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Chapter 1: Arrival5,016 words
Chapter 2: Acclimatisation2,027 words
Chapter 3: Acceptance3,165 words

Chapter 3: Acceptance

Takanuva groaned as he surfaced from the depths of his fitful sleep. He could not help worrying about the construction plant, and what the Makuta had been constructing. He knew there he was little he could do about it, without the Olmak to return to that universe, but he still felt responsible for it.

He had to look around the small room to reaffirm where he was, that it wasn't some hallucination from the Olmak malfunctioning or some other accident. Indeed, he was still a pony, and he was still lying down on a bed made of clouds, in a house also made of clouds. Easing himself out of the bed, he could hear footsteps in one of the other rooms, presumably belonging to Rainbow Dash, whose house he had been sleeping in.

Rainbow Dash turned as Takanuva entered the main living space of her house, the signs of his restless sleep easy to see on his rustled mane and bleary-eyed expression. She had waited for him to wake up before heading off to weather patrol, to make sure that he was alright. She would be late, but her supervisors had come to expect that from her, with her habit of oversleeping, so they would likely understand.

"Welcome back to the land of the living Takanuva, and I thought I slept in late. Anyway, I've got to head off to weather patrol, so you've got the day to yourself. You can find something to do, right? Well, see ya." With that she spread her wings and flew out the door.

Now on his own, Takanuva wondered about what he was going to do to fill the time. He knew he would need to get a job, but there was plenty of time for that. Then he remembered the offer that the white unicorn had made last night at the party. He decided that he would go visit her, see what sort of thing she would come up with. He flew out the door and headed down to ponyville, to find someone to ask for directions.

The main street was fairly empty, as it was late enough that most ponies were at work. The only pony that Takanuva could see was a brown earth pony stallion, with an image of an hourglass on his flank. Seeing as there was no-one else around, he decided to him for directions.

"Excuse me, but would you happen to know where I might find Rarity?" Takanuva asked as he drew close.

"Ah, yes, Rarity, let me see, she lives at Carousel Boutique, which is just down that way on the left. It's quite unique, so I'm sure you'll be able to tell which it is." he replied, and as he started walking off, Takanuva could just make out him muttering, "Now, where did I leave that blasted blue box?"

He turned to where the stallion had pointed and started walking down the road. He soon saw what he was looking for, as, like the pony had said, the building was very unique. It was shaped like some form of kids ride, with a circular shape, and statues of ponies outside the windows on the upper level. As he reached the door he lifted his hoof and rapped it against the door twice. He waited for a moment, until the door was surrounded in a blue glow, and opened to reveal the white unicorn.Her mane was slightly unkempt, with a measuring tape around her neck, and a pair of glasses on her face.

"Ah, Takanuva, I was just hoping you would stop by, I've got some designs to show you for your new outfit. If you would just step inside." Rarity said as she greeted him. He stepped inside and admired the way the room was decorated. The inside was decorated in a similar style to the outside, with hues of blue and pink, and mannequins along the walls with a variety of outfits on them, which seemed mostly for mares.

"Now darling, I'm most used to designing for Mares, but I've always found the classic suit and tie to be so drab, so I always enjoy any chance I get to experiment with outfits for stallions as well." she said as brought over a sheet of paper on a stand, with an intricate drawing on it, "Right, here is what I was thinking for your outfit. I tried to make it classy, but suitable for more informal occasions, as well as comfortable enough for casual wear. I chose a colour scheme to compliment your coat and mane, with a choice selection of gems for that glamour factor. If you want to see them, the gems are just over here."

Rarity walked over to a large chest at the edge of the room, opened it up, and instead of pulling something out with her magic, like he expected, just looked inside with a slightly puzzled expression.

"Hmm, I could have sworn I had more in here, that last dress must have used more than I thought. Oh well, I guess I'll have to ask Twilight if I can get Spike to come with me collect some more."

Hearing this, Takanuva realised an opportunity to explore some of the surrounding landscape of the town.

"I could go with you, I'm not concerned with getting my han...hooves dirty, and I'd love to see some of the surrounding area" he offered to her.

"Really, that would be wonderful, that is, so long as you don't mind having to dig up the gems. I usually have Spike with me to help me with that."

"That should be no problem, physical labour isn't exactly alien to me." he replied, "So, do you want to go now, or do you have anything else you need to do beforehand."

Only a few minutes later, they were both out at the gem fields, on the outskirts of Ponyville. Takanuva was pulling a wagon already partly full of gemstones, while Rarity had her head lowered with an expression of feverish concentration on her face as her horn glowed with blue magic. Their search for gems lead them to a large cave, that stretched deep underground. Rarity used her horn to light the way, and they advanced down into the tunnel.

