Mixed Crusaders

by LegacyMine

Chapter One - Insulting Royalty

When I woke up, I felt like a Diamond Dog had been using me as its personal backscratcher. My head hurt, my mouth was dry, and I ached all over. The reason was obvious; I was hung over, and my friends and I had managed to break into Applejack’s hard cider supply again.

Hopefully Applejack hadn't found out yet, because the last time we got caught drinking his cider, he forced us watch to watch ten straight hours of laxative commercials as punishment. And let me tell you, it was grim.

My thoughts were interrupted when a voice said, “Hey Twilight, I think the robot colt is starting to wake up.”

Now that really annoyed me. I am a cyborg, not a robot, even though I am constantly mistaken as one, since most people are idiots. But I was felling charitable today, so I decided to teach this bozo the difference.

“Hey moron,” I started, “I’m a cyborg, not a robot. Robots are all metal and I’m mostly flesh. Though if you still don’t believe me you can come over here and kiss my meaty flank you loser!”

That would show him. Regardless, at this point I guessed it was time to open my eyes, (though technically my mechanical one was already open and I was just activating it) and find out who I just insulted.

When I looked up I discovered that I was in a large room, which seemed to be mostly made of crystal, with an annoyed looking purple Alicorn, and a baby dragon staring at me. This made me fairly certain that I wasn’t in the Union anymore, or the same planet for that matter.

You might ask how so little information could lead to so great a conclusion, but it really was all I needed. The first reason is, there was an Alicorn standing right in front of me who I didn’t know, and in the unlikely event another Alicorn was created since the last time I checked in my home world, Poison Pie, Director of the Emperor’s Secret Police and recently ascended Alicorn Lord, would have hunted her down and killed her as soon as he heard. Which, knowing him, would about be ten minutes before it actually happened.

My second reason was the architecture; Union buildings tended to be a lot less girly.

The Alicorn snorted, “Well just because you’re not feeling well doesn’t give you the right to be rude.”

She was right of course. I had the right to be rude just because I was me, regardless of how I was feeling! “Whatever. Oh, and I was wondering, who the void are you and how did I get here?”

She replied, “My name is Princess Twilight Sparkle and as to your question, what was the last thing you remember?”

At this question I turned my thoughts to the last couple of days. It started out when my friend Apple Thorn’s older brother Applejack, and my older brother Scarcity, were called away to the badlands on war business, and since they couldn’t let us stay by ourselves, we were going to stay at Dark Star’s house till they got back. And another friend of mine, Stealthaloo, was staying with us because . . . . well, I honestly didn’t know. Maybe he was fighting with his parents again.

Anyway, after a couple days, we found a strange machine in Dark Star’s basement. After investigating, we found a notebook that said it was prototype dimensional portal made by Dark Star and his lieutenant, Timothy Lulumoon. The book logged their use of the device, which after we got through the technical stuff, basically consisted of hitting golf balls at alternate versions of the Emperor Helios. So naturally, we decided to take part in this fun activity and started pushing buttons at random to get it working. Which come to think of it, might have something to do with how we got here. Of course I couldn’t tell this Twilight bimbo that. I was going to have to come up with an explanation that made us look a bit less idiotic.

“Well,” I began, “The last thing I remember is walking past a weird machine with dimensional portal written on it that sucked us in for absolutely no reason.”

“Ugh,” responded Apple Thorn, who had apparently just woken up, “I thought we got sucked in after we started fighting over its control panel.”

Twilight frowned at my comment, “You mean you three were playing with a dimensional machine? Why would you even do that?”

“Because we were bored.” I answered while turning around. “Hey Apple Thorn, is Stealthaloo awake yet?”

Stealthaloo, who had just gotten up, answered for him, “Yes I am, and I also noticed that it took you less than a minute since getting here to insult the local royalty. What exactly do you have to say for yourself?”

“Actually I didn’t insult the princess, I insulted her fat little minion!”

“What!” interjected said minion, "I’m not a fat minion; I’m the princesses’ number one assistant!"

“Correction,” deadpanned Stealthaloo, “You did not insult a princess. Instead, you insulted her personal secretary, who is capable of breathing fire, and chewing through diamonds. Your genius continues to astound me.”

“He has a point Mourning,” Apple Thorn drawled, “You’re a lot more polite to royalty back home.”

“Well of course I am. Royalty back home have huge Federate bodyguards, who will eat you if you’re rude to them.”

“How do you know the minion won’t eat ya?” responded Apple Thorn.

“For the last time, I’m not Twilight’s minion!” yelled the minion, “And I’m also not a cannibal!”

Stealthaloo turned to the dragon, “Actually it wouldn’t be cannibalism if you ate us Spike. It would only count if you ate another dragon.”

“That doesn’t make it any better.” Spike huffed before pausing and getting a confused look, “I didn’t tell you my name was Spike, how did you know?”

“That’s a secret,” grinned Stealthaloo, giving Spike a full view of his razor sharp teeth.

Actually, the lizard was right. How did Stealthaloo know his name? I guess I’d have to ask him later.

Twilight responded by grabbing Spike with her magic and putting him on her back. “Why don’t you three calm down and tell me exactly who you are?”

This seemed fair enough. After all, we had just barged into what I assumed was her house, and insulted her flunky.

“OK,” I began, “My name is Mourning Bell, the earth pony is Apple Thorn, the scary looking pegasus is Stealthaloo, and we are,” I said before my friends and I yelled in unison, “The Destiny Mark Desperadoes!”

Apple Thorn continued, “We stared our club to look for our destiny marks, but after we found them we decided to keep the name.”

Twilight looked thoughtful, “Just before you arrived three fillies named Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo got sucked through our portal. Do you think that you colts might be alternate versions of them?"

That does sound likely. With names like those it would be kind of a stretch to assume that we weren’t connected to them somehow. Though it’s hard to imagine how any filly could be nearly as awesome as I am.

“Just a second,” Apple Thorn said, “Where exactly is this portal of yours?”

At this question Twilight started to get nervous. “It’s um . . . the portal disintegrated.”

“Well that’s just great, how are we going to get back now?”

“Well,” Twilight replied, “I do have an idea, but I’m going to need some privacy to work on it. So Spike, why don’t you find something for these three to do?”

Spike looked like he was about to protest, but stopped himself, and started leering at me, while slowly growing a huge, evil smile.

It suddenly occurred to me that out next activity was probably going to be his attempt at petty revenge for my behavior.

I really shouldn’t have called him fat.