The Dreaded Love Bird

by Darkonshadows

Cantering Knots

Kazooie and Screwball were almost home free as they ran through whitetail woods after the sun had set. When they got in range Kazooie would cast the WARP spell using her recently restored MP, then they’d be back in good old spiral mountain. A beam of light struck the ground in front of them and they came to a skidding halt, they only had one thing to worry about first.

“Equestria must be like this daily if it’s always going to be this adventurous.” Kazooie was referring to the fact that they were just short of being within range of her entry point into this world; which was Canterlot, where the spell would take effect and had one final thing to take care of. “Well excuse me princess, but I’ve got to get going. Brothers to chat up in person, people to headshot and a chaos born to teach.”

When she tried to walk for she quickly lifted her talons back from a step she was about to take as the ground was blasted. Kazooie had managed to make Celestia almost angry enough to lose her composure entirely and to attack like an antagonized wild boar, she thought Celestia’s entire princess act was a bore to be certain and her mane was wildly flickering. Moving the sun does not really entitle one to being royalty, maybe ponies thousands of years ago were really dumb about wanting to worship the ground she trots on. It wasn’t like Celestia was the only pony that could move the sun; then again the unicorns from what Kazooie had gathered had become lazy about moving the sun or making the planet itself revolve around the star.

“No… what have you done?” The blank look on Kazooie’s puzzled face had puzzled Celestia for a moment despite her currently stern nature she couldn’t help but falter in her resolve to halt this despicable creature.

“Just about everything I’ve wanted to for a first visit, it’s kind of late to stop what I’ve set into motion anyway. In any case you might want to watch for Discord when we leave. All his chaos power can’t exactly leave this world, so Screwball here will feel weird when we bounce out of here. Well that is if she isn’t asleep by then, it’s almost time for her to go to sleep.” Patting said pony on the head Kazooie gave a small smirk to Celestia. “The better question is, what haven’t I done and who exactly did? It’s what I plan to get to the bottom of when I come back in a month or two. Would you kindly move out of the way?”

Celestia kept getting in Kazooie and Screwball’s way as they tried to pass her, only side stepping over so slightly into their path while keeping a stern glare on them.

“Guess you’re not conditioned to respond to ‘would you kindly’ like that guy was then.” It was said blandly and in contrast Screwball responded with a look to Kazooie. Kazooie waved off Screwballs question. “Maybe I’ll show you the guy later, he’s certainly fun to get doing the chicken dance while performing circus routines with the splicers.”

“What dark magic have you placed upon my kingdom and what other disastrous acts did you place upon us with Discords powers?” She was being stern and she was staying in control, but she was barely doing so with the frothing rage building up inside of her. Never had she met a creature that made so little sense before, at least Discord had a method to his madness.

“Oh you mean the shaman thing I did a while ago, yeah the Ponyville Lake is now oxygenated with the power of your sun. It’s kind of permanent and you can breathe the water, but it’s not really hurting anyone. Other then that I haven’t used a black magic spell in months and the only magic I’ve used recently was either my shape shifting or my sparsely used white magic. If you’re talking about the glittering saw thing or the other things I can do that’s just within my natural abilities, though it could be considered quasi magical as some of it is dragon ability in nature.” Throughout her entire tirade Kazooie kept up an amused lilt in her voice. “So what did you need of us, because our time is kind of short and we need to get going or do you want me to make you fall asleep again? Seriously I can just skip this conversation and be on my way already, so right now I’m being pretty nice and lenient at the moment.”

“I’m well aware that you can defeat me and my sister, given you already done it once. You were powerful enough to make Cancer pause. You are undeniably the strangest creature I’ve ever met… also you have the alicorn title of a princess of adventure despite not being born a pony naturally.” Pausing Celestia took a moment preparing mentally for the conversation ahead. The creature she was dealing with gave birth to a big feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach like nothing else; she just couldn’t place why other than the fact that the creature was antagonizing her on purpose to get a reaction. Whatever reaction Kazooie wanted from Celestia she had already got it, given the breegull almost immediately seemed to be less of a threat to her personally. “I have only two questions, what are your intentions for Equestria and do you dabble in necromancy? Pinkie has told me you can bring the dead back to life. I’m quite assured you’ve already learned what you wanted about me given your ploys were quite well aimed, mayhap I can learn something of you for once other then the fact that you are a powerful nuisance?”