The tunnel was rich with gems, and the wagon was soon filled up with stones of all shapes, colours and sizes. They were on their way back out of the tunnel and back to town when Rarity detected a particularly large gem embedded deep in the wall of the tunnel, with a strange formation of rocks around it, as if it was being grasped by a set of large claws. Upon seeing this, Takanuva realised something was wrong, and leapt towards Rarity as she reached the gem, preparing her magic to extract it from the rock surrounding it.

He was too slow however, and before he could stop her, Rarity had pulled the jewel from the cave wall, and with it came a large bipedal creature, fur covering its entire body, with a crude vest covering its torso and a cunning sly grin on its canine face. As soon as the white unicorn had realised that she wasn't just pulling a beautiful black gem from the wall, she released her magic and started to back away, but the creature was much faster, grabbing Rarity with the arm that wasn't grasping the gem. The claws on its paw dug into the fur on the unicorns body as it drew her into a full hold, as two more of the creatures burst from the walls and advanced on Takanuva, who had fallen on his face after his failed dive.

"This pony thought it could cheat us out of our gems," the first of the creatures said, with a growl to its voice, "But diamond dogs not so easily beaten. Little white pony won't steal any more from us, and whining and crying won't work this time. Even big black flying pony can't help you."

With that, the diamond dogs, as they called themselves, edged around Takanuva and started to make their way down the tunnel, keeping themselves facing towards him, with Rarity held in front of them, one paw around her horn, the other across her throat. Seeing them take her away, Takanuva was reminded of the matoran of home, and how he was sworn to protect them. Adrenaline surged through his body, and he instinctively reached for the familiar power that had helped him through many situations.

Although his mind was telling him that he no longer had the mask, and therefore wasn't able to use the power that usually resided within him, he grasped for it anyway, and surprisingly, it reacted to him and he tugged, forming that power into a form he could use. Before he could fully control it, he felt his hooves leave the ground, and pulled up off the floor. As he looked towards the retreating diamond dogs, he saw the tunnel darken around him, with a bright glow from behind him, as if the light was being drawn towards him, creating shadows everywhere else except for a large pair of radiant wings behind him and a long sharp spear of light from his forehead.

As this happened, Takanuva could see the faces of the diamond dogs turn from sneering triumph, to a look of sheer terror in the darkness, as this figure of light and shadow loomed above them, a fire in his gaze equalled only by the glow of his light.

"You will not take Rarity!" he bellowed, as the familiar, but now strangely different, power started to overcome him, with a fierce desire to protect her and the other ponies of this land, because even if he couldn't get back to his home dimension, that didn't mean that he couldn't help this dimension in whatever way he could like he was meant to as a toa and as a good person.

The power coalesced within him as he focussed on the lead diamond dog, who was now noticeably scared by Takanuva, and thus had loosened his grip on Rarity. Having seen the opening, the white unicorn managed to slip out of his grasp and run off to the other side of the glowing toa. With nothing to block him, Takanuva released the energy of the mask of light, and a large beam of pure light crashed into the diamond dogs with a physical impact that sent all three of them tumbling down the tunnel with a crash as the hit the ground.

Takanuva felt his legs return to the ground as he heard the scrabbling footsteps of the canines as they retreated back down the tunnel at high speed. He turned around to face Rarity, who was looking at him with an expression of shocked confusion, mixed with a slight hint of fear.

"My, what in Equestria was that? I've never even heard of a pegasus using magic, let alone anything strong enough to defeat three diamond dogs at once." She exclaimed, clearly overwhelmed by this turn of events.

"I believe that was the power of my mask of light, which is strange as I don't appear to have it anymore" Takanuva replied, as he used one of his hooves to check that his head was still just a head, and his mask hadn't appeared during the attack.

"Mask? I'm sure that I've never heard of such a thing, but then again Twilight is the one who knows all about the more obscure magic. Maybe we should check with her, see what she says. We've got enough gems for me to be working with for the time being anyways." The unicorn suggested, and turned to make her way back out of the tunnel.

The journey back to Ponyville was uneventful, with no interruptions to impede their progress back to town. It was even calm enough for Rarity to find another couple of gems for her stash as they walked. The cart of gems was dropped off at Carousel boutique as they passed and then they made their way over to Twilight's distinctive tree house library. Rarity tapped lightly on the door and it was shortly opened by a purple aura of magic, revealing the purple unicorn surrounded by a moderately large pile of books, papers and other documents. As the two ponies stepped into the room, Twilight didn't seem to take note of their presence until, with a slight prompt from Rarity, she turned with a start to face them, and hurriedly levitated several of the books littering the floor onto the shelves.

