My Little Planeswalker: Sideboard Stories

by Zennistrad

Thick as Thieves, Part 1

Verko’s office was a very plain room. A small chamber, sparsely decorated with only a few pieces of antique furniture: A simple wooden desk with a matching chair, a standing lamp, red velvet drapes, a wall clock, and a few cheap-looking landscape paintings.

To an outsider, it would look almost quaint. But to everyone else in Klugetown, it stood uncomfortably apart. Far from the constant bustle of the merchant town, everything in the office was oppressively still. The only sound to be heard was the gentle ticking of the clock — and Verko’s claws tapping against each other as he steepled his fingers.

As Capper entered, Verko’s goggles gleamed in the room’s dull light. Though some would call him a naked mole rat, he was never seen without his trademark clothing. A tuxedo and top hat, patched and worn in places, yet always kept clean of any traces of sand or dust. In a desert town, such a feat would cost a fortune.

With an open palm, he gestured to a roughly-hewn wooden stool placed right in front of his desk. “Please, have a seat.”

Capper placed himself on the seat, so low to the ground that his knees almost reached his chest as he sat. From such a low angle Verko seemed to tower over him, his desk nearly eclipsing the entire room. The glare of his goggles intensified as he frowned, staring down at Capper.

“Do you know why I called you here, Mr. Dapperpaws?”

Capper had to force himself not to tug at his coat-collar. “No, I can’t say I do.”

Verko sneered. The click-click-click of his claws intensified as he furiously tapped them together. “For the sake of being charitable, I’m going to assume you’re telling the truth. Lately, you have been getting involved with some very interesting creatures. Interesting and important creatures.”

“Important... wait, you mean those ponies?” Wheels began to turn in Capper’s head. With a bit of work, he could spin this to his advantage. “Because I happen to be something of a hero to them, you know. If it’s a favor you want, I could—”

Verko raised a hand. “Stop right there. I’m not letting you weasel your way out of this.”

“Actually, I’m more of a cat—”

“That is irrelevant!” Verko interjected. “What I’m trying to get at here is ‘those ponies’ were not the mere livestock you told me they were. Oh no. They were much more than that.” He sat up from his chair, his bare footsteps sounding across the wooden floor as he approached the window. He held his hands behind his back as he stared outwards, into the distant skies.

“See, while you were busy lounging about in my town, I’ve had a few eyes scout out Equestrian lands to the north. I didn’t think there was anything up there worth the effort, but your little adventures got me curious. You know what I found?”

“...more ponies?”

“Not just more ponies. I found that there are six ponies of particular importance to that kingdom. Heroes. Legends. Royalty.”

With every word that Verko spoke, comprehension began to dawn on Capper. He did not like where it was taking him.

“For fifty years I’ve owned this town. I found these crooks and scoundrels and brought them under my heel. Before, they were no more than a loose collection of barbarians and outcasts. Now, they’re part of the most wretched hive of scum and villainy you’ll ever see.”

“Er,” said Capper. “Good for you?”

“It’s not good enough,” Verko spat. “I’ve been content with running the show in this measly little town, but the world is bigger than that. And now you’ve proven that there are greater things within my grasp. You stiffed me out of those ponies, and since then I’ve learned that those very same ponies hold the respect and admiration of thousands. My sources have even told me that one of them is a possible heir to their throne! Do you have any idea what sort of bargaining power that would buy me? I could have held an entire kingdom at ransom!”

“With due respect, Mr. Verko sir, I don’t know if provoking an entire kingdom is a good idea.”

“There’s no such thing as profit without risk,” Verko countered. “But those ponies don’t know that. They believe in silly things like ‘friendship’ and ‘love.’ That means they’ll pay any price to see the heroes they cherish alive. Do you understand what I want from you, Mr. Dapperpaws?”

Capper paused. A part of him wanted to say something, but couldn’t find the words.

“And are you familiar with the phrase, ‘there’s more than one way to skin a cat?’”

Capper nodded vigorously. This time he knew exactly what he wanted to say, but the lump in his throat was too thick to speak.

“Good,” said Verko. “You have one week to find those ponies and bring them to me. Don’t think you can run away from the deal this time, because I have eyes watching you at all times, and they will follow you to the ends of the earth. Fail, and I will show you exactly how many ways to skin a cat there are.”