Screwball tilted her head questioningly at Kazooie whose only action was to reach her right wing into her backpack. Celestia quirked her left eyebrow watching as Kazooie pulled out a banana and started to peel it.

“To answer your first question, it is simply adventuring. It is my lifeblood and what I was created to do, my brother on the other hand is lovable lazy goof. Life is an adventure and I’ve met a lot of ponies to befriend, it’s just unfortunate that you have the most socially awkward student in existence… but she’ll get there eventually as it’s only a matter of time. I wing a lot of the things I do, at some other points I create objectives and some of which I think are entirely optional. Still nothing ventured, nothing learned or gained. All I want to do now is return home and get some rest, maybe I can drag my brother here next time I come.” Stopping to slowly take a bite out of the banana she rolled the chunk around in her beak before pulling into her cheek to chew and after she swallowed she continued. “What you do when the time comes is up to you, prophecy and reality both have a way of being bent out of shape with even the best laid plans. So no I’m not a necromancer though I do know Lillet Blan and Amoretta Virgine can do necromancy, but that’s an entirely different grimoire. The full unadulterated truth is I can in fact bring others back to life through four different methods; none of them brings anyone back wrong or causes problems down the line. You already have complete access to one of the methods, yes I already figured out what I wanted to know about you by your reactions to me and some of the things I’ve done to get your goat.”

“I do? What is this method?” All that long built up rage was finally petering out of Celestia. Kazooie continued eating her banana for a bit and then whistled loudly; soon Philomena flew in and landed on Celestia’s back. They regarded each other silently before smiling; they were still on good terms with each other.

“Phoenix Down my first method for bringing someone else back to life, they can bring back the dead as a phoenix itself can rise from its ashes. It’s a pretty good idea to preserve them fresh otherwise they won’t have quite as much as an effect or none at all. One thing of importance to note is that they don’t give you immortality. They can only preserve a life from death one time per feather, phoenix’s never run out of them either and it always requires someone or a phoenix to apply it.” The surprise on both Celestia’s and Philomena’s faces when they heard that. Neither of them knew of this fact, but it was a very interesting one to keep in mind. “Method two is a rather specific spell that requires my very limited store of magical power which I need to restore through use of potions, it’s a white magic spell known simply as ‘Life’. It’ll do almost the same as phoenix down, but requires quite a bit of magic to do. Method three, I can cast a shaman spell to restore life to someone on a situational basis because it only works under specified requirements, like say if you die from being frozen solid. The last method is actually requires me to do it before a person dies, as all the other methods only work after they die. This method requires me to give an extra life to someone, I have plenty on me and I can quite literally die a thousand times before I even need to start worrying about being permanently killed, picking up extra lives are common where I’m from and it’s as easy as earning one hundred coins. An extra life is like holding a phoenix down in reserve for as long as you live naturally; it automatically takes effect when you die unless you are at the end of a natural life.”

“So killing you wouldn’t cause me any trouble and I wouldn’t have to lose my title as princess of the sun to take on the one of adventure from you nor will you stay permanently dead?” All present balked at how fast Celestia asked that with a wide eyed look.

After a moment’s contemplation and finishing her banana Kazooie tossed the peel over her shoulder with a slight smirk, she had been tipped off by her file two clone to toss a banana over her shoulder at night for great results when she meets Celestia at such a time.

“No I guess not, if I continued living after being killed then my title would still belong to me… why do you ask?” A moment later a beam of raw possibly solar based magical energy ripped its way through Kazooie’s torso, she fell to the ground missing a hole in her chest. Neither Screwball nor Philomena reacted to this, Celestia kind of thought it funny they just sat there staring at her body blandly not even blinking an eye.

“Oh goddess, not you again…” The reaper pony sighed as he walked up to Kazooie’s spirit. “This is the fifth time in the last two weeks you’ve caused a false alarm, oh and don’t even get me started on introducing me to Gregg. Now I bloody well hate cats too and he’s almost got me speaking like he does! Since you haven’t fully died you still hold the title of alicorn of adventure, you can rescind this title upon any of your deaths should you choose to leave it open for another to take, this also gives you the option of finding another title. Your life loophole thing allows you to do this much.”

