Meta Gamer in Equestria: The Blight of Bane.

by reflective vagrant

The night my world was flipped. (Epilogue)

A week later.

"Bull fucking shit!" I called out.

Wild Storm gave me a perplexed look. "Is your amulet working correctly, cousin? That choice of words does not make sense."

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, of course it is. And I do mean a pile of fecal matter that is big enough for a male bovine to breed with. Of course not! Not literally. It's a phrase. I'm calling your statement's validity into question while also challenging it."

With the rift closed, celebrations were being arranged. There were still stragglers of the foreign army that had slipped through and needed rounding up, but the vast majority of the conflict was over. For some reason, I was brought to the capital to partake in some sort of pony equivalent of a cocktail party. I wanted nothing to do with it. The fact that the formal attire choices they offered me were not very appealing didn't help. Fluttershy's tailor friend had made what was essentially a tux for me, a silken toga like thing was also present—at least I was hoping it was a toga—and then the suit of armor that Wild Storm was offering me.

"But it truly is made of my scales and those of my brethren, is it not obvious?"

The pony that was styling my hair finally finished and brought up a mirror for me to see.

I didn't even look at the mirror and turned to him. "I don't care what it looks like. I'll trust your judgement. Just get out."

Turning back to Wild Storm, I took a breath.

"I know that. I mean the part about how I 'must' attend. I'm free now, right? I was 'invited' to this gala, not 'ordered to attend.' Last I checked that meant I was free to choose."

The stallion that was just about to leave called out. "Sir, that is true, technically, but it would be a bad idea to do so. If a publicly invited guest of the princesses does not at least make an appearance then every noble and business pony will go to great lengths to make their life as difficult as they can for making a fool of the royal family."

He opened the door and said one last thing before he finally stepped through. "And there is no end to what they would be willing to do. One poor girl's betrothal was canceled rather aggressively just because her messenger didn't get the doctor's note explaining that she was ill to the party she was to attend in time."

Once the pony left, I sighed and looked back to the dragon, slightly craning my neck up to do so. "It is an elegant and sturdily made suit, but I still can't accept this bribe for going to the party. I'd say I'd rather go naked, but they'd probably allow that without much thought and the intent of the statement would be lost on them."

The dragon snorted a bit of smoke in indignation.

"The gala has nothing to do with my gift. It was simply approved as an appropriate garment. I would have given it to you even if you weren't invited and I will still want to even if you refuse to go."

I had crossed my eyes with a migraine as I slumped down in defeat.

---

About an hour later, I was in the main hall. I was also dressed up in the new set of organically grown scale mail armor, save for my old boots that is. While natives only needed slight adaptations to their own methods of making armor to fit my form, neither dragons nor ponies really understood humanoid footwear to make any that fit right quite yet.

I was sitting in as far a corner from the center of the crowd as I could. They were oddly not shooting scowls at me like I had gotten used to, but I still wanted nothing more to do with this party than necessary. Not just the ponies or crystal ponies, either. I wanted nothing to do with the dragons, changelings, or the griffin mercenary leader and his plus one that nobody even pretended to not realize was really just his closely trusted personal body guard.

When it came time for princess Celestia to speak to the crowd, she went through a few items I either didn't understand, or didn't care about. One thing that made me almost fall out of my seat is that the collective losses between all the forces of all the nations barely totaled to a hundred an twenty four individuals with thirteen more missing in action.

"Dang you guys are efficient. Losses in wars on my home world that rage on that long are at least in the thousands."

Sharp Sentry, once again assigned to me, though as an honor guard this time, heard me through his own amulet and whispered back to me.

"It would have gotten there, if you hadn't intervened. We were mostly fighting off units intended for quick hit and run pillaging, sowing chaos against unprepared settlements and scouting parties before they hit us full force with more rugged troops."

I just rolled my eyes and shook my head for a moment before turning to look at Fluttershy on the stand along with her friends.

"I'm not the one you need to be thanking for that."

Sharp Sentry looked at me oddly but just shrugged.

Almost as if on cue, princess Celestia turned our way and called out.