————————

Verko, Crimelord of Klugetown 3BB

Legendary Creature — Rat Rogue

Assassins, Mercenaries, and other Rogues you control get +1/+1.

Whenever another creature you control deals combat damage to a player, that player discards a card.

Every lowlife, knave, and villain south of Equestria answers to him.

3/3

————————

“Stop! Thief!”

I couldn’t possibly count the number of times I’d heard that in my life, though I could tell you that the number of times it worked was zero. Either way, it was a phrase that felt like home.

Of course, when you have the power to travel the multiverse on a whim, ‘home’ can be a little hard to define. I’ve tended to spend much of my time on Ravnica, though it's been getting harder to avoid trouble as of late. Guild tensions have steadily escalated, and I've gotten the vague feeling it'll head somewhere catastrophic soon.

That didn’t stop me from getting my hands on Ravnica’s best treasures, though. Spend enough time here, and you’re bound to see at least one poster with a big ‘WANTED: DACK FAYDEN’ on the front. There was an odd amount of pride I took in seeing my bounty go up with every successful heist — even though a part of me know that my reputation was half the reason things always went wrong for me.

This was one of those times were things went wrong without any fault of my own. The dozen or so Lyev chasing after me were nothing new; that I could handle. Unfortunately for me, I ran into a few... let’s call them complications. My intended escape route was cut off by what looked to be an entire building that had spontaneously collapsed to rubble since I last saw it, which caused a fairly significant traffic jam. I tried to duck into a side alley, but on my way I ended up bumping into a very nasty-looking ogre who took personal offense, and nearly ended up losing my head for it. I still don’t know how he was able to conceal a knife that big.

Eventually, I was able to duck into another alley during the commotion, and for a moment I thought I was in the clear. But just when I was finally starting to relax, I heard the unmistakable clank of a dozen armored footsteps. Coming from both directions of the street.

Ah, hell.

Sure enough, I quickly found myself surrounded on both sides. One of the Lyev officers stepped forward, someone higher in rank from the looks of his ornamentation. He looked at me with stern and unwavering confidence, and produced a scroll.

“Dack Fayden. Per the official decree of District Commander Rayf, you are hereby charged with the following crimes. Burglary, assault and battery, criminal mischief, disorderly conduct, forgery, fraud, incitement to riot, murder, resisting arrest, smuggling, solicitation of contraband...”

This could go on for a while... Wait, rioting!?

It took me a moment, but it dawned on me what he was talking about. Not too long ago, I’d led a group of my fellow scoundrels to Vhitu-Gazi, the giant tree that served as the Selesnya guildhall. There, we waged battle against a planeswalker named Sifa Grent, who planned to drain the tree’s life to fuel her power. Though many of my cohorts died that day, we managed to kill her and stop her from destroying the immense City-Tree. Hearing these stone-faced Lyev describe that as ‘rioting’ and ‘murder’ made me see red. I’d stopped the most dire threat to Ravnica since the Guildpact broke!

There wasn’t much time to ponder that, though. If my body made even a single twitch, I’d be put into a detention spell faster than I could think. That left me only one option. I had to disappear.

Sorry, boys. It’s been fun, but I’ve gotta go. Purple mist surrounded me as I hastily jumped Ravnica’s metaphysical borders. The last thing I saw before I vanished was a detention spell being hurled my way, but by the time it reached me I was already gone.

But I ran into an unexpected problem. See, when you’re attempting to planeswalk as fast as possible, it’s next to impossible to have any control over your destination. Thinking about where you want to go takes time, and that was time that I didn’t have.

And the plane I ended up on was quite a lot different from anywhere I’d been before.

————————

When the mist cleared, the first thing I’d noticed was that my face felt like it’d been smashed in with a brick. No, scratch that. Everything felt like that, like I’d been flying at a hundred kilometers per hour and crashed into a brick wall.

Once the pain began to subside, I quickly noticed that something else was horribly wrong — I couldn’t feel my hands. Namely, because I didn’t have any.