“Hey, sorry about the Gregg thing Rigor… so how’s Mortus doing? I swear you guys need a vacation once every thousand years, I’m going back to life now and will be keeping the title till further notice so put it on record with this worlds reaper bureau.” A moment later Kazooie’s old dead body faded away and Kazooie popped back into existence with a rather specific digital fanfare and two large red balloons tied around her waist. She quickly; with a sheepish grin on her beak, stuffed them away in her backpack. “Huh, I’ve always wanted to introduce Pinkie to Balloon Kid… never really had the chance to. Eh, maybe when we’re not on stressed terms. So did killing me make you feel better?”

“Yes… you don’t realize how cathartic that was.” Celestia was practically heady with the feeling of happily killing Kazooie, despite how wrong it was to just up and murder someone despite the fact that you know they were just going to pop back after a few seconds. Still she had murdered someone in cold blood and a cold feeling passed through her body after the few seconds of euphoria passed, she wouldn’t feel so good about it anymore knowing she could do this to any pony and had to hold herself to higher standards in the future no matter how annoying the pest.

“I aim to please… seriously it’s in my coding to make people release happiness endorphins whenever they manage kill me. It’s bad enough I have chronic talon in beak at the worst times… just don’t get an addiction to it and everything will be fine.” After a pause Kazooie decided to add one more thing. “Is that all your prissiness?”

Celestia went to open her mouth, however a loud flash and a pop and a blue box appeared and out of it came the alternate Kazooie AKA Khronozooie the file two recolor on crutches with a black eye and one leg in a cast.

“Did I miss it, please tell me I didn’t miss it… oh and can I bum a ride home off of you Kazooie? I’ve had a hell of a time, all that traveling and fighting those Dalek things hurt despite their humorous appearance.” Noticing she was receiving strange looks, Khronozooie started counting down from ten. Out of curiosity Celestia held her tongue and didn’t ask why she was counting, soon Kazooie joined in the counting. “Three… two…. one…”

Both breegull’s, Philomena who had immediately removed herself from Celestia’s back on instinct and Screwball turned to look to the banana peel and they could hear a voice approaching them at a gallop. Celestia looked towards the voice with her beautiful mane flowing slightly in front of her right eye, what happened next was something she’d likely never forget.

“Princess Celestia what’s going…” Before Twilight could get any further she let out a high pitched scream as her back leg caught the banana peel and she skidded straight at Celestia standing on her one hind leg flailing three hooves in the air. Celestia’s mouth was wide open, Twilights mouth was wide open and rocket science was made! End result Celestia didn’t know what literally hit her and she was on her back stuck in accidental moment of passion.

After taking a moment to realize that they mouths were conjoined; not to mention Celestia’s hooves and wings were wrapped around the unexpected purple pony from bowling her over, Twilight quickly got her mouth off Celestia and started trying to let her mentor up after teleporting out of her grasp. It was a good thing Twilight was looking at her face, because Celestia’s wings started to extend straight up like no tomorrow as she forced the blush to stay off her face and it was also good thing her student was naïve about a love type of relationship and dating, much less what her brother was doing with Cadence behind the scenes. All she knew was that her brother and babysitter were happy, that’s all she needed to know thus far as her youthful innocence was one of the things Celestia really liked about the magical pony.

“Oh, I’m so sorry princess… I just don’t know what went wrong and…” She was pulled from her panicking when she felt her mentors hoof gently wrap around her calming her down.

“It’s okay Twilight, but apparently the nuisance and her friends seemed to have gotten away.” The princess was still trying to clear her head of all that happened in the last few minutes; apparently the other Kazooie was a time traveler and set that incident up as a form of amusement. This meant they had the ability to possible see into the future or at least predict it. It was around this moment that the mood whiplash struck hard.

Behind them a brown stallion came running up with ragged breathing and started crying happy tears of relief when he saw his blue police box, which was until a certain blonde mare flew into it and it disappeared leaving him with a horror stricken face. The brown stallion meandered off to the nearest tree to start bashing it with his head and then a pile of pinecones fell on top of him along with a magician pony with a partially eaten pinecone.

