//------------------------------// // It's Hero Time! // Story: The Equestrian Edda // by Grey Ghost //------------------------------// As Jason entered another universe, the Omnitrix activated, shifting him into Ormagoden. The reptile let out a roar, slamming into something on the way down. He hit the ground hard, a small crater forming under him. He rolled onto his back, grabbing the scythe and with a roar of agony, ripped it out, tossing it away. Jason took a few shaky breaths as his wounds healed, not even leaving a scar. Sniffing the air, he turned around, seeing what looked like a young human lying on the ground nearby. He soon got up, back turned towards Jason as he looked around. “L-lumen… Are you there? Damn it. Not again-.” The human stopped talking as he turned around, making eye contact with Jason. He seemed tense, as shown by reaching for the pistol that he had in his holster on his hip. Jason kept his eyes on him, taking a step forward. “Move,” he commanded, looking into the boy's eyes. “I’m busy.” “You can talk?!” He said, not budging an inch with a bit of lightning surging from his fingertips. “What are you anyways? A Displaced?” “I said move,” Jason snarled, leaping over the boy and bounding off, sniffing at the air, trying to find Eclipse’s scent. However, he was caught off guard when the boy reappeared in front of him once again. “I’m the one asking the question here, sir. After all, you did crash land here and destroyed my ride back to Maretropolis.” Jason ignored him, still sniffling the air. “Where are you!?” he roared, acid dripping from his muzzle. He snarled, his tail gouging a large portion of the ground, giving the world a good indication of his anger. “Okay, what the hell is your problem?” He heard the boy speak again. “I’m trying to help you out and you're going all Gojira on me. Can you just calm down for god’s sake!?!” “You think this is angry!?” he snarled, whipping around at the boy and narrowing his eyes. “You don’t want to see angry.” “Trust me… I’ve seen anger. And you’re not in the best position to be giving orders. Especially with my Breezie partner gone missing after you crashed into us.” “You haven’t seen anger until it tears your world apart in a rage of blood,” Jason snorted, turning away and trudging down the street. “Now leave me be!” What the reptilian did not expect though was to be held down by a series of Voltic Chains that sprang from all around him. The surge of electricity held him down to the ground, looking back at the young boy. “I didn’t want to do that, but you forced my hand,” he said as he walked closer. He pressed a finger on Jason’s forehead for a minute, then stepped back. “Jason Hughes? Am I right?” “No,” he snarled at the boy, his eyes darkening. “I’m Ormagoden,” he roared, knocking the boy out of the way, bounding off, his claws cutting into the ground. “Well, crap,” he cursed, holding his ground as he added more volts into his chains. That’s when he noticed a circular symbol on the beast’s chest. ‘Huh? Is that… an Omnitrix?’ The boy didn’t know much about the series in which the object originated from, but the one thing he did know was that he couldn’t stay transformed forever. It times out after an extended period of time. All he had to do was wait it out and make sure this Ormagoden didn’t cause any casualties. Ormagoden snarled, his body shifting, his hide thickening, no longer seeming to be affected by the electricity. The boy in front of him was caught off guard by this, backing up to keep his distance between himself and the beast. “You are testing my patience!” the beast snarled, giving the boy a death glare. “Remove yourself from my way before I tear you apart!” “Well geez… And I thought Ansem was the most crazy thing I had to deal with besides Freddy,” the blue cloaked teen told himself, thinking that the beast could not hear him. He drew out his weapon, switching clips on the fly to his Vasuki clip. Despite it not being as advanced as some of the other tools in his arsenal, the bolts in this clip could ricochet and tag multiple targets at once. But he was only going to attack if Ormagoden made the first move. Soon though, someone else arrived. “There you are Lance– HOLY CRABAPPLES!!! What is THAT!?!” It was Lumen. Always the one late to the party. Ormagoden glanced at Lumen, glaring, “I will end you, you annoying pest!” he roared, lunging at