As I stood up on all four legs, I stared down at my hooves, and contemplated the bizarre reality of that sentence. My whole body was covered in a light blue coat of hair, and if I turned to look behind me I could see a brown tail hanging off my backside, one which presumably matched my hair. Sorry, mane. My front right hoof was stained red, so no real change there, and for some odd reason whatever had transformed me had given my jacket a new fit as well, allowing it to drape over my shoulders and across my back. My other clothes were gone, but I’d rarely ever seen a horse wearing pants, so I figured that wasn’t too much to be concerned with right now.

Sorry, did I say horse? That wasn’t quite accurate. I’d quickly realized there was something sticking out of my forehead, and a cursory inspection revealed it to be a horn. I was a unicorn. Somehow, though some twist of fate, I had been transformed into an adorable little unicorn pony.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, I had also planeswalked straight into the middle of a desert. All around me were sandy dunes and the occasional dry scrub bush, with a few rocky spires jutting out of the ground for good measure. To my left I could see something in the distance — an especially large spire that seemed to have smoke coming out of it, and if I squinted to see through the heat-distorted air I could just make out what looked like buildings on it.

In any other situation like that, I would have headed towards the first sign of civilization I could find, in the hopes that I might find a place to stay or a few trinkets to ‘borrow.’ But given that I was nowhere near human, I wasn’t sure if that was the best course of action then. I might end up being mistaken for livestock, or a wild animal.

But on the other hand — or hoof — I didn’t really have anywhere else I could go. I could have tried to planeswalk away, but I wasn’t even sure if that was possible in this form, or if doing so would make me human again. I had to figure out something, or else I might end up being stuck as a pony forever. So it was either head towards that town, or likely die of thirst wandering the desert.

It didn’t take me long to decide on the first option. But before I spent all that time and energy trekking over to the town, I decided it was to take a look at the goods I had stolen from Ravnica. I never got the chance to take a good look at what it was, since it was wrapped in a very important-looking parcel, and now was as good a time as any.

Thankfully, the lack of opposable thumbs didn’t seem to be much of a problem. I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing at first, so I barely even noticed the glow that surrounded the parcel as I lifted it out from under my coat, or sensation of magic in my forehead. But it became apparent that I was somehow moving it without even touching it — apparently being a unicorn gave me some kind of telekinesis.

Sure, why not. At that point, I already was so baffled by everything else that I didn’t even question it. I carefully unwrapped the parcel and took a good look at the item that was carried within it.

It was a glove. Not even a pair of gloves, not even an especially nice-looking one, just one simple leather glove. Since I couldn’t really wear the thing in my current state, I figured I might as well try to get some use out of it. Laying down on the sand in front of me, I quietly muttered an incantation, and probed the glove’s magic with my telemetry. In no time at all, I’d learned exactly what the glove could do, and how to recreate its effect myself.

The glove, I’d learned, was a Glove of Identification. It would let me identify the exact use and purpose of any magical artifact I touched with it. Considering my telemetry did exactly that, my prize was worse than useless. I begrudgingly stuffed it into my coat pocket, hoping I could at least sell it for a decent price once I got this horse thing figured out.

“Dammit,” I muttered to myself. I paused for a moment, realizing what I’d just said. I could still talk, which was good. There was no guarantee that anyone would listen to a talking pony, granted, but it was a start.

There was a brief glimmer of doubt in my mind as I looked towards the town in the distance. I had no idea how anyone would react to the sight of a talking pony — or even if there’d be anyone who could help my predicament. But it was the only lead I had, and I was never a person to avoid taking risks.

It was settled, then. I’d head out towards the town and scope it out for any information on where I was, and just what I could do to make myself human again.

————————

I’m not sure what I had been expecting from the town, but what I saw when I got there certainly wasn’t it.

The entire place was built so haphazardly that I was astounded it still held together. Rickety shacks and crumbling concrete buildings comprised the whole place, with little thought given to the architecture or layout. Everything looked like it was thrown together out of whatever materials happened to be nearby. Add the fact that the town was perched on a very thin spire, and you had a settlement that looked like it could collapse at any moment.

Then there was the fact that the entire town was populated solely by beastmen. That was a bit less unusual, considering the diversity of the multiverse at large, but it did call into question a few things. Were there any humans around here? Did they even know enough about humans to turn me back into one?

