The light from the change of scenery slowly faded and I found myself back in Equestria in front of several ponies. They were all looking at me; waiting for me to say something. Something indeed needed to be said if nothing else but to stop the intense staring.
"Well, that went alright," I said trying to get the slightly uncomfortable stares to relent.
"Nice going you two," Twilight responded. "The rift disappeared and it looks like you're not hurt at all."
"Yep! I didn't even get into a fight," I said proudly.
"Yeah, but ya did get tossed in tah jail, got the people that helped us a might riled up, and got sidetracked by playing a song fer ah ghost lady," Applejack added. "I ain't too sure that's a whole lot better."
"Oh come on Applejack. A lot of that was them being intentionally antagonistic."
"You coulda been more reasonable and talked things out."
"When? Half the time I was there they thought I was a ghost possessing a human. We got off to a bad start, they kept being ornery after things were explained which led to them tossing me into jail, and from there we were not on very friendly terms to the point where my normal personality just started to get on there nerves. Could I have been more cordial? Maybe, but by then it would've been like talking to a brick wall."
"If ya'd been a bit more serious they sure as shootin' wouldn't ah had so much of a problem with how you were actin'! Ya never seem tah take things seriously!"
"Neither does Pinkie Pie and you don't seem to mind that one bit."
"This ain't about Pinkie Pie. This is about how ya don't seem tah care about anything that ya ain't interested in. It makes ya seem downright selfish."
"Look Applejack, I am not Mister Personality. I can be selfish, lethargic, disagreeable, and a great many more characteristics that you wouldn't like to see in a person, or pony or any other critter you might come across. Everyone had traits that they don't like, but you have to look past that. If I didn't care about what's happening here, and I mean genuinely care, I'd be sitting back in that cabin playing some game while waiting for Discord to send me home. For all my faults, I still try to do the right thing according to my own moral code. Those people in Section Nine didn't like my attitude or my methods and were yelling at me about it by the time we left. I admired those people and they can't stand me at all. I have to live with that. It's still not going to change who I am."
"We ain't askin' ya tah change. We're askin' ya tah try and hold back a touch."
I smirked as I involuntarily spoke a saying.
"So you're asking me to reign it in?"
I heard some groans and a chuckle or two.
"You say that and it feels like ah'm back tah square one," Applejack stated flatly.
"Sorry, but that's just who I am. it's just Seth being Seth I suppose."
She opened her mouth to say more but then shut it with a smirk.
"I ain't sure it's the same thing, but I guess I see what yer tryin' tah say."
"And I understand what you're talking about as well. I'll... try to dial it back some."
"Well, now that that's over can we please hurry up and get this going?" Rainbow Dash asked impatiently.
That put a bit of a smile on my face.
"Yeah, but I believe it's Fluttershy's turn next."
"What? Why?"
"Because there's chaos in order," I said being deliberately full of it.
"What kind of reason is that?" she asked with her agitation clearly growing.
"Look, I'm going to do this in the same order as last time. That means it's Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, then you followed by Twilight in that order," I explained pointing to each of them in turn. "It's something I decided on to avoid some issues."
"What kinds of issues?" Twilight asked.
"Fluttershy holding off going for one just in case. Another being that if these are ticking time bombs then going in order would theoretically give us the most time."
"That would make sense," she said more to herself than any of us. She then looked back to me. "Not by a whole lot though. We all were sent away at the same time."
"But I sealed up the rifts in a designated order."
"And if that stabilized things then the one's you sealed up later did more damage since they were open for longer."
"That's... actually a pretty good argument. Perhaps we ought to ask the Doctor about it? He's got to be more knowledgeable on the subject."
This was when I noticed something I feel that any person with functioning eyes should have noticed much sooner. It was night in the middle of the plains. How the hell was I able to see anything? I mean, yeah, Twilight and Rarity had their horns lit up so I could see a bit, but it was almost like, for lack of a better phrase, the twilight hours of the day. While it wasn't bright you still could see things well enough. The issue was that it was only for a good sized distance away from us; maybe a quarter mile or so. Beyond that, everything was almost pitch black with only the moon illuminating the landscape.
"I don't see the Doctor anywhere," Rarity stated.
Indeed, a quick look around came up unexpectedly short one caramel colored stallion.
"What the hell? The Doctor doesn't just run off."
...Okay, he does just run off, but usually for a good reason.
"It doesn't matter," Twilight responded. "We don't really need him to close the rifts anyway."
"True, but... Well, I feel a little questionable about his presence or lack thereof. I guess we'll continue on. Let's get going Fluttershy."
"Nice try," Twilight cut in, "but we still haven't discussed the order yet."
"It's called 'going with your gut' Twilight. I'm doing it because I feel like that's the right way to do it. Okay?"
"It's not okay Seth. We need to think about this rationally and come up with a plan."
"The plan is called go big or go home," I said as I picked up Fluttershy off the ground. "Planning out how we're going to do things is going to take time as well and since I've already come up with an order I say we keep it going and get this done sooner rather than later."
Twilight looked like she was about to argue with my decision, but was stopped when Rainbow Dash flew in front of her.