Lance, his claws out, muzzle dripping acid. Lance ducked his head, putting his hands in front of his face to try something to not stop the beast, but stall him. “Kame… hame… HA!!” The short, but powerful blast struck Ormagoden in the chest, pushing it backwards a few inches. Ormagoden shrieked in pain, the blast going through him, vaporizing at least half of his chest, including his head. “Uh… Lance? That was kind of overkill-.” “Wait for it…… Something tells me he’s not dead.” “How can you tell-? “One word… Cell.” The Breezie was confused for a moment, but soon began to see what the Adept meant. The body thrashed around, its missing body parts instantly regenerating. He let out a blood curdling roar of pure rage, thick armor growing all over his body. “I WILL END YOU!” he shrieked, looking like something straight out of a nightmare. “Well, I guess that can be considered as a warm up,” Lance said as he prepared himself. “You can’t be serious…” Lumen said. “You’re going to fight him!?” “Not fight… stall… See that circle on his chest? That thing is on a timer… So the longer we delay him, the sooner he’ll come back to normal,” the Adept told his partner. “There’s no civilians here, right?” “None at all.” “Well, try to contact Mane Hero 6 and don’t have them come here. I’m handling this.” Now Lance pulled out his second weapon. His energy blade. “Lumen, go!” The breezie nodded as the Adept charged, using the nearby wall to get over the beast and tag it using his gun and following up with his Flashfied, electrocuting it. However, he didn’t realize that Ormagoden was able to adapt to his lightning because of his Voltaic Chains from earlier. Ormagoden just laughed, stepping toward him, his gaze dripping with malevolence. He moved to leap at Lance when the Omnitrix flashed red, emitting a beeping noise. The Adept took the chance to put his blade away and step back as a flash from the device soon blinded his vision. Almost like a solar flare… Dang it, he really needed to test that ability and see if he could pull it off. “Fuck, that hurt,” Jason groaned, rubbing his head, which throbbed as Ormagoden screamed in his mind, demanding to be let out again so he could murder Lance. “You okay there? Sure you don’t want to try and kill me?” he asked, cautious. “You pissed off the one creature that could and would murder every living thing on this planet, and I don’t mean me,” Jason said, giving his head a shake, blocking out Ormagoden’s screams, at least for the moment.. “Well, I did have the stones to go up against a Displaced Spirit of Madness and blast someone acting as The Holy Grail so yeah, comes with the job description,” Lance replied, helping Jason up to his feet. “You must be Jason then, right?” “Yeah, that's me,” Jason said, groaning a little, “And no kid, Ormagoden is worse than any of those things.” “Including a Heartless mastermind?” Lance asked, referring to his encounter with Ansem. “That’s a stretch. Oh, name's Lance by the way. Lance Walker… but my comrades call me Gunvolt when I’m in the field.” “Ansem was here?” Jason asked with a sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “I was really, really, really hoping that guy was dead.” “Yeah, but with Xemnas and Alex, we were able to teach him not to mess with us.” “But yeah kid, Ormagoden is worse than Ansem. Seriously, pray he never gets out of this watch,” Jason said with a shudder. “Right… He looked like he was searching for someone earlier. Thrashing out a bit and saying ‘Where are you!?’ and that kind of monologuing if you know what I mean.” “Eclipse,” Jason said, narrowing his eyes, “That bitch needs to die.” “Let me guess… psychopath?” “She just committed genocide on the Breezies, what do you think?” Jason asked, crossing his arms. All that did though was make Lance worried. Scratch that… REALLY worried. “Oh crap… Lumen!! Damn it, I shouldn’t have let her go on her own!” the Adept cursed. His Breezie partner probably did not get far, so he needed to hurry and find her before Eclipse did. “We have to find Eclipse,” Jason said, already starting to move, “And while we’re looking, you should know, she has an Omnitrix too-.” “That’s not my major concern. My partner is a Breezie and if you just said that Eclipse tried to commit genocide on them, then that means she’s now a target,” Lance informed Jason. “I can feel Lumen’s presence though and it seems like she’s