Chapter Three: Digimon, Digital Displaced
Marx stopped next to his destination.
’Okay this universe definitely has a displaced. Perhaps the displacer can help me.’ Marx flew to the universe and attempted to enter, but was stopped by an unseen force. ’Oh yay. It’s one of those “I don’t know you and none of your displaced are here so I won’t let you in without a fight!” universes. Great, now I have to enter the old fashioned way.’
Bracing himself, Marx piled into the universe with everything he had, fighting the force that tried to keep him out. Eventually, he broke through, but started coming in way too fast.
’*Groan* This is gonna hurt.’
{Leo’s POV}
I was leaving Twilight’s library when I was hit with a strange sense of deja vu before a note appeared in front of me. The note only had three very familiar words on it, ‘HIT THE DECK!’ Suddenly, there was a loud “BOOM!” and the whole town shook. I looked up to the sky to see something very weird. The sky seemed distorted and wavy. Then, the sky itself seem to rip open as something came in at a high speed. It proceeded to crash right into the center of Ponyville, causing something to the equivalent to a small earthquake.
“What the hay was that?!” I turned to see Twilight running out of the library looking towards the huge smoke cloud that had formed right at where the thing from the sky had crashed.
“At best guess I would think it was The Doctor but whatever it was I just saw it rip through the sky, literally!” While Twilight looked at the rip in the sky, I focused on the smoke cloud. A figure started to appear in it. Then, the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen came out of it.
“That went well. Someone remind me never to come in the old fashioned way ever again.” It was a Skeleton, with a black cape and a red gem holding it there. It also had a staff with a mini Tirek skull on top, and a spear tip on the bottom. It looked right at me, then smiled. “Ah, just the displaced I was hoping to see.”
“What the blazes are you, some kind of Skullsatamon ripoff!? Also how do you know about displaced, and why were you looking for me?” I stared at the strange skellington in front of me while sending Twilight the signal to evacuate just in case this ‘thing’ was hostile. After Twilight got my message I took a combat stance and prepared to fight the ‘thing’ if it showed any hostility.
“Oh come now, you think you can fight me? I’d love to see you try.”
“Try this!” I said firing a fireball at him and it exploding on contact. When the dust cleared, he was standing there as if nothing had happened.
“Oh wait that was your attack? I thought that was a build up for something big!”
“Interesting... I don't know how you survived but I don't plan on letting you harm anyone!”
“What? Who said I was harming anyone? My god you’re just like those other Xenophobic Equestrias I’ve seen. ‘If it isn’t a pony, then it must be evil!’”
“Wait what?”
“Have some courtesy to ask why I’m here before you order a town evacuation and start throwing around attacks!”
“Oh… sorry. I just thought you were one of Devimons minions...”
“Water under the bridge.”
“Who are you anyway?”
“My name is Marx, and I am a displacer.” I paused, letting that info bomb sink in.
“A displacer? Then why are you here?”
“Well quite frankly I’m hoping I can find something.” Closing his eyes, Marx seemed to focus before gaining a smile and popping his eyes open. “Found one!”
“Found one what?” With a snap of his fingers, a portal was opened up behind me.
“Rather than tell you, I’ll just show you!” He pushed me in and followed shortly afterwards.
{Marx’s POV}
Well I’m glad that there’s a piece of Lisa’s universe here. Looks like choosing at random may work after all! As we fell through the void, another portal opened up and we fell through. Landing on the ground first, I held out my arms and caught Leo before she hit the ground.
“Thanks for the save.” Leo said.
“No problem Leo.” We started walking before Leo paused.
“Wait, I never said my name.” Leo said while I rolled my eyes at her.
“I’m a displacer. I kind of have a way of knowing things.”
“Oh, right.” We walked along, heading for The Castle Of The Two Sisters. After a while, I tried to make conversation.
“So… who displaced you anyway?”
“Huh? Oh um… my dad did I guess.”
“Oh great. Another child of a displacer.”
“There are others?”
“Yes but I’m not going to tell you who. At least it wasn’t by the Merchant.” I had venom in my voice at that last part.
“You sound like you hate him.”
“He’s an annoying prick that doesn’t realize what he’s doing.”
“Really? Because when I last saw him he looked like he had a plan going, and a dark one at that.”
“He doesn’t even know what true darkness is.”
“How so?”
