attempts to annoy her further. "Just tell me what you need, please?" Jason asked, groaning and running a hand through his hair. “What I need? I don’t need anything really. And you sound pretty annoyed, so what’s your problem?” she replied. "I was in the middle of something important thank you very much," he said, crossing his arms, his eyes glowing a bit. “Can I ask what?” she asked, now wondering what exactly was so important. "I am helping my friends restore Griffonstone thank you very much." “Griffonstone? Isn’t that the place where... stuff, happened? Nah screw me, I’ve got no idea where that is. Care to explain further, Mister Portal Hopping Man?” "It's the griffon kingdom that became a hellhole after they lost some kind of idol," Jason explained. “Huh, I’ve heard of the griffon kingdom. Never been there, I was planning to though; I wonder what the cinematic records of griffons look like,” she mused. “I’ve also never heard of you, have you been in Griffonstone for the last thousand years? I’m assuming you’re immortal to some degree, seeing as the only ‘humans’ here are Undertaker and I, and now you are added to that list.” Jason just started to laugh, finding that rather humorous. “What’s so funny?” Grell asked, cocking her head. "I'm not exactly human, never have been," he said with a smirk. “Then what are you?” she asked, slightly confused, with a frown starting to appear, Undertaker had vanished to who-knows-where. "I am a jotun, and I'm not from this universe in the first place." “Isn’t that what Loki is?... You’re not from this universe? Well that makes a lot of sense, well; Undertaker owes me a look at her eyes. I knew the multiverse theory was true!” Grell said with glee. “What universe do you come from, if not from this one?” she asked, now extremely curious. "A universe based on post-Ragnarok Yggdrasil, where Asgard has become Equestria," he explained, leaning on the wall. “Uh huh... How did you get here then? Can you dimension jump like we can, but only to the Reaper Office? (Which totally shouldn’t exist.)” "Again, you summoned me," he restated simply. “Which means?...” "Which means YOU summoned me," he said again, sounding annoyed. “I still have no idea who I did that, I pressed the button on the cylinder thing and you appeared... Is that how you summon people? With cylinders and button pressing?” "That was my token, most Displaced have them, as should you." “What’s a Displaced?” she asked, sort of more confused than when the conversation started. "Displaced are people that bought something from a weird guy, usually at a con, and got sent to a version of Equestria," he explained, fiddling with the Omnitrix. “Bought something from a weird guy? Yeah, I was missing my chainsaw; I went with the scissors, but then I spotted the perfect replica... Hang on, you mean there’s more people in different multiverses just like us?” "We're all stuck in the Equestrian multiverse, though Yggdrasil is technically it's own multiverse." “It is? And how many is 'we'?” "How the hell should I know?" Jason asked, raising his eyebrow. “Okay, from that reaction, there’s a ton, and you were talking about these tokens earlier; could you explain in more detail?” Grell asked. "Tokens are your calling card." “How does that work?” "You take something that represents you, put a phrase in it and toss it out into the void." “That easy?” She grinned. “Wait here, I have an idea.” Grell left the room fairly quickly and headed to her workstation. She threw open the door and stared at the mess, but ignored it all and went searching for- “Aha! There you are,” she said, brandishing her scissors. She ran back to Jason and waved the scissors. “Got my token, I knew keeping these were a good idea!” "Those are scissors... someone already has scissors," Jason said, giving an unimpressed look. “Aw, but these are different! They’re safety scissors! Plus they can cut cinematic records! What if I... Nah, changing their colour is not a good idea. What if they’re yellow and expect my outfit to be yellow!” She gasped dramatically. “You sure these aren’t okay? They’re my little red death scythe safety scissors.” "The fuck is a cinematic record?" Jason asked, looking rather confused. "That some kind of weird ass anime thing?" She pouted. “It’s from Kuroshitsuji, a.k.a. Black Butler. It’s basically your life story in a movie. Reapers like me kill people on the To Die list, and watch their cinematic record and decide whether they live or die. Unless you’re me, who didn’t follow the rules; until I got demoted and had to use safety scissors. That wasn’t really me, per se. More Grell in the anime. And what the hell is wrong with anime?!” "And what does mine say?" he asked, raising his eyebrow, ignoring the question about anime. “Oh it’s amazing, I saw it when you appeared. You’ve