in Downtown Sun Fransokyo. We’ll need to move now if we are to catch up with her in time.” “I don’t think Eclipse cares about Breezies like that,” Jason said, shaking his head, “She only attacked them because they were an obstacle in her conquest of Vanaheim.” “Vanaheim? The hell is that suppose to be? A city?” “Vanaheim is a realm,” Jason said, turning to him. “What do you know Norse mythology?” “I thought it was a pun based on the city of Anaheim.” “Really?” Jason asked, giving him a flat look. “Coming from the fact that I was in a city called Maretropolis and that there’s a city to the north named Mareling City, someone else might think differently. Oh and word of warning, a lot of ponies I know here are heroes.” “Ok, let's keep the mythology lesson short. Norse mythology is based around the world tree Yggdrasil-.” “I didn’t say that I didn’t know it. I just said that I didn’t know Vanaheim.” Lance sighed. “Anyways, continue.” “There are nine realms: Asgard, which is now home to Equestria, Midgard, which is modern Earth, Vanaheim, home of the Breezies, Alfheim, home of the light elves, Jotunheim, where my people are from, Muspelheim, home of the fire jotun, Niflheim, home of the dead where my grandmother rules-.” “Wait, so your grandmother is like the reaper?” Lance said as the two of them began walking. “No, she’s Hel, goddess of death,” Jason explained, looking at him, “She’s uh... eccentric as hell.” “And isn’t Hel Loki’s daughter?” Lance asked, remembering what little he could remember of Hel from her Biography on SMITE. “Yup, and I have a giant snake, a giant wolf and an eight legged horse as my uncles,” Jason said with a laugh. “Let me guess, the Wolf is named Fenrir?” “Yeah,” Jason said, rubbing the back of his head. “Some Displaced jackass and Animo resurrected his corpse, destroyed half of Canterlot mountain.” “Well… this just makes me want to see what your life is like when you have a family reunion,” the Adept said as they crossed a street. The two of them were getting closer to downtown now, they could tell that from the steady flow of civilians moving in and out of the walkways, bridges and carriages that scattered the city. “We don’t meet up all that often, seeing as how they're all dead and all,” Jason shrugged, “They did show up for the wedding though.” “Wedding… Wait, you’re married? To whom?” he asked, turning another street corner. “Rarity and Chrysalis,” Jason said, looking around, “Heh, Chrissy and I just had our first brood, changeling larva are adorable.” “O...kay, finding out you're married to Radiance is one thing, but I never heard of Chrysalis and Changelings before… I’ll just go along with it…” the Adept said. “We should be getting close. I feel Lumen is only a few feet away.” “Let's just find her, Eclipse is the bigger worry here.” Lance nodded in response as the two of them turned another street corner. Oddly enough, they came across what appeared to be a college campus and soon enough, Lumen found the two of them a lot quicker than expected. “Hey Lance. Glad you’re back in-. Wait… Who’s this guy?” “Oh yeah… Lumen, this is Jason. Jason, this is my partner Lumen,” the Azure Striker told him as he looked around. “Say, where the heck are we?” “This is where Mane Hero 6 is located. They’re students by day, heroes by night. Oh and they have a huggable robot too.” “Wait what-?” Before Lance could even respond, he turned around to see the “Huggable Robot” that Lumen was referring to. It was just as tall as they were, but also resembled a white balloon like pony. “Hello, I am BAYMAX. Your personal healthcare companion…” Lumen flew besides Lance as she began to speak. “BAYMAX, this is my partner Lance and his friend, Jason-.” “Hey Lumen, can we talk to you for a moment… in private?” Lance then asked, backing up a bit from BAYMAX. During this moment, Jason and Lance took the time to explain to Lumen about what was going on and also the problem with Eclipse. In addition, it was suggested that Lumen can go back with BAYMAX and Lance can return once he and Jason dealt with Eclipse. The breezie was skeptical at first, but she soon saw the point in his reasoning once something dark and sinister crash landed nearby. Before getting the chance to find her, Eclipse found them first. “Okay… next time, I’m vacationing in Germaney!! Nothing bad ever happens there!!” “Lumen, not now…” Eclipse rose out of the