Questions for another time, I decided. For now I just had to get my bearings, and figure out just what kind of plane I was in. I’d observed the goings-on in the town from a distance, careful to hide my presence behind alleyways in the occasional pile of junk. Most of the beastmen were very large rugged-looking, and somehow I had a hunch they wouldn’t be too friendly to weird talking ponies.

Hiding grew considerably more difficult as I progressed further inward, towards the center of the town. The various residential buildings gradually gave way to a sprawling open-air market lined with tents, shops, pubs, restaurants, and anything else you could think of to buy and sell things. This was quite clearly a traders’ town, first and foremost. What a place like this was doing in the middle of a desert instead of a port or river, I had no idea. But it meant there were increasingly few places I could hide convincingly. As I peered around the corner of the alley, into the hub of the marketplace, I saw dozens upon dozens of beastmen gathering around the various stalls, if not hundreds. I’d already reached peak population density.

“Shoot,” I muttered. I clearly hadn’t thought this through enough. I didn’t even know where I would go from here, and it was clear that I wasn’t going any further than this.

Slowly, I began to back up, hoping to retreat further into the alley and rethink my plan. But as I did, I ran rear-first into something — into someone — and from the sound of shattering pottery it seems they weren’t the only thing I’d run into.

I quickly turned around, and saw myself staring straight up at a massive hulk of a fish-man. And judging by the look on his face, and the bits of broken porcelain all around his feet, he wasn’t too happy about it.

“Hey! That vase was a gift for me gran! How dare you!”

Oh, hell. “Well, I’m sorry to hear about that. Maybe I could make it up to you later.”

The fish-man grinned, with a mad glint in the corner of his eye. “There’s no need for that, little pony. In fact, just looking at you gives me an idea for another gift.” He stretched out his arms in a way that looked entirely too grab-happy for my comfort.

I wasn’t sure what sort of “gift” the fish-man intended to get out of me, but I wasn’t about to let him get it. I reacted without even thinking, like a reflex. I quickly spun around, shifted my weight to my front legs, and bucked.

“Ow! My parts!”

The sound of my hooves against the pavement rattled through my ears. I quickly dashed past the fishman, exiting through other end of the alley...

...and straight into the middle of another open-air market. I was immediately greeted by dozens of glowering faces, all of them dropping whatever they were doing to stare. Clearly, a candy-colored pony was an unusual sight here.

“Get that pony! He broke me gran’s vase!”

“That jerk!”

“Nobody breaks his grandmother’s vase!”

I cursed under my breath. Somehow, every time things went wrong in my life, they found a way to get even worse.

I didn’t bother looking back to see how many people had decided to mob me, but the roaring footsteps made it clear that I had to get out of there, and quick.

As my legs carried me across the town, I darted back into an alley, hoping the narrow corridor would lose some of my pursuers. At the very least, I figured the smaller space would slow them down. The crashing and yelling I heard from behind me seemed to indicate it was partly successful, though I wasn’t anywhere close to home free just yet.

I wasn’t given the time to think about my next move, however, as I felt myself being grabbed by the leg. Everything blurred as I felt myself being yanked upward. My heart raced, and my body screamed at me to escape. I couldn’t see who had caught me, but they held their hand firmly over my mouth, silencing the numerous cuss words that would have otherwise escaped my mouth.

“Be quiet!”

“Mmph!”

“I said be quiet! They’ll hear you!”

I feebly tried to thrash about, shake my captor off, but their grip on me remained firm. I’d already tired myself out from all the running I’d done earlier, and having to get used to an entirely new body probably didn’t help matters either. After what felt like forever, I finally exhausted myself.

But just when I felt like I’d given up, the iron grip on my body relinquished itself, and I felt myself fall to the ground. After pausing to catch my breath, I struggled to stand up, and was face-to-face with my captor.

The first thing I noticed was that I was standing on a rooftop just above the alley. My immediate first thought was that it would take superhuman acrobatic skill to pull me by leg as I was running full speed and toss me all the way up here. My second thought was that this was perfectly explained by who — or rather, what — my captor was.