Philomena couldn’t keep the amusement off her face… Celestia and her little student, that was cute and the scene behind them was hilarious. A hooting sound and Owlowiscious came down to perch next to Philomena and they rubbed up against each other, eventually they’d get to the next level. The owl was needed to put Peewee to bed, he was a growing phoenix after all and needed his sleep.

Currently within range of her entrance into the world, Kazooie set up her spell to transport three to Spiral Mountain and started chanting the ancient words from Final Fantasy. Behind her Khronozooie took the opportunity to introduce herself to Screwball.

“Call me auntie if you will… oh drat I left the Tardis sitting behind still.” It took a moment for Kazooie’s file two recolor to realize she accidentally left behind a sweet piece of time traveling tech. “Oh well… spilt milk and all that, hopefully we’ll show you how to kick around Gruntilda’s bony fat. Geez I really need to stop rhyming.”

After a few more moments Kazooie opened her eyes which were filled with an ethereal glow and a storm was brewing above Canterlot. Taking a few steps forward she raised her wings to the sky and Screwball looked on with awe.

“Oh get on with it already! Sheesh you don’t need to overdramatize it to keep it steady! I swear we’re all alike, at least file three Kazooie doesn’t take things to grand extremes! I can’t wait to get home to my own Banjo and show him all the time travel stuff I've picked up following you around, did you know there was a one use time spell in the Canterlot archives?” The breegull casting the magic spell quickly dropper her wings to her side and turned around pointing a feather at her recolor double.

“Don’t make me invert this magic around on you missy… WARP!” A thundering sound struck out from Canterlot and engulfed the three in a bright flash where they disappeared.

In Canterlot Distress could feel her powers returning… instead of instantly transforming back to her former self or gaining control of it, she instead found herself in a statue garden still female and slowly turning into a statue again. Discords chaos magic was betraying her, Screwball the chaos spawn thought of everything apparently with a preset magical task for all the chaos energy she would lose by being warped out of the pony dimension which could not lose its chaos or the balance would be upset too far in one direction.

Back with the student and the teacher Celestia recounted her meeting with Kazooie in short terms from what she can understand, she had figured out why Kazooie can stop seeming so threatening when Twilight herself couldn’t. In fact she had struck Kazooie down when she wasn’t being a threat and she actually started crying about it, even if Kazooie wasn’t currently dead she still used lethal force.

“Its okay princess she came back just like Philomena does, so you didn’t really kill her…” Looking up at her mentor Twilight didn’t know what else to say to calm her down.

“It’s not only that, it’s what Kazooie did to me… she’s far more then I give her credit for if she’s that crafty. She knew I was going to use lethal force; she didn’t even look surprised when I hit her. She could read me so well; it’s almost as if she has an empathic ability about her. When she comes back, who knows what will occur or where she will come back at.” At this point Celestia’s wings wilted and she lay down upon the ground trying to shove Twilight away from her, but she refused to leave her mentors side. “And I actually… enjoyed causing harm to her… I’m a terrible pony.”

“You’re not a terrible pony princess… you’re just really stressed and Kazooie other than being rude has been rather friendly to the rest of my friends. You didn’t do anything permanent or damaging and you’ll always be my best friend Celestia.” What Twilight didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

Twilight didn’t have a clue that Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were getting together or that Rainbow could join the Wonderbolts anytime she wished as Spitfire had implied an open invitation anytime she wants to take it, but wouldn’t get better hours to spend time with her friends unless she made her own team. Applejack was hiding her relationship issues. Rarity had problems finding a good stallion. Pinkie had thing for apple farmers and had agreed to just stay friends even if she was pining for some sweetness to share her life with that could bake a mean pie and Bon-Bon was already taken. Celestia was starting to harbor incredible urges around Twilight that she put a strong clamp down on in her own mind and locked in a box with chains and a padlock. Twilight wasn’t having any fantasies or strange feelings about Celestia; she was only considering the strange quick exit Kazooie made from Equestria and that she hadn’t really gotten to know the stranger that some of her friends had become acquainted with even in a passing moment.

In fact Twilight didn’t even know scarcely a quarter of everything Kazooie set into motion would end up saving Equestria at a later date. First everything had to return to seemingly enough, a semblance of normalcy.

Author's Note:

One chapter left... new system? Well I am the worlds laziest writer and Borderlands 2 got ridiculously hard at the end, enemies should not be able to drop your shields immediately or do thousands in health damage.