small crater her impact made, cracking her neck. “I see you still live, Jason,” she commented, holding her hand out, conjuring her scythe up from shadows. “I’ll have to fix that, now won't I?” “Not on my watch,” Lance cut in, arming himself with his gun and blade at the ready. Lumen and BAYMAX had already left the area, leaving him and Jason to fight this monstrosity. “You think you can harm me, whelp?” she asked with a laugh, seeming amused by Lance’s statement. “You have no idea who I am.” “No idea? Lady, I don’t care who or what the hell you are. All I know is that you have tried to hurt others and I’m not allowing that to happen while you are in my world.” The Adept was now channeling Lightning around his hands as he stood alongside Jason, waiting for Eclipse to make the first move. Eclipse vanished in a haze of darkness before reappearing behind Lance, her scythe high in the air. Jason pushed him out of the way, quickly knocking her back with a blast of Flare. “Pay attention!” Jason hissed, drawing his sword. Eclipse got to her feet, rather unfazed, shifting into Four Arms. ‘Seriously? And just when I thought that I didn’t want to deal with a Shokan,’ Lance thought to himself. He kept the Vasuki clip on for his weapon since the bolts could bounce off of hard surfaces and tag his opponents multiple times. Thinking that Jason himself was going to shift, the Azure striker kept his distance and opened fire. Eclipse ripped a large chunk of the ground out and hurled it at them, her armor deflecting most of the shots. Jason shifted into Chromastone, destroying the chunk with a blast of energy. Eclipse charged out of the dust cloud, slamming her fists into Jason, sending him flying several yards back. Lance’s shots were not to actually inflict damage to her. Instead, they were to “tag” her, and electrocute her as the Adept executed his Flashfield, an electrical barrier that triggered off bolts of lightning. “You are a pest,” Eclipse growled, shifting again, this time into Diamondhead. She held her arms out, firing off a barrage of diamonds. “Whoa, wait a second!? Jason, aren’t you suppose to wait for a little bit before shifting again?” Lance hollered, dodging the diamonds using his enhanced speed and sending some back by using his Ki to repulse the crystalline shards back. “Not these Omnitricies.” Jason got to his feet, giving his head a shake. He tapped the Omnitrix, shifting into Upchuck. He grabbed a bench up his tongues, swallowing it before hurling it back up as a green energy blast, knocking Eclipse off her feet. “There’s too many things I still need to learn about the Displaced,” Lance said to himself, using his Ki with his energy blade to fire a series of Slices at Eclipse while she was down. “Begone!” she sneered, stabbing her arms into the ground, causing a massive wave of diamond to surge out of the ground and toward Lance. The Adept used his energy blade to cut through the diamonds, but missed one as it clipped him underneath his right eye along the cheek. “Ngh… You just got lucky,” he retorted. “I’m not letting that happen again.” “You're out of your league,” she retorted, shifting into Gravattack and starting to increase gravity around him by several Gs. Despite this though, Lance still held his ground and was able to focus his strength to use Instant Transmission to where he was right in front of her. Next though, lightning from all around him surged forth in a forward stab as he used two of his Skill points that related to his Septima. The attack formed a massive two handed blade that struck Eclipse. However, there was something that he didn’t expect that his partner was about to tell him about. “You idiot!” Jason snorted, kicking Eclipse away, having shifted into Crashhopper, “You damage her core in that form and she goes Supernova!” “I didn’t hit the core. Just her face. That way, she could shut herself up for once.” Of course, that was the intention. But the actual result came out a bit differently. Her core did take a small bit of damage despite most of the attack striking her face and upper chest. “You’ll suffer for that,” Eclipse said, sneering as her Omnitrix timed out. She cast Quake, the entire area shaking, with large sections of it collapsing and others rising up. “Hang on,” Lance told Jason, who was still in his Crashhopper form as he jumped upward, using his flashfield to float in the air and