led such an interesting life in Equestria, I can’t see what exactly happened unless I kill you; my glasses help with that. People with amazing lives are very hard for Reapers to avoid. Such as Sebas-chan, and you for example.” She took a breath. “There is a reason I go on a little murder spree now and then; the longer-lived the person, the stronger the temptation to kill them becomes. It’s easy to hold down the temptation, just take the glasses off.” She shrugged, unconcerned. "I highly doubt you want to," Jason said, laughing. "Unless you want to piss Hel off. That and I'd set the Omnitrix to self-destruct." “It’s pretty hard to kill a Reaper,” she said with a grin. “So, can I use the scissors or not? I’m not sure what else I could use if I can’t.” "If that's what you want." Jason said, shrugging. "I'm not one to judge. Just don't make your message something stupid like Wade did." “Hmm.” She thought for a second and held them up. “Hi! My name’s Grell Sutcliff, call me if you need help or just wanna blow stuff up,” she said, then turned to Jason. “What now? I know it’s supposed to go to the void, but how do I do that?” "Omnitrix, Hodgepodge," he said, vanishing in a burst of light, being replaced by an entirely different being with a different cinematic record. “Th- that’s amazing! How the hell did you change your cinematic record?!” Grell asked, staring at him... who now looked a bit like Discord. "Hi!" He clapped, smiling. "I'm Hodgepodge! It's nice to meet you!" He grabbed her hand, shaking it vigorously, grinning all the while. “Uh, hi?” she replied, kinda confused. "What?" he asked, tilting his head innocently. “I’m just kinda confused, why are you introducing yourself to me again? And you still haven’t answered my previous question.” "Well that's because you asked Jason. I'm Hodgepodge," he reiterated, pointing to himself. “So, multiple personalities? And that’s why your record changed, it didn’t change; just switched. Cool,” she said with a grin. "I am no mere personality!" he pouted, crossing his arms. “Okay then. Back on topic, Why did Jason choose you?” "'Cause I can do this," he said, pinching the air, which broke and shattered, revealing a black hole in reality. "Tada! A hole to the void!" “Wow, that’s awesome!” she exclaimed, watching the tear. “Is it a good idea to keep it open long? I’ve seen several movies in which a tear in reality destroys the world.” "Don't question me!" he scolded. "Now toss it in the hole!" “Okay,” she said, tossing the scissors into the rip, watching them multiply and fly off in a million directions. “Well, that was interesting.” "Yup," he said, repairing the hole with some concrete. "Well, I think it's time we got back. We have things to do and people to murder at some point in time, maybe. I think." “Okay, see ya then,” she said with a grin. "Just say, 'Jason, our contract is complete." She nodded. “Jason, our contract is complete. Seeya Jason, Hodgepodge!” "Bye!" he said with a wave, vanishing in a flash of light, followed by his token falling to the ground. “Well, that was fun,” she said with a grin. Jason blinked as he came back to the world, finding himself at the edge of Griffonstone. "Wonder how long I was gone..." he mumbled to himself. He turned his head, spotting Gilda at the edge of a cliff, pulling Dash and Pinkie up from over the edge. "Girls!" he called, rushing over to them. "We almost had it Jay!" Dash lamented, hanging her head, "We almost had that damn idol!" Gilda screeched, socking Dash in the eye. "What the hell G!?" she hissed, placing a talon over her eye. "Don't you understand!? You're more important than some stupid idol!" She quickly pulled Dash into a hug. "You and our chick are the most important things in the world." Pinkie gasped. "Dashie you're..." Dash nodded. "I wanted to keep it a surprise..." "Allow me to get you an early baby shower present." Jason cracked his neck. "Omnitrix, NRG," he commanded. Immediately after transforming, he ran off the cliff, falling like a brick. He smashed through several outcroppings before hitting the ground hard enough to create a small crater. "Now, where is that idol?" He spent the next few moments scouring the ground before coming across the idol, half buried under some rocks, and a strange one eyed, horned skull. "Let's try this out..." he said, tapping the Omnitrix and returning to normal. He grunted as the wind pushed him back but he held his ground. He focused his powers and willed the wind to calm. It responded in kind, reducing its speed. Jason snagged the idol, kneeling in front of the skull. "This is what you get, asshole." He held out his arm out and the Omnitrix let out a chirp, taking a sample from the skull. He got got to his feet, looking at the idol, it belonged to the griffons... and he knew just the one to give it to.