He was a catfolk with brown fur and emerald green eyes, and a lean athletic build that spoke to a lifetime of climbing about the town’s buildings. He would have had no trouble clinging to an awning or a windowsill, grabbing me as I passed by, and then leaping up here with myself in tow. Notably, the cat-man had a blue mane atop his fur, styled into a slick coif. Though he wore a long maroon-colored jacket, he had no pants to speak of — a fact that I chose not to dwell on.

My captor dusted himself off, glanced down at the now-empty alley, and turned back to me. “Alright, they’re gone. Sorry for the scare.” He held out his paw, in a gesture reminiscent of a handshake. “Capper Dapperpaws, at your service.”

I couldn’t articulate a response right away. My mind was still recovering from panic mode, so it took me a second or two to respond. “Just moments ago, I thought you were one of those goons threatening my life. No offense, but what reason would I have to shake hands? Or paws. Hooves.”

The cat-man shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I suppose I can’t blame you for being suspicious” said ‘Mr. Dapperpaws.’ “Klugetown isn’t a very friendly place, especially not for ponies.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

Capper raised his paws. “Look, I apologize if we got off on the wrong foot, but I’m just here to make sure you don’t end up on the wrong side of the livestock trade. Ponies don’t often come to these parts. Not willingly.”

Livestock. That word rattled around in my mind for a good second before I fully grasped its implications. Despite the readily observable fact that I was no less of a person than any of the beastfolk here, I would be treated no differently from cattle.

It dawned on me then and there that I’d planeswalked right into the middle of a slaver town.

There was a brief flash of anger in my chest, but it subsided just as quickly. Such barbaric practices, as common as they were throughout the multiverse, were usually beyond my ability to solve. And right now, in my current state, I don’t think there’d be anything I could do about this town’s state of affairs that wouldn’t end with me either dead or in chains.

And then there was the matter of this ‘Capper’ person. For all I know, he could have his own plans for me, seeing as I was just what he described me as here — livestock. But despite the scare he gave me, he did probably save my life. That made him more trustworthy than everyone else I’d encountered here, by default. I had little in the way of options, and as I’d learned from experience, sometimes you have to take whatever help you can get.

With all that said, I couldn’t help but sigh. “Figures. Do you happen know of any places nearby where I won’t have to fear for my life at every corner?”

The strange look Capper gave me made it clear that this wasn’t a question a planar native would typically be asking. “The closest place you’ll find is to the north, and that’s across a hundred miles of desert.”

I cursed under my breath. It was something, at the least. “Just my luck. Guess I’m heading north, then.”

Capper’s eyes went wide. “Whoa! Hold on! You’re not just planning to cross the entire Bone Dry Desert by yourself, are you?”

“I’m aware it’s not exactly ideal, but I don’t really have much choice,” I said. “Just point me in the right direction and I’ll be on my way.”

“Hey, time out! Listen to yourself!” Capper interjected. “You’ll barely last a day in the desert if you don’t properly stock up, and you’ll barely last two days if you don’t have someone else to watch your back. There are some nasty things out there, especially at night.”

“I’m not exactly sure what else you’re suggesting,” I replied. “I somehow doubt I’ll find someone around here who’d be willing to guide me the whole way.”

“Well, it’s funny you should say that, friend,” said Capper, flashing a grin, “because I happen to be planning to travel north as well, and have been looking for a traveling companion. Maybe you and I could work together, for our mutual benefit.”

And just like that, everything started to fall into place. I couldn’t trust this total stranger to have saved me out of the kindness of his heart. Not in a place like this, and especially not when I was in a form seen as a common pack animal. But if he needed to cross the desert, then he needed something that could help carry his supplies.

I didn’t like the idea of working together — not if I was seen as no more than a beast of burden. But I was in an unfamiliar plane, in an unfamiliar body, and no other place to turn to if I wanted to find out how to get myself back to normal. And once I was north, in safer territory, I could hopefully find someone good enough at magic to find a way to make me human again.

“Alright,” I said. I reached out with a hoof, meeting Capper for a hoof-and-paw shake. “Dack Fayden, and you’ve got a deal. On one condition.”

“And what’s that?”

“You’re carrying half the load. And no riding on my back.”