avoid the Quake. “Okay, got any plans for having her tire out? ‘Cause something tells me you don’t want to kill her here despite what Ormagoden was saying earlier.” “No,” Jason said with a snort, his eyes narrowing, “She dies.” He shifted back to normal, slamming down toward the ground. He fired off another Flare, which Eclipse countered with one of her own, the two engaging in CQC. Lance though, felt like he should help. He didn’t want the thought of killing somepony to be on his conscience. So he thought of another plan. Snipe her from afar with Mizuchi to knock her out so Jason could do the deed himself when he’s back in his own world. Eclipse wasn’t even paying attention to him and he was on top of a rooftop, the perfect place for cover. Switching clips, he used his vision to zoom in on the two of them engaging each other in combat. Now… there had to be a way to talk to Jason so Eclipse couldn’t hear him. The two jotun didn’t really pay much attention to him, their blades clashing in a brilliant display of swordsmanship. Eclipse hissed as Jason caught an open spot in her armor, stabbing into her flesh. He smirked, kicking her away, seeming to take pleasure from the fight. Lance saw this as his chance, shooting the blade and letting the electric shock kick in, causing her to drop to the ground. Jason moved over her prone body, angling his sword downwards, placing his boot on her back to keep her down. He raised his arms up, ready to plunge the blade into her heart. “Jason, stop!” Lance hollered. “If you’re going to do the deed, do it back in your world and not here. Please…” Lance motioned his head in the direction of a few of the citizens that were watching him right now. “If you do that here, they will see you as a killer. A murderer. I don’t want that for a friend I just met.” “That is the price of battle,” Jason said, gazing down at Eclipse, “You walk onto the battlefield and you must be prepared to do what you have to, even if it means taking a life.” Lance now sighed, doing something drastic. Pointing his weapon at Jason now. “Jason, you’re acting just like Ormagoden. I know you’re better than that so please, think this through.” “You act as if I’ve never taken a life,” Jason turned to him, “I have and it was before Ormagoden formed in my mind. I am a warrior, I live and die by the blade.” “But this isn’t your world. It’s mine and here, we play by a different set of rules. Kill her if you must. But not here. Here, I’m supposed to be a hero and set an example. How can I do that if I feel like I helped kill somepony?” “Heroes don’t do good things, Lance,” Jason said, looking into his eyes. “They do what must be done, the things others can’t do. That's the sacrifice we all make.” He turned back to Eclipse, only for his eyes to widen as she cast a point blank Ultima. The entire area shook as the blast went off, breaking most of the windows in the city. Several buildings collapsed from the force, with multiple skyscrapers becoming unstable. At the epicenter was crater, taking up most of the campus. “You are an idiot,” Eclipse snorted, her scythe at Lance’s throat. “An idealistic fool who has no understanding of how the world really works.” “No… you are, for thinking I was to be fooled.” Turning around, Eclipse soon realized that the boy in front of her was nothing more than a mere hologram as Lance stabbed Eclipse through the heart from behind. “I played that act for you to think that I could be tricked. That way, when your guard was down, I would strike. Now… You will pay for the people you’ve killed… Jason… Finish it.” “I will not die here...” she coughed, elbowing Lance in the face, pulling herself off his blade. She shifted again, this time into a female version of Discord. “You should pray I never return boy... for if I do, your world will burn.” With that, she tore open a portal, diving through it before they could follow. “When you do come, I’ll be ready.” Lance said as he looked at Jason. “Going for her heart was a mistake… Next time… It’ll be her head.” “There won’t be a next time,” Jason groaned as he got to his feet, looking around at all the destruction, “This is my fault...” He turned to Lance, sighing. “Give me a moment to fix it.” “Sure thing, demigod.” Lance chuckled, patting Jason on the back. “I think I’ve learned a bit from you. Sometimes, there are times where you will have to be brave, but also