"But none of it would have been possible without the aid of our friend and newest permanent resident, Moss. By closing the only known way for him to return to his home, he has ensured that our homes will now remain safe. While the weight of the sacrifices by those that died should not be overshadowed, his sacrifice was also that of a true-"

My mind went into overdrive as the faces of each pony turned to me. Their now unusually neutral faces were starting to even light up in admiration. "Oh no..." was all I could think as I saw this.

"-Hero."

The ponies then came charging towards me like hounds that had just been released. In a panic, I jumped behind Sharp Sentry and transformed into the smallest animal I could think of to get away.

With the sudden change in perspective, I prayed no one saw me leap my borrowed flea form onto Sharp Sentry to hide in his fur.

It was only a matter of time before my mere presence alerted him by causing him to get an itch, but I only needed to stand still and do my best not to tickle him for a few moments. The first chance I had, I jumped off at another nearby table that had just been searched under to hide long term.

Within about a minute of hiding under the table, I had to transform back because my flea body was getting sick from what my legs seemed to be tasting as a pesticide that was protruding from every bit of the under table's long term storage treatment.

So I just hid there, curled up under the table, and hoping nobody would look under the sheets that now hid me.

Sadly, it wouldn't last. As I heard a couple of mares chatting about sewing and form vs function or something or other, another pony that was with them accidentally knocked my knee with her hoof as she put it just under the table to lean in. I pulled it back as best I could, but I wasn't fast enough. Although it was a soft glance, I definitely felt contact and I'm sure the pony did too.

With another bout of quick thinking, I expended my last charge of shape shifting to transform into the best disguise I could think of at the time, given my limited options of only shape shifting into animals.

Hoping my disguise as Angel Bunny would be enough, my heart sank as I saw the inquisitive face of Fluttershy looking back at me.

Any other pony there I would have had a good chance of fooling, but not Fluttershy. Being both the RRE officer that had taken me into her own home for months and a professional animal care taker, she was always able to pick me out from a real animal without even trying. I had never fooled her with my disguises, not even once. I didn't even have to read the surprise on her face to know I was caught.

We looked into each other's eyes as my borrowed form trembled. I could practically see the cogs in her mind turning, though to what end, I did not know.

She looked back for just a moment before pulling a tiny, red clip-on bow out of her mane. Reaching forward, she carefully clipped it to the fur that sat just below my neck, making me almost look like I was wearing a bow tie.

With this, she called to her friends with a concerned tone, slowing down at one particular word just enough to emphasis it without being too strange. "Hosmt, Angel's not giimoph well. I'm huoph to take him cedl to my suun to vipf to him."

It was in that moment I wished I had payed more attention to my lessons on speaking Equestrian without my amulet active.

When Fluttershy came back down, she offered the frog of her hoof to me with an empathetic smile.

I hesitated for a moment, looking back and forth between her face and outstretched hoof, but ultimately I caved in, climbed on and let her pull me out from under the table.

Just as I was brought out to let her orange and white friends from the element bearers see me, Fluttershy gave me a concerned clearing of her throat. When I looked at her, she gave me a face as if she were feeling sick, then quickly came out of it with a wink.

With that, she carefully placed me on her back, nestled in the withers between her shoulder blades. I clung to her dress as we walked out of the ball room. I kept my head down and tried to not move, not wanting to draw any more attention to myself.

Princess Celestia and another pony I couldn't see met us just before we managed to leave. Princess Celestia brought her face around to look at me with a sense of inspection. For a split second, I could swear I saw her eyes widen before they went back to normal.

"Uj you quus thing." I heard her call in an empathetic, almost motherly tone.

The pony beside her came up on the side I wasn't facing with my head laid down and called out too.

In a whisper of broken English, I heard Moon Beam say, "Whee unn-deer-staund, Moose."

I could feel Fluttershy wince a little as my tiny bunny claws went right through her dress and into her back as I tensed up in fear.

* * *

With a quick retreat, Fluttershy got back to the guest room in the castle where she had been staying while she recovered. I got off of her and hopped to the floor on the far side of the bed where I could stay hidden from the door.