“Someone once said that the Merchant would end the multiverse. I showed them the only person that stood a chance at that. The Merchant can’t even begin to compare to his true power, and neither can anyone else that I know. But I do know one day he will be stopped, when he gets out that is.”
“You’re hoping he gets out?”
“I know he will. There is no way to truly imprison someone forever. Even death, is a way out.”
“That’s depressing.”
“It’s what I have to face every day knowing he could break out at any moment.” We stopped in front of the castle. “Well I’m done talking about this. Let’s split up shall we? What you’re looking for is a shard with a lot of colors in it swirling around!” With that I was off, hoping to find Lisa’s universe shard, and get the hell out of here.
{Leo’s POV}
“Well… he sure is interesting…” I said before going down one of the hallways and pulling out my digivice. “Now let's set you to unknown energy signatures and find that thing he was looking for.” I thought out loud before rounding a corner and accidentally activating a trap door and falling through it. “I hate ruins!” I screamed while falling.
When I finally reached the bottom I landed on a pile of pillows before standing up and looking at my surroundings. Near the far wall was a pedestal with a chest on it, and looking around the room revealed that that was all that was in here. So seeing as there was nothing else in the room I walked over to the chest and looked inside, only to find a key.
“Well, that was anti climatic.” I said before taking the key and looking at the hole I had fallen down.
Deciding it would be easier to fly out rather than climb I flapped my small wings a few times before shooting up the pipe i had fallen down. Once I reached the top my digivice scanners picked up an energy signal. Amused at the timing I began to follow the signal.
{Marx’s POV}
And so I walked around, trying to find the piece of Lisa’s universe that was missing. Even though I could tell it was here, the energy was bouncing off the walls of the castle, making it impossible to track. Apparently way back when the people that built this castle were smart enough to know that magic infused castle walls would hold up well against attacks. I however, wished they hadn’t. It just made it all the more difficult to find that piece. After a while, I decided to go to the less stable upstairs area.
This area also didn’t have any clues to where the piece was. I did find a locked chest in Tia’s old room which, for some reason, I couldn’t unlock, nor blast open. The chest was a normal chest, but some strange energy from inside of it kept the box invulnerable and unpickable. However, chests have locks. Locks have keys. Keys aren’t usually too far from what they unlock, so the key had to be in the castle somewhere.
“Hope I can find it soon. Don’t want to spend too long in one dimension, least the problems from my other ones get dragged here.” And so he ventured on, looking for the possible key, of this mysterious box.
{Leo’s POV}
As soon as I got out of the hallway the energy signature I had been tracking had started to move, but I wasn't really thinking about it because I had bumped into a strange being made of shadows and it had tentacles coming out it's back. I was worried yes but I was mostly annoyed because at this rate I was going to have a track record of bumping into things from other people's universes. And how do i know it's from another universe you may ask? Because the jerk was demanding to know where Marx was while bum rushing me.
“Tell me where Marx is!” The shadow creature screamed.
“Back… OFF!” I yelled while sending a fireball at it.
As the fireball hit the creature it exploded making a loud *BOOM!* which could probably be heard all the way from the other side of the castle. After the smoke cleared where the creature once stood was a purple orb that reminded me of a dark digicore. So out of not wanting to take any chances I blasted it with a concentrated beam of holy energy in an attempt to destroy it, but nothing happened. Out of concern I decided to take it to Marx to see what he knew about it before running off to find him.
{Marx’s POV}
Had I heard that sudden boom in the castle? Yes, yes I had. Did I know what it was? Nope, not a clue. Deciding it would be best to find Leo as fast as possible, I flew back down to the ground floor and searched for her. Thankfully I was able to detect her pretty fast. However, she had something with her that I knew was trouble. It was the exact reason why I didn’t want to stay in one universe for too long. My problems had followed me.
“LEO!!!” I flew down the halls towards her location. I turned a corner and saw her at the other end. “Leo!!!”
“Hey Marx! I saw this Shadow thingy and it kept demanding to know where you were, I managed to destroy it but it left this behind.” Leo said running up to me and giving me a very familiar purple orb. “What exactly was it, and what did it want with you?”
“Ugh, this is exactly why I didn’t want to be here for too long. What you just encountered was a Nightmare Fuel and, considering it could talk, it was one of the smarter ones. It was looking for me so it could destroy me. Thankfully it hasn’t adapted to any of your abilities yet so all I need to do is send it to someone that can destroy it.”