————————

On a distant rooftop, a pair of narrow eyes peered through a pair of binoculars, its black casing matching the color of the claws that held it. Though the lenses, he intently watched his target — one mister Capper Dapperpaws — and the odd blue unicorn that he had dragged onto the rooftop. The two were engaged in an uneasy conversation, one that apparently resulted in a deal being struck, as they concluded it with a hoof-and-pawshake.

The wind shifted subtly, and he could feel the desert air blowing across the cutwings beneath his arms. He clicked his tongue as he licked the tip of his beak. Despite his more advanced mind, a more primal part of him hungered for the flesh of his prey. His tail flicked idly behind him, its spikes letting a loose rattle.

A loud and sudden clanging of metal echoed behind him, and he nearly dropped his binoculars in shock. He turned around to face the offender — an adolescent dragon with large v-shaped horns, just barely shorter than himself. Her massive, weblike wings were folded as small as they could be, and her scales had the color and appearance of steel. Across her waist was a simple purple robe, loosely and awkwardly tied around her body to accommodate her massive wingspan.

“Dammit, Kusha! I told you not to distract me!”

Kusha stared back at him apologetically. “Sorry, Nargus. I can’t help it.”

“Yeah, metal scales, I know. Just hold still for a second, will you?” He held his binoculars back, and his eyes narrowed. “Interesting, very interesting...”

“What is it?”

“It looks like our mark’s got himself another pony friend,” Nargus replied. “Oh, Verko’s definitely going to want to hear this...”

————————

Nargus Cugio 1UB

Legendary Creature — Drake Rogue

Flash; first strike

When Nargus Cugio enters the battlefield, put a bounty counter on target creature an opponent controls.

Whenever a creature with a bounty counter on it leaves the battlefield, draw a card.

1UB, Pay 2 life: Return Nargus Cugio to its owner’s hand.

2/2

————————

Kusha Irongale 2UR

Legendary Creature — Dragon Spellshaper

Flying

1U, T, Discard a card: Counter target noncreature spell unless its controller pays 2.

2R, T, Discard a card: Kusha Irongale deals 3 damage to any target.

Seeking purpose in life, Kusha left the frigid Southern Continent in search of adventure.

3/3

Author's Note:

This took a while to get out, but I’ve been wanting to do this since at least 2018! This may also end up being the last series I put out under the name Sideboard Stories, once this is done I will likely have any future spinoffs set in this universe become their own one-shots. Either way, I’m glad to have finally realized this chapter.

In unrelated news, Monster Hunter Rise sure looks good, doesn’t it?

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

That means they’ll pay any price to see the heroes they cherish alive.

Some prices, Mr. Verko, are paid in blood. And rainbow lasers, but you're taking that option off the table.

Interesting choice to go with Rat rather than Mole for Verko's card.

To paraphrase Brian Blessed, FAYDEN'S ALIVE! Let's see if he stays that way.

See, when you’re attempting to planeswalk as fast as possible, it’s next to impossible to have any control over your destination.

Anywhere But Here 2
Sorcery
Planeswalk. You can't roll the planar die until your next turn.
Any planeswalker can cast the spell. Few are ever desperate enough to do so.

The glove, I’d learned, was a Glove of Identification. It would let me identify the exact use and purpose of any magical artifact I touched with it.

Ah. Perfect. Though there are better than even odds of a local using the thing to disastrous and/or day-saving effect.

Were there any humans around here?

In a slightly different Equestria...
Ditzy scowled into her mug. "You know what the worst thing is about humans?"
Her drinking partner paused, his own cider halfway to his lips. "That's already a strong sentiment coming from you."
"You'll agree with me. It's their ubiquity."
"Hmm?"
"They show up in so many planes, they just assume they're in all of them. And the worst part is that they're usually right." Ditzy scowled. "Meanwhile, you or I stick out like a sore thumb. And at least I have illusions."
Ajani Goldmane chuckled. "I have a cloak, and many excuses." He rubbed her behind the ears. "And here, I still have thumbs."
"Yeah, not sure what's up with that. Never heard of leonin on Ungula."
"It is a big world out there. Perhaps you simply have not been looking in the right places."

In any case, looking forward to seeing what comes of this.