Transforming back, I quickly pressed my amulet and called out, "Thank you, and sorry about the claws."

She simply climbed up to bed and dropped in exhaustion. "Thank you for the excuse to leave. I'm still pretty tired from the work we did at the rift. And don't worry about it. That isn't the first time I've been clawed and I know your fear of princess Luna isn't something you can control."

I laid back on the floor as best I could in the semi stiff, semi flexible armor in an attempt to relax. "She still scares me senseless, but I think I'd choose to face her over facing the crowd at this point."

Fluttershy squirmed over and peaked her head over the side of her bed. "Why is that?"

I glanced at her, then closed my eyes and gave a huf. "One, I know she doesn't actually want to harm me. Two, Ponies don't need to be thinking I'm a hero."

Fluttershy spoke in a confused tone, "But you are a hero."

Without opening my eyes, I shook my head. "That's a debate for another time, but it's not what I'm getting at. What I meant is they don't need to be thinking I'm a hero. They need to stay cautious about my kind, and I don't want to be the exception that gets them to let their guard down. Not all the bad humans twirl their mustaches and come in carrying a war banner for all to see. They have a bad habit of hiding among the kinda good and few truly good ones then worming their way to power from the inside. All throughout my world's history, there are tales of this happening again and again. Often this happens by just one good human from one culture forming a bond of trust with another culture to pave the way for others to betray that trust, reforge it with false promises, then betray it again."

When I opened my eyes, I could see an empathetic pain in her expression. "I still think that this is an improvement over you being seen as a criminal."

With this, she passed me one of the many pillows from her bed so that I could rest my head.

"I think I can see what you mean by that," I responded as I put the pillow in place. "But I just can't agree with it. Even with my other argument aside, I know how to navigate being seen as a criminal or a low life without hurting anybody. I have enough experience to almost do it in my sleep. I can't really say the same about being seen as a hero, though. Someone is bound to get hurt by it, even if it isn't by me."

When Fluttershy didn't respond, I just finished up my point to try to get some rest.

"I think I'd rather be caught up in Equis having a mistrust fitting criminals for my kind, than be accessory to having them give a criminal the trust associated with a hero."

She gave me a sad look and pondered for a moment. Retreating back to the center of the bed, she responded.

"That might happen here or there, but it gets fixed quickly. Equestria is careful enough with who we trust to not let that kind of thing be rampant."

"I sure hope so, but I can't help but feel like those words have been spoken in my home world before too."

* * *

Just as I was starting to wake hours later, I felt myself being pulled into the hazy mist of the Animus Mundi again. The mist started showing me visions of actions I had taken since I last had contact with her. Not many of them were too vivid, but I could tell they were leading up to the rift.

I braced myself when I saw my wand being pointed at Speaks with Talons, but I did not hear the words "Fury Embracer" like I was expecting. Instead, the scene simply moved forward to me crying as I nuzzled Fluttershy, then turned around and seeded the rift seal.

As another chunk of new understanding flowed through me from that mist, I could hear two sets of words spoken in succession.

"Humility Accepter. Life Cherisher."

After that, I felt the warm glow wanting me to stay and just feel happy, but I was too disturbed to stay.

Sitting up with an adrenaline filled alertness, Fluttershy looked over to me from her morning reading with worry.

"Are you alright, Moss?"

Getting my bearings fixated and letting the panic die down, I leaned back on my hands and let my head droop backwards.

"Physically, yea. I'm fine. But I just got another visit from the Animus Mundi. Even Equis herself thinks I'm a bloody hero."

I let my arms loose and slipped back down to the floor. "Oh, and I need to tell Sunburst that I leveled up again."

Author's Note:

Translation time.
"Hosmt, Angel's not giimoph well. I'm huoph to take him cedl to my suun to vipf to him."
"Girls, Angel's not feeling well. I'm going to take him back to my room to tend to him."

To be continued in the final installment, Meta Gamer in Equestria: Champion's Folly.

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[reflective vagrant]

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Several months later, but I hope that's enough of a surprise for you.