bold as well. Go to extremes to protect the people.” “Omnitrix, Alien X,” Jason commanded, shifting once more. He stood still for several moments, not making a sound. Lance was going to speak, but he thought not to since the thought that came into his mind was that whatever Jason was doing required a LOT of concentration. After all, he was trying to fix an entire city. “Motion carried!” Jason suddenly exclaimed, thrusting his arms out. The world seemed to ripple and before Lance could even blink, the city was normal again, and everyone had been restored, almost as if the whole thing had never happened. “Holy shit, that was impressive!” The Omnitrix flashed, returning the jotun to normal, “Well, everything’s... mostly back to normal...” “Mostly?” Lance asked, a little afraid to know what he meant. “Well, I had to make a few... concessions to Hodgepodge before he’d agree to fix everything...” “Who’s he?” “It’s not important,” Jason said, shaking his head. “Anyway uh... a good portion of the city’s unicorns are now bicorns and most of the earth ponies are now uh... tatzlponies? Whatever the hell that is...” “Is that what you mean by mostly being back to normal?” Lance asked. “Yup... Hodgepodge only agreed to fix the city if he got to create two new races of ponies.” “So should I expect to see ponies with two horns and serpent ponies?” “Yeah, they’re probably not going to be happy about the sudden race change...” Lance chuckled a little, pulling something out of his back pocket. “Here, I believe you're going back so let me give you my token.” The Adept gave him his Hairpin token, but Jason was personally surprised to see that he handed him three of them. “For you and your two wives. Best of luck to you man with parenthood.” “Never read my mind again,” Jason said with a snort, putting them in his cube. “Anyway, I need to get back, things... Things weren’t going well...” “Okay. I got to get some rest anyways. I’m here on hero business.” Lance smiled. “Oh and do you have a token by any chance?” “Of course I have a token,” Jason said with a roll of his eyes, tossing him a unitrix core. Lance caught it, adding it to the ones that were already in his possession. “Thanks man. I wish you a safe trip home.” Jason nodded, shifting into Hodgepodge. “Oh, hi Lance!” he said with a wave. “Just so you know...” he leaned in close, “You were only supposed to get like two moves from Buu, not his whole move list… miscommunication between authors, I'm afraid.” “Wait, what-?… Are you… Hodgepodge?” the Adept asked. “Yup! Now we must be off!” He drew his arm back and punched reality itself, which shattered like glass. “Cya!” he shouted, diving through the hole, which fixed itself a moment later. “In total, we lost two thousand ponies and nearly three hundred changelings.” Celestia gazed down at the report, letting out a sigh. After Jason and Eclipse’s sudden departure from the battlefield, the dark elves had retreated, closing their rift behind them. Most troubling however, were the scant reports coming in of Twilight’s death. Though her body had not been recovered, at least not yet, she had gone missing. “We got lucky.” Chrysalis sighed, looking over at Seabreeze. The tiny fae had been dead to the world since news of the battle had reached Canterlot. He just stared at the wall, his eyes hollow and lifeless. “How are you holding up?” Celestia asked, casting a concerned look at the Empress, who had come out mostly unscathed. “I’ve... been better...” Chrysalis sighed, looking away from the last remaining breezie. “I just hope Jason gets back soon...” As if to answer her prayers, Jason tumbled out of a portal, holding his head in pain. “Dash! I need Dash now!” “Jason! Are you alright, where's Twi-” Chrysalis started before Jason rushed out of the room. She and Celestia shared a look before getting to their hooves, chasing after him. They arrived on the nearest balcony, just as a rift closed. Dash grumbled to herself, casting a glare over her shoulder. “Rainbow Dash,” Celestia spoke, getting the pegasus’ attention. “Where did Jason go?” “Freaking jerk tossed me over the railing and told me to send him to Jotunheim.” Dash adjusted her wings. “The hell crawled up his ass...” “If only we knew...” The three of them fell into silence, staring off into the night sky. They didn't notice a portal opening behind them, or the familiar alicorn that stepped out.