"Just let him do it. It's taking forever for this and I want to get to my turn already."
"Ugh! You are all driving me crazy!"
"Then let's leave so I can stop that from happening," I stated quickly and spun to touch the rift.
"That's not what-"
I didn't hear anymore of what she said as the bright light that came from touching the rift also indicated that Fluttershy and I had been sent to our next destination. The sight I was greeted to when I regained that sense was something I should have expected after the last jump with Applejack. I was in front of the capitol building that the Mayor used. That one would be the building in Townsville where the Mayor could call the Powerpuff Girls from. I was holding up Fluttershy on the front steps of the building taking in the surroundings carefully. Other than the front doors being blown off the hinges there wasn't anything that seemed off about the building itself, though I did note the lack of pedestrians around.
I set Fluttershy down and looked down at the adorable mare's eyes.
"I've got a bad feeling about this. Hold on to Eris until I get back."
I handed Eris over to Fluttershy and teleported up to the door. I had barely looked through the entryway when there sounded a crash not too far away. I had my suspicions about what was happening and, remembering that the last time I was here that there was supposed to be something special just for me waiting around, I teleported from spot to spot and looked into different rooms to check them out. Eventually, I made it to the Mayor's office and found that my suspicions were well founded.
The office had gone through some major renovations in the form of holes, fires, and craters. It was a good thing that the room itself was unnaturally large. I'm talking about three hundred feet by two hundred feet with a fifteen foot high ceiling. It was especially large considering the contrasting size of the Mayor himself who was about three feet tall. Still, all of that space made it easier to appreciate the foes that the Powerpuff Girls were fighting.
Him had transformed into a hulking red figure with over-sized muscles. He still had on that feathered boa he always wore as well as the high-heeled boots. In fact, other than the fact that he had the almost ridiculous looking muscles and had grown to an impressive eight feet tall he didn't really look any different.
Mojo was riding inside of some kind of simian robot version that looked a lot like himself. It didn't have the cape, but all the little touches were there. It had his belt, the shoulders looked armored like his were padded. It also had his color scheme. He even rode and operated it in the head where the cockpit looked like the helmet he wore. It was pretty impressive to someone who hadn't seen a functioning large robot before and no, I hadn't seen a working knightmare frame while I was there.
After bailing out on them before I was not going to just stand there and do nothing. The first thing I did was play a song spell, as I had dubbed it right then, and focused the origin on the ceiling. When the fighting stopped from the confusion I promptly reached into the ground and pulled out Jack's Sword. I felt it was most appropriate considering where I was. I gripped the handle tightly and teleported behind Mojo's robot. From there, I swung the blade with as much force as I could muster.
It didn't sever the leg as I had hoped. It did make it about three quarters of the way through which was enough for me to consider it a success. Of course metal ripping through metal isn't exactly silent. The group of heroines and Him all turned to see the source of the second noise and saw me there right before I wrenched the sword free with a bit of difficulty.
"Guess who's back?"
"What are you doing?" Blossom asked. "We said that we had it under control!"
"Look, it may have been ten minutes for you but I've been gone for about a year. Stewing on how I left you there put a bad taste in my mouth so I'm helping you out now!"
And help I did. With an upwards swing I left another gash in the robot. From the angle, though, it kind of looked like I had given it an ass crack. That set off a strange sequence where somehow the robot knew about it and for some reason it reached around with both hands and covered it's ass.
That kind of threw me off. Conversely, everyone else sprang into action as though they were expecting it to happen. The girls immediately ganged up on the robot. Bubbles finished tearing off the leg I sliced into. Buttercup smashed an uppercut into the torso to put it off balance. I came to my senses in time to teleport out of the way as Blossom unloaded a haymaker from above that slammed the robot into the ground back first. The glass dome cracked in places and sparks went flying in various places.
Mojo looked livid as he tried to get his robot up again. It was to no avail as Buttercup smashed through the cracked dome and lifted Mojo out by his collar. Seeing Buttercup in his face, he gave off a sneer.
"Curse you Powerpuoof!"
His rant was cut off as Buttercup unloaded a punch into his face that launched him into the wall. He soon fell out of the Mojo-shaped hole in the wall onto the floor and it looked like he was done for the fight.
"Well then," I heard Him say, "with the monkey down for the count I don't see any reason to stick around. See you around Powerpuff Girls!"
Final line given, Him disappeared in a plume of black smoke. With Him gone I let out a sigh of relief and let the sword disappear. I looked over to where Mojo landed and saw Buttercup pick him up by his collar again. She didn't hit him this time, though. I then looked up to see Blossom and Bubbles staring back at me with two different expressions. Bubbles' was one of confusion, while Blossom was more like she was sizing me up. I started scratching the back of my neck due to the awkwardness I was feeling.
"So..." I started, but was cut of by a voice coming from nowhere.
So once again the day is saved thanks to
The Powerpuff Girls!
"So that's normal then?"
"The singing was new," Bubbles added cheerfully.
"And some random schmuck," the voice added dully.
"Hey! I am a chaos mage!"
"Yeah, good for you buddy," it said dismissively.