"Oh hey guys, what's up?" Twilight said, blushing as she regained her composure.

"Well, Takanuva and I have something to ask you about." Rarity replied, "You see, we just had a run in with those horrid Diamond Dogs, and in the process of saving me, Takanuva here seemed to use some form of magic. He said that it had something to do with a 'mask' but I've never heard of anything like that."

"Hmm, I've heard of artefacts that can amplify innate natural magic, but never anything that could grant magic in itself, especially to a pony that wasn't a unicorn. Maybe if I knew some more about where you came from Takanuva, I might be able to come up with a theory."

"If you wish, although it may be quite a long story." Takanuva said, feeling himself slipping back into a familiar feeling from his days as Takua the chronicler, that of telling a story to an eager audience. "In the time before time, the Great Spirit descended from the heavens, carrying those called the Matoran to an island paradise. They were separate, and without purpose, so the great spirit illuminated them with the three virtues, Unity, Duty and Destiny. They embraced these gifts and named their island home Mata Nui, after the Great Spirit who had brought them to it. Their happiness was not to last however, as Mata Nui's brother the Makuta was jealous of these gifts and betrayed him, casting him into a deep slumber. This left the Makuta free to spread shadows, and spread them he did."

Twilight and Rarity stood enthralled by Takanuva's storytelling, as he explained all about the Toa, the Masks and all the struggles between Light and Darkness that had engulfed his home. Several times Rarity had seemed slightly faint when he went into particular details about some of the more brutal encounters between the Toa and the Makuta.

"And then on one particular day, not long after my powers of light had been drained by the shadow leech, I came across a mighty warrior known as Brutaka, who had a message for the other members of my team, now on their way to the core of Mata Nui. He attempted to send me to them using the power of his Kanohi Olmak, the mask of Dimensional Gates. This, however, did not work as well as he had planned, sending me to an alternate version of my own dimension, a Dark Mirror, if you will, which caused a great deal of trouble for myself as I had to procure the Olmak of this dimension in order to leave and return to my home. In the course of doing so however, I uncovered a plan within one of the dimensions I visited that would have the potential to cause great harm to all the multiverse. In my attempt to escape from my pursuers, I opened a gateway with the Olmak I had managed to obtain, and tried to gather support to stop it. This attempt was unsuccessful, as I was struck just as I created the gateway, and lost the mask into the underbrush right as I was about to enter it, making it impossible for me to retrieve it before I fell into the gate which must have led me here. As to why I am now of a similar physiology to you, I myself am uncertain as to its cause, although it may have something to do with the kanohi with which I was struck as I left that universe."

By this point, Rarity was visibly having difficulties staying awake, as it had taken Takanuva several hours to fully explain his story. Twilight, on the other hand, was still wide awake, her face lit up wth intrigue as she learned about this other land, so different to her own.

"This explains so much, and it must be true, there's no way somepony would be able to fabricate such an elaborate story, let alone keep it consistent all the way through." Twilight blurted once Takanuva had finished, "So this Mask of Light of yours, it gives you this power over light, and in coming to this universe it became your cutie mark, am I right in assuming?"

"Indeed you are" Takanuva replied.

"Here in Equestria, the power over Light itself is believed to be intrinsically linked to the alicorns, namely the princesses, so that may explain the horn and wings of light that Rarity mentioned when she elaborated on her account of what happened, as you tapped into the power of the Alicorns."

Before Twilight and Takanuva could continue their conversation, there was a loud rumbling sound from outside, so loud that it cause the library to shake, and several objects to fall off their shelves. This promptly woke Rarity from her dozing, as all three of them darted outside, where ponies where running here, there and everywhere, in a complete panic. Looking for the source of the commotion, Takanuva spotted something off in the distance, like a dark cloud over the Everfree Forest.

"Twilight, you said earlier that weather here is scheduled, right. Is that cloud meant to be there?" Takanuva asked, his voiced tinged with a hint of worry.

"No.... no it's not." Twilight replied, with even more worry in her voice.

"Then we're in more trouble than just a rogue cloud, I think I know what that is, and it's not good."

"Wait, you know what happening? What is it?" Rarity interjected, looking considerably more worried than either of the other two ponies in the group.

"The very thing that led me here." Takanuva sternly responded, "The army of the Makuta has arrived in Ponyville."

Author's Note:

Finally finished!

Sorry it took so long for this chapter to be completed, there's been a lot of stuff going on.
Just wanted to say that this fic isn't entirely dead, but I'm not sure when chapter 4 is going to be released.

Hope you enjoy!!

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