With a snap of my fingers, a portal opened right behind Epidemic, who was currently flying through the void. I threw it at his head and, before he could react, I closed the portal.
“Well, that takes care of that mess. So let’s get back to why we’re here. Any luck on finding the universe shard?”
“I found a key, by the way who was that you threw the orb at?” Leo had noticed what was on the other side of the portal and handed Marx the key she found.
“Hmm? Oh him. He’s the son of one of my displaced. He’s one of the only two people that can really destroy those damn Nightmares.”
“Interesting, and I think something was wrong with it when it attacked me. it was almost as if it had been severely weakened.”
“WHO IS OPENING ALL THOSE PORTALS!” said a voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once before a man in a blue robe appeared out of thin air. This, presumably, was Leo’s father, the displacer of this world.
“That would be me.” My answer caused him to turn to me. From the look on his face, I could already tell he knew I was a displacer. The only problem with that would be his reaction.
“Oh great… another one…. WHAT IS IT THIS TIME!?” he shouted flailing his arms.
“Oh nothing much. Just looking for the shattered remains of the universe of one of my displaced. You know, important stuff.”
“Oh really, and what makes this displaced special enough for you to be willing to help them?” he asked
“Well for one back on earth I was her imaginary friend. Second, the destruction of her universe is indirectly my fault.”
“I see, I guess you're ok. so mind telling me why I felt so many portals? And if it has something to do with those shadow creatures I will not be happy, Leo is already being targeted by the Merchant and his lackeys. I don't need another force trying to take her and make a weapon out of her… By the way my name is Crux.” he said.
“Well met Crux. I am Marx an to answer your questions, those portals were created by me. As for the Nightmares, I don’t know how they followed me, but they are the sole reason why I don’t want to spend too much time here, lest I cause more trouble than even I can handle.”
“Then I hope we eventually find time to have an actual talk without a threat looming over us. You're the only displacer I have met other than Loki that actually cares about the displaced and the worlds they inhabit.” Crux said before pulling out a dimension shard. “a while back two of these things landed in this world, one was found by celestia and luna and the other was found by me while I was searching for a world to hide Leo on.” Crux pointed out as he handed the shard to me.
“Perfect!” Taking out my own shard, I put the two pieces together like a puzzle. They resonated, and more of the universe was restored. It was still to damaged to even enter, but at least I was on the right trail. “Any idea where Tia and Luna put that shard?”
“Not a clue. by the way, what's in the chest?” Crux asked.
“No idea. Perhaps a clue to what I so desperately search for.” Taking out the key Leo gave him, he unlocked the chest. Inside the chest, was a sun colored ball. “Ah, looks like someone wasn’t too keen on anyone finding the second piece.”
“Heh, Trollestia strikes again.” Leo said smirking.
“Indeed she does! I had no idea she was strong enough to make a mana map. That’s incredibly hard to do!”
“This version of celestia is… for a lack of a better term… ‘Special’” Crux shivered at the statement.
“How so?”
“All I can tell you is she is stronger than most of the other Celestias, and has a multiple personality disorder that could rival Essence…” Crux said as he shivered and blushed at the same time.
“That’s very… odd… SON OF A BITCH!”
“Why do you say that, and does this mean we are going to canterlot? Because I don't wanna go back!” Leo said, her eyes shrinking to pin pricks.
“No, I say that because I just figured out how in the hell a Nightmare followed me here.”
“How?” Crux asked.
“Well, try and figure out why Celestia is much stronger, and has split personality. I’m betting that started once Leo got here right?”
“Yeah… why do you mention that?” Crux asked fearing what Marx was going to say next.
“Simple, it’s the same case with Luna. I don’t know how, or quite frankly why, but a Nightmare always posses her a thousand years before Twilight and co. arrive to stop her when she returns. However, it seems as if Luna wasn’t the only one to be possessed.”
“Great… so the shadows know about my daughter too… this is going to get anoying.” Crux said before turning around. “I’ll see you around I have to attend to some of my other displaced, no matter how much I want to dote on my daughter…” And with that, he vanished.
“Well, looks like we’ll have a challenge on our hands. Come on now, according to this mana map, the piece is pretty far.” I snapped my fingers, and opened a portal. I didn’t open it too close to the shard’s location as to not trigger any traps, but I needed to be careful. And so we were off, making our way to the third piece in Lisa’s universe.
